The Idea of Character in the Encyclopedie

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The Idea of Characterin the Encyclopedie

PATRICK COLEMAN

MOST STUDIES of the Encyclopedie have, quite naturally, empha-sized those aspects of the work that express either bold criticism of theancien regime or the even bolder attempt to establish new modes ofphilosophic and scientific thought. Taking their cue, perhaps, fromDiderot's own admission of the relative weakness of the semantic,lexicological, and literary parts of the text, critics have neglected themand it is only recently that attention has been drawn to what might becalled the discourse of the Encyclopedie.1 That there is a verbal as wellas a conceptual ordering of its subject matter s suggested by Diderot inhis article Encyclopedie, 2 where he tries to distinguish among thevarious levels of order in the work. The article, is of course, mostly

programmatic n nature, but it does reflect, as the Discours preliminairedoes not, the actual process of compilation and composition. It is thisexperience that leads Diderot to acknowledge the lack of explicit treat-ment of linguistic problems in the volumes already published; thisfailing is, however, compensated by a greater eeling for what is actuallyinvolved in the writing as opposed to the planning of the work.

Diderot sees five levels of order in an encyclopedia. Of these, fourtouch on familiar hemes. That the most general plan of the work should

conform to the division of the mind into its component aculties; hat the1 See Walter Moser, Les Discours dans le Discours preliminaire, Romanic Review, 47

(1976), 152-67; and D'Alembert: L'ordre philosophique de ce discours, MLN, 91 (1976),722-33. Among studies of individual articles may be mentioned R. Grimsley, Turgot's Article'Existence' in the Encyclopedie, in From Montesquieu o Laclos (Geneva: Droz, 1974), pp109-24; and Stephen Werner, Diderot's Encyclopedie Article 'Agnus Scythicus, ' Studies onVoltaire and the Eighteenth Century (hereafter SVEC), 79 (1971), 79-92. The present essay isperhaps closer to the type of appreciation ound in R. Barthes, R. Mauzi, and J. P. Seguin,L' Univers de 1'Encyclopedie (Paris: Les Libraires associes, 1964).

2 All references are to the original edition of the Encyclopedie (Paris, 1751-65). Spelling hasbeen modernized. Diderot's article Encyclopedie, written n 1755, appears n Volume V. Some

interesting emarks n Diderot' approach o language may be found in Jacques Proust, Diderot etles problemes du langage, Romanische Forschungen, 79 (1967), 1-27.

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22 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY TUDIES

space allotted to each science should be determined by the specialistsand not according o some abstract measure mposed from without; hatthe account given of a science or art should proceed by means ofprinciples rather than by description; that, in other cases, the ordershould be the genetic one of the transformations ndergone by a sub-stance as it is shaped by human purpose-these principles are wellknown to be vital to the philosophic enterprise. There is also thealphabetical order of the entries, which is merely a matter of conveni-ence, and whose arbitrary nature will be softened by the system ofrenvois. Yet even here Diderot sees a source of potential order, the one

qui distribue convenablement plusieurs articles compris sous unememe denomination. There are, he writes, des termes solitaires quisont propres -a une seule science, et qui ne doivent donner aucunesollicitude. Quant 'a ceux dont l'acception varie et qui appartiennentplusieurs sciences et 'a plusieurs arts, il faut en former un petit systemedont l'objet principal soit d'adoucir et de pallier autant qu'on pourra abizarrerie des disparates.

The term bizarrerie, usually taken as characteristic of Diderot's

later thought, testifies to the philosophe's awareness in 1755 that thevaunted program of the Discours preliminaire must confront the vag-aries of ordinary usage and even the abus de metaphores that bringtogether disparate meanings under a single head. The task of the encyc-lopedist is not only to classify the products of human thought andingenuity according to a logical pattern, not only to establish new andsometimes subterranean onnections between phenomena through therenvois, but to account for the links unwittingly and yet inevitably

forged by language itself. II faut . . . se laisser conduire tantot par lesrapports, quand il y en a de marques, tantot par l'importance desmatieres; et au defaut de rapports, par des tours originaux qui sepresenteront d'autant plus frequemment aux editeurs qu'ils auront plusde genie, d'imagination et de connaissances. It is with such discursive

turns that we shall be concerned n examining the entries, eighteen nall, under the title Caractere. 3

Why this particular erm? My project had been to investigate the

problem of characterization n the literature f the period, especially thelink between ideas of literary and moral character as they affect, and areaffected by, creative works. I was struck, n the process, by the ubiquity

3They appear n Volume II. For a complete enumeration, ee R. N. Schwab, W. E. Rex, and J.Lough, Inventory of Diderot's Encyclopedie, in SVEC, 83 (1971), 183-84, where they are giventhe numbers (II) 5510-27.



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CHARACTER IN THE ENCYCLOPEDIE 23

and resonance of the very term caractere (or character ) ineighteenth-century iscourse. Like esprit, or mceurs, it is one ofthose terms whose precise meaning is difficult to pin down but whichplay a key role in the Enlightenment attempt to redefine the shape ofman's moral and cultural life. The philosophes spoke not only of thecharacter of an individual or of a literary igure, but of the character fthe work itself, or of a nation, or even of a sex. In such contexts, the termoften signifies an elusive essential quality, yet when botanists spokeof the characters of a plant, they claimed to refer to reliable physicalmarkers essential to scientific classification. Finally, caractere was,and still is, used to designate symbols used in writing. Today, this lastsense is of little moment, but in a century ascinated by hieroglyphs anduniversal characteristics, ts implications were the focus of considerableattention. The task of gathering all these meanings nto le tout le moinsirregulier et le moins decousu is thus a challenging one, and theattempt n the Encyclopedie to fulfill Diderot's program n this instancetakes us to the heart of some of the central problems of Enlightenmentthought.

This essay, then, analyzes the entries under Caractere not only fortheir content, but for the manner of their arrangement nd articulation.Although it will be important o note specific sources and influences inthe individual articles, the originality of the Encyclopedists s of secon-dary importance o the use they make of their material, to the overallpattern of meaning that emerges from the work. In a sense yet to bedefined, my purpose is to relate the semantic field of caractere towhat I would call the character of the work they have given us to read.

That we are, indeed, called upon to read, in an active sense, thearticles in question is indicated by the fact that, far from handing us thesynthesis promised n Encyclopedie, Diderot offers, in Caracteresd'imprimerie, a most provocative and puzzling invitation o make ourown connections. This passage is an indispensable complement to the

programmatic bservations in the former article.Caracteres d'imprimerie, certainly the most well known of theCaractere articles, concludes discussion of the various instances ofcaractere as written or inscribed symbol-for Diderot the literal

meaning of the word-and Diderot's remarks erve as a transition o itsfigurative extensions.



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Le mot dont il s'agit n'est pas le seul qu'on ait transporte u propre au figure: onpeut dire avec assez de verite que presque ous les mots de la langue sont dans cecas. I1 en est meme quelques-uns qui ont perdu eur sens propre, et qui n'ontplus que le metaphorique, comme aveuglement et bassesse; d'autres quis'emploient plus souvent au sens metaphorique qu'au sens propre; t d'autresqui s'emploient egalement et aussi souvent dans 'un que dans 'autre; aractereest de ce nombre. Voici les principales acceptions au figure: elles ont toutes,ainsi que les acceptions de cette espece, un rapport plus ou moins eloigne ausens propre; c'est-a-dire, qu'elles designent une sorte de marque ou d'em-preinte subsistante avec plus ou moins de tenacite: on peut meme ajouter que lemot caractere est de ceux oiu le sens propre differe le moins du figure.

