Nswered out of 5
uestion
By Mary Shelley
Victor Frankenstein recounts the influences that lead to his great experiment:
When I was thirteen years of age we all went on a party of pleasure to the baths near Thonon; the inclemency of the weather obliged us to
remain a day confined to the inn. In this house I chanced to find a volume of the works of Cornelius Agrippa. I opened it with apathy; the
theory which he attempts to demonstrate and the wonderful facts which he relates soon changed this feeling into enthusiasm. A new light
seemed to dawn upon my mind, and bounding with joy, I communicated my discovery to my father. My father looked carelessly at the title
page of my book and said, "Ah! Cornelius Agrippa! My dear Victor, do not waste your time upon this: it is sad trash.
If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to explain to me that the principles of Agrippa had been entirely exploded and
that a modern system of science had been introduced which possessed much greater powers than the ancient because the powers of the
latter were chimerical, while those of the former were real and practical, under such circumstances I should certainly have thrown Agrippa
aside and have contented my imagination, warmed as it was, by returning with greater ardour to my former studies. It is even possible
that the train of my ideas would never have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin. But the cursory glance my father had taken of
my volume by no means assured me that he was acquainted with its contents, and I continued to read with the greatest avidity. When!
returned home my first care was to procure the whole works of this author, and afterwards of Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus. I read and
studied the wild fancies of these writers with delight; they appeared to me treasures known to few besides myself. 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
Under the guidance of my new preceptors I entered with the greatest diligence into the search of the philosopher's stone and the elixir of
life; but the latter soon obtained my undivided attention. Wealth was an inferior object, but what glory would attend the discovery if
could banish disease from the human frame and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death!
Which line from the text explains the effect of the texts of Agrippa on the narrator? (5 points)
Select one:
into enthusam