online: 30 august 2003

11 august 2003 fragments of mind


16:03 Today I am in The British Library, copying into my handheld computer successive paragraphs from page 448 of the Shorter Works and Fragmentsof S T Coleridge* - inclusive of Initial Capitals and other peculiarities of his early 19th century writing...

I do so like this conjunction of handwritten, printed and digitised writing, from various times.

...Philosophy (i.e. seeking after Truth for the Finding of the Good - [)] but Truth + Good = Wisdom. In the mystery of the Trinity the Good ...

I am omitting here a near algebraic description of the trinity... (perhaps it was too much for me at that moment)

Science is not Philosophy; but the organ of Philosophy. The object of Science is Truth merely, or clear Knowing: the Object of Philosophy is Knowledge in subordination to the Good, as the ... unum scibile [one thing knowable] , Truth for the sake of THE TRUE - that is, Good and all other realities as in God.
Philosophy is the same as Religion in respect of its Object; but differs from it, in respect as of its organ, which is the pure Intellect: while the Organ of Religion is the Will and the Affections. Religion may exist without Philosophy (in an Individual) but Philosophy cannot exist without Religion.

...these notes were written on the wrapper of a letter with a list of books [MS Cornell University, Wordsworth Collection]

...as I copy and re-read do I half-discern a strange self-referential logic in the equating of Science with Intellect (a function) and Religion with will and the affections (aspects or manifestations of being)?

later: to me this seems compatible with

Spinoza's equating of everything with God**
though I expect Coleridge would disagree.



*Shorter Works and Fragments, vol 11 of The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Routledge, London, Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1995, page 448.

**see digital diary of 15 may 2002





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