Now this determination is effected by means of language, that is to say, with a new or newly applied word. And it is not unduly difficult to do it, because the language is already discovered and mastered, and man has clear ideas of the elements composing it, that is, of words, and it is readily added to things discovered. But in order to determine the elements of the articulated human voice, the only language, as I have said, is the alphabet. Now this language was not yet discovered, and one did not yet have any idea of it. Hence there was no means [2951] of determining within oneself the ideas of the elements of the voice as mentioned above, and hence infinite difficulty in conceiving these ideas and in fixing them in one’s own mind, that is, in subdividing the idea of the voice, and in establishing in one’s own intellect the separate ideas of its various portions.
To us who are already familiar with the alphabet, there is no difficulty involved in conceiving a definite idea of each sound produced by our voice, with each being distinct from the others. But let us suppose, as I have said, someone who is not familiar with the alphabet, as in the case of children and illiterates, and without teaching them the alphabet, nor giving them any idea of it (if it were possible in present conditions for anyone, though ignorant, to possess not even a vague and confused idea of the alphabet), and let us order him to resolve his own voice into the sounds of which it is composed, and to say how many and what kind they are. This proposal will by itself shed a great deal of light, such as the original inventors of the alphabet did not have, because he will thereby understand that his voice is composed of parts that are different from one another, and he will conceive the idea of its divisibility. This is a very difficult idea [2952] to grasp, and far more difficult still is the idea that such parts can each be determined by themselves and each conceived distinctly from one another. At any rate, after all these preliminary ideas, and after having taken such great and difficult steps toward the invention of the alphabet, one can almost certainly believe that he will in no way manage either to find or to conceive what parts and elements the sound of his voice is composed of, nor even if he were to find and conceive the reciprocal characteristics and diversity of these elements will he manage to determine and establish in his own mind the idea of each of them, not having the signs with which to signify them, and represent them distinctly to himself, and to which to refer his own ideas; nor will he in any way form the thought that just as the other ideas are represented and determined by words, and thus determined and represented refer to those words, so too those of elementary signs can be signified and determined by other signs, that is, by the signs of the alphabet, and refer back to these [2953] with the mind. Because this is precisely what we do, without realizing it. We refer each elementary sound back to the corresponding letter of the alphabet, and by this means we clearly and determinately conceive a distinct and separate idea of it, whenever it occurs to us, and we recall it and take it up again at will. We do likewise with other ideas in relation to words.
And it is worth noting that in this second circumstance we refer the object of our idea back to the word that signifies it, be it spoken or written. Men used to reading are for the most part prone to referring to the written word, and to conceiving at one and the same time the idea of each thing, the idea of the word that it signifies, and the idea of the material form it has when written. See p. 3008. But illiterates and children simply refer to the word uttered, and this suffices for them to conceive the clear and determinate idea of anything they know the word for, and of any word whose meaning they well understand. Because any word even when [2954] simply considered in its pronunciation, which is the only way in which the illiterate are able to consider it, has sufficient body, and so to speak individuality, and sufficient consistency, to strike the senses, and hence to be retained in the memory, and distinguished by thought from other words.
This is not the case with the sounds of the voice. Because such a sound is its own word, and hence the idea of the sound and of the word that signifies it being one and the same, and it being impossible for one to refer to the other, the mind is in no way aided by language to conceive definitely and to retain and to recall at will the ideas of these sounds as distinct one from the other. It is true that because it is only vowels that we are able to pronounce on their own, all the other sounds have for us taken on a sort of name, which is not strictly speaking their unadorned sound, as bi and ci are names of b and c. And in ancient languages every sound, including the vowel sounds, also bore an arbitrary and conventional name of its own (which is exactly what words are, by which I mean, exactly what the names of every other thing [2955] are), and this name was more distinct from its unadorned sound than is the case with us, whence one can say that in those languages the sounds of the spoken language had their words distinct from the object, just as the other objects had; that the language also aided thought with the sounds mentioned above, and that the simple idea of them had the wherewithal to support itself and to refer to outside of writing and of the written alphabet, that is, the conventional and imposed names of the aforesaid sounds, and the alphabet as pronounced. For example, in Hebrew and in Greek aleph, beth, ghimel, alpha, beta, gamma, iota, eta were the proper names of sounds, and different from those sounds themselves.
