84), and to Berlin in October 1812
(see p. 89).
[99] At this time, however, the symbols of the inorganic world did not
appeal to Froebel with the same force as those of the organic world. In
a letter to Madame von Holzhausen. 31st March, 1831, he writes: "It is
the highest privilege of natural forms or of natural life that they
contain agreement and perfection within themselves as a whole class,
while differing and filled with imperfection in particular individuals;
for look at the loveliest blooming fruit-tree, the sweetest rose, the
purest lily, and your eye can always detect deficiencies, imperfections,
differences in each one, regarded as a single phenomenon, a separate
bloom; and, further, the same want of perfection appears also in every
single petal: on the other hand, wherever mathematical symmetry and
precise agreement are found, _there is death_".
[100] Not a figure of speech altogether; for Froebel did really decline
a professorship of mineralogy which was offered him at this time, in
order to set forth on his educational career.
[101] That is, putting development into a formula--
Thesis-+-Antithesis
|
Synthesis.
The true synthesis is that springing from the thesis and its opposite,
the antithesis.
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