OURNAL
IIT
I
OF
THE
STORY
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DEAS
Articles: Jacob Soil Amelot de La Houssaye's Tacitus
Lisa Gorton Response to WilliamEgginton
John ChristianLaursen Spinoza in Denmark Rochelle Gurstein Taste and "the Conversible World" Gregory Claeys The Origins of Social Darwinism Stephen C. Angle Liang Qichao and Rudolf von Jhering Jill M. Kress WilliamJames Jennifer Michael Hecht Vacherde Lapouge Benedetto Fontana Antonio Gramsci Gerald Holton Postmodernismsand the "Endof Science"
April 2000
Vol. 61, No. 2
ISSN 0022-5037
Journalof the History of Ideas ISSN 0022-5037 Volume 61 Number 2 April 2000 Copyright? 2000 by the Journalof the History of Ideas, Inc. All rights reserved. No portion of this journal may be reproduced by any process or technique without formal consent of The Johns Hopkins University Press. Authorizationto photocopy items for internalor personaluse, or the internalor personaluse of specific clients, is grantedby The Johns Hopkins University Press for librariesand other users registeredwith the CopyrightClearanceCenter(CCC) TransactionalReportingService, providedthatthe base fee of $8.00 per article is paid directlyto CCC, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers,MA 01923. This consent does not extend to other kinds of copying, such as copying for general distribution,for advertisingor promotionalpurposes, for creating new collective works, or for resale. 0022-5037/94 $8.00.
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Volume 61
Number 2
April 2000
Table of Contents
Articles
Page
Jacob Soil
167
Spinoza in Denmark and the Fall of Struensee, 1770-1772 ................................ John ChristianLaursen
189
Taste and "the ConversibleWorld"in the EighteenthCentury Rochelle Gurstein ........................................
203
The "Survivalof the Fittest"and the Origins of Social Darwinism ...................................... Gregory Claeys
223
Should We All Be More English? Liang Qichao, Rudolf von Jhering, and Rights ............................... Stephen C. Angle
241
ContestingMetaphorsand the Discourse of Consciousness in William James ..............................
Jill M. Kress
263
Vacher de Lapougeand the Rise of Nazi Science. . Jennifer Michael Hecht
285
Logos and Kratos: Gramsciand the Ancients on Hegemony BenedettoFontana .......................................
305
The Rise of Postmoderisms and the "Endof Science" . ..........................................
Gerald Holton
327
Gorton
343
Amelot de La Houssaye (1634-1706) AnnotatesTacitus ......
The ParadoxTopos .................................Lisa Books Received .............................................
Copyright 2000 by Journalof the History of Ideas, Inc.
349
Journal of the History of Ideas An International Quarterly Devoted to Intellectual History Board of Editors Executive Editor: Donald R. Kelley, Rutgers University Associate Editor: Robin Ladrach,Rutgers University Hans Aarsleff, Princeton Univ. David Bromwich, Yale Univ. Virginia Brown, Pontifical Institute John F. Callahan,DumbartonOaks Julia Ching, Univ. of Toronto Marcia Colish, Oberlin College David H. Donald, Harvard Univ. Charles C. Gillispie, Princeton Univ. Anthony Grafton,Princeton Univ. Emily Grosholz,Penn State Univ. Knud Haakonssen,Boston Univ. David Hollinger, Univ. of California Bruce Kuklick, Univ. of Pennsylvania Joseph M. Levine, Syracuse Univ. EdwardP. Mahoney, Duke Univ. Allan Megill, Univ. of Virginia John E. Murdoch,Harvard Univ.
Steven Nadler, Univ. of Wisconsin Helen North, SwarthmoreCollege FrancisOakley, WilliamsCollege Anthony Pagden,Johns Hopkins Univ. Claude Palisca, Yale Univ. Peter Paret,Inst.for AdvancedStudy Eugene F. Rice, Columbia Univ. Dorothy Ross, Johns Hopkins Univ. David HarrisSacks, Reed College J. B. Schneewind,Johns Hopkins Univ. JerroldSeigel, New YorkUniv. Nancy G. Siraisi, Hunter College Quentin Skinner, Cambridge Univ. Gisela Striker,Cambridge Univ. David Summers, Univ. of Virginia John W. Yolton, Rutgers Univ. Perez Zagorin, Univ. of Rochester
Consulting Editors Sidney Axinn FrederickBeiser GregoryClaeys Stefan Collini Brian P. Copenhaver William J. Courtenay W. R. Elton James Engell Ivan Gaskell Bentley Glass Maurice M. Goldsmith Daniel Gordon Loren Graham
Henry M. Hoenigswald MaryanneC. Horowitz J. Paul Hunter Victoria Kahn George Kateb William R. Keylor Robert M. Kingdon Samuel C. Kinser Norman Kretzmann Elizabeth Lunbeck Rudolf Makkreel Hajime Nakamura
David Fate Norton Steven Ozment Peter Reill PatrickRiley Alan Ryan GordonSchochet Jean Starobinski Nancy S. Struever Brian Tierey Aram Vartanian Brian Vickers Stewart Weaver Donald Winch
Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press April 2000
Volume 61, Number 2
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Post-ContemporaryInterventions
Amelot
de
La
Houssaye (1634-1706)
Annotates
Tacitus
Jacob Soil
Thousandshave worked on Tacitus.Some have translatedhim, others have commentedon him. Some have put his text into paraphrases,because of his obscurity:Some othershave suckedout thejuice andmarrow, which is to say, the Sentences,Aphorismes,Apophtegms,and the Political Axioms, of which he is as fertile, as he is sterile in words. His Translatorshave made him speak every Language,well or badly, accordingto whattheyunderstoodor did not. Of his Commentators,some, as if they were Grammarians,have only picked throughhis Latin,and his fashions of speaking,which are all extraordinary.The others, like studentsof Politics, neitherstoppingto look at his phrases,nor his diction, have studiedto penetratethe mysteries,andthe secretsof the Artof-govering, of which he has been the Master,and universalOracle, for more thanfive-hundredyears.' ThuswroteNicolas-AbrahamAmelot de La Houssaye in the prefaceof his book, Tibere:Discourspolitiquessur Tacite(Paris:chez FredericLeonard,1684). He was describingwhathas become knownas the Tacitistmovementof political theory,based on the work of the Roman historianTacitus,which began in the 1580s andlasteduntilthe FrenchRevolution.2The practiceof translating,comAbraham-NicolasAmelot de La Houssaye, Tibere:Discours politiques sur Tacite(Paris, 1684), 1-2 (preface). 2 Peter Burkedates the Tacitistmovement as lasting one hundredyears, c. 1580-c. 1680 in "Tacitism,"in T.A. Dorey (ed.), Tacitus(London,1969), 149-71 at 150. My own article,"Amelot de La Houssaye and the TaciteanTraditionin France,"Translationand Literature,2 (1997), 186-200 at 186-87, shows that Tacitus'sinfluence continued into the late seventeenthcentury until the death of Louis XIV, and CatherineAuger-Volpilhacillustratesthat Tacitus'sinfluence continued until the eighteenth century.Auger-Volpilhac,Taciteen France de Montesquieua Chateaubriand(Oxford, 1993). See also Giuseppe Toffanin, Machiavelli e il Tacitismo:la "politica storica" al tempo della Controri-forma(Naples, 1972); Giorgio Spini, Contributi alla storia del Conciliodi Trentoe della Controriforma(Florence,1948);Jiirgenvon Stackelburg, Tacitusin der Romania:Studienzur literarischenRezeptiondes Tacitusin ItalienundFrankreich
167 of theHistoryof Ideas,Inc. 2000byJournal Copyright
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Jacob Soll
mentingon, orwritinglike Tacitusbeganin earnestin the late sixteenthcentury. AuthoritativeLatin editions as well as vernaculartranslationsflourishedand greatkings turnedto these now accessible texts as manualsfor ruling.3Tacitus provided examples from history which could be used to form the basis of a practicalpolitical "science."Alongside Machiavelli,practitionersof reasonof stateplacedthe works of Tacitusas the foundingstones of theirhumanistcanon of secularpoliticalphilosophy.4Marc-AntoineMuretbegan teachingTacitusat the Universityof Rome in 1580, andat the sametime JustusLipsiusandCarolus Paschaliusbegana Latinisttraditionof commentingon Tacitus'sworks.5Lipsius, by far the most influential of the sixteenth-centuryTacitists, was not only a philologist interestedin reestablishingTacitus'soriginal text but also a commentatorwho soughtto extractmoralandpolitical sententiaefromthe Roman historian.6Thus humanist scholarly practices served as the basis of Tacitean political theoryas historicalexempla,verified by philology, became useful for practicalpolitics.7Scholarshipand secularpolitical science were boundfor the long journeyinto the moder age.8 (Tiibingen, 1960); Hans Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance (Princeton,19662); A. T. Bradford,"StuartAbsolutism and the Utility of Tacitus,"HuntingtonLibraryQuarterly, 46 (1983), 127-55; Peter Burke, "A Survey of the Popularityof Ancient Historians,"History and Theory,5 (1967), 135-52;AmaldoMomigliano,"TheFirstPoliticalCommentaryon Tacitus," Journal of Roman Studies, 37 (1947), 91-101 and "Tacitusand the TacitistTradition,"in The ClassicalFoundationsofModernHistoriography(Berkeley,1990), 109-31;KennethSchellhase, Tacitusin RenaissancePolitical Thought(Chicago, 1976);J. H. M. Salmon,"CiceroandTacitus in Sixteenth CenturyFrance,"AmericanHistorical Review, 85 (1980), 307-31; also chapter 1 of Salmon'sRenaissance and Revolt (Cambridge,1987); DominiqueMorineau,"La Reception des historiens anciens dansl'historiographie fran,aise, fin XVIIe-debutXVIIIe siecle" (Ph.D. Diss.: University of Paris-IV,1988); MorrisW. Croll, Style, Rhetoric and Rhythm(Princeton, 1966), 14-17; MarcFumaroli,L 'ge de 'eloquence(Geneva, 1980), 57-69; and RichardTuck, Philosophy and Government(Cambridge, 1993). For a new interpretationof Tacitus's influence in Francebetweenthe sixteenthandseventeenthcenturiessee Soll, "Amelotde La Houssaye and the TaciteanTraditionin France,"200. 3 Burke, "A Survey," 149; Soll, "Amelot de La Houssaye and the TaciteanTraditionin France," 186. 4 Momigliano, "Tacitusand the TaciteanTradition,"124; Burke, "Tacitism,Scepticism and Reason of State,"in J. H. Bums and M. Goldie (eds.), The CambridgeHistory of Political Thought1450-1700 (Cambridge,1996), 490. 5 Momigliano, "Tacitusand the TaciteanTradition,"123. 6 Jose Ruysschaert,Juste Lipse et les Annales de Tacite:Une methodecritique textuelleau XVIe siecle (Louvain, 1949), 37; also GerhardOestreich,Neostoicism and the Early Modern State (Cambridge,1982); MarkMorford,Stoics and Neostoics: Rubensand the Circle ofLipsius (Princeton, 1991) and "TaciteanPrudentia in the Doctrines of JustusLipsius,"Tacitusand the TaciteanTradition,ed. T. J. Luce andA. J. Woodman(Princeton,1993), 129-51; J. L. Saunders, Justus Lipsius: The Philosophy of Renaissance Stoicism (New York, 1955); and Jacquline Lagree, Juste Lipse et la restaurationdu stoicisme: Etude et traductiondes traites stoiciens (Paris, 1994). 7 Oestreich, 8. 8 See Anthony Grafton,TheFootnote: A CuriousHistory (Cambridge,Mass., 1997), 1-4.
Amelots Tacitus
169
If humanist scholarship formed the basis of Tacitean political theory, it is also the key for understanding how it worked. Tacitism was an editorial practice and thus scholarly editors became political theorists. Justus Lipsius did not attempt to write his own version of a Tacitean Annales. Instead, he chopped up Tacitus's text, making a commonplace notebook for absolutist princes with his Politicorum libri sex (Leiden: Plantin, 1589).9 Understanding the Lipsian tradition-the process by which Tacitus was read, broken down and "represented" by scholarly editors-clarifies an unexplored yet essential element of the evolution of secular political theory from a tool of Absolutism to an arm of revolutionary republicanism.?1 The most striking example of the Lipsian tradition can be found in the works of Amelot de La Houssaye, whose vision of Tacitean scholarship we have already seen. Between 1670 and his death in 1706 Amelot was the most prolific translator and commentator of Tacitus in France. Between 1676 and 1808, at least 107 editions of 23 different works by Amelot were published in French, almost all Tacitean in nature.1' These books were widely read and inspired numerous foreign editions. The unifying thread of this extraordinarily large corpus of works is Amelot de La Houssaye's fascination with Tacitus. He not only translated and commented on Tacitus; he also represented the major works of secular political philosophy of his time as Tacitean in origin. Machiavelli, for example, was "proven" to be a derivative of Tacitus. When eighteenth-century philosophers such as Pierre Bayle, Gibbon, Montesquieu, and Voltaire read The Prince, they saw it through Amelot's Tacitean editorial lens.12 Understanding 9 See JanWasznik,"Inventioin the Politica: Commonplace-Booksand the Shape of Political Theory,"in K. Enenkel and C. Heesakkers(eds.), Lipsius in Leiden: Studies in the Life and Worksof a GreatHumanist(Voorthuizen,1997), 141-62. 10On "black"absolutistas opposed to "red"revolutionaryTacitismsee Toffanin, 10. 1 Jacob Soll, "Une bibliographiemat6rielled'Amelot de La Houssaie: les traces d'une strategie d'auteur"(Dipl6me d'Etudes Approfondies Diss., Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1993), 6. 12 Pierre Bayle extensively readAmelot's work over the years and correspondedwith him on at least one recordedoccasion. Emile Gigas, Choix de la correspondanceinedit de Pierre Bayle, 1670-1706 (Copenhagen,1890), 128-30. Bayle reviews or mentionsthe following works in the Nouvelles de la Republique des lettres (Amsterdam):L'Histoire du gouvernementde Venise and the Histoire du concile de Trente(March, 1684), 456; L'Histoire du concile de Trente(1685), 1168; Le Traitedes benefices (January,1686), 111;La Morale de Tacite(June, 1686), 623; Le Prince (January,1687), 99; and the Memoiresde la minoritede Louis XIV by La Rochefoucauldpublishedanonymously,is reviewed, althoughBayle is unawareofAmelot's authorship(January,1688), 72. Geoffrey Keynes (ed.), The Libraryof Edward Gibbon (London, 1980), lists a 1714 edition of L'Histoire du gouvernementde Venise;a 1754 edition of Amelot's critical edition of La Rochefoucauld'sMemoiresde la minoritede Louis XIV; a 1732 edition of Amelot's critical edition of the Lettres du Cardinald'Ossat; and a 1736 edition of Amelot's translationof Sarpi'sHistoire du concile de Trente.Montesquieucites the Histoire du gouvernementde Venisein the Esprit des loix, V, viii, notes "e" and "i." Muriel Dodds gives several examples of passages from chapterV of the Esprit on Venice which Montesquieutakes directlyfromAmelot:Les recits de voyages: sources de 'Espritdes lois de Montesquieu(Paris,
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how Amelot read and represented Tacitus and Machiavelli will permit us to understand how humanist scholarship influenced secular political philosophy at the dawn of the Enlightenment. Fortunately, the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris possesses a copy of an asyet unstudied Latin edition of Tacitus hand-annotated by Amelot, which is a window into understanding Amelot's Tacitism: C. Corn. Tacitus, et in eum M. Z. Boxhornii et H. Grotii observationes (Venice: Juntas et Baba, 1645), in12?.13As well as Amelot's manuscript ex-libris signature on the title-page, the book contains hundreds of his manuscript notes, commentaries, and an extensive system of numerical reference markings.14These annotations are found on more than 90% of Tacitus's text. Although annotating the texts of classical au1929), 35-39. Louis Desgraves, Catalogue de la bibliothequede Montesquieu(Geneva, 1954), lists a number of works by Amelot, including the first edition of L'Homme de cour (Paris, 1684) with Montesquieu's manuscriptannotations.Other works in the Libraryof La Brede include:Amelot's translationof Sarpi's Traitedes benefices (1685); anotherunmarkededition of L'Hommede cour (1685); his translationof Machiavelli's ThePrince (1684); his translation of andcommentaryon Tacitus,Tibere.Discourspolitiques sur Tacite(1683); his own L 'Histoire du gouvernementde Venise (1676); his translationof Sarpi's Histoire du concile de Trente (n.d.); and his critical edition of La Rochefoucauld'sMemoires de la minorite de Louis XIV (1710). 13 Rebound in the nineteenth century in a thick modem parchment, probably by the Bibliotheque Nationale, this Venetian edition has a "Bibliotheque Royale" stamp and was acquiredafter 1737 from the libraryof the abbe de Fourcy,which containeda numberof books from the personal collection of Amelot de La Houssaye including several works that he had hand-annotated.The stamp in the annotatedcopy of the Juntaset Baba edition is a type B, N? 14, used after 1735. Pierre Josserandand Jean Bruno, "Les estampilles du Departementdes Imprimesde la BibliothequeNationale,"in Melanges Calot (Paris, 1960), 275. Amelot's handannotatedcopy is mentionedin the Catalogue des Livres de M. ***** [Henri de Fourcy], dont la ventesefera en detail le Lundy13. May 1737. etjours suivans, depuis deux heuresde relevee jusqu'au soir, rui de Joiiy dans le Cul-de-sac de Fourcy (Paris, 1737), 94: Reference 1443: "TacitiOpera,cum Boxhomii & Grotii observat. Venet.1645. in 12. (Codex istefuit D. Amelot de la Houssaie, qui notas perpetuas manupropria addidit.)."The catalogue does not give a descriptionof the book's originalbinding. I am indebtedto ProfessorFrancoisMoureauof the Sorbonnewho aided me in a bibliographicalanalysis of the Juntaset Baba copy. 14 The 1645 edition of Tacitus's works, published by Tommaso Giunta and Francesco Baba,includesa compilationof commentariesby Hugo GrotiusandMarcusZueriusVanBoxhorn. Grotius'scommentarieswere first publishedin 1640 in a Lipsianedition of Tacitus'sworks: C. Corn. Tacitusex J. Lipsii editione (Leiden, 1640). The Juntaset Baba copy appearsto be their only republication.Van Boxhom's commentarieson TheAgricola were first publishedin 1642 (Leiden), and his commentaryon the complete works was first published in Amsterdamin 1643, reedited in 1645 by Giunta and Baba, and again in Amsterdamin 1653. The Juntaset Baba copy is the only Latin edition uniting the commentariesof Grotiusand Van Boxhor. It includesa dedicationto PetroFoscarenoby FrancescoBaba(2v-4r) andthe "Taciti,Vita,honores, scripta"by JustusLipsius (5v-6r). The Latintext is the same used in Lipsianeditions of Tacitus. Paolo Camerini,Annali dei Giunti (Firenze, 1963), "parteseconda,"400-401. The text in the Juntaset Baba edition is identical to that in, C. Cornelii TacitiHistoriarumet Annaliumlibri qui exstant,Justi Lipsi studio emendati & illustrati (Antwerp, 1574). For a descriptionof the sources used by Lipsius in establishinghis printedversion of Tacitus'sworks, see Ruysschaert, Juste Lipse, 18-36.
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Amelots Tacitus
thorsandthe Bible was a commonpracticefor scholars,particularlyduringthe Renaissance,Amelot's annotationof the works of Tacitus is taken to an extreme; by mixing the printedtext of Tacituswith his own reference system, Amelot has createdan extraordinarypersonalmanualfor translatingand interThis home-mademanualwas probablydevelopedthroughout pretingTacitus.15 his careerto facilitatehis continualanalysisof Tacitus.An examinationof these annotationswill permitus to understandthe natureof this uniqueartifactas well as how Amelot translated,commentatedon, andused Tacitusto writehis books, while illustratingthe moregeneralquestionof how a classicalhistorianwas read andrepresentedin the contextof secular,practicalpoliticaltheoryin earlymodem France.16 Books are not always where one expects to find them. Such is the case of Amelot de La Houssaye's hand-annotatededition of Tacitus'sworks, which is listedunderLatineditionsof Tacitusin the CatalogueGeneralof the Bibliotheque Nationale de France.AlthoughTacitusis the primaryauthorof this work, the manuscriptmarkingsin it areso extensivethatthey shouldbe a factorin how we considerthe book. In this case the originalprintedtext and manuscriptannotationswill be analyzedas a singleentity:a manualmadeby Amelotde LaHoussaye for translatingand extractingmaxims from Tacitus.The printedtext and notes must be examinednot only with an eye for understandingthe intentionof the authorwho wrote them but also for analyzingthe dynamiccreatedbetween the two texts. Amelot's notes modify the relevance of the text of Tacitus;we are interestednot only in whatAmelot's notes say but also in whatthey tell us about how he workedwith the printedtext as raw material.If the Juntaset Baba copy was Amelot de La Houssaye's manual for translatingTacitus, it is also our manualfor decipheringhow andwhy he did it. The Tacitismof Amelot de La Houssaye Abraham-NicolasAmelot de La Houssayewas bornin Orleansin 1634 and died in povertyin Parisin 1706. Afterworkingas a copyist andcorrectorfor the Jesuitsof the College de Paris,he began a series of secretarialjobs, startingin the FrenchEmbassyin Lisbonandtransferringto the VenetianEmbassyaround
15 Anthony Grafton,Defenders of the Text: The Traditionsof Scholarship in an Age of Science, 1450-1800 (Cambridge,Mass., 1991), 48, and W. W. E. Slights, "The Edifying Margins of RenaissanceEnglish Books," Renaissance Quarterly,4 (1989), 682-716; also Slights, "MarginalNotes that spoile the Text: ScripturalAnnotationsin the English Renaissance,"The HuntingtonLibraryQuarterly,55 (1992), 255-78; Evelyn B. Tribble,Margins and Marginality: ThePrintedPage in EarlyModernEngland(Charlottesville,1993);andWilliamH. Sherman, John Dee: The Politics of Reading and Writingin the English Renaissance (Amherst, 1995). 16 AnthonyGraftonand Lisa Jardine," 'Studiedfor Action': How GabrielHarveyRead his Livy,"Past and Present, 129 (1991), 32-33.
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1668.17 After this date Amelot lived exclusively as an author, translator, and corrector in the print shop of Frederic Leonard. Much like his humanist predecessor Lipsius, Amelot translated and edited works, representing them for the contemporary Parisian literary market. Adding prefaces, commentaries, compilations of related, reprinted texts, glossaries, and indices, Amelot's critical editions were literary products unto themselves and were themselves translated.'8 His works include the Histoire du gouvernement de Venise (1676); a translation and commentary of Paolo Sarpi's History of the Council of Trent (1683) and Treatise on BeneficiaryMatters (1685);'9 Machiavelli's Prince (1683);20Baltasar Gracian's Oraculo ManualyArte deprudencia, better known under the French title that Amelot gave to it, L 'Homme de cour ( 1684);21and commentaries on La Rochefoucauld's Memoires de la minorite de Louis XIV and the Reflexions, sentences et maximes morales.22 For Amelot, the writers he translated were brought together by a common trait: their debt to Tacitus. Paolo Sarpi has been called the "Tacitus of the papal court" for his Tacitean style in writing the History of the Council of Trent.
17"M6moiresur les vies, les moeursdu sieur Amelot, historien,renvoy6par le Roy a M. de Seignelay,"Archives Nationales de France, KK 601, 141-44 at 141. "M. de la Reinie sur le sieur Amelot," Archives Nationales de France,KK 601, 137-40 at 137; see the critical reprint by Pierre-Fran9oisBurger,"DeuxdocumentssurAmelot de La Houssaie,"Dix-SeptiemeSiecle, 131 (1981), 199-202. Also see my work on Amelot's relationshipwith FredericLeonard:"The Hand-AnnotatedCopy of the Histoiredugouvernementde Veniseor How Amelot de la Houssaye Wrote His History,"Bulletin de Bibliophile, 2 (1995), 279-93. 18 See L'Uomo di Corte (Venice, 1718), of which the title page advertises the work as "tradottodal Spagnuolonel FranceseIdiomaet comentatodal SignorAmelot de La Houssaye"; II Principe (Cosmopoli, 1745), "Con la prefazionee le note istoricheet politiche di M. Amelot de La Houssaye." 19 The Histoire du concile de Trentewas first publishedin Amsterdamin 1683 and subsequently reeditedin 1686 (2 editions) and 1699. The Traitedes benefices was first published in Amsterdamin 1685 and subsequentlyreedited in 1687, 1690, 1699, and 1706. 20 An extraordinarybest-seller, Amelot's critical translationof Machiavelli's The Prince was first published in Amsterdamin 1683 and 3 more times duringthe seventeenthcenturyin 1684, 1686, and 1694. The Catalogue General of the French Bibliotheque Nationale shows thatAmelot's preface, translation,and commentarieswere reeditedwith Voltaireand Frederick II's Antimachiavel(La Haye, 1740); they were reproducedwith the Antimachiavel6 times in 1740, twice in 1741, and in 1743, 1750, 1759, 1793, 1834, 1848, 1941 (Paris), and 1960 (Paris). 21 At least 10 editions of L'Homme de cour were published between 1684 and 1808, it a best-seller for more than 100 translationwas to be reedited for Amelot's making years. more than 300 years, making it one of the most populartranslationsin French history. Two recent editions are B. Gracian, L'Homme de cour, traduit de I'espagnol par Amelot de La Houssaie (Paris, 1990) andL 'Hommede cour, Traduitde I 'espagnolparAmelotde La Houssaie (Paris, 1997). 22 Amelot's version of La Rochefoucauld'sMemoiresde la minoritede Louis XIV was first published in Villefranche in 1689, 1690, 1700, 1723, and 1754; the Reflexions, sentences et maximesmorales was published in Paris in 1711, 1725, 1743, 1746, 1754, 1765, and 1777.
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Amelot was surely aware of Sarpi's stylistic debt to Tacitus.23In translations such as Le Prince, L 'Homme de cour, and the commentary of La Rochefoucauld, Amelot goes further in his quest to link these authors to Tacitus; his translation of The Prince is filled with 88 different notes that parallel Machiavelli's text with original excerpts from Tacitus. Amelot claims that Machiavelli "borrowed" most of his political maxims from Tacitus, so that to understand Machiavelli, one needs to understand Tacitus.24In his commentary on Gracian, he gives 83 concordances with Tacitus.25He makes 88 parallels between Tacitus and La Rochefoucauld, arguing that they write in the natural and graceful style of courtiers, rather than in the dry manner of professors.26 This extreme use of Tacitus has led one historian to speak of Amelot as a "Tacitomaniac."27 Amelot did not only study Tacitean authors; he was a translator of Tacitus, publishing 3 different translations of his favorite author: Tibere: Discours politiques sur Tacite, published in 1683, 1684 (2 editions), 1685, and 1686; La Morale de Tacite, in 1686 (3 times); and Tacite, 1690 (2 editions), 1692, 1709, and 1724.28Except for 5 editions of French translations of the works of Tacitus by the Academician and ally of Richelieu, Perrot d'Ablancourt, Amelot was the only other French translator of Tacitus who published between 1680 and 1700.29 He was the most important translator of Tacitus of his time with 14 editions of his translations of Tacitus between 1683 and 1731. Amelot's translations, however, are of a completely different nature than those of Perrot d'Ablancourt. While d'Ablancourt translates Tacitus's works in entirety with almost no textual commentary besides a few notes on translation, Amelot's translations contained heavily commentated thematic extracts or maxims. Of his first translation, Tibere. Discours politiques sur Tacite, he says, 23Burke, "Tacitism," 155. 24
Le Prince (Amsterdam,1684), 5rof Amelot's "Epitre"to the GrandDuke of Tuscany: "Tantil est vrai, qu'il faut etre Prince, ou du moins Ministre, pour connoitre,je ne dis pas l'utilite, mais la n6cessit6 absolue de ces Maximes. Or comme Machiavelles a, pour la plupart, emprunt6esde Tacite, le Maitre et l'Oracle ordinairedes Princes,j'ai cite les passages de cet Auteur,pour faire toucherau doigt, que Machiaveln'est que son Disciple, et son Interpr6te:et que si l'on a raison d'estimer tant les Ecrits de l'un, il faut n6cessairementestimer aussi les Ecrits de l'autre." 25 Burke, "Tacitism,"158. 26 Ibid., 158, and Amelot, Reflexions et sentences de La Rochefoucauld, p. 16 of the "Discours." 27 Stackelberg, 190. 28 Amelot's Tibere:Discours politiques sur Tacite was first published in Amsterdamin 1683 and subsequentlyin 1684 (2 editions), 1685 and 1686; the first edition of La Morale de Tacitewas published in 3 differenteditions in 1686, 2 in Paris at one in La Haye; Tacitewas first publishedin Paris in 1690 and subsequentlyin 1692, 1709, 1724, and 1731. For an analysis of Amelot's differenteditions of Tacitussee Soll, "Amelotde La Houssaye and the Tacitean Traditionin France." 29 Perrotd'Ablancourt'stranslationsof Tacituswere reedited in 1681, 1688 (2 editions), 1691, and 1693.
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As for myself, Reader,it is not easy to tell you precisely whatmy Work is, althoughI know well whatit concerns.And in reality,it is difficultto give it an appropriatename.Because if you consideredonly the title, or the text of the Chapterheadings, it is a pure translationof passages fromTacitus;if you examinethe contentof the Chaptersthemselves, it is a Political, and HistoricalCommentary,on his Works;if you have observed,thatTiberiusis always the principalsubjectof each Chapter, it is in partthe History,in partthe Examinationof his reign, from the beginningto theend:thereasonforwhichthebookis entitledTIBERIUS. But if you have remarked,that the basis of the content concerns all Princes in general,it is no longer the reign of Tiberius,but the Art-ofreigning. Finally, if you examine the instructions,and the Maxims of State,which are spreadthroughoutthe body of the Work,you will find that it is an abridgment,and like an elixir of all the Worksof Tacitus, ratherthana Commentaryon the six first Books of his Annals. So that I can say aboutmy work,as didJustus-Lipsiusabouthis DoctrineCivile, that the invention and the form are such, that it is correctto say, that everythingis by me, andthatnothingis.30 Tibereis a complex exercise in self-expression,openly situatedin the Lipsian traditionof Taciteanpolitical literaturein which Tacitus'stext serves as a pretext for footnotedor marginalcommentary.31 Most of Tibereis in factwrittenby Amelot.At the top of each chapteris a LatinexcerptfromTacitusin largeprint, ranginganywherefromone sentenceto two paragraphs.Underneathis Amelot's Frenchtranslationin smalleritalic characters.UnderAmelot's translationis his commentary,in largercharactersthan the translation.In the marginsin small letters are historicaland translationnotes. It is Amelot's and not Tacitus'stext thatdominatesthe page. Tacitus'stext is, therefore,the vehicle forAmelot's extensive commentary, which can range up to several pages in a single note. Takenas a whole three quartersof the book is written by Amelot de La Houssaye. These historical, moral,andpolitical commentariesare a way for him to expresshimself without riskinghis own name.Yet as Amelot himself says in the preface,he intendsthe book to be a manualor a sortof methodologyof the artof reigning.He is using Tacitusto write his own Tiberianversion of ThePrince. Thereis nothingmorally questionableaboutit for,in this case, Amelot is merely"helping"the reader to interpretTacitus.Althoughhe was the only translatoremployingsuch lengthy commentariesat the end of the seventeenthcentury,he did not inventthe style.
30Tibere:Discours politiques sur Tacite(Paris, 1684), 2 (preface). 31 Oestreich, 60.
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Much like his Renaissancehumanistpredecessors,he was using commentaryas a "flexible instrumentof instruction."32 In his subsequenttranslationsof Tacitus,Amelot uses the same style of commentaryand translation,though in varying degrees. La Morale de Tacite: de laflaterie containsvoluminouscommentariesbased on shortextractsfrom Tacitusbut with a twist: printedbeside Amelot's translationis that of Perrot d'Ablancourt,his most illustriouspredecessor.Amelot not only elucidatesthe "moral"of certain passages of Tacitus but also enters into a polemic about translation.In his "Discourscritique"precedingthe text he writes, Thereis the following differencebetweenthe translationof Monsieurde Chanvallonand thatof d'Ablancourt,that one has sacrificedwords to meaning,and the otherthe meaningto words;one has translatedlike a Statesman,and the other like a Grammarian....For the rest, I'll only concede thatthis Translator[d'Ablancourt]has managedto removethe unpleasantbones fromthe meatof his Author,if one will agreewith me thatalongwith the bones, he has also removedthe roses. Forhis Version is almostdevoid of sentencesandMaximsof State,which aboundin the originaltext.33 Amelot stakedhis groundas a criticeven moreconcernedwith extractingknowledge fromTacitusthantranslatinghim.His attackon Perrotd'Ablancourtsparked a violentresponseby the latetranslator'snephew,Fremontd'Ablancourt:Perrot d'Ablancourtvenge, ou Amelot de La Houssaie convaincu de ne pas parler francais et d'expliquermal le latin (Amsterdam,1686). Fremont'saccusations as to Amelot's deficiencies in Latinled Amelot once again to translateTacitus, this time in an entire passage ratherthan a series of extracts. Tacite.Les six premiers livres des Annales was first published in Paris in 1694. Although he had finally translateda text of Tacitusin its entirety,he still filled the pages with the commentariesand annotationscharacteristicof his precedingtranslations. Seventypercentof the book is madeup of commentariesby Amelot. As we have seen,Amelot hadmultipleuses forTacitus:as a parallelto other authors,as a basis for writingand expressingideas, andas a sourcefor translating. But we still do not know how Amelot handledthe text of Tacitusitself. How was Amelot able to find dozens of thematicparallels with Machiavelli's The Prince? Washe obliged to rereadTacitus'sentirecorpusof works each time he needed a matchingmaxim? When he was readingMachiavelli and came to a passage thatresembleda maxim of Tacitus,how did he know where to find the correspondingmaxim?Did he go over the works of Tacituswith a pen, making 32Grafton, Defenders of the Text, 49. 33La Morale de Tacite (La Haye, 1686), 7v-r.
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markseach time he came to a passagethatcorrespondedwith the moralpointhe wanted to make? The answer to these questions lies in Amelot's manuscript annotationsof Juntaset Baba's copy of C. Corn. Tacitus. As early as 1680 Amelot set out to develop a tool to aid in the translation, interpretation,and applicationof Tacitus.Perhapshe knew thathis life's work would revolve aroundTacitusand wanted to have a companionto help him in futurestudies.Perhapshe annotatedthis book afteralreadyhavingtranslatedit, realizingthathe could facilitatehis ongoing work. NumericalAnnotations In the 1645 Juntaset Baba copy, the Annals, the Histories, Germania,The Life ofAgricola, andthe Dialogue comprise668 pages, most of which are covered with manuscriptannotationsmade by Amelot. The first and most striking aspect is the frequencyof these annotations;every page is covered with numbers, which are sometimes found on the printedtext itself but mostly in the margins.On average, each page contains 15 numericalannotations,but some have many more: page 201 (the Annals) contains 35 numericalannotations, page 376 (the Histories)contains29, page 616 (Agricola)contains26, andpage 194 (theAnnals)contains25. So we come to a presumedtotalof 10,020 numerical annotations!Amelot trulyhad a maniafor annotatingTacitus. These numericalannotationshave varyingfunctions.Generally,they serve as a cross-referencingsystem between similarsubjectsandwords.A numerical annotationis usually found in the marginof a line of text. Often the particular word being referencedto is underlinedwith black ink or red pencil, and in the marginacrossfromit the same word is foundwith the correspondingpage number in the margin.For example, on page 94, the word "A'serninum"is underlined in redpencil, andthe number"205"is writtenin the margin.On page 205, the word"Esernini"is underlinedwith the number"94"next to it in the margin. Also writtenin the marginis the note, "Esemie,ville du Samnium."In this case Amelot referencesthe subjectof the city of"Aisemia"with an historicalannotation which refersto anotherexample of a similarwordwith a clarifyinghistorical note. This annotationaids in translating"AEsernia" and contextualizingit historically. In anotherexampleAmelot's referencesystem works to aid in the translation of a simple term. On page 504 we find the number"624" written in the margin.The referencebecomes clear on page 624 where the number"504" is written in the marginnext to the term "omniaquepronavictoribus."On page 504 the same term is in the line markedwith number"624," "Omniaprona victoribus."Amelot is giving differentuses of the same phrase.Therearemany examples of this simple word or term reference,such as on pages 23 and 481
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with the words"raptumvexillum,"on pages 440 and489 with the words"linguis moribus,"or on pages 120 and 249 with the word "AEsculapij." In some cases, to aid in matchingthe numericalreferencewith the intended word,the marginalreferencehas a letter,cross, or a symbol like a modem exclamation markwrittennext to it which correspondsto the same symbol written next to a word in the printedtext. Examplesof this practiceare found on page and 101, where a quotationmark-likesymbol is next to the word "pertinerent," also in the marginnext to the referencenumber"60."On the same page a cross is also writtennext to the word "sententie" and next to the referencenumber "98." This system of referencingwords with correspondingsymbols next to marginalnotes is a common practice in printedtexts. Using this corrector's "printpractice"with manuscriptnotes gives the impressionthatAmelot considers his annotationsas permanentadditionsto the printedtext thatwill facilitate futureuse of the book as an easy referencemanual. Thereis no questionthatAmelot's intentionwas to personalizethe printed text of the Juntaset Baba copy. He put numericalannotationsnot only on the text but on the index as well. Thereare 29 cases of furtherpage numbersbeing added next to existing references. New references are given for the name "Vespasianus"on pages 117, 338, 494, and 575. A second page reference is given for "Sextilia Vitelliorummater,"referring to a passage on page 506, where she is mentionedbut not by name. Othertimes, existing page references are corrected:"Ostorius,seq eius mors. 238" is changed to 239; "Britannico venenumparatura Nerone. 269" is changedto 261; and "Britannicisepultura. 270" is changedto 262. Amelot has personalizedthe index in orderto facilitate his handlingof Tacitus'stext. AnotherexampleofAmelot's appropriationof Tacitus'stext is the addition of new namesandpage referencesto the index:88 new namesareadded,suchas "AmmianusMarcullus.306," "Vitellia.113,"and"Cestiussen. 108."Termand wordreferencesarealso addedin a seeminglyrandommanner,such as the word "optio. 386" or "Fortunarumeffigies. 330." Numerical references have also been addedto the "Consulesad QuorumAnnales OrdinauitTacitus,"a list of all the consuls who held office in the time-frameof theAnnals andHistories.Next to each consul's name are page referencesto places where theirnames can be foundin the text. Foreach of the 46 consularpairsAmelot gives a page number reference,with the exceptions of"Imp. Vespasianuset Titus Filius," and "Ser. Sulpicius Galbaet L. CorneliusSulla,"where he gives two. The list of consuls has, in effect, been turnedinto a referenceindex. ForAmelot, Tacitus'stext is like a tool-chest of examples,which he has reorderedfor his own needs like a commonplacebook.34Ratherthantranslating 34 On the general concept of the commonplace see Ann Blair, "HumanistMethods in Natural Philosophy: the Commonplace Book," JHI, 53 (1992), 541-51; Francois Goyet, Le
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Tacitus'sworksin theirintegrity,Amelot maneuversaroundthe text with the aid of his manuscriptsign posts, translatingsome words, but mostly, as we shall see, looking for examplesthathe can use as maximsand illustrations.Amelot's numericalannotationsare not limitedwithin each book of Tacitus'sworks; for example,page 116 of book IIIof the Annalshas a referenceto page 530 in book IV of the Histories, andpage 644 in the Dialogus has a referenceto page 106 of the Annals. There are many such examples that show that Amelot compared passages and even the contexts of certainwords throughoutTacitus'soeuvre,as if it were one integralwork-a fact which is not an historicalgiven butratheran interpretiveconstruction.35 AlthoughAmelot was to translatethe entiretyof the first six books of the Annals in Tacite,he clearly viewed the text as one corpus. Amelot's numericalannotationsact like a computerizedcross-referencingsystem, unifying the five differentbooks of Tacitus'sworks into a single sourceof maxims.Withoutsuch a tool Amelot could not have analyticallydissecteda text too largeto be manipulatedby memoryalone. Non-NumericalAnnotations Numericalannotationsareonly a partofAmelot's manuscriptmarginaliain the Juntaset Baba copy. There are also hundredsof manuscriptcorrectionsof the printedtext: translations,historicalclarifications,concordanceswith other authors,and maxims. It is difficult to give the exact numberof these non-numerical,manuscriptannotations.They areless frequentthanthe numericalones andarevariedin length.Shortannotationsandcorrectionscover almostas many pages as the numericalannotations,andmanuscriptmaxims and concordances with other authorsare found on half of the pages. Maxims are found on the pages preceding the principaltext, are less frequentin the Dialogus and are totally absent from the notes by Grotius and Van Boxhom.36Notes are also writtenon the original flyleaf, which has been integratedinto the nineteenthcenturybinding.37Presumablythe presenceof hand-writtenannotationswas the reasonfor includingthe originalfly-leaf. Sublime du Lieu Commun:I'inventionrhetoriquedans I'Antiquiteet a la Renaissance (Paris, 1996);andAnn Moss, Printed Commonplace-Booksand the StructuringofRenaissance Thought (Oxford, 1997). 35 The integral Lipsian presentation of Tacitus's works became currentpractice in the 1580s and the beginningof the seventeenthcentury.See Ruysschaertfor a descriptionof different critical editions in the late 1500s, 1-42. 36 Although Amelot was familiar with the commentaries of Grotius and Van Boxhorn, having discussed them in his "Discourscritique,"they do not seem to be of interestto him in the context of his annotations. 37 Also, small pieces of paperannotated Amelot are by glued to the nineteenth-centuryend papers. These notes were probablywritten on the original flyleaves. They do not seem to be bookmarks,for most pages of the principaltext have red pencil underlining,leaving markson the opposite page. The pieces of paper show no trace of residualmarksof red pencil.
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Amelot's annotationsare not always easy to read even with a magnifying glass. They are often filled with abbreviationsand are written in several languages-French, Italian,Latin,and Spanish-as on page 184.38The notes were not writtenat the sametime;like the numericalannotationsthey arewrittenin at least 4 differentinks andquill-sizes, such as on page + 12v,wherethreedifferent inks andquill-sizesareapparent.The brevityandshorthandstyle of these manuscriptnotes shows thatthey were not intendedfor reprint.39 They were in effect forAmelot's eyes only. For Amelot the printshop corrector,Tacitus'sprintedtext was not a fixed entity.He sometimesintervenedinto the text, correctingit as if he were editing Tacitus'sworks. These correctionscome not only fromAmelot's interpretation of Latin, but from a comparisonof other versions of Tacitus'stext. On page 360, line 6 Amelot puts a manuscriptmarking(approximatelylike a quotation mark://) in the middle of the passage where the text reads, "Deportatusquein insulam SardiniamCassius, & (//) senatus ius exspectabatur."In the margin Amelot writes, "d'autreslisent: nec senatus se, Nic. Heinsius et feu M. Ryck lisoient: et Senectus ejus respectabatur." Amelot is referringto one of Theodor Rycke's editions of Tacitus:C. CorneliumTaciturnanimadversiones(Leiden, 1686); Oratio de vita et morte Sejani, dicta ... postrid. kal. Maii A.C. 1679, postquamsexpriores TacitiAnnalsinterpretatusesset (Leiden,1679);or Tacitus. Opera quceexstant (Leiden, 1687). These dates help us situate when Amelot made this annotation,for it would have to be after 1679. As well as correctingthe Latintext, Amelot also translatesit. These manuscripttranslationsare foundbothbetweenthe lines of the printedtext andin the margins. In the first 100 pages of the Annals 54 pages contain translations, often morethanone word, as on page 77, where 6 differentwords aretranslated into French;or on page 71 where theretwo termsare translated.In most cases, Amelot's translationsare simple, such as on page 338. Over the words, "sed dimensisvicorumordinibus& latisviarumspatijs,"is written"sesruesallignees et larges."Onpage 295 Amelot simplytranslatesa shortpassage,"senihilominus subueniresocijs, & usurpataconcedere."At the end of the phrase,Amelot puts a cross which refersus to anothercross in the marginat the bottom of the page where he has written,"IIconfirmela Sent.e et infirmele jugem." Much in the same vein as the above translation,Amelot's annotationsinclude a numberof purelyhistoricalclarifications,mainlyto explainor find parallels to historicalfacts in Tacitus'stext. On page 338 the text reads, 38"ArtemidorusElcatros Convocatores mensare appellat. Ce que les Italiens apellent, imbandirele vivande .s.e. les aranger,avant que de les portersur la table du Prince. C'est la chargedu Scalco, qui r6ponda l'ofice de Senechal. Car Bocace apelle Simiscalo, celui qui a le soin de tout ce qui apartientau service de table. fattosi chiamareil suo siniscalo, dove metter dovesse le tavole. Prob. de la 6. Joumre. quand les choses sont douteuses et obscures il faut s'en tenir aux conjectures." 39 Soll, "How Amelot de La Houssaye Wrote His History,"279-93.
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However, Nero turned to account the ruins of his fatherland by building a palace, the marvels of which were to consist not so much in gems and gold, materials long familiar and vulgarized by luxury, as in fields and lakes and the air of solitude given by wooded ground alternating with clear tracts and open landscapes.40 Next to this text, in the margin, Amelot writes, "un palais si vaste, qui ocupoit un tiers de la ville. Unaque jam tota stabat in urbe domus, dit Mart. ep. 2." And at the bottom of the page he adds, "On fit au sujet de ce palais ces vers contre Neron: Roma domus fient, veios migrate coloni, si non et Veio occupat ista domus." These two references about Nero's palace tell us extra details of historical interest. On page 221, the last page of book XI of the Annals, there is a historical clarification that is footnoted: Tacitus appears not to have been aware of a circumstance of Silius's marriage with Messalina. Which is that Claudius pointed out the marriage contract to thwart the false husband, making him think that the real one was threatened. Thus Messalina and Silius were not married in the way described by Tacitus. Bibliot. Universelle. Mai 16 ... chap. 12. art. 3.41 Amelot might have made these annotations to later integrate them into one of his printed translations, or else they might just illustrate Amelot's erudition and his pleasure in comparing historical phenomena.42 Another sort of annotation involves parallels between Tacitus and other authors, both classical and contemporary. Among classical authors Amelot quotes, Dion Cassius p.169; Hippocratus p. 227; Juvenal p.198; Martial p. 173; Ovid p. 237; Paterculus p. 410; Pliny p. 195; Plato p. 103; Suetonius pp. 129, 201, 259; Seneca p. 224; Xenophon; Valerius Maximus 115. And among the modems 40
The translationis from John Jackson's Loeb edition of the Annales (London, 1937), book XV. XLII. 41 Amelot's note refers to the Bibliotheque universelle et historique (Paris, 1687), May, chapter12, article3, 249-65, a review of, "CORNELIITACITIOperaqua extant,ex recensione & cum AnimadversionibusTHEODORIRYCKII.Lugd. Bat. 1687. ap. Hackius.2. vol. in. 12. pag. 620. I. Vol. pag. 503. 2. vol. (263)." 42 Not all of Amelot's commentariesare integratedinto printed texts. There are certain cases where we can compareprintedpassages of Amelot's works to the Juntaset Baba edition where his manuscriptclarificationsare not reprinted.On page 71 of the Annals, referringto the word, "Musulanorum,"Amelot writes in the margin, "d'oi vient probablem't le nom des Musulmans."Turningto Amelot's translationof this passage on page 369 of the 1692 edition of Tacite,Amelot's comment is not includedin the printednotes, nor is this passage presentin any of Amelot's othertranslations.Due to the fact thatmany of Amelot's clarificationsare illegible, it is difficult to come to a precise conclusion about what exact percentageof them were later used in printedtexts. We can deduce, however, that the Juntaset Baba edition was like a notepad in which Amelot could freely jot down references and hunches about Tacitus, perhaps hammeringout ideas which he then refined on anothertext.
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he quotes,GuidoBentivoglio p. 1 r?;Juande Coloma277; Fernandode Herrera 102; Olivier de La Marchep. 259; JuanMarianap. 138; Antonio Perez p. 1 r?; Alonso el Sabio, King of Aragon 139. In the first 100 pages of the Annals, 49 pages containone or moreparallelswith otherauthors.Once again,it is difficult to ascertainthe exactnumberof these parallels.Often,such as on pages 2, 11, or 163 (notes in Latin),or on page 92 (notes in Spanish),they arenot attributedto any author.EitherAmelot was approximatingparallelsfrommemorywhich he never again used, or he had memorizedthem so well that when he returnedto themthe referencewas clear. These parallels show us that Amelot was not interestedin exact textual correspondencesbetween authors.Rather,the Juntaset Baba copy was a space for spontaneouslywritingmaximswhichwouldperhapsbe used in laterprojects. The marginsofparatextssuch as the "Indexscriptorium"andthe largemargins at the end of chaptersare filled with extensive maxims and texts by other authors.For example,in the marginsof the "Amico Lectore,"Amelot has written: El cuchillo, si desliza de la mano, corta al que hiere, como al herido. Perez. Las experancesde ambiciosos casi siempre suceden vanas y falazes, porquese miden mas con el desseo, que con la razon.Herrera. All' ambitionesogliono elleve mosto piu' famigliariprecetii;che non sono gl' inalazamenti.Bentivoglio. Regle de Droit:semperin obscurisquodminimumest sequimur.43 The firsttwo maxims arewrittenin a differentink thanthe last two, andthe last two maxims appearto be written with different quills. Amelot clearly wrote themat differenttimes,perhapsindependentlyof each other.The unifyingfactor of thesemaximsis theirsententiousvalue.They arenot clearlylinkedto Tacitus's text, althoughAmelot may have had parallelpassages in mind. In the text itself Amelot's concordancesare more clear.On page 320, book XV of the Annals, Amelot has made a cross on the text which refersto a manuscriptannotationin the margin,a maxim by Ovid, in which Amelot sees a clear parallel.Anotherexampleof this is foundon page 200, whereAmelot has written a quotation-mark-like symbolnext to a passage,while in the marginsproviding a similartext by Paterculusas well as a generalmaxim inspiredby the two passages. As with his historicalclarifications,Amelot could have consciously writtenthese concordancesfor futureuse orjust for personalpleasure. 43 "If the scalpel slips from the hand, it cuts the doctor as well as the patient. Perez; The goals of the ambitious are almost always vain and false. Herrera;The most familiarprecepts that dream of ambition show that they are not the most uplifting (approximatetranslation); Rule of Law: In obscure cases, we always follow the least disturbinghypothesis."
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Much in the same vein as concordanceswith other authors,the Juntaset Babacopy also containsmaximswrittenby Amelot himself. These maxims are fairlyrare,21 in total, andarefor the most partfoundin the pages precedingthe primarytext or, less often, in the text itself. Amelot's maximshave two characteristics:some are for personalinspiration,othersare generalmaxims inspired by Tacitus'stext. In the marginsof the "IndexScriptorum"Amelot has written, "L'histoirenous aprenda mesurerles afaires au tems, et le tems aux afaires." Equally,on the first page of the Annales we see a moral note which Amelot appearsto have writtento himself: "Desqu'onse mele d'ecrire,il faut se metre au dessus de l'opp'e et de la crainte, pour avoir la force de dire toujours la verite."44Clearly,Amelot has written these maxims for himself. The latteris particularlytouching. Amelot's other maxims are less personal, and more tied to the text. For example,on page 551 the text reads:"Haecdictapariter,probataque,de reliquijs Vitellianiexercitusdubitauere."In the marginAmelot has written,"L'amnestie est l'unique remede,qd. les fautes sont grandes."Anotheralmost identicalexampleis on page 562: "Tuncreceptiin eademcastra,& edictumpermanipulos, ne quis in certamineiurgiove seditionem aut cladem commilitoni objectaret." Once againAmelot comes to his own conclusion aboutthe meaningof the text and composes a maxim on it: "L'amnestieabolit tous les reproches."While some ofAmelot's maximsareclearlyfor personalinspiration,these annotations appearto be sententiousexegesis which were perhapsused for anotherpurpose in an outside work. Although the extent of these annotationsin the Juntaset Baba copy is extraordinary,the fact thatAmelot used annotationtechniquesis not surprising. Similarhumanistreadingtechniqueswere taughtby the Jesuitsand outlinedin such pedagogical works as De Ratione libros cum profectu legendi libellus, deque vitanda moribus noxia lectione, by the Jesuit Francisco Sacchini, also known by its Frenchtitle, Moyens de lire avec fruit.45In the chapterentitled "Commenton peut noterdes choses remarquables,sans en fairedes extraits"of the Frenchversion, an entire system of annotations,underlines,and markings aredescribedandrecommendedwhich arenot unlikethose of Amelot.46Amelot was educatedby the Jesuitsand workedfor them as both a teacherand a copy44 Amelot cites this passage from Rene Rapin, Instructionspour I'histoire (Paris, 1677), 34, probablyfrom memory,since it is out of orderand lacking the first partof the passage: "Et comme elle est sans cesse corrompue,et mesme profan6epar la lachete des flateurs,la pluspart des Historiens estant d'ordinaire pensionnaires des Cours: on doit se mettre au dessus de l'esperance, ou de la crainte,des qu'on se mesle d'escrire, pour avoir la force de dire toujours la verit." 45De Ratione libros cum profectu legendi libellus, deque vitanda moribusnoxia lectione, oratio Francisci Sacchini (Paris, 1615), translatedinto Frenchas Moyens de lire avec fruit (A La Haye, 1786). 46 Ibid., 45-47.
Amelots Tacitus
183
ist.47His appetitefor manuscriptannotationwas clearly foundedon his experiences with them andgrew with his functionas a correctorin FredericLeonard's shop.Amelot's Jesuitmasterscould neverhave imaginedthathe would one day use the techniquesin this case intendedfor the exegesis of holy works (Sacchini devotes a large text to warningthat only sanctionedCatholicbooks should be read)for annotatingLa Rochefoucauldand Machiavelli.Amelot had takenthe humanisttool given to him by the Jesuitsandturnedit back to humanist,philological pursuits,employing a method of annotationthat facilitatedthe understandingof Tacitus. A TextualPracticefor ExtractingTacitus'sPolitical Wisdom Takenby itself, the Juntaset Baba copy can only tell us how Amelot annotated,and even thatis not completely clear;we cannotinterpretall of Amelot's intentions in his sometimes obscure annotations,and he provides us with no writtendescriptionof his methodology.However,when Amelot's annotations arecomparedwith his printedworks,thereis evidence thathe used the Juntaset Baba copy as a source for Taciteanmaxims in ThePrince. We will, therefore, compareAmelot's numericalreferencesystem in the Juntaset Babacopy with a series of extractsfromTacitusused in the footnotes of Amelot's edition of The Prince. We will find that the thematic extractsin the notes of The Prince are cross-referencedin the Juntaset Babacopy by Amelot's numericalannotations, thusshowinghow Amelotused his hand-annotated manualto composehis influTacitean version of work. Machiavelli's controversial ential, InAmelot'stranslationof ThePrince thereare88 notes containingthematic parallelsbetween Tacitusand Machiavelli.It is probablethatAmelot used the Juntaset Baba copy for many of his books about Tacitus.In the case of The Prince, however,thereis clearevidencethathis numericalreferencesystemwas used for and may have been developed duringthe annotationof Machiavelli's work. In certain footnotes Amelot provides several parallels from Tacitusto illustratea point in ThePrince. In the Juntaset Baba copy we find numerical referencesin the marginwhich send us to the otherexamples used in the footnote. On page 6 of ThePrince we find one such footnote: Car, au dire de Paterculus, l'on encherit toujours sur les premiers exemples. Non enim ibi consistunt exempla unde coeperunt,sed quamlibet in tenuem recepta tramitemlatissime evagandi sibi viam faciunt. (Hist 2.) Qu'une mutationen entrainetoujoursd'autresapres soi, Taciteen donne de beaux exemples. Libertatem& ConsulatumL. 47 "Memoiresur les vies, les moeurs du sieur Amelot, historien,renvoy6 par le Roy a M. de Seignelay," 141.
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Brutus instituit.Dictatura ad tempussumebantur.Neque Tribunorum Militum Consulare jus diu valuit. Non Cinne, non Sulla longa dominatio: & Pompeii Crassiquepotentia cito in Ccesarem:Lepidi, atqueAntoniiarma in Augustumcessere. (Ann. 1.) C'est a dire:Brutus fit succeder la Liberteet le Consulata la Roiaute. Et quelque fois on creoitun Dictateur,mais son pouvoirfinisoit aussitotque le peupleetoit hors de danger.Les Decemvirs ne durerentpas plus de deux ans. Les Tribunsdes Soldatsprirentla place des Consuls, mais ne la garderent pas longtems.La dominationde Cinna,ni la Dictaturede Silla ne furent pas de longue duree.La puissancede Crassuset de Pompee fut bientot reunieen la personnede Cesar,et l'autoritede Lepiduset d'Antoine en celle d'Auguste.Voilaun enchainementde mutations.En voici un autre. Sulla Dictator abolitis vel conversisprioribus, cumplura addidisset, otiumei rei haudin longumparavit.StatimturbidisLepidirogationibus, neque multo post Tribunisreddita licentia quoquo vellent populam agitandi.Jamquenon mod6 in commune,sed in singulos homineslata quaestiones.... Exin continuaper vigintii annos discordia, non Mos, non Jus. (Ann. 3.) C'est-a-dire:Le DictateurSilla changea, ou abolit les Loix de Graccus et de Satuminus,pour etablir les siennes. Mais elles furentde peu de duree.CarLepiduset les Tribunsrecommencerent bient6t a semer des broiiilleriesparmile peuple, en sorte qu'on faisoit autantde reglemens,qu'il y avoit d'hommes ... Et depuis, il n'y eut ni droit,ni coutume,parl'espace de vingt ans, que durerentles dissensions du peuple et du Senat. The first Latin citation is on page 3 of the Juntaset Baba copy. In the margin beside the text the page numberreference"103"is writtentwice. On page 103 the secondLatincitationis foundwith the number"3"writtenin the marginnext to its first line. Amelot either turnedto his annotatedTacitusfor his thematic referencebefore, duringor afterwritingthis passage. In note 4 on page 201 of ThePrince we see the same clear thematicreference system.Amelot has foundtwo passages statingCelsus's loyalty to Othon: Temoince mariusCelsus, qui fut si fidele a Oton,quoiqu'ileiutete ami inviolable de Galba.MariumCelsum Cons. Galba usque in extremas res amicumfidumque.(Hist. 1.) MansitqueCelso velutfataliter etiam pro Othonefides integra. (Ibid.) The first passage is found on page 395 of the Juntaset Baba copy, underlined with red pencil. Next to it in the marginis written the page reference "409," where we duly find the second passage, underlined,but this time without the correspondingreference. On page 9, we see furtherproof that the numerical referencesystem is organizedthematically:
Amelots Tacitus
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Croiesvous, disoitun SenateurRomain,que la Tiranniesoit morteavec Neron. On l'avoit criie eteinte par la mort de Tibereet de Caligula, et pourtantnous en avons vu une troisiemeplus cruelqu'eux.An Neronem extremumdominorumputatis? Idemcrediderant,qui Tiberio,qui Caio superstitesfuerunt: cum interim intestabilioret sceviorest. (Hist. 4.) Claudiusavoit donc bien raisonde direaux AmbassadeursParthes,qui etoientvenuslui demanderun meilleurRoi, quele leur,quide si frequens changemensne valoient rien, et qu'il falloit s'accommoderle mieux qu'on pouvoit aux humeursdes Rois. Ferenda Regum ingenia, neque usui crebrasmutationes.(Ann. 12). Tousles Sujetsdoiventprendreles sentimens de ce SenateurRomain, qui disoit, qu'il admiroitle passe, sans condamnerle present,et que bien qu'il souhaitatde bons Princes, il ne laissoit pas de suporterpatiemmentceux qui ne l'etoient pas, se souvenanttoujoursde la necessitede vivre selon les tems, ou l'on est. Se meminisse temporum,quibus natus sit: ulteriora mirari, prcesentia sequi, bonos Imperatoresvoto expetere,qualescumquetolerare.(Hist. 4) Paroles,que Machiavela raisond'apellersentenced'or. (Disc lib. 3 cap. 6.) The first Latinpassage is found on page 544 of the Juntaset Baba copy, underlined with red pencil. Next to it, in the margin, is the page reference "227." Turningto thatpage, we find the second passage, also underlined,with the reference544 next to it. The thirdpassageis not in the referencescheme;its subject is differentfrom that of the first two. Amelot's referencesystem, therefore,is based on a thematiclogic and not simply on a system of organizingthe references he intendedto use in his footnotes. Forthis very reason,not all the multiplepassage examples arenumerically cross-referencedin the Juntaset Babacopy. The second to lastreferenceof note 3 on page 146 of ThePrince is foundunderlinedandcircled on page 386 of the Juntaset Babacopy,butthereareno referencesto the otherpassagesin the note. The three passages are thematicallydifferent,tied together only by Amelot's narrative. In the 25 examples of multiple thematicextractsfrom Tacitusin the footnotes of ThePrince, 20 can be foundto have numericalcross-referencesin the Juntaset Baba copy. Yet what is still unclearis whetherAmelot wrote the numericalannotationsbeforeor while writingThePrince. Some evidencepointsto him annotatingbeforewriting ThePrince, since not all of the annotationsin the Juntaset Babacopy cross-referencein the same successionas in ThePrince.48 It appearshe wrote the referencesas he foundthem, numberingeach referencein sequencebut not giving the correspondingreferencesfor precedingexamples. 48
Also, the date of his referenceto the Bibliothequeuniverselle reveals that he was definitely annotatingafter 1687.
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This is evident in the following series of extractsfrom Tacitusfound in note 1, page 3, of ThePrince: Cete divisionest fonde surla doctrinede Tacite,quiopose la Principaute et la Republique, comme les deux contraires. Res dissociabiles, Principalitem& Libertatem.(In Agricola.) Romama principio Reges habuere,LibertatemL. Brutusinstituit.(Ann. I) C. Marius & L. Sulla Libertatemin dominationemverterunt.(Hist. 2) Haudfacile Libertas & Domini miscentur.(Hist. 4). Beginning with the first extractfromAgricola on page 608, the referencenumbers "440" and "557" are writtenbeside the passage in the margin.Following the referenceandturningto page 557, we find the fourthpassage andthe reference numbers"608"and"440."However,on page 440, wherewe find the third passage fromthe second book of the Histories, thereis no referenceto the second passage on page 3, book 1 of the Annals. In the marginof the second passage on page 3, pages 440 and 557 are referenced. Whatdoes this exampletell us aboutthe logic ofAmelot's annotations?Can we drawa conclusionaboutwhen he wrotethem,beforeor duringthe composition of ThePrince? Thereis little doubtthathe used the Juntaset Babacopy for the above footnote in ThePrince. At the same time the organizationallogic of the passagesin the footnotedoes not correspondto the logic ofAmelot's numerical annotations.The only way to discoverthe fourthematicpassages is to begin on page three. From there we are sent to pages 440 and 557, and from 557 to 608. Startingfrom any otherpoint, it is impossibleto find the fourpassages. Furthermore,the numericalannotationsare writtenin differentinks, as on page 608. The same is the case on page 557. Onpage 440 thereareno references at all to the passages in question,andon page 3 the two referencesarewrittenin the same ink, yet they appearto be differentinks thanthose used on pages 557 and 608. This leads to the conclusionthatAmelot wrote these notes at different times and came back laterto use them for ThePrince. The Juntaset Baba copy was madein advanceto aid in the compositionof thematicextractsfromTacitus. ThePrince was first publishedin 1683. Therefore,Amelot purchasedand used the Juntaset Babacopy beforethis date.Possibly,he purchasedit in Venice, when secretaryto the ambassadortherein 1676.Alternately,he may havebought it in Pariswhere it was probablyalso available.In any case the Juntaset Baba copy remainedin his possession until his deathin 1706. Amelot may have used it as a reference for all his works. Or perhaps, after the publication of The Prince, the book hadacquiredthe sentimentalvalue of an old Bible, keptat hand andturnedto in momentsof need for secularinspiration.
