'Living water'
by Charles van Lerberghe, (1861 – 1907)
How simple and clear you are,
living water,
as out of the earth
you well up in these pools and sing!
Oh pure divine spring,
the plants draw in
your liquid brightness,
in you the hind and the dove slake their thirst.
And you flow down over gentle slopes
of flowers and mosses
towards the primeval ocean;
you pass on unceasing and untiring
from land to sea and from sea to sky.
Often, when the shadow covers you
O source, I lean on you,
And I let my hair and my fingers float in it,
That you train and open,
But you hide, you flee in them,
And it's myself that I find
Looking for you, Blue Eyed Nymph.
'Que tu es simple et claire'
Que tu es simple et claire,
Eau vivante,
Qui, du sein de la terre,
Jaillis en ces bassins et chantes!
Ô fontaine divine et pure,
Les plantes aspirent
Ta liquide clarté
La biche et la colombe en toi se désaltèrent.
Et tu descends par des pentes douces
De fleurs et de mousses,
Vers l'océan originel,
Toi qui passes et vas, sans cesse, et jamais lasse
De la terre à la mer et de la mer au ciel.
Souvent, à l'heure où l'ombre te couvre
Ô source, je me penche sur toi,
Et j'y laisse flotter mes cheveux et mes doigts,
Que tu entraînes et entr'ouvres,
Mais tu te caches, tu fuis en eux,
Et c'est moi-même que je trouve
En te cherchant, Nymphe aux yeux bleus.
Faure: 'La chanson d'Eve', VI. 'Eau vivant' (last verse not included for some reason):
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, (1770 - 1831). 'The Science of Logic'.
The Life-Process.
The Living Individual reproduces itself and opposes its offspring. Full of self-feeling, the Individual Life has this certainty of the intrinsic nullity of the otherness confronting it.
'In shaping itself inwardly, the living individual comes into tension with its original presupposing and, as a subject existing in and for itself, sets itself in opposition to the presupposed objective world. The subject is a purpose unto itself, the concept that has its means and subjective reality in the objectivity subjugated to it. As such, it is constituted as the idea existing in and for itself and as an essentially self-subsistent being, as against which the presupposed external world has the value only of something negative and without self-subsistence. In its self-feeling the living being has the certainty of the intrinsic nullity of the otherness confronting it. Its impulse is the need to sublate this otherness and to give itself the truth of this certainty. At first the individual is, as subject, only the concept of the idea of life; its inner subjective process in which it feeds upon itself, and the immediate objectivity which it posits as a natural means in conformity with its concept, are mediated by the process that refers to the fully posited externality, to the objective totality standing indifferently alongside it'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
To prove this certainty, it has the urge to sublate this other. Life is 'primarily characterized by desire, and thinking emerges from the process of attempting to satisfy desire' explains Stanley Rosen. 'Life is that process of overcoming apparent otherness (or, again, unself-conscious desire) which operates prereflectively, or in-itself but not for-itself' adds Peter Simpson.
Life preys on Life. Life as genus must feed on its various species. The Understanding therefore proposes that the Individual Life has a Need. As we are in the dialectic portion of Life, Need is twofold. In Need, the Living Individual posits itself as denied.
