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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I

Reading language

[Malebranche.]

July 23.

God is spirit and truth. He sees all, he knows all, he contains all things within him. God is justice: he will punish all faults. God is goodness: he has pity on repentance. Finally, God is mercy: he has pity on all our ills.

Prayer and sacrifice. — Each day, to pray to him, to fix one’s thought on that light which purifies, on that fire which consumes our corruptions, on that model which rules us, on that peace which calms our agitations, on that principle of all being which revives our virtue.

Sacrifice. To sacrifice to him every day. Through pain, by bearing it patiently, as one of his commandments; through pleasure, by abstaining: sacrifices of our body through pain and pleasure. Sacrifice of our heart, by loving him above all things and giving all things for him, by subordinating our tenderest attachments to love of him, sacrifices of our mind, by repressing every curiosity that draws us away from him, by cutting from ourselves for him a part of our reason, by believing for love of him what he wishes us to believe; sacrifice of our fortunes, by suffering the bad for him and depriving ourselves of a part of the good for him.

— And our neighbor as ourselves for love of him. God! God!

To sacrifice to him every day some portion of our mind, some portion of our body, of our possessions, of our pleasures and of our pains.

July 24.

Form sculpts matter (πλαστή). The number of plastic forms, or forms proper to organized bodies, is limited like that of regular geometrical figures, but less so. Geometrical forms, that is to say, forms suited to measuring. Plastic or molding forms, that is to say, forms suited to establishing, within, the balance of the parts of a being, and without, the concord or harmony of its visible proportions.

— In that case (vide the preceding September), in that case there is no nobility that is not an inheritance. But greatness can begin with the one who possesses it. Its principle is of oneself and in oneself.

And there would be noble bloods, as there are beautiful bloods.

H [ ] says that “matter is God’s sister.” No, it is not his sister. It is his nail and his hair, if I may express myself so. There is no being that does not have within it something that is not itself. God resembles all beings, for he has painted himself in his works. Matter is his instrument; he has always had it with him. It is the instrument of his power, the offshoot of his strength, the [supplement] of his essence. It serves to create souls, as the world serves to house them, and life to test them. It is the course whose end is eternity and whose reward is heaven.

Will God rank beautiful thoughts with good actions? Will those who have sought them, who delight in them and attach themselves to them, have a reward? Will the philosopher and the statesman be paid for their plans as the good man will be paid for good works? and do useful labors have a value and a merit in God’s eyes, as good conduct does? Perhaps so; but this first reward is not assured like the second, and it will not be the same; God has not placed the hope and certainty of it in our souls. Other motives determine us...

Yet it seems to me that Plato’s works may have been credited to him in heaven, but that even Montesquieu would not have dared present his there. As for Bossuet and Fénelon, theirs will be admissible there (indisputably); and even those of Muhammad. But Confucius, etc., no. They did not speak of God; they did not lead sufficiently toward him.

If God rewards these gifts, this admirable intelligence, etc. the others come from the sun; their eyes have fed their minds. But their souls have not seen God; they have not looked at him. Their life, and not their study, will be entitled to the reward.

Some are his servants, others his friends. But it is safer to trust in obedience than in affection.

That health which hardens the organs and overwhelms the mind. That strength of the body which oppresses the soul.

One must act as long as one lives. But what? must one act at the end of life as in the middle or at the beginning. At that stage, should not our action be directed differently than at other times? Must one then act for what is fleeing or for what is approaching?

For my part, I believe one must plant and not build, whatever the young men may have said. Time and health, when they change, also change our task and our obligations.

And — every age is near its end — Thus there is a future that is always ne[ar] and that it matters equally to us all to attend to, a future that youth has beneath its feet: old age sees it placed before its eyes.

I. A people (or rather the multitude) has no need to derive from laws or conventions a power it derives from its strength, which comes to it from its numbers. Thus this declaration is at least useless. (The people must be taught to contain this strength, as kings must be taught to moderate their authority.)

II. It is power that comes only from conventions and consent that needs to be declared.

III. It is necessary in this machine for the multitude to forget its rights and for the leader to forget his weakness. But etc.

S1.Source editor’s annotationSeparate leaf, dated.

T147.The unusual object repentance is retained for repentir. The sequence spirit and truth, justice, goodness, and mercy preserves the distinctions Joubert draws, including the separate objects of pity.

