Consider praise of oneself, independently and in itself. Even after society has formed (before that the love of praise did not exist),2 what is there that is more in keeping with nature, sweeter to the one who utters it, what is there that the spirit is more spontaneously and powerfully inclined toward, what is there less damaging to our fellows, what pleasure is there, in short, that is more innocent, and what reward more fitting to virtue or what is believed to be virtue? And yet habituation makes us think of it as a vice that the well-made soul naturally shuns, as a desire to be ashamed of (and what does it have in itself and by nature that is shameful?), as contrary to the duty of modesty, which is supposed to be innate, and isn’t so at all (look at children, who nonetheless as soon as they begin to want praise are already being warned not to bestow it on themselves), [1741] as repugnant, in short, to some inner dictate, and forbidden by natural law.
From which we shall deduce (1) a further confirmation of this undeniable natural law, (2) a further proof of man’s natural hatred toward man, which means that the thing that is most innocent and least harmful to others in itself at once becomes bad in a society formed in part, because an individual’s good and advantage is displeasing of itself to other individuals, even though it does them no harm, and may indeed do them some good. (19 Sept. 1821.)
Circumstances had fitted me for the study of languages and ancient philology. It formed my taste, and I therefore despised poetry. I certainly did not lack imagination, but I did not believe myself to be a poet until I had read a number of Greek poets. (My passage, however, from erudition to the beautiful was not sudden but in stages, that is, by beginning to note in the ancients and in my studies something more than before, etc. Likewise the passage from poetry to prose, from letters to philosophy. Always habituation.)1 I did not lack either enthusiasm or fecundity, either strength of mind or passion. But I did not believe myself to be eloquent until I had read Cicero. [1742] Dedicating myself entirely and with the utmost relish to literature, I despised and hated philosophy. The thoughts of which our age is so fond bored me. In accordance with the usual prejudices, I believed myself to be born for letters, imagination, feeling, and that it was altogether impossible for me to apply myself to a faculty wholly opposed to these, that is, to reason, philosophy, mathematical abstraction, and to succeed in it. I did not lack a capacity for reflecting, for paying attention, for comparing, for reasoning, for combining, I did not lack profundity, etc. But it was only after having read some works by Mme. de Staël that I believed myself to be a philosopher.1
Fundamental and important observations may be made regarding the more energetic, active, and fecund faculties, which seem to be wholly innate and, in fact, are simply produced (others say developed) through reading, and study, and various circumstances, even against expectations, and against the settled inclination that a man had contracted, and believed to be innate in himself.
[1743] It is certain that, since a greater or lesser degree of talent is simply a greater or lesser capacity in the organs for becoming habituated or to adapt, a great talent, in whatever sphere it shines, will be liable to shine in all spheres. If it does not do so, this is the result purely and simply of circumstances, which determine its application and its tastes. And since all men who are eminent in any sphere of intellectual culture were and are endowed with great talent, or great mental capacity, it is therefore certain that, e.g., a great poet can also be a great mathematician, and vice versa. See p. 1753. If he is not, if his mind settled on just one sphere (which does not always happen), this is purely the effect of circumstances.
It is, however, true, where a poet is concerned, that certain qualities or dispositions necessary for poetry may in some way be regarded as peculiar to it, and not altogether well adapted to the other faculties.1 But nonetheless I maintain that the poet only has such qualities (albeit to a supreme degree) by virtue of circumstances, and in different circumstances he would have different and contrary qualities. For [1744] what is held to be development, I hold to be production. (19 Sept. 1821.)
From that part of my theory of pleasure where it is shown how objects half seen, or seen with certain impediments, etc., awaken indefinite ideas in us [→Z 171–72] one may explain why the light of the sun or the moon is pleasurable in a place where they cannot be seen and where the source of the light is not revealed; a place only partly illuminated by that light; the reflection of this same light, and the various material effects that derive from it; the penetrating of this same light into places where it becomes uncertain and blocked, and is not easily made out, as through a reed bed, in a wood, through half-closed shutters, etc. etc.; this same light seen in a place, object, etc., where it does not enter and does not strike directly but is refracted on to them and diffused by some other place or object, etc., that it happens to hit; in a corridor seen from inside or from outside, and in a loggia likewise, etc., those places in which the light blends in, etc. etc., with the shadows, as beneath a portico, in a raised suspended loggia, between rocks and ravines, in a valley, on hills seen from the shade when their peaks are gilded; the reflection that, e.g., a colored glass casts on those objects on to which are reflected the rays that pass through this same glass; all those objects, in short, that by means of different [1745] materials and slight changes in circumstance reach our sight, hearing, etc., in a manner that is uncertain, hard to distinguish, imperfect, incomplete, or out of the ordinary, etc. Conversely, the sight of the sun or of the moon in a vast and open landscape, and in a cloudless sky, etc., is pleasurable on account of the vastness of the sensation. And for the reason identified above, the sight of a sky with a patchwork of little clouds, in which the sunlight or moonlight produces varied, and indistinct, and unusual, etc., effects, is also pleasurable. The same light is most pleasurable and very sentimental when it is seen in towns, dappled by shadows, where the dark contrasts in many places with the light, where the light in many parts fades gradually, as on roofs, where some secluded places hide the shining star from view, etc. etc. Variety, uncertainty, not seeing everything, and therefore being able to wander in one’s imagination through things unseen, all contribute to this pleasure. The same goes for similar effects produced by lines of trees, hills, trellising, cottages, [1746] haystacks, uneven terrain, etc., in the countryside. Conversely, a vast, completely level plain, where the light ranges across and is spread uniformly and without any obstacle, where the eye loses itself, etc., is also very pleasurable, because of the idea of indefinite extension that derives from such a vista. So too a cloudless sky. In which regard I observe that the pleasure of variety and uncertainty prevails over that of apparent infinity, and of immense uniformity. And hence a sky patchworked with little clouds is perhaps more pleasurable than a completely clear sky, and a vista of sky is perhaps less pleasurable than one of the earth and of the countryside, etc., because it is less various (and also less like us, having less to do with us, pertaining less to our concerns, etc.). In fact, if you lie down and can see only the sky, separate from the earth, you will experience a much less pleasurable sensation than when considering a landscape, or considering the sky in its correspondence and relation with the earth, and together with it in a single perspective.
