Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  Man is not perfectible but corruptible, he is not more perfectible but is more corruptible than other animals. It’s ridiculous but nonetheless natural that our capacity for corruption and degeneracy and depravity was [2564] taken and is taken enthusiastically by the greatest and most subtle and perspicacious and astute minds and philosophers for perfectibility.1 (10 July 1822.)

  For the most part we recognize people we know by voice alone, even without seeing them, no matter how many acquaintances we have, or how slight the difference in this or that voice from another, or how little we have associated with that person, if we’ve met them even a single time. Not so with the voices of animals, among which, even if we think about it deliberately, we cannot recognize the difference between many individuals of a single species, or if we recognize it, it doesn’t stay in our mind. We also have trouble recognizing voices, e.g., in a country with a foreign language, or dialect, or pronunciation, etc., and we often confuse them, at least in the beginning. I have observed it in myself. Effects of habituation, of partial and minute, etc., attention, to be referred to those thoughts where I’ve mentioned other, similar examples [→Z 1195–96, 1399–400, 1718]. (11 July 1822.)

  [2565] We have oscuro, and scuro, from obscurus [dark, obscure]. Obscurus is certainly a compound, as the preposition ob shows. If this is removed scurus remains. There is no doubt that this word once existed, since the simple word has to exist before the compound. See Forcellini Obscurus, beginning. But this word, unknown to the Romans, is preserved in Italian. And the Italian word is proof that it existed, as, conversely, what I’ve said proves that our word is ancient, and comes to us with Vulgar Latin. Observe, if you thought that scuro was made from oscuro by colloquial apocope, that the apocope of the initial o, it seems to me, is not at all habitual among our people. (12 July 1822.)

  I think I’ve noted, in Florus, the quoque [also] put in front of the word it modifies. See it used similarly in the Vulgate, Genesis 12:8, comparing this line with the one preceding. (12 July 1822.)

  [2566] Is it possible that in death there is something living? Indeed that it is a kind of living thing by its nature? How then can we believe that death brings, and is itself, and cannot but bring, a very living pain? When not only all the vital feelings, which alone are capable of pain or pleasure, are numbed as if in sleep or asphyxia, etc. (in which cases pricks, cauterizing, etc., either don’t cause pain or cause less than usual, depending on the numbness, the heaviness, e.g., of sleep, which can be more or less, and is most extreme in the person who is drunk), but in fact the least vital, the least susceptible and vivid imaginable, since that is the point where they are extinguished forever and stop being feelings. Does the point in which the capacity for feeling pain is extinguished entirely have to be a point of extreme pain? Indeed, it cannot even be a point of any kind of pain, since it is impossible to conceive [2567] of the idea of pain other than as a living thing, and the living is inseparable from pain, inasmuch as the latter is an irritant, an aigrissement [sharpening] of the senses being felt, something they are not capable of at the point at which instead of being felt they lose feeling forever. Thus we have to believe that the physical pleasure that I maintain exists in death is not a vivid pleasure but very languid. And pleasure, unlike pain, works languidly on the senses, in fact note that physical pleasure for the most part consists in some sort of languor, and the languor of the senses is itself a pleasure. Therefore feelings are capable of it even as they are dissolving, and for the very reason that they are dissolving. (16 July 1822.)

  A delicate machine (that is, more carefully and perfectly organized) breaks more easily than a crude one. But that doesn’t [2568] mean that it is not more perfect than the latter, and doesn’t work better than the crude one if it’s working as it should, assuming that they are both of a single type, such as two clocks. Thus man is much more delicate than all the other animals, both in his external construction and in his intellectual fibers. And so he is undoubtedly the most perfect in the scale of animals. But that does not prove that he is more perfectible. Rather, he is more breakable, precisely because he is more delicate. And on the other hand being more easily breakable doesn’t mean that he is not truly the most perfect of earthly creatures, as everything demonstrates. (18 July 1822.)

  Everything is art, and art creates everything among men. Gallantry, civil commerce, management of one’s own business or that of others, public careers, political administration at home and abroad, literature: in all these [2569] things, and others if there are any, those who use more art are more successful. In literature (omitting what has to do with literary politics, and how to behave in the literary world) he who writes his thoughts more artfully is always the one who triumphs, and sooner reaches immortality, even if his thoughts are of little value, and even if those of someone else, who doesn’t write artfully enough, are important and original. The latter will never succeed in making a name for himself, or be read with pleasure, nor will his thoughts be valued, or taken into consideration and studied. Nature certainly has its role, and its great power, but it seems to me that, after the great arguments that have been made about it, what the role and power of nature is in all these things, with respect to that of art, can be determined in this way, and explained [2570] in these terms. Assuming in two persons an equal degree of art, the one who is superior by nature certainly succeeds better than the other in his undertakings. Give me two persons who can write equally well. The one who has more genius surely will triumph in the judgment of posterity and truth. Give me two suitors equally good at their business. The one who is handsomer (other circumstances being equal, such as wealth, fortune of every sort, comfort, and particular opportunities) surely outdoes the other. But suppose a very handsome man who lacks the art of dealing with women, and a great genius who lacks education or practice in writing, and on the other hand a very ugly man well trained and practiced in seduction, and a very cold man well educated and practiced in the manner of expressing his thoughts—the latter two will enjoy women and glory, and the former will undoubtedly stand there watching. From which it can be deduced that in the final [2571] analysis the power of art in human affairs is much greater than is that of nature. Lucan was perhaps a greater genius than Virgil, but it does not mean that he was a greater poet, and more successful in his undertaking; rather, no one considers him even comparable to Virgil.

