Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  Returning to our initial proposition, which was to show that harmony, the mutual propriety of tones in their successive combinations, is determined by habituation, like any other propriety, it should be noted that this habituation, with respect to melody (and also to harmonies) is not always αὐτόματος [spontaneous] in the people. [3230] It is very often generated and originated in them by musical art itself. For by dint of listening to music and tunes composed by art (which happens to everyone to a greater or lesser degree), even the unknowledgeable, indeed those who are completely ignorant of musical science, habituate their ears to those successions of tones that they would neither know nor judge naturally to be harmonious (whether they are invented out of nothing by men of art, or constructed by them on the basis of popular melodies, and originating from the latter). By virtue of this habituation they gradually reach the point, without being aware of their progress, of finding such successions harmonious, of being able to distinguish melody in them, and hence of experiencing increasing delight, and of forming a more capable, varied, and extensive critical faculty in respect of such melodies. This faculty, more developed in some than in others, then becomes for them the cause of the delight which they experience in listening to music, a judgment and a delight that are determined, dictated, and caused, not in fact by primitive and universal nature, but by accidental habituation which varies according to time, place, and nation. [3231] I can state for my own part that when I first listened to music (which began very late)1 I found many of the most common successive combinations of tones to be wholly improper, incongruous, dissonant, and discordant, that now seem harmonious to me, and in hearing which I now form the judgment and perceive the feeling of melody.2

  The same thing, no more and no less, occurs also in painting, sculpture, and architecture. Without any knowledge of the theory or immediate practice of the arts, simply by dint of looking at pictures, statues, and buildings, very many people form a judgment, and develop an ability to taste and experience pleasure in such sights and in contemplating such objects, which ability they did not have beforehand, and is acquired gradually through habituation, which defines in such people (who constitute the majority of those who speak about the fine arts) the idea of the proprieties in terms of the pictorial, etc., of beauty and hence also ugliness, etc., with the difference that the subject of a picture or sculpture is an imitation of visual objects, and everyone can see whether it is true or false, so that the idea of what constitutes beauty or ugliness in painting or sculpture, insofar as these arts are imitative, is already determined in everyone even before they become habituated. This is not the case in architecture and music, which are less imitative, and which imitate things that are not visible, etc. The same thing may be said also of poetry, and of the taste and judgment that man forms and acquires of it, etc.

  This is how the semiknowledgeable are formed, people who are more or less capable of judging and hence also experiencing pleasure in musical compositions, that is, who to a greater or lesser degree have listened to and reflected on this genre and paid attention to it. These semiknowledgeable constitute the majority of those who talk about music and of that public which expressly gives its opinion regarding the musical compositions that appear; for those who are truly expert in musical science, and connoisseurs of its elements and rules, are very few in number when compared to the general public.

  Now, many of those which are referred to as popular melodies have their foundations in the habits of the half-knowledgeable, or of the people insofar [3232] as they are habituated to listen to music. And of all the successive compositions of notes, some appear to all ears to be melodies, others to those of anyone who is even only a little bit knowledgeable (that is, habituated), others to the most advanced of the semiknowledgeable, others only to the real, fully fledged connoiseurs, others more to the former and less to the latter, or vice versa, et cetera. Hence the judgment and sense of a melody is born always of, and depends on and is determined by, what one is habituated to, or by knowledge of laws, the rationale for which is not to be found in universal nature but in accidental and particular present or past usage, and in other such things, which laws I have described above as arbitrary.

  The foregoing has been adduced in order to explain and distinguish and more or less classify what I mean by the popular in music, by popular melody, and by the habituation of the ear determining the mutual propriety of the notes in their mutual succession and arrangement.

