13th October 2001
Dear Learners,
About a week before his inescapable demise the great German philosopher
Immanuel Kant was visited by his physician.
( This year I introduced myself to someone who lives in New York and who is
thought by some-one's ;-) to be the best thinker on CAUSATION since Immanuel
Kant... ) ((causal connectionism))
A slight digression...and I might add ...for that human being who is now
living in New York...."Every creature, visible or invisible, is a light
brought into being by the Father of the lights....This stone or that piece of
wood is a light to me....For I perceive that it is both good and beautiful;
that it exists according to its proper rules of proportion; that it differs
in both kind and species; that it is defined by number, by virtue of which it
is 'one' thing; that it does not transgress its order; that it seeks its
place according to its specific gravity. As I perceive such and similar
things in this stone they become lights to me, that is to say, they enlighten
me (me illuminant). For I begin to think whence the stone is invested of such
properties...and soon, under the guidance of reason, I am led through all
things to that cause of all things which endows them with place and order,
with number, species and kind, with goodness and beauty and essence, and with
all other grants and gifts." In this way all small lights become one big
light, composed of so many, but let us say as a prayer of kinds, seven
thousand. So now every perceptible thing, natural or man made (that is like
to say that which is "spontaneous" and that which is not;-) becomes a light
carrier for that which is not, or a stepping even hopping stone to paradisio.
Another digression to Michelangelo...'by the contemplation of beautiful
things shall I ascend to heaven...' and by this walking of my talking shall
I, we, be guided "upward' to some transcendent causation of all this harmony
and radiance, which is what...Creator God . This is an "anogogical approach".
I now feel more ;-) centred into my cosmos, put here AND there by Him so I
can now before and after now ;-) for that matter;-) choose which way to
turn and walk, hop, slip, skip and jump by my way to my eternity. I sit in
'bene compactio et claritas'.
And now for some Latin
"Pars nova posterio dum jungitar anteriori (not to be confused with Kant's "a
posteriori";-)
Aula micat medio clarificata suo.
Claret enim claris quod clare concopulator,
Et quod perfundit lux noa, clares opus,
Nobile..."
Yes, aren't we fools, you can just tell can't you ;-) it's poetry.
"Once the new rear part is joined to the part in front,
The church shines with its middle part brightened.
For bright is that which shines brightly coupled with the bright,
And bright is the noble edifice which is pervaded by the new
Light...."
It's all about a new light filled architecture a transparent place for
singing, new and transparent more light, more brilliant than it was before.
And I had a vision of a fallen dark angel and many hands cutting through the
darkness of suffering and what was happening?
I tell you what was happening, they were cutting out of dark and into light,
Gold and bronze light and from this dark were arising doors, golden doors,
and I no longer could see that material at all I could only see a battle
between the light and the dark, and light was used to cut through the dark,
day and night and night and day, in circles and cycles and to'ing and
fro'ing. And within the visioning a voicing and it said something like,
" Whoever thou art, if thou seekest to extol the glory of these,
doors
Marvel not at the gold and the expense but at the
craftsmanship of the work.
Bright is this noble work, but; being nobly bright, the worl
Should brighten the minds so that they may travel (SEE), through
The true lights...
"In what manner to be inherent in this world the golden door
defines:
The dull mind rises to truth, through that which is material
And, seeing this light, is resurrected from its former
submersion."
Immanuel Kant is still nine days before his death and still being visited
by his physician. Kant was old, ill and nearly blind. The giant of
causation rose from his chair and stood there trembling with weakness and
uttering unintelligible words... Finally, (after a while too long) his
faithful companion realized that Immanuel Kant would not sit down again
until the visitor had taken his seat. When the physician sat, then Kant
permitted himself to be helped to his chair, and after a while (finally)
having regained some straight said, " Das Geful fur Humanitat hat mich
noch nicht cerlassen.' - 'The sense of Humanity has not yet left me.' And
in this REALisation the two men we both led to common tears. For the age,
you SEE, has brought his "Humanitat" to mean little more than politeness
and civility, and for Kant it went, always it went, deeper, sorry, DEEPER.
Man stood between and betwixt his own proud and tragic consciousness of
self approved and self imposed principles, in contrast with his utter,
sorry, UTTER, subjection to illness, decay and all that is implied in the
word 'mortality'. Sorry, MORTALITY.
