Sari Kivistö

Sympathy in Rhetorical Persuasion

– Two Eighteenth-Century Finnish Dissertations.

In the eighteenth century, sympathy was considered a major force in human society, aesthetics and rhetorical communication. The importance of sympathy was also discussed in two Latin dissertations entitled De sympathia animorum humanorum, which were presented at the Academy of Turku inthe late eighteenth century. The article focuses on these two texts and examineshowthey reflect the contemporary discussion. After a general introduction to the role of sympathy in eighteenth-century thinking and human society, the article concentrates on three important means thought to promote sympathy and persuasion: the speaker’s enthusiasm, plausibility of narration and vivid description. In the texts studied, sympathy represents a single multifaceted concept to describe the required bond between a speaker and his audience and provides the  basis for a successful rhetorical persuasion.

Abstract

Title Sympathy in Rhetorical Persuasion: Two Eighteenth-Century Finnish Dissertations
Abstract vIn the eighteenth century, sympathy was considered a major force in human society, aesthetics and rhetorical communication. The importance of sympathy was also discussed in two Latin dissertations entitled De sympathia animorum humanorum, presented at the Academy of Turku in the late eighteenth century. The article focuses on these two texts and examines how they reflect the contemporary discussion. After a general introduction to the role of sympathy in eighteenth-century thinking and human society, the article concentrates on three important means thought to promote sympathy and persuasion: the speaker’s enthusiasm, plausibility of narration and vivid description. In the texts studied, sympathy represents a single multifaceted concept to describe the required bond between a speaker and his audience and provides the basis for successful rhetorical persuasion.

Keywords

sympathy, eighteenth-century Finland, rhetorical persuasion, vividness

Om artikeln
Ingår i: Rhetorica Scandinavica 43, 2007.
Abstract s 7 · Artikel s 39-57

15043_3 172.88 KB 4 downloads

...

Download

Om skribenten

Sari Kivistö is a Ph.D. and a fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki. She is the author of Creating Anti-eloquence. Epistolae obscurorum virorum and the Humanist Polemics on Style, Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum, vol. 118, Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 2002.

Fulltext:

In the eighteenth century, sympathy was considered a major force in human society, aesthetics and rhetorical communication. This European tendency was reflected in late eighteenth-century Finland, when two Latin dissertations entitled De sympathia animorum humanorum (On the Sympathy of Human Minds) were presented at the Academy of Turku (Åbo).1 The respondent of the first of these – which appeared in 1778 – was Isac Hoeckert (1753/55–1815). Hoeckert defended it pro gradu, to obtain a master’s degree. Two years later, in 1780, his younger brother Joseph Hoeckert (1758–1833) continued the discussion on sympathy by writing his thesis on the same topic.2 The dissertations were both supervised by the Professor of Eloquence, H.G. Porthan (1739–1804). Porthan probably had a strong influence on the dissertations; in fact they may have been largely written by him.3
In the first of the dissertations Isac Hoeckert and his praeses Porthan illustrate the vital importance of sympathy in human life and in human social and moral development in particular. The second dissertation, by Joseph Hoeckert and Porthan, addresses the issue of sympathy in the context of poetry, rhetorical persuasion and education. Generally, master’s dissertations of this period were short, conventional pieces of scholarship that summarised the scientific discussion of their day. However, the two texts by the Hoeckert brothers offer a clear and concise introduction to contemporary rhetorical and ethical discussion on sympathy – a concept that was not used in the same way in classical rhetorical writings.
Although the word sympathy was not used as a rhetorical concept in antiquity, classical rhetoric did, of course, call attention to emotional appeal as an important way of persuading an audience. The idea of a sympathetic influence between a speaker and his audience is closely connected with the ideas that Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian presented on ethos (the presentation of the character of the speaker) and pathos (the arousing of emotions in the audience).Quintilian advised that in order to deliver an emotional appeal the speaker must know and feel the emotions he wishes to invoke. Furthermore, he must express his emotional state in gesture and tone. This is achieved by imagining absent things in his mind as if they were actually present.4 Only then he is able to evoke the same emotions in the audience.
Porthan and the brothers Hoeckert frequently refer to ancient rhetoric, Cicero, Quintilian, and Horace, whereas Aristotle’s Rhetorica is not mentioned. One reason for this may be that their idea of ethos is closer to Cicero’s view of the concept than Aristotle’s. Modern scholars, such as Jacob Wisse, have emphasised that the purpose of Aristotelian ethos was above all to establish an image of trustworthiness, and thus only the qualities relevant to this purpose were included in his discussion on ethos. In Aristotle’s view, the speaker should show himself to be as a good-willed, sensible and virtuous human being in order to shed a favourable light on himself and his case. Winning the sympathy of the listeners and their emotional response is not thought to be that relevant in Aristotle, for the listener might – at least in principle – rationally decide whether he finds the speaker reliable or not. Jacob Wisse claims that Aristotle’s concept of ethos is rational, for it is limited to the qualities of the speaker that are related to his speaking the truth. If the Aristotelian concept of ethos did not aim at an emotional response such as sympathy but at reliability, Cicero’s conception of ethos, on the other hand, bears a strong emotional component and aims at arousing emotions and winning the goodwill of the audience – their benevolentia – a word often translated into English as ‘sympathy’ to which it is thought to be equivalent.5 In the two dissertations studied here, the concept of ethos is likewise closely related to emotions.
Cicero’s ethos involves aspects of rhetoric that put the speaker in a favourable light and is aimed at evoking sympathy. However, the word benevolentia used by Cicero does not cover all aspects of sympathetic feelings, as will be shown in this paper.6 Instead of discussing sympathy as one of the emotions aroused by a speaker – in the sense of winning the goodwill or compassion of judges, for instance, or arousing pity for a victim in court –, the brothers Hoeckert and Porthan give sympathy a wider role in rhetorical persuasion. Sympathy is not merely a psychological state invoked by the speaker, nor is it merely the goal of persuasion (in the sense of winning over the hearers). Instead it conveniently combines several central rhetorical concepts as well as the main traditional means of persuasion, both ethos and pathos. Its power allows the speaker and his audience to identify themselves with other human beings, and thus sympathy provides a basis for all successful rhetorical persuasion.
In this article, my purpose is to elucidate the importance of sympathy in rhetorical persuasion as it was conceived by the Hoeckert brothers in their dissertations. Through their texts, we can discover how they believed speakers could develop the skill of evoking sympathy in an audience.

