INTRODUCTION: AS A JOKE, IT MAY BE SAID THAT EVEN PLANTS ASPIRE TO
CONTEMPLATION.
1. If as a preliminary pleasantry, we said that all beings, not only
reasonable ones, but even the irrational, plants as well as the earth
that begets them, aspire to contemplation, and are directed towards
that end; that, as a result of the difference existing between them,
some really achieve contemplation, while others only accomplish a
reflection or image of it, we would no doubt be told that this was an
absurd paradox. But as we are here engaged in a private study, we may,
as an indulgence, support this paradox. While thus trifling, are we
ourselves not actually engaging in contemplation? Besides, it would be
not only we, but any who thus trifle, who aspire to contemplation. We
might even say that a joking child, as well as a meditating man both
aim at reaching contemplation when the former jokes, and the later
meditates. Indeed, there is not a single action that does not tend
towards contemplation; more or less externalizing it according as it is
carried out strictly or freely. In any case its ultimate aim is always
contemplation; but of this later.[178]