Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  As man is only interested in man (because he is more interested in himself than in other men), as a picture that represents nothing animate has no effect and one that represents stones, etc., has less than one that represents plants, etc., as the main effect of a painting is produced by the imitation of man more than of animals and far more than of other objects, as poetry does not delight either very much or lastingly if it is concerned with (1) unorganized things, (2) things that are organized but not living, (3) living beings but not men, (4) men but not what concerns man and each and every reader, namely, passions, feelings, in short, the human mind (note these gradations, which are applicable to every kind of pleasurable thing and idea, and to my theory of pleasure),1 so too [1848] poetry, plays, novels, histories, paintings, etc. etc., cannot give lasting or great delight if they are concerned with men whose customs, opinions, temperament, etc. etc., and as it were nature, are wholly different from our own. Such are the favorite characters of the darling poems of the north, etc., whether it is a result of national difference, or of excessive difference and strangeness of character, as with Lord Byron’s protagonists, or of excessive heroism, which is why Aristotle insisted that the protagonist of a tragedy should not be too much of a hero.1 (Which is perhaps why accounts, etc., of distant peoples, travel, etc., are of interest to begin with because of their novelty but soon become tedious, and why those concerning peoples nearer to us, and among the ancients those concerning Romans, Greeks, and Jews are, proportionately, always more interesting to us because they relate to the whole of the cultured world thanks to the memory, etc., of our youth, studies, religion, literature, etc. This, too, however, varies with the circumstances of individuals.) Everywhere man seeks out his fellow, because he does not seek and never has any other objective but himself. And the system of beauty, like every system of life, revolves around the pivot, and is set in motion by the mainspring of egoism, and hence of similarity and relationship with himself, that is to say, with he who must enjoy beauty of whatever kind. (5 Oct. 1821.)

  For p. 1840, beginning. So we actually find, contrary to what at first sight might seem to be the case, that the nations with the most imagination, in short, the southern peoples, from the earliest [1849] traces we have of human history up until our own day, have always been preeminent in philosophy, and especially in the great discoveries that belong to them. Greece, Egypt, India, then Arabs, then Italians during the Renaissance. Was the profound philosophy of Solomon and the son of Sirach1 not southern? Was the orient not preeminent throughout antiquity as regards thought, profundity, the most metaphysical speculations, ethics, etc.? Was Confucius not southern? Where did the philosophy of the Romans come from? From Greece. Who out of all the Latin writers was the most profound? The Spaniards Seneca, Lucan, and I would also venture to say Quintilian, etc. And in theology? The Africans Tertullian, St. Augustine, etc. In theology and philosophy combined? Arnobius the African and also Lactantius (I believe).2 Among the Greeks how many subtleties, how many abstractions, how many sects, how many disputes, how many texts of great acuteness in theological matters from the beginning of the Church to the last centuries of [1850] Greece? One could say that Christian theology is wholly Greek. And that very profound work which is Christianity, where did it come from? From Palestine. Show me ancient philosophy in any northern or Antarctic part of Asia, of Africa, of Europe! As for the first two of these, again show me, if you can, some modern philosophy, and I’ll show you that a good deal of it comes from their southern regions. What I say of philosophy is also true of theology (inseparable from metaphysics), to whatever creed it belongs.