The apparently obvious connection between the senses of carac-tere is asserted, but not shown. It is, in fact, made less obvious by thecomparison with aveuglement and bassesse, examples that func-tion as implicit renvois. The first points to d'Alembert's article Av-eugle, which quotes extensively from Diderot' condemned Lettre surles aveugles (1749), a text that played upon the relation between physi-cal and metaphysical or metaphorical blindness in the depiction of theblind man Saunderson. As Diderot found out, there are concrete politi-cal consequences to the figurative use of words, the blindness of theauthorities having a far more debilitating effect than any physical hand-icap. D'Alembert focuses on the evolution of the word aveuglement,remarking hat ce mot n'est usite que dans un sens moral, et ce n'estpas le seul de notre langue qui ne se prenne que metaphoriquement,and suggesting the use of cecite for literal blindness. He, too, refersus to Bassesse, thus passing implicit udgment on the metaphoricallybut willfully blind. Bassesse, however, is an indignant protest byDiderot against an unfair extension of a word whose proper meaning is

lowliness of economic status but which is used to condemn thecharacter of those in that unfortunate position. Here is an unwarrantedproximity between senses that should give us pause when we considerthose given to caractere. Diderot's on peut meme ajouter in thetext cited above is deceptively casual in tone, as if his final remark mightnot really follow logically from the rest. Diderot's unease might stem,however, from a sincere desire to see the various uses of the term

coincide at some level, so that language, purified of abusive interpreta-tions, might be able to mark correctly the true features of the world.Such a wish would be most appropriate t the end of an article dealingwith the techniques of printing, where the technical advances of the artenable more stable and versatile instruments of communication toemerge. But it is finally up to the reader o make what connection he can



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among the articles devoted to caractere, encouraged and warned atthe same time by the editor's ambiguous words.

The entries are, then, divided into two groups. In the first, literalgroup, we find a general article on the history of writing by d'Alembert,followed by a series of specialized entries on the signs and symbols usedin arithmetic, astronomy, chemistry, pharmacy, and other systems ofabbreviation. Caracteres d'imprimerie akes pride of place at the endof this section, by its length and its many illustrations, as a primeexample of Diderot' technical skills. The figurative group beginswith an entry on character in morals, followed by Caractere desnations and Caractere des societes ou corps particuliers. The use ofthe term in theology, especially as sacramental character is thenexplained. The abbe Mallet contributes a series of articles on Carac-tere, dans les personnages, d'un ouvrage, en parlant d'un au-teur, all dealing with literature, and two briefer entries on botanicaland artistic characters conclude the series.

We should ask, first, what possible senses have been excluded fromthe Encyclopedie. A survey of contemporary dictionaries enables us to

get a rough dea.4 Most obvious to a literary eader s caractere n thesense of a literary portrait n the manner of La Bruyere, who is nowherementioned n the text. This is certainly surprising.5 Two other meaningsfound in the dictionaries are caractere as the distinctive handwritingof an individual, and caractere as a sortilege, which the Academydefines as lettres ou figures auxquelles le peuple attribue une certainevertu, en consequence d'un pacte pretendu avec le diable. The first ofthese may have been too simple to require comment, and the second

belongs to a world of superstition hat the Encyclopedie chooses in thiscase to neglect rather han satirize. On the other hand, the dictionariestend to lump together the moral, social, and other literary senses underthe general heading of distinctive feature, and here the Encyclopedieis at pains to discriminate among these meanings. It should be noted,

I These include the dictionaries of Richelet (1680), Furetiere edition of 1727), Tr6voux 1732),and the Academie (edition of 1762). Chambers's Cyclopaedia (London, 1728) provides some of thematerial on which the Encyclopedie articles are based, especially in the sections on scientificsymbols, but is silent on those meanings of 'character' elated o moral questions, and ts discussionof literary character, despite superficial resemblances to Mallet's, is quite different in scope, theexamples all being taken from classical antiquity where Mallet's are all modem.

I There might, however, be a personal reason. Diderot's mistress, Mme de Puisieux, hadpublished n 1749 a work entitled Les Caracteres, premiere partie, but the relationship had cooledoff by 1751 and n fact there was a violent quarrel between herself and Mme Diderot n Decemberofthat year. The omission of an entry on the caractere as a genre (included n Chambers's work) mayreflect these vicissitudes. See Diderot, Correspondance, ed. G. Roth and J. Varloot Paris: Minuit,1955-70), I, 118-19.



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too, that neither n the dictionaries nor in the Encyclopedie does carac-

tere have the medical or properly psychological sense it sometimes hastoday: this is a nineteenth-century evelopment.6For the Encyclopedists, all the various entries on caractere find

their place among the signs that make up the Science de l'instrumentdu discours, which is, in turn, part of the Art de communiquer apensee, one of the main divisions of logic. At least, this is what we aretold at the beginning of the series, where, as usual, reference s made tothe systematic tableau of knowledge presented in the Discours pre-liminaire. According to this scheme, caractere is a means of talkingabout hings, even when it refers to moral or botanical characters, hat s,to qualities that seem rooted in the things themselves. Of course, thedifferent subheadings n the series locate the particular ciences of which

caractere s an element, but the overall situation of' caractere s, inline with Diderot's remark, among the means of communication, notamong its subject matter. To what extent these means are given to us bythe world, and to what extent they are nvented, properly or improperly,by human agency, is a central issue underpinning he juxtaposition ofliteral and figurative caracteres n the plan of the Encyclopedie. Theliteral should not, however, be confused with the given, nor the figura-tive with the invented. As Diderot and d'Alembert try to show, our useof language s so problematic hat what appears o us at any time as givenmay be in fact the figurative meaning, and we may, conversely, have

literalized a meaning we have projected onto an object or person.What is at stake, rather, is the appropriate use of words in differentcontexts and the connections made through words like caractere

across these contexts. At the intersection of these polarities would bewhat Diderot calls the tours originaux required of the editors of anencyclopedia, and, in the ideal case, of the reader too.

In the spirit of Diderot' exhortations, I shall begin with the entry onbotanical character as perhaps the clearest instance of the relationbetween the instruments of communication and the marks of thenatural world. I shall then take up the articles on literary characteriza-tion, where of necessity the link between the means and the objects of

communication is very close, if not always clear, whatever view isfinally taken of the mimetic value of art. I shall next advert o the moraland social meanings of the term, and then to the religious ones. Theentries on written characters n general will be considered ast, bringing

6 As in the expression troubles caracteriels. This latter derivative of caractere dates from1841.



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us back to our point of departure in Diderot's Caracteres d'im-

primerie, and the Encyclopedie itself.

The question of nomenclature n natural history was much discussedin the 1750s.7 The publication of the first volume of Buffon's Histoirenaturelle (1749) marked the beginning of a long and sometimes ac-rimonious debate over the value of Linnaeus's system of classificationof botanical features or caracteres. The terms of the dispute arereflected in Jaucourt's entry on Caractere, terme moderne debotanique, which he defines as ce qui la [la plante] distingue essen-tiellement de toute autre chose. The problem is in the essentielle-ment. What is essential depends on the type of classification envis-aged, on what kind of description (itself called, metonymically, a

caractere ) best fits scientific needs, which include both faithfulnessto reality and internal oherence and convenience. Jaucourt moves fromhis first definition, which seems to imply that the caractere is in theplant, to an explanation of two kinds of description divided just on thispoint. There is the caractere artificiel, celui dans lequel on decritseulement quelques parties de la fleur, en gardant e silence sur es autresparties, que par la methode qu'on a proposee, l'on suppose inutiles.. . . This is the system of Linnaeus, who suggested that a clear andadequate nomenclature could be developed using the variations n thereproductive mechanism of the plant. It is an artificial selection of thefeatures deemed most relevant, and is arbitrary o the extent that theselection is made before an exhaustive study of all plants, a study that,

for Linnaeus, cannot be carried out without some sort of guideline.Linnaeus did hope that his system, with modifications, would eventu-ally become a natural one in extent and accuracy, and his insistenceon the artificial nature of his nomenclature reflected in part a deepsuspicion of finalistic elements in the natural classifications pro-posed by others.8 This was not always recognized at the time, andJaucourt's reference to the uselessness of the features neglected inLinnaeus's system alludes to a criterion emphasized by Buffon in his

I See F. A. Bather, Biological Classification: Past and Future, Quarterly Journal of theGeological Society, London, 83 (1927), lxii-civ; W. T. Steam, Linnaeus's Species Plantarumand the Language of Botany, Proceedings of the Linnaean Society, London, 145, (1952-53),158-64. For Buffon, the edition of his Oeuvres philosophiques, ed. Jean Piveteau (Paris: P.U.F.,1954), and Otis Fellows, Buffon's Place in the Enlightenment, SVEC, 25 (1963), 603-29.

