To the things said elsewhere in several places [→Z 3695, 3727–28] about the protactic g of the Latins before the n, add gnatus, participle or adjective and substantive, and gnatula [young girl], and see Forcellini under those entries. (23 Nov. 1823.)
To what has been said elsewhere [→Z 2865–66] about the use of the Spanish luego being similar to that of the Greeks in relation to adverbs meaning statim [straightaway], etc., add an example from Aristotle, Politics, bk. 8, Florence 1576, p. 615, beginning; p. 652, end; p. 675, end; εὐθὺς γὰρ [straightaway] misunderstood by Vettori in all three places, in one of which it is redundant.1 (23 Nov., Sunday, 1823.)
[3902] Andare for essere on which elsewhere [→Z 3004, 3617]. Petrarch, Sestina 1, penultimate line: “E ’l giorno andrà (sarà) pien di minute stelle / Prima ch’, etc.” [“And the day will be full of tiny stars / Before, etc.”]1 (24 Nov., Feast of St. Flavian, 1823.)
On the subject of the positivized diminutive ποίμνιον [flock], on which elsewhere [→Z 3618], one can note that in French too the word which means flock, and particularly a flock of sheep (like ποίμνιον and ποίμνη) or rams, is originally diminutive, that is troupeau for troupe, the second of which would be the equivalent of grex [flock] which perhaps properly is generic like troupe, and means multitude, gathering, etc., according to the way it is still used today in Latin and Italian. (24 Nov. 1823.)
Latin monosyllables. Lac [milk]: primitive idea, etc. Greek γάλα γάλακτος [milk], from which word etymologists derive the Latin. (24 Nov. 1823.)
I say elsewhere [→Z 806, 2005–2007] that the Hebrew language does not have compound forms. With the exception of many proper names, like Ab-raham, Ben-iamin, Mi-cha-el, Ierusalem (this is not from ancient Hebrew), etc., and perhaps also other nouns, not proper, but appellative or something similar. (24 Nov. 1823.)
The man who has great capacity and therefore facility, readiness, and multiplicity of habituation, for this same reason has equal capacity, facility, etc., of dishabituation. Vice versa in the opposite case. And always proportionately, indeed always equally, the measure of one capacity corresponds to that of the other. The one [3903] and the other are either the same thing considered differently, or twin effects of the same cause, which cannot produce one without producing the other to the same degree. From the same physical, moral, etc., reasons which produce the capacity to form habits in a man or in man, etc., arises an equal capacity to lose habits. And the one can be inferred from the other. Man can form habits; therefore he can lose habits, or vice versa. A given individual has so much capacity to become habituated; therefore he has so much, neither more nor less, to become dishabituated.
This principle, which arises from and is demonstrated and developed by the observations made by me elsewhere [→Z 1254–55, 1761–62, 1824, 2039–41], should be noted diligently, because in the course of our theories it will perhaps be capable of many applications. (24 Nov. 1823.)
To what I have said elsewhere [→Z 1155, 3543–44] on the subject of pintar [to paint] and of the ancient Latin participle of pingo and similar verbs, add dipinto (not dipitto) substantive and adjective or participle, dipintura, etc., peint, and therefore peintre, peinture, etc., dépeint, etc. Pitto for pinto is only in writers. We however have pittura, pittore, etc. But also pintore, pintura. The Spanish pintor, etc. Fitto for finto [false] (universal with us) I do not know if it comes from the vulgar and spoken language. From finto, and not from fictus or fitto, finzione [fiction], fintamente [falsely], etc., infinto, fractus franto infranto, enfreint [to break], etc. However we also have fizione, etc. The French feint, etc. The Spanish fingido (fingitus primitive form), etc. Vinto [conquered], not vitto (victus) except poetically, and now it would not be acceptable even in poetry. The Spanish vencido, the French vaincu, which correspond to the [3904] primitive vincitus from vinco, according to what is said elsewhere [→Z 3075–76] about the mutation of the Latin itus into u, in the desinence of many French participles, etc. (24 Nov. 1823.)
For p. 3900. Incesso is ivi [to attack], (*“frequentative from incedo [to march along],”* says Forcellini). As for its preterit incessi (whence incesserint in the example from Tacitus, Historiae 3, 77), see Forcellini under Incedo in the last two paragraphs, and compare it with what he says about the perfect facessi under Facesso. (24 Nov. 1823.)
Incessare from incedere. See Forcellini under Incesso is, end, and the previous thought, if you will. (24 Nov. 1823.)
For p. 3826. The barbarian incapabilis (see Forcellini and the Glossary, etc.) is either a false word, or completely barbarian in formation and outside any rule (like a hundred thousand similar in barbarian Latin languages, or in modern ones, also in bilis), or it demonstrates a capo as atum, unless one should read incapibilis from capitum (primitive for captum), which I would doubt. (24 Nov. 1823.)
