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Goblins in the Nursery, Where a Child's Fear of the Dark Comes From
Did nurses' goblin stories put the fear of the dark into children, or did children bring it with them? From Locke to Chesterton, the quarrel over the nursery tale ended not with a winner but with a new line: fear used as a threat against fear handed over as a game.
The dissected body, from sentence of infamy to gift of life
For centuries, the law sent murderers' bodies to the surgeons as an extra penalty, and grave robbers supplied the rest. Turning dissection into a gift took new laws, family consent, a philosopher's bequest and a new vocabulary of gratitude.