Eighteenth-century discussions of sympathy
in philosophy, rhetoric and aesthetics
During the eighteenth century, sympathy was a fashionable concept in British moral philosophy and was discussed in aesthetics and rhetoric as well. The famous Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711–1776) made an attempt to systematise human passions according to a few general principles such as sympathy and association; he also distinguished sympathy from benevolence in his highly influential A Treatise on Human Nature (1739–1740).7 British statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke (1729–1797) followed Hume and gave sympathy a prominent place in his A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful in 1757. Burke defined sympathy as a sort of ”substitution, by which we are put into the place of another man, and affected in many respects as he is affected”.8 Burke also touched upon the importance of sympathy in rhetoric, claiming that ”poetry and rhetoric do not succeed in exact description so well as painting does; their business is to affect rather by sympathy than imitation; to display rather the effect of things on the mind of the speaker, or of others, than to present a clear idea of the things themselves”.9
In Burke’s thinking, in the process of sympathy we do not merely reach an understanding of the other’s feelings, which could be grasped by an act of thoughtful interpretation of the words on the page, but more than that: we actively partici­pate in the feelings of another, and the emotional process of the speaker’s mind being aroused is repeated in us. In order to communicate ideas to others effectively, the orator should thus not only appeal to the intellect by using rational argumentation, but also stir the audience’s emotions and imagination.10 Thus Burke emphasised emotional content in speech and in literature. George Campbell (1719–96) too drew on ideas presented by Hume and dealt with sympathy in his Philosophy of Rhetoric in 1776, only two years before Isac Hoeckert and Porthan published their dissertation.Campbell is said to have been the first to give sympathy a crucial role in rhetorical communication.11
Thus, in their dissertations Porthan and the brothers Hoeckert were at one with their age in showing interest in sympathy and human nature. They do not refer to Hume or Burke, but Porthan later had copies of their books.12 They connect themselves to the context of eighteenth-century thought by relying on contemporary scholars such as the aesthetician Henry Home (Lord Kames, 1696–1782) and his Elements of Criticism (1762), especially his discussion of virtue and sympathy and emotions caused by fiction; they also rely on the English philosopher Edward Search (Abraham Tucker, 1705–1774) and his book The Light of Nature Pursued (1768–1778). These two authorities dominate the first dissertation even to the extent that long passages are clearly rendered in direct translations, especially from Search. Home and Search are their favourite sources of information for the origin and development of sympathy as it arises in a social context and in close imitation of peers. In the second dissertation, the influence of these two authors is still strong, but in addition Joseph Hoeckert and Porthan also refer to John Locke (1632–1704) and especially to Johann Georg Sulzer’s (1720–1779) popular encyclopedia on aesthetic terminology entitled Allgemeine Theorie der Schönen Künste (1771–1774). In accordance with Locke’s theory of the association of ideas (on which Home and Search elaborated, among others), Hoeckert and Porthan argue that there are no innate ideas in human beings, but that we learn to associate ideas with certain perceptions. We have the capacity for feeling and knowing and thus also for sympathy, and it is maintained and developed in social practice.13

On the importance of sympathy in human society
In the eighteenth century, sympathy was not only considered a feeling of compassion or commiseration towards others – as we might think nowadays – but also as a certain conformity of feelings and inclinations. Isac Hoeckert and Porthan open the first dissertation by quoting a famous passage of Horace’s Ars poetica (101–103): when someone smiles other people smile in return, and if you wish me to weep, you must first feel sorrow yourself. This quotation already reveals that the authors separate sympathy from specific emotions such as pity, for sympathy was not thought of merely as a feeling ”felt for someone” in his misfortunes, but rather as ”feeling with another”.14 The people we15 sympathise with need not be suffering or grieving, but may be experiencing positive feelings, which can also evoke sympathy. Isac Hoeckert and Porthan observe that we rejoice in the pleasures of our fellowman: a voice expressing joy evokes happiness in our fellowmen and a cheerful countenance infuses a sensible complacency in other people’s minds.16 On the other hand, sympathy shows especially in such feelings as pity and certain forms of love (of one’s country, for one’s children, for a partner or friend).17 In the eighteenth century emphasis was on sympathy’s social and communicative side. It was not considered a specific emotion but was best defined as a fellow-feeling, a benevolent agreement with others and a sharing of their sentiments and ideas, something that renders us susceptible to others’ passions.
In the first dissertation, Isac Hoeckert and Porthan regard sympathy as no less than the most powerful force in human life.18 Sympathy is a natural inclination of man, an interpersonal passion which spreads like an infection and becomes stronger in social interaction. The perception of other people’s emotions cannot help but affect the sympathetic observer and inflame the mind.19 In Hoeckert’s and Porthan’s words, we tend to approve and disapprove of things and persons by ­imitating the opinions of others. The strongest influence on us is by people whom either we hold in high esteem and who affect us due to their position of authority, or people with whom we are daily in close contact and from whom we gradually learn to share their likes and dislikes.20 We also learn to love people who are loved by others; likewise, we avoid the company of people who are avoided by others.21 Even the senses obey sympathy, so that one shudders at the same smell that others find repulsive. Fashion, custom, taste and aesthetic standards of a community in eating, clothing and music have their bases in the principle of sympathy. To sympathy Hoeckert and Porthan also ascribe the great uniformity of manners observed in people living in the same region or belonging to the same family.22 The process of imitation that is so crucial to sympathy can thus be either unconscious and automatic, something peculiar to man who is by nature bound to learn from and be affected by others, or a conscious effort to build one’s identity by following the example of those he or she admires.
Among the positive effects of sympathy the authors count its ability to humanise us, to make us social and benevolent and to elevate the character when we imitate virtuous men. Sympathy binds the individual to his social environment and contributes to human society by making social life agreeable and easy, whereas people who reject sympathetic feelings become harsh and unfriendly. Thus, we benefit greatly from moderate and reasonable feelings of sympathy.23 However, sympathy is also a source of many vices. Isac Hoeckert and Porthan repeatedly argue that we should first rationally decide whom we will allow to affect us and not to imitate anyone without reflection and, second, we should adhere to the mean in the strength and fervour of our passions. These warnings are related, since in sympathy’s contagious nature lies one of its major threats. Sympathy is capable not only of arousing emotions, but also of inciting us to actions that may not always be conducive to social or individual wellbeing. Hoeckert and Porthan warn that we should not let ourselves be persuaded by religious fanatics, as happened during the witch-hunts of previous centuries, or develop a desire to imitate vices instead of virtue. Nor should we acquire bad taste from bad literature.24 As in living, so too in a rhetorical situation the audience is fully responsible for its own conduct and ought to choose who is allowed to provoke it emotionally. Thus, a speaker’s mastery over his audience is by no means unconditional.
Sympathy and rhetorical persuasion
In the second dissertation Joseph Hoeckert and Porthan call attention to the fact that a sympathetic feeling between the speaker and his audience is of vital importance in rhetoric and in many genres of writing: ”Affects (affectus) dominate all oratory and poetry. They are the most efficient means of persuasion. In this single thing lies the vital force of all eloquence.”25 The authors also note that harmony and like-mindedness promote communication and persuasion, whereas disapproval of another’s arguments comes from failure to sympathise with him. Certain aspects related to the speaker’s character govern the emergence and strength of our association with him. Already in the first dissertation Isac Hoeckert and Porthan had noted that we find people more persuasive if their character is similar to ours, because then we probably share their values and ideas. Second, we are likely to sympathise with someone whom we love or esteem.26 Thus, the speaker greatly benefits if he appears both similar to his audience in intellectual and moral respect and virtuous in character so that he is loved and esteemed by others. Interestingly, the brothers Hoeckert and Porthan not only place these ideas in the context of classical rhetoric and its discussions on ethos, but also explain their effects through sympathy. Moreover, classical rhetoric emphasised that above all a speaker should be reliable and virtuous in order to evoke trust, conviction and agreement in the audience and to infuse his ideas and arguments into their minds. However, the brothers Hoeckert and Porthan do not emphasise the virtuous character of the speaker so much as his sincerity and emotionality. Trustworthiness of the speaker is based on a sincere, proper and truly emotional performance of his speech.
Joseph Hoeckert and Porthan assume that, although sympathy seems to be an unconscious and uncontrollable feeling, there are nevertheless certain means by which to appeal to an audience and control it. On the other hand, there are numerous ways to fail in persuasion if one is unable to involve the audience in a sympathetic process. What made sympathy an issue of the art of rhetoric was precisely that not all expressed feelings were capable of evoking sympathy, but that this power was triggered only by the most vivid, truthful and plausible speeches expressing genuine emotions. It was the speaker’s task, if he wanted to arouse sympathy, first to learn to feel various emotions and then to express them as truthfully as possible.27
From the dissertations we can reconstruct at least three important means that were thought to promote sympathy and persuasion: first, the ipse ardere principle; second, the plausibility of narration; and third, a vivid expression that appeals to the imagination.

