Page 49 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol Two

398 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

Michel Eyguem de

Montaigne: Essays

Montaigne (1533–1592), a renowned French
Renaissance thinker, took himself as the great Optical and Aural
object of study in his Essays. In studying himself, Signaling
Montaigne studied mankind in general. He The human voice only carries a short distance, and com-
attempted to weigh or “assay” his nature, habits, municating in writing means transporting a physical
his own opinions and those of others. He searched object. In many parts of the world, people sought means
for truth primarily by reflecting on his own read- of conveying information more rapidly over longer dis-
ings and travels, as well as his experiences both tances. Native Americans used smoke signals; tom-toms
public and private. Montaigne was also a striking or drums were known in the Americas and in Africa; the
representative of Renaissance skepticism and Romans and medieval Europeans built towers on which
fideism—that is, a strategy that uses skepticism in fires were lit to warn of danger; ships used flags; and in
order to clear the ground for the entrance of 1775, Paul Revere hung lanterns in a church tower in
Catholicism. In the excerpt below, Montaigne sets Boston to warn of approaching British troops. All such
forth his preferred method—discussion based on signals had a weakness, however; they could only convey
reason—for confronting another with whose opin- a few prearranged signals in one direction.
ions he disagrees. This changed during the wars of the French Revolution
with the invention of two open-ended bidirectional visual
When I am opposed, my attention is roused, not
communication systems: the optical telegraph and naval
my anger. I go out to meet the man who contra-
flag telegraphs. The optical telegraph, invented by the
dicts me and corrects me. The cause of truth
Frenchman Claude Chappe (1763–1805), consisted of
ought to be a cause common to us both. How
articulated boards that could be moved into different
will he reply? The passion of anger has already
positions to indicate either a code number or a letter of
struck down his judgement; confusion has
the alphabet. Starting in 1794, the French government
usurped the place of reason. It would be useful if
placed such devices on towers throughout France and
a wager were to hang on the result of our dis-
Napoleon’s empire. Employees watched for signals from
putes, if there could be some material mark of
one neighboring tower and relayed it to another. On clear
our losses, so that we might keep a record of
days, a message could travel from Paris to Toulon, 760
them. My man could then say to me: “Your igno-
kilometers and 120 towers away, in twelve minutes. In
rance and stubbornness on some twenty occa-
night and fog, however, the system stopped.
sions last year cost you a hundred crowns.”
At the same time and for the same reason—war—
Source: Montaigne, M. E. (1953). Essays (p. 288). Baltimore: Penguin Books.
British naval officers transformed naval flag signaling
from an occasional one-way message to a method of con-
veying any information between any two ships within
influential,especially after the invention of steam-powered sight of each other. At night, ships used lanterns with
rotary presses in the early nineteenth century and the shutters. When the Napoleonic wars ended in 1815,
appearance of cheap tabloids a few decades later. News- these methods were quickly adopted by merchant ships
papers provided not only local news and useful informa- and spread around the world.
tion, but also stories from foreign countries slanted so as
to inflame nationalistic passions. Far from bringing about Electrical
greater international understanding, the press raised pop- Telecommunication
ular enthusiasm for imperial conquests in the late nine- The telegraph and telephone are treated in detail in a sep-
teenth century and world wars in the early twentieth arate article, so here we can give a very brief summary.
century. The electric telegraph was developed in Britain in the