For p. 3109, margin. The egoist flatters his own self-love, among other things by persuading himself that he is not in fact egoistic and is capable of loving others than himself, and by believing that he has furnished himself with proof of this fact. Hence for refined minds, compassion for one’s enemies is sweeter still than for one’s own friends or those to whom one is indifferent. In the first place, this is because man is able to persuade himself so much more easily and convincingly that the sentiment he experiences under such circumstances is purified and free from all mixed motives or influence of egoism, and the second reason is that the greater the idea [3168] he forms of the grandeur, generosity, and nobility of his mind, the greater he himself then becomes in his own eyes (when he considers the compassion he extends to his enemies), and I have spoken of this effect of compassion on p. 3119. Thus the art of Homer’s poetry truly is consummate, its intention and purpose exquisite, its effect supremely beautiful, as he directs the compassion with which he animates the poem, and which he intends to be one of the chief effects of his poem, chiefly upon the enemy.
Compassion is almost an abnegation by man of himself, a sacrifice by man of his own egoism. Now this is done out of egoism, no less than is the sacrifice of material goods, pleasure, life itself, which man makes on occasion moved by none other than self-love, that is, by the pleasure he experiences in accomplishing such an act. Hence egoism extends even to the point of sacrificing itself to itself. Such is the love that it brings to itself, that it even voluntarily makes itself a victim to itself. So flexible and varied is it, and capable of so many [3169] and such strange and different disguises, that through its self-love it ceases to be egoism. Thus, when you see it sacrifice itself, it constitutes the most sophisticated form of egoism you can possibly imagine, the most effective, powerful, and imperious, the most intimate and the greatest, for it is greatest in those minds which are most lively, delicate, and sensitive (as I have said elsewhere on several occasions [→Z 1382, 2410–11, 2736–39, 2752–55]), as he who is able truly to sacrifice himself out of his own will and choice must necessarily be, to the utmost degree. (12 August, Feast of St. Clare, 1823.)
For p. 2776. See Weller, Grammar, Leipzig 1756, p. 50, ll. 7–8, p. 58, end. (12 August, Feast of St. Clare, 1823.)
“Et Davus non recte scribitur. Davos scribendum: quod nulla litera vocalis geminata unam syllabam facit” (twinned, e.g., two as or, as in this case, two us) “Sed quia ambiguitas vitanda est nominativi singularis et accusativi pluralis, necessario pro hac regula digamma [3170] utimur, et scribimus Daϝus, serϝus, corϝus” [“And Davus is not the correct spelling. It should be written Davos: because no twinned vowel forms a single syllable. But since the ambiguity of the nominative singular and the accusative plural needs to be avoided, for this rule we necessarily use the digamma, and write Daϝus, serϝus, corϝus”] Donatus, on Terence, Andria 1, 2, 2.1 (12 August, Feast of St. Clare, 1823.)
Così [so, thus], when it is redundant, or when it has a specific meaning that may only be expressed by means of a gesture, is believed to be proper to the Italian language, an idiom of our own colloquial speech (albeit much used also by more elegant writers). But such usage is Latin and Greek. See Forcellini under Sic, §§ 6, 9 and 10; Catullus 14, 16, and Plato, The Banquet, ed. Ast, Leipzig, 1819ff., tome 3, p. 440, l. 24e.2 The Spanish also have something similar. (12 August, Feast of St. Clare, 1823.) See also Cicero, Ad Atticum 14, 1, and Forcellini, under Abeo, § 16.
Profittare, approfittare, profiter, aprovechar, etc., very much like profectare, from profectus, participle of proficio [to profit]. Pretextar [to use as a pretext] in Spanish, prétexter in French, from praetexto-xtus. (12 August, Feast of St. Clare, 1823.)
In colloquial Italian we speak of a man who is indigesto [indigestible] to mean that he is difficult, peevish. This is precisely the meaning of δύσκολος, by metaphor morosus, and the opposite of εὔκολος [affable, sociable]. See also the Crusca under discolo. (12 August, Feast of St. Clare, 1823.)
[3171] No one thing shows the greatness and power of the human intellect or the loftiness and nobility of man more than his ability to know and to understand fully and feel strongly his own smallness. When, in considering the multiplicity of worlds, he feels himself to be an infinitesimal part of a globe which itself is a negligible part of one of the infinite number of systems that go to make up the world, and in considering this is astonished by his own smallness, and in feeling it deeply and regarding it intently, virtually blends into nothing, and it is as if he loses himself in the immensity of things, and finds himself as though lost in the incomprehensible vastness of existence, with this single act and thought he gives the greatest possible proof of the nobility and immense capability of his own mind, which, enclosed in such a small and negligible being, has nonetheless managed to know and understand things so superior to his own nature, and to embrace and contain [3172] this same intensity of existence and things in his thought. Certainly no other thinking being on this earth ever managed to conceive or imagine it was but a small thing, either in itself or compared to others, even if with respect to its body it is but a billionth part of man, to say nothing of its mind. And in truth, the greater a being is, which man is above all other earthly beings, the more capable it is too of the knowledge and sense of its own smallness. Hence such knowledge and sense, even among men, is greater, and more lively, more common and continuous, fuller, the greater, higher, and more capable are the intellects and minds of the individuals concerned.1 (12 August, Feast of St. Clare, 1823.)
The notion of habeo and ἔχω [to have] instead of to be, also covers the verbal forms habitus and σχῆμα, ἕξις [form, way of a thing], etc. E.g., habitus corporis, that is, modus habendi or se habendi, modus quo corpore habet, [3173] or se habet, mean precisely modo di essere del corpo [mode of being of the body].1 (12 August, Feast of St. Clare, 1823.)
For p. 3132, margin, beginning. On the page referred to above, Fabricius quotes from a letter by Antonios Eparchos to Philip Melanchthon. (The latter, who was not a Catholic but a famous heretic, could not have cared very much about holy places.) This letter and the other writings and histories of the period make clear that the Ottoman cabinet was not seeking to make Europe its subject for religious reasons—that is, in order to spread the faith of Mohammed—so much as to expand its own empire. (Though if I am not mistaken, it is also a precept and counsel of the Koran that this faith should be spread by violent means as much as possible, with the promise of reward in the next life for whoever goes to their death in fighting for the cause, etc.) The Ottomans, it would seem, did not hate the other princes and kingdoms on the grounds of their being Christian so much as desire them for the object of their conquest. Or at least, it would appear that the other European cabinets all regarded the Ottoman power with greater suspicion than they regarded each other, fearing not for the Christian religion but [3174] themselves. Ottoman power unfailingly conserved its reputation as conqueror in the eyes of other nations at that time, and the Ottoman cabinet retained the intentions and designs of a conqueror. Indeed, the memory and terror were still fresh in the mind of when the Tartar nation had taken Constantinople no more than a century previously. After so many exploits and conquests and so much progress for so long throughout Asia, in taking Constantinople, the most ancient seat of the Greek empire, and destroying the last vestige of Roman power, the Turks finally managed to plant a barbarian throne in Europe, and what is more, in a Europe then resurgent in terms of civilization. They planted an Asian language and people in this continent (a feat unheard of no matter how far back in time the recollection of history is extended), as well as a religion other than Christianity (which itself was a feat unheard of in Europe from pagan times onward, save for the Moors in Spain, for whom an exception must be made, including with respect to the Asian language and people mentioned above). In this, they effectively imposed a yoke of oriental slavery on what was the most cultured nation of all in those times. Proof of this status is to be f
ound in the many Greek exiles, the most learned people of that time, who in fleeing from the tyranny of the Turks, dispersed to all parts of Europe, taking with them Greek codices and literature. This made the study and also the use of the Greek language in schools and among cultured men in Italy, France, and Germany more common in, and more proper to, that century than to any other. The effect was universally to aid the progress of renascent letters. A truly dreadful spectacle, the impression of which could not have been extinguished by the following century, nor could the Turks by this stage [3175] have ceased to be generally feared and detested, in the courts and among the peoples, not merely as conquerors, but more so, as a conqueror that was barbarian and cruel, a threat to civilized nations (almost like the Goths and other Northern people in the dark ages), without even considering the issue of religion. Hence the politicians and writers in that