English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Free Plan

This article discusses the concern with the improvement or perfectibility of human nature in eighteenth-century English society and the necessity of its encouragement considering the prevalence of human degeneration at different levels: intellectual, moral, social, political or cultural. After a brief presentation of the philosophical and literary background of the perfectibility debates, we look into Daniel Defoe’s literary representation of human improvement and degeneration in his Mere Nature Delineated: or, a Body without a Soul (1726). Defoe’s pamphlet had its roots in a real case of human imperfection or degradation, namely in Peter the Wild Boy’s story, which gave him the opportunity to criticize his contemporaries’ vices and failures.

Addressing the Age-old Question of Human Perfectibility in Daniel Defoe’s Mere Nature Delineated: Or, a Body without a Soul