Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  What’s more, with regard to beauty and other matters concerning the arts as a whole, we must always remind ourselves of the different ways of life, different capacities for understanding, for communicating, for being affected, etc., that we need to take into account when making comparisons between man and other animals, or between one man and another. We must not see as absolute and necessary, and therefore universal, something that is arbitrary and relative in man or any other species, and which therefore may not exist, or may exist in a different form in other cases.

  The pleasure we derive from sound does not come under the category of the beautiful, but is like that of taste or smell, etc. Nature has given us pleasure in all our senses. But sound is unique in producing an effect that in itself is much more spiritual [158] than food, colors, or tangible objects. And yet observe that smells, although to a much lesser extent, have a similar ability to awaken our imagination, etc. Hence the very spirituality of sound is a physical effect on our sensory organs and does not require the attention of the soul, because sound draws the soul directly to itself, and this is what moves us, even when our soul barely notices it. Whereas beauty, whether natural or artificial, affects us only if the soul is predisposed in a certain way to recognize it, hence the pleasure it gives is recognized as an intellectual one. And this is the main reason that the effect of music is immediate, unlike that of the other arts, and see these thoughts p. 79.

  Note that nothing has been written, to the best of my knowledge, about the effect of song on animals. (In fact, in ancient times people used the expression excantare, now incantare [to charm] snakes, and “Frigidus in pratis cantando rumpitur anguis” [“by singing, the cold snake in the meadows is burst asunder”], as Virgil1 says, but these are stories for which there is no basis in modern experience. We read that Arion seduced the dolphins with his singing. Chateaubriand tells of a snake being tamed by music, etc. etc.2 What’s more, poets used to tell stories about animals that would stop and listen to this or that person singing.) The reason is that singing is more human than other sounds and its effect more relative, and also different sounds produce different sensations according to the nature of the organs affected. Exactly the same is true of different smells, different tastes, and different colors, of which one will particularly delight this person while another will appeal to that. Human song has a great effect on people. Bird song, on the other hand, has very little. But it must give great delight to birds, since we can tell that they sing for [159] pleasure, and their voice is not intended for some other purpose, like that of other animals (apart from creatures like cicadas and crickets, which can surely have no other end than pleasure in the continuous noise they make).1 And I am convinced that birds delight in their song not just as song but as something containing beauty, that is, harmony, which we cannot hear because we do not have the same idea of the concordance of tones. (7 July 1820.)

  Observe another superb example of nature’s skill. Having decreed that birds should by their nature be the singers of this world, it also intended birds to delight our hearing, just as flowers delight us with their scent. Now, what did it do to make sure that their voices would be heard? It made them able to fly so that their song, coming from above, carries much further. This combination of flight and song is certainly not accidental. And so the singing of birds gives us much more pleasure than the voices of other animals (apart from man) because it was designed specifically to delight the hearing. I believe animals in their natural state are perhaps more capable of understanding in birdsong all or part of the harmony that birds themselves understand, and which we cannot, because, having moved away from our natural condition, we have lost some primitive ideas about harmony, ideas that were not absolute or necessary but bestowed on us, perhaps arbitrarily, by nature. I think that savages find birdsong much sweeter, and it seems to me that the same could be shown of the ancients, since we know they enjoyed the sound of cicadas, etc., more than we do, which, like others, it should be noted, sing in the trees.

  From all that has been said in the thoughts above, we can infer that our knowledge concerning the nature of man or the nature of things, and our deductions, reasonings, and conclusions, are for the most part not absolute but relative, [160] that is, they are true with respect to the ways in which things exist and as we know them, but it was in nature’s power to order them differently. And I also mean to include most abstract theorems, few of which are absolutely true or necessary in any possible system of things (although they might seem to be), except perhaps in mathematics. Thus, we should broaden the commonly accepted idea of possibility and form a much more limited concept of necessity and truth. On this topic, see the end of Zanotti’s first book on what we call living forces.1

  What was said in the thought that begins “Even negligence,” etc. (p. 50), can be applied to French works that are reputed by that nation to be models of simplicity, naïveté, etc., e.g., the Temple of Gnidus by Montesquieu, although in this work the fault lies rather in the contrast between the simplicity of the content and the overrefined and mannered style.

