The literature of a nation shapes and imposes its imprint upon and communicates its genius to the language and, when it is corrupted, it also by the same token corrupts the language, which always runs alongside and in its stream. And the corruption of literature has never been separate from the corruption of language, the latter likewise influencing in turn the corruption of the former, as without fail the spirit of language also helps to define and shape the spirit of literature. This is what happened to the Latin language, to the Italian language in the 15th century, in the 17th century, and in recent times, and likewise in the 17th century and in recent times to the Spanish language, all of them corrupted once their respective literatures had been. Yet the Greek language, and this is perhaps a unique case, even when the literature was corrupted, indeed I would say was in a state of putrefaction, stayed uncorrupted [1094] for many centuries and for a far longer span it remained barely altered. This may be seen in Libanius, Himerius, in St. Gregory of Nazianzus,1 and in other such sophists more ancient or more modern than these who are totally corrupt in taste but not corrupt, or barely so, in language. Such was, on the one hand, the freedom, flexibility, and I would say capaciousness of the fully formed Greek language, which could also be applied to the very worst styles without straying from its original character and without losing its own characteristic forms and its natural being and could be used by a ruined literature without being ruined itself, adapting itself as much equally to the good and the bad and thanks to the immense capaciousness of its forms and in its variety, abundance, and richness welcoming both the one and the other. Similar in that regard to Italian, where one can write things of very poor taste in a very pure way and use a very poor style in the very best or uncorrupted language, as I have said elsewhere [→Z 243–45, 321, 686ff., 766–67]. Which is why it is so difficult to write well in Italian, whereas in French there is but the one language and also the one style, and whoever writes in French cannot help but write in a style that is more or less good. And we should therefore not be surprised at it being said that more or less all Frenchmen write well.
[1095] On the other hand (to return to my argument), this was how great the alienation of Greek literature was from everything foreign. For also the corruption of the Italian language that occurred in the 15th century, and then in the 16th century, being Italian corruption, did not alter the essential forms and characteristic genius of the language, as has happened on the contrary in recent times in which corruption has derived from foreign influences.
And if we wish to see foreign influence at work on the Greek language and how it immediately corrupted it despite its seeming incorruptible as we have demonstrated, and although it is difficult to find anything foreign in Greek literature, let us consider the one (you can say) foreign book brought into Greece (or Greek lands) that influenced its writers and was an object of study for the Greeks. Let us leave to one side the influence of Latin on Greek after Constantine, an influence that was slow to spread and to do lasting harm to the language because it had more of an impact on the spoken than the written form and only after a long span of time did it pass from speech to literature. The book I am referring to here is the Bible. If we examine the Greek Fathers from first to last, we shall immediately find in them an all too visible and fundamental corruption of language and style coming from Hebraisms, from the use of the prophetic, psalmic, apostolic style, from the ugly and barbarous [1096] and often unremitting imitation of scripture, from the mysticism of the Christian religion.1 A corruption that is also shared by Christian writers who had nothing at all to do with Palestine or other countries where the Greek vernacular was ruined by the admixture of Hebrew or other dialects spread by the Jews, etc.; they were not Jews by race, etc. etc. But they were foreigners by sect, and hence also barbarous in their tastes. I leave to one side the translation of the Seventy2 and the New Testament. The same causes of corruption also influenced the language and style of the Latin Fathers. But the profane authors of the time, both Greek and Latin, and a good number of the Christian authors themselves, whether they were handling profane matters or even many times ecclesiastical subjects, depending on the culture, studies, and elegance of the writers, steered clear of these causes of corruption, as is only natural. (27 May 1821.)
The praises I lavish on antiquity and on the ancient republics should not be thought of as exaggerations. I too am aware of how they were subject to many calamities, many sorrows, and many ills. Inevitable difficulties in the magisterial system of nature but how much more so in the dispensations, which in the end are to a greater or lesser degree human work! But my argument turns on the relation and the comparison between the happiness or, if you wish, [1097] unhappiness of the ancients and of the moderns, on the weighing up and analysis of the mass of good and evil to which either were subjected. I would agree that man, especially once he has gone beyond the bounds of primordial nature, has never been capable of complete happiness. Indeed, he has always been unhappy. But the generally held opinion is that man is indefinitely perfectible, and that he has therefore been so much happier or less unhappy the more he has moved away from nature, and that consequently modern unhappiness is less than ancient unhappiness. I show that since man is perfect in nature, the more he moves away from it, the more his unhappiness increases. I show that the perfectibility of the social state has strict limits, and although no social state can make us happy, it makes us all the more wretched the more, with its supposed perfection, it distances us from nature. I show that the ancient social state had attained the limits of its perfectibility, limits as little distant from nature as is compatible with the essence of the social state and with the inevitable alteration of man from what he was originally. I show finally by means of theoretical proofs, and with historical proofs and proofs of fact, [1098] that the ancient social state, deemed by others to be thoroughly imperfect and by me to be perfect, was less unhappy than the modern.1 (27 May 1821.)
