Why is a particular foreign expression, gesture, or custom deemed ugly in a native when in a foreigner it would appear graceful? Why do women dressed as men, or vice versa, appear very ugly, when so much that is unnatural in clothing [1866] appears beautiful and graceful, indeed, if it is in fashion, what is different strikes us as ugly, and what is the opposite, namely, the most natural garb, very ugly indeed? Habituation, opinion, prejudice. (7 Oct. 1821.)
We may say that any wholly new sensation, if it is not exactly painful, is pleasurable simply by dint of being new, however much it not only has nothing pleasurable about it, but even has something unpleasurable. (8 Oct. 1821.)
For p. 1865. It may be said that knowledge of the world, cunning, philosophy, and even talent itself in general, consist in large part in the faculty and habit of not making exceptions. A young man is betrayed, jeered at behind his back, etc. etc., deceived, persecuted, etc., by some man from whom he least expected it, from a friend, etc. If he has talent, after two or three such experiences, and even after the first, he will conclude that one should not trust men, that all of them are more or less wicked, and will deduce general conclusions from them as to the nature of the world and of society. Any [1867] person however new, any favor done him, etc. etc., will strike him as suspect, and, in short, he will create for himself a true system regarding men, and no circumstance, no evidence, no matter how overwhelming it may be, will lead him to forget it. But if he is of limited talent, 10 or 20 experiences will not suffice to lead him to these conclusions; he will consider what has happened to him, and goes on happening to him, as so many exceptions, and in order to know men he will always need individual experiences of each one, so that at the end of his career he will be no better educated than at the start, the experiences will never be of any use to him, his judgment will always be false, outward appearances and illusions will always deceive him in the same way. And thus it is confirmed that the capacity to generalize constitutes a large part of talent.
Likewise, it will be genuinely impossible for a young man educated through his studies, through education, etc., regarding the nature of men, and regarding the mistrust he should always [1868] have of them, even though so persuaded, to apply those theories, prior to experience, to the people around him, whom he has known for a long time, whom he is used to regarding as good, whom he has not tried and found wanting, and of whom he knows of nothing untoward. It will also be impossible for him to subject his opinion of the first people he encounters when embarking on a career, and with whom he will have dealings, to the rigorous theory of men that he has been taught. In short, it will be impossible for him, prior to experience, not to make a definite exception from the general theory in favor of the people who are in his circle, who surround him, or whom he encounters first. But after two or three experiences, if he has talent, he will stop making exceptions, he will persuade himself that the general holds good in particular cases, he will become practiced in dealing with men, and his theories once applied to practice will really enable him to know how to live. He will no longer be capable of individual illusions regarding men, just as at the start he was not [1869] capable of general illusions. But the young man of little talent, though educated and convinced in the same way, will invariably, even after the clearest and most frequently repeated experiences, except from the general rule each particular case and each individual who has an outward appearance at odds with his theories. He will never grasp the relation of theory to practice, the relation of what he knows to what he experiences, or should experience. He will never know how to apply knowledge to practice, and while he firmly believes that he should not trust anyone, he will never find anyone whom he does not judge it right and proper to trust. See in this regard Guicciardini’s 23rd reflection (elsewhere the 26th), and the first of the Considerazioni civili of Remigio Fiorentino on F. Guicciardini’s Historie.1
We may thus verify what I have said, namely, that knowledge of the world, philosophy, talent itself, consist in large part in the habit and faculty of not making exceptions, because the latter consists precisely in the faculty of generalization, and in the faculty of applying or knowing relationships, which coincides with that of generalization.
[1870] And from these observations we learn that the philosopher is not a philosopher in his life and actions if he does not look at himself and his behavior as if they were those of another, if he does not observe them from above as he does those of another, if, in short, he does not rid himself of the natural habit of excluding himself and his behavior from what he has learned in general about men and their behavior in the world. If a philosopher is not a philosopher in practice, and if his principles do not correspond to his actions, which is what invariably happens, or whenever he is not a philosopher in this or that action or situation in life, which inevitably happens very often to the most stoical and cynical (that is to say, practical) philosophers in the world, he is only at fault in such circumstances when he makes the particular an exception to the general rule, and does not apply his learning and his theory to the practical circumstance.1
These observations are applicable to every kind of talent, ability, discipline, etc. etc. etc., to every kind of thing that is learned, etc. etc. An exceptionally well educated student of rhetoric [1871] who makes a thousand mistakes when writing only makes them because he makes exceptions. The habit of making exceptions is the one that is especially harmful to every sort of discipline, training, knowledge, etc., the one that we must overcome above all others, the one that makes exercise and experience necessary in everything that must be applied to practice, and implemented. Practically all that experience does is to persuade you in a palpable way that you must apply the general to the particular, and not make exceptions. (8 Oct. 1821.)
