The New Annotated Frankenstein
Page 18
16. In the 1831 edition, the sentence ends here, and the following replaces the balance of the paragraph:
Chance—or rather the evil influence, the Angel of Destruction, which asserted omnipotent sway over me from the moment I turned my reluctant steps from my father’s door—led me first to M. Krempe, professor of natural philosophy. He was an uncouth man, but deeply imbued in the secrets of his science. He asked me several questions concerning my progress in the different branches of science appertaining to natural philosophy. I replied carelessly, and partly in contempt, mentioned the names of my alchemists as the principal authors I had studied. The professor stared. “Have you,” he said, “really spent your time in studying such nonsense?”
And so Victor is in the hands of his destiny, powerless to resist.
17. “M.” must stand for “Monsieur.” It seems more likely that at Ingolstadt University, located in the heart of German-speaking Bavaria, Waldman would have been “Herr Doktor” or at least “Herr” Waldman. In the eighteenth century, classes at the university were largely taught in Latin; there were a few German-language courses as well.
18. Originally “W.—” in the Draft, subsequently changed to “Waldham,” and finally corrected throughout to “Waldman.”
19. The word “missed” is “omitted” in the 1831 edition.
20. This sentence has been revised substantially in the 1831 edition to read as follows: “I returned home, not disappointed, for I have said that I had long considered those authors useless whom the professor reprobated; but I returned not at all the more inclined to recur to these studies in any shape.”
Temperaments, from Lavater, Essays on Physiognomy (1793).
21. In thus judging Krempe, Victor falls victim to the supposed science of physiognomy, which discriminated character by outward appearance. Its greatest proponent was Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801), whose eighteenth-century work Physiognomische Fragmente zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntnis und Menschenliebe (Leipzig, 1775–78) won considerable adherents. The 1797 Encyclopædia Britannica (3rd ed.) vigorously defends the theory, stating, “That there is so intimate relation between the dispositions of the mind and the features of the countenance is a fact which cannot be questioned.” The Britannica expressed the hope that Lavater’s recent publication would “perhaps tend to replace physiognomy in that rank in the circle of the sciences to which it seems to be intitled.” By 1888, however, the Encyclopœdia Britannica (9th ed.) had changed its view:
The popular style, good illustrations, and pious spirit pervading the writings of Lavater have given to them a popularity they little deserved, as there is really no system in his work, which largely consists of rhapsodical comments upon the several portraits. Having a happy knack of estimating character, especially when acquainted with the histories of the persons in question, the good pastor contrived to write a graphic and readable book, but one much inferior to [Giambattista Della] Porta’s or Aristotle’s as a systematic treatise. With him the descriptive school of physiognomists may be said to have ended. … The few straggling works which have since appeared are scarcely deserving of notice, the rising attraction of phrenology [the determination of character from the shape of the skull] having given to pure physiognomy the coup de grâce by taking into itself whatever was likely to live of the older science.
Physiognomy, though now discarded in its broadest precepts, is bound up in the ideas of Victorian criminologist Cesare Lombroso and eventually the ideas of Sigmund Freud relating to the connection of outward manifestations—habits, gestures, facial tics, and the like—and interior neuroses and conditions. Sander L. Gilman, in Creating Beauty to Cure the Soul: Race and Psychology in the Shaping of Aesthetic Surgery (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), lists the following as “three of the major figures in the history of Western theories of physiognomy”: della Porta, Franz Josef Gall (1758–1828), and Carl Gustav Carus (1789–1869). According to Carl Jung, it was Carus who identified the role of the unconscious in psychic development. The unconscious functioned on three levels, Carus wrote in Psyche: On the Development of the Soul; Part I: The Unconscious (1846), with conscious thoughts acting on the “districts” of the “partial absolute unconscious”—this was the second or middle of his tripartite structure—thereby contributing to one’s physiognomy. Gall, who founded phrenology (its practice was once called cranioscopy) with his student Johann Gaspar Spurzheim (1776–1832), cataloged regions of the brain that he said performed specific functions, leading ultimately to the popular theory of right- and left-brain specialization. Among his less enduring propositions was that in each person the brain essentially pushed against the cranium, giving each head its unique contours.
