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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I

Reading language

YEAR 1804

In metaphysics, the thought of God measures time. In pure logic or mathematics, God is intelligible extent without end, without bounds.

May […].

The heart must walk before the mind, and indulgence before truth.

May […]1.

Another order of truths. (And nota “the mind of one’s age.”) That is to say, our weakness (the weakness of age) makes us fitted to conceive intellectual truths better, and our strength to see or express certain earthly truths better.

— As much as is needed for happiness, though perhaps not as much as would be needed for dominion over the minds of others.

May […]2.

That is to demolish the [altars?].

— Occupied with what one must think, and never with what one must do.

... has stirred up the mud.

... who have nothing immutable in them, nothing that resists change.

“Art is surer than nature,” said Cicero. And morality is more tenacious than manners, the rule more invariable than the natural disposition.

May 17.

Ch[êne]d[ollé] reproaches the A[bbé] D[elile] for having swollen Virgil’s harmony. This is very well observed. In general, D[elile] has enlarged his author as the painter B[...] enlarged every face he painted.

“The people, who always have virtues when they are preserved from inconstancy.” (Mr Julien.)

Monday, May 21.

Robust old men, alone have the dignity of old age, and only for them is it fitting to speak of their age. In them old age is in its beauty: one loves it there. The delicate must make others forget theirs and forget it themselves. They are permitted to speak only of their debility. To say why.

May 22.

Remember that the force of consequence subjects only the mind that exercises it.

As long as one has the strength to complain of the weakness of one’s mind, the mind has strength.

May 23.

Chateaubriand said to me yesterday: “It is with ideas as with those springs one brings forth beneath one’s steps without thinking of it, by pressing the earth with one’s foot.” One finds them while walking and thinking of something else, along the road of life.

Saturday, May 26.

One cannot conceive them (pure spirits) without some body, if not earthly, at least heavenly or, if one wishes, at least mathematical, that is to say, indicating their bounds, their limits, their lack of infinity, of immensity, and consequently giving them some figure.

Mathematical body: by this I mean a body without weight, without impenetrability, without any of the qualities that characterize earthly bodies or by which they are defined.

T37.The thought of God preserves the possible ambiguity of de Dieu between thought directed toward God and God’s thought. The passage does not identify a single operation of measuring time more precisely.

T38.The verb of walking retains the movement of the heart in advance of the mind. Indulgence means a readiness to allow for or forgive, without naming a particular offense.

T39.Âge can refer to one’s stage of life; the surrounding contrast between weakness and strength supports that reading, without assigning an exact age. Nota remains Latin. The following As much fragment has no supplied noun or action.

T40.The printed word is autols, confirmed in an enlarged facsimile. The English offers the contextual conjecture altars, as though autels, in brackets with a question mark. The French anomaly is retained; a confident correction is not imposed.

T41.The source leaves the subject of a remüé unexpressed, and the English has stirred retains that omission. Vase means mud or silt here, not a vessel. The following plural who has no named antecedent.

T42.Morale is kept distinct from mœurs, and naturel names an underlying disposition. The saying is attributed to Cicero as in Joubert’s record, without a supplied work or independent claim of verbatim quotation.

T43.The bodily swelling and enlarging images remain. All partial name expansions belong to the source edition; B[...] is not filled in with a guessed painter.

T307.Facsimile inspection shows enough of the first date numeral to identify 17 despite the fold. The supplied letter groups and three-dot bracketed B[...] remain exactly; no name is expanded further. The beginnings of son and peignoit and the divided harmonie are contextually restored.

T308.The clipped beginning of l’inconstance is contextually restored. The quotation’s relative clause remains without a completed main clause.

T44.The source comma after robust old men remains. The delicate are contrasted with bodily robustness, not treated as merely refined in manners. Beaunier’s supplied plural s in même[s] has no letter-level English equivalent in themselves. The final To say why remains an infinitive reminder.

T45.Conséquence concerns following consequences or inference. Its force subjects only the mind exercising it; the English does not replace this with a claim that it necessarily persuades other minds.

T46.The spring image belongs to the quoted comparison; the final road of life extends it in Joubert’s own sentence. Yesterday remains relative to the printed date rather than being turned into another entry.

T47.Pure spirits names the immaterial beings under discussion. Their hypothetical body is defined in the second paragraph by the absence of terrestrial qualities. Bounds and limits remain separate, and lack of infinity does not become bodily finitude by an added explanation.