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, Cæsar 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.