Unity in multeity: the need for a method

In 1803, Coleridge jotted down a note for a “Poem on Spirit – or on Spinoza – I would make a pilgrimage to the Deserts of Arabia to find the man who could make understand how the one can be many! Eternal universal mystery! It seems as if it were impossible; yet it is – & it is every where!” Multeity was everywhere. The empiricist tradition in science emphasized it – indeed, for Coleridge, presented nature as made up exclusively of a world of little things. This was intellectually and emotionally unsatisfying. “I can contemplate nothing but parts, & parts are all little –! – My mind feels as if it ached to behold & know something great – something one & indivisible – and it is only in the faith of this that rocks or waterfalls, mountains or caverns give me the sense of sublimity or majesty! – But in this faith all things counterfeit infinity!”

The observer, faced by the vast richness of the world of the manifold, sought and needed to appreciate its minute beauties while grasping its unity. At one level, this synthetic function was carried out by the understanding, which brought together a multitude of impressions into a unity by identifying something common to them all. But this was limited by the extent of the observer's experience. The understanding was not enough, and a different approach was needed.