![References
Cacciari, Massimo. 2001. “La sua lezione è pari a quella di Heidegger [His Lesson Is Equal to That of
Heidegger]”. La Repubblica, 22 February. https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/re
pubblica/2001/02/22/la-sua-lezione-pari-quella-di-heidegger.html, last accessed
21 September 2023.
Penrose, Roger, Emanuele Severino, Fabio Scardigli, Ines Testoni, Giuseppe Vitiello, Giacomo Mauro
D’Ariano, and Federico Faggin. 2022. Artificial Intelligence versus Natural Intelligence. Cham:
Springer International. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-85480-5, last
accessed 21 September 2023.
Scardigli, Fabio, Gerard ’t Hooft, Emanuele Severino, and Piero Coda. 2019. Determinism and Free
Will”. Cham: Springer International. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-05505-9,
last accessed 21 September 2023.
Severino, Emanuele. 2015. The Essence of Nihilism. Edited by Alessandro Carrera and Ines Testoni.
New York/London: Verso [original: Essenza del nichilismo, Milan: Adelphi, 1982].
Severino, Emanuele. 2023. Law and Chance. Translated by Damiano Sacco and edited by Ines Testoni
and Giulio Goggi. London/New York: Bloomsbury [original: Legge e caso, Milan: Adelphi, 1979].
Severino, Emanuele. 2024. Beyond Language. Translated by Damiano Sacco and edited by Ines
Testoni and Giulio Goggi. London/New York: Bloomsbury [original: Oltre il linguaggio, Milan:
Adelphi, 1992].
8 Ines Testoni et al.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28116690-250514141236-bbc8e534/85/Eternity-Between-Space-And-Time-From-Consciousness-To-The-Cosmos-1st-Edition-Ines-Testoni-22-320.jpg)
![(Goggi 2019; 2022). Finally, I will touch upon the singular meaning of time implied
by the eternity of every being, as well as some significant implications concerning
the relationship between the finite and the Infinite.
2 The Eternity of Every Being
1. To think that any given being could not have existed and that it could cease to
exist is to envisage a time in which this given being (this not-nothing) is nothing,
absolutely nothing. But since it is impossible for the non-identical to be identical,
not only is it impossible for nothingness to belong to any being when (i.e. for as
long as) that particular being exists, but it is absolutely impossible for nothing to
belong to it. The foundation of the thesis of the eternity of every being qua being
is the necessity that each being be self-identical, i.e. the impossibility that any
given being be other than itself: since the identification of non-identical meanings
is absurd, and since what is absurd is what cannot be, it is impossible for any
being not to be. And this means that every being, qua being, is eternal.
2. Severino puts it as follows: the law of being is the law of the opposition between
the positive and the negative. Note that what he means by “positive” is every
being, every not-nothing, whereas by “negative” he means anything that is
“other” with respect to the positive under consideration. For instance, if we take
“this lamp”, its negative is not only any other positive which is not “this lamp”:
what is also other than “this lamp” is “nothing” – not in the sense that “nothing”,
i.e. the absolute absence of any positiveness, is in itself something, a being, but in
the sense that “this lamp” is not nothing. Now, the need to affirm the opposition
between the positive and the negative involves the affirmation of the eternity of
every being because it involves that specific opposition between the positive and
the negative that consists precisely in this, namely that every being is not nothing:
It is necessary to affirm that every being is eternal, because eternity is one opposition be-
tween the positive and the negative (it is that opposition by which the positive, any given
being, is not nothing), which is to say that it is a form, a specific mode of that – the universal
opposition between the positive and the negative, the universal determination of the
being – the negation of which coincides with self-negation. The necessity of affirming the
opposition between the positive and the negative [which is inclusive of every specific form
of this opposition] necessarily implies the affirmation of that specific opposition between
the positive and the negative which is the eternity of every being (Severino 1995, 243–244).
Severino has called this “the golden implication”, on account of its remarkable
significance. It should be noted that in claiming that everything is eternal, we are
not saying that everything exists according to a particular mode of being, for ex-
12 Giulio Goggi](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28116690-250514141236-bbc8e534/85/Eternity-Between-Space-And-Time-From-Consciousness-To-The-Cosmos-1st-Edition-Ines-Testoni-26-320.jpg)
![and that the ash (qua ash) did not exist yet before it was produced: if this were
not the case, there would not be any becoming. But are things really so? Consider,
first of all, the fact that appearing does not reveal this “no longer existing” and
“not existing yet” in any way:
When the wood (qua wood) has becoming nothing, does it continue to be observable, expe-
rienceable, ascertainable? [. . .] Certainly, if one believes that things become nothing, one
must believe that insofar as they become nothing, they are no longer observable, experi-
enceable, ascertainable as they were before. [. . .] To experience is to experience an exis-
tent: it is impossible to experience what is now nothing (Severino 2015a, 188–190).
A similar argument must be made for ash: if one believes that the ash (qua ash)
was nothing before it was produced, then, insofar as it was nothing, it could not
be part of the totality of what is experienced: for one cannot experience nothing-
ness. But this means, precisely, that it is impossible for experience to say anything
about the fate of that which is believed to have gone into nothingness or to still
be nothing. Certainly, there are certain modes of becoming in relation to which
man has convinced himself that certain things have emerged out of nothingness
and will return to nothingness:
In relation to many things, including many that are dear to him, [man] experiences that,
when they no longer show themselves with the traits they used to display, they no longer
return. [. . .]. And [it happens that] in relation to those things that are born one goes so far
as to say that they have emerged out of nothing, because they have never been seen before:
as if someone who witnesses this birth had the capacity to experience the infinite times past
[. . .], and thus to discern that what was “born” in them just wasn’t there, never has been
there, i.e. was nothing (Severino 2015a, 191–192).
But since it is impossible to experience nothingness, and hence to experience an-
nihilation, stating that things are born and die, that they are generated and per-
ish, is an interpretation which alters what genuinely appears:
This means that becoming other is the content of a theory established on the basis of the
delusion caused by the non-return of what no longer appears (but what human being has
ever experienced the infinity of future times [. . .] so as to be able to claim that what has
faded will never return?) (Severino 2015a, 192).
But what, then, is that which genuinely appears? If (and because) every being is
eternal, the varying of things and situations we experience cannot coincide with
the coming to be or ceasing to be of beings; rather, it must be the supervening of
eternal beings within the eternal horizon of appearing:
The Eternity of Every Being and the “Trace” 15](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28116690-250514141236-bbc8e534/85/Eternity-Between-Space-And-Time-From-Consciousness-To-The-Cosmos-1st-Edition-Ines-Testoni-29-320.jpg)
![The Becoming that appears is not the birth and the death of Being, but rather its appearing
and disappearing. Becoming is the process of the revelation of the immutable (Severino
2016a, 111–112).
Not even that appearing which begins to appear and ceases to appear can be
something that begins to be and ceases to be: when something appears, its ap-
pearing necessarily appears (for otherwise what would appear would be some-
thing that does not appear). It follows that when something begins to appear, its
beginning to appear also begins to appear: within the total horizon of appearing –
what Severino calls “transcendental appearing” – the appearing of something be-
gins to appear (not: begins to be!); and when something ceases to appear, from
the total horizon of appearing the same appearing of something ceases to appear
(not: ceases to be!). Becoming occurs when eternal beings (and their eternal ap-
pearing) enter or exit the stable transcendental dimension of appearing; however,
the supervening of this dimension and its departing from appearing cannot “ap-
pear”: for the appearing of becoming is only possible if this appearing is not be-
coming, but rather the unchanging background that encompasses the totality of
time, which is to say every “before” and “after” that begin to appear.
3. As it is necessary for what begins or ceases to appear to also be before it begins
to appear and after it ceases to appear – for every being is eternal – we will say
that present beings are eternal, but so are past and future ones:
This day is (eternal), even when what now appears as the past was the present and when
what now appears as the future will be the present; in turn, past and future beings are (eter-
nal), in the concreteness that pertains to them when they have been and will be the present,
even when this day appears. If this concreteness of theirs differs from what appears of
them when this day appears [. . .] this means that, in the past and future appearing together
with this day, this concreteness of theirs has (respectively) disappeared and not yet ap-
peared (Severino 2015b, 139).
In Italy some scholars (Soncini and Munari 1996) have sought to compare the
“Parmenidean” Einstein to Severino and the thesis of the eternity of every being.
As is widely known, Einstein’s special theory of relativity leads to the remarkable
conclusion that all things within space-time – things past, present, and future –
are eternal. However, Severino himself noted that the necessity that his writings
bring into play is something essentially different from the hypothetical-deductive
logic underlying scientific demonstrations. As we have seen, the eternity of every
being qua being is a specification of the impossibility for anything (i.e. any being)
to be other than itself. Severino speaks of the “originary structure” of knowledge
to refer to this fundamental and indisputable appearing of every being’s self-
identity, which is far from hypothetical and implies the eternity of every being:
16 Giulio Goggi](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28116690-250514141236-bbc8e534/85/Eternity-Between-Space-And-Time-From-Consciousness-To-The-Cosmos-1st-Edition-Ines-Testoni-30-320.jpg)
![an untranscendable supervening thing is impossible and self-contradictory, insofar as it im-
plies the nullity of being (and, strictly speaking, implies the nullity of itself [. . .]). Therefore,
any supervening thing is necessarily transcended; and since any transcending thing is a su-
pervening one, it is necessary for the supervening [of beings] to unfold infinitely (Severino
2007, 237).
The fundamental meaning of this Glory – which is ultimately “the genuine mean-
ing of time” (Severino 2007, 205) – is the infinite unfolding of beings within the
finite circle of appearing; and since the beings destined to supervene are infinite,
so must be the beings destined not to supervene. The totality of this content must
belong to the infinite appearing of beings, which is infinite insofar as nothing ap-
pears beyond it and the beings appearing within it are infinite.
2. The Glory theorem – i.e. the claim that it is impossible for what supervenes in
the originary circle of appearing to be something untranscendable – also implies
the existence of an infinite multiplicity of finite circles of appearing. Indeed, the
actuality of the supervenient (i.e. the actual appearing of what supervenes in the
transcendental horizon of appearing) is itself something which supervenes, and
hence cannot be untranscendable either. In this case, what we have is the neces-
sary transcending of the actual appearing that pertains to that which supervenes,
insofar as it appears within the originary circle of appearing; and this transcend-
ing can only be the supervening of beings within a different dimension of actual-
ity from that which pertains to the originary circle of appearing:
This different and transcending actuality, in other words, supervenes in another circle of
finite appearing (Severino 2001, 172).
And since the appearing of what supervenes in this second circle is itself superve-
nient, it must be argued that it too is transcended by what supervenes in a third
circle, and so on, in indefinitum. What are infinite, therefore, are the finite circles
of appearing: those dimensions within which the originary structure of the truth
of being has always shown itself (and will always show itself), i.e. the appearing
of the being-itself of every being and its implications.
3. In relation to infinite appearing (which is the dimension of the totality of
beings) there is no supervening or disappearing, in the sense that nothing enters
or exits it. But this does not disprove the totality of the supervening that appears
in the infinite finite circles of appearing. It may be argued, instead, that within
infinite appearing that supervening appears in the totality of its unfolding: within
it something eternal appears, namely the infinite unfolding of those beings des-
tined to make their way into the infinite finite circles of appearing and much
more besides – infinitely more. This has nothing to do with any kind of theologi-
cal transcendence: Augustine, Aquinas, and any creationist perspective are over-
18 Giulio Goggi](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28116690-250514141236-bbc8e534/85/Eternity-Between-Space-And-Time-From-Consciousness-To-The-Cosmos-1st-Edition-Ines-Testoni-32-320.jpg)
![come. The finite which appears in infinite appearing is that finite which appears
here and now: in finite appearing it shows itself in an abstract way, whereas infi-
nite appearing is the very totality of the positive in its semantic concreteness;
therefore, it coincides with the surpassing of the finite and hence too of finite ap-
pearing (and of the totality of the contradictions of the finite), where being ap-
pears in a processual way.
6 The “Trace” of the Infinite in the Finite
1. The finite is a contradiction not because, as Hegel assumed, it becomes other
than itself (for “becoming other” is impossible), but rather because it necessarily
stands in relation to every other being and to the totality of beings, which do not
appear in their concreteness. We have seen how the originary structure of knowl-
edge is also a finite horizon:
Since [the] originary [meaning] is and means what it is and means only in its connection
with the All [. . .], in the isolation of the originary from the All (i.e. in the non-manifesting
itself of the All in the originary), the originary is not the originary (Severino 1981, 73).
The contradiction of the finite is determined by the abstractness of its position –
whereby what is posited is not what one intends to posit – whose removal is
given not by the negation of its content, but by the concrete manifestation of the
All, which is precisely the appearing of the totality of beings. Bearing in mind the
conclusion we have reached through the Glory theorem – namely, the need for
supervening beings to unfold infinitely, by supervening within the transcendental
horizon of appearing – we may argue that the transcending of the contradiction
of the finite
is an infinite journey, an indefinite expanding of the finite circle, such that the contradiction
of the finite, qua finite, infinitely endures in its being infinitely transcended (Severino
2005, 89).
It may thus be argued that infinite appearing coincides with the eternal tran-
scending of the totality of the contradictions of the finite. Every being therefore
belongs to the totality of beings, as does the infinite unfolding of beings destined
to supervene in the infinite finite circles of appearing. We shall now see in what
sense it is necessary to argue that in every being the infinite totality of beings
appears: not only in the generic sense whereby we say that the appearing of X is
the appearing of its being other with respect to all that is other than X – so that
The Eternity of Every Being and the “Trace” 19](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28116690-250514141236-bbc8e534/85/Eternity-Between-Space-And-Time-From-Consciousness-To-The-Cosmos-1st-Edition-Ines-Testoni-33-320.jpg)
![the analysis of X generically reveals the formal meaning of the whole – but also
in a far more specific sense.
2. As every being is eternal, each being necessarily stands in relation to every
other being; and since this relation is necessary, it is necessary for every being to
be present in each individual being. Let X and Y be two beings: if X in no way
appeared in Y (and if Y in no way appeared in X), there would be no relationship
between X and Y, whereas the eternity of every being implies that X and Y are
necessarily related each other (and to every other being). And if there was no re-
lationship between X and Y, then neither X would be other than Y, nor Y would
be other than X, i.e. neither X nor Y would be themselves. But how is X present in
what is other than X? First of all, Severino notes that this presence is possible in-
sofar as what is present is not the other in its concrete determinateness:
It is necessary that any being X – in and in relation to its concrete determinateness – be
nothing in any other being Y, and that the concrete determinateness of Y (i.e. of any other
being) be nothing in X. The concrete determinateness of X in Y is nothing. [. . .] In other
words, it is necessary that something in X be nothing in Y and vice-versa: for otherwise X
would be Y (Severino 2015b, 142).
In Y the “abstract form” of what is other than Y will thus be present (likewise, the
“abstract form” of what is other than X will be present in X). And the abstract
form of X, which is present in Y,
is not separate from the concreteness of X [. . .]; in fact, it is the ‘representative’, the ‘spokes-
man’ of that concreteness (Severino 2016b, 181).
Severino calls this presence “trace” and argues that it is a kind of inclusion: X, as
the trace of X, is present in Y, and this is not a contradiction only insofar as X is
present as what is negated, given that Y is not (i.e. does not mean) what is other
than itself. In every being we must therefore distinguish between its concrete
part (whereby it differs from its other) and its abstract part, which is precisely
the presence in it – as what is negated – of the abstract form of its other:
The fact that X, qua X, is present, in Y, as what is negated means [. . .] that X qua X, in Y, is
nothing; but the fact that the abstract form of X is present, in Y, as what is negated does not
mean that, in Y, it is nothing; rather, it means that Y is, in itself, the negation of this form,
which in turn is a being. This means that, given the abstract form X’s belonging to Y, the
negation of this form (the fact of not being identical to this form) is not proper to Y qua Y,
but rather to that part of Y that is not such a form (but it is proper to Y insofar as it includes
such a part): it is that concrete part of Y which, being itself, is the negation of all that in Y is
the abstract form of all that is not Y. The abstract form is the abstract part of Y. It is by
virtue of its concrete part that Y is Y. If this concrete part did not exist, what would exist
would not be Y, but the abstract form of all that is not Y (Severino 2016b, 189–190).
20 Giulio Goggi](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28116690-250514141236-bbc8e534/85/Eternity-Between-Space-And-Time-From-Consciousness-To-The-Cosmos-1st-Edition-Ines-Testoni-34-320.jpg)
![In those cases in which the relationship between X and Y is such that X is part of
Y not only because there is a necessary relationship between X and Y, but also
because X and Y are configured in a certain way – e.g. when X is “this lamp” and
Y is the totality of beings of which “this lamp” is part – the concrete determinate-
ness of X is also contained in Y, without thereby disproving what has previously
been argued:
The part exists in the whole, as that whose existence is affirmed; yet, the part is not the
whole and therefore in some sense, or according to some aspect, “being a part” is nothing in
“being the whole” and vice-versa; and the abstract form of “being a part” is – as what is
negated – in “being the whole”. “And vice-versa”, meaning: just as the whole includes – as
what is negated – the abstract form of the part, so the part includes – as what is negated –
the abstract form of the whole (Severino 2015b, 146).
Moreover, if it is true that each being is made up of its (concrete and abstract)
parts, and that none of a being’s parts is the being itself, it is equally true that no
being can be reduced to the sum of its parts isolated from each other. What
makes a being a “totality” is the relationship between its parts, and since every
being is eternal, what is also eternal (and hence necessary) is the relationship be-
tween its parts:
Every totality [“not just those totalities that are in turn parts but also totality simpliciter,
which is not a part of anything”] is the unity and relationship between its parts. [. . .]. But a
totality is not the mere set – the mere “sum” – of its parts, for a totality is the eternal and
necessary relationship between them (a specific relationship, which distinguishes each to-
tality from all others): it is “constituted” by this relationship; and this means that such a
totality is itself. Nonetheless, the fact remains that even though the parts of a being are
bound by an eternal and necessary relationship, none of them are the being itself (Severino
2011, 261–262).
Ultimately, the necessity that each being (including that being we call the appear-
ing of beings) should stand in relation to every other being (and to the totality of
beings) implies the necessity that every being eternally include – as we have
seen – the traces of all other beings:
In the appearing of the sound of rain, the trace appears of sunshine, the sky, the most dis-
tant galaxies [. . .] every other being. [. . .]. In the appearing of the most irrelevant part of
the Whole, the infinite traces of every other being appear (Severino 2001, 223–224).
Every being echoes with an infinite multiplicity of sounds, a kind of infinite sym-
phony: these are traces of the infinite totality of beings and hence also of the infi-
nite finite circles of appearing, and of the infinite unfolding of Glory itself: such
traces are necessarily present. And while within the finite horizon of appearing –
where the concreteness of beings appears in a processual way – the Infinite as
The Eternity of Every Being and the “Trace” 21](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28116690-250514141236-bbc8e534/85/Eternity-Between-Space-And-Time-From-Consciousness-To-The-Cosmos-1st-Edition-Ines-Testoni-35-320.jpg)
![such cannot appear (for the finite cannot become the always having been the infi-
nite appearing of the whole), the affirmation of the necessary existence of the Infi-
nite already constitutes a trace, in the finite, of that Infinite which is the appearing
of the concrete totality of the infinite (eternal) relationships of each being to every
other being and to this infinite totality of relationships.
References
Goggi, Giulio. 2019. “Golden Implication. The Primary Foundations of the Eternity of Being”. Eternity
and Contradiction, Sept. 2019: 43–56. https://ojs.pensamultimedia.it/index.php/eandc/issue/
view/206/56, last accessed 19 September 2023.
Goggi, Giulio. 2022. “The Identity and Eternity of Every Being”. Eternity and Contradiction, Dec. 2022:
80–99. https://ojs.pensamultimedia.it/index.php/eandc/issue/view/302/207, last accessed
19 September 2023.
Severino, Emanuele. 1981. La struttura originaria [The Originary Structure]. Milan: Adelphi [First Edition
(1958). Brescia: La Scuola].
Severino, Emanuele. 1995. Tautótēs [Identity]. Milan: Adelphi.