Ipse ardere and imitation
Joseph Hoeckert and Porthan observe that in order to produce passions a speaker (or a poet) has to be inflamed by his subject.The metaphors of fire and burning are repeatedly employed: an enthusiastic speaker is able to ”kindle others’ emotions”; his fire has to be ”poked by pouring oil on it”; and an inspiring scientist is likened to a quick-flashing”turbine” who sets all in movement by his speed and power. An ardent soul or a genius28 can thus create whole schools of thought by his example, which is then imitated by others.29 Sympathy, therefore, is regarded as a major force in all imitative action. Nouns such as ardor, ignis and animi faces and verbs like accendere, ardere, fervere, flagrare, incendere and inflammare are frequently used in referring to emotions here. As a contagious phenomenon, sympathy is also likened to an epidemic (contagio) and in its en­thusiasm, to fever (febris).30 Their sources for this discussion and imagery are Cicero’s De oratore (2, 188–191), Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria (6, 2, 26–28) and Nicolas Caussin’s De eloquentia sacra et humana (8, 4).
To reinforce their point, Joseph Hoeckert and Porthan quote passages from Roman rhetoric where the appeal to emotions is emphasised. They frequently draw on Cicero’s De oratore, for instance, the description of Crassus speaking fervently in court (2, 188) or the passage where Antonius – a vigorous speaker whose delivery was well suited for arousing emotions – claims: ”Had my personal indignation been missing from all the ­talking I did on that occasion, my address, so far from inspiring compassion, would positively have deserved ridicule” (2, 196).31 The passionate speaking styles of the highly ­persuasive ancient orators best exemplify the ipse ardere principle emphasised in the dissertation.
In addition to excellent speakers worth imitating, the dissertation also warns against the examples of less successful performers, whose dull and lifeless speech fails to appeal to the imagination. Therefore, it greatly weakens the power of sympathy if beggars, for instance, ask for alms in a cold voice and with mild gestures. If they wish people to take their complaints seriously, they should vividly and forcefully moan their fate and desperation. Likewise, calm speakers resemble fraudulent advocates or shameless actors who can neither inspire their audience’s confidence nor inflame them.32 Moreover, speakers should not try to express feelings they have not experienced themselves, for otherwise their attempt seems to be merely a weak copy of real passion. Thus, by quoting Quintilian, the authors emphasise that feigning always betrays a speaker.33 They also follow Sulzer and Home who maintained that each passion had by nature its peculiar signs and tones suited to it, and these were difficult to imitate in a calm state.34
According to Joseph Hoeckert and Porthan, there are several failures of representation that weaken or destroy the power of sympathy. The audience’s response is most likely to be disturbed by the sense of pretence and affectation, where the expression and the character of the speaker or his situation seem incompatible and feigned. In Hoeckert’s and Porthan’s words, the sense of character dissimulation inspires disgust rather than trust and sympathy. It is difficult to identify with someone who either simply leaves a disagreeable, indifferent or unreliable impression or even appears to deserve his misfortunes. Likewise,we usually do not sympathise with people of whom we have a low moral or intellectual opinion or who seem to act out of malice. An undesirable feature in the human being is antipathy, the opposite of sympathy: ”It [antipathy] generally takes its rise or terminates in ill nature, rendering the possessors morose, contemptuous and intractable: they repine at others successes, and rejoice at the sight of disappointment; if you talk seriously to them they fall to joking, and if you would make them merry they put on a more than ordinary solemnity of countenance”.35 Thus, Joseph Hoeckert and Porthan imply that in the process of sympathy we make ethical judgements on the characters represented and evaluate right and wrong action. Therefore, the speaker should beware of offending the audience’s sense of propriety.

Plausibility and truthfulness (verisimilitudo)
Secondly, if speakers wish to be persuasive, they should pay constant attention to the truthfulness and plausibility of their narration. Whatever seems contrary to nature, improbable or clearly invented is not likely to elicit sympathy from the audience; everything should be convincingly depicted as it happens in real life. As an example where plausibility is deliberately violated, Joseph Hoeckert and Porthan mention musical farces (Inter­mezzi) and operas where nothing happens naturally, but as if in a different world, monstrously and prodigiously. The authors also emphasise the three unities (of time, place and action) supported by French classicism. Interestingly, sympathy understood in the sense of unity and co-operation of all parts of the whole provides a structural ideal for drama. It holds the world together; likewise the dynamics of drama are based on a sense of wholeness and cohesion that are supreme in sympathetic relationships, too. The intensity of the audience’s experience is also important: the flow of a theatrical representation should never be interrupted by intervals or musical numbers that give leisure to the audience and break the sweet illusion created by the main plot.36
What the audience finds truthful and probable depends, of course, on its background.People also tend to find reliable those emotions they have experienced themselves. Therefore, the speaker greatly benefits from knowing the character of his audience. Hoeckert and Porthan thus seem to advise the speaker to present accounts of events and occurrences that are already familiar to the audience. This conduct presumes an unlikely uniformity and predictability of audience response and suggests that the same passion is expressed in nearly the same manner by all men as if speaking a universal language.

Vivid description
The third important principle in connection with sympathy is the vividness of narration and presentation. Imagination (phantasia)37 provides the basis for shared human feeling, for in identifying with others’ feelings and passions we use imagination. We actively engage in the inner life of the speaker or the characters he describes, as imagined through speech. The strength of the audience’s sympathy depends on the manner with which it conceives the idea of the other’s passion. Therefore, Joseph Hoeckert and Porthan remind us that great care has to be taken that things absent are presented to the imagination vividly and distinctly as if they were occurring simultaneously and not at a distance. The audience has to be made eye-witnesses and become thoroughly engaged with the events.38
Joseph Hoeckert and Porthan base their arguments on vivacity on Cicero’s accounts of forceful ancient orators, Quintilian’s discussion on evidentia (Institutio oratoria 6, 2, 29–33) and especially on contemporary scholars –Sulzer, Locke and above all Home –who talked about the ”ideal presence” of things to the imagination and senses in order to differentiate ”ideal presence” from ”real presence”. Good speech and good fiction leave the impression of reality, as if the events took place within view.39 Hence, historiography and accounts of real events are not necessarily more affecting than fictional texts, because the impact depends more on the ideal presence than on the truth of the narrated events. We are moved by fiction and characters removed from us at the greatest distance of time as well as of place, provided that their representation is forceful.40
Ideal presence is produced by signs. Joseph Hoeckert and Porthan advise their readers to appeal to the senses of sight and hearing in particular, for these faculties are considered to be closer to the imagination than the other senses.41 Appeal to the senses is important because emotions are best evoked that way; the idea of sorrow arises when the signs of sorrow are presented. If we see someone weeping, we assume that he or she is in distress of some kind. Once tears have been connected with the idea of sorrow in our minds, the same emotion is aroused every time we perceive a wound, a sad face or hear someone weeping. Therefore, in order to evoke these feelings we need to show our audience external signs of the emotion.42 According to Hoeckert and Porthan, ancient orators and tragic writers had a strong impact on the audience because they did not hesitate to use bloody clothes and other striking details in their speeches.43 However, if the picture of another’s misfortunes is faint, it will not exert any influence on the audience, who will remain indifferent. A superficial, obscure or nerveless presentation succeeds in producing only faint ideas.
Description is thus treated as the major strategy of persuasive discourse.44 Description is particularly important in historiography, oratory and other persuasive modes of discourse; even Stoic philosophers used the power of successive images wisely. As examples of successful narratives, Joseph Hoeckert and Porthan refer to Livy’s description of the battle between the Romans and the inhabitants of Alba Longa (1, 25), and to Sallustius’s battleground descriptions in the War of Jugurtha (chapters 60 and 94). These accounts present the restless and tense atmosphere of the battles, record voices heard on the battleground (commands, cries of pain or triumph, clashes of arms) and describe suffering and wounds. Audience reactions to the spectacle and their alternating moods of hope and fear are also reported. Hoeckert and Porthan attribute the persuasive effectiveness of these passages to their affecting depiction, as did Home.45 In these histories the senses are successfully stimulated by strong and illustrative images that enable the audience to imagine emotions, character and circumstances.
It is important to observe that in the sympathetic process, we not only align our feelings with another person’s, but also his situation contributes to our reaction. Hence our response is often directed to certain types of ethical situations rather than to emotions. The speaker has to establish the circumstances so that they support the feelings expressed; he has to show that the feelings are justified, correct and compatible with the situation he describes or caused by them. Especially to arouse compassion, the speaker must show the audience that the object of identification is experiencing his misfortunes through no fault of his own (as in tragedies), and the greatest feeling of compassion is aroused if the desperate situation directly ensues from the person’s virtue.46 We do not sympathise with someone’s distress if we consider his situation bearable or deserved or if we do not find the action and feelings expressed to be ethically justified.
Description of the circumstances thus ensures that the emotion expressed is right and reasonable given the context. Moreover, the account arouses our memories of similar occurrences and recalls earlier feelings and reactions attached to similar conditions in our own lives. Without this recollection and without relating the description to the audience’s experience of the world, the speaker has a far more difficult task in evoking sympathy.
In Hoeckert’s and Porthan’s words, this also partly explains why the capacity to feel sympathy increases when people mature. Over a lifetime one encounters ­va­rious situations and learns to associate with them. Thus, an innate propensity to sympathy develops over time. Hoeckert and Porthan argue that sympathy is a capacity that is and should be constantly exercised to make it stronger. The training begins already in childhood, when we imitate the adults around us, and con­tinues through adult social life. By exercising our sympathetic emotion, we gradually acquire the habit (habitus) of responding, automatically and involuntarily, without the command of reason, to different situations and representations in a way that has become peculiar to us. This is seen most clearly in the feeling of compassion: one cannot but be touched by other person’s misfortunes.47 Hence, sympathy is compared to yawning and laughing in being spontaneous and contagious at the same time.48
The authors give great weight to examples in contrast to abstract argumentation, rules and precepts, which speak to understanding only like algebraic characters, and not to passion or imagination. This approach, which is related to the issue of description, is extended to the field of education. In Joseph Hoeckert’s and Porthan’s words, teachers of literature and classical languages especially should draw frequently on beautiful and elegant passages in literature and not base their teaching on arguments and dry reasoning alone. Otherwise children will not learn the power of sympathy and gradually turn harsh and barbaric.49 In his study on ‘Neo-Humanism at the Academy of Turku’ (”Nyhumanismen vid Åbo Akademi”), Swedish literary scholar Sven Rinman has claimed that this passage reveals Porthan’s renewed appreciation of the aesthetic value of ancient literature. Porthan had been travelling in Germany in the period between the appearance of the two dissertations and stayed for an extended time at the University of Göttingen. ­Rinman argues that during the visit Porthan was influenced by such neo-humanists as Christian Gottlob Heyne (1729–1812) and adopted a new approach to ancient texts, emphasising their aesthetic qualities instead of merely using them in the context of grammar and Latin classes.50 Although Rinman’s view of the supposed German influence and the journey’s epochal impact on Porthan’s thinking have been questioned,51 in the concluding chapter of their dissertation Joseph Hoeckert and Porthan do criticise the widespread disregard for elegance and beauty, which induces aversion to the classical authors. They also apply the doctrine of sympathy to the teaching of classical texts.
To return to the concept of vividness, it was crucial in the delivery of speech (actio) as well, for a good speech must be supported by proper facial expressions and gestures.52 To prove their point Hoeckert and Porthan give a long quotation from Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria, saying among other things that ”all emotional appeals will inevitably fall flat, unless they are given the fire that voice, look, and the whole carriage of the body can give them” (11, 3, 2). In the manner of Quintilian, they also judge spoken words superior to written ones, for ”the verse moves us far more when heard than when read” and ”a mediocre speech supported by all the power of delivery will be more impressive than the best speech unaccompanied by such power” (11, 3, 4–5; trans. H. E. Butler). Hoeckert and Porthan elaborate on these familiar ideas by quoting Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid (1710–1796). Reid claimed that an energetic impression is best conveyed by using signs that are naturally expressive of our thoughts and include voice, gestures and bodily features. By differentiating natural language from artificial language, which is based on agreed-upon signs, he argued that ”it is by natural signs chiefly that we give force and energy to language; and the less language has of them, it is the less expressive and persuasive”.53 Thus when our speech is successful it resembles the speech of dumb people and savages, whose language is more of nature and thus more expressive. Interestingly, Porthan and Hoeckert also claim that emotions can be aroused by the tone of voice or by gestures, as do pantomime actors and mutes. Mental images can thus be created by voices and visual gestures as well.54
Conclusion
I have presented here the major tenets of the brothers Hoeckert and Porthan’s dissertations on De sympathia animorum humanorum that relate the concept of sympathy to rhetorical communication and persuasion. In their discussion the conventional issues of classical rhetoric, especially its emphasis on the production of emotions in an audience, the importance of an impressive delivery in speech and vivid narration are clearly discernible. In the two dissertations, all these sides of persuasion are covered by the concept of sympathy.
The usefulness of the concept of sympathy lies in the idea that it synthesises central rhetorical concepts that were closely allied or even overlapped. In particular, sympathy connects the classical concepts of ethos and pathos, for in arousing emotions in the audience the speaker himself is expected to burn with the same fire.Trustworthy character of a speaker and audience goodwill were mutually interdependent and, as it seemed in the eighteenth century, best united by the concept of sympathy. As a reciprocal emotion, sympathy includes the emotional states both of the speaker and his audience, and it explains the consensus and the required bond that is formed between them in the performance of a successful speech. Sympathy also explains the importance of imitation in learning.
Of particular interest here is thus the linkage between classical rhetoric and eighteenth-century interest in the human mind and its affections. The concept of sympathy springs from British eighteenth-century aesthetics and moral philosophy, which gave sympathy a prominent role in human life. As noted, the brothers Hoeckert and Porthan rely heavily on British moral philosophers and aestheticians, and they frequently draw on Henry Home, Edward Search and Johann Georg Sulzer. Their dissertations testify to an early knowledge of contemporary British moral philosophy and ethics in Finland.55 As has also been noted by earlier scholars, at the university in Turku an interest in British culture was more prominent than in other universities in the Kingdom of Sweden of which Finland was then a part.56 The influence of British philosophy was also strong at the University of Göttingen, which Porthan had visited in 1779 between the publication of these two dissertations.57 Thus,the authors performed a sympathetic act by building a bridge between classical and eighteenth-century ideas.
The notions of ethos and pathos are not just dressed in new, trendy clothes here, but the discussion interestingly elaborates on old rhetorical issues by relating them to ­sympathy. In the Turku dissertations, sympathetic performance equals commendable eloquence. Sympathy functions as the chief means of rhetorical persuasion by providing a basis for the effectiveness of good oratory and poetry. On the one hand, the authors emphasise the speaker’s or the author’s skills, for a speech or a narrative should be plausible and vivid in order to be persuasive and to elicit the audience’s sympathy. But on the other hand, a speech can be affective only because human beings have the capacity to feel sympathy and align themselves with other people’s feelings and arguments. Even what is found plausible and thus sympathetic depends on the audience’s background and former experience, as we have seen. Thus, the sympathetic capacity comes first, and only then can representation be successful and persuasive. This argument is the eighteenth-century thinkers’ main contribution to the discussion of rhetorical persuasion.
It is also important to note that aesthetic and moral approbation are both due to sympathy. In responding to good or bad representation,people base their responses on an ethical judgement of the propriety of the feelings expressed by the speaker or the writer, and these feelings manage to persuade the audience only when properly presented. Moreover, sympathy is prevalent in all social actions. The emergence of a virtuous and social human being and the moral effects of literature, historiography and oratory are largely attributed to the power of sympathy.58

Notes

1    I will hereafter refer both to the Latin originals (1778 and 1780) and my Finnish translation (2003). The translated volume also includes a third dissertation written by Abraham Eenqvist (1755–1791) and supervised by H. G. Porthan, Dissertatio academica: observationes circa affectus in universum spectatos.
2    Both Isac and Joseph Hoeckert became clergymen in their later lives: Isac was a minister in the parish of Loimaa; Joseph in Nousiainen.
3    Iiro Kajanto, Porthan and classical scholarship. A study of classical influences in eighteenth century Finland (Helsinki: Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, B 225.Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1984), 77. Authorship of university dissertations was often attributed to the respondenson the title-page, but this did not necessarily indicate actual authorship. As praeses  for the dissertations, Porthan supervised them and probably also contributed to them as an actual author. Although the dissertations deal with psychology and moral philosophy rather than rhetoric, knowledge of ‘the human mind’was crucial to rhetoric and literature; thus the issue grew out of Porthan’s primary interest as a teacher of eloquence. For Porthan as a teacher of rhetoric, see Iiro Kajanto, Porthan and classical scholarship. A study of classical influences in eighteenth century Finland (Helsinki: Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, B 225. Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1984), 66–104; Carina Burman, ”’denna förträffeliga konsten’. Henrik Gabriel Porthan och retoriken”, in Historiska och litteraturhistoriska studier 66, ed. Helena Solstrand-Pipping (Helsingfors: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, 1991).
4    Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 6, 2, 27–34.
5    On Aristotle’s and Cicero’s differing ideas about ethos and pathos, see Jacob Wisse, Ethos and Pathos from Aristotle to Cicero (Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1989), 234–249.
6    On benevolentia (translated as sympathy), see Jacob Wisse, Ethos and Pathos from Aristotle to Cicero (Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1989), 97–98, 234, 236 and 244.
7    For Hume’s ideas on sympathy, see Richard Norman, The Moral Philosophers. An Introduction to Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 71–93; Philip Mercer, Sympathy and Ethics. A Study of the Relationship between Sympathy and Morality with Special Reference to Hume’s Treatise (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972).
8    Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, ed. James T. Boulton (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968 [1757]), 44.
9    Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, ed. James T. Boulton (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968 [1757]), 172.
10    According to Burke, eloquence and poetry are ”more capable of making deep and lively impressions than many other arts”, since the words most fully express the passion of others and bring us into sympathy (Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, ed. James T. Boulton (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968 [1757]), 173). It seems that some genres of representation were thought to be more effective in eliciting sympathy than others. Cf. Henry Home (Lord Kames), Elements of Criticism, vols. I–III, ed. Robert Voitle (Hildesheim, Georg Olms Verlag, 1970 [1762]), vol. 1, 116–117) argues that a theatrical representation is the most powerful in making an impression of ideal presence and thus also in evoking sympathy. Hoeckert and Porthan maintain that words, especially if delivered in speech, are more powerful in raising emotions than any picture.
11    On Campbell and other British eighteenth-century rhetoricians discussing sympathy, see Paul G. Bator, ”The ’Principle of Sympathy’ in Campbell’s Philosophy of Rhetoric,” The Quarterly Journal of Speech 68 (1982): 418–424.
12    See his Catalogus librorum, p. 154, item 1123, and p. 155, items 1144–1145. Among the notable scholars not mentioned in the dissertations is Adam Smith (1723–1790), whose major ethical work, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), gave a crucial role to sympathy in morality (see Patricia Spence, ”Sympathy and Propriety in Adam Smith’s Rhetoric”, The Quarterly Journal of Speech 60 (1974): 92–99). Also absent is the Scottish rhetorician Hugh Blair (1718–1800), whose Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (1783) Porthan became aware of in (or after) 1786, when the first German translation appeared and which he eventually owned. See Carina Burman, ”’denna förträffeliga konsten’. Henrik Gabriel Porthan och retoriken”, in Historiska och litteraturhistoriska studier 66, ed. Helena Solstrand-Pipping (Helsingfors: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, 1991), 110 and 125, n. 45; Catalogus librorum, p. 154, items 1127–1129. Porthan refers to Blair’s discussion on passions in his lectures on aesthetics that date from the 1790s (Porthan 2001, p. 29ff).
13    Porthan and Hoeckert (1778), §2; (2003), p. 59. Cf. Sarjala (2001), p. 219. Although the authors use contemporary sources when dealing with the association of ideas, ancient psychology already knew remembered images that were left upon the mind by sense perception and recalled by representation. See Ruth Webb, ”Imagination and the arousal of the emotions in Greco-Roman rhetoric”, in The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature, eds. Susanna Morton Braund and Christopher Gill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 116.
14    Philip Mercer, Sympathy and Ethics. A Study of the Relationship between Sympathy and Morality with Special Reference to Hume’s Treatise (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 21; Jukka Sarjala, Music, Morals and the Body. An Academic Issue in Turku, 1653–1808 (Helsinki: Studia Historica 65. SKS, 2001), 215–216.
15    The brothers Hoeckert and Porthan characteristically employ the noun ‘we’ in discussing sympathy.
16    Porthan and Hoeckert (1778), §1; (2003), p. 57.
17    Porthan and Hoeckert (1778), §7; (2003), pp. 70–72; cf. Edward Search, The Light of Nature Pursued (London: T. Jones, in Fetter-Lane, 1768), Vol. 1, Part 2, Ch. 19, §3.
18    In fact they argue that sympathy is not limited to human society, but also animals show sympathetic reactions: dogs howl with other dogs and swine hasten to help each other (Porthan and Hoeckert 1778, §1; 2003, p. 60 and 74, n. 4). On ‘animal sympathy’ that is manifest in herds and groups of gregarious animals, see David Hume, A Treatise on Human Nature, eds. David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003 [1739–1740]), 255 (section 2.2.12); Philip Mercer, Sympathy and Ethics. A Study of the Relationship between Sympathy and Morality with Special Reference to Hume’s Treatise (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 13.
19    To be precise, the word Porthan and Hoeckert use for emotions is affectus (an affect or affection). Abraham Eenqvist and Porthan discuss the differences between passions and affects in their dissertation Dissertatio academica: observationes circa affectus in universum spectatos (cf. above note 1). On Affektenlehre, see Jukka Sarjala, Music, Morals and the Body. An Academic Issue in Turku, 1653–1808 (Helsinki: Studia Historica 65. SKS, 2001).
20    Porthan and Hoeckert (1778), §5; (2003), pp. 65–67; cf. Edward Search, The Light of Nature Pursued (London: T. Jones, in Fetter-Lane, 1768), Vol. 1, Part 2, Ch. 19, §3.
21    Porthan and Hoeckert (1778), §1; (2003), p. 58; cf. Edward Search, The Light of Nature Pursued (London: T. Jones, in Fetter-Lane, 1768), Vol. 1, Part 2, Ch. 19, §3.
