Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  For p. 1551. Both the faculty of imagining and the faculty of feeling are habits. Now the former habit is more readily regained than the latter.

  [1557] Except where children are concerned, imagination is not and does not need to be founded on conviction. Homer certainly did not believe in what he imagined. Science can therefore greatly weaken the imagination, yet it is not incompatible with it. Conversely, if feeling is not founded on conviction, it is nothing. The man who no longer believes in virtue, who knows how harmful it is, and furthermore that it is not to be found in anyone, the man who has forfeited the idea of greatness of spirits, deeds, and actions because he sees how paltry they all are, who has realized how enthusiasm, heroism, and love have no real object, and that men and deeds are not worthy to rouse such feelings in him, etc. etc.—how can such a man make use of his own heart, how can he any longer experience any intense and lasting feeling, he who beneath even the fairest appearances always clearly discovers or strongly suspects deception, cunning, wickedness, ulterior motives, vanity, cowardice, nullity, and coldness? (24 Aug. 1821.)

  [1558] For p. 1543, margin. This aptitude is so dependent on habit and exercise, etc., that if they are interrupted the greatest intellects languish, or sometimes lose it altogether, whether particularly, that is, in relation to a specific kind of writing or work, or generally, that is, in relation to all kinds. Although it is less difficult for them to recover it than it is for another to acquire it, as is only natural, being an effect of past habit. (24 Aug. 1821.)

  Monti (Proposta, etc., vol. 1, p. 227) comments on the “separation to be posited between wild and cultivated nature.” Have a look at this passage. He prefers the latter to the former, as one may readily suppose. It is eminently true. Art does amend, embellish, etc. etc., nature on no end of occasions. Nature untouched by art is very often intolerable, harmful, “disgusting” (as Monti remarks). But how can that be? Is it absolutely so? No, indeed, just in relation to man. Then what does all that mean? That nature has erred? That it is imperfect in all its works? That is the view of those to whom it seems more absurd that man does not make everything good than that nature has [1559] made everything bad, and made mistakes at every turn, and is forever begging for the charity and succor of its own creatures. But I say this. Things that without the endless art of man are no use to him, or unpleasant, or harmful, or disgust him, etc., were not and are not made for man. The world is not wholly made for man. As for those things that were made for him, or were intended to have some relation to him, and have it in a particular way, nature has ordered them to his good with all possible perfection. So it has done for everything else, whose good does not always accord with that of man.

  But since man, by means of what is called perfection, and what I call corruption, has been put into relation with the whole world, he has procured for himself an infinite number of needs, etc. etc. Amid infinite difficulties he has had to reduce all things to a state suited to his service, and since the things that nature had intended for his use are no longer of any use to him in his new state, he has had in part to abandon them, in part to reduce them to a state entirely different from, and opposed to, the state of nature. [1560] What does this mean? Not that nature is imperfect, but that man is not as he ought to be. If art is necessary to nature from man’s point of view—and not an art that is, if I may so put it, natural, and such as even the beasts after their own fashion employ, but an art that is exceedingly difficult, infinite, highly complicated, and very distant from nature—this does not mean that nature in itself has need of art, but that man has been reduced to such a state that nature is no longer enough; and this proves that this state is not right for him. As man has changed, he has found that nature is imperfect for him. This means that he has not, therefore, perfected but corrupted himself, it means that he no longer corresponds to the system of things, and that consequently he is in a state of vice. We ascribe man’s imperfection, which has nothing absurd about it because it comes from him, to nature, and this is ridiculous in so perfect a mistress, and what is more, in one who is the sole norm and reason whereby a thing is perfect or not, since beyond it, and its free disposing of things, no other cause of perfection or [1561] imperfection exists. Once man had changed, nature had to change, too.1 This proves that he should not have changed. If his new circumstance had been intended and ordained by nature, it would have so disposed and ordained the other things that they corresponded with and perfectly served this new circumstance. If the change had been primordially and essentially ordained by nature, that is, by the intrinsic reason of things, man would have found himself at odds with nature (as he routinely is today) before that change and not after it. All creatures in their relative state of perfection find that nature corresponds perfectly with their ends, with their good, etc., and are found to be in perfect harmony with all things that have a natural and essential (and not accidental) relation with them. Only man, in the state that he calls perfection, finds nature to be reluctant, repugnant, ill-suited to his interests, his pleasures, his desires, and his ends, and therefore he has to refashion it. The more he advances [1562] toward the dreamed-of perfection of his being, the less he finds himself in harmony with things as they are, and by redoubling his art proportionately and overcoming ever greater difficulties, he has to change things and make them exist in a different way. The more perfect man is, that is to say, the more he is in harmony with the system of things as they are, and with his own self, the harder and more wearisome it is for him to live and be happy. What a strange absurdity would this be in nature? What strange contradiction with all the other parts of its system, even the least?

