![]() ![]() ![]() Sedulo curavi, humanas actiones non ridere, non lugere, neque detestari, sed intelligere atque adeo humanos affectus, ut sunt amor, odium, ira, invidia, gloria, misericordia et reliquae animi commotiones non ut humanae naturae vitia, sed ut proprietates contemplatus sum, quae ad ipsam ita pertinent, ut ad naturam aëris aestus, frigus, tempestas, tonitru et alia huiusmodi, quae, tametsi incommoda sunt, necessaria tamen sunt, certasque habent causas, per quas eorum naturam intelligere conamur, et mens eorum vera contemplatione aeque gaudet, ac earum rerum cognitione, quae sensibus gratae sunt. Of course English has some other resources to bring to bear on such problems, as demonstrated by Gosset's 1883 translation: This led me to ponder (not for the first time) the stylistic advantages - or at least differences - of Latin's inflectional morphology and free word order. I have labored carefully not to ridicule, not to lament, and not to detest, but to understand human actions. Reading this yesterday afternoon, on a train returning from a committee meeting in DC, I mentally supplied the missing English words, and realized that the result is problematically awkward, in a way that punctuation can't fix: That's Brendan's translation, which captures the relevant essence, although it leaves out the second of Spinoza's four infinitives ( ridere, lugere, detestari, intelligere) and also their object ( humanas actiones). I have labored carefully, not to ridicule, or detest, but to understand. ![]() ![]() Sedulo curavi, humanas actiones non ridere, non lugere, neque detestari, sed intelligere. It's the soul/person who is tutus in suis malis, etc., who becomes a slave to his mental states and lives in tyrrany.Brendan O'Leary's A Treatise on Northern Ireland, Volume I starts with a quotation from Spinoza's Tractatus Politicus: Illi is not any man or soul, but rather one defined by the qui clause in the preceding sentence.Īffectus doesn't seem to mean a "passion" here, but merely something like a state of mind.Ī rational person can presumably enter into various states of mind without becoming a slave to them. "the soul that is securely set in its own evils, that can't be brave unless it is angry, active unless/except when it desires, free from activity unless/except when it is afraid cannot enjoy reliable freedom from troubles/equanimity it is necessarily shaken and restless: it must live in tyranny whenever it comes into servitude to any state of mind whatsoever."Īs always, it helps to interpret sentences like this in a somewhat broader context. Non potest hic animus fidele otium capere, quatiatur necesse est fluctueturque, qui malis suis tutus est, qui fortis esse nisi irascitur non potest, industrius nisi cupit, quietus nisi timet: in tyrannide illi uiuendum est in alicuius adfectus uenienti seruitutem. ![]()
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