  Among the moderns, the Germans, who are certainly most skilled in abstract matters, seem to be an exception to my system. They are the whole foundation of the opposite system, since the English by their temperament have more to do with the south, as I have said elsewhere [→Z 1043‒44]. But these Germans—in whom imagination and feeling (speaking in general) is all the more false, forced, unnatural, and weak in itself, the more intense and extreme it appears to be1 (for this extreme character plainly derives from a cause in them [1851] contrary to that involved in the case of the Orientals, whose climate is the exact opposite of theirs); these Germans whose mind, as Staël says (De l’Allemagne, tome 1, first part, ch. 9, 3rd ed., p. 79)1 “est presque nul à la superficie, a besoin d’approfondir pour comprendre, ne saisit rien au vol” [“is almost null on the surface, needs to go deeper in order to understand, grasps nothing at first glance”]; these Germans who always require analysis, discussion, exactitude; these Germans who have applied themselves so generally and deeply to abstract meditations for some two centuries, and almost exclusively to them—have certainly developed no small number of truths discovered by others, have brought clarity to many obscure matters, and have discovered not a few and not insignificant secondary truths. They have, in short, greatly assisted the progress of metaphysics and the exact sciences, material or otherwise. But what great discovery, especially in metaphysics, has so far issued from the many German schools, etc. etc.? When has a German ever cast an all-powerful eye over the great system of things that revealed to him a great and truly [1852] fruitful secret of nature, or a great and universal error? (For the discovery of truths is normally simply the recognition of errors.)1 The eye cast by Germans into abstract matters is itself never entirely sure, although it is very free (and it can never be free without a great capacity to imagine, to feel, and without a natural mastery of nature, which only great souls have). Minute, refined analysis is not the same as seeing at a glance2 and never discovers a major point of nature, the center of a great system, the key, the mainspring, the entire workings of a great machine. So it is that the Germans are excellent at shedding the greatest possible light, extending, polishing, perfecting, applying, etc., already discovered truths (and this is a large part of the philosopher’s task), but few of them are capable of finding new and great truths on their own account. They also very often make mistakes, despite their very subtle reasoning, as is the case with someone who analyzes without inward feeling, or therefore perfect understanding, for a very large part of nature, [1853] I would even say the main part, cannot be known without being felt, indeed to know it is none other than to feel it. Aside from the fact that someone who cannot take things in at a glance is unable to see many, or the major relationships, and someone who does not see many and major relationships necessarily very often makes mistakes, even if he is as exact as he possibly can be. The Germans’ imagination (generally speaking), because it is not very natural, not very much their own, and in a way is artificial and fabricated, and hence false though very lively, does not have that spontaneous correspondence and harmony with nature which is characteristic of imaginations derived and fashioned from nature itself. (The same is true of feeling.) Consequently, it warps their vision and causes them to dream. And when a German sets out to speculate and to pronounce, to build a great system by himself, make a major innovation in philosophy, or in some special part of it, I venture to say he will usually go wild. Exactness is good for parts, not the whole. It constitutes the spirit [1854] of the Germans, but it is either not appropriate, or not enough for great discoveries. When you set out to compose a great whole out of the most minutely but separately considered parts, you run into a thousand difficulties, contradictions, obstacles, absurdities, dissonances, and disharmonies, a sure sign and necessary consequence of the lack of the ability to take things in at a glance that discovers the things contained in a vast field, and their reciprocal relationships. It is the most routine circumstance even in material objects and in the countless accidents of life to discover that what is proven or appears to be true and demonstrated in its smallest parts, is not proven as regards the whole. And very often one composes a very false system out of parts that are very true, or are shown with the most intricate reasoning to be such when they are considered separately. This effect derives from the ignorance of relationships, a crucial part of philosophy. But these cannot be well known withou
t a mastery of nature, a mastery that nature itself gives you by raising you above yourself, without the power of an eye that sees at a glance. All [1855] these are things that can only exist and derive from imagination and what is called genius in the fullest sense of the term.1 The Germans always fawn at the feet of the truth, only rarely do they grasp it with a firm hand. They follow it tirelessly through all the mazes of this labyrinth of nature, while a man on fire with enthusiasm, feeling, fantasy, genius, and even great illusions, placed on a high eminence, discerns at a glance the whole labyrinth, and the truth, which, though fleeting, cannot be hidden from him. After he has communicated his knowledge and new findings to philosophers like the Germans, the latter help him greatly to describe and perfect the design of the labyrinth by considering it carefully inch by inch. How many great truths present themselves to us in the guise of illusions, and by virtue of great illusions, and man only receives them by their grace, as he would a great illusion! How many great illusions conceived in a moment [1856] either of enthusiasm or of despair or indeed of exaltation, are, in fact, the most real and sublime truths, or their forerunner, and they reveal to man as if by a sudden lightning flash, the most hidden mysteries, the gloomiest abysses of nature, the most distant relationships or secrets, the most unexpected and remote causes, the most sublime abstractions. In pursuit of these things, the exact, patient, geometric philosopher will strive in vain his whole life long by dint of analysis and of synthesis. Who does not know what sort of lofty truths may be discovered and brought to light by the true lyric poet, that is to say, the man who burns with maddening fires, the man whose soul is in complete disorder, the man thrown into a state of vigor that is feverish and extraordinary (a state that is chiefly, indeed, almost indispensably corporeal), and as if intoxicated? Pindar may serve as an example, as also may some German and English lyric poets when truly yielding, as they rarely do, to intense imagination or feeling. See p. 1961, last paragraph.

