“Πάλιν δὲ ἐρωτώμɛνος” (Socrates), “ἡ ἀνδρɛία πότɛρον ɛἴη διδακτὸν ἢ φυσικὸν; οἶμαι μὲν, ἔφη, ὥσπɛρ σῶμα σώματος ἰσχυρότɛρον πρὸς τοὺς πόνους φύɛται, οὕτω καὶ ψυχὴν ψυχῆς ἐῤῥωμɛνɛστέραν πρὸς τὰ δɛινὰ φύσɛι γίγνɛσθαι. ῾Ορῶ γὰρ ἐν τοῖς αὐτοῖς νόμοις τɛ καὶ ἔθɛσι τρɛφομένους πολὺ διαφέροντας ἀλλήλων τόλμῃ. Νομίζω μέντοι πᾶσαν φύσιν μαθήσɛι καὶ μɛλέτῃ πρὸς ἀνδρɛίαν αὔξɛσθαι’” [“Another time they asked him if courage was a natural quality or if it could be taught. He answered, ‘I believe that, as one body is naturally stronger than another when it labors, so also one soul is naturally stronger than another in the face of fearful things; I see, in fact, that men reared among the same laws and amid the same customs are very different from one another in regard to boldness. Yet I am of the opinion that every character can increase its courage with study and practice’”]. Xenophon, ἀπομνημονɛύματα [Memorabilia], bk. 3, ch. 8, §§ 1–2. The same goes for everything else. (16 April, second Tuesday after Easter, 1822.)
To relinquish or ban a new word or a new meaning (however foreign or barbaric it may be), when our language doesn’t have the equivalent, or doesn’t have one as precise, and accepted with that particular established meaning: this is no different and is no less than relinquishing or banning a new idea, a new concept of the human spirit, and treating it as barbaric and illegitimate. (18 April, second Thursday after Easter, 1822.)
[2401] “᾿Ετɛκμαίρɛτο δὲ” (Socrates) “τὰς ἀγαθὰς φύσɛις ἐκ τοῦ ταχύ τɛ μανθάνɛιν οἷς προσέχοιɛν, καὶ μνημονɛύɛιν ἃ ἂν μάθοιɛν” [“He considered it the sign of a good character if they rapidly learned the things they applied themselves to, and if they remembered what they had learned”]. Xenophon, ᾿Aπομνημονɛύματα [Memorabilia], bk. 4, ch. 1, § 2. (19 April, second Friday after Easter, 1822.)
“Estaban persuadidos” (los Mexicanos) “à que no huvo Dioses de essotra parte del Cielo” [“They were persuaded” (the Mexicans) “that there were no Gods on the other side of Heaven”] (that is, that there were no other gods except one alone, who among them had no name but was considered superior to all, and the creation of Heaven and Earth was attributed to him, and he was given a place in Heaven), “hasta que multiplicandose los hombres, empezaron sus calamidades; considerando los Dioses como unos genios favorables, que se producian, quando era necessaria su operacion; sin hacerles dissonancia” (à los Mexicanos), “que adquiriessen el Sèr” (estos Dioses), “y la Divinidad en las miserias de la Naturaleza” [“until as men multiplied, their calamities began; considering the Gods only as favorable genies, who appeared when their operation was necessary; without it being strange to them” (the Mexicans) “that they” (those Gods) “acquired Being and Divinity amid the miseries of Nature”]. Don Antonio de Solís, Historia de la Conquista de Mexico, bk. 3, chapter 17, Madrid, year 1748, p. 259, col. 1. (21 April 1822.)
One should never make a show of one’s unhappiness. Good fortune alone creates good fortune among men,1 misfortune was never fortunate, and you cannot traffic in misery, or draw benefit from it, when it is real. No one was ever more respected or more appreciated by being more unhappy than others. And therefore it is expedient for the unfortunate one, if he wants to be well received and accepted, or [2402] to be liked, not only to hide his misfortunes but to pretend to be numbered among the fortunate, to assert this claim, to combat the rumor or anyone who challenges him on it, and take great pains to deceive others on this point. (23 April 1822.) See pp. 2415, 2485.
Concerning the jealousy that the Romans had about the preeminence of their language over Greek, see Dio, p. 946, note 86.1 (23 April 1822.)
Concerning people who had no hands and compensated with their feet for the functions of the hands, see Dio Cassius, bk. 54, ch. 9, p. 739 and, on that page, note 91. (23 April 1822.)
