Eureka & The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall

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Eureka

Preface

Eureka: An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe

The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall

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To the few who love me and whom I love –to those who feel rather than to those who think –to the dreamers and those who put faith in dreams as in the only realities –I offer this Book of Truths, not in its character of Truth-Teller, but for the Beauty that abounds in its Truth; constituting it true. To these I present the composition as an Art-Product alone:–let us say as a Romance; or, if I be not urging too lofty a claim, as a Poem.

What I here propound is true:– therefore it cannot die:–or if by any means it be now trodden down so that it die, it will "rise again to the Life Everlasting." Nevertheless it is as a Poem only that I wish this work to be judged after I am dead.

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But the diffusive energy being withdrawn, and the reaction having commenced in furtherance of the ultimate design –that of the utmost possible Relation –this design is now in danger of being frustrated, in detail, by reason of that very tendency to return which is to effect its accomplishment in general. Multiplicity is the object; but there is nothing to prevent proximate atoms, from lapsing at once, through the now satisfiable tendency –before the fulfilment of any ends proposed in multiplicity –into absolute oneness among themselves: – there is nothing to impede the aggregation of various unique masses, at various points of space: – in other words, nothing to interfere with the accumulation of various masses, each absolutely One.

For the effectual and thorough completion of the general design, we thus see the necessity for a repulsion of limited capacity –a separate something which, on withdrawal of the diffusive Volition, shall at the same time allow the approach, and forbid the junction, of the atoms; suffering them infinitely to approximate, while denying them positive contact; in a word, having the power –up to a certain epoch –of preventing their Coalition, but no ability to interfere with their Coalescence in any respect or degree. The repulsion, already considered as so peculiarly limited in other regards, must be understood, let me repeat, as having power to prevent absolute coalition, only up to a certain epoch. Unless we are to conceive that the appetite for Unity among the atoms is doomed to be satisfied never; –unless we are to conceive that what had a beginning is to have no end –a conception which cannot really be entertained, however much we may talk or dream of entertaining it – we are forced to conclude that the repulsive influence imagined, will, finally –under pressure of the Uni-tendency collectively applied, but, never and in no degree until, on fulfilment of the Divine purposes, such collective application shall be naturally made –yield to a force which, at that ultimate epoch, shall be the superior force precisely to the extent required, and thus permit the universal subsidence into the inevitable, because original and therefore normal, One. –The conditions here to be reconciled are difficult indeed: –we cannot even comprehend the possibility of their conciliation; –nevertheless, the apparent impossibility is brilliantly suggestive.

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