254 Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path
Truth that comes to us from without always bears about
it the stamp of uncertainty. We want to believe only what
appears to each of us inwardly as truth.
Only truth can bring us certainty in the development of
our individual powers. These powers are lamed in anyone
tormented by doubts. In a world of riddles, people cannot
find a goal for their activity.
We no longer want merely tobelieve; we want toknow.
Belief demands the recognition of truths that we do not
quite understand. But whatever we do not completely
comprehend goes against the individual element in us that
wants to experience everything in its deepest inner core.
The onlyknowing that satisfies us is the kind that submits
to no outer norm, but springs from the inner life of the
personality.
Nor do we want the kind of knowing that has become
frozen once and for all in academic rules and preserved in
compendia valid for all time. We consider ourselves jus-
tified in proceeding from our closest experiences, our im-
mediate life, and ascending from there to cognition of the
whole universe. We strive for certain knowledge, each of
us in his or her own way.
Nor should the teaching of science assume a form in
which its recognition is a matter of unconditional compul-
sion. None of us would give a scientific text the title Fichte
once did: “A Crystal Clear Report to the Greater Public on
the True Nature of the Latest Philosophy.An Attempt to
Compel Readers to Understand.”^3 Today, no one should
be compelledto understand. We demand neither recogni-
tion nor agreement from those who are not driven to a
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