Quoted By:
Do you believe the story?
Absolutely! I cried, with enthusiastic approval; I should believe a stranger, it is so
plausible; how much more then should I believe you!
Now, my excellent friend, said Frau R..., you are in possession of everything you need
to know to understand my point. We see that the extent to which, as in the organic
world, thought becomes dimmer and weaker, the grace within it emerges ever brighter
and more powerful. Indeed just as when the intersection of two lines, on the one side of
a point, after passing through infinity, suddenly presents itself again on the other side, or
the image made by a concave mirror, after disappearing into infinity, suddenly
reappears complete before us; so, when knowledge has, as it were, passed through an
infinity, grace returns; and in such a manner, that it, simultaneously, appears most
purely in that form of the human body that has either absolutely none, or infinite
consciousness; that is to say, either in the form of a manikin, or a god.
Consequently, I said a little absent-mindedly, we should have to partake once again of
the Tree of Knowledge in order to fall back into a state of innocence?
Precisely so, he replied; that is the last chapter of the history of the world.
