Full Idea
Before abstraction everything is one - but one as chaos is - after abstraction everything is again unified - but in a free alliance of independent, self-determined beings. A crowd has become a society - a chaos is transformed into a manifold world.
Gist of Idea
Everything is a chaotic unity, then we abstract, then we reunify the world into a free alliance
Source
Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 094)
Book Reference
Novalis: 'Philosophical Writings', ed/tr. Stoljar,M.M. [SUNY 1997], p.40
A Reaction
Personally I take (unfashionably) psychological abstraction to one of the key foundations of human thought, so I love this idea, which gives a huge picture of how the abstracting mind relates to reality.
Related Idea
Idea 6118 Philosophy is logical analysis, followed by synthesis [Russell]