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 continuity sought the
attainment of one object of pursuit, and was solely wrapt 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 improvement, 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 minutia 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 desires 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 organisation; 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 complex 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 hinderance 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 realise. 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
eye-balls were starting from their sockets in attending to the
details of my employment. The dissecting room and the slaughterhouse
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
moralising 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 silence 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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