Cicero (the passage is quoted by Mai, if I remember rightly, in his preface to the edition of Isocrates, De permutatione) says that men with good taste in eloquence are never wholly satisfied with either their own works or those of others, and that their minds “semper divinum aliquid atque infinitum desiderat” [“always desire something divine and infinite”] to which the resources of eloquence may not attain.1 This dictum is highly pertinent to art, criticism, and taste.
But here I wish to consider it insofar as it relates to that perpetual desire and discontent that we are left, as by all pleasures, [1574] so too by those that derive from reading, and any kind of study; and insofar as it can be referred to that inclination, and yearning of man for the infinite, something which the ancients—even the philosophers among them—express seldom and in a confused way, for, because their sensations were so much vaster and more powerful, their ideas so much less limited and defined by science, their lives so much more vital and active, and hence the distractions caused by desires were so much greater, they could not feel this same inclination and desire in so clear and definite a fashion as we feel it.
I note, however, that not only does study satisfy more than any other pleasure, and the taste for it, and the appetite, etc., last longer, but of all kinds of reading the one that leaves the mind least desirous of pleasure is the reading of genuine poetry. For it arouses the most intense emotions, and by filling the mind with vague, indefinite, vast, sublime, and obscure, etc., ideas, fills it as much as is possible in this world. So that Cicero [1575] could perhaps not have said of poetry what he said about eloquence. It is certainly true that this is a property of the genus, and not of the poet individually, and it does not derive from his art but from the material he handles. What is certain is that a poet, even if possessed of much less art and skill than a man of eloquence, may leave less of a void in the mind than the one perhaps left by the very greatest of orators, and produce in readers the feeling described by Cicero to a much smaller degree. (27 Aug. 1821.)
Artlessness in, e.g., a child would appear graceful even to natural man, because he would see it as being out of the ordinary, inasmuch as it would always be somewhat different from his own customs, and those of his contemporaries, with whom more than any others his life is lived, and from whom more than any others a man molds and fashions his idea of man. (27 August 1821.)
So true is it that grace is entirely relative, that men who are listless and blasés from the prolonged use of pleasures, etc., need something powerfully extraordinary in order to experience the sense of grace, so much so that the extraordinary thing which to them seems graceful will seem flawed to others and elicit from them the perception and judgment of [1576] impropriety. Like palates that need ragoûts and sauces in order to be stimulated. This effect is all too common nowadays, on account of the nature of our civilization, especially as regards women in relation to men and vice versa. The retroussé nose that works wonders in Marmontel1 works them on Suleyman, as is natural for a Sultan wearied by a surfeit of pleasures, etc. And perhaps the majority of things that pass as graceful today, and are so, only owe this quality to the listlessness of the age, or of one or other nation. The number of these graces deriving from listlessness alone is infinite, and common indeed in our lives. And it can be predicted that it will grow steadily, and furthermore that many attributes of things will become graces which today are taken for defects, even serious ones, and which provoke a keen perception and judgment of their impropriety. (27 August 1821.)
Just how true it is that the beauty of physiognomies depends upon their meaning may be observed in the following. The eye is the most expressive part of the face and the person. The mind is always depicted in the eye, and a person of great spirit, etc. etc., [1577] will never have eyes devoid of meaning. Even if the eyes didn’t express anything or were not very bright in some person or other, if the mind is cultivated and takes on a degree of life and becomes cunning and active, etc. etc., the eye likewise takes on meaning, and the converse occurs with people whose eyes are naturally expressive but have sluggish, etc., minds for want of culture, etc. etc. At the various stages of a life, according to the passions, etc., that move us, the eyes take on different guises, appear more or less beautiful, etc. etc. Now the eye, which is the most meaningful part of the human form, is also the principal part of beauty. (This may be demonstrated by many considerations.) A pair of bright, expressive eyes bore deep into the soul, and arouse a feeling that defies expression. This is known as an effect of beauty, and beauty is therefore believed to be absolute. But it has nothing to do with it; it is an effect of meaning, something independent of the sphere of the beautiful, and the principal beauty of the eye, since it does not pertain to propriety, has nothing to do with what the philosopher regards as beautiful.
[1578] Paint a face without eyes, and you will not know if it is beautiful or ugly, and you will not form an adequate idea of that physiognomy (even if it were a highly realistic portrait). Add the eyes and that physiognomy will strike you as quite different from what it was before, etc. etc. This observation can be greatly extended and divided into many parts.
An irregular face with a beautiful eye seems beautiful; one with an eye that is insignificant will be found regular but not beautiful. So what we call beautiful in human physiognomy, the thing that is peculiarly characteristic of its beauty, the particular effect it produces, which is not produced by any other regularity, the effect which could be deemed absolute, does not pertain to the beautiful (apart from the fact that it too varies according to individuals), but to meaning, and derives from a cause similar to the one that causes women who are βαθύκολποι [full-breasted] to be universally judged beautiful.1
Several animal physiognomies resemble the human. Look closely and you will see that this resemblance is chiefly in the eyes. And, generally speaking, an animal’s eyes [1579] determine its physiognomy and the impression it makes on us. An animal without eyes, or whose eyes cannot be seen, or which are differently constructed to our own (like snails’ eyes), has no physiognomy so far as we are concerned. Indeed, sometimes they do not even seem to belong to our own kind, that is to say, to the animal kingdom. And it would seem to us that they did belong if they had eyes similar to ours, even if all the rest of their form was completely different from the forms that animals generally have in common. In short, the eye seems to be the defining element in what is termed physiognomy and almost indeed (at any rate so far as our own idea of it is concerned) of the whole aspect of the animal.
A high forehead is an index of talent, of a noble, sensitive, capable, etc., soul. See Lavater.1 And if the forehead is high it is beauty, and is pleasing, and a low forehead the reverse.
The face is the most meaningful part of man. And the face is the chief part of human beauty, as I have argued elsewhere [→Z 1379–81]. (28 Aug. 1821.)
As an example and confirmation of what I have said elsewhere [→Z 1420, 1434–36, 1449–50, 1456–58]—that the elegance, grace, etc., of ancient writing, the simplicity of concepts and idioms, the purity, etc., of the language are either wholly or in part artificial pleasures, depending on habituation and opinion, relative, etc., pleasures, and that they have a greater impact on us and please us more than they did the ancients themselves, the writers themselves who nowadays afford us such pleasures, etc. etc.—one may adduce Petrarch [1580] and the contempt in which he held his writings in the vernacular and prized those in Latin, which are no longer valued. In the despised and illiterate language that he deployed, in the style that he fashioned, he certainly did not feel the beauty, worth, elegance of the grace, naturalness, simplicity, nobility, vigor, and purity that we feel right away. He did not believe himself to be either pure (in an utterly impure and barbarous language such as he believed Italian, a corruption of Latin, to be) or noble, or elegant, etc. etc. Opinion, habituation, etc., or rather the lack of them, prevented him from believing such a thing. (28 Aug. 1821.)
My theory of pleasure explains why we e
xperience delight in this life, when, without expecting or desiring any at all, the becalmed and indifferent heart launches itself, so to speak, at random in the midst of things, events, even amusements, etc. Such a state, in which we heed neither pleasures nor woes, is perhaps one of the greatest pleasures, not only for other reasons, but also for itself.
[1581] Often enough, an extraordinary and transient vigor produces a kind of torpor of the body and the nerves, so that the mind abandons itself in the bosom of indifference toward things and toward itself, in such a way that either it sees everything from a great height, as though it had barely anything to do with it, or it hardly thinks about anything at all, and desires and fears as little as it can. This state is itself a pleasure.
The languor of the body is sometimes so great that, without causing distress and vexation to the mind, by weakening its faculties it weakens every care and every desire. Man then experiences an actual pleasure, especially if he is coming from a distressed, etc., state. And he experiences it without there being any other external cause, but simply by virtue of his forgetting ills and ignoring goods, desires, and hopes, and by virtue of that kind of insensibility brought about in him by this languor. (28 Aug. 1821.)
Italian literature was universal for a period, and because of this our language was studied and known by the other civilized nations, by women, too, as French is [1582] today. And yet, while the Italian language bequeathed to other languages a number of words belonging to the terminology of the sciences or arts that Italy communicated to foreigners, it left few or almost none pertaining to literature. This is because the Italian language has never been universal except because of its literature, and as a literary language. And this is further proof that literature is a very weak source of universality. Other literary languages were universal not just for this reason but for others as well, and as a result, they have introduced, and still do, and have perpetuated, etc., in other languages quite a number of words and expressions relating to literature. This consequence may perhaps be due to the brief span of time during which the influence of Italian literature lasted, the limited culture of the nations that felt its impact, the limited amount of close trading between nations in those times, the paucity of men of letters there was then among foreigners, and so of those who cultivated our language, etc., although I said it was also cultivated by women, up until the age of Louis XIV. Customs are the principal [1583] source of a language’s universality. Literature can serve to introduce customs and opinions, etc. Without it, language on its own account does not spread very far. And it is more likely that some words regarding some custom, etc. etc., which came from here in more or less ancient times survive in other languages, rather than in our literature. (28 Aug. 1821.)
No one sees more than others, but someone may observe and combine more effectively than others. What occurs in the physical sciences occurs in the moral and metaphysical sciences. In the former and in the latter, a discovery once made is communicated to and shared by all and sundry. A well-formulated and well-expounded argument leading to truths that are the furthest removed from ordinary opinions and ordinary knowledge can at once be understood by the populace itself. Anyone may see once one has seen, etc. etc. (29 Aug. 1821.) See p. 1767.
Very many pleasures are almost only pleasures because we hope and intend to recount them. Without this, we would experience a huge void. This hope makes things that are not pleasurable, and even unpleasant things, etc. etc., pleasurable. Such effects may, however, be ascribed to ambition, to the wish to appear interesting, etc., and not to that of communicating and sharing our own sensations. [1584] (29 Aug. 1821.)
Even people who are sensitive, prone to enthusiasm, etc., are not always so, or are sometimes more, sometimes less so, according to circumstances, and also according to certain rhythms that sometimes occur periodically. Now, the symptom of a recurrence of sensibility, etc., or of its effects being manifested more vigorously and with a greater frequency is always, it may fairly be said, a sign of discontent, a pronounced and intense melancholy, a desire for we know not what, a kind of despair that gives pleasure, a propensity for a more vital life, for sensations that are felt more sensibly. Indeed, in such recurrences sensibility and enthusiasm very often do not appear except in these forms. And this is precisely how the sensibility and energy of the faculties of the soul are accompanied by discontent and desire, and therefore by unhappiness, especially when nothing corresponds to the internal activity, as follows from my theory of pleasure, and the other thoughts concerning it. (29 Aug. 1821.)
