THE MORALITY OF DOING

1. Having dealt with taking, let us now turn to doing, whose will-based nature is rather more illustrative of appearances than of qualities or, for that matter, quantities and essences. For will is that which is furthest removed from soul, having its fulcrum, so to speak, in fire, wherein it is most apparent. Closer to spirit than to ego, will is ever of the not-self, the driving-force behind spiritual selflessness, and is never more itself than when noumenally objective, and hence metachemical. Compared and/or contrasted to which, the phenomenal objectivity of chemical doing is second-rate, the phenomenal subjectivity of physical doing third-rate, and the noumenal subjectivity of metaphysical doing fourth-rate, the least apparent order of doing and therefore the only order of will that can be used (by the metaphysical ego) as a springboard to the deepest, most essential soul. Will per se, on the other hand, will only deliver the least essential soul which, as we have seen, is called love.

2. Thus it would be quite philosophically incorrect to equate love with the will, even when the latter is metachemical, since the will is no less distinct from the soul than the spirit from the ego (mind), being affiliated to the not-self - or, in this case, to a specific not-self characterized as metachemical - as opposed to the self. The ego may direct the will, but the will is not commensurate with God or man or woman or the Devil on the basis of truth or knowledge or strength or beauty, but, rather, on a sort of secondary basis in which the nature of appearance, the doing of will, will be either quick or slow, excitable or calm, depending on its elemental bent. Quick, and we have metachemical will. Slow, by contrast, and the elemental correspondence will be chemical. Excitable, and we have physical will. Calm, and the will can only be metaphysical. Thus does moral doing reflect a positive relationship to either quickness or slowness when objective, while the subjective kinds of moral doing, being physical and metaphysical, can only be excitable or calm, bearing in mind their relationship to vegetation and to air.

3. As with giving, however, there are negative orders of doing to be reckoned with, and once again we may posit an inorganic precondition for them which would suggest the greater influence of primacy over supremacy in the unfolding of the various kinds of antiwill, from a metachemical per se through the chemical, physical, and metaphysical 'bovaryizations' of negative will. As we have distinguished negative giving from positive giving, so we shall here make a like-distinction, with regard to doing, between the positivity of quickness and the negativity of loudness; the positivity of slowness and the negativity of quietness; the positivity of excitableness and the negativity of hardness; and the positivity of calmness and the negativity of softness.

4. Thus no less than quickness is the positive metachemical corollary of beauty, its diabolical egocentric counterpart in the alpha-based contexts of not-self and self, so loudness (or aggressiveness) is the negative metachemical corollary of ugliness; and no less than slowness (or firmness) is the positive chemical corollary of strength, its feminine egocentric counterpart, so quietness (or shyness) is the negative corollary of weakness; and no less than excitableness is the positive physical corollary of knowledge (whether carnal or mental), its masculine egocentric counterpart, so hardness (or coarseness) is the negative physical corollary of ignorance; and no less than calmness is the positive metaphysical corollary of truth, its divine egocentric counterpart, so softness (or pliability) is the negative metaphysical corollary of falsity.