Illusion

Use in the book

The painting/building comparison makes optical illusion necessary to artistic pleasure: apparent relief or flatness has a merit absent from the corresponding literal condition. The sensory account on I.167 even distinguishes illusion compatible with truth from error. Yet II.724 calls the illusion that produces a claim of beauty good and the illusion that produces a claim of truth pernicious. The accounts are not identical; the lexicon preserves their different uses rather than removing the tension. A further warning reverses the usual story of intellectual progress: losing a glimpse need not mean escaping an illusion, since one can move from truth to error.

Places to read

1. I, p. 59, entry 3, ¶2Optical appearance gives pleasure unavailable from literal flatness.
2. I, p. 167, entry 4, ¶3Illusion and truth can coexist in a sensory account.
3. II, p. 724, entry 7, ¶1Illusions producing beauty and truth claims receive opposed valuations.
4. II, p. 527, entry 9, ¶1Loss of insight can be mistaken for release from illusion.

Translation in this edition

The English translation preserves deceive, lie and the unsoftened harmful effects. It does not convert illusion to mere metaphor wherever the term is favorable, or silently rewrite the earlier truth/illusion conjunction to match the later contrast.

Prestige

French: prestige.

Prestige and prestiges denote illusion, enchantment or bewitchment in these passages, not modern social prestige. The English translation distinguishes illusions of imagination and feeling in the unnamed comparison, then uses bewitchments for Montesquieu’s dazzling but scarcely illuminating sparks. The unnamed retiarius image in the first witness remains unexplained beyond its net-fighter sense.

Places to read: I, p. 385, entry 8, ¶1; II, p. 782, entry 7, ¶1.