Another proof that the beautiful is always relative. Monti says (Proposta, etc., vol. 1, paragraph 2, p. 8, end) that the ear is “the only judge, and a most magnificent one, of the external beauty of words.”2 In this context the ear, since we are speaking of Italian words, can only mean the Italian ear, and the judgment of this external beauty varies from nation to nation, and from language to language. (28 May 1821.)
The whole of the principal formation of the Latin language happened during a period markedly similar (taking into account the relation between the periods in question) to that in which the French language was formed, that is, in the most civilized and artificial and (within the bounds of civilization) most corrupt century in Rome’s history, by which I mean the century between Cicero and Ovid. There you have the reason why the Latin language, like French, lost its freedom in its very formation, and there you have the reason underlying all the consequences of this loss, which are similar in the two languages, etc. (28 May 1821.)
I hate archaisms, and those ancient words, although they are utterly clear, utterly expressive, beautiful, and [1099] useful, always sound affected, recherché, and labored, especially in prose. But our early writers, and the very earliest also, had an abundance of words and expressions that today are no longer in use and which, aside from having meanings that are entirely open to one and all, fall so naturally, softly, and simply into speech, and their use is so free of any sense of affectation or pretension, and they are, in short, so fresh (and at the same time utterly beautiful, etc.) that the reader who does not know where they come from cannot see that they are ancient, but must judge them to be entirely modern and new-minted. Words and expressions, whose antiquity may be known, but is in no way felt. And while others may be likened to things that time has turned stale, mildewed, and rancid, these resemble those fruits coated in wax and preserved in order to be eaten out of season, that are then extracted from their coating bright and fresh and beautiful and highly colored, as if they had been picked straight from the plant. And though unused, and for a very long time, whether in wri
ting or in speech, or both, they do not seem forgotten but as if set to one side, and kept, in order to be used again later. (28 May 1821.)
[1100] Man cannot be moved even toward virtue except out of self-love pure and simple, modified in various ways. But today almost no modification of self-love can lead to virtue. And so man cannot be virtuous naturally. Here it may be seen how universal egoism making every sort of virtue completely useless indeed harmful to the individual, and the lack of illusions and the things which awaken, maintain, and realize them inevitably produce individual egoism, even in the man whose character is more strongly, truly, and intensely virtuous. Because man absolutely cannot choose what is obviously and in every regard opposed to his self-love. And therefore he is left only with egoism, that is, the ugliest modification of self-love and that which most excludes virtues of whatever kind. (28 May 1821.)
They say that liberal maxims are modern and are shocked and laugh at the world because only now does it think it has reached the truth. But they are as old as Adam and what is more always held sway, more or less, and with different aspects, up until around a century and a half ago. That was the sole true era when despotism was perfected, consisting in large part in a certain moderation that made it universal, [1101] total and enduring. The supposed antiquity of despotic maxims, that is, of their true and universal power among the peoples (speaking in general and not individually) does not therefore go back further than the mid-seventeenth century. And that is how the time which ran from that era up until the revolution really was the most barbarous period of civilized Europe from when civilization was restored onward. A barbarism that civilized times inevitably fall into, that takes on various different aspects, depending on the nature of the civilization from which it derives and which it replaces, and on the nature of nations and the times. E.g., the barbarism of Rome, which, having replaced its freedom and civilization, was fiercer and more intense, while that of the Persians was similar to our own in its softness, inaction, and torpor. And that is how the present time may be regarded as an era featuring a new (though weak) rebirth of civilization. And thus liberal maxims may be described as having risen again (at any rate so far as their universality and power are concerned), but not as having been invented or being modern. On the contrary, they are essentially and characteristically ancient, and this is perhaps the only respect in which the present age resembles antiquity. On this point you can see Giordani’s letter to Monti in the Proposta, etc., vol. 1, part 2, at the entry Effemeride, where Giordani talks about ancient barbarisms revived today.1 (28 May 1821.)
For p. 1075. From these observations it follows that the man who lacks speech is likewise incapable of precisely and clearly conceiving of a measured quantity [1102] in this way, e.g., a distance of one hundred paces, since he cannot conceive this definite number of one hundred paces. The same goes for all the other things or ideas (and they are infinite) that man conceives clearly through the idea of numbers. And from that alone you will be able to argue for the great necessity and influence of language, a language with clear and precise signs, on man’s notions and ideas. (28 May 1821.) See p. 1394, paragraph 1.
From the previous thought and my other thoughts on the paramount influence of language on reasoning and concepts, you may deduce that one of the most important and general and nonetheless purely physical causes of the inferiority of beasts with respect to man and of the immutability of their state is their lack of the organs needed for a perfect language or for a perfect system of signs of whatever kind. And in lacking organs, they also lack any natural inclination to express themselves through signs, and specifically through the voice and through sounds. This inclination is material and innate in man, and was in consequence the first origin of language. For it is certain, as experience proves, that man, even when deprived of language, tends to express himself with inarticulate sounds, etc. (28 May 1821.)
