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Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci, Lectorem delectando, pariterque monendo ... Hor. I may cast my Readers under two general Divisions, the Mercurial and the Saturnine. The first are the gay Part of my Disciples, who require Speculations of Wit and Humour; the others are those of a more solemn and sober Turn, who find no Pleasure but in Papers of Morality and sound Sense.
To make it adequate, we must substitute the idea of positive production for that of rest, or mere neutralization. To the fancy alone it is the null-point, or zero, but to the reason it is the punctum saliens, and the power itself in its eminence.
I have occupied it first. Semen tuum perdi non potest. It behoveth thee not to afflict me. But Vrihaspati without listening to what that child in the womb said, sought the embraces of Mamata possessing the most beautiful pair of eyes. Ille tamen Muni qui in venture erat punctum temporis quo humor vitalis jam emissum iret providens, viam per quam semen intrare posset pedibus obstruxit.
In spite even of Plutarch, allegory, not moral example, is his main line of defence. His fundamental basis is the stock Horatian "omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci," or as Harington paraphrases, "for in verse is both goodness and sweetness, Rubarb and Sugarcandie, the pleasant and the profitable."
It is very probable that, to a more universal intelligence than ours, everything is but an eternal present, an immense punctum stans, as the metaphysicians say, in which all the events are on one plane; but it is no less probable that we ourselves, so long as we are men, in order to understand anything of this eternal present, will always be obliged to divide it into three parts.
The tale of the dwindled age of men, reported of successional mankind, is true of the same man only. We do not live a year in a year now. 'T is a punctum stans. The seasons pass us with indifference. Spring cheers not, nor winter heightens our gloom: autumn hath foregone its moralities, they are "heypass repass," as in a show-box.
I recall also the passage in Amor Proximi where it is said that the earth will again be placed in Solis punctum. I have mentioned the vedantic teachings, whose agreement with alchemy has also been noticed by Hitchcock.
The former is explicite what the latter was implicite. We must consider as the origin of a new individual and true punctum saliens of its life the moment when the parents begin to love each other to fancy each other, as the English appropriately express it.
We must have an incident, besides a punctum temporis, for our start in government; and where could we find a better one than that on which the whole subsequent course and character of the government depended? We go, then, for the old Charter, and for the setting up of a jurisdiction under it here.
But below consciousness there is its germ, the punctum saliens of spontaneity; for consciousness is not primitive, it becomes. The question is, can the thinking monad return into its envelope, that is to say, into pure spontaneity, or even into the dark abyss of virtuality? I hope not.
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