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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1814

June 21.

He- is right. Perfectibility, if it is indefinite, must consist in always tending toward perfection without ever being able to attain it. Thus perfectibility would exclude perfection. What ideas! (See today’s newspaper, Y.)

June 23.

If one does not bring to the study of politics the love of order, to the study of the sciences the love of truth, to that of morality the love of what is better and to that of metaphysics the love of spiritual light...

One must bring to every kind of study, to pursue it with success and with fruit, the appropriate dispositions, and for example...

Medicine: the love of health, aversion to suffering, finally horror of disorder in life. Jurisprudence: right or just distributions.

July 7.

The brilliance of the diamond in the pearls of dew.

All those who are permitted to place themselves at rest and who live in it [have] as their duty and function to govern or direct, in one way or another, those who are obliged to live in action and movement. (Being as if seated at the helm.)

July 8.

That: one wants the poor man to be without fault. This is because it would perhaps be easy for the poor man to be perfect.

Mind and instinct (when one has both) can indeed help each other, but cannot take each other’s place. For (as a general rule) what one has [in] [instinct] one never has in mind. Nature abhors these [duplications].

One must therefore never try to do with the mind what one was [born] able to do with instinct. For example, verse. A poet [is] a sort of nightingale, a lyric or musical animal. He knows [what] he is ignorant of.

July […].

— and needs only thoughts of that kind, fitted to [direct], preserve and nourish honorable feelings.

July […]1.

One may plead cases, but one must not plead laws. To plead laws publicly!... what an abuse! It is to profane all [their] germs. Their source must be sacred, and you expose it to the open [air]. When they are born of a discussion, they no longer come from on high.

... what a horrible profanation! it is to lay their germ bare. Their source must be sacred (and for that reason hidden), and you expose it to the open air and broad daylight. When they are born of discussion, they no longer come from on high or from the secrecy of conscience. They are born answerable to quibbling.

“The reasoner’s iron hand (as Mr. Nodier says so well) grips the heart.”

T210.The unnamed he, initial condition, always/ever and conditional would exclude remain. The repeated perfectibility/perfection preserves the argument’s vocabulary. Only See corresponds to italic Vide. The newspaper and Y remain unlocated and unexpanded. He- retains the qualified short hyphen-like block printed between Il and a. It may be a reproduction artifact; it is not certified as intentional authorial punctuation. The source wording and the uncertain mark remain visible.

T515.Between Il and a the native reproduction has a short substantial mid-height horizontal block. It is retained provisionally as a hyphen-like mark, without asserting intended authorial punctuation; a reproduction artifact remains possible. The senior editor independently confirms the substantial short block and agrees with the qualified hyphen-like reading. Exclurait retains its printed ai ending. The condition, necessity, always/never opposition and exclamation remain. Only Vide is italic; Y. and the journal reference stay unexpanded.

T211.The unfinished condition and four study/love relations remain. What is better keeps the comparative mieux rather than changing it to an absolute good. Spiritual light retains the image.

T516.The three indented paragraphs remain separate within one unit. The first condition is suspended at its printed ellipsis; the second has a distinct printed ellipsis after exemple. The four study/love relations, both avec phrases and the nominal medical/legal continuations remain without a supplied conclusion. The singular étude and plural répartitions remain, with no replacement by a named system.

T212.The obligation, success/fruit pairing and unfinished example remain in a separate paragraph. Dispositions is not narrowed to a single personal virtue. English places commas around the purpose phrase and before the unfinished example for readability; the French punctuation remains unchanged.

T213.The two nominal fields and their different lists remain. Disorder in life reads désordre vital in the medical context without assigning a diagnosis. Right preserves droit broadly; just distributions retains the distributive alternative rather than substituting punishments or modern legal institutions.

T214.The nominal fragment and both precious-material images remain without a supplied verb or observer.

T517.The complete date and nominal image remain without a supplied predicate or explanation.

T215.The governing/directing and action/movement alternatives remain, with the final dependent parenthesis and helm image. The source literally reads ou after y vivent. [Have] conjecturally interprets this as ont to supply the governing verb implied by the construction; it is an explicit emendation in translation, not a recovered source word or a source-editor bracket. Taking the printed ou literally as or leaves the clause without a completed governing predicate. The French remains ou, and the English conjecture remains open to review.

T518.After y vivent the native letters read ou: the second glyph has two uprights and a lower join, with no certifiable t. The literal anomalous ou is retained; a contextual ont would be an emendation, not recovered source letters. The senior editor’s independent native comparison confirms the literal ou. Both pour phrases, both governing/directing alternatives and the separate ceux clause remain unsmoothed. Etant has a plain initial E. Mouvement is heavily overlaid by horizontal artifacts but its letter sequence remains identifiable and qualified. The detached ring-like mark below is not an annotation call or extra unit.

