Dr. Moreau and Hubris: A Critical Reflection on the Character of the Mad Scientist

Yesterday I read H.G. Wells's The Island of Dr. Moreau. I found it really intriguing. It brought to mind some thoughts about the recurring science fiction character archetype, the "mad scientist." This is such an interesting and persistent character trope throughout science fiction. Considering this kind of character makes me wonder who the first "authentic" mad scientist was: Dr. Frankenstein? Hmm...

Well, before we can even begin to answer that question, we probably need to develop a working definition of, precisely, what a "mad scientist" is.

A primary attribute of the mad scientist, it seems to me, is that they are a scientist. But what does that mean? To be a scientist? Is to say someone is a scientist also to say they have an academic position? That they lead a lab? Or, is it much less specific than that? Do non-professional researchers who understand scientific theories--are they scientists by virtue of their knowledge? Hmm... I don't think so. I think it takes more than a knowledge base to be considered a scientist. It think there's an ethos to being a scientist, and that ethos goes something along these lines: in order to be a scientist you have to be driven to understand or to know or to fill out a theory or hypothesis that stirs your imagination or captures your curiosity. 


So we figured out what the scientist part of "mad scientist" means. How about that term, mad? What does it mean to be "mad"? Mentally deranged? Well, "mad" comes from the old English word gemædde which means, "out of ones mind." It's a hunch of mind that the "mad" in "mad scientist" is more than just being irrational, insane, demented. There's so much more to it than that. I think this is the case because, on the surface, mad scientists rarely seem insane. Sure, occasionally they laugh maniacally in the worst science fiction; occasionally they indulge in eccentric behavior. But there's more to their behavior than that. This is where the word "deranged" comes in. "Deranged" comes from the old french and means "to throw out of order." No this feels right! Mad scientists are deranged. What do they throw out of order? The natural order. In the case of Dr. Moreau, he throws the natural order out of order by bringing animals out of their primal state into a perverse, civilized state. He flagrantly disregards human morality by engaging in the living surgery of animals.

So here's our new, working definition of "mad scientist":  A mad scientist is someone who is driven to understand or to know or to fill out a theory or hypothesis that stirs his or her imagination, and as a result of this impulse/obsession they upset the balance of the natural order.

It's strange. In other Wells science romances, science and technology seem to offer the promise of turning humans into gods. For example, the time machin allow the time traveler to witness time on a cosmic, semi-divine scale. Scientific theorizing and fact also carries with it risks: consider the horror of the Morlock and Eloi evolutionary fork.

The mad scientist, it seems to me, appears to be the agent, the active "reagent," if you will, of the "rising humanity to the level of gods" promised by science and technology. The mad scientist is the human, equipped with scientific theory, who would play god. Who would be a god. They're not unlike, say, the ancient alchemists who searched for the power to turn basic elements into gold and for the secret of immortality.

Like the alchemist, the key feature of the mad scientist key, their major sin, turns out to hubris.

H.G. Wells's *The Time Machine*: Amplifying Human Perception

I recently read H.G. Wells's famous novella, The Time Machine (1895). It stirred in me an interesting notion that may apply to a large portion of science fiction. In The Time Machine technology is used to amplify the human sensorium to cosmic /divine levels.

Let me explain. In the opening scenes of The Time Machine a bunch of fellas are sitting around, discussing theories of time with the Time Traveler. The Time Traveler suggests that time is a dimension not unlike width, breadth, and length; time is a "fourth dimension" we cannot perceive. He then makes another point: human subjects are limited to certain spatial dimensions. For example, height. We can walk north, south, east, and west as much as we like. We can't, however, move vertically to our pleasure because of gravity. We can, of course, jump, but the force of gravity pulls us down. This is where flying machines come in. Flying machines allow us to transcend that particular spatial dimension our particular embodied situation limits us to: "horizontality". In other words, the "flying machine" technology allows us to transcend a human limit, i.e. the ability to travel vertically.

The drama of The Time Machine turns on a very specific kind of technology, a time machine. What does this technology do? Not only does it allow humans to transcend their particular embedded nature in a specific time dimension, it allows them to do something else, something entirely different. It allows humans to perceive time on a vast, cosmic scale. This, I think, is the understated element of this story: the time traveler's ability to see all of time. He is able to travel far, far into the future, witness the fate of human civilization; further, he is able to witness the final fate of our planet. Put another way, he's able to perceive time as an eternal, omnipresent demi-god or god would percieve time.

And so, my suggestion is that technology is doing something very interesting in this novella: it's amplifying human potential in a vast way. This isn't, of course, all that can be said about this story. There's plenty to say about the ethics of expanding human potential. There's plenty to be said about the experience of expanding human consciousness--amplifying the human sensorium--and how that experience effects the Time Traveler (he doesn't seem to particularly enjoy the experience (i.e. the insights it affords him)). But because Wells is such an foundational writer for all of SF, I think it is important to point this out: in this story, technology expands human consciousness/perception to a god-like scale.