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December 16.
This tragedy (of Agathocles) is especially bad in what is heroic in it. — One must not disgust kings with their role, for it is a necessary role.
“The philosopher (says Bernardin de St Pierre) tunes his reason to the general reason of the universe, as one sets one’s watch by the sun.” — Note. One must set it by the sun to know the hour, and by the clock of the place where one lives for the practices of life. (Me.)
It seems to me much more difficult to be a modern than to be an ancient.
December […]0.
Condillac! a vague truth is worth more than a fixed error.
Leibnitz. Does the light of a candle come from the objects it illuminates? Innate ideas are necessary — like the tendons and muscles we use to walk (p. 40). — “They will not be able (says Leibnitz) to reason without characters. They do not need them if images serve them in their stead.” Now etc. — Liebnitz would therefore attribute even perception to the tree, for there is in it a sort of entelechy or living force, of tendency.
December […]1.
“Figures that the model can note.” Very good. “On reflection, one sees that more breadth and more strength are needed” perhaps one should be content to say more patience “of mind to develop an idea than to enclose it in a certain turn that gives it the air of a flash of wit or a maxim.” That is not at all enough. The thought must have a merit, a weight worthy of the form; and minds that have such thoughts are perhaps rarer than those that possess the art of development.
Inevitable ills that one must constantly foresee and that come only once. When they have come and one has suffered them, one feels some relief: at least one no longer has to fear them.