  So if art is necessary to man today, and he is incompatible with brute nature, this means that he is not as he ought to be, and that his true state of perfection is the original state, as is the case with all other things. Far from being an argument against my system, this militates strongly in its favor.1 (25 August, Feast of St. Bartholomew, 1821.) See p. 1699, paragraph 2.

  For p. 1527. Likewise, the Spanish have lost the Latin furari [to steal], but have its continuative, one unknown in classical Latin, that is hurtar (which in earlier times was pronounced furtar) [1563] contracted from furatare, or furitare. Furtare features in some Portuguese barbarian Latin texts, in Du Cange. (25 Aug. 1821.) See p. 2244, end.

  Virtue, heroism, greatness of spirit cannot be found to a degree that is eminent and splendid and capable of enhancing the public good except in a popular state, or where the nation has a share of power. Here is how my argument goes. Everything in the world is self-love. Virtue is never powerful, great, constant, or ordinary in a people unless of itself it is useful to the one who practices it. Now, the principal advantages that a man may desire and obtain are obtained through the powerful, that is, through those who control good and ill, resources, honors, and everything to do with the nation. So to be pleasing, to attract the attention of the powerful in whatever way possible, from near at hand or at a distance, is more or less the aim of individuals of each and every nation, generally speaking. And it has been observed time and time again that the powerful impress their character, their inclinations, etc., upon the nations subject to them. [1564] For virtue, heroism, nobility, etc., to be practiced generally and to a considerable extent by a nation, and given that this practice must be of use to it, and that usefulness only comes for the most part from power, all this must be loved, etc., by those who control power, and must therefore be a means to make one’s fortune with them, which is tantamount to saying, to make one’s fortune in the world.

  Now, an individual, and especially a powerful individual, is never virtuous. I refer both to the prince and to his ministers, who in a despotic government are necessarily despots themselves, oppressing their subalterns as the latter do theirs, etc. For this is a universal and inevitable consequence of despotic government by a single person, namely, that government is exercised by many despots, for it is not possible for despotism to be exercised by the monarch alone, and that the auth
ority of each of his ministers, direct or indirect, is feared with a sort of terror, worshipped, etc., by subalterns, etc. (as may be seen in the past government in Spain),1 and hence exerts a [1565] profound influence on the nation, and determines its character, being its despotic (though dependent) master for good and for ill.

  A powerful individual, then, or powerful individuals (like the rest) are not and cannot be virtuous, unless by chance, that is, either when virtue is to their advantage (a rare circumstance, because it is to the advantage of someone who has control over another’s affairs to make use of them for himself, not to abstain from, etc. etc. etc.) or when an extraordinary trait of character, education, etc., takes them there. And you can see how many examples there are of this in the histories, especially modern ones.

