第14章 Letter X

Convinced by my preceding letters,you agree with me on this point,that man can depart from his destination by two opposite roads,that our epoch is actually moving on these two false roads,and that it has become the prey,in one case,of coarseness,and elsewhere of exhaustion and depravity.

It is the beautiful that must bring it back from this twofold departure.

But how can the cultivation of the fine arts remedy,at the same time,these opposite defects,and unite in itself two contradictory qualities?

Can it bind nature in the savage,and set it free in the barbarian?Can it at once tighten a spring and loose it,and if it cannot produce this double effect,how will it be reasonable to expect from it so important a result as the education of man?

Now,although an infinite being,a divinity could not become (or be subject to time),still a tendency ought to be named divine which has for its infinite end the most characteristic attribute of the divinity;the absolute manifestation of power -the reality of all the possible -and the absolute unity of the manifestation (the necessity of all reality).

It cannot be disputed that man bears within himself,in his personality,a predisposition for divinity.The way to divinity -if the word "way"can be applied to what never leads to its end -is open to him in every direction.

Considered in itself and independently of all sensuous matter,his personality is nothing but the pure virtuality of a possible infinite manifestation,and so long as there is neither intuition nor feeling,it is nothing more than a form,an empty power.Considered in itself,and independently of all spontaneous activity of the mind,sensuousness can only make a material man;without it,it is a pure form;but it cannot in any way establish a union between matter and it.So long as he only feels,wishes,and acts under the influence of desire,he is nothing more than the world,if by this word we point out only the formless contents of time.Without doubt,it is only his sensuousness that makes his strength pass into efficacious acts,but it is his personality alone that makes this activity his own.

Thus,that he may not only be a world,he must give form to matter,and in order not to be a mere form,he must give reality to the virtuality that he bears in him.He gives matter to form by creating time,and by opposing the immutable to change,the diversity of the world to the eternal unity of the Ego.He gives a form to matter by again suppressing time,by maintaining permanence in change,and by placing the diversity of the world under the unity of the Ego.

Now from this source issue for man two opposite exigencies,the two fundamental laws of sensuous-rational nature.The first has for its object absolute reality;it must make a world of what is only form,manifest all that in it is only a force.The second law has for its object absolute formality;it must destroy in him all that is only world,and carry out harmony in all changes.In other terms,he must manifest all that is internal,and give form to all that is external.Considered in its most lofty accomplishment,this twofold labour brings us back to the idea of humanity which was my starting point.