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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Reading language

YEAR 1818

March 28.

Easter Saturday 1818. D. G.

April 1.

That all Périgourdins have much soul.

April 3.

A sophism is a phantom, an appearance of good reasoning and reason. “Philosophy (Mr. Frizel said) is only an art or a habit of directing one’s mind by sophisms,” and indeed it is never founded on anything but appearances or probabilities. If the aim is good and these sophisms, these appearances, these probabilities bring the mind to it, our philosophy is good. If the aim is bad, everything that leads us to it ruins us, and philosophy is bad. It is therefore by its aim and its effect that one must judge every philosophy. I add: also by its means. For there are paths that lead astray even when one follows them to reach a praiseworthy aim. However good the intention may be, if the direction is bad, if one’s course takes a bad direction, one arrives at evil.

A vivid representation of the objects of faith, with complete assent in the desire to please God.

April 6.

A wind of doctrine that leads to port. What does it matter which it is and where it comes from.

April 8.

...to procure for oneself a moment of beauty.

April 10.

Moments of faith. They exist just as moments of Love do.

And to believe with another’s faith when one does not believe with one’s own.

Moments of faith are very palpable moments of our intelligence’s devotion or dedication.

April 18.

In sound philosophy, the most beautiful is always the truest, or at least the nearest to truth.

April 19.

Whether the honorable (and the best) are obligatory in politics. That is, whether one is always bound to aim at them or even to prefer them.

The imaging faculty and the imagination, the first corresponding to the Greeks’ phantasia and the second to the Latins’ ingenium.

April 21.

To make two words of to image and to imagine. To image: one pictures, to make oneself a picture; to imagine: almost to image, or to form a mere idea. Take to imagine as a diminutive, a weakened form of to image. To imagine would be for spiritual or intelligible things; to image for bodily or perceptible things. Add that the imagination has the power to spiritualize what is material in itself, and the imaging faculty has the habit of giving body or materiality to what is spiritual in itself. Is it useful, is it praiseworthy to use both processes? Yes, if one knows how to do it well and aptly.

April 27.

One must receive the past with respect, the present with distrust, if one wishes to provide for the future’s safety. But it is the past continuous or equal or similar to itself that one must respect, and not the innovating past. The latter, by disregarding the rights of the times that preceded it, has lost its own before the times that could follow them. And one must not call innovators the centuries that completed what the others had begun, but those that worked to destroy it.

T27.The circumstance, explicit year and unexpanded initials remain in the main paragraph. No expansion of D. G., identification of an event or replacement of the separate March date is supplied.

T276.The complete 28, embedded Saturday/Easter 1818 statement and separate baseline initials D. G. remain. The initials are not expanded, and the body year does not create a second date label.

T28.The dependent That, all and much soul remain. Périgourdins retains the regional designation rather than inventing a named group or list of people.

T29.The phantom/appearance distinction, quoted restriction, never/anything-but, repeated demonstratives and good/bad conditionals remain. Aim, effect and means stay separate; the final roads and arrival image is retained. English adds a colon after I add and a comma at the quotation’s close for syntax. Mr. expands the ordinary raised title; Frizel remains uncorrected and no external quotation is verified.

T278.The complete 3 stands in the ordinary date column, like the later single 6 and 8. Color shows no positive foreground numeral remnant before it; detached native-margin traces do not establish an earlier digit. The provisional map’s lost-prefix marker is therefore not adopted. Frizel is literal with raised r after M. In the French source, the quote closes after sophismes without an added period or comma; the parenthetic report stays inside it. Both restrictive negatives, repeated alternatives and conditional sequences, all repeated but/effet/moyens terms and the final concession remain. The complete long paragraph retains the mau-/vais, mau-/vaise and mar-/che wraps. Left starts et/une/ne/but/fassent/vais/vaise/philosophie/qui/L’intention/che have identifiable foreground components in color; no contextual initials or extra words are supplied.