Nevertheless, one can consider it to be almost impossible, if not for the ancients then certainly for the moderns, to conceive clearly and precisely, to retain constantly, and to recall easily the ideas of each elementary sound of speech, of the qualities proper to each, of their respective diversities, without knowing the written alphabet. [2956] Nor do I believe that one can allege an example of someone who possesses or has ever possessed perfectly and distinctly these specific ideas in the manner and under the circumstances that I have stated, without knowing the letters which signify them and represent them. Which means I do not believe that anyone has ever had and retained, or has and retains, the clear, determinate, and distinct idea of each sound, without being able to refer it to the relevant letter in the alphabet, but referring it solely to its word, or not referring it to any thing, but considering it by means of thought and only in itself, and addressing it only for itself. I do not believe it, I repeat, of anyone, and not even of the ancients, who I firmly maintain when giving the names they gave to sounds, had a wholly different intention and motivea from that of enabling thought with those names, and of so arranging things that those sounds could be taught separately from the written alphabet, and be known, distinctly recognized, and consistently retained by those who did not know the letters nor could in any way read. Certainly children [2957] today do not learn to distinguish the sounds of their own speaking before understanding the characters that signify them, nor is the distinct understanding and idea of them in their minds for any period of time separated from the understanding and idea of the latter.
For which reasons I said above (p. 2953) that we with our mind always compare each elementary sound of the spoken language with the corresponding character in the alphabet, as many times as we conceive in our minds the distinct idea of any one whatsoever of the aforesaid sounds; and I did not say we compare them with the name or word of those sounds.
With these considerations among others, and in this way, one may readily understand and appreciate that the invention of the alphabet was, one might say, as difficult and as marvelous as the invention of language was, and is. Because the same reason as should make us marvel in relation to language, namely, how one could have clear and distinct ideas without the use of words, and how invent [2958] words without having clear and distinct ideas to which to apply them, this same marvel occurs with regard to the alphabet. For we are scarcely able to conceive how this latter could have preceded clear and distinct ideas of elementary sounds, or how such ideas could have existed before the knowledge of the signs that represent them. We can therefore apply to the alphabet the saying of Rousseau, who confessed that when considering language and investigating and explaining the invention of the same, he found himself in the most
extreme embarrassment because it does not seem possible that a language should be formed before an almost perfect society, nor an almost perfect society before the use of an already formed and mature language.1
Indeed, as regards the alphabet, our sense of marvel grows still greater in certain respects. Because clear and distinct ideas of objects that are perceptible and perceptibly distinct one from the other could also be had without the use of words, and once the words to signify such objects had been found, one could by means of similes and metaphors (the principal [2959] path by which all languages must be presumed to grow) also give names to objects that are less perceptibly distinct from one another, and therefore less perceptible, and less clearly conceived, and finally the imperceptible and the utterly obscure; and one could find a way of signifying them. But this scale did not occur in regard to the alphabet, which is, as I have said, the language signifying elementary sounds. All these latter, though they come within the purview of the senses, are nonetheless so confused, intertwined, closely linked, and incorporated one with the other in the pronunciation of speech, so far from being in any way perceptibly distinct, and their reciprocal diversity is so hard to discern, that it is well-nigh outside the control of the senses, and the difficulty of conceiving a clear and distinct idea of each of them without signs, and of finding signs for them without having conceived clear and distinct ideas of them, was barely eased in any respect, nor could it have been overcome by degrees, but, so far as the principal aspect and the essence of the invention was concerned, this difficulty must necessarily have been overcome all at once. This [2960] invention, to be brief, belonged wholly to analysis;1 it is in its nature that it is so, altogether the work and effect of analysis. It essentially required resolution into its last and simplest elements, which things are precisely the most difficult for human understanding, and the last operations that it usually manages to perform. (12, 14 July 1823.)
