Things, Thoughts, Words, and Actions: The Problem of Language in Late Eighteenth-Century British Rhetorical Theory

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Things, Thoughts, Words, and Actions : The Problem of Language in Late Eighteenth-century British Rhetorical Theory Ulman, H. Lewis. Southern Illinois University Press 0809319071 9780809319077 9780585210001 English English language--18th century--Rhetoric, Language and languages--Philosophy, Philosophy, British--18th century, Rhetoric--Theory, etc. 1994 PE1083.U44 1994eb 808/.042/094109033 English language--18th century--Rhetoric, Language and languages--Philosophy, Philosophy, British--18th century, Rhetoric--Theory, etc.

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Things, Thoughts, Words, and Actions The Problem of Language in Late Eighteenth-Century British Rhetorical Theory H. Lewis Ulman

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Copyright © 1994 by the Board of Trustees, Southern Illinois University All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Production supervised by Natalia Nadraga 97 96 95 94 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ulman, H. Lewis. Things, thoughts, words, and actions: the problem of language in late eighteenth-century British rhetorical theory / H. Lewis Ulman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index. 1. English language18th centuryRhetoric. 2. Language and languagesPhilosophy. 3. Philosophy, British18th century. 4. Rhetoric1500-1800Theory, etc. 1. Title PE1083.U44 1994 808'.042'094109033dc20 93-13709 ISBN 0-8093-1907-1 CIP The paper used in this production meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

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For my mother, Henrietta Henninger Tyson

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Contents Figures

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Acknowledgments

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Introduction

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1. The Problem of Language: Things, Thoughts, Words, and Actions

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2. On "The Nature, Use, and Signification of Language"

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3. Words as Thoughts: The "Radical Principles" of Eloquence in Campbell's Rhetoric

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4. Words as Things: Icons of Progress in Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres 117 5. Words as Actions: The "Living Voice" in Sheridan's Lectures on Elocution

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6. A Creative Interplay of Philosophies

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Notes

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Works Cited

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Index

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Figures 73 3.1. The genealogy of discourse in Campbell's Rhetoric 77 3.2. Campbell's doctrine of evidence 80 3.3. Usage compels 81 3.4. Criticism argues 83 3.5. Eloquence adapts: Campbell's essential properties of eloquence 84 3.6. Eloquence adapts: Campbell's discriminating properties of eloquence 96 3.7. The representative power of signs 99 3.8. The analogous world of words 109 3.9. Patterns of development in Campbell's Rhetoric 169 5.1. Sheridan's analysis of words and their "accompaniments" in English 187 6.1. Skepticism, realism, and symbolic representation 195 6.2. Systematic translation 195 6.3. Systematic ordering 196 6.4. Alternative translations 197 6.5. Systems of relations

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Acknowledgments I am pleased to acknowledge a great deal of collegial support during my work on this book. I offer special thanks to colleagues who read and commented on all or part of the manuscript at various stages in the project: Paul Bator, James Battersby, Herman Cohen, Mark Conroy, Edward P. J. Corbett, Wilma Ebbitt, John Harwood, Gerard Hauser, Nan Johnson, Andrea Lunsford, Marie Secor, and Clifford Vaida. I am also indebted to several graduate research assistants who, over the years, have helped in my research and in preparation of the manuscript: Karla Armbruster, Steve Busonik, Robert Davis, Roger Graves, Dennis Quon, Nils Samuels, and Theresa Doerfler. Financial support for the project came from the College of Humanities at Ohio State University and the Academic Challenge Grant Program administered by the Board of Regents of the State of Ohio. Aberdeen University Library granted permission to publish extracts from the Thomas Gordon and David Skene papers, and the editor of Rhetorica granted permission to reprint material from an article previously published in that journal. I would also like to thank James Ulman, whose counsel and support have helped me ride out the sometimes contrary winds of writing. Finally, I am grateful to Pat Claeys and Geoffrey and Cathy Ulman, whose support has enabled me to weave this project into the larger patterns of our life together.

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Introduction In a 1990 review of research on eighteenth-century rhetoric, Winifred Horner and Kerri Barton lament that "scholars have been virtually inattentive to this period since the 1960s" (140). They note that important work has been done over the past decade in the recovery and description of primary materials but argue that little "scholarly conversation" has taken place for the past twenty or so years. While their definition of scholarly conversation is open to debate, their bibliography convincingly supports a claim that the heyday of scholarly attention to the period reached its peak over two decades ago. In the wake of work by Clarence Edney and Douglas Ehninger, the 1950s and 1960s witnessed spirited arguments about the place of eighteenth-century British rhetorical theory in the sweep of rhetorical history. In the 1960s, Lloyd Bitzer and Vincent Bevilacqua, among others, probed and debated the philosophical background of Enlightenment rhetoric. In 1971, near the end of this phase of critical activity, Wilbur Samuel Howell published Eighteenth-Century British Logic and Rhetoric. Surprisingly, rather than fueling new debates about the period, Howell's work seemed to have exhausted the field. The last word on the period appeared to be Howell's pronouncement that the new rhetoric of late eighteenth-century Britain was largely a response to the new science of Bacon, Newton, and Locke, an interpretation that emphasized the psychological and epistemological grounding of British rhetoric from 1750 to 1800. Theories of language figured in this interpretation only insofar as doctrines of style were viewed as corollaries to psychological and epistemological principles, not as theoretical problems in their own right. Exasperated by the long lull in scholarly debate concerning the period, Horner and Barton pose some interesting historiographical questions: "Why do we resist these rhetorics? What epistemologies and ethics and ideologies do eighteenthcentury thinkers sanction that we resist? And . . . how can these ideas inform our own work?" (140).

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This study offers partial answers to both questions by examining the theories of language that inform late eighteenth-century British rhetorical theory. Such examination, I argue, reveals a potential contribution of eighteenth-century rhetoric to rhetorical theory in the final decade of the twentieth century. Influential rhetorical theories in both periods identify language as a key element in a complex of theoretical problems concerning the relationships among things, thoughts, words, and actions. In short, the problem of language for rhetoric is similarly structured in both periods. Moreover, though the allegiance of mainstream rhetoric has shifted from eighteenth-century realism to twentieth-century avatars of skepticism, our contemporary debate over the theoretical grounding of rhetoric can be traced directly to philosophical tensions arising in the eighteenth century, a time when the tensions that now pit rhetorical realism against social constructionism (or relativism, depending on who is assigning the names) first appeared in their modern guise. Because of these historical alignments of eighteenth- and twentieth-century rhetorical theory, I argue that interpretive work on the problem of language in late eighteenth-century British rhetoric can support theoretical invention in our own period. To link interpretation and invention, however, we need to read the theories of language embedded in eighteenth-century rhetorical treatises in the spirit that I. A. Richards asks us to consider the whole tradition of "18th Century Associationism": "We have to go beyond these theories, but however mistaken they may be, or however absurd their outcome may sometimes seem, we must not forget that they are beginnings, first steps in a great and novel venture, the attempt to explain in detail how language works and with it to improve communication" (17-18). When we read eighteenth-century realist rhetorics in this way, we discover that their engagement with empiricism and skepticism and current debates between realism and social constructionism both concern an underlying challenge of rhetorical theory: to construct a theory regarding the relationships among things, thoughts, words, and actions that productively addresses problems of communication. In the process of assessing different eighteenth-century solutions to the problem of language in rhetorical theory, this study demonstrates how those solutions have related to various cultural contexts and intellectual problems. Taken together, those different solutions to the problem of language in rhetoric suggest pluralistic principles for contemporary rhetorical theory building.

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Though my study highlights the problems of theory building, the historical dimension of the study links rhetorical theories with cultural contexts and practical problems. This aspect of the book also bridges the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, for we still face contemporary versions of many of the problems faced by eighteenth-century rhetoriciansfrom determining fair and reasonable approaches to language standards in an increasingly diverse culture to keeping the study, teaching, and practice of discourse vital in an age given to separating rational judgment from effective speaking and writing in shifting cultural contexts. Prospectus Chapter 1 outlines the historiographical method that informs this study. Building on analysis of a passage in John Locke's Essay on Human Understanding (1690) and consideration of work by Richard McKeon and Kenneth Burke, I argue that eighteenthcentury theories of language grow out of the philosophical commonplaces of things, thoughts, words, and actions (see McKeon, ''Creativity and the Commonplace"). My argument implies that the myriad differences among the treatments of language in Western rhetorical theories can be understood as manifestations of a few basic theoretical commonplaces interpreted and related to one another in response to different intellectual and cultural contexts (much as the commonplaces of invention, discovery, style, delivery, and memory inform very different rhetorical theories throughout the Western tradition). Again following McKeon's lead, I argue further that analysis at this level can link historical interpretation of theories of rhetoric to theoretical invention and discovery. My historical inquiry begins in earnest in chapter 2 with a survey of the problems posed by language theory in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, providing a background against which to view the three case studies presented in subsequent chapters. Chapter 2 moves fairly quickly over the broad expanse of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century language theory, for its purpose is to provide a topical map of the territory. Works by Joseph Addison, Edmund Burke, Samuel Johnson, Lord Kames, Joseph Priestley, Thomas Reid, Adam Smith, and others will figure in this account insofar as they illuminate aspects of different theoretical problems, but individual works by these writers generally will not receive extensive analysis. That strategy is meant to keep the focus of this study on the problems of language in eighteenth-

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century rhetorical theory. Thus, chapter 2 demonstrates that many others wrote important works on language and/or rhetoric during the eighteenth century, and the case studies in the following chapters are not meant to argue that their subjects were alone in their concerns, approaches, or achievements. Rather, each case study serves to illustrate a different perspective on, and approach to, the problem of language in rhetorical theory. Chapters 3 through 5 consist of three case studies of linguistic theory in three influential eighteenth-century rhetorical treatises: George Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric (1776), Hugh Blair's Course of Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (1783), and Thomas Sheridan's Course of Lectures on Elocution (1762). My selection is informed primarily by my four commonplaces or generating principles, but it is perhaps worthwhile, before explaining the selections in those terms, briefly to note their relationship to other ways of reading eighteenth-century rhetorical theory. First, my exemplars are all rhetorical treatises that identify themselves as such. By contrast, much fruitful and interesting historical work in rhetorical theory looks beyond selfprofessed rhetorical treatises to consider practical discourse or works "in" other disciplines that nevertheless shed light on rhetorical problems. 1 I have chosen to focus on avowedly rhetorical treatises in part to acknowledge the discontinuities between philosophy and rhetoric in the eighteenth century at the same time that I investigate their common ground in language theory. After all, as an art among other arts and sciences, rhetoric did have a distinct identity for its proponents and detractors in the eighteenth century. Whether it still doesor shouldretain its distinctiveness is another matter. Second, my exemplars are all very familiar to students of eighteenth-century rhetorical theory, if indeed they are not the most familiar, influential, and, in Sheridan's case, infamous treatises. Again, though much work remains to be done in recovering eighteenth-century rhetorical texts, my project is not to probe blank spots on the map but to trace highly influential patterns of thought back to their generating principles. Accordingly, my exemplars represent trends in eighteenth-century rhetorical theory recognized in other historical studiesa third link to traditional readings of this material. Surveys of eighteenth-century rhetoric often designate four trends: (1) neoclassicism, represented by rhetorics such as John Ward's System of Oratory (1759), which for the most part uncritically adopts classical doctrine; (2) elocution, represented by treatises such as Sheridan's Lec-

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tures, which focuses on delivery and primary (i.e., spoken) rhetoric; (3) belletristic rhetoric, represented by Blair's Lectures, which emphasizes matters of taste and style in oratory and written composition; and (4) epistemological rhetoric, represented by Campbell's Rhetoric, which constructs a philosophy of rhetoric in response to the psychological and epistemological theories of the new science. 2 These trends do not serve well as fixed categories into which we can unambiguously place individual treatises, and indeed most surveys note a good deal of overlap among the trends. I employ them only in order to investigate the relative emphases of elocution, belletristic rhetoric, and epistemological rhetoric. Two other principles of selection are, I believe, unique to this study. First, in order to compare the use of theoretical commonplaces in different cultural settings, I have chosen texts that reflect somewhat different institutional and social contexts for constructing rhetorical theory. Campbell's Rhetoric grew out of a series of eighteen lectures delivered to a small philosophical society whose members were nearly all fellow university professors. Blair's Lectures were originally delivered for a single season to public audiences and then, for nearly a quarter-century, exclusively to students at Edinburgh University. Sheridan, an actor and director of a theater in Dublin, delivered his lectures to large public audiences in Dublin, Edinburgh, London, and elsewhere from 1756 through 1761, when the lectures were published. It is also worth noting that all three rhetorical treatises were written by middle-class men who lived and worked, if not at the geographical and social periphery of the English-speaking world, at least outside its center, to which they were strongly attracted. These differences of venue and similarities of social perspective can help us assess the treatment of language in each rhetorical system. Finally, each of these texts relates differently to the "alchemic opportunities" presented by the generating principles of this inquiry. Campbell's Rhetoric focuses on words and thoughts by demonstrating how the principles of rhetoric exploit continuitiesand overcome discontinuitiesbetween principles of grammar and logic. Blair's Lectures illuminate the process by which we come to regard words as things or, more particularly, as "objects of art." And Sheridan's Lectures focus on words as communicative action, addressing the "practical application of knowledge which [he] found missing in the writings of Locke" (Golden, Berquist, and Coleman 177). As I examine each text in turn, then, my aim will be to show to what extent and in

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what manner each rhetorical treatise grows out of encounters with eighteenth-century philosophies of language. In my concluding chapter, I first briefly review the most significant distinctions among the roles played by philosophies of language in the case studies of rhetorical theory that constitute chapters 3 through 5. Next, I draw out links between the late eighteenth-century engagement of philosophy and rhetoric and the philosophical debates within current rhetorical theory, where the legacies of the battle between enlightenment realism and skepticism pit realism and objectivity against relativism, social constructionism, and poststructuralism. Finally, I show how my interpretation of the eighteenth-century articulation of philosophies of language and theories of rhetoric yields resources for theory building through a "creative interplay of philosophies" rather than a divisive competition among them. Three perspectives inform each chapter of the book, albeit to different degrees. First, I employ the commonplaces as a terministic screen through which to view the different articulations of philosophies of language and theories of rhetoric in three eighteenth-century British rhetorical treatises. Second, I demonstrate how the commonplaces help to identify the continuities and discontinuities between the problem of language for eighteenth- and twentieth-century rhetorical theory. Finally, using this comparative view of eighteenth- and twentieth-century rhetoric to plot a course, as it were, into the future, I propose a pluralistic stance toward the problem of language in rhetoric as an alternative to the theoretical standoff that currently characterizes the debate between realist and antirealist rhetorics. Methodologically, then, this study provides a means of analyzing the relationships between philosophies of language and theories of rhetoric. Historically, it argues for the importance of philosophies of language to eighteenth-century theories of rhetoric and for the relevance of eighteenth-century rhetorical theory to our own philosophical concerns, particularly those regarding language. Theoretically, it argues, along with Richard McKeon, for a "pluralistic philosophy which establishes a creative interplay of philosophies inventing their facts, their data, their methods, their universes" ("Creativity and the Commonplace" 34). A Note on Scope, Terms, and Texts The geographical and chronological scope implied by the phrase "late eighteenth-century British rhetoric" deserves some explanation

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here. I focus on the second half of the eighteenth century largely because the distinctly new approach to rhetorical theory during the period, so well documented by Howell, offers a heuristically valuable alignment of rhetorical and philosophical problems relative to our own theoretical debates. I stay clear of the nineteenth century not only because art is long and life is short but also because, as Nan Johnson so thoroughly documents in Nineteenth-Century Rhetoric in North America (1991), "the theoretical substance of nineteenth-century rhetoric was founded on a composite of classical assumptions and epistemological and belletristic premises initially popularized in the late eighteenth-century English tradition known as the 'New Rhetoric"' (19). The nineteenth century has its own story to tell, but in terms of this inquiry, the theoretical assumptions about language that grounded eighteenth-century new rhetoric in realism remained virtually unchallenged (at least, in rhetorical theory) until skeptical rhetoric asserted itself in the second half of the twentieth century. Viewed against that background, this study is more concerned with theoretical juxtaposition than broad historical narrative. My focus on British rhetorical theory requires some explanation as well, both because of the works I include under that term and because of the other eighteenth-century traditions my focus excludes. The cultural background sketched in this study encompasses England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the case studies at the center of this book focus on rhetorical treatises written by two Scots and an Irishman. Any confusion resulting from the complex political and cultural relationships between England and Scotland and between Great Britain and Ireland during the 1700s might be avoided through reference to "English rhetoric" if that term were understood to refer to rhetorical treatises written in English and grounded in the polite literate culture of English-speaking people throughout Great Britain and Ireland. But the potential interpretation of "English rhetoric" to mean rhetorics written in England precludes such a neat solution. "British" seems to be a workable compromise used commonly by scholars in the field. One must not, however, overestimate the degree to which cultural and intellectual trends extended throughout Great Britain and Ireland nor underestimate the cultural differences that help to explain the unique contributions of rhetorical theorists in Scotland and Ireland. I try to keep these caveats in mind throughout the book. The study is limited to work done in the British Isles largely for reasons mentioned above: contemporary debates between rhetorical

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realism and relativism evoke the British, rather than the Continental, tradition of rhetorical theory. As I will note in the course of the study, British rhetoricians read and commented on Continentalparticularly Frenchphilosophy, rhetoric, and language theory, but their own philosophical arguments establish a distinctly British context for their theories of thought, language, and eloquence. Finally, a word about the texts used in my case studies of Blair's, Campbell's, and Sheridan's treatises. Because we have no standard critical editions of these treatises, my selection of texts involved balancing reliability and availability. The Blair and Sheridan editions used for this study are both facsimiles of the first London edition of each treatise. Both are included in major twentieth-century series of eighteenth-century texts edited by prominent scholars in the fieldBlair in the Landmarks in Rhetoric and Public Address series published by Southern Illinois University Press, and Sheridan in the English Linguistics 1500-1800 series published by Scolar Press. These editions of Blair and Sheridan are therefore familiar to many students of eighteenthcentury rhetoric and are widely available in research libraries. My reference text of George Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric is also included in the Landmarks series from Southern Illinois University Press. Edited by Lloyd Bitzer, this text is a facsimile of an 1850 edition judged by Bitzer to be the most reliable single-volume edition. Bitzer also checked that edition against several other editions and provides a list of corrections that bring the 1850 edition in line with an 1808 edition that was the first to include Campbell's own additions and corrections to the first edition (Bitzer, "Notes to the Present Edition" lvii-lxi). In this study, quotations from Campbell's Rhetoric have been silently emended to reflect Bitzer's list of corrections and additions.

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1 The Problem of Language: Things, Thoughts, Words, and Actions This seems to me the first and most general, as well as natural division of the Objects of our Understanding. For a Man can employ his Thoughts about nothing, but either the Contemplation of Things themselves for the discovery of Truth; Or about the Things in his own Power, which are his own Actions, for the Attainment of his own Ends; Or the Signs the Mind makes use of, both in the one and the other, and the right ordering of them for its clearer Information. All which three, viz. Things as they are in themselves knowable; Actions as they depend on us, in order to Happiness; and the right use of Signs in order to Knowledge, being toto cælo different, they seemed to me to be the three great Provinces of the intellectual World, wholly separate and distinct one from another. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding The places of invention and of memory are places of things, thoughts, actions, and words. . . . In communications, in sciences, and in arts, there are no things or thoughts, only known things and significant thoughts, expressed things and thoughts, ordered by actions of art which produce and make them as objects, understandings, consequences, and expressions. Richard McKeon, "Creativity and the Commonplace" Throughout its history, rhetorical theory has had to address concerns about the nature of its chief symbolic mediumlanguage. Indictments of rhetoric have charged that the art builds upon the very

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attributes of natural language that most impede humanity's search for truth. Specifically, such indictments have argued that the complicated relationships of natural language to the imagination and passions and the ambiguous relationship of words to thoughts and real things disqualify rhetorical argument as a basis for rational judgment and principled action. Defenses of rhetoric have countered that language can and often must appeal to the imagination and passions in concert with its appeal to reason and that, for all its shortcomings, natural language is still our most powerful means (some would say our only means) of shaping and sharing knowledge of ourselves and our surroundings. At no time have such debates about language been more central to rhetorical theory than in the development of the new British rhetorics of the late eighteenth century, those that abandoned strict adherence to classical models in order to address new ideas about epistemology, moral and aesthetic sensibility, and language. W. S. Howell may exaggerate when he calls the history of eighteenth-century logic and rhetoric "the expression of Locke's influence in this or that of its many ramifications" (7), but one of the most significantand overlookedof those ramifications is the renewed attention Locke's and others' work drew to the role of language in theories of rhetoric. Indeed, the major developments in late eighteenth-century British rhetorical theory have as much to do with the problem of language as they do with the problem of knowledge. We can profitably read the new rhetorics of eighteenth-century Britain as attempts to balance awareness of the discontinuities among words, thoughts, and things (as highlighted, for instance, in Locke's analysis of the abuses of words in philosophical inquiry) with analysis of the continuities among words, thoughts, things, and actions upon which depends any vital rhetorical theory applicable to civic life and aesthetic production. A Theoretical Benchmark: John Locke and The Objects of Understanding Just as physical mapping begins (or began, in the age before satellites) by establishing a benchmark, I take as the benchmark for this study a passage from John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). While somewhat arbitrary (given the number of influential figures who wrote about language), my choice of Locke has a rationale. In the case of physical mapping, one starts from a high place

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that offers a view of the surrounding territory. In historical/theoretical mapping, one looks for a conceptual framework characteristic of the theoretical terrain, one to which others have attached their work. Accordingly, we might recall an earlier surveyor's testimony to Locke's influence on the development of a new rhetoric in eighteenth-century Britain. In the introduction to Eighteenth-Century British Logic and Rhetoric (1971), Wilbur Samuel Howell asserts that "the main conclusion to be drawn from this history is that the changes which took place in logical and rhetorical doctrine between 1700 and 1800 are perhaps best interpreted as responses to the emergence of the new science" (5). Though Howell acknowledges Bacon as the founder of that new science, he names Locke its hero (7). Indeed, he concludes, "So far as its dominant thrust may be said to be embodied in the works of one man, the movement under examination here is hardly anything more than the expression of Locke's influence in this or that of its many ramifications" (7). However, eighteenth-century British rhetoricians did not slavishly look to philosophy for solutions to the problems of thought and language. Accordingly, my starting place reveals one site where rhetorical theory might resist Locke as well as learn from him. The set of philosophical commonplaces that informs this study (things, thoughts, words, and actions) figures centrally in the concluding chapter of Locke's Essay, "Of the Division of the Sciences," in which he outlines three branches of science, defining , or natural Philosophy," seeks "bare speculative Truth" about each branch according to its objects and ends. First, " "Things," which include ''not only Matter, and Body, but Spirits also, which have their proper Natures, Constitutions, and Operations as well as Bodies" (720; 4.21.2). In practice, then, "things" refers not to physical objects but to anything that can be " concerns the "Skill of Right applying objectified through description of its nature, constitution, or operation. Second, " , or the our own Powers and Actions"; thus, its end is "Right, and a Conduct suitable to it" (720; 4.21.3). Third, " Doctrine of Signs," considers "the Nature of Signs, the Mind makes use of for the understanding of Things, or conveying its Knowledge to others" (720; 4.21.4). 1 At first glance, Locke's "Division of the Sciences" appears to employ only three terms (things, actions, and signs), but it turns out that words and thoughts (in the guise of Ideas) constitute two further divisions of signs:

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For since the Things, the Mind contemplates, are none of them, besides it self, present to the Understanding, 'tis necessary that something else, as a Sign or Representation of the thing it considers, should be present to it: And these are Ideas. And because the Scene of Ideas that makes one Man's Thoughts, cannot be laid open to the immediate view of another, nor laid up any where but in the Memory, a no very sure Repository: Therefore to communicate our Thoughts to one another, as well as record them for our own use, Signs of our Ideas are also necessary. Those which Men have found most convenient, and therefore generally make use of, are articulate Sounds. The Consideration then of Ideas and Words, as the great Instruments of Knowledge, makes no despicable part of their Contemplation, who would take a view of humane Knowledge in the whole Extent of it. (72021; 4.21.4) Concluding the chapter, Locke reinforces his division of the sciences by claiming that his categories represent "the first and most general, as well as natural division of the Objects of our Understanding" (721; 4.21.5). He argues further that these three objectsthings, actions, and signsare "toto cælo different" and thus constitute "the three great Provinces of the intellectual World, wholly separate and distinct one from another" (721; 4.21.5). In spite of this emphasis on distinctness, one can already see some of the permutations of these commonplaces that will figure in this study. Locke adopts "ideas" as his key term for the mental stuff of human subjectivity, and he establishes such a strong continuity between ideas and words that he subsumes them both under the concept of signs. Yet signs and actions are also clearly objectified in semiotics, ethics, and epistemology. Moreover, the nature, constitution, and operation of things become objects of understanding only through the active use of signs. Thus, human understanding is a matrix of things, signs, and actions. Most significant for this study are the complex relationships that Locke establishes among the elements of that matrix. One such relationship becomes apparent if we consider the place of this final chapter in Locke's argument. His discussion "Of the Division of the Sciences" at first seems to appear out of nowhere. He does not forecast the chapter in his initial précis of his argument (44; 1.1.3), nor does he provide any transition to it from the preceding chapter on "wrong Assent, or Errour." Nevertheless, his catalog of the "Objects of our Understanding" provides an appropriate close for the Essay because it allows us to exit the book through the door by which we entered. In the opening paragraph of the first chapter of book 1, Locke observes

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that "the Understanding, like the Eye, whilst it makes us see, and perceive all other Things, takes no notice of it self: And it requires Art and Pains to set it at a distance, and make it its own Object" (43; 1.1.1). Throughout the Essay, Locke sustains that difficult translation of subject (or subjectivity) into object, until by the last chapter of the last book, the "Scene of Ideas," as defined by Locke, falls readily into place as one of the "natural" objects of understanding. The understanding, restored to its role as a subject within whose "compass" all else might fall, gazes upon itself (720; 4.21.1). Thus, the understanding is both subject and object. Here is the sort of ambiguity out of which David Hume would later develop his skeptical philosophy. In the process of establishing ideas as both the subject and object of understanding, Locke assumes that his readers will recognize the presence of ideas in their own minds, and he presents "Men's Words and Actions" as prima facie evidence for the presence of ideas in others' minds: "I presume it will be easily granted me, that there are such Ideas in Men's Minds; every one is conscious of them in himself, and Men's Words and Actions will satisfy him, that they are in others" (48; 1.1.8). Now we can easily grant Locke that humans escape their bounded subjectivity through words and actions if we also grant him that words and actions, in his philosophy, can be things, or "external, sensible Objects," one of the two "Fountains of Knowledge, from whence all the Ideas we have . . . do spring." The other fountain, "the internal Operations of our Minds, perceived and reflected on by our selves,'' clearly offers no direct evidence that there are other sentient beings about (104; 2.1.2). However, we have no direct access to others' words or actions as external things save through ideas produced, according to Locke, by sensation. Thus, our ideas of our ideas (remember that we are expending "Art and Pains" to objectify our own understanding) allow us to be aware of our own subjectivity, and our ideas of others' words and actions as things reveal our fellow humans' subjectivity (i.e., possession of ideas). In these two ways, then, is thought (alias "ideas" and "understanding") related to words and actions in Locke's epistemology: it construes words and actions both as evidence of itself in others and, along with other sorts of things, as its objects. Were it not for their special status as intersubjective evidence of thought, words and actions might easily be subsumed by "things," leaving Locke's philosophy in the potentially solipsistic state of containing only two terms: one's thoughts (ideas) and external things (external, sensible objects). 2

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Indeed, Locke's initial outline of his project reveals only these two generating principles: he promises to investigate the origin of ideas, the nature of the knowledge we construct from those ideas, and the means by which we judge propositions "of whose Truth . . . we have no certain Knowledge" (44; 1.1.3). At the end of book 2, however, he interrupts his plan, noting that "there is so close a connexion between Ideas and Words . . . that it is impossible to speak clearly and distinctly of our Knowledge, which all consists in Propositions, without considering, first, the Nature, Use, and Signification of Language" (401; 2.33.19). Thus do words become a generating principle for all of book 3. In addition, the opening sentence of book 3 presents words as ''the great Instrument, and common Tye of Society" (402; 3.1.1 )that is, as incipient actions. Accordingly, when outlining his division of , defining ethics in part as "the seeking out those the sciences, he identifies ethics as the most "considerable" element of Rules, and Measures of humane Actions, which lead to Happiness" (720; 4.21.3). Establishing such rules and measures, of course, entails the use of words and propositions. Such continuities, transformations, and interactions among the commonplaces of things, thoughts, words, and actions arise from their common ground in human experience and reveal what Kenneth Burke has called the "alchemic" opportunities that arise from the participation of terms in a common ground (Grammar xix). By contrast, when Locke employs these four key terms in his final chapter to construct his divisions of science, he emphasizes the discontinuities among the terms. Recall that, regardless of their intimate interaction as grounding principles of his philosophy, things, actions, and signs (ideas and words) give rise to sciences that Locke views as "wholly separate and distinct one from another" (721; 4.21.5). On this point, it is instructive to compare Locke's architectonic move with Burke's account of the genesis of his Grammar of Motives. As he compiled notes concerned with the motive of "competitive ambition," Burke discerned three distinct classes of observations: We sought to formulate the basic stratagems which people employ . . . for the outwitting or cajoling of one another. Since all these devices had a 'you and me' quality about them, being 'addressed' to some person or to some advantage, we classed them broadly under the heading of a Rhetoric. There were other notes, concerned with modes of expression and appeal in the fine arts, and with purely psychological or psychoanalytic matters. These we classed under the heading of Symbolic.

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We had made still further observations, which we at first strove uneasily to class under one or the other of these two heads, but which we were eventually able to distinguish as the makings of a Grammar. For we found in the course of writing that our project needed a grounding in formal considerations logically prior to both the rhetorical and psychological. (xvii-xviii) Though the key terms of his grammar of motives differ from the key terms of Locke's philosophy, Burke's architectonic division of his larger inquiry uncannily parallels Locke's division of "the Objects of our Understanding." Just as Burke's Symbolic is concerns words concerned with "modes of expression" and "purely psychological or psychoanalytic matters," Locke's concern conduct (and we have already noted the "you and me quality" of and ideas. Both Burke's Rhetoric and Locke's words and actions in Locke's philosophy). Finally, just as Burke's Grammar concerns ''formal considerations logically prior to concerns "The Knowledge of Things, as they are in their own proper both the rhetorical and psychological," Locke's Beings, their Constitutions, Properties, and Operations" (720; 4.21.2). Are the same generating principles at work in these two architectonic schemes? They are insofar as the pattern of their relationships to one another can be traced back in more or less the same directions, that is, to the same commonplaces in human experience, no matter how different the philosophies Burke and Locke generate from those commonplaces. However, Burke places greater emphasis than Locke on the continuities discernible at this level of analysis: Theological, metaphysical, and juridical doctrines offer the best illustration of the concerns we place under the heading of Grammar; the forms and methods of art best illustrate the concerns of Symbolic; and the ideal material to reveal the nature of Rhetoric comprises observations on parliamentary and diplomatic devices, editorial bias, sales methods and incidents of social sparring. However, the three fields overlap considerably. And we shall note, in passing, how the Rhetoric and the Symbolic hover about the edges of our central theme, the Grammar. (Grammar xviii) As the present inquiry concerns in part the continuities and discontinuities between philosophies of language and theories of rhetoric, Locke's relative emphasis on discontinuity turns out to be crucially important.

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Locke's famous disparagement of rhetoric, delightful in its own right for its broad irony and biting sarcasm, fairly bristles with dichotomies: Since Wit and Fancy finds easier entertainment in the World, than dry Truth and real Knowledge, figurative Speeches, and allusion in Language, will hardly be admitted, as an imperfection or abuse of it. I confess, in Discourses, where we seek rather Pleasure and Delight, than Information and Improvement, such Ornaments as are borrowed from them, can scarce pass for Faults. But yet, if we would speak of Things as they are, we must allow, that all the Art of Rhetorick, besides Order and Clearness, all the artificial and figurative application of Words Eloquence hath invented, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong Ideas, move the Passions, and thereby mislead the Judgment; and so indeed are perfect cheat: And therefore however laudable or allowable Oratory may render them in Harangues and popular Addresses, they are certainly, in all Discourses that pretend to inform or instruct, wholly to be avoided. (508; 3.10.34) This formulation does not allow that we might seek pleasure and delight in information and improvement, that "figurative applications" might contribute to order and clearness, or that passions might direct the judgment to truth. Ironically, Locke does not let his attack rest here but goes on to take a further swipe at rhetoric complete with some rather broad "figurative applications" of his own, including a metaphor and parallel simile that implicates the discontinuity between philosophy and rhetoric in the larger and more invidious cultural discontinuity between representations of gender: 'Tis evident how much Men love to deceive, and be deceived, since Rhetorick, that powerful instrument of Error and Deceit, has its established Professors, is publickly taught, and has always been had in great Reputation: And, I doubt not, but it will be thought great boldness, if not brutality in me, to have said thus much against it. Eloquence, like the fair Sex, has too prevailing Beauties in it, to suffer it self ever to be spoken against. And 'tis in vain to find fault with those Arts of Deceiving, wherein Men find pleasure to be Deceived. (508; 3.10.34) 3 Sighted from my benchmark passage at the end of the Essay, this passage establishes a boundary that excludes much of , insofar as the latter concerns "the Nature of Signs, traditional rhetorical doctrine from any significant continuity with the Mind makes use of for the un-

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derstanding of Things, or conveying its Knowledge to others" (720; 4.21.4). After Locke, rhetoricians concerned with the philosophical grounding of rhetoric had to reconsider the relationship between theories of language and rhetoric. Generating Principles: Things, Thoughts, Words, and Actions Taking my cue from Locke's Essay, Kenneth Burke's use of five "key terms" for developing dramatism in A Grammar of Motives (1945), and Richard McKeon's identification of these four "places of invention and memory" in "Creativity and the Commonplace,'' I adopt things, thoughts, words, and actions as generating principles or commonplaces for an analysis of the relationships between philosophies of language and theories of rhetoric in late eighteenth-century Britain. The particular promise of these terms for historical inquiry lies in McKeon's suggestion that such commonplaces can serve as generating principles for innovationin short, as a means of reading rhetorical history into rhetoric's future: "In the interpretation of the text of a philosopher, past or present, commonplaces of invention may open up the perception of new meanings and applications even in a familiar text, which in turn uncovers previously unperceived lines of arguments to unnoticed conclusions which were not there until they were made facts by discovery" (36). This study aims to take up McKeon's challenge, to link historical interpretation and theoretical discovery. One might ask, given the increasingly complex terminology employed by philosophers and rhetoricians over the past three centuries, why I should ground inquiry in such general terms. Are not these terms so general as to prove useless? For addressing particular philosophical problems, perhaps so. But for the purpose of comparing different systems of philosophy and articulating those philosophies with theories of rhetoric, one wants prime terms, not in the sense of indivisibility but rather of generative priority (as in "prime meridian"). Ideally, such a set of terms will "provide us with a kind of simplicity that can be developed into considerable complexity, and yet can be discovered beneath its elaborations" (Burke, Grammar xvi). 4 In practice, the terms should allow us to trace philosophical or rhetorical arguments about language back to the common ground they share with other philosophical and rhetorical arguments.

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But how might we find such common ground? Rather than turning rhetoric into philosophy (Plato's solution, one might argue) or philosophy into rhetoric (as have a number of philosophers and rhetoricians since Nietzsche), we can more profitably locate their common ground by considering them as arising from the same generating principles. 5 Accordingly, let us say that philosophical systems and theories of rhetoric, in common with other systems of rational knowledge, consist of conceptual relations embodied and, therefore, rendered at least potentially communicable in statements.6 Further, philosophy and rhetoric share an interest in statements per se, which they measure against some conceptual groundthat is, they describe figure/ground relationships among particular statements and higher-order concepts. In the case of philosophy, such higher-order concepts might be truth, authenticity, or indeterminacy. Theories of rhetoric might measure statements according to concepts of persuasiveness (the ground assumed by rhetoricians throughout much of the tradition) or identification and division (the ground assumed by Burke). But conceptual grounds such as truth and persuasiveness, which identify sites of tension between traditional philosophy and rhetoric, represent relatively high-level systems of relations that entail more fundamental systems arising from our four generating principlesthings, thoughts, words, and actions.7 We may disagree with Locke's assertion that all knowledge "consists in Propositions" (401; 2.33.19), but we must assume that all knowledge embodied in statements, including systems of philosophy and theories of rhetoric, can be measured (and can be fully understood as statements only if measured) against four commonplaces: THINGSthe nature of that which a statement objectifies in relation to some system of objects (whether real or constructed by language); THOUGHTSthe nature of the meaning expressed by a statement in relation to a system of intersubjectivity (i.e., whatever dimensions of mental experience that are at least potentially communicable by signs); WORDSthe nature of a statement in relation to the system of signs from which it is constructed; and ACTIONSthe nature of the consequences entailed by the statement in relation to a system of influence among words, thoughts, things, and actions.8 As generating principles, these terms can give rise both to categories of phenomena and to explanatory perspectives. For instance, the words of natural languages can be examined as things (sounds and written signs), thoughts (elements in semantic systems), or communicative actions.

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For human beings, insofar as they are "beings that by nature respond to symbols" (Burke, Rhetoric 43), these grounds of experience appear to constitute inescapable discontinuities. That is to say, by uttering a statement, we necessarily fracture in relation to ourselves any seamless continuity that might otherwise characterize what Locke calls "Allbeing" (540; 4.3.6). 9 In statements, systems of objectivity, subjectivity, signification, and influence reciprocally order one another yet remain distinguishable, never quite collapsing into unity nor becoming wholly separate. Again following Burke, we can say that a "rounded" analysis of any particular philosophical or rhetorical doctrine must at least implicitly establish grounds for tracing relationships among systems of things, thoughts, words, and actions. For my purposes, these four fundamental terms offer the best promise for tracing the place of language in systems of philosophy and theories of rhetoric back to common generating principles. But these particular terms also offer this inquiry other practical advantages. As histories of both philosophy and rhetoric demonstrate, the inherent ambiguity of these four general terms offers endless opportunities for dialectical inquiryfor definition, subdivision, redefinition, and rearrangement of the relations among the terms. As Burke points out in relation to his pentad, this ambiguity is inescapable "insofar as men cannot themselves create the universe" (Grammar xviii). That is to say, insofar as something in our experience resists, counters, or contradicts the order imposed by our terministic screens. More immediately important, the ambiguity of the terms gives rise to the object of this inquirythe history and possibilities of relations between philosophies of language and theories of rhetoric. "Accordingly," we can assert with Burke, "what we want is not terms that avoid ambiguity, but terms that clearly reveal the strategic spots at which ambiguities necessarily arise" (xviii). Burke adopts a ''synoptic" method for exploring the ambiguities of his key terms, a method based on "systematic manipulation of the terms, to 'generate,' or 'anticipate' the various classes of motivational theory" (xxii-xxiii). He eschews a "purely historical survey," arguing that such a survey "would require no less than a universal history of human culture; for every judgment, exhortation, or admonition, every view of natural or supernatural reality, every intention or expectation involves assumptions about motive, or cause" (xxii). Perhaps. But Burke's scruple seems justified only if one believes it is possible to "anticipate" all the kinds of philosophies that might arise from a set of generating principles in different intellectual and cultural contexts. An

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alternative method, the method adopted by this study, is to examine specific historical cases in order to keep in view the relationship between philosophical or rhetorical systems arising from my generating principles and larger cultural contexts to which they appear to be related. Insofar as cultural and theoretical continuities connect us to previous philosophies of language and theories of rhetoric, we should learn something, albeit something less than universal, about the relationship between our own philosophies of language and theories of rhetoric. Several broad cultural continuities suggest the value of these commonplaces for studying the particular case of Western systems of philosophy and rhetoric. 10 Because my four key terms entail one another yet remain at least partially separable aspects of rational experience, they may give rise to distinct objects of understanding. Thus, metaphysics, ontology, and modern science continue to wrestle with the distinction between mind and matter, between thought and thing. Inquiries into epistemology are similarly grounded in a distinction between knowing and the thing known. Semantics distinguishes among thoughts, words, and things (or, if it does not, it begs a fundamental question of metaphysics). Ethics, rhetoric, pragmatics, and Burke's dramatism highlight the fact that all statements entail the possibility of change (even if they simply reinforce the status quo) and, therefore, must be understood not only as thoughts, things, and signs but also as actions. Similarly, these four commonplaces can give rise to distinct grounds of understanding. Thus, materialist and realist philosophies of various stripes ground knowledge in an objective reality independent of human understanding (i.e., insofar as possible, understanding is measured by various instrumentalities taken to represent some regularity in an independent universe of things). Critical rationalism, idealism, and perhaps relativism need not eschew objective reality, but they ground knowledge in systems of thought (reality is measured by how and what we "know" about it). Pragmatism attempts to avoid the Scylla and Charybdis of mind and matter by grounding knowledge in practical consequences, thus constituting knowledge as a kind of action. Deconstruction and other poststructuralist philosophies expose language as the chief and at best shaky and indeterminate ground of knowledge. Existentialism alone seems to resist close identification with any one of my key terms, but from my position it appears that existentialist anxiety over "being" stems from the inescapable discontinuities in human experience introduced by our generating principles. Indeed, the tension among schools of philosophy and rhetoric stems in part from the fact

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that too close an identification with any single ground of knowledge seems to limit the horizon of our understanding, and we yearn for a broader view. Of course, a similar anxiety should attend adoption of any particular set of terms with which to conduct inquiry. Burke warns, "Even if any given terminology is a reflection of reality, by its very nature as a terminology it must be a selection of reality; and to this extent it must function also as a deflection of reality" (Language 45). However, since we cannot avoid terminology in rational inquiry, Burke offers the following "terministic" injunction: "Pick some particular nomenclature, some one terministic screen . . . [t]hat you may proceed to track down the kinds of observation implicit in the terminology you have chosen, whether your choice of terms was deliberate or spontaneous'' (47). I have chosen my terms because they embody both my subject and method. While the meanings of these commonplaces vary from one thinker to the next, they occupy an important place in the common vocabulary of eighteenth-century philosophical and rhetorical discourse. Moreover, as the example of Locke's Essay suggests, these commonplacesand the relationships among themhelp to locate some of the most vexing problems for seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British philosophy and rhetoric. For instance, my brief analysis of Locke's Essay revealed some of the difficulties highlighted when these commonplaces inform inquiry into intersubjectivitythe continuities and discontinuities among subjects' experience and knowledge. Burke argues that "terminologies must implicitly or explicitly embody choices between the principle of continuity and the principle of discontinuity," assuming that "there are two kinds of terms: terms that put things together, and terms that take things apart" ("Language" 49-50). However, I will argue that all terminologies must establish both continuities and discontinuitiesthe relationships invoke and are relative to each other. Insofar as "continuity" retains the sense of "being held together," it implies a lack of identity, a discontinuity without which the notion of continuity would be meaningless. As noted above, my use of McKeon's four commonplaces assumes an ultimately irresolvable discontinuity in the mental experience of symbol-using beings at the same time that it assumes the continuity of that experience from other perspectives (compare Locke's "Allbeing"). Through definition of key terms and exploration of relationships among terms, particular uses of terminology will highlight some continuities and discontinuities while hiding or

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deemphasizing others according to intellectual and social exigencies. Thus, eighteenth-century philosophers who were primarily concerned with establishing an accurate correspondence between thoughts and things decried arguments about the continuities and discontinuities among mere words. From my perspective, this move involves choosing a ground for knowledge, one that determines which continuities and discontinuities in human experience will be viewed as properly ordering all others. Indeed, in such ordering of relations among terms lies the larger significance of this study. A philosophy grounded in a particular kind of continuity between thoughts and things grants itself the power to designate that sort of continuity knowledge or science while viewing other relations between thoughts and things as relatively discontinuous, or mere superstition. A philosophy grounded in particular assumptions about things designates some propositions as the truth about reality, while other propositions, by virtue of their relative discontinuity with reality, constitute fantasy or mere speculation. A philosophy grounded in certain relationships between thought and action might privilege practice while devaluing mere theory, or focus on motivated human action and devalue the mere motion of things, as does Burke. Finally, a philosophy grounded in the play of différance in language will privilege demonstrations of indeterminacy and deem illusory the experience of reference and determinate meaning. Such grounding and ordering among the key terms of Western philosophy have been going on throughout the tradition, and there is no reason to suppose that it will stop just because one has subscribed to science or sophistry. But the historical question of interest in our time is not so much whether there is one true philosophy for all time but how particular philosophies come to be viewed as true in particular times and circumstances. And more specifically, what consequences ensue when rhetorical theory adopts particular philosophical grounding(s) in particular cultural contexts. Such historical inquiry will not yield theoretical models for us to adopt but principles of theory building that we might adapt to the specific circumstances in which we must reconstruct the relationships among things, thoughts, words, and actions.

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2 On "The Nature, Use, and Signification of Language" Having thus given an account of the original, sorts, and extent of our Ideas, with several other Considerations, about these (I know not whether I may say) Instruments, or Materials, of our Knowledge, the method I at first proposed to my self, would now require, that I should immediately proceed to shew, what use the Understanding makes of them, and what Knowledge we have by them. This was that, which, in the first general view I had of this Subject, was all that I thought I should have to do: but upon a nearer approach, I find, that there is so close a connexion between Ideas and Words; and our abstract Ideas, and general Words, have so constant a relation one to another, that it is impossible to speak clearly and distinctly of our Knowledge, which all consists in Propositions, without considering, first, the Nature, Use, and Signification of Language. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding The political and social effectiveness of [eighteenth-century] ideas about language derived from the presupposition that language revealed the mind. Olivia Smith, The Politics of Language, 1791-1819 Study of the nature, use, and signification of language was common ground for eighteenth-century British grammarians, philosophers, and rhetoricians. That is to say, words were studied as things or material artifacts (sounds and written symbols) constituting the elements of formal systems of signs; as incipient communicative actions; and as

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signs of thought. On this common ground, grammarians, philosophers, and rhetoricians erected and compared formal models of ancient, modern, and "universal" languages; reevaluated the use of language in philosophical inquiry; and established new principles and standards of taste and composition in the verbal arts. Perhaps inevitably, these projects also erected new fortifications against linguistic forms and communicative practices deemed inappropriate for rational inquiry or use in "polite" societya reflection of the educational and social status of those who studied language. The present chapter surveys this common ground and its constructs, mapping the different linguistic and cultural problems emphasized by various fields of inquiry as well as the shared perspectives that allow for meaningful interaction of language theories across fields. My concern lies with language theory as a meeting place for the several arts of discourse rather than as an end in itself. Consequently, this chapter does not attempt to sketch a comprehensive picture of linguistic theory in eighteenth-century Britain. 1 However, the map presented heredrawn according to a legend comprising the commonplaces of things, thoughts, words, and actionswill serve to identify central social and theoretical problems of language study in the period. In subsequent chapters, that map will help us follow the articulation of philosophies of language and theories of rhetoric in the work of Campbell, Blair, and Sheridan. My approach is recursive rather than linear, overlaying various perspectives in order to provide a textured map of the area on which I focus. Thus, the first section of the chapter sketches the relationship of language theories to patterns of literacy and social hierarchy in order to determine whose language such theories sought. to describe and to suggest what social effects such choices and descriptions entailed. The next section charts treatments of language by eighteenth-century British grammarians, rhetoricians, and philosophers. In general, each art adopts a characteristic perspective on language: grammar views words in the first instance as an orderly system of signs; rhetoric primarily treats words as the instrument or medium of communicative action; and the new logic typically views language as an obstacle to, and a distorting medium for, philosophical inquiry. In the third section, to trace these perspectives back to my generating principles, I follow four patterns in language theory across the arts: language as a system of signs, words as signs of thought, language as communicative action, and words as analogues of things. My purpose is not to conduct an exhaus-

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tive survey but rather to take bearings in preparation for detailed analyses of philosophies of language in three theories of rhetoric. Whose Language?The Scene of Theory In A Social History of English (1983), Dick Leith argues that "we cannot write a social history of English without exploring the social position of those who study, or comment on, the language" (70). Nor can we adequately trace the relationship between philosophies of language and theories of rhetoric without considering the social entailments of language theory, for such theory typically rests on underlying analyses of specific linguistic forms and practices, each associated with somewhat different social and intellectual contexts. Thus, Locke associates particular semantic features of language"the artificial and figurative application of Words"with "Harangues and popular Addresses" and excludes those features from "Discourses that pretend to inform or instruct" (508; 3.10.34). Similarly, eighteenth-century rhetorical theory traditionally addresses the persuasive effect of particular forms of language, supporting the dominance of standard varieties over "barbarous'' dialects and discourses. In eighteenthcentury Britain, such a vernacular standard informed the study of language not only in England, where the standard arose, but also in Scotland, where Scots was displaced by Standard English as the language of law, government, education, and religion, and in Ireland, where "Gaelic was a marker of rural, Catholic poverty; [and] English was associated with Protestantism, ownership, and the towns" (Leith 160, 173). 2 To assess the relationship between the social role of Standard English and the linguistic inquiries of philosophers and rhetoricians, we need to examine the process of standardization and the accompanying analysis of social and linguistic difference as well as the formation of the critical audience whose language and communicative practices were addressed by philosophical and rhetorical treatments of language. (I focus on the role of Standard English hererather than broadening my account to include the continuing role of Latin and Greek in the schools and professionsbecause the rhetorical theory of late eighteenth-century Britain is essentially a vernacular rhetoric, however much it engaged in repeated comparisons between the ancients and the moderns.)

