Comme la volonté gouverne diversement les puissances de l'ame
The Governance of the Soul
The will governs our outward movements and bodily actions with the direct authority of a master over a slave.
The father of a household guides his wife, his children, and his servants by his rules and commands, which they're obliged to obey, though they can refuse to do so; and if he has serfs and slaves, he governs them by force, which they have no power to resist; but his horses, oxen, and mules he manages by skill—tying them, bridling them, spurring them, penning them, and letting them loose. The will actually governs our power of outward movement like a servant or slave; unless something external gets in the way, that power never fails to obey. We open and close our mouth, move our tongue, hands, feet, and eyes, and every part in which this power of movement is found, without resistance, as we please and according to our will.
The Skill of Indirect Influence
Because some faculties do not obey commands directly, the will must use skill, craft, and indirect methods to guide them.
But as for our senses and the faculty of nourishing, growing, and producing, we cannot govern them so easily; rather, we have to put skill and craft to work on them. If you call a slave, he comes; if you tell him to stop, he stops: but you must not expect that kind of obedience from a sparrowhawk or falcon; if you want him to come back, you have to show him the lure; if you want to quiet him, you have to put the hood on him. You tell a servant to turn left or right, and he does it; but to make a horse turn that way, you have to use the bridle. Theotimus, you mustn't order your eyes not to see, your ears not to hear, your hands not to touch, your stomach not to digest, or your body not to grow or produce; these faculties have no intelligence and are therefore incapable of obedience. No one can add a cubit to his height; Rachel wanted to conceive and couldn't; we often eat without being nourished or growing. Whoever wants to manage these faculties must use skill.1 A doctor treating a child in the cradle doesn't command the child, but orders the nurse to do this or that for him; sometimes he orders her to eat certain foods or take specific medicine, whose quality—spreading into the milk, and the milk into the child's body—carries out the doctor's will in that little patient, who doesn't even have the power to think about it.2 Of course, you shouldn't issue orders of abstinence, sobriety, and continence to your stomach, throat, and belly; instead, you must order your hands not to supply your mouth with food and drink except in specific measures. You have to take from or give to the faculty that produces — the objects and subjects and the nourishment that strengthen it — as reason requires; you have to turn the eyes aside, or cover them with their natural hood and shut them, if you want them not to see; and with these devices you'll bring them to the point the will desires.3 That is how, Theotimus, Our Lord teaches that there are eunuchs who are such for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven—meaning those who are not eunuchs by natural powerlessness, but by the skill their will uses to maintain holy continence. It's foolish to order a horse not to fatten, not to grow, not to kick: if you want all that, raise his feed rack; you don't need to command him — you have to curb him hard to master him.4
The Struggle of the Will
The will directs the understanding and memory, yet it often struggles against the distractions of the imagination and the weakness of our nature.
Yes indeed, the will has power over the understanding and over the memory; for among the many things the understanding can grasp, or of which the memory can remind itself, the will determines those to which it wants these faculties to apply themselves, or from which it wants them to turn away. It's true that it cannot handle or arrange them as absolutely as it does the hands, the feet, or the tongue, because of the sensitive faculties, and especially the imagination, which do not obey the will with a prompt and infallible obedience, and which sensitive powers the memory and the understanding need in order to operate; but still, the will moves them, employs them, and applies them as it pleases, though not so firmly and unvaryingly that the changeable, flighty imagination does not often divert them, distracting them elsewhere—so that, as the Apostle cries out:✦5 "I do not do the good I want, but the evil I hate"—so we’re often forced to complain that we don’t think the good we love, but the evil we hate.✦6
Read the original Latin
Le père de famille conduit sa femme, ses enfans et ses serviteurs par ses ordonnances et commandemens, auxquelz ilz sont obligés d'obéir, bien qu'ilz puissent ne le faire pas; que s'il a des serfz et esclaves, il les gouverne par la force, à laquelle ilz n'ont nul pouvoir de contredire; mays ses chevaux, ses boeufs, ses muletz, il les manie par industrie, les liant, bridant, piquant, enfermant, laschant.
Certes, la volonté gouverne la faculté de nostre mouvement extérieur comme un serf ou esclave; car, sinon qu'au dehors quelque chose l'empesche, jamais elle ne manque d'obéir. Nous ouvrons et fermons la bouche, mouvons la langue, les mains, les pieds, les yeux et toutes les parties esquelles la puissance de ce mouvement se treuve,sans résistance, à nostre gré et selon nostre volonté.
