Page - 250 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Chapter 5250 This aspect of Hell’s response also points to the difficulty of conceiving an all too obvious and sharp wedge between the deductive and inductive method in the sciences: as a competent practitioner in astronomical observations, his cre- dentials as a sound empiricist were good enough, but he had no qualms repre- senting himself as the impeccable deductionist when this suited his polemical purposes. In his defense against Pray, the haughty confidence of the represen- tative of the exact sciences over the mere student of the humanities also spills into ad hominem argument: Pray’s objections are dismissed as “lacking any ra- tionality,” “ridiculous,” even “stupid.” But Hell was upset not only because of the challenge to “his system” but also because he felt it was not properly recognized as “his.” This is the aspect in which the debate on substantive issues tackled in the Demonstratio becomes intertwined with the problem of attribution. At the very outset of the response, Hell writes: “I do not know what came to the mind of the illustrious author to persecute my things (for all that Father Sajnovics writes in his treatise about the origin of the Hungarians is mine [italics added]) with such venom […].”136 In another undated note to Pray, this time called “Animadversiones” (Remarks), Hell gives full vent to his consternation upon the perceived neglect of his role.137 He opens the document with a complaint at Pray’s allegation, in a 1768 epistle refuting the Piarist Benedetto (Benedictus) Cetto’s (1731–99) account of the “Chinese rites controversy,”138 that Sajnovics was invited to participate in the Vardø expedition along with Hell by the Danish king. As Hell stresses, the invitation was delivered “most privately to me alone […] by the Danish ambas- sador,” and after the necessary negotiations with Kaunitz and the government had been conducted, he himself chose Sajnovics as his assistant and travel companion. To make things fully unequivocal, he added: 136 Coll. Prayana 18:25. 137 Coll. Prayana 18:24. 138 This was a debate among different groups of Catholic missionaries concerning the inter- pretation and status of rites in Confucianism and Chinese imperial practices. The Jesuits claimed that these were essentially secular and thus, within certain limits, to be tolerated, while Dominicans and Franciscans argued that they were incompatible with Catholicism and therefore were to be combated. The Vatican adopted the latter position and banned the rites for Chinese Catholics. For a comprehensive discussion, see George Minimaki, The Chinese Rites Controversy: From the Beginnings to Modern Times (Chicago: Loyola Univer- sity Press, 1985). Pray’s commentary on Cetto was eventually published as the Imposturae ccxvii in dissertatione R.P. Benedicti Cetto Clerici Regularis e Scholii Piis, de Sinensium im­ postoris detectae, & convulsae (Buda, 1781) and then incorporated in the Epistola ad Bene­ dictum Cetto e piis scholis in qua novae huius in rebus sinicis imposturae deteguntur: Accedit historia controversiarum de ritibus sinicis […] (Buda: Strohmayer, 1789). In these publica- tions, however, there is no reference to Hell, Sajnovics, and the Demonstratio.