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 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 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 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 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 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.