Woetoe’s Reviews > Intuitive Thinking As a Spiritual Path: A Philosophy of Freedom > Status Update

‘Does not the world produce thinking in the heads of men with the same necessity as it produces the blossom on a plant?’

‘When I’m conscious not only of the object but also of my own personality which confronts the object and observes it, I do not merely see a tree, but I also know it is I who am seeing it. I know that something happens in me while I’m observing the tree. This picture becomes associated with myself during my observation. Myself has become enriched; it’s content has absorbed a new element: a mental picture.’

‘There’s no denying that before anything else can be understood, thinking must be understood. Whoever denies this fails to realize that man is not the first link in the chain of creation but the last. In order to explain the world by means of concepts, we cannot start from the elements of existence which came first in time, but we must begin with that which is given to us as the nearest and most intimate.’

‘We can find Nature outside us only if we have first learned to know her within us. What is akin to her within us must be our guide. We shall attempt no speculations concerning the interactions of Nature and spirit. Rather shall we probe into the depths of our own being, to find there those elements which we saved in our flight from Nature.’

‘We have, it is true, torn ourselves away from Nature, but we must none the less have taken something of her with us into our own being. This element of Nature in us we must seek out, and then we shall find the connection with her once more.’

‘It is only because a man is conscious of his action that he thinks himself to be its originator. But in doing so he overlooks the fact that he is driven by a cause which he cannot helpt obeying. Spinoza, and all who think like him, overlook the fact that man not only is conscious of his action, but also may become conscious of the causes which guide him.’