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[(25 4&3 ‘ll‘ 13 1C 5 3 2W SSSSSSSS SSSSSS SS M SSSSSSS SS6SS3S SOSSS 3 1293 00582 LIES’IARY Michigan State University Haw- i This is to certify that the dissertation entitled LANGUAGE DURING THE LATE RENAISSANCE YEARS AN HISTORICAL SURVEY OF ISSUES AND CIRCUMSTANCES RESPONSIBLE FOR CHANGES IN ATTITUDES TOWARD RHETORIC DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY presented by Joyce Rausch Miller has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Ph.D. degree in English y’i/M M 77m; Major professor Date “/25 / I? MSU is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution 042771 PLACE IN RETURN BOX to remove this checkout from your record. I TO AVOID FINES return on or before one due. DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE I ==SC—_l_—S __ I; TESS MSU Is An Affirmative AotIoo/Equel Opportunity Institutlon LANGUAGE DURING THE LATE RENAISSANCE YEARS AN HISTORICAL SURVEY OF ISSUES AND CIRCUMSTANCES RESPONSIBLE FOR CHANGES IN ATTITUDES TOWARD RHETORIC DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY BY Joyce Rausch Miller A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English 1988 ABSTRACT LANGUAGE DURING THE LATE RENAISSANCE YEARS AN HISTORICAL SURVEY OF ISSUES AND CIRCUMSTANCES RESPONSIBLE FOR CHANGES IN ATTITUDES TOWARD RHETORIC DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY BY Joyce R. Miller After a Scholastic challenge to the discipline of rhetoric during the Middle Ages, the Italian Humanists revived the classical ideals of rhetoric as part of the Renaissance. This Aristotelian approach to expression seemed appropriate as long as Latin remained the language for all learned discourse. But, as the impact of the printing press spread throughout England, the inappropriateness of the Latin language ruled by a classical rhetoric became apparent in the minds of many scholars. Debates begun during the late sixteenth century that carried over into the seventeenth concerning diverse aspects of language had a profound impact upon the discipline of rhetoric. But, the events of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have by and large been glossed over by the majority of scholars investigating rhetoric of the Renaissance. My purpose has been to present the substance of the debates and to demonstrate how John Locke synthesized the fragments of the seventeenth century revolution of thought into a Joyce R. Miller philosophy of language that established the foundation upon which future rhetorics were built. To accomplish this, I first detail the primary issues that comprise the debates surrounding the elevation of the English language to a position of prominence for all discourse: popular as well as learned. Second, I examine how changes in attitudes toward government, religion, economics, science, and philosophy affect attitudes toward language. Then, I show how John Locke formulated his philosophy of the times. This is followed by a detailed explanation of how Locke's philosophy of language emerged from his overall philosophy and develops into a foundation for future rhetorics. Finally, I hint at how Locke's foundation is incorporated into the rhetorics of Hugh Blair, George Campbell, and Richard Whately. The dissertation presents more conclusively than has previously been demonstrated how rhetorics after the Renaissance are based upon the philosophy of John Locke. Copyright by JOYCE R. MILLER 1988 DEDICATION To my daughter, Cynthia, who is a continuous reminder that dreams do come true. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to thank Dr. Stephen Tchudi, Chairman of my Doctoral Committee, for suggesting that I look to the seventeenth century and John Locke for a possible dissertation topic. Without that suggestion, I may have never stumbled into what has turned out to be an exciting adventure. I want to thank Steve and Dr. Marilyn Wilson for giving so generously of their time and expertise in London, England in helping me bring this project to its conclusion. I want to thank Dr. Kathleen Geisler who joined my committee in the twilight hours and gave me many helpful suggestions for polishing my presentation. I want to thank Dr. Jennifer Banks who graciously agreed to fill a void on my committee. Lastly, I want to thank posthumously Dr. Jack Yunck who believed in me from the very beginning when others were not so sure and who told me when I became discouraged during this project, "Just write the damn thing." iii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. 4. ENGLISH LANGUAGE DURING THE LATE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURY . . . . . . . . . . CHANGE AND CHALLENGE DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 THE DEVELOPING PHILOSOPHY OF JOHN LOCKE . . A FOUNDATION FOR A NEW RHETORIC . . . . . . CONCLUSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 APPENDIX A: BY BLAGDEN TO 1689. . . . . . . . . APPENDIX B: CICERONIAN PROSE STYLE. . . . . . . APPENDIX C: SENECAN PROSE STYLE . . . . . . . . BIBLIOGRAPHY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv THE CHAPBOOK SECTION OF THE TRADE-LIST OF WILLIAM THACKERAY AT THE ANGEL IN DUCK LANE, NEAR WEST SMITHFIELD, DATED 61 82 98 141 156 155 159 162 INTRODUCTION The progress of language 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 has become, in modern times, more correct, indeed, and accurate; but, however, less striking and animated; in its ancient state, more favorable to poetry and oratory; in its present, to reason and philosophy. Hugh Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, 1819 Blair's description of language in the quote above defines what rhetoric had become during the eighteenth century: accurate and copious, cool and precise, less striking and animated than formerly, favorable to reason and philosophy. To discover the beginnings of rhetoric, one must leave Blair and trace backwards to fifth century B.C. in Sicily when, with the help of Corax and Tisias, landowners--"reputedly a sharpwitted people and not adverse to controversy"--put together their case to reclaim their rights from recently expelled tyrants (Dixon 7). This "definite method or art" of speaking became rhetoric. While the changes in the definition of rhetoric beginning with Corax and Tisias and ending with Blair are not perfectly clearcut, a brief history representative of these changes in definition and some of the key figures responsible for them follows. 2 Tisias' student, Gorgias, who was supposedly responsible for introducing oratory into Greece, asserted that the "rightness or wisdom of the cause" of the speaker was not the issue; the issue was "the orator's dexterity in putting across his conclusions in a convincing way" (Dixon 8). Isocrates was against such moral irresponsibility because "speech...is the foundation of human society, the means through which man expresses his wisdom, and without which wisdom is inarticulate and inert" (8). Socrates attacked this relationship of means to ends or the possibility of skills and techniques being put to dishonest uses. In the Socratic dialogues, namely, the Gorgiasz circa 399 B.C., and the Phaedrus, circa 370 B.C., Plato asserted the "primacy of wisdom and truth over verbal skill" (Dixon 10). Dixon says in circa 33% B.C in the Rhetoric, Aristotle kept the Socratic ideas in mind when he explained rhetoric was ”the faculty of discovering all the available means of persuasion in any given situation." In explaining Aristotelian rhetoric, Edward Corbett advises readers that "the key to understanding Aristotle's approach to rhetoric is the recognition that probability is the basis of the persuasive art." The orator often has to base his arguments on "opinion or on what men believed to be true" because truth was not always ”demonstrable or verifiable" (Corbett 548). According to Corbett, this recognition of probability lies behind most of what Aristotle presented as rhetoric: 3 the three modes of proof--logos (the appeal to reason), pathos (the appeal to emotion), and ethos (the appeal to ethics); the enthymeme as the rhetorical equivalent to syllogism; the example as the rhetorical equivalent of logical induction; and the topics as a system of discovering available arguments. Aristotle emphasized the "virtuosity of the effort [to persuade] rather than the success of the results." In this way, Aristotelian rhetoric was "a morally indifferent activity." Finally, Aristotle included an analysis of the more common emotions or passions. Corbett supposes Aristotle was "trying to show his students how to evoke the appropriate emotional response [from the audience]" (548). To Aristotle's concept of rhetoric, in On the Arrangement of Words, circa 10 B.C., Dionysius of Halicarnassus added the idea of word order. At about the same time, Hermogenes and Aphthonius (both in books titled Progymnasmata) supplied technical rules for minor compositions accompanied by illustrative models of the forms of compositions (Corbett 543-544). Roman notables such as Cato, Scipio, and Tacitus maintained the Greek models of rhetoric handed down to them. Changes came about in the Rhetorica Ad Herennium, attributed to Cicero circa 86-82 B.C. In this piece ideas of style of figures are expounded upon. In De Oratore, the Brutusz and the Oratorz circa 84-45 B.C., Cicero added to the understanding of rhetoric that a "perfect orator had to be CC (J. 4 conversant with many subjects." Echoing Isocrates and adding to Cicero's ideas, Quintilian wrote in Institutio Oratoria, circa A.D. 88, that the "orator must be trained to be a man of strong moral character" (Corbett 542). Following Quintilian, however, second century Sophist teachers, Hadrian and Antonines (A.D. 117-188) altered the discipline of rhetoric. Their object in teaching rhetoric was to train students "to amaze an audience rather than persuade it. To effect this end, they encouraged all the flashy tricks of style and delivery" (544). Schools tended to have two curricula of rhetoric: the political which stressed the practical application of rhetoric and the sophistic which stressed rhetoric not as the art of persuasion, but as an art form. It seems the sophistic approach "won a higher appreciation because it enjoyed greater prestige and higher emoluments" (Corbett 544). Under the influence of the Sophistic school, rhetoric during the Middle Ages became less of a practical art and developed more as a scholastic art. [Guided by rhetoricians such as Cassiodorus, Capella, and Isidore,] rhetoric became principally a study of the art of letter writing (ars dictaminis) and of preparing and delivering sermons (artes praedicandi). (Corbett 544) During the Middle Ages students studied "two forms of scholastic declamation: sausoriae, discourses on some historical or legendary subject, and controversiae, discourses on some classic legal question" (544). But, "these declamations were conducted so much in the spirit of S epideictic or ceremonial display that the product of such training was usually a glib, clever 'entertainer' rather than a resourceful orator" (Corbett 544). As the Middle Ages continued, definitions for rhetoric seemed fairly constant until the fifteenth century. Italian Humanists changed this, however, by reviving the interest in rhetoric as a major discipline. In In Defense of Rhetoric, Brian Vickers calls this movement the "Battle of the Liberal Arts" (181). George of Trebizond, Valla, Sperone Speroni, Guillaume Telin, Vives, Guillaume Bude, Giovanni Pontano, Pigna, and Benedetto Varchi heralded the claims of rhetoric over the other arts and over science. They ”put rhetoric in [a] supreme position" (180-181). In the mid-sixteenth century in De veris principiis et vera ratione philosophandi contra pseudo-philosophos, Nizolio "expelled dialectic and metaphysics, while making rhetoric the truly universal art, its subject-matter being all human knowledge" (Vickers 181). This renaissance of ideas toward rhetoric was carried to England during the early years of the sixteenth century by Erasmus (De Copia, 1512) and by Juan Luis Vives, (Rhetoricae, sive De Ratione Dicendi, Libri Tres, 1533; 23 Consultatione, 1533; and De Conscribendis Epistolas, 1536). Two other rhetoricians who influenced English rhetorical development were Petrus Mosellanus (Tabulae de Schematibus et Tropis Petri Mosellanij circa 1520) and Philippus Melanchthon (De Rhetrica Libri Tres, 1519; Institutiones Rhetoricae, 1521; and Elementorum Rhetorices Libri Duo, 1531). In these (I) 6 rhetorics Erasmus emphasized full expression stressing schemes, tropes and topics; Vives helped shape education; therefore, he influenced the pattern of rhetorical curriculum; Mosellnus concentrated on style; and Melanchthon highlighted inventio and dispositio (Vickers 270). Finally, Joannes Susenbrotus (Epitome Troporum ac Schematum, 1540) produced an amalgam of Mosellanus and Melanchthon "which became the standard grammar-school text for the remainder of the sixteenth century." Vickers says, ”The stress on practicality [in rhetoric] is perhaps the most distinctive feature of the Renaissance rediscovery of classical rhetoric" (270-271). This brief history seems to imply that changes in understanding of and in definitions for rhetoric happened smoothly. Of course, this has not been the case for any century. The changes happened as results of hard-fought verbal battles and debates. This is especially the case when one surveys rhetorical materials from the seventeenth century. Many of the texts that trace the development of rhetoric such as Golden and Corbett's The Rhetoric of Blair, Campbell, and Whately, Robert T. Oliver's The Influence of Rhetoric in the Shaping of Great Britain, Winifred Horner's The Present State of Scholarship in Historical and Contemporary Rhetoric, gloss over the seventeenth century. Even Brian Vickers in In Defense of Rhetoric, published in 1988, writes "The continuity of the rhetorical tradition during [the seventeenth century] is, however, less W t} tc 9: th de 9c Co 7 well-known today than the attacks on it--an interesting phenomenon, reflecting the ultimate victory of the anti-rhetorical camp" (198). The idea for this study came about first when histories of rhetoric continuously broke the flow in the continuity of the tradition of rhetoric by "bounding over" (to use Golden and Corbett's phrase) the seventeenth century, and secondly, when Vickers spoke of a "victory of an anti-rhetorical camp" which seemed a questionable triumph given the strong rhetorical movement during the eighteenth century led by Joseph Priestley, Adam Smith, Robert Hartley, Thomas Sheridan, and Edmund Burke as well as Hugh Blair, George Campbell, and Richard Whately. The search for ideas concerning rhetoric during the seventeenth century led away from histories of rhetorics to the debates concerning the English language begun during the sixteenth century. These debates included evaluating the worth of English as a literary language, the importance of the printing press, and the role of a growing reading public to concerns of the linguistic community about teaching grammar and creating a universal language, to what activity there was in the discipline of rhetoric as it pertains to the development of an English prose style, to sociological, economic, and scientific development as well as philosophical concerns about language. Looking at philosophical concerns about language led directly to a study of the philosopher, 8 John Locke, who pieced together the fragmented state of rhetorical concerns during the seventeenth century. Locke's writings on government, religion, economics, and education contain the basis for his philosophical stance toward the seventeenth century revolution in thought. Then, Locke drew on his knowledge of philosophy and science to formulate his philosophy of language which he expressed in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding. From this piece, one sees that Locke did not develop a new rhetorical system for the English language in use during the late seventeenth century. What one discovers is Locke created the foundation upon which future rhetoricians built the new rhetorics. In this study I am interested in organizing the story of the emergence of the English language as suitable for all formal discourse and showing how this emergence influenced a new rhetorical foundation formulated by John Locke during the late seventeenth century. In this way, I hope to alleviate that which, according to Brian Vickers, is not well-known. 02 Ce 39 me. CHAPTER ONE ENGLISH LANGUAGE DURING THE LATE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES CHANGE FOR THE BETTER Since Learning began to flourish in our Nation, there have been more then ordinary Changes introduced in our Language: partly by new artificial Compositions; partly by enfranchising strange forein words, for their elegance and significancy, which now make one third part of our Language; and partly by refining and mollifying old words, for the more easie and graceful sound: by which means this last Century may be conjectured to have made a greater change in our Tongue, then any of the former, as to the addition of new words. John Wilkins, A Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language, 1668 Introduction In A History of the English Language, Albert Baugh writes that "in the development of languages particular events often have recognizable and at times far-reaching effects. ...In the Modern English period,...certain conditions come into play, conditions which previously either had not existed at all or were present in only a limited way" (240). He identifies the factors affecting the development of the English language beginning in the early sixteenth century as the invention of the printing press, the rapid spread of popular education, the increased communication and means of 10 communication, and the growth of what may be called social consciousness. These factors were very much in evidence during the late sixteenth century and early seventeenth century and manifested themselves in identifiable debates. This chapter will look at the substance of several of these debates. The focus of the first debate to be examined is the question of whether the English language was worthy enough to replace Latin as the language for formal discourse. The next debate to be looked at concerns linguists who were interested in establishing a proper methodology of teaching grammar; with determining a correct system of punctuation, names of parts of speech and names of parts of sentences; and with developing a universal language. The last debate concerns rhetoric, specifically in the area of style, of the Ciceronian/Anti-Ciceronian movement, and of the Ramist/Anti-Ramist movement. From Latin to English By the late sixteenth century the "strong tradition that sanctioned the use of Latin in fields of knowledge" was well established. But, English had "attained an established position as the language of popular literature." This former tradition was strengthened by the revival of classical learning symbolized by the Renaissance movement. Latin was accepted throughout Europe as the "language of knowledge"; therefore, "the educated all over Europe could readily communicate with each other." Latin had a universal quality that focn ques dis< CODC usin POEt mOre tong thos Has 300; Engl Cast 11 that bound the academic world together (Baugh 244). The focus of the first debate in England to be examined is the question of breaking this tradition of using Latin for formal discourse and of replacing Latin with English. Many people argued in favor of maintaining Latin for scholarly endeavors. One point debated was the perception that English lacked literary status. Hale writes some scholars think the reason Sir Thomas More wrote the Utopia (1516) in Latin was that "English was hardly in his day a recognized literary language, so far at least as prose was concerned." Sir Thomas Elyot shared More's attitude toward using English as a literary language. He said, "certain poets in the latine do express themselves incomparably with more grace and delectation to the reader, than our Englissche tonge may yet comprehend." Perhaps the universal view of those opposed to adopting English as the official language was best summed up by English physician and author Andrew Boorde (l490?-1549). His reaction was simply, ”The speche of England is a base speche to other noble speches, as Italian, Castylion, and French" (Hale 425). Interestingly enough, William Caxton had expressed this same opinion a century earlier. Throughout various prologues and epilogues Caxton apologized repeatedly for his "simple and rude style and his rude and common English” as well as his own "lack of the art of rhetoric, curious gay terms of rhetoric, ornate eloquence, and the new eloquence” (Jones Triumph 4). So, the first reason for continuing to use 12 Latin--the lack of literary status of the English language-~ref1ects an idea long held important. Besides the lack of literary status, those in opposition to the idea of change argued the baseness inherent in the language created a lack of eloquence. During this time it was a very common practice to describe the English language with such adjectives as rude, gross, barbarous, vile, and base, with the word 1113 meaning of little or no worth and the word page meaning low, common, vulgar, or uncultured. Rude, gross, and barbarous were frequently interchanged with uneloquent. Thomas C00per explained the impact of using the term barbarous as a descriptor of the language in the following. In olde tyme all people, excepte greekes, were called Barbari, proprely it be they, whyche doo speake grossely, without obseruyng of congruitee, or pronounce not perfectly, especially Greke or Latine. also they that abhorre a1 elegancy. More ouer it signifieth them that be fierce and cruell of maners and countenance: rude, ignorant, rusticall, churlyshe, without eloquence. (Jones Triumphz 7-8) In The Arte of English Poesie published in 1589, Cooper characterized barbarous speaking as the "foulest vice" in language. An anonymous work entitled A proper dygloge betwene a Gentillman and a husbandman published in 1530 begins with Though I am olde clothed in barbarous wede Nothynge garnyshed with gaye elequency where the word barbarous again seems equivalent to uneloquent. In Alvearie (1573) Baret defined barbarous as 13 "To speake barbarously, corruptly, not vsing piked and choyse woordes." In Riders Dictionarie (1612) Francis Holyoke defined the same word as "incompte, inconcinne, impolite, incondite, inquinate, georgice." John Bullokar (An English Expositor, 1616) said barbarous is "rudeness in speech, or behaviour." Rude was the explanation offered by John Mauritius (Lingua Linguarum 1621), Richard Huloet (Abcdarium Anglico-Latinum 1552), and Lancelot Ridley (An exposytion in Englyshe vpon the Epistyll . . . to the Philippians 1550?). On a lighter, but just as serious, note in a collection of anecdotes entitled A.C. mery Talys (1525), one story reads In the vnyuersyte of Oxonford there was a skoler that delytyd mich to speke eloquent english and curious terms/and cam to the cobler wyth hys shoys whych were pikid before as they vsyd that seson to haue them cloutyd and sayd thys wyse/Cobler I pray the set me .ii tryanglys and .ii semy cercles uppon my subpedytals and I shall gyue the for thy labor/Thys cobler because he vnderstode him not half well answerid shortly and sayd/Syr your eloquence passith myne intelligence/but I promyse you yf ye meddyll wyth me/the clowting of youre shone shall cost you .iii. pence. By thys tale men may lerne that it is foly to study to speke eloquently before them that be rude and vnlernyd. (Jones 6) In a poem by John Skelton, published in The boke of Phyllyp Sparowe (1545?), the character, Margery, expresses the attitude of poets toward this issue when she says 14 For as I to fore haue sayd I am but a yong mayd And cannot in effect My stile as yet direct With englyshe wordes elect Our natural tonge is rude And hard to be ennuede With pollysshed tearmes lustye Oure language is so rustye So cankered and so ful Of frowardes and so dul That if I wold apply To write ornatly I wot not where to finde Termes to serue my mynde. To prove the point even further, after Margery fails in her search to find eloquent words in the English language, she composes her bird's epitaph in Latin (Jones 3-12). From the lack of literary style and the lack of eloquence rose a third concern. This concern deals with the difficulty inherent in attempting to translate works written in the eloquent ancient languages into the stylistically and ineloquently lacking English vernacular. Many men, including Jasper Haywood (Troas 1559), Alexander Neville (Oedipus 1563), Sir Thomas Hoby (”Epistle” attached to The Currier 1561), and Richard Eden (in a letter to Sir William Cecil, 1562), expressed their concern that translating the ancients into the modern renders barbarous works. In The Worthye Books of Old age otherwyse entituled the elder Cato (1569), Thomas Newton wrote the most popular comparison, referred to as the clothing comparison, to express the attitude about English translations. Newton said, though he himself translated Cicero, he advanced the latter's "incomparable 15 sublymity and sappye eloquence" as an argument against translating his works into the uneloquent English. He said further, I for lack of knowledge haue racked [Cicero] from gorgeous Elegancie, and oute of Romayne gownes more boldly I feare then wyselye chaunged [him] into Englyshe Liuerayes. (Jones 21) That these writers believed eloquence was beyond the capability of the vernacular in England is evident. Those who espoused this attitude and wrote to prove the point professed that if works were to have eloquence, they had to be composed in Greek, Latin, French, Italian, or Castylian, languages which were proven to be eloquent. They said the English vocabulary was too homespun (Jones' word) to allow users to express themselves as stylistically pure as they could when using the languages of the ancients. The fourth point for maintaining the Latin tradition dealt with what Baugh terms "social consciousness. Baugh writes Finally there is the important factor which we call social consciousness. It is every one's natural tendency to identify himself with a certain social or economic group, if possible with a slightly higher group. ...Where a man can lift himself into a different economic or intellectual or social level, he is likely to make an effort to adopt the standards of grammar and pronunciation of the people with whom he has become identified, ...He is [as] careful of his speech as of his manners. Awareness that there are standards of language is part of his social consciousness. (242) 16 Baugh's assessment that everyone wishes to identify himself with a certain, usually higher, social class is certainly subject to question. But, the idea that language awareness is part of a man's social consciousness seems inherent in support of maintaining the tradition of using Latin in scholarly discourse. It seems no accident that debators chose words such as rude, gross, barbarous, vile, base, ignorant, rusticall, and churlyshe to describe the character of the English language. Their intention may have been to have people associate these characteristics with the vernacular to instill the idea that English was the language of the lower classes. One only has to remember some of Chaucer's pilgrims to recall which characters were described by these same terms. In fact, "the Miller, Reeve, Merchant, and Host all apologize for their rude, plain speech; [and] the Squire and the Franklin lament their lack of education in rhetoric" (Partridge 23). Thus, the main points of those in opposition to using English for formal discourse included the literary quality of the language, the lack of eloquence inherent in English because of the baseness of the language, the difficulty incurred in translating the works of antiquity into the modern language, and the image of the entire society reflected by the language. During the debate, many people defended the English language. In 1637 William Camden wrote 17 Whereas our tongue is mixt, it is no disgrace. ...it is false [to say] that our tongue is the most mixt and corrupt of all other. . . .Since King Edward the third enlarged [the people] from the bondage of the Normans [who compelled everyone to speak French] our language has risen...and the proverbe proved untrue [that] Jacke would be a gentleman, if he could speake any French. (Tucker 18) Richard Mulcaster, Head Master of the Merchant Taylor's School, said But why not all in English, a tung of it self both depe in conceit, and frank in deliverie? I do not think that anie language, be it whatsoever, is better able to utter all arguments, either with more pity, or greater planesse, then our English tung is, if the English utterer be as skillfull in the matter, which he is to utter: as the foren utterer is. (Baugh 245) Wilbur L'isle of Wilburgham overdid his praise when in 1623 he wrote "...our language is improved aboue all others now spoken by any nation, and became the fairest, the nimblest, the fullest. ...Tell me not it is a mingle-mangle..." (Tucker Besides defending the English language, those who favored using English for all discourse argued several points. The first was the importance of the printing press. To get a sense of how rapidly the effect of the printing press swept across Europe, Baugh points out that before the year 1500 the number of books printed in Europe was approximately 35,000. But in England over 20,000 titles in English, ranging from pamphlets to massive folios, had appeared by 1640 (240-241). fam cal two wit run age: CEO: "me: day. to 1 to 1 DUmE who APP: Shot the “eve retu 18 In Small Books and Pleasant Histories, Margaret Spufford discusses the kinds of print made available in English to the English public at large. She writes "the sheer volume of cheap print available after the Restoration was very great. (See Appendix A) ...as many as 400,000 almanacs were coming out annually after 1660" (2). The implication was that one family in three could be buying a new almanac yearly. Another form of cheap print available was what were called chapbooks. These were small books composed mainly of two types of literature, the burlesques and bawdy stories with ”heroes drawn specifically from both the urban and the rural poor," and "cut-down chivalric romances of the middle ages" (Spufford 50). They were aimed to appeal to a wide cross-section of urban and rural lower society, from "merchants to apprentices in towns, from country-farmers to day-labourers in the countryside." Books designed to appeal to townsmen often satirized the "clodhopping countryman come to town.” One of these stories told the tale of the country bumpkin who, when he heard the organ at St. Paul's, thought he had gone to heaven. Another told of the "man of Essex, who had nails in his shoes, [and] was teased by the Apprentices of Cheapside and persuaded to remove them lest he should break the stones of the streets." Yet another related the sad tale of the "countryman visiting London where he had never before seen the sailing ships from London Bridge, and returned home to try to fix sails to his plough" (51). 19 Included also in chapbooks were mockeries of love-letters, stories of farcical fights between mock-heroes and criminals, and stories of craftsmen. They appealed to townsmen and countryfolks, men and women, and specific groups within the community. Evidence that these were widely distributed comes from Spufford's relating that "pedlars, hawkers, and petty chapmen were taxed in England in 1697-8, and there were then over 2,550 who failed to avoid tax." She concludes "The distributive network appears to have been extremely well developed" (45). Steinberg and Handover tell of two other kinds of publications readily available in English to both urban and rural readers. Steinberg says From the middle of the seventeenth century onward, a calendar, with some miscellaneous information and a few pious thoughts, began to make its way annually into the houses of people whose literary needs were easily satisfied. ...