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The itinerary of this book also attests to Amelot's reputation and to how the book itself was regarded. Listed in the sales catalogue of the Bibliotheque de Fourcy with Amelot given as the author of the annotations, it was probably this quality which led the book to be valued.49 Although we do not know all the details, it is clear that the book eventually passed from the Bibliotheque de Fourcy to the Bibliotheque Royale, hence the Bibliotheque Nationale. The fact that Amelot's annotated edition of La Rochefoucauld's Sentences also passed from the Bibliotheque Fourcy to the Bibliotheque Nationale suggests that these books were valued due to their annotations ratherthan solely as works by their primary authors.50As Amelot's reputation faded after the end of the eighteenth century, so did the identity of the Juntas et Baba copy, which, as we have seen, was logically catalogued in the nineteenth century under Tacitus's name. But as its own history tells us, the Juntas et Baba copy is an object ofAmelot's creation: a manual for translation and a source for maxims. Amelot's annotations give Francesco Baba's book more the quality of a primitive CD-Rom than a compact Venetian edition in-12. Amelot traveled through its pages following the sign posts that he himself created, translating the passages and choosing the maxims that were to form the basis of his works. Voltaire, Queen Christina of Sweden, Montesquieu, and the countless others who read Amelot's edition of The Prince were, by association, familiar with the Juntas et Baba copy, the tool with which Amelot de La Houssaye forged his Tacitean vision of the world and became one of the greatest users of humanist philological practices during the reign of Louis XIV.51 Rutgers University, Camden.
Catalogue de Fourcy, 94, reference 1443. 50These annotationswere publishedin a posthumousedition (Paris, 1714). Amelot's handannotatededition of La Rochefoucauld'sReflexions,sentences et maximesmorales is listed in the "Cataloguedes provenances"of the Reserve collection of the BibliothequeNationale:Res. Z. 2610. However, since 1974 it has not been available for consultation. 51 Voltaire dedicated a large portion of his preface to Frederick II's Anti-Machiavel to criticizing Amelot's preface to The Prince, which was, oddly, included in the Anti-Machiavel along with Amelot's translationand extensive notes. CatherineVolpilhac-Auger,in her book, Taciteet Montesquieu(Oxford, 1985), 25, notes that Montesquieuwas influenced by Amelot. PasqualeVillari, The Life and Timesof Niccol6 Machiavelli, trans. by Linda Villari (London, 1892), 211, speaks of a copy of Amelot's translationof ThePrince in the Vaticanlibraryfilled with manuscriptannotationsby Queen Christinaof Sweden, who appearsto have been influenced by Amelot's notes. 49
Spinoza Fall
of
in
and
Denmark
Struensee,
the
1770-1772
John ChristianLaursen
Baruch(Benedict) de Spinozawas the arch-hereticof the late seventeenth andeighteenthcenturies.He was denouncedin half a dozen languagesfromthe time he began to publishuntil at least the 1780s, when Lessing's allegiance to Spinozabecame the heartof a literaryscandal.'In time-honoredfashion, some of these denunciationsled to the burningof books andthe imprisonmentor banning of authors.The most spectacularcase, however, led to the trialof a prime minister,the cutting off of his righthandand of his head, and the drawingand quarteringof his body in full public ceremony.The year was 1772, the prime ministerwas JohannFriedrichStruensee,and the countrywas Denmark. Lateeighteenth-centuryDenmarkwas not knownfor barbaritiesof the type representedby Struensee'sexecution.Previouslydisgracedprimeministershad merely been imprisoned,and otherpolitical enemies of the rulingpowers had
1The chief recentsecondaryworks are Wiep van Bunge andWim Klever (eds.), Disguised and Overt Spinozismaround 1700 (Leiden, 1996); Silvia Berti, F. Charles-Daubert,and R. H. Popkin (eds.), Heterodoxy,Spinozism,and Free Thoughtin Early-Eighteenth-Century Europe (Dordrecht,1996); Paolo Cristofolini(ed.), L 'HeresieSpinoziste:La Discussion sur le Tractatus Theologico-Politicus1670-1677 et la receptionimmediatedu Spinozisme(Amsterdam/Maarssen, 1995); Hanna Delf, J. H. Schoeps, and M. Walther (eds.), Spinoza in der europdischen Geistesgeschichte(Berlin, 1994);RiidigerOtto,Studienzur Spinozarezeptionin Deutschlandim 18. Jahrhundert(Frankfurt,1994); Olivier Bloch (ed.), Spinoza au XVIIIesiecle (Paris, 1990); Winfried Schr6der,Spinoza in der deutschenFriihauJkldrung(Wiirzburg,1987); David Bell, Spinozain Germany(London,1984);KarlfriedGriinderandWilhelmSchmidt-Biggemann,(eds.), Spinoza in der Friihzeitseiner religiosen Wirkung(Heidelberg, 1984); H. J. Siebrand,Spinoza and theNetherlanders.An Inquiryinto theEarlyReceptionof his PhilosophyofReligion (AssenMaastricht,1984); HermannTimm, Gottunddie Freiheit,I, Die Spinozarenaissance(Frankfurt, 1974). Older work includes Leo Back, Spinozas erste EinwirkungenaufDeutschland (Berlin, 1895); and Max Grunwald,Spinoza in Deutschland (Berlin, 1897, repr.Aalen, 1986); see also Steven B. Smith,Spinoza,Liberalism,and the Questionof Jewish Identity(New Haven, 1997), 166ff. None of these mentions Struensee.
189 of theHistoryof Ideas,Inc. 2000byJournal Copyright
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merelybeen exiled.2Why such harshnesswith Struensee?Whatwas at stakein the fall of Struensee? The answers to these questions are complex, but an importantelement of those answerslies in Struensee'spublic image, which made it seem bothnecessary and justifiable to treat him with such harshness.In turn, public opinion about Struenseewas closely tied to the reputationof Spinoza. This essay will show thatchargesof Spinozismwere partof the campaignthatpoisoned public opinionagainstStruensee.This was an unusuallyclearcase of a theologicaland philosophicaldebatehavingdirectpolitical effects. Before getting to the role of Spinozism and anti-Spinozismin eighteenthcenturyDenmark,let us fill in importantpoints of the story.The chargeagainst Struenseewas lese majeste,for plottingthe deathof the King and for usurping power in violation of the constitution.Behind these chargeswas a furtherelement which encouragedoutrage:sleeping with Queen CarolineMatilda.That muchwas true,as boththe Queen,a sisterof GeorgeIIIof England,andStruensee admitted,each in orderto save the other.The King knew about it all along but did not care. He did not care because he had become a libertine,going out to whorehousesmost nightswith rowdyfriends,andhe figuredthatwhatwas good for the ganderwas good for the goose. He was also schizophrenicand easily manipulableby those aroundhim, so thatStruenseeandthe Queenencountered no disapprovalfrom him until he fell under other people's influence. After Struenseeandthe Queenwere takenintocustody,the Kingwas forcedto divorce the Queen and she was sent to live in a Hannoveriancastle in Celle because her brotherdid not wantthe embarrassmentof havingherback in England.She died there a few years later.3 It is an irony that we owe our knowledge of the state of public opinion in Denmarkin this periodto Struensee.Until shortlybefore the fatal events mentioned above, the Danish press had been subjectto censorshipthatmight have preventedthe expressionof manyof the subsequentattackson Struensee.But in September1770 Struenseepersuadedthe king to declarefreedomof the press in all his realms(consistingof the kingdomsof DenmarkandNorway,the Duchies of Slesvig andHolsten[SchleswigandHolsteinin German],Greenland,Iceland, the Faroes, and colonies in India, Africa, and the Caribbean).4It is not widely
2
Examples mentioned in the Luxdorphpamphlets:Rigskansler Count Griffenfeld, condemned to death for treason in 1676; sentence commuted to life imprisonment;died 1699. RigshofmesterKorfitzUlfeldt (1606-64), son-in-lawof ChristianIV,plotteragainstFrederikIII, hung in effigy in 1663 but died a fugitive nearBasel (II, 19, #2, 63ff.). 3 See HesterChapman,CarolineMatilda, Queenof Denmark,1751- 75 (London, 1971), and HaraldJorgensen, The Last Days of the UnfortunateQueen Caroline Mathilde (Copenhagen, 1989). 4 The cabinet orderis translatedin John ChristianLaursen,"David Hume and the Danish Debate about Freedom of the Press in the 1770s," JHI, 59 (1998), 167-72; see also Harald J0rgensen,Da censurenblev opgivet (Copenhagen,1970).
Spinoza in Denmark
191
known that Denmark was the first country to declare unlimited freedom of the press as official public policy. For much of the century England and the Netherlands had effective freedom of the press, but it had never been declared official policy. The next to do so was rebellious Virginia, in the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776), followed by other colonies and then the Bill of Rights of the new United States.5 Less than ten years earlier Struensee had been city physician in Altona in Danish-ruled Holsten. Educated at Halle, he reacted against the Pietistic enthusiasm that prevailed there by leaning toward materialistic ideas. When he tried to publicize his Enlightenment ideas, his periodicals were shut down because of opposition from the clergy.6 When he came to power as prime minister in Denmark, one of the first things he did was to arrange for the declaration of freedom of the press. He clearly expected that writers would be grateful to him. What followed was an avalanche of fliers, pamphlets, and books. Alongside Enlightenment ideas for reforms in the government of Norway and the Iceland trade, complaints about the salaries of ministers and officers, and plans for banks and lotteries, came libels and scurrilous attacks on Struensee. As the holder of effective political power, he was a natural target for writers. By October 1771 he felt compelled to reassert some control over the press, requiring that the author or publisher be named on published pieces, and that the printer know who the author was, so that responsibility for libel and slander could be ensured.7 But this was still difficult to enforce, and by then much of the damage had been done. A Danish court official and man of letters, Bolle Willum Luxdorph, made a point of acquiring a copy of as many as he could of the writings that came out between 1770 and 1773 and had them bound in forty-five volumes as Luxdorph s Collection of Press Freedom Writings, now located at the Royal Library in Copenhagen.8 Like the Thomasson collection of English Civil War pamphlets, this is an excellent source of information about the expression of public opinion in the otherwise ephemeral pamphlet literature of the period. Luxdorph's collection makes the study of "popular" anti-Spinozism possible.9
the press before Denmark,in 1766, but it was limited by a clause excepting religious matters. See Hilding Eek, Om tryckfriheten(Stockholm, 1942), 151-96, and Otto Varenius,Svensktryckfrihet(Stockholm, 1931). 6 See StefanWinkle, Struenseeund die Publizistik(Hamburg,1982). 7 See J. C. Laursen,"Denmark,1750-1848,"Censorship:An Encyclopedia,ed. DerekJones (London,2000). 8 Luxdorphs Skrifter.The 45 volumes are divided into two Samling af Trykke-frihedens series, before and afterthe coup against Struenseeon 17 January1772, and cited here by series number(Roman numeral),volume number,pamphlet# within the volume, and page number. The chief secondary work to draw on this collection is Edvard Holm, Nogle Hovedtraekaf Historie 1770-1773 (Copenhagen,1885), but he does not make anythingof Trykkefrihedstidens the Spinoza connection. 9I use "popular"in quotes here because most of the pamphletwriterswere obviously literate and well-informed, so we are not referringto illiteratesand the widest public. Contrastthe 5 Sweden actually declaredfreedom of
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Struensee'syears in power were markedby a flurry of reform measures designed to liberalize the economy, liberatethe serfs, and generally bring his idea of Enlightenmentto Denmark.10 Manypeople, however,were hurtby these reforms,which broughtinflation and unemploymentwith them. Thus, many interestscame togetherin oppositionto Struensee,even if maskedby grander ideological critiques.Attacks on Struenseewere articulatedon the basis of at least four majorgrounds.First, patriotsand nationalistsresentedthe fact that the German-andFrench-speakingStruenseemadeno effortto learnDanishand did not disguise his contemptfor theirlanguage.To them he was a "foreigner," even thoughhe hadroots in theirking's territoriesin Slesvig-Holsten,wherehis fatherwas a high official in the churchadministration. The second groundfor attackon Struenseewas his relationshipwith the Queen,widely known fromtheirbehaviorwhen ridingand at partiesand especially from the fact that Caroline Matilda's second child greatly resembled Struensee.In conservative,moralisticcircles this was a majoraffront.QueenMotherJulianeMarieheadeda clique of Pietisticmoralistswho could not abide such behaviorand who orchestratedthe coup. The Queen's close relationship with Struenseegave some plausibilityto allegationsof a plot to do awaywith the King andrule in his place. The thirdgroundfor resentmentconsisted in Struensee'srulingstyle. Takfull ing advantageof enlightenedabsolutismin supportof his reformistactivism, he abolishedthe royal council and ruledby cabinetdecree. During a year anda half in powerhe was responsiblefor over 1800 cabinetordersanddecrees, 1350 of which makeup 1128pages in the publishededition.l Duringthis period he moved fromissuing decreesin the King'snameandwith the King's signature to issuing them in his own name. His arrogance,immaturity,and lack of diplomacy made him an easy targetfor accusationsof failureto consult, usurpation of power, and tyranny. The fourthgroundfor attackon Struenseelay in the generalchargeof"atheism, deism, naturalism,Spinozism, and materialism."Spinozism was widely knownto be a majorheresy,althoughwritersoften deniedhavingreadsuch evil works even as they assertedthat they knew them to be horrible.The inconsistencybetweenatheismanddeism was generallyignoredas all evils were lumped together.The details of Spinoza's metaphysicsand even of his political ideas were probablyfamiliarto very few critics.12We shall see below thatthe outlines anti-Spinozismhere with the popular Spinozism discussed in Michiel Wielema, "Spinoza in Zeeland: the Growth and Suppressionof 'PopularSpinozism' (c.1700-1720)," Disguised and OvertSpinozismaround 1700, ed. van Bunge and Klever, 103-15. 10See the listing of his reformsin Winkle,Struenseeund die Publizistik,96, n. 213. 11 Holger Hansen,Kabinetsstyrelseni Danmark(Copenhagen,1916). 12 On his political ideas, see J. C. Laursen,"Spinozaon Toleration:Arming the State and Reining In the Magistrate,"Difference and Dissent: Theories of Tolerationin Medieval and
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of his philosophywere familiarto some pamphleteersbut thatusually they did not go into any interpretivedepth.Rather,he was takento representin general all of the threatsto morality,social solidarity,andpolitical peace that could be imagined. This contributedto the vicious reaction against Struenseein some quarters. Spinozism was only part of the general attackon Struenseefor irreligion and immorality.Many of the pamphletsdenounceda general loss of morality without specific referenceto Spinoza. One genius even thought of reprinting Struensee'sown father'ssermonagainstcuckoldry,with implicationsobvious to everyone.13Even if Spinoza had been completely unknown in Denmark, Struensee'spublicreputationwould have been low enoughbecauseof this more generalexpressionof dissatisfaction. Beforegoing further,somethingshouldbe said aboutthe authorshipof these pamphlets.Most of them were anonymous.Some of them may have been the spontaneousproductof indignantobserversof the culturalscene, and others may have been the productof hack writerspaid by Struensee'senemies in an effort to orchestratea public relations campaign. Both sides could play this game, of course, and Struenseeand his supportersalso suppliedpamphletsin defenseof his policies andmorals.Manypamphleteersthankedhim for granting freedomof the press.None, however,admittedthathe was a Spinozistor triedto show that Spinozismwas harmless. Althoughindiscreetin manyof his activities,Struenseewas discreetenough not to leave much of a papertrail abouthis views on philosophy and religion. His friendDavid Panningreportedthathe almostneverwrote lettersandthathe used to tearup the lettershe received afterreadingthem and throwthem in the fire.14This means that we do not have an explicit avowal of Spinozism from him. We do nonethelesshave several sortsof contextualmaterialthatimplicate him with Spinozism,beginningwith the fact that Spinoza'sworks were available in the originalLatinas well as in both GermanandFrenchtranslations.By Struensee'stime, many intellectualshad become clandestineSpinozists,transmitting variouspartsof his thoughtin theirwritingsby indirection.A smaller numberhadbecome overtSpinozists,often sufferingimmediateprosecutionand persecution. One of the few places thatGerman-speakingSpinozistscould go for refuge was Altona,the second largestcity (afterCopenhagen)underthe Danishcrown. Altonawas relativelyunlikelyto persecutethis type of hereticif they kept a low
Early Modern Europe, eds. C. J. Nedermanand J. C. Laursen(Lanham, 1996), 185-204, and Smith,Spinoza,Liberalism,and the Questionof Jewish Identity. 13
(I, 19, #4).
14
I, xvi.
af20. Januar 1772 (Copenhagen,1927), Holger Hansen(ed.), Inkvisitionskommissionen
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profile. In the decades before Struensee's residence Johann Conrad Dippel, TheodorLudwigLau,'5JohannLorenzSchmidt(translatorof Spinoza'sEthics in 1742), andJohannChristianEdelmannhadspreadthe Spinozistfaiththroughout the city.Among those who maintainedsuch an allegiancein Struensee'stime were the physiciansJohannSamuelCarland HartogHirschGerson,the lattera regularat Struensee'sdinnertable in the 1760s, as well as David Panning,who roomedwith Struenseeandcoeditedajournalwith himthatsoon was suppressed. StefanWinklehasperformedthe serviceof unearthingthe clandestineSpinozism in Struensee'scircles inAltonabeforehe becameinvolvedwith the Danishroyal family.16By 1764 clergymenwere alreadyreportingin lettersthat"The son of the GeneralSuperintendant[JohannFriedrich'sfather]is a doctorof medicine and City Physician,and an arch-slandererof religion andwhore-stallion."17 Struensee'sjournalismfrom the early 1760s, before he came to power in Denmark,reveals Spinoza'sinfluence.One of his earliestpieces was "Thoughts of a Physician on Superstitionand Quackery"in the Journalfor the Common Good in 1760, the title alone indicatingsome Spinozisticaffinities.18In the first volume of his own Monthlyfor Use and Pleasure of 1763 he contributeda "Reporton Diogenes," in which the Greekphilosopherwas much praised,despite having generallybeen considereddangerous.Spinozistic themes such as the importanceof frugalityand self-controlwere highlighted.'9Struenseealso preparedan essay on Epicuruswith similarimplications,butit was neverprinted because of the successful effortsof the Chief Pastorof Hamburg,Goeze-who also fought with Lessing-to close down the magazine.20Goeze succeeded in having the thirdand last volume of this journal seized and burned,in partbecause of Struensee's"InPraiseof Dogs,"2'which includedsome irreligioussatire.
15See AprilShelford,"Worsethanthe threeimpostors?Towardsan interpretation of Theodor LudwigLau'sMeditationesphilosophicaede deo, mundo,homine,"Heterodoxy,Spinozism,and Free Thought,ed. Berti, Charles-Daubert,and Popkin,439-74. 16Stefan Winkle, Die heimlichenSpinozistenin Altona und der Spinozastreit(Hamburg, 1988), 55ff; also FriedrichNiew6hner, Veritassive Varietas:Lessings Toleranzparabelund das Buch von der drei Betriigern (Heidelberg, 1988), 353-57, and FranklinKopitsch, Grundziige einer SozialgeschichtederAufkldrungin HamburgundAltona (2 vols.; Hamburg,1982). 17Quoted in Winkle,Die heimlichenSpinozisten,72. 18 "Gedankeneines Arztes vom Aberglaubenund der Quacksalberey,"Gemeinniitziges Magazin,November (1760), St. II, 75-91. See Winkle,Struenseeund die Publizistik,26ff. 19"Nachrichtenvom Diogenes,"Monatschriftzum Nutzenund Vergniigen,Hamburg(1763), St. I, 57-67. See Winkle,Die heimlichenSpinozisten,72; Winkle,Struenseeund die Publizistik, 106-7. 20Winkle,Die heimlichenSpinozisten,127, n. 353. Winklereportsthatthe manuscriptwas burnedin an Allied bombingraid in 1943, so thatregardingthis and othermatterswe must rely on his researchnotes from before the war. 21 "Lobrede auf die Hunde und das Album Graecum,"Monatschrift zum Nutzen und St. 233-53. III, Vergniigen(1763)
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Finally, in his last known piece of journalism in this early period, "On the Respect of the Writer toward the Public" in the Schleswig-Holstein News in 1764, Struensee claimed, like Spinoza, that freedom of expression was a public good, better than censorship.22 Many readers of these often audacious essays would have recognized the radical implications of his writings, and some even might have identified their Spinozistic origins. Much later, the king's tutor and companion Salomon Reverdil reported that he had not approved of Struensee's mix of Haller's physiology and La Mettrie's metaphysics, in which medicine had become a source of atheism.23La Mettrie had made quite a splash in 1747 with the materialism of Man a Machine, which had been banned and burned and caused La Mettrie to flee to Prussia and seek Frederick II's protection. La Mettrie may have therefore been a more recent substitute in Reverdil's mind for Spinoza; there has indeed been a recent debate as to how Spinozistic La Mettrie was.24 In any case he was associated in many minds in Denmark with Spinoza. Of course if Spinozism had been confined to Altona, it might not have made such a splash in Copenhagen. But the Danes were as aware of Spinozism and other subversive literature as other northern Europeans.25The Danish traveler Ole Borch (Olaus Borrichius) mentioned Spinoza and his friends in diary entries from 1661-62.26 The son-in-law of chief rabbi of Copenhagen and Royal Physician Benjamin Mustafia had known Spinoza in 1673 in the Netherlands.27Thus, knowledge of his ideas could have spread to Copenhagen very early.
22
"Von der Achtung des Schriftstellers gegen das Publikum,"Schleswig-Holsteinische Anzeigen,January(1764), St. I, 5-12 and St. II, 17-20. See Winkle,Struenseeunddie Publizistik, 70-75. 23 Elie Salomon Reverdil, Struenseeet la Cour de Copenhague,1760-1772; Memoiresde Reverdil (Paris, 1858), 58-59. See J. C. Laursen, "Telemaquemanque: Reverdil at Court in Copenhagen,"ReconceptualizingNature, Science, and Aesthetics, ed. PatrickColeman,Anne Hofmann,and Simone Zurbuchen(Geneva, 1998), 147-56. 24AndreComte-Sponville,"LaMettrie:un 'Spinozamodeme'?"andresponsesby T.Verbeek, J. Moutaux,and F. Markovitzin Spinoza au XVIIIesiecle, ed. Bloch, 133-50. 25 See MartinMulsow, "Freethinkingin earlyeighteenth-centuryProtestantGermany:Peter FriedrichArpe andthe Traitedes trois imposteurs"and SusannaAkerman,"JohanAdler Salvius' Questionsto Baruchde CastroconcerningDe tribusimpostoribus,"Heterodoxy,Spinozismand Free Thought,ed. Berti, Charles-Daubert,and Popkin,204-9 and 397-423, and MartinMulsow, Monadenlehre,HermetikundDeismus: GeorgSchadesgeheimeAufkldr-ungsgesellschaft,17471760 (Hamburg,1998), esp. 21-28. 26 Wim Klever, "Spinozaand van den Enden in Borch's Diary in 1661 and 1662," Studia Spinozana,5 (1989), 311-25. I owe this referenceto Wiep van Bunge. 27 The son-in-law's name was GabrielMilan, and he servedalongside Spinozaas witness to a sworn statementin 1673. He was a PortugueseJew from Hamburgwho had the mail concession between Denmarkand The Netherlandsand served as GeneralAgent of the Danish Crown in The Hague.He was laterappointedGovernorof St. Thomasbut was arrestedandexecuted for malfeasancein office in 1689. See Michael Petry,"Spinozaandthe Military,"StudiaSpinozana, 1 (1985), 359-69. I owe this referenceto RichardPopkin.
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One of the key sources of informationabout Spinoza since 1697 had been Bayle's articleabouthis work in the famousHistoricaland CriticalDictionary. Bayle was carefulto describeSpinoza'ssystem as "irrationalandabsurd"while neverthelessintroducinghis ideasto largeaudiencesthroughoutEurope.Ludvig Holberg,Denmark'smost famous man of lettersin the firsthalf of the century, wrote that his favorite author was Bayle.28The rector of the University of Copenhagenfor 1720-21, AndreasFrolund,translatedthe Dictionaryinto Danish shortlybeforehe died in 1731. Never published,the manuscriptis now in the Royal Libraryin Copenhagen.29By the 1770s chargesof Spinozism could be easily understoodin Copenhagenas chargesof the most extremeheresy. None of the aboveevidenceabsolutelyprovesthatStruenseewas a Spinozist, but the fact of his Spinozism is not as importantas the fact thathe was widely accused of being one in the Danish pamphletliteraturecollected by Luxdorph. Luxdorph'scollectionshows us how this chargeworkedagainstStruenseein the shapingof public opinion. In 1771 a 31-page pamphlettitled Serious Observationson the Common Condition described the response of true religion to the general increase in irreligion."Throughthe attackswhich Vaniniand Brunomade against it [true religion]with theirdull weapons in darkertimes, it gainedand lost nothing;but Tindall,Spinoza,Collins, andBolingbrokearethe ones who have taughtit again to use its divine strength,and the greaterits enemies and the more dangerous theirweapons, the greater,the more decisive its victory."30 Unbelief is nothingbut a productof corruption,accordingto this pamphlet: "Onlythose souls depravedby a wantonupbringing";only those who were alreadydebauched"beforereadingthese books;only the loose heads,who always believe the last book they have read"could be affectedby this literature.31 This pamphletwas sophisticated,being neitheranti-intellectualnorwholly anti-philosophical.In fact it cited manyrespectednames. These so-called "strongspirits" claim to be so clever, but "Grotius,Puffendorf,Leibniz,Wolff, Locke, Neuton, Boyle, Boerhave,Haller,Hoffmann,Sulzer"were all good Christians,and"none of these has confessedtheirreligion for fearof the Inquisition;none of these has 28 Ludvig Holberg,Selected Essays ofLudvig Holberg, tr.P. M. Mitchell (Lawrence, 1955; repr.1976), 37-38. 29 Bayles ogMoreris DictionaireafMagister Frolund,Krafttil Taxoe,9 Tomer,1757 tilh6rte CA Rothe, Folio, Thottse SamlingNo. 469-77. 30 Alvorlige betragtninger over den almindelige Tilstand(Copenhagen, 1771): "Ved de Angreb, som Vaniniog Brun giorde imod den med deres sl0ve Vaabeni de morkereTider,vant og tabte den intet; men Tindal, Spinoza, Collin, Bolingbrok, disse ere det, der have laert den igien at bruge sin guddommelige Styrke, og jo storre dens Fiender,jo farligere deres Vaaben blive, jo storre,jo mere deciderendebliver dens Seier"(I, 14, #1, 16-17). 31 "Allenede, ved en letsindig Opdragelse,fordaervedeSiele, allene saadanne,som og uden disse Skriftervilde blive lige lastefulde og ugudelige ... allene de lose Hoveder,der altid troer
den sidste Bog, de laese ..." (I, 14, #1, 19).
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been bribed by ecclesiastical benefice."32Recent scholarship has established that several of these "Christians" may have been more Spinozistic than this author wanted to believe.33 A Greenlander s Description of Copenhagen of the same period described how Copenhageners followed the notorious ancient Greek atheist Epicurus in his theory of atoms, which had been taken over by "a French doctor" (the infamous La Mettrie). In religion they took as their "model a Dutch Jew, Spinoza by name, who in a thick, tedious book in metaphysical Latin has attempted to prove that all of nature is only one substance and that all parts of nature are only as many modifications of it, so that all one sees in the whole of nature is equally great divinity, equally majestic, equally elevated.... According to his opinion it is the same whether one is a maggot, rabbit or hero, whale-oil, whalefish, or human."34This author evidently knew something of the hagiographical tradition that portrayed Spinoza as a good man, because he added the point that although some readers of Spinoza "have tor themselves loose and deny all religion and who for their own reasons neither confess any sin or any punishment for the sin ... yet sometimes, which is to be complimented, live better, and show greater humanity than the rest, who pretend to believe and follow their heaven-sent book [the Bible]" but in fact do not live by it.35 A volume of pamphlets from 1771 containing thirty-seven items, most of which were prophecies and other satirical works, included four pamphlets referring to Spinoza. One of them was entitled Dream-hall in North Scotland. After some witticisms regarding the superiority of the German language (3-4) and professors at the university being always right (9-10), the piece went on to list the fruits of freedom of the press: "controversial writings ... project writings ... 32"Grotius,Puffendorf,Leibniz,Wolff,Locke,Neuton,Boyle, Boerhave,Haller,Hoffmann, Sulzer, ingen af disse have af Frygt for Inqvisitionenbekiendtsig til Religionen; ingen af disse ere ved geistlige Beneficier bleven bestukken..." (I, 14, #1, 24). 33See W. Klever,"HermannBoerhaave(1668-1738) oderSpinozismusals reinmechanische Wissenschaftdes Menschen,"Spinoza in der europdischenGeistesgeschichte,eds. Delf et al., 75-93; StuartBrown, "Locke as Secret 'Spinozist': the Perspectiveof William Carroll"and W. Klever, "Slocke, alias Locke in Spinozistic Profile," Disguised and Overt Spinozism around 1700, eds. van Bunge and Klever, 213-60; and Winkle, Die heimlichenSpinozisten,60, 106 n. 115. 34En GronlaendersBeskrivelseoverKiobenhavn(Copenhagen,1771):"Dissehave til Model en hollandskJ0de, ved Navn Spinoza, som i en tyk kiaedsommeligBog paa MetaphysikLatin har sagt at ville beviise, at heele Naturenvar kun en eeneste Substantz,og at all NaturensDeele vare ikkunlige saa mange Modificationerderaf, saa at alt hvad man saae i den hele Nature,var lige storGuddom,lige Majestaetisk,lige hoyt.... EfterdennesMeeningbliverdetteda det samme, enten man er Maddike,Canineller Helt, Tran,Hvalfisk eller Menneske"(I, 14, #15, 5). 35 "Disse ere nu de, som have revet sig fra, og fomaegte ald Religion, og som i Folge af deres Grundehverkentilstaaernogen Synd eller nogen Straffor Synden,og som dog undertiden, hvilket er det artigste,leve bedre,og viise storreMenneske-Kierlighedend Resten, som giver sig ud for at troe og folge deres HimmelsendteBog" (I, 14, #15, 5).
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heretical writings ... financial writings ... Machiavellian and Spinozistic writ-
In the same volume, Ole Smiths ings, of which there were a great number."36 Lamentationover Rice Porridge observedthatthere lived a flighty Jew-boy in Holland, who is called learned. That lout wantedto makepeoplebelieve thatthe worldhas madeitself, whichwas as damneda lie, as if I would makepeople believe thatmy [door]locks locked themselves andby themselves flew into my view. This fellow is said to have been named Spinachor Spinosa. A French fool who let himself be called Mette [a girl's name] or Metrie,andwho is also said to be horriblylearned,has wantedto make people believe that all humanbeings are spontaneouslycomposed of flying grains.37 The authorwent on to writein the same sarcasticvein that"freedomto writewill do much to makeus learnto thinkand act well. How much good the freedomto write has accomplishedis shown by the incomparableworks ofBayle, Leibniz, Voltaire,Montesquieu,Le Clerc, Newton, Wolff, etc., whose excellent works with irreparabledamagewould have been lost to the world, if the freedom to write had been stopped by a young, immature,lazy, authoritarian,or jealous glowerer."38
Anotherpamphletin the same volume was entitledA Patriotic Conversation betweena travellingEnglishmanand a citizen of Copenhagenheld in the English coffee-house in Christianshavn.In it the Englishmanasks Heaven the rhetoricalquestion,"Whatwereyou thinkingwhen you gave a handfulof greedy, barbarian,superstitiousSpaniardspermissionand full power to spoil, torment, andtorturesucha lovely partof theworld?-Did you wantto makethe Spinozists
36Dromme-Sahli NorreSkotland(Copenhagen,1771):"Strids-Skrifter...Project-Skrifter... Kiettermagerie-Skrifter... Finanz-Skrifter... Machiavellistiske,Spinosistiske Skrifter ..." (I, 15, #6, 13). 37Ole SmedesvendsbegraedelseoverRissengr0d(Copenhagen,1771):"hyrlevet en forfloyen J0de-Smaus i Holland, som man og kalder laerd. Denne Prygle har vildet bilde Folk ind, at Verdenhavde giort sig selv, hvilket var lige saa forbandeten Logn, som om jeg vilde bilde Folk ind, at mine Laase giorde sig selv, og af sig selv fl0y mig i Oinene. Denne Karl skal have hedt Spinat,eller Spinos. En franskNar, som lod sig kalde Mette eller Metrie,og som tillige kaldes graesselig laerd, harvildet bilde Folk ind, at alle Menneskervare af sig selv sammenblaeste af flyvende Gran ..." (I, 15, #9, 7). 38 The authorwent on to write that"Skrive-Friheden vil giore meget til, at vi laere at taenke og handle vel ... Hvor meget got Skrive-Frihedenhar udrettet,vise de ulignelige Skrifteraf Baile, Leibnitz, Voltaire,Montesquieu, le Clerc, Newton, Wolff ogsaa videre, hvis ypperlige Verkerskulde have vaeret, til ubodelig Skade, tabt for Verden,dersom Skrive-Frihedenhavde vaeret standsetaf en ung, gron doven, myndig, ellerjaloux Gloebiest"(I, 15, #9, 14).
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victorious?"39The pamphlet goes on to compare the political systems of Britain and Denmark; the only point of mentioning Spinoza is that in the author's mind (and very likely in the readers') a victory of his partisans would be a world-scale disaster. A pamphlet entitled The Greenlander Professor s Observations about the Moon reported that Epicurus "holds that the deity has neither salvation nor condemnation for virtues and vices; Spinoza denied all divinity and some say the same about the just-mentioned Epicurus. Some made him spiritual, some material. And isn't it a long time ago that R. thought that he was an old dignified man with a long beard?"40 Sometime in 1771 Voltaire's "Letter"praising the king for granting freedom of the press was published in Danish translation (I, 20, #4). It included in its appendix a selection from Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary entitled "Liberty of the Press," another piece by Voltaire in favor of freedom of the press, and a Danish translation of David Hume's "Of Liberty of the Press."41There are two reasons why this probably worked against Spinozists in Denmark. One is that Voltaire himself was probably second only to Helvetius or Spinoza as an archheretic in many people's minds.42 The Luxdorph pamphlets often mention his work as an example of the corruption of the times.43 The other reason that Voltaire was of little use to the Spinozists was his rhetorical strategy in defending freedom of the press. In the selection from the Philosophical Dictionary he writes that: "Spinoza's book is the most dangerous and harmful of them all. Not only does he, as a Jew, attack the New Testament, but as a scholar he destroys the Old. His system of atheism is more coherent and thought out a thousand times better than those of Straton and of Epicurus."44 39 En Patriotiske Samtale imellem en reisende Engelskmandog en KiobenhavskeBorger holdtpaa detEngelske Caffe-Huuspaa Christianshavn(Copenhagen,1771): "O Himmel! hvad taenkte du, da du gav en Haandfuldgraadige, barbariskeog overtroiske Spanier Forlov og Fuldmagt, at odelegge, pine og martre saa elskvaerdig en Deel af Verden?-Vilde du give Spinozistere Seier?"(I, 15, #15, 3-4). 40 Den GronlandskeProfessors ... Betragtninger over Maanen; "Epicur holder for, at GuddomenharhverkenSalighed eller Fordommelsefor Dyder og Lyder;... Spinosa negtede al Guddom, og nogle sige det samme om nysbemeldte Epicur.Nogle giorde ham aandlig, andre legemlig. Og er det ikke meget laenge siden, at R. troede, det var en gammel aervaerdigMand med et lang Skiaeg"(I, 15, #21, 6). 41 See Laursen,"David Hume and the Danish Debate about Freedom of the Press in the 1770s." 42 Bjom Korneruprefers to Voltaire'sreputationin Den Danske KirkesHistorie, ed. Hal Koch andBjom Komerup(Copenhagen,1951), V, 319. See HansHertel,"DenfrosneSpottefugl: Voltaireog hans arv i dansk aandsliv 1740-1870," Digternes paryk: studier i 1700-tallet, ed. MarianneAlenius, et al. (Copenhagen,1997), 335-61 and JohnChristianLaursen,"Voltaireand ChristianVII," forthcoming. 43E.g., I, 14, #1, 18-19; I, 18, #4, 27; I, 18, #5, 16; I, 18, #6, passim. 44"Den farligsteog skadeligsteaf alle, er den af Spinose. Han angriberei allene som Jode det Nye Testament,men som laerdodeleggerhandet gamle;hansateistiskeLaerbygninghaenger
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Voltaireadmits,at least for rhetoricalpurposes,that"Idetesthis book,"andthis must have underminedhis subsequentdefense of Spinoza.45 Voltaire'sdefense is thatbooks are harmless,no matterhow bad they are. "Haveyou noticed the shapeof the worldbeing changedby this book? Has any ministerlost a Shillingof his income since the publicationof Spinoza'swork?Is there a bishop whose income has diminished?On the contrary,their revenues have doubled since that time; all the trouble is limited to a small numberof peaceable readerswho have tested Spinoza's argumentsin their studies, and who have writtenfor or againstthese very little known works."46Added to the likely resentmentcausedby the satiricalimplicationthatthe greatestharmcaused by Spinoza's heresies would be reflected in the income of the church,another reader'sresponsewould have been thatwe see harmall aroundus in the formof immoralityandirreligion.Voltairecouldclaimthatbooks do not affectthe world, but many people believed otherwise.Voltaire'slevity probablydid not help the Spinozists'public image. After Struensee'sarresta German-languagepamphletfrom early 1772 entitled Poetical Thoughtson the Hell-Power in which CountStruenseeRuled, and would continueto rule, and also On the Futile Lying-Groundsof the Fools who say, that thereis no God includedstanzaswhich readas follows (andwere followed by more in this tone): Thatthey [the Jews] were dispersedout of Canaan, You can probablysee withoutglasses. Is it not hellish blindness Whatso remarkablyhas happened And lies before the eyes of all the world Is not seen by a naturalist, Who is born out of Spinoza's school Who has the self-esteem of a cow And delightsin the animal-lust Thathe has chosen for his treasureand heaven.
bedretilsammen,er bedreudtaenkttusindeGangeend Stratensog Epicurs"(I, 20, #4, 16; French original in "Liberted'Imprimer,"Oeuvrescompletesde Voltaire(Paris, 1879), XIX, 586-89. 45 "JegharAfskye for hans Bog" (I, 20, #4, 16). 46 "HaveI seet at denne Bog har forandretVerdensSkikkelse?Er der en Praestsom hartabt en Skilling af hans Indkomsterved Afgangen af Spinoses Verk.Er der en Bisp, hvis Indtaegter ere formindskede?Tverimod,deres Indkomsterhave fordobbletsig siden den Tid;hele Ulykken traefferallene et lidet Antal af fredelige Laesere, som have undersogtSpinoses Beviis i deres Kammer,og som have skrevetfor eller imod disse meget lidet bekiendteVerker"(I, 20, #4, 1617).
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You dreaming naturalist In your baseless false grounds Oh, raving blind atheist Out of base love for sins You deny a true God And take his Word with trumpery and scorn Only for your desire's lusts Which you take for your paradise So that your shameful enjoyment Devastates your body and soul as a tyrant.47 This piece may have been commissioned by the coup plotters-or else written by a sympathizer-in order to persuade the German-speaking population in Copenhagen (and Slesvig-Holsten) that Struensee deserved his fate. The chief literary product of the Struensee affair was written in German by Balthasar Miinter, who was appointed Struensee's spiritual advisor during his confinement in the Spring of 1772 and who claimed to have converted him to Christianity.48Miinter's book, published in 1772, was a best-seller, reprinted in the original German in 1772, 1773, and 1774 (Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Leipzig editions). It was translated into Danish and Dutch in 1772, French in 1773 (Copenhagen, Paris, Lausanne), 1774 (Amsterdam) and 1838, English in 1773 (London), 1774, 1775, 1776, 1824, 1825, 1853 (Boston), and 1882, and Italian in 1848 (Florence). Miinter made a great deal about all of Struensee's moral failings and bad influences without explicitly mentioning Spinoza. Either Miinter deliberately tailored his story, or Struensee misled him, since, for example, he reports that Struensee knew nothing of the writings of Reimarus, which Struensee most likely knew in his time in Altona and Hamburg.49
47 Poetische Gedankeniiber der Hollen-Macht,in welcher GrafStruenseeGeherrscht,und ferner herrschenwollte, wie auch Uberden NichtigenLiigen-Grundder TohrenDie da Sprechen, es ist kein Gott (Copenhagen, 1772) (II, 6, #6, 9): "Dass sie aus Canaanzerstreut,/ Kanst du wohl ohne Brillen sehen, / Ist das nicht H6llische Blindheit/ Was so merkwiirdigist geschehen / Und aller Welt vor Augen liegt / Sieht ein naturalistenicht, / Der aus Spinoza Schul geboren/ Der sich dem Vieh gleich acht und schatzt/ Und sich in Thieren-Lustergetzt/ Die Er zu seinem Schatz, und Himmelreicherkohren./ Du traumenderNaturalist/ In deinen Grundlossfalschen Griinden/ O RasendblinderAtheist / Aus Schn6derLiebe zu den Siinden/ Vereinst Du einen wahrenGott / Und achts sein Wortfir Tandund Spott / Nur bloss um deinerWollustsLiisten/ Die Schitzt Du fir dein Paradiess/ Um ihrerschandlichengeniess / Thustdu dein Leib und Seel, als ein Tyrannverwiisten." 48 Balthasar Miinter, Bekehrungsgeschichte des vormaligen Grafen und K6niglichen Ddnischengeheimen CabinetsministerJoh. Friedrich Struensee(Copenhagen,1772). 49 Winkle, Struensee,286ff.
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The attitudesexpressedin the pamphletsand in Miinter'swork are evident in the chargesbroughtagainstStruenseebeforethe emergencyInquisitionCommission set up to deal with the case.50Without actually calling Struensee a Spinozist, the charges accusing him of lese majeste repeatedlycharacterized him as lacking religion (ingen Religion) (137, 155), as railing against God's word, and as sharingfreethinkers'sentiments(138). As evidence, the charges specifically mentionedthe pamphletscarryingscurrilousattackson Struensee! (136). This was only relevantas evidence regardinghis character,and not germane to the criminalcharges. Struensee'sdefense was in turnvigorously argued,desperatelydescribing religion as Struensee'sonly comfortin the presenthardtimes and rejectingthe prosecutor'sattemptsto renderhim odious by focusing on irrelevantcharacter issues.51 But this was really a coup d'etat, andthe foregoneconclusionwas that he would be declaredguilty. The judgmentof the Commission includedreference to his "contemptfor religion, morals,and good manners."52 Spinoza's TractatusTheologico-Politicushad stressed the importanceof freedomof thoughtand speech. Nevertheless, the prevailingreactionwas that Spinoza's own philosophy deservedcensorshipand suppressionbecause of its alleged irreligionand its social andpolitical consequences.It is thereforeironic that not only did his reputationconstitutepart of the reason for the fall of the first political actorto institutionalizeone of the key instrumentsof freedomof thought,but thatone of the reasonsfor thatfall was the effect on public opinion of the chargeof Spinozism levelled against Struenseein the very press thathe had freed.
Universityof California,Riverside.
50 Hansen (ed.), Inkvisitionskommissionen,I, 135-66. I have translatedthe name of this commission literallyas InquisitionCommission, althoughthe officials surely meant something like Commission of Inquiryand did not intend to imply any association with the Holy Roman Inquisition. 51Hansen (ed.), Inkvisitionskommissionen, I, 175-91, at 176. 52 Hansen (ed.), Inkvisitionskommissionen, I, 212-33, at 232. The authorwould like to thanktheAmericanPhilosophicalSociety andthe CarlsbergFoundationfor financialsupportfor the researchreflectedin this articleandto thankJohannesLaursen and the referees of this journal for advice.
Taste
and
"the in
Conversible the
World"
Eighteenth Century Rochelle Gurstein
In the middleof the nineteenthcenturya series entitled"Afoot"appearedin the literarymagazineBlackwoods (1857), describingan Englishman'stravels throughEurope.In one installmentthe narratortells of meeting a Yankee,who hadjust come from Florence the beautiful.Our friend approachedhim warily, and began to ask him what he had seen, what admired.Then, aftera little circumlocution,he dashedat once, in medias res, by saying, "Of course, you were in raptureswith the Venusde Medici?"-expecting an answersuch as he would himself have given. "Well, sir, to tell you the truth,I don't care much about those stone gals,"was the answerhe received.Ourfriendcollapsed.Hadanyonein his presencedeniedtheorthodoxyof St.Augustine,or abjuredthe ThirtyNine Articles, there would have been more sorrow in his anger, but scarcely more indignation. The Venus de Medici-a classic chef d'oeuvre-a thingwhich Praxitelesmighthave touchedwith his chisel, or Pericleshave lookedupon,to be called a "stonegal"!Hadhe doubted its genuineness,or spokenof it as a specimenof secondaryart,he might have been deemedcritical,hypercritical;butthis was a classic impiety, an irreverence,a profanity. As if thatwere not enough,the Yankee'swords betrayed"uncivism"and "egoism." He was undoubtedlyamong thattype who "undertheirhome influences, and the shadow of their own nationalities ... have no aptitude for general civism."1
Thereis of course much thatis familiarin this vignette, especially the contrastbetween Old WorldsophisticationandAmericannaivete. The unflappable Yankeewho is irremediablyunawareand proudof it and the overly fastidious, overly aestheticizedEnglishmanwere bothdestinedto become stock characters in novels depictingAmericansabroad,and here we see an early confrontation Anon., "Afoot-Part
III," Blackwood s Magazine (August 1857), 210.
203 Copyright2000 by Journalof the Historyof Ideas,Inc.
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betweentheirrivalsensibilities.Eventhoughthe Venusde Medicihas now completely vanished from the modem imaginarymuseum of masterpieces,it was once amongthe most beloved, celebrated,and reproducedstatuesof antiquity; its reputewas farbeyond thatof the MonaLisa today,and from the time it was unearthedat the end of sixteenthcenturythroughthe nineteenthcenturyit was the indisputableexemplarof beauty. So it is no surprisethat the Englishman, who, like all cultivatedpeople of his day,was well versedin the world of classical antiquity,was mortifiedby theAmerican'sobliviousnessbeforethis "classic chef d'oeuvre";for it revealed a man so utterlylacking in taste and sensibility when thathe did not have the wherewithalto know thathe hadbeen "irreverent" he called the Venusde Medici "a stone gal." Where this anecdote moves into less familiar territory,however, is the Englishman'scharacterizationof the Yankee'staste as uncivic and egoistic, as provincial and narrow.His willingness to judge a total stranger,to hold him accountableto a single standardofjudgment,could not be in sharpercontrastto ourcontemporaryattitudes.Todaysubjectivityis celebratedin the commonsaying thateveryoneis entitledto his or her opinionandtaste;what is more, diversity of tastes is regardedas a measure of personal freedom and democracy. Thus, the Englishman'squickness to judge would be evidence of elitism, oppression,even culturalimperialism,andthis responseno longerbelongs to naifs who cannottell the differencebetweenthe mostreveredsculptureandstonegals; it now belongs to the sophisticated,educated,modem (andpostmodem)person. Todaythe very idea of drawingdistinctions-not only between practicedtaste and first impressionsbut also between art and commercialentertainment,art and obscenity,high andpopularculture,scholarshipandpropaganda,let alone between beauty and ugliness, right and wrong, excellence and mediocrity-is suspect.And since the capacityto makepreciselythese kindsof distinctionswas once understoodas the essence of civilized life, a greatdeal is at stakein recoveringthe Englishman'ssensibility. To do so we will need to returnto the eighteenthcentury,since Enlightenmentfigureswere the firstto thinkseriouslyabouttaste. It is no exaggerationto say that Joseph Addison, David Hume, Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds, EdmundBurke,andImmanuelKant,to nameonly a few, inventedwhatwe now call aesthetics.It is strikingthat,except for an occasionalmention,taste as such did not attractsustainedinquirybefore the eighteenthcentury,nor had anyone yet codified our moder system of fine artsthatplaces painting,sculpture,poetry,music, andarchitecturein the same category.2This is not to say thatearlier artistsand art lovers were without a languageto express their appreciationof 2
Paul 0. Kristeller,"The Modem System of the Arts" (1951), reprintedin Peter Kivy (ed.), Essays on the History of Aesthetics (Rochester, 1992), 3-64. Also see LawrenceLipking, The Orderingof the Arts in Eighteenth-CenturyEngland (Princeton, 1976).
Tasteand "the Conversible World"
205
what we today call the fine arts;on the contrary,they were in possession of a rich languagederivedfromclassical rhetoric,buttastewas not amongits prime terms. (While philosophershave noticed thattaste is a modem invention,they have been more interestedin the content of the theories and disputes among philosophersthanin situatingthe ideas historically.) Since the classicaltraditionwas the backgroundfor the firstwriterson taste, we need to recoverits once-familiarcategoriesof thought.All analysisandjudgment revolved aroundfour terms: the art itself, the artist, the work, and the audience.Discussions of the artconcernedthe aims, rules, and preceptsof the artas a whole or of one or moreof its distinctivegenres.Discussions of the artist concernedthe ends he ought to pursue and the powers, both natural(genius, imagination)and acquired(judgment,imitationof exemplars),that he or she must possess in order to attain them. The work of art, in turn, was entirely dependenton these two components;its style or qualitywas the physical manifestation of the degree to which the artist,employing both his naturaland acquiredpowers,masteredor failed to masterthe ends andrules of the art.But the all-importantfactorwas the audience;since the aim of art,datingback at least to Horace,was to instructand delight, it was essential to know the sources of pleasureas well as the audience's standardsand demands.3The distinguishing featureof this approach-and what sets it apartfrom its successors-was its clear pictureof what a work of artwould look like once it fulfilled its aims. In consequencethe rules andpreceptsof specific genresas well as the powers and techniquesthatartistswere expectedto possess were neitherarbitrarynor matters of personalpreference.Likewise,judgmentsof particularworksrestedon a masteryof the way these four componentsfit or failed to fit together. Whatis immediatelyclear fromthis brief summaryand from the Venusde Medici storyis the enormousimportancethe firstmodems attachedto classical antiquity.Fromthe Renaissancethroughthe nineteenthcenturythe ancientswere constantlyon theirminds, andthe famous quarrelbetween the ancientsandthe modems concerningwhethermodem achievementscould ever surpassthose of the ancientsturnedout to play a decisive role in the inventionof taste. During the Renaissance,when the quarrelfirsttook shape,it was generallygrantedthat innovationwas possiblein thenaturalsciencesandmathematicssincesuchknowledge was cumulative,that is, latergenerationscould build on the endeavorsof earlierones. With the achievementsof Galileo and Bacon, it appearedthatthe modems had actuallyoutstrippedthe ancients.But this was not so with the arts or rhetoric;here,the ancientsreignedsupremeandprogresswas thoughtimpossible. Because they had come first in time, so the argumentwent, the ancients had alreadyexplored all the greatthemes and because humannaturewas con3 This summary comes from R. S. Crane, "English Neoclassical Criticism: An Outline Sketch"(1943), in Critics and Criticism,ed. Crane(Chicago, 1952), 372-88.
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stant,the numberof themeswas finite.Forthose who would excel in the arts,the best they could do was imitateclassical models. This belief held firm throughthe close of the seventeenthcentury,when Frenchand Britishcritics, employingnew philological methods,made the surprisingdiscoverythatsome reveredmodels-Homer, Shakespeare,andMilton had apparentlydeviated from the classical tradition.4That this discovery was made at all testifies to the new rigorof criticswho soughtto make the classical inheritancemoresystematic.The componentmost amenableto rationalordering was the classical hierarchyof genres. Based in rules of decorumthatborrowed both fromAristotle'sPoetics and from Romanrhetoric,especially Cicero and Quintilian,this system held thateach genrewas distinctandhad its own proper materialandpurpose;style andtone were thusdeterminedby the significanceof the subject:the life of Christ,saints, heroes, and royalty,because of theirmagnificence and moral weight, could be representedonly by the grand style of historypaintingor in epic or tragedy.They demandednoble language, stately verse, heighteneddiction, splendorof figure and ornaments.The lives of ordinary people were the appropriatesubject of comedy, farce, or pastoral;and portraiture,landscape,genrepainting,and still life, involved as they were with domestic and privatelife, were necessarily smaller in scale and less formal in style thanheroicpainting.In the classical hierarchyof genres,historypainting, tragedy,and epic occupiedthe highestplace. Increasingly,the sense, consistency,propriety,and grammarof greatmasters-those who were the very touchstonesof imitation,comparison,andjudgment-came underintensescrutiny.Disagreementseruptedover theIliad. What were readers to make of the rude manners, brutality,and capriciousness of Homer's gods and heroes?Was the lengthy descriptionof Achilles's shield an unnecessary,unworthy,andunartisticdigression?Why were thereso manyrepetitions? One answer was providedby a Frenchtranslatorof Homer,Antoine Houdarde La Motte, who was also a partisanof the modems and who took the liberty of correcting,even improvingupon, the original, shrinkingits twentyfour books to twelve, so that it would better accord with classical rules.5Defendersof the ancientswere appalledby what they saw as the arrogance,pedantry,and rudeness of imperious editors. What was at stake were competing modes of approachingthe past:the new methodsandtechniquesof modem philology were pittedagainstthe traditionalones of classical rhetoric.In the notes to his translationof the Iliad Alexander Pope, himself a championof the an4 See
Joseph M. Levine, Humanismand History: Origins of ModernEnglish Historiography (Ithaca, 1987), especially "EdwardGibbon and the Quarrelbetween the Ancients and the Modems," and The Battle of the Books: History and Literaturein the AugustanAge (Ithaca, 1991). 5 Levine, The Battle of the Books, 140-41; also see his discussion of the "correction"of Milton's Paradise Lost, Chapter8.
Tasteand "the Conversible World"
207
cients, set out the rivalpositions,criticizingthose commentatorswho "hadmore readingthan taste, and were fonder of shewing their variety of learningin all kindsthanthis single understandingin poetry."6Pope no doubtbelieved he was being faithfulto Homer'sspiritandsavinghis noble epic frommodem meddlers when he translatedthe entire poem in heroic couplets. The strangeresult was judiciously capturedby Samuel Johnson. While he told Boswell that Pope's translationwas "thegreatestwork of the kind thathas ever been produced,"in his Lives of the Poets he wrote that"Pope'sversion of Homeris not Homerical. It wants his awful simplicity,his artlessgrandeur,his unaffectedmajesty."7 This controversywas prettymuch exhaustedby the early 1730s, with neitherside able to claim decisive victory.But in its wake came the first sustained inquiriesintotasteandbeauty;indeed,the newly discoveredinadequaciesof the classical system markedtheir startingpoint, and it was their task to furnish sturdierfoundationsfor longstandingjudgmentsof beauty.Withthis end in mind some writersbegan to focus on the role of the artist:since the greatestpoets did not systematicallyadhereto classical rules, should more credencebe given to originality,imagination,and genius? Othersmoved away both from the rules andpreceptsof artandfromthe powers of the artist,insteadseekingthe foundation of beautyin particularpropertiesof objects,giving rise to Burke'sdescription of smooth,roundfeaturesandto Hogarth'ssensuousline. Effortsto establish a standardof tastewere partof this largerprojectof addressingandremedying the deficiencies in the classical system. The most urgentconcernof the first writersabouttaste-especially, for presentpurposes,David Hume and Joshua Reynolds-was a questionthat itself was a responseto the realizationthat exemplarshad failed to abideby rules:whetherit was fairto judge worksby rules which were unknownto theircreatorsor which they had never intendedto observe.8This line of inquiry,in turn,helpedfostera growingawarenessthatjudgments of taste variedacross time and place, that,as the common saying had it, "tastesare not to be disputed." The subjectivityof taste, which we usually associate with our own time, was well establishedduringthe eighteenthcentury,so much so that it had alreadybecome a stock position. In his famous essay, "Ofthe Standardof Taste" (1742), Humecould alreadysummarizeit: "Beautyis no qualityin thingsthemselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplatesthem; and each mind perceives a differentbeauty."And by 1776, when Reynolds delivereda lecture at the Royal Academy entitled"Therealityof a standardof Taste,as well as of corporealBeauty,"he felt obliged to argue against the "popularopinion"that taste and genius were purely"intuitive,"thatthey "pretendto an entireexemption of rules"andhave nothingto do with "reason,precept,or experience."But AlexanderPope, TheIliad of Homer (London, 1996), 46. the Books, 223. 8 Crane,"EnglishNeoclassical Criticism,"386.
6
7 Levine, The Battle of
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Rochelle Gurstein
for Reynolds and Hume andpracticallyeveryone else concernedwith the subject, such "sentiments"were "absurd,""ridiculous,""groundless,"even "pernicious."9The avowed aim of their essays was to demonstratethat there was a single standardof taste and that, contraryto popularopinion, taste could be rationallydisputed. That Sir JoshuaReynolds, founderand first presidentof the Royal Academy of Art, who was an ardentchampionof the classical tradition,and Hume, the ardentchampionof empiricismand skepticism,sharedso much is surprising; for one would have expected the society portraitpainterand the enemy of conventionalwisdom to be opposed. But in mattersof taste they held a large store of common ideas and presuppositions,derived as much from classical rhetoricas fromthe new philosophyof empiricism.Together,theirwritingscomprise what I will call a practice of taste (borrowingthe term "practice"from AlasdairMaclntyre'sAfter Virtue'0)thatmanaged,at least temporarily,to provide classical exemplarsof beautywith a stablefoundationbasedin experience. Even thoughthey, like most of theirBritishcontemporaries,were concernedto locate the springsof beautyin a universalpsychology of mind, theirinterestin taste and its cultivationthroughpracticeset them apart."'In the same way their relianceon experiencedistinguishedthemfromtheirFrenchcounterparts,for it meantthattaste involved morethanmechanicallyapplyingestablishedrules to particularcases.'2Finally,it set them apartfromKant,whose CritiqueofJudgment at century's end gave all the emphasis to disinterestednessand the autonomy of aesthetic delight, thereby making experience irrelevant.'3Even though Kant's ideas would find their way to Britainvia Coleridge duringthe first decades of the nineteenthcentury,the practiceof taste continuedto shape people'sthinkingthroughmid-century,as is evidentin the Venusde Medicistory. It is to the recovery of thatpracticethat I now turn. 9 David Hume, "Of the Standardof Taste,"in Eugene Miller (ed.), Essays: Moral, Political and Literary (Indianapolis, 1985), 230, and Robert R. Wark(ed.), Sir Joshua Reynolds, Discourses on Art (New Haven, 1959, 1988), 120-21. 0 Alasdair MacIntyre,After Virtue(Notre Dame, 1981). "'For a discussion of the effort to locate the foundationsof beauty in a universalpsychology, see Crane,"EnglishNeoclassical Criticism,"384-85; also ErnstCassirer,The Philosophy of the Enlightenment(Princeton, 19792),298-315; and Dabney Townsend,"FromShaftesbury to Kant:The Developmentof the Conceptof Aesthetic Experience,"(1987) in PeterKivy (ed.), Essays on the History of Aesthetics (Rochester,N.Y., 1992), 208-13. 12 For a discussion of eighteenth-centuryaesthetics,with an emphasison the Frenchschool, see Cassirer,The Philosophy of the Enlightenment,ch. VII, "FundamentalProblems of Aesthetics";also Annie Berg, Gendsede l'esthetiquefrancaise moderne 1680-1814 (Paris, 1984). 13 See Jerome Stolnitz, "On the Origins of Aesthetic Disinterestedness,"Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 20 (1961), 131-43. Cf. Dabney Townsend, "From Shaftesburyto Kant:The Development of the Concept of Aesthetic Experience"(1987) in Kivy (ed.), Essays on the History of Aesthetics, 205-23. Stolnitz's " 'Beauty': Some Stages in the History of an Idea"(1961) in Kivy (ed.), Essays on the History of Aesthetics, 185-204, is also useful.
Tasteand "the Conversible World"
209
Taste,accordingto Reynolds, was the "powerof distinguishingright from wrong"in the realmof art;it relied on reason,learning,andcommon sense, and it drew as much from poetry and philosophy as it did from conversationwith "learnedandingeniousmen."But experience,a key wordof empiricism,loomed largest in their accounts, and it was this emphasis that would provide the resources which the classical traditionlacked. Taste entailed a special way of looking, what Hume called "a due attentionto the object,"and it could be acquiredonly through"thefrequentsurvey or contemplationof a particularspecies of beauty."But it was not simplya matterof contemplatingobjectsof beauty for theirown sake (a notion thatwould laterbecome crucialto Kant).Taste,as the faculty of judgment,necessarily involved comparison.As Reynolds put it, taste "alwaysoperate[s]in proportionto ourattentionin observingthe worksof nature,to our skill in selecting, and our care in digesting, methodizing, and comparing our observations."14
There was nothing mysteriousaboutthis process. "The same addressand dexteritywhichpracticegives to the executionof anywork,"accordingto Hume, "is also acquiredby the same means, in thejudging of it." In this crucialregard Humepointedto the commonoccurrenceof changingone's mindwith the benefit of experience.Thereis a kind of beauty,he observed,which, as it is "florid and superficial,"is at first sight pleasing but later "pallsupon the taste, and is thenrejectedwith disdain,at least ratedat a much lowervalue."The most qualifiedjudge, accordingto Reynolds,was the personwho, becausehe had"amind always alive to his art,had extendedhis views to all ages andto all schools; and [thus]had acquired ... a well-digestedandperfectidea of his art,to which every thingis referred."Humealso believed thatthis kindof worldlinesswas boththe proving groundand end result of practicedtaste: "Oneaccustomedto see, and examine, and weigh the several performances,admiredin differentages and nations can alone ratethe meritsof a work exhibitedto his view, and assign its properrankamong the productionsof genius.""5 But Hume, typical in this regard,was also quick to point out that while delicacy of taste could indeedbe cultivated,it had limits in the sense thatsome people are simply bornwith a more sensitive eye, ear, or palate.He illustrated this point with an anecdotefromDon Quixote,wheretwo men with reputations as wine connoisseurspronounceon what is supposedto be an excellent wine: one notes a "smalltaste of leather"and the othera "reserveof a taste of iron." Theirjudgmentswere ridiculed,but on reachingthe bottomof the container,an old key tied to a leatherthongwas discovered.ForHumethis storycapturesthe essence of taste:qualitiessuch as sweet andbitter,or beautyand deformity,are experiencedas internal"sentiments."But at the same time they actuallybelong 14 15
Reynolds, 118; Hume, 238; Reynolds, 44. Hume, 236, 237. Cf. Reynolds, 124-25. Reynolds, 110; Hume, 238.
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to the objects:"therearecertainqualitiesin objects,which arefittedby natureto producethose particularfeelings."16 While longtime observationand comparisongave validity to judgmentsof taste,knowingwhich thingswere worthyof attention,thatis, which were exemplary,was crucialto the cultivationof taste. Thus, Reynolds rejectedthe cardinal Enlightenmentmaxim,"thinkfor yourself,"anddemandedthe humilityappropriateto a novice. Here he was elaboratingon classical thinkingabout the artist-which powers he owed to natureandwhich he would need to developand by analogy,the person of taste. Repeatedly,Reynolds scornedthe alleged independenceand sovereigntyof the "naturalgenius":"Hewho resolves never to ransackany mindbuthis own, will be soon reduced,frommerebarrenness,to the poorestof all imitations;he will be obliged to imitatehimself, andto repeat what he has before often repeated....Nothing can come from nothing."Even worse, misguided illusions of self-sufficiency could actively corrupttaste: "A man who thinks he is guardinghimself againstprejudicesby resisting the authorityof others,leaves open every avenue to singularity,vanity, self-conceit, obstinacy,andmany othervices, all tendingto warpthejudgment,andprevent the naturaloperationof his faculties."7 Even Hume, the arch skeptic, called for deference in mattersof taste. He was adamantthat if a person's taste did not accordwith that of the most practicedjudges, then such a person"mustconclude ... thatthe fault lies in himself, andthathe wants the delicacy,which is requisiteto makehim sensible of every beauty and every blemish, in any composition or discourse."18Here again we find ourselves in the unfamiliarworld of "the stone gal," where idiosyncratic taste is understoodnot as a markof individualitybut of egoism and vanity. In keeping with the classical tradition,the untutoredself was repudiatedas wanting; it is only insofaras an individualshed his peculiarityand subjectedhimself to the impersonalityof the practicethathe would be ableto fulfill his properend as artist,poet, or personwith taste (which is the moreinclusive category,for the artistandpoet mustacquiretaste if they areever to succeed as artistsandpoets). Whenit cameto exemplars,eighteenth-centuryartistsandartloverswere in possession of many-in poetry,HomerandVirgilas well as Shakespeare,in art, ancient sculpturesuch as the Venusde Medici, the Apollo Belvedere, and the Laocoon, and the masters of the High Renaissance, especially Raphael and Michelangelo. Reynolds repeatedlyurged artiststo try to inhabitthe spirit of these masters:"Considerwith yourself how a Michael Angelo or a Raffaelle would have treatedthis subject:andworkyourselfinto a belief thatyourpicture is to be seen and criticizedby them when completed.""By studyingthese authenticmodels,"Reynoldsassuredhis audience"thatideaof excellencewhich is 16
Hume, 235.
