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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I

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August […]9.

Everything is mixed or compound modes (as Locke says) in morality, politics, legislation. etc. Metaphysics, on the contrary, whose object is nations, etc. This is because morality, politics, legislation rule on actions in which the operation of the body and of the will are mixed together, or on the consequences of such actions.

August […]1.

The ancients did not have minds trained as ours are to effort, to convention, etc. They were all the better suited to conveying their ideas to ordinary minds, generally incapable of very sustained attention, or ill suited to sustaining an arduous attention.

“Such is the will etc.” This is what one is obliged to say to oneself at the end of all one’s investigations. But it is also what one must say to oneself as late as one can, to discover as far as possible the means this will has used, and to be able to use them in our turn by imitating it.

V[oltaire]. His mind was mature 20 years earlier than other men’s, and he kept it in its strength 30 years later. And the charm our ideas sometimes lend our style, his style lent all his ideas.

There is a civil part there (in philosophy) that I did not expect.

August 22.

Voltaire (La Pucelle). It is not for all that... but because he made bad morals amusing and good morals ridiculous.

August 23.

The pride of life and the pride of the mind.

On the time needed to have an idea. By what it can be determined. It might be by the time we need to have an idea (or feeling) of darkness, suddenly closing the eyelid.

Sunday, August 24.

Repentance consumes. — And what, then, what does it consume? — It consumes faults and the disposition that caused them.

On compensation. That nothing can dispense with it. That its law is eternal.

All these words, this apparatus, this method and these reasonings that make us hope for ideas and deceive us: nothing is more apt to weary.

August 26.

The professor. His system makes God the carrier of all bodies that move. (Vid. p. 178 of his Connoissance analytique, etc. Paris, Dessaint, rue du Foin, 1772.)

T140.The facsimile prints nations where notions would be expected in this account of metaphysics. Both French and English retain nations; the intended word remains unresolved. The separate period before etc. also remains.

T141.Ordinary minds renders esprits vulgaires without a modern suggestion of indecency. The difference between incapacity for sustained attention and difficulty sustaining arduous attention remains.

T244.Only terminal 1 is secure in the date; no leading numeral is supplied. Initial letters in la, leurs, attention, and pénible are restored from their visible continuations.

T142.The will is not assigned a possessor that the fragment does not state. Its means are to be discovered and used; the will itself is to be imitated.

T143.V[oltaire] retains the source editor’s bracketed expansion. The two numerical comparisons are left as Joubert’s assessment.

T144.Partie civile can denote a civil or civic part, but was also the established legal term for a private accuser in criminal proceedings, distinct from the public prosecutor. The isolated sentence does not establish whether Joubert means a branch of philosophy, a legal metaphor, or a play on both.

T145.La Pucelle is retained as the title, meaning The Maid. The source does not state the conclusion to which It is not for all that... belongs.

T146.The eyelid remains singular, as in la paupière. Feeling retains sentiment alongside idea.

S1.Source editor’s annotation“Here in full is what the professor says. His system makes God the carrier of all bodies that move. This system is curious. Thus, when a body that moves, that is to say, that the supreme being makes pass from one point in space to another point, finds in its path another body that is [at] rest, the supreme being ceases to transport the first, or to transport it as rapidly, and begins to transport the second. And if [this] one was already in motion and had a direction opposite to the first’s direction, the supreme mover ceases to transport either, or brings them back to the same point from which they had set out, or gives both the same direction. All these effects that are called transmissions, losses of motion, change of direction etc. Optime, my son Thomas!”

T147.Vid. means see. Connoissance analytique means Analytical Knowledge; the incomplete title and bibliographical details remain as cited. In the separate source annotation, [at] rest renders [en] repos, and [this] one marks the supplied ci in celui [ci], with a necessary adjustment to English word order. Optime is Latin for very well. The unfinished clause beginning All these effects remains unfinished.

T245.The annotation's printed right edge clips word endings. The completions de, curieux., passer, corps, le, si, la, l’autre, l’un, and transmissions, follow their visible stems and context; the final punctuation after curieux and transmissions is supplied at the lost edge. The awkward Ainsi, lorsqu’un corps qui se meut construction and unfinished Tous ces effets clause are retained.