8 A. J. Cain, The Natural Classification, Proceedings of the Linnaean Society, London, 174(1961-62), 115-21.



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rival method, that of social utility as opposed to scholarly conveni-

ence. For Buffon and his French contemporaries, Linnaeus's systemappeared reactionary in its apparent concentration on simplicity ofidentification. In Daubenton's article Botanique, methode, to whichJaucourt efers us, it is dismissed as a mere art de la memoire. To it,Daubenton9 pposed the prudent and practical method of Buffon who,suspicious indeed of all methods, called for a complete description ofthings before any attempt at a formal nomenclature.

This description Jaucourt defines as the caractere naturel, celui danslequel on designe toutes les parties de la fleur, et l'on en considere lenombre, a situation, a figure et la proportion. Of course, this is a hugeundertaking, and Buffon did not suggest that no classification at allshould be allowed before its completion. He conceded the necessity forpreliminary ollocations based on the empirical basis of familiar experi-ence. This led him, unfortunately, o group together things, especiallyanimals, according to their place in a humanly organized context, andhis criterion of utility, intended as a realistic corrective to abstractcategorizing, tended to impose a different kind of distortion in theselection of essential features.10

Jaucourt does not take a position on the relative merits of the twosystems. The importance of his brief article lies rather in the way itpoints out the difficulty in arriving at suitable instruments f discoursefor the analysis of natural objects. This is all the more important s eachplant's essential qualities emerge by comparison with other plants,part by part, not by perception of a self-evident mark such as MichelFoucault describes when he contrasts the taxonomic obsession of the

classical period with the earlier assumption hat each entity bore its ownspecial manifest sign, open to individual recognition. The influence ofthat conception s still felt in the choice of the word essentiellement ina context that deprives it of its traditional resonance. What concernsJaucourt s simply that one entity should not be taken or another hrougha confusion of perspective.

It is interesting o see how the emphasis on techniques of descriptionis carried over into the following article on caractere in painting.

Once again, character s defined as what distinguishes a thing fromanother, and the author, Landois, considers how this should be ex-I Pierre Daubenton 1703-76) was the brother of Buffon's famous collaborator. The identifica-

tion of this and other contributors o the Encyclopedie is facilitated by J. Lough, The Contributorsto the Encyclopedie (London: Grant and Cutler, 1973).

10 Buffon, Oeuvres philosophiques, pp. xxx-xxxii.I Les Mots et les choses (Paris: Gallimard, 1966).



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pressed on canvas. But he notes a shift in usage that may be traced back

to the esthetics of Roger de Piles.12 On dit beau caractere de tete, nonseulement pour dire qu'elle exprime bien la passion dont la figure estaffectee; mais on le dit aussi pour e rapport du dessin convenable a ettememe tete. Rapport I take to mean the formal integrity of thedrawing itself, since it appears to be distinguished from the mimeticfidelity of the picture. The next paragraph, ndeed, sees the object'sfeatures as mediated by the painter's alent. Caractere de dessin se ditencore pour exprimer la bonne ou mauvaise maniere dont le peintredessine, ou dont la chose en question est rendue. This emphasis on theimportance of drawing recalls de Piles's dictum that caractere s lesel du dessin, 1'3 and therefore a central aspect of painting as such.Landois's article follows his example in moving from caractere as aquality of objects to caractere as a technique of expression.

What is remarkable here is the lack of any allusion to a specificcriterion or the judgment of character or the appreciation f its expres-sion. There s no essentiellement, oddly enough, in this artistic entry,to signal a concern for peculiar accuracy or intensity of effect. Na-ture, for instance, does not appear in the text except through anenumeration f some of its objects, each requiring a different touchefrom the painter, but the source or ground of beauty n the caractere snot made clear. But Landois's article is a short one. We must turn toMallet's entries on literary character or a more extended discussion.

Edme Mallet's article on Caractere dans les personnages may betaken as representative of critical reflection on the subject in the yearspreceding Diderot's landmark essays of 1757-58. According to

d'Alembert,14 he abbe's intention n his literary works was basically apedagogical one, reformulating he consensus of his contemporaries.His essay is useful, therefore, in determining what was generally un-derstood by the term in dramatic criticism at midcentury.

Caractere, then, for Mallet, qu'un poete dramatique ntroduit urla scene, is l'inclination ou la passion dominante qui eclate danstoutes les demarches et les discours de ces personnages, qui est leprincipe et le premier mobile de leurs actions; par exemple, l'ambition

dans Cesar, lajalousie dans Hermione, . . . l'hypocrisie dans Tartuffe,etc.

12 See his Idee du peintre parfait, in his Abrege de la vie des peintres (Paris, 1699).13 Abrege, pp. 71-72.14 Eloge de I'Abbe Mallet, in Oeuvres (Paris: B&lin, 1821), III, 476-80. See also Franco

Venturi, Le Origine dell'enciclopedia (Florence: Einaudi, 1946), pp. 35-37.



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Les caracteres en general sont les inclinations des hommes consid-

erees par rapport a leurs passions.Caractere does not designate the dramatic igure itself, but refersto the basic tendencies expressed through the personnage. It isinteresting to note that, whereas in England at this time, characterwas coming into use in the former sense, 5 his evolution of the term didnot take place in French, no doubt because of the rather trict demarca-tions between genres that limited its use to certain forms of comedy.Another sign of conservatism is the restriction of the discussion todramatic character: no mention is made of prose fiction in the article.Within this conventional ramework, however, one feature stands out asan even more significant omission. The enlightened Mallet, taking aneutral stance in the study of human nclinations, makes no mention ofthe nobility and baseness traditionally ascribed to tragic andcomic character. This lack of prejudice reflects also, however, theseparation of character from moeurs in the classical sense, and theisolation of both of these from plot, the action-context of character s setforth n Aristotle. If the essence of character s in the rapport between

inclination and passion, between the enduring disposition of an agentand the dramatic ource of his action, the reduction of character-analysisto a formal classification makes that relationship problematic. In theprevious articles we saw the hesitation n viewing nature as the ground ofcharacter. The problem now is in locating character n human nature andinteraction, as embodied in art.

What is interesting about Mallet's discussion is the focus on tech-niques of composition, and the very looseness of his conceptions. The

unity imposed on character by commonplaces about moral and socialstatus has not yet been replaced by the assumption of a psychologicalwholeness synthesizing the various character-features nto a new iden-tification of character with the personality of the literary figure.Psychological coherence can easily allow moral assumptions o reap-pear in a new guise. Our attention s, instead, redirected o the constitu-tion of character as a problem of discourse. What, outside the usualgiven cultural boundaries, makes the unity or wholeness of dramatic

character? What are ts essential traits? The hesitation between an ethical(in the Aristotelian sense) and a psychological view of character s alsovaluable for the difficulties it reveals when character s deprived of anyintegrative setting at all, as often happens in criticism today. In thisrespect we are not strangers o the predicament confronted by Mallet.