century voting in favor of a universal league against the Turks becomes more serious, and is not merely to be regarded as an effect of ancient opinions and religious remembrances, fanaticism and imagination, but as directly attributable to politics, and deriving from consideration of the real circumstances of Europe in that century. The subject of Tasso’s poem therefore comes to be seen as even more important, and his thought, choice, and intention even more worthy, wise and noble, for in his poem he made religion, opinions, and the popular spirit of his time and other things more suited to poetry (for political speculations cannot be appropriate to this end) serve one of the most important objectives of the time for the preservation of the civilization, liberty, status, and well-being of all Europe: that is concord among European princes, in order both to repel and destroy the [3176] Barbarian who was threatening, or was believed to be threatening, all civilized nations with slavery, the common enemy who was plotting, or was believed to be plotting, the conquest of all Europe following its conquest of a large part of Asia, and to be ensnaring the European kingdoms forever, as the Persians had done to the Greek republics in ancient times. Nor, certainly, will Tasso’s poem, Petrarch’s canzone,1 and the other Italian or foreign poems or prose writings on that subject be deemed to have less weight or importance from that point of view, than did the orations of Isocrates against the Persian, or those of Demosthenes against the Macedonian.2 Indeed, on this issue theirs is much greater than those of the others, for while the latter addressed only the interests of Greece, but a small part of Europe, the former led to the salvation of all Europe and all its nations and tongues. (15 August, Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 1823.) The enmity of the Europeans toward the Mohammedans, and that of the latter toward the former, was not in either case restricted to mere opinions and speeches, but consisted also of facts,a3 as appears from the exploits of the Knights Hospitaller of St. John of Jerusalem [3177] who, in the same century, after 212 years of possession (1310) lost Rhodes (1522) and had first Viterbo from the Pope, and then Malta (1530) from Charles V, and defended it with prodigious valor for four months in 1566 with the death of 15,000 Barbarian soldiers and eight thousand sailors; from the exploits of Charles V against the Mohammedans of Europe and Africa; from those of the Venetians in the same century; from the famous victory at Lepanto by the fleets of the Spanish, the Venetians and the Pope against the Turks, achieved ten years before (1571) the Gerusalemme was published (1581), and certainly while Tasso was composing and meditating upon it, for he had already written or drafted six cantos a good ten years earlier (in 1561). (See Tiraboschi, tome 7, § 3, p. 118.) (16 August 1823.) See p. 4236 and Giacomini’s Oration in praise of Tasso in Prose fiorentine, which concludes with an exhortation to war against the Turks.1
For p. 2834. The type of grace described above is the most graceful and elegant of all types of grace, indeed the one most fitting to be called grace, the one that is ordinarily considered such by artists, the knowledgeable, and theoretical or practical speculators on beauty, and the one that we ordinarily recognize by the name of grace, and to which the undefinable and inconceivable quality [3178] attributed to grace principally belongs. Grace which is born of some flaw (such as that of Marmontel’s Roxelane)1 is coarser, and unworthy of the artist or any imitator of beauty. It is more commonly perceptible (for not everyone, indeed very few, perceive that other form of grace), and again, when it is actually perceived, has more of an effect than the other, also on those who are knowledgeable about beauty, persons of good taste, and delicate, sensitive souls. This is because the contrast in it is more notable and marked, hence it appears to be more out of the ordinary. But it is also precisely for this reason that its effect is coarser, and, so to speak, more material, more bodily, while the other is more spiritual and delicate, and hence more rightly and properly pertaining to grace, the idea of which includes that of delicacy. Grace deriving from a flaw thus has an effect which is comparable to stinging or tickling, like an acrid and pungent or harsh or acid or bitter taste, which in itself is unpleasant but at the same time oddly pleasing, and so many souls who have never been able to perceive the other type of grace, or who are already blasé about beauty as a result of long use and acquaintance, are [3179] moved and attracted by this, so to say, flawed grace, in the way that palates which are coarse or hard by nature, or tired of fine food as a result of long-standing acquaintaince, are delighted and tickled by such flavors. Whereas the other form of grace is a kind of sweet and most delicate fragrance, of jasmine or roses, which has nothing sharp or mordant about it, or again, almost like a breath of fresh air that brings with it an unexpected scent, which disappears as soon as you have had time to smell it, and leaves you with the desire, albeit vain, to smell it again, and at length, and to be filled with it. (16 August, Feast of St. Roch, 1823.)