  Even if philosophy paved the way for the French Revolution, it did not bring it about, because philosophy, especially modern philosophy, is incapable by itself of achieving anything. And even if philosophy itself had the power to start a revolution, it could not sustain it. It is really moving to see how the French republican legislators thought that they could keep up the revolution, decide its length, and influence its progress, nature, and scope by reducing everything to pure reason, and expected for the first time ab orbe condito [since the earth was formed] to geometricize every aspect of life.2 Something not only deplorable had it succeeded, and therefore foolish to desire, but something that could not succeed even in this mathematical age because it is directly contrary to the nature of man and the world. “Le Comité d’instruction publique réçut ordre de présenter un projet tendant à substituer un culte raisonnable au culte Catholique!” [“The committee of public instruction was ordered to present a project designed to replace the Catholic religion with a religion of reason!”] (Lady Morgan, France, [161] bk. 8, 3rd French ed., Paris 1818, tome 2, p. 284, note by the author.)1 They did not see that the dominion of pure reason is one of despotism on a thousand counts, but I will summarize just one. Pure reason dispels illusion and fosters egoism. Egoism, shorn of illusions, extinguishes the nation’s spirit, virtue, etc., and divides nations by head count, that is, into as many parts as there are individuals. Divide et impera [divide and rule]. Such division of the multitude, especially of this kind and resulting from this cause, is more the twin than the mother of servitude. What else is the major source of the universal and persistent servitude of today as compared with ancient times? Look at what happened to the Romans when philosophy and egoism replaced patriotism. Their selfishness was so deep that, after Caesar’s death, when it might have seemed very natural for the Romans to recover their old values, it is pitiful to see them so sluggish, so indifferent, so tortoiselike, so marmoreal with regard to public affairs. Look at Cicero in his Philippics, the main purpose of which was to draw some lesson from Caesar’s death, and see whether he was preaching reason and philosophy or, rather, sheer illusions and those great vanities which had created and sustained Rome’s greatness. (8 July 1820.) See p. 357, paragraph 1.

  With regard to what I said on p. 145, observe how in fact true eloquence has never flourished except when it had the people for an audience. I mean a people that was master of itself, not servile, a people that was alive, not dead, whether on account of its general condition or because of particular circumstance, as with our sermons, where the audience is not alive, responsive, etc. etc. In addition to which the subject matter of our sermons lacks the movement, action, vitality necessary for great eloquence, and for that reason the eloquence of the pulpit, even when it is at its best, perfect, is very different from the eloquence of ancient times and constitutes [162] a separate genre. Furthermore, once the republics and liberty were gone, assemblies, societies,
tribunals, and courts never heard real eloquence, for there was no longer an audience capable of arousing it. This is probably one of the reasons that the Republic of Venice was never noted for eloquence, because it was an aristocratic republic, not a democratic one. See what Cicero says in his oration Pro Deiotaro, ch. 2.1

  Diogenes Laertius describes how Chilon of Sparta, when asked how the learned differed from the unlearned, replied, “in their hopefulness” (ἐλπίσιν ἀγαθαῖς).2 I don’t know whether he was talking about the things of this world or of a life to come. Certainly with regard to this question, the exact opposite is the case today. How do the ignorant differ from the wise? In their hopefulness.

  The purpose of modern civilization should have been to return us more or less to the level of ancient civilization before it was overshadowed and extinguished by the barbarism of the Middle Ages. But the more we consider ancient civilization and compare it to the present, the more we must agree that it had almost reached the right point, the mean between two extremes, which alone could provide some kind of happiness for man in society.3 The barbarism of the Middle Ages was not primitive boorishness but a corruption of the good, and, therefore, very insidious and very damaging. The aim of civilization ought to have been to remove the rust from the once beautiful sword, or to add just a little more luster. But we have gone so much further in seeking to refine and sharpen the sword that we are close to breaking it. And observe how civilization has preserved almost everything bad about the Middle Ages, which, since it was theirs, was more modern, and has taken away what remained [163] of the good from antiquity because of its greater proximity (an antiquity that we have destroyed once and for all), such as the existence of a certain vigor in the people and the individual, a national spirit, physical exercise, originality and variety in character, customs, practices, etc.1 Civilization has softened the tyranny of the Middle Ages but has made it eternal, whereas then it didn’t last, both because of its excesses and for the reasons given above. Crushing unrest and civic disturbance instead of curbing them, which was the practice in antiquity (as Montesquieu repeatedly emphasizes, divisions were necessary for the conservation of a republic and for preventing an imbalance of power, etc., and in well-ordered republics were not a threat to order, because order depends on harmony, not on docility and passivity in the parties, or on one party vastly outweighing and oppressing the others, so, as a general rule, where all is calm there is no freedom), has ensured not order but the perpetuation, tranquillity, and immutability of disorder, and the nothingness of human life.2 In short, modern civilization has brought us to the opposite extreme from ancient times, and it is impossible to understand how two opposites can be one, which is to say how both of them can be called civilization. It is a question not of minor differences but of fundamental opposites: either ancient peoples were not civilized or we are not. (10 July 1820.)