Observe as follows on the way in which the delight and beauty of music, which cannot be limited to significance, or to the pure effects of sound distinct from harmony and melody,1 or to the other causes that I have specified elsewhere [→Z 1663‒66, 1747‒49, 1759‒60, 1780‒86], comes directly from our general habit concerning harmonies, and how this leads us to regard certain sounds or tones,2 certain gradations, certain passages, [1872] certain cadences, etc., as proper, and those that are different or opposite, etc., as improper.1 New harmonies or melodies (which are thought of as very rare in themselves) normally, indeed always, if they are entirely, that is, genuinely new, seem discordant at first sight, even if they are consistent with the rules of counterpoint. Accordingly, we quickly recognize and feel their propriety, for no other reason, that is, than because they are, and we soon acknowledge them to be, in conformity with our general habituation to harmony and melody, that is, with the concordance of tones, however much they do not conform to our particular habituations. And the less widely shared, or the less deeply rooted and perceptible and assimilated by the listener this general habituation is, the more pronounced at first his sense of discordance and disharmony will be; and also the more enduring, so that he would judge them to be discordances once and for all, if the opinion and prejudice that they are [1873] also truly harmonies or melodies did not prevent him from so doing. Such is the case with the common people, with unrefined listeners who are not accustomed to hearing music, and proportionately with men who are not knowledgeable about this art. All of whom when hearing such new harmonies are delighted by the sounds alone and by the other causes of delight that I have explained elsewhere [→Z 1663‒66, 1747‒49, 1759‒60, 1780‒86], but not by the harmony and melody as harmony and melody, because they do not perceive them. And it is the melodies that go by the name of popular, that is, those that conform particularly or generally to the particular habituations or to the general habituation of the general run of listeners to melodies, etc., that please above all, or more universally. Wholly new harmonies or melodies normally only please the knowledgeable, who appreciate the difficulty, and compare them with the rules that they know, etc. And even they experience at the very beginning a sense of discordance, but this soon vanishes,
and they immediately perceive it to be illusory. Yet one could say that every absolute novelty in music contains and as it were consists of an appearance [1874] of disharmony. Other harmonies and melodies that do not feature this appearance, or not in a marked form, and that nevertheless are considered to be new, are not new except for an unfamiliar combination of the various parts of those musical elements that general or particular habituation causes us to regard as proper. And the less these combinations approach what I have above explained as popular, the more they will please the knowledgeable and the less they will please the common people, and the less significance they will have, speaking, however, in general terms. A large proportion of everyday novelties in music, and of new musical compositions, are of this kind.
Observe, likewise, that if you listen, as very often happens, to a snatch, e.g., of a tune you already know, and it continues in a different way from the one you know, you will immediately feel a sense of discordance, because this difference is at odds with your particular habituation. But suspend your judgment, and very soon you will rule in its [1875] favor, and feel the sense of harmony and melody, that is, propriety, because this difference conforms to your general habituation as regards musical proprieties. This habituation, nothing else, is the foundation, the logic, the material, etc., of counterpoint. And this general habituation consists of many different combinations of the same parts, or of some of them with others, etc. This effect is very common, because the situation that produces it is very common and often inevitable, and given this situation, the effect follows on from it unfailingly even in the most knowledgeable, and in those most accustomed to the greatest variety of musical combinations.
These observations can supply a very good explanation as to why true novelty is generally considered to be very rare and difficult in music, that is, in harmony and above all in melody, by contrast with painting, sculpture, poetry, eloquence, etc. In actual fact, absolute novelty in music cannot help but be disharmony, because it would clash with our general habituations. In poetry and prose also everything strictly to do with harmony and melody is barely open to any kind of innovation. That is, new combinations in [1876] this sphere might be very easy and infinite in number, but they would no longer be harmonies or melodies because they would not be consonant with our habituation to our own nation and language, whereas habituation is the sole foundation, cause, element, and constitutive principle of harmony and melody. The harmonies and melodies of prose and verse differ greatly from one nation to another, and from one language to another (as do those of each word taken in isolation, that is to say the melody of the syllables and letters, out of which, nothing else, that of each line or period is composed) because habituations differ, but in each language considered on its own innovation is almost impossible in this sphere. And what in another language is melodious, however much, absolutely speaking, and prior to a different or contrary habituation, it might have been perfectly adaptable to the language in which you write, it is no longer so, it would not fit with your habituation, and hence would be impropriety and disharmony. See p. 1879. Whereas the beauty that depends on imitation, signification, expression of the affections, etc., on following nature, etc. etc., is infinitely variable and susceptible to innovation. And since this beauty constitutes the chief part of pictorial, sculptural, poetic, etc., beauty, [1877] and does not depend so much on nor consist of habituation (which cannot help but be very limited, especially generally and in the common people, etc.), the fine arts mentioned are for that reason very susceptible to innovation and variety. Architecture, whose constitutive beauty likewise depends on and consists for the most part of habituation, does indeed vary between nations that are wholly different, as music does, and as does the melody of prose or verse, but in no nation is it susceptible to more than a little innovation. And this is a further kind of resemblance between these two fine arts, architecture and music, aside from the others noted by me elsewhere [→Z 79‒80].