Nature prohibits suicide. What nature? This, our present one? We are of a completely different nature from what we used to be.2 Let’s compare ourselves with the natural nations, and see if those men can be considered of the same race as ourselves. Let’s compare ourselves with ourselves as children, and we will have the same result. Habit is a second nature, especially habit that is so rooted, so long-lasting, and begun at such a tender age, like the habit (composed of an infinite number of diverse habits) that makes us anything but men who are natural, or who conform to man’s primitive nature, and to the general nature of earthly beings. [2403] Suffice it to say that, even if we wanted with all our efforts to return to the natural state, we could not, either in terms of the physical, which could not in any way tolerate it, or, even if the physical and external were possible, in terms of the moral and internal. Which comes to the same thing, since we can no longer share in the happiness naturally destined for men, because our inner self, which is our principal part, cannot return to what it was, by any means or art. What, then, does a law or inclination of a nature that not only is not ours but could not be—even if we wanted it and tried to obtain it by every means—have to do with this question of suicide, or with any other thing that belongs to us? The point, then, is, what is the inclination and desire of this second nature, which is truly ours and present. And this nature instead of opposing suicide cannot help but advise it and desire it intensely: because it, too, detests unhappiness above all, and feels that it cannot escape it except by death, and cannot put up with the postponement of death making suffering go on longer. [2404] Therefore our true nature, we who have nothing to do with the men of the time of Adam, allows, indeed requires, suicide. If our nature were primitive human nature, we would not be unhappy, and this inevitably and irremediably. And we would not desire death, indeed we would abhor it. (29 April 1822.)1 Our present nature is very close to reason. It, too, detests unhappiness. And there is no human argument that does not persuade of suicide, that is, rather not to be than be. And we follow reason in everything else, and would think we had failed in our duty as men if we did otherwise.
For p. 1287, beginning. I am certain that the ancient Orientals, or the first inventors of the alphabet, did not imagine that the vowel sounds were so few, and so much less numerous than the consonants. In fact they must have considered them to be innumerable, seeing that they animated the whole of speech, so to speak, and ran incessantly through its entire body, like blood through the veins of animals. Or (and this, I think, is more likely) they considered them not sounds but an individual sound, which was infinite and indeterminate and indivisible, just as the ancient philosophers imagined the animating spirit of the world, which “totam agitat molem, et toto se corpore miscet” [“moves the mass of the world and mixes with the great body”].2 And it’s likely that the idea of representing vowel sounds by means of points (completely alien to and not inherent in [2405] Hebrew writing) would not have occurred (so late) to the rabbis, if not for the practice that they had acquired of Western languages, which had been widespread in Asia for a long time, etc., aside from the fact that the Jews themselves had already long been dispersed through the West, or in countries where Western languages were current. It seems that the ancient Jews thought of the vowels as breathings, or as inseparable from the consonants (e.g., etc.1), whereas, on the contrary, the consonants are inseparable from the vowels. But the subtlety and the spirituality, and the continuous use of the vowel sound in speech, prevented them from considering it in its parts, except as attached to the consonants, or to the aspirates that made the vowel harsher, more noticeable, more corporeal, and in a sense transmuted it into a consonant, or the aspirates themselves were like consonants, necessarily attached to this or that vowel sound; e.g., the aspirate to the sound of the a alone, as that particular type of aspirate, etc., would not perhaps acco
mmodate another vowel. (29 April 1822.) See p. 2500.
Having lived for a long time in a small town, and among people who are very far from having what is called good taste and knowledge of the world, and although I don’t have much experience of so-called good society, I seem nonetheless [2406] to have at hand enough comparisons to be able to declare that in small places, and among men and societies with a narrow outlook, one learns much more about human nature, and of both the general character and the incidental characters of men, than one can in great cities and the best conversation. Because—aside from the fact that in the latter men are always masked, and in appearance far from their substance and from their individual characters, and aside from the fact that they are much farther from nature, and from the true general character of man, and that is not only a pretense but also an acquired character—the main thing is that they are all approximately of one type, and as each of them is, so each of those societies is with respect to the others. Hence if one man alone is seen and known, one can say that all, more or less, are seen and known.1 Unlike what happens in small towns, and in a small society, where there is no individual who does not offer some new discovery about the qualities that human nature is capable of. A greater variety is found among these particular men than in the countryside (or among the savages or the uncivilized, etc.), [2407] because men who are completely or almost completely uncultured are close enough to nature (which is a general quality and type) to very much resemble one another interchangeably, through nature itself. The latter are similar to one another, while those who are perfectly or almost perfectly civilized can be said to be the same as one another, by virtue of civilization, which tends in essence to make uniform. The state in between is the most varied, the most susceptible to different qualities, and the most adaptable according to relative and individual circumstances. These observations can be extended, and broken down in various ways. E.g., we understand human nature and its capacity for types much better by examining a common man rather than an educated man, a philosopher, one who is experienced in business or who has lived in the great world, etc. etc.; much better by examining the character of a small society than that of a great one; much better by examining a nation that is not perfectly cultured than one that is perfectly civilized (Spanish, German-Italian-French); much better by examining the spirit of that civilized nation or its parts, far from the capital, or from the center [2408] of the national society, than by examining the society of the capital, etc. The same is true also of national character, which, e.g., with respect to the French will be understood much better by examining the society of Brittany or Provence than that of Paris. (30 April 1822.)
