From the book
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Joseph Joubert · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Invention
invention; inventer
Invention concerns bringing something into use or devising it; it does not invariably exclude imitation.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordInvention concerns bringing something into use or devising it; it does not invariably exclude imitation.
- In JoubertThe invention of speech is explained through an inclination to attach ideas to sensible signs.
- In this editionThe English translation uses skill for industrie in the language fragment and sensible for availability to the senses, not good judgment.
- A place to beginSpeech’s invention is tied to ideas and sensible signs.
- English renderings
- invention; invent; inventing
Meaning
Invention concerns bringing something into use or devising it; it does not invariably exclude imitation.
Use in the book
The invention of speech is explained through an inclination to attach ideas to sensible signs. Elsewhere the faculty of inventing languages is a skill natural to intelligence, so invention is not necessarily an isolated conscious stroke. The ventilator passage strikingly calls an invention an imitation of a mechanism of the world. Novelty of device and an antecedent pattern can therefore coexist. In the patience fragment, inventing and putting into practice are alternatives under the broader obligation to do well; invention is not praised merely because it is first.
Places to read
- I, p. 448, entry 2, ¶1Speech’s invention is tied to ideas and sensible signs.
- I, p. 306, entry 7, ¶1Language invention is called a natural intellectual skill.
- II, p. 841, entry 3, ¶1An invention imitates a supposed cosmic mechanism.
- II, p. 548, entry 7, ¶1Patience is needed both for inventing and for putting into practice.
Translation in this edition
The English translation uses skill for industrie in the language fragment and sensible for availability to the senses, not good judgment. The Theaetetus quotation remains a reported attribution without an independently established locus; ventilator denotes an air-moving apparatus in the analogy.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 306, 448; II, pp. 548, 841.
From the book
Centuries of Meditations
Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Invention
invention; inventions; devised riches
Invention is something devised by human wit.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordInvention is something devised by human wit.
- In TraherneTraherne contrasts riches of invention with riches of nature.
- In this editionRiches of invention names manufactured standards of worth in these passages.
- A place to beginNatural endowments are opposed to an invented account of wealth.
Meaning
Invention is something devised by human wit. It can indicate productive contrivance, but the passages on acquired wealth emphasize artificial valuation.
Use in the book
Traherne contrasts riches of invention with riches of nature. Gold, clothes, and land become false measures of wealth when their social valuation eclipses souls, bodies, faculties, and the world. The criticism concerns a system of esteem rather than the bare existence of human making: a garment need not be wicked for fashionable distinction to corrupt the way it is prized.
The educational sequence is crucial. These riches are learned laboriously and later than the child’s first apprehensions, yet they displace them. Inventions therefore exercise power through common speech, example, and habit. They fill imagination with attractive substitutes until the works of God cease to appear excellent or even worth noticing.
Places to read
In this edition
Riches of invention names manufactured standards of worth in these passages. It should not be generalized into a condemnation of every art or human artifact.