Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Illustrations ix
4. Acknowledgments xi
5. Introduction 1
6. Part One. History as a Life Form
7. 1. Johann Christoph Gatterer and History as Science 19
8. 2. An Epicurean Democracy in Language: The volte face in Johann David Michaeli’s Early Career 45
9. 3. Reill’s Vitalizing Nature in the Enlightenment and German Naturphilosophie 70
10. Part Two. Vitalism in Political and Cultural Translation
11. 4. „That Infinite Variety of Human Forms“: Modern Identity and Portraiture in Enlightenment England 95
12. 5. Was Marat a Vitalist? 110
13. 6. The Vital Organism in the Thought of Humboldt and Mill 125
14. Part Three. Esotericism and the Enlightenment
15. 7. Constructs of Life Forms in Lavater’s Physiognomy 153
16. 8. The Preaching Philosopher: Andreas Weber (1718–81) between Wolffian Philosophy and Heterodox Theology 179
17. 9. Between Myth and Archive, Alchemy and Science in Eighteenth-Century Naples: The Cabinet of Raimondo di Sangro, Prince of San Severo 208
18. 10. The Liberal Mysticism of Madame de Staël 233
19. Contributors 247
20. Index 251