The remnants of the theory of physiognomy persist in modern psychology’s categories of “body types,” especially the work of American psychologist William Sheldon (1898–1977), who propounded “somatyping” (with the broad categories of ectomorphs, mesomorphs, and endomorphs) and associated physique and personality. Sheldon argued that delinquency was caused by a mesomorph physique, but the theory has—like Lombroso’s work—been largely discredited as confusing correlation with causation.
22. The word “doctrine” has been replaced by the word “pursuits” in the 1831 edition, and the following sentences added: “In rather a too philosophical and connected a strain, perhaps, I have given an account of the conclusions I had come to concerning them in my early years. As a child I had not been content with the results promised by the modern professors of natural science. With a confusion of ideas only to be accounted for by my extreme youth and my want of a guide on such matters, I had retrod the steps of knowledge along the paths of time and exchanged the discoveries of recent inquirers for the dreams of forgotten alchemists.”
23. The balance of the paragraph was added to the Draft by Percy Shelley.
24. The balance of the sentence is replaced in the 1831 edition with the following: “of my residence at Ingolstadt, which were chiefly spent in becoming acquainted with the localities and the principal residents in my new abode.”
25. Contrast this description with that of Krempe (see note 21, above), as Victor makes another judgment based on physiognomy.
26. The microscope likely was developed in the sixteenth century by lensmakers in Holland. In the seventeenth century microscopes were used extensively to study the tissue of living things, and Robert Hooke’s Micrographia, published in 1665, was hugely influential on the basis of its superb illustrations. For more on Hooke, see note 44, Volume I, Chapter I, above.
Drawing of a flea, from Robert Hooke’s Micrographia (1665), by Robert Hooke (though possibly by Sir Christopher Wren).
27. A vessel used to hold heated substances, usually metals; natural philosophers would use a crucible to study the composition of a compound by subjecting it to high heat.
28. The study of planetary motions, as has been noted above, flourished in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
29. William Harvey (1578–1657), an English physician, published De Motu Cordis (usually translated as On the Motion of the Heart and Blood), the first work to completely describe the mechanism of the circulatory system, in 1628. Harvey did not originate the material but synthesized the studies of others; his book refuted the ideas of Galen (129–ca. 200 CE), which had prevailed for more than thirteen hundred years. Galen had proposed that blood passed through two different systems, the venous and arterial networks, conveyed between them by invisible pores; Harvey explained the network as a single system.
30. This is something of an overstatement. In 1660, Robert Boyle (see notes 44 and 51, Volume I, Chapter I, above) demonstrated that air was essential to both life and combustion. He placed a candle and a small animal in a vessel and used an air pump to create a vacuum. The candle was extinguished and the animal died. This led to Hooke’s later work, demonstrating that life could be preserved by artificial respiration, a mechanical device supplying fresh air to motionless lungs. Oxygen, the principal requirement
of breathable air, was identified in the late eighteenth century (see note 57, Volume I, Chapter I, above), but it was not until 1878 that oxygen toxicity—caused by breathing pure oxygen—was described, by the French physiologist Paul Bert.
31. The “thunder” of explosions was produced by gunpowder as early as the ninth century in China. Perhaps Waldman refers to the invention in 1742 by Andrew Gordon, a natural philosopher, of the “lightning bell,” a device that by converting electrical into mechanical energy could be used to warn of pending thunderstorms, or perhaps he refers to electrical experiments conducted in the 1780s by the Dutch inventor Martinus van Marum (1750–1837) that replicated the undulating motion of water or land caused by an earthquake passing through a body of water or the ground. Compare also the comments of John Abernethy (Preface, note 8, above): “[I]t is electricity which causes the whirlwind, and the water spout, and which ‘with its harp and sulphurous bolt splits the unwedgeable and gnarled oak’ [Measure for Measure], and destroys our most stabile edifices; … it is electricity which by its consequences make the firm earth tremble, and throws up subterraneous matter from volcanoes.”