[These became] vehicles of popular instruction for the lower classes. Practical advice for home and garden and field spread the advances of human and veterinary medicine and of scientific agriculture and husbandry; philosophical ideas were embodied in homely essays, stories with a moral purpose and didactic poetry. (167) The second kind of publication in English Steinberg and Handover tell about was newspapers. Steinberg writes, ”Newspapers proper made their first appearance...in Germany in 1609. A decade later 'corantos' (as they were usually called) spread to Amsterdam, Paris, and London" (170). Steinberg continues 20 English printers did not wait for official encouragement. Some months after the Dutch map-engraver and printer Pieter de Keere had started the first English-language news-book (of which sixteen issues have survived), the London stationer Thomas Archer printed English corantos in London. The first number seems to have come out in the summer of 1621. (171) By 1631 Nathaniel Butter and Nicholas Bourne were publishing what were called news-tracts which published "information on happenings from India, Russia, Persia, Sweden, Italy, Germany, Spain, and France" (Steinberg 171). Handover adds to the point that the printing press was responsible for the abundance of material being printed in English and distributed by reporting that by 1695 weekly and biweekly publications became "thrice weekly" published. These were distributed abroad as well as in the provinces through the postal system by postboys or postmen. Consequently, many of these publications included the word post in their titles, such as the London Post, the Flying Postz the Old-Post Master, the Post-Boy, and the Post-man (154). What seems implied in taking note of the quantity of material being produced in English is that because the printing press facilitated the ease with which large volumes of material could be produced, and because such a diverse collection of material was already being written in English, the logical choice for a proper language for all discourse in England was English. 21 The printing press represented "a powerful force ... for promoting a standard, uniform language [for all discoursel" (Baugh 241). This was possible because education was making rapid progress among the people and literacy was becoming much more common. In the later Middle Ages a surprising number of people of the middle class could read and write, as the Paston Letters abundantly show. In Shakespeare's London, though we have no accurate means of measurement, it is probable that not less than a third and probably as many as half of the people could at least read. (Baugh 241) Partridge reports that "one of the deterents to literacy had been the cost of books" (17). It seems that the printing press had alleviated both aspects of the deterent: printed material became cheaper because of the abundance produced, and printed materials other than books became readily available. The idea of a growing reading public was thus argued as the second point in the debate. The third point for this side of the debate was expressed by Paul Winkler in History of Books and Printing. Winkler writes [The sixteenth century] saw the search for manuscripts and the collecting, copying, and diffusion of these manuscripts to the printed page. Frederick Artz states that the 'humanists restored the whole surviving heritage of Greek and Latin literature, edited all of it, and later brought out printed editions of the whole' and thus 'brought back into the mainstream of western civilization the whole body of still extant Greek and Latin literature.‘ (94) Even though this statement does not explicitly prove that these manuscripts were translated into English, 22 Charles Barber uses a reference to Shakespeare as evidence that they were. Barber writes As the son of a prominent Stratford citizen, [Shakespeare] almost certainly went to Stratford upon Avon grammar school, and there is evidence that he had been trained in Latin. But there is also evidence that some of his favourite works were English translations, such as Golding's translation of Ovid, and North's translation of Plutarch. (70) Barber continues, besides wanting to read the classics in English, many readers wanted material from quite other fields. There were many practical men who wanted books on subjects like navigational instruments, geometry, [and] warfare. If the necessary texts were in Greek or Latin, they could be translated, -as was Euclid's Elements of Geometry (by H. Billingsley, 1570). In other cases, like the use of artillery or the magnetic compass, technical developments had made classical texts out of date, and new ones had to be written; and the [public] wanted these written in English. (70) Other kinds of materials produced in translation included encyclopedias of scientific knowledge like Stephen Batman's Batman uppon Bartholome (1582), works on geography, herbals, medical treatises, and psychologies (71). Perhaps the most important piece of literature to be translated into English was the Bible. Not that it was necessarily needed, but in the preface of his translation of Pierre Viret's The first parte of the Christian Instruction (1565), Paul Shute defends the translation of the Bible into English on the grounds that 23 the Word of God is the only authority, that the layman in the battles of life needs it more than the sequestered monk, and that the plowman's opinion, when nearer to the Bible than the Pope's, is to be preferred to the latter. (Jones 34) Undoubtedly, having the Bible translated into English served to raise the prestige of the vernacular (Baugh 71). A final point raised in support of elevating English as a proper language for all discourse dealt with the controversial material produced following the Reformation. Adherents for change argued that "devotional works were turned out" in large editions aimed less at monks than at worldly men (Eisenstein 315). Eisenstein quoted from Dickens' book, Counter-Revolution, "there grew...an extensive literature dealing with the interior life and intended for the use of people in the world as distinct from the cloister. These rangeld] from simple primers to sophisticated guides, mostly by members of religious orders" (315). Prior to printed literature which set down precise guidelines, a person could readily shift from one doctrinal outlook to another such as encouraging priestly prerogatives or encouraging lay Bible readings as Henry VIII did. These doctrines "could co-exist more or less peacefully because full implementation was lacking." But, "after typographical fixity," doctrines came into sharp conflict and positions on them were not easily reversed. "Battles of books, prolonged polarization, and pamphlet wars" (Eisenstein 326) quickened the necessity for this material to be produC¢. Er be 1:) ma Cc th th ab Cr th. ve. Ch£ 24 accessible language for the masses, for where Lutherans and Anglicans pioneered, Catholic authorities soon followed. . . .Embattled Papists did not hesitate to attack bibliolatry. Skillful Jesuits questioned grounds for authenticating scriptural texts. They exploited sceptical arguments in order to undermine confidence in the Book and strengthen faith in the Church. (326) "Between Protestant attacks on church authority and unwritten tradition, and Catholic efforts to undermine sole reliance on scripture, little was left" (327). With this kind of controversy, those advocating for change must have felt strongly that all who wished access to this material should have it, which meant it needed to be produced in English. Thus, the main points of those in favor of the use of English for all discourse included the quantity of material being printed in English, a growing reading public to enjoy this material, the desire to make the knowledge of ancient manuscripts being translated into English as well as the controversial religious material being written accessible to the masses. Besides arguing in opposition to each other's views, those involved in the debates shared some common interests about the English language. A major concern was how to create eloquence in such a base language. One side argued that it wanted eloquence created through a strictly English vernacular. One person supporting this view was Sir John Cheke. In 1561 in a letter to Sir Thomas Hoby, Cheke wrote, "I am of this opinion that our own tung shold be written 25 cleane and pure, unmixt and unmangeled with borrowings of other tunges..." (Baugh 261). Cheke was especially troubled by the English translation of the Bible because he felt it used too many borrowed words and phrases. He set out to re-translate St. Matthew's Gospel, substituting only true English-Saxon words for borrowed ones. (Hale 433) A partial list of Cheke's selections juxtaposed with those of translators, Wyclif and Tyndale, show how he tried to put this theory into practice. Matthew Cheke Wyclif Tyndale i. 17 out-peopling transmygracion captivite i. 46 tollers pupplicans publicans ii. 1 wisards astromyens wise men v. 18 goo away passe perisshe vii. 22 mighty things vertues miracles xii. 35 stoor hous gode thingis treasure xx. 3 comunplace cheping market place Cheke uses words in his translation that are presumably his own coinage: freschman for proselyte, gainbirth for regeneration, gainrising for resurrection, groundwrought for founded, and mggng for lunatic are several examples of original English words (Barber 91). Another person who worked at writing using only English vocabulary was Ralph Lever. In 1573 Lever published a textbook on logic entitled The Arte of Reason, rightly termed, Witcraft. Barber tells Lever's story when he writes 26 Faced with the problem of providing English technical terms for logic, Lever solved it, not by adapting the Latin terms he knew, but by inventing compound words, each formed from two existing English words. In the title of his book he invents the word witcraft, meaning 'logic'. To translate the Latin conclusiq, he coins the word endsay; and similarly foresays 'praemissae', ifsay 'propositio conditionalis', naysay 'negatio', saywhat 'definitio', shewsay 'propositio', and yeasay 'affirmatio'. To us, the striking thing is that none of Lever's coinages have caught on, and that we use words formed from all the Latin expressions that he was trying to replace (conclusion, premisses, etc.). (92) Yet another person espousing the idea of a purely English vocabulary was Puttenham. In The Arte of English Poesiez (1589) one of many rhetorics published during this century, Puttenham suggests the poet, along with all others, .must look to his language and choose his words carefully and must use those words which seem most natural and usual. He is to avoid the language of the marshes or frontiers or port towns on account of the strangers (foreigners), the speech of the Universities on account of scholars who use much peevish affectation of words out of the primitive languages, and the upland villages on account of the rustic and uncivil people (Hale 437-38). In other words, writers were to avoid imported words of foreigners, technical terms of various professions, archaisms, and dialects if they were to enhance eloquence in the English language. The concern with a purely English vocabulary continued from the sixteenth century well into the seventeenth. In 1674 Nathaniel Fairfax, a Doctor of Medicine, wrote a 27 philosophical-scientific work in "pure English" and, according to Barber, the result was "rather odd" (95). Barber says it is "delightfully eccentric in its language." One sample from this book is, "In that narrow Chat that I have had with Outlanders, it has been hugely to my liking, that hard upon the first greeting, I have been plyed with so many good words for our Royal Society in the whole, and Mr. Boyle alone" (95). Barber says even though Fairfax did include non-English or loanwords in the treatise, he also coined some new terms: biggen (v.) .......for.......increase brain-breaks ......for.......enigmas, paradoxes bulksomness .......for.......volume or mass cleavesomness .....for.......divisibility flitting ..........for.......transient meteings ..........for.......dimensions roomthiness .......for.......extension in space talecraft .........for.......arithmetic unboundedness .....for.......infinity unthroughfaresom ..for.......impenetrable Barber concludes by saying "Such an abundance of new wine in old bottles is rather characteristic of the 17th Century. (95-96) 0 Others arguing the vocabulary debate said the only way to enhance English was through loanwords. They suggested Words are borrowed of pure necessitie in new matters: the language has to say things which it has never said before, and needs new words; this is the utilitarian motive. But they are also borrowed of mere brauerie, which means 'out of pure ostentaton' or 'from sheer love of finery'. (Barber 81) 28 The person considered the champion of the neologizing movement was Sir Thomas Elyot. Barber says Elyot was "consciously trying to remedy the deficiencies of English" (81). In the preface to Of the Knowledg whiche maketh a wise map (1533) Elyot wrote "he had intended to augment [the] English tongue, so that men should be able to express their ideas more fully, having words apt for the purpose" (81). Barber acknowledges Elyot was motivated by utilitarian aims but also says "many of the fine new words from Latin or Greek ...[aimed] at a high style, at magniloquence" (81). The process of coining new words from foreign terms was especially evident in technical terms. A writer wishing to translate affirmatio and negatio easily produced affirmation and negation. To quell the argument of purists like Cheke, Lever, Puttenham, and Fairfax that newly coined words based on Latin or French could not be understood by the relatively unlearned reader, Elyot often paired the new term with an easier synonym. Some examples included "animate or gyve courage to others; the beste fourme of education or bringing up of noble children; persist and continue." Sometimes Elyot gave fuller explanations as in "an oratour is required to be a heape of all maner of lernyng: whiche of some is called the worlde of science: of other the circle of doctrine/whiche is in one worde of greeke Encyclopedia (79-80). Another person who was "enthusiastic about" loanwords was George Pettie. Barber writes of Pettie lrn 29 [he] attacks people who call English barbarous yet who at the same time sneer at those who try to enrich the language by introducing words from Latin. Borrowing from Latin is highly desirable, 'for it is in deed the ready way to inrich our tongue, and make it copious, and it is the way which all tongues have taken to inrich them selues.‘ (86) Those supporting the idea of borrowing words from other languages to enhance eloquence in the English language used as their final argument that there are already so many words from other languages in the English language, "it [would] be] impossible for [people] to express themselves without using them" (87). Barber's interpretation of Pettie's idea is perhaps an overstatement, for the Fairfax quote cited earlier demonstrates the possibility of writing using a purely English vocabulary. Perhaps a more acceptable explanation is that eliminating all loanwords would make writing more difficult than continuing to use them. Three other concerns dealt with in the debate over eloquence were reclaiming or reintroducing old English words dropped from current use, standardizing spelling, and developing an appropriate grammar system for English. The most prominent advocate for reviving archaic words was Edmund Spenser. Spenser chose to compose his poems from words that had fallen out of use. Of this practice, E. K. (perhaps Edward Kirke) who wrote the preface for Spenser's The Shepheardes Calender (1579), said 30 Many things in The Shepheardes Calender will seem strange, and the vocabulary will seem strangest, 'the words them selues being so auncient'. ...I graunt [the words] be something hard, and of most men vnused, yet both English, and also vsed of most excellent Authors and most famous Poetes. The Poet ... mought needes ... vseth them ... thinking them fittest for such rusticall rudenesse of shepheards, eyther for that theyr rough sounde would make his rymes more ragged and rustical, or els because such olde and obsolete wordes are most vsed of country folke, sure I think, and think I think not amisse, that they bring great grace and, as one would say, auctoritie to the verse. (97) By using archaic words, "the appeal was to patriotism and naturalness" (98). Barber says poets under the influence of Spenser such as William Browne, John Davies of Hereford, Francis Davison, Michael Drayton, Edward Fairfax, Giles Fletcher the younger, Phineas Fletcher, and Henry More (the Cambridge Platonist), used many archaisms derived from Spenser. Examples are algate for always, 253g for lively, breme for fierce, eld for old, herdgroom for shepherd, sicker for certainly, £2155 for neat, ggggg for sweet, yblent for confused, yfggg for together, yggg for went, and youngth for youth. (99) The next issue was standardizing spelling. John Wilkins explained the problem inherent in spelling when he pointed out that ”alphabets are deficient ... especially in regard of Vowels, of which there are 7 or 8 several kinds commonly used ...though the Latin Alphabet take notice of but'five" (Tucker 48-49). In 1605 William Camden wrote, the "Variety of pronuntiation [fully, flatly, broadly, changing of letters] hath brought in some diversitie of orthographie that one 31 sentence...written by four secretaries...all differed one from the other in many letters" (20-21). James Howell demonstrated the continuing nature of the problem when in 1645 he wrote, "Amongst other reasons which...puts strangers out of conceit with English is...we do not pronounce as we write, which proceeds from divers superfluous letters" (29). In 1669 William Holder reminded his readers the problem lingered on. He wrote, "We need a more phonetic spelling: but in the uncouth Spelling in the writings of unlearned persons, who writing as they please...use such Letters, as justly express the power or Sound of their Speech" (53). Such spellings were illustrated in 1685 by Christopher Cooper. He was disturbed by such varied spellings as apricot-abricot, balet-balad, licorice-liquorish, vat-fat, and yelk-yolk. Camden, Howell, and John Wallis complained about the diversity in spelling by pointing out that a short sound in English was represented by a single letter, a long sound by double letters; that many words retained a worthless silent final /e/ as in 32mg and £223 ; that /gh/ as in lighp was no longer pronounced; that /u/ and /v/ were confused as in uncertain/vncertain; that writers were confused between /-que/ and /-ke/ as in rhetorique or rhetorike; that writers used the letter /e/ to prolong vowels or double consonants to shorten vowels as in the pairs of words ware-warr or wane-wann (20-53). During the second half of the seventeenth century, John Dryden, Daniel Defoe, and Johnathon Swift supported the idea of an academic academy, much like that 32 established in France in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, reponsible for setting or fixing the rules of the language, including spelling regulation; but the proposal came to naught (Barber 105-106). The final item in support of an eloquent aspect to English was developing a proper system of grammar for English. The Latin grammars developed during the Middle Ages were not suitable for English. According to Brian Vickers, the Humanists attacked Medieval grammar because it was pedagogically ineffective and because the verse grammars, such as Doctrinale by Alexandre de Villedieu and the Graecismus by Evrard de Bethune, were "grandiose attempts of scholastic grammarians to transform grammar into a demonstrative science" (267). Humanists gradually replaced the Medieval grammar texts with their own. One was the Regulae Grammaticales (1418) by Guarino Veronese. This grammar "lacked the logical and metaphysical underpinnings characteristic of scholastic grammars" (268). The Rudimenta Grammaticales (1468) by Niccolo Perotti developed epistolary style while Despauterius' Commentarii Grammatici (1537) included treatises on poetic genres as well as letter writing. The Novum Epistolarium (1484) by Giammario Filelfo contained divisions on the oratorio, the figures of speech, the orator's three genera, and one section on pronuntiatio. The section on pronuntiatio illustrated that the ”prestige of classical rhetoric was so great that the [Humanist] language arts took over its doctrines wholesale, whether relevant or gr W] C! me Er bc th on Dr 33 not" (268). Obviously, one did not need to study pronuntiatio when one was learning the rudiments of letter writing. Perhaps this treatment of classical rhetoric is one of the reasons, besides the fact that Humanist grammars were written in Latin, that John Wallis, a seventeenth century grammarian and mathematician, called for a new grammar. He wrote of the state of grammar I am not ignorant of the fact that others before me have attempted to produce a Grammar of English...But none of them...proceeded on the way which is most suitable to the undertaking; for all of them have forced our tongue too much into the pattern of Latin. . . . A new method seems necessary, one not so much adapted to Latin as to the logic of our own tongue. (Tucker 36) Thus, the ideas being suggested as the best way to create eloquence in the English language centered around two main concerns: improving vocabulary whether from purely English words--newly-coined or revived archaic or from borrowing words, and from regulating the language through standardizing spelling and developing a grammar suitable to English. The problems with developing a suitable grammar were taken up by the linguists. Linguistics Movement The ideas of seventeenth century grammars begin early in the century when an informal group of scholars in England and on the continent became interested in encouraging and propagating new methods of teaching. The discussions of this g] (7 34 group, which included Samuel Hartlib, Joseph Webbe, Jan Amos Comenius, and Joachim Hubner, has been collected together in the Sloane collection. Of the letters and documents in this collection, Sloane MS 1466 contains much of the material of the debate between Joseph Webbe, "one of the most intelligent and perceptive of all the scholars working in the field of language in the early seventeenth century", and William Brookes. (Salmon 4) Interestingly enough, their debate over grammar centered on the proper method of teaching Latin, not English. Webbe was a progressive, a behaviourist, in linguistic principles and advocated Latin be taught without including grammar as part of the instruction. Brookes was a traditionalist, a judgmentalist, and advocated Latin only be taught including grammar. Webbe saw language as "an automatic reaction in the social context, learned unconsciously by the infant as 'pieces' or blocks of discourse.” (8-9) Of Brooke' stance that learning language is a deliberate act of judgment, Webbe complained [Brookes] spends time in quaestioninge our clausinge, as helpfull to sense but a hinderance to iudgement and would haue the iudgement first satisfyed before the sense. ...Look uppon Children in their learnigne languages, nature teacheth them to use the sense before the iudgment: they are asked wilt thou haue some drinke? they heare, but are not able yet to form any word, not understand the meaning there they see a pott or glasse. And yet they know not what to make of it, there they find drinke at their mouths, ...With such delight to nature that; by some few repetitions of the wordes and reiterations of the same actions of shewing potts and puttinge it to theyre mouths...Childe will at length neuer see a pott, but it will put out the hand, and beginne to crye drinke: Wherin I rather an [sic] action of memory 35 taken from the outward sense than of iudgement or understanding. ...Mr. Brooke doth harpe too much uppon this iudgement in beginners; and therby labours to much in distractinge of the senses, which are soe many Gentlemen Vshers to iudgment and understandings. (Salmon 9) Brookes stated his ideas in his first letter to Hartlib. He wrote That wherin the iudgment is to bee employed, is intellectuall, as syntax in the strict and proper use of worde, which depends upon reason for the connexion of Logicall arguments and axioms. And is beer to bee knowne popularly by praecognition namly the dependence of wordes in sence manifest in the mother tongue, untill it can be knowne accurately by rule shewing the common nature and proper reason of that dependence. ...where the understanding is first informed, the memory will soone be qualified by it sufficiently for the habitt: because this is accordinge to natures order. (Salmon 9) Webbe countered Brookes' position by pointing out the fallacy of his theory based on the "impossibility of the facultative view of psychology held by people at this time" (Salmon l0). Webbe said in F018. 270v-271r had Mr Brook knowne or well considered, the secret dependences or hidden sympathick relations and actions that are betweene the senses memory and the understandinge and what beames of lights and reflexions of assimilation howrly streame and flow betweene them he would haue acknowledgeth [sic] that hee could noe more in act or practice giue me a pure action of the senses without interminglinge of the Action of the memorie; or of the memory without an influx of the vertue of the understanding than he can actually shew me a pure sublunarie. (Salmon 10) These few words of Webbe and Brookes show that to Webbe, the most important feature of language was the phrase or WOI BIC t) be In 36 clause; and to Brookes, the most important feature was the word, or naming, in language learning. On this matter, Brookes said in learning a spoken language, the speaker learns the names of objects as they are presented to him, and such a process cannot occur in learning Latin because [the spoken language] speakes in a much more liuely and distinct manner to the fantasie than this way doth to the understandinge by giuinge the sense of the whole clause confusedly without the wordes." (Salmon l0) Webbe retorted to Brookes' accusation by saying "hee that will teach his Schollare, to understand the wordes before the clause, or at the same tyme with the clause shall neuer hitt the marke of Custome that wee ayme at" (10). Webbe taught his classes with no glorification of the word or paradigm with the aim that students would begin reading very soon and that "they were learning the language to read literature, and not reading literature to learn the language (Salmon 12-13). Brookes, on the other hand, held that Latin "was to be learnt as an international quasi-scientific language, desirable for the naming of objects in the real world and not primarily for the reading of ancient authors" (Salmon 13). Webbe's and Brookes' debate was not settled during the seventeenth century; and, in fact, the debate over whether to give students strict instruction in grammar alone is one that continues even now in the twentieth century. Webbe's method of teaching without grammar was never adopted, perhaps because of being usurped by a larger 37 educational reform due to Comenius who advocated "teaching things, not words; with labelling with Latin names, as part of a scientific language, objects in the contemporary world" (31). Perhaps what should be remembered about Webbe's approach is he was, after all, teaching that meaning does not come merely from adding one word to another, but from a collocation of words, and that it is the teacher's duty to make pupils familiar with these collocations. Another scholar concerned with teaching grammar was John Brinsley, a Leicestershire schoolmaster. He believed that children should not only be taught Latin, but also the English vernacular. In this way, he is considered one of the pioneers in establishing methods of teaching English. He developed a course that used two manuals. The first, Ludus, was presented in the form of a dialogue between two schoolmasters and dealt with translations from Latin into English. The second, Consolation, was presented in an expository form and dealt with teaching the vernacular. Brinsley believed that by teaching using this dual approach, "children [would] learn to express their minds freely in both Latin and English." He developed this methodology of teaching language because he was afraid schools were not training children to use English freely. He recognized that if children were going to study medicine, theology, or law, or were going to engage in internatonal trade, children needed to learn Latin. But since most pupils were not going to study these disciplines or become merchants, he stated 38 three reasons why it is important to teach them English. First, it was the language most used by all sorts and conditions of men; second, its purity and elegance were a chief part of the honor of the nation; and finally, because only a few of all those educated would attend a university. Brinsley felt so strongly about children being taught English, he even enlisted the aid of parents by encouraging them to listen to their children read the Bible daily (Salmon 40-41). Besides the methodology used to teach grammar, concerns with punctuation gained status. The reader can see why this was a concern when he looks at the quotes included earlier in this chapter, especially those of Webbe and Brookes. These passages illustrate how rules for punctuation were yet to be developed. One example is in Webbe's complaint against Brookes' stance that learning language is a deliberate act of judgment. The use of the comma following the phrase 'quaestioninge our clausing' seems to follow no rule familiar to the modern writer, but the comma following the clause 'Childe will at length never see a pott,‘ [but it will put out the hand] follows the rule to separate two clauses joined by the conjunction and; A second example is Webbe's use of a semicolon following the phrase 'delight to nature that' where perhaps no punctuation at all would be preferable to some and again, the use of a semicolon following the phrase 'judgement in beginners' where clearly no punctuation would be used by a modern scholar. Both Webbe and Brookes use colons in their 39 quotes included here in ways that seem to belie any rule which the twentieth century writer might follow. Perhaps the diversity shown in these examples not only demonstrates the lack of standardization in punctuation, but also perhaps a lack of concern prior to this time to have rules governing punctuation. Several linguists who worked on devising systems of standardized punctuation were Henoch Clapham, Alexander Gil (Logonomia Anglica, 1619), and Charles Butler (English Grammar, 1633). A summary of these systems reveals that they were systems devised upon three basic principles. First, the 'sense' of the individual sentence is clarified by marking off its units by commas; secondly, special grammatical relationships within sentences are marked by heavier stops; and finally, semantic relationships between co-ordinate clauses are marked by a variety of punctuation, ranging from commas for a close relationship to colons for a loose one. One will realize immediately that the direction taken by these linguists left little room for rhetorical indications and that their systems showed primarily the structure of the sentence (Salmon 58-59). Yet