Comparative Practices in Britain’s Long Eighteenth Century

Abstract

Comparing is one the most fundamental intellectual operations. The ability to relate different objects, for example in terms of similarity and difference, is an essential part of human cognitive architecture. It is part of “the way we think” (Fauconnier/Turner 2002), and, as a result, it seems unavoidable to engage in comparative acts “when trying to cope with our everyday experience” (Eggers 2019: 33). But while the mental ability to compare may be an anthropological constant across times and cultures, the specific forms, functions, and contents of comparative acts can change in many ways. This has been painfully illustrated by the global events of the past year during which most of this book was composed. The COVID-19 pandemic (still going strong while we are writing this introduction) has served as a powerful reminder of both the omnipresence and the historical situatedness of comparative practices. It has shown, on the one hand, that we continue to live in “an age of comparison” (Nietzsche (1996 [1871] 24), i.e., in a time in which contemporary (Western) science and culture are marked by an extraordinary profusion of comparisons; and, on the other hand, that comparisons as a social practice have a historical and political dimension.