To what I have said elsewhere [→Z 2019] regarding the formation of the verbs in uo or uor from verbal nouns, or otherwise, of the fourth declension, or from nouns of the second declension ending in uus, and regarding the nouns in uosus made from similar roots, and with adverbs, etc., add praesumptuosus, praesumptuose; presuntuoso, presontuoso, prosuntuoso, prosontuoso, presuntuosamente, presuntuosità, etc.; presumptuoso, etc. Spanish, from sumptus us. Mutuor aris from mutuus. To what I have said [→Z 2324] in this regard about monstruosus, mostruoso, etc., add that the Spanish in actual fact say monstruo not monstro, from which one can easily deduce not monstrosus but monstruosus. Quaestuosus [gainful] from quaestus us. Ructuo [to belch forth], ructuosus from ructus es. Eructuo see Forcellini under Eructo, end. Evacuo [to empty out] from vacuus, and likewise vacuo as. (4 July 1823.) See p. 3263.
I discuss elsewhere [→Z 1151–53, 2266–68] Latin syllables that are not diphthongs and that are nonetheless composed of several vowels. Among these, note in particular the second syllable of eheu, a word which is not trisyllabic but disyllabic, though composed of three vowels, and although eu is not deemed to be among the Latin diphthongs. [2890] And it is not disyllabic through poetic license or a poetic figure, but because of a rule, and trisyllabic it could not be, or not without license. The same goes for hei, heu, euge, eugepae, euganeus, etc. etc. Eburneus‒eburnus. (4 July 1823.)
What I say about the formation of continuatives from participles in atus, which change the a into i, etc., is not unreasonable nor arbitrary and gratuitous. Because this change is very right and proper in the forming of derivatives and compounds in Latin. Thus, from capio, frango, tango, sapio, facio, iacio, taceo, etc. etc., you get in composition cipio, fringo, etc., that is to say, e.g., accipio, effringo, attingo, insipiens, resipio, desipio, afficio, adjicio, conticesco, reticeo, etc., and likewise in the derivatives, etc. The e too changes into i; e.g., from teneo, sedeo, specio, rego, lego, etc., contineo, insideo, aspicio, corrigo, colligo, etc. (5 July 1823.) See p. 2843.
I have said elsewhere1 that in Homer the noun ἦμαρ [day] serves as a periphrasis, like βία [force], so that in itself it doesn’t mean anything, but it indicates what happens along with the noun with which it is linked; e.g., νόστιμον ἦμαρ [the day of return] means the return and nothing [2891] else. Further examples of this usage in Homer may be seen in Seber’s Index vocabulorum Homeri, under ἦμαρ αἴσιμον. (5 July 1823.) See p. 2995, 2.
For p. 2864, margin. There is no doubting the fact that, in my opinion, this usage stemmed from the other very bad habit introduced into Latin from the earliest days of the empire of addressing individual persons with the voi. It is thus probable that then, or shortly afterward, or certainly in Vulgar Latin of whatever period the custom was introduced of adding the adjective altri to the voi and to the noi (since even in the best epochs of Latin and Greek the noi was used with a singular meaning) when these pronouns had to have a plural meaning to distinguish them from when they had a singular meaning. And so once this usage had been introduced into Vulgar Latin it passed into all three daughter languages. And rightly so, because in them there was and still is that other very bad habit which, in my opinion, gave rise to this one. Given this, the use of this idiom is therefore virtually necessary in order to avoid a thousand ambiguities and doubts both in writing and in speaking, when many persons are present, or [2892] when in writing they are presumed to be, etc. (as may be seen all the time, especially when writing, where we balk at the thought of seeming too familiar, and because we no longer know the language, etc., now we generally dispense with this idiom). In actual fact when we are speaking to someone informally we almost never abandon it, nor can the Spanish abandon it. But even the Spanish drop the otros if they are speaking to a single person, or of themselves in the singular, in which circumstances they say vos and nos. They again drop it when the vos and the nos perform the function of our particles or pronouns ci and vi, like nous and vous in French. On the other hand, in none of the three languages would one say voi altri or noi altri with a singular meaning. It is worth noting that the use of nos with a singular meaning was more characteristic of the ancient languages than of the modern ones, in which indeed, as regards informal speaking or writing, with which alone noi altri is concerned, its use is wholly abolished. Seeing then that all three of these languages use this idiom noi altri in an informal guise without actually having any need of it at all to establish a distinction, this confirms that the idiom derives from Latin, which had needed it in order to distinguish the plural nos from the singular nos. (5 July 1823.) Altri is redundant here, like ἄλλος in Greek, etc., about which I have often spoken elsewhere [→Z 3587–88, 4010–11, 4036, 4248].1
[2893] With regard to the different meanings and figurative use of the optative tenses in Latin and the exchange of these tenses with one another, and with those in other moods, etc., see Horace, Epistle 1, bk. 2, ll. 3‒4, where peccem, morer stand in for peccarem, morarer. (5 July 1823.) Thus Virgil, Georgics 4, 116–17.