Dice for dicunt, aiunt [they say], on which elsewhere [→Z 2676–77, 2987]. See the Crusca under Fitto, § 3, last example and look for it in its author. (24 Nov. 1823.) It is Orlando innamorato, canto 37, stanza 1, and it has nothing to do with the topic.1 (24 Nov. 1823.)
I have said elsewhere [→Z 1031–37] that since all languages are born from the vulgar, ours are born from vulgar and spoken Latin and not from written Latin. From this principle follows this corollary, among many others: that all the words, phrases, meanings, etc., in Italian, French, Spanish, and all the proper characteristics of these three languages, or of any one of [3905] them, which can also be found, in any way at all, in written Latin of any period, and which have not been introduced into the three languages by writers, literature, men of letters, the speech of learned and cultured people, etc., nor have passed from one of these languages into another by whatever means after having been introduced into the former by writers or literary speech, etc., but which come originally from the simple usages of speech, etc., were all proper to vulgar and spoken Latin, no less than to written Latin; and therefore it is legitimate for anyone who is looking for ancient Vulgar Latin to regard them as integral parts of the language, etc. (24 Nov. 1823.)
For p. 3835. It is to be noted however that drunkenness, etc.—even when it enhances one’s powers and brings about unusual vivacity and activity and action, interior or exterior, or both—always or almost always also brings about a kind of lethargy, heedlessness, ἀναισθησία [insensitiveness] at the same time, even though on the other hand the person is at that moment extraordinarily sensitive and reflective and surpassingly profound. See pp. 3921–27. In fact by its characteristic nature it draws man more or less, and in one way or another, out of himself, and in a certain manner, sometimes to a greater sometimes to a lesser degree, blinds him, transports him, binds his faculties, suspends the free employment of them, etc. That is exactly why in the ordinary run of things it is pleasurable, because by suspending or lessening in some way the feeling of life at the same time as it increases the strength, energy, intensity, degree, totality, vitality of that life, it suspends or lessens or makes us not feel or feel less the action, effect, [3906] efficacy, the functions, the actuality of self-love, and therefore the vain desire for happiness, etc., according to what I said in my theory of pleasure about the essential pleasurableness of any drowsiness [→Z 172ff.] insofar as it suspends the feeling of life, and therefore the feeling, indeed the actuality of self-love, and the desire for happiness.a1 Drunkenness and all that resembles it or belongs to it, etc., is pleasurable by its nature, principally insofar as it is (by its nature) drowsiness. Especially since this drowsiness is born at that moment from the very excess of life and of the feeling of life, and in drunkenness this excess is what lessens and mortifies that feeling to a greater or lesser extent (according to the idea that excess is the father of nothing, as elsewhere [→Z 714–17, 1176–79, 1260–62, 1653–54, 1776–77, 2478]) and almost extinguishes the mind. (See Victorius, Commentarius on Aristotle’s Politics, Florence 1576, last page, ll. 5–6.)2 And so among all the kinds of drowsiness, that produced by drunkenness and similar causes
is supremely pleasurable for itself, leaving aside the circumstances which can in some ways produce the opposite, and also leaving aside the other qualities, and effects, even the essential ones, of drunkenness, etc. etc., because it alone includes, assumes, and carries with it and has for its mother3 the relative abundance of life and of the feeling of life, and this life and feeling are by nature and necessity supremely pleasurable to the living creature, as elsewhere in a number of places [→Z 1382, 2410ff., 2736–39, 3291ff., 3835–36], except that in the other cases the greater life and greater feeling of life is proportionately greater self-love, and therefore desire for happiness, which is in vain, and therefore greater unhappiness, etc. (24 Nov., Feast of St. Flavian, 1823.)
To the list of Italian verbs, frequentative-diminutive, pejorative, of endearment, etc., simply frequentative or diminutive, given by me elsewhere [→Z 1115–17, 1240–42], add: in ettare, as from balbo, balbettare [to stammer]. (25 Nov. 1823.)
[3907] For p. 2924. Personal: “ταῦτα μὲν οὕτως ἔχει, οὕτως ἐχέτω” [“so it is, let it be so”], etc. etc. Impersonal: “εἴπερ τὸν τρόπον τοῦτον” (“if this is so”). Aristotle, Politics, Florence 1576, p. 557, end. “ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ τε γὰρ ἔχει τὸν τρόπον τοῦτον” [“In Egypt this arrangement still exists even now”], p. 590, end. “ὅπου μὴ τοῦτον ἔχει τὸν τρόπον” [“Where this system is not followed”], p. 595.1 In Italian I do not believe that avere for essere is ever truly impersonal. Ci ha molti is the singular for the plural, as in Greek with neuter nouns, and in Italian, especially ancient or vulgar, extremely frequently. Therefore in this phrase there is the person, that is molti. Ebbevi di quelli che, etc. Alcuni [Some] is understood. Although this phrase (and ones like it) in itself is impersonal, and can be so called, since in origin there is something understood in all impersonal phrases, as in the Greek ones above τὰ πράγματα [things] or the like. (26 Nov. 1823.)