It is indisputable that civilization has introduced to mankind a thousand different types of diseases, which prior to it were unknown and without it would not have existed; nor has it, so far as I am aware, yet been able to eliminate any of them, or if it has, then so few of them, or ones that are so mild and innocuous, that it would have been infinitely preferable to have kept them, rather than to swap them for the multitude, aggressiveness, and deadliness of others. (Indeed, it is remarkable how few spontaneous diseases there are, and how mild they tend to be, in other animals, the wild ones especially, which have not yet been corrupted by us, and likewise among savages, especially the most [3180] natural of them, such as the Californians;1 and among farmers too there are a lot fewer of them, and those that there are are much rarer and less aggressive than they are among city dwellers.) It is equally indisputable that civilization makes man unfit to face the thousands of toils and troubles that he could and should have to bear in nature, and extremely vulnerable to being damaged by those same toils and troubles which he is obliged to endure nonetheless as a result of general nature or particular circumstances, and which in his natural state he would have endured without detriment, and at least in part without too much difficulty. It is indisputable that civilization weakens the human body, which by nature (like every other thing, in due proportion) requires strength and without it, or with less strength than is due to it by nature, cannot help but be most imperfect; and that civilization makes the subsequent physical delicacy a quality proper to civilized man, when in nature it is neither proper to man nor to any other type of thing, nor indeed should it be (see pp. 3084ff.). It is indisputable that the human race, insofar as the body is concerned, is declining from generation to generation, each generation being worse than the last one, both in its own right and also because, having thus declined, it cannot fail to produce a generation which is worse than itself, etc. etc. From all these things, and a hundred others which I have discussed elsewhere on various occasions [→Z 68–69, 1597–602, 1631–32], it emerges with absolute certainty, and one has tangible proof to such effect, that the forms of progress represented by civilization bring with them and inevitably result in the subsequent deterioration [3181] of the human body, a deterioration which continues to increase in proportion with civilization. When our philosophers and in general all men today (an
d many in ancient times too) speak of the perfecting of man and the human spirit, what they mean is the progress of civilization, and this alone. It is thus proven and incontrovertible that the perfection of man brings with it, not accidentally but as a result of ineluctable necessity, a concomitant and ever proportionate decline in, and we might say, imperfecting of, a small part of man, namely his body. Hence, the further man advances toward perfection, the more his body increases in imperfection, so that when man does eventually become completely perfect, the human body, generally speaking, will be in the worst state it has ever been in and which it is generally possible for it to be in. Given this, if what is understood today as perfecting can be legitimately so called, that is, if the increase in civilization does indeed constitute the perfecting of man, and the perfection of civilization the perfection of man; if such a state of perfection may indeed be reserved to us by nature; [3182] if our nature seeks after and tends toward it; if any form of nature seeks after or can seek after such a kind of perfection; if it is possible in this way for man to be civilizable and, to the degree to which he may be civilizable, for him also to be perfectible, as they say and establish and hold to be incontrovertibly true; let him be the judge who is not yet so perfected, who is not yet so close to the ultimate perfection of man, that he has entirely lost the use of his rational faculties, and no longer retains even so much of natural discourse as is proper still to other living beings. (17 August, Sunday, 1823.)
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