(5) That the Italian language, though wonderfully rich, also originally had to yield to these needs, since the true bankable wealth of a language never precedes the period of its becoming fully formed, that is, the period when it is completely applied to literature. And for a long time, that is, until the end of the 16th century, our language was believed, first by everyone, then by many, to be incapable of elegance, perfect nobility, etc. And so for a very long time it was subordinated to Latin for the more important sorts of writing, even though it was already fully formed, and stupendously enriched and ornamented, etc. See my various thoughts in this regard [→Z 1579–80].
All of this demonstrates that the French language—which relinquished its ancient riches [1813] and everything that was set apart from common usage from the beginning of its formation, and still goes on doing so, so that today it doesn’t even have what the writers of the first period of the Academy and of the age of Louis XIV had—must necessarily not be very open to elegance and is above all devoid of poetic language, for it has scarcely a word, phrase, or form that is not necessary for everyday use in speech or in prose, or that does not frequently occur in such uses, and must therefore be absolutely incapable of rising above ordinary speech. Thus the style of French poetry is not differentiated from everyday speech or from prose, except for a few uniform, rare, and timid inversions and the use of a (very plebeian and pedestrian) meter and some rhymes. And sometimes it is downright ridiculous to see sublime images and maxims and sentiments, set apart on the one hand from popular opinion or popular use, and superior on the other to the commonplace way, etc., of thinking, formulated in French verses in the manner in which one would formulate a geometric proof, or make a witty remark in conversation, since on both such occasions, [1814] as on every other, the French language is more or less the same.
From this one might suppose that familiarity should always be felt a lot in French writing. I do not deny that it is felt there, but if it is not felt as much as one might suppose it should be, this stems from the fact that because this language is impoverished, it is not proper as a language, and not being so, it cannot have such a familiar flavor to it, by contrast with the earliest languages, with our own, and with French itself at the beginning, where familiarity is always felt because there is the utmost propriety in a language in those times, as I said on p. 1809, end. From which it follows that the spirit of French writing and French speech are so mixed together that their uniformity itself destroys the sense of familiarity. For when you read a French book you seem to be hearing someone speaking, and when you hear someone speak you seem to be reading, and so you do not rightly know where familiarity lies. That is necessarily what must occur in a single language, like French, and the same [1815] occurs with respect to its styles as well. Aside from the fact that the excessively social spirit of the French, refining everyday language ever further (even, proportionately, the language of the common people), brings it ever closer to the written form, and therefore divests it of familiarity more and more. And the excessive inclination of French literature to be commonplace, to imitate, engage with, feed off, and form itself almost exclusively from things to do with the conversation of its compatriots brings it ever closer to the spoken language. While obtaining for its literature the elegance of the epigram, it deprives it ever more of the elegance of poetry, of eloquence, etc., separate from the common people. This reciprocal inclination of the written toward the spoken, and vice versa, is what has made the French language what it is, geometric, single, absolutely modern, and universal, so to speak, by nature. (30 Sept. 1821.)
Boredom is the most sterile of the human passions. Born of nothingness, it gives life to nothing. Not only is it sterile in itself, it also makes whatever it mingles with, whatever it draws close to, sterile, etc. (30 Sept. 1821.)
[1816] Our gl is not crushed1 unless it is followed by i. This is why it is split in Anglante, Egle, globo, glutine. In the word Anglico or Anglicano it is split, in spite of being followed by i. (1 Oct. 1821.)
Power of nature and weakness of reason. I have said elsewhere [→Z 293–94, 329–30] that for opinion to exert a real influence on man, it has to be in the guise of passion. So long as man retains something natural, he will be more moved by opinion than by his own passions. Countless examples and considerations could be adduced as proof of this. But since all opinions that are not, or do not appear in the guise of prejudices, are only sustained by pure reason, they ordinarily hold very little power over man. The religious (even today, and perhaps today more than ever, because of the opposition they encounter) are more impassioned about their religion than about their other passions (to which religion is hostile). They sincerely hate the irreligious (though they conceal it), and in order to see their own system triumph will make any [1817] sacrifice (as they do in reality by sacrificing natural and contrary inclinations), while they feel genuine rage at seeing it brought low and opposed. But the irreligious, if their irreligion arises only from cold persuasion or doubt, do not hate the religious, they would make no sacrifice for irreligion, etc. etc. It is therefore the case that hatreds due to opinion are never reciprocal, save when on both sides the opinion is a prejudice, or appears in the guise of one. There is therefore no war between prejudice and reason, but only between prejudice and prejudice, or else prejudice alone is capable of fighting, but not reason. Wars, enmities, the hatreds due to differences of opinion so frequent in ancient times, indeed up until very recently, wars both public and private, between parties, sects, schools, orders, nations, individuals, wars on account of which the ancients were naturally the decided enemies of someone with a different opinion, wars such as these only occurred [1818] because pure reason never entered into those opinions. They were all prejudices, or had the form of prejudices, and hence were passions. What a poor thing then is philosophy, though we make such a fuss about it, and vest such hopes in it nowadays. It can rest assured that no one will fight for it, although its enemies will fight it ever more furiously, and it will have less influence on the world, and in practice, the more progress it makes, that is, the more it purifies and distances itself from the nature of prejudice and passion. Don’t ever place any hopes in philosophy then, nor in the reasonableness of this age.1 (1 Oct. 1821.)
