Chamfort - Morals

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Chamfort, Doctor of Morals: The Maxim and the Medical

Aphorism in Late Eighteenth-Century France

DAVID McCALLAM

The increasing prestige of medicine as a science. accompanied by the social

rise of the doctor, in eighteenth-century France is w e l l - d o c ~ m e n t e d . ~What Iwould like to argue here, however, is that there exists a correspondencebetween the establishment of medicine as an independent field of study in

eighteenth-century France and the increasing use and influence of a nautonomous Form ofmedical discourse, namely, the aphorism, in this period.This is no t so m u c h a question of the language used by the more renowneddoctors of the day but of a form of discourse deeply imbued and associatedwith medical practice. (It is nonetheless true that certain famous physicians

colnbined inedical and literary roles. For instance, Theophile Bordeuintervenes significantly in Diderot's Le Re i~ed'dler i~bert ,and Vicq d'Azyr,Marie-Antoinette's doctor, was elected to the Acad6mie Franqaise in 1788. ina sort of social consecration or medical discourse, implicitly incorporating hismedical figure and figures into the socio-linguistic norms of 'l e bon usage'promoted by the Academie itself.) Yet what interests me particularly here isthe insinuation of the medical aphorism itself into other fields of late

eighteenth-century discourse, notably those of literature and politics, thetraditional domains of the maxim.

To explore this phenomenon in more detail we need first to understandjust what the term apl7orisn1e meant in late eighteenth-century France. TheDictiorlr?clire de l'Acarleii?ie Frclrzqaise (1762) gives the following definition:'Aphorisn?e. Proposition qui r en re rn ~een peu de rnots une maxime generale.Les Aphorismes dlHippocrates. Les aphorismes de medecine sont fondes surI'experience." Two important points are made in this definition: the term istraced back to Hippocrates (a trait consiste~ltljrfound in other dictionaries ofthe t ime) and it is associated with empirical medical practice. In fact. thesetw o things go hand in hand. Hippocrates, author of the classical medicalwork entitled Apl~or isms,was adopted as a figurehead by m an y of the moreenlpirically minded doctors of the late eighteenth century, in opposition tothe increasingly discredited Galenic pathology of the 'humours'. [is such,Hippocrates is identified with a scientific practice (empiricism) which,already in its conternporar j~English incarnatioln, claimed as its founderanother influential practitioner of the aphoristic form: Francis Bacon.British joui-r7nl !or Eigl l teer1t l7-Cer7t~rr .yS t f l d i e s 25 ( 2 0 0 2 ) , p.roj-111 r: B S E ~ ~I ~ L - ~ ( , T S


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Moreover, in this maxim, the medical practice in question is further affirmedas 'habile' - ironically, a term of approval of the doctor's slcilfulness herewhich is, however, a synonym for deceit in classical moralist prose.T7Maxim 526 also couches its political injunctions in a medical form of

expression. prescribing a course of action to its political 'patients': 'I1faut que[I'Assemblee nationale]', 'Les lkgislateurs doivent faire L...]'. And if theaphoristic qualities evident in maxim 526 do not seem to abridge orcondense this particular maxim syntactically, there is nonetheless aforeshortening in the semantics of its proposition. ' rhus Chamfort's use ofthe dead metaphor of the political 'constitution' is resuscitated, so to speak.by its l ~ e w l yacquired medical context. As in maxim 117,the medical Iigurewhich seems only to illustrate the general a r g u m e n t of the maxim effectivelyshapes its whole meaning; the extended analogy to a particular medicalpractice which closes the maxim revises the sense of the general proposition

preceding it.TsThus the revolutionary constitution of 7791 is reinvested in Chamfort'smaxim with physiological as well as political significance. A reinvestment of

meaning which is not without importance, since it transforms the Nation not

only into a living organism but implies its susceptibility to disease(conspiracy from within) and potential mortality (the need for self-preservation against enemies from without). It also contributes to theambiguity of th e term Constitution, which. as ICeith blichael Balcer hasshown, represents one of the major dynamics of revolutionary change,especially from 1791-1793.''

More significantly, perhaps, Chamfort's adoption and adaptation or themedical aphorism of his day also maltes it a specific vehicle for discursivechange too. By its transmission of highly partisan political sent iment .coupled with its direct appeal to the reader, Chamfort's use of the medicalaphorism allow~shim to furnish a median term betureen the classical moralmaxim and the revolutionarjr political slogan. This development of the[unction of his serzterztiae is every bit as practical as it is theoretical. For it wasCh an lfo rt ~ 7 h ofamously gave Sieyes the incisive title and series of rhetoricalquestions prefacing his inflammatory brochure of 1759: Qu'est-ce que le TiersEtat?20 More pertinently still, as John Renwiclc has shown. Chamfort wasdirectly involved in writing republican and revolutionary propaganda in late1792,~'It was also at this time tha t, according to Roederer, Chamfort coinedthe revolutionary slogan 'Guerre aux chGteaux! paix aux chaumieres!' toaccompany the French troops into Belgium in late 1792 n d early 1 7 9 3 . l ~

So I would conclude by arguing t ha t Chamfort's innovative use of themaxim owes much to the medical aphorism of his time. More specifically, his

direct and partisan maxim-aphorisms give the lie to the more commonliterary notion of 'aphorism' when applied to Chamfort's sententious prose: anotion which defines it as being 'a game of boxes within boxes which cannever be finished or won. [...l So it is with Chamfort that the maxim becomesa game of language played for its own salce, that the poetic takes precedence


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Chamfort - Morals