the moral relations of things
In distinguishing so sharply between scientific and moral arenas of
thought, or between metaphysics and ethics as branches of philosophy,
Victor unconsciously begins to raise what is perhaps the major issue of
the novel, a human being's responsibility for knowledge. His abstract nouns
are themselves revealing: he is engaged by the "substance" or the "spirit,"
whereas what impels Clerval are the "relations" of things. Clerval implicitly
looks at the universe in terms of communities, which is to say, in the
largest sense, as political relations; Victor concentrates on individual
matters in isolation. In respect to this dialectic it is interesting to
contemplate how intrinsically committed to both its sides is Walton. That
dual commitment will in the end become contradictory, leaving Walton on the
horns of a dilemma, having to choose between pure science and moral
obligation.
