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Women and Science, 17th Century to Present
 Women and Science, 17th Century to Present:
Pioneers, Activists and Protagonists

Edited by

Donna Spalding Andréolle and Véronique Molinari

 Women and Science, 17th Century to Present:
Pioneers, Activists and Protagonists,
Edited by Donna Spalding Andréolle and Véronique Molinari

This book first published 2011

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2011 by Donna Spalding Andréolle and Véronique Molinari and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-4438-2918-8, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-2918-2

TO OUR DAUGHTERS
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ................................................................................................ xi
Donna Spalding Andréolle and Véronique Molinari

Part I: Women (Re-)presenting Science

Chapter One................................................................................................. 3
Auto Didacticism and the Construction of Scientific Discourse in Early
Modern England: Margaret Cavendish’s and Anne Conway’s
“Intellectual Bricolage”
Sandrine Parageau (University Denis Diderot Paris 7, France)

Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 19

Invisible Assistants and Translated Texts: d’Arconville and Practical
Chemistry in Enlightenment France
Margaret Carlyle (McGill University Montreal, Canada)

Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 35

Maria Sibylla Merian: The First Ecologist?
Kay Etheridge (Gettysburg College Pennsylvania, United States)

Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 55

Anatomy of the Female Angel or Science at the Service of Woman
in Woman and Her Era by Eliza Farnham
Claire Sorin (University of Provence, France)

Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 69

Promoting Eugenics and Maternalism: Women Doctors and Marriage
Counselling in Weimar Germany
Melissa Kravetz (University of Maryland, United States)

Part II: Women in the Sciences – Portrayal and Self-Portrayal

Chapter One............................................................................................... 89
Women and the Pursuit of Scientific Knowledge in Mid-Victorian Dublin
Clara Cullen (University College Dublin, Ireland)
viii Table of Contents

Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 99

“Schools of their Own”: The Ladies’ Medical College and the London
School of Medicine for Women
Véronique Molinari (University Stendhal Grenoble III, France)

Chapter Three .......................................................................................... 125

Elizabeth Blackwell, “The Singular Woman Doctor”: Representing
and Locating the Pioneer Woman Physician in the Nineteenth Century
Hélène Quanquin (University Paris 3, France)

Chapter Four ............................................................................................ 141

Representations of Women in the History of Science in France:
Going beyond Names without Faces, Faces without Accomplishments
Lindsay Blake Wilson (Northern Arizona University, United States)

Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 155

The Male Tempo of Engineering: Coeds Adapt to Georgia Tech
Amy Bix (Iowa State University, United States)

Part III: Women Figures in Science-Fiction: Case Studies

Chapter One............................................................................................. 181

Women of Science Fiction: Romantic Mythologies and Female
Emancipation from John Keats to Dan Simmons
Caroline Bertonèche (University Stendhal Grenoble III, France)

Chapter Two ............................................................................................ 193

“The Labours of Men of Genius”: Frankenstein, Fertility and the Female
Scientist in the Work of Alasdair Gray
David Leishman (University Stendhal Grenoble III, France)

Chapter Three .......................................................................................... 211

Impossible Dialogues?: Science in American Feminist Science Fiction
of the 1970s and 1980s
Donna Spalding Andréolle (University Stendhal Grenoble III, France)

Chapter Four ............................................................................................ 227

Women and Science in Japanese Anime: A Challenge to the Traditional
Construction of Female Identity
Yukihide Endo (Hamamatsu University School of Medecine, Japan)
 Women and Science, 17th Century to Present ix

Bibliography ............................................................................................ 241

Contributors............................................................................................. 269
 INTRODUCTION

DONNA SPALDING ANDRÉOLLE

AND VÉRONIQUE MOLINARI

While women’s interest and participation in the advancement of

science has a long history, the academic study of their contributions is a
far more recent phenomenon, to be placed in the wake of “second wave”
feminism in the 1970s and the advent of women’s studies.1 Research on
female figures in specific fields or, more generally speaking, on women’s
battles to gain access to knowledge, education and recognition in the
scientific world thus really started in the late 1980s when some useful and
comprehensive biographical accounts were published, such as those of
historians Margaret Alic (1986), Marilyn Ogilvie (1986) Pnina Geraldine
Abir-Am (1987) or Barbara Gates (1998), to name but a few.
These studies, while providing a useful insight into the contributions of
well-known figures, have so far mostly focused on the obstacles that
women have had to overcome in the fields of education and employment
or in their quest for acknowledgement by their male peers, or again on the
mutual impact of family life and scientific career. The aim of this volume
is to try and approach the issue from a different and more comprehensive
point of view, taking into account not only the position of women in
science, but also the link between women and science through the analysis
of various kinds of discourse and representation such as the press, poetry,
fiction, biographies and autobiographies or professional journals… –
including those of women themselves. The questions of the presentation or
re(-)presentation of science by women will thus be at the core of this
study, as well as that of the portrayal and self-portrayal of women in the
sciences (whether in the educational, or the professional field). A final part
examines how women are represented in science fiction which, like
science itself, has traditionally been a field dominated by men. Following
in the footsteps of the likes of Mary Shelley, women writers of science
fiction, as well as the depiction of strong, scientifically knowledgeable
female characters make their appearance in the mid-twentieth century,
being connected as they are to the second-wave feminist movement, in
xii Introduction

particular in the United States where a specific feminist science fiction

genre emerged in the early 1970s. This does not, however, exclude men
(as authors and/or as characters), nor does it limit such representation to
one country or one culture as the study of female cyborg superheroes in
Japanese anime so perfectly demonstrates. From the gendered dynamics of
female creation in Keatsian poetry and Dan Simmons’s novels to Alasdair
Gray’s Poor Things in which the female reincarnation of life-giving
science suggests a possible alternative to the masculinist paradigm of
scientific knowledge, new visions of women and science vehicled in the
popular culture—whether created through the use of pastiche, role-reversal
or post-Romantic and post-modern influences—constitute a clear political
message regarding the shifting relationships of gender and gender(ed)
roles in modern society.

A question that arises when putting into relation women and science—
more particularly when focusing on the issue of representation—is
whether such a thing as a gendered (re)presentation of science actually
exists. In an attempt to provide some answers this question, the first part of
this book will examine the contributions of women to scientific knowledge
and their possibly gendered (re-)presentations of the fields they studied,
covering four centuries and five countries, and beginning with 17th century
England.
This period, sometimes referred to as the Scientific Revolution,2
certainly offers a contrasted image in terms of women’s contribution to the
new sciences. While the natural world had so far been perceived as a
living organism and its approach linked to theology, some natural
philosophers began to favour investigation through supposedly “objective”
experimentation, mathematics and correct reasoning, and felt they were
proposing new and important changes in both its knowledge and the
means and practices by which this knowledge was to be attained and
communicated (Shapin, 5). This process, some historians have argued,
marked the ostracization of women from science (LeMay Sheffield, 3;
Merchant, 1980). “Including women, they felt, would undermine their new
study,” Suzanne LeMay Sheffield explains, “in part because women
tended to be followers of old practices, but also because of the ‘natural’
character of women which they believed was irrational, emotional,
spiritual, and lacking intellectual rigor” (3). The changing nature of
science and the fact that it was taking place increasingly in societies and
academies does not mean, however, that women stopped practicing
science. As a matter of fact, larger numbers of women took an interest in
science as the telescope and the microscope became the new “toys” of the
 Women and Science, 17th Century to Present xiii

aristocracy; and it became fashionable, in aristocratic circles, for ladies to

keep up to date on the latest scientific developments. Books and lectures
which were published and delivered specifically for female audiences
reflect the new craze for science of the time. One of the best-known
examples is probably the French Entretiens sur la Pluralité des Mondes
(Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds) published in 1686, in which
Bernard de Fontenelle explained and popularized the mechanistic theories
of Descartes in the form of a dialogue between de Fontenelle and Madame
la Marquise de G*** who, for six nights, was introduced to the intricacies
of astronomy. Many then took up Fontenelle’s lead, including Francesco
Algarotti’s Il Neutoniasnismo per le dame, published in 1737, Britain
Benjamin Martin’s The Young Gentleman and Lady’s Philosophy (1759)
or again James Ferguson’s An Easy Introduction to Astronomy, for Young
Gentlemen and Ladies (1768), all of them often written in a dialogue form,
or letter format.
It was in this context that Margaret Cavendish (1661-1717) and Anne
Conway (1631-1679), who, like most women of the 17th century, were
denied a formal education, wrote treatises of natural philosophy revealing
clear knowledge of the scientific theories of their time. In order to access
such knowledge, both Cavendish and Conway made the most of the
practices of erudite sociability in the Republic of Letters and, as Sandrine
Parageau shows, their respective scientific discourses show signs of these
indirect modes of access to knowledge. As autodidacts, both women could
only glean fragments of knowledge, which they then tried to reassemble in
dialogic and eclectic works; in this regard, Cavendish’s and Conway’s
scientific discourses are thus characterised by Claude Levi-Strauss’s
notion of “bricolage,” that is both women strove to reconcile all the
doctrines in the history of natural philosophy without discriminating
between personal and traditional knowledge. Cavendish, however, because
she published her works, also had to use “tactics” (M. de Certeau3),
Parageau explains, in order to encroach on men’s territory without being
condemned for her transgression.
An examination of Marie-Geneviève-Charlotte Thiroux d’Arconville
(1720-1805)’s translation work in the realm of practical chemistry also
provides a new evaluation of women’s role in the making of early modern
science. Some of the works just cited were translated by women. That was
the case of Algarotti’s Il Neutoniasnismo per le dame, translated by
Elizabeth Carter under the title Sir Isaac Newton's philosophy explain'd for
the use of the ladies: In six dialogues on light and colours; interestingly,
the preface specified that the translation was done by “Elizabeth Carter,
the friend of Dr. Johnson” (my italics). Entretiens sur la Pluralité des
xiv Introduction

Mondes was also translated a second time into English in 1688 by Aphra
Behn under the title A Discovery of New Worlds. Both translators, in this
case, were writers and poetesses. Yet, there were other prominent women
scientific translators in the Enlightenment period and scientific translation
sometimes required more than a grasp of multiple languages. One famous
example is that of Émilie du Châtelet who, besides translating Newton’s
Principia into French, expanded Newton’s work to include up-dated
progress made in mathematical physics after his death. Her superior grasp
of mathematics, as William E. Burns points out in his Encyclopaedia of
Science in the Enlightenment, made her contribution to Voltaire’s
Elements of the Philosophy of Newton (1738) a vital one. Though by no
means the only female scientific translator of the mid-eighteenth century,
d’Arconville was one of few French women who undertook translation
work while leading experimentations herself, Margaret Carlyle points out.
Centring discussion on a treatise by the English chemist, Peter Shaw
(which d’Arconville translated into French and published in 1759 as
Leçons de chymie) Carlyle argues that d’Arconville’s role as a female
“scientist” problematises our understanding of the translator’s role both in
the construction and transmission of scientific knowledge and forces us to
consider the challenges faced by all Enlightenment era translators of the
natural sciences, and more specifically by female interpreters.
Rousseau was not favourable to the scientific education of women. In
Emile, the French philosopher dedicated a chapter to Sophie’s education in
which he explained that the “art of thinking is not foreign to women, but
they ought only to skim the sciences of reasoning. Sophie gets a
conception of everything and does not remember very much. Her greatest
progress is in ethics and in matters of taste. As for physics, she remembers
only some idea of its general laws and of the cosmic system.”4 Women,
for Rousseau, had to be excluded from the sciences on the grounds that
they were incapable of grasping general principles or generalizing ideas.
In his discussion of Sophie, he wrote again: “The quest for abstract and
speculative truths, principles, and axioms in the sciences, for everything
that tends to generalize ideas, is not within the competence of women.
Their studies should concern practical things. It is their task to apply the
principles discovered by man and it is up to them to make the observations
that lead man to discover these principles” (386). Some objects of scientific
study were, however, deemed more acceptable—or respectable—than
others by Rousseau and other opponents to women’s scientific education.
In the French philosopher’s opinion, botany for example, (which did not
involve dissecting), abated “the taste for frivolous amusements, prevents
the tumult of the passions, and provides the mind with a nourishment that
 Women and Science, 17th Century to Present xv

is salutary” (Essais élementaires sur la botanique—which became in

English Elements of Botany Addressed to a Lady, Letter I, 19). In fact, the
opening of the New World and the Far East had provided European
scientists with thousands of new species to examine and classify, while in
the 17th century the newly-invented microscope had made it possible to
study insects more closely. As drawing and water-colour were part of a
young lady’s education, their subjects now included landscapes as well as
floral arrangements; and women were taught the Linnaean system of
ordering, categorizing and naming plants. However, while most of them
stayed at home to study and classify plants in their own herbarium
collections, gathered on the occasion of walks, grown in their own
conservatories, or sent from abroad, some did not hesitate to travel to far-
off continents at a time when ocean travel was rarely undertaken. That was
the case of Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), one of the earliest
entomologists and finest botanical artists of the period, founder of
biological classification. While Cavendish and Conway may be said to
have remained outside of the new science in different ways, Maria Sibylla
Merian, in Germany, moved closer to the increasingly masculine world of
science, breaking new ground in the areas of insect reproduction and insect
behaviour. As underlined by Kay Etheridge, the images in her books
changed the conventions of depicting nature, and influenced how plants
and animals were regarded. Yet, as Etheridge points out, in spite of a
recent resurgence of interest in her work, Merian continues to be excluded
from the pantheon of natural scientists that form the line connecting
Gesner to Darwin and beyond. Her books have been reprinted in various
forms for three centuries and her work was highly valued by several
prominent natural historians of the 18th century but, by the 19th century,
most naturalists praised her art but were dismissive of her scientific
contributions. Even today most analyses of Merian focus on her personal
history or on her artistry while neglecting her seminal contributions to
science.
Woman herself could sometimes be an object of scientific discourse.
Ever since Antiquity, theories had presented women as less developed
than males and had underlined their physical weakness as well as
intellectual and moral inferiority. Such attitudes were promoted throughout
the ensuing centuries by religious and legal institutions and, more
generally speaking, by the entire social hierarchy. In the 19th century,
however, scientific and pseudo-scientific discourse was increasingly used
specifically to emphasize women’s physical and intellectual inferiority as a
response to the demands for equal education and political rights by the
women’s movement that emerged in the late 1840s in the United States
xvi Introduction

and a little more than a decade later in Great Britain. Drawing on fields as
diverse as phrenology, medicine or evolutionism, the arguments used
ranged from the handicap induced by their capricious wombs to their
smaller skulls and their limited energy.5 While the use of such arguments
to counter the emerging feminist movement has been the object of study
by historians of science and of the women’s movement (Mosedale, 1978;
Russett 1989; Harrison, 2003), not so well-known are cases of women’s
“re-appropriation” and “re-presentation” of these arguments in the same
period. As early as 1688, Marguerite Buffet had claimed in her Nouvelles
Observations sur la Langue françoise that “women’s minds, beauty, and
virtue are superior to that of men” and argued that “female babies take
longer to come to term than male babies, indicating that female babies are
more complex organisms than male babies” (LeMay, 45). Two centuries
later, in 1864, in the United States, Eliza Farnham published a voluminous
book entitled Woman and Her Era in which, focusing on the “organic
argument,” she argued that the female body was biologically superior to
the male system; and by examining the physiological and nervous
characteristics of the female body, Farnham tried to convince her readers
that women were at the top of the evolutionary ladder and that their more
sophisticated and more complex corporal organizations accounted for their
higher morality and spirituality. Speaking as an enlightened prophet
mastering the scientific knowledge of her day, she adopted, rejected or
adapted the theories on female biology. As Claire Sorin shows, Farnham
did not reject the notion of physical fragility, nor did she urge women to
step out of their domestic sphere; however, she redefined the theory of
separate spheres, presenting an ideal world in which woman was a divine
creature endowed with a moral mission and man but a material provider
equipped with a robust but rudimentary body.
Another instance of re-appropriation of the dominant scientific
discourse could be witnessed in a very different context, that of Weimar
Germany (1919-1933). Despite the systematic victimization of women
through state-supported reproductive policies and exclusion from the
medical profession on the grounds that professional work could interfere
with domestic duties, medicine then became the fastest growing profession
for women in the inter-war period. Not only had the number of women
doctors doubled by the early 1940s, but female physicians also introduced
new approaches to sexual and reproductive concerns by bringing
“women’s issues”—namely, discussions about the necessity of access to
birth control and legalized abortion in order to allow women to make
responsible reproductive choices—into the mainstream discourse. While
men used the language of eugenics to push women out of the profession,
 Women and Science, 17th Century to Present xvii

women doctors appropriated this language to justify their work in Weimar

marriage counselling centres. Supporting these mainstream views was
thus a way for female physicians, whom male doctors continuously
shunned throughout the 1920s and 1930s, to gain new opportunities in the
medical profession.
Regardless of the nature of their contribution, the way women of science
have been portrayed (both by their contemporaries and historians) as well
as how they have portrayed themselves has undoubtedly involved a
gendered dimension. Particularly interesting is to question to what extent
integration or separatism (a consequence of this gendered representation)
was instrumental in allowing women to achieve the recognition they
sought.
Publications on the history of Irish science and Irish scientists in the
19th century are sparse in their mention of women who played any part in
the development of science or scientific institutions in Ireland. Where
women are included, the names of the same half dozen 19th century ladies
involved in Irish science and technology recur. In her article, Clara Cullen
focuses not on these women per se, but on the activities and interests of
numbers of other Irish women who pursued scientific knowledge in
Dublin and whose activities have been barely noted or recognised. Indeed,
between 1854 and 1867, an almost forgotten Dublin institution, the
Government School of Science at the Museum of Irish Industry, offered
courses composed of lectures on scientific topics and in applied sciences
available to men and women alike. A significant number of women
participated in these courses and competed equally (and successfully) with
men there.
More difficult, on the other hand, was women’s access to medical
studies, largely because of the professional and financial interests at stake.
While in Italy women had been allowed to practice medicine from the
Middle Ages (Alic, 50-57) and the medical schools of Europe admitted
women by the mid-19th century, in Britain the struggle for the medical
education of women reached its peak in the late 19th century. Even in
obstetrics, which when first developed as a science in 16th century France
had partly been led by women,6 in Britain of the mid-18th century,
obstetricians and male midwives began ousting women from the birth
process by constructing gynaecology and obstetrics as a male profession.
Veronique Molinari looks into the strategies that were used by women in
the second part of the 19th century to regain that place while clarifying the
foundation and development of the first two medical schools for women
(the Ladies’ Medical College and the London School of Medicine for
Women); at the same time particular attention is paid to the reasons that
xviii Introduction

led to their creation and to the choice of a separatist strategy as well as to

how these schools were respectively perceived by the medical profession
and campaigners. Along the same line of thought, Elizabeth Blackwell—
who in 1849 became the first American female certified physician—is an
illustration of the ambivalence of such pioneering women on both sides of
the Atlantic. In her article, Hélène Quanquin not only insists on Blackwell’s
crusade to make a place for women doctors in 19th century America by
founding and operating an independent dispensary for women, by women,
but also exposes the contradictory discourses surrounding representations
of her, be they autobiographical or historical in nature. While some
popular (feminist) depictions published during Blackwell’s lifetime used
her example to call for the empowerment of women in medicine, Elisabeth
Blackwell herself denounced the more radical dimensions of the feminist
movement—embodied, notably, by certain of her high-profile relatives
such as her sister-in-law Lucy Stone; her position on feminist activism has
led some more recent historians to label her a “conservative.” Thus, as
Quanquin rightly points out, Blackwell’s existence as a “singular woman
doctor” (Blackwell’s own expression) demonstrates such women’s uneasy
struggle against both male prejudice in the professional realm and against
the hostility of female contemporaries in the social sphere, while calling
into question interpretations of what it meant, or still means, to be a
feminist.
At least, one might say here, women like Elisabeth Blackwell possessed
a certain social and professional status in spite of the dominant male-
oriented attitudes of the time and have managed to be the focus of
historical interpretation albeit in the last twenty to thirty years. Lindsay
Wilson’s article, however, exposes the more troubling cases of women
contributors to science who remain in the shadows of “great” men of
science such as Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud. Departing from a
recent Le Monde article which relegates a few female Freudian disciples to
the sidelines of the history of psychoanalysis, Wilson first studies the
contributions of Clémence Royer and Marie Bonaparte, both translators of
famous scientific productions: Royer translated Darwin’s Origin of
Species, while Bonaparte translated nine of Freud’s works. Unlike Margaret
Cavendish and Anne Conway (studied in Sandrine Parageau’s text) who
resorted to “briolage” and “tactics” to promote their scientific discourse
within the social mores of their time, Royer and Bonaparte were fervent
proponents of the theory behind the texts they translated. Royer published
many works on the origins of man and society, in reality pushing Darwin’s
own theories well beyond what he dared to do himself; Royer’s translator
preface to the Origin of Species actually discussed human evolution,
 Women and Science, 17th Century to Present xix

which Darwin referred to as “blasphemous” in a letter to a friend.