Severino, Emanuele. 2001. La Gloria [The Glory]. Milan: Adelphi.
Severino, Emanuele. 2005. Fondamento della contraddizione [Foundation of the Contradiction]. Milan:
Adelphi.
Severino, Emanuele. 2007. Oltrepassare [Passing Beyond]. Milan: Adelphi.
Severino, Emanuele. 2011. La morte e la terra [The Death and the Earth]. Milan: Adelphi.
Severino, Emanuele. 2015a. In viaggio con Leopardi. La partita sul destino dell’uomo [Traveling with
Leopardi. The Match on the Fate of Man]. Milan: Rizzoli.
Severino, Emanuele. 2015b. Dike [Justice]. Milan: Adelphi.
Severino, Emanuele. 2016a. The Essence of Nihilism. Edited by Ines Testoni and Alessandro Carrera.
Translated by G. Donis. London/New York: Verso [Originally published in Italian by Paideia as
Essenza del nichilismo (1972). Brescia: Paideia. Second Edition (1982). Milan: Adelphi].
Severino, Emanuele. 2016b. Storia, Gioia [History, Joy]. Milan: Adelphi.
Soncini, Umberto, and Munari, Tiziano. 1996. La totalità e il frammento. Neoparmenidismo e relatività
einsteiniana [The Totality and the Fragment. Neoparmenidism and Einsteinian Relativity]. Padua: Il
Poligrafo.
22 Giulio Goggi](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28116690-250514141236-bbc8e534/85/Eternity-Between-Space-And-Time-From-Consciousness-To-The-Cosmos-1st-Edition-Ines-Testoni-36-320.jpg)
![Damiano Sacco
Emanuele Severino. Sózein tà Phainómena
Abstract: The principle of ‘saving the phenomena’ appears to structure the his-
tory of physics as much as the history of philosophy or meta-physics. Emanuele
Severino’s singular philosophical contribution may be traced to an unprece-
dented answer to the meta-physical question of saving the phenomena: phenom-
ena do not need to be saved, Severino argues; they have always and already
saved themselves. Their having always and forever saved themselves consists, ac-
cording to Severino, in their eternity.
According to what we know from Simplicius, one of the earliest characterisations
of the aim of the enquiry of ‘physics’ may be attributed to Plato himself, and may
be condensed into the formula: sózein tà phainómena – to save the phenomena.
Strictly speaking, however, it is not ‘physicists’ (phusikoí) who aim to ‘save the
phenomena’, but ‘astronomers’ (astrológoi, or astronómoi). For, indeed, phusikoí
enquire into the nature and the essence of tà phusikà (i.e. into the nature or es-
sence of nature itself, phúsis) – thus carrying out an analysis that we would today
call ‘meta-physical’ – whereas the enquiry of astronómoi resembles our modern
science of physics. Astronómoi bear witness to the motion of the celestial bodies,
and attempt ‘to save what appears’: ‘to save the phenomena’. In his commentary
to Aristotle’s De Caelo, Simplicius writes: “The associates of Eudoxus and Callip-
pus and those up until Aristotle hypothesised counter-revolving spheres homo-
centric with the universe and tried to save the phenomena by means of them”
(Simplicius 2011, 65); “Astronomers [astronómoi] assume certain hypotheses and
save the phenomena, agreeing that all heavenly things move uniformly” (Simpli-
cius 2004, 80); “If it is possible to save the same things if the principles are hypoth-
esised to be finite and if they are hypothesised to be infinite, it is better, Aristotle
says, to take them to be finite (as also in mathematics) and as few as possible”
(Simplicius 2009a, 84). However, what does ‘saving the phenomena’ mean? Simpli-
cius writes:
Perhaps the Pythagoreans and Plato did not hypothesise that the construction from such
triangles was certainly like this in every respect, but rather they did so in the way that as-
tronomers make certain hypotheses, different ones making different hypotheses and not in-
sisting that the variegation in the heavens is certainly like this but that when principles of
this kind are hypothesised the phenomena can be saved [sózesthai tà phainómena] with all
the heavenly bodies moving in a circle in a uniform way (Simplicius 2009a, 39–40).
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111313610-003](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28116690-250514141236-bbc8e534/85/Eternity-Between-Space-And-Time-From-Consciousness-To-The-Cosmos-1st-Edition-Ines-Testoni-37-320.jpg)
![‘To save the phenomena’ thus means to put forth certain hypotheses (concerning,
for instance, the phenomenon of the motion of celestial bodies) that are consis-
tent with what actually appears. Through these hypotheses, the appearing of the
phenomena is ‘saved’ (sózesthai). Astronomers are able to save the appearance of
the retrograde motions of planets through specific hypotheses concerning their
uniform circular motions: that is to say, the appearing retrograde motions of
planets may be accounted for by a combination of uniform circular motions.
It may be argued that the history of physics unfolds according to the guiding
principle of sózein tà phainómena. In the modern era, Kepler’s hypothesis of an el-
liptic motion of planets appears to ‘save’ the motion of planets to a higher degree of
precision than the one afforded by the Aristotelian doctrine; Newton’s hypothesis
of a universal gravitational force appears to widen the scope of phenomena that
may be ‘saved’; Einstein’s hypothesis of a space-time manifold appears to be able to
save phenomena that could not be accounted for by Newton’s laws (and, in fact,
physics goes to a greater and greater length to produce and observe the very ap-
pearing of the phenomena that are to be saved).
The crucial remark to be made, however, is that – as Simplicius already
notes – the principle of ‘saving the phenomena’ does not only guide the enquiry of
physics (the enquiry of ‘astronomers’), but also the enquiry of those who enquire
into the nature and essence of tà phusiká (and, later, of tà metà tà phusiká): i.e.
philosophers.1
Duhem’s seminal ‘hypothesis’ (Duhem 1969), according to which the
principle of ‘saving the phenomena’ guides (at least part of) the history of physics
(a hypothesis devised precisely in order to save the appearing of the phenomenon
constituted by the ‘history of physics’) should thus come to be extended to include
the very history of philosophy or metaphysics (thus leading to the conclusion that
philosophy in the West has been but a physics). For, in the same way in which as-
tronomers or physicists put forth certain hypotheses concerning the planets that
are able to reproduce their appearing motions, ‘philosophers’ have, throughout the
history of the West, hypothesised different meta-physical realities that are able to
save the appearing of all phenomena (and that are meta-physical in that they are
not part of what immediately appear as part of the world of phúsis).2
“Plato makes clear that these things [namely, the figures of the Timaeus] are like the hypothe-
ses used by the astronomers with which, when they are hypothesised, it is possible to preserve
the phenomena” (Simplicius 2009b, 32).
As it will appear, the question of the relationship between what appears and the hypothesis
that saves it well exceeds every question of whether a distinction between what is real and what
appears exists for the Greeks, whether a distinction obtains between ontology and epistemology,
what the status of Plato’s ‘likely’ account in the Timaeus is, etc.
24 Damiano Sacco](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28116690-250514141236-bbc8e534/85/Eternity-Between-Space-And-Time-From-Consciousness-To-The-Cosmos-1st-Edition-Ines-Testoni-38-320.jpg)
![the most certain form of self-evidence of the West is becoming itself: the arising of
being from nothingness and their returning to it. If there exists an immutable
being, the very nothingness from which beings are believed to emerge, and into
which they are believed to disappear, would not be such: it would not be nothing.
Even nothingness itself, by being related to the immutable, would come to have a
content – it would not be the same nothingness that is unrelated to the immutable
(in Severino’s jargon, it would be ‘entified’ [entificato]). Once again, however, as
part of becoming, beings are believed to arise from pure nothingness; if nothing-
ness is entified through its relation with the immutable being, the most certain
form of self-evidence of becoming turns into an impossibility:
By anticipating the Meaning of the Whole, the immutable determines the Meaning to which
the nothingness from which things originate as part of becoming must conform. The immu-
table thus transforms nothingness into a heeding and observance of Being: that is to say, it
transforms nothingness into a being. What issues from nothingness, however, may not be
compelled to submit to the Meaning of what already exists: for, otherwise, what arises
would not be issuing from nothingness – i.e. from an absolute absence of meaning – but
from the Meaning of what already exists. [. . .] If there exists an immutable, there may not
exist any form of issuing from nothingness: that is to say, there may exist no becoming as it
has been conceived once and for all by Greek philosophy (Severino 1992, 114–115).9
The very will of human beings, which believes to be able to produce every being
(i.e. to bring it into being, according to the Greek meaning of poíesis: to pro-duce,
her-stellen, etc.) finds an insurmountable limit to its power. It is for this reason, ac-
cording to Severino, that the culture and civilisation of the West – having realised
that the immutable and metaphysical dimension that has been posited beyond the
manifest dimension of becoming and appearing turns the very appearing of becom-
ing, and of the power and becoming of the human will, into a manifest impossibil-
ity – proceed to destroy that very metaphysical dimension. The last two centuries
have borne witness to the destruction of every immutable dimension that would
limit the power of becoming and of the will.
(II.) The second stage of the history of philosophy (and, consequently, of the differ-
ent abstract sciences) coincides precisely with the endeavour to remove every im-
mutable obstacle that would hinder the becoming and the power of the will.
According to Severino, the apparatus of science and technics consists precisely in
the practical and theoretical realisation of the conditions for an indefinite increase
in the power of the will: an increase that may take place only insofar as every obsta-
cle (i.e. every immutable being that would exceed the dimension of becoming) has
been removed. According to Severino, the theoretical self-understanding of the sci-
A translation of Oltre il linguaggio into English is forthcoming.
28 Damiano Sacco](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28116690-250514141236-bbc8e534/85/Eternity-Between-Space-And-Time-From-Consciousness-To-The-Cosmos-1st-Edition-Ines-Testoni-42-320.jpg)
![When Plato affirmed, in the Timaeus, that time is “a moving image of eternity
according to number” (Plato 1888, 119),1
in giving such a definition of time, he at-
tributed the latter, as the content of appearing, to the Being of the cosmos. In turn
Aristotle, when in Book IV of Physics he defined time as “number of motion [that
is, of becoming] in respect of ‘before’ and ‘after’” (Aristotle 1984, 821), he was indi-
cating, albeit introducing a specific difference regarding the relationship between
becoming and time, the same “phenomenon” that Plato had looked at – the time
of Physis (Aristotle 1984, 827). Let us now consider a contemporary philosopher
like Henri Bergson. He believes that the time of which Plato and Aristotle speak,
is in reality the spatialized and mathematized time and not the time as an original
phenomenon, which he sees in “duration”.
I come now to the second question. Time as the content of appearing in Pla-
tonic thought was placed in relation to the immutable and eternal being of Ideas,
as its “moving image”. Going beyond Parmenides, but not against Parmenides, in
this relationship Plato sees the speculative condition for which the affirmation of
time no longer constitutes a denial of the truth of Being. Aristotle, on his part,
would have proceeded in a similar way. In fact, the definition of the nature of
time – of being “linked to movement”, but also of distinguishing oneself from it,
inasmuch as it is precisely its “measure” (Aristotle 1984, 818, 827) – constitutes
only the first moment of the Aristotelian treatment of time. The Stagirite does not
even on that aspect fundamentally departing from Plato, in Book VIII of Physics,
in order to ensure the permanence of the totality of time and movement, of
which time is numbering (and, therefore, to preserve the permanence of the uni-
verse), places them in the necessary relationship with the first immobile Mover:
that is, Aristotle places time and movement with what constitutes for him the di-
mension of immutable Being (Aristotle 1984, 949, 950–952). The main difference
between the two philosophers is that, while for Plato time is generated (Plato
1888, 121, 123), for Aristotle it is eternal, like becoming (Aristotle 1984, 922–923).
In this synthetic exposition, the role played by the soul in the Aristotelian con-
sideration of time could not emerge (Aristotle 1984, 832–833). However, I would like
here to highlight, on the one hand, what is the “phenomenon” in relation to which
the Greek conception of time is mainly characterized; and, on the other hand, the
inseparable relationship present in it between the “phenomenological” dimension
and the dimension of “speculation” in the treatment of time, which persists in sub-
sequent philosophical thought even when the concrete determination of the rela-
tionship of time with eternity will come to undergo variations.
Unless it’s stated otherwise, all translations are mine.
The Absolute Appearing of Eternity as the Original Meaning of Time 37](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28116690-250514141236-bbc8e534/85/Eternity-Between-Space-And-Time-From-Consciousness-To-The-Cosmos-1st-Edition-Ines-Testoni-51-320.jpg)
![This resolution of things into ideas, of phenomena into forms, of becoming into im-
mutable Being, of time into eternity entails, according to Bergson, nothing less than
the very fading away of things, phenomena, becoming, time. The philosophy of
“ideas”, covering things with its own view, is unable to restore them to us, but only
to conceal them. Instead, Bergson writes, “life is an evolution” (Bergson 1944, 328).
The error of metaphysical thought would therefore be analogous to the error
made by the common conscience. It would consist in concentrating “a period of
this evolution in a stable view which we call a form, and, when the change has
become considerable enough to overcome the fortunate inertia of our perception,
we say that the body has changed its form” (Bergson 1944, 328). In reality, for Berg-
son, it should not even be said that it is constantly, in every instant, that “the body
changes shape”, but rather that “there is no shape”. The form, in fact, is immobile,
while “the reality is movement” (Bergson 1944, 328), the reality is the process of be-
coming, it is changement (Bergson 1946, 153–185). Here, we can legitimately add: if,
for Bergson, the form is to the immutable, as the becoming is to the time, then for
him Being is time. It is not time that must be resolved in the immutable, in the eter-
nal Being, but it is Being that must be thought of as time.
This last expression, in Bergson’s perspective, means that thought does not hide
the fact, but is its authentic manifestation. It means that thought does not impose on
“phenomena” the “categories” of thought, but lets them be as they are. In other
words, it means that theory does not replace things, but rather is their manifesta-
tion. And what, then, is the “reason”? To such a question, Bergson replies as follows:
The reason is that there is more in the transition than the series of states, that is to say, the
possible cuts [practiced by intelligence within the continuous flow of becoming, AN] – more
in the movement than the series of positions, that is to say, the possible stops [equally oper-
ated by intelligence, AN] (Bergson 1944, 340–341).
This “more”, this irreducible excess that opposes the “resolution” of phenomena in
the immutable that is operated by metaphysics, is none other than “time”: time by
Parmenides immediately and absolutely denied; and time also, albeit, in a more
tenuous but no less effective way, denied by Plato and Aristotle. Within metaphysi-
cal thought – Bergson notes – extension and relaxation, space and time, “simply
manifest the gap between what is and what should be”: between degraded Being
and Being in its perfection. But the presumed “metaphysical” salvation of degraded
Being of what is in space and time, the presumed “metaphysical” salvation of the
world of becoming, turns out to be, instead, for Bergson the irredeemable loss of it.
Such a thought, that carries out that progressive work of cutting off the uni-
tary flow of becoming and time, is constituted in its canonically metaphysical
form when it reaches, on the one hand, to the “system of ideas, logically co-order
together or concentrated into one only” (Bergson 1944, 355); and, on the other, to
The Absolute Appearing of Eternity as the Original Meaning of Time 39](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28116690-250514141236-bbc8e534/85/Eternity-Between-Space-And-Time-From-Consciousness-To-The-Cosmos-1st-Edition-Ines-Testoni-53-320.jpg)
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- 7. Eternity Between Space and Time From Consciousness to the Cosmos Edited by Ines Testoni, Fabio Scardigli, Andrea Toniolo and Gabriele Gionti S.J.
- 8. ISBN 978-3-11-131284-2 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-131361-0 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-131408-2 Library of Congress Control Number: 2023950014 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: Valeriia Tretiakova/iStock/Getty Images Plus Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com
- 9. Contents Abbreviations IX Ines Testoni, Fabio Scardigli, Andrea Toniolo and Gabriele Gionti S.J. Introduction 1 First Part: What about Eternity? Giulio Goggi The Eternity of Every Being and the “Trace” of the Infinite in the Finite According to Emanuele Severino 11 Damiano Sacco Emanuele Severino. Sózein tà Phainómena 23 Leonardo Messinese The Absolute Appearing of Eternity as the Original Meaning of Time 35 Massimo Cacciari Note on the Dialogue between Severino and Vitiello 49 Roberto Tommasi Time, Eternity, Freedom in Kierkegaard, Heidegger and Ricœur 55 Second Part: The Eternity Concealed in the Cosmos and the Secrets of Consciousness Roger Penrose The Basic Ideas of Conformal Cyclic Cosmology 69 Gerard ’t Hooft How Studying Black Hole Theory May Help Us to Quantize Gravity 85 Fabio Scardigli Uncertainty Principle and Gravity 99
- 10. Gabriele Veneziano The Big Bang’s New Clothes and Eternity 111 Giacomo Mauro D’Ariano For a Science of Consciousness 127 Federico Faggin Freedom and Artificial Intelligence 137 Giuseppe Vitiello Brain, Mind, the Arrow of Time and Consciousness 149 Third Part: Eternity, Time and Faith Kurt Appel The Eighth Day. Biblical Time as Openness of Chronological Time 163 Andrea Toniolo Time, Revelation or Negation of the Eternal? The Modern Metaphor of the “Death of God” 173 Piero Benvenuti Cosmology and Cosmologhia: A Much Needed Distinction 181 Gabriele Gionti S.J. God and the Big Bang: Past and Modern Debates between Science and Theology 189 Alberto Peratoner “Qu’est-ce qu’un homme, dans l’infini?”. Eternity and Infinity in Blaise Pascal and in the 17th-Century Geometrizing Ontologies 201 Leopoldo Sandonà Eternity and Otherness from the Perspective of Dialogic Thinking. Inspirations and Contaminations in and from Romano Guardini, Franz Rosenzweig, and Nishida Kitarō 213 VI Contents
- 11. Fourth Part: Existential Corollaries Ilaria Malaguti Eternity, Instant, Duration. Tangere aeternum 225 Santo Di Nuovo Finitude and Project: For Which Space? And for What Time? 235 Diego De Leo The Last Waltz: Finitude, Loneliness and Exiting from Life 249 Luigi Grassi and Harvey M. Chochinov Beyond the Limits of Mental Illness: Dignity and Dignity Therapy in Person-Centered Psychiatry 257 Ines Testoni Beyond Alienation: Severino’s Removal of Pathological Contradiction 271 Names 285 Concepts 289 Contents VII
- 13. Abbreviations AI Artificial Intelligence BB Big Bang BS Breakdown of Symmetry CCC Conformal Cyclic Cosmology CCR Canonical Commutation Relations CDM Cold Dark Matter CERN Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire CMB Cosmic Microwave Background COBE Cosmic Background Explorer DDI Dilaton-Driven Inflation DT Dignity Therapy DWQ Dipole Wave Quanta EST Eternity between Space and Time FLRW Friedmann, Lemaître, Robertson and Walker GM Newton’s gravitational constant and mass of the object GR General Relativity GUP Generalized Uncertainty Principle GUT Grand Unified Theory HBB Hot Big Bang IAU International Astronomical Union IPPP Institutional Program on Psychiatry for the Person K Kelvin LED Light-Emitting Diode LHC Large Hadron Collider NG Nambu-Goldstone OPT Operational Probabilistic Theory PBB Pre Big Bang PDI Patient Dignity Inventory PEM Principle of the Excluded Middle PNC Principle of Non Contradiction PST Primary Structure of Truth QED Quantum Electrodynamics QFT Quantum Field Theory QIP Quantum Information-Based Panpsychism QM Quantum Mechanics RU Ricciardi and Umezawa SBS Spontaneous Breakdown of Symmetry SM Standard Model SMI Severe Mental Illness SR Special Relativity https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111313610-203
- 14. VSED Voluntary Stopping Eating and Drinking WCH Weyl Curvature Hypothesis WHO World Health Organization WPA World Psychiatric Association ΛCDM Lambda Cold Dark Matter X Abbreviations
- 15. Ines Testoni, Fabio Scardigli, Andrea Toniolo and Gabriele Gionti S.J. Introduction This book is titled Eternity between Space and Time: From Consciousness to the Cosmos. It is the outcome of three days of studies and discussions at an interna- tional conference held in May 2022 at the University of Padua during its 800th anniversary celebrations. Then, the title of the book is the same of the confer- ence.1 Eternity between Space and Time (EST) intends to challenge contemporary thought, untie a knot that bridles the entire history of human reflection and open up a new horizon of discussion about the relationship between infinite eternity and what appears finite, including consciousness. For over a century now, culture and academic research have established insurmountable boundaries between dif- ferent fields of knowledge – thanks to and because of an increasingly rigorous and specialised methodology that differentiates the specificity of the objects of study in terms of philosophy and theology on the one hand and the hard sciences and physics, in particular, on the other. Between the aforementioned categories remains a reflection on the human condition, which is pushed in different direc- tions at different times. Although the existence of contamination remains inevita- ble, such contaminations are not always highlighted. This book seeks to retrain the continuity of the same object of reflection and how it is the continuum within which any reasoning around the relationship between existence, reality and being gains its meaning even when the arguments seem strictly specialised and, therefore, incommensurable with respect to one another. In fact, the concept of eternity is challenging because it appears to be exactly what it does not appear to be. However, EST intends to highlight how this concept supports the most rigorous investigations. The discussion is divided into the follow- ing four parts that include contributions from the keynote speakers in Padua: (1) “What about Eternity?”, (2) “The Eternity Concealed in the Cosmos and the Secrets of Consciousness”, (3) “Eternity, Time and Faith” and (4) “Existential Corollaries”. The first part gets to the heart of the issue of ‘being’ and specifically how the whole question of what is and what is not arises in it, i.e. what language endowed with meaning indicates. The question concerns whether being may not be and ad- dresses the issue by referring to two metaphysical philosophers of contemporary thought, Emanuele Severino and Martin Heidegger, who have posed the question https://www.unipd.it/news/eternity-between-space-and-time-consciousness-cosmos-est, last ac- cessed 21 September 2023. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111313610-001
- 16. in a radical way. The connection between these two giant philosophers, who have reframed the importance of reflection on being by going back to the roots of Greek thought, had already been highlighted by the philosopher Massimo Cacciari on the occasion of the end of Severino’s university teaching, who declared that the philos- opher’s lesson is not only “equal to that of Heidegger”2 but also that there is an absolute opposition (aut/aut) between the two philosophers. The question was fur- ther considered in an international conference, “Heidegger nel pensiero di Sever- ino” (Heidegger in Severino’s Thought), held in Brescia in the year Severino himself passed away.3 These two thinkers represent a continuity while also maintaining a distance between substantial components of continental thought developing be- tween Germany and Italy. If Heidegger’s contribution remains widely disseminated internationally in a vehicular language, Severino’s contribution is beginning to be so through the translation of his three very significant works into English: The Es- sence of Nihilism (2015), Law and Chance (2023) and Beyond Language (2024). Therefore, the more exquisite philosophical part of EST intentionally comprises its reflection on being and its eternity within this framework. In particular, in the chapter “The Eternity of Every Being and the ‘Trace’ of the Infinite in the Finite ac- cording to Severino”, Giulio Goggi lays out the most specific feature of the fundamen- tal ontology developed by Severino: the thesis according to which every being, qua being, is eternal. Then, the chapter will dwell on the topic of the ‘trace’ of the infinite in the finite as every being is eternal and necessarily stands in relation to every other being; it is necessary for every being to somehow be present in every other being. In line with Goggi, Damiano Sacco’s essay titled “Emanuele Severino. Sózein tà Phainómena” introduces some key elements of Severino’s theoretical apparatus through a discussion of one of the key axes of the enquiries related to science and philosophy, which are epitomised by the tenet of saving (the appearing of) the phenomena (sózein tà phainómena). This standpoint affords an assessment of the radical and singular character of Severino’s reflection as part of which the truth and eternity of every being appear as the impossibility for the being and appear- ing of every being to not always be saved. In his article “The Absolute Appearing of Eternity as the Original Meaning of Time”, Leonardo Messinese traces a further continuity between Severinus and Bergson based on the foundation of Greek thought. The author seems to dwell on the trait that unites the Platonic and Aristotelian conception of time and then on the critical analysis done by Henry Bergson. Subsequently, he compares the Berg- Cacciari in Corriere Della sera and in La Repubblica (Cacciari 2001). The conference was held in Brescia on 13–15 June 2019. The proceedings, edited by Ines Testoni and Giulio Goggi, are available here: https://www.padovauniversitypress.it/it/publications/ 9788869381577. 2 Ines Testoni et al.
