The Discipline of Pious Reason: Goethe, Herder, Kant Daniel ...

The reasoning behind this hierarchy is to be found in the maxim, ‘The degree of
attractive force is always measured by the degree of homogeneity to the desired
object, and this degree of homogeneity consists in the degree to which perfect union is
possible.’ (ibid, p. 54) The extent to which I desire an object is determined by the
likely union I can achieve with it. Hence, friendship is inferior to love because the
complete fusion of two beings into one is more the preserve of love than of friendship.
Friendship is, on this account, merely an imperfect form of love; a less intense desire
for complete union.
The above also provides Hemsterhuis with the beginnings of an account of the
relation between humanity and God (and so of piety). God is the being into which one
can be most easily absorbed without remainder. Through religion desire can be most
easily consummated; it is thus the most proper channel for human desire. Here,
‘homogeneity appears perfect’ (ibid, p. 55). In consequence, religion is the very
paradigm and the most natural form of human behaviour. There is nothing more
proper to humanity than fusing with God.
However, Hemsterhuis ends his Lettre having hit a snag. If all tends towards
‘coagulation’ (and the human/God relation is the paradigm example of this), why then
do there still remain discrete, individual entities? The question, as Hemsterhuis notes,
is even more problematic with respect to creation: if love is a tendency towards union
and God loves his creatures infinitely, why then did He disperse them into isolated
individuals when creating them? Hemsterhuis has no answer to such questions;
instead, he concludes as follows,