THE TRIUMPH OF BEING

1. I said at the beginning of this cyclical project that the principal concern of philosophers was - or should be - being, and so it is to being that I shall now return at its ending, bearing in mind that being is characteristic of the essence, or soul, of things, as, most especially, of the self.

2. I have shown, contrary to the doubts and moral ignorance of those all-too-modern philosophers who are apt to dismiss being or the possibility of knowledge thereof, exactly what being is, and I maintain that there is a hierarchy of being which stretches from the least essential being of love (in metachemistry) to the most essential being of joy (in metaphysics) via the less (relative to least) essential being of pride (in chemistry) and the more (relative to most) essential being of pleasure (in physics).

3. Thus, because fire is the least essential (properly apparent) element and air the most essential, fiery being, otherwise known as love, is the least essential and airy being, otherwise known as joy, the most essential, while with the less (relative to least) essential (properly quantitative) element of water and the more (relative to most) essential (properly qualitative) element of vegetation in between, watery being and vegetative being, otherwise known as pride and pleasure, are correspondingly less essential and more essential respectively.

4. Such can also be said of the negative, or primary, counterparts to the above positive, or supreme, manifestations of being, viz. hatred, humility, pain, and woe, in sensuality no less than in sensibility.

5. However, since it has been my design to dwell on the positive manifestations of being, not their negative counterparts, I have focused most of my philosophic attention upon love, pride, pleasure, and joy, the respective idealisms, in religion, of fundamentalism, nonconformism, humanism, and transcendentalism.

6. For being is religious, and, being religious, it is ever idealistic, even if there are different kinds of idealism corresponding to the nature and/or unnature of the particular element with which it is associated.

7. Thus the idealism of love differs demonstrably - one might say absolutely - from the idealism of joy, as Hell from Heaven, unnatural/unhuman (inhuman) fundamentalism from subnatural/subhuman transcendentalism, and these in turn differ from the purgatorial idealism of pride and the earthly idealism of pleasure, both of which constitute a worldly antithesis, as germane to the nonconformism of the supernatural/superhuman on the one hand, and to the humanism of the natural/human on the other hand.

8. However, while being is to be found in every elemental context, from metachemistry and chemistry on the objective, or female, side of life ... to physics and metaphysics on its subjective, or male, side, it is only chiefly characteristic of metaphysics, wherein the noumenal element of air has its essential throne.

9. But if being is chiefly characteristic of metaphysics, it is not chiefly characteristic of physics, wherein the phenomenal element of vegetation has its qualitative throne. Neither is it chiefly characteristic of chemistry, wherein the phenomenal element of water has its quantitative throne, nor of metachemistry, wherein the noumenal element of fire has its apparent throne.

10. On the contrary, if the being of soul most characterizes metaphysics, then that which most characterizes physics, by contrast, is the taking of ego, while chemistry and metachemistry would have to be chiefly characterized by the giving of spirit and the doing of will, as by glory and power as opposed, on the subjective side of the gender divide, to form and, in the case of metaphysics, contentment.

11. Thus metaphysics, corresponding in ideological terms to transcendentalism, is the one element in which being (joy) can truly triumph, the one element in which, especially in the religious context of idealism, being is an end-in-itself rather than just an aside to some other - and false - end or (especially on the objective side of life) means, as the case may be.

12. In physics, by contrast, being (pleasure) has to take second place to taking, as to the ego; in chemistry being (pride) has to take third place to giving, as to the spirit; and in metachemistry being (love) has to take fourth place to doing, as to the will.

13. Thus it would be illogical, to the point of absurdity, to speak of being triumphing, or of the triumph of being, in any other element than metaphysics, the concern par excellence of philosophy, and hence of philosophers.

14. For physics, the concern par excellence of fiction, as of novelists, exemplifies the triumph of taking (in the ego), while chemistry, the concern par excellence of drama, as of playwrights, exemplifies the triumph of giving (in the spirit), and metachemistry, the concern par excellence of poetry, as of poets, exemplifies, in unequivocal terms, the triumph of doing (in the will).

