40 Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path
ture philosopher literally must renounce forever all
knowledge of nature. For nature is simply there, and to
create it a second time, one would have to know the
principles according to which it arose. One would first
have to look at the conditions for the existence of nature
as it is, in order to apply these to the nature one wished
to create. But this “looking,” which would have to pre-
cede any creating, would be to know nature already,
even if, after successfully looking, one did not then go
on to create. The only kind of nature that one could cre-
ate withoutpreviously knowing it would be a nature that
did not yet exist.
What is impossible with nature—creation before cog-
nition—we achieve with thinking. If we waited, before
thinking, until we already understood it, then we would
never get to that point. We must think resolutely ahead, in
order later to