  I have said that no genuinely resounding discovery of an abstract kind, and in [1857] any immaterial doctrine, ever issued from the German schools, etc. What do the great discoveries of Leibniz, perhaps Germany’s greatest metaphysician, and certainly a very profound speculative thinker respecting nature, a great mathematician, etc., amount to in this regard? Monads, optimism, preestablished harmony, innate ideas. Fables and daydreams. What do those of Kant, the leader of a school, etc. etc.? I believe that no one knows, not even his disciples. Through their profound speculations regarding the general theory of the arts, the Germans have recently given us the romance of Romanticism, a system utterly false in theory, in practice, in nature, in reason, in metaphysics, in dialectics, as shown in several of these thoughts.1 But Descartes, Galileo, Newton, Locke, etc., have truly changed the face of philosophy. (It is doubtless true that now, and after literature has become general in the German nation, and has assumed its own form and nature, these great, resounding, and general changes are by degrees starting to become more difficult to effect, thanks to the nature of the times, of customs, and of progress of the mind, thanks to the suppression of the Schools, or scholastic factions, which now exist only [1858] in Germany, where such changes do perhaps still occur.) Machiavelli was the founder of a profound, modern politics. In short, the spirit of invention is so characteristic of the south as regards both the abstract, etc., and the beautiful and the imaginary.

  The system known by the name of Copernicus could be regarded as a great discovery and innovation, even as regards metaphysics. Yet it is well known that this German,1 with his profound and lengthy meditations, simply cultivated and placed on a sound footing, etc., a truth already known or imagined by the Pythagoreans, Aristarchus of Samos, by the Cardinal of Cusa,2 etc. That’s what the Germans know how to do.

  From all this you may deduce (1) the impotence—and the contradiction it involves, and introduces into man, and into the order of human things—of reason, which, in order to have great effects and make decisive advances, has need of those same natural dispositions that it destroys or has destroyed, namely, imagination and feeling. Faculties that, generally and naturally speaking, are incompatible with it, especially when it and they are taken to their [1859] highest level. See how natural the great advances made by reason are, how far nature has favored them in fashioning man, how easy and natural the attainment of supposed human perfection is. Conversely, imagination and feeling have no need of reason. And although reason and imagination and feeling are natural, nevertheless the two latter qualities are deemed to be more characteristic of nature, more general, more perfect models of it, harmonizing better with it, more peculiarly characteristic of natural man and nations and epochs, children, etc. So you can see the great superiority of nature over reason, and over everything that man procures for himself, fashions for himself, perfects by his own efforts and over time.

  (2) A further proof as to how the same effects arise from opposite causes. The fervor of imagination, and its coldness or lack, produce subtlety in the mind. The Germans are subtle, the Greeks, the Arabs, the Orientals are very subtle, indeed sophistical. See p. 1831 [1860] and apply it to this passage, and observe how both in that situation and in our own whatever stems from an abundance of life always triumphs over what is born of paucity. (5‒6 Oct. 1821.)