  These considerations should in my view determine the role that nature has in what is called talent, that is, what is natural and innate in the intellectual faculties of any individual. Although talent is considered to be something completely natural, it is not at all like that, as I have shown elsewhere [→Z 2017, 2151–52, 2484–85]. But it’s not true, either, that it’s entirely the result of circumstances and acquired habits, as is demonstrated by the preceding examples and comparisons. But it is certain that, of two talents equal by nature, where the one [2572] is cultivated and the other not, the former is called talent and the latter isn’t even called that, let alone considered the peer of the former. From which again it can be inferred that the greater part of human talent, and of intellectual faculties, is the work of habituations, and not of nature, is acquired and not innate. Although it could not be acquired to that degree if one did not originally possess that other lesser part, in other words, the natural disposition, and capacity to be habituated, to be receptive, to adapt. (19 July 1822.)

  To say that the Latin language is the daughter of Greek, because many Greek words and expressions have been introduced into it, partly by literature, partly by the trade and proximity with Greek-Italian colonies, partly by the ancient trade it had with the Greeks, who were always a merchant nation, partly as derivatives from the same common origin of both languages, is precisely the same as observing that our present [2573] Italian language is full of Gallicisms, and modeled on the French, and concluding that the Italian language is the daughter of French. Indeed, there is more French in today’s Italian language (which is like a translation, and an aping of
French) than there is Greek in the Latin language, especially ancient. Besides, the comparison is very much to the point, because in fact the Italian and French languages are sisters, like Greek and Latin.1 (20 July 1822.)

  Homer is the father and the eternal prince of all the poets in the world. These two qualities of father and prince are not combined in any other man with respect to any other human art or science. Further, no one recognized as the prince in any other art or science, can with this assurance, resulting from the experience of many centuries, be called eternal [2574] prince. Such is the nature of poetry that it is greatest in the beginning.1 I mean greatest and nearly incomparable purely as poetry, and as true poetry, not as style, etc. etc. An example repeated in Dante, who as a poet did not have and never will have equals among the Italians. (21 July 1822.)

  There is no virtue in a people without love of country, as I’ve demonstrated elsewhere [→Z 892–93]. They want Religion to be enough. Barbarian times, the dark ages, were religious to the point of superstition, and where was virtue? If by religion is meant the practice of it, that is as much as saying that there is no virtue without virtue. Those who are religious in practice are virtuous. If they mean the theory, and the hope and fear of things beyond, the experience of all times shows that this is not enough to make a people currently and practically virtuous. Man, and especially [2575] the multitude, is not physically capable of a continuous state of reflection. Now, what is remote, what is not seen, what must come after death, which each of us naturally imagines is very far away, cannot strongly, continuously, and effectively influence actions and life, except those of someone who reflects all the time. As soon as man enters the wide world, indeed as soon as he comes out of his inner self (which most men never enter, and that by their own nature), the things that influence him are the present, the palpable, or those things the images of which are roused and stirred up by things that are in some way palpable, not things that, besides being distant, belong to a state of nature different from our present one, that is, to our state after death. And hence, since we live necessarily among [2576] the material, and in this present nature, we can hardly consider them as existing, since they have nothing to do with the things whose existence we experience and deal with and feel, etc. The conclusion is that if a reason for virtue, present or nearby and palpable, and set before us all the time, is taken away (and that reason, as I’ve demonstrated, has to be love of country), virtue, too, is taken away. The distant, impalpable reason, which above all is entirely extrinsic to the nature of present life and to the things in which virtue should be practiced, this reason, I repeat, will never be sufficient for the present and practical virtue of man, and much less of the multitude, except perhaps in the early years, when the fervor of a new opinion persists, as in the first century of Christianity (already corrupted in the second. [2577] See the Fathers of the Church).1 (21 July 1822.)

  For p. 2558. The Spanish, too, have the component particle des, corresponding to our dis, and they use it very frequently. These words often mean a cessation, like desamparar [to abandon, forsake], disguardare [to stop looking at], dismettere (which means ceasing from an action, etc., whereas intermettere means leaving it for a little while), etc. etc. These particles could come from the Latin de corrupted to des or dis, as from dedignari, disdegnare, desdeñar [to disdain], etc., and the above-mentioned dismettere may come from dimittere [to send forth, break up, send away, give up], which in many meanings has the force not of the particle di but of de, perhaps changed to di by being made into a compound or by corruption. See Forcellini under Dimitto. In any case our compounds formed with the particle dis, and the Spanish with des, etc., can demonstrate the ancient existence of many such compounds in Vulgar Latin not known in written Latin, [2578] or that in the vernacular the particle was pronounced de, or dis, as we have also seen, or both ways, or however. (23 July 1822.)