T30.The nominal fragment, vivid quality, objects of faith, completeness and desire remain. Assent contextually renders adhésion without naming a doctrine or church.

T279.The nominal fragment, historical foy, comma and entire-adhesion qualification remain. The left d of dans is abraded but identifiable.

T31.The wind/port image and rhetorical inquiry remain. The source’s final period is retained rather than silently changed to a question mark; no particular doctrine is supplied.

T280.The complete 6 and two printed periods remain; no question mark is inferred. The grave in d’où is small but directionally supported in color. The two subjunctive forms and initial metaphor remain.

T32.The opening ellipsis, purpose infinitive, reflexive recipient and singular moment remain without a supplied main clause.

T281.The complete 8 precedes a fragment with three printed baseline points; these are a source ellipsis, not a current reproduction loss.

T33.The repeated moments and comparison remain; the capital on Love is retained from printed Amour, without identifying a personification beyond the printed form.

T282.The complete 10 owns three separately indented paragraphs. The first Moments retains t, while the three later momens forms omit it; foy, capital Amour and dévoument remain literal. The second paragraph is an Et-led infinitive, with the negative contrast intact. The final plural très sensibles and de notre intelligence remain in their printed order; no interpretation of the syntactic attachment is inserted into French. All text on 871 is roman. The source collation records the dates, literal il naissent, raised title, margin contours and upper marks, with the individual reading qualifications retained.

T34.The dependent And and infinitive, positive/negative parallel and possessive contrast remain. With is the contextual relation of de, without supplying a prescribed practice or another person’s identity.

T35.The repeated moments, alternative dévotion/dévoument and intelligence remain. Very palpable renders très sensibles as perceptible or distinctly felt; plural sensibles agrees with momens. The intelligence’s devotion/dedication is a contextual possessor or agent reading of de, not a uniquely established syntactic interpretation. The complete electronic 1798 Académie Sensible entry, directly read by the literary specialist, supports the perceptible/felt sense but does not determine that attachment. No dictionary facsimile was inspected. This stays the third paragraph of the same entry.

T36.The three superlatives, always and at-least qualification remain. Sound renders bonne without naming a philosophical school.

T37.The two dependent inquiries and their periods remain; English does not add question marks. The parenthesis, plural are, always, bound and or-even alternative preserve the source’s terms.

T38.The two terms are deliberately distinguished rather than merged as synonyms. Imaging faculty is a contextual English label for imaginative; the following entry develops the contrast. Phantasia and ingenium are retained as the foreign terms Joubert is comparing, not replaced by an asserted one-word equivalent. His correspondence is not independently certified as an ancient taxonomy. Only phantasia and ingenium carry the corresponding source italics.

T285.The two opening nouns and dependent dont clause remain without a supplied main predicate. Phantasia is printed in Latin letters across the complete phan-/tasia wrap, and ingenium is likewise printed in Latin letters. These two words alone are italic; their French articles and the terminal period remain roman.

T39.The repeated English verb forms preserve the proposed distinction between imager and imaginer, and imaging faculty keeps imaginative distinct from imagination. English colons introduce the first two definitions in place of source commas. The source’s awkward on se figure/se faire sequence is preserved as one pictures/to make. Diminutive and weakened form remain two formulations, as do power/habit, the conditional would, both paired domains and two questions with their qualified Yes. Perceptible avoids the false-friend reasonable sense of sensible. Only the six marked verb occurrences carry corresponding source italics: the first two definitions, the two terms in the diminutive comparison, and the two terms in the spiritual/bodily contrast. The opening pair and almost to image remain roman.

T40.The obligation, conditional wish, three alternatives describing continuity and repeated past remain. Its own means its own rights; them follows the source plural les rather than silently correcting it to a singular antecedent. The final completing/destroying contrast remains. Innovating retains the source’s agency rather than assuming all change is meant. English places commas around the intervening by-clause for syntactic clarity; this does not alter the French punctuation.