The 18th century brought a first national right to conduct communication of thoughts and opinions in France. It is a very interesting phenomenon that at the time of the codification of rights to communicate, the terminology of communication is part of the contemporary conversation. The European communication processes depended on the technical possibilities that were in the 18th century orality and literacy. With the beginning of the Enlightening the role of rhetoric changed. The European Romantic culture, which used criticism to keep distance to the ancient literature, promoted during this time the idea of the original genius putting a stress on the opposition of this contemporary culture to the ancient literature. The term communication was related to private and public conversation. An example is Jane Austen novel Persuasion that describes contemporary aristocratic life:
On Friday morning she meant to go very early to Lady Russell, and accomplish the necessary communication; and she would have gone directly after breakfast, but that Mrs Clay was also going out on some obliging purpose of saving her sister trouble, which determined her to wait till she might be safe from such a companion. She saw Mrs Clay fairly off, therefore, before she began to talk of spending the morning in Rivers Street.347
Circles of intellectuals meeting for conversation were popular all over Europe. Thinkers such as Pierre Bayle, Voltaire, David Hume, Locke, and Immanuel Kant were representatives of Enlightment.348 The philosophers of Enlightenment saw themselves as followers continuing the work of the 17th century-philosophers.349 Locke wrote in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) abouth the art of rhetorick:
If we would speak of things as they are, we must allow, that all the art of rhetorick, besides order and clearness, all the artificial and figurative application of words eloquence hath invented, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong ideas, move the passions, and thereby mislead the judgment, and so indeed are perfect cheats.“
(book 3, chapter 10 ).350
Locke wrote in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (book 3, chapter 1) about words or language in general as common tie of society:
Man fitted to form articulate sounds. God, having designed man for a sociable creature, made him not only with an inclination, and under a necessity to have fellowship with those of his own kind, but furnished him also with language, which was to be the great instrument and common tie of society. Man, therefore, had by nature his organs so fashioned, as to be fit to frame articulate sounds, which we call words.
347 Austen, Jane. Persuasion. University Adeleide. [2.2.2007].
<Http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/austen/jane/a93p/chap22.html>
348 Cf. Bevilacqua, Vincent M. “Philosophical Influences in the Development of 1748-1783.” In: Proceedings of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, Literary and Historical Section.12 (1968). Pp. 191-215.
349 Cf. France, Peter. Rhetoric and Truth in France. Descartes to Diderot. Oxford: University Press 1972. Pp. 75-76.
350 Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Catholic University of Hongkong. [2.2.2007].
<Http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Philosophy/Locke/echu/>.
But this was not enough to produce language; for parrots, and several other birds, will be taught to make articulate sounds distinct enough, which yet by no means are capable of language.351
For Locke words are the ‘signs’ of ‘ideas’, ‘tones’ the ‘signs’ of passions. The modern tradition of Western communication can be traced back to Locke. Locke uses in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Of our Complex Ideas of Substances (chapter XXIII) the term communication in the sense of exchange between individuals:
So that I doubt, whether he and the rest of men could discourse concerning the objects of sight, or have any communication about colours, their appearances being so wholly different. And perhaps such a quickness and tenderness of sight could not endure bright sunshine, or so much as open daylight; nor take in but a very small part of any object at once, and that too only at a very near distance.
And if by the help of such microscopical eyes (if I may so call them) a man could penetrate further than ordinary into the secret composition and radical texture of bodies, he would not make any great advantage by the change, if such an acute sight would not serve to conduct him to the market and exchange; if he could not see things he was to avoid, at a convenient distance; nor distinguish things he had to do with by those sensible qualities others do. He that was sharp-sighted enough to see the configuration of the minute particles of the spring of a clock, and observe upon what peculiar structure and impulse its elastic motion depends, would no doubt discover something very admirable: but if eyes so framed could not view at once the hand, and the characters of the hour-plate, and thereby at a distance see what o’clock it was, their owner could not be much benefited by that acuteness; which, whilst it discovered the secret contrivance of the parts of the machine, made him lose its use.352
Locke in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding writes in the chapter Of the Imperfection of Words(chapter IX) that words are used for recording and communicating our thoughts:
1. Words are used for recording and communicating our thoughts.
From what has been said in the foregoing chapters, it is easy to perceive what imperfection there is in language, and how the very nature of words makes it almost unavoidable for many of them to be doubtful and uncertain in their significations. To examine the perfection or imperfection of words, it is necessary first to consider their use and end: for as they are more or less fitted to attain that, so they are more or less perfect. We have, in the former part of this discourse often, upon occasion, mentioned a double use of words.
Locke gives a definition of communication as a civil capability:
351 Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Book 3. Chapter 1. Columbia University.
[2.2.2007].
<Http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/publications/Projects/digitexts/locke/understanding/chapter0301.html>
352 Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. University Adeleide. [2.2.2007].
<Http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/s/stevenson/robert_louis/s848aw/part1.html>
3. Communication by words either for civil or philosophical purposes.
Secondly, As to communication by words, that too has a double use.353
Locke describes in Chapter II Of the Signification of Words how words serve as sensible signs, necessary for communication of ideas:
1. Words are sensible signs, necessary for communication of ideas.
Man, though he have great variety of thoughts, and such from which others as well as himself might receive profit and delight; yet they are all within his own breast, invisible and hidden from others, nor can of themselves be made to appear. The comfort and advantage of society not being to be had without communication of thoughts, it was necessary that man should find out some external sensible signs, whereof those invisible ideas, which his thoughts are made up of, might be made known to others. For this purpose nothing was so fit, either for plenty or quickness, as those articulate sounds, which with so much ease and variety he found himself able to make. Thus we may conceive how words, which were by nature so well adapted to that purpose, came to be made use of by men as the signs of their ideas;
not by any natural connexion that there is between particular articulate sounds and certain ideas, for then there would be but one language amongst all men; but by a voluntary imposition, whereby such a word is made arbitrarily the mark of such an idea. The use, then, of words, is to be sensible marks of ideas; and the ideas they stand for are their proper and immediate signification.354
George Campbell wrote in The Philosophy of Rhetoric: „In speaking there is always some end proposed, or some effect which the speaker intends to produce on the hearer. The word eloquence in its greatest latitude denotes, that art of talent by which the discourse is adapted to its end, (Quintilian).“ (book I, chapter 1)355 Richard Whately published Elements of Rhetoric in 1828. John Ward´s A System of Oratory contained academic lectures at the Gresham College and divided the rhetorical system in the following parts:
Of the rise and progress of oratory356 Of the nature of oratory357
Of the division of oratory358
Of invention in general, and particulary of common places359 Of external topics360
Of the state of controversy361
353 Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. University Adeleide. [2.2.2007].
<Http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/l/locke/john/l81u/under48.html>
354 Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. University Adeleide. [2.2.2007].
<Http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/l/locke/john/l81u/under41.html>
355 Campbell, George. Philosophy of Rhetoric. Ohio State University. [2.2.2007].
<Http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/Ulman1/Campbell/Book1/Book1-1.htm>
Wibur, Samuel Howell: Eighteenth-Century British Logic and Rhetoric. Princeton: University Press 1971. Pp.
41-47.
