1. Introduction
Distinctions can be made between different types of stimuli -- such as:
1. Figural-Stimuli;
2. Background Stimuli;
3. Problem-Stimuli;
4. Conflict-Stimuli;
5. Ego-State Stimuli:
6. Transference-Stimuli;
7. Identification-Stimuli;
8. Projective-Stimuli;
9. Idol-Stimuli;
10. Demon or Anti-Idol Stimuli.
In this essay we will look at the concept and the history of 'figural' vs. 'background' stimuli or 'gestalts'.
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2. Figural vs. Background Stimuli
Gestalt Psychology was the first 'school' of psychology to emphasize the fact that what 'stimulates' us in our external world is not only dependent on the 'strength' of the external world stimulus but also on the unique configuration of memories, associations, distinctions, interpretations, generalizations, beliefs, values, interests, wants and needs...within us.
What is a 'stimulus' for one person is not necessarily a stimulus for another person.
Internal personality make-up and/or character structure mean everything when it comes to determining whether we are going to deem a stimulus important to us or not.
Also, context, time and place are all important.
If I am 'hungry', then obviously 'food' is going to be more of a 'figural stimulus or gestalt' for me than if I am not hungry because I just finished eating a big meal -- at which point 'food' is likely to become much more of a 'background stimulus' or even a 'non-stimulus' whereas a 'couch' might quickly become much more of a 'figural-stimulus or gestalt' for me.
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3. From the internet, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia...
Gestalt psychology (also Gestalt of the Berlin School) is a theory of mind and brain that proposes that the operational principle of the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies; or, that the whole is different from the sum of its parts. The Gestalt effect refers to the form-forming capability of our senses, particularly with respect to the visual recognition of figures and whole forms instead of just a collection of simple lines and curves. The word Gestalt in German literally means "shape" or "figure."
Contents [hide]
1 Origins
2 Theoretical framework and methodology
3 Properties
3.1 Emergence
3.2 Reification
3.3 Multistability
3.4 Invariance
4 Prägnanz
5 Gestalt views in psychology
6 Applications in computer science
7 Criticism
8 See also
9 External links
10 References
Origins
Although Max Wertheimer is credited as the founder of the movement, the concept of Gestalt was first introduced in contemporary philosophy and psychology by Christian von Ehrenfels (a member of the School of Brentano). The idea of Gestalt has its roots in theories by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Immanuel Kant, and Ernst Mach. Wertheimer's unique contribution was to insist that the "Gestalt" is perceptually primary, defining the parts of which it was composed, rather than being a secondary quality that emerges from those parts, as von Ehrenfels's earlier Gestalt-Qualität had been.
Both von Ehrenfels and Edmund Husserl seem to have been inspired by Mach's work Beiträge zur Analyse der Empfindungen (Contributions to the Analysis of the Sensations, 1886), in formulating their very similar concepts of Gestalt and Figural Moment, respectively.
Early 20th century theorists, such as Kurt Koffka, Max Wertheimer, and Wolfgang Köhler (students of Carl Stumpf) saw objects as perceived within an environment according to all of their elements taken together as a global construct. This 'gestalt' or 'whole form' approach sought to define principles of perception -- seemingly innate mental laws which determined the way in which objects were perceived.
These laws took several forms, such as the grouping of similar, or proximate, objects together, within this global process. Although Gestalt has been criticized for being merely descriptive, it has formed the basis of much further research into the perception of patterns and objects (ref: Carlson, Buskist & Martin, 2000), and of research into behavior, thinking, problem solving and psychopathology.
Theoretical framework and methodology
The investigations developed at the beginning of the 20th century, based on traditional scientific methodology, divided the object of study into a set of elements that could be analyzed separately with the objective of reducing the complexity of this object. Contrary to this methodology, the school of Gestalt practiced a series of theoretical and methodological principles that attempted to redefine the approach to psychological research.
The theoretical principles are the following:
Principle of Totality - The conscious experience must be considered globally (by taking into account all the physical and mental aspects of the individual simultaneously) because the nature of the mind demands that each component be considered as part of a system of dynamic relationships.
Principle of psychophysical isomorphism - A correlation exists between conscious experience and cerebral activity.
Based on the principles above the following methodological principles are defined:
Phenomenon Experimental Analysis - In relation to the Totality Principle any psychological research should take as a starting point phenomena and not be solely focused on sensory qualities.
