Tertium Organum

a life.
This 
example illustrates the possible relation between mind and life. 
Life
and 
mind
seem to us different and separate from one another, because 
we do not know how to look, how to see. And this in its turn is due to the fact 
that it is very hard for us to get out of the framework of our 
divisions.
We see 
the life of a tree, 
this tree.
And if we are told that the life of the tree is a 
manifestation of some mind, we understand it to mean that the life of 
this tree 
is a manifestation of the mind of 
this tree.
This, of course, is an absurdity 
resulting from our three-dimensional thinking, the 'Euclidean mind'. The life 
of 
this tree 
is a manifestation of the mind of the 
species
or the 
variety,
or 
perhaps of the intelligence of 
the whole vegetable kingdom. 
In the same way our individual 
lives
are manifestations of some great
intelligence. Proof of this is found in the fact that our lives have no meaning
whatever apart from the process of acquiring 
knowledge. 
And a thoughtful 
man ceases to feel painfully the absence of meaning in life only when he 
realizes this and begins to strive 
consciously
in that direction which he was 
unconsciously following before. 
Moreover, this acquisition of knowledge, which constitutes 
our 

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function in the world,
is achieved not only by our intellect, but by our whole organism, 
all our body, all our life and the whole life of the human society, by its organizations, 
institutions, the whole culture and the whole civilization, by all we know in mankind 
and even more so by what we do not know. And we get to know that which we deserve 
to know. 
If we say about the intellectual side of man that its purpose is the acquisition of 
knowledge, this will not evoke any doubt. All are agreed that man's intellect, with all 
its subordinate functions, exists for the purpose of acquiring knowledge, although very 
often the faculty of knowledge is regarded as subordinate. But as regards the emotions: 
joy, sorrow, anger, fear, love, hate, pride, compassion, jealousy; as regards the sense of 
beauty, aesthetic sense and artistic creation; as regards moral sense; as regards all 
religious emotions: 
faith, hope, veneration and so on, as regards all human 
activity, 
things are not so clear. 
As a rule we do not see that all emotions and 
all 
human activity serve knowledge. In 
what way can 
fear
or 
love
or 
work
serve knowledge? It seems to us that by 
emotions 
we feel, by 
work
we create. 
Feeling
and 
creation
seem to us something different from 
knowledge. 
Concerning work, creation, the making of something, we are rather apt to 
think that they 
require
knowledge and if they serve it, do so only indirectly. In the 
same way we cannot understand how 
religious emotions
can serve knowledge. 
Usually 
the emotional
is opposed to 
the intellectual:
'heart' is opposed to 'reason'. 
'Cold reason' or intellect is placed on one side, and on the other side: feelings, 
emotions, artistic sense; then, again quite separately, moral sense, religious feeling, 
'spirituality'. 
The misunderstanding here lies in the interpretation of the words 
intellect
and 
emotion. 
Between intellect and emotion there is no sharp distinction. Intellect, taken as a 
whole, is also emotion. But in ordinary conversational language and in 'conversational 
psychology' 
reason
is opposed to 
feeling;
then comes 
will,
placed as a separate and in­
dependent faculty; moralists place 
moral sense 
as something quite apart; religious 
people place 
spirituality or faith
as something entirely separate. 
It is often said: reason conquered feeling; will conquered desire; 
the sense of duty overcame passion; spirituality conquered intellectuality; faith 
conquered reason. But all these are wrong expressions of conversational psychology, 
just as incorrect as the expressions 'sunrise' and 'sunset'. In the soul of man there is 
nothing but 

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emotions or their harmonious co-existence. This was clearly realized by
Spinoza when he said that an emotion can be overcome only by another, 
stronger emotion, and by 
nothing else.
Reason, will, sense of duty, faith, 
spirituality, conquering some other emotion, can only conquer it by the 
emotional element
contained in them. The ascetic who kills all desires and 
passions in himself, kills them by his 
desire 
for salvation. A man who 
renounces all worldly pleasures, renounces them for the sake of 
enjoying
his 
sacrifice, his renunciation. A soldier who dies at his post through a 
sense of 
duty
or habit of obedience does so because the emotion of 
devotion or 
faithfulness, 
or customary passivity are stronger in him than all the rest. A 
man whose moral sense tells him that he must overcome his passion, does so 
because 
moral sense (i.e. a certain emotion) is stronger in him than his other 
feelings, other emotions. Actually, all this is as clear and simple as the day,
and people get muddled only because, in calling different degrees of one and 
the same thing by different names, they begin to see 
fundamental differences 
where the difference is only that of 
degree. 
Will is 
the resultant of desires.
We call 
strong-willed 
a man whose will 
follows a definite line without deviation from it, and we call 
weak-willed
a 
man whose will follows a zig-zag course, deviating now in one, now in 
another direction under the influence of every new desire. But this does not 
mean that 
will
and 
desire
are two opposite things. On the contrary, they are
one and the same thing, because will is built up of desires. 
Reason
cannot conquer feeling, because feeling can only be conquered by
feeling. Reason can only provide thoughts and images which would evoke 
feelings, 
and these
conquer the feeling of the given moment. 
Spirituality
is 
not something opposed to 'intellectuality' or 'emotionality'. It is only 
THEIR 
HIGHER FLIGHT
. Reason has no bounds. Limitation is a characteristic that 
belongs only to the human 'Euclidean' mind - the intellect separated from 
emotions. 
What then is reason? 
Reason is the inner side of the life of every given being. In the living
kingdom of the earth, in all the animals lower than man, we see a 
passive 
reason. 
But with the appearance of 
concepts
reason becomes active, and a