(c) And not only is the first conception of thought mysterious. Her entire concrete life is also mysterious. We must seek it in such a way that the combination of the moments that characterize it will be for us a necessity, clarity and obviousness, and so that reason and reason in its construction act with complete freedom, without the slightest obstacle from any side. But it is here that the mystery begins to make itself felt, just as it is felt in mathematics, precisely because of the convincing evidence of this or that construction.

Why is this and not the other connection necessary? After all, thought, it would seem, could have a completely different structure. Let there really be some connection of logical or mathematical premises that has nothing to do with the logic and mathematics that exists among people. And let it be true, and let the one that we have now be untrue, or even if it does not exist at all or remains unknown to anyone. This new connection of propositions would be scientific, true, obvious, illustrative; And no one would even think about the possible conventionality of such logic and mathematics, just as there is no doubt about the multiplication table now. However, this is the most remarkable thing in thought, that it has this necessary structure, and not another. Let no other structure be conceivable or even unimaginable for us. But this is the mystery that only one definite structure is conceivable to us.

3. a) Of course, it is possible not to ask such a question at all, and then we will not fix any mystery, but will only give a purely rationalistic picture of the content of thought that is really given to us. But it is impossible to suppress this question in yourself. And it is not justified blindly psychologically, but, above all, purely logically, since the structure of thought that we actually find is, abstractly speaking, only one of the possible types of the structure of thought in general. Either we must say why this particular structure of thought and not this one has a logical necessity, or we must fix the impossibility of answering this question. We cannot answer this question. But not only do we not answer this question. We also point the finger at the foggy abyss of the very abyss that is the ultimate culprit and absolute reason for the fact that being is just this and not the other. But this also means to record the fact of mystery, the mystery of the first conception of thought in general, and of all its real structure and life.

(b) The same idea, and from a purely logical standpoint, can be presented in another way. Being is being. In this form, of course, it is neither light nor darkness, nor my room, nor America, nor anything else at all. It is it, and nothing else. But if this is so, if there is really nothing with which it coincides, even partially, then it does not contain any differences at all. If it were anything at all, it would already be a partial coincidence of it with what it is not. But it is not anything. It is only itself, and nothing else. In this case, it contains absolutely no differences in itself, it is indistinguishable from nothing, and it is also indistinguishable within itself. But in this case, being is a secret inscrutability and namelessness, complete unknowability and incomprehensibility, in the same way as the very itself, is also above all distinction and cognition. But earlier we spoke in general about the very thing, and now we speak specifically about being. It turns out that being also has its own self with all its characteristics that are already familiar to us. And with all this unexpectedness, being exists absolutely everywhere, for everywhere it is it, and everywhere it is, before it is this or that and before it possesses this or that quality, everywhere it is first itself, i.e., the super-rational, prelogical self of being.

Thus, this pre-logic nature of being (is seen) not only from general reasoning about itself, but is also fully demonstrable by purely logical arguments.

4. We have said above that not only does the category of being itself have the character of mystery, but the whole concrete life of reason and being is the same. However, we formulate the most important circumstance which, along with the category of being, is the basis of the entire categorical life of the mind.

(a) As soon as we have posited and affirmed being, we have at the same moment found ourselves in a whole system of beliefs, which at first is not even possible to take into account. As long as we had the very same before any assumptions, there was, of course, no system of assumptions, i.e., there was no method of these assumptions itself. But as soon as we posited at least being, the whole picture changed at once, and we found ourselves in the crossfire of a whole cloud of the most difficult categories, which suddenly appeared from somewhere around our "being" and imperiously demanded their recognition.

Looking at this new and unprecedented picture, we begin to notice that our prelogical itself has suddenly disappeared as such, i.e., it has suddenly ceased to be an unknowable and inaccessible abyss. As soon as the category of being appeared, i.e., as soon as the first individual point of meaning was established, the self-existent itself was immediately transformed into an infinite and bubbling chaos of innumerable semantic possibilities surrounding this point. Of the very thing as such, we could not even say this, and if we did, it was only in the order of allegorical descriptions. Now, in the most literal sense, the very itself, without yet becoming any logical category, turns into a living and inexhaustible womb of innumerable semantic possibilities, into that infinitely fertile and fat soil into which our first seed of reason, the category of being, falls. From the relationship with this abyss of possibilities, the category of being will give rise to all other categories of reason.

