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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1808

Man is always a child, but he is not always young. Thus everything adapted to the nature of the child is adapted to human nature, but not what is adapted to the nature of the young man.

November 20.

In literature one must have taste and appetite.

November 21.

There is sense and there are the senses. And a truth that does not fall under the senses can be very well conceived through sense (as has been very well said).

The old saying Know your friend’s ways, do not hate them. This saying admits of two meanings, for one does not hate what one knows; there is always some pleasure in knowing quite clearly.

November […]6.

Give them the physics of today, the literature and morality of former times.

The unexercised human mind could not all at once embrace in its entirety this very simple idea of divinity. It broke it into pieces by imagining several gods. The god of germination had his distinctive attribute crudely characterized by a form that was obscene and that taste […]éprouvoit, but that a pious respect for the earliest customs perpetuated to the end.

To carry within oneself and with oneself that indulgence and that attention which make others’ thoughts flower.

December […].

Incredulity is only a way the mind has of being (I add that this way of being or disposition of the mind is not good; it is good neither for oneself nor for society); but impiety is a true vice of the heart. This feeling contains horror of what is divine, disdain for men, and contempt for lovable simplicity.

December […]6.

I have never heard it said that fire was an enemy of light.

December […].

God as being and first principle is a purely speculative truth; but God as judge and providence is a truth from which practice flows. Likewise, God as Trinity would in itself be only a speculative truth; but if to this first mystery one joins that of the Incarnation, the trinity becomes practical truth. In Christianity and especially in Catholicism, mysteries are purely speculative truths from which, through the joining of one mystery to another, eminently practical truths arise.

There is the language of wise souls and the language of passionate souls, or of souls accustomed to being so. That one is ours; and it is the worst, for it is at once cold and hot.

The action in the epic poem must be illustrious, that is to say, known, famous. This is how the ancient rhetoricians understood it.

T410.Child and young are distinct predicates. The repeated adapted to retains the transfer from the child’s nature to human nature, followed by its stated limit concerning the young man.

T411.Both taste and appetite remain necessary in the formulation. The bodily metaphor is not reduced to intellectual discernment alone.

T412.Singular sense renders intellectual understanding here, while plural senses denotes sensory faculties. The repeated word preserves the relation between them, with the source’s exact emphasis separately marked. Fall under the senses remains the expression rather than being changed into a claim of empirical proof. Very well repeats in the assertion and the parenthetical attribution, whose speaker remains unidentified.

T413.The Latin saying is independently translated and remains italic. Ways renders plural mores; your makes the relationship implicit in friend readable. The two verbal forms are read as an injunction to know and not hate, while Joubert’s following explanation offers the possibility that knowing itself excludes hatred. No second meaning is inserted as a separate saying. A parallel, with the first two words reversed, appears in the collection of sayings associated with Publilius Syrus; the checked text places it among sayings considered falsely attributed to him. Joubert calls it only an old saying, and no certain author is supplied.

T414.The imperative and unidentified them remain. Physics retains the period natural-philosophical term without restricting it to a particular modern subfield. Of former times applies to literature and morality; the damaged numerical day is not reconstructed.

T727.Only the terminal 6 of the day survives securely; no preceding digit is inferred. Donnez leur has no printed hyphen. The first letter of d’autrefois is partly lost at the left edge and is read from the surviving trace and construction.

T415.The movement from an unexercised mind to a divided idea is retained. The god of germination is not given a conjectural name. The surviving […]éprouvoit remains French residue in English because a lost opening could change the verb’s meaning; réprouvoit is a contextual possibility, not a certified reading. The obscenity and the role assigned to pious respect remain without added justification.

T416.The infinitive remains without an added imperative or subject. Within and with preserve the repeated relation to oneself. Indulgence here is forbearance toward others’ thoughts, not self-indulgence. The French singular fait follows the two nouns; English make selects their joint action; the singular French fait can also attach specifically to the nearer attention, an alternative left open in the source.

T729.The infinitive opening remains without a supplied finite governing clause. Singular fait follows the coordinated indulgence and attention as printed. The left edge clips the first stroke of fleurir, whose reading is qualified by the surviving letters.

T417.The distinction between a disposition of mind and a vice of the heart remains. The long parenthesis preserves Joubert’s qualification that the disposition is not good either for the person or society. Horror, disdain, and contempt remain separate terms. Lovable simplicity retains the favorable force of aimable.

T418.The first-person report of what has never been heard remains. Was reflects the reported proposition after heard, without implying that a former enmity has ended. The source’s damaged date remains qualified separately.

T419.Speculative refers to contemplation or theoretical knowledge here, not merely to uncertainty. The contrast with practice is retained throughout. Would preserves the conditional in the Trinity formulation. The first Trinity is capitalized and the later trinity remains lowercase, while Catholicism takes its conventional English capital. No doctrinal explanation is supplied beyond Joubert’s stated relations among the mysteries.

T732.The day before December is too damaged to establish a digit: an enlarged facsimile does not establish a reading of 7. The sequence of neighboring dates does not restore it. Left-edge losses affect portions of spéculative, découle, vérité and Incarnation; the qualified readings follow surviving letters and line continuity. Trinité is capitalized first and trinité is lowercase later; Christianisme is capitalized and catholicisme lowercase.

T420.The demonstrative That one remains open in the body rather than replacing it with an explicit category. The nearest reading is the language of souls accustomed to passion, but the wording can encompass the preceding passionate souls. Cold and hot remain simultaneous qualities.

T733.The damaged left edge clips the continuation of passionnées and the beginning of pire; their readings follow the surviving endings. Celui là is printed without a hyphen. No referent is supplied for the demonstrative.

T421.Illustrious retains the term that Joubert immediately glosses as known and famous. It is not silently translated as morally admirable. The ancient rhetoricians remain unnamed.