Biotic Experiment - The School of Gestalt established a need to conduct real experiments which sharply contrasted with and opposed classic laboratory experiments. This signified experimenting in natural situations, developed in real conditions, in which it would be possible to reproduce, with higher fidelity, what would be habitual for a subject.
Properties
The key principles of Gestalt systems are emergence, reification, multistability and invariance.[1]
Emergence
Emergence is demonstrated by the perception of the Dog Picture, which depicts a Dalmatian dog sniffing the ground in the shade of overhanging trees. The dog is not recognized by first identifying its parts (feet, ears, nose, tail, etc.), and then inferring the dog from those component parts. Instead, the dog is perceived as a whole, all at once. However, this is a description of what occurs in vision and not an explanation. Gestalt theory does not explain how the percept of a dog emerges.
Reification
Reification is the constructive or generative aspect of perception, by which the experienced percept contains more explicit spatial information than the sensory stimulus on which it is based.
For instance, a triangle will be perceived in picture A, although no triangle has actually been drawn. In pictures B and D the eye will recognize disparate shapes as "belonging" to a single shape, in C a complete three-dimensional shape is seen, where in actuality no such thing is drawn.
Reification can be explained by progress in the study of illusory contours, which are treated by the visual system as "real" contours.
See also: Reification (fallacy)
Multistability
MultistabilityMultistability (or multistable perception) is the tendency of ambiguous perceptual experiences to pop back and forth unstably between two or more alternative interpretations. This is seen for example in the Necker cube, and in Rubin's Figure / Vase illusion shown to the left. Other examples include the 'three-pronged widget' and artist M. C. Escher's artwork and the appearance of flashing marquee lights moving first one direction and then suddenly the other. Again, Gestalt does not explain how images appear multistable, only that they do.
Invariance
Invariance is the property of perception whereby simple geometrical objects are recognized independent of rotation, translation, and scale; as well as several other variations such as elastic deformations, different lighting, and different component features. For example, the objects in A in the figure are all immediately recognized as the same basic shape, which are immediately distinguishable from the forms in B. They are even recognized despite perspective and elastic deformations as in C, and when depicted using different graphic elements as in D. Computational theories of vision, such as those by David Marr, have had more success in explaining how objects are classified.
Emergence, reification, multistability, and invariance are not separable modules to be modeled individually, but they are different aspects of a single unified dynamic mechanism.
Prägnanz
The fundamental principle of gestalt perception is the law of prägnanz (German for conciseness) which says that we tend to order our experience in a manner that is regular, orderly, symmetric, and simple. Gestalt psychologists attempt to discover refinements of the law of prägnanz, and this involves writing down laws which hypothetically allow us to predict the interpretation of sensation, what are often called "gestalt laws".[1] These include:
1. Law of Closure — The mind may experience elements it does not perceive through sensation, in order to complete a regular figure (that is, to increase regularity).
2.Law of Similarity — The mind groups similar elements into collective entities or totalities. This similarity might depend on relationships of form, color, size, or brightness.
3. Law of Proximity — Spatial or temporal proximity of elements may induce the mind to perceive a collective or totality.
4. Law of Symmetry (Figure ground relationships)— Symmetrical images are perceived collectively, even in spite of distance.
5. Law of Continuity — The mind continues visual, auditory, and kinetic patterns.
6. Law of Common Fate — Elements with the same moving direction are perceived as a collective or unit.
Gestalt views in psychology
Gestalt psychologists find it is important to think of problems as a whole. Max Wertheimer considered thinking to happen in two ways: productive and reproductive.[1]
Productive thinking- is solving a problem with insight.
This is a quick insightful unplanned response to situations and environmental interaction.
Reproductive thinking-is solving a problem with previous experiences and what is already known. (1945/1959).
This is a very common thinking. For example, when a person is given several segments of information, he/she deliberately examines the relationships among its parts, analyzes their purpose, concept, and totality, he/she reaches the "aha!" moment, using what is already known. Understanding in this case happens intentionally by reproductive thinking.
Other Gestalts psychologist Perkins believes insight deals with three processes:
1) Unconscious leap in thinking. [1].
2) The increased amount of speed in mental processing.
