popular and learned interest in monsters
(in the 16th century & 17th century Baconian scientific program: ) treatments of nature and natural history must have included (with rigorous selection) monsters (~ aberrations in the natural order: new, rare, and unusual nature, both exotic & domestic)
[*]nature: an ingenious craftsman ——> [*]monster: nature’s most artful work (——> they bridged the natural & the artificial)
—— corresponded to the activities of nature =/= types of subject matter, methods of investigation
—— interest in irregularities (=/= end of 17th century interest in nature’s uniformity and order)

(Daston –> a case study of) the changing relationship between popular & learned culture

…monsters began to lose their religious resonance
(from) fear ——to——> delight
(from) prodigy ——to——> wonder
(from) sermon ——to——> table-talk
(from) horrible, terrible, effrayable, espouventable ——to——> strange, wonderful, merveilleux (marvellous جالب)
(from) final cause ——to——> proximate cause (physical explanations and the natural order)
==> nature began to assume the role of an autonomous entity with a will (and sense of humour of her own) ~~> natural wonder

The Scripture sayth, before the ende
Of all thinges shall appeare,
God will wounders straunge thinges send,
As some is sene this yeare.
The selye infantes, voyde of shape,
The calues and pygges so straunge,
With other mo of suche mishape,
Declareth this worldes chaunge.

(monsters ——> shift from) signs of God’s wrat ——to——> signs of nature’s fertility
(by the end of 17th century) ——to——> comparative anatomy and embryology (teratology)
(from) اعجوبه prodigy ——to——> examples of medical pathology

earlier tradition of interest in monster: