Much of Tristram Shandy centers on the “campaigns” of Tristram’s uncle Toby and his manservant Trim, who relive their military glory days by building model fortifications on Toby’s bowling green and conducting simulacra sieges. In depicting Toby’s hobby-horse, Sterne illustrates the changing nature of science in the early modern era, and the ideas of knowledge, rationality, and human development that guided those changes. Toby’s interest in war, as he passionately argues to Walter toward the end of Volume Six, has nothing to do with bloodthirstiness. Indeed, as Tristram recalls, gentle Toby quite literally would not hurt a fly. War, rather, is the subject of Toby’s interest for two reasons. First, it arouses his passions for justice, bravery, and nobility. Second, by the eighteenth century, has become an intricate science of its own and an exciting mental challenge for Toby to master. Once Toby and Trim are no longer able to physically serve, they fully commit themselves to this intellectual side of their hobby. Toby’s thirst for knowledge in particular is sparked by his frustration at not being able to comprehend in full the complicated system of physical architecture that determined the landscape of Namur, where he was severely wounded. Toby is, in this sense, as much a scientist as any other Enlightenment hero, pursuing higher truths of rationality through his experiments on the bowling green. Tristram underscores Toby’s pursuit of higher truths in his description of Toby’s initial research, which leads him down a rabbit hole of physics as he tries to understand why cannonballs travel in arcs rather than straight lines. Toby’s hobby-horse, then, instills in him the sense of purpose he lost after his injury prevented him from physically acting on his values in battle.
At the same time, the fact that Toby and Trim’s scientific inquiries nevertheless revolve around violence and the somewhat ridiculous and juvenile spectacle of their model fortifications betray the novel’s deep skepticism of the Enlightenment’s pursuit of rational truth too. Of course, this hesitance is itself an Enlightenment value, applying the critical thinking central to the Enlightenment project even to that project’s own veneration of scientific pursuits. In his skeptical enthusiasm for new technologies and scientific thinking, Sterne’s novel captures the excitement, fear, and social destabilization that Enlightenment-era scientific progress created in British society.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Science, Technology, and the Enlightenment ThemeTracker
Science, Technology, and the Enlightenment Quotes in Tristram Shandy
—My father, as I told you, was a philosopher in grain,—speculative,—systematical;—and my aunt Dinah’s affair was a matter of as much consequence to him, as the retrogradation of the planets to Copernicus:—The backslidings of Venus in her orbit fortified the Copernican system, call’d so after his name; and the backslidings of my aunt Dinah in her orbit, did the same service in establishing my father’s system, which, I trust, will for ever hereafter be call’d the Shandean System, after his.
A man and his Hobby-Horse, tho’ I cannot say that they act and re-act exactly after the same manner in which the soul and body do upon each other: Yet doubtless there is a communication between them of some kind, and my opinion rather is, that there is something in it more of the manner of electrified bodies,--and that by means of the heated parts of the rider, which come immediately into contact with the back of the Hobby-Horse.—By long journies and much friction, it so happens that the body of the rider is at length fill’d as full of Hobby-Horsical matter as it can hold;----so that if you are able to give but a clear description of the nature of the one, you may form a pretty exact notion of the genius and character of the other.
The more my uncle Toby drank of this sweet fountain of science, the greater was the heat and impatience of his thirst, so that, before the first year of his confinement had well gone round, there was scarce a fortified town in Italy or Flanders, of which, by ones means or another, he had not procured a plan, reading over as he got them, and carefully collating therewith the histories of their sieges, their demolitions, their improvements and new works, all which he would read with that intense application and delight, that he would forget himself, his wound, his confinement, his dinner.
—And pray who was Tickletoby’s mare?–’tis just as discreditable and unscholar-like a question, Sir, as to have asked what year (ab. urb. con.) the second Punic war broke out.—Who was Tickletoby’s mare!—Read, read, read, read, my unlearned reader! read,—or by the knowledge of the great saint Paraleipomenon—I tell you before-hand, you had better throw down the book at once; for without much reading, by which your reverence knows, I mean much knowledge, you will no more be able to penetrate the moral of the next marbled page (motley emblem of my work!) than the world with all its sagacity has been able to unravel the many opinions, transactions and truths which still lie mystically hid under the dark veil of the black one.
When Agrippina was told of her son’s death, Tacitus informs us, that not being able to moderate the violence of her passions, she abruptly broke off her work—My father stuck his compasses into Nevers, but so much the fast.—What contrarieties! his, indeed, was a matter of calculation—Agrippina’s must have been quite a different affair; who else could pretend to reason from history?
