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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1811

Voltaire is the most debauched mind. And what is worse is that one becomes debauched with him.

Wednesday, May 22.

One must see singularity where it is and not see it where it is not.

(Same day, departure from Marseille.)

May 23.

(At Aix.) If idleness is necessary for minds as well as work. Porters: they will be stronger, but they will be ill-formed.

Mr. t-d-n-l- (tr-tv-) does not use his office expense funds.

To decide everything by reasons that touch the soul.

May 31.

One does not sing with every kind of voice. “It is a song (said the ancients); carmen est,” that is to say an enchantment.

She does all she can to sing. (At Aix, the 31st in the morning.)

June 15.

(At Lyon.) Logic, physics, moral philosophy and metaphysics, if you wish to make them truly scholastic or classical in substance and in style, must be what I am going to say: — physics, modern; moral philosophy, Chinese; metaphysics, Christian; and logic, Peripatetic. Only the moderns have known bodies well, only the Chinese sages have reasoned out moral philosophy well (which the Bible teaches better than they do). The Christians have fixed and gathered into one body the best opinions on spiritual substances, and Aristotle alone has treated abstractions as they ought to be treated. His language and his method in this kind are perfect. As much as Plato is superior to Malebranche, so much is Aristotle superior to Locke, to Condillac, etc.

“The mind loves order,” but not the order that depends on constraint and is only a chaining willed by the one who makes it. Literary and poetic order depends on the natural and free succession of movements. There must be harmony and relations between the parts of a work, everything must hold together in it, but nothing must be nailed in place.

July 2.

(Arrival at Villeneuve.)

Of those who reflect little on themselves and much on others.

July 4.

The double upheaval brought about by destructions and by institutions.

July 12.

— killing themselves through an excess of honor... — to put an end to so many evils, — to make the death they seek more dishonorable than the life they flee.

— those unbearable talkers who always talk to you of what they know and never talk to you of what they think.

T63.The repeated debauchery remains as Joubert’s judgment of a mind and its company or influence; no independently established biographical act is asserted. The opening And and comparative worse remain. The English reads the qualified printed sc contextually as se in the reflexive construction; this is an interpretation disclosed here, not a change to the French transcription.

T204.The enlarged facsimile shows an open c-shaped second letter without an e crossbar in sc, contrasting with the clear se in the earlier paragraph. The qualified literal sc is retained; se is the contextual interpretation, not a silently substituted source reading. The repeated débauché/débauche and comparative worse remain.

T64.The two locations and repeated seeing remain. Singularity is left broad rather than fixed as either excellence or eccentricity.

T205.Two physical paragraphs remain under Mercredi 22 mai; the second is a parenthetic circumstance, not a separately invented dated entry. The initial M in Mercredi is abraded but its remaining strokes support the qualified complete reading.

T65.The parenthetic circumstance is a separate main paragraph under the same printed entry date. Same day remains in the text without creating a second date heading.

T66.The opening If remains without a supplied concluding clause; a whether reading is also possible for the dependent formulation. The porters and future contrast remain. No explanation of the analogy or newly narrowed antecedent is supplied.

T206.The opening Si clause remains without a supplied conclusion before the following porters formulation. The two future verbs are repeated. The day 23 and initial t of travail are partly abraded but retain sufficient shapes for qualified complete readings.

T67.Office expense funds reads frais de bureau in its administrative range of sums for office expenses. A bounded 1798 administrative parallel, directly read in a later electronic transcription, distinguishes these funds from pay and establishment grants. This does not identify a particular allowance scheme or expand the consonantal name. The qualified forms t-d-n-l- (tr-tv-) remain unexpanded, and Mr. renders the source honorific.

T68.The infinitive remains without an added subject or injunction. Touch preserves the bodily image and the soul remains its object.

T208.The infinitive remains without a supplied subject or finite governing clause.

T69.The first negative is partial: not every kind of voice. Latin carmen est remains in the body, with the source’s links to song and enchantment; no exact ancient speaker or locus is assigned. The quoted span includes the parenthetic attribution and the Latin; carmen est alone is italic, with the following comma outside the emphasis.

T209.Two physical paragraphs remain. The quotation extends through the Latin, and its intervening parenthesis is not removed. Carmen est alone is italic; c’est à dire is unhyphenated. The second paragraph retains its unnamed feminine subject and closing place/day/morning circumstance. The initial 3 in the opening date and the opening parenthesis and d of disoient are abraded but supported by their surviving forms.

T70.She remains unnamed. The place, repeated day and morning circumstance remain within this same paragraph; the month and year are not inserted into its parenthesis.

T71.The first list and the reordered assignments both remain. Scholastic retains the school-method range supported by the complete 1798 Académie entry, without confining it to a named medieval doctrine; Classical retains both the possible school setting and the authority of approved authors attested by the complete 1798 Classique entry; neither range is silently excluded. Physics and moral philosophy are used in the broad historical subject setting. The exclusive assertions, the Bible parenthesis, the gathered body, and the two superiority comparisons remain Joubert’s judgments. This single paragraph continues onto page 700; no new paragraph or date is created there. Malebranche renders the printed Mallebranche; the doubled l remains in the French.

T210.The whole paragraph continues onto page 700. The opening subject list and later classification list retain their different orders. Scholastiques retains ch, fonds its final s, bible its lower-case b and Chrétiens its capital. Mallebranche has doubled l in the continuation. The comparative pair Autant...autant and the two separate à complements remain. Several initial strokes on page 699 are abraded but support qualified complete readings.

T72.The initial quotation remains bounded. Chaining, free succession, holding together and nails retain the material images, and the repetition of depends on preserves the relation expressed by tient à. No named ordering system or external quotation source is supplied.

T211.Poëtique has two distinct raised dots over e in the native image. Mouvemens retains its printed ending. In the French source, the opening quotation closes before the comma; no attribution is supplied.

T73.The parenthetic arrival is a complete physical main paragraph under the printed date. It is not absorbed into a heading or joined to the next paragraph.

T212.The arrival circumstance remains a separate main paragraph. Eux même retains singular même without a joining hyphen. The following De ceux formulation has no governing finite clause.

T74.The dependent Of opening remains, and the two amounts are kept in opposition. No people are named.

T75.The formulation remains nominal. Both by phrases remain; institutions is left broad, including the act of establishing, rather than replaced with a specific government or event.

T213.The nominal opening and its relative clause remain without an added governing assertion; both par les phrases are retained.

T76.The successive participial and infinitive fragments, ellipsis and dashes remain. No agent or occasion is supplied; the comparison concerns the sought death and the life fled, without a new moral commentary.

T214.The three dash-led formulations remain together, with the printed ellipsis and no supplied subject or governing verb. Fuyent retains y.

T77.The initial fragment and repeated talk to you remain. Always and never keep their opposing scope, and knowing remains distinct from thinking.

T215.The opening dash and nominal formulation are retained. Scavent is printed with plain c; no cedilla is supplied.