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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I

Reading language

[LOCKE]

March 19.

When a saint—I do not know which—said: “I believe it because it is absurd,” the saying has a meaning; it means that faith can have as its matter only what is incomprehensible. But here it is sheer unreasoning by rules, principles, and with art.

— And he is sometimes harsher than all the theologians together. (See page 96.)

Page 98, first lines. “God forbids atheism.” That is ridiculous and very ridiculous.

... Page 111. O fanatic for nobility!

So that they are born with the duty of being Kings in perpetuity, and those who prevent them from fulfilling that duty are guilty in perpetuity. But if there is transmission of a name and not transmission of blood,—for no mortal until now, (says the Odyssey)... And Boileau’s satire to M. Dangeau.

Society [exists] through and for individuals, and not individuals for and solely with a view to society.

Poets have a hundred times more good sense than philosophers, and the former, seeking the beautiful, encounter more truths than the latter, seeking the true.

Page 127. What inappropriate language and what abuse of the word love, an abuse that is even dangerous!—And to what ridicule all this lends itself!

Ibid., at the end. To start from a definition and substitute abstraction for reality when the object is before one’s eyes is ridiculous.

China, which, according to the author, is not constituted or is only little constituted, has persisted in its present state for a time almost as ancient as the earliest periods of our civil history in the West.

Page 129. It is impossible to talk nonsense with more phlegm, method, and even enlightenment.

All these words, constituted and constitution, have had from their origin in France an obscurity that will always remain with them. And for a word to be clear, it is not even enough to define its meaning exactly; its sound would also have to recall its meaning readily to the mind, which happens only when there are customary words in the language (and in daily use) whose sound and meaning have affinities with the first that strike one at once.

Page 138. “Love of God and men, which cannot exist in societies that are not constituted.” What an arbitrary use of words!

* A kind of strength of mind that results in an incredible perseverance in deceiving oneself. Happy those to whom heaven has not given it!

A petty nobleman of much intelligence and much learning, erecting his various prejudices into doctrine.

Jewish people—bristling with qualities that repelled (as the thistle is with thorns), so that it would not mingle etc.

Page 149. That is an unreason that makes one shudder despite oneself. O reasoners!

But, reasoner, if in reasoning there is a necessary impossibility, that is, one deriving from the very nature of beings, that man should be God or that God could become man... You should have sought your reasons elsewhere. Those you put forward, to speak your language, may scandalize the weak.

* A strength that makes the mind deceive itself with an imperturbable perseverance, as another strength makes a man do evil with an incorrigible boldness.

* He is the Dupuis of Christianity.

Pages 165 and 166. Here the author philosophizes.

March 20.

The mind is like the steed of which Horace said: Cui male si palpere recalcitrat undique tutus. One must know how to handle it.

* With what strength he deceives himself!!

Page 192. O singular conclusion! One seems to tumble into it down a breakneck passage, and the mind feels something in it dislocated.

* But on that reckoning, constituted society, as he calls it, is impeccable.

Page 215. Gift. But anything in which the will has no part is not a gift.

* Why does he not make literature a social profession? Because he judges it useless.

* Therefore. All his therefores try one’s patience and make one want to contradict him.

* In all this there is only the posture and insistence of a man making emphatic assertions.

Page 120. But this gift, what does it cost him? In giving it, what does he deprive himself of, and what does he give that is his?

He always starts from what he calls his principles as though he were starting from the reader’s, with the same assurance... It makes good sense shudder.

March 21.

Certainly he is not mad, but he has been driven mad.

Page 234. He reels off all he has to say.

* Water as well as wine. Very well observed.

* In the confinement and darkness of the study. Truly there is etc.—that one never wrote in the sun (and while walking).

* Let the laws be alike, so be it. But the systems of civil administration!

* Literature. It is in power, but has never been a constituted power.

Page 260. [Does] Mohammedanism not have the sacrifice of almsgiving, that of fasting, of pilgrimage, of the tithe in certain cases?

Id. So little philosophy that it is all revelation.

T105.The saint remains unnamed and the saying is translated as Joubert gives it, without substituting a familiar Latin formulation or attributing it more precisely. Unreasoning retains the verbal opposition to reasoning rather than making the criticism a mere absence of reason.