15. Therefore it would be as illogical for a poet to speak of the triumph of being (in the soul) as for a philosopher - and there have, alas! been some highly prominent ones in recent times - to speak of the triumph of doing (in the will). The soul (love) of metachemistry can only be subordinate to the will (in noumenal objectivity), just as the will (in noumenal subjectivity) of metaphysics can only be subordinate to the soul (joy).

16. And what applies to the noumenal elements applies in rather more phenomenal vein to the intermediate elements, as it were, of chemistry and physics, wherein the spirit will be dominant in the one and the ego dominant in the other, whether in relation to will or soul or, indeed, to ego (chemistry) and spirit (physics).

17. Rather than risk getting drawn back into a discussion of will, spirit, or ego, I should like to stay with the soul, and hence the context of being which, as we have seen, is never more idealistic, or religious, than in metaphysics.

18. But metaphysics can be either of time or space, of sequential time in sensuality (outer) or of spaced space in sensibility (inner), and therefore metaphysical being has the capacity to ascend, through time-space evolution, from sensuality to sensibility, wherein it is saved.

19. Likewise metachemistry can be either of space or time, of spatial space in sensuality (outer) and of repetitive time in sensibility (inner), and therefore metachemical being has a fatality to descend, through space-time devolution, from sensuality to sensibility, wherein it is damned.

20. Contrariwise, physics can be either of mass or volume, of massive mass in sensuality (outer) or of voluminous volume in sensibility (inner), and therefore physical being has the capacity to ascend, through mass-volume evolution, from sensuality to sensibility, wherein it is saved.

21. Similarly chemistry can be either of volume or mass, of volumetric volume in sensuality (outer) or of massed mass in sensibility (inner), and therefore chemical being has a fatality to descend, through volume-mass devolution, from sensuality to sensibility, wherein it is damned.

22. Whether being be of the sort which is sensual or sensible, outer or inner, 'once born' or 're-born', it descends in metachemistry through space-time devolution and in chemistry through volume-mass devolution, whereas in physics it ascends through mass-volume evolution and in metaphysics through time-space evolution.

23. Thus far from being exclusively of time or space, noumenal being can be of time and space on both space-time and time-space axes - the former objective and the latter subjective, whether in sensuality or in sensibility.

24. And far from being exclusively of volume or mass, phenomenal being can be of volume and mass on both volume-mass and mass-volume axes - the former objective and the latter subjective, whether in sensuality or in sensibility.

25. Now just as being is never shallower, or less deep, than in the spatial space of space-time devolution, so it is never deeper, or more profound, than in the spaced space of time-space evolution, since space is the plane in which being is sensually metachemical on the one hand, and sensibly metaphysical on the other hand.

26. In fact, just as being can only be second-rate on a plane or axis in which taking (the ego) is cardinal, and third-rate on a plane or axis in which giving (the spirit) is cardinal, so it can only be fourth-rate on a plane or axis in which doing (the will) is cardinal, as it most assuredly is on the space-time axis of noumenal objectivity.

27. Thus the being (love) of space-time devolution is not only of an inferior order of being to the being (joy) of time-space evolution, whether in sensuality or sensibility, it is of an inferior order of being to the being (pride) of volume-mass devolution and to the being (pleasure) of mass-volume evolution, since of an order that is not simply more essential in relation to most essential, i.e. physical being in relation to metaphysical being, nor even less essential in relation to least essential, i.e. chemical being in relation to metachemical being, but least essential, because affiliated, in metachemistry, with that element which, being noumenally objective, is most apparent, viz. fire.

28. Therefore only that being which, being metaphysical, is affiliated to time-space evolution can be truly profound, and only in spaced space is that being sensibly supreme.

29. For while the joy accruing to aural metaphysics is incontestably supreme (positive), it is the supremacy of sensuality in sequential time, and therefore an inferior order (cursed) of metaphysical supremacy to the sensible order (saved) in spaced space.

30. Only respiratory metaphysics can deliver such an ultimate supremacy, an ultimate positive essence, and for that the ego, duly metaphysical, must be attuned to transcendental meditation, in order that the personal self may reap the universal harvest it richly deserves ... of the most sensible soul in the triumph of inner being, not only the being-of-beings in relation to other types of being, but the ultimate type of metaphysical being, in which the subconscious soul is saved for ever more. So be it!