  An individual is not virtuous, the multitude is, and invariably so, for the reasons and in the sense expounded by me elsewhere [→Z 892ff.]. Hence in a state in which power, or a part of it, is in the hands of the nation, virtue, etc., is useful, because the nation (which holds power) loves it. And because it is useful, it is practiced to a greater or lesser degree depending on circumstances, but always much more, and much more generally, than in a despotic state.1 Virtue is necessarily advantageous to the public. So the public is necessarily virtuous or inclined to virtue, because it necessarily loves itself and hence its own advantage. But virtue is not always advantageous to the individual. So the individual is not always, nor necessarily, virtuous. Aside from the fact that it is far easier and more commonplace to deceive an individual regarding his own advantage, than it is to deceive the multitude. But anyway, an individual looks to his own good, the public to its own (true or false, by fair means or foul). The latter good is always and in every case virtuous, the former is selfishness and vice. I am chiefly speaking of the public virtues, that is, of those lofty virtues [1566] whose effects or example are felt far and wide, no matter how they occur. But I do not mean to exclude the private and domestic virtues either, to which—or so ancient and modern histories tell me—a popular state (especially in the case of the strong and generous virtues) is so favorable, and a despotic one so unfavorable. Let this be said for me by, among others, the history of monarchical France, of republican France, England, etc.

  When the useful is simply whatever pleases individuals, and individuals are not and are almost incapable of being virtuous, or are so only momentarily, or one is and another is not, and a hundred others are not, when, in short, the usefulness of the virtues depends on the character, inclinations, wishes, and designs of individuals, and virtue therefore, though it may sometimes be useful, is not so consistently and essentially but because of accidental circumstances, it is not possible for a specific nation to be habitually and generally virtuous, and for its individuals to be raised in a virtue that from one moment to the next could become, not only useless, but also very damaging to them. With virtue then [1567] only subsisting in appearance, as required, it is not virtue but calculation, fiction, and therefore vice. And it must necessarily always be feigned in subjects, because, even if it benefits them today, they cannot be sure that it will benefit them tomorrow, for its usefulness depends not on its nature, nor on circumstances that are essential and securely based on their own logic, but on its being loved or not loved by individuals, who for the most part do not love it, and who at best may love it today and tomorrow cease to do so, or on this person loving it and another or their successor, etc. etc., hating it.

  Besides, those qualities which are practiced for pleasure in a very extended society, or should I say in the nation, are almost inseparable (even if they are feigned, in which case they do not consistently benefit us) from a certain greatness of spirit, and this circumstance helps to render men virtuous, etc., and, indeed, truly virtuous. Even the actual act of paying court to a nation in order to obtain favors from it, makes a heart greater, and is compatible with virtue. Subjecting oneself to the nation is greatness rather than baseness. Whereas paying court to an individual in order to enter into his good graces, subjecting yourself to a man who is your equal, and in whom you see no good and sublime cause for predominance, no [1568] fine illusion that ennobles your abasement (as occurs in relation to the nation, whose sheer scale almost places the spectator at a distance, and this distance imparts value to deeds; in relation to the nation, in which great and good qualities are always presupposed en masse), all this, I maintain, belittles, degrades, debases, and humiliates the heart, and makes it feel all too deeply its own degradation. For this reason, it is incompatible with virtue, because someone able to do such a thing has lost their self-esteem, which is the source, guardian, and nourisher of virtue, and someone who has lost their self-esteem and acquiesced in the loss of it, and does not regret it, nor seek to recover it, etc., or someone who has never possessed nor cherished it, absolutely cannot be virtuous. (26 August 1821.)

  What I have said elsewhere [→Z 1368–69] about the dirty and the clean, can likewise be said about the disgusting, etc. etc. And one can add that not only in the various species of animals, but also in a single species, and a single individual, especially a human individual, notions of the dirty and the clean vary so much according to habit, etc., that they cannot be reduced to any concrete and universal form. (27 August 1821.)

  The very great conformability of man in comparison with all other known creatures means that we [1569] find much greater and more numerous differences between human individuals, and between the successive states of a single individual, than in any other species. (27 August 1821.)

