Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  In comparing the Greek and Roman games, one may notice the naturalness of the Greeks, who competed in wrestling, running, etc., relying almost solely on the instruments given us by nature, whereas the Romans used swords and other artificial implements. Hence the different purposes of these games, [329] the first aimed at glorifying nature and exciting great images, feelings, etc., the other at simply providing entertainment, or for military training. So that the former went to the universal fount of great undertakings, while the latter stopped at a particular application. The difference is even more remarkable in that Greek contests were entered by free men for the love of glory. Hence the effect favoring enthusiasm, the excitement, the emulation, the preparatory exercises, etc. Roman games were performed by slaves. So their only useful purpose was to habituate eyes and minds to the spectacle and danger of war: a partial and secondary benefit, not primordial and general like the other. Perhaps this also demonstrates the difference between a free people ruling over others and a people who were indeed free, but rulers only of themselves, like the Greeks. See p. 360, paragraph 2.

  What I said elsewhere [→Z 125] about persuasion being necessary for any major undertaking applies especially to the mass of the people,1 and supports Pascal’s view that opinion is the queen [330] of the world,1 and that states and their peoples, their changes and phases and upheavals come from it. (1) Passions vary, opinion is one, and the people can be moved in the same direction only by appealing to a common cause. (2) An individual can be carried away by his illusions. Either he can recognize them as such, and pursue them anyway (something impossible for the people, since a whim or enthusiasm that is not built on stable foundations, whether they are true or false, cannot be universal), or he can not recognize them as such, and this is more difficult for the people, because there is nothing more variable than illusion, nothing more uniform and reliable than reason, and thus the people need a definite opinion, which does not have to be true, provided it is logical and apparently true, in other words coherent and reasoned, because nothing else can be a universal driving force. Mohammed brought about changes in this way, spurring the Arabs to action, as everyone knows. Similarly, Luther brought about the wars of the Reformation, likewise the Albigensians, etc., likewise the Martyrs shed their blood for Christianity, likewise the ancients died for their country and glory. On this point, see the beginning of Chapter 1 of the Essai sur l’indifférence en matière de religion.2 (15 Nov. 1820.)

  [331] What I say about Roman philosophy, and about philosophy in general, is confirmed by the observation that “in every society you find religion at its cradle, in the same way that philosophy has always been close to its grave.” (Essai sur l’indifférence en matière de religion, the first few lines of Chapter 2.1 And shortly after the beginning of Chapter 1, after saying that Greek philosophy insinuated itself among the Romans, despite Cato’s fears, and caused the downfall of Rome as conqueror of the world, he adds that “it is a fact worthy of serious consideration that every empire whose history is known to us, and which had been consolidated by time and prudence, was brought down by the Sophists.”2 In the second chapter, he gives further proof that philosophy was the destroyer of Rome and agrees with Montesquieu, who “was not afraid to attribute the collapse of this empire to the philosophy of Epicurus,” adding in a note that “Bolingbroke was in total agreement with Montesquieu on this point: ‘Its forgetting and scorning Religion was the main cause of the ills that [332] subsequently befell Rome: Religion and the State declined in equal proportion, tome 4, p. 428.’”)1 With the difference that where religious apologists draw the conclusion that states are established and preserved by truth and destroyed by error, I say that they are established and preserved by error and destroyed by truth. Truth is never part of the beginning but only of the end of human affairs. Time and experience have never been the destroyers of truth and introducers of falsehood, but destroyers of falsehood and teachers of truth. And anyone who sees things the other way around goes against what we know about the nature of human affairs. This is the fundamental contradiction besetting the author mentioned above. He would have defended religion much better if he had presented it not as the dictate of reason but as the dictate of the heart.2 And when he says that therefore existence and happiness, perfection and human life would be against nature because nature is the entirety of perpetual truths,3 he is mistaken, because nature is the entirety of truth insofar as all that exists is true, but not everything that is true is known by each of its parts. And one of these truths included [333] within the system of nature is that error and ignorance are necessary to the happiness of things, because ignorance and error are willed, dictated, and firmly established by nature itself, and because, in short, it wanted man to live in the way in which it had made him. And if man wanted to explore the bottom of things, contrary to what he should and could have done naturally, it is no less true that he should have ignored what he discovered, and that his happiness would have been true if he had erred, and ignored those truths which considered in this light are indifferent to mankind, and which nature followed (but secretly) in its system, because they were necessary, (16 Nov. 1820) or because it pleased it to do so.1

