CYCLE TWENTY-FIVE

1. If the soul can be likened to a square and the mind to a circle, then the id would be akin, in its phenomenal relativity, to a rectangle, and the ego to an ellipse.

2. Both the square and the circle, being absolutist in their contrary noumenal integrities, are non-dialectical, whereas the rectangle and the ellipse have in common the parallel sides of their elongated planes, which constitute a basis for dialectical interaction after the manner of the id and the ego or, in bodily terms, woman and man.

3. The oval is arguably a more radical ellipse that accords, in its more evenly distributed curvilinearity, with a deuteron and/or deuterino as opposed to a neutron and/or neutrino mode of egocentricity, after the manner of Catholic nonconformism.

4. Something similar could be argued of elongated octagons as opposed to rectangles, where the feminine parallel to the more radical mode of masculine egocentricity is concerned, and it would accord with a positron and/or positrino as opposed to an electron and/or electrino mode of instinctuality, after the manner of Catholic humanism.

5. Be that as it may, neither octagons nor ovals transcend the id or the ego the way both squares and circles do, which is why they remain affiliated, in dialectical interaction, to the psyche as objective and subjective manifestations, respectively, of phenomenal relativity.

6. The transmutation of lines and curves into planes is commensurate with the attainment of content and the abandonment of form.

7. Form leads to content as power to glory and, in Schopenhaurian terms, the will to representation, since that which has form or power by definition also has will, while that which has content or glory by definition also has representation, which is the linear fulfilment of a causative precondition.

8. We may speak here of cause and effect, whether in connection with appearances, quantities, qualities, or essences, so that things can be said to proceed from one type of form or power or will to a correspondingly proportionate type of content or glory or representation.

9. Contrary to Schopenhauer, the body is not necessarily, as representation, the objectification of the will, since it entirely depends on the type of will as to whether the representational outcome will be correspondingly objective or subjective.

10. If the will is objective, and hence a factor of straight lines, then the representation will be proportionately objective, and thus a rectilinear factor of squares and/or rectangles.

11. If, on the other hand, the will is subjective, and hence a factor of curved lines, then the representation will be proportionately subjective, and thus a curvilinear factor of circles and/or ellipses.

12. Hence we may argue, contrary to Schopenhauer, that only that body which is the product of an objective will should be its objectification, and I hold that, contrary to appearances, such a body is more likely to be female, in stark contrast to the body which is, in male vein, the subjectification of a subjective precondition stemming not from a vacuum, as in the female case, but from a plenum, the subjective cause, through curves, of a curvilinear effect.

13. There is also a more generalized sense in which the relationship between the Chinese Yin and Yang is one of cause and effect, since males are in no small degree the effects of a female cause, even if their childhood representation necessarily requires a closer elemental proximity to the mother in terms of squares and/or rectangles, as against circles and/or ellipses.

14. For like can only issue from like, even when it has the appearance, superficially, of the opposite gender. In actuality, it takes the male sex many years to grow towards vegetation and air at the expense of fire and water.

15. The relation of state to church is also, in general terms, akin to that between Yin and Yang, female and male, especially since the Christian Church effectively begins only with the vegetative sacrifice of the Crucified Saviour as a precondition of spiritual redemption in the Holy Ghost - something as far removed from the female objectivity of the State, with its soul and/or id, as it is humanly possible to be.

16. In fact, there is about the Church, when genuine and hence Catholic, an ego-to-mind, Son-to-Holy-Spirit order of subjective progression which contrasts, as effect to cause, with the soul-to-id, the 'Father'-to-'Mother', order of objective progression more characteristic, in its monarchic and parliamentary parallels, of the State, that female powerbase from which the glory of the Christian Church duly arose.

17. However, Yin and Yang can also be narrowed down to the objective and/or subjective parameters of form and content that we were previously discussing, and it seems to me that not only power and glory or will and representation, but also work and play can be thought of in terms of cause and effect, straight lines and/or curved lines and planes of a rectilinear and/or curvilinear disposition.

18. For it usually transpires that work leads to play, as will to representation, and that work, as a manifestation of will, is consequently a precondition, in one mode or another, of a correspondingly proportionate manifestation of representative play.

19. Hence no play without work, just as, in correlative terms, we can argue that there would be no content without form, no glory without power, and no representation without will.

20. It may even be - though this is purely a speculative suggestion on my part - that each definition of cause and effect can be ascribed a particular elemental bias, with, say, form and content being most suited to a metachemical bias by dint of a closer association, in either negative or positive terms, with ugliness and/or beauty and hatred and/or love, but power and glory being most suited to a metaphysical bias by dint of a closer association, in either negative or positive terms, with falsity and/or truth and woe and/or joy.

21. Similarly, where the phenomenal options 'down below' are concerned, it may even be that will and representation are more suited to a chemical bias by dint of a closer association, in either negative or positive terms, with weakness and/or strength and humility and/or pride, but that work and play are more suited to a physical bias by dint of a closer association, in either negative or positive terms, with ignorance and/or knowledge and pain and/or pleasure.

22. If so, then we would have to allow for a materialistic bias to form and content which smacked of an apparent definition of cause and effect, while reserving to power and glory an idealistic bias in keeping with an essential definition of cause and effect.

23. Similarly, we would have to allow for a realistic bias to will and representation which smacked of a quantitative definition of cause and effect, while reserving to work and play a naturalistic bias in keeping with a qualitative definition of cause and effect.

24. Since I have not argued in such terms before now, I shall not press the point, though I think it helps to bear the possibility of alternative biases in mind, so that more specific definitions of apparent, quantitative, qualitative, and essential modes of cause and effect can be elicited as and when circumstances allow.

25. For when all's said and done, whether one thinks of cause and effect in terms of form and content, will and representation, work and play, or power and glory, the important thing to remember is that there are, in effect, four main types of cause and effect, each with a different element and each, so to speak, with a different axe to grind, be it emotional, instinctual, intellectual, or spiritual, in outer or inner, negative and/or positive modes, not all of which are equal and not all of which are equally desirable, despite the capacity of the body and the psyche to accommodate them on a more or less equalitarian, and hence amoral, basis.