A CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN TWO COR, NERS
of personal consciousness proper to me. I was born of him and in
me he dwells. And if he does not leave me, he will also create the
forms of his continued dwelling in me, i.e., my person. God not only
created me, but is continually creating and will create me. For he of
course wishes that I should also create him in myself in the future,
just as he has created me till now. There can be no descent of God
without free acceptance of him: the two acts are in a sense equivalent,
and that which receives becomes equal in dignity to that which gives.
God cannot leave me if I do not leave him. Thus, the inner law of
love engraved in us (for we can easily read it on the invisible tablet)
proves to us how right was the psalmist of the Old Testament when
he said to God: "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt
thou suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption."-This is what I think
to myself in my corner, my good neighbor. And what will your an–
swer be from the other comer of the same square? What are you
thinking?
v.
I.
II.
To V.
I.
Ivanov;
No, V.
I.,
I have not come to doubt personal immortality, and
like you, I consider the individual to be the vessel of authentic reality.
But it seems to IT'te that about these things one should neither speak
nor think. You and I, my dear friend, are at the opposite ends of the
diagonal not only in this room but also in spirit. I do not like to r.aise
my thoughts to the heights of metaphysics, although I delight in
your effortless soaring in that sphere. These wide-ranging speculations
invariably form into systems in accordance with the laws of logic–
these empyrean structures to which so many in our circle devote
themselves-and I confess that they seem to me futile and hopeless.
More than that, all this abstraction, and not it alone, weighs upon
me heavily: recently all the intellectual achievements of mankind,
all the wealth of attainments, knowledge and values amassed and
conquered through the centuries, have weighed upon me like an irk–
some burden, like an excessively heavy and confining spiritual garb.
Over a long period this feeling has troubled me at intervals;
now, however, it has become constant. For me there is a prospect of
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