I And Thou

up by our works. The "bad" man, lightly
touched by the holy primary word, becomes one
who reveals. How we are educated by children
and by animals! We live our lives inscrutably
included within the streaming mutual life of the
universe.

—You speak of love as though it were the only re-
lation between men. But properly speaking, can you
take it even only as an example, since there is such a
thing as hate ?

—So long as love is " blind," that is, so long as it does
not see a whole being, it is not truly under the sway
of the primary word of relation. Hate is by nature
blind. Only a part of a being can be hated. He who
sees a whole being and is compelled to reject it is no
longer in the kingdom of hate, but is in that of human
restriction of the power to say Thou. He finds himself
unable to say the primary word to the other human
being confronting him. This word consistently in-
volves an affirmation of the being addressed. He is
therefore compelled to reject either the other or himself,
At this barrier the entering on a rektion recognises its
relativity, and only simultaneously with this will the
barrier be raised.

Yet the man who straightforwardly hates is nearer
to relation than the man without hate and love.

But this is the exalted melancholy of our fate, that
every Thou in our world must become an It, It doee
16