The Machine Man

WORKING

'''Richter, Johann Paul Friedrich (writing as "Jean Paul"). "The Machine Man."''' 1789. Cited in Gerhart Hoffmeister, European Romanticism: Literary Cross-Currents, Modes and Models. Wayne State University Press, 1990: 290.

In an unpublished manuscript, John J. Pierce notes that the pseudonymous Jean Paul reacted against the Cartesian idea of the human body (at least) as mechanical, taking "a jaundiced look at the future mechanization of human existence in 'The Machine Man' (1789), where 'a being is the more perfect the more it works by machines'” ('Imagination and Evolution, a Conceptual History of Science Fiction', ch. 2, ms page 6).

J. J. Pierce, RDE, 26Mar18