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 wordVegetation means plant growth and activity in the single selected fragment.
- In JoubertThe wind is called necessary to vegetation because it shakes plants and gives air penetrating force.
- In this editionThe English translation translates tout ce qui végète as “everything that grows,” avoiding the misleading pejorative English vegetates.
- A place to beginWind, shaking, and penetrating air are linked with plant growth.
- English renderings
- vegetation; grows
Meaning
Vegetation means plant growth and activity in the single selected fragment. The verb végéter is positive here, not the modern figurative complaint about a stagnant life.
Use in the book
The wind is called necessary to vegetation because it shakes plants and gives air penetrating force. It is then likened, elliptically, to a crossbow string. The closing parallel makes movement necessary to everything that grows as to everything that lives. This is Joubert’s compressed explanatory analogy; it should not be enlarged into a complete botanical mechanism.
Places to read
- I, p. 177, entry 5, ¶1Wind, shaking, and penetrating air are linked with plant growth.
Translation in this edition
The English translation translates tout ce qui végète as “everything that grows,” avoiding the misleading pejorative English vegetates. The subjectless “Are the string” remains an unfinished form rather than being silently regularized.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 177.