another concern linguists had about grammar was expressed by James Shirley, better known as a dramatist than a grammarian. When Shirley was forced to leave the stage when theaters were closed from 1642 until 1666, he chose to earn his living as a schoolmaster. As a result of this temporary career shift, Shirley published a bilingual 40 Latin/English grammar in 1649. It was subsequently published under several different names including Grammatica Anglo-Latino in 1651, The Rudiments of Grammar in 1656, and Manvdvctio in 1660. These grammars were published as bilingual grammars because the notion of bilingual grammars was the accepted theory at that time. This theory advocated that "a child could best understand Latin grammar if he was first acquainted with that of the vernacular (89), a reversal of the approach presented decades earlier by Webbe and Brookes. Hence, these so-called Latin grammars dealt with classification of the parts of speech in English as well as in Latin. They presented three methods of classifying the parts of speech. First, the formal or morphological; second, the structural or by the position in the sentence, and finally, the semasiological or by the relationship to the categories of reality. In this way, Shirley's work demonstrated the change from a more formal approach to grammar of the earlier seventeenth century to the later semasiological, or semantic, approach (Salmon 91). It would be misleading to imply that Shirley was the first to publish this approach to grammar, for these three methods of classifying the parts of speech had been used in the earliest Latin grammars composed especially for English. In the earlier versions, however, the semasiological method had been emphasized. Later the formal method, emphasized by John Hewes, and structural method, emphasized by Pierre de la Ramee (Ramus), gained popularity during the first two decades 41 of the seventeenth century. Shirley's work of the mid-decades of the century re-elevated the attitude favoring the more informal method (Salmon 94). The second problem Shirley addressed in his grammars was labeling the parts of a sentence. The terms in use during the seventeenth century, although according to the OED (which gives only two uses in quotations) apparently not widely used, were suppositum and appositum . Shirley uses suppositum and appositum even though it seems these words had grown out of fashion. So, while grammarians continued to use terms that were archaic, they evidently did not have any others to replace them with until the early eighteenth century when it became fashionable to use the terms subject and predicate (Salmon 96). Besides this work in applied linguistics and grammar theory, one study that shows a somewhat different approach to language is the work of John Wilkins, author of An essay towards a real character, and a philosophical language, published in 1668. In this piece Wilkins wanted to create a universal, philosophical language in which "every written or spoken symbol was isomorphic with the categories of reality (as perceived by the mind) which were represented directly and without the medium of a natural language." Wilkins made reference in his natural or philosophical grammar to two ideas from Bacon. One was the lexicon of a philosophical language, and the other was the grammar of language. The first was supported by Bacon's statement that points to the 42 "desirability of a character which should 'signifie not words, but things and notions,'"; the second by Bacon's comment on a natural grammar that "should contain all such Grounds and Rules, as do naturally and necessarily belong to the Philosophy of letters and speech in the General." Bacon's own words about such a grammar are "certainly words are the footsteps of reason, and the footsteps tell something about the body." In this way, Bacon is drawing a parallel between ratio, , the process of thought, and language. His concern was that the "vocabulaies of natural languages were inadequate because they were ... commonly framed and applied according to the capacity of the vulgar or uneducated" (99-100). Wilkins believed that if features of a grammar were not according to nature, they were not necessary to language and "should be eliminated, having no foundation in the Philosophy of speech." (100) In developing his philosophical grammar, Wilkins drew upon three sources. The first was from descriptive grammars of Latin. For this, Wilkins used mainly Varro's De lingua latina in which Varro cites about five hundred different verbal inflections, one of the problems Wilkins notes about the language. The second source was descriptive grammars of English. From the works of Sir Thomas Smith (1568), William Bullokar (1586), Alexander Gill (1619), and John Wallis (1653), Wilkins developed orthographic and phonetic aspects. Finally, Wilkins cited the philosophical grammars of Scotus, Caramuel, and 43 Campanella. From Campanella, Wilkins defined grammar as civil, which was a skill, and philosophical, which was a science. Civil grammar was concerned with choice of vocabulary for stylistic reasons; philosophical grammar created a lexicon which "reflected reality accurately...and used related words for related meanings." Civil made use of metaphor; philosophical did not. From these sources Wilkins aimed at "correlating language with reality...so that every element of reality should be represented by a single concept in the mind and by a single character in the written language" (Salmon 103-104). Another discipline which played a part in shaping Wilkins' philosophical grammar: that of psychology. From studying how the mind acquires knowledge or reality, Wilkins was concerned to demonstrate that the "relationship between thought and reality...was through the mind" (Salmon 105). To develop his grammar, Wilkins employed four terms in a technical sense: similitude, notion, apprehension, and intention. Similitude, which he equated as a synonym for likeness, was used in connection with theories of perception as in "the forms of objects...are expressed in matter...what rendered them communicable are similitudines, likenesses of objects." [Notion implied a synonym for mental concept as in ”images of things are the notions of the mind." Apprehension indicated a grasping, as in things are formed in men's minds "either by apprehension of things that are, or imagination of things that are not" (Salmon 107-108). Wilkins employed the 44 term, intention, in a similar way to concept or notion. Another part of his grammar that Wilkins borrowed from his predecessors was his use of the transcendentals developed by the Scholastics: ens, unum, verum, and bonum (entity, unity, truth, and goodness) and the later addition of res and aliquid (thing and anything), except Wilkins referred to them as kinds, causes, differences and modes (Salmon 109). Wilkins also dealt with syntax in the grammatical sense as "the proper way of Union or right Construction of words, into Propositions, or continued Speech," and in the rhetorical sense of figurative "where there are some words always either redundant, or deficient, and of regular, which is according to the natural sense and the order of the words" (119). More important in Wilkins's treatment of syntax was his use of logical categories. First, "he seems to have been the earliest English grammarian to define a 'compleat sentence' as one in which 'something is either affirmed or denied.'" Second, Wilkins may be the grammarian to have introduced the term subject instead of nominative of the verb as had been previously used along with suppositum . Third, Wilkins shows an understanding of relations between language and logic by treating together "complex grammatical notions of speech, Complex logical notions of discourse, and Mixed notions of discourse belonging both to Grammar and Logic" (Salmon 119-120). 45 Wilkins discussed these complex notions of discourse using such terms as acception or acceptance of or signification of a term as in "in a Philosophical Language, every word ought in strictness to have but one proper sense and acception"; restriction or the reduction of a term from a major to a minor meaning as in the statement 'The just man will be saved', salvation is restricted to the just man; determination as a synonym to restriction as in "words are in their significations to be more peculiarly determined" or "some are absolutely determined"; and ampliation or the opposite of restriction and determination meaning the extension of a term to a wider signification. Wilkins used this term infrequently and as synonymous with inlarge, dilate, and expatiate (120-121). Such, then, is the story of Wilkins's phiIOSOphical grammar in which he drew heavily from his predecessors while at the same time foreshadowing John Locke's interpretation of the human understanding since Wilkins "gave prior expression to the conception that all ideas come from sensation and reflection" (123). Such, then, is also the story of the main concerns of seventeenth century linguists as the English language made its way through initial development into formal language for all written and spoken discourse. But, linguists were not the only ones making prominent statements of how language should be conceived and perceived. Other scholars were having their input, too. These were the scholars most concerned with rhetoric. 46 The Rhetorical Movement As for the state of rhetoric at this time, Murphy says, "There is no basic bibliography, no internationally recognized canon of authors, and there is no comprehesive mechanism available for the systematic study of Renaissance rhetoric."(24) In trying, however, to present a framework of Renaissance rhetoric, Murphy lists twenty well-known Renaissance rhetoricians that he characterizes as having "launched a thousand footnotes." (23) This list includes Agricola, Bacon, Cox, Erasmus, Fabri, Farnaby, Fraunce, de Granada, Lipsius, Melanchthon, Nizolius, Peacham, Puttenham, Rainolde, Ramus, Sturm, Susenbrotus, Trapezuntius, Vive, and Wilson. To demonstrate how limited this list is, however, it is worth noting that the Bodleian Library alone holds the works of sixty-one Renaissance authors on Cicero's rhetorical works alone. (EN 25) In Rhetorica (1616), Johan-Henricus Alstedius lists thirty rhetorical references on style. When Diego Valades wrote the Rhetorica christiana , he listed one-hundred-fifty-seven authors including twenty-six rhetoricians. Giovanni Bernrdi published Thesaurus rhetoricae in 1599 in which he cited thirty-nine works he used as sources for his over five thousand rhetorical terms. Finally, some of the publications dealing with rhetoric during the Renaissance were not original rhetorics but were written in opposition to or in support of another rhetorician's views. 47 Barber says rhetoric during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was adorned with the devices of classical rhetoric. Rhetoric was the art of public speaking, but...it was common for rhetorical theories to be applied to literature, and for the handbooks to be treated as instructions for poets. (100) According to Corbett, "Leonard Cox, a schoolmaster at Reading, [wrote] the first rhetoric textbook in English, Arte or Crafte of Rhetoryke in 1530. Cox based his rhetoric on the work of Melanchthon; therefore, the text emphasized inventio. In 1550 Richard Sherry, a headmaster at Magdalen College School, published "the second book on rhetoric in English, A Treatise on Schemes and Tropes. In a second edition of this text, A Treatise of the Figures of Grammar and Rhetorike (1555), Sherry included approximately one-hundred and twenty figures. In 1586 Angel Day published The English Secretorie, that listed and discussed "thirty different kinds of letters under four main headings: demonstrative, deliberative, judicial, and familiar" (551). George Puttenham's The Arte of English Poesie (1589) was mainly a defense of poetry; but in it, Puttenham also made a contribution to rhetoric. "He invented vernacular names for the Greek and Latin figures" and "classified them according to the nature of their appeal" (551). A short-lived rhetoric in English was Richard Rainolde's adaptation of Hermogenes and Aphthonius's Progymnasmata, the exercises for practicing composition. (Corbett 551) 48 The English rhetoric that gained most popular approval was Thomas Wilson's The Arte of Rhetorique, published in 1553. Wilson's text followed the Ciceronian style and, to this end, in Book I treated such elements of rhetoric as the five elements of rhetoric (Invention, Disposition, Elocution, Memorie, Utterance), the seven parts of an oration (Entrance, Narration, Proposition, Division, Confirmation, Confutation, Conclusion), and three kinds of oratory (Demonstrative, Deliberative, and Judiciall). Book II discussed Disposition and the Figures of Amplification, and Book III dealt mainly with Elocution or style. Even though these rhetorics were written in the vernacular, they were all based on the classical tradition. This is understandable since the Humanist ideas espousing the classical tradition were the accepted approach to language during the Renaissance. But, as the debates about the various nuances of the English language were contested, a movement away from the classical approach to language began. This is most evident in the area of style. The person who championed a style away from the classical is Francis Bacon. To understand Bacon's role in shaping a new style of expression for English, one must begin with Joest Lips (Justus Lipsius) and Montaigne. Lipsius' story begins after a visit with Muret at Rome in 1568. Corbett says, Lipsius converted from a "purely literary and rhetorical learning to a realistic--or positivistic--study of politics." (169) His work following 49 this visit with Muret demonstrated the effect Muret had upon Lipsius. Maurice Croll wrote of this period in Lipsius' life Lipsius' resolve was taken at once. Political and moral science, not rhetoric; Attic style, not Ciceronian, shall be the objects of his effort. And he began to work on an edition of Tacitus. But how should he make the transition decently from the opinions that the public still thought he held to those he had [previously] espoused? It was an embarrassing situation for a young man who had already attained reputation as a stylist; and we can follow--not without enlightenment--the steps of his cautious preparation. First he published nothing of any import for eight years after the date of his first work; and then he came out, in a new preface, in 1577, with the astonishing statement that Plautus' old style has more savor for him than Cicero's. (171) Through his voluminous and international correspondence," the world soon learned that Lipsius was a man with "a philosophical and literary mission." He devoted the rest of his life preparing an edition of Seneca. This edition was the ”chief instrument of the extraordinary diffusion of the Senecan influence throughout the seventeenth century" along with the work of Du Vair, Charron, and Montaigne to establish the Senecan imitation and the Stoical philosophy (172-175). Montaigne summed up Lipsius' attitude toward the classical tradition when he wrote, "Fie upon that eloquence that makes us in love with itself, and not with the thing." What Montaigne wanted from books was to become "more wise and sufficient, not more worthy or eloquent." But Montaigne went beyond just echoing Lipsius. He renounced systematic stoicism which put his thinking "on the main highway of 50 modern thought, which leads directly from Petrarch and Erasmus to the liberal scepticism of the eighteenth century" (177-180). Montaigne states in an addition to his last volume, published in 1588, that what he was striving for in his quest was the natural man in himself, the free individual self who should be the ultimate judge of the opinions of all the sects and schools; and as the natural complement of this philosophical enquiry he was always feeling his way at the same time toward a theory of style which should allow the greatest possible scope to the expression of differences of individual character, or, in other words, the greatest possible naturalness of style that is consistent with the artificial limits necessarily imposed upon all literary composition. (181) Montaigne's "Libertine" style can be said to have resulted from a combination of influences. First is the influence he felt through Lipsius; second is that from Montaigne's own career which allowed him a lifestyle free from official responsibilities which, in turn, allowed him to become a "man writing for men;" and third is from being the first Anti-Ciceronian to write using the vernacular language. This last is ”so great a point of difference that it cannot be passed over in a discussion of seventeenth century prose style" (181). For, during the last quarter of the sixteenth century, the literary claims and pretensions of Latin and the modern languages were about equal. One could change from one language to another fairly easily even though each had very deliberate differentiation of their uses. The vernacular was used to express the surviving medievalism of the culture; it 51 was used in sermons; it was used to tell the multitude of romantic tales of antiquity; it was used for courtly ceremony and show; and it was used for books of etiquette and universal instruction. Latin was used exclusively for whatever was new and forward looking. In fact, in 1550, "all serious, modern thought was expressed in Latin" (182). Most importantly, Francis Bacon influenced the direction of thinking toward a prose style for English. Both Montaigne and Bacon encouraged ”a style which renders the process of thought and portrays the picturesque actuality of life with equal effect and constantly relates the one to the other." According to Corbett, because Montaigne and Bacon wrote equally as well in both Latin and English, they are credited for "the process of leveling and approximation," or the blending of both languages (184). A third influence attributed to Montaigne and Bacon is that they determined that the Ciceronian style could not be imitated using an English vernacular because "the ligatures of its comprehensive period [was] not found in the syntax of an uninflected tongue" (186). What they were saying was that English, as a language force, was not yet developed to the point that it had the vocabulary necessary to write a true Cicronian style. Therefore, ”the best any of them could do was imitate the oratorical style of Cicero," not Cicero's language. Taking this thought one step further, it seems that Montaigne and Bacon recognized that the development within language to make a true Ciceronian style possible 52 possible could never advance as quickly as the actualities in the real world (186). Therefore, they advocated it was a superior decision to express these actualities in the language of the real world. Of the form of this new style, Bacon wrote the words [must] be sharp and pointed; sentences concised; a style in short that may be called "turned" rather than fused....Such a style is found in Seneca very freely used, in Tactitus and the younger Pliny more moderately; and it is beginning to suit the ears of our age as never before. (Corbett 190) The Senecan style illustrated in this passage is noticeably different from Cicero's style which is a "highly organized form that divides a discourse into fairly distinct sections and disposes these in a certain order." A piece written in the Ciceronian style could have as many as eight distinct sections organized from the Exordium to the Narratio, followed by the Propositio, the Distributio, the ' Confirmatio, the Reprehensio or Refutatio, the Digressio, and the Peroratio (Brown 18-19). (See Appendix B) But, described Brown, the Senecan style was one that was "loose [and] meandering; ... copious, discreet, cagey, devious, often jocular." It is a style in which the "writer goes his own way, more boldly, ... sometimes inclining to truculence, and commonly with good nature" (78-79). (See Appendix C) Of the style of Montaigne and Bacon, Croll said (and seems to take issue with Corbett's statement that Montaigne wrote in English) 53 Montaigne and Bacon are the first writers in the vernacular languages who employ a style which renders the process of thought and portrays the picturesque actuality of life with equal effect and constantly relates the one to the other, and it is in this sense that we may justify the statement that the Anti-Ciceronian leaders--Montaigne in France and Bacon in England--are the actual founders of modern prose style. In the works of these authors ...we can find a style in the popular language which is at once firm, uniform, and level enough to be called a style and also adaptable enough to adjust itself to the changing life of the modern world. (184) As for the suitability of the Senecan style for the developing prose style of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Croll wrote There is nothing in [Seneca's] syntax that could prove a bar to the expression of the ideas of a keen-minded critic of the end of the sixteenth century concerning the moral experience of his times or himself; on the contrary, the brevity of his constructions, the resolved and analytic character of his sentences, would provide such a writer with a mold exactly adapted to the character of his mind and the state of his language. (186) The style influenced first by Lipsius, then Montaigne and Bacon came to be called a plain style. In the 1984 Presidential Speech to the English Association, Sir William Rees-Mogg described a plain style as being humble, and that is certainly a virtue. It is clear, and that is a great virtue in prose. It is often clinical, and has an element of precision in it ... It is direct; it is detailed; it is relatively little ornamented, though it is not without its own relatively subtle elements of ornament. It is essentially logical. It is craftsmanlike. It has in it often an English irony. It is natural--a word which is applied to this style of English prose almost as often as 54 'plain' itself. It is sometimes sceptical. It has been the natural prose of sceptical phiIOSOphers, of those who wish to trim the fat off ideology. It is moderate; it does not go into extremes of usage. It is pragmatic, and it is truthful. (2) Rees-Mogg said the idea of a plain style "goes back deep in history, but Bacon is the first master of this style", a plain prose style that represents the whole of English society (1). The qualities were quiet, plain, solid, absolutely simple to its purpose, strong, and having the capacity to survive (2). Rees-Mogg suggested it relates to the pragmatic quality, both of English philosophy and of English life. It relates to the sense of moderation; it relates to the English dislike, or distrust, of extremism of all kinds; it relates to an English distrust of display; it relates to the high value and virtue which the English believe is derived from naturalness--the desire to have a moderate form of nature, not nature red in tooth and claw, but nature modified, controlled, restrained. (11) It seems as if the plain style was what Puttenham cautioned against. The Anti-Ciceronian style was the language of the people of the marshes, the frontiers, and the ports as well as university scholars and the rustics of the upland marshes. Wilbur Samuel Howell wrote that Bacon's work with style "met the need for rhetoric to address learned as well as popular communication" (369). In addition to style, Bacon's most original contribution to rhetoric was developing the idea of elocution or tradition. Bacon reduced Cicero's six-eight intellectual arts to four in describing humanistic 55 sciences. The "four great intellectual arts [were] invention, judgment, remembrance, and elocution. By invention, Bacon referred to "remembrance or suggestion, a drawing forth [of] that which may be pertinent to [our] purpose." Judgment was generally logic and the treatment of induction, syllogism, and fallacies. Memory, the third of the four arts, was a combination of storing up what had been invented and stored which could be considered storing up knowledge (Advancement 366-368). In Howell's Opinion, the fourth great art was the most important. This was elocution or tradition (sometimes called delivery). Howell explained Bacon's idea of tradition as having "three parts; the first concerned the 25333 of tradition. By organ of tradition, Bacon meant language: spoken words, written words, hieroglyphics, gestures, and cyphers. To this, Bacon assigned grammar. The second concerned the method of tradition. Bacon suggested one method dealt with 333 of knowledge and was called magistral; the second dealt with prggression of knowledge and was called probationary. To this, Bacon assigned logic. Finally, the third concerned the illustration of tradition, and to this, Bacon relegated rhetoric. Here, Bacon reserved for rhetoric "the delivery of knowledge by illuminating what was to be transmitted [to an audience], ...shedding light so as to make anything visible to the eyes." For Bacon, the duty and the office of rhetoric was to serve as a force to create an alliance between reason and imagination for the better moving 56 of the will. Bacon called to scholars' attention the need for a theory of expository organization to be based not on Cicero's six-eight intellectual arts, but on only four, and by redefining the fourth of these arts, tradition, Bacon highlighted rhetoric as the "supreme illustrator of knowledge for any audience" (Howell 369-372). What Bacon was to the Anti-Ciceronian movement in rhetoric, Pierre de la Ramee, French philosopher and classical scholar (1515-1572), was to a second rhetorical movement during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, that of the Ramist movement. When Ramee (known as Ramus) studied scholastic logic, he was troubled by what seemed to be redundancy and indecisiveness in this theory. He thought in order to instruct students in communication, one needed to train them to discover subject matter through a study of all the general wisdom behind a given specific issue or case. But, he queried, was it strictly required that both logic and rhetoric offer this training, as both did when each sought to teach the doctrine of invention? He thought it was necessary to teach "arrangement of subject matter through some sort of study of the degrees of generality of various statements and perhaps even through some study of the psychological habits of people who receive communications" (Howell £2215 148). Ramus's reform of the liberal arts was, in fact, a system of direct answers to the questions of duplication of instruction. Howell wrote 57 [Ramus] ordained that logic should offer training in invention and arrangement, with no help whatever from rhetoric. He ordained that the topic of arrangement should take care of all speculations regarding the method of discourse, with no help whatever from invention. He ordained that rhetoric should offer training in style and delivery, and that style should be limited to the tropes and the schemes, with no help whatever from grammar, which was to be assigned only subject matter derived from considerations of etymology and syntax. The subject of memory, which we have seen to be a recognized part of traditional rhetoric since the youth of Cicero, was detached by Ramus from rhetoric, and was not made a special topic elsewhere in his scheme for the liberal arts, except so far as logic helped memory indirectly by providing the theoretical basis for strict organization of discourse. (Logic 148) The opposition to Ramism can be categorized in several ways. The first was that of opposition of denial. The stand taken by Perion, Gouvea, Galland, Charpentier, and Turnebus denied validity to the Ramists' mode of thinking. This group simply rejected the system. The next group of opponents favored compromise. They included the Philippo-Ramists, named after Melanchthon's given name and his religious sect, the Philippists; the Mixts, so-called after an old chemistry term meaning compounds; and the Systematics, so named for the Latin word ”systema” used in the titles of many of their works. Another group of anti-Ramists were the Port Royalists. They accepted reason rather than authority as the court of highest appeal in science as not only the pervasive theme of their whole logical theory but also that of Descartes's intellectual life after he had lost faith in the sciences 58 produced by authority. A brief overview of the logic expressed in Part I of The Port-Royal Logic begins with the discussion of the operation of the mind in conceiving, that is, in forming, ideas and in attaching words to them. These ideas were pertinent to the field of semantics. Part II dealt with the mental operation of judging, that is, of putting ideas together, of affirming or denying one thing or another, of expressing ourselves in propositions. Part III dealt with the act of reasoning. This operation involved the syllogism which the Port-Royalists doubted was as useful as it was generally supposed to be. Perhaps the highlight of the Eggig was the treatment of fallacies. Part IV described the mental operation of disposing, that is, of ordering, ideas, judgments, and reasonings so as to obtain knowledge and to establish it for others. While the Port-Royalists did not wholeheartedly espouse induction in their analysis of reasoning, they clearly pointed toward the future and described a significant intimation of things to come (Howell 360-363). As one reflects on the state of rhetoric in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it appears a good deal of activity was taking place; but, in fact, no new rhetoric was produced. Because of the development of style, the Anti-Ciceronian movement, and the Ramist/Anti-Ramist movement, a new attitude toward rhetoric was being shaped throughout this time. Howell said part of what shaped the 59 new attitude toward rhetoric was the recognition that rhetoric must become a fuller, a more inclusive discipline than it had been with the Ciceronians. In Ciceronian terms, rhetoric was limited to that which was popular, and logic to that which was learned. Thus, both sciences [rhetoric and logic] undertook to survey invention and arrangement, while rhetoric was forced also to survey style and delivery, her followers being required to face the public, and the public being in need of such aids to ready understanding as spectacular patterns of language and dramatic delivery. (Howell 364) Further Howell said, “it became inevitable that rhetoric would take over the obligation renounced by logic, for society needs a complete theory of communication, and rhetoric possesses some special equipment for the meeting of that need" (365) Thus, the new rhetoric of the seventeenth century was a development towards the idea that learned exposition as well as popular argument and exhortation was within its proper scope. Another idea of rhetoric that received attention during the century was the "growing recognition of the inadequacy of artistic proof as a means of persuasion and in the development of a belief in non-artistic proof as a better way to that goal" (376). It will be remembered that artistic proofs were developed by "systematic means from all of the truths already known," and that non-artistic proofs "were not subject to production by any systematic means, but had merely to be used if they existed or ignored if they did not exist" (376). 