click here for the principles and the foundation of the foundation
and see footnote for its published history*
...in the basis of their union the necessity of their differences; in the principle of their continuance the solution of their changes. It is the idea of a common centre, of the universal law, by which all power manifests itself in opposite yet interdependent forces ... to comprehend gradually and progressively the relation of each to the other, of each to all, and of all to each.**...but these words are not quite what I wish to say, she types (in the 21st century) for Coleridge may not have been thinking of the present transformation of past into future, and then of future becoming past...
...Utopia pauses and there is silence between her and Numeroso... and then he steps onto the imaginary rock and begins to speak - his instinct is to say little of such vast questions - but he perceives that this is a rare moment when connections can be made and the course of events can be changed... while others laugh, indifferent to sincerity...
this is the moment to give way, he says as he types on the imaginary surface, the moment when all that exists, in its brilliance and its stupidity... in its familiarity and its apparent strength... can be changed in its purpose - no longer contesting, opposing or improving what existed before... but now becoming the modest support and the nourishment of the perpetual new, the ungainly, the unexpected formation of life as it can suddenly become... 'not that', 'not that', he says of the surrounding realities, but 'this this, this impossible something that does not accord with the expectations of any of us... up until now untilnowuntilnow... 4 8 0 3 9 5 0 3 ... and the words and numbers begin writing automatically...'
...after which came a pause, a complete stoppage, in which the old became kind and the young felt a warmth never felt between generations, each wild at the other, until now, until now... 0 0 3 3 4 5 8 9
and yes this process is all we have type the fingers not in darkness nor in light but in the nerves and in the brains of every one...
And the imaginary rock foundation was seen to resemble Noah's Ark...
**S T Coleridge, Essays on the Principles of Method, in The Friend, 1, edited by Barbara E Rooke, Bollingen Series LXXV, Princeton University Press, New Jersey, and Routledge and Kegan Paul, London 1969, page 511.
If you wish to reproduce any of this text commercially please send a copyright permission request to jcj at publicwriting.net