'This process begins with need, that is, the twofold moment of self-determination of the living being by which the latter posits itself as negated and thereby refers itself to an other than it, to the indifferent objectivity, but in this self-loss it is equally not lost, preserves itself in it and remains the identity of the self-equal concept. The living being is thereby the impulse to posit as its own this world which is other than it, to posit itself as equal to it, to sublate the world and objectify itself. Its self-determination has therefore the form of objective externality, and since it is at the same time self-identical, it is the absolute contradiction. The immediate shape of the living being is the idea in its simple concept, the objectivity conforming to the concept; as such the shape is good by nature. But since its negative moment realizes itself as an objective particularity, that is, since the essential moments of its unity are each realized as a totality for itself, the concept splits into two, becoming an absolute inequality with itself; and since even in this rupture the concept remains absolute identity, the living being is for itself this rupture, has the feeling of this contradiction which is pain. Pain is therefore the prerogative of living natures; since they are the concretely existing concept, they are an actuality of infinite power, so that they are in themselves the negativity of themselves, that this their negativity exists for them, that in their otherness they preserve themselves. – It is said that contradiction cannot be thought; but in the pain of the living being it is even an actual, concrete existence'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
But in its Need, the Living Individual maintains and distinguishes itself from what it needs. Individual Life in harmony with the object world is the good, Indeed, Idea is by nature good, since it must culminate in harmony. But Individual Life now has a negative moment, so that the Notion is sundered into an absolute disparity with itself. The disharmony is Pain - the prerogative of living natures. Pain is what Life feels when Life's Need is met by consuming other lives. Pain is Life experiencing self-negation - sensibility to internal disruption. It is said that contradiction is unthinkable, Hegel complains, but pain is the experience of contradiction. Pain, the diremption of the living being within itself, is the motive for transition whereby the Individual Life, which explicitly negates itself, gains an identity with the external world. The unity of Need and Pain is the Assimilation of the Object (or eating).
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'While going to sleep'
by Hermann Hesse, (1877 – 1962)
Now that the day has made me so tired,
my dearest longings shall
be accepted kindly by the starry night
like a weary child.
Hands, cease your activity,
head, forget all of your thoughts;
all my senses now
will sink into slumber.
And my soul, unobserved,
will float about on untrammeled wings
in the enchanted circle of the night,
living a thousandfold more deeply.
'Beim Schlafengehen'
Nun der Tag mich müd gemacht,
Soll mein sehnliches Verlangen
Freundlich die gestirnte Nacht
Wie ein müdes Kind empfangen.
Hände, laßt von allem Tun,
Stirn vergiß du alles Denken,
Alle meine Sinne nun
Wollen sich in Schlummer senken.
Und die Seele unbewacht
Will in freien Flügen schweben,
Um im Zauberkreis der Nacht
Tief und tausendfach zu leben.
Gundula Janowitz, Soprano. Richard Strauss, Beim Schlafengehen (Going to Sleep):
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'Maison pour érotomane', 1932,Salvador Dalí
____________________________
Need
To the extent the Individual Life hungers for objects, the hunger comes from within the Individual Life. The object to be consumed is therefore already inside the Individual Life - pre-eaten, as it were. 'That the tension of unsatisfied want is painful is the clearest indication that the wanted object lies within the subject' explains G. R. G.Mure. The object is therefore, in advance, conformable to the subject (i. e., edible). Assimilation of the Object is violent. It is just as much the dissolution of lives as it is the feeding of the Individual Life. So Dissolution is tied up with reproduction, understood as Life's maintenance. For Hegel, the death of the individual points the way to the immortal life of mind', as John N. Findlay puts it.
Pain
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'Now thou hast given me, for the first time, pain'
by Adelbert von Chamisso, (1781 – 1838)
Now thou hast given me, for the first time, pain,
how it struck me.
Thou sleepst, thou hard, merciless man,
the sleep of death.
The abandoned one gazes straight ahead,
the world is void.
I have loved and lived, I am
no longer living.
I withdraw silently into myself,
the veil falls,
there I have thee and my lost happiness,
O thou my world!
Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz gethan,
Der aber traf.
Du schläfst, du harter, unbarmherz'ger Mann,
Den Todesschlaf.
Es blicket die Verlass'ne vor sich hin,
Die Welt ist leer.
Geliebet hab' ich und gelebt, ich bin
Nicht lebend mehr.
Ich zieh' mich in mein Inn'res still zurück,
Der Schleier fällt,
Da hab' ich dich und mein [vergang'nes]1 Glück,
Du meine Welt!
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'The Signal of Anguish', 1936/37, Salvador Dali
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Genus Individual Life and the external world were two species. These species are now conjoined in Genus. Life, standing over against what it has produced, is not yet Self-Genus authenticated. So far it is precognitive according to Herbert Marcuse. It 'just incarnates itself, without providing any explanation, any account of how this is possible' explains Ermanno Bencivenga. Cognition begins in Genus, the identity of the Individual Life and its previously indifferent otherness.
