Leopardi - Theory of Pleasure

[165] The sense of the nothingness of all things, the inadequacy of each and every pleasure to fill our spirit, and our tendency toward an infinite that we do not understand comes perhaps from a very simple cause, one that is more material than spiritual.1 The human soul (and likewise all living beings) always essentially desires, and focuses solely (though in many different forms), on pleasure, or happiness, which, if you think about it carefully, is the same thing. This desire and this tendency has no limits, because it is inborn or born along with existence itself, and so cannot reach its end in this or that pleasure, which cannot be infinite but will end only when life ends. And it has no limits (1) either in duration (2) or in extent. Hence there can be no pleasure to equal (1) either its duration, because no pleasure is eternal, (2) or its extent, because no pleasure is beyond measure, but the nature of things requires that everything exist within limits and that everything have boundaries, and be circumscribed. The desire for pleasure has no limits of duration, because, as I have said, it ends only with existence, and so human beings would not exist if they did not feel this desire. It has no limits of extent because it belongs to the substance of ourselves, not as the desire for one or more pleasures but as the desire for pleasure. Now, such a nature carries infinity materially within it, for every single pleasure is circumscribed, but not pleasure itself, whose extent is indeterminate, and the soul, which loves pleasure substantially, embraces the whole imaginable extent of this feeling, without being able even to conceive of its extent, because it is not possible to form a clear idea of something desired without limit. Let us proceed to the consequences. If you desire a horse, you have the impression that you desire it as a horse, and as such and such a pleasure, but in fact you desire it as an unlimited and abstract pleasure. When you take possession of the horse, [166] you encounter a pleasure that is necessarily circumscribed, and you feel an emptiness in your soul, because the desire that you actually had is not satisfied. Even if it were possible for it to be satisfied in extent, it could not be so in duration, because the nature of things requires again that nothing be eternal. And assuming that the material cause that once gave you such and such a pleasure were to remain with you forever (for example, you desired wealth, you obtained it, and forever), it would remain materially, but no longer as the cause of such a pleasure, because another property of things is that everything wears out, all impressions vanish little by little, and as habit takes away pain, so it extinguishes pleasure. Add that even if a pleasure that you felt once lasted your whole life long, your spirit would still not be satisfied, because its desire is also infinite in extent, so that, even if that particular pleasure equaled the duration of this desire, yet, because it would be unable to equal its extent, the desire would always remain, either for ever new pleasures, as happens in fact, or for one pleasure that might fill your entire soul. Therefore, you may readily conceive that pleasure is always utterly vain, something which surprises us very much, as if this came from some particular nature of its own, while pain, boredom, etc., do not possess this quality. The fact is that when the soul desires a pleasurable thing, when it desires the satisfaction of an infinite desire, it really desires pleasure, and not a particular pleasure; now, when it finds, in fact, a particular pleasure, not an abstract one, embracing the full extent of pleasure, the result is that, since its desire is far from being satisfied, this pleasure is scarcely pleasure, because it is a matter not of a small but of a vast [167] inferiority to our desire, not to mention our hopes. And therefore all pleasures must be mingled with displeasure, as experience shows, because in the process of obtaining them the soul is desperately searching for something it cannot find, that is, an infinity of pleasure, or the satisfaction of an unlimited desire.

