Harriet Ritvo Humans & humanists “When I use a word,” says Humpty beg such questions. Previously, although Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass, “it humanism itself has often been contro- means just what I choose it to mean– versial, a fair amount of consensus exist- neither more nor less.” Alice demurs on ed among practitioners and critics about several grounds, appealing ½rst to con- its denotation. This consensus has been trary popular consensus–“But ‘glory’ notably durable. In the Oxford English doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argu- Dictionary (oed), the ½rst three senses ment’”–and then to the essential limits of human distinguish “mankind” from of language: “The question is . whether animals, from “mere objects or events,” you can make words mean so many dif- and from “God or superhuman beings.” ferent things.” Neither of Alice’s objec- All three of these senses emerged before tions fazes Dumpty, who countertheo- 1600, and none has yet been labeled ob- rizes that “the question is . which is to solete.2 The oed’s de½nition of humanist be master,” then illustrates the practical is much more restricted, focusing on di- bene½ts of his approach with a brilliant visions among learned men, rather than interpretation of “Jabberwocky,” a poem among orders of creation. Its senses re- whose vocabulary Alice had previously fer to the various subcategories of schol- found impenetrable.1 There is, of course, arship that humanists have chosen to ex- much to be said on both sides of this de- plore; none of these senses has yet been bate. Many people have, like Dumpty, labeled obsolete either.3 recognized the power of vocabulary and In 1976, the cultural critic Raymond made similar attempts to control de½- Williams included humanity (as repre- nitional borders. If, again like Dumpty, senting “a complex group of words, in- they have neglected to acknowledge cluding human, humane, humanism, the alternative viewpoints represented humanist, [and] humanitarian”) in by Alice and her ilk, they have usually Keywords, his compendium of brief es- found this easier said than done. says on common terms, the senses of The term human has in recent years which had altered or splintered as a been the site of such contestation and result of cultural and political pressures struggle among humanist scholars, that emerged during and after World whose self-categorization may seem to War II. But a crude statistical calcula- tion suggests that Williams did not con- © 2009 by Harriet Ritvo sider this word or group of words as 68 Dædalus Summer 2009 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed.2009.138.3.68 by guest on 24 September 2021 among the most problematic or inter- The organization of information about Humans & esting in his collection: he allotted it animals, plants, and minerals into a co- humanists only three pages. Words whose evolu- herent system was part of the core dis- tion he considered particularly compel- ciplinary, or protodisciplinary, agenda ling or important–class, culture, democra- of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century cy, masses, nature, realism, socialist, and naturalists. A taxonomic system was structural–commanded, in comparison, necessary for the practical purposes of ½ve pages or more. In his discussion, retrieval and comparison, as knowledge Williams took the limits of the human about the world and its contents grew for granted, emphasizing instead the exponentially during the centuries of shades of moral connotation that dis- European exploration and expansion. tinguish human from humane, and the More abstractly, especially in the wake shades of intellectual connotation that of Newton, taxonomy constituted a vi- distinguish the specialties of some tal component of naturalists’ claim to “humanists” from those of others.4 intellectual respectability and prestige. Keywords included no entry for animal, Without system, they feared, natural beast, or monster–or for machine, god, history would be “but a confused, un- or deity, for that matter–and no such disciplined crowd of subjects,” and nat- entries are planned for an updated ver- uralists “mere collectors of curiosities sion of the book currently under prepa- and super½cial trifles . , objects of rid- ration. These editorial decisions may icule rather than respect.”6 suggest that, in the view of many hu- Before any natural kind could be manists, the boundaries between hu- assigned its place in a system, it had manity and its abutting categories re- to be described with suf½cient preci- main relatively unproblematic.5 sion to establish clear criteria for inclu- Like the oed lexicographers, Wil- sion or exclusion. This was often prob- liams chose most of the examples that lematic since, at the time, transporta- illustrate