Notebooks
Page 29
We are deceived by promises and deluded by time, and death derides our cares; life’s anxieties are nought.3
That man is extremely foolish who always is in want for fear of wanting; and his life flies away while he is still hoping to enjoy the good things which he has acquired with great labour.4
He who possesses most is most afraid to lose.5
O Time, consumer of all things! O envious age, thou destroyest all things and devourest all things with the hard teeth of the years little by little, in slow death. Helen, when she looked in her mirror and saw the withered wrinkles which old age had made in her face wept and wondered why she had twice been carried away. O Time, consumer of all things! O envious age, whereby all things are consumed!*6
. . . The miserable life should not pass without leaving some memory of ourselves in the minds of mortals.
. . . Lead: Leather—a weight of lead pressing forwards and backwards a little bag of leather filled with air, the descent will show you the hour. We do not lack ways and means to divide and measure these miserable days of ours which it should be our pleasure not to spend and pass away in vain and without praise, and without leaving record of themselves in the minds of men; so that this our miserable course should not be spent in vain.7
O thou that sleepest, what is sleep? Sleep resembles death. Oh, why not let thy work be such that after death thou mayst retain a resemblance to perfect life, rather than during life make thyself resemble the hapless dead by sleeping.8
Shun those studies in which the work that results dies with the worker.9
I obey thee, Lord, first for the love which I ought reasonably to bear thee; secondly, because thou canst shorten or prolong the lives of men.10
In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes: so with time present. Life if well spent is long.11
The age as it flies glides secretly and deceives one and another; nothing is more fleeting than the years, but he who sows virtue reaps honour.12
In youth acquire that which may restore the damage of old age; and if you are mindful that old age has wisdom for its food, you will so exert yourself in youth, that your old age will not lack sustenance. 13
While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.14
To the ambitious, whom neither the boon of life, nor the beauty of the world suffice to content, it comes as penance that life with them is squandered, and that they possess neither the benefits nor the beauty of the world.15
As a day well spent brings happy sleep, so a life well used brings happy death.16
Every evil leaves a sorrow in the memory, except the supreme evil, death, which destroys this memory together with life.17
Wrongfully do men lament the flight of time, accusing it of being too swift, and not perceiving that its period is sufficient. But good memory wherewith nature has endowed us causes everything long past to seem present.18
Our judgement does not reckon in their exact and proper order things which have come to pass at different periods of time; for many things which happened many years ago will seem nearly related to the present, and many things that are recent will seem ancient, extending back to the far-off period of our youth. And so it is with the eye, with regard to distant things, which when illumined by the sun seem near to the eye, while many things which are near seem far off.19
Behold the hope and the desire of going back to one’s country and of returning to the primal state of chaos is like that of the moth to the light, and of the man who with perpetual longing looks forward with joy to each new spring and to each new summer, and to the new months and the new years, deeming that the things he longs for are too slow in coming; and he does not perceive that he is longing for his own destruction. But this longing is in its quintessence, the spirit of the elements, which finding itself imprisoned as the soul within the human body is ever longing to return to its sender; and I would have you know that this same longing is that quintessence inherent in nature, and that man is a type of the world.20
Among the great things which are found among us the existence of judgement is the greatest. This dwells in time, and stretches its limbs into the past and future, and with these takes to itself all works that are past and those that are to come, both of nature and of the animals, and possesses nothing of the indivisible present. It does not, however, extend to the essence of anything.21
Nothingness has no centre, and its boundaries are nothingness.
My opponent says that nothingness and a vacuum are one and the same thing, having indeed two separate names by which they are called, but not existing separately in nature. The reply is that whenever there exists a vacuum there will also be the space which surrounds it, but nothingness exists apart from occupation of space; it follows that nothingness and a vacuum are not the same, for the one is divisible to infinity, and nothingness cannot be divided because nothing can be less than it is; and if you were to take part from it this part would be equal to the whole, and the whole to the part.22
II. LIFE OF THE BODY
How the body of the animal continually dies and is renewed
The body of anything whatsoever that takes nourishment continually dies and is continually renewed; because nourishment can only enter in those places where the preceding nourishment is exhausted, and if it is exhausted it no longer has life. And unless you supply nourishment equivalent to that which has departed, life will fail in its vigour, and if you deprive it of its nourishment the life is entirely destroyed. But if you restore as much as is destroyed day by day, then as much of the life is renewed as is consumed; just as the light of the candle is formed by the nourishment given to it by the liquid of this candle which light continually renews by swift succour from beneath as much as it consumes in dying above; and in dying changes from a brilliant light into murky smoke; and this death is continuous, as the smoke is continuous; and the smoke continues as long as the nourishment continues; and in the same instant the whole light is dead and is entirely regenerated by the movement of that which nourishes it.23
Why nature did not ordain that one animal should not live by the death of another.