Let us move on to man’s inclination toward the infinite. Independent of the desire for pleasure, there exists in man an imaginative faculty that can conceive of things that do not exist, and in a way in which real things do not exist. Considering man’s innate tendency toward pleasure, it is natural that the imaginative faculty makes the imagining of pleasure one of its principal occupations. And given the said property of this imaginative power, it can fashion pleasures that do not exist, and it can fashion them infinite (1) in number, (2) in duration, (3) and in extent. The infinite pleasure that cannot be found in reality can thus be found in the imagination, from which derive hope, illusions, etc. For this reason, it is no surprise (1) that hope is always greater than the outcome, (2) that human happiness cannot consist in anything other than imagination and illusion. Therefore, we must consider the great mercy and great teaching of nature, which, while it could not, on the one hand, deprive man and all other living beings of the love of pleasure—which is an immediate consequence of, and almost the same thing as, self-love and the self-preservation necessary to the continued existence of things—and, on the other, could not provide them with real infinite pleasures, chose to make up for them (1) with illusions, in which she was most generous to them, and which we need to consider as something arbitrary in nature, which could perfectly well have done without them, (2) with immense variety, [168] so that when man was tired or disappointed by one pleasure he could turn to another, or even if he was disillusioned with all pleasures he could be distracted and confused by the great variety of things, and also he could not so easily tire of a particular pleasure, because he did not have so much time to linger on it and let it wear itself out, and there again not have too much space to reflect on the inability of all the pleasures to satisfy him. Therefore, you may deduce the usual consequences of the superiority of the ancients over the moderns on the question of happiness. (1) Imagination, as I have said, is the principal source of human happiness. The more imagination rules in man, the happier he will be. We can see it in children. But it cannot rule without ignorance, at least a certain ignorance, like that of the ancients. Knowledge of the true, that is, of the limits and definitions of things, circumscribes the imagination.1 And observe that since the imaginative faculty is often stronger in educated people than among the ignorant, it is so more potentially than in actuality, and therefore, because it is much more active among the ignorant, it makes them happier than those on whom nature would seem to have bestowed a richer source of pleasures. And note, second, that nature did not wish humans to regard imagination as such, that is, it wished them not to think of it as a deceptive faculty but rather to confound it with the cognitive faculty, and therefore to think of the dreams of the imagination as real things and so be stimulated by the imaginary as much as by the true (indeed more, since the imaginary has more natural powers, and nature is always superior to reason).2 But now educated people, even when their illusions are plentiful, regard them as such, and follow them more out of will than out of persuasion, in contrast to the ancients, [169] the ignorant, children, and the order of nature. (2) Since all pleasures, like all suffering, etc., are as great as we think they are, it follows that, the vaster and richer our illusions, the vaster and richer will be our pleasures, and although even the ancients did not experience particular pleasures as infinite, they did experience them as very great indeed, and capable of giving them at least contentment if not fulfillment. Nature did not wish us to know, and primitive man does not know, that no pleasure can satisfy us. Therefore, both by experiencing each pleasure as much greater than we do, and imparting to it through the imagination an almost unlimited extent, and by passing from one desire to another, with the hope of greater pleasures and full satisfaction, the ancients achieved the purpose that nature had set, which is to live, if not entirely satisfied by that particular life, at least content with life in general. In addition, the variety I mentioned provided endless distraction and enabled them to switch rapidly from one thing to another without the time to know anything completely or for pleasure to be worn down by habit. (3) Hope is as infinite as the desire for pleasure, and has, in addition, the power, if not to satisfy us, at least to replenish us with consolation and keep us in the fullness of life. The hope peculiar to human beings, that of the ancients, children, the ignorant, scarcely exists for the wise of today. See the thought beginning “Diogenes Laertius describes” on p. 162.

Moreover, since the desire for pleasure is materially infinite in extent (not only in man but in every living being), man’s pain in experiencing a pleasure is to see immediately the limits of its extent, which someone who is not very deep will see only vaguely. Therefore, it is obvious: (1) Why everything [170] good seems beautiful and special from a distance, and the unknown seems more beautiful than the known, this being an effect of the imagination determined by our natural inclination toward pleasure, an effect of the illusions willed by nature. (2) Why the soul, in poetry and everywhere, prefers airy beauty and infinite ideas. Given the previous argument, the soul must naturally prefer above all others that pleasure which it cannot embrace. The ancients have this airy beauty, these ideas, in abundance, as do their poets, especially Homer, the earliest of all, children have them in abundance, and are truly Homeric in this respect (see the thought “As to the imagination” on p. 57 and the other on p. 100), as are the ignorant, etc., in short, nature. Learning and knowledge play havoc with such ideas, and it is very difficult for us to experience them. Melancholy, modern sentimentalism, etc., are so sweet precisely because they immerse the soul in an abyss of indeterminate thoughts that seem bottomless and vast. And this is also the reason that in love, etc., as I said on p. 142. Because at such times the heart loses itself in some vague, undefined space. The type of such beauty and such ideas does not exist in reality but only in the imagination, and only illusions can represent them to us, nor does reason have any power to do so. But our nature created them in great abundance