Bonaparte, originally one of Freud’s patients, later wrote scores of articles
on psychoanalysis, founded the Paris Psychoanalytic Society in 1926 and
finally wrote articles on Freud’s life and work. Why then, asks, Wilson,
can such achievements go unnoticed in French scientific scholarship, at least
until recently? The answer seems to be that these women led unorthodox
private lives, pioneers not only in science but in the realm of liberating
behaviour as well—a point repeatedly developed in other articles of the
present volume; Royer and Bonaparte defied social norms which
unfortunately led to the discrediting of their reputations in the professional
sphere, a fate avoided by their male counterparts. As a final example of
this idea, Wilson discusses the tribulations of Marie Curie, two-time
winner of the Nobel Prize (first in physics, then in chemistry) who was
asked to not attend the second prize ceremony because she was involved in
a much-publicised sex scandal at the time.
Another example of women’s negative portrayal is Amy Bix’s study of
the unsung heroines of Georgia Tech, which brings to the light the
(extremely shocking, to the modern reader) treatment of women who
dared dream of obtaining an engineering degree in post-World War II
America. Studied through the “filter” of campus newspapers and personal
correspondence, Bix shows us the male gaze cast upon the first young
women to set foot on the all-male campus of Georgia Tech, while at the
same time shedding light on this experience through the testimony of those
same female students. Focusing first on the articles, editorials and cartoons
of The Yellow Jacket, The Technique and The Georgia Tech Alumni
Magazine, Bix exposes the sexist discourse and the theme of invasion used
to report on the arrival of coeducation in one of the American bastions of
engineering, mocking women’s desire to succeed in the sciences and
accusing the rare applicants of only wanting to find a husband. One of the
critical advances in women’s admission to Georgia Tech was the arrival of
President Blake Van Leer in 1944, whose progressive ideas about
women’s capacity to study engineering put an end to single-sex education
there. In the second half of the study, Bix then proceeds to tell the story of
the pioneering women students who braved catcalls, stares, ostracism and
condescending press coverage to become engineers. Much like their
ancestors who had gone against the grain of socially acceptable behaviour
to excel in different fields of science, these women compensated for their
gender by graduating in the top ranks of their classes. Thus the case of
Georgia Tech is yet another example of how, by breaching the traditions
of all-male culture, women not only succeed but help open the doors to
xx Introduction

ensuing generations of women desiring to pursue scientific and technological

careers.

No study of women and science can be complete without exploring

literary and cinematographic representations of the female as both scientific
creation and as scientist. Part III tackles this issue through the examination
of specific works of fiction. Caroline Bertonèche returns to the Romantic
era to uncover the Keatsian origins of Dan Simmons’s science fiction,
notably its influence on the depiction of female emancipation. First,
Bertonèche points out the “singular precedence of women authors and
fictional characters—playing mad scientists, acting as investigative spirits
or modern Prometheans—when the eminent discoverers in Romantic
science were [...] men only.” Mary Shelley was at the roots of ‘science
fiction,’ then coined ‘science romance,’ followed to a lesser degree by
Jane Austen whose “views on science were to be as discreet as woman’s
own sexuality.” Keats’s feminisation of the sciences—as a means of
mythologizing them—can be found in Dan Simmons’s version of
Hyperion in which “mothers and keepers of creativity [are] restored,” and
in which it is through female leadership and sacrifice that “scientific and
spiritual rebellion” are salvaged. Surprisingly, then, Caroline Bertonèche’s
observations of Romantic influences on modern science fiction banish the
representations of the genteel wife/daughter passively assisting the all-
knowing scientist husband/father and replace them with a dynamic vision
of woman as masculine and meta-poetic force illustrating the influence of
science within the literary world since the 19th century.
The Romantic origins of modern science fiction are also the focus of
David Leishman’s analysis of Poor Things and other works by Scottish
author Alasdair Gray. Borrowing heavily from Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein (among other classics), Gray’s work uses “competing levels
of texts, intertexts, paratexts [...] to compose complex, sometimes
contradictory works of a near-endless postmodernist playfulness.” The
comparison to Shelley’s work sheds light on the ways in which the author
is “concerned with the notions of scientific and social progress and how
this view has strong gendered associations in his fiction.” More
particularly, the postmodernist mode of writing a text which simultaneously
asserts and subverts claims of scientific objectivity provides the author
with the means to comment on the cultural representations of science,
especially in its masculinist forms. This is true not only in Poor Things,
but in other writings by Alasdair Gray as well, such as his science fiction
short story “The End of the Axeltree” (1983) and the novel 1982 Janine
(1984) both of which criticize male scientific ambition in a metaphorical
 Women and Science, 17th Century to Present xxi

style close to that of Frankenstein. As David Leishman points out, science

is denounced in Gray’s work “through use of metaphors and symbols
which perpetrate a gendered opposition of a male science substituting
itself for, and ultimately compromising, female fertility.” In Poor Things it
is through the character of Victoria that the themes of the connections
between women, fertility and science are represented; yet despite Gray’s
postmodern, humoristic style, questions such as the “scientification” of
childbirth are treated in a nuanced manner and invite, even force, the
reader to reassess scientific progress in this field and others relating to the
female body since the 19th century.
In a similar fashion and in an earlier timeframe, Donna Andréolle
proposes an overview of science fiction written by women in the historical
context of the second-wave feminist movement in the United States. This
particular brand of science fiction is grounded in radical feminist reactions
to the “gospel” of scientific progress, reactions which were simultaneously
technophobic and ‘techno-friendly’ in nature: technophobic because the
predominant images of the period, within the counter-culture, were those
of the destructive uses of science linked to its military applications in
Vietnam (napalm and the defoliant Agent Orange); ‘techno-friendly’ in
that radical feminist Shulamith Firestone called for the use of “cybernetics,”
i.e. the development of artificial reproduction and incubation of human
foetuses to free women from the “barbarism” of pregnancy and child-
rearing. As Andréolle explains, feminist science fiction in its original form
(written in the 1970’s and 1980’s) sought to promote the representation of
strong female characters in control of scientific knowledge, especially the
knowledge that liberates the female body from masculinist power structures.
Two of the most uncompromisingly violent works on this theme are Suzy
McKee Charnas’s Walk to the End of the World (1974) and the sequel
Motherlines (1976) in which an all-male society is depicted as depraved
and cannibalistic while a mirrored, all-female culture has mutated itself to
be able to mate with horses. Radical feminist scholar Marleen Barr, in an
article on Charnas’s novels, actually went so far as to propose that the
tribal society of horse-women in Motherlines was superior to women’s
living conditions in 20th century America!
And yet such a stance rapidly produced a contradictory effect: in
novels such as Woman on the Edge of Time (Marge Piercy, 1976) or The
Shore of Women (Pamela Sargent, 1986) and The Gate to Women’s
Country (Sheri Tepper, 1988), female societies of the far-off future control
science, and men, with a sometimes iron fist, leading the authors to
question the superior nature of women in such cases. Connie Ramos,
protagonist of Woman on the Edge of Time watches, with disgust and
xxii Introduction

hatred, a genetically transformed male breast-feeding a baby and

denounces how science has actually stolen woman’s unique bond with her
offspring; the rising generation of young women in both Sargent’s and
Tepper’s stories wonder if their mothers have not reproduced the gender-
biased oppression from which they had liberated themselves. Thus,
Andréolle concludes, today we must consider these works as a means used
by women writers in the 1970’s and 1980’s “to bridge the gap between
ideological representations of radical feminism’s most controversial
planks and the ‘uneducated’ female readership the authors were hoping to
reach.”
Last but not least, Yukihide Endo presents the case of Japanese anime
and how this culturally-specific genre challenges the traditional construction
of female identity. Endo, like Andréolle, points to the impact of second-
wave feminism which challenged the gender-equality agenda of 19th
century feminism and “adopted an essentialist view of gender issues in
order to bring to the fore the female body of unparalleled potential and
capability.” More recent developments in feminist theory, in particular
Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto” (1991), have shifted away from
essentialist vs. anti-essentialist paradigms to “posthumanism discourse that
embraces human-machine hybrids.” This new discourse, according to
Endo, finds its representation in the cyborg characters of Japanese science-
fiction manga and anime films. Endo demonstrates, through the example
of Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell, that the use of the woman cyborg
allows for the emergence of a “new female identity and agency.”
Descending—while diverging fundamentally in nature—from other
liberated female protagonists of the Western world such as Barbarella and
Wonder Woman, the protagonist Motoko Kasangi is able to embody the
feminine and masculine, both physically and spiritually. Such “cross-
gendering” not only disturbs traditional male/female representations but
also questions the spectator’s stance, by ‘demasculating’ the male gaze
while ‘masculating’ the female one. This observation leads Endo to the
conclusion that Oshii’s depiction of women rejects humanist rhetoric and
espouses “Haraway’s provocative identification of future feminist women
as cyborgs.” By disrupting the social structure that allows men to
subjugate women in the name of irreconcilable biological differences,
anime depictions of female cyborgs open the door to “a posthumanist age
[where] this stereotyped definition of sex and gender will inevitably
collapse.”
 Women and Science, 17th Century to Present xxiii

Sources
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Intimate Lives: Women in Science, 1789-1979. New Brunswick:
Rutgers University Press.
Alic, Margaret. 1986. Hypatia's Heritage: A History of Women in Science
from Antiquity Through the Nineteenth Century. London: The
Women’s Press.
Burns, William E. 2003. Science in the Enlightenment: an Encyclopaedia.
Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO.
Butler Kahle, Jane, ed. 1985. Women in Science: a Report from the Field.
London, Philadelphia: Falmer Press.
Des Jardins, Julie. 2010. Madame Curie Complex: The Hidden History of
Women in Science. University of New York: Feminist Press at The
City.
Farnes, Patricia, Deborah Nash & Simon G. Kass, eds. 1993. Women of
Science: Righting the Record. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Gates, Barbara and Ann Shteir. 1997. Natural Eloquence: Women
Reinscribe Science. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.
Harrison, Brian. 2003. Women’s Health and the Women’s Movement. In
Biology, Medicine and Society 1840-1940. Charles Webster, ed.
Cambridge: CUP, 15-72.
Hargreaves, Jennifer. 1994. Sporting Females. London: Routledge.
Hurd-Mead, Kate Campbell. 1973. A History of Women in Medicine, from
the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century. Boston,
Milford House.
Kramarae, Cheris, ed. 1988. Technology and Women's Voices: Keeping in
Touch. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Lemay Sheffield, Suzanne. 2005. Women and Science: Social Impact and
Interaction. Princeton, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.
Merchant, Carolyn. 1980. Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the
Scientific Revolution. San Francisco: Harper.
Mosedale, Susan Sleeth. 1978. Science Corrupted: Victorian Biologists
Consider ‘the Woman Question.’ In Journal of the History of Biology,
vol. 11, n° 1 (Spring).
Noble, David F. 1993. A World Without Women: The Christian Clerical
Culture of Western Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Oakes, Jeannie. 1990. Lost Talent: the Underparticipation of Women,
Minorities, and Disabled Persons in Science. Santa Monica, Calif.:
Rand.
xxiv Introduction

Ogilvie, Marilyn Bailey. 1990. Women in Science: Antiquity through the

Nineteenth Century, a Biographical Dictionary with Annotated
Bibliography [1986]. Boston: MIT Press.
Phillips, Patricia. 1990. The Scientific Lady: a Social History of Women’s
Scientific Interests, 1520-1918. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Rossiter, Margaret W. 1982. Women Scientists in America: Struggles and
Strategies to 1940. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1979. Emile, or An Education [1762]. Basic
Books.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1802. Letters on the Elements of Botany:
addressed to a lady, translated into English with notes by Thomas
Martyn. London: J. White.
Russett, Cynthia Eagle. 1991. Sexual Science: The Victorian Construction
of Womanhood. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Schiebinger, Londa L. 1989. The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins
of Modern Science. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Shapin, Steven. 1998. The Scientific Revolution. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Tang, Joyce. 2005. Scientific Pioneers: Women Succeeding in Science.
New York: University Press of America.
Watts, Ruth. 2007. Women in Science: A Social And Cultural History.
London: Routledge.
Wyer, Mary et. allii., eds. 2001. Women, Science and Technology: A
Reader in Feminist Science Studies. London: Routledge.
Zahm, John Augustine. 1974. Woman in Science: with an Introductory
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H. J. Mozans [i.e., J. A. Zahm]. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
(Reprint of the edition published by D. Appleton, New York, with a
new introduction).

Notes

1
“Throughout history women scientists have been ignored, robbed of credit and
forgotten” Margaret Alic wrote in 1986. “Their scientific work has been
suppressed or expropriated in a variety of ways. Often women were recognised and
respected as scientists in their own day, but were ignored or discredited by later
historians who refused to acknowledge that women had been important scientists”
(10).
2
Philosopher and historian Alexandre Koyré coined the term scientific revolution
in 1939 to describe this epoch. Historians have since then become increasingly
uneasy with the idea that in the 17th century “a single coherent cultural entity
 Women and Science, 17th Century to Present xxv


called ‘science’” existed and that “a singular and discrete event, localized in time
and space, that can be pointed to as ‘the’ Scientific Revolution” (Shapin, 3).
3
Cf de Certeau’s distinction between the concepts of strategy and tactics. Certeau
links “strategies” with institutions and structures of power which are the
“producers,” while individuals are “consumers” acting in environments defined by
strategies by using “tactics.” Strategy refers to the top-down exercise of power to
coerce compliance. Tactics refer to the opportunistic manipulations offered by
circumstance.
4
« L’art de penser n’est pas étranger aux femmes, mais elles ne doivent faire
qu’effleurer les sciences de raisonnement. Sophie conçoit tout & ne retient pas
grand chose. Ses plus grands progrès sont dans la morale & les choses du goût ;
pour la physique, elle n’en retient que quelque idée des lois générales & du
système du monde […]« La recherche des vérités abstraites et spéculatives, des
principes, des axiomes dans les sciences, tout ce qui tend à généraliser les idées
n’est point du ressort des femmes, leurs études doivent se rapporter toutes à la
pratique ; c’est à elles à faire l’application des principes que l’homme a trouvés,
et c’est à elles de faire les observations qui mènent l’homme à l’établissement des
principes. » (Rousseau, Emile, Paris : Armand Aubrée, 1831 (first edition 1762),
170)
5
In the United States and in England, some doctors defended the “scientific”
principle that female physiology was governed by fixed and limited energy
resources for all physical, mental and social actions and that too much brain
activity would be detrimental to a woman’s health and to her reproductive faculties
(Hargreaves, 45).
6
In 1608, Louyse Bourgeois published a major and comprehensive treatise on
obstetrics. In it, she stressed the importance of anatomical studies for midwives.
Other French women followed in her steps, such as Marguerite du Tertre de la
Marche, head midwife of the Hôtel Dieu from 1670 to 1686; Marie-Louise
Lachapelle (1769-1821) who introduced several innovations to the management of
childbirth, especially in the cases of difficult labour; and Marie-Anne Victorine
Boivin who invented a vaginal speculum and was one of the first medical
practitioners to use a stethoscope to listen to the foetal heartbeat.
 PART I:

WOMEN (RE-)PRESENTING SCIENCE

 CHAPTER ONE

AUTO DIDACTICISM AND THE CONSTRUCTION

OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOURSE
IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND:
MARGARET CAVENDISH’S AND ANNE
CONWAY’S “INTELLECTUAL BRICOLAGE”

SANDRINE PARAGEAU

Although they were denied a formal education like most women of

their time, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673) and
Anne, Viscountess Conway (1631-1679) both wrote treatises of natural
philosophy. Cavendish published twelve books (and several revised
editions of these works) between 1653 and 1668, while Conway wrote
only one short treatise at the end of the 1670s, which she probably did not
intend for publication. It was nonetheless posthumously and anonymously
published in Amsterdam by Francis van Helmont and Henry More in
1690.1 In their texts, Cavendish and Conway expounded their conceptions
of nature and substance, presenting very similar views on the composition
of matter. In answer to mechanistic theories, they both defended vitalistic
doctrines, according to which nature is animated by a vital principle which
secures order and harmony.2
Like the other “learned ladies” or “philosopheresses” of the seventeenth
century, Cavendish and Conway may be considered as autodidacts in
natural philosophy. It might be argued though that the expression “self-
taught” natural philosophers seems as accurate (and maybe less pedantic)
but “autodidact,” a word which was coined in England in the sixteenth
century,3 may usefully refer to a variety of situations; what is more, as
Joan Solomon wrote in defence of the use of “autodidacticism”: “none of
us could possibly be anywhere near to being completely self-taught” (3).
Autodidacts may indeed be only partially self-taught; they sometimes
receive the help of guides or mentors in their access to knowledge: they
need “mediators” to succeed, be they places, practices, instruments or
4 Chapter One

persons (Frijhoff, 16). But they are considered as autodidacts as long as

their knowledge is acquired outside the traditional educational system,
whatever their social origin may be.
Margaret Cavendish and Anne Conway had to figure out different
ways to access scientific knowledge in a patriarchal society that deterred
women from dealing with intellectual subjects, and especially with
science, which was still largely considered as a male prerogative.4 Women
who were interested in this field of knowledge, therefore, resorted to
“tactics” in order to “infiltrate” the scientific world without being
censured. Michel de Certeau’s definition of “tactics” as “the art of the
weak” is particularly relevant when it comes to studying how some
women managed to access scientific knowledge in the seventeenth
century. In The Practice of Everyday Life, Certeau explains that “tactics”
are “ways of using the constraining order” (30). He adds:

[The tactic] must play on and with a terrain imposed on it and organised by
the law of a foreign power. It does not have the means to keep to itself, at a
distance, in a position of withdrawal, foresight, and self-collection: it is a
maneuver “within the enemy’s field of vision,” as von Bülow put it, and
within enemy territory […]. It takes advantage of “opportunities” and
depends on them […]. It must vigilantly make use of the cracks that
particular conjunctions open in the surveillance of the proprietary powers.
It poaches in them. It is a guileful ruse. (37)