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Standardization and the Analysis of Social and Linguistic Difference According to Leith, the process of standardization in Britain involved four interrelated stages: selection of a standard variety; acceptance of that variety; elaboration of the functions or domains of language use associated with the standard; and codification of the standard in dictionaries and grammarsthis latter stage constituting a "growth industry" during the latter half of the eighteenth century. The aim of standardization can be succinctly stated as "maximal variation in function, and minimal variation in form," though we should add that these aims entail the displacement of other linguistic forms competing in the same domains of communicative practice. Similarly, we must remember that standardization was not a democratic process aimed at choosing a common linguistic form that would facilitate communication among speakers of different dialects and encourage wide participation in public discourse. Rather, the advocates and codifiers of Standard English belonged to an educated class and cultivated a standard reflecting their own linguistic forms, communicative practices, and social privileges. In this context, ''Standard English" does not refer to a widely employed variety of English but rather to a variety put forth as a standard measure of communicative, intellectual, and social quality (Leith 32-34, 42-43). 3 By the middle of the eighteenth century, the project of codifying standard forms of written and spoken English was well under way, with written language playing perhaps the larger role because written forms are particularly amenable to the most effective technologies of standardization: printing in general and, more specifically, printed dictionaries and grammars. As a result, the emergent standard form of written English influenced attitudes toward spoken English, even though the two modes of language follow somewhat different rules. Thus, though we cannot equate writing with standardization (written forms of several English dialects existed before the East Midland dialect achieved dominance), once the standard was selected, writing, printing, and the spread of literacy were essential elements in the establishment and dissemination of that standard (Leith 34, 90; Grillo 6). Attempts to establish a standard form of written English were accompanied by the elaboration of its functions, or the communicative practices with which it is associated. Anthropologist R. D. Grillo links this elaboration of function to "the hierarchical ordering of . . . different sets of communicative practices." He bases this linkage on linguist

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Basil Bernstein's distinction between informal and formal language, or "the elaborated code." The elaborated code, Grillo explains, is "associated with explicitness, propositionality, universality, consciousness, and rationality, which entails planned, logical, coherent structure. These principles guide the way language is organised." Grillo emphasizes that the elaborated code describes language use: "It is not essentially related to any particular form the language takes at the level of accent, grammar or vocabulary." Thus, the elaborated code and writing are not identical, but because the general characteristics of the elaborated code become associated with particular communicative practices dominated by written English, the form of written English in turn becomes a marker of propositionality, consciousness, rationality, and so on. Leith explains how this process began: dialects ''lost their writing systems as the standard was developed; and so they were no longer used for either literary or devotional writing. In short, their range of functions was restricted as those of the standard were elaborated." It is an easy road from this point to associating critical thought with the form of standard written English. Grillo describes this transference: "Dialect and discourse overlap, and the 'ability' to actualise the elaborated form is thought to reside in competence in the specific language with which it is associated. Hence that competence may both denote and connote the holding of society-wide power." In other words, when the capacity for intellectual and communicative functions becomes associated with the command of linguistic forms, those forms become entangled in analyses of social and intellectual difference (Grillo 179-88, 220; Leith 44). Depending on a fundamental conflation of linguistic form, communicative practice, and intellectual capacity, such analyses are inherently suspectand dangerous. In eighteenth-century Britain, Olivia Smith argues, such analyses were crude but effective: Language was generally understood to be a transparent manifestation of value, and theories of language established criteria to measure the soul and civilization. The categories were crude, a matter of barbaric or civilized, vulgar or refined, particular or general, and primitive or artificial without admitting any intermediary status. And they were overwhelmingly significant. The dichotomies of language theory were methods of analysis, essential concepts around which an understanding of language, knowledge, and society were constituted. (21)

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Yet refined or Standard English could be further analyzed, largely as a result of the elaboration of function associated with the process of standardization. As Standard English came to dominate the discourse of particular professionsreplacing Latin as the language of science and philosophy, for instanceit necessarily developed professional varieties that could be employed as further markers of intellectual and communicative competence (Leith 45-47). (John Locke, as we shall see, premises his attempt to remedy "the abuses of words" on a distinction between civil and philosophical uses of language.) Indeed, Olivia Smith argues, "the political and social effectiveness of ideas about language derived from the presupposition that language revealed the mind" (2). Several scholars offer useful critiques of this link between linguistic forms and mental capacities. Grillo points out that debunking the link in philosophical terms does not negate the very real social leverage of such analyses. Even if we argue that the presumed connections among elaborated-formal discourse and the linguistic forms, mental capacities, and social status associated with it are "indirect" and "arbitrary," that discourse nevertheless "represents ways of ratiocinating associated with the dominant culture and mode of organisation in Europe. . . . This need not imply that such ways of ratiocinating are dominant because they are intrinsically more powerful. They seem more powerful, and in a real sense are more powerful, because they are dominant" (Grillo 217). Leith argues that even "our notion of the word as an isolable unit," a notion central to much semantic argument, "has been shaped by literacy and the dictionary'' (61). He argues further that semantic analysis based on words in isolation focuses on conceptual meaning, neglecting aspects of meaning that highlight linguistic and social contexts (70-73). Similarly, Brian Street distinguishes between "autonomous" theories of literacy, which treat literacy as a "neutral technology" that entails specific cognitive processes, and "ideological" theories, which define literacy as "the social practices and conceptions of reading and writing" (1-2). Viewed from the latter perspective, acquiring literacy in eighteenth-century Britain would entail learning a form of English associated with the communicative practices of a socially privileged class, practices among which we might count philosophy and the discourses of belles lettres, the senate, the bar, and the pulpit (the scenes traditionally addressed by eighteenth-century arts of rhetoric). Conversely, acquiring basic literacy would not, either then or now, necessarily entail gaining the privileges or mastering the communicative practices of the class in

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whose language one has been (formally or informally) schooled. To understand eighteenth-century language theory as social action, we need briefly to consider patterns of literacy in eighteenth-century Britain. My question again: Whose language constitutes the scene of theory in eighteenth-century philosophy and rhetoric? Standardization and Literacy If language theory and the emerging standards of written English were closely linked, understanding the social role of language theory in eighteenth-century Britain requires at least some working assumptions about the spread of literacy. But what level of literacy is significant for this inquiry? Often, histories of literacy have been shaped by available evidence, without sufficient attention to the levels of literacy relevant to particular questions. Roger Schofield states the problem succinctly: The level of literary skills considered appropriate in any historical context has rarely been adequately specified. . . . For example, in a discussion of the role of literacy in the history of politics, is the ability to write relevant? or is the ability to read sufficient, and if so to what level? enough to understand a simple handbill, or the works of Locke? . . . The meaning of literacy therefore changes according to the context, and it is the responsibility of the historian to specify the appropriate level of literary skills consistent with his understanding of the context. ("Measurement" 313-14; emphasis added) Thomas Laqueur further cautions against adopting overly simplistic notions of the causes for the spread of literacy: "the history of literacy is not an epiphenomenon of the history of the marketplace or the classroom"; rather, it should be approached more broadly as "a study of the interrelationship of reading and writing with culture" (45-46). Unfortunately, it is no simple matter even to document the distribution of literacy skills in eighteenth-century Britain. As David Cressy laments, ''many of the gradations of illiteracy, from total ignorance of the written word through partial illiteracy to full and fluent skill, are lost to history" (105-6). To pursue this question, I must consider what reliable evidence of literacy trends can help to identify the level of literacy appropriate to this inquiry. Four indicators of literacy have been widely used to characterize literate culture in eighteenth-century Britain: quantitative measures of basic literacy; educational opportunities; literary or anecdotal accounts of reading and writing; and the appearance of new forms of publication or

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an increase in the volume of old forms (Schofield, "Measurement"). Of these, only the last proves immediately helpful in understanding the size and concerns of the literate audience for philosophies of language and theories of rhetoric. 4 Indeed, higher levels of literacy were probably effected as much through the agency of new popular periodicals and debates and discussion in the ubiquitous "literary" societies and coffeehouses as through formal schooling. Joseph Addison, for instance, explicitly announced his intention of "[bringing] Philosophy out of Closets and Libraries, Schools and Colleges, to dwell in Clubs and Assemblies, at Tea-Tables, and in Coffee-Houses" (Spectator No. 10). John Lothian, in his introduction to Adam Smith's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, writes confidently of such efforts in Scotland: [T]he result of all these diverse activities was a wide-spread cultivation of the "critical" spirit, which was in keeping with the national interest in political and economic philosophy, in history as a branch of literature, and in the discussion of philosophical and literary principles. It ultimately produced such notable results as the Edinburgh Review and Blackwood's Magazine. Adam Smith and his successors Watson, Blair, Campbell, Greenfield and the rest, had done their work of public education well. (xxxix) During the course of the eighteenth century, such new forms of publication and public discussion provided new opportunities for reading and writing. Periodicals offered a new forum for essayists and were well received. Twelve hundred to three thousand copies of the Spectator were distributed by the tenth number, and each copy was read by numerous people, particularly those copies that found their way to London's many coffeehouses (Collins 234). The Gentleman's Magazine reached a circulation of ten thousand in 1739, and between 1731 and 1780 London boasted no fewer than sixty magazines, Scotland at least ten, and Ireland eleven (Collins 240). During the same period, successful monthly magazines sold as many as three thousand to fortyfive hundred copies, and in 1776 the Weekly Magazine sold three thousand copies per week.5 The range of topics treated in their pages suggests that such periodicals were addressing a broad audience, and the establishment around midcentury of journals devoted to book reviewing indicates that some of the "reading" public was becoming a "literary" or "more critical" public (Collins 242). There can be little doubt that those reviews effectively addressed a broad audience, for the Monthly Review lasted through four series from

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1749 to 1844, the Critical Review through five series from 1756 to 1817. From 1749 to 1776 the Monthly Review's printings rose from one thousand to thirty-five hundred, and numbers for the Critical Review were comparable. 6 By comparison, press runs for nonfiction books ranged from five hundred to two thousand, even for very popular titles.7 These numbers reflect the fact that unlike earlier, more specialized abstracting journals that catered to a primarily scholarly audience, the midcentury review journals "attempted to satisfy readers across the spectrum of interests from crime through agriculture and fiction to Hebrew linguistics and modifications on Newton's theories" (Morris Golden xix). That editorial policy seems to have satisfied a broad range of the educated public.8 Certainly famous men of letters were among the audience; sale catalogs show that Hugh Blair and Edward Gibbon, among others, subscribed to the Monthly Review. Bookplates and other evidence reveal that the lists of subscribers included "landowners great and small; clergymen (including two bishops) and scholars; professional men and commercial men." In addition to private subscribers, institutional records place the review journals in the collections of universities, learned societies, subscription libraries, literary societies, and book clubs. At one shilling per copy for the two major review journals and six pence for the monthly magazines, subscriptions to the reviewing periodicals would have been limited to upper- and middle-class professionals and the "families of merchants and gentry."9 Proprietary libraries, often associated with literary or philosophical societies, were also "important agencies for the extension of learning among the bettereducated portion of the middle and upper classes" (Altick 60). To the extent that they invoke an ideal audience, rhetorical treatises themselves also provide some clues to their readers' collective identity and levels of literacy. Thus, Hugh Blair commends his Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres to "such as are studying to cultivate their Taste, to form their Style, or to prepare themselves for Public Speaking or Composition" (v). Similarly, George Campbell promises readers of The Philosophy of Rhetoric that nothing in the book "will create even the smallest difficulty to persons accustomed to inquire into the faculties of the mind. Indeed, the much greater part of it will, he is persuaded, be level to the capacity of all those readers (not perhaps the most numerous class) who think reflection of some use in reading, and who do not read merely with the intention of killing time" (lxvii). Unfortunately, Blair and Campbell cannot tell us who might have been in a position to read in the manner each suggests.

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For our purposes, however, it is more important to keep in mind Thomas Laqueur's general proposition concerning studies of literacy: "Our problem, in short, is understanding the formation of a literate culture, the making of a world in which it means something to be able to read and write" (51). Our more particular problem in this inquiry is to examine, first, a philosophical and critical community within the larger culture, a community defined by its critical study of language and discourse, and, second, a broader community in which it became important to read, write, and speak according to standards codified by members of the first group in their teaching, writing, and lecturing. To gauge these communities' attitudes toward language theory, I turn now to eighteenth-century critical reviews of books concerned with language. Discerning Readers: Polite Perspectives on Language Theory Morris Golden succinctly states the warrant for gauging the interests of the educated, critical public on the readership of the two major review journals at midcentury: "since for many years the Monthly Review and the Critical Review were the only magazines reviewing all that appeared, and competed from opposing religious and political positions for the whole educated readership, any consistent criterion for analyzing their contents can be used to indicate the intellectual bent of the educated public" (xxv). Sampling reviews in both periodicals dating from the inception of the Critical Review in 1756 until Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric appeared in 1776, we can establish several working generalizations about the educated public'sor their spokesmen'sattitudes toward the subject matter, doctrines, methods, and accessibility of language theory. 10 Significance of subject matter. Reviewers for the Critical Review generally acknowledge the significance of philosophical investigations into oratory, criticism, and language. For instance, an anonymous review of Anselm Bayly's Introduction to Languages (1758) applauds "all endeavours to render easy, perfect, and rational this great instrument of human felicity," arguing further that "speech is the joint energy of our reason, our social affections, and the peculiar ornament of humanity" (372). Indeed, the same reviewer goes on to claim that "nations were wise, brave, and virtuous in proportion to the attention bestowed upon language . . . since upon the accurate and precise meaning of words depends the clearness of our ideas" (373). Yet even this

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enthusiastic reviewer admits that he may not speak for all readers, of whom he suspects only "a small part" will find much interest in the study of language: "Dry disquisitions and researches into the nature, rise, progress, and extent of languages are reputed of less importance by men of science than, perhaps, they deserve. Few persons of real genius care to employ their time upon subjects which they look upon as the proper province of the heavy, laborious, and dull blockhead" (372). Reviewers for the Monthly Review are equally receptive to good work on language and equally aware that their readers may be jaded by bad work. In his review of Bayly's Introduction, Oliver Goldsmith praises Bayly's work but blames authors for the low opinion some readers have of linguistic inquiries: Few good essays upon Language are to be found among us: men whose talents were equal to such an undertaking, chusing to employ them on more amusing studies; and those who were unequal to the task, shewing only by their unsuccessful attempts, how much a well executed performance of this kind was wanting. To eccho back the rules of former Grammarians, to translate Latin grammars into English, or English grammars into Latin, requires but small abilities, and has been the practice of many late Writers in this species of erudition. But to trace language to its original source, to assign reasons for the justness of every rule in grammar, to shew the similitude of Languages, and at the same time every distinguishing Idiom of each, was reserved for the ingenious Writer before us. (520) In balance, then, while Goldsmith and the anonymous reviewer for the Critical Review dismiss derivative, pedestrian work, they assert the importance of the study of language to both philosophical and social progress. Soundness of doctrine. In discussions concerning linguistic signs, most reviews also touch on the controversy over art and nature. The Critical Review's assessment of Lord Kames's Elements of Criticism (1762) approvingly summarizes his contention that "words are arbitrary signs; yet the manner of employing them is not altogether arbitrary, each passion having by nature peculiar tones and expressions" (291; emphasis added). Occasionally, this intricate (the reviewers would have called it "curious") debate over art and nature led reviewers to burlesque an author's reasoning. A review of Thomas Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind, On the Principles of Common Sense (1764) takes issue with Reid's claim that "the perfection . . . of all artificial lan-

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guage, is surely the corruption of the natural"e.g., gestures, postures, and inarticulate cries: "We are afraid that his doctrine on this head cannot be admitted, without destroying his own fundamental principle of common-sense; for it will be found that if an Algonquin is more eloquent than a Tully, a buffalo must be more so than an Algonquin" (Rose 326). Reid might reply in kind that as any buffalo hunter surely knows, the buffalo's charge most eloquently expresses fury, but the reviewer rightly calls into question Reid's division between "artificial" and "natural" human signs. Unfortunately, he does not elaborate on his objection. Reviewers also wrestle over the relative authority of use and prescriptive grammar in establishing linguistic standards. In a review of Joseph Priestley's Rudiments of English Grammar (1761), which champions the authority of use over grammar, the reviewer writes with unintended irony: "Though the English language has great energy, variety, richness, and elegance, it has never been perfectly refined; many barbarous and ungrammatical phrases are still in use, and inadvertently adopted by almost every writer" (101; emphasis added). This claim is understandable given the analysis of social and linguistic difference underlying standardization, but if general use in any broader sense determines grammatical conventions, the reviewer's charge makes no sense. Then as now, the variety of a living language is easier for a self-consciously "polite" society to accept in theory than in conversation and writing. Soundness of method. Reviewers repeatedly cry "foul!" whenever an author relies on theory, rule, or ancient tradition without sufficient reference toor in contradiction ofexperience and observation. They variously recognize five types of support for theory: (I) the author's reflections on the workings of his own mind, (2) the reader's "experiments" on himself, (3) the reviewer's experience, (4) the testimony of literature, and, occasionally, (5) the observable features of the natural world. Exemplifying the fifth criterion, for instance, one reviewer calls for physiological studies to test Bayly's theory of language: "It would be no unpleasing anatomical inquiry to fix the precise nature and functions of [speech] organs, as we think it would more distinctly determine the various scales and divisions of sound" (rev. of Introduction to Languages 373). Speculation here comes face-toface with empirical observation! More generally, though, reviewers assume an audience accustomed to reasoning formally, to objectifying thought (recall Campbell's reference to "persons accustomed to inquire into the

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faculties of the mind") and to reading the canonical texts of literate culture. Propriety and accessibility of style. Reviewers believed two audiences existed for works on language and criticism: "discerning readers," who could appreciate the current philosophical debate over the relationship between the rules of art and the laws of human nature, and "the generality of readers," who would benefit most from prescriptive guidance in matters of taste, grammar, and elocution. The reviewers' judgments about the accessibility of various works to both learned and lay audiences reveal the analysis of social and intellectual difference underlying their assessments. William Rose, for instance, praises Thomas Reid's Inquiry both for Reid's investigation of a difficult subject and for his ability to engage a broad audience: "His manner of writing too, is much more agreeable and entertaining than that of the generality of Metaphysicians; he ridicules the sceptical systems with so much spirit and humour, that many parts of his performance may be read with pleasure, by those who have but a superficial knowledge of his subject" (359). For Rose, it would seem, the ideal author combines the genius to discover new knowledge and the rhetorical skill to entertain lay readers. Yet Rose praises a less accessible work in his review of Alexander Gerard's Essay on Taste (1759). He recognizes both the quality of Gerard's treatise and the potential appeal of its subject to a wide audience, but he fears that Gerard's argument will be inaccessible to "the generality of readers." Two passages from that review illustrate a somewhat different attitude toward the dual audience for such works than Rose presents in his review of Reid's Inquiry: There is scarce any passion that has a more prevailing influence over the fashionable part of mankind in the present times, than the ambition of being thought men of taste. Poets, Painters, Philosophers, and Critics, are not the only persons who are actuated by this ambition; gamesters, jockeys, beaus, bucks and debauchees pretend, all of them, to be men of taste. (533-34) [T]he discerning reader will clearly perceive, that Mr. Gerard has treated his subject, not in a loose and superficial manner, but has entered into it with the spirit and abilities of a philosopher. His essay, indeed, will be but little relished by the generality of readers, who are incapable of bestowing that attention which is necessary to form a proper judgment of it; but those of a philosophical turn will, we doubt not, read it with pleasure. (544-45; emphasis added)

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In his review of Reid's Inquiry, Rose at least praises Reid for giving pleasure to an audience capable of only a "superficial" reading, but his review of Gerard's Essay shows little sympathy for the generality of readers who "pretend" to be men of taste. 11 By contrast, Oliver Goldsmith acknowledges the serious intent of at least some members of the lay audience. Reviewing Bayly's Introduction to Languages, Goldsmith writes that Bayly "is possessed of learning to examine his subject minutely, and good sense to avoid incurring the imputation of pedantry; so that his book will be found equally useful to the student, and entertaining to the critic" (521). One suspects that Goldsmith's use of "entertaining" conveys a quite different attitude toward critical readers than Rose's use of the term conveys in regard to lay readers. In any case, Goldsmith praises Bayly for defining technical terms and assigning reasons "for the peculiarities of languages, and usages in syntax" (520). Both Rose's and Goldsmith's comments remind us that even authors of philosophical works had to consider audiences who wished to be instructed and entertained. The preceding section has only sketched the scene of eighteenth-century British language theory, but the pattern that has emerged should remind us that during this period of increased efforts to codify the lexicon, orthography, and grammar of the vernacular, philosophical analyses of language cannot be separated from the communicative practices that distinguished elements of the educated elitegentry, professionals, and an emerging mercantile middle classfrom other strata of society and from one another. Analyses of such communicative practices gave rise to models of taste, eloquence, and mental capacities that in turn became inextricably interwoven with analyses of social difference, stratification, and progress. As I turn to consider language theory more directly, it would be all too easy to leave the impression that eighteenth-century grammarians, philosophers, and rhetoricians were simply unaware or uncritical of social biases that are obvious to us; it is, however, truer to their work to argue that they understood those biases far differently than we do and often embraced them for reasons different from those that cause us to reject such biases.

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Perspectives on Language Theory in Grammar, Philosophy, and Rhetoric We can gain another useful perspective on language theory in eighteenth-century Britain by reviewing the differing perspectives that distinguish work in grammar, philosophy, and rhetoric. At the outset, I should note that no strict disciplinary boundaries constrained those who studied language in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, at least not of the sort familiar to twentiethcentury scholars. As Murray Cohen asserts, "the analysis of words attracted practically everyone's attention in one way or another" (xx). In more detail, Cohen sketches the complex tapestry of practical and theoretical linguistic activity leading up to the formation of the Royal Society in 1660: The common topics include not only proposals for altering the teaching of Latin, introducing instruction in English, inventing new languages, and correcting orthography, but also ideas for fixing pronunciation and assembling common words, phrases, technical words, proverbs, idioms, and archaic words. In addition, projectors tried developing the quickest shorthand, teaching the deaf and dumb, discovering the original language, promoting universal speech, organizing language mathematically, equipping the language for science, discovering the relationship between words and things. They also looked forward to providing English merchants with the advantage of a universal grammar, spreading the word of God, adapting education to language learning, communicating secretly or at a distance, interpreting Chinese characters and Egyptian hieroglyphics, and at last, repairing Babel. (2) Thirty years later, Locke's Essay focused language theory somewhat, according to Stephen Land: "After Locke, the 'theory of language'which included semantics, etymology, grammar, and genetic speculationbecame a recognized province of philosophy but still most writers treated the theory of language in subordination to some dominant interest" (Signs 184). Of course, eighteenth-century Britain produced works devoted primarily to the theory of language, works such as James Harris's Hermes; or, A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Language and Universal Grammar (1751), Joseph Priestley's Course of Lectures on the Theory of Language, and Universal Grammar (1762), Lord Monboddo's six-volume Of the Origin and Progress of Language (1773-92), and James Beattie's Theory of Language (1783). But in

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whatever guise language theory appeared, it shared an underlying philosophical concern with the relationships among words, things, thoughts, and communicative practices. That matrix of concerns distinguished eighteenth-century language theory from the nascent comparative and historical linguistic science of the early nineteenth century, which focused almost exclusively on the history and nature of languages as rule-governed systems of signs. In short, philosophical and historical study of language did not so much appear to eighteenth-century audiences as a field of inquiry separate from grammar, rhetoric, and logic but rather as an adjunct to such studies. As the present inquiry primarily concerns the articulation of language theory with other philosophical concerns and theories of discourse, I will focus on the "linguistic turn" that leads writers to digress from dominant interests in epistemology, grammar, and rhetoric to consider language directly. Such apparent digressions highlight how the philosophical or scientific study of language in eighteenth-century Britain creates important continuities and discontinuities among philosophy and arts of discourse. In general, we may consider this linguistic turn as an instance of the ubiquitous eighteenth-century concern with the relationship between art and naturefor example, between arts of discourse and the natural philosophy of their material cause, language. In his Lectures on the Theory of Language, Priestley states the principle succinctly: "All Art is founded on Science, or the knowledge of the materials employed in them and their fitness for the uses to which they are applied" (4-5). Priestley admits that scientific knowledge of materials is not necessary to establish and practice the arts, but he argues that "it is useful to trace arts to their natural principles, and to be able to comprehend the reason of the beneficial effects they have in practice: for this knowledge leads to the means of perfecting and extending the arts" (5). Thus, from the perspective of eighteenth-century representative realism, the arts of discourse would be expected to reveal different relationships to language insofar as they consider the fitness of language for their different uses; they would tend to reveal (or discover) common ground when they attempt to gain philosophical knowledge of the material they employ in commonlanguage. Language and Grammar According to Murray Cohen, the emphasis in English grammars during the period between 1640 and 1785 shifts from focusing on, to con-

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sciously avoiding, language theory. Grammarians early in the period approached English from an almost entirely theoretical perspective, filling a void left by the fact that English was not formally taught in the schools. Accordingly, they treated English as though it were a foreign language, revealing through their analyses the prevailing theory of language (Cohen 7). For instance, they would often analyze the shapes of letters, a practice consistent with their assumption that the ''relationship between language and reality . . . must be sought in the physical parts of writing and speechletters and sounds" (7). Grammarians later in the seventeenth century even established a pedagogy linked to this view of language. Christopher Cooper begins The English Teacher (1687) with an elaborate treatment "Of the Nature, Number, Affinity, Difference, and Various Accidents of the Simple and Compounded Letters." Cooper's "sense of priorities, of making as prerequisite to using," writes Cohen, "matches the working principles of seventeenth-century pedagogy: to make the method of teaching, the sequence of learning, and the structure of language compatible with the order of things" (13). These early grammars took as their generating principles assumptions about the continuities between words and things. As the prevailing model of language evolved beyond this strict correspondence between language and the order of things, practical English grammars of the early eighteenth century separated pedagogy from theory, often treating them on different parts of the page or in different typefaces. According to Cohen, this new practice implies "that students can learn the language without acknowledging its rational justifications" (55). Or, in more general terms, the student can master an art without scientific knowledge of its materials. By the second half of the century, Cohen reports, "this division of responsibilities between practical instruction and rational explanation . . . becomes fixed" (45). Texts present either instruction or theory. 12 Divorced from theoretical complexities, practical grammars presented no more than "the prevailing rules governing usage" (Cohen 100). Yet those same grammars often complain that the very simplicity of English grammar occasions popular neglect of grammatical study. In The Rudiments of English Grammar (1761), Priestley offers the following analysis of the problem: The propriety of introducing the English grammar into English Schools, cannot be disputed; a competent knowledge of our own language being both useful and ornamental in every profession. . . . The little difficulty there is

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apprehended to be in the study of it, is the chief reason, I believe, why it hath been so much neglected. The Latin tongue was so complex a language that it made of necessity . . . a considerable branch of Roman School education: whereas ours, by being more simple, is perhaps less generally understood. (viii) Echoing Priestley's observation on the consequences of the relative simplicity of English grammar, Robert Lowth goes on to warn in A Short Introduction to English Grammar (1762) of another threat to grammatical study: "we take it for granted, that we . . . are able to acquit ourselves properly, in our own native tongue . . . we find ourselves able to go on without rules, and we do not so much as suspect that we stand in need of them" (vi-vii). Lowth presents eighteenth-century Englishmen with such rules, not the reasons behind them, in order that his readers may express themselves "with propriety" or to prepare for the study of Latin and "modern languages" (x, xi-xiii). Following this conception of practical grammar, both Priestley and Lowth draw sharp boundaries for their textbooks. Priestley trusts that "it will not be deemed an imperfection in the work, that there are found in it no elaborate disquisitions concerning the origin and successive changes of the language" (iv). Lowth first assures his readers that ''disquisitions, which appeared to have more of subtilty than of usefulness in them, have been avoided" (xiv). He then directs those "who would enter more deeply into this Subject" to consult Harris's Hermes. Serving similar interests, Priestley published his Lectures on the Theory of Language. By the mid-eighteenth century, then, the theory of language was considered apart from practical grammars intended to provide basic instruction. From the perspective of these grammars, language appeared primarily as a rulebound system of signs. 13 Language and Philosophy To many philosophers of this period, from John Locke to Thomas Reid, natural language seems a flawed medium for philosophical inquiry. For that very reason, language is often the subject of their philosophical inquiry. Locke, Berkeley, and Reid, for instance, each presents a theory of language intended to counter the distortions of rational thinking caused by abuses of language. Locke introduces book 3 of his Essay, "Of Words," as an afterthought. He writes that he originally planned to proceed from the na-

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ture of ideas, discussed in books 1 and 2, to their use and the knowledge we gain from them, but confesses that "upon a nearer approach, I find, that there is so close a connexion between Ideas and Words . . . that it is impossible to speak clearly and distinctly of our Knowledge, which all consists in Propositions, without considering, first, the Nature, Use, and Signification of Language" (401). Here, then, is Locke's linguistic turn. He first considers two abuses of words: carelessness concerning the signification of words and failure to distinguish between language appropriate for civil use and that suited to philosophical inquiry. These abuses stem from several causes, not all of which Locke blames on the nature of language: in his introductory "Epistle to the Reader" he warns that book 3 will deal so thoroughly with language "that neither the inveterateness of the Mischief, nor the prevalency of the Fashion, shall be any Excuse for those, who will not take Care about the meaning of their own Words" (10). He rises to a difficult challenge, for earlier in the "Epistle" he notes that men have been so long deceived by such abuses "that it will not be easie to persuade, either those who speak, or those who hear them, that they are but the Covers of Ignorance, and hindrance of true Knowledge'' (10). In book 3, Locke analyzes abuses of signification, using two arguments based on the nature of language. First, he argues that because we can have ideas of words themselves (as distinct from whatever they signify), and because words often seem capable of producing the same ideas as objects (or "things"), we find speakers who "set their Thoughts more on Words than Things" (408). For example, peoplechildren in particulargenerally learn the names for complex ideas such as honor and glory before they fully frame the ideas themselves from experience. That fact, Locke archly observes, ought to make speakers reflect "that since it is frequent for others, it may also be possible for them, to have sometimes very good and approved Words in their Mouths, and Writings, with very uncertain, little, or no signification" (438). He then argues that even when people do possess ideas signified by their words, often "they are not agreed in the signification of those Words" (480). As a result, "all the contests that follow thereupon, are only about the meaning of a Sound" rather than the true relationships among ideas (480). To assess the dangers of such confusion of sound and sense, Locke distinguishes carefully between civil and philosophical uses of words:

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First, By their civil Use, I mean such a communication of Thoughts and Ideas by Words, as may serve for the upholding common Conversation and Commerce, about the ordinary Affairs and Conveniencies of civil Life. . . . Secondly, By the Philosophical Use of Words, I mean such an use of them, as may serve to convey the precise Notions of Things, and to express, in general Propositions, certain and undoubted Truths, which the Mind may rest upon, and be satisfied with, in its search after true Knowledge. (476) These definitions seem evenhanded, resting on a distinction between the requirements of two domains of communicative practice. In fact, Locke concedes that "common use regulates the meaning of Words pretty well for common Conversation," maintaining only that the lack of any governing body responsible for "the precise signification of Words" renders common speech unfit for philosophical discourse (479). However impartially he begins this line of reasoning, Locke soon turns to a rather pointed distinction between rhetorical and philosophical language. Discussing figurative language (which he associates only with the art of rhetoric), he concedes its role in discourse intended for "Pleasure and Delight" but finds it unfit for serious inquiry, at least in part because it blurs the discontinuity he wishes to maintain between the understanding and the passions: "But yet, if we would speak of Things as they are, we must allow, that all the Art of Rhetorick, besides Order and Clearness, all the artificial and figurative application of Words Eloquence hath invented, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong Ideas, move the Passions, and thereby mislead the Judgment; and so indeed are perfect cheat" (508). This suspicion of rhetoricindeed of language in generalcontinues undiminished in Berkeley and Reid. Even as they attack Locke's doctrine of ideas, both philosophers agree with him that language, by its very nature, poses a threat to philosophical inquiry. In a rather impassioned claim near the beginning of A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710), Berkeley dismisses the apparent connection between words and knowledge that moved Locke to write book 3 of the Essay, extending Locke's suspicion of civil or rhetorical language to all use of words: "In vain do we extend our view into the heavens, and pry into the entrails of the earth, in vain do we consult the writings of learned men, and trace the dark footsteps of antiquity; we need only draw the curtain of words, to behold the fairest tree of knowledge, whose fruit is excellent, and within

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the reach of our hand" (40). This side of the curtain, Berkeley found "controversies purely verbal" (39). To gain the other side, he forms a radical plan: "so long as I confine my thoughts to my own ideas divested of words, I do not see how I can easily be mistaken" (39). He anticipates, as did Locke, great difficulty in effecting "an entire deliverance from the deception of words" (39). He compounds his difficulty, of course, by proposing not to reestablish continuity between words and ideas but to ''dissolve" it (39). Yet in spite of this major break with Locke's treatment of language, Berkeley's motive for studying language remains the same: to establish a firm foundation for knowledge. Thomas Reid's Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1785) attacks the doctrine of ideas espoused by Locke and Berkeley. Still, Reid shares with Locke and Berkeley a central assumption about language and philosophy: "There is no greater impediment to the advancement of knowledge than the ambiguity of words" (Works 1: 219). As does Locke, he distinguishes between two kinds of use, but he assigns each an equal role in philosophy. He writes that every art or science necessarily makes use of both "common" words and words "that are peculiar to that art or science" (Works 1: 219). This latter type he calls "terms of the art," which he maintains "ought to be distinctly explained, that their meaning may be understood" (Works 1: 219). At first this requirement reminds one of Locke's insistence on "the precise signification of Words" in philosophy. Yet Reid presents common language as a surer guide for philosophical inquiry than philosophical terms of the art, claiming that "the simplest operations of the mind" resist strictly logical definition: "Since, therefore, it is often impossible to define words which we must use on this subject, we must as much as possible use common words . . . and, when we are obliged to use words less common, we must endeavor to explain them as well as we can, without affecting to give logical definitions" (Works 1: 220). Indeed, Reid emphasizes the philosophers' responsibility to the common language, arguing that "philosophers ought not to escape censure when they corrupt a language, by using words in a way which the purity of the language will not admit" (Works 1: 227). Despite this distinctive emphasis on the relationship between common language and the language of philosophy, however, Reid shares with Locke a common motive for studying language: improving the pursuit of knowledge through philosophical discourse. As the titles of their major works reveal, Locke, Berkeley, and Reid primarily sought knowledge about man's capacity to know. Still, their

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inquiries often led to the study of language. In An Inquiry into the Human Mind, On the Principles of Common Sense (1764), Reid explores the origins of language not only "for the improvement of language" but also because such inquiry "tends to lay open some of the first principles of human nature" (Works 1: 117). And Locke could not "speak clearly" of knowledge without addressing the nature of language. In such digressions, then, the philosophers sought to understand the medium or material of philosophical discourse on its own terms. In the broader context of their work, however, they studied language in order to clear the smoke of abused words from the air of philosophical inquiry. From this philosophical perspective, words appear as very problematic signs of thought. Language, Rhetoric, and Belles Lettres Eighteenth-century rhetoricians could not very well adopt these philosophers' remedies for the abuses of words: imagine a rhetorical theory that abandons common language, that abandons words altogether, or that treats words as an impediment to its central concerns. Nor could rhetoricians adopt these philosophers' static metaphors for words. Instead of "covers," "curtains," or "impediments" that keep us from true knowledge of things and ideas, words constitute the essential medium of the literary and rhetorical effects so important to poetry and civic discourse. This more positive view of words appears in Hugh Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres: "Whether we consider Poetry in particular, and Discourse in general, as Imitative or Descriptive [i.e., iconic or symbolic]; it is evident, that their whole power, in recalling the impressions of real objects, is derived from the significancy of words. As their excellency flows altogether from this source, we must, in order to make way for further enquiries, begin at this fountain head'' (1: 96). For Blair, then, while real objects constitute the substance of meaning, the significancy of language constituted the sole means of conveying that meaning to us in discourse and was, therefore, a central concern of rhetoric. Still, language theory per se was not the exclusive interest of rhetoricians any more than it was of most philosophers. For instance, Blair's line of argument forces him at one point to cut short a discussion of grammar, explaining that a "minute discussion of the niceties of Language would carry us too much off from other objects, which demand our attention in this course of Lectures" (1: 138). Yet the pursuit of those other objects often forced eighteenth-century

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rhetoricians to challenge Locke's view of language. Stephen Land succinctly explains their problem: If language is simply a collection of signs each of which has exactly the meaning it derives from its referent why is a verbal description effectually different from its object, why are different descriptions of the same object qualitatively different from one another, and why are we affected differently by words and pictures? These practical, rhetorical problems, which cannot be raised within the terms of Lockean semantics, make an important contribution to eighteenthcentury linguistics. (Signs 30) In order to assess the singular power of words, then, rhetoricians compared the effects of words with the effects of things, of other signs, and of other words. Comparing the effects of words and things gave rise to two perspectives, one highlighting how words add to our experience of things, the other highlighting how words evoke our experience of things. This distinction figures, for example, in Gerard Hauser's discussion of attitudes toward description and the sublime in critical theory of the period. As Hauser notes, Edmund Burke felt that the effect of "making an idea vague, unclear, or obscure was to intensify the power of the idea," while many other critics would "locate sublimity's power in the capability of language to create vivid pictures which transport the auditor as if he were actually in the presence of the event portrayed" ("Description'' 31-32). In general, rhetorical critics seem to agree with Burke that words have powers beyond reference. But Burke maintained that words "affect us in a manner very different from that in which we are affected by natural objects, or by painting or architecture; yet words have as considerable a share in exciting ideas of beauty and of the sublime as any of those, and sometimes a much greater than any of them" (163). Drawing out this contrast between words and iconic signs, Burke argues that "poetry and rhetoric do not succeed in exact description so well as painting does; their business is to affect rather by sympathy than imitation; to display rather the effect of things on the mind of the speaker, or of others, than to present a clear idea of the things themselves" (172). A more conservative approach to the extra-referential power of words can be found in Kames's Elements of Criticism, where he enumerates three "beauties" of words: sound, signification, and "that derived from a resemblance between sound and signification" (6). And Adam Smith, in a discussion of how various parts of

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speech might have been formed, alters his generally referential or logical approach (i.e., explaining grammatical forms according to their usefulness for naming and making distinctions) by claiming that the inflection of adjectives parallels that of substantives purely for "love of rhyme" (9). Rhetorical theorists also recognized that some words are more powerful in a given context than other words. Principles of art are therefore needed to guide our choice of words in discourse, and in the eighteenth century those principles were to be grounded in nature, as one of Campbell's reviewers confidently charges in the Monthly Review: "it is most evident that every art, having its foundation in nature, must be capable of being reduced to general principles and laws" (286). Adam Smith, for example, in an evaluation of various "defects" in English style by comparison with other languages, finds that he must "premise somewhat with regard to the origin and design of language in general" (6). Smith traces the gradual simplification of English grammar (chiefly morphology) to ''the mixtures of different nations," and summarizes the natural benefits of complex, original languages: "the simpler the language the less it will have variety and harmony of sound, and the less it will be capable of various arrangement. And, lastly, it will be more prolix" (11). In order to explain and warrant stylistic rules and critical principles, then, rhetoricians often turned to theories of linguistic form, semantics, etymology, and the origins of language. From their perspective, words appear primarily as the medium of communicative action and the source of richly varied effects on hearers. Thus, language posed various problems for eighteenth-century grammarians, philosophers, and rhetoricians. By the middle of the century, grammarians had largely abandoned their predecessors' attempt to establish a strict correspondence between linguistic signs and the order of nature. Instead, they turned almost exclusively to pedagogical concerns and left the field of theory to more specifically theoretical texts. Philosophers, intent on eliminating abuses of language that hindered their inquiry into human understanding, constructed theories of language in order to explain such abuses and suggest remedies. But their theories of language typically did not value the kinds of effects identified with rhetorical and literary discourseappeals to the imagination and emotions through figurative language, for instance. Understandably, rhetoricians attempted to explain and justify the nonrepresentational effects of language. Their concerns led to theories of

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language that distinguish the singular effects of words from the effects of things and natural signs. The Commonplaces of Language Theory I have suggested that specific problems in different fields of inquiry gave rise to different approaches to language theory; yet most theorists, regardless of their starting points, investigated language from four theoretical commonplaces: language in relation to the order of things, language in relation to the mind, language as a medium of communication, and language as a formal system of signs. Words as Things As we have seen, seventeenth-century correspondence theory supposed that words graphically resembleor should resemblethe things to which they refer. Later, following Locke's lead, eighteenth-century theorists generally supposed that words represent things less directly, mediated first by ideas and second by arbitrary conventions of language. Although Locke maintains that words can only refer to ideas in the mind, his theory of language accounts for the influence of the world of things. In practice, he explains, both perception and convention determine the relationships among words, ideas, and things. For example, Locke notes that words cannot explain the "simple ideas" of perception: "Simple Ideas, as has been shewn, are only to be got by those impressions Objects themselves make on our Minds, by the proper Inlets appointed to each sort. If they are not received this way, all the Words in the World, made use of to explain, or define any of their Names, will never be able to produce in us the Idea it stands for" (424; 3.4. 1). In other words, we must perceive the color red before we can understand the simple idea signified by the word "red'' (which is associated with our perception of the color only by convention). However, by means of a definition that calls into play our previous understanding of "red" and "bird," we can begin to understand the complex idea signified by "cardinal" without ever having seen a cardinal. The only exception to this rule allows that words can constitute the simple ideas of their sounds, but those sounds will convey no further meaning unless convention associates them with simple ideas of perception. Perception and convention also determine the relationship between more complex ideas and their names. For example, Locke observes

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that a person is free to shape complex ideas "by no other Pattern, but by his own Thoughts" as long as he conforms subsidiary "Ideas of Substances to Things without him, as to Archetypes made by Nature" (470; 3.6.51). Words for ideas so formed, by virtue of "constant use,'' can "almost as readily excite certain Ideas, as if the Objects themselves . . . did actually affect the Senses" (407; 3.2.6). Thus, perception and convention work together to link words, through ideas, to things. Some later writers unreservedly maintain that words can "as readily excite" ideas of objects as do the objects themselves. And some go further. Joseph Addison writes in the Spectator that "words, when well chosen, have so great a Force in them, that a Description often gives us more lively Ideas than the Sight of Things themselves" (No. 416). Land notes that Addison's theory of signs differs from Locke's semantics chiefly by distinguishing between the "ideas aroused by descriptions" and "those aroused by the corresponding objects" (Signs 28). Addison's distinction does not reject a referential semantics; rather, he draws our attention more to the poet's choice of things than to any nonreferential power of words. He argues that "the Poet seems to get the better of Nature" because "in the Survey of any Object we have only so much of it painted on the Imagination, as comes in at the Eye; but in its Description, the Poet gives us as free a View of it as he pleases, and discovers to us several Parts, that either we did not attend to, or that lay out of our Sight when we first beheld it" (Spectator No. 416). Further, the poet can build complex ideas from simple ideas evoked by the scene and eliminate unnecessary or contradictory ideas, focusing only on description that reinforces a central impression. Words as Thoughts In the wake of Locke's Essay, treatments of language during the years 1700-1740 reveal a particular interest in the relationship between language and the operation of the mind (Cohen 43-77), but later treatments also make important contributions to that discussion. Reflecting the faculty psychology in vogue during the eighteenth century, treatments of language pursuing this line of inquiry generally emphasize either the relationship of language to the understanding or to the passions, both of which I include under the generating principle of thought, as they were both considered faculties of mind. Language and the understanding. Locke's Essay set a new standard for theorists trying to define the relationship of language and the under-

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standing. As they interpreted the Essay, "Lockean semantics consisted in the basic tenet that words function as names or signs for ideas," a view that "provided . . . orthodox semantic theory for English thought in the eighteenth century" (Land, Signs 13). Locke maintains that words can make no direct reference to the world of things: ''Words in their primary or immediate Signification, stand for nothing, but the Ideas in the Mind of him that uses them, how imperfectly soever, or carelessly those Ideas are collected from the Things, which they are supposed to represent" (405). In fact, people invite "Obscurity and Confusion," he charges, when they insist on any "secret reference" of their words to "the reality of things" (406-7; 3.2.4-5). Understanding, in this view, depends primarily on the relationship between words and ideas. Yet as we have seen, Locke held that simple ideas cannot be explained through words; the idea of a color can only be formed by seeing that color, and only then can the idea be named and the name understood. Luckily, we are not limited to this process: "The case is quite otherwise in complex Ideas; which consisting of several simple ones, it is in the power of Words, standing for the several Ideas, that make that Composition, to imprint complex Ideas in the Mind, which were never there before, and so make their Names be understood" (425; 3.4.12). In other words, we can understand new complex ideas communicated solely through words as long as we are already familiar with the constituent simple ideas. Locke offers the example of the rainbow, an "idea" that he claims cannot meaningfully be explained to a blind person but that can be explained to a sighted person who has never seen a rainbow (426; 3.4.13). This principle suggests a degree of continuity between language and the world of things, and indeed Locke maintains that we have "no Ideas at all, but what originally come either from sensible Objects without, or what we feel within our selves, from the inward Workings of our own Spirits" (404; 3.1.5). Thus, words that "stand for Actions and Notions quite removed from sense, [nevertheless] have their rise from thence, and from obvious sensible Ideas are transferred to more abstruse significations" (403; 3.1.5). Words like "imagine" and "apprehend" exemplify this transference. We have seen that Lockean semantics preserves some degree of continuity between words and things; here we see how words can serve the understanding by distancing us from "sensible ideas" of particular objects.

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Such distancing or discontinuity gives rise to general terms, Locke writes, "by [their] being made the signs of general Ideas: and Ideas become general, by separating from them the circumstances of Time, and Place, and any other Ideas, that may determine them to this or that particular Existence" (410-11; 3.3.6). These general ideas and terms, according to Locke, complement simple ideas in three ways (409-10; 3.3.2-4). They answer the impossibility of having particular names for everything (every tree in every forest, for example). They also serve the ends of communication better, since we could not speak to others of particulars they had not encountered. Most important, though, knowledge "enlarges it self by general Views." In other words, we deal effectively with myriad particulars by creating from them a more manageable, generalized world in the mind: ''General and Universal, belong not to the real existence of Things; but are the Inventions and Creatures of the Understanding, made by it for its own use, and concern only Signs, whether Words, or Ideas" (414; 3.3.11). In his most striking example of the obscurity and confusion that can result from mistaking this particular relationship of words and ideas for a link to the world of things, Locke speaks uncannily to our own time: It having been more than once doubted, whether the Fætus born of a Woman were a Man, even so far, as that it hath been debated, whether it were, or were not to be nourished and baptized: which could not be, if the abstract Idea or Essence, to which the Name Man belonged, were of Nature's making; and were not the uncertain and various Collection of simple Ideas, which the Understanding puts together, and then abstracting it, affixed a name to it. (416; 3.3.14) General terms, he argues, do not refer directly to real objects; to suppose they do compromises both our understanding of particular issues and our use of language in general. Yet it is tempting to privilege our own use of words. Locke writes of people "secretly" supposing that words refer to things, or that their own "long and familiar" association of words with certain ideas constitutes "so near and necessary a connexion between the names and the signification they use them in, that they forwardly suppose one cannot but understand what their meaning is" (503; 3.10.22). His remedies for these ills require careful attention to ideas. He charges us to "use no word without a signification"; that is to say, to use words only with an idea in our minds rather than a supposed reference to things (512;

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3.11.8). Simple ideas must be "clear and distinct," and complex ideas must be determinate ("the precise Collection of simple Ideas settled in the Mind, with that Sound annexed to it, as the sign of that precise determined Collection, and no other"513; 3.11.9). Further, he enjoins us to follow common use whenever possible and declare our meaning whenever common use is not certain (514-15). Finally, he reminds us to "use the same Word constantly in the same sense" (523; 3.11.26). Locke is not being merely pedantic here. Rather, his admonition reflects his conviction that the signification of words is more problematic than most people suppose. He does not think it an easy task to keep track of the exact sense of our words. Locke's theory of language and the understanding does not go unchallenged. Bishop Berkeley, for example, objects to his claim that general terms refer to general ideas abstracted from particulars of experience. Locke feels that words reveal "the nature of our Ideas" (474; 3.8.1), but Berkeley claims that general or abstract terms reveal more about our use of language than about the nature of our ideas: "if there had been no such thing as speech or universal signs, there never had been any thought of abstraction" (36). Whereas Locke thinks that general terms refer to new concepts created by the mind from many particular experiences, Berkeley argues, in effect, that the whole of our understanding is not greater than the sum of its parts: "in truth, there is no such thing as one precise and definite signification annexed to any general name, they all signifying indifferently a great number of particular ideas" (36). Berkeley is not peevishly splitting hairs; he sees a practical advantage to his view of language and understanding: "He that knows he has no other than particular ideas, will not puzzle himself in vain to find out and conceive the abstract idea, annexed to any name. And he that knows names do not always stand for ideas, will spare himself the labour of looking for ideas, where there are none to be had'' (40). Berkeley's theory directly influenced David Hume. Citing Berkeley as his source, Hume offers in A Treatise of Human Nature (1748) a detailed explanation of the problem. Things are similar, he writes, in quality and quantity, but "the mind cannot form any notion of quantity or quality without forming a precise notion of degrees of each" (18). Under that constraint, a general term can only call up a particular idea and our custom of grouping other particular ideas under the same name. The particular idea represents the group in our reasoning, and we "find but few inconveniences to arise . . . from that abridgment" (21). Thus, "some ideas are particular in their nature, but general in

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their representation" (22). Where Locke argues that general terms signify corresponding general ideas, Hume counters that general terms represent an indeterminate number of particular ideas, thus eliminating the need for general ideas. However, the problem of whether general terms function through signification or representation is only one aspect of eighteenthcentury attempts to define the relationship between language and the faculties of mind. The faculty of understanding was thought to govern such problems of naming and relating, for instance, but the passions were also a key element of language theory. Language and the passions. Theories relating language and the passions occur in treatments of all the common topoi of language theory: the ends of language, the origins of language, the specific effects of language, and the rules or norms for effective speech and writing. Berkeley notes that language serves other ends in addition to communicating ideas, "as the raising of some passion, the exciting to, or deterring from an action, the putting the mind in some particular disposition" (37). In fact, he claims that when these ends can be met without communicating ideas, we generally do so, a situation he suspects "doth not infrequently happen in the familiar use of language" (37). Berkeley also ties the passions to the origin and development of language. He concedes that words might at first have depended on evoking ideas in order to evoke associated passions, but he also claims that "when language is once grown familiar," the mere sight or sound of words "is oft immediately attended with those passions, which at first were wont to be produced by the intervention of ideas, that are now quite omitted'' (37). This can occur, he points out, even with proper names, as in the phrase "Aristotle hath said it," where the intention is to produce a certain disposition toward authority rather than any idea of the man Aristotle. In a rather different manner, Thomas Reid also relates the origin and development of language to the passions. He supposes that a natural language must have existed prior to all artificial language in order for mankind to have negotiated the conventions of artificial language by "compact or agreement" (Inquiry 117). According to Reid, civilized people still have access to this natural language, consisting of "modulations of the voice, gestures, and features," but we neglect it to our disadvantage: "Artificial signs signify, but they do not express; they speak to the understanding, as algebraical characters may do, but the passions, the affections, and the will, hear them not: these continue

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dormant and inactive, till we speak to them in the language of nature, to which they are all attention and obedience" (Inquiry 118). As did many eighteenth-century language theorists, then, Reid argues that the relationship of language to the faculties is an important historical and qualitative measure of human society. Edmund Burke and Lord Kames, by contrast, link the passions to specific effects of language as we presently know and use it. As we have seen, Locke charged that "all the artificial and figurative application of Words Eloquence hath invented, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong Ideas, move the Passions, and thereby mislead the Judgment; and so indeed are perfect cheat" (508). Burke, however, includes "affection" in his list of three sources for the power of linguistic signs: "The first is, the sound; the second, the picture, or representation of the thing signified by the sound; the third is the affection of the soul produced by one or by both of the foregoing" (166). Further, he proposes three reasons why the signification of words so forcefully affects the passions (173-74). First, ''we take an extraordinary part in the passions of others" through "tokens which are shewn of them," and words are particularly well suited to that task. Second, very affecting "things" (angels, death, famine) can make "a deep impression" through associated words, even though we meet with such things seldom or not at all. Third, words allow for affecting combinations that nature does not. Similarly, Lord Kames offers a concise explanation of the special, affective power of the sound of words: "Words have a separate effect on the mind, abstracting from their signification and from their imitative power: they are more or less agreeable to the ear, by the fulness, sweetness, faintness, or roughness of their tones" (4). Thus, Burke and Kames are to be counted among those who draw attention to the passions not only as a historical influence on the early development of language but also as essential to the function of language. 14 This fuller catalog of the powers of language gives rise to norms for effective style far different from the rules proposed by Locke. For example, Adam Smith begins a discussion of arrangement in the sentence by examining logical relationships (the connection of subject and predicate terms) but founds his "great" rule of arrangement on the affections: "Let that which affects us most be placed first; that which affects us in the next degree, next; and so on to the end" (21). Such new principles of style reveal the particular concern of the period for effectiveand affectivecommunication.

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Words as Actions Virtually all eighteenth-century theories of language, including book 3 of Locke's Essay, acknowledge the importance of communication as a shaping force in language. But philosophers and rhetoricians, as one would expect, define the role of communication quite differently. For all their distrust of common use, even Locke and Berkeley anchor their speculations about language in the practical world of communication. Locke, for example, notes two constraints on our freedom to form general terms after the pattern of our own thoughts; the first, as we have seen, consists of the necessity of conforming ideas of substances to things. The second constraint involves our need to communicate with one another: "where Men in Society have already established a Language . . . the signification of Words are very warily and sparingly to be alter'd" (470-71). This caution follows from his observation that general terms and complex ideas, while semantically based only in men's thoughts, are nevertheless "not made at random"; rather, "they are always made for the convenience of Communication, which is the chief end of Language" (431-32). To accommodate this governing role of communication, Locke makes an exception to his general disapproval of words without signification (i.e., without ideas in the mind of the speaker). He acknowledges the communicative value of knowing the names of some complex ideas before framing the ideas themselves, primarily because natural languages have already named ideas that are useful for communication among members of a given community (437). A child in our culture, for example, is likely to first learn the social importance of the word democracy and only later frame a mature idea of democracy. Even Berkeley, who suggests divorcing thought from words, acknowledges the importance to human society of communication with words: "It cannot be denied that words are of excellent use, in that by their means all that stock of knowledge which has been purchased by the joint labours of inquisitive men in all ages and nations, may be drawn into the view and made the possession of one single person" (38). Acknowledging the important communicative power of language in general, both Locke and Berkeley focus on reforming the use of words in the philosophical pursuit of knowledge. Other writers attend more broadly to the communicative powers of language. Priestley introduces his Theory of Language by calling attention to the importance of language for "beings who . . . can hardly subsist but as members of some particular community, and are, more-

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over, capable of the most extensive social connections" (3). On that basis, he examines the "sounds and characters" of language in order to determine "the modifications they are capable of, and their fitness to answer the purposes of a language proper for the mutual communication of such beings as we are" (6; emphasis added). Similarly, Lord Kames places communication at the center of his aesthetic theory, claiming that the beauty of language "is the beauty of means fitted to an end, that of communicating thought" (5). The communicative power of language figured in language theory throughout the eighteenth century, gradually shifting from the background of theory to the forefront. By the third quarter of the century, Cohen argues, the theory of language had passed "from being a justification of the order of things or the ways of the mind to being a record of the habits and history of a man speaking to men" (136). With the beginnings of modern linguistics at the end of the eighteenth century, the formal structures of language replace communication as the focus of linguistic theory. Yet those formal structures also play a significant role in theories of language throughout the eighteenth century. Words as Systems of Signs Between the mid-seventeenth and mid-eighteenth centuries, two problems dominate discussions of linguistic structures. First, theorists divide over whether the origin and authority of linguistic structures should be sought in nature or in convention. Second, they differ by locating meaning either in discrete lexical units or in the formal context of discourseusually at the sentence level. By the end of the period, theory emphasizes convention and contextual meaning. The origin and authority of linguistic structure. Summarizing the work of Nicolas Beauzée, R. H. Robins sketches an important dichotomy in eighteenth-century theories of grammar: "Grammar has two sorts of principles, those of universal validity arising from the nature of human thought, and those resulting from the arbitrary and mutable conventions that constitute the grammars of particular languages. The former, which are the objects of general grammar, are logically anterior to any given language and concern the very possibility and necessary conditions of the existence of any language" (Short History 126-27). This dichotomy has classical roots. As Robins points out, Hellenistic language study revolved around two controversies: the first concerned the roles of nature (phýsis) and convention (nómos) in the genesis of

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language; the second concerned the roles of "regularity or analogy" (analogia) and "irregularity or anomaly" ( ) in determining the principles underlying grammar (Short History 17). The sad effects of grammarians' attempts to impose regularity on the anomalies of living languages were already legendary in Quintilian's day: "it seems to me that the remark, that it is one thing to speak Latin and another to speak grammar, was far from unhappy" (Quintilian 1.6.27). A third principle , the writers of classical literature; now it surfaced in the Middle Ages: "Formerly grammar had been directed towards the , the seven liberal arts" (Short History 89). Norms for language were no was exclusively concerned with its place among the longer to be gleaned from the great authors but determined according to rational principles. In the eighteenth century, attempts to discover natural principles of language gave rise to universal language schemes and general grammars. In England, seventeenth-century inventors of "real characters" (systems of signs intended to reflect the order of nature) worked from four principles: (1) "words must be rationally organized," (2) sequence should be a significant aspect of the system, (3) the "basic elements" or characters of a language are of primary importance, and (4) the system should make "visible sense" (Cohen 4-5). A notable English example of this trend is John Wilkins's Essay toward a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language (1668). On the Continent, the Port Royal grammarians took a slightly different approach, looking for general principles of grammar "underlying the actual make-up of all languages'' (Robins, Short History 125). This search for natural linguistic principles persisted in the eighteenth century as well. Thomas Reid argues somewhat circularly that "certain common opinions of mankind" underlie "the structure and grammar of all languages" (Intellectual Powers 229). After claiming with little evidence that the parts of speech and some general rules of grammar are "the same in all languages," he comes full circle, arguing that this very "similarity of structure in all languages, shews an uniformity among men in those opinions upon which the structure of language is founded" (229). Priestley, too, addresses the possibility of "an universal and philosophical language" but comes to a more circumspect conclusion: "At present likewise, language itself, as an abstract science, is not sufficiently understood to succeed in so grand a scheme" (Course 301). Yet the search for natural principles of linguistic structure accompanied real growth and change in the study of language: "The breakdown of Latin as the international

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language of learning and authority, the emergence of the European vernaculars into full recognition, and the new discoveries in the field of languages overseas all helped to create the feeling that it was in men's power to improve and even to create languages to suit the needs of the age" (Robins, Short History 112). Still, not everyone felt compelled to look beyond contemporary usage. Noting Priestley's approval of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary (1755), Cohen argues that "emphasis on the linguist as an observer of acceptable contemporary forms rather than a reformer of essential elements reflects the securely modest spirit of most later-eighteenth-century linguistic practice" (91). After all, from a practical perspective, universal principles of language "represent a level of generalization that is irrelevant to those who study particular languages" (Cohen 101). Where earlier the differences among particular languages suggested deviations from an ideal standard, such differences were later valued as evidence of national character or genius (Cohen xix). Theorists who shared this perspective saw particular languages as expressions of different cultures rather than aberrant instances of an ideal language. Linguistic form and meaning. Seventeenth-century semantic theory focused on the signification of the most discrete aspects of languageindividual characters or sounds. From that perspective followed the notion that in extended discourse the meaning of the whole equals the sum of discrete meanings. Gradually, eighteenth-century semantic theory came to focus on the sentence, proposition, or syntactic unit. From this new perspective followed the notion that extended discourse creates meaning dynamically, the formal structures of language contributing as much or more to meaning as sounds, signs, or words (Land, Signs v; Cohen 51). As Cohen points out, this important transition from atomism to formalism (the terms are Land's) was in two ways inevitable: (1) syntax was a logical and traditional extension of lexicography; (2) the elaborateand chiefly visuallexical schemes of the seventeenth century invited extension from ordering elements to charting their relations (26-27). In addition, he notes that "the emphasis on linguistic units . . . could not account for the social functions of human speech" (26). Both Cohen and Land chronicle this semantic evolution in some detail. Here, brief illustrations of both the atomist and formalist perspectives will provide another measure for analyzing language theory in rhetorical treatises. From the atomist perspective, meaning consists of the correspondence of discrete linguistic signs to the order of things or to ideas.

