Science

From the book

The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II

Joseph Joubert · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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science

Science can denote a body of knowledge or disciplined knowing.

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordScience can denote a body of knowledge or disciplined knowing.
In JoubertMorals can be called a science of practice and circumstance, while metaphysics concerns real essences.
In this editionThe English translation retains science in disciplinary and evaluative formulations, but uses knowledge for general singular science in the question on II.782.
A place to beginMorals and metaphysics are contrasted as different sciences.

English renderings: science; knowledge; sciences

Meaning

Science can denote a body of knowledge or disciplined knowing. It is broader here than present-day experimental natural science.

Use in the book

Morals can be called a science of practice and circumstance, while metaphysics concerns real essences. Those labels underpin opposite relations between society and individuals, not a ranking of modern academic departments. Wisdom is then the “science of sciences” because it judges what kinds of knowledge are good for the soul, together with their uses and dangers. A challenge to learned truth asks whether possessing knowledge and “your sciences” is necessary for happiness and enlightenment. It does not say that the unlearned possess every truth of the learned; it distinguishes the relevant kind of truth.

Places to read

I, p. 326, entry 3, ¶1Morals and metaphysics are contrasted as different sciences.
II, p. 715, entry 10, ¶1Wisdom evaluates the value, use and danger of sciences.
II, p. 782, entry 3, ¶1Learned truth is distinguished from truth necessary for happiness.

Translation in this edition

The English translation retains science in disciplinary and evaluative formulations, but uses knowledge for general singular science in the question on II.782. This is contextual variation, not an assertion that French science has only one English equivalent.

Source note

Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 326; II, pp. 715, 782.

From the book

Centuries of Meditations

Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Science

science; sciences — ordered knowledge or a field of learned inquiry

Science can name an organized body of knowledge.

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordScience can name an organized body of knowledge.
In TraherneFelicity is called the mistress of all other sciences because it supplies the end by which their value and manner of study should be judged.
In this editionRetain science’s broad historical sense.
A place to beginFelicity is named the mistress of the sciences omitted from formal instruction.

Meaning

Science can name an organized body of knowledge. Its historical scope is broader than the modern category of experimental natural science.

Use in the book

Felicity is called the mistress of all other sciences because it supplies the end by which their value and manner of study should be judged. The complaint is not that the university taught too much, but that it did not teach its subjects as the student’s own enjoyments. Knowledge without an understood purpose remains deficient.

Natural philosophy illustrates the breadth available to a science. In its usual restricted sense it studies corporeal causes and effects; extended according to Traherne’s interpretation of its name, it considers all natures, including actions, affections, angels, and God. Even the restricted science serves the highest ends by preparing the enjoyer to see the riches of creation.

Places to read

III.37Felicity is named the mistress of the sciences omitted from formal instruction.
III.44Natural philosophy is distinguished in a restricted and an enlarged sense.

In this edition

Retain science’s broad historical sense. The description in III.44 does not establish a modern boundary between science and religion; it explicitly traverses that boundary.

Source note

Primary text: III.37, III.44. No 2026 editorial notes used.

From the book

The Green Notebook

Maurice de Guérin · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Science

science; sciences; savoir; connaissances

Science often means organized knowledge or learning broadly, though Guérin also reads a specific natural science.

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordScience often means organized knowledge or learning broadly, though Guérin also reads a specific natural science.
In GuérinThe house of Lamennais is valued as full of science and piety: learning and spiritual life are imagined together.
In this editionThe supplied English uses “learning” for “science” in the house and educational passages, “science” for the assessment of Bernardin, and “ordinary learning” for “science vulgaire.”
A reading distinctionGuérin's admission of difficulty with chemistry concerns his reading of Candolle.

Meaning

Science often means organized knowledge or learning broadly, though Guérin also reads a specific natural science. Its scope must be inferred locally rather than restricted everywhere to modern experimental science.

Use in the book

The house of Lamennais is valued as full of science and piety: learning and spiritual life are imagined together. In the educational critique a wide philosophy fosters the love of science, meaning a generous love of knowledge rather than one laboratory discipline. This range matters when the English translates the same French noun in different ways.