Positivized diminutives. Cultellus (coltello, couteau [knife], etc. See the Dictionaries under coutre. I find in 2 letters from Frederick II coutelet, for coltellino), cultellare [to cut with a knife], cultellatus, etc. See Forcellini. (26 Nov. 1823.)
For p. 3819. Latin neuter nouns of the 3rd conjugation which have their accusative the same as the nominative, and very different from the ablative, can be seen in our languages as having nothing to do (in general) with Latin ablatives, but in fact with nominatives and accusatives. Such as tempus–tempore, tempo, temps, etc.; semen–semine, seme, etc. etc. (26 Nov. 1823.)
It should be noted that positivized diminutives (verbs or nouns, etc.) brought together by me are not even frequentative in meaning, nor pejorative, nor of endearment, nor anything similar, unless it was also the meaning of the positive, to which in short it must totally conform. Misculare [to mix] (on the subject of which I started discussing [3908] positivized diminutives [→Z 2280–83]) in the beginning perhaps had a frequentative meaning, which it lost afterward, being left with the positive meaning. And the same for the others, each of which (nouns or verbs) must have originally differed in meaning from the positive ones. In any case verbs in ulare, etc., properly are diminutive and therefore have a bearing on my discussion. They sometimes have a similar meaning, however, to the frequentative (like so many Italian verbs noted by me elsewhere [→Z 1115–17, 1240–42, 3764]) but they are not for that reason less justifiably placed with the diminutives, since it is only from diminution that they receive their power to mean frequency, etc., and this meaning is like a species of diminutive meanings, etc. (26 Nov. 1823.)
For p. 3520. And very often the heedlessness of children, the ignorant, the inexperienced, etc., does the same, as perfectly, or even a great deal better, as reflection, prudence, providence, sagacity, ability, quickness, etc., and presence of mind acquired by dint of experience, etc., can and do do, finds the same possibilities which the most reflective man could embrace after the most mature consideration, and where quickness is needed, finds and executes those possibilities with equal and greater quickness than the habit of reflection can achieve. (26 Nov. 1823.)
Causare for accusare, accagionare [to accuse], on which elsewhere [→Z 2809–10] on the subject of the ancient Latin cuso [to strike]. Machiavelli, Vita di Castruccio Castracani, not far beyond halfway, Tutte le opere, 1550, part 2, p. 73, beginning: “Occorse in questi tempi che il popolo di Roma cominciò a tumultuare per il vivere caro, causandone l’assenza del Pontifice che si trovava in Avignone, et biasimavono i governi Tedeschi” [“It happened at this time that the populace of Rome began to riot because of the high cost of living, giving as its reason the absence of the Pope who was in Avignon, and blaming the German rulers”]. (26 Nov. 1823.)
[3909] For p. 3753. And at any rate perhaps, puellus is a contraction of puerulus [boy], which also exists; and in the same way nigellus [somewhat black] from a nigerulus, and fratello [brother] is for fraterulus, culter [knife] cultri–cultellus, and similarly with other similar ones.
For p. 3310. It is very well known how great an influence imagination, opinion, prejudice, etc., also have on bodily love, on the feelings which a man experiences in particular toward a woman, or a woman toward a man. And in particular, everything that there is something mysterious about, which helps to make the object of their love hardly known to the lover, and so give space to their imagination to build, so to say, around that object, bears upon love, not just Platonic or sentimental love, but also bodily love directed toward particular individuals.1 For that reason, everything that is related to the merits or qualities in the inmost being of the loved object that are in some way lovable, and in particular, a certain sentimental, melancholic, profound character, or a signal that shut within oneself there is something more than appears on the outside, contributes enormously to love and to desire, including bodily desire. For the inmost being and its qualities, and especially those which I have specified, are hidden things, and unknown to other people, and give rise in them to imagination, to vague and indeterminate thoughts. And when these thoughts and imaginings join forces with the natural desire that carries an individual of one sex toward an individual of the other, they elevate this desire to infinity, and increase overwhelmingly [3910] the pleasure that is experienced in satisfying it. And when ideas related to the inmost being of the loved object that are mysterious and naturally indeterminate, ideas that are born of the visible parts and qualities of their spirit, above all ideas born of qualities that have something profound and uncertain and hidden about them, and that promise or hint at other parts or other qualities hidden and lovable, etc., when these ideas, I say, are joined with the clear and defined ideas that are related to the material aspect of the loved object and communicate to them something mysterious and vague, they make them infinitely more beautiful, and the body of the loved or lovable person infinitely more lovable, and prized, and desirable; and dear, when it is won.