356 Ward. A System of Oratory. 1759. Pp. 1-15.
357 Ward. A System of Oratory. 1759. Pp. 16-28.
358 Ward. A System of Oratory. 1759. Pp. 29-42.
359 Ward. A System of Oratory. 1759. Pp. 43-60.
360 Ward. A System of Oratory. 1759. Pp. 61-76.
361 Ward. A System of Oratory. 1759. Pp. 77-91.
Of arguments suited to demonstrative discourses362 Of arguments suited to judicial discourse363
Of the character and address of the orator364 Of the passions365
Of disposition in general, and particularly of the introduction366 Of narration367
Of the proposition368
Of confirmation by syllogism369
Of confirmation by induction and example370 Of confutation371
Of digression, transition, and amplification372
Of elocution in general, and particularly of Elegance and purity373
Of perspicuity374
Of composition, and particularly of period375 Of order376
Of dignity, and particularly of tropes377 Of a metaphor378
Of a metonymy379
John Walker analyses the difficulty of grammar in A Rhetorical Grammar, Or Course of Lessons in Elocution that was in London in the year 1785 publicized, this way:
The difficulty of finding out an easy and rational plan of introducting youth, in reading and speaking, has been one great cause of the neglect of this part of education [...] but reading and speaking, depending more on habit than science, are naturally not so susceptible of rules as the other arts, and consequently, the progress in them is neither so pleasant nor so perceptible.380
In Walker’s A Rhetorical Grammar or Course of Lessons in Elocution the different terms of rhetorical tropes are listed:
362 Ward. A System of Oratory. 1759. Pp. 92-106.
363 Ward. A System of Oratory. 1759. Pp. 123-139.
364 Ward. A System of Oratory. 1759. Pp. 140-154.
365 Ward. A System of Oratory. 1759. Pp. 155-174.
366 Ward. A System of Oratory. 1759. Pp. 175-191.
367 Ward. A System of Oratory. 1759. Pp. 192-207.
368 Ward. A System of Oratory. 1759. Pp. 208-223.
369 Ward. A System of Oratory. 1759. Pp. 223-237.
370 Ward. A System of Oratory. 1759. Pp. 238-251.
371 Ward. A System of Oratory. 1759. Pp. 252-268.
372 Ward. A System of Oratory. 1759. Pp. 283-302.
373 Ward. A System of Oratory. 1759. Pp. 302-318.
374 Ward. A System of Oratory. 1759. Pp. 319-335.
375 Ward. A System of Oratory. 1759. Pp. 336-353.
376 Ward. A System of Oratory. 1759. Pp. 354-367.
377 Ward. A System of Oratory. 1759. Pp. 383-397.
378 Ward. A System of Oratory. 1759. Pp. 398-411.
379 Ward. A System of Oratory. 1759. Pp. 412-413.
380 Walker, John. A Rhetorical Grammar, or Course of Lessons in Elocution. London: 1785. Hildesheim: Olms 1969. P. 1.
Metaphor381 Allegory382 Metonymy383 Synechdoche384 Hyperbole385 Catachresis386 Ekphrasis387 Erotesis388 Aparihmesis389 Epanaphora390 Prolepsis391 Syncoresis392 Epanorthosis393 Anastrophe394 Apostrophe395
Asyndethon and Polisyndeton396 Enatiosis397
Paraclepsis398 Anacoenosis399 Hypotyposis400 Vision401
Scholars of Neo-classicism, for example Christian Gottlob Heyne in Germany, made an active use of the vocabulary of criticism in order to let it survive in the time of Enlightenment.402 Kant’s thesis on Enlightenment developed from the ground of his studies of critical methods.
Kant also showed in his writings Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Kritik der Urtheilskraft, and Über eine Entdeckung, nach der alle neue Kritik der reinen Vernunft durch eine ältere entbehrlich gemacht werden soll that the critical method is a methodical concept of philosophy. Kant uses the term Kritizismus for a distinction between criticism, dogmatism, and scepticism. The book Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason) was first published 1781 and in a second edition in 1787. The literary form critique served for an
