Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  (2) That the project of a universal language (if by this a native, everyday, mother tongue belonging to all the nations was ever meant) is a chimera not only materially and relatively, and on account of the circumstances and difficulties that arise from things as they now are, [937] that is, from their existing conditions, but also in relation to the absolute nature of men; that is to say, not only in practice but also in theory.1

  (3) Taking into consideration on the one hand the natural and inevitable restriction, which I have already mentioned, on the boundaries of an absolutely uniform language, on the other hand the fact that language is the crucial instrument of society and that the main distinguishing mark of nations is generally identified as uniformity of language, we shall infer from this:

  (i) A proof of what I said on pp. 873, end–877 regarding the restricted extent of the original societies, that is to say, how nature had in reality also made provision in this regard for the said restriction will be acknowledged.

  (ii) A further consideration regarding the obstacles that nature had placed in the way of the civilizing process. Since the civilizing process is the work of society and its progress is in proportion to the size of society and of reciprocal trade, etc., and, on the other hand, since the chief instrument of society is language and nature has so arranged it that this cannot be uniform save among very few, we learn how in this respect, too, nature was opposed to the immoderate expansion and progress of society, and to the alteration [938] that was bound to follow. An opposition that has only been overcome with countless difficulties, through study, and a hundred different means that are in no way natural, going against nature, just as all the other barriers that nature had placed in the way of the civilizing process and science have been overcome.

  (iii) Like society, so too language makes progress as it spreads, and the language of a small people is always crude, rudimentary, a stammering baby, except to the extent that it may be influenced by dealings with foreigners, which is not likely to come about. It is thus evident that by preventing the spread of a uniform language nature also sought to prevent its perfection, or even just its maturity or youth. It therefore follows that the language originally and essentially destined for men was a language of very limited capacities, and hence of very limited influence. It therefore follows that, language being the main instrument of society, the society assigned to men by nature was one exerting very little influence, a loose society incapable of corrupting them, a society not much greater than the kind existing among animals, as I have said in other thoughts [→Z 581–82].

  (iv) With the weakness of the language assigned to us, nature had ensured the preservation of our original state, not only with regard to the present generation, [939] but also generations past and future. By means of an impotent language, tradition is rendered impotent, and the experiences, knowledge, etc., of ancestors reach their successors in very obscure, weak, and uncertain forms, forms that are much more limited than those very limited ones that their ancestors could have acquired with such a language and such a society—that is to say, almost nil. Because the animals have no language and therefore no tradition, that is to say, communication between the generations, an animal today is as fresh and natural as the first of its species when it issued from the hands of the Creator. This is what we would be more or less, if we had a language that was very limited in its capacities. The facts bear this out. All the peoples who lack a perfect language are to that degree distant from civilization. See p. 942, paragraph 1. And for so long as the world lacked such a language, to that degree it retained its original state. So also, to that degree, once pictorial and hieroglyphic writing came into use.1 The civilizing process, that is, the alteration of man, made great progress after the invention of writing with signs, but only to a certain extent, however, until the invention of printing, which, since it is the perfection of tradition, has taken the civilizing process to its highest point. These were difficult inventions, especially writing with signs, so it is evident how far nature was from presupposing them, and hence from willing and prescribing their effects.

  And this may be compared with what I have said [940] in other thoughts [→Z 371–73, 830–38] against those who consider the civilizing process to be a process of perfecting, and therefore argue for the perfectibility of man. Both reason and fact suggest that the process could not be pursued, much less perfected, without the invention of writing with signs, an invention that is highly abstruse, and wonderful if you reflect for a moment, and that men must have lacked, not by chance but necessarily, for a very long span of centuries, as did in fact happen. I therefore ask again if it is probable that nature would have presupposed and prescribed such a means in order to perfect a being privileged above all others, etc. etc. I say the same about the perfecting of a language, something that is likewise very difficult to achieve, and was indeed achieved only at a very late date, and I am referring now not to the beauty but simply to the utility of a language. I say the same as well about the printing press, invented only four centuries ago, and not even four whole centuries, etc. etc. See p. 955, paragraph 1, and my thought on the diversity of natural alphabets.

  The perfectibility of society is one thing, the perfectibility of mankind quite another, etc. etc. (12–13 April 1821.)

  What I have said in several thoughts [→Z 108, 164, 196, 211, 234, 281] on the compassion aroused by weakness should particularly be considered in those who are strong, and who in that moment feel their strength, and in whom this feeling contrasts with the aspect of weakness or powerlessness of some lovable or pitiable object, a lovability which in [941] this case comes from the source of compassion, even if that object is not suffering at that point, or has never suffered, nor been harmed by its weakness. In which regard there is a saying or document of the British Bards contained in various verses that reads thus: “To suffer with patience and magnanimity is a sure indication of courage and a sublime soul, and to abuse one’s own strength is a sign of craven ferocity.” (Annali di scienze e lettere, loc. cit. above, p. 932 (p. 378).)1 The man who is strong and at the same time magnanimous draws effortlessly and naturally from the sense of his own strength a sense of compassion for the weakness of others, and hence, too, a certain inclination to love, and a certain capacity to be touched, to find an object lovable, and this to a greater degree than others. And he will always show patience in his dealings with the weak, rather than overpower them, even when he would be justified in doing so. (13 April 1821.)

