From the book
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Joseph Joubert · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordRessort names a spring or spring-like force, and can locate what sets a person, style, or polity in motion.
- In JoubertThe stylistic image criticizes a spring that makes itself felt too plainly, comparing it with steel sinews on a psaltery.
- In this editionThe English translation retains spring and the bodily term sinews in the psaltery comparison.
- A place to beginA conspicuous spring makes stylistic mechanism too palpable.
- English renderings
- spring
Meaning
Ressort names a spring or spring-like force, and can locate what sets a person, style, or polity in motion. It is not always a visible mechanical component.
Use in the book
The stylistic image criticizes a spring that makes itself felt too plainly, comparing it with steel sinews on a psaltery. The mechanism’s effectiveness does not excuse its obtrusiveness. The account of political feelings asks a different question: whether the spring of movement lies within the state itself. Without such feelings, empires are compared with crank-operated machines. These uses show why movement alone does not prove inward life or artistic freedom.
Places to read
- II, p. 486, entry 7, ¶1A conspicuous spring makes stylistic mechanism too palpable.
- II, p. 504, entry 1, ¶1A movement whose spring lies elsewhere is contrasted with the state’s inward life.
Translation in this edition
The English translation retains spring and the bodily term sinews in the psaltery comparison. In the political passage, it does not supply an internal motive to the externally driven empire. Uses of du ressort de meaning within the province of something belong to a different idiom.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, II, pp. 486, 504.