The infinite possibility that constitutes the essence of God, is necessity. Since things exist, they are necessarily possible. (One single, minimal thing existing today would be enough to demonstrate that possibility is necessary and eternal.)1 If no affirmation or negation is absolutely true, then all things and affirmations, etc., are absolutely possible. So infinite possibility is the only absolute thing. It is necessary, and preexists things. This existence is nowhere else but in God. This last thought deserves to be developed. See p. 1645, paragraph 1. (3 Sept. 1821.)
Regarding the different attributes that the various organs perceive in objects, as I remarked elsewhere [→Z 1437–38], see Dutens, part 1, ch. 3, § 40 and the whole of that section.2 (3 Sept. 1821.)
We shun good works prescribed by duty, and perform willingly those done of our own free will. Peasants refuse their lord all they can, yet give willingly to their friends, and often rob the former in order to give to the latter, though they gain nothing themselves. (4 Sept. 1821.)
There are certain combinations of nature or circumstance [1624] that strongly mark out a character as unusual, without raising it above or lowering it below others to any great extent or at all.
Natural law varies according to the nature of different creatures. A horse, not being carnivorous, will perhaps judge a wolf that attacks and kills a sheep to be unjust. It will hate it for its bloodthirstiness and will feel a sense of horror if it chances to see some example of its butchery. Not so a lion. Moral good and evil, therefore, have nothing absolute about them. The only wicked acts are those which are repugnant to the inclinations of each kind of operative being, nor are those acts wicked which harm other beings but are not repugnant to the nature of the one who performs them. (4 Sept. 1821.)
For p. 1602. The ancients well understood this truth, which should be the foundation of medical science. The Greeks, virtually the founders of medicine, used to call every kind of illness ἀσθένεια or weakness, and being ill ἀσθενεῖν. And even today, doctors use the Greek term stenia (it would be σθένεια) for a state of good health, which, like σθένος, means vigor, [1625] strength, robustness. ῎Εῤῥωμαι, infinitive ἐῤῥῶσθαι, prospera utor valetudine, simply means to be strong, from ῥώννυμι, confirmor, corroboror. Likewise εὐρωστία, sanitas, bona valetudo [health], and the opposites, ἀῤῥωστία, adversa valetudo, morbus, ἄῤῥωστος, aegrotus, ἀῤῥωστέω, aegroto, ἀῤῥώστημα, aegrotatio, aegritudo, morbus. The same goes for the Latin words valere, valetudo, valere good or ill, infirmus, imbecillitas, etc. etc. See the Dictionaries. Everything that gives us a feeling of vigor, gives us a feeling of pleasure and health. The truly vigorous man is healthy. You can see straightaway just how much civilization by its nature favors vigor in general and in particular. (4 Sept. 1821.)
We attribute to God just one mode of existence, and just one perfection. But if no perfection is absolute, then he will not be perfect, having but this one kind. The only absolute perfection is to exist in all possible modes, and to be perfect in all, that is, to conform perfectly with the nature [1626] and propriety of that mode of being. Absolute perfection embraces all possible qualities, even opposite ones, because there is no absolute opposition, only relative opposition. If a mode of being opposed to the one we imagine in God and in the things known to us is possible (which it certainly is, there being no absolute and independent reason that denies it), God would be neither infinite nor perfect. Indeed, he would be most imperfect, unless he also existed in that mode, and was in perfect relation and conformity with that mode of being. We therefore know but a single part of God’s essence, from among the infinite number of them, or rather a single one of his infinite essences. He has precisely the perfections that we give to him, he exists in relation to us in the mode that religion teaches, his relations with us are altogether such as they should be, and such as the nature of the world known to us requires. But he exists in an infinite number of other modes, and has infinite other parts, which we cannot in any way conceive, other than by imagining this one. The Christian Religion is therefore wholly true, and my thoughts are not opposed to, indeed, they support its dogmas. [1627] (4 Sept. 1821.)
The Christian Religion, in fact, reveals many attributes that wholly surpass and are contrary to the idea we have of the extent of the possible. God has wished to reveal them to us in order to subdue our reason, etc., and out of their infinite number has revealed to us only these. These attributes (such as the mystery of the Trinity, or the Eucharist) go against even what is called the principle of contradiction, which seems to be the ultimate principle in reasoning. The distinction between higher than and contrary to reason is frivolous. These mysteries are directly opposed to our mode of conceiving and reasoning. This does not prove that they are false, however, but that our mode of conceiving and reasoning is true only relatively, that is to say, within this particular order of things. (4 Sept. 1821.)
The human mind has a huge capacity. It rises up as high as God, succeeds after a fashion in knowing him, although it cannot define him. What it feels when contemplating and considering him is not strictly speaking despair of ever knowing him. It merely knows that it is not God, and sees what difference [1628] in essence and existence there is between him and it, as between it and other creatures. Indeed, it feels itself to be more like, and more capable of imagining and penetrating the mode in which God exists, than it can that of other creatures. These claims are not rash. Religion teaches that man is a mirror of the Divinity, quasi unus ex nobis [as one of us].1 (4 Sept. 1821.)
Despair, inasmuch as it is lack, or rather languor and an inability to feel hope, is a pleasure in itself, and also because a man who does not feel hope scarcely feels life, and his soul abandons itself to a kind of torpor, although the body may be in a highly active state, and in such circumstances often is. All this follows from my theory of pleasure. (4 Sept. 1821.)
The force of general habituation. Sense impressions are always very vivid in children. An adult grows used to them and they lose force and duration. But we do not only grow used to them one by one. An impression that is as novel to an adult as the most novel one a child could experience has less impact on the former than on the latter, because the former is used to [1629] impressions. The more used an adult is to novelties (in proportion to individual circumstances), the less forceful and enduring will be the impression made upon him by them, and in the end monotony, etc., will make a greater impression upon him than novelty. And though no one can be used to new impressions in particular, man gets used to new impressions in general, etc. etc. (4 Sept. 1821.)
I have said that as nations expand, languages divide [→Z 932–40]. This chiefly occurs in the people, because the people of one place have little or no contact with that of another, even if they are in the same nation. The other classes do have such contact, whether directly or indirectly, through the civilization that unites them, through writings, etc. etc. (1) The more a nation is a nation, both in spirit and through its political system, (2) the more the people have dealings with other classes in the same population, (3) with the populations of other nations, (4) the more a nation, and the people within it, is civilized, (5) the more customs, character, etc., are uniform as a consequence, both in the people and in other classes, the fewer, and the less distinct in form, the vernacular dialects are, etc. Apply these observations to Italy, France, England, Germany, etc.
One can also argue in the same way regarding nations [1630] considered overall, with respect to other nations. (4 Sept. 1821.)
The training routinely given to domestic animals—which they learn very well, more or less quickly depending on the species, the individuals, and the circumstances (such as horses, dogs, etc.), and with perfectly adequate reasoning (like the dog who stops at the fork in the road, waiting for his master to decide his route)—and that given to other animals simply for amusement, such as bears, monkeys, cats, dogs, mice, and even fleas, as has recently been seen,1 prove
that susceptibility and the capacity to become habituated to things that are not natural is not something that is proper exclusively to man. It is so only to a greater degree—generally speaking, since there will be some men less capable of being habituated and trained than a monkey. (5 Sept. 1821.)
Just how close the human species is nowadays to that same perfection in relation to reason about which it brags so much, see chapter 11 of Wieland, Storia del saggio Danischmend e dei tre Calender, o l’Egoista [1631] ed il Filosofo, Milan, “Scelta Raccolta di Romanzi,” Batelli and Fanfani, vol. 25.1 (5 Sept. 1821.)
Since memory depends on particular habits, and on habituation in general, and since it barely exists (as may be seen in children) without them, it may be regarded as a more or less acquired faculty. (5 Sept. 1821.)
Anyone who wishes to see what impact civilization has on the vigor of the body should compare civilized men to peasants or savages, and the peasants of today to what we know of ancient vigor, etc. (Homer, as is well known, quite often calls his own times degenerate, by contrast with the physical strength of Trojan times.) Let him observe how much the human body is capable of by seeing our absolute inability to do what the least robust of country people can, the dangers to which we would expose ourselves if we wanted to face some of their ordeals, our shameful daily custom of avoiding fresh air, the sun, etc., and marveling at how so-and-so managed to confront it because of this or that circumstance, the illnesses or ailments we pick up every day through a [1632] minor exertion of the body or effort of the mind, etc. And then let him say whether civilization strengthens man, whether it enhances his capacity and strength, whether the ancients would marvel or no at our lack of strength, whether nature itself should be ashamed or no, and whether we ourselves should not be ashamed, since we can see with our own eyes, on the one hand, just how much the human body is capable of, without any extraordinary effort, and, on the other hand, just how little our own bodies are capable of. (5 Sept. 1821.)