T216.The dependent That opening, repeated poor man and conditional perhaps remain. The source’s unexpected explanation is not supplied with a missing negative or silently recast as sarcasm. English omits the source comma after que in C’est que, giving This is because as a connected phrase; the French comma remains visible.

T217.The two faculties, parenthetic condition, indeed, mutual help and denied substitution remain. Mind renders esprit as a mental capacity, not wit alone. [In] contextually proposes en for the wholly unreadable word after ce qu’on a; neither e/c nor n/u is securely distinguished in the damaged image. [Instinct] interprets […]nstinct. [Duplications] is the full English counterpart of dou[…]le-emplois, extending over the intact emplois as well as damaged double because English uses one word. None of these interpretations restores French letters. The later en esprit is intact. The single paragraph crosses onto 789.

T520.The unit has two paragraphs: the first continues over the page break, and the second begins indented on 789. After ce qu’on a at the bottom of 788, the first damaged glyph has an open c-like contour that does not exclude e under abrasion, and the second has disconnected uprights without a certified n arch or u lower join. The entire word remains […], rather than certifying en or eu; contextual en is not a source recovery. The senior editor independently read the native crop and agrees with this whole-word uncertainty. On 789 the incomplete openings retain nstinct, le-emplois, é, st and u’il. The gaps do not restore instinct, double, né, est or qu’il. The printed hyphen before emplois remains. Other detached margin marks before the complete Il do not establish an extra word. Both mutual verbs, intact negative/restrictive relations and all generic on forms remain. Poëte retains a qualified compressed diaeresis, and scait retains c.

T218.The never injunction, innate capacity, short verse example and nightingale/animal images remain. The final knows/ignorant paradox is not explained away. This remains a separate paragraph within the same entry. [Born] and [is] contextually interpret né and est from […]é and […]st. [What] broadly renders intact ce together with the damaged relative qu’ in ce […]u’il; the English pronoun he remains outside the bracket as the counterpart of intact il. No French letters are restored.

T219.The opening dash, connective and missing subject remain, with only and all three infinitives. Honorable gives honnêtes its moral range without reducing it to factual honesty. The grammatical fragment is not converted into a complete maxim. [Direct] contextually interprets diriger from […]iriger without restoring the initial d. The completely damaged July day is not supplied.

T521.The first day has only disconnected stems/projections, not a certified numeral. The opening dash and et remain, with no supplied subject. At the wrapped verb only iriger is complete; the preceding incomplete stem/bowl does not certify d. All three à phrases, the intact restriction and sentimens remain.

T220.The permission/prohibition distinction, repeated plead, infinitival exclamation and germ/source/birth images remain. Plead laws deliberately preserves the peculiar extension of legal pleading; it is not silently replaced with passing laws. Their and they refer to laws. This is Joubert’s argument, not an independent account of lawmaking. [Their] broadly renders both the intact anaphoric en and the contextual article les from […]es; the bracket is wider than the missing French initial, whose wording is not restored. [Air] interprets […]ir, with open outside as the counterpart of intact grand. The surviving day ending in 1 is not completed. The source spellings loix and abbus remain unchanged.

T522.The first day component is not a complete numeral; only final 1 is certified. Both source paragraphs remain distinct within one unit. Loix is repeated and abbus has two b letters; nud remains literal. Only es and ir survive at the two damaged openings in paragraph 1, without a supplied l or a. The capital P in Plaider retains a thin stem/foot and a separate identifiable bowl, so the full letter is qualified rather than silently erased. The initial d in d’en likewise retains its ascender and bowl despite abrasion. In paragraph 2 the source, posez, cussion and science openings have identifiable letter bodies with detached adjacent margin artifacts; no extra word or letter loss is inferred there. Independent full-page and original-resolution comparison agrees with these specific residue limits and qualified identifiable beginnings. Both printed ellipses, lower-case c’est after the exclamation, repeated singular/plural relations and the difference between une discussion and la discussion remain.

T221.The separate paragraph and opening ellipsis remain. Germ is now singular, the source is hidden, and both open-air/daylight and on-high/conscience relations remain. Answerable to quibbling renders justiciables de la chicane, preserving the judicial metaphor without asserting that an actual court is meant. English adds a comma after the closing parenthesis for readability; French retains none there. The historical nud remains unchanged in French.

T222.The quotation, parenthetic attribution and physical grasp remain. The precise Nodier source is unverified. The attribution is not removed from its place inside the quotation. Mr. renders the printed raised-r Mʳ without changing the French abbreviation. The final period moves inside the closing quotation mark under American style; French keeps it outside.

T523.In the French source, the whole sentence including the attribution parenthesis remains inside the quotation, with the period outside its closing guillemet. The r after M is distinctly smaller and raised; Nodier remains unexpanded. The initial c in cœur has an abraded but identifiable contour, while detached left marks do not establish an additional word.