It is the third day and the little door is still there. Every fish now knows, that he has his very own "truth". Some fishes however love the truth so much, that they start to collect different pieces of truth - even from different times - and while they are playing around with two of them, they discover a set of keys.

The name of the first key is "logic".
The name of the second key is "history".

There is indeed an old complex lock in the door, where the keys seem to fit. The third seal is falling and the name of the seal is "justice" and it appears the spirit of ambivalence and he comes with words from a book:


"Most of us may not believe in the story of a Devil to whom one can sell one's soul, but those who must know something about the soul (considering that as clergymen, historians, and artists they draw a good income from it) all testify that the soul has been destroyed by mathematics and that mathematics is the source of an evil intelligence that while making man the lord of the earth has also made him the slave of his machines. The inner drought, the dreadful blend of acuity in matters of detail and indifference toward the whole, man's monstrous abandonment in a desert of details, his restlessness, malice, unsurpassed callousness, moneygrubbing, coldness, and violence, all so characteristic of our times, are by these accounts solely the consequence of damage done to the soul by keen logical thinking! Even back when Ulrich first turned to mathematics there were already those who predicted the collapse of European civilization because no human faith, no love, no simplicity, no goodness, dwelt any longer in man. These people had all, typically, been poor mathematicians as young people and at school. This later put them in a position to prove that mathematics, the mother of natural science and grandmother of technology, was also the primordial mother of the spirit that eventually gave rise to poison gas and warplanes.
The only people who actually lived in ignorance of these dangers were the mathematicians themselves and their disciples the scientists, whose souls were as unaffected by all this as if they were racing cyclists pedaling away for dear life, blind to everything in the world except the back wheel of the rider in front of them. But one thing, on the other hand, could safely be said about Ulrich: he loved mathematics because of the kind of people who could not endure it. He was in love with science not so much on scientific as on human grounds. He saw that in all the problems that come within its orbit, science thinks differently from the laity. If we translate "scientific outlook" into "view of life," "hypothesis" into "attempt," and "truth" into "action," then there would be no notable scientist or mathematician whose life's work, in courage and revolutionary impact, did not far outmatch the greatest deeds of history. The man has not yet been born who could say to his followers: "You may steal, kill, fornicate - our teaching is so strong that it will transform the cesspool of your sins into clear, sparkling mountain streams." But in science it happens every few years that something till then held to be in error suddenly revolutionizes the field, or that some dim and disdained idea becomes the ruler of a new realm of thought. Such events are not merely upheavals but lead us upward like a Jacob's ladder. The life of science is as strong and carefree and glorious as a fairy tale. And Ulrich felt: People simply don't realize it, they have no idea how much thinking can be done already; if they could be taught to think a new way, they would change their lives."



This is a very small extract from a monumental book, written over a period of ca. twenty years between the two world wars: "The Man without Qualities".
Robert Musil, the author, born in Austria-Hungary described the overall mood of the society in 1913 - just one year before the first world war.
This was basically a period in history, which was revolutionized by the new discoveries in natural science (Freud, Darwin ...), a belief in progress and human cleverness, which was shaking the peoples belief in God - especially among the elites - like never before.
The people are searching for a (new) great and unifying idea in order to celebrate the birthday of the emperor Franz Josef. Of course everyone has a different opinion about this. For every opinion there is an opposing opinion. No agreement is possible.
The main character, a mathematician, realizes this, and - looking for perfection - he can´t take anybody serious and he refuses to take position.
The book ends unfinished (Musil died in 1942), the last chapters however describe a mystic experiment in love.
There is no clear "message", just some little hints, hidden in Musils unpublished works, fragments like:

"If the non-correct gets the upper hand: war." *)
or
"Everything happens."
or
"All lines are leading to war."

*) like Tolstoi in "War and Peace", Musil believed, that it is not so much the leaders, but the general mood of the peoples, that makes war almost inevitable.

I leave it open here. Well, this was an encounter with the terrible spirit of ambivalence.

@ Larry: Next message will be shorter

Four seals remain.