15 The OED gives instances from Tom Jones (1749) as early examples of this use.



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The abbe distinguishes irst of all between the caracteres generauxcommon to all nations and the caracteres particuliers hared either bythe people of a single nation or by a social group (the court, the town)within the nation. There are, he says, in all times and places ambitiousprinces preferring political glory to love and vice versa, heroines whodistinguish hemselves by their noble spirit, and so on. Under he secondcategory of characters may be found those features or types portrayed nthe new and distinctly French genre of the comedie de caractere, ofwhich Le Misanthrope and Le Glorieux are examples. By proceedingbackwards from the works to society, Mallet avoids consideration ofwhat constitutes the typicality of these characters, of the way generaland particular caractere are integrated nto a single personnage.Within each work, the characters have their own definition: he gener-ality, ' in an esthetic sense, of the particular igure is not a problem. Aruling passion is its own rule, and the enduring success of a work is itsown guarantee of value. Mallet does point out that there are certainsridicules attaches a un climat, a un temps, qui dans d'autres climats etdans d'autres temps ne formeraient plus un caractere, such as the

preciosity of Moliere's precieuses ridicules, but this difficulty is thepurely contingent one of a change in fashion. Characters differ enconsequence des usages etablis dans la societe, nothing more, and thegeneralizations about dramatic suitability refer to no other critical au-thority than that of a generally accepted repertoire of geographical andhistorical characteristics. It is perhaps this absence of normative con-straint that enables Mallet to pass easily from the sources of carac-teres to their arrangement n the formal structure f the work, without

fretting over the problem of general mimetic fidelity. He does hold inreserve one touchstone of value, but he introduces t only after ollowinghis analysis of general and particular haracters with a further distinctionbetween what he calls caracteres simples et dominants and carac-teres accessoires within the structure f the play. These are analoguesof the former categories on the level of form.

By these internal caracteres, Mallet designates the hierarchy anddistribution of attributes and passions that give rise to the dramaticconflict. Since each role is, theoretically, defined

by one main charac-teristic, it is easy to identify dominant and subordinate haracters withthe leading and secondary actors. This is part of Mallet's meaning. Hecites Riccoboni to the effect that there should be different degrees ofcharacterization n order that the interest and attention of the spectatorsnot be divided: there must be only one hero. The adoption of a formal



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view of character does not, it seems, entail a freedom from any outsideconstraint. This is apparent also in the other sense in which Malletspeaks of internal characters: as the different passions within eachdramatic person. Although he had defined caractere as the dominantinclination, he feels the need to emphasize the difference betweendominant and accessory characters, as if caractere had lost some ofits force of meaning. He recognizes that ambition, for instance, is oftenaccompanied by suspiciousness, inconstancy, and other passions, but inorder that the character not be at odds with himself -be consistent interms of the play -these other aspects must be subordinated o the rulingpassion.

This leads to a dilemma. On the one hand, it seems as if charactermust be rescued from incoherence, as if its natural endency is to loseclarity of outline and fail to attract attention. On the other, the claritywished for by Mallet, within and among the persons of the play, wouldremove most of the sources of conflict and interest in the drama as awhole. Certainly, the actual repertoire discussed by Mallet containsworks in which the problem of character s recognized by him to be more

complex. Following the ideas of the actor-director Luigi Riccoboni,whose Observations slir la comedie et slir le genie de Moliere (Paris,1736) supplies a number of Mallet's examples, the latter adduces LeMisanthrope, where Celimene, although a caractere subalterne,shares the spotlight with Alceste without fragmenting the audience'sinterest. This is, of course, because Alceste is a more problematic ase:he threatens to disrupt the play altogether by the force of his rulingpassion. Riccoboni senses this when he writes: Si l'on ne veut pas

convenir que le Misanthrope oit un caractere purement metaphysique;on doit du moins avouer qu'il l'est en partie, puisqu'on ne peut le mettreau rang de ces caracteres communs dont le genre humain nous presentedes modeles 'a chaque pas ... 16 Alceste is nothing if not a distinctcharacter, so much so that he needs an opposing interest to counter hisinfluence and bring him back to earth, so that he might continue tointerest he audience. As in Rousseau's Lettre a d'Alembert, the discus-sion of Moliere's masterpiece is a test case for the analysis of theconnection between dramatic omposition and audience response. Mal-let is compelled to confront he context of reception of the work, lest hisown formalistic approach apse into metaphysical error.

Why is it that Mallet emphasizes the ordering of caracteres in ahierarchical arrangement? t is because he fears the spectators might not

16 Riccoboni, p. 39.



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be able to tell the difference between the various characters and misdi-rect their sympathies. The problem of composition gives way to that ofinterpretation s the apparently elf-evident distinction between domi-nant and accessory characters s subordinated o a preoccupation withthe reception of the work, over whether the distinction will comethrough.

We recall that severing the connection between caractere andmceurs at the beginning of the article enabled Mallet to take a freer,

more impartial view of the different kinds of human characters. Theunreliability of the contemporary public requires taking moeurs intoaccount once again, only now there is no means of doing so. Mallet hasdefined caractere as the inclination qui eclate dans toutes ses de-marches et les discours de ces personnages (emphasis mine). Eclatmust be taken here in a strong sense, as involving a recognition by theaudience of the special effect of each character n the play, and asmanifesting his effect with an intensity belied by the concern for formalarrangements. Mallet is forced to change his ground o accommodate heaudience's ability and willingness to see in the character what the

character hould n some sense make manifest. For the first time, Malletinvokes the concept of nature, but only to show how it fails to provide asolution. He asks si l'on peut et si l'on doit, dans le comique, chargerles caracteres pour les rendre ridicules. D'un cote, il est certain qu'unauteur ne doit jamais s'ecarter de la nature, ni la faire grimacer: d'unautre cote, il n'est pas moins evident que dans une comedie on doitpeindre le ridicule, et meme fortement . . . For the sake of moraledification, Mallet concludes that exaggeration is permissible, whendone

with tact. Qu'on caracterise es passions fortement, 'a a bonneheure, mais il n'est jamais permis de les outrer. An ethical measurethus reappears at the end of Mallet's article and modifies the concept ofcharacterization n the text, by making the recognition of character anexplicitly cultural process as well as a simple cognitive procedure.

Other articles in the Caractere series will describe the role ofcharacter n moral life, but before we come to them it is worth goingfurther nto the problem of literary recognition and its eclat. Since thearticles Caractere d'un ouvrage and Caractere, en parlant d'unauteur take as their point of departure author and work as part of acultural nstitution, they serve as a useful transition o the wider socialsphere.

In both these articles (written, most likely, by Mallet)17 we find the17 Caractere d'un auteur s signed by Mallet. Caractere d'un ouvrage, which immediately

precedes it, is probably by the same hand.



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same persistent difficulty in defining the distinctiveness of character.

The character f a work is said to be the difference specifique qui ledistingue d'un autre ouvrage de meme genre. Curiously, we find thatin fact the author of the article is not actually speaking of individualworks when he speaks of ouvrage, but of what we are accustomed ocall genres. By genre he means poem, or oratory. By work, he means theepic, the ode, the elegy, which are all poems, each with its tour propreet particulier; 'est ce qu'on appelle son caractere. The caractere sfurther defined as the methode qu'on y suit to produce he work. Theactual poem is not seized in its specificity, but as a type of poem obeyingcertain rules of composition. Tour propre may be opposed to Di-derot's tours originaux in that the poem is subsumed under a definiteclassification and does not itself modify literary categories. Such aconception fits in with the main tenor of Mallet's article on the fitness ofcharacters o dramatic genres; it is also just as abstract.