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Consequently, the early atomists were chiefly concerned with "radicals" or "integrals," words thought to have substantive referents; they gave relatively little attention to other parts of speech (Land, Signs 3). For example, Locke excludes "particles'' (prepositions and conjunctions, among other word groups) from his definition of "words" as signs of ideas (471-73; 3.7.1-6). Particles do not alter the meaning of substantive, fixed terms; they only serve to show relationships among those terms. Still, Locke feels that particles contribute significantly to the "clearness and beauty of a good Stile": "to express well such methodical and rational Thoughts . . . [one] must have words to shew what Connexion, Restriction, Distinction, Opposition, Emphasis, etc. he gives to each respective part of his Discourse" (472; 3.7.2). This essentially atomist theory of meaning gradually gives way to more formalist theories during the course of the eighteenth century. Formalist theories early on explored analogies between language and mathematics, suggesting that in such rule-governed systems of signs "the rules are far more important than the symbols" (Land, Signs 189). In an algebraic analogy, for instance, Berkeley makes an important distinction between maintaining a fixed reference for a term and maintaining a fixed definition. "'Tis one thing," he writes, "for to keep a name constantly to the same definition, and another to make it stand every where for the same idea: the one is necessary, the other useless and impracticable" (36). He argues further that "in reading and discoursing" words are generally used "as letters are in algebra, in which though a particular quantity be marked by each letter, yet to proceed right it is not requisite that in every step each letter suggest to your thoughts, that particular quantity it was appointed to stand for" (37). By the end of the century, proponents of this formalist perspective firmly established the notion that "the systematic arrangement of words according to the rules of grammar . . . is not only a way of putting words in correct sequence but also a component in the creation of meaning" (Land, Signs 191). From an earlier emphasis on the reference of individual words or signs, theories of meaning came to focus on the form of propositions. Several trends emerge from this survey of the commonplaces shared by linguistic speculation in philosophy and rhetoric during the eighteenth century. Accounts by philosophers of the relationship between languageparticularly the artifices of styleand the order of things typically maintained that language obscures or distorts philosophical understanding. By contrast, rhetoricians focus on the ability of words

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to evoke attitudes toward, and ideas associated with, the order of things. Philosophers tend to focus on the contribution of language to knowledge through reference to understanding alone, but rhetoricians tend to value the involvement of all the faculties of mind in various uses of language. Throughout the period, philosophers and rhetoricians agree that particular communicative contexts affect the development and structure of language. Finally, early accounts of linguistic form were centrally concerned with establishing universal, logical principles for ordering the discrete references of individual words to things or ideas. By the end of the eighteenth century, theorists began to view linguistic structure as the product of convention and the crucible of meaning. After the last years of the eighteenth century, when the modern discipline of linguistics emerged as comparative and historical philology, mainstream linguistic theory was no longer pursued largely in the service of some other interest. Indeed, the turn of the century marks a significant methodological shift that isolates the science of linguistics from the arts of discourse: It is universally agreed that the decisive turn in language study occurred when the philosophical, a priori method of the eighteenth century was abandoned in favor of the historical, a posteriori method of the nineteenth. The former began with the mental categories and sought their exemplification in language, as in universal grammar, and based etymology on conjectures about the origin of language. The latter sought only facts, evidence, and demonstration; it divorced the study of language from the study of mind. (Aarsleff, The Study of Language in England 127) Or, in the terms of this inquiry, words came to be studied primarily as material artifacts or things rather than as signs of thought and instruments of communicative action. In doing so, mainstream linguistics radically altered its relationship to philosophy and rhetoric. As we shall see, the treatment of language in the rhetorical theories of George Campbell, Hugh Blair, and Thomas Sheridan belong squarely in the earlier tradition.

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3 Words as Thoughts: The "Radical Principles" of Eloquence in Campbell's Rhetoric All art is founded in science, and the science is of little value which does not serve as a foundation to some beneficial art. . . . Valuable knowledge, therefore, always leads to some practical skill, and is perfected in it. On the other hand, the practical skill loses much of its beauty and extensive utility, which does not originate in knowledge. There is by consequence a natural relation between the sciences and the arts, like that which subsists between the parent and the offspring. It is also in the human mind that we must investigate the source of some of the useful arts. Logic, whose end is the discovery of truth, is founded in the doctrine of the understanding: and ethics (under which may be comprehended economics, politics, and jurisprudence) are founded in that of the will. . . . But these are not the only arts which have their foundation in the science of human nature. Grammar too, in its general principles, has a close connexion with the understanding, and the theory of the association of ideas. . . . But there is no art whatever that hath so close a connexion with all the faculties and powers of the mind, as eloquence. George Campbell, The Philosophy of Rhetoric As indicated by the title of his Philosophy of Rhetoric, George Campbell, more explicitly than any other eighteenth-century British rhetorician, takes up the challenge of reconstructing the philosophical grounding of rhetorical theory. His governing perspective views words

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as signs of thoughts, and he constructs his inquiry upon the assumption that the sciences of thought and languagein concert with the related arts of logic and grammarprovide the foundations of eloquence. Accordingly, he balances treatments in book 1 of thought and logic with treatments in books 2 and 3 of language, grammar, and verbal criticism. In his initial discussion "Of the relation which eloquence bears to logic and to grammar," he argues that "the grammarian's department bears much the same relation to the orator's which the art of the mason bears to that of the architect," though he goes on to suggest that the orator must really master both arts, must be able ''to design and to execute." Consequently, he concludes, the orator must be "master of the language he speaks or writes" (35). But the problem of how one defines, attains, and applies such mastery raises general questions about the relationship between science and art, theory and practice, and, more specifically, about the role of linguistic theory in arts of rhetoric. Significantly, Campbell discusses the general relationship between science and art, theory and practice, in the opening sentence of his introduction to The Philosophy of Rhetoric: "All art is founded in science, and the science is of little value which does not serve as a foundation to some beneficial art." He acknowledges that artistic practice does not always depend upon science, "that by the mere influence of example on the one hand, and imitation on the other, some progress may be made in an art, without the knowledge of the principles from which it sprung." But he doubts that significant improvements in the arts themselves can be expected from "those who have acquired all their dexterity from imitation and habit" (lxix). Improvement in the arts and sciences, of course, was a key concern of eighteenth-century Scottish culture. It was also the central vision of one of the chief philosophical influences on Campbell and his circle, Francis Bacon, from whose Of the Dignity and Advancement of Learning (1623) Campbell takes the epigraph to his Rhetoric: "CERTO SCIANT HOMINES, ARTES INVENIENDI SOLIDAS ET VERAS ADOLESCERE ET INCREMENTA SUMERE CUM IPSIS INVENTIS." 1 This shared vision is essentially architectonic. As Bacon notes, "Invention is of two very different kinds: the one of arts and sciences, the other of arguments and discourse" (135). Arguing that the former is "absolutely deficient" in his age, he characterizes his own project as an effort to assure "that the mind, by the help of art, may become equal to things, and to find a certain art of indication or direction, to disclose

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and bring other arts to light, together with their axioms and effects" (139). Campbell embraces this goal, arguing by analogy that "the offset [those who acquire art through imitation alone] is commonly no more than a mere copy of the parent plant. It is from the seed only [those whose art combines scientific principles and practice] you can expect, with the aid of proper culture, to produce new varieties, and even to make improvements on the species" (lxix-lxx). Accordingly, his project is explicitly designed to discover the root or radical principles of rhetoric: It is his purpose in this Work, on the one hand, to exhibit, he does not say, a correct map, but a tolerable sketch of the human mind; and, aided by the lights which the Poet and the Orator so amply furnish, to disclose its secret movements, tracing its principal channels of perception and action, as near as possible, to their source: and, on the other hand, from the science of human nature, to ascertain with greater precision, the radical principles of that art, whose object it is, by the use of language, to operate on the soul of the hearer, in the way of informing, convincing, pleasing, moving, or persuading. (lxvii) To follow Campbell's progress toward that goal and to evaluate the potential contribution of his work to rhetorical theory, I will first examine the intellectual and institutional scene of his work on the Rhetoricthe Aberdeen Philosophical Society. The second section of the chapter sketches the general relationships Campbell establishes among the parent sciences of thought and language and their offspringthe arts of logic, grammar, and rhetoric. The following two sections trace in more detail the links he establishes between thought and logic and between the laws of language and the rules of grammar, criticism, and eloquence. Finally, the last two sections of the chapter catalog the radical or root principles that Campbell establishes through his inquiry into language and assess his application of those principles to improving the art of rhetoric. The Aberdeen Philosophical Society: The Philosophy of Mind and the Perfection of Arts The Aberdeen Philosophical Society plays a significant role in this study because it was one of the chief sites of engagement between

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Scottish Common Sense realism and David Hume's skeptical philosophy and because it was in this setting that George Campbell worked out his philosophies of thought, language, and rhetoric. In his preface to The Philosophy of Rhetoric, Campbell tells us that he began the work in 1750 (at which time he served as minister to a country parish west of Aberdeen) but laid it aside until 1757, when he became a member of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society. Referring to himself, he writes, "It was a difference in his situation at that time, and his connexion with the gentlemen of that society . . . that induced him to resume a subject which he had so long laid aside" (lxv). The records of the Philosophical Society suggest that Campbell completed the bulk of the Rhetoric by 1771, by which time he had presented eighteen discourses related to that work. 2 The Philosophical Society was one of the most productive of the philosophical societies that flourished in Scotland from the 1680s onward.3 Indeed, some of the most influential philosophical works published in Scotland during the latter half of the eighteenth century grew directly out of discourses read to the Philosophical Society, including Campbell's Rhetoric and works by James Beattie, Alexander Gerard, and Thomas Reid.4 The fifteen members of the Philosophical Society belonged to the educated eliteat least nine pursued advanced study in medicine, divinity, or law. The six original members included clergymen, physicians, and university professorsthe chief learned professions (except for law) that contributed to the literature of the Enlightenmentand ties to the professions, particularly the church and university, ran in most members' families. But the society was primarily a university affair, with all but two of the fifteen members serving on the faculties of King's and Marischal colleges, Aberdeen's two universities. As did many thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment, the members of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society often turned their thoughts and efforts to practical matters, for they believed that philosophical inquiry (whether into moral or natural philosophy) should benefit society by improving practical arts such as manufacturing, agriculture, medicine, education, and oratory.5 Indeed, the Philosophical Society's rule concerning the subjects of its transactions explicitly links observation and experiment, establishment of scientific principles, and improvement in the arts:

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The Subject of the Discourses and Questions shall be Philosophical, all Grammatical Historical and Philological Discussions being conceived to be forreign to the Design of this Society. And Philosophical Matters are understood to comprehend, Every Principle of Science which may be deduced by Just and Lawfull Induction from the Phænomena either of the human Mind or of the material World; All Observations & Experiments that may furnish Materials for such Induction; The Examination of False Schemes of Philosophy & false Methods of Philosophizing; The Subserviency of Philosophy to Arts, the Principles they borrow from it and the Means of carrying them to their Perfection. (Ulman, Minutes 78) It is important to note that the proscription against "all Grammatical Historical and Philolological Discussions" did not preclude discussions of language. Indeed, Thomas Gordon, who delivered a series of six discourses on language, interprets the rule to embrace the subject of his first discourse in the series, entitled "Of the Philosophy of Language & Grammar": It is true that Grammatical & Philological discussions are by our rule declared to be foreign to the design of this society. But I conceive this is to be understood only in so far as these discussions are opposed to Philosophical enquiries; now, in one view, Language & Grammar are strictly & properly the objects of science & Philosophy. Lord Bacon teaches us to consider Grammar in two lights; either as Literary or as Philosophical. The first depends wholly on use, & is of meer arbitrary institution, while the second is reducible to principles & may be treated of scientifically. The former is taught us at school in earliest youth, & principally applies itself to the memory; but the latter requires speculation & the aid of Metaphysical precision. The rules of the first differ in every language; the doctrine of the second is common in all languages. (AUL MS 3107/3/4: 399) Yet in his final discourse, delivered six years later, Gordon still feels it necessary to apologize for his subject, alphabetic writing: "Possibly I may be thought to have dwelt too long upon the elements of language. To turn Philosophy back to the hornbook & to entertain a Philosophical society with speculations upon A, B, C hath the appearance of using neither according to their dignity" (AUL MS 3107/1/9: 433). All in all, Gordon seems overly apologetic, for James Dunbar spoke to the society on the origin of language and, in his long series of discourses on rhetoric, George Campbell often dealt with grammatical principles. It

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seems reasonable to assume that discussions of the philosophical bases of language were not merely tolerated by the society but met with much interest. There is also evidence that these highly educated and prolific writers were self-conscious about their command of English prose. In a letter to David Hume, Reid thanks Hume for comments on the prose of a manuscript version of Reid's Inquiry: "Your judgment of the style, indeed, gives me great consolation, as I was very diffident of myself in regard to English, and have been indebted to Drs Campbell and Gerard for many corrections of that kind" (Works 1: 91). Hume and James Beattie, another member of the Philosophical Society, were in fact notorious for their efforts to rid their own and others' prose of Scotticisms; Beattie supplied his students at Aberdeen with a list of such forms to be avoided. Thus, while Gordon asserts confidently that the grammars of particular languages are "of meer arbitrary institution," his fellow philosophers were nonetheless aware of the social entailments of linguistic forms. Though each member brought to the Philosophical Society his own particular interests and projects, one can draw some useful, though not incontestable, generalizations about the intellectual orientation of the group as a whole. In the broadest terms, the Philosophical Society, at least in its early years, reacted to skeptical philosophychiefly that of David Humeand acted on methodological recommendations in the works of Francis Bacon, John Locke, and Isaac Newton. 6 This double impetus to act and react is reflected in the society's definition of philosophical mattersalthough David Hume is not named in the rules, it is almost certain that the members of the Philosophical Society considered his philosophy of mind foremost among the "False Schemes of Philosophy" that warranted their examination. Thomas Reid discusses his initial response to Hume's Treatise of Human Nature in the dedication to his Inquiry into the Human Mind: "The ingenious author of that treatise upon the principles of Lockewho was no sceptichath built a system of scepticism, which leaves no ground to believe any one thing rather than its contrary. His reasoning appeared to me to be just; there was, therefore, a necessity to call in question the principles upon which it was founded, or to admit the conclusion" (Works 1: 95). Here we see the ambivalence that generally characterizes the attitude of several members of the Philosophical Society toward David Hume: on the one hand, they show great respect for

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Hume's powers of reasoning; on the other hand, they express great concern for the implications of his skepticism for all grounds of belief. Challenges to Hume appear in Thomas Gordon's copies of Reid's and John Farquhar's first discourses to the Philosophical Society in June and September of 1758, respectively. In his notebook, Gordon provides the following title for Reid's discourse, "The difficulty of a just philosophy of the human mind; General prejudices against D~d Humes system of the mind; & some observations on the perceptions we have by sight"; and this for Farquhar's, "On the nature & operation of the imagination, in which Mr Humes theory of this faculty is particularly considered." Reid's general prejudices appear near the beginning of his discourse: A system of the mind, i.e. an enumeration of the original perceptions, & a clear explication from them of the phænomena of human nature.Presumption in D. H to pretend to give an entire systemprobably he some parts of it have escaped him, & others have been mangled & distorted to ply to his system.A prejudice against this Philosopher, that there are so many things in his plan which shock the common sense of mankind. A Philosopher can never be matched with a harder adversary than common sense, who never fails at last to triumph over those who wage war with her. (AUL MS 3107/1/1: 18) Farquhar's more particular challenges also appear early in his discourse: Considers two passages of Mr Humeone in which he makes an Idea of imagination to be an impression making its appearance again before the mind after having entirely lost its vivacity & become a perfect ideaHe observes on the vivacityalso that an idea of imagination cannot be said to be preceeded by impressions in Mr Humes sense. The simple & complex ideas of which they are made up are received by the senses, but these the fancy so compounds as to give them quite a different form & appearancethe other where he makes the characteristick betwixt memory & imagination to be vivacity. 7 (AUL MS 3107/1/3: 35-36) In other discourses and conversations, members of the society attended to many aspects of current philosophies of mind; here we can only sketch the central similarities and differences between Humean skepticism and the Scottish Common Sense realism espoused by members of the Philosophical Society.

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David Hume shares in part the Newtonian vision of the Aberdonians. After all, the subtitle of A Treatise of Human Nature further identifies the work as An Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects. In the introduction to the Treatise, Hume writes, "to me it seems evident, that the essence of the mind being equally unknown to us with that of external bodies, it must be equally impossible to form any notion of its powers and qualities otherwise than from careful and exact experiments, and the observation of those particular effects, which result from its different circumstances and situations" (xxi). Hume parts company with the Scottish Common Sense realists, however, over the nature of belief and the epistemological status of various kinds of evidence. Comparing skepticism to other systems of philosophy, Hume articulates perhaps the most extreme statement of his position: "When I reflect on the natural fallibility of my judgment, I have less confidence in my opinions, than when I only consider the objects concerning which I reason; and when I proceed still farther, to turn the scrutiny against every successive estimation I make of my faculties, all the rules of logic require a continual diminution, and at last a total extinction of belief and evidence" (183; 1.4.1). Surely this is one of the passages that so troubled Reid. But Hume immediately counters the assumption that he believes "all is uncertain, and that our judgment is not in any thing possest of any measures of truth and falshood" (183). He admits that anyone holding such a position would be paralyzed and that ''Nature, by an absolute and uncontroulable necessity has determin'd us to judge as well as to breathe and feel" (183). Rather than arguing that we have no basis for judgment or belief, Hume argues "that all our reasonings concerning causes and effects are deriv'd from nothing but custom; and that belief is more properly an act of the sensitive, than of the cogitative part of our natures" (183). This qualification offered little comfort to men like Reid and Campbell, who perceived skepticism's threat to the epistemological grounds of their moral and natural philosophy. According to David Fate Norton, Hume's distinction between the epistemological status of the "sensitive" and "cogitative" faculties constitutes the "crucial difference" between Hume and the Common Sense realists: However often Hume may say that we have certain natural propensities to believe this or that, he does not go so far as to say that what we must naturally believe must be true. Hume does not conflate psychological certainty

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with certain knowledge or unavoidable doxa with episteme. Nor does he suggest that the latter necessarily follows the former. Yet his Scottish critics seem to conflate repeatedly and characteristically these two kinds of certainty, to insist that what we cannot avoid believing must be reliable or true. 8 (201) For all their engagement with Hume, however, his philosophy did not completely dominate the Philosophical Society's attention. If the society can be said to have had a central focus, it is the philosophy of mind. Indeed, Kathleen Holcomb has suggested that the members may have been charged, at least early on, to focus on the philosophy of mind in their inaugural discourses ("Reid" 419). Metaphorically linking the mind to the instruments of natural philosophy, Alexander Gerard opened the subject of genius in his inaugural address by observing that "genius itself, the leading faculty of the mind, the great instrument of all investigation, has scarce ever been examined with care" (AUL MS 3107/1/3: 1). In the opening passage of An Inquiry into the Human Mind, Thomas Reid compares the study of the human mind with the study of the human body and, by extension, all physical bodies, thus forging yet another link between moral and natural philosophy: "The fabric of the human mind is curious and wonderful, as well as that of the human body. The faculties of the one are with no less wisdom adapted to their several ends than the organs of the other. . . . It is, therefore, a subject highly worthy of inquiry on its own account, but still more worthy on account of the extensive influence which the knowledge of it hath over every other branch of science" (Works 1: 97). Reid goes on to observe that the study of mind would benefit all of the arts and sciences, from those "which have least connection with the mind" to "the noblest arts'' (poetry, painting, etc.), which "attempt to operate upon the mind" and "succeed according as they touch properly the strings of the human frame" (97). Campbell makes a similar point in The Philosophy of Rhetoric, arguing that "there is no art whatever that hath so close a connexion with all the faculties and powers of the mind, as eloquence, or the art of speaking," for it is both a useful art that "supplies a real want" and a polite art that "gratifies some mental taste" (lxxi-lxxiii). Naturally, given their interest in philosophical method and their scientistic bent, the members of the Philosophical Society also drew methodological comparisons between the study of mind and the study of physical phenomena. In his Inquiry into the Human Mind, Thomas

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Reid draws just such an analogy: "All that we know of the body, is owing to anatomical dissection and observation, and it must be by an anatomy of the mind that we can discover its powers and principles" (Works 1: 98). Yet Reid and the others were aware of the limitations of that analogy. In Thomas Gordon's copy of Reid's inaugural discourse, we find Reid observing that "the anatomy of the human mindcurious & usefulhath greater variety & is attended with more difficulty than that of the body. 9A man hath but one subject to examine in the mental anatomy vizt his own mind10what he can collect concerning others from outward signs is of ambiguous interpretation" (AUL MS 3107/1/1: 17). Yet out of these very difficulties the members of the Philosophical Society forged the design of their cooperative and individual inquiries. Reid clearly believes that the practice of "observation and experiment" will lead to progress even in this most difficult science (Works 1: 97). Gerard acknowledges that such study "requires long time, favourable opportunities, and incessant attention, to collect such a number of facts concerning any of the mental powers, as will be sufficient for deducing conclusions concerning them, by a just and regular induction," but it was to that challenge that he devoted his discourses to the Wise Club (Genius 3).11 As we have seen, George Campbell adopts a similar strategy in his Rhetoric, determining to employ the "lights'' provided by poetry and oratory to sketch the "secret movements" of the mind and, in turn, to employ insights garnered from the "science of human nature" to ascertain the "radical principles" of eloquence. Campbell's reference to radical principles of the mind and Reid's to "operations of the thinking principle" reveal a unifying concern informing the great diversity of inquiries undertaken by the Wise Club. Quite varied questions and discourses may be linked by shared generating principles. As a scene of theory, the Philosophical Society is solidly situated in the literate communicative practices of an educated elite. Its members shared the generally held view that philosophical analysis of language could yield insights into both mind and society. Further, the society's cooperative project seems particularly amenable to inquiries that attempt to link general philosophies of mind and language to specific arts, whether mechanical or liberal, in order to discover means of "carrying them to their perfection." Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric is a natural outgrowth of this perspective.

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The Genealogy of Discourse in Campbell's Rhetoric In keeping with the Philosophical Society's stated assumptions about the connections between the sciences and the arts, George Campbell maintains throughout the Rhetoric that eloquence is filially related to both logic and grammar, that as "parent arts" logic and grammar each contribute something essential to eloquence: "Now, if it be by the sense or soul of the discourse that rhetoric holds of logic, or the art of thinking and reasoning, it is by the expression or body of the discourse that she holds of grammar, or the art of conveying our thoughts in the words of a particular language" (34). Campbell arranges The Philosophy of Rhetoric according to this genealogy, at some points examining a "parent art" exclusively but always with an eye to illuminating characteristics inherited by eloquence. For instance, Campbell's analysis of logical truth and evidence in book 1, chapter 5, ends with the following qualification: "This, though peculiarly the logician's province, is the foundation of all conviction, and consequently of persuasion too" (61). More succinctly, Campbell maintains that while "he may be an acute logician who is no orator, he will never be a consummate orator who is no logician'' (61). Campbell establishes a similar continuity between grammar and eloquence: "the grammarian . . . requires only purity. . . . The orator requires also beauty and strength. The highest aim of the former is the lowest aim of the latter; where grammar ends eloquence begins" (35). Eloquence, in other words, occupies a middle state between logic and grammar, sense and expression: "As the soul is of heavenly extraction and the body of earthly, so the sense of the discourse ought to have its source in the invariable nature of truth and right, whereas the expression can derive its energy only from the arbitrary conventions of men, sources as unlike, or rather as widely different, as the breath of the Almighty and the dust of the earth" (34). This metaphor evokes an art of eloquence linked intimately to human nature as the Reverend Dr. Campbell would have understood it: eloquence partakes of heaven and earth, and consists ideally of a soul and body in proper balance. 12 Just as the human soul takes precedence over the body in Christian doctrine, so logic takes precedence over grammar in Campbell's genealogy of discourse: perfection in language consists in its "fitness for serving" thought. Yet eloquence inherits something essential from each parent art and is different from both.

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What, then, is the distinctive art of eloquence? Campbell's familiar definition at the beginning of book I contains only part of his answer: In speaking there is always some end proposed, or some effect which the speaker intends to produce on the hearer. The word eloquence in its greatest latitude denotes, "That art or talent by which the discourse is adapted to its end." All the ends of speaking are reducible to four; every speech being intended to enlighten the understanding, to please the imagination, to move the passions, or to influence the will.(1) In short, to adapt our discourse to these ends, we adapt the principles of logic and grammar to the capacities of hearers. In book 1, chapter 7, Campbell examines how the sense of discourse may be adapted to each of the four ends of eloquence, promising in the section on enlightening the understanding that problems of "expression will come in course to be considered in the sequel [bks. 2 and 3]" (73). There he elaborates on the particular task of eloquence, distinguishing it from the "justness" required by logic and grammar: ''It is not ultimately the justness either of the thought or of the expression, which is the aim of the orator; but it is a certain effect to be produced in the hearers. This effect . . . he proposeth to produce in them by means of language, which he makes the instrument of conveying his sentiments into their minds" (215). Further, Campbell argues that in ideal oratory "language and thought, like body and soul, are made to correspond, and the qualities of the one exactly to co-operate with those of the other" (215). Clearly, critical discussion of The Philosophy of Rhetoric must account equally for Campbell's theories of language and thoughtfor the body and soul of discourse. To borrow one of Campbell's metaphors, the breath of the Almighty is of little worldly value unless it inspires the dust of the earth. Thus, we can schematically trace Campbell's genealogy of discourse through three generations. The sciences of thought and language beget the arts of logic and grammar (as well as its twin, verbal criticism). From these parent arts in turn issue forth principles of reasoning and linguistic usage that the art of eloquence must consider when adapting thought and language through the agency of style (see fig. 3.1). Understandablyif not justifiablymodern readers of The Philosophy of Rhetoric have paid more attention to Campbell's philosophy of mind and relatively little attention to his philosophy of language. First,

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Fig. 3.1. The genealogy of discourse in Campbell's Rhetoric. Campbell posits a relation between the sciences and arts "like that which subsists between the parent and the offspring" (lxix). Further, he argues that eloquence adapts the principles of thought and language, logic and grammar, to one another according to properties of style. (It should be noted that this chart deals only with Campbell's genealogy of arts and sciences. His analysis of occasions for discourse also considers principles of adaptation.)

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Campbell announces in his preface an intention to "exhibit . . . a tolerable sketch of the human mind" (lxvii). Second, he argues for the qualitative precedence of thought over language through his metaphors of the breath of the Almighty and the dust of the earth (or, alternately, the soul and body of discourse). Third, Campbell's theory of thought places him in a more prominent historical context than his theory of language: we consider eighteenth-century epistemology an important step toward modern scientific thought, but we date modern linguistics from the comparative and historical philology of the nineteenth century, not from the eighteenth-century linguistic speculation familiar to Campbell. Still, any reading of The Philosophy of Rhetoric that fails to account for Campbell's theory of language remains incomplete. After all, Campbell's model of eloquent discourse requires that thought and language correspond and cooperate. In addition, he treats style as the principle agency by which eloquence adapts discourse to its ends; recall his announced intention to discover "the radical principles of that art, whose object it is, by the use of language, to operate on the soul of the hearer" (lxvii; emphasis added). Finally, as we have seen, speculation about language was inextricably tied to the larger concerns of eighteenth-century British philosophers and rhetoricians. In his preface to The Philosophy of Rhetoric, Campbell promises a sounder structure to his analysis of thought, language, and eloquence than many of his modern readers have discerned. True, he admits to, and apologizes for, some "inequality in the execution and the style" resulting from the long period over which he composed the book and for the lack of "material alteration" of early drafts prior to publication (lxvi-lxvii). But he also sees a unified structure: "Considered separately, each [part] may justly be termed a whole, and complete in itself; taken together, they are constituent parts of one work" (lxv). Further, he claims that the first two chapters constitute ''a sort of groundwork to the whole," upon which he built the "superstructure" of the text according to the "plan there delineated" (lxv). Accordingly, having sketched the general plan of Campbell's genealogical inquiry, we must consider more closely the superstructure of his theories of thought and logic (presented in bk. 1) and of grammar, criticism, and eloquence (presented in bks. 2 and 3).

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The Science of Thought and The Art of Logic Campbell's central chapter on evidence (bk. 1, chap. 5), "Of the different sources of Evidence, and the different Subjects to which they are respectively adapted," begins with a definition of logical truth: "the conformity of our conceptions to their archetypes in the nature of things" (35). We should note three important aspects of this starting point. First, it focuses on continuities between ideas and things without as yet evoking the mediation of words or actions. Thus, it highlights the empirical bent of Campbell's thought, as well as his interest in natural philosophy. Second, Campbell's definition follows a careful delineation in the previous chapter of the relationship between logic and eloquence: The sole and ultimate end of logic is the eviction of truth. . . . Pure logic regards only the subject, which is examined solely for the sake of information. Truth, as such, is the proper aim of the examiner. Eloquence not only considers the subject, but also the speaker and the hearers, and both the subject and the speaker for the sake of the hearers, or rather for the sake of the effect intended to be produced in them. (33) Logical truth, then, is a prerequisite of eloquence, as Campbell argues at the end of his discussion of evidence: "This, though peculiarly the logician's province, is the foundation of all conviction, and consequently of persuasion too" (61). Third, the chapter preceding his discussion of evidence also introduces his distinction between the contributions of logic and grammar to eloquence. There he contrasts the universality of logic to the particularity of grammar: The sense of the discourse ought to have its source in the invariable nature of truth and right, whereas the expression can derive its energy only from the arbitrary conventions of men. . . . The art of the logician is accordingly, in some sense, universal; the art of the grammarian is always particular and local. The rules of argumentation laid down by Aristotle, in his Analytics, are of as much use for the discovery of truth in Britain or China as they were in Greece; but Priscian's rules of inflection and construction can assist us in learning no language but Latin. (34) Yet as we have seen, Campbell believes that eloquence inherits and must bring into balance both the universal and the particular aspects of discourse.

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He sets out first to examine the foundation of eloquence in the sources of evidence that establish logical truth (see fig. 3.2). Campbell first divides evidence into two kinds: intuitive evidence, whose conformity to nature we recognize "immediately on a bare attention to the ideas under review"; and deductive evidence, whose truth we recognize "mediately by a comparison . . . with other related ideas" (35). Intuitive evidence he further subdivides according to our means of recognizing various truths: through pure intellection we grasp the truth of mathematical axioms; through consciousness we affirm "the existence of the mind itself, and its actual feelings, impressions or affections, pleasures or pains, [and] the immediate subjects of sense" (38); through common sense we assert such propositions as "The course of nature will be the same to-morrow that it is to-day," ''There are other intelligent beings in the universe besides me," and "Whatever has a beginning has a cause" (40). Truths conceived by intellection concern the universal and abstract, those conceived by consciousness concern particular perceptions of the mind, and those conceived by common sense concern both perceptions and "certain external and corporeal objects, which give rise to our particular sensations" (40). According to Campbell, deductive evidence rests on principles derived from intuition and consists of two kinds distinguished by their sources: demonstrative evidence derives from "pure intellection, and consisteth in an uninterrupted series of axioms"; moral evidence (the "proper province of rhetoric") derives from "the principles we have from consciousness and common sense, improved by experience" (43). Demonstrative evidence concerns "the invariable properties or relations of general ideas," whereas moral evidence concerns "the actual, though perhaps variable connexions subsisting among things" (43). Campbell further divides moral evidence into experience, analogy, and testimony and offers calculation of chances (mathematical probability) as a "particular application of the former [demonstrative evidence], for ascertaining the precise force of the latter [moral evidence]" (49). An important focus of Campbell's doctrine of evidence lies in his comparison of demonstrative/scientific and moral/rhetorical reasoning according to their subjects, their patterns of evidence, and their tolerance of degrees and contrariety of proofs (see inset box, fig. 3.2). At first

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Fig. 3.2. Campbell's doctrine of evidence. Intuitive evidence presents us with unmediated truths and serves as the grounding of deductive evidence and reasoning, which can be either demonstrative/scientific or moral/rhetorical.

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Campbell reaches a compromise: "If the former [demonstrative reasoning] is infinitely superior in point of authority, the latter [moral reasoning] no less excels in point of importance" (46). Later, noting the dependence of both sorts of reasoning on fallible human attention and memory, he rejects the notion that demonstrative reasoning is necessarily more authoritative than moral reasoning. In short, Campbell's doctrine of evidence links two epistemological principles. He establishes intuitive evidence as the cornerstone of his doctrine of logical truth and assigns a central role to experience in both moral and demonstrative reasoning. In Campbell's version of experience, sensory information provides basic information, memory and the association of ideas guide the progress of knowledge, and the uniformity or variability of experience determines the certainty of conclusions drawn from it. He turns to intuitive evidence for fundamental premises, though, for even in inductive chains, he argues, we must intuitively trust our memory of previous steps in the chain. Discussing such truths and their place in his rhetorical theory, Campbell admits that "it cannot be affirmed of them all at least . . . that the denial of them implies a manifest contradiction. It is, perhaps, physically possible that the course of nature will be inverted the very next moment; that my memory is no other than a delirium, and my life a dream" (41). In reply to such a challenge, though, Campbell quotes Claude Buffier: "to maintain propositions, the reverse of the primary truths of common sense, doth not imply a contradiction; it only implies insanity" (42). 13 Campbell agrees that many commonsense truths are "impossible for any man by reasoning to evince." But, he notes, "it is equally impossible, without a full conviction of them, to advance a single step in the acquisition of knowledge, especially in all that regards mankind, life, and conduct'' (40). More to the point is the fact that commonsense principles "guarantee an intelligible universe in which rhetoric may be both useful and sound" (Bitzer, "Re-evaluation" 139). In other words, Campbell's pragmatic synthesis of intuitive and deductive evidence creates a role for rhetoric in the world (or, from the constructionist point of view, it creates that world). However, Campbell's philosophy of thought and evidence accounts only for the soul of discourse. We turn now to the bodylanguage.

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The Science of Language and The Arts of Discourse The conceptual structure of books 2 and 3 of the Rhetoric constitutes a carefully designed model of the relationships among the science of language and the arts of grammar, criticism, and eloquence. The two books divide into three hierarchically related sections on (1) the tacit laws of language, (2) the arts of grammar and verbal criticism, and (3) the properties or principles of eloquence. Each section establishes linguistic principles that govern subsequent material. Further, book 2, chapter 7, contains a lengthy digression on the nature of linguistic signs. Because this conceptual structure is not immediately apparent, it will be helpful to preview the major sections and linguistic assumptions of books 2 and 3 before analyzing in greater detail the linguistic theory woven throughout. However, we should first recall how books 2 and 3 relate to the overall design of The Philosophy of Rhetoric. Turning from his emphasis on a philosophy of mind in book 1 to his philosophy of language in books 2 and 3, Campbell reasserts two important relationships between language and thought. First, the two depend upon each other: "Without the latter, the former could not have existed. Without the former, the latter would be ineffective" (139). 14 Second, the parent arts based on thought and language differ in scope: "The art of the logician is universal, the art of the grammarian particular" (170). Campbell's restatement of these two principles near the beginning of book 2 should remind us that books 2 and 3 complete the design sketched in book 1, where he argues that eloquence depends on both the universal "art of thinking and reasoning" and the "art of conveying our thoughts in the words of a particular language." In short, books 2 and 3 complete the superstructure described in the opening chapter of the Rhetoric. Usage Compels: The Tacit Laws of Language The first chapter of book 2 outlines Campbell's doctrine of use (see fig. 3.3). First, he maintains that only the "general but tacit consent of the people" can establish use (139). Further, insofar as use is tacit or unreflective, it compels us with the force of "law." Finally, the principle axiom of Campbell's theory of language"Every tongue whatever is founded in use or custom"warrants laws of use only for particular languages (139). He rejects the notion of universal grammar, with the observation that no universal language exists from which to

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derive universal laws of usage. Yet even though this doctrine of use respects the differences among particular languages, Campbell shows less tolerance for differences in usage within particular languages. Moving quickly to distinguish what he calls "general" use from what we now might call varieties of usage within a linguistic community, Campbell establishes three famous criteria for general use: it must conform to reputable, national, and present use. These criteriapresented as universal criteria that apply to all languagesseem at odds with his principal axiom: if language is indeed founded in custom, it seems reasonable to assume that the criteria for general use would be as subject to the customs of a given people as the particular conventions of use. Campbell's doctrine of reputable use, for instance, refers to the usage of respected authors, making no allowance for the languages of oral cultures, in which the concept of authorship, if it existed at all, would be quite different than in literate cultures. Indeed, Campbell's laws of use presuppose a literate culture with a Western sense of history and political boundaries.

Fig. 3.3. Usage compels. According to Campbell, tacit agreement establishes the conventions of reputable, national, and present use, which combined constitute the range of proper usages available to speakers and writers of particular languages. Criticism Argues: The Explicit Arts of Grammar and Criticism In book 2, chapter 2, Campbell shifts his attention from the tacit laws of use to the explicit principles of grammar and criticism (see fig. 3.4). In Campbell's model of language, only our unthinking obedience to tacit laws of language can establish general use; grammar and criticism merely compile, monitor, and (in special cases) refine use. Usage compels, criticism argues. Early on in this discussion, Campbell carefully distinguishes the functions of grammar and verbal criticism: "In language, the grammarian is properly the compiler of the digest; and the verbal critic, the man who seasonably notifies the abuses that are creeping in" (152). In keeping with this distinction, chapters 2 and 3 of book 2 focus on criti-

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cism and grammar in turn (and in that order), but these arts are not as distinct as they at first appear. Rather, they focus on slightly different aspects of the same problem: to compile a record of good use one must recognize and call attention to abuses, and to note abuses one must confirm or alter any digest of good use.

Fig. 3.4. Criticism argues. Through analysis of general use, the explicit arts of grammar and criticism determine good use. Further, Campbell establishes canons of criticism and principles of grammar that help resolve two problems relating to the tacit laws of use: general use, he maintains, is often divided and sometimes faulty. If this were not the case, he could dispense with verbal criticism and depend on the triumvirate of reputable, national, and present use to establish "good use." Instead, the laws of use and the canons of criticism to-

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gether establish good use, the foundation for eloquence promised in the title of book 2. On this foundation Campbell builds the doctrine of rhetorical style that occupies the rest of book 2 and the whole of book 3. Eloquence Adapts: Essential and Discriminating Properties of Eloquence As the titles of books 2 and 3 reveal, Campbell initially divides the properties of style into two classes (see figs. 3.5 and 3.6): "essential" (purity and perspicuity) and "discriminating" (vivacity, elegance, animation, and musicthough as critics then and now complain, he discusses only vivacity in the same detail as he treats the essential properties). He also classifies the same six properties of style according to another system: purity stands alone as a grammatical property of style, while all the rest are rhetorical. The principles behind these divisions reflect Campbell's several definitions of eloquence. On the one hand, the division between essential and discriminating properties of style reflects Campbell's belief that eloquence is an "art or talent by which the discourse is adapted to its end" (1). Campbell believes that we cannot speak to any purpose unless we are understood, yet other ends of speaking may predominate in a given text. Therefore, purity and perspicuity are essential to understanding in all discourse, while the remaining properties of style allow us to discriminate among discourses adapted to particular ends. On the other hand, the division between grammatical and rhetorical properties reflects two related assumptions: that we must convey our thoughts "in the words of a particular language" (in short, grammatically), and that language is the most appropriate means of effecting the four ends of rhetoric (perspicuity allows us to enlighten the understanding, vivacity and elegance to please the imagination, animation to move the passions, and music to please the ear). 15 In short, grammatical correctness or purity underlies rhetorical effectiveness. The principle of adaptation distinguishes the treatment of style in books 2 and 3. In book 2 Campbell reinforces the role of purity and perspicuity in establishing a fixed foundation for style. First, he notes that only the "imperfection" of language requires him to distinguish between these two properties of style: "Indeed, if language were capable of absolute perfection . . . if words and things could be rendered

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Fig. 3.5. Eloquence adapts: Campbell's essential properties of eloquence. Purity and perspicuity alike are essential elements of all discourse, for they address the understanding, and all effective discourse must be understood. Purity is a "grammatical" property of style because it concerns only correctness; perspicuity belongs to the "rhetorical" properties of style because it involves adaptation of discourse to its audience. exact counterparts to each other . . . [grammatical] purity alone would secure [rhetorical] perspicuity, or rather these two would entirely coincide" (217). For reasons we will consider later in this chapter, Campbell realized that "the case is widely different with all the languages that ever were, are, or will be in the world" (217). Second, he focuses on offenses against purity and perspicuity, claiming that we do not praise grammatical puritywe expect it and censure violations, just as we expect men and women to act with "justice" and reserve our praise for "generosity and public spirit" (170). In his treatment of vivacity in

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book 3, however, Campbell emphasizes principles of choice rather than lists of offenses. Though he still indulges in examples of tautology, pleonasm, and verbosity when describing how vivacity depends on the "number of words," he generally presents positive examples of the choice, number, and arrangement of words adapted to the requirements of vivacity.

Fig. 3.6. Eloquence adapts: Campbell's discriminating properties of eloquence. Vivacity, elegance, animation, and music address the imagination, the passions, and the ear. Along with perspicuity, these properties constitute the "rhetorical" properties of style, which allow speakers to adapt discourse to a wide range of audiences. These three sectionson use, on grammar and verbal criticism, and on the essential and discriminating properties of styleconstitute the major conceptual divisions of books 2 and 3. Their purpose is not so much to outline a coherent theory of language as to establish the rela-

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tionship between the scientific principles of language and the arts of discourse. Only in book 2, chapter 7, in a section entitled "The Nature and Power of Signs, both in Speaking and in thinking," does Campbell digress significantly from his plan and focus directly on linguistic theory. To reconstruct his theory of language, therefore, we must sort through books 2 and 3 guided by several common themes of eighteenth-century linguistic speculation. Campbell's Theory of Language: "Radical" Principles Campbell explores three themes of language theory in some detail: the development and improvement of language, the nature of linguistic signs, and the structure of language. In the manner of Campbell's grammarian, the following analysis will "note, collect, and methodize" the various and sometimes contradictory statements about the philosophy of language that shapes his theory of rhetoric. The Development and Improvement of Language Campbell's attitude toward the development and improvement of language reflects an unresolved tension between dynamic and static views of language, that is, between his codification of the laws of use and his insistence on the precedence of use or custom over the rules of grammar and the dictates of criticism. On the one hand, he chastises Robert Lowth and Samuel Johnson for waffling on this issue: "Dr. Johnson, for example, in the preface to his very valuable dictionary, acknowledges properly the absolute dominion of custom over language, and yet, in the explanation of particular words, expresseth himself sometimes in a manner that is inconsistent with this doctrine" (148-49). He then gives unqualified approval to Joseph Priestley's statement of the decisive role of use: "I entirely agree with Doctor Priestley, that it will never be the arbitrary rules of any man, or body of men whatever, that will ascertain the language, there being no other dictator here but use" (149). On the other hand, he seems insensitive to the dynamic turmoil of use when he argues that the original causes of linguistic conventions are of "no consequence" to the grammarian, claiming that conventions "no sooner obtain and become general, than they are the laws of the language, and the grammarian's only business is to note, collect, and methodize them" (140). Even if we grant that Campbell is

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simply distinguishing between the roles of use and grammar, modern theorists are likely to be uncomfortable with the unqualified suggestion that language holds still for the grammarian. After all, grammars are static abstractions from the living language and the normative force of standard usage is a social rather than a natural phenomenon. Further, Campbell's notion of general use is paradoxically narrow: when he limits general use to reputable, national, and present use, he appears to free the grammarian from even considering varieties of use when compiling "the laws of the language." Again, one might argue that Campbell is merely trying to establish a practical standard, but his disdain for "faulty idioms" goes beyond practicality. The laws of language: reputable, national, and present use. Campbell first narrows the definition of general use by insisting that reputable use draws on language in vogueoccupying the leading placerather than language that merely has currency among a people (142). The "generality of people," it seems, cannot determine general use, for they "speak and write very badly" (142). Further, he links general use to an educated elite (though rejecting, by the way, any essential tie to "the great and rich"): "From the practice of those who have had a liberal education, and are therefore presumed to be best acquainted with men and things, we judge of the general use in language" (143). At first these principles seem merely to define what we now call Standard English. Yet even in the restricted context of formal written English, Campbell displays an elitist notion of linguistic influence: "The language of any country is in no hazard of being corrupted by bad writers. The hazard is only when a writer of considerable talents hath not perfect chastity of taste in composition'' (380). He does not define "bad writers," but it would seem that literary taste in line with his own constitutes a further restriction on general use. Indeed, Campbell's final definition of reputable use provides a further example of this relatively static view of language: "whatever modes of speech are authorized as good by the writings of a great number, if not the majority, of celebrated authors" (145). This definition establishes the authority of written over spoken English and places value in the past (where most celebrated authors reside). Campbell earlier admits that the "conversation of men of rank and eminence" might provide a reasonable criterion for "pronunciation," but he turns to writing for a "certain, steady, and well-known standard" (144). He does so in part because "every one hath access to canvass and examine"

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the work of reputable authors (144). Whether he would proceed differently in an age of audio recordings we can only guess. Next, Campbell opposes national use to provincial, professional, and foreign use. The conversation of Cornwall or a shipwright's manual could not establish national use because either would be too limited. A broadside by Thomas Paine could not determine English use because it would exceed the limits of English use. 16 Unfortunately, Campbell never discriminates among the national dialects within Great Britain and Ireland, which exemplify a significant problem with "national" standards of use and highlight the social and political entailments of such standards. Indeed, his definition of national use does not merely establish limits; it explicitly devalues narrower idioms: "The faulty idioms do not jar more with true English, than they do with one another" (146; emphasis added). Contrasting the ''bypaths" of provincial idioms to the "king's highway" of national use, Campbell reinforces the notion that varieties of use are both divergent and deviate. However, if local customs most directly affect language use, Campbell's criterion of national use would contradict his principal axiom. Campbell's criteria for present use are more dynamic, more tolerant of linguistic change and variety, than his criteria for reputable and national use: "To me it is so evident, either that the present use must be the standard of the present language, or that the language admits no standard whatsoever" (148). Yet he finds it impossible to set fixed limits for present use, allowing that various genres and disciplines will observe different chronological ranges of authority. For example, he notes that poets, faced with the demands of rhyming, may properly range further back for "present" use than writers in other genres. Overall, his notion of present use is characteristically ambivalent. On the one hand, hoping to avoid the appearance of advocating merely "fashionable" use, he opposes "present" to "obsolete" rather than "ancient" use (149-50). On the other hand, he chastises critics who on etymological grounds attempt to "revive at pleasure old-fashioned terms, inflections, and combinations" and suppress "innovation": "If you will replace what hath been long since expunged from the language, and extirpate what is firmly rooted, undoubtedly you yourself become an innovator" (149). Always conscious of this dilemma, Campbell defines a relatively constrained role for verbal criticism, a role that contributes to patterns of language development and improvement already established by use.

