In that case, is not every dispute pointless as to whether the First Cause is thus or thus, whether it is God, Ether or something else? If it is not pointless, then the dispute is in fact about something else: as to whether, for example, the definitive word of tomorrow will be that of Mark or Marx — his word and my opportunity — or someone else will evaluate and take the measure of one and the other (and any one else you care to mention) — the measure theirs, and I'm in a tight spot. The dispute is as to whether I shall simply remain bewildered, without range or scope — me, and not god-the-father or someone's son — or muster the courage in time to take my own risks and live a life without bowing to someone else's quotations and dogmatic beliefs. Yes, this is an ideological, political or simply psychological dispute between believing and belief. At best, it is a dispute about some linguistic error or other, whether or not this has led to a possible logical error, about how to reduce the margin for misunderstanding to a minimum, or also a methodological dispute in the broadest sense: how to feel, comprehend and experience with man's preconditioned mind and single heart something which is unconditioned and which is All — Infinity. It then becomes comprehensible that an infinite First Cause can be nothing other than Infinity itself, that one and only, true, absolutely indeterminate Infinity, and not just an infinite series, some of them sharing the same connotation. Otherwise the First Cause would be finite, i.e. by not being a result or a simple cause, it would be limited. Even as the endless warp and woof, it would still be bounded and therefore finite: just the warp and woof and not something else. To insist that the First Cause is mere Matter as such, and go on giving descriptions of it until the cows come home, is just as ridiculous as claiming it as Idea. For if Matter must not be Idea, then it is limited by Idea, as Idea is by Matter. In this case neither matter nor idea is infinite. But if nonetheless they are, if they really are, then the dispute is only about which word is the more suitable for what is exactly felt and premised in any given scientific or historic circumstances you care to mention. A word, which itself cannot be finite, but is now Air, now Number, Fire or Spirit and which must encompass All, Infinity, is certainly not easy to find. Nevertheless, if one had to be found, found at any price, it would seem that it would be best for this absolutely indeterminate Infinity, this infinite Indetermination, to simply be called:

Nothing.

Could people really ever agree on this Nothing? Could they really ever call it God or Matter?

And then again, is it worthwhile arguing over Nothing?

Nothing — that is, absolute indetermination and vagueness, therefore everything. Apsolute Possibility, in the final analysis.

Is it not better that each should extract his own fortuity, his own symbol, his own word from this inexhaustible fountainhead? Shall we not, after all, understand one another?

It was settled long ago in the face of all odds that two and two in any combination is four, and that you cannot demolish a stone wall by knocking your head against it!

If therefore once upon a time we were not sure of some things, if we had doubts about all the interpretations of school and daily philosophical explanations — we now do know. We finally know what philosophy is . We have tested it personally, in the only possible way: our personal thought which is created from nature itself and in the process of thinking it oppresses and no one no matter what it may resemble, and whit its own effort which stimulates from within and which allows no reference and no outside influence no matter where this strength or help may come from. From day to day, for years and who knows from when we have lived here wondering and questioning under the arch of our sky, amongst things and people, upon trails and thickets of the world, on the river banks and shores of the ocean, in the rain and under dark shimmering of the stars — and finally witnessed our very own and personal experience. And all of this only to continue with our questions and admiration, through foreboding and calamity, discovering ecstasy. Always one step closer to nature, nature itself, nature for and of itself. This time we stand erect and gaze at our own horizon. Together with the rest of the world. With all that which once was, once written and all that which may be.

And philosophy is precisely that, an experience before everything else, a continuous experience, certainly an experience of thought, but from the very depth of the soul and with wide open ears and eyes. Philosophy is that way of thinking through which every corner of conscious is awakened and every nerve within the body inspires free questioning and learning, the exploring and grasping without prejudices: How is it that the Universe exists? Philosophy is an experience of thought which continues with its ever expanding concentric circles and whose whirlpool pries ever deeper, an experience through which the question how is it that the Universe exists? gradually loses its bearing upon earthly determinations and within suspicion and presentiment, the true eternity finds its undetermined reply. Philosophy is an unlimited process of thought in which the question how is it that the World exists? loses more and more of its cutting edge and precisely upon this loss it finds its true answer — widely opening space for all possibilities, an undetermined Possibility of all, that is the unconditional situations which of themselves may or may not be. Philosophy is a thought hose presentiment and genuine sense for hearing the whispers of that which has no beginning and no end, that which is completely undetermined, that which is eternal.

And once we have fathomed this much about philosophy and gotten a notion as to what it deals with, then we can agree with considerable pleasure that claim that the philosophy is in this or that way all that which the philosophers have thus far said or written about it.

Nothing is superfluous.

There is no full stop.

Or it is perhaps ever-present.

 (PHILOSOPHY AND BELIEF, from chapter VI and VII,