The faculty of habituation, which is what memory consists of, and our becoming habituated to our habituations, which is what this same faculty almost wholly [1524] consists of, mean that memory can also become habituated (as happens all the time) to retaining an impression received just once, with the particular habituation being reinforced by general habituation, and this too becoming an effect of the habit of recollection. Babies who do not yet have this habit, or have it only to an inadequate degree, do not retain impressions unless they have received them several times, and unless they have been individually habituated to them. And even the best memories will not long retain an impression that is not repeated unless they themselves repeat the impression now and then, by means of the imagination recalling it, that is to say, by means of a sequence of reminiscences which form the particular habituation for that specific impression. And what I say about memory holds good for other habits, skills, etc. (also dependent on memory), which can sometimes be acquired in the blink of an eye, such as learning a manual operation so as to be able to do it again after having seen it done just once, etc. Where the faculty and facility of habituation possessed by memory combines [1525] with that of the external organs. But these too are normally lost if they are not repeated, and if the instantaneously contracted habit is not developed through a renewal, not of the actual impression, but of its effect, etc. Here too, however, there are differences according to the greater or lesser faculty of habituation and retention, natural and acquired, that different individuals have. (19 Aug. 1821.)
Out of the only three literary writers of the fourteenth century, just one, Dante, had the intention when writing of applying the Italian language to literature. This is evident both from the sacred poem, which he considered not to be a diversion but an enterprise of signal importance, in which he addressed the weightiest philosophical and theological concerns, and from the Convito, a wholly philosophical, theological, and, in short, doctrinal and eminently serious work, akin to the ancient scientific dialogues, etc. (see this); and, finally, from the opinions expressed in his Volgare Eloquio.1 Hence Dante was quite correctly, and has always been held to be, both in intention and in outcome, the founder of the Italian language. [1526] But the other two only wrote Italian as a pastime, and so far were they from wishing to apply it to literature that on the contrary they only wrote those things in that language because they thought them unworthy of the literary language, that is, Latin, the language in which they wrote everything they hoped would make their name as men of letters and that would add to literature. For they judged the Italian language to be unworthy and incapable of serious subject matter and literature (even after Dante, and expressly against his opinion and example, especially Petrarch). So it was not that they did not wish to apply it to literature, but they did not believe that they could, or that anyone could ever do it. An opinion that persisted until midway through the sixteenth century with regard to Epic, so that, a few years after the death of Ariosto, and a few years before the Gerusalemme1 appeared, it was believed in Italy that the Italian language did not have the capacity. That is why Caro undertook to translate the Aeneid, etc. (see, if I am not mistaken, tome 3 of his letters).2 Petrarch’s opinion about his Canzoniere is likewise only too well known. He wrote his poems [1527] in Italian, like Boccaccio writing his stories and romances for the amusement of small gatherings (as nowadays one would write in dialect), and for ladies and gentlemen, people of the world who thought themselves incapable of understanding literature, etc. etc. And it is also well known that in the 16th century very contrived poems, histories, etc., would be written in Latin. (19 Aug. 1821.)
For p. 1109, margin, end. Among which the Spanish soltar, to undo, instead of solutar, from solutus from solvere. And in the Glossary there is solta, that is, solutio, and the French also have soute, that is, solte, instead of solute. Likewise sectari stands in for secutari. And the original solvere has disappeared from Spanish. (See the Dictionary, however.) And do we ourselves not say assolto for assoluto? sciolto, etc.? And, indeed, voltare, from volutare, as also soltar from solutare, which differs by just one letter? (19 Aug. 1821.) See p. 1562, end.
The same reason that leads men and living creatures1 to believe that what is relative is absolute prompts them to believe that what is a simple effect and product of habituation is an effect and affair of nature, and to believe that what are merely acquired capacities or attributes are congenital. But it is very true that such a consideration eliminates the beautiful and the great, and if a supreme intellect or a supreme virtue is regarded as being the result of circumstances and habits, and not of nature, it loses all the [1528] nobility, wonder, and sublimity it had in our imagination. The most heroic and most poetic attributes, feeling, enthusiasm, genius, imagination, themselves become unpoetic if they are not regarded as a gift of nature, and the writer of taste, especially the poet, should take good care not to regard it otherwise or to present it in any other light. In our imagination Virgil would become very little different from Maevius1 (as indeed he naturally was), Achilles from Thersites; and it would be acknowledged that chance alone had made Newton superior to the humblest of the peripatetic physicists. (20 Aug. 1821.)
The relative nature of grace is evident in what follows. A feminine aspect in men is truly improper because it is out of the ordinary. Yet to women this impropriety often seems to be grace, though to men it is ugliness, and I have seen some feminine faces and forms that provoked disgust in men but were much remarked by and made a great impression upon women when first seen, and were generally reckoned to be very beautiful. Conversely, the same may be said of a masculine [1529] aspect in women. (See p. 1522.) And myriad other such differences may be identified in the two sexes, regarding the perception and evaluation of both grace and beauty. (20 Aug. 1821.)