  In any case, the kinds of habituation that I have referred to above as αὐτόματος [spontaneous] in the people (I mean all people), are born of, and have their origins in, a variety of reasons, including nature, independent, however, of any natural [3233] mutual propriety of whatever tones they may be, but only insofar as, e.g., certain passions naturally and universally seek out certain tones and certain passages from one tone to another. Which, having nothing whatsoever to do with the absolute propriety of one tone in relation to another (for here the reason for the propriety is not to be found in the nature of the tones, that is to say, in their natural relationships, but rather in the nature of man himself who, irrespective of propriety, happens to like this sound or that passage on this particular occasion), was the origin of melodies, which were imitative from the outset, as they should always have been and should always be—such, indeed, as to embellish and decorate and alter nature itself, through choice, disposition, appropriate blending and combining, and moreover with the delicacy, grace, mobility, etc., of either natural organs (cultivated and exercised) or artificial ones that have been invented and perfected. No more or no less than poems should do in imitating nature by adorning, embellishing, and altering it, and showing it in a new guise. See in this connection the final note, referred to above [→Z 3229], in Chapter [3234] 27 of the Viaggio d’Anacarsi and what I have said elsewhere [→Z 79–80, 155–59, 1665–66, 1871ff.] about the imitative quality of music, and about that musical propriety which has its reason and origin in imitation alone.

  It should also be noted that if there is indeed nothing in music, in the harmony and melody, which is universally recognized and practiced by all civilized and barbarian peoples, or which has an effect on all, this must be attributable to nature acting in the way referred to above, or in others one might mention, acting prior to habituation and independently of it, but independently also of what is fitting and without any relation to harmony. As well as other reasons for the universal effect of music which are also independent of propriety, some of which I listed above, on pp. 3211–12, others elsewhere [→Z 155–58], others which I could go on to list. (20–21 August 1823.)

  For p. 2999, last line. Crepo is ui itum [to creak] is doubtless like strepo is ui itum [to make a din] from which strepitare comes, exactly as crepitare does from crepo as or is [to creak]. And crepo as presumably retains, or borrows, the perfect and supine forms of crepo is, i.e., crepui, itum, just as accubo [to lie beside], etc., does those of accumbo [to lie beside], etc., i.e., accubui itum. Profligo [3235] as [to strike to the ground] comes from fligo is [to knock against something], whence also affligo is [to knock against something], confligo is [to huddle], etc., which have the continuative forms afflicto, conflicto, etc., formed regularly from the participles. See Forcellini under Profligo and proflictus. (22 Aug. 1823.) See p. 3246, p. 3341, and p. 3987.

  Saluto as [to greet] derives from salus [health]. But I have a strong suspicion that it is a continuative form of salveo–salvitus [to be in good health] (ancient), which became salutus, i.e., it comes from salvo [to heal someone], the participle salvatus having also changed to salutus. (See Forcellini under saluto, end, and under Salvo.) For very often Latin, and ancient Latin in particular, swapped u for v, changing the latter into the former, and vice versa. Hence lavo [to wash] in compounds becomes luo: and ablūtus [taken away by washing] is used rather than ablavatus. The same goes for lautus instead of lavatus, and fautum [have been favored] rather than favitum. I also point out the continuative form lavito in this connec
tion. Forcellini Cerebrum, end. And commentor [to consider thoroughly] and commento, *“from the participle commentus of the verb comminiscor [to imagine]”* (perhaps also comminisco), according to Forcellini; note too that he does not say from the supine, i.e., from commentum, as he usually does. (22 Aug. 1823.)

