Preface: Reasons to Read Hemsterhuis; Abbreviations; Part One: Preliminaries; §1 Philosophy and Poetry; §2 Rupture; Part Two: Untimely Demands; Chapter One: Socrates and Newton; §3 ‘Born Greek’; §4 Geometrical Method; §5 A System of Times; Chapter Two: Analysis and Poetry; §6 ‘Poet-Philosophers’ and ‘Humble’ Analysts; §7 Sentimental Certainty; §8 The Platonic Sublime; §9 The Myth of Prometheus; Part Three: A History of Organs; Chapter Three: Organs, Instruments and Insects; §10 Insectification; §11 The Plasticity of Philosophy; §12 Perfectibility; §13 The Analogy to Morality; §14 Organology and Style; Chapter Four: Writing after Materialism; §15 Diderot Reads Hemsterhuis; §16 Hemsterhuis Reads Diderot; §17 Palingenesis and the Subversion of Materialism; §18 Post-Bonnetian Style; Part Four: Time-Images; Chapter Five: The Past and the Present; §19 The Optimum; §20 Epistolary Style; §21 Genealogy; §22 Irony and Anachronism; Chapter Six: The Archaic and the Prophetic; §23 Dreams and Shadows; §24 In the Style of Hope; Conclusion: Four Characters in Search of a Philosophy.