1. WITH A HAT BUT WITHOUT AN UMBRELLA

„With a hat but without an umbrella” – this is how one could characterize a man leaving his house to go out. One has thereby also integrated him however in his environment, for like in a dream one lets another with and without swing along. Because every expressed With and Without form together, on the one hand, another unexpressed Without. They designate what one can take into account regarding a person without considering his environment. One places him in his environment by enclosing him inside the discarding circle of the Without. Every expressed With and Without however form, on the other hand, together another unexpressed With. For, slipping away from under our hands in a reverse function they shape no less the latter as well. Does not the previously regarded discarding Without describe, after all, at the same time several features, which now connect what was previously at home in another With and Without with the world, which it now entrusts to itself? And at the same time this With also becomes a Without again, since it only designates certain connections, which to be sure do not exclude but discard others. If one becomes aware of this, then one catches sight under de daily drabness of our sloth of a permanently bustling dream play of transformations sliding towards an unforeseeable future – a self-looping web of relationships from alternatively flashing and glimmering light sources. “He left the house with a hat but without an umbrella” – a sentence certainly not sprung from any noble powers of expression then suddenly loses its brittleness, it becomes malleable and worthy to be questioned. Does it present us with something essential that ought to be recognized? We want to examine it.

The personal pronoun “he”, the nouns “house”, “hat” and “umbrella” – they all indicate something visible, perceivable. Without the help of our senses, we would not come to the point of using them. They are words directed and supported through the help of our senses, insofar thus sensible words. And the same is also true (although under different conditions) for the verb “left”.

But what about the little non-descript words “with” and “without”? “With a hat” and “without an umbrella” are statements not usually pre-occupying us – yet moved us to pose our question. Behind the stormy dynamics of the verb “left” and the self-consciousness gravity of the nouns “hat” and “umbrella” these particles appear as modest retiring and poor relatives, who should be ashamed of their torn clothes (for they are unwarily dragged into their service) and their modest appearance, whom it behooves to step aside when the high faces of the nouns proudly look down on them and the flying garments of the verbs noisily swirling by.

But if one looks more precisely then one notices that the smallest coins of the treasury chest of words hide their light under a bushel (for they are content with but few letters). For where do we find for their need something that corresponds to the hook, on which the nouns hang their sweeping headdresses and the verbs their splendid robes? Which one of our senses would be capable to stiffen the back of the With, which must undertake numerous services, so that its burden would not be too heavy - and what provisions reimburse the Without for the never-ending deprivations that it is exposed to on its long wanderings. No eye can see the Without, for it is that which lies, imperceptible and yet perceptibly related, between the head and the hat – and no ear can hear the Without, for it speaks about what is not heard and yet overheard. With and Without have no helpers and friendly proponents and do not desire such help, they are instead the always unrewarded volunteers.

“With” and “without” are supersensible words, for they mediate, convey what does not appear to the senses, i.e. the connections, relations and also the diversities of the numerous particulars, the multitude but not the union of which we owe to our senses. No matter how great the richness of the world of the senses, how inexhaustible the harvest of the numerous particulars may be, no sense grasps what connects the one percept perceived by the senses with the other – be it through relationship or through non-relationship (for the latter is also is a relation that leads beyond the particular). The senses divide the world, they do not make it whole. The eye now mediates percepts of a red surface to us and thereafter of a blue surface, now one part and then of the other part of the red or blue surface. But the eye tells us nothing about the juxtaposition nor the succession of these percepts. Space and time are alien to it, it always says only “this, this and this”. And also the “this” remains, even though emphatically meant, nevertheless unexplained. For the qualitative attribute and uniqueness of every percept are not disclosed either through its sensoriality and through the senses seized by it. It is speechless and first requires the inhaled breath before it begins to speak. A color percept expresses its particularity only in connection with similar or dissimilair percepts. And this is true just as well for every other realm of the senses. The connections in which the phenomena present themselves, in which we unravel them, are not established by themselves, - they require an intermediary that brings harmony between them without infringing on their characteristic feature. For even the “and” between the particulars “this” and “this” remains unattainable for the eye. The worldwide expanse of space that embraces us is also a building that is constructed with the mortar of the “and”. It is not seen, it is a construct of manifold assemblage: not the precepts of things, but their order in a juxtaposition, superimposition and succession is what we call space. The eye nor any other sense can perceive order, can perceive “above”, “next” or “behind”. And the same is true for the order in time, the succession. Therefore the inexhaustible “this”, “this” and “this” of the eye is, like every other sense, every time an incomparable particularity, yet what it is and who it is, is not disclosed indirectly though itself, but only in context with others that appear in the same need of unification.

The great words, the nouns and verbs embrace indeed far more than the undisclosed particulars of the senses. They explore wide-ranging realms and know how to relate to their world trips. Yet without the help of the senses (the senses of entire nations are at their disposal), they are powerless. The little words “with” and “without” on the other hand fly with light wings over the greatest distances and bring the most remote areas together. And even the most inconspicuous and hackneyed of all words, the tiny word “and”, the smallest copper coin of our treasury of words, makes from “with” and “without”, from “yes” and “no”, irrespective of their inequality, a couple. Relieved from the senses, the supersensible words float in the etheric heights of thinking, but with falcon eyes espying their prey, namely every gap in the world of the senses on which they swoop down – yet not to snatch, rob and carry off the captured prey, but to introduce to the sentence – the just and mild ruler of the world of context – its members joining company in friendly communion.