and meant them to be part of our lives. (3) Why our soul hates everything that restricts its sensations. The soul searching everywhere for pleasure and not finding it cannot be satisfied. Where it does find it, it loathes any limitation, for the reasons given above. So seeing the beauty of nature, it likes to let its eye wander as far as possible. Which Montesquieu (Essai sur le goût, “De la curiosité,” pp. 374–75)1 attributes to curiosity. Wrongly. Curiosity is nothing but a determination [171] of the soul to desire that pleasure, as I will explain. So it could be the immediate cause of this effect (which is to say that if the soul did not find pleasure in a view of the countryside, etc., it would not desire the extension of this view), but it is not the main one, and this effect is special or peculiar not only to matters of curiosity but to everything that is pleasurable, so it could be said that curiosity is an immediate cause of the pleasure experienced in looking at the countryside, but not of the desire for that pleasure to be unlimited. Except insofar as each desire for each pleasure may be unlimited and permanent in the soul, like the general desire for pleasure. Besides, sometimes the soul might desire, and actually does desire, a view that is restricted or confined in some way, as in Romantic situations. The reason is the same, a desire for the infinite, because then, instead of sight, the imagination is at work and the fantastic takes over from the real. The soul imagines what it cannot see, whatever is hidden by that tree, that hedge, that tower, and wanders in an imaginary space and pictures things in a way that would be impossible if its view could extend in all directions, because the real would exclude the imaginary. Hence the pleasure I always experienced as a child, and still do, in looking at the sky, etc., through a window or doorway or casa passatoia as they call it.1 Conversely, the vastness and the multiplicity of sensations delight the soul enormously. People deduce from this that the soul is born for the large scale, etc. This is not the reason. It is rather that a multiplicity of sensations overwhelms the soul [172] and prevents it from recognizing where one ends and another begins, allowing it to roam freely from one pleasure to another without dwelling on any of them, and this in a way makes the pleasure seem infinite. Similarly, vastness, even without multiplicity, occupies more space in the soul, and is almost inexhaustible. Wonder, too, leaves the soul astonished, occupies it entirely, and makes it incapable in that moment of desire. Besides, novelty (intrinsic to wonder) is always precious to the soul, whose greatest ill is weariness with particular pleasures.

From this theory of pleasure, you may deduce that the greatness of things that are not pleasing in themselves can be a pleasure simply as greatness. Do not attribute this to some imaginary greatness of our nature. According to this theory, we learn (as is indeed the case) that the desire for pleasure becomes a torment, a kind of habitual anguish of the soul. So it follows that (1) a drowsiness of the soul is pleasurable.1 The Turks procure it with opium, and the soul gratefully accepts this temporary relief for its troubles, because it is like an escape from the torments of desire that can never fully be satisfied, an interval like sleep, when the soul, even if it does not entirely cease from thinking, is not aware of doing so. (2) The happiest life is one of constant occupation, even when its occupations and sensations are neither exciting nor varied.2 A busy mind is distracted from that innate desire which would not leave it in peace, or directs it toward the little aims that fill the day (finishing a piece of work, providing for everyday needs, etc. etc. etc.), for these come to seem like pleasures (pleasure being anything that the soul desires), and, having achieved one aim, it moves on to the next, so that it is distracted from major desires and has no time to trouble itself about the futility and emptiness of things; and the hope invested in those [173] modest aims, and the modest plans for future work or hopes for some generally successful outcome in the distant future, provide enough satisfaction,1 and amusement in leisure time, which never lasts long enough to become boring; besides, rest after hard work is a pleasure in itself. This is what human life was meant to be, and it was so for primitive peoples, and is still true for tribal and peasant communities, etc., and it is mainly for this reason, and no other, that animals live happily. Notice how even today, for those living in society, a life of hard work and domesticity seems a vision of happiness, also because of the absence of suffering or real cares and afflictions. (3) The extraordinary, the marvelous, is pleasurable, even if its essential qualities do not usually belong to any class of pleasurable things. The soul always feels pleasure when it is full (as long as it is not filled with pain), and any total, vivid distraction is an absolute pleasure where the soul is concerned, just as rest from toil is a pleasure, because such distraction is a release from desire. And, just as the stupor produced by opium is pleasant (because real cares can be forgotten), so is that produced by wonder, novelty, or singularity. Even when our astonishment is not sufficient to overwhelm us completely, it can still have a powerful effect and this in itself is pleasant. Notice that nature had intended that wonder (1) should be something very normal for mankind, (2) should very often be absolute, so that it fills the entire soul. It happens this way in children, and used to happen in primitive man and now among the ignorant, but it cannot occur without ignorance, and ignorance today can never be the same as it is for people who do not live in society, because living in society [174] means being taught by the experience of the past and the present, to a greater or lesser degree, but experience always teaches us something, and novelty becomes increasingly rare. (4)1 Even images of suffering and other terrible things, etc., can be pleasurable in plays, poetry of every kind, and performances, etc. As long as we ourselves are not afraid or suffering, the power of distraction is always pleasurable. These images do not need to be of anything extraordinary: in that case they would come under the previous category. But the image of suffering, etc., alone is enough to occupy the mind and provide distraction. (5) Magnitude, of any kind whatsoever (except of our own suffering), is pleasurable.