Nature being inconstant and taking pleasure in creating and making continually new lives and forms, because she knows that they augment her terrestrial substance, is more ready and swift in creating than time is in destroying; and therefore she has ordained that many animals shall serve as food one for the other; and as this does not suffice for her desire she frequently sends forth certain poisonous and pestilential vapours and continual plagues upon the vast accumulations and herds of animals; and most of all upon men, who increase rapidly because other animals do not feed upon them; and if the causes are removed the effects would cease.
This earth therefore seeks to lose its life while desiring continual reproduction for the reason brought forward and demonstrated by you; effects often resemble their causes. The animals serve as a type of the life of the world.24
Here nature appears rather to have been a cruel stepmother to many animals instead of a mother; and to some not a stepmother but a most tender mother.25
Our life is made by the death of others. In dead matter insensible life remains, which reunited to the stomachs of living beings, resumes life, both sensual and intellectual.26
Man and animals are really the passage and conduit of food, the sepulchre of animals and resting-place of the dead, making life out of the death of the other (taking pleasure in the misery of others), making themselves the covering for corruption.8
If nature has ordained that animals which can move should experience pain in order to conserve those parts which through their motion might diminish or waste; plants are not able to move and therefore do not strike against any objects placed in their way; the feeling of pain is not required in plants and therefore they do not feel pain when they are broken, as animals do.27
Lust is the cause of generation,
Appetite is the support of life,
Fear or timidity is the prolongation of life, and fraud the preservation of its instruments.28
He who fears dangers does not perish by them.29
Just as courage imperils life, fear protects it.30
Fear arises sooner than anything else.31
Every man wishes to make money to give to the doctors, destroyers of life; they therefore ought to be rich.32
Learn to preserve your health; and in this you will the better succeed as you shun physicians because their drugs are a kind of alchemy about which there are no fewer books than there are medicines.33
Medicine is the restoration of discordant elements; sickness is the discord of the elements infused into the living body.34
Make them give you the diagnosis and treatment for the case from the saint and from the other and you will see that men are elected to be doctors for diseases they do not know.35
To keep in health this rule is wise:*
Eat only when you want and sup light.
Chew well, and let what you take be well cooked and simple.
He who takes medicine is ill advised.
Beware of anger and avoid grievous moods.
Keep standing when you rise from table.
Do not sleep at midday.
Let your wine be mixed (with water), take little at a time, not between meals and not on an empty stomach.
Go regularly to stool.
If you take exercise, let it be light.
Do not be with the belly upwards, or the head lowered;
Be covered well at night.
Rest your head and keep your mind cheerful.
Shun wantonness, and pay attention to diet.36
It seems to me that coarse men of bad habits and little power of reason do not deserve so fine an instrument or so great a variety of mechanism as those endowed with ideas and great reasoning power, but merely a sack where food is received and whence it passes. For in truth they cannot be reckoned otherwise than as a passage for food, because it does not seem to me that they have anything in common with the human race except voice and shape. And all else is far below the level of beasts.37
III. LIFE OF THE SPIRIT
And thou, man, who in this work of mine dost look upon the wonderful works of nature, if thou judgest it to be a criminal thing to destroy it, reflect how much more criminal it is to take the life of man; and if this external form appears to thee marvellously constructed, remember that it is as nothing compared with the soul that dwells in that structure; and in truth, whatever this may be, it is a thing divine. Leave it then to dwell in its work at its good pleasure, and let not thy rage and malice destroy such a life—for in truth he who values it not does not deserve it.
For we part from the body with extreme reluctance, and I indeed believe that its grief and lamentation are not without cause.33
The potencies are four: memory and intellect, appetite and concupiscence. The two first are of the reason, the others of the senses.38
The man who does not restrain wantonness, allies himself with beasts. It is easier to contend with evil at the beginning than at the end. You can have no greater and no smaller dominion than that over yourself.39
Ask advice of him who governs himself well.40
If you governed your body by the rules of virtue you would have no desire in this world.41
Good culture is born of a good disposition; and since the cause is more to be praised than the effect, you will rather praise a good disposition without culture, than good culture without the disposition.18
Where there is most feeling there is the greatest martyrdom. 42
The highest happiness becomes the cause of unhappiness, and the fullness of wisdom the cause of folly.43
The part always has a tendency to unite with its whole in order to escape from its imperfection.