“On peut plaider pour la vie, et il y a cependant assez de bien à dire de la mort, ou de ce qui lui ressemble” [“One may plead the cause of life, and yet there is much good to be said of death, or what resembles it”]. (Corinne, tome [1585] 2, p. 335.)1 From my theory of pleasure (see also the previous thought and pp. 1580–81), it follows that in actual fact, because of self-love, the only thing proper to man’s possible happiness is a state either of complete life or one of complete death. It is proper either that he, and his mental faculties, are in the grip of torpor or uncaringness, current or habitual, which suppresses and all but extinguishes every desire, every hope, every fear; or that these same faculties and passions are distracted, exalted, and rendered capable of being intensely and well nigh fully occupied by the activity, the energy of life, by enthusiasm, powerful illusions, and external things which in some way fulfill them. A state midway between these two, namely, intense desire, ardent self-love, but without any activity, without any sustenance for life and for enthusiasm, is necessarily unhappy. This is, however, the habitual state of most men. An old person will sometimes find himself in the first state, but not always. A young person would always wish to find himself in the second state, and nowadays he is almost always to be found in the third. I say the same, proportionately, of someone middle-aged. From which it follows [1586] (1) that a young person without activity, a young person, tamed and brought low by misfortunes, etc., is indeed in the unhappiest state possible; (2) that because self-love can never really be extinguished, and because desires meanwhile always exist in a more or less intense state in young people, mature adults, and the old, the state toward which the general run of men and immutable nature incline is always more or less the second. And so the best republic is the one that favors the second state, being the only one generally conducive to man’s greatest possible happiness, the only one ordained and prescribed by nature, both on its own account and originally (as I have explained in the theory of pleasure), and today as well, despite the infinite alterations of the human race. (29 Aug. 1821.)
Science may never supplant experience: this is something absolutely general and self-evident. A doctor never cures the sick by theory alone, a musician armed with his professional theory alone knows neither how to compose nor how to execute a melody, a man of letters who has never written does not know how to write, a philosopher who has not [1587] seen the world close up does not know it. Princes for their part never know men, because they can never gain experience from them, since they always see the world in a form that it does not have. I discount the adulation, the lies, the fictions, etc., of courtiers, but setting such things aside, a prince only has such relations with other men as they do not have with anyone else. Yet the relations the prince has with men are the sole means he has of gaining experience. He can therefore never know the true nature of those whom he commands, and whose lives he has to regulate. I was very well acquainted with a Lady who almost never ventured outside her own domestic circle, and was always used to being obeyed, and so had never learned how to command. She had not the faintest idea of such an art, entertained a thousand absurd and ridiculous notions in this regard, and if sometimes she was not obeyed, she was all at sea. She was, however, very bright and talented, well enough educated, and scrupulously well brought up. She imagined men to be wholly different from what they are. [1588] A prince who sees and deals with them much more, although he may see them very differently from how they are, will n
evertheless be able, perhaps, to know them somewhat better. Yet, proportionately, and granted the much greater knowledge of men needed to govern a nation than that needed to govern a family, I believe that a prince will know as well how to reign as that lady knows how to command children and servants. In this regard, an elective regime would be much preferable to a hereditary one. It is true, however, that no one knows men entirely, as one would need to do in order to govern them well. “Connaître un autre parfaitement serait l’étude d’une vie entière; qu’est-ce donc qu’on entend par connaître les hommes? les gouverner, cela se peut, mais les comprendre, Dieu seul le fait” [“It would take a whole lifetime to know another perfectly. What, then, do we mean when we talk of knowing men? Governing them may be possible, but only God can understand them”]. (Corinne, bk. 10, ch. 1, tome 2, p. 114.) (30 Aug. 1821.)
“La manière de vivre des Chartreux suppose, dans les hommes qui sont capables de la mener, ou un esprit extrêmement borné, ou la plus noble et la plus continuelle exaltation des sentiments religieux” [“For those able to lead it, the way of life of the Carthusians presupposes either an extremely limited mind or the noblest and most unremitting exaltation of religious feeling”]. (Corinne, the passage quoted above, p. 113.) So it is: inactivity and monotony is proper only to the meanest or the [1589] loftiest spirits. Both seek method and repose, though for quite different reasons. Some to suppress the desires that torment them, some because they do not have any. Some because life is not enough for them and they take refuge in death, some because their minds have no life. Some again because they have no need of an outward life and live very inwardly, some because they do not need any life. Mediocre spirits, that is, the majority of men, cannot be reconciled to this state, and are most unhappy in it, or any other state resembling it. See p. 1584, end. (30 Aug. 1821.)
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