17 Reynolds, 99; 18
Hume, 236.
132-33; also 17, 27, 31, 32, 41.
Tasteand "the Conversible World"
211
the result of accumulatedexperience of past ages, may be at once acquired." The study of exemplarswas meant to put taste on the right track so that one could, in Reynolds's words, "catchsomethingof their way of thinkingand ... receive in ourbosoms some radiationat least of theirfire and splendor."Hume agreedaboutthe crucialrole of exemplars:they "regulatethe taste"and"fix the objectsof imitation."'9 Artists and art lovers, then, had on the one hand an uncontestedcanon of "authenticmodels"of excellenceandon the othera systemof analysisandevaluation derivedfrom classical rhetoric,the terms of which were proving insufficient to account for their exemplary status. Discrepancieswere mounting as time passed, posing ever more powerfulthreatsto the integrityof the classical tradition.SamuelJohnson,in his famousprefaceto his edition of Shakespeare, was forcedto defend the bard'slapses in classical decorum:his plays were not "inthe rigorousandcriticalsense eithertragediesor comedies"andthey exhibited many"irregularities," includinga neglect of moralpurpose,loosely formed use of anachronisms,and a failureto observe the unities of action, time, plots, andplace. At the same time Reynoldswas obliged to answerthose who hadthe temerityto criticize the proportionsof the Apollo Belvedere.20 Even with the discoveryof these ever-growingdiscrepancies,almostno one in the eighteenthcenturyadvocatedeitherjettisoningthe rules or rethinkingthe canon. They continuedto revereHomerand Shakespeare,the Venusde Medici and the Apollo Belvedere,but more and more they were forced to add new resourcesto theircriticalstock, theirfavoritebeing the "testof nationsandages." ForHumethe indisputablefactof the world's"durableadmiration"for Homer"thesame Homer,who pleased atAthens and Rome two thousandyears ago, is still admiredat Parisand London" providedempiricalproof of a single, universal, and truestandardof taste. Johnsonappealedto the same test to demonstrateShakespeare'sgreatness:"Toworks ... of which the excellence is not absolute anddefinite,but gradualandcomparative;to worksnot raiseduponprinciples demonstrativeand scientific, but appealingwholly to observationand experience,no othertest can be appliedthanlengthof durationandcontinuance of esteem."But it was not posterityalone that validatedworks of art since, as Johnsonpointedout, reverencefor antiquitycould itself become a "prejudice" andjudgment,"thoughit be graduallygaininguponcertainty,"was never"infallible." Rather,these writersbelieved thatworks of artwhich have actuallydelightedoverthe longestperiodof time do so because,as Reynoldsputit, they are "proportioned"and "accommodated"to something constant and enduringin humannature.21 19Reynolds,30-31, 15, 98; Hume,135. SamuelJohnson,"Prefaceto Shakespeare" (1765),reprintedin E. L. McAdam,Jr.,A JohnsonReader(NewYork,1964);Reynolds,179. 21 Hume,233;Johnson,315-16,317;Reynolds,145. 20
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By these lights, diversity of taste was an illusion; variationcould be explained away as the residue of "changesof climate, government,religion, and language,""authorityor prejudice,""themistakesof ignoranceandenvy,""the "personalallusions," capricesof mode andfashion,""familiaracquaintance,"22 "localcustoms,"and"temporaryopinions."23 The test of nationsandages, then, is best understoodas a sieve which filteredout accidentsand contingenciesof history.Whatremained,in Hume's words, were "thebeauties,which are naturally fitted to excite agreeablesentiments... and while the world endures,they maintaintheirauthorityover the minds of men."24Fromthis it followed thatto know such models was to glimpse humannaturedirectlyor, as Reynoldsput it, to know "whatis analogousto the mind of man."For Reynoldsthis knowledge provideda firmerfoundationfor taste thananythingthe classical system could supply: "Whathas pleased, and continues to please, is likely to please again: hence arederivedthe rules of art,andon this immoveablefoundationthey must ever stand."25 In this newly calibratedsystem unprecedentedemphasiswas given to universality,capturedin suchphrasesas "generalnature"or "idealbeauty.""Nothing can please many, and please long," Johnson famously declared,"butjust of generalnature."Reynoldsadvancedthe sameidea:"Thewhole representations beauty and grandeurof the art consists in being able to get above all singular In his elaboraforms,local customs,particularities,anddetailsof every kind."26 tion of "generalnature"Reynoldsintroduceda numberof oppositions-general vs. particular,invariablevs. local, timeless vs. temporary,uniformityvs. variety, ideal naturevs. natureas we find it thatthe next generationof romantics would use againsthim andare still, with minorvariations,at the centerof many of ourpresentcontroversies. Nature-universal andrepresentative-was a fundamentalconceptof eighteenth-centurythinking.27It was not, however, a latter-dayversion of Platonic ideal forms.As Reynoldsinstructedhis audience,"Thisgreatideal of perfection and beauty are not to be sought in the heavens, but upon the earth.They are aboutus, and upon every side of us." Wherebeautywas understoodas general nature,its opposite was the particular,the temporary,or the local, which were thought of as "deformity"or "blemish."(It is notable that ugliness is not the oppositeof beauty.)Accordingto Reynolds, it was the precinctof tasteto make this determination:"Thosewho have cultivatedtheirtaste can distinguishwhat 22
Hume, 233.
23Johnson, 316. Also see Reynolds, 73, 141; Johnson,"The History of Rasselas"(1759), in McAdam, 237. 24 Hume, 233; Cf. 234, 235 and Reynolds, 131, 145. 25 Reynolds, 133. Cf. Hume, 231. 26 Johnson, "Preface,"317; Reynolds, 44. 27 See Basil Willey, TheEighteenthCenturyBackground:Studies on the Idea of Nature in the Thoughtof the Period (Boston, 19612).
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is beautifulor deformed,or, in otherwords, what agrees with or deviates from the generalidea of nature."Here he returnsto taste as a practicebut now in the service of abstractinggeneral principles from particularinstances. Again he praised longtime observation,contemplation,and comparisonof forms as the meanstowarddiscerningnot only what"anyset of objectsof the samekindhave in common"but also what"eachwantsin particular." The practicedeye is eventually able to "distinguishthe accidentaldeficiencies, excrescences, and deformities of things, from theirgeneral figures,"which then enables one to "make out an abstractidea of theirforms more perfect thanany one original."For the artistthis abstractidea is what he is strivingto impart;for the spectatorit is the standardof taste. The only shortcutReynolds allowed was "a careful study of the works of the ancient sculptorswho, being indefatigablein the school of nature,have left models of thatperfectformbehindthem."28 Reynolds repeatedlycautionedhis audiencenot to mistake"particularliving objects"as they happento exist for generalnature,andhe offeredRembrandt as an example of one who had made precisely this error.He admonishedhis audiencethatif what was wanted from artwas "animitationof nature... with the greatestfidelity,"thenRembrandtwouldhave "ahigherplace"thanRaphael, whicheveryoneknewwas false.(ThisdistinctionbetweenRembrandt andRaphael was a commonplace,even thoughit is lost to us today as both artistsare classed togetheras "OldMasters,"a termthatonly gainedcurrencyin the middle of the nineteenthcentury.)Reynoldsalso remindedthemthat"wearenotalwayspleased with the most absolutepossible resemblanceof an imitationto its originalobject" andfurthermorethatsuch a resemblancemighteven prove "disagreeable," as was the case of"figures in Wax-work."29 As Reynolds's audienceincludedapprenticeartists,the capacityto discern and representgeneralnaturehad practicalramifications.When it came to history painting, there was always the potential for anachronismand Reynolds chastisedthose who neglected to "separatemodem fashions fromthe habitsof nature,"the end resultbeing "thatridiculousstyle which has been practicedby some painters,who have given to GrecianHeroes the airs and gracespracticed in the courtof Lewis the Fourteenth."Portrait-painting presenteda distinctyet relatedchallenge,forportraits,concernedas they were with the particular,could easily bearthe marksof theirtime. Thus,Reynoldscautionedagainstpaintinga subjectin "modemdress."The portraitist'sbest recoursewas to devise clothing that had "the general air of the antiquefor the sake of dignity, and preserves something of the modem for the sake of likeness." While anachronismand datednessrevealedthe artist'sfailureto get beyondthe presentmoment,an even moredebilitatingfault,especially for those schooled in decorum,was incongru28 Reynolds, 131, 44, 45. 29 Reynolds, 103, 124, 193.
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Rochelle Gurstein
ity. It was this inabilityto see which things fit togetherthatmarredthe work of modem sculptorswho blindlyfollowed ancientmodels in representingtheirsubjects nude.Reynoldsfurnisheda notorious,contemporaryexampleof a statueof the aged Voltaire,"madeentirely naked, and as meager and emaciatedas the original is said to be," whose fate was to remain in the sculptor's shop.30But earlyin the next centurythe problemwas solved by oppositebut equallyjarring means: Canova-"the modem Praxitiles,"as he was known-sculpted Napoleon with his own head but atop the majesticbody of an unrobedGod. The test of nationsandages,joined with the conceptof generalnature,went farin shoringup the classical system andredeemingreveredexemplars.But for the test to succeed,it requireda complementarykindof viewer.Justas the test of nations and ages sortedout those works that appealedto the highest common denominatorin humannature,a person who exercised taste had to undergoa similarprocessof distillationif his or herjudgmentwere to be differentfromand more valid thanindividualwhim or culturalprejudice.As we have seen, qualified taste involves practice,but it can only be fully developed in a person capable of moving beyond the narrowprecinctsof privatefeeling andthe provincialism of the presentmoment.Whenjudging a work from the past, Hume insisted thatthe critic "mustplace himself in the same situationas the [original] audience."When judging a contemporarywork, one must not be swayed by personal"friendshipor enmity"with the author.Instead,Hume declared,a person with taste must consider himself "as a man in general."He must "forget [his] individualbeing and [his] peculiarcircumstances.A personinfluencedby prejudice,compliesnot with this condition;butobstinatelymaintainshis natural position, withoutplacing himself in thatpoint of view, which the performance supposes."31
The ideal of the unprejudicedviewer does not, however,imply a disembodied view fromnowhere.Rather,by takingthe standpointsof othersin imagination, the personwith taste multiplieshis or her perspectives,expandshis or her consciousness,andin so doing escapes the narrowconfines of subjectivity.Just as the artist must shed those eccentricities that hinder his or her work from fulfilling its end, and the work of artmust be free from particularitiesin order for it to speakto audiencesin some distantfuture,so judgmentsof tastearevalid only to the extentthatthe viewer can move beyondhis or herprivatedaily cares and preoccupationsand partakein something largerthan the self. Thus, it is clear what the Englishmanwas thinkingwhen he characterizedthe Yankee's tasteas egoisticanduncivic:he was appalledby his self-absorption,his obliviousness to the rest of the world.
Reynolds, 49, 128, 140. The sculptureReynolds was referringto was made by Jean Baptiste Pigalle in 1776. 31 Hume, 239. Cf. Johnson,Rasselas, 237 and Reynolds, 48-49. 30
Tasteand "the Conversible World"
215
Longtimeexperiencecontemplating,observing,andcomparingthe thingsof the world; an intimateacquaintancewith exemplars;the capacity for enlarged thought-these are the essential featuresof the practiceof taste. For Humeand Reynolds and Johnson would agree-there is no other standardthan the joint verdictof the most practicedcriticsover time (andI would addthe proviso that this verdict is always open to revision). Taste,then, is best understoodas akin to practicalwisdom, but in judgments of quality.Just as one must be in possession of many other virtues before one attainspracticalwisdom, so it is with taste, which Reynolds describedas a "sagacity"which is "superior"to the exercise of "rightreason."Thatis why it is notoriouslydifficult to specify exactly whattasteis, why people arereducedto sayingthatit is a "feel,"a "sense," for what is right, fitting, suitable, appropriate.And that is also why once a personacquirestaste,its operationstakeon the appearanceof being,in Reynolds's words, "instantaneous"or "a kind of intuition": A man endowed with this faculty, feels and acknowledges the truth, though it is not always in his power, perhaps,to give a reason for it; because he cannotrecollect andbringbefore him all the materialsthat gave birthto his opinion; for very many and very intricateconsiderations may unite to formthe principle,even of small and minuteparts, involved in, or dependenton, a greatsystem of things:thoughthese in processof time areforgotten,the rightimpression still remainsfixed in his mind. This impressionis the resultof the accumulatedexperience of ourwhole life, andhas been collected, we do not always know how, or when.32 As shouldbe evidentby now, taste, while it was the means of appreciating andjudging beauty,also had far greaterreach;it was as much a moralattribute of the self as it was a faculty of judgmentaboutthe world. Inquiriesinto taste grew out of effortsto salvageclassical aesthetics,butat the sametime they were the fruitof sustaineddiscussionaboutthe nature,development,andfunctioning of commercialsociety,a discussionwhich gave riseto modempoliticaleconomy and liberalpolitical thoughtas well as to a philosophyof moralsentimentsand aesthetics.The thinkersI have been treatingwere engagedin this largerproject, andtheiressays andlectureswere intendedfor "theconversibleworld,"Hume's phrasefor the newly emergentmiddleclasses, who were seekingnot only entertainmentbut also guidancein taste,manners,morals,andgeneralknowledge so thatthey could assumetheirplace in polite, commercialsociety.33 32
Reynolds, 230.
and "The Rise of Arts and Sciences," 120, 130, and Reynolds, 118; also J. G. A. Pocock, "Virtues,Rights, and Manners,"in Virtue,Commerce,and History (Cambridge, 1985), 37-50; Nicholas Phillipson, "Politics, Politeness, and the 33 Hume, "Of Essay Writing,"533,
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The conversibleworldconsistedof those arenasthatbelongedneitherto the court,to the state,nor to the privatehousehold-journals of polite opinion and new institutionslike the RoyalAcademyof Art(whichopenedin 1769),butalso privateclubs, societies, and associations,as well as tavernsand coffeehouses, where strangersfrom various classes might meet, and salons and balls, where the sexes could mingle "in an easy and sociable manner."The characteristic activity of the conversible world was, not surprisingly,conversation,and for Humethe artsof conversationwere "themost useful andagreeableof any [art]." (It is worthrecallingthatnot only Dr.JohnsonbutHume,too, was knownfor his conversation.)Withthis standardof sociabilityin mindHumecriticizedcontemporarypedantsandacademicians,whose learninghad secludedthem from"the world and good company";in their hands, he complained, belles lettres had become "totallybarbarous,being cultivatedby men withoutany taste of life or manners,andwithoutthatlibertyand facility of thoughtand expression,which can only be acquiredby conversation."34 "Thelearned,"as Hume called them, were the progeny of the philologists, those moders who had first discovered thatexemplarsdid not always observe classical rules. But Hume himself was on the side of the moders; in a subtlebut decisive shift in thatlongstandingquarrel,he claimed superiorityfor the moders in the realmof mannersandsociability.Likethe pedants,the ancientswere regrettably deficientin "theartsof conversation,"which they had failed to bring"so nearto perfection... as the artsof writing and composition."Hume displayedhis own delicacy when he observedthat "the scurrilityof the ancient orators,in many instances,is quiteshocking,andexceedsall belief."Cicero,Pliny,Sallust,Horace, Ovid, Lucretius-Hume took each of these ancientexemplarsto task for their "vanity,"their"commonlicentiousness,"and "immodestyof theirstyle."Page afterpage overflows with examples of their want of "delicacy,""polite deference andrespect,"and"civility"in conversation.And when it came to women, the ancients lacked "gallantry."Where the moders praised "the company of virtuouswomen"as a "schoolformanners,"sincethe"mutualendeavorto please" inevitably"polish[es]the mind,"the ancients,to theirdetriment,did not regard women as "partof the polite world or of good company."35 The moder, conversibleself was tender,sentimental,sociable, andsympathetic.Mildness,moderation,andreasonablenesswere its definingfeatures,just as civility, refinement,wit, and gaiety were the distinguishingmarksof polite conversation.In orderto join the conversible world one needed to be able to make the finest distinctionsnot only among objects but also among people; in Anglicization of Early Eighteenth-CenturyScottish Culture"in Roger A. Mason (ed.), Scotland and England, 1286-1815 (Edinburgh,1987), 234-41; David S. Shields, Civil Tonguesand Polite Letters in British America (Chapel Hill, 1997). 34 Hume, "Of Essay Writing,"534. 35 Hume, "Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences," 126, 127, 128-30, 134.
Tasteand "the Conversible World"
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short,one requireda delicacy of taste. In a briefpiece entitled"OfThe Delicacy of Taste and Passion"Hume elaboratedon the role of taste in cultivatingthe polite self. Significantly,in defining delicacy he pairedan appreciationof the arts with an appreciationof conversation,for both were objects of aesthetic delightandoccasions for refinement.Justas a personwith refinedtaste takes in the "masterlystrokes"of a paintingor poem with the most "exquisiterelish and satisfaction"andperceives "thenegligences or absurdities"with great"disgust anduneasiness,"so "apolite andjudicious conversationaffordshim the highest entertainment;rudenessor impertinenceis as greata punishmentto him."36 Hume's appreciationof"polite," "fine,"or "liberal"arts(these termswere interchangeable)was based in a psychology of passions, some of which were thoughtto be selfish, wild, anddestructiveandothers,benevolent,therebyproHe praisedthe study of"the beauties, viding a much-neededcounterweight.37 either of poetry,eloquence, music, or painting"for their capacityto "drawoff the mind from the hurryof business and interest,"which in turnencourageda reflectivemood, "tranquility," "anagreeablemelancholy";the fine artshad the power to improve the sensibility for all "the tender and agreeablepassions," which renderedthe mind "incapableof the rougherand more boisterousemotions."Whereliberalartshad previouslybeen studiedfor the practicallessons they offeredmen of affairs,the study of "thebeauties"was now recommended for their capacity to refine the passions and soften the temper, for giving "a certainelegance of sentimentto which the rest of mankindare strangers."What is more, the kinds of experience necessary to make soundjudgments of taste provideda valuableeducationin its own right:"Ourjudgmentwill strengthenby this exercise. We shall formjusternotions of life."A delicacy of taste provided a sense of balance and proportion;it determinedwhich things were worthy of attentionand which were too "frivolous."This power of discernmentwas "favorableto love andfriendship,"accordingto Hume,becausethe "dispositionsof mind"it producedwere conducive to "companyand conversation."But also, becausethissensibilityconfinedone's choiceof companionsto only a few people, friendshipswere deepenedandcould blossom into "anelegantpassion."3 Thus,by attaininga delicacy of taste, one became a certainkind of person. An exquisiteexampleof whatkindof personis offeredin Adam Smith'sfamous letterdescribingthe deathof his greatfriend,David Hume. Hume's deathwas the object of enormousattentionsince his skepticismaboutreligion was wellknown andthe public was curiousif he would face his deathwith equanimitywhichhe did,accordingto Smith.The following lengthypassagecomes fromhis closing remarks: Hume, "Of the Delicacy of Taste and Passion,"4-5. Hirschman,ThePassions and the Interests:Political Argumentsfor Capitalism before its Triumph(Princeton, 1977). 38Hume, "Of the Delicacy of Taste and Passion,"6-8. 36
37 See Albert 0.
218
Rochelle Gurstein His temper,indeed, seemed to be more happily balanced,if I may be allowed such an expression,thanthatperhapsof any otherman I have ever known.Even in the lowest stateof his fortune,his greatandnecessary frugalitynever hinderedhim from exercising, upon properoccasions, acts both of charityand generosity.It was a frugalityfounded, notuponavarice,butuponthe love of independency.Theextremegentleness of his natureneverweakenedeitherthe firmnessof his mind,or the steadinessof his resolutions.His constantpleasantrywas the genuine effusion of good-natureandgood-humour,temperedwith delicacy and modesty, and without even the slightest tinctureof malignity, so frequently the disagreeablesource of what is called wit in other men. It neverwas the meaningof his railleryto mortify;andtherefore,farfrom offending, it seldom failed to please and delight, even those who were the objects of it. To his friends,who were frequentlythe objects of it, there was not perhapsany one of all his great and amiable qualities, which contributedmore to endearhis conversation.And thatgaiety of temper,so agreeablein society,butwhich is so often accompaniedwith frivolous and superficialqualities,was in him certainlyattendedwith the most severe application,the most extensive learning,the greatest depthof thought,and a capacityin every respectthe most comprehensive. Upon the whole, I have alwaysconsideredhim, bothin his lifetime and since his death,as approachingas nearlyto the idea of a perfectly wise andvirtuousman, as perhapsthe natureof humanfrailtywill permit.39
This wonderfulaccountingof Hume'slife once againrevealsthe enormous value the conversible world placed on sociability, for the greaterpart of the passage celebratesHume as the consummateconversationalist.Withprecision andgrace Smithset out every nuanceof his friend'sconversation,isolatingand distinguishingbetween its variousexcellences andjudiciously comparingthem with the qualitiesthat comprisethe conversationsof others. Hume's good nature,good humor,andgaiety,his wit, delicacy,andmodesty,his learning,depth, andcomprehensivenesscome togetherseamlessly in the service of pleasing and delightinghis friends.A perfectlyaesthetictone pervadesall; Hume'sconversation is treatedas if it were a work of art,an object of taste, and Smith's eulogy itself is a model of the practiceof taste. Delicacy of taste,then,leads to ever finerandminutediscriminations:"One thathas well digestedhis knowledgebothof books andmen, has littleenjoyment but in the companyof a few select companions,"observedHume."Hefeels too 39 "LetterfromAdam Smith, LL.D. to William Strahan,Esq., in Miller (ed.), David Hume, Essays, xlvii-xlix.
Tasteand "the Conversible World"
219
sensibly how much all the rest of mankindfall shortof the notionswhich he has entertained."From our contemporarypoint of view, this sounds like elitism in the double sense thatit discriminatesbetween qualitiesand thatpracticedtaste carriesmoreweight thanfirst impressions.But it is not elitist in our contemporary political sense that it arbitrarilyexcludes anyone from its practice. As Reynoldsputit, "Refinedtasteis the consequenceof educationandhabit;we are bornonly with a capacityof entertainingthis refinement...; andso farit may be said to be naturalto us, andno further."40 Anyone who gives him or herself over to the rigorsof the practiceis welcome tojoin anddisputewith the publicwhose judgmentsdo carryweight. While I believe that the understandingof taste as a practice,as a form of practicalwisdom, still has much to offer us today,it is clearthatit has a specific inflection which grows out of the Enlightenmentidea of generalnature:just as the particularin naturewas regardedas a deformityor blemish, so, too, was humannaturein its untutoredstate. Humannaturewas considerednatureonly insofaras it fulfilled its properend, meaningthatit became cultivated,refined, andpolished, andtaste was one of the meansby which it reachedthatend. This conceptionof nature,however,which Enlightenmentthinkersheld to be trueof all nations and ages, turns out, in a poignant historical irony, to be the most distinctivemarkof theirown time. As studentsof the periodhave pointed out, these thinkersmistook theirown venerationof what Reynolds called "thegeneralprinciplesof urbanity,politeness, andcivility"for the universalend toward which all societies strive.41 This helps to accountfor those aspectsof theirwritingthatseem alien to us today, such as their understandingof deformity as the opposite of beauty or Hume's shock at the alleged rudeness of the ancients. But those who helped shapethe ideal of politenesswere not blindto the tensionswithinit, tensionsand weaknesses thatlatercritics would use to discreditandundermineit. Fromthe very beginningsome worriedthattherewas somethingenervatingaboutrefinement and Johnson'sdefinition of "elegance"in his Dictionary capturedsuch fears.The firstentry,in keepingwith classical decorum,read"beautywith propriety";the second, more ominously, "beautywithout grandeur."Others,like Hume,observedthatthe advantagesof politenesswere not "pureandunmixed." Because "moder politeness"was "naturallyso ornamental,"it "runsoften into affectationandfoppery,disguise andinsincerity."Humewas not alone when he realizedthatwhile a largestoreof unsurpassableexemplarswas essentialto the cultivationof taste,theirveryperfectioncouldproveoverwhelming,even debilitating,to new artistsandpoets who hadto go on with little hope of matching,let
40
Reynolds, 7, 232-33.
41 Reynolds, 134.
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Rochelle Gurstein
alone, surpassingtheirgreatness.42 Taste,too, was prey to corruption;insteadof the fruitof longtimeexperienceandcarefulconsideration,it could reflect being a slavish imitationof the latestfashion,just as it could be used invidiouslyto set the snob apartfrom the crowd.43 Nevertheless,the centralplace of tastein the largersocial vision of Enlightenmentthinkersis an importantreminderthatthe way people conceive of taste cannot be consideredapartfrom their ideas about society and humannature. This is made explicit in one of the last lecturesReynolds deliveredbefore the Royal Academy.One of his most pressingconcernsthroughoutthe Discourses was to elevate the statusof paintingfroma "mechanical"to a "fine"or "liberal" art,which helps to explainhis repeatedclaim thatpaintingwas somethingmore thanmereimitation,thatit was the arduousstrivingtowardrepresentinggeneral nature.In DiscourseXIIIReynoldspressedthe importanceof escapingfromthe "gross"state of naturefor the sake of civilization, but also for the sake of art: "Perhaps[painting]ought to be as far removed from the vulgar idea of imitation,as the refined civilized state in which we live is removed from a gross state of nature."In the very next sentence, he expandedthe analogy to include taste:"Thosewho have not cultivatedtheirimaginations,which the majorityof mankindcertainlyhave not, may be said, in regardto arts, to continue in this state of nature."The taste of such people carrieslittle weight since those who have not cultivatedtheirimaginationare simply incapableof experiencing,let alonejudging, in Reynolds's words, "thehighereffortsof the arts."44 This difference in cultivationsheds light on why, from the perspective of someone who has taste, the personwho lacks it is regardedas "blind"or "tonedeaf." Such people seem to be missing a faculty of perceptionand, in consequence,occupy a differentworld.All thatcan be said to them is that"Ifyou had taste, you, too, would see or hearin this way."An excellent instanceof this can be found in the diaryof anotherAmericanabroad-Nathaniel Hawthorne'sdescriptionof his own aestheticeducation.Duringthe summerof 1857, he repeatedly visited the ManchesterArtsExhibitionin hope of acquiringan appreciation of painting.While he took easy pleasurein "relicsof antiquity,"when it came to painting-not only contemporarieslike Turnerbut"OldMasters"-Hawthorne 42 Hume, "Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences," 130-31, 135-36; and see John D. Scheffer, "The Idea of Decline in Literatureand the Fine Arts in Eighteenth-Century England,"ModernPhilology, 34 (1936), 155-78; and W. JacksonBate, TheBurdenof the Past and the English Poet (Cambridge,Mass., 1970). 43 Karen Halttunen'sConfidenceMen and Painted Women(New Haven, 1982), Kenneth Cmiel's Democratic Eloquence (New York, 1990), John Kasson's Rudeness and Civility (New York, 1990), and RichardBushman's The Refinementof America (New York, 1992) have explored the relateddevelopmentof gentility in America, studyingnot only its widespreadpractice, but also the ever-mountingfears about artificiality,hypocrisy, and corruptionthat it entailed. See also my TheRepeal of Reticence (New York, 1996). 44Reynolds, 232-33.
Tasteand "the Conversible World"
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was overwhelmedanduncertain.Yet with each visit he recordsthathe is "making some progressas a connoisseur,and have got so far as to be able to distinguish the broaderdifferencesof style,-as, for example, between Rubens and Rembrandt."Still, he recognizesthathe is a novice andthat"fullenjoyment"of paintingrequires"longandintimateacquaintance."By his last visit thingshave changedconsiderably.It is not that Hawthornenow intellectuallyunderstands what makes "OldMasters"great;rather,throughextensive looking, he actually perceives the work in a differentlight:"Picturesare certainlyquite otherthings to me now fromwhatthey were at my firstvisit; it seems even as if therewere a sortof illuminationwithinthem,thatmakesme see themmore distinctly."With this deepened appreciationthat comes with sustainedexperience, Hawthorne reflects on the uninformedlooking of others: "The Exhibitionmust be quite thrownaway on the mass of spectators."45Of course this is not an answerthat will satisfya personwho believes tasteis immediateor naturalandwho holds all tastes to be equal. Whichbringsme to my final consideration,havingto do with the difficulty of conveying thoughtsto those who are not yet preparedto receive them. The distancebetweenthose who havepracticedtasteandthose who do not is so great as to appearunbridgeable.While so much has changed since the eighteenth century,this still remainstrue. Because judgments of taste cannotbe demonstratedby reasonor logic but are validatedonly by experienceandpractice,an unusualintensitysurroundsdisagreements.Thus, the Englishmanexperienced the Yankee'sblindnessto the Venusde Medici not merely as deficient taste but as "a classic impiety, an irreverence,a profanity."Indeed, the sensibility betrayedin the phrase"stonegal" reducedthe Englishmanto sputtering.But perhaps speechlessnessis the most genuineresponse;the cultivatedpersonunderstandsthe selfish disregardfor the world at bottom of unconsideredtaste, but cannotconvey thatunderstandingsince the personwho makes suchpronouncements lacks the rudimentsof the sensibility that could make sense of such a claim. Yet at the same time those who believe that taste is nothing more than personal likes and dislikes and who, in the name of tolerance, announcethat "everyoneis entitledto his or her own taste"or that"one opinion is as good as another"are also reducedto speechlessness,for such sayings effectively put an end to any furtherconversation. BardGraduateCenter,New York.
45 Nathaniel Hawthorne,Passages from the English Notebooks (Boston, 1871), 309-31. Cf. Reynolds, describingthe difficulties of appreciatingMichelangelo, 277, 279.
The
"Survival
of
and
the
Social
Fittest"
the
Origins
of
Darwinism
GregoryClaeys In late September 1838 a young man, aged 29, a former medical student and amateur naturalist, who had spent several years in the South Pacific studying plant and animal life, but who remained puzzled as to why "favourable variants" of each species survived while "unfavourable variants" were destroyed, sat perusing a book, as he later recalled, "for amusement."' The work which provoked Charles Darwin was T. R. Malthus's Essay on Population (1798), which he later claimed first suggested to him the idea that "on the whole the best fitted live." This idea Darwin would popularize through the notion of the "struggle for existence," a phrase which he famously claimed to use as a "metaphor" but which meant simply "the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms."2 That application resulted in the publiThis articlewas an inaugurallectureat Royal Holloway,Universityof London,21 October 1997. My thanksgo especially to GarethStedmanJones for his comments on the text. I FrancisDarwin (ed.), TheLife and Lettersof CharlesDarwin (3 vols.; London, 1888), I, 83. The passage was picked up by contemporaries,e.g., Benjamin Kidd, Social Evolution (London, 1894), 32. 2 Charles Darwin, Origin of Species (London, 1859), ch. 3; the phrase "survivalof the fittest"Darwinonly introducedin the fifth, 1872 edition of the Origin and meantby it only that those who producedthe most offspring were likely to pass their characteristicsonwards. See Robert Mackintosh,From Comte to BenjaminKidd: TheAppeal to Biology or Evolutionfor Human Guidance(London, 1899), 63; David Ritchie, Darwinismand Politics (London, 1901), 1-6. The most concise treatmentof the subject is Peter Bowler. "Malthus,Darwin, and the Concept of Struggle,"JHI, 37 (1976), 631-50; Conway Zirkle, "NaturalSelection before the 'Origin of Species,' "Proceedings of the AmericanPhilosophical Society, 84 (1941), 71-123; GertrudeHimmelfarb,Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution (London, 1959), John Burrow, Evolutionand Society:A Studyin VictorianSocial Theory(Cambridge,1966);PeterVorzimmer, "Darwin,Malthus,andthe Theoryof NaturalSelection,"JHI, 30 (1969), 527-42; RobertYoung, "Malthusand the Evolutionists:the Common Context of Biological and Social Theory,"Past and Present, 43 (1969); Sandra Herbert, "Darwin, Malthus and Selection," Journal of the History of Biology, 4 (1971), 209-17; Derek Freeman,"The EvolutionaryTheories of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer," CurrentAnthropology, 15 (1974), 211-21; Silvan Schweber, "The Origin of the Origin Revisited,"Journal of the History of Biology, 10 (1977), 229-316; 223 of theHistoryof Ideas,Inc. 2000byJournal Copyright
224
Gregory Claeys
cation of the Origin of Species in 1859, an occasion hailed as "the greatest event of Queen Victoria's reign,"3 even "by far the most important ... in the history of the modem West."4It is well known, too, that Darwin's appreciation of Malthus was not unique even among naturalists. The year before the Origin of Species appeared another young man, Alfred Russel Wallace, aged 25, encountered the very same book. "There suddenly," he later recalled, flashed upon him "the idea of the survival of the fittest."5We know Wallace today, thus, as the codiscoverer of theory of natural selection, who presented a paper jointly with Darwin at the Linnean Society on that momentous evening of 1 July 1858 to mark their brilliant achievement.6 This curious coincidence has often been noted, but its ramifications require furtherassessment. This article examines some crucial nineteenth-century sources of the idea of the "survival of the fittest," which came to underpin many of the social and political doctrines later associated with the theory of natural selection, and also what were regarded as some of the limits of this idea.7 It contends that there was in fact far more than mere coincidence in the obviously provocative role played by Malthus's Essay for both Darwin and Wallace.8 It argues,
Steven ShapinandBarryBares, "Darwinand Social Darwinism:PurityandHistory,"in Shapin and Barnes, Natural Order:Historical Studies of Scientific Culture(Los Angeles, 1977), 12542; Michael Ruse, "Social Darwinism:Two Sources,"Albion, 12 (1980), 23-36; also Gavin de Beer, "The Origins of Darwin's Ideas on Evolution and NaturalSelection,"Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 155, B (1962), 321-38; Loren Eiseley, Darwin s Century(New York, 1961), 181-82; Peter Vorzimmer,"Darwin, Malthus, and the Theory of Natural Selection," JHI, 30 (1969), 527-42; and RichardHofstadter,Social Darwinismin AmericanThought(Boston, 1955). 3 Sidney Low and Lloyd Saunders,The History of England During the Reign of Victoria (London, 1911), 455. 4 BenjaminKidd, The Science of Power (London, 1919), 43. 5 "Then it suddenly flashed upon me that this self-acting process would necessarily improve the race, because in every generationthe inferiorwould inevitably be killed off and the superiorwould remain-that is, thefittest would survive."Alfred Russel Wallace,My Life: A Record of Events and Opinions (London, 1908), 190. 6 Wallace, My Life, 232-35, had in fact readMalthussome twenty years earlier,in 1844-5, but only recognised the implicationsfor evolutionarytheory later. 7 The standardaccount of evolutionarytheories in this period remainsJ. W. Burrow,Evolution and Society, which, however, excludes Social Darwinism. 8 The Darwin industryhas of course made much of this association, which is also widely recognised by other historians, e.g., Donald Winch, Malthus (Oxford, 1987), 7; D. P. Crook, Darwinism, Warand History (Cambridge,1994), 17-21. On Darwin's "metaphor,"see David N. Livingstone,Darwin s ForgottenDefenders (Edinburgh,1987), ch. 2. Some contemporaries also regardedSocial Darwinism and Malthusianismas essentially identical. See H. M. Hyndman (The Historical Basis of Socialism in England [London, 1883], 38.): "Theattemptmade to apply Darwin'stheorieson the strugglefor life among animalsto man is quite beside the point. Man is the only animal who deliberatelymodifies nature on a large scale, and increases the amountof his own food. To my mind, the Malthusiantheory in the presentconditionof population on the planet, and of humancivilization among the progressiveraces, is utterlymisleading and foolish."
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therefore,against the presumptionof tacit causality-logically implicit in the concept of "Social Darwinism"9-that much of the social and political theory which nominallyinvokedDarwinwas fundamentallyderivedfrom,as opposed to being reinforcedby, the principlesof naturalselection. It challengesthe view thatthe logic of discoveryin the naturalsciences, in otherwords,inducedparallel or derivative concepts in the social sciences and that the "survivalof the fittest"emerged first as a natural,and then mutatedinto a social concept. Instead it suggests that what was specific about much of Social Darwinismresulted from several shifts in thoughtin mid-VictorianBritainto which Darwin himself also respondedandwhich thereforealso vitally influencedhis own development. No doubt,of course,this assertionof causationcontainssome truth.Darwin was extraordinarily influential.We areall aware widely readandextraordinarily of the greattheological debatesassociatedwith his name in late VictorianBritain, of the counter-attackagainstDarwinbegun by Bishop Wilberforcein June 1860, and of the tenacious war of attritionconductedby "Darwin'sbulldog," T. H. Huxley, who coined the term "agnostic"in 1869 to define the lack of scientific evidence for the existence of God.'1Much has been written of the moralpanicandgrowingloss of religiousfaith,parallelingthe courseof Darwin's own "reluctantagnosticism,"which followed the conclusionthathumanbeings hadbeen levelled to the statusof animalsanddeprivedof a special Providential creationas well as any divine purposein the perpetuationof their species. In historya tremendousimpetuswas given to the searchfor certainlaws of social development.In social andpolitical thoughtDarwinreinforcedthe individualism of SpencerandMaine"but also clearlypaved the way for more collectivist notions of state activity.12In moralphilosophy Darwinspawneda greatdebate about the role altruismdoes and should play in social development.Nor are 9 See R. J. Halliday,"Social Darwinism:A Definition," VictorianStudies, 14 (1971), 389-
405.
0 See "Agnosticism,"in T. H. Huxley, Collected Essays (London, 1894), V, 209-62. n See Maine's praise for "thebeneficentprivatewar which makes one man strive to climb on the shoulders of anotherand remain there through the law of the survival of the fittest." Popular Government(London, 1885), 50. 12 J. Holland Rose (The Rise of Democracy [London, 1898], 166), contended that the influence of Darwin'stheories had been "bothto extend and complicatethe issues which were prominentin the previous generation.Then controversyragedmostly on the questionof natural rights, especially those of the individual to a share in the government. Now the contest is between those who would strengthenand those who would minimize the authorityof the state in its dealings with the individual, especially in regard to private ownership, the claims of companies,and economic or social questionsarisingtherefrom."Yet Dicey gave him relatively little creditfor assisting this trendin Lectureson the Relation betweenLaw and Public Opinion in the Nineteenth Century.A similar stress on the collectivist implications of the theory of naturalselection is given by BenjaminKidd (Principles of WesternCivilisation[London, 1902], 51), who however emphasizes the post-Darwiniancontribution.Greta Jones, Social Darwinism and English Thought(Brighton, 1980), 54-77.
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many ignorant of the process by which, rushing into the moral vacuum seemingly created by evolutionism, a variety of secular ethical standpoints notionally derived from Darwin were created, such as Friedrich Nietzsche's will to power(Wille zur Macht) and the doctrine of the Superman. 3 With the extension of the doctrine that "Might is Right" to international conflict and the rendering of Darwinism "in terms of efficiency resting on force,"14warfare between nations at a time of critical intra-European economic, military, and imperial competition was increasingly praised as a salutary means of testing the criteria of survival.'5 Selfishness, personal and national, seemed to be the prescribed law of social evolution. To assist the weak by any form of mutual aid was to act as "the persistent enemy of progress."16The Darwinian world-view, "red in tooth and claw,"'7 thus seemingly legitimated both social and international warfare.'8 By 1900, indeed, Social Darwinist ideas of"struggle," "fitness," and "survival," of the eternal Hobbesian war of all against all, individual, national, and speciescentered, had become virtually omnipresent and definitive of one of the most important moder trends in European and American thought. Yet for the intellectual historian concerned with how ideas themselves evolve, the crucial question remains how much these developments ought to be associated with Darwin himself, and how far they expressed a preexisting train of thinking.19 We ought to be suspicious at the outset at claims that this "influence"-that most maligned of words in the history of ideas-either ran all in one direction or concentrated itself so intensively upon Charles Darwin. Instead, 13
According to Benjamin Kidd (The Science of Power, 57, 59), "Nietzsche's teachings representedthe interpretationof the popularDarwinism delivered with the fury and intensity of genius." 14 Ibid., 39. A typical stress on efficiency of this kind is given in W. H. Mallock, Aristocand Evolution (London, 1898), 92. racy 15 According to LeonardHobhouse(Democracyand Reaction [London, 1904], 85), "those who have applied Darwin's theories to the science of society have not as a rule troubledthemselves to understandDarwin any more than the science of society. What has filtered through into the social and political thought of the time has been the belief that the time-honoured doctrine 'Might is Right' has a scientific foundationin the laws of biology." Hobhousethought Bagehot, who concentrateson "nationalcharacter"in Physics and Politics, had first applied Darwiniannotionsto ideas of internationalratherthanintra-nationalor species-centeredstruggle. 16 Leonard Hobhouse, Social Evolution and Political Theory(London, 1911), 22. 17 On the "militarymetaphor"see Paul Crook;and James R. Moore, The Post-Darwinian Controversies(Cambridge, 1979), 75-100. 18 Cf. Benjamin Kidd, The Science of Power, 45: "Withinhalf a century the Origin of Species had become the bible of the doctrineof the omnipotenceof force." 19 For previous examples of this line of enquiry,see in particularR. M. Young, "Malthus andthe Evolutionists:The CommonContextof Biological and Social Theory,"Past and Present, 93 (1969), 109-41; Kenneth Bock, "Darwin and Social Theory,"Philosophy of Science, 22 (1955), 123-34; ThomasCowles, "Malthus,Darwin,and Bagehot:A Study in the Transference of a Concept,"Isis, 26 (1936), 341-48; and BarryGale, "Darwinand the Conceptof a Struggle for Existence: A Study in the ExtrascientificOrigins of Scientific Ideas,"Isis, 63 (1972), 32144.
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Darwin was a relative latecomer to a debate which crossed social theory as well as biology, geology, and a number of other disciplines. Two factors, at least, suggest this: we know of course that Darwin was not the inventor of the term, "the survival of the fittest."20That honor belongs to Herbert Spencer, today best known as a founder of sociology, but the greatest polymath-and to Darwin, as well as Wallace, the greatest philosopher-of his day.21Spencer coined the term in 1852 in an article on population theory, while suggesting that intraspecific struggle-largely provoked by the pressure of population growth-resulted in "progress," with the survival of plant and animal species being dependent on their fertility.22And we have the curious coincidence I have just noted of the dual inspiration of Malthus upon both Darwin and Wallace, as well as Spencer, to consider. Darwin (The Life and Lettersof CharlesDarwin [1888], III, 45-46), took up the term in 1866, writing to Wallace that "I fully agree with all that you say on the advantages of H. Spencer's excellent expression of 'the survival of the fittest.' This, however, had not occurred to me till readingyour letter.It is, however, a great objectionto this term that it cannot be used as a substantive governing a verb; and that this is a real objection I infer from H. Spencer continuallyusing the words, naturalselection. I formerlythought,probablyin an exaggerated degree, that it was a great advantageto bring into connection naturaland artificial selection; this indeed led me to use a term in common, and I still think it some advantage.I wish I had received your lettertwo monthsago, for I would have workedin 'the survival,&c.,' often in the new edition of the 'Origin,'which is now almost printedoff, and of which I will of course send you a copy. I will use the term in my next book on Domestic Animals, &c." 21ForWallacesee RaphaelMeldola,Evolution:Darwinianand Spencerian(Oxford, 1910), 44, for Darwin, The Life and Letters of CharlesDarwin, II, 141. 22 "Fromthe beginning,"Spencer wrote, "pressureof populationhas been the proximate cause of progress." "A Theoryof PopulationDeduced from the GeneralLaw of Animal Fertility," WestminsterReview, ns 1 (1852), 501. This "progress"derived from improvementsof individual characteror "type" (by a Lamarckianinheritanceof acquired characteristics)defined not by a teleologically-induceddivine principle, but by movement from "an incoherent homogeneity to a coherentheterogeneity,"or from simplicity to complexity. HerbertSpencer, First Principles (2 vols.; London, 1911), I, 291. Spencer would claim that his own "general doctrine of evolution" from homogeneity to heterogeneity,using Adam Smith's theory of increasing returnsand the division of labour as a paradigmfor differentiationin general, was fully formedby 1855. Autobiography(London, 1904), I, 462; see generally"Progress:Its Law and Cause," WestminsterReview, 67 (1857), 445-85. He would also acknowledge, however, that Darwin had forced him to modify his own views of evolution substantially.Ibid., II, 50. C. U. M. Smith,"Evolutionand the Problemof Mind:HerbertSpencer,"Journal of the History of Biology, 15 (1982), 55-88; D. R. Olroyd, Darwinian Impacts (New Brunswick, 1980), ch. 15; David Wiltshire, The Social and Political Thought of Herbert Spencer (Oxford, 1978), 192-224; and J. D. Y. Peel, Herbert Spencer: The Evolution of a Sociologist (London, 1971), 131-65, which arguesthat"whatwas called 'Social Darwinism'was often derived largely from Spencer."Spencer's theory laid more stress on individual efforts than did Darwin's, and was more indebtedto Lamarckianconceptionsthathabitscould modify constitutionsand in these in turncould be passed to futuregenerations.The Malthusiansource of Spencer's evolutionismis evident in his "A Theory of Population,Deduced from the General Law of Animal Fertility," WestminsterReview (1852), which argued that an "inevitable redundancyof numbers ... involves also a demandfor skill, intelligence, and self-control"which resultedin social improvement (266). 20
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What I wish to suggest here is that the concept of "Social Darwinism," insofaras it focuses centrallyon the idea of the "survivalof the fittest,"is to a significantdegreea misnomer.Muchof whatwe associatewith the concepthad been in formationfor over half a century by the time the Origin of Species appearedin 1859. We may promoteothermisconceptionsby calling Darwinism "scientificMalthusianism"or, alternatively,by redefining"SocialDarwinism" as "Social Spencerism."23 But we can at least conclude, I think, thatDarwin's discoveries occasioned no revolution in social theory, but instead involved remapping,with the assistanceof a theoryof the biological inheritanceof character traits, a preexisting structureof ideas based largely, though not exclusively, upon a Malthusianand economic metaphorof the "strugglefor existence."This in turnwill permitus to focus muchmorepreciselyon whatDarwin's own contributionto this process was, how exactly it was formulated,andwhen "SocialDarwinism"as such emergedas an intellectualproject.We need firstto establish,however,what the origins of the Darwinian"metaphor"were. Social Darwinism The most recent study of the subject, Mike Hawkins's Social Darwinism and Europeanand American Thought1860-1945, isolates four main assumptions as composingthe Social Darwinistworld-view:First,biological laws governthe whole of organicnature,includinghumans;second,thepressureof populationgrowthon resourcesgeneratesa strugglefor existence amongorganisms; third,physical and mentaltraitsconfer an advantageon theirpossessors in this struggle,or in sexual competition,which advantagescan, throughinheritance, spreadthroughthe population;and last, the cumulativeeffects of selection and inheritanceover time accountfor the emergenceof new species andthe elimination of others. These doctrinesclearlycover a multitudeof intellectualpositions,linkedby theiruse of quasi-biologicalor organicistexplanationsof social evolution,class divisions and poverty,and racial and national stages of development.24It is a mistake,therefore,to presumethattherewas a single "politics"of Social Darwinism or that all forms of Social Darwinismwere illiberal.Evolutionistperspectivesbolsteredliberalargumentsin a numberof notableinstances.InWalter 23On the influence of Malthuson
Spencer,see R. M. Young,"TheDevelopmentof Herbert of du XIe congres internationaled'histoire des sciences Actes Spencer's Concept Evolution," (Warsaw,1967), II, 273-79. 24 Their popularitywas much indebtedto the emergence of the social sciences in the late nineteenthcentury;to the growing distinction between individualistand collectivist political theories; of the popularityof jingoistic imperialismin the last third of the nineteenthcentury; and of increasinginternationaltension and economic competition in the decades before 1914, which often producedthe view that Englandhad "now entereda new stage in the struggle for national life" (Arnold White, Efficiency and Empire [London, 1902], 112).
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Bagehot'sPhysicsandPolitics (1872), forexample,liberaldemocracywas touted as most likely to ensureprogresstowardshigher forms of social development, primarilybecausepolitical freedomensuredthe wider circulationof competing ideals andpeople. Similarly,the economistW. R. Greg fashionednaturalselection into a radical, anti-aristocraticideal by emphasizingthe necessity of rewarding achievementratherthan social status.25By the mid-1880s, when the "social problem"was once again squarelyon the agenda of public debate and was widelyunderstoodin SocialDarwinistterms,theNew LiberalDavidRitchie's Darwinismand Politics (1889), too, gave Social Darwinisma collectivist slant throughthe argumentthat the state, acting as a benevolent institution,could assist social evolution by freeing individualsfrom a perpetualstrugglefor the means of existence. This was supportedby BenjaminKidd's Social Evolution (1894) and by much of Huxley's writing.26Darwinism was wedded to anarchism by Kropotkinand socialism by A. R. Wallacehimself, among others.27 Whatunites the variousforms of Social Darwinism,then, is not a specific politicalstancebutthe applicationof the idea of evolutionto a highersocial type on the basis of social competitionbetween"fit"and"unfit"groupsandindividuals, whose "fitness"or "value"to society can be defined in a numberof ways. Let us now considerhow far such ideas were prefiguredin the first half of the nineteenthcentury,by turningto the most commonmodel of social competition in the period, that providedby Adam Smith's notion of naturalliberty as crucially amendedby Malthus'sEssay on Population.28 Malthus In itsroughoutlinesthemainclaimsof Malthus's"discovery"arewell known. Writingat the end of nearly a decade of fierce political debate, in which the ambitiousradicalismof Paineitedemocratictheoryjostledbesidethemorespeculative utopianismof WilliamGodwin,Malthusassertedthatpopulationgrowth (escalating geometrically)tended inevitably to outstripfood supply (increasingly only arithmetically).This elementalnaturalfact for Malthusfatallyundermined all ideas of dramatic and sudden social improvement. Godwin and 25
See W. R. Greg."Non-survivalof the Fittest,"in EnigmasofLife (London,1872). Wallace summarizeshis own views in "Evolutionand Character,"in Percy Parker(ed.), Characterand Life (London, 1912), 3-50. 26
DavidRitchie,Darwinismand Politics (London,1901),vi; ThePrinciplesof State
Interference(London, 1891), 50. 27 A summaryof the socialist case is given in Karl Pearson,"Socialismand NaturalSelection," TheFortnightlyReview, NS 62 (1894), 1-21. 28 Without of course making the claim that Malthus is a proto-Social Darwinist as such. See Donald Winch, Malthus, 102-3; James Bonar, Malthus and His Work(London, 1924);
DonaldWinch,RichesandPoverty:An IntellectualHistoryof PoliticalEconomyin Britain, 1750-1834 (Cambridge,1996), pt. 3.
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Condorcetwere the chief targetsof the first edition of the Essay; later Robert Owen's schemes for rehousingthe poor in ruralsocialist communitieswould take theirplace. In Malthus,OriginalSin, in the form of sexual desire, thus returnswith a vengeance, pushing populationgrowth relentlessly onwardsunless "positive checks" like war and misery curtailit. (The second edition of the Essay gave greaterscope to "preventivechecks" like moral restraint.)Society is not fashioned by rational,creative design but always operateswithin constraintsimposed by the lower,animalpassions.The poor in particularbreedtoo much:this is the principalcause of theirpoverty.For Malthussociety cannotfoot the bill. Centrally,therefore,its woes cannotbe ascribedto flaws in social andpolitical design, which for Malthuswere "merefeatherson the surface, in comparison with those deeperseatedcauses of impuritythatcorruptthe springsandrender turbidthe whole streamof humanlife."29The centralmessage of the Essay, as the nineteenthcenturyoften readthe work, was thus hostile to the rights-based discourseof radicalsocial andpoliticalreformersbutequallyto similarlyrightsbased contemporaryassumptionsaboutthe entitlementof the poorto charityin distress.30Witha year of famine (1800-1801) interveningbetween the first and second editionsof the Essay, Malthusstrengthenedhis denialof the poor's right to charityand includedin the 1803 edition a remarkableand soon famous passage, well worthrecalling,for it marksthe birthof ourparadigmor "metaphor": A man who is born into a world alreadypossessed, if he cannot get subsistencefrom his parentson whom he has a just demand,and if the society do not want his labour,has no claim of right to the smallest portion of food, and, in fact, has no business to be where he is. At nature'smighty feast thereis no vacantcover for him. She tells him to be gone, and will quickly execute her own orders,if he does not work upon the compassionof some of her guests. If these guests get up and makeroom for him, otherintrudersimmediatelyappeardemandingthe same favour.The reportof a provision for all that come, fills the hall with numerousclaimants.The orderand harmonyof the feast is disturbed,the plenty thatbefore reigned is changedinto scarcity;and the happinessof the guests is destroyedby the spectacleof misery and dependencein every partof the hall.31 T. R. Malthus,An Essay on the Principle of Population (London, 1798), 177. See Winch, Riches and Poverty, 249-405. 31 Quoted in Patricia James,PopulationMalthus:His Life and Times(London, 1979), 100. Malthusfurtherreiteratedthat "no essential improvementcan take place without the denial of a legal claim." Quoted in Southey, Essays Moral and Political (London, 1832), I, 210. This passage came to representMalthus'smost extremeformulations,andwas often thereafterquoted againsthim, eitherdirectly (e.g., in Godwin's Of Population, 19, or Southey,92), or indirectly, 29
30
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It is perhaps worth stressing that Malthus did not intend this vision to be in itself cruel nor to draw agnostic consequences therefrom. Indeed, he thought the population principle was a divinely-inspired device which aimed, in the face of a human nature that was "inert, sluggish, and averse from labour.... to furnish the most unremitted excitements ... to urge man to further the gracious designs of Providence by the full cultivation of the earth."32Nonetheless, many readers may be forgiven for having missed the finer ethical and political implications of this position.33 For Malthus of course did propose gradually abolishing the poor laws as a means of ensuring that the natural and necessary course of nature was not stemmed by human error. Benevolent assistance did not aid the poor but weakened their prospects for survival by undermining their desire for independence, augmenting population, and indulging idleness without increasing the food supply. The New Poor Law of 1834, with its attempt to compel a mandatory workhouse regime on the principle of"less eligibility," proposed to separate husband and wife and was centrally concerned to distinguish between the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor, "according to their several degrees of prudence or industry."34Its chief aim, to ensure that the poor paid for their own relief (some even proposed that female paupers be compelled to sell their hair),35 is rightly taken to be the fruit of Malthus's seed, nurtured in a Benthamite hothouse.36 In 1834, poverty was believed to be chiefly a function of character. Assisting the poor prevented them from supporting themselves. We are but a
as in George Ensor's assertion that in the Essay "The banquet of nature shrinks into short allowance ministeredby a miser,"in An Inquiryconcerning the Population of Nations (London, 1818), 80. 32 Essay on Population (London, 1798), 363. Malthus'stheodicy was that "Evil exists in the world not to createdespairbut activity."Ibid., 217. See generallyD. L. LeMahieu,"Malthus and the Theology of Scarcity,"JHI, 40 (1979), 467-74; J. M. Pullen, "Malthus'Theological Ideas and their Influence on his Principle of Population,"History of Political Economy, 13 (1981), 38-54; Edmund Santuri,"Theodicy and Social Policy in Malthus' Thought,"JHI, 43 (1982), 315-50; M. B. Harvey-Phillips,"Malthus' Theodicy: the Intellectual Backgroundof His Contributionto Political Economy,"History of Political Economy, 16 (1984), 591-608. The developmentof Christianeconomics in this period is analyzed in Boyd Hilton, TheAge of Atonement:The Influence of Evangelicism on Social and Economic Thought,1785-1865 (Oxford, 1988). 33 For an early critique which derides Malthus's treatmentof the laboring class as "not only inhumanto the last degree, but unjustand iniquitous,"see CharlesHall, Observationson the Principal Conclusions in Mr. Malthuss Essay on Population (London, 1805), 338-40. On the developmentof the Malthusiancontroversygenerally,see KennethSmith, TheMalthusian Controversy(London, 1951); James Alfred Field, "The MalthusianControversyin England," in Essays on Population (Chicago, 1931), 1-86. 34MountifortLongfield, Four Lectureson the Poor Laws (London, 1834), 57. 35 R. A. Soloway, Prelates and People. Ecclesiastical Social Thoughtin England 17831832 (London, 1969), 162. 36 See generallyJ. R. Poynter,Society and Pauperism:English Ideas on Poor Relief, 17951834 (London, 1969).
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step, though a substantialone, from the evolutionaryview thataiding the unfit may underminethe organicimprovementof the race. Malthus'smelancholypessimism respectingthose "unhappypersonswho, in the great lotteryof life, have drawna blank"was temperedby the proposal that some charitytowardsthe poor was necessary and that a measureof state intervention(the CornLaws, notably)justified. The criterionof such support, however, is crucialto my argument.For Malthusthe poor ought not to be assistedprincipallyon the basis of need or the honorwhich humanitarianbenevolence bestoweduponthe giver of charity.Instead,Malthus'smodel is predicated on the necessity of accumulatinga social fundof surplusproduce,or capital,out of which all were to be maintained.It was, therefore,both"naturalandjust"that those who owned a shareof this produceassistedotherswho were bothable and Malthus's willing "toexerttheirstrengthin procuringa furthersurplusproduce."37 revolution,then, was to popularizea redefinitionof charityaccordingto a doctrineof economic consequences.Withidleness demonized,as it hadbeen previously at occasions of nationalanxiety,the capacityto producenow definedthe right of assistance. Like everyone else, the poor would have to pay their own way. MalthusianismandPoliticalEconomy Malthusviewed society in terms of an organicmetaphorin which similar laws governed both animal and humanworlds. He strongly distinguishedbetween people who benefittedsociety (as defined in terms of productivity)and those who did not, and he defined rights as derived solely from productivity, dictatedthe survival of the "fittest,"and the competition-as-natural-selection starvationof the less successful, unless otherfactorsintervened.38 We do not, of have a "fitness" of inherited in this is transcharacteristics which course, theory mitted,but we do very nearlyhave the symbolic imagery,so suitableto an age thatprizedusefulness above all else, in which such a concept functionednot as science, but as social theory. The creationof the imageryof the "survivalof the fittest"was also indebted to othercontroversies.Darwin'sown grandfather,ErasmusDarwin,had popularizeda notion of organicstrugglein several works.39RobertChambers'sextremely popular Vestigesof the Natural History of Creation (1844) had adMalthus,Essay on Population (London, 1798), 205. Indeed the language of "fitness" is already present in the assertion (in 1798) that the perils of existence enable some, at least, to attain"such high qualities and powers, as seem to indicatetheirfitness for some superiorstate"(Malthus,Essay on Population, 352). See Ritchie, Studies in Political and Social Ethics (London, 1902), 5. 39 Notably in his well-known poem, The Templeof Nature; or, the Origin of Society (London, 1803). 37 38
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verted to the poorer life-chances of those who were "inferiorly endowed."4 More influential still were debates surroundingenormously popularphrenological works like George Combe's The Constitution ofMan (1828)41or that induced by Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology (1833), which, as Darwin noted in the Origin, dwelt frequently on the notion of a "universal struggle for existence."42 Initial forays into the evolution of man had been made by Lord Monboddo, among others. The sociology of Auguste Comte had done much to introduce evolutionary ideas into social science. Notions of the functional utility of war in weeding out the "fit" from the "unfit" had also been developed by Ferguson, Hegel, and others. Between Malthus and Darwin one further development assisted in publicizing this imagery of competitive struggle and just desert more than any other, which has often been loosely linked to the origins of Social Darwinism, but rarely detailed.43 During the half century following the publication of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations in 1776, classical political economy emerged as an explanatory mechanism of immense importance, eventually becoming the master social science of modernity and its interpreters the high priests of moder civilization. There were of course many different types of political economy, and not a small amount of resistance (largely Tory or socialist) to the dissemination of the free trade ideals of the Scottish school.44 But after about 1820 an ortho-
40Chambers,Vestiges,377. 41 Phrenologywas often takento be meritocraticbut also racialistin its materialism.It was quickly wedded to Darwinismafter the Origin appeared:see George Combe, The Constitution of Man (London, 18609),392; Roger Cooter,The CulturalMeaning of Popular Science: Phrenology and the Organisation of Consent in Nineteenth-CenturyBritain (Cambridge, 1984). Phrenologywas an importantelement in Wallace'sthinking.Mesmerism is a furtherinfluence which needs to be integratedinto a fuller account of this subject. 42 Lyle was even more influentialon Wallacethan on Darwin. See R. M. Young, "Malthus and the Evolutionists," 129-33. On Darwin's use of the term, "struggle,"see especially Peter Bowler, "Malthus,Darwin, and the Concept of Struggle,"JHI, 37 (1976), 631-50. 43 The generalconnectionbetween laissez-faireeconomics and Social Darwinism,particularly in the United States, has of course long been recognised. See R. J. Halliday,"Social Darwinism: A Definition," VictorianStudies, 14 (1971), 396-97. Socialists tended to emphasize the connectionmost vehemently;see G. BernardShaw (ed.), Fabian Essays in Socialism (London, 1889), 28. Thereis howeverlittle discussionof Malthus,andmuchless of politicaleconomy, in many of the standardworks on Darwin and Darwinism,e.g., William Irvine,Apes, Angels, and Victorians:Darwin, Huxley and Evolution (New York, 1959), 179, which devotes a paragraphto "laissez-faire"as a "masteridea of the nineteenthcentury."Similarly Loren Eiseley, Darwin s Century:Evolution and the Men WhoDiscovered It (New York, 1961), disposes of Malthus in a few sentences, while acknowledging him as "the source of most of nineteenthcentury England's thinking on the struggle for existence" (182) and says nothing of political economy. On DarwinismandAmericanpolitical economy see RichardHofstadter,Social Darwinism in American Thought, 143-56. An importantexception is Silvan Schweber, "Darwin and the Political Economists:Divergence of Character,"Journal of the History of Biology, 13 (1980), 195-289, which focuses on Darwin's use of ideas of the division of labor. 44The best general account of these variationsis Winch,Riches and Poverty.
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doxy was clearly emerging, greatly stimulatedby the publication of David Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy and Taxationin 1817, in which Malthusianideasof the tendencyof workingclass wages to remainat the subsistence level did muchto makepolitical economy the "dismalscience." Political economy thus provided a technical vocabularyand a model for showing how Malthusianideas of strugglecould be understoodin termsof social class and economic competition.It is no exaggerationto assert,moreover, thatthe triumphalconquestsof the new science effected a near-seismicshift in perceptionsaboutnationsandthe internationalorderas well as classes andindividualswithinnations.Homoeconomicuscouldnot andwouldnevercompletely replace homopoliticus. But the moder conception of internationaleconomic competitionbased upon productivity,performance,and capital accumulation displaced to a substantialdegree the notion that the primarycontributionof citizens as such to nationalwell-being lay in theirvirtue,patriotism,and valor on the battlefield. If "fit"nationswere those capableof maintaininga competitiveedge over theirneighbors,"fit"individualsin politicaleconomywere those who were productive where otherswere not. Distinguishingbetween "productive"and "unproductive"laborhad been vital to the argumentof Smith's Wealthof Nations, which definedthatlaboralone as productivewhich addedvalue to durablecommoditieswhich could be exchangedfor "aquantityof labourequalto thatwhich originally producedit." By contrast"unproductivelabour"producednothing which afterwardsprocuredan equal quantityof labor. The moralimplicationsof Smith'sdistinctionwere to remaincentralto the self-conception of nineteenth-centuryBritons. For in this version of the labor theory of value we have an ideal of utility, worth, or "fitness"which was increasinglyreadas favoringmanufacturersand laborersover landlords(to take the threegreateconomic classes as Ricardodistinguishedthem).The most importantmid-nineteenthcenturyeconomist,JohnStuartMill, would continueto adhereto this conception.45We know, too, that Spencer,contendingthat every citizen should"performsuch functionor shareof functionas is of value equivalent at least to whathe consumes"46 andcountenancing"thepovertyof the incapable, the distressthatcomes upon the imprudent,the starvationof the idle,"47 acceptedsuch a doctrine.Earlysocialists, were also devoted to the proposition of reducing unproductivelabor and maximizing productive labor.48Political 45 As Mill put it in 1844, "In proportionto the amountof the productivelabourand consumptionof a country,the country... is enriched:in proportionto the amountof unproductive labourand consumption,the countryis impoverished."JohnStuartMill, Works(Toronto,1975), IV, 283-84. 46 HerbertSpencer, The Study of Sociology (London, 18743),347. 47 Spencer,Social Statics (London, 1850), 323. 48E.g., John Gray,A Letter on HumanHappiness (London, 1825).