'But the further determination that it has attained by the sublation of the opposition is that it is genus, identity of itself with its hitherto indifferent otherness. This idea of the individual, since it is this essential identity, is essentially the particularization of itself. This particularization, its disruption, in keeping with the totality from which it proceeds, is the duplication of the individual – the presupposing of an objectivity which is identical with it, and a relating of the living being to itself as to another living being'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
Assimilation of the Object
When Genus is at hand, Individual Life has posited itself on its own account as the negative unity of its otherness, as the foundation of itself. In other words, Genus is posited when Individual Lives erase themselves.
'The living individual, at first cut off from the universal concept of life, is a presupposition yet unproven through itself. Through its process with the simultaneously presupposed world, it has posited itself for itself as the negative unity of its otherness, as the foundation of itself; thus it is the actuality of the idea, so that the individual now brings itself forth out of actuality, whereas before it proceeded only from the concept, and its coming to be, which was a presupposing, now becomes its production'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
Genus
In other words, Genus is posited when Individual Lives erase themselves. Self-erasure is what the lives have in common - their negative unity. Genus is not to be taken as zoological taxonomies. 'Life is not one genus among others, neither is it one higher than others, but the genus as such' explains Marcuse. At stake is an increasingly adequate definition of the Absolute. At this late point, the Absolute is Life in general. All living things - all thoughts, which are themselves living things - are in the Genus of Life. In Genus, Life particularizes itself, implying other Lives. There is a duplication of the Individual - a presupposing of an objectivity that is identical with it, and a relationship of the living being to itself as to another living being.
Now Assimilated Externality shares in the internal self-feeling of Life. Genus is self-feeling shared perfectly between many Individual Lives. This is a contradiction. If Individual Life is Genus, and if the nature of Individual Life is to sacrifice itself for an other, then Individual Life, as Genus, presupposes there is another Individual Life for whom it should sacrifice itself. Accordingly, the Individual Life is for another, not for itself. The Individual does not yet realize that this other is really its own self.
Plurality of Individuals
Identity with the other is therefore only implicit.
Each Individual is left longing for a feeling of Universality.
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'Love and harmony combine'
by William Blake, (1757 – 1827)
Love and harmony combine
And around our souls intwine
While thy branches mix with mine,
And our roots together join.
Joys upon our branches sit,
Chirping loud, and singing sweet;
Like gentle streams beneath our feet
Innocence and virtue meet.
Thou the golden fruit dost bear,
I am clad in flowers fair;
Thy sweet boughs perfume the air,
And the turtle buildeth there
There she sits and feeds her young,
Sweet I hear her mournful song;
And thy lovely leaves among
There is love: I hear his tongue
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'Surreal Couple Embracing', Salvador Dali, (1904 – 1989)
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The Individuals long to dissolve themselves in Universality.
Cognition
This self-erasure, so that each can know the other, is Cognition. Hegel states directly that he has in mind Cognition in the Biblical sense: In copulation, the immediacy of the living individuality perishes; the death of this life is the procession of spirit.
'That is to say, the process of the genus in which the single individuals sublate in one another their indifferent, immediate, concrete existence, and in this negative unity die away, has further the realized genus that has posited itself as identical with the concept for the other side of its product. – In the process of the genus, the isolated singularities of individual life perish; the negative identity in which the genus turns back into itself is on the one side the generation of singularity just as it is also, on the other side, the sublation of it – is thus the genus rejoining itself, the universality of the idea as it comes to be explicitly for itself. In copulation, the immediacy of living individuality perishes; the death of this life is the coming to be of spirit. The idea, implicit as genus, becomes explicit in that it has sublated its particularity that constituted the living species, and has thereby given itself a reality which is itself simple universality; thus it is the idea that relates itself to itself as idea, the universal that has universality for its determinateness and existence. This is the idea of cognition'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
[Note: copulation: Begattung; cf. Gattung, which means genus].
