The Best Works of Balzac. Оноре де Бальзак

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СКАЧАТЬ of Abstraction and Instinct, there are beings in

       whom the attributes of both combine and produce a mixture; these

       are men of genius.

       XVIII

      Specialism is necessarily the most perfect expression of man, and

       he is the link binding the visible world to the higher worlds; he

       acts, sees, and feels by his inner powers. The man of Abstraction

       thinks. The man of Instinct acts.

       XIX

      Hence man has three degrees. That of Instinct, below the average;

       that of Abstraction, the general average; that of Specialism,

       above the average. Specialism opens to man his true career; the

       Infinite dawns on him; he sees what his destiny must be.

       XX

      There are three worlds—the Natural, the Spiritual, and the

       Divine. Humanity passes through the Natural world, which is not

       fixed either in its essence and unfixed in its faculties. The

       Spiritual world is fixed in its essence and unfixed in its

       faculties. The Divine world is necessarily a Material worship, a

       Spiritual worship, and a Divine worship: three forms expressed in

       action, speech, and prayer, or, in other words, in deed,

       apprehension, and love. Instinct demands deed; Abstraction is

       concerned with Ideas; Specialism sees the end, it aspires to God

       with presentiment or contemplation.

       XXI

      Hence, perhaps, some day the converse of Et Verbum caro factum est will become the epitome of a new Gospel, which will proclaim that The Flesh shall be made the Word and become the Utterance of God.

       XXII

      The Resurrection is the work of the Wind of Heaven sweeping over

       the worlds. The angel borne on the Wind does not say: "Arise, ye

       dead"; he says, "Arise, ye who live!"

      Such are the meditations which I have with great difficulty cast in a form adapted to our understanding. There are some others which Pauline remembered more exactly, wherefore I know not, and which I wrote from her dictation; but they drive the mind to despair when, knowing in what an intellect they originated, we strive to understand them. I will quote a few of them to complete my study of this figure; partly, too, perhaps, because, in these last aphorisms, Lambert's formulas seem to include a larger universe than the former set, which would apply only to zoological evolution. Still, there is a relation between the two fragments, evident to those persons—though they be but few—who love to dive into such intellectual deeps.

       I

      Everything on earth exists solely by motion and number.

       II

      Motion is, so to speak, number in action.

       III

      Motion is the product of a force generated by the Word and by

       Resistance, which is Matter. But for Resistance, Motion would have

       had no results; its action would have been infinite. Newton's

       gravitation is not a law, but an effect of the general law of

       universal motion.

       IV

      Motion, acting in proportion to Resistance, produces a result

       which is Life. As soon as one or the other is the stronger, Life

       ceases.

       V

      No portion of Motion is wasted; it always produces number; still,

       it can be neutralized by disproportionate resistance, as in

       minerals.

       VI

      Number, which produces variety of all kinds, also gives rise to

       Harmony, which, in the highest meaning of the word, is the

       relation of parts to the whole.

       VII

      But for Motion, everything would be one and the same. Its

       products, identical in their essence, differ only by Number, which

       gives rise to faculties.

       VIII

      Man looks to faculties; angels look to the Essence.

       IX

      By giving his body up to elemental action, man can achieve an

       inner union with the Light.

       X

      Number is intellectual evidence belonging to man alone; by it he

       acquires knowledge of the Word.

       XI

      There is a Number beyond which the impure cannot pass: the Number

       which is the limit of creation.

       XII

      The Unit was the starting-point of every product: compounds are

       derived from it, but the end must be identical with the beginning.

       Hence this Spiritual formula: the compound Unit, the variable

       Unit, the fixed Unit.

       XIII

      The Universe is the Unit in variety. Motion is the means; Number

       is the result. The end is the return of all things to the Unit,

       which is God.

       XIV

      Three and Seven are the two chief Spiritual numbers.

       XV

      Three is the formula СКАЧАТЬ