Regarding what I have said elsewhere [→Z 2200–204] on the participles quaesitus [sought out] and quaeritus and on the verb quaeritare, etc. The French have querir [sic] from quaerere [to seek], and quêter, ancient form quester, from quaesitus from quaesere, whence we have chiesto, and the Spanish quisto. Chéri is the Spaniards’ querido from quaeritus from quaerere. And chérir is the same as the Spanish querer in its meaning, which this latter also has, of to be fond of. Our cherere is the Latin quaerere, but with the meaning of to wish, like the Spanish querer, and also of to ask, like our chiedere, which is the Latin quaerere (see p. 2995), since its participle chiesto is the Latin quaesitus, through syncope quaestus. Malquerer, malquerido, malquisto, that is, to wish ill and wished ill. Chesta, inchesta, richesta as a substantive, for chiesta, etc., richedere, richesto; inchierere richierere that is inquirere requirere, etc., acchiedere as it were acquaerere for acquirere, with a different meaning. The French acquérir and conquérir, the Spanish adquirir are the Latin acquirere and conquirere. Acquêter, the ancient acquester, and the ancient French conquêter or conquester, the Spanish conquistar, and the Italian acquistare [2894] and conquistare are continuatives made from acquisitus and conquisitus, with the second i suppressed. (See whether the Glossary has anything on all these and on any similar words.) (5 July 1823.)
The fact of this suppression occurring, as may be seen, in so many words either derived or compounded from quaesitus, or which are simply this same word, confirms my opinion that from situs, a participle of sum [to be], stare was formed, with the i suppressed just as from conquisitus was made conquistare, and likewise from quaesitus quisto and chiesto, etc. Likewise from positus, postus repostus, etc. etc. And regarding the suppression of the i in very many Latin participles such as docitus‒doctus, legitus‒legtus‒lectus, etc., a suppression that had become commonplace or even universal from earliest times, see what I say elsewhere [→Z 1167–68]. This suppression is not only characteristic of modern languages (a point I would make particularly about this word quaesitus), since Latin employs it in the word quaestus us, which, as I have elsewhere given as a rule for such verbal nouns [→Z 2201–202], is formed indeed from quaesitus, and should regularly be said quaesitus us, a word that can in fact be found. Just as there are the words quaesitio, quaesitor, quaesitura, which when contracted are quaestio, quaestor, quaestura, words formed from the former by suppressing the i, just as through the same suppression quaestorius, quaestuosus, etc., are formed, although you don’t find quaesitorius, [2895] quaesituosus, etc. And see in this regard pp. 2932 and 2991–92, 3032ff.
On the other hand, our ancient suto is the same as the Spanish sido, and, as I have posited [→Z 1120–21, 2821–23], as the Latin situs. It is the same, I repeat, considering the habitual exchange of, and affinity between, the letter u and the i, on which I have spoken several times, and among others see pp. 2824–25 beginning (and there is indeed an example in the word quaesumus from quaesere, said instead of quaesimus.
See Forcellini). Given this exchange and affinity one may believe either that the ancient Latins said sutus like situs (maxumus and maximus, lubens and libens), or first one of these and later as time passed the other, or that ancient Italian changed the Latin pronunciation making sido from sutus, or Spanish vice versa forming sido from sutus, since this exchange between u and i frequently occurred also at the beginnings of modern languages (see Perticari, Apologia di Dante, ch. 16, toward the end, p. 156) and just as occurs all the time. (5 July 1823.) See p. 3027.
