Page:Novalis Schriften - Volume 2.djvu/143

★ 133 ★ 86. Shouldn't the distance of a particular field of knowledge from universal knowledge, and thus the rank of fields of knowledge from one another, be calculated according to the number of its principles? The fewer principles, the higher the field of knowledge. 87. One usually understands the artificial better than the natural. There is more intellect involved in the simple than in the complex, but less talent.

88. Tools empower the human being. It can be said that the human being knows how to create a world; he only lacks the appropriate apparatus, the proportional armature of his sensory equipment. The beginning is there. The principle of a warship lies in the idea of ​​the master shipbuilder, who is able to embody this idea through a great number of people and appropriate tools and materials, while through all this he makes himself, as it were, into an enormous machine. Thus the idea of ​​a moment often required enormous organs, enormous masses of matter, and man is therefore, where not in actu, at least in potentia a creator.

89. In every contact a substance arises, the effect of which lasts as long as the contact. This is the reason for all synthetic modifications of the individual. But there are one-sided and reciprocal contacts. The former establish the latter.

90. The more ignorant one is by nature, the more capacity one has for knowledge. Every new realization makes a much deeper, more vivid impression. One notices this clearly when entering a science. That is why through studying too much one can lose a capacity. It is a kind of first innocence that actively opposes ignorance. This latter