Novalis and the Unity of Being

What Novalis understood was that ecstasy was amplified inwardness. Calling that a function of his idealism is to ignore his consistent proceeding by homologies. Formal unities are not replicated but are inflected by the possibilities of the material in which they are found. Analogies proceed by a focus on single aspects and that tends to create a pluralism. First there are beings and then there is a unity of beings and finally there is a unity of beings within Being.

The solipsism inherent in Idealism cannot trace 'the paths of Novalis’ and it has amused me that any path through a field making for a gap in the hedge does not proceed by straight logic but is curved into the line of beauty.

All things lead me back upon myself. I well understood what the second Voice said once. I rejoice in the wonderful collections and figures in the study halls; it seems to me as though they were only symbols, veils, decorations enshrouding a Divine Being ; -and this is ever in my thoughts. I do not seek for them, but I often seek in them. It is as though they might show me the path to a place where, slumbering, lies the Virgin for whom my spirit yearns. (The Disciples at Sais)