If you want to see how easy it is to learn how to speak, and the shortest length of time that must have passed before humankind [2896] first came to realize that it had organs capable of forming and articulating various sounds, then to learn to form and articulate such sounds, and finally to create through diverse permutations a series of words of agreed signification sufficient to enable it to reciprocally communicate its own meanings, and still further ahead so that humankind came to bring this series to the point of being properly called a language, and to serve all that needed to be expressed, then think about a mute.1 For mutes, living as they always do alongside men who speak and use an already perfect language, never throughout their whole life get to the first of the things outlined above, that is, to realize that they have organs capable of articulated sounds, since even if they emit some vocal sounds, they will be less articulated and less various than are the voices of the beasts. So I enter the lists once more with my habitual question. Is it possible that if nature had expressly destined man to speak, if, as Dante puts it, “opera naturale è ch’uom favella” [“it is a natural operation for man to speak”],2 this same nature should have left man with so much to do in order to [2897] come to execute this natural operation—both suited to his own essence, and proper to it, this operation without which he would never have corresponded to his particular nature, nor to the intention of nature in general—and expressly condemned such a multitude and as many generations of men as had to pass before a language was found, some not knowing how to nor being in any way able to do, others only being able to do imperfectly what man was supposed to know and to be able to do completely because of his own nature?1 And since without language man would never have emerged from his original entirely pure state, and since language is the principal and most necessary instrument with which he has effected and effects what is termed his perfecting, and if in addition the well-being of a thing is as great as is its perfection, and if for any species of being there is no happiness without the perfection befitting that species: is it possible that, if what we call man’s perfection were truly such, and if he were destined for it by nature, this nature when forming [2898] man had put him at such a wondrous distance from the perfection it had intended and destined for him, and which was necessary to him, that he did not yet have, nor could he have even the first notion of the instrument with which after long travails, and a long course of generations and centuries, his species would finally have come to obtain some part of this perfection?
And certainly if this is true, why do we say that man is by nature the most perfect of earthly beings? Let us set aside the fact that perfection is always relative to the particular species in question. But comparing man with the other species in this world, if his perfection is of the kind that others say, how can one do otherwise than maintain that man is by nature the most imperfect of all things? Because all the other things have by nature the perfection that befits them, and therefore they are as naturally perfect as they should be, which is as much as to say entirely perfect. Only man, according to the assumption we have made, is by nature so far from the state that befits him, that he could hardly be further from it, and hence whereas all [2899] other things in nature are entirely perfect, man in nature is entirely imperfect. Consequently the human species, far from being the first in nature, is indeed the last of all the known species.
This consequence derives from the principle assumed. But since the principle is false, so too the consequence is not true, and this proposition if considered again just by itself, will readily be recognized as utterly false. Since in relation to the order of earthly things, man, as the being more able than all others to conform, is the most perfect of all.
Unless in the aforesaid order of earthly things, when we consider the perfection of each species in a comparative fashion, that is, considering one in relation to another, unless, I repeat, we imagine a double scale, or a partly ascending and partly descending scale. And at the lowest end of the first scale we put beings that are wholly unorganized, or more unorganized than all the others. Then climb up to the top and place the more organized beings, until we arrive at those that occupy the midpoint in organization, sensitivity, and conformability. And treat these latter as the highest [2900] degree of the scale, that is, of perfection comparatively considered, as those that perhaps by nature are the most disposed to obtain their own particular and relative happiness, and to retain it. From these descending ever further down past the beings that are more organized, sensitive, and able to conform, so as to put at the last and lowest degree of the scale man, the most organized, sensitive, and able to conform of all earthly creatures.1
Arguing in this fashion, and doubling or unfolding the scale, we would find that man truly is at the furthest limit not of perfection (as would seem to be the case if we were to make just one scale or a simple and straight one) but of imperfection, and still lower than the furthest end of the other part of the scale. Since from the comparative imperfection of beings placed at that point no unhappiness follows for them, whereas for man the unhappiness is very great.