381 Walker. A Rhetorical Grammar. 1785. P. 137.
382 Walker. A Rhetorical Grammar. 1785. P. 138.
383 Walker. A Rhetorical Grammar. 1785. P. 139.
384 Walker. A Rhetorical Grammar. 1785. P. 140.
385 Walker. A Rhetorical Grammar. 1785. P. 140.
386 Walker. A Rhetorical Grammar. 1785. P. 141.
387 Walker. A Rhetorical Grammar. 1785. P. 144.
388 Walker. A Rhetorical Grammar. 1785. P. 148.
389 Walker. A Rhetorical Grammar. 1785. P. 149.
390 Walker. A Rhetorical Grammar. 1785. P. 153.
391 Walker. A Rhetorical Grammar. 1785. P. 157.
392 Walker. A Rhetorical Grammar. 1785. P. 160.
393 Walker. A Rhetorical Grammar. 1785. P. 162.
394 Walker. A Rhetorical Grammar. 1785. P. 164.
395 Walker. A Rhetorical Grammar. 1785. P. 166.
396 Walker. A Rhetorical Grammar. 1785. P. 168.
397 Walker. A Rhetorical Grammar. 1785. P. 171.
398 Walker. A Rhetorical Grammar. 1785. P. 175.
399 Walker. A Rhetorical Grammar. 1785. P. 177.
400 Walker. A Rhetorical Grammar. 1785. P. 179.
401 Walker. A Rhetorical Grammar. 1785. P. 191.
402 Taylor Coleridge, Samuel. Biographia Literaria. University Virginia. [2.2.2007].
<Http://etext.virginia.edu/stc/Coleridge/literar_theory/BiogLiterar.html#PoetStyle>
attempt to establish the capabilities and limits of 'pure reason'. Pure reason has to be used in order to create synthetically a priori-knowledge. Key terms used in the Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason) include ´conception´ that are received by the faculty of intuition. A conception like intuition can be pure or empirical. A pure conception contains
´only the form of the thought of an object´. An empirical conception requires the presence of an actual object. Kant used his ‘Categorical Imperative’ as an unconditional obligation. In 1799 in the preface for the reader of De Prudentia et Eloquentia Civili Comparanda Diatribe Isagogicae Johann Andreas Bose writes about a book appearing not without a censor (non sine censore) and about the execution of the critical faculty (criticam facultatem exercere ):
Lectori.
Annus vicesimus prope exigitur, quando has dissertationes ad publicam utilitatem edidi. Occasionem tunc quidem offerebat liber, qui altera mox vice prodiit, sub titulo bibliographiae curiosae: ubi sub finem Bosii diatribe adparebat, non sine censore. Verum patuit statim hominis imperitia, nec in praesenti debet coargui.
Quilibet enim inter doctos novit, quis noster fuerit, qua cura et arte bonas litteras tractaverit. Numquam in scriptoribus percensendis tam improvidus erat aut incautus, ut facile aberraret in nominibus. Sed neque tribuebat aliis, quae ipsis non debebantur. Laudavit eos, quos laude dignos ex virtute et doctrina varia deprehendit: naevos pariter indicavit eorum, qui non poterant obscurari, aut excusari ab ingenio honesto. Aberat plane beatus Bosius longe ab illis, qui criticam facultatem exercent, ubi non possunt: aut temere etiam exercent in rebus ac studiis, quibus parum operae impenderunt. Nostra, aetate nihil est vulgatius, quam nonnullos pro arbitratu iudicare de melioribus, eosque inter barbaros.403
Romanticism was a cultural époque all over Europe. In the 19th century literature written in a perspective of a romantic worldview followed modes of discourse. Romantic rhetoric has inspired classical rhetoric by its critiques of traditional rhetoric. The Romantic movement was a movement parallel to classicism. It took an individualized approach to art. The paradoxes, fragmentary character, and endlessliness of literacy were explored by early German romantics. Representative writers of romanticism from German were authors like Christian Fürchtegott Gellert, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Johann Elias Schlegel, and Martin Wieland.404 Writers of romanticism recognized word games as an essential literary feature.
For the poet Novalis language was a game and the fragment was established by representatives of romanticism as a genre. From this romantic perspective criticism was used to understand an artificial work as a unit and to describe its particular beauty. Criticism can -from a standpoint of romanticism- not be used to judge literature by any exterior standard, its categories lie within the object. The English term communication derived from Old French communicacion. For popular education dictionaries, handbooks, and encyclopedias were produced to popularize knowledge. In the Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers edited by Denis Diderot et Jean le Rond d’Alembert we find the entries communicants and communication:
403 Bose, Johann Andreas. De Prudentia et Eloquentia Civili Comparanda Diatribe Isagogicae Quarum Haec Prodit Auctior Sub Titulo De Ratione Legendi Tractandique Historicos. Accedit Notitia Scriptorium Historiae Universalis Primum Edita Cura Georgii Schubarto. Ienae MDCCXCIX. University Mannheim. Camena.
