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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I

Reading language

[On Locke]

August 1.

Thus names are properly applied only [if] they are necessary names, and they are necessary names only when no others could signify what those signify — and which, if they did not already exist, would need to be invented.

August 7.

Seneca and wood engraving: he is too full.

August 4.

Notions with which the mind is, as it were, impregnated.

August 14.

Resemblances. Whether they do not sometimes come about through a kind of reflection with which the animate body is capable of soaking itself, so to speak, and lastingly. — Farm women and their hens.

August 18.

On things one knows when one is not thinking of them.

We shall never know what we can never need to know; and never in this world shall we understand what we shall need to understand only in another.

August 22.

God. It is not his essence, it is not his subsistence, but our relations with him and his relations with us that it matters for us to know.

August 19.

Where do our ideas go? — They go into God’s memory.

Note. To define light for a blind man, noise for a deaf man, wit for a fool.

September 1.

Innate? — But our faculties are innate.

September 4.

Irritability — or the faculty of opening and closing, tightening, extending, contracting and dilating, puckering or blossoming. This property, with which all living flesh is endowed, takes the place of a kind of intelligence for it and has all its advantages.

September 14.

It is necessary to speak of many things to those who think of many things. That is what corrupts taste in very enlightened ages.

September […].

Truly, I do not know, my dear friend. Metaphysics could do without it, but morality needs it. For, tell me, etc.

Note. It is a question of the opⁿ[operation] of immediate providence and of proving that it is necessary for bearing ills.

They are light if they come from a divine hand.

And let us remember what we have said of utility.

T103.English [if] corresponds to the edition’s qu[e s’]ils. The final and which preserves the source’s loose relative construction, referring back to names without rewriting the sentence.

S1.Source editor’s annotation“August. Dream. A thimble full — of thanks — proportion and assortment — as much of — as is needed for a curl paper. — August 9 to 10. Dream. My sister, girls, an education of constraint, discomfort, space.” Then: “August 19, Tues. The position of the chapel of Bouleu — of Chayla etc.”

T104.He follows the masculine il and refers to Seneca; the comparison with wood engraving remains terse. The source annotation’s separate dream dates, fragmentary measures, and place names are not expanded into a continuous account. Thimble and curl paper render dé and papillotte.

T105.Reflection renders réfléchissement as an image or reflected impression. The animate body’s soaking itself preserves s’imbiber, and the farm women and hens remain Joubert’s example without further explanation.

T106.Subsistence renders subsistance, the metaphysical term printed here; it is not silently changed to substance.

T107.Note is Joubert’s Nota. Noise renders bruit and wit renders esprit in the series of things to explain to someone lacking the corresponding faculty.

S2.Source editor’s annotation“From the 2nd to the 3rd, night. Dreams ard. vol. non explet. del.” Then: “9 7br Tues. 1800. Δ I”

T108.The source annotation retains its compressed ard. vol. non explet. del. without conjectural expansion. Its 7br denotes September; the last two printed signs resemble Δ I and are preserved without assigning them a meaning.

T216.The source annotation's final two printed signs resemble Δ and a serifed capital I; they are retained without assigning a meaning.

T109.Irritability names the living flesh’s capacity to respond and move, not a bad temper. Puckering and blossoming retain the images in se froncer and s’épanouir.

T110.It remains unspecified in the first paragraph; the authorial Note that follows supplies the discussion of providence. The unfinished For, tell me, etc. is retained.

T111.The printed opⁿ is retained before [operation], the translated source-editor expansion. Note belongs to Joubert’s text; the separate translator note does not become part of that text.