Heurs et malheurs de la raison dans Les secrets de Monsieur Synthèse (1888), roman d’anticipation scientifique par Louis Boussenard

Through the prism of the transformations that take place in the mind of its protagonist, Boussenard’s novel reveals a fundamental tendency toward the “scientification of the supernatural” in the closing years of the nineteenth century, and the resistance the supernatural puts up against this development. The mind of Monsieur Synthèse, always eager to push back the limits of science, shows itself to be deeply fragmented: he maintains a pathological and potentially pathogenic connection to science, while his mysterious friend Krishna seems to suggest an entirely different manner of conceptualizing the association between science and the supernatural.