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The role of verbal criticism. As early as the preface to The Philosophy of Rhetoric, Campbell begins to define a role for verbal criticism in the development and improvement of language, alluding there to "consequences regarding the language in general, as well as the success of particular works, which should preserve verbal criticism from being considered as beneath the attention of any author" (lxviii). His defensive tone here forecasts his attempt throughout books 2 and 3 to acknowledge the limitations and abuses of verbal criticism while defining its positive contributions. The contributions of both grammar and criticism to "language in general" range from facilitating "the study of the tongue to strangers'' and rendering "natives more perfect in the knowledge of it" to advancing "general use into universal" and giving "a greater stability at least, if not a permanency, to custom, the most mutable thing in nature" (152). (Note once more Campbell's sensitivity to the tension between stability and change in linguistic norms.) Behind this range of functions, of course, lie the rudiments of grammar and detailed analyses of use. Campbell admits the difficulty of relating the minutiae of grammar and use to the grandest ends of language but reminds his readers that "it is by attending to such reflections as to a superficial observer would appear minute and hypercritical, that language must be improved, and eloquence perfected" (222; emphasis added). Grammar and criticism, according to Campbell, improve upon patterns of development established without their aid. As the "rudiments of taste" appear, language refines itself; as a people "improve in arts and sciences their speech refines""it not only becomes richer and more comprehensive, but acquires greater precision, perspicuity, and harmony" (161). 17 This refinement proceeds unaided by conscious rules of grammar and criticism, but such rules eventually play an important role, according to Campbell: "This effect taste insensibly produces among the people long before the language becomes the object of their attention. But when criticism hath called forth their attention to this object, there is a probability that the effect will be accelerated" (161). Near the end of The Philosophy of Rhetoric, Campbell further specifies the role of criticism and philosophy as agents of cultural refinement: "It is the province of criticism and philosophy . . . to investigate the latent causes in the principles of taste" (411). Clearly, he wants to avoid claiming too much for criticism while reserving for it an important place in literate culture. Turning to the consequences of verbal criticism for "particular works," Campbell strikes another delicate balance, this time between

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verbal and literary criticism. Again in the preface he establishes a few general principles. Noting that he will illustrate violations of the "principles and canons" of style using passages from the works of famous authors, Campbell offers two apologies for taking such liberties. On the one hand, he wants to warn his readers against "implicit attachment and servile imitation, even when they seem to be claimed by the most celebrated names" (lxviii). On the other hand, he warns ''that we are in danger of doing great injustice to a work by deciding hastily on its merit from a collection of such oversights" (lxviii). Verbal criticism, then, should neither be excluded from nor overvalued in literary criticism: "though such slips are not to be regarded as the sole or even principal test of demerit in literary productions, they ought not to be altogether overlooked" (lxviii). The principal test of eloquence (which would comprise literary aims) must measure the degree to which a writer or speaker succeeds in employing language in the "attainment of some further end" (180). For example, Campbell further defines the role of verbal criticism by relating it to three separate types of equivocation or polysemy: the lie spoken with "an intention to deceive," the pun spoken "in the playful use of any term or phrase in different senses," and obscurity, the violation of perspicuity that results "when an author undesignedly employs an expression susceptible of a sense different from the sense he intends to convey by it" (226-27). The liar he leaves to the moralist and the punster to the literary critic, reserving the obscurantist for the verbal critic, who addresses the deficient knowledge of language that leads to obscurity. Eloquence, then, requires a foundation in grammar, though Campbell does not suggest that good writers are slavish grammarians. They are, rather, practiced performers: "It is like ease in motion, which, though originally the effect of discipline, when once it hath become habitual, has a more simple and more natural appearance than is to be observed in any manner which untutored Nature can produce" (199). Though language, like motion, comes naturally to us, Campbell argues that verbal criticism helps us develop ease of expressionand recognize it in others. 18 Nevertheless, Campbell frankly acknowledges the dangers of the inflexible criticism he finds too prevalent in his day: "To render the artificial or conventional arrangement, as it were, sacred and inviolable, by representing every deviation (whatever be the subject, whatever be the design of the work) as a trespass against the laws of composition in the language, is one of the most effectual ways of stinting the powers of elocution, and even of damping the vigour both of imagination and of

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passion" (365). Some critics, he notes, go beyond inflexible enforcement of established convention. Responding to critics who would arbitrarily limit to four the number of "members" that may form a periodic sentence, he maintains that "the only rule which will never fail, is to beware both of prolixity and of intricacy; and the only competent judges in the case are good sense and a good ear" (372). In principle, he advocates verbal criticism that preserves as great a range of expression as possible, thereby allowing us to adapt our language to the attainment of various ends. In fact, he believes criticism that narrows our range of expression makes a bad situation worse. Alluding to the relative lack of inflection in English and the consequent restrictions on word order, Campbell shames overzealous critics who would further regulate word order: "Is it that the genius of our language doth not sufficiently cramp us without these additional restraints?" (397). He vehemently rejects any attempt to govern English expression in the manner of the French Academy: "What is the consequence? They have purified their language; at the same time they have impoverished it, and have, in a considerable measure, reduced all kinds of composition to a tasteless uniformity" (398). With equal vigor, he employs an expansive metaphor to represent the proper role of verbal criticism: ''The rules of our language should breathe the same spirit with the laws of our country. They ought to prove bars against licentiousness, without being checks to liberty" (399). Unfortunately, both kinds of rules appear in his illustrations of the properties of style. In his comments on specific critical issues, Campbell characteristically addresses not only the pronouncements but also the misguided principles of other verbal critics. In one instance, he belittles the argument that English should reject "Alcoran" in favor of "Koran." Proponents of "Koran" apparently argued that, since "al" means "the" in Arabic, to say "the Alcoran" involves the (etymologically) redundant phrasing, "the the book." Campbell pokes fun at the "deep scholars" responsible for this argument, pointing out that their reasoning would force us to abandon "alchymy, alcove, alembic, algebra, almanac" and every other word so derived (178). It is beside the point that Campbell took the losing side here, and he would not regret that time has favored "Koran": "It is, I acknowledge, of no consequence whether we say alcoran or koran; but it is of consequence that such a silly argument shall not be held a sufficient ground for innovation" (178n2). Logic, in other words, does not govern the way words enter and become established in the language. In another instance, Campbell anticipates objections to

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his treatment of the "reverse" figures of polysyndeton and asyndeton; many critics, he charges elsewhere, feel obliged to choose between "two modes of expressing the same thing" rather than seeking the appropriate application of each (397). Campbell favors the latter approach. Of polysyndeton and asyndeton he writes, "Celerity of operation, and fervour in narration, are best expressed by the first. A deliberate attention to every circumstance . . . is best awakened by the second" (368). In these examples, at least, Campbell seems clearly on the side of "liberty" and taste. All too often, though, Campbell appears to advocate a "tasteless uniformity" of style. As a philosopher of language, he is extremely careful to employ words consistently. Consequently, he criticizes Alexander Pope for varying the meaning of the term "wit" in his "Essay on Criticism": "Indeed, when an author varies the meaning in the same work, he not only occasions perplexity to his reader, but falls himself into an apparent inconsistency" (9nl). To say the least, this is a rather limited reading of Pope's "Essay.'' In the lines Campbell cites, Pope contrasts true wit, expression, and ease in writing to their false counterparts: "But blame the False, and value still the True" (559, line 407). This strategy obviously benefits from a constant play of meaning. A standard anthology of eighteenth-century literature provides five glosses for the term "wit" in the first eighty lines of the "Essay," including uses of the term to refer to writers, their works, and their mental capacities (Tillotson et al. 554-64). In short, Pope's use of "wit" seems superbly adapted to his purpose and, thus, to Campbell's conception of eloquence. 19 Such clashes between criticism and use appear even more complicated in light of Campbell's nine formal canons of criticism. The canons of criticism. Campbell clearly gives use precedence over grammar and criticism. For example, he maintains that use may establish a form that departs from the local analogies of a particular grammatical category, and that such apparent anomalies follow the overriding law of custom. Still, armed with Campbell's nine canons, critics wield the power to resolve questions of divided use and "explode" faulty use. Before we examine the role of the canons in the development and improvement of language, then, we should once more consider the firmness of Campbell's stated position on use: Only let us rest in these as fixed principles, that use, or the custom of speaking, is the sole original standard of conversation, as far as regards the expression, and the custom of writing is the sole standard of style: that the lat-

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ter comprehends the former, and something more; that to the tribunal of use, as to the supreme authority, and consequently, in every grammatical controversy, the last resort, we are entitled to appeal from the laws and decisions of grammarians. (141) These principles allow for criticism by naming use the "original" standard of language. In other words, only custom can establish general use: without the sanction of custom, no word, phrase, or figure can claim the title of general use. Once established, however, general use must sometimes be refined or corrected by criticism. Campbell's first five canons of criticism address the problem of choosing among variant words, constructions, or arrangements when use is divided (see fig. 3.4). Campbell allows that synonyms and alternate arrangements are often useful and need not be reduced to a single form: "various manners suit various styles, as various styles suit various subjects, and various sorts of composition" (153). Furthermore, he stresses that these canons should come into play only when equal authorities advocate variant forms: "Custom, when wavering, may be swayed, but when reluctant, will not be forced" (154). We must assume, then, that Campbell would have us employ the first five canons only when we cannot choose among equally established variants on the basis of style, subject, or "application"a limited role for verbal criticism, indeed. After meeting these exacting criteria, verbal critics must employ the canons hierarchically. First, perspicuity requires us to choose "the form of expression which is in every instance strictly univocal" (154). Only if the first canon fails to resolve the problem do we consider the analogy of related forms. If perspicuity and analogy fail, we are to consider euphony, choosing the form that is "most agreeable to the ear" (158). Continuing this hierarchical procedure with canon four, Campbell writes, "In cases wherein none of the foregoing rules gives either side a ground of preference, a regard to simplicity . . . ought to determine our choice" (158; emphasis added). By simplicity he means brevity and ''etymology," but he does not define etymological simplicity. Finally, if the preceding four canons cannot resolve divided usage, Campbell concludes that "it is safest to prefer that manner which is most conformable to ancient usage" (159; emphasis added). After all, he argues, "in language, as in several other things, change itself, unless when it is clearly advantageous, is ineligible" (159). Lest this last canon seem yet more evidence of a static view of language, re-

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member that Campbell only relies on ancient usage after exhausting reference to general use, perspicuity, analogy, euphony, and simplicityin that order, and only in order to resolve divided use. In that context, these canons appear to reflect less a static view of language than a desire to govern criticism rigorously. Moving from the fifth canon to the sixth, Campbell changes his perspective. Now he maintains that in "some instances custom may very properly be checked by criticism" (160). "Time and chance," he argues, "have an influence on all things human"including use (161). Therefore, while it would make no sense to call an accepted form barbarous, we may deem it ''faulty." Campbell matter-of-factly shifts to this second set of canons, but we must pause over this apparent challenge to the "supreme authority" of use. Criticism, Campbell assures us, has a "negative" power only, and "no positive right to establish any thing" (160). Furthermore, criticism must argue where usage compels: "Her power too is like that of eloquence; she operates on us purely by persuasion, depending for success on the solidity, or at least the speciousness of her arguments; whereas custom hath an unaccountable and irresistible influence over us, an influence which is prior to persuasion" (160). Given that restriction, the critic can reform general use by means of the last four canons of criticism. Once again, Campbell tries to balance opposing forces. In short, we can distinguish these canons from the first set because they justify opprobrium rather than choice. Canon six, for example, urges us to dismiss words in general use "which are remarkably harsh and unharmonious, and not absolutely necessary" (162). As in the earlier canons, Campbell qualifies this principle as soon as he states it in order to avoid the suggestion that good English should exclude all harshness or discord. "Variety in sound is advantageous to a language," he admits (163). In fact, in one of his more vivid metaphors Campbell patriotically owns that an ear too "nice" appears to him "in the same light as a stomach so squeamish as to nauseate our beef and beer, the ordinary food of the country" (164). Canon seven asks us to reject words whose etymology "points to a signification different from that which the word commonly bears" (16465). Again, Campbell qualifies this canon by insisting that the etymology must seem quite plain, as would be the case if "beholden" were understood as the "passive participle of the verb to behold" rather than the condition of being "obliged or indebted" (165). Presumably, an obscure foreign derivation would cause no misunderstanding. Canon eight rejects oth-

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erwise obsolete words retained in idiomatic phrases ("by dint of argument," where "dint" could be replaced with "strength"); Campbell worries that such singular use renders these terms "indefinite" and that they give one's style ''an air of vulgarity and cant" (166). Finally, canon nine would allow us to discard common idioms that involve a solecism or a meaning inexplicable by any other rule of language. To Campbell's way of thinking, common use is no defense against the charge of impropriety in the following instance: "Nothing can be more common or less proper than to speak of a river's emptying itself," implying that the river exhausts its flow; he prefers to speak of a river falling to the sea (167). Though he would object in principle, I believe we must conclude that in practice this "negative power" of the second set of canons challenges the "positive right" of usage. The Nature and Power of Linguistic Signs Throughout books 2 and 3 of The Philosophy of Rhetoric, Campbell has much to say about the function of linguistic signs in the interplay of things, thoughts, and the rhetorical contexts of communicative practice. Though he deals with the issue repeatedly, he never resolves a tension between strict signification theory (in which every word signifies a corresponding idea in the mind) and representation theory (in which most words represent an indeterminate number of particular ideas appropriate to the context). Like other rhetoricians of the day, though, Campbell moves beyond these questions of reference to consider other communicative functions of language. Words and the "delicate differences of things." Campbell adopts a generally Lockean position toward language and the order of things, downplaying imitative or iconic language and defining words as the signs of ideas derived from things. He does acknowledge that language can imitate sounds, time and motion, size, and difficulty or ease, but he assigns this iconic function a minor role in language, noting that both its presence and absence are more likely to go unnoticed than would be the case for "any other species of beauty in the style" (331). In general, he writes, "Words may be remembered as sounds, but cannot be understood as signs, whilst we remain unacquainted with the things signified" (142). From this Lockean perspective, then, the power of language depends upon human knowledge of things. Language, however, cannot exactly translate the world of things: "The varieties in things are infinite, whereas the richest language hath its limits" (201). Still, he

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maintains, as "a people improve in taste and knowledge" they come to increase their perception of the "delicate differences of things," a process that leaves their language "refined and polished" (201). ''Things," for Campbell, can refer to feelings as well as external objects, and such internal things pose equal problems for language; at one point he laments the "penury of all languages, in relation to our internal feelings" (130n6). He believes, though, that effective expression can overcome the inherent limitations of language and bring us closer to our experience of things: "whatever tends to subject the thing spoken of to the notice of our senses . . . greatly enlivens the expression" (291). On this principle, Campbell builds his important doctrine of vivacity, but along the way his treatment of language deals with the complex debate over the manner in which words and thoughts conspire to evoke the world of things. Words and thoughts. The sometimes subtle difference between signification theory and representation theory lies at the center of Campbell's discussion of language and the mind. That difference can be seen in two metaphors that Campbell employs for the relationship between words and ideas. Initially, Campbell treats words as "the medium through which we perceive the notions and sentiments of a speaker" (221; emphasis added). "Perspicuity," he reminds us, "originally and properly implies transparency, such as may be ascribed to air, glass, water, or any other medium through which material objects are viewed" (221). Extending the metaphor, we see that the discriminating qualities of style must color expression in the same way that tinted glass colors our field of vision. Unfortunately, the metaphor LANGUAGE IS A MEDIUM entails two problems for Campbell's doctrine of perspicuity. First, while a distorted medium may block our "view" of a well-formed idea, a transparent medium will not help us make sense of a confused idea. Second, this view of language raises the problem of how to determine, in a given case, whether the medium or the idea is faulty. Have we access to anything other than words? In answer, Campbell can only suggest "attentive and frequent perusal of the words and context" (244). The problem of distinguishing faulty words from faulty ideas remains largely unresolved in The Philosophy of Rhetoric, reflecting the inevitable overlap of those commonplaces at the level of Campbell's analysis. 20 A few pages later Campbell introduces an alternative metaphor for words. Misquoting Hobbes, he writes, "words are the counters of wise

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Fig. 3.7. The representative power of signs. This power allows us to generalize the relationships of particular signs to classes of relations. Campbell argues that words (arbitrary signs) may evoke particular ideas that in turn represent more extensive classes of relations, or they may bypass particular ideas of things by embodying linguistic structures analogous to those characteristic of a class of relations among things. men, but the money of fools" (253; emphasis added). 21 This metaphor clearly rejects strict signification theory (each word signifying a corresponding idea) in favor of representation theory, where a word can represent a class of ideas without calling each to mind. We then work with words in much the same way that we use letters in algebra to represent discrete values before they are known. And though he ordinarily thinks of words only as signs of ideas, Campbell notes that words also carry meaning derived from the structure of language itself: "By reiterated recourse to this medium, it necessarily happens, that when things are related to each other, the words signifying those things are more commonly brought together in discourse. Hence the words and names themselves, by customary vicinity, contract in the fancy a relation addi-

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tional to that which they derive purely from being symbols of related things" (259). Thus, the structure of language helps to determine the representative power of words and their meaning in a given discourse, in part by establishing "in the fancy" an imaginative association between ideas of linguistic structure and ideas of relations among things. Campbell's clearest example of representation theory refers to a geometrician demonstrating a theorem on a board (see fig. 3.7). The audience, of course, accepts that a drawing of a triangle on the board represents "a property of all that order, whether more or less extensive, of which it is both an example and a sign"all other members of the order are assumed to "agree with it in certain characters, however different in other respects" (264). Answering the objection that ''natural signs" (icons like the triangle) cannot be compared to arbitrary signs, Campbell points to the similar use of letters and numbers in algebra and arithmetic. Further, he notes that when circumstances change, "the mind with the utmost facility extends or contracts the representative power of the sign," whether we employ the icon of the triangle to prove a different theorem or use a word in a different context (264). Campbell does not believe that his representation theory is fundamentally at odds with Locke's signification theory. The difference, according to him, is "more in words than in sentiments" (261). Like Berkeley and Hume, he cannot accept Locke's explanation of general ideas as he understands it, although he subscribes to the empirical belief that mental contents consist of immediate sense perceptions, ideas of memory, and ideas of imagination derived through association of various ideas of memory. This process, which Campbell calls "experience," underlies all moral (rhetorical) reasoning. Vivacity decreases as we move from sense impressions through memory to imagination, and if most words stood for particular perceptions we would be able to recover, through well-chosen words, the vivacity of original sense impressions. However, as Locke points out in his Essay, our language consists mostly of general terms (for example, the term "beech tree" does not refer to any particular sensory impression but to a class of such impressions). And the meaning of general terms strikes Campbell as anything but straightforward: "That mere sounds, which are used only as signs, and have no natural connexion with the things whereof they are signs, should convey knowledge to the mind, even when they excite no idea of the thing signified, must appear at first extremely mysterious" (257-58; emphasis added). He rejects Locke's solution, which suggests that general terms signify general ideas abstracted from

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similar particulars. Instead, he holds out for a more limited definition of "idea""traces of things retained in the memory, and the images formed by the fancy" (261). To deal with the problem of how general terms "convey knowledge to the mind,'' Campbell turns to the doctrine of representation articulated by Berkeley and Hume. On that basis he examines three kinds of "connexions" related to language: among things, between words and things, and among words (see fig. 3.8). Connections among things he terms original and natural. Through the process of experience, we become acquainted with a variety of such connections: resemblance, identity, equality, contrariety, cause and effect, concomitance, and vicinity in place and time. The connections among words and things, though artificial and arbitrary, become through "custom" virtually as forceful as those in nature, which they represent. By contrast, the relationships among words considered as signs of ideas are somewhat more complex. First, Campbell establishes that "ideas associated by the same idea will associate with one another" (259). Further, "there will likewise be an association between the ideas of the signs [words]," whether particular or general in their representation. Finally, these verbal associations are strengthened by frequent use and by the very structure of language, for "by the regular structure of a language, this connexion among the signs is conceived as analogous to that which subsisteth among their archetypes" (260). Recall also that Campbell's definition of logical truth refers to "the conformity of our conceptions to their archetypes in the nature of things" (35). In this grand scheme, the order of language represents both the order of things and the order of mind. So accustomed are we to this representation, writes Campbell, that we immediately perceive "absurd" propositions, even before we have time "to form a just conception of the things signified"the words simply do not go together. In short, he observes, "we really think by [linguistic] signs as well as speak by them" (260). 22 He offers two kinds of support for this proposition. First, he notes that "ideas, in the strictest sense of the word, are particular," but "the truths which constitute science, which give exercise to reason, and are discovered by philosophy, are general" (260). Representative signs, then, are essential to knowledge: "Now, beyond particular truths or individual facts, first perceived and then remembered, we should never be able to proceed one single step in thinking, any more than in conversing, without the use of [representative] signs" (260). Second, Campbell extends the example of the geometrician's triangle by asking why an "idea of imagi-

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Fig. 3.8. The analogous world of words. Elaborating on his claim that words can convey meaning even when we bypass particular ideas of things (see fig. 3.7), Campbell traces three connections among words and things that allow us to "think by signs" alone. nation" should not be as capable of representative extension as an "idea of sight" (264). Finally, in the interest of completeness, Campbell notes the importance of particular ideas: "The recourse of the mind,

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when in any degree puzzled with the signs, to the knowledge it has of the thing signified, is natural" (265). But Campbell's three "connexions" suggest that much (if not most) of the time, reasoning, writing, and speaking depend more immediately upon our ideas of language than on our ideas of things, which lie further back along a chain of associative connections. 23 Essential as it may be to human knowledge, this arrangement causes problems if it blocks recourse to our experience of things or ideas. To illustrate those problems, Campbell offers a catalog of situations that result in "words without meaning." For example, extended metaphors carried to extremes become "signs of the signs" of thought, interposing a "double veil" between language and ideas (266). At first this argument seems to subvert literary aims, but later Campbell argues that in ''allegories, apologues, parables, and enigmas," "language is solely the sign of the literal sense, and the literal sense is the sign of the figurative" (281). Drawing an analogy to painting, Campbell argues that a good painter may require us to puzzle over the meaning of "the visible figure of the sun," but only "a bungling artist" will leave us in doubt about "whether it be the figure of the sun or the figure of the moon" (282). Further, we are often misled by discourse laden with terms referring to complicated, unfamiliar ideas or with very abstract terms having "extensive signification" (268-69).24 Perhaps more dangerous are familiar words: "when we are much accustomed to particular terms, we can scarcely avoid fancying that we understand them, whether they have a meaning or not"that is, whether or not they afford us recourse to clear and distinct ideas in the speaker's mind (270). Thus, while we often use language without invoking "ideas" (in the eighteenth-century sense of the word), Campbell argues that meaning depends on a matrix of connections among things, thoughts, and words. To complete our review of Campbell's theory of signs, however, we must also consider what he has to say about pragmatic or rhetorical sources of meaning and about the formal structure of language. Words and communicative action. Though he hardly subscribes to a "speech-act" theory of language, Campbell acknowledges that we sometimes use linguistic signs for reasons other than direct or indirect reference to things or ideas. For example, some "tropes and modes of expression," he suggests, owe their existence to our need "to veil without darkening what the smallest degree of delicacy requires us to avoid exposing in the strongest light" (312). Here, the philosopher's "curtain of words" serves a useful purpose. Further, Campbell defends introduc-

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tory phrases such as the "Verily, verily" of the Bible against the charge of verbosity, noting that they serve "not so much to affirm the reality, as the importance of what is to be said" (348). Similarly, while he generally denounces "mere epithets" that express a quality already associated with the term they modify ("glorious sun"), he also admits their usefulness when "the scope of a discourse . . . renders it important, if not necessary, that some particular qualities should be specially attended to by the hearer'' (348-49). Finally, he notes a paradox presented by the overabundance of "meaning." Speaking of offenses against brevity, he first defines verbosity simply as superfluous meaning: words and clauses "may have a meaning, and yet it were better to omit them, because what they mean is unimportant" (344). Later he suggests that meaning is not a simple aggregate of word or phrase meanings: "It requires a certain justness of taste to know when we have said enough, through want of which, when we attempt to say more, we say less" (347). Clearly, Campbell believes that our use of linguistic signs involves both contextual meaning arising from the exigencies of communicative action and lexical meaning arising out of the associative connections linking relations among things to the structure of language. The Structure of Language Campbell makes several key assumptions about the structure of language. First, he suggests that language consists of two parts: sounds that essentially serve as the signs of ideas, and "certain ways of inflecting and combining those sounds" that reveal "the relations which subsist among the things signified" (139). 25 On this principle he builds an analogy between the worlds of language and of things. By naming and relating, we conform the arbitrary and artificial signs of language to the order of things. This principle gives rise to Campbell's second assumption about the structure of language, that all languages "are of a regular and analogical make"consequently, "similar relations in things will be expressed similarly" (259). As we saw in the last chapter, other theorists deduced from similar assumptions that mankind could invent an ideal language whose lexicon and grammar would best represent the order of things. By contrast, Campbell's third assumption about the structure of language defends the particularity of all languages. He defines "use" as the "tacit consent of the people of a particular state," he is careful to

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adapt his remarks throughout books 2 and 3 to a "particular tongue," and he calls the art of the grammarian particular (139, 170; emphasis added). In short, he will have none of general grammars: "But will it be admitted as a maxim, that the custom of one language, or even of ever so many, may be urged as a rule in another language, wherein no such custom hath ever obtained? An argument founded on so false a principle must certainly be inconclusive" (396). Campbell often refers to other languages (particularly Greek, Latin, and French) in his notes, but he usually does so to highlight an argument through contrast. Discussing the problem of misrelated modifiers in English, for example, he notes that "this hazard . . . is greater in our language than in most others" because our adjectives lack declensions that would link them to other words by case, number, or gender (237). Consistent with his principle of particularity, though, this comparative analysis never becomes the basis of verbal criticism or an argument for reform. He rejects the notion that the syntactic order of any particular language is "natural.'' Similarly, he rejects logical arguments for standard English word order: "This is plausible, and, were the mind a pure intellect, without fancy, taste, or passion, perhaps it would be just. But as the case is different with human nature, I suspect there will be found little uniformity in this particular in different tongues" (356). 26 To protect the importance he assigns to usage, then, Campbell employs his doctrine of particularity to reject comparative or logical arguments that attempt to establish or regulate the linguistic structures of one language through comparison with another. Campbell saw other interesting implications of his doctrine of particularity. Long before Sapir and Whorf, he pondered the relationship between our particular language and our ideas about things: "Some nations, from particular circumstances, are more affected by one property in objects, others by another. This leads to a different distribution of things under their several names" (69). However, he does not pursue this notion as far as do modern theorists. Discussing "humour" early in The Philosophy of Rhetoric, he notes that "we scarcely find in other languages a word exactly corresponding" (16n9). For him, this discrepancy represents deficiencies in Latin and French, not different realities (see also 8-9n1). Those languages, he would say, simply do not fully reflect the "delicate differences" in human feelings. While the principle of particularity identifies the distinctive structural characteristics of a given language, a fourth principle in The Philosophy of Rhetoric presents the formal structure of a language as a

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field of choice. Recall that the principle of adaptation is built into Campbell's initial definition of eloquence: "that art or talent by which the discourse is adapted to its end" (1). In one sense this definition suggests that all effective discourse is adapted to one of the four ends that he assigns to eloquence, but we can better understand Campbell's philosophy of language if we try to imagine the nature of unadapted discourse. We find a description of such discourse in book 3: It is true, indeed, that when neither the imagination nor the passions of the hearer are addressed, it is hazardous in the speaker to depart from the practice which generally obtains in the arrangement of the words. . . . The temperament of our language is phlegmatic, like that of our climate. When, therefore, neither the liveliness of representation, nor the warmth of passion, serve, as it were, to cover the trespass, it is not safe to leave the beaten track. Whatever is supposed to be written or spoken in a cool and temperate mood, must rigidly adhere to the established order. (353-54) This principle applies to almost every aspect of language Campbell examines; he often describes a "beaten track," then considers reasons for leaving it. In general, purity and perspicuity determine the "beaten track" or foundation of discourse. Those two essential properties of style must "pervade the whole" of every discourse, according to Campbell, while the discriminating properties "are suited merely to particular subjects and occasions" (379). "Purity of expression," he concedes, ''hath but a small share of merit" in great literature, but he maintains that it has "some share" based on its contribution to more specifically literary effects: "Hence, not only perspicuity and vivacity, but even elegance and animation derive a lustre" (190). In this sense, then, purity and perspicuity establish the linguistic foundation of eloquence. Campbell sometimes proposes specific criteria for adapting that foundation to the ends of eloquence. For instance, in his discussion of barbarisms he seems at first to reject as impure all neologisms and borrowings from other languages, but he later allows for exceptions that meet criteria for simplicity (if possible, the new word should not present an exception to an established rule) and emphasis (a borrowed word should not be vitiated by separation from its cognates). Elsewhere Campbell notes that genre, subject, style, medium, and audience may require adaptation of, or departure from, the "beaten track." He allows greater latitude in the use of obsolete words in po-

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etry, in "passages of ancient story," and in "certain kinds of style" (171). Later he notes that "in the article of solecisms, much greater indulgence is given to the speaker than to the writer; and to the writer who proposeth to persuade or move, greater allowances are made, than to him who proposeth barely to instruct or please" (180). Finally, while Campbell claims that ''technical words should not be considered as belonging to the language" because of their limited use, he admits that they are "convenient" and "necessary" when addressing technical audiences (225). Campbell, then, describes four aspects of the structure of language: the functional division of linguistic signs into names and relations, the regular and analogical structure that links language to the order of things, the particularity of individual languages, and the adaptability of structures within particular languages. Though Campbell's philosophy of language in The Philosophy of Rhetoric is all too often rigid, the principle of adaptation introduces a degree of flexibility. Metaphors, Mutation, and Improvement in the Arts Campbell's various metaphors for language provide another useful perspective on his theory of language. Though he is suspicious of overworked metaphors, Campbell maintains that "all the words made use of, to denote spiritual and intellectual things, are in their origin metaphors, taken from the objects of sense" (304). This etymological principle interests him because his doctrine of vivacity dictates that "the imagination is more strongly affected by what is perceived by the senses, than by what is conceived by the understanding" (304), though to be effective as metaphors, words must carry the force of present use, not etymological derivation alone. The phrase "I apprehend your meaning," for example, no longer affects the imagination metaphorically, according to Campbell. Even such etymological or "dead" metaphors, however, reveal a dynamic principle of language, he argues. Shifts from figurative to proper use, and from one figurative use to another "discloseth to us one of the many sources of mutation to be found in every tongue" (297). These shifts will follow "an increase of knowledge and an improvement in the arts, or where there often appear new works of genius in philosophy, history, or poetry" (296-97). In every major part of his argument, Campbell draws on, and contributes to, the rich store of metaphors for language that follow from the "improvement" of rhetorical theory in his day.

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Explaining the important hierarchical relationship between the tacit laws of use and the derivative arts of grammar and criticism, Campbell writes that use is "the sole mistress of language," an "empress" to whom "grammar and criticism are but . . . ministers" (151). Later, those ministers become the artisans of her realm, variously employed in developing and improving language: "It is by carefully filing off all roughnesses and inequalities that languages, like metals, must be polished" (161). Elsewhere, cabinetmakers employ connectives as the "pegs and tacks'' of discourse: "the less conspicuous they are, the more perfect will the union of the parts be, and the more easily will the hearer glide, as it were, from one word, clause, or member of a period into another" (385). This metaphor draws on Campbell's notion that language consists of signs for our ideas of things (the constituent parts of the cabinet) and signs for relations (fixed by the pegs and tacks): without the proper pegs and tacks, the pieces of the cabinet would resolve themselves into a pile of lumber, just as language depends on both naming and relating. And the greatest refinement in such linguistic carpentry, according to Campbell, involves shaping the pieces themselves (as if with dovetail joints), an operation only possible in highly inflected languages (401). Elsewhere, discussing the causes of obscurity, Campbell employs the central metaphors of body and soul from book 1: "The body, therefore, if I may so express myself, of the emblem, or of the device, and precisely for the same reason, of the riddle or of the allegory, must be distinctly exhibited, so as scarcely to leave room for a possibility of mistake. The exercise that in any of these performances is given to ingenuity, ought wholly to consist in reading the soul" (282). He again suggests here that words, ciphers, and pictures are merely hosts of, or counters for, meaning, that interpretation cannot reveal the meaning of a text merely by explicating signs. He extends the metaphor in his discussions of oratorical style, where he evokes the key principle of adaptation through several references to ornaments worn on the body of discourse. Of the need to adapt qualities of style to the ends of discourse, Campbell writes, "The best ornaments out of place are not only unbecoming but offensive" (lxviii). Of language that imitates sounds, time, or motion, Campbell offers the following caution: "This beauty in language is not to be considered as bearing an analogy to dress by which the whole person is adorned, but to those jewels which are intended solely for the decoration of certain parts, and whose effect depends very much on their being placed with judgment" (332). Finally,

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we should reconsider Campbell's controlling genealogical metaphor for the relationship between science and the arts, between his philosophy of language and his theory of rhetoric: "There is . . . a natural relation between the sciences and the arts, like that which subsists between the parent and the offspring" (xlv). As we have seen, Campbell allows that "imitation" and "example" may provide for some progress in the arts but sees scientific investigation into radical principles as the true source of new growth. New Varieties of Eloquence How, then, might the discovery of radical principles produce new varieties of an art? The Philosophy of Rhetoric, building upon conventional eighteenth-century models of progress, embodies a structural principle for relating the principles of thought and language (as Campbell understood them) to the central task of eloquenceadapting discourse to ends defined in terms of mental faculties, audiences, ethos, and occasion. Once we recognize that principle, we can judge Campbell's articulation of philosophies of language with the art of rhetoric by considering his resolution of five issues that entail both linguistic and rhetorical principles. A Method of Extending the Art Campbell offers two related models of growth and progress in the arts of discourse: a four-stage model of the history of rhetoric and the genealogical model we have already considered in some detail. Each model conveys a slightly different sense of continuity between Campbell's approach and earlier treatments of rhetoric. In the historical model, rhetorical practice and the "critical science" of rhetoric (the determination first of taxonomies and then of generative rules for discourse) emerge and become established prior to Campbell's scientific approach. Subsequent stages do not supplant earlier ones but explain, standardize, and substantiate them. Accordingly, Campbell describes his own workthe fourth stageas an attempt "to canvass those principles in our nature to which the various attempts are adapted, and by which, in any instance, their success or want of success may be accounted for" (lxxiv-lxxv). Such work, he argues, "adds both weight and evidence to all precedent discoveries and rules" (lxxv). Yet while his fourth stage follows the previous three historically, it is genealogi-

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cally prior. That is to say, in the genealogical model the nature of mind and language, together with the parent arts of logic and grammar, determine the substance of rhetoric. Studying those antecedent arts and sciences will not in itself alter the essential nature of eloquence, though a better understanding of its genealogy may help us "produce new varieties" of the art. Campbell's models become even clearer if we recognize the philosophy of language presented in books 2 and 3 as the counterpart of the philosophy of mind in book 1. In each of these two major sections of The Philosophy of Rhetoric, principles drawn from the science of human nature support an argument for reform in the arts. For instance, an understanding of the nature of language helps to substantiate principles and correct abuses in the arts of grammar and verbal criticism. Similarly, Campbell's inquiry into the philosophy of mind drives his reevaluation in book 1 of "syllogizing" and his reconsideration of competing theories of the passions. A Structural Principle For all his attention to the philosophy of mind and language, however, Campbell never reduces rhetoric to strictly psychological or linguistic principles: both thought and expression are for him the constituent materials of discourse, which rhetoric adapts to produce a desired effect on an audience. As a result of this perspective, Campbell provides no rhetorical art of invention in the classical sense of discovering persuasive proofs or lines of argument, nor does he identify distinct rhetorical styles such as plain, middle, and grand. 27 Instead, eloquence or rhetoric serves as a fulcrum that enables us to balance thought and language in order to achieve the ends of discourse. In book 1, only the chapters on the capacities of hearers and the different kinds of public speaking seem to focus on strictly rhetorical principles of adaptation to audience and occasion. Similarly, in books 2 and 3 only the discussions of rhetorical properties of style (perspicuity and vivacity) contain truly rhetorical principles for adapting expression to various ends of speaking. Yet Campbell's central rhetorical principleadaptation of discourse to the ends of speakinggoverns the general framework in which he places thought, language, and the parent arts of logic and grammar. Accordingly, his catalog of the ends of speaking shapes the work, providing continuity and balance between the discussion of logic and

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eloquence in book I and the discussion of grammar and eloquence in books 2 and 3. Because Campbell believes that we must first understand and be understood in order to achieve any of the other ends of speaking (pleasing the imagination, moving the passions, influencing the will), he devotes a major early portion of book 1 to an investigation of the laws of reasoninghis doctrine of evidence. This section clearly belongs to both the science of mind and the art of logic (as Campbell uses the terms), for it explains both the natural operation of the mind and the explicit art of reasoning. Similarly, because Campbell believes that we cannot be understood unless we observe the conventions of language, he devotes a major portion of book 2 to an investigation of the tacit laws of use and the explicit rules of grammar and criticism. Having established a foundation in both thought and language for enlightening the understanding, Campbell shifts his emphasis from the parent sciences and arts to a more direct consideration of the art of rhetoric. Book I shifts from an examination of evidence to a consideration of how the sense of discourse may be adapted to each of the mental faculties of hearers. Books 2 and 3 shift their focus from grammatical to rhetorical properties of style. The two major sections of The Philosophy of Rhetoric, then, contain parallel shifts of emphasis (see fig. 3.9). The pattern outlined above keeps the argument connected to the ends of speaking throughout each section, first establishing a foundation for understanding through science and a parent art, then relating eloquence to all the ends of speaking. In other words, each section presents scientific principles concerning the material of discourse (thought and language) and examines a parent art (logic and grammar) concerned chiefly with the "justness" of thought or languageall before turning to strictly rhetorical matters. This pattern appears in book and chapter titles, though Campbell does not emphasize the parallels as much as he might have. Book 1 promises to treat only "The Nature and Foundations of Eloquence," though by analogy to books 2 and 3 we can see that it touches on "discriminating" principles in the considerations of "Men in General'' and "Men in Particular" and of the "different kinds of public speaking . . . with a view to their different advantages in respect of eloquence." Book 2, of course, presents "The Foundations and Essential Properties of Elocution" before book 3 considers "The Discriminating Properties of Elocution." This pattern is clearest in the "sequel" concerning grammar and eloquence (bks. 2 and 3). Perhaps Campbell became more aware of the pattern as he worked on those later sections.

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Fig. 3.9. Patterns of development in Campbell's Rhetoric. Campbell develops book 1 (built upon a philosophy of mind) and books 2 and 3 (built upon a philosophy of language) according to a similar progression, moving from the sciences of thought and language, respectively, through the "parent" arts of logic, grammar, and criticism to rhetorical principles of adaptation.

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Viewed from yet another perspective, each section treats in succession principles of discourse that compel, argue, and adapt discourse to its ends. Book 1 treats immediate, intuitive, or "instinctive" reasoning as the source of mediated, deductive reasoning, then considers how rhetoric adapts logical truth to the capacities of hearers (it is at this juncture that Campbell presents the image of the handmaids that "usher truth into the heart"). Similarly, books 2 and 3 treat the compelling laws of use and the arguments of grammar and criticism before discussing the rhetorical properties of style that adapt discourse to specific ends. Together, these various patterns justify calling Campbell's text a philosophy of rhetoric: in keeping with the Philosophical Society's definition of philosophical matters, Campbell presents principles of "science'' and demonstrates the relationship of philosophy to the arts. In keeping with his own definition of rhetoric, he brings his philosophical inquiry to bear on the principles of adaptation that inform his art of rhetoric. Pragmatic Syntheses Contrary to a stereotypical image of eighteenth-century grammarians and rhetoricians as zealots for correctness, Campbell displays a pragmatic habit of mind consistent with his rhetorical principle of adaptation. On several basic linguistic issues, he synthesizes opposing principles of eighteenth-century language theory in order to define opportunities for rhetorical choice. Universal/particular. Campbell preserves both universal and particular elements in his treatment of style. Early on, Campbell maintains that only the principles of logic are universal, while the principles of grammar are local or particular. Accordingly, he rejects theories of universal language and maintains that arbitrary convention is the sole basis for grammar. Nevertheless, he insists that eloquence must balance the universal and particular aspects of discourse, and one consequence of that balance is his two-part doctrine of arrangement: That arrangement which I call rhetorical, as contributing to vivacity and animation, is, in the strictest sense of the word, agreeably to what hath been already suggested, a natural arrangement . . . The principle which leads to it operates similarly on every people, and in every language, though it is much more checked by the idiom of some tongues than by that of others. . . . on the contrary, the more common, and what for distinction's sake I call the

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grammatical order, is, in a great measure, an arrangement of convention, and differs considerably in different languages. (364; emphasis added) Further, he points out that making grammatical arrangement "sacred and inviolable" leads inevitably to "stinting the powers of elocution, and even of damping the vigour both of imagination and of passion" (365). Faced with this abuse of convention, Campbell proposes a compromise between the universal and particular that preserves "natural flexibility." 28 Use/verbal criticism. By themselves, Campbell's three laws of use are of limited practical application. First, there is the problem of definition: How to settle just which authors are reputable, or what time frame constitutes the present, or even which national boundaries should constitute linguistic ones? Second, even in our day, with our considerable ability to gather and sort linguistic data, handbooks of usage are at best approximations of complex and dynamic linguistic features. In short, "the problem of 'correctness' becomes one of information and observation" (Pooley 5). No matter how keen an observer of language Campbell may have been, he was hardly in a position to present conclusive evidence that a given form had the weight of general use behind it. Consequently, Sterling Leonard argues in The Doctrine of Correctness in English Usage 1700-1800, Campbell's allegiance to the doctrine of use is only apparent: "for practically every question at issue . . . one or another of his nine canons of use or three principles of purity must be appealed to; and so we . . . run the gauntlet of the same criteria as beforeof logic, etymology, and authority very thinly disguised" (160). But Campbell does not capitulate to the forces of "correctness" quite as easily as Leonard claims. The different roles of the tacit laws of use and the explicit arts of grammar and criticism in Campbell's theory establish a practical balance of power. It is true that it would be difficult under Campbell's system (particularly in Campbell's day) to deny categorically that any but the most obvious questions of use were matters of divided use and, thus, fair game for the first five canons of verbal criticism. It is also true that the equally vague canons for correcting "faulty" general use threaten the sovereignty of custom. But Campbell at least places a double burden of proof on the verbal critic: first, the critic must argue, while use alone compels; second, since the critic cannot establish general use, he must at least demonstrate that any form he advocates is in common use. Campbell's position is a far cry from imitating the

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"logical" pronouncements of reformers. In fact, he makes it clear that he proposes to limit some of the worst abuses of the verbal critics. Further, his very inclusion of rules for verbal criticism accurately reflects an important aspect of language in human culture, an aspect that Leonard acknowledges: "rules and theories of this sort are a perennial growth of every sort of curious observation of language, and are only a form of the criticism of manners and customs which goes on constantly in every society" (244). No matter how strong his belief in the doctrine of use, to omit rules for verbal criticism would have been quite unacceptable to the "discerning readers" of his day. Once again, he attempts a synthesis of competing principles that serves his rhetorical purpose. 29 Stasis/dynamism. Leonard accuses Campbell of contradicting his law of present use (a dynamic principle) with his fifth critical canon, which allows us to resolve divided use by reference to etymology (a static principle). Leonard claims that Campbell "makes no serious attempt to reconcile" the two principles, but of course he does: canon five refers to divided use among forms in present use, comes into play only after the other four canons in this category fail to resolve the issue, and rests on the simple principle that change alone should not determine good use. Even so, the canon rests on shaky ground: by modern standards, eighteenth-century knowledge of etymology was rudimentary at best. Yet imperfect as it is, Campbell's system does not in any respect harken back to a "Golden Age of English," as Leonard accuses others of doing (129). The most problematic aspect of Campbell's attempt to synthesize use and criticism is his complicated maze of interrelated laws, hierarchical canons, and grammatical properties of style. It seems unlikely that his labyrinthine doctrine would help resolve any genuine problem of use. Theoretically, it is impossible to tell whether the weight of his argument rests with linguistic rigidity or dynamism. Opposing his "certain, steady, and well-known standard" is his vision of language imperceptibly keeping pace with refinements in taste and improvements in knowledge. And verbal criticism, according to Campbell, lends "greater stability . . . to custom" (152) at the same time that it improves language and perfects eloquence (222). In this instance, his synthesis results in confusion rather than a useful alternative approach. Standardization/variety. In modern terms, this dichotomy represents a synchronic parallel to the diachronic tension between rigidity and dynamism. Here the question is whether Campbell encourages or

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represses a natural variety of linguistic forms. As Leonard reminds us, "The occasion, the speaker or writer, the subject, the purpose, the audienceall help to determine the place of any form at a given time" (240). 30 But according to him, "variation" in response to these rhetorical factors received little attention from Campbell (or from eighteenth-century grammarians in general): "Campbell's elaborate scheme had only the narrowest and most inconspicuous place for it" (241). It is true that Campbell has little tolerance for regional or professional dialects, yet we can point to instances where he emphatically champions variation within Standard English, as he does in the following formula: "various manners suit various styles, as various styles suit various subjects, and various sorts of composition" (153). Or recall his approval of a certain "variety in sound,'' including some of the harshness of English, which he compares to the "common food of the country." As a matter of fact, he seems to wax patriotic over this issue, contrasting the "tasteless uniformity" encouraged by the French Academy and his liberal ideal for the English tongue. It seems clear that Campbell's sentiments on this issue lay with a practical compromise. As in other cases, he attempts to synthesize opposing principles in order to avoid what he sees as the abuses of extreme positions. Correctness/effectiveness. Here again Campbell seems to get lost in his own maze, betrayed perhaps by an ear somewhat deaf to poetry. Though in theory Campbell clearly subordinates verbal criticism to literary criticism and correctness to effectiveness, he all too often presents literary passages merely as examples of a particular problem of style, paying scant regard to the manner in which "the discourse is adapted to its end." We have already considered his shortsighted reading of Pope; he is an even less perceptive reader of Dryden. Discussing the puerile style in which an author uses "words so indefinitely, that the [reader] can either affix no meaning to them at all, or may almost affix any meaning to them he pleases," Campbell offers the following lines from "A Song for St. Cecilia's Day" (1687) as an example "in which there is not even a glimpse of meaning" (249): From Harmony, from heav'nly Harmony This universal Frame began: From Harmony to Harmony Through all the compass of the Notes it ran, The Diapason closing full in Man. (Lines 11-15)

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Questions of literary merit aside, the conceit in the passage is conventionally associated with St. Ceciliawho is, after all, the patron saint of music. We may not know exactly how Dryden would have us understand the conceit in the context of the entire poem, but the metaphor clearly juxtaposes the creation of the universe and mankind with the orderly progression of harmonic cadences. The passage certainly is not devoid of literal meaning or figurative suggestiveness. Campbell's verbal criticism suffers in part from his attempt to synthesize competing principles. On the one hand, he holds the adaptation of discourse to its end as the highest principle of eloquence. As a consequence, he acknowledges the "great injustice" of making grammatical or stylistic slips "the sole or even principal test of demerit in literary productions" (lxviii). Further, he makes reputable use reflect the language of the most respected authors. On the other hand, he warns against "implicit attachment and servile imitation, even when they seem to be claimed by the most celebrated names" (lxviii). In short, the verbal critic must sit in judgment on the very texts he looks to for a ''certain, steady, and well-known standard." The clash between correctness and effectiveness, then, parallels the clash between standardization and variety. In the process of building a standard of correctness, Campbell often loses sight of the variety of ends and means that constitute effective discourse and, thus, loses sight of the larger critical framework that he acknowledges elsewhere in discussions of literary merit. In general, Campbell's syntheses succeed when the rhetorical principle of adaptation tempers the principles of logic and grammar. Only then does his inquiry reveal how an investigation into the radical principles of thought and language might contribute to a genuinely new theory of rhetorical practice and criticism. What, finally, does Campbell achieve through his inquiry into the radical or generating principles of rhetoric? In Aristotle's terms, Campbell pursues a theoretical art of rhetoric, for his primary concern lies with the discovery of those radical principles of thought, language, and eloquence that might substantiate or help to perfect already well established practical and productive rules of rhetoric. Logic and grammar figure in his philosophical investigation of the mind because he believes that knowledge, beyond particular sense impressions, consists of mental constructs and propositions expressed in words. Rhetoric plays a mediating role because the transmission and application of knowledge through words must be adapted to speakers, hearers, and occasions. Thus, Campbell establishes a relationship among the arts of

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logic, grammar, and rhetoric that preserves the continuities among things, thoughts, words, and actions that in turn provide a foundation for his particular blend of Scottish Common Sense realism and empiricism. Only when he briefly entertains the notion that we often "think by signs as well as speak by them" does Campbell approach a fundamentally different architectonic principle, one that conceives of things, thoughts, and actions primarily as wordsin short, as phenomena trapped in a selfsufficient world of words. But for the most part, Campbell builds his rhetorical theory squarely upon the "connexions" among things, thoughts, words, and actions that provided a foundation for Scottish Common Sense realism.

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4 Words as Things: Icons of Progress in Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres Whether we consider Poetry in particular, and Discourse in general, as Imitative or Descriptive; it is evident, that their whole power, in recalling the impressions of real objects, is derived from the significancy of words. As their excellency flows altogether from this source, we must, in order to make way for further enquiries, begin at this fountain head. It appears, that, in all the successive changes which Language has undergone, as the world advanced, the understanding has gained ground on the fancy and imagination. The Progress of Language, in this respect, resembles the progress of age in man. The imagination is most vigorous and predominant in youth; with advancing years, the imagination cools, and the understanding ripens. . . . Language is become, in modern times, more correct, indeed, and accurate; but, however, less striking and animated: In its antient state, more favourable to poetry and oratory; in its present, to reason and philosophy. Hugh Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres In contrast to George Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric, which grew out of a set of philosophical discourses presented to a private literary society, Hugh Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (1783) originated as a more or less complete set of public lectures first delivered during the winter of 1759-60 under the auspices of the Uni-

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versity of Edinburgh and thereafter for nearly a quarter-century to students at the university. According to Blair's preface, this pedagogical setting influences the scope, content, form, and style of the published volume of lectures: "[The lectures] were originally designed for the initiation of Youth into the study of Belles Lettres, and of Composition. With the same intention they are now published; and, therefore, the form of Lectures, in which they were at first composed, is still retained" (iv). He goes on to explain his selection and treatment of materials in light of his "duty as a Public Professor." While he admits that the lectures are not ''wholly original," he also maintains that they are not merely "a Compilation from the Writings of others." Rather, he claims to have "thought for himself" about his subject, adopting the views of others and adding his own reflections according to the principle that he should "convey to his Pupils all the knowledge that could improve them; to deliver not merely what was new, but what might be useful, from whatever quarter it came" (iv). Following this approach, Blair does not present a philosophically profound treatment of rhetoric, but he does provide a carefully drawn and richly detailed map of the realms of belles lettres and composition, as he conceived of them, tracing connections among doctrines of taste, language, style, eloquence, and belles lettres as he lays before his students various rules of composition and criticism. Moreover, perhaps in part because he was mindful of the need to motivate his young charges, Blair keeps before his listeners and readers a telos for the study of rhetoric and belles lettres: throughout the lectures, he implicitly and explicitly links the progress of society, language, taste, and the arts to the improvement of individuals. Language plays a key role in Blair's rhetorical theory and mythos of progress, serving both as the material cause of oratory and written composition and, more importantly, as material evidence of the progress of society. Yet while Campbell links principles of language to principles of thought and logical truth throughout his argument, Blair never provides a rigorous epistemological account of language. Rather, he asserts a link between language and various faculties of mind, then develops that link primarily within his mythos of progress; he explains how language and knowledge have developed in concert but says little of the principles governing their interaction. This tendency poses an interpretive problem somewhat different from the task of tracing and clarifying the philosophical analysis of language in Campbell's Rhetoric. As Vincent Bevilacqua notes in "Philosophical Assumptions Underlying Hugh Blair's Lectures on

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Rhetoric and Belles Lettres," Blair does not examine in his lectures many of the assumptions upon which he builds his theory of rhetoric: "unlike Kames and Campbell, Blair did not develop systematically as a distinct and related part of his theory of rhetoric the various philosophical and epistemological assumptions from which he reasoned in the lectures. Rather, Blair left such presuppositions for his audience to provide from their own philosophic frame of reference, assuming that as orthodox eighteenth-century notions about human nature they would be readily understood and accepted" (151). Bevilacqua and others have done much to recover for twentieth-century readers the underlying epistemological assumptions that Blair shared with his eighteenth-century colleagues and readers. But as I noted earlier, relatively little has been done to recover Blair's philosophy of language. That task requires us to ask how Blair "thought for himself" about the resources of eighteenth-century language theory and wove his assumptions about language into a set of lectures on rhetoric and belles lettres. Even though his treatment of language is less thorough and ambitious than Campbell's, and therefore yields a less richly detailed model for articulating philosophies of language and theories of rhetoric, Blair offers a useful complement to Campbell because he draws more often on a different alchemic opportunity for overlapping the generating principles of this study. While Blair subscribes to the Lockean doctrine that words are signs of ideas, and he believes that the chief end of eloquence is to move others to action, the perspective that most consistently informs his treatment of language and rhetoric presents words as thingsobjects of art that reflect the intellectual and social circumstance of individuals and cultures. To trace Blair's Lectures back to these generating principles, this chapter first sketches the scenes of his theory building, the public lectern and the lecture halls of the University of Edinburgh. The next section examines how Blair presents language as the material foundation of eloquence, and the final section assesses his view of words as thingsmore specifically, as objects of art and icons of aesthetic, intellectual, and cultural progress. Rites of Initiation and Improvement Blair's lectures provided his public audience and his students not only with the principles and precepts of oratory and composition but also with an argument for the importance of those arts in the improve-

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ment of society and, more particularly, in the education of those who wish to speak in, or write for the, public; "to support a proper rank in social life"; and to improve their understanding of human nature (1: 910). Accordingly, before considering more specifically the role of language in Blair's lectures, I will outline the place of rhetoric and belles lettres in the curriculum of the University of Edinburgh and note how Blair addresses the aspirations and expectations of his students. The Institutional Role of Rhetoric at Edinburgh Blair's lectures are significant not only because of their influence on the teaching of rhetoric but also because of the circumstances under which they were delivered. From 1762 to 1783, Blair served as Regius Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, holding the only chair of rhetoric and belles lettres established in a Scottish university during the eighteenth century. 1 In "The Formation of the Regius Chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at the University of Edinburgh," Paul Bator presents a detailed account of the social milieu, university curriculae, and intellectual traditions that provided the contexts for Blair's appointment as Regius Professor. Bator and others demonstrate clearly that the Regius Chair was the "logical outcome" of a host of factors, including "attitudes toward scholarly and vernacular language, achievements in the polite arts, and a general spirit of curricular reform" (40). In 1708, the University of Edinburgh followed several Continental universities in "fixing" the professorial positions at the university to particular fields of study. Previously, regents had taught individual classes throughout their arts curriculum. The professorships at Edinburgh included Greek, moral philosophy, natural philosophy, and logic, but the distinctions among the areas were not sharply delineated. In these circumstances, Bator notes, rhetoric "found itself attached to various disciplines and professorial holds" (51). For instance, subjects treated in Blair's lectures were taught at Edinburgh during the first half of the century by professors of both logic and moral philosophy (Bator 51-56). Also, from 1748 to 1751 Adam Smith delivered to the literati of Edinburgh a set of public lectures on rhetoric and belles lettres, which Blair attended.2 Sometime after Smith was appointed professor of logic at Glasgow in 1751, Robert Watson continued Smith's course until he left Edinburg in 1756 to occupy the Chair of Logic at St. Andrews (in which capacity he would teach rhetoric and metaphysics).

