Olof Monologue from Master Olof: A Drama in Five Acts

From Master Olof: A Drama in Five Acts by August Strindberg

male · philosophical · 1:07 min

You wouldn't understand if I told you, but if you don't understand what I read to you, then you understand what is meant by "abstract." (Christine: Go on and read while I work at this.) Listen carefully, then, and forgive me if you find it tedious. (Christine: I shall understand because I want to.) "Matter when considered separate from form is something wholly without predictability, indeterminable and indistinguishable. For nothing can originate out of pure non-being, but only out of the non-being of reality, which is synonymous with being as a possibility. Being in its possibility is no more non-being than is reality. For that reason every existence is a realized possibility. Thus matter is to Aristotle a much more positive substratum than to Plato, who declares it to be pure non-being. And thereby it becomes plain how Aristotle could conceive of matter in its opposition to form as a positive negativity."

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