8. Conf. 1.8.13 (CCL 27:7–8); trans. Bourke, FOTC 21:14–15 (modified).
Learning to Speak
In early adulthood Augustine pursued a career as a professional orator. He was therefore very conscious of words, how we learn them and make them our own. In a famous passage, he meditates on how children acquire language. In the early twentieth century, philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein quoted this passage at the outset of his Philosophical Investigations, challenging it as an accurate account of language acquisition.7 From Confessions, Book 1:
(8.13) Is it not true that, advancing from infancy toward the present, I came to boyhood? Or did it come into me, succeeding infancy? The latter did not go away. Where, indeed, could it go? Nevertheless, it did not now exist. For I was not an infant, one who could not speak, but was now a boy able to talk. This I do remember, and I observed afterwards how I learned to speak. The older people did not teach me by suggesting the words to me according to any definite method of instruction, as was the case a little later with the alphabet; rather, with my own mind which You gave me, O Lord, I wished to make known with diverse grunts and sounds and with diverse gestures the meanings within my heart so that my will would be obeyed. But I did not succeed with all things which I desired nor with all the people from whom I desired them. I would fasten it in memory when these people called something by name and when, at this sound, they made a bodily movement toward it. I would observe and keep in mind that this thing was named by this sound which they uttered when they wanted to indicate the thing. Their desires became evident from their bodily gestures (the natural speech of all humankind), which reveal the disposition of the mind in regard to things sought, possessed, rejected, or avoided, by a facial expression, by a nod, by a movement of the eyes or some other part of the body, and by the tone of voice. As to these words that were used in their own place in different sentences and which I frequently heard, I gradually learned what things they were the signs of, and when my lips became accustomed to these expressions, I now expressed my desires by means of them. In this way I exchanged with the people among whom I lived the signs which were the expressions of my wishes.8
7. On this, see Christopher Kirwan, "Augustine's Philosophy of Language," in The Cambridge Companion to Augustine, ed. Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 186–204. 8. Conf. 1.8.13 (CCL 27:7–8); trans. Bourke, FOTC 21:14–15 (modified).
Confessions 7
Stealing Pears
Augustine recounts how, at age 16, he and some friends stole pears from a neighbor's orchard. Some readers have wondered why Augustine reads this youthful prank in such dark terms. For Augustine, the darkness comes not from the gravity of the deed itself, but from its psychology: it was doing evil for evil's sake—and delighting in it. Augustine is attuned to its symbolic resonances: that it was his personal re-enacting the sin of Adam. From Confessions, Book 2:
(4.9) There was a pear tree near our vineyard which was laden with fruit that was attractive neither in appearance nor in taste. In the dead of night— for we had prolonged our playing in the vacant lots, according to our usual unhealthy custom, until then—we crept up to it, a gang of youthful good-fornothings, to shake it down and despoil it. We carried away huge loads not as a treat for ourselves, but just to throw to the pigs. Of course, we did eat a few, but we did so only to be doing something which would be pleasant because forbidden. Look at my heart, O God, look at my heart, which You have pitied in the depths of the abyss. Look at my heart; may it tell You now what it sought in this—that I might be evil without any compensation and that there might be no reason for my evil except evil. It was filthy, and I loved it. I loved my own destruction. I loved my own fault; not the object to which I directed my faulty action, but my fault itself, was what I loved, my vile soul leaping down from Your support into extinction (Sir 39:36), not disgracefully eager for anything but disgrace itself. . . .
(8.16) "What fruit did" I the miserable derive "from these things, which it shames me now to recall" (Rom 6:21), particularly that act of theft, in which I loved the theft itself and nothing else, since it was itself nothing and I became more miserable because of it? Yet I would not have done it by myself— that is my recollection of my mind at this time—I certainly would not have done it alone. Therefore, I also loved in it the companionship of those I did it with. So I did love something other than the theft—or rather, I did not in a real sense, for that companionship was itself nothing. What was it really? Who is there who may teach me except the One who "enlightens my heart" (Sir 2:10) and sees through its shadows? What is it that incites my mind to seek and to discuss and to ponder it? For if I loved those pears that I stole and desired to enjoy them, I could also, if that were enough, have done that evil act by myself that I might achieve my pleasure. I would not have needed to inflame the itch of my lusts by scratching together with other guilty souls. But since there was no pleasure for me in those pears, the pleasure was in the evil act itself. It arose from the companionship of those who sinned together with me. . . .