# se haberet



## machadinho

> Si nostri oculi essent vel longiores, vel breviores, aut nostrum aliter se haberet temperamentum, ea, quae nunc pulchra, deformia; ea verò, quae nunc deformia, pulchra nobis apparerent. (Spinoza. _Epist._ 58)


Hi. I translate _temperamentum_ by constitution, but I can't translate _se haberet_ by were constituted since I'd rather avoid constituted constitution. How would you translate _se haberet_ here?

My attempt:
If our eyes were bigger or smaller, or if our constitution were set up differently,  those things which now [appear] beautiful [would appear] ugly, and  indeed those which now [appear] ugly would appear beautiful to us.

Thanks!


----------



## Scholiast

salve!

A nice example, this, of how sometimes ideas neatly and epigrammatically expressed in Latin are readily comprehensible, but extremely difficult to translate.

My suggestion:  "were our faculties otherwise constituted..."

(I am moved, incidentally, to wonder whether with _longiores_ and _breviores_ Spinoza was not thinking more of long-sightedness and myopia, rather than the size of the eyeballs.)


----------



## machadinho

Salve! Thanks for your translation, Scholiast, I appreciate it, and it's much better than mine.

But I have to translate _temperamentum_ by constitution for theoretical reasons, and thus I can't use to be constituted. 

And thanks for drawing my attention to myopia; Spinoza was a lens grinder!


----------



## Scholiast

Greetings once more

Yes, machadinho, I understand the difficulty, which is as much of philosophy as it is of language.

So "...or our faculties otherwise ordered..."? This would be a slightly old-fashioned way of putting it (it would be so much easier into eighteenth-century Gibbon-ese). But why in heaven's name are you, a Brazilian Portuguese speaker, trying to translate Spinoza into English? My curiosity is aroused.


----------



## wandle

There is no need to use 'be constituted'. *aliter se habere* means 'to be different'.

Thus: *si ... nostrum aliter se haberet temperamentum*: 'if our constitution were different'.


----------



## machadinho

Yes, I agree it would be enough to say were different. Thanks! 
But what is se habere for? When do authors use it?


----------



## wandle

They use it with an adverb in similar grammatical contexts.
*bene se habere*: to be well.


----------



## machadinho

I see. Thank you!


----------

