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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: preparatory experiments, he concluded with a panegyric upon modern chemistry,
the terms of which I shall never forget: "The ancient teachers of this
science," said he, "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 pore over
the microscope or crucible, have indeed performed miracles. They penetrate
into the recesses of nature and show 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
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