And observe here how painting, sculpture, poetry, eloquence, in short, how those fine arts that, as I have said, are more susceptible to innovation, those in particular, generally speaking, and considering them when they have attained a certain level of perfection, cannot differ markedly in their principal features in the different nations. And conversely music and architecture, arts incapable of much [1878] innovation and variety within a single cultural sphere, differ supremely in different cultural spheres, even as regards their principal and fundamental features. This occurs because the first group have a universal object and model, nature, whereas the latter have wholly particular ones, national habituations. A further proof of just how relative the beauty consisting simply in its proprieties is, that is to say, the only kind of beauty that is truly beautiful, and appropriate to abstract consideration of the beautiful.
It is thus the case that the more susceptible the arts are to innovation and variety in each nation, and in themselves, the less they can vary from nation to nation, and vice versa. And the national variety of which a fine art is capable is in inverse ratio to its universal and constitutive and specific variety. (9 Oct. 1821.)
To what I have said elsewhere [→Z 1875‒76] regarding the difference in poetic melody in different languages, add prose melody, and generally whatever melody may derive from the combination of words, or also syllables [1879] or letters, and see pp. 1876, and ff. (9 Oct. 1821.)
For p. 1876. Apply to this passage the acknowledged unadaptability of Latin or Greek poetic melody to the Italian language, the unadaptibility of meters, that is, different kinds of meter, and different combinations of meters, etc. And yet Italian is a daughter of the Latin language; likewise Spanish, French, etc. etc. etc. etc. (9 Oct. 1821.)
Military government was never distinguished from civil government in natural or barely civilized peoples, and the governors of provinces or of each province were invariably the captains of armies or of each army. So it was with the Homeric Greeks, similarly with all the peoples we call savage, similarly with the Germans, then the Goths, Franks, Lombards, etc., similarly with the Romans, where the consul, the proconsul, the praetor was at one and the same time the political head of the republic or of the provinces, and the captain of the army or of the provincial armies. In all barely civilized peoples, when a conquest occurred, these same officials dispensed justice to the conquered, and administered their affairs, the same officials, I repeat, who had subdued, or were subduing them with arms. It is still the case [1880] today. This means that in nature it has never been believed that there was any other law, or other right of man over man, but that of force. (9 Oct. 1821.) See p. 1911, end.
I have said [→Z 452‒53] that wickedness itself is grace, and has an impact on women. Also, I now add, on good women, scrupulous women, indeed, on them more than others, because for them wickedness is newer and more extraordinary. The wicked person attracts them through the horror and turmoil that both his person and his character produces in them. We can say the same of women with respect to men, and the same particularly of one or other vice in someone who is loved, when it is directly contrary to the nature or morals of the person who loves.
It has, in fact, been observed that love tends to favor opposites. This general observation deserves to be applied to my theory of grace. (9 Oct. 1821.) See p. 1903, paragraph 2.
And we can at once observe that, e.g., dissipated and passionate men are often attracted by a woman of peaceable character, whose inclinations are entirely domestic, by the methodical and homely, etc., aspect of her life. (9 Oct. 1821.)
I have said [→Z 200] that smallness (it being understood that smallness, too, is relative) is normally graceful. [1881] This can also be seen in parts of the body. The Chinese bind their feet. Neither men nor women use clothing to try and fatten the waist and body, but to make it smaller, even beyond what is natural, and often excessively so. (Relative) bigness is never pleasing (at any rate to nations and individuals in periods that are said to have good taste), whether in the human figure or in any kind of
beauty. As for delicacy and litheness of figure, etc., what does it consist in but a relative, well-proportioned, and congruous smallness? (9 Oct. 1821.)
I have said [→Z 1315–16, 1379–81] that lustful love takes more account of the other forms than of those of the face. Yet it is certainly the case that the most unbridled, ingrained, habitual lust is highly excited by the expression, vivacity, etc. etc., of the eyes and the face, and repulsed by absolute ugliness, lack of expression, etc., in the physiognomy. Indeed, such excitations are more necessary to excessive and ingrained lust than to the middling sort.
[1882] On the other hand, truly sentimental love, that of a young man or young woman who is inexperienced and a novice, considers, refers to, finds indispensable, etc., only the (albeit relative) beauty of the face. A person whose face is definitely not beautiful, or that does not seem so to them, will never be an object of love for such people, no matter how beautiful he or she may be in other respects, or at any rate not in the absence of particular circumstances, and a long relationship, etc. etc. (9 Oct. 1821.)
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