T392.The first day digit is partly obscured, but an enlarged facsimile preserves enough of its curved lower stroke to read 2, followed by a clear 3. Scait, commandemens and nous même remain as printed. Fold damage obscures initial parts of lui, est, pitié, pensée, the divided corruptions, agitations, avec, s’abstenant, Sacrifice, the divided donnant, tendres and curiosité; they are restored from their surviving letters. Right-edge endings on page 458 are partly clipped and contextually restored. The fragment beginning Et notre prochain supplies no verb.

T148.The infinitives remain an unfinished formulation of daily practice, rather than commands silently addressed to the reader. The repeated on preserves the sequence of light, fire, model, peace, and principle.

T149.The reductions of curiosity and reason remain explicit. Son amour is read here as love of God, in continuity with en l’aimant and pour l’amour de lui. Fortunes embraces bad and good circumstances; the English keeps fortunes rather than reducing it to wealth. The following paragraph begins without a verb, and no love is inserted there.

T150.Bien here is rendered possessions, amid the enumeration of mind, body, pleasures, and pains. The repeated some portion is retained where Joubert repeats it, without adding it to every item.

S1.Source editor’s annotationNotebook.

T151.Plastic means formative or molding, as Joubert’s own ou moulantes explains. The Greek πλαστή, the feminine of πλαστός, can be glossed formed or molded. It is preserved with its printed acute accent in both language texts, rather than replaced by a different Greek form. Organized bodies and regular geometrical figures remain distinct categories.

T394.The superscript call 1 is visible after the date, but no matching numeral is visible before the footer Carnet. The annotation is linked through its printed call; no footer numeral is supplied.

T152.Vide is the Latin instruction see. Joubert refers to the preceding September without identifying a single entry, so the reference remains at that level. The repetition in that case, and the reflexive of oneself and in oneself, are retained rather than replaced by an explanation of personal merit.

T153.Both noble bloods and beautiful bloods preserve the source’s unusual plurals. The conditional would be is retained; the sentence is not converted into a factual claim about hereditary nobility.

T154.H [ ] remains unidentified. The bodily images nail and hair are preserved in the singular. Offshoot reads rejet as something put forth, comparable to a plant’s new growth in the 1798 Académie dictionary; this is an interpretation of Joubert’s metaphor, not an assertion that he explicitly supplies a plant image. The source-supplied [supplément] remains [supplement]. The final course is left with the source’s compressed antecedent rather than made explicitly life or matter.

T155.Prix shifts between value and a reward to be received; the English follows that shift. The questions, qualifications, lower-case and after a question mark, and final ellipsis remain. Useful labor and good conduct are not treated as interchangeable.

T397.The source prints mettra t’il, Quand à, Confutzée, assés and obéissanse. The Si clause is not completed by a clearly matching consequent before les autres. The lower-case et after œuvres? is retained. Numerous right-edge endings on page 458 and the left-edge beginnings âmes, non and est on page 459 are partly clipped and restored from surviving letters.

T156.The conditional judgment about Montesquieu remains distinct from the possibility stated for Plato and the future admissibility of other works. Muhammad and Confucius render Mahomet and Confutzée. The religious assessments remain Joubert’s; the English adds no claim that these judgments are historically established.

T157.The relation between the opening If-clause and the words the others is unclear. The English retains that discontinuity. The others may point to other gifts before the text shifts to their eyes and souls; no single antecedent is imposed. Feeding the mind remains the image of repu.

T158.The final distinction remains some and others, without assigning named authors to either group. Safer retains the comparative plus sûr, and obedience remains contrasted with affection.

T159.The question-like sentence beginning must one ends with a period in the source and retains that punctuation. What is fleeing and what is approaching remain unnamed; no afterlife is expressly inserted into that opposition.

T160.The future beneath youth’s feet and before old age’s eyes remains Joubert’s spatial image. Ne[ar] reflects the source’s partial editorial completion pro[che]; the different division of the English word follows from translating it.

T161.The three Roman-numbered paragraphs remain one source entry. The declaration is not given a title the source does not supply. Force is strength and puissance is power, preserving the distinction between the multitude’s numbers and what laws or conventions confer.

T162.The political machine, the forgetting of rights and weakness, and the abrupt But etc. remain as printed. No justification or conclusion is supplied.