Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
nature theme into absurdity. De Sade remarkably arranged the matter in
such a way that applying the most destructive forces of chemistry for the
most evil purposes,
i.e
. what we would consider morally deeply cor-
rupted science, eludes the accusation of hubris. One should keep this
contrast in mind when regarding the following examples, which all try
hard to make hubris a moral failure.
In explicit terms, the hubris theme with reference to the 'al-chemist'
is most prominent in French literature, particularly in the works of Bal-
zac and Dumas père. In
La Recherche de L'Absolu
(1834), at a time
when synthetic organic chemistry was still in its infancy, Balzac pre-
sented the hubris theme in a most ambitious manner in a dialogue be-
tween Claes, the 'al-chemist', and his religious wife (chap. VI):
“I shall make metals,” he cried; “I shall make diamonds, I shall be a co-
worker with Nature!”
“Will you be the happier?” she asked in despair. “Accursed science!
Accursed demon! You forget, Claes, that you commit the sin of pride,
the sin of which Satan was guilty; you assume the attributes of God.”
“Oh! Oh! God!”
“He denies Him!” she cried, wringing her hands. “Claes, God wields
a power that you can never gain.”
At this argument, which seemed to discredit his beloved Science, he
looked at his wife and trembled.
“What power?” he asked.
“Primal force - motion,” she replied. “This is what I learn from the
topics your mania has constrained me to read. Analyse fruits, flowers,
Malaga wine; you will discover, undoubtedly, that their substances
come, like those of your water-cress, from a medium that seems foreign
to them. You can, if need be, find them in nature; but when you have
them, can you combine them? Can you make the flowers, the fruits, the
Malaga wine? Will you have grasped the inscrutable effects of the sun,
of the atmosphere of Spain? Ah! Decomposing is not creating.”
“If I discover the magisterial force, I shall be able to create.”
In nineteenth-century literature, such chemical ambition to equal the total
capacity of divine creation is difficult to find. Instead, the elixir of life
and its counterpart, poison, figure prominently in the literature as God-
like means to control life and death. As we have already seen, that is why
Alexandre Dumas père let his Dr. Sturler say “Am I not God like God -
more God than God since I can retake and give back life, cause death to