Not only did Margaret Cavendish and Anne Conway use such “transverse
tactics” in order to encroach on men’s turf, but these very ways of
“making do” led to unexpected results and creativity in their own scientific
discourse (29-30).5 Without any method or sustained pedagogical guidance,
they had to invent their own conception and practice of science. But their
books also reflect the scientific traditions of their time since, as
autodidacts, Cavendish and Conway could not but imitate at first. Their
scientific discourse is thus characterised by a surprising combination of
tradition and audacity.
Considering that Margaret Cavendish and Anne Conway both wrote
treatises of natural philosophy evincing clear mastering of the scientific
vocabulary and theories of their time, one may wonder first, how they
managed to acquire the knowledge revealed in their texts and what
“tactics” they used to bypass patriarchal strictures. Then, what impact did
these “tactics” have on their own scientific discourse? Is there any sign of
the autodidacticism of their authors to be found in these texts?
 Margaret Cavendish’s and Anne Conway’s “Intellectual Bricolage” 5

Women’s access to science in the Republic of Letters

Even though women needed “tactics” in order to reach scientific
knowledge in seventeenth-century England, it appears that natural
philosophy largely appealed to them.6 Since they had traditionally been
considered as physicians and botanists in their own households for ages, it
is perhaps not surprising that they should have been interested in natural
philosophy. The fact that this field of knowledge was not yet a discipline
(not science per se) may also account for this interest: before it became
systematic and scientific, natural philosophy was claimed to be unmethodical
and spontaneous, and it was characterised, at least to a certain extent, by
its openness to larger audiences. Natural philosophy was thus often
discussed in intellectual circles and correspondences, in which aristocratic
women could legitimately play a part.
Although they were not always considered as full members of the
Republic of Letters, aristocratic women could sometimes attend the
conversations of intellectual circles and glean knowledge from them
without being active participants. Margaret Cavendish belonged to the
Newcastle circle gathering in Paris in the 1640s. There she could hear
René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, Pierre Gassendi or Walter Charleton
discuss the new atomistic theories. However, she often pretended in the
numerous prefaces to her books that she did not learn much from these
erudite conversations since she did not understand Latin or French:
“Though I have seen much company, yet I have converst with few,” she
wrote in a preface to one of her first books, Philosophical and Physical
Opinions, in 1655 (“To the Reader”7).
On the contrary, Conway was the center of a circle gathering in Ragley
Hall from the 1650s to her death. She entertained Cambridge platonists,
such as Henry More and Ralph Cudworth, Quakers, and also physicians.
Conway’s correspondence and treatise reveal the variety of subjects
broached in these conversations, which dealt with Cartesianism, sorcery or
cabbalistic writings for instance. In a letter to Anne Conway, Henry More
referred to “those learned conferences held in your Ladiship’s chamber”
(Conway: 1992, 164),8 showing that Conway was the main protagonist of
these gatherings. Contrary to many French salons, she was not only a
hostess; she actually took part in the conversations. Again, her
correspondence with Henry More testifies to her active role in this circle;
it also shows that exchanging letters with a renowned philosopher was
another legitimate way of getting scientific knowledge for women.
According to Sarah Hutton, Conway’s correspondence with Henry More
was “the first epistolary course in Cartesian philosophy” (Hutton: 1997,
6 Chapter One

219).9 Cavendish also exchanged a few letters with Joseph Glanvill,

Walter Charleton and Constantijn Huygens, among others.10 According to
Ruth Perry, such correspondences between a woman and a famous author
were fairly common in the early modern period:

Letters permitted women to select teachers and mentors for themselves,

and to establish a kind of intellectual apprenticeship that they had no other
means of arranging. Women chose a favorite author or an accessible
clergyman to write to, as a finishing touch to their education, a sort of
Grand Tour of the mind. (482)

Women’s access to scientific knowledge, thanks to practices of

intellectual sociability, was further reinforced by the openness of natural
philosophy, especially in England where experimentalism encouraged
collective work, as opposed to the secrecy of traditional alchemical
practices. Thus, a new category of natural philosophers appeared: they
were amateurs who had never been taught at university and who dabbled
in science at a time when the new experimental approach gave natural
philosophy the image of a game. It also became a fashionable activity:
according to William Cavendish, “it [was] A-la-mode to Write of Natural
Philosophy.”11 As a consequence of gentlemen amateurs entering the
scientific world, new rules were applied: knowledge and results of
experiments must be shared, using complex scientific terms was frowned
upon and modesty was praised. These principles were part of the
gentleman’s code appropriated by seventeenth-century natural philosophers
in England, as Steven Shapin has shown in his book A Social History of
Truth, describing “the purposeful relocation of the conventions, codes, and
values of gentlemanly conversation into the domain of natural philosophy”
(xvii). To a certain extent, the new “openness of manners” in science
(Johns, 9), imposed by gentlemen’s civility, was beneficial to women
although they were not explicitly encouraged to join this new category of
natural philosophers.
Autodidacticism itself was praised in the seventeenth century as the
best way to get genuine knowledge of nature and of God. Whereas
traditional scholastic learning insisted on erudition and respect for
classical authors, the “new philosophies” of Francis Bacon or René
Descartes, which explicitly aimed at craftsmen and merchants, showed
that trusting one’s own observations was the safest way to wisdom. In a
letter to Father Vatier in February 1638, Descartes made it clear that he
wrote his books for women as well as artisans (246). Bacon, on the
contrary, never intended his works for a female audience. However, as
Patricia Phillips underlines in her book The Scientific Lady:
 Margaret Cavendish’s and Anne Conway’s “Intellectual Bricolage” 7

But women interested in science also benefited, if somewhat inadvertently,

from this strategy of openness and accessibility. As books and pamphlets
on all branches of science poured from the presses and were advertised for
their simplicity and their comprehensibility to the “unlearned,” women
were able to understand these as well as any artisan or farmer. (83)

Women took advantage of a strategy of openness that was not intended for
them. They could also find support for their scientific endeavours in the
promotion of autodidacticism found in books that were largely read in the
seventeenth century, such as Philosophus autodidactus, translated into
Latin in 1671 and then into English in 1674, which soon became a best-
seller throughout Europe. The same praise of autodidacts was found in
Nicholas of Cusa’s The Idiot in Four Books, translated into English and
published in London in 1650.12

From “Inadvertence” to “Tactics”:

Margaret Cavendish’s feigned ignorance
This whole context, which was favourable to amateurs, also made it
easier for women who were interested in science to actually be accepted as
members of the scientific community. The openness of natural philosophy
and the praise of autodidacticism could not but legitimize women’s access
to scientific knowledge. But they were still more often seen as an audience
than as actual participants in natural philosophy. As Patricia Phillips puts
it, many women only “inadvertently” benefited from the strategy of
openness of natural philosophers. This does not at all mean that they were
passive: on the contrary, some of them successfully played on the
contradictions between the principles of inclusion and collective work that
were loudly expressed as crucial to the development of science, and
patriarchal rules that were founded on a principle of exclusion.
Margaret Cavendish is a case in point: since she published her own
books, she had to find “tactics” in order to have her writings accepted or at
least tolerated by natural philosophers. One of those “tactics” was to
repeatedly claim her ignorance in her prefaces. Her first aim was probably
to conform to the modesty topos, a common Renaissance strategy that
presented the author of a book as inexperienced and unable to do honour
to their subject. Seventeenth-century authors often apologised for their
ignorance, trying thus to avoid responsibility for the opinions expressed in
their books, while appealing to the reader’s sympathy. This traditional
authorial strategy merged at that time with the essayistic nature of
scientific treatises. Indeed, natural philosophers insisted in their prefaces
on their doubts and always presented their works as attempts or
8 Chapter One

endeavours, not as undeniable and definite answers to a problem. The

renewal of scepticism and the Baconian conception of science as the
progressive discovery of truth imposed such prudence.13
As a woman, from whom modesty was therefore even more expected,
Margaret Cavendish scrupulously conformed to this tradition. For
instance, she wrote in a preface to Philosophical Letters in 1664: “As for
School-learning, had I applied myself to it, yet I am confident I should
never have arrived to any; for I am so uncapable of Learning, that I could
never attain to the knowledge of any other Language but my native,
especially by the Rules of Art” (“A Preface to the Reader”). In this
passage, and in many other similar passages, the Duchess of Newcastle
insists on the fact that she is ignorant. She sometimes adds that she does
not need knowledge and underlines the efficiency of pure wit and
contemplation as opposed to learning, thus legitimizing her own attempts
at natural philosophy as an autodidact.14 But when insisting on her
ignorance, Cavendish also obeys the rules of her time, while reassuring
male natural philosophers: she wants her readers to believe that since she
is but an ignorant woman, no one should be worried about her trying to
borrow ideas from others or attempting to assume male prerogatives. As
Sara Mendelson underlined in her book The Mental World of Stuart
Women: “Women discovered indirect ways of circumventing official
strictures on their independent activities but generally found it prudent to
conceal their stratagems while paying lip-service to conventional ideals”
(10), or scientific traditions in the case of Cavendish.
Cavendish’s “tactics” mainly failed, probably because the publication
of her books made her encroachment on men’s territory too conspicuous.
What is more, she did not only mention her ignorance repeatedly, but she
also accused men of keeping women in an inferior position.15 Other
women professing ignorance were more successful, as long as they kept
their writings to themselves, as Conway did for instance. Those women
managed to be entrusted with manuscripts to copy or transfer to members
of their circles. As Roger Duchêne explains in Écrire au temps de Mme de
Sévigné, men—who dreaded plagiarism as well as transgression of the
social order—probably believed that they had nothing to fear in trusting
women and opening intellectual life to them since they were ignorant and
therefore unable to understand, let alone use others’ ideas (88). And it
seems that, although they were sometimes very learned, it suited women to
have men believe that they were ignorant and therefore harmless, in order
to reassure them and “cheat” their own way into the scientific world.
 Margaret Cavendish’s and Anne Conway’s “Intellectual Bricolage” 9

Margaret Cavendish and Anne Conway as “bricoleurs”

The knowledge some women managed to obtain thanks to “tactics”
was unsystematic and unmethodical because it was gleaned from practices
of sociability in the Republic of Letters. In a preface to Philosophical and
Physical Opinions, Margaret Cavendish wrote: “I have gathered Several
Times from Several Relations or Discourses, here a Bit, and there a Crum
of Knowledge, which my Natural Reason hath put together” (250). Thus,
Cavendish and the other “learned ladies” had to build their own scientific
knowledge based on conversations heard in intellectual circles. Printed
books, now easily available, especially to aristocratic women, offered
another access to natural philosophy. But the range of books women could
understand was limited because most of them did not read Latin or foreign
languages; therefore, they had to rely on translations, anthologies and
commentaries, i.e. second-hand knowledge. These specificities of their
access to knowledge could not but have consequences on their scientific
discourse.
First, the method of Cavendish’s and Conway’s treatises of natural
philosophy shows the impact of both women’s indirect access to
knowledge on their conception and practice of science. In a preface to her
last book, Grounds of Natural Philosophy, published in 1668, Margaret
Cavendish wrote: “If you expect fair Proportions in the Parts, and a
Beautiful Symmetry in the Whole, having never been taught at all, and
having read but little; I acknowledge myself too illiterate to afford it, and
too impatient to labour much for Method” (“To all the Universities in
Europe”). Similarly, in most of her prefaces, the Duchess of Newcastle
insists on the lack of method of her writings. One must indeed recognize
that her demonstrations and arguments are often unclear and disorganised,
despite the very long tables of contents which she sometimes presents as
evidence of the coherence of her writings.16
Cavendish’s and Conway’s books are also characterised by “an
interlocutory manner” of conducting scientific enquiries (Hutton: 2004,
35), which is obviously the consequence of the dialogic nature of their
access to knowledge thanks to practices of intellectual sociability. Whether
they be plays, letters, orations or seemingly monologic scientific treatises,
Cavendish’s texts are dialogues. But even more than a form of writing, the
dialogue is for Cavendish and Conway a mode of thinking. In Observations
upon Experimental Philosophy, the Duchess of Newcastle explains that
thinking is a “discourse,” which she defines as “an arguing of the mind, or
a rational enquiry into the causes of natural effect,” adding: “for discourse
is as much as reasoning with ourselves” (14). This “mental discourse” is
10 Chapter One

often illustrated in Cavendish’s texts, especially when she is confronted

with complex theories which she is not sure she understands perfectly.17
What is more, Cavendish and Conway both insert dialogues into
monologic texts: they regularly anticipate the objections of a real or
imaginary addressee, which they immediately refute. For instance, when
considering the possibility of an immaterial substance in nature (which she
denies), Cavendish writes, probably referring to the Cambridge platonists,
and mainly to Henry More: “I would fain ask them, I say, where their
Immaterial Ideas reside, in what part or place of the Body? And whether
they be little or great?” (Cavendish: 1664, 185). She then anticipates the
answers that could be given and expresses her own objections: “Where
doth this Idea reside? If they say in the head, then the heart is ignorant of
God […]” (Cavendish: 1664, 185). Similarly, The Principles of the Most
Ancient and Modern Philosophy can be read as a dialogue between the
author and an absent addressee, although it first appears as a monologue.
Conway often uses pronouns such as “you,” “we,” or “they.” For instance,
in chapter VII, when she writes: “[…] yea, let them inform us what that
Goodness in the Body is, for which the Soul doth so fervently love it […]”
(Conway: 1982, 200), she probably alludes to Descartes and Henry More,
who held a dualist conception of nature, whereas Conway believed in the
identity of matter and spirit; in this passage, she argues that the love
between body and soul is evidence of their being made of the same
substance. Like Cavendish, Conway anticipates and answers objections,
usually by saying: “If it be said, by way of Objection […]. Now I answer
[…]” (Conway: 1982, 224). For instance, still in chapter VII, she objects
to the possibility of an eternal hell: “But if it be said, [the soul] goes into
Eternal Torments, I Answer, If by Eternal thou meanest an Infiniteness of
Ages, which shall never cease, that is impossible” (Conway: 1982, 193).
Conway’s philosophy is based on the idea of universal salvation, which
leads her to deny eternal hell. But she knows that her position is
subversive and will therefore be criticised, which is why she anticipates
what “thou” may object to in her theory. According to Sarah Hutton in her
intellectual biography of Anne Conway: “In its written form, [Conway’s]
philosophy combines the interrogative process of quaestiones et responsiones
with apodeixis” (Hutton: 2004, 50). In The Principles, Conway does
associate dialogic and demonstrative discourse.
The tentative and dialogic mode of writing shown in the scientific
works of Margaret Cavendish and Anne Conway may be seen as a
consequence of the specificities of their access to knowledge through
conversations and correspondences. But this particular mode of writing
science was also a tradition in seventeenth-century England, especially in
 Margaret Cavendish’s and Anne Conway’s “Intellectual Bricolage” 11

essays of natural philosophy. Indeed, this artless and spontaneous way of

writing contradicted the dogmaticism of scholastic works and conformed
to the rules of prudence and modesty. Again it appears that some women
soon discovered how to make the most of scientific traditions in order to
enter the scientific world discreetly.
Second, Margaret Cavendish’s and Anne Conway’s scientific writings
are characterised by their eclecticism, which may also be interpreted as a
consequence of their encyclopaedic learning and of their difficulty as
autodidacts to organise knowledge. The Greek philosophical school of
eclecticism was revived in the early modern period. According to Pierluigi
Donini, “the eclectic method produced its greatest works in seventeenth-
and eighteenth-century Europe, thanks to the great philosophers who
founded modern thought by fighting against sectarian ideas and the
principle of authority” (18). The renewal of eclecticism was a reaction to
the new philosophies and more generally to the multiplicity of new
scientific theories. Since it was uneasy to select one system among the
natural philosophies of all ages, eclectic authors tried to reconcile the
relevant theses of all the existing doctrines in a coherent synthesis. These
writers were thus mainly historians of philosophy and science who had a
vast knowledge but could not discriminate between all the doctrines. The
aim of eclecticism was again to show modesty and prudence, and to
propose probable scientific theses and not the absolute truth.
As autodidacts, Margaret Cavendish and Anne Conway had no
yardstick on which to base their judgment about natural philosophy.18
Eclecticism, which avoids the selection and hierarchy of existing theories,
was therefore naturally the approach of science they chose. In
Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, which comments on the
explanations of nature that have been proposed since Antiquity, Cavendish
makes it clear that her book aims at finding a means to reconcile all the
scientific explanations of nature:

And if men allow nature to have sensitive and rational self-motions (as I
cannot see why even the most serious should not) it would be an occasion
of allaying at least, if not composing all the eager and inveterate disputes
between the Academians, Epicureans, and Sceptics, and other the like
sects, which have rendered philosophy perplex and confused. (22)

Cavendish tries to have philosophers from different sects agree on her

own theory: the idea that nature is sensitive and self-moving. At the end of
the book, in a chapter entitled “Observations upon the Opinions of some
Ancient Philosophers,” she draws up a list of the main classical philosophical
schools, whose arguments she tries to reconcile in order to create a
12 Chapter One

coherent explanation of nature, which is actually her own doctrine. To a

certain extent, Conway’s eclecticism is more subtle and rather less
“egocentric”: she tries to show the coincidence between the Jewish
cabbala, that was revived in the second half of the seventeenth century,
some aspects of Aristotelian philosophy and the philosophia perennis of
Philo of Alexandria.19 Paradoxically though, in both cases, the doctrine
that is finally deduced from existing theories is original and new. Because
Cavendish and Conway ignore any compartmentalization or hierarchy of
knowledge, they unhesitatingly put together heterogeneous elements in
order to create their own doctrines of nature.20
Margaret Cavendish’s and Anne Conway’s conception of science, as
well as their dialogic and eclectic scientific discourse, can be adequately
illustrated by Claude Lévi-Strauss’s definition of “intellectual bricolage.”
In The Savage Mind, Lévi-Strauss explains that the main characteristic of
the mythical thought, as of “bricolage,” is that “it builds up structured sets
by using the remains and debris of events: in French, ‘des bribes et des
morceaux,’ or odds and ends in English” (21-22). These debris are the
“crumbs” Cavendish used to build her own knowledge and scientific
doctrines. Lévi-Strauss adds that this kind of thought “expresses itself by
means of a heterogeneous repertoire which, even if extensive, is
nevertheless limited. It has to use this repertoire, however, whatever the
task in hand because it has nothing else at its disposal” (17). The
“bricoleur” has to make do with “whatever is at hand.” This is exactly how
autodidacts, and in particular seventeenth-century women philosophers,
conceived their relation to science: they used whatever they could grasp—
“crums of knowledge” from random conversations or books of various
quality—in order to build their own scientific discourse. According to
Lévi-Strauss, this mode of thinking, “bricolage,” can reach brilliant and
unforeseen results. Similarly, because they are not aware of what is done
or not, autodidacts show more audacity and a strong taste for the unknown
and what is new.21 They do not hesitate to link disparate elements,
traditional and personal knowledge for instance: this is “bricolage,” or
even “bidouillage” (Bézille, 69).

Most of the scientific works by seventeenth-century women are

characterised by dialogism, eclecticism and “intellectual bricolage.” These
specificities are probably the consequence of how women managed to
access knowledge and what kind of knowledge they got thanks to practices
of intellectual sociability, but also thanks to their own “tactics.” Therefore,
to a certain extent, the specificities of seventeenth-century women’s
scientific works are signs of autodidacticism more than the expression of
 Margaret Cavendish’s and Anne Conway’s “Intellectual Bricolage” 13

what some might recognize as “a feminine mode” of thinking or writing

science in the early modern era.
Finally, analysing Cavendish’s and Conway’s scientific discourse in
light of their access to knowledge is also a way to learn about
autodidacticism with a historical perspective; indeed, the subject has long
been ignored by historians because autodidacticism appears only in the
margins and mainly in documents such as biographies or autobiographies
(Frijhoff, 7). It seems, however, that women’s history would benefit from
a new definition and study of autodidacticism in order to understand
women’s relation to knowledge from the onset of modern science to their
admission into the educational system.