T106.The repeated in perpetuity retains the argument’s emphasis. The Odyssey allusion breaks off after no mortal until now; no missing Homeric wording is supplied. The following reference to Boileau also remains a fragment.

T107.The facsimile clearly prints exorte. The English [exists] is a translator’s conjectural reading of existe, suggested by the contrast between society and individuals; these brackets are not present in the French. The French anomaly is retained, and the conjecture requires editorial judgment.

T108.Constituted repeats the technical term under discussion, rather than being replaced with organized or civilized. The subsequent paragraph explicitly examines its relation to constitution and to familiar words.

T109.Extravaguer means to think or speak without sense or reason, rendered talk nonsense. Phlegm retains the striking conjunction of composure with unreasonable discourse; lumières is rendered enlightenment, without adding a historical movement as its referent.

S1.Source editor’s annotationI am not sure of “divers” [various]. Paul de Raynal read: “premières” [first]. In abbreviated form it reads: “dᵉʳˢ.” Likewise, in abbreviated form: “un g-nt-ll-tr-.”

T110.Gentillâtre is disparaging, rendered petty nobleman. The reading divers, various, is explicitly uncertain in Beaunier’s apparatus; Paul de Raynal’s alternative premières, first, is retained there. Neither proposed expansion of the manuscript abbreviation is treated as certain.

T113.The English apparatus preserves the French forms divers and premières and adds their English senses in brackets. These two glosses are translator additions; the abbreviated manuscript forms and the editor’s uncertainty are unchanged.

T395.The superscript ers in dᵉʳˢ was checked in a native crop. The source editor explicitly marks divers as uncertain and gives the alternative premières; neither is silently treated as established.

T111.The bristling thistle comparison is retained as Joubert’s historical wording. The collective people is singular in French, and the purpose clause stops at etc. without specifying with whom the people would mingle.

T112.The opening conditional construction breaks off before the subsequent sentence. Scandalize retains the theological resonance of giving offense or causing another to stumble, not merely provoking public notoriety.

T114.The facsimile prints courrier, ordinarily a mounted messenger or traveler, rather than coursier, a steed. Steed is a contextual interpretation suggested by the horse image in the following quotation, not a silent change to the French. The Latin is retained as quoted; its sense is: if you stroke him badly, he kicks back, secure on every side. The line occurs in Horace, Satires II.1.20.

T115.Casse-col is a dangerous passage or place where one risks a fall. The English retains both the fall and the mind’s sense of something dislocated; conclusion renders conséquence as the result of reasoning.

T116.The source editor supplies [la] in de [la] littérature. English does not naturally take an article before literature here, so the supplied French article has no bracketed English counterpart; the intervention is recorded in this note.

T117.Fou and affolé distinguish a condition from having been thrown into it. The translation retains their shared root rather than substituting a modern diagnosis.

T397.Native crop confirms ratelée without a circumflex. Printed loixs contains both x and s. The unusual Est-[ce] bracket/hyphen placement is printed. The left edge of page 329 damages initial letters, including continuations of constitué and aumône; completions follow surviving fragments. Final Si peu philosophie remains a fragment; no subject or copula is supplied.

T118.Défiler sa ratelée is treated as a colloquial expression for saying all one has to say in a run. It is not translated as the physical action of a rake.

T119.The source interrupts il y a with etc. before a clause beginning qu’on n’écrivit. The printed form is rendered as the past one never wrote. An imperfect-subjunctive reading is also possible within the broken construction, but the English does not turn it into an injunction. There is no exclamation mark after soleil.

T120.Polices has a broader historical scope than modern police forces. Systems of civil administration is adopted to keep the distinction from the laws themselves. The anomalous spelling loixs remains in French.

T121.In power follows au pouvoir closely; the terse phrase does not explain the nature of literature’s relation to power. The subsequent constituted power preserves the technical term under criticism.

T122.The French question contains the source editor’s supplied [ce] in Est-[ce]. [Does] represents the interrogative function in English, rather than its literal word. Mohammedanism renders Joubert’s historical term mahométisme for Islam. The forms of sacrifice remain his list.