60 So, if proofs were the result of reasoned consideration, they were accepted as artistic; if eyewitnesses testified that something had happened, it was accepted as a non-artistic proof. With the "development of science,...the expansion of facilities for the study and dissemination of facts, ...and the growth of respect for direct observation and controlled experiment," the importance of artistic proof diminished and that of non-artistic proof grew. This served to enhance the need for a "rhetoric of invention by research" (376). A third idea Howell identifies as a change in attitude toward rhetoric was the denunciation of the doctrine of tropes and figures and their advocacy of the principle that ordinary patterns of speech are acceptable in oratory and literature as in conversation and life. This consideration is firmly rooted in the sixteenth century. The scientific dicoveries, the new religious spirit, and the changing attitudes toward transmission of knowledge inherent throughout the seventeenth century all served to illustrate the inadequacy of the tropes and figures of Ciceronian or Ramist rhetoric and served to solidify the idea of the need for a plain style of expression. The ideas expressed here about language perceptions and development during the seventeenth century and ways they were influenced by ideas stemming from the sixteenth is only part of the story of what shaped a new rhetoric. Other considerations played a significant part in the development of language. These are taken up in the next chapter. CHAPTER TWO CHANGE AND CHALLENGE DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY Our language is improued aboue all others now spoken by any nation, and became the fairest, the nimblest, the fullest; most apt to vary the phrase, most ready to receiue good composition, most adorned with sweet words and sentences, with witty quips and ouer-ruling Prouerbes: yea able to expresse any hard conceit whatsoeuer with great dexterity; waighty in waighty matters, merry in merry, braue in braue. William Lisle, A Saxon Treatise, 1623 Introduction In Vexed and Troubled Englishmen 1590-1642, Carl Bridenbaugh characterized the first half of the seventeenth century as times of "change and challenge" (474) In Moral Revolution of 1688, Dudley Bahlman described the last half of the seventeenth century as times ringing with voices crying out that England had been thoroughly debauched, with voices crying out that throughout England vice had triumphed in the land, that a thick gloominess [had] overspread [the] horizon and [that] light looked like the evening of the world. (1) This chapter will outline evidence of the changes and challenges England faced during the seventeenth century and will make the connections as to how changes in government, religion, economics, science, and philosophy impacted changes in attitudes toward language and rhetoric. 61 62 Government Changes in the government occurred as six different monarchs and one dictator ruled England during the seventeenth century. Elizabeth I began the century as Queen until she died in 1603. From 1603 to 1625, James I was king. He was followed from 1625 to 1648 by his son, Charles I. Charles II ruled England from 1660 to 1685 when his son, James II ascended to the throne. James II left no heirs, so his cousin, William, and his queen, Mary, came from Holland to assume control from 1689 until 1702. Challenges to the monarchy occurred following Elizabeth's death as various cousins vied for control of the throne and following the rule of Charles I when Oliver Cromwell established a twelve-year dictatorship (1648-1660). The role of the other aspect of government, Parliament, changed depending upon who ruled England. Elizabeth had established a working relationship with Parliament during her reign which faltered during the years of James I. This faltering relationship failed when Charles I dissolved Parliament altogether and established his Personal Rule. Threatened by an uprising staged by English rebels in Scotland, Charles then reconvened Parliament. This Parliament confronted Cromwell. Finally, the monarchs during the last decades of the century were unable to establish a congenial relationship with Parliament. Challenges to Parliament, beginning with the reign of James I, came when the Common Lawyers, led by Chief Justice 63 Coke, questioned the validity of law declared in the courts versus law published by central authority. Even though Coke was overruled, he had laid the foundation for future challenges and debates between the authority of the monarch and the authority of Parliament. Another challenge, called the Rye Conspiracy, was staged during the reign of James II. Religion Changes in religion coincided with whichever monarch ruled. Elizabeth favored the Anglican Church. James I threw off his Calvinist upbringing and assumed power by Divine Right. Charles I and his son both supported the Anglican Church but tolerated Catholicism. James II was fanatical to reinstate the Roman Catholic faith once again and was totally intolerant of any Protestant Church. William, on the other hand, supported the Protestant Church. Challenges to religion came in forms other than controversial material published in pamphlets. One challenge came during the monarchy of James I. One might think that when James commissioned the translation of the Bible into English, all would be right between the Crown and the Church. But this was not so. When James cast aside his strict Calvinist upbringing and assumed his rule by Divine Right, Catholics, remembering that James' mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, was Catholic, reasoned if they could convince the Pope to allow them to pledge secular allegiance to James, James might sanction permission to allow them to practice 64 Catholicism. This, of course, was not to be. Neither the Pope nor James acquiesed to this idea with the result being the infamous Gunpowder Plot. One can imagine, without having every challenge named, that the religious preferences of different monarchs kept the institution of religion constantly challenged. That the masses were able to drive James II from the throne because of his stand on religious intoleration speaks to the attitude of people by the end of the 1680's. It seems they had become somewhat intolerant themselves. Of these times, Brown wrote that the political turbulence of the age and the ferocity with which men of inquiring mind were being hunted and harried by guardians of tradition were bound to lend peculiar attraction to a philosophy ... strongly expressive of intellectual independence. (83) Morris Croll described the times in somewhat different terms, but with much of the same sentiments of Brown. Croll wrote England in [the seventeenth century] was witnessing the decline in the power of the aristocracy, the growth of the political and social influence of the middle class, the lessening of the expectation of ceremony and formula in religion, and the development of a genuine need for the effects of religious persuasion, as distinguished from the former preference for verbal appeals confined largely to rituals. These social and political pressures had their consequences in the world of English learning, and one of those consequences was that rhetorical theory tended to become simpler and less ritualistic in all respects... (383) 65 The ideas of government and religion presented here are not meant to imply that language considerations would not have had an audience if the government and religious institutions had not been in such turmoil throughout the century. The ideas expressed here are intended to show the developing mindset of unrest being created during the century and what issues may have been responsible for this change in attitude. The Gunpowder Plot and Rye Conspiracy were quelled; but, by the 1680's, the people were able to muster enough support to oust a king from power. This seems to show a change from an obedient population of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries--a population loyal to the monarchy and church fathers--to one by the end of the seventeenth that was bold and challenging, one that believed in the strength of the indvidual and of the common good. Croll mentioned that the unrest was felt in English learning and that rhetoric changed. Brown's allusion to an intellectual independence and Croll's references to the growth of influence from the middle class and changes in the world of English learning point to changes in language considerations linked to economic conditions. Economics The idea of influence from an increasing middle class is in tandem with the redistribution of wealth to a broader base of English society. With families having more resources, fewer children were required to join the workforce at a young 66 age. More parents could afford to send their children to school and, apparently, did so. Many children, especially in rural areas, attended one or two years of school at about ages six and seven. Records of school curriculum show these are the years when teachers taught reading. Many anecdotes survive that illustrate this. One anecdote related that seven-year-old James Bowd of Swavesey caught scarlet fever. He wrote that before he would allow the leeches to be put on him to cure the fever, he demanded that his parents purchase him a new Halfpenny or Penny book (Spufford 2). John Bunyan recalled his reading taste leaned toward "ballads, a News-book, George on Horseback to Bevis of Southampton, ... books that [taught some] curious art, that told of old Fables; but for the Holy Scriptures, [he] cared not" (7). Oliver Sampson, born in 1636, recalled he was sent to school and learned to read so well, ”that in four months time, [he] could read a chapter in the Bible pretty readily" (24). Thomas Tryon, born in 1634, wrote that at age about thirteen he could not read, because he had come from an abjectly poor family and had not been able to go to school. So, he bought himself a primer and, by going from one person to another, "learned to spell and read. Then, wanting to learn how to write as well, Thomas divested himself of one of his sheep to pay a lame young man to teach him the skill of writing (28-29). In these ways, economic improvement changed English learning and, by learning to read and sometimes write, men gained Brown's intellectual 67 independence. People who could read did not have to depend upon others to read for them and could arrive at interpretations and understandings of printed material independently. Not only did Croll mention that English learning changed, as just explained through economic influences, but he also said rhetoric changed. This change is evident in several rhetorics published during the mid-seventeenth century. These rhetorics made use of the Scriptures. Corbett cited this change, also, and attributed the possibility to the prominence of the Puritans during this time (556). In Centuria Sacra (1654) Thomas Hall, a Puritan clergyman and schoolmaster at King's Norton wrote that the purpose of ”about one-hundred [rhetorical] rules was for the expounding and clearer understanding of the Holy Scriptures. To which are added a Synopsis or Compendium of all the most materiall Tropes and Figures contained in the Scriptures" (556). A rhetoric published in 1657 by John Smith, 122 Mysteries of Rhetorique Unvail'e, "defined rhetorical figures with special reference to the Scriptures." Another rhetoric, Sacred Eloquence: or, The Art of Rhetoric as It Is Laid Down in the Scriptures, was published in 1659 by John Prideaux. Also, the preference for the Anti-Ciceronian/Pro-Senecan style affected the language of sermons. Thomas Hobbes wrote, "the natural style must avoid words that are high-sounding but hollow (those 'windy blisters') and phrases that express either more than is perfectly conceived, or perfect 68 conception in fewer words than it requires" (557). Clergymen adjusted the language which had followed Medieval rules of sermon writing (Artes Praedicandi) to adhere more to the language awareness of their current congregations. Perhaps the change in language style in sermons is less in keeping with rhetorical considerations than with the recognition that "lively sermons designed to keep congregations awake proved especially well suited to the new mass medium" (Eisenstein 316). Clergymen now deliverd lively sermons not in Latin, but in the vernacular, and had them printed to send with members of their congregations for future readings. As one can see, this is an instance when the attitudes toward a print prose style became a consideration for what would be thought of as an oral tradition: that of delivering sermons. But, since sermons could be printed and distributed to congregations, it seems natural to change the oral delivery to match what congregations would expect to see on the printed page. At the same time clergymen were adjusting sermon language to a natural style, scientists and philosophers were advocating a similar adjustment in the language of their disciplines. Science In thinking of the scientific revolution that occurred during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, one naturally thinks of Nicholas Copernicus and the reappraisal of existing 69 theories of cosmology and the development of a new model of the solar system; of Tycho Brahe and the observations of the positions of the stars and planets; of Johannes Kepler, assistant to Brahe, and the Laws of Planetary Motion; of Galileo Galilei and the experiments in mechanics, the Laws of Motion, the support of the Copernican hypothesis of the solar system, and the use of Lippershey's telescope for further celestial discoveries; of Isaac Newton and the Principles of Mechanics and Gravitation; of Robert Boyle and the work involving the action of gases; of William Harvey and the circulation of the blood; and of Anton von Leeuwenhoek and the discovery of the microscope. Richard Foster Jones characterizes this type of listing of scientific discoveries as the incremental approach to science. By this, he means historians usually present science as a "series of descriptions and evaluations of past discoveries in a more or. less chronological order, in which continuity is at best only partially maintained.” Jones says the result of this view shows man's knowledge of nature is "only the sum of all the increments added at various times in the past to growing conceptions" (41). But, according to Jones, there is another way to present scientific development. He calls this method a movement of ideas. The movement of ideas deals with the principles that give rise to discoveries more than the discoveries themselves as is evident in the incremental approach. To help readers understand this concept, Jones identifies several primary and m i] J . S | m. 70 secondary principles of the movement of ideas. He says the primary principles include the demand for a skeptical mind, freed from previous preconceptions and open to critical analysis to ideas presented to it. Second, he points out observation and experimentation must be accepted as the only trustworthy means of securing data. Third, he includes that inductive reasoning must be used to evaluate this data. Among the secondary principles, Jones says the first is the anti-authoritarian principle or the need to overthrow the authority of the ancients. Second, he identifies the necessity to attack the current prevailing theories concerning the decay of man's nature. He states as the third the principle of liberty or freedom to investigate new ideas and their impact on established ideas. Finally, Jones includes the idea that the need to embrace progress is imperative to maintain the movement of ideas (41). Whether one recognizes the incremental approach or Jones's movement of ideas approach, one must admit the scientific advances during this time significantly changed the lives of all human beings and their ways of thinking. Coupled with the actual discoveries and different approaches to science, one other interesting development in science at this time which had significant implications on man's thinking was the translated works of Plato. Through these translations, people became aware that all physical objects could be reduced to numbers. This, in turn, led to the faith that society was willing to place in mathematics, 71 allowing numbers to become a key to understanding nature. Two aspects of mathematics made profound impressions during this time. The first is the infallability of mathematics as a form of reasoning; and the second is the application of mathematics to the phenomenon of motion (Bredvold 166). Louis Bredvold relates how the idea of motion impacted man's thinking of himself as expressed in a piece by Thomas Hobbes. He quotes Hobbes, "As man is part of the material cosmos and his psychology and conduct nothing but a variety of motions, man's human nature is entirely within the realm of physical (and presumably mathematical) laws" (168). Hobbes expands this thought to how man reasons when he says, ”Reasoning is, indeed, but a kind of arithmetic: when a man Reasoneth, he does nothing else but conceive a sum total, from Addition of parcels; or conceive a Remainder, from Subtraction of one sum from another" (169) Bredvold says, "science of human nature worked out in this way could be predictive, and therefore, an infallible guide in morals and politics" (169). This attitude toward mathematics coupled with scientific discoveries and ideas which demonstrated the lack of chaos evident in celestial as well as earthly universes as revealed through the telescope and microscope presented not only the possibiliies for, but the certainty of, an ordered world to a confused society. Society was more than willing to accept that these new ideas represented a world of absolutes. Obviously, one area of trust was the world of science. How 72 science served to impact attitudes toward language and language change comes from recognizing what society was willing to accept and put its trust in as the seventeenth century progressed. It does not take the twentieth century mind by surprise to read that the seventeenth century was a time of tremendous scientific advancement; but what may take the twentieth century mind by surprise is to read how deeply the world of science was caught up in the debate concerning rhetoric and the direction it ultimately took. One cannot look at most aspects of the seventeenth century without confronting Francis Bacon. According to Richard Foster Jones, ”the man largely responsible for creating the war [the controversy of which were superior: the ancients or the moderns] was Sir Francis Bacon, and his spirit directed the campaign through the whole of the seventeenth century" (10). In Bacon's terms, the function of rhetoric was "to apply and recommend the dictates of reason and the imagination" (Golden and Corbett 7). Even though the imagination is part of his theory of communication, it is clear that reason is the dominant faculty. Because to Bacon and others involved in the scientific movement, reason is the most important component, matter (res) takes precedence over words (verba). In the Novum Organum, Bacon considered the ”Idols of the Market-place (i.e., language) the most troublesome, maintaining that these alone had rendered philosophy and the sciences sophistical and inactive" (Jones 143-144). "Since 73 words were invented to satisfy inferior intellects, they either stand for things that do not exist at all, or inaccurately represent the truths of nature" (144). Bacon condemned language "because it foisted upon the world ideas that had no basis in reality, or confused and distorted the real truths of nature, so that knowledge of them became impossible" (144). In this way, Bacon arrived at what is called the scientific style of expression. As has already been explained, this style was a plain style, one which was a simple, unadorned, clear prose style. Bacon's attitude toward science and language was carried on by members of the Royal Society, an organization founded in 1660 to promote science. That shaping attitudes toward language and rhetoric was one of the missions of the Society is seen in the following words of Thomas Sprat. There is one thing more about which the Society has been most sollicitous, and that is the manner of their Discourse, which, unless they had been very watchful to keep in due temper, the whole spirit and vigour of their Design had been soon eaten out by the luxury and redundance of speech. ...Ornaments of speaking ... were at first, no doubt, an admirable Instrument in the hands of Wise Men, when they were onely employ'd to describe Goodness, Honesty, Obedience, in larger, fairer and more moving Images; to represent Truth, cloth'd with Bodies; and to bring Knowledg back again to our very senses, from whence it was at first deriv'd to our understandings. But now they are generally chang'd to worse uses: They make the Fancy disgust the best things...; they are in open defiance against Reason,...; they give the mind a motion too changeable and bewitching to consist with right practice. Who can behold without indignation how many mists and uncertainties these specious Tropes and Figures have brought on our knowledg? (Spingarn 116-119) 74 Sprat went on to say the members of the Society worked rigorously to "reject all amplifications, digressions, and swellings of style; to return back to the primitive purity and shortness, [to a] naked, natural way of speaking, ... that near to a mathematical plainness" (118-119). It is obvious to see how the style Sprat refers to is clearly the Baconian style. Another language issue people discussed was the idea of deve10ping a universal language to aid clear communication. John Wilkins, another member of the Society, wrote an essay detailing what he felt was wrong with the grammar of Latin. He identified four areas of imperfections. The first area was orthography. Wilkins said there were at once too many letters and too few letters, and the same sound does not represent the same letter. The second area was etymology. Like orthography, Wilkins said Latin had too many and too few words. He said the meaning of words was equivocal, and inflection had too many unnecessary and unnatural distinctions and innumerable exceptions. The third area was syntax. He said the syntax was complicated by too many distinctions and bewildering irregularities. Lastly, Wilkins attacked prosodia. He said there were too many exceptions to the rules for determining accent and quality. What Wilkins idealized to smooth out this confusion was his idea that the new philosophical grammar would have no unnecessary rules and no exceptions. These would not be necessary because language would be built upon characters for 75 which there were no exceptions; therefore, no unnecessary rules would be needed. He proposed all men could communicate successfully because they would share a common language (Christensen 282-283). The ideas purported by Wilkins in this essay demonstrate just how deeply scientists felt the distrust of language evident throughout society. Another idea that linked science and language dealt with knowledge acquisition. Baconians said the traditional way of acquiring knowledge was that it came from books. Because the old science was written in Greek and Latin, one had to study philology to understand science and acquire knowledge. But, to acquire knowledge modern scientists experimented and observed nature. Thus, "the opposition between language and observed phenomena became established, and language, inseparably associated with the erroneous science of the past, attracted suspicion" (Jones 144). This sentiment was expressed by Robert Boyle, Edward Bernard, and also George Thompson when he wrote, "Tis Works, not Words; Things not Thinking; Pyrotechnie [chemistry], not Philologie; Operation, not merely Speculation, must justifie us Physicians" (Thompson). A third influence from the scientific community upon attitudes toward language appeared in the vigorous attack on the teaching of the classics in schools. Scholars such as Comenius, John Dury, John Webster, and John Wilkins espoused the idea that ”man's knowledge is in no way increased by the mere knowledge of languages, [therefore] little time should 76 be spent upon them" (Jones 147). These ideas convey the role language assumed for scientists. What Bacon, Sprat and the others were against was a style of language that was filled with allusions. What they wanted was a language reduced to its simplest terms which would make it as accurate, concrete, and clear as possible. This would render it "void of all verbal superfluity and insignificancy, in short, to sweep away all the fogginess of words" (148). The scientists said that language handled in this way led to the truth of ideas regarding nature and that the advancement of science depended on "greater precision and clarity in the use of words" (150). Others who were interested in precision and clarity in the use of words were philosophers. Philosophy The changes occurring in philosophical thought and concern during the seventeenth century are so extensive, it is impossible to cover them all in one study. Nor is it the intention to do so here. But, it is possible to cover some of the issues philosophy was dealing with during this century that had a direct impact upon attitudes toward language and language change. One issue which commanded attention was the attempt to locate the place of a divine authority in light of new ideas of scientific methodology, or, to discover the relationship between faith and reason. Other issues and questions holding 77 the concentration of such philosophers as Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel were concepts such as rationalism, scientific Optimism, metaphysical dualism, and empiricism. Philosophers attempted to answer questions such as what is knowledge? How is knowledge formulated? What is truth? [How does man's mind reason? What is an idea, simple and/or complex? What is an impression? How do impressions become probabilities? How does the relationship of cause and effect function in the association process? What are words? What is the relationship between words and ideas? What is reality? How does the concept of order and system fit into the schema of understanding? Besides questioning traditionally held concepts, like the scientists, the most prominent philosophers of the seventeenth century also had a great deal to say about language. Descartes had no place for any classical rhetoric in his philosophy. Descartes's interest was in formulating a method to distinguish rhetorical philosophy from the discursive method. To do this, he based his theory of knowledge on the idea of self-evidence with a clearness and distinctness of ideas. Self-evidence was the only distinctive characteristic of reason and permitted only the method of demonstration which could be used only on clear, distinct ideas and not on probable or likely ideas for which he said the method of deliberation and argumentation must be used. Therefore, the method of rhetoric currently employed for argumentation must be inadequate. 78 Modern scholars take Descartes to task for limiting the efficiency of human reason to the limits of self-evidence, as has been pointed out by Chaim Perelman. But, this idea was not understood during the Middle Ages or the Renaissance, and this is one reason why rhetoric, as understood according to Descarte's ideas, remained only a technique for elegant language, without having also to be convincing, because persuasion no longer interested anyone. And since cultured elegance in communication can hinder the process of clarification and distinction of ideas--in keeping with the notion of plain style put forward by Bacon--rhetoric became not only useless, but harmful (Florescu 197). Another seventeenth century philosopher who shared these views was Spinoza who carried on with the work of Descartes. According to Spinoza, language was an arbitrary creation of the people who first invented words ultimately employed by philosophers. Words were only extrinsic denominations for things, which can only be attributed to them in a rhetorical way. The faculty which created these names was imagination, not reason. This was why language was an imperfect method and words only relative instruments. To Spinoza, communication was naked, purely grammatical and transmitted its idea without participating in its creation. Therefore, rhetoric could not even find its justification as the stylistic regulator of communication (198). To see that the ideas about language being expressed by these philosophers were important and influenced later 79 thinking, one can look to the ideas of eighteenth century German philosophers, Kant and Hegel. A fourth philosopher, Immanuel Kant, defined rhetoric as "the art of transacting a serious business of the understanding as if it were a free play of the imagination." He said insofar as rhetoric represented the art of using human weaknesses to satisfy personal interests--justified though they may be--merited no consideration. Kant said the orator ”in reality performed less than he promised, for he failed to come up to his promise, and a thing, too, which was his avowed business, namely, the engagement of the understanding to some end." Finally, Kant wrote, "The reading of the best speech...was always interwoven with the unpleasant feeling of disapproval of a deceitful art" (Kant 321-327). Dostal evaluates Kant's castigation of rhetoric as meaning to say "one needs no rhetorical skill-~one needs only to speak the truth" (225). Like Kant, Hegel did not add anything new to the position of rhetoric either, but he did opine that the mass rules of rhetoric exerted harmful influence on the development of oratory among certain peoples such as Cicero, Virgil and Horace. He said in the works of these Romans, art was felt as something artificial, in which everything was calculated and reflected upon. And so, one can see the position of the philosophers cited was very clearly one of negating the artificiality inherent in the way rhetoricians had organized the rules for 80 using language and of instilling an attitude complementary to that of the leading scientists of the day: that language usage needed to strip away classical ideas of rhetoric. Clearly, then, scientists and philosophers directly influenced attitudes toward language and language change. The ideas they developed and presented as absolutes must have been a welcomed relief to a society confused by turmoil and in-fighting among other institutions and disciplines. What should seem apparent is the direction the attitude toward language and language change took was not toward a new rhetoric but toward an anti-rhetoric. Anti-Rhetoric Movements which created an anti-rhetoric attitude had occurred many times before in the history of language development. Peter Abelard (1097-1142) had purported a separation between philosophy and rhetoric with the notion that philosophical language should be devoid of passion. Abelard advocated that dialectics, not rhetoric, should have the leading role with philosophy. Also, the Humanist Rediscovery of Rhetoric in Italy, carried forward by Petrarca (1304-1374), Salutati (1331-1406), Leonardo Bruni (1369-1444), and finally Giovanni Giovano Pontano (1426-1503) who espoused the idea "that the concept of the world and of life still proffered in the Middle Ages was no longer in a position to offer a suitable ideology to the gradual yet radical changes in economics and society” (Grassi qtd. in 81 ‘weiss 28). What Grassi seems to be addressing is that the Ciceronian appeal to rhetoric be replaced with a Senecan--or plain--style; that advocates of a plain style of expression, one developed with brevity or copiousness, with natural language, without tropes and figures is an anti-rhetoric position. For, in the sense of the traditional ideas of rhetoric, the ideas embodied in a plain style do seem anti-rhetorical. But, through the recognition of the changes in attitudes caused by circumstances in government, religion, economics, science, and philosophy, one phiIOSOpher accepted the challenge to draw together the fragments of thinking of his society and to turn them away from thoughts of an anti-rhetoric toward thoughts of a new rhetoric. This philosopher is John Locke. CHAPTER THREE THE DEVELOPING PHILOSOPHY OF JOHN LOCKE John Locke is the father of almost every development of thought in this country. He is not only the father of English philosophy, of English psychology, of English educational theory, but also the father of English economic theory, of English political theory--he is a philosopher of the widest possible range who, if he were not an Englishman, would perhaps be even more famous in the world than he already is. Sir William Rees-Mogg, The Plain Style in English Prose, 1984 Introduction John Locke--philosopher, psychologist, educator, economist, and politician as well as diplomat, scientist, physician, theologian, and pedagogue--appears to be the complete man of letters. His interest in and involvement with such varied disciplines positioned Locke to comment on the revolution of thought occurring during the seventeenth century. The development of Locke's philosophy-~which this chapter will explore--is important to the study of language because the ideas that impact rhetoric that Locke developed in the Essay Concerning_Human Understanding are a result of his overall perception of the roles of the individual and of society and the ability for all people to communicate ideas and work together. Locke's personal philosophy as well as a philosophy of the times grew from pieces discussing economics 82 83 (Some Considerations of the Lowering of Interest and Raising the Value of Money, 1668, 1692); religion ("The Great Question Concerning Things Indifferent in Religious Worship", 1661 and Letter of Toleration, 1686); government (Two Treatises of Civil Government, 1690); and education ("Thoughts Concerning Education", 1693). Locke's Phi1080phy During the later decades of the seventeenth century, Locke's involvement with economics concerned the reorganization of English coinage, the establishment of an effective credit system, and the development of institutions to deal with foreign trade. Two aspects of economic involvement that relate most directly to and demonstrate Locke's attitude toward the role of the individual separately and of society as a whole are unemployment and his theory of property. According to Locke, "unemployment was due to the relaxation of discipline and the corruption of the manners; therefore, the first step toward setting the poor on work should be closing the pubs or unnecessary alehouses" (Cranston 31). Locke proposed that the economic way to deal with beggars was that unemployed men under fifty should serve three years in the navy; those over fifty should be imprisoned for three years hard labor; women should serve lighter sentences; and children under fourteen should be 84 soundly whipped (Cranston 31). The situation for Locke was that he did not accept the unavailability of jobs as an excuse for unemployment. He advocated that unemployed citizens should be put to work with private employers at a wage less than the usual rate under threat of impressment. Women and children were to be treated with no less consideration. Locke said they should be put to work in pauper-schools in each parish. A major idea to come out of Locke's involvement with economics was his theory of property as it related to the poor. Locke felt that the share of the national wealth that the poor experienced was seldom above the subsistence level. Living at this substandard level trapped poor people into concentrating all their thoughts on survival. Therefore, poor people did not enjoy the privileges and responsibilities of political society. Locke adhered to the idea that political societies were united for the preservation of property. By property, Locke meant that which men have inside them as well as their possessions. Since poor people owned few goods, what they had to offer society was their work. If they sold their capacity to work to others, they would have nothing. Therefore, poor people were not compelled to contribute to the commonwealth. If, however, laborers had some material goods they felt the political society was helping them protect, they would become involved with securing the good of the nation (Cranston 31-32). fe.