Society And its Purpose
Book 4 - Psychological Laws and the End of Civil Societies
CHAPTER 27
Continuation — Outlines of a map of the human heart
781. We have listed the principal states of unhappiness in which the human spirit can be found. As we saw, happiness of spirit consists in the satisfied capacity for an absolute good, and unhappiness in unsatisfiable capacities. Consequently, the enumeration of the states in which human beings are unhappy consisted and could only consist in the enumeration of longings through which we hope to uncover the infinite in the finite, that is, make possible what is intrinsically impossible.
782. The vastness of the human spirit is best seen through a consideration of the innumerable different states in which the spirit can find itself. These states can be multiplied without end, especially when we are dealing with states of unhappiness. The state of happiness has something unique and absolute, although it too is infinitely variable relative to the quantity of enjoyment connected with it, and relative to the various modifications that can be found in the quantity of this enjoyment. I offer this affirmation without proof, and leave it for the readers’ consideration.(344) Let me pass on instead to some reflections on what I have said.
783. These reflections are of the most immediate interest in a discussion on the end of society, and on the philosophical aims which wise government must set before itself if society is to be induced to follow its lead. Just as it is obviously necessary for government to be aware of the topography of the country it is governing, it is no less necessary and important for it to have a map, if I may put it like that, of the human heart, which is no less vast than the greatest empire.
Journeying through the heart, however, is more difficult than crossing an empire; triangulisation of the heart is more difficult again. We are dealing not with a specialised but a general map, that is, with outlines suitable for describing certain territories and limits. These are drawn by indicating various satisfied and unsatisfied capacities which can be found in the interior of the human spirit. Let us first synthesise what was said in the preceding chapter, and simply enumerate the illusory capacities to which the human spirit is subject; we shall also point to the incredible multiplicity of the different states of unhappiness constituted by the same capacities as they struggle together in so many ways.
784. We see, therefore, that the errors which the practical reason can make about unhappiness, and the various kinds of illusory capacities which continually extend and aggravate the human spirit as they lead it to a state which can only be called moral madness, are one hundred and twenty-eight.
Physical pleasure has one unsatisfiable capacity whenever the pleasure sought is not real and determined, but conceived in general.
Wealth has two unsatisfiable capacities; the aim is either wealth in general, or wealth sought for the sake of pleasure in general.
Power has four unsatisfiable capacities; the aim is either power in general for its own sake, or for pleasure in general, or for wealth which again, as we have said, forms an undetermined object whether sought for itself or as a means of obtaining pleasure in general.
Glory has fifty-six capacities, all of them unsatisfiable of their own nature. I have distinguished seven kinds of glory, each of which can be desired 1. for itself, or 2. as a means for obtaining physical pleasure, which has only one abstract concept, or 3. for the sake of obtaining wealth, which admits two abstract concepts, or 4. for the sake of obtaining power, which admits of four abstract concepts under which it is presented to our appetite as an abstract, chimerical object.
Finally, sixty-five capacities can be listed in knowledge. All of these are unsatisfiable, extend indefinitely in human beings and can never be filled. They are present 1. when pleasure in general is sought in knowledge; 2. when indefinite richness of mind is sought. Knowledge, considered as enrichment of mind, can then be desired for itself, or as a means to pleasure, or power, or wealth, or glory. As we saw, pleasure opens the gate to error in the intellect and waywardness of heart in one way, wealth in two, power in four and glory in fifty-six ways. All these ways constitute the same number of illusory, indefinite ends for which knowledge can serve as means.
Added together, all these unsatisfiable capacities, each specifically different from the others, is found to number one hundred and twenty-eight. This is the vast labyrinth in which the hearts of men and women wander endlessly and lose themselves.
785. What we have said, however, is nothing compared to what has to be known in order to follow all the complex meanderings of this immense labyrinth. Let me add some new reflections intended to throw light on the infinite complexity of its tortuous paths. First, to the hundred and twenty-eight unsatisfiable capacities which form an equivalent number of states of unhappiness, we have to add that capacity which sums up all of them in itself. This capacity has its origin in the deceit and weariness generated by all the others in evolved and spineless nations, or as we normally say, in nations grown old in civilisation.
