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 wordThe stomach is both an organ felt as a bodily demand and a model of transforming what is received.
- In JoubertThe muscular account compares its action to a wringing hand and distinguishes effective processing from restoration of strength.
- In this editionThe English translation renders the recurring spelling estomach as stomach.
- A place to beginThe stomach is imagined as a hand that presses and wrings.
- English renderings
- stomach
Meaning
The stomach is both an organ felt as a bodily demand and a model of transforming what is received. Its contrast with the head does not simply contrast body with a disembodied mind.
Use in the book
The muscular account compares its action to a wringing hand and distinguishes effective processing from restoration of strength. The observation that spirits occupying the head are no longer in the stomach treats the two as competitors within a historical physiological picture. Much later, an unnamed physician’s capricious little animal supplies an image that Joubert extends: stomach and brain digest different materials. The comparison gives the brain a bodily operation rather than treating digestion as the exclusive property of food.
Places to read
- I, p. 123, entry 4, ¶1The stomach is imagined as a hand that presses and wrings.
- I, p. 379, entry 5, ¶1The head and stomach receive unequal shares of spirits.
- II, p. 862, entry 7, ¶1A quoted physician’s image leads to parallel stomach and brain digestion.
Translation in this edition
The English translation renders the recurring spelling estomach as stomach. The Montpellier physician remains unidentified, and the final brain clause inherits “digests” from the stomach clause. These are source descriptions and comparisons, not a unified modern account of the gut and brain.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 123, 379; II, pp. 862.