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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1814

March 7.

Ordinarily (and in public), innocence is less than the defense and the fault is less than the accusation. And often in private, too, the evil is less than the complaint; but not always.

March 8.

Almost all men prefer danger to fear. Some even prefer death to danger, and their own loss to pain. This is because fear, danger and pain disturb reason. The horse throws itself into the precipice to escape the spur.

God directs and changes souls by means of bodies, and sometimes by himself and without this intervention.

To the merit of history must be added the merit of the historian; and likewise, to the merit of every material put to work, the merit of the worker.

God, God, God. — God; and from there all virtues, all duties. If there is one of either in which his idea is not mingled, there is always some deficiency or some excess in it. It always lacks either weight or number or measure, all things whose exactness is divine. If God does not [illegible] there, each day is an absurd distraction.

Truth! What would one say and what would one think up there! That is what truth consists in. Truth consists in imagining things as God and the saints see them; as one sees them beyond the world, when one casts one’s eyes upon them. One sees nothing truly unless one sees it from above.

March 9.

In its operations, logic starts from a definition and metaphysics from an idea. The one aims at conviction and the other at clarity and assent. The first belongs to the judicial, the second to the demonstrative. The latter is essentially persuasive, expository. The soul takes part in it. But in the operations of logic and arithmetic, a kind of calculation alone is employed.

The difference between an axiom and an idea, between a principle and a notion.

Everything that is incontestable is not always, for that reason, clear, evident and felt.

An illuminated head, and above all a head well illuminated.

There are strong heads that are not hardworking. […] K λ — a butterfly’s brain.

A clarity independent of attention and reflection; a clarity [so] direct, which one feels or which makes itself perceived merely by opening the well-directed eyes of the body or the mind.

This is, in truth, childish; but it is said to children. Why, men perhaps understand childish things better than children understand reason.

Reason can warn us of what must be avoided. The heart alone tells us what must be done. God is in our conscience, but not in our gropings. When we reason, we walk alone and without him.

And perhaps one is not permitted to speak seriously of an animal in such beautiful terms (or to paint it with such magnificent words). And this grandiloquence is illicit.

T85.The ordinary/often/not-always qualifications and public/private distinction remain. Defense renders apologie as a defense of conduct, not a confession or expression of regret. All three less-than comparisons stay separate. English places a clarifying comma after the parenthetic public circumstance; none is added to the French.

T405.The parenthetic public circumstance and all three moindre comparisons remain, followed by the source’s explicit not-always limitation. In the French source, no comma or other relation is added after the parenthesis.

T86.Almost all, some and even preserve their different scopes. The repeated preferences and three disturbances remain. Their own loss keeps perte broad rather than silently substituting a diagnosis; the horse image remains physical.

T87.The two verbs, bodily means and sometimes qualification remain. The divine action is Joubert’s formulation; intervention is not replaced by an independently defined theological mechanism.

T407.Both divine verbs, the bodily means, quelquefois and the final without relation remain. Lui même is spaced, not hyphenated. The two m arches in âmes are identifiable; no alternative noun is inferred.

T88.The obligation, repeated merit and parallel elliptical second construction remain. The historian/worker comparison is not reduced to craftsmanship alone.

T408.The passive subjunctive formulation and all four mérite occurrences remain, with the semicolon and comma as printed. The second coordination does not receive a supplied French verb. The right-edge extra thin marks are distinct from the baseline punctuation.

T89.All four God repetitions, both all lists, deficiency/excess and the three alternatives remain. One of either retains the two French genders referring to virtue or duty. [Illegible] renders the source editor’s printed illisible rather than proposing a lost verb; the ordinary English auxiliary enables the surviving negative without completing its predicate.

T409.All four Dieu invocations remain with period, dash and semicolon. The feminine/masculine une ou un sequence, both toujours, repeated ou and the intact negative structures remain. The source-editor’s [illisible] is printed with the word italic inside roman brackets; it does not identify a recoverable missing verb and is not a new reproduction-loss mark.

T90.The two conditionals, two exclamations and repeated formulations of what truth consists in remain. Up there and from above keep the spatial image; no precise cosmology is supplied. The final restriction remains. The English That after the second exclamation is capitalized by sentence style; the French c’est remains lowercase.

