The World as a Vale of Soul-Making (response to EnglishGoethe)

"How far by the persevering endeavours of a seldom appearing Socrates Mankind may be made happy-I can imagine such happiness carried to an extreme-but what must it end in?-Death-and who could in such a case bear with death-the whole troubles of life which are now frittered away in a series of years, would the[n] be accumulated for the last days of a being who instead of hailing its approach, would leave this world as Eve left Paradise-But in truth I do not at all believe in this sort of perfectibility-the nature of the world will not admit of it-the inhabitants of the world will correspond to itself. Let the fish Philosophise the ice away from the Rivers in winter time and they shall be at continual play in the tepid de light of Summer. Look at the Poles and at the Sands of Africa, Whirlpools and volcanoes-Let men exterminate them and I will say that they may arrive at earthly Happiness-The point at which Man may arrive is as far as the parallel state in inanimate nature and no further-For instance suppose a rose to have sensation, it blooms on a beautiful morning it enjoys itself-but there comes a cold wind, a hot sun-it cannot escape it, it cannot destroy its annoyances-they are as native to the world as itself: no more can man be happy in spite, the worldly elements will prey upon his nature-The common cognomen of this world among the misguided and superstitious is 'a vale of tears' from which we are to be redeemed by a certain arbitary interposition of God and taken to Heaven-What a little circumscribed straightened notion! Call the world if you Please "The vale of Soul-making". Then you will find out the use of the world (I am speaking now in the highest terms for human nature admitting it to be immortal which I will here take for granted for the purpose of showing a thought which has struck me concerning it) I say 'Soul making' Soul as distinguished from an Intelligence- There may be intelligences or sparks of the divinity in millions-but they are not Souls till they acquire identities, till each one is personally itself. I[n]telligences are atoms of perception-they know and they see and they are pure, in short they are God-How then are Souls to be made? How then arc these sparks which are God to have identity given them-so as ever to possess a bliss peculiar to each one's individual existence? I- low, but by the medium of a world like this? This point I sincerely wish to consider because 'I think it a grander system of salvation than the chrystiain religion -or rather it is a system of Spirit-creation-This is effected by three grand materials acting the one upon the other for a series of years. These three Materials are the Intelligence-the human heart (as distinguished from intelligence or Mind) and the World or Elemental space suited for the proper action of Mind and Heart on each other for the purpose of forming the Soul or Intelligence destined to possess the sense of Identity. I can scarcely express what I but dimly perceive-and yet I think I perceive it-that you may judge the more clearly I will put it in the most homely form possible-I will call the world a School instituted for the purpose of teaching little children to read-I will call the human heart the horn Book used in that School-and I will call the Child able to -read, the Soul made from that School and its hornbook. Do you not see how necessary a World of Pains and troubles is to school an Intelligence and make it a Soul? A Place where the heart must feel and suffer in a thousand diverse ways! Not merely is the Heart a Hornbook, It is the Minds Bible, it is the Minds expe rience, it is the teat from which the Mind or intelligence sucks its identity. As various as the Lives of Men are-so various become their Souls, and thus does God make individual beings, Souls, Identical Souls of the Sparks of his own essence-This appears to me a faint sketch of a system of Salvation which does not affront our reason and humanity-I am convinced that many difficulties which Christians labour under would vanish before it . . .

Your ever affectionate brother,
John Keats."

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[JesusMakeUpMyDyinBed]

Philosophy is crap

[fawnknudsen14]

btw would you have a reference for this letter? I have used soul-making in my work, unaware that it was coined (?) by Keats. best wishes.

[fawnknudsen14]

very good channel. I'll make a proper channel to start conversing with you. we are concerned with lot of the same things. I work in Science Studies and I habitually find myself doing philosophy. incidentally I have been worrying about fish and souls recently as well. you might find Latour's recent piece "Reflections on Etienne Souriau’s Les différents modes d’existence" in "The Speculative Turn" perceptive. there is more to come. have a good one so long!

[Silenus6]

[cont.] "There is no one type for man. There are as many perfections as there are imperfect men. And while to the claims of charity a man may yeild and yet be free, to the claims of conformity no man may yield and remain free at all."

~ Oscar Wilde, "The Soul of Man Under Socialism"

[Silenus6]

cont. "All imitation in morals and in life is wrong. Through the streets of Jerusalem at present day crawls one who is mad and carries a wooden cross on his shoulders. He is a symbol of the lives that are marred by imitation. Father Damien was Christ-like when he went out to live with the lepers, because in such service he realised fully what was best in him. But he was not more Christ-like than Wagner, when he realised his soul in music; or than Shelley, when he realised his soul in song." cont

[Silenus6]

"And so he who would lead a Christ-like life is he who is perfectly and absolutely himself. He may be a great poet, or a great man of science; or a young student at University, or one who watched sheep upon a moor; or a maker of dramas, like Shakespeare, or a thinker about God, like Spinoza; or a child who plays in a garden, or a fisherman who throws his nets into the sea. It does not matter what he is, as long as he realizes the perfection of the soul that is within him." [cont.]

[9macrina9]

faved. you already know.

[phcou]

What do the ancients have to do with the modern problem of autonomy in connection with the "new science"? Socrates, for example, alludes to Meno's preference for "tragic" answers after Meno has expressed his satisfaction with a particularly "scientific" definition of color (76b - e or, read: preference for, in your vocabularly ,phenomena). Did the Greeks have an understanding of the difference between nature and convention? the latter constituting the "modern" break with "ancient" philosophy

[danbit5]

time will sort it matt,i dont think any one in the world wants any wars, the matter if there is lingo dialect mis givings, its going ultimately share ultimate mankind

[pyrrho314]

nice vid though, I always have a much more materialist approach to arrive at similar ideas.

yeah to the age of poets and artists (and engineers).