- 17. sonian reflections on time with those of Emanuele Severino to introduce the the- sis that the absolute appearing of eternity is the original meaning of time. In his article “Note on the Dialogue between Severino and Vitiello”, Massimo Cacciari relates Severino with another Italian thinker, Vincenzo Vitiello, who has long dealt with Heidegger’s thought and the entire continental tradition. The aforementioned comparison highlights some noteworthy basic ontological nodes. Finally, the contribution of Roberto Tommasi, “Time, Eternity, Freedom in Kier- kegaard, Heidegger and Ricoeur”, investigates the relationships between space, time, freedom and eternity in Kierkegaard, Heidegger and Ricoeur. From the per- spectives opened in this regard by the three thinkers emerges the aporetic oscilla- tion between cosmological, existential and historical conceptions of space-time. The second part of EST is titled “The Eternity Concealed in the Cosmos and the Secrets of Consciousness”, and contains essays dedicated to the aspects of space and time that are intertwined with Physics and Consciousness. In particular, the essays of ’t Hooft, Veneziano, and Penrose, explore the elusive concepts of time and eter- nity as they are conceived, on the one hand, in modern cosmological theories, and on the other, in those conceptual gymnasiums called black holes. In the latter, per- haps we begin to glimpse a profitable ‘mixing’, if not a unification, between the two great conceptual structures that still govern 21st-century physics, namely Quantum Theory and General Relativity. Scardigli’s essay also follows this path by exploring the mix of concepts between gravitation and quantum indeterminacy. Instead, the contributions of Vitiello, D’Ariano, and Faggin appear almost as a counterpoint to these writings. Using the conceptual tools of today’s theoretical physics, namely Quantum Information Theory, and Quantum Field Theory, the authors attempt an amazing exploration of the crucible where the very categories of space, time, reality and eternity are formed and built, i.e. (human) consciousness. These essays collec- tively provide the reader with ‘windows’ from which to glimpse unsuspected, per- haps astonishing panoramas that call for further journeys and explorations. In his essay on the “Basic Ideas of Conformal Cyclic Cosmology” (CCC), Roger Penrose4 illustrates his new vision (2005) of the cosmological theory. The CCC pro- poses that the universe undergoes repeated cycles of (accelerated) expansion, named ‘aeons’, where the maximal (or infinite) extension of the previous cycle goes to coincide with the Big Bang stage of the successive cycle. No contraction (big crunch) is required in this model. This is made possible through the confor- mal structure that dominates space-time at the beginning and at the end of each It is important to point out that Roger Penrose had a discussion with Emanuele Severino at the conference organised by Fabio Scardigli at the Cariplo Congress Center (Milan) on 12 May 2018. The outcomes of the meeting are collected in: Penrose et al. 2022. Introduction 3
- 18. aeon. The CCC solves the paradox of the super-special initial conditions required by the Second Law at the Big Bang, and among its observational consequences, predicts the presence of ‘circular rings’ in the temperature fluctuations of the Cos- mic Microwave Background spectrum. In Gerard ’t Hooft’s5 contribution titled “How Studying Black Hole Theory May Help Us to Quantize Gravity”, black holes, far from appearing cosmic monsters or astrophysical curiosities, are instead described as the appropriate theoretical arena in which the basic principles of General Relativity uniquely intertwine with those of Quantum Theory. Therefore, it becomes possible to have a glimpse into the key roles that quantum effects play in gravitational interactions at ultra-short scales. In his essay “Uncertainty Principle and Gravity”, Fabio Scardigli describes how the uncertainty principle, the cornerstone of quantum mechanics, should be modi- fied when gravity is properly taken into account. Among the many different physical predictions of this ‘Generalized Uncertainty Principle’, the possibility of considering black hole ‘remnants’ as sources of the enigmatic dark matter is briefly discussed. Gabriele Veneziano’s chapter “The Big Bang’s New Clothes and Eternity” de- scribes how the traditional role of the Big Bang is completely overturned in mod- ern inflationary cosmology: the Big Bang is the instant at which the Universe, after having been cooled down to zero temperature, suddenly ‘reheats’ through an irreversible quantum process. As a consequence, the Hot Big Bang is associ- ated with neither a singularity nor the beginning of time. It becomes therefore possible to enquire about whether time had a beginning, and how was the Uni- verse before the Big Bang. In his chapter “For a Science of Consciousness”, Giacomo Mauro D’Ariano fo- cuses on the topic of ‘consciousness’ or ‘awareness’. He wants to ground ‘con- sciousness’ on either a physics theory or a physics theory-like base in order to bring a certain ‘objectivity’ to it. He claims that consciousness has a quantum na- ture and can be explained with quantum (interior) information theory. At the base of consciousness, there are q-bits (quantum bits). However, this interior in- formation is subjective and cannot be transferred because the passage from inte- rior (quantum) information to exterior (classical) information destroys interior information. Interior experiences are processed as quantum information. They are identified by the author with the ‘qualia’ of the philosophy of mind. In his essay “Freedom and Artificial Intelligence”, Federico Faggin tells that, after a mystical experience, he arrived at the conclusion that our universe is It is important to emphasise that Gerard ’t Hooft had a discussion with Emanuele Severino at the conference organised by Fabio Scardigli at the Cariplo Congress Center (Milan, Italy) on 13 May 2017. The outcomes of the meeting are collected in: Scardigli et al. 2019. 4 Ines Testoni et al.
- 19. more than a materialistic reality as described by science. There exists the One, the totality of what exists. Consciousness and free will are part of the One and are described by a theory of quantum information. Consciousness is the inner space where signals from the external world are processed and become emotions, feel- ings and so forth. Free will is strictly connected to consciousness, it is the aware- ness that the experience I am having is my experience. In his chapter “Brain, Mind, the Arrow of Time and Consciousness”, Giuseppe Vitiello proposes to model the brain as a quantum field theory system. This sys- tem continuously interacts with its environment, and its functional activity is de- scribed by dissipative dynamics. The environment is described as a time-reversed copy of the brain called the Double. The act of consciousness inhabits the dialogue between the brain and its Double. The third part, titled “Eternity, Time and Faith”, is about theological–religious reflection.6 In particular, it makes the biblical–Christian conception of time interact with the visions of time and reality proper to science and to modern and contempo- rary philosophy. The classical conception of physical-mechanical time has led to thinking of temporality (the condition of ‘being in time’) as a limit to be overcome and reach eternity (a condition in the future). According to this perspective, the meaning of human existence, subjected to time and the limits of transience and fi- niteness, emerges insufficiently. The understanding of temporality as becoming and limiting, as a lack of consistency and permanence, and therefore non-being, has negatively conditioned the very idea of revelation, or the way in which exis- tence relates to the transcendent or hierophany – the manifestation of the sacred in human experience. The biblical resumption of time as an opening and place of revelation makes it possible to reshape the debate between science and faith (with- out confusion and separation) and to think of finiteness in close relationship with eternity and otherness as the revelation of the eternal. Kurt Appel’s contribution, “The Eighth Day. Biblical Time as Openness of Chronological Time” begins with the biblical creation story built according to a temporal narration. The seventh, or rather the eighth, day inscribes an openness It is important to mention that there is ongoing work on the possibility of resuming the theo- logical and theoretical discussion of Emanuele Severino’s thought and Christian thought. The congress and this volume are part of this type of reflection that has been ongoing for some years now among scholars of theology and philosophy. We particularly highlight a webinar held on 24 June 2021, from 9.00 a.m. to 1.30 p.m. titled Cristianesimo e Emanuele Severino. Quali possibilità di confronto? Approcci filosofici e teologici (Christianism and Emanuele Severino. Which possibili- ties for comparison? Philosophical and theological approaches), the results of which are collected in a volume with the same title edited by Andrea Toniolo and Ines Testoni “Cristianesimo e Ema- nuele Severino. Quali possibilità di confronto? approcci filosofici e teologici” Padova University Press, available at: https://www.padovauniversitypress.it/it/publications/9788869382819. Introduction 5
- 20. in time that eludes all functionalisation. The eschaton (the seventh day) is the transition into the radical openness of time. In his “The Time, Revelation or Negation of the Eternal? The Modern Meta- phor of the ‘Death of God’”, Andrea Toniolo suggests that before the modern phys- ical ‘revolution’ on the conception of time/space, it was the modern theological (and philosophical) thought that threw the ‘classical’ view of time and history into crisis. This crisis is emblematically expressed by the metaphor of ‘the death of God’ (Nietzsche, Hegel and Jüngel). Piero Benvenuti’s chapter “Cosmology and Cosmologhia: A Much Needed Dis- tinction” distinguishes, without separating, between the scientific models of cosmic evolution (cosmology) and the possible global cosmological models (cosmologhia). These models are anchored in scientific models; however, they differ by the choice of solution of the stumbling blocks encountered by scientific methods. They can be represented by the multiverse hypothesis, the cyclical universe or other philosophi- cal or theological hypotheses. In his “God and the Big Bang: Past and Modern Debates between Science and Theology”, Gabriele Gionti introduces the contemporary view on the birth (Big Bang) and evolution of our universe as well as the Hartle-Hawking model of quantum cosmology. He presents two models of the relationship between science and theology (and Church teaching) that occurred in history: (1) the ‘concordist’ view, since Big Bang theory appeared quite in agreement with Christian doctrine of creation and (2) the ‘complementary magisterial’ view, in which we distinguish between the scientific and theological planes as two parallel ‘lines’. To avoid con- fusion, it is necessary to regain a good conception of the doctrine of creation. Alberto Peratoner’s contribution titled “‘Qu’est-ce qu’un homme, dans l’in- fini?’ Eternity and Infinity in Blaise Pascal and in the 17th-Century Geometrizing Ontologies” re-proposes the suggestive anthropological reflection of Pascal, who derives the human consciousness of his own condition from the géométrie, i.e. from the concept of infinity as a representation of reality that shows his condition as suspended between infinity and nothingness. Finally, Leopoldo Sandonà, in his “Eternity and Otherness from the Perspective of Dialogic Thinking. Inspirations and Contaminations in and from Romano Guar- dini, Franz Rosenzweig and Nishida Kitarō”, approaches the relation between time and eternity from the innovative perspective of dialogic thought, crossing contem- porary philosophy and theology with Jewish and Christian thinking. The eternity is not a concept but a relation, as Rosenzweig says, “the ‘us’ are eternal”. The fourth part titled “Existential Corollaries” intends to reach the existential dimension of the human being, who thinks of eternity and totality in its ontologi- cal, physical and theological infinity and then finds himself having to come to terms with his own condition of finitude, searching for the arguments that can 6 Ines Testoni et al.
- 21. restore a substantial value and give meaning to life lived in experiencing differ- ent forms of pain and fatigue with which madness announces itself. In her “Eternity, Instant, Duration. Tangere aeternum”, Ilaria Malaguti considers how the centre of human existence, the actuality of the ego with itself, is enclosed in the intertwining of chronos and kairos. In our temporal and chronological experi- ence, can we think of kairos as the instant in which we are offered the possibility of a tangere aeternum? Can we think of the moment starting from an interiority that does not withdraw into itself but becomes attentive and rises in intimate contact with the eternal? Santo Di Nuovo’s chapter titled “Finitude and Project: For Which Space? And for What Time?” reviews the challenges of finitude to philosophies, religions and sciences and reports the transhumanistic claim for artificially simulating an im- mortal consciousness. Based on some phenomenological suggestions and Edgar Morin’s concepts of world citizenship and ‘reliance’, it presents some hypotheses for implementing a shared project of transcendence to begin in our present world. Diego De Leo’s chapter, titled “The Last Waltz: Finitude, Loneliness and Exiting from Life”, discusses how the instrumentalist culture of modern society seems to have difficulty in dealing with the idea of life destined to end. Death seems to be considered for only old people. This chapter describes the problematic confronta- tion with finitude and unwanted travel companions in the course of life, such as loneliness, depression and suicidal ideation – conditions that make one wish for a different culture of death but, above all, a different preparation for life. In their chapter “Beyond the Limits of Mental Illness: Dignity and Dignity Therapy in Person-Centred Psychiatry”, Luigi Grassi and Harvey M. Chochinov consider how person-centred psychiatry and dignity-conserving care, including dignity therapy, should be practised in all mental health care settings to reduce the alienation, loss of identity, stigma and psychological, interpersonal, spiritual and existential suffering that people with psychiatric disorders have to face. With her chapter “Beyond Alienation: Severino’s Removal of Pathological Contradiction”, Ines Testoni concludes the entire volume by bringing the whole discussion back to the opening discourse, that is to the Severinian ontological di- mension that indicates the necessity of eternity. The substantial aim of this contri- bution is to highlight the inability to think of the eternal, i.e. how thought is still immersed in the radical madness of nihilism that consists precisely in thinking that being as becoming is nothing. Introduction 7
- 22. References Cacciari, Massimo. 2001. “La sua lezione è pari a quella di Heidegger [His Lesson Is Equal to That of Heidegger]”. La Repubblica, 22 February. https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/re pubblica/2001/02/22/la-sua-lezione-pari-quella-di-heidegger.html, last accessed 21 September 2023. Penrose, Roger, Emanuele Severino, Fabio Scardigli, Ines Testoni, Giuseppe Vitiello, Giacomo Mauro D’Ariano, and Federico Faggin. 2022. Artificial Intelligence versus Natural Intelligence. Cham: Springer International. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-85480-5, last accessed 21 September 2023. Scardigli, Fabio, Gerard ’t Hooft, Emanuele Severino, and Piero Coda. 2019. Determinism and Free Will”. Cham: Springer International. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-05505-9, last accessed 21 September 2023. Severino, Emanuele. 2015. The Essence of Nihilism. Edited by Alessandro Carrera and Ines Testoni. New York/London: Verso [original: Essenza del nichilismo, Milan: Adelphi, 1982]. Severino, Emanuele. 2023. Law and Chance. Translated by Damiano Sacco and edited by Ines Testoni and Giulio Goggi. London/New York: Bloomsbury [original: Legge e caso, Milan: Adelphi, 1979]. Severino, Emanuele. 2024. Beyond Language. Translated by Damiano Sacco and edited by Ines Testoni and Giulio Goggi. London/New York: Bloomsbury [original: Oltre il linguaggio, Milan: Adelphi, 1992]. 8 Ines Testoni et al.
- 23. First Part: What about Eternity?