  Nature can compensate for reason, and often does, but reason can never make up for nature, even when it seems to produce great deeds: which happens rarely: but even then the driving, motive force comes not from reason but from nature. On the contrary, if you take away the forces supplied by nature, reason will always be inactive and impotent.

  [334] There is not a single person who has achieved high office or some honor and will admit to wanting it, who does not say, or lead people to believe, that it happened spontaneously, almost despite himself, etc. Office, dignity, honors are things that everyone seeks, but no one has ever sought.

  Laertius, Vita Speusippi, bk. 4, § 2 says of Speusippus: “Οὗτος πρῶτος, καθά φησι Διόδωρος ἐν ἀπομνημονευμάτων πρώτῳ, ἐν τοῖς μαθήμασιν ἐθεάσατο τὸ κοινὸν, καὶ συνῳκείωσε καθ’ ὅσον ἧν δυνατὸν ἀλλήλοις” [“He was the first man, as Diodorus relates in the first book of his Commentaries, who considered what was common to the several mathematical sciences, and who, as far as possible, combined them with one another”].1 This is a remarkable development of the human spirit. But I do not know how true it is, because Plato had already brought together physics (including astronomy), metaphysics, ethics, politics, and mathematics and incorporated them in his philosophical system. Then there is, among other things, the famous motto of his school: Only geometers may enter. See the note by Isaac Casaubon on this passage.2 (17 Nov. 1820.)

  Apologists for Religion are fond of saying that the world was in a moribund state in the period that saw the birth of Christianity, and that this revived it, something, they say, that had seemed impossible. Thus, [335] they conclude that this could only be the result of divine providence, which clearly proves its truth, and that error was destroying the world, and truth saved it. Back to front, as usual. What was destroying the world was the lack of illusions. Christianity saved it, not because it was the truth but because it was a new source of illusions. And the effects it produced, enthusiasm, fanaticism, magnanimous sacrifice, and heroism, are the usual effects of any great illusion. We are considering here not whether it is true or false but only that this proves nothing in its favor. But how did it establish itself amid so many obstacles, rejecting all passions, challenging governments, etc.? Almost as if it were the first time that the fanaticism of a great illusion triumphed over everything. No one understands the human heart at all who does not recognize how vast is its capacity for illusions, even when these are contrary to its interests, or how often it loves the very thing that is obviously harmful to it. How much physical pain Indian priests are prepared to endure for their false beliefs, etc. etc.! And the sect of flagellants that came into being with the beginning of Christianity, what illusion was that? And the infinite sacrifi
ces made upon entering their sect by ancient philosophers like the Cynics, who gave up all they had in wealth, etc.? And the sacrifice of the 300 at Thermopylae? But how [336] did Christianity triumph over philosophy and the apathy that had extinguished all the errors of the past? Knowledge at that time was: (1) neither well established, defined, and fixed; (2) nor extensive and widespread; (3) nor profound as it is now, a natural consequence of greater experience, the printing press, world trade, and geographic explorations, which no longer leave scope for any error of the imagination, and of scientific progress, whose results so support each other that we can now say that every new discovery of whatever kind has a bearing on the human spirit. While the knowledge of that time had been sufficient to eliminate the gross error of ancient religions, it not only allowed but actually opened itself up to a subtle one. And because of the kind of knowledge it had, that period inclined toward the metaphysical, the abstract, the mystical, and thus Plato triumphed at the time. See Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and the followers of Pythagoras, who was likewise abstract and metaphysical. The East, too, not just then but in very ancient times, had leaned toward subtlety, and also depth and truth in ethics and everything else. Egyptians, Chinese, Old Testament, etc. etc. To destroy the most subtle error [337] required minds much more profound, subtle, and universal than those of the time. Such are those of today, so perfect that they are immune to error, which might still give a little life to the world, and subtler error cannot be derived from them as it could be from ancient minds. There is no other remedy for the ills of modern philosophy than forgetting, and material pasture for the illusions to feed on.

