Page:Novalis Schriften - Volume 2.djvu/129

★ 119 ★ other means of spiritual action in this world. Therefore, it is an obligation to think of the deceased. It is the only way to be in communion with them. God himself does not work with us in any other way than through this faith.

35. Interest is the participation in the suffering and action of a being. I take an interest in something if it knows how to evoke participation from me. No interest is more interesting than that which one takes in oneself; just as the foundation for a remarkable friendship and love is the participation that a person excites in me when he is preoccupied with himself, who by his notice, so to speak, invites me to partake in his business.

36. Who may have invented wit? Any quality brought consciousness, the conduct of our spirit is a newly discovered world in the truest sense.

37. The spirit only ever appears in a strange, aetherial form.

38. At present, the spirit only stirs here and there: when will the spirit as a whole stir? When will humanity as a whole begin to reflect on itself?

39. The person exists in truth. If he reveals the truth, he reveals himself. He who betrays the truth is betraying himself. We are not talking about lying here, but about acting against conviction.

40. There is no wit in serene souls. Wit indicates a disturbed balance: it is the consequence of the disruption and at the same time the means of creation. Passion has the greatest wit. The state of the dissolution of all relationships, despair or spiritual death is most terrifyingly witty.