And note that, on account of the natural taste women have for strength in men, and men for weakness in women, one might suppose that the facts would turn out opposite to what I said above. But aside from the fact that natural tastes vary greatly, there are countless modifications, aspects, differences in a particular taste and its effects, etc. (20 Aug. 1821.)
For p. 1513, end. The point I am making about human beauty, especially of the physiognomy, namely, that it is inseparable from and chiefly derives from meaning, which has nothing to do with beauty, may again be seen in the varying appearance of a person or a face, which may be more or less animated and expressive, and signify more or less pleasant things, or vice versa. According to such differences, a specific person will appear beautiful or ugly, more or less beautiful or ugly. [1530] At any rate, a beautiful and regular face always in itself signifies something pleasant, no matter how falsely. This is why every regular countenance is pleasing. But it pleases very little, and sometimes we hardly feel it to be beautiful, if, through a want of soul or culture or art in a person, it has no meaning at all other than its natural meaning, and if this is plainly seen to be false. And so a much less regular but expressive, animated, etc., face appears far more beautiful than the kind I have described, etc. etc. etc. (20 Aug. 1821.)
To what I have said elsewhere [→Z 1079–81, 1087–89] in order to account for the accidental difficulties that occur in the system of nature, add that sometimes, indeed very often, they are only relative difficulties and nature has foreseen them, but far from preventing them it has, on the contrary, included them in its great order, and arranged them in accordance with its ends. Nature is the most benign mother of the whole, and also of the particular genera and species that are contained in it, but not of individuals. These often serve to their [1531] cost the good of the genus, of the species or of the whole, and the good of the whole is sometimes also served, to their own detriment, by the species and the genus itself. It has already been observed1 that death serves life, and that the natural order is a cycle of destruction, reproduction, and regular and constant changes with respect to the whole, but not with respect to the parts, which accidentally serve the same ends, sometimes in one way and some
times another. Nature is not unaware of the many birds that die for lack of food in a countryside covered in snow, but its own ends are served by this same destruction, even if it does not directly serve any end. Conversely, the destruction of animals wreaked by men or other animals when hunting serves the hunters’ purposes directly, and is an accidental difficulty and a calamity for those poor animals, but a relative difficulty, and one intended by nature, which meant them to be food, etc., for other, stronger creatures.2 (20 Aug. 1821.)
Let us suppose that political science from Machiavelli onward has made 20 strides, [1532] 10 being due to Machiavelli, and the other 10 being due to one or other of the later writers. Who was the greater? Machiavelli or his successors? And yet the last of his successors is a far greater political thinker than Machiavelli, and politics in his works extends twice as far. No one, therefore, prefers Machiavelli to the last of his successors, and the only reason for reading him now is to deepen scholarship. If the science of politics after him had changed appearance, as often happens, and moreover more because of the impulse he had given it than for any other reason, the works of Machiavelli would no longer be read. Let us suppose the same of physics with respect to Galileo. But since physics really has been transformed, the writings of Galileo, perhaps the greatest physicist and mathematician in the world, are left to the scholars. So vain and hollow is the glory for which men strive, that not only does it depend upon fortune, not only does it extend to a very few who are scholarly and aware of ancient things, not only does the slenderest of chances suffice to obstruct or suppress it, not only does it very often go to the undeserving, etc. etc.1 [1533] etc. etc. etc., but the very fact of seeking it, the very fact of obtaining it is a reason for losing it. Those exceptional and supremely gifted men whose works drive on the human mind and cause it to make notable progress fall after a short space of time behind other, lesser intellects, both in public estimation and in reality, and the latter, profiting from their insights, take the human mind much further than their predecessors were able to do. Likewise the very works that earned them glory are cause now of their being forgotten, and with the very thing with which the great philosopher seeks and wins fame he is working to destroy it. Literary glories, from this point of view, are somewhat less subject to this difficulty. I say “from this point of view” because changes in taste, and the supreme instability of beauty, which has no form independent of opinion and custom, etc., any more than truth has, very often have the same effect. (20 Aug. 1821.)
Who would believe that the French meaning of the word genius was not completely [1534] modern? Yet in the following passage from Sidonius (Panegyricus ad Anthemium, ll. 190ff.) I do not know in what other sense, this or a similar one, it can be understood.
Qua Crispus brevitate placet, quo ponderet Varro,
Quo genio Plautus, quo fulminea Quintilianus,
Qua pompa Tacitus numquam sine laude loquendus.
[We cannot speak of Sallust’s pithiness, Varro’s gravity, Plautus’s genius, Quintilian’s flashes, and Tacitus’s solemnity without praising them.]1
Unless it meant agreeableness, and something akin to what the Italian genio sometimes expresses, and in this sense as well I don’t think it will be found in the ancient authors. But see Forcellini and Du Cange. (20 Aug. 1821.)
The words irrevocable, irremeable2 and others of the same kind will always give rise to a pleasant feeling (if we do not become too inured to them), because they evoke an idea without limits, one that we cannot wholly conceive. And they will therefore always be very poetic, and a genuine poet will know how to employ them, and use them to very great effect. (20 Aug. 1821.)