32. Again, Waldman seems to be speaking of explosions.
33. The “invisible world” must refer to the microscopic studies of substances, discussed in note 26, above. One hundred years later, the phrase might well refer to the discovery of nuclear radiation and the “invisible world” of the interiors of atoms.
34. This sentence is omitted from the 1831 edition, and the following material is inserted:
Such were the professor’s words—rather let me say such the words of the fate—enounced to destroy me. As he went on I felt as if my soul were grappling with a palpable enemy; one by one the various keys were touched which formed the mechanism of my being; chord after chord was sounded, and soon my mind was filled with one thought, one conception, one purpose. So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein—more, far more, will I achieve; treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.
I closed not my eyes that night. My internal being was in a state of insurrection and turmoil; I felt that order would thence arise, but I had no power to produce it. By degrees, after the morning’s dawn, sleep came. I awoke, and my yesternight’s thoughts were as a dream. There only remained a resolution to return to my ancient studies and to devote myself to a science for which I believed myself to possess a natural talent. On the same day I paid M. Waldman a visit.
Here, too, Mary Shelley emphasizes that Victor had no choice in his destiny—he was in the hands of fate, and his future actions were not his fault. In Reproducing Enlightenment: Paradoxes in the Life of the Body Politic—Literature and Philosophy Around 1800 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009), Diana K. Reese draws attention to use of the word “enounced,” writing that Victor’s “quest transforms him into an instrument (by all appearances an organ), or immutable drive, activated by Professor Waldman’s enunciation. … Dr. Frankenstein is forced to recognize his fate in the work of his own hand, or rather, in what that first work, now alien, continues to effect” (27).
35. The following sentence is inserted here in the 1831 edition: “I gave him pretty nearly the same account of my former pursuits as I had given to his fellow professor.”
36. The three sentences following were added to the Draft by Percy Shelley.
37. The balance of the sentence is deleted in the 1831 edition, and the following is substituted: “I expressed myself in measured terms, with the modesty and deference due from a youth to his instructor, without letting escape (inexperience in life would have made me ashamed) any of the enthusiasm which stimulated my intended labours. I requested his advice concerning the books I ought to procure.”
38. The word is “pretty” in the Draft, possibly in the largely obsolete meaning of “clever” or “skillful” but more likely an error. (“Petty” was retained in the 1831 text as well.) In 1794, George Adams, in his Lectures on Natural and Experimental Philosophy (London: R. Hindmarsh), described the qualities distinguishing “a mere experimentalist” from than “an observer of nature”: “The experimentalist beholds all nature as particles of dust disunited from, and uninfluenced by, one another; each a world of its own, with properties and qualities peculiar to itself. The observer sees all nature as united, as actuated and moving upon one common principle, and all the parts as conspiring to form one whole” (Vol. 1, 127).
39. Here Mary Shelley wrote in the Thomas Text, “If there were ever to be another edition of this book, I should re-write these first two chapters. The incidents are tame and ill-arranged—the language sometimes childish—They are unworthy of the rest of the narration.”
CHAPTER III.1
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.2 It was, perhaps, the amiable character of this man that inclined me more to that branch of natural philosophy which he professed, than an intrinsic love for the science itself. But this state of mind had place only in the first steps towards knowledge: the more fully I entered into the science, the more exclusively I pursued it for its own sake. That application, which at first had been a matter of duty and resolution, now 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 I improved rapidly. 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.3 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 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 improvements, I thought of returning to my friends and my native town, when an incident happened that protracted my stay.
Old Anatomy building, Ingolstadt (photo by Brian Clontarf, used under CC-by-SA 3.0 license).
One of the phænonema 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.4 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 church-yard 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,5 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.6