  To what I have said elsewhere [→Z 228] on the derivation of the verb tornare [to turn around], one should add that this verb is the same as tourner in French, which means the same thing as volvere in Latin. For precisely in the same way the Spanish have made bolver, which means tornare, from volvere. (13 April 1821.)

  [942] For p. 939. The marvelous and strange immobility and immutability (as the Edinburgh Review terms it in the Annali di scienze e lettere, vol. 8, December 1811, no. 24, Staunton, translation of “Ta-Tsing-Leu-Lee,” p. 300)1 of the Chinese nation must certainly to a very great extent have derived, and must still derive, from their having neither alphabet nor letters (loc. cit., Rémusat, “Essay on Chinese language and literature,” from the Magasin Encyclopédique, p. 324, end)2 but characters expressing things and ideas, that is, a given number of elementary and principal characters representing the principal ideas, which are called keys, and in the system of some learned Chinese there are 214 of them (ibid., p. 313, p. 319), in other systems far more, in others far less (ibid., p. 319) but the system of 214 is the most common and the most widely followed by Chinese men of letters when compiling their dictionaries. These elementary or key characters variously combined—as when the abbreviation of the character that represents plants is put above the key that represents fields, you make the sign or character that means or represents first fruits of green things and of the harvest; and when this same character is put beneath the key that represents buildings, you make the character that signifies temple, that is to say, the p
lace where offerings of the first fruits are made (loc. cit., p. 314)—serve to express or represent the other ideas, although these combinations are agreed and grammatical, as are the elementary keys, for otherwise people would not understand one another (p. 319, end). Consequently, a good Chinese dictionary should contain, according to Abel-Rémusat (Essai sur la langue et la littérature chinoises, Paris 1811, loc. cit., p. 320) 35,000 [943] characters, as does the Tching-tseu-toung, one of the best dictionaries the Chinese have. According to Doctor Hager (Panthéon Chinois, Paris 1806, folio, Preface),1 10,000 would suffice (ibid., and p. 311, note). This writing is, in short, virtually the same as hieroglyphic writing. Compare the Annali, etc., quoted above, vol. 5, no. 14, Hammer, “Ancient alphabets and hieroglyphic characters explained,” article from the Critical Review, pp. 144–472 with vol. 8, no. 24, pp. 297–98, and pp. 313–20.3 I have already carried out this comparison and found it to be correct. (14 April 1821.) See p. 944, paragraph 2.

  The Chinese language is entirely built up and formed on the basis of a system of compounds, not only as regards characters, on which see the preceding thought, but equally as regards words. Since they only have 352 radical words expressing characters, according to Bayer, and 383, according to Fourmont. And setting aside the fact that the value of some of these words is sometimes altered by using four tones, the sign for one of them being added (Annali, etc., pp. 317–18 and 320, line 7), all the other Chinese words are compounds; as may be seen from the manner in which they are written when they are first brought over into our languages. Annali, etc., loc. cit. in the previous thought. Rémusat, pp. 319, middle–320, middle.4 (14 April 1821.) See p. 944, paragraph 1.

  For p. 923, margin. In short, such a people must necessarily be stationary. And which people, indeed, is more marvelously stationary than the Chinese (see here, above, p. 942, beginning), in whom we have observed a similar constitution? Sir George Staunton, Secretary of the Embassy in Lord Macartney’s mission to the Emperor of China, in the introduction to his English version of the Chinese penal code, notes how in this nation [944] among the causes of “certain considerable advantages, both in a moral and political view” to which, according to him, this nation can lay claim, “advantages … which are not,” according to him “to be exactly paralleled in any European society,” he notes, as I was saying, “the almost total absence of feudal rights and privileges … the equable distribution of landed property”; and “the natural incapacity and indisposition of the government and people to an indulgence in ambitious projects and foreign conquests.”1 Edinburgh Review, the passage quoted above, p. 942, beginning, p. 295. The same Edinburgh Review in the sequel to this same article (Annali di scienze e lettere, Milan, January 1812, vol. 9, no. 25, p. 42, middle)2 mentions (in another regard) “the caste system in India,” to which I have already alluded in the thought to which this one refers [→Z 917–23], and furthermore “in ancient Egypt.” But it only mentions it in passing, and there is no other word on this point. (14 April 1821.)

  For p. 943. So that just as the Chinese language surpasses the other languages in the multiplicity, complication, and confusion of the elements and of the construction of the writing, so too does it outstrip them in the simplicity and small number of elements in the language. (14 April 1821.)