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In addition to teaching rhetoric and belles lettres in their classes, Scottish professors were writing books about the subject. Roger Emerson has determined that of publications by Scottish university professors serving between 1691 and 1800, "The various categories of belles lettres which prior to 1746 accounted for a mere 2% of the titles in the latter period rose to 19%, an impressive demonstration of the success of the efforts to make the universities seats of polite learning" (Emerson, "Scottish Universities" 460). This phenomenal increase in treatises concerning rhetoric and belles lettres during the second half of the century occurred throughout Great Britain and Ireland. The most influential British rhetorical treatises published during the eighteenth centuryother than Blair'sthat originated as courses of academic lectures include John Lawson's Lectures Concerning Oratory (1758; delivered at Trinity College, Dublin); John Ward's System of Oratory (1759; delivered at Gresham College, London); and Joseph Priestley's Course of Lectures on Oratory and Criticism (1762; delivered at Warrington Academy). 3 Blair's lectures were first delivered publicly during the winter of 1759-60.4 He read the lectures at the university with the approval of the Edinburgh Town Council, but the lectures were not officially part of the university curriculum, nor was Blair a member of the faculty. So successful were the lectures, however, that the following year the council named Blair "Professor of Rhetorick" without salary. As a result, after 1760 his lectures were restricted to university students. During the negotiations leading up to his appointment as Regius Professor in 1762, Blair took steps to ensure that his course was established on what he considered sound academic grounds. He was first offered a salary of £100 on the condition that he not charge students to attend his course. In response, Blair proposed that he be given a salary of £70 and the right to charge fees, arguing that students would commit themselves more fully to a course for which they had paid. Blair's biographer, Robert Schmitz, reports that Blair rejected a proposal in 1767 to open his lecture again to the public, citing the same reasons for which he rejected the initial proposal to offer a free class (63). Both the Town Council and Blair's sponsors for the Regius Professorship believed that his lectures would attract students to the university, as they apparently didSchmitz reports that Blair's classes enrolled fifty to sixty students each session (63). Blair's other significant contribution to the definition of his chair was the suggestion that "Belles Lettres" be added to the title. Bator

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demonstrates that Blair had "a host" of models for combining rhetoric and belles lettres, including the work of previous professors at Edinburgh and various French treatises on eloquence (63-64n95). However, Bator cautions against seeing Blair's Chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres as "a signal institution for either the discipline of rhetoric or the nascent discipline of English literature and literary criticism," for it was not part of any comprehensive plan to integrate rhetoric and belles lettres into the curriculumindeed, Blair's course was not required for a degree at Edinburgh (58). Rather, Bator views Blair's course as "one of the results of an ambitious reform of the curriculum that took place in all the Scottish universities during the mid-eighteenth century" and ''as a fitting feather for the cap of the Edinburgh literati, who strove to promote polite literature in town and university" (58). It was, in other words, part of larger movement of cultural and personal improvement in which language and discourse were understood to play a central role. The Aspirations and Expectations of Blair's Student Audience Though a broader and more mature segment of Edinburgh's polite society served as the audience for Blair's original public lectures, university students were the exclusive audience for the lectures during Blair's active years on the faculty at Edinburgh. Moreover, as we have seen, Blair takes particular notice of his student audience in the volume of lectures eventually published in 1783. Who were those students, and, perhaps more to the point, how did Blair conceive of them? In A Short History of the University of Edinburgh, 1556-1889, D. B. Horn cites studies demonstrating that Edinburgh University graduated 343 of the 2,500 university-educated men born between 1685 and 1785 who are listed in the Dictionary of National Biographymore than all other Scottish universities combined (63-64). "Most of them," Horn notes, "are clergymen, teachers, physicians, or lawyers; some are statesmen, inventors, reformers, and authors" (64). During roughly the same period, Edinburgh produced more of the scientists listed in the DNB than Oxford and nearly as many as Cambridge (64). These numbers support the generalization that Edinburgh was training Scotland's future leaders. How did Blair articulate the role that he envisioned for rhetoric and belles lettres in the education of such men? Having in his preface to the published lectures identified his intended audience as those who "are studying to cultivate their Taste, to form their Style, or to prepare

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themselves for Public Speaking or Composition" (iv), Blair treats in his first lecture several "general topics" that place these communicative practices in the contexts of culture, education, and human nature. Blair argues that human reason, though a faculty of mind, is intimately linked to language and discourse: "What we call human reason, is not the effort or ability of one, so much as it is the result of the reason of many, arising from lights mutually communicated, in consequence of discourse and writing" (1: 1). Accordingly, he maintains, curiosity about the means of improving discourse is a universal feature of human culture and is developed most fully in the most civilized countries. Bringing his point closer to home, Blair asserts "that in all the polished nations of Europe, this study has been treated as highly important, and has possessed a considerable place in every plan of liberal education" (1: 2). From the outset, then, Blair appears to link his subject to a cultural hierarchy. Yet neither he nor his audience was necessarily smug about that hierarchy. Throughout the eighteenth centuryScotland's "age of improvement"Scottish literati worried about bringing letters in Scotland up to the standard of England and France. There were of course many venues for such improvement, including private study, literary magazines, and the scores of literary, philosophical, and student debating societies established in Scotland during the century, but Blair takes pains to describe for his particular audience the role of rhetoric and belles lettres in "academical education." He acknowledges the disdain of "men of understanding" for the "artificial and scholastic rhetoric" taught in the past but promises to establish "good sense as the foundation of all good composition'' (1: 3). He does so in the first instance by turning the commonplace separation of thought and languagea traditional reason to distrust rhetoricto his advantage, employing one of his favorite evaluative metaphors: "Knowledge and science must furnish the materials that form the body and substance of any valuable composition. Rhetoric serves to add the polish, and we know that none but firm and solid bodies can be polished well" (1: 4). Though it might be tempting to emphasize that such metaphors establish a close relationship between rhetoric and reason, they nevertheless distinguish substance from polish (or the body from the dress of discourse) and, I believe, more accurately reflect the role that Blair envisions for rhetoric in education. In his lectures, Blair never systematically examines the principles or methods by which we come to know the substance of things, assigning that task to philosophers rather than rhetoricians.

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Further, Blair discusses the pedagogical role of rhetorical training from two perspectives more specifically related to the aspirations of his audience. Those preparing to "communicate their sentiments to the Public" must study rhetoric and belles lettres in order to "do justice" to their thoughts, cultivate their reason, and adapt to "the taste and manners of the present age" (1: 5-7). Those with no aspirations as speakers or writers will nevertheless benefit from such study by becoming conversant with the concerns of polite society and improving their understanding of human nature, in particular ''the operations of the imagination, and the movements of the heart" (1: 8-10). Speaking generally of the "happy effects" of the "cultivation of taste," Blair prefigures his students' future circumstances, whether they will engage in "serious professions" or be favored with "the most gay and flourishing situations of fortune." In either case, there will be "unemployed intervals" in which "the entertainments of taste, and the study of polite literature" will provide a means of improvement and a guard against dissipation: "He who is so happy as to have acquired a relish for these, has always at hand an innocent and irreproachable amusement for his leisure hours, to save him from the danger of many a pernicious passion. . . . He is not obliged to fly to low company, or to court the riot of loose pleasures, in order to cure the tediousness of existence" (1: 11). Blair complements the overt and simplistic moralizing in this passage by tying his argument to commonplace assumptions about human faculties, arguing that the pleasures of taste occupy "a middle station between the pleasures of sense, and those of pure intellect" (1: 12). Of course this analysis still reflects a hierarchical ordering of the faculties, from the "low" senses through taste and imagination to the "high" region of the understanding: "We were not designed to grovel always among objects so low as the former; nor are we capable of dwelling constantly in so high a region as the latter. The pleasures of taste refresh the mind after the toils of the intellect, and the labours of abstract study; and they gradually raise it above the attachments of sense, and prepare it for the enjoyments of virtue" (1: 12). Thus, Blair overlays his hierarchical analysis of the faculties with parallel analyses of communicative practices and the "duties" and "pursuits" of life. Near the end of his introductory lecture, he aligns these analyses in an apologia for the role of rhetoric and belles lettres in the education of his students:

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So consonant is this to experience, that in the education of youth, no object has in every age appeared more important to wise men, than to tincture them early with a relish for the entertainments of taste. The transition is commonly made with ease from these to the discharge of the higher and more important duties of life. Good hopes may be entertained of those whose minds have this liberal and elegant turn. Many virtues may be grafted upon it. Whereas to be entirely devoid of relish for eloquence, poetry, or any of the fine arts, is justly constructed to be an unpromising symptom of youth; and raises suspicions of their being prone to low gratifications, or destined to drudge in the more vulgar and illiberal pursuits of life. (1: 12) Apologias for the study of composition and literature are familiar features of our own textbooks, and in any given period such arguments can help us understand the ways in which "higher" levels of literacy were viewed and valued. To the historical record of their middle-class status and considerable achievements, Blair's treatment of his students' aspirations and expectations adds rich detail about the intellectual and moral dimensions of their training in rhetoric and belles lettres. The Foundation of Eloquence After the initial lecture discussed above, Blair devotes four lectures to the general topic of taste, a faculty whose development and operation he later links intimately to language. Though he later describes these lectures as "introductory to the principle subject" of his lectures (1: 97), he explains their importance by noting that taste is the "faculty which is always appealed to in disquisitions concerning the merit of discourse and writing" (1: 15). Blair's definition of taste''The power of receiving pleasure from the beáuties of nature and of art" (1: 16)leads him to two assertions concerning human nature and taste that will determine much of his approach to language and style, the foundations of his rhetorical theory. First, he distinguishes between taste and reason while relating their operations: "Though taste, beyond doubt, be ultimately founded on a certain natural and instinctive sensibility to beauty, yet reason . . . assists Taste in many of its operations, and serves to enlarge its power" (1: 16-17). 5 Though Blair acknowledges that reason "assists" taste, his readers should not forget that from the outset he aligns "disquisitions concerning the merit of discourse and writing" fundamentally with sensibility. Second, he analyzes the differences or in-

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equalities among people with regard to taste. He argues first that "in the powers and pleasures of Taste, there is a more remarkable inequality among men than is usually found in point of common sense, reason, and judgment" (1: 18). He offers no grounds for this analysis beyond the assertion that in "the distribution of those talents which are necessary for man's well-being" a benevolent "Nature hath made less distinction among her children" (1: 18). Even greater sources of "this inequality of Taste among men," he claims, are education and culture. However, he welcomes this characteristic of taste, for it means that ''Taste is a most improveable faculty," a fact "which gives great encouragement to such a course of study as we are now proposing to pursue" (1: 19). As further support for this key assertion, Blair offers a parallel, hierarchical analysis of the differences among cultures and the differences among individuals within any given society: Of the truth of this assertion we may easily be convinced, by only reflecting on that immense superiority which education and improvement give to civilized, above barbarous nations, in refinement of Taste; and on the superiority which they give in the same nation to those who have studied the liberal arts, above the rude and untaught vulgar. The difference is so great, that there is perhaps no one particular in which these two classes of men are so far removed from each other, as in respect of the powers and the pleasures of Taste: and assuredly for this difference no other general cause can be assigned, but culture and education. (1:19) One can detect in this argument two rather shaky assumptions that underlie Blair's mythos of progress. First, Blair does not consider the possibility that he might just as well reverse his causal argument and assert that "civilized" societies give a liberal education to those whose class or family have already been deemed superior. (To be fair to Blair's context, however, I should note that eighteenth-century Scotland made greater provisions for general education than its European neighbors.) More importantly, we should recognize that in Blair's system there is no test of taste independent of the culture and education that fosters it. Blair's argument doubles back on itself by conflating specific cultural forms with supposedly universal or "natural" mental faculties. Other aspects of Blair's argument participate in the larger debate over the effects of nature and art in human affairs. Identifying the two sources of improvement in taste as frequent exercise of the faculty and "the application of good sense and reason to the objects of Taste," Blair

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claims that "in its perfect state, [Taste] is undoubtedly the result both of nature and of art" (1: 23). Accordingly, he defines the two "characters" of taste in relation to nature and art. "Delicacy of Taste,'' he asserts, "respects principally the perfection of that natural sensibility on which Taste is founded" (1: 23). "Correctness of Taste," by contrast, "respects chiefly the improvement which that faculty receives through its connexion with the understanding" (1: 24). In sum, he writes, "The former is more the gift of nature; the latter, more the product of culture and art" (1: 25). Though eighteenth-century authors typically consider the understanding a natural faculty, they also consider it a foundation of art. Thus, Blair argues that natural sensibility is to the understanding as Taste is to reason and nature is to culture or art. After establishing the nature and characters of taste, Blair turns to the problem of determining a standard for taste. Acknowledging that the variation in taste among individuals and nations has led some to reject any standard beyond "whatever pleases," Blair attempts to counter with an argument ad absurdum: "For is there any one who will seriously maintain that the Taste of a Hottentot or a Laplander is as delicate and as correct as that of a Longinus or an Addison? or, that he can be charged with no defect or incapacity who thinks a common news-writer as excellent an Historian as Tacitus?" (1: 27). However, this ploy smacks of gratuitous ethnocentrism and class bias. Whom, after all, do we suppose Blair is asking to compare the journalism of early English newspapers to Latin historiography and the taste of Hottentots and Laplanders to Roman and British authors? Surely he is addressing people whose "culture and education" has naturalized them to a particular standard of taste. Granting that taste "admits of latitude and diversity of objects," Blair nevertheless defines a standard of taste intended to resolve disagreement over the merits of any given object of taste: "His Taste must be esteemed just and true, which coincides with the general sentiments of men" (1: 30). Implicitly, this attempt to appeal to the Taste not of individual humans or groups but of "human nature" detracts from the importance of particular cultures or classes, and Blair almost immediately qualifies his definition. First, he rejects the notion that a quantitative assessment of the "approbation of the majority" can settle matters of taste, maintaining that arguments concerning taste must employ "reason and sound judgment" and appeal to principle. Second, he specifies that "the concurring sentiments of men" refers not to "rude and uncivilized nations" but to "the sentiments of mankind in polished and

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flourishing nations" (1: 32). Even in such nations, he acknowledges, "accidental causes may occasionally warp the proper operations of Taste," in which cases we must trust to the test of time (1: 33). Having proposed a standard of taste, Blair proceeds to define criticism, which strives "to distinguish what is beautiful and what is faulty," and genius, or "the power of executing" (1: 36, 41). With these basic terms in handtaste, criticism, and geniushe next presents a long survey of the sources of the pleasures of taste. Most of the lectures devoted to this subject concern the sources of sublimity and beauty. Under the former head, he first discusses the sublimity of objects and sentiments, then turns to the sublime in writing. Here we encounter an important, if implicit, assumption about language. Blair tells us that he deals with the subject of sublimity in writing under the general heading of taste rather than in later lectures on eloquence and composition because "the Sublime is a species of Writing which depends less than any other on the artificial embellishments of rhetoric" (1: 57). Indeed, his discussion of the sublime in composition downplays attention to the textual features of sublime discourse, emphasizing instead the concise and simple presentation of sublime objects. 6 In his discussion of beauty, Blair follows a similar pattern. He first treats the beauty of objects (color, figure, motion), of qualities of mind (high and great virtues, social virtues), and of fitness and design. This last species of beauty he identifies as particularly important in composition, but when he turns explicitly to "Beauty as it is applied to writing and discourse," he says little more than he said in regard to the sublime in writing: beauty in writing is associated with the same emotions aroused by beautiful objects and sentiments. Everything that Blair has said so far in his lectures on taste, except for the two sections devoted specifically to sublimity and beauty in writing, could apply to any object of taste. It is for this reason that he considers these lectures as "introductory to the principal subject" of the course"poetry, eloquence, and fine writing." Turning to his "chief subject'' near the end of lecture 5, Blair asserts that writing and discourse "have power to exhibit, in great perfection, not a single set of objects only, but almost the whole of those which give Pleasure to Taste and Imagination" (1: 93). And of all the productive arts that present to us objects of taste, eloquence and composition are the most "full and extensive":

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Now this high power which eloquence and poetry possess, of supplying Taste and Imagination with such a wide circle of pleasures, they derive altogether from their having a greater capacity of Imitation and Description than is possessed by any other art. Of all the means which human ingenuity has contrived for recalling the images of real objects, and awakening, by representation, similar emotions to those which are raised by the original, none is so full and extensive as that which is executed by words and writing. Through the assistance of this happy invention, there is nothing, either in the natural or moral world, but what can be represented and set before the mind, in colours very strong and lively. (1: 93) In this key passage, Blair clearly reveals his representationalist view of language and his conviction that language is the most powerful semiotic system available to humans. Taste, in this view, is doubly related to language: first, the refinement of taste requires reason and, therefore, language; second, language is the richest source of art and, therefore, of the objects of taste. Before turning his full attention to language, however, Blair relates discourse to other arts in terms of two semiotic principles: imitation and description. Imitation, he asserts, "is performed by means of somewhat that has a natural likeness and resemblance to the thing imitated, and of consequence is understood by all; such are statues and pictures" (1: 94). Description, by contrast, "is the raising in the mind the conception of an object by means of some arbitrary or instituted symbols, understood only by those who agree in the institution of them; such are words and writing" (1: 94). Though he suggests that writing may imitate actual speech and, in a special sense, "the course of nature," he views discourse as an art built upon a primarily descriptive symbolic system (1: 95n). Yet more important to him than the particular principle by which language signifies objects and sentiments are the medium of language itself and the ends toward which it can be employed: "Whether we consider Poetry in particular, and Discourse in general, as Imitative or Descriptive; it is evident, that their whole power, in recalling the impressions of real objects, is derived from the significancy of words. As their excellency flows altogether from this source, we must, in order to make way for further enquiries, begin at this fountain head" (1: 96). At this point in his argument, Blair leaves his introductory material behind and turns in lecture 6 to language,

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shifting his metaphor for language from the fountainhead of meaning to "the foundation of the whole power of eloquence" (1: 97). Blair's fairly conventional definition of language follows the operational principle introduced at the end of lecture 5description by means of arbitrary symbolsbut adds to that formulation explicit mention of the concept of ideas: Language, in general, signifies the expression of our ideas by certain articulate sounds, which are used as the signs of those ideas. . . . How far there is any natural connexion between the ideas of the mind and the sounds emitted, will appear from what I am afterwards to offer. But as the natural connexion can, upon any system, affect only a small part of the fabric of Language; the connexion between words and ideas may, in general, be considered as arbitrary and conventional, owing to the agreement of men among themselves; the clear proof of which is, that different nations have different Languages, or a different set of articulate sounds, which they have chosen for communicating their ideas. 7 (1: 98) This definition applies only to the present state of language, however, and Blair's larger project requires that he turn first to consider the rise and progress of language before analyzing further the current structure of language. While such speculative history may have little immediate application to the formal rules of style, it does establish the relationship of linguistic style to cultural history, thus contributing a significant hortatory element to Blair's argument. Blair sidesteps the question of whether language was a divine gift or human invention by observing that whatever its origin, language must have existed first in an imperfect state suited to the "circumstances of mankind" at the time, leaving it up to mankind "to enlarge and improve it as their future necessities should require" (1: 100-101). This is the history that interests Blair, a history that he promises will be "curious" in its own right and "useful in our future disquisitions" (1: 101). He provides separate histories of speech and writing, following a pattern that informs much of the course. In his account of speech, he first considers the transformation of words from imitations to arbitrary symbols. Assuming that language originated in the "cries of passion" that "nature teaches all men," Blair asserts that exclamations or interjections must have constituted the "first elements" of speech. When such limited natural signs proved inadequate for changing social circumstances, humans developed names for objects assigned at first by imitation or

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natural relations of sound, noise, or motion. Later, through analogy, words associated with natural objects were applied to moral ideas, for example, "stability" or "fluidity." Thus, Blair's history challenges the theory that language was "altogether arbitrary in its origin" (1: 101-4). As language progressed, however, words, "by a thousand fanciful and irregular methods of derivation and composition," lost their relationship to their ''natural" origins (1: 105). Consequently, according to Blair, "Words, as we now employ them . . . may be considered as symbols, not as imitations; as arbitrary, or instituted, not natural signs of ideas" (1: 106). Turning to changes in the "style and character of Speech," Blair speculatively examines three characteristics of early speech. First, in line with his earlier argument, he claims that primitive language was more picturesque or imitative. Second, he reasons that early speech must have been accompanied by more gestures and more and greater inflections of voice, both strategies for overcoming the limitations of language in its formative stages. To this characteristic he traces the origin of several features of more polished language: of ornament to the "fire and vivacity in the genius of nations" (1: 105) who retained these embellishments after they were no longer necessary; of prosody to exaggerated tones; and of theatrical delivery to exaggerated gestures. Third, he argues that early speech must have been more figurative in order to compensate for the barrenness of a limited lexicon and to accommodate the dominion of imagination and passion over reason in earlier stages of society. A similar argument informs Blair's survey of shifts in "the order and arrangement of words." Here he argues that ancient languages were characterized by inversionsubjects in the initial positionand other variations in word order that emphasized objects and their effects on the imagination. Animation was the most important principle of arrangement. In modern languages, he maintains, this "order of the imagination" has given way to the "Order of Understanding" or "the order of nature and of time" (1: 120). The new principle of arrangement is "clearness in communication" (1: 121). Blair identifies "differences in termination" (i.e., inflection) as the key to this structural shift. The earlier order, he maintains, favored poetry and oratory, while our present arrangement favors reason and philosophy. Oddly enough, he ignores the obvious objection that Western philosophy emerged in ancient Greece.

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In sum, Blair's history of speech identifies three causes of change in language: the material and social "circumstances of mankind," the "genius" of particular nations, and the relative importance of imagination and understanding in human society. Turning briefly to the history of writing, Blair again couches analysis in the context of a narrative of progress. He traces the nature and development of two sorts of written characters, signs for things and signs for words. The former, associated with rude societies and ancient languages, Blair assigns to three principles of signification: pictures signify by representation, hieroglyphics by analogy, and nonalphabetic symbols by institution or convention. 8 By contrast, signs for (spoken) words, which he associates with civilization and more modern languages, consist of wholly arbitrary alphabetic symbols. Comparing speech and writing as he closes his account of the rise and progress of language, Blair observes that both speaking and writing reveal parallel shifts from natural to artificial forms, though speaking retains the more natural signs of "tones of voice . . . looks and gesture" (1: 136). These features of spoken language, he argues, "remove ambiguities . . . enforce impressions; [and] operate on us by means of sympathy, which is one of the most powerful instruments of persuasion" (1: 136). Thus, he concludes, while writing is best suited to instruction, speaking is requisite for "all the great and high efforts of eloquence." While shifting emphasis from the development to the structure of language, Blair's two lectures on general grammar and on English grammar are still organized according to his mythos of progress. He analyzes the parts of speech, which he takes to be the same in all languages, in order of their supposed appearance: substantive nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, prepositions and conjunctions (1: 138ff.). Blair acknowledges that the traditional division of the parts of speech "is not very logical," but he adopts the convention for convenience, "as these are the terms to which our ears have been most familiarized, and, as an exact logical division is of no great consequence to our present purpose" (1: 139). He does not clarify his purpose in this passage, but he devotes more time to description and prescription in his treatment of grammar than to logical analysis. Indeed, after asserting that "there are few sciences, in which a deeper, or more refined logic, is employed, than in Grammar," Blair begs off any detailed grammatical inquiry: ''I do not propose to give any system, either of Grammar in general, or of English Grammar in particular. A minute discussion of the niceties of

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Language would carry us too much off from other objects, which demand our attention in this course of Lectures" (1: 137-38). Accordingly, Blair offers no discussion of such key theoretical problems as the relationships between usage and grammar, grammar and verbal criticism, and grammar and rhetoric. Given the superficiality of his treatment of "general grammar," his apologia at the end of this section falls a bit flat: [D]ry and intricate as [grammar] may seem to some, it is, however, of great importance, and very nearly connected with the philosophy of the human mind. For, if Speech be the vehicle, or interpreter of the conceptions of our minds, an examination of its Structure and Progress cannot but unfold many things concerning the nature and progress of our conceptions themselves, and the operations of our faculties; a subject that is always instructive to man. (1: 168) For Blair's students and readers, this observation remains little more than a recommendation for further study. Turning to the structure of English, Blair provides a brief historical account of English and discusses the compound nature of the language (i.e., its mixture of Saxon, Danish, Norman, and Latin influence), the national characteristics of the English-speaking people ("gravity and thoughtfulness"), and the flexibility of English (in terms of its lexicon, possibilities of arrangement, and variety and quality of sound). This section establishes two important principles linking the formal study of language to the arts of speaking and writing. The first relates to avoiding error. Blair argues that the more elaborately inflected classical languages required attention that constituted them as "objects of art": [Language] was reduced into form; a standard was established; and any departures from the standard became conspicuous. Whereas, among us, Language is hardly considered as an object of grammatical rule. We take it for granted, that a competent skill in it may be acquired without any study; and that, in a syntax so narrow and confined as ours, there is nothing which demands attention. Hence arises the habit of writing in a loose and inaccurate manner. 9 (1: 179) On a more positive note, Blair draws his students' attention to "The flexibility of a Language, or its power of accommodation to different styles and manners, so as to be either grave and strong, or easy and flowing, or tender and gentle, or pompous and magnificent, as occa-

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sions require, or as an author's genius prompts," noting that such flexibility is "a quality of great importance in speaking and writing" (1: 175). In terms of the practical benefits of the study of language to the student of rhetoric and belles lettres, Blair's comments are thoroughly conventional. He stresses avoiding error and making effective choices among the options allowed by the language. Blair turns next to style, and, while he does not forge a theoretical link between language and style as explicitly as did his fellow rhetorician George Campbell, he does not leave his theories of language completely behind. Without explicitly alerting the reader to the fact, however, he shifts the substantive and pedagogical emphases of the lectures. In the middle of the final paragraph of his lecture on the structure of English, Blair still invokes the mixed audience of writers and speakers characteristic of the lectures on language: "Whatever knowledge may be acquired by the study of other Languages, it can never be communicated with advantage, unless by such as can write and speak their own Language well" (1: 181). 10 By the end of the paragraph, he is referring primarily to writers: "The many errors . . . which are committed by writers who are far from being contemptible, demonstrate, that a careful study of the Language is previously requisite, in all who aim at writing it properly" (1: 182). In the lectures on style, Blair refers almost invariably to "authors" and "writers," and of course his examples are all of written discourse. This shift from spoken to written language may explain in part why Blair's lectures on language appear less fully integrated into his lectures than, say, Campbell's treatment of similar issues. In moving from the consideration of language to style, Blair also shifts the emphasis of his lectures from description, narration, and critical commentary to prescription. The first sentence of the first lecture on style quietly effects the transition: "Having finished the subject of Language, I now enter on the consideration of Style, and the rules that relate to it" (1: 183; emphasis added). Throughout the lectures on style, specific rules accompany discussions of particular aspects of style. With this shift to a more didactic delivery, Blair moves from the "foundation" of his subject to its superstructure. That transition is further marked by his definition of style: [Style refers to] the peculiar manner in which a man expresses his conceptions, by means of Language. It is different from mere Language or words. The words, which an author employs, may be proper and fault-

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less; and his Style may, nevertheless, have great faults. . . . Style has always some reference to an author's manner of thinking. It is a picture of the ideas which rise in his mind, and of the manner in which they rise there. . . . Style is nothing else, than that sort of expression which our thoughts most readily assume (1: 183-84). Blair's distinction between language and style, however, is blurred. According to his doctrine, language, too, reflects the mind. The more important distinction developed at least implicitly in the lectures is that the rules of language and the rules of style are not coterminous. Moreover, style distinguishes patterns of individual choice from the resources supplied by language. Blair divides his treatment of style according to two chief qualities: perspicuity and ornament. He considers perspicuity in terms of the choice of words and phrases and the construction of sentences, both areas of style that overlap with traditional grammar. In his discussion of perspicuity in words and phrases, Blair identifies three subordinate qualitiespurity, propriety, and precisionthat build directly on the foundation supplied by language. Purity he defines as "the use of such words, and such constructions, as belong to the idiom of the Language which we speak; in opposition to words and phrases that are imported from other Languages, or that are obsolete, or new coined, or used without proper authority" (1: 187). Similarly, propriety refers to "the selection of such words in the Language, as the best and most established usage has appropriated to those ideas which we intend to express by them. It implies the correct and happy application of them, according to that usage, in opposition to vulgarisms, or low expressions; and to words and phrases, which would be less significant of the ideas that we mean to convey" (1: 187). As Blair is quick to note, both of these qualities raise the question of standards: "There is no standard, either of Purity or of Propriety, but the practice of the best writers and speakers in the country" (1: 187). Of course this criterion is not particularly helpful, for it leaves open the question of who constitutes the "best" speakers and writers? Blair reveals his biases in his choice of examples, but he never warrants his choices further. Moreover, he neglects in this instance to raise the complicated issues related to such standards, issues that he addressed in greater detail in his discussion of taste. The final quality related to perspicuityprecisionconstitutes "the highest part of the quality denoted by Perspicuity" (1: 188) and "imports retrenching all superfluities, and pruning the expression so, as

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to exhibit neither more nor less than an exact copy of his idea who uses it" (1: 189). Again, Blair develops his subject by precept rather than principle. He does not consider the problems with the notion of communicating an "exact copy" of ideas through words, problems to which Campbell devotes much thought. At this point in his lectures, Blair has begun to move beyond stylistic choices dictated by grammatical and semantic convention. He moves further beyond "mere Language or words" when he turns to perspicuity in sentences, setting forth rules governing the length and variety of sentences in extended discourses as well as various other "qualities that are required to make a Sentence perfect" (1: 208): clearness and precision, unity, strength, and harmony of sound. Discussions of sentence variety, unity of scene and topic, emphasis within sentences, and rhythm appeal more to aesthetics, text conventions, and reading habits than to any strictly grammatical concerns. Neither is any explicit connection with his earlier treatment of language apparent in Blair's definition of ornament or figurative language: "some departure from simplicity of expression" in order to "render the impression more strong and vivid" (1: 273). However, in the course of discussing the origin and nature of figurative language he argues again that figurative expression is natural and characteristic of early speech (1: 274). Also, he associates figurative language with the imagination and the passions and notes that figures render language more copious, thus linking ornament in these ways to his earlier account of the history of language and society (1: 275). When Blair turns next to consider general characters of stylediffuse, concise, feeble, nervous, dry, plain, neat, elegant, and floweryhe no longer considers linguistic conventions as constraints but focuses on patterns of linguistic choices that reveal or embody individual genius: "Of such general Characters of Style, therefore, it remains now to speak, as the result of those underparts of which I have hitherto treated. . . . Wherever there is real and native genius, it gives a determination to one kind of Style rather than another. Where nothing of this appears . . . we are apt to infer . . . that he is a vulgar and trivial author, who writes from imitation, and not from the impulse of original genius" (1: 368-69). This transition marks a pivotal point in Blair's lectures, for it indicates that the "foundation" or "underparts" provided by his discussion of language is complete. Up to this point, his argument has focused on natural faculties and artificial conventions that make it possible for language to be intelligible, vivid, and movingthat is, that

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link language to the understanding, imagination, and passions. From this point forward, Blair builds upon this foundation by analyzing general characters of style and types of discourse according to new criteria: individual genius and the occasions and subjects of eloquence and composition. However, the foundation provided by his lectures on language determines the shape of the superstructure built upon it. Several implicit connections link the lectures on language with Blair's treatments of eloquence and compositionthat is, his inquiry proceeds in similar ways even when he makes no explicit reference to the lectures on language. At the most general level, Blair's separate treatment of public speaking (lectures 25-34) and composition (lectures 35-47) mirrors his separate consideration of the rise and progress of speech and writing. Near the end of his lectures on eloquence, lamenting the "very few recorded examples of eloquent Public Speaking" and urging caution when imitating the style of a favorite author for the purpose of public speaking, Blair draws attention to the differences between written and spoken language: We must attend to a very material distinction, between written and spoken Language. These are, in truth, two different manners of communicating ideas. . . . In books, we look for correctness, precision, all redundancies pruned, all repetitions avoided, Language completely polished. Speaking admits a more easy copious Style, and less fettered by rule; repetitions may often be necessary, parentheses may sometimes be graceful; the same thought must often be placed in different views; as the hearers can catch it only from the mouth of the Speaker, and have not the advantage, as in reading a book, of turning back again, and of dwelling on what they do not fully comprehend. (2: 237-38) This passage also articulates the principle behind Blair's shift to written discourse and his presentation of prescriptive rules in his lectures on style. Other implicit connections to the lectures on language inform more local emphases in the later lectures. Early in his lectures on eloquence, Blair maintains that eloquence is natural to mankind (2: 4); that degrees or kinds of eloquenceaimed at pleasing, instructing, and movingare linked to the faculties of imagination, understanding, and passion (2: 4-6); and that the most effective kind of eloquence is linked in part to the conditions of society as well as to particular ends and occasions (2: 8-9). Further, the lectures on eloquence and composition each open with

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comparisons between the ancients and moderns (2: 44ff.; 2: 246ff.). Finally, Blair draws a comparison between social history and personal history analogous to the comparison he drew between the history of language and the growth of individuals: "To return to our comparison of the age of the world with that of a man; it may be said . . . that if the advancing age of the world bring along with it more science and more refinement, there belong, however, to its earlier periods, more vigour, more fire, more enthusiasm of genius (2: 254). In sum, a host of themes first raised in the lectures on taste and language continues to inform the lectures: the relationships between nature and art, mind and language, speech and writing, society and individuals, the ancients and the moderns, the conditions of society and the standards of taste, language, style, and discourse. Throughout the lectures on eloquence and composition, Blair also makes several explicit references to his lectures on language, but these tend not to be systematic, that is, they do not determine the direction of his inquiry. For instance, in his review of the history of eloquence, Blair argues that the early state of language favored poetry over reasoning and debate: There is reason to believe, as I formerly showed, that the Language of the first ages was passionate and metaphorical; owing partly to the scanty stock of words, of which Speech then consisted; and partly to the tincture which Language naturally takes from the savage and uncultivated state of men, agitated by unrestrained passions, and struck by events, which to them are strange and surprising. In this state, rapture and enthusiasm, the parents of Poetry, had an ample field. But while the intercourse of men was as yet unfrequent, and force and strength were the chief means employed in deciding controversies, the arts of Oratory and Persuasion, of Reasoning and Debate, could be but little known. (2: 10) Explicit references to the language of nature also appear frequently in a lecture on pronunciation (lecture 33), linking intelligibility to qualities of loudness, distinctness, slowness, and propriety of pronunciation, or establishing a natural foundation for the artistic uses of emphasis, pauses, tones, and gestures. However, these and other explicit references to the lectures on language do not extend Blair's theory of language or the themes outlined above. This overview of Blair's lectures on language and their place in the larger course of lectures illuminates two ways in which Blair presents

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language as the "foundation" for the study of eloquence and composition: first, as a resource for and constraint on the chief end of eloquence, "to speak to the purpose" (2: 2); second, as a source of knowledge about two of the most important focuses of inquiry in the Scottish Enlightenment, the mind and society. In order to compare Blair's articulation of language and rhetoric with others' attempts, however, we must now look more closely at two global aspects of his theory of language: the status he assigns to language in terms of the matrix of generating principles adopted at the beginning of this study and the mythos of progress that informs his analyses of taste, language, style, eloquence, and composition. Words as Things: Language as an Object of Art and An Icon of Progress Along with most of his contemporaries, Blair defines language in terms of a relationship between signs and thoughts: "Language . . . signifies the expression of our ideas by certain articulate sounds, which are used as the signs of those ideas" (1: 98). More particularly, he bases much of his analysis on the relationship of various features of language and style to the several faculties, and he stresses the importance of sentiment over expression in discourse. Though he believes that thought and expression are distinct, Blair see them as interdependent: "it is to the intercourse and transmission of thought, by means of speech, that we are chiefly indebted for the improvement of thought itself' (1: 1). Elaborating on this interdependence, he asserts that "when we are employed . . . in the study of composition, we are cultivating reason itself. True rhetoric and sound logic are very nearly allied. The study of arranging and expressing our thoughts with propriety, teaches to think, as well as to speak, accurately. . . . so close is the connection between thoughts and the words in which they are clothed" (1: 6-7). 11 In all these general doctrines, there is little to distinguish Blair from other late eighteenth-century British rhetoricians such as Campbell, Priestley, and Smith. Metaphorically, Blair sometimes constitutes thought and language as closely related objects, as he does in the passage quoted above, using the familiar metaphor of language as the dress of thought. Elsewhere, as we have seen, language becomes almost a quality of thought: "Knowledge and science must furnish the materials that form the body

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and substance of any valuable composition. Rhetoric serves to add the polish, and we know that none but firm and solid bodies can be polished well" (1: 4). Again, both of these metaphors seem quite conventional, maintaining the traditional priority of thought over language while illustrating their interdependence. However, Blair never examines the relationship between linguistic signs and ideas in any depth; for him (and, thus, for his audience) that relationship constitutes a doctrine, not a philosophical problem. Blair also views language from the perspective of action, as illustrated by his particular analyses of the uses of language in rude and civilized societies and by his general definition of eloquence in which he argues that "as the most important subject of discourse is Action, or Conduct, the power of Eloquence chiefly appears when it is employed to influence Conduct, and persuade to Action" (2: 2-3). In such passages, however, Blair views action as the end of discourse, and language as a means to that end. Accordingly, he most consistently views language as an object, a system of sensible signs whose formal qualities make them ideal for expressing thought and feeling. This emphasis appears, for instance, in Blair's discussion of the natural language of gestures, cries of passion, and facial expressions that artificial language first imitated. Later, he claims, words imitated the nature and qualities of "sensible objects," either by representing sound, noise, motion, or some other principle of correspondence. 12 As language evolved, these words for sensible objects and their qualities were transferred by analogy to "moral ideas" (1: 103). At the end of his survey of the rise and progress of speech, Blair seems quite well aware of his focus on language as a system of sensible signs: "Thus I have shewn what the natural Progress of Language has been, in several material articles . . . it appears, that Language was, at first, barren in words, but descriptive by the sound of these words; and expressive in the manner of uttering them, by the aid of significant tones and gestures" (1: 124; emphasis added).13 Much later in the course of lectures, after his detailed analysis of the structure of language, of perspicuity, and of the origin and nature of figurative language, Blair pauses to praise the instrumentality of language: "What a fine vehicle is it now become for all the conceptions of the human mind; even for the most subtile and delicate workings of the imagination! What a pliant and flexible instrument . . . prepared to take every form which [one] chuses to give it!" (1: 289). This focus on form recalls an earlier passage near the end of his lectures on language, in which he praises a particular

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formal characteristic, flexibility, which gives language "its power of accommodation to different styles and manners" (1: 175). In that passage, Blair maintains that the flexibility of language depends upon three qualities: (1) lexical copiousness; (2) syntactic variation; (3) phonetic richness. His emphasis on such formal characteristics of language help Blair to portray language as both a rich resource for human communication and, as we shall see, an icon of progress. It is not Blair's belief in progress that distinguishes his rhetorical theory from those of his contemporaries but the manner in which he weaves language and arts of discourse into his mythos of progress. In his introductory lecture, Blair introduces and links together three broad themes of progress that he develops throughout the lectures: the progress of society from rudeness to civilization, of language from barrenness to copiousness and flexibility, and of individual reason and sensibility from callowness to mature understanding and discriminating taste. Linked in turn to all three of these themes is the "improvement of thought itself," accompanying the progress of society and language, and improvement in the arts and sciences as mankind's knowledge and experience grow. Given Blair's topic, it is natural that he adopts "improvement of discourse" as his central theme, arguing that attention to the "grace or force" of expression is not only a universal concern of human societies but a measure of their progress toward civilization and a mark of every civilized person's education: "But, among nations in a civilized state, no art has been cultivated with more care, than that of language, style, and composition. The attention paid to it may, indeed, be assumed as one mark of the progress of society towards its most improved period. . . . Hence we find, that in all the polished nations of Europe, this study has been treated as highly important, and has possessed a considerable place in every plan of liberal education" (1: 2). Having established three themes related to language and the arts of discourse, to the progress of society, and to liberal education, Blair elaborates on these themesparticularly on the theme of liberal educationthroughout his introductory lecture. Blair's mythos of progress also includes a familiar compensatory theme first introduced in his lectures on taste. Early on, he argues that in rude and uncivilized nations "taste has no materials on which to operate," that it improves as arts, science, and philosophy improve (1: 32). Nevertheless, he allows that genius may offset deficiencies of taste "in the infancy of arts" (1: 42). Indeed, he suspects that the circum-

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stances of mankind in rude and uncivilized nations may favor sublimity more than polite society: I am inclined to think, that the early ages of the world, and the rude unimproved state of society, are peculiarly favourable to the strong emotions of Sublimity. The genius of men is then much turned to admiration and astonishment. Meeting with many objects, to them new and strange, their imagination is kept glowing, and their passions are often raised to the utmost. They think, and express themselves boldly, and without restraint. In the progress of society, the genius and manners of men undergo a change more favourable to accuracy, than to strength or Sublimity. (1: 60-61). Because of this sea change in the genius of language and humanity, Blair later maintains that we are at somewhat of a disadvantage in the art of oratory relative to the ancients (2: 44). It is beside the point to dwell on how fanciful this historical narrative appears to us. In the context of Blair's argument, this compensatory theme allows him to account for the literary merits of the Bible, the Iliad, and the works of Ossian, thus complicating without directly contradicting his overall mythos of progress in language and society (1: 61-66). 14 The invention of language poses a similar problem, for this greatest of inventions appears to be the product of ''rude" ages (1: 99). Blair states the problem as follows: One would think, that in order to any Language fixing and extending itself, men must have been previously gathered together in considerable numbers; society must have been already far advanced; and yet, on the other hand, there seems to have been an absolute necessity for Speech, previous to the formation of Society. For, by what bond could any multitude of men be kept together, or be made to join in the prosecution of any common interest, until once, by the intervention of Speech, they could communicate their wants and intentions to each other? (1: 100) Blair dodges this problem by entertaining the notion that language originated in "divine teaching or inspiration" but was given to mankind in a state suited to their needs at the time, obliging them to "enlarge and improve it as their future necessities should require" (1: 101). Thus, Blair settles for a mythos in which mankind continually shapes language to meet changing material and cultural circumstances, ignoring the fact that he has figured language as God's chief agency for shaping

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human society. In spite of this suggestive speculation (and in either casewhether God or humanity invented language), Blair's theory of language does not allow the possibility that this great agency of progress could turn on its creators/improvers, becoming an agent capable, in twentieth-century parlance, of inscribing them. 15 All the same, while language may not serve as the agent of social change in Blair's mythos of progress, it does provide perhaps the most revealing evidence of that change. As we have seen, Blair devotes much of his discussion of language to tracing those changes, including the transformation of the lexicon from barrenness to copiousness; of the character of speech from picturesque, demonstrative, and figurative to discriminating and accurate; of the arrangement of words in sentences from the order of the imagination to the order of understanding; of writing from signs of things to signs of spoken words; and of the structure of language from isolated interjections and names to precisely related parts of speech. Perhaps Blair's most reflective statement concerning his use of language as evidence of progress occurs in his consideration of "the order and arrangement of words," the history of which he claims will "serve to unfold farther the genius of Language, and to show the causes of those alterations, which it has undergone, in the progress of Society" (1: 117). In reviewing those alterations, he again conflatesor, more precisely, links without thoroughly explaining the relationships amongchanges in linguistic form, "advancement" of the world, shifts in the relative operation of mental faculties, and "the progress of age in man": It appears, that, in all the successive changes which Language has undergone, as the world advanced, the understanding has gained ground on the fancy and imagination. The Progress of Language, in this respect, resembles the progress of age in man. The imagination is most vigorous and predominant in youth; with advancing years, the imagination cools, and the understanding ripens. Thus Language, proceeding from sterility to copiousness, hath, at the same time, proceeded from vivacity to accuracy; from fire and enthusiasm, to coolness and precision. . . . Language is become, in modern times, more correct, indeed, and accurate; but, however, less striking and animated: In its antient state, more favourable to poetry and oratory; in its present, to reason and philosophy. (1: 124-25) Though the analogy between the progress of language and society and the progress of age in man is an eighteenth-century commonplace, it

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appears no less implicated here in the occasion of Blair's lectures to university students. More generally, Blair's influential presentation of words as icons of mental and social progress constitutes an important chapter in the history of the subtle relationships among the forms of academic discourse, the perceptions and measurements of mental ability, and the markers of social standing that form the nexus of our own debate over literacy and education. Finally, it is important to note a tension in Blair's theory of language related to his use of words as icons of progress, a tension that dogs any study of rhetorical history. As Wilbur Samuel Howell has pointed out, Blair's comparison of ancient and modern oratory invokes contradictory principles (656-59). On the one hand, Blair holds forth Demosthenes and Cicero as timeless standards of oratorical perfection. On the other hand, he defends modern orators for not hewing to that standard but rather addressing their times in ways appropriate to their audiences. He also warns students not to follow inappropriate, outmoded models. His argument, in short, is stretched between static and dynamic principles of rhetorical practice. A similar tension vexes several aspects of his language theory. In his analysis of inflection, for instance, he seems to present flexibility based on "differences in termination" as an ideally economic linguistic principle, yet he also praises the shift to an "order of understanding" occasioned by the emphasis on word order rather than inflection in English. It does not occur to Blair that the grammatical principles that we call inflecting and isolating (in which word order determines grammatical relationships) might be equally capable of embodying a range of mental functions. In a mythos of progress such as Blair's, conflating linguistic and discursive forms with the intellectual and social functions of language seems inevitably to lead to tension between ideal relationships among these elements and their dynamic interplay. More than any other aspect of his Lectures, it is this perspective that distances Blair's work from much twentieth-century literary and rhetorical theory. A measure of the difference between Blair's articulation of language and rhetoric and much modern rhetorical theory is the body of research that suggests that semiotic, cognitive, and social systems do not "track" one another according to some internal logic, that is, particular linguistic forms do not exclusively embody the uses to which they are put by particular social groups or the intellectual capabilities of individuals who belong to those groups. A measure of the influence of the mythos in which Blair worked, however, is

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the continuing pressure to insist that language, thought, and society should march to a standard step. In terms of my generating principles, whereas Campbell's treatment of words as thoughts often emphasizes principles that drive ongoing practical adaptation and theoretical innovation, Blair's treatment of words as things or objects of art tends to reify written and even spoken language as fixed systems that embody equally stable truths and virtues, thus constituting the historical culmination of a mythos of progress. And whereas Campbell's philosophical inquiry into language complicates his compromise between empiricism and Scottish Common Sense realism by distancing an analogous world of words and thoughts from the world of things, Blair's treatment of words as icons of progress employs only those aspects of eighteenth-century realism that allow language to be viewed as material evidence that the achievements of eighteenth-century British science, art, and society are uniformly based in a knowable reality.

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5 Words as Actions The "Living Voice" in Sheridan's Lectures on Elocution If the greatest part of our time in acquiring book language, be employed about studies which are of little or no use in society, the mind surely gets a wrong bias, in being turned from the active to the contemplative life, from practical duties, to vain speculations. But supposing, in our course of education, the utmost care were taken to store the mind with plenty of the most useful ideas, to give strength and vigour to the understanding, and force and perspicuity to reason; yet the work is but half performed, if at the same time, the means are not supplied of displaying these faculties to others, in their full power and beauty. But suppose it be asserted, that this is the very cause of the failure, in the attempts made by so many men of distinguished abilities to reform mankind. Suppose it be asserted that they have all used an instrument, which in its very construction was incapable of accomplishing the work they were about. In short that some of our greatest men have been trying to do that with the pen, which can only be performed by the tongue; to produce effects by the dead letter, which can never be produced but by the living voice, with its accompaniments. Thomas Sheridan, Lectures on Elocution Sheridan's Lectures on Elocution (1762) provides a valuable complement to both Campbell's Rhetoric and Blair's Lectures. Sheridan, too, believes that language reveals thought and that moving others

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to action is the chief end of eloquence. As does Blair, he sometimes views language as a material artifact that embodies cultural values. But while Campbell and Blair emphasize written discourse, linking themselves to the textual traditions of philosophy and belles lettres, Sheridan highlights the limitations of the "dead letter" and the powers of the "living voice." In terms of my generating principles, Sheridan sees words (and their "accompaniments"looks, tones and gestures) primarily as actions intimately tied to physical presence and performance. This shift in perspectiveand Sheridan's rather hyperbolic defense of itaccounts in large part for the problematic reputations of Sheridan and the other eighteenth-century elocutionists. That widely accepted judgment, however, overlooks the potential contributions of Sheridan to the resources of rhetorical theory. Traditional histories of eighteenth-century British rhetoric would locate the elocutionists at best peripherally on the canvas sketched in chapter 2. The primary compositional tension in the traditional picture contrasts neoclassical figures in the backgroundWard and Lawson most often highlightedwith the authors of the "new" rhetoric in the foregroundCampbell, Blair, and Smith drawn most prominently. Assessing the unique place of Sheridan's elocutionary theory in that picture and in this inquiry requires a still different approach than those informing the two previous chapters. In the following section, I step back somewhat from Sheridan and briefly describe the place of elocutionary theory and practice in the cultural scene that forms the background of this study. The second section considers Sheridan's career and the more immediate scene of his elocutionary theory. The third sectionthe interpretive focus of this case studyexamines Sheridan's analysis of words as actions in his Lectures on Elocution, noting in particular the relationship of this perspective to his views on education, his analysis of social differences, and his broader understanding of language. Finally, the concluding section of the chapter assesses Sheridan's views on the links between language and cultural progress, views that draw our gaze back to the larger canvas of which this case study is a part. A Truncated Techne: Elocution as Rhetoric Historians of rhetorical theory tend to present the British elocution movement as something of an embarrassment to the grand old tradition,

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an eccentric relative whose behavior calls into question the sanity of the entire clan. Nevertheless, it is a member of the family and must be acknowledged, at least on our private genealogical charts, if only to warn future generations to watch out for bad blood. Or, as Wilbur Samuel Howell more soberly puts the case, the historian of rhetoric must accept that the elocutionists are part of "the record which he must interpret" (146). This urge to distance ourselves from the elocutionists stems from two lapses of rhetorical judgment on their part: first, they truncated the traditional art of rhetoric, replacing the five traditional canons with the single canon of deliverymanaging one's voice, facial expressions, and gestures; second, adding scandal to indiscretion, one school of elocutionists developed highly artificial and mechanical schemes of delivery that transformed oratory into an arcane artor a scam. Scholars have helped us to understand the elocutionists' work by examining their fetishistic devotion to delivery in the context of their times. According to such studies, a number of factors contributed to the British elocutionists' interest in delivery. 1 The most specific reasons for the focus on delivery relate to the history of rhetorical theory, the geographical and social diversity of English speech, and the significance of pulpit oratory to the religious controversies of the day: 1. Alone among the traditional canons of rhetoric, delivery had not been attacked or appropriated by critics of rhetoric; indeed, Howell argues that "the basic justification of [the elocution movement] could have been that the previous immunity of pronuntiatio to attack entitled it to be regarded as having a continuing validity" (153). 2. The diversity of English dialects and accents proved a hindrance to the aspirations of a rising middle class and to "the cultural, political, commercial, and occupational welfare of a growing and dynamic world empire" (Howell 156). 3. The service of the Church of England depended heavily on readings from the Book of Common Prayer, a dull practice if not done well, while religious reform movements often characterized by fiery oratory were gaining a wide following; French pulpit oratory also seemed more spiritedand successful. More general factors also lent importance to the study of elocution: 4. An "increasingly democratic society" was providing more forums for public speaking (Guthrie 19).

