The Tarot image and concept of the Wheel of Fortune evolved a couple of short centuries before we, as a species, began debating whether or not the universe was a cosmic clockwork construct, controlled by a God who was separate and remote from us.
Descartes, who is wrongly supposed to have been a proponent of the Clockwork Universe, did not in fact espouse the belief of a mechanical, soulless reality, though he did propose the duality and separate interactivity between mind and body, and is considered to be the father of Western Philosophy with its emphasis on skepticism.
Above all, he
proposed that
humans were
more than
simply
helpless
wisps being
blown about
by the winds
of fortune-
that each of us was "an emancipated being equipped with autonomous reason" and that what we sought was not merely what was true, but of what could we be certain?
However, in experiencing life, there is a great deal we feel that we have no control over- huge events seem to bandy us around, gravity holds us to the ground, and the Wheel of time crushes us beneath its tread, just as we have crushed belief and faith under the heel of "reason".
Subtle forces have been downgraded to changes in air pressure and electromagnetic tides- and magick has been drained out of our existence. Again, we consider ourselves victims of fortune, the main difference being that our culture now believes there is no meaning or intent behind the oncoming tread that raises, then crushes us.