NOTES

cause should produce such opposite effects

Twice in the paragraph stressing the word "cause," the Creature learns that pleasure and pain proceed from the same force, a considerable development in his education and mental sophistication. If this is the groundwork of morality, however, it is important to recognize that it shares a common bond, as the earlier quotation from Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Mutability" may remind us, with the scientific systems that form so conspicuous a context for the novel (see II:2:3 and note). There are other elements emphasized in the novel that likewise exist on a neutral ground that can result in either good or ill: curiosity is an obvious case in point (II:2:16).