Diotimos Reading Desk

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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

According to Plato

September 23.

Never to give the ancients more precision or more clarity than they have.

September […].

The odd, principle of all good. For if there were nothing without a [pair]...

September […].

Yes, in the arts and in all the arts one needs what Gr[i]m[m] [called] “a varnish of falsity.” It is this varnish that “from an [adventure]” (or a thing) “that is common makes” (a thing or) “an [adventure] rare and marvelous,” as he very well remarks. Do we not [varnish] our wood, do we not stain it for our [rooms]? As for marble, its surface is full of illusions, and to bring them to light we need only polish it.

September […].

A body must have its dress and its spirit (that is, its uniform and unvarying [opinions] on spiritual things) and its [regimen].

September […].

To graze on heavenly hay. The only reward these wholly botanical souls need and [are] worthy of. A little earth will remain [to] feed the physicists, a little movement to occupy the [astronomers]. The chemists will decompose light.

Nothing from nothing, nor can it return to nothing. Indeed, everything returns [into] God’s bosom and everything has come from it. In the sense they give [to] this thought, certainly nothing would exist, since nothing would have [produced] anything. Exclude God, and nothingness occurs. But God always was. You conceive [him] immutable. You can easily conceive him [eternal]. Besides, that is the background of the canvas — the question is the painting.

That “nothing comes from nothing.” But everything can come from God alone. [Where] God is, nothingness is excluded.

A frightening thing, and one that may be true: “old men like to survive.”

September […]9.

The power to annihilate is a divine attribute. There is [light] in these words: “God drew his breath back to himself...”

September […]0.

That is enough for human reason (you say). So be it. But [for] its imagination, for its hopes, for its fears, for its [habits]? Religion must be made for feeling man, [for] imaginative man and for animal, mechanical man, as [well] as for reasonable, reasoning man.

And where have you seen many men who reason or in [whom] reason predominates?

God alone can be attached to certain opinions of which he is the subject — [the] power to make himself believed for a long time and universally.

Soundness of reasoning has its rules and its physiognomy; soundness of conception has none. But it is far superior to the other.

The soundness of a certain tact. Everything depends on it.

T256.The negative infinitive, two comparative limits and final they have remain. No particular ancient writer is named, and no added clarity is silently supplied.

T630.The day 23 is identifiable despite thin reproduction marks. The infinitive and repeated ni plus remain; no imperative subject is supplied.

T257.The nominal opening and incomplete conditional remain. Odd preserves the numerical and unpaired senses of impair alongside pair, without an invented conclusion. [Pair] interprets pair from […]ir; the following three dots are printed, not a completion of the conditional.

T631.The day is wholly unreadable. The final broken opening retains ir, followed by three printed ellipsis dots; no completion or governing conclusion is supplied. The first formulation remains nominal.

T258.The repeated arts, varnish and negative questions remain. All four quoted pieces retain their interleaving with two parentheses. Gr[i]m[m] retains the source editor’s partial-name expansions. [Called], both [adventure] brackets, [varnish] and [rooms] contextually interpret appelloit, aventure, vernissons and appartemens from their damaged portions. Rooms is a contextual rendering of appartemens. The English adds a coordinating and at the unpunctuated illusions/pour junction for readability, without recovering French punctuation. The exact Grimm source is unlocated.

T259.Body can mean an organized body; no particular order or institution is named. The three possessions and the source’s parenthetic explanation remain. Regimen retains both ordered living and governance possibilities without reducing it to diet. [Opinions] and [regimen] interpret opinions and régime from opi[…]ions and […]gime. No particular organization or rule is identified.

T260.The initial infinitive and nominal reward formulation retain the botanical image. Earth/movement/light and the three named pursuits remain distinct; the future and satirical possibility are not turned into modern scientific claims. [Are], [to] and [astronomers] interpret soient, pour and astronomes from […]ient, […]our and […]stronomes. The source’s qualified plain Paitre is not silently changed to Paître.

T634.The damaged day retains right-side contours compatible with 3 or 8 but does not certify a complete digit, so the whole day remains lost. Native Paitre has a compact dot-like raised mark above i, not a securely peaked circumflex; the plain reading is qualified for the reproduced contour. The broken openings retain ient, our and stronomes, with the first s abraded but identifiable. The infinitive, nominal reward and future verbs remain. Chymistes is literal.

