Kant, blows of tears

Pure self-affection represents the being outwards of the inside (the peculiar way of being outward that belongs to inside). On the contrary, the awakening tears represent the inwardness of externality. Tears put bodily mechanisms in motion for the sake of the soul, they solicit the intelligent character of bodily mechanisms. Tears also say that freedom is occasioned by encounters with external matter as an effort to negate this origin, and to extend its inner power over the outside with the help of the others. Tears speak a resolution to bring together inner and outer freedom, the overcoming of difficulties of the external world. But, more radically, tears tell of the desire to tempt reality, the desire to become free and spontaneous by an assault from the world that we ourselves have provoked