Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  With absolute and despotic monarchy unity is achieved, as I said. This is the means by which to obtain the common good. But will that good, that is, the final purpose, be achieved? What is achieved will depend upon the degree to which the opinions and wishes of that single man correspond to, and in fact tend toward, the said purpose, and upon the degree to which his interests are at one with the common interests.

  Hence the need for an almost perfect prince:1 blameless in judgments and opinions, [551] prudence, etc., in order to discern and to define the true universal good and the true means of obtaining it; blameless in what he wishes and hence in his morals, conscience, tastes, conduct, life (insofar as it concerns the said purpose), in order to direct his own forces and those of his subjects toward that purpose in which he deems the common good to lie.

  If the prince is no such thing, we are back where we started. Since he has become the soul and the head, and in short the motive force of society, it may indeed be said that the active and the negative force of society lie wholly within him; insofar as he fails to address the common good (either through lack of judgment or through lack of will), society will once again be wanting in its logic, deviate from its purpose, and once again become pointless and harmful. And all the more harmful as those evils are greater which arise out of servitude, out of all men being fated to serve the good of a single man, out of their no longer employing all their forces for their own good, whether public or indeed individual, but rather for the whims and satisfaction of a single man, who may even wish, and often does wish, the common harm, and so all are compelled not only not to obtain their own good but in fact to obtain their own [552] ill. In short, all the calamities that derive from tyranny, a state directly opposed to the nature of all living beings of every species, and hence a sure source of unhappiness. Thus society becomes an infinite evil, literally becomes the unhappiness of the men who constitute it: a greater or lesser unhappiness depending upon the degree to which the prince, who comes to contain society within himself, distances himself for whatever reason from its final purpose, which has become by right and duty his own purpose.

  If, then, society cannot be, indeed cannot exist without unity; and if perfect unity cannot exist without an absolute prince; and this prince does not measure up to the purpose of that unity, and of society, and of himself, unless he is perfect; then, for monarchical government and society to be perfect, the prince must be perfect. Perfection, even relative perfection, is not to be found among men or among animals or among things. So it is that the state of society is necessarily imperfect. Speaking, however, of the perfection that exists in our own experience and in ordinary life (Cicero, De amicitia, ch. 5),1 a perfect prince [553] in this sense might have been found at the beginning of society. (1) Because virtue, and the illusions that produce it and preserve it, existed then; today they no longer exist. (2) Because the choice could fall on the worthiest and the most capable—as much in intellect and judgment as in good and upright will—of conforming to the purpose of the principate and of the society, that is to say, 1st of recognizing, 2nd of achieving the common good of that polity which chose him.

  If, then, the first peoples, the first societies, chose for the principate that man who eminebat [was above the others] in talents of mind and body, which were true and were suited to the said dignity or, rather, office and position; certainly the first peoples, insofar as it lies in man’s power, provided for the purpose of society, that is, the common good, and hence for the perfection of society.

  It is not my intention to say whether this choice, this social contract, to obey, for the common benefit, a single man who was worthy and capable of recognizing it and achieving it [554] ever actually took place. This discourse does not consider, nor is it supposed to consider, anything else but the logic of institutions, and therefore how things should have gone, and could have gone from the beginning, and according to nature, not how they did go, or how they are going now.1 On the other hand, in the scant historical traces that survive of the very oldest monarchies (and this discourse applies only to the oldest and the earliest), there would be no lack of examples and indications of an actual and achieved correspondence between the original monarchical government and the public good of the societies in question. So it is with the American peoples; so it is with the savages (where tyranny would seem to be unknown, though they know monarchy, both military and civil); so it is with the ancient Germans, about whom see Tacitus and others; so it is with the Celts, about whom see Ossian; so it is with the Homeric Greeks, although these latter actually belong to a later level of monarchy. In short, when we consider the histories of the earliest times, we find that the idea of tyranny, although ancient, is not, however, very ancient: [555] what is very ancient, and primordial, in society is the idea of absolute monarchy. See Goguet, Origine delle scienze e delle arti.1 When I say absolute I do not in the least mean that this word was spoken, and fixed and recognized as constituting the nature of such a government. Yet without such definitions, sanctions, and formulas, and without the geometric spirit, ancient peoples would in practice subordinate themselves to the rule of a single man absolutely, thinking, however, that he should be master of their life, work, and possessions not on a whim but for the benefit of all, since exact descriptions, definitions, distinctions, and clear and precise formulas do not exist in nature but are invented and rendered necessary by the corruption of men, who these days need to bind and be bound by the clearest and most detailed, specific, numerous, mathematical, etc., laws, agreements, and obligations (moral or material), so that malice may be deprived of all subterfuge, misunderstanding, ambiguity, license, and any open, undetermined, space. And I will now consider this corruption.

