From the book
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Joseph Joubert · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordIndulgence is active leniency or sympathetic allowance, capable of helping a person but also of failing justice.
- In JoubertThe image of severity freezing faults contrasts with indulgence making them die.
- In this editionThe English translation retains the physical verbs freezes, fixes and makes die rather than converting the metaphor into a psychological theory.
- A place to beginIndulgence can undo faults that severity fixes.
- English renderings
- indulgence
Meaning
Indulgence is active leniency or sympathetic allowance, capable of helping a person but also of failing justice.
Use in the book
The image of severity freezing faults contrasts with indulgence making them die. A good approver is declared as necessary as a good corrector. That claim has limits: some indulgences are denials of justice. A later distinction places indulgence near love and indifference nearer aversion, refusing to treat failure to condemn as one uniform attitude. The important question is what allowance does and from what relation it proceeds. These passages neither identify kindness with moral indifference nor make every indulgence beneficial.
Places to read
- I, p. 466, entry 6, ¶1Indulgence can undo faults that severity fixes.
- II, p. 842, entry 7, ¶1Some leniency denies justice.
- II, p. 886, entry 6, ¶1Indulgence is distinguished from indifference by its inclination toward love.
Translation in this edition
The English translation retains the physical verbs freezes, fixes and makes die rather than converting the metaphor into a psychological theory. The plural indulgences in the justice sentence denotes acts of leniency; no ecclesiastical remission is identified. The objects of the final opening To love them all remain unnamed.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 466; II, pp. 842, 886.