Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  In any case, I have said elsewhere [→Z 2208, 2387–89, 2669–70] that consideration of divinity as something formidable, hateful, hating, hostile, etc., gave rise to the custom of cruel sacrifices, which was common to the majority of ancient peoples and to savages who had or have some form or veneer of religion. Now, it should be noted that such sacrifices were and are more cruel, the more barbarous and ignorant these peoples were or are, because they imagined or imagine divinity to be that much more cruel, hostile, malevolent, hateful, and fearful. Hence in order to appease and satisfy it, they torment the victims in an attempt to feed and sate its hatred, so that it spares in turn those making the sacrifice. And so in the most ancient times of the Greeks and Romans, and also the Gauls in the times and in the religion of the Druids, among the Celts, etc., human sacrifices [3642] were common among these still barbarous and ignorant peoples (and endured through custom until more civilized times), as they were and are among very many other savage peoples, as though the anger and hatred of the divinity toward man, that is, toward the species sacrificing to it, could be better propitiated by means of them. And not merely sacrifices of enemies, which would be no great surprise (and which too was very common among savages), or of guilty or wicked men, but also of compatriots and upright men, although such sacrifices were and are less frequent than those of enemies and the wicked. Here we might mention the spontaneous sacrifice and devotion (that is, self-execration, etc.) of Codrus, the Decii and Curcius (if true)1 and others like them. All belonging to the most ancient and barbarous times of Greece and Rome, and never repeated in civilized times in either nation.

  It should also be considered that among the savages and the barbarous nations, ancient or modern, which had or have more than one divinity, some more hateful, others less so, others more likable and good, etc., those which were most venerated and worshipped with sacrifices and rites and ceremonies and prayers, etc., were and are the nastiest, [3643] the most fearsome, hateful, the ugliest to look at, etc., because fear is stronger, more valid, more effective and active than hope and love. The opposite occurred and occurs among less barbarous peoples, etc., and more so the less barbarous they are, and also in those same nations in more civilized times, and in proportion to the increase in civilization and in knowledge and the light of reason, etc., and the progress of the human mind. Both these truths are demonstrated by history, by records of antiquity, and by the accounts of travelers, etc. See, among thousands of others, Don Antonio de Solís, Historia de la Conquista de Mexico, Bk. 1, ch. 15, pp. 43–45, Bk. 3, ch. 13, pp. 236–38, Madrid 1748. (9 Oct. 1823.)

