The Age of Wonder

by Richard Holmes

‘Every blockhead does that; my Grand Tour shall be one round the whole Globe.’

Grand Tour dismissed

the ethical (rather than the intellectual) necessity for Christian religion in European society.

Christianity

Surprisingly, balloons did not appeal to the gothic novelist Horace Walpole, though perhaps at sixty-six he was a little old for such perilous novelties. He thought balloons might be sinister: ‘Well! I hope these new mechanic meteors will prove only playthings for the learned and idle, and not be converted into new engines of destruction to the human race-as is so often the case of refinements or discoveries in Science. The wicked wit of man always studies to apply the results of talents to enslaving, destroying, or cheating his fellow creatures. Could

Flight will be used for malicious purposes.