3) The amount of short-circuiting which occurs in normal reasoning. [2]
Other views going against the Gestalt psychology are:
1) Nothing-Special View
2) Neo-Gestalts View
3) The Three-Process View
Gestalt laws continue to play an important role in current psychological research on vision. For example, the object-based attention hypothesis[3] states that elements in a visual scene are first grouped according to Gestalt principles; consequently, further attentional resources can be allocated to particular objects.
Gestalt psychology should not be confused with the Gestalt therapy of Fritz Perls, which is only peripherally linked to Gestalt psychology. A strictly Gestalt psychology-based therapeutic method is Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy, developed by the German Gestalt psychologist and psychotherapist Hans-Jürgen Walter.
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From the internet...
4. Gestalt Psychology
By Dr. C. George Boeree
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Gestalt Psychology, founded by Max Wertheimer, was to some extent a rebellion against the molecularism of Wundt’s program for psychology, in sympathy with many others at the time, including William James. In fact, the word Gestalt means a unified or meaningful whole, which was to be the focus of psychological study instead.
It had its roots in a number of older philosophers and psychologists:
Ernst Mach (1838-1916) introduced the concepts of space forms and time forms. We see a square as a square, whether it is large or small, red or blue, in outline or technicolor... This is space form. Likewise, we hear a melody as recognizable, even if we alter the key in such a way that none of the notes are the same.
Christian von Ehrenfels (1859-1932), who studied with Brentano in Vienna, is the actual originator of the term Gestalt as the Gestalt psychologists were to use it. In 1890, in fact, he wrote a book called On Gestalt Qualities. One of his students was none other than Max Wertheimer.
Oswald Külpe (1862-1915) was a student of G. E. Müller at Göttingen and received his doctorate at Leipzig. He studied as well with Wundt, and served as Wundt’s assistant for many years. He did most of his work while at the University of Würzburg, between 1894 and 1909.
He is best known for the idea of imageless thoughts. Contrary to Wundtians, he showed that some mental activities, such as judgments and doubts, could occur without images. The “pieces” of the psyche that Wundt postulated -- sensations, images, and feelings -- were apparently not enough to explain all of what went on.
He oversaw the doctoral dissertation of one Max Wertheimer.
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Max Wertheimer
So who was this Max Wertheimer? He was born in Prague on April 15, 1880. His father was a teacher and the director at a commercial school. Max studied law for more than two years, but decided he preferred philosophy. He left to study in Berlin, where he took classes from Stumpf, then got his doctoral degree (summa cum laude) from Külpe and the University of Würzburg in 1904.
In 1910, he went to the University of Frankfurt’s Psychological Institute. While on vacation that same year, he became interested in the perceptions he experienced on a train. While stopped at the station, he bought a toy stroboscope -- a spinning drum with slots to look through and pictures on the inside, sort of a primitive movie machine or sophisticated flip book.
At Frankfurt, his former teacher Friedrich Schumann, now there as well, gave him the use of a tachistoscope to study the effect. His first subjects were two younger assistants, Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka. They would become his lifelong partners.
He published his seminal paper in 1912: "Experimental Studies of the Perception of Movement." That year, he was offered a lectureship at the University of Frankfurt. In 1916, he moved to Berlin, and in 1922 was made an assistant professor there. In 1925, he came back to Frankfurt, this time as a professor.
In 1933, he moved to the United States to escape the troubles in Germany. The next year, he began teaching at the New School for Social Research in New York City. While there, he wrote his best known book, Productive Thinking, which was published posthumously by his son, Michael Wertheimer, a successful psychologist in his own right. He died October 12, 1943 of a coronary embolism at his home in New York.
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Wolfgang Köhler
Wolfgang Köhler was born January 21, 1887, in Reval, Estonia. He received his PhD in 1908 from the University of Berlin. He then became an assistant at the Psychological Institute in Frankfurt, where he met and worked with Max Wertheimer.
In 1913, he took advantage of an assignment to study at the Anthropoid Station at Tenerife in the Canary Islands, and stayed there till 1920. In 1917, he wrote his most famous book, Mentality of Apes.
In 1922, he became the chair and director of the psychology lab at the University of Berlin, where he stayed until 1935. During that time, in 1929, he wrote Gestalt Psychology. In 1935, he moved to the U.S., where he taught at Swarthmore until he retired. He died June 11, 1967 in New Hampshire.