  Besides, it is true that Christianity revived a world wearied by knowledge, but since, even if we think of it as an error, it was an error born of knowledge, not of ignorance or nature, the life and strength it gave to the world was like the strength that a weak and sickly body gains from strong liquor, a strength that is not only ephemeral but harmful and results in greater weakness. Apply this observation (1) to the short duration of Christianity’s true and primitive strength in all respects compared to the abiding strength of ancient religions and institutions, for example, among the Romans; (2) to the quality of its strength, essentially gloomy, melancholy, etc., in comparison with the freshness, beauty, joy, variety, etc., of ancient life—a natural consequence [338] of the differences between their dogmas; (3) to the dismal aspect that vice and virtue alike assumed once Christianity was widely accepted, that is, after the extinction of the first feverish flame of the new doctrine (something I have observed elsewhere [→Z 132]): so that it might be said that the world (in respect of both life and beauty) deteriorated immeasurably if not as a result of Christianity then at least because of the tendency that produced it, and had to produce it, and after its introduction, for previously many more natural and therefore more vital and nourishing illusions remained, in spite of philosophy. (17 Nov. 1820.)

  An idea worth developing about the enduring superiority of the ancients over the moderns because the strength of nature was greater, not yet corrupted or less corrupted, can be found in the historical notes to the Éloge historique de l’Abbé de Mably, by the abbé Brizard, preceding the Observations sur l’histoire de France, Kehl, 1789, vol. 1, p. 114, note 2.1 (17 Nov. 1820.)

  For p. 271, last thought. This was the idea of happiness and unhappiness as conceived by the ancients. That is, that the man deprived of the benefits of life, [339] however illusory, was considered to be genuinely unhappy, and vice versa. And people never consoled themselves with the thought that those benefits were illusory, knowing that life consisted of such illusions, whether they were recognized as such, or as reality. And they did not regard happiness and unhappiness as imaginary, chimerical things, but as solid, and solidly contrary to one another. (18 Nov. 1820.)

  Laertius, Vita Platonis, bk. 3, §§ 79–80, says of Plato “᾿Εν δὲ τοῖς διαλόγοις καὶ τὴν δικαιοσύνην θεοῦ νόμον ὑπελάμβανεν,” (arbitratus est. Translator) “ὡς ἰσχυροτέραν προτρέψαι τὰ δίκαια πράττειν, ἕνα μὴ καὶ μετὰ θάνατον δίκας ὑπόσχοιεν οἱ κακοῦργοι. ὅθεν καὶ μυθικώτερος ἐνίοις ὑπελήφθη, τοῖς συγγράμμασιν ἐγκαταμίξας τὰς τοιαύτας διηγήσεις,” (narrationes, Translator) “ὅπως διὰ τοῦ ἀδήλου τρόπου τοῦ ἔχειν τὰ μετὰ τὸν θάνατον,” (ut, quod incertum sit ista post mortem sic se habere, admoniti mortales, etc. Thus, the translator, but not well) “οὕτως ἀπέχωνται τῶν ἀδικημάτων” [“In his dialogues he used to suppose justice as a kind of law of God, as being strong enough to persuade men to act justly, in order not to suffer punishment as malefactors after death. Owing to which he appeared to some people rather fond of mythical stories, as he mingled stories of this kind with his writings, in order by the uncertainty of all the circumstances that affect men after their death, to induce them to abstain from evil actions”].1

  The tendency of people to share their pleasure or pain with others, noted in earlier thoughts, [→Z 85–86, 230, 266–68] must in large part be responsible for the urge (attributed mainly to women and above all to children, in other words to those who are most carefree and natural) to reveal a secret [340] or the thing that you should and quite often want to keep hidden, immediately to talk about some news, discovery, pleasure, anxiety, suffering, or annoyance you have experienced, etc., with all the loquaciousness that belongs to reporting, (20 Nov. 1820) or to saying what you’re thinking at the moment, or what you thought, etc., the way children cannot stop chattering about whatever subject.1

