Although the first sentence of the preface to the original edition, which points to
Erasmus Darwin, has generally been thought to specify his Temple of Nature, Victor
Frankenstein's scientific concern with animal structures might suggest the relevance
to the novel as well of Darwin's Zoonomia; or, the Laws of Organic Life, published
in two volumes in 1794 and 1796. The first volume, in particular, broadly considers
the function of structure throughout the faunal species.

Human benevolence, or natural goodness (the quality stressed in the revised language
of the third edition), is an attribute believed in deeply by both Mary and Percy Bysshe
Shelley. At the same time, it cannot simply be assumed as a given in Frankenstein,
for it is severely tested by the chain of events driving this novel. Even people who
are nominally benevolent (Victor is the obvious example), act with questionable ethics.
And those who are most committed to the notion of a natural benevolence (Elizabeth,
for instance) would be hard pressed to show any evidence for it.

Sentimental as are Justine's remarks, it is important to realize how scrupulously
they register such major themes of the novel as the value of domestic affections and
of sympathy. Whether they do so to underscore the consolation they offer when all
else fails or their inadequacy to assuage a fundamental injustice is the question
Mary Shelley carefully leaves up in the air.

Seemingly a proverbial expression, this phrase bears a strong resemblance to the Archangel
Raphael's injunction to Adam at the conclusion of his survey of God's newly created
universe:

Solicit not thy thoughts with matters hid;
Leave them to God above; him serve, and fear!
Of other creatures, as him pleases best,
Wherever placed, let him dispose; joy thou
In what he gives to thee, this Paradise
And thy fair Eve; Heaven is for thee too high
To know what passes there; be lowly wise:
Think only what concerns thee, and thy being;
Dream not of other worlds, what creatures there
Live, in what state, condition, or degree;
Contented that thus far hath been revealed
Not of Earth only, but of highest Heaven.
-- Paradise Lost, VIII.167-178

Throughout the novel, with the exception of Victor's interview with his Creature in
Volume 2 (II:2:6), only the blind (II:7:16) or one who dissembles their condition
(III:WC:35) can remain unperturbed in the presence of the Creature.

The sense of divergent perspectives between Victor and Alphonse Frankenstein encountered
in the first chapter (I:1:15-I:1:16) here is extended to a neighboring father's shortsighted
thwarting of all his son's ambitions. Given Victor's portrayal of Clerval as a poet,
it is impossible not to feel the impress of Percy Bysshe Shelley's strained relations
with his father in this account.

The pronoun is pointed, an attempt to shield Mary Shelley from an attack on her as
a female novelist. Attenuating this strategy, Percy Bysshe Shelley himself undertook
all negotiations for the publication of the novel. The subterfuge worked at least
to some extent. Walter Scott, reviewing the novel in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine
identified Shelley as the author. Closer to the local scene, the Quarterly, inimical
to Godwin, savaged the novel as the production of his daughter. Perhaps, this was
exactly why the subterfuge was undertaken in the first place.

Here, the invocation of imagination seems shadowed by no darker intimations, as it
had been earlier (see I:3:7 and note; I:4:18 and note). But, in fact, the shadow has
simply been postponed to the next chapter, where it looms with devastating effect,
dispelling all this happiness as being as insubstantial as dreams.

Unlike the public and the judges, Justine quietly assumes that only a man could have
committed the murder of a child.

However much Mary Shelley may have known about Ingolstadt, she never visited the town
and thus probably surmised from her general travels in Switzerland and Germany (or
perhaps from her travels down the Rhine two years before in 1814) that it would have
had such a steeple. The various towered constructions of Ingolstadt, however, are
all built in brick. There is a wooden steeple-like construction atop the Hoheschule
(University), but it would not have been visible from afar as a landmark.