Bibliography
Primary sources
Cavendish, Margaret. 1655. The Philosophical and Physical Opinions.
London: J. Martin & J. Allestrye.
—. 1664. Philosophical Letters. London: William Wilson.
—. 2001. Observations upon Experimental Philosophy [1666], ed. Eileen
O’Neill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
—. 1668. Grounds of Natural Philosophy. London: A. Maxwell.
Cavendish, William ed. 1676. A Collection of Letters and Poems: Written
by Several Persons of Honour and Learning. London: Langly Curtis.
Conway, Anne. 1982. The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern
Philosophy [1690], ed. Peter Loptson. Delmar/New York: Scholars’
Facsimiles and Reprints.
—. 1992. The Conway Letters, The Correspondence of Anne, Viscountess
Conway, Henry More and their Friends 1642-1684 [1930], Marjorie
Nicolson, ed.; revised edition by Sarah Hutton. Oxford & New York:
Clarendon Press.
Cusa, Nicholas of. 1650. The Idiot in Four Books [1450]. London:
William Leake.

Secondary sources
Åkkerman, Nadine & Marguérite C. M. Corporaal. 2004. Mad Science
Beyond Flattery: The Correspondence of Margaret Cavendish and
Constantijn Huygens. In Early Modern Literary Studies, Special Issue
14, May, 2.1-21. http://purl.oclc.org/emls/si-14/akkecorp.html
(consulted 2 August 2008).
14 Chapter One

Battigelli, Anna. 1998. Margaret Cavendish and the Exiles of the Mind.
Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky.
Bézille, Hélène. 2005. L’autodidaxie: représentations, imaginaire et rapports
sociaux. In Le Journal des psychologues, 227, May : 63-69.
http://www.a-graf.org (consulted 11 August 2009).
De Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life [1980]. trans.
Steven Rendall. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Descartes, René. 1966. Discours de la méthode [1637], ed. Geneviève
Rodis-Lewis. Paris: Flammarion.
Donini, Pierluigi. 1988. The History of the Concept of Eclecticism in John
M. Dillon & A. A. Long eds. In The Question of “Eclecticism”.
Studies in Later Greek Philosophy. Berkeley: University of California
Press: 15-33.
Duchêne, Roger. 1981. Écrire au temps de Mme de Sévigné, lettres et texte
littéraire. Paris: Vrin.
Frijhoff, Willem. 1996. Autodidaxies, XVIe-XIXe siècles – jalons pour la
construction d’un objet historique. In Histoire de l’éducation, 70: 5-27.
Hobbes, Thomas. 1996. Leviathan [1651]. J. C. A. Gaskin ed. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Hutton, Sarah. 1997. Anne Conway, Margaret Cavendish, and
Seventeenth-Century Scientific Thought. In Lynette Hunter & Sarah
Hutton eds., Women, Science, and Medicine 1500-1700. Stroud: Sutton
Publishing, 218-234.
—. 2004. Anne Conway: A Woman Philosopher. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Ibn, Tufayl. 1671. Philosophus autodidactus, trans. Edward Pocock.
Oxford.
Johns, Adrian. 1991. History, Science, and the History of the Book: The
Making of Natural Philosophy in Early Modern England. In Publishing
History, 30: 5-30.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1966. The Savage Mind, trans. John Weightman &
Doreen Weightman. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Mendelson, Sara H. 1987. The Mental World of Stuart Women: Three
Studies. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
Perry, Ruth. Radical Doubt and the Liberation of Women. In Eighteenth-
Century Studies, 18: 4, 472-493.
Phillips, Patricia. 1990. The Scientific Lady: A Social History of Women’s
Scientific Interests, 1520-1918. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Popkin, Richard H. 1979. The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to
Spinoza. Berkeley: University of California Press.
 Margaret Cavendish’s and Anne Conway’s “Intellectual Bricolage” 15

Shapin, Steven. 1994. A Social History of Truth. Civility and Science in

Seventeenth-Century England. Chicago & London: The University of
Chicago Press.
Shapiro, Barbara J. 1983. Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth-
Century England: A Study of the Relationships between Natural
Science, Religion, History, Law and Literature. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Solomon, Joan. 2003. The Passion to Learn: An Inquiry into
Autodidacticism. London: Routledge.

Notes
1
Margaret Cavendish and Anne Conway probably never met, although they knew
about each other thanks to members of their intellectual circles. The Duchess of
Newcastle published fictional works and philosophical treatises; among the latter,
three reveal her scientific doctrines most clearly: Philosophical Letters (1664),
Observations upon Experimental Philosophy (1666) and Grounds of Natural
Philosophy (1668). Conway’s only treatise, The Principles of the Most Ancient and
Modern Philosophy (1690), written in English, was translated into Latin and
published again in 1692.
2
On Margaret Cavendish’s life and philosophy, see for instance Anna Battigelli;
for an intellectual biography of Anne Conway, see Sarah Hutton, 2004.
3
The Oxford English Dictionary shows that the word “autodidact” was used in
England as early as 1534.
4
What is now called “science,” with its rigourous methods, was not known yet in
the seventeenth century, the word “science” meaning simply “knowledge” (from
the Latin “scientia”) at the time. “Natural philosophy,” aimed at explaining nature,
dealt with every aspect of the world and thus encompassed several fields such as
medicine, physics, botany, biology, chemistry, mathematics… The methods were
still confused, although they were being defined. “Scientists” such as Isaac Newton
were thus known as “philosophers” to their contemporaries.
5
De Certeau distinguishes between “tactics” and “strategies.” The latter are linked
with structures of power and with the dominant order: “a strategy assumes a place
that can be circumscribed as proper […]. Political, economic and scientific
rationality has been constructed on this strategic model” (xix). “Tactics” on the
contrary “do not have a place,” they “cannot count on a proper (a spatial or
institutional localization) […]. It must constantly manipulate events in order to turn
them into ‘opportunities’” (xix).
6
Other women in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries dealt with natural
philosophy: among them, Katherine Jones, Lady Ranelagh, Christine of Sweden,
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Elizabeth Tollet and Elizabeth Carter for instance.
7
Most of Margaret Cavendish’s prefaces are unpaginated.
8
Henry More to Anne Conway, 3 September [1660].
16 Chapter One

9
Anne Conway’s correspondence was edited by Marjorie Nicolson in 1930 and
revised by Sarah Hutton in 1992.
10
Most of Margaret Cavendish’s correspondence was gathered and edited by
William Cavendish in 1676, after the Duchess’s death. The letters she exchanged
with Constantijn Huygens are given in Nadine Åkkerman & Marguérite Corporaal,
Mad Science Beyond Flattery: The Correspondence of Margaret Cavendish and
Constantijn Huygens in EMLS, 14, 2: 2004, 1-21.
11
This preface by William Cavendish can be found in Margaret Cavendish, 1655:
“His Excellency the Lord Marquis of Newcastle His Opinion concerning the
Ground of Natural Philosophy.”
12
Ibn Tufayl, Philosophus autodidactus, trans. Edward Pocock: Oxford, 1671 and
Nicholas of Cusa, The Idiot in Four Books (1450), London: William Leake, 1650.
13
See Richard H. Popkin on the revival of scepticism in seventeenth-century
Europe, and Barbara J. Shapiro on probability and certainty.
14
In a preface to Philosophical and Physical Opinions, Cavendish writes: “But, if
you will be contented with pure Wit, and the Effects of meer Contemplation, I
hope, that somewhat of that kind may be found in this Book” (“To all the
Universities in Europe”), and in Observations upon Experimental Philosophy: “I
will not deceive the World, nor trouble my Conscience by being a Mountebanck in
learning, but will rather prove naturally wise than artificially foolish” (“The
Preface to the Reader”).
15
For instance, “[…] we are become like worms that only live in the dull earth of
ignorance, winding ourselves sometimes out, by the help of some refreshing rain of
good education which seldom is given us; for we are kept like birds in cages to hop
up and down in our houses, not suffered to fly abroad to see the several changes of
fortune […]” in Philosophical and Physical Opinions, “To the Two Universities.”
16
Anne Conway’s treatise is more clearly organised but there is no evidence that
Conway herself divided her book into the chapters and subsections that now
compose the extant edition of the text. Henry More and Francis van Helmont, who
both edited The Principles, might have added the outlines.
17
Cavendish’s “discourse” might refer to Hobbes’s “mental discourse,” which is
defined as “the train of Imaginations” or “the succession of one Thought to
another” in Leviathan, J. C. A. Gaskin ed., Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996,
p. 15. Cavendish’s “discourse” is more specifically a dialogue.
18
See Willem Frijhoff: “[…] au lieu de hiérarchiser les connaissances,
l’autodidacte les juxtapose, horizontalement. N’ayant pas d’étalon à sa disposition,
il est incapable de choisir” (23).
19
For instance, in chapter VII of The Principles, Conway tries to demonstrate the
link between the meaning of “spirit” according to the cabbalists and Aristotle’s
entelechy (205).
20
Margaret Cavendish’s vitalistic doctrine holds that nature is self-moving and
composed of three parts: the rational and sensitive parts, which are animated, and
the inanimate parts; but these inanimate parts cannot be on their own. Nature has
life, sense and motion and it is made up of one only substance: matter. According
to this monistic doctrine, matter is active and alive. Conway argues in favour of a
 Margaret Cavendish’s and Anne Conway’s “Intellectual Bricolage” 17

philosophia perennis which enables her to derive her philosophy and her
conception of nature from the attributes of God. Her doctrine is also a monadology
that anticipates the philosophy of Leibniz.
21
See Willem Frijhoff: “[…] l’autodidaxie de type ancien peut engendrer un savoir
différent, non canonisé, mais ‘bricolé’ (dans le terme de Lévi-Strauss) à partir
d’acquis culturels antérieurs, restés inactivés ou inconscients, ou ‘braconné’ (de
Certeau) dans des univers culturels divergents” (10).
 CHAPTER TWO

INVISIBLE ASSISTANTS
AND TRANSLATED TEXTS:
D’ARCONVILLE AND PRACTICAL CHEMISTRY
IN ENLIGHTENMENT FRANCE

MARGARET CARLYLE

An article appearing in 1771 in Grimm’s Correspondance littéraire,

philosophique et critique reviewed a two-volume biographical work
dedicated to the Vie du Cardinal d’Ossat (The Life of Cardinal d’Ossat).
The reviewer, clearly preferring to read the Cardinal’s original speeches to
the biographer’s analysis, closed his assessment of this seemingly
mediocre work with the following remark:

J’apprends que cet ouvrage est de Mme la présidente d’Arconville, dont

Mme de Blot disait que le style avait de la barbe. (Diderot, Tome 9: 455)
[I have learned that this is the work of Mme the President d’Arconville,
whom Mme de Blot has remarked writes with the style of a bearded man.]1

While the reviewer’s interest in revealing the biographer’s sex was by

no means unusual at a time when the lady author was viewed as a novelty,
the remark nonetheless speaks to the ambiguity of female authorship in
France during the long eighteenth century. In addition to eliciting
commentary from fellow women, this so-called “bearded man” also faced
the difficulties of coveting her anonymity, the attendant risk of being
exposed, and evaluation of her work within the paradigm of male
authorship. Women who took up the pen at all, it seems, were required to
negotiate a set of publishing circumstances because of their very sex. The
experiences of women who ventured to establish writing careers in the
natural sciences, the preserve of gentlemen who had hailed the new
mechanical philosophy, was all the more unusual.
20 Chapter Two

Women’s role in the making of early modern science through

authorship is a theme that might be approached through an examination of
the translation work of Marie-Geneviève-Charlotte Thiroux d’Arconville.
Though by no means the only female scientific translator of the mid-
eighteenth century, she was nonetheless one of few French women who
can be said to have undertaken translation work while also leading an
active experimental life.2 This paper will begin with a brief sketch of her
life focusing on the intersection of her scientific and publishing interests.
Next, it will consider the circumstances of her translation under pseudonym
in 1759 of English chemist Peter Shaw’s Chemical Lectures (1755). After
comparing the structural features of the English original and its French
version, Leçons de chymie, it will be possible to provide a glimpse into the
detailed work of translation (Shaw 1759). This paper will suggest that an
examination of d’Arconville’s work forces us to consider the challenges
faced by all Enlightenment era translators of the natural sciences, as well
as those faced specifically by female interpreters. As a translator,
d’Arconville was responsible for making a foreign text both intelligible
and palatable to a French audience, while also reckoning with the
interpretive challenges raised by her own biases and chemical knowledge.
In facing such demands, d’Arconville was representative of other actors in
the field of chemistry eager to disseminate practical knowledge.
D’Arconville was also required to negotiate the particular circumstances to
which her female status made her prone, given women’s ambiguous
position in the publishing world. Such a case study might provide a
snapshot of the movement of scientific knowledge across cultural
boundaries, and in so doing, insist on translation as both a form of
knowledge dissemination and production. By emphasising the creative,
productive aspect of translation, including the scientific skill and authority
required to re-package texts in new contexts, one may also be in a better
position to consider the roles played by scientific assistants whose work
has historically remained invisible.

Biographical Sketch
D’Arconville was born the daughter of a fermier général (tax farm
collector) on 17 October 1720 and was married in Paris at age fourteen to
a lawyer and councillor of the Parlement de Paris. Accounts of her life
emphasise her rather free pursuit of intellectual activities within the
Republic of Letters, her devotion to which did not appear to compromise
the fulfillment of her marital responsibilities, including caring for her three
sons. If d’Arconville’s early adult life was characterised by contact with
 d’Arconville and Practical Chemistry in Enlightenment France 21

the ideas and men of the French Enlightenment, such as Voltaire, Turgot,
and Malesherbes, a disfiguring bout of smallpox at age twenty-three
prompted the social and material retreat that would mark the remainder of
her life. Her womanly charms thus compromised, d’Arconville was
reported by her contemporaries as having adopted a curious brand of
asceticism:

elle quitta le rouge, prit les grands papillons, la coiffe, enfin tout le
costume d’une femme de soixante-dix ans. Elle renonça au spectacle,
qu’elle avait aimé jusqu’au point d’aller voir jouer quartoze fois de suite la
Mérope de Voltaire. Elle n’eut plus dès lors que l’existence d’une femme
dévote, mais sacrifiant beaucoup aux plaisirs de l’esprit (Michaud, 381-
382).
[Tr: she gave up rouge, took on the grands papillons, the hairdo, and even
the dress of a woman of seventy years. She no longer attended the very
shows that she loved to the point of seeing Voltaire’s Mérope on fourteen
occasions. Thereafter she led nothing but the life of a devout woman who
nonetheless sacrificed much in favour of the pleasures of the spirit.]

D’Arconville next turned her energies towards an intellectual life,

which led to the anonymous publication of a number of books on a range
of topics, including: literature and the arts; morality and religion; and
scientific experimentalism, especially in the realms of chemistry and
medical anatomy (Prudhomme, 221-222).
The story of physical disfiguration coinciding with a social retreat and
intellectual-spiritual renewal is of course coloured by cultural perceptions
of the day and attitudes towards the “femme savant.” As such, one would
wish to be cautious in making any assumptions about d’Arconville’s
isolationism, whether perceived as self- or socially-imposed (Knott &
Taylor, 53-69).3 Whatever her degree of introspection, d’Arconville was in
touch with intellectual questions of the day owing in large part to the
breadth of her at-home library and laboratory, as well as the access she
enjoyed through a book carrier to the works of the Bibliothèque du Roi.
Moreover, though she infrequently ventured from her Parisian residence,
she nonetheless maintained some form of worldly contact through her
participation in anatomy and chemistry courses given at the Jardin du Roi
by a prominent medical doctor, author, and chemist to whom she
dedicated two of her published works, Pierre-Joseph Macquer.4 Under his
influence and mentorship, d’Arconville turned her energies to the study of
anatomy, a discipline that she believed carried great utilitarian potential if
studied and applied methodically. She explains that:
22 Chapter Two

[l]a dissection même ne peut être d’aucun avantage à des commençants qui
n’ont pas encore les connaissances préliminaires. Il faut se faire un plan
qui dirige le travail. On ne sait jamais que superficiellement ce qu’on
apprend sans méthode; et j’ose dire ça, de toutes les sciences, l’anatomie
est celle qui en exige le plus.
[dissection as such serves no use to beginners who do not possess the
necessary preliminary knowledge. One must establish a plan that directs
the work. One knows only but superficially what one learns without
method; and I dare say that anatomy, of all the sciences, is that which
demands the most work/method] (d’Arconville: 1775, 202).

By 1759 d’Arconville learned that doctor Joseph Süe, the demonstrator

of sculpture at the Académie Royale in Paris, envisaged editing a French
translation of Osteology by the Scottish surgeon and anatomist, Alexander
Monro (the second) (MacNalty, 403-413). D’Arconville eagerly joined the
project and absorbed the 22,000 livres cost associated with printing the
image plates for the French edition (Saint-Ildephont, 105-106). She is
credited with having translated the text under Süe’s protection.5 Historian
Londa Schiebinger has also suggested that d’Arconville was responsible
for the skeleton images that formed the second volume of the French
edition (Schiebinger, 195-198). D’Arconville’s interest in chemistry, on
the other hand, has remained under-studied. In 1766 she published original
work documenting five years’ worth of experiments conducted on
putrefying animal flesh in her twin workshops, the one in Paris and the
other in her country residence at Meudon. The 578-page Essai pour servir
à l’histoire de la putréfaction (Essay Providing a History of Putrefaction)
reads as a scientific journal or log book in which she entreats her reader to
accompany her as an observer while her experiments unfold6
(d’Arconville, 1766). D’Arconville also contributed to chemistry through
the translation in 1759 of Peter Shaw’s Chemical Lectures as Leçons de
chymie. The remainder of this paper will centre on this text and its
translator, including the context of the text’s publication; its structural and
stylistic features; and the role d’Arconville played in its completion.7

Texts in Scientific Context

Chemical Lectures grew out of a successful lecture tour undertaken by
Shaw in London in 1731 and 1732 and the resort town of Scarborough the
year following. Appealing to both trading chemists and to gentleman
amateurs, Shaw enjoyed an intimate yet nonetheless commercial relationship
with his audiences all while cultivating important patronage ties that
would later secure him a place in London’s medical world as a physician.
 d’Arconville and Practical Chemistry in Enlightenment France 23

As if to confirm his growing status as one of England’s premier itinerant

lecturers, Shaw’s audiences requested the publication of his lectures,
which saw a first edition in 1734 and a second “corrected” one in 1755
(the latter edition shall be used throughout) (Donovan, 131-144; Golinski,
19-29).
It was on Macquer’s suggestion that d’Arconville set to work on a
translation of this work, and it was he who in October 1758 gave her work
approbation, in which he stated that:

je crois que ce Livre ne peut être que très-utile & très-agréable au public,
tant par l’importance de son objet, que par les notes instructives, & le
Discours intéressant dont le Traducteur l’a enrichi (Shaw, 1759:
Approbation).
[I believe that this book will prove as useful and agreeable to the public as
much for the importance of its object as for its instructive notes, not to
mention the “Discours” with which the translator has enriched the text.]

Macquer and d’Arconville enjoyed a close association, and though not

all of their correspondence has survived, several remaining letters written
from d’Arconville to her mentor in 1770 and 1778 underscore the nature
of their intellectual relationship and the extent to which Macquer proof-
read and critiqued her work (d’Arconville: 1770 & 1778). Although more
could be said, and one might make comparisons to other male-female
pairings within the natural sciences (both platonic and intimate), suffice to
say that the opportunities presented to d’Arconville did not emerge
accidentally and were very much fostered through her contact with
Macquer.
Leçons was printed by J.T. Hérissant, who had previously sponsored a
number of other English texts of scientific application for French
audiences, such as the Oeuvres Physiques & Minéralogiques by M.
Lehmann and the Pharmacopée du Collège des Médecins de Londres.
Thus much like Shaw’s original English text, d’Arconville’s translation
represents part of a booming book genre that served in this period to
quench the thirst of a mixed learned and merchant public for a natural
philosophy writ large—and for the purposes of commercial and medical
utility. Shaw’s 1755 edition begins with an Advertisement emphasising the
accessible nature of his work and both the reproducibility of his
experiments and their ability to break fresh empirical ground with
imaginative application:

The Experiments here employed, tho’ many of them new, are generally
simple; or performable with little Cost, and Apparatus: But if a few
particular Instruments, and Trials, hereafter intimated, were to be made,
24 Chapter Two

and properly used, much greater Discoveries might be reasonably expected

(Shaw, 1755: 1).