Naturally, large things attract more attention than small ones, unless the small is extraordinary, in which case it takes up more of our attention than the ordinarily large. The point I am making is that the effect of size is a material one deriving materially from our inclination toward pleasure, not from our inclination toward greatness of size. The same could perhaps be said about the sublime, being something different from the beautiful, which we find pleasurable in itself. In short, boredom is nothing but a lack of the pleasure that is fundamental to our existence and of anything that could distract us from desiring it. If it were not for this overpowering drive for pleasure in whatever form, boredom, that most familiar, recurrent, and dreaded affliction, would not exist. And, in fact, what reason should a man have to feel so bad when there is nothing wrong with him? Take, for example, a man in isolation with nothing to occupy him physically or mentally, with no worries, problems, or actual pain, or bored by [175] the uniformity of something neither onerous nor unpleasant in itself, and tell me why this man should suffer. And yet we can see that he does suffer, that he is desperate and would prefer any kind of anguish to this state. (Indeed, the reply in the affirmative given by the doctors consulted by the Duke of Brancas when asked if boredom could be fatal is famous. Lady Morgan, France, bk. 8, notes.)1 It is simply because in such times the inborn desire that accompanies us throughout life is unsatisfied, undeceived, neither assuaged nor put to rest. Nature has done everything possible to prevent this malady, man’s horror and repugnance toward which could be compared to the fear of the vacuum in nature posited by ancient physicists to explain certain natural phenomena. Nature has provided for it by giving man certain basic needs, the satisfaction of which (hunger, thirst, cold, heat, etc.) brings pleasure as well as keeping him occupied; by its sheer variety, by the imagination, which can occupy itself with almost nothing, and also by fear (in regard to which, although it, too, is a natural, spontaneous effect of self-love, we must nevertheless take account of the whole system of nature and the astonishing balance and relationship between the different effects by which it achieves this purpose or that), by dangers that make us love life more and banish boredom, by natural disturbances of the elements, by suffering and by actual ills, because it is sweeter to recover from ills than to live without them, and by many other natural disasters regarded as evils, almost failings of nature, and explained away as extraordinary accidents, which may be true of each individual case, but not of all of them together; they, too, are part of the great system of the universe.2 In short, the natural order with respect to man is always aimed at warding off the terrible evil of boredom, which according to all the philosophers is very common in modern man but almost unknown in primitive peoples (and also in animals). And notice how children, even in a state of almost perfect inaction, never or very rarely feel [176] the true torment of boredom, because even the slightest thing is sufficient to occupy them completely, and the force of their imagination gives body and life and action to every fantasy that presents itself to their minds, etc., and in short, they find within themselves an inexhaustible, constantly changing source of amusements. And this without any knowledge, any experience, without having traveled, without having seen heard, etc., in a very confined and uniform little world. And while it might appear that the more this world and this field of interests expand and diversify, the greater and more varied should be the supply of inner activity, such as children have, and boredom all the rarer, nevertheless we see that quite the opposite happens. Let this be a lesson to those who will not admit that nature is almost uniquely the source of our happiness, and its corruption a certain cause of unhappiness. In addition, the fact that the force and fertility of the imagination (1) just as they very easily stimulate action, so very often they encourage inaction, (2) are quite different from the power of the mind, which on the contrary leads to unhappiness, is apparent from the example of southern peoples, particularly in Italy, compared with northern. This is because (1) just as the Italians were once very active on account of an enthusiasm born of a lively and vivid, rather than profound, imagination, so now one of the reasons that they do not notice or at least do not despair of a life that is unchanging and perfectly inactive is that this same imagination is still as rich and varied, and provides a great abundance of ideas, and so, almost without realizing it, they can immerse themselves in a kind of rêve [dream], as children do when they are alone, etc., something repeatedly stressed by Staël, while northerners, lacking these internal sources of consolation, are obliged to seek them outside and thus become extremely active; (2) intellectual depth, [177] and the ability to penetrate the innermost recesses of the truth, the abstract, etc., while not unknown among the Italians because of their subtlety, quickness, and insight (which makes it easier for them to conceptualize and grasp the truth, whereas others struggle and can often make mistakes despite their profundity), is nevertheless not their strength, and on the contrary constitutes the entire activity and therefore unhappiness of educated northerners (note, as a consequence, the high suicide rate in England),1 because there is nothing to distract them from this search for the truth. And however much it might appear that imagination in northern people is just as vivid, original, etc., nevertheless this is philosophy and learning rather than imagination, and their poetry is more metaphysics than poetry, owing more to thought than to illusions. And the sentimental in them is more desperation than consolation. Precisely for this reason, ancient poetry has never appealed to them; precisely for this reason, they have entirely different tastes and particularly like allegorical entities, abstractions, etc. (see p. 154); precisely for this reason, it will always be true that our country really is the homeland of poetry, and theirs of reason (see pp. 143–44).