T91.The definition/idea and conviction/clarity-and-assent pairs remain in order. First and second refer to logic and metaphysics; the latter continues the second. Judicial, demonstrative, persuasive and expository are retained as distinct terms without imposing a modern disciplinary scheme. The same paragraph continues onto page 779. The French retains masculine seul employé after feminine une espèce; English calculation alone is employed does not reproduce that agreement anomaly.

T411.The three paragraphs remain one unit across pages 778–779. Only paragraph 1 crosses the page break, after clarté. The former/latter terms, judiciaire/démonstratif distinction, both adjectives and the anomalous masculine seul employé after feminine une espèce remain without grammatical repair. The second paragraph remains nominal, and the third retains the not-always qualification. At the damaged left margin on 779, et, au, L’âme, l’arithmétique, notion and the wrapped dent retain identifiable letters despite abrasion; isolated earlier margin strokes are not promoted to extra words or gaps. The d in dent retains a degraded but identifiable ascender and bowl.

T92.The separate nominal paragraph preserves both comparisons and all four technical nouns.

T93.The not-always qualification and all three final predicates remain. The sentence does not claim that incontestable things can never be felt or understood.

T95.The nominal formulation and repeated illumination remain. Head is not replaced with a generic person, and above all preserves the second emphasis.

T412.The two paragraphs retain the first nominal formulation and the second sentence’s negative relative clause. The coded continuation begins at the ordinary line margin and remains an internal line break in paragraph 2, not a third source paragraph. Only K and a lambda-shaped λ are complete in the opaque designation. The earlier remnant has disconnected strokes and an incomplete curved/right component, so no complete initial symbol is certified. Its gap is retained without a name, numeral or linguistic expansion; Greek identity for the entire designation is not established. The dash and butterfly-brain nominal image remain. Independent native comparison agrees with the incomplete opening and the two complete opaque symbols.

T96.The second paragraph retains the internal line break before the opaque designation and physical brain image. Only K and a lambda-shaped λ are complete after the damaged opening; its marker remains unfilled. No person, numeral or linguistic expansion is established, including a Greek identity for the entire designation. Strong and hardworking remain different qualities.

T97.The nominal opening and repeated clarity remain, with both independence terms and the feels/is-perceived alternative. Well-directed belongs to the eyes of body or mind. No physiological explanation is supplied. [So] contextually interprets si at the damaged slot before directe; the source’s surviving components certify neither that word nor the extent of the loss. No French letters are restored. The printed appercevoir retains two p. The two relative clauses describe clarity: one feels it, or it makes itself perceived. The English comma prevents the conjectural so from turning these descriptions into a newly asserted result.

T413.The nominal formulation, semicolon, two clarté occurrences, alternative relative clauses and body/mind relation remain. Before directe, the damaged margin contains only incomplete components; no si or other word is restored. The explicit gap records those remnants with its extent unresolved. Independent native comparison confirms the distinct damaged slot without recovering its letters. Appercevoir retains two p. The intact les before yeux begins at the regular text column; the detached earlier vertical remnant does not establish an additional missing word. Bien dirigés retains its plural agreement without a rewritten attachment.

T98.The childish/children repetitions and perhaps remain. Reason retains the unpossessed la raison and its broader sense; the rationale of the childish things is a contextual possibility. The line break in n’entendent does not create a separate pronominal en.

T414.The semicolon, mais clause, exclamation and peut-être comparison remain. The wrapped n’en-tendent joins to n’entendent without adding another negative particle. Enfans retains its printed ending. Detached margin blocks before intact hommes and tendent are not promoted to additional lexical losses.

T99.Can and alone preserve different scopes. Conscience and gropings retain their contrast, and the walking image keeps both alone and without him. The religious assertion is not paraphrased into a general psychology.

T100.Both And openings, perhaps and seriously remain. Grandiloquence renders emphase in its inflated rhetorical sense rather than mere stress on a word; illicit keeps the pronounced prohibition without identifying an external rule.

T416.The initial Et, peut-être and negative impersonal permission remain. The complete parenthetic alternative retains de le and both intensifying si relations. The second Et sentence remains in the same paragraph. No species or work is identified.