If the Italians, the French, and the Spanish agree in using the verb mittere in the sense of to put (mettere, mettre, meter), if it is certain that this usage belonging in the very earliest times to all three languages did not derive from mutual communication of the corrupt Latin language with one or other of the three nations, if finally we do not wish to attribute this uniformity [1819] of usage in what were indeed three sister languages, but born independently of one another, though of the same mother, to pure chance, we must perforce derive it from a common origin and this can only be the Vulgar Latin from which all three derive, since this usage is not found in written Latin. See Forcellini, and the Glossaries. (1 Oct. 1821.)
That great talents never exist under a despotic government; that public circumstances give rise to them and a revolution, a beneficent and enlightened, etc., ruler has it in his power to produce them directly and in great abundance, as has been shown on a thousand different occasions; that great talents all ordinarily arise and flourish in one and the same period; that one age proves to be not only decidedly more fertile in great talents in a particular sphere than any other, but in such a way that when that particular cycle of years has passed, a talent worthy of being remembered or compared to those great ones will not be found again in that sphere (see Algarotti’s Saggio, and the end [1820] of the first book of Velleius);1 that in republics the eloquent abound, and that a magniloquent man cannot be found outside a republic, etc. etc. etc.: what does all this derive from, and what does it demonstrate, except that talent is wholly the product of circumstances, both talent in general and any individual talent in particular? —Circumstances develop talent, but it already existed independently of them. —What does this mean, developing an already existing and complete fac
ulty? Perhaps it means applying it, and rendering it ἐνεργῆ [effective], that is to say, rendering it operative? No sir, because this cannot be done, if minds are not first trained to operate, and in that particular way. That the organs, and with them the dispositions, that is, the properties they consist in, do develop, I well understand. But that a faculty, which without the corresponding circumstances, without habituation and exercise, is wholly null and imperceptible to any human sense, should be said to be and believed to be developed, and not produced by circumstances, [1821] this I do not understand. What is a faculty? In what does its essence consist? How is it innate in someone who does not have it if habituation and circumstances do not procure it for him?, etc. Dispositions are innate, or they are acquired by means of the development, that is, the respective perfecting of those organs that contain them as their properties, and as paper contains the disposition to be written on, to assume this or that form. But can one therefore say that paper has on its own account the faculty of speaking to the mind of the reader, and that he who writes on the paper develops this faculty in it, and does not give it to it? There may well be a paper that is sensitive to this or that form, ink, etc., and not to another. And likewise in the individuals of a particular species, dispositions or properties found in other individuals vary, are greater or lesser, or again are wholly lacking. This is the whole of the innate or developed difference in human talents, [1822] whether with respect to themselves or with respect to other species of animals, etc. A difference in dispositions, absolutely not in faculties. A difference, lack, scarcity, inferiority or superiority that no ruler and no circumstance (save a physical one) can remove, whereas the opposite occurs with respect to the faculties. The latter arise from circumstances, they depend wholly on rulers, education, etc., while dispositions do not. (1 Oct. 1821.)
The richer and vaster a language is, the fewer words it needs to express itself, and conversely the more restricted it is, the more lavish it has to be with words in order to achieve perfect expression. There is no propriety in words and phrases without richness and vastness in a language, and there is no brevity of expression without propriety. And so the French language, which certainly cannot boast of vastness (otherwise it would not be universal), boasts in vain of brevity, as if the brevity of sentences were the same as brevity of expression, or as if looseness [1823] and brevity were one and the same thing. See Dureau de la Malle’s Sallust, tome 1, p. LXIV. (1 Oct. 1821.)
Man always leans toward his fellows (as does every animal), and can only be interested in them, for the same reason that he leans toward himself, and loves himself more than any of his fellows. All you need is a thorough denaturing produced by philosophy to cause man to lean toward animals, plants, etc., and for the poets (especially foreign ones) of our own times to claim to be interested in an animal, a flower, a rock, an ideal entity, an allegory. It is very strange that philosophy, which makes us indifferent toward ourselves and our fellows, whom nature has endeared to us, wants us to be interested in something to which irresistible nature has made us indifferent. But this is an utterly logical effect of the general system of indifference deriving from reason, which does not differentiate between the like and the unlike. If ever we imagine that we might feel some interest in the unlike, it is only because we have [1824] lost interest in ourselves and in men, or feel it in a weakened form, and we are, in short, indifferent to everything. Thus other beings come to share not in our interest but in our indifference. The same happens with regard to our fellows, when universal love is substituted for love of country, etc. (1 Oct. 1821.) See pp. 1830 and 1846.