Once nature had given mankind an unlimited inclination toward pleasure, it was free to arrange that this or that thing would be considered pleasure. So the reasons that something is pleasurable are quite independent of the theory expounded above, depending only on the whim of nature to determine what a pleasure should consist of, and consequently what should be the properties of the objects of this inclination in man. Leaving aside the pleasures I listed earlier (pp. 172ff.), which are pleasures not because it suited nature to make them such independently of man’s inclination toward pleasure but only or mainly because man’s desire [178] for pleasure is limitless. Since, as I have said, by pleasure I understand, and so it should be understood, everything that man desires, as for the rest, virtue, corporal pleasures, the pleasures of curiosity (see, if you will, Montesquieu as cited on p. 170 above), etc. etc., are pleasures because nature has willed it, and they might not have been, despite all man’s inclination toward pleasure, just as the abstract idea of propriety is not a reason that this thing or that seems proper or beautiful. Some pleasures are common, others are peculiar to this nation or that, others to this or that class of people, like the pleasures associated with greed, ambition, etc., some are individual depending on a person’s habits, opinions, physical constitution, the climate, etc., just as the idea of beauty is relative, depending on customs, habits, opinions, etc. (see Montesquieu, loc. cit., “De la sensibilité,” p. 392). Nature has given man many different qualities, some of which develop as a matter of necessity, while others may develop or remain latent depending on circumstances. Of this second group, nature wished or did not inhibit the development of some qualities, but there are others it did not wish, which, if allowed to develop, make man unhappy. And the reason it placed them in man without wishing them to be developed must lie in the depths of nature’s system, and could probably be discovered if we were not now concerned with more general matters. According to these different qualities, man finds different things pleasurable, and civilized man enjoys different pleasures than does primitive man, and will experience pleasures that primitive man never knew and will not experience many of those which primitive man used to enjoy. And therefore, the fact that something is pleasurable to us now, the pleasure of which depends on our excessive sophistication, does not mean that this is something willed by nature. And although now, [179] for example, an excessive fascination with the truth gives us great pleasure when we succeed in discovering it, we should not assume that nature intended us to be so curious, or that this pleasure is natural, or that primitive man shared this desire and was incapable of controlling it, nor should we conclude, therefore, that man’s unhappiness was necessary or that it comes from his absolute nature, when it is a product of our own relative and corrupt nature. For many of the circumstances that have produced this or that quality in us were not intended by nature, and derive from man, not nature. Furthermore, given this theory of particular pleasures, it might also be the case that the idea of infinity, wonder, or any of the things I included as being pleasurable simply because of our inclination toward pleasure might be pleasurable independently of this, the reason being the will of nature, as in the case of other pleasures. However, it does seem to me that I have given an adequate explanation of the reason for their being pleasurable, and that these considerations cover all aspects of the ideas in question.

Man’s inclination toward pleasure is infinite in a material sense, and does not allow us to conclude anything more about the grandeur or infinity of the human soul than about that of animals, who must naturally feel the same desire, of a similar intensity, this being an immediate and necessary consequence of self-love, as I shall explain below. So we can deduce nothing on this account from man’s inclination toward the infinite or from the sense of the nothingness of things (which is not a natural sentiment in human beings, and which, therefore, is not found in animals or in primitive [180] societies but arises from accidental circumstances, not willed by nature). And since the desire for pleasure is a consequence of our existence itself, infinite solely in this sense and therefore, just like thinking, our inseparable companion throughout life, it is no more a proof of the spirituality of the human soul than the ability to think. Rather, it is noticeable how this desire, which seems at first glance to be the most spiritual part of our soul (see pp. 106–107), is an immediate and necessary consequence (in our present circumstances) of the most material thing there is in living beings, namely self-love and self-preservation, something that we share with animals and that, as far as we are aware, is common to all living creatures. Certainly there is no life without love of self and love of life. As for our imagination’s ability to conceive of a certain infinity, a pleasure the soul cannot embrace, which is precisely what makes it pleasurable—I mean an ability that is independent of our inclination toward pleasure, and was nature’s decision to give us or not give us—let everyone decide for himself what it might show in favor of our greatness. Personally, I believe (1) that nature has given it to us solely for our temporal happiness, which could not survive without such illusions.

Leopardi
Zibaldone