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In Frankenstein, what does the statement about destiny indicate about the character's education?
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Victor's statement about destiny indicates not only a rejection of all science but also his own sense of guilt. He is saying that he was forced to do what he did and couldn't help himself—but it is actually a lie.
Victor makes this statement after lightning strikes a tree, leading a professor visiting the Frankenstein family to discuss electricity. Oddly, Victor is repelled by the professor's speech and states:
It seemed to me as if nothing would or could ever be known. All that had so long engaged my attention suddenly grew despicable.
As a result, Victor turns away from all his former fascination with alchemy and science. He sees this revulsion, in retrospect, as the hand of the divine trying to intervene and steer him along a better path. As he puts it:
When I look back, it seems to me as if this almost miraculous change of inclination and will was the immediate suggestion of the guardian angel of my life—the last effort made by the spirit of preservation . . . .
He says he feels a great sense of peace when he gives up on scientific...
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studies. But then, he states, "destiny" overruns the efforts of his guardian angel.
In saying that destiny forced him on his path, Victor is avoiding personal responsibility for creating the creature. He is saying he had no choice to do what he did. If even a guardian angel couldn't save him from science, what could he do? Victor is actually making this statement to exonerate himself when he says the fates made him do it: he was a privileged person with many choices and could have turned from his path at any time. It was not "destiny" but his own ego that drove him on to destruction.
This quote comes at the very end of Chapter Two of this amazing tale and refers to the way in which the course of Frankenstein's education and his particular focus seems to have been set out from the dawn of time by Destiny and was unavoidable. At the end of this chapter he narrates how he became disenchanted with his previous focus on Natural Philosophy and was drawn more to the "solid foundations" of mathematics and its associated disciplines. Looking back on this time of his life, Frankenstein describes it as:
...the last effort made by the spirit of preservation to avert the storm that was even then hanging in the stars.
Yet, at the end of the day, even this noble effort of "the spirit of preservation" was not enough to deter Destiny, who is too "potent" to be defeated by such a strategy. Frankenstein clearly feels that his education and its end goal of creating life in the monster was decreed to occur by Destiny, and as such, even temporary distractions would not deter him from achieving what Destiny had set out for him to do.