With freedom as a "difficult art" Potocki positioned himself in science in a space between systematization and theorizing on the one hand, and unprejudiced observation on the other. His predilection for the latter led him to a relativistic view of the multifarious diversity of cultures. This was also reflected in the novel The Manuscript found in Saragossa, in which he contrasted the meandering life journey of Avadoro, a picaresque bon vivant, with the life of his pedantic father. In the novel, the aristocratic rascal Avadoro is simultaneously the most important narrator of the field of tension between pedantic science and meandering art that proved so very productive for Potocki.