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Kurt Koffka
Kurt Koffka was born March 18, 1886, in Berlin. He received his PhD from the University of Berlin in 1909, and, just like Köhler, became an assistant at Frankfurt.
In 1911, he moved to the University of Giessen, where he taught till 1927. While there, he wrote Growth of the Mind: An Introduction to Child Psychology (1921). In 1922, he wrote an article for Psychological Bulletin which introduced the Gestalt program to readers in the U.S.
In 1927, he left for the U.S. to teach at Smith College. He published Principles of Gestalt Psychology in 1935. He died in 1941.
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The Theory
Gestalt psychology is based on the observation that we often experience things that are not a part of our simple sensations. The original observation was Wertheimer’s, when he noted that we perceive motion where there is nothing more than a rapid sequence of individual sensory events. This is what he saw in the toy stroboscope he bought at the Frankfurt train station, and what he saw in his laboratory when he experimented with lights flashing in rapid succession (like the Christmas lights that appear to course around the tree, or the fancy neon signs in Los Vegas that seem to move). The effect is called the phi phenomenon, and it is actually the basic principle of motion pictures!
If we see what is not there, what is it that we are seeing? You could call it an illusion, but its not an hallucination. Wetheimer explained that you are seeing an effect of the whole event, not contained in the sum of the parts. We see a coursing string of lights, even though only one light lights at a time, because the whole event contains relationships among the individual lights that we experience as well.
Furthermore, say the Gestalt psychologists, we are built to experience the structured whole as well as the individual sensations. And not only do we have the ability to do so, we have a strong tendency to do so. We even add structure to events which do not have gestalt structural qualities.
In perception, there are many organizing principles called gestalt laws. The most general version is called the law of pragnanz. Pragnanz is German for pregnant, but in the sense of pregnant with meaning, rather than pregnant with child. This law says that we are innately driven to experience things in as good a gestalt as possible. “Good” can mean many things here, such a regular, orderly, simplicity, symmetry, and so on, which then refer to specific gestalt laws.
For example, a set of dots outlining the shape of a star is likely to be perceived as a star, not as a set of dots. We tend to complete the figure, make it the way it “should” be, finish it. Like we somehow manage to see this as a "B"...
The law of closure says that, if something is missing in an otherwise complete figure, we will tend to add it. A triangle, for example, with a small part of its edge missing, will still be seen as a triangle. We will “close” the gap.
The law of similarity says that we will tend to group similar items together, to see them as forming a gestalt, within a larger form. Here is a simple typographic example:
OXXXXXXXXXX
XOXXXXXXXXX
XXOXXXXXXXX
XXXOXXXXXXX
XXXXOXXXXXX
XXXXXOXXXXX
XXXXXXOXXXX
XXXXXXXOXXX
XXXXXXXXOXX
XXXXXXXXXOX
XXXXXXXXXXO
It is just natural for us to see the o’s as a line within a field of x’s.
Another law is the law of proximity. Things that are close together as seen as belonging together. For example...
**************
**************
**************
You are much more likely to see three lines of close-together *’s than 14 vertical collections of 3 *’s each.
Next, there’s the law of symmetry. Take a look at this example:
[ ][ ][ ]
Despite the pressure of proximity to group the brackets nearest each other together, symmetry overwhelms our perception and makes us see them as pairs of symmetrical brackets.
Another law is the law of continuity. When we can see a line, for example, as continuing through another line, rather than stopping and starting, we will do so, as in this example, which we see as composed of two lines, not as a combination of two angles...:
Figure-ground is another Gestalt psychology principle. It was first introduced by the Danish phenomenologist Edgar Rubin (1886-1951). The classic example is this one...
Basically, we seem to have an innate tendency to pereive one aspect of an event as the figure or fore-ground and the other as the ground or back-ground. There is only one image here, and yet, by changing nothing but our attitude, we can see two different things. It doesn’t even seem to be possible to see them both at the same time!
But the gestalt principles are by no means restricted to perception -- that’s just where they were first noticed. Take, for example, memory. That too seems to work by these laws. If you see an irregular saw-tooth figure, it is likely that your memory will straighten it out for you a bit. Or, if you experience something that doesn’t quite make sense to you, you will tend to remember it as having meaning that may not have been there. A good example is dreams: Watch yourself the next time you tell someone a dream and see if you don’t notice yourself modifying the dream a little to force it to make sense!