  [556] With men being as I described them above, a prince who was both capable and good could be found. And since society in its original and natural state did not have too many rules1 or too much ambition, and was without obligations, and without other corruptions and obstacles, one could both choose such a man and at his death choose another equally worthy man.

  Once men were reduced to a state of degeneracy (and my discourse covers both ancient and modern degeneracy, because the ancient kind was also sufficient to produce the effect I will describe below), it was no longer possible to find a perfect prince. Even when he was found, it was no longer possible for him, having become prince, to remain perfect: whether on account of the individual corruption of men, or on account of the general corruption of society, once customs had altered, and illusions had begun to be laid bare, and virtue had begun to be known as useless or less useful than certain vices, examples with the power to spoil even the most divine of natures. In short, it was no longer possible for even the most perfect man, once power was in his hands, not to abuse it. Even if [557] this had still been possible, the degeneracy of society, malice in its nascent and in its fully fledged form, ambition, etc., and hence the need for rules that were fixed, strict, and requiring no individual judgment, made it impossible for successors to be chosen. For that choice to be certain and invariable, it therefore had to be consigned to chance, and a hereditary kingdom founded. And where the latter was not founded, the tumult occasioned by the choice simply produced an increase in ills, because society in its reduced state could no longer choose without tumult, nor could it choose a worthy prince.

  Since the monarch could no longer be chosen or chosen well, monarchy became the worst of all states. How was it possible for a man truly perfect for that office, being rare to begin with, and extremely rare later on, how without a careful choice could one find this rarest of men, a man capable of ruling a principate?1 Why should [558] the accident of birth, or of a choice that could be said to be equally fortuitous, being decided by something altogether distinct from the truth, happen to hit upon the most excellent and virtually unique man, since even with all due thought and care he could be found only with the utmost difficulty? All the more so given that the corruption of society at that point required from a perfect prince greater a
nd more improbable qualities than previously: so that not only did the good man have to be more exceptional than before but, in addition, a prince who would once have been perfect was no longer sufficiently perfect for the time.

  The perfection of the prince, an essential attribute of monarchy, was thus no longer either assumed, possible, or efficacious, and it no longer formed part of the order of society. And since, aside from the fact that perfection was very rare, the prince was such by virtue not of perfection but of chance, therefore not only might he not be the best but he could even be the worst of individuals; and that not simply by accident but also because the nature of his rank, his power, and the adulation he received, etc., [559] positively, definitely, and necessarily helped to make him such.

  From the time that the prince was wicked, or at any rate not perfect, the monarchy lost its justification, because it could no longer conform to its aim, that is, the common good. Unity remained, but not its final purpose; indeed, unity, instead of leading to the said purpose, served to distance it and to render it impossible. Thus society, too, once its justification and its aim, that is, the common good, were lost, was proving to be pointless and harmful, with the further absurdity, barbarism, and grave disadvantage that all were at the mercy of a single man intent on harming them.

  In this circumstance, it proved to be better either in fact to dissolve society or to reduce, laxare [weaken], that unity, which, since it was from the beginning and in nature the greatest and most necessary of social goods, so too after corruption is the greatest of evils, and the instrument and source of the most terrible woes.

