The Italian language has never denied itself the power of using words, phrases, idioms that, although they may be ancient and no longer in use, can still be understood by everyone without difficulty, and can [344] occur in discourse without affectation. There are an infinite number of them for those who know the language really well and in depth, but such people are very rare, if they still exist. The French language has denied itself this capacity, and while readily admitting new words and phrases (something that Italians are scolded for not doing) it has not put restrictions on itself except with regard to old ones, those which it already possessed. And it thinks that it has made progress when it has lost the infinite variety it once had (and it was truly rich) and gained the little it did not have. On this point (1) I do not see how a language can grow, because even if the odds are even and it gains as many words as it loses, the language will always remain stationary in terms of richness and variety. (2) If, as is highly probable, the innumerable ideas that people have managed to express only with new or foreign words could have been expressed with old ones, I do not see why these should be subordinated. The same applies in Italy, if one considers the immense richness of our ancient writers. (3) The words and phrases that contribute most to the clarity, efficacy, power, grace, etc., of languages are incontrovertibly always the oldest, since these were drawn most closely from nature and from the object signified (as inevitably happens in the formation of a language), and so they represented it [345] from life, and evoked most powerfully, perceptively, easily, and quickly the idea, acccording to: (I) the parts of it that were clearest, most important, distinctive, expressible; the varied number of aspects, parts, and relationships of that thing considered by the inventors of the word; (II) the varying power of imagination, emotion, or delicacy, etc., in the various inventors; (III) their different abilities in applying the sound to the thing; (IV) differences in national character, climate, natural, moral, political, geographic, and intellectual circumstances, etc.; sweetness or acerbity, roughness or gentleness, etc.; (V) the different impressions the same object can have on different peoples or individuals. Only that kind of grace which does not derive from naturalness, simplicity, etc., elegance, etc., can gain. But the grace that derives from the said sources (especially in phrases and idioms) and is the most important, the most solid and durable, and also the language’s power, clarity, and efficiency, can only lose immeasurably from the abolition of old words and even more from their substitution with new ones. Herein lies the vast inferiority of art and reason to nature in everything that is beautiful, great, strong, or graceful, etc. (21 Nov. 1820.)
Everything becomes boring with time, even the greatest pleasures. Homer says so1 and we see it every day. Monotony is unbearable. But a great and possibly the best remedy for this malady is to have a purpose. When a person [346] proposes purpose to himself either for action or indeed for inaction, he will find delight in things that are not delightful, even in things that are unpleasant, almost indeed in boredom itself. As far as delightful things are concerned, uniformity and duration will not detract from their pleasure for someone who directs them toward a goal. I do not believe there is any other more capital, universal, and intimate reason that studying is for scholars an exception to the general rule, in that studying continuously hardly ever diminishes its delight. Every day you see people who read for no other purpose than to pass the time really enjoying the first few pages of a book, and then being unable to reach the end without being bored, even when the book has all the means to delight as much in the rest as at the beginning. But constant delight without some aim inevitably results in boredom, which is why those people who read just for amusement tire of it so quickly, and cannot imagine how people do find so much entertainment in reading, and they are continuously searching for variety and lurch sickeningly from one book to another without enjoying any of them other than in passing. By contrast, the scholar always has a purpose, even when he reads for leisure and to pass the time. The same applies to all the other occupations [347] that people become fond of, when they involve an interest and a goal that is more or less precise, more or less serious and important, and when their continuation, duration, and monotony never lead to boredom. (22 Nov. 1820.) See p. 359, paragraph 1.