For the same reasons, [1747] the sight of an innumerable multitude is very pleasing indeed, as of stars, or people, etc., a multiple, uncertain, indistinct, irregular, disordered movement, a vague undulation, etc., that the mind cannot define, nor definitely and distinctly, etc., conceive, as with that of a crowd, or a large number of ants, or a rough sea, etc. Likewise a multitude of sounds jumbled up and not distinguishable one from the other, etc. etc. etc.1 (20 Sept. 1821.)
Those who imagined a music of colors and an instrument that delighted the eye with their instantaneous and successive harmony, their harmonious combination and variation, etc.,2 failed to note that the great influence of musical harmony on the soul is not specific to harmony in the sense of excluding its derivation from sound and song considered in isolation. On the contrary
, given the pure nature of this influence, it is more concerned, or more necessarily concerned, with sound and song than with harmony or melody. Even without harmony, sound or song (albeit for a brief period) produce some effect in the mind that is proper to music. Not so harmony when separated [1748] from sound or song, or applied to sounds or voices that by their nature do not have any relation to and musical influence on human hearing. For example, the sound of a board, or several boards, which even if their tones were perfectly modulated and distinct and they were applied to the most beautiful melody, would never be music for anyone.
It is therefore strictly speaking sound or voice, that is, the sensation on the ear, that nature has endowed with the capacity to have a pleasurable effect on human hearing, but only particular sounds, and oscillations of bodies of sound, just as not everything that afficit [affects] the papillae of the palate, but only those that afficiunt [affect] them in certain specific ways have been endowed by nature with the capacity to please that organ. The same goes for the sense of smell. The theory of sounds and voices, and of music, has a very close relationship to that of tastes and smells (and also of colors in themselves), and the latter can shed much light on it. Now such theories certainly pertain to the pleasurable or unpleasurable, [1749] but in no way to the beautiful or the ugly. (20 Sept. 1821.)
Impact of habituation and opinion on the beautiful, etc. I have said elsewhere [→Z 1212–13] that habituation makes something look passable and even beautiful to us which to start with seemed ugly, or would have done so if we had not always been habituated to it (see the following thought). Now, imagine that you see for a moment a particular person to whom this situation applies, and you see that person without recognizing him. First of all he will seem ugly, and a moment later will revert (once you recognize him) to seeming passable or handsome. This observation should refer not only to forms, but also to gestures, manners, bearing, demeanor, etc., of those to whom we are habituated. When you don’t recognize them, they will seem ugly to you, but when you do, you will immediately revise your judgment. Conversely I’d say of one who, either out of antipathy, or because of other very diverse circumstances, which I have listed in various places, tends to be [1750] thought by us to be ugly or unpleasant, and is seen by us without our recognizing him. Often you will have chanced to see a person who passes for handsome, or who has often seemed to you or seems to you to be so, and seeing that person without knowing him, or without recognizing him, he has not seemed handsome to you; and once you recognize or know him, you’ve immediately altered your judgment. Conversely I’d say of a person who passed for ugly, or you had judged, or judge to be so, etc. All of this should be applied to every other kind of beauty or ugliness independent of human forms or manners and mores, and human nature, etc., and pertaining, e.g., to literature, the arts, etc. (20 Sept. 1821.)
Someone told me how he had been closely acquainted with an older person who was as ugly as anyone you’d ever seen. He had had dealings with him since early childhood, and in his manners, bearing, nature, both toward him and toward everyone else, this person was extremely friendly, polite, open, at his ease, and very gracious. Once (while he was still a child, but old enough), he heard a stranger remark [1751] on the extreme ugliness of that person and was greatly astonished, because he could not see how he could be ugly when he had always thought exactly the opposite. This same person was already old when I was born, I knew him when I was a child, he seemed as handsome to me as an old person can be (since a child does also distinguish the beauty of youth from that of old age), and I did not know that he was very ugly until I had grown up, that is to say, after he was dead. And the idea I retain of him is still that of a rather handsome person, old though he was (C. Galamini). I have had the same experience with other equally ugly people (V. Ferri). I did not notice the ugliness of others until I grew older, and observed them with an eye more exercised in paying attention, and hence in distinguishing, and more habituated to ordinary proportions, etc. (G. Masi).1 See the beginning of the previous thought. Such is the idea of beauty and ugliness in children. Explain these effects, and deduce the appropriate consequences. I probably thought as well that some people [1752] were really ugly whom I then learned, or knew when I grew up, to be or to have been beautiful (20 Sept. 1821), even very beautiful.
