Chemistry Reference
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I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard and a
convulsive motion agitated its limbs.
How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe? […] I had de-
sired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had
finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and a breathless horror and
disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had
created, I rushed out of the room. [Shelley 1996, p. 34]
(ii) Science, like alchemy, claims access to a kind of power that cannot
be gained by force of arms or other traditional forms of supremacy. The
medieval Church was therefore justified in regarding alchemy as a rival
power
. Francis Bacon's aphorism 'knowledge is power' is nowhere so
obvious as in the allure of science. To those trained in a scientific
discipline, knowledge is not threatening; it is more likely to be regarded
as one of the highest achievements of the human intellect. To understand
how it appears to the uninitiated, who feel disempowered through lack of
understanding or inability to control its consequences, we might consider
an analogy with other contemporary forms of power and their con-
comitant sources of fear: the seductive power of an idea for which its
supporters willingly die, international terrorism, the power of cataclys-
mic natural events, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, cyclones,
tsunamis, and, less immediate but no less real, potential long-term
environmental disaster for our planet.
(iii) The most publicized goals of modern science bear a striking
similarity to those of alchemy. It seems that our wish list has changed lit-
tle since our medieval ancestors visited their local alchemist under cloak
of darkness, fearful of being observed but greedy for results.
(a) Perpetual motion represents limitless power at close to zero cost.
In the nineteenth century electricity filled this role; in the twentieth it was
nuclear power. Both have been regarded with similar ambivalence as
both benefactor and destroyer. Albert Robida's illustration “The Energy
Explosion” in
La Vie électrique
(1887) personifies Electricity as a
provocative woman who both liberates and enslaves the world. In the
case of nuclear power, writers have been only cautiously optimistic. The
scientific utopia, pioneered by Sir Francis Bacon's
The New Atlantis
(1626), has had few successors. H.G. Wells' scientific utopias were bal-
anced by his dark studies of scientific monomania. Simon Newcombe's
patriotic American novel
His Wisdom the Defender
(1900) posits a