- 25. Giulio Goggi The Eternity of Every Being and the “Trace” of the Infinite in the Finite According to Emanuele Severino Abstract: In this article I will lay out the most specific feature of the ontology de- veloped by philosopher Emanuele Severino: the thesis according to which every being, qua being, is eternal – a thesis founded on the indisputable appearing of being in the form of identity/non-contradiction. We shall see that the eternity of every being does not make the changing of beings illusory. Ultimately, the same foundation also underlies the inequality between what presently appears and the totality of beings, which Severino calls infinite appearing. I will then dwell on the topic of the “trace” of the Infinite in the finite: as each being necessarily stands in relation to every other being, it is necessary for each finite being to somehow in- clude the totality of its “other”. 1 Introduction First of all, a terminological clarification is in order: what Severino means by “being” is anything that is not-nothing, e.g. a particular desk lamp, its ideal es- sence, the current state of the universe, the most fleeting of thoughts. The “being” of each of these determinations/differences signifies their not-being-nothing: That something “is” means primarily that it is not a Nothing, i.e., that it manages to keep to itself without dissolving into nothingness. And, in general, the plurality of modes of exis- tence is nothing other than a plurality of the modes of not being nothing; so that the plural- ity of determinations or differences of Being is itself nothing other than the plurality of modes of existence, and any single determination is a unique mode of existence (Severino 2016a, 85–86).1 The thesis we will now be exploring runs as follows: it is impossible for anything that is, i.e. anything that is not-nothing, not to be, which is to say that it must nec- essarily be eternal. Here I will provide only an essential outline of the topic in question, and refer the reader to other publications for a broader discussion Except for passages taken from Essenza del Nihilismo (The Essence of Nihilism, Verso 2016), the translations of excerpts quoted from other works by Severino are mine. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111313610-002
- 26. (Goggi 2019; 2022). Finally, I will touch upon the singular meaning of time implied by the eternity of every being, as well as some significant implications concerning the relationship between the finite and the Infinite. 2 The Eternity of Every Being 1. To think that any given being could not have existed and that it could cease to exist is to envisage a time in which this given being (this not-nothing) is nothing, absolutely nothing. But since it is impossible for the non-identical to be identical, not only is it impossible for nothingness to belong to any being when (i.e. for as long as) that particular being exists, but it is absolutely impossible for nothing to belong to it. The foundation of the thesis of the eternity of every being qua being is the necessity that each being be self-identical, i.e. the impossibility that any given being be other than itself: since the identification of non-identical meanings is absurd, and since what is absurd is what cannot be, it is impossible for any being not to be. And this means that every being, qua being, is eternal. 2. Severino puts it as follows: the law of being is the law of the opposition between the positive and the negative. Note that what he means by “positive” is every being, every not-nothing, whereas by “negative” he means anything that is “other” with respect to the positive under consideration. For instance, if we take “this lamp”, its negative is not only any other positive which is not “this lamp”: what is also other than “this lamp” is “nothing” – not in the sense that “nothing”, i.e. the absolute absence of any positiveness, is in itself something, a being, but in the sense that “this lamp” is not nothing. Now, the need to affirm the opposition between the positive and the negative involves the affirmation of the eternity of every being because it involves that specific opposition between the positive and the negative that consists precisely in this, namely that every being is not nothing: It is necessary to affirm that every being is eternal, because eternity is one opposition be- tween the positive and the negative (it is that opposition by which the positive, any given being, is not nothing), which is to say that it is a form, a specific mode of that – the universal opposition between the positive and the negative, the universal determination of the being – the negation of which coincides with self-negation. The necessity of affirming the opposition between the positive and the negative [which is inclusive of every specific form of this opposition] necessarily implies the affirmation of that specific opposition between the positive and the negative which is the eternity of every being (Severino 1995, 243–244). Severino has called this “the golden implication”, on account of its remarkable significance. It should be noted that in claiming that everything is eternal, we are not saying that everything exists according to a particular mode of being, for ex- 12 Giulio Goggi
- 27. ample the mode in which spatio-temporal beings exist; rather, we are saying that every not-nothing is eternal, that is every mode of being (whether it be spatio- temporal, ideal, fictional, obscure . . .). Therefore, it is necessary to state that every being, i.e. every meaningful being, is not nothing and that it is impossible for it to become nothing or to have been nothing, since this becoming nothing and having been nothing implies the contradictory identification of non-identical meanings. 3 The Indisputability of the Opposition between the Positive and the Negative 1. Leibniz wondered why something exists, rather than nothing. This has gone down in the history of philosophy as the “fundamental metaphysical question”. But according to Severino this question leaves open the contradictory assumption that something (i.e. beings) could not exist, whereas beings do exist, for it would be contradictory for them not to. 2. If it is crucial to envisage the eternity of every being, founded on the necessity that each being be self-identical and other from what is other than itself, what is equally crucial is to show that this opposition between the positive and the negative is undeniable. Severino proves it via “refutation”, by developing – arguably like no other philosopher before him – the elenchtic strategy that Aristotle has laid out in Metaphysics, Book IV. I will sum it up as follows: the negation of the difference of differents, however it presents itself, presupposes the appearing of the difference of differents; for if differents did not appear as differents, no negation of difference would emerge; but this means that, in negating the difference of differents, this ne- gation negates its own foundation, i.e. what constitutes it (namely, what enables it to exist as a negation), and hence negates itself. Severino writes: In order to have a real negation of the opposition (and not merely an apparent one), it is necessary that the positive and the negative should first be posited as different (and so as opposites), and that one then posit the identity of the differents, i.e., that the differents qua differents are identical. As long as the differents are not seen as different, they must un- questionably be said to be identical; but if they are seen as different, and if, indeed, they must be held fast as different, in order that the affirmation of their identity may be negation of the opposition of the positive and the negative, then this negation is grounded upon the affirmation of what it denies; and, this time, it is no longer grounded upon the affirmation of only a part of what it denies, but rather upon the whole content that is denied. Conse- quently, the negation is negation of that without which it cannot constitute itself as nega- The Eternity of Every Being and the “Trace” 13
- 28. tion, and so is negation of itself; it is a quitting the scene of the word and of thought, a de- claring its own nonexistence and its own meaninglessness (Severino 2016a, 69–70). The negation of the difference of differents removes itself, and it is precisely this essential self-removal that makes it necessary for every being to show itself in the form of identity/non-contradiction, which implies the affirmation of the eternity of being as such. 4 The Singular Meaning of Becoming and Time 1. If the existence of time implies the existence of a “before” and an “after”, and if “before” and “after” are understood as the fluctuating of things between being and non-being, then time is non-existent: what exists is the belief that time exists, but this is “the time of the absurd” (Severino 2016a, 88), something that cannot exist and which therefore cannot be attested by experience. Let me better explain this point. 2. A body burns and is replaced by ash. What is it that appears to someone wit- nessing this process? Does it appear that the body has become nothing? Does its annihilation appear? Severino writes: After the fire, ashes; which means: when the fire no longer appears, ashes appear. But that something that no longer appears no longer is – this is not manifest in Appearing. On the contrary – it is interpreted on the basis of the way in which something appears and disap- pears. When something appears that has never appeared before, one says that it has been born and that previously it was a Nothing; when something disappears and does not return, one says that it has died and become a Nothing. And men have learned that when some- thing appears in a certain way, it has never appeared before; and when it disappears in a certain way, it will not return (Severino 2016a, 109). Science says that the amount of matter in the universe remains constant, even though it takes different forms: the energy currently found in the universe was already present at the time of the Big Bang, but it was concentrated in a tiny vol- ume. Let us consider the process whereby wood turns to ash and ask ourselves: “Before the ash was produced, did it already exist? And once the wood turns to ash, will it continue to exist?” Well, insofar as the wood and the ash are a certain amount of energy, they do not become nothing and do not emerge out of nothing. But what happens to the wood qua wood – i.e. to that specific form we call wood – when it turns to ash? And what about the ash qua ash – i.e. that specific form we call ash – before it is produced? Science and the whole of Western thought tell us that the wood (qua wood) no longer exists when it turns to ash 14 Giulio Goggi
- 29. and that the ash (qua ash) did not exist yet before it was produced: if this were not the case, there would not be any becoming. But are things really so? Consider, first of all, the fact that appearing does not reveal this “no longer existing” and “not existing yet” in any way: When the wood (qua wood) has becoming nothing, does it continue to be observable, expe- rienceable, ascertainable? [. . .] Certainly, if one believes that things become nothing, one must believe that insofar as they become nothing, they are no longer observable, experi- enceable, ascertainable as they were before. [. . .] To experience is to experience an exis- tent: it is impossible to experience what is now nothing (Severino 2015a, 188–190). A similar argument must be made for ash: if one believes that the ash (qua ash) was nothing before it was produced, then, insofar as it was nothing, it could not be part of the totality of what is experienced: for one cannot experience nothing- ness. But this means, precisely, that it is impossible for experience to say anything about the fate of that which is believed to have gone into nothingness or to still be nothing. Certainly, there are certain modes of becoming in relation to which man has convinced himself that certain things have emerged out of nothingness and will return to nothingness: In relation to many things, including many that are dear to him, [man] experiences that, when they no longer show themselves with the traits they used to display, they no longer return. [. . .]. And [it happens that] in relation to those things that are born one goes so far as to say that they have emerged out of nothing, because they have never been seen before: as if someone who witnesses this birth had the capacity to experience the infinite times past [. . .], and thus to discern that what was “born” in them just wasn’t there, never has been there, i.e. was nothing (Severino 2015a, 191–192). But since it is impossible to experience nothingness, and hence to experience an- nihilation, stating that things are born and die, that they are generated and per- ish, is an interpretation which alters what genuinely appears: This means that becoming other is the content of a theory established on the basis of the delusion caused by the non-return of what no longer appears (but what human being has ever experienced the infinity of future times [. . .] so as to be able to claim that what has faded will never return?) (Severino 2015a, 192). But what, then, is that which genuinely appears? If (and because) every being is eternal, the varying of things and situations we experience cannot coincide with the coming to be or ceasing to be of beings; rather, it must be the supervening of eternal beings within the eternal horizon of appearing: The Eternity of Every Being and the “Trace” 15
- 30. The Becoming that appears is not the birth and the death of Being, but rather its appearing and disappearing. Becoming is the process of the revelation of the immutable (Severino 2016a, 111–112). Not even that appearing which begins to appear and ceases to appear can be something that begins to be and ceases to be: when something appears, its ap- pearing necessarily appears (for otherwise what would appear would be some- thing that does not appear). It follows that when something begins to appear, its beginning to appear also begins to appear: within the total horizon of appearing – what Severino calls “transcendental appearing” – the appearing of something be- gins to appear (not: begins to be!); and when something ceases to appear, from the total horizon of appearing the same appearing of something ceases to appear (not: ceases to be!). Becoming occurs when eternal beings (and their eternal ap- pearing) enter or exit the stable transcendental dimension of appearing; however, the supervening of this dimension and its departing from appearing cannot “ap- pear”: for the appearing of becoming is only possible if this appearing is not be- coming, but rather the unchanging background that encompasses the totality of time, which is to say every “before” and “after” that begin to appear. 3. As it is necessary for what begins or ceases to appear to also be before it begins to appear and after it ceases to appear – for every being is eternal – we will say that present beings are eternal, but so are past and future ones: This day is (eternal), even when what now appears as the past was the present and when what now appears as the future will be the present; in turn, past and future beings are (eter- nal), in the concreteness that pertains to them when they have been and will be the present, even when this day appears. If this concreteness of theirs differs from what appears of them when this day appears [. . .] this means that, in the past and future appearing together with this day, this concreteness of theirs has (respectively) disappeared and not yet ap- peared (Severino 2015b, 139). In Italy some scholars (Soncini and Munari 1996) have sought to compare the “Parmenidean” Einstein to Severino and the thesis of the eternity of every being. As is widely known, Einstein’s special theory of relativity leads to the remarkable conclusion that all things within space-time – things past, present, and future – are eternal. However, Severino himself noted that the necessity that his writings bring into play is something essentially different from the hypothetical-deductive logic underlying scientific demonstrations. As we have seen, the eternity of every being qua being is a specification of the impossibility for anything (i.e. any being) to be other than itself. Severino speaks of the “originary structure” of knowledge to refer to this fundamental and indisputable appearing of every being’s self- identity, which is far from hypothetical and implies the eternity of every being: 16 Giulio Goggi
- 31. not just the eternity of those beings that belong to the space-time dimension, but also the eternity of the non-spatial dimension of every being. What is eternal is not only every configuration of the world, but also every state of consciousness, every emotion, and every concept. Furthermore, according to Einstein – as for Parmenides before him – the experience of change is illusory because it shows beings passing from non-being into being: in his famous Letter to the Family of Michele Besso, Einstein wrote that “the distinction between past, present, and fu- ture is only a stubbornly persistent illusion”. According to Severino, by contrast, experience attests to variation, but not to the transition from non-being; hence, it is not at all illusory, and nor is time, understood as the supervening of eternals, their appearing and disappearing within the everlasting horizon of appearing: Every being is at all times, in the sense that although it does not appear at all times, it coex- ists with what progressively appears in time, which is to say at all times (Severino 2015b, 140). Severino is the philosopher of the eternity of every being, but he is also the phi- losopher of time understood as the coming forth of eternals. He has called this coming forth of eternals “Glory”, showing that it is destined to continue forever. And since every being is eternal, every being “is” even before its appearing, and continues to “be” even after it has disappeared. So the totality of what presently appears cannot be the dimension of the totality of beings, which leaves nothing outside itself. Severino calls it “infinite appearing”, pointing out that a totality which did not appear to itself (i.e. that lacked its appearing) would not be the to- tality of all beings. 5 The “Glory” of Every Being 1. The originary structure of being is the essential predicate of every being. It rep- resents a set of interrelated meanings (being, nothingness, appearing, identity, difference . . .) that is untranscendable, in the sense that it constitutes what lies in the background of all appearing: no being could appear if it did not appear as what is identical to itself and other from what is other with respect to it. Now, any supervening thing that were untranscendable – just as the background of all appearing is untranscendable – would be something that (insofar as it is super- vening) begins to be united necessarily with the determinations of the back- ground. But this beginning to be implies the absurd, i.e. the (initial) nullity of that being in which this union consists. Therefore, it is impossible for any supervening thing to interrupt the spectacle of the supervening of eternals: The Eternity of Every Being and the “Trace” 17
- 32. an untranscendable supervening thing is impossible and self-contradictory, insofar as it im- plies the nullity of being (and, strictly speaking, implies the nullity of itself [. . .]). Therefore, any supervening thing is necessarily transcended; and since any transcending thing is a su- pervening one, it is necessary for the supervening [of beings] to unfold infinitely (Severino 2007, 237). The fundamental meaning of this Glory – which is ultimately “the genuine mean- ing of time” (Severino 2007, 205) – is the infinite unfolding of beings within the finite circle of appearing; and since the beings destined to supervene are infinite, so must be the beings destined not to supervene. The totality of this content must belong to the infinite appearing of beings, which is infinite insofar as nothing ap- pears beyond it and the beings appearing within it are infinite. 2. The Glory theorem – i.e. the claim that it is impossible for what supervenes in the originary circle of appearing to be something untranscendable – also implies the existence of an infinite multiplicity of finite circles of appearing. Indeed, the actuality of the supervenient (i.e. the actual appearing of what supervenes in the transcendental horizon of appearing) is itself something which supervenes, and hence cannot be untranscendable either. In this case, what we have is the neces- sary transcending of the actual appearing that pertains to that which supervenes, insofar as it appears within the originary circle of appearing; and this transcend- ing can only be the supervening of beings within a different dimension of actual- ity from that which pertains to the originary circle of appearing: This different and transcending actuality, in other words, supervenes in another circle of finite appearing (Severino 2001, 172). And since the appearing of what supervenes in this second circle is itself superve- nient, it must be argued that it too is transcended by what supervenes in a third circle, and so on, in indefinitum. What are infinite, therefore, are the finite circles of appearing: those dimensions within which the originary structure of the truth of being has always shown itself (and will always show itself), i.e. the appearing of the being-itself of every being and its implications. 3. In relation to infinite appearing (which is the dimension of the totality of beings) there is no supervening or disappearing, in the sense that nothing enters or exits it. But this does not disprove the totality of the supervening that appears in the infinite finite circles of appearing. It may be argued, instead, that within infinite appearing that supervening appears in the totality of its unfolding: within it something eternal appears, namely the infinite unfolding of those beings des- tined to make their way into the infinite finite circles of appearing and much more besides – infinitely more. This has nothing to do with any kind of theologi- cal transcendence: Augustine, Aquinas, and any creationist perspective are over- 18 Giulio Goggi
- 33. come. The finite which appears in infinite appearing is that finite which appears here and now: in finite appearing it shows itself in an abstract way, whereas infi- nite appearing is the very totality of the positive in its semantic concreteness; therefore, it coincides with the surpassing of the finite and hence too of finite ap- pearing (and of the totality of the contradictions of the finite), where being ap- pears in a processual way. 6 The “Trace” of the Infinite in the Finite 1. The finite is a contradiction not because, as Hegel assumed, it becomes other than itself (for “becoming other” is impossible), but rather because it necessarily stands in relation to every other being and to the totality of beings, which do not appear in their concreteness. We have seen how the originary structure of knowl- edge is also a finite horizon: Since [the] originary [meaning] is and means what it is and means only in its connection with the All [. . .], in the isolation of the originary from the All (i.e. in the non-manifesting itself of the All in the originary), the originary is not the originary (Severino 1981, 73). The contradiction of the finite is determined by the abstractness of its position – whereby what is posited is not what one intends to posit – whose removal is given not by the negation of its content, but by the concrete manifestation of the All, which is precisely the appearing of the totality of beings. Bearing in mind the conclusion we have reached through the Glory theorem – namely, the need for supervening beings to unfold infinitely, by supervening within the transcendental horizon of appearing – we may argue that the transcending of the contradiction of the finite is an infinite journey, an indefinite expanding of the finite circle, such that the contradiction of the finite, qua finite, infinitely endures in its being infinitely transcended (Severino 2005, 89). It may thus be argued that infinite appearing coincides with the eternal tran- scending of the totality of the contradictions of the finite. Every being therefore belongs to the totality of beings, as does the infinite unfolding of beings destined to supervene in the infinite finite circles of appearing. We shall now see in what sense it is necessary to argue that in every being the infinite totality of beings appears: not only in the generic sense whereby we say that the appearing of X is the appearing of its being other with respect to all that is other than X – so that The Eternity of Every Being and the “Trace” 19
