Zibaldone
Page 66
“Quand on est jeune, on ne songe qu’à vivre dans l’idée d’autrui: il faut établir sa réputation, et se donner une place honorable dans l’imagination des autres, et être heureux même dans leur idée: notre bonheur n’est point réel; ce n’est pas nous que nous consultons, ce sont les autres. Dans un autre âge, nous revenons à nous; et ce retour a ses douceurs, nous commençons à nous consulter et à nous croire” [“When we are young, we dream only of living in the idea others have of us. We have to establish a reputation, and win for ourselves an honorable place in the imagination of others, and even be happy in their idea of us. Our happiness is not at all real; it is not ourselves we consult but others. When we’re older we return to ourselves, and this return has its own sweetness, as we start to consult ourselves and to believe in ourselves”]. Mme. la Marquise de Lambert, Traité de la vieillesse, toward the end, in her Oeuvres complètes, Paris 1808, 1st complete ed., p. 150.1 “Il vient un temps dans la vie qui est consacré à la vérité, qui est destiné à connoître les choses selon leur juste valeur. La jeunesse et les passions fardent tout. Alors nous revenons aux plaisirs simples; nous commençons à nous consulter [634] et à nous croire sur notre bonheur” [“In the course of a life there comes a time that is devoted to the truth, and that is meant for knowing the true value of things. Youth and passions mask everything. Then we return to the simple pleasures, we start to consult ourselves and, so far as our own happiness is concerned, to believe ourselves”]. Ibid., p. 153. These reflections are borne out by direct observation. Not only in old age but also in times of misfortune, whenever a man finds himself without hope, or at least unfortunate, in matters that depend upon men, he starts to make do with just himself, and his happiness and his satisfaction, or at any rate his consolation, depend upon himself. This happens to us even in the midst of society, or of worldly affairs. When a man is ill-received there, or bored, or unlucky, or in short finds there what he would not wish to find, he has recourse to himself, and seeks good and pleasure in his own soul. Social man, for as long as he is able, seeks his happiness, and invests it, in things outside himself and belonging to society, and therefore depending upon others. This is inevitable. Only or principally the unlucky man, and especially he who is without hope, takes pleasure in his own company, and in investing his happiness in things that are his own, and independent of others; and, in short, in separating his own happiness from public opinion and from the advantages that we derive from society, and that he cannot obtain, or hope for. Perhaps because of this, or also [635] because of this, it has been said that the man who has never been wretched knows nothing.1 The soul, the longings, the thoughts, the amusements of a happy man are all on the outside, and he was not made for solitude, I mean a solitude that is physical or moral and having to do with thought. Which is to say that if he takes pleasure in solitude, that pleasure, and his thoughts and his amusements in that state, all exist in relation to things that are external and dependent upon others, never in relation to those situated in him alone. This is not, however, because the happiness or consolation of the unlucky or old man lies in the truth, and in reflection upon or knowledge of it. What pleasure or happiness or comfort can the true, that is to say, nothingness administer to us? (if we exclude Religion alone). But other illusions, perhaps wiser because less dependent, and therefore also more enduring, replace those relating to society. And this, to sum up, is what is known as being content with oneself, and “omnia tua in te posita ducere” [“regarding as your own responsibility everything that concerns you”] by which Cicero (Laelius sive de amicitia, ch. 2) defines wisdom. A system, [636] a structure, an order, a life of independent and therefore stable illusions: nothing else. (9 Feb. 1821.)
“‘La solitude,’ dit un grand homme, ‘est l’infirmerie des ames.’” [“‘Solitude,’ a great man has said, ‘is the infirmary of souls’”]. Mme. Lambert, in the work quoted above, p. 153, end.
“Nous ne vivons que pour perdre et pour nous détacher” [“We live only in order to lose and to detach ourselves”]. Mme. Lambert, in the work quoted above, p. 145, halfway through the Traité de la vieillesse. So it is. Each day we lose something; that is, some illusions, which are all we have, perish or wane. Experience and truth daily deprive us of some portion of our possessions.1 We do not live except by losing. Man is born rich in everything, and as he grows he gets poorer, until in old age he finds himself with almost nothing. The child is richer than the youth, indeed he has everything. Even if he is the poorest of the poor and naked and deeply wretched, he has more than the luckiest youth. The youth is in turn richer than the adult, and maturity is richer than old age. But Mme. Lambert means this in another sense, that is to say, in relation to so-called real losses, which occur as we grow older. (9 Feb. 1821.) But just as nothing is really owned, so nothing can be lost. Rather, what she says is true in this other respect, with regard to the present condition of mankind, and [637] of the human spirit, and of society. (10 Feb. 1821.)
