human essence

is beyond thought and beneath society, in the specificity of experience itself... in, for instance, the scent that lingers in the heart of a lily which is more subtly evolved than our books.

On this opportunity, this chance of for once detaching oneself from the implacable process, life itself depends. Farewell to savages, then, farewell to journeying! And instead, during the brief intervals in which humanity can bear to interrupt its hive-like labours, let us grasp the essence of what our species has been and still is, beyond thought and beneath society: an essence that may be vouchsafed to us in a mineral more beautiful than any work of Man... in the scent, more subtly evolved than our books, that lingers in the heart of a lily... or in the wink of an eye, heavy with patience, serenity, and mutual forgiveness, that sometimes, through an involuntary understanding, one can exchange with a cat. (levi-strauss 'tristes tropiques' : 398)

human essence, n.All

human essence