- 34. the analysis of X generically reveals the formal meaning of the whole – but also in a far more specific sense. 2. As every being is eternal, each being necessarily stands in relation to every other being; and since this relation is necessary, it is necessary for every being to be present in each individual being. Let X and Y be two beings: if X in no way appeared in Y (and if Y in no way appeared in X), there would be no relationship between X and Y, whereas the eternity of every being implies that X and Y are necessarily related each other (and to every other being). And if there was no re- lationship between X and Y, then neither X would be other than Y, nor Y would be other than X, i.e. neither X nor Y would be themselves. But how is X present in what is other than X? First of all, Severino notes that this presence is possible in- sofar as what is present is not the other in its concrete determinateness: It is necessary that any being X – in and in relation to its concrete determinateness – be nothing in any other being Y, and that the concrete determinateness of Y (i.e. of any other being) be nothing in X. The concrete determinateness of X in Y is nothing. [. . .] In other words, it is necessary that something in X be nothing in Y and vice-versa: for otherwise X would be Y (Severino 2015b, 142). In Y the “abstract form” of what is other than Y will thus be present (likewise, the “abstract form” of what is other than X will be present in X). And the abstract form of X, which is present in Y, is not separate from the concreteness of X [. . .]; in fact, it is the ‘representative’, the ‘spokes- man’ of that concreteness (Severino 2016b, 181). Severino calls this presence “trace” and argues that it is a kind of inclusion: X, as the trace of X, is present in Y, and this is not a contradiction only insofar as X is present as what is negated, given that Y is not (i.e. does not mean) what is other than itself. In every being we must therefore distinguish between its concrete part (whereby it differs from its other) and its abstract part, which is precisely the presence in it – as what is negated – of the abstract form of its other: The fact that X, qua X, is present, in Y, as what is negated means [. . .] that X qua X, in Y, is nothing; but the fact that the abstract form of X is present, in Y, as what is negated does not mean that, in Y, it is nothing; rather, it means that Y is, in itself, the negation of this form, which in turn is a being. This means that, given the abstract form X’s belonging to Y, the negation of this form (the fact of not being identical to this form) is not proper to Y qua Y, but rather to that part of Y that is not such a form (but it is proper to Y insofar as it includes such a part): it is that concrete part of Y which, being itself, is the negation of all that in Y is the abstract form of all that is not Y. The abstract form is the abstract part of Y. It is by virtue of its concrete part that Y is Y. If this concrete part did not exist, what would exist would not be Y, but the abstract form of all that is not Y (Severino 2016b, 189–190). 20 Giulio Goggi
- 35. In those cases in which the relationship between X and Y is such that X is part of Y not only because there is a necessary relationship between X and Y, but also because X and Y are configured in a certain way – e.g. when X is “this lamp” and Y is the totality of beings of which “this lamp” is part – the concrete determinate- ness of X is also contained in Y, without thereby disproving what has previously been argued: The part exists in the whole, as that whose existence is affirmed; yet, the part is not the whole and therefore in some sense, or according to some aspect, “being a part” is nothing in “being the whole” and vice-versa; and the abstract form of “being a part” is – as what is negated – in “being the whole”. “And vice-versa”, meaning: just as the whole includes – as what is negated – the abstract form of the part, so the part includes – as what is negated – the abstract form of the whole (Severino 2015b, 146). Moreover, if it is true that each being is made up of its (concrete and abstract) parts, and that none of a being’s parts is the being itself, it is equally true that no being can be reduced to the sum of its parts isolated from each other. What makes a being a “totality” is the relationship between its parts, and since every being is eternal, what is also eternal (and hence necessary) is the relationship be- tween its parts: Every totality [“not just those totalities that are in turn parts but also totality simpliciter, which is not a part of anything”] is the unity and relationship between its parts. [. . .]. But a totality is not the mere set – the mere “sum” – of its parts, for a totality is the eternal and necessary relationship between them (a specific relationship, which distinguishes each to- tality from all others): it is “constituted” by this relationship; and this means that such a totality is itself. Nonetheless, the fact remains that even though the parts of a being are bound by an eternal and necessary relationship, none of them are the being itself (Severino 2011, 261–262). Ultimately, the necessity that each being (including that being we call the appear- ing of beings) should stand in relation to every other being (and to the totality of beings) implies the necessity that every being eternally include – as we have seen – the traces of all other beings: In the appearing of the sound of rain, the trace appears of sunshine, the sky, the most dis- tant galaxies [. . .] every other being. [. . .]. In the appearing of the most irrelevant part of the Whole, the infinite traces of every other being appear (Severino 2001, 223–224). Every being echoes with an infinite multiplicity of sounds, a kind of infinite sym- phony: these are traces of the infinite totality of beings and hence also of the infi- nite finite circles of appearing, and of the infinite unfolding of Glory itself: such traces are necessarily present. And while within the finite horizon of appearing – where the concreteness of beings appears in a processual way – the Infinite as The Eternity of Every Being and the “Trace” 21
- 36. such cannot appear (for the finite cannot become the always having been the infi- nite appearing of the whole), the affirmation of the necessary existence of the Infi- nite already constitutes a trace, in the finite, of that Infinite which is the appearing of the concrete totality of the infinite (eternal) relationships of each being to every other being and to this infinite totality of relationships. References Goggi, Giulio. 2019. “Golden Implication. The Primary Foundations of the Eternity of Being”. Eternity and Contradiction, Sept. 2019: 43–56. https://ojs.pensamultimedia.it/index.php/eandc/issue/ view/206/56, last accessed 19 September 2023. Goggi, Giulio. 2022. “The Identity and Eternity of Every Being”. Eternity and Contradiction, Dec. 2022: 80–99. https://ojs.pensamultimedia.it/index.php/eandc/issue/view/302/207, last accessed 19 September 2023. Severino, Emanuele. 1981. La struttura originaria [The Originary Structure]. Milan: Adelphi [First Edition (1958). Brescia: La Scuola]. Severino, Emanuele. 1995. Tautótēs [Identity]. Milan: Adelphi. Severino, Emanuele. 2001. La Gloria [The Glory]. Milan: Adelphi. Severino, Emanuele. 2005. Fondamento della contraddizione [Foundation of the Contradiction]. Milan: Adelphi. Severino, Emanuele. 2007. Oltrepassare [Passing Beyond]. Milan: Adelphi. Severino, Emanuele. 2011. La morte e la terra [The Death and the Earth]. Milan: Adelphi. Severino, Emanuele. 2015a. In viaggio con Leopardi. La partita sul destino dell’uomo [Traveling with Leopardi. The Match on the Fate of Man]. Milan: Rizzoli. Severino, Emanuele. 2015b. Dike [Justice]. Milan: Adelphi. Severino, Emanuele. 2016a. The Essence of Nihilism. Edited by Ines Testoni and Alessandro Carrera. Translated by G. Donis. London/New York: Verso [Originally published in Italian by Paideia as Essenza del nichilismo (1972). Brescia: Paideia. Second Edition (1982). Milan: Adelphi]. Severino, Emanuele. 2016b. Storia, Gioia [History, Joy]. Milan: Adelphi. Soncini, Umberto, and Munari, Tiziano. 1996. La totalità e il frammento. Neoparmenidismo e relatività einsteiniana [The Totality and the Fragment. Neoparmenidism and Einsteinian Relativity]. Padua: Il Poligrafo. 22 Giulio Goggi
- 37. Damiano Sacco Emanuele Severino. Sózein tà Phainómena Abstract: The principle of ‘saving the phenomena’ appears to structure the his- tory of physics as much as the history of philosophy or meta-physics. Emanuele Severino’s singular philosophical contribution may be traced to an unprece- dented answer to the meta-physical question of saving the phenomena: phenom- ena do not need to be saved, Severino argues; they have always and already saved themselves. Their having always and forever saved themselves consists, ac- cording to Severino, in their eternity. According to what we know from Simplicius, one of the earliest characterisations of the aim of the enquiry of ‘physics’ may be attributed to Plato himself, and may be condensed into the formula: sózein tà phainómena – to save the phenomena. Strictly speaking, however, it is not ‘physicists’ (phusikoí) who aim to ‘save the phenomena’, but ‘astronomers’ (astrológoi, or astronómoi). For, indeed, phusikoí enquire into the nature and the essence of tà phusikà (i.e. into the nature or es- sence of nature itself, phúsis) – thus carrying out an analysis that we would today call ‘meta-physical’ – whereas the enquiry of astronómoi resembles our modern science of physics. Astronómoi bear witness to the motion of the celestial bodies, and attempt ‘to save what appears’: ‘to save the phenomena’. In his commentary to Aristotle’s De Caelo, Simplicius writes: “The associates of Eudoxus and Callip- pus and those up until Aristotle hypothesised counter-revolving spheres homo- centric with the universe and tried to save the phenomena by means of them” (Simplicius 2011, 65); “Astronomers [astronómoi] assume certain hypotheses and save the phenomena, agreeing that all heavenly things move uniformly” (Simpli- cius 2004, 80); “If it is possible to save the same things if the principles are hypoth- esised to be finite and if they are hypothesised to be infinite, it is better, Aristotle says, to take them to be finite (as also in mathematics) and as few as possible” (Simplicius 2009a, 84). However, what does ‘saving the phenomena’ mean? Simpli- cius writes: Perhaps the Pythagoreans and Plato did not hypothesise that the construction from such triangles was certainly like this in every respect, but rather they did so in the way that as- tronomers make certain hypotheses, different ones making different hypotheses and not in- sisting that the variegation in the heavens is certainly like this but that when principles of this kind are hypothesised the phenomena can be saved [sózesthai tà phainómena] with all the heavenly bodies moving in a circle in a uniform way (Simplicius 2009a, 39–40). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111313610-003
- 38. ‘To save the phenomena’ thus means to put forth certain hypotheses (concerning, for instance, the phenomenon of the motion of celestial bodies) that are consis- tent with what actually appears. Through these hypotheses, the appearing of the phenomena is ‘saved’ (sózesthai). Astronomers are able to save the appearance of the retrograde motions of planets through specific hypotheses concerning their uniform circular motions: that is to say, the appearing retrograde motions of planets may be accounted for by a combination of uniform circular motions. It may be argued that the history of physics unfolds according to the guiding principle of sózein tà phainómena. In the modern era, Kepler’s hypothesis of an el- liptic motion of planets appears to ‘save’ the motion of planets to a higher degree of precision than the one afforded by the Aristotelian doctrine; Newton’s hypothesis of a universal gravitational force appears to widen the scope of phenomena that may be ‘saved’; Einstein’s hypothesis of a space-time manifold appears to be able to save phenomena that could not be accounted for by Newton’s laws (and, in fact, physics goes to a greater and greater length to produce and observe the very ap- pearing of the phenomena that are to be saved). The crucial remark to be made, however, is that – as Simplicius already notes – the principle of ‘saving the phenomena’ does not only guide the enquiry of physics (the enquiry of ‘astronomers’), but also the enquiry of those who enquire into the nature and essence of tà phusiká (and, later, of tà metà tà phusiká): i.e. philosophers.1 Duhem’s seminal ‘hypothesis’ (Duhem 1969), according to which the principle of ‘saving the phenomena’ guides (at least part of) the history of physics (a hypothesis devised precisely in order to save the appearing of the phenomenon constituted by the ‘history of physics’) should thus come to be extended to include the very history of philosophy or metaphysics (thus leading to the conclusion that philosophy in the West has been but a physics). For, in the same way in which as- tronomers or physicists put forth certain hypotheses concerning the planets that are able to reproduce their appearing motions, ‘philosophers’ have, throughout the history of the West, hypothesised different meta-physical realities that are able to save the appearing of all phenomena (and that are meta-physical in that they are not part of what immediately appear as part of the world of phúsis).2 “Plato makes clear that these things [namely, the figures of the Timaeus] are like the hypothe- ses used by the astronomers with which, when they are hypothesised, it is possible to preserve the phenomena” (Simplicius 2009b, 32). As it will appear, the question of the relationship between what appears and the hypothesis that saves it well exceeds every question of whether a distinction between what is real and what appears exists for the Greeks, whether a distinction obtains between ontology and epistemology, what the status of Plato’s ‘likely’ account in the Timaeus is, etc. 24 Damiano Sacco
- 39. It appears that all phenomena, precisely insofar as they are phenomena, share certain properties – properties that, themselves, appear. That is to say, all phenomena, qua phenomena, appear insofar as there appears a certain primary or base content. This primary content is the appearing content that is shared by every phenomenon qua phenomenon (i.e. by every being qua being). Philosophy has aimed to advance different hypotheses that would save the appearing of this primary content.3 These hypotheses include the archaí of the phusikoí, the atoms of the atomists, Parmenides’ being, Plato’s ideas, Aristotle’s ousía, Plotinus’ One – all the way to Spinoza’s substance, Leibniz’s monads and Kant’s thing in-itself. Starting with Hegel, however, philosophy appears to realise that what, in this way, is posited beyond the appearing of phenomena (i.e. what is posited beyond, metà, the appearing of phúsis), and is argued to be able to save the phenomenon – itself appears: that is to say, German idealism, and primarily Hegel, brings to the fore the intrinsic contradiction of a meta-physical dimension that would, pre- cisely, be beyond (metà) the appearing of the phenomenon, and that, at the same time, at least in some respect, would have itself to appear (for, otherwise, nothing could be thought or known of it).4 The contradiction of the principle of sózein tà phainómena thus lies in the no- tion of a ‘hypothesis’ – i.e. something posited (-thesis) below (hypo-) – that sus- tains, and saves, the appearing of the phenomenon while not being itself sustained or saved. The appearing of the phenomenon may be ‘saved’ only insofar as what saves it is, in turn, not saved. Starting with Hegel, philosophy recognises this con- tradiction, and yet, appears to be unable to overcome it. Contemporary philoso- phy may thus only posit the very contradictory character of the project of saving the phenomena: either in the contradictory form of an ungrounded principle (e.g. the Heideggerian Abgrund), or in that of the infinite regressus or deferral of the very principle that should be able to save the appearing of the phenomenon (Der- rida’s trace consisting precisely in this infinitely deferred and ungrounded princi- ple).5 And yet, the phenomenon does appear – and so does the contradictory This is the case even when, for instance with Parmenides, the appearing content itself is ar- gued to be an illusion: philosophy must then be able to save the appearing of the very illusory character of everything that appears. This is the case despite the fact that, e.g. in Kant, there appears a difference between the possi- bility of thinking the thing in-itself and the possibility of knowing it: the thing in-itself may not be known, but its existence, identity and non-contradictory character may be thought. This is the case for what concerns ‘continental’ philosophy; ‘analytic’ philosophy, on the other hand, appears unable to altogether detect this (i.e. its own) contradiction, and still pursues vari- ous attempts at saving phenomena (presently, for the most part, through the ‘hypothesis’ of lan- guage – i.e. believing that the analysis of language may save the appearing of linguistic phenomena, thus leaving the appearing of the very phenomenon of language ‘un-saved’). Emanuele Severino. Sózein tà Phainómena 25
- 40. character of the project of saving its appearing. How may the phenomenon ap- pear, if its very appearing may not in any way be saved? How may the very proj- ect of saving the phenomena appear, if it is but an impossible and contradictory endeavour? Emanuele Severino’s reflection appears precisely at this juncture. 1 Eternal Salvation According to Emanuele Severino, the contradictory content of a ‘hypothesised’ (i.e. hypostatised) being that would save the phenomena – i.e. the contradictory content of the project of the history of philosophy – may not altogether appear: precisely because the content of a contradiction (the self-contradictory meaning) is nothing, and nothingness itself (the nihil absolutum) may neither be nor ap- pear. Accordingly, the contradiction of saving the appearing of phenomena must in fact be negated: phenomena cannot be saved – but not insofar as they are al- ways and irremediably sinking into the abyss, or insofar as the project of saving them consists of an infinite task, progression or deferral. Phenomena may not be saved in that they do not need to be saved: the very project of saving them is noth- ing. That phenomena do not need to be saved means that they immediately coin- cide with their own hypo-thesis: that is, phenomena immediately coincide with the very ground that saves their appearing. Emanuele Severino’s enquiry consists, in the first place, precisely in a study of the (so-called “originary”) structure of this immediacy: the immediacy of the identification of a phenomenon and its phaínesthai, of a being and its being, of what is grounded and its ground (“The originary structure is the essence of ground. In this sense, it is the anapodictic structure of knowledge – the archè tês gnóseos – the self-structuring of immediacy itself”; Severino 1981, 107).6 The investigation into the structure of immediacy leads Severino to assert the nullity of the project of saving the phenomena (be that project part of the enquiry of philosophy, physics, science, technology, etc.). That phenomena do not need to be saved means that they always, immediately and forever save themselves: they immediately coincide with their own self- identity, and they are immediately saved by their coincidence with the ground of their self-being and self-identity. Crucially, according to Severino, this immediate self-being and self-identity, through which beings immediately and forever save themselves, constitutes their eternity. Every being and every phenomenon is im- All translations from the Italian are mine unless stated otherwise. 26 Damiano Sacco
- 41. mediately saved in that it is eternal: every being is first of all saved from the im- possible annihilation that its becoming would entail.7 The guiding principle of saving the phenomena nevertheless appears to struc- ture both the history of physics and the history of philosophy (despite the fact that the goal of this project – grounding the appearing of phenomena – is in any case impossible and self-contradictory: for, once again, according to Severino, phenomena may only be saved by their own eternity). According to Severino, the histories of physics and metaphysics, as guided by the project of saving the phe- nomena, may however be divided into two fundamentally different stages:8 (I.) In the first stage, philosophy (together with physics and the other abstract sci- ences) posits, beyond the domain of phenomena, a ground that saves the appear- ing of phenomena themselves: that is to say, philosophy posits a dimension of being that exceeds the present appearing of the phenomenon and constitutes its ground and its cause. This dimension, insofar as it lies beyond the manifest be- coming of the world, is ‘immutable’. This immutable being is the abstract ground that allows phenomena to be saved: the nature always saved (phûsis aeì sozo- méne; Metaphysics: 983b13), which is itself not hypothesised (archè anhupóthetos; Republic: 510b). According to Severino, the history of metaphysics in the West co- incides with the positing of the different immutables of our tradition: In addition to immutable “truth” itself, the immutables through which the tradition of the West has attempted to defend itself from becoming include God, the immortal soul of man, the laws of nature, the laws of society regarded as natural laws, the laws of the unfolding of history, political and religious faiths, “common sense”. Every immutable anticipates and predicts the meaning of everything that will gather around it (Severino 1988, 57–58). As already remarked, however, the ground that affords to save the phenomena constitutes, at the same time, a manifest contradiction: firstly, because it is a being that is withdrawn from appearing and from becoming – and yet, something of it does appear, and therefore becomes; and secondly because, by virtue of its timeless being, it would stand in relation to everything that ever was, is or will be (i.e. every being would be related to the immutable itself). According to Severino, however, “Being is forever kept and sheltered from the assault of nothingness” (Severino 2016, 46). In this framework, becoming itself consists in the appearing and disappearing of these eternal beings – the very appearing of beings being itself an eternal being that does not need to be saved. (It is in fact this very configuration of becoming that was deemed, by Severino’s own men- tor, Gustavo Bontadini, to be unable to save the phenomena in his “Sózein tà Phainómena”; Bon- tadini 1971.) See also Bontadini and Severino 2017. We refer here in particular to the history of physics, but the same may be argued of the history of the other abstract enquiries or sciences. Emanuele Severino. Sózein tà Phainómena 27
- 42. the most certain form of self-evidence of the West is becoming itself: the arising of being from nothingness and their returning to it. If there exists an immutable being, the very nothingness from which beings are believed to emerge, and into which they are believed to disappear, would not be such: it would not be nothing. Even nothingness itself, by being related to the immutable, would come to have a content – it would not be the same nothingness that is unrelated to the immutable (in Severino’s jargon, it would be ‘entified’ [entificato]). Once again, however, as part of becoming, beings are believed to arise from pure nothingness; if nothing- ness is entified through its relation with the immutable being, the most certain form of self-evidence of becoming turns into an impossibility: By anticipating the Meaning of the Whole, the immutable determines the Meaning to which the nothingness from which things originate as part of becoming must conform. The immu- table thus transforms nothingness into a heeding and observance of Being: that is to say, it transforms nothingness into a being. What issues from nothingness, however, may not be compelled to submit to the Meaning of what already exists: for, otherwise, what arises would not be issuing from nothingness – i.e. from an absolute absence of meaning – but from the Meaning of what already exists. [. . .] If there exists an immutable, there may not exist any form of issuing from nothingness: that is to say, there may exist no becoming as it has been conceived once and for all by Greek philosophy (Severino 1992, 114–115).9 The very will of human beings, which believes to be able to produce every being (i.e. to bring it into being, according to the Greek meaning of poíesis: to pro-duce, her-stellen, etc.) finds an insurmountable limit to its power. It is for this reason, ac- cording to Severino, that the culture and civilisation of the West – having realised that the immutable and metaphysical dimension that has been posited beyond the manifest dimension of becoming and appearing turns the very appearing of becom- ing, and of the power and becoming of the human will, into a manifest impossibil- ity – proceed to destroy that very metaphysical dimension. The last two centuries have borne witness to the destruction of every immutable dimension that would limit the power of becoming and of the will. (II.) The second stage of the history of philosophy (and, consequently, of the differ- ent abstract sciences) coincides precisely with the endeavour to remove every im- mutable obstacle that would hinder the becoming and the power of the will. According to Severino, the apparatus of science and technics consists precisely in the practical and theoretical realisation of the conditions for an indefinite increase in the power of the will: an increase that may take place only insofar as every obsta- cle (i.e. every immutable being that would exceed the dimension of becoming) has been removed. According to Severino, the theoretical self-understanding of the sci- A translation of Oltre il linguaggio into English is forthcoming. 28 Damiano Sacco
