Zibaldone
Page 35
Once nature had given mankind an unlimited inclination toward pleasure, it was free to arrange that this or that thing would be considered pleasure. So the reasons that something is pleasurable are quite independent of the theory expounded above, depending only on the whim of nature to determine what a pleasure should consist of, and consequently what should be the properties of the objects of this inclination in man. Leaving aside the pleasures I listed earlier (pp. 172ff.), which are pleasures not because it suited nature to make them such independently of man’s inclination toward pleasure but only or mainly because man’s desire [178] for pleasure is limitless. Since, as I have said, by pleasure I understand, and so it should be understood, everything that man desires, as for the rest, virtue, corporal pleasures, the pleasures of curiosity (see, if you will, Montesquieu as cited on p. 170 above), etc. etc., are pleasures because nature has willed it, and they might not have been, despite all man’s inclination toward pleasure, just as the abstract idea of propriety is not a reason that this thing or that seems proper or beautiful. Some pleasures are common, others are peculiar to this nation or that, others to this or that class of people, like the pleasures associated with greed, ambition, etc., some are individual depending on a person’s habits, opinions, physical constitution, the climate, etc., just as the idea of beauty is relative, depending on customs, habits, opinions, etc. (see Montesquieu, loc. cit., “De la sensibilité,” p. 392). Nature has given man many different qualities, some of which develop as a matter of necessity, while others may develop or remain latent depending on circumstances. Of this second group, nature wished or did not inhibit the development of some qualities, but there are others it did not wish, which, if allowed to develop, make man unhappy. And the reason it placed them in man without wishing them to be developed must lie in the depths of nature’s system, and could probably be discovered if we were not now concerned with more general matters. According to these different qualities, man finds different things pleasurable, and civilized man enjoys different pleasures than does primitive man, and will experience pleasures that primitive man never knew and will not experience many of those which primitive man used to enjoy. And therefore, the fact that something is pleasurable to us now, the pleasure of which depends on our excessive sophistication, does not mean that this is something willed by nature. And although now, [179] for example, an excessive fascination with the truth gives us great pleasure when we succeed in discovering it, we should not assume that nature intended us to be so curious, or that this pleasure is natural, or that primitive man shared this desire and was incapable of controlling it, nor should we conclude, therefore, that man’s unhappiness was necessary or that it comes from his absolute nature, when it is a product of our own relative and corrupt nature. For many of the circumstances that have produced this or that quality in us were not intended by nature, and derive from man, not nature. Furthermore, given this theory of particular pleasures, it might also be the case that the idea of infinity, wonder, or any of the things I included as being pleasurable simply because of our inclination toward pleasure might be pleasurable independently of this, the reason being the will of nature, as in the case of other pleasures. However, it does seem to me that I have given an adequate explanation of the reason for their being pleasurable, and that these considerations cover all aspects of the ideas in question.
Man’s inclination toward pleasure is infinite in a material sense, and does not allow us to conclude anything more about the grandeur or infinity of the human soul than about that of animals, who must naturally feel the same desire, of a similar intensity, this being an immediate and necessary consequence of self-love, as I shall explain below. So we can deduce nothing on this account from man’s inclination toward the infinite or from the sense of the nothingness of things (which is not a natural sentiment in human beings, and which, therefore, is not found in animals or in primitive [180] societies but arises from accidental circumstances, not willed by nature). And since the desire for pleasure is a consequence of our existence itself, infinite solely in this sense and therefore, just like thinking, our inseparable companion throughout life, it is no more a proof of the spirituality of the human soul than the ability to think. Rather, it is noticeable how this desire, which seems at first glance to be the most spiritual part of our soul (see pp. 106–107), is an immediate and necessary consequence (in our present circumstances) of the most material thing there is in living beings, namely self-love and self-preservation, something that we share with animals and that, as far as we are aware, is common to all living creatures. Certainly there is no life without love of self and love of life. As for our imagination’s ability to conceive of a certain infinity, a pleasure the soul cannot embrace, which is precisely what makes it pleasurable—I mean an ability that is independent of our inclination toward pleasure, and was nature’s decision to give us or not give us—let everyone decide for himself what it might show in favor of our greatness. Personally, I believe (1) that nature has given it to us solely for our temporal happiness, which could not survive without such illusions. (2) I note that this ability is greatest in children, primitive societies, among the ignorant, the barbarous, etc. Hence I suppose, as seems quite likely, that animals might also possess it in some degree and with regard to certain ideas, as do children, etc. (3) I believe that reason, which is seen as the source of our greatness and superiority over other animals, plays no part here, other than [181] to destroy: destroy what is most spiritual in man because there is nothing more spiritual than feelings or more material than reason, for reasoning is a mathematical operation of the intellect that materializes and geometricizes even the most abstract notions. (4) That illusions, on the other hand, are entirely natural, animal acts of man but not human acts in the language of the scholastics,1 and belong to instinct, which we would have in common with other animals, if it were not crushed by reason. Apply these conclusions to what is usually said by religious writers to the effect that our never being able to find satisfaction in this world, our yearning for an infinity beyond our comprehension, the feelings of our hearts, and similar things, which actually belong to the illusions, form one of the main proofs of a future life.2