The distinction sharpens in reading nature. Bernardin's Études offer little for science but much for poetry, elevation, and contemplation. Candolle's plant physiology, by contrast, opens a newly ordered field whose chemistry Guérin admits he cannot understand. Partial access produces a precious impression and new observational desire, but also distress at familiar phenomena that remain unexplained. Scientific incomprehension is not treated as a virtue; poetic benefit does not erase the wish to know.

Later science may become one of the waves overwhelming the isolated soul, or shrink to the elementary knowledge needed for teaching. The term's promise and burden depend on the speaker's relation to it. It can widen a world, expose a lack, or provide subsistence.

The notebook's science and poetry are therefore distinguishable pursuits with overlapping consequences. Neither a simple hostility to science nor an easy reconciliation accounts for his alternating delight, humility, and frustration.

Places to read

13 August 1832 · ¶1Science and piety together characterize the hoped-for refuge at Lamennais's house.
6 February 1833 · ¶1Science has the broad sense of learning sustained by an expansive educational philosophy.
21 March 1833 · ¶1Bernardin's scientific yield is distinguished from the book's poetic and contemplative power.
24 April 1833 · ¶1Plant physiology enlarges observation despite serious limits of technical understanding.
27 March 1835 · ¶4Ordinary knowledge becomes the limited practical store required for a teaching life.

Translation in this edition

The supplied English uses “learning” for “science” in the house and educational passages, “science” for the assessment of Bernardin, and “ordinary learning” for “science vulgaire.” This variation discloses a real semantic range rather than inconsistency.

Source note

Guérin's admission of difficulty with chemistry concerns his reading of Candolle. It should not be generalized into a claim that he had no interest in natural inquiry.

From the book

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

Edwin A. Abbott · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Science and institutions

Thematic heading. Attested vocabulary: Science; intellectual Arts; University; endowments; esoteric classes.

Science here denotes organized knowledge and intellectual method; the Arts include learned practices such as recognition, not only fine art.

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordScience here denotes organized knowledge and intellectual method; the Arts include learned practices such as recognition, not only fine art.
In FlatlandThe narrator attributes intellectual decline during the age of colour to disuse.
In this editionNote 92 explains the Victorian institutional force of endowments; note 103 glosses esoteric.
A place to read“the intellectual Arts were fast decaying”.

Meaning

Science here denotes organized knowledge and intellectual method; the Arts include learned practices such as recognition, not only fine art. Endowments are supporting funds or property assigned to institutions and studies. Esoteric describes teaching reserved for an inner group. Together these words locate knowledge in schools, offices, resources, and controlled access.

Use in the book

The narrator attributes intellectual decline during the age of colour to disuse. Sight recognition, geometry, statics, and kinetics lose practical urgency; feeling declines in elementary schools. The causal argument deserves attention independently of its politics: a convenient technology can make demanding skills less frequently practised. But the claim of decline is voiced by someone whose rank has depended on those very skills. What counts as intellectual loss may also be the erosion of a professional distinction.

The school system's bodies complicate any innocent account of its preservation. Instruction has relied on low Isosceles supplied as specimens, confined for handling and exhausted by the practice. The abolition of their tribute is described as an immunity that permits excessive numbers. Institutional continuity is being valued above the lives consumed in maintaining it. A defence of learning becomes a defence of an exploitative arrangement, though those need not logically be the same defence.

The Circles preserve sight recognition in their colourless homes while others abandon it. Their private environment reproduces intellectual advantage across generations. The Colour Bill would disrupt this domestic training, which is one reason the narrator calls it a threat to the hierarchy. Expertise here is neither wholly fraudulent nor neutrally distributed. A real skill is cultivated through selective conditions and used to support a larger claim of inherent superiority.

After suppression the relationship reverses. Colour, condemned as corrupting for the public, is reportedly permitted in the highest university classes to illustrate advanced mathematics. The Square has never attended and marks his account as hearsay. This qualification is important: the reader learns of a probable restricted curriculum, not a directly observed lesson. The irony does not require certainty about its contents. The regime's explicit exemptions already show that authorized access determines whether the same material is knowledge or offence.