Next comes a glossary of terms intended to make more transparent to

the reader the technical repertoire, which, in turn, is meant to contribute to
the reader’s overall sense of being a “virtual witness” to this chemistry-in-
the-making (Shapin & Schaffer, 60-65). Twenty lectures follow on topics
ranging from the nature of fire and air to the healing properties of
vegetable matter. Lectures begin with prefatory remarks that speak to the
potential wider application of the topic before embarking on a series of
how-to experiments described in varying detail. Each lecture is rounded
out with a statement of “Axioms and Canons/Rules.”
The self-conscious utilitarianism of the Chemical Lectures is preserved
in d’Arconville’s translation. Indeed, in its enthusiasm for rendering the
natural world through a careful consideration of “toutes les substances qui
composent l’Univers, utiles aux hommes,” [“all substances that compose
the Universe, which are of use to men”], d’Arconville’s Leçons de chymie
represents the ways in which “literary technology” had by the eighteenth
century become integral to the experimental philosopher’s arsenal, a key
ingredient in generating a wide belief in and stabilising (or “black-boxing”)
truth-claims. (Shaw, 1759: V; Latour, 21-62). Leçons de chymie becomes
for d’Arconville’s French audience Peter Shaw’s lecture tour in absentia.
As a result, d’Arconville sets the stage for the textual re-creation of
experiments that were initially shared visually with Shaw’s audience. And
while Shaw no doubt faced difficulties in crafting his own account,
d’Arconville has the extra step of re-packaging for a French audience the
description of experiments conducted abroad. By moving the text across
linguistic-territorial divides, d’Arconville is contributing to what might be
considered a larger Enlightenment project, that of making the foreign
palatable to the civilised own. Such an act of knowledge transmission
across space and language might be likened to the trafficking of
knowledge within a more local setting. Leçons de chymie represents but
one text of a much larger publishing repertoire of scientific material that
was making inroads into the hitherto unfamiliar domestic setting. Indeed,
as Paula Findlen has pointed out, scientific texts in this period came
increasingly to form part of the accoutrements in the dressing rooms of
learned ladies. (168)
D’Arconville’s translation certainly provides a rich resource with
which to grapple the poetics and politics of translation and might shed
light on the uneasy relationship between creativity and what might be
called ‘translationship.’ The remainder of this paper will elaborate on
d’Arconville’s particular translation under three headings: textual structure
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minds, and very often this part of the meaning is merely subsidiary
and accidental to the proper signification of the word. But we are
too lazy to realize that proper signification, and so pass words on to
others the mere shadow and fragment of their former selves. It may
often happen that a sense originally imported into a word by the
context in which it accidentally found itself becomes appropriated to
it to the gradual exclusion of its real signification. The word silly, for
example, which once meant “blessed,” like its German cousin selig,
from being applied euphemistically to half-witted persons, has
entirely lost its true meaning. A word like impertinent is still in
process of being changed. Its positive pertinent has hitherto
preserved its proper sense, at all events in literature; but the popular
mind has already forgotten the meaning of the negative, and only a
short while ago a member of Parliament was called to order for
describing a remark as “impertinent.” Here the accidental application
of a word has caused its primary meaning to fall into neglect. Still
more striking is the fate which has befallen words like transpire and
eliminate. The newspapers speak of events “transpiring” in absolute
disregard of the fact that events can hardly “breathe through,” while
eliminate has been used not in the sense of removing out of the way
but of bringing in.[107] It is so much easier to guess at the meaning
of a word from the context in which it occurs than to trace it back to
its real signification, and so long as our use of it is intelligible there is
little care among ordinary speakers as to whether that use is correct
or not.
In this way general terms come to be restricted to individuals,
while words which denote the particular are extended to denote the
universal. Deer, which, like the cognate German thier and Latin fera,
originally signified wild animals of all kinds, is now confined to a
particular species; while, on the other hand, the Latin emere, which
properly signified “to take” in general, came to be restricted to the
special meaning of taking when we “buy.” The older significations of
words are continually decaying and being supplanted by new ones.
Those who use them are too lazy to find out their exact significance.
 The principle of laziness is equally active in the province of
grammar. Here, too, the relations formerly conceived to exist
between the several parts of the sentence may be forgotten
altogether or replaced by other relations. The inflections of the
Anglo-Saxon noun have been almost all lost, and the datives him
and whom have become objective cases. Prepositions have taken
the place of the case-endings, the adjective no longer “agrees” with
its noun, but is now conceived of as a simple attribute, while all
remembrance of the dative relation has faded out of the expressions
“give me a book,” “send it away.” The subjunctive is fast ceasing to
exist, and the modern Englishman troubles himself but little about
the difference between be and is or between if I was and if I were.
It is in phonology, however, that the principle of laziness is most
active. As far back as we can follow the history of language we see
the stronger and harder sounds perpetually changing into weaker
and easier ones; and so uniform and constant is this tendency that
in the absence of counter-indications we are justified in referring
most cases of phonetic change with which we may meet to the
operation of decay. Mr. Douse[108] has lately made an ingenious but
unsuccessful attempt to assign the phænomena of Grimm’s law to
what he terms the principle of least effort, by supposing that the
different phonetic systems of the several branches of the Indo-
European family were evolved out of the tenues or hard consonants,
at a time when these branches were still co-existing dialects of a
single language, through the influence of “Reflex Dissimilation.”
Reflex dissimilation is explained to be a more complicated and
somewhat varying instance of that simple cross compensation which
we see exemplified in the Cockney interchange of v and w, or the
perverse persistency with which the same persons, who leave out
the aspirate where it ought to exist, insert it where it ought to be
omitted. In both cross compensation and reflex dissimilation,
however, we have a compound action of the two antagonistic
principles of laziness and emphasis.
 The age of a language is marked by the extent to which it has
been affected by phonetic decay, and when we find how large its
influence has been upon the Old Egyptian and the Accadian of
Chaldæa, as they appear in the earliest monuments we possess, we
may form some idea of the length of time that must have elapsed
since those languages were first being moulded and fixed. At the
same time we must not forget that phonetic decay will act more
readily upon some classes of languages than upon others. Wherever
there is no clear consciousness of the distinction between root and
grammatical suffix, as in our own inflectional family of speech, there
we may expect a greater and more rapid amount of change than in
agglutinative dialects where the relations of grammar are expressed
by independent or semi-independent words. But even the latter
cannot escape the law of gradual decay. To pass over the
incorporating Basque in which words like dakarkiotezute, “ye eat it
for them,” or detzadan, “that I should have them,” have to be
decomposed into da, “it” or “him,” ekarri, “to eat,” ki, sign of the
dative, o, “for him,” te, sign of the plural, zute, “ye,” and d, “him,” ez
(izan), “to be” or “have,” za, sign of the plural, ta, “I,” and n,
conjunctive affix, we find Yakute Turkish changing bin + śän (“I +
thou”) into biś, “we,”[109] while the written Japanese taka-si and
taka-ki, “high,” are pronounced takai. Chinese itself is not exempt
from the universal rule. As Dr. Edkins[110] and M. de Rosny have
shown, the modern Mandarin dialect has lost numerous initial and
final consonants, and words like yi, “one,” and ta, “great,” were once
tit and dap. Along the southern bank of the Yang-tsi-kiang and
through Chekiang to Fuh-kien the old initials are still preserved,
while in the northern provinces no less than three finals have been
lost and the tones by which Chinese words of similar form are
distinguished from one another are so many compensations for the
loss of letters. Here again we have the principle of emphasis
endeavouring to repair the damage wrought by the principle of
decay.
A literary dialect is naturally less subject to the inroads of decay
than an unwritten one. The spelling of words reacts upon their
pronunciation and preserves it from extensive alteration. There is a
wide chasm between that Tuscan Italian which has been preserved
from corruption by the genius of Dante and the modern dialect of
Bologna or Naples. In the age of Cicero the cave ne eas of polite
society had become cauneas in the language of the people,[111] and
how artificial was the attempt of pedants and purists to maintain the
older pronunciation, even to the restoration of the final s which had
already been dropped by Ennius, appeared pretty plainly as soon as
the decline of the Roman empire and the extinction of the literary
class deprived it of support. Latin at once fell away into the Romance
dialects of modern Europe, just as literary Anglo-Saxon with its
inflections and its learned vocabulary disappeared before the
Norman Conquest. The language of the Assyrian inscriptions remains
almost unaltered throughout the long period of nearly 2,000 years,
during which we can watch its fortunes; but this language was the
stereotyped one of literature and education, and differed very
considerably from the spoken language of the people. The late
linguistic character of Hebrew, the extent, that is, to which it has
been influenced by phonetic decay as compared with its sister
tongues, is an incontrovertible proof of the backward literary
condition of its speakers. But even literature and cultivation are
unable to preserve a language altogether from decay and change.
The pronunciation of the educated slowly changes; words become
clipped and shortened in spite of their spelling, and notwithstanding
printers and schoolmasters the spelling in the end has to follow the
pronunciation. Mr. Alexander Ellis has shown in his “Early English
Pronunciation” how widely our modern pronunciation of English has
departed from that of Shakspeare’s time, and the spelling of though,
through, and enough bears witness to a period when they ended in
a guttural aspirate. Our pronunciation is still undergoing change; the
vowels are becoming more and more indistinct and merged in a
common obscure ĕ; while such contractions as I’ll, I’d, won’t, and
can’t can hardly be distinguished from Basque forms like those
mentioned above. The educated Englishman speaks, as the French
say, with his lips closed; he finds that he can be understood without
the trouble of opening and rounding them, and his vowels are
accordingly formed in the front rather than in the back part of the
mouth. No wonder that he has a difficulty with the French eu; the
effort to pronounce it is too great a strain upon the unexercised
muscles of the lips, and so the English gentleman who told the
waiter not to let the feu go out in his absence found on his return
that his friend had been strictly watched and guarded as a
dangerous fou.
But though a literature and more especially a widely extended
literary education form the chief obstacle to the action of phonetic
decay, there are other social influences which operate to the same
end. Wherever there is a fixed and stable society, cut off from close
intercourse with its neighbours and handing down unchanged its
customs and institutions, we are likely to find a more or less fixed
and stable language. For language is the mirror of the community
that uses it, and where the community alters but little the language
will alter but little too. It is in this way that we must explain the fact
that Lithuanian, though unprotected by a literature and spoken by
the least progressive of the European members of the Aryan family,
is yet the most conservative of all the Western languages of our
group, or that the Bedouin of Central Arabia is said to speak at the
present day a more archaic language than those of Nineveh or
Jerusalem 3,000 years ago. Since the institution of an annual fair
among the Rocky Mountains the idioms of the eastern and western
Eskimaux, who at first were hardly understood by one another,
became more and more assimilated;[112] and the stationary
character of Icelandic may be ascribed as much to the isolation of
the settled Norse community in the island as to the existence of a
literature. Of course, the community must be one which has reached
a certain level of culture, and its customs and institutions must imply
organization and recognition of fixed principles. Where the customs
and institutions are founded on mere unreasoning habit and
precedent, we are dealing with a community of barbarians, and
consequently with languages or dialects in a perpetual state of flux.
 The changes wrought by phonetic decay are sometimes sufficient
to alter the whole aspect of a language, and are at once the
foundation and the riddle of etymology. Who would recognize in the
French même, for instance, any derivative from the Latin pronoun
se? And yet même goes back to the Low Latin semetipsissimum
through the Old Provençal smetessme, the later Provençal medesme
and the Old French meïsme. Words of different origin, like scale from
the Latin scala and the Anglo-Saxon scalu and scealu, may come to
assume the same form; while words of the same origin, like the
French captif and chétif, from captivus, or noel and natal from
natalis, may appear under different forms. The processes of
assimilation and swarabhakti, of metathesis and epenthesis, to be
described in the next chapter, are so many forms under which
phonetic decay displays itself. The history of language is the history
of the continual weakening of uttered sounds and the gradual
lessening of the demands made upon the organs of speech, and
attempts like that to reduce the triliteral roots of the Semitic tongues
to biliteral ones are contrary to the whole tendency of language.
Accent alone is able to hold out against the assaults of phonetic
decay; it is only the accented syllable that remains unchanged when
all around it is perishing, and, as in the case of age from ætaticum
or dine from desinere, is often all that is left of the primitive word. It
is again the struggle between the principle of emphasis and the
principle of laziness, between conservatism and revolution. Only
when the accent is shifted to another syllable can phonetic decay
gain the victory, and the shifting of the accent is itself the work of
the principle of decay.
The principle of laziness has much to do with the creation of
dialects. Slight variations of pronunciation and of the usage of words
are as inevitable in language as variations of species in zoology, and
where there is no correcting standard these variations are
perpetuated and intensified. Helped by the two other causes of
linguistic change, the dialect of a household becomes in time the
dialect of a clan or tribe, and as soon as its characteristics are
sufficiently numerous and distinct, the dialect is transformed into a
language. An isolated community will by slow degrees form a new
language for itself. Just as the history and character of one society
differ from those of another, so too must the dialect or language
differ in which the society finds expression. Even where the rapid
and intimate intercourse of modern civilization and the safeguard of
a common and widely-studied literature stand in the way, as in the
case of England and America, dialectical differences and peculiarities
will yet spring up. In savage and barbarous communities the growth
of innumerable dialects is a matter of necessity. The manifold
languages of the Malayan and Polynesian Archipelago can be traced
back to a common source, but the natives of two neighbouring
islands are often unintelligible to one another; while von der
Gabelentz says of the Melanesians, that “every small island has its
own language or even several languages.”[113] Before the utter
extinction of the Tasmanians, with a population of no more than fifty
persons there were four dialects, each with a different word for
“ear,” “eye,” “head,” and other equally common objects. The
language of a shifting unorganized community will reflect the
condition of those who speak it, and we are not surprised, therefore,
at Captain Gordon’s assertion that “some” of the Manipuran dialects
“are spoken by no more than thirty or forty families, yet (are) so
different from the rest as to be unintelligible to the nearest
neighbourhood.” Humboldt tells us[114] that in South America,
together with a great analogy of physical constitution, “a surprising
variety of languages is observed among nations of the same origin,
and which European travellers scarcely distinguish by their features.”
Greece, with its small extent of country and still smaller amount of
population, was said a few years back to possess no fewer than
seventy dialects,[115] and no less than eight principal dialects
besides several subordinate ones exist among the modern Basques,
whose whole population is under 800,000.[116] Indeed, considering
the isolation of the Basques, socially, politically, and linguistically, as
well as the narrow tract of country into which they have been
compressed, it is remarkable that natives of places not forty miles
distant from one another are yet mutually unintelligible.[117] But the
natural condition of language is diversity and change, and it is only
under the artificial influences of civilization and culture that a
language becomes uniform and stationary. As soon as the coercive
hand of civilization is removed it breaks out again into a plentiful
crop of dialects. Of course, the vicissitudes through which semi-
civilized peoples are continually passing greatly assist the process of
change. Conquest and the mixture consequent upon it, famine,
disease, and migration, are all powerful aids to dialect-making. The
women of a tribe who stay at home, or who have been married out
of another tribe, sometimes possess a language different from that
of the men; thus, the Carib women in the Antille Isles used a
different tongue from that of their husbands, while the Eskimaux
women in Greenland turn k into ng and t into n.[118] Even religion
and superstition play their part in the work; the sacred language of
the “medicine-men” in Greenland, for instance, is for the most part
an arbitrary perversion of the significations of known words; thus
tak, “darkness,” is used in the sense of “the north,” and so gives rise
to two new words of this secret speech, tarsoak, “earth,” and
tarsoarmis, “roots.” The custom of tapu among the Pacific Islanders,
according to which every word which contains a syllable identical
with some part of the name of the reigning chief has to be dropped
or changed, is due to the belief that all things belonging to a chief
are consecrated and inviolable. Since the reign of Queen Pomare mi
has been substituted for po, “night,” in Tahitian, and Hale tells us of
this language[119] that its “manner of forming new words seems to
be arbitrary. In many cases the substitutes are made by changing or
dropping some letter or letters of the original word, as hopoi for
hepai, ... au for tau, &c. In other cases the word substituted is one
which had before a meaning nearly related to that of the term
disused.... In some cases the meaning or origin of the new word is
unknown, and it may be a mere invention, as ofai for ohatu ‘stone,’
papai for vai, ‘water,’ pohe for mate, ‘dead.’” Similar to the
Polynesian tapu is the Chinese custom of tabooing the elements of
the reigning emperor’s name, and the ukuhlonipa, which forbids the
Kafir women to pronounce a word containing a sound like one in the
names of their nearest relations. Thus, “Mr. Leslie states that the
wives of Panda’s sons would never call him (Mr. Leslie) by his Kafir
name of u’ Lpondo, on account of its partial identity with that of the
chief, their father-in-law. In the name of the river Amanzimtoti,
‘Sweet Waters,’ in like manner, mtoti has been substituted for
mnandi, hlonipaed or tabooed on account of its occurring in the
name of Tsaka’s mother Unandi.”[120]
The Abipones of South America similarly alter the names of the
friends and relatives of a dead member of the tribe, and the words
which entered into the composition of his name are dropped out of
use.[121] For a parallel superstition we have only to think of the old
European belief in the omen involved in the mere pronunciation of a
word, which caused the Greek to speak of his left hand as
ἀρίστερος, “the better one,” and the Roman to change Maleventum
into Beneventum. The belief in the power of words, in the vis verbi
as the Latin termed it, is even now not extinct, and the same feeling
which altered the “Cape of Storms” into the “Cape of Good Hope” is
still prevalent among us.
The sacred jargon of the Eskimaux sorcerer, which finds its
analogue in the slang of the schoolboy, is merely one step lower
than the ceremonial dialects which are to be met with all over the
world. The Bhasa Krama or ceremonial language of Java, for
example, like the ceremonial languages of the larger islands of
Polynesia, or the ceremonial conjugation of the ancient Azteks,
hedges in the upper classes of the community with a veritable tapu.
So, too, the Japanese when addressing a superior has to speak of
himself as gu-sau, “a stupid vegetable,” or yátsŭ-ko (contracted
yákko), “house-boy,” and of another as nandzi, “famous,” or te-
máye-san, “the gentleman at hand,” while o or on, “great,” is
prefixed to all words which relate to the latter[122] and distinctive
verbs and verbal forms employed expressive of courtesy.[123] The
Chinaman is equally the slave of an artificial politeness; he is himself
“the thief” (ts’ie), “the soft-brained” (’iu), while the person he
addresses is “the honourable” (ling) or “the noble brother” (ling
hiung).[124] The Indian bhavan, “present,” is construed with the
third person in order to denote the second with ambiguous courtesy,
and the same reluctance to place oneself on a footing of equality by
a blunt “thou” shows itself in the Latin of the Hungarian, who will
say “Dominus dignetur commodare mihi librum,” meaning the
second person.[125] The ceremonial use of the pronouns reaches a
still greater extreme in German, where in addition to the various
titles with which “His Highly well-born,” “His most serene,” or “His
Transparency” require to be addressed, the second person singular
has to be represented sometimes by a masculine Er (“he”),
sometimes by a feminine Sie (“she”), sometimes by a plural Sie
(“they”). The latter reminds us of the Hebrew “pluralis majestatis,”
and recalls our own employment of the plural you for the singular
thou. Our usage in this respect was probably influenced by the
French use of vous, and it is perhaps to the same influence that we
may ascribe the Basque use of Zute, “you,” instead of Zu, “thou,”
which seems of comparatively late introduction. Two Basque
dialects, indeed, the Souletin and the east Low Navarese, have even
developed a ceremonial conjugation, every person of which, except
the second plural, assumes a special form when a superior is
addressed. Besides the ceremonial conjugation there is also a
feminine one, employed whenever a woman is spoken to. It must be
remembered that the Basque verb is an amalgamation of the verbal
root with the personal pronouns.
The rapid changes undergone by languages in a natural state can
only be appreciated by those who have had experience of a tribe of
wandering savages, or who have observed the alterations children
would make in the language they learn if left to themselves.
According to Waldeck, a dictionary compiled by Jesuit missionaries in
Central America became useless within ten years; and
Messerschmidt states that the inhabitants of Ostiak villages, only a
mile or two apart, are unintelligible to one another.[126] The Hurons,
Sagard stated in 1631, spoke such a variety of dialects that not only
was the same language hardly to be heard in two adjacent villages,
but even in two adjacent houses, and these multitudinous dialects
he further described as changing every day. Mr. Trumbull, however,
points out that Sagard’s account must be received with caution,
since he says that the instability of language among the French was
almost as great as among the Hurons, and his “very imperfect
dictionary of this unstable language, 200 years or more after it was
compiled, enabled Duponceau to make himself understood without
apparent difficulty by the Wyandots, a remnant of the last nation of
the Hurons.”[127]
But the following account given by Sir C. Lyell in his “Antiquity of
Man,”[128] shows that it is not necessary for a community to be
semi-civilized or barbarous in order to prove how rapidly a non-
literary language can be transformed. “A German colony in
Pennsylvania,” he says, “was cut off from frequent communication
with Europe for about a quarter of a century, during the wars of the
French Revolution, between 1792 and 1815. So marked had been
the effect even of this brief and imperfect isolation, that when Prince
Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar travelled among them a few years after
the peace, he found the peasants speaking as they had done in
Germany in the preceding century, and retaining a dialect which at
home had already become obsolete. Even after the renewal of the
German emigration from Europe, when I travelled in 1841, among
the same people in the retired valleys of the Alleghanies, I found the
newspapers full of terms half-English and half-German, and many an
Anglo-Saxon word which had assumed a Teutonic dress, as ‘fencen,’
to fence, instead of umzäunen; ‘flauer,’ for flour, instead of mehl, and
so on.” Destroy literature and facility of intercommunication, and the
languages of England and America would soon be as different as
those of France and Italy.
It is civilization which counteracts the natural tendency to multiply
dialects, and which is ever striving to absorb the manifold dialects
that exist into a single tongue. All the social conditions of civilized
life tend to break down dialects, to assimilate languages, and to
create a common medium of intercourse. A common government, a
common literature, a common history and a common law, all require
a common language. The Macedonian Empire made Greek the
language of the East, and Rome effectually stamped out the various
idioms of its subjects in the West. It needed an invasion of
barbarism and the overthrow of Roman organization and culture to
restore the period of linguistic disunion. The Church remained the
sole representative of civilization, and consequently the sole
possessor of a common tongue. In fact, wherever civilization has
made an advance, the action of the great causes of change in
language has received a check. Every conquest over a horde of
barbarians, every attempt to found a settled government, to
establish a code of laws, to systematize a religion, or to originate a
literature, is a step forward in the direction of linguistic unity. The
practical aim of the science of language is the formation of a
universal speech, and the time may yet come when the dream will
be converted into a reality. The inventions of the present century—
the steamer, the railway, and the telegraph—are bringing all parts of
the world into a closer connection with one another, and abolishing
the barriers created by differences of speech. Commerce demands a
lingua franca, and now that commerce is world-wide its lingua franca
must be world-wide also.
The language of the chief trading nations must finally prevail in
the struggle for existence, and the prophecy has already been
hazarded that pigeon-English, or a similar grammarless jargon, will
be the future medium of universal intercourse. However this may be,
the endeavour to revive the perishing languages of Europe, and to
make the limits of speech the limits of nationality, is a reversal of the
lesson of history and a return to primitive barbarism. It is but the
transient reaction against the Empire of the first Napoleon, based on
the false belief that language and race are convertible terms. But the
endeavour, however flattering to nations without a history, is
doomed to failure. Little by little the weaker languages and dialects
of Europe are disappearing before the schoolmaster and the railway,
and artificial nurture can alone protract their lingering existence.
Gaelic and Welsh in our own islands, like Breton in France or
Lithuanian in Germany and Russia, must share the fate which has
already overtaken Cornish and Wendic. The last Wendic speaker,
Frau Gülzsin, died on the Island of Rügen as long ago as 1404,[129]
while Lithuanian is now used by scarcely a million and a half
persons, in spite of the philosopher Immanuel Kant’s plea for it as “a
still unmixed language of an old people, now isolated and confined
within narrow bounds,” which would throw light on the history of the
past.[130] The tendency of time is to unify and simplify, and exact
science even now has but one tongue throughout the world. The
attempt of Bishop Wilkins to invent a universal language failed, not
because it was premature, but because such a language, like all
others, must be a spontaneous growth; a better fortune may await
the Pasigraphy of Bachmaier,[131] which attempts to do for the man
of literature what the Arabic ciphers have done for the
mathematician, since writing differs from language in being a
conscious human invention.
The history of the extinction of languages is similar to that of the
extinction of dialects. We see the same process at work in both
cases, only on a different scale. Where several dialects exist
together, the one which belongs to the dominant class will finally
prevail over the others. The “Queen’s English” is really the court
dialect of Chaucer’s day, which became the dialect of literature and
education, and so has succeeded in degrading its sister-dialects into
illiterate provincialisms, and in many cases in destroying them
altogether. Where the educated and ruling caste is small, the other
dialects will continue to flourish among the mass of the people, and
on the overthrow of the cultured class will once more assert their
own. But in a democratic age like the present, when books and
newspapers are multiplied by the printing press, and the whole
nation is being leavened by the general spread of education, the
dialect of civilization will sooner or later swallow up its less favoured
sisters. The remarkable sameness of dialect which prevails among
the Arabic-speaking populations of the East may be largely
accounted for by the democratic spirit of Mahommedanism which
holds all men equal before the supreme Khalif. It is, therefore, of the
highest importance to comparative philology that the decaying
dialects of our own or other countries should be observed and
written down before they have perished. The history of a language
can be traced only by a comparison of its dialects, which often
preserve words and forms that have become obscure and
inexplicable in the standard dialect itself. Where the allied dialects
have disappeared, the chasm that divides the language we are
studying from those with which it was once connected may be too
wide to be easily spanned. For in language, as in everything else,
dialect passes gradually and insensibly into dialect, and it is not until
we compare the two extremes in the series that we are made aware
of the accumulated differences which the transitions have involved.
The progress of civilization, then, implies a continuous diminution
of the languages and dialects of the world, and a corresponding
extension of a single tongue. Just as we have seen that language
advances from complexity to simplicity, so we now see that it
advances from multiplicity to unity. The more barbarous a society is,
the more numerous will be the languages that it speaks. The further
back we go into the past, the greater must be the linguistic anarchy
with which we meet. A language begins with dialects, and since
language is the product and reflection of the community that uses it,
the primæval languages of the world must have been as infinitely
numerous as the communities that spoke them. We start with the
Babel of confusion, with the houseless savage who did that which
was right in his own eyes. Language, it is true, first cemented
society together, but it also made each society a body of hostile
units. Many as are the existing languages of the earth, they are but
the selected relics of an infinitely greater number which have passed
away. Here and there we still come across the last waifs of an
otherwise extinct family of speech, the last survivors of a group of
languages and dialects which has long since been forgotten. The
Basque, like the scattered languages of the Caucasus, seems to have
no connection with any other known speech; sheltered by the
mountain fastnesses of Biscay, it remains to bear witness to the
linguistic character of an extinct world. So far as appears at present,
the mysterious Etruscan which has left us some 3,000 short
inscriptions is another forlorn waif, without kith or kin in the world of
known tongues. Perhaps, too, the language of the Lykian
inscriptions, which still refuses to be “classified” in spite of the
efforts that have been made to turn it into an Iranian idiom, is a
further example of the same kind. The boulders that have been left
on our hilltops do not tell us with more certainty of the icebergs and
icefloes which brought them thither, than do these stray languages
of the manifold forms of speech of which they are the scanty
remnants. Our only wonder should be not that there are any
tongues which refuse to be classed with others, but that there are so
few which thus maintain an isolated existence.
As we shall see hereafter, families of languages are exceptional in
the history of speech. Professor Max Müller very truly says:[132]
“Families of languages are very peculiar formations; they are, and
they must be, the exception, not the rule, in the growth of language.
There was always the possibility, but there never was, as far as I can
judge, any necessity for human speech leaving its primitive stage of
wild growth and decay.” “If we confine ourselves to the Asiatic
continent, with its important peninsula of Europe, we find that in the
vast desert of drifting human speech, three, and only three oases
have been formed, in which, before the beginning of all history,
language became permanent and traditional; assumed, in fact, a
new character—a character totally different from the original
character of the floating and constantly varying speech of human
beings.” And these oases, these families of speech, it is important to
remember, are themselves made up of dialects, only dialects with a
common grammar and a common stock of roots. We may, if we like,
construct a hypothetical “parent-speech,” from which we may derive
the several dialects and languages which are the only facts we have
to work upon; but we must not forget that such a parent-speech is
purely hypothetical, the product of reflective analysis and logical
deduction. Fick’s dictionary of the Parent-Aryan is as much the
creation of the comparative philologist’s closet as Schleicher’s
“restoration” of its grammatical forms. Because the Sanskrit panchan
and the Latin quinque can both be reduced to the same form
quemquem, it does not follow that the latter form was ever actually
existent. As far back as we can go, we still find ourselves in the
presence of allied dialects, never of a single tongue. The east-Aryan
primitive ghard, “heart,” cannot be reduced to the same form as the
west-Aryan kard, with the same meaning; the two variant forms of
the root testify to a dialectical difference from the outset.[133] Such,
too, is the evidence of words like those for “daughter,” Greek
θυγάτηρ, but Sanskrit duhitâ, or “door,” Greek θύρα, Sanskrit
dwâram (not dhwâram), while the demonstrative pronouns appear
from the first under two incompatible forms sa(s) and ta(s). For the
sake of convenience we may assume a parent-speech; we may even
go so far as to picture to ourselves a family of languages like a
family in social life, except that it springs not from two ancestors but
from one; but unless we bear in mind that these assumptions are
like the assumptions of the geometer, ideal creations, never realized
in the actual world, we shall be betrayed into numberless absurdities
and false conclusions. It is to them, indeed, that we owe the belief
that the primitive Aryans had but the single vowel a in their alphabet
besides the three tenues k, t, p, the labials r, m, n, and the sibilant
s. Even Dr. Murray, with his nine primæval roots ag, bag, dwag,
gwag, lag, mag, nag, rag, and swag, did better than this.[134]
Repulsion and division, then, is the natural condition of language.
The three causes of change are ever actively at work, and the
influence of civilization cannot entirely destroy their power. But with
the advance of culture, the dividing barriers are broken down, and to
borrow a metaphor from mechanics, the centrifugal is exchanged for
the centripetal force. Dialects make way for languages, and
languages in their turn tend to centralization. Where thought is of
more consequence than the vocal symbols in which it is expressed,
means will be found for making the symbols uniform and constant.
Language begins with multiplicity and disunion, but its end is unity.
The theory that would derive the idioms of the world from three or
four primæval centres, or even from a single centre, is contrary to
the facts. In the very act of being formed a language necessarily
splits itself into dialectical variety. The children of to-day resemble
those children of humanity, the first framers of articulate speech,
and the children of a single household, if left to themselves, would
have each his own jargon, his own dialect. So it was, too, with
primitive man. Where circumstances were favourable the inhabitants
of the same locality, breathing the same air, and enjoying the same
food, would maintain a family likeness in the tongues they spoke;
but elsewhere all the causes of change would have had free play,
and the languages of mankind would have been as numerous as the
songs of birds. With the growth of society, however, language, the
great social unifier, became more and more fixed and settled;
though dialects continued to branch off, they each occupied a wider
area, belonged to a larger community, and retained their marks of
relationship to one another. When the first level of civilization had
been reached, the history of language entered upon a new phase.
Families of speech became possible, and the same causes that
produced permanence and stability in the customs and beliefs of the
community produced them also in the dialects that it used. The first
step had been made towards counteracting the anarchy of primæval
speech and attaining that ideal unity to which language tends. Here
and there the race may have deteriorated; the Hottentots, for
instance, with their developed dialects, may be the degenerate
descendants of more civilized ancestors; but the movement on the
whole has been forward and not backward. Science with a myriad
voices declares the ascent and not the descent of man. Our
civilization, it is true, like the languages that reflect it, is still
imperfect, is still far from the goal that it has in view. But we may
take heart from what has been achieved, and perhaps even look
forward to the day when there shall be not only one hope and one
faith, but also one language in which they shall find utterance.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III.