786. In all errors about happiness, human beings always judge rashly through precipitous, inexperienced and unreasonable affirmations. They do this because they want to. They judge that the good before them which shows itself attractive must indeed be the object of the happiness they seek. The profound root of this rash judgment is not only the need to be happy, but also the proud hope that they can choose for themselves the object which must make them happy. Human beings do not want happiness alone; they want it precisely in the object of their arbitrary choice, as though they were the creators of what must make them happy. This extremely stupid presumption of the human heart is the natural seed of human evils, as well as the most difficult to discover and bring to the light.
Sometimes the individual, overwhelmed and shaken by abuse of exterior things, comes to see his error. But instead of turning back to the truth, he abandons himself to some new deceit, persuading himself in the end that happiness does not consist in something definite, but in perpetual agitation and continual change. He tells himself (this is sophistry at its extreme limit) that life consists in movement, death in rest; that true, real happiness does not exist, but only a brief illusion of happiness which has to be sought incessantly as one illusion gives way to another. Thus, he sustains deceit and continual agitation.
At this point, the individual has passed from error to true moral dementia; although he has abandoned everything else, he has not renounced himself. He thinks that nothing can make him happy except an act of his own will; he believes he can believe in his own happiness which, as he knows, is nothing. What a state to be in! Our individual cannot deceive himself totally, nor deceive himself endlessly, nor deceive himself to the extent of finding tranquillity in error, nor does he want in any way to know the truth. This final state of the human spirit would seem impossible unless experience had shown it to exist in many people, and unless these principles, proclaimed by some as the quintessence of moral philosophy, had been followed even in political theory.(345)
All one hundred and twenty-nine illusions of happiness, therefore, include the intimate persuasion that people can make themselves happy. Nevertheless, they still seek assistance in other illusions as they work to make themselves happy. In the last illusion, however, human beings, convinced of the impotence of other things but not of their own, wish to do everything of themselves. This false feeling contains diabolical grandeur.
787. The illusions of the practical reason are, therefore, one hundred and twenty-nine, each of which constitutes a path to human unhappiness.
Note, however, that none of these excludes any others, and that the final illusion does not exclude those which precede it, granted the contradictions to which human beings are subject as slaves of error. It is possible to find crammed together in the same spirit two, three, four or more of these cupidities right up to the number we have indicated. There are as many states of unhappiness in the human soul as there are approximation to one, two, three and so on of these hundred and twenty-nine illusions. These different approximations and states reach such an impossibly high number that if they were expressed in Arabic numerals, this entire sheet of paper would scarcely be enough to hold them. The variety of human spirits is indeed incredibly greater than that of human faces.
788. Nevertheless, even this is not sufficient to show the immense variety of unhappy states in human spirits. The immense number of which we have spoken contains only the specifically different states in which the human spirit can be found (`specifically different’ because the unsatisfiable capacities forming these states are specifically different). In addition each of these unsatisfiable capacities which open in the human heart varies according to the degree of intensity to which it is raised; each capacity can open itself to different degrees, and each can be agitated to a different degree.
These degrees of agitation and openness form a series without limit of any kind, except perhaps of human insufferance which lapses into despair, incapable of bearing its pain.
These are the unhappy states in which human beings can find themselves in the present life; we have said nothing about the happy states. Surely the vastness and variety of the regions of the spirit, the arduous work needed to map them is, as we said, clear to all!
Notes
(344) We have, however, already offered reasons for the first part of the proposition, and shown why the quantity of enjoyment can vary in happiness of spirit.
(345) Cf. my Saggio sulla speranza in Opuscoli Filosofici, vol 2 (Milan, Tipog. Pogliani, 1828), and Storia comparativa de' sistemi morali, ch. 4, art. 4.