  [560] Then it was that peoples, abandoning and destroying their first, true, and natural government, which was inherent in the true nature of society, resorted to other governments, to republics, etc., dividing the powers and dividing unity somehow or other; recovering the share of liberty and equality that had remained with them under the original monarchy; they went still further and recovered a share that was not compatible with the nature and purpose of society. And it was perfectly natural, because the absolute monarch whose duty it was to allocate this other portion of liberty, etc., since he no longer existed for the common good, had no right to subsist, and in fact did not subsist.

  The republics of every kind thus come after absolute monarchy both in logic and in fact, and the idea and the fact of tyranny are not very ancient, but in theory, and indeed in history, immediately precede the idea and fact of free states, since the most ancient and earliest form and idea of government is none other than that of absolute monarchy. Observe Greek history, observe Roman history. See Goguet, loc. cit.1 Everywhere and always monarchy [561] precedes liberty, and liberty is born from corrupt monarchy, just as from this liberty that is yet more corrupt, and worse than it was in its first rebirth, a new monarchy is subsequently born: liberty and new monarchy are both bad, because both stem from a bad beginning. Except that liberty and natural equality precede the original monarchy, whether in the condition of unsocial and solitary man or in that first infancy of society, which is more a rude assembly of men than a society.

  Taking up the thread of my discourse: once the influence of nature, and hence its power, its verdancy, and our compliance with it had gone, the perfection and usefulness of absolute monarchy was at an end; once absolute monarchy had gone, the true and essential state of society was at an end. Far, then, from nature, and from its own essence, society could no longer be happy. Nor could there any longer be perfect government, not only because man was estranged from nature, outside of [562] which there is no perfection in any state, but also and chiefly because the sole government that could from the beginning be perfect, being the sole kind suited to the essence of society, was by irremediable and perpetual circumstances excluded forever from perfection, and also (among one or another people) actually and entirely excluded from society.

  Nature, the sole possible source of happiness even for social man, has disappeared. Here, then, we find art, reason, reflection, knowledge, and philosophy stepping forward to compensate for the absence or corruption of nature, making up for it, substituting their (supposed) means of happiness for the means of nature; occupying, in short, the place from which nature was expelled, and standing in for it; leading man, that is, to the happiness to which nature used to lead him. How many forms of government have been devised! How many put into effect! How many dreams, how many chimeras, how many utopias have there been in the thoughts of philosophers! Undoubtedly they erred in their principles, since they professed to be imagining a perfect government, and [563] (setting aside all the rest, setting aside the absurdity and impossibility involved in applying their theories to the facts) the possible perfection of government is, just as I have said, the simplest of perfections, and one that has no need of study, reflection, experiment, and complication in order to be found and achieved; indeed, it is not perfection if it is complicated, but cannot be other than very simple.

  Among so many wretched governments that seemed almost to vie with one another over which was the most imperfect and wicked, and the best adapted to achieving the unhappiness of men, it is certain and obvious that the free and democratic state, for as long as the people preserved sufficient nature to be susceptible, potentially and actually, to the virtue of heroism, to great illusions, to greatness of soul, and to good customs, was certainly the best of all. Man was no longer so natural that someone could be found who could support the burden of rule without becoming corrupted, and without abusing it; and, after malice had been invented, unlimited power could no longer exist, either in the hands of the prince, who [564] inevitably abused it, or in the hands of the people. Because if the latter was not constrained and circumscribed by checks, laws, force, in short by chains, it was no longer capable of obeying spontaneously, of attending quietly to its own affairs, of not usurping, of not sacrificing a neighbor, or the public, to itself, of not aspiring on occasion even to the principate, in short it was not capable of resisting πλεονεξία [greed] in all things. Obedience and total submission to the prince, and a readiness to serve him, is in short simply a sacrifice to the common good, a readiness to sacrifice oneself for others, a contributing pro virili parte [insofar as it is in each man’s power] to the public good. I speak of cases where such submission is spontaneous. But egoism is not capable of sacrifices. Such spontaneous submission was therefore no longer to be hoped for; the merging of each individual’s interests with the public interest was impossible. Once egoism was born, the people could no longer obey without being a slave, and the prince could not command without being a tyrant. (See p. 523, last paragraph.)1 Public affairs no longer occurred by happenstance, or according to nature, and one thing or another went in this or that manner only by dint of a certain and defined necessity: and the mathematics of things, of rules, and of forces had become indispensable, and this is even more so now, given the greater degree of corruption.

