strayed further than ever from the reality of the world. But the man who in the long term can find no real pleasure in the madness of this self-delusion will no doubt end up by realizing how unsatisfactory is his own nature; he will perceive how arrogant and unedifying is his self-delusion, and he will finally recognize the need to approach reality once again in total consciousness and with the aid of feeling.” [606W-{1/25-26/54}Letter to August Roeckel: SLRW, p. 302]
[607W-{1/25-26/54} Letter to August Roeckel: SLRW, p. 302-303]
[P. 302] {FEUER} “But how is this reality to be grasped once more, since – as an imaginary whole – it had presented itself not to our feelings but solely to our intellect? It can be grasped of course only if we recognize that the essence of reality lies in its endless multiplicity. This inexhaustible multiplicity which incessantly reproduces and renews itself can be apprehended, however, by feeling, which perceives it simply as a separate, ever-changing phenomenon: this sense of change is the essence of reality, whereas only what is imagined is changelessly unending. Only what changes is real: to be real, to live – what this means is to be created, to grow, to bloom, to wither and to die; without the necessity of death, there is no possibility of life; that alone has no end which has no beginning – but nothing real can be without a beginning, only what has been conceived in the mind. Therefore, to be consumed by truth is to abandon oneself as a sentient human being to total reality: to experience procreation, growth, bloom – withering and decay, to apprehend them unreservedly, in joy and sorrow, and to [P. 303] choose to live – and die – a life of happiness and suffering. This alone is ‘to be consumed by truth’. – {anti-FEUER?} But in order to make such a consummation possible, we must abandon completely our search for the ‘whole’: the whole reveals itself to us only in the individual manifestation, for this alone is capable of being ‘apprehended’ in the true sense of the word; we can really ‘grasp’ a phenomenon only if we can allow ourselves to be fully absorbed by it, just as we must in turn be able to assimilate it fully within us. How is this marvellous process most fully achieved? Ask Nature! Only through love!
(…) {FEUER} But the full reality of love is possible only between the sexes: only as man andwoman can we human beings really love, whereas all other forms of love are mere derivatives of it, originating in it, related to it or an unnatural imitation of it. It is wrong to regard this love as only one manifestation of love in general, and to assume that other and higher forms must therefore exist alongside it.” [607W-{1/25-26/54} Letter to August Roeckel: SLRW, p. 302-303]
[608W-{1/25-26/54} Letter to August Roeckel: SLRW, p. 303-304]
[P. 303] {FEUER} ”It is … a grievous [P. 304] misconception of love to regard as aweakness this quality according to which it can constantly repeat itself and be constantly renewed: whereas conceptual love abstracted from real love, like the love of God-knows-what-universal-abstraction, is imagined as the one genuine form of love precisely because it has permanence. The mere possibility of its indefinite continuance proves how non-essential is this kind of love.” [608W-{1/25-26/54} Letter to August Roeckel: SLRW, p. 303-304]
