When we think that a thing is at all, we see it as fixed. To see that a thing is, is to see it as definite. To give full meaning to is, is to see it as lasting. What is will also be the same, as much as it really is. Further, when a thing is seen definitely, wholly, it is also seen with sharpness, given a meaning of center; and this means it is given “point.”

Fixity implies firmness, when this fixity is good. That which is fixed is constant. It is neat. It doesn’t wobble. It isn’t wavering. And when the self is seen as neat and persistent, it is given fixity.

The fact that a thing is, is good. If one says, “She is,” in a certain tone, it is a statement of approbation. In the language of French criticism, and somewhat in the language of English criticism, for a book or writer to be means that it or he is good; if they are not good, they “aren’t,” or “don’t exist.” Certain popular French novels, for example, did not “exist” for the discriminating Jules Lemaître and Anatole France, as critics.

It is necessary to see things as definite, lasting, firm. A wobbly, shaking thing (unless there is sameness, continuity, “firmness” in the motion) is ugly. A rickety bit of furniture, since it is an example of “undecidedness” is not beautiful. Firmness, sureness, fixity, is something that has to be in the beautiful: though this quality may arise and be apprehended in different ways.

Sureness approaches a point. Existence when certain approaches a point. Neatness of outline, since it makes for composition, unity, approaches the idea of a point; for a point is inwardness and outwardness utterly the same.

Therefore when a person utters a fixed belief, and it is seen as such, a “point” of some kind is also seen. When things are wavering, they don’t come to a point.

The self approaches fixity. When someone is told to “be oneself,” he is also told to be firm, definite. However, a person may be asked to “be oneself” and also be advised to “find oneself.” These injunctions don’t tell a person to do different things. To be oneself is to find oneself. The “being oneself” accents the fixity or firmness of self compared to the “finding oneself.” However, there is a still more emphatic aspect of “fixing” oneself: this is to be seen in the advice of “remaining oneself.” These last two words go further in the pastness and definiteness of self.

The word fix has various associations. When fixity implies firmness, it is good. It is good to have “fixed principles.” However, the word can be used in a bad sense to mean rigid, unchanging, even petrified. At this point, the word fixed is a word of unquestionable disapprobation.

In America, the demurred-at word fix has come to mean “make right.” (We also “right” a chair when we set it straight.) The idea of becoming firm, definite, has changed into the idea of becoming good, all right. For this reason it is likely the use of the word, though frowned at, will persist.

The same Americans who love to use the word fix to mean rectify, amend, make good, also use the word fix to mean an undesirable, bad situation. Here the aspect of the word fixity meaning “not moving” is accented. And in the language of present day psychology, a “fixation” is an idea not healthily or pleasurably in motion.

The word fixity, then, is one which asks for a subtle equilibrium of rest and motion, firmness and grace, permanence and variation. Lastingness and unchangingness; and flexibility and variation, are in the full meaning of the word.

It is beautifully comforting to know that things are. The amorphous, blurred, the volatile, the unsteady, the here-today-and-gone-tomorrow feeling is a painful one. All words try to fix things. They take the shapeless and transitory and work to give these neatness and permanence. Deeply, neatness is related to permanence.

A name is definite. In its definiteness it can be charming. Mesopotamia, being a fixity of sound in a territory of wonder, a vague territory of suggestion, is a terminological delight. A proper name like Sarah can come at one from the past like a sharp light becoming widely soft. And a date with fixity, like 886 B.C., gives point to a soberly fluttering and almost imperceptibly great past.

The finite, as such, is; is fixed. With the finite, the unlimited became beautiful, touchable, bearable. The finite is motion as fixed; the infinite is the continuously unfixed.

And one of the beautiful things in love is a certain fixity. This fixity has been expressed often. A famous instance is these lines from Shakespeare’s 116th Sonnet:

In love, the permanent, neat, definite, is sought. As soon as love is thought of as wavering, it becomes a little, and sadly, ridiculous. It is not love any longer. The fact that love could fail to exist at some time shows that it never wholly was.

This is true of friendship, also—which is more like love than it isn’t. As soon as friendship wobbles, there is a questioning of its very existence. There is a doubting of its entirety, its existence.

These two emotions have, then, a lastingness, definiteness, about them. Certainly any kind of thought—including, to be sure, rigorous cogitative or reflective or logical thought—goes also for definiteness, unwaveringness, good fixity. The reason is that love and friendship, logic and reason, when wholly themselves, follow, profoundly, the same path in a person.

Love, however, grows. Logic certainly should be flexible and take in more territory. The self should be definitely, clearly, lastingly; also grow, change, be various. When love, logic, and the self are wholly successful, fixity is various. They are like the universe itself. There is quadruple beauty when love, the self, logic, and existence are truly seen as being; that is, seen as fixed and swirling, permanent and capricious.

The idea of fixity, then, contains danger; seen wholly the idea is a good witness to the diversity of repose and mischief this world just has to show.