- 43. entifico-technological apparatus is consistent with the self-evidence of becoming. That is to say that, while the existence of an immutable being pre-dicts and fore-sees the totality of being, thus entifying nothingness and giving rise to its own essential self-contradiction, the practical and theoretical procedures of the apparatus of tech- nics aim in the first place to respect the structure of becoming (which entails com- plying with the very nothingness of nothing itself). Accordingly, the Apparatus (namely, the unified effort of science, technics and philosophy) functions according to the assumption that there exists no immutable being that would predict and fore- see becoming itself. As such, becoming coincides with pure chance, “a falling upon existence without having been thrown by anything” (Severino 2023, 14), “a be-falling that falls out of nothingness” (Severino 2023, 47). The laws of this becoming may no longer be laws that determine what is and will be, but only laws of chance: for these laws “adequately express every regularity that can be ascribed to events that issue from nothingness: namely, the regularity described by statistical observations – the regularity of the taking place of chance as described by the laws of chance” (Sever- ino 2023, 50–51). (Accordingly, physics, followed by the other abstract sciences, has had to turn its predictive apparatus into a statistical-probabilistic one.) 2 Saving the First Phenomenon It should be remarked that the project of saving the phenomena is not a lofty project that starts to emerge in some of the most advanced human societies, and that is pursued only by astronomers and philosophers. The project of saving the phenomena constitutes, in fact, the very being (the very being-human) of humans themselves. That is to say, humans are such only insofar as they save phenomena: not insofar as they save this or that particular phenomenon, but insofar as they save the very appearing (the phaínesthai) of phenomena. Saving the appearing of phenomena tout-court is equivalent to verifying that something (or, in fact, any- thing) appears – that is to say, it is necessary to verify that phenomena appear. This verification constitutes the originary ‘experiment’ – namely, the originary experience (experiment, as well as experience, from the Greek peîra) – whose suc- cess is required in order to perform any other experiment or have any other ex- perience. There exists an experience of phenomena only insofar as there is an experience of experience itself; some specific content appears only insofar as it appears that the appearing of phenomena appears. If it is not possible to verify that something (i.e. anything) appears, it is then also impossible to save any deter- minate phenomenon. Emanuele Severino. Sózein tà Phainómena 29
- 44. The originary experiment, or experience, thus posits the hypothesis that something appears, and proceeds to verify this hypothesis in order to save the phenomenon that consists in the very appearing of phenomena. This verifica- tion – namely, the experience of experience – underlies every other experiment, experience, or appearing of any phenomenon. It is only insofar as it is possible to save the appearing of phenomena (i.e. to verify that ‘something’, rather than ‘nothing’, appears) that it is possible to proceed to save any particular phenome- non.10 Humans have an experience of different contents or phenomena insofar as they are first of all convinced that something appears to them – i.e. insofar as they believe to be constantly verifying the primary experience of experience. That is to say, however, that it is only insofar as they fail to save that first phe- nomenon, and fail to see that failure, that they may believe to proceed to save other phenomena (and fail to do so). Believing to have saved that first phenome- non constitutes the very essence of human beings. In order to save the appearing of phenomena, in the most general terms, it is necessary to verify that something (i.e. anything) appears: ‘something appears’; and, again, one is to verify that ‘something (still) appears’. That is to say, one is to verify that, even if nothing has remained the same, this appears; it appears that nothing has remained the same. “Nothing has remained the same”: this is the minimal hypothesis that underlies every experience. Even if nothing has re- mained the same, this must nevertheless appear. The hypothesis underlying this experience must be, on the one hand, that the totality of being has not been anni- hilated (i.e. that something has persisted into existence), and, on the other hand, that the totality of its appearing (i.e. of the ‘one’, the ‘I’ that experiences this expe- rience) is also not altogether annihilated, but rather must, at least in some re- spect, have persisted into existence. If either the totality of what appears or the totality of the ‘site’ to which that content appears were to be annihilated – i.e. if nothing of what appears or nothing of the ‘site’ to which appearing appears were to continue appearing – the originary experiment or experience would not be verified. There must be a substratum that always persists both in the content or matter of appearing as well as in the form or appearing of appearing. The origi- nary hypothesis thus presupposes – for a hypo-thesis is, precisely, a pre-sub- position – both a substance of experience that is preserved and a subject to which that experience appears. Sub-stance and sub-ject are the ‘two’ hypotheses of the originary experiment: the sub-strates (hupokeímena) that must be presupposed to any experience. Accordingly, the fundamental question of metaphysics appears to enquire into the ground of the appearing or being of something rather than nothing (Leibniz). 30 Damiano Sacco
- 45. This may also be stated in the following way: the original phenomenon is saved insofar as ‘appearing’ and the ‘appearing of appearing’, the transcendental matter and the transcendental form of appearing (the transcendental object and the transcendental subject of experience), are hypo-thesised and pre-supposed (that is to say, they are abstracted, i.e. extracted or saved, from the concreteness of experience). The abstraction of appearing from the appearing of appearing (the abstraction of being from its own being) thus constitutes the originary ab- straction: the originary hypothesis that must be presupposed in order to save the appearing of phenomena. Given this hypothesis – namely that the substance of appearing is preserved, and that it appears to the same formal unity (i.e. to the same ‘subject’ or ‘I’) – the appearing of appearing, or the experience of experi- ence, is saved (even if completely indeterminately and with regard to no specific content). 3 Beyond Saving the Phenomena The originary abstraction, however, constitutes the originary contradiction. Every abstraction – every abstract hypothesis that is presupposed to the concreteness of appearing – is self-contradictory insofar as something ‘is’ (something is claimed to ‘be’) even when it does not appear.11 The abstract notions of appearing and of the appearing of appearing (i.e. of a transcendental object and of a transcendental subject) are two self-contradictory notions precisely insofar as they are forms – and, in fact, the originary forms – of the contradiction of an hypothesis that at- tempts to save the phenomena. This contradiction may not appear: it may not appear that something is ab- stracted from the concreteness of appearing. The concrete appearing of phenom- ena – the concrete appearing of appearing – does not need to be saved (and, in fact, it may not be saved) by abstracting or presupposing a certain hypothesis (i.e. by presupposing something to the concreteness of appearing; by hypostatising something that persists through time). The concrete appearing of appearing may only be saved by its immediate and timeless self-coincidence. According to Sever- ino, this immediate self-coincidence and self-being of every appearing being con- stitutes its eternity: namely, the impossibility that any being may not be. Every being immediately coincides with the very ground that saves it; every being im- mediately coincides with its self-being; every appearing content immediately co- In the same way as e.g. the thing in-itself lies beyond the appearing of the phenomenon – and yet, at least its doing so must appear. Emanuele Severino. Sózein tà Phainómena 31
- 46. incides with its self-appearing. This self-coincidence, through which every being immediately saves itself, is its eternity. To be eternal is therefore the predicate of every being that is; to be, according to Severino, means to be eternal. The histories of physics and metaphysics are thus the histories of the failed attempt at abstractly saving the appearing of phenomena. As already remarked, there is one singular turning point as part of these histories, which consists in the realisation that phenomena may not be saved (a realisation that takes place with the closure of the histories of classical physics and traditional metaphysics). Contemporary science and philosophy recognise that phenomena may not be saved, and yet, according to Severino, they fail to recognise that every being and phenomenon is concretely and immediately saved by its own being, and they carry on positing the impossibility of saving the phenomena as the only ab- stract certainty that appears. Accordingly, to the eye of contemporary science and philosophy, everything appears in its own essential ungrounded-ness, as stretching out of nothingness and returning to it by pure chance (for every persistence would be a phenomenon whose appearing would need to be saved). According to Sever- ino, this is the only picture of the world that is consistent with the one certainty that humans may not relinquish: the certainty of (or, in fact, the faith in) the exis- tence and self-evidence of becoming – the only phenomenon that humans must continue to save, for otherwise they would be unable to save the very essence of their being-humans. It is only insofar as every being is abstracted from its being – only insofar as appearing is abstracted from the appearing of appearing – that it may appear (or, in fact, that it may appear to appear) that a being may be other than what it is: that a being may emerge from nothingness and return to it. The originary abstraction constitutes the very essence of human beings: the essential contradiction that human beings may not relinquish (and that, on the contrary, they try to eliminate by extending it to the totality of being, thus aiming to be con- sistent with their own ungrounded-ness). And yet, according to Severino, this ab- straction or contradiction – the abstraction of every being from its being – may only be negated by the immediate self-identity of every being: i.e. by the concrete impossibility for every being to not be; by every being’s having always been saved by its eternity. The concrete appearing of this eternity, however, may therefore ap- pear only if the very being-human of human beings, the very contradiction that appears to save the being of human beings, ceases to appear: only if the history of the being-human of human beings comes to a close. 32 Damiano Sacco
- 47. References Bontadini, Gustavo. 1971. “Sózein tà Phainómena”. In Conversazioni di metafisica, Vol. 2, 136–166. Milan: Vita e Pensiero. Bontadini, Gustavo, and Emanuele Severino. 2017. L’essere e l’apparire: Una disputa. Brescia: Morcelliana. Duhem, Pierre. 1969. To Save the Phenomena: An Essay on the Idea of Physical Theory from Plato to Galileo. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Severino, Emanuele. 1981. La struttura originaria. Milan: Adelphi. Severino, Emanuele. 1988. La tendenza fondamentale del nostro tempo. Milan: Adelphi. Severino, Emanuele. 1992. Oltre il linguaggio. Milan: Adelphi. Severino, Emanuele. 2016. The Essence of Nihilism. Edited by Alessandro Carrera and Ines Testoni. Translated by Giacomo Donis. London: Verso. Severino, Emanuele. 2023. Law and Chance. Edited by Giulio Goggi, Damiano Sacco, and Ines Testoni. Translated by Damiano Sacco. London: Bloomsbury. Simplicius. 2004. On Aristotle On the Heavens 2.1–9. Translated by Ian Mueller. London: Bloomsbury. Simplicius. 2009a. On Aristotle On the Heavens 3.1–7. Translated by Ian Mueller. London: Bloomsbury. Simplicius. 2009b. On Aristotle On the Heavens 3.7–4.6. Translated by Ian Mueller. London: Bloomsbury. Simplicius. 2011. On Aristotle On the Heavens 1.2–3. Translated by Ian Mueller. London: Bloomsbury. Emanuele Severino. Sózein tà Phainómena 33
- 49. Leonardo Messinese The Absolute Appearing of Eternity as the Original Meaning of Time Abstract: The author of the contribution initially reflects on the distinction be- tween the scientific knowledge and the philosophical-metaphysical knowledge of “time”. He dwells on the trait that unites the Platonic and Aristotelian conceptions of time and, then, on the critical analysis that was done by Henry Bergson. The next step consists in comparing the Bergsonian reflection on time with that con- tained in Emanuele Severino, in order to introduce a “metaphysical” thought of time in which it becomes evident that the latter possesses its “original meaning” in the Eternal. 1 Metaphysics and Science of Time A philosophical-metaphysical treatment of time implies the consideration of these three elements, which constitute its essential structure: 1) that something like “time” appears, manifests itself, bearing in mind that the experimental and theo- retical results of science contribute to increasing the content of appearing, that is to say of the “unity of experience”; 2) that this content of appearing is thought of in its determined relationship with Being (esse); 3) avoiding that, in this unitary consideration of the two spheres of the “original structure” of metaphysical knowledge, we come to cancel – even if only implicitly – time in its phenomeno- logical dimension. For metaphysical thought, therefore, it is not sufficient to refer to the phenome- nological datum of the temporal “development” for the purpose of an adequate un- derstanding of time, but it is also necessary to establish its ontological status. In fact, in its specific way of referring to what is contained in appearing, it considers it “as being” (ens), that is, as regards its Being; moreover, we must immediately specify that the “meaning” of being that concerns metaphysical thought must not be presupposed on the basis of a different horizon of “meaning of meaning”. In this way, it is possible to make an original distinction between a scientific treatment of the phenomenon of time and a philosophical-metaphysical one, since they respond to investigative perspectives that are formally different. For scientific investigation, understanding time means building a “conceptual model” that allows us to unify a series of phenomena, which can be modified when it no longer responds adequately to this function. It therefore belongs to https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111313610-004
- 50. scientific investigation as such that there is an evolution regarding the “concept of time”, which depends both on a different way of “theorizing” about known phe- nomena, and on an “increase” of the phenomenal content that underlies the con- stitution of scientific conceptuality (Radicati di Brozolo 2001, 120–130). For the philosophical-metaphysical investigation, on the other hand, understanding time means asking oneself – as, for example, Aristotle did – not only what defines that determined content of appearing that we call “time”, but also and above all it means asking oneself whether time belongs to the realm of Being and how it be- longs to it (Aristotle 1984, 816); and therefore it means to establish the conceptual structure that allows us to understand both the Being that is “in” time, and the Being “of” time. Consequently – even if the theme cannot be explored here – what turns out to be decisive in the philosophical-metaphysical investigation, is ultimately what is the concept of “Being” that functions in it and presides over it. Finally, in the context of these preliminary indications we must at least men- tion the fact that, on the third element of the philosophical investigation that I have indicated above, the accent is placed above all by contemporary philosophi- cal thought, which even when it also articulates an “ontology”, believes that in order to effectively protect the phenomenological dimension of time, the form of “theorizing” of temporality which is typical of metaphysics and, above all, of that contained in the classical tradition, must be abandoned. 2 Plato, Aristotle, Bergson The phenomenological investigation of time, both when it is operated within metaphysical thought and when it emancipates it, can refer to specifically different contents of appearing. The diversity consists, first of all, in the fact that phenome- nological inspection can refer to the “time of the cosmos”, which is universal time; or to the “time of consciousness”, which is lived time. In the economy of my writing, however, it will not be necessary to dwell on this distinction in relation to the content of the phenomenological dimension to be privileged; nor on Paul Ric- oeur’s attempt to overcome what he considers the aporia implied by the irrepress- ibility of the aforementioned distinction of perspectives on time, through the mediation of the “story” (Ricoeur 1988). My intent, in fact, is to thematize the Being of time starting from a highlighting of the formal dimension of metaphysical knowledge. 36 Leonardo Messinese
- 51. When Plato affirmed, in the Timaeus, that time is “a moving image of eternity according to number” (Plato 1888, 119),1 in giving such a definition of time, he at- tributed the latter, as the content of appearing, to the Being of the cosmos. In turn Aristotle, when in Book IV of Physics he defined time as “number of motion [that is, of becoming] in respect of ‘before’ and ‘after’” (Aristotle 1984, 821), he was indi- cating, albeit introducing a specific difference regarding the relationship between becoming and time, the same “phenomenon” that Plato had looked at – the time of Physis (Aristotle 1984, 827). Let us now consider a contemporary philosopher like Henri Bergson. He believes that the time of which Plato and Aristotle speak, is in reality the spatialized and mathematized time and not the time as an original phenomenon, which he sees in “duration”. I come now to the second question. Time as the content of appearing in Pla- tonic thought was placed in relation to the immutable and eternal being of Ideas, as its “moving image”. Going beyond Parmenides, but not against Parmenides, in this relationship Plato sees the speculative condition for which the affirmation of time no longer constitutes a denial of the truth of Being. Aristotle, on his part, would have proceeded in a similar way. In fact, the definition of the nature of time – of being “linked to movement”, but also of distinguishing oneself from it, inasmuch as it is precisely its “measure” (Aristotle 1984, 818, 827) – constitutes only the first moment of the Aristotelian treatment of time. The Stagirite does not even on that aspect fundamentally departing from Plato, in Book VIII of Physics, in order to ensure the permanence of the totality of time and movement, of which time is numbering (and, therefore, to preserve the permanence of the uni- verse), places them in the necessary relationship with the first immobile Mover: that is, Aristotle places time and movement with what constitutes for him the di- mension of immutable Being (Aristotle 1984, 949, 950–952). The main difference between the two philosophers is that, while for Plato time is generated (Plato 1888, 121, 123), for Aristotle it is eternal, like becoming (Aristotle 1984, 922–923). In this synthetic exposition, the role played by the soul in the Aristotelian con- sideration of time could not emerge (Aristotle 1984, 832–833). However, I would like here to highlight, on the one hand, what is the “phenomenon” in relation to which the Greek conception of time is mainly characterized; and, on the other hand, the inseparable relationship present in it between the “phenomenological” dimension and the dimension of “speculation” in the treatment of time, which persists in sub- sequent philosophical thought even when the concrete determination of the rela- tionship of time with eternity will come to undergo variations. Unless it’s stated otherwise, all translations are mine. The Absolute Appearing of Eternity as the Original Meaning of Time 37
- 52. Henry Bergson believed that, in the tracing of time to “immutable Being”, the phenomenological dimension of time is, ultimately, totally annulled. This also means that Bergson, while criticizing the Platonic and Aristotelian conception, had grasped its underlying meaning very well. At the same time, however, in his firm intention of “saving phenomena” as a metaphysician himself, Bergson in- tended to establish a certain modality of the relationship between “time” and “Being”, although of a different character from that of classical metaphysics, but then also of the modern one. 3 Bergson’s Critique of Ancient Metaphysics These initial reflections allow us to clarify the meaning of the title of my essay and of the speculative context in which it comes to be configured. Despite the basic objection raised by the major course of contemporary philosophy towards classical metaphysical thought, the essential thesis I intend to propose is that the Eternal, the immutable being, constitutes the original sense of time. In order to carry out this thesis, it is necessary to first highlight the more pre- cise meaning of contemporary criticism which sees metaphysical thought, inaugu- rated by Plato in substantial continuity with the conception of Being advanced by Parmenides, constitutively incapable of “saving the phenomena”, as it would claim with respect to the thought of Eleate himself. Starting from the Parmeni- dean conception of immutable Being as “true Being”, the metaphysics of Plato, but also of Aristotle – limiting ourselves, for now, to Greek philosophy – would have conceived in a prejudicial way erroneously the Being of phenomena, of the manifestation of the world, or ultimately the Being of becoming and, therefore, the Being of time. Compared to true Being, which is the immutable, or the eternal, the world of becoming would constitute degraded Being, which would add noth- ing to Being already accomplished in itself. We can read in this regard a first text by Bergson, contained in his most fa- mous work, entitled Creative Evolution (Bergson 1944). The philosopher, in propos- ing a new metaphysics, is the voice of contemporary criticism of the conception of Being as immutable. One of the ways in which the underlying sense of Platonism is indicated by Bergson is the following: To reduce things to Ideas is therefore to resolve becoming into its principal moments, each of these being, moreover, by the hypothesis, screened from the laws of time and, as it were, plucked out of eternity. That is to say that we end in the philosophy of Ideas when we apply the cinematographical mechanism of the intellect to the analysis of the real (Bergson 1944, 342). 38 Leonardo Messinese
- 53. This resolution of things into ideas, of phenomena into forms, of becoming into im- mutable Being, of time into eternity entails, according to Bergson, nothing less than the very fading away of things, phenomena, becoming, time. The philosophy of “ideas”, covering things with its own view, is unable to restore them to us, but only to conceal them. Instead, Bergson writes, “life is an evolution” (Bergson 1944, 328). The error of metaphysical thought would therefore be analogous to the error made by the common conscience. It would consist in concentrating “a period of this evolution in a stable view which we call a form, and, when the change has become considerable enough to overcome the fortunate inertia of our perception, we say that the body has changed its form” (Bergson 1944, 328). In reality, for Berg- son, it should not even be said that it is constantly, in every instant, that “the body changes shape”, but rather that “there is no shape”. The form, in fact, is immobile, while “the reality is movement” (Bergson 1944, 328), the reality is the process of be- coming, it is changement (Bergson 1946, 153–185). Here, we can legitimately add: if, for Bergson, the form is to the immutable, as the becoming is to the time, then for him Being is time. It is not time that must be resolved in the immutable, in the eter- nal Being, but it is Being that must be thought of as time. This last expression, in Bergson’s perspective, means that thought does not hide the fact, but is its authentic manifestation. It means that thought does not impose on “phenomena” the “categories” of thought, but lets them be as they are. In other words, it means that theory does not replace things, but rather is their manifesta- tion. And what, then, is the “reason”? To such a question, Bergson replies as follows: The reason is that there is more in the transition than the series of states, that is to say, the possible cuts [practiced by intelligence within the continuous flow of becoming, AN] – more in the movement than the series of positions, that is to say, the possible stops [equally oper- ated by intelligence, AN] (Bergson 1944, 340–341). This “more”, this irreducible excess that opposes the “resolution” of phenomena in the immutable that is operated by metaphysics, is none other than “time”: time by Parmenides immediately and absolutely denied; and time also, albeit, in a more tenuous but no less effective way, denied by Plato and Aristotle. Within metaphysi- cal thought – Bergson notes – extension and relaxation, space and time, “simply manifest the gap between what is and what should be”: between degraded Being and Being in its perfection. But the presumed “metaphysical” salvation of degraded Being of what is in space and time, the presumed “metaphysical” salvation of the world of becoming, turns out to be, instead, for Bergson the irredeemable loss of it. Such a thought, that carries out that progressive work of cutting off the uni- tary flow of becoming and time, is constituted in its canonically metaphysical form when it reaches, on the one hand, to the “system of ideas, logically co-order together or concentrated into one only” (Bergson 1944, 355); and, on the other, to The Absolute Appearing of Eternity as the Original Meaning of Time 39
