Take knowledge: being is disclosed to the man who is engaged in knowing, as he looks at what is over against him. He will, indeed, have to grasp as an object that which he has seen with the force of presence, he will have to compare it with objects, establish it in its order among classes of objects, describe and analyse it objectively. Only as It can it enter the structure of knowledge. But when he saw it, it was no thing among things, no event among events, but exclusively present. Being did not share itself with him in terms of the law that was afterwards elicited from the appearance, but in terms of its very self. When a man thinks a general thought in this connexion he is merely unravelling the tangled incident; for it was seen in particular form, in what was over against him. Now the incident is included in the It of knowledge which is composed of ideas. He who frees it from that, and looks on it again in the present moment, fulfils the nature of the act of knowledge to be real and effective between men. But knowledge can also be managed in such a way that it is affirmed that “this, then, is how the matter stands, the thing is called this, made in this way, its place is over there”; that which has become It is left as It, experienced and used as It, appropriated for the undertaking to “find one’s bearings” in the world, and then to “conquer” it.
So too in art: form is disclosed to the artist as he looks at what is over against him. He banishes it to be a “structure”. This “structure” is not in a world of gods, but in this great world of men. It is certainly “there”, even if no human eye seeks it out; but it is asleep. The Chinese poet tells how men did not wish to hear the tune he played on his jade flute; then he played it to the gods, and they inclined their ears; since then men also listened to the tune: thus he went from the gods to those whom the “structure” cannot dispense with. It longs as in a dream for the meeting with man, that for a timeless moment he may lift the ban and clasp the form. Then he comes on his way, and experiences what there is to be experienced: it is made in this way, or this is expressed in it, or its qualities are such and such, and further, it takes this place in the scheme of things.
It is not as though scientific and esthetic understanding were not necessary; but they are necessary to man that he may do his work with precision and plunge it in the truth of relation, which is above the understanding and gathers it up in itself.
And, thirdly, there is pure effective action without arbitrary self-will. This is higher than the spirit of knowledge and the spirit of ait, for here the mortal bodily man does not need to mix himself with the more lasting stuff, but himself outlasts it as structure; encircled by the sounding music of his living speech he reaches the starry heaven of the spirit. Here the Thou appeared to the man out of deeper mystery, addressed him even out of the darkness, and he responded with his life. Here the word has from time to time become life, and this life is teaching. This life may have fulfilled the law or broken it; both are continually necessary, that spirit may not die on earth. This life is presented, then, to those who come later, to teach them not what is and must be, but how life is lived in the spirit, face to face with the Thou. That is, it is itself ready on every occasion to become Thou for them, and open up the world of Thou—no; it is not ready: it continually approaches and touches them. But they, having become disinclined and unfitted for the living dealings that would open the world to them, are fully equipped with information. They have pinned the person down in history, and secured his words in the library. They have codified, in exactly the same way, the fulfilment or the breaking of the law. Nor are they niggards with admiration and even idolatry, amply mixed with psychology, as befits modern man. O lonely Face like
' 142 a star in the night, o living Finger laid on an unheeding brow, o fainter echoing footstep!