Chapter 4
From this day natural philosophy, and particularly chemistry,
in the most comprehensive sense of the term, became nearly
my sole occupation. I read with ardour those works, so full
of genius and discrimination, which modern inquirers have written
on these subjects. I attended the lectures and cultivated the
acquaintance of the men of science of the university, and I found
even in M. Krempe a great deal of sound sense and real information,
combined, it is true, with a repulsive physiognomy and manners,
but not on that account the less valuable. In M. Waldman I found
a true friend. His gentleness was never tinged by dogmatism, and his
instructions were given with an air of frankness and good nature that
banished every idea of pedantry. In a thousand ways he smoothed
for me the path of knowledge and made the most abstruse inquiries
clear and facile to my apprehension. My application was at first
fluctuating and uncertain; it gained strength as I proceeded and
soon became so ardent and eager that the stars often disappeared
in the light of morning whilst I was yet engaged in my laboratory.
As I applied so closely, it may be easily conceived that my progress
was rapid. My ardour was indeed the astonishment of the students,
and my proficiency that of the masters. Professor Krempe
often asked me, with a sly smile, how Cornelius Agrippa went on,
whilst M. Waldman expressed the most heartfelt exultation in
my progress. Two years passed in this manner, during which I paid
no visit to Geneva, but was engaged, heart and soul, in the pursuit
of some discoveries which I hoped to make. None but those who
have experienced them can conceive of the enticements of science.
In other studies you go as far as others have gone before you,
and there is nothing more to know; but in a scientific pursuit
there is continual food for discovery and wonder. A mind of moderate
capacity which closely pursues one study must infallibly arrive at
great proficiency in that study; and I, who continually sought the
attainment of one object of pursuit and was solely wrapped up in this,
improved so rapidly that at the end of two years I made some
discoveries in the improvement of some chemical instruments,
which procured me great esteem and admiration at the university.
When I had arrived at this point and had become as well acquainted
with the theory and practice of natural philosophy as depended on the
lessons of any of the professors at Ingolstadt, my residence there
being no longer conducive to my improvements, I thought of returning
to my friends and my native town, when an incident happened that
protracted my stay.
One of the phenomena which had peculiarly attracted my attention
was the structure of the human frame, and, indeed, any animal
endued with life. Whence, I often asked myself, did the
principle of life proceed? It was a bold question, and one which
has ever been considered as a mystery; yet with how many things
are we upon the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or
carelessness did not restrain our inquiries. I revolved these
circumstances in my mind and determined thenceforth to apply myself
more particularly to those branches of natural philosophy which
relate to physiology. Unless I had been animated by an almost
supernatural enthusiasm, my application to this study would have
been irksome and almost intolerable. To examine the causes of life,
we must first have recourse to death. I became acquainted with
the science of anatomy, but this was not sufficient; I must also
observe the natural decay and corruption of the human body.
In my education my father had taken the greatest precautions
that my mind should be impressed with no supernatural horrors.
I do not ever remember to have trembled at a tale of superstition
or to have feared the apparition of a spirit. Darkness had no effect
upon my fancy, and a churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies
deprived of life, which, from being the seat of beauty and strength,
had become food for the worm. Now I was led to examine the cause
and progress of this decay and forced to spend days and nights
in vaults and charnel-houses. My attention was fixed upon every
object the most insupportable to the delicacy of the human feelings.
I saw how the fine form of man was degraded and wasted; I beheld
the corruption of death succeed to the blooming cheek of life;
I saw how the worm inherited the wonders of the eye and brain.
I paused, examining and analysing all the minutiae of causation,
as exemplified in the change from life to death, and death to life,
until from the midst of this darkness a sudden light broke in upon me
--a light so brilliant and wondrous, yet so simple, that while I
became dizzy with the immensity of the prospect which it illustrated,
I was surprised that among so many men of genius who had directed
their inquiries towards the same science, that I alone should be
reserved to discover so astonishing a secret.
Remember, I am not recording the vision of a madman. The sun does not
more certainly shine in the heavens than that which I now affirm is true.
Some miracle might have produced it, yet the stages of the discovery
were distinct and probable. After days and nights of incredible labour
and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life;
nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.
The astonishment which I had at first experienced on this discovery
soon gave place to delight and rapture. After so much time spent in
painful labour, to arrive at once at the summit of my desires was
the most gratifying consummation of my toils. But this discovery
was so great and overwhelming that all the steps by which I had
been progressively led to it were obliterated, and I beheld only
the result. What had been the study and desire of the wisest
men since the creation of the world was now within my grasp.
Not that, like a magic scene, it all opened upon me at once:
the information I had obtained was of a nature rather to direct
my endeavours so soon as I should point them towards the object
of my search than to exhibit that object already accomplished.
I was like the Arabian who had been buried with the dead and found
a passage to life, aided only by one glimmering and seemingly
ineffectual light.
I see by your eagerness and the wonder and hope which your eyes express,
my friend, that you expect to be informed of the secret with which I am
acquainted; that cannot be; listen patiently until the end of my story,
and you will easily perceive why I am reserved upon that subject.