22    Porthan and Hoeckert (1778), §4; (2003), pp. 63–65. Here the authors repeat almost word for word ideas first represented by Hume and further discussed by Search, who is the authors’  source here. In fact, what the authors present in the first dissertation (§2-§5) on sympathy’s social nature derives almost directly from Edward Search, The Light of Nature Pursued (London: T. Jones, in Fetter-Lane, 1768), Vol. 1, Part 2, Ch. 19, §2-§3. On the development of taste, see also Search’s discussion of beauty (Edward Search, The Light of Nature Pursued (London: T. Jones, in Fetter-Lane, 1768), Vol. 1, Part 2, Ch. 22, §4-§10), David Hume, A Treatise on Human Nature, eds. David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003 [1739–1740]), 206 (section 2.1.11); Philip Mercer, Sympathy and Ethics. A Study of the Relationship between Sympathy and Morality with Special Reference to Hume’s Treatise (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 25.
23    Porthan and Hoeckert (1778), §6; (2003), p. 68; cf. Henry Home (Lord Kames), Elements of Criticism, vols. I–III, ed. Robert Voitle (Hildesheim, Georg Olms Verlag, 1970 [1762]), vol. 2, p. 143.
24    Porthan and Hoeckert (1778), §5-§6; (2003), pp. 66–70 and p. 75, n. 13. On Shaftesbury’s famous critique of sympathy (identified with enthusiasm), see John Mullan, Sentiment and sociability: the language offeeling in the eighteenth century. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 26–27.
25    Porthan and Hoeckert (1780), §11; (2003), p. 87. The authors also observe that in oratory the purpose of emotions is to persuade the audience to act according to the speaker’s will, whereas in poetry emotions aim at pleasure (1780), §11; (2003), p. 87.
26    On the speaker’s character, see Porthan and Hoeckert (1778), §5; (2003), pp. 65–66; and (1780), §10; (2003), pp. 85–86.
27    Cf. Porthan and Hoeckert (1780), §11; (2003), pp. 103–104, n. 8, where they quote the following advice given to all artists by Johann Georg Sulzer, Allgemeine Theorie der Schönen Künste (Leipzig, 1771–1774), s.v. Leidenschaft): ”Er übe sich mit dem hartnäckigsten Fleiss, alles, was er auszudrucken hat, selbst wohl zu empfinden, und wage sich an keine Schilderung der Leidenschaft, bis es ihm gelungen ist, sich selbst in dieselbe zu fessen. Denn es ist unmöglich Empfindungen auszudrücken, die man selbst nicht hat.”
28    Although the word ”genius” may refer to the general capacity of the mind, this passage certainly also evokes the late eighteenth-century discussions on the fire of genius, a charged emotion that raises the mind to divine heights. On this aspect, see Thomas J. McCarthy, Relationship of Sympathy. The Writer and the Reader in British Romanticism. (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1997), 2.
29    To the power of sympathy the authors also attribute special achievements in arts and sciences in certain times. Oratory reached its climax in Athens during the age of Demosthenes, tragedy in Sophocles’ times, and poetry in Rome with Virgil. These individual achievements were made possible by the general ardent interest and contagious (and thus imitative and sympathetic) enthusiasm shown for these arts. See Porthan and Hoeckert (1778), §8; (2003), pp. 72–74.
30    The equation between sympathy and infection runs through the whole Treatise by Hume (Philip Mercer, Sympathy and Ethics. A Study of the Relationship between Sympathy and Morality with Special Reference to Hume’s Treatise (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 36), too, whereas one of its early occurrences was in Cicero’s De divinatione 2, 33, where he rendered sumpatheiaas contagio.
31    Quoted in Porthan and Hoeckert (1780), §11; (2003), p. 89; on Antonius see also Cicero, Brutus 141–142.
32    Porthan and Hoeckert (1780), §11; (2003), p. 88.
33    See Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 12, 1, 29; quoted by Porthan and Hoeckert (1780), §11; (2003), p. 89.
34    Cf. Henry Home (Lord Kames), Elements of Criticism, vols. I–III, ed. Robert Voitle (Hildesheim, Georg Olms Verlag, 1970 [1762]), vol. 1, p. 119 and 122; Johann Georg Sulzer, Allgemeine Theorie der Schönen Künste (Leipzig, 1771–1774), s.v. Ausdruck in der Schauspielkunst.
35    Porthan and Hoeckert (1778), §6; (2003), pp. 68–69; this passage is quoted from Edward Search, The Light of Nature Pursued (London: T. Jones, in Fetter-Lane, 1768), Vol. 1, Part 2, Ch. 19, §4. On antipathy, see also Porthan and Hoeckert (1780), §10; (2003), p. 86. Here Porthan and Hoeckert note that negligentia, contemptus auditorum and malae cupiditates arouse antipathy rather than sympathy.
36    On plausibility, see Porthan and Hoeckert (1780), §9; (2003), pp. 83–85. Cf. Henry Home (Lord Kames), Elements of Criticism, vols. I–III, ed. Robert Voitle (Hildesheim, Georg Olms Verlag, 1970 [1762]), vol. 1, 115.
37    I have translated phantasia as imagination here which is the sense clearly meant by Porthan and Hoeckert. It has sometimes also been translated as visualisation or mental images, visiones, as it was by Quintilian (Institutio oratoria 6, 2, 29–30). On the sense of the term, see briefly Ruth Webb, ”Imagination and the arousal of the emotions in Greco-Roman rhetoric”, in The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature, eds. Susanna Morton Braund and Christopher Gill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 117.
38    On vivacity, see Porthan and Hoeckert (1778), §3 and (1780), §12; (2003), pp. 62–63 and 90–93. The authors rely here especially on Henry Home (Lord Kames), Elements of Criticism, vols. I–III, ed. Robert Voitle (Hildesheim, Georg Olms Verlag, 1970 [1762]), vol. 1, 112. For Hume’s ideas about vivacity, see Philip Mercer, Sympathy and Ethics. A Study of the Relationship between Sympathy and Morality with Special Reference to Hume’s Treatise (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 39.
39    On ideal presence, see Porthan and Hoeckert (1780), §12; (2003), p. 91. Here the authorsare heavily indebted to Home’s discussion on ideal presence and emotions caused by fiction. See Henry Home (Lord Kames), Elements of Criticism, vols. I–III, ed. Robert Voitle (Hildesheim, Georg Olms Verlag, 1970 [1762]), vol. 1, 104–127.
40    Porthan and Hoeckert (1778), §3; (2003), pp. 62–63; the discussion on fiction’s effects on emotions draws heavily on Edward Search, The Light of Nature Pursued (London: T. Jones, in Fetter-Lane, 1768), Vol. 1, Part 2, Ch. 19, §3.
41    Porthan and Hoeckert (1780), §12-§13; (2003), p. 91 and 96.
42    Porthan and Hoeckert (1778), §2;(2003), p. 59; and (1780), §12; (2003), pp. 90–93. Here we notice a strong influence of Locke and Search; the latter discussed ”the combination of ideas” in Edward Search, The Light of Nature Pursued (London: T. Jones, in Fetter-Lane, 1768), Vol. 1, Part 2, Ch. 9. Home discusses external signs in Henry Home (Lord Kames), Elements of Criticism, vols. I–III, ed. Robert Voitle (Hildesheim, Georg Olms Verlag, 1970 [1762]), vol. 2, 116ff. According to Ruth Webb, ”Imagination and the arousal of the emotions in Greco-Roman rhetoric”, in The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature, eds. Susanna Morton Braund and Christopher Gill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 120, the emotions most frequently mentioned in the Latin rhetorical treatises in connection with vividness are pity and indignation. Also Hoeckert and Porthan seem to focus on these emotions in particular.
43    Porthan and Hoeckert (1780), §12; (2003), pp. 104–105, n. 10. Hoeckert and Porthan rely here once againon Cicero, Quintilian, Locke, Search and Home.
44    On description, see Porthan and Hoeckert (1778), §3 and (1780), §12; (2003), pp. 62–63 and 90–93.