There is also a sense in which death is an obstacle to the spiritual procession. '[I]t is precisely because all life, all living, culminates in death, thus dissolving its specific differences, that it is incapable of developing self-recognition', explains Simpson. But what Simpson is writing about is life's consumption of other living objects. When the other thing is eaten, it cannot participate in the procession of spirit. When the individual does not eat the other but rather sacrifices itself, then death serves the cause of spiritual progress. When Individuals satisfy the tension of their longing and dissolve themselves in Genus, their identity is self-sacrifice. This unity is the Universality of Life - not generated from subjective Notion but from communal Idea. Individual Lives are themselves only the germ of the true Living Individual. This germ is visible evidence to ordinary perception of what the Notion is, and it demonstrates that the subjective Notion has external actuality. The moment of negative unity and Individuality are posited in this germ, and by it the living species are propagated. 'The separate individuals strive to unite. But they cannot succeed, or rather they do succeed but only in a third individual, their child. This then steps forward as a new individual, while they, as all particulars, die', explains Charles Taylor.
Reproduction is an infinite process, and so, in the Genus process, Idea falls back into bad infinity. But genus has a higher side. In the Reproduction of Individuals, the selfish Individual learns to sacrifice its immediacy. Since Reproduction implies death, the Individual who sublates him or herself truly comes to know himself as this other Individual who survives as Robert M. Wallace points out. Cognition is therefore both knowledge of the other and knowledge of self.
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'The one so yearned for'
by Ludwig Christoph Heinrich Hölty, (1748 – 1776)
If only the next spring would bring you to my arms!
If only the birds would sing me my wedding song from the blossoms,
Then, then I would be blessed
on earth with the bliss of heaven.
Ecstasy! She will conjure paradise for me!
She will gladly wander with me in God's garden;
she will rock in my arms
and give wings to the spring evening.
Come, the tears of yearning in my eye call to you!
and this fluttering heart, full of sweet foreboding!
Dismally flowed my life -
O messenger of heaven, come to cheer it.
'Die Ersehnte'
Brächte dich meinem Arm der nächste Frühling!
Tönten Vögel aus Blüten mir das Brautlied,
Dann, dann hätt' ich Seliger
Schon auf Erden Wonne des Himmels.
Wonne! sie wird mir Paradiese zaubern!
Wird lustwandeln mit mir in Gärten Gottes,
Wird in meinen Armen gewiegt
Den Frühlingsabend beflügeln.;
Komm, dich rufet die Sehnsuchtsträn' im Auge!
Dich dies wallende Herz voll süßer Ahndung,
Trübe floß' mein Leben,;
O Himmelsbotin, komm, es zu heitern.
'Die Ersehnte' (Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn):
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'Hugging', ('Noir enlaçant une blanche'), 1966, Salvador Dali
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Dedicated to the One that fulfils my desires and soothes my pain. I give to my love my quenchless faith. ❤️ 🌹
'Lo! keen-eyed, towering Science!'
by Walter Whitman Jr. (1819 – 1892)
Lo! keen-eyed, towering Science!
As from tall peaks the Modern overlooking,
Successive, absolute fiats issuing.
Yet again, lo! the Soul -- above all science;
For it, has History gather'd like a husk around the globe;
For it, the entire star-myriads roll through the sky.
In spiral roads, by long detours,
(As a much-tacking ship upon the sea,)
For it, the partial to the permanent flowing,
For it, the Real to the Ideal tends.
For it, the mystic evolution;
Not the right only justified -- what we call evil also justified.
Forth from their masks, no matter what,
From the huge, festering trunk -- from craft and guile and tears,
Health to emerge, and joy -- joy universal.
Out of the bulk, the morbid and the shallow,
Out of the bad majority -- the varied, countless frauds of men and States,
Electric, antiseptic yet -- cleaving, suffusing all,
Only the good is universal.
Coming up next:
Cognition.
To be continued ...