The goal of modern liberalism was the rational state, a state that completed the long-standing attempt at the rational control of nature and human life that began with Machiavelli and culminated with Hegel.

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But Cain, in his choice of wording, is also revealing a lot about his interior life and his philosophy of human nature.

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Gone was the age of man harnessing other men, and on the rise was the age of man harnessing the power of nature through science and industry to advance human life.

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His stamping ground is "the moral, emotional, and political colourings of the concept of human nature in modern life".

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Dr. Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) dares to tamper with the essential nature of life and death by creating a monster (Karloff) out of lifeless human body parts.

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