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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I

Reading language

[On Voltaire.]

The part of ourselves in which opinions, light judgments, gaieties etc. are engendered abounds in young people.

The soul never grows angry. So we calm the angry when we offer them reasons that can reach all the way to it.

August 1.

The best and the only good interpreter of Plato is Plutarch.

August 2.

To the animal, precisely as much intelligence as it needs to preserve itself, to perpetuate itself, to be, in a word. And since, as the ancients observed, “many things can harm and many others benefit living beings,” and since, moreover, most are destined to serve many uses, the portion of intelligence that their destination made necessary is quite considerable.

Nature. Or what follows from the birth, the existence of things. From the existence of everything, nature is born, as society is born from the gathering of men. Nature, or certain laws, certain necessities, a certain force follow from the possibility or idea of the world brought into actuality.

Nature, or the system of necessities that follow from the existence of the world.

Nature. If nature is only a consequence of universal existence, it cannot be its cause.

August […].

In their case one could have written a chapter on Philosophy considered as a passion. Besides, theirs was religious.

The Stoics. Slaves of definitions.

“The contours of the Platonists,” our fathers used to say; “the subtlety (or finesse and delicacy) of the Peripatetics, the gravity of the Stoics.” (Vid. préf. in Plut. d’Amyot.)

August […].

(In Plutarq.) He who sees faults too well is no friend.

August […]8.

To analyze? — Yes, one’s pleasures. The mind excels at it. And, by chewing them over in this way, it tastes them twice, three times, a hundred times.

Our mind has more thoughts than our memory can recall to us. It often judges on grounds that escape our attention. Part of our effort would be usefully spent seeking out and examining in depth the glimpses on which it based these judgments, and what thoughts passed through it so quickly.

To take care to avoid encountering the bounds of one’s mind.

August 20.

“Amant alterna Camoenæ” (Virg.) Nothing would be more favorable to the muses, to the mutual accord of minds, to the harmony and measure that must be kept even in the midst of dispute and every discussion, than to speak one after another and calmly set forth one’s whole opinion, each in turn.

August 21.

Often we have a feeling for a truth of which we have no opinion. And then it is possible to direct our conduct by what we feel and not by what we think. (I believe Bossuet glimpsed and saw this truth. Look again at his dispute with Fénelon.)

T102.The categorical never is retained. Reasons reach all the way to the soul; the translation does not identify anger itself with the soul or weaken the spatial image.

T361.The printed date returns to August 1 after August 17; it remains in source order.

T103.The initial allocation To the animal remains a fragment. Preserve itself and perpetuate itself remain separate purposes. Destination translates the concluding destination in relation to the uses animals are said to serve, without naming a designer or adding a beneficiary.

T362.The printed date is retained in source order. The initial A has no printed accent; assés retains its final s.

T104.Brought into actuality renders réduite en acte as the realization of a possibility or idea. It is not a reduction in size. The sequence nature, laws, necessities, and force retains the source’s movement between singular and plural. The repeated born language is preserved.

T105.The opening their case leaves the group unnamed in this paragraph. The Stoics are named in the following paragraph, which is preserved separately. Theirs retains the reference to their philosophy without expanding the opening reference into a new name.

T364.The left edge obscures the day numeral; no complete date is reconstructed.

T106.Contours keeps the spatial term rather than substituting an explanation such as evasions. The shortened reference points to the preface in Amyot’s Plutarch; its printed French and Latin abbreviations remain in the text.

T366.The left edge obscures the day numeral; no complete date is reconstructed.

S1.Source editor’s annotationNew notebook: “To Mr. Joubert, rue du Pont, at Villeneuve sur Yonne.” Under the date August 17, Joubert summarizes the principal ideas he has noted recently: “preceding. Tabl. 1. ownership, through limits. — 2. the soul or substance, and the mind or the part of ourselves in which opinions are engendered. — 3. form calls for matter as matter calls for form. Etc.”

T107.Chewing them over renders remâchant and carries the physical image into tastes. The facsimile supports remâ- followed by the damaged continuation, not remuant. Yes renders the affirmative Ouï despite its printed diaeresis; the French spelling is retained.

T111.The address and place names remain as printed. Tabl. is unexpanded; the introductory preceding remains fragmentary. The August 17 summary belongs to the annotation and is not used to complete the damaged date above the main passage.

T367.The left edge obscures the day numeral; no complete date is reconstructed. The enlarged facsimile clearly reads Ouï with a diaeresis. The divided word prints remâ- at the end of the line and …hant at the damaged start of the next; the lost c is restored to transcribe remâchant, not silently modernized or replaced by remuant.

T108.Glimpses keeps the brief apprehensions of apperçus. The movement is backward from judgments already made to grounds that escaped attention, not forward to inventing new reasons for them.

T109.The Latin means: The Camenae love alternation, that is, alternating song. Compare Virgil, Eclogue III, line 59, where the speakers are told to take turns. Joubert carries this into the orderly exchange of opinions. The spelling Camoenæ is retained as printed. Measure renders mesures in its relation to restraint and harmonious order.

T110.Feeling, opinion, and thought remain distinct. The text allows conduct to follow an apprehended truth before it becomes a consciously held opinion. Glimpsed and saw are both retained; the instruction to revisit Bossuet’s dispute is left as an instruction, not treated as proof that Joubert subsequently did so.