Good poetry is equally intelligible to people with imagination and feeling and to those without. But despite this, the former enjoy it and the latter don’t, and indeed they can’t even understand how it could be enjoyed. First, because they are unable or disinclined to be moved or lifted out of themselves, etc., by the poet, and then because although they can understand the words they cannot understand the truth, the force of those feelings. Their hearts do not tell them that those passions, those effects, those moral phenomena, etc., which the poet describes really are like that. And so the words of the poet, although clear and easily understood, do not convey to them the same meaning, the same truth that they convey to others, and while understanding the words, they do not understand the poet. It is as well to remember that this also happens with philosophical, profound, metaphysical, psychological writing, etc., so that you will not be surprised at the very different, and often contradictory, effects it can have on different individuals, and classes, and hence the very different impressions they form of it. Because, take a text of this kind, filled with truths and composed with [348] all the clarity of expression that it could ever possibly possess. The words say the same thing to the profound man and to the superficial one. They understand equally the material meaning of the writing, and thus they know perfectly well what the author wants to say. But this does not mean that they understand the text, as is commonly believed. Because the superficial man, who does not know how to put himself in the same state of mind as that in which the author was, in short the man who is more or less incapable of thinking as deeply as the author, understands materially what he reads on the page, but he does not see the relationship between those words and the truth, he does not feel that this is how things are and, by not discerning the field that the author made visible, does not recognize the links and connections that the author saw and from which he deduced those consequences, etc., that for him, and people like him, are incontrovertible. For superficial readers, these are not truths. They will see the same things, but they will not know or feel that they are connected in any way, with the consequences that the author draws from them, and will not see the interchangeable relation of the parts of a syllogism (for all human knowledge is a syllogism). In short, they will understand precisely every word but will not grasp the truth of what the words say, a truth that exists in reality, and will be understood by others. So they will not have the mental strength to be able to doubt, and to feel the reasonableness and the truth of doubt in relation to things that nature or habit suggests are certainties. It’s not enough to understand a true proposition; it’s necessary to feel its truth. There is a sense of truth, as there is of passion, feeling, beauty, etc., a sense of the true as well as the beautiful. Someone who understands but does not feel that truth, understands what that truth means but does not understand that it is truth, because he does not experience its sense, that is, its inner persuasion. The ranks of such people should include the majority of modern apologists for religion, men with no heart, with no emotion, with no deep or fine feeling for nature, in other words, with no experience of the truth, like those readers of poetry who lack any experience of passion, enthusiasm, emotion, etc. These apologists, [349] even assuming that they have a perfect understanding of the meaning of the profound philosophers whom they combat, do not understand the truth that is contained in them, and after clear and detailed consideration declare as false what you know and feel to be true, and vice versa. Besides, to understand philosophers and almost any writer, it is necessary, as in understanding the poets, to have sufficient powers of imagination and feeling and sufficient capacity for reflection to be able to put yourself in the author’s shoes, with the same point of view and in the same situation in which he found himself when consid
ering the things he is writing about. Otherwise, you will never find him sufficiently clear, however much he may in fact be. This is just as true when you find yourself persuaded by and in agreement with the author, as in the opposite case. I know that with this method, I have never found Staël’s works obscure or at any rate unintelligible, while everyone says they are very obscure. (22 Nov. 1820.)
The Essai sur l’indifférence en matière de religion, some way after the beginning of chapter 5, in the place where it deals with the historical origins of Deism, demonstrates the grim foreboding that seized the leaders of the Reformation about the future state of opinion, religion, and peoples: “‘Good God, what tragedy awaits posterity!’ one of them exclaimed.”1 Unfortunately true. They were able to [350] foresee and began to feel the voracious, consumptive fever of reason and of philosophy, the destruction of everything beautiful, good, great, and of life itself, the poisonous effect and carnage spread by that reason and philosophy which made its first appearance and began its devastating work in Germany, the homeland of thought (as Staël calls it),1 at first only asking people to examine their religion and reject certain aspects of it, and then inducing them to seek out the most dangerous truths, and abandon all their most vital and necessary errors. The insight brought about by the rebirth of letters had just then reached that level which was enough to begin the unhappiness and torment of a people, to whom nature had been less generous with the means to happiness, which is a rich and varied imagination, and illusions. They naturally had as much as they needed (like the English in Ossian’s day,2 and the Germans themselves at the time of the Bards and Tacitus) but not enough or of sufficient strength to resist the lights of philosophy for as long as the countries of the south, especially (Spain and) Italy, where even today, it is true, there is little life, because the material and social nourishment of illusions is lacking, but there is also not much thinking. (23 Nov. 1820.) Spain until now has been in the same state. Its climate, geographic situation, government, etc., [351] like those of Italy, protected illusions, without however allowing it to profit from them or get any life from them, especially external and social life.
To everything I have already said about Theophrastus [→Z 316–18] and the causes of what I noted as a particular quality of his, you can add his encyclopedic knowledge, which is demonstrated by the catalogue of his works, the majority of which are lost. He used his knowledge, and his speculation about every aspect of the knowable, not, like Plato, to serve his imagination and fashion a system of dazzling brilliance, but, like Aristotle, to serve reason, to discuss matters on the basis of truth and experience. In that case, the extension and variety of knowledge necessarily has an effect on the depth of the intellect and the disenchantment of the heart.
In short, it would be as well for philosophers to get it clearly into their heads that life in itself has no importance whatever. What is important is living it well and happily, or at least, or even above all, not living it badly and unhappily. And so they should ascribe usefulness not to those things which simply ensure or preserve life, considered simply as an end in itself, but rather to those which make it [352] worthwhile, that is, really happy. But the only thing that makes it truly happy is the false, and every happiness founded on truth is profoundly false, or we could say, every happiness proves to be false and empty when its object is recognized in its reality and truth.