‘ sc‘ Sh ha be pr C0 5F St be cc t] la 1; a. [6) 85 What seems to be linked with Locke's theory of property is the knowledge that more parents found it economically feasible to send their six and seven year old children to school instead of having to position them into the workforce. Sharing more equitably in the wealth of the nation seemed to have instilled in parents the desire to have their children better educated, a decision which would produce people better prepared to serve themselves, their families, their communities, and ultimately, their nation. While writing and talking about economics, Locke also spoke out about religion. At first, Locke was a staunch supporter of religious intolerance. He said the calm that had come with the Restoration of Charles II to the throne had compelled him to encourage obedience to his sovereign. But, the quarrels of his close friend, Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, later first Earl of Shaftesbury, with Charles II over Charles' position on toleration only for Catholicism played a large part in changing Locke's ideas. Shaftesbury was so adamant in his conviction for the Protestant cause that he organized a rebellion to attempt to make it illegal for Charles' Catholic son, James, to be his father's successor. This rebellion was stopped; but, apparently, it served to remind Locke of the importance of the right of the individual to worship as he chose. The acknowledgement of the rights of the individual were further expressed in Locke's Two Treatises of Civil Government, a piece which espoused the public's right to 86 challenge the ruler. Readers must remember it was understood that the authority of hereditary monarchs was derived from God, clearly establishing the link between the Church and the State. In the Treatise, Locke argued that "the authority of a father over his children was not absolute, but subject to Natural Law, so that if the authority of Kings over their subjects was derived from the authority of fathers over their children it would not be absolute." Locke supported this viewpoint in saying "the authority of kings over their subjects could 225 be derived from the authority of fathers over their children because the relationship of a father to his children was a natural one, which the relationship of king to his subjects was not" (Cranston 15). Here, Locke was clearly elevating the importance of the common man. Besides advocating men's right to rebel against his ruler, in the Treatise Locke also expressed his opinion that men exist as part of a social contract. By social contract, Locke said he believed men once lived in a state of natural anarchy but then banded together to form political societies. In this way, men had already entered into a social contract. A part of this social contract is men's Natural Rights. In the Treatise Locke explained the connection between Natural Law and Natural Rights. He said, "man was subject to the rule of Natural Law, which was ultimately God's law made known to men through the voice of reason" (15). By this Locke meant "what God--or Nature--had given men was a faculty of reason and a sentiment of self-love. Reason in C1 H4 b: DC tC er 1c ri Na id la 0f to to pr< age Hou Sue 168 But bet‘ 87 combination with self-love produced morality. Reason could discern the general principles of ethics, or Natural Law, and self-love should lead men to obey those prinicples" (27-28). Here Locke expressed his belief that the individual is ruled by Natural Law but is free because he is endowed with Natural Rights, namely life, liberty, and property. He said men do not surrender their liberty to a sovereign, but entrust power to him. In return for a settled justice and mutual security ensured by the sovereign, men agree to obey their ruler as long as their Natural Rights are respected. Locke's position on men's right to rebellion or the right to rebel against a ruler who ”failed to respect the Natural Rights of his subject--thus derived not only from the idea of the social contract but from the supremacy of God's law to man-made law" (Cranston 16) shows how Locke took some of the most important events of his day and reasoned out the role of the individual in society as well as society's role to the individual, both of which were undergoing a clear process of redefinition. After Shaftesbury's disappearance in 1682, Locke once again became involved at Oxford. But, because of the Rye House Conspiracy--allegedly attributed to Shaftesbury's Whig successors--and Locke's long association with Shaftesbury, in 1684 it was necessary that Locke exile himself to Amsterdam. During this time, Locke observed the creation of a coalition between European Protestantism and political freedom. The French monarch, Louis XIV, a devout Catholic, threatened to 01 EC t] e: P: CI. a; 88 send his military forces up against surviving Protestant States. By threatening to attack religious groups with his military forces, Louis was demonstrating what Locke hated politically: arrogance, ambition, and corruption of human beings and the purposes of God (Dunn 12-13). This experience, coupled with Shaftesbury's infuence, once again highlighted for Locke the idea that religious toleration was less an issue of the State, or a political issue, and more a case of individual human right. While Locke was in Amsterdam concerned with Louis's threat to the last Protestant bastion on the Continent, the Crown passed to a Catholic king in England. In response to these events, Locke wrote the Letter of Toleration. In it Locke professed that ”any human attempt to interfere with religious belief or worship was blasphemously presumptuous [and] far more serious than any of the modest concessions William had made to the Dissenters" (13). Another piece Locke published while in Holland was titled "Thoughts Concerning Education." It was a collection of letters written to his friend, Edward Clarke, about the education of Clarke's son. In this piece, Locke advocated the best education was one learned not by rules, but through example; not by charging children's memories, but through practice. To this end, Locke suggested parents keep their children away from domestic servants whose "ill manners were apt to horribly infect children" (21) and out of schools 89 because they could fall into the company of undesirable companions. He said that "education with a private tutor was far more likely to give a pupil a genteel carriage, manly thoughts, and a sense of what is worthy and becoming" (21). Locke thought foreign languages should be learned not from studying grammar rules, but from speaking the language. Also, if a child had no genius for poetry, it was torment to make him study it; and if a child had a propensity for poetry, then why should he have to study it? Quite frankly, Locke did not "know what reason a father [could] have to wish his son a poet" (20) anyway. Another piece Locke wrote while in exile in Holland was a travel journal. While some scholars think the journal itself is dismal reading, the ideas contained in it demonstrate more of Locke's developing philosophy. Sometimes, after Locke had visited a notable cathedral or chateau, his entry of this visit did not describe the appearance of the building or the interior or any inspiration or insights Locke may have felt or sensed, but contained exact dimensions of the edifice. For example, in one entry he applauded the nondescript architecture of one of the best Dutch universities. These entries might be construed as indicative of Locke's animosity toward ceremony and show. Locke summed up his visit to this university by saying, "it proved that knowledge depends not on the stateliness of buildings." By using the word knowledge in this connection, Locke was saying he wanted ”to get away from the imagination, 90 from vague glamour of medieval things, from unthinking adherence to tradition, from enthusiasm, visionary insights and down to the publicly verifiable, measurable, plain, demonstrable facts” (21-22). The writings prompted by these various events are recognized as among Locke's most important pieces. They serve to demonstrate the development of Locke's philosophy of the importance of the individual and of how various factions of the nation should work together. These writings show that Locke was not advocating that the State should provide what it decided was important for society. What Locke saw as appropriate was the State's recognition of the importance of each individual and the right of individuals to pursue the ends they felt desirable. An important part of this philosophy was along with the State recognizing the importance of individuals, individuals had to recognize their responsibilities to themselves and the State. These responsibiliies included working for one's livelihood; practicing the religion of one's choice, participating in the life of the nation, and receiving a proper education. Locke was not advocating an absolute equality among men as it pertains to exact status and possessions, but the individual's right to liberty and the pursuit of necessities. The ideas expressed in these pieces seem to be Locke's assimilation of his prospective of his world. They also seem to be Locke's preparatory work for the Essay Concerning Human Understanding. 91 Essay Concerning Human Understanding Locke began drafts of the Essay in 1661 but did not publish it until late in the 1680's; therefore, the Essay was in preparation as he was writing the pieces discussed above. When one reads the Essay, one realizes the ideas just discussed are sprinkled throughout. Locke said his purpose in the Essay was "to inquire into the origin, certainty, and extent of human knowledge, together with the grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and assent" (128). {All page references to material from the Essay are from the St. John Edition of The Works of John Locke.} Locke stated he felt the importance of inquiring into the human understanding was to let all the light we can enter into our minds to discover how ideas enter into man's mind, ...to discover how our understanding comes to attain those notions of things we have, ...to set down measures of the certainty of our knowledge, ...to recognize the limitations of our mental capacities so we may employ them to secure their great concernments and to lead men to knowledge; ...to learn how best to use our minds for our benefit." (128-133) In these ways, Locke seemed to have turned his attention away from investigating the functioning of the State and of individuals as part of the State toward investigating the functioning of the individual himself. In Book I of the Essay Locke attempted to dispel the idea of innate principles. St. John explains what it was Locke meant to refute. He says 92 Those advocating the notion of innate ideas supposed that certain of our ideas are obtained through sensation, others through reflection, and that a third sort are stamped upon the essence of the soul at the moment of its creation. But because the ideas of this third class are not developed in the first stages of life so as to be taken cognizance of by the understanding, they are said to lie hidden in the depths of our being until called forth, and rendered visible by / circumstances. This is the system which Locke undertakes to explode. (St. John 8) Having disrupted the accepted philosophy of the functioning of man's mind to his satisfaction, in Book II Locke developed his theory of how man's mind functions. Since Locke rejected the idea that man is born with a set of innate ideas, his philosophy was an explanation of where man's ideas do come from. He developed his philosophy around the notion of simple ideas, what they were and how man came by them. In explaining simple ideas, Locke drew from his understanding of sensation, reflection, perception, and retention. He followed this explanation by discussing how man combined simple ideas into complex ideas. In developing the notions of complex ideas, Locke explained simple modes, duration and expansion, number, infinity, pleasure and pain, power, cause and effect, identity and diversity, clear, obscure, distinct, confused ideas, real and fantastical, adequate and inadequate, true and false ideas, as well as the’ association of ideas. Having established this as the foundation, Locke stated the heart of his philosophy in Book IV which he titled "Knowledge." Locke began this book by defining knowledge. 93 Then, he defined truth in terms of the truth and certainty of universal propositions and of maxims. Next, Locke expressed his ideas of man's knowledge of existence, of the existence of God, of the existence of other things; of the improvement of knowledge, of judgment, of probability, of the degrees of assent, of reason, of faith and reason, of enthusiams, and of wrong assent or error. Finally, Locke concluded the Egggy by defining what he saw as the proper division of sciences. The Egggy was Locke's "way of dealing with important difficulties in normative conduct and theological discussion." When the Egggy became available to the public, many objected to it. What critics reacted to showed that their concerns were mainly with Locke's ideas of epistemology or "the study of man's processes of gaining knowledge, the kinds and limits of this knowledge, and the distinction between knowledge and belief." Several ontological questions, such as "the nature of the objects of knowledge, their relation to knowledge, and different kinds of objects which man can be said to know,” and various subsidiary questions, such as "the nature of cause, of substance, of power, of liberty and necessity” arose and had to be met. So, critics attacked Locke's ”solutions to these epistemological and metaphysical problems [and] theological and ethical issues" (Yolton, Ideas, viii-ix). Among the criticisms were letters from Amsterdam written by Christian Knorr von Rosenroth and Fredericus van Leenhof now preserved in the Lovelace Collection in the Bodleian 94 Library. Both men took issue with Locke's denial of innate ideas and were concerned with the implication this had on religion. This same criticism was echoed from Ireland in letters by William King and James Lowde (7). Stillingfleet, the Bishop of Worcester, carried Locke's denial of innate ideas to the conclusion of assessing Locke's doctrine as one of atheism. In 1704 William Sherlock, later to become Bishop of London, published yet another charge of atheism in the fashion of Stillingfleet's (Yolton , Ideas, 3-8). A second area of criticism was expressed in a letter of a friend of James Tyrell dated January 27, 1689/90 that states, "Mr. Locke's new Book admits of no indifferent censure, for tis either extreamly commended, or much deeny'd, but has ten Enemies for one friend; Metaphysics being too Serious a subject for this Age" (Yolton 3). Besides the concerns of Locke's position on innate ideas and metaphysics, Tyrell related in a letter dated March 18, 1689/90, ”a friend told me the other day that he had it from one who pretends to be a great Judge of bookes: that [Locke] had taken all that was good in [the Egggy ] from Descartes [sic] divers moderne french Authours, not only as to the notions but the manner of connection of them.” (Yolton 4) So, a third criticism dealt with plagiarism which could imply or was meant to imply that Locke had not presented any new philosOphical ideas but had only presented a continuity of his predecessors. 95 A fourth objection to Locke's epistemology was expressed by Norris when he criticised Locke's definition of truth as the ”joyning or separating of Signs, as the Things signified do Agree or Disagree with one another” (18). Norris pointed out in "Cursory Reflections” that this definition placed emphasis on ”Truth of the Mind or of the Subject instead of on Truth of the Thing or of the Object, which consists not in the minds joyning or separating either Signs or Ideas, but in the Essential Habitudes that are between the Ideas themselves" (18). By the turn of the century, this scepticism was one of the most frequently repeated objections to the Egggy . This area of concern was discussed and commented on well beyond Locke's death in 1704 by such notables as Anthony Collins, Samuel Clarke, Isaac Watts, Peter Browne, John Witty, and Bishop Berkeley (25). Members of intimate circles that included Locke reacted favorably to the Essay. Locke's friends wrote as many letters and articles of praise as there were criticisms. Letters came from Limborch and his associates in Amsterdam. In a letter to Locke dated May 10, 1688, Lady E. Guise of Utrecht says, "I know not how fare Emulation or a mistaken Zeal may prevaile over the minds of some, to Cavill with your philosophy or question your religion but I leave them to answare for their Ignorance" (2). Molyneux, a friend in Ireland, wrote letters of nothing but commendation to Locke. In December of 1689, Tyrell wrote from Oxford of the reception there to the Essay to tell Locke that "many copies 96 of his book were being sold '5 I hear it is well approved of by those who have begun the reading of it.'" He wrote in another letter to Locke, dated February 18, 1689/90, "I must tell you that your booke is received here [Oxford] with much greater applause than I find it is at London; the persons here being most addicted to contemplation.“ In a 1699 defence of the Essay, Samuel Bold wrote, it is "a Book the best Adapted of any I know, to serve the Interest of Truth, Natural, Moral, and Divine: And that it is the most Worthy, most Noble, and best Book I ever read, excepting those which were writ by Persons Divinely inspired.” Others commended the Egggy in the dedications of their own publications. Among these were Molyneux in his Dioptrica Nova (1692), LeClerc in his Ontologia (1692), Richard Burthogge in his Essay upon Reason (1694), William Wotton in his Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning (1694) (3-5). These criticisms and counter-criticisms indicate the wide range of concerns of the reading public when Locke's Egggy was published. Those in opposition to the Egggy expressed concerns over Locke's denial of innate ideas and the implication this had on religion, Locke's position on metaphysics, Locke's apparent plagiarism of other philosophers, and Locke's definition of truth. Those in favor of the Baggy applauded Locke for his ideas, stated those who opposed the Egggy must not understand it, announced that the book was selling well, and commended Locke for his ideas of truth. H; seven 1 statem Essay. the or -§53L league leaIn: the E‘ the di HOW have C 97 Hill reports several modern scholars have identified seven points that seem to summarize Locke's philosophical statement for the seventeenth century as presented in the Essay. These points are l. Repudiation of authority-based truths and its two tzggmaidens, the educational system and deductive 2. Support for empirically supported truth and its handmaiden, inductive logic. 3. Repudiation of metaphysical speculation and its two handmaidens, once again, the educational system and deductive logic. 4. Support for the method, i.e., procedures and attitudes of the natural and physical sciences, in the study of human behavior and solution of social ills. 5. Emphasis on epistomology, rather than logic, in the study of philosophy. 6. Indictment of government for failure to abide by natural laws which permit greater realization of individual freedom and liberty. (108) The seventh point identified in Hill's book deals with the one noticeable absence from the above summary of Locke's Essay. This point reads ”emphasis on the central role of language and effective communication in the advancement of learning," (108) and this point is the subject of Book III of the Essay. Readers will remember this study begins by discussing the debate during the sixteenth century concerning words; and now, in looking at Book III of the Essay, the reader will have come full circle, returning again to consider words. CHAPTER FOUR THE FOUNDATION FOR A NEW RHETORIC I must confess, when I first began this discourse of the understanding,...I had not the least thought that any consideration of words was at all necessary to it; but when, having passed over the original and composition of our ideas, I began to examine the extent and certainty of our knowledge, I found it had so near a connexion with words, that, unless their force and manner of signification were first well observed, there could be very little said clearly and pertinently concerning knowledge... John Locke, Essay of Human Understanding (III, Ix, 21, 92) Introduction In Book III of an Essay Concerning,Human Understanding, John Locke explained his conception of how words function in communication. He outlined his concepts of simple ideas, complex ideas (also called mixed modes), and substances, then explained imperfections and abuses of words and remedies for these. The analysis of this material by modern researchers is divided. Some see it as anti-rhetorical; others see it as a foundation for a new rhetorical system. In this chapter I present evidence that shows how Locke responded to the debates surrounding language during the seventeenth century and, in doing so, laid the foundation for a new rhetoric. 98 99 The Essay: Book III Locke began Book III of the Egggy with a simple definition of words. He wrote, "Man...had by nature his [vocal] organs so fashioned, as to befit to frame articulate sounds, which we call words" (III, I, l, 1). It is not enough to make sounds but that these sounds must be ”signs of internal conceptions, and [must be] marks for the ideas within [man's] own mind" (III, II, 2, 5). Words represent ideas conceptualized in the mind of the speaker; and, when uttered, they incite similar ideas within the hearer's mind, "otherwise men could not communicate, at least to a similarity of ideas, if not identical ideas” (III, II, 4, 6-7). Thus, as long as articulate sound represents an idea recognized by men in conversation, communication can occur (III, II, 7, 8). I feel that as Locke thought about the situation with communication, he allowed himself to regress beyond the concerns of many of those involved in the language debates: beyond the issues of whether English had literary status, whether it was capable of eloquence, whether grammar should be taught, what style was appropriate. I sense Locke had the insight to realize that before those issues could be be settled, something more profound--understanding words--had to be acknowledged. He seems to be saying this when he wrote 100 words...interpose themselves so much between our understandings and the truth which it would comtemplate and apprehend, that...If we consider, in the fallacies men put upon themselves...and the mistakes in mens disputes and notions, how great a part is owing to words, and their uncertain and mistaken significations, we shall have reason to think...that the arts of improving it have been made the business of men's study... (III, Ix, 21, 92) I find it interesting to note that although Cheke, Lever, Puttenham, Fairfax, Eloyt, Pettie, and Spenser had had so much to say about vocabulary, they had had so little to say about words. The next step in the process of understanding communication that debaters seem to have passed over is the explanation of ideas. Locke explained ideas are divided into three kinds. The first, simple ideas, is made up of one idea, one essence, one simple perception. Simple terms are difficult to define because, since they do represent only one essence, if a listener does not have the identical essence in his own mind, then he will have difficulty understanding the concept he speaker is trying to convey (III, IV, 1-8, 21-25). Here one might sense what Wilkins was advocating: a universal language, one that was built upon a language system that had no exceptions or conflicting rules. Another part of the debate Locke might have been addressing in this section of Book III was the argument about eloquence in the English language. Elyot, Boorde, Cooper, and Skelton had championed the cause of eloquence earlier in the century, and the concern was still visible during the 101 later decades in the century. In 1685 Christopher Cooper complained of a barbarous dialect with such examples as bushop for bishop, Chorles for Charles, mought for might, meece for mice, wuts for oats, shet for shut, sarvice for service, stomp for stamp, and vitles for victuals. Since Cooper's concern is presented as one with dialect, it seems to suggest that the concern was with the spoken language; but Cooper could have been implying that these barbarous words were written as they were spoken. Locke seems to have had little patience with this particular argument when he wrote men are usually guilty of [confused use and application of words]. ...Men would see what a small pittance of reason and truth, or possibly none at all, is mixed with those huffing opinions...if they would but look beyond fashionable sounds, and observe what ideas are or are not comprehended under those words with which they are so armed at all points, and with which they so confidently lay about them. (III, Iv, 16, 29) Locke's criticism of fashionable sounds may have been an attempt to direct the thinking about the vernacular toward something more important: the formulation of the idea behind the word. Locke's statement is that transference of knowledge is made possible through understanding how ideas are formed, not from how words sound. One is reminded that Locke proposed publishing a dictionary that contained illustrations showing exactly what a word signified (Yolton Compass 124). When one understands Locke's definition of simple ideas, one can see how Locke's dictionary would have been a collection of illustrations of 102 simple ideas, the lowest point of a word. By lowest point of a word, Locke used the examples white is white; red is red. The words whips and £29 can become nothing else. One can use the word 3212; to denote a genus for white and red; but the term £2125 denies ”white its whiteness, red its redness." In this way, words that represent simple ideas represent not a genus, but a species (III, IV, 1-16, 21-29). The second kind of ideas Locke explained are mixed modes or complex ideas. By contrast, unlike simple ideas that represent real essences or objects that exist, complex ideas are a combination of simple ideas created within man's mind. This process of linking simple ideas occurs in three steps. First, the mind chooses a certain number of simple ideas; next, it gives them a connection and makes them one idea; and, finally, the mind ties them together with a name. Locke observed that no one doubts that the mind combines simple ideas into complex ideas; but, he asked, who is to say whether the mixed modes occur before or gftgr the fact? Man can put ideas together in a could-be or what if...fashion before the actuality. The sign adultery is an example that illustrates this. Man may have abstracted the concept of adultery in his mind before adultery was ever committed. Locke concluded his discussion of complex ideas by stating mixed modes always stand for the real essences of their species. This notion is important because, said Locke, 103 I shall imagine I have done some service to truth, peace, and learning, if, by any enlargement on this subject, I can make men reflect on their own use of language, and give them reason to suspect, 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. And therefore, it is not unreasonable for them to be wary herein themselves, and not to be unwilling to have them examined by others. (III, V, 2-16, 31-40) Finally, Locke said there are objects existing in nature that, in and of themselves, are made up of simple ideas. Simple ideas of real essences exist. When man's mind works to create a relationship between these species ideas, it forms complex ideas for essences that do no exist naturally. But, another set of species ideas can be joined to form complex ideas that do exist in nature, and these Locke called substances, the third kind of ideas. He said the names of substances stand for sorts [classification]. A word which represents a substance for Locke is gold. Gold is a substance because it does exist in nature and is a combination of real essences: ”a body yellow, of a certain weight, malleable, fusable, and fixed.” Any substance called by the same name, such as man, will all be reducible to similar general or abstract terms which represent the collection of simple ideas that that word reflects. There can be differences in faculties such as differences in reasoning power, but all objects named gold or man will have a common set of real essences. 