The caractere of an author is a very different matter, not onlybecause of the more personal context, although n fact the personalitiesof authors are not at issue, but because of the difference of tone and style

of presentation n the article itself. Character s again defined as lamaniere qui lui [the author] st propre et particuliere de traiter un sujet,dans un genre que d'autres ont traite comme lui ou avant ui, et ce qui ledistingue de ces auteurs. Two very different things are meant, how-ever, by manner in this instance. In the examples drawn from poets,ancient and modern, what is emphasized is the play of attributes bywhich criticism quickly places each author. Thus Pindar s sublimeand obscure, Malherbe subtle and harmonious, La Motte clever and

delicate. Characterization, ere, is the witty use of epithet. But the moresubstantial part of the entry is given over to a quotation rom Fenelon' sLettre a' l'Academie on the characters of the ancient historians.'8 Theappeal o this august auhoriy its e gravity of the one genre left untreatedin the previous article, that of eloquence. The use of direct quotationallows the encyclopedist to give a more heightened tone and morespecial weight to the ideas, not to mention he silent identification of trueeloquence with the the work of the persecuted archbishop of Cambrai.

Fenelon's characterizations tand out from the ones just mentioned bytheir more scrupulous evaluation of the quality of historical works.18Mallet gives the title as Lettres sur 1'eloquence, thus confusing, perhaps carried away by his

concern for eloquence, the Lettre sur les occupations de 1'Academie with the Dialogues surl'eloquence. The two works were often published ogether. The passage cited is from Ch. viii of theLettre, Projet d'un traite ur 'histoire. A fully annotated dition is thatof E. Despois, Dialoguessur l'eloquence (Paris: Dezobry, 1846), where the passage may be found on p. 83.



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Tacitus, for example, montre beaucoup de genie, avec une profondeconnaissance des cceurs les plus corrompus: mais il affecte

trop unebrievete mysterieuse . . . . I1 attribue aux plus subtils ressorts de lapolitique, ce qui ne vient souvent que d'un mecompte . . . que d'uncaprice. In this type of analysis, as Mallet points out in his conclusion,

le caractere . . . ne consiste pas moins dans leurs defauts que dansleurs perfections. Fenelon' s judgments matter more than those pro-nounced on the poets. The latter are concerned with classification; theformer with everything that contributes o the total effect and influenceof the work.

These historians are all drawn, however, from antiquity. Even thoughVoltaire will be quoted at length elsewhere in the Caractere eries, nomodern representative of eloquence is cited. Whether this is to avoidcontroversy or because modern eloquence does not have the sameparadigmatic caractere as the earlier models, it is hard o say. But inthe light of the preceding article on the drama, we may wonder to whatextent such a perspective is still applicable to works destined for thecontemporary ublic. Even Fenelon belongs already o another age. Theproblem of eloquence in the Enlightenment has attracted notice fromcritics preoccupied with the problem of literary authority and the pros-pects of an original, well-characterized iscourse. Jean Starobinski, orinstance,19 has seen a connection between reflection on the quality oforatory in the period and the philosophy of history adumbrated y thephilosophes. His thesis is confirmed by the Encyclopedie itself, or moreprecisely, in the Supplement, which adds to the Caractere series anarticle by the Swiss esthetician J. G. Sulzer on Caractere dans les

beaux-arts. Sulzer, much influenced by the ideas of Diderot andCondillac,20 sheds some light on the ambivalent attitude adopted inMallet's entries. He takes character and moeurs o be inseparable, andsees in the decline of freedom n the modern age the reason for weaknessin literary characterization.

In ancient Greece, he broods, ou chaque citoyen se permettait deparaItre tel qu'il 'tait . . . 1 etait aussi aise au dessinateur de lirechaque sentiment sur es visages et dans es gestes. 9 Modern peoples nolonger dare to

show their true selves, and the French and Germantheaters are deprived both of original characters and the power of19 Eloquence and Liberty, JHI, 37 (1979), 195-210.20 On Sulzer, see Walter Moser, Jean-Georges Sulzer, continuateur de la pensee sensualiste

dans l'academie de Berlin, MLN, 84 (1969), 931-41; and Lawrence Kerslake, Johann GeorgSulzer and the Supplement o the Encyclop&die, SVEC, 143 (1979), 225-47. Quotations fromSulzer's article are from the third edition of the Encyclopedie (Geneva, 1768).



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original characterization.The climate of ancient freedom allowed for a clear definition of

character because that definition was a self-definition, an assertion ofautonomy in which formal clarity and thematic force were one, andmutual recognition was the result of practical (and political) will asmuch as of rational cognition. Today, says Sulzer, nous n'osons nousmontrer . . . que sur un ton de convention, dont nous souffrons qued'autres nous imposent a loi. Nowhere is this more true, if not alwaysobvious, than in the constricting power of linguistic convention.

Still, we are not in the world of Rousseau's Discours sur les scienceset les arts. We have seen how the renewed interest in natural scienceevinced in the entry on botanical classification ed to an awareness of thecomplexities attendant n even such an innocuous enterprise as classifi-cation, when the latter is taken seriously as an attempt o approximatethe variety of nature. Nature does not characterize itself, and it isthrough a more self-conscious use of language that characterizationmust be accomplished. In the same way, under the aegis of Diderot'sexhortation, a searching critique of linguistic habits may be the most

opportune way of reappropriating hat practical dimension of characteri-zation obscured n the human realm by the power of convention. Just asthe character of the authors discussed by Mallet consists as much in theweaknesses as in the strengths of the style, the discrimination-if it canbe accomplished-of the different degrees of conventionality n moralcharacterization may help in developing more serviceable instrumentsof discourse. The nature appealed o by Buffon's science as the groundof character s clearly a more potent force than he nature nvoked, rather

fruitlessly, by Mallet. Whether by a tour original human nature canrecapture ome of its earlier vigor remains to be seen, as we turn to theanalysis of moral and social characteristics.

Caractere en Morale is defined as la disposition habituelle del'ame, par laquelle on est plus porte 'a faire et l'on fait en effet plussouvent des actions d'un certain genre, que des actions d'un genre

oppose.This in itself is a fairly standard definition. The rest of the article isstriking more at first for what it omits than for what it says. No mentionis made of the relative priority of the actions and the disposition (is one aliar because one lies, or are lies the product of a lying disposition?): hetwo are simply brought together by the conjunction et. Nor is any-



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thing said about human nature in general. The author s more con-cerned to give us Duclos's distinction between caractere and es-prit : one can have a lot of innate qualities, like Cicero, and still be weakin character.2' The example chosen testifies to Duclos's rather dim viewof a certain kind of eloquence in the context of today's maurs. Theencyclopedist, too, focuses less on human capacities than on reliabilityand predictability of conduct. A social perspective s imposed from thestart. Rien n'est plus dangereux dans la societe, writes the author,

qu'un homme sans caractere, c'est-a-dire, dont l'ame n'a aucunedisposition plus habituelle qu'une autre. On se fie 'a 'homme vertueux;on se defie d'un fripon. L'homme sans caractere st alternativement 'unet l'autre, sans qu'on puisse le deviner et ne peut etre regarde ni commeami, ni comme ennemi. . . . The man without definite habits is not afit inhabitant f society, and the necessary relation of character o milieuis summed up by a biological metaphor used to describe he man withoutcharacter: c'est une espece d'anti-amphibie, s'il est permis de s'ex-primer de la sorte, qui n'est bon 'a vivre dans aucun element. Thebiological analogy is really a counteranalogy, since what constitutes a

marvel of the scientific world is shown to be a social nuisance. Neitherfish nor fowl, the man without character frustrates our attempt atclassification by endangering the whole network of social bonds onwhich stable human nteraction depends. Moreover, this result s viewedas the consequence of a choice on the part of the subject, who refuses toadopt a position in politics. Cela me rappelle cette belle loi de Solon,qui declarait nFames ous ceux qui ne prenaient point de parti dans lesseditions: il sentait que rien n'etait plus 'a craindre que les caracteres et

les hommes non decides.Definition of character s essential because society is a conflictualmilieu in which observer and observed are caught up. Social cohesionrequires a sorting out of the differences between men as a prelude o anycommon action. And such a definition is part of the decisionmakingprocess, as is suggested by the very phrase hommes non decides.This last term means both well-marked, well-defined and deter-mined on a course of action : it fuses the theoretical and practicalaspects of characterization nd allows caractere and homme to beused interchangeably n this context. One may ask, however, what is thebasis for the recognizability hus demanded, whether t emerges throughthe free self-assertion of each individual or whether it is imDosed by

1The eference s to Charles Pinot-Duclos, Considerations ur les maeurs de ce siele (1750),Ch. iii.