[15.5.2007].
<Http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/camenahist/bose1/books/boseprudentia_front.html>.
404 Campe, Rüdiger. Affekt und Ausdruck. Zur Umwandlung der literarischen Rede im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert.
Tübingen: Niemeyer 1990. Pp. 60-67.
Communicants, s. m. pl. (Hist. ecclés.) secte d’Anabaptistes dans le seizieme siecle: ils furent ainsi nommes de la communauté de femmes
& d’enfans qu’ils avoient établie entre eux, à l’exemple des Nicolaïtes. Prateole, 5. comm. Sanderus, her. 198. Gautier, dans sa chron. xvj. siecle.405
For communication as a grammatical term we find the following entry in the Encyclopédie:
Communication, (Gram.) ce terme a un grand nombre d’acceptions, qu’on trouvera ci-après. Il désigne quelquefois l’idée de partage ou de cession, comme dans communication du mouvement; celle de contiguité, de communauté, & de continuité, comme dans communication de deux canaux, portes de communication; celle d’exhibition par une personne à une autre, comme dans communication de pieces, &c.406
A specific sub-lexem is the terms communication du mouvement derived form communicatio motus:
Communication du mouvement, est l’action par laquelle un corps qui en frappe un autre, met en mouvement le corps qu’il frappe.
L’expérience nous fait voir tous les jours, que les corps se communiquent du mouvement les uns aux autres. Les Philosophes ont enfin découvert les lois suivant lesquelles se fait cette communication, après avoir long-tems ignoré qu’il y en eût, & après s’être long-tems trompé sur les véritables. Ces lois confirmées par l’expérience & par le raisonnement, ne sont plus révoquées en doute de la plus saine partie des Physiciens. Mais la raison métaphysique, & le principe primitif de la communication du mouvement, sont sujets à beaucoup de difficultés.407
The theological term communication d’idiomes is definied as follows in the Encyclopédie:
Communication d’idiomes, (Thèol.) terme consacré parmi les Théologiens en traitant du mystere de l’incarnation, pour exprimer l’application d’un attribut d’une des deux natures en Jesus-Christ à l’autre nature.408
La communication d’idiomes est fondée sur l’union hypostatique des deux natures en Jesus-Christ. C’est par communication d’idiomes qu’on dit que Dieu a souffert, que Dieu est mort, &c. choses qui à la
405 Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers. Ed. by Denis Diderot et Jean le Rond d’Alembert. Wikisource France. [2.2.2007].
<Http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:ENC_3-0729.jpg>
406 Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers. Ed. by Denis Diderot et Jean le Rond d’Alembert. Wikisource France. [2.2.2007].
<Http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:ENC_3-0729.jpg>
407 Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers. Ed. by Denis Diderot et Jean le Rond d’Alembert. Wikisource France. [2.2.2007].
<Http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:ENC_3-0729.jpg>
408 Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers. Ed. by Denis Diderot et Jean le Rond d’Alembert. Wikisource France. [2.2.2007].
<Http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:ENC_3-0729.jpg>
rigueur ne se peuvent dire que de la nature humaine, & signifient que Dieu est mort quant à son humanité, qu’il a souffert en tant qu’Homme; car, disent les Théologiens, les dénominations qui signifient les natures ou les propriétés de nature, sont des dénominations de supposita, c’est-à-dire de personnes. Or comme il
rigueur ne se peuvent dire que de la nature humaine, & signifient que Dieu est mort quant à son humanité, qu’il a souffert en tant qu’Homme; car, disent les Théologiens, les dénominations qui signifient les natures ou les propriétés de nature, sont des dénominations de supposita, c’est-à-dire de personnes. Or comme il