Part II extends the problem from unequal training to blocked discovery. The Council can dispense with mathematical examination when suppressing dimensional claims, and the narrator's final hearing demands demonstrations he cannot supply in the permitted medium. Scientific forms remain in use while the institutional conditions for a fair test have disappeared. The danger is not inquiry itself but the ownership of its instruments, standards, and audience.

Places to read

§92 3“the intellectual Arts were fast decaying”
§92 3“abolition of all endowments”
§92 3“their pure and colourless homes”
§102 3“the very highest and most esoteric classes”
§102 3“I can only speak from hearsay”

In this edition

Note 92 explains the Victorian institutional force of endowments; note 103 glosses esoteric. The modern note's contextual comparisons should not erase the narrator's evidentiary limitation. The university's exact secret practice remains unobserved by him.

Disrepute

Loss of esteem or good standing. The narrator connects the neglect of mathematical study with a decline in its public reputation. Printed form: disrepute (§ 92 3). See Science and institutions.

Endowments

Funds or property assigned to support institutions, offices, or studies. The reformers demand their removal from established recognition and mathematical instruction. Printed form: endowments (§ 92 3). See Science and institutions.

Esoteric

Reserved for an initiated inner group. The Square reports only from hearsay that the highest university classes still use colour in advanced mathematics. Printed form: esoteric (§ 102 3). See Science and institutions.

Intellectual Arts

Learned methods and disciplines requiring mental training, particularly the recognition arts and mathematical sciences. Art here is not restricted to aesthetic production. Printed form: intellectual Arts (§ 92 3). See Science and institutions.

Kinetics

The study of bodies in motion and the forces associated with motion. The chapter pairs it with Statics among the studies displaced by colour recognition. Printed form: Kinetics (§ 92 3). See Science and institutions.

Perusal

Reading or examination of a written work. A single book could expose the contrast between men’s private beliefs and their language to Women. Printed form: perusal (§ 122 3). See Science and institutions.

Pristine

Original and unimpaired. The Circles are said to preserve their intellectual clarity while other classes abandon difficult recognition skills. Printed form: pristine (§ 92 3). See Science and institutions.

Statics

The branch of mechanics concerned with equilibrium and bodies at rest. It is one of the intellectual studies neglected when colour simplifies practical recognition. Printed form: Statics (§ 92 3). See Science and institutions.

Superfluous

Unnecessary or exceeding what is needed. Older studies come to seem superfluous because the new visual code makes their daily applications less demanding. Printed form: superfluous (§ 92 3). See Science and institutions.

Surreptitiously

Secretly and without authorization. The Square fears that a Woman might learn to read and discover the men’s restricted discourse. Printed form: surreptitiously (§ 122 3). See Science and institutions.

Tribute

A compulsory contribution imposed on a subordinate population. Here the contribution consists of low Isosceles supplied as educational specimens, with lethal consequences. Printed form: tribute (§ 92 3). See Science and institutions.

the Workmen are annually consumed (contextual phrase)

Exact wording: “the Workmen are annually consumed” (§102 3).

Consumed means killed, not exhausted by hard labour or consumed figuratively by enthusiasm. Its passive grammar suppresses the immediate killer, while annually makes death a routine feature of production. New workers replace the murdered ones so that colour manufacture can continue without allowing its knowledge to circulate. The pairing of a factory with consumption gives the labourers the status of expendable material. The sentence also changes the scale of the chapter’s violence: after the spectacular massacre comes an administrative cycle that needs no new revolt to justify it. The state's fear survives its victory. A secret said to belong to one ruler remains dependent on other people's work, and killing those people conceals that dependency rather than removing it.

doing nothing themselves (contextual phrase)

Exact wording: “doing nothing themselves” (§112).

The participial phrase sits within a grand catalogue of priestly direction. At first it could sound like praise of pure supervision: others perform the work while the Circles provide its organizing cause. Read less deferentially, it exposes a governing class that takes credit without labour. The following qualification, restricting their causation to everything “worth doing,” lets authority decide in advance which accomplishments deserve recognition. The modern note compares the paradox to the philosophical First Cause, but the social meaning does not depend on that allusion. The Circles rule commerce, science, education, and theology without a corresponding account of their own productive acts. Syntax allows praise and indictment to occupy the same sentence, leaving readers to hear what the admiring narrator does not adequately judge.