Take the case of someone born blind, to whom a successful operation, when he is already mature or adult, suddenly gives sight. Ask him or consider his judgments (I refer to judgments, not sensations, which do not belong to considerations of beauty in its exact and philosophical sense) regarding the physical beauty or ugliness of visible objects that present themselves to his eyes. And you will see whether these judgments conform to the judgments that people are generally accustomed to making about such objects in their relation to beauty, or if they are not rather very unlike or contrasting, not only as regards minutiae and fine details, but in the most crucial parts and matters. There is no lack of actual [2961] experiments and empirical tests of this, because there is no lack of real instances of the circumstance I have posited.1
And as to the person born blind, who stays blind, what ideas does he conceive of the human form and of that of the other objects he can also know by touch? What ideas regarding their beauty or ugliness? Do we suppose that the ideas, the judgments that he forms agree with the ideas and judgments of men who can see? And that they are not often utterly different from them? But if an ideal and absolute beauty existed, should the person born blind not know it, as it is claimed that he naturally knows, and that all men know, the moral beauty that is believed to be absolute, a moral beauty that no one sees, just as the blind person does not see physical beauty? And as regards the qualities that are believed to be absolutely beautiful or ugly in one or other kind of object, and especially as regards those qualities that belong to the objects that a person born blind knows by means of the other senses aside from sight, and still more as regards those that belong to the human species, of [2962] which he himself though blind is a part, should not the ideas and judgments of the blind person, inasmuch as he is able to understand them, agree with the judgment and the ideas of those who see, regarding the beauty and ugliness that derives from such objects or which is composed of them? Should they not, I mean, agree, at any rate over what has to do with the essential and crucial? Whereas each of us is firmly persuaded that these ideas and judgments do not agree with our own, except perhaps accidentally, indeed for the most part they are very far removed from them and at odds with them. (14 July 1823.)
A child, a person born blind who has suddenly gained sight—and all men of whatever nation, time, custom, taste, or opinion—considers youth to be more beautiful in itself than age. Youth for its part appears absolutely beautiful to all. It is for everyone a beautiful quality (both in men and in animals for the most part, and likewise in plants, and in most of the species in which it plays any part), etc. This universal consensus does not in any way prove that there is a quality that is essentially and absolutely beautiful in itself, or necessary to the composition of beauty in any [2963] kind of thing (for propriety is not a quality that composes beauty, a part that enters into the composition of beauty; beauty, rather, consists in it, it is beauty, and vice versa, beauty is propriety and nothing else).1
(1) Youth is called beautiful, just as a bright color is called beautiful. Neither deserves this name philosophically. Their beauty is not propriety, and yet philosophical beauty is nothing but propriety. What leads us to call youth beautiful is not a judgment but an inclination. The pleasure we derive from the sight of youth is not perceived through judgment but through inclination, and hence it does not have to do with beauty. Otherwise men will say that simply being a woman is beauty, because they derive more pleasure from seeing a woman than a man. But women will say the opposite. These qualities have nothing to do with beauty as philosophically defined. They have to do with the consideration of the pleasure that arises from inclination, [2964] which may well be universal in one species, and even in every species, because it may be natural and innate. It is ideas which cannot be innate. And the pleasure gotten from the sight of youth is a pure sensation, it is not an idea, nor does it derive from an idea. What then does it have to do with ideal beauty? This can only be an idea. Heat, cold, the bitter, the sweet, which no one calls beautiful or ugly, belong to the same category as youth. The effect they produce in men or in animals, inasmuch as this effect is actually pleasing or unpleasing, is not idea but sensation. It is therefore neither beautiful nor ugly. Exactly the same goes for the effect that the sight of youth produces in a man or an animal. A man born blind who sees for the first time a young person and finds youth pleasing to see, is therefore not experiencing the effect of any beauty, but that of a quality that nature has caused to be pleasing to the eye, [2965] just as sweetness is to the taste. He does not judge then but feels. If afterward on this sensation he bases and forms a judgment and an idea, as men always do, this idea has arisen from the sensation, and not from an innate idea, that is, from that idea of beauty which is supposed to be ideal. Certainly that sensation, pleasing as it is, has arisen from an innate and natural quality in the blind person, but this quality is not an idea. It is an inclination and a disposition, and it does not derive from, or reside in, or have anything whatsoever to do in itself with the intellect. It is in the intellect and not elsewhere that ideal beauty should exist and reside, if it did exist. And it is therefore in the intellect and nowhere else that the effects of true beauty as seen should occur, and from the intellect that the sensations of those effects should follow. But in our case the opposite happens. The idea is caused in the intellect by sensation.