Generally speaking, one of the main causes that have led to the sentimental, to spiritual love, etc., apart from the one that was noted in the thought to which the present thought refers, is that as men became more and more civilized, and as the spiritual and inward side of humanity acquired proportionately and grew in consistency, efficacy, value, importance, extent, activity, influence, strength, and power, and capacity in relation to civilization, we began first to recognize and suppose a hidden and invisible part in man which primitives either did not suppose at all or only glancingly and without making much distinction from the external and perceptible side, and then to regard it as much as the external side, and then more than the external, and little by little so much more, that today—unless nature rebelled (and in the last analysis [3911] she can never be wholly extinguished or overcome)—no consideration would be given to anything in humanity or each individual other than the internal, and never by the word “man” would we understand anything other than his spirit. Now, in proportion to this spiritualization, of things, of the idea of man, of man himsel
f, there began and grew that spiritualization of love which makes it the field and source of many vague ideas and of feelings more undefined perhaps than any other passion awakens; notwithstanding the fact that in origin, and today also as far as its purpose is concerned, it is perhaps at the same time both the most material and the most determinate of the passions, common, as to its nature, to the beasts, and to the most bestial and stupid, etc., the least spiritual of men. To such an extent that as the spiritualization of human things has come to a head in recent times, so, we can say, within living memory that love which has been called sentimental, with a new name because it is a new thing, has come into being, or has certainly, in these recent years, become common for the first time. This love—of which the ancients had practically no idea, or which, under the name of Platonic, occasionally appeared in some rare spirit or was the subject of debate between philosophers and schoolmen—has up to now been considered a fable and a being of reason1 and chimerical, or a miracle, and at odds with universal nature, or an impossibility, or something most extraordinary, or a word devoid of meaning, and a confused idea. And this idea has truly been so up till now, that is, extremely confused, and more named by the philosophers than conceptualized by them and, as such, derided by the wisest and judged incapable of ever becoming [3912] clear. This excessive modern spiritualization of love, which with its proper term we call sentimental love, corresponds to the supreme spiritualization of human things, which in these recent times has been and is taking place.
And how the spiritualization of love—and therefore the vague and undefined which is now proper to this passion and to the feelings one sex has toward the other—was born and had to be born from the spiritualization of human things, and to grow alongside it in the same proportion, and finally to reach its peak, is obvious and easy to explain by what has already been said. At the beginning, as men only considered the external in themselves and other men, so they naturally did the same in women, and vice versa, women in men. But with the beginning of civilization, as the idea of the spirit was born, on account of the force and action which the internal part was beginning to acquire and develop, so the idea of the spirit, first becoming equal to that of the body, and then gradually prevailing over it to an overwhelming degree, the individual of one sex had necessarily first to begin to consider also the spirit in the individual of the other, and then proceeding further, to consider it as much as the body, and finally more than the body itself, at least in a certain sense and fashion. So that the lovable object of one sex was to the individual of the other no longer a simply material object, as at the beginning, but an object composed of spirit and body, of a hidden part and a manifest part, and then gradually an object more spiritual than [3913] material, more hidden and imaginable than manifest and sensible, more inner than outer. And as the ideas which relate to the internal and hidden part of man are naturally vague and uncertain, so the idea of the lovable object, considered in the way mentioned, necessarily began to have something mysterious about it, with consideration of the spirit combining with consideration of the body in that idea, and as the first consideration gradually gained ground over the second, the idea of the loved object inevitably became more mysterious, until it had about it more of the mystical, the uncertain, and the vague than of the clear and determinate.1 So the feelings and ideas which belong to the passion of love took on ever more of the indefinite in proportion to the growth in civilization (and therefore that passion became, without doubt, incomparably more delightful);2 so much so that, although the principle of love is necessarily the same today as it was in primitive peoples, and is in savages, and is and always was in beasts, and equally as material and animal, nevertheless, because that passion brings the spiritual and the material together within itself, it has become so different from the former that properly sentimental love certainly appears not to have anything whatever to do with either the love of savages, or with that of beasts, but to be completely different and distinct in nature, in principle and in origin. And today even the least Platonic and most sensual love still necessarily contains in its ideas and feelings much that is spiritual, and therefore imaginative, and therefore vague and undefined, and in the object that is loved [3914] or enjoyed or lovable even the most brutish person always has regard to some extent and in some way to a hidden part accompanying, animating, intrinsic to, and embracing and conjoined to that part and those limbs which he desires or takes pleasure in or regards as lovable and desirable. Because in fact that part exists, and plays a very great role in the being of that object, and the inner is a very important portion of the object, however brutish or lacking in feelings it may also be, and the lover sees this very clearly all the time. I am speaking of loved objects and lovers who, however brutish, or uncultured, and in whom spirit plays little part, are still among the civilized.
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