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economistsdidnot of courseusuallypresumethatless competitivesectorsof the economy would literally "die out" as a result of their collision with the more competitive, but would adapttheir skills to be benefit of the entire economy. There is little doubt,however, of the linkage of these assumptionsto otheraccountsof progressin this periodor of the contributionwhich Darwinismin turn would make to this languageafter 1859.49 This was not, therefore,a narrow,technicaldebatewithinpoliticaleconomy, but a conflict of variousideals of the social good which in fact went to the heart of nineteenth-centuryBritain'sself-image.The logic of"competition,"bothnationalandinternational,hadbeen widely popularizedby mid-century,notablyin the debates over machineryand trades' unionism duringthe 1820s, and again over Corn Law repeal in the 1840s. Ideas of competitionwere used by both middle- andworking-classwriters,particularlyin the wake of the 1832 Reform Act, to proclaimthe validityof a meritocraticpoliticalandeconomic system,the "carriereouverteaux talents,"againsta system based on "OldCorruption"and family connection.By mid-centurythese notions had been sufficientlywidely accepted to bring about what Harold Perkin has termed (though not without challenge) the "triumphof the entrepreneurialideal,"in which a concept of social statusbased upon capitalownershipdisplacedone based on inheritedrank or fortune,with competitionbeing the unbiasedarbiterof effort.50 Race, Competition,and Social Darwinism I have contendedso farthatDarwin'smetaphoricalapplicationof the "survival of the fittest"to society was in fact virtually a commonplaceby 1859. Malthusianismandpoliticaleconomyin particularcreateda world-viewin which the first threeof these componentswere prominent-mankind being governed by naturallaws sharedby animals, in a world in which scarce resourceswere acquiredthroughgreatermental and physical effort (or in the case of thrift, abstinencefrompresentpleasures),and in which the most "fit,""desirable"or "valuable"members of society, the most "useful"or productive,survived or ought to survive.Transmutedinto the ubiquitousmid-Victoriannotions of"respectability"and"character,"in which a division between idle andindustrious, providentand profligate, was crucial, these ideas became centralto the selfin particular,was often the termappliednormaidentityof the age. "Character," E.g., William Heam, Plutology,or the Theoryof the Effortsto SatisfyHumanWants (London, 1864), 345-46. Amongst the first political economists to cite Darwin, Heam particularly noted the value of his "stem yet salutarylaw" of naturalselection to society (347), and to link this theory to Malthus (392-93). 50 See HaroldPerkin, The Origins of ModernEnglish Society 1780-1880 (London, 1969); The success of the "entrepreneurialideal" has of course been challenged, notably by Martin Wiener, in English Cultureand the Decline of the IndustrialSpirit (Cambridge,1985). 49
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tively to describe (in Wallace'sphrase)"the aggregateof mental faculties and emotionswhich constitutepersonalor nationalindividuality.""Character" was to preventevolutionarydegenerationand,in a constantGibbonianecho, haltthe barbariansat the gates of the new Rome.51Yet "Social Darwinism"is not entirely a misnomer.What, then, was novel about, and what remains distinctly "Darwinian"about,Social Darwinism?Fourtheses suggest themselves. First, what was new in the 1850s (at least at the popular level) was the notion thatinheritedcharacteristics,ratherthanindividualandcollective moral effortandeducation,cumulativelyplayed a distinctiverole in the characterof a people.52But this view can of course also be associatedwith Spencer'sidea of the improvementof type. Malthushad formulatedthe struggle for existence. Darwin,Wallace,and Spenceraddedthatthis struggleimprovedspecies as well as generatednew species via the hereditarytransmissionof traits. Second, the applicationof ideas of inheritedcharacteristicsto society not only came from sources other than Darwin, but Darwin himself, in the years between the Originof Species (1859) andthe Descent of Man (1871) reformulated his ideas considerably.The Originwas not of course concernedwith human, much less social, evolution; nor were its social implicationsnecessarily optimistic. Indeed, as soon as Darwin's ideas were applied to society, it was widely recognized that if the criterionof "fitness"was fecundity, it was the poorerand most degradedclasses, with the largestfamilies, who seemed most likely to dictatethe futurecourse of humanevolution.53By the mid-1860s Darwin was anxious to resist this conclusion. Here he turned for assistance to Wallace's 1864 researchon the tendencyof naturalselection to promotehuman intelligence.54He also praisedGalton'spioneering 1865 articleon "Hereditary Talentand Character,"which emphasizedthatracialcharacteristicswere transmitted "as truly as theirphysical forms"and lamentedthat "we are living in a sortof intellectualanarchy,for the wantof masterminds."55 He greatlyadmired W. R. Greg's 1868 article"Onthe Failureof 'NaturalSelection' in the Case of which arguedrobustlyfor the triumphof civilized over savage races as Man,"56 51
Wallace, Social Environmentand Moral Progress (London, 1913), 4. E.g., Kidd, TheScience of Power, 265. 53 Thus Huxley believed that Spencer's phrase, "the survival of the fittest," was a poor choice on Darwin'spart, "in consequence of the ambiguityof the 'fittest,' which many take to mean 'best' or 'highest'-whereas naturalselection may work towards degradation"(quoted in James Allen Rodgers, "Darwinismand Social Darwinism,"278). 54 See Wallace,"The Origin of the HumanRaces and the Antiquityof Man Deduced from the Theory of NaturalSelection,"AnthropologicalReview, 2, (1864), clxiv. 55Macmillan'sMagazine, 18 (June and August 1865), 166, 321. The trendwas continued in Galton's "Gregariousnessin Cattle and Men," Macmillan'sMagazine, 23 (1870-71), 35357. On the making of Darwin as a Social Darwinist, see John Greene, "Darwin as a Social Evolutionist,"Journal of the History of Biology, 10 (1977), 1-27. 56 Fraser'sMagazine, September1868. See furtherW. R. Greg, Enigmas of Life (London, 1873), 92-132. 52
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the result of "natural selection." And he must have recalled, with most of these writers, that Spencer had insisted that human development depended not on fertility, but increasing mechanical skill, intelligence, and morality.57As a consequence Darwin himself accepted the crucial shift in the definition of "fitness" in the human species from fecundity to intelligence. In the mid- 860s Darwin himself became in effect a Social Darwinist, and came increasingly to hope that the optimal outcome of human natural selection would be the triumph of "the intellectual and moral" races over the "lower and more degraded ones." It must be stressed that this was not the inevitable outcome of the logic of the Origin of Species nor the only path Darwin might have trod but the specific result of his reaction to a variety of critics and fellow philosophers. In this sense too, then, "Social Darwinism" was not as such "Darwinian" but the result of Darwin's acceptance of other interpretations of evolutionary theory, some of which were incorporated into the Descent of Man. Third, therefore, we see that a complex language of race played a pivotal role in this transition. In the Origin Darwin had used the term race very loosely, to denote species in general.58Although the language of race in the Descent is overlaid almost exactly on an earlier, familiar language of savagery and civility, which was itself central to the existing justification of imperial expansion,59 Darwin here presumes that the "civilised races ... encroach on and replace" the savage, with the "lower races" being displaced through the accumulation of capital and the growth of the arts. Here, too, the language of class is not far removed from that of race: Darwin warns of the "degeneration of a domestic race," because the human species allowed its worst members, "the very poor and reckless," to breed so wantonly and injuriously, "whilst the careful and frugal, who are generally otherwise virtuous, marry later in life," with a consequent "retrograde" effect on human progress.60 This sense of the poor as a "race," genus, type, or species apartwould continue in much of the discourse on poverty of the 1880s, as it had done loosely in the 1860s in the writings of Mayhew and
57 Spencer,"A Theoryof Population,Deduced Fromthe GeneralLaw of Animal Fertility," WestminsterReview, ns. 1 (1852), 496. 58 "The Preservationof FavouredRaces in the Struggle for Life" was the 1859 subtitle. 59 Notably in J. S. Mill's famous apology for 'despotism' as a legitimate mode of ruling barbarians"providedthe end be their improvement,and the meansjustified by actually effecting that end" (On Liberty [London, 18643],23). 60Yet Darwinalso supportedthe Galtonian,radicalconclusion that "Thereshould be open competition for all men; and the most able should not be preventedby laws or customs from succeeding best and rearingthe largestnumberof offspring"(Descent of Man, 618), and similarly opposed primogeniture,writing in 1864 on the British aristocracythat "whata shame is primogeniturefor destroyingNaturalSelection!" Frances Darwin and A. Seward (eds.), More Letters of Charles Darwin (2 vols.; London, 1903), II, 34. On the backgroundto the Descent, see Jones, "The Social History of Darwin'sDescent of Man,"Economy and Society, 7 (1978), 1-23.
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others.61In effect, the barbarianswere already inside the gates, and already manifesteda healthyappetitefor social andpolitical power. Fourth,what was most distinctiveaboutmuch (thoughnot all) Social Darwinism was its concernnot with "race"as such in the loose sense of a term of generalclassificationbut with a new definitionof race directlyattachedto skin color, in which ideas of racialhierarchyand supremacywere wedded to earlier notions of "fitness."62 Race was now assumedto be a determinate,independent factorin humanevolution.63In particularthe racialpolaritybetween so-called Anglo-Saxons, Britons, Greeks,and Romans supposedlyderivedfrom a common Aryanancestryandnon-"white"racesreliedprimarilyupon a fixed, ontological ratherthan an evolutionary,climactic, or culturalperspectiveon society.64EarlierdistinctionsbetweenEuropeanandnon-Europeanpeopleshadpaid greaterheed to the effects of climate on behavior(we thinkof Montesquieu)or of relativelevels of savageryor civilization(witness Gibbonor Robertson)or of the benefits of ancient institutions(like Saxon democracy,destroyed by the "NormanYoke")thanto racial differencesper se. By mid-century,however, a biologically- ratherthan an environmentallycenteredracial discoursebecame increasinglypopular.A varietyof sciences (primarilyanthropologyandphilology) and pseudo-sciences (like phrenology,which attemptedto correlateskull types to personality)and anthropometry(the measurementof skull size) combined to fix a far more ontological and deterministnotion of racial hierarchy, andspecificallyof Saxon,Teutonic,or Caucasiansuperiority,upondebatesabout The comparativepoliticalinstitutionsandculturalandeconomicperformance.65 of at in the of civilization least discourse language race, omnipresent tacitly generally,now not only hardenedconsiderablyas a result;the imputeddistance between the "higher"and "lower"races widened perceptibly,and a dismissive contemptfor the "lower"races grew markedly.
61
Henry Mayhew,LondonLabour and the LondonPoor (4 vols.; 1861), I, 2. What is not new, thus, is a "new scientific vocabularyof struggle and survival."Nancy Stepan, The Idea of Race in Science: Great Britain 1800-1960 (New York, 1982), 49. On the evolution of systems of racial classification see also generally Louis L. Snyder, The Idea of Racialism (New York, 1962); J. S. Haller, Outcastsfrom Evolution: Scientific Attitudes of Racial Inferiority,1859-1900 (1971); and Jones, Social Darwinism, 140-59. 63 The best general account of such views in Britainin this period is ChristineBolt, Victorian Attitudesto Race (London, 1971). 64On this developmentsee generally Stepan, TheIdea of Race in Science, MarvinHarris, TheRise ofAnthropological Theory(London, 1968), ch. 4, "The Rise of Racial Determinism"; Haller, Outcastsfrom Evolution;Mike Hawkins,Social Darwinismin Europeanand American Thought, 184-215. 65 On the origins of this process see in particularReginald Horsman, "The Origins of Racial Anglo-Saxonism in GreatBritainbefore 1850,"JHI, 37 (1976), 387-410. On the emergence of racial determinismbetween 1830-50, which lays particularystress on the role played by phrenology,see Nancy Stepan, TheIdea of Race in Science, 20-46. 62
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Thus Robert Knox's The Races of Men (1850) notoriously claimed that "in human history race is everything" and asserted that a blue-eyed Saxon race was poised to dominate the world.66Those anxious to wrap themselves in the mantle of classical antiquity, like the founder of comparative politics, Edward Freeman, laid stress upon the racial continuity of Hellenic, Teutonic, and Anglo-Saxon stock.67 As in the United States, where ideas of "Manifest Destiny" based on racial Anglo-Saxonism provided a rationale for imperialism,68 late nineteenth century European racialism emerged during the scramble for empire and, united as it was to new notions of nationalism, helped to displace class conflict onto an imperial context. In Britain Victorian pride now degenerated into insufferable arrogance. Effort and virtu had not painted the map pink; a natural racial order had instead triumphed.69The Carlylean hero, who had been defined not by racial type but fortitude of character, is now a great Anglo-Saxon rather than a great man. This is not Kipling's mental world, where the "white man's burden" is the duty of Anglo-Saxons to civilize the backward races. Instead, by the 1870s, it was unexceptional for writers like the radical Charles Dilke to proclaim triumphantly that the racial destiny of"Saxondom" entailed displacing the "cheaper" races through colonization.70 Thus, in the last decades of the century as concerns over the degeneration of the species became more prevalent, it was widely assumed that "inferior" races would fall victim to the onward march of progress. Darwin himself wrote in 1881 that "at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races of the world."71H. G. Wells similarly warned that if the non-white races failed "to develop sane, vigorous and distinctive personalities for the great world of the future, it is their portion to die out and disappear."72Hence eugenicists like
RobertKnox, TheRaces of Man (London, 1850), 411. See Stepan, The Idea of Race in Science, 43, for an analysis of the displacementof earlier,more environmentalistnotions of race in this period. 67 EdwardFreeman,ComparativePolitics (London, 1873), iv. Even A. R. Wallacewas led to concluded that differences in racial characterwere seemingly primordial.See "Evolution and Character,"in Percy Parker(ed.), Characterand Life (London, 1912), 38-40. But he was equally certainthat human "ethicaland moral naturehas not advanced in any perceptibledegree"throughoutthe process of evolution (43), and that savages were thus not inferiormentally to more civilized peoples. See generally John Burrow,Evolutionand Society. 68 Hoftstadter,Social Darwinism in American Thought, 171-72. 69 Particularlyin relation to Africa, for in the Descent of Man Darwin, among others, asserted that both Indians and Europeanswere derived from the same Aryan stock, an ideal originatinglargelyin late eighteenth-centuryphilology. On the Indiancontext, see more broadly G. D. Bearce, British Attitudes towards India, 1784-1858 (Oxford, 1961). Even liberals like Bagehot were affected. See the comments on race mixtures in Physics and Politics (London, 1884), 70-71. 70 CharlesDilke, GreaterBritain (London, 1868), 267. 66
71
Life and Letters, I, 316.
72
H. G. Wells, Anticipations(London, 1902), 317.
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Galton proposedbreedingprogramswhich would result in the disappearance both of"inferiorraces"andinferiorstratawithin dominantraces.73Much of the languageof ethnicitywhich would come to hauntthe next centurywas now in place. The distinctivenessof much of Social Darwinism,then, resultednot from the popularizationof the metaphorof the "survivalof the fittest"or of human "fitness"to the end of a common goal, thoughthis remainsa widely-accepted definition of the term. Instead,the specificity of Social Darwinism lay in the wedding of these to the fourshifts in thoughtoutlinedhere, andmost especially in the mapping of a quasi-ontologicalracial discourse onto a redefinitionof "fitness"as "intelligence"andan identificationof"intelligence"withthe "white" races. This intellectualshift was not indicatedas such by the Origin of Species or the preexistingmetaphorof strugglewhich DarwinandWallaceadaptedfrom Malthus in particular.Insteadit was the productof a debate in the 1860s, in which Darwinacceptedthe applicationof naturalselectionto humanityby other writersandincorporatedit into his own views, with othersfollowing suit, crafting a languageof exclusion which was internallydirectedat class antagonism andexternallyto racialconflict. Thereafter,at least untilthe SecondWorldWar, social andpoliticaldiscoursewould be obsessively permeatedby organicanalogies, in which the languageof "struggle"and "fitness"of superiorand inferior "types,""species,""characters,"andnations,can be encounteredat every turn. Its use in justifying the Holocaust finally debased the language so far as to nearlyremove it from common currency.In its stead, for the time being, a less threateningandmilitaristconceptionof interational economiccompetitionpredominatesin which "fitness"is simply economic competitiveness,impolitereferencesto biologicaldeterminismandracehavebeen dropped,anda place seems promised for all at Nature's Feast, though for latecomersthe queue for spare places still remainsas interminablyslow as ever Malthusenvisioned. Royal Holloway,Universityof London.
73 See generally Daniel Pick, Faces of Degeneration: A European Disorder, c. 1848-c. 1918 (Cambridge, 1989).
Should Rudolf
All
We
von
Be
More
English? Liang Qichao, Jhering, and Rights Stephen C. Angle
[T]he Celestial Empire,with its bamboo,the rod for its adultchildren, andits hundredsof millions of inhabitants,will neverattain,in the eyes of foreignnations,the respectedpositionof little Switzerland.The natural disposition of the Swiss in the matterof art and poetry is anything but ideal. It is sober and practical,like that of the Romans.But, in the sense in which I have thusfarused the expression"ideal,"in its relation to rights, it is just as applicableto the Swiss as to the Englishman.' Rudolfvon Jhering(1818-92)publishedDer KampfumsRecht(TheStruggle for Law) in 1872. He was alreadyregardedas one of Germany'smost important legal philosophers,and Der Kampfhelped to ensure a world-wide reputation. His argumentthatpeople should be less like the "adultchildren"of Chinaand morelike the Englishfoundaudienceseverywhere,includingChina,whereDer Kampfwas translatedbetween 1900 and 1901. Jhering'sdoctrinesstimulated Liang Qichao (1873-1929), one of China's leading thinkers,to publish "Lun Quanli Sixiang (On Rights Consciousness),"in 1902 as part of his manifesto On theNew People. Liangtells us thatthe "essentialpoints"of his essay, which is among the earliestand most sustainedtreatmentsof the concept of rightsto appearin Chinese,aremostly takenfromDer Kampf2We will see thatthereare indeed certainsimilaritiesthat make Liang's "quanli"3(the standardChinese translationof"rights")resonatewith Jhering'snotionof"Recht,"andthese similarities-chief among which is a kind of individualassertiveness-help to ex1 Rudolf von
Jhering, The Strugglefor Law, tr. J. J. Lalor (Chicago, 1915[1872]), 101, trans. slightly altered. 2 Liang Qichao, YinbingshiHeji (Collected WorksFrom an Ice-Drinkers Studio)(12 vols.; Shanghai, 1989), 39. Unless otherwise indicated,all references are to Part4 of Volume VI. 3 "Quanli"is pronounced"chwan-lee."
241 2000byJournal of theHistoryof Ideas,Inc. Copyright
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plain Liang'sinterestin Jhering.My discussionof the two thinkerswill offer at least the beginnings of an explanationof why Germanconceptionsof law and rightswere so attractiveto Chinese intellectuals. As is often the case with cross-culturalcomparisons,we will also see that these similaritiesmask some less obvious but deeply importantdifferences.For Jheringthe relationbetween following the proceduresof the law andexercising one's Rechtis crucial;for Liang, in contrast,quanli aredeeply relatedto ethical concerns.This differencein turncolorstheirrespectivenotionsof assertiveness, which thus turn out not to resemble one anotheras closely as first appeared. When we see Recht and quanli as separateconcepts emerging from separate discoursecontexts,these differenceswill make sense. In "OnQuanliConsciousness"LiangregularlyquotesJhering,oftenat some length. One importantpassage readsas follows: In ancienttimes, Lin Xiangruscolded the King of Qin saying: "Smash both my head and the jade disk!"4Now given the size of the state of Zhao,how could suchlove be expressedfor a tinythinglike ajade disk? He was saying thatQin could smashthe disk, kill him, invadehis territory,endangerhis state, and still he would not surrender.Ah! This was nothing otherthan "quanli"!Jheringhas also said: "If an Englishman travelingto the Europeancontinentis one day askedto pay an irrational charge by the hotel's carriagedriver,in every case he will resolutely scold [thedriver].If the driverwon't heed his scolding,the Englishman will struggleforjustice withouttiring,always preferringto extend his stay;even if his travelingexpenseswere to increaseas muchas ten-fold, he would not cease. Unknowingpeople all laugh at this greatfool, but none of themunderstandthatthis person'sstruggleover a few shillings is in fact a vital partof what allows the nationof Englandto standtall by itself in theworld.This abundanceof quanliconsciousnessandsharpness of feelings of quanli arethe greatreasonsbehindthe abilityof the English to establishtheir state. Now let's consider an Austrianwhose statureand financialpower are similarto the Englishman's.Werehe to run into the same situation,how would he deal with it? He would certainlysay: 'this trivialaffair-how could it be worthpainingmyself and creatingtrouble?'He would toss over some money and be off. Who would know thathiddenbetween this Englishman'sresistanceto parting with a few shillings and this Austrian'stossing the same shillings away there is a connectionof enormousimportance?All that informs severalhundredyearsof politicaldevelopmentandsocial changein the For the original story, see Ssu-ma Ch'ien, The GrandScribe s Records, ed. William H. Neinhauser,Jr.,tr. Cheng Tsai-fa et al. (Bloomington, 1994), 263-64. 4
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two countrieslies there."Alas! Mr. Jhering'swords are profoundand insightful. If my fellow countrymenwere to look at themselves with regardto our generation'squanli consciousness, would we look more like the English or like the Austrians?5 Liang's quotationof Jheringis quite faithful.6Both Liang and Jheringapparently wish that their countrymenacted more like the Englishmanthat Jhering describes.Notice that Liang gives two examples in this paragraph:not only a contemporaryEnglishmanbut also the classical heroLin Xiangruserveto illustratequanliconsciousness.This leadsto a puzzle. On the one handLiangclearly identifieshis talk of quanliwith Jhering'stalkof Recht;on the otherhandLiang assertsthatancientChineseboth theorizedaboutandactedon this same idea of quanli. This leaves us with at least threepossibilities: (1) Liang is righton both counts;JheringandLin were concernedwith the sameconcept.(2) Liangis right to see a connection between himself and Jheringbut anachronisticallyreads quanli into the ancient Chinese figures' concerns. (3) Liang is right that his concernsare similarto those exemplifiedby Lin butwrongto thinkthatthereis more thana superficialresemblancewith Jhering'sideas. JosephLevenson has famously arguedthat choice (2) is one of the keys to understandingnot only Liang but also "themind of moder China."Levenson wrotethat"Everymanhas an emotionalcommitmentto historyandan intellectual commitmentto value, and he tries to make these two commitmentscoincide.... [As Liangbeganhis career,he was] strainingagainsthis traditionintellectually, seeing value elsewhere, but still emotionally tied to it, held by his history."7The attemptto live up to bothcommitmentsled him to tryto "smuggle Westernvalues into Chinesehistory."8 My focus in this essay is not on Levenson's argument,which has been amply discussedelsewhere.9Levensonclearlyarticulatesone positionagainstwhich I will be arguing,though,becauseit seems to me thatwhen we takeseriouslyall thatLiang says aboutquanli,we do not find a tension between "value"(thatis, Jhering'sideas) and"history"(face-savingreferencesto the Chinesetradition). Insteadwe will uncovera largelyconsistentandcoherentdoctrinewhich builds on orientationsfound in the Confuciantradition.In the end we will see that Liang does himself a disservice when he claims thatthe attitudemanifestedby the Englishman-a sticklerfor the letterof the law-is the same as thatexempli5 Liang, 33-34. 6
Jhering,The Strugglefor Law, 65-67.
7 Joseph R. Levenson, Liang Ch 'i-ch'ao and the Mind
of Modern China (Berkeley, 1967),
1, emphasis added. 8
Ibid., 4.
9See, e.g., BenjaminI. Schwartz,"Historyand Culturein the Thoughtof JosephLevenson," The MozartianHistorian: Essays on the Worksof Joseph R. Levenson, eds. Maurice Meisner and Rhoads Murphey(Berkeley, 1976).
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fled by Lin Xiangru.Liang's understandingof the abilities and interests that one should legitimatelybe able to enjoy, which is how I will suggest we gloss "quanli,"has a deep basis in the Confucianidea of an ethical and not merely legal orderingof the world. To see this contrastbetween Jheringand Liang,we will have to look at both Jheringand Liang in theirrespectivecontexts. "Thelife of the law,"writesJhering,"is a struggle-a struggleof nations,of the statepower,of classes, of individuals."'0Herewe find the two termsthatare highlightedin the title of Jhering'sDer KampfumsRecht:Kampfis "struggle" andRecht can be either "law"or "right."As we will see, it is throughstruggle for individualrights that Jheringbelieves we struggle for law. This tight relationship has deep roots in Jhering'sunderstandingof what Recht is. He says that: The termRecht is, it is well known, used in our languagein a twofold sense-in an objective sense and in a subjective sense. This Recht, in the objective sense of the word, embracesall the principlesof law enforced by the state; it is the legal orderingof life. But Recht, in the subjective sense of the word is, so to speak, the precipitateof the abstractrule into the concretelegal rightof the person." In his 1877 philosophicaltreatisePurpose in Law,'2Jheringexplains the relationshipbetween the two senses of Recht in a similarfashion.'3He writes that "withoutlaw thereis no securinglife andproperty,"and: The formby which law,or rightregardedobjectively,affordsits protection to both interests is, as is well known, by right in the subjective sense. To have a rightmeans, thereis somethingfor us, and the power of the Staterecognizes this and protectsus.14 He puts this last thoughtin even more pithy formwhen he defines a subjective rightas "aninterestprotectedby law" (rechtlichgeschiitztesInteresse).'5
10
Jhering,The Strugglefor Law, 1. " Ibid., 6. Jhering'stranslatoroften rendersRecht as "legal right." I will leave this unamended except when it is misleading. 12Rudolphvon Jhering,Der Zweck in Recht (Leipzig, 1877-83). 13 Scholars have noted some significant shifts in Jhering'sideas between Der Kampfand Der Zweck(Conversationwith JamesWhitman);cf. WolfgangFikentscher,Methodendes Rechts (Tiibingen, 1977). Withoutwantingto deny that differencesdo exist, I believe that Jheringwas quite consistent in his understandingof the idea of Recht itself. 14Rudolf von Jhering,Law as a Means to an End, tr. Isaac Huski (Boston, 1913), 49-50. 15 Jhering,The Strugglefor Law, 58; Jhering,Der Kampfums Recht, 44.
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To have a rightone must meet two criteria.First,one must have some kind of interest:there must be somethingfor one, something that mattersto one. Second, this interestmust be recognized and protectedby the state. Law, or Recht in the objective sense, is the systematicinstitutionalizationof these protections, the "legal orderingof life." This latterdoctrinehas come to be known as "legalpositivism,"the insistencethatthereareneithernaturallaws nornatural rightsbut only those laws that are enforcedby some authority.'6 A crucialmove in Jhering'sargumentcomes when he explainshow it is that those of us who are conscious of our rights think about our "interests."The following passage-which Liangparaphrasesin his essay-is revealing: In those suits at law in which [thereis a] disproportion... between the value of the object in controversyand the prospectivecost [to the litigant]...,the questionis not of the insignificantobjectin controversy,but of an ideal end: the person's assertionof himself and of his feeling of right.... It is not a mere money-interestwhich urges the personwhose rightshave been infringedto institutelegal proceedings,butmoralpain at the wrongwhich has been endured.He is not concernedsimply with recoveringthe object ... but with forcinga recognitionof his rights.An inner voice tells him he should not retreat,that it is not the worthless object thatis at stakebut his own personality,his feeling of legal right, his self-respect-in short,the suit at law ceases to appearto him in the guise of a mere questionof interestandbecomes a questionof character.17
In this passage Jheringtells us thatdisputesover rightscan cease to appear"in the guise of a merequestionof interest."This mightsoundsurprising,given that he defines rightsas interestsprotectedby law. The problemis thatJheringuses "interests"in two senses. The "interests"mentionedin the passage now under considerationare of a limited type, with "money-interest"as their paradigm. Both in Der Kampf and in Purpose in Law Jheringalso develops a second, broadernotionof whatit is for somethingto be in ourinterest.This does include concretethings,such as the "objectin controversy"fromthe above passage,but it also encompasses the ways in which other people can be "for us"-for instance in the reciprocalrelationshipsof the family-and, most important,the ways in which we can be for ourselves.18He says that"thelegal expressionfor [this last kind of interest]is the right ofpersonality."'9 Note that when he de16 See Franz Wieacker,A History Of Private Law in Europe with Particular ReferenceTo Germany(Oxford, 1995), 341. 17Jhering,The Strugglefor Law, 28-29. 18Jhering,Law as a Means to an End, 50.
19Ibid.
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scribeswhatis really at stakein the lawsuit,Jheringputs it firstof all in termsof one's "personality."In short,thereis a sense in which the maintenanceand development of our personality or characteris an importantinterest we each have, andone of the most fundamentalroles thatrightsplay is to provideprotection for this type of interest.As Jheringputs it, "Manis not concernedonly with his physical life but [also] with his moralexistence. The conditionof this moral existence is right,in the law."20 The scope of this "moralexistence"extendsbeyondourimmediate"personality,"since one's will andone's laborcan establisha bondbetweenoneself and anythingat all. Any object can become partof my own strengthand my own past, or the strengthand past of another,which I possess andassertin it. In makingit my own, I stamped it with the markof my own person;whoever attacksit, attacksme; the blow dealtit strikesme, for I am presentin it. Propertyis butthe periphery of my personextendedto things.This connectionof the law with the person invests all rights,no matterwhat theirnature,with that incommensurablevalue which, in oppositionto theirpurelymaterialvalue, I call ideal value.21 Jheringtakesthe imageryof this passagevery seriously.We feel-or at any rate, shouldfeel-pain when ourrightsareviolated.We do so becauseof our"feeling of right"(Rechtsgefuihl).Jheringsays thatthe "feeling of right"is the key to the whole secretof the law. The pain which a personexperienceswhen his legal rights are violated is the spontaneous,instinctive admission, wrungfromhim by force,of whatthe law is to him as an individual,and then of whatit is to humansociety....Not the intellect,butthe feeling, is able to [say what law is]; andhence languagehas rightlydesignatedthe psychological source of all law as thefeeling of right. The consciousness of right (Rechtsbewusstsein),legal conviction, are scientific abstractionswith which the people are not acquainted.The power of the law lies in feeling....22
Anyone who has not experiencedor at least observedthe pain thatshouldcome when one's rightsare violatedhas no real knowledge of the law.
20
Jhering, The Strugglefor Law, 31. The translatoruses "right,in the law" to make explicit the connectionbetween objective and subjectiveRecht;Jheringhas the single word Recht (Der Kampfums Recht, 27). 21 Jhering, The Strugglefor Law, 59. 22Ibid., 61.
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Jheringis concernedto show why rights and law are things for which we should struggleratherthan take for granted.The last two paragraphshave articulateda pair of ideas which suggest thatwe ought to look to Darwin and to Hegel in orderto understandJhering'sultimatecommitmentto the strugglefor law. One of Jhering'sgreatestcontributionsto Germanjurisprudenceis his insistence thatconceptualanalysis alone was insufficient:he arguesthatwe also need to pay attentionto actualhumandrives and purposes.23The idea that the "psychologicalsource of all law is the feeling of right"aims to give jurisprudence a naturalisticfooting: individualsor groupsstrugglingfor legal recognition andprotectionareanalogousto individualsandgroupscompetingin a Darwinian competitionfor survival.Indeed,the title ofDer Kampfwasmodeledon Haeckel'sDarwinianKampfumsDasein (the strugglefor existence).24Struggle directedby the feeling of right,Jheringcame to believe, could explainthe genealogy of law far betterthan abstractconceptualanalysis. Whateverwe today make of the implicationthat the "feeling of right"is tantamountto a biological faculty,Jhering'saccountof the developmentof law as a struggleof interestscertainlyhas some pull on us. Be this as it may,we will likely see little in the Darwinianside of Jhering'saccountto explainthe normative aspect of law: in what directionought law to develop? Jheringdraws on Hegel when he assertsthata crucialfunctionof rights and law is to protectour developing personalities. In particular Jhering's claim that "... property is but
the peripheryof my person extendedto things"recalls Hegel's even stronger claim that propertyis the concrete "existence of personality"itself.25Jhering comes close to this idea when he writesthat,for an individualin a lawsuit,"itis not the worthlessobjectthatis at stakebuthis own personality."Takentogether, these ideas lay at least the foundationfor a less genealogicalandmoreprescriptive accountof Recht, accordingto which we ought to develop laws and rights that protect people's personalities.26As we will see below, this stress on the normativeimportof personalityis one of the many featuresof Jhering'sview that Liang finds attractive. To sum up, the positivist insight-that thereareno laws or rightsotherthan those enforcedby some authority-should not lead to passivity for two reasons. First, if rights recognized by the state are not actively claimed, the laws on which they arebased will lose theirconcretereality;the "legal orderingof life" itself, thatis, dependson people's active assertionof theirrights.Second, since This meant that Jheringmoved beyond "pandectism,"a specifically Germanversion of positivism. See Wieacker,357. 24 Conversationwith James Whitman;see also Wieacker,357. 25 G. W. F. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, tr. H. B. Nisbet (Cambridge, 1991), 81. 26 See WolfgangPleister,Pers6nlichkeit,Willeund Freiheit im WerkeJherings (Ebelsbach, 1982). 23
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laws by theirvery naturedefend only those interestsalreadyrecognizedby the state,the only way thatnew rightscan come to be realizedis throughstruggling againstthe statusquo. Jhering'scontentionis thatthe psychologicalmechanism that standsbehindboth motives to struggleis the feeling of right, and it is this idea thatLiangwill discuss in termsof "quanliconsciousness." We have alreadyseen that Jheringbelieves our rights, which is to say our subjectiveRecht, to be dependenton the law, or Recht consideredobjectively. Only those interestspubliclyrecognizedas Rechtcountas individual,subjective Recht. One of Jhering'smost strikingdoctrinesis his claim thatthere is also a dependencein the otherdirection.He writes: Concretelaw not only receives life and strengthfrom abstractlaw, but gives it back, in turn,the life it has received.It is the natureof the law to be realizedin practice.A principleof law never appliedin practice,or which has lost its force, no longer deserves the name; it is a worn-out springin the machineryof the law,whichperformsno serviceandwhich may be removedwithoutchangingits action in the least.27 Althoughthis principleapplies to all partsof the law equally,the realizationof public and criminallaws is virtuallyguaranteed,since these are explicit duties imposed on public officials. The realizationin practiceof privatelaw, in contrast,dependson individuals'takingaction. Jheringis not saying thatcriminal law is alwaysperfectlycarriedout,buthe does believe thatthose who violate the criminallaws tend to be prosecuted,since there are officials whose job this is. There is no explicit requirementthat individualsclaim what is their due. One mighthave some interestthatis protectedby law-that is, have a right-and yet not insist on redresswhen that right is violated. If individuals"for any reason neglectto asserttheirrightspermanentlyandgenerally,whetherfromignorance, love of ease, or fear, the consequence is that the principles of right lose their vigor."28It follows, given the essentialrole noted in the previouspassagethatis playedby the "force"of Recht,thatsuchneglectedrights"nolongerdeservethe name"of rights.Jheringconcludes thatthe very existence of "theprinciplesof private law" depends on "the power of the motives which induce the person whose rightshave been violatedto defendthem:his interestandhis sentimentof legal right."29 According to Jhering,if we fail to exercise our subjectiveRecht, then the objectiveRechton which the formerdependswill be vitiatedto the pointof nonexistence. This argumentdepends on a concreteunderstandingof law (thatis, objectiveRecht)thatwas quite distinctiveof Jhering.Not only are laws not, in 27 Jhering,The Strugglefor Law, 70.
28Ibid., 71. 29Ibid., 72.
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Jhering'seyes, "naturallaws" identifiablethroughreason; they are not mere abstractionsof any kind. Laws arethose things thatin practiceprotectpeople's interests,andnothingthatfails to serve this function-even if it is because the people fail to ask for protection-is a law. The final move in the argumentof Der Kampffollows immediatelyfrom this intimateinterrelationbetween subjective,individualrightandobjective,interpersonallaw. Jheringtells us that: [I]n defendinghis legal rights [an individual]asserts and defends the whole body of law, within the narrowspace which his own legal rights occupy. Hence his interest,and this, his mode of action, extend far beyond his own person.The generalgood which resultstherefromis not only the ideal interest, that the authorityand majesty of the law are protected,but this othervery real and eminentlypracticalgood which every one feels and understands... that the establishedorderof social relationsis defendedand assured.30 Both an individual'sand his group's interests suffer, that is, when he fails to asserthis rights.This imposes on us, says Jhering,duties both to ourselves and to society to defend ourrights.Justas it is a citizen's dutyto defendhis stateby opposing a foreign invader,so it is his duty to defend againstinternalthreatsto the public orderby claiminghis rights.The strugglefor ourrightsis the struggle for law:thusthe purposefulambiguityin the book's title, TheStruggleforRecht. These doctrinesfound audiencesaroundthe world. Der Kampfwas translatedinto Chinesebetween 1900 and 1901 andby 1915 hadbeen translatedinto nearlythirtylanguages.31Jhering'sideas, especially as interpretedandpopularized by Liang's "OnQuanli Consciousness,"exerteda significantinfluence in China:numerousessays insistedon the need to resistattemptsto depriveone of quanli lest one be guilty of having thrown quanli away, as well as others of Jhering'sdoctrines.32 was the firstChinesethinker, LiangQichao,Jhering'simmediateinterpreter, so far as I know,to use the term"quanliconsciousness";but the word "quanli" itself has a complicated history. The characters"quan"and "li" first appear together in the Confucianclassic Xunzi (c. 220 BCE), where they refer to the kinds of"power" (quan) and "profit"(li) that can tempt people to act immor-
30Ibid., 74. 31Rudolf von Jhering,QuanliJingzhenglun [TheStrugglefor Rights](Tokyo, 1900-1901); Jhering, The Strugglefor Law, xii. 32 See MarinaSvensson, The Chinese Conceptionof Human Rights: The Debate on Human Rights in China, 1898-1949 (Lund, 1996), ch. 5.
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ally.33The negative connotationthatXunzi attachesto quanli, which is related to Mencius'srepeatedadmonitionsagainstli (profit),34derives fromhis Confucian belief that one should attendto ritualor ethical proprietyratherthan any sort of utility.I know of no uses of the termpriorto the nineteenthcenturythat dispensewith this negativejudgment.In W.A. P. Martin's1864 translationinto Chinese of HenryWheaton'sElementsofInternationalLaw, entitled Wangguo Gongfa, "quanli"is used for the first time as a directtranslationfor "rights."35 But "Quanli"is not the only term used as a correlatefor "rights";much more frequently,"quan"alone is used.36This is only the beginning of the story of "rights,""quanli,"and other relatednotions in East Asia, but telling more of thattale is beyond the scope of this essay.37 Liang's firstuses of"quanli"come in 1899 in essays writtenin Tokyoafter Liangfled China,followingthe collapseof the 1898reformmovementin China.38 In the section on "The Quan of Strength"in his readingnotes "Notes on SelfDetermination"(Ziyou Shu) he contrasts"quanli"with naked "power."His thesis reflects the powerful influence that social Darwinismhad on him at this point:he writesthatthe meaningof "thequanof strength"is the "quanliof those who arestrong,"which he says is the sameas the Englishphrase"therightof the strongest."39 Liang asserts that no one is born with quanli as the idealists believe; all that really mattersis who is stronger.We should focus, therefore,on "power." In an earlypassage of"On Quanli Consciousness"Liang sounds very like his social Darwinist"The Quan of Strength"of a few years earlier.He writes that quanli: ... is bornfromstrength.Lions andtigers always have first-class,absolute quanli with respect to the myriad animals, as do chieftains and kings with respect to the common people, aristocratswith respect to commoners,men with respect to women, large groupswith respect to small, and aggressive states with respectto weak ones. This is not due 33Xunzi Index (Shanghai, 1986), 3/1/49;
see also ibid., 47/12/76.
34 See Mencius 1A:1, etc. 35 Henry Wheaton, WanguoGongfa (Elements of InternationalLaw), tr. W. A. P. Martin (Peking, 1864), II, 24b; I, 19b. 36 Nor does "quan" always mean "rights";see, for example, WanguoGongfa [Elementsof InternationalLaw], tr. W. A. P. Martin (Peking, 1864), I, lb and 19b, where it is used to translate "authority." 37 See StephenC. Angle, TheChallengeof China:HumanRightsDiscoursein Comparative Perspective (forthcoming). 38 See Joseph R. Levenson, LiangCh'i-ch'aoand theMindof ModernChina(Berkeley,
1967);also Hao Chang,LiangCh'i-ch'aoand IntellectualTransitionin China(Cambridge, Mass., 1971), especially on the backgroundto and content of Liang's On the New People; and Philip C. Huang,Liang Ch 'i-ch'ao and Modern ChineseLiberalism(Seattle, 1972), especially for Liang's relations with and influences from Japaneseintellectuals. 39Liang, VI:2:29.
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to the violent evil of the lions, tigers, chieftains,and so on! It is natural thatall people desire to extendtheirown quanli andnever are satisfied with whatthey have attained.Thusit is the natureof quanlithatA must first lose it before B can invade and gain it.40 If we were to go only on the basis of this passage,the obvious conclusionwould be thatLiang means by "quanli"exactly what Xunzi meanttwo millenniaearlier: power and profit. The idea that it is naturalfor people to seek to increase theirshareof power andprofitcalls to mind Xunzi's statementat the beginning of his "Essayon Rites"that"... man is bornwith desires."4It is truethatLiang immediatelyturnsto invokingJhering,butthe passagehe alludesto does littleto lessen the impressionthat "quanli"is simply power and profit. According to Liang,"Jheringwrites: 'The goal of quanli is peace, but the meansto this end is none other than war and struggle. When there are mutual invasions, there is mutualresistance,and so long as the invasionsdo not cease, the resistancewill also not end. The essence is simply thatquanli is bornfrom competition."42 As soon as we look furtherintoLiang'sessay,however,we learnthat"quanli" cannot simply mean power and profit. For one thing, Liang tells us that "the Charstrengthof quanliconsciousnesstrulydependson a person'scharacter."43 acter(pinge) is somethingthat"noblewarriors"and"purebusinessmen"have, and that "slaves"and "thieves"lack. Liang adds that "othershave misunderstood the truecharacteristicsof quanli, believing thatit involved nothingmore thancontinuouscalculationof physical, materialbenefit. Ah! Is thatnot despicable?"44He gives an example, drawnfrom Jhering'stext of a lawsuit:45 SupposethatI have an item thatI took from anotherby force. The one whose item was taken will angrily resist [my appropriation]in court, whereinhis goal is not [regaining]the thingitself, but [attaining]sovereignty over the thing. Thus it often happensthat before a suit begins, people will announcethat in previous suits all the benefit thatthey attainedwas subsequentlyused to performcharitabledeeds. If the person had been bent on profit, why was this done? This kind of suit can be called an ethical question,not a mathematicalone.46 Liang concludesthat"thenaturesof quanli andbenefit areprecisely opposed."
40
Liang, 31-32.
41
BurtonWatson,Basic WritingsofHsiin Tzu (New York, 1963), 89.
42
Liang, 32. 43 Ibid. 44Ibid., 33. 45 Jhering,The Strugglefor 46
Liang, 33.
Law, 28-29.
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Liang relies on a distinctionbetween "physical"(xing er xia) and "metaphysical"(xing er shang) in orderto develop the idea thatquanli is concerned with things like character,nobility,and ethics. He writes: The reasonfor which humansaregreaterthanthe othermyriadthingsis that they not only have a physical existence, but also a metaphysical existence. There are numerousaspects to metaphysicalexistence, but the most importantof themis quanli.Thusanimalshave no responsibility towardthemselves otherthanpreservingtheir lives, while in order for those who are called "human"to completely fulfill our self-responsibilities, we mustpreserveboth our lives and ourquanli, which mutually rely on one another.If we do not do this, then we will immediately lose our qualificationsto be humanand stand in the same position as animals.Thus the Romanlaw's seeing slaves as equivalentto animals was, logically, truly appropriate.47 This passageis a paraphraseof a similarpassagein Der Kampf,whereinJhering contrastsconcernwith physical existence with concern for "moralexistence" Readersnot familiarwith Jhering'sworkmay well have (moralischeExistenz).48 thoughtof anotherpossible sourcefor Liang'scomparisonbetweenhumansand animals:Mencius'sstatementthata manlackingin moralinclinations"is not far removed from an animal."49 While the close similaritiesbetween Liang's and texts me make confident thatLiangwas paraphrasingJhering,the conJhering's nection to Mencius was not lost on him. Later in this essay Liang says that, "Menciussaid that '[if the people] are allowed to lead idle lives, withouteducation and discipline, they will degenerateback to the level of animals.' If we considerthe legal principlesof the Romanlaw,.. .isn't this close to this idea [of Mencius]?"50
When Liangcomes to explainingwherequanli consciousnesscomes from, we find an importantfurthertie to Mencius. Liang writes that: In general,thatwhen people arebornthey arepossessed of quanli consciousnessis due to innategood knowingandgood ability."5 And why is it that there are great inequalities-some are strong while others are weak, some lie low while others are destroyed?It always follows the historyof a nationandthe gradualinfluenceof government[in making 47Ibid., 31.
48 Jhering,The Strugglefor Law, 31. 49 Mencius VIA.8; translationfrom D. C. Lau, Mencius (London, 1970), 165 50 Liang, 39. The Mencius passage is III.A.4; translationfrom Lau, 102. 51Liangzhi and liangneng, both originally from Mencius VII:A.15. Liangzhi became a centraltheoreticalterm for WangYangming,on whom see below.
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the nation inferior].Mencius said it before I: "It is not thatthere were never sprouts[on the mountainside],but cattle and sheep continuously If one observesthe historiesof grazethere,so thatit becomes barren."52 nations that have been destroyed-whether East or West, ancient or contemporary-one sees thatin the beginning,therehave alwaysbeen a few resisting tyrannicalrule and seeking quanli. Again and again the governmentseeks to weed out [those resisting its tyrannicalrule], and graduallythose resisting get weaker,more despondent,have [theirresolve] melt away,until eventuallythatviolent, intoxicatingquanli consciousness comes increasinglyundercontrol,is ever more dilutedand thin, to the point thatany possibility of a returnto its formerstrengthis forgottenand it is permanentlyundercontrol.A few decades or centuries of this situationcontinuing, and quanli consciousness will have completelydisappeared.53 The connectionLiangdrawsbetween quanliand"innategood knowing"(liang zhi) is striking.Unlike many in Liang's essay, this passage has no correlatein Der Kampf.Liangis telling us thatquanli consciousness is an innatecharacteristic of humans,althoughone thatcan be graduallydilutedand even destroyed by a tyrannicalgovernment.Both in this passage andin the previouslycited one we see thatquanli consciousness is connectedwith our ethical sensibilities far more than with any concern for law. We thus begin to see that "quanli"may have less to do with Jhering's"Recht"thanhad originallyappeared. So far we have seen that despite an initial suggestion that the struggle for quanliis tied to unendingdesiresfor materialimprovement,Liang'sview of our motivationandjustification for demandingquanli is considerablymore complex. Echoing to one degree or anotherboth Jheringand Mencius, Liang explainsthathumanexistencehas a "metaphysical,"ethicaldimensionthatdistinguishes us from animals.Based on what we have seen thus far,let me hypothesize that having quanli representsbeing able to exercise abilities and enjoy interestscrucial to being a whole person, where the understandingof what is necessary for a personto be "whole"rests ultimatelyon ethical norms. Quanli consciousness is our awarenessor feeling of the importanceof these abilities and interests;it is this consciousness that should, if appropriatelydeveloped, make us feel pain when the abilities and interestsare curtailed. This talk of "whole"persons of course calls to mind Jhering'semphasis, echoing Hegel, on the "personality."In On the New People Liang also puts stress on personality(renge), though the term is mentionedonly twice in "On Quanli Consciousness"itself. In "On Civic Virtue"in particularLiang argues 52Mencius VI:A.7. 53Ibid., 38.
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thatone's personalvirtuecan be irreproachable,and yet if one is withoutcivic virtue (i.e., if one does not feel the pull of responsibilitiesto one's group),one can fail to have full-fledged renge. For Liang, in otherwords, "personality"is inextricablytied to identificationwith a group. Thus far I have concentratedon sections of"On Quanli Consciousness"in which Liang cites, paraphrases,or even quotes Jhering.Thereare severalother importantsections in which Liangsets Jhering'stext aside anddiscusses quanli in contextsthatwill be morefamiliarto his readers.One themethatcomes out in these sections is the importanceof actively strugglingfor one's own ethically legitimateinterests-of looking forward,to the futureand to the bettermentof one's lot-rather thanrelyingon othersto providethem.Consider,for instance, Liang'srejectionof the centralConfucianvalue of humaneness(ren).He writes that: In general,Chinese excel at talk of humaneness,while the Westerners excel at talk of righteousness(yi). Humanenessis concernedwith others. If I benefit others,they will benefit me: the emphasisis always the other.Righteousness, on the other hand, is concernedwith oneself. I don'tharmothers,andthey arenot allowedto harmme: the emphasisis always on me. Of these two ethics, which is, in the end, correct?As for what's correctin the greatutopianworld of one or ten thousandyears hence, I don't daresay.As for today's world, though,I want to say that the world-savinggreatethic is trulythatof righteousness.54 He goes on to applythis idea as follows: If we apply this to humanegovernment,55 we can see that it is not the best formof government.Chinesepeople simplyhope for humanegovernmentfromtheirlord.Thuswhen they runinto humaneness,they are treatedas infants;when they meet inhumanity,they aretreatedas meat on a choppingblock. In all times humanerulersare few and cruel ones common,andso ourpeople, fromthe time thousandsof yearsago when ourancestorstaughtthis doctrinedown to the present,have takenbeing cruelly treatedlike meat as heavenly scriptureand earthlyprecept. It has been long since the consciousness (shixiang) expressedby the two characters"quanli"was cut off from our brains.56 The upshot seems to be thathe connects humanenesswith the passive expectation that others will provide for one, while in fact the "best policy is to make 54Ibid.,35. 55That is, the kind of governmentadvocatedby Mencius. 56
Ibid., 35-36.
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people each able to stand on his or her own, not having to rely on others."57 One's sense of righteousness,which he implies comes close to consciousnessof quanli, is what informsone's judgmentsof what we should standup for-or in Jhering'sterms,thatfor which we should struggle. We have to do more thanjust defend our own interests,however. He says several times in the essay thatwe need to cultivate "aggressiveness"(jinqu).58 Aggressiveness is a majortopic in On the New People, meritinga chapterall its own, entitled"OnTheAggressiveandAdventurousSpirit(LunJinquMaoxian)." Now aggressivenessmight well be thoughtnot to have any close relationto the ethical legitimacy of the interestsfor which we struggle. Close readingof the chapteron aggressiveness,however,shows this thoughtto be mistaken.59Early in the chapterLiang identifies the "aggressive and adventurousspirit"with Mencius'snotionof"flood-like energy"(haoranzhi qi).60Mencius'sdiscussion of flood-like energybegins with two famous exemplarsof courage,but he goes on to stress the connectionbetween righteousnessand the best sort of courage (namely,thatexhibitedby someone with flood-like energy).Indirectlyquoting Confucius,Menciuswritesthat"If,on lookingwithin,one finds oneself to be in the wrong,then even thoughone's adversarybe only a commonfellow coarsely clad, one is bound to tremble in fear."61The point of the original passage, in short, is that while raw courage is admirable,it is best if it is combined with ethicalpurpose. Liang's analysis in the balance of the chaptersuggests that he drew the connectionto Menciusin full knowledgeof this ethicalside to flood-likeenergy. In his discussion of hope, which Liang identifies as one of the chief featuresof an aggressive andadventurousspirit,Liangquotes a poem by the famousMing dynasty ConfucianWangYangming(1472-1529), which says in essence that anyone can achieve his ideals if only he keeps looking forward.Liang admires Wang'spoem because of its talk of strivingto realize ideals. Most of Liang's praisein this section in fact is aimedat those who areconcernednot simplywith fulfilling today's desires,butwith sacrificefor "tomorrow."62It would be twisting the meaning of this passage to suggest that it is ethically neutral.If Liang hadwantedto praisesomeone who had achievedextraordinarythingsby ignor57 Ibid. 58
Ibid., 36.
My analysis here stands in markedcontrastto Hao Chang's otherwise excellent treatment of On the New People. Chang argues at that Liang was consciously rejecting an ethical outlook, advocatinginsteada Machiavellian,merely "political"virtue. See Chang,Liang Ch'ich 'ao and Intellectual Transitionin China. I subject this claim-including the comparisonto Machiavelli-to sustained criticism in Stephen C. Angle, Concepts in Context: A Study of Ethical Incommensurability(Ann Arbor,University Microfilms, 1994). 60See Lau, 76-78 (Mencius 2a:2). 59
61
62
Lau, 77. Liang, 24.
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ing ethics, the Chinesetraditionoffers conquerorslike Qin Shi HuangandMing Taizu. Instead, Liang chose Wang Yangming,well-known as a champion of personaldisciplineandethics. Thesectionon zeal, anotheraspectof the "aggressiveandadventurousspirit," providesstill clearerevidence ofLiang's continuedconcernwith ethics. He lists various types of people who are motivated by zeal, and includes "hero" (yingxiong),"filial son" (xiao zi), and "loyal minister"(zhong chen). All three, and especially the last two, are paradigmaticethical categories. Liang gives a varietyof specific examples drawnfromboth Chinaandthe West;the Chinese exampleshe chooses are all famous ethicalexemplars. It is crucialto pay particularattentionto Liang's Chinese examples which are very familiarto him and his audience,and to be cautiousaboutthe conclusionswe drawfromthe WesternexamplesLiangcites. Forexample,Liangquotes Napoleon's slogan "Theword 'difficult'is only found in a fool's dictionary."It cannot be denied that this sounds like an instance of the sort of courage that Menciusfoundto be inferiorto genuineflood-likeenergy.Fromthe littlecontext Lianggives us it is hardto tell what he really makes of Napoleon. It is different with Chinese examples. Liang goes on to cite the case of Zeng Guofan,a nineteenth-centurygeneral,scholar,and reformerknown for his stress on personal ethics. Zeng also, accordingto Liang, believed that with the properspiritanythingcould be accomplished,andis groupedtogetherwith Napoleon as "heroes of aggressiveness and adventurousnessand models for futuregenerations."63 Liang could have chosen any one of a wide range of Chinese figures whose courageled themto greatachievements,includingnumerousconquerorsof questionableethics like Napoleon. I thinkhis having chosen Zeng speaksvolumes. Returningto "On Quanli Consciousness,"we are now in a position to understandthe relationof aggressivenessto quanli. We have to do more than sit back and defend our integrity:such an attitudeignores the degree to which an individual'sflourishingdependson his group'sdoing well; andfor the groupto do well, we have to act on ourethicalresponsibilitiesto the group.This is in fact the masterconcept of the whole On the New People: the importanceof one's relationwith and ethical responsibilitiesto one's group, which in the moder world is paradigmaticallyone's nation. There is little doubt that both Liang and Jheringbelieve that individuals have responsibilitiesto theirnations.Is it possible thatthis similaritymightrest primarilyon the surface?Deeperdown,we find importantdisanalogiesbetween their doctrinesof quanli andRecht.
63
Liang, 29.
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I have suggested several times throughoutthe course of this essay thatthe similaritiesbetween Liang and Jheringmask an importantdifferenceover the source andjustificationofquanli andRecht.The best way to bringthis out is to ask about the relationof each to law. For Jhering,as we have seen, this is an intimate relationship:the two are as closely related as "subjectiveRecht"to "objectiveRecht."It is partof the very meaningof Rechtthatrightsare tied to law. In my discussion of Liang to this point, in markedcontrast,we have heard virtuallyno mention of law (falii). There is in fact one passage in "On Quanli Consciousness"thatdeals with law, which we will examine shortly,but I have not greatlydistortedLiang's text.64The relationshipbetween quanli and law is simply not a crucialissue as far as he is concerned. Recall thatwhen Liangdiscussed the motivationbehindpursuinga certain lawsuit, he said that "this kind of suit can be called an ethical question, not a mathematicalone." He is much more explicit about this than Jhering;in the passage from which Liang takes this example Jheringonly mentions that the pain which one ought to feel when one's Rechte are violated is a "moralpain." "Moral"here means much the same as "psychological":the pain is an insultto our self-respect,an attackon our personality. The same cannot be said for Liang's linking of quanli with innate good knowing (liangzhi)nor for the undeniablyethicallight in which he presentshis idea of"aggressiveness."Indeed,one might arguethatLiang'sextensive use of quotationsfrom Jhering'stext serves a functionvery similarto Liang's many othercitationsof Westernexamples in On the New People: in a social and culturalcontext in which thingsthatsoundedor looked Westernwere often highly valued, it provides his ideas with an importantkind of rhetoricalforce. However,I thinkthatthe actualcontributionof these kindsof examplesto the content of what Liangwas communicatingto his audiencewas often negligible. Given the real similaritiesbetweenLiang'sideas andJhering's,such an analysisin this instanceis probablytoo strong,thoughit would be a mistaketo dismiss entirely the rhetoricalrole thatJheringplays in Liang's text. The strongestargumentthat Liang bases quanli on ethics ratherthan law comes fromlookingatwhathe says aboutlaw itself. The only passagein Liang's essay on quanli that significantlyconcernslaw runsas follows: Being untiringin one's competitionfor quanli, andquanli's [eventual] establishmentandprotection,all rely on the law. Thus those who have quanli consciousnessmust take strugglingfor legislative quan as their most importantprinciple.Whenevera grouphas law,no matterwhether they do good or bad, they all follow thatwhich has been determinedby 64 There is in additionthe passage, quoted above, dealing with a lawsuit. The connection to law in that case is largely incidental.
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Stephen C. Angle he who has legislative quan in orderto protecttheirquanli. The law of citizenrieswho arestrongin quanli consciousnesswill be ever improving, each day getting closer to perfection.... As quanli consciousness gets increasinglydeveloped,people'sdutiesbecomeincreasinglystrong. Strengthmeets strength,quan is weighed against quan, and thus an equal,excellentnew law is created.Inthe periodwhenbothnew andold laws are transmittedthereis often the most intense and cruel competition. When a new law appears,those who had previouslyrelied on the old law to enjoy specialquanlimustnecessarilybe particularlyharmed. Thusthose who promulgatea new law are as good as issuing a declaration of war againstthose people who previouslyhadpower....Tryreading historiesof the developmentof law in the variousnationsof Europe andAmerica:which greatlaw-whether it be the establishmentof constitutions,the rejectionof slavery, the setting free of serfs, achieving freedomof laboror religion-did not come only throughtrialby fire?65
In the context of Jhering'sclaim thatrights are legally protectedinterests, Liang'sstatementthatthe "establishmentandprotection"of quanlirelies on the law deserves carefulscrutiny.Also worth our attentionis an importanttension between distinguishinglaws as good or bad, on the one hand,andas old or new, on the other.Are new laws better?Or are they only betterfor some, worse for others? For Jheringthe idea thatthe protectionof rightsrelies on the law is trueby definition:rightsjust arethose interestsprotectedby law. If we look at the role of law in the whole of On the New People, I believe we come to a different conclusion. While "law"(falii) appearshardlyat all in "On QuanliConsciousness," it occurs fairly often (63 times) in other sections of On the New People. Liangregularlyemphasizesthe connectionbetween law or ruleof law andcivilization. Rule by law is thatwhich allows people to join togetherto determine their own futures.Every bit as importantas law, in fact, are the institutionson which it rests.In one passage, for instance,Liangarguesthatin orderto develop a nation's level of commerce, its commercialquanli must be protected.To do this commerciallaw mustbe establishedandthe powers andresponsibilitiesof judges andcourtsmustbe laid down, which in turnrequiresthata legislaturebe empowered,which requiresa responsiblegovernment,and so on.66Liang certainly believes that new laws and institutionsare needed for the protectionof quanli in China;as this passage illustrates,however, he does not believe that quanli are defined by such a relationto law.
65 Liang, 37. 66 Liang, 64.
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Suppose, then, that there is nothing in "On Quanli Consciousness"nor in the rest of On the New People that suggests a tighterrelationbetween quanli and law thanthe latter'stending,in practice,to reinforceor protectthe former. Whatof the tensionI notedbetweengood laws andmerelynew laws?Toputthis questionslightly differently,what is the distinctionthathe makesbetween good laws andbad ones? Do good lawsjust serve the interestsof the strongestparties more efficiently,or are they somehow ethically superior?If I can show thatthe latteris the case, thenmy argumentthatethics ratherthanlaw lies at the heartof quanliwill be furtherstrengthened,since the law itself will be seen to dependon ethics. Muchof the lengthypassagecitedabovesuggeststhatso-called"goodlaws" are simply those thatserve the strongerparty,butthe phrase"andthus an equal, excellent new law is created"seems to cry out for an ethical interpretation.On balanceI believe thatthe evidence suggests thatLiangunderstoodgood laws as notjust efficacious,but also ethicallypraiseworthy.In the sectionof On theNew People entitled "On Self-Rule" Liang invokes the classical Confucian sage Xunzi's idea thatpeople need artificialrestraintsif they are to live orderedand harmoniouslives, for if left to themselves,people's desireswill overcomethem and inevitablylead to strife.67While Xunzi believed thatcodes of ritualpropriety could serve this restrainingrole, Liang looks to law. He goes on to emphasize, however, that while laws are institutedby people, they are not "smelted onto us fromthe outside. It is not the case thatone leaderinventsthem in order to restrainthepeople.Instead,they come fromthe innategood knowing[liangzhi] common to all people's hearts."68 All laws, or at least all proper,good lawsand mandateways of orderingsociety that are implicit in our innate express feelings for one another.These rulesneed to be madeexplicit andtaught,for the feelings on which they arebased,we can assume,are fragile.We need the "artificial"laws, since humannaturealonewill not do. But thereis an implicitethical orderingto life. Whethernew or old, for laws to be good, they must meet this standard. Liang arrivesat a similarconclusion aboutthe origin and normativestatus of law, althoughin a round-aboutfashion, in a passage where he suggests that properlaws havetheiroriginin "contract," quiteconsciouslyechoingRousseau's doctrine of the social contract.69If we look to Liang's detailed discussion of Rousseaufrom a year earlier,we find the following: Thus Rousseau's opinion was that law was somethingthatthe masses collectively decide:they follow the naturalpatternsof thingsin orderto express their own currentwill and desires. Now althoughin terms of 67 68
Liang, 51.
Ibid., 51-52. 69 Ibid., 78.
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abstractobjectives, law is always generaland correct,still in its actual formulation,it never reaches the ideal set by such objectives. We can thereforenever fail to continuouslyrepairand improveour law. This is one of Rousseau'smost outstandinginsights. Wheneverwe try to formulate and lay down laws, we must strive to accord with properpattern-this goes withoutsaying. But inevitablymistakesthatgo against patternwill arise. Every kind of law, therefore,needs continuouscorrection. And the quan to make these reforms must always be in the hands of the citizenry.Thus in referenceto those who graspquan and refuseto allow changesto the law once it has been laid down, Rousseau says "suchpeople are in fact political criminals."70 Once again we see that there is an implicit ethical standardto which laws are held and in accordwith which actuallaws should be revised when they fail to meet it. In addition,note thatLianguses the distinctivelyConfucianterminology of proper"pattern(li)" to describethis standard. Now Liangdoes not go as far as his contemporaryLiu Shipei, who explicitly identifiesRousseau's"generalwill" with WangYangming'sdoctrineof"innategood knowing"(liangzhi).71Quiteobviously,talkof ethicallygood andbad law fits uncomfortablyalongsidethe suggestionswe saw above thatlaws come into being simply due to triumphof one group'sstrengthover another's.Thus I cannotconcludethatLiangis completelyunambiguousin his linkingof law with ethics. If we had strongevidence thathe believed quanlito be derivedfromlaw, therefore,we might be tempted to conclude that Liang looks a lot more like JheringthanI have been insisting.It is clear,however,thatLianghas little to say aboutthe relationshipbetweenlaw andquanli.Thusfor all the similaritiesLiang himself obviously saw between his ideas and Jhering's,I conclude thatquanli andRecht are significantlydifferent. I beganthis essay with LiangandJhering'sjoint claim thatmanypeoplesChineseandAustrians,in particular-need to be more like the English,who are exemplaryin theirpossession of quanli consciousness/feelingof Recht. Liang adds, as Jheringof course does not, that certainfamous figures in the Chinese traditionhave also exemplified quanli consciousness. I suggested that Liang's additionraises the puzzle of whether(1) Jhering'sEnglish and Liang's ancient heroes were actuallymotivatedby the same things; (2) Liang was really after what the English manifested, and read that back into his traditionin orderto salvage his woundedpride;or (3) the best understandingof what Liang sought in his people was shown by Lin Xiangru, and the relationto the English was more superficial. 70Liang, 1:6:107. 71 See Liu Shipei, ZhongguoMinyueJingyi (The Essence of the Chinese Social Contract), in The Collected Worksof Liu Shipei (Shanghai, 1936), I, 24b and Stephen C. Angle, "Did Someone Say 'Rights?' Liu Shipei's Conceptof Quanli,"PhilosophyEast andWest, 48:4, 62351.
