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prompted by the peculiarities of Christian theology, is neither an ethical
idea nor a theologically consistent one. In order to make hubris a morally
convincing accusation for their readers, nineteenth-century authors cre-
ated the 'mad scientist'. Transformed from the 'mad alchemist' already
established in the medieval literature, the 'mad scientist' combines hubris
with all the moral perversion that nineteenth-century writers could imag-
ine. Borne out of the need for serious arguments, this literary figure has
dominated the public view of science ever since. Although the 'mad sci-
entist' later moved on to other disciplines, such as biology and nuclear
physics,
54
the figure continued to bear characteristics of the medieval al-
chemist, thereby revealing its chemical legacy.
7. Conclusion
Since the late eighteenth century, the notion of science has changed
drastically with regard to its institutions, methods, and the content and
structure of its knowledge. Formerly places for preliminary education
before rising to the 'higher faculties' of theology, law, and medicine, the
philosophical faculties at the European universities became centers of
discipline formation with PhD programs, and with laboratories and re-
search institutes for each of the emerging disciplines. The traditional
form of chemical research, laboratory experimentation, became the pre-
vailing research method in most of the sciences, including medical
branches such as physiology and pharmacy. Scientific knowledge, pro-
duced by experimentation and published in the newly founded journals,
proliferated and became increasingly fragmented due to the formation of
separate disciplines that defined their own cognitive and practical goals.
Unlike in the earlier period of natural philosophy, there was no longer a
54
See Haynes 1994
.
Most influential for the shift to biology and 'biological hubris' was
H. G. Wells's
The Island of Doctor Moreau
(1896), which became the basis for many
films. However, Wells continued to use 'mad chemists', as in
The Food of Gods, and
How it Came to Earth
(1904) and
The World Set Free
(1914). The latter novel is in-
teresting not only because it was an apocalyptic call for World War I, but also be-
cause it narrates a history of chemistry that culminates in the development of a kind
of nuclear fission bomb. Whereas this appears to anticipate the discovery of nuclear
fission by the chemists Hahn and Strassmann in 1939, later mad scientist stories fea-
tured physicists as bomb-makers.