104 After carefully explaining how these essences represent substances, Locke said these essences are ngt real essences. Since nature has completed the relationship, not man's mind, man cannot always discern the £231 essences of the substances. What man can do with his mind is give names to those essences he thinks makes up the substances, such as "yellow color, a certain weight, malleability, fusability, and fixity" for gold. Therefore, man does not know the £331 essences of gold for sure. He is giving names to what he thinks the real essences of gold are; therefore, in this way, substances are made up of not real essences, but of nominal essences. In summary, simple ideas represent the £321 essences of concepts. They represent the lowest point of their essence and are the species. Mixed modes are terms that represent ideas made up within man's mind by combining simple ideas. They have no real essence themselves but are reducible to the real essences of the simple ideas of which they are comprised. In this way, mixed modes are the genus. Substances, however, represent complex ideas that do exist in nature. But, because nature has joined them, man may not be able to reduce them to real essences, but may only guess at these essences and give them appropriate names. Therefore, substances represent complex ideas but are reducible only to nominal essences (III, VI, 1-30, 40-60). Locke apologized to the reader for the lengthy explanations, but it is easy to understand why he labored his 105 points. Locke's purpose in this chapter was to show how words serve to facilitate man's process of imparting knowledge to each other. As long as one man speaks to another using only simple ideas, there is little hinderance to this process. When man expands his expression to include mixed modes or complex ideas, his task to communicate becomes more complicated. In this situation man is trying to communicate to another ideas he has created within his own mind. As long as both speaker and listener understand what simple ideas or real essences the complex ideas or mixed modes represent, communication is insured. But, the most difficult job in attempting communication is when a speaker chooses to use words which represent substances since the speaker and listener may not recognize the same nominal essences for the substances. Therefore, communication takes on an additional degree of difficulty. After looking at the opening sections of Book III, I sense a feeling Locke may have had that, having identified where the debates on language should have begun: by investigating the meaning of words and the formulation of ideas, he settled into the task of explaining the rest of the problems with language. In two short chapters, Locke reminded readers that their ideas are held together by words called particles and he explained abstract and concrete terms. Of particles, Locke said man communicates by using words that name ideas within his mind, and by using others: particles, that "signify the 106 connexion that the mind gives to ideas or propositions one with another." To speak well, "one not only needs the prOper names for ideas, but one also needs to use proper connexion, restriction, distinction, opposition, and/or emphasis he gives to each respective part of his discourse" (III, VII, 1, 74-75). - Of abstract and concrete terms, Locke's opinion was that abstract terms are not predicable of each other. The mind has the power to reason, to abstract its ideas. Since the mind can perceive through its intuitive knowledge the differences between whole ideas, it will never affirm one idea of another. Therefore, affirmations are in concrete terms. What Locke seems to be saying is that man cannot affirm (which probably means define) one abstract term by equating it to another abstract term, but that this process occurs when the mind joins one abstract term to another or by linking one abstract term to another by determining relations between terms. As an example, Locke explained that the mind can take the abstract term 222 and relate it to another abstract term rationality with the result being not an affirmation of identity or a definition of either term, but a new understanding ”that the essence of a man hath also in it the essence of rationality or a power of reasoning" (III, VIII, 1, 77). The next sections of Book III deal with imperfections and abuses of words and the remedies for these. Here, Locke 107 infused himself into the debates proper of the century; for, in thinking about the substance of the debates over language, people certainly were concerned with what was wrong with English and what they thought would correct the deficiencies. Locke reminded readers that he has mentioned earlier a double use of words, one for recording our own thoughts and one for communicating our thoughts to others. He said when we are recording our own thoughts, any words serve the purpose. But, in communicating our thoughts to others, words have yet another double use: one, the civil; the other, the philosophical. Civil means ”common conversation [and] commerce about ordinary affairs and conveniences." Philosophical means ”conveying precise notions of things and expressing in general propositions certain and undoubted truths, which the mind may rest upon and be satisfied with in its search after true knowledge" (III, IX, 1-3, 79-80). One cannot read this explanation without remembering Wilkins' use of the words civil and philosophical. When Wilkins used these terms, he applied them to grammar. Civil grammar was a skill concerned with the choice of vocabulary for stylistic reasons; philosophical grammar was a science concerned with a lexicon which reflected reality accurately. Because both Locke and Wilkins choose to utilize these terms in their explanations of language situations, I wonder if they heard the terms civil and philosophical applied to language during a discussion by members of the Royal Society and then adapted them to their own use. If so, it is curious 108 that two people speaking out so vehemently about common understandings of words would contribute to the problem they were trying to help solve. Next, imperfection comes about when words do not communicate the idea of the speaker clearly to the listener because this violates the chief end of language: to be understood. The first of several reasons imperfections occur is because the ideas words stand for are very complex and are made up of several ideas. Secondly, the ideas have no certain connection with anything in nature, so they have no standard to rectify and adjust them to. In other words, for one to communicate ideas with another, words have to "excite in the hearer exactly the same idea they stand for in the mind of the speaker” (Ix, 6, I, 81). But, the fact that man's mixed modes are formulated within his head by combining simple ideas, man's ideas have ”their union and combination only from the understanding, which unites them under one name: but uniting them without any rule or pattern” (Ix, 6, I, 82). Locke commented that some men argue that propriety, or common use, has helped settle the significations of words; but he countered this by saying this attitude is all right for civil communication but not for philosophical, for words in civil use have a great latitude, but in philosophical discourse, they must be precise. These two imperfections remind readers Locke may have been responding to concerns expressed quite differently by 109 others but, nonetheless, expressed. I refer to the arguments about what was wrong with borrowing words from other languages to enhance English as well as reviving archaic words from English. Locke may have been trying to expand or highlight the argument that if foreign words or archaic words are put into common or civil use, people will have difficulty understanding the meaning of expression and communicaton with break down. Locke next pairs two other causes of imperfections. The first is imperfection occurs in words when one attributes a standard to the signification of a word when that standard is not well known; and the other is when the signification of a word and its real essence are not the same. To explain these, Locke said the problem is when men attribute standards to ideas that do not exist in nature, the _standards for one set of complex ideas will undoubtedly vary from person to person since there is no way to control how the standards are set because the significance represents only a sound, not a real essence (III, Ix, 8, 83). As for the signification and real essence being different, Locke used yet another point from the current debates, that of how words are taught. While the argument about methodology of instruction centered on whether grammar should be taught, and, if so, which grammar, Locke focused on what I see as a more basic consideration: how words, in general, are taught. Those which represent simple ideas--one essence--are usually taught by presenting the 110 "thing whereof they stand for" and then repeating the name. But, with mixed or complex modes, the sounds are usually presented first, and the listeners must be told what various ideas that word represents or be "left to their own observation and industry" (III, Ix, 9, 83). Besides imperfections of words, Locke cited abuse of words as another hindrance to communication. Abuse, like imperfections, also happens for several reasons. One is men utter words that when originally used had no clear meaning. Coupled with this is the idea that men use words that in and of themselves have clear meanings, but that men have no clear understanding of (III, x, 2-3, 94-95). Another abuse is men tend to use words inconstantly. Men use a word to stand for one signification at one time, and even in the same discourse, use it for a different signification later. In this way, words create "doubtfulness and ambiguity” (III, Ix, 5, 96). The third abuse is creating obscurity by wrong application of words. This happens when men use old words for new and unusual significations--again referencing the revival of archaic or possibly borrowed words--and when new terms are created but inadequately explained or defined. Locke blamed logic and the liberal sciences for perpetuating this abuse because they are the basis of the art of disputing which "hath added much to the natural imperfection of languages, whilst it has been made use of and fitted to perplex the signification of words, more than to discover the 111 knowledge and truth of things" (III, x, 6, III, 97). Locke said this abuse continued because the art of disputation continued to be taught in schools, and if men's parts and learning are estimated by their skill in disputing. And if reputation and reward shall attend these conquests [disputes], which depend mostly on the fineness and niceties of words, it is no wonder if the wit of man so employed, should perplex, involve, and subtilize the signification of sounds, so as never to want something to say in opposing or defending any question; the victory being adjudged not to him who had truth on his side, but the last word in the dispute. (III, x, 7, 98) Once again, readers see Locke's impatience with concerns of fineness and niceties of words and his interest in employing language in a way to convey truth or transfer knowledge based on the ideas inherent in words. The next abuse he cites is the assumption that the words or significations are the things themselves and forgetting that they represent only the ideas of the things. This is abusive because when men think that words represent things, they get the image of the thing entrenched in their minds. Once this happens, it is next to impossible to change that image. Why Locke may have thought this was important to point out is because of the state of science during this time. Discoveries were occurring so rapidly, that which was true one day may have been superceded by a new truth the next. This leads to the fifth abuse, that of setting significations for what they cannot signify. This abuse arises because one man attributes essences to ideas that 112 other men may not recognize, such as with the word gglg, One man attributes malleability as an essence of gold; so, when he says the word 321g, he implies, among other things, this malleability. But, if another man does not know the essence of malleability, when he hears the word gglg, he does not conceptualize this characteristic. Therefore, if the speaker intends to convey in his choice of the word gglg the quality of malleability, but the listener does not image malleability, the communication of an understanding between this speaker and listener will break down (III, x, 13-14, IV, 100-101). The last abuse is man's tendency to assume the words or significations he uses in his communication are so familiar to his audience that they ”cannot but understand what their meaning is" (III, x, 22, VI, 107). The abuse is the assumption on the part of the speaker that the listener has the "same precise ideas." This assumption has little bearing upon civil use of language, but "is not sufficient for philosophical inquiries; knowledge and reasoning require precise determination” (III, x, 22, VI, 107-108). Locke concluded the statement of imperfections and abuses by saying there are three chief ends of language: to make known one man's thoughts to another; to do it with as much ease and quickness as possible; and to convey the knowledge of things. When man uses words imperfectly and abuses words in the ways mentioned, he fails to meet these ends. 113 To insure that this failure of communication does not occur, Locke suggested why remedies for the imperfections and abuses of language should be sought. He said The natural and improved imperfections of languages we have seen above at large; and speech being the great bond that holds society together, and the common conduit whereby the improvements of knowledge are conveyed from one man and one generation to another, it would well deserve our most serious thoughts to consider what remedies are to be found for the inconveniences above mentioned. Locke acknowledged that this quest for perfection in language usage is not easy. He said requiring men to use words consistently to mean "the same sense” for "determined and uniform ideas" and "to talk of nothing but what they have clear and distinct ideas of” is to imagine either men are very knowing or very silent." But, Locke insisted those who ”search after or maintain truth, should think themselves obliged to study how they might deliver themselves [to others] without obscurity, doubtfulness, or equivocation." Those who use words erroneously are uttering sounds, not Locke repeated his concern when he wrote For language being the great conduit whereby men convey their discoveries, reasonings, and knowledge, from one to another; he that makes an ill use of it, though he does not corrupt the fountains of knowledge, which are in things themselves; yet he does as much as in him lies, break or stop the pipes whereby it is distributed to the public use and advantage of mankind. He that uses words without any clear and steady meaning, what does he but lead himself and others into errors? (III, XI, 5, 115) 114 Locke further explained the necessity to find remedies for the imperfections by suggesting men argue or "wrangle" with one another because they mistake the understanding implied in the words, not because of the thing being called into question. Having established the ggyg for men to search for remedies to correct misuse of words, Locke then identified the hggg by establishing a series of rules men should follow. As to simple words, first, "use no Word without an Idea.” Locke cautioned ”man shall take care to use no word without a signification, no name without an idea for which he makes it stand" (III, XI, 8, 117). The second rule is "To have distinct Ideas annexed to them in Modes." The names for Modes have "no settled objects in nature;" therefore, the words man chooses for the names of substances must be conformable to things as they exist. Locke reasoned since "Merchants and lovers, cooks and tailors, have words wherewithal to dispatch their ordinary affairs; so ...might philosophers and disputants, too, if they had a mind to understand, and to be clearly understood" (III, XI, 9, 118). With this suggestion, the aspect of Locke's philosophy explained earlier in which he championed the cause of the individual or common man in society comes into play. Locke might have been addressing the issue that since so many more people were becoming readers, scholars should consider presenting their findings, ideas, and interpretations in a 115 language closer to ordinary conversation. Another idea Locke may have been trying to convey in this suggestion is that learned men would do better to lay aside the old premises of classical rhetoric and begin presenting their ideas in a more civil fashion. This seems evident in the next remedy. Locke warned that man must maintain as closely as he can the meanings usually annexed to words in common use. It is not one man's privilege to change the meanings signified in such words. To do so is to interrupt the main intention in speaking, that of "being understood." This third rule is called propriety in speech, "that which gives our thoughts entrance into other men's minds with the greatest ease and advantage" (III, XI, 11, 119). Closely connected to this rule is the fourth or that which states ”man must make known the meanings of the words he uses." Men must remember that others do not always know what signification is annexed to words; therefore, men must declare their meanings in one of five ways. First, when the signification of a simple idea is not known and cannot be made known through definition, one way to make the meaning known is to name ”the subject wherein that simple idea is found.” To help a countryman know what the color 'feuillemorte" signifies, one man can tell another that it signifies the "colour of withered leaves falling in autumn" (III, XI, 14, 120). Better still, said Locke, is to present the simple idea in men's minds. 116 Second, since mixed modes are themselves made up of combinations of simple ideas, one need only define the simple ideas to make the meaning of mixed modes known. Third, man must combine showing and defining as a way of making significations for substances known. Many substances are made known by selecting a leading characteristic of the substance, "that which is the chief ingredient or most observable or invariable part." Such is with the substance gglg, named primarily for the color or most observable part of the substance (III, XI, 19-20, 123). These leading characterstics are best made known by showing. But, since some aspects which aid in the understanding of substances are not observable and thus are not available to the senses, these must be defined. While the color of gold is observable, other qualities, such as ductility, fusibility, fixedness, and solubility, are perhaps more perfect in their idea of gold than color alone. Since these are not observable, they must be defined to be made known. Then, once these ideas are made known, one may understand the essence of gold as ”easily as that of a triangle" (III, XI, 22, 124). Here, Locke interjected a thought for contemplation of how much ”the foundation of all our knowledge of corporeal things lies in our senses.” He said, "The whole extent of our knowledge or imagination reaches not beyond our own ideas limited to our ways of perception." And, this is so. Using Locke's own example of gold, it is easy to see if scientific 117 discovery had not deduced ways to show the ductility, fusibility, fixedness, or solubility of gold, the word gglg may well have remained only to signify any substance of that particular color. The fourth way to declare the signification of words is to keep names of substances conformed to the truth of things. Men need to "go beyond the ordinary complex idea commonly received as the signification of that word, ...and inquire into the nature and properties of the things themselves." In this way, men will reiterate to themselves that the ideas upon which a substance is named are the true and right ideas, thereby reconfirming the understanding among men for the words they use (III, XI, 24, 125). Lastly, if men are not willing "to declare the meaning of their words, and definitions of their terms are not to be had,...he should use the same word constantly in the same sense.” Locke said if this were done, many of the books extant might be spared; many of the controversies in dispute would be at an end; several of those great volumes, swollen with ambiguous words, now used in one sense, and by and by in another, would shrink into a very narrow compass; and many of the philosopher's (to mention no other) as well as poets' works, might be contained in a nutshell. (III, XI, 26, 128) Locke included one more consideration about using words constantly which is ”the provision of words is so scanty in respect to that infinite variety of thoughts, that men are...often forced to use the same word in somewhat different senses." But, even so, as the discourse proceeds, men can [15 1e me 5] C l 118 usually tell from the context what a word signifies, and can lead the “candid and intelligent readers into the true meaning" (III, XI, 27, 128). The final words of Book III are reminescent of those expressed in the opening chapter of this study as to the suitability of the vocabulary of English. But, the difference is during the sixteenth century, scholars were concerned about words from "Greek, Latin, French, Italian, or Castylian” whereas Locke is commenting on English alone. The concern is no longer whether the language to be used for discourse is infused with foreign languages, but that English be explained in a fashion that communication is insured. For, "where there is not sufficient to guide the reader [to the true meaning], there it concerns the writer to explain his meaning, and show in what sense he there uses that term" (III, XI, 27, 128). In other words, LOCKe established the concern is no longer with whicn Wu used to express ideas, but that the English ones used are clearly explained to assure communication. Another point made clear from the quotes from the Egggy is Locke was not referring only to speech or only to written discourse, but included both forms of communication in his suggestions. After looking closely at Book III of the Essay, it is clear that Locke's explanation of the four causes of imperfection in words and the six abuses of language do have a direct bearing upon ideas that will determine a new rhetoric. When Locke says that man uses words with no sure si wh an er a1 0] 119 significations or is not sure himself of the significations; when he says that words used inconstantly create doubtfulness and ambiguity; when he says the wrong application of words creates obscurity; when Locke says "many of men's disputes are not about the conception of things but come about because of a lack of understanding of the signification of words (III, IX, 16, 88), he is directly addressing problems that could be corrected if the appropriate rules of rhetoric were set down. Locke implies that if man has some basis to create standards for significations of words, man will be insuring the chief ends of language: communication to further the transmission of knowledge from one person to another. Since, as is also pointed out earlier, Locke takes issue with the technique of communication through disputations because disputes are based upon a logic that does not promise transfer of knowledge but promises a use of language based on fineness and wit, Locke expresses a genuine interest in rhetoric. In fact, the ideas he presents to remedy the imperfections and abuses of words could be construed as guidelines for a new rhetoric. Some scholars take issue with the statement that the remedies Locke proposed to correct the imperfections and abuses of words serve as guidelines to a new rhetoric. James L. Axtell, Nathan Rotenstreich, John H. Patton, Francis Garforth, Edward E. Hale, and Francis Christensen all say Locke supported the opposite view, that of anti-rhetoric. They cite place after place throughout Locke's writings where sc at th 0P wh co Co- f0: th« U51 re] the 5m 120 he denounced rhetoric. They point to Book III of the Egggy where Locke makes references to the worthlessness of disputing in which men concentrate on the "fineness and niceties of words," to the "wit and fancy [figurative language] find[ing] easier entertainment in the world than dry truth and real knowledge” (XI, 34, 112) and to Book IV where Locke denigrates the use of the syllogism in argumentation (XVII, 1-7, 284-295); they point to Locke's piece Of the Conduct of the Understanding in which he recommends that the proper way to reason is by using a mathematical approach which ”the way of disputing in the schools leads quite away from by insisting on one topical argument, by the success of which the truth or falsehood of the question is to be determined and victory adjudged to the opponent or defendant...by one sum charged and discharged, when there are a hundred others to be taken into consideration" (Garforth 51-52); they point to Some Thoughts Concerning Education where Locke states, ”Men learn Languages for the ordinary intercourse of Society and Communication of thoughts in common Life without any farther design in their use of them" (Axtell 277). The attempt in these representative passages was for men to establish conclusively that Locke espoused a viewpoint that was clearly anti-rhetorical. 121 Toward a New Rhetoric An article published by Wilbur Samuel Howell in 1967 presents information that takes one step toward confirming John Locke's contribution to rhetoric during the seventeenth century. Howell cites Public Speaking, a study published in 1915 by Professor James Albert Winans, one of the founders of the Speech Association of American, that traces modern rhetoric back through the elocutionists as a way to demonstrate the remarkable history of rhetoric. Howell explains Winans' trail (Howell's word) first leads to Archbishop Whately who published Elements of Logic in 1826 and Elements of Rhetoric in 1828. Winans asserts these two volumes seem to be responsible for a revival of interest at Oxford in the logical and rhetorical system of Aristotle. Before Whately, Winans links Dean Aldrich who, in 1691, published a digest of Aristotelian logic called Artis Logicae Compendium. Aldrich's view in the Compendium was that "Bacon and Descartes were not to be regarded as companion authorities to Aristotle in the field of logic" and that ”Bacon and Descartes had had no intention of contributing to logical theory." So, according to Winans, Aldrich situates the authority of modern logic in Aristotle. In this regression through historical thought from Winans to Whately to Aldrich and, ultimatly, to Aristotle, modern scholars ”felt [their] quest for the ancient final...great philosophical basis upon which a modern rhetoric could rest secure and unchallenged... had ended in a mighty success" 122 (319-320). But Howell says Winans might have pursued a different pathway. Howell begins with Winans and, like Winans, returns to Whately. But, Howell points out "in coming to terms with Whately's Eggig , Winans might have noticed that the Eggig contained spirited refutations of arguments advanced a few years earlier [unlike Winans' 135 year leap back to Aldrich] by Dugald Stewart and George Campbell" (320). This recognition would have brought Winans face to face with the "remarkable eighteenth-century Scottish school of philosophy." So, Howell contends besides Stewart's Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind and Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric, Winans would have discovered Hugh Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres and Thomas Reid's A Brief Account of Aristotle's Logic, with Remarks as well as the lectures of Adam Smith on rhetoric in Edinburgh between 1748 and 1751 and at the University of Glasgow between 1751 and 1764. Howell contends if Winans had chosen this path, the one from himself to Whately to Stewart, Campbell, Blair, Reid, and Smith, he would have logically found himself not with Aldrich, but with John Locke and the Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Howell completes this progression beyond Locke to ”Fenelon, the Port Royalists, Descartes, Bacon, the medieval rhetorical tradition, and ultimately, the great ancient rhetorics of Quintilian, Cicero, and Aristotle. Howell concludes, 123 After all, modern rhetoric would be naive and simple-minded if it neglected any part of its past, and in particular the brilliant first chapter, which was written in ancient Greece and Rome. But that first chapter has certain mistakes in emphasis intermingled with its shining virtues, and these mistakes we would have been in a better position to understand, if we have approached them, not through the partisan Aristotelianism of Whately and Aldrich, but through the heady and persuasive criticisms which the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had directed against Peripatetic rhetoric and logic. (Howell 320-321) Howell says "Locke's Egggy became influential...for a rhetoric of the future to change certain points of emphasis within the ancient doctrine and thus make itself fully responsive to the needs of the modern world" (Howell 321). One way scholars can see Locke's influence upon this change is by returning to the material itself of Book III. Early in Book III, Locke included two statements that highlight several concerns about exactness. The first is It is true common use, by a tacit consent, appropriates certain sounds to certain ideas in all languages, which so far limits the signification of that sound, that, unless a man applies it to the same idea, he does not speak properly: and let me add, that, unless a man's words excite the same ideas in the bearer which he makes them stand for in speaking, he does not speak intelligibly. The second quote is 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. For, words, being sounds, can produce in us no other simple ideas than of those very sounds; nor excite any in us, but by that voluntary connexion which is known to be between them and those simple ideas which common use has made them the signs of. He that 124 thinks otherwise, let him try if any words can give him the taste of a pineapple, and make him have the true idea of the relish of that celebrated delicious fruit. So far as he is told it has a resemblance with any tastes, whereof he has the ideas already in his memory, imprinted there by sensible objects not strangers to his palate, so far may he approach that resemblance in his mind. But this is not giving us that idea by a definition, but exciting in us other simple ideas by her known names. . '. And therefore he that has not before received into