Here or nowhere

Meaning

“Here, or nowhere, is what we seek” is an anonymous poetic maxim closing an argument about the proper source. Here is deictic: it points to the earth just discussed, not to a disclosed geographic address.

II.4.14 argues that fully specified individual bodies cannot restore the original universal efficacy intact. Earth is preferred as the source where the universal spirit can be sought before such restriction. The line concentrates that conclusion but does not explain it on its own. It should also remain beside I.9.4's permission to work from mineral spirit already beginning to specify, rather than erasing the difference between those local subjects and degrees of determination. No poet's name is supplied at this point.

The English retains the either/or force and leaves the verse anonymous. The printed querons is preserved in the French form rather than modernized inside an alleged quotation.