  The Latin language had a model of another standardized, orderly, and established language on which to base itself. That was Greek, which did not have one. All human things become perfected by degrees. The Latin language was more perfected than Greek, and likewise was less free, because, unlike the Greek language, it had a model. (Neither more nor less is true of Greek and Latin literature respectively, the latter more perfected, the former more original and independent and varied.) The early Greek writers, including the best, and classical, like Herodotus, Xenophon, etc., were the first to apply dialectics and logical order to the written discourse. They had [2579] no example of it before their eyes. Hence, as is natural to anyone who is starting out, their aberrations from dialectics and logical order are innumerable. These aberrations—passing into use in writing and established, sanctioned by authority and by the very error of those writers, submitted to rule or becoming the rule themselves—were called, and are called, and are elegant and proper features of the Greek language. So it happened with the Italian language. The reason is that it was much written, and by many, in the 14th century, a century of ignorance, and that it was then also applied to literature in such a way as to cause that century to be considered classical, authority to be given to those writers, individually and all together, and posterity to be made to follow them. The Greeks either did not have any other cultivated language to observe, or, if there was one, it was very remote from them, such as perhaps Sanskrit, Egyptian, etc., and barely or not at all known, even to the most learned of them. The Italians had some, that is [2580] Latin and Greek. Yet that ignorant century knew no Greek and very little Latin, especially good, standard Latin. (Maybe, too, many, though they knew Latin passably, and perhaps even wrote it with passable correctness, were very irregular in Italian, because they were incapable of applying those rules to this language, which they spoke all the time in an irregular fashion, or to understand or discover the relationships of the parts, etc.) Those few who knew a little Latin wrote in a more orderly way, principally the monks, Passavanti, Fra Bartolomeo,1 Cavalca, etc., Dante, and, especially, Petrarch and Boccaccio, who knew good and true Latin better than the rest, and deviated from the dialectical order of the discourse less than the rest. It was they, mainly, who in posterity gave authority to their contemporaries, the majority of whom were ignorant, not only in fact, but by profession lay and uneducated, and who did not claim to write except out of necessity, like our stewards. Who were filled with errors and grammatical confusions of every sort.

  All languages when they start being written have such aberrations, and all later preserve them more or less, and call them properties of the language, although [2581] in origin and substance they are errors of the early writers and men of letters, perpetuated in the practice of the nation’s writing. Of the ancient languages, the Latin language had and preserved them least, for the reason noted, among others. Of all languages, ancient and modern, the French language preserves them least. For the sole reason that it repudiated and deviated from and utterly deprived of value the authority of its ancient writers, who abounded in such aberrations either as much as others or even more. I’m talking about the truly old, that is of the 16th century and not of the 17th century, when French wit, society, and conversation were already at a high level of perfection.

  The wealth, the number and extension, range, etc., of the faculties of a language is generally in proportion to the number of writers who cultivated it before the exact rules, the grammar, and the formation of the Dictionary. The French language, which repudiated the authority of all the writers preceding its grammar and its Dictionary (who were also few, and worthless, and so could be discarded) is the poorest, and its faculties are more limited than those of any other language in the world. See p. 2592. (25 July, Feast of St. James, 1822.)

  [2582] The pleasure that we feel in Satire, in satiric comedy, in raillerie [banter], in gossip, etc., in either speaking it or hearing it, comes purely from the feeling or the conviction of superiority to others which is roused in us by those things, that is, in short, by our innate hatred of others, a consequence of self-love that causes us to
take pleasure in the humiliation and debasement even of those who are in no way opposed or can be opposed to our self-love, our interests, etc., who have never harmed us, displeased us, brought us discomfort—and even of the human species itself, the humiliation of which, as it is mocked in comedies or satires, etc., in the abstract, and without specificity of real individuals, itself flatters our innate misanthropy. And I say innate because self-love, which is innate, cannot exist without [2583] it. (25 July, Feast of St. James the Greater, 1822.)

  Nowadays he who is born great is born unhappy.1 Not so in ancient times, when the world was full of nourishment (that is, spectacle and entertainment) and exercise and goals, and rewards for great souls. Indeed, in those times it was lucky to be born great, as today to be born noble and rich. For as in a monarchy those who are born of a great and wealthy family receive high offices, honors, positions from the hand of the midwife (to use an expression of Fronto, Ad verum, bk. 2, letter 4, p. 121),2 so it was in ancient times for great and noble and valiant minds. Who in the circumstances, the activity, and the immense life of those times could not fail to develop, be cultivated and formed, and once developed, formed, and cultivated, could not fail to dominate and stand out, as today they can be sure of the complete opposite. [2584] I won’t mention the fact that the greater the mind, the more inclined they were to enjoy life, which in those times was not lacking, and they were capable of a much greater life, and hence of much greater enjoyment. And so being born a great man was still deemed true good fortune and a privilege of nature, something to be considered an effective and very feasible means of happiness: the opposite of what occurs today. (26 July, Feast of St. Anne, 1822.)