I will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was,
to your destruction and infallible misery. Learn from me,
if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is
the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who
believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to
become greater than his nature will allow.
When I found so astonishing a power placed within my hands, I hesitated
a long time concerning the manner in which I should employ it.
Although I possessed the capacity of bestowing animation,
yet to prepare a frame for the reception of it, with all its
intricacies of fibres, muscles, and veins, still remained a
work of inconceivable difficulty and labour. I doubted at first
whether I should attempt the creation of a being like myself,
or one of simpler organization; but my imagination was
too much exalted by my first success to permit me to doubt of
my ability to give life to an animal as complete and wonderful as man.
The materials at present within my command hardly appeared adequate
to so arduous an undertaking, but I doubted not that I should
ultimately succeed. I prepared myself for a multitude of reverses;
my operations might be incessantly baffled, and at last my work be
imperfect, yet when I considered the improvement which every day
takes place in science and mechanics, I was encouraged to hope my
present attempts would at least lay the foundations of future success.
Nor could I consider the magnitude and complexity of my plan
as any argument of its impracticability. It was with these
feelings that I began the creation of a human being. As the
minuteness of the parts formed a great hindrance to my speed, I
resolved, contrary to my first intention, to make the being of a
gigantic stature, that is to say, about eight feet in height, and
proportionably large. After having formed this determination and
having spent some months in successfully collecting and arranging
my materials, I began.
No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards,
like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success.
Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first
break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world.
A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy
and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could
claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs.
Pursuing these reflections, I thought that if I could bestow animation
upon lifeless matter, I might in process of time (although I now
found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted
the body to corruption.
These thoughts supported my spirits, while I pursued my undertaking
with unremitting ardour. My cheek had grown pale with study,
and my person had become emaciated with confinement. Sometimes,
on the very brink of certainty, I failed; yet still I clung to
the hope which the next day or the next hour might realize.
One secret which I alone possessed was the hope to which
I had dedicated myself; and the moon gazed on my midnight labours,
while, with unrelaxed and breathless eagerness, I pursued nature to
her hiding-places. Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret
toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave or
tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay?
My limbs now tremble, and my eyes swim with the remembrance;
but then a resistless and almost frantic impulse urged me forward;
I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit.
It was indeed but a passing trance, that only made me feel with
renewed acuteness so soon as, the unnatural stimulus ceasing to operate,
I had returned to my old habits. I collected bones from charnel-
houses and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets
of the human frame. In a solitary chamber, or rather cell, at the
top of the house, and separated from all the other apartments by
a gallery and staircase, I kept my workshop of filthy creation;
my eyeballs were starting from their sockets in attending to the
details of my employment. The dissecting room and the slaughter-
house furnished many of my materials; and often did my human nature turn
with loathing from my occupation, whilst, still urged on by an eagerness
which perpetually increased, I brought my work near to a conclusion.
The summer months passed while I was thus engaged, heart and soul,
in one pursuit. It was a most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow
a more plentiful harvest or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage,
but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature. And the same feelings
which made me neglect the scenes around me caused me also to forget those
friends who were so many miles absent, and whom I had not seen for so
long a time. I knew my silence disquieted them, and I well remembered
the words of my father: "I know that while you are pleased with yourself
you will think of us with affection, and we shall hear regularly from you.
You must pardon me if I regard any interruption in your correspondence
as a proof that your other duties are equally neglected."
I knew well therefore what would be my father's feelings, but I
could not tear my thoughts from my employment, loathsome in itself,
but which had taken an irresistible hold of my imagination. I
wished, as it were, to procrastinate all that related to my
feelings of affection until the great object, which swallowed up
every habit of my nature, should be completed.
I then thought that my father would be unjust if he ascribed my
neglect to vice or faultiness on my part, but I am now convinced
that he was justified in conceiving that I should not be
altogether free from blame. A human being in perfection ought
always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow
passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquillity. I do
not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule.
If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to
weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for those simple
pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is
certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind.
If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit
whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic
affections, Greece had not been enslaved, Caesar would have spared
his country, America would have been discovered more gradually,
and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed.
But I forget that I am moralizing in the most interesting part of
my tale, and your looks remind me to proceed. My father made no
reproach in his letters and only took notice of my science by
inquiring into my occupations more particularly than before.
Winter, spring, and summer passed away during my labours; but I did
not watch the blossom or the expanding leaves--sights which before
always yielded me supreme delight--so deeply was I engrossed in my
occupation. The leaves of that year had withered before my work
drew near to a close, and now every day showed me more plainly how
well I had succeeded. But my enthusiasm was checked by my anxiety,
and I appeared rather like one doomed by slavery to toil in the mines,
or any other unwholesome trade than an artist occupied by his
favourite employment. Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever,
and I became nervous to a most painful degree; the fall of
a leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow creatures as if I had
been guilty of a crime. Sometimes I grew alarmed at the wreck
I perceived that I had become; the energy of my purpose alone
sustained me: my labours would soon end, and I believed that
exercise and amusement would then drive away incipient disease; and
I promised myself both of these when my creation should be complete.
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