  Plato in the Sophist, toward the end, ed. Ast, Plato’s Opera, Leipzig 1819ff., tome 2, p. 362, 1l. 2ff. a, penultimate page of Dialogue: “Πόθεν οὖν ὄνομα ἑκατέρῳ τις ἂν λήψεται πρέπον; ἢ δῆλον δὴ χαλεπὸν ὄν, διότι τῆς τῶν γενῶν κατ' εἴδη διαιρέσεως παλαιά τις, ὡς ἔοικεν, αἰτία” (ἴσ. ἀηδία. Ast.) “τοῖς ἔμπροσθεν καὶ ἀξύννους παρῆν, ὥστε μηδ' ἐπιχειρεῖν μηδένα διαιρεῖσθαι· καθὸ δὴ τῶν ὀνομάτων ἀνάγκη μὴ σφόδρα εὐπορεῖν;” [“From whence, then, can a fitting name for each of them be taken? For clearly this is difficult, since there was, as it seems, a long established blame” (Ast reads disgust) “among the ancients regarding the division of the kinds according to species, so that no one even tried to make distinctions, so necessarily there cannot be plenty of names”].1 [3236] “Unde iam nomen utrique eorum quisquam arripiet conveniens? an dubium non est quin difficile sit, propterea quod ad generum in species distributionem vetustam quandam, ut videtur, et inconsideratam superiores habebant offensionem atque fastidium, ita ut ne conaretur quidem ullus dividere; quocirca etiam nomina non satis nobis possunt in promptu esse?” Ast. Plato here means, and is complaining, that the ancient Greeks (like the ancients of every nation) had few elementary ideas, hence their language (like all other languages too, until such time as they reach the stage of perfect maturity and culture, and for so long as the nation concerned has not developed philosophy) was lacking in the precise terms required for the needs of the dialectician in particular but also the metaphysician. This is why Plato, who wished to engage in complex philosophizing, and exercise precise ratiocination, and to consider the nature of things profoundly, was extremely bold in inventing terms of this kind, and is supremely abundant in neologisms that are his own, which are precise and logical, or rather ontological,a1 and are not to be found used by anyone else, or if they are, are taken from his works. And note that Plato made this complaint regarding his own [3237] language, which was the richest and most fertile, the easiest to create with, the freest, the most accustomed to and least intolerant of novelty, and what is more, in the most flourishing, perfect, and golden age of this language, and again during virtually its freest and most creative century. Despite this, Greek at its zenith appeared to Plato to be inadequate for the requirements of philosophizing precisely, and in dealing with complex issues he felt the need to appear daring to the Greeks of that century, and to apologize and adduce reasons for coining new words. Nor could anyone say that Plato coined them out of negligence or lack of love for the purity and elegance of language, for he is the primary model among the Attics in this respect, nor indeed as a result of his being ignorant of it, or of his having a poor vocabulary due to such ignorance. (22 Aug. 1823.)

  Whoever examines the nature of things using pure reason, and without the help of the imagination or feeling, or without affording either of them any scope, which is the procedure adopted by many Germansa in philosophy, that is to say, in metaphysics and politics, will certainly be capable of doing what the meaning of the word to analyze involves, [3238] that is, to resolve and undo nature, but they will never be able to recompose it, I mean they will never be able to draw great or general consequences from their observations and analysis, nor will they be able to reduce them and bring them to some great and general conclusion. And in so doing, for they do not cease to do so, they will fall into error, and this is indeed what occurs. I am prepared to accept that they manage, with their analysis, to divide up and resolve nature into its smallest and least elements, and that they succeed in knowing each of the parts of nature individually.1 But the whole of it, its end and the reciprocal relationship of these parts to one another, and of each of them to the whole, the purpose of this whole, and the true, profound intention of nature, what it has purposed, the cause, let us leave on one side for the moment the efficient cause, the final cause of its being, and of its being such as it is, the reason why it has arranged and formed its parts thus, the knowledge of which things is what the philosopher’s objective must consist of, and on which, in short, all truly great and important general truths are based—these things, I repeat, cannot be discovered [3239] and understood by anyone who analyzes and examines nature using reason alone. Nature thus analyzed differs not in the slightest from a corpse. Let us imagine for a minute that we were animals of a different species to our own, indeed of a different nature to the general nature of those animals we are familiar with, but that nonetheless we were furnished with understanding, as indeed we are. If, having never seen a man or any animal among those that actually exist, nor ever having had information about any of them, a dead human body were brought to us, and in dissecting it we came to know all of its smallest parts one by one, and in chemically decomposing it, we uncovered every last one of its elements: would we, in this way, be able to know, understand, discover or conceive of what the destiny, action, functions, virtues, forces, etc., of each part of this body were in regard to themselves, to the other parts, and to the whole; what was the purpose and object of that disposition and particular order that we would note in those parts and observe indeed with our own eyes and handle with our own hands; what was the particular and the general and overall effect of this order and the whole of the body; what the purpose of it all was; what ultimately the life of man was; indeed, if that body had ever lived or had to have lived; [3240] or again, if we could not infer it from our own life, or if anyone could understand it without actually living, would we conceive of, would we be in any way able to derive, the idea of life from full, perfect, analytical, and elementary cognition of that dead body? Or shall we just say the idea of that living body? And would we understand what living man was, and what his outer and inner way of living was like? I believe all would say in response that we would understand none of these things; and that in wishing to speculate about them we would depart a thousand miles from the truth, and bet millions to one that never, not even by making a million conjectures, would we be able to grasp the truth; and that lastly, that it is extremely probable that having examined and come to know this dead body, we would stop at this knowledge and not even have a suspicion that it had ever been anything else, nor that it had ever been intended to be other than what we saw it to be, and would see it as such, nor would even the slightest speculation arise concerning its previous life or it as a living man.