SPECIMENS OF MIXED JARGONS.
Maltese.
 St. John i. 1-14. (1.) Fil bidu kienet il kelma, u il kelma kienet
’aand Alla, u Alla kien il kelma. (2.) Dina kienet fil bidu ’aand Alla.
(3.) Kollosh biha sar; u minn ’aayrha sheyn ma sar, milli sar. (4.) Fiha
il ḥaỹa kienet, u il ḥaỹa kienet id dawl tal bniedmin. (5.) U id dawl
yilma fid dlamiyiet, u id dlamiyiet ma fehmuhsh. (6.) Kien hemma
bniedem mib’aut mn’ Alla, li ismu Jwan. (7.) Dana jie b’shiehed biesh
yished mid Dawl, biesh il koll yemmnu bih. (8.) Hua ma kiensh id
Dawl, izda kien biesh yishhed mid Dawl. (9.) Kien Dawl tas sew̃a, li
yuri lil koll bniedem li yiji fid dinya. (10.) Hu kien fid dinya, u id dinya
bih saret, u id dinya ma ’aarfetush. (11.) Jie fiḥ weyju, u niesu ma
laq’auhsh. (12.) Izda lil dawk kollha li laq’auh, tahom il yedd illi isiru
ulied Alla, lil dawka li yemmnu b’ Ismu: (13.) Li le twieldu(sh) mid
demm, u la mir rieda tal jisem, lanqas mir rieda tar rajel, izda mn’
Alla. (14.) U il kelma saret jisem, u ’aammret fostna (u rayna sebḥu
[or kburitu], bḥala sebḥ li mnissel-waḥdu mil missier), mimlia bil
graẓya u bis sew̃a.
Creolese (or broken Danish), the language of 39,000 negroes in
Danish West Indies, possessing no genders or numbers, declension
or conjugation. See Klauer-Klattowski, “Deutsche Orthoepie,” p. 108,
and J. C. Kingos, “Kreool A B C Buk” (S. Croix, 1770). The language
is really Dutch with Danish words intermixed.
St. John i. 1-14. (1.) In die Begin die Woord ha wees, en die
Woord ha wees bie Godt, en Godt ha wees die Woord. (2.) Die selve
ha wees bie Godt in die Begin. (3.) Almael gut ka maek door die
selve; en sonder die niet een gut ka maek, van almael, wat ka maek.
(4.) Die Leven ha wees in hem, en die Leven ha wees die Ligt van
die Mensen. (5.) En die Ligt ha skien in die Dysternis, en die
Dysternis no ha begriep die. (6.) Die ha hab een mens, Godt ha stier
hem, en sie naem ha wees Johannes. (7.) Hem ha kom tot een
Getiegnis, dat hem ha sal getieg van die Ligt, dat almael ha sal gloov
door hem. (8.) Hem no ha wees die Ligt, maer dat hem ha sal getieg
van die Ligt. (9.) Die ha wees die waeragtig Ligt, die verligt almael
Mensen, die kom na die Weereld. (10.) Hem ha wees in die Weereld,
en die Weereld ka maek door hem, en die Weereld no ka ken hem.
(11.) Hem ha kom na sie Eigendom, en sie eigen no ha neem hem
an. (12.) Maer sooveel ka neem hem an, na sender hem ka giev
magt for kom kinders van Godt, die gloov in sie Naem; (13.) Die no
bin gebooren van Blud, ook niet van die Wil van Vleis, ook niet van
die Wil van man, maer van Godt. (14.) En die Woord ka kom Vleis,
en ka woon onder ons, en ons ka kik sie Heerligheid, een
Heerligheid, als van die eenig gebooren Soon van die Vaeder, vol van
Gnaede en Waerheid.
Surinam Negro-English (or rather Negro-English-Dutch), spoken in
the Dutch colony of Guiana by at least 100,000 persons, of whom
10,000 are Europeans. See Greenfield, “Defence of the Surinam
Negro-English Version,” p. 17. It includes Spanish, Portuguese, and
French words. Nearly all its words end in a vowel, and it is nearly
devoid of grammar. It is called by the Negroes, Ningre-tongo or
Bakra.
St. John i. 1-14. (1.) Na begin da Woord ben de, da Woord ben de
nanga Gado, en da Woord ben de Gado srefi. (2.) Da ben de nanga
Gado na begin. (3.) Nanga hem allasanni ben kom, en sondro hem
no wansanni ben kom, dissi de. (4.) Da Liebi ben de na inni va hem,
en da Liebi ben de da kandera va somma. (5.) En da kandera de
krieni na dongroe, ma dongroe no ben teki da kandera. (6.) Gado
ben senni wan somma, hem neem Johannes; (7.) Da srefiwan ben
kom vo wan getingenis, va a getinge vo da kandera, va dem allamal
kom briebi nanga hem. (8.) Hem srefi no ben de da kandera, ma a
ben kom va takki vo da kandera. (9.) Datti da reti troe kandera, dissi
kieni gi alla somma dissi kom na kondre. (10.) A ben de na kondre,
en em srefi ben meki kondre; en kondre no ben sabi hem. (11.) A
ben kom na hem Eigendom, en dem somma va hem no ben teki
hem. (12.) Ma sa menni va dem dissi ben teki hem, na dem a ben gi
trangi, va kom pikien va Gado; dem, dissi briebi na hem neem. (13.)
Dissi no komoppo na broedoe, effi na wanni vo skien [nanga
broedoe], effi na wanni vo wan man, ma dissi ben kom gebore na
Gado. (14.) En da Woord ben kom somma, a ben liebi na wi mindri,
en wi ben si hem Glori, wan Grangglori, dissi fitti da wan Pikien va
Tatta Gado, foeloe va Gnade en Troefasi.[135]
 The broken Negro-Spanish of Curaçao which belongs to the Dutch
in the Caribbean Sea. See J. J. Putman: “Gemeenzame
Zamenspraken” (1853).
Matt. v. 1-12. (1.) Anto ora koe Hezoes a mira toer e heende nan,
eel a soebi oen seroe; deespuees eel a sienta i soe desipel nan a bini
seka dje. (2.) I eel a koemisa di papia i di sienja nan di ees manera.
(3.) Bieenabeentoera ta e pober nan na spiritoe, pasoba reina di
Dioos ta di nan. (4.) Bieenabeentoera ta ees nan, koe ta jora,
pasoba lo nan bira konsolaa. (5.) Bieenabeentoera pasifiko nan,
pasoba lo nan erf tera. (6.) Bieenabeentoera ees nan, koe tien
hamber i sedoe di hoestisji, pasoba lo nan no tien hamber i sedoe
mas. (7.) Bieenabeentoera ees nan, koe tien mizerikoordia, pasoba
lo heende tien mizerikoordia koe nan. (8.) Bieenabeentoera ees nan,
koe ta liempi di koerasoon, pasoba lo nan mira Dioos. (9.)
Bieenabeentoera ees nan, koe ta perkoera paas, pasoba lo nan ta
jama joe di Dioos. (10.) Bieenabeentoera ees nan, koe ta persigido
pa motiboe di hoestisji, pasoba reina di Dioos ta di nan. (11.)
Bosonan lo ta bieenabeentoerado, koe ta koos nan Zoendra i persigi
bosonan, i koe ta koos pa mi kausa nan ganja toer soorto di maloe
ariba bosonan. (12.) Legra bosonan i salta di legria, pasoba bosonan
rekompeensa ta grandi deen di Ciëloe; pasoba nan a persigi di ees
manera e profeet nan, koe tabata promee koe bosonan.
Indo-Portuguese, spoken in Ceylon and on the Indian coast by the
mixed descendants of Dutch and Portuguese, 50,000 of whom are to
be found in Ceylon. It omits cases, verbal suffixes, &c., and uses
auxiliary particles, being a mixture of Dutch, Portuguese, and Indic.
St. John i. 1-14. (1.) Ne o começo tinha a Palavra, e a Palavra
tinha junto de Deos, e a Palavra tinha Deos. (2.) O mesmo tinha ne
o começo junto de Deos. (3.) Todas cousas tinha feitas de elle; e
sem elle naõ tinha feita ne huã cousa que tinha feita. (4.) Em elle
tinha vida; e a vida tinha o Lume de homens. (5.) E o Lume te luze
em escuridade; e a escuridade nunca ja conhece aquel. (6.) Tinha
hum homem mandado de Deos, quem seu nome tinha Joaõ. (7.) O
mesmo ja vi por hum testimunha, pera da testimunho de o Lume,
que todos de elle pode cré. (8.) Elle naõ tinha o Lume, mas tinha
mandado pera da testimunho de o Lume. (9.) Aquel tinha o Lume
verdadeiro, que te alumia per cada hum homem quem ta vi ne o
mundo. (10.) Elle tinha ne o mundo, e de elle o mundo tinha
formado, e o mundo per elle nunca ja conhece. (11.) Elle ja vi per
seu mesmo povo, e seus mesmos nunca ja recebe per elle. (12.)
Mas per todos quantos quem ja recebe per elle, per ellotros elle ja
da poder pera fica os filhos de Deos, até, per ellotros quem ja cré
em seu nome: (13.) Quem tinha nacido, nem de sangue, nem de a
vontade de a carne, nem de a vontade de homem, mas de Deos.
(14.) E a Palavra tinha feita carne, e ja mora entre nos (e nos ja olha
sua gloria, a gloria como de o unigenito de o Pai), enchido de graça
e verdade.
It is needless to give a specimen of the Judæo-Spanish of Turkey,
which the Turkish Jews regard as their sacred language, since it is
merely the old Spanish of three centuries ago, moulded in
accordance with Hebrew idiom. Similarly the sacred language of the
Polish Jews is old German, mixed with Hebrew words and idioms.
Negro-Portuguese, originally introduced into Surinam by
Portuguese Jews, is now spoken only by one tribe of the free Bush
Negroes, the Saramaccans, on the Upper Surinam, who call it Djoe-
tongo, “Jews’ language.” There are no printed specimens of it.
Negro-French, spoken in Trinidad, San Domingo, Guadaloupe, and
Martinique, is explained in the excellent “Theory and Practice of
Creole Grammar” of J. J. Thomas (1869), and in a “Catéchisme en la
Langue Créole” (1842). Here is a specimen:—
St. John iv. 6. Apouésent, pîts Jacob té nans place là. Jésis, con li
té lasse épîs route li, assise bôd pîts la; et cété coté mindi con-ça.
(7.) Yon femme, gens Samarie, vinî haler dleau. Jésis dîe li: Bâ-moèn
boèr. (8.) Discipes li étant té aller nans boûq la gañèn povisions. (9.)
Alosse, femme Samaritaine la dîe li: coument fair ous, qui yon Juif,
ca mander dleau poû boèr nans lamain moèn, qui yon femme
Samaritaine? pâce Juifs pas ca méler épîs gens Samarie.
 CHAPTER IV.
PHONOLOGY AND SEMATOLOGY.