Learning was something the Gestalt psychologists were particularly interested in. One thing they noticed right away is that we often learn, not the literal things in front of us, but the relations between them. For example, chickens can be made to peck at the lighter of two gray swatches. When they are then presented with another two swatches, one of which is the lighter of the two preceding swatches, and the other a swatch that is even lighter, they will peck not at the one they pecked at before, but at the lighter one! Even something as stupid as a chicken “understands” the idea of relative lightness and darkness.
Gestalt theory is well known for its concept of insight learning. People tend to misunderstand what is being suggested here: They are not so much talking about flashes of intuition, but rather solving a problem by means of the recognition of a gestalt or organizing principle.
The most famous example of insight learning involved a chimp named Sultan. He was presented with many different practical problems (most involving getting a hard-to-reach banana). When, for example, he had been allowed to play with sticks that could be put together like a fishing pole, he appeared to consider in a very human fashion the situation of the out-of-reach banana thoughtfully -- and then rather suddenly jump up, assemble the poles, and reach the banana.
A similar example involved a five year old girl, presented with a geometry problem way over her head: How do you figure the area of a parallelogram? She considered, then excitedly asked for a pair of scissors. She cut off a triangle from one end, and moved it around to the other side, turning the parallelogram into a simple rectangle. Wertheimer called this productive thinking.
The idea behind both of these examples, and much of the gestalt explanation of things, is that the world of our experiencing is meaningfully organized, to one degree or another. When we learn or solve problems, we are essentially recognizing meaning that is there, in the experience, for the “dis-covering.”
Most of what we’ve just looked at has been absorbed into “mainstream” psychology -- to such a degree that many people forget to give credit to the people who discovered these principles! There is one more part of their theory that has had less acceptance: Isomorphism.
Isomorphism suggests that there is some clear similarity in the gestalt patterning of stimuli and of the activity in the brain while we are perceiving the stimuli. There is a “map” of the experience with the same structural order as the experience itself, albeit “constructed” of very different materials! We are still waiting to see what an experience “looks” like in an experiencing brain. It may take a while.
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Kurt Lewin
Gestalt Psychology, even though it no longer survives as a separate entity, has had an enormous impact. Two people in particular lead the way in introducing it into other aspects of psychology: Kurt Goldstein and Kurt Lewin.
Kurt Lewin was born September 9, 1890, in Mogilno, Germany. He received his PhD from the University of Berlin under Stumpf. After military service, he returned to Berlin where he worked with Wertheimer, Koffka, and Köhler.
He went to the U.S. as a guest lecturer at Stanford and Cornell, and took a position at the University of Iowa in 1935. In 1944, he created and directed the Research Center for Group Dynamics at MIT. He died in 1947, just beginning his work there.
Lewin created a topological theory that expressed human dynamics in the form of a map representing a person’s life space. The map is patterned with one’s needs, desires, and goal, and vectors or arrows indicated the directions and strengths of these forces -- all operating as a Gestalt.
This theory inspired any number of psychologists in the U.S., most particularly those in social psychology. Among the people he influenced were Muzafer Sherif, Solomon Asch, and Leon Festinger.
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Kurt Goldstein
The other person was Kurt Goldstein. Born in 1878, he received his MD from the University of Breslau in 1903. He went to teach at the Neurological Institute of the University of Frankfurt, where he met the founders of Gestalt psychology.
He went to Berlin to be a professor there, and then went on to New York City in 1935. There, he wrote The Organism in 1939, and later Human Nature in the Light of Pathology in 1963. He died in 1965.
Golstein developed a holistic view of brain function, based on research that showed that people with brain damage learned to use other parts of their brains in compensation. He extended his holism to the entire organism, and postulated that there was only one drive in human functioning, and coined the term self-actualization. Self-preservation, the usual postulated central motive, he said, is actually pathological!
Goldstein and his idea of self-actualization influence quite a few young personality theorists and therapists. Among them would be Gordon Allport, Carl Rogers, and Abraham Maslow, founders of the American humanistic psychology movement.
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© Copyright C. George Boeree, 2000
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5. Anaxamander
Amazingly, I trace the roots of Gestalt Psychology -- in concept, not in name -- much, much further back in philosophical history than anything specified above.