  For p. 943. In short, Chinese writing does not really represent words but things (while our own systems of writing represent words, by means of letters which are arranged in a system and are wholly dependent on speech), and everyone therefore observes [945] that “their system of writing is virtually independent of speech” (Annali, etc., p. 316, p. 297). So someone could be found who fully understood the meaning of Chinese writing without knowing a syllable of the language, and who read Chinese books in their own language or in whichever one they preferred, that is, applied whichever words they wished to the Chinese characters without detriment to their perfect understanding of the script, or even of its flavor. For Chinese works neither have nor are capable of having versification, rhythm, or style, “and it is best, in fact, to disregard the words” when judging them; “their poems do not consist of verses, nor their oratorical prose of periods” (p. 297); “the genius of the language does not permit the use of ordinary connectives, and simply presents a string of unconnected images, whose relationships the reader has to guess at, depending upon their intrinsic properties” (p. 298). And so it is that “quite often some people who have stayed twenty years in China are not even able to read the easiest book, although they may know how to speak Chinese well, and make themselves understood” (p. 316).1 (14 April 1821.)

  The love of systems is condemned, and with good reason, for being most harmful to the truth, and we are the better acquainted with the harm and the more inwardly convinced of it, the more we have known and scrutinized the works of thinkers. And still, however, I say that any man capable of thinking for himself, anyone who enters with his own faculties, and if I may put it like this, walks with his own feet, into the consideration of the nature of things, in short, any genuine thinker, absolutely cannot manage without forming for himself, or following, or generally having a system.

  [946] (1) This is clear enough in practice. All thinkers, especially the greatest of them, have each had their own system, and have been either the shapers or the supporters, more or less passionate and committed as the case may be, of one system or another. Leaving the ancient philosophers to one side, consider the greatest of the moderns. Descartes, Malebranche, Newton, Leibniz, Locke, Rousseau, Cabanis, Tracy, Vico,1 Kant, in short, every last one of them. There is not a single great thinker who does not belong in this list. And I mean thinkers of every kind: those who have been thinkers in the sphere of ethics, politics, in the science of man, and in any of its parts, in physics, in philosophy of every kind, in philology, in antiquarianism, in critical and philosophical erudition, in the philosophy of history, etc. etc.

  (2) It is just as clear in theory as it is in practice. A person who does not think for himself, who does not use his own lights when searching for the truth, may perhaps be able to believe in one thing at one time and in another thing at another, and not bother to relate those things and to consider how they might be true in relation to one another, and to remain, in fact, without a system, and to remain satisfied with truths that are particular, disjointed, and independent one from the other. And this too is very hard because practice and theory show that such people always form a system anyway, even though they may perhaps be prepared to change it sometimes, according to new items of information or new opinions that reach them. But a thinker is not like that. He naturally and necessarily searches for a thread when considering the nature of things. It is impossible [947] for him to be content with wholly isolated notions and truths. And if he were to be content with them, his philosophy would be utterly trivial, and paltry, and would not amount to anything. The aim of philosophy (in the full sense of the term) is to find the reasons for truths. These reasons can only be found in the relations between such truths, and by means of generalization. Is it not a widely known fact that the capacity to generalize is what makes a thinker? Is it not accepted that philosophy consists of speculation regarding relationships? Now, anyone seeking to pass from the particular to the general, anyone seeking the link between truths (something that is inseparable from the faculty of thought) and the relations between things thereby seeks a system, and anyone who has passed on to the general, and who has found or believes he has found these relations, has found or has believed himself to have found a system, whether the confirmation and the proof of, or the belief in a system already found or proposed earlier, a system that will be more or less extensive, more or less complete, more or less coherent, harmonious, and consistent in its parts.1

  (3) The damage is done when we pass from the general to the particular, that is, from the system to consideration of the truths of which it is supposed to consist; or when, from a few uncertain, ill-connected, and weak particulars, from a few obscure relationships, we pass to the
system, and to the general. These are the vices of small minds, in part because of their very small-mindedness, and the capacity they have to be persuaded, in part because of the pestilential mania for forming systems, inventing paradoxes, formulating hypotheses in some guise or other, in order to [948] impose upon the multitude and cut a dash. Then, the love of systems, whether feigned or true and arising out of conviction, does untold harm to the truth, because the particulars are dragged by force to accommodate themselves to the system created prior to any consideration of those particulars from which the system should have derived, and to which it should be accommodated. Then things are distorted, relations are dreamed up, particulars are considered only in that aspect which favors the system, in short, you have things serving the system and not the system serving things, which is how it should be.1 Yet not only is it reasonable and routine that things should serve a system (whether one’s own or that of others), but it is indispensable, natural to man, and necessary; it is inseparable from philosophy; it constitutes its nature and its goal. And I conclude that not only was there never, but there cannot be a philosopher or a thinker, no matter how great, open-minded, and devoted to the truth he may be, who did not or does not create or follow a system (the scale of which depends on the topic, the nature of the philosopher’s intelligence, its sublimity, how acute and penetrating it is in investigation, speculation, and identification of relationships), and he would be neither a philosopher nor a thinker if this did not happen, rather he would be taken for someone who does not think and is content to have no idea or clear and settled concept about anything. (Such people do nonetheless always have a system, which will be more or less clear, indeed, more extensive, and so far as they are concerned, more persuasive and more clear and more certain than those the philosophers have.) It may even [949] be a system that consists in the exclusion of all systems, like Pyrrho’s1 and the one that all but characterizes our age. (16 April 1821.) See p. 950, paragraph 2.