  I regard the physical decline of the human race between ancient and modern times as one of the main causes of the great change in the world and in the human mind and heart. It led to the barbarism of the Middle Ages, given the depravity of customs under the first emperors and their successors, which is a definite cause of physical weakening. In the same way, [164] the Persians became extremely weak (and, therefore, barbarous and lacking in freedom) because of the depravity of those ancient customs and practices which had kept them extremely vigorous. See the Ciropaedia, last ch., §§ 5ff. to the end.1

  With respect to what I said on p. 108, note how we are moved to feel pity and tenderness when anyone afflicted with unhappiness, misfortune, or pain, etc., betrays his weakness and helplessness. It is like seeing someone being ill-treated, even mildly, when he is unable to resist. (11 July 1820.)

  Narration is the business of words, description that of design (in whatever way it is executed). So it is not surprising that the former is easier for a speaker than the latter. And this is one of the main reasons that the type of poetry known as descriptive poetry, recently so highly regarded, and especially common among foreigners, is false and absurd. Because although a poet or writer might well accept the need to describe, it is stupid to see this as the main purpose. This is not the real point of poetry, and the results of such a contrived and conventional approach will inevitably be precious, affected, and labored. Not to mention the boredom of reading poetry that assumes the duties of a different art and is therefore inferior to it, however much care went into the composition, and is labored and tedious because adopting a task that doesn’t belong to it should not go on too long, unlike those which do belong to it, in which no one would criticize the poem for enveloping itself entirely. (12 July 1820.)

  [165] The sense of the nothingness of all things, the inadequacy of each and every pleasure to fill our spirit, and our tendency toward an infinite that we do not understand comes perhaps from a very simple cause, one that is more material than spiritual.1 The human soul (and likewise all living beings) always essentially desires, and focuses solely (though in many different forms), on pleasure, or happiness, which, if you think about it carefully, is the same thing. This desire and this tendency has no limits, because it is inborn or born along with existence itself, and so cannot reach its end in this or that pleasure, which cannot be infinite but will end only when life ends. And it has no limits (1) either in duration (2) or in extent. Hence there can be no pleasure to equal (1) either its duration, because no pleasure is eternal, (2) or its extent, because no pleasure is beyond measure, but the nature of things requires that everything exist within limits and that everything have boundaries, and be circumscribed. The desire for pleasure has no limits of duration, because, as I have said, it ends only with existence, and so human beings would not exist if they did not feel this desire. It has no limits of extent because it belongs to the substance of ourselves, not as the desire for one or more pleasures but as the desire for pleasure. Now, such a nature carries infinity materially within it, for every single pleasure is circumscribed, but not pleasure itself, whose extent is indeterminate, and the soul, which loves pleasure substantially, embraces the whole imaginable extent of this feeling, without being able even to conceive of its extent, because it is not possible to form a clear idea of something desired without limit. Let us proceed to the consequences. If you desire a horse, you have the impression that you desire it as a horse, and as such and such a pleasure, but in fact you desire it as an unlimited and abstract pleasure. When you take possession of the horse, [166] you encounter a pleasure that is necessarily circumscribed, and you feel an emptiness in your soul, because the desire that you actually had is not satisfied. Even if it were possible for it to be satisfied in extent, it could not be so in duration, because the nature of things requires again that nothing be eternal. And assuming that the material cause that once gave you such and such a pleasure were to remain with you forever (for example, you desired wealth, you obtained it, and forever), it would remain materially, but no longer as the cause of such a pleasure, because another property of things is that everything wears out, all impressions vanish little by little, and as habit takes away pain, so it extinguishes pleasure. Add that even if a pleasure that you felt once lasted your whole life long, your spirit would still not be satisfied, because its desire is also infinite in extent, so that, even if that particular pleasure equaled the duration of this desire, yet, because it would be unable to equal its extent, the desire would always remain, either for ever new pleasures, as happens in fact, or for one pleasure that might fill your entire soul. Therefore, you may readily conceive that pleasure is always utterly vain, something which surprises us very much, as if this came from some particular nature of its own, while pain, boredom, etc., do not possess this quality. The fact is that when the soul desires a pleasurable thing, when it desires the satisfaction of an infinite desire, it really desires pleasure, and not a particular pleasure; now, when it finds, in fact, a particular pleasure, not an abstract one, embracing the full extent of pleasure, the result is that, since its desire is far from being s
atisfied, this pleasure is scarcely pleasure, because it is a matter not of a small but of a vast [167] inferiority to our desire, not to mention our hopes. And therefore all pleasures must be mingled with displeasure, as experience shows, because in the process of obtaining them the soul is desperately searching for something it cannot find, that is, an infinity of pleasure, or the satisfaction of an unlimited desire.