I do not usually place any credence in allegories, nor do I look for them in mythology or the inventions of poets or popular beliefs. Nevertheless, the fable of Psyche, that is, of the Soul—who was happiest when she did not know anything, and was content simply to enjoy, and whose unhappiness stemmed from wishing to know—seems to me to be so apt and so accurate, and at the same time so profound an emblem of the nature of man and of things, of our true goal on this earth, of the damage caused by knowledge, and of the kind of happiness to which we were suited, that, by combining this set of reflections with the obvious meaning of the name Psyche, I can scarcely not believe that the fable forms part of the most ancient wisdom and knowledge of the nature of man and of this world.1 See how this allegory is commented on, and although not profoundly nevertheless adequately explained in the fragment by Mme. Lambert entitled “Psyché en grec. Ame” (thus) in her Oeuvres complètes quoted above, pp. 284–85. And perhaps this same allegory has come to the attention of others also, and I think it must have. What is certain is that either it means nothing or it means what I have said, and shows that my system was pleasing to the ancients of the earliest times; it cannot be explained by any other system.2 Besides, if these observations are combined with the account contained in Genesis, [638] where the immediate origin of man’s unhappiness and fall is manifestly attributed to knowledge, as I have demonstrated elsewhere [→Z 394–400, 434–36], it seems to me probable that these great maxims, “man was not made to know,” “knowledge of the true is the enemy of happiness,” “reason is the enemy of nature”—which are the ultimate fruit and apex of the most modern and profound, perfected and perfectible philosophy that can ever be—were not only known to but characteristic of, and all but fundamental to, the most ancient wisdom, at the very least to arcane and mysterious wisdom such as that of the East and of Egypt, from which some claim Greek mythology and wisdom derive in part, anyway. (10 Feb. 1821.)
The purists would have it that when our language lacks a term for something, rather than coin a new one, or adopt a foreign term, or derive one from the ancient languages, we should use circumlocutions. I will not dwell upon the extent to which too frequent circumlocutions (and they would have to be very frequent) detract from the grace, power, seemliness, and fluency of the discourse, and invariably shackle, hamper, [639] encumber, and vex readers and writers alike. But I will say first of all that there are countless occasions where one of those things lacking an equivalent term in Italian has to be referred to very frequently, continually, several times in the course of a single sentence. Now, when, with great difficulty, a circumlocution that is genuinely equivalent has been found—and it will often have to be very long—how can it be repeated continually and several times in the same sentence? How can it be varied, given the difficulty of coming up with something more or less equivalent? How can it be abbreviated, when the removal of some words will reduce the impact, and not say everything, no longer express the same idea if it is not set out in full? A single word can be adapted to fit every position, can
be inserted anywhere, can be deployed readily, promptly, and at will. But a circumlocution is a large and cumbersome body, and if it doesn’t have enough room, it can’t fit in or stretch out, so how can it find a spot, as it were, in the countless folds, corners, nooks, crannies, [640] tiny passageways, and convolutions (those twists and turns which represent so many different ways of referring to what Firenzuola terms “the folds of the ears”),1 in those windings, tortuous bends, narrows and straits of the discourse or the sentence, which are so frequent, and into which the idea in question very often wants and needs to fit, and the single word would go, but never the circumlocution?
Second, I would argue that there are countless things that cannot be expressed by means of any circumlocution. For example, what the French so often understand by the word génie (used in the same sense by Magalotti, as Monti notes in the Biblioteca Italiana).2 How can one express in the form of a circumlocution something that cannot be defined? Where the faculty of definition fails, that of circumlocution does, too. And those things which may be clearly, easily, and fully understood, using an agreed-on word, but which could be neither adequately defined nor made intelligible through a circumlocution, are infinite in number, and can be found in every sphere, and especially in the philosophy of nature as construed today, in abstract subjects, etc. And this is only to be expected, [641] since words are made for things: to a given thing a given word corresponds; and other words, numerous though they may be, do not correspond. The thing exists, the idea exists, the way of signifying it and of defining it exists, but it is that particular way, that particular means, and no other.
