Page:Novalis Schriften - Volume 2.djvu/133

★ 123 ★ of the right conditions, economic assets and strength. That is why the confused mind is so progressive, so perfectable, whereas the ordinary mind ceases and becomes Philistine. Order and certainty alone is not clarity. Through self-examination the confused mind comes to that heavenly transparency, to that self-enlightenment, which the ordered mind so seldom attains. True genius connects these extremes. It shares the rapidity of the latter with the with the last and fullness of the former.

55. The individual is only interested; therefore everything classical is not individual.

56. The true letter is poetic in nature.

57. Wit, as the principle of relationships, is also the menstruum universale. The admixtures of wit are, for example, Jew and cosmopolitan, childhood and wisdom, robbery and generosity, virtue and hetaireia, abundance and the naive lack of judgement and etc.

58. A person appears most praiseworthy when his first impression is the impression of an absolutely witty thought: in particular, to be both spirit and a unique individual at the same time. Each outstanding person must seem as if the spirit, which idealistically parodies the visible appearance, floats through him. For some people it is as if this spirit's visible appearance was incised in their face.

59. The social instinct is the organizational instinct. Here, through this spiritual assimilation out of common elements, a good society often emerges around a spirit-filled person.

60. The interesting thing is the material substance that moves around beauty. Where there is spirit and beauty, the best of all natures accumulate in concentric waves.