  In short, consider the ancients and the moderns: you will clearly see indisputable and very noticeable gradations in greatness, always in favor of ancient times. Starting from Homer’s compatriots, who were a few inches taller than modern man, as that Frenchman says,2 and the pyramids of Egypt, etc., down through other magnificent, noble undertakings, huge works, the buildings, the solidity of the construction intended to last for all eternity (something that is also true of the Middle Ages, and up to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries), to the deeply engraved coins, the heroism, and all the other kinds of greatness that distinguished the Greeks, Romans, etc. And then moving on to the Middle Ages and gradually to modern times, you will see man visibly shrinking, until you reach the last stage of littleness and impotence, both general and individual, that we see today. In such a way that the eternal sources of greatness (and beauty) are the writers, works of all kinds, examples, customs, feelings of the ancients. And the ancients have given pasture to every outstanding figure of our own times. (See p. 338, paragraph 1.) What does this tell us? Does reason enhance or [341] diminish? Was nature great or small?

  A major, universal source of error, nonsense, obscurity, oversight, contradiction, doubt, confusion, etc., among writers and philosophers, both ancient and ultramodern, is their failure to recognize, articulate, and establish as the basis for any understanding of the human condition the mutual enmity of reason and nature. Once this obvious and universal premise is accepted, it will clarify, identify, and solve many of the infinite mysteries and problems of the order and composition of human affairs. But confusing reason with nature, truth with beauty, the progress of intelligence with the progress of happiness and the perfection of man, the notions and nature of the useful, the aim or goal of intelligence (which is truth) with the aims and actual goals of man and human nature, etc., we cannot even begin to unravel the mystery of man or to reconcile the innumerable contradictions that it seems we must encounter in this supreme part of the universal system, that is, the part that concerns our own species. The combat between flesh and spirit, senses and mind, already noted by writers, especially religious ones, either is not adequate or has not been properly understood and applied [342] and extended as much as it should have been. Or else it has been twisted to prove the opposite of what it sh
ould, and erroneous consequences of the same sort have been deduced from this, etc. etc. etc.1 (20 Nov. 1820.)

  Tilling the earth was the major labor and occupation allotted to man. Now it is curious to observe that the most idle group in society is precisely the one whose wealth consists of land.

  How true it is that duties and moral imperatives neither arise from natural law nor are founded on ideas innate and common to all men can be seen from the following example. Respect and immunity for heralds, considered since earliest times to be sacred and inviolable persons and described by Homer as being dear to Jove,2 became part of the law of nations, and through custom came to be regarded as a natural duty.3 If we now imagine ourselves in a state of nature, we can see that people feel no repugnance at harming their enemies, in whatever guise they present themselves, any more than animals do, because an enemy is always an enemy, and man is inclined to harm him whenever, wherever, however, and as much as he possibly can. Thus, the inviolability of heralds is not based on instinct, is not decreed by nature, but is a law [343] of pure convention, brought about by its utility and necessity, recognized by reason and argument, not innate and instilled in our spirits by nature without need for reflection. So the law of nations also, which is thought to be natural, can be seen from this example to contain a law of pure convention, which it was no crime to contravene before it existed, as must have happened a thousand times. On the same theme, here are a few words from the Essai sur l’indifférence en matière de religion, shortly after the middle of chapter 4: “Let us say it then, since there is no truth less recognized or more important: the Religion of peoples is the whole of their morality.”1 This (I note in passing) appears after an attempt in the previous chapters to prove religion with morality, as the basis of morality, deriding Hobbes for denying conscience and saying that there are no duties in nature. And here he is saying that morality can be proved only with religion. Anyway, you can see the examples he provides before and after this passage to demonstrate the varieties of conscience according to the varieties of religion. (21 Nov. 1820.) See p. 356, end.