  Fire —Its use is an indispensable requirement for a comfortable and civilized life, or even for the most basic of comforts. —Now, it is so unlikely that nature taught it to man, that he cannot have discovered or conceived it other than by pure chance or without prolonged and diverse experiences of it. —Not even the philosophers are able to guess how man came not only to kindle the first fire, but to see and discover it. Some speak of a fire being caused by a bolt of lightning, some of the frottement [rubbing] of tree branches caused by winds in the [3644] forests, some of volcanoes, some of other similar hypotheses, each worse than the next.1 —And once man had become familiar with fire, how could he have worked out how to light it whenever he wanted to? Without which it was of no use to him. And to put it out at will? How long it must have taken him to learn and find all these things out. —The ancients used to say that fire had been stolen from heaven and brought down to earth. A sign that in the ancient tradition the invention of fire, its use and the means by which it could be got, lit, and put out at will, was not regarded as a commonplace invention, but one of the most marvelous, and that this invention was not made immediately, but only once society had been established and was no longer so ignorant,2 otherwise it could not have occasioned such a fable, a fable recounting that fire was stolen from heaven by someone who wanted to benefit human society, etc.3 —Not only did nature not teach the use of fire to man or administer it to man save by chance, it made it formidable and its use highly dangerous. Even without considering moral damage, how much damage, infinite, immense damage, has the use of fire done to the other [3645] parts of nature and to mankind itself. None of which would have happened if man had not used it and adopted the custom of using it. Fire is one of those materials, one of those terrifying agents like electricity, which nature appears to have deliberately buried, set aside and removed from the sight, senses, and life of animals and the surface of the planet,1 where this life and vegetation and the whole life of nature is chiefly played out, so as not to manifest it or leave it manifest, save in convulsions of the elements and in accidental or particular phenomena, such as that of volcanoes, that are outside the general order and the ordinary rule of nature. This is how far nature was from intending to make it a material for ordinary and regular use in the lives of animals or any species of animal and on the surface of the planet, and of subjecting it to the will of man in the same way as fruit, grass, etc., and of destining it to be necessary for the happiness and hence the natural perfection of the principal species of terrestrial beings. —[3646] Horace (1, ode 3) treats the invention and use of fire as something daring, as defiant of nature as navigation and its invention; and as the origin, principle, and cause of as many evils and diseases, etc., as navigation; and as equally culpable in the corruption, denaturing, and weakening, etc., of the human species. —But fire is necessary even for nonsocial man and simply for human life. How could one live in Lapland or below the North Pole or even in Russia, etc., without fire? First, I would respond, how come nature has hidden it thus, etc., as above? How could it deny the beings it produced precisely what they needed for their life, their existence? Or make it so difficult for them to procure it? And make the use of what is necessary so dangerous? No less dangerous, I mean, to themselves than to others? And given that men almost certainly could not have failed to take a considerable time to discover fire (longer or shorter as the case may be), as has already been said, and even longer to notice that it could be [3647] useful to them and for what purpose, and even longer to find out how to use it, how to have it when needed, etc., and to overcome the fear which it must have inspired in them both naturally and because of the damage that they must soon have experienced, and certainly before knowing or even imagining its use or property, and possibly also because of the causes which produced it (such as lightning bolts or volcanoes or other such phenomena, etc.) and the effects which they will have seen outside of it, such as conflagrations, destruction of trees, forests, etc., death and burning and incineration of animals, or of other men, etc. etc.; given all this, I repeat, how could so many men have lived either forever or until some given time, without what was necessary for their life? Second, anyone who does not consider mankind to be any more than a species of animal, admittedly superior to the other kinds but ultimately one of them, anyone who is content to or deigns to consider man as not the only being on this earth but one of many, different from the others in terms of species but belonging to the same genus and not completely different from the others or forming a separate order and nature, but comprised within the order and nature of all the other beings on the earth and also in this world, [3648] and as sharing in the qualities, etc., of the others as the others do in his, in part similar to the other beings, in part different from them, and equipped with qualities which are part common part his own, as is the case with all the other beings in this world, and basically having full, true proportion with the other beings and not placed outside all proportion and gradation and relation and connection and agreement and affinity, etc., with the others, anyone who does not believe that the whole world or the whole planet and every part of them were made solely and expressly for man, and that any thing, any creature, any part of the earth or the world that did not or could not or should not serve man, or have service to him as its purpose, is wasteful and unworthy of nature—anyone who thinks these things will find it easy to respond to the objection above.1 If
there is, as there certainly must be, some species of plant, which is the most perfect of the genus of vegetable in terms of the general nature which is proper to them, and the supreme example of the vegetable genus as man is of the animal genus, it does not therefore follow, [3649] and will not necessarily be the case, that this plant should be found or flourish, nor indeed should it or can it necessarily prosper or even take root or be conceived, in all countries and all climates of the earth, or in any region of climates where it flourishes and multiplies most, or in any terrain or part of the regions which are most proper and natural to it.1 The same may be said regarding the mineral genus or kingdom, and any of the others. That reproduction and diffusion of the species is useful for man in society, or rather, that reproduction and propagation of the human species is useful for society, and the more so the greater it is, is a different issue,a and whoever denies it is certainly much mistaken. But that nature itself should have destined the human species for all climates and countries, and all climates and countries for the human species: this is what cannot be proven, and is shown by analogy, which will always be a very strong and possibly the strongest argument in knowledge granted to man,2 to be quite false. No known plant, vegetable, mineral, or animal is found in all countries and climates, [3650] nor could it live and be born in all of them, let alone flourish there, etc. Some species of vegetables and animals, etc., are found and thrive in several countries that are more diverse, others in fewer, none in all, and none in so many and so varied in terms of quality and climate, as the human species has spread to. The propagation and diffusion of this species is disproportionate to that of the others. And it should be noted that the spread of many species of animals, plants, etc., is in large part due not to nature but to humanity itself, which means it is worthless for proving anything in our discussion here. Many species which by nature were destined for one country only or for only one quality of country or for countries which are not very different from each other, were transported by man to several countries, to very different countries, etc. This is contrary to nature, as is the establishment of the human species itself in those places which are not suitable for it. Plants, animals, etc., transported and established by man in countries unsuited to them either do not endure there, or do not flourish, or degenerate or suffer there. Is nature to blame for the discomforts [3651] to which such species are subject in such cases and such places? and if they survive in such places, albeit with difficulty, should we then say that nature destined them for those places? And should the type of life which they have to lead in those places, or are made to lead, and the means which they use in order to survive or which are used in order to make them survive, be considered as natural, as proper to them as a result of their nature? and should arguments be made from them regarding nature’s intentions for such species?