his mind by the proper inlet the simple idea which any word stands for, can never come to know the signification of that word by any other words or sounds whatsoever, put together according to any rules of definition. In these quotes Locke refers to men using sounds to signify same ideas; and he discusses sameness or exactness in significations when trying to define words. These two quotes are meant to remind readers of the many references to these same ideas highlighted throughout the summary of Book III above. What is happening when Locke continuously comes back to the notion of sameness or exactness as well as conveying ideas with ease and clarity in conveying understanding of significations or attempts at definitions of words can be seen as Locke's statement of the importance to create standards for language and his suggestion that this standard be a scientific and mathematical foundation. Locke wrote his most important pieces based upon his concerns with economics, religion, government, and education. What might have gone unnoticed is a major problem area not included in Locke's development of his philosophy: that of science. This omission was not meant to imply that Locke was 125 less than mindful of the influence of scientific discoveries; for, of course, his own interests and involvements establish that he could not have avoided it. That Locke bases his philosophy of language upon a scientific and mathematical standard is not in question here. What is in question is whether this scientific and mathematical philosophy necessarily sets guidelines for future rhetorics. Many examples of how Locke bases his philosophy of language upon a scientific and mathematical premise are available. The reader is asked once again to remember a point made earlier. The question was raised whether mixed modes occur before or after the fact. The example Locke used to illustrate this point was the idea of adultery. He posed the question who can know for sure if man's mind conceived the notion of adultery before or after the actuality of the event of adultery? Locke's approach to this question is the scientific notion of stating a hypothesis before formulating a theory. This evidence leads directly to a second support for Locke's scientific basis for his philosophy of language. David A. Givner explains Locke's philosophy of language by discussing the nature of matter and the nature, method, and purpose of science. To explain the nature of matter, Givner cites the corpuscular hypothesis, which he says was "an important aspect of XVIIth-century science." The hypothesis states "matter is composed of imperceptible particles [which explains] how a body undergoes physical and chemical 126 changes." (340) Locke's friend, Robert Boyle, used this theory to explain his assumption that "the phenomenon of nature [is] caused by the local motion of one part of matter hitting against another." Therefore, Boyle reasoned, nature is not designed "to keep such a parcel of matter in such a state that it is clothed with just such accidents rather than with any other." Givner's explanation of what Boyle meant here is that since particles are in constant motion, there is no guarantee that any substance, such as gold, is fixed forever by nature. "With a change in the motion and interaction of its corpuscles a piece of gold may become a different substance." (341) The essence of gold resides in its changeable particles. Therefore, the observable characteristics of gold: its color, shape, and texture, are actually accidental and are not necessarily the essence of gold. The word gglg stands for the meaning of the observable qualities of gold, but the word gglg is not the essence of gold. "The word stands for a collection of accidental qualities of the substance" (341) Given that Boyle's theory can be stated as "words do not stand for the essential nature of things but for ideas which have been constructed for the purpose of communication" (341), it is easy to see how the corpuscular hypothesis is important to Locke's scientific philosophy of language. For, according to Locke, 127 perception is a sensory effect caused by the action of corpuscular matter. We do not see the real essence of things. The observable properties we know are only secondary effects of the corpuscular nature of a thing. Our definitions of things are based on their observable properties. The set of properties specified in such a definition is but the nominal essence of the thing defined. (342) As a result of this thinking, Givner states Locke determined that "the structure of language is not based upon the structure of reality but is rather a human contrivance the design of which is determined by expedience and convenience" (342). Locke believed "language is not an instrument used in experiment and discovery; it rather serves to designate and classify the accomplished results of observation and simple experimentation" (346). Thus, language has two functions: designation and classification. As for designation, Givner refers to the beginning of Book III where Locke indicates "the purpose of language is the communication of ideas" (347). Locke explained this function throughout Book III when he discussed the relation between words and abstract ideas, between words and simple ideas, between words and complex ideas or mixed modes; and between words and substances. Locke discussed the designatory function of language when he explained the imperfections and abuses of words in that he pointed out the imperfections of words lie in their doubtfulness and ambiguity, a clear deviation from a scientific approach to language. Givner reminds his readers, too, that a close reading of Locke's 128 remedies for these imperfections resides in using language to express the "preciseness of the relation between a word an the ideas it stands for" (347). The other idea that interested Locke was classification. Locke believed one way to further knowledge was to sort ”things our general names stand for" (350). Locke based this on the assumption that our knowledge of substances is for the most part a knowledge of the properties that are found to coexist in them. A complex idea of the properties of a sort of thing is a nominal essence or abstract idea. The nominal essence or abstract idea is the mental result of classification. Thus,...the greatest and most material part of our knowledge concerning substances is our knowledge of the properties of the species of things as defined by our scheme of classification. This concept is witnessed in Book III when Locke discussed what names name. He referred to this issue when he talked about using general terms, naming of substances, and defining terms . Locke made it clear that when man gives a substance a name, he does so to facilitate his own purposes to communicate his ideas clearly to another. Making this point clear is why Locke was so particular in his discussion of these matters in Book III. Locke's ideas of the scientific method as ”plain, simple, direct, and careful observation" (342) and his ideas of the nature of matter and of designation and classification in science serve to explain his understanding of language and how it functions. The key point is while others have seen Locke's scientific ideas of language as anti-rhetorical, 129 I believe that by explaining in scientific terms what language is and what purpose language serves, Locke is establishing guidelines for future rhetoricians that will instruct them of the changing ideas about language held by an enlightened general public. The concept of Locke's scientific ideas serving to instruct future rhetoricians of the changing ideas developing toward language during the seventeenth century is further expressed in Locke's attack upon the ancient rhetorical theory of invention. According to Howell, Locke said that the theory of invention allows proofs for arguments to be found in artistic topics or commonplaces and that these topics or figure of speech are to be considered an abuse of language. That if we speak of things as they are, we must allow that all the art of rhetoric, 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 cheats; 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...it is evident how much men love to deceive and be deceived, since rhetoric, that powerful instrument of error and deceit, has its established professors, is publicly 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. A quote used earlier to explain the third abuse of language, that of creating obscurity by wrong application of words, referenced Locke's displeasure of continuing the 130 teaching of disputation. This idea is important when one looks at a diatribe Locke launched against the theory of invention when he wrote [Disputation], though a very useless skill, and that which I think the direct opposite to the ways of knowledge, hath yet passed hitherto under the laudable and esteemed names of subtilty and acuteness, and has had the applause of schools, and encouragement of one part of the learned men of the world. And no wonder, since the philosophers of old, (the disputing and wrangling philosophers, I mean such as Lucian wittily and with reason taxes,) and the schoolmen since, aiming at glory and esteem for their great and universal knowledge,...found this a good expedient to cover their ignorance with a curious and inexplicable web of perplexed words, and procure to themselves the admiration of others by unintelligible terms, the apter to produce wonder because they could not be understood. In condemning the topics of invention in such a vitriolic fashion, Locke insisted the topics of invention be set aside. Given everything else Locke says throughout Book III about sameness and exactness in choosing words to convey knowledge, the topics of invention should be replaced by the practice of using as proofs for arguments scientific and mathematical certainties and probablilies (Howell 323). Here, Locke definitely replaced the ideas of classical rhetoric with a more modern approach to language. In continuing to support this scientific approach to a future rhetoric, Locke suggested that perhaps a standard by which to gauge signification of words might be through using "perspicuity and right reasoning.” Locke wrote, "Perspicuity, consists in the using of proper terms for the ideas or thoughts, which he would have pass from his own mind 131 into that of another man," and that perspicuity must be coupled with right reasoning because without right reasoning, "perspicuity serves but to expose the speaker" (329-330). This is seen when Locke wrote of the conformability--or exactness--of substances to things. He attributed establishing perspicuity of'language to scientists when he wrote men versed in physical inquiries, and acquainted with the several sorts of natural bodies, would set down those simple ideas wherein they observe the individuals of each sort constantly to agree. This would remedy a great deal of that confusion which comes from several persons applying the same name to a collection of a smaller or greater number of sensible qualities... Another idea which seems clear in what Locke presented in the Egggy as to how to change rhetorical ideas to suit modern needs is the idea that pervades all of Locke's writing: that of clarity of expression. This idea has been mentioned so often throughout this presentation that nothing need be said at this point to prove its importance. But, what is worth mentioning is a reminder of the significant statements cited earlier concerning "plain speaking" and a Senecan style in the ideas of Bacon, of scientists, of philosophers, and of members of the Royal Society. Yet another suggestion Locke made--this one in Book IV--as to what would improve rhetoric is closely related to replacing the theory of invention with perspicuity and expressing ideas using plain speaking harkens back to the notion of right reasoning and further deals with the idea of 132 viewing inference as a rational faculty. What Howell is referencing is inductive thinking over syllogistic reasoning. Locke disposed of the syllogism in no uncertain terms in the following. The word reason in the English language has different significations: sometimes it is taken for true and clear principles; sometimes for clear and fair deductions from those principles; and sometimes for the cause, and particularly the final cause. But the consideration I shall have of it here is in a signification different from all these; and that is, as it stands for a faculty in man, that faculty whereby man is supposed to be distinguished from beasts, and wherein it is evident he much surpasses them. If general knowledge...consists in a perception of the agreement or disagreement of our own ideas, and the knowledge of the existence of all things without us (except only of a God, whose existence every man may certainly know and demonstrate to himself from his own existence) be had only by our senses, what room is there for the exercises of any other faculty, but outward sense and inward perception? [Reason has four parts:] the first and highest is the discovering and finding out of truths; the second, the regular and methodical disposition of them, and laying them in a clear and fit order, to make their connexion and force be plainly and easily perceived; the third is the perceiving their connexion; and the fourth, a making a right conclusion. These several degrees may be observed in any mathematical demonstration; it being one thing to perceive the connexion of each part, as the demonstration is made by another; another to perceive the dependence of the conclusion on all parts; a third, to make out a demonstration clearly and neatly one's self; and something different from all these, to have first found out these intermediate ideas or proofs by which it is made. (IV, XVII, 1, 282-284) Reminiscent of the anti-syllogistic/pro-induction stand taken by Port Royalists, Locke explained why syllogistic reasoning should be laid to rest. First, the syllogism 133 serves only one part of the ideas of reason mentioned above: "to show the connexion of the proofs in any one instance." Next, the syllogism is not a proper instrument of reason because "whatever use, mode, and figure, is pretended to be in the laying open of fallacy, those scholastic forms of discourse [the syllogism] are not less liable to fallacies than the plainer ways of argumentation" (4, 284-292). Locke summed up by asking Of what use, then, are syllogisms? I answer, their chief and main use is in the schools, where men are allowed without shame to deny the agreement of ideas that do manifestly agree; or out of the schools, to those who from thence have learned without shame to deny the connexion of ideas, which even to themselves is visible. But to an ingenuous searcher after truth, who has no other aim but to find it, there is no need of any such form to force the allowing of the inference: the truth and reasonableness of it is better seen in ranging of the ideas in a simple and plain order; and hence it is that men, in their own inquiries after truth, never use syllogisms to convince themselves. (289-290) The evidence just presented is intended to prove two points. One is that Locke is, indeed, a significant part of the history of the development of rhetorical thinking during the seventeenth century and that Locke's scientific and mathematical ideas are guidelines for a future rhetoric. It is reasonable that one might ask if, in fact, the rhetoricians who wrote the next rhetorics actually understood and/or followed Locke's advice. Edward Corbett presents six direct influencess of Locke's work in the Essay which he says are adopted in the rhetorics written during the eighteenth 134 century. The six influences are l. The question whether rhetoric should continue to concentrate on persuasive discourse or should extend its province to include expository and didactic discourse. Corbett says the view that language is primarily an "instrument of communication" is the one that has prevailed in American composition classes in the twentieth century. Consequently, expository writing has become the dominant mode of discourse rather than argumentative discourse (425). This seems correct in that Locke was not primarily concerned with persuasive discourse directly but with clear communication. 2. The question whether rhetoric should continue to concentrate on the so-called "artistic proofs" drawn from the use of the topics or should also pursue the so-called "inartistic proofs" derived from outside sources. Corbett relates that Locke dealt with this issue as his major philosophical premise for his system of empiricism: that people are born into this world without innate ideas. Locke stated that the "human mind acquires all its knowledge through experience, and that experience takes two forms: sensation and reflection. Therefore, there is no need to rely on artistic proofs. Men should rely on their external sources of data (425-426). 3. The question whether the structure of most rhetorical proofs was fundamentally deductive or fundamentally inductive. 135 Corbett states that Locke supported the inductive approach and used as his proof for this statement the information presented earlier concerning the syllogism. As sure as Locke was in his condemnation of the syllogism, Corbett is just as sure that "induction is unquestionably the reigning mode in current research and in reports on research" (428-429). 4. The question whether rhetoric should deal exclusively in probabilities or should resort to certainties whenever they are available. Corbett points to the main objective Locke stated on the first page of the Egggy as the support for the fourth point. Locke wrote that the main objective of the Egggy was "to enquire into the origin, certainty, and extent of human knowledge, together with the grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and assent.” Locke made several direct statements dealing with probabilities and certainties. One is Locke insisted on ”the resort to empirically-verified data whenever those certainties are available. Second, Locke analyzed the psychology of assent much more extensively and intensively than Aristotle or anyone else had." And third, Locke ”proposed that there were degrees of assent, ranging 'from the very neighborhood of certainty and demonstration quite down to improbablility and unlikeliness, even to the confines of impossibility." Locke's legacy to rhetoric and composition was that "he anatomized the psychology of assent and thereby made people more conscious of the process and 136 better able to train students in the rhetorical strategies that are likely to effect assent in a particular case" (430). S. The question whether discourse had to be organized in the six-part form recommended by Ciceronian rhetoric or whether it could be organized in simpler forms. Corbett says all one has to do is look at the organization of the Essay itself to ascertain than Locke obviously adhered to the idea that "the use of any organizational pattern that would facilitate the transmission of ideas to an audience of listeners or readers" was acceptable (431). This should come as no surprise to anyone who studies Locke's ideas about language, for, as has been pointed out, Locke systematically sets aside the tenets of classical rhetoric in favor of a plain, clear style of expression. 6. The question whether the rhetorical style needed to be learned and ornate and heavily freighted with schemes and tropes or whether it could be plain and casual.' This last point from Corbett's piece needs no explanation except to relate that Corbett wrote ”Locke opposed the use of figurative language and other artifices of style in discourses designed to instruct and inform” (431). Corbett ends his piece by saying 137 I would hasten to add that Locke's Essay is not a book that should be made required reading for undergraduate students in composition courses. Rather, it is a book for teachers to read and ponder so that they can appropriate from it, and relay to students what could help them to understand how they come to know what they know and how they can effectively communicate to others what they have learned. This summary to the Corbett article points up what is wrong with the way researchers and scholars have looked at Locke's material from the Essay as well as the language situation from the entire seventeenth century. In his summary Corbett implies that in the Essay teachers will discover a rhetoric: how to teach students to effectively communicate to others what they have learned. This statement is simply wrong. Locke did not create a rhetoric in the Essay. He established a foundation upon which to create a future rhetoric. Conclusion When I began to research the topic for this study, I was intrigued by the lack of material pertaining to seventeenth century rhetoric. As I conducted the research, I was curious about how much activity with the English language could be going on involving so many people: concerns that affected the whole of England, after all--with no new rhetorics resulting from the activity. Now that I am approaching the conclusion to this study, I have discovered what I believe to be the explanation for both of my curiosities concerning seventeenth 138 century rhetoric. That explanation is that people involved with the language situation became involved with issues before they had established the foundation upon which to base their debates or ideas. This includes the scholars, linguists, grammarians, rhetoricians, scientists, philosophers, and yes, even John Locke. Those debating the language issue began their task of determining the future of the English language discussing the framework before the foundation had been laid by becoming engrossed with the issues. Debaters took up the igggg of should English replace Latin as the language for learned discourse? Into this issue they placed such points as English is not literary; English is a base language; works from antiquity can not be translated into English; the image of the entire society is in jeopardy if English is used for all discourse; the printing press is making inexpensive copies of large quantities of reading material available to a vastly growing reading public; works of antiquity are being translated in English; the controversial religious reading matter being published should be in the language the masses can read. Another major 13323 debaters argued was the concept of eloquence in the vernacular. Debaters discussed how to best create eloquence with such suggestions as a strictly English vocabulary with newly-coined and revived archaic English words versus a neologized vocabulary with loanwords, a standardized spelling system, and a regulated punctuation system. Linguists argued over what a newly 139 devised grammar system should include and how it should be taught; rhetoricians debated the Ciceronian/Anti-Ciceronian movement as well as the Ramist/Anti-Ramist movement, the Senecan style, the inadequacy of the tropes and figures all toward the idea that ”learned exposition as well as popular argument and exhortation (Howell 364-365) was within the realm of rhetoric. Locke assumes an identical relationship to his material as the debaters of the future of the English language did to theirs. Locke establishes as his task in the Egggy to explore the 15222 of ”inquiring into the origin, certainty, and extent of human knowledge, together with the grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and assent" (128). He begins this task by writing one entire book to dispel the idea of innate principles and a second entire book to determine how the mind formulates ideas. But, after developing these sections, Locke determines that he, like the debaters of language issues, has omitted the foundation upon which all their points rest: the matter of words. Following Book II Locke digresses from his task of explaining human knowledge not, as is suggested by editor, St. John, as an afterthought that seems not to fit with the flow of material from Books I and II on to Book IV of the Essay, but to consciously develop the foundation for his philosophy. This foundation is the material Locke writes on words: the very basis of the language debates of the seventeenth century as well as the foundation for Locke's 140 philosophy of how man transfers knowledge from one person to another. The foundation for a future rhetoric for English did not develop out of the debates over language issues detailed in this study, nor did the foundation for a future rhetoric for English develop out of the material in the Egggy concerning innate principles, formulation of ideas, or definitions of knowledge, truth, certainty, existence, or correct divisions of science. The foundation for a future rhetoric developed from Locke's material in Book III: the book on words. CONCLUSION One of the most distinguished privileges which Providence has conferred upon mankind, is the power of communicating their thought to one another...The attention paid to [the study of language, style, and composition is] one mark of the progress of society towards its most improved period. For, as society improves and flourishes, men acquire more influence over one another by means of reasoning and discourse; and in proportion as that influence is felt to enlarge, it must follow, as a natural consequence, that they will bestow more care upon the methods of expressing their conceptions with propriety and eloquence. Hugh Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres Much of the major activity surrounding the language debates during the seventeenth century has been glossed over in the scholarly work of rhetoric. This study has undertaken to acquaint modern scholars with at least some of the more important aspects of the language movement that changed attitudes toward rhetoric. Many noted historical figures contributed to replacing the position of the Humanists on rhetoric--that rhetoric should follow the classical tradition: that of basing discourse on imitating models of letters, speeches, introductions, and addresses of the ancients--with a view to language that suited the ideas of the times. Lipsius said, ”Fie upon eloquence." Montaigne wanted language to be more wise and sufficient, not more worthy or eloquent. Unlike Cicero's style which demonstrated 141 142 the process of a process, that of following established formulas and codes of argument, Bacon advocated a process of thought that portrays a picturesque actuality of life. These ideas led to John Locke's system of empiricism. From this Locke determined that rhetoric had to be a fuller, more inclusive discipline; rhetoric had to elevate noh-artistic proofs; rhetoric had to denounce the classical practice of using tropes and figures of speech as well as disputations, deductive thinking, and the syllogism. To help rhetoricians accomplish these suggestions, Locke focused the seventeenth century debates concerning language as well as his own philosophical statement of language away from the issues commanding most of the attention of debaters toward the foundation upon which the points of argument rested: that of understanding words and how they function. Locke listed several remedies for abuses and imperfections in language usage that can be construed as guidelines for a future rhetoric. These include 1. do not use words empty of meaning, without ideas; 2. simple ideas must be clear and distinct, complex ideas must be carefully formed before finding words to fit them; 3. insofar as possible, use words in their ordinary, non-technical sense; 4. recognize that there are times when it may be necessary to create new words, or use old words in new ways; 5. a fixed, standard meaning and use of words should be established. Herbert Cohen points out that "the new views about man and his existence were instrumental in causing rhetoricians 143 to reassess the classical premises of their disciplines." (22) Cohen says rhetoricians developed new rhetorics based upon the notion of nominalism, a direct result of the work of John Locke. For the theory of nominalism held that speech was essentially a process of translating thoughts into a set of arbitrary and mutually agreed upon symbols. Thus, all ideations, ranging from the concept of the most concrete object to the most intangible abstraction, were assigned symbols (or combinations of sounds) by each social system. Language was thought of, in its most basic form, as the process of assigning names to objects and ideas. (23) Locke's definition of words and explanation of how words function to symbolize man's ideas cited in Chapter Four of this study is Locke's statement of nominalism; Locke tells readers that articulate sounds, or words, are signs of man's ideas, the use of which are sensible marks of ideas. By the eighteenth century the idea that words were signs had become an integral part of the rhetorics being written. Then, in 1819 Blair wrote that language is the "expression of our ideas by certain articulate sounds, which are used as the signs of those ideas" (98). Blair said at first these signs were simple as to words themselves, but rich in the sounds of what words there were, and men were expressive in their utterings of them. As the world advanced, understanding has gained ground through the fancy and imagination to develop more and more words. In this way, man's expressive ability has become more accurate. Man is able to incorporate vehement tones and gestures, figurative style, and inventive 144 arrangement (128). What Blair seems to be saying in his description of language is more to the point of word availability and choices rather than an explanation of what language is. In this way, he is in keeping with the focus on words infused by John Locke. Another rhetorician who followed Locke's ideas of nominalism was George Campbell. In 1801 Campbell wrote Language is purely a species of fashion (for this holds equally of every tongue), in which, by the general but tacit consent of the people of a particular state or country, certain sounds came to be appropriated to certain things as their signs, and certain ways of inflecting and combining those sounds came to be established as denoting the relations which subsist among the things signified. (162) ” Campbell stated that rhetoric has to be something more than an eloquent art; it also has to be a useful art. The third principal rhetorician who demonstrated Locke's influence on the new rhetorics is Richard Whately. He began his rhetoric of 1830 with a quote from Thucydides. One who forms a judgment on any point, but cannot explain himself clearly to the people might as well have never thought at all on the subject. (Book II) Whately chose this quote to enhance his own ideas that if one cannot achieve clarity (Blair's purity) in his communication, he may as well not try to communicate. This idea, once again, harkens directly back to what Locke purported as 145 necessary in communicating: choosing words that signify one's ideas carefully and purposefully. Whately included another very telling idea that supports the Lockeian influence apparent in eighteenth century rhetorics. He insinuated that composition is not only for intrinsic value alone, but to exercise a pupil's mind. Whately was interested in developing a rhetoric that encouraged those who follow it to be engaged in meeting the occasion of real life. He recognized some people may look at this suggestion with disdain, but continued Look at the letter of an intelligent youth to one of his companions...communicating on petty matters as are interesting to both--...and you will see a picture of the youth himself--boyish indeed in looks and in stature--in dress and demeanour; but lively, unfettered, natural, giving a fair promise for manhood. ...Look at a theme composed by the same youth on "Virtus est medium vitiorum"...and you will see a picture of the same boy, dressed up in the garb, and absurdly aping the demeanour, of an elderly man. ...Our ancestors were guilty of dressing up children in wigs, swords, huge buckles, hoops, ruffles, and all the finery of grown-ups of that day. (25-26) Besides advocating using a natural choice of words, Whately also said write refutations easily. To accomplish this, do not use forceful language or make words too elaborate as this could lead the audience to doubt the refutation. The more simply refutations are presented, the more likely they are to adduce the response of "Of course, of course” (144). What Whately seems to be discussing in these last ideas is a point that all three of these rhetoricians elaborated, 146 that of style. Blair said style was "the peculiar manner in which a man expresses his conceptions by means of language." He suggested six steps to developing a good style: (1) study the material; (2) practice composing frequently; (3) read the best authors; (4) do not imitate servilely; (S) adopt according to the subject and the demands of hearers; and (6) do not sacrifice clear thought to ornamental style. Basically, what Blair is suggesting in these six steps are the ideas of purity, propriety, and precision. If a writer or speaker keeps these in mind, he will present his ideas with perspicuity (183-186). In summarizing, Blair said the study of rhetoric was to "provide the means to speak or to write perspicuously and agreeably, with purity, with grace and strength" (5). In elaborating upon style, Blair explained what constituted a perfect sentence. He said it consists of four parts. First, a sentence had to contain clarity and precision. By this he meant words that were most closely related were to be placed close to one another. Second, a sentence had to have unity. By this, Blair meant sentences had to have some connecting principle among the parts. Third, a sentence had to have strength. By strength, Blair meant the writer had to chose his words carefully so as not to be redundant or to make words rise in their importance. Lastly, the perfect sentence had to have harmony. Blair said harmony is created through the choice of words and the arrangement of words. 