I really do think this to be the case. Man is not by nature unhappy. Nature has not put [2901] any quality in him that in itself renders him such, no quality such that it is naturally opposed in any respect to his well-being. And therefore nature has not directly so arranged things that man is unhappy, or such that he must necessarily become so. Since man could preserve himself in his pure and original state, just as the other creatures preserve themselves in theirs, and by preserving himself there, he would be just as happy, or just as not unhappy, as the other creatures are happy or not unhappy so long as they persist in their natural state. So that with respect to man nature has in no way violated or transgressed its universal laws, which determine that each creature has in its own essence and immediately all that it needs for the happiness that befits it, and nothing that in itself impels it toward unhappiness. But the excessive, or rather, the supreme conformability and organization of man, which renders him the most mutable and hence the most corruptible of all earthly creatures, also as a consequence renders him the most prone to unhappiness, even though it does not in itself render him naturally unhappy, that is, it renders him the [2902] most capable, and more so than any other creature, of diverging from his natural state, and hence from his own perfection, and hence from his own happiness. Because this same human conformability is more than any other open and prone to losing its original state, use, operations, applications, and the like. So that only with difficulty may man in fact preserve himself in his natural and original state, and therefore in fact only with difficulty does he save himself from unhappiness.1 Given these considerations, and given indeed the supreme conformability and organization of man, metaphysically considered with respect to true and metaphysical perfection, we can say that man is the most imperfect of earthly creatures, even as regards nature, inasmuch as the only thing that is natural in him is a greater disposition than in any other creature to lose his natural state and perfection. No imperfection, not even with respect to man, can strictly speaking be found in nature. Man is not imperfect either in nature, or as regards nature. Indeed in nature and as regards nature he is, if you will, the most perfect of creatures. But [2903] in nature and as regards nature he is more than all other creatures open to becoming imperfect, and this precisely because of his supreme natural perfection, like those most refined and perfect machines or devices which, in order for them to be such, are intricately tooled, and hen
ce most delicate, and on account of their supreme delicacy more easily break down than others, and lose their essence and use.
It may, however, perhaps be possible to find craftsmen able to repair them, but as for us, once ruined and denatured, no hand can be found to restore us to our original state (nor are we ourselves capable of doing it). For neither does nature take us in hand to repair us, as the craftsman does his damaged work, nor is there any other power that can restore us as a new craftsman can the work of another. (6 July 1823.)
For p. 2815, margin. Auspico and suspico see p. 3686 from specio, are like aedifico, vivifico, sacrifico, amplifico, gratifico, velifico, significo, vocifico (if it is genuine), magnifico, mellifico, and not a few such others, from facio, which have changed both in form and conjugation from what they originally were, either on account of being formed from nouns, as, e.g., aedificium, sacrificium, magnificus, amplificus, which is from Fronto,1 vivificus, etc. or by accident and by virtue of composition, even when [2904] they are directly made from the original verb facio. See pp. 2998 and 3007. And note that the compounds of this verb made with preposition or particle, do not have this form, but only those made with nouns, etc. Lucrificare‒Lucrifacere. The Italian Benefacere‒Beneficare. Ludifacere‒Ludificare. At any rate, because these particular verbs, if scrutinized closely, have for the most part a continuative meaning, and, e.g., it is one thing to have mel facere with less continuative meaning, but quite another to have mellificare which is more continuative, there are perhaps grounds for believing that their inflection in are altered from that of the third conjugation was not by chance nor without cause, and that they belong to the category of verbs we are discussing at present, namely, continuatives belonging to the first conjugation, but not formed from participles, and different from those which are formed from them, as, in our case, from facio facto, labefacto, etc., from specio specto, suspecto (to which belongs suspectio, which is equivalent to suspicio, from which our sospettare and the Spanish sospechar—like pecho from pectus—which mean suspicari. Soupçonner is as it were suspicionare, from soupçon, suspicio onis), etc. Suspico might also be formed from suspicio is, which verb is found in Sallust1 in the sense of to suspect, and to which the participle suspectus belongs, which generally means suspect, an adjective. And perhaps with this same meaning they said suspicior eris, from which you then get suspicor, since suspectus may be found for suspicious (and likewise in Italian sospetto) and Apuleius employs it expressly [2905] with the accusative, as a participle of a deponent verb, instead of suspicatus.1 But see pp. 2841–42. (7 July 1823.)
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