Cover; Half-title ; Title ; Copyright ; Dedication ; Contents ; Acknowledgments ; 1 Introduction ; 2 The concept of mechanism ; Empiricism; Matter, motion, laws; Machines; The mechanistic legacy; 3 The Aristotelian logic of settlement in Austen's Pride and Prejudice
4 Scott's The Bride of Lammermoor: empiricism, mechanism, imagination 5 Cosmology and chaos in Dickens's Bleak House ; 6 Scientific humanism and the Comic Spirit: from The Ordeal of Richard Feverel to The Egoist; 7 Old mindsets and new world-music in Conrad's The Secret Agent ; 8 Women in Love: beyond fulfillment
9 The mechanistic legacy: Lessing's Canopus in Argos: ArchivesNotes ; Bibliography ; Index