Everything said above about the theory of pleasure is a new argument about how much the theory of man and the natural world could be simplified (see p. 53) and how the whole system of nature depends upon a few principles, which produce the infinite variety of effects we see, and, once they were established, nature, we could say, did not have to exert itself too much, since their consequences followed necessarily and spontaneously. The phenomena of the human mind observed by modern psychologists3 would lose all their wonder, which usually depends on our ignorance of the relationships and interdependence of particular effects with general causes. For example, the phenomena I have analyzed and explained above follow directly from a very familiar premise, the love of pleasure. This love of pleasure is [182] a spontaneous consequence of our self-love and self-preservation. This is an even more widely recognized and universal, almost definitive law. However much it might have been possible for nature to separate these two things, existence and the love of existence, and thus for it to plant self-love in living beings arbitrarily, yet our way of thinking makes it barely possible for us to understand how something that exists does not love the fact of existing, the opposite of such love seeming to us a contradiction with existence. Thus, self-love can also be regarded (in nature as we see it) as a consequence of existence, even, in some way, in inanimate beings. So, in descending order, we have: Existence—love of existence (hence conservation of it and ourselves)—love of pleasure (which is an immediate consequence of loving ourselves, because people who love themselves are naturally inclined to desire their own good, which amounts to the same thing as pleasure, choosing enjoyment rather than a state of indifference or discomfort, wanting the best of existence, that is, pleasurable existence, rather than the worst or something in between, etc.)—love of the infinite, etc., along with the other qualiti
es mentioned above. Thus, all these qualities which seem so very specific and disparate follow directly from the general principle of self-love so necessarily and materially that we could say that nature, once it had given us self-love and, in accordance with our way of thinking, once it had given us existence, had nothing more to do, and all those qualities (which we so wonder at) appeared of their own accord, without its doing anything.
[183] After having experienced one pleasure, the soul does not stop desiring pleasure itself, just as it does not stop thinking, because thought and the desire for pleasure are two equally continuous operations that are inseparable from our existence. (12–23 July 1820.)
We always suppose that others possess great powers of acute penetration thanks to which they will discover our worth, whether real or imagined, and that they will then devote considerable attention to these merits of ours, even when we refuse to recognize such qualities in respect of any other object. (23 July 1820.)
Hope never abandons man as far as nature is concerned. But it does as far as reason is concerned. So it is mistaken to say, as some people do (the authors of La morale universelle, vol. 3),1 that suicide can happen only as a result of a kind of madness, since without it, it is impossible to lose hope entirely, etc. Actually, once religious beliefs are discounted, it is a happy and natural, though real and constant, state of madness to go on living and hoping, one utterly contrary to reason, which shows us all too clearly that there is no hope for us. (23 July 1820.)
If during the day you have seen or done something that for you was quite unusual, when you go to bed at night, or if, for some other reason and in some other circumstances, you close your eyes, you find yourself immediately confronted not by thoughts but by visual images of whatever it was you have seen. This can happen even when you are thinking of something completely different, and you do not even remember what you saw maybe several hours earlier, having spent the intervening period involved in entirely different activities. In such a way [184] that this vision, although entirely a product of the faculties of the soul and not in any way of the senses, is nevertheless quite independent of the will, and, even if it belongs to memory, belongs to it, we might say, externally, because at that moment you did not even remember what it was you saw, and it is seeing these things that recalls them to your memory, rather than the memory that recalls them to your thought. In fact, often even if we think about them, we cannot remember certain things, which suddenly appear before our eyes as real, vivid images. And note that this occurs irrespective of any motive or occasion in the present that touches on that particular key, for it often happens anyway that the slightest circumstance, as though it jogged a spring in our memory, recalls ideas and memories even from the distant past, without any part being played by the will and without our thoughts at the time having anything to do with it.
Several times I have found myself going to bed thinking of a few lines or words that I had repeated frequently during the day or in the previous hour or two, or even with a few bars of a melody on my mind, only to fall asleep thinking or dreaming of something quite different and then wake up still repeating the same words or verses to myself or with the same tune in my imagination. It seems as though when the soul goes to sleep it puts aside that set of thoughts and images, just as we leave our clothes in a convenient place near at hand so that we can put them on again as soon as we wake up. And this, too, without the involvement of the will. Similarly, if during the day I had spent some time reading Greek, Latin, French, or some elegant Italian, etc., when my mind was more alert (because now, [185] when I am just waking up, it is extremely dull, so it does not happen as easily), I used to wake up with various phrases of those languages still in my mind, as if I were talking to myself in the language, even though while asleep no idea had brought them back to me. This, too, happened involuntarily. The same applies to hundreds of different kinds of ideas that spring spontaneously to mind on waking.1 (24 July 1820.)