The same argument will apply to the child. We cannot simply say that he finds youth pleasing to see just as soon as, and the very first time that he sees it, or that it seems to him, as people say, to be beautiful absolutely and in itself, and more beautiful than age, at first glance. [2966] I have observed elsewhere [→Z 1198–99, 1750–52] how often a young person seems, and is expressly judged by a child to be very ugly, and an old person very beautiful (even though he is ugly to everyone else, even for an old person), and this for various different reasons. The effects mentioned above only occur in the child, or do not occur consistently and reliably, or in a manner that is not accidental and circumstantial, once the natural inclination toward youth has developed in him, especially with regard
to individuals of his own kind. This development, especially in southern countries, occurs very early in children, and long before they are able, etc. See Alfieri in his Life.1 It occurs, I repeat, at any rate in part. And even concerning a person born blind who suddenly acquires sight, I very much doubt whether in the first moments, and even in the first days, he will find the prospect of youth absolutely beautiful for its own sake, as people say, or find it more beautiful than that of old age, etc. Furthermore, the person born blind, when he stays blind, will certainly find, e.g., the youthful voice [2967] more pleasing than the elderly one, and all the other sensations that come from young persons will, all else being equal, be more pleasing than those that come from old people. And the idea that he conceives of youth, whatever it may be, will be more pleasing to him, and, as people say, more beautiful than the contrary, and pleasing and beautiful in itself. But all this will be the effect of inclination, not something derived originally from the intellect, etc.
(2) Youth is not necessary for the composition of the beautiful, not even in those species in which it occurs. It is still a relative quality, even when considered in terms of one and the same species of things. E.g., speaking of the human species, there is such a thing as a beautiful old person, just as much as a beautiful youth. There is the beauty proper to babies, children, adults, and the old, even the decrepit, no less than that proper to youth. (See Xenophon, ch. 4, § 17 of the Symposium.)1 In many [2968] circumstances youth proves repugnant to the other qualities of an object, or to a specific extrinsic circumstance relating to it, and so not only would not serve the composition of beauty, but would harm and destroy it, and would produce something downright ugly, precisely because it is youth. And in this way the object would be ugly expressly because it is young, the composite would be ugly precisely to the degree that youth had a part in it. E.g., the ancients represented the Gods as young. That’s how their ideas were, and well and good. But if someone today were to represent God the Father in the guise of youth instead of age, would such an effigy, being young, be beautiful? No, rather, it would be ugly, precisely inasmuch as it was young and in the guise of youth, because our ideas and customs and the qualities our imagination attributes to God the Father mean that this quality is repugnant to us. Among the ancients a youthful image of Jupiter the ruler and thunderer would have been ugly because it was youthful. And is the aspect of Jupiter in ancient images perhaps ugly? No indeed, he is very beautiful, but not young. [2969] Nor therefore less beautiful than the young Apollo, or than the even younger Mercury, or than the boy Eros. Youth in such circumstances would occasion ugliness because it would be out of place. The same applies to all the other qualities in the same circumstances and for the same reason. Youth therefore, like all the other qualities, can be inappropriate, and if it is so, occasions ugliness. Therefore, like all the other qualities, it will only occasion beauty when it is appropriate. Youth is therefore not a cause or a part of beauty absolutely or in itself but relatively, and only inasmuch as is appropriate, and this also considering it only in those species of things that can partake of it, and furthermore in the terms of one and the same species. Consequently youth, philosophically and precisely speaking, does not belong in itself to beauty more than any other quality does. Like all the others, it is only rendered proper to the formation of beauty by a cause extrinsic to it and different from it, and in itself highly variable and inconsistent, that is, by [2970] propriety. The latter sometimes admits youth, and thereby makes it appropriate to the aforesaid function, and sometimes excludes it, and thereby makes it wholly unsuitable.
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