Chapter XIV (part 2)

And if we take men as we know them—the sailor, the hang-man, the ascetic: men who seem to us similar and equal —and consider them from the standpoint of their differences in function, we shall see that in reality they are entirely different and that there is nothing in common between them. They are quite different beings, belonging to different categories, to different planes of the world between which there are no bridges, no avenues at all. These men seem to us equal and similar because in most cases we see only the shadows of real facts. The "souls" of these men are actually quite different, different not only in their quality, their p. 158 magnitude, their "age," as some people like now to put it, but as different in the very nature, origin and purpose of their existence as things belonging to entirely different categories can be. When we shall begin to understand this, the general concept man will take on a different meaning. And this relation holds in the observation of all phenomena. The mast, the gallows, the cross—these are things belonging to such different categories, the atoms of such different objects (known only by their functions), that there cannot be a question of any similarity at all. Our misfortune consists in the fact that we regard the chemical constitution of a thing as its most real attribute, while as a matter of fact its true attributes must be sought for in its functions. Could we broaden and deepen our vision of the chains of causation the links of which are forged by our action and our conduct; could we learn to see them not only in their narrow relation to the life of man— to our personal life —but in their broad cosmical meaning; could we succeed in finding and establishing a connection between the simple phenomena of our life and the life of the cosmos; then without doubt in these "simplest" phenomena would be unveiled for us an infinity of the new and the unexpected. For example, in this way we may come to know something entirely new about those simple physical phenomena which we are accustomed to regard as natural and obvious and about which we think we know something. Then, unexpectedly, we may find that we know nothing, that everything heretofore known about them is only an incorrect deduction from incorrect premises. There may be revealed to us something infinitely great and immeasurably important in such phenomena as the expansion and contraction of solids, electrical phenomena, heat, light, sound, the movements of the planets, the coming of day and of night, the change of seasons, a thunderstorm, heat-lightning, etc., etc. Generally speaking, we may find explained in the most unexpected manner the properties of phenomena which we used to accept as given things, as not containing anything within themselves that we could not see and understand. The constancy, the time, the periodicity or unperiodicity of phenomena may take on quite a new meaning and significance p. 159 for us. The new and the unexpected may reveal itself in the transition of some phenomena into others. Birth, death, the life of a man, his relations with other men; love, enmity, sympathies, antipathies, desires, passions—these may unexpectedly receive illumination by an entirely new light. It is impossible now to imagine the nature of this newness which we shall sense in familiar things, and once felt it will be difficult to understand. But it is really only our inaptitude to feel and understand this "newness" which divides us from it, because we are living in it and amidst it. Our senses, however, are too primitive, our concepts are too crude, for that fine differentiation of phenomena which must unfold itself to us in higher space. Our minds, our powers of correlation and association are insufficiently elastic for the grasping of new relations.