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 wordSubstance ranges from bodily material and a proposed physical constituent to the content of speech.
- In JoubertThe child feeds on its mother’s substance: the word is concrete and intimately bodily.
- In this editionThe English translation consistently retains “substance” in these witnesses.
- A place to beginPregnancy is described as nourishment drawn from maternal substance.
- English renderings
- substance
Meaning
Substance ranges from bodily material and a proposed physical constituent to the content of speech. Joubert also uses it in extended images of spiritual nourishment.
Use in the book
The child feeds on its mother’s substance: the word is concrete and intimately bodily. A physical note then labels heat “substance” and identifies it with fire. In another register, ordinary words can supply the meaning and substance of exquisite poetry or music. These are not interchangeable technical assertions. The soul’s conversion of goodness into its own substance develops the feeding image through assimilation and nourishment, rather than offering a literal anatomical description of the soul.
Places to read
- I, p. 105, entry 3, ¶1Pregnancy is described as nourishment drawn from maternal substance.
- I, p. 238, entry 1, ¶7The parenthesis explicitly treats heat as substance.
- II, p. 756, entry 9, ¶1Substance is the meaningful content that artistry can transform.
- II, p. 724, entry 10, ¶1Goodness becomes the soul’s nourishment and substance.
Translation in this edition
The English translation consistently retains “substance” in these witnesses. That repetition preserves the material vocabulary of the metaphors without endorsing the historical physical claims as present-day science.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 105, 238; II, pp. 724, 756. The movement material at I.237–238 comes from a separate exercise book. Beaunier reports likely borrowing from abbé Nollet, leaves the extent of Joubert’s own contribution unsettled, and acknowledges omissions. This lexical witness does not establish an independently original physical theory by Joubert.