  I have said [→Z 1548‒51] that the imagination may be born again or endure even in the old and disillusioned. I would add that since the imagination and the pleasure that derives from it consist in large part of memories, the very fact of having lost the habit of continuously imagining serves to enhance the pleasure of memories. For if they were present and habitual, they (1) would not be memories, or would be not so much so, (2) would not be so delightful, because the present never deceives us, but distance does, and the more so the more distant it is. Thus, there is no doubting the fact that images of the life of the ancients prove more delightful to us for whom they are very distant memories, than they did to the ancients themselves, for whom they were either present facts or not very distant memories. Besides, the more distant and less habitual a memory is, the more it elevates, stirs, sweetly saddens, delights [1861] the soul, and leaves a more vivid, energetic, profound, perceptible, and fruitful impression, because, being more distant, it is more subject to illusion, while because it is not habitual, either individually or of its kind, it will be exempt from the influence of habituation that weakens every sensation. What I say about the imaginative faculty can be applied to sensibility. What is certain, however, is that should such distant memories, as sweet as they are separated from our present life and of a kind contrasting with our habitual sensations, inspire poetry, etc., they can only inspire melancholic poetry, as is natural, having to do with what is lost. By contrast, for the ancients such images could have far less of an effect, because they were habitual, but always specific, present, continually renewed. They were never regarded as things lost or acknowledged as vain, and so their poetry was bound to be glad, as befits a poetry that turned upon blessings and comforts that they still [1862] possessed, without fear.1 (7 Oct. 1821.)

  I have said elsewhere [→Z 1350, 1609] that the Greeks were the most philosophical and profound of the ancients, because their language lent itself wondrously well (as it still does, perhaps better than any other) to philosophy and to precision, as to every other thing and quality. One should note that their language did not get this virtue from philosophy, and it ought not to be attributed to the philosophy of the Greeks, since it was philosophy that got everything from the virtue of the language. For the Greek language was formed and made all-powerful long before the Greeks had philosophy, and before the analysis of languages had been undertaken, and grammar created, in which matters the Greeks then showed great subtlety, especially as regards their own language. But the Greek language was much as we see and admire it, long before grammar, invented, one might say, by the Greeks themselves,2 in an era in which their language had either already lost, or was in the course of losing (perhaps also by virtue of recovered or observed rules
) its native [1863] color, etc. Indeed, the Greek language, after it was analyzed and reduced to rules, after the divisions, disputes, and scruples of the grammarians, perhaps became less suited to philosophy, as to everything else, because it became less free and less capable of novelty (in accordance with the opinion and desire of the pedants). As much and neither more nor less may be said of the Italian language. Liberty is the first precondition of a language, whether philosophical or otherwise. The French have it so far as words are concerned. But once a language is reduced to art, it invariably loses its liberty and fecundity. Then it varies as much as the forms it receives, depending upon whether reason or nature, etc., presided over its formation. Originally, the character of all languages was more or less the same, at any rate within a particular category of climates and national characters. (7 Oct. 1821.)

  One can say that the effect of philosophy is not to destroy illusions (for nature is invincible) but to transform them from general into individual ones. Which is tantamount to saying that each person fashions illusions for himself, that is, he believes [1864] that those particular hopes, etc., may be vain in general but always hopes on his own account, or in his own particular circumstances, that he may prove to be an exception. Illusions thus are not less general, common, and equal in everyone, but each person restricts them to his own self only. The system of believing human affairs to be beautiful and good is replaced by that of believing one’s own, and those which in any way pertain to them, to be such (as when you believe that the people around you are good, etc. etc.). The outcome is more or less the same. Hoping or believing a thing to be ordinary is tantamount to hoping or believing the same thing to be extraordinary, and an exception to the rule. This is inevitably the case with all the best-educated young people.

  It is true that the destruction of general illusions always affects individual illusions. The latter can never be wholly extirpated, for otherwise man would no longer exist. Nonetheless, they do grow weaker, fall idle, etc., when they are not based on a positive general conviction, one of principle, which contradicts and also resists facts and experience. Once this conviction is removed, an adult will soon surrender a good part of [1865] his individual illusions to experience, along with all the power and constancy of the remainder, which are indeed no longer an opinion, but a kind of desperate hope. This effect gradually becomes general, and henceforth philosophy finds itself in the happy circumstance of having destroyed as much as it can of actual individual illusions, and of having reduced and restricted human life to the minimum terms possible, outside of which life and mankind can absolutely not endure because it is deprived of its atmosphere and its vital element. Life without self-love cannot exist in any species of being, and likewise in none can there be self-love without at least a minimal degree of illusion. Therefore, life and the absolute lack of illusion, and hence of hope, are mutually contradictory things. (7 Oct. 1821.) See p. 1866.