“Sind doch die Lautgebilde der Vorhang, hinter welchem das Geheimniss der Begriffe steckt, das vom
Sprachforscher Aufdeckung erwartet.”—Pott.

The skeleton of language is formed by those phonetic utterances into which significancy must be
breathed before they can become living speech. They are the outward vestment of the thought that lies
within, the material in which the mind of man finds its expression. Thought, it is true, may be conveyed
through gesture and picture-writing as well as through phonetic utterance, but in phonetic utterance
alone does it find a vehicle sufficient and worthy of itself. Like the marble in the hands of the sculptor,
however, sound not only embodies meaning; it also limits and defines the expression of that meaning,
and confines it within barriers which it may not pass. The language of man is conditioned by his
physical structure and organization.
What anatomy is to physiology, that phonology is to the science of language. Comparative philology is
based upon phonetic laws; the relation of words, of forms, of dialects, and of languages is determined
by the laws which govern their outward shape. Languages are grouped together because they have a
common stock of roots and a common grammar; and the identity of roots and of grammar is on the
outward side an identity of phonetic sound. The laws of scientific philology are for the most part the
laws which regulate the change of sounds, and these are dependent on the physiological structure of
the organs of speech. The priority of sounds, of words, and even of dialects, is frequently to be
discovered by an appeal to the formation of the throat and lips. We may lay down the general rule that
the harder sound passes into the easier, rather than the easier into the harder; but it lies with
phonology and physiology to determine which is really the harder sound. It is phonology which has
created the modern science of language, and phonology may therefore be forgiven if it has claimed
more than rightfully belongs to it or forgotten that it is but one side and one branch of the master
science itself.
The empirical laws of the interchange and equivalence of sounds in a special group of tongues are
ascertained by comparative philology; the explanation of these laws, the assignment of their causes, the
determination of the order followed by phonetic development or decay, belong to the province of
phonology. Phonology touches on the one hand upon physics in so far as it is concerned with the
analysis of the sounds of speech, and on the other upon physiology in so far as it studies the nature
and operations of the vocal organs themselves. It is, in fact, as much a branch of physiology as it is of
the science of language, dealing as it does with a special department of physiology; but it passes
beyond the province of physiology when it investigates the nature of the sounds produced by the
activity of those organs with which alone physiology is concerned. But whether it touches upon
physiology or upon physics, phonology is equally one of the physical sciences, pursuing the same
method and busied with the same material. So long as philological research is purely phonological, so
long have we to do with a physical science; it is only when we turn to the other problems of glottology,
only when we pass from the outward vesture of speech to the meaning which it clothes, that the
science of language becomes a historical one. The inner meaning of speech is the reflection of the
human mind, and the development of the human mind must be studied historically. Those, therefore,
who refuse to regard glottology as other than a physical science, take as it were but a half-view of it;
they are forced to confine themselves to its outward texture, to be content with a mere description of
the different families of speech and their characteristics, like the botanist or the zoologist, and to leave
untouched the many questions and problems which a broader view of the science would present to
them. It is true that even upon the broader view, the method of the science is as much that of the
physical sciences as the method of geology; it is also true that the doctrine of evolution has introduced
what may be termed the historical treatment even into botany and zoology; but nevertheless linguistic
science as a whole must be included among the historical ones, unless we are to narrow its province
unduly and identify it with the subordinate science of phonology. The physical science will give us the
skeleton of speech, the dry bones of the anatomist’s dissecting-room; for life and thought we must turn
to history.
We must not forget, however, that we can understand the past only by the help of the present. An
antiquarian study of philology will enable us to trace the history of words and forms, to group languages
into families, and to discover the empirical laws of phonetic change; to interpret and verify these laws,
to correct our classifications and conclusions, to learn what sounds really are, we must examine the
living idioms of the modern world. The method of science is to work back from the known to the
unknown, and if we are to study glottology to any purpose and to extend and confirm its
generalizations, it must be by first observing and experimenting on actual speech. We must begin by
disabusing our minds of the belief that words consist of letters and not of sounds; on the contrary,
letters are at best but guides to the sounds they represent, and only the experienced student of actual
sounds is in a position to determine their real value. Phonology stands at the threshold of linguistic
science, and those alone who have honestly wooed and won her can enter into the shrine within. The
physical science leads upward to the historical science; the key to the past is to be found in the present.
Now the first question we have to ask is, What is a sound? The most general answer we can give to
this question is that a sound is the impression made upon the organs of hearing by the rapid swinging
of an elastic body in an elastic medium, which is usually the air. The vibrations set on foot by this rapid
swinging reach the ear under the form of waves, and these may succeed each other at either irregular
or regular intervals. In the first case we have what is called a noise—a source of constant delight to the
savage and the infant, but exceedingly painful to the sensitive ear. In the second case musical tones are
produced, among which must be counted the utterances of articulate speech. Tones, or rather full tones
(as opposed to partial ones), are distinguished from each other by their (1) strength or loudness, their
(2) height or pitch, and their (3) quality or timbre. The strength depends upon the amplitude of the
vibrations produced in the elastic medium, the pitch on the number of the vibrations in any given space
of time, or, what amounts to the same thing, on the length of time occupied by each vibration, and the
timbre (also called “tone”) on the form assumed by the vibrations or waves of sound, that is to say, on
the relations of the vibrations one to the other.
There are but few musical instruments that produce a simple tone; in fact, among those usually
employed the tuning-fork is almost the only one from which we can hear it. All other musical tones
result from a combination of simple, or as they have sometimes been termed, “partial” tones, whose
double vibrations or “swing-swangs,” as De Morgan named them, stand to one another in the relation of
1, 2, 3, 4, &c. The Pythagoreans of the fourth century b.c. were already acquainted with the fact that
the respective lengths of the fundamental note with its octave, fifth and fourth, must be as one to two,
as two to three, and as three to four.[136] This fundamental note, or deepest partial tone, is the
starting-point from which we ascend upwards; it forms the standard by which the pitch or ascending
scale of sounds is measured, while the remaining partial tones go by the name of the harmonics or
upper tones. The partial tones coalesce so closely into a full tone as almost to escape the notice even of
the trained ear, but their co-existence may be easily detected by the help of resonatory instruments.
The full tones themselves, however, which we shall henceforth call tones or notes,[137] may not be able
to make the impression upon the nerves of hearing needful for conveying a sense of sound to the brain
within. The tone produced by any number of vibrations less than sixteen a second is wholly inaudible
except by the help of the microphone, and even this number of vibrations brings out so deep a pitch as
to be scarcely perceptible.[138] “For practical purposes,” says Professor Max Müller,[139] “the lowest tone
we hear is produced by thirty double vibrations in one second, the highest by 4,000. Between these two
lie the usual seven octaves of our musical instruments. It is said to be possible, however, to produce
perceptible musical tones through eleven octaves, beginning with sixteen and ending with 38,000
double vibrations in one second, though here the lower notes are mere hums, the upper notes mere
clinks.” The sense of sound is not stronger and more trustworthy than the other senses of sight, of
touch, of taste, of smell. On all sides we are strictly limited by the conditions which surround us, and
even science, though she may assist the senses by instruments which enlarge and extend their powers,
reaches at last a boundary which she cannot pass. The world is a vast sounding-board, even if we know
it not; the infinitesimally small and the infinitesimally great alike lie beyond our apprehension. Above
and below there is infinity, and “the music of the spheres,” of which the old Greek thinkers dreamed, is
not, after all, so very far removed from the truth that science has revealed to us. The notes or partial
tones that we hear are the purely mechanical product of a definitely determined number of double
vibrations, and the variations in pitch we notice between them are due to the length of time occupied
by these vibrations. If, for instance, one note takes half the time another does, if the number of
oscillations in the second is twice that required by the fundamental note, the interval between the two
notes is what is called an octave. If, again, the proportion between the two notes is as three to two,
three waves of the one occupying the same time as two waves of the other, the interval between them
is a fifth; while a major sixth represents the interval between two notes, which stand to each other as
five to three. Consequently, if we divide into two equal parts a tense cord, which, when made to vibrate
throughout its whole length, yields its fundamental note, and vibrate either part, we shall hear the
octave above that fundamental note. In other words, the number of the vibrations of any two cords
having the same degree of tension is (other things being equal) inversely as their length. In the case of
two elastic rods or rigid tongues, the number of vibrations is inversely as the square of the length;
hence an elastic rod six inches long will vibrate four times more rapidly than a rod of the same material
and equal thickness twelve inches long. The number of vibrations is also dependent on the thickness
and tension of the cords or rods, being inversely as the thickness of the cords and directly as the
thickness of the rods, and in both cases proportional to the square root of their tension. It must be
remembered that membranous tongues like our own chordæ vocales, act in accordance with the same
general law as tense cords and not as elastic rods.
Every body capable of producing sound has a tone peculiar to itself; a stringed instrument, for
instance, and a trombone differ in the tones they give forth, and we may even divide the air into
definitely circumscribed portions, or “chambers of resonance,” each of which will have its own peculiar
tone. The form assumed by the double vibrations, the ultimate causes of sound, determines these
differences in the quality of the tones we hear. Sometimes the vibrations will run in zigzag course
through the elastic medium; sometimes their shape will be rounded; sometimes, again, it will be
angular. The simplest wave of sound, that produced by a tuning-fork, flows in a succession of spiral
lines, and the partial tones or harmonics of other instruments may also be assumed to be so many
simple waves of sound of the same form. In fact, even if a harmonic may be resolved into a
combination of other harmonics or partial tones, and these again into yet simpler and fainter harmonics,
we must come at last to simple notes, corresponding with the note emitted by the tuning-fork and
composed of vibrations that have the same spiral shape. It is the varying amalgamation of these simple
spirals that occasions the varying forms of the full tones; each full tone (the simple tone alone
excepted) being made up of harmonics and consequently of their spirals in different proportions, and in
this difference of mixture lies the difference of quality in the tones we hear.
Ohm, Fourier, and others first proved that the simple pendulous oscillation is the only vibration
unaccompanied by harmonics, and that all full tones can be decomposed into the simple vibrations of
which they consist. Helmholtz has now ascertained the exact form of many of these compound tones,
as well as the conditions under which the by-notes or harmonics are present or absent. In the violin, for
example, as compared with the guitar or the pianoforte, he finds that the primary note is strong, the
partial tones from two to six weak, and those from seven to ten clearer and more distinct.[140] He was
first led to detect the variations of form they assume by applying a microscope to the vibrations of
different musical instruments, and the fact was further confirmed by the discovery made by himself and
Donders that the sounds articulated by the human voice are composed of vibrations which each assume
their own special shape. The phonautographs since constructed by Scott and König actually delineate
the forms of these waves of sound either on a plate of sand, or in the flickerings of a gas-flame, or in
the movements of a writing pencil, and the microscopic examination of the impressions produced by
articulate sounds in the tinfoil of the phonograph shows a series of indentations of various but
determinate shapes.
 The number of forms which can be assumed by the waves of sound is naturally limited in kind, while
various bodies may emit sounds containing the same harmonic or partial tone. The quality or timbre
which depends on the relation and strength of these partial tones, and of the composite form assumed
by the sum of their vibrations, constitutes what we have called a peculiar tone. This, as we have seen,
is a simple one in the case of the tuning-fork, but in other cases it forms part of a full or complex group.
We may find an illustration in the characteristic lines of light which we learn from the spectrum analysis
are projected by substances; where we are dealing with a simple elementary substance, the line thrown
upon the spectrum is correspondingly simple; where, on the other hand, the substance is compound, its
spectrum also is compound, reflecting the several chemical elements of which it is made up. The simple
spectrum answers to the simple harmonic or partial tone with its varying pitch and invariable form, just
as the compound spectrum answers to the full note or peculiar tone with its characteristic quality and
diversified grouping of partial tones. Now, if a body which has a certain peculiar tone is struck by a
sound which contains a partial tone in any way similar to this peculiar tone, the body in question
vibrates in sympathy, and we hear what is known as a by-note or harmonic. This by-note reacts upon
the partial tone which has caused it, strengthening the partial tone and so modifying the quality of the
complex sound. If, for instance, we play a note such as C on a violin, the strings of a piano representing
C as well as the harmonics allied to it will vibrate in sympathy. Of course the more elastic the body
which is struck, the louder and clearer will be the by-note, and of all elastic bodies none are better than
those chambers of resonance into which we can divide the air. Such chambers of resonance are
afforded by wind instruments of all kinds, whose shape determines the peculiar tone they are to emit. If
the instrument is so constructed as to change its shape at will, now round, now straight, now broad,
now narrow, the number of different chambers of resonance, and consequently the number of different
peculiar tones, may be almost indefinitely increased.
It is this variability of form which makes the human throat such a marvellous instrument for the
production of manifold sounds. Like most chambers of resonance, it has the hollow reed-like shape
which connects it most readily with the primary source of sound. In analyzing the material of language
we must never forget that we have to do with the most perfect wind instrument that exists, a wind
instrument, too, of infinite pliability and power of change, and thus in constant and ready sympathy
with the harmonics that are struck by the other organs of speech.
We must now pass from the science of acoustics to the science of physiology. We have seen what are
the conditions under which musical notes are produced, we have also seen that among these musical
notes the utterances of articulate speech have to be classed; we have next to examine into the nature
and conformation of the physical organs to which these utterances owe their origin. In the first place,
the organs of speech may roughly be divided into three groups:—the breathing apparatus, or lungs, the
trachea or windpipe with larynx and bronchial tubes, and the chamber of resonance or mouth and nose.
The lungs provide the material which is worked up into inarticulate noises and articulate sounds by the
trachea and chamber of resonance. As long as the breath flows out of the throat and mouth quietly and
without interruption language of any sort is out of the question. The organs of speech are at rest, and
all that can be done is to propel the breath with greater or less violence. We may breathe hard through
the mouth, we may even make noises like that of snorting through the nose, but as yet there is nothing
which can constitute a starting-point for articulate speech.[141] Mere breath, as distinguished from
voice, only supplies the material out of which words and sentences may afterwards be created. Voice is
breath, acted upon and excited into waves of sound by the organs of the throat and mouth; a larger
quantity of air than is needed for simple breathing is rapidly taken into the lungs, and immediately
expelled in intermittent gusts, but with varying degrees of force. Almost all the sounds we utter are
accompanied by exspiration; only such sounds as an occasionally mispronounced ja in Germany or our
own surprised Oh! are produced while the breath is being drawn in. Experiment will at once show how
difficult it is to pronounce a sound at the same time that this is being done.
The breath, then, is the passive instrument through which language is formed by the trachea and
chamber of resonance. This trachea is a long cartilaginous and elastic pipe ending in the bronchial
tubes, through which the air is admitted to the lungs. Its upper part is termed the larynx, consisting of
five cartilages and situated in the throat. The lowest of these cartilages is the cricoid, which resembles a
ring with the broad flat surface turned downwards. Over this comes the cartilago thyroidea or Adam’s
apple, with two wings which partly enclose the cartilago cricoidea, and form a link between it and the os
hyoideum,[142] or bone of the tongue, which has somewhat of the shape of a horseshoe. The space
surrounded by these two cartilages may be compared with a hollow reed, out of the back part of which
a piece has been cut. From the base of the latter and the upper rim of the cartilago cricoidea spring two
small pyramidal cartilages, the arytenoids, which resemble the horns of an ox and almost touch one
another. Their roots are connected with one another and with the cricoid and thyroid cartilages by the
so-called processus vocales, which in spite of their name have little to do with the formation of speech.
The horns of the arytenoids serve to unite two elastic bands to the opposite surface of the thyroid
cartilage. These bands are formed of muscle enveloped with mucous membrane, and are the famous
chordæ vocales upon which as upon the strings of a piano the manifold modulations of human language
are played. So long as they remain, the other vocal organs, not excluding the tongue, may be removed
without depriving the patient of the faculty of articulate speech.[143] Their length differs in men and
women, in children and adults; the average length in men being about one-third greater than in
women, and occasioning the different pitch of male and female voices.[144] The two chordæ vocales run
obliquely across the cavity enclosed between the thyroid cartilage and a small projection on the front
part of the arytenoid cartilage, an aperture which is called the glottis, or glottis vera. They can be
relaxed or contracted at will by the muscles of the cartilages to which they are attached, and a portion
of them can even be deadened by pressure from a small protuberance on the under side of the
epiglottis. The glottis itself is divided into two parts, one the space between the vocal chords and the
lateral thyro-arytenoid and crico-arytenoid cartilages, the other the triangular space between the vocal
chords themselves, the latter allowing a passage for breath, the former a passage for voice. Both
spaces can of course be narrowed or enlarged by the contraction or relaxation of the vocal chords, and
the junction of the latter will close one or both altogether. It is in this secret chamber that the phonetic
substance of speech is moulded into shape; the vibrations of the chordæ vocales in the breath of the
glottis are the ultimate cause of syllables and words.
Above this chamber of the voice the trachea or windpipe again widens, and a second chamber is
formed by two cavities on either side, called the ventricles of the larynx (the ventriculi Morgagni). Each
