A Pack of Useful Lies about the Eighteenth Century


This chart, adapted from one used by the late Prof. Henry K. Miller of Princeton University, deliberately reduces the complexities of eighteenth-century thought to artificial polar opposites or norms. The views in the left-hand column (Renaissance, Christian Humanist) might roughly be described as “conservative” or “traditional” during this period; those on the right (Romantic, Naturalist) as “radical” or “progressive.” The dominant prestige or emphasis moves slowly and uncertainly from left to right during the years 1660-1800, but more often than not, the old and the new remain in uneasy juxtaposition. The ideas may also be thought of as shifting among emergent, dominant, and residual states. (Another version of this chart is available here.)


I. The World-Picture: Philosophy and Religion

Conceptual Metaphor:

 

The Great Chain of Being, the hierarchy

The Mathematical Machine, the organism

Metaphysical Orientation:

Ontological (Being: relation to universe)

Epistemological (Process: Psychological individual)

Question of the Universe:

Why? (Rationalism; religion; synthesis)

What? How? (Empiricism; science; analysis)

Cosmology:

Meaningful, finite universe (Purposeful interlocking Universals; macrocosm-microcosm)

Scientific, mechanical, infinite (non-purposive particulars)

Highest Wisdom:

Ethical contemplation; Knowledge leads to Virtue

Scientific experiment; Knowledge leads to power

Philosophical Orientation:

Theocentric (God-centered), but Man at center of God’s universe

Anthropocentric (“Man the measure”), but man not focus of neutral universe

Nature:

The total spiritual, moral, material construct, structured by God

External, physical phenomenon, separate from the mind, but a stimulus to subjective spiritual experience

View of “Reality”:

Metaphysical Realism (Universals are real); lower explained in terms of the higher

Metaphysical Nominalism (only particulars are real); higher explained in terms of the lower

Natural Law:

Normative (defining normal); duties of Man

Descriptive (describing effects); Rights of Man

Psychological Emphasis:

Intuitive reason and the conscious mind; identity as essence

Imagination and the (unconscious) irrational; identity as state of mind

Ethics:

Christian, prescriptive, absolute

Benevolist Utilitarian, descriptive, relative

Ethical Emphasis:

Reason, motives, ends

Emotion, effects, means

Moral Truth:

Extrinsic, objective (in divine will)

Intrinsic, subjective (in the agent)

Moral Faculties:

Right Reason and the will (the head)

Sensibility and the will (the heart)

Major Virtue:

Caritas: love of God and man for the image of God

Natural goodness

Major Sin:

Pride

Sexual immorality

Dominant Group in the Church of England:

Latitudinarian Anglo-Catholicism

Evangelicalism and Broad Church

Leading Heterodoxy:

Dissent; Deism

Methodism

Science: Major Focus:

Astronomy, physics

Mathematics, biology

Test of Scientific Truth:

Congruity with basic norms

Experiment

 

II. Social and Economic

Conceptual Metaphor:

the Land

Money

Ruling Classs:

Aristocracy (landowners); hierarchy of classes

Middle class (moneyed oligarchy); fluid classes

Basic Economy:

Agriculture

Trade and Industry

Economic Theory:

Mercantilism

Laissez-faire

Form of Capitalism:

Individual production; capitalism in social-moral frame

Factory production; finance capitalism

Attitude toward Business:

“Low Mechanick Trade”

The dignity of trade; merchants distinguished from tradesmen

Manners:

Renaissance gentleman: masculine orientation

Victorian gentleman: feminine orientation

Status of Women:

Hierarchical inferior; marriage as business deal

Individual function in family; companionate marriage

III. Historical and Political

Conceptual Metaphor:

The body and its members

The individual vs. the state

Political Entity:

England (and Scotland)

Great Britain and the British Empire

Government:

Absolute monarchy; Parliament subordinate; authority descends

Limited monarchy; Parliamentary government, extended franchise; authority ascends

Political Mentors:

Cicero and Aristotle

Machiavelli and Locke

Historical Orientation:

Chronological primitivism (looking to the past: myth of the Golden Age); teleology

Cultural primitivism (the spontaneous and natural); progress (looking to the future, Utopia, secular millenium); Evolution

IV. Literary and Critical

Conceptual Metaphor:

The mirror

The lamp

The Poet:

Artificer, “maker,” educated artist

Seer, improviser, natural genius

Center of Interest:

The poem’s subject

The poet’s mind

Aim of Poetry:

Harmony, beauty, to please and teach

Emotion, the sublime, to involve and uplift

Ideal Form:

Epic

Lyric

Verse Style:

Blank verse, heroic couplet

Blank verse, ode

Dominant Subject:

The city, Man, public experience

The country, external nature, private experience

Classical Model:

Latin: Virgil

Greek: Homer

Prose Fiction:

Romance

Novel

Characters of Fiction:

Types, essences, fixed psychology

Unique individuals, fluid, evolving psychology

Prose Style:

Senecan formal styles

Ciceronian middle style

Dramatic Form:

Comedy of wit, heroic tragedy

Comedy of sentiment, melodrama

Press:

Individual essay-journals

Mass public newspapers and magazines

Critical Emphasis:

Formal (the work); mimetic (the universe); rhetorical (the audience psychology)

Formal (the work); expressive (the artist’s psychology)

Critical Reference:

Educated taste, tradition

Individual genius, empathetic imagination

Classical Authority:

Aristotle, Horace, Longinus

Plato, Longinus

Writing Method:

Imitation

Inspiration; evolution

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