  [565] But there still remained enough nature in the world, and enough power in natural beliefs or illusions, to sustain a democratic state, and to obtain through it a degree of happiness and perfection in government. A state highly favorable to illusions, to enthusiasm, etc., a state that requires great activity and movement, a state in which all the public acts of individuals are subject to the judgment of, and performed in the sight of, the multitude, a judge that is, as I have said elsewhere [→Z 121], for the most part necessarily just; a state where as a consequence virtue and merit could not fail to win the prize; a state where it was indeed in the people’s interest to reward the deserving, since the latter were simply its servants, and their merits were good deeds done for the people, who agreed that it would encourage the others to imitate them; a state where, if nothing else, and despite the most terrible individual misfortunes, merit and noble deeds can hardly fail to win the prize of glory, that gigantic phantasm, that omnipotent mainspring in society; a state of [566] which each person feels himself to be a part, in which each has an interest, and to which each is attached by his
own egoism, as he is to himself; a state where there is little to envy, because all are more or less equal, profits are distributed equably, rank has to do only with merit and glory, which are scarcely subject to envy, because the path taken to win them is open to all and they cannot be won except by the means and will of each, and because they redound to the advantage of the multitude; in short, a state that, although it is not the original state of society, is, however, the original state of man, who is naturally free, and master of himself, and equal to others (like every other animal), and therefore has in himself much of nature, the sole source of perfection and happiness. Such a state, as long as there remained enough nature to sustain it, and enough nature to be compatible with society, was certainly, after the original monarchy, the state best suited to man, the most fruitful for life, and the happiest. [567] Such, more or less, was the condition of the Greek republics up until the Persian Wars, and of the Roman republic up until the Punic Wars.

  But just as equality is incompatible with a state whose principle is unity, from which hierarchies necessarily issue, so too inequality is incompatible with that state whose principle is the opposite of unity, namely, power divided among all citizens, or liberty and democracy. Complete equality is the necessary foundation of liberty. That is to say, there must not be any imbalance of power among those among whom power is divided; and no one should have more or less than another, because it is in this and not in anything else that the idea, essence, and foundation of liberty lies. And besides, without this, liberty is no longer true, or complete; it cannot even endure in this state of imperfection. Because, just as the unity of power causes the monarch to abuse it, and exceed the limits, so too majority power causes the majority to abuse it and to try to extend it, and so [568] democracies tend to relapse into monarchy. Not only the πλεονεξία [greed] for power, but every kind of πλεονεξία, is incompatible with, and lethal to, liberty. In liberty, one person must not have any advantage over another except with regard to merit and esteem, in short, with regard to things that can neither be envied by others nor abused and taken beyond the proper limits by the one who possesses them. Otherwise envy arises in some, the desire for greater superiority in others. The latter seek to rise, the former not to remain below, or to obtain the same advantages. Hence factions, quarrels, parties, clientships, brawls, wars, and, in the end, victory and predominance for one man, and monarchy. Therefore, the ancient legislators, like Lycurgus, or the wise republicans, like Fabricius, Cato, etc., banned riches, chastised anyone possessing too much more than the others (as Fabricius did when he was Censor),1 and proscribed knowledge, the sciences, the arts, and the cultivation of the mind, in short every kind of πλεονεξία. This is why all the genuine republics and democracies were poor and ignorant, [569] for as long as they flourished. This is why the Athenians also became deeply suspicious of excessive merit, outstanding virtue, and sheer glory, even when it was not marked by external honors; and among the Romans, too, it is noteworthy that superiority of merit was deemed all the more inauspicious, the more perfect the democracy was, that is, in the early days, as in the case of Coriolanus, Camillus, etc. With the advent of riches, luxury, influence, the cultivation of intelligence, an excessive inequality in rank, in external honors, in power, etc., and also simply with the excessive disproportion in merit and pure glory, all democracies perish, and always shall perish.