Princes who were illustrious and famed for their [1535] goodness, for the love they bore their peoples, and for the love they received from their peoples in return, never existed, and never will, except in a system of calm and secure but absolute despotism. Neither a Joseph II, nor a Henry IV, nor a Marcus Aurelius, nor other such rulers would ever have existed in a kingdom like that of Phalaris,1 and other kingdoms of antiquity, when the people clashed with the tyranny they suffered, nor in a constitutional monarchy, in the modern style, where the prince clashes with a people he cannot defeat. The reasons are easily seen, and consist in egoism, which is the reason for both the clemency and the cruelty and tyranny of princes, and determines whether their characters lean more to the former or to the latter, according to different circumstances. Augustus would perhaps have been a good and well-loved ruler, if his tyranny had been calm, and if the times and the circumstances had permitted him to be such, etc. etc. (20 Aug. 1821.)
In many passages [→Z 85–86, 230, 266–68, 339–40, 486–88] I have spoken about and explained the irresistible inclination social man contracts to let others [1536] share in his own sensations, etc., whether pleasurable or not, especially if they are extraordinary, and to this one must ascribe the great difficulty we experience every day in keeping a secret, and all the more so the less distant man is from the state of nature, or the less habituated he is to suppressing his desires. Which is why women and children are the people least able to keep secrets.1 But even a full-grown man, and one with a cultured and fully formed, etc., mind, very often experiences great difficulty in being perfectly secret, so that no indication of what he knows should cross his lips, especially if the affair is a curious one, etc., no matter how important secrecy may be. And if everyone examines his life carefully, he will see just how many times his tongue has done him harm, either in small things or large, and very often despite his having foreseen the harm. As for the perfectly secret man, I do not think that he exists, not only because of trifling circumstances that go unnoticed, and betray a secret; but because of his inclination to reveal it, one to which if not always then certainly very often he makes some greater or lesser sacrifice. And perhaps the greater part of the circumstances I have mentioned derive in [1537] the last analysis from this inclination. (21 August 1821.)
Smells are almost an image of human pleasures. A very pleasing smell always leaves a certain desire that is perhaps greater than any other sensation. I mean that the sense of smell is never satisfied even to a middling extent, and very often it happens that we sniff quite violently, as if to satisfy ourselves, and to make our pleasure complete, without, however, ever succeeding. They are also an image of our hopes. Very fragrant things that are also good to eat generally overwhelm the taste with the smell, and the taste never quite lives up to the expectation that the smell had left us with. And if you look closely you will see that when you smell these things you are overtaken by that desire which happens so often in life, to somehow become one with that pleasure. This is what makes us put it in our mouths, and when we have done so we are not satisfied. Not only with things that are good to eat, but also with other smells the same desire overcomes us, and [1538] sniffing, e.g., with great delight some fragrant water, and never being able to be satisfied by that sensation, we want to drink it. (21 Aug. 1821.)
For p. 1453. That nature has left man more to do on his own than the other animals, and that he is also naturally more developable, and more destined to grow morally, is also borne out in a certain way by the physical growth of his body, since few other animals grow as much as man does in proportion to how he is at birth; that is to say, few other animals at birth are proportionately so small in comparison with their adult size as man is. (21 Aug. 1821.)
Relative beauty and ugliness. Since beauty is rare, when you go somewhere new you come across people who are mostly ugly. Now these people appear much uglier to you than they are where you come from (which may be next door), and at first glance it seems to you that a high degree [1539] of deformity prevails in the new place. The reason is that judgments about beauty and ugliness depend on habituation, and what is ugly in your own part of the world doesn’t make a strong impression on you, nor do people seem very ugly to you because you are used to seeing them. The same happens with regard to a particular individual. But what happens to you in the new place will also happen t
o its inhabitants when they come to you. If, however, you travel widely, you will soon come to shed such sensations, equally an effect of habituation. (21 Aug. 1821.)
I said above that beauty is rare and ugliness ordinary. How then does the idea of beauty derive from habituation and from the idea that man forms of the ordinary which he judges to be proper? It does so because what is irregular in man or things is not common. All these things are ugly, but some in one way, some in another. Irregularity has a thousand different forms. Regularity has one, or few. And the ugly themselves always have something regular about them, indeed, almost [1540] everything does, just a single, minor irregularity sufficing to give rise to ugliness. So man forms the idea of beauty naturally, even when he has never seen anything but the ugly, and distinguishes without even noticing between what their forms have that is common and what they have that is exceptional and hence irregular. And supposing that such a man had never seen anyone without an identical defect, or that he had seen it in the majority of people known to him, that defect would be a virtue for him, and would form part of his ideal of beauty. So it would be in the kingdom of the one-eyed. And here, perhaps, is the place to cite the case of a young woman known to me who, until she was 25 years old, always firmly believed that no one could see with their left eye, because she could not see with hers, and no one had realized this. The image she formed of human beauty was therefore that of a man blind in one eye, and she would have thought of the opposite as a defect. (21 Aug. 1821.)
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