Verwandlung

How is the emergence of something new possible at all? Reasonable people in Europe – and within a world following European modes of thought – have responded to this question by reference to the idea of change. Change constitutes a rational pattern: While things remain, their attributes alter. But where does a thing end, where do its features begin? What would the thing be apart from is qualities? The idea of change has been haunted by another idea apt to perplex and bewilder reasonable people: the idea of metamorphosis. It is not just attributes of persons or things that change, so stories of metamorphosis suggest; rather, it’s they themselves. Metamorphosis – or ‘transfiguration’ or ‘transmutation’ – has been favoured by mythology, by devout enthusiasm and by natural magic. Christians subdued the wilderness of pagan metamorphosis, placing it under a single purpose. Alchemy made men rather than God the masters of metamorphosis. Eventually, science and technology got intrigued by the idea. What happens to metamorphosis under their novel disenchanting regime?>