45    Porthan and Hoeckert (1780), §12; (2003), pp. 92–93. Cf. Henry Home (Lord Kames), Elements of Criticism, vols. I–III, ed. Robert Voitle (Hildesheim, Georg Olms Verlag, 1970 [1762]), vol.1, 111 on the famous battle of Zama (described by Sallust): ”I perceive these two heroes in act to engage; I perceive them brandishing their swords, and exhorting their troops; and in this manner I attend them through every circumstance of the battle. This event being present to my mind during the whole progress of my thoughts, admits not any time but  the present.”
46    Porthan and Hoeckert (1780), §10; (2003), p. 86 and pp. 101–102, n. 5 (with a reference Sulzer 1771–1774, s.v. Mitleiden).
47    Porthan and Hoeckert (1778), §2; (2003), pp. 59–61. This passage (almost the whole §2) is rendered word for word from Edward Search, The Light of Nature Pursued (London: T. Jones, in Fetter-Lane, 1768), Vol. 1, Part 2, Ch. 19, §2. Cf. Henry Home (Lord Kames), Elements of Criticism, vols. I–III, ed. Robert Voitle (Hildesheim, Georg Olms Verlag, 1970 [1762]), vol. 1, 75: ”And every exercise of virtue, internal and external, leads to habit; for a disposition or propensity of the mind, like a limb of the body, becomes stronger by exercise.”
48    Porthan and Hoeckert (1778), §4, (2003), p. 65; Edward Search, The Light of Nature Pursued (London: T. Jones, in Fetter-Lane, 1768), Vol. 1, Part 2, Ch. 19, §3.
49    On the power of examples vs. abstract argumentation, see Porthan and Hoeckert (1780), §12 and §14; (2003), pp. 90–91, 98–101 and 110–111, n. 27. The concluding chapter (§14) is the passage, which according to Sven Rinman, ”Nyhumanismen vid Åbo Akademi”, in Lychnos 1948–1949 (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells boktryckeri, 1950), 85–86, best reflects Porthan’s neo-humanism. The chapter ends in a long quotation from neo-humanism’s primary proponent, Winckelmann, but does not in itself reflect the superiority of Greek culture, which had been the main principle in neo-humanism. See Iiro Kajanto, Porthan and classical scholarship. A study of classical influences in eighteenth century Finland (Helsinki: Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, B 225.Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1984), 106.
50    Sven Rinman, ”Nyhumanismen vid Åbo Akademi”, in Lychnos 1948–1949 (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells boktryckeri, 1950), 85–87; Riikonen (2000), p. 41.
51    Iiro Kajanto, Porthan and classical scholarship. A study of classical influences in eighteenth century Finland (Helsinki: Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, B 225.Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1984), 105–106.
52    Porthan focused on delivery in his dissertation De actione oratoria (1781–1782), too. Burman claims that affectus and actio were the two most important concepts in Porthan’s rhetorical thinking, as they often were in his times (Carina Burman, ”’denna förträffeliga konsten’. Henrik Gabriel Porthan och retoriken”, in Historiska och litteraturhistoriska studier 66, ed. Helena Solstrand-Pipping (Helsingfors: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, 1991), 121). On the importance of actioin the eighteenth century, see briefly Carina Burman, ”’denna förträffeliga konsten’. Henrik Gabriel Porthan och retoriken”, in Historiska och litteraturhistoriska studier 66, ed. Helena Solstrand-Pipping (Helsingfors: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, 1991), 116–117.On delivery, see Porthan and Hoeckert 1780, §13; 2003, pp. 93–97.
53    Thomas Reid, An Inquiry into the Human Mind, ed. Timothy Duggan (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979 [1764]), 54–58. Here Reid examines how we achieve knowledge of the world through our five senses. On natural language (of the savages, for example) vs. artificial language, see Porthan and Hoeckert (1780),§13; (2003), p. 94 and p. 106, n. 13.
54    Porthan and Hoeckert (1780), §13; (2003), pp. 107–108, n. 18. Cf. Carina Burman, ”’denna förträffeliga konsten’. Henrik Gabriel Porthan och retoriken”, in Historiska och litteraturhistoriska studier 66, ed. Helena Solstrand-Pipping (Helsingfors: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, 1991), 118, 120–121 on Porthan’s ideas on natural expression. In this passage Porthan and Hoeckert come closer to contemporary primitivist ideas that emphasised folk poetry and the value of cultures not touched by book learning. According to Kajanto (Iiro Kajanto, Porthan and classical scholarship. A study of classical influences in eighteenth century Finland (Helsinki: Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, B 225.Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1984), 142– 145), Porthan stood  fast on the neoclassical principle of imitation and did not support primitivist ideas although he knew them well by 1778. Kajanto does not find any sign of primitivism in the Corpus Porthanianum, but this quotation from Reid at least makes a suggestion on the expressive power of illiterate people.
55    Porthan was one of the few in eighteenth-century Finland who was able to read English texts. See Matti Klinge, Mikä mies Porthan oli? (Helsinki: SKS 1989), 67–68. Sven Rinman, ”Nyhumanismen vid Åbo Akademi”, in Lychnos 1948–1949 (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells boktryckeri, 1950), 85, claimed that Porthan’s dissertations reveal ”en utpräglat engelsk forskartyp”.
56    See Carina Burman, ”’denna förträffeliga konsten’. Henrik Gabriel Porthan och retoriken”, in Historiska och litteraturhistoriska studier 66, ed. Helena Solstrand-Pipping (Helsingfors: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, 1991), 115. Interestingly, two academic dissertations on sympathy appeared in Uppsala later in the 1780s (in March 1788). Both were written under the supervision of professor Daniel Boëthius (1751–1810). The respondent in De sensu per sympathiam positiones philosophicae was David Nyander. The text deals with the topic on a general level and without specific references to any scientific (ancient or contemporary) discussions on sympathy. Equally general is Nicolaus Wimmerstedt’s 14 page dissertation De efficacia sympathiae aliorum hominum in affectus animi nostri. In both dissertations emphasis is on sympathy’s moral and social nature, as can be noted in the following words by Wimmerstedt and Boëthius:”It is beyond doubt that  everything pertaining to moral human nature springs from this source. No social bond can ever emerge between human beings, unless they are able, by using this faculty, to know other people’s minds, emotions and thinking.”(1788, §2.) Sympathy’s role in rhetoric or poetry is not treated in these texts.
57    H. K. Riikonen, ”Porthan klassillisen filologian, poetiikan ja estetiikan tutkijana”, in Porthanin monet kasvot. Kirjoituksia humanistisen tieteen monitaiturista, Historiallinen arkisto 114, ed. Juha Manninen (Helsinki: SKS 2000), p. 40.
58    For further discussions on sympathy in general, see Edvard Petrini, Om sympatiska känslor (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells boktryckeri, 1900); Philip Mercer, Sympathy and Ethics. A Study of the Relationship between Sympathy and Morality with Special Reference to Hume’s Treatise (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972); Craig Taylor, Sympathy. A Philosophical Analysis (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002); and on the arousal of emotion in rhetoric see Ruth Webb, ”Imagination and the arousal of the emotions in Greco-Roman rhetoric”, in The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature, eds. Susanna Morton Braund and Christopher Gill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

Bibliography

Bator, Paul G. ”The ’Principle of Sympathy’ in Campbell’s Philosophy of Rhetoric”, Quarterly Journal of Speech, 68 (1982): 418–424.
Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Ed. James T. Boulton. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, (1968) [1757].
Burman, Carina. ”’denna förträffeliga konsten’. Henrik Gabriel Porthan och retoriken”, in Historiska och litteraturhistoriska studier 66, ed. Helena Solstrand-Pipping, 97–126. Hel­singfors: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, 1991.
Catalogus librorum, quos possedit B. M. vir Henr. Gabr. Porthan. 1812, Aboae.
Home, Henry (Lord Kames). Elements of Criticism, vols. I–III, ed. Robert Voitle, Anglistica & Americana 53. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1970 [1762].
Hume, David. A Treatise on Human Nature. Eds. David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003 [1739–1740].
Kajanto, Iiro. Porthan and classical scholarship. A study of classical influences in eighteenth century Finland. Helsinki: Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, B 225. Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1984.
Klinge, Matti. Mikä mies Porthan oli? Helsinki: SKS, 1989.
McCarthy, Thomas J. Relationship of Sympathy. The Writer and the Reader in British Romanticism. Aldershot: Scholar Press, 1997.
Mercer, Philip. Sympathy and Ethics. A Study of the Relationship between Sympathy and Morality with Special Reference to Hume’s Treatise. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972.
Mullan, John. Sentiment and sociability: the language of feeling in the eighteenth century. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.
Norman, Richard. The Moral Philosophers. An Introduction to Ethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983.
Petrini, Edvard. Om sympatiska känslor. Upsala: Almqvist & Wiksells boktryckeri, 1900.
Porthan, Henrik Gabriel. Opera omnia, XI:1, ed. Matti Klinge, Jukka Sarjala. Turku: Porthan-seura, 2001 [ca. 1791–1798].
Porthan, Henrik Gabriel & Hoeckert, Isac (1778): Dissertatio academica: de sympathia animorum humanorum, pars prior, Aboae.
Porthan, Henrik Gabriel & Hoeckert, Isac. ”Akateeminen väitöskirja ihmismielten sympatiasta, ensimmäinen osa”, in Tunteet ja sympatia. Turun Akatemian väitöskirjoja 1700-luvulta. Edited by Jukka Sarjala, translated by Sari Kivistö, 53–76. Turku: Faros, 2003 [1778].
Porthan, Henrik Gabriel & Hoeckert, Joseph (1780): Dissertatio academica: de sympathia animorum humanorum, pars posterior, Aboae.
Porthan, Henrik Gabriel & Hoeckert, Joseph. ”Akateeminen väitöskirja ihmismielten sympatiasta, toinen osa”, in Tunteet ja sympatia. Turun Akatemian väitöskirjoja 1700-luvulta. Edited by Jukka Sarjala, translated by Sari Kivistö, 77–112. Turku: Faros, 2003 [1780].
Reid, Thomas. An Inquiry into the Human Mind. Ed. Timothy Duggan. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1970 [1764].
Riikonen, H. K. ”Porthan klassillisen filologian, poetiikan ja estetiikan tutkijana”, in Porthanin monet kasvot. Kirjoituksia humanistisen tieteen monitaiturista, Historiallinen arkisto 114. Ed. Juha Manninen, 39–60. Helsinki: SKS, 2000.
Rinman, Sven ”Nyhumanismen vid Åbo Akademi”, Lychnos 1948–1949 (1950): 85–113.
Sarjala, Jukka. Music, Morals and the Body. An Academic Issue in Turku, 1653–1808, Studia Historica 65. Helsinki: SKS, 2001.
Search, Edward (Tucker, Abraham). The Light of Nature Pursued, vols. 1-2. London: T. Jones, in Fetter-Lane, 1768.
Spence, Patricia. ”Sympathy and Propriety in Adam Smith’s Rhetoric.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 60 (1974): 92–99.
Sulzer, Johann Georg. Allgemeine Theorie der Schönen Künste. Leipzig, 1771–1774.
Taylor, Craig. Sympathy. A Philosophical Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
Webb, Ruth: ”Imagination and the arousal of the emotions in Greco-Roman rhetoric”, in The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature. Eds. Susanna Morton Braund and Christopher Gill, 112–127. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Wisse, Jacob. Ethos and Pathos from Aristotle to Cicero. Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1989.