Whenever some discipline or form of knowledge, or human speculation, but philosophy in particular, and metaphysics as it addresses the principles and elements of things that feature either rarely or not at all in ordinary speech and usage, and the intimacies, the secrets, and the parts of things that are removed and separated off from the senses and from vulgar thought, whenever, I say, metaphysics has been added to, or gone down a new path, or sought or found some novelty, a novelty in words has proved necessary in any and every language, and has in fact been adopted. I would leave aside Latin, which before Lucretius and Cicero was in fact ineffectual in philosophical subjects, and which in any case could draw, much as we do in the case of French, upon a sister language, a mine that was as rich as could be in this domain, as in the others. The novelty of Plato’s philosophy demanded novelty in the words of the [642] Greek language itself, which is so rich under every head, and principally in the philosophical subjects that had been so familiar in Greece for so long. And Plato invented new words, of a kind that in that same language—so flexible and tractable, so rich and fertile, too, so accustomed to novelties in words, so fluent, so open to change, so spontaneously adaptable to the formation of new words—seemed strange, absurd, and ridiculous to the vulgar, common people, who consider the effect, that is, the novelty of the word, and do not weigh the cause, that is, the novelty of the things and the speculation. Like τραπεζότης, which we might render in Italian as mensalità [tableness], and κυαθότης as calicità [cupness] (there is nothing better in Italian than calicità to express this word, as I have ascertained). See Laertius (in Diogenes the Cynic, bk. 6, § 53) and whether Ménage has anything, and you could also mention what Laertius reports in this connection.1 So distant are abstractions, etc., from ordinary usage. And these and other such words were coined by Plato, who is certainly no more highly praised for his wisdom than for the purity and elegance of his Attic language, and his style, and for all the virtues of his eloquence, [643] choice of words, and fine writing and speaking. (10 Feb. 1821.)
A language doesn’t have to be definitely poetic, but one that is definitely mathematical cannot help being ugly and lifeless. The best of all languages is the one that can be both poetic and mathematical, and contain indeed all the degrees that range between the two extremes. (11 Feb. 1821.)
“Les enfans aiment à être traités en personnes raisonnables” [“Children like to be treated as reasonable beings”]. Mme. de Lambert, “Lettre à Madame la supérieure de la Madeleine de Tresnel, sur l’éducation d’une jeune demoiselle”; or Letter 3, in her Oeuvres complètes quoted above (p. 633), p. 356.
“And what difference does it make to you, that you are famous among those who are yet to be born, if you were unknown to those who were born before?” (among those, or those who are to come, if you were unknown to them, or those who were?) “Who do not yield to posterity in numbers, and who certainly defeat it in virtue.”1 [644] (The number of whom does not yield to that of their descendants, and whose virtue indubitably prevails, or without possibility of error prevails.) (11 Feb. 1821.)
There is perhaps no one to whom you are so indifferent that when he says goodbye as he is setting out somewhere, or leaving you in any way whatever, and tells you, “we shall never see each other again,” does not move you, does not awaken a feeling of greater or lesser sadness within you, no matter how little heart you have. The horror and fear man has, on the one hand, of nothingness and, on the other hand, of eternity appear everywhere, and he cannot hear that never again without being moved. Natural effects must be sought in natural persons, who are not yet spoiled, or scarcely so, or as little as possible. Such are children, almost the only subjects these days in whom truly natural qualities, inclinations, and affects may be explored, observed, and anatomized. Thus, as a child I had this custom. When I saw a person leave, and no matter how indifferent I was to him, I wondered [645] if it was possible or probable that I would ever see him again. If I judged that I would not, I hung around looking at the person, listening to him, and things like that, and followed him around with my eyes or ears as much as I could, all the time turning over, and absorbing, and developing this thought in my mind: “this is the last time, you will never see him again, or maybe never again.” And thus the death of someone whom I knew, and who had never been of any interest to me in life, caused me a degree of distress, not so much for his sake, or because after his death he might then be of interest to me, but for the following reason, which I pondered at length: “he has gone forever—forever? yes—it’s all over for him. I shall never see him again. And nothing of his will any longer have anything in common with my own life.” And I set about rehearsing, if I could, the last time I had either seen or listened to him, etc., and it pained me that I had not known then that it was the last time, and that I had not [646] acted on this thought.1 (11 Feb. 1821.)
No age, even the most barbarous, has ever believed itself to be barbarous, indeed there has never been an age that did not believe itself to be the flower of all ages, and the most perfect epoch of the human spirit and of society. Let us not, therefore, trust our judgment with regard to our own times, and let us not consider present opinion, but rather let us consider things, and ask ourselves therefore what the judgment of posterity will be, if posterity is such as to be able to judge us correctly. (12 Feb. 1821.)