cavity leads, at the back, into a pouch of the mucous membrane called the laryngeal sac and covered
with sixty or seventy mucous glands, the secretion from which acts like oil on a piece of machinery by
keeping the vocal chords and the surrounding parts in a moist condition. Stretched across the cavities
are two thick ligaments, the false vocal chords, like the true chordæ vocales below them. They differ
from the vocal chords in having no muscle of their own, but like the latter can contract or enlarge at
pleasure the false glottis (glottis spuria), the space, that is, which is enclosed between them. The false
glottis, which, like the false vocal chords, takes no part in the creation of language, is shut by an elastic
cartilage, called the epiglottis, the lower point of which is attached to the thyroid cartilage immediately
above the chordæ vocales, while the upper end broadens out like a leaf and falls over the fissure of the
false glottis. This corresponds with the entrance of the larynx. The upper surface of the epiglottis is
concave, and in swallowing it is allowed to drop upon the larynx. At other times it may be depressed
over the false and true vocal chords.
Such is the machinery whereby breath from the lungs is transformed into voice in its passage through
the windpipe; and voice is next taken up by what we have termed the chamber of resonance and
modified in various ways. If we may call the glottis the manufactory of voice, we may call the mouth
and nose the manufactory of the articulate sounds into which voice is divided. At the back of the
epiglottis lies the pharynx, leading into the œsophagus, and the pharynx is bounded on the side of the
mouth by the posterior pillar or arcus pharyngo-palatinus, opposite to which is the anterior pillar or
arcus glosso-palatinus. Between them are the tonsils, and above these again the uvula, a sort of
pendent valve which hangs downwards from the top of the anterior pillar towards the posterior pillar
behind. The uvula is attached to a piece of yielding muscle known as the soft palate or velum palati,
which with the uvula separates the throat from the entrance to the nostrils. The soft palate can move
either backwards or forwards; in pronouncing the guttural (ng) for instance, it is pressed forward
against the tongue, shutting off the throat; in pronouncing the vowels, on the other hand, it is pressed
backward, and so cuts off the flow of breath to the nose. Above the soft palate comes the arch of the
hard palate or roof of the mouth, and below this the tongue with its two roots and pointed tip. The
teeth that enclose the mouth, along with their alveolars that form the front wall of the hard palate, have
much to do with the formation of specific sounds, while it is hardly necessary to refer to the
phonological importance of both nose and lips. As is well known, a leading characteristic of cultivated
English is the little use it makes of the latter.
It is now time to consider the precise parts played by these different organs of speech, in producing
the various elements of spoken language. We must begin by putting out of sight all inarticulate sounds
or noises, such as the clicks of the Bushman or the Hottentot, which have entered into the composition
and framework of actual speech. Such inarticulate sounds are but the stepping-stones to real language,
the first steps of the ladder, as it were, which were eventually to lead to articulate words. They are the
natural cries of man like the natural cries of the animals from which they in no way differ; and just as
on the one side the barking of the dog and the mewing of the cat are said to be attempts to imitate the
human voice, so on the other hand the inarticulate cries of the infant or “non-speaker” are on the same
level as the roar of the lion or the shriek of the cockatoo. We are told that the cynocephalic ape of the
Upper Senegal, whose form is depicted on the monuments of ancient Egypt, utters clicks which
sometimes contain a distinct d,[145] and the Bushmen themselves show a true instinct when they make
the beasts in their fables talk not only with the clicks of the Bushman dialects, but even in the case of
some animals with clicks that do not otherwise occur.[146] If we watch the first endeavours of children
to speak, we may discover inarticulate noises gradually becoming articulate sounds with definite
meanings, and we may even trace a recollection of the first efforts of man to create a language for
himself in the guttural aspirates heard for instance in some of the Semitic dialects. Indeed, the name
given to the hard breathing (h) by the Greeks, πνεῦμα δασύ or “rough aspirate,” reminds us of the
guttural noises, not yet phonetic sounds, made by the child; in forming this sound we jerk out the
breath at the same time that we narrow the glottis, adding if we like various degrees of hoarseness by
further stopping its free flow. The glottal catch, which is heard in Danish after vowels, and according to
Mr. Bell is substituted in the Glasgow pronunciation for “voiceless stops,” is really a mere cough. Even
the spiritus lenis or soft breathing, heard before a vowel, partakes in some measure of the nature of a
noise. It is true that the rough breathing cannot be sung while the soft breathing may be; but this is
because in the case of the latter the breath is checked near the vocal chords and can therefore be
intoned. Professor Max Müller is doubtless right in holding that all that the Greeks meant by πνεῦμα
ψιλόν as opposed to πνεῦμα δασύ was “a negative definition of another breath which is free from
roughness,”[147] just as the ĕ-´psilon is negatively contrasted with the êta. Neither breathing was
regarded as constituting as yet a true sound or “voice.”
The true sounds of language, however, were distinguished but roughly and imperfectly one from the
other. Plato, in his Kratylus, divides them into φονηέντα or “vowels,” and ἄφωνα or “mutes,” these last
being further subdivided into semi-vowels which are neither vowels nor mutes (φωνηέντα μὲν οὔ, οὐ
μέντοι γε ἄφθογγα) and ἄφθογγα or real mutes. The term ἄφωνα, mutes, afterwards came to be
restricted in its sense as a simple equivalent of Plato’s ἄφθογγα, its place being taken by the term
σύμφωνα or “consonants,” letters, that is to say, which must be sounded along with a vowel. These
consonants were next classed as ἡμίφωνα or semi-vowels (l, m, n, r, and s), ὑγρά or “liquids” which
covered all the semi-vowels with the exception of s, and ἄφωνα or “mutes.” The mutes fall into three
classes, the ψιλά or “bare” (k, t, p), the δασέα or “aspirates” (kh, th, ph) and the μέσα which stood, as
it were, “between” them. The Latin translation of the latter term has given us the mediæ of modern
grammars.
Far more thorough-going and scientific were the phonological labours and classification of the Hindu
prâtiśâkhyas. Instead of starting from written speech like the Greek grammarians, they had to do with
an orally-delivered literature, and hence while the Greeks never got beyond the belief that the tongue,
teeth, and lips were the sole instruments of pronunciation, the Hindus had carefully analyzed the organs
of speech some centuries before the Christian era, and composed phonological treatises which may
favourably compare with those of our own day. They knew, for example, that in sounding the tenues, or
hard letters, the glottis is kept open, while in sounding the mediæ, or soft ones, it is closed; they knew
also that e and o were diphthongs analyzable into a + i and a + u; and they explained k and g, p and b,
as formed by complete contact of the vocal organs. They had noted the repha or “Newcastle burr,” and
had divided the nasals into their several classes. The names they gave to the various sounds, and the
groups into which they were classified, were descriptive of their mode of formation, like the names
similarly applied by modern phonologists. Thus the guttural sibilant formed near the root of the tongue
(χ) was called Jihvâmûlîya, “the tongue-root letter,” and the labial sibilant (φ) Upadhmânîya, “to be
breathed upon.” The consonants were classed both according to the place where they were formed, and
according to their prayatna, or “quality,” the mutes and nasals, for instance, being formed by “complete
contact” of the vocal organs, the semi-vowels by “slight contact” (îshat sprishṭa), the sibilants by “slight
opening” (îshad vivṛita), and the vowels by complete opening. A controversy even sprung up among the
grammarians as to the extent of this opening of the organs. “Some ascribe to the semi-vowels
duḥspṛishṭa, imperfect contact, or îshadaspṛishṭa, slight non-contact, or îshadvivṛita, slight opening; to
the sibilants nemaspṛishṭa, half-contact; i.e., greater opening than is required for the semi-vowels, or
vivṛita, complete opening; while they require for the vowels either vivṛita, complete opening, or
aspṛishṭa, non-contact.”[148]
Leaving the speculations of the past, let us now pass on to the results which have been obtained by
modern research. Thanks to the labours of men like Alexander Ellis, Melville Bell, Helmholtz, Czermak,
Brücke, Sweet, and others, the mechanism of speech has been fairly settled; and though many points
are still open to discussion, the main facts have been thoroughly ascertained and adequately explained.
We have learnt the real nature and causes of those phonetic elements of speech which the old
grammarians first tried to separate and classify; we have cleared away the confusion from which even
the Vedic scholars of India could not wholly escape, and have discovered that in phonology as
elsewhere, the convenient systems of practical life do not bear a close scientific investigation. Even the
ordinary distinction of vowels and consonants is exposed to more than one objection. It rests not upon
the essential character of the sounds themselves, but upon mere differences of function, and its
advocates have to invent a series of semi-vowels or semi-consonants, a name which of itself indicates
how incomplete and unsatisfactory the distinction must be. The distinction, indeed, has a basis of fact,
but the fact is one which has been misapprehended or overlooked.
Apart from the respiratory organs which supply the fuel, the chief agents in the manufacture of
speech are the throat and mouth. The breath, as it makes its way upward, passes the vocal chords,
causing these to vibrate; and while the forms taken by the vibrations determine the quality or timbre of
the sound to be uttered, the very essence of a vowel, for instance, consisting in the quality of the voice,
the number of the vibrations determines its pitch.
In the pitch we have to distinguish between two things, the chest or true notes and the head or
falsetto notes, respectively due to the position and action of the vocal chords. In the chest notes the
vocal chords are stiffened and laid side by side, so that when the flow of breath comes from the lungs,
they are forced aside for a moment, to spring back the next and cause a series of intermittent puffs of
breath. In the falsetto notes, on the other hand, the muscles of the vocal chords are not contracted, nor
is the glottis wholly closed; hence only the inner membrane of the chords is set in motion by the breath,
and instead of actually meeting one another, the chords merely narrow or enlarge the aperture of the
glottis.[149]
The forms assumed by the vibrations depend, of course, on the anatomical structure of the vocal
chords, their greater or less elasticity, and the like. Besides quality and pitch, however, we must also
take account of the intensity of the sound, this intensity or emphasis arising from the force with which
the stream of breath is expelled from the lungs, and the corresponding strain of the muscles of the
trachea and vocal chords.
In whispering, the amount of intensity is considerably diminished, though the pitch is quite as distinct
as in loud voice. The glottis is not completely closed, but the upward flow of breath is not strong
enough to do more than produce a sort of friction, or imperfect vibration in the vocal chords. The latter
incline towards each other on the side furthest from the arytenoids, and so give the glottis a triangular
shape; the larynx, however, may also assume other forms. Hence it is that we may distinguish three
kinds of whispered voice. We may either have a soft whisper, where the whole glottis is narrowed, and
the force with which the breath is emitted is very slight; or a medium whisper, where the force is
greater, and only that part of the glottis left open which lies between the arytenoids; or a loud whisper,
where the force is considerable, the false vocal chords are in close contact, and the epiglottis bent stiffly
downwards, allowing but a very small opening for the escape of the breath. A loud whisper is rare; a
medium whisper the most common. Sighing, it may be added, is produced above the larynx, which
takes no part in its production; when the vocal chords are brought into action, the sigh becomes a
groan.
It needs but a short experience to discover the numberless varieties of voice that may exist, and it is
not uncommon for a blind man by this means not only to distinguish the age and sex of those he
meets, but even to recognize his friends. In fact the human voice, from the deepest male to the highest
female voice, has a range of nearly four octaves, the lowest note being E, produced by 80 vibrations per
second, and the highest C, produced by 1,024 vibrations per second. But Vierordt has shown that in
extreme cases its range is nearly 5½ octaves, from F (produced by 42 vibrations) to A (produced by
1,708 vibrations). In the same individual it is rare for the range of the voice to be more than two
octaves, and in ordinary speech it is generally only half an octave. These different notes are due to
changes in the length and tension of the vocal chords and their approximation or separation, the lower
notes, for instance, requiring them to be longer, looser, and more widely separated than in the case of
the higher notes, and consequently to admit a larger but less rapid current of air. It has been calculated
that 240 different states of tension of the vocal chords must be accurately producible at will, in order to
cause all the notes and intermediate tones heard in a perfect voice of ordinary range. Madame Mara
could effect no fewer than 2,000 changes. The four chief varieties of the voice—the bass, the tenor, the
contralto, and the soprano—are dependent on differences of pitch, that is ultimately on differences in
the length of the vocal chords. The bass and the tenor with the intermediate baritone characterize the
man, the contralto and soprano with the intermediate mezzo-soprano characterize the woman. The
lowest note of the contralto is about an octave higher than the lowest note of the bass, the highest
soprano about an octave higher than the highest tenor. Sometimes, however, we find a bass voice
singing the higher notes of a tenor, and yet at the same time remaining bass. The reason of this is that
the various kinds of voice differ not only in pitch, but also in timbre. This is caused by differences in the
vocal organs. The larynx of women is smaller than that of men; the angle formed by it in front is less
acute, and the cartilages are softer. The voice of boys is either contralto or soprano, like that of women,
though generally different in tone. There is, however, no difference in the larynx of either boys or girls
up to the age of puberty, when in the case of boys it rapidly increases in size, and the vocal chords
become longer, thicker, and coarser.
The elevation or depression of the larynx exercises a certain modifying influence upon the voice.
When the voice is raised from a low to a high pitch, the whole larynx, together with the trachea, is lifted
towards the base of the skull. The exact way, however, in which the trachea and the parts above the
glottis affect the voice is by no means clear. The thyro-arytenoid muscles, which extend from the
arytenoids to the recessed angle of the thyroid cartilage, have much to do with the production of these
higher tones. They narrow the diameter of the larynx just below the vocal chords, and the diminution of
the calibre of the wind-tube nearest the chords thus occasioned heightens the pitch. On the other hand,
the pitch is made to fall by semitones when the tube is lengthened. In short, the greater the strength of
the current of air the higher is the pitch. The depression of the larynx produces the so-called veiled
voice (vox clandestina), the larynx itself being then covered by the entire pharynx, the root of the
tongue approximated to the palate, and the voice being thus made to resound in the upper part of the
pharynx under the skull.
The precise nature of ventriloquism is not quite certain. J. Müller states that it may be produced by
speaking through an extremely narrow glottis, during a very slow exspiration, performed only by the
lateral walls of the chest, a deep inspiration having been first taken, so as to cause the protrusion of the
abdominal viscera by the descent of the diaphragm. Magendie, however, considers it to be produced in
the larynx by variously modifying the voice so as to imitate the changes otherwise effected in it by
distance.
 The character of the voice is necessarily modified by changes in the structure of the vocal organs,
whether due to old age, to weather and climate, to exhaustion, or to disease. In old age the ossification
of the cartilages, the diminution of muscular and nervous power, and the degeneration of the larynx,
make the voice weak, tremulous, and “piping.” In damp chilly weather the voice is often lowered by as
much as two or three notes: indeed, nothing affects it more rapidly than a damp and depressing
atmosphere. Exhaustion, again, accounts for the dissonance sometimes perceived in the voice of
singers, while inflammation of the lining membrane of the larynx, and other diseases, will impair or
wholly destroy the power of utterance. Loss of voice during a bad cold is a familiar instance of the latter
fact.
Lisping, stammering, and other kinds of imperfect speech, are mainly due to nervous disease,
stammering being usually caused by temporary spasm of the glottis. Too high a palate is another cause
of irregular utterance. Dumbness, when not occasioned by deafness, as is generally the case, must be
ascribed either to malformation of the vocal organs, or, more commonly, to disease of the nervous
centres. Whistling, it must be remembered, results from the vibration caused by the friction of the
breath against the edges of the open lips, and is wholly formed in the mouth.
The mouth, or chamber of resonance, is especially important for the creation of articulate speech. On
the one side there are a great many sounds which owe to it their origin, on the other side even the
sounds which are formed in the throat are necessarily modified in passing through the mouth. While t,
p, or k have no existence until the voiced breath has reached the region of the mouth, the vowels which
are formed in the throat cannot be heard in their pure and original state, but must pass through a
chamber of resonance and so become more or less transformed. The throat, again, may remain passive,
but the mouth must always be active. Of course the mouth forms a chamber of resonance not only for
the sounds produced by the throat, but also for those produced by itself; the larger part of the mouth,
for instance, forms a chamber of resonance for the palatal ch. We must remember, moreover, that a
sound can be more variously changed and modified, the larger and more variable is the part of the
mouth which serves as a chamber of resonance, that is to say, the further back the place is in which it is
manufactured. The vowels consequently come first in capability of modification, then the gutturals and
dentals, and finally the labials. It has often been observed that children when learning to speak are apt
to change a guttural into a dental, and say do instead of go, the guttural being formed further back
than the dental, and so undergoing a greater amount of modification in its passage through the mouth.
A vowel is voice freely emitted through the throat and mouth without interruption, and modified only
by the different positions assumed by the tongue. The essence of a vowel is the quality or timbre of the
voiced breath, and this quality, as we have already seen, is due to the varying forms taken by the
vibrating vocal chords when played upon by the breath. Necessarily, however, the quality of the voice as
it leaves the throat must be always the same, since the throat is a musical instrument which possesses
its own peculiar tone. What, then, is the cause of the differences we notice in the quality of the vowels?
Simply the mobility of what we have called the chamber of resonance, the manifold shapes the organs
of the mouth are able to assume being so many musical instruments, each with its peculiar tone. The
partial tones or harmonics which go to make up the quality of the voiced breath are strengthened by
the corresponding peculiar tones of the several shapes assumed by the mouth, while at the same time
those harmonics which do not agree with the peculiar tones are dulled or deadened. Hence a vowel is
the quality of voiced breath produced by a combination of the forms of the vibrations of the vocal
chords with those of the vibrating air in the various shapes taken by the chamber of resonance. The
pitch of the vowel depends of course on the number of vibrations during the time of utterance, and may
be detected even when the vowel is whispered. Indeed, as Donders and Helmholtz have shown, every
vowel has its characteristic pitch, whether it is voiced or whispered. The different vowels can be heard
in cases of aphonia, where the vocal chords are more or less paralyzed, while the vox clandestina is
able to rise or fall. This is explained by the fact that even in whispering a certain friction is exercised on
the vocal chords. If, for instance, we whisper the sound of ü, and then let the whisper gradually pass
into a whistle, we shall always get the same tone, and Professor Max Müller thinks that the indications
of musical pitch in the whispered vowels must be treated as “imperfect tones; that is to say, as noises