Historical perspectives on the causes of the unjustified dominations of women and nature are conflicting and inconclusive. One of the earliest and most widely referenced is ecofeminist historian Carolyn Merchant's perspective (Merchant 1980). Merchant argues that the separation of culture from nature (or, the culture/nature dualism) is a product of the scientific revolution. She describes two conflicting images of nature: an older, Greek image of nature as organic, benevolent, nurturing female, and a newer, “modern” (1500–1800s) image of nature as inert, dead, and mechanistic. Merchant argues that the historical shift from an organic to a mechanistic model helped to justify the exploitation of the earth by conceiving of it as inert matter. For example, mining was prohibited in antiquity because it was thought to be “mining the earth's womb”; early Greek metaphors of nature as alive and “nurturing female” supported the view that mining was wrong. According to Merchant, a conception of nature as inert matter removed moral barriers to mining that were in place when nature was conceived as organic, nurturing female. For many ecofeminist philosophers, Merchant's historical perspective informs their analyses of the deep conceptual roots of the unjustified dominations of women and nature.  