Lecture V

It seemed to Capesius, who had a good grasp of history, that this was somewhat Pythagorean. He felt that a Pythagorean principle had the upper hand in Felix, who was arguing that there is nothing we can do about the atoms themselves but that within them we find the wisdom of measure and number. More and more complicated became the argument, with ever more complicated numerical relationships, where—according to Felix—cosmic wisdom in combining the atoms revealed itself as a spiritual principle among them. More and more complicated became the structures that Father Felix built up for Capesius, who gradually was overcome by a peculiar mood. You could describe it by saying that he had to strain every nerve so much in deciphering this complicated stuff that, even though the subject interested him immensely, he had to suppress a desire to yawn and to sink into a kind of dream state.