Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
his obsessive search for the philosophers' stone harmed primarily him-
self (his health, wealth, and social status), the new 'mad scientist' did
harm primarily to other people through his obsession with playing God.
Because the actual literary instances of 'playing God' were largely con-
fined to research into pharmaceutical cures, which writers considered the
hubris of assuming 'God-like control over life and death', the accusation
of hubris alone was hardly convincing. To compensate for the lack of
ethical or theologically consistent arguments, writers equipped their
'mad scientists' with moral perversion or satanic elements.
These literary responses to the rise of modern science are scattered
throughout Western literature, including that of Russia. In addition to the
mentioned works, they can be found in hundreds of other pieces of litera-
ture. Far from being only a topic of Romanticism or
Bildungsromanen
,
they appear in all kinds of literary styles and genres, in novels, plays,
short stories, fables, poems, and even operas. All these responses, from
the modest to the most radical, tried to separate out science from the au-
thors' own understanding of culture and thus prepared the much-debated
split into 'the two cultures' (Snow 1959). Since chemistry was the main
target of nineteenth-century authors, it is not surprising that chemistry
became particularly alienated from the humanities.
In this cultural battle, the most effective blow was the creation of the
'mad scientist', a stigma that is still cultivated today, if only for enter-
taining reasons. In retrospect, one might be inclined to see early warn-
ings of possible scientific misconduct in 'mad scientist' stories. Yet such
an ahistorical reading overlooks the fact that in the nineteenth century the
main issue was not professional ethics but the organization of knowl-
edge, the relationship between science and religion, and the reputation of
science versus the reputation of the humanities.
References
Ambrière, M.: 1999,
Balzac et la Recherche de l'Absolu
, Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France.
Baldick, C.: 1987,
In Frankenstein's Shadow: Myth, Monstrosity, and Nineteenth-century
Writing
, Oxford: Clarendon.