  [3241] Applying this analogy to my proposition, I would say that to discover and understand what living nature is, what its form, causes, and effects are, its tendencies and processes, purpose or purposes, intentions, the destinies of the life of nature and things; what the true destination of their being is, basically what the spirit of nature is, by means, so to speak, of mere knowledge of its body, and precise, minute, and material analysis of its parts, even its moral parts, one cannot, I repeat, with these methods alone, discover and understand, or even guess with any degree of success or even probability, all this. What we may affirm with certainty is that nature, by which we mean the universe of things, is made up of, fashioned and ordered toward a poetic effect, or rather arranged and deliberately ordered to produce a general poetic effect, as well as other, particular effects, relating to the whole or to this part or that part. Nothing poetic is to be found in its parts by separating them one from another, and by examining them one by one with the mere light of precise, geometric reason; nothing poetic in its means, in its forces and internal or external mechanisms, in its processes thus divided and considered separately; nothing poetic in nature decompounded, broken down, and as though cold, dead, bloodless, motionless, lying, so to speak, under
the anatomist’s knife, or fed into the chemical fire of a [3242] metaphysician who employs no other means, no other instrument, no other force or agent in his speculations, examinations, and inquiries, in his operations and, one might say, even experiments, than cold, pure reason. Pure, simple reason and mathematics have never been able, and will never be able, to discover anything poetic. Because everything that is poetic is felt rather than being known or understood, or perhaps we should say, is known or understood in being felt; nor indeed may it be known, discovered, or understood save by being felt. But pure reason and mathematics have no sensorium whatsoever. It falls to the imagination and sensibility to discover and understand all these things mentioned, and they are able to do this because we too, in whom these faculties reside, are part of the same nature and universe which we are examining. And these faculties of ours alone are in harmony with what is poetic in nature, reason is not, and thus they have much more ability and power to divine nature than reason does to discover it. And since the ability to feel and hence to know the poetic falls to the imagination and the heart alone, only they are able and permitted to enter into and penetrate the great mysteries of life, the destinies, the general and particular intentions of [3243] nature. They alone are able, least imperfectly, to contemplate, know, embrace, to understand the entirety of nature, its way of being and operating, of living, its general and great effects, its purposes. In pronouncing and speculating on such matters they are the least prone to err, and alone are capable at times of apprehending or at least approaching the truth. They alone are able to conceive, create, form, perfect a philosophical, metaphysical, political system that has the least possible falsehood about it, or if nothing else, is as close as is possible to the truth, and as far as is possible from what is absurd, improbable, or extravagant. Through them, men agree with each other on matters of speculation and many abstract points much more than they do through reason, contrary to what it would seem ought to be the case. For it is certain that men, in speaking or speculating by means of mere reason, for the most part tend to disagree to an infinite degree, to diverge a thousand miles one from the other, and to take and follow completely different routes; whereas in speaking through feeling and imagination men, of even the most disparate [3244] classes, nations, and centuries, very often and constantly agree with each other, as may be seen in the many propositions (systems) and pure suppositions discovered or formed by the imagination and heart and deriving from and authorized by them alone, and founded only on them, which have always been and are still admitted and held by all or by almost all nations at all times, and are held by the totality of men even today, to be undisputed truths, and by wise men, if nothing else, as more probable and more universally acceptable than any other in respect of the relevant proposition. Which perhaps one will never see having happened or happening with any hypothesis (general or particular, i.e., constituting a system, or not, etc.) dictated by pure reason and ratiocination. Finally, only the imagination and heart, and the passions themselves, or reason in no other way than as a result of their effective intervention, have discovered and taught and confirmed the greatest, most general, most sublime, profound and fundamental, and most important philosophical truths that we possess, and have revealed [3245] or declared the greatest, highest, most intimate mysteries that are known, of nature and things, as I have shown at length elsewhere [→Z 1650, 1833–39, 1848–60, 1975–78, 2132–34]. (22 Aug. 1823.)