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social conventions whose need for clarity may stem from less exalted

motives than the preservation or recovery of freedom. It is clear, at anyrate, that it is impossible to develop a reliable discourse on moralcharacter without the cooperation of those to whom it will be applied.They must, at the very least, be accessible to scrutiny.

Caractere en morale does not, however, help us resolve the ten-sions it expresses, and we go to the next entry, on Caracteres desnations, to see what perspective s adopted as regards he social unit.Significantly, the entity discussed is not society, but the nation, theconcrete embodiment of particular olitical arrangements. By doing so,d'Alembert, as the probable author of the piece,22 may claim to adopt asupranational nd cosmopolitan attitude without pretending o knowl-edge of how society as such might be characterized. On the other hand,his intention is not to show how national characters are rooted in anyorganic essence-this was the dream only of later generations.23 Hisperspective may be described as a formal one in that it is comparativeand relative rather than being concerned with intensity of definition.

Le caractere d'une nation, we read, consiste dans une certaine

disposition habituelle de l'ame, qui est plus commune chez une nationque chez une autre, quoique cette disposition ne se rencontre pas danstous les membres qui composent a nation: ainsi le caractere des francaisest la legerete, la gaiete, la sociabilite, l'amour de leurs rois et de lamonarchie meme, etc. The beginning of the definition s the same as inthe previous case, but instead of opposing character o its absence orweakness, d'Alembert merely contrasts t with other characters oundelsewhere. We are back to the kind of characterization ound in the first

part of Caractere d'un auteur, where the distinctive features of thepoets were treated n an easygoing manner. Another link to this latterarticle is a reference to Tacitus's treatment of the moeurs des Ger-mains, but no judgment of the historian's work or of the worthiness ofthose maurs is implied. We have returned, it seems, to the kind ofunsubstantiated haracterization more appropriate o salon discussionthan to intellectual inquiry.

The context, however, is very different. Whereas n the former case,

formalism was an obstacle to a responsible account of the effect and22 His initial appears only at the end of Caracteres des societes, but this article s presented as a

subsection of Caracteres des nations. The whole piece is usually taken as d'Alembert's. SeeRen& Hubert, Les Sciences sociales dans 1' Encyclopedie (Paris: Alcan, 1923), pp. 39, 55, 264; andEberhard Weis, Geschichtsschreibung und Staatsauffassung n der franzosischen Encyclopedie(Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1956), pp. 155, 234.

23 See Frank Manuel, From Equality to Organicism, JHI, 17 (1956), 54-60.



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influence of the work of art in relation to its public, d'Alembert's

ascription of traits to the nation testifies to a certain ndependence romthe narrow constraints of a socially determined perspective. It is itself, ata higher level, a manifestation of that freedom so forcefully and evenoppressively demanded n the article on moral character. t is also not astrivial in content as it appears. The pieties expressed about the French-man's love of the monarchy, as well as the overfamiliar reference toFrench legerete, are to be read in the light of the next paragraph,which speaks of the sad absence of character n lands demoralized bydespotic rule. Dans un etat despotique, par exemple, d'Alembertwrites, concerning the influence of the form of government on thenational character, le peuple doit devenir bientot paresseux, vain, etamateur de la frivolite; le go ut du vrai et du beau doivent s'y perdre, onne doit ni faire ni penser de grandes choses. In such a state, nocharacter rait could stand out, given the absence of any true actionthere. D'Alembert's characterization f the French s in fact ironic, andmust not be taken as literally ighthearted, but as a provocation o a newseriousness of purpose. We are encouraged, by the juxtaposition ofFrench egerete and despotic frivolite, to see a possible contami-nation of the one by the other. Irony would then be, on d'Alembert'spart, a response tailored to the ambiguity of the context: it speaksobliquely to those menaced by despotism, taking the risk of a literalreading by those already under ts sway, and does so, not only to avoidthe censorship but to elude, by the appearance of esthetic play, thepernicious aspects of the demand for recognizability hat freedom tselfmakes, when too literally pursued. D'Alembert's characterization s

thus at the opposite pole from that found in Bassesse and inDiederot's other examples of linguistic abuse.

It is true that d'Alembert's perspective does not exclude partisanshipin other ways. The allusion to despotism at the end of Caractere desnations leads to the discussion, in the next entry, of the Caractere dessocietes ou corps particuliers. The target here is the Church which,except for a passing jibe at the Academie, is the only societe actuallynamed. D'Alembert defines these groups as en quelque maniere des

petites nations entouree d'une plus grande; c'est une espece de greffebonne ou mauvaise, entee sur un grand ronc; aussi les societes ont-ellespour 'ordinaire un caractere particulier, qu'on appelle esprit du corps.By caractere here, d'Alembert means a kind of internal disposition nthe sense of a tendency to exclusiveness, a refusal to be assimilated ntoa larger context. Souvent le caractere d'une societe est tres diff6rente



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de celui de la nation, otuelle se trouve pour ainsi dire transplantee. Descorps, par exemple, qui dans une monarchie eraient vceu de fidelite 'a unautre prince qu' a leur souverain egitime, devraient naturellement voirmoins d'attachement pour ce souverain que le reste de la nation; c'est laraison pour aquelle les moines ont fait tant de mal 'a a France, du tempsde la Ligue . . . . The problem here is not a lack of character, as in

Caractere en Morale, but too great a self-definition in a partisansense. D'Alembert adopts the point of view of a militant Gallican tocounter the pernicious independence of a body really dependent on aforeign power. He demands a single, uniform oyalty from all citizens.Once again, a biological simile ( greffe, entee ) is used to supportthe integrity of the milieu and its boundaries against artificial modifica-tions. Such naturalism, only slightly nuanced by the familiar enquelque maniere or une espece de so frequent n the Encyclopedie,stands in sharp contrast to the attitude of the previous article.

To reinforce his point, d'Alembert, like Mallet in Caractere d'unauteur, makes room for a passage from a celebrated writer. This time itis Voltaire, and the quotation s drawn from the just-published Si'ecle de

Louis XI V.24 Voltaire had left France, and from his sanctuary n Berlinsharpened his attacks against religious institutions. He writes, Preterserment a un autre qu' a on prince, est un crime de lese-majeste dans unlaique; c'est dans le clolitre, un acte de religion. And he praises LouisXIV for bringing about la persuasion dans laquelle les religieuxcommencent tous ai etre, qu'ils sont sujets du roi avant que d'etreserviteurs du pape. The historian's remarks display a forcefulness intune with the earlier appeal for hommes decides, and d'Alembert's

conclusion is just as straightforward. Ainsi, pour le salut des etats, laphilosophie brise enfin les portes fermees. Irony is out of place whenconfronting a clear enemy, nor is it necessary when the convictionexpressed coincides with a nationalistic sentiment shared by many inhigh places. One wonders what would have been the result if theparlements had been included among the corps particuliers whosecharacter s put in doubt.

Caractere in the moral and social articles remains, finally, a

conveniently ambiguous erm. As before, it designates a trait ascribed oentities in the world as well as the ascription itself. But because theentities characterized are themselves agents canahle of self-

24 Voltaire's work appeared t the end of 1751. D'Alembert wouldjust have had time to include tin Volume II of the Encyclopedie, dated 1751 but published n January 1752. It should also be notedthat the passage in question represents a late revision by Voltaire himself. See Voltaire, Oeuvreshistoriques. ed. R. Pomeau (Paris: Gallimard, 1957), p. 627.



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characterization nd of influencing the characterizing power of others,including that embodied in the original discourse, the problem of arecognition both exact and free has become more complex. One kind ofrecognition may exclude the other, and the identification of charactersmay prevent identification with or against them, and vice versa. As inthe discussion of botanical nomenclature, he elaboration of a system ofdiscursive elements cannot be made apart from consideration of theutility of the system as a factor in the very construction of the system.Yet the nature and above all the scope of the utility used as a criterion spartly determined by the way it is thought hrough he discourse alreadyavailable, whose figurative ours enable the context of utility govern-ing the proper sense to be defined more or less literally, more or lessnarrowly.

An entry devoted to another sense of caractere helps us to see indelicate balance the different possibilities offered by the use of the term.

Caractere des societes ou corps particuliers s followed by two morearticles related o political and religious concerns. The second, Carac-tere, en theologie, discusses sacramental haracter, which is defined

as une marque pirituelle et ineffacable, imprimee a 'ame par quelquesacraments, ce qui fait qu'on ne peut pas reiterer es sacraments. Theanonymous author quotes a number of ecclesiastical authorities o theeffect that he Church knows that here s such an uneradicable mark, butcannot say in what it consists. So much so that the Protestants deny itsexistence, even though they agree that baptism, at least, cannot beconferred twice.

From the point of view of the philosophes, this doctrine is typical of

the exclusiveness and obscurantism of Catholic doctrine. The sacra-ments bearing a special character all have to do with the quality ofmembership n the Christian community, and involve an authoritativerecognition of the status of the member, irrespective of secular positionin the world. In the religious context, they resolve the problem ofcharacterization n the moral sense by appealing to a higher authorityand an uncontrovertible discourse. The permanence of their mark isbeyond the reach of time's corruption. Such a conception is totally atodds with the enlightened approach of d'Alembert in the previousarticle, who nevertheless accords a priority almost as absolute o the oathof loyalty to the king.

Caractere e dit aussi de certaines qualites visibles qui attirent du respect et de laveneration 'a ceux qui ens sont revetus. La majeste des rois leur donne un



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caractere ui leur attire e respect des peuples. Un ev&que outiendrait oncaractere ar son savoir t sa vertu, beaucoup lus que par 'eclat de la vanitemondaine, tc. Le droit des gens met e caractere es ambassadeurs couvert etoute nsulte.

In this context, the link between the character and the person is sointimate that it is immediately apparent o all. The definition recallsMallet's remarks on the eclat necessary (although hard to define) toliterary characters. The reference to ambassadors also suggests therelation between this kind of caractere and the importance of fiction

in public communication where the usefulness of the character xceedsthe boundaries of utility narrowly defined by the audience or nation.Monarchs and bishops, too, play an essential public role, whose theatri-cal connotations are emphasized by the phrasing, un eveque soutien-drait son caractere, which echoes a common requirement n dramaticcomposition. Much depends, however, on the kind of representationthat is envisaged, and to what extent the caractere is viewed as animmediate and essential quality defining and consecrating he role, or asa construct mediated by as well as mediating the process of publiccommunication. As Jurgen Habermas has shown,25 the very concept ofthe public as a network of representation, ommunication, and critiquein the eighteenth century, underwent a profound ransformation. Pub-licity (Offentlichkeit) hifts from being a quality manifested by thingsor especially persons such as high dignitaries, o indicating an opennessor accessibility to scrutiny by public opinion. The transition an be seenin use of the word caractere in this article. The first sense of Of-

fentlichkeit can be seen in the description of the monarch, the second inthe admonition to the bishop. That the latter s really the predominantone can be seen by the openly iconoclastic tone of d'Alembert's andVoltaire's remarks n the earlier piece: it is hard, ultimately, not to see inthem a critique of authority rather than a true positive defense of laraison d'etat.

Yet an ambiguity remains, for there is without doubt a desire for akind of immediate recognition of a source of authority and properfunction in social life. The theatrical vocabulary used, here as

elsewhere, expresses, through discussion of the elements and effects ofliterature, the dual wish for characters available to criticism yet still

untouchable and exemplary in their presentation of the integrity oftheir caractere. The connection between personnage (and in this

25 Jurgen Habermas, Strukturwandel der 6ffentlichkeit: Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie derbiurgerlichen Gesellschaft (Neuwied am Rhein and Berlin: Luchzerhand, 1962).



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entry the social, hierarchical onnotations of the word come to the fore)and caractere is broken n life, but is held to remain n fiction, and suchfictions are part of the communicative context of social life: the ambas-sador retains his character when that of his sovereign becomes lesssecure. Just in this way did Diderot express his desire to see thenecessary distinctions made that would enable a penetrating ritique oflinguistic usage to emerge, and at the same time his wish that thefigurative and literal senses of caractere be brought together tocounter the distances and disparities standing n the way of our makingour language le tout le moins irregulier t le moins decousu compati-ble with the bizarrerie of life.

We have, up to this point, tried to explicate the various figurativemeanings of caractere, and have concluded as to the necessity ofmaintaining a degree of indeterminacy n this area, where even the most

metaphorical of applications is in danger of being too easilyliteralized. We must now turn to the literal sense of the term as it isanalyzed in the articles on the instruments of discourse that precedeDiderot's Caracteres d'imprimerie. In these articles, dealing with the

development of writing, we find that the mode of signification of theliteral characters s just as problematic as that of the figurative ones.

The entries under Caractere as written mark serve a dual purpose.They are intended o acquaint he reader with the kinds of symbols thatare used, not only in written anguage (for the details of which we arereferred to Alphabet ), but in various scientific disciplines: as-

tronomy, mathematics, chemistry. Concern for the scientific precisionof these symbols and abbreviations equires, however, a survey of thehistory of written representation n general, from crude pictograms,which at least had the virtue of directness, to modem systems of abstractletters and signs.26 D'Alembert, the author of much of this section,divides all characters nto litteraux, numeraux, et d'abbreviation.These correspond o the symbols of ordinary anguage, mathematics,and science; their common goal is economy, objectivity, and exactnessof meaning. D'Alembert further distinguishes, among the caractereslitteraux, between nominaux, ce qu'on appelle proprement deslettres qui servent a crire le nom des choses. and emblematiques ou

26 The main source here is Condillac's Essai sur l'origine des connaissances humaines (1746),and, through him, Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses (1737-41), of which part was translatedunder he title Essai sur les hieroglyphes 1744). Although d'Alembert s the principal author of thissection, some parts are contributed by Dumarsais, La Chappelle, and Venel.



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symboliques, which expriment les choses memes, et les personni-fient en quelque sorte, et representent eur forme: tels sont les hiero-glyphes des anciens egyptiens. In general, the former have displacedthe latter among the characters n common use; the role of personnifi-cation has been almost eliminated, although the entry on chemicalsymbols manifests a curious nostalgia for the emblematic power ofalchemical signs. Like the hieroglyphs, these signs are viewed as in-struments, more of mystification than of true discourse, yet they exer-cise a persistent ascination among the philosophes, dissatisfied with thefailure of linguistic progress to supply universal clarity and conceptualrigor by nominalistic characterization.

