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The article focuses on the impact of scientific experiments in Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," depicting their societal disruption through horror and violence. Topics include the Gothic nature of science, comparisons to other nineteenth-century fears influenced by the Industrial Revolution, and the philosophical underpinnings of positivism, emphasizing the nuanced portrayal of Comtean ideas in the novella.

In response to the supernatural occurrences in the Marquis's castle, several characters of Ann Radcliffe's A Sicilian Romance adhere to the tenets of Lockean empiricism to interpret their sensory perception. Conversely, a few characters adopt Cartesian scepticism to dismiss the validity of sensory experience. To date, no exhaustive study of Ann Radcliffe's fiction has inspected the incorporation of Lockean empiricism and the Cartesian method of René Descartes into her novels. By conducting a historical analysis of the philosophical scene of the Enlightenment era, this paper aims to substantiate that not only does A Sicilian Romance encompass seminal philosophical notions of the age of Enlightenment, but it also points to the shifting philosophical scene within this period, characterised by the dominance of empiricism and the residuality of Cartesianism. By examining the reflection of these philosophies in Radcliffe's novel, this article challenges the supposition that the Gothic novel necessarily contains anti-Enlightenment impulses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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