I have seen the lectures of a German, Herr Hufeland, on the Art of Prolonging Life, given by him in his capacity as a professor dedicated expressly to this subject. He should teach people first how to make life happy, and then how to prolong it. Since life is so unhappy, I would have much more respect for someone who taught me how to shorten it, because I have never known anyone who deserves praise for his service to the public by teaching us how to prolong unhappiness. Instead of establishing these chairs which are all so alien, if not contrary, to the nature of our times, governments should ensure that human life is happier, and then we might be grateful to those who teach us how to prolong it. If longevity were a good in itself, then the desire for a long life would be reasonable in any circumstances.1
When we refer to our forebears, we usually talk about the good old folk, our good old folk. Everyone is of the opinion that our predecessors were better than we are, both the old who praise them on that account, and the young who despise them for it. Certainly [353] the world is not wrong in this respect. The fact is that, without even thinking about it, the world recognizes and admits every day that things are getting worse. Not just in its use of this phrase but in hundreds of other ways. Yet it has no desire to turn back, and regards always moving forward as the only honorable option, and, in the usual contradictory fashion, is convinced that by going forward it will improve, and that it can improve only by going forward, and would think it was lost if it went backward.
The extent to which Christianity is contrary to nature, when it acts solely on simple, rigid reasoning and when this is taken as the sole norm for behavior, can be seen from the following example. I once knew very well the mother of a family1 who was not in the least superstitious, but devout and unswerving in her Christian faith and in the practice of her religion. She not only felt no sympathy for parents who lost their children in infancy but positively and sincerely envied them, because such infants had flown safe and sound straight to paradise, and had freed their parents from the inconvenience of supporting them. Finding herself more than once in danger of losing her own children at the same age, [354] she did not ask God to let them die, because her religion forbade this, but she rejoiced with all her heart. Seeing her husband weeping and distraught, she became distant and felt real irritation. She was diligent in her care of the poor little things, but in the depths of her soul, she hoped it would prove useless and was forced to admit that the only anxiety she felt when consulting or questioning a doctor was hearing that there might be a possibility or a faint hope of recovery. Seeing any sign of imminent death in the patient, she felt deep joy (which she only troubled to disguise from those who would have criticized her for it), and the day of their death, if this occurred, was for her one of rejoicing and satisfaction, and she could not understand how her husband could show so little wisdom as to be saddened by it. She regarded beauty as a real misfortune, and seeing that her children were ugly or deformed,1 she would thank God, not heroically but gratefully. She made no effort at all to help them hide their defects but expected that because of them they should be prepared to give up all aspiration in life at an early age. If they resisted or did the opposite, if they succeeded even slightly, she was irritated, and as far as possible denigrated with her every word and comment any of their achievements (of both the ugly and the attractive ones, because she had several children) and she let no opportunity [355] pass by, in fact she deliberately sought any occasion, to remind them of their defects and the consequences that would follow from these, and persuade them with ferocious and heartless frankness of the suffering that inevitably awaited them. She greeted news of failure in her children’s aspirations with real relief and would deliberately dwell on anything she had heard to their discredit. All this to save their souls from mortal danger. And she had the same attitude to every aspect of her children’s education, to bringing them into the world, to their finding a place within it, to every means of temporal happiness. She felt infinite compassion for sinners but, except when nature sometimes overcame her, very little for those who suffered bodily or material harm. Illnesses and even the most pitiful death of a child, in the flower of youth and full of hope, the terrible loss to the family and society, etc., did not touch her in the slightest.1 Because, she used to say, what mattered was not the age at which we die but the manner of our death; and so she was always curious to know whether someone had died well according to her religion, or when people were ill whether they accepted it, etc. She would talk of such misfortunes with an icy coldness. This woman had been endowed by nature with a very tender disposition and had been reduced to this state by religion alone.
What is this if not barbarous? And yet it is a mathematical certainty, an immediate and necessary consequence of [356] a rigid interpretation of the premises of her religion, that religion which rightly prides itself on being the most merciful. But reason is so barbarous that wherever it gains the upper hand and becomes the absolute rule, whatever premise it starts from, and on whatever basis it is established, everything else will become barbarous. As we can see in the many barbarous practices of ancient religions, even though these were daughters of the imagination. And it is, unfortunately, obvious that, even without religious principles, narrow reasoning alone will bring about the consequences described above. The only thing that can save us from barbarism is pure nature and the errors it inspires, where reason plays no part. If it makes us mourn the death of our children, it is only for an illusion, because losing life they have lost nothing, they’ve gained something. But not to weep is barbarous, and to rejoice is even more so, although it may be perfectly rational. All of which confirms what I usually say, that reason is often the source of barbarism (indeed is barbarous in itself) and an excess of reason always is. Nature never is, because in the end nothing is barbarous apart from what is contrary to nature, (25 Nov. 1820)1 so that nature and barbarism are opposites, and nature cannot be barbarous in essence.
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