Page - 384 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Chapter 8384 Bessenyei was in fact by no means alone and not even the first in objecting to Sajnovics’s (and Hell’s) neglect of the tools fundamental to the approach of the eighteenth-century sciences of man. In commentaries to his own poem on the “star-watchers,” Orczy also gibed: I cannot comprehend why your Reverend […] makes no reference at all to the morals of the Lapps in order to underpin his opinion. […] Morals are of their nature inscribed in us, and indelible marks of the customs inherited from our forefathers. […] It is imperative to target the original source of morals. […] The sounds of language follow history, they some- times soften and sometimes harden according to the needs of the heart […].145 It has been pointed out that Orczy wrote his poem in close collaboration with the learned Piarist history professor Károly Koppi (1744–1801) of Košice (later Oradea, and finally Pest), who in his own comments also stressed that “man- ners, mental disposition, domestic discipline, the pursuit of dominance and submission,” and so on take precedence in the study of national character over linguistic evidence based on word matches.146 It must be noted that in these objections, the standard contemporary argument from manners is turned up- side down. In mainstream stadial history, the study of manners throws light on the dynamics of historical change in a society, whereas in the Hungarian writ- ers’ account they are indicative of a nation’s permanent spirit—contrary to language, which is more malleable, and therefore not regarded by them as a reliable test of kinship. Nevertheless, there is a meta-level to their critique. As has been mentioned, in his exchanges with Pray Hell somewhat arrogantly claimed the superiority of his method, imported from the “exact” sciences for application in the study of linguistic kinship. The opposite happens here: the approach of Sajnovics and Hell is pointed out to be rigid and reductionist, lack- ing the sensitivity to incorporate a multiplicity of perspectives on the subject, and failing to consider contradictory evidence. In this regard, Hell’s ambition to follow the shifts of emphasis in the sciences of his day by an entrée in those of the human and the social was futile because he was unwilling or unable to align his methodological priorities. 145 Extant only among Orczy’s manuscripts, published in Balogh, “‘Scytha vagyok, nem Lap- pon,’” 193–96. 146 Balogh, “‘Scytha vagyok, nem Lappon,’” 185–86, 202. The full text of Koppi’s commentary is published with Balogh’s article, 200–3.