Mais quant à nos sens et à la faculté de nourrir, croistre et produire, nous ne les pouvons pas gouverner si aysément,ains il nous y faut employer l'industrie et l'art. Si on appelle un esclave, il vient; si on luy dit qu'il s'arreste, il arreste: mais il ne faut pas attendre cette obéissance d'un espervier ou faucon; qui le veut faire revenir,il luy faut monstrer le leurre; qui le veut accoiser,il luy faut mettre le chaperon. On dit à un valet: tournes à gauche ou à droite, et il le fait; mais pour faire ainsy tourner un cheval, il se faut servir de la bride. Il ne faut pas, Théotime, commander à nos yeux de ne voir pas,ni à nos oreilles de n'ouïr pas, ni à nos mains de ne toucher pas, ni à nostre estomach de ne digérer pas, ni à nos cors de ne croistre pas ou de ne produire pas; car toutes ces facultés n'ont nulle intelligence, et partant sont incapables d'obéissance. Nul ne peut adjouster une coudée à sa stature; Rachel vouloit et ne pouvoit concevoir; nous mangeons souvent sans estre nourris ni prendre croissance. Qui veut chevir de ces facultés,il faut user d'industrie. Le mèdecin traittant un enfant de berceau, ne luy commande chose quelconque, mays il ordonne bien à la nourrice qu'elle luy fasse telle ou telle chose; ou bien quelquefois il ordonne qu'elle mange telle ou telle viande, qu'elle prenne tel medicament, dont la qualité se respandant dans le lait,et le lait dans le cors du petit enfant, la volonté du mèdecin reussit en ce petit malade qui n'a pas seulement le pouvoir d'y penser. Il ne faut pas,certes, faire les ordonnances d'abstinence, sobriété, continence à l'estomach, au gosier, au ventre; mais il faut commander aux mains de ne point fournir à la bouche les viandes et breuvages, qu'en telle et telle mesure.
Il faut oster ou donner à la faculté qui produit, les objetz et sujetz et les alimens qui la fortifient,selon que la rayson le requiert; il faut divertir les yeux, ou les couvrir de leur chaperon naturel et les fermer, si on veut qu'ilz ne voyent pas; et avec ces artifices on les réduira au point que la volonté désire. C'est ainsy Théotime, que Nostre Seigneur enseigne qu' il y a des eunuques qui sont telz pour le Royaume des cieux, c'est à dire qui ne sont eunuques d'impuissance naturelle, mais par l'industrie de laquelle leur volonté se sert pour les retenir dans la sainte continence. C'est sottise de commander à un cheval qu'il ne s'engraisse pas,qu'il ne croisse pas, qu'il ne regimbe pas:si vous desirés tout cela, leves-luy le ratelier; il ne luy faut pas commander, il le faut gourmander pour le dompter.
Ouy mesme, la volonté a du pouvoir sur l'entendement et sur la mémoire; car, de plusieurs choses que l'entendement peut entendre, ou desquelles la mémoire se peut ressouvenir, la volonté détermine celles auxquelles elle veut que ces facultés s'appliquent, ou desquelles elle veut qu'elles se divertissent. Il est vray qu'elle ne les peut pas manier ni ranger si absolument comme elle fait les mains, les pieds ou la langue, à rayson des facultés sensitives, et notamment de la fantasie,qui n'obéissent pas d'une obéissance prompte et infaillible à la volonté,et desquelles puissances sensitives la mémoire et l'entendement ont besoin pour opérer: mays toutefois, la volonté les remue, les employe et applique selon qu'il luy plaist, bien que non pas si fermement et invariablement que la fantasie variante et volage ne les divertisse maintefois, les distraisant ailleurs; de sorte que comme l'Apostre s'écrie:
Je fay non le bien que je veux, mays le mal que je hay, aussi nous sommes souvent contraints de nous plaindre dequoyt nous pensons, non le bien que nous aymons, mais le mal que nous haïssons.
Scripture echoes
Notes
- 1 ↩Middle French chevir de = to deal with / manage / get the upper hand over; industrie = skillful device or industry, not modern industrial production.
- 2 ↩Analogy for governing non-rational faculties: the will does not command them directly, but acts on intermediate means (here the nurse and her diet/medicine) so the desired effect reaches the body.
- 3 ↩"chaperon naturel" continues the falcon-hood image from the previous section: the eyelids as the eyes' natural hood.
- 4 ↩"gourmander" contrasts with mere verbal "commander": not a polite order, but hard curbing/checking to tame (dompter) the horse — continuing the chapter's industry-over-command theme.
- 5 ↩Early modern French fantasie here names the sensitive faculty of imagination (not idle daydreaming); rendered as "imagination" to keep the scholastic anthropology.
- 6 ↩Source "dequoyt" is read as Early Modern French "de quoy" (that / of the fact that), yielding "complain that we think…"; the parallel with Paul's "I do not… but…" supports this over inventing another construction.
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