I trace the roots of Gestalt Psychology (and Hegel's Dialectic-Evolution Theory, and 'The Theory of The Indestructibility of Matter', and Derida's Deconstruction Theory, and Adler's Compensation Theory, and Biological Mutation Theory) back to the second oldest Greek -- and Western -- philosopher: Anaxamander (611BC-547BC.) Indeed, I believe that much of the history of Western and Eastern Philosophy -- and the evolutionary soap opera of mankind -- can be seen to rest on the broad shoulders and the magnificent, foreshadowing insights of Anaxamander's ancient philosophy.
Perhaps I am projecting too many of my own 21st century philosophical beliefs onto Anaxamander's philosophy -- but I think not.
To be sure, there is some 'Gestalt filling in the gaps' and some 'translating of Ancient Greek language' into 21st century English that needs to be done to make Anaxamander's ideas more easily recognizable and/or understandable.
But that is what I am here for.
Anaxamander is my oldest Western idol.
(I still have to research the oldest depths of Chinese philosophy -- Confucious and earlier.)
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Anaximander (ənăk'sĭmăn`dər), c.611–c.547 B.C., Greek philosopher, b. Miletus; pupil of Thales Thales (thā`lēz), c.636–c.546 B.C.
He made the first attempt to offer a detailed explanation of all aspects of nature. Anaximander argued that since there are so many different sorts of things, they must all have originated from something less differentiated than water, and this primary source, the boundless or the indefinite (apeiron), had always existed, filled all space, and, by its constant motion, separated opposites out from itself, e.g., hot and cold, moist and dry. These opposites interact by encroaching on one another and thus repay one another's "injustice." The result is a plurality of worlds that successively decay and return to the indefinite. The notion of the indefinite and its processes prefigured the later conception of the indestructibility of matter. Anaximander also had a theory of the relation of earth to the heavenly bodies, important in the history of astronomy. His view that man achieved his physical state by adaptation to environment, that life had evolved from moisture, and that man developed from fish, anticipates the theory of evolution.
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Let's interpret Anaxamander's concept of 'apeiron' or 'The Boundless' as meaning -- 'The Universe' -- or even 'Heaven'.
Things are 'born' in The Boundless. They 'die and return' to The Boundless.
The Boundless is 'The Whole'.
And the whole divides into opposite parts.
Male and Female,
Adult and Child,
Black and White,
Night and Day,
Hot and Cold,
Sun and Moon,
Chicken and Egg,
Sperm and Egg,
Strong and Weak,
Predator and Prey,
Right and Wrong,
Good and Bad,
Victimizer and Victim,
Superego and Id,
Personna and Shadow,
Topdog and Underdog,
Mother and Father,
Humanism and Accountability,
Liberal and Conservative,
Enlightenment and Romantic,
Encouragement and Criticism,
Construction and Deconstruction (Destruction)
High Blood-Sugar and Low Blood Sugar,
High Blood Pressure and Low Blood Pressure,
Structure and Process,
Nouns and Verbs,
Living and Dying,
Life and Death,
And so on....
Dialectic opposites...
Or Dialectic Differences...
Competing with each other...
Co-operating with each other...
Individuating and separating from each other,
Uniting with each other...
And then indivduating and separating from each other again,
Domination and Submission,
Sadism and masochism,
Figure and Background,
Foreground and Background,
The Spotlight and The Shadows,
Dictatorship and Democracy,
Unilateralism and Bi-lateralism,
The Idolized and The Demonized,
The Pedestalized and The Marginalized,
The Conscious and The Subconscious,
The Lawmakers and The Lawbreakers,
The Righteous and The Rebellious,
The Apollonian and The Dionysian,
The Altruistic and The Narcissistic,
The Exploiters and The Exploited,
Capitalism and Socialism,
Dialectic Warfare,
Violent Warfare,
A Polar Will To Power,
Israel vs. The Hamas,
The stronger will dominate and conquer,
But not for all time,
Because the weaker will re-group,
Retreat into the shadows,
Retreat back into the Apeiron,
To learn, mutate, compensate,
And come back stronger,
To repair their sense of 'injustice',
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In Anaxamander's own (translated) words,
Whence things have their origin,
Thence also their destruction happens,
As is the order of things;
For they execute the sentence upon one another
- The condemnation for the crime -
In conformity with the ordinance of Time.
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That is enough for this evening...
-- DGBN, January 13th, 2008.
-- David Gordon Bain