(b) This majestic and stunning picture of the life of the mind, which suddenly appears out of nowhere at the first appearance of being, is also surprising, to say the least. As long as there was no existence, there was nothing. But then the first miracle happened: the non-existent, the prelogical, the super-semantic itself gave birth to being in unknown ways. And at the same moment, a whole inexhaustible abyss of still unfathomable possibilities appeared, and our being found itself surrounded by this impenetrable night and the life-giving chaos of endless semantic designs.

It turns out that being, in order to be, must be surrounded by this non-being. If there is being, then there is non-being, this is the new and unexpected truth that suddenly appeared to us with the first lightning of the dissecting mind. Being, in order to be, must be different from that which is not being, different from non-being. And this means that non-being must also exist. But being is a positing, an affirmation, i.e., a clear division, opposition, coordination. Consequently, non-being is the absence of division and distinction; it is an indistinguishable chaos. On the other hand, however, once the category of being has appeared, everything that is or can be is necessarily considered from the point of view of being. This does not mean that everything is necessarily being itself; But this means that everything is necessarily considered from the point of view of being. To consider this or that area from the point of view of being means to consider it from the point of view of existential possibilities. Thus we look on a dark night at a sky covered with clouds and containing no distinction or form. It is not merely the absence of being (in which case there would be nothing to talk about), but it is the presence of being only in its pure possibility. If there is at least some being somewhere, it means that there is a category of being; and if there is a category of being, then from now on everything that exists and does not exist necessarily bears the stamp of being (for this is the case with every category in general; it cannot but be present everywhere, directly or indirectly); and the seal of being for that which does not yet exist, i.e., for that which is not yet non-being, is the possibility of being. Hence the indistinguishable chaos that we have received above is precisely the indistinguishable and infinite chaos of semantic and existential possibilities.

c) Here too it is possible to pretend that nothing special has happened, that there is nothing more natural than this antithesis of being and non-being. For Plato and Hegel this is very clear and simple: if there is being, then there must also be non-being, since if being does not differ from anything, then it is not being either. And indeed, if we take this elementary dialectical statement in itself, there is absolutely nothing mysterious or strange in it, it is the most elementary requirement of any reasoning thought. And yet it never ceases to amaze and amaze us. Kant, in the introduction to the Critique of the Faculty of Judgment, argues approximately as follows. When we deduce the general from the particular, and then, on this basis, continue to subsume the particular under this general, there is nothing surprising in this. But when we have found a priori some generality, and then it turns out that everything factual particular, in spite of its absolute accidentality, exists exactly as we have conceived our general, this circumstance cannot but arouse surprise in us. Something of the same kind happens in the construction of these first positings of being and non-being. Why is this so? Why being should be opposed to non-being, and why this happens absolutely everywhere where there are the germs of thought, one never ceases to wonder, no matter how simple and comprehensible the elementary scheme may be. In essence, this mutual difference and mutual identification of being and non-being is no less understandable than the ancient Stoic teaching that the world breathes into itself the emptiness surrounding it and thereby creates life and all form within itself. This is basically the same as the opposition of being and non-being, which is accompanied by the absorption into being of the semantic possibilities contained in non-being.

5. Thus, the first conception of thought takes place in a mysterious and magical — without exaggeration, one might say, mythical — environment. From somewhere the first luminous point of being suddenly shone, and from somewhere suddenly a tense abyss and chaos of existential possibilities suddenly swarmed, agitated, seething around them, not manifested, but insistently demanding their inclusion in being, their participation in being.

Perhaps the periodic world fires of which Heraclitus dreamed are also dictated by these cold intuitions of being, which differs from non-existence only to merge with it again and reunite with it.

In what follows we shall learn to understand how absolute inseparability and absolute dissociation are one and the same thing, and as that which lies in the middle between these last extremes, and is a living and real picture of reason and being. Being is eternally bifurcated, differentiated, and it is eternally transformed into unity, integrated. In this struggle of distinctions and identifications consists the whole real life of reason and being.