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5. The language of education was shifting from Latin to English, spurring increased study of the vernacular. 6. The lay audience was becoming more critical. 7. Investigations of voice, expression, and gesture fit in with the larger Enlightenment project of examining human nature. All these factors help to explain the elocutionists' concern with delivery and connect their concerns to cultural factors that supported widespread interest in broader rhetorical issues in inquiry. However, in Howell's judgment at least, such circumstances do not excuse the fact that "in confining their attention to this part of the total rhetorical program, the elocutionists continued to think of themselves as rhetoricians and to refer formally to their subject as rhetoric" (145). Howell is particularly hard on Thomas Sheridan, perhaps because Sheridan shows more promise than many of his followers and, therefore, seems more "tragic": "It was Sheridan's tragedy as a rhetorician that he glimpsed a peninsula through the fog of his own folly and thought his discovery a continent" (239). Yet I suspect that the elocutionists' particular interest in delivery and the manner of their investigation have as much to do with their reputation as the mere fact that they appear to truncate the art of rhetoric. After all, Campbell and Blair also truncate the rhetorical tradition, though in different ways. Both have little interest in topical invention, devote an inordinate amount of attention to style, and virtually ignore memory and delivery. By comparison, Ward and Lawson remain relatively faithful to the ancient canonsbut they seem less engaged in the theoretical problems of their day. The art of rhetoric has repeatedly expanded and contracted in response to changes in its intellectual and cultural milieu. Elocution has also earned a reputation for eccentricity and even chicanery because of the elaborate systems of tones and gestures developed by some of its proponents. As Howell notes, "Systems of fixed tones and gestures became the bane of the elocutionary movement, and, as they were often accompanied by mysticism and quackery, they increasingly attracted the poseurs and the charlatans into the ranks of the teachers of oratorical delivery. Such teachers brought rhetoric into the deepest disrepute that it had ever known" (243). Histories of the elocution movement have traditionally distinguished between "natural" and "mechanical" schools of elocutionbetween elocutionists whose primary method was to proscribe unnatural habits of delivery and those who prescribed elaborate schemes of fixed tones and gestures. However,

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Daniel Vandraegen has called into question the distinction between "natural" and "mechanical" schools of elocution, pointing out that both traditionswhich he terms "romantic" and "neo-classical"believed that they were helping students to follow Nature: To the neo-classicist, this meant recognizing and expressing that which was typical and customary in nature and human experience. It meant performance governed by rules based upon order, regularity, and patterns of common acceptance. It also meant that these rules were based upon proved models. This, in turn, indicates that imitation was a desirable, if not necessary, concomitant of training. (59-60) To the romanticist, on the other hand, following nature meant performing spontaneously and sincerely out of the fullness and force of heartfelt emotion. It meant recognizing and expressing that which was unique and personal in nature and human experience. It meant recognition of irregularity, an acceptance of deviation from set patterns of performance. It meant a distrust of rules, a suspicion of models, and a questioning of imitation as a discipline of instruction. It meant, above all, a reliance upon the individual's personal response. (60-61) Of course it is unlikely that any particular elocutionist will fit neatly into these categories. In particular, Sheridan sees value in rules, models, and imitation, but as Vandraegen points out, he presents very few rules in his own work, reasoning that "they would be worthless without the establishment of an organized and comprehensive system of speech education" (61). In balance, Sheridan's elocutionary doctrine fits the traditional conception of the natural school more closely than that of the mechanical, the romantic more closely than the neoclassical. However, throughout his Lectures he expends much effort in distinguishing not between nature and art but between natural and unnatural or artificial deliverya distinction that figures centrally in his theory of language. Before turning more directly to that theory, though, it remains for us to sketch the immediate scene of Sheridan's theory building. Sheridan's Public Lectures: Translating Practice into Theory In 1757, Thomas Sheridan's two careers overlapped: his career as a theater manager would end two years later (though he continued to per-

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form on stage), and his new career as an educational reformer and teacher of oratory had been launched but a year earlier with the publication of British Education and the first presentation of his course of lectures on elocution. 2 In an oration delivered in December 1757 to an invited audience of "nobility and gentry" whose support he solicited for the establishment of an academy of elocution, Sheridan reflects on the relationship between his two careers.3 He recounts that he resolved early on to follow his schoolmaster father in the profession of education, but that a conversation with Jonathan Swift, a close friend of his father's, determined him to repair, before entering the profession, two areas neglected in his formal educationthe study of English and the art of speaking. This resolution, he tells us, led him to the stage: I found, that there never could be any Settlement of the English Language, nor could it possibly be reduced to Rule, unless the Art of Speaking were first revived. . . . The revival of the long lost Art of Oratory, became, therefore, the first necessary Step towards my Design. . . . In my first Motions towards it, I was only groping my Way in the Dark, and my Journey ended in a Chaos, where there could not be said to be Light, but, as Milton expresses it, rather Darkness visible. At length I found that Theory alone would never bring me far on my Way; and that continual Practice must be added to furnish me with Lights to conduct me to my Journey's End. To obtain this, there was but one Way open, which was the Stage. (Oration 20-21) After a thirteen-year career as an actor and stage manager, Sheridan began his long-postponed return to education. In British Education, he argues that the study of oratory (i.e., delivery) should form the foundation of education. As Howell convincingly demonstrates, Sheridan's argument reveals that his exaggerated claims for the power of oratoryclaims that would characterize all of Sheridan's subsequent writing on elocutiongrew out of his background as an actor and his grossly distorted views of ancient rhetoric and of George Berkeley's philosophical work (222-30). Nevertheless, he translated his practice on the stage and his uninformed notions about ancient rhetoric and classical cultures into a highly influential theory of elocutionnotwithstanding the ridicule often heaped on his writings. Wallace Bacon notes that while Sheridan's Course of Lectures on Elocution "was not the first work to discuss the art of reading, it may be considered to be the work which set the mode of discussion of the

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subject for many years to come'' (27-28). 4 The Lectures open with an "Introductory Discourse" dated 10 July 1762, followed by a list of 643 subscribers to the course (at that, the list is incomplete; Sheridan estimates some 1,700 people heard the lectures altogether). After these introductory materials come the texts of seven lectures on elocution and one dissertation "On the State of Language in Old Greece and the Means by Which it Was Brought to Perfection," which together constitute the eight parts of the course of lectures Sheridan delivered at Oxford, Cambridge, London, Edinburgh, Bath, and Belfast from 1756 to 1761. Following the dissertation on language in Greece, we find a companion dissertation "On the State of Language in Other Countries, but more particularly in our own, and its Consequences," which Sheridan tells us in a footnote "was intended as an introduction to a Course of Lectures, not yet delivered, on the English language, and is now first offered to the public" (155n). The remainder of the book consists, in the language of the title page, of "some other tracts relative to those subjects" treated in the first part of the volume.5 The core of the Lectures, then, consists of discourses that originated as oral presentations to a largely adult, middle-class audience. Accordingly, the volume reads more like an extended argument than an elocution textbook. As Warren Guthrie observes, while Sheridan "devotes his entire volume to a consideration of the theory of elocution," most writers in the tradition typically present "a relatively short 'Essay' on elocution which is followed by a much larger section containing lessons and materials for practice" (25). Nevertheless, Sheridan's lectures and books had many practical effects. For instance, after he spoke in Edinburgh in 1761, the Select Society formed a branch entitled "The Society for promoting the reading and speaking of the English Language in Scotland" (Howell 158-59; Lothian xxxv). Though Sheridan never succeeded in founding an academy of elocution, in 1758 his friend Samuel Whyte established a grammar school based on Sheridan's principles of education. The school lasted at least until 1795 (Bacon 21). Finally, Warren Guthrie notes that Sheridan's works "circulated widely" in America during the second half of the eighteenth-century, and Guthrie's survey of rhetorical theses at American colleges demonstrates that rhetoric had become "closely allied with oratory, and was clearly conceived of as an active art" (21). It is to be expected that judging the larger effects and significance of the elocution movement in general and Sheridan's work in particular depends a good deal on one's perspective. Howell, for instance, reacts

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strongly to Sheridan's observation that "court pronunciation is no where methodically taught, and can be acquired only by conversing with people in polite life . . . and on that account is sought after by all, who wish to be considered as fashionable people" (Sheridan 30). Howell finds this passage indicative of how far the elocutionists fell short of Sheridan's claim to have recovered the lost art of rhetoric. The elocutionary movement, he argues, has its chief value "not in its recovery of the lost art of oratory, not in its enlargement of the ancient art of oratorical delivery, but in its function as a means by which the newly affluent English middle class could acquire court speech in a series of lessons . . . and could thereafter enjoy the feeling of superior status involved in having divested themselves of provincialisms" (240). Admittedly, this passage provides a sobering insight into at least part of the ''scene" of elocutionary theory. However, as theory Sheridan's work tells us a good deal about an important dimension of rhetorical inquiry. What makes Sheridan important to this inquiry is his conception of language as action. He does not argue that language must be viewed only as action, but that language-as-action most concerns him because (1) it has been neglected, (2) it is essential to social life, (3) it is more natural than language-as-idea and, therefore, more important for understanding human nature. Words as Actions: The Dead Letter and The Living Voice Given the widespread perception that elocutionists truncated the venerable art of rhetoric, it is essential to note that Sheridan bases his entire project on the accusation that philosophical inquiry had truncated the relationship between language and human nature. He credits John Locke with providing the first insights into human nature based on reason and experience, claiming that the key to Locke's success lay in the great philosopher's analysis of the link between words and thoughtsmore particularly, the relationship between abstract terms and complex ideas. However, Sheridan laments that Locke and his followers concern themselves only with the understanding, leaving other aspects of human nature virtually unexplored by sound philosophy. The source of the problem? "All writers," he argues, "seem to be under the influence of one common delusion, that by the help of words alone, they can communicate all that passes in their minds" (x). On the contrary, Sheridan

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argues, words, considered as signs of ideas, address only the understanding. Voice, expression, and gesture address the other "parts of the human mind"the passions and the fancy or imagination. Sheridan takes Locke to task again in lecture 7, where he argues that Locke "confined himself entirely to that branch of language, which related to his subject, an enquiry into the human understanding; his only object [in book 3] was, to examine the nature of words, as symbols of our ideas: Whilst the nobler branch of language, which consists of the signs of internal emotions, was untouched by him as foreign to his purpose" (97). Consequently, Sheridan argues that Locke "has not a little contributed, to the confined view which we have of language, in considering it, as made up wholly of words'' (98). It is, of course, odd both that Sheridan faults Locke for sticking to his purpose in book 3 of the Essay and that he ignores the work of othersHume, Burke, Kames, Addisonon the relationship of language to the passions and imagination. As we have seen, other eighteenth-century rhetoricians in particular attempted to relate rhetoric to a concept of mind more broadly conceived than the understanding. The source of this tension between rhetoric and philosophy lies at the very heart of their relationship up through the eighteenth century. Traditionally, philosophy aimed at "conviction," rhetoric at "persuasion." Philosophy accepted responsibility only for discovering the truth and revealing it to the understanding; rhetoric embraced the offices of teaching, delighting, and moving, offices that addressed all the faculties. Insofar as they adopted the terminology of faculty psychology, eighteenth-century rhetoricians had to respond broadly to philosophers' attacks on rhetoric and languagethat is, they had to explain how and why rhetoric addresses the understanding, the passions, and the imagination. Sheridan's response to this challenge grows out of yet another of the generating principles informing this study. Whereas I argue that Campbell investigates words as signs of thought (including all the faculties of mind), and Blair treats words as objects of art engaged by taste and the imagination, Sheridan restricts the concept of words to signs of ideas (i.e., knowledge conceived by the understanding), arguing that other equally significant signs (tones of voice, pauses, expressions, and gestures) naturally accompany articulate sounds and help to enact their meaning through appeals to the passions and imagination. This sense of words-as-actions parallels the traditional doctrine of delivery, or actio. Thus, as Sheridan puts it, spoken language entails the presence of a "living voice," while written language presents only the "dead letter"

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(see table 5.1). 6 Further, he argues that writing can signify words only as ideas comprehensible to the understanding, but "the living voice, with its accompaniments" signifies and conveys the state of our passions and fancy, thereby making knowledge persuasive, active, and useful to society (xii, vi). This second sense of words-as-actions constitutes one of the ways in which Sheridan appears to present delivery as the whole art of rhetoricthat is, as the fundamental art of persuasion. Table 5.1. Sheridan's Comparison of the "Living Voice" and the "Dead Letter" Spoken Language Written Language Origin Natural (gift of God)Artificial (invention of mankind) Passions, fancy, and Understanding Faculties understanding only addressed Articulate sounds, Letters, marks of Material pauses, punctuation componentsaccents, tones, facial expressions, gestures Application Action "useful to society"

Speculative philosophy

However, Sheridan's lectures would have ended with this introductory observation if he believed that speakers in his day did their jobs well. He would simply advocate depending on "the living voice" to put knowledge into practiceand be done with it. But alas for Britain, he argues, people have forgotten how to speak and read effectively in public; an artificial voice fostered by the teaching of reading and writing has displaced the natural, persuasive speaking voice. Academic readers, steeped in the literate practices of scholarship, may find it difficult to empathize with Sheridan's deficit model of written language. However, we should recall that Sheridan was an actor and orator first, a writer second. From his perspective, oral delivery devoid of effective articulation, accent, tone, pauses, expressions, and gestures must have seemed as deficient as a television program or film consisting solely of silent text would seem to us; the medium would appear shackled to the conventions of another medium at the expense of its own potential. Though Sheridan errs at the outset by concluding that written language is deficient because it is different from the linguistic mode with which he most closely identifiesa quintessential move in language theory,

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alashis perception that oral language is affected by schooling in literate practices raises an issue that remains the subject of heated debate today. (Current scholarship on literacy, however, would add that the traffic flows in both directions: orality and literacy influence and borrow from one another.) As do current jeremiads concerning the state of reading and writing in twentieth-century America, Sheridan's bleak portrayal of public speaking and reading in eighteenth-century Britain swells to a broad cultural critique. First, he compares the arts and sciences of the Greeks and Romans with those of the British, arguing that while classical culture lacked the religious, political, and scientific insights of modern Britain, it excelled in those arts grounded in "the culture of the language of nature, the living speech" (xiv). 7 "We want only their arts added to our sciences" Sheridan concludes, to make "right use of all those blessings, which Providence has showered down with a more liberal hand, on this country, than on any other in the world" (xiv). However, he claims that recovering such arts has not been an easy undertaking of late, even in much-blessed Britain. Referring to the list of "subscribers" appended to his introductory discourse, Sheridan grouses that the scarcity of names "of persons adorned with titles, or dignified by station" can be explained by the disfavor into which "voluntary patronage" has fallen among such people under the example of recent prime ministers (xv).8 Indeed, he claims that ''there has not been an instance of any Minister during the last fifty years, who gave the smallest encouragement to any art or science in this country, to any work of genius or literature; or who countenanced any scheme calculated to improve the minds, or better the hearts, of British subjects" (xvi). In the midst of a Britain engaged in the Seven Years' War (1756-63), Sheridan suggests that a succession of British governments have neglected educational reform in their preoccupation with a succession of wars. To find an example of a minister receptive even in times of great crisis to projects such as his, he looks back to Robert Harley, earl of Oxford and minister during the last three years of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-13), to whom Jonathan Swift had submitted "A Proposal for Correcting, Improving, and Ascertaining The English Tongue" (1712). Sheridan then praises Lord Bute, who became prime minister in 1762, for taking time to consider "a plan upon the same subject as that of Swift's" (xvii), in spite of the fact that Bute was busy negotiating an end to the war with France.9

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However, the significance of Sheridan's lament to the present inquiry lies in the manner in which he exemplifies in his own lectures the substance of his rhetorical argument. Whereas Campbell and Blair both point out that their rhetorical treatises are didactic and therefore should not be mistaken for (or judged as if they were) persuasive public oratory (Campbell lxviii; Blair 1: vi), 10 Sheridan presents his lectures on eloquence as part of a very public campaign aimed at garnering support for a practical scheme of educational reform: Whoever attended the course of lectures during their delivery; or whoever shall look at the numerous list of subscribers preceding this book, will be convinced that things are now ripe for execution, and that due encouragement will not be wanting to him who shall establish a successful method of teaching the art of Delivery in this country. The constant attendance of the subscribers during the course; the profound attention with which the lectures were heard; the general satisfaction expressed by all who were present at their delivery; and the many personal applications to the author, from those who looked upon themselves as concerned in the event, either on their own or their children's account, to begin as soon as possible upon some practical plan, in order to answer the ends proposed; sufficiently confirm the truth of this assertion. (xv) Where Campbell and Blair emphasize the written, didactic nature of their published treatises (both apologize for the style of their prose in ways that call attention to their role as writers), Sheridan emphasizes the oral, public nature of his original lectures and gives them a decidedly deliberative slant linked to a specific plan for educational reform. Accusations leveled at Sheridan's exaggeration of the importance of delivery should be tempered somewhat by recognition that his Lectures on Elocution are more pointedly persuasive and deliberative than many other eighteenth-century British works on rhetoric. In keeping with his view of words as actions, he attempts to build a foundation not only for an argument but also for a system of education. Knowledge, Reading, and Writing In his first lecture, Sheridan outlines the particular problem he will address in the course, as well as its causes and solutions. Along the way, he further develops his deficit model of writing, which assumes a very problematic relationship among knowledge, modes of reading, and scripts.

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Sheridan opens his lecture by asserting "that a general inability to read, or speak, with propriety and grace in public, runs thro' the natives of the British dominions, is acknowledged; it shews itself in our senates and churches, on the bench and at the bar" (1). Leaving this assertion unsupported and underdeveloped for the moment, he proposes two possible causes for the lamentable state of public speaking in Britain: the citizens suffer either from some "natural incapacity" or from "artificial impediments" born of custom. He dismisses the possibility of a ''national curse" on the grounds that a few men become excellent speakers, and most of his compatriots "speak justly, and forcibly in company, upon topics wherein they are nearly interested"yet another unsupported assertion, but one that suffices to dispense with an alternative offered only as a foil to the explanation he favors (2). The source of the problem, Sheridan believes, is that British children are taught in school to use "different tones and cadences" when reading than the ones they use naturally in speaking (4). 11 These differences in tone and cadence stem from too great an emphasis on written texts. According to Sheridan, few people can decode script and attend to the nuances of effective delivery at the same time, and in school, he argues, reading and recitation serve only to demonstrate that students "understand" written texts. Moreover, most teachers know nothing of the art of delivery. Consequently, students do not learn to express or address the passions or imagination effectively when they read, rendering much public speaking from texts unpersuasive at best, at worst unintelligible. Sheridan provides a curious explanation of this problematic relationship between reading and writing. First, he identifies three purposes for reading: acquiring knowledge, storing knowledge (i.e., aiding the memory), and communicating knowledge. Next, he asserts that silent reading serves adequately for the first two purposes, but only oral reading can communicate knowledge. Further, he argues that writing contains adequate information for silent reading but "does not contain one single visible mark, that can give us any assistance, in the most important articles of a good delivery" (9). According to Sheridan, this deficiency in the art of writing stems from the fact that the Greeks and Romans, from whom we "have taken the model of our written language," used writing and silent reading only for acquiring and memorizing knowledge, reciting "all their studied orations, poems, &c. . . . from memory" (9). Consequently, they never developed a system of writing capable of recording any information relevant to delivery.

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I should note here that Sheridan considers the most obvious rebuttal to this deficit model of writing: It may be said, that there is no occasion to have any marks for [delivery], as the view of the words on paper, will excite in the mind the ideas for which they stand; and of course, all the accessary circumstances of delivery, which are usually associated with those ideas in the mind: and that as soon as we perceive . . . the full meaning and import of any sentence, we shall be able to express that meaning to others, in the same manner . . . as if it proceeded from the immediate sentiments of our own minds. (11) He rejects this argument on two counts. First, he cites the prevalence of bad reading, which suggests that translating an understanding of text to effective oral expression is no easy task. Second, he notes that even an accomplished oral reader requires much practice with any given text, during which "he continues improving his manner . . . as the words grow more familiar," thus reducing the interference from decoding (11). Sheridan's analysis of the purposes of reading, as outlined in table 5.2, is not so easy to defend. It does not follow from the model of words-as-actions presented in his introductory discourse, where he suggests that oral language carries more knowledge than written languageknowledge of the passions and the imagination as well as the understanding. Either he radically shifts the meaning of "knowledge" in the course of this discussion, or his argument is far less concerned with knowledge than he leads us to believe. Part of the confusion stems from shifting terms. After describing the first purpose of reading as the "acquisition of knowledge," he asserts in the very next paragraph, ''With regard to the first point, that of conveying knowledge . . . the written language is in a sufficient state of perfection, as any one who is once master of it, can read an author who writes clearly, so as fully to comprehend his meaning" (9; emphasis added). While "acquisition" hides the concept of the writer behind that of the reader, "conveying" highlights the exchange of information between writer and reader. Thus, if silent reading allows us to "fully comprehend" an author's meaning, then the author has communicated knowledge to us, and Sheridan's claim that communicating knowledge to others "requires reading aloud" makes little sense as an epistemological argument.

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Table 5.2.

Sheridan's Model of the Relationships among Knowledge, Reading, and Writing Modes of Resources Reading of Writing Silent Sufficient

Purposes of Reading Acquiring knowledge Storing Silent knowledge (aiding memory) Communicating Oral knowledge

Sufficient Insufficient

Perhaps because this argument about the purposes of reading and the resources of writing does not examine reading and writing in the context of faculty psychology (as did Sheridan's earlier analysis of oral and written language), it never resolves these contradictory claims. In keeping with his earlier model, Sheridan might have argued that we can acquire understanding from silent reading, but full comprehension of understanding, feeling, and imagination comes only from hearing extemporaneous speech or oral reading. However, he does not pursue such epistemological arguments for the importance of reading aloud. Instead, he is content to argue simply that, in part because written language contains no signs relevant to delivery, reading interferes with good delivery: "Were it requisite to enter into a philosophical examination of the nature of reading, it would appear, that there are so many, and such various acts of the mind, necessary to perform that office, as would sufficiently shew us, that it is impossible such a portion of attention can be given to the manner of delivery, as it ought to have, to answer its end, if we consider it as the substitute of extemporaneous speaking" (12). To make matters worse, Sheridan argues, reading masters teach their pupils to mark points (punctuation) with artificial "reading tones, in opposition to those of the speaking kind" (16). This practice is particularly inapposite, he maintains, because marks of punctuation serve primarily to reveal syntactical relationships to silent readers, not to mark "the due proportions of time, in reading aloud'' (16). Moreover, the system of reading tones consists of only two tones applied to four points (comma, semicolon, colon, and full stop), resulting in a "disagreeable monotony . . . which necessarily defeats every purpose of book-delivery" (17). In short, an inadequate medium (writing) and a counterproductive art doom public reading to failure. Having established these sources of the problem, Sheridan proposes a plan for correcting the bad habits of public readers. Deeming it un-

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likely that writing will change to accommodate delivery, he asks "how the art of reading may by improved, whilst that of writing continues in its present state" (14). For the long term, he calls for a cadre of specially trained reading masters, but that solution would benefit only the "rising generation" (18). Since his immediate object is "the improvement of such as are more advanced in life," he promises to ''point out a method, by which the adult may get the better of bad habits, and at the same time lay down such rules to guide them, in acquiring a just and natural delivery, as will enable them to compass their end" (18). These rules and methods grow out of analyses of various components of oral deliveryarticulation, pronunciation, accent, emphasis, tones, rests or pauses, expressive looks, and gestures-which occupy all but one of the remaining lectures in his original course. Elocution and Social Difference Sheridan defines his method of elocution analytically as "the just and graceful management of the voice, countenance, and gesture in speaking" (19), and his lectures analyzes those elements in order. His discussions of articulation and pronunciation, more than any other parts of his analysis, relate delivery to a speaker's ethos and social standing, reminding us whose linguistic practice most concerns him. In addition, his discussions of articulation and pronunciation further reveal his conception of the relationships among writing/print, social status, schooling, and elocution. Sheridan's arguments in lecture 2 adopt the discourse of gentlemen as a standard and the formal schooling of boys as a chief concern. Women figure in this pattern primarily as bad influences, either along with men or in their own right. First, Sheridan argues that parents encourage children to pronounce words that are too difficult. When, as a result, the children develop faulty pronunciation, parents compound the problem by failing to correct mispronunciations that they have come to understand by virtue of familiarity. Worse yet, they encourage the child "to proceed in [the error], by talking to him in his own childish way; for which he acquires a sort of fondness, accounting the blemish a prettiness" (22). Next, Sheridan blames the following stage of boys' mis-education in elocution on the women who run the dame schools: The first master (or rather mistress, as this charge is generally consigned to old women) into whose hands he is put to learn to read, is

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utterly ignorant of all rules, with regard to the art of speaking, or pronunciation. These miserable drudges profess only to teach the written alphabet, and to spell and put syllables together properly as they are usually written. But if a boy brings any impediment with him; if he stutters, lisps, or is defective in the pronunciation of any letter, they neither profess nor know how, to cure any of these; to conceal their ignorance, they call them natural impediments, or defects in the organs of speech, and the child is permitted to go on in his own way, as incurable. (22) Sheridan asserts that the master at the Latin school does no better by his pupils' articulation, which he deems "not part of his province"; moreover, he is probably "not only utterly unskilled" in the teaching of delivery, "but very defective himself' (23). As a result, Sheridan concludes, "a vitious articulation, caught perhaps from a nurse, or favourite servant, often infects a man's discourse thro' life" (23). Admittedly, the gendered inflection of Sheridan's argument is not an explicit topic but an implicit bias. He presents more explicit arguments concerning the relationship of elocution to social class. Sheridan claims that only pronunciation, among all the aspects of delivery, constitutes a marker of social class. 12 His reasoning is simple: "In all other points of elocution, all ranks and orders of men, wherever born, or in whatever situation of life, are equally liable to the same defects, and to fall into the same errours" (29). In short, most defects of delivery "meet with general indulgence, from a general corruption" (29). As the familiar cliché points out, there can be no distinction without a difference. However, the case is quite different with pronunciation. While differences in other aspects of deliveryarticulation, tone, pitch, and the likereveal great diversity among individuals irrespective of rank or class, differences in pronunciation distinguish "whole bodies of men" from one another (30). Sheridan assumes that this group principle will inevitably be linked to social hierarchy: "As amongst these various dialects, one must have the preference, and become fashionable, it will of course fall to the lot of that which prevails at court, the source of fashions of all kinds. All other dialects, are sure marks, either of a provincial, rustic, pedantic, or mechanic education; and therefore have some degree of disgrace annexed to them" (30). Ever the promoter of his educational project, Sheridan points out that because court pronunciation "is no where methodically taught, and can be acquired only by conversing with people in polite life, it is a sort of proof that a person has kept

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good company, and on that account is sought after by all, who wish to be considered as fashionable people, or members of the beau monde" (30). As does Shaw's Henry Higgins, Sheridan argues that "defects" in pronunciation can be isolated and repaired with the proper method, and he offers detailed regimens for correcting several defects in Irish and cockney dialects. Lacking Shaw's keen insight, however, he never acknowledges that differences in dialect are culturally bound to other complex dimensions of social differentiation. Instead, Sheridan bemoans the fact that the English often ignore defects in their own pronunciation and consider it bad manners to correct a person's speech, even though they readily "laugh at foreigners, and ridicule provincials, for errours and defects in pronunciation" (37). He prefers the attitude of the French: "They know that strangers and provincials must necessarily commit faults in pronouncing their tongue; and therefore do not think that a thing which is naturally to be expected, is a proper subject of laughter or ridicule. On the contrary, they are always ready, with the utmost politeness, to set people right, whenever they fall into any mistakes" (37-38). Caught up in the apparent benevolence of his argument, Sheridan never reflects that he equates provincials, who are presumably speaking their native language, with second-language speakers. Though he believes that differences in pronunciation stem primarily from custom rather than nature, he adapts without question to the translation of difference into hierarchy. Sheridan also considers another sort of social distinction tied to language, one governing standards for writing and speaking. He notes that writing and speaking pose parallel problems of delivery: "A good articulation is to the ear, in speaking, what a fair and regular hand is to the eye, in writing" (20). While it seems obvious to Sheridan that clear articulation is more important than clear orthographysince readers can pause and puzzle over a written texthe notes that "it is a disgrace to a gentleman, to be guilty of false spelling, either by omitting, changing, or adding letters contrary to custom; and yet it shall be no disgrace to omit letters, or even syllables in speaking, and to huddle his words so together, as to render them utterly unintelligible" (20). The explanation for this "unequal judgment" lies in the fact that "written language is taught by rule, and it is thought a shame for any one, to transgress the known rules of an art, in which he has been instructed" (21). Such rules, of course, not only reflect but also constitute standard linguistic forms and thrive in institutions such as schools, which exercise a normative function on communication. In addition to their value for

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communication in complex societies, however, the rules of writing also represent another means of mapping linguistic difference to social hierarchy. Characteristically, Sheridan worries that spoken language, "like all other things left to chance, or unsettled principles, is liable to innumerable irregularities and defects" (21). But as we have seen all too often, the relationship between analyses of linguistic "defects" and social differences is problematic at best. The Functional Principles of Spoken Language Sheridan's remaining lectures on the functional principles of spoken language primarily concern the "genius" of the language and say relatively little about social distinctions. As noted earlier, he believes that the features discussed in these lecturesaccent, emphasis, pauses, pitch, tones, and gesturesdo not vary systematically among groups of people. Rather, "defects" in speaking and reading related to these features occur in all "ranks and classes." As do his first two lectures, these lectures balance practical advice for repairing such defects with theoretical analysis of language informed by Sheridan's faculty psychology and his concerns about the influence of writing on speaking and reading. Lectures 3, 4, and 5 complete Sheridan's analysis of spoken language per sethat is, of words as vocal signs of ideas. His model of spoken language consists of a series of vocal marks for different linguistic levels. At each more inclusive level, modulations of the voice differentiate among and relate individual linguistic units. Thus, variations in sound produce distinct "letters," 13 articulation of the voice separates sequences of sounds into syllables, accent separates syllables into words, and emphasis and pauses organize words into sentences (53). In sum, he asserts, "no language can appear to be built upon simpler, easier, or more regular principles" (53). In his discussion of accent, Sheridan emphasizes this special "genius of our tongue" through comparison with other languages. He allows that languages might distinguish words from syllablesthat is, discriminate words in the stream of spoken syllablesin any of three ways: through accent, tones, or pauses (46). He notes that Greek and Chinese use tones, and that "many modern nations" employ pauses. But, employing the criteria of utility and harmony, he judges that accent is the most evident, precise, quick, and harmonious method of distinguishing words from syllables. Such details need not detain us long, however. For my purposes, it is sufficient to note that Sheridan wants

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his readers to appreciate the particular virtues of English as a spoken language. Accordingly, his practical advice concerning accent consists primarily of advising speakers "to lay the accent always on the same syllable, and the same letter of the syllable, which they usually do in common discourse" (55-56). In other words, do not effect an artificial reading style. Sheridan's treatment of emphasis highlights the relationship of this feature of spoken language to the faculties. A comparison between accent and emphasis opens the lecture and marks the shift to a more inclusive linguistic level: "Emphasis, discharges in sentences, the same kind of office, that accent does in words. As accent is the link which ties syllables together, and forms them into words; so emphasis, unites words together, and forms them into sentences, or members of sentences" (57). Yet while both elements serve to discriminate linguistic elements, they address the mind in significantly different ways, Sheridan argues: "Accent, is the mark which distinguishes words from each other, as simple types of our ideas, without reference to their agreement or disagreement: Emphasis, is the mark which points out their several degrees of relationship, and the rank which they hold in the mind" (57). In brief, "Accent, addresses itself to the ear only; emphasis, thro' the ear, to the understanding" (57). To illustrate the importance of emphasis to our understanding of language, Sheridan borrows "a trite instance" from John Mason's Essay on Elocution (1748). He demonstrates that the sentence ''Shall you ride to town tomorrow?" can have five different meanings, depending on emphasis. For instance, "If the emphasis is on shall, as, shall you ride to town to-morrow? it implies, that the person spoken to had expressed before such an intention, but that there is some doubt in the questioner, whether he be determined on it or not, and the answer may be, 'Certainly, or, I am not sure" (58). And so on. In addition to aiding the understanding, Sheridan adds, emphasis can combine with other vocal features to address the passions and the imagination. Two sorts of emphasis figure in this argument. On the one hand, simple emphasis marks the "plain meaning of any proposition" through "a stronger accent with but little change of tone" (66-67). On the other hand, complex emphasis marks, in addition to the meaning of a proposition, "some affection or emotion of the mind; or gives a meaning to words, which they would not have in their usual acceptation, without such emphasis" (67). Phonologically, complex emphasis combines force and "a manifest change of tone" (67). Once again, Sheridan's practical advice harkens back to "nature." He advocates

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marking simple emphasis in reading texts and following one's natural habit of speaking to convey complex emphasis. That strategy, of course, requires practicing with a text. This line of reasoning gives rise to another key analogy in Sheridan's systems: "As words are marks of ideas, so are tones of energies and affections of the mind" (73). Thus he relates but keeps distinct vocal features that address the understanding and those that address the passions and the imagination. The importance of emphasis to the understanding leads Sheridan to yet another observation about the detrimental influence of writing on public speaking and reading. We are taught to read according to a print-based pedagogy emphasizing only "pronunciation of words and observation of the stops"the only features of language indicated by our script (71). Accordingly, we assume erroneously that we can read anything "aloud at sight" (71). Thus has public speaking and reading fallen into the state in which he finds it: All this arises from a mistake, which men naturally enough fall into, who judge of language only in its written state; that sentences are wholly composed of words and stops, because there are no other visible marks offered to the eye; but the man who considers language in its primary and noblest state, as offered to the ear, will find that the very life and soul of speech, consists in what is utterly unnoticed in writing, in accent and emphasis: And as the man who attempts to pronounce words, without observation of accent, really does not utter words, but syllables; so the man who attempts to pronounce sentences, without emphasis, really does not utter sentences, but words. (71) Whereas theorists such as Campbell view thought as the "soul" of discourse, Sheridan views actio as "the very life and soul of speech." Nowhere in the Lectures on Elocution is the difference in perspective between Sheridan and more philosophically or belletristically minded rhetoricians clearer, much as their basic assumptions about, say, faculty psychology may agree. Sheridan next considers pauses and stops, which along with emphasis help to convey the sense of sentences (he also notes that pauses relieve fatigue for both speakers and hearers, as well as giving speakers a chance to breathe). Pauses may be accompanied by a determinative tone that indicates the kind of pause (for instance, whether a sentence is to continue or not), or they may vary in duration to indicate relative emphasis (76, 77). They are problematic in public reading primarily be-

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cause our conventions for punctuation reflect grammatical structure, not the emphases of spoken language (80). Sheridan asserts that pauses in speech should depend on emphasis and reinforce it, and he advises public readers to mark texts for emphasis and to link related emphatic words with similar pauses (80-81). Tones, the next major phonological feature in Sheridan's scheme, represent a shift in English from vocal signs of ideas or understanding (words) to vocal signs of emotions and imagination (see fig. 5.1). 14 To mark this theoretical boundary, Sheridan offers a definition of language that pushes its boundaries beyond words and ideas: "any way or method whatsoever, by which all that passes in the mind of one man, may be manifested to another" (94). Where Campbell and, to a lesser degree, Blair would extend the power of words, Sheridan augments words with complementary systems of signs. He even employs written language to argue for this broader conception of language, claiming that writing represents not "a copy of that which is spoken" but an "utterly independent" system of signs associated with speech by custom rather than necessityan argument that was not to become theoretically productive again until late in the twentieth century.15 Spoken words, he concludes, are ''no essential part of language,"16 and he sets out to demonstrate "that when by custom they are made a necessary part, they are still only a part; that they can not possibly effect all the purposes of social communication; and that there are other parts, essentially necessary, to answer its noblest and best ends"rousing the passions in order to move the will toward virtue (98). The natural signs of the passions, according to Sheridan, are "tones, looks, and gestures" (100).17 The names of the passions, he reasons, are but signs of ideas associated in the understanding with the several passions. Such names will vary from one verbal language to another, but the signs of the passions are essentially universal and natural (101). Indeed, Sheridan argues that even animals are capable of using the language of tones, each species in its own manner. The difference between animal and humans, though, lies partly in our capacity to "forward the perfection of [our] nature," and Sheridan maintains that the "social state" supplies a contextand communication the meansfor "unfolding, and exerting of [our] nobler faculties" (106). Toward that end, he argues, language serves "not merely to communicate ideas, but

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Fig. 5.1. Sheridan's analysis of words and their "accompaniments" in English. also all the internal operations, emotions, and exertions, of the intellectual, sensitive, and imaginative faculties of man" (110). According to Sheridan, tones play an important supplementary role in addressing the understanding through verbal language; they are an essential element in the language of the passions and imaginative faculties. Such reasoning leads Sheridan to the grandiose claims for delivery that often earned him ridicule: In consequence of [our neglect of the language of tones], all the noble ends which might be answered in a free state, by a clear, lively, and affecting public elocution, are in a great measure lost to us. And how can it be otherwise, when we have given up the vivifying, energetic language, stamped by God himself upon our natures, for that which is the cold, lifeless work of art, and invention of man? and bartered that which can penetrate the inmost recesses of the heart, for one which dies in the ear, or fades on the sight. (111) For all the grandiloquence of this passage, it reveals that Sheridan's view of language as action is as tied to a conception of human nature and cultural history as are the linguistic theories of his fellow rhetoricians. Turning to the subject of gesture in his penultimate lecture (he mentions "looks" or expressions only in passing), Sheridan focuses on the relationship between the language of nature and the language of art. He characterizes gestures as the "handwriting" and tones the speech of na-

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ture, suggesting that these two systems, addressed to the eye and ear, respectively, back up one another "so that the deprivation of either sense, should not wholly prevent the exercise of man's nobler faculties" (1 13). As in the case of tones, nature furnishes "the means" for gestural communication "but has left it to the invention and care of man, to make a right use of them, and apply them in suitable degrees" (116). Indeed, evaluating and guiding our use of the language of nature is Sheridan's chief concern throughout his remaining lectures. Sheridan believes that the ancients founded "instituted" (i.e., conventional) gestures on natural models, thus allowing "all mankind . . . tho' they understood not their speech," to understand their emotions "even without any communication of their ideas" (117-18). By contrast, he argues that the moderns institute tones and gestures on "caprice and fancy,'' obtaining their force only "from fashion and custom" (118). As a result, the tones and gestures of modern nations that have instituted such signs (he mentions France, Spain, and Italy) are understandable only to natives of their own country. 18 And in England, no such signs have been instituted, each speaker following "what is called a way of his own" or imitating another speaker (118). As a result of this state of affairs, Sheridan adopts a position on the use of tones and gestures exactly parallel in principle to Campbell's position on universal grammar.19 As general rules must be based on general practice, Sheridan argues, where there is no general practice there can be no general rules: "In this case, all that can be done is, to lay down such rules to individuals, as shall enable them to avoid faults, not acquire beauties" (119). Accordingly, for speakers of English he recommends simply that they form a manner of gesturing "most consonant to [their] own powers and [their] own feelings" (119). Raising his argument to the level of abstract principles, he asserts that "the two great articles" of elocution are force and grace, the former founded in nature and the latter in art. Ideally, they work together, but "Nature can do much without art; art but little without nature" (121). Given the present state of public speaking in Britain, he concludes, "Grace in elocution, it is hardly possible to obtain. . . . Force of delivery, is the necessary result of a clear head, and warm heart" (121-22). On this issue, at least, Sheridan clearly belongs to the "natural school" of elocution (see Vandraegen). Anticipating the charge that his simple rule for tones and gestures will do little to change bad habits, Sheridan raises a theoretical issue that reminds us of one sense in which he views language as action

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that is, as performance. Advocates of elaborate systems of rules for delivery, he argues, "attribute more power to precept alone, than it is possessed of" (122). "Practical rules," he continues, "differ much from those which are merely speculative; nor will informing the understanding in some cases, by any means produce right execution, without other assistance" (122). In other words, without models for imitation and experienced teachers (or "masters," as he styles them), we cannot learn active skills such as singing, dancing, and speaking. In the absence of such teachers and a supporting system of education (Sheridan's longrange goal), the best we can do is to foster our own natural manner. At the end of his lecture on gesture, Sheridan returns to the question of balancing the two kinds of languages, the languages of art and nature, or the language of ideas expressed in words and sentences and the language of emotions expressed in tones, looks, and gestures. His argument for balancing these two languages grows out of the other sense in which he views language as actionthat is, as social action. He argues quite conventionally that "the office of a public speaker is, to instruct, to please, and to move" (133). In pursuing this argument, he sounds very much like George Campbell arguing that the faculties must be addressed in concert: "If he does not instruct, his discourse is impertinent; and if he does not please, he will not have it in his power to instruct, for he will not gain attention; and if he does not move, he will not please, for where there is no emotion, there can be no pleasure. To move therefore, should be the first great object of every public speaker" (133). 20 However much he agrees with their concern for the ends of eloquence, though, Sheridan's account of the speaker's resources for moving an audience differs significantly from those of Blair and Campbell. He argues that in order to move an audience, the public speaker "must use the language of emotions, not that of ideas alone, which of itself has no power of moving" (133). Indeed, Sheridan goes so far as to assert that "he who is utterly without all language of emotions, who confines himself to the mere utterance of words, without any concomitant signs, is not to be classed at all amongst public speakers" (133). Certainly Sheridan's fellow rhetoricians would concur in his attack on dull speakers, but they would take issue with his deficit model of writing, his claim that the language of words cannot address the passions and imagination.

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Language Study and Cultural Progress As his final lecture in the series, Sheridan presented a dissertation, "On the State of Language in Old Greece and the Means by which It was Brought to Perfection." That text, published as "Dissertation I" in the Lectures on Elocution, is followed by "Dissertation II: On the State of Language in Other Countries, but more Particularly in Our Own, and Its Consequences," which Sheridan intended to be the introductory lecture in a second series on the English language (155n). Together, these dissertations take a broadly cultural and architectonic view of elocution. Cultural, in that they examine the cultural conditions that gave rise to the first flowering of oratory in Greece, that precipitated its later decline, and that might support its renewal. Architectonic, in that they view oratory as the key to reestablishing other arts "upon the same solid principles of reason and nature, as amongst the Ancients" (178): "if we open the fountain of oratory, which was closed up by barbarism, the arts will once more necessarily flow from it in their natural channels'' (179). This sort of claim occasioned ridicule from some readers, but it accurately captures Sheridan's grandor grandiosevision. The first dissertation, on the state of language in Greece, establishes an ideal picture of a cultural setting conducive to vigorous public speaking. According to Sheridan, the Greeks' concern for liberty gave play to persuasion, which called for the natural language of emotion. Further, they focused on their own language and on speech rather than writing, which was "little known amongst them, and by those who knew it, was made no other use of than to assist the memory" (139). Finally, there was no press or other means of general communication save "the living voice." In a context so enriched by the language of nature, the Greeks developed variety and proportion in their artificial language, as well as schools and masters to teach the arts of discourse (140-41). Throughout this discourse, Sheridan celebrates the role of nature in Greek culture: "To follow nature was the universal rule, and the way was open and visible to all. There were no prejudices from custom to cast a mist over their sight: from their infancy, genuine, unsophisticated nature was before their eyes; and they grew up to as familiar an acquaintance with her, as with any external objects" (147). Of course, Sheridan employs this picture of Greek culture to highlight the decline of the language of nature in his day. He laments again the ill effects of printing and our subsequent dependence on "book lan-

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guage." And in an argument that places him most at odds with theorists such as Blair, he summarily dismisses the faculty of taste as a chimera, arguing that the sensibility of the ancients, grounded in nature, provides the proper "criterion of what is right in the arts" (150). In his next dissertation, Sheridan further charts the decline of language and suggests how a return to the language of nature would revive both art and society. Sheridan was never one to undersell his wares. He opens his second discourse on language with a brief overview of the state of language in "other countries" at different stages of civilization. Sheridan's history and anthropology may be murky, but his purpose here is clear: to illustrate his assertion that "as language is nothing else but a collection of symbols of ideas, and emotions, which pass in the mind of man, it is evident that it must correspond to the state of the mind" (155). Thus, he argues that savages have few ideas and, consequently, few words. The language of understanding, he claims, is "scarcely known" among them, and their use of the language of emotions in not much more sophisticated than that of animal. Living from hand to mouth and constantly on guard against danger, savages have no occasion "for the exertion, or improvement of their nobler faculties" (156). Barbarians, while materially more secure and able to spare time to develop their imagination, nevertheless speak a wild and extravagant language of fancy because it is not under the ''direction of the intellect" (156). But in more civilized countries where trade and commerce make life more secure and foster the development of the arts, things can still go wrong, Sheridan argues. A "superfluity of wealth" can lead to a preoccupation with the "sensual appetites" and a neglect of the languages of the understanding and fancy. Or despotic rulers can use language to gain power over their subjects' imaginations through fear, again leading to a neglect of the language of understanding. And in the civilized nations of Europe, the rediscovery of classical learning led not to political reform or improvements in native languages; rather, people studied Greek and Latin and Greek philosophy for its own sake. Sheridan even ascribes the rise of tyranny to the withdrawal "from the active, to the contemplative life" of the "men of the greatest abilities" (162). The concomitant preference for written over spoken language, which Sheridan outlines in a fourteen-point comparison between Greek and English linguistic practice, further compromises the "genius, capacity, and manners of a nation" (168). The point of this lengthy analysis turns out to be that while language corresponds to the state of the mind,

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proper study of language can shape the mind and, in turn, our moral and social circumstances. Sheridan opens this new line of inquiry by asking, "Whether the state of language be an effect, or a cause of the state of the human mind in any country" (169). He states quite emphatically that language is the "great instrument" for shaping minds and fitting them "for all purposes in life" (169). Yet after reviewing the benefits reaped by the Greeks and Romans from their study of language, Sheridan argues that the Romans improved their own language and culture by "doing as the Greeks did"studying their own languagewhile the Europeans studied Greek. Sheridan's solution, of course, is to promote the study of English, the project for which he intended this dissertation as a manifesto. Though one could reasonably argue that the state of language in a discourse community is both a cause and effect of the state of mind in that community, Sheridan clearly views language primarily as a cause, or, in the terms of this inquiry, as action. First, he views language not only as reference but also as performance. Imagining the perfect orator, he writes (with characteristic hyperbole): "All his internal powers are at work; all his external testify their energies. Within, the memory, the fancy, the judgment, the passions are all busy; without, every muscle, every nerve is exerted; not a feature, not a limb, but speaks" (188). Second, he views language as an instrument for discharging "our duties in society" and shaping us as moral beings (181). Only a proper combination of the languages of the understanding and emotions can sustain this work, he argues; otherwise, the "living voice" can produce quite different effects. Public speaking that shows no emotion renders us "unsocial." Speaking that employs emotion clumsily becomes "an object of disgust or ridicule'' and renders us "dissocial." Only language that addresses the understanding, fancy, and passions in proper proportions "can tend to make us, what we were designed to be, social beings" (182-83). 21 Given Sheridan's attention to the material aspects of oral communication, it is important to acknowledge his contribution to our understanding of the alchemic opportunities created by viewing words as things. But Sheridan analyzes language as a system of articulate sounds signifying ideas primarily in order to delineate its use in concert with a constellation of signsincluding expressions, gestures, and tonal inflections that signify emotionswhich together with articulate sounds constitute communicative performance. By viewing words as actions in that sense, Sheridan mines a very different vein of resources for rhetori-

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cal theory than do Campbell and Blair. Along with them, he questions the autonomy of rational thought from the passions and imagination. But in addition, he resists the isolation of the written text from the physical presence of the rhetorical subject and the immediacy of oral communication. In that direction, though beyond Sheridan's purview, lies contemporary theoretical work that attempts to understand the complex psychological and cultural history of the relationship between orality and literacy. 22 Viewed from this perspective, Sheridan's work can be seen as part of the same canvas on which I have placed Campbell and Blair, but his inquiry leads back to a different ratio of the commonplaces of things, thoughts, words, and action. For all their limitations as rhetorical theory, Sheridan's Lectures on Elocution enrich our understanding of how, in various scenes within the broader social and intellectual contexts of eighteenth-century Britain, rhetorical theory reconstructed itself in part by revisiting the commonplace of words and reconsidering from various perspectives the problem of language. Sheridan's engagement with the problem of language in rhetorical theory strains against the bounds of Lockean empiricism and representative realism not because of fundamental epistemological or ontological differences but because Sheridan feels that Locke provides an impoverished account of communicative action.

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6 A Creative Interplay of Philosophies If one could, without effort, discover the one verity underlying rhetoricas well as everything elsewhat could more properly exemplify "Philosophy without tears"? The problem is that when one comes to apply serious thought to philosophical matters, one perceives that there is no single verity. The discovery that there are types of philosophy, each emerging from the critique of others, is reserved for those willing to contribute their tears to the project. Henry W. Johnstone, Jr., Foreword to Rhetoric and Philosophy If there is a philosophy of discovery and creativity, it cannot be a philosophy established by consensus concerning the nature of things, the powers or faculties of thought, the devices of arts, or the meanings or warrants of statements. It must be a pluralistic philosophy which establishes a creative interplay of philosophies inventing their facts, their data, their methods, their universes. It must be a rediscovery of the commonplaces of invention and memory for innovation rather than the establishment of a doctrine for proselytizing and conversion among marked-off heresies and dogmas. Richard McKeon, "Creativity and the Commonplace" Early in this study I noted Kenneth Burke's warning that any terministic screen will inevitably select and deflect as well as reflect whatever reality we describe with it. For historians of rhetoric, that caveat suggests that inquiry into the history of rhetoric can teach us as much about our own rhetorical theoriesits interpretive biases and constructive potentialas about the theories we study. Accordingly,

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this final chapter reflects somewhat self-consciously on my interpretation of the differences that distinguish Campbell's, Blair's, and Sheridan's treatments of language; assesses how the similarities among their theories of language help to distinguish their philosophical grounding for rhetoric from that adopted by contemporary realist and social constructionist rhetorics; and concludes with a reconsideration of Richard McKeon's suggestion that historical interpretation informed by the commonplaces of things, thoughts, words, and actions can lead to theoretical invention. While the solutions of the past cannot be imported indiscriminately into the present, they can provide useful perspectives on our own theoretical concerns and identify resources that may lead to new theoretical insights. Alchemic Opportunities: Re-Creating Theoretical, Productive, and Practical Arts of Rhetoric Campbell, Blair, and Sheridan share several philosophical and psychological assumptions. All three believe in a world of real things, a world of physical objects and mental operations about which we have the potential to gain reliable, if incomplete, knowledge. All three consider rationality, morality, passion, and imagination as essential attributes of humanity. That is to say, we are beings that by nature reason, act, feel, and imagine. However, all three grant reason special status because it helps to direct our will toward virtuous action, our feelings toward sympathy, and our imaginations toward beautyin addition to directing our understanding toward truth. Moreover, all three believe that these faculties are improvable, and that human societies are crucial to such improvementthat is, they share to some degree a common notion of the ends and means of human progress. Finally, all three believe that language consists of signs of thought, and that communication through language is essential to the pursuit of knowledge, refined taste, and virtue. In other words, they espouse a generally Lockean epistemology but extend their concern with language to its relationship with all the facultiesnot just the understanding. Accordingly, Campbell, Blair, and Sheridan all follow rhetorical tradition in maintaining that rhetoric as an art of discourse helps us teach, delight, and move one another, and all three assert that moving others to virtuous action is the most complex and noble end of eloquence, one that requires the rhetor to address all the faculties of mind in concert.

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In terms of the generating principles of this study, then, these three rhetorical theories exhibit significant continuities among their concepts of things, thoughts, actions, and words. Discontinuities in their concepts of words or language, however, are at least partly responsible for the differences among their theories of rhetoric. More specifically, each highlights a different alchemic opportunity in the interactions of words with thoughts, things, and actions. Campbell constructs an essentially theoretical art of rhetoric that highlights language as a clue to the "secret movements" of the mind. He draws our attention to words as signs of thoughts hidden in the mind, and he focuses on discovering the separate principles of thought and of language, connecting them through an art of rhetoric that adapts one to the other in discourse. For Campbell, progress in the art of rhetoric involves rhetoricians gaining knowledge of its "parent" arts and sciences that will lead to "new varieties" of the artan open-ended process in the genealogy of discourse. Blair constructs an essentially productive art of rhetoric that highlights language as an object of art produced and appreciated by individualsand cultureswith advanced knowledge and refined taste. He draws our attention to words as things, signs whose material or formal qualities incorporate the cultural and intellectual circumstances of speakers and writers. For Blair, progress in the art of rhetoric involves training young men to appreciate and participate in the cultural and intellectual achievements of their own society. Sheridan constructs an essentially practical art of rhetoric (though one truncated almost beyond recognition to a doctrine of delivery), an art that highlights spoken language as the hortatory display of virtuous sentiment. He draws our attention to spoken words and their accompanying tones and gestures as actions or enactments of thought and, more particularly, of emotion. Speech, he believes, is better suited than writing to move others to action. For Sheridan, progress in the art of rhetoric involves recovering the theatrical vitality of ancient eloquence and employing it to advance the religious, political, and scientific achievements of Britain. Such differing focuses are not failings of these theories but rather an inherent characteristic and constraint of theory building. As Douglas Ehninger has argued, the most fruitful theories of discourse reveal a consistent internal structure that also governs the manner in which those theories relate to other fields. Assessing the "dangers and difficulties involved in constructing a rhetoric," Ehninger writes, "unless an

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account of the communication process has a distinctive emphasis or focusis ordered in terms of a hierarchy of ends and is marked by a distinguishing methodit is not a system but a random collection of observations and precepts" ("Systems" 141). We might add that systemization is not an either/or process; rhetorical inquiry may be more or less systematic. Yet any degree of systemization entails its own dangers, as critics of eighteenth-century rhetorics (and critics of every other system of rhetoric) have pointed out. Ehninger observes that any rhetorician "must draw lines and erect boundaries where in fact none exist, and hence to this extent always must give an unreliable account of the territory and processes he attempts to map" ("Systems" 142). Two facts account for this problem, according to Ehninger: first, ''human communication" is a "fluid, on-going, circular movement"so that even the object of rhetorical study must be artificially confined in order to deal with manageable texts; second, "the several arts or skills upon which writing or speaking depends cannot be compartmentalized"as suggested by the constant reshuffling of invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery, the traditional compartments of rhetoric ("Systems" 142). In spite of these constraints, the entire history of rhetorical theory consists of such systems, and modern theorists in all fields concerned with human discourse seem no less committed to system building than their predecessors. In that context, Campbell's, Blair's, and Sheridan's rhetorics are valuable not only for what they teach us about eighteenth-century British thought and culture but also for what they teach us about the dynamics of rhetorical theory building. Perhaps my account of these three arts of rhetoric reveals little sympathy for Blair's smug satisfaction with the language of literate, polite society, somewhat more respect for Sheridan's feisty if eccentric and narrow defense of orality, and a great deal of admiration for Campbell's complex and often profound inquiry into the relationships between thought and language. Inevitably, the terms of my inquiry focus my attention on the articulation of philosophies of language in these theories of rhetoric and inform my evaluation of them. However, my specific judgments are not offered as blanket evaluations of Campbell's, Blair's, or Sheridan's rhetorical theory. To dismiss any one of them out of hand for elitism, outdated epistemology, or mistaken assumptions about language and the traditional realm of rhetorical theory would be to undervalue the fact that each pursues a line of inquiry that inspired and shaped wide audiences over considerable periods of time.

