PREFACE.
THE event on which this fiction is [founded]
<founded,> has been supposed, by Dr. Darwin, and
some of the physiological writers of Germany, as not of
impossible occurrence. I shall not be supposed as according the
remotest degree of serious faith to such an imagination; yet,
in assuming it as the basis of a work of fancy, I have not
considered myself as merely weaving a series of supernatural
terrors. The event on which the interest of the story depends is
exempt from the disadvantages of a mere tale of spectres or
enchantment. It was recommended by the novelty of the situations
which it developes; and, however impossible as a physical fact,
affords a point of view to the imagination for the delineating
of human passions more comprehensive and commanding than any
which the ordinary relations of existing events can yield.
I have thus endeavoured to preserve the truth of the elementary
principles of human nature, while I have not scrupled to
innovate upon their combinations. The [Iliad]
<Iliad>, the tragic poetry of Greece,
Shakespeare, in the [Tempest]
<Tempest> and Midsummer Night's Dream and
most especially Milton, in Paradise Lost, conform to this
rule; and the most humble novelist, who seeks to confer or
receive amusement from his labours, may, without presumption,
apply to prose fiction a licence, or rather a rule, from the
adoption of which so many exquisite combinations of human
feeling have resulted in the highest specimens of poetry.