Rhetoric, Science, and Magic in Seventeenth-century England

Conclusion

203 Conclusion The Importance of Philosophy of Rhetoric )( Most new philosophers accepted the existence of charmed rhetoric. their attitudes toward such rhetoric , however, distinguished their activities from the occult methods of magicians and the preternatural modes of witches. Unlike magicians and witches, the experimentalists investigated enchanted language. they applied new science to various realms of esoterica , following Bacon’s mandate to seek out prodigious cases in nature, those peculiar instances where events seem to contradict or transcend what is known about natural law. Experimentalists made magic and witchcraft proper objects of philosophical inquiry. By applying scientific methodology to mysterious practices , they strived for greater insight into the workings of the world. Most important for philosophers of rhetoric, this included the workings of charmed eloquence . Writers attuned to the new philosophy were not out to debunk spell casting. Rather, they wanted to distinguish between authentic and spurious cases of 204 PhilosoPhy of rheToriC it. For most modern philosophers, bewitchment was a real threat to Restoration society, as is evidenced by witchcraft’s premier position as a dangerous idiom in the period’s religious controversies. Sprat’s critique of witchery and Locke’s admonition against the Devil ’s beguiling rhetoric are enough to remind us that demonic eloquence loomed large in the minds of the Royal Society’s prominent members. But through scientific study, these advancers of learning believed that they would be better equipped to protect themselves from demonic conjuration. they also believed that they would be better prepared to protect England from the discourses of diabolical sorcery, appearing in the forms of astrological bedazzlement, nonconformist furor, Catholic and Lutheran mysticism, and Rosicrucian enchantment. Moreover—and this is where the rhetorical reforms come into play—the new experimentalists needed an instrument through which to carry out a study of charmed eloquence, a mode of language safely removed from the magical and mystical rhetorical ideas that they wished to identify as either demonic or credulous. this is the starting point of the plain style reforms. the challenge was to create a style, a philosophy of style, by which the esoteric could be talked about, but not invoked, intimated, or otherwise involved . the problem with talking about mysterious rhetoric while simultaneously existing in the twilight of an occult rhetorical paradigm is that the language itself is prone to carry quasi-magical intimations . the advancers of learning comprehended this challenge. they did not want to cast spells while arguing against spell casting, and so they resolved to write in a plain way. that is, they created a modern philosophy of rhetoric, one in which tropes operated as mere ornaments, rather than charmed devices capable of transmogrifying reality. For occult philosophers and other practitioners of the mysterious arts, this plain mode of writing was entirely wrongheaded from the beginning, because it was based upon a fundamental misunderstanding of rhetoric’s nature. In the occult Renaissance cosmos, language itself was imbued with reality, and it imbued reality. Rhetoric could in fact change lead into gold, transmute hearts, and drag rocks and trees with it, if applied properly by the practiced sorcerer, as the PhilosoPhy of rheToriC 205 story of amphion illustrated in the classical world. Because it had natural spiritual force ordained by the Creator, rhetoric could never be a disinterested instrument for the Renaissance magicians. Contrarily ,forthenewexperimentalists,languageneededtobeabsolutely disinterested, unsympathetic in the magical-rhetorical sense, if a proper accounting of nature’s book was to be written. Most importantly , this included a non-enchanted understanding of style. Herein lies the fundamental dissociation of sensibility on the rhetorical level. new philosophers reformulated the very nature of what rhetoric was and how it functioned in the world. In a maneuver that itself seems almost magical, experimentalists transformed the numinous idioms of the occult Renaissance cosmos into cold matter. they turned golden words into lead words, by the standard of the Renaissance magus. and as one crucial consequence, rhetorical style became for the modern sensibility a mere adornment for the life of the mind, an incidental decoration, rather than a substantiation of content , as it functioned in occult philosophies of rhetoric. What, then, is the wisdom in my account of the seventeenthcentury plain language reforms? While I have answered this question throughout, I would like here to re-emphasize a couple of ideas. to begin, we must be careful not to impose upon late Renaissance rhetoric a contemporary understanding of style, which remains in many academic...