People generally say that all things, all truths have two different or opposed aspects, indeed, an infinite number of them. There is no truth that, if you take the argument from more or less distance, and follow a path that is more or less new, cannot be shown to be evidently false. Does this observation (which you can make much more specific and spell out) not prove that no truth or falsehood is absolute, either with respect to our own way of seeing and reasoning, or within the limits of human imagination and reason? (5 Sept. 1821.) See p. 1655, end.
There is no man so little inclined and ill-equipped to learn, or to learn a particular thing, who, after very long [1633] practice in any discipline and aptitude of either mind or hand, etc., may not master it better or at least as well as the greatest intelligence, etc., who is beginning or has very recently begun to practice it. This is what a difference in intelligence comes down to. Some require more practice, others less, but in the end all are capable of the same things, and with stubborn application the dullest intelligence can become one of the foremost mathematicians in the world.1 (5 Sept. 1821.)
Physical constitution can supply a perfect image of the mind. Some people are born more robust and with stronger physiques, others less so. Bodily exercise makes someone who is less robust equal to someone more robust who takes no exercise. With equal exercise, the person born weak can never equal one who is born robust. But if the latter does without any exercise, even if born the most robust of men, he will not only be equal but inferior to the weakest of men who have taken a substantial amount of exercise. (Example of the Gauls as against the Romans. See Mai’s Dionysius, bk. 14, chs. 17–19, and others.) [1634] Hence it follows that exercise is in an absolute sense superior to nature, and the chief cause of bodily strength.1 (Nature, however, had given man the opportunity and the need to exercise his body. With exercise thus being a product of nature, so, too, is the vigor and well-being that derives from it. Leaving aside that the descendants of the strong are also naturally strong, and vice versa, though even here one can note the great power of exercise.) Apply these considerations to any mental faculty whatsoever. Likewise, they can be applied to the other bodily faculties aside from strength (be they radically natural or wholly acquired but requiring a natural predisposition). (5 Sept. 1821.)
One could almost say that in man physiognomy alone is actually beautiful or ugly. What is certain is that it contains almost the whole ideal of human beauty, and almost the whole essential difference that our mind discovers and feels between human beauty as beauty, and all the other kinds of beauty. A man or a woman with a decidedly ugly face can never appear beautiful unless lust and sensual stimuli are involved. Except for the very frequent case when through habit and time, etc., a face that had seemed ugly to you seems beautiful, or passable. Conversely, a person with an ugly figure and a beautiful face may appear beautiful, and perhaps will [1635] never be called ugly with complete conviction.
Note that in general when you ask “is such and such a person beautiful or ugly?” and when you answer by either spontaneously denying or affirming, etc., you always mean the face unless you add something, or make a further distinction. (5 Sept. 1821.)
A body, being composite, demonstrates the existence of other things of which it is composed. But since all the parts or material substances of which matter is composed are likewise composite, one must necessarily ascend to beings that are not material. So argue the Leibnizians in order to arrive at their Monads or simple and incorporeal Beings (of which bodies are composed in their view), and thence at Unity, and at the beginning of all things. Now what I say is this. Get to the tiniest part or material substance, and tell me if you can whether the parts or substances of which this latter is composed are no longer matter but spirit. See if you can get to the atoms and particles that are indivisible and without parts. They will still be matter. Beyond them it is not spirit you will find but nothingness. Refine the idea of matter as much as you like; you will never transcend [1636] matter. Compose the idea of spirit as much as you like, you will never create either extension or length, etc., from it; you will never create matter from it. How can one compose matter from what is not matter? The body cannot be composed of nonbodies, any more than what is can be composed of what is not, nor can one proceed from the latter to the former, or vice versa. —But so long as matter is matter, it is divisible, and composite. —All right, find me the point at which it is composed of things that are not composite, that is to say, that are not matter. There is no scale, gradation, or progression that carries one from the material to the immaterial (just as there is none from existence to nothingness). There is a huge space between the former and the latter, and to cross it you’ll need a leap (which the Leibnizians rightly deny to nature).1 These two natures are entirely separate and dissimilar, as nothingness is from that which is; there is no relationship between them; the material can no more be composed of the immaterial than the immaterial can be composed of the material; and from the existence of matter (contrary to what Leibniz thinks) one cannot argue for the existence of spirit any more than one could argue from the existence of spirit for that of matter. See Dutens, part 2, the whole of chapter 1.2 (5 Sept. 1821.)