147 According to Campbell, style is important because once a speaker or writer has arrived at a truth he wishes to impart to an audience, he must take care with the means by which he conveys it. This is through style, or the composition of many sentences into one discourse. The orator must be a master of his language, able to add grammatical purity which will render his discourse graceful and energetic. Through purity--which I take to mean correctness and the valid use of words--the speaker conveys the intended sentiment, the moral truth, and the logical truth. The opposite to logical truth is properly error; to moral truth, a lie; to grammatical truth, a blunder. Campbell said a blunder occurs only when the use of a word goes against the reputable, national, and present use (1-2). Again, Locke's influence is evident in Campbell's approach to rhetoric as he, like Blair, is predominantly concerned with words themselves, not only the classical view of the ends of words. Returning to Whately's ideas of style, he concluded that style means perspicuity, brevity, conciseness, and prolixity, all ideas espoused by John Locke. In all these ways, John Locke synthesized the many fragments of the debates concerning language during the seventeenth century into a statement that influenced rhetorics during the eighteenth century. Aided by the ideas expressed by those scholars, scientists, and philosophers highlighted throughout the first two chapters of this study, Locke established a foundation for rhetoricians such as 148 Hugh Blair, George Campbell, and Richard Whately to build upon. In addition to the guidelines for a future rhetoric, another important idea that John Locke gave to the future deals with truth. The concept of tggth is determined by which structure concepts are forced into. Prior to the seventeenth century, the structure of truth was determined by the Church and rested upon the idea of faith. Truth, as determined by the Church, was comprised of concentric circles, a closed universe, and an earth-centered, static world. The temporal nature of earth was not important because the symbols of truth resided in God. Language was structured by the truth of Latin and by the classical ideals of whether expression was worthy, eloquent, and grammatical. But, during the seventeenth century the structure into which truth was forced changed dramatically. The structure challenged by Lipsius, Montaigne, and Bacon; by Cheke, Lever, Puttenham, Fairfax, Eloyt, Pettie, Spenser, Boorde, Cooper, Skelton, Wilkins, Shirley, and Sprat; by Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Boyle, Harvey, and von Leeuwenhoek; by Descartes and Spinoza, and later by Kant and Hegel, was a truth that was changing from belief to knowledge, from passion to reason, from emotion to facts, from affection to cognition, from rationalism to empiricism, from the trivium (emphasis on words) to the quadrivium (emphasis on numbers), from a theologically structured world to a scientifically structured world (Grassi 78-85), from a world that accepted 149 what the Church theologized was an unchanging certainty to what science hypothesized was a certainty of changes. The structure into which science forced truth was one that said the only truth is that there is no single structure into which to force truth. Truth is based upon reason. Scientific truth is symbolized by formulae, diagrams, charts, and graphs. Scientists did not turn away from the world, but turned to it, to observe, to experience life as it is. What Locke realized after observing the changes occurring in his world was that the universe and all that is in it is at any given time what people are willing to pay it is. Locke synthesized the truth of the scientific world as he saw it into the necessity to see language, not in the classical sense, but in the sense of how to transfer this new truth: he saw the structure for language as one that subdivided, categorized, and named this truth in as clear and precise a manner as possible. As scholars interested in rhetoric look to the future, I suggest that it is imperative that they continue to challenge that which has been presented as tggth and to discern what structures have been accepted as appropriate to force that truth into, always with the intent to examine ways rhetoricians recommend as the true methods of expression to convey this truth to others, and with the openness to see where errors abound and the willingness to change those structures to meet the needs of the twentieth century and, all too soon, those of the twenty-first. APPENDIX A The chapbook section of the trade-list of WILLIAM THACKERAY at the Angel in Duck Lane, near West Smithfield, dated by Blagden to 1689. Small godly books 'Englands Golden Watchbell' 'Mothers Blessing', PG, 31, 647 Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger, (1685) 'Englands Alarm' 'Gabriel Harding', PG, 45, 975 Thackeray, Passinger (nd) 'Touchstone of a Christian' 'Great Brittain's Warning-piece' 'Godly Man's Gain' 'Serious Call', PG, 29, 599 Thackeray (1684) 'Short and sure way' 'Roger's exhortation' 'Black Book of Conscience', PG, 5, 89 Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (forty-second edn nd) 'Plain Man's Path-way' 'Almanack for a Day', PG, 14, 271 Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (nd) 'Death Triumphant', PG, 19, 383 Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (sixth edn nd) 'Ready way to everlasting Life' 'Character of a Drunkard', PG, 1, Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (1686) 'England's faithfull Physician' 'Christ's voice to England', PG, 32, 671 Wright, Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (fifth edn 1683) 'Christ in the Clouds', PG, 18, 367 Wright, Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (1682) 'Way to get Riches' 'Sin of Pride' 'God's terrible voice' 'Andrew's Golden Chain' 'Christians Race from the Cradle to the Grave' 'Christs coming to Judgment', PG, 36, 759; 'Christ in the Clouds, coming to Judgement' Charles Passinger (sixth edn 1682) 'Death-bed of Repentance' 'Sinners Sobs' 'Great Assize', PG, 17, 335 Thackeray (1681) 'Fathers Blessing', PG, 34, 711 Wright, Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (nd) 150 151 'Doubting Christian', PG, 30, 623 Wright, Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (ninth impression 1683) 'Way to Heaven made plain' 'Every man's Duty' 'Posie of Prayers' . 'Peter of Repentance', PG, 26, 527 Wright, Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (1682) 'Charitable Christian', PG, 27, 551 Wright, Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (1682) 'Andrew's Golden Trumpet' 'Pious Exhortation' 'Dooms-day at hand' 'Lord's day' 'God's Eye from Heaven' 'Godly man's request' Small merry books 'St George', PM, II (6), 105 Clarke, Passinger and Thackeray 'Gentlewomans Cabinet, or a Book of Cookery', PM, II, (5), 81 Thackeray and Passinger (nd) 'Tryal of Wit, or a Book of Riddles' 'Simon and Cicely', PM, I (57), 1225 Clarke, Passinger and Thackeray (nd) 'Shepherds Garland', PM, II (40), 951 Wright, Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (1682) 'King and the Tanner' 'Cupids sport and Pastimes', PM, I (43), 929 Thackeray (1684) 'Green-Goode Fair' 'Rosamond', PM, I (2), 25 Coles, Vere, Wright, Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (nd) 'Lawrence Lazy' 'Womans Spleen' 'Royal Garland', PM, II (39), 927 Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (1681) 'Guy of Warwick', PM, I (44), 953 Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (1686) 'Robin Hood', PM, II (36), 855 Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (1686) 'Vinegar and Mustard', PM, I (48), 1049 Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (1686) 'Horn Fair' 'Cupid's Masterpiece', PM, I (33), 705 Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (1685) 'Robin the Sadler', PM, I (19), 425 Conyers (nd) 'Loves School', PM, II (15), 321 Clarke, Passinger, Thackeray and Brooksby (1682) 'John and Kate', PM I (10), 209 Clarke, Passinger and Thackeray (1685) 'Tom Long" , 'Unfortunate Son', Second part, PM, I (28), 609 Printed MW to be sold by J. Clarke (1681) 152 'Tom Tram', First part, PM, I (41), 881 WT to be sold by J. Deacon (nd) . 'Tom Tram', Second part, PM, I (42), 905 Deacon (nd) 'Queen's Close', PM, I (12), 257 Passinger (1682) 'Doctor Faustus', PM, I, (54), 1153, Deacon and Dennisson 'Five Wonders', PM, II (2), 25 Margaret White (1683) 'Hen-peckt Frigate' 'Jug and Bess' 'Female Ramblers', PM, I (26), 569 Wright, Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (1683) 'Crossing of Proverbs', PM, I (53), 1137 Margaret White (1683) 'Tom Hickathrift', PM, I (3), 49 Thackeray and Passinger 'Jack of Newbury', PM, II (50), 1149 Thackeray (1684) 'Unfortunate Daughter' 'Variety of Riddles', PM, I (25), 545 Thackeray (1684) 'Book of Riddles', PM, I (24), 521 WT sold by John Back (1685) 'Fryer Bacon', PM, I (l), 1 Printed MW sold by Newman and Alsop (1683) 'Tom Thumb', PM, II (22), 513 Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (nd) 'Cupids Sollicitor', PM, I (46), 1001 WT sold by John Back 'Jane Shore', PM, I (11), 233 Coles, Vere and Wright 'King and the Miller', PM, II (7), 129 Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (nd) 'Robin Conscience' 'Old Woman', PM, II (27), 649 WT sold by J. Blare 'King and Northern Man' 'Conscience and Plain-dealing', PM, I (29), 633 Wright, Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (nd) 'Sackfull of News', PM, I (6), 113 Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (1685) 'Distressed Welshman', PM, I (30), 657 WT sold by J. Conyers 'Carrols', PM, I (22), 481; 'Make Room for Christmas' Thackeray and Passinger (nd) 'Gentle Craft', PM, I (36), 761 Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (1685) 'Cupids Garland', PM, II (38), 903 Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger 'Fumblers Hall', PM, I (7), 137 Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger 'Tom Potts', PM, I (9), 185; 'History of Fair Rosamund of Scotland, Whose Love was Obtained by the Valour of Tommy Potts...‘ WT and Passinger (nd) 'Noble Marquess' 'Diogenes', PM, I (55)m 1177 Wright, Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (nd) 'Womans Brawl', PM, II (1), 3 (title page missing) 'Valentine and Orson' 'Robin and Cobler' 'The married mans Comfort, and the Batchelours Confession' 'Corydon's Complements' 153 'A Groatsworth of Wit for a Penny', PM, I (49), 1073 Wt sold by J. Deacon 'Venus Turtle-Dove' 'Welsh Traveller', PM, I (40), 857 Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (nd) 'Six pennyworth of Wit' 'Mother Shipton's Prophesies', PM, I (56), 1201 Conyers Double-books 'Christ's first Sermon' 'Christ's last Sermon' 'Christians best Garment' 'Heavens Glory and Hells horror' 'Katherine Stubs' 'School of Grace' 'Kawwood the Rook', Vulgaria, IV (10) Wright, Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger4(l684) 'Golden Eagle', Vulgaria, IV (11) Thackeray (1677) 'King Arthur', Vulgaria, III (8) Wright, Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (1684) 'The Seven Champions' (a longer version, Vulgaria, II (1), three parts 'Reynard the Fox' (a longer version, Vulgaria, IV (8)) 'Doctor Merryman' 'Christians Blessed choice' 'Warning-piece' 'Patient Grissel', Vulgaria, IV (2) Wright, Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (1682) 'Fenner of Repentance' 'Dives and Lazarus' 'Antonius and Aurelius', Vulgaria, III (5) Wright, Clarke, Thackeray and Passinger (16821 'Parsimus' (a longer version, Vulgaria, II (3), two parts) 'Country Farmer' 'Adam Bell', Vulgaria, III (16) Thackeray (nd) Histories 'Dream of Devil and Dives' 'Dutch Fortune-Teller' 'Sport and Pastime', Vulgaria, IV (6) Thackeray and Deacon (nd) 'Arcandam' 'Third Part of Seven Champions', Vulgaria, II (1) three parts Parts 1 and 2, Vulgaria, II (1T Scott, Bassett, Wootton and Conyers (1687) Part 3, Benjamin Harris (nd) 'Jack of Newbury', Vulgaria, III (19) Passinger and Thackeray (nd) 154 'Scoggin's Jest', Vulgaria, IV (3) Thackeray and J. Deacon (nd) 'Royal Arbour' 'Markham's faithfull Farrier' 'Markham's Method' 'Garland of Delight' 'Robin Hood's Garland' 'Mucedorus, a Play' 'Speedy Post with a Packet of Letters', Vulgaria, IV (16) Thackeray (twelfth edn 1684) 'Tom a Lincoln, or the Red-Rose Kt', Vulgaria, III (18) Thackeray (1682) 'Palmerin of England', three parts, Vulgaria, I (1) Thackeray and Passinger (1685) 'The Book of Knowledge of things unknown' 'Ornatus and Artesia', Vul aria, III (4) Wright, Clarke, Thackeray and PassingerIeighth impression 1683) 'Sir John Hawkwood or the History of the Merchant-Taylors', Vulgaria, IV (13) Whitwood (1668) 'History of Montelion', Vulgaria, III (1) Thackeray and Passinger (1687) 'History of the Gentle-Craft', Vulgaria, IV (12) first part only WT sold by Gilbertson (nd) 'Albertus Magnus English' APPENDIX B Ciceronian Prose Style Demosthenes: Succor Must Be Sent to Olynthus (349 B.C.) I believe, men of Athens, you would give much to know what is the true policy to be adopted in the present matter of inquiry. This being the case, you should be willing to hear with attention those who offer you their counsel. Besides that you will have the benefit of all preconsidered advice, I esteem it part of your good fortune that many fit suggestions will occur to some speakers at the moment, so that from them all you may easily choose what is profitable. The present juncture, Athenians, all but proclaims aloud that you must yourselves take these affairs in hand, if you care for their success. I know not how we seem disposed in the matter. My own opinion is, vote succor immediately, and make the speediest preparations for sending it off from Athens, that you may not incur the same mishap as before; send also ambassadors to announce this, and watch the proceedings. For the danger is that this man, being unscrupulous and clever at turning events to account, making concessions when it suits him, threatening at other times (his threats may well be believed), slandering us and urging our absence against us, may convert and wrest to his use some of our main resources. Though, strange to say, Athenians, the very cause of Philip's strength is a circumstance favorable to you. His having it in his sole power to publish or conceal his designs, his being at the same time general, sovereign, paymaster, and everywhere accompanying his army, is a great advantage for quick and timely operations in war; but, for a peace with the Olynthians, which he would gladly make, it has a contrary effect. For it is plain to the Olynthians that now they are fighting, not for glory or a slice of territory, but to save their country from destruction and servitude. They know how he treated those Amphipolitans who surrendered to him their city, and those Pydneans who gave him admittance. And generally, I believe, a despotic power is mistrusted by free states, especially if their opinions are adjoining. All this being known to you, Athenians, all else of importance considered, I say, you must take heart and spirit, and apply yourselves more than ever to the war, contributing promptly, serving personally, leaving nothing undone. No plea or pretence is left you for declining your duty. What you were all so clamorous about that the Olynthians should be pressed into a war with Philip, has, of itself, come to pass, and in a way most advantageous 155 156 to you. For, had they undertaken the war at your instance, they might have beeb slippery allies, with minds but half resolved, perhaps: but since they hate him in a quarrel of their own, their enmity is like to endure on account of their fears and their wrongs. You must not then, Athenians, forego this lucky opportunity, nor commit the error which you have 'often done heretofore. For example, when we returned from succoring the Euboeans, and Hierax and Stratocles of Amphipolis came to this platform, urging us to sail and receive possession of their city, if we had shown the same zeal for ourselves as for the safety of Euboea, you would have held Amphipolis then and been rid of all the trouble that ensued. Again, when news came that Pydna, Potidaea, Methone, Pagasae, and the other places (not to waste time in enumerating them) were beseiged, had we to any one of these in the first instance carried prompt and reasonable succor, we should have found Philip far more tractable and humble now But, by always neglecting the present, and imagining the future would shift for itself, we, 0 men of Athens, have exalted Philip, and made him greater than any king of Macedon ever was. Here, then, is come a crisis, this of Olynthus, self-offered to the state, inferior to none of the former. And, methinks, men of Athens, any man fairly estimating what the gods have done for us, notwithstanding many untoward circumstances, might with reason be grateful to them. Our numerous losses in war may justly be charged to our own negligence; but that they happened not long ago, and that an alliance, to counterbalance them, is open to our acceptance must regard as manifestations of divine favor. It is much the same as in money matters. If a man keep what he gets, he is thankful to fortune; if he lose it by imprudence, he loses withal his memory of the obligation. So in poltical affairs, they who misuse their opportunities forget even the good which the gods send them; for every prior event is judged commonly by the last result. Wherefore, Athenians, we must be exceedingly careful of our future measures, that by amendment therein we may efface the shame of the past. Should we abandon these men [the Olynthian ambassadors], too, and Philip reduce Olynthus, let any one tell me, what is to prevent him marching where he pleases? Does any one of you, Athenians, compute or consider the means by which Philip, originally weak, has become great? Having first taken Amphipolis, then Pydna, Potidaea next, Methone afterward, he invaded Thessaly. Having ordered matters at Pherae, Pagasae, Magnesia, everywhere exactly as he pleased, he departed for Thrace; where, after displacing some kings and establishing others, he fell sick; again recovering, he lapsed not into indolence, but instantly attacked the Olynthians. I omit his expeditions to Illyria and Paeonia, that against Arymbas, and some others. Why, it may be said, do you mention all this now? That you, Athenians, may feel and understand both the folly of continually abandoning one thing after another, and the activity which forms part of Philip's habit and existence, 157 which makes it impossible for him to rest content with his achievements. If it be his principle, ever to do more than he has done, and yours to apply yourselves vigorously to nothing, see what the end promises to be... Thucydides: The Revolt of Euboea (411 B.C.) The Peloponnesians, after taking twenty-two Athenian ships, and killing or making prisoners of the crews, set up a trophy, and not long afterwards effected the revolt of the whole of Euboea (except Oreus, which was held by the Athenians themselves), and made a general settlement of the affairs of the island. When the news of what had happened in Euboea reached Athens a panic ensued such as they had never before known. Neither the disaster in Sicily, great as it seemed at the time, nor any other had ever so much alarmed them. The camp at Samos was in revolt; they had no more ships or men to man them; they were all discord among themselves and might at any moment come to blows; and a disaster of this magnitude coming on the top of all, by which they lost their fleet, and worst of all Euboea, which was of more value to them than Attica, could not occur without'throwing them into the deepest despondency. Meanwhile their greatest and most immediate trouble was the possibility that the enemy, emboldened by his victory, might make straight for them and sail against Piraeus, which they had no longer ships to defend; and every moment they expected him to arrive. This, with a little more courage, he might easily have done, in which case he would either have increased the dissensions of the city by his presence, or if he had stayed to besiege it have compelled the fleet from Ionia, although the enemy of the oligarchy, to come to the rescue of their country and of their relatives, and in the meantime would have become master of the Hellespont, Ionia, the islands, and of everything as far as Euboea, or, to speak roundly, of the whole Athenian empire. But here, as on so many other occasions, the Lacedaemonians proved the most convenient people in the world for the Athenians to be at war with. The wide difference between the two characters, the slowness and want of energy of the Lacedaemonians as contrasted with the dash and enterprise of their opponents, proved of the greatest service, especially to a maritime empire like Athens. Indeed this was shown by the Syracusans, who were most like the Athenians in character, and also most successful in combating them. Nevertheless, upon receipt of the news, the Athenians manned twenty ships and called immediately a first assembly in the Pnyx, where they had been used to meet formerly, and deposed the Four Hundred and voted to hand over the government to the Five Thousand, of which body all who furnished a suit of armor were to be members, decreeing also that no one should receive pay for the discharge of any 158 office, or if he did should be held accursed... George Eliot: Bulstrode Decides to Leave Middlemarch Who can know how much of his most inward life is made up of the thoughts he believes other men to have about him, until that fabric of opinion is threatened with ruin? Bulstrode was only the more conscious that there was a deposit of uneasy presentiment in his wife's mind, because she carefully avoided any allusion to it. He had been used every day to taste the flavor of supremacy and the tribute of complete deference; and the certainty that he was watched or measured with a hidden suspicion of his having some discreditable secret, made his voice totter when he was speaking to edification. Foreseeing, to men of Bulstrode's anxious temperament, is often worse than seeing; and his imagination continually heightened the anguish of an imminent disgrace. Yes, imminent; for if his defiance of Raffles did not keep the man away--and though he prayed for this result he hardly hoped for it--the disgrace was certain. In vain he said to himself that, if permitted, it would be a divine visitation, a chastisement, a preparation; he recoiled from the imagined burning; and he judged that it must be more for the Divine glory that he should escape dishonor. That recoil had at last urged him to make preparations for quitting Middlemarch. If evil truth must be reported of him, he would then be at a less scorching distance from the contempt of his old neighbors; and in a new scene, where his life would not have gathered the same wide sensibility, the tormentor, if he pursued him, would be less formidable. To leave the place finally would, he knew, be extremely painful to his wife, and on other grounds he would have preferred to stay where he had struck root. Hence he made his preparations at first in a conditional way, wishing to leave on all sides an opening for his return after brief absence, if any favorable intervention of Providence should dissipate his fears. He was preparing to transfer his management of the Bank, and to give up any active control of other commercial affairs in the neighborhood, on the ground of his failing health, but without excluding his future resumption of such work. The measure would cause him some added expense and some diminution of income beyond what he had already undergone from the general depression of trade; and the Hospital presented itself as a principal object of outlay on which he could fairly economize. This was the experience which had determined his conVersation with Lydgate...(Brown 35-38) APPENDIX C Senecan Prose Style Seneca: from a letter to his brother, Novatus ”But then there is something pleasureable in anger, and it is sweet to give back pain for pain?" By no means; for it is not honorable to return injuries for injuries as it is, in the way of kindness, to return favors for favors. In the latter case it is shameful to be outdone, in the former not to be. “Revenge" is an inhuman word, and yet commonly received as legitimate, and "retaliation in kind” differs little from it except in order; whoso retaliates in kind merely sins with more claim to be pardoned for so doing. A certain fellow once struck Marcus Cato in the bath, not knowing who he was; for who would knowingly have injured that great man? Then, as he was apologizing, Cato said: "I do not remember having been struck." He thought it better to ignore than resent the incident. "Then the fellow got no punishment,” you may say, ”for such rude behavior?" No: instead he was richly rewarded; he began to know Cato. It is the part of the great soul to be superior to injuries. The most telling penalty to suffer is not to seem to be worthy of another's vengeance. Many have taken slight injuries too seriously by avenging them. He is great and noble who, like a great wild beast, listens unperturbed to the barking of small dogs. Sir Thomas Browne: The Garden of Cyprus, 1658 What is Truth; said jesting Pilate; And would not stay for an Answer. Certainly there be, that delight in Giddiness; And count it a Bondage, to fix a Beleefe; Affecting Free-Will in Thinking, as well as in Acting. And though the Sects of Philosophers of that Kinde be gone, yet there remaine certaine discoursing Wits, which are of the same veines, though there be not so much Bloud in them, as was in those of the Ancients. But is is not onely the Difficultie, and Labour, which Men take in finding out of Truth; Nor againe, that when it is found, it imposith vpon mens Thoughts; that doth bring Lies in fauour: But a naturall, though corrupt Loue, of the Lie it selfe. One of the later Schoole of the Grecians, examineth the matter, and is at a stand, to thinke what should be in it, 159 160 that men should loue Lies; Where neither they make for Pleasure, as with Poets; Nor for Aduantage, as with the Merchant; but for the Lies sake. But I cannot tell: This same Truth, is a Naked, and Open day light, that doth not shew, the Masques, and Mummeries, and Triumphs of the world, halfe so Stately, and daintily, as Candlelights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a Pearle, that sheweth best by day: But it will not rise, to the price of a Diamond, or Carbuncle, that sheweth best in varied lights. A mixture of a Lie doth euer adde Pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of Mens Mindes, Vaine Opinions, Flattering Hopes, False Valuations, Imaginations as one would, and the like; but it would leaue the Mindes, of a Number of Men, poore shrunken Things; full of Melancholy, and Indisposition, and vnpleasing to themselues? One of the Fathers, in great Seuerity, called Poesie, Vinum Daemonum; because it filleth the Imagination, and yet it is but with the shadow of a Lie. But it is not the Lie, that passeth through the Minde, but the Lie that sinketh in, and setleth in it, that doth the hurt, such as we spake of before. Robert Louis Stevenson: "Crabbed Age and Youth" When the old man waggles his head and says, "Ah, so I thought when I was your age," he has proved the youth's case. Doubtless, whether from growth of experience or decline of animal heat, he thinks so no longer; but he thought so while he was young; and all men have thought so while they were young, since there was dew in the morning or hawthorn in May; and here is another young man adding his vote to those of previous generations and riveting another link to the chain of testimony. Logan Pearsall Smith: ”Mental Vice" Then the pride in the British Constitution and British Freedom, which comes over me when I see, even in the distance, the Towers of Westminster Palace--that Mother of Parliaments--it is not much comfort that this should be chastened, as I walk down the Embankment, by the sight of Cleopatra's Needle, and the Thought that it will no doubt witness the Fall of the British, as it has of other Empires, remaining to point its Moral, as old as Egypt, to Antipodeans musing on the dilapidated bridges. 161 Arnold Bennett: "How To Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day" Philosophers have explained space. They have not explained time. It is the inexplicable raw material of everything. With it, all is possible; without it, nothing. The supply of time is truly a miracle, an affair genuinely astonishing when one examines it. You wake up in the morning, and lo! your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life! It is yours. It is the most precious of possessions. A highly singular commodity, showered upon you in a manner as singular as the commodity itself. For remark! No one can take it from you. It is unstealable. And no one receives either more or less than you receive. Charles Lamb: "A Dissertation upon Roast Pig" Ten to one he [a suckling pig] would have proved a glutton, a sloven, an obstinate, disagreeable animal--wallowing in all manner of filthy conversation--from these sins he is happily snatched away-- Ere sin could blight, or sorrow fade, Death came with timely care-- his memory is odoriferous--no clown curseth, while his stomach half rejecteth, the rank bacon--no coalheaver bolteth him in reeking sausages--he hath a fair sepulchre in the grateful stomach of the judicious epicure--and for such a tomb might be content to die. (Brown 79-82) BI BL I OGRAPHY Aquinas, Thomas, St. Summa Theologica. ed by Paul T. Durbin. Pennsylvania, Lincoln University Press, 1968. Aristotle. Rhetoric. 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