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2 Visionaries: Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace

Ada Lovelace has become a feminist icon, celebrated for achievements which were
forgotten or written out of mainstream history. Her story, and that of the people
around her, is unique in many respects, but it also helps illuminate our “stories of
th
hearts and minds” in the 19 century.

Metternich, Mazzini and the reason/emotion divide.
When we looked at Metternich and Mazzini, it was pretty clear how they fitted into
the conversation between the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Consider these

quotes:

Metternich:
“The progress of the human mind has been extremely rapid in the course of the last
three centuries. This progress has been accelerated more rapidly than the growth of
wisdom, the only counterpoise to passions and to error.”

“Man's nature is immutable. The first needs of society are and remain the same, and
the differences which they seem to offer find their explanation in the diversity of
influences, acting on the different races by natural causes, such as the diversity of
climate, barrenness or richness of soil, insular or continental position, &c. &c. These
local differences no doubt produce effects which extend far beyond purely physical
necessities; they create and determine particular needs in a more elevated sphere;
finally, they determine the laws, and exercise an influence even on religions.”

“Ten million ignorances do not constitute one knowledge.”

Mazzini:
“Love your country. Your country is the land where your parents sleep, where is
spoken that language in which the chosen of your heart, blushing, whispered the first
word of love; it is the home that God has given you that by striving to perfect

yourselves therein you may prepare to ascend to him.”

“A Country is not a mere territory; the particular territory is only its foundation. The
Country is the idea which rises upon that foundation; it is the sentiment of love, the
sense of fellowship which binds together all the sons of that territory.”

“O my Brothers! love your Country. Our Country is our home, the home which God has
given us, placing therein a numerous family which we love and are loved by, and with
which we have a more intimate and quicker communion of feeling and thought than

with others.”