Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 3 (of 3)Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
PhilosophyPhilosophy
Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 3 (of 3)
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Philosophy -- History
In the _Quæstionibus theosophicis_ Boehme makes particular use of the
form of Yes and No for the separator, for this opposition. He says:
“The reader must know that in Yes and No all things consist, whether
divine, devilish, earthly, or what they may be called. The One as the
Yes is pure power and life, and it is the truth of God or God Himself.
He would be unknowable in Himself, and in Him there would be no joy nor
elevation, nor feeling”—life—“without the No. The No is a counterstroke
of the Yes, or of the truth” (this negativity is the principle of all
knowledge, comprehension), “that the truth may be manifest and be a
something wherein there is a _contrarium_ in which there is the eternal
love, moving, feeling, and willing, and demanding to be loved. And yet
we cannot say that the Yes is separated from the No, and that they are
two things in proximity; for they are only one thing, but they separate
themselves into two beginnings and make two _centra_, where each works
and wills in itself. Without those two, which are continually in strife,
all things would be a nothing, and would stand still without movement.
If the eternal will did not itself flow from itself and introduce itself
into receptibility, there would be no form nor distinction, for all
powers would” then “be one power. Neither could there be understanding
in that case, for the understanding arises” (has its substance) “in the
differentiation of the manifold, where one property sees, proves and
wills the others. The will which has flowed out wills dissimilarity, so
that it may be distinguished from similarity and be its own something—and
that something may exist, that the eternal seeing may see and feel.
And from the individual will arises the No, for it brings itself into
ownness, _i.e._ receptivity of self. It desires to be something and
does not make itself in accordance with unity; for unity is a Yes which
flows forth, which ever stands thus in the breathing forth of itself,
being imperceptible; for it has nothing in which it can find itself
excepting in the receptivity of the dissentient will, as in the No which
is counterstroke to the Yes, in which the Yes is indeed revealed,
and in which it possesses something which it can will. And the No is
therefore called a No, because it is a desire turned inwards on itself,
as if it were a shutting up into negativity. The emanated seeking will
is absorbent and comprehends itself within itself, from it come forms
and qualities: (1) Sharpness, (2) Motion, (3) Feeling. (4) The fourth
property is Fire as the flash of light; this rises in the bringing
together of the great and terrible sharpness and the unity. Thus in the
contact a _Flagrat_ [Schrack] results, and in this _Flagrat_ [Schrack]
unity is apprehended as being a Flash or Gleam, an exulting joy.” That
is the bursting forth of the unity. “For thus the light arises in the
midst of the darkness, for the unity becomes a light, and the receptivity
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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