There he stood, here we stand, half way between man and what is less than
man, and man and what is more than man. The one a value the other a limit.
And to digress again to the man who is likened to Kant and he wrote back
something like..." by the image you sent me, which feels like some dark
landscape that I am hovering above, as if in a dream - those night-time
flights that bombers had to make in the war over foreign landscape that
seemed so beautiful and full of untold meaning. --"
And Gregory Bateson said that, an excess of anything becomes caustic.
And it was not a dream! It was all a bloody reality!
Pah! ....What's the bloody use?
Do you want to set this house in order?
Do you want addition to your days?
Listen..."True, the picture, combining three levels is what the modern
beholder is apt to dismiss as abstruse allegory, but this does not prevent
it from being a moving HUMAN document, a proud resignation and even
abdication ( a dignified letting go) and any revelation as to meaning in
such a document would not have revealed any higher meaning, would not have
revealed its beauty and appropriate diction had we not (knot;-) had the
patience to decode its obscure vocabulary. IN a work of art, 'form' cannot
be divorced from 'content', the distribution of colour, lines, light and
dark, vlumes and planes, however delightful as a visual spectacle, must
also be understood as carrying a more-than-visual meaning." Erwin Panofsky
" Energy is conserved - as memory " Michael Leyton, Rutgers University, NY.
In a very late picture (picture) by Titian is an inscription, the portrait
is in fact a three in one each face set at a different stage of life,
youth, maturity and old age. The inscription which is integral to the
image background;-) says EX PRAETERITO PRAESENS PRVDENTER AGIT NI FVTVRA
ACTIONE DETVRPET meaning, From the experience of the past, the present
acts prudently, lest it spoil future actions. A deeper, sorry DEEPER
understanding and study of this work and Titian would lead to the
understanding that, " these three modes or forms of time are connected
with the three psychological faculties in the combined exercise of which
this virtue (prudence) consists: memory, which remembers, and learns from
the past: intelligence, which judges of, and acts in, the present: and
foresight, which anticipates, and provides for or against, the future."
Here again, for claritas: memory of the past, intelligence or ordering of
the present and foresight or contemplation of the future.
" Any act of thought is an attempt to recover history, because it is the
use of memory. If we are to be able to think, we must find history. This
woman contains history, and thus she contains the single key that can
unlock, in us, our own capacity to think. We must therefore lean over her,
lean over in the act of inquiry and begin." Michael Leyton, Rutgers
University, NY.
In 1593 this...
A wolf, a lion and a dog appear
At dawn, at midday, and at dusky eve;
That which I spent, retain, and may acquire,
That which I had, have now, or may still have.
For what I did, and do, and have to do
In times that were, or are, or are to come
I feel remorse, and grief, and yet assurance
In loss, in suffering and in suspense.
Experience past, fruit present, distant hope
Have threatened me, afflict me, an assuage
The mind with what is bitter, sour and sweet.
The age which I have lived, live and shall live
sets me atremble, shakes and braces me In absence, presence, nullibility.
Sufficiently, too much, enough
Has me the 'then', the 'now', and the 'anon'
Harassed by fear, by torture, and by hope."
There is a storm blowing in the cosmos of culture.
Fr. E Abraham, SJ is the Director of the esteemed Xavier Institute in
Bhubaneswar, India and he recently wrote quoting Shakespeare's Macbeth in
a message to students , " tomorow and tomorrow creeps in this pretty face
of time."
There is no terror in this world, only in the minds of ignorant men and
women. Why are you all so afraid of "that" light?
I was coming home this evening and I saw Rebecca walking down the road;-),
I slowed down and I wound ;-) down the window, and I kind ;-) of leaned
over to Rebecca and said, " Rebecca, hello...I thought you were in Africa
now translating and teaching African children? " '"Andrew, I was, but I
was attacked and after I couldn't stop crying, so I had to come home and
get help, but I am going to go back... when I get better." As I looked at
her face I saw her hair had gone grey, she is twenty four years old.
- "The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against
forgetting."
Milan Kundera
"Once the new rear part is joined to the part in front,
The church shines with its middle part brightened.
For bright is that which shines brightly coupled with the bright,
And bright is the noble edifice which is pervaded by the new
Light...."
She had diamonds, they were, are , will always be... in her eyes;-)
Andrew Campbell
Oxford
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