- 54. “a quasi-naught, the Platonic ‘non-being’ or the Aristotelian ‘matter’” (Bergson 1944, 355). Within metaphysical thought this vivisection will be followed by an at- tempt to recompose the initial unity, through the structuring of a system in which the series of degrees into which the immutable degrades (Bergson 1944, 356) is placed between the Being of the principle and the non-Being. Such a cosmology – Bergson equally writes – will always be dominated by the immutable principle and the “physical” will always be defined by the “logical” (Bergson 1944, 356). This is why time, in Greek metaphysics, is considered “theoretically negligible”. For the Greek philosophers, as has been said, “the duration of a thing only manifests the degradation of its essence” (Bergson 1944, 373). 4 Bergson’s Critique of Modern Metaphysics If we go to inspect Bergson’s position with regard to modern metaphysics, it is noted in the first place that, for the French philosopher, in its concrete articula- tion it did not depart from Greek metaphysics in its essential form; this, although due to the advent of Galilean science it had found itself in a position to work a new path. To adequately understand this assumption, it is a question of seeing what constitutes the most innovative feature of modern science with respect to the an- cient form of knowledge. Of course, compared to the knowledge of the ancients, modern science does not concern the “concepts” by which to know things, but it seeks “laws”, understood as the constant relations between variable quantities. For example, for Aristotle “the concept of circularity was enough to define the motion of the stars”, while for Kepler, to establish the “movement of planets”, it was not enough to have the concept of “elliptical form” (Bergson 1944, 362). But the major difference, for Bergson, does not consist in this; or, better said, all this is merely the consequence of something else: it is the consequence of having made the “time” factor intervene in the calculation of the relationships between the magnitudes of the various object fields, while the science of the ancients is, on the contrary, a static science (Bergson 1944, 363). The time factor intervenes in Kepler’s astronomy, in Galileo’s mechanics and, in a more veiled way, in Des- cartes’ geometry itself (Bergson 1944, 363). Immediately after showing the difference between modern science and an- cient science, however, Bergson asks himself: “But with what time has it to do?” (Bergson 1944, 365). Well, the time of physics is not the time of “duration”, that is, of continuous creation, of creative evolution: in other words, it is not what Berg- son calls “time-invention”. The time of physics is that with which we find our- 40 Leonardo Messinese
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- 56. CHAPTER IX. THE PORTRAIT. Dreary life, Aching fears, Endless strife, Bitter tears, Lo, a lovely face I see, Changing all the world to me. Love’s delight, Beauty’s face, Smilings bright, Woman’s grace, Thus beholding these in thee, Thou hast changed the world to me. The studio which Maurice had fitted up for himself at the Grange was a very workmanlike apartment, as it was quite barren of the artistic frippery with which painters love to decorate their rooms. Sculpture is a much more virile art than painting, and, scorning frivolous adornments of all kinds, the artist of the chisel devotes himself to the severest and highest forms of beauty, so that, he finds quite enough loveliness in his coldly perfect marble figures, without furnishing his studio like a Wardour Street toy-shop. Of course, he who works in colors loves to gaze on colors; and therefore a fantastic Eastern carpet, a quaint figured tapestry, a gold-broidered curtain of Indian silk, a yellow shield of antique workmanship, a porous red jar from Egypt, and such like brilliances, are pleasing to
- 57. the artistic eye, and the constant sight of their blended hues keeps the sense of color, so to speak, up to the mark. The sculptor, however, has but one color, white, which is not a color; and the less luxurious his studio, the more likely is he to concentrate his attention on the statue growing to perfection under his busy chisel. These sentiments, which would seem to narrow down a sculptor to the severest and least graceful form of art, were uttered by Crispin in approval of that bare barn attached to the Grange which Maurice called his studio. But then Crispin knew nothing about art, and a painter or a sculptor reading the above views of their profession will probably laugh to scorn such fanciful notions. Yet it is true that the sculptor by his art is shut off from the world of color, unless, like the old Greeks,—according to some critics,—he tints his statues, and thereby turns them into wax figures. But doubtless those Hellenic sculptors who wrought nude gods and draped goddesses from the marbles of Paros and Pentelicus, did not fail to notice how the background of the blue Attic sky enhanced the beauty of their creations, and therefore must have concluded that the world of color, to which they were strangers, could accentuate the fairness and beauty of their statues. Again these are the artistic sentiments of Crispin the poet, delivered to Maurice with much daring, seeing the speaker was ignorant of the world of art, and but promulgated his ideas in a purely poetical fashion. But Crispin’s crude view of art and artists may doubtless fail to interest many people; therefore, to come back in a circle to the starting-point of the disquisition, Maurice’s studio was a very workmanlike apartment. The floor consisted merely of bare boards, although at one end, in front of the fireplace, there was an oasis of carpet, on which rested a table for pipes and tobacco, together with two comfortable arm- chairs. Scattered here and there were statues finished and unfinished, some completed in marble, others incomplete in clay. Maurice had gratified his artistic desires for the perfection of sculpture by surrounding himself with copies in marble of some famous statues, for now, as he was wealthy, he could afford to do so. Here danced the Faun with his grotesque visage and lissome pose; there smiled Hebe, holding her cup for the banquet of the
- 58. gods; Bacchus with his crown of vine-leaves gazed serenely on the sad face of the draped Ariadne in the distance; Apollo watched the lizard crawling up the tree-trunk; and Hermes, with winged feet, poised himself on his pedestal as if for flight. The whole studio was filled with the fair and gracious forms of Greek art, and no wonder at times Maurice despaired of producing anything worth looking at beside these immortal productions of the Hellenic brain and hands. The great necessity now is, not to know what one can do, but what one cannot do; and if these complacent artists, poets, sculptors, novelists, only abode by this rule, the world would be spared the perpetration of many an atrocity in marble, verse, or on canvas, which the conceited creators think perfection. Maurice Roylands had a pretty taste for chipping marble, but he was by no means a genius, and his statues, while perfectly wrought in accordance with the canons of art, yet lacked that soul which only the true sculptor can give to his creations. It was a fortunate thing for him that he was a rich man, for assuredly he would never have become a great sculptor. His ideas were excellent, but he could not carry them out in accordance with the figment of his brain, as he lacked the divine spark of genius which alone can fully accomplish what it conceives. At present, clad in a blouse, he was standing in front of a mass of wet clay, manipulating the soft material with dexterous fingers into a semblance of the fanciful Endymion of his brain and the real Endymion of Caliphronas. That gentleman was posed on the model’s platform in the distance, and was beguiling the time by incessant chattering of this, that, and the other thing. The artist had based his conception of this statue of Endymion on these lines of Keats, poet laureate to Dian herself,— “What is there in the Moon that thou shouldst move My heart so potently?” He intended to represent the shepherd sitting on Latmos top, chin on hand, gazing at the moon with dreamy eyes, his mortal heart thrilling at the thought that he would see the inviolate Artemis incarnate in the flesh. In accordance with the Greek ideas of nudity,
- 59. Maurice did not drape his statue; but the shepherd sat on his chlamys, which was lightly thrown over a rock, while beside him lay scrip, and flask, and pastoral crook. Caliphronas was seated thus,— with his elbow resting on his knee and his chin on his hand, gazing presumably at the moon, in reality at Maurice, while the other hand lightly hung down by his side, and his right leg was drawn back so that the foot bent in a delicate curve calculated to show its full beauty. This pose showed all the perfect lines of his figure, and with his nude body, his clean-shaven face, and dreaming eyes, he looked the veritable Endymion who was waiting the descent of the goddess from high Olympus. Though it was a warm day, a fire burned in the grate, for the Greek was very susceptible to cold, and after working for some time Maurice was fain to rest, so great was the heat; whereupon Caliphronas flung himself back on the chlamys, placed his hands behind his head, and began to talk. “Will you be long at your work to-day, Mr. Maurice?” he asked with a yawn. “No, not if you are tired,” replied Roylands, throwing a cloak over the Count. “You had better wrap yourself up, or you will catch cold. If you don’t care to sit any more to-day, we can leave off now.” “Well, I have some letters to write, but I will wait another half- hour.” “All right!” Maurice lighted his favorite pipe and established himself in a comfortable chair, upon which the Count, finding the rock of Endymion somewhat hard, forsook the platform, and, wrapping the cloak closely round him, sat down opposite the sculptor. “I wonder you don’t smoke, Caliphronas,” said Maurice, idly watching the Greek with half-closed eyes. “You will find it an excellent way of passing the time.” “Of killing time, I suppose you mean; but I have no need to do that. At least, not when I am at home in Greece. Here, yes, it is rather difficult to get through the day comfortably; if it were not for these sittings, I really do not know what I would do with myself.” “I am afraid I will never be able to carry out my conception of Endymion,” said Maurice, paying no attention to this remark.
- 60. Caliphronas shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, your work is very good,” he said politely, “very good indeed; but of course it is not perfect.” “I know that, but practice makes perfect.” “Not in the world of art. You may learn to paint in strict accordance with the rules of art. You may sculpture to the inch every portion of the human body, but that is only the outward semblance of the picture or the statue. The great thing which makes a great work is the soul.” “Quite true. And you think I cannot create the soul of my statues?” said Maurice, rather nettled at the outspoken criticism. “I say nothing, my friend. I know but little of art, so it would be an impertinence of me to talk about that of which I am ignorant.” “The longer we live the less we discover we know,” said Roylands sententiously. “I suppose that is true,” replied Caliphronas indolently; “but, thank heaven, I have not the soul of an artist, for it seems to cause its owner perpetual anxiety. No; I live healthy, joyous, and free, like the other animals of Nature, and I am quite satisfied.” “Is that not rather ignoble?” “Perhaps; but that is nothing to me. I am happy, which is, to my mind, the main aim of life. Why should I slave for money? I do not wish it. Why should I toil for years at art, and gain at the end but ephemeral fame? Besides, when one dies, what good does fame do? A large marble tomb would not please me.” “Still, the fame of being spoken of by succeeding generations.” “Who would do nothing but wrangle over their different opinions regarding one’s work. Present happiness is what I wish, not future praise; but in this narrow island of yours you cannot understand the joy of life. Come with me to the isles of Greece, and you will be so fascinated with the free, wild life that you will never return to your prison-house.” “If all men thought like you, the world would not progress.” “I don’t want all men to think the same as I do,” replied the Count selfishly. “I suppose there must be slaves as well as freemen. I prefer to be the last.”
- 61. “Slaves!” “Yes. I do not mean the genuine article, but all men are slaves more or less, if they don’t follow my mode of life. Slaves to gain, slaves to art, slaves to conventionality, slaves to everything; and what do they gain by such slavery? Nothing but what I do—a tomb— annihilation.” “Well, you are a slave to your passions.” “You mean I obey my impulses. Well, I do; but it is a very pleasant kind of slavery.” “And you believe in that horrible theory of annihilation?” “Well, I don’t know what I believe. I trouble myself in no-wise about the hereafter. I am alive, I am strong, I am happy. The sun is bright, the winds are inspiriting,—I draw delight from mountain and plain,—so why should I trouble myself about what I know nothing? The present is just enough for me. Let the future take care of itself.” “A selfish philosophy.” “A very enjoyable one. Come with me to the East, and you will adopt my creed. Are you happy here?” “No.” “I can see that. You are melancholy at times, you are devoured with spleen, you find the life you lead too dreary for your soul. If you let me be your physician, I will cure you.” “And how?” “By a very simple means. I will make you lead the same life as I do myself,—open-air life,—and in a few months you will find these nightmares of the soul completely disappear. No prisoner can be happy; and as you are a prisoner in this dungeon of conventionality, and are swathed in the mummy cloths of civilization, you cannot hope to be happy unless you go out into the wilderness.” “The life you describe is purely an animal one. What about the intellect?” “Intellect! pshaw! I know more about Nature than half your scientific idiots with their books.” “What an inconsistent being you are, Caliphronas!” said Maurice in an amused tone. “You say you love art, admire pictures, adore
- 62. statues; yet, if every man followed the life you eulogize, such things would not be in existence.” “I tell you, I don’t want all the world to follow my example. I would be very sorry to lose all these delights of the senses, so I am glad there are men sufficiently self-denying to slave at such things for my delight; but as regards myself, I desire to live as a natural man—an animal, as you say. It is ignoble—yes; but it is pleasant.” This speech somewhat opened the eyes of Maurice to the kind of soul which was enshrined in the splendid body of this man; and he saw plainly that the sensual part of Caliphronas had completely conquered the spiritual. But with what result?—that this ignoble being was happy. What an ironical comment of Fate on the strivings of great beings to subordinate the senses to the soul. The soul agitated by a thousand fears, the brain striving ever after the impossible—what do these give their possessor, but a feeling of unrest, of unsatisfied hunger; whereas the body, untortured by an inquiring spirit, brought contentment, happiness—ignoble though they were—to the animal man. By this time, Caliphronas, having made up his mind to sit no more that day, was slowly dressing himself, singing a Greek song in his usual gay manner. “Three girls crossed my path in the twilight; One did I love, but the others were nothing to me: She frowned at my greeting, but her friends smiled sweetly, Yet was she the loveliest of them all, And I loved her frown more than their smiles inviting.” “How happy you are, Caliphronas!” “Thoroughly. I have not a care in the world. Come with me to the Island of Fantasy, and you also will be happy.” “The Island of Fantasy!” “Yes; that is what Justinian calls it.” “Who is Justinian? anything to do with the Pandects?” “Pandects?” reiterated Caliphronas, puzzled by the word. “Yes. Is he a ruler—a law-giver?”
- 63. “Oh yes; he is the king of the Island of Fantasy.” “Which, I presume, exists only in your brain,” said Roylands jestingly. “Pardon me, no,” replied the Count seriously, resuming his seat. “The Island of Fantasy, or, to call it by its real name, Melnos, does exist in the Ægean Sea. It is a but little known island, and Justinian, who is my very good friend, rules over it as a kind of Homeric king. Ulysses was just such another; and there you will find the calm, patriarchal life of those antique times, which you of the modern world think has vanished forever. My friend, the Golden Age still exists in Melnos, and if you come with me, you will dwell in Arcady.” “My dear Count,” said Maurice, much impressed by the fluency of the man’s speech, “I have never yet heard a foreigner speak our tongue with such ease as you do. Where did you learn such fluency —such a good accent?” “Ah, I will tell you that when we arrive at Melnos.” “You are almost as much a riddle as is Crispin,” said Maurice, chafing at this secrecy, which seemed to be so senseless. “Doubtless; but if you are curious to know about us both, come to the Ægean with me.” “About you both?” repeated the Englishman: “why, do you know anything of Crispin?” Caliphronas knew a good deal about Crispin, but he was too wise to say that he did. Silence regarding the past on his part was the only way to secure silence on the part of Crispin; and much as Caliphronas, in his enmity to the poet, would have liked to reveal what Crispin desired to be kept secret, he had too much at stake to risk such a gratification of his spite, and therefore passed off the question with a laugh. “Know anything about Creespeen?” he reiterated, smiling. “I’m afraid I know nothing more than you do. I met him at Athens, truly, but we were but acquaintances, so I never made any inquiries about him. He was as much a riddle there as here. Oh yes, I heard all the romances about him in London; and no doubt one story is as true as another. The reason I made such a remark as I did, was that, as
- 64. Crispin says himself, he came from the East like a wise man of to- day; you will probably learn his past history in those parts.” “And as to yourself?” “Eh! I have told you all my past life, with the exception of Melnos, and that I did not think worth while relating. But it is a charming place, I assure you; and if you come with me, I am sure you will find a community under the rule of Justinian, which is quite foreign to this century.” “I have a good mind to accept your offer,” said Maurice musingly; “there is nothing to keep me in England, and a glimpse of new lands would do me good. Besides, Count, one does not get such an excellent guide as you every day.” “Oh, I know every island in the Ægean,” replied Caliphronas, smiling his thanks for the compliment. “I have sailed all over the Archipelago, and am quite a sailor in a small way. Lesbos, Cythera, Samos, Rhodes,—I know them all intimately; so if you are fond of ruins, and the remains of old Greece, I can show you plenty, tell you the legends, arrange about the inns, and, in fact, act as a dragoman; but, of course, without his greed for money.” “It seems worth considering.” “It will be a visit to paradise,” cried Caliphronas enthusiastically, springing to his feet. “Here you do not know the true meaning of the word beauty. Only under the blue sky, above the blue waves of the Ægean, is it to be seen. Aphrodite arose from those waters, and she was but an incarnation of the beauty which meets the eye on all sides. You have been my host in England. I will be your host in Greece, and will entertain you in my ruined abode,—misnamed a palace,—which is all that remains to me of my forefathers. Together we will sail over those laughing waters, and see the sun-kissed islands bloom on the wave. Paradise! It is the Elysian fields of foam where rest the spirits of wearied mariners. What says the song of the Greek sailors?
- 65. ‘I will die! but the earth will not hold me in her breast, For the blue sea will clasp me in its arms. I will die! but let my soul not find the heaven of the orthodox. Nay, let it wander among the flowery islands, Where I can see my home and the girl who mourns me. That only is the paradise I long for.’” “You forget I do not know modern Greek,” said Maurice, smiling at the enthusiasm of the Count; “nor indeed much ancient Greek, for the matter of that. But see, Count, you have dropped a photograph.” “You can look at it,” said the Count, who had let it fall purposely; “I have no secrets.” “Oh!” “Ah, you think it a charming face?” “Charming is too weak a word. It is Aphrodite herself.” “Alas!” cried Caliphronas. with a merry laugh; “that goddess lived before the days of sun-pictures, else Apollo might have photographed her. No; that is no deity, but a mortal maiden whom I saw at Melnos. It is not bad for an amateur effort, is it?” “Oh, very good, very good!” replied Maurice hurriedly; “but the face—what a heavenly face!” “Ah, you see my paradise has got its Eve.” “And its Adam, doubtless?” “No, there is no Adam to that Eve,” said Caliphronas, shaking his head; “at least, there was not when I was in Melnos six months ago. Why should there be? You will find plenty of women as beautiful as Helena.” “Helena—is that her name? Yes, I have no doubt you will find beautiful women in Greece,—’tis their heritage from Phryne, Lais, and Aspasia; but none can be as beautiful as Helen of Troy.” “Possibly not; but that woman is Helena of Melnos, not of Troy.” “I’ll swear she is as beautiful as the wife of Menelaus, whom Paris loved.” “You seem quite in raptures over this face,” said Caliphronas, with but ill-concealed anger. “Pray, do you propose to be Menelaus or Paris!”
- 66. “Why, are you in love with her yourself?” asked Maurice, looking at the Greek in some surprise. This question touched Caliphronas more nearly than Maurice guessed, but, whatever passion he may have felt for the lady of the picture, he said nothing about it, but laughed in a somewhat artificial manner. “I in love with her, my friend? No; she is beautiful, I grant you, but I look upon her as I would an exquisite picture. She is nothing to me. Did I not tell you I have a future bride in the East? Yes—in Constantinople; a daughter of the old Byzantine nobles, a Fanariot beautiful as the dawn, who dwells at Phanar.” “Then I need fear no rivalry from you, Caliphronas?” “Certainly not. But you seem to have fallen in love with this pictured Helena.” “I will not go so far as to say that; but you know I have the artistic temperament, and therefore admire beauty always.” “Of course—the artistic sense,” sneered Caliphronas in such a disagreeable way, that Maurice again looked at him in astonishment. The fact is, that Roylands’ admiration of the portrait seemed to ruffle Caliphronas very much, and quite altered his usual nonchalance of manner. Never before had Maurice seen his joyous nature so changed, for he had now a frown on his usually smiling face, and appeared to be on the verge of an angry outbreak. All the wild beast in his nature, which was so carefully hidden by the civilized mask, seemed to show in the most unexpected manner, and with flashing eyes, tightly drawn lips, and scowling countenance, he looked anything but the serene Greek with whom Roylands was acquainted. Maurice was astonished and rather annoyed at this exhibition of temper, so, rising from his seat, he gave the picture back to his guest with a dignified gesture. “I have no wish to pry into your secrets, Count,” he said quietly, walking towards the door; “you showed me that portrait of your own free will, and if I admire it somewhat warmly, surely the beauty of the face is my excuse. At present I will say au revoir, as I have some business to do, and will be in my study till luncheon.”