That the Greek language was preserved uncorrupted, or almost uncorrupted, for a much longer time than Latin,1 even after the Latin that flowered much later had declined, can be explained also by observing that the literature (a consort inseparable from the language), although it had declined among the Greeks, still had something good and was capable of a perfection at times in no way inferior to the ancient. An example might be the Expedition of Alexander, and Arrian’s Indica, works of style and language so purified, so consistent in every part and internally coherent, without jumps, leaps and bounds, flights, or falls of any sort (which are the characteristics of the sophistic and bad writer, in any genre, language, and corrupt period), of such a spontaneous and unaffected simplicity and naturalness and ease, clarity, sharpness, etc., so rich, so [2409] characteristic, so Greek, in short, in language and manner and taste that, even though Arrian was an imitator, that is, that style and that language were not natural in him but gained by study of the Classics (as is necessary in every period where the literature is not primitive), principally Xenophon, nevertheless one has to say that he had acquired them in such a way that they appear, and should in fact be called, his, nor can he be denied a place if not equal certainly very close to that of those he imitated. Now, Arrian flourished at the time of Hadrian and the Antonines, and at that time Latin literature, despite the fact that it was so much less distant from its golden age than Greek, has no work that is in the least comparable to Arrian’s with respect to the aforementioned qualities, or to qualities of an orderly and well-structured narrative, and other such virtues of history writing. Tacitus was somewhat earlier, and in terms of perfection of language could not be compared too favorably to Arrian, perhaps not even in terms of the historical gifts [2410] of a good literary writer, although he far surpasses him in those having to do with philosophy, politics, etc. But what maintains a language is fine literature, not philosophy or other sciences, which contribute instead to corrupting it, as Seneca’s style did. And therefore Plutarch, a contemporary of Tacitus, and like him somewhat older than Arrian, cannot be taken as a model either of language or of style, being perhaps more a philosopher than all the Greek philosophers, many of whom are examples of perfect writing. But they were not as subtle as Plutarch, just as Cicero was not as subtle as Seneca, whose writing was very corrupt, while Cicero’s was most perfect. (1 May 1822.)
From my theory of pleasure it follows that, as a result of the natural and unchangeable essence of things, the greater and more lively the power, feeling, and action and internal activity of self-love, the greater necessarily is the unhappiness of the living creature, or the more difficult it is to achieve any sort of happiness. Now, the stronger life is, or the [2411] life feeling in each being, and especially the stronger the inner life is, or the activity of the mind, that is, the sensory and conceptualizing substance, the stronger the force and feeling of self-love. For self-love and life are almost one thing, the feeling of one’s own existence (which is what is meant by life) being inseparable from love of the one who exists, nor can the latter be less than the former, but each can always be exactly measured by the other. And as one lives, so one loves oneself, and all the feelings of one who lives are included in or ascribed to or produced, etc., by self-love, the universal feeling that embraces all existence. And the other feelings of the living being (if there are any that are truly other) are only modifications, or divisions, or products of this, which is the same as the feeling of being, or an essential part of the self.
From this it follows that man, having by his nature, and by his outer and inner organization, greater life, greater capacity for vaster and more numerous concepts, in short, greater feeling or greater sensibility than all [2412] other living beings, must necessarily have a greater intensity, activity, and extent or quantity or feeling of self-love than any other type of living being. Hence man by his own inseparable essence is, and is born, more unhappy, or less capable of happiness, than any other type of living creature or being.
This must be understood as referring to natural man. But since the capacity and intensity and force and activity of feeling with which he, more than any other animal, is naturally provided makes his spirit more adaptable, more susceptible to increasingly deeper and more refined feelings, that is to say more capable of feeling with increasing intensity and variety, and, indeed, since that capacity is nothing but conformability and susceptibility to new feelings and to further modifications in the mind: so man, perfecting himself, so to speak, that is, increasing the strength and variety and depth of his feelings—and with, therefore, the spirit increasingly prevailing in him, that is, the sensitive part, [2413] over the body, that is, the sluggish and heavy part—acquires self-love and as from century to century its force and feeling necessarily increase, hence from century to century he becomes more, and more inevitably, unhappy. From which it follows that the perfected man, so to speak, is, because of the essence of being human, and because of the general order of nature, more unhappy than natural man, and the more perfected he is the unhappier he is. And so man’s unhappiness is always in direct proportion to the progress of his mind, that is, of civilization, since the latter consists of the progress of the mind, and since no one can say that man’s body was perfected by means of civilization. Indeed it has manifestly declined from what it was in the natural man, in whom the
preponderance of the body or the material kept feeling at a lower level, and less lively, and hence self-love and hence unhappiness.
In a single century, since some have more refined, cultured, etc., minds, and others less, it follows [2414] from what was said above that the former must necessarily be more unhappy, the latter less, proportionately, and the ignorant and the coarse and the peasant less unhappy than the educated, the well-bred, the town dweller, etc.
Independently of culture, since some men are born with greater sensibility, or keenness of spirit, or conformability, or “manly feeling” (says Della Casa, Galateo, ch. 26, beginning),1 some with less, the preceding explains why the more sensitive men are, the more irremediably unhappy they are, and why nature says to great men, “Soyez grand et malheureux” [“Be great and unhappy”] (D’Alembert).2 Since this stronger feeling is nothing but a greater liveliness and depth and sense and activity of self-love, either it cannot be without these things, since self-love embraces every possible animal feeling and produces it, or is in substance bound to it, and in direct proportion to it. (2 May 1822.) See p. 2488.
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