>candles
the fact is that conciousness is by nature the locus of an illusion. its nature is such that it registers effects, but it knows nothing of causes. the order of causes is defined by this: each body in extension, each idea or each mind in thought are constituted by the characteristic relations that subsume the parts of that body, the parts of that idea. When a body "encounters" another body, or an idea another idea, it happens that the two relations sometimes combine to form a more powerful whole, and sometimes one decomposes the other, destroying the cohesion of its parts.
and this is what is prodigious in the body and the mind alike, these sets of living parts that enter into composition with and decompose one another according to complex laws. the order of causes is therefore an order of composition and decomposition of relations, which infinitely affects all of nature. but as concious beings, we never apprehend anything but the effects of these compositions and decompositions: we experience joy when a body encounters ours and enters into composition with it; and sadness when, on the contrary, a body or an idea threatens our own coherence.
that is why it is scarcely possible to think that little children are happy, or that the first man was perfect: ignorant of causes and natures, reduced to the conciousness of events, condemned to undergo effects, they are slaves of everything, anxious and unhappy, in propotion to their imperfection.
the fact is that conciousness is by nature the locus of an illusion. its nature is such that it registers effects, but it knows nothing of causes. the order of causes is defined by this: each body in extension, each idea or each mind in thought are constituted by the characteristic relations that subsume the parts of that body, the parts of that idea. When a body "encounters" another body, or an idea another idea, it happens that the two relations sometimes combine to form a more powerful whole, and sometimes one decomposes the other, destroying the cohesion of its parts.
and this is what is prodigious in the body and the mind alike, these sets of living parts that enter into composition with and decompose one another according to complex laws. the order of causes is therefore an order of composition and decomposition of relations, which infinitely affects all of nature. but as concious beings, we never apprehend anything but the effects of these compositions and decompositions: we experience joy when a body encounters ours and enters into composition with it; and sadness when, on the contrary, a body or an idea threatens our own coherence.
that is why it is scarcely possible to think that little children are happy, or that the first man was perfect: ignorant of causes and natures, reduced to the conciousness of events, condemned to undergo effects, they are slaves of everything, anxious and unhappy, in propotion to their imperfection.