The theory of pleasure and, one could also say, of the nature of our mind, and of that of any living being, may be summed up as follows. There is no limit to the living being’s love of itself, and it never stops loving itself. Hence it never stops desiring the good for itself, and it desires the good to have no limits. This good is essentially nothing other than pleasure. Any pleasure, even if great, even if real, has limits. Hence no possible pleasure is proportionate to and equal to the [647] measure of the love that the living being has for itself. Hence no pleasure can satisfy the living being. If it cannot satisfy it, no pleasure, even if real in the abstract and in an absolute sense, is real only in relation to the one who experiences it. Because the latter desires ever more, since by its very essence it loves itself, and therefore loves itself without limits. Even when it has obtained more, the more it has obtained likewise does not suffice. Hence in the act of pleasure, or in happiness, the living being, not feeling satisfied, not feeling its desire satisfied, cannot experience a complete pleasure, hence not a true pleasure, beca
use the pleasure is inferior to the desire, and because the desire exceeds it. And here you have the animal’s natural and necessary tendency toward the indefinite, toward a pleasure without limits. Hence the pleasure that derives from the indefinite, the utmost possible pleasure, but not a perfect pleasure, because the indefinite cannot be possessed, indeed it does not exist. And it would be necessary to possess it fully, and at the same time indefinitely, for the animal to be satisfied, that is, happy, that is, for its limitless self-love to be definitely satisfied, something [648] that would be contradictory and impossible. Therefore, happiness is impossible for the one who desires it, because desire, since it is the absolute desire for happiness, and not for a particular happiness, is necessarily without limits, because absolute happiness is indefinite, and does not have limits. Therefore, this desire itself is a reason in itself that it cannot be satisfied. Now, this desire is a necessary consequence of, indeed, one could say identical to, self-love. And this love is a necessary consequence of life, in the existing order of things, as we conceive it, and as we cannot conceive otherwise, even if it could be, even if it really were otherwise. Thus, every living being, by the mere fact that it lives (and therefore loves itself, and therefore absolutely desires happiness, that is, a happiness without limits, which is impossible, and therefore its desire cannot be satisfied), by the mere fact, I repeat, that it lives, cannot effectively be happy. And happiness and pleasure are always future; that is, not existing, or being able really to exist, they exist only in the desire of the living being, and in the hope, or expectation that follows from it. “Le [649] présent,” says Pascal, “n’est jamais notre but; le passé et le présent sont nos moyens; le seul avenir est notre objet: ainsi nous ne vivons pas, mais nous espérons de vivre” [“The present,” says Pascal, “is never our goal; the past and the present are our means; the future alone is our object: thus, we do not live but hope to live”].1 Hence it follows that the happiest creature possible is the one who is most distracted from the mind’s tendency toward absolute happiness. Such are the animals, and such was man in nature. In them the desire for happiness, being turned into desires for a this or that happiness, or goal, and above all deadened and dissipated by continuous activity, by present needs, etc., did not and does not have sufficient strength to render the living being unhappy. Hence activity in particular is the surest possible means to happiness. Activity aside, other less universal or enduring or efficacious means, but means nonetheless, are those noted by me in the theory of pleasure, e.g. (and it is one of the principal ones), amazement (1) in character and in temperament: men so constituted are the happiest; men incapable of this state of mind are the unhappiest. “Be great and unhappy,” D’Alembert’s dictum, Éloges de l’Académie Françoise (sic, Françoise),2 says nature to great men, to sensitive, passionate, etc., men: a vigorous sense of the desire for happiness torments them; this desire [650] should be felt as little as possible, though it is innate, and necessarily constant. (2) Deriving from an artificial languor or torpor, etc., contrived by means of opium, say, or arising out of weariness, etc. etc. (3) Deriving from extraordinary impressions, from wonder of every sort, from events, from things seen, heard, etc., in short, from extraordinary sensations of every kind: (4) from the imagination, from the ecstasy that derives from fantasy, from an indefinite feeling, from the beauty of nature, etc., and see the theory of pleasure. Note that imagination, vivacity, and sensitivity, which harm happiness as far as amazement is concerned, help it as far as activity is concerned. And they are, therefore, nature’s gifts (even if often painful) rather than a cause of harm. For activity is in fact the easiest, safest and strongest, longest-lasting, most frequent and general and practicable means of distraction that there is in life. (12 Feb. 1821.)