Tiffany, "The Natural Philosophy of Toys" (Maillardet)

[Dave Monroe]

... sorry, forgot about this, Keith.  From Daniel Tiffany, Toy Medium: 
Materialism and Modern Lyric (Berkeley: U of California P, 2000), Chapter 2, 
"The Natural Philosophy of Toys," pp. 34-62, plus note:

... near the end of the eighteenth century, Jacquet-Droz and Henri 
Maillardet built several automated writers and draftsmen, which toured 
Europe with great success.  Among the texts composed by the Jacquet-Droz 
draftsman is an epigram that inverts the Cartesian dictum, "Je pense, donc 
je suis," thereby capturing the essential polemic of materialism: "Je ne 
pense pas ... ne serais-je donc point?" (I do not think ... do I therefore 
not exist?)  Maillardet's automaton, perhaps the most complex 
writer-draftsman ever built, could sketch six different images, including a 
ship and Eros in a chariot pulled by a butterfy (an image also in the 
repertoire of the Jacquet-Droz draftsman).  The Mailardet automaton could 
also compose three poems in English and French, including the following 
"autogram":

Un jeune enfant que le zale dirige,
De vos faveurs sollicit le prix,
Qu'il l'obtient ne'en soyez point surpris.
Le desir de vous plaire enfanta ce prodige.

Not only is this "autogram" the first example, quite literally [no puns 
where none intended ...] of 'automatic writing," but the Maillardet 
automaton continues to this day to produce these artifacts (at the Franklin 
Institute in Philadelphia).  (57-8)

Loose translated into English (but not by machine):

A young child driven by passion
Seeks the prize of your good favor.
And don't be surprised if he obtains it:
A desire to please you brought this prodigy to life.

The one poem in English composed by the toy tends, however, toward toy 
doggerel:

Unerring is my hand the small
May I not add with truth
I do my best to please you all.
Encourage then my youth.

These texts (in the flowery hand of the toy) can be found in Chapuis and 
Droz, Les Automates, 316.  (n. 55, p. 304)

... hope that's of assistance.  More obligatory hyperlinks:

http://www.fi.edu/qa99/attic10/

http://www.uelectric.com/pastimes/automata.htm

http://www.mechanicalbanks.org/Scrapbook/1940's/Pages/1947_Post.htm

... but it's Jean-Claude Beaune instead who points out that

An automaton is a machine that contains its own principle of motion.  This 
Cartesian definition was advanced by Rabelais when, in Gargantua (1.24), he 
introduced the word "automate" into the French language: "and contrived  
thousand little automatory engines, that is to say, moving of themselves."

See Jean-Claude Beaune, "The Classical Age of Automata: An Impressionistic 
Survey from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century," in Fragments for a 
History of the Human Body, Part One, ed. Michel Feher with Ramona Naddaff 
and Nadia Tazi (New York: Zone, 1989), p. 431 ...





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