Seite - 392 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Conclusion 392 For the first time in Hell’s career, the boundaries of the “life worlds” in which he had negotiated his existence simultaneously became stiffened: what had been possible for a Jesuit until quite recently, was no longer feasible for an ex- Jesuit—a new type in need of new strategies of accommodation. To make mat- ters still worse, confirming in Hell the sense of abandonment by his superiors, the developments on the Viennese scene also nurtured an Enlightenment “from below,” exposing him to personal attacks in his character as a former Je- suit, now left to his own resources in fighting the battles that ensued. Hell took up the challenge, not only in the ordinary and simple sense of undertaking the necessary combats before the public eye but more generally and impressively by re-inventing the spaces around him, and relocating himself across the new- ly conceived borders. The would-be Viennese academy of sciences was envi- sioned as such a space—a virtual refuge for “ex-Jesuit science,” more than just a consolation but perhaps a genuine compensation for the loss of the bastions of Jesuit learning. The eventual failure of this project, pursued by Hell with much vigor, must have made him all the more embittered in a few years’ time upon witnessing the—true, ephemeral—flowering of institutions of academic sociability under the auspices of his most fervent critics, the Viennese freema- sons. Even more striking was Hell’s alternative to rekindling Jesuit science in the imperial center, now hopelessly submerged in heartless, calculative en- lightened rationality: a Hungary dedicated to the rejuvenation of Catholic learning, with himself in a leading role and the bridge—physically still situat- ed in the Viennese hub of astronomical activity in the Habsburg lands, but in a capacity not derived from his official position—between this space and the wider world. Eventually, he faltered because of the largely imaginary character of this space, and because he miscalculated the chances of re-fashioning (re- discovering) himself as a patriotic Hungarus savant, the reason being his blind- ness to the powerful survival of an archaic—but by no means obsolete—set of ideas about national identity in a freshly conceived Hungarian Enlightenment (or, Magyar national awakening). The figure of Hell connected local, imperial, and cosmopolitan spaces— real as well as symbolic ones—of producing scientific knowledge in eigh- teenth-century Europe. He moved with facility in and between life worlds of different scales, from the small town environments of the Central European periphery, through the Catholic-Jesuit hierarchy, the courtly and government circles of imperial and royal capital cities, and the international Republic of Learning, to the hostile climate of the colonial north. At each of these scenes, he made strenuous efforts, and managed to a remarkable extent to exploit the range of opportunities they presented for becoming “successful.” When the ap- parent continuity established through his person among these life worlds