[1637] From what has been said in other thoughts [→Z 1619–23] it follows that God could manifest himself to us in the mode and aspect he judged most proper. Not manifest himself, as to the Gentiles, or manifest himself less, and in a somewhat different form, as to the Jews, or manifest himself more, as to the Christians. It must not be concluded from this that he has manifested himself to us entirely, as we believe. An error not taught by Religion, but by prejudices that make us believe every relative truth to be absolute. Revelation could occur or not occur. It is not necessary primordially, but is so given the relative proprieties originating from the simple will of God. He hid himself from the Gentiles, revealed himself in part to the Jews, manifested to the world a greater part of himself, in the fullness of time, that is, when men were better able to understand him. He revealed himself because he wished to and deemed it proper
, and how much and how and in the form he deemed proper, depending upon the differing circumstances of his creatures: a form that is always true because it exists in all possible modes.1
From what has been said about supposedly natural law, it follows that there is neither absolute good nor [1638] absolute evil in actions; that they are good or bad only according to the established proprieties, that is, determined by God alone, or, as we say, by nature; that if circumstances, and therefore proprieties, change, morality also changes, nor is there any law graven in our hearts from the beginning; that still less is there a morality that is eternal and existing prior to the nature of things, but that it depends on and consists entirely in the will and judgment of God who was free both to establish the specific proprieties that he wished and expressly to order or prohibit whatever he will to thinking beings, according to the proprieties that he alone had created; that God, therefore, does not have nor can he have any morality, something that could only be by admitting Plato’s ideas, independent of God, and eternal and necessary models of things; that morality, therefore, is created by him, like everything else, and that he was free to change it in light of the different circumstances of the human race, as he is free to give one that is entirely different, and even opposite, or not give any at all, to a different race of beings, whether within the known orders of things (such as the inhabitants of other [1639] planets), or in others unknown, and equally possible and plausible.1 All of the above serves to explain the difference between the law that ran before Moses, that of Moses, and that of Christ. Everyone says that Christianity perfected Morality. (Which itself means that it is therefore not innate.) Let us switch the terms around. It did not perfect it but renewed it, that is to say, perfected it only in relation to the state to which human society had been reduced, and from which (in all essential respects) it could no longer turn back, as indeed it has not done. Then it was the new morality that became proper, that is, the law of Christ, a law that should have been perpetual for the aforesaid reason; a law that actually made unlawful what before was lawful, and vice versa, as can readily be seen by contrasting the natural customs of any isolated man or society, and the Jews before Moses, with the law contained in the Pentateuch, and all of them with the law of the Gospel. For these two laws are not by any means restricted to the Ten Commandments, which meanwhile have remained immutable, inasmuch as, by virtue of their containing the very first [1640] elements of morality, they are therefore indeed applicable, and proper, to all possible states of human society, which cannot subsist without a moral code, and this cannot have a true foundation except in God. Consequently, the Ten Commandments more or less combine with the substance and the spirit of the laws written by all the wise lawgivers ancient and modern, and with the laws employed by even the rudest peoples who nevertheless make up a society. Man could have been made differently, but he is actually made in such a way that through forming a society with his fellows he is at once in need of a law whose spirit is that of the Ten Commandments. Which is as much as to say that the Ten Commandments contain the general principles of the proprieties of actions in a human society, for its own good. The general contains all the particulars, but the latter are infinite and highly diverse. Their proprieties in respect of actions vary according to the different states of society, and to society in general. Ancient Jewish law permitted concubinage, except with foreign women, etc. Hatred of one’s enemy was the spirit of ancient nations. So you have Moses’s eminently patriotic laws, the sanctification [1641] of invasions, wars against foreigners, the ban on marriage with them, and also the permission given to hate one’s private enemy. And Jesus, when commanding that we love our enemies, solemnly states that he is advancing a new precept.1 How can that be, if morality is eternal and necessary? How can what perhaps was good yesterday be bad today? But morality is none other than propriety, and the times had brought forth new proprieties.2 This argument could be extended ad infinitum by formulating generalizations about the state of the ancient and modern worlds, and about the different morality adapted to these various states. Isolated man had no need of morality, and did not, in fact, have any, natural law being just a dream. He simply had duties of inclination toward himself, the only duties useful and proper to his state. When society became close-knit, morality was propriety, and God gave it to man gradually, or rather first one morality then another, according to the successive states of society, and each of these moralities was equally perfect, because it was proper; and isolated man is perfect, without morality. Christian morality would have been imperfect because it was inappropriate for Abraham, [1642] and for Moses, etc. Does not what the Theologians say about acts made lawful through a particular impulse of the Holy Spirit clearly demonstrate that morality depends on God (just as propriety does) and that God in no way depends on morality?
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