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Choice (3) is closest to being correct.What Liang is applaudingis ethical aggressiveness:strugglingto exercise those abilities andreceive those benefits thatproperlybelong to one. This is what Lin manifests.FromLiang's vantage point the English also appearto manifestthese qualities.Now one might have expecteda Chineseintellectualto expressoutrageat the conductof the English, who despite being marvels of proceduralpropriety,were nonetheless able to insist at gunpointthat China'sports be open to the opium trade.It is to some extentunfairto complainof Liang thathe did not rail againstimperialism;few in his day did. My realpoint is thatwhatthe English did, namely,insist on their "rights"as definedby their"law,"is exactly what Jheringapprovesof. It is not, however,what Liang is encouraging;he cares little aboutpeople's legal or proceduraldue, at least on its own. As I hope I have shown,the quanlifor which we shouldstrugglemay turnout to be protectedby laws, butthey arenot definedby laws. They aredefinedby ethicalnorms,by ourplace in the ethical orderof the world. The idea of quanli that Liang develops in "On Quanli Consciousness," like many of the centralconcepts of On the New People, shows clear connections to enduringConfucianthemes. Insisting on understandingLiang's quanli as rooted in aspects of the Chinese traditionratherthansimply borrowedfromabroadis not to deny thatthere aredeepandimportantresonancesbetweenLiang'swritingsandJhering's.Many Chinese thinkerswho discuss quanli afterLiang continueto see a socially located "personality"(renge) as the subjectof quanli.72The close tie thatJhering assertsbetweenindividuals'assertionof rightsandthe maintenanceof socialand legal-order is similarlyechoed by later authors.In general I believe that furtherresearchwill sustainthe view thatthere are significantsimilaritiesand significantdifferencesbetweenChina'sdevelopingrightsdiscourseandthe German-especially Hegelian-political and legal tradition,and that taking both the similaritiesandthe differencesinto accountwill be crucialto any full understandingof Chineseconceptionsof rights.73 WesleyanUniversity.
72 See, for example, Gao Yihan, "GuojiaFei Renshengzhi Guisuo Lun [On the Country Not Being the End of Life]," New YouthMagazine, I, 4 (1915); and more generally,Angle, The Challenge of China, ch. 8. 73 I would like to express my thanksto participantsin the May 1996 conferenceon Confucianism and HumanRights and especially to James Whitmanfor his insightful comments and suggestions.
the
Contesting Metaphors and Discourse
of
Consciousness
in
William
James
Jill M. Kress
Ah, not to be cut off, not by such slight partition to be excluded from the stars 'measure. What is inwardness? What if not sky intensified, flung through with birds and deep with winds of homecoming? Rainer Maria Rilke William James's lifelong attention to questions about human mental experience elucidates the development of the concept of consciousness through its realization in fields as disparate as natural science, radical empiricism, and religious mysticism. Over the course of a career that both establishes and traverses disciplinary boundaries, James's work embodies tensions between scientific explanations for mental phenomena and the inescapability of metaphysical arguments. Jamesian psychology thus alternates between materialist and spiritualist assumptions of scientists and philosophers at the turn of the century, joining their compulsive investigations into the nature of consciousness.2 Most readers
I am gratefulto James Longenbachand to the readersat the Journal of the History of Ideas for their helpful suggestions on this essay. 2 James's work responds to the theories of nineteenth-centuryscientists such as Darwin, Lewes, and Spencer, who wrestled with questions about the naturalorigin of the mind; and though he often challenges their theories, he still replicates their paradoxical tendencies to place consciousness inside elaboratephysiological systems while still maintainingits elusive properties.See Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (New York, 1874); G. H. Lewes, The Physical Basis of Mind (London, 1893); and The Worksof Herbert Spencer (Osnabruck,1966).
263 Copyright2000 by Journalof the Historyof Ideas,Inc.
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of James puzzle over the theoreticalcontradictionswithin his work, debating centralphilosophicaldilemmasconcerningthe statusof the conscious self. Perhaps the most paradoxicalaspect of James'stheories,his responseto dualism, emergesas he attemptsto negotiateetherealexplanationsfor consciousnesswith bodily processes.3The mind-bodyproblem disruptsJames's more delicately balancedtheories,a disruptionregisteredexplicitlythroughthe metaphorsin his texts. ReadingThePrinciplesofPsychology (1890) alongside"Does 'Consciousness' Exist" (1904), this essay demonstrateshow figurative language directs James'sstudyof consciousness. I arguethatmetaphordoes morethandescribe consciousness;metaphorconstructsJames'sarguments,governshis conflicting theoriesof mind througha series of rhetoricalconfigurationsandprovokesthe continualreconstructionof his ideas of humansubjectivity.Furthermore,while it is impossible for Jamesto explain and to study consciousness withoutmetaphor, he experiences great anxiety about using language, figurativeor otherwise, to representhis object of study. The language becomes more powerful thanhis intentionsor designs and,indeed,raises implicationsthatJamescannot control.Jamespossesses a heightenedawarenessof what he craftswith words; he also, perhapsmore penetratingly,acknowledgesthe inadequacyof any linguistic system to realize concepts thoroughly.4Struggling over appropriate "names"and"terms"for consciousness,Jamespresupposessome clearlydelineated concept aroundwhich we might wrap a verbal expression;yet he also seems painfullyawarethateverynew metaphorlaunchesan entirelynew theory. Fluidandunpredictable,consciousnessbecomes like languageitself, yieldingits powerpreciselybecauseit can be so manythingsat once. The ultimateprinciple of Jamesianconsciousness seems to be its creative capacity;still, once James admitsthatthe problemof consciousnessis a problemof language,his carefully constructeddesigns begin to unravel.Thoughconsciousness will be translated into James'snotion of"pure experience"by the time he writes the radicalemexemplary instance of this debate is John Dewey's "The Vanishing Subject in the Psychology of William James,"Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Method, 37 (1940), 589-99, reprintedin Problems of Men (New York, 1946), which argues that there are "two incompatiblestrains"in Jamesianpsychology: epistemologicaldualism,which arguesfor a definitive, psychical self, and naturalismwhich "purges"psychology of the traditionalnotion of "subject,"describingmental phenomenain terms of the organismexclusively. Milic Capek rejects Dewey's claim, arguingthat what James denies is "a timeless, ghostly, and diaphanous entity,common to all individualsand consequentlyimpersonal."Milic Capek, "TheReappearance of the Self in the Last Philosophyof WilliamJames,"ThePhilosophicalReview,62 (1953), 526-44, arguesthat James's work, despite its discrepancies,supportsthe notion of a "potential self'-based on what James calls "virtualexperience"-and opposes naturalism. 4 William JosephGavin, WilliamJames and the Reinstatementof the Vague(Philadelphia, 1992) discusses language with respect to Jamesian"metaphysics,"arguing that James's language exists as a "provocation"to the reader,gesturingto what lies beyond it, and that James remains suspicious of words even when he is "bewitched"by them. 3 An
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piricismessays, Jamesremainssimultaneouslycommittedto his figures (especially of the "streamof consciousness")and ambivalentabout the account of consciousness that they provide. James helps create the modem self with its enhancedindividuality,thoughhis metaphorsat once directus inwardto a centered,privateself andpropelus outwardto find consciousnessmaterializingin the fluxionalcycle of the naturalworld. In presentinghis initial theoryof the streamof our thoughts,Jamesargues for its coherence.His most famous metaphorof the "stream"of consciousness appearsto saturatethe variedmaterialof the mind, its waterwashing over and throughany distinctionsor separationswhich the mindmightpresent: Consciousness,then, does not appearto itself choppedup in bits. Such words as "chain"or "train"do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance.It is nothingjointed; it flows. A "river"or a "stream"are the metaphorsby which it is most naturallydescribed.In talkingof it hereafter,let us call it the streamof thought,of consciousness, or of subjectivelife.5 James's desire to find words that are more "natural"is as much an aesthetic motion as it is an attemptat correctingfalse theories.6Rejecting words like "chain"or "train"as unsuitable,James uses "stream"to suggest, instead, that consciousness is organic,natural,uncontrived.7ThoughJamesoften refersto a "section"of consciousness, he places this dubious word in quotationmarks. Thusunderminingthe word,he emphasizesthe unity of this indivisibleflow as well as the sense that languagefeels inadequatefor the task of producingconsciousness. Elsewhere,Jameslamentsthe inadequaciesof languageto expressthe fullness of a thoughtor feeling. It is almostimpossible,he persuadesus, to imagine a feeling so limited that it has no inkling of anythingthat went before. We are woefully imprecise,therefore,in namingour thoughts:"Here,again, language works againstourperceptionof the truth.We name our thoughtssimply ... as if each knew its own thing andnothingelse. Whateach reallyknows is clearlythe
5 William James, The
Principles of Psychology (1890; Cambridge,Mass., 1981), 233. On the place of naturalimagery and the aesthetic in James, see Russell B. Goodman, AmericanPhilosophyand the RomanticTradition(Cambridge,1990); Donna Farantello," 'The Picture of the Mind Revives Again': Perceptionin William James's Psychology and 'Tinter Abbey,' " The WordsworthCircle, 22 (1991), 131-35; and Olaf Hansen, Aesthetic Individual6
ismandPracticalTalent: American Adams,andJames(Princeton, AllegoryinEmerson,Thoreau, 1990), 181. 7 As Peter Marcus Ford points out in WilliamJames's Philosophy (Amherst, 1982), the metaphors"matter"metaphysically;a "stream"and "chain"have differingcharacteristicsand, therefore,producediffering accounts of consciousness.
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thing it is namedfor, with dimly perhapsa thousandotherthings"(PP, I, 234). That "dim"perceptionof the "thousandother things" is often representedin Principles by recurringwords thatseem to indicatean inescapablefuzziness in the language of consciousness. Some of James's favorites-"echo," "halo," "fringe,""penumbra,""shadow,""suffusion"-all sharea lingeringquality,as if, when attachedto consciousness, they had the ability to spreador cling or float or leave a trail.James'ssense thatthereis moreto a thoughtor feeling than its traditionallabel can express, driveshim to keep words in suspense. A series of particularlyacute images for consciousness occurs as James explains the rate of change of the subjective states of our mental content, the "successive psychoses which shade graduallyinto each other"(PP, I, 236). James's language mirrorsthe image of consciousness he creates: like a bird flying, it gets away from us; yet perchedand static, it gives us the illusion that we can examineit. In the same fashionJamesshows thatwords slip and flutter, but they also providearrestingimagery. As we take, in fact, a generalview of the wonderfulstreamof our consciousness, what strikesus first is this differentpace of its parts.Like a bird'slife, it seemsto be madeof analternationof flightsandperchings.... The resting-placesare usually occupied by sensorial imaginationsof some sort ... the places of flight are filled with thoughts of relations, static or dynamic.... Let us call the resting-places the "substantive parts, "andtheplaces offlight the "transitiveparts, " of the stream of thought.(PP, I, 236) The gesturetowardnaming("letus call") at the end of this passage shows how Jamesattemptsto fix a definitionby creatingan imagethatis utterlyunfixablethe bird's "flights and perchings."Metaphorsof water and birds compose a landscape for consciousness. Indeed, James states that we have a privileged "view,"a panoramicscope for consciousnessthatexhibitsthis naturalscenery. Jamesutilizes this new metaphorin orderto explainhow differentpartsof the streamof consciousnesshave differingpaces, like a birdboth flying andperching. His metaphoricalconstructionbecomes yet anothervisual invention,possibly distractingthe readerfrom the sense that analyzing consciousness could amountto division.Nevertheless,Jamesmaintainsthatthe illusion of"parts"or "sections"in whathe defendsas a steadystream,is the psychologist'serror;and yet it proves to be a necessity for his study of the phenomenon.Jamesrebukes the "traditionalpsychology"which talks like one who should say a river consists of nothing but pailsful, spoonsful,quartsful,barrelsful,andothermouldedformsof water.Even were the pails and the pots all actuallystandingin the stream,still be-
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tween them the free water would continue to flow. It is just this free water of consciousness thatpsychologists resolutely overlook. (PP, I, 246) Despite James's superiorawarenessof the water that flows in additionto the "mouldedforms"of water,he too must fill the pails, spoons, quarts,andbarrels in orderto inspect the "freewater of consciousness."This liquid metaphorremainsin keepingwith his "stream"of consciousness;andthoughJamesdoes not mistakethe spoonful for the whole river,he does examine its contents.Thushe figuratively"contains"consciousnesseven while he insists on its steadyrush. Examiningconsciousnessis, at once, imaginingandinspecting.If the object of James'spsychology is a productof his imagination,he can maintainthe illusion that he has control over what he will subject to scientific scrutiny.For James, then, inspecting is introspecting,a process which he repeatedlycalls difficult.8In continuinghis discussion of the transienceof thoughtwithin each personalconsciousness,Jamesconcedes: Now it is very difficult, introspectively,to see the transitiveparts for what they really are ... stopping them ... is really annihilating them....
Let anyonetry to cut a thoughtacrossin the middle andget a look at its section,andhe will see how difficultthe introspectiveobservationof the transitivetractsis. The rushof the thoughtis so headlongthatit almost always bringsus up at the conclusion before we can arrestit. Or if our purposeis nimble enough and we do arrestit, it ceases forthwithto be itself. As a snowflake caughtin the warmhand is no longer a flake but a drop,so, insteadof catchingthe feeling of relationmoving to its term, we find thatwe have caughtsome substantivethingwith ... its function, tendencyandparticularmeaningin the sentencequiteevaporated.(PP, I, 236-37) Jamesuses differentangles to "get a look at"this thought;he imagines cutting the thoughtacrossthe middle in orderto considera cross-section,but the "rush of the thought"is so fast thatwe reachthe conclusionbefore we can investigate it in process.9"Stopping"the thoughtis equivalentto "annihilating"it. James cannotcapture"relationmoving";whathe catches is "some substantivething," while the rush or "tendency"of the thoughtsuffers the same fate as the snowflake-it "evaporates."Jamescreatesimageswhich expressthe impossibilityof 8 See GeraldMyers, WilliamJames: His Life and Thought(New Haven, 1986), 64-80. 9 Daniel Bjork, WilliamJames: The Center of His Vision(New York, 1988), 160, shows how James uses the transitionalqualities of language in order to emphasize consciousness as process: "Declensions, conjunctions,and prepositionswere linguistic signs that consciousness was relationaland inherentlydynamic rather[than] substantiveand static."
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"catchingthe feeling of relation"withoutalteringit: "seizing a spinningtop to catch its motion";"tryingto turn up the gas quickly enough to see how the darknesslooks" (PP, I, 237). The spinningtop, like the snowflake, "ceases"to be itself once it is caught. The notion that one might be able to "see how the darknesslooks" by turningup the gas seems as ridiculousas it is compelling. Withintricateanalogiessuch as these, Jamesmakesconsciousnessappearto be an elusive entity;an entitythatonly his configurationscan tease out. Claimingthat the "definiteimages"of psychology form only the smallest part of our actual minds, James strives to account for the tenuous, streaming remainder: Every definite image in the mind is steeped and dyed in the free water that flows round it. With it goes the sense of its relations, near and remote,the dying echo of whence it came to us, the dawning sense of whitherit is to lead.The significance,the value of the image is all in this halo or penumbrathat surroundsand escorts it-or ratherthatis fused into one with it andhas become bone of its bone andflesh of its flesh.... (PP, I, 246) "Definite"images are not set apartfrom theirsurroundingatmosphere;thatis, the images James refers to are "steepedin" and imbuedwith the touch of the waterflowing aroundthem,the soundof the echo trailingafterthem,the sightof the halo accompanyingthem. The Jamesianstreamcontains no ordinarywater-saturation and some sort of taintingare the effects of a dip in its currents. Consciousness gains transformingpower as it "dyes"those images that it encounters.The "value"of the image comes with its seemingly untraceablerelations, andyet thatwhich "escorts"the imagebecomesone withthe image.Moreover, in this "bone of its bone and flesh of its flesh" marriageof image and shadow,fusion amountsto re-creation. At one point in Principles Jamestells a storyaboutfourmen takinga tripto Europe.He depictstheirdifferentways of seeing in orderto show how the mind "choosesto suit itself, anddecides whatparticularsensationshall be held more real and valid than all the rest." Let four men make a tourin Europe.One will bringhome only picturesque impressions-costumes and colors, parksand views and works of architecture,pictures and statues. To anotherall this will be nonexistent; and distances and prices, populationsand drainage-arrangements,door-andwindow-fastenings,andotheruseful statisticswill take theirplace. A thirdwill give a rich accountof the theatres,restaurants, andpublicballs, andnaughtbeside;whilst the fourthwill perhapshave been so wrappedin his own subjectivebroodingsas to tell little more
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thana few namesof places throughwhich he passed.Eachhas selected, out of the samemass of presentedobjects,thosewhich suitedhis private interestandhas madehis experiencethereby.(PP, I, 275-76) Each man, through"selection"has "madehis experience."These words seem especially significantconsideringthatJames's own attentionto consciousness allows him, in a sense, to "make"it andalso becauseof his sense thatconsciousness itself is a "selective"agent. Moreover,this notion of "experience-made" indicatesthatthe episode is frozen,not fluid;it becomes an image (or a series of images, affordedto differentsensibilities) whose pieces we examine. The account, thus layeredwith meaning,tells the storyof fourmen who tell a storyof their consciousnesses, their subjective modes of experience. One man seems almostpurelyaesthetic,bringinghome the "picturesque"thatexists as much in his mind as in "colors,""costumes,"and "statues";anotherman finds only the abstractworld of "prices"and "populations";still anotherprovides a voluptuous accountof a more active experience-the world of "theatres,restaurants andpublicballs."Forthe fourthman,"Europe"per se seems to be non-existent. in his "subjectivebroodings,"whathe "sees"andperceivesis merely "Wrapped" the world inside his mind:he "passes"through,containedin this cocoon of his thoughtswith only a barememoryof names andplaces. That consciousness is imaginedto containall of these portraits-from the aestheticto the abstract,from the public to the intenselyprivate-allows for a fullerexaminationof the streamof humanthought.Consciousnessnot only brings togetherdifferentlanguages(narrative,poetic, scientific),but it also operatesas a thresholdfor differingmodes of thinking,studying,imagining,dreaming,perceiving, experiencing.As Jamesstates,"we see thatthe mind is at every stage a theatreof simultaneouspossibilities. Consciousnessconsists in the comparison of these with each other,the selectionof some, andthe suppressionof the restby the reinforcingand inhibitingagency of attention"(PP, I, 277). The mind as a "theatreof possibilities"becomes a wonderfulmodel for Jamesianconsciousness; consciousnessthatis full andmulti-faceted,yet also selective. Jamesmust in some sense drawa circle aroundthese "simultaneouspossibilities"in orderto provide his sketch;interestingly,he suggests that it is one of the propertiesof consciousness to do just that. Consciousnesscreatesits own worldthroughthis gestureof selection;without it, Jamespresumes,we would be lost in the "chaosof sensation": The mind, in short,works on the datait receives very much as a sculptor works on his block of stone.... Justso the world of each of us, howsoever our several views of it may be, all lay embeddedin the primordial chaos of sensation,which gave the merematterto the thoughtof all of us indifferently.Wemay, if we like, by ourreasoningsunwindthings
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Reminiscentof Emerson'scall-"build, therefore,yourown world"'10-James's wordsdepictthe mindas creator,sculptinga world fromthe "primordialchaos" of what science calls "real."James implicitly states that science is wrong in claimingthe"blackandjointlesscontinuityof spaceandmovingcloudsof swarming atoms" as "the only real world." Moreover,his descriptionof the world suddenlyresemblestermshe used for consciousness-"swarming," "moving," and "jointless"-while consciousness itself solidifies into stone. Figuringthe creatoras an artist,a "sculptor"who "extricates"out of this chaos the world we feel, not simply the world we study,Jamesredefinesthe "real"by locating it in experience.Justas James'sexamplewith the fourmen in Europeillustrates,we choose what is "morerealandvalid"(PP, I, 275) becausewe consciously experience it as such. Not scientists alone but also "each of us" with our several views have access to the "world-stuff"(PP, I, 277) and possess the ability to create and recreateit. We join our ancestorsin constructingthis world by the "slow cumulativestrokesof choice."The worldsof ourconsciousnesses,therefore, are of our own making. What's more, we know they exist because we "feel"thatthey exist; we live and experiencetheirreality. One consequenceof the mind's abilityto fashionits own world is thatconsciousnessacquiresa sacredstatus;beyondthe streamsomethingmorepersists, an innercore or what Jameswill call "a self of selves." James submitsthat "If the streamas a whole is identifiedwith the Self farmorethanany outwardthing, a certainportion of the stream abstractedfrom the rest is so identified in an altogetherpeculiardegree, and is felt by all men as a sort of innermostcentre within the circle, of sanctuarywithin the citadel, constitutedby the subjective life as a whole" (PP, I, 284-85). Jamesbegins with the image of his stream;yet here this streamseems to have a vortex, drawing its waters about a center:a certain"portion"of the water is "abstractedfrom the rest."The abruptshift in figures apprisesus of James'sproblem:in tryingto accountfor this specialized "portion"of consciousness,he has brokenhis fluid stream.Whenlooking at the streamof consciousness,we are suddenlyaskedto recognize thatcertain"portions" run deeper or run into what James imagines as a "centre"within the 10 Richard Poirier (ed.), Ralph WaldoEmerson (Oxford, 1990), 36. See also Poirier,A WorldElsewhere:ThePlace of Style in AmericanLiterature(New York, 1966), which suggests that Americanwritershave been perpetually"addicted"to metaphorsof building.
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"circle."Jamesplaces metaphorupon metaphorsuch thatwe lose the sense of how the streamandthe circle fit together.The figuresof the "innermostcentre" of the circle andthe "sanctuarywithinthe citadel"all imply a place set apart,an interiorspace, a stronghold,contained,holy, and separate. As we have seen, however,the streamalso appearsmorerandom,exploring, even vagrant.This tension in the accountof Jamesianconsciousness, between consciousness as nucleus and consciousness as outpouringstream,occurs repeatedly in Principles. In setting apartthis holy of holies for the self, James impressesa spiritualessence onto his notion of consciousness.Attentionto that which is "within"emphasizesthe peculiaruniquenessof each individualconsciousness as opposed to the permeatingquality James often attributesto it. Here,he seems to arguefor somethingdeepwithinthe subjectiveself thatconstitutes consciousness. He asks: "what is this self of all other selves?" and answers: Probablyall men would describeit in muchthe sameway up to a certain point. They would call it the active elementin all consciousness;saying thatwhateverqualitiesa man's feelings may possess, or whatevercontenthis thoughtmay include,thereis a spiritualsomethingin him which seems to go out to meet these qualitiesandcontents,whilst they seem to come in to be receivedby it. It is whatwelcomes andrejects.It presides over the perceptionof sensations ... it is the home of interest....Being more incessantlytherethanany othersingle elementof the mentallife, the otherelementsendby seemingto accreteroundit andto belong to it. (PP, I, 285) The centerof consciousness,vividly portrayedas the "spiritualsomething"in us aroundwhich all otherthings "accrete"and "belong,"attractselements as if by centrifugalforce. And yet this "active element"also functions as a vigorous presence, it "goes out" and "presides"over our perceptionsas bothjudge and host, welcoming andrejecting,meetingandreceiving.James'slanguagerenders this inner"something"explicitly locatable:it is wherewe find the spiritual;it is a "home";it is more incessantly "there"than any other single element of the mentallife. Immediatelybeforea salientmomentin James'sPrinciples,wherehe introduces the metaphorof the stream,James speaks of consciousness as "sensibly continuous,"emphasizingthathis discoveryof this characteristicis the resultof a feeling. "Such consciousness as this, whatever it be for the onlooking psychologist, is for itself unbroken."And how does he know this? Because, as James continues: "Itfeels unbroken ..." (PP, I, 231). In Principles James's meta-
phoricallanguageallows him to design the objecthe purportsto be discovering, at the same time, giving voice to his anxiety aboutwhetheror not such theories
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can be substantiated.Jamesspeculatesthatsome may considerthe "activesubstance"at work inside us "thesoul,"while othersdeem it "nothingbut a fiction, the imaginarybeing denotedby the pronounI."But he pursuesthe point to "try to settle for ourselvesas definitelyas we can,just how this centralnucleusof the self may feel, no matterwhetherit be a spiritualsubstanceor only a delusive word"(PP, I, 286)." The split between substanceandword,where substanceis "active"and word is "imaginary"and "delusive,"hinges, finally, on a feeling. For James, it does not matterwhether this part of the self is "spiritualsubstance"(a descriptionwhich is itself paradoxical)or only a word-fictional, delusive, imaginary.What mattersis that we "feel"this centralnucleus of the self, andit is with the confidenceof thatfeeling which Jamesproceeds.Though James vacillates between notions of consciousness in Principles, figural language remainscrucial to his analysis. His later work radicallychallenges the existenceof consciousnesswhile still doing the linguisticworkto produceit. At moments in Principles the concept of consciousness seems to contain everything;in "Does 'Consciousness' Exist?,"he will reduceit to almostnothing. Jamesappearsin his 1904 essay, "Does 'Consciousness'Exist?"to reverse his findings in Principles, arguingfor the "non-existence"of consciousness. James speaks as if he could strip away metaphorsand point beyond the text, beyondwords,towardanotherreality:"Fortwentyyearspast I have mistrusted 'consciousness' as an entity; for seven or eight years past I have suggested its non-existenceto my students,andtriedto give them its pragmaticequivalentin realitiesof experience.It seems to me thatthe houris ripefor it to be openly and universally discarded."'2 The irony of James's bold statementsin this piece, however,exists in his simultaneousinsistenceon the non-existenceof consciousness along with his still frequentuse of metaphorsto drawout this "non-entity." Of course, James must use language in order to argue for its ultimate inadequacy; though he longs to transcendthe formal significance of words to rid himself of the troublingproliferationof metaphor.Stressingthe "cognitivefunction"of consciousness, ratherthan any particularlabel, James seems happyto do away with the name because it has become an obstacle. His obsession over naminggives us some insightinto the linguistic aspectof his overallproject: "Thoughts"and"things"arenamesfor two sortsof objects,which common sense will always find contrastedand will always practicallyopI James's statements here about the self intersect with what was called, at the time, "apperception,"and specifically take issue with Kant's theory of the transcendentalego. It is precisely when James addressesthe issue of apperception(which, he protests,"leaves a simple and utterly empty I") that his metaphors shift to establish a centered and more substantial consciousness. See Principles, 342; 750-55. 12 Essays in Radical Empiricism (New York, 1922), 3. All subsequentpage references will be to this edition of the text. This essay was first published in Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, I, 18 (Sept. 1904).
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pose to each other.Philosophy,reflectingon the contrast,has variedin the past in her explanationsof it, and may be expected to vary in the future.At first, "spiritand matter,""soul and body,"stood for a pair of equipollentsubstancesquite on parin weight and interest.But one day Kant underminedthe soul and broughtin the transcendentalego, and ever since then the bipolarrelationhas been very much off its balance. The transcendentalego seems nowadaysin rationalistquartersto stand for everything,in empiricistquartersfor almost nothing.(ERE, 1) Jamesuses namesto makea "commonsense"distinction;"thoughts"and"things" are separateentities, differing "sorts of objects"because they have different names. The disquietingmotion comes, however, when this fine contrastis set "off balance."Kantis the culprithere and James sets up the shift in our understandingof the "bipolarrelation"between such concepts as "spiritandmatter," "body and soul," as if he were telling a story.13Once the world of terms was equallybalanced,all was well; then "one day,"Kantcame in and set the philosophical world off balance.And now we cannot tell whetherthis term ("transcendentalego") means "everything"or "nothing."We areplungedinto uncertainty-meaning is arbitraryor vanishing-as this formerlybalancedworldbegins to tip. Having given "Philosophy"a chance to explainherself, Jamescontinueshis essay by offeringhis own "explanation"of consciousnessandnaming: I believe that"consciousness,"when once it has evaporatedto this estateof purediaphaneity,is on the point of disappearingall together.It is the name of a nonentity,and has no right to a place among first principles. Those who still cling to it are clinging to a mere echo, the faint rumorleft behindby the disappearing"soul"uponthe airof philosophy. (ERE, 2) Placing "consciousness"in quotationmarks(in his title as well as throughout the essay) indicatesthat James has become suspicious of it; more significant, however,is whathappensto the figureof consciousnessthatonly fourteenyears before,was James'sillustriousstream.The once freely flowing watercomes to the point of"disappearingall together";at first deep enough to "steep"the images it encountered,the waterhas now "evaporated."
13 In WilliamJames's Radical Reconstruction of Philosophy (Albany, 1990), Charlene HaddockSeigfried notices the bipolarorganizationof Jamesianmetaphors,suggesting that the opposing pairs illustrateextremes:"AlthoughJames is an indefatigabledefenderof pluralism, his thoughts are often organized dialectically into dualisms"(227). Seigfried emphasizes the importanceof analogy for James,though she readsmetaphorsas reflective of James'screativity without speculatingabout their function in the text.
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Jameswill state in this lateressay thatthereis no "stuff" of consciousness, thoughhe seems to producerelentlesspunson his own languagefrom ThePrinciples ofPsychology, a text which essentiallycreatedthe stuff of consciousness. Readers familiarwith the earlierJames will undoubtedlyrecognize the reappearanceof the metaphorof water,but Jamesalso bringsback the figure of the echo. ThoughJamesoriginallyencouragedhis readersto attendto this "echo"a vestige of what he called the "definiteimages"of the mind (PP, I, 246)-he now chides those who persist in chasing it. Broughtto the statusof a "rumor," consciousness furthertranslatesinto mere idle talk, something waiting to be confirmed,tentativeand unreliablehearsay.Immediatelybefore this passage, Jamesstatesthat"thespiritualprinciple,"often associatedwith consciousness, "attenuatesitself to a thoroughlyghostly condition."Consciousness, in fact, becomes so thin that it is "purediaphaneity,"or transparency.James'sboldest assertionalso contains one of the subtlerironies of this passage;he states that once consciousnessbecomesvaporized,somethingwe can see through,or something that we secretly whisper to the winds, it has "no right to a place among first principles."James seems to be playing with the title of his first book that coined the famous metaphorfor consciousness-a metaphorthat, in turn,became a theoryof consciousness. If consciousness no longer has a place among "firstprinciples,"Jamesmay in fact be attemptingto deny or rewriteits place in Principles. In his initial formulation,Jameswould emphasizethe spiritualor ethereal quality of consciousness with words like "echo" and "halo,"and descriptors which call it "wraith-like,""evanescent,"and "fused."Whatwas once a fascination with and even an anxiety about naming becomes a dismissal of names andof existence. In ThePrinciplesof PsychologyJamesseemedto be searching for wordsthatwould convey the slipperyedges of the pool of consciousness.He seemed, in fact, to revel in words thatplayed with the paradoxesof a substance thatwas also spirit-a tenuousthreadthatwas vanishingeven as we placed it. But he remainedsuspicious of the very tools that allowed him to constructhis account. His metaphorsinevitably shift, as if determiningtheir own course; consequently,James'slanguageappearsto vaporizethepool, pushingconsciousness to the point where he questions,does it exist? But as my own languagein this paragraphillustrates(along with the languageof practicallyevery studyof WilliamJames),it is impossibleto speakof consciousnesswithoutresortingto metaphor.Jamesinvites us to indulgein such figureseven as he criticizesthem; he makesit difficultnot to notice his languagethoughhe simultaneouslypersists in negatingits significance: To deny plumbly that "consciousness"exists seems so absurdon the face of it-for undeniably"thoughts"do exist-that I fear some readers will follow me no farther.Let me then immediatelyexplain that I
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mean only to deny thatthe word standsfor an entity,but to insist most emphaticallythatit does standfor a function...."Consciousness"is supposed necessary to explain the fact that things not only are, but get reported,are known. Whoever blots out the notion of consciousness from his list of first principlesmust still provide in some way for that function'sbeing carriedon. (ERE,4) Callingourattentionto "theword"consciousness,by repeatedlyplacing quotation marksaroundit, Jamespurposely subvertsthe status of consciousness as "entity."The literalnessof the wordis clear-"writing" consciousnessis equated to creatingit, just as "blottingit out"can effectively eliminateit. James,somewhathaphazardly,aligns consciousnesswith "thoughts"and"knowing"-as if he had forgottenhis own elaborateponderings in Principles for appropriate words to describethese very concepts.Jamesbows to his readerswhen he says that denying consciousness would be "absurd"for undeniably"thoughts"do exist andthe functionthey performis "knowing."However,his tone here seems dismissive, as if he has lost patience with words and instead,wishes to give a bare-bonesaccountof this portionof experience. But if Jamesintendsto "blotout"the notion of consciousness,he must also "providein some way" (providean account,a narrative,a new figure?)for the task of reportingthatconsciousnessperforms.Revising andrewritinghis theories becomes a trickybusiness for Jamesat this point. Forthe questionof existence is intimatelytied to questionsof consciousness:being, andmakingnote of that being; tracing the origins of the self, of knowledge, of thought;not just feeling andthinking,butbeing awarethatwe arefeeling andthinking.Questions about such processes involve a radicalreadjustmentof our notions of the way the mindworks.James'sempiricismis "radical"in the sameway becauseit goes back to the root, in an attemptto locate the origin of these concepts of experience, consciousness, knowing. Jamesstatesthatthose who abandonthe notion of consciousnessand substitute"absoluteexperience"for it are "notquiteradical enough"-that is, they do not go far enough. But Jameswill take us to the extreme.The uncannytwist in the narrativeof consciousness, however,comes when Jamesgets to that extreme;indeed, he finds thatthe tools with which he createdhis "citadel"are also necessaryto disarmit. Jamesspendsmuch of the essay statingwhatconsciousnessis not beforehe determineswhat it is, whether it exists, and what we find its existence to be. Jamesdismissesthosepsychologistsandphilosopherswho continueto readconsciousness(andtherebyexperience)as somethingthatcan standout like "akind of impalpableinnerflowing" (ERE,6), or be "broughtout by analysis"as if it were "one element, moment, factor ... of an experienceof essentially dualistic innerconstitutionfromwhich, if you abstractthe content,the consciousnesswill remainrevealedto its own eye" (ERE,8). Jamesexplicitlyobjectsto this model:
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As we found in Principles, consciousness has a transformingpower-like the waters that "dye"those images which enter the stream-here it is explicitly linked with the spiritual,which, for James, is connectedwith the world of art. He begins with the figure of paint in a pot in a paint-shop.There is nothing particularlysignificant about this paint, indeed, it seems to have commercial value only-as "saleable matter.""Spreadon a canvas," however, the paint begins to "represent"somethingmore;or is it merely somethingdifferent?It is difficultto tell whetherJamesattachesmore "value"to the "spiritualfunction" thanany other;thoughwhen this paintbecomes a "picture"it certainlybecomes somethingotherthanthe liquidcolor with which we started.It acquiresa different value not only as it touches the canvasbut also, arguably,as it is "touched" (perhapseven "tainted"?) by the consciousnessof bothartistandobserver.James his own glosses analogy by stating that the issue is one of context: "a given undividedportionof experience,takenin one context of associates,play[s] the part of a knower, of a state of mind, of 'consciousness'; while in a different contextthe same undividedbit of experienceplays the partof the thingknown, of an objective 'content.' "(ERE, 9-10). James does not want to divide these "parts"or to separatethe paint into menstruum(oil) and pigment (ERE, 8); rather,he imaginesthe paint simply "playinga part"or "performing"different functions.The partthat it plays (eitherknower/stateof mind/consciousnessor "thethingknown")determinesthe resultingproduct-merchandiseor art,"saleable matter"or "spiritualfunction." Consciousnessor content, subjectiveor objective, "thought"or "thing"these are all terms which James contraststhroughoutthis essay. He offers a readingof them,withinthe contextof philosophy,remindingus thatthe affairof consciousness is always an "affairof relations": The dualismconnotedby such double-barrelledtermsas "experience," "phenomenon,""datum,""Vorfindung"-termswhich in philosophyat any rate, tend more and more to replace the single-barrelledterms of "thought"and "thing"-that dualism, I say, is still preserved in this account,butreinterpreted,so that,insteadof being mysteriousandelusive, it becomes verifiable and concrete. It is an affair of relations;it falls outside, not inside, the single experience considered,and can always be particularizedand defined. (ERE, 10)
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Unwilling to separateexperienceinto "consciousnessandcontent,"Jamesneverthelessconfidently"preserves"the dualismof those "double-barrelled" words such as "experience"and "phenomenon."As long as it is one word serving a doublepurpose,"dualism"is appropriate; yet we cannotignorethe connotations of the word in the discipline of philosophy since dualismimplies thatthereare two basic,irreducibleprinciples-mind andbody.Consequently,James'sdoublebarrelledwordis doublyloaded.It is preciselythis mind-bodysplitthathe wants to avoid. "Reinterpreting" dualismallows Jamesto make "verifiableand concrete"whatcould insteadbe "mysteriousandelusive."He no longercultivatesa vague consciousness; James seems, in fact, to "reinterpret"his own figures, erasingwhatonce seemed hopelessly evasive-translating mysteryinto matter. The ever-elusiveversion of"consciousness"needs to be deleted.And yet challenging consciousnessnecessitatesreiteration.Quotationmarksare one way to disablethe word;reinterpretation is another. In some sense, consciousness gets reinterpretedor we might even say renamed as "experience."James explains that the separationof experience into two partsoccursbecausewe confuse "othersets of experiences"with the experience at hand-we add something "other"to the "given concretepiece of it" (ERE, 9). But experience is not split; the illusion that it comes in two parts, therefore,must be the "other"of experience which "falls outside"and which, Jamesconfidentlystates, "canalways be particularizedand defined."The certaintyof definitionis made emphaticby James'sseparationof what falls "outside"andwhatremains"inside"the single experienceconsidered.We read"defining"as the attemptto tracea line aroundthe experience,to set its boundaries. Yetmetaphorsdo not obey boundaries,they areextravagantfiguresthatwander out of bounds.14 "Pureexperience"remainsa "numericallysingle thing,"thoughJamesadmits that "experienceis a member of diverse processes that can be followed away from it along entirelydifferentlines" (ERE, 12). "Following"these "differentlines"is tantamountto a certainkindof vagrancy.Jameswandersthrough these experiences,whichhe imaginesas "rooms"-the roomin which his reader "really"sits andthe room in/of the mind: If the readerwill takehis own experiences,he will see what I mean.Let him begin with a perceptualexperience ... the room he sits in, with the book he is readingat its centre.... The physical and the mental operations form curiously incompatiblegroups. As a room, the experience has occupied that spot and had that environmentfor thirty years. As your field of consciousness it may never have existed until now....As a 14 Paul de
Man, "The Epistemology of Metaphor"in Sheldon Sacks (ed.), On Metaphor (Chicago, 1978), 11, discusses the particularproblemthat metaphorposes for philosophy in its resistance to properboundaries.
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room, it will take an earthquake,or a gang of men, and in any case a certainamountof time, to destroyit. As your subjectivestate,the closing of youreyes, or any instantaneousplay of yourfancywill suffice. In the real world, fire will consume it. In your mind, you can let fire play over it without effect. As an outer object, you must pay so much a month to inhabit it. As an inner content, you may occupy it for any length of time rent-free.(ERE, 11;14) Ironically,James constructsa metaphorwhich enhances our sense that consciousness is "inner,""subjective,"closed off from the rest of the world-the mindwith a house inside. The "room"as "innercontent"becomes our"field"of consciousness, thus its existence dependsupon things like "the closing of our eyes." In the "realworld"this roomtakesup time andspace;it can be destroyed by earthquake,fire, or a gang of men. James must imagine these "rooms"in orderto utilize them for his illustrationof experience;so in effect, both of these "rooms"are figurative.And yet one is figuredas physical and one mental;one exists "in the real world"and the otheris "subjective,""innercontent,"which can disappear"instantaneously," accordingto the whims of ourmind. James's "lastword"in this essay on radicalempiricismconstitutesa final attemptto rein in his metaphorsand, once and for all, to redefine "consciousness." Metaphorscontinuallytest andredrawthe boundaries,offeringnew and improvedversionsof consciousness.However,each metaphoricalconstruction attachesanotherfigure to consciousness until James's epistemology gets entangledin the elaboratelanguagehe uses to articulateit. It is not clear,finally, where we end up in this essay. Jameswill arguefor his own "intuition"against what he assumesto be those of his readers.Jamesbegan his essay "Does 'Consciousness'Exist?"with a nod to the "principles"of his "largerPsychology";he will endwith anothersuchmotion.Toanswerin partthethought/thingdichotomy, Jamesaddressesthe dilemmaof dualismstraighton; for the differencebetween thoughtand thing, if therebe any, is reminiscentof the mind/bodysplit. James imagineshis audiencerepeatedlyobjectingto his claims: All very prettyas a piece of ingenuity,they will say, but ourconsciousness itself intuitively contradictsyou. We, for our part,know that we areconscious. Wefeel ourthought,flowing as a life within us, in absolute contrastwith the objectswhich it so unremittinglyescorts.We can not be faithlessto this immediateintuition.The dualismis a fundamental datum:Let no manjoin what God has put asunder.(ERE,36) Jamespokes fun at his audienceas he gives voice to theirobjections.The audience who says we know,wefeel ourthoughts,reliesupon"intuition";they could also rely uponthe pronouncementsof an earlierJamesiantext. ForJameshears
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the remonstrancesto his argumentin exactly the same languagehe firstused to articulateconsciousness in Principles. If James's readers speak of "thought, flowing as a life within us," it is because he himself coined the phraseas a way to imagine consciousness. The referenceto his work as a "prettypiece of ingenuity"suggests James'suneasinessabouthis manipulationof dualism,as if he wonderedwhetherhis "ingenious"theory were no more than a carefully contrivedsham. By playfullyinvertingthe languageof the marriageceremony,Jamesspeaks for an audience who finds the mind/bodysplit "fundamental.""Let no man," they cry, "joinwhat God has put asunder."James,of course,will be the man to attemptthe reversalof this "fundamentaldatum."For Jamesmust, he tells us, "obey"his intuitions,even when the stakesarethis high. Hence, underthe new regime of pure experience,the "stream"of thoughtbecomes "only a careless name":"Let the case be what it may in others, I am as confident as I am of anythingthat,in myself, the streamof thinking(which I recognizeemphatically as a phenomenon)is only a careless name for what, when scrutinized,reveals itself to consist chiefly of the streamof my breathing"(ERE,36-37). Immediately upon establishingthis notion, however,Jamesshifts his figure from consciousness as breathingto consciousnessas "breath."Jamesstatesthat"breath, moving outwards,between the glottis and the nostrils, is, I am persuaded,the essence out of which philosophershave constructedthe entityknownto themas consciousness."That"entity,"Jamescontinues,"isfictitious, while thoughtsin the concretearefully real"(ERE,37). Consciousnesshas been fictitiouslyconstructedout of what is, in essence, "breath";but thoughtsare somehow "fully real"when they are"inthe concrete"because"thoughtsin the concretearemade of the same stuff as things are"(ERE,37). It is difficultto keep trackof what is "real"or "fictitious,""constructed"or "concrete,"in this passage. Such convoluted reasoningmakes the conclusion to his essay seem to spin out of control here,openingup the possibilities for morewords,ratherthanprovidingthe proverbial"lastword." James rebuildshis theoryof consciousness, sliding from one figure to another.Because the word "essence"implies a spiritualor immaterialentity,what James"grieves"might "soundmaterialistic"turnson itself as he constructsyet anothertropefor consciousness:consciousness as spirit.We move from thinking to breathingto breathto spirit.Finally, what appearsto be a radical statement equating the flow of our thoughts with the passage of air throughour lungs, actuallybrings us back to the latent spiritualismof the account of consciousness in Principles. "Breath"seems to have more to do with the ethereal qualitiesof consciousnessthanthe corporealbecause breath,"everthe original of 'spirit' "(ERE, 37), disappearsas it comes into being. But how can thinking be like breathif thoughtsare only "real"when they are "in the concrete"?How are thoughts"concrete"?And what does it mean to imagine that thoughtsare
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"madeof the same stuff' as things?Jamesends his essay with a series of cryptic suggestionswhich generatemorequestionsthananswers.His languageis deliberatelyfigurative(namingthoughts"concrete,"for example) andthoughthere seems to be little dangerthata readerwould expect thoughtsto be madeof solid matterany morethanthey would mistakethinkingfor an actualstreamof liquid water,such literalizationis not completely outrageous.After all, Jamesasks us to replace "consciousness"with the movements of ourbody's respiratorysystem. The problem,of course, is thatrespirationis not the only way Jamesimagines consciousness in the course of his essay. Moreover,as breathingturnsinto breath,we seem to lose biology in exchangefor metaphysics.Jamesuses metaphoragainstitself; languagetwists in and out of its literaland figurativemeanings until the readeris forced to conclude that consciousness may, in fact, be impossible to define in one particularway, with one specific image-perhaps even impossibleto place with words. Consequently,we do not rest at the end of "Does 'Consciousness' Exist?"There are countless, contradictoryanswers to thatquestion;and Jameshints at the potentialfor his argumentto unravelas he concludeswith a "wish":"Iwish I mightbelieve to have made thatplausiblein this article"(ERE, 38). It is not clear what exactly the "that"is which James wants "madeplausible"-typical of his work,Jamesremainsvague, especially underthe pressureto conclude. Significantly,he does not merelywish forplausibility; rather,he wishes that he might believe he has made somethingplausible-a statementthat emphasizesthe role of subjectivityin his argumentas well as the sense that consciousness (hence, experience) is what we believe it andmake it to be. "Does 'Consciousness'Exist?"leaves us uncertainwhetherJamesianconsciousness is spirit or matter,fluid function or concrete entity. Rather,"pure experience"becomes a containerfor everything-mental, physical, and metaphysical-a substitutefor consciousnessbecause it includesconsciousness,because it is the origin of consciousness. The essays, however, are not the first place where James begins to question whether our physical acts (such as the movement of our eyelids, the adjustmentsof our muscles) may in fact explain our inwardlives. Folded away in ThePrinciples of Psychology, in a portionof James's chapteron "The Consciousnessof Self," we find the same suspicion. Namely,thateverythingintrospectedin the streamof consciousnesscan be explainedphysiologically: This palpitatinginwardlife is, in me, that centralnucleus which I just triedto describein termsthat all men might use.... But when I forsake such general descriptionsand grapplewith particulars,coming to the closest possible quarterswith the facts, it is difficultfor me to detect in the activityanypurelyspiritualelementat all. Whenevermy introspec-
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tive glance succeeds in turningroundquicklyenough to catch one of these manifestationsof spontaneityin the act, all it can everfeel distinctlyis some bodilyprocess,for the mostpart takingplace withinthe head. (PP, I, 287) Disenchantedwith his own "generaldescriptions"and aiming for "the closest possible quarterswith the facts," James is forced to divulge his secret: consciousness is reallyjust in our heads. Thatis, it is literallyin thereas a "bodily process," not the paradoxicalspirit-substancewhich cannot be explained. At this point, we are forcedto ask: what exactly is inwardness-or, as Jamescalls it, "thispalpitatinginwardlife"?How is the self conscious of itself (if indeed it is at all)? Whathappenswhen consciousness (the innercore) is conflatedwith the body (the physical/exteriorself)? For the next few pages of this chapter, Jamesentertainsthe possibilitythathis enchantingconstructof the self as sanctuaryis actuallyjust a collection of physical activities-"a fluctuatingplay of pressures... in my eyeballs,""theopeningandclosing of the glottis"(PP, I, 28788). If James's"introspective glance"is quickenough,he can,presumably,"catch" one of thesepalpitations;undersuch scrutinyconsciousnessbecomes mereanatomicaladjustment. Tentativeat first, James issues one of a series of qualifiers:"I do not for a moment say thatthis is all it [the 'Self of selves'] consists of, for I fully realize how desperatelyhard is introspectionin this field" (PP, I, 288). And though James speaks less boldly here than he will in the radicalempiricismessay, he does replacewhat he calls "spiritualactivity"with bodily activities. Yet as we see with his stipulationaboutintrospection,Jamesleaves room for the possibility thatthereis moreto the innerself thanphysical sensations.Moreover,he sets up his theory as a "hypothesis"that acts as a theoretical "what if": "Now, withoutpledgingourselvesin any way to adoptthis hypothesis,let us dally with it for a while to see to what consequences it might lead if it were true"(PP, I, 288). Jamesremainscagey, playing with the possibilities, thinkinghypothetically ratherthan statinghis case indefinitely.One of the consequences of our "dallying"is a readjustmentof our notions of objectivityand subjectivity.The conclusion: if everythinginner is physiological, then all that is experiencedis objective: If they really were the innermostsanctuary,the ultimateone of all the selves whose being we can ever directlyexperience,it would follow that all thatis experiencedis, strictlyconsidered,objective....Instead,then, of the stream of thought being one of con-sciousness ... it might be
bettercalled a streamof Sciousnesspureandsimple,thinkingobjectsof some of which it makes what it calls a "Me," and only aware of its "pure"Self in an abstract,hypotheticor conceptualway. (PP, I, 290)
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Self-awareness,like subjectivity,gets eased out of this account of consciousness; the "innermostsanctuary"takes on a differentmeaninghere because the self is an abstractconcept-a segmentof the streamlike any otherthought-not thatwhich containsor createsthe stream.James's desire to dissect consciousness gets literalizedin this passage;thoughhe has relentlesslydeniedthe possibility of division, here James severs the word to transformthe concept. Consciousness becomes "Sciousness"so thatJamescan speculateon the natureof the self. These conjecturesfromPrinciples, in "TheConsciousnessof Self,"contradict much of what Jamesemphaticallyassertedin the previouschapteron "The Streamof Thought."As if anticipatingsuch a critique,Jamesrecoversfromhis digressionandissues an open-endedconclusion: Speculationslike this traversecommon-sense; and not only do they traversecommon-sense(which in philosophy is no insuperableobjection) but they contradictthe fundamentalassumptionof every philosophic school.... I will thereforetreatthe last few pages as a parenthetical digression,andfromnow to the end of the volume revertto the path of common-senseagain. I mean by this that I will continueto assume (as I have assumed all along, especially in the last chapter)a direct awarenessof the processof ourthinkingas such, simply insistingon the fact thatit is an even more inwardandsubtlephenomenonthanmost of us suppose. (PP, I, 291) James sounds as if he is chastisinghimself for this "parentheticaldigression," vowing to stay on course-"the path of common-sense"-for the rest of the volume. Thoughphilosophy,apparently,does not object to "traversing"common-sense,Jameswill not. He explainswhatwalkingdown the "path"with him will mean. We can continue to assume that we have a direct awarenessof the "processof our thinking";yet James inserts a modificationof his doctrineas "subtle"as the phenomenonitself. That inwardnesswhich is most vividly felt "turnsout"to consist of physicalmovementswhich Jameslocates mostly in the head;but"overandabovethesethereis an obscurerfeeling of somethingmore," a phenomenonwhich, Jamesstates, "mustat presentremainan open question" (PP, I, 292). Whatis most strikingaboutthis ratherinconclusive"conclusion"is how quickly Jamesabandonsit. For the rest of the chapter,he stays trueto his promise,virtuallyignoringhis discovery-his "parenthetical digression"-which in in the "obinterested consciousness more James seems grounds physiology. scurerfeeling,"the unnameable"somethingmore." The paththatJameswill follow for the remainderof ThePrinciples ofPsychology-the path that leads him, finally, to radicalempiricism,a path, as he deems it, "of common sense"-may be crooked;but it inevitablydirectsus in-
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wardto the self. An intenselyindividualizedself. As the metaphoricallanguage of Principles takesus "evenmore inward,"Jamesianconsciousness gets established as intrinsic,natural,a fundamental"something"inside us. "Does 'Consciousness' Exist?"will confirmthis direction,thoughthe essay ends with ambivalence-its metaphorschangingwith everychallengeto the theoryJamescan imagine.Thediscourseof consciousnessin the Jamesiantextproducesan equivocal version of the self-sacred, central,inwardcore, and wandering,tenuous flow of experience. In the Jamesianaccount of consciousness, words keep us suspended,questionsareleft unanswered,theoriesremainopen-ended.If James is writinga narrativeof consciousness-perhaps even an allegorywhich begs us to read into and underandbeyond its figures-he is also continuallygesturing towardwhat exists outside of his narrative.James'selaborateattemptsto form something elusive that cannot be apprehendedmay, in fact, be disclosing an anxious suspicion that nothing exists beyond what he has created.Hence his freneticrevisions,deletions,andrehearsalsof metaphorsfor consciousness.It is inconceivable for us to imagine "mind,"as we understandthat concept in the twentiethcentury,withoutthe notionof consciousness(one mighteven say without a Jamesiannotionof consciousness).Jamescreatesa series of metaphorsout of which consciousnessmaterializes,yet he systematicallydeconstructshis own creationthroughoutthe course of his career.Metaphor,however, seems to regenerateitself. Liquidmetaphors,nuclearmetaphors,etherealmetaphors,corporealmetaphors-consciousnessmeasuresinwardnesswithfiguressuchas these. What we inherit from James are both the tools to constructthe self and the subsequentclaim continuallyto remakeit. St. JohnFisherCollege.
Vacher and
the
Rise
of
de
Lapouge
Nazi
Science
JenniferMichael Hecht In the literatureon the history of the Shoah the existence of a traditionof explicit anti-moralityhas been generally ignored.' This article arguesthat the materialistanthropologyof the latenineteenthandearlytwentiethcenturieswaged a directattackon morality,which was describedas inherentlylinkedto religion. Strictmaterialismalso denied any humanaccess to the eternalexcept through biological lineage, linking the past, present,and future.This concernwith procreation,which culminatedin a desireto changethe racialcontentof the world, led anthropologyto aim its attackon moralityon restrictivesexual mores and the injunctionnot to kill. Still, anti-moralitywas not conjuredup in orderto furthereugenics;it was an independentidea andan explicit responseto the loss of God. The anthropologistwho best illustratesthis scientific anti-moralityis GeorgesVacherde Lapouge,the Frenchinventorof"anthroposociology."The presentarticleexplicatesLapouge'santi-moralityand establishesa connection between his racial theories and those of a coterie of Germancolleagues. Most notableamongthese Germancolleagues was HansGunther,whose vision had a role in shapingNazi racial policy, in particularthe Nazi interestin head measurements.Scholarsinvestigatingthe originsof Germanracismhave discovered Frenchinfluence but have focused on Gobineauand his almost anti-scientific literaryracism.This articlearguesthatLapougeand his scientific racismwere also important; The relativesignificanceof ideology in the "FinalSolution"is the subjectof some debate.This articleseeks not to enterthatdebatebut ratherto reevaluate the natureof the ideology. It seems clearthatwhatevermay have been the relative importanceof ideasto, for instance,mundanecareerismandconformity,the
The authorwishes to thankthe anonymousreadersof JHI for their valuable criticisms. ' See Michael R. Marrus,"Reflectionson the History of the Holocaust,"Journal of Modern History, 66 (1994), 92-116.
285 2000byJournal of theHistoryof Ideas,Inc. Copyright
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ideas did play a role.2Withinthatcontextit will be demonstratedthatLapouge's anthroposociologyhelped to legitimateracialistutopianism.The scientific status of anthroposociologywas deliberatelyengaged as propagandafor the regime, even afterthe specifics of its injunctionswere no longerof much interest to the programmersof genocide. Whatevermadepeople enactand acceptgenocide as daily routine,the idea of it came fromsomewhere,andsomehow"themoralsensitivities"of the people were dulled.3Increasingly,historiansstressthatalong with older forms of antiSemitism, new scientific doctrineshad a direct effect on events. There are a numberof studieson the role of science in National Socialist doctrine,but they tend to be more aboutthe role of doctorsandthe medical model of society than Thosethatdo deal with anthropologytendto menthey areaboutanthropology.4 tion Lapougeas an interestingforerunnerbut consistentlyfail to recognize his directinfluenceon Nazi doctrine.5 Lapouge'scontributionto racismwas a quantitative,well-writtenracetheory thatwas repletewith the languageand tools of science. It was particularlyappealing because it describeda collection of humangroupswhich soundedtoo scientificandclinicalto be political.The value-ladendescriptionsof these clinical types (based on head shape) were easily transferredto known "racial"or social groups-with the simple claim thatthis or thatgrouptendedto have this or thathead shape.Lapougianrace theorywas convincingbecause it was alien andyet confirmedfamiliarsuspicions.It was thushighly instrumentalin vitalizing dormantor mild prejudice.These ideas (and the endless columns of measurementsand descriptionsof head shapes) have grown so foreign to present day.beliefs thatthey have become somewhatinvisible to our eyes. Because of this, historianshave not fully appreciatedone of the importantfactorscontributing to the "respectability"andcredibilityof a genocidaldoctrine. In studyingpeople who were guilty of unparalleledcruelty,historiansexpected to find moral agony and found insteada bureaucratic,mechanistic,ba-
2
See ChristopherR. Browning, The GermanForeign Office and the Final Solution: A Study of Referate DIII of Abteilung Deutschland (New York, 1978), and OrdinaryMen: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York, 1992). 3 The phrase is Browning's. 4 See Robert J. Lifton, The Nazi Doctors. Medical Killing and Genocide (New York, 1986); RobertN. Proctor,Racial Hygiene: Medicineunderthe Nazis (Cambridge,Mass., 1988); Paul Weindling,Health, Race and GermanPolitics between National Unificationand Nazism, 1970-1945 (Cambridge, 1.989). 5 George Mosse, The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the ThirdReich (New York, 1964) and Towardthe Final Solution: A History of EuropeanRacism (Madison, 1978); Daniel Gasman, The Scientific Origins of National Socialism: Social Darwinism in ErnstHaeckel and the GermanMonistLeague (London, 1971); Benno Muller-Hill,Murderous Science: Eliminationby ScientificSelection ofJews and Others,Germany1933-1945, tr.George R. Fraser(Oxford, 1988).
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nality. In considering scientific racism, on the other hand, historianstend to describea rationalistobjectificationof humanitythatsimply gave no thoughtto the amoralnatureof the schema. In the originaltexts, however, one finds evidence of the vague titillation,the existentialterror,andthe flirtationwith horror that reappearsin popularhistories of the Shoah but is relatively absent in the actual"bureaucratic" of the acts. This horrorwas persuasive. desk-perpetrators with the of science Along paraphernalia (numbers,instruments,and technical language),Lapougeconvincedby exhibitinga pessimisticatheismwhichverged on suicidalnihilism. Anti-Morality In the next centurypeople will be slaughteredby the millions for the sake of one or two degreeson the cephalic index. Thatwill be the sign, replacingthe biblical shibbolethand the linguistic affinitieswhich are now the markersof nationality.Only it will not have anythingto do, as it does today,with questionsof moving frontiersa few kilometers;the superiorraceswill substitutethemselvesby force for the humangroups retardedin evolution,andthe last sentimentalistswill witness the copious exterminationof entirepeoples.6 Vacherde Lapougefirst presentedthis thesis in a series of lecturesheld at the distinguishedUniversityof Montpellierin the early 1880s. He subsequently publishedthe idea in 1887 in the Revue d'anthropologie.The article, entitled "L'Anthropologieet la science politique,"containedLapouge's first descriptions of"anthroposociologie"-the applicationof anthropologyto social politics. Phraseslike "slaughteredby the millions"and "copiousexterminationsof entirepeoples" remove this quote from the run of the mill nineteenth-century eugenics, and it is often cited as an oddly prescientcuriosity. Lapougewas not calling for copious exterminations.The above statement was a warningfor what would happenif governmentdid not take rationalcontrol of breedingpractices.But by inventing(in his mind, discovering)a motive for such slaughterandproselytizingthatmotive-with whathis contemporaries called "incontestableerudition"-Lapouge had a role in actualizinghis terrifying scenario. One of the crucial phrases in the above quote refers to "the last sentimentalists."It is crucial because it demonstratesthe sneering bile he reserved for moralists-particularly those who were of a scientific cast of mind. Lapougehadbeen taughtanthropologyby a rathercultishgroupof freethinking anthropologistswho believed thatthe purposeof the young science was to van6
151.
Lapouge, "L'Anthropologieet la science politique,"Revue d'anthropologie, 16 (1887),
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quishreligionandreplaceits social functions.7But they were egalitarianrepublicans.In generalLapougebelievedthatthese andotheratheistshadstoppedjust shortof the awfultruth:no Godmeantno meaningandno morality.ForLapouge, this translatedinto a complete indictmentof the present society, culture, and government,based as they were on principlesderivedfromdeistic morality.As Lapougewrote, Here is why I have been speaking to you of the abyss and of a cataclysm. It is obvious,to my eyes anyway,thatif one eliminatesthe supernaturalelement from the universe, it is necessary to eliminate, at the same time, a numberof fundamentalnotions-all of which were, in the past, deduced from supernaturaltenets. All of moralityand all of the ideaswhich serve as a base for law andfor the politicalsciences, in their present-dayconceptions,constitutea series of deductionsof which the first term assumes the existence of a personal divinity.... Remove all validity fromthis sourceand thereis nothingleft.8 He was not happyaboutthis meaninglessness,except in so faras it allowed him to eradicatebarriersto a "selectioniststate."He did, however,relishthe amorality of his imaginedfutureand its the brutalrule of science. Lapougewas writing at a time when Frenchpopularand academicculture was deeply immersedin the questionof the foundationsof morality.The issue was inflamedbecause of the coincidences of the secularizationof the state and the perceived rise of urbancrime and general unrest. One can also discern a generaldisappointmentin the realitiesof democracy.Governmentscandals,the proliferationof functionaries,andrapidchangesin leadershipall stood in sharp contrastto the utopiandreamsharboredby republicansunderthe Second Empire. Republicanclaims regardingthe interdependenceof virtue, democracy, andsecularismwere beginningto seem quiteproblematic;andtherewas a great deal writtenon the possibility that a republicneeded strong,dogmaticreligion even more than a monarchydid. What was at stake was social order,not individual spiritor truth.Indeed,one of the leadingchampionsof the returnto religion, the literarycritic and ex-freethinkerFerdinandBrunetiere,suggestedthat therepublicoughtto embraceCatholicism,"whichis a government,"while "Protestantismis nothingbut the absenceof government." Lapougeheardan outrageoushypocrisyin this pragmaticabout-faceandin the dominantculture'swillingnesstojettisonmaterialistscience in favorof peace
7 See Hecht, "FrenchScientific Materialismand the Liturgyof Death: The invention of a secular version of Catholic last rites (1876-1914)," French Historical Studies, 20 (1997), 70335. 8 Lapouge, "L'Anthropologieet la science politique," 142.