[1103] Could one not ascribe (at any rate in large part) the limited memory of infants and children, which is also evident from the way in which we all tend to forget the first events of our lives, and the more so the further back we go, to the lack of language in infants and its imperfection and paucity in children? For it is certain that man’s memory is utterly powerless (as are thought and the intellect) without the aid of signs to fix his ideas and recollections. (See Sulzer, etc., in Scelta di opuscoli interessanti, Milan 1775, pp. 65, end, ff.)1 And note that this limited memory cannot stem from weakness of the organs, for everyone knows that man constantly remembers certain impressions from childhood, and more vividly than ever, even though he may have lost the memory of things that are present and very close at hand. And the earliest recollections are the most intense and enduring we have. Yet they begin just at the point at which the child has already acquired an adequate language, or with those first ideas which we conceived along with their signs and which we were able to fix with words. Just as my first memory is of some musk pears I saw, and heard being named at the same time.2 (28 May 1821.)
[1104] The Spanish verb traher or traer [to draw], which is obviously the Latin trahere [to draw], is sometimes used with meanings closely resembling those of the Latin tractare [to handle], and of its compounds attrectare [to touch], contrectare [to touch], etc. As with traer con la mano [to take in hand], traer entre las manos [take in one’s hands], and the like. Meanings and usages that have nothing to do with the known meanings and usages of the Latin trahere, nor with those of the Italian trarre [to draw] or tirare [to pull] (which are one and the same), nor with the French tirer [to pull]. Traher sometimes means to shake and to move says Franciosini under traher. Now for to shake specifically or for similar meanings the verb tractare is often used, or the Italian trattare, as in Dante, etc., see the Crusca Dictionary under trattare and especially § 5.1 Now I think that the verb trahere had these meanings in the very earliest times and that they were then lost in the practice of writing but preserved in the vernacular, until they passed over into a living language, the daughter of that vernacular. Here is how my argument runs.2
I contend that the verb tractare, which has effectively kept the meanings given above, derives from trahere and therefore that this verb also had those meanings originally and that tractare derives from it as follows. From the participle ending in tus (or from the supine) of many, many verbs, the Latins, by truncating the desinence in us and adding that in are (or in ari in the case of a deponent verb), would create a new verb which served to express a continuation or a greater duration of the action that had been expressed by the original verb. And I argue that in this way tractare derives from tractus, a participle of trahere (which meant, among other things, manu [1105] versare [to turn by hand]) meaning, at any rate in its original usage, a more continuous action than the verb trahere used to mean, in my view, when used in this same sense. Now to the evidence.
First of all, there is no doubting the fact that tractare derives from trahere because, especially in the earlier writers, the former verb has the same meaning as trahere is known to have had, namely, trarre [to draw], tirare [to pull], strascinare [to drag]. Also that of distrahere [to distract], dilaniare [to tear to pieces] (see Forcellini). Hence, deriving from trahere, and having its known meanings, I contend that its other meanings, which do not appear to belong to the verb trahere, were original—and today unknown—meanings of this verb. The sole difference being that tractare strictly speaking always signifies a more continuous action than those signified by trahere, as can also be observed if we want in the meanings it had of tirare, etc., as given above.
Second, I will make clear by means of examples how the Latins had the custom of forming new verbs from the participles ending in tus of other early verbs, and how these new verbs signified the same action as the original ones had done, but more continuously and more enduringly.
From adspicere [to look to, or upon] (a compound verb), and its participle [1106] adspectus, the Latins created adspectare [to look at attentively]. Anyone can sense the longer duration of the action represent
ed by adspectare as against that represented by adspicere.
Cunctaeque profundum
Pontum adspectabant flentes.
[And all, as they wept,
Gazed on the fathomless deep]
says Virgil (Aeneid 5, 614ff.) of the solitary Trojan women on the Sicilian shore. He certainly could not have achieved the same meaning with adspiciebant. Thus, from the root of adspicere (that is, specere or spicere [to look], an old verb), and the participle spectus, the Romans created spectare [to gaze upon, to spectate]. An obviously highly continuous action because spectantur [they are gazed at] things that require a long time to be either seen or examined, such as plays, etc., which is neither videntur [they are seen], nor (strictly speaking) adspiciuntur [they are looked at], but spectantur [they are gazed at, spectated] (and note that among the ancients adspicere, and specere or spicere signify more drawn-out actions than do intueri [to be observed], etc., but adspectare and spectare are more drawn-out still; and likewise with respectare [to look back], from which we have rispettare [to respect], which is not an act, but a habit or habitual action, etc., and likewise with the other compounds of spectare). See p. 2275 and Aeneid 6, 186, adspectans [gazing on] and observe its impact, and note that one could also say adspiciens. The same goes for the derivatives and compounds of spectare, as indeed of spectaculum [spectacle], or of exspectare [to expect], an action that is by its very nature continuous, and which derives from spectare and almost expresses looking at length and from a distance, something that someone who is waiting sometimes does, in the very same fashion as the Spanish aguardar, to await. (See, if you will, p. 1388 end.)
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