44 MATHESIS. 



light ; were it therefore always dark, were night to 

 endure for ever, the air must soon assume another com- 

 position or mixture, and everything that lives in it must 

 fall to ruin. This is shown also by the diseases and crises 

 of the same. 



194. Light is from eternity, for the tense aether was 

 from eternity. The dark chaos exists only as inventive. 



f Light is time that has become real, the first manifestation 

 | of God ; is God himself positing, is the dyadic God. The 

 dyas is not merely radiality but light ; or both are one, 

 time and light are one, motion and light are one. When 

 God numbers, when he draws lines, he thus creates light. 

 God becoming self-conscious is light. Light is God illu- 

 minating. Darkness has accordingly never existed, 

 although the light is derived from the darkness, like 

 numbers and figures are out of nothing. 



195. Light is no matter. There is no substance 

 called light, but the aether is illuminant through its binary 

 division. The sun does not, therefore, stream forth when 

 it illumines the planets, and loses nothing of its magni- 

 tude ; it is not to be feared that we shall ever lose it. 

 That the sun is an undulating sea of flame, that it is 

 throughout a volcano, that combustions or electrical pro- 

 cesses of light, appearing to us as light, occur in its 

 atmosphere ; that the velocity of rotation hurls about the 

 light-particles, and that these particles scattered in the 

 world-space are, by an unknown route, or by means of 

 comets, again brought back to the sun, are opinions 

 unworthy the inquirer into nature. The sun gives out 

 nothing. but the impulse, not, however, the mechanical, 

 which makes the space of heaven tremble that it may 

 shine ; but the purely spiritual, as the nerves rule the 

 muscle. The sun can never be extinguished, never 

 become dark ; for it gives out light, not as a fire, but 

 simply by reason of its standing in the midst ; its simple 

 position, its enchainment to the planets is light. A fire 

 upon the sun would not be perceived by us; it would not 

 lighten nor warm us, because of its having no relation to 

 us. The central relation of the sun toward us cannot, 