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Indeed, this study focuses on one of many reasons for the vitality and influence of eighteenth-century rhetoricand for the eventual decline of its influence. Theories of language and arts of rhetoric appear inextricably implicated in structures of social powerbroadly (if somewhat antiseptically) speaking, cultural forms that differentially define and order human experience. Through use and doctrine, linguistic forms become conflated with hierarchically constituted objects, mental faculties, and communicative practicesthat is, with things, thoughts, and actions. Campbell, Blair, and Sheridan may each emphasize a different alchemic opportunity for articulating philosophies of language and theories of rhetoric, but all of their emphases associate language and rhetoric with social and intellectual progress and power. For sizable audiences, each of these theories represented a plan not only for rescuing rhetoric from the disrepute into which it had fallen but also for improving or sustaining the social standing of those who master the art and for improving the circumstances of societies in which eloquence plays a prominent role. The Problem of Language: A Paradigm Shift in Rhetorical Theory As noted earlier, social historian Olivia Smith argues that "the political and social effectiveness of [eighteenth-century] ideas about language derived from the presupposition that language revealed the mind" (2). Further, I have argued that the renewed attention John Locke's work helped draw to the relationship between words and thoughts in theories of rhetoric set the stage for the sort of philosophical transformation that characterizes late eighteenth-century British rhetorical theory. Perhaps, as Henry Johnstone, Jr., argues in "The Relevance of Rhetoric to Philosophy and of Philosophy to Rhetoric," any subject needs and benefits from such philosophical reexamination when the foundations of the subject pose a problem. Thus . . . we become philosophically occupied with the nature of knowledge mainly in those historical periods when the criteria in terms of which we have been distinguishing knowledge from mere belief seems to be systematically threatened. Similarly, the need for a philosophical examination of rhetoric is most acute and the examination most welcome when the orderly processes through which people are normally able to persuade one another suddenly go awry and can no longer be counted on. (43-44)

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But as William Keith has argued, Johnstone "might just be getting things exactly backward" (92)particularly, I would add, in the case of late eighteenth-century British rhetoric. Campbell, Blair, and Sheridan appear to engage in philosophical examinations of rhetorical principles in large part because new philosophical approaches to thought and language did not adequately explain the effective communicative practices that rhetorical theory strives to understand. The intellectual context in which they articulated philosophies of language and theories of rhetoric did not outlast the eighteenth century, however. As noted earlier, the philosophical method of inquiry into language familiar to Campbell, Blair, Sheridan, and their contemporaries, one which generally reasoned from a model of mental faculties to an explanation of language, gave way in the nineteenth century to historical linguistics that reasoned from, and concerned itself with, the observable forms and structures of language. In short, "it divorced the study of language from the study of mind" (Aarsleff, Locke to Saussure 127). Though rhetoric, epistemology, and linguistics continued to develop and interact during the nineteenth century, it was not until the twentieth century that another distinctly new rhetoric arose out of a shift in the continuities and discontinuities among theories of things, thoughts, words, and actions. Language is a pivotal term in both eighteenth- and twentieth-century arts of rhetoric insofar as they concern what Michel Foucault terms the "will to truth." Foucault locates the origin of the will to truth in a cultural and intellectual shift during the period between Hesiod and Plato, after which "the highest truth no longer resided in what discourse was, nor in what it did: it lay in what was said" (218). At that point, he continues, "truth moved over from the ritualised act . . . of enunciation to settle on what was enunciated itself: its meaning, its form, its object and its relation to what it referred to" (218). In the terms of this inquiry, then, he argues that the relation of words-as-actions surrendered pride of place to the relations of words-as-thoughts and words-as-things. Henceforth, words would be judged according to their correspondence to a system of true knowledge of real things. The eighteenth-century realist rhetorics of Campbell, Blair, and Sheridan sought to replace rhetoric as a philosophically grounded art of discourse after it had been displaced by Lockean empiricism and its distrust of natural language as a medium for philosophical inquiry into thoughts, things, and actions. Lurking in the background of eighteenth-century empiricism, however, was the skeptical distrust of a knowable

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reality, a distrust that twentieth-century realist rhetoric confronts in various forms of "symbolism" that challenge "such foundationalist notions as the correspondence theory of truth" (Simons 1). At issue in this confrontation between contemporary realists and antirealists, Herbert Simons argues, "has been not just the status of scientific claims but of objectivity itself" (1). From this perspective, scholars across the academy are investigating the rhetoric of inquiry, refiguring philosophical and scientific problems as rhetorical problems, that is, as problems of language and argument. On the other hand, rhetorical realists such as Richard Cherwitz, James Hikins, and Kenneth Zagacki strive to ground rhetoric in a reality beyond language and discourse: "The issue in dispute is whether or not there is anything more than language, that is, whether there is anything more than that which is created intersubjectively by rhetors" (Cherwitz, ''Rhetoric as Epistemic" 207). In balance, it appears now that the predominant skeptical rhetorics have dismissed the will to truth and returned to the Greek Sophists' distrust of an independent reality as a criterion for discourse, and to their wariness of "universalist standards of judgment" (Simons, Introduction 6). 1 A smaller number of rhetorical realists are mounting a vigorous defense of the will to truth, albeit in a form adapted to the skeptical critique of objectivism.2 Since the eighteenth-century, then, mainstream rhetoric has largely shifted its philosophical allegiance. In the concluding paragraph of Why Does Language Matter to Philosophy? (1975), Ian Hacking answers the question posed by his title with a trenchant account of a similar paradigm shift that distinguishes seventeenth- and twentieth-century philosophy:3 I have one answer to the question of why language matters to philosophy now. It matters for the reason that ideas mattered in seventeenth-century philosophy, because ideas then, and sentences now, serve as the interface between the knowing subject and what is known. The sentence matters even more if we begin to dispense with the fiction of a knowing subject, and regard discourse as autonomous. Language matters to philosophy because of what knowledge has become. The topics of this or that school, of "linguistic philosophy," "structuralism," or whatever, will prove ephemeral and will appear as some of the brief recent episodes by which discourse itself has tried to recognize the historical situation in which it finds itself, no longer merely a tool by which experiences are shared, no longer even the interface between the knower and the known, but as that which constitutes human knowledge. (187)

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The conflation of language and knowledge and the concomitant displacement of the knowing subject are by now commonplace assumptionsif not universally agreed-upon principlesin rhetorical theory. They warrant what James Hikins calls "symbolism" in rhetoric and what Hacking calls "lingualism" in philosophy, though Hacking, writing in the early 1970s, believed that "there is no widely admired statement of a lingualism as extreme as" Berkeley's idealism (183). By contrast, Hikins and his fellow realists see radical symbolism everywhere in current rhetorical theory. Two other aspects of Hacking's argument are particularly germane to this inquiry. First, Hacking's conclusion reflects his earlier admission that no single answer to his question is "valid over the whole domain of Western philosophizing from Plato to the present" (157). So why the historical approach? What continuities warrant his comparison between seventeenth- and twentiethcentury philosophyor mine between eighteenth- and twentieth-century rhetoric? Hacking argues that "the structure of the recent philosophical problem situation . . . is formally identical to the seventeenth-century one, but the content of that structure is different" (167). As constituted by idealism, that structure consists of four terms"Experience," "The Cartesian ego," "Ideas (mental discourse),'' and "Reality"related as follows: "Experience acts upon the ego to produce ideas that are ideas of reality, that in turn cause experience" (164-65). Philosophers following "the way of ideas" need not interpret this structure in the same way. As Hacking points out, "Locke will insist that we have a quadrilateral firmly linked to a reality that is external to mind. Berkeley will collapse this figure by making reality identical to mind" (164-65). But according to Hacking, this structure transforms when later philosophers conflate knowledge with language "regarded as an object in itself and not merely as the bearer of some antecedent meaning" (182). And as a matter of principle, Hacking argues that "when one node [of the structure] changes, all of the others change" (182), yielding in the twentieth century a structure consisting of the terms "Experience," "The knowing subject," "Sentences (public discourse)," and "Reality." 4 My approach to the relationship of language and rhetoric parallels Hacking's account of language and philosophy insofar as both maintain that structural continuities link theoretical problems whose contents have changed radically over time. Hacking employs what I will call descriptive terms for the content of each node in his models, changing at least some of them from one theoretical model to another in order to

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emphasize the substantive discontinuity of the concepts involved. By contrast, I use generative terms or commonplaces, retaining them from model to model in order to emphasize a degree of structural continuity even as the meanings of the terms change. Both approaches, however, attempt to account for the continuities and discontinuities among the elements of their theoretical paradigms. I have tried to demonstrate that tracing rhetorical theories back to four generating principles can help us to understand and compare alternative arts of rhetoric. As Hacking notes in his philosophical study, "There need not . . . be a general answer to the question of why language matters to philosophy today" (157-58). The same can be said of rhetoric. Indeed, if I am right in assuming that philosophical and rhetorical theories originate in the essentially problematic and interrelated continuities and discontinuities among my generating principles, it is unlikely that rhetorical theory will ever produce a general answer to the question of its relationship to theories of language. As Henry Johnstone argues in his foreword to Rhetoric and Philosophy, a collection of essays outlining alternative philosophical foundations for rhetoric, "there are types of philosophy, each emerging from the critique of others" (xviii). The crux of this study concerns theories of rhetoric emerging in part from critiques of changingand in some ways threateningtheories of thought and language. However much the contents of my generating principles have evolved, I argue that it is still useful to assert that the mainstream of rhetorical theory has shifted from the eighteenth-century effort to accommodate Lockean empiricism by reassessing words as things, thoughts, and actions to the twentieth century's reassessment of things, thoughts, and actions as words. Skepticism, Realism, and Symbolic Representation When contemporary realist and antirealist rhetorical theorists trace their own and one another's pedigrees, they reveal their debts to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. On the one hand, in "Rhetoric, Philosophy, and Objectivism" James Hikins and Kenneth Zagacki take on a particularly powerful line of thought that they term "representationalism," a doctrine assuming that ''the objects of realitythings-in-themselvesare necessarily opaque to human understanding" (i.e., discontinuous) and, therefore, present to us only through representations (218). They associate this position with Descartes, Locke,

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Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Heidegger, Cassirer, Wittgenstein, and Langer. Arguing that the contemporary scion of this line"symbolism"views the grounding of discourse as "inherently symbolic" (216), they warn that "a symbol-mediated episteme not only beckons the skeptical critique, it does so in a more thoroughgoing manner than has, historically, any other representationalist view'' (218). The worst of a bad lot, in other words. On the other hand, in "The Reality of Construction" John Durham Peters and Eric W. Rothenbuhler reject skepticism, but they also clearly champion the "symbolism" that so concerns Hikins and Zagacki: "Experience of the real world is always already symbolic," Peters and Rothenbuhler argue, "as is experience of others (communication)" (19). Tracing the "distrust of symbolic representations" forward from Plato and Moses to empiricists such as Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, and Hume, they appear to agree with Hikins and Zagacki concerning the representationalism of the empiricists. By contrast, though, they emphasize the empiricists' distrust of symbols where Hikins and Zagacki emphasize the empiricists' distrust of reality. In both cases, Peters and Rothenbuhler argue, the distrust arises from "the distinction between reality and symbols, as if symbols were not real and reality were not symbolic" (18). Similarly, John Nelson and Allan Megill point to eighteenth-century empiricism as the fulfillment of Cartesian doubt: "The dream of dispelling disagreement through demonstration was promulgated not only by the 'rationalist' Descartes, but also by his 'empiricist' counterpart John Locke. It was the grand dream of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment" (22). Though each of these proposed genealogies assigns both Locke and Hume to the other tradition, their reflections on their own intellectual progenitors suggest that Locke is the common ancestor, Hume the reluctant founder of the antirealist line, and Scottish Common Sense realism the pater familias of contemporary realist rhetoricparticularly insofar as it engages with, and attempts to answer, Hume's skeptical critique of Locke. Though Locke certainly distrusts words and spends a good deal of time in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) analyzing the limits of knowledge and the sources of error, he never questions that simple ideas of sensation originate in, and represent, the qualities of "external, sensible Objects" (104; 2.1.1). Accordingly, in "Realism and Its Implications for Rhetorical Theory," Hikins acknowledges Locke's place in realism's family history, assigning Locke's theory of perception a key role in establishing "representative realism" (28). And while

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Hikins very deliberately sets aside "18th century 'naive realism"' and "the 'common sense' realism of Thomas Reid" in favor of his own version of realism, his fellow realist (and sometime coauthor) Richard Cherwitz acknowledges the link: ''the notion of direct realism which anchors this theory is reminiscent of the commonsense school of thought advanced by Scottish philosophers in the modern era" ("Rhetoric as Epistemic" 231). On the other side of the fence, Peters and Rothenbuhler identify Hume's reaction to Lockean empiricism as the founding insight of social constructionist theory: "[Hume's] skepticism was both the fulfillment and annihilation of British empiricism. He agreed that nothing was in the mind save that derived from sensation, but then asked the question, how can I know the origin of sensations? . . . As William James . . . complained, Hume's error was not one of insight but of attitudethe discovery that the world has no ultimate grounding is not a scandal but a discovery worthy even of celebration" (14). In their barest outline, these proposed genealogies link eighteenth- and twentieth-century skepticism and realism according to the family tree depicted in figure 6.1.

Fig. 6.1. Skepticism, realism, and symbolic representation. This family tree charts only one aspect of the relationships contemporary realist and social constructionist rhetoricians trace among the various philosophical and rhetorical systems represented the relationship between words and things. This genealogy begins and ends in theoretical tensions embodied in various eighteenth- and twentieth-century philosophical and rhetorical

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doctrines. (Of course there were important intermediate steps between eighteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy and rhetoric, but not until the middle of the twentieth century does the debate over symbolic representation become polarized in rhetorical theory in a manner that calls to mind the eighteenth-century debate between skepticism and realismcf. Hacking.) At the top of the chart I place at one end of a continuum the "scandalous" Sophistic suspicion that there is no realitybeyond our symbolsabout which we can seek objective knowledge. At the other end of the continuum lies the more traditionally decorous suspicion that our symbolic representations distort objective reality. Contemporary realist and antirealist rhetoricians find both suspicions in John Locke's work but trace their own positions to a later generation of philosophical doctrines that arose at least partly in reaction to Lockean empiricismskeptical idealism and Scottish Common Sense realism. The third generation represented here shows the twentieth-century refiguring of the debate over symbolic representation and rhetorical theory. On the "inside" of the chart at this level lie ontological and epistemological doctrinesintersubjectivism, social constructionism, perspective realism. On the "outside" lie rhetorical doctrines: epistemic rhetoric, rhetoric of inquiry, rhetorical perspectivism. Finally, at the bottom of the chart I place two axioms that characterize these twentieth-century formulations of the relationship between symbols and reality: (1) the social constructionist position that language creates or constructs reality and (2) the realist argument that language embodies an independent reality. The first axiom tends to conflate language and reality, while the second maintains a discontinuity that allows us to test language against an independent reality. 5 Putting the particular merits or deficiencies of these proposed genealogies aside, how might we read this contemporary debate over the role of language in rhetoric in light of the commonplaces I have used to analyze eighteenth-century rhetorical theory? Given the realist bent of Campbell's, Blair's, and Sheridan's rhetorical theories and the influence of realism in contemporary science and culture, it is instructive to look more closely at the sort of rhetoric realists offer today. Put generally, realist rhetorics of any stripe assume that some domains of experience exist largely independent of language, domains that from some perspective, to some degree, are directly accessible to the knowing or experiencing subject. For instance, what we refer to as the physical laws of nature presumably characterized physical relations prior to their discovery and translation into language and continue to

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operate independently of language. The central problem of language for realist rhetoric is to account for how language differs from, yet relates to and affects, other domains of experience such as things, thought, and action. As I read his work, James Hikins solves this problem by viewing things, thoughts, words, and actions as interacting systems of relations, the relation constituting a basic ontological statethe basic building block of the contemporary realist philosophy to which he subscribes: Appearance realism argues that, in perception, we confront limited aspects of the world. . . . I perceive only limited aspects of reality, because at any given time I stand in a particular perspective to reality. . . . For appearance realists, "relationality" stands at the center of the claim that everything that is is what it is because of its relationships to all else. It is not some elementary atomic or subatomic particle, nor any other sort of primary substance, out of which entities in the world emerge; rather, it is from the relationconceived as an ontological progenitor of everything elsethat all of existence acquires its character. ("Realism and Its Implications" 52) Thus, Hikins's version of rhetorical realism purports to be ontologically monistic by virtue of the relation: The world is a great relational complex. Out of relations emerge all the properties and dimensions of existence, including what we conveniently categorize as physical and nonphysical. . . . Yet the physical and the nonphysical are inherently related, owing their existence to and bound by the ontological glue of relationality. As products of a fundamental ontological progenitor, the relation, all the furnishings of the world are unified. (59) At the same time, though, Hikins argues that relational theory affords the possibility "to ontologically unify the world while preserving important distinctions, such as mind and body, as identifiable aspects of the world, as opposed to radically different substances in the world" (59n16). At first glance, this argument appears to be having its cake and eating it too: a relational mind/body distinction is preserved while the ontological mind/body problem disappears. But what does Hikins mean by "aspects of the world" as distinct from "substances in the world"? His terminology here and elsewhere employs a visual metaphor. Discussing universals, or general terms (a problem with which Locke, Hume, Campbell, and many others grappled in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries), Hikins refers to "relational com-

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plexes" that can be taxonomized in different ways according to one's perspective: "many alternative taxonomiesways of looking at the worldare wholly compatible with each other, once one understands the implications of perspective as the term is used in appearance realism. On this view, genuine truths are never contradictory. They are only variant when taken as the product of significantly different perspectives" (63). From his perspective, then, it appears that things, thoughts, words, and actions are relational complexes that we taxonomize from particular perspectives. Can the differences between social constructionism and this version of realism be explained in terms of such perspectival shifts? Assessing alternatives to rhetorical realism, Hikins asks (and answers), "What has gone wrong in these philosophical approaches to rhetoric? It is the refusal to assent to anything known independent of language" (69; emphasis added). Judging from the response to this charge by some social constructionists, Hikins may overstate his case. It may on balance be more accurate to say that present-day skeptical rhetoricians merely treat our experience and knowledge of phenomena outside of language as dependent on language because they believe that "experience of the real world is always already symbolic" (Peters and Rothenbuhler 19). In fact, it appears that key aspects of each position may be embedded in the other. Social constructionism may focus on the social construction of reality, but it can also allow for the social construction of reality, as in Peters and Rothenbuhler's reference to experience of the real world. Further, we may experience social constructions as reality of exactly the sort described by Hikins. Similarly, social constructions of reality may be embedded in realism through Hikins's claim that our knowledge of reality is a function of our perspective, which presents to us only limited aspects of reality. If our perspective is characterized by symbolic cognition, then perspective realism can embrace social constructionism. In this view, the two positions become different levels of explanation within one another's system, thus illustrating Henry Johnstone's claim that different types of philosophy emerge from critiques of one another. But the problem of language for rhetoric is not primarily to determine the ontological status of things, thoughts, words, and actions as objects of understanding or to investigate the merits of those terms as epistemological grounds per se. Rather, the problem of language for rhetoric involves assessing how different ontological and epistemological assumptions about language yield different arts of discoursein the

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terms of this inquiry, systematic inquiries into how deliberate uses of language may be mindful of the relations of discourse to systems of things, thoughts, words, and actions. In the closing section of this study, I turn to some principles that might guide such a pluralistic assessment. A Creative Interplay of Philosophies Whether systems of things, thoughts, words, and actions are ontologically unified or divided, epistemologically independent of, or derived from, one another, they constitute discernible patterns in our experience, whose susceptibility to mutual influence constitutes the central problem of language for both eighteenth- and twentieth-century rhetoric. Having argued for this structural similarity of eighteenth- and twentieth-century rhetoric, I propose four principles for analyzing the relations among systems of things, thoughts, words, and actions: 1. Translation, the deliberate ordering of one set of relations (e.g., language) according to its own internal principles in a manner that makes present to us a model of selected aspects of other sets of relations (e.g., other discourses) and/or other systems of relations (e.g., things, thoughts, actions) 2. Modeling, the tendency of systematic translation to embody only selected aspects of other sets or systems of relations, thus creating a new set of relations by simplifying complex chains of relations, highlighting particular aspects of other systems of relations, and hiding othersmodeling accounts for the gains and losses of meaning brought about by translation 3. Ordering, the tendency, whether from convention or some inherent principle, of systems of relations to respond to changes in other systems of relations, as thoughts change in relation to linguistic symbols 4. Autonomy, the capacity of one system of relations to resist ordering by other systems of relations In the remaining pages, I will suggest how these principles offer a means of reconceiving the current ontological and epistemological arguments between realist and social constructionist rhetorics. I illustrate my argument with examples drawn largely from eighteenth- and twentieth-century realist rhetoric, engaging those traditions in some creative play with principles that finally downplay their emphasis on an independent world of real things.

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Systematic Translation and Ordering In terms of this argument, theories of meaning or reference can be expressed as theories of symbolic translation: ordering one system of relations according to the state of other systems. Campbell, for instance, asserts that words can effectively be ordered according to the relations among things: "by the regular structure of a language, this connexion among the signs is conceived as analogous to that which subsisteth among their archetypes" (260). For all their ontological differences with the eighteenthcentury rhetorical realists, Cherwitz and Hikins account for meaning in a strikingly similar way. In "Rhetoric and PostDeconstructionism: A Relationalist Theory of Meaning," Cherwitz and Hikins connect reality to language "by positing relationality as a common interface between syntagmemic elements of a language or other significant sign systems on the one hand, and the 'things in the world'both 'material' and 'immaterial'on the other" (7). "Meaning,'' then, refers to the ability of signs "to embody relations" (7), and the function of language is "to make not things, but the interrelationships among rhetor, auditor, and extralinguistic world (that is, the myriad collections of relata which are things) conspicuous" (9). Thus, "objective" interpretations of texts, though potentially multiple, are "limited by the ontological and epistemological constraints relational possibility affords" (11). Cherwitz and Hikins mention the obvious example of the map (6), and it is easy enough to see that an accurate soil map of Ohio and an accurate road map of the same state, though they will provide very different models of the state, must observe some similar relationships in the extralinguistic world that define the system of relations that we call Ohiorelationships of distance, direction, and three-dimensional shape (which requires that two-dimensional maps reflect a particular projection of the curved surface of the Earth). Granting the difference in ontologies, this account of meaning bears an undeniable structural similarity to Campbell's conclusion that "when things are related to each other, the words signifying those things are more commonly brought together in discourse. . . . Further, this tendency is strengthened by the structure of language. . . . The consequence is, that similar relations in things will be expressed similarly" (259). As noted earlier, Campbell even goes so far as to claim that we grow so accustomed to this analogous world of words that we often think by ideas of words without recourse to ideas of thingsan opening of sorts to a social constructionist rhetoric.

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Indeed, conceived as an art of symbolic translation, rhetoric can treat the question of ontology as essentially arguable. This is an important sense in which rhetoric deals with probable knowledgenot as a separate order of knowledge but as the basic relationship of language to the systems whose relations it embodies. 6 A knowing or experiencing subject can test the sum of his or her subjective experience only against the regularity of intersubjective experience as embodied in systems of signs. This relationship is the key to what Kenneth Burke calls "the you-and-me quality" of rhetoric. Whether we wish to designate invariably regular evidence of intersubjective experience independently real or symbolically constituted is moot in terms of the pragmatic interaction of systems of relationswhat matters more is the translation and ordering of relations among systems.7 My argument rests, of course, on the assumption that human experience is ordered by myriad systems of relations. Symbol systems are but one among many systems, both physical and mental, capable of change within limits set by the combinatory possibilities and principles that govern their distinctive relations. Language, however, is a crucially important system for rhetoric because of its role in translating the experiences of bounded subjectivitiesindividual human minds. Though essential to human knowledge and society as we know them, language inevitably distorts and loses something of experience in the process of translation. In the context of realist rhetoric, that loss or distortion is traditionally associated with the problem of truth as measured against some independent standard. Thus, Campbell, Blair, and Sheridan ask whether our signs conform to their archetypes in nature, and Hikins asks whether they embody the relata of an independent system of relations. As Campbell's and Hikins's discussions of universals suggest, however, translation between symbols and other systems of relations can be quite selective. As we have seen, Campbell argues that ideas associated with general terms have to represent particular qualities (color, size, shape). Therefore, in order for a given term to represent the same category of particular ideas to different people (even though their particular sets of such ideas are different), the mind has to be able to allow a particular idea to stand for all other ideas in that category, which "agree with it in certain characters, however different in other respects" (264). Similarly, Hikins argues that a "common general term (universal) is a term in a sign system embodying relata or collections of relata, significant dimensions of which stand in the identity relationship

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to one another" (61). Consequently, even though no two people are likely to have had exactly the same experience with dogs, they will usually have little trouble distinguishing dogs from other "complexes of relations." However, Hikins's argument for an "identity relationship" between signs and the relata they embody may state the case too strongly for many systematic translations, leaving us with a rhetoric transfixed by a philosophical problem. For instance, in the mechanical systems depicted in figure 6.2, some loss or imprecision in translation need not preclude the ordered relationship depicted in figure 6.3. 8 For the sake of argument, consider the wrench as a general term for bolts with a certain size head. In figure 6.2, as long as the span of the wrench is not too large (situation A) or too small (situation C), an infinite number of approximate translations can effect change (fig. 6.3). Similarly, if I ask a student to write a paper on some aspect of the controversy between creationism and evolution, an indeterminate number of responses (within some discernible boundary conditions) might order my evaluation in a manner satisfactory to both me and the student. Some sort of exact match (situation B in fig. 6.2) may seem ideal from the perspective of a correspondence theory of truth, but achieving it is not the point of most symbolic translationswe do not use language simply to play a match game. Rather, the point of symbolic translation is to effect an ordered relation between systems of relations (fig. 6.3). In other words, the problem of language for both realist and social constructionist rhetorical theory is essentially an operational problem, not of measuring language or reality against the other but of altering the relations distinctive to one or more systems until a desired order exists among it and other systems. Though rhetoricians and philosophers may inquire about the efficient causes of such orderings, rhetors need not wait for a final explanation. They need only find systems (including mental systems) capable of change and of engaging in ordered relationships with other systems whose state we can detectsuch as language. If all this appears to be straining at gnats, I should emphasize that I am trying to determine the conditions under which certain ontological and epistemological questions regarding the relations among things, thoughts, words, and actions become moot for rhetoric, for those are the same conditions of uncertainty under which rhetoric as I have defined it becomes possible and, indeed, necessary.

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Fig. 6.2. Systematic translation. Symbolic translations need not be exact to order related systems.

Fig. 6.3. Systematic ordering. Changes in one system effect changes in a related system. One such uncertainty concerns the degree to which attempts to effect systematic ordering can taken account of all other systems to which a given system is related. As Hikins argues, our perspectives and, therefore, knowledge are always limited, and systems will resist relational ordering according to their own governing principles. For instance, if I attend only to the dimensions of the wrench and bolt in figures 6.2 and 6.3, ignoring the relations of force and friction, I will not get far if I try to loosen the bolt with a rubber wrench. Similarly, I may assign a paper on creationism and evolution in terms that a student understands clearly enough to fulfill the request, but if the wording of the assignment conveyed obvious disdain for her religious convictions, she might find it impossible to complete the task. I should also note one other relation in the mechanical analogy employed in figure 6.3. We think of the wrench as a tool employed to turn (order) the bolt. But because of the relationship between the threads on the bolt and the metal to which it is bolted, loosening the bolt also raises the wrench relative to the metal surface. Relational ordering can and often does work both (or many) ways. Students often change our minds. The possibility of alternative translations constitutes yet another aspect of relational translation and ordering, one particularly important to artificial symbol systems. As illustrated in figure 6.4, various translations may produce identical ordering of a particular system, though each translation will relate differently to broader complexes of relations: we can loosen a bolt with an open-ended (B) or box-ended wrench (C), but an open-ended wrench may allow us to work with

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clearances around the bolt that would prevent the use of a box-ended wrench. And as Jim Hikins has pointed out to me, an adjustable wrench (A) may be a better analogue for language than even a whole set of fixed wrenches, for it is capable of seemingly infinite adjustment to novel situations. Similarly, there is no single right approach to my assignment to write about creationism and evolution, and indeed, through successive drafts of a paper, a student and I may both adjust our notions of an appropriate response.

Fig. 6.4. Alternative translations. Systems which share a key set of relations may have the same effect on other related systems. Systematic Autonomy and Displacement In relational terms, the grounds for knowledge, truth, and belief that arise from things, thoughts, words, and actions are created by assigning relative autonomy to a particular system of relations. In other words, an autonomous system orders the truth value of statements about it without being ordered by those statementsas the bard said, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. More broadly, we could argue that an absolutely autonomous system would order all other systems without being ordered by them. Whether or not such absolutely autonomous systems really exist, it is clearly useful for inquiry to grant autonomy to certain systems of relations, at least relative to other systems. For instance, modern science has made great advances in ordering physical objects and processes by

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assuming that physical laws are autonomous relative to thought and language. By contrast, religious doctrine may grant autonomy to the word of God over physical lawsas we see in faith healing, belief in other miracles, and certain versions of creationism. Students writing about such issues often run into trouble because they overlook the need to negotiate between systems of ideas that claim autonomy from each other. Similarly, Locke and other seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophers sought to develop philosophical principles that would guarantee autonomy to rational thought relative to other faculties of mind and to language. Partly in response to that move, Campbell, Blair, and Sheridan developed arts of rhetoric that trace the relations of knowledge to other faculties and to language.

Fig. 6.5. Systems of relations. Systems need not relate directly to systems they order. Their rhetorics also exhibit two kinds of systematic displacement, by which I mean that they either displace alternative means of effecting a given relational ordering (assuming, for instance, that a "primitive" language or nonstandard dialect could not support rational inquiry), or they displace one or more systems of relations in a chain of relational ordering (assuming, as Sheridan does, that writing cannot order the emotions because it translates only the lexical and grammatical relations of speech, which, he assumes, cannot by themselves affect the emotions). This latter situation is illustrated by figure 6.5: the spans of wrenches (A) and the heads of bolts (B) are manufactured according to standard dimensions without taking into account myriad mechanical systems (C) that bolts might hold together and wrenches assemble or dismantle. Moreover, we use wrenches to assemble and dismantle (order) mechanical systems without bringing the wrenches into direct contact with those systems. Of course, it would be pointless to turn

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bolts that were not holding anything together, a situation that at first seems analogous to the arguments about words divorced from things that eighteenth-century philosophers and rhetoricians loved to complain about. The situation seems analogous, but relational theory suggests that words, like everything else, are always related to something. Arguments to the contrary are also engaged in systematic displacement. More important, it is dangerous to start turning bolts without considering what you are putting together or taking apartjust because you have a wrench that fits a bolt. Similarly, when we ask students to write about substantive and sensitive issues, weand theyhave to remember that ethical rhetorical practice involves not only finding words to match facts but also gauging consequences in the world of ideas and actions. In defining rhetoric as an art of symbolic translation and ordering, however, I may appear to constitute rhetoric as an ethically neutral art of discourse, much as Aristotle might appear to do when he defines rhetoric as the art of discovering the available means of persuasion, or Campbell might when he defines rhetoric as the art of adapting discourse to its ends. Out of context, none of these definitions of rhetoric links the art explicitly to a particular ethical ideal. Yet I would maintain (as did Aristotle and Campbell) that no art of rhetoric is without ethical consequences, for words are dynamically related to actions, and as I have argued, arts of rhetoric are systematically related to the changing intellectual and cultural contexts with which they continually interact. In the twenty-first century, we face changes in the physical sciences, the study of mind, theories of language, and political action every bit as profound as those in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Campbell's commonsense proposition that "the course of nature will be the same to-morrow that it is to-day" has been complicated by the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, and chaos theory. Computer scientists are developing virtual realitycomputer-generated environments in which we can choose the rules that govern models of physical and social surroundings. The secrets of human understanding that Campbell sought to illuminate have been complicated by research into artificial intelligence and machine-based knowledge systems. In addition to the changing theories of language noted earlier in this chapter, which reverse or collapse the distinctions Campbell made between thought and language, the rapid development of alternative media for generating, transmitting, recording, altering, and receiving symbolic communication greatly complicates Blair's ideal of language as an object of art that

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captures the best qualities of polished society and Sheridan's account of the uniquely performative dimension of speech. And in the public realm of action, changing demographics in countries like the United States and nationalist struggles around the globe force us to acknowledge human diversity at the same time that economic, environmental, and human rights issues have taken on a more global character than ever before. In such contexts, Campbell, Blair, and Sheridan's ideal of a "certain, steady, and wellknown standard," whether in language, taste, understanding, or virtue seems more complicatedand problematicthan ever. How will rhetoric respond to these circumstances? Given such circumstances, rhetoric can neither abandon ethical concerns nor, as Richard McKeon warns in "Creativity and the Commonplace," retreat into "marked-off heresies and dogmas" (34). Rather, rhetoric must continue to analyze and adapt to its intellectual and social surroundings. McKeon's description of the commonplaces of invention links rhetoric's past to its future by identifying generating principles of innovation: "The places of invention and of memory are places of things, thoughts, actions, and words. . . . In communications, in sciences, and in arts, there are no things or thoughts, only known things and significant thoughts, expressed things and thoughts, ordered by actions of art which produce and make them as objects, understandings, consequences, and expressions" (33). This historical study will have succeeded if, by adopting those generating principles as a terministic screen, it has satisfied in part McKeon's vision of interpretation linked to discovery: "The newly perceived facts of interpreting a text may in turn lead to the discovery of new powers of perception and their use in the discovery of new existential data and new experiential facts, set in relation by new arts and methods, to discover new universes of discourse, thought, consequential occurrence, and systematic organization'' (36). In my analysis of the varied responses of late eighteenthcentury British rhetoricians to changing intellectual and cultural contexts, I have sought to discover principles of invention that can inform diverse solutions to the rhetorical problems we face. A pluralist philosophy of rhetoric of the sort McKeon advocates in "Creativity and the Commonplace" will, I believe, remain open to different interpretations of the commonplaces of things, thoughts, words, and actions for particular lines of inquiry and intellectual and social contexts. Scientists attempting to order physical systems may find it useful to proceed as if they can directly observe an independent physical world. Rhetoricians who wish to gauge the influence of language

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on our lives may find it useful to proceed as if language were autonomous relative to things, thoughts, and actions. But a pluralist philosophy of rhetoric will also watch for theoretical models that ignore consequential relations of language. All such displacement limits our awareness of the scope of human discourse, for all systematic autonomy is limited by the myriad relations that impinge on human experience and practical wisdom.

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Notes Works Cited Index

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Notes Introduction 1. A case in point is William A. Covino's Art of Wondering: A Revisionist Return to the History of Rhetoric (1988). In reconsidering the history of rhetoric, Covino seeks insights in the works of Montaigne, Hume, Byron, Derrida, Feyerabend, and Geertz. 2. This taxonomy of trends follows Golden and Corbett (1-17) and Golden, Berquist, and Coleman (105-83). Bizzell and Herzberg discuss the elocution movement and epistemological rhetoric in similar terms, but they associate neoclassicism with belles lettres and credit Hugh Blair with synthesizing epistemological rhetoric and belles lettres (645-58), a claim that Golden and Corbett would not dispute (15). Kennedy offers a somewhat different analysis of trends in eighteenth-century rhetoric based on his division of classical rhetoric into technical, philosophical, and Sophistic traditions (227). 1. The Problem of Language: Things, Thoughts, Words, And Actions 1. Historians of semiotics trace the name of their field to this passage in Locke's Essay. Though the evidence is complicated and inconclusive, Locke probably derived the term not from classical literature, in which it does not appear, but from sixteenth' century classical philologists through a reverse transliteration from Latin to Greek. That is, "'semeiotice' existed before ' ' in Locke" (Romeo 44). appeared in the Thesaurus [Graecae linguae] and Scapula, and 'semiotice' existed before ' However, the derivation of the modern term "semiotic" and the history of the "doctrine of signs" can be traced at least as far ) and "the signified" ( ), though the more back as the Stoics, who distinguished between "the signifier'' ( ) was in use much earlier (Fisch 32; Hovdhaugen 42; Liddell and Scott; Robins, Grammatical general term for "sign" ( Theory 25-26). 2. Locke's position illustrates that Burke's "fatal fact" concerning our conception of reality through the media of symbolism need not entail "mere

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relativism" ("Terministic Screens" 52). Admittedly, symbolic action highlights the bounded extent of subjectivity; i.e., symbols mediate between subjects that have no direct access to one another's thoughts. But if we could experience other people's subjectivity as immediately as our own, there might be less reason to believe in an "external reality," no matter how vivid our experience of it. All that appears to exist independently of us might be the construction of this continuous human consciousness. However, because my experience is ultimately discontinuous with yours, we must objectify each other and the rest of reality in order to communicate with one another about our experience. Thus, even if we agree with Burke that our use of symbols is the most important dimension of human subjectivity, we need not see that fact as "fatal'' to the supposition that the physical world exists independently of us and that we can describe it efficaciouslythat is to say, that we can identify persistent continuities and discontinuities among the experiences of various subjects, thus to some degree placing those continuities and discontinuities "outside" of any individual subjectivity. 3. It would be otiose to catalog Locke's inevitable and ubiquitous use of metaphor and other figures in the Essay. Suffice it to say that he is vulnerable to the tu quoque retort, particularly with reference to usages that he might not admit as metaphorical, such a "weighing" the role of ideas and words in understanding, or designating the study of things, actions, and signs as "the three great Provinces of the intellectual World" (721; 4.21.45). 4. Burke illustrates this relationship by describing "an aerial photograph of two launches, proceeding side by side on a tranquil sea. Their wakes crossed and recrossed each other in almost an infinity of lines. Yet despite the intricateness of this tracery, the picture gave an impression of great simplicity, because one could quickly perceive the generating principle of its design" (Grammar xvi). 5. As the term "profitably" suggests, this argument asks the reader not to accept, a priori, that its generating principles are true but rather to judge, as it evolves, just what its generating principles are true toi.e., to determine and judge its consequences for historical and theoretical inquiry. 6. This argument assumes an important continuity between rhetorical theory and practice, i.e., that rhetorical practice consists of a subset of language use defined by principled or reflective symbolic action. The study of pragmatics reveals to us linguistic practices from which we may derive rhetorical principles, but one practices rhetoric only when reflecting on communicative practice, whether in general or in a specific situation. To argue otherwise is to lose a useful distinction between rhetoric and pragmatics.

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7. The grounds arising from these generating principles are fundamental not in some absolute sense but in relation to this argument. 8. My use of "reference" and "objects" does not entail naive realism. Rather, I use the terms to evoke our experience of that which we objectify by naming or predicating a statement about it. 9. Foucault argues that this fracturingwhich he calls the "will to truth"is not a necessary consequence of language but an accident of Western culture that arose in fifth-century Greece, between Hesiod and Plato: "The day dawned when truth moved over from the ritualised actpotent and justof enunciation to settle on what was enunciated itself: its meaning [thought], its form [word], its object [thing] and its relation to what it referred to [action]" (218). 10. Burke comments instructively on the term "case" as it applies to the present inquiry: "It is even likely that, whereas one philosophic idiom offers the best calculus for one case, another case answers best to a totally different calculus. However, we should not think of 'cases' in too restricted a sense. Although, from the standpoint of the grammatical principles inherent in the internal relationships prevailing among our five terms, any given philosophy is to be considered as a casuistry, even a cultural situation extending over centuries is a 'case,' and would probably require a much different philosophic idiom as its temporizing calculus of motives than would be required in the case of other cultural situations" (Grammar xvii). In these terms, I have taken on the risk of assuming that my generating principlesthings, thoughts, actions, and wordsconstitute a ''philosophic idiom" revealing continuities of thought that justify construing Western philosophy and rhetoric as a "case," however marked by conflicts among competing movements. 2. On "The Nature, Use, And Signification of Language" 1. For more extensive treatment of linguistic theory during this period, see Hans Aarsleff, The Study of Language in England, 1780-1860; Murray Cohen, Sensible Words: Linguistic Practice in England, 1640-1785; Stephen Land, From Signs to Propositions: The Concept of Form in Eighteenth-Century Semantic Theory and The Philosophy of Language in Britain: Major Theories from Hobbes to Thomas Reid; and Sterling Leonard, The Doctrine of Correctness in English Usage, 1700-1800. For broader scope, see R. H. Robins, A Short History of Linguistics, and Albert Baugh, A History of the English Language.

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2. Leith notes that there was a Gaelic-speaking working class in some towns "well into the nineteenth century" and that the use of English did not necessarily mark "allegiance to the English crown" (173). 3. My account of standardization and its accompanying analysis of social and linguistic difference is based primarily on R. D. Grillo, Dominant Languages: Language and Hierarchy in Britain and France; Dick Leith, A Social History of English; and Olivia Smith, The Politics of Language, 1791-1819. To keep interruptions for citation to a minimum, I will, wherever clarity permits, provide references to these sources only at the ends of paragraphs. 4. Quantifiable measures, such as the ability to sign one's name, support the broad generalization that the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries constitute a transitional period between restricted and mass literacy in Britain; Scotland, for instance, attained "nearly universal literacy" in the 1850s (Houston 56). More specifically, such research provides the following picture of literacy rates during the period: 25%-30% of males could sign their names in 1600, twice that in 1750; social status and literacy were directly proportionate; men were more literate than women; urbanites were more literate than their country cousins in the middle of the eighteenth century, but by 1800 the gap closed because of the "deteriorating situation in new, especially industrial areas"; and by 1840, literacy was highest in London, the northern counties, and in Scotland (Laqueur 46). However, as Roger Schofield admits, "In the context of some historical questions, especially those of a general social or cultural nature, difficulties of interpretation may well outweigh the value of a standard measure of literacy" ("Measurement" 325). The availability of formal schooling also tells us little that is specifically related to the formation of an audience for theories of language. However, it is useful to remember that there was considerable debate in the eighteenth century over the consequences of widespread literacy. Many on both sides of the issue agreed "that the general function of education was to preserve and reproduce existing social arrangements and distinctions. The recurrent theme amongst the opponents [of popular education], even prior to the French Revolution, was the danger of an overeducated working class becoming disaffected" (Levine 82). Others worried that the working class would be distracted from their work by the enticements of fiction (Altick 64). The other side, however, saw education as a powerful means of social control, as Kenneth Levine explains: "advocates of popular education were motivated primarily by two allied convictions. The first was that individual Bible study could inculcate a desirable and necessary sense of morality and piety amongst those most susceptible to vice. The second was that the experience of basic schooling itself helped to instill self-control and prepared the way for the 'habit of industry"' (83). Accordingly, literacy educa-

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tion reflected this underlying social analysis, and, as Olivia Smith relates, "In schools as well as grammars, a distinction was made between those who learned to write 'for Trade' and those who learned to participate in public life" (12). As we shall see, such debates are also played out in discussions of the nature and use of language. Also, the gradually declining influence of Latin and Greekand associated rise of Englishin formal education certainly provides a backdrop for debates comparing ancient and modern languages. 5. See Richard Altick, The English Common Reader: A Social History of the Mass Reading Public, 1800-1900 (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1957) 47-48; and Robert Hay Carnie, "Scottish Printers and Booksellers, 1668-1775: A Second Supplement (1)," Studies in Bibliography 14 (1961): 82. 6. See Lewis M. Knapp, "Griffith's Monthly Review as Printed by Strahan," Notes & Queries 203 (1958): 216-17; and Morris Golden, Introduction, British Literary Magazines: The Augustan Age and the Age of Johnson, 1698-1788, ed. Alvin Sullivan, vol. 1 of 4 (London: Greenwood, 1983) xvii. 7. Altick notes that "in 1776-77 the three editions of Gibbon's Decline and Fall (Volume I) that were required in fourteen months totaled 3,500 copies" (50). 8. The following sketch of the audience for the review journals draws on Roper (24-26). 9. Golden xvii. See also Spector 72. The cost of new nonfiction would also have limited the audience. The prices of treatises on criticism, grammar, and rhetoric might range from 15s. for Kames's three-volume Elements of Criticism to 2s. 6d. for Priestley's Rudiments of English Grammar (1761). Campbell's two-volume Philosophy of Rhetoric cost 12s. 10. This material is drawn from my previously published study "Discerning Readers: British Reviewers' Responses to Campbell's Rhetoric and Related Works," Rhetorica 8.1 (1990): 65-90. 11. Though he corroborates Rose's characterization of lay readers, John Gregory, an Edinburgh physician, gives us cause to doubt Rose's judgment of Reid's appeal. In a letter to James Beattie concerning Beattie's Essay on Truth (1770), Gregory writes, "If it is abstract, tho' it be never so wise and never so deep, people will not read it. There is a levity and dissipation that prevail here as well as at London, which makes people dislike every work that does not amuse, in the most trifling sense of the word amusement, and that cannot be perfectly comprehended at first reading. There is not a single person here of my acquaintance who has read Dr. Reid's book half through, but this is betwixt ourselves." (qtd. in Forbes 29). 12. See Cohen for a full, chronological analysis of the evolution of English grammars during the period 1640-1785.

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13. This is not to say that grammar was universally divorced from broader concerns of education. Teachers of writing will be interested in Priestley's objection to the isolated study of grammar: We must introduce into our schools English grammar, English compositions, and frequent English translations from authors in other languages. The common objection to English compositions, that it is like requiring brick to be made without straw; (boys not being supposed to be capable of so much reflection as is necessary to treat any subject with propriety) is a very frivolous one: since it is very easy to contrive a variety of exercises introductory to Themes upon moral and scientifical subjects; in many of which the whole attention may be employed upon language only; and from thence youth may be led on in a regular series of compositions, in which the transition from language to sentiment may be as gradual and easy as possible. (Rudiments ix-x) 14. For a detailed survey of theories of metaphor that countered Locke's semantics by examining the role of affect in language use, see Land's From Signs to Propositions (50-74). 3. Words as Thoughts: The "Radical Principles" Of Eloquence in Campbell's Rhetoric 1. "The solid and real arts of invention grow up and increase along with inventions themselves" (Francis Bacon 149). 2. Campbell's earliest work related to The Philosophy of Rhetoric probably dates back to his participation in the Theological Club, founded in January 1742 by Campbell and two other divinity students in Aberdeen. The Theological Club discussed pulpit eloquence at length, providing a foundation for Campbell's later lectures to his divinity students and for the more philosophical work on rhetorical theory that he presented to the Philosophical Society (George Skene Keith ix, lxviii-lxix). For more on how the Theological Club influenced Campbell's rhetorical doctrine, see Bormann 44-45 and Holcomb, "Wit, Humour, and Ridicule" 282-83. For details of Campbell's participation in the Aberdeen Philosophical Society, see Ulman, Minutes of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society, 1758-1773. 3. The following account of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society draws upon the introduction to my edition of The Minutes of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society, 1758-1773 (1990). 4. Thomas Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind, On the Principles of Common Sense (1764) established the Scottish Common Sense philosophy, influenced the shapers of the American republic, and made a lasting

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contribution to philosophical inquiry. James Beattie's Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth (1770) also championed the virtues of "common sense" and earned a wide following in its day, but its reputation has since suffered because it is more polemical and far less rigorous than Reid's work. Alexander Gerard's Essay on Genius (1774) is one of the most significant contributions to the "science of human nature" written during the period, and George Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric (1776) ranks among the most important rhetorical treatises in the Western tradition. Two volumes of somewhat lesser note, John Gregory's Comparative View of the State and Faculties of Man with Those of the Animal World (1765) and James Dunbar's Essays on the History of Mankind in Rude and Cultivated Ages (1780), complete the catalog of books drafted as discourses to be presented before the Philosophical Society. 5. For instance, two members of the Philosophical Society, Thomas Gordon and John Gregory, also belonged to the Gordon's Mill Farming Club, founded in December 1758 by several members of King's College, Aberdeen, and the proprietors of various farms and estates in the northeast of Scotland. Another member of the Philosophical Society, Thomas Reid, attended the first meeting of the club and was consulted on several matters, but he attended infrequently. The participation of men like Gordon, Gregory, and Reid reveals the strong link between the practical concerns of improvement and the philosophical concerns of enlightenment, a link Campbell forges, as we have seen, in his introduction to The Philosophy of Rhetoric. 6. For a broader account of this double focus in Scottish Common Sense philosophy, see Olson 26-54. 7. The passages mentioned by Farquhar appear in A Treatise of Human Nature (1.1.3 and 1.3.5, respectively). In their philosophical disputes with Hume, the members of the Philosophical Society focused primarily on the Treatise, no doubt to Hume's dismay (see Flew 254). 8. In a note, Norton sharpens his claim: "More precisely, the commonsense philosophers conflate psychological certainty and certain knowledge insofar as they suppose that the terms unavoidable beliefs and known to be true have the same extension" (201n18). Richard Popkin appears to agree with Norton when he writes, "Reid offered his common-sense realism as a way of avoiding Hume's skepticism by employing as basic principles the beliefs we are psychologically unable to doubt." However, Popkin notes that "Hume was unimpressed by Reid's argument. Reid, he believed, had seen the problem but actually had only offered Hume's own solution, that nature does not allow us to live as if all were in doubt, even though we are unable to resolve all doubts theoretically" (456). See Norton 192-208 for a detailed treatment of the debate between Hume and the Scottish Common Sense realists.

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9. Similarly, Gerard writes, "It is impossible to make experiments so purposely on the understanding or the passions, to pursue them so deliberately, or to repeat them so easily, as on material things" (Genius 2). 10. Reid recognized, of course, that this limitation posed a severe limit on induction. In his Inquiry he observes, "if a philosopher could delineate to us, distinctly and methodically, all the operations of the thinking principle within him, which no man was ever able to do, this would be only the anatomy of one particular subject; which would be both deficient and erroneous, if applied to human nature in general" (Works 1: 98). 11. I do not mean to suggest that Gerard's and Reid's philosophies of mind were indistinguishable. A hint of their differences appears early in Reid's Inquiry: "It is genius, and not the want of it, that adulterates philosophy, and fills it with error and false theory. A creative imagination disdains the mean offices of digging for a foundation, of removing rubbish, and carrying materials" (Works 1: 99). For more discussion of their differences, see Holcomb, "Reid" 418-19. 12. Lloyd Bitzer argues that we can better understand how Campbell's essentially secular or natural philosophy of mind in the Rhetoric breaks down by reviewing the religious or "supernatural" ground of Campbell's thought as presented in his other works (Editor's Introduction xlvii-li). 13. Campbell is quoting from Buffier's Traité des Premières Vérités (1714) 1.11. His reference to Buffier does not appear in his 1758 discourse concerning "The Relation that Eloquence bears to Logic," nor is there any evidence that Campbell had read Buffier at that time. 14. Campbell's aphorism restates classical views of the practical interdependence of thought and expression in rhetoric (see Plato, Phaedrus 260; and Aristotle, Rhetoric 1355a, 1403b). 15. Music and the ear are interlopers here. The fourth end of rhetoric in Campbell's original definition of eloquence, "to influence the will," depends on "an artful mixture" of appeals to the understanding and the passions (4). 16. In The Politics of Language, 1791-1819, Olivia Smith argues that Paine and others consciously endeavored to challenge the dominance of linguistic forms that had become associated with dominant classes and oppressive political power. 17. Campbell's position runs counter to that of the eighteenth-century purists who felt that language had degenerated from an earlier, pristine state. 18. Campbell's views on Art and Nature echo Pope's "Essay on Criticism" (171 1), which he cites: Those Rules of old discover'd, not devis'd, Are Nature still, but Nature Methodiz'd; Nature, like Liberty, is but restrain'd By the same Laws which first herself ordain'd.

