Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

This power which the mind has thus to order the
Considerations of any idea, of the forbearing
to consider it, or to prefer the motion of an
part of the body to its rest, and vice versa,
in any particular instance. (123)
The ideal of collective conscience or the collective will
that had dominated political and cultural life for
centuries was giving way to individual conscience and a
need for each man to find his place in the world.
The new emphasis on individuality certainly worked
its way into the political and legal practices of the
day. At its inception, strict settlement was a marriage
practice, the public act of incorporating two families.
Wills, on the other hand, were private contracts,
secretive and individual in nature. A community or an
entire social class was able to speculate about a
marriage settlement, but only a family could justifiably
speculate about the contents of an individual family
member's will. Stone argues that individualism in the
eighteenth century meant a "growing introspection" as
much as a demand for personal autonomy, but both these
ideas had to fit within the limits set for social
cohesion, especially within the family (151).