his de½nitions from the litera- tion was slow and uncertain, commu- ture of humanism, which may explain nication among specialists was dif½- the narrowness of his disciplinary fo- cult, and preservation techniques were cus and his lack of attention to the un- often ineffective. In addition, although settled borders that have begun to pre- some organisms, like the giraffe, can occupy at least some humanists. (It is be easily differentiated from all others, not surprising to ½nd Williams follow- many plants and animals have relatives ing the oed’s lead: it was his major pri- close enough to undermine the distinc- mary source for Keywords.) But neither tion between similarity and sameness. blurry edges nor strenuous attempts to Extra study did not necessarily make clarify them are recent developments. things clearer; indeed, intensi½ed ex- As Humpty Dumpty discovered, to his amination of dubious cases often made cost, that he was not the only author them seem more dif½cult to describe and of his own story, humanists have never delimit. As Charles Darwin remarked been alone in their interest in the hu- of the differentiation of species and va- man. Certainly, they have never had rieties, “[I]t is in the best-known coun- the last word in de½ning it. tries that we ½nd the greatest number of forms of doubtful value. if any animal Categories and boundaries have long or plant . closely attract [human] atten- obsessed students of the natural world. tion, varieties . will almost universally Dædalus Summer 2009 69 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed.2009.138.3.68 by guest on 24 September 2021 Harriet be found recorded.”7 Human beings ½t ½ed no distinctive physical feature, but Ritvo on being both criteria. The territories where hu- merely commented, “nosce te ipsum”– human mans lived were inevitably very familiar know thyself.9 and well documented, and most people Linnaeus’s terse description left many found humans–themselves–to be the questions unanswered, the most obvi- most fascinating of the earth’s inhabi- ous of which was how to de½ne thyself. tants. Consequently, many naturalists At the next level of analysis, where he struggled to determine where their spe- described each genus in greater detail cies ½t in the natural order. One possi- and itemized its constituent species, bility–the one implied by oed de½ni- Linnaeus offered some very suggestive tions, as well as by the chain of being answers. In his classi½cation, Homo was that descended from antiquity–was not a monolithic taxon; it contained that humans occupied a position just two species, of which Homo sapiens, the outside or on top of the natural order.8 ½rst and largest, was further subdivid- But other possibilities existed, several ed into the conventional geographical of which suggested greater integration. races (American, European, Asiatic, and African), with additional catego- As the gap between humans and oth- ries for the wild children who occasion- er creatures diminished, boundary con- ally turned up (Ferus) and for still more fusion increased. Many naturalists fol- unusual kinds of people (Monstrosus).10 lowed the lead of Linnaeus, the Swedish According to Linnaeus’s descriptions, taxonomist whose system of latinate bi- those in Homo differed suf½ciently in nomials remains the foundation of bo- their physical and temperamental qual- tanical and zoological nomenclature. ities to make it unlikely that the self- He ½rst published his classi½cation of knowledge of members of one group, the animal kingdom in Systema Naturae however comprehensive and accurate, in 1735; it was expanded and revised would automatically illuminate the na- through many subsequent editions, of ture of the others. For example, Homo which the tenth, published in 1758, is Europaeus was “sanguineus,” while considered de½nitive. Unlike many of Homo Afer was “phlegmaticus.” The his contemporaries, Linnaeus had no other species within the genus Homo doubt that people were a kind of ani- more severely challenged the limits mal, if an unusual kind. He embedded of empathetic insight. Linnaeus’s cor- humans ½rmly within his taxonomic respondence and his lectures at Upp- system, devising the primate order to sala University contained repeated accommodate four genera: Homo, Sim- suggestions that he found it dif½cult to ia (monkeys and apes), Lemur (prosim- establish a ½rm dividing line between ians), and Vespertilio (bats). Linnaeus humans and apes.11 Homo troglodytes did not, however, treat humans and was not subdivided; its sole occupant their ilk in quite the same way that he was the orangutan.12 treated these structurally parallel cate- The evidence offered by this place- gories. Instead, he signaled human dis- ment is ambiguous, however. The tinctiveness in the brief characteriza-