For p. 1681, margin. Such people often deduce consequences from self-evident premises, in good faith, that are quite different from, or wholly contrary to, those drawn by the common run of men (by which I mean men who possess what is called common sense, and who actually represent an infinitesimal part of the human race). Or from an obvious and infallible premise they deduce a minor premise that, according to the common run of men, either has nothing to do with it or contradicts the major premise, or the minor one which, according to common sense, inevitably follows on from the major premise, and is also the only one that follows on from it. (The same goes for the major with respect to the minor, or to the consequence.) So too also from the consequence they will make their way back up to a major premise, or to a wholly opposite or disparate minor premise, or to both premises of such a kind. This is what makes muddleheads (how many [1753] heads think straight?), people who are not persuaded by the most palpable arguments, who are almost wholly exempt from the power of reason and common sense, and independent of the fundamental principles of reasoning in themselves, and who all of a sudden catch you off guard with a conclusion wholly contrary to the premises, not indeed out of stubbornness but out of inner conviction, and as dictated by their reasoning, and because their sense, their faculty of reasoning is made that way. (20 Sept. 1821.)
For p. 1743, margin. Every day, in fact, it is and can be observed that when a man of genuine talent applies himself to things that are quite new to him, and also those that are foreign to his own inclinations, ordinary concerns, habits, etc., he is always more successful than others. He understands the language that pertains to professions, disciplines, forms of knowledge, etc., that are very far away from his own. He finds his way into all well-structured argument, grasps any true affirmation or negation of any probability or appropriate opinion without much effort, if it is adequately expounded, readily discovers the connections, [1754] the relationships, etc., or their contraries in things that are least familiar to him, etc. etc. In short, the character of a genuine talent, in whatever sphere it distinguishes itself (or even if it does not distinguish itself in any sphere) is always that of a general mental capacity. In the same way that external or material organs (such as the hand, etc.), which possess a particular skill to an eminent degree are for the most part perfectly capable of easily acquiring others, even very different ones. Also someone who is quick, etc. etc. (20 Sept. 1821.) See p. 1778, end.
Someone who is completely unaccustomed to good Italian thinks and says that anything with an Italian flavor is affected, even if the writing is free and easy and very far from antiquated. And if he can’t call old Italian writers affected, he still thinks they’re very strange and have very bad taste in language. Perhaps this is what all we modern Italians think, until we become used to the language, and gradually find it less strange, [1755] and then in the end very beautiful. What, then, is the type of the affected and the unaffected and of good taste in literature, etc. etc.? Habituation alone, which varies with each individual, and is mutable within each individual. (21 Sept. 1821.)
I have said elsewhere [→Z 1301–302] that almost every individual has his own language. I would add that these individual languages may be distinguished not only by certain habitual words or phrases that are wholly peculiar to this or that speaker, but also by the habitual use of certain words or phrases from among the many either genuine or false synonyms a language has to express a particular thing (especially a rich language like Italian). And whenever the occasion arises, you’ll find a particular speaker with his particular word or phrase, and another with another very different one, and each according to his own custom. So that the lexicon of each speaker is distinct from that of
others, as I have said [→Z 244–45, 766–77] of individual Greek and Italian writers. These lexicons, composed [1756] both of these words or phrases chosen invariably from among synonyms and those which I have said to be absolutely particular to this or that individual, are perpetuated within families, because the son learns to speak from his father and mother, and just as he imitates customs and manners, all the more does he imitate language. This effect is most pronounced in the families of artisans, the poor, etc., and still more in those from the country, being more separate from nondomestic society. It is also very prevalent in families of the upper classes that are predominantly homebound, or where the children are schooled at home, where little is studied or read, and so current language does not expand very much (and also is not much subject to study), where there is little social life, etc. And if you observe carefully, you will always find in such families a little lexicon of their own, composed in the manner I have said. And you can also observe, in many of these families, [1757] several words that are very old and have fallen out of current use, but have been preserved and transmitted from generation to generation within the family. This is something I have had occasion to observe several times, and I have never heard those words or phrases outside of that particular household or family. In the other kinds of families, this same effect will be less, but will always take place proportionately. So languages continue very gradually to divide within a single society or a single place. The father’s ways are communicated to the son and are perpetuated, the son also invents some words, etc. etc., and shares them in his turn, the daughters transfer them to the families into which they enter, human language continues day in day out to diversify and change its aspect, and each family comes to differ somewhat from the others in the signifying of its thoughts. (Whether spoken or indeed written.) (21 Sept. 1821.)
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