  The marvelous faculties acquired by the deaf, the blind, etc.,1 whether born in that condition or who have become such, are a further convincing proof of just how much our faculties, and those of all creatures, derive from circumstances and from habituation, and of how developable, modifiable, tractable, flexible, and conformable human nature is. (27 August 1821.)

  But conformability is quite a different thing from perfectibility, a point not generally understood by philosophers, who think that they have proved that man is perfectible when they have proved that he is conformable. Which, indeed, would be to demonstrate the opposite, namely, that the various qualities and faculties which are not primordial in man and which are developed by means of culture, etc. etc., are not ordained by nature, but are accidental and the product of circumstances, like illnesses which modify our organs in a malign way, etc. etc. (27 [August 1821]).

  [1570] Our civilization, which we describe as a perfection essentially due to man, is manifestly accidental, both in the manner in which it has been brought about, and in its intrinsic qualities. As regards the manner, I have already elaborated upon that elsewhere [→Z 830–38]. As regards its qualities, since man is variously conformable, and has the capacity to modify himself in a million different guises once he has moved away from his original state, it is only through circumstance that he is as he is today, and in a different circumstance he could well be utterly different. This kind of supposed perfection we have attained or approached is one of ten thousand completely different conditions in which we might have found ourselves and which we would also have called perfections. Consider the histories, and the sources of our present state, and note what an infinite combination of completely different causes and circumstances has led to us becoming what we are. The lack of such causes or combinations, etc., in other parts of the globe means that men are either without civilization, and not very far removed from their original state, or they are civilized (that is, perfect) in a very different fashion, like the Chinese. It is therefore evident that our civilization, which we believe belongs to us by its essential nature, was not [1571] the work of nature, not a necessary and primordially anticipated consequence of the measures taken by it with regard to the human species (and that is how it ought to be, if it were perfection), but the work of chance. In such a fashion that, so to speak, not even nature, in molding man, could guess, not so much what he was to become, but how he could and should become perfect, and what his perfection would
consist in, which yet is the purpose and integrity of that existence which it itself gave him in molding him. It therefore did not know what it molded, since creatures and all things cannot be considered, nor can they or their attributes, etc., be judged, except in a state of perfection. But how is it possible that nature, which has made everything perfect (nor could it be otherwise), has neither assigned any kind of perfection to its principal creature nor so arranged things that man should necessarily pursue that perfection, that is, the fullness and true mode of his being, and that it has told him “it is chance that will give you perfection, that is, a complete existence, the existence that is right for you, the way you should be, your own form and nature, [1572] and how, and when, and if it wishes, and as far as it wishes, that is, to the degree and in the places it wishes, and as it wishes”? (27 Aug. 1821.)

  What a tremendous achievement is civilization! How difficult it is! How far removed the majority of men are from it, since the beginning of the world! What a consequence of countless chance combinations! Was this the way the perfection essential to things was to be assigned by nature to the principal element in our system, namely, man? (27 Aug. 1821.)

  Someone brandishing a razor, or some other weapon or instrument that could cause injury, and who fears to be injured in turn, is in great danger of being so. Why? Because he is trying too hard, and concentrating too much on avoiding injury, and that makes it difficult for him to avoid it. (27 August 1821.)

  Just how much men are invincibly given to assessing others in terms of themselves can also be seen in the most practical people in the world. If they are deeply moral, e.g., no matter how much they know and feel and see, they will never be inwardly persuaded that morality no longer exists and [1573] no longer forms any part of the motives determining the human heart. Such a person will still say it, maintain it, and in an access of misanthropy come even to believe it, but in the way that a person fleetingly believes in a vivid illusion acknowledged as such, and will never be convinced of it in the depths of his intellect. (I discount the young, who, being by and large virtuous, are never convinced prior to experience that virtue is not even rare.) Likewise vice versa, etc. etc. etc. Example, my father. (27 August 1821.)