The soul’s desire is to remain with its body, because without the organic instruments of that body it can neither act nor feel.44
The soul can never be corrupted with the corruption of the body, but acts in the body like the wind which causes the sound of the organ, where if a pipe is spoiled, the wind would cease to produce a good result.45
Whoever would see how the soul dwells within its body let him observe how this body uses its daily habitation, for if this is without order and confused the body will be kept in disorder and confusion by its soul.18
Cornelius Celsus*
The highest good is wisdom, the chief evil is suffering of the body. Seeing that we are made up of two things, that is soul and body, of which the first is the better and the body is the inferior, wisdom belongs to the better part; and the chief evil belongs to the worse part and is the worst. The best thing in the soul is wisdom, and even so the worst thing in the body is pain. Therefore just as bodily pain is the chief evil, so wisdom is the chief good of the soul, that is of the wise man; and nothing else can be compared to it.*46
Good men by nature wish to know.*
I know that many will call this useless work . . . men who desire nothing but material riches and are absolutely devoid of that of wisdom, which is the food and only true riches of the mind. For so much more worthy as the soul is than the body, so much more noble are the possessions of the soul than those of the body. And often, when I see one of these men take this work in his hand, I wonder that he does not put it to his nose, like a monkey, or ask me if it is something good to eat.47
If on delight your mind should feed.48
Pray hold me not in scorn! I am not poor!
Poor rather is the man who desires many things.
Where shall I take my place? Where in a little time from hence you shall know.
Do you answer for yourself! From henceforth in a little time. . . .49
Thou, O God, dost sell unto us all good things at the price of labour.*50
You do ill if you praise and worse still if you reprove, in a matter you do not understand.22
It is bad if you praise, and worse if you blame matters that you do not understand.8
To speak well of a base man is much the same as to speak ill of a good man.51
Envy wounds with false accusations, that is by detraction.52 Reprove your friend in secret and praise him openly.29
Man has much power of discourse which for the most part is vain and false; animals have but little, but it is useful and true, and a small truth is better than a great lie.53
The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.54
He who does not punish evil commends it to be done. Justice requires power, insight, and will; and it resembles the queen-bee. 40
And many have made a trade of delusions and false miracles, deceiving the stupid multitude.55
Pharisees—that is to say holy friars.11
The rest of the definition of the soul I leave to the imagination of the friars, those fathers of the people who by inspiration know all secrets. I leave alone the sacred books, for they are supreme truth.56
The lie is so vile, that even if it were speaking well of godly things it would take off something of God’s grace; and truth is so excellent that if it praises but small things, they become noble.
Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness. And truth is so excellent in itself, that, even if it dwells on humble and lowly matter, it rises infinitely above the uncertainties and lies about high and lofty matters. Because in our minds, even if lying should be the fifth element, the truth about things will remain nevertheless the chief nutriment of superior intellects, though not of wandering wits.
But you who live on dreams are better pleased by the sophistical reasons and frauds of wits in great and uncertain things than by those reasons which are certain and natural and not so exalted.57
Conversation between the spirit and the intellect
A spirit finding again the brain whence it had departed, uttered with a loud voice these words:
O blessed and happy spirit, whence hast thou departed? Well have I known man and he is much against m
y liking! He is a receptacle of villainy; a perfect heap of the utmost ingratitude combined with every vice. But why do I fatigue myself using vain words? In him every form of sin is to be found. And if there should be found among men any that possess any good, they will not be treated differently from myself by other men; in fact I have come to the conclusion that it is bad if they are hostile, and worse if they are friendly.58
IV. ON GOVERNMENT
When besieged by ambitious tyrants I find a means of offence and defence in order to preserve the chief gift of nature, which is liberty; and first I would speak of the position of the walls, and then of how the various peoples can maintain their good and just lords.59
Leonardo’s advice to the duke of Milan
All communities obey and are led by their magnates, and those magnates ally themselves with and are constrained by their lords in two ways, either by blood relationship or by a tie of property; blood relationship when their sons, like hostages, are a surety and a pledge against any suspicion of their faith; the tie of property when you let each of them build one or two houses within your city, from which he may draw some revenue; and he may also draw revenue from ten cities of five thousand houses with thirty thousand habitations; and you will disperse so great a concourse of people who, herding together like goats one upon the back of another filling every part with their stench, sow the seeds of pestilence and death. And the city will be of a beauty equal to its name, and useful to you for its revenues and the perpetual fame of its growth.60