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andcomfort.Brunetierewrotethat,"[i]fwe ask Darwinismfor lessons in moral behavior,the lessons which it gives us will be abominable."9Lapougechampioned the abomination;yet it was not the barbarismof the Darwinianvision of naturethatturnedhim away frommorality.Lapougedid invoke the brutalityof the naturalworld, but when arguingagainst morality,he explicitly referredto the loss of God ratherthanthe law of thejungle: We have attemptedmany systems in orderto maintainmoralityandthe fundamentalsof law. To tell the truth,these attemptswere nothingbut illusions.... Withoutthe existence of a distinctsoul, withoutimmortality, andwithoutthe threatof the afterlife,thereare no longer any sanctions.... All our morality and laws ... have, in themselves, the exact same value as a game of cards.10 Mid-centuryPositivismhad an amazingcapacityfor ambiguity,suggesting as it did thattherewere non-empiricalquestionsin the world andthatthey simply shouldnot be answered.Positivismallowed faithin God, requiringonly that positivists not mix this faithwith any of theirnarrativesabouthistory,science, law, etc. The strictscientific materialismthatarose laterin the centurywas less tolerantof ambiguity;its adherentshad a fierce desire for certainty-and a belief thatall truthcould be discovered.Theirconvictionregardingthe accessibility of knowledgerestedon the belief thatthe universewas mechanical,decipherable, finite, andwithoutcosmic meaning.In its extremeexpressionatheismwas coupled with a dismissal of all metaphysics,and philosophy and theism were seen as equallyerroneous.The experienceof atheismwas extremelydifficultfor people who hadno philosophicalcontextfor it andwho lived in a culturewhich hadnot yet set up ritualsanddoctrinesfor unbelievers(politicalactivity,secular celebrations,etc.). Lapougeand otherslike him actedout theirunbelief with as much gusto as displayed by the most zealous believer. It was at the nexus of atheism,profoundpessimism, and an educationin physical anthropologythat racist science was born. For Lapougetherewas no such thing as an atheisticmorality,so the world would have to do withoutmorality.He wore his pessimism as a badgeof honor, arguingthathis braveryin acceptingsuch a dismal situationprovedthathe was honest and,by extension,correct.The religiosity of his anti-religionis striking, as is the passion of his rationalistnihilism. "Progress,"he wrote, is a purely human conception. Evolution is happeningall aroundus, moving forward,backward,to the side, progressing,regressing,turning 9 FerdinandBrunetiere,"Apresune visite au Vatican,"Revuedes deux mondes, 127 (1895), 113, 104. 10 Lapouge, "L'Anthropologieet la science politique," 143.
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and returning.It does not tend indefinitelytowardthe best, it tends towardnothing.It is, at the moment,made to tend towardwhomeverhas the greatestconsciousness of it, but that consciousness will be extinguishedalongwith the consciousbeing, who musteventuallydie. There is no heaven, not even on earth.One must not ask science to give more than it can give. It can give man consciousness and power. It does not have a directcontrolover happiness:for thatyou have to go to a priest, a sorcerer,a seller of alcohol, of morphine,or best of all, go to the gun shop-the seller of suicide.11 The pessimism of this statementis not uniquein his work,noris the relativism. His books are not teamingwith statementsof meaninglessness,but every hundredpages or so Lapougebegan to muse on the ramificationsof his materialist position, and on the cosmic pointlessness of even his own project,within thisschema."Thereis no suchthingas superiorityin andof itself,"wroteLapouge, "anymore thanthereis a top andbottomof the universe,or a good andbad,but we areused to orientingourselvesin space accordingto certainconventions."'2 Lapouge felt that as long as humanswere nothing more than a physical conglomerationof matter,the only possible way of relatingto the pastandthe future was to fosterbiological continuity.He saw this creationof meaningas retroactive as well as futureoriented,so thatto fail to reproducewas a crime not only against the futureof humanitybut also against one's own ancestors.Without God or soul to give an individuallife meaning and a place in eternity,only "le plasmagerminatif'could serve this role. As Lapougewrote, Whatis immortalis not the soul-that unlikelyandprobablyimaginary personage-it is instead the body, or rather,the germ plasma.... The individualwho dies withoutleaving descendantsputs an end to the immortalityof his ancestors.He managesto kill his own dead.'3 Lapougewas very awareof the relationshipbetweenhis anti-philosophical atheismand his eugenics. He even referredto it as a crisis, writingthat ourepoch of apparentindifferenceis the beginningof the greatestcrisis of religionandmoralitywhich has struckhumanitysince it hasbegunto think.Evenpolitics is touched;to the celebratedformulawhich summarizes the secularChristianityof the Revolution:Liberty,Equality,Fraternity,we respond:Determinism,Inequality,Selection! 1 Lapouge,L 'Aryen,son role social (Paris, 1899), 512. 12
Ibid., 398.
13
Les selections sociales (Paris, 1896), 306-7.
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Still, despite the excitement expressed in such claims, Lapouge returned quickly to the crisis. No matterwhat arrangementswere made for selectionist breeding,all thatcouldbe achievedtherebywas a "relativeimmortality,"which would last "so long as the rites of fecundationare repeated,this is the only immortality:all othersarechimera."'4 It is at this point that moralityreally began to get in the way. If the most crucial role of every humanbeing is reproductionand if failure to reproduce wipes out the reproductiveeffort and the very essence of all of one's ancestors, thentherecan be no truemoralitywhich preventsthe individualfromreproducing. "Selectionistmorality,"wrote Lapouge,"placesresponsibility-to-the-race in the supremeplace-there where the moralityof Christianityputresponsibility-to-God."'5Individualswere temporallyfinite andthus meaningless.'6Properly understood,they did not even exist. Lapougewas confidentthatcivilization was on its way "towardsthe eliminationof the idea of morality."He saw this as both advantageousand inconvenient but was convinced that the progress of human knowledge made it inevitable. Christianbelief in life after death had precipitateda moral system which, he believed, "sacrificessociety to the individual, andreal life to imaginarymystical interests."Yet if the loss of morality was imaginedas difficult,the loss of comfortin grief anddeathwas moreheartily mourned:"Oh,the millionsof grieverswho havebeen consoledby the golden promisesof Christianity!Oh, the millions in agony thatit has soothed-up until the supremeinstantof the fall into nothingness!"The dramaof misfortuneseems to have replacedreligious comfort:"Thegreatconsoler is gone. If religion has done harmto society, it is also truethat individualswill never again have such promisesof happiness."'7Even his utopiawas miserable,buthe seemedto draw strengthfromhis commitmentto mournfulindependence. Certainly,Germanyhad its own promoterof a world beyond good andevil, andNietzsche oftenwrotewith the same frustrationon the logical inconsistency of maintaininga Judeo-Christianvalue system in a post-religious society. He also toyed, even in his youngerwork,with notionsof anti-moralityfor the sake of the hereditaryrace. Nietzsche's superman,however, was individual,not racial, so that for him life's purposewas in personalascension; eternitywas addressedin the notionof eternalrecurrence.Ultimately,what separatesthese two thinkersis thatNietzschewas moredeeplyintelligentandimaginative-it would be difficult to be mired in a paradigmso base and materialand hateful, while elsewhere sparksof wild insight fly in all direction.Both men wrote as if they felt cursedby an intelligence and a fortitudethat caused them to know things beyondthe knowledgeof theircontemporaries-most essentiallythatstarkma14 Ibid.,
307.
5 Ibid., 16
17
191. Lapouge,L'Aryen,ix.
Ibid., 509, 508.
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terialismunmitigatedby metaphysicsdestroyedeitherthe truthof humanvalues or the notionthattruthcan be demonstrated.Nietzsche was able to thinkhimself out of this disaster,while Lapougeacceptedthe disasterwith bravado.Indeed, he made a careerout of acceptingit and attemptingto convertothers. LapougeandHis GermanColleagues Propagandafor the Nazi racialprogramwas not supportedentirelyon literof demonic and parasiticalJews and accountsof historyas racialcontales ary flict. At crucialjuncturesvariousmembersof the Nazi innercircle took steps to associateexterminationistracismwith quantitative,objectivescience. Therewas ready at hand a racialist branchof science which sounded objective and untaintedby politics. It came fromoutsidethe social "question"of Jews andindeed from outside the "question"of Blacks, Whites, and Yellows. In place of these vulgarities the German middle class was introducedto dolichocephals and brachicephalsanda vast collectionof numericalmeasurementsanddescriptions definingthese long-headsandround-heads. Lapouge'santhroposociologywas not only free of the gutter-associationsof traditionalracism,it was also, in its beginnings, free from caustic declarations of hatred.The division between dolichos and brachieswas between great and good, not good and evil.18In their genius, beauty, and love of adventure, dolichocephalshad inventedandnow forwardedcivilization. This higherrace, which he often referredto as Aryan,was in the majorityin England,the United States,Scandinavia,andnorthernGermany.Brachicephals,however,were also necessary.Throughtheirloyalty,dependability,deep work ethic, love of home, andinnateservility,they maintainedandsupportedcivilization.Lapougeargued that the Frenchrevolutionwas an evolutionarydisaster,having dethronedthe dolichos (long-heads).He arguedthat Jews were a strong,villainous, superior race-a dolichocephalic evil-mirrorimage of the Aryans. The brachies now thoughtthey had power, but they were increasinglycontrolledby the dolicho Jews. Whatwas neededwas a "socialist-selectionist"statewhich would outlaw breedingbetween groups, control the Jews, make certainthat Aryan dolichos reproducedprodigiously,andassist theAryandolichos in findingthe necessary "living space"so that their greatnesscould blossom. This state would employ anthroposociologiststo measureheads and sortpeople out. Partof the reasonthatanthroposociologyhas been seen as a forerunnerbut not a directprogenitorof Nazi doctrineis thatit was so strange,andpartof the reasonis thatLapougewrote his two most influentialbooks in 1896 and 1899, which may seem a bit early. Because it was strange,however, this scientific 18 Lapouge,"L'Anthropologieet la science politique," 136-57; and "QuestionsAryennes," Revue d'anthropologie, 18 (1889), 181-93.
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racismarrivedin Germanyas an exciting new discovery,unfetteredby the crass associations of traditionalhate-speak.It was championedby a few deeply enthusiastic,well-known Germanwritersand grew in popularityto its eventual status as official Nazi doctrine.As for the dates, Lapouge lived until 1936, consistently correspondingand visiting with a plethoraof Germancolleagues anddisciples, the most importantof whom was HansF. K. Giinther-known by contemporariesas "Rassen-Giinther"-the official race theorist of National Socialism. Lapougehadtremendousinfluenceon the ideas,publications,andacademic careerof Ginther,andyet few modem scholarsidentifythe connectionbetween theirtheories.Those thatdo, tendto includeMadisonGrant,LudwigWoltmann, Otto Ammon, and Houston StewartChamberlainwith Lapouge as Giinther's sources.19A perusalof Gunther'sworks, however, show him to have depended upon Lapougemuch more thanany of these others.Often, as in the case of his influentialRacial Elementsof EuropeanHistory, Giinthercited Lapougemore often thanany writerexcept Gobineau.20Indeed,in the above mentionedwork, Giintherspecifically statedthatLapougehad written,"thefirst scientific work fromthe racialhistoricalstandpoint."21 Beyond Gunther'spraiseanddirectcitations of Lapouge, Giinther'sworks were profoundlyinfluencedby Lapouge's very particularparadigmand Giinther'sprose drawsheavily on Lapouge'sodd lexicon. In the anarchicpower arrangementsof the ThirdReich the two leadingofficial Nazi race theoristswere Hans GuntherandAlfred Rosenberg.Theoriesof race and social hygiene abounded,but these two were early on the scene, were much honored,andrepresentedtwo distinctstyles and concerns.They also occupiedvery differentroles in the Reich. For a time Rosenbergwas amongthose at the edge of Hitler's innercircle, and he was triedand hangedat Nuremberg. His writtenworkwas generallyunderstoodas "literary"anddiscursive,following the patternof his explicitly referencedinspirator:Houston StewartChamberlain.22Rosenberg's confused, rambling,and immense Foundations of the TwentiethCenturywas homage to and continuationof Chamberlain'sFoundations of theNineteenthCentury.23Ginther, in contrast,was seen as ratherbookish. Hejoined the NationalSocialistPartyin 1932 butwas not a leadingmember 19See Geoffrey G. Field, "Nordic Racism,"JHI, 38 (1977), 523; and WalterKaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher,Psychologist, Antichrist(Princeton, 1974), 292. 20Hans F. K. Giinther,Racial Elementsof EuropeanHistory, tr.G. C. Wheeler(New York, 1927). 21 Ibid., 257. 22 See RobertC. Walton,"The Holocaust:Conversionto Racism throughScientific Materialism-'The People Like Us Who Killed the Jews,' " The History of European Ideas, 19 (1994), 787-94; and Geoffry G. Field, Evangelist of Race, The Germanic Visionof Houston Stewart Chamberlain(New York, 1981). 23 Houston Stewart Chamberlain,Foundations of the Nineteenth Century,tr. John Lees, intro. George Mosse (New York, 1977).
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and was not tried at Nuremberg.24He continued publishing his theories until he died, unindicted, in 1968. A plethora of national and academic awards confirmed him as the primary scientist of Nazi racial doctrine. Citations of Giinther's work legitimized the ranting, impassioned diatribes of Rosenberg and of Hitler himself. Rosenberg was the rambling, literary theorist; Giinther played the quantifying, objective scientist. As Giinther and Rosenberg can be usefully contrasted, an understanding of their mentors, Lapouge and Chamberlain, respectively, can also be enhanced by comparison. Lapouge's work first entered into Germany through the anthropological and historical work of Ludwig Schemann, Ludwig Woltmann, and Otto Ammon-the three men who are generally cited as the originators of race theory in Germany. All three of these famed German racial theorists were involved in lengthy correspondencewith Lapouge, which developed into deep personal friendships and productive professional alliances.25Lapouge translatedAmmon's work and wrote prefaces for his books and Ammon wrote articles about Lapouge.26 Woltmann (Ludwig Gumplowitz's student) conferred with Lapouge when he founded the journal Politische Anthropologie, in which he later published a great deal of the Frenchman's work.27Schemann, who was called the "German father of Gobinism" due to his lifelong work of popularizing the work of Comte Gobineau, first approached Lapouge to invite him into his Gobineau club.28He later used Lapouge's name to legitimate and enhance his Gobineau revival and then used the revival to further popularize Lapouge. All these theorists cited Lapouge extensively in their work.29In their correspondence with him these Germanthinkersdisplayed deep admirationfor Lapouge and credited him with considerable originality and influence. For example, of Lapouge's first book, Schemann wrote: "There is not the least doubt that in time this book will produce a revolution in several domains of science and of soci24
The only extensive study of Giintheris Hans-JurgenLutzh6ft,Der Nordische Gedanke in Deutschland 1920-1940 (Stuttgart,1971); and see the review in Field, "NordicRacism." 25 There is a very large collection of Lapouge'scorrespondencehoused in the Paul Valery libraryof the Universityof Montpellier.It includesmany lettersto and fromWoltmann,Ammon, and Schemann,as well as a host of other racial theorists.Many of these correspondenceswere extensive and of long duration.The Lapouge/ Schemann correspondence,for example, extended from 1898 to 1934. 26 For instance,underthe title, "Die Geschichte einer Idee,"Ammon publishedsix lengthy articles on Gobineau, Lapouge, and Nietzsche in the Deutsche Zeitung, translatedand published in the Revue internationalede sociologie, in 1898. 27 On Ammon see Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Utopien der Menschenziichtung: Der Sozialdarwinismusund seine Fogen (Munich, 1955). 28 Fonds Vacherde Lapouge,Universite de Montpellier,BibliothequePaul Valery(hereafter FVL/UM) Correspondence:Lapouge/ Schemann. 29 See Ludwig Schemann,GobineausRassenwerk(Stuttgart,1910), which cites Lapouge extensively throughout,esp. 80-86, andDie Rasse in den Geisteswisenschaften(Munich, 1928); also Ludwig Woltmann'sPolitische Anthropologie(Leipzig, 1903), esp. 296-97. Just before he died, Woltmanndedicatedhis Die Germanenin Frankreich(Jena, 1907) to Lapouge.
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ety.... It goes without saying that I will do all that I can to make your book knownandwidely distributedin my country.I havealreadygottenseveralfriends Woltmann to buyit andmorewill follow.I will be speakingof it publiclysoon...."30 was similarlydevoted,praisingLapougein his Politisch-anthropologischeReHe dedicatedhis Die Germanenin Frankreich vue, and citing him frequently.31 to Lapouge,and the Frenchmancomplimentedthe work by saying that, while therewere some problems,the "anthroposociology"in it was "magisterial"and thatWoltmannhad so well assimilatedthe workof his forerunnersthathis ideas were "no longerAmmon's or Lapouge's,they are Woltmann's."Such tutorial Ammon's letcomplimentswere consistentwith theirrelationshipin general.32 ters to Lapouge also consistently promised to promote Lapouge's work and Ammon's praise was also liberal:"One often says 'poet, prophet,'but in our case it is a man of science andnot a poet who has predictedeverything,andthat man is called Mr. de Lapouge!"33In the same letter,speakingof a work of his own which was soon to be published,Ammonwrote:"Youwill see materialthat will excite the jealousy of your colleagues, appliedto the glorificationof your theories."Ammon latertold Lapouge:"Ialways regardyou as a studentregards his master."34 Despitetheprofoundrespectwithwhich Schemann,Woltmann,andAmmon referredto Lapougeandhis work, therewere some conceptualrifts. Lapouge's theory was supra-nationalist.His Aryanism did not equate "German"with "Aryan,"andthoughit was fiercely anti-Semitic,it did not considerthe Jews to be a lower (less developed) race. Lapouge'sdoctrinewas materialistand passionately atheistic.This was particularlydisturbingto his Germancolleagues, and yet the power of Lapouge's starkpessimism, even for those who did not agreewith it, mustbe appreciated.Consider,for example,Schemann'sresponse to Lapouge'ssecond majorwork,L 'Aryen:son role social: Even though, as a Christian-idealist,I was seriously saddened,not by the pessimism but by the materialism,to not say the nihilism of your FVL/UM, Correspondence:Schemannto Lapouge,25 October 1899. For a discussion of Woltmannsee Mosse, The Crisis of GermanIdeology, 99-103; and Robert Proctor,"FromAnthropologieto Rassenkunde,"Bones, Bodies, Behavior: Essays on Biological Anthropology,ed. George W. Stocking (Wisconsin, 1988). Proctor, 143, recognizes Woltmann'stheoretical dependency on Lapouge: "In 1902 Woltmannfounded the PolitischanthropologischeRevue, a journal that for twenty years would serve as Germany's leading organfor the Nordic supremacistmovement. Drawing from Gobineauand Vacherde Lapouge, Woltmannarguedthatracialstrugglewas the moving forcebehindall of humanhistory."Lapouge published eight articles in the Politisch-anthropologischeRevue. 32 Woltmann,Die Germanenin Frankreich(Jena, 1907). See also FVL/UM, Correspondence: Lapouge/ Woltmann, 1902-1907, and Alain de Benoist, "Ludwig Woltmann et le DarwinismeAllemande ou le socialisme prolet-aryen,"Nouvelle Ecole, 38 (July 1982), 87-98. 33 FVL/UM, Correspondence:Ammon to Lapouge, 17 May 1892. 34Ibid., 4 February1893. 30
31
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final pages, I still readyour book with the greatestinterestfor its first partandthe most profoundemotionfor the second part.Yourimposing erudition,your so universalpenetration,the grandeurand the profundity of your views, andmore thanall of thatthe heroismof your truthfulness made the same indelible impressionon me as your Selections sociales did in its time. The more I know your works, the more convinced I am that they are destinedto play the most remarkablerole in the science of the future.35 Schemannwas clearly distressedby the materialistnihilism of the book; yet it was thisnihilismthatgave anthroposociologythe airof truthful"heroism"which Schemannso admired.Lapouge'smaterialismwas thusproblematicfor some of his Germanreadersbutnot prohibitive.Theywere moredisturbedby his lack of concernfor traditionalsociety. His plan for a selectionist state includedreproductionby artificialinseminationusing the dilutedsemen of a few perfectdolichocephalicmen, which constituteda frighteningchallengeto paternityandthe Christianfamily. Lapougewas also a problematichero simply because he was French, a nationalitymuch maligned by his own theory. Germanstended to ignorethe fact thatLapouge'ssuperiorracehad little to do with nationalityand had a hardtime explainingwhy the founderof theirnew nationalistscience was a Frenchman. Houston StewartChamberlainposed fewer problems.He celebratedGermansthemselves,alwaysequatingGermanywith Aryanism.He didnot insiston cephalic indexes, or any other numericalproof; indeed, he railed against the necessity forproofs.WhereLapougewas profoundlyandpainfullydedicatedto materialistscience as the only possible truthsource, Chamberlainarticulateda willingness to discardscience if it got in the way of his intuitive convictions. Where Lapougehad a passionate,evangelical atheism and reveled in pushing mild anticlericsinto vacuousnihilism, Chamberlain'sChristianitywas only revisionist-he hopedto provethatJesuswas a Germanicgentile.WhereLapouge saw Jews as dangerousbecause they were dolichocephals, i.e., a higher but venal race, Chamberlain'sinvective againstthe Jews was volcanic, bilious, and unrestrainedby theory.36 Chamberlainwas an Englishmanwho marriedRichard and Wagner'sdaughter repatriatedto Germany.On all accounts Chamberlain was an easier foreign expertto accept, but because of their differentrelationships to science, both Lapougeand Chamberlainwere useful. In fact Chamberlain'sirrationalismwas partly inspired by what he perceived as frailtiesin Lapouge'sscientificapproach.Thepublicationof Lapouge's Lapouge, 24 April 1900. See the letter from Chamberlainto Frick in Der revolutionaereStaatsmann (Berlin, 1939), 44. 35 FVL/UM, Correspondence:Schemannto 36
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worksthroughoutthe decadesof 1880 and 1890 had inspireda massive effortof self-defense on the partof Frenchscientisticrepublicans,who saw in this equation of science and inequality a threat to their fundamental ideology.37 Chamberlain'sFoundationsof theXIXthCenturywas publishedin 1899, in the midst of the democraticreaction against Lapouge. Chamberlainchose not to supportLapouge'sAryanistscience butratherto insist thatAryansdid not need science. He insisted thatwhateverscience said or did not say, Aryans existed, and "nomeasuringof skulls andphilological subtletiescan get rid of this great simple fact."38For Chamberlain"[o]ne of the most fatal errorsof our time is that which impels us to give too great weight to the so-called 'results' of science."39This notion appealedto the Nazis. Still, Lapouge was celebratedin Nazi Germanyand his L 'Aryenwas translatedinto Germanand published in 1936.40More importantly,Rosenberg and Hitler enthusiastically celebrated Giinther'sworkbecause it was Lapougian:meticulous,modem, numerical,and seeminglydispassionate. Giinther'sPlace in Nazi Germany Giintherbegan communicatingwith Lapougethroughthe self-proclaimed Lapouge-disciple Du Pont, who published under the pseudonym Warren Du PontforwardedGiinther'srequestsformaterialto translate,along Kincade.41 with his more general questions regardinganthroposociology.LaterGiinther and Lapougebegan a direct correspondence,which grew into a warm friendship.42Giinthersent Lapougehis books andgratefullyacceptedthe elderman's criticism.Even Lapouge'srefusalto equate"Germanic"with "Nordic"did not disturbGiinther.Indeed,he repeatedit in his own work.As has been noted by both Hans-JurgenLutzhoftand Geoffrey Field, Giintherfollowed Lapouge in claiming that there was a higher percentage of Nordic blood in Britain and Scandinaviathanin Germany.43 In his lettersto Schemann,Lapougereferredthe writer as "mon bon young disciple Giinther,"andthe relationshipseems to have been generallyacknowledgedas such.44 ThroughSchemann,Woltmann,andAmmon, Lapouge had become quite well-knownin Germananthropologyby the 1920s. He hadoutlivedmanyof his 37See Hecht,"TheSolvencyof Metaphysics: TheDebateOverRacialScienceandMoral in 90 France, 1890-1919," Isis, Philosophy (1999), 1-24. 38Chamberlain, Foundations,94. 39 Ibid. 40
die Gemeinschaft 1936). (Frankfurt, Lapouge,Der Arier:undseineBedeutungfur 41Kincadewas the European the for Reviewof Reviews.FVL/UM,Correcorrespondent spondence: Lapouge/Kincade. 42 FVL/UM, Correspondence: Lapouge/Giinther. 43Lutzh6ft,DerNordischeGedanke;Field,"NordicRacism,"525. 44FVL/UM,Correspondence: 28 May 1931. Lapougeto Schemann,
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first colleague/disciples(Woltmanndied in 1907 andAmmon in 1915) andhad begun work on a second generation,actively aiding Giinther'scareer.For instance, in 1930 Giintherwas interestedin a post at the University of Jena,but the DeutschenLiga fiirMenschenrechte(a groupof thirty-oneProfessorsfrom all over Germany)did not thinkthathe possessed the base level qualifications thatthe universitydemandedof its faculty.45The majorityof professorsat Jena opposed his candidacyas well. When Lapougelearnedof this, he wrote to Dr. LudwigPlate,an anti-Semiticanthropologistanda Professorof the Zoologische Institutof the Universityof Jena.46Lapougeinsisted on the "immenseservice" which Giintherhad paid to anthropologyand "its practicalapplications,"despite his untraditionalscientific style. "He has greatly meritedhis celebrity," wroteLapouge,"whichhas been the only recompensewhich he has receivedup until now."47Thereafter,WilhelmFrick,Ministerof the Interiorand Education in Thuringiaandthe firstNazi Ministerof a Germanstate,took mattersinto his own hands,installingGiintherat Jenaagainstthe continuedprotestsof the professorialSenateandthe League.48The studentshailedGiintherandheld demonstrationsin his honor.Significantly,Giinther'schairwas in "Anthroposociology" a term of distinctive Lapougianorigin.49This chairwas the first of its kind in Germany.Manysimilarchairswere to follow, though,to my knowledge,none of the othersbore this curiousmoniker("anthropology"or "racialscience" were common).ThatGiinther'sappointmentwas a seriousaffairis evidentin the fact thatHitlerattendedhis inauguraladdressin the springof 1933.50 Lapougehadan influenceon the workandsuccess of manyracialistwriters. At Madison Grant'srequest, Lapouge wrote copious correctionsfor Grant's ThePassing of a GreatRace and arrangedfor the book's Frenchtranslationby E. Assire.51A casual letterthat Lapougewrote to Assire in 1932 lends insight 45 Karl Sailer,Die
Rassenlehredes Nationalsozialismusin Wissenschaftund Propaganda 27. (Darmstadt,1961), 46 FVL/UM, Lapouge to Plate, 20 March 1930. Plate (1862-1937) was the center of a scandal in 1923, when he gave a lecture on the racial qualities of the Germansand advised Jews not to attend.In a publishedresponseto the disciplinaryactions which were taken against him Plate insisted that "people should be urgentlywarned against interbreedingbetween Jews and Aryans." Cited in Field, "Nordic Racism," 537, from Hans Peter Bleuel, Deutschlands Bekenner:Professorenzwischen Kaiserreich und Diktatur(Munich, 1968), 151. 47 FVL/UM, Lapougeto Plate, 20 March 1930. Giintherlaterdedicatedone of his books to Plate. 48 Sailer,Die Rassenlehre,27-28. See also Proctor,"FromAnthropologieto Rassenkunde," 158; Bracher,The GermanDictatorship, 166; and Eugene Davidson, The Trialof the Germans: Nuremberg1945-1946 (New York, 1966), 265. was "Sozialanthropologie."See Hans Fab49 The Germanterm for "Anthroposociologie" ricius, ReichsinnenministerDr Frick: der revolutionaereStaatsmann(Berlin, 1939), 44. 50Fabricius,ReichsinnenministerDr. Frick, 44. 51 FVL/UM, Lapouge to Grant,23 March 1919. Madison Grant, The Passing of a Great Race (New York, 1916). Assire's French translationwas published as Le declin de la grande race in 1926.
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into Lapouge'srelationshipto GiintherandNazism andbearsan extendedquotation: They createdfor Giinther,at the universityof Jena, a chair of anthroposociology undermy auspices.It was imposedby Frick,with pressure fromthe Nazis. Notice thatthe Nazis arenothingbutthe Germanbranch of selectionist monists, and that their nationalismmakes no sense in selectionistinternationalism, butthe contradictiondoes not worrythem. Hitler's social programwas patiently constructedfrom the facts and ideas of my selectionist publicationsover the past years-except the milk has turnedand there is nothing in the casserole but a sorcerer's brew. The obligatorywork for all.... The methodicalmultiplicationof eugenic people, the exclusion of non-eugenicpeople from the rightto reproduce, all of that was already in the aristocratic socialism of Woltmannand of Lapougewhen they founded,twenty five years ago, the Politisch AnthropologischeRevue,andwhen we lost my lieutenant his place was filled by Hitlerand Giinther.52 Lapougemay be overstatinghis case when he claims thatHitlerconstructedthe Nazi social programthroughdirectlyreadingandborrowingfromhis anthroposociological works. However, historians certainly have credited Giintheras Hitler'sprimaryinfluence on racial questions-from Mein Kampfthroughthe Final Solution-and Giintherwas quite clear abouthis reliance on and debt to Vacherde Lapouge.53 In any case, once Giintherwas situatedat Jena,his influencewas profound.54 In Septemberof 1933 "racialscience"became a compulsorysubjectin German schools and there arose a sudden, acute need for a textbook on the subject. Teachersmet this problemby giving theirstudentsselections fromthe works of
FVL/UM, Lapouge to Assire, 2 April 1932. Consider, for example, Bracher on Mein Kampf: "The book borrowed from the Rassenkundedes deutschen Volkes(Munich, 1922) by the anthropologistHans F. K. Giinther and his theories of 'Nordification.'" The GermanDictatorship: The Origins, Structure,and Effects of National Socialism (New York, 1970), 128. See also JoachimC. Fest's The Face of the ThirdReich: Portraits of the Nazi Leadership(New York, 1970). Giintheris cited here as the source of Hitler's race theory,99-100. According to Nolte, "Hitlerwas probablynot familiar with Vacherde Lapouge, but the ideas which Lapouge was one of the first to express were well known to him." ErnstNolte, ThreeFaces of Fascism: Action Francaise, Italian Fascism, National Socialism, tr. L. Vennewitz (New York, 1966), 515, n.4. 54 He is often cited above Rosenbergas the single most importantracial theorist;Proctor, "Nazi Medicine," 323, speaks of Giinther's "widely recognized status as father of German Rassenkundeand the Nordic movement," 323. Saller takes a very strong view on Giinther's importance,arguinga direct relationshipbetween Nazi theories and Giinther'swork. 52
53
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Guntherand of Rosenberg.55 Accordingto one school principal,"Inour school a thoroughcourse in racial studies and hereditarystudies was enacted.Special emphasis was put upon racial studies of the Jews following Guntherand his skull measurements."56 A generationof Germanschoolchildrenwas thus indoctrinated.In a paralleleffort, for purposesboth pedagogical and classificatory, the children'sheads were measuredandtheircephalicindices calculated. ThatGuntherwas an avid head-measureris evident in all of his works, but it is rarelymentionedin historicalaccountsof the period.In general,the details of racialscience aresimply omittedin modem studies.57Whenmentionof these measuringtasks is made, it takes on a vaguely comical tone as if the practitioners were crackpots,outsidethe official doctrine.In fact, they were the official doctrine.Onemodem scholarmentions,for example,that"[t]herewere men like ... Hans F. K. Guenter [sic], who conductedan investigation in Dresden that showed the streetcarmotormento have more Northernblood thanthe conductors."58Anotherstatesthat"[s]kullmeasurementswere used by the Nazis in an Neither of these works gives attemptto sort out those with Jewish ancestry."59 these of Our failure anecdotes. to notice the numerical any explanation strange basis of race theoryin this periodis bizarre,consideringhow clearly such measurementsdominatethe literatureof the time. This blind-spothas led historians to a too-generalindictmentof modernity.Themodem social sciencesmay objectify individuals,butthey do not oftenmakevaluejudgmentsby measuringheads. As anomalousas suchnotionssoundnow, Giinther'sidea of racewas decidedly craniometric,and he had substantialinfluence on both the populationat large and the Nazi leadership.There is good reasonto believe that Himmler's notionof racialaristocracyhadbeen gleaneddirectlyfromGunther'swork during the 1920s.60 Hitler's proclamationof the racial basis of art at the party congressof 1933 also drewheavily on Giinther-as well as RosenbergandPaul Schultze-Naumburg(Schultze-Naumburgwas also in familiarcorrespondence with Lapouge).61From 1935 to 1944 Guntherwas awardednumerousmedals 55 WolfgangWippermann,"Das Berliner Schulwesen in der NS-Zeit: Fragen,Thesen und Methodische Bemerkungen,"Schule in Berlin, ed. Benno Schmoldt (Berlin, 1989), 57-73. Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann,The Racial State: Germany,1933-1945 (New York, 1991), 213. 56Quotation from the Kopenicker of the Dorotheenschule, cited in Wippermann,"Das Berliner Schulwesen in der NS-Zeit," 65. 57Bracherrecognizes but only briefly (14, 15) the profoundinfluence of early scientific racist doctrineand that of Lapouge in particular. 58Davidson, The Trialof the Germans,40. 59 Steve Jones, The Language of Genes (New York, 1993), 201. 60Josef Ackermann,Heinrich Himmler als Ideologe (Gottingen, 1970), 110-12. Richard Breitman,TheArchitectof Genocide: Himmlerand the Final Solution (New York, 1991), 34, notes that there is evidence that "Himmlerhad arrivedat similar ideas of a racial aristocracy himself, in the 1920s, throughreadingthe racist writer Hans F. K. Giinther." 61Bracher,TheGermanDictatorship,259. On the relationshipbetween Schultze-Naumburg and Lapouge, see FVL/UM, Lapouge and Anneau nordique(headed by Schultze-Naumburg).
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and decorations,including the Rudolf-VirchowMedal, the Goethe Medal for artsand sciences, and the Eagleshield.Perhapsmost significant,however,was Ginther's role as an editorof Rasse, Monatsschriftder nordischenBewegung (Race, a Monthly for the Nordic Idea), which published discussions of dolichocephalsandbrachicephals,blood-groups,andotherbiological determinations-all presentedin strictlyscientificterms,repletewith numbersandcomparatively devoid of bilious eruptions. As a contemporarycritic noted, "It makes racismrespectableamong the educatedclasses by having a dazzling arIn this rayof HerrDoktorsandprofessorsamongits editorsandcontributors."62 journalGintherpublishedseveralshortpieces by Vacherde Lapouge,andpenned severalmore celebratingthe olderman as the founderof racialscience. Nazi Reactionto Lapouge Being a Frenchmanwas not ideologically uncomfortablefor Lapougebecause his dolichocephalwas international.His belief that these "aristocratic" long-headswere in the minorityin Francein no way suggestedthathe himself could not be one. FortheirpartNazi reviewerstook Lapouge'sFrenchnessas an amusinganomaly,frequentlyinventingan aristocratictitle for him to help explain the situation;sometimes they made him a Count, sometimes a Marquis. Nevertheless, with Germanreviewers,there was often a mild sense of embarrassmentover Lapouge'sFrenchnationality.This embarrassment was not shared by Frenchracists, for whom Lapougewas an unmitigatedhero. Rene Martial, the foremostFrenchtheoristof blood and race duringthe Vichy period, lauded Lapouge as one of the greatestanthropologistsin history and explicitly based his own blood-orientedrace theoryon Lapouge'swork regardingskulls.63 As Martialwas eager to proclaimFrenchroots for Nazi racialtheory,others were eagerto show the Frenchas complicit in enactingthe new racialstate. Consider,for example, an articlein the CahiersFranco-Allemandsin 1942 by on "GeorgesVacherde Lapouge:visionnairefran9aise EdgarTatarin-Tamheyden de l'avenireuropeen."64 Thearticle'sproclaimedgoalwas to showthatthechanges on in France were not "merely a result of the war."Rather,the author going asserted,there had been isolated Frenchprecursorswho had "given birth"to these ideas and even "given them an exact theoreticalform."These precursors was considerablymore were Gobineauand Lapouge, but Tatarin-Tamheyden of Nazi doctrine. with as a direct source Lapouge, he asimpressed Lapouge serted,"was the first to ... have establishedexact anthropologicaltypes and to 62
Peter Viereck, Metapolitics: The Roots of the Nazi Mind (New York, 1961), 254. Martial,"Unprecurseurdes groupementssanguines:Vacherde Lapouge,"Mercure de France, 272 (1936), 620-25. 64 EdgarTatarin-Tarnheyden, "GeorgesVacherde Lapouge:visionnairefrancaisde l'avenir europeen,"Cahiers Franco-Allemands,9 (October-December1942), 336-46. 63Rene
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have proceededto a systematic subdivision of the principalEuropeanraces." creditedLapouge'swork as having a fundamentalimporTatarin-Tamheyden tancefor"today'sGermanresearchers." Accordingto him, it was dueto Lapouge that the Aryan "became a precisely established scientific fact." For TatarinTamheyden,Lapougewas only less known than Gobineaubecause Chamberlain and Wagnerhad celebratedGobineau.He arguedthat Lapougehad "seen furtheranddonemore."WhileGobineau"wasstillsolidlyattachedto the Church's theoryof the independenceof the soul,"Lapougerecognizedthat"theessence of psychic substancewas the hereditaryplasma, the racial soul." In contrastto Gobineau's"intuition,"Tatarin-Tarnheyden praisedLapouge'satheistmaterial"Itis on this point ism andhis scientific exactitude.WroteTatarin-Tamheyden, whichreststhegrandprogressandwhichis thetruescientificprogressof Lapouge. He did not separatethe body from the soul."65As long as the greatness of a humanbeing was understoodas somatic,one could conceive of this greatnessas heritableand design a state aroundencouragingthathereditaryline. It makes sense, of course,thatajournalentitledCahiersFranco-Allemands would celebratethe Frenchoriginsof Nazi doctrine,andyet manyentirelyGermanpublicationscarriedsimilarpaeansto Lapougeandanthroposociology.On the occasion of his seventy-fifthbirthday,Die Sonnededicatedan entireissue to Lapouge,publishinglaudatoryarticlesby Giinther,MadisonGrant,the Spanish eugenicistLuis Huerta,andothers,describingthe issue as an homageto "agreat fighterin the Nordic cause."66Die Sonne publishedLapouge'sarticles,including posthumous publication of a German translation of Lapouge's "How anthroposociologywas assassinatedin France."67 Die Sonne also published glowing reviews of Lapouge's anthroposociology and, later, obituaries of WhenLapougedied, Giinther,too, wrote a mournfulobituarywhich Lapouge.68 he publishedin his journal,Rasse.69In it he cited Lapougeas the first to apply the studiesof heredityandselection to the life of peoples, andcreditedhim with having"gonefarther,earlier,thanGalton,GobineauorAmmonin the prediction of the downfall of civilization." Giinthercalled for a Germanbiography of Lapouge as well as for studies of the man and his work. He also celebrated Lapougefor having"basedmoralitycompletelyon biology."Giintherattributed 65 66
Ibid., 336, 339, 344, 345. Die Sonne, 6 (1929).
67 Lapouge, "Wie die Anthroposocociologiein Frankreicherdrosseltwurde,"Die Sonne, 13 (1936), 193-95. 68 See "Grassen Georges Vacher de Lapouge," Die Sonne: Monatschriftfur nordische Wentanschauung, 7 (1930); Lapouge, "Anmerkungen zum rassenhygienischen Ausleseprogramm,"Die Sonne, 8 (1931), 481-90; Giinther, "Unsprache von Prof. Dr. Hans F. R. Giinther,"Die Sonne, 7 (1930); and, Dr. WernerKulz, "GeorgeVacherde Lapouge,"Die Sonne, 13 (1936), 170. 69 Giinther,"Zum Tode des Grassen Georges Vacher de Lapouge,"Rasse: Monatschrift der NordischenBewegung (1936) 95-98.
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uncommoninsight to his mentor,writingthat,"Wewill never forget Lapouge. His name belongs amongthe greatnames of northernracialtheorists!"70 An obituaryin thejournalVolkundRassealso praisedLapougeas the founder of race science, statingthat, "thoughGobineauwas trainedin the naturalsciences it was Lapougewho was the firstto apply scientific studiesto the theory of races."7 Lapougewas said to have exhibitedFrenchand Germancharacteristics,andit was suggestedthatthis allegedmixedracialidentityhad"poignantly" broughthim to studythe historyof races. This obituarynoted thatAmmon and WoltmannbroughtLapouge'sworkto famein GermanyandassertedthatLapouge "was a trailblazerin the fields of racial selection and its effect on the development of social interrelationshipsand the lives of peoples andraces in general." VolkundRasse describedMadisonGrant'sPassing of GreatRace as "following in the footsteps of Lapouge."Grantwas quoted giving homage to the Frenchman, going so faras to say that"[flew men have had such a greateffect on their time as the MarquisLapouge."The articlestatedthat"thesuccess of the developmentthathis theorieshad in Germaniclands,especially in NationalSocialist Germany,must have given him the assurance,in his final years, that his work would carryon."72 Conclusion Much of what GeorgesVacherde Lapougehad to say aboutatheism,Jews, humanbreeding,nation-states,and moralitywas rejectedby his Germancolleagues or, later,by Nazi leadership.As Lapougehimself noted,the Nazis were not Lapougian.Nevertheless, this Frenchmanhad an important,enthusiastic following in Germanyduringthe whole firsthalf of the twentiethcentury,andby their own accountLapouge's Germancolleagues were fascinatedby his work and moved by his deeply nihilistic conception of the universe. They saw his anthroposociologyas crucialto the developmentof racialtheoryandof a different orderentirelythanthe workof Gobineau.Lapouge'sstarkanti-moralitywas specifically celebratedandenhancedhis statusas objective,truthful,andbrave. The intentionof this essay has been to clarify the connectionbetween Lapouge andhis Germancolleagues andto suggest thatLapouge'sscientific anti-morality deserves furtherattention.The explicit rejection of morality by scientific nihilists was an importantand perhapswidespreadphenomenonof nineteenth andtwentieth-centuryWesternculture,with strongcurrentsin Franceas well as Russia and Germany.In writingthe historyof the Shoah,we must note that an extremely nihilistic anti-moralitywas joined to a state-runracialist eugenics programin the mind of the first theoristof scientific racism. 70
Ibid., 98.
71
Kulz, "Marquisde Lapouge zum Gedenken!"Volkeund Rasse, 6 (1936), 255-58.
72
Ibid., 258.
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It seems thatrelativelypassive anti-Semitismwas activatedby new scientific doctrinesand unusualpolitical events, making it possible for the efficient bureaucracy(anddiffuse accountability)of the modem stateto makemurderits goal. Withinthis schemathe fact ofLapouge's sustainedpersonalinfluence,his numericalscience, and his directattackon moralityall serve to explain further the eruptionof unthinkablebrutality.Throughhis scientific rhetoricand the power of his neologisms, Lapougeserved to bring racialistargumentsinto the homes of the Germanbourgeoisie.Reconceiving the world in racialtermswas easier when you were talking aboutbrachycephalsand dolichocephals.In this sense the work of Lapouge(literary,scientific, and epistolary)is just a clue in a riddleabouthow peoplecouldcome to inflictsuchmassiveabuseon otherpeople. I would arguethatit is a majorclue andthatwe have little idea todayof how utterlyconvinced many people were thatthe Europeanraces were physiologically measurableand socially irreconcilable.Still, this partof my argumentis supportiveof an establishedinterpretationof the Shoah which sets out to explain how people were distractedfrommorality.It may be of moreconsiderable significancethatin the mindof the firstracialscientist,moralitywas rejectedby a logic outside of racial science, a logic which rested on the apparentconsequences of a materialistworld. Nassau CommunityCollege.
and
Logos the
Gramsci
Kratos:
Ancients
on
and
Hegemony
BenedettoFontana
The purposeof this paperis to locate Gramsci'sconcept of hegemony,and its related ideas of civil society, the national-popularand the people-nation, within the political thoughtof classical antiquity.'In so doing, the paperseeks to identifystrandsor elementswithin aspectsof ancientpoliticalthoughtwhich may usefully be seen as conceptualprefigurationsor as political anticipations of Gramsci's hegemony. It will show that Gramsci shares with the ancients specific theoretical,linguistic, and intellectualtopoi. Hegemony has hitherto been located within the context, both theoreticaland historical,of debatesand controversiesarisingout of the Marxistand laterLeninistrevolutionarytradition. It is rightly seen as a notion developed by Gramscito explain revolutionary failurein Italy and in the West generally,and consequentlyits antecedents are tracedto the problemsattendantupon the collapse of the Second International and the rise of Bolshevism in Russia.2While such an approachhas been useful in revealingthe immediate(bothpolitical andtactical)constraintsacting upon Gramsci'sthinking,it has overlookedpassages in his writings which reForhelpfulcommentsI thankJosephA. Buttigieg,JosephV. Femia,MauriceA. Finocchiaro, Dante Germino, Cary J. Nederman,the journal's anonymousreaders,and especially Doris L. Suarez. I See JosiahOber,TheAthenianRevolution: Essays on Ancient GreekDemocracy and Political Theory(Princeton,1996). See also Ober'sPolitical Dissent in DemocraticAthens:Intellectual Critics of Popular Rule (Princeton, 1999), 473, and his "Civic Ideology and CounterhegemonicDiscourse:Thucydideson the Sicilian Debate,"AthenianIdentityand Civic Ideology, eds. Alan Boegehold andA. C. Scafuro(Baltimore, 1994), 102-26. 2 See Gwyn A. Williams,"TheConceptof 'Egemonia'in the Thoughtof Antonio Gramsci: Some Notes on Interpretation," JHI, 21 (1960), 586-99; LeonardoPaggi, Antonio Gramscie il modernoprincipe (Rome, 1970);ChristineBuci-Glucksman,Gramsciet I 'Etat:pour une theorie materialistede la philosophie (Paris, 1975); and PerryAnderson,"TheAntinomies of Antonio Gramsci,"New Left Review, 100 (1976-77), 5-78; Sergio Caprioglio (ed), Antonio Gramsci: Cronachetorinese, 1913-1917 (Turin,1980), xxix-xxxvi, andDanteGermino,AntonioGramsci: Architect of a New Politics (Baton Rouge, 1990), 25-36; also Franco Lo Piparo, Lingua, intellettuali,egemonia in Gramsci(Bari, 1979).
305 2000byJournal of theHistoryof Ideas,Inc. Copyright
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veal an interestin, and familiaritywith, philosophical and theoreticalthemes originally formulatedand elaboratedby classical political thought. I. In a note entitled"Passagefrom Knowing to Understandingand to Feeling and vice versa from Feeling to Understandingand to Knowing"Gramsci establishes a distinction between intellectualswho "know"and the "peoplenation"that "feels." The former may know but do not always understandor feel, while the lattermay feel but does not always know. The intellectual,in orderto know somethingpoliticallyandsocially,not merelyabstractlyor philosophically,must understandit with feeling and passion. As Gramsciwrites: The intellectual'serrorconsists in believing thatone can know without understandingand even more without feeling and being impassioned (not only for knowledge in itself but also for the object of knowledge); in other words that the intellectual can be an intellectual (and not a pure pedant) if distinct and separatefrom the people-nation,that is, without feeling the elementarypassions of the people, understanding them andthereforeexplainingandjustifying them in the particularhistorical situationand connecting them dialectically to the laws of history andto a superiorconceptionof the world, scientificallyandcoherently elaborated-i.e. knowledge. One cannot make politics-history without this passion, without this sentimentalconnectionbetween intellectuals and people-nation.3 The merely abstractknowledge of the intellectual becomes life and politics when linked to the experientialand passionate feelings of the people. At the same time, the feeling-passion of the people acquiresthe characterof knowledge. Of course such a formulationis reminiscentof Marx's comments in the Theses on Feuerbach.4The dyadic relation between intellectual and peoplenation,andbetweenknowledgeandfeeling-passion,bothparallelsandinforms the relationbetween common sense and good sense. Commonsense is opinion which is incoherentand ambiguoussbut which may neverthelesscontain elements of truthto the extentthatthey areproliferatedthroughouta people. Good sense, on the otherhand,is the common sense of the people as theirpassion and experience are imbuedwith knowledge and reason-that is, as the people begin to "think"coherentlyby producingtheir own intellectuals,the organicintellectual, or the democraticphilosopher.6 3 Antonio Gramsci,Selectionsfrom the Prison Notebooks, eds. and trans. Quintin Hoare and GeoffreyNowell Smith (New York, 1973), 418, henceforthcited as SPN. 4 KarlMarx,"Theseson Feuerbach,"The Marx-EngelsReader,ed. RobertC. Tucker(New York, 1978), 143-45. 5Gramsci, SPN, 423. 6 Ibid., 328-36, andthe note on " 'Language,'LanguagesandCommonSense,"348-50. On the democraticphilosopher,see Benedetto Fontana,Hegemony and Power: On the Relation between Gramsciand Machiavelli (Minneapolis, 1993), 31-22, 71-72, 106-7
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Gramsci recalls the problem originally posed by Plato and Aristotle and running through the entire history of Western political thought up to thinkers as diverse as Hegel, Nietzsche, Weber, and Croce: namely, the relation between knowledge and politics, philosophy and rhetoric, ruler and people, reason and desire/appetite.7 This relation poses the question regarding the role and status of reason. It is the way reason (the logos as transcendent reason or as speech and language) is perceived that moves the theory in either an ossified (absolutist) or open (pluralistic) direction. The former is a Platonic formulation, while the latter is sophistic and rhetorical. Gramsci, like others before him (Cicero and Marx, for example), recognizes that the logos or its elaboration in a philosophy is merely sterile and ineffectual without its grounding within a particular socio-political formation. That is to say, it is not enough to know the "truth" as such-philosophy and knowledge can only achieve political and historical import through their dissemination and proliferation throughout a social group or society. Such a necessity points to the necessary role speech, language, and rhetoric play as the vehicles by which the people are persuaded and their consent is obtained. Such an activity, of course, is a major element in Gramsci's understanding of the movement from feeling to knowledge or the movement from a particular (pre-political) to a hegemonic (political) consciousness.8 Hegemony in Gramsci takes many forms and works at various levels. It describes the movement from the economic-corporative to the political9-from the particular to the universal, exemplified by Gramsci in his contrast between the particulare as understood by Guicciardini and the collective will embodied in Machiavelli's new prince.'0 Hegemony also means the progressive formation of alliances centered around a given social group. A group is hegemonic to the extent that it exercises intellectualand moral leadershipover other groups, such that the latter become "allies" and "associates" of the former. Domination is instead the exercise of coercion or "armed force" over other groups. Gramsci says, The supremacy of a social group is manifested in two ways: as "domination" and as "intellectual and moral leadership." A social group is
7 See, for example, Gramsci'scomments in SPN, 350; and his Quadernidel carcere, ed. ValentinoGerratana(4 vols.; Turin, 1975), II, 1331-32, henceforthcited as QC. See also, QC, I, 114;also Antonio Gramsci,"SocialismandCulture,"in Selectionsfrom Political Writings19101920, ed. QuintinHoare, tr. John Mathews (New York, 1977), 10-13, in Italian"Socialismo e cultura,"II Gridodelpopolo, 29 January1916, in Scrittigiovanili 1914-1918 (Turin,1977), 2226. 8 Gramsci,SPN, 326-36, QC, II, 1378-87. 9 Gramsci,QC, III, 1579-89. The literatureon Gramsci'shegemony is legion. Both informative and illuminatingare WalterL. Adamson,Hegemonyand Revolution:A StudyofAntonio Gramsci's Political and Cultural Theory (Berkeley, 1980); Giorgio Nardone, II pensiero di Gramsci(Bari, 1971);A. R. Buzzi, La teoriapolitica di Gramsci,tr.SandroGenovali (Florence, 1973); and MauriceA. Finocchiaro, Gramsci and the History of Dialectical Thought(Cambridge, 1988). 10Gramsci,QC, II, 690, 750, 772, 1261, 1325.
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dominant over those antagonistic groups it wants to "liquidate" or to subdue even with armed force, and it is leading with respect to those groups that are associated and allied with it." In effect, a socio-political order-or what Gramsci calls the "integral State"represents a hegemonic equilibrium characterized by a "combination of force and consent which are balanced in varying proportions, without force prevailing too greatly over consent."2 Force and consent, domination and leadership, together embody the political, such that the state in Gramsci is characterized by two distinct, but interwoven, spheres: "dictatorship + hegemony," and "political society + civil society," where the synthesis of the two spheres denotes for Gramsci the meaning of "state."13 II. Hegemony in ancient political thought has both a philosophical and a political meaning, and both senses of the term are embodied in the famous statement of Isocrates, logos hegemon panton.'4 If the assertion is translated as "speech and language are the leader and guide of all things,""5then the relation between logos and hegemonia describes a power relationship based on the generation and dissemination of consent. Such generation assumes a particular form of knowledge and practice-the art (ars or techne) of rhetoric, which presupposes a particular relation between the speaker (intellectual) and his audience, which, in turn, assumes a particular socio-political structure or order in existence which makes both necessary and useful the relation between the speaker/intellectual and the assembly/audience.'6 It is only in a political com" Ibid., III, 2010. 12Ibid., 1638. 13Ibid., II, 763-64. 14 Isocrates, Nicocles,
5-9:
oU6Ev TOV qpovL[UowS TpaTTTTOiEVWV EUPrlCFOtEVaXoyWsy 1TTdVTWV fl'EvaLoVCXoyov OvVTc. "... [W]e
Th)V EpyWV Kal T(OV8LavorT)Ld(i-V yLyVOuLEVOV, CXXd KaXL
shall find thatnone of the things which are done with intelligence take place withoutthe help of speech, but that in all our actions as well as in all our thoughtsspeech is our guide [hegemona logon]...." Citationsfrom the ancients are from the Loeb Classical Library(Cambridge,Mass., 1966). See WernerJaeger,Paideia: TheIdeals of GreekCulture,tr.GilbertHighet (3 vols.; New York, 1944), III; The Conflict of CulturalIdeals in the Age of Plato, 88-91. Jaeger translates hegemona as "leader"(89). See also T. A. Sinclair,A History of GreekPolitical Thought(New York, 1968), 115-42;andYunLee Too, TheRhetoricof Identityin Isocrates: Text,Power,Pedagogy (Cambridge,1995), esp. 200-232. '5 The logos may mean not merely speech and language but also discourse and argument,
whetherspokenor written.Isocrates,like Plato, sees the logos as the expressionof a truth,andhe locates this truthwithin a given culturalcontext, in space andtime. Thus, unlike Plato's conception, the logos is not a transcendentand ahistoricalform, and its emergence and proliferation presupposea concrete socio-culturalstructure.Jaeger(Paideia, III, 79) writes: "... the logos, in its double sense of 'speech'and 'reason,' becomes for Isocrates the symbolon, the 'token' of culture....[which] assuredrhetoricof its place, andmade the rhetoricianthe truestrepresentative of culture." 16 See Too, 1-9, 10-35, 164-71. See also JanetM. Atwill, RhetoricReclaimed:Aristotleand the LiberalArts Tradition(Ithaca, 1998), 47-51, 52-53, 88.
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munity such as the polis thatthe logos as hegemonwould be capableof generatingconsentby meansof the persuasiveandrhetoricaldevices of public speaking. Thus, Gramsci'shegemony,viewed as the proliferationof a conceptionof the world throughouta society by means of the generationof "permanentconsent,"has its antecedentsin the debatesand controversiesregardingthe nature and role of rhetoricin both political activity and political thought. That rhetoric (oratory)is disparagedby Gramsci in his critique17of the Renaissance humanists (as well as in his discussion of the relation between nationallanguages,vernaculars,and dialects) furtherindicatesthe importance of this particularinterpretationof hegemony as a modem version of classical rhetoric-that is, the modes and ways (both moral-intellectualand technical) by which public opinion is organized and political consensus is achieved.18 Certainly,where the people organizedinto an assembly do not exist, or where the people for various historical reasons are not yet perceived as a political force, oratoryand rhetoricare mere antiquarianismand sterile intellectualism, which reinforcethe divorce between the cultureof the colti and the cultureof the semplici. Indeed,Gramsci'scritiqueof the ItalianRenaissanceandhis mordant analysis of the ruling classes of the Italiancity-states underlinethe gulf between the culture of the intellectualsand the cultureof the people. Such a gulf is cumulativeandconcentrated;it is self-reinforcingand self-reproducing. Secular(such as a Leonardoor a Guicciardini)or clerical (the RomanCuriaas an internationalorganization),economicor cultural,politicalor moral,the common threadthat ties all these diverse socio-culturaland socio-political layers togetheris Gramsci'sdistinctionbetweenthe cosmopolitanintellectualandthe national-popularor organicintellectual. The cosmopolitanintellectualis a type thatemergeswith the destructionof the Romanrepublic,the rise of the principate,andmost critically,accordingto Gramsci,the displacementof political power from the Italianpeninsulato the provinces of the Empire.19Such a displacement strictly parallels the rise of military despotism as the prevailing form of rule within the Empire.At the same time, as the armybecame the dominantforce within the Empire,the rise and consolidation of the ChristianChurchas a social, cultural,and political force injectedinto the culturaland intellectualmilieu of the Empirea new type of intellectual,the cleric.20The priest-intellectualat first was a national-popular intellectual in the sense that the type found its roots within the life and activityof the variousnationsandpeoples of the Empire-the very name of the church,ekklesia,suggests its originallypopularroots. Eventuallythe victory of the ChristianChurchover the Roman and pagan social-political ordertrans17Gramsci,QC, II, 905-7; III, 1828-29, 1889-93, 1912-14, 2350. 18 On this, see
Gramsci,QC, II, 1005, 1123-24;III, 1889-93. 19Gramsci,QC, III, 1523-24, 1959-60. This last citation should be comparedto III, 1936. 20Ibid.,II, 768-69; III, 1514, 1524.
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formed the national-popularleaders into cosmopolitan intellectualsuprooted anddivorcedfromthe life of the commonpeople. Whethersecularor religious, the separationof the centers of power from the life of the ordinarypeople is signaledby the differencein languageand speech between one andthe other,a differencewhich becomes greateras the languageof the rulinggroupsbecomes more ossified, florid-that is, purelyrhetorical,a style which is merely literary and affected, solipsisticallyconcernedwith its own formalrules of speech and syntax.21At the same time the languageof power becomes increasinglydistant from social life and increasinglyinaccessible to the people.22 In any case, given a socio-political orderconstructedalong the lines of a polis such as pre-HellenisticAthens, the knowledge of rhetoric-argumentation, the ways andmeans (logical, structural,physico-emotional,anddramatic) by which one addressesa body of people-is neithermere literaryaffectation nor lifeless academicexercise of a school.23Rather,it is directlyconnectedto social and political practice.24Rhetoricis crucial to a citizen's life both in the assembly and in the law courts.To possess this knowledge is thereforeto possess the means to assert one's will over others.The use of a specific language within a given historicalcontext shows the relativepower equationof diverse groups.Thus, as Gramscipoints out, the rise and decline of the vernacularis a barometerthat tracks the rise and decline of the relative power of the lower classes within a given society.25In this context, therefore,hegemony describes a form of knowledge thatdependsupon a close relationshipbetween the intellectual and the people, in the same way that rhetoricas a form of knowledge dependsupon the existence of a popularassembly whose persuasionand manipulationis the object of the speaker/intellectual.But it should be noted that the orator,in the very process of addressingthe people, is assuminga position of moral-intellectualleadershipwith respect to them, while still remaininga part of them. He is of the people, because the effectiveness of the speech depends on his establishinga link-and he must be present in the assembly to addressthe people. He is superiorto them, because he possesses a knowledge which enables him to generate argumentsand reasons that will persuadethe 21
See Gramsci'snotes on the historyof Latinand its relationto the vernacular:QC, I, 353-
57. 22 See Lo Piparo,Lingua,intellettuali,egemoniain Gramsci,153-58, 160-66; also Leonardo Salamini,TheSociologyofPolitical Praxis:AnIntroductionto Gramscis Theory(London,1981), 181-96. 23 GeorgeKennedy,TheArtofPersuasion in Greece(Princeton,1963); and see M. I. Finley, Politics in the Ancient World(Cambridge,1983). 24 See Ober, TheAthenianRevolution,"Public Speech and Power of People," 18-31, and "Power and Oratoryin DemocraticAthens: Demosthenes 21, Against Meidias," 86-106; also Harvey Yunis, TamingDemocracy: Models of Political Rhetoric in Classical Athens (Ithaca, 1996), 2-35.
25
Gramsci, QC, I, 354.
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audience and elicit their support.In a democraticpolis such as Athens, where demosandekklesiaarecoterminous,oratorandstatesmanareone andthe same: thepolitikos is the leaderwho looks afterthe interestsof the body of citizens.26 What Gorgiasof Plato's dialogue calls rhetoriketechne is a skill or a craft devoid of substantivevalue or of any claim to objectivity or absolute truth.27 The instrumentsor tools of this art are words, speech, and language.Lacking any naturalor objective telos, its only end is to use words convincingly, to create a desired effect. It teaches nothing but itself-to the extent that it does posit something,a value, a morality,a philosophy-the teachingis always provisional, relativeto its context, and thereforesubjectto change and reformulation.At the same time, however,the utility andeffectiveness of rhetoricis itself a functionof a particularmoral-intellectualculture-what Gramscicalls a conception of the world and a way of life-without which rhetoricwould have no value or meaning. In the democraticpolis, rhetoricmeans liberty and power. Demokratia,rule of the people, is in Athens traditionallyassociatedwith freedom and equality.Parrhesia, freedom of speech, or the "libertyto say everything" is a central element in the constructionand elaborationof the art of speaking,the logon techne.The termsisegoria (equalrightto speak),isonomia (equalityunderthe law), andisokratia(equalrightto rule)denotevariousforms of political equality which together embody democraticrule and all directly relate to rhetoricas a political craft. In the Gorgias, Plato attacks such a rhetoric,strips it of its Gorgianand Isocrateanculturalelements,andtransformsit toutcourtinto a meretechnique.28 He bringsthe artto its logical conclusionandmakesCallicles constructa theory of Machtpolitik,whose statesmanprefigures Machiavelli's new prince. Machiavelli's metaphorof the fox andthe lion, fraudand force, neatly capturesthe uses of rhetoric:"theone who knows best how to play the fox comes out best, but he must understandwell how to disguise the animal'snatureand must be a Simulationand dissimulation-elements great simulatorand dissimulator."29 of what both Plato and Machiavelli call appearance,which is crucial in the constructionof a given reality-are ironicallydependentupon an accurateand perceptive analysis of the subject or audience (social psychology, socio-culturalvalues, emotive symbols, language,social-politicalstatus,etc.). The constructionof culturaland ideological structuresof power is the modem equivalent of rhetoricalpractice,andto this extent, as Gramscirecognizes,hegemony also involves the use of fraudand deception. 26Yunis,
8, 10. Plato, Gorgias, 452-53, 456-57, 459-60. See Sinclair,62, 73-77. See Thomas Cole, The Origins of Rhetoricin Ancient Greece (Baltimore, 1991), 95-112, and RobertWardy,TheBirth of Rhetoric: Gorgias,Plato and TheirSuccessors (London, 1996), chs. 2 and 3. 27
28
Gorgias, 482-93.
29Niccolo Machiavelli, ThePrince, 18.
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III.The secondmeaningof the propositionlogos hegemonis Platonic:logos as reason,30the ruler of spirit and appetite,not only the guide to but also the arbiterof the "truth."Here knowledge, and those who possess knowledge, are independentof social and historicalstructures,such thatthe subjectof knowledge is a reality which only reason is able to penetrate.Plato establishes the philosophic logos as the determinantof all reality and makes it the masterand ruler over politike praxis. In effect logos hegem6n encompasses within itself two differentforms of consciousness or knowledge which exist together in a stateof reciprocaland competitive,if not contradictory,tension.Logos viewed as speech and languagepresentsa form of knowledge which is dependentboth on the subjectthat knows or bears this knowledge and on the object to which the knowledge is addressed.As such it is fluid, in constant movement, and dependentupon contextandperspectiveof both subjectandobject. Indeed,it is theproductof this interactionbetweenthe two terms.This is the sophisticknowledge against which Plato wrote and in response to which he constructedhis own version of the logos as philosophic reason. Speech and languageinevitably lead the discussion to a considerationof the natureand role of ethnicity, nation, and people. From the sophists to the nineteenth-centuryRomanticswhose advent, it should not be forgotten,was both a response to and a further elaborationof the historicalandphilologicalresearchesandstudiesof late eighteenth and early nineteenthcenturythought-a close connectionwas seen between language and "people-nation."From its structuralcharacteristics,such as syntax,grammar,and idioms to its elaborationin varioustypes of literature, poetry,epic, fables, folklore,myths, and legends, attemptswere madeto derive andspecify concreteexpressionsandmanifestationswhich togetherwould constitutethe life andcultureof a given people. Isocrates,famous for his emphasis on speech andon the importanceof rhetoricas a formof knowledge,conceived of Hellas as a culturalunit precisely on this basis. A consciousnessrelying on a sharedcultureand common languageand literaturewas identifiedby Isocrates as the defining characteristicthat providedthe groundon which the competitive and fiercely ambitiousGreekcity statescould come together.31 Speech and as Athens, within such a concrete language, therefore,originate particularity, and are expressed in a specific and individuallanguage, such as Attic Ionian. Theparticularities thatsuchknowledgeidentifiesinevitablyleadto a relativistic, ultimatelyskeptical,position regardingthe natureof reality and knowledge.32 Thus Protagoras'sformulationmetronanthropon,which points to the centrality of speech andpraxis in the determinationof truthand reality.Thus also the radicallydemocraticanddemagogiccharacterof sophisticthought-demagogic here understoodin its original meaning, as leadershipof the demos in the assembly. Hence, too, the centralplace of rhetoricas a theory and as a practice. 30
Plato, Republic,441 E-442 C. See also, Sir ErnestBarker,GreekPolitical Theory:Plato and His Predecessors (London, 1970). 31Jaeger, III, 71-83. 32 See Too, 179-81, 183-84.
