2. THE MOST POWERFUL WORD IS “AND”

Let us look a little more precisely at the supersensible words and the realm from which they originate. They are children, messengers and agents of context – thus of thinking – for the latter is the trustee of the world order with the power to unite all separateness, to cross all borders, to conciliate all estrangement. All talk of limits of knowledge is utmost foolish, because cognition is always the overcoming of a limit, the advancement from disconnectedness to a connector and connectedness. Only not-knowingness is limited, but ends where cognition begins. The percepts of the senses are admittedly limited, the notion however that there could be perceived particulars that cannot be joined together (hence cannot be inserted into the process of cognition) is frivolous, for we cannot become aware of a particular without knowledge, hence of integration into the context. Cognitive advancement can indeed be hindered when perceptual interlinks are lacking that are needed, or when our intuitive ability does not suffice to grasp the ready-made connection. The hindrances to our cognitive advancement however are not a principal limitation based on the nature of cognition. The percepts of our senses however are in principle limited, because they lack context. On the other hand, we require them, if we want to cross their limits. Where nothing is perceived, nothing can be known either. But where knowledge is gathered, the limits of the percepts are crossed.

Let us look somewhat more closely at cognition, whose assistants are the little words that buzz around us with their supersensible wing beats.

The most powerful of these little words, even the most powerful of all words is at the same time the one that we are used to disvalue or even disdain the most. It is (that to begin with may sound objectionable) the little word “and”. It is the most powerful word because from it originates the world. For this word is the context of all things – and where the band is torn that entwines all beings with soft threads and tremendous webs, the world is destroyed. All cognition is an And, for it is the gaining of context, a co-weaving of the world web. Context, connectedness is but the transition from one to another, is addition, is just an And. Before cognition began, before it succeeded we lacked this And. Cognition however has the ability to grasp how all things belong together, it creates order among them by adding the one to the other. The With is also an And, for it adds the hat to the head. And also the Without is an And, for it adds an open-ended relation to the closed one, which now does not find its supplement, but may do so later.

When we now view the And more precisely, however, we recognize that the With and the Without are the pair of wings with which it carries out its supersensible flights. For only what is separate can be connected and what is being connected is contrasted from each other now by this connection. Who says “head and hat” can only establish this connection because these are two different groups of percepts, and when the speaker connects these different areas, he then expresses at the same time their cohesiveness (the hat belongs to the head and the head belongs to the hat), but he at the same time draws attention to their distinctness, for the hat fits the head on the basis of the latter’s positive property, namely its convex curvature that corresponds to a content, on the other hand the head fits the hat on the basis of its concave curvature that hopes for a content.

The And is at the same time connectivity and disconnectivity as well, its statement is a Yes and No, a With and Without. (We would recognize this from it, if we would want to trace the expressive gestures of its sounds.) This similarity of dividing and connecting is what we call discernment. For discernment connects separateness and divides connectedness.

Let us now examine still more precisely how cognition proceeds by observing how it executes its basic act of discernment. What happens when with its supersensible binding agents, with its And, With and Without, it approaches the unconnected constituents conveyed to it by our senses?

We would gaze helplessly and perplexedly at a tree if we did not have the means of discernment that incarnates it – i.e. creating order by determining its particulars as part of a whole. This means of discernment is the concept “tree”. The concept tree is in the multiple sense of the word a means of discernment. For it adds the perceptual particulars of the tree together and contrasts them thereby from one another, but it also contrasts the tree from its surroundings and thereby inserts it therein. It can easily be shown that all other concepts are similar means of discernment. For they all have the And-character, by which they differentiate themselves from the percepts of our senses, which are the only suitable tools of our cognition. They all originate from the discriminatory function of the And, and are at the same time means of connection and separation. The concept “tree” is such a means of separation within the realm that it classifies inwardly as well as outwardly set against the area in which it inserts the tree. The concept “tree” embraces the parts of the tree, the root, stem, branches, twigs, leaves, buds, blossoms and fruits. The concept “tree” therefore binds many other concepts in its realm. For the precepts of the parts of the tree are on their part groups that are classified by concepts, unified into totalities, constructed into shapes. Many other concepts belong to the ones mentioned, such as bark or sap and also those that do not specifically belong to the morphological construction of the tree, but indirectly or nonspecifically condition it such as light or air, up and down. This cannot be otherwise, since the thinking from which the concepts originate is the constituent power, and since its tools unite the concepts on the basis of their powers of discrimination with one another and with all things. Since cognition is in principle a border crossing, since its assistants are such border crossings, it follows that this union is nowhere interrupted, that it has no end except in its complete coherence. Since concepts are connections, there are no isolated concepts and is thinking a unity. The isolation within thinking solely arises from our viewpoint that gives priority to the particularity of the concepts and not to the universality of thinking. Every concept, every idea therefore represents thinking as a whole, the whole ideational world from a certain aspect. The saying by Goethe is valid and wise, “The idea is eternal and unique. To speak of ideas is not well done.”

This also applies to the concept “tree”. It subsumes the whole spiritual world under a certain aspect. It can however also be assigned to those groups of percepts that belong to a certain perceptible tree. It is then adapted to this perceptual realm as the structural framework that extends its discriminatory function “inwardly” and “outwardly”. This particular discriminatory shape, which the spiritual world in this case assumes, is one of the numerous metamorphoses of the little word And. Hereby must be taken into consideration that the scope and hence the power of conceptional discernment is capable of unlimited differentiation – thereby resulting in hierarchical sub- and superordinate distinguishing structures of a most finely chased subtlety and expanding into the unforeseeable. For the And-function is on the one hand unlimitedly refined “inwardly” and “outwardly” - on the other hand, complexes forever growing in seize are subsumed and superimposed on the respective smaller ones. The differentiation (that is each time detachment as well as insertion) can with respect to a tree progress "inwardly” to particulars becoming continually smaller: stem, crown, branches, twigs, leaves, buds etc. And a similar progression in differentiation takes place “outwardly”: the ground (in which the tree is rooted), garden, landscape, country, continent, earth etc. The differential-And that “inwardly” subsumes the tree in arbitrarily refined subdivision and “outwardly” in arbitrarily expanded envelopment is the hierarchical highest specific distinguishing feature in this realm. The concept “tree” is therefore the dominating And in a manifold realm, the supreme distinguishing instance in a system of super- and subordinate connections. If one sees this (only to begin with as an example of an arbitrarily conjugable distinguishing function), then one gains respect for the significance and the extent of the issues and processes that are concealed behind the inconspicuousness of their relation through the distinguishing title And.