Commercial Capitalism, Classical Republicanism, and the Man of Sensibility in The History of Sir George Ellison

Abstract

scheme without any historical context, needing only desire and will to be put into practice.45 According to Draper, change in these utopias is not brought about by historical and/or economic developments, but the desire, the will, of the utopia's protagonist. This is certainly true for The History ofSir George Ellison. The protagonist is in complete control of the initiation as well as the implementation of change.46 Since change in the novel depends on individual initiative, and on nothing but individual initiative, change is always possible; but it is always already limited to the context, the purview, of the individual. The virtuous individual, who by dint of his virtue transcends the demands of actual political and economic reality, is the focus. In Scott's novel, political, economic, and social problems are problems of virtue conceived of, and perceived, at the individual level. As a result, society does not exist in The History of Sir George Ellison; instead, individuals interact at the level of purely personal relationships. The novel asserts that virtue determines one's worldly fortunes, and that social problems are interpersonal problems and can be solved by individual efforts. In the world of virtue, all relationships between people and groups are personal relationships whose outcome is determined by the participants' virtue (or lack thereof). Individuals can change their environment without having to be concerned about the larger political and economic structures. Consequently, Scott's strongest political gesture is to prompt people to imitate Ellison, whose example is within the reach of imitation (p. 3), presumably by people prepared to set up their utopian alternatives in a seemingly independent world of value.47 Scott's novel advocates a rather ambitious reform program based on classical republicanism. However, civic man cannot contain economic man. The novel's rhetoric of virtue, pushed by both civic man and the man of sensibility, enacts a textual displacement of actual economic realities at the level of character, the only level at which privatized civic man and the This content downloaded from 207.46.13.90 on Thu, 15 Sep 2016 06:11:00 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms