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 wordMold and imprint distinguish what gives form from the resulting mark.
- In JoubertThe body is a mold that gives form to the soul: informe is the verb of forming, not the modern-sounding verb of transmitting information.
- In this editionThe English translation distinguishes seal from imprint and preserves the wax, hand, machine, and instrument as separate elements.
- A place to beginThe body gives form rather than information.
- English renderings
- mold; imprint
Meaning
Mold and imprint distinguish what gives form from the resulting mark. The image becomes especially useful when something unseen is judged through what it produces.
Use in the book
The body is a mold that gives form to the soul: informe is the verb of forming, not the modern-sounding verb of transmitting information. In the seal comparison, a visible imprint allows judgment of an unseen seal, but poor wax, insufficient warmth, or weak pressure may obstruct that judgment. An imperfect result therefore need not straightforwardly disclose an imperfect original. The hierarchy of type, imprint, mental image, and divine idea makes the resulting forms unequal in beauty without identifying their places more explicitly than the source does.
Places to read
- I, p. 162, entry 9, ¶1The body gives form rather than information.
- II, p. 645, entry 5, ¶1The visibility of an imprint depends on material and pressure as well as its seal.
- II, p. 834, entry 7, ¶2Imprint and mental image occupy different positions in a hierarchy of beauty.
Translation in this edition
The English translation distinguishes seal from imprint and preserves the wax, hand, machine, and instrument as separate elements. At II.834 the two possessive references to place remain open; the Lexicon does not silently supply matter and soul as their locations.
Type
French: type.
Type names an original or model in the paired fragments, rather than an ordinary example or a stylistic classification. Heaven is said to contain things, truths, and pleasures in their types, while here we have their shadows. The next paragraph distinguishes type, imprint, and image in the mind, then makes the divine idea more beautiful than the type itself. Its comparisons retain the image’s and imprint’s different places without naming those places. The English translation preserves types as a technical noun; this local hierarchy does not establish a single named philosophical system or make every use of type in the notebooks equivalent.
Places to read: II, p. 834, entry 7, ¶1; II, p. 834, entry 7, ¶2.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 162; II, pp. 645, 834.