  Therefore, while it cannot be doubted that nature itself has restricted each species of animal, vegetable, etc., to certain countries and no more, at the same time, and in the same way that in other things no proportion or analogy between the human species and the other species of earthly or worldly beings is admitted, it is claimed that nature did not limit the human species to any country, to any quality of country. And unlike all the other earthly species, to each of which nature reserved but a tiny part of [3652] the planet, it is claimed that it reserved the whole earth for the human species. It cannot be denied that man has indeed occupied it all. In the same way as he has done millions of other things that are contrary to nature, both to his own and to universal nature. But to argue from this fact that such occupation was by nature is foolish. For if we wish to speak of the true nature, of the proper and primitive destinies of a species of being which has done things, and continues to do so each day, that are not only different but contrary to nature, both to its own and to universal nature, it is necessary to reason a maiori, as to reason a minori becomes impossible.1 To reason a maiori in this case means to consider analogy, and we have seen what this shows. To reason a minori might confirm the same thing, seeing the physical miseries to which the human species is inevitably subjected in many countries and climates, and the physical qualities and constitutions, e.g., of the Samoyedic peoples,2 which race, short and deformed, may be seen as a degeneration of the human species caused by a climate that is contrary to its proper [3653] and primitive nature, a degeneration similar to that which we see manifestly in so many species of animals, plants, etc., established by us outside their own native and natural countries, climates, soils, etc.

  And in truth, even reasoning abstractly, does it not seem absurd to you, and beyond all likelihood and all proportion or appropriateness or similitude compared to what we see in everything else, that nature should have destined one and the same species of animal to be born, live and prosper indifferently in so many and such an immense diversity of climates and of qualities of countries as are found on this earth, a diversity such as that (to take but one example of such a difference, that between hot and cold) between the polar and equinoctial regions? That burning heat, freezing cold, extreme humidity, extreme aridity, soil which is completely sterile, or supremely fertile, skies that are always clear, or always rainy—that all these things should have been made by nature to be entirely immaterial to the good and perfect, happy and proper being of the human species? [3654] That it should have disposed the same species equally to all these things, to all these extremes? Now this is the conclusion one would have to draw from this fact, that is, from the universal diffusion of our species, if the nature of this species had to be deduced from it. This is what this universal diffusion in fact truly and necessarily supposes, without which it could only be quite unnatural and opposed to the well-being of the species. What other species of animal, vegetable, etc., is predisposed naturally, or can ever seem so to a philosopher, not to all the different extremes of the qualities of countries as is claimed, or as it is necessary to claim that the human species is without distinction, not merely to two such extremes, but even to two differences in such qualities which are not far from these extremes? What proportion, what analogy would there be between this physical nature of the human species and that of any other species, and of all of them together, and universal nature?

  Therefore, I would say with certainty that because of its nature, and in accordance with the intentions of nature and in seeking to preserve its well-being, the human species [3655] should only have propagated so much, and was only destined for certain countries and certain qualities of countries, beyond the confines of which it should not naturally have transgressed, but which it did transgress contrary to nature. But as contrary to nature, it achieved a degree of society within itself which is entirely disproportionate to that which the other species have, and which in thousands of places has been shown to be the cause of its malaise and corruption, etc., so too, contrary to nature, it multiplied and spread enormously. But as this multiplication subsequently contributed greatly to accelerating, causing, increasing the progress of society, that is, of human corruption, so too it was originally produced only by the excessive and unnatural progress of this society. The less sociable a species is, or the less society it has, the less it multiplies, and vice versa. This may very easily be seen in the various species of animals, and also of plants, etc. It may also be seen in the savages and the more natural peoples, the numbers of whose populations are largely stationary, as are their social status, character, customs, etc. (as should have been the case by [3656] nature in the human species as a whole; as it appears to be in the other species of animals). Small islands, entirely separate from other lands, from time immemorial to our own day have always been sufficient for the populations enclosed in them, and there are certainly still enough of them as yet undiscovered to suffice for their populations, and to suffice for an unlimited period of time or indeed forever. In countries where, after the first settlement made by men, society has made no further progress, it has not come closer together than it previously was, nor has the number of human individuals incre
ased, and there is scarcely any multiplication there. Unlike in cultured societies, and all the more so the more cultured they are (apart, that is, from the many other natural or social circumstances which themselves favor or obstruct multiplication). From which it may be seen that the excessive multiplication of mankind and the spreading out which follows from it and is its necessary effect, do not come from nature, or at least do so only up to a certain, appropriate point. And one of the things which was required in order for mankind to spread so excessively was [3657] navigation, an evidently unnatural activity, for nature would have taught it and made it easy rather than dangerous, etc. etc. etc., as it is, if this spreading of the human race for which navigation was necessary had been according to its intentions.