This theme has attracted much attention in recent studies of theEnlightenment, and it would exceed the limits of this paper to rehearsehere the debate over the history of ecriture as seen by the philosophes. 27Remarkable, however, is the way d'Alembert shares some of the mis-givings expressed about inguistic evolution. He speaks wistfully of theattempts, by Leibniz and others, to produce a universal characteristic,that is, a conventional system of characters which would, nevertheless,

by unanimous agreement and by the perfection of its organization,constitute a sure method for representing he world. To be successful,the system would have to be made of characters reels, et nonnominaux, c'est-'a-dire, exprimer des choses, et non pas comme lescaracteres communs, des lettres ou des sons. How this could beaccomplished, he does not say, but does not consider the difficultiesinsurmountable. The real obstacle is an external one. It is bien moinsd'inventer les caracteres les plus simples, les plus aises, et les plus

commodes, que d'engager les diff6rentes nations 'a en faire usage; ellesne s'accordent, dit M. de Fontenelle, qu'a ne pas entendre leurs in-terets.

In citing Fontenelle with approval, d'Alembert takes a completelyopposite tack from the one in Caractere en morale, where the needsof the individual nation furnished he highest criterion of judgment forthe interest and clarity of characters. D'Alembert presumes hat the lackof recognition and acceptance of a universal characteristic tems from akind of aveuglement, but such blindness would be the by-product of an

27 An idea of the range of investigations may be gained from Clifton C herpack, Warburton ndthe Encyclopedie, PQ, 36 (1957), 221-33; and Jacques Derrida, De la grammatologie (Paris:Minuit, 1967), as well as his L'Archeologie du frivole, in Condillac, Essai sur l'origine desconnaissances, ed. Charles Porset Paris: Galilee, 1973), pp. 13-95. It should also be recalled hatDiderot had touched on the problem a year before the publication of this volume of the Encyc-lopedie, in his Lettre sur les sourds et muets (1751).



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excessively vivid perception of local interests. In the other article, theinterests of the immediate community were clear enough; it was theclarity of characterization hat was found wanting. Now, in the light of amore universal perspective, the instruments f reliable characterizationseem almost to hand, but local interests have lost their authority: heyinclude mere prejudice. D'Alembert does not, however, condemn theseweaknesses entirely. He recognizes that literal characters re nothinguntil they are appropriated y the active participation of the people intheir day-to-day communication. Individual societies, separees pardes mers vastes et des continents arides, as d'Alembert puts it, were

forced to invent different instruments of discourse, turns of theirown, as a response to the climactic and other peculiarities of theirmaterial situation. These contributed o the formation of the nationalcharacter, and, as Condillac showed, the national character and theactual characters of writing (letters, but syntax and vocabulary oo)develop in mutual nteraction over a long period until an equilibrium sreached. After that, modification of the nation's linguistic characterscomes only seldom, fron the poets whose literary originality enriches he

language and, ultimately, the life of the people. On a larger scale,however, the disparates that mpede the smooth flow of communica-tion among nations cannot be removed by linguistic invention alone,certainly not by poets, but only by more concrete means of rapproche-ment based on the discovery of common interests. Here, even the mostliteral characters are never literal enough to properly represent thevariety of national interests. The prospect of a universal characteristicbased on a purely natural model misses the whole dynamic ofcharacter ormation as accepted by d'Alembert. We are left with theresources of what are still called, paradoxically but inescapably, thenatural anguages.

The entries under the literal sense of Caractere complement thearticles on its figurative meanings. The latter showed the necessity ofpreserving a degree of indeterminacy n the delineation of character: he

essential quality of a thing s not to be equated with any permanent etof features est the subjective element in its determination e forgotten.The literal entries, on the other hand, emphasize the importance oftaking into account the whole range of material conditions underlyinghuman communication, conditions that are obscured in idealistic proj-ects for a universal set of linguistic characters with which to describe heworld. Thus are we reminded, in the series as a whole, of the objectivedeterminants of our discourse and the discursive determinants of our



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objects. Such is the objective in discoursing on the shifting senses of

caractere.

But has Diderot' program been fulfilled? Do the various articles orma totality? We seem to be left with only the beginnings of a truesynthesis, since the two aspects of the problem do not appear o engageeach other directly. Following Diderot's injunction, however, we mustbe attentive o the exact extent of the distance between them, and to the

tours originaux that distinguish he Encyclopedie s mode of totaliza-tion. The latter s not, finally, a question of mere denomination. One suchturn may be seen in the central article of the group, Caracteres d'im-primerie. The article that concludes with remarks on the figures oflanguage forms part of the literal series, and yet we cannot fail to beimpressed with the spectacular aspect of Diderot's piece, which cele-brates the whole institution of printing and the versatility of its forms.No sharper contrast could be imagined with the doleful remarks on thedifficulties of a universal characteristic. t is as if the practical genius of

industry, as Diderot sees it, could resolve by its own power the questionthat perplexes philosophers.

No example of the potential of the printing press is more significantthan the Encyclopedie itself, the work that may be seen as the mostoriginal turn of them all in the universality of its scope and theexhaustiveness of its realization. The Encyclopedie does what it can toreduce the disparities of discourse, but in the process of compositionDiderot comes to a new awareness of the difficulty inherent n any total

view of language and ts uses. Our dea of this work sometimes obscuresits actual bizarrerie, its attempt to exploit the juxtapositions of thealphabetic order and still profit from the systematic classification ofknowledge in the Discours preliminaire and the Tableau des connais-sances. This duality, along with indirectness of the renvois (explicit andimplicit) is integral o the shape of the work. What, then, is the charac-ter of the Encyclope'die? Discussing the renvois in Encyclopedie,Diderot writes: Si ces renvois de confirmation et de refutation sont

prepares avec adresse, ils donneront a 'encyclopedie le caractere quedoit avoir un bon dictionnaire; ce caractere est de changer la fagoncommune de penser.

Having reviewed the various ways in which caractere may beunderstood, we can give new meaning to this famous quotation. Thecharacter of which Diderot speaks is not merely the distinguishing



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feature that sets it off from other books: it is the integrity, the activedisposition of the work, the mode of its assertion, all of which areinseparable rom the way it is received by its public. Its aim, in fact, is tobe no less than a fully characterized work, both in the extensive andintensive senses of the word. But if characterization depends on thecontext of reception for its eclat, and the proper reception of the text isonly hypothetical given the problematic absence or weakness of charac-ter of the contemporary public under near-despotic regimes, to whatextent can the Encyclopedie anticipate and incorporate ts reception inits presentation?

It can only do so through its style, by constant attention to theinstruments f its discourse, the verbal as well as conceptual ools at itsdisposal. Je renfermerais, Diderot says again, le caractere generaldu style de l'encyclopedie en deux mots, communia, propre; propria,communiter. En se conformant a ette regle, les choses communesseront toujours elegantes; et les choses propres et particulieres, oujoursclaires. The intention s to make available what has been restricted o afew, so that the sens propre of things be accessible to open scrutiny and

shared knowledge. By insisting on elegance, Diderot reassures thegentle reader of his time that no vulgarity of understanding or ofutterance will be permitted: circumlocutions of various kinds will benecessary n some cases, for the sens propre is not always the literal one.But he also thereby points to an economy of presentation hat includesthe tours originaux required both to reduce and to highlight thedisparities nherent n any appropriate iscourse. The very form Diderotuses to express his principle, with its balanced clauses, with, too, the

slight differences in meaning between the Latin and the French words,suggests a form of tense proximity between words and their senses, andbetween reader and work, a context of communication most compatiblewith freedom of thought, and most inimical to literal-minded assimila-tion.

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The Idea of Character in the Encyclopedie