The power of general habituation makes it gradually ever easier to become dishabituated, and to pass from one habituation to another, different or contrary one. This in individuals, in nations, and in mankind. (1 Oct. 1821.)
From the observations on Christianity made in other thoughts [→Z 253‒54, 1685‒88] it follows that in its perfection it lapses into, includes, consists of a genuine and total egoism, even though it professes directly contrary precepts, and appears to be the fiercest, most complete and irreconcilable enemy of egoism—to the extent of claiming to extinguish self-love altogether,1 not only through the infinite sacrifices that it prescribes and recommends, but through wishing and supposing as an indispensable precondition, that these [1825] and every other of man’s actions in the last and perfect analysis do not have his own self as end, but purely and simply God. This will be physically, morally, mathematically possible, when the nature of the living being and of life shall have changed in its constitutive principles. (1 Oct. 1821.) See p. 1882.
Man, and the animals, proportionately, are reasonable by nature. I therefore do not condemn reason insofar as it is a natural quality, essential to living beings. I condemn it insofar as it grows and is modified (solely by dint of undue, not natural habituations) in such a way that it becomes the main obstacle to our happiness, an instrument of unhappiness, inimical to the other natural qualities, etc., of man and human life. (1 Oct. 1821.)
The words that indicate multitude, abundance, size, length, breadth, height, vastness, etc. etc., whether in extension or in strength, intensity, etc. etc., are also highly poetical, and so, too, the corresponding images. As in Petrarch:
[1826] Te solo aspetto, e quel che tanto AMASTI
E laggiuso è rimaso, il mio bel velo.
[I await only you, and what you so much LOVED
And has remained below, my lovely veil]1
And in Ippolito Pindemonte:
Fermossi alfine il cor che BALZÒ tanto.
[The heart ceased at last that POUNDED so much]2
Note here that the tanto [so much], being indefinite, has a stronger impact than molto, moltissimo, eccessivamente, sommamente [much, very much, excessively, supremely] would do. So too the words and ideas ultimo, mai più, l’ultima volta [last, never again, the last time], etc. etc., have a great poetic impact, because of their infiniteness, etc.3 (3 Oct. 1821.)
Hitherto knowledge of men rather than that of man has been applied to politics, the science of nations rather than that of the individuals of which the nations are composed, and which are just so many faithful images of the nations. (3 Oct. 1821.)
Like a row of trees whose end is lost from view, so too for the same reason a series of rooms, or houses, that is, a long, straight road, also composed of identical houses, is pleasurable, because the pleasure is then produced by the spaciousness of the sensation, whereas if the houses are of a different shape, height, etc., the pleasure of [1827] variety, by breaking up the sensation into little pieces, and attaching it to the particulars, destroys its vastness. Even so from multiple variety one can fashion a vast and indefinite sensation, when it makes it impossible for the mind to embrace the whole sensation of the great and numerous diversities that it sees, feels, etc., at one and the same time. (3 Oct. 1821.)
Where there is no national hatred, there is no virtue.1 (3 Oct. 1821.)
To what I have said elsewhere [→Z 1746] about the impact the sight of the sky has on man, one may add and compare the effect of the sea, of piscatory eclogues,2 and of all kinds of image drawn from navigation, etc. Ideas relating to the sea are vast, and for this reason pleasurable, but not enduringly so, because they lack two properties, variety, and being characteristic of and near to our everyday existence, to the objects around us, to our habituations, memories, etc. (I am talking about people who are not sailors, etc., by profession), and also to our practical knowledge. For practical knowledge, [1828] at any rate by and large, use, experience, a particular familiarity with what the poet has to hand, is necessary to the effect of poetic images and feelings, etc. And this is why what is especially pleasing in poetry is what has to do with the human heart (which is the thing of which we have the most practical knowledge), just as in painting, sculpture, etc., the imitation of man, his passions, etc. (3 Oct. 1821.)
The capacity for becoming habituated does itself derive in large part from habituation (I mean of the general kind),
from which it receives consistency, increase, gradation, etc. (3 Oct. 1821.)
The capacity for becoming habituated is simply a disposition. Nevertheless, if we wish to call it a faculty, this is the only natural, essential, original, and inborn faculty that any living being has. (3 Oct. 1821.)
Just how much natural dispositions are influenced by natural circumstances, habituation, etc., may also be seen by observing physiognomies. Although they do without a doubt denote [1829] certain and defined dispositions and properties of the mind, and their degrees, we see nonetheless just how rarely they correspond to the actual character of the individuals concerned. So that if such a correspondence is still less rare than it ought to be, this comes from the fact that the influence of habituations upon man is so great that, on account of the natural correspondence between the inside and the outside, the habituations that determine the character of a man very often manage to modify the physiognomy as far as is possible, and sometimes give it an air and meaning wholly different from or contrary to what it had naturally. Consider, moreover, how many people whose physiognomies indicate a pronounced talent, vivacity, goodness, etc. etc., are foolish, doltish, and wicked, and vice versa! See the meeting between Socrates and Zopyrus the physiognomist in Cicero.1
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