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True Ease in writing comes from Art, not Chance, As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance. (Lines 88-91, 362-63) 19. For fuller discussions of "wit" in the Essay on Criticism, see Edward Niles Hooker's "Pope on Wit: the Essay on Criticism" and William Empson's "Wit in the Essay on Criticism." 20. Campbell does not question here the possibility of a transparent verbal medium, a notion that much recent linguistic and rhetorical theory would reject out of hand. In this he seems to follow Locke, whose "philosophical use" would supposedly be transparent, allowing an undistorted view of ideas. By contrast, Berkeley's radical suggestion that we dispense with words altogether holds out little hope of a transparent style. 21. In context, the reference reads, "Nor is it possible without letters for any man to become either excellently wise, or, unless his memory be hurt by disease or ill constitution of organs, excellently foolish. For words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them, but they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever, if but a man" (Leviathan 37; pt. 1, chap. 4). Campbell uses the metaphor in a slightly different context, but he makes a similar point about language: words are but the hosts of meaning (as the body hosts the soul in Campbell's chief metaphor for expression and thought). Hobbes and Campbell warn against assuming the value of words on the basis of authority or a rigid theory of signification, respectively. 22. As an example of this doctrine, Campbell cites the following passage from David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature: "I believe every one, who examines the situation of his mind in reasoning, will agree with me, that we do not annex distinct and compleat ideas to every term we make use of, and that in talking of government, church, negotiation, conquest, we seldom spread out in our minds all the simple ideas, of which these complex ones are compos'd. 'Tis however observable, that notwithstanding this imperfection we may avoid talking nonsense on these subjects, and may perceive any repugnance among the ideas, as well as if we had a full comprehension of them. Thus if instead of saying, that in war the weaker have always recourse to negotiation, we shou'd say, that they have always recourse to conquest, the custom, which we have acquir'd of attributing certain relations to ideas, still follows the words, and makes us immediately perceive the absurdity of that proposition" (23). "Immediately, that is," Campbell comments, "even before we have leisure to give that attention to the signs which is necessary in order to form a just conception of the things signified" (260). According to this view, then, much of the time we think and speak with reference only to the analogous world of words. Campbell's

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matter-of-fact acceptance of this doctrine distinguishes him from Locke, who saw thinking by words alone as a threat to philosophy. 23. In The Principles of Psychology (1890), William James reprints Campbell's entire discussion of these "three connexions," claiming that no one had explained the matter more accurately or concisely in the intervening century. 24. Campbell continues to use the term "signification" even after arguing for a representational theory of signs. 25. Campbell sometimes appears inconsistent in his reference to words as signs of ideas or things, but his discussion of the "three connections" that link the relations among things to the relations among words suggests the source of this confusion. 26. Campbell notes exactly that aspect of language that an early twentieth-century critic, W. F. Bryan, accuses him of ignoring: "If language were purely a creation of the reason, if all its processes could be regulated by a consistent and carefully thought out body of principles, Campbell's canons might serve for all time without essential modification. . . . But the great fact that Campbell and most of his contemporaries failed to realize and apply practically in their works is that language is not conditioned solely by rational principles, and especially that usage in words, like other questions of taste, is after all a matter of fashionlargely capricious and little amenable to any rule of reason" (358-59). 27. In The Methodical Memory: Invention in Current-Traditional Rhetoric (1990), Sharon Crowley argues that Campbell presents an "introspective theory of invention" in which "the evidence given to minds by nature could assume a respectable place in rhetorical invention" (16). Her argument, however, refers primarily to those sections of Campbell's treatise that I discuss in terms of his philosophy of mind and doctrine of evidence. She ignores the distinctions Campbell draws between the sciences and arts and between rhetoric and its "parent arts," grammar and logic. She appears, in short, to conflate epistemology and invention, to mistake a theory of mind and knowledge for an art of discovering among available arguments those most appropriate to a given aim, occasion, and audience. Campbell, after all, contrasts his account of "logical truth" to the ''syllogizing" of scholastic logic, not to the rhetorical tradition of invention. Crowley might counter that therein lies one of Campbell's big mistakes: to suppose that an introspective process of knowing could proceed independently of the intersubjective realm of rhetorical discourse. But it is one thing to disagree with Campbell, another to transform him. 28. Not to mention preserving the superiority of English over French: "No man is more sensible of the excellence of purity and perspicuity, properly so called; but I would not hastily give up some not inconsiderable

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advantages of the English tongue, in respect both of eloquence and of poetry, merely in exchange for the French netteté" (365). 29. Still, it is fair of Leonard to say that Campbell was not among the few most liberal commentators of his day: "none of them except possibly [Joseph] Priestley and [Charles] Fox actually saw that an opinion on the 'correctness' of an expression means neither more nor less than an estimate of its probable social effect: that is, its impression of formality, ease, rusticity, illiteracy, vulgarity, or the like" (180). 30. Ironically, Leonard may have Campbell to thank for this catalog, though he does not acknowledge the debt. Bitzer argues that Campbell originated these "factors for the analysis of discourse (in terms of the communicator, audience, subject, occasion, and end)" (Editor's Introduction xxvii-xxviii). See also The Philosophy of Rhetoric, 98-112. 4. Words as Things: Icons of Progress in Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres 1. Blair retired from lecturing in 1783. However, Paul Bator notes that from 1784 until 1799 Blair shared the appointment with William Greenfield, who delivered his own lectures. After Greenfield's dismissal in 1799, Blair was again designated the sole professor in the Chair until his death the following year (58). 2. Smith's course of lectures was not offered under the auspices of the university, and records of the circumstances surrounding the lectures are sketchy. For a review of the evidence, see Bator (54-55). Also, for overviews of the controversy concerning the degree to which Blair's lectures borrow from Smith's, see Harding (xxii-xxv) and Lothian (xxi). Blair acknowledges his debt to Smith for his discussion of the general characters of style (1: 381n). 3. Other figures, most notably Adam Smith and James Beattie, also delivered very influential courses of lectures in rhetoric. 4. Except where noted, my account of Blair's public lectures and subsequent appointment as Regius Professor follows Bator (5658). 5. On this point, in the first of several bibliographic footnotes, Blair fulfills the promise he made in his preface to cite his sources. He refers the reader to Alexander Gerard's Essay on Taste (1759), Jean d'Alembert's "Reflections on the Use and Abuse of Philosophy In Matters that are Properly Relative to Taste" (originally delivered to the French Academy 14 March 1757; Blair cites the translation appended to Gerard's Essay), Alembert's Réflexions sur la poésie (1760), Lord Kames's Elements of Criticism (1762), David Hume's essay "On the Standard of Taste" (1757), and Edmund Burke's Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime

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and Beautiful (1756). Obviously, taste was a hot topic in the 1750s and 1760s. Blair might also have mentioned William Hogarth's Analysis of Beauty (1753). 6. After reviewing various definitions of the sublime, Blair determines that the "fundamental quality" of the sublime is "mighty force or power" (1: 56). 7. In a bibliographic note to the opening paragraph of lecture 6, Blair cites Adam Smith's Treatise of the Origin and Progress of Language; James Harris's Hermes; Condillac's Essai sur l'origine des connoissances humaines; Marsais's Principes de grammaire; President de Brosses's Grammaire generale & raisonnée and Traité de la formation mechanique des langues; Rousseau's Discours sur l'inegalité parmi les hommes; Beauzee's Grammaire generale; Batteaux's Principes de la traduction; Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses; and Abbé Girard's Sanctii Minerva, cum notis Perizonii and Les vrais principes de la langue Françoise. 8. Though the accuracy and derivation of Blair's ideas about language are not immediately germane to this study, I should note that his examples of writing are drawn from a wide range of Old World and New World writing systems, including Egyptian hieroglyphics, Chinese characters, Mexican "historical pictures" and "hieroglyphical characters," Peruvian knot-writing, and Arabian "cyphers.'' 9. Blair notes that Bishop Lowth makes this same argument in the preface to his Introduction to English Grammar. For readers who want more help avoiding error, Blair recommends Lowth, Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric, and Joseph Priestley's Rudiments of English Grammar. 10. In fact, Blair devotes more space in the lectures on language to speech than to writing. 11. Blair repeats this argument in lecture 12, on the structure of sentences: "Thought and Language act and re-act upon each other mutually. Logic and Rhetoric have here, as in many other cases, a strict connection; and he that is learning to arrange his sentences with accuracy and order, is learning, at the same time, to think with accuracy and order" (1: 245-46) 12. In a long footnote, Blair cites President de Brosses's work on naturally significant sounds: "Some of the radical letters or syllables which he supposes to carry this expressive power in most known Languages are, St, to signify stability or rest; Fl, to denote fluency; C1, a gentle descent; R, what relates to rapid motion; C, to cavity or hollowness, &c." Blair also discusses John Wallis's work on the sounds of English, which, according to Wallis, expresses "the nature of the objects which it names, by employing sounds sharper, softer, weaker, stronger, more obscure, or more stridulous, according as the idea which is to be suggested requires. . . . Thus; words formed upon St, always denote firmness and strength, analogous to the Latin sto; as, stand, stay, staff, stop, stout, steady, stake, stamp, stallion,

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stately, &c." Blair concludes that these arguments "leave no doubt, that the analogies of sound have had some influence on the formation of words. At the same time, in all speculations of this kind, there is so much room for fancy to operate, that they ought to be adopted with much caution in forming any general theory" (1: 104n). As he often does, Blair "skips a step" in the conventional Lockean analysis of language to which he at least in part subscribes. If words are signs of ideas, de Brosses's principle would require that our ideas also materially resemble the objects of which they are signs, farfetched as that seems. In context, however, it is clear that Blair is primarily interested in these theories as historical rather than epistemological principles. 13. Though "material," as used here, carries a double meaning"important" and "having to do with physical matter"the context emphasizes the latter sense of the word. 14. Blair championed the works of Ossian in his Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian (1763), and he edited an eightvolume edition of The Works of Shakespear (1753). In the Lectures, he offers Shakespeare along with Homer as proof of his assertion that "in the infancy of arts . . . Genius frequently exerts itself with great vigour, and executes with much warmth; while Taste, which requires experience, and improves by slower degrees, hath not yet attained its full growth" (1:42). 15. Though it would be anachronistic to argue that Blair figures language as an agent of thought, he appears in several places to flirt with the notion because he so often incorporates linguistic forms and mental faculties into metaphors open to such interpretation. Thus, when Blair claims that "it is to the intercourse and transmission of thought, by means of speech, that we are chiefly indebted for the improvement of thought itself," modern readers will askthough Blair does notwhether such transmission necessarily determines the nature of what gets transmitted (1: 1). Again, he argues that by speech and writing "men's thoughts are communicated, and the foundation laid for all knowledge and improvement," and modern readers will ask to what degree the foundation determines the superstructure built upon it (1: 135). 5. Words as Actions: The "Living Voice" In Sheridan's Lectures on Elocution 1. The following list draws on three overlapping accounts of the cultural contexts that fostered interest in delivery: Guthrie, "The Development of Rhetorical Theory in America 1635-1850V" (19); Howell, Eighteenth-Century British Logic and Rhetoric (15356); and Golden et al., The

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Rhetoric of Western Thought (174-76). In the list itself, I cite only direct quotations. 2. The standard biography of Sheridan is Benzie's Dublin Orator (1972). For a detailed survey of his life and careers as actor, stage manager, and educational reformer, see Bacon, "The Elocutionary Career of Thomas Sheridan" (1-53). For a critical account of his various works on education and elocution, see Howell (214-43). 3. See Sheridan, An Oration, Pronounced before a Numerous Body of the Nobility and Gentry, Assembled at the Musick-Hall in Fishamble-street (1757). Both Bacon and Howell note the importance of this orationand the passage I quoteto our understanding of the connection Sheridan saw between his two careers. 4. With regard to Sheridan's theoretical influence, I should note that in his discussion of delivery (lecture 33), Hugh Blair cites Sheridan's Lectures on Elocution and Lectures on the Art of Reading (1775). In a note, Blair reproduces a passage from the Art of Reading that explains Sheridan's notions of the language of ideas and the language of emotions. 5. The additional "tracts" include "Heads of a Plan for the Improvement of Elocution, and for Promoting the Study of the English Language, in Order to the Refining, Ascertaining, and Reducing it to a Standard, together with Some Arguments, to enforce the Necessity of carrying such a Plan into Execution" and "A Dissertation on the Causes of the Difficulties, Which Occur, in Learning the English Tongue. With a Scheme for publishing An English Grammar and Dictionary, Upon a Plan entirely New. The Object of which shall be, to facilitate the Attainment of the English Tongue, and establish a Perpetual Standard of Pronunciation." I do not discuss either of these texts in this study. 6. Sheridan's phrasing may remind readers of Plato's attack on writing in the Phaedrus. After characterizing writing as a "bastard" discourse incapable of philosophic inquiry, Socrates suggests that he and Phaedrus try to imagine "a discourse which is inscribed with genuine knowledge in the soul of the learner." Phaedrus responds, "Do you mean the living, animate discourse of a man who really knows? Would it be fair to call the written discourse only a kind of ghost of it?" (St. 276). However, Sheridan does not cite the Phaedrus, nor is his concern identical to Plato's. Socrates claims to value dialogue for the pursuit of truth and disparages the set speech (the oral counterpart of writing insofar as it cannot be questioned). By contrast, Sheridan believes that spoken language is simply a fuller means of communication than writing, one better suited to moving hearers to action as well as conviction; he never questions the value of set speechesindeed, one of his chief concerns is to improve the delivery of sermons. Sheridan's formulation of (spoken) words-as-action is also strikingly similar to Walter Ong's modern account of primary orality: "Malinowski

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. . . has made the point that among 'primitive' (oral) peoples generally language is a mode of action and not simply a countersign of thought. . . . The fact that oral peoples commonly and in all likelihood universally consider words to have magical potency is clearly tied in, at least unconsciously, with their sense of the word as necessarily spoken, sounded, and hence power-driven. Deeply typographic folk forget to think of words as primarily oral, as events, and hence as necessarily powered: for them, words tend rather to be assimilated to things, 'out there' on a flat surface. Such 'things' are not so readily associated with magic, for they are not actions, but are in a radical sense dead, though subject to dynamic resurrection" (3233). 7. Sheridan never specifies the art or arts to which he refers, but the context suggests that he means quite simply, rhetoric. 8. In spite of Sheridan's rather defensive tone, the list of subscribers contains the names of many accomplished persons, including Hugh Blair, James Boswell, David Garrick, and Lord Kames. Also, of the approximately 650 names on the list, 64, or nearly 10 percent, belong to women. In their original format, these lectures certainly had a more diverse audience than either Campbell's discourses to the Philosophical Society or Blair's university lectures. 9. Writing in July of 1762the year that Bute replaced William Pitt as prime ministerSheridan does not mention Bute by name. However, he refers earlier to "a late minister" (Pitt) and, in the passage under consideration here, writes that "we have at last got a Minister . . . who is not likely to neglect any of these points. . . . Of which he has already given proofs, during the short time he has been in power" (xvii). 10. Admittedly, Campbell's and Blair's disclaimers about the style of their books are largely formulaic and, in fact, tell us as little about the style of their respective treatises as the obligatory assumption in modern prefaces of responsibility for error tells us about contemporary scholarly research and writing. (After all, one's errors are probably no more or less one's own than one's brilliant insights.) However, such formulas are not meaningless. Rather, they mark texts as belonging to particular communities of discourse, and it seems significant that Sheridan does not identify his lectures solely with didactic or academic discourse. 11. It is worth noting that Sheridan traces problems with public speaking and reading not simply to literacy in general but more specifically to schooling. We should keep in mind that only a small proportion of the population had access to education that would prepare them to participate in the scenes of public speaking to which Sheridan most often refersthe senate, the bar, and the pulpit. Moreover, the women in his audience had no access to the professions associated with those forums.

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12. Sheridan uses "pronunciation" in the modern sense of the word: "This word which had such a comprehensive meaning amongst the ancients, as to take in the whole compass of delivery, with its concomitants of look and gesture; is confined with us to very narrow bounds, and refers only to the manner of sounding our words" (29). 13. In spite of his concern over the blending of written and spoken language, Sheridan employs an alphabetic term"letter"for what modern linguists would call a phoneme. 14. At the end of lecture 5, which deals primarily with pauses or stops, Sheridan considers pitch and loudness of voice in some detail. Those sections are of little theoretical interest for this inquiry because Sheridan does not directly relate pitch and loudness to either the faculties of mind, the structure of language, or the relationship between speaking and writing. Accordingly, I omit discussion of them here. 15. In support of this claim, Sheridan notes that persons deaf from birth often learn to read and write. 16. Recent investigations into the neurological bases of language may corroborate Sheridan's thesis. Researchers have found that deaf infants of deaf parents babble in hand signs according to a developmental pattern similar to that of hearing children. Such research suggests that language is an innate capacity adaptable to any suitable semiotic system. 17. Sheridan notes that tones of voice can be used as signs of ideas, either as a determinative sign, as in Chinese, or as a supplementary sign in combination with articulation, as he believes is the case with all languages (108-9). Further, Sheridan also relates tones to the fancy, noting the various tones of laughter (109). 18. Unfortunately for twentieth-century readers, Sheridan does not provide any examples of such instituted tones and gestures, assuming that they are "sufficiently known by all, who are conversant with the natives of France, Spain, and Italy" (118). 19. That is, Campbell argues that grammar must reflect use; consequently, since there is no universal language, there can be no universal grammar, in his sense of the term. This comparison between Campbell and Sheridan only goes so far, however. Campbell restricts his discussion to what Sheridan would call the "language of ideas," and he believes that language is wholly a matter of use. 20. Campbell argues in almost exactly these terms in The Philosophy of Rhetoric (71-72). However, he believes that the language of words and sentences can accomplish all these ends. 21. This argument proved too much for William Rose, who reviewed Sheridan's Lectures for the Monthly Review: "To suppose, that the passions hurtful or dangerous to society may be suppressed, and that those of the nobler and social kind may be brought forward, invigorated, and carried

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into due exertion, by any thing that language or Oratory can perform, while human nature continues in its present circumstances, is, certainly, one of the wildest notions that can possibly enter into the thoughts of the wildest enthusiast" (203). 22. The contemporary literature along these lines of inquiry is too voluminous to sketch here, but readers may find it useful to consult a few seminaland controversialworks. On the relationship between speaking and writing and the cultural and intellectual entailments of literacy, see Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (1982); Eric Havelock, The Muse Learns to Write: Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to the Present (1986); Beth Daniell, "Against the Great Leap Theory of Literacy," and Deborah Tannen, "The Myth of Orality and Literacy." 6. A Creative Interplay of Philosophies 1. Simons allies rhetoric of inquiry with a dizzying array of contemporary critical movements: "the movement to reconstitute the human sciences in rhetorical terms is not an isolated phenomenon. It has been taking place in tandem with structuralism and poststructuralism, postpositivism and critical pluralism, hermeneutics and Habermasian critical theory, each of which might be said to display its own distinctive rhetorics. . . . Other important currents of thought include radical feminism, the science-asliterature project in literary criticism, the reflexivity project in the sociology of science, and the generative paradigm with which Gergen and Shotter have been identified" (2). The glue that holds all these critiques together, he suggests, is a "rising dissatisfaction with objectivist credos" (1). 2. In his introduction to Rhetoric in the Human Sciences, a collection of essays examining rhetoric of inquiry, Herbert Simons notes that William Keith and Richard Cherwitz, in "Objectivity, Disagreement, and the Rhetoric of Inquiry," stand "[a]lone among the contributors" in offering "a view of rhetoric that is largely compatible with the tenets of objectivism" (8). He credits their essay with sharpening the argumentative edge of the collection at the same time that he appropriates it by claiming that Keith and Cherwitz's disagreement with the other contributors reminds us that rhetoric is best considered as "a site of struggle, an arena of controversy" (9). 3. Hacking's treatment of "seventeenth-century philosophy," which he refers to as "the heyday of ideas," ranges from Hobbes to Locke and Berkeley. However, he notes that "Ideas persisted long after Berkeley. I have regularly spoken of them as peculiar to the seventeenth century, but this mode of reference is an artifact of our decimal dating system" (163). As we

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have seen, eighteenth-century rhetoricians such as Campbell and Sheridan were still responding to Locke's treatment of thought and language. 4. Because the notion of language as knowledge is still in flux, Hacking does not insist on the term "sentences," nor does he express much confidence in the other "tags"particularly "the knowing subject." 5. Hikins and Zagacki explain that the concept of "embodiment" maintains the independence of language and reality without assuming that language must be a "distorting medium": "Embodiment asserts that language does not stand as a distorting intermediary between the rhetor/knower and the object of discourse/knowledge. Instead, language serves as an interface, making possible a linkage between consciousness and the furnishings of the external world" ("Rhetoric, Philosophy, and Objectivism" 222). 6. My characterization of probable knowledge is based on, but diverges from, Hikins's discussion of facts and probability in Aristotle ("Realism and Its Implications" 45-49). 7. Again, Campbell is the eighteenth-century rhetorician who dealt most thoroughly with this issue, arguing that the most important aspect of experience as rhetorical evidence is the degree to which it is uniform or various. 8. References to physical models seem endemic to arguments about language, from Campbell's triangles on a chalkboard to Johnson's rock. As with other models, they capture only very selected aspects of whatever they are meant to represent. Thus, they are useful for analysis and emphasis but misleading or reductive if they model inappropriate aspects of the system under study. For instance, Johnson might less painfully have suggested the physical reality of objects by kicking a ball rather than a rock, but such a demonstration would not as convincingly have emphasized the intransigence of physical reality in response to attempts to think or speak it out of existence. Had he kicked a ball, however, he might have illustrated the capacity of thought to alter the state of his foot and, thereby, of the ball. I present the physical models in this section in order to highlight the capacity of language to enter into dynamic relationships with things, thoughts, and actions without mapping those other systems according to a strict correspondence theory.

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Works Cited Aarsleff, Hans. From Locke to Saussure: Essays on the Study of Language and Intellectual History. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1982. . The Study of Language in England, 1780-1860. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1967. Addison, Joseph. The Spectator. Ed. Donald F. Bond. 5 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1965. Altick, Richard D. The English Common Reader: A Social History of the Mass Reading Public 1800-1900. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1957. Aristotle. The "Art" of Rhetoric. Trans. J. H. Freese. Vol. 22 of Aristotle. 23 vols. Loeb Classical Library 193. 1926. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1975. Bacon, Francis. Of the Dignity and Advancement of Learning. Advancement of Learning and Novum Organum. Introd. James Edward Creighton. New York: Colonial Press, 1900. 1-307. Bacon, Wallace A. "The Elocutionary Career of Thomas Sheridan (1719-1788)." Speech Monographs 31 (1964): 1-53. Bator, Paul G. "The Formation of the Regius Chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at the University of Edinburgh." Quarterly Journal of Speech 75 (1989): 40-64. . "The 'Principle of Sympathy' in Campbell's The Philosophy of Rhetoric." Quarterly Journal of Speech 68 (1982): 418-24. Baugh, Albert C., and Thomas Cable. A History of the English Language. 3d ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1978. Beattie, James. An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth. London, 1770. . Essays. On the Nature and Immutability of Truth, in Opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism. On Poetry and Music, as They Affect the Mind. On Laughter, and Ludicrous Composition. On the Utility of Classical Learning. Edinburgh, 1776. . The Theory of Language. 1788. English Linguistics, 1500-1800 (A Collection of Facsimile Reprints) 88. Menston, Eng.: Scolar, 1968. Originally included in Dissertations Moral and Critical, 1783.

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Benzie, William. The Dublin Orator: Thomas Sheridan's Influence on Eighteenth-Century Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. Leeds, Eng.: University of Leeds, 1972. Berkeley, George. A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne. Ed. A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop. 9 vols. London: Nelson, 1948-57. 2: 19-113. Berlin, James A., and Robert P. Inkster. "Current-Traditional Rhetoric: Paradigm and Practice." Freshman English News 8 (1980): 1-5, 14. Bevilacqua, Vincent M. "Campbell, Priestley, and the Controversy Concerning Common Sense." Southern Speech Journal 30 (1964): 79-98. . "Campbell, Vico, and the Rhetorical Science of Human Nature." Philosophy and Rhetoric 18 (1985): 23-30. . "Philosophical Assumptions Underlying Hugh Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres." Western Speech 31 (1967): 150-64. . "Philosophical Origins of George Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric." Speech Monographs 32 (1965): 1-12. Bitzer, Lloyd. "All Art Is Founded in Science." Rhetoric Society Quarterly 13 (1983): 13-14. . Editor's Introduction. The Philosophy of Rhetoric. 1776. By George Campbell. Ed. with a new introduction by Lloyd Bitzer. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1988. vii-li. . "Hume's Philosophy in George Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric." Philosophy and Rhetoric 2 (1969): 139-66. . "The Lively Idea: A Study of Hume's Influence on George Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric." Diss. State U of Iowa, 1962. . "Notes to the Present Edition: Corrections and Additions." The Philosophy of Rhetoric. 1776. By George Campbell. Ed. with a new introduction by Lloyd Bitzer. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1988. Ivii-lxi. . "A Re-evaluation of Campbell's Doctrine of Evidence." Quarterly Journal of Speech 46 (1960): 135-40. Bizzell, Patricia, and Bruce Herzberg. The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present. Boston: Bedford-St. Martin's, 1990. Blair, Hugh. Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. 1783. 2 vols. Ed. Harold F. Harding. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1965. Bormann, Dennis R. "George Campbell's Cura Prima on Eloquence1758." Quarterly Journal of Speech 74 (1988): 35-51. Bryan, W. F. "A Late Eighteenth-Century Purist." Studies in Philology 23 (1926): 358-70. Bryant, Donald C. "Rhetoric: Its Functions and Its Scope." Quarterly Journal of Speech 39 (1953): 401-24.

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Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Ed. J. T. Boulton. New York: Columbia UP, 1958. Burke, Kenneth. A Grammar of Motives. 1945. Berkeley: U of California P, 1969. . Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method. Berkeley: U of California P, 1966. . A Rhetoric of Motives. 1950. Berkeley: U of California P, 1962. Campbell, George. The Philosophy of Rhetoric. 1776. Ed. with a new introduction by Lloyd Bitzer. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1988. Carnie, Robert Hay. "Scottish Printers and Booksellers, 1668-1775: A Second Supplement (1)," Studies in Bibliography 14 (1961): 82. Carter, Jennifer J., and Joan H. Pittock. Aberdeen and the Enlightenment: Proceedings of a Conference Held at the University of Aberdeen. Aberdeen, Scot.: U of Aberdeen P, 1987. Cherwitz, Richard A. "Rhetoric as 'A Way of Knowing': An Attenuation of the Epistemological Claims of the 'New Rhetoric."' Southern States Speech Journal 42 (1977): 207-19. . "Rhetoric as Epistemic: A Conversation with Richard A. Cherwitz." PRE/TEXT 5 (1984): 197-235. Cherwitz, Richard A., and James W. Hikins. "Rhetoric and Post-Deconstructionism: A Relationalist Theory of Meaning." Typescript. Forthcoming in Discourse Studies in Honor of James L. Kinneavy. Potomac, MD: Scripta Humanistica. Cherwitz, Richard A., ed. Rhetoric and Philosophy. Foreword Henry W. Johnstone, Jr. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1990. Cohen, Murray. Sensible Words: Linguistic Practice in England, 1640-1785. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 1977. Collins, Arthur Simons. Authorship in the Days of Johnson: Being a Study of the Relation between Author, Patron, Publisher, and Public, 1726-1780. London: Holden, 1927. Cooper, Christopher. The English Teacher. 1687. English Linguistics, 1500-1800 (A Collection of Facsimile Reprints) 175. Ed. R. C. Alston. Menston, Eng.: Scolar Press, 1969. Corbett, Edward P. J., James L. Golden, and Goodwin F. Berquist, eds. Essays on the Rhetoric of the Western World. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 1990. Covino, William A. The Art of Wondering: A Revisionist Return to the History of Rhetoric. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/CookHeinemann, 1988. Cressy, David. "Levels of Illiteracy in England, 1530-1730." Literacy and Social Development in the West: A Reader. Ed. Harvey J. Graff. New York: Cambridge UP, 1981. 105-24.

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Crowley, Sharon. The Methodical Memory: A Study of Invention in Current-Traditional Rhetoric. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1990. Daniell, Beth. ''Against the Great Leap Theory of Literacy." PRE/TEXT 7 (1986): 181-93. Dryden, John. "A Song for St. Cecilia's Day." Eighteenth-Century English Literature. Ed. Geoffrey Tillotson et al. New York: Harcourt, 1969. 167-68. Dunbar, James. Essays on the History of Mankind in Rude and Cultivated Ages. London, 1780. Edney, Clarence W. "George Campbell's Theory of Logical Truth." Speech Monographs 15 (1948): 19-32. Ehninger, Douglas. "On Systems of Rhetoric." Philosophy and Rhetoric 1 (1968): 131-44. Rev. of Elements of Criticism, by Henry Home, Lord Kames. The Critical Review; or, Annals of Literature 1st ser. Apr. 1762: 285-303. Emerson, Roger L. "Scottish Universities in the Eighteenth Century, 1690-1800." Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 167 (1977): 453-74. Empson, William. "Wit in the Essay on Criticism." Hudson Review 2 (1950): 559-77. Farquhar, John. "On the nature & operation of the imagination, in which Mr Humes theory of this faculty is particularly considered." MS 3107/1/3: pp. 35-37. U of Aberdeen Library. Aberdeen, Scot. Fisch, Max H. "Peirce's General Theory of Signs." Sight, Sound, and Sense. Ed. Thomas A. Sebeok. Advances in Semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1978. 31-70. Flew, A. G. N. "Hume." A Critical History of Western Philosophy. Ed. D. J. O'Connor. London: Free Press, 1964. 253-74. Forbes, Margaret. Beattie and His Friends. Westminster, Eng.: Archibald Constable, 1904. Foucault, Michel. "The Discourse on Language." The Archaeology of Knowledge & The Discourse on Language. Trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Pantheon, 1972. 215-37. Gerard, Alexander. "A Discourse on Genius. Part. I. Of the Nature of Genius Sect. 1. Of the Province & Criterion of Genius Sect. 2d To What Faculty of the Mind Genius Properly Belongs." MS 3107/1/3: pp. 1-11. U of Aberdeen Library, Aberdeen, Scot. . An Essay on Genius. 1774. Ed. and introd. Bernhard Fabian. Theorie und Geschichte der Literatur und der Schönen Künste 3. München: Wilhelm Fink, 1966. . An Essay on Taste. 1759. New York: Garland, 1970. . Plan of Education in the Marischal College and University of Aberdeen, with the Reasons of It. Aberdeen, Scot. 1755.

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Golden, James L., Goodwin F. Berquist, and William E. Coleman. The Rhetoric of Western Thought. 3d ed. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 1983. Golden, Morris. Introduction. British Literary Magazines: The Augustan Age and the Age of Johnson, 1698-1788. Ed. Alvin Sullivan. Vol. 1 of 4. London: Greenwood, 1983. xv-xxxi. Goldsmith, Oliver. Rev. of An Introduction to Languages, by Anselm Bayly. The Monthly Review; or Literary Journal 1st ser. Dec. 1758: 519-21. Goody, Jack, ed. Literacy in Traditional Societies. New York: Cambridge UP, 1968. Gordon, Thomas. "Of the Philosophy of Language & Grammar." MS 3107/3/4: pp. 399-411. U of Aberdeen Library, Aberdeen, Scot. . "Continuation of former discourses concerning Alphabetical writing." MS 3107/1/9: pp. 433-39. U of Aberdeen Library, Aberdeen, Scot. Gregory, John. A Comparative View of the State and Faculties of Man with Those of the Animal World. London, 1765. Grillo, R. D. Dominant Languages: Language and Hierarchy in Britain and France. New York: Cambridge UP, 1989. Hacking, Ian. Why Does Language Matter to Philosophy? New York: Cambridge UP, 1975. Harding, Harold F. Introduction. Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. 1783. By Hugh Blair. 2 vols. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1965. Harris, James. Hermes: or, A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Language and Universal Grammar. 1751. English Linguistics, 1500-1800 (A Collection of Facsimile Reprints) 55. Ed. R. C. Alston. Menston, Eng.: Scolar Press, 1968. Hauser, Gerard Alan. "Description in Eighteenth-Century British Rhetorical and Aesthetic Theory." Diss. U of Wisconsin, 1970. Havelock, Eric A. The Muse Learns to Write: Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to the Present. New Haven, Conn.: Yale UP, 1986. Hikins, James W. "Realism and Its Implications for Rhetorical Theory." Cherwitz, Rhetoric and Philosophy. 21-77. Hikins, James W., and Kenneth S. Zagacki. "Rhetoric, Objectivism, and the Doctrine of Tolerance." Typescript. [Forthcoming in The Critical Turn: Rhetoric and Philosophy in Contemporary Discourse. Ed. Ian Angus and Lenore Langsdorf. Albany: State U of New York P.] . "Rhetoric, Philosophy, and Objectivism: An Attenuation of the Claims of the Rhetoric of Inquiry." Quarterly Journal of Speech 74 (May 1988): 201-28.

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Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan; Or the Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civil. Ed. Michael Oakeshott. New York: Collier, 1962. Holcomb, Kathleen. "Reid in the Philosophical Society." The Philosophy of Thomas Reid. Ed. M. Dalgarno and E. Matthews. New York: Kluwer, 1989. 413-20. . "Wit, Humour and Ridicule: George Campbell's First Discourse for the Aberdeen Philosophical Society." Carter and Pittock 282-90. Hooker, Edward Niles. "Pope on Wit: The Essay on Criticism." The Seventeenth Century: Studies in the History of English Thought and Literature from Bacon to Pope, by Richard Foster Jones and others writing in his honor. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1951. Rpt. in Eighteenth-Century English Literature: Modern Essays in Criticism. Ed. James L. Clifford. New York: Oxford UP, 1959. 42-61. Horn, D. B. A Short History of the University of Edinburgh, 1556-1889. Edinburgh: U of Edinburgh P, 1967. Horner, Winifred Bryan, and Kerri Morris Barton. "The Eighteenth Century." The Present State of Scholarship in Historical and Contemporary Rhetoric. Rev. ed. Ed. Winifred Bryan Horner. Columbia: U of Missouri P, 1990. Houston, R. A. Scottish Literacy and the Scottish Identity: Illiteracy and Society in Scotland and Northern England, 1600-1800. Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time 4. New York: Cambridge UP, 1985. Hovdhaugen, Even. Foundations of Western Linguistics: From the Beginning to the End of the First Millennium A. D. Oslo, Norw.: Universites-forlaget, 1982. Howell, Wilbur Samuel. Eighteenth-Century British Logic and Rhetoric. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1971. Hume, David. The Letters of David Hume. Ed. J. Y. T. Greig. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1932. . A Treatise of Human Nature. Ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge. Oxford: Clarendon, 1888. Rev. of An Introduction to Languages, by Anselm Bayly, Critical Review; or, Annals of Literature 1st ser. Nov. 1758: 372-76. James, William. "Pragmatism" and Four Essays from "The Meaning of Truth." 1907, 1909. Ed. Ralph Barton Perry. New York: Meridian-New American Library, 1974. . The Principles of Psychology. 1890. Introd. George A. Miller. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1983. Johnson, Nan. Nineteenth-Century Rhetoric in North America. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1991.

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Roper, Derek. Reviewing before the Edinburgh, 1788-1802. Newark: U of Delaware P, 1978. Rose, William. Rev. of A Course of Lectures on Elocution, by Thomas Sheridan. The Monthly Review; or Literary Journal 1st ser. Sep. 1762: 201-8; Oct. 1762: 281-92. [Two successive leaves are numbered 207-8 (recto and verso) in the September issue, thus offsetting all following page numbers by two. Rose collaborated with William Kenrick on the part of the review published in October.] . Rev. of An Essay on Taste, by Alexander Gerard. Monthly Review; or Literary Journal 1st ser. Jun. 1759: 533-45. . Rev. of An Inquiry into the Human Mind, On the Principles of Common Sense, by Thomas Reid. Monthly Review; or Literary Journal 1st ser. 30 (May 1764): 358-78; 31 (July 1764): 1-21. Rev. of The Rudiments of English Grammar: Adapted to the Use of Schools, with Observations on Style, by Joseph Priestley. Critical Review: or, Annals of Literature 1st ser. Aug. 1768: 101-6. Schmitz, Robert Morell. Hugh Blair. Morningside Heights, NY: King's Crown Press, 1948. Schofield, Roger S. "Dimensions of Illiteracy in England, 1750-1850." Literacy and Social Development in the West: A Reader. Ed. Harvey J. Graff. New York: Cambridge UP, 1981. 201-13. . "The Measurement of Literacy in Pre-industrial England." Literacy in Traditional Societies. Ed. Jack Goody. New York: Cambridge UP, 1968. 311-25. Sheridan, Thomas. British Education: Or, The Source of the Disorders of Great Britain. London, 1756. .A Course of Lectures on Elocution. 1762. English Linguistics, 1500-1800 (A Collection of Facsimile Reprints) 129. Menston, Eng.: Scolar Press, 1968. . Lectures on the Art of Reading. London, 1775. . An Oration, Pronouced before a Numerous Body of the Nobility and Gentry, Assembled at the Musick-Hall in Fishamble-street. Dublin, 1757. Simons, Herbert W. Introduction. Rhetoric in the Human Sciences. Inquiries in Social Construction. London: Sage, 1989. Smith, Adam. Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. Ed. John M. Lothian. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1963. 2 vols. Smith, Olivia. The Politics of Language, 1791-1819. Oxford: Clarendon, 1984. Smout, T. C. A History of the Scottish People, 1560-1830. New York: Scribner's, 1969.

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Spector, Robert. "The Critical Review." British Literary Magazines: The Augustan Age and the Age of Johnson, 1698-1788. Ed. Alvin Sullivan. Vol. 1 of 4. London: Greenwood, 1983. Street, Brian V. Literacy in Theory and Practice. Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture 9. London: Cambridge UP, 1984. Tannen, Deborah. "The Myth of Orality and Literacy." Linguistics and Literacy. Ed. William Frawley. New York: Plenum, 1982. 37-50. Tillotson, Geoffrey, et al., eds. Eighteenth-Century English Literature. New York: Harcourt, 1969. Ulman, H. Lewis. "Discerning Readers: British Reviewers' Responses to Campbell's Rhetoric and Related Works." Rhetorica 8.1 (1990): 65-90. , ed. The Minutes of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society, 1758-1773. University of Aberdeen Studies Series. Aberdeen, Scot.: U of Aberdeen P, 1990. Vandraegen, Daniel E. "Thomas Sheridan and the Natural School." Speech Monographs 20 (1953): 58-64. Ward, A System of Oratory. 2 vols. London, 1959. Webb, R. K. The British Working Class Reader, 1790-1848: Literacy and Social Tension. London: Allen & Unwin, 1955. Wilkins, John. An Essay Towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language. London: Royal Society, 1668.

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Index A Aberdeen Philosophical Society, 63-70; members' works 208-9 n.4 Actions: as objects of understanding in Locke's Essay, 13; as philosophical commonplace, 18; words treated as, in Sheridan's Lectures, 154-75. See also Commonplaces, philosophical (things, thoughts, words, and actions) Addison, Joseph, 48, 30, 155 Altick, Richard, 207nn.5, 7 Aristotle, 198 Arts and sciences, 14-15, 38, 62-63 Autonomy, systematic, 191, 196-97, 199-200 B Bacon, Francis, 66, 186; as founder of the new science, 11; on grammar, 65; on invention of arts and sciences, 62-63; Of the Dignity and Advancement of Learning, 62 Bacon, Wallace, 152-53 Barton, Kerri, 1 Bator, Paul, 120, 121-22, 213nn.1, 2, 4 Bayly, Anselm: Introduction to Languages, 32-33, 36 Beattie, James, 64, 66, 207n.11; An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth, 209 n.4; The Theory of Language, 37 Beauzée, Nicolas, 55 Belles Lettres, treatises on, 121 Belletristic rhetoric, 5 Berkeley, George, Bishop of Cloyne, 42-44, 51, 58, 97-98, 152, 184, 186; on communication and knowledge, 54; on language and the passions, 52; A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, 42; on words and things, 211 n.20 Bernstein, Basil, 26-27 Berquist, Goodwin F., 203 n.2 Bevilacqua, Vincent, 1, 118-19 Bitzer, Lloyd, 1, 210n.12 Bizzell, Patricia, 203n.2 Blair, Hugh, 117-45, 193, 197, 198-99, 203n.2; and Adam Smith's lectures on rhetoric, 213n.2;

on ancient and modern oratory, 144; on the audience for his Lectures, 31; definition of language, 129-30, 139-41; on figurative language, 136; on genius, 215n.14; on grammar, 132-33, 214n.9; on language and progress, 118, 132, 141-44; Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, 5, 44, 117-45; on the origin and development of language, 130-32, 138, 142-44, 214nn.7, 8; public lectures on rhetoric, 1759-1760, 121; as Regius Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, 120, 121-22; relative emphasis on written language, 134, 137, 214n.10; on rhetoric and liberal education, 123-25;

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on Sheridan's Lectures, 216n.4; on the signification of words, 44; on the structure of English, 133-34, 214n.11; on style, 134-37; on the sublime, 128, 142, 214n.6; on taste, 124-29, 213n.5, 215n.14; on thought and language, 215 n.15; university lectures on rhetoric, 1760-1783, 121, 213 n.4; on words and actions, 140 British Education (Sheridan), 152 Bryan, W. F., 212 n.26 Buffier, Claude, 78; Traité des Premières Vérités, 210n.13 Burke, Edmund, 45, 155; on language and the passions, 53; on the power of linguistic signs, 53 Burke, Kenneth, 177, 193; A Grammar of Motives, 14-15; and historiography, 205n.10; on relativism, 203-4 n.2; on the role of symbols in human life, 19; on terministic screens, 17, 19, 21, 204n.4 C Campbell, George, 61-115, 118, 119, 189, 193, 197, 198; on arrangement, 110-11; on art and nature, 210-11 n.18; on the canons of verbal criticism, 91-94; definition of ideas, 97-98; on the development and improvement of language, 85-94, 210n.17; doctrine of evidence, 75-78; on the ethics of rhetoric, 198-99; on experience, 220 n.7; on general terms, 97-98; on grammar and verbal criticism, 80-82, 88-91; on linguistic signs, 94-101; on linguistic structure, 101-4; The Philosophy of Rhetoric, 31, 61-63, 71-115; pragmatic syntheses of linguistic principles, 110-14; on progress in rhetoric, 62-63, 106-7; on properties of style, 82-85; on the relationship of rhetoric to logic and grammar, 69, 71-72; and representation theories of semantics, 96-100, 192, 212 n.24; on thought and expression, 210n.14; on usage, 79-80, 86-87, 218n.19;

use of metaphors for language, 95-96, 104-6; on words and actions, 100-1; on words and things, 94-95, 99, 100, 101, 193, 211-12n.22, 212n.25; on words and thoughts, 95-100, 179 Cassirer, Ernst, 186 Cherwitz, Richard, 183, 187, 192 Cohen, Murray, 37, 38-39, 55 Coleman, William E., 203n.2 Commonplaces, philosophical (things, thoughts, words, and actions): ambiguity of, 19; as categories of phenomena, 18; as emphases in rhetorical treatises, 5, 10; as explanatory perspectives, 18; as grounds of understanding, 20; as objects of understanding, 20; as principles of innovation, 199; and the structure of philosophical problems, 184-85; as a "terministic screen," 6, 17; and theories of language, 3, 47-59 Common Sense realism. See under Realism: Scottish Common Sense school of Cooper, Christopher: The English Teacher, 39 Corbett, Edward P. J., 203 n.2 Course of Lectures on the Theory of Language, and Universal Grammar, A (Priestley), 37, 38, 40, 54-55 Covino, William A., 203n.1 Cressy, David, 29

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Critical Review, 31, 32-33 Criticism, verbal, 80-82, 111-15; canons of, 91-94; role of, 88-91 Crowley, Sharon, 212n.27 D de Brosses, President, 214n.7 Descartes, René, 185, 186 Displacement, systematic, 197-98, 200 Dryden, John: ''A Song for St. Cecilia's Day," 113-14 E Edinburg, University of, 117-18, 120, 122 Edney, Clarence, 1 Ehninger, Douglas, 1, 179-80 Eighteenth-Century British Logic and Rhetoric (Howell), 1 Eighteenth-century British rhetoric, 1750-1800: influence and significance of, 180-81; and Locke's view of language, 44-45; and philosophical commonplaces, 10; as reflected in works of Campbell, Blair, and Sheridan, 178-79; role of language in, 10; trends in, 5, 203n.2 Elements of Criticism (Kames), 33, 45 Elocution: and cultural contexts, 172; definition of, 162; schools of, 150, 151, 170; as trend in eighteenth-century British rhetoric, 4-5, 148-51 Eloquence. See Rhetoric, theories of Emerson, Roger, 121 Empiricism, 115, 182, 185, 186, 187, 188 English language: social history of, 25; structure of, 133-34; Epistemic rhetoric, 188 Epistemological rhetoric; as trend in eighteenth-century British rhetoric, 5, 203 n.2 Essay Concerning Human Understanding, An (Locke), 10-17, 37 "Essay on Criticism, An" (Pope), 91 Essay on Genius, An (Gerard), 209n.4 Essay on Taste, An (Gerard), 35-36 Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth, An (Beattie), 209n.4 Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (Reid), 43

Essay toward a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language, An (Wilkins), 56 F Faculty psychology, 48. See also under Language: and mental faculties Farquhar, John, 67 Figurative language, 42, 100, 136 Foucault, Michel, 182, 205n.9 G Gentleman's Magazine, 30 Gerard, Alexander, 64, 66; An Essay on Genius, 209n.4; An Essay on Taste, 35; on genius, 69; on the methods of moral and natural philosophy, 70; on the study of the mind, 210n.9 Golden, James L., 203 n.2 Golden, Morris, 32 Goldsmith, Oliver, 33, 36 Gordon, Thomas, 65, 66, 67, 209n.5 Grammar, 80-82, 85-86, 110-11, 132-33; history of, 55-56; as philosophical inquiry, 65; relative emphasis on pedagogy and theory in, 1640-1785, 38-40; universal and arbitrary principles of, 55-56 Grammar of Motives, A (Burke), 14-15

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Gregory, John, 207n.11, 209 n.5 Grillo, R. D., 26-27, 28 Guthrie, Warren, 153 H Hacking, Ian, 219n.3, 220n.4; Why Does Language Matter to Philosophy?, 183-85 Harris, James: Hermes, 37, 40 Hauser, Gerard, 45 Heidegger, Martin, 186 Hermes (Harris), 37, 40 Herzberg, Bruce, 203n.2 Hikins, James, 185-86, 187-88, 192-96 passim, 220nn.5, 6; on appearance realism and rhetoric, 189-90 Historiography: and the structure of philosophical problems, 184-85; and studies of eighteenth-century British rhetoric, 1950-90, 1, 4-5 Hobbes, Thomas, 186; 211 n.21 Holcomb, Kathleen, 69 Horner, Winifred, 1 Howell, Wilbur Samuel, 144, 152, 153-54; Eighteenth-Century British Logic and Rhetoric, 1; on elocution movement, 149, 150; on Locke's influence on rhetoric, 10; on relationship of the new rhetoric to the new science, 1, 11 Hume, David, 64, 66-67, 98, 155, 186, 187, 189; and the Aberdeen Philosophical Society, 66-69; on connections among words and things, 211 n.22; on general terms, 51-52; A Treatise of Human Nature, 209n.7 I Ideas: complex, 49, 51; defined by Campbell, 98; general, 50-51; and perception, 47-48; revealed by words and actions, 13; in seventeenth-century philosophy, 183; simple, 47. See also under Words: and thoughts; Words: as thoughts Inquiry into the Human Mind, On the Principles of Common Sense, An (Reid), 44, 66, 208 n.4; reviews of, 33-34, 35

Intersubjectivity, 21, 188 Introduction to Languages (Bayly), 32-33, 36 Invention.See Theory building in rhetoric J James, William, 187, 212n.23 Johnson, Nan, 7 Johnson, Samuel, 57, 85 Johnstone, Henry, Jr., 181-82, 185, 190 K Kames, Henry Home, Lord, 53, 55, 119, 155; Elements of Criticism, 33, 45 Kant, Immanuel, 186 Keith, William, 182 Kennedy, George, 203n.2 King's College, Aberdeen (Scot.), 64, 209n.5 Knowledge, probable, 193 L Land, Stephen, 37, 45, 48 Langer, Suzanne, 186 Language: and civilization, 173-74; and communication, 54-55; definitions of, 130, 139, 168; differences between speaking and writing, 137; general terms in, 50-52, 189-90, 193-94; history and development of, 52, 85-94, 130-32, 138, 142-44; and mental faculties, 41, 48-53, 72-73, 82-84, 139, 167, 169; and philosophy, 40-44; semantic theories of, 94-101; structure of, 55-58, 96-97, 101-4,

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193; universal, 56-57, 110. See also Figurative language Language, standardization of, 3, 26-29, 112-13; and literacy, 29-32; and printing, 26; social context of, 36; stages in the process of, 26 Language, theories of: as common ground for grammar, philosophy, and rhetoric, 23-24; in histories of eighteenth-century rhetoric, 1; links between linguistic forms and mental capacities in, 28-29; Locke's influence on, 47-49; 51-52; metaphors in, 95-96, 104-6, 139-40, 204n.3; as paradigm in rhetorical theory, 181-85; and philosophical commonplaces, 47-59; political and social implications of, 2-3, 27-28; as problem for rhetoric, 2, 190-91; reception of, 32-36; transition from atomism to formalism in, 57-58 Laqueur, Thomas, 29, 32 Lawson, John: Lectures Concerning Oratory, 121 Lectures on Elocution, A Course of (Sheridan), 4-5, 147-75 Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (Blair), 5, 44, 117-45 Lectures on the Theory of Language, and Universal Grammar, A Course of, 37, 38, 40, 54-55 Leith, Dick, 25, 26, 27, 28, 206n.2 Leonard, Sterling, 111, 112, 113, 213nn.29, 30 Levine, Kenneth, 206n.4 Linguistics, as distinct from eighteenth-century language theory, 38, 55, 59, 182 Literacy: autonomous theories of, 28; and the formation of literate culture, 32; history of, 29; ideological theories of, 28; levels of, 29; measures of, 206-7n.4; and orality, 175, 219n.22; spread of, 29-31; and standardization of language, 29-32 Locke, John, 43-44, 66, 154-55, 181, 184-89 passim, 197, 203-4n.2; on abuses of words, 41-42, 50, 211 n.20; disparagement of rhetoric, 16-17, 42, 53; on the division of the sciences, 11-12, 203 n.1;

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 10-17, 37; on general terms, 50, 97-98; influence on language theory, 47-49; 51-52; influence on rhetorical theory, 10; on language and communication, 54; on metaphor, 204n.3; on the objects of understanding, 10-13; semantic theory of, 48-52; on words and things, 211-12n.22 Lothian, John, 30 Lowth, Robert, 85, 214n.9; A Short Introduction to English Grammar, 40 M McKeon, Richard, 3, 17, 178, 199 Marischal College, Aberdeen (Scot.), 64 Mason, John, 166 Megill, Allan, 186 Modeling: systematic, 191 Monboddo, James Burnet, Lord: Of the Origin and Progress of Language, 37 Monthly Review, 30-31, 32, 46 N Nelson, John, 186 Neoclassical rhetoric: as trend in eighteenth-century British rhetoric, 4, 203 n.2 New Rhetoric. See Eighteenth-century British rhetoric, 1750-1800

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Newton, Isaac, 66 Norton, David Fate, 68-69, 209 n.8 O Of the Dignity and Advancement of Learning (Bacon), 62 Of the Origin and Progress of Language (Monboddo), 37 Ong, Walter, 216-17n.6 Ordering: systematic, 191, 192-96 P Peters, John Durham, 186, 187, 190 Philosophy of Rhetoric, The (Campbell), 61-63, 71-115, 117, 209 n.4; composition of, 64, 208 n.2; reviews of, 46; structure of, 62, 71, 74, 79, 107-10 Philosophy, systems of, 18 Plato, 186; on writing, 216n.6 Pope, Alexander, 113, 210-11n.18; "An Essay on Criticism," 91 Popkin, Richard, 209n.8 Priestley, Joseph, 38, 40, 57, 85; A Course of Lectures on Oratory and Criticism, 121; A Course of Lectures on the Theory of Language, and Universal Grammar, 37, 38, 40, 54-55; on grammar, 39-40, 56; on language and community, 54-55; The Rudiments of English Grammar, 34, 39-40; on teaching English composition, 208n.13 Progress: Blair's mythos of, 141-45 R Realism: appearance school of, 189-90; perspectivist school of, 187-88; in rhetorical theory, 2, 182-83, 185, 186-91; Scottish Common Sense school of, 63-64, 115, 186, 187, 188, 209n.6 Regius Chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, 120, 121-22 Reid, Thomas, 64, 66, 187, 207n.11, 208-9 n.4; and the Aberdeen Philosophical Society, 67; on the ambiguity of words, 43; Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, 43; on genius, 210n.11; and Hume's skepticism, 209n.8; An Inquiry into the Human Mind, On the Principles of Common Sense, 33-34, 35, 44, 66, 208n.4; on language and the passions, 52-53; on the methods of moral and natural philosophy, 69-70;

on the origin of language, 52-53; on the study of the mind, 44, 210n.10; on universal grammar, 56 Relation, as an ontological principle, 189-90 Relativism, 203-4n.2; relation to rhetorical theory, 2. See also Social constructionism Representationalism, 185 Review journals, eighteenth-century: and critical literacy, 30; and reception of language theory, 32-36; audience of, 31 Rhetoric, theories of: commonplaces as generating principles of, 18-19; in curriculum of University of Edinburg, 120; and ethics, 198-99; improvement of, 62-63, 106-7; and liberal education, 123-25; and logic, 139; pluralistic approach to, 2, 6, 199-200; the problem of language in, 2, 9-22, 194; relationship to logic and grammar, 71-72; systems of, 179-80 Rhetoric of inquiry, 187, 188 Richards, I. A., on eighteenth-century associationism, 2

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Robins, R. H., 55-56 Rose, William, 207 n.11; on Reid's Inquiry, 35-36; on Sheridan's Lectures, 218-19n.21 Rothenbuhler, Eric W., 186, 187, 190 Royal Society, 37 Rudiments of English Grammar, The (Priestley), 34, 39-40 S Schmitz, Robert, 121 Schofield, Roger, 29, 206n.4 Select Society, 153 Semantics: representation theory of, 96-97, 98-100; seventeenth- and eighteenth-century theories of, 57; signification theory of, 94-96; and the structure of language, 96-97 Semiotics, 203n.1 Sheridan, Thomas, 147-75, 193, 197, 199; on accent, 165-66; on articulation and orthography, 162-65; British Education, 152; A Course of Lectures on Elocution, 5, 147-75; on the decline of oratory in Britain, 156-57; definition of elocution, 162; definition of language, 168; as educational reformer, 152, 158; on emphasis, 166-67; on gestures, 169-71; on Greek oratory, 172; influence of, 153; on language and civilization, 173-74; on Locke's semantics, 154-55; on pauses and stops, 167-68; on pitch and loudness, 218 n.14; on pronunciation, 163-64, 218n.12; public lectures on elocution, 1756-1761, 152-53, 217n.8; on reading, 159, 161-62; on relationships among knowledge, reading, and writing, 158-62; on signs of emotions, 167-71; on signs of ideas, 165-67; as stage manager, 152; on tones, 165, 167, 168-69, 218nn.17, 18; on words as actions, 148, 174, 179; on words as things, 174;

on written and spoken language, 155-57, 216-17n.6 Short Introduction to English Grammar, A (Lowth), 40 Signs: of emotions, 167-71; of ideas, 165-67; linguistic, related to senses and mental faculties, 94-101, 169; real characters, 56. See also Words. Simons, Herbert, 183, 219nn.1, 2 Skepticism, 2, 188, 209 n.8; as a concern of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society, 66-69; in eighteenth- and twentieth-century rhetoric, 183, 185-91 Smith, Adam, 46, 120; on arrangement, 53; public lectures on rhetoric, 213 n.3 Smith, Olivia, 27, 181, 207n.4, 210n.16 Social constructionism, 2, 188, 192. See also Relativism Society for Promoting the Reading and Speaking of the English Language in Scotland, 153 "Song for St. Cecilia's Day, A" (Dryden), 113-14 Sophists, 183, 188 Spectator, 30, 48 Spoken language: history of, 130-32; segments of, 165 Standard English: dominance of, 25; as focus of late eighteenth-century British rhetoric, 25; links to social class, 26; varieties of, 28. See also Language, standardization of Street, Brian, 28 Style: Blair on, 134-37; Campbell on, 82-84; and the passions, 53 Sublime, the, 45, 128, 142, 214n.6 Swift, Jonathan, 152, 157

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Symbolism, as epistemological theory, 183, 184, 186 Sympathy, 45 System of Oratory, A (Ward), 121 Systems of relations, 191-200 T Taste: and liberal education, 124-26; and the understanding, 127; as related to nature and art, 126-27; standards of, 127-28 Terministic screens, 17, 21, 177, 203-4n.2 Theory of Language, The (Beattie), 37 Things: as philosophical commonplace, 18. See also Commonplaces, philosophical (things, thoughts, words, and actions) Thoughts: as philosophical commonplace, 18. See also Commonplaces, philosophical (things, thoughts, words, and actions) Traité des Premières Vérités (Buffier), 210n.13 Translation, systematic, 191, 192-96 Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, A (Berkeley), 42 Treatise of Human Nature, A (Hume), 209n.7 U Usage: Campbell's doctrine of, 79-80, 85-87, 111-14; Locke's distinction between civil and philosophical use, 42 V Vandraegen, Daniel, 151, 170 W Wallis, John, 214-15n.12 Ward, John: A System of Oratory, 121 Watson, Robert, 120 Weekly Magazine, 30 Why Does Language Matter to Philosophy? (Hacking), 183-85 Whyte, Samuel, 153 Wilkins, John: An Essay toward a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language, 56 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 186 Words: abuses of, in philosophy, 41-42; as actions, 14, 54-55, 100-1, 140, 148, 154-71, 174, 179; as a formal system of signs, 55-58; and gestures, tones, and expressions, 168-71;

as icons of mental and social progress, 141-44; nonrepresentational effects of, 45-46; as objects of understanding in Locke's Essay, 12-13; and the passions, 155; as philosophical commonplace, 18; in semantic theory, 28; and things, 39, 94-95; as things, 47-48, 140-41, 174; and thoughts, 11, 95-100, 154; as thoughts, 48-53. See also Commonplaces, philosophical (things, thoughts, words, and actions) Writing: history of, 132; and the process of standardization, 26; and the sublime, 128 Z Zagacki, Kenneth, 183, 185-86, 220 n.5

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H. Lewis Ulman received his doctorate from Penn State University in 1985. Since 1986, he has taught at Ohio State University, specializing in the history of rhetorical theory. He has edited The Minutes of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society, 1758-1773 (1990) and published essays on eighteenth-century British philosophy and rhetoric. His plans for future research include work on twentieth-century debates regarding the relationship between thought and language.

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