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 wordNerves and fibers belong to Joubert’s historical physiology and to his images of strings, tension, and resonance.
- In JoubertThe speculation about ocular and erector fibers admits how little inner organization is known while relating bodily states to imagination.
- In this edition“Erector fibers” retains the printed phrase without naming an organ.
- A place to beginFibers are proposed as a bodily basis of intelligence and imagination.
- English renderings
- nerves; sinews; fibers
Meaning
Nerves and fibers belong to Joubert’s historical physiology and to his images of strings, tension, and resonance. Their literary application may criticize excessive mechanism rather than praise energy.
Use in the book
The speculation about ocular and erector fibers admits how little inner organization is known while relating bodily states to imagination. The self-directed note about easily agitated fibers makes slowness and moderate contemplation remedies for rapid weariness and excessive ambition for perfection. Style can also display its steel sinews too openly, or offer vibration without genuine emotion. The bodily material does not disappear when the comparison becomes literary.
Places to read
- I, p. 43–44, entry 1, ¶7Fibers are proposed as a bodily basis of intelligence and imagination.
- I, p. 441, entry 6, ¶2Agitated fibers underlie a self-imposed discipline of restraint.
- II, p. 486, entry 7, ¶1Steel sinews make a stylistic spring too evident.
- II, p. 596, entry 14, ¶1Nerve and string are contrasted with heart and intelligence.
Translation in this edition
“Erector fibers” retains the printed phrase without naming an organ. “Sinews” in the psaltery image preserves the string-like sense of nerfs; the translation does not impose a modern neurological account.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 43, 44, 441; II, pp. 486, 596.