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No, I did not read this for Halloween�

Highlights:
--Fiction is my television, a last resort for when my brain is too fried to concentrate on what really inspires me.
…I’ve been meaning to read this since Yanis Varoufakis always uses this tale as a metaphor for society’s fears during capitalist industrialization (the novel was written in 1818), the monstrous mechanization that turns everyone (even capitalists) into cogs serving the machine’s logic.
--Another important transition during this time was in the sciences, with the scientist Frankenstein having some interesting musings on “forgotten alchemists�, “modern natural philosophy� and the “modern system of science�. Isaac Newton (1642-1727) epitomizes this transition as the president of the Royal Society while also pursuing alchemy. Less well known is Newton’s role in political economy, leading the Royal Mint as well as losing his fortune in the South Sea Bubble. Also, Adam Smith (1723-1790) was a professor teaching “moral philosophy�, only posthumously vulgarized into the “Father of Economics�.
--Now, the characters� perspectives do come from a certain level of privilege (i.e. higher education, affording servants). Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World synthesizes how early sciences provided the dualism to objectify and thus exploit human labour (mind vs. body) and nature (man vs. nature) during industrialization.
“Capitalist production, therefore, develops technology, and the combining together of various processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all wealth - the soil and the labourer.� -Marx, Capital, Vol. 1: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production
…And dear friend Henry Clerval was a bloody merchant:
“His design was to visit India, in the belief that he had in his knowledge of its various languages, and in the views he had taken of its society, the means of materially assisting the progress of European colonization and trade.�
--Other neat aspects of this book include gender (the author) and psychology (the monster’s tragedy reminding me of Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions).
--Note: some editions of this book seem to be missing the most interesting quotes, so I relied on the Webster’s Thesaurus Edition.

--Musings on “science�:

I have described myself as always having been imbued with a fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature. In spite of the intense labour and wonderful discoveries of modern philosophers, I always came from my studies discontented and unsatisfied. Sir Isaac Newton is said to have avowed that he felt like a child picking up shells beside the great and unexplored ocean of truth. Those of his successors in each branch of natural philosophy with whom I was acquainted appeared even to my boy’s apprehensions as tyros engaged in the same pursuit.

The untaught peasant beheld the elements around him and was acquainted with their practical uses. The most learned philosopher knew little more. He had partially unveiled the face of Nature, but her immortal lineaments were still a wonder and a mystery. He might dissect, anatomize, and give names; but, not to speak of a final cause, causes in their secondary and tertiary grades were utterly unknown to him. I had gazed upon the fortifications and impediments that seemed to keep human beings from entering the citadel of nature, and rashly and ignorantly I had repined. […]

�The ancient teachers of this science,� said [professor M. Waldman], �promised impossibilities, and performed nothing. The modern masters promise very little; they know that metals cannot be transmuted, and that the elixir of life is a chimera. But these philosophers, whose hands seem only made to dabble in dirt, and their eyes to pour over the microscope or crucible, have indeed performed miracles. They penetrate into the recesses of nature, and shew how she works in her hiding places. They ascend into the heavens; they have discovered how the blood circulates, and the nature of the air we breathe. They have acquired new and almost unlimited powers; they can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its own shadows.� […]

“Chemistry is that branch of natural philosophy in which the greatest improvements have been and may be made; it is on that account that I have made it my peculiar study; but at the same time I have not neglected the other branches of science. A man would make but a very sorry chemist, if he attended to that department of human knowledge alone. If your wish is to become really a man of science, and not merely a petty experimentalist, I should advise you to apply to every branch of natural philosophy, including mathematics.� [emphases added]