Diotimos Reading Desk

Tap the page, move to the top or bottom edge, swipe down, or press Tab to reveal reading controls. Use the arrow keys or swipe sideways to turn pages.

← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

Mr. Hochet and Mme de Sévigné.

October 24.

Of the authority of the ancients. That to employ it (in discourse) is oratorical. That to respect it is moral. And that the philosophy that uses it in its reasonings is gentler, more persuasive, and better suited to make one better.

The reasons we forge, we easily destroy: we are their masters.

Of philosophers who have nothing divine.

God’s esteem (if one may speak thus), easier to obtain than men’s esteem, because God gives us credit for our efforts.

October 25.

Human morality amuses and satisfies the mind; religious morality constrains it and governs life.

October 27.

“Because of the rays of things,” says Bacon. Indeed, everything has rays.

October 28.

In most agreeable books there is only chatter that does not bore.

October 29.

One must sacrifice to him evil and pleasure, these black and white victims.

All extraordinary men (in letters) who do not have much wit lack good sense. (There is no harmony, no proportion in them.)

September 19.

Whether, when a stone falls, God helps it fall.

September 20.

— Yes. Sometimes in all men, and often in contemplatives, “the soul acts without an organ” and directly by itself. [While reading Plato’s Morals by Javellus.]

September 30.

Sense is like a common reservoir to which the qualities of all things come from every direction to put judgment to work.

T128.The successive That clauses follow an Of opening without a supplied governing assertion. Oratorical, moral, gentler, and persuasive remain distinct descriptions. Make one better retains the moral improvement implied by rendre meilleur without introducing an unprinted noun.

T302.Authorité retains the printed h. The successive Que clauses follow the nominal opening without an added finite governing clause.

T129.Forge retains the making metaphor in forgeons and its possible implication of fabrication. Destroy and masters preserve the relation between making reasons and being able to undo them.

T130.The esteem is given by God, as the comparison with men’s esteem and the following credit for effort indicate. The opening comparison lacks a finite is in French and retains that compressed form in English.

T131.Human and religious qualify morality. Amuses and satisfies remain two effects upon the mind, whereas religious morality constrains that mind and governs life. The pronoun’s referent is not changed to morality itself.

T132.Rays renders both occurrences of raïons, preserving the repeated image. The second sentence is understood as everything has rays although the source prints accented à. French retains that spelling. The attribution to Bacon does not establish Joubert’s particular copy. The phrase occurs in the interpretation of Pan in Golefer’s 1632 translation of Bacon, book II, p. 166. Bacon’s statement about nearly all things is not substituted for Joubert’s everything.

T133.The source names evil and pleasure, not pain and pleasure. Its sacrificial language and black and white victims remain. The recipient is unnamed; English him adopts a masculine reading, though French lui does not itself establish gender. No God is inserted into the passage.

T134.Wit distinguishes esprit from bon sens, good sense, in this literary context. Extraordinary remains the description of the men in letters; it is not silently made equivalent to having good judgment. Harmony and proportion remain separate terms.

T135.Whether reads Si as an inquiry, in keeping with the following separately printed Yes; the alternative conditional If remains grammatically possible. The period and lack of a governing clause remain. The September 19 date follows October material in the printed order and is not moved.

T306.The printed September date follows October 29 material. Si opens a fragment without a supplied main assertion or invented interrogative punctuation.

T136.Immediately is understood here as acting directly, without an intervening organ, not merely quickly. The source’s closing bracketed reading circumstance remains part of the paragraph. Plato’s Morals translates the printed French title Morale de Platon without inventing the title of a particular Latin edition; Javellus remains the attribution.

T307.The source-supplied reading circumstance closes the same paragraph in square brackets; only the title is italic.

T137.Sense is singular and remains distinct from judgment. The image gathers the qualities of all things from every direction into a common reservoir. It does not replace the qualities with the things themselves. Put judgment to work renders exercer le jugement without making the arriving qualities themselves the agents that judge.