Anything that evokes the idea of infinity is pleasurable on that account alone, even if on no other. Thus, a row or avenue of trees whose end is out of sight. This effect is like the effect of largeness, but is all the greater insofar as the latter is determinate while the former can be thought of as a largeness that is uncircumscribed. That avenue will be all the more delightful the more spacious it is, the more open, airy, and light it is, than if it is closed from above, airless, and dark—at least if the idea of infinite largeness with which it presents us derives from the largeness that we can see with our senses, and is not entirely the work of the imagination, which as I have said [→Z 171] sometimes takes pleasure in the circumscribed and in seeing only so much in order to be able to imagine, etc. (25 July 1820.)
Where women are concerned, someone used to say, I have already lost two of the theological virtues, faith and hope. There remains love, the third virtue, which I still cannot do without, though I no longer believe or hope in anything. But it will soon be done and then, finally, I shall cling to contrition. (25 July 1820.)
[186] The reason Montesquieu (Essai sur le goût, “Des plaisirs de la symétrie”) puts forward to explain why the soul, while liking variety, nevertheless “dans la plupart des choses elle aime à voir une espece de symétrie” [“in most things likes to see a kind of symmetry”], which seems that it “renferme quelque contradiction” [“contains a contradiction”], does not seem convincing to me: “Une des principales causes des plaisirs de notre ame, lorsqu’elle voit des objets, c’est la facilité qu’elle a à les appercevoir; et la raison qui fait que la symétrie plaît à l’ame, c’est qu’elle lui épargne de la peine, qu’elle la soulage, et qu’elle coupe, pour ainsi dire, l’ouvrage par la moitié. De-là suit une règle générale: par-tout où la symétrie est utile à l’ame et peut aider ses fonctions, elle lui est agréable; mais, par-tout où elle est inutile, elle est fade, parce qu’elle ôte la variété. Or les choses que nous voyons successivement doivent avoir de la variété; car notre ame n’a aucune difficulté à les voir: celles, au contraire, que nous appercevons d’un coup d’oeil doivent avoir de la symétrie. Ainsi, comme nous appercevons d’un coup d’oeil la façade d’un bâtiment, un parterre, un temple, on y met de la symétrie, qui plaît à l’ame par la facilité qu’elle lui donne d’embrasser d’abord tout l’objet” [“One of the main causes of the pleasures felt by our soul, when it sees objects, is the ease with which it perceives them; and if symmetry is pleasing to the soul, it is because it spares it some pain, because it relieves it, and because it cuts, so to speak, the work in half. Whence there follows a general rule: wherever symmetry is useful to the soul, and can assist in its functions, it is agreeable to it; but wherever it is of no use to it, it is wearisome, because it removes variety. Now, the things that we see in sequence ought to have variety; for our soul has no difficulty in seeing them; conversely, those which we perceive at a glance ought to have symmetry. Thus, since we perceive at a glance the façade of a building, a parterre, a temple, we tend to impart some symmetry to them, which pleases the soul by rendering it easier for it to embrace the whole of the object at once”]. Now, my question is why when we see open country or a landscape, whether painted or real, etc., at a single glance, in the same way we do a parterre [flower bed], the objects in each view being the same, we want variety in the one and symmetry in the other? And likewise, why in English gardens is variety more appealing [187] than symmetry? The real reason is this. Such pleasures, along with the majority of those derived from sight, and all of those involving symmetry, belong to the sphere of beauty. Beauty depends on propriety. Symmetry is not the same as propriety but only a part or element of it, depending in turn on opinions, taste, etc., which determine our ideas of proportion, correspondence, etc. Relative propriety similarly depends on different opinions, taste, etc. So that where our taste, independently of any innate or general cause, believes symmetry to be appropriate, it requires it, and where it does not so believe, does not require it, and if it believes variety to be appropriate, it demands
variety. So much so that, despite the commonly held opinion that variety is the most desirable aspect of a rural scene, even this judgment is relative, and you will find that some prefer a degree of symmetry in the landscape, like the Tuscans, who are accustomed to seeing the countryside as so many gardens. Thus, we are accustomed to liking the order of vineyards, rows of trees, furrows, plantations, etc. etc., and would complain about the regularity of a chain of mountains, etc. What has utility got to do with this? Why is it acceptable here and not there, in things of the same kind? Why for some people and not for others? Moreover, those same trees that we like arranged in neat rows in a plantation will still please us if they are randomly distributed in a wood or a forest, etc. Symmetry and variety, the effects of art and of nature, are two kinds of beauty. We like [188] them both as long as they are not out of place. So irregularity in a work of art usually choque [shocks] us (except when it is an imitation of nature, as in English gardens) because we expect the opposite; and we dislike regularity in the things we want to look natural, because it does not seem right unless, like the Tuscans, we have become accustomed to it.
Notice that in the most desperate and melancholy mad people, it is very common and natural to hear a stupid and hollow laugh, which simply dies on their lips. They will grasp you by the hand, stare deep into your eyes, and on leaving you, bid you goodbye with a smile that seems even more mad and desperate than madness and despair itself. Something that is particularly noticeable in wise men reduced to total despair of life, above all when they have made an extreme decision, one that allows them respite precisely in this extremity of horror, and calms them, as though they were already assured of their revenge on fortune and themselves.1 (26 July 1820.)
No pain caused by misfortune is comparable to that arising from some serious and irrevocable accident for which we blame ourselves and which we could have avoided, in other words real, deep regret.