Continuity and discontinuity in history of ''the genius of the time'' concept during 17-18 centuries

of concepts as an entity. This approach seeks toeliminate the inner logic of development of concept over a long period of time. The second relies on the theory of speech acts and deniessuch a possibility. The followers of this method insist that there can be no such thing as history of concepts and there can only behistories of their uses in arguments. In modern historiography the first approach is used by the German school of Begriffsgeschichte, andthe second - the Cambridge School of the History of Political Thought. However, according to R. Koselleck, there is no contradictionbetween these approaches: the task of conceptual history is to ''register the set of long-term, repeatable structures stored in language thatestablish the preconditions for conceptualizing events''. This article also seeks to combine those approaches by example of the history ofconcept of ''the genius of the time'' during the 17th-18th centuries. This concept was first fixed in European languages in the beginningof the 17th century. One of the first was John Barclay. In the second chapter of his Icon Animorum (1614) he finds to trace the changesof genius of the time from the Roman times. His notion of this was closely connected with the baroque notion of destiny, but he alsogoes beyond that. For the occurrence of this concept appropriate experience was required: the discovery of new lands and scientificachievements created a habit to comparisons and attention to distinctions. The concept of "genius" became one of the key metaphors forthese practices. In the 17th century this concept was one of the central in The Quarrel Between the Ancients and the Moderns F. Bacon(1561-1626) used it for the proof of possibility of the progress of knowledge. Most of all Saint-Evremond (1613-1703) made acontribution to the history of the concept. In his aesthetic works he fought for the art, which can be adequate to the genius of moderntime. Similarly he appealed for the estimate of ancient works according to the time of their production. In the 18th century Voltaire alsodealt with the problem of the ''spirit of the age''. By this concept he tried to emphasize his own epoch, considering it as most natural andrational. But he also generated a certain integral image of the past. He revealed past history in all its interconnectivity. It was concludedthat in the development of concept of the ''genius of the time'' some common traits can be revealed. The underlying experience was theexperience of comparison, correlation and generalization. This concept arises when past and present come to conflict.

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