—My young master in London is dead! said Obadiah.—
—A green sattin night-gown of my mother’s, which had been twice scoured, was the first idea which Obadiah’s exclamation brought into Susannah’s head.—Well might Locke write a chapter upon the imperfections of words.—Then, quoth Susannah, we must all go into mourning.—But note a second time: the word mourning, notwithstanding Susannah made use of it herself—failed also of doing its office; it excited not one single idea, tinged either with grey or black,—all was green.—The green sattin night-gown hung there still.
My father put on his spectacles—looked,—took them off,—put them into the case–all in less than statutable minute; and without opening his lips, turned about, and walked precipitately down stairs: my mother imagined he had stepped down for lint and basilicon; but seeing him return with a couple of folios under his arm, Obadiah following him with a large reading desk, she took it for granted ’twas an herbal, and so drew him a chair to the bed side, that he might consult upon the case at his ease.
—If it be but right done,—said my father, turning to the Section—de sede vel subjecto circumsionis,—for he had brought up Spencer de Legibus Herbraeorum Ritualibus—and Maimonides, in order to confront and examine us altogether.—
—If it be but right done, quote he:—Only tell us, cried my mother, interrupting him, what herbs.—For that, replied my father, you must send for Dr. Slop.
A white bear! Very well. Have I ever seen one? Might I ever have seen one? Am I ever to see one? Ought I ever to have seen one? Or can I ever see one?
Would I had seen a white bear? (for how can I imagine it?)
If I should see a white bear, what should I say? If I should never see a white bear, what then?
If I never have, can, must or shall see a white bear alive; have I ever seen the skin of one? Did I ever see one painted?—described? Have I never dreamed of one?
Did my father, mother, uncle aunt, brothers or sisters, ever see a white bear? What would they give? How would they behave? How would the white bear have behaved? Is he wild? Tame? Terrible? Rough? Smooth?
—Is the white bear worth seeing?—
—Is there no sin in it?—
Is it better than a black one?
Amongst the many ill consequences of the treaty of Utrecht, it was within a point of giving my uncle Toby a surfeit of sieges; and though he recovered his appetite afterwards, yet Calais itself left not a deeper scar in Mary’s heart, than Utrecht upon my uncle Toby’s. To the end of his life he never could her Utrecht mentioned upon any account whatsoever,—or so much as read an article of news extracted out of the Utrecht Gazette, without fetching a sign as if his heart would break in twain.
—And pray Mr. commissary, by what law of courtesy is a defenceless stranger to be used just the reverse from what you use a Frenchman in this matter?
By no means; said he.
Excuse me; said I—for you have begun, sir, with first tearing off my breeches—and now you want my pocket—
Whereas—had you first take my pocket, as you do with your own people—and then left me bare a—’d after—I had been a beast to have complain’d—
As it is—
—’Tis contrary to the law of nature.
—’Tis contrary to reason.
—’Tis contrary to the GOSPEL.
But not to this—said he—putting a printed paper into my hand.
PAR LE ROY.
My uncle Toby’s head at that time was full of other matters, so that it was not till the demolition of Dunkirk, when all the other civilities of Europe were settled, that he found leisure to return to this.
This made an armistice (that is speaking with regard to my uncle Toby—but with respect to Mrs. Wadman, a vacancy)—of almost eleven years. But in all cases of nature, as it is the second blow happen at what distance of time it will, which makes the fray—I chuse for that reason to call these the amours of my uncle Toby with Mrs. Wadman, rather than the amours of Mrs. Wadman with my uncle Toby.
This is not a distinction without a difference.
It is not like the affair of an old hat cock’d—and a cock’d old hat, about which your reverences have so often been at odds with one another—but there is a difference here in the nature of things—
And let me tell you, gentry, a wide one too.
A Negro has a soul? an’ please your honour, said the Corporal (doubtingly).
I am not much versed, Corporal, quoth my uncle Toby, in things of that kind; but I suppose, God would not leave him without one, any more than thee or me—
—It would be putting one sadly over the head of another, quoth the Corporal.
It would so; said my uncle Toby. Why then, an’ please your honour, is a black wench to be used worse than a white one?
I can give no reason, said my uncle Toby—
—Only, cried the Corporal, shaking his head, because she has no one to stand up for her—
—’Tis that very thing, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby,—which recommends her to protection—and her brethren with her; ’tis the fortune of war which has put the whip into our hands now—where it may be hereafter, heaven knows!—but be it where it will, the brave, Trim! will not use it unkindly.
—God forbid, said the Corporal.
Amen, responded my uncle Toby, laying his hand upon his heart.