- 67. When Maurice disappeared, the Greek stamped about the room in sheer vexation at having betrayed himself, for he could not but see that for once this simple Englishman had caught a glimpse of his real nature, hitherto so carefully concealed. “I am a fool, a fool!” he said savagely in Greek; “everything was going well, and I spoil all by letting my temper get the better of me. Why did I not let him admire Helena and say nothing? When we get to Melnos, that will be a different thing, for Justinian cannot go back from his word; and if I perform my part of the bargain, and bring this fool to Melnos, he must perform his, and give me his daughter. I must recover my lost ground if possible,—bah! it will not be difficult. I can see he is in love with Helena, so that will smooth everything. In love with my goddess!” he said ardently, gazing at the lovely face. “Ah, how can he help being so?—there is much excuse; but he can only worship you at a distance, my Venus, for you are mine—mine— mine!” He thrust the picture into his pocket, and, recovering his serene joyousness of mood, pondered for a few moments as to what was the best course to pursue. At last he decided, and walked towards the door of the studio with the air of a man who had made up his mind. “I will give him the picture,” he said, with a great effort, “and I feel sure he will make peace on those terms.” Maurice was sitting at his desk, wondering why the even- tempered Greek had thus given way to anger over the picture. “If he is engaged to a lady of Stamboul, he cannot be in love with this Helena,” he said to himself. “Perhaps he was jealous of my admiring the beauty of a woman more than his own. All Greeks are vain, but, as far as I can see, Caliphronas is simply mad with vanity. Come in.” In answer to his invitation, the Count entered smiling, and laid the picture on the desk before Maurice. “You must not be angry with me, my friend,” he said volubly; “I am like a child, and grow bad-tempered over nothing. This Helena is nothing to me, and, to prove this, I give you her portrait, which I do not care to keep. Come, am I forgiven?”
- 68. “Of course you are,” said Roylands hastily; “and I will not deprive you of your picture.” “No, no, I do not want it back,” replied Caliphronas, spreading out his hands in token of refusal; “you love the face, so keep it by all means.” “She is very beautiful,” said Maurice, gazing longingly at this modern Helen. “Is she worth a journey to the East?” asked Caliphronas in a soft voice, like the sibilant hiss of a serpent. Maurice made no reply; he was looking at the portrait.
- 69. CHAPTER X. A MODERN IXION. Oh, beware Of a snare! ’Tis a phantom fair Who will tangle your heart in her golden hair. Tho’ he vowed Would be bowed Heaven’s Hera proud, Ixion was duped by a treacherous cloud. But in sooth, Fate hath ruth, And this dream of youth May change from a dream to immutable truth. “What is truth?” asked Pilate, but to this perplexing question received no answer, not even from the Divine Man, who was best able to give a satisfactory reply. In the same way we may ask, “What is love?” and receive many answers, not one of which will be correct. The reason is simply, no one knows what love is, though every one has felt it. The commonest things are generally the most perplexing, and surely love is common enough, seeing it is the thing upon which the welfare, the pleasure, nay, the continuity, of the human race depends. Yet no one can define this every-day passion, because it is undefinable. “’Tis the mutual feeling which draws man and maid together.” True, but that may be affection, which is a lesser passion than love. “’Tis the admiration of a man or a woman for each other’s
- 70. beauty.” Nay, that is but sensuality. “’Tis the longing of two people of the opposite sexes to dwell together all their life.” Why, that is only companionship. Affection, sensuality, companionship, all three very pleasant, very comforting, but Love is greater than such a trinity. He may not give pleasure, he may not bring comfort, but, on the contrary, may make those to whose hearts he comes very unhappy. Love is no mischievous urchin, who plays with his arrows; no, he is a great and terrible divinity, who comes to every mortal but once in life. We desire him, we name him, we delight in him; but we know not what he is, where he comes from, or when he will leave us. These reflections were suggested to Maurice by the extraordinary feelings with which this dream-face of Helena inspired him. Never before had he felt the sensation of love—not affection, not admiration, not desire, but strong, passionate love, which pervaded his whole being, yet which he could not describe. He had not seen this woman in the flesh, he was hardly certain if she existed, for all the evidences he had to assure him that there was such a being were the portrait and the name, yet he felt, by some subtle, indescribable instinct, that this was the one woman in the world for him. Maurice, who had hitherto doubted the existence of love, was now being punished for such scepticism and was as love-sick as ever was some green lad fascinated by a pretty face. “He jests at scars who never felt a wound;” but Maurice did not jest at scars now, for the arrow of Cupid, shot from some viewless height, had made a wound in his heart which would heal not till he died; or, even granting it would heal, would leave a scar to be seen of all men. It was the old story of Ixion over again. Here was a man embracing a cloudy phantom of his own imagination, for, granting that this beautiful face belonged to a real woman, Maurice knew nothing about her, yet dowered her with all the exquisite perfections of feminality. He dreamed she would be loving, tender, and womanly, yet, for aught he knew, the owner of that lovely face might be a very Penthesilea for daring and masculine emulation. But no; he could not believe that she would unsex herself by taking upon her nature the rival attributes of manly strength, for the whole face breathed nothing but feminine delicacy. That broad white brow, above which
- 71. the hair was smoothed in the antique fashion; those grave, earnest eyes, so full of sympathy and purity; that beautifully shaped mouth, like a scarlet flower, speaking of reticence and womanly shrinking. No; he was quite sure that she was an ideal woman, so therefore worshipped her—unseen, unheard—with all the chivalrous affection of a mediæval knight. Day and night that faultless face haunted his brain like some perfect poem, and, waking or sleeping, he seemed to hear her voice, full and rich as an organ-note, calling on him to seek her in that Island of Fantasy whereof the Greek had spoken. Was she indeed some fairy princess, detained in an enchanted castle against her will? was this mysterious Justinian, whose personality seemed so vague, indeed her jailer, guarding her as the dragon did the golden fruit of the Hesperides? and was Caliphronas a messenger sent to tell him of the reward awaiting him should he take upon him vows of releasing her from such thraldom, and accomplish his quest successfully? Curious how the classic legends and the mediæval romances mixed together in his brain, yet one and all, however diverse in thought, pointed ever to that beautiful woman dwelling in an enchanted island sea-encircled by the murmurous waves of the blue Ægean. True, he had fallen in love, and thus regained in one instant the interest in life which he had lost erstwhile; but the object of his adoration seemed so far away, her personality, about which he could only obscurely conjecture, was so lost in dream-mists, that the cure of his melancholia seemed worse than the disease itself. He again became sad and absent-minded, grieving—not, as formerly, for a vague abstraction, for something, he knew not what—but for an actual being, for an unfulfilled passion which seemed in itself as elusive a thing as had tormented him formerly. The indistinct phantom which had engendered melancholia had taken shape—the shape of a beautiful, smiling face, which mocked him with the promise of delight probably never destined to be fulfilled. All his guests noticed this lapse into his former melancholy, but none of them guessed the reason save Caliphronas, who was beside himself with rage at the discovery. The stratagem with which he
- 72. proposed to draw Maurice to Melnos had succeeded beyond his highest expectations, but he was very dissatisfied with his success, and began to wonder if Crispin was not right after all concerning the folly of presenting a possible rival to the woman he desired for himself. The woman was to be the reward of his success; he had made use of that woman’s pictured loveliness to achieve that success, and by so doing had complicated the simplicity of the affair by introducing a third element, that of a rival’s love, which might place an obstacle in the way of his receiving the reward. It was Mephistopheles showing Faust the phantom of Gretchen, and the same result of love for an unseen woman had ensued; but then, Mephistopheles was not enamoured of the loveliness he used as a bait to catch his victim, whereas Caliphronas was. However, it was too late now to alter the matter, for the Greek could see that Maurice had almost made up his mind to go in search of this new Helen of Troy, and if he succeeded in gaining her heart, circumstances might arise with which it would be difficult to grapple. After all, when Caliphronas compared the Englishman’s every-day comeliness with his own glorious beauty, he felt that no woman would refuse him for such a commonplace individual as his possible rival. But, again, Caliphronas was aware that Helena valued the inward more than the outward man, in which case he suspected he had but little chance in coming off best. Pose as he might to the world, Caliphronas knew the degradation of his own soul, and when this was contrasted with the honest, proud, straightforward nature of Maurice Roylands, it could be easily seen which of them the woman would choose as best calculated to insure her happiness. Besides, the love which had been newly born in Maurice’s heart was a highly spiritual passion, with no touch of grossness, whereas the desires of Caliphronas were purely animal ones for physical beauty. In point of outward semblance, he would have been a fitter husband for the exquisite beauty of this woman, but as to a marriage of souls, which after all is the only true marriage, the one was as different from the other as is day from night. Maurice said nothing to Crispin about the portrait, and though the latter guessed from his abstraction that Caliphronas had played his
- 73. last card with that hidden loveliness, he made no remark, for the time was not yet ripe to unfold the past. If, however, Maurice went to Melnos, Crispin, as he had told Caliphronas, determined to accompany him, as much on his own account as on that of his friend. Truly this poet was a riddle, and so also was the Greek; but it is questionable if Maurice, with his open and above-board English life, was not a greater riddle than either of these mysterious men, seeing that his perplexity was a thing of the soul, vague and intangible, the solving of which meant the settling of his whole spiritual life; whereas the lighting of the darkness with which Caliphronas and Crispin chose to enshroud themselves was simply a question of material existence. The Parcæ held the three tangled skeins in their hands: Clotho now grasped the intricate threads; Lachesis was spinning the actions which were to lead to the unravelling of these riddles of spiritual and material things; and Atropos was waiting grimly with her fatal scissors to clip the life- thread of one of the three. But the question was, which? Ah, that was yet to be seen! for the middle Destiny was yet weaving woof and warp of words, actions, and desires, the outcome of which would determine the judgment of the Destroying Fate. Of all this intrigue, in which he was soon to be involved, Roylands was quite ignorant, as he already had his plan of action sketched out. He would go to Melnos with Constantine Caliphronas, he would see this dream-woman in the flesh, and if she came up to his ideal, he would marry her, at whatever cost. Alas for the schemes of clever Mrs. Dengelton! they were all at an end, simply because a man had seen a pretty face, which he elevated into the regions of romance, and made attractive with strange mysteries of fanciful attributes. But Mrs. Dengelton did not know this, and, ignorance being bliss, still hinted to Maurice of matrimony, still threw him into the company of Eunice; while, as a checkmate to her plans, and to aid Crispin, Maurice still puzzled the good lady with hints of marriage one day, and neglect of Eunice the next. Eunice herself saw through it all, and was duly grateful to Maurice; so the only blind person was Mrs. Dengelton, who but perceived the delightful future which might be,
- 74. not the disturbing present that was; if she had, her lamentations would have surpassed those of Jeremiah in bitterness and violence. On such an important matter as going to the East in search of a mistress for Roylands Grange, Maurice felt naturally anxious to consult his old tutor, and accordingly one morning walked over to the Rectory, where he found Mr. Carriston as usual pottering about among his rose-trees. The hot sun of July blazed down on that garden of loveliness, and the sweet-smelling roses burned like constellations of red stars amid the cool green of their surrounding leaves. “This is decidedly a rose-year,” said the good Rector approvingly, as he looked at the brilliance around him; “I have never seen such a fine show of flowers. My nightingales should sing their sweetest here, if the tale of their love for the rose be true. Did you ever see such a glow of color, Maurice? ‘Vidi Paestano candere rosaria cultu Exoriente novo roscida Lucifero.’ But I don’t think the poet saw finer roses than mine, even in Southern Italy.” “‘Rosa regina florum,’” remarked Maurice, smiling. “Eh! you match my quotation from Ausonius with a wretched little saying culled from your first Latin reading-book. My dear lad, I am afraid my labor has been in vain, for your Latin is primitive.” “No doubt it is,” assented Maurice cordially, “but I have not the gift of tongues. I would that I had, as it will be necessary in the East.” “The East!” repeated Carriston, sitting down under his favorite elm-tree. “What is this? Are you thinking of visiting the cradle of humanity?” “Yes; the summer is nearly over, so like a swallow I wish to fly south to the blue seas of Greece.” “‘Tous les ans j’y vais et je niche Aux mētopes du Parthenon,’”
- 75. quoted the Rector genially. “Do you know Gautier’s charming poem? I wish I could go with you to see the land of Aristophanes.” “Why not come?” “Nay, I am too old a tree to be transplanted. The comedies alone must take me on the wings of fancy to Athens. What would my parishioners do without me? or my roses, for the matter of that? Still, I would like to be your travelling companion, and we could visit together those places which we read of in your days of pupilage. You will see Colonos, where the Sophoclean nightingales still sing; and the Acropolis of Athena Glaucopis, the ringing plains of windy Troy, and the birthplace of the Delian Apollo. Truly the youth of to-day are to be envied, seeing how easy travel has been made by steam. Happy Maurice! the Iron Age will enable you to view the Golden Age with but small difficulty.” “Yes, I will be delighted to see all those famous places you have mentioned, sir; but I have a stronger reason.” “Indeed! And that reason?” “Is this.” Maurice placed the portrait of Helena in the hands of his old tutor, and awaited in silence his next remark. Mr. Carriston adjusted his pince-nez, and gazed long and earnestly at the perfect beauty of the woman’s countenance. “‘Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?’” he quoted from Marlowe; “upon my word, I would not be surprised to hear it was. A beautiful woman, Maurice; she has the loveliness of the Argive Helen.” “And the name also; she is called Helena.” “Ah! then I understand she is a real woman?” “Flesh and blood, according to Caliphronas.” The Rector put down the picture with a sudden movement of irritation quite foreign to his usual courtly manner. “I do not like Count Caliphronas,” he said abruptly. “Did he give you this portrait?” “Yes.” “Humph! And may I ask whom it is intended to represent?” “A Greek girl, called Helena, who lives in the Island of Fantasy.”
- 76. “The Island of Fantasy?” repeated the Rector in a puzzled tone. “I mean the Island of Melnos, in the southern archipelago of Greece.” “How did it come by the extraordinary name of Fantasy?” “Caliphronas called it so,” said Maurice carelessly. There was silence for a few moments, and the Rector rubbed his nose in a vexed manner, as he by no means approved of the frequent introduction of the Greek’s name into the conversation, but hardly saw his way how to prevent it. At length he determined to leave the matter in abeyance for the present, and reverted to the question of Helena. “Is it for the sake of this woman you are going to the Levant?” he asked, picking up the picture and tapping it with his pince-nez. “Yes.” “Is this not rather a mad freak?” Maurice did not answer for a moment, but moved uneasily in his seat; for, although he was quite prepared to be discouraged in his project by the Rector, he by no means liked the displeased tone in which he spoke. Mr. Carriston waited for an answer to his question, so Maurice was at length forced to give him one, and burst out into a long speech, so as to give his tutor no opportunity of making any remark until he had heard all the views in favor of such Quixotism. “I daresay it is a mad freak, sir, but not so very insane if you look upon it from my point of view. You know I have never been in love— true, I have always been fond of women and delighted in their society, but I have never had what you would call a passionate attachment in my life, nor did I think, until a few days ago, I was capable of such a thing. But when Caliphronas was sitting to me for Endymion, he happened to let fall that portrait, and told me it was one he had taken of a Greek girl at Melnos. As I admired the beauty of the face, he made me a present of the picture, and my admiration has merged itself in a deeper feeling, that of love. Oh, I know, sir, what you will say, that such a passion is chimerical, seeing I have never beheld this woman in the flesh, but I feel too strongly on the subject to think I am the victim of a heated imagination. I love this woman—I adore her! she is present with me day and night. Not only
- 77. her face—no! It is very beautiful, but I can see below that beauty. She has a soul, a lovely pure soul, which I worship, and I am anxious to see the actual living, breathing woman, so as to make her my wife.” “Your wife! Are you mad, boy?” “No, I am not mad, unless you call love a madness. Oh, I know it is easy for one to advise calmly on the woes of others. But can you not feel for me? You have been in love, Mr. Carriston, and you know how such a passion overwhelms the strongest man. Caution, thought, restraint, prudence, are all swept away by the torrent. It is no use saying that this passion I feel will pass, for I know it will not; it is part of my life. Till I die I will see that face before me, sleeping or waking. Why, then, should I pass the rest of my days in torture when I can alleviate such mental suffering? I am going to this unknown island, I will see this unknown woman, and if she comes up to the ideal being I have created from the picture in my mind, I will marry her. It may not be wise, it may not be suitable; but it is, and will be inevitable.” The old man listened in astonishment to this lava-torrent of words which swept everything before it. He could hardly recognize his former calm-tempered pupil in this young man, whose flashing eyes, eloquent gestures, and rapid speech betrayed the strength of the passion which consumed him. “‘Ira brevis est,’” quoth the Rector wisely; “I think love is the same.” “My madness of love will last all my life—yes, forever!” “Forever is a long time.” “Rector,” said Maurice entreatingly, “what do you advise?” “I advise nothing, dear lad,” replied Carriston quietly; “what is the use of my giving advice which is opposed to your own desires, and therefore will be rejected?” “True! true!” muttered Maurice, frowning. “I must go to Melnos and convince myself of the truth of the matter. See here, sir, at present I am worshipping a creature of my own creation, with the face of that picture, but with the attributes of fancy. This chimera of the brain, as you will doubtless term her, haunts me night and day,
- 78. so the only way to lay this feminine ghost is to see her incarnate in the flesh. She may be quite different from what I conceive, in which case I will be cured of my fancy; on the other hand, she may realize entirely my conception of beauty, purity, and womanliness: if she does, I will make her my wife, that is, of course, if she will have me for her husband.” “As you put the matter in that light,” said Mr. Carriston, after a pause, “I advise you to go to Melnos.” “You do?” “Decidedly! It is best to end this torture of the imagination, which I also know only too well. See this woman, if you like, but be sure she is all you desire her to be before making her your wife.” “There is no fear that I will let my heart govern my brain in such an important matter.” “There is a great fear,” replied the Rector gravely, glancing at the picture; “a young man’s heart is not always under his control, and this woman has the beauty which inspires madness. Helen of Troy, Cleopatra of Egypt, Mary of Scotland, Ninon de l’Enclos of France, they were all Lamiæ, and their beauty was ever fatal to their victims.” “Lovers,” corrected Maurice quickly. “Victims,” reiterated Carriston firmly; “or, if you will, lovers, for the terms are synonymous.” “Well, I will take your advice, sir, and go to the East in search of this lovely Helena of Melnos, but I promise you I will not be a victim.” “I hope not, but I fear so.” “You need not,” said Roylands gayly, delighted to have won over the Rector to his side. “I will come back alone, cured, or with a wife, and more in love than ever.” “How will you find this island?” “Oh, Caliphronas”— “As beautiful and as false as Paris of Troy,” interrupted the Rector quickly, whereat Maurice shrugged his shoulders. “Possibly he is, but I do not think I have anything to fear from him.”
- 79. “There is certainly no reason why he should be your enemy, yet I feel convinced he is so.” “Why?” “I cannot tell you unless I advance the Dr. Fell theory as an argument; but, to speak openly, my dear Maurice, this Greek seems to me to be like a sleek, soft-footed panther, beautiful to look on, but dangerous to meddle with.” “I am not going to meddle with him. He is simply returning to his home in Greek waters, and I will go with him. After we reach Melnos, very likely he will return to Ithaca.” “Perhaps.” “My dear old tutor,” cried the young man, laughing, “you are full of fears, first of this Helena, again of this Greek. Ten to one I will find both equally harmless.” “I trust so; but I do not like your travelling alone with this Count Constantine.” “I am not going to do so. Crispin is coming also.” “Ah!” said Carriston in a satisfied tone; “I am glad of that, for I like that young man very much. I am sure he is an honorable, straightforward fellow.” “You are inconsistent. His life is as mysterious as that of Caliphronas, yet you trust the one and mistrust the other.” “I do; it is a matter of instinct. Well, here is your Helena; I hope you will find the original as beautiful as the picture.” “I hope so too,” answered Maurice, restoring the photograph to his pocket. “By the way,” observed the Rector abruptly, “what about Eunice?” “Oh, she will not mourn me, for she has already consoled herself with Crispin.” “Humph! I thought as much; and what does your aunt say?” “She says nothing because she knows nothing.” “Do you think that is wise?” “No, I do not; so I am going to ask Crispin to explain who he is, what he is, and all about himself, before he leaves with me for the East. If his replies are satisfactory, I will try and persuade my dear aunt to consent to the match; but you may depend upon it, my dear
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