T261.The first sentence freshly renders the elliptical Latin. Its supplied finite can it is ordinary English grammar for infinitival posse with no claimed recovered subject. The unnamed they, conditional existence and prior production remain distinct. Nothingness renders substantive le rien in a lieu, rather than saying that nothing happens. The background/canvas/painting contrast remains; no external maxim source is claimed. The Latin leaves the subject of posse reverti unexpressed; English it is a grammatical supply with an unresolved referent. [Into], [to], [produced], [him] and [eternal] contextually interpret dans, à, produit, le and éternel from the damaged spans. The wholly lost pronoun is a contextual choice, not a recovered letter.

T635.Both paragraphs remain separate. The opening Latin is italic through its period; its nominal/infinitival irregularity is not repaired or completed. The broken openings retain ans, roduit, el after éter and ù. The loss before cette pensée is unfilled, and the disconnected fragments before concevez do not certify a complete e or a whole pronoun. The surviving a in ans and grave-marked ù are qualified for margin abrasion. Final exclus retains its printed s. The dependent Que and quoted boundary remain.

T262.The dependent That, quoted maxim and separate adversative sentence remain. Alone and the final where preserve their restrictions; nothingness consistently renders le rien. [Where] interprets Où from […]ù. The printed French exclus retains its final s.

T263.The nominal opening and may be qualification remain. Survive can include outliving others; that unexpressed object is not inserted into the quotation. The quotation’s speaker is not identified. The source reads aiment survivre without a supplied à or an invented loss; English to is ordinary infinitive grammar.

T636.The nominal/relative opening and quoted lowercase les remain. Surviving survivre begins at the normal column; no complete lexical remnant before it certifies an omitted à, and no gap is inserted solely from expected grammar. The page prints aiment survivre.

T264.Annihilate, divine attribute and light retain their separate force. The withdrawal’s reflexive direction and unfinished quotation remain; no Bible verse or named intermediary is supplied without verification. [Light] interprets lumière from […]umière.

T265.The parenthetic reply, concession and four repeated for questions remain. The source’s initial possessive shifts are left visible; the later repeated man unfolds its several capacities. Feeling, imagination, animal/mechanical and reasonable/reasoning remain distinct. The two [for] brackets, [habits] and [well] interpret the damaged pour, habitudes and bien. The three other for phrases in the question are intact.

T638.Only terminal 0 is complete in the damaged day; its preceding remnant does not certify a digit. Both paragraphs remain distinct. Assés and the parenthetic dites-vous remain literal. Clipped openings retain our, abitudes, our and ien, and the last wrapped relative retains les before the break and uels after it; the incomplete preceding q-like contour is not recovered as a whole letter. The final question keeps ou and the reasoning/reason relation.

T266.The separate And question keeps many rather than a universal denial. Reasoning and the predominance of reason remain alternatives. Whole English [whom] corresponds to the damaged relative les[…]uels; in remains outside the bracket for intact dans.

T267.The facsimile confirms literal, unhyphenated peut être attaché and the detached force phrase. The English preserves their unresolved construction without adding a governing verb. [The] contextually interprets la from […]a; the missing article opening does not certify an attachment. Himself provisionally takes se to refer to God; a reference to the opinions, rendered themselves, remains possible. Neither the syntax nor the reflexive antecedent is settled. The passage requires reviewer judgment rather than a silent grammatical repair.

T639.Native inspection clearly supports the literal unhyphenated peut être attaché and the following à, not an emendation to a finite active verb. The construction and detached force phrase remain grammatically unresolved. At the second-line opening only a is complete; the narrow disconnected components before it do not certify l. No attachment or reflexive antecedent is supplied in French; se may be interpreted contextually but does not settle the construction.

T268.The repeated soundness and rules/physiognomy pair remain. It refers to soundness of conception and the other to soundness of reasoning; no external method is supplied.

T640.The repeated justesse, distinct raisonnement/conception, plural rules and singular physionomie remain. The wrapped justesse retains its letters; no marginal loss is inferred.

T269.The nominal opening and unspecified certain remain. Tact retains a faculty of delicate judgment or touch, without narrowing it to social politeness.