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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I

Reading language

[Malebranche.]

November 29.

The work does not advance then, that is true. But the hand becomes practiced; the instrument is polished, sharpened, becomes easy to handle.

Mr de Bonald. One must at least pay him in respect what one cannot pay him in admiration. Since he is so useful a writer.

What we call nature’s games please us because they seem to be games of thought.

Do we not say that make one think? well, I make one imagine.

Every man has two destinies, one he makes for himself, the other imposed on him. He makes his works, and receives his faculties. His merit is the work of his freedom; but his role, his rank, his personage in the world are matters of necessity for him. He has received them from elsewhere. Just as, then, we are subject to two movements, that of the earth and our own, so, I say, we are governed by two wills, our own and that of providence, authors of the first and instruments of the latter, masters of ourselves so as to merit the reward assigned to virtue, and machines for all the rest.

November 30.

To know and love God. Eternal faculties. Not all will be able to know him equally, but all will be able to love him equally.

Truth resembles the sky; and opinion has clouds (sic).

One sees with sight and paints with a brush. The mind is the brush, an instrument superadded to the hand that uses it, as the hand itself is added and fitted to the trunk.

Love is the will at rest and in action. At rest through possession, and in action through pleasure.

In hatred one repels an object to which one is attached through attention. There is therefore a bond of attention.

Do we not say: instrument of providence!

You are only tapestry makers, occupied in covering with images the canvas all eyes imagine for themselves.

Understanding determined by the will. It moves understanding, makes it incline, determines it, and even fixes it... We have lost the language suited to speaking of such things.

T231.The work’s lack of progress is conceded before the hand’s practice and the instrument’s polishing and sharpening. No specific instrument or activity is supplied.

T232.The English keeps the source’s movement from singular What to plural games and please. The games of nature and of thought remain the repeated image rather than being replaced by curiosities and inventions.

T233.The italic relative clause qui font penser has no explicit antecedent. The English preserves that fragment and distinguishes thought from imagination in Joubert’s reply. No object such as books or words is inserted.

T464.The phrase is italic without guillemets, and its relative pronoun has no supplied antecedent.

T234.The first and the latter refer to the two wills: our own and providence’s. Authors and instruments remain contrasted, followed by masters of ourselves and machines. Role, rank, and personage are retained as separate terms; the passage is not resolved into either unrestricted freedom or complete determinism.

T235.Tous ne… pas restricts the ability to know God equally; the following tous affirms equal ability to love him. The two statements concern capacities, as the opening Faculties indicates.

T236.The edition prints a, has, followed by (sic). An accented à would make opinion resemble clouds, but that possible correction is not introduced into either text.

T237.The mind itself is the brush added to the hand, and the hand is added to the trunk. The unexpected order of these bodily and mental instruments remains.

T238.Tapissiers is read through the woven-image comparison. Se figurent means imagine or picture to themselves; the eyes themselves imagine the canvas.

T239.Elle is the will, and le is understanding throughout. Repeating understanding as the first object makes that relation clear in English, where the two French grammatical genders cannot distinguish the pronouns.