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trans-nationalform Logos as philosophicreasonpostulatesa trans-historical, of knowledge, whose "truth"or validity is independentof the context within which it may have arisen or within which it is inserted. Such a reason tends towarda universalitywhich would level or negatethe multiformparticularities issuing fromthe speech andlanguagesof diverse social groups.In the Republic Plato's reason points to the constructionof a method by which the universal and absolute validity of statementsand concepts may be demonstrated.The method is what he calls dialectic, and it is at once political, philosophical,and educational:each is but a differentincarnationof reason,reflectedthroughthe activity of diverse social groups and expressed in the state as an ensemble of interwovenrelations. It is in this sense that Gramsci, in numerouspassages of the Notebooks, defines the state in the Aristotelianand Hegelian sense as "ethical"and as an "educator."33 If the stateis conceived as ethical andcultural,it acts as an educational and thus "philosophical"agent, which creates and structuresthe conditions withinwhich its membersmay pursuespiritualactivitiesanddevelop into rational beings. As such the state is not merely force and coercion, as the Augustiniansand their liberaldescendantswould have it; it is also cultureand a way of life and thus embodies both kratos and ethos. As Gramsciputs it, the What connects these terms is the conpolitical is hegemonic is educational.34 of cept reasonas the elementby which appetiteandthe "biological,""animal," and the "primordial"are sublimatedand overcome. The overcoming of the primordialmeans the passage of humanityfrom the world of bruteappetiteto the world of cultureandspirit.35In an early essay (1916) Gramsciidentifiesthe natureandsense of the relationbetweenphilosophicreasonandpoliticsandat the same time moves it away from its purely Platonicand Croceaninterpretation: G. B. Vico ... gives a political interpretationof the famous dictum of Solon which Socrates subsequentlymade his own in relationto philosophy:"Knowthyself."Vico maintainsthatin thisdictumSolonwished to admonish the plebians, who believed themselves to be of bestial origin and the nobility of divine origin, to reflect on themselves and see thatthey hadthe same humannatureas the nobles andhence should claim to be theirequals in civil law. Vico thenpoints to this consciousness of humanequalitybetween plebeiansand nobles as the basis and historicalreason for the rise of democraticrepublicsof antiquity.36 Gramsci,QC, II, 1048-50, 1222-25; III, 2302-3, 2313-14. Gramsci,QC, II, 1330-32. 35 Ibid., III, 2160-64. See also Gramsci'sletterto his wife, Letteredal carcere, eds. Sergio Caprioglioand Elsa Fubini (Turin,1965), 313-14; on which see BenedettoFontana,"TheConcept of Naturein Gramsci,"ThePhilosophical Forum, 27 (1996), 220-43. 36 Gramsci,"Socialism and Culture,"in Selectionsfrom Political Writings1910-1920, 10 (Gramsci's emphases). For the modem historiographyon Solon, see Victor Ehrenburg,From Solon to Socrates: GreekHistoryand Civilizationduringthe 6th and 5th CenturiesBC (London, 1973), 56-76. 33
34
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The common people are exhortedby a popularleader (demagogos)37such as Solon to "reflect"on themselves and their opponents and to transformtheir own self-conception-and thereforealso of the noblesandthe restof the world in orderto acquireboth equality (isegoria and isonomia) and political power (isokratia).Gramsci,citing Vico who in turnis citing Solon and Socrates,presents the logos in both its guises, as philosophicreasonand as speech and language. At the same time theretakes place a movementfrom one belief or selfimage to another-from the belief in bestiality (self) and divinity (other),to a belief in a common humanityaffirmedandvalidatedby a common speech and a common language.A once hegemonic conception of the world-the beast/ god duality-has been transformedand transcendedinto a new one which expresses a common life (definedby the newly establishedpolitical constitution). Solon andSocratestogetherrepresentan ironicalandparadoxicaldevelopment. Solon is the politikos who initiated the process which eventually led to the supremacyof the people and their democraticinstitutions.Socratesis the philosopher (critic/intellectual)whose logoi (the formationof a "criticalunderstandingof self,"38to use Gramsci'sphrase)were deliberatelyconstructedto question and to disconcertthe establishedand conventionalconception of the world. Nevertheless, it is only under the free institutions of the Athenian demokratiathat a critic and ironist such as Socrates,not to mention the radically anti-democraticPlato, could emerge and practicetheir art and their philosophy-that is, speak and teach in public. Thus, Solon/Socrates together embodythe unstabletension inherentin the notion of logos hegembnas speech and language and as philosophic reason. If Solon representsthe beginning of the process by which the people came to acquire self-rule and self-mastery, Socratesrepresentsthe problemsa democraticpolitics faces when confronted by the culturalcriticismsand moral stricturesof philosophicreason.39 In effect hegemony (or the state viewed as ethics and as culture)means both self-discipline and self-mastery:it means obeying a law one has commandedfor oneself (to use a formulationcommonto bothPlato andRousseau). While the primacy of reason reveals the idealistic natureof Gramsci'shegemony,his historicismandradicalanti-essentialismfirmlylocatethe logos within social and materialreality. Indeed, while thinkers from Plato to Croce have sought to maintainthe integrityof reason and to preserveits autonomyby circumscribingits activity within an aristocraticculture,in Gramscithe logos is transformedinto a hegemony described by the synthesis of philosophy and politics, thoughtand the people-nation.
37 See GiambattistaVico, Scienza nuova seconda, Opere (8 vols., Bari, 1911-41), IV, 41422; also Michael Mooney, Vicoin the Traditionof Rhetoric(Princeton,1985), 197-206. 38Gramsci,SPN, 333-34. 39 Ober,Political Dissent in Democratic Athens, 156-66, 184-89.
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Thus, logos as reason (the Platonic formulation)and logos as speech and language (the sophistic formulation):in the former,reason is the autonomous masterof desire and appetite;in the latterreason is purely calculatingand instrumental,the servantof appetitesand desires. One posits the absolute integrity of reason and thereforeof thought in confrontationwith the world; the other their mutualpenetrationand permeability.The opposition and simultaneous interdependenceof the two is neatly capturedin Cicero's formula,ratio et oratio: reason and speech together are the foundationof politics and the state.40Cicero is certainlyconscious of the moralandintellectualcontroversies of the various Greek schools concerningthe relationbetween philosophy and rhetoric.Yet in the debate between philosophy and rhetoric,philosophy and politics, Cicero returnsto the sophistic position not only that rhetoric is not merely a techniqueandmethodby which power may be acquiredbut also that, precisely as a means to power,rhetoricpresupposesthe simultaneousexistence of a determinatepolitical, moral, and social order within which it acquires meaning and value.41 These two senses of logos parallelGramsci'sunderstandingof hegemony. On the one hand, it is understoodas describing competing and antagonistic conceptionsof the world, each strugglingor reactingagainstthe other.Herethe aspect of particularity,social specificity, concrete individualityand manifold plurality,is stressed and highlighted.On the other hand there is the notion of hegemony seen as a movementor developmentwhich originatesin individuality and particularitybut which culminates, or should culminate, in the overintothe generalandthe universal. coming of the particularandits transformation IV.Finally,thereis yet a thirdway to understandlogos hegemon.We should recall that to Aristotle speech and language are the underlyingfoundationof the polis, which would mean thatto him the logos is inherentlyandnecessarily political and social. In Aristotle "political"means to move from the particular to the universal,fromthe sphereof privateintereststo the sphereof generaland universalinterests.In Aristotlerule over slaves (despoteia), in the family,or in the village is a pre-politicalor non-politicaltype of rule. Only in the polis is political rule trulypossible.42 More specifically, in the Politics Aristotle discusses hegemonia as leadership and as the opposite of domination.He says: Trainingfor war should not be pursuedwith a view to enslaving men who do not deserve such a fate. Its objects should be these-first, to 40
Cicero, N. D., II, 78-79, 133, 147-58. See GeorgeKennedy,TheArtof Rhetoricin theRomanWorld300 BC-AD300 (Princeton, 1972), ChaptersOne and Three. 42 Aristotle,Politics, 1252 a-1253 a. 41
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prevent men from ever becoming enslaved themselves; secondly, to put men in a position to exercise leadership[hegemonian]-but leadershipdirectedto the interestof the led, andnot to the establishmentof a generalsystem of slavery [pant6ndespoteias];and thirdly,to enable men to make themselves masters [despozein] of those who naturally deserve to be slaves.43 In thispassagea distinctionis establishedbetweenleadershipas ruleover equals, and in their interest,and despotism as rule over unequals(slaves), and in the interestof the ruler.ForAristotleonly the Hellenic ethnos is morallyandrationally (that is, according to physis) capable of ruling and being ruled in this sense of hegemonia. Othernon-Hellenic nations, consideredoutside the Hellenic culturaland ethnic world, may be subduedand enslaved.44 When the hegemonis a state (such as Athens or Macedon),hegemony describes a system of alliances in which the leading state exercises power over mutuallyconsentingstates.The Delian Leagueas originallyestablishedby Athens was precisely such a hegemonic system, a free leadershipof states, until it was transformedinto the AthenianEmpire,a system where allies were turned into subjects.45In his orationsIsocratesrefers continuallyto Athens as a hegemonic state, both when he is looking back at the past, before the Athenian defeat in the PeloponnesianWar,and when he is looking towardthe future,in his exhortationsto the Atheniansto reconstitutea new confederacyor league. Empire(arche) passed fromAthens to Spartato Thebes. In the end the Greek states, though they managedto escape the despotism of Persia and Macedon, revertedto the anarchyof constantwarfareamong themselves.46In these discourses47Isocratessets up a dichotomysimilarto thatestablishedby Aristotle: hegemony is leadershipexercised by a state over consentingallies, while despotism representsthe exercise of dominationand coercion over recalcitrant and opposing states or peoples. Athens failed as a great state and as a hegemonic power because it confused the two forms of rule:it exercised despotism over fellow Greeks, as if they were barbarians.Athens will recaptureits preeminence and supremacyonly when it pursuesa hegemonic policy of alliance formation,which would requirethe identificationof interestsandvalues shared by all Hellas.
43Politics, 1333 a 39-1334 a 5.
Politics, 1252 b, 1255 a. Ehrenburg,45, 196,219. Throughouthis HistoryThucydidesuses the termhegemonia in various ways to describe or characterizediverse relationsand actions, rangingfrom military leadershipor generalshipin the field (I, 128; II, 11;III, 105, 107) to power (I, 94, 130; IV,91;V, 7; VII, 15) to political leadership(I, 4, 25, 38, 76, 95-96; III, 10; V, 16, 47, 69; VI, 76, 82; VII, 56). 46 See ChristianHabicht,Athensfrom Alexander to Antony,tr. Deborah Lucas Schneider (Cambridge,Mass., 1997). 47See Too, 10-34, 36-40, 61-73. 45 See
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Whatis significantis thatIsocratessees Athens as the hegemonic leaderof other Greek states because he considersAthenianlife and culturemorally and intellectuallysuperiorandabove all others(most especially the non-Greek).To Isocrates Athens is the school of Hellas, the teacher and guide not just of Hellenes, but throughthem, of the world. In the Panegyricus he writes: So far has Athens distancedthe rest of mankindin thoughtand speech that her pupils have become the teachersof the rest of the world; and she has broughtit about the name of "Hellenes"is applied ratherto those who shareourculturethanto those who sharea commonblood.48 It is this common culture,disseminatedand proliferatedthroughoutthe Greek world, thatwill give Athens the power to organizethe Greek states into a free alliance directedagainst the despotism of the barbarianPersians.Imperialism and empire directedby Athens as the hegemonic power benefit the common interestsof all the Hellenes and are thereforejustified.49Culturaland political hegemony are not simply related,they are reciprocallyand dynamicallysymbiotic. Hegemony as a system of alliances among various social groupswithin a given socio-political orderis, of course, one sense in which Gramsciuses the concept. But Gramscialso directlyuses hegemony in the sense that Isocrates, Aristotle, and the ancientGreeksunderstoodit. In a note discussing the notion of "greatpower"in internationalpolitics Gramscisays that"thegreatpower is a hegemonicpower,the headandguideof a systemof alliancesandententes...."50 This formulation,of course, is analogous to Gramsci'scharacterizationof the supremacyof a social group in terms of the exercise of moral and intellectual leadershipover allied and associated groups, and of the exercise of domination-"even with armedforce"-in orderto subdueantagonisticgroups.51The note furtheridentifies three elements as determinantsof the power position of states in the internationalarena: 1) extent of territory(including population size); 2) economic strength;and 3) militaryforce. A fourth,separateand special, point is what he calls the "imponderable"element of "ideology,"or the extent to which a state may presentitself as leadingor "representing"the "progressive forces of history."An example of the latteris Franceduringthe Revolution and the Napoleonic age. Since the American Revolution and certainly since the SecondWorldWar,the United Stateshas presenteditself, in its rise to hegemonicworldstatus,as the representativeandcarrierof the idealsof political libertyand economicprogress.Whatis importanthere is Gramsci'sobservation 48Panegyricus, 50. 49Jaeger, III, 106-31. 50 Gramsci, QC, III, 1598.
51See above, and Gramsci,QC, III, 2010.
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that"to have all the elements ... which lead to victory [in war] means to be able to exertthe diplomaticpressureof a greatpower,thatis, to obtaina measureof the resultsof a victoriouswar withoutneeding to fight."52To obtainone's ends in a situationof conflict withoutresortingto war-that is, by diplomatic,economic, or ideological methods-is the distinguishingmark of a hegemonic power. In either case it is evident that in both Aristotle and Gramsci hegemony describes the exercise of power where a common or non-antagonisticsystem of autonomousor at least semi-autonomousgroupshas been established.Where this system cannotbe establishedor where it has brokendown-such that the interests(economic) andvalues (culturalandmoral)of the actorsare diametrically opposed andnot reconcilable-the normalor operativeexercise of rule is dominationor despotism.Despotism, however, is not for Aristotle (or for fifth and fourthcenturyGreeks)simply a termdescribingan oppressiveor coercive rule. Despoteia means 1) the rule of a master(despotes) over his householdof slaves (the master/slaverelation); and 2) despotism as a political system or order(despotic rule over subjects). In Aristotle these two forms are intimately connected, and are opposed to rule in the polis, where liberty, equality, and self-governmentprevail.Aristotle's "generalsystem of slavery"and "masters of those who deserve to be slaves" explicitly connect despotism as a form or system of governmentto despotismas a relationbetween mastersand slaves.53 Greekpolitical thoughtand Greekculturalattitudes,especially in the pre-Hellenistic era, explicitly and invidiously associated the "generalsystem of slavery" as a "barbarian"form of rule, appropriateto the servile and slavish nature of non-Greeks,especially Asians (Egyptians, Lydians, Medes, Persians, etc.).54Whetherin purely political tracts,such as those of Plato,Aristotle, and Isocrates, or in dramaticor literaryworks, as in Aeschylus and others,55the contrastis made between the liberty of Europe(Hellas) and the despotism of Asia (Persiaandothers),between the free life of the polis andthe slaveryof the various Easternempires and kingdoms.56The distinctionis political, but it is also culturaland linguistic:it is the logos, as both reasonand speech/language, which differentiatesrule over slaves fromrule over free citizens, as well as free governmentin the West from despotic governmentin the East. Such a distinctionbetween the libertyof the Westand slaveryof the East is a threadthatrunsthroughoutthe history of political and criticalthoughtin the Westernworld, from its originswith the Greeksto its contemporarymanifesta-
52
Gramsci, QC, III, 1598.
1277 b, 1278 b-1279 b. See Pericles Georges, BarbarianAsia and the GreekExperience:From the Archaic Period to the Age ofXenophon (Baltimore, 1994), 13-46, 180-206. 55Ibid., 96-102, 111-14. 56See Ehrenburg,110-21, 361-71. 53 Aristotle,Politics, 54
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tions withincertaingroupsof AmericanandEuropeanintellectuals.It is a topos appropriatedby Cicero, Livy, and Tacitus and passed on during the Renaissance to such thinkersas Machiavelliand Guicciardini,which becomes a fundamentalprinciple in thinkersas diverse as Montesquieu,Hegel, Marx, and Weber.Gramsci,too, follows this tradition.57 In a note where he addressesthe differencesbetween the social and political realities Lenin and his Bolsheviks had to confrontand those obtainingin the West, he writes: In the East the State was everything,civil society was primordialand gelatinous;in the West there was a properrelationbetween the State and civil society, and when the State trembleda sturdy structureof civil society was at once revealed. The State was only an outer ditch, behind which there stood a powerful system of fortresses and earthworks.58
Here we have the dichotomybetween state (political society) and civil society, where the formerrepresentsforce and coercion and the lattera cultural-economic apparatusof permanentpersuasion.Civil society is the sphereof liberty, where consent and persuasionare generatedand organized.It is the groundof ideological, cultural,andreligious struggle,itself constitutedby voluntaryand secondaryassociationssuch as politicalparties,tradeunions, interestgroupsof variouskinds, sects andchurches,schools anduniversities,andcivic andcharitable organizations.Gramscifurthernotes: The massive structuresof modem democracies,both as State organizations, andas complexes of associationsin civil society, constitutefor the artof politics as it were the "trenches"andthe permanentfortifications of the front in the war of position: they rendermerely "partial" the elementof movementwhichbeforeusedto be "thewhole"of war....59 In the West, because civil society is highly complex and articulated,a direct assaulton the state (the war of movement) is not possible. Only a war of position, thatis, the organizationanddeploymentof ideological andculturalinstruments of struggle,can undermineand eventuallyovercome the establishedsocial order.Gramsciexplains, "the war of position in politics is the concept of hegemony."60The statementthat"Inthe Eastthe Statewas everything"is strikingly similar to Aristotle's "generalsystem" of subjectionwhere all political
57See SPN, 416-18. 58 Gramsci, SPN, 238. 59Ibid., 243. 60 Gramsci, QC, II, 973.
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and social meaningemanatesfroman autocraticstructureof power.Hegemony as leadershipof eitherfree citizens or free social groupsis thereforeprecluded. Hegemony understoodas rule in the interest of the ruled, but also as a system of alliances (of groups or of states), mutually imply each other: the constructionof a structurednetworkof alliances foundedupon the consent of the constituentmemberspresupposesa universality,or at least a potentialmutuality,of interestsand values. In saying this we have at the same time moved our discussionto yet anotherlevel of meaningof the termhegemony,the level, or the sphere, of civil society. HannahArendt, for instance, argues convincingly thatthe rise and growthof the Romanimperiumwas a process by which a civil society in Italy was generated.61 On the otherhandthe Delian League is an example of the failure of Athens to enlargeand transformitself into a new political formation-in Gramsci'stermsit means the failureof Athensto move beyond the economic-corporativestage towardthe political and hegemonic. The rise and expansionof the Romanrepublicin Italy is an instanceof the movement from the particularto the universal, from the narrowlyeconomic and corporateto the hegemonic. The contrastbetween Athens and Rome is nicely demonstratedby Machiavelli in the Discourses.62 He identifies "three methods"of expansion: 1) by establishinga confederationor a league of several republics or states, this method being practiced by the Etruscans, the Aetolians, andthe Achaeans;2) by conqueringa people andmakingthem "immediatelysubjects,andnot associates,"a policy followed by AthensandSparta; and 3) by "makingassociates of otherstates,"reservingto oneself the supreme authority,a method developed by the Romans.As Machiavelliwrites, Of these three methods, [the Spartanand Athenian] is perfectly useless, [for they] perishedfrom no other causes than from having made conqueststhey could not maintain.Forto undertakethe governmentof conqueredcities by violence, especially when they have been accustomed to the enjoymentof liberty,is a most difficult and troublesome task; andunless you arepowerfully armed,you will never securetheir obediencenorbe able to governthem.And to be able to be thuspowerful it becomes necessary to have associates by whose aid you can increase the population of your own city.... Rome ... followed the ... [last]
plan, and did both things, and consequently rose to such exceeding power.... Having createdfor herself many associates throughoutItaly, she grantedto them in many respects an almost entire equality [con equali legge vivevanoseco], always, however,reservingto herself the seat of empireand the right of command.63 61 HannahArendt,On Revolution
(New York, 1982), 187-88. 62Discourses, 2.3, 4. See Fontana, Hegemonyand Power, 141-44. 63Discourses, 2.4.
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This referenceis interestingon various levels. It begins with what to Machiavelli is almost a general law of politics: conflict, competition,and discord as the existential,almostontological,constitutiveelementsof political life; and it ends with the foundationof an area and space-both territorialand sociopolitical-within which certainforms of conflict are excluded (but not eliminated,thoughmonopolizedby the hegemonor by the imperiumof the Roman magistrates).The process itself is defined by the calibrated,sequentialuse of dominio and direzione, dictatorshipand hegemony, each element of the pairs alternatingas a new level (in terms of territoryand population)is attainedand then surpassed. As Machiavelli makes clear in the Discourses, following writers such as Cicero, Sallust, and Livy, the very foundationof the Roman civitas or state is the result of a long process of struggle and discord between two antagonistic groups originally alien and strangersto each other.64The civitas is itself the productof an alliance or associationbetween the patriciansand the plebeians and their transformationinto the populus Romanus. In turn the republic expandedthroughoutItaly by transformingenemy states and peoples into allies (socii) and "friends(amici) of the Romanpeople," who eventually gained the rights of citizenship.Thus, the Roman civitas, at first an alliance (societas) of disparatetribesand clans of the nascentcity-state,graduallybecame a societas Romana,an alliance of disparatepeoples, tribes,and city-statesthathad originally formedthe Italianpolitical landscape. The second point lies in the mannerin which Machiavellilinks territorial expansion to populationgrowth.As we have seen, Gramsci makes a similar connection in his note on the hegemonic state. In both cases the hegemonic powermustconfrontandresolvethe problemof language,culture,andethnicity: as it grows and expands in territoryand as new populationsare assimilated, some kind of common languageand common culturemust emerge if the new political order is to endure for any significant length of time. The problem becomes especially acute if the new peoples and populations"have been accustomedto the enjoymentof liberty,"as Machiavelliputs it. The phrase"enjoyment of liberty"can only mean that the newly acquiredpeople or newly conqueredstate is not merely politically autonomousbut that it has developed its own traditions,religion, customs, ways of life, and perhapseven its own literatureand sophisticatedcultureembodiedin highly articulatedandramified forms of speech, language, and modes of thinking and acting. Such a socioculturalordercannotbe assimilatedmerely throughviolence and domination. The rising power must develop intricatepolitical instrumentsto bind its interests to those of the conqueredgroups.As Gramscipoints out,
64
Discourses, 1.4, 5, 6.
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In the hegemonic system, there exists democracybetween the leading groupandthe groupswhich are led, to the extentthatthe development of the economy, andthus the legislationwhich expresses such a development,favorthe molecularpassage fromthe led to the leadinggroup. In the Roman Empire,there was an imperial-territorial democracyin the concession of citizenship to the conqueredpeoples, etc. Democracy could not exist underfeudalism,because of the constitutionof the closed groups, etc.65 In effect the expansion is not only economic (production,taxation,trade and commerce) but also ethico-political(that is, normativesystems of belief and ways of life). One of these instrumentsis the intellectualwho has established linkswith the people-nation,the "democraticphilosopher"or the national-popular intellectual.The "molecularpassage from the led to the leading group"describes the movement of local economic and culturalelites into the Roman leading groups, and their transformationinto hegemonic and national-not to mention imperial-actors and groups. Such were Marius or Cicero, who as novi homines representedthe growing importanceof Italian cities and their local leading groupsin Romanpolitics. In addition,both Machiavelli and Gramsciplay on the ironic nuances entailed by the phrase "unless you are powerfully armed"(Machiavelli) and by the observationthatideological and diplomaticinfluencewill producethe "results of a victoriouswar withoutneeding to fight"(Gramsci).For in both cases militarypower and victory in war are usually the productsof political institutions andmoral-ideologicalelements.The warwith Hannibalis a case in point. Another is the Social War which the Romans won only by grantingto their Italianallies political and legal concessions whose priordenial had originally democracy"and "concession sparkedthe conflict. Thus, "imperial-territorial of leadership,"while describingwhat Gramscimeansby hegemony in its territorial and demographicguises, also assume the concentrationand deployment of dominationand "armedforce"-terms which for Gramscidefine "dictatorship"or the stateunderstoodin its narroworganizationalandbureaucraticsense. Machiavelli often links expansion of populationwith militaryforce and coercion, but his formulationof it is especially relevantto our discussion: Those who plan thata city shouldbecome a greatpower oughtwith all their ingenuityto strive to make it full of inhabitants....Thisis done in two ways: throughlove and throughforce. Throughlove, by keeping the ways open and safe for foreignerswho wish to come to live in it, in orderthateveryonemay live theregladly;throughforce, by destroying the cities nearby,andsendingtheirinhabitantsto dwell in your city....66 65Gramsci, QC, II, 1056. 66 Discourses, 2.3.
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"Love"recalls Gramsci'sformulaof the leadershipof allied groups (friends), and"force"parallelshis dominationof antagonisticgroups(enemies)one wishes to "liquidateeven with armedforce."Certainlyno rising power will acceptthe independenceof a powerful and aggressive neighbor:the growth of Rome requiredthe destructionofAlba Longa in the same way thatthe rise of the United States as a continentalpower requiredthe "ruin"of the variousnative American confederacies.For both Machiavelliand Gramsci,force and consent, dictatorshipand hegemony, and violence and persuasionthereforemutuallyreinforce each other. It is the expansion in territoryand in population-that is, hegemony andthe growthof a civil society-which makes the use of force and coercion both possible and effective. The extendedterritoryand the multiplicity of groupsandpeoples within it togetherform a "greatState"able to use and deploy military forces accordingto political and diplomaticnecessity. At the same time such a deploymentenablesthe state to attainits goals withoutneeding to use armed force. That is, diplomatic, ideological, and culturalinstruments of persuasion and leadershipbecome useful and importantrelative to force and violence. On the other hand, Gramsci notes, hegemony or imperial-territorialdemocracy could not exist underfeudalismbecause its social and political organization was founded on castes and on "closed groups."67Of course the latter are instancesof the economic-corporative,a pre-hegemonic,pre-politicalform of social organizationas well of social consciousness. In this sense the emergence of a civil society spelled the disintegrationof feudalism and the rise of the modem world. Feudalismcould conceive of a civil society only as a theological ideal, thatis, as the respublica Christiana,or as a religious social order, that is, the CatholicChurch. In a note on Italian humanismand the Renaissance Gramsci asserts that humanismwas "ethico-political,"not artistic.It was a searchinto the bases of an "Italian State" which should have been born together and parallel with France, Spain, England.In this sense humanismand the Renaissance have Machiavelli as their most representative exponent. He was "Ciceronian,"as Toffanin asserts [in Che cosa fu l'umanesimo],because he looked for its bases in the period precedingthe Empire,the imperialcosmopolis (and in this sense Cicero is a good point of reference in his opposition first to Catilina,and laterto Caesar-that is, in his struggle against the newly emerging forces both anti-Italianand cosmopolitanin nature).68
67Gramsci, QC, II, 1056. QC, III, 1936.
68 Gramsci,
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It is clear that Cicero is picturedas a national-popularintellectual(along with Machiavelli) who representsthe values and interestsof the Italiantowns and municipalities.Cicero is the representativeof that very societas Romana created by the Roman republicthroughits hegemonic expansion into an "imperial-territorialdemocracy."The Romanrepublicmay be conceived as a sociopolitical order(civitas), in which the city of Rome (urbs)representedthe center andlocus of a civil society held togetherby a complex articulationof language, culture,and ideology embodiedin independentinstitutionsand associations.It was "ethico-political,"in the sense that it maintaineda balancebetween hegemony and dictatorship,force and consent, liberty and authority.On the other hand, Caesarand Octavianrepresentthe destructionof such a system and its replacementby an imperialcosmopolis dominatedby extra-Italian,cosmopolitan intellectualsrecruitedfromthe provincesof the RomanEmpire.The movement fromthe national-popularto the cosmopolitan,in termsof the structureof power and relations of force within the empire, is a movement from societas and hegemony to despotismand militaryautocracy.69 By the turn of second century BC the Roman state, by means of a deft combinationof diplomatic,political, and economic measures, had created a kind of Italian"nation"whose regions and localities were linked intellectually and morally(not to mention socially and economically). Prominentand newly enfranchisedmembersof local oligarchiesand elites were slowly coopted into the Roman network of amicitia and clientela, whose practical interrelationships may be seen in the variouswritingsand speeches of Cicero.The demands of the Italiansfor more rightsas well as citizenshipbecame an importantissue in the power strugglewithinthe Romanoligarchicfactions.As the political and social relationsbetween Rome and Italy began to coalesce into a new type of state, intellectualssuch as Cicero began to addressit conceptuallyand politically and to place it within the context and traditionof Greekpolitical thought andpractice.Cicerowas well positionedto play such a role: he was Italian,yet at the same time a Romanwhose family had acquiredits citizenship about six generations earlier.He took the Stoic idea of the universal fatherland-the kosmos-which transcendedindividual fatherlands,and applied it to Roman andItalianpoliticalrealities.70In the process,however,the concept,in the hands of a Roman and a practicalpolitician, was transformedand politicized. InDe officiisCicerodescribesparticularkindsof socio-culturalandpolitical association or community:tribe, people, language, municipality,and finally 69 On this, see BenedettoFontana,"Caesarismin Gramsci,"paperdelivered at an International Conference on Bonapartism, on the bicentenary of the 18th Brumaire of Napoleon Bonaparte,sponsoredby the GermanHistorical Instituteand the Conference for the Study of Political Thought,9-11 April 1999, HunterCollege, City Universityof New York. 70 See Neal Wood, Ciceros Social and Political Thought(Berkeley, 1988).
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state, where the last is seen as the highest spherewhich encompassesthe others.7'At the same time, he talks of Italy as thepatria or fatherlandin which are located these other forms of social organization.He writes: And what of our country [patria] herself.... How beauteous is Italy, how renownedare her cities [oppidorum]....How splendid is her metropolis [urbis], how enlightenedher citizens [civium], how majestic her commonwealth[reipublicae]....72 And in De legibus he states that all inhabitantsof Italiantowns and cities are membersof two fatherlands(patriae):theirbirthplace,a patria by nature(according to physis), and the Roman state or commonwealth,a patria described by civil law and rightandby citizenship(accordingto nomos or convention).73 The latteris superiorto the former.It is throughmembershipin the state, as a citizen, that one achieves a political status and a political consciousness. He explains: But that fatherlandmust standfirst in our affection in which the name of state [reipublicae] signifies the common citizenshipof all of us. For her it is our dutyto die, to her to give ourselvesentirely,to place on her altar,and, as it were, to dedicateto her service, all we possess. But the fatherlandwhich was our parentis not much less dear to us than the one which adoptedus. Thus I shall never deny that my fatherlandis here,thoughmy otherfatherlandis greaterandincludesthis one within it.74
In Cicero the Italianis a citizen of two cities: one by natureor birth,the other by law andcitizenship.The second civitas, however,is the productof the imperial expansionof the Romanrepublicand the transformationof the conquered peoples into citizens. But this changes the characternot only of the hegemonic power,but also of the allied state:for the latteris now a constituent(relatedand allied to others)of a greaterand superiorpolitical order.Political identitywas defined by membershipin the Roman civitas, and legal and juridical rights constitutedthe core of Romancitizenship.Of course the civitas was itself conceived as an association of cives. Romanitas,therefore,encompasseda complex of social, political,cultural,andpsychologicalfactors.Objectively,it meant the bundleof rightsthatdefined the legal andpolitical existence of the citizen. Subjectively,it entailedthe sense of belongingto a communitythattranscended 71
Cicero, De officiis. Cicero, Quir., 4. 73 Cicero, De legibus, 11.5.
72
74 Ibid., 11.5.
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the narrowlimits of personal,individual,or groupidentity-whether conceived in termsof the Stoic belief in a humankosmopolis(Cicero'ssocietas hominum), religion, or in termsof place of birth,ethnicity,dialect,tongue, or tribalorigin. At the same time, these particularitiesare not annihilatedor destroyed, but ratherpreservedand individuatedwithin the largerwhole. Thus, to become a Romancitizen is to entera universalrealmof rightand law, while retainingthe uniquely local characteristicsof town and city.75Such a notion of citizenship would seem to presupposethe autonomyof a multiplicityof local bodies and groups. V. As a Marxistrevolutionaryand historicist,Gramsciwould certainlyunderstandthe importanceof historicalcontext in ascribingmeaningandpurpose to ideas whose history is rich with many over-lappingand sedimentedlayers. This paperhas attemptedto uncover one layer of the intellecual landscapeof Gramsci'shegemony by relatingthe concept to its antecedentsin classical political thought.The parallelsit has tried to establish lead to two majorpoints. First,in both cases, the ancientand the Gramscian,hegemony was formulated and used within the context of political and social conflict. Hegemony may be seen as the generationof organizedpower within a given structureand its deploymentagainstan externalandcountervailingforce.Hegemonythusdescribes a movementtowardthe establishmentof"permanentconsent"(Gramsci)or a system of alliances (Isocratesand Aristotle) precisely because the prevailing relationsof power andthe establishedsocio-political structuresare fundamentally antagonistic.In both cases the paradigmaticmeasure of the political is conflict between mutuallyopposing interests-that is, precisely the model that Plato desiredto transcend. At the same time (andthis is the second point), the double aspect or meaning of hegemony-the formulationof a particularconception of life, and its elaboration and dissemination throughout a society-is paralleled in the Isocrateanformulationlogos hegemon.As such,the termencompassesthephilosophical and political tension expressed by the antagonism between the Gorgianicand the Platonic logos. The formeris rhetoricaland focused on the generationand organizationof power; the latter is philosophic and directed towardthe rationalunderstandingof reality.While one looks towardthe particular(power), the otheraims at the universal(reason).Gramsci'shegemony, therefore,describes a double movement of reciprocaltransformation:as philosophy moves towardpolitics, politics becomes philosophy.As such, it exhibits a duality and a tension not unlike those evinced by the conflict between sophistic rhetoricand philosophicreason. BaruchCollege, the City Universityof New York. 75See also Ad. Q.fr., I, 1, 2; andPro Balbo, VIII, 21-22.
The
and
Postmodemisms
of
Rise the
"End
of
Science"
GeraldHolton In a remarkableessay, "TheApotheosis of the RomanticWill,"IsaiahBerlin leadsup to a key questionfacinghistoriansof ideastoday.He begins with the observationthat beliefs have enteredour culturethat "drawtheirplausibility" from a deep and radicalrevolt againstthe centraltraditionof Westernthought. Thatcentraltraditionrestedon the "pillarsof the social optimism,"which had found its fullest expressionin the Enlightenment,"thatthe centralproblemsof men are, in the end, the same throughouthistory;thatthey are in principlesolvable; andthatthe solutionsform a harmoniouswhole."' But these pillars, Berlin notes, "came under attacktowardthe end of the eighteenthcenturyby a movementfirstknownin Germanyas SturmundDrang, and later in the many varieties of romanticism... and the many contemporary formsof irrationalismof boththe rightandthe left, familiarto everyonetoday." In our time, in the alleged absence of"objective rules,"the new rules are those made up by the rebels: "Ends are not ... objective values," and "ends are not discovered at all but made, not found but created."And he concludes: "The prophetsof the nineteenth-centurypredictedmany things ... but what none of them, so far as I know,predictedwas thatthe last thirdof the twentiethcentury would be dominatedby ... the enthronementof the will of individualsor classes, and the rejectionof reason and orderas being prisonhouses of the spirit.How did this begin?"2 As if to ensurethatthe questionbe consideredcentralto the understandingof our age, Berlin addsthatthe explosion of irrationalismis one of the "outstandingcharacteristicsof ourcentury,the most demandingof explaI am happy to acknowledge supportfrom the LounsberyFoundationand the help of my research associate, Dr. GerhardSonnert.An earlier version of this essay was delivered as a lectureat the Conferenceon Originsof Postmoderism (Boston University,20 November 1998). 1In Isaiah Berlin, The CrookedTimberof Humanity.Chaptersin the History of Ideas, ed. Henry Hardy(New York, 1992). 2 Ibid, 208-13.
327 2000byJournal of theHistoryof Ideas,Inc. Copyright
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nation and analysis."3Elsewhere he also appeals to seek the causes of "what appearsto me to be the greatesttransformationof Westernconsciousness, certainly in ourtime."4 Focusing my presentationchiefly on the aspects concerningscience, one may well rephraseBerlin'squestion:how did it come aboutthatwe have passed againin many areasinto what SusanHaackcalls an "Age of Preposterism?"5that,for example,scientists,who arenow in a periodof spectacularadvancesof knowledge acrossthe board,find a whole arrayof highly placed academicsand journalistsassertingthat scientists' hopes to reachobjective truths(two highly suspectwordsnow) are in vain because thereis no differencebetween the laws scientists find in natureand the arbitraryrules thatgovernbaseballgames; that science is "justone language game among others";that we must "abolishthe distinctionbetween science and fiction";that"Thenaturalworld has a small or non-existentrole in the constructionof scientific knowledge";and in any case, as the title of a currentbestseller has it, we are at TheEnd of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilightof the ScientificAge."6 These areonly a few glimpses, indicatorsof a streamof derogations,issuing from academeand the media. But happily,my concernhere is not with the details of the currentmanifestationof whathas been called the war on science but ratherwith examples of its historic lineage, with earlierphases of what Isaiah Berlin called the "RomanticRevolt."7Herewe must begin our analysisby recognizing thatany such multifacetedmovementis best understoodas a reaction againstwhat went before, againstwhat became so unsatisfactoryor even intolerableas to cause the revolt. Historically,the most obvious and early reaction of this sort was the response to the breakthroughsin the seventeenthcenturythatformedscience and simultaneouslysignaledthe greatrupturefromthe ancientworldview,in which the individual,in principle,hadbeen ableto be bothintellectuallyandspiritually comfortable.As one of the direct ancestorsof romanticism,JohannGottfried Herder(1744-1803), put it, premoders could still understandand grasp "the solid orderof nature,andthey lived safely within it";8but afterthe rise of mod3
Ibid., 1.
4 Isaiah Berlin, The Roots of Romanticism(Princeton, 1999), 20.
5 Cf her Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate (Chicago, 1998). 6 See GeraldHolton, Science and Anti-Science (Cambridge,Mass., 1993), ch. 6; Einstein, History, and OtherPassions: The RebellionAgainst Science at the End of the TwentiethCentury (Reading, 1996), ch. 1; Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity(London, New York, 1998);Alan Sokal andJeanBricmont,Fashionable Nonsense: PostmodernPhilosophers' Abuse of Science (New York, 1998); Noretta Koertge (ed.), A House Built on Sand. Exposing PostmodernistMyths about Science (Oxford, 1998). 7 Berlin, CrookedTimber, 229. 8 Quoted in Alexander Gode-von Aesch, Natural Science in GermanRomanticism(New York, 1941), 51.
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em science, in the words of Jean Paul Richter,mankindfound itself lost in a mechanisticsolarsystem, that"all-powerful,blind, lonesome machine." Each field has its own date for the onset of its offensive modernity.For science the plausible date when "humancharacterchanged"is not, as Virginia Woolf put it, "in or about December 1910"; but it is February1605, when JohannesKepler,while workingon his AstronomiaNova, laid out his breathtaking ambitionin a letterto his friend,Herwartvon Hohenburg: I am muchoccupiedwith the investigationof the physicalcauses [of the motionsof the solarsystem]. My aim in this is to show thatthe celestial machineis to be likenednot to a divine organism,but ratherto a clockwork...,insofaras nearlyall the manifoldmovementsarecarriedout by means of a single, quite simple ... force, as in the case of a clockwork [all motions are caused] by a simple weight. Moreover,I shall show how this physical conceptionis to be presentedthroughcalculationand geometry.9 We know the ensuing catalogue of what one side regardedas triumphsof reason and experiment,and the other as deeply felt assaults on the previous sourcesof mankind'sstatureandself-confidence,as cultureshockandepistemic trauma,to use modem argot.The list of indictmentsis long: Galileo's completion of the decenteringof the humanabodein January1610, when his telescope revealed the existence of moons aroundJupiter,thereby launchingmankind, with reducedsignificance,into the unboundCopemicanvoid andcausingJohn Donne's anguishedoutburstof 1611, "Tis all in peeces, all cohaerencegone"; the elevationof the quantitativein natureover the qualitative;the objective and skepticalover the subjectiveandmystical;the separationof the naturalfromthe the validationof rationalover intuitivediscourse;the "disenchantsupernatural; ment of Nature"(in Max Weber'sterm), partlyby turningaway from the ancient fascinationwith individual,wondrous,portentousinstances, and toward the searchfor generaland overarchinglaws; from individualbelief to sharable results;the downgradingof the contemplativerelationwith nature,in favor of active intervention;andabove all the mechanizationof the model of the universe in IsaacNewton's publishedwritings-if one neglects the few passages in them which hinted that Newton was no Newtonian but ratherprivately a life-long searcherfor the natureof the divinity.Of coursethe change of the predominant worldviewwas slow andcomplex,with seeminglycontradictorystrainscoexisting for a long time (as scholars such as Alexandre Koyre, E. A. Burtt, and Helene Metzgerpointed out long ago). But appropriately,the word modernity 9 Letterof Kepler, 10 February1605, in Max CasparandWaltervon Dyck (eds.), Johannes Kepler in seinen Briefen (Munich, 1930).
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andits cognates enteredthe English languagestartingas early as the 1620s. As the romanticdramatistHeinrichvon Kleist put it later:"Paradiseis now bolted and barred." More elements of modernismfollowed: the postulationof the mind-body dualism,the findingsof evolutionism,some of the tenetsof psychoanalysis,each addingto the de-divinizationof man and Nature,which FriedrichSchillerhad called the Entg6tterungder Natur.As Koyre remarked: The mighty,energeticGod of Newton who actually"ran"the universe accordingto His free will and decision, became, in quick succession, a conservative power, an intelligentia supra-mundana, a "Dieu faineant"...The infinite Universe of the New Cosmology ... inheritedall the ontological attributesof Divinity.Yet only those-all the othersthe departedGod took away with Him.10 During the last two centuriesit has seemed to many that science became ever more arcane,and technology a blind juggernaut.Some overreachingremarksby scientists,fromLaplaceto WilhelmOstwaldto StephenHawking,did not help either.But all the deeds andmisdeedschargedagainstthe mindsetof the Enlightenment,all the excesses of the projectof modernityandits inherentpracticalandpsychologicalincompleteness,mustbe understoodwith sympathy.They servedperiodicallyto coalesce a criticalmass of strenuousobjectorsof a great variety, from the clergy under Pope UrbanVIII in the days of Galileo to the brilliantpoets, Keats, Byron, Shelly and Blake-William Blake, who regarded Newton as his personal Satan-and from the mystic Jacob B6hme to a recent lecturerwho, to great applause,called for the "returnto the Holy Darkness." Thus the periodic rebellions against the worldview evolving from the rise of modem science-itself to a high degreethe child of a reactionin the seventeenth centuryagainstthe canon of the ancients-must be understoodas episodic upwellings of a bipolarsentimentdeeply rootedin the humanpsyche: one partan aching mourningfor a glamorized earlier state of humanity,the other part a desperatelonging for a utopianrestitution,in new form, of what had been lost. Throughouthistory,suchpassionatesentimentmay dominatefor a few decades, even inspireimmortalworksby philosophers,poets, composers,andartists,and then largelysubsidein the face of a slowly rising oppositionto its excesses. Yet it may leave a continuingundercurrentwhich, on the personalscale, each individual feels, but which, on a large scale, preparesfor the next rise, the next phase of the RomanticRebellion. To illustratethe context and variety of these majoroutbreaksover the past two centuriesI select here from many worthy examples only two, necessarily 10Alexandre Koyr6, From the Closed Worldto the Infinite Universe (New York, 1958), 276.
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focusingon the intellectualratherthanthe social factors.And to signalthe widely differingaspects of the phenomenonwe are discussinghere, I have chosen one thatwas relativelybenign, and one thatwas diabolicallydestructive.But both have left tracesin today's still differentversions of the RomanticRebellion. The first example is the ascent of Naturphilosophie,prominentfor a few decades at the beginning of the nineteenthcentury.One of its main sources is, perhapssurprisingly,a majesticfigure in the historyof ideas who arguablyrepresentsboth an admirerof the seventeenth-centuryscientific revolution,and,at the same time, throughidiosyncraticreadingsof his work,was used for a rebellion againstit. I speakof ImmanuelKantof K6nigsberg(1724-1804), thatveritable mountainfromwhich differentstreamsof thoughtdescended,like one of those peaks on the ContinentalDivide which gives birthto rivuletsthatdiverge, grow, andeventuallyend up in differentoceans. Kant'sdeep interestin Newtonian science had startedin his studentyears. At age 31 he publishedhis "UniversalNaturalHistoryandTheoryof the Heavens," with a subtitle ending with the words "Treatedaccordingto Newtonian Principles."It is full of remarkableanticipationsof subsequentcosmological findings andtheories.But unlike the Newtonianswho followed only Newton's mechanisticPrincipia and Opticks,the early Kant saw God as still directing Natureafterhaving createdspace, time, matter,and the laws of Nature.But in the Critiqueof Pure Reason of 1781 he despairedof providinga proof for the existence of God, althoughhe left the door open, by denying that there ever could be a disproofof His existence-a point of majorimportanceto his later pietistic followers.Also, in the Critiqueof Pure Reason space andtime became conditionsof humanknowledgebasedin Categories,in intuitionspreexistingin every mind.Thushe launchedhis transcendentalidealism,in which the formof experienceis suppliedby the humanmindwhile the realmaterialworld outside the humanself is the sourceof experiencethatcomes to us throughsensations. The lateridealists,who believed themselvesto follow Kant,went much further. Thus FriedrichWilhelm Schelling would hold that there was no need to dirty one's handswith experiments. Five years afterthe first Critiquecame Kant'sMetaphysicalFoundations Natural Science. In it a point essential for our purposesis Kant's view that of "motiveforces,"of only two kinds, attractionand repulsion,are providingthe fundamentalattributesof matter.This theme of two opposing forces determining naturalphenomenahadalreadypreoccupiedthe alchemistsandthe sixteenthcenturyiatrochemistssuch as Paracelsusand van Helmont. As elaboratedby Kant,the polarityof forcesmasksa "hidden[versteckte]identity,"which allows one to hypothesize a unity, a fundamentalGrundkraftforce of which all other forces arevariants.Werecognizeherea thematicline thatgoes backto Thalesof the Ionians,who looked for one substanceor essence to explainall phenomena of the materialworld, and forwardto the attemptsof the physicists in this cen-
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tury to unify all four main forces of natureinto one. The old Ionian Enchantment, active at the very beginning of science, infected also Kant, for whom Unity was the first of all the Categories;and as we shall see, it also inspired those who regardedthemselves as his pupils. To those ImmanuelKantprovidedthe well-springsfromwhich issued two contrarymain directionsof thought.One is exemplified in the later scientific work of HermannHelmholtz, Emil Du Bois-Reymond, and Rudolf Virchow, successor to the Newtonian synthesis who embracedthe experimentalcontact with natureand the interestin Newtonian science, which had all been part of Kant'sthought.But on the otherside, Kantcouldbe read,or misread(as Friedrich Schlegel did) as the fatherof a very different and new view of science, one infusedwith the Romanticismof the "NaturePhilosophers." Those Naturphilosophenwere numerousenough to create a critical mass that sent their ideas exploding into the intellectuallife of the period. They includedFriedrichSchelling,friendof Hegel, of the brothersF. andA. W. Schlegel, of Novalis, and of Goethe, and enormouslyinfluentialon his later followers. Schelling sharedwith most of his friends the view that natureis an organism ratherthana mechanism,thatthe world containsa single Urkraftwhich, thanks to its inherentpolarity,producesa conflict between its diverse exemplifications in nature;thatmatter,contraryto Newtonianphysics, was never inert,but was alive, andsubjectto the conflict thatexplainsgrowth,decay,andchemicalreactions. In oppositionto the rationalismfavoredby the Enlightenment,Schelling's books,suchas PhilosophiederNatur(1797), celebratedintuition,andhe founded twojournalson so-called "SpeculativePhysics."JohannWilhelmRitter,chemist, physicist, physiologist, a tragicand unrulyfigure, thougha prolific experimenter,dabbledin occultism and, like many othersin this group,believed in a WorldSoul animatingnature,causing all phenomenato be interdependentand unified. Lorenz Oken, naturalscientist and philosopher,also supportedan enthusiasticromanticismthroughhis concept of Ur-man,and the evolution of all life forms from a primalslime. And ChristianWeiss, with fundamentalcontributionsto crystallography, was deeplyinfluencedby Kant,Schelling,andJohann GottliebFichte. Fichte's book, Wissenschaftslehre(1794), powerfully infused the Romanticmovementwith his idea of the primacyof the individualego, the constructionof value by the creativehumanself ratherthanon the historiccanons, andthe freedomfromobjectiverules. Despite manydifferences,these men hadmuch in common.L. PearceWilliams has pointedout thatthey all were bornwithin a span of eight years in the 1770s, the decade that launched,first in literature,the period named after the play SturmundDrang by F. M. Klinger, 1777.11They grew up in the aftermath I L. Pearce Williams, "Kant, 'Naturphilosophie'and Scientific Method,"in R. N. Giere
and R. S. Westfall (eds.), Foundationsof Scientific Method: The NineteenthCentury (Bloomington, 1973).
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of the Terrorandthe disintegrationof RevolutionaryFranceand,recoiling from it, came to believe that"withoutGod, therecould be no social order."They gave free runto theiremotions in theirwritings,often takingexcessive risks, as well as being open to the artsandespecially to literature.As Williamsput it, "All felt the nearecstasy of creativityspringingfrom the active mind. Spiritwas as real to them as body. All underwentyouthful crises, and discovered Kant as the answerto theirpersonalangst."Kant'sloophole for the existenceof God (by the impossibilityof the disproofof His existence) was, as they read it, a liberation that gave a place to the highest intelligence in nature,as well as freedom for rampantspeculationin science precisely a point to which Kant would have objectedstrongly. Even these necessarily fragmentarycharacterizationsindicate persistent themes parallelto some ideas espoused in the currentphase of the Romantic movement.But therearealso fundamentaldifferences.The most obvious one is thatalmostevery NaturePhilosopherof the eighteenthandfirstpartof the nineteenthcenturyhad, fromtheirperspective,an intense and honorableinterestin scientific matters,even if non-Romanticscientistssuch as J6nsJacobBerzelius and Justusvon Liebig would have none of it. Liebig famously cried out: "the activitiesof the Naturphilosophenarethe pestilence,the black deathof the century."But most scientifically inclined NaturePhilosopherstried to, and some did, contributeto science in their way. For example, after William Herschel discoveredinvisible infraredlight at one end of the spectrum,JohannWilhelm Ritterdiscovered invisible ultravioletlight to exist at the other end, reasoning entirely from the Romanticpenchantfor analogy and polarity.And there was one who ironicallydid stumbleon a most fundamentalscientific advanceby a fanciful interpretationof Kant'sideas. It is a case worth lingeringon for a moment. This man, for whom I have a special fondness, was the Danish scientist Hans Christian0rsted-a typical Romantic, in his incessant attemptsto reenchantnatureby endowing her with Geist or spirit,as in his book TheSoul in Nature,in his pietism, even in his effusion into poetry.12 He made room in his own researchfor speculationand intuition,and for whathe called, in the happyphrase,the willingnessto allow the scientificimagination to be guided by an "anticipatingconsonance with Nature."But on the otherhand,arguingthatthe humanmindreflectsDivine reasononly very dimly, Oerstedknew he also had to subjectthose intuitionseventuallyto experiment. And that he did, preservingin that respect a continuitywith the Newtonians, despite the ideological differences and mutual disdain between these two worldviews.He studiedin Berlinfora timeunderFichteandthebrothersSchlegel, 12
Most of 0rsted's scientific papers, with useful introductions,are available in Kristine Meyer (ed.), H. C. Orsteds Scientific Papers (3 vols.; Copenhagen, 1920), and KarenJelved, Andrew D. Jackson, and Ole Knudsen (eds.), Selected Scientific Worksof Hans Christian Orsted (Princeton, 1998).
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but his idiosyncraticreadingof ImmanuelKantwas 0rsted's main guide from the beginning.0rsted's doctoralthesis in philosophyof 1799 was on the "Metaphysics of ExternalNature,"which was a recastingand extension of the book MetaphysischenAnfangsgriindeby the man whom 0rsted called, at the very beginningof the treatise,"theimmortalKant."'3 But 0rsted also accepted Schelling's interpretationof Kant, that nature's phenomenawere to be explainedby a "conflict"betweenopposingexemplifications of the unitaryforce thatsustainedmatteritself. So in an essay publishedin 1805 at age 28, Oersted announcedthat electricity and magnetism-then regardedas completelydifferentandunrelatedforces by all mainstreamscientists in Europe-were, on the contrary,related"dynamicprocesses,"explainableas "the interactionof opposite fundamentalforces in a different form."'4Seven years laterhe explicitly used Kantianideas of the one basic force underlyingits polarexemplificationsto explainthatunderdifferentcircumstancesthese should take the form of electricity,magnetism,heat, light and chemical reactions,dependingon the experimentalconditions. It took until one evening in April 1820 for 0rsted to get aroundto first actuallytestinghis ferventlyheld ideasby experiment.He expectedthatin a thin wire the electriccurrent,consideredto be inherentlya conflictof opposingparts, would reveal a magneticfield. The theorywas entirelywrong. But his demonstrationof the actualproductionof magnetismby an electriccurrentsucceeded, and was 0rsted's passport to immortality.15 This synthesis set in motion the eventual elaborationof the theorythroughAmpere, Faraday,and Maxwell, as well the inventionof electro-magneticdevices, fromtelegraphy,motorsandgenerators,telephony,and much else that is at the heartof the productsof modem industry.Thus,ironically,in tracingits ancestry,modem science andtechnology can discover a Naturphilosophamong theirforbears. Needless to say, 0rsted's achievementhadtwo very different,perhapsconflicting, effects in the historyof ideas. To the NaturePhilosophers,it was proof, if proof they needed, of the correctnessof theirbasic idea thatnaturewas, contraryto Kepler,one coherentorganism,a dynamic,pulsatingplaygroundof the basic force in its various guises, and infused by spirit. But on the other hand, 0rsted's achievementin physicswas soon reinterpretedandunderstoodin terms of thefieldphysicsof Faraday,Maxwell,Helmholtz,Hertz,andothers,all working in the Newtonian,even mechanistictradition.Theirtriumphshelpedput an end to the strangleholdwhich NaturePhilosophy and the RomanticRebellion had held on much of the Europeanimaginationfor a few decades.The greatwave of fundamentallybenignRomanticscience andphilosophysubmerged,at least for 13 Jelved et
al., op cit., 80. Ibid., chap. 19, "New Investigationsinto the Question:What is Chemistry?" 5 Meyer, op. cit., II, 214-18. See also ibid., 223-45 and 351-98. There is a large amountof secondaryliteratureon this discovery. 14
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a time (with some partsof it playingitself out againin the fights aroundDarwinism laterin the century). In the twentiethcentury,therewas one sequel afteranother,andthis brings me to my second, far darkerexample of the periodic ascent of the Romantic Rebellion againstwell establishedscientific ideas andmethods.The new flight from reason and from the old orderbegan to appearin such works as Oswald Spengler'sapocalypticbook TheDecline of the West(1918), in which soul-less science was singled out as a cancer,markingthe inevitable, early end of our civilizationandof science with it, thuspreparingfor the takeoverof a new form of culture.In 1922 the great scholarof theology Adolf von Harack spoke for many concernedintellectualswho saw and fearedthe trend:"Throughoutthe Europeanworld of cultureof today there swells up again an internationalRomanticwave.... Insteadof science and scholarshipone calls for 'Life,' and for 'Intuition,'insteadof reason."16 Spengler'sbook, for example, had all the earmarksof the revolt, in its outrageousspeculations,its excitingpredictions,its distastefor all thatthe Enlightenmentideals represented.17 Not surprisingly,most influentialthinkersrejected it. But it found an enthusiasticaudiencein an initially obscuregroupof politically ambitiousStiirmerwho were intenton producinga new rupturein history, a new form of culturebased on a refurbishedSturmundDrang ideology. They were of coursethe leadingmembersof the NationalSocialistpartyin Germany. They soughtout Spenglerpersonally,to recruithim to theircause. To his credit, Spenglerrebuffedthem. But of coursethey did not need him to succeed. In greaterandgreatermeasure,theirfollowers in the populaceat largeopenedtheirheartsto the message of these self-declarednew leaders,a message thatonce againturnedaway from the core concepts of the Enlightenment.Those concepts, as Isaiah Berlin and othershave pointed out, were unwittinglyimplicatedin the rise of totalitarian tyrannies,becausethe rebellionswere engineeredspecificallyagainstthem.But the totalitarians,as so often, were also vastly helped by the ineffectivenessand tardinessof opposing forces to mobilize themselves.While all the earlier,nineteenth-centuryrebels I have mentionedwould have criedout in horror,this new group adoptedsome of the language and orientationof Romanticism-a fact contraryto the occasionalpreposterousallegation(e.g., by ZygmundBauman)'8 thattotalitarianismhad its roots fully in modernity. 16Adolf
von Hamack, Erforschtesund Erlebtes (Giessen, 1923), 344. 17Oswald Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes: Umrisse einer Morphologie der Weltgeschichte,vol. I, Gestalt und Wirklichkeit(Vienna, 1918); Spengler,Der Untergangdes Abendlandes:Umrisseeiner Morphologieder Weltgeschichte(Munich, 1980), which contains, in revised edition, both I, Gestalt und Wirklichkeit,and II, WelthistorischePerspektiven(originally published 1922); Spengler, The Decline of the West,I (New York, 1926), and II (1928). See Science and Anti-Science, ch. 5. 8 Zygmunt Bauman,Modernityand the Holocaust (Itahca,N.Y., 1989), and Intimations of Postmodernity(London, 1992).
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I thus will end tracingkey episodes of the rise of postmodemismsby highlighting one of the darkestphases of the anti-moder movement, insofar as it intersectedwith science. TheNaturphilosophen,no matterhow misguidedor confusedsome of their writingsseem, hadbeen as a groupratheradmirableopponentsof the contemporaryscientific worldview. Many were deeply learnedscholars,or well known poets, or serious scientists, and a few among the lattermade contributionsto traditionalscience despitethemselves.But the morerecentmanifestationof the RomanticRebellion to which I am now turningis in all these respectsthe very opposite. As FritzSter, Alan Beyerchen,Anne Harrington,andothershave shown,19 the National Socialist movement, even while holding on to some pro-moder elements, especially technology,was at its inception largely rooted in various romanticideas, whose common denominatorwas the rejectionof much of modernity.Oftenthese expressedthemselvesin so-calledvolkischeconcepts,characterizedby idealizednotionsof the non-rationalfiberof the Germanpeople and of its quasi-mythologicalpre-modernlife style. These concepts,in partdesigned to providea "meaningfulness"thatmodernismfor manychronicallyhas lacked, were celebratedin mystical Germanicassociations and Orders.The National Socialistsbuilt on thatbackward-looking,folk-orientedresentmentof rationality.As Hitlerexplicitlystatedin MeinKampf,his idealwas the "v6lkischeStaat." The scientist Philipp Lenardrejectedmuch of moder physics in favor of the ether,which he associatedwith the seat of the GermanGeist or spirit. He and his fellow Nobel Prize winner JohannesStark,in common with many others, rejectedthe notion of scientific objectivityby claiming that the race of the researcherswould determinetheirphysics. For example, Stark'sso-called "German physics"would stress directcontactwith nature,as againstwhat he called "Jewishphysics,"which he chargedwith emphasison theoryandabstraction.A similarmovementheld sway in mathematics. Outof the hellishwelterof thatmovementI wantto lift to visibility only one bizarrebuttellingandlargelyunknownexampleof thisphaseof the rebellion.In 1912, almosta decadebeforethe firstassertionsof explicitNazism in Germany, the Austrianengineer Hanns H6rbigerhad his ideas publishedunderthe title Laterknown by the title World-IceTheory, Horbigers Glacial-Kosmogonie.20 the mainpoint of the workranas follows: the world is underthe influenceof the 19Fritz Stem, The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology (Berkeley, 1961); Alan Beyerchen, The Scientists UnderHitler: Politics in the Third Reich (New Haven, 1977);Anne Harrington,ReenchantedScience: Holism in GermanCulture from WilhelmII to Hitler (Princeton,1996); also Ute Deichmann,Biologists underHitler (Cambridge, Mass., 1996), and Paul R. Josephson, TotalitarianScience and Technology(Atlantic Highlands, N.J., 1996). 20 Publishedby HermannKaysers Verlag, Kaiserslautem.
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eternal warfarebetween two contraryprinciples, Plutonism and Neptunism. Correspondingly,there exist two types of celestial bodies with polar opposite character-hot ones, such as suns, and ice-covered ones. In the distant past several of the lattertype crashedinto the earth,which, Horbigerwrote, would explain a number of basic facts observable on earth now, as well as special historicalevents such as (of course)the destructionof Atlantis.Otherice bodies fell into the sun, with the resultingsuperheatedwatervaporexplosively ejected; on cooling downthatbecameCosmic Ice, most of which formedthe MilkyWay, the rest falling to earthas hail.21 Germanscientistsrejectedthis fablewith scorn,butit becamepopularamong the generalreadersand eventuallyreachedthe highest echelons of the National Socialistregime. Thispoint, I must interpolate,toucheson my own mainobjection to the romanticand antiscientificrebellion,namely,thatwhile it may subvert some academicdepartmentsandmedia,divertstudentsfroma solid education, and for the masses act only as yet anotheropiate, that rebellion is most ominous as a deadly weapon when adopted by political leaders, whether in Lysenko'sSoviet Union, in Mao's China,or here at home. Among the NationalSocialist leadership,perhapsthe most enthusiasticfollower of the world-icetheorywas HeinrichHimmler,graduateof MunichTechnical University, Chief of the SS, and proponentof the volkische, backwardlooking aspects of National Socialism. Believing himself to be in contactwith the spiritworld, he wantedto replaceChristianitywith his own brandof a racebased, secularreligion-a paganistrevivalof pre-ChristianGermanicpractices andbeliefs which containeda strongadmixtureof ancestor-worship.To further his purpose,he initiateda numberof researchinstitutes,among them foremost one called "Das Ahnenerbe,"dedicatedto uncoveringthat heritage.A whole departmentof thatorganizationwas devotedto theworld-icetheory.InHimmler's mind it connectedwith his notion thatthe so-called Aryanshad descendednot from early apes but from heaven, by originatingin sperms conserved in the Cosmic Ice which fell on earth.The ice mythologyalso suitablyevoked the idea of the Nordic origin of the Aryans and the ancient Scandinavianepics. The resonancewith Romanticthinking was also preserved,from Horbiger'sown writings on, in an inheritancefrom Nature Philosophy of the theory that the phenomenain theuniversespringfroma dichotomyof two basic forces-straight out of the Romanticpreoccupationwith polaritywe have seen in actionbefore, but expressedin the world-ice theoryin the dualismof fire and ice. The equally sinister figure, propagandaminister Josef Goebbels, had no reason to oppose these fantasies.His doctoraldissertationat the University of Heidelberghad the title "Wilhelmvon Schiitz:A Contributionto the Historyof 21
See BrigitteNagel, Die Welteislehre(Stuttgart,1991), and RobertBowen, UniversalIce (London, 1993).
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the Dramaof the RomanticSchool"-a titlewhichhe changedlaterconveniently in his official biographyto a more politically significant one, "The SpiritualPolitical Movements in the Early RomanticPeriod."Schiitz, by the way, was romantic amongthe leastproductiveandmost maudlinearlynineteenth-century poets and was obsessed by the idea that with the loss of premodem, agrarian Germanyall piety andinnocencehad left the land.His writingsarerepletewith romanticforests-the title of one of his plays (1808)-and with exotic voyages, occasionaldionysianfrenzy,andSehnsuchtfor the lost homeland.At any rateit may well be thatGoebbels,amongthe whole lot, was the one who most shamelessly and consciously manipulatedthe excesses of Romanticismfor the purposes of the movement. The task of explicitly concoctinga new spiritualization,to be spreadwidely by Goebbelsandothers,was given to Alfred Rosenberg,who laterbecame also foreign affairs secretaryof the Nazi Party. His book, The Myth of the 20th Century, was the new ideological bible defining the National-Socialist Weltanschauung.First publishedin 1930 and embracedby Hitler,who otherwise insisted he had no forerunnersother than RichardWagner,Rosenberg's vicious diatribewent throughat least 130 editionsandwas meantto reachevery household.It declared"Ourtime,too, has its Romanticism,"althoughone steeped in the glorificationof force and "Volksgeist,"in racism, in what he called "the celebrationof the condeepmysteryof blood."Herder'slate-eighteenth-century cept of Volkand Volkstumhad undergonea grotesqueperversion. Much as one would like, one cannotavoid saying somethingaboutHitler's own role with respect to science. By trainingand temperamenthe had no patience with the traditionalHumboldtianstyle of Bildungbut ratherabrogatedit in favor of naturalinstinct-an echo of Herder's famous exclamation:"I am here not to think, but to be, feel, live!" Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that by contemporaryeducation"Manis only led away from the 'instinctof nature.'" As reportedby HermannRauschning,22 Presidentof the Senateof Danzig,Hitler said "Idon'twantthereto be any intellectualeducation,"andhe proclaimedthat mankindnow found itself at the "end of the Age of Reason." Race was the carrierof naturalinstinct,which needed to be liberatedfrom the dominanceof reason. An admirerof Schopenhauer,Nietzsche, and the eugenicist Houston StewartChamberlain,Hitlerbluntlyrejectedcore scientificprinciplescherished by the Germanprofessors-objectivity, truth,and respect for knowledge in its own right.He proclaimed,in sentences,which areuncannilysimilarto whatcan be heardtoday frompeople quite innocentof theirpredecessors:
HermannRauschning,Gesprdchemit Hitler (New York, 1940). Originallya follower of Hitler, Rauschning eventually became an opponent. Needless to say, his publication of the conversationswas laterthe subject of much debate. For example, see Nagel, Die Welteislehre. 22
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A new era of the magical explanationof the world is arising,an explanationbased on Will ratherthanknowledge. Thereis no truth,in either the moral or the scientific sense. The concept of an independent Wissenschaft,free of anypreconditions,could only emergein the age of liberalism. It is absurd. Science is a social phenomenon....With the slogan of objective science, the professoriatonly wanted to free itself from the very necessarysupervisionby the State. Thatwhich is called the crisis of science is nothingmorethan[that] the gentlemenarebeginningto see on theirown how they have gottenon to the wrong trackwith theirobjectivityand autonomy.23 ForHitler,universalistandobjectivescience was impossible,andall attemptsin thatdirectionshould end. He claimed:"therecan be only a science of a certain type of mankindandwithin a certainperiod.Thusthereis a Nordic science and a nationalsocialistic one, in contrastto the liberalisticJewish one."24 Not surprisingly,Hitlerwas also a greatsupporterof the world-ice theory; and, in character,he planned to celebrate it in one of his grand architectural schemes,the transformationof the city of Linz into a new metropolis.In 1942 he discussedwith AlbertSpeerits design, specifying a buildingthatwould contain "thethreeworldpictures:Ptolemy's,Copemicus's,andthe World-IceTheory."25 Finally,Hitler'spositionwith respectto science was to be madeoperational throughoutthe educationalsystem by BernhardRust, the Ministerfor Education of all Germany.Rustused the occasion of the 550th anniversarycelebration of the University of Heidelbergin 1936, before an internationalaudience, to explain why the Germanauthorities,from early 1933 on, had dismissed large numbersof scholars and scientists and changed the directionof the curricula fundamentally.As Rust put it in his talk entitled "NationalSocialism and the Pursuitof Learning,"26 you could notjust change a few regulations. It is our conviction that no significantreformin the pursuitof higher learningcan occur except as it proceeds from a new idea of what science [ Wissenschaft]really is.... It was necessaryto act with all the more rigor and firmness,in thatthese individualswere seen to be using as a screen for furtheringtheirown designs the prevailingtheoryregarding the pursuitof learning-namely, that it must be dispassionate,objective, free fromprejudiceandpreconception.
23
Ibid., 210-11. 24Ibid., 211. 25 Ibid., 298.
26TranslatedfromDas nationalistischeDeutschlandunddie Wissenschaft (Hamburg,1936). It contains the talks by Rust and Krieck at Heidelberg.
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The "expulsion"of the scientistsandthe otherscholarswas necessary,because to act otherwisewould, he said, only show "tolerancetowardthe arch-enemyof Germanself-confidence."In any case many of those expelled were "of alien blood [who] were by natureincapableof conformingtheirteachingto the spirit of Germanculture.""Science ... [is] not free, in that it is rooted in something otherthanscience,namelyphilosophy."NationalSocialism'sphilosophicalprinciples are the only basis on which science can find its "trueobjectivity." Rust'stalkwas followed by a speechby ErnstKrieck,Professorof Philosophy andPedagogic at Heidelberg,soon to become Rectorof the University.His talk was entitled"TheObjectivityof Science: a CrucialProblem."He dutifully repeatedthe mainpointsof Rustbuttook aim at ImmanuelKantin particularfor "claiming for science complete autonomy as if it were a law unto itself. The whole struggleof traditionversusreconstructioncentersaroundone crucialconcept: the objectivityof science." One must go beyond Kant,Krieckremarked, because "Thecase is simply this, thatan idea bornof the Enlightenment-that is, an idea of Westerncivilization,bearingthe marksof a limitedperiod-has set itself up as an absolute and declareditself a criterionapplicableto all peoples andat all times. Herewe have an exampleof Westernimperialism,a bold assertion of supremacy.""One cannot, like Kant, speak of 'mankindas such.' One must keep in mind the variousfundamentalracialcharacteristicsof the people concerned." And thenProfessorKrieckendedwith a warningto his unprotestinginternationalaudience:"We[in Germany]arecalledto lead the way. [Itis] a pathwhich our sisternations,some sooner,some later,aredestinedto tread."Startingthree years later,a supine world discovered the cost of not having taken those new myth-makersseriously. Looking back over these very differenthistoricalexamples of the periodic outbreakof the enthronementof the will and the rejectionof reasonand order, and thinking of the outbreaksin our Age of Preposterismtoday, we must of course not conclude thatthese convulsions are connectedby a neat causal line. Wemustexemptthe currentRomanticRebels fromany suspicionthatthey have even heardof any predecessorsin the rise of today'srebellionsandof theirurge to see the end of science of our day.Thuswhen one of them recentlywrote that faithin the progressivenessof scientific rationalismhas broughtherto the point where "a more radical intellectual, moral, social, and political revolution [is called for] thanthe foundersof modem Westernculturescould have imagined," she surelydidnot know thatthe same sentimentscharacterizedthe Germanideologues. There are also markedidiosyncrasiesin today's version, most notably the postmodernhorrorof Unity, unlike the penchantin favor of it in the earlier phases.
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But despite all the differencesbetween the cases, no matterhow benign or evil or even banalin each of theirexemplifications,the RomanticRebels of the past andof the present,in theirvery heartof hearts,sharethattwofold sentiment I mentioned at the beginning: that pitiable longing, that homesickness for an idealized,spiritualizedGoldenAge, assumedto have existedbeforemodem science, andat the same time a moreor less conscious determinationto bringabout a newly spiritualizedfuture.That twofold sentiment,playing against the real and imaginedfailureof modernismto provideadequateanswersto the psychological need for meaningfulness,is a chief source of energy and appeal of the movements-and probablyalwayswill be. JohannWolfgangvon Goethehinted at this syndromewhenhe wrote,afterstudyingthe mechanical-materialistic book of Holbach,Systemof Nature(1770): But how hollow andemptywe felt in this [book's]melancholic,atheistic half-night,in which the earthvanishedwith all its images,the heaven with all its stars.Therewas to be matterin motion fromall eternity,and by this motion, right,left, and in every direction,withoutanythingfurther,it was to producethe infinitephenomenaof existence.... [Andyet] we felt withinus somethingthatappearedlike perfectfreedomof will. I startedwith IsaiahBerlin's chilling observationthatno one predictedthat the laterpartof the twentiethcenturywould be dominatedby the "enthronement of the will" and the "rejectionof reasonand order."I have sketchedaspects of two earlierforms of the RomanticRebellion to help respondto his grave question, "How did this begin?"But our historicalexcursionteaches us also that,if insufficientlyattendedto and its excesses only lazily opposed, that variegated movement,in ever-newguises, will ariseto assertdominance,again and again. HarvardUniversity.
The
Paradox
Topos Lisa Gorton
As WilliamEggintonpoints out,' when Dante andBeatricestep outsidethe cosmos, they step into anotherset of concentricspheres.2These surroundour (supposedly)geocentriccosmos, and yet they centerupon God. The image affronts our logic of space. If these concentricspheres encompass us, how can they centerupon something somewhere else? The notion seems to turnspace inside-out. But Dante's spatialparadoxis not in trutha paradoxof space. Instead, it is a spiritualparadox,set in terms of space. When Dante and Beatrice step outsidethe cosmos, they step outsidespace into an old philosophicaltopos, a spatialimage of God. For thatreason,Dante's image is not really akin to the spatialparadoxesof modem astrophysics,althoughEgginton's comparisonof the two does provoke some fascinatingcomments upon medieval concepts of space. Egginton assesses Dante's paradoxin light of medieval debates about space, place, and God. However, he overlooks the most importantsource for Dante'sparadox-the symbolic geometryof Neoplatonicphilosophy.3 Neoplatonic philosophersuse spatial forms to imagine spiritualrelationships. They develop a symbolic geometry,a spatiallanguageof thought,which borrowsnothing from physical space but its shapes:the center,the circle, and concentricspheres.Neoplatonistsuse this symbolicgeometrybecauseit offersa spatialway to imagine the relationshipbetween a cause and its effect, without importingtime differencesinto thatrelationship.In this way they seek to avoid the problemsof time and causality,which the creation-mythin TimaeusintroducedintoPlato'sphilosophy:how andwhen coulda timelessbeing maketime?4 ' William Egginton, "Dante,Hyperspheres,and the Curvatureof the Medieval Cosmos," JHI, 60 (1992), 195-216. 2 Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, tr.Allen Mandelbaum(New York, 1984), XXVIII, 16-30. 3 Egginton does cite T. S. Kuhn's remarkson Neoplatonism, but only with regardto the valorizationof"ideal Immutableforms."Unfortunately,Eggintontreats"infinite,three-dimensional, flat space" as "one of these abstractforms."In fact the Neoplatonists treatedspace as finite and physical. Extension, and even dimension, was a kind of dividedness; the supreme being (which was beyond being) was dimensionless. They could never accept infinite space as a "form."See T. S. Kuhn, The CopernicanRevolution(Cambridge,1957), 128. 4 St. Augustine tackles the question in his Confessions,XI.
343 2000byJournal of theHistoryof Ideas,Inc. Copyright
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Plotinus,the firstNeoplatonist,uses symbolic geometryto design an "IntellectualCosmos,"which he treatsas quitedistinctfromourphysicalcosmos.5He imaginesthe source of life as a center: The Highest cannotbe divided and allotted ... thus a centreis an independentunity;everythingwithin the circle has its own termin the centre, andto the centrethe radiieach bringtheirown. (Enneads,V. 1. 11). The "Highest"exists as the centerof this "IntellectualCosmos."Plotinustreats a center'sgeometricqualitiesas metaphysicalattributes.Like anundimensioned centralpoint, the "Highest"does not exist in space or time, and yet space and time radiatefrom it as a circumferenceradiatesfrom its center. Thebaresymbolic space of Plotinus's"IntellectualCosmos"has emotional connotations.Plotinusholds that"thecenterof a circle is distinctivelya point of rest"(EnneadsII. 2. 1). Lesser beings must turnsequentiallythroughall the angles theircenterholds altogetherat once: There is, we may put it, somethingthat is centre;about it, a circle of light shed fromit; roundcentreandfirstcircle alike,anothercircle, light from light;outsidethatagain,not anothercircle of light but one which, lacking light of its own, must borrow.(Enneads,IV. 3. 17) In Plotinus's"IntellectualCosmos"life emanatesfromthe centerin concentric spheres.6
Dante andBeatricestep into such an "IntellectualCosmos"when they step outside the physical world. They step into a spatial image that stands outside time and space, at the spiritualcenterof the poem, when they step into spheres thatcenterupona lighttoo brightto look upon.Dantewonderswherethatcenter could be, and Beatrice respondsto his silent question:"Thenatureof the universe, which holds the centerstill andmoves all else aroundit, begins here as if fromits turningpoint"(XXVII, 106-9). Eggintoncomments,"Dante'sdescription of this absolutecenter as the origin of all movement and force in the universe" is "an 'eerie' likeness of what he [the moder astrophysicist,Robert Osserman]termsthe retro-verse."Morerelevantly,it also refersto the "IntellectualCosmos"of Neoplatonicphilosophy,wherethe "Highest"is a centerof rest, the startingpoint of light, movement,andlife. 5 Plotinus, The
Enneads, tr. S. MacKenna,rev. B. Page (London, 19692),1.3.4. This is the symbolic geometry John Donne calls upon when he declares, "God himselfe who had that omni-sufficiency in himselfe, conceived a conveniency for his glory, to draw a Circumferenceabout the Center,Creaturesabout himselfe." The Sermons of John Donne (10 vols., Berkeley, 1956) E. M. Simpson et al., IV, 330. 6
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Plotinus imitates the shape of our cosmos in his "Intellectual Cosmos," but he does not apply its logic to the physical world. For that, he is content to follow Aristotelian cosmology, in placing the highest physical power at the outermost circumference of space. As he says, "The dominant in a living thing is what compasses it entirely and makes it a unity" (Enneads, II. 2. 1).7 In the physical world, power encompasses us; in the spiritual world, power radiates from a center. These contradictory philosophies converge upon the shapes of center and sphere, to charge them with opposing kinds of meaning. This is the contradiction that lies behind the paradox of a God who is, at once, both center and circumference. In answer to Egginton's query: Dante's paradox of a circumference that is also a center is certainly "a common topos in medieval thought"-before and after the time of Dante.8 Of course, when Dante wrote the Commedia, he could not have read the Enneads. These were not available to European scholars until Marsilio Ficino's Latin translation appeared in 1492. Nevertheless, Neoplatonic philosophy passed into the European tradition through the writings of Augustine and Boethius and again, later, through the work of Arabic commentators on Aristotle, such as Avempace and Averroes.9 Nicholas of Cusa (1401-64) took up the topos with his celebrated dictum: God is a sphere "whose circumference is nowhere and whose center is everywhere" -an idea he attributed to Hermes Trismegistus.10 And certainly, new astronomers such as Kepler welcomed Neoplatonic symbolic geometry because it provided a spiritual rationale for heliocentrism. Indeed, they applied its "Intellectual" forms to the physical cosmos, and justified that bold expropriation by arguing that God was a mathematician, who wrote "this grand book, the universe, in the language of mathematics, and geometric figures.""
7 In this quote "living" implies physicality; Plotinus, Enneads, 11.2.1, says the One is beyond being. 8 Egginton (202), "Is this then a common topos in medieval thought? ... For the modem reader it requires a radical wrenching of mind from sense to conceive of a universe turned inside out, and yet [C.S.] Lewis implies that this way of thinkingcomes naturallyto the medieval mind. Perhapswe cannot say with certaintywhethersuch a model came naturallyto medieval thinkers." 9 Egginton notes the importanceof the Arabic commentatorsin his article. 10In Nicolas of Cusa, Of LearnedIgnorance, tr. GermainHeron (London, 1954) cited in: Giorgio de Santillana, The Age of Adventure. The Renaissance Philosophers, Selected, with Introductionand InterpretativeCommentary(New York, 1956), 53. Cusanus's dictum "connects"God with an infinitesphere.See DietrichMahncke,UnendlicheSphdreundAllmittelpunkt. Beitrdge zur Genealogie der mathematischenMystik (Halle, 1973). 1 TheAssayer in S. Drake, tr.Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo (GardenCity, 1957), 237-38.
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But perhapsthe most strikinginstanceof this paradoxcomes from Donne, who dramatizesit in his own robustlypersonalway: Here is a new Mathematiques;without change of Elevation, or parallax, I that live in this Climate, and standupon this Meridian,looke up andfixe my self upon God, And they thatareundermy feet, looke up to thatplace, which is above them,And as divers,as contraryas ourplaces are, we all fixe at once upon one God, andmeet in one Center.12 We pictureourselves at the centerof the cosmos, andthenhe bendsthe poles of our imaginationinto a spiritual"Center,"that is God. St. Hilda's College, Oxford.
12
Sermons, VII.307.
Books
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Adams, Christine.A Tastefor Comfortand Status:A Bourgeois Family in Eighteenth-CenturyFrance. University Park:PennsylvaniaUP, 2000. x, 292p, bibl., index. $65. Argumentfor the existence of a self-conscious, provincial bourgeois class priorto the Revolution. Al-Ghazali. The Niche of Lights. Trans. by David Buchman. Provo: Brigham Young UP, 1998. xxxv, 80p, bibl., index. ParallelEnglish-Arabictext. Al-Ghazali. TheIncoherenceof the Philosophers.tr.Michael E. Marmura.Provo: BrighamYoung UP, 1997. xxxi, 260p., index. ParallelEnglish-Arabictext. Algra, Keimpe, et al, eds. The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy. Cambridge:CambridgeUP, 1999. xix, 916p, bibl., index. $135. Twenty-twochapters, with listing of sources and fragments. Allan, Robin. WaltDisney and Europe: European Influences on the Animated Feature Films of WaltDisney. Bloomington: IndianaUP, 1999. xvi, 304p., bibl., index. Based on interviews and archivalresearchwith illustrations,many unpublished. Almond, Philip C. Adam and Eve in SeventeenthCenturyThought.New York: CambridgeUP, 1999. ix, 240p, bibl., index. $54.95. Centralityand reworkingsof the myth of Adam and Eve in the Westernreceptionof biblical texts. Amato, Joseph A. A History of the Small and Invisible Dust. Berkeley: U of CaliforniaP, 2000. xii, 262p., $22.50. Genesis and imagining of microcosm. Ammarell, Gene. Bugis Navigation (Yale SoutheastAsia Studies), 48. New Haven: Yale UP, 1999. xiv, 259p., bib., ill., index. Ethnographicaccount of system of transmissionof knowledge, with maps. Badiou, Alain. Deleuze: The Clamorof Being (Theory Out of Bonds series, 16). Tr.by Louise Burchill.Minneapolis:U of MinnesotaP, 2000. Translationof Deleuze: La Clameurde l'Etre (1997). Bagley, PaulJ., ed. Piety,Peace, and theFreedomto Philosophize.Boston:Kluwer Academic Publishers,1999. Eleven essays from the NorthAmericanSpinoza Society. Bahrdt, Carl Friedrich. The Edict of Religion. A Comedy and The Story and Diary of My Imprisonment.Trans.and ed. by John ChristianLaursenand Johanvan der Zande.Lanham,Md.: LexingtonBooks, 2000. 13lp. Translationof Religionsedikt (1788) and Geschichte un Tagebuchmeines Gefdngnisses(1790). Bayle, Pierre. Correspondance,vol. 1 (1662-74). Intro.by ElisabethLabrousse, EdwardJameset al. Oxford:VoltaireFoundation,1999. xliv. 432p., bibl., index. Sixtyfive letters with glossary, lists of letters and correspondents,and critical introductions. Bedini, Silvio A. The Life of Benjamin Banneker: The First African-American Man of Science. Baltimore:MarylandHistoricalSociety, 1999. xxiv, 428p, bibl., ill., index. Expandededition. Benson, Hugh H. Socratic Wisdom:The Model of Knowledge in Plato s Early Dialogues. New York, Oxford UP, 2000. ix, 292p., bib., index, $55. Epistemological aspect of socratic arguments. 349 Copyright2000 by Journalof the Historyof Ideas,Inc.
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Berthoff,Ann E. The MysteriousBarricades: Language and its Limits. Toronto: U of TorontoP, 1999. ix, 191p., index, $45. "Triadic"semiotics after Peirce, Sapir, Richards,Langer,et al. Blackwell, Constance, and Sachiko Kusukawa,eds. Philosophy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: Conversationswith Aristotle. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 1999. xxi, 415p., bibl., index. Nineteen scholarly essays from a conference held at Newnham College in 1993. Blaszczyk, Regina Lee. Imagining Consumers: Design and Innovation from Wedgwoodto Corning. Baltimore:Johns Hopkins UP, 2000. xiii, 380p., bibl., index. Americanmass consumersociety from the corporatepoint of view. Bragina, L. M., ed. Kul'tura vozrozhdeniia i vlast' [Renaissance Culture and Power]. Moscow: Nauka, 1999. 223p., ill., index. A new collection of twenty-one essays on the EuropeanRenaissancewrittenby Russian scholars. Brandist, Craig, and Galin Tihanov, eds. Materializing Bakhtin: The Bakhtin Circle and Social Theory. New York: St Martin'sP, 2000. viii, 207p., bibl., index. Nine interdisciplinaryessays on the historicizationand philosophical foundationsof Bakhtin's thought. Burke, Edmund.On Empire,Liberty,and Reform:Speeches and Letters. Ed. by David Bromwich. New Haven:Yale UP, 2000. viii, 525p., bibl., index. $35. Caplan,Jay. In the King s Wake.Post-AbsolutistCulturein France. Chicago: U of ChicagoP, 1999. 213p. Readingsof Saint-Simon,Voltaire,Marivaux,andCasanova. Caputo,JohnD., and Michael J. Scanlon, eds. God, the Gift and Postmodernism. Bloomington:IndianaUP, 1999. vii, 322, bibl., index. Twelve essays on the DerridaMariondebate, including responses by both philosophers. Carlino,Andrea.Books of the Body: AnatomicalRitual and RenaissanceLearnTr. ing. by John Tedeschi andAnne C. Tedeschi.Chicago:U of Chicago P, 1999. xiv, 266p., bibl., ill., index. Translationof La fabbrico del corpo (1994). Celenza, ChristopherS. Renaissance Humanismand the Papal Curia: Lapo da Castiglionchio the Youngers De curiae coomodis. Ann Arbor:The U of Michigan P, 1999. xiv, 244p, bibl., index. First full English translationof the text as well as an examinationof the social and political context in which this early humanistwrote. Christianson,John Robert. On Tychos Island: TychoBrahe and His Assistants, 1570-1601. New York: Cambridge UP, 2000. xii, 451p., bibl., ill., index, $34.95. Historicalbiographyof first patron-practitioner of science. Cicero. On the Commonwealthand On the Laws (CambridgeTexts in the History of Political Thought). Ed. and intro. by James E. G. Zetzel. Cambridge:Cambridge UP, 1999. xlviii, 207p., bibl., index, $64.95. New translation,with fragments,introduction, chronology, and other apparatus. Claeys, Gregory,and LymanTower Sargent,eds. The Utopia Reader.New York: New YorkUP, 1999. xiii, 421p. $22.95. Collection of essays from Plato to Orwell and the present day. Condit, Celeste Michelle. The Meaning of the Gene: Public Debates about HumanHeredity.Madison:U of WisconsinP, 1999. xi, 325p, bibl., index. $49.95. American receptionof scientific debates in genetics (1900-1995). Conway, Jill Ker et al., eds. Earth, Air, Fire, Water:Humanistic Studies of the Environment.Boston: U of MassachusettsP, 1999. ix, 349p., app., ill., $50. Thirteen interdisciplinaryarguingfor a larger-not just scientific-understanding of environmental issues. Corn, WandaM. The GreatAmerican Thing:ModernArt and National Identity, 1915-1935. Berkeley: U of CaliforniaP, 1999. xxiii, 447p., bibl., ill., index. Illustrations and artifacts,all over the map.
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Cover, J. A., and John O'Leary-Hawthore. Substance and Individuation in Leibniz. New York: CambridgeUP, 1999. x, 307p., bibl., index, $59.95. Scholasticism in Leibniz's metaphysics. Cressy,David. Travestiesand Transgressionsin Tudorand StuartEngland. Tales of Discord and Dissension. New York:OxfordUP, 2000. xi, 35 lp., ill., index. Fifteen "quirkybits," on and beyond the culturalmargins. Crow,Thomas. TheIntelligence ofArt. ChapelHill: U of North CarolinaP, 1999. x, 120p., ill., index. State of art history with focus on Shapiro, Levi-Strauss, and Baxandall. Drake, Stillman.Essays on Galileo and the History and Philosophy of Science, 3 vols. Intro.by N. M. Swerdlow and T. H. Levere. Toronto:U of TorontoP, 1999. xxiii, 1245p., bibl., ill., indices. Seventy-nine papers, related from almost one hundred on Galileo by Drake. Echeverria,Jeronima.Home Awayfrom Home: A History of Basque Boardinghouses. Reno: U of Nevada P, 1999. xv, 359p., bibl., ill., index. Immigrantssetting up inns in the American West. Ellison, Julie. Cato s Tears and the Making of Anglo-AmericanEmotion. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1999. xii, 242p, index. New relationshipsbetween politics and masculinityin the "Age of Sensibility." Engelstein, Laura. Castrationand the Heavenly Kingdom:A Russian Folktale. Ithaca:Corell UP, 1999. xviii, 283p., index. Persistenceof a religious sect. Evans, Scott D. Samuel Johnsons "GeneralNature": Traditionand Transition in Eighteenth-CenturyDiscourse. Newark: Delaware UP, 2000. 168p, bibl., index. $32.50. Development of the concept and its use by Johnson. Faery,Rebecca Blevins. Cartographiesof Desire: Captivity,Race and Sex in the Shaping of an American Nation. Norman: U of OklahomaP, 1999. x, 275p., bibl., index. PocahontasstoriesandMaryRowlandson'scaptivityas foundingculturalmyths. Faivre, Antoine. Theosophy,Imagination, Tradition. Studies in WesternEsotericism Tr.by ChristineRhone. Albany: State U of New York P, 2000. xxxv, 269p., bibl., index, $24.95. Translationof Acces de I'esoterisme occidental, II (1996). Fattori,Marta,ed. Lessico Filosofico dei secoli XVIIe XVIII,Vol. I,4 (artificiosus-bulla). Florence:Leo Olschki Editore, 1999. Feyerabend,Paul. ConquestofAbundance:A TaleofAbstractionversus the Richness of Being. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1999. xviii, 285p., index. $27. Posthumous writing towardan unfinished discussion of the human side of scientific inquiry. Firestone, Reuven. Jihad: The Origin of Holy Warin Islam. New York:Oxford UP, 1999. vii, 195p, bibl., index. $25. Jihad as an indigenousArab phenomenonand its Muslim and Westernreception. Fischer, Markus. Well-OrderedLicense: On the Unity of Machiavellis Thought. Lanham:Lexington Books, 2000. vii, 23 p., bibl., index. On the rationalcontinuity and orderof Machiavelli. Fisher,Philip. Still the New World:AmericanLiteraturein a Cultureof Creative Destruction. Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUP, 1999. 290p, index. Back to the American Renaissance,and the process of "creativedestruction." Foster, John Bellamy. Marx s Ecology: Materialism and Nature. New York: MonthlyReview P, 2000. x, 300p., index, $48. On the relevanceof Marx'sdialectic of human society and naturefor ecological thought. Francia: Forschungenzur westeuropdischenGeschichte:Frihe Neuzeit-Revolution-Empire, 1500-1815, Band 26/2 (1999). Ed. by DeutschenHistorischenInstitut Paris. Stuttgart:2000. x, 325p. Eight papers, seventy-six reviews and notices.
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Frank,MariaEsposito. Le Insidie Dell'allegoria: Ermolao Barba il Vecchioe la Lezione Degli Antichi (Memorie: Classa di Scienze Morali, Lettere ed Arti, Vol., LXXXVIII).Venice:IstitutoVenetodi Scienze, LettereedArti, 1999. viii, 133p. Study of the Orationes contrapoetas and the humanistagenda. Freedman,Paul. Images of the Medieval Peasant. Stanford:StanfordUP, 1999. xi, 459p, bibl., index. Interdisciplinary study of peasants as viewed in sermons, chronicles, popular literature,and art. Fricker,Miranda,andJenniferHorsby, eds. TheCambridgeCompanionto Feminism in Philosophy. New York:CambridgeUP, 2000. xiii, 280p., bibl., index, $59.95. Thirteen essays on feminism and its relation to ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind and language. Gennaro,Rocco J., and Charles Huenemann,eds. New Essays on the Rationalists. New York:OxfordUP, 1999. xvii, 391p., index. $60. Eighteenpaperson Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. Geras,Norman,and RobertWokler,eds. TheEnlightenmentand Modernity.New York, St. Martin'sP, 2000. xv, 232p, index. $59.95. Eleven essays on the legacy of eighteenth-centurythought, Kant to Foucault. Gienow-Hecht,Jessica C. E. TransmissionImpossible:AmericanJournalismas CulturalDiplomacy in Postwar Germany1945-1955. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1999. xx, 230p., bibl., index. Binationalmid-level agents of culturalexchange in the Cold War. Giles, James. French Existentialism: Consciousness, Ethics and Relations with Others.Amsterdam:Rodopi, 1999. 219p., index. Ten essays on existentialism'scontributionto contemporaryphilosophy. Glassie, Henry.Material Culture.Bloomington: IndianaUP, 1999. 413p, bibl., index. Five essays on the role of materialculturein history. ill., Glassie, Henry. The Potter's Art. Bloomington: IndianaUP, 2000. 149p., bibl., ill., index, $25. Cross-culturalstudy of technique and taste. Gleason, William A. The Leisure Ethic: Workand Play in AmericanLiterature, 1840-1940. Stanford:StanfordUP, 1999. xviii, 446p., bibl., index. Beyond everyday labor to the culturalenvironment. Godlewska, Anne Marie Claire. Geography Unbound:French Geographic Sciencefrom Cassini to Humboldt.Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1999. xii, 444p., bibl., ill., index. Emergenceof modem French geographyafter the Revolution, a story of failure. Goldie, Mark,ed. TheReception of Locke'sPolitics (7 vols.). London:Pickering and Chatto, 1999. Vast collection of selections of and extracts from contemporary publicationsconcerningLocke and hisfortuna down to 1838, with critical introduction and annotations. Gould, Eliga H. The Persistence of Empire:British Political Culturein the Age of the AmericanRevolution. Chapel Hill: U of North CarolinaP, 2000. xxiv, 262p., bibl., ill., index. $49.95 British public opinion and the American War of Independence. Gregg,Robert.Inside Out,OutsideIn: Essays in ComparativeHistory.New York: St. Martin's P / London: Macmillan P, 2000. xiv, 231p, bibl., index. South Africa, India, the U.S., and England eccentricallyviewed. Grell, Peter Ole, and Roy Porter,eds. Tolerationin EnlightenmentEurope. New York:CambridgeUP, 2000. ix, 266p., index, $59.95. Thirteenessays.
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Guerrini,Anita. Obesityand Depression in the Enlightenment:TheLife and Times of George Cheyne (OklahomaProject for Discourse and Theory, Series for Science and Culture, vol. 3). Norman: Oklahoma UP, 2000. xx, 283p., bibl., index. Eighteenth-centurymedical doctor, scientist, and mystic. Guyer,Paul. Kant on Freedom,Law, and Happiness. New York:CambridgeUP, 2000. xii, 440p., index, $19.95. Twelve previously publishedessays. Hamburger,Joseph.John StuartMill on Libertyand Control.Princeton:Princeton UP, 1999. xx, 239p., index. Large interpretivework by the late political scientist. Hare,Tom.RememberingOsiris: Number,Gender,and the Wordin AncientEgyptian RepresentationalSystems. Stanford,Calif.: StanfordUP, 1999. xx, 322p., bibl., index. Postmodem study of ancient Egyptiannumericaland verbal representations. Hart,D. G. The UniversityGets Religion: Religious Studies in AmericanHigher Education. Baltimore:Johns Hopkins UP, 1999. xi, 321p., bib., index, $38. Critique of the role of religion in liberal education. Hayward,Jack et al., eds. The British Studyof Politics in the TwentiethCentury. New York:OxfordUP, 2000. xv, 51 p., index. $60. Fourteencollected essays on historiographicaland interpretativeissues of British politics. Heidegger,Martin.Contributionsto Philosophy (FromEnowning).Tr.and intro. Parvis EmadandKennethMaly.Bloomington:IndianaUP,2000. xliv, 464p., $39.95. by Trans.of Beitrdgezur Philosophie (VomEreignis) (1989). Hellegers, Desiree. Handmaidto Divinity: NaturalPhilosophy,Poetry, and Gender in SeventeenthCenturyEngland. Norman:OklahomaUP, 2000. xiv, 217p., bibl., index. Donne and Milton's poetry and the gendereddiscourse of modem science. Hempel, Carl G. Selected Philosophical Essays. Ed. by RichardJeffrey. Cambridge: CambridgeUP, 2000. xii, 317p., bibl., index. Sixteen collected papers, with biographicalpreface. Herbst,Jeffrey Ira.States and Power in Africa. ComparativeLessons in Authorand Control.Princeton:PrincetonUP, 2000. 280p., ill., index, $55. State-building, ity domestic politics, and inter-staterelations. Homza, Lu Ann. Religious Authority in the Spanish Renaissance. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2000. xxiii, 312p., bib., index, $39.95. Renaissance ecclesiasts blurringthe boundariesbetween scholasticism and humanism. Hueglin, ThomasO. Early Modern Conceptsfor a Late Modern World:Althusius on Communityand Federalism. Waterloo:Wilfred LaurierUP, 1999. ix, 265p, bibl., index. Althusius as theoristof post-sovereign system of politics. Hume, David. A Treatiseof Human Nature (Oxford Philosophical Texts). New York:OxfordUP, 2000. ix, 622p., bibl., index, $14.94. New edition with introduction by David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton. Huppert,George. TheStyle of Paris: Renaissance Origins of the FrenchEnlightenment. Bloomington: IndianaUP, 1999. 146p., bibl., index. Proto-philosophes. Innes, Brian. Death and the Afterlife. Dubai: St Martin's P, 1999. 175p., bibl., ill., index, $26.95. Cross-culturaloverview of death ritualsand representations,illustrated. Jesseph, Douglas M. Squaring the Circle: The WarbetweenHobbes and Wallis. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1999. xiv, 419p., bibl., index. Philosophical and political implicationsof an old puzzle. Jones, David Martin. Conscience and Allegiance in Seventeenth CenturyEngland. Rochester:U of Rochester P, 1999. ix, 340p, bibl., index. The meaning and demise of state oath as a way of enforcingpolitical support.
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Jorio, Andrea de. Gesturein Naples and Gesture in Classical Antiquity.Tr. and intro.by Adam Kendon.Bloomington:IndianaUP, 2000. cvii, 518p., bibl., ill., $49.95 Translationof the seminal ethnographicstudy of gesture, La mimica degli antichi investigata nel destire napoletano. Kaeuper, Richard W. Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe. New York: OxfordUP, 1999. xi, 338p, bibl., index. Social history of chivalryin churchand state. Kaldellis,Anthony.TheArgumentofPsello s Chronographia.Leiden:Brill, 1999. 223p, bibl., index. Philosophicalsignificance of a Byzantine literatureclassic. Kaplan,Alice Y. The Collaborator. The Trialand Executionof RobertBrasillach. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2000. xvi, 308p., index, $25. Biography of controversial writer and the ethics of intellectuallife. Keller, Pierre.Husserl and Heidegger on Human Experience. New York:Cambridge UP, 1999. v, 26 Ip, bibl., index. The meaning of their accounts of time, meaning, and personal identity. Kemal, Salim, and Ivan Gaskell, eds. Politics and Aesthetics in the Arts (Cambridge Studiesin Philosophyand the Arts). New York:CambridgeUP, 2000. xi, 268p., ill., index. $59.95. Nine interdisciplinaryessays. Kline III, T. C., and Phillip Ivanhoe, eds. Virtue,Nature, and Moral Agency in the Xunzi. Indianapolis:Hackett Publishing, 2000. xvii, 268p., bibl., index, $37.95. Eleven essays. Komer, Axel, ed. 1848: A European Revolution? InternationalIdeas and National Memories of 1848. New York: St. Martin'sP, 2000. xi, 232p., index. Eleven historical essays. Lang, Berel, ed. Race and Racism in Theoryand Practice. Lanham:Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000. xiv, 266p., index, $19.95. Sixteen interdisciplinaryessays. Lee, Sang Hyun. The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards. Princeton: PrincetonUP, 2000. xv, 274p., app., index, $18.95. Expandededition. Levine,Alan, ed. EarlyModernSkepticismand the Originsof Toleration.Lanham: LexingtonBooks, 1999. vi, 282p., index. Twelveessays on Montaigne,Hobbes,Locke, Diderot, et al. Levine, Joseph M. TheAutonomyof History: Truthand MethodfromErasmusto Gibbon.Chicago:U of Chicago P, 1999. xviii, 249p., index. Nine essays on historiographicaltopics from More to Gibbon, some publishedbefore. Levine, Peter.TheNew ProgressiveEra: Towarda Fair and DeliberativeDemocracy. Lanham:Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,2000. xiv, 253p., app., index. On the philosophical and political implicationsof "civic renewal." Levitt, Cyrill et al., eds. MistakenIdentities: The Second Waveof Controversy over "Political Correctness." New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1999. xi, 339p., index, $29.95. Seventeen essays on the challenge of "politicalcorrectness"to liberal democracy. Lincoln, Bruce. TheorizingMyth:Narrative,Ideology and Scholarship.Chicago: Chicago UP, 1999. xv, 298p., index. Myth, ancient and moder, and its ideological functions. Lindley, Keith, and David Scott, eds. TheJournal of ThomasJuxon, 1644-1647 (CamdenFifth Series, vol. 13). Cambridge:CambridgeUP / Royal HistoricalSociety, 1999. x, 214p., index, $64.95. Journalof PuritanLondonerwith appendices and introductionby editors. Livingstone, David N., and CharlesW. J. Withers,eds. Geographyand Enlight-
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enment.Chicago:U of Chicago P, 1999. viii, 455p., index. $52. Fourteenstudies from a conference held at the U. of Edinburghin 1996. Lofts, S. G. Ernst Cassirer:A "Repetition" of Modernity(SUNY Series in ContemporaryContinentalPhilosophy). Forewordby John Michael Krois. Albany: State U of New York P, 2000. xii, 262p., bibl., index, $24.95. Critical introductionto the philosophy of symbolic forms. Louden, Robert B. Kants ImpureEthics: From Rational Beings to Human Beings. New York:OxfordUP, 2000. xvii, 254p., bibl., index, $45. On the second partof Kant's ethics. Machiavelli. Le Prince. Tr. and intr. by Jean-Louis Foumel and Jean-Claude Zancarini.Paris:PUF,2000. 640p., bibl., index, 198FF.Translationof GiorgioInglese's new edition of Machiavelli,with commentary,additionaltexts, discussion of M's language, and bibliography. Maleuvre,Didier.MuseumMemories.History,Technology,Art (CulturalMemory in the Present,Mieke Bal and Hent de Vries, eds.). Stanford:StanfordUP, 1999. xii, 325p., bibl., index. Historicaland anti-historicalaspects of this modem institution. Martin, Raymond, and John Barresi. Naturalizationof the Soul. Self and Personal Identity in the Eighteenth Century(Routledge Studies in EighteenthCentury Philosophy).New York:Routledge,2000. xi, 203p., bibl., index, $85. Historicalbackgroundand survey of the idea. Mason, Richard.BeforeLogic. Albany: State U of New YorkP, 2000. 153p., bib., index, $16.95. Prehistoryof Truthand its conditions. May, Simon. Nietszches Ethics and his Waron "Morality." New York:Oxford 2000. UP, xii, bib., index, $45. Nietzsche, radicaland conservative,for today. McLaren,A. N. Political Culturein the Reign of Elizabeth I: Queen and Commonwealth1558-1585 (Ideas in Context,QuentinSkinner,gen. ed.). New York:Cambridge UP, 1999. ix, 272p., bibl., index. Female kingship, male citizenship, and the role of gender in political discourse. McMullen,James.Idealism,Protest, and The Tale of Genji: The Confucianismof KumazawaBanzan(1619-91) (OxfordOrientalMonographs,Facultyof OrientalStudies, Oxford). Oxford:ClarendonP, 1999. xxiii, 539p., bibl., index. $135. Kumazawa Banzan's view of Confucianismas a potentiallysubversivephilosophy. Mehlman, Jeffrey.Emigre New York:French Intellectuals in WartimeManhattan, 1940-1944. Baltimore:Johns Hopkins UP, 2000. 209p., index, $38. The FrancoAmerican relationshipthrough intellectual biographies. Messenger, Troy. Holy Leisure. Recreation and Religion in Gods Square Mile. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1999. xiv, 171p., bibl., index. History of the first nineteenth-centuryreligious and recreationalAmerican site, Ocean Grove, N.J. Midelfort, H. C. Erik. A History of Madness in Sixteenth-CenturyGermany. Stanford:StanfordUP, 1999. xvi, 438p., bibl., index. Theologians,jurists, and physicians on varieties of mental disorders,sin, possession, melancholy, folly, etc.; with a little help from Foucault. Mignolo, Walter D. Local History/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges and Border Thinking(PrincetonStudies in Culture/Power/History).xix, 371p., bibl., ill., index, $55. Subaltemity,alterity,and "colonial difference"as analytical category in the post-world. Monod, Paul Kleber. The Power of Kings: Monarchy and Religion in Europe, 1589-1715. New Haven: Yale UP, 1999. x, 417p., ill., index. High-level textbook on secularizing of kingship.
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Morgan, Mary S., and MargaretMorrison.Models as Mediators: Perspectives on Natural and Social Sciences. New York: CambridgeUP, 1999. xi, 401p, index. Twelve interdisciplinaryessays. Newman, Louise Michele. White Womens Rights: The Racial Origins of Feminism in the United States. New York:Oxford UP, 1999. vii, 261p., bibl., ill., index. Role of racial thinking in shaping feminists' understandingof liberal citizenship. Nias, Hilary. The Artificial Self: The Psychology of Hippolyte Taine. Oxford: Legenda (EuropeanHumanitiesResearchCentreof the University of Oxford), 1999. 259p., bibl., index. Taine and his selves, from many unpublishedwritings. Norbrook, David. Writingthe English Republic: Poetry, Rhetoric and Politics, 1627-1660. New York:CambridgeUP, 2000. xiii, 509p., index, $64.95. Republican political culturein the age of Milton. Norton, Glyn P., eds. The CambridgeHistory of Literary Criticism.Vol.III, The Renaissance. New York: CambridgeUP, 1999. xxiii, 758p, bibl., index. Sixty-one chapterson poetics, literarytheory,historicalcontexts, national developments,etc. Numbers, Ronald L., and John Stenhouse. DisseminatingDarwinism: The Role of Place, Race, Religion and Gender. New York: CambridgeUP, 1999. xi, 300p., index. $54.95. Interdisciplinaryessays on nineteenth- and twentieth-centuryreception of Darwinism. O'Donovan, Oliver, and Joan Lockwood O'Dovan. From Irenaeus to Grotius:A Sourcebookin ChristianPolitical Thought,100-1625. GrandRapids:W. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1999. xx, 838p., index. Sixty selections illustratingtheological arguments in political theory,with general introduction,some translatedfor the first time. O'Hagan,Timothy.Rousseau(TheArgumentsof the Philosophers,TedHonderich, gen. ed.) New York:Routledge, 1999. xii, 320p, bibl., index. Rousseau on natureof political order,gender relations and language. Overhoff, Jiirgen.Hobbe s Theoryof the Will:Ideological Reasons and Historical Circumstances.New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000. viii, 266p., bibl., index. $24.95. A genealogy of Hobbes'sdoctrineof volition and its consequences. Palumbo-Liu,David. Asian/American:Historical Crossingsof a Racial Frontier. Stanford:StanfordUP, 1999. vi, 504p., bibl., index. A hybrid identity, contending heritages,fromthe nineteenthcenturyto the Asia PacificEconomicCooperationGroup. Partner,Simon.Assembledin Japan: Electrical Goods and the Makingof a Japanese Consumer.Berkeley:U of CaliforniaP, 2000. xiv, 303p, bibl., ill., index. $19.95. The role of technology, internationalpolitics-and gender-in the creation of mass consumersociety. Pearl, Judea. Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference. New York: Cambridge UP, 2000. xvi, 384p. bibl., index, $39.95. Technical exposition and analysis relatedto various social sciences. Pinkard,Terry.Hegel: A Biography.New York:CambridgeUP, 2000. xx, 780p., bibl., index. $39.95. Comprehensive,scholarly life and times. Plato. Timaeus.Trans.and intro. by Donald J. Zeyl. Indianapolis:Hackett Publishing Company,2000. xcv, 94p., bibl., index, $29.95. New translationwith critical introduction. Porter,Brian. WhenNationalism Began to Hate: Imagining Modern Politics in NineteenthCenturyPoland. New York:Oxford Up, 2000. x, 307p., bibl., index, $45. How xenophobic racial traditionswere embeddedwithin fin-de-siecle "modernity." Porter,Jean. Natural and Divine Law: Reclaiming the Traditionfrom Christian Ethics. Ottawa: Novalis / Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999. 339p., bibl., index. Contextualizationof Aquinas and reassessmentof NaturalLaw thinkers.
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Preston, John, et al., eds. The WorstEnemy of Science? Essays in Memory of Paul Feyerabend. New York, Oxford UP, 2000. xvii, 171p., index, $45. Twelve essays. Raspa, Venanzio. In-contraddizione:II Principio di contraddizionealle origini della nuova logica. Trieste: Edizioni Paraso, 1999. 368p., bibl., index. Contradiction in modem logic. Ricoeur,Paul. TheJust (tr.by David Pellauer).Chicago:Chicago UP, 2000. xxiv, 16 p., index. $20. Collected essays from lectures on the natureof justice and law at the Institutdes Hautes Etudes pour la Justice. Rivers, Isabel. Reason, Grace, and Sentiment:A Study of the Language of Religion and Ethics in England, 1660-1780 (vol. II: From Shaftesburyto Hume). New York: CambridgeUP, 2000. xiv, 386p., bibl., index, $69.95. Comprehensivesurvey from free-thinkersto Scottish philosophers. Rosemann, Philipp W. UnderstandingScholastic Thoughtwith Foucault. New York:St. Martin'sP, 2000. xiv, 263p, index. $49.95. Post-structuralistanalysis of the transformationof the Scholastic Episteme. Rosen, Gary.AmericanCompact:James Madison and the Problem of Founding. Lawrence:U of Kansas P, 1999. xii, 237p., bibl., index. On Madison's Republicanism. Rosenwein, Barbara.Negotiating Space: Power, Restraint,and Privileges of Immunity in Early Medieval Europe. Ithaca:Cornell UP, 1999. xxii, 267p., bibl., ill., index. Immunityand exemption in medieval perspective. Rowlands, Mark. TheBody in Mind: UnderstandingCognitiveProcesses (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy, ed. Ernest Sosa). Cambridge:CambridgeUP, 1999. $59.96. x, 270p., bibl., index. Cognition as an externalistmodel challenging the Cartesian understandingof the mind. Rudavski,T. M. TimeMatters: Time,Creationand Cosmologyin Medieval Jewish Philosophy.Albany: State U of New YorkP, 2000. xviii, 287p., bibl., index. Religious incorporationof scientific concepts from Maimonidesto Spinoza and beyond. Russon, John, and John Sallis, eds. Retracing the Platonic Text(Studies in Historical Philosophy). Evanston:NorthwesternUP, 2000. xix, 190p. Ten studies. Saler, Michael T. The Avant-Gardein InterwarEngland: Medieval Modernism and the London Underground.New York:Oxford UP, 1999. xii, 242p., bibl., index. Visual art between Bloomsburyand the Medieval Moders 1910-39. Schiller, Kay. Gelehrte Gegenwelten: Uber humanistische Leitbilder im 20. Jahrhundert.Frankfurtam Main: Fischer TaschenbuchVerlag, 2000. 192p., bibl. DM24,90. Two monographs,on ErnstKantorowiczand Hans Baron. Shaftesbury,Anthony Ashley Cooper. Characteristicsof Men, Manners, Opinions, Times(CambridgeTexts in the History of Philosophy). Ed. LawrenceE. Klein. New York:CambridgeUP, 1999. xxxvii, 490p., index. $29.95. New edition with introduction.Eighteen unabridgedtexts from Works(1792-1827), with critical introduction. Shaw,DavidW. Originsof theMonologue:TheHiddenGod.Toronto:U of Toronto P, 1999. xii, 250p., bibl., index. Subversivenatureof dramaticmonologue in Tennyson, Browning, and Morris. Schmeiser, Leonhard. Zur Rekonstruktioneines diskursiven Ereignisses Sonderzahl. Wien: Sonderzahl Verlagsgesellschaft, 1999. 153p., index. Newton's apotheosis, controversywith Leibniz, and discussion of his optics. Schrift, Alan D., ed. WhyNietzsche Still? Reflections on Drama, Culture and Politics. Berkeley: CaliforniaUP, 2000. xv, 309p., index, $19.95. Fifteen essays.
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Seeskin, Kenneth.Searchingfor a Distant God. the Legacy ofMaimonides. New York:Oxford UP, 2000. xii, 252p., bibl., index. $45. On the complex understanding of monotheismfor philosophy. Seidel, George J. Knowledge as Sexual Metaphor.Cranberry:SusquehannaUP, 2000. 192p., bibl., index, $34.50. Role of the language of sexuality from Plato to Schopenhauerand Sartre. Seidel, GeorgeJ. Towarda Hermeneuticsof Spirit.Cranbury:Bucknell UP, 2000. 154p., bibl., index, $35. Personaland inspirationalreflections on the older hermeneutics. Shankman,Steven, and Stephen Durrant.The Siren and the Sage: Knowledge and Wisdomin Ancient Greece and China.New York:Cassell, 2000. viii, 257p., bibl., index, $24.95. Comparativestudy of the philosophies of two classical civilizations. Shapiro, Barbara.A Cultureof Fact: England, 1550-1720. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2000. x, 284p., index. The category of fact in law, history,journalism, science, religion, etc. Sharpe,Kevin. Reading Revolutions: The Politics of Reading in Early Modern England.New Haven:YaleUP,2000. xiv, 358p., ill., index, $37.50. SirWilliamDrake's reading strategies. Sherman,Daniel J. The Constructionof Memoryin InterwarFrance. Chicago:U of Chicago P, 1999. xi, 414p., ill., index. Monuments,rites of mourning,and meaning. Singer, Peter.A Darwinian Left: Politics, Evolution and Cooperation.New Haven: Yale UP, 2000. Call for a new left based on a revised view of human nature, rooted in Darwinism. Smith, Richard Candida.Mallarmes Children:Symbolismand the Renewal of Experience. Berkeley: U of CaliforniaP, 1999. xxiv, 304p, bibl., index. Intellectual legacy of symbolist understandingof language and consciousness. Solomon, RobertC., and KathleenM. Higgins. WhatNietzsche Really Said. New York:Schocken Books, 2000. xvi, 253p., bibl. Popularsummary. Soloviev, V. S. Politics, Law and Morality: Essays. Ed. and Tr. by Vlaidimir Wozniuk.New Haven:Yale UP, 2000. xxix, 330p., index, $40. FirstEnglish reedition of Russian philosopher. Sorel, Georges. Reflections on Violence(CambridgeTexts in the History of Political Thought).Ed. and intro.by JeremyJennings.Cambridge:CambridgeUP, 1999. xxxix, 300p., index, $64.95. Revision of T. E. Hulme's translation.(1914), with critical introduction,chronology,biographicalsynopses, etc. Spade, Paul Vincent, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Ockham. New York: CambridgeUP, 1999. xvii, 420p., bibl., index. $54.95. Fifteen essays. Spence, JonathanD. The Chans Great Continent:China in WesternMinds.New York:W. W. Norton, 1998. xviii, 279p., index. $27.50. General survey from Marco Polo to Borges. Speth,WilliamW. How it Came to Be: Carl O. Sauer,Franz Boaz and the Meanings ofAnthropogeography.Ellensburg,Wash.: EphemeraP, 1999. xiii, 268p, bibl., index. Convergenceof anthropology,geography(and Ratzel'sAnthropogreographie), history, and philosophy in these scholars. Stirk, Peter M. R. Critical Theory,Politics and Society: An Introduction.New York:Pinter,2000. ix, 246p., bibl., index. $24.95. Relevance and contextualizationof FrankfurtSchool. Tiffany, Daniel. Toy Medium: Materialism and Modern Lyric. Berkeley: U of CaliforniaP, 2000. x, 35 p., ill., index, $50. On the role of imaginationin defining material substance.
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Tobias,Michael, PatrickFitzgerald,and David Rothenberg,eds. A Parliamentof Minds: Philosophyfor a New Millennium.Albany: State U of New YorkP, 2000. xix, 309p, index. $21.95. Twenty-oneinterviews with contemporaryphilosophers. Torretti,Roberto. The Philosophy of Physics. New York: CambridgeUP, 1999. xvi, 512p., bibl., index. Physics from the seventeenth-centuryonward. Verbeek,Theo, ed. Johannes Clauberg(1622-1665) and CartesianPhilosophy in the SeventeenthCentury,Archives Internationalesd'Histoire des Idees/International Archives of the History of Ideas, 164. Norwell: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999. vii, 207p., index, $103. Twelve essays. Vergerio,Peitro Paolo. Pierpaolo Vergeriothe Elder and Saint Jerome:An Edition and Translationof Sermonespro SanctoHieronymo.Ed.by JohnM. McManamon, S.J. (Medieval and RenaissanceTexts and Studies, vol. 177). Tempe:Arizona Center for Medieval and RenaissanceStudies, 1999. xvii, 402p, bibl., ill., index. Substantial commentaryby McManamon. Vico, Giambattista.De Nostri Temporis.StudiorumRatione (Lessico intellettuale EuropeoLXXXII;Lessico filosofico dei secoli XVII e XVIII, strumenticritici, 6). Ed. by MarcoVeneziani.Florence:Leo S. Olschki, 2000. lxi, 440p., indices. Edited from manuscriptand photo-reproductionof 1709 edition, with related text, critical introduction, indices, and other lexicometral apparatus. Voegelin, Eric. Henningsen,ModernityWithoutRestraint.(The Collected Works, Vol. 5). Ed. and intro.by ManfredHenningsen.Columbia:U of Missouri P, 2000. ix, index. $34.95. The projectcontinues, and see below. Voegelin, Eric. Orderand History:Plato and Aristotle: vol. III (Collected works, Vol. 16). Ed. and intro.by Dante Germino.Columbia:U of MissouriP, 2000. x, 448p., index. $39.95. Voegelin, Eric. Orderand History: In Search of Order:vol. V (Collected works, vol. 18). Ed. and intro. by Ellis Sandoz. Columbia: U of Missouri P, 2000. 150p., index, $24.95. Watkins,John.HumanFreedom after Darwin. Chicago: CarusPublishing, 1999. xi, 348p., bibl., index. Posthumouspublicationof Watkins'scritique of Spinoza and defense of indeterminism. Weikart,Richard.Social Darwinism:Evolutionin GermanSocialist Thoughtfrom Marx to Bernstein. San Francisco: InternationalScholars Publications, 1999. viii, bibl., index. How the old Social democraticLeft absorbedmoder biology and came to terms with nature/nurturedichotomy. Weiner,Robert Paul. Creativityand Beyond: Cultures, Valuesand Change. Albany: The State U of New YorkP, 2000. xii, 353p., bibl., index. $24.95. On the historicity and contextualizationof the idea of "creativity." Westphal,Merold, ed. Post-ModernPhilosophy and ChristianThought(Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion). Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1999. vi, 304p., index, $39.95. Thirteenessays on the religious appropriationof post-modernism,from Nietszche to Derrida. Wiesner-Hanks,Merry. Christianityand Sexuality in the Early Modern World: RegulatingDesire, ReformingPractice (Christianityand Society in the Moder World series). New York:Routledge,2000. ix, 277p., ill., index. Textbooksurveyof women's history,the body, sexuality,gay and lesbian history,religion, colonial studies around the globe. Wilson, Fred. TheLogic and Methodologyof Science in Early Modern Thought. Toronto:U of TorontoP, 1999. xxiv, 608p., bibl., index. Therereally was a Scientific Revolution, and it did overturnAristotle.
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Winterbourne,Anthony. Speaking to our Condition: Moral Frameworks in Wagners Ring of the Nibelung. Cranbury:FairleighDickinson UP, 2000. 143p., bibl., index. $32.50. Kant's influence and the contradictionsof Wagner'sethics. Wolfthal, Diane, ed. Peace and Negotiation: Strategiesfor Coexistence in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, 4). Tumhout:Brepols Publishers,2000. xxviii, 265p., index. Thirteenscholarly essays. Yourgrau,Palle. G6del Meets Einstein: TimeTravelin the G6del Universe. Chicago: Open Court, 1999. xxiv, 253p., bibl., index. On the origins of G6del's revolutionarymodel of the cosmos.
Announcing a New Journal
rSYC;OANALYSIS
ISSN 1460-8235
and HISTORY Editedby I AndreaSabbadini
This is a new peer-reviewed Journal that will be devoted both to the study of the history of psychoanalysis and also to the application of psychoanalytic ideas to historiography. Our interdisciplinary aim is to form a bridge between the academic study of history and psychoanalysi.s
Volume 2, i, Feb 2000 includes Document(1945) - K. Stephen:Relations betwen the superego and the ego. E. Falzeder Profession of Psychoanalyst J. Geller Thefirst review of tudien uber Hysterie, M. Solms Freud, and Lurio B. AngueraThe influence of Brentano and Comte on Freud's work P. Kuhn WnoReminded Freud how to Remember Signorelli (?)
*Editorial Group Bob Hinshelwood Athol Hughes MichaelMolnar MalcolmPines Ann Scott * International Associate Editors BlancaAnguerra(Spain and Portugal) ManekBarucha(Asia) Rotrautde Clerck (Germany) MarcoConci (Italy) Nicolas Gougoulis (France) JorgeOragaray(Latin America) MarialziraPerestrello (Brazil) Esa Roos (Scandinavia) Nellie L Thompson(N America)
The First Issue (Vol 1, ii, 1999) and Second Issue (Vol 2, ii, 1999) includes: Freud, autobiographyand his biographers; Thetranslationof Freud; Freud and Jung:psychoanalysis and IPA; On the historyof the FrankfurtInstitute; Organisationofpsychoanalysis in Britain; Klein's early case-notes; Freudas translator; Lou Andres-Salome; Kleinand the welfare state. VISA/MASTERCARD UK non-UK Subscription rates: Name *** Cardnumber ?18 $40 INDIVIDUALS *** Expirydate *** ?50 INSTITUTIONS $90 Billing addressforcard Mail orders to: ARTESIAN RD, LONDONW2 5AR,UK BOOKS,18 ARTESIAN Email: 101364.2334(@compuserve.com
CHARISMATICAUTHORITY IN EARLYMODERNENGLISH TRAGEDY Raphael Falco "In the study of charisma, there is no other book; in the theory of tragedy, there is nothing like it."-Arthur F. Kinney, University of Massachusetts at Amherst Charismatic groups form around a leader who displays extraordinary abilities in times of social distress and who is often thought to have supernatural or magical powers. Raphael Falco demonstrates that English tragedies are full of such figures, including Marlowe's Tamburlaine; Shakespeare's Richard II, Hamlet, and Othello; Milton's Samson; and the various dramatic representations of Cleopatra. $39.95 hardcover
PEIRCE,SEMIOTICS,AND PSYCHOANALYSIS
THEEPIC HERO Dean A. Miller "Miller has made a fundamental contribution to scholarship that transcends everything so far published on this subject, including the works of Rank, Raglan, and, indeed, the late Joseph Campbell and his army of admirers. To put it simply, he has produced a masterpiece!" -C. Scott Littleton, Occidental College From Odysseus to King Arthur, from the to the Ossetian "Nart" tales, epic Malhdbharata heroes and their stories have symbolized the power of the human imagination. Drawing on diverse disciplines including classics, anthropology, psychology, and literary studies, this product of twenty years' scholarship provides a detailed typology of the hero in western myth: birth, parentage, familial ties, sexuality, character, deeds, death, and afterlife. $52.00 hardcover
edited byJohn Muller andJoseph Brent The slow and steady rise of the reputation of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) has coincided with a greater appreciation for his work in semiotics. Once thought to be primarily a logician and pragmatist, he is now internationally honored as a pioneer theorist about how minds think with signs: icons, indexes, and symbols. Peirce's ideas about semiotics provide exactly the kind of representational theory that Freud's system lacks, proposing a thorough recasting of psychoanalytic thinking which rejoins idea and affect, self and other, thought and action, meaning and matter, inside and outside. The essays in this collection provide an introduction to Peirce and explore different implications of Peirce's theory of representation for psychoanalytic practice as well as for philosophical reflection. Psychiatryand the Humanities:John Muller, SeriesEditor
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JOHNS HOPKINS The Johns Hopkins UniversityPress* 1-800-537-5487 ? www.press.jhu.edu
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Literary Imagination, Ancient and Modern Essays in Honor of David Grene Edited by Todd Breyfogle Ranging as widely as David Grene'sown interests in Greekand Roman antiquity, in drama, poetry, and the novel, in the art of translation, and in English history, these essays explore the imaginative force of literatureand history in articulating and illuminating the human condition. Paper $19.00
Modernism An Anthology of Sources and Documents Edited by VassilikiKolocotroni, Jane Goldman, and Olga Taxidou
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ON HISTORY AND OTHER ESSAYS By Michael Oakeshott Foreword by Timothy Fuller
In five essays,includingthree on historiography, one of the greatest minds in English political thought in the twentieth century explores themes central to the human experience: the
.:
:
t
understandthe past without ulterior motive [is the] effort which distinguishes the historian as I historian from all who examine the past for the guidancethey expect it to provideabout practical concerns."The essays on history are "Present, Future, and Past," "Historical Events: The fortuitous,the causal,the similar,the correlative, the analogous, and the contingent," and "Historical Change: Identity and continuity." ^ In "The Rule of Law," Oakeshott takes the y Tower of In a "The to mean kind ideal human of expression particular relationship. Babel"-in one of two essays he wrote by the same title and on the same subjectOakeshott discusses the various versions in which the Bible story has been told and the different circumstances which it has been used to illuminate. On History was originally published in 1983. Michael Oakeshott (1901-1990) was Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics and a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He was the author of many works, including Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays and Hobbeson CivilAssociation, both published by LibertyFund. Timothy Fuller is Dean of Colorado College and has published widely on the works of Michael Oakeshott. 220 + xx pages. Foreword,index. Hardcover Paperback
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ForthcomingArticles: Richard Bourke on Edmund Burke's Idea of Empire David T. Runia on Philo of Alexandria's Idea of the City Paul Nelles on Saint-Beuve and Seventeenth-Century French Intellectual Traditions Ruth Kinna on William Morris, Work, and Leisure Peter Adamson on Aristotelianism in the Arabic Plotinus G. Matthew Adkins on the Moral Philosophy of Fontenelle Elizabeth Brient on Blumenberg and Arendt Han van Ruler on the Nature of Cartesian Disenchantment Amy M. Schmitter on the Representation of Royal Power in French Academic Painting
Journal of the History of Ideas
The Morris D. Forkosch Prize ($2000) is awarded for the best first book in intellectual history each year. The awards committee favors first books which are published by any author in English and which display some interdisciplinary range, demonstrate sound scholarship, and make an original contribution to the history of thought and culture. Annual deadline for submission: 31 December. Winner for 1999: Mara Beller, QuantumDialogue: The Making of a Revolution (University of Chicago Press).
The Selma V. Forkosch Prize ($500) for the best article published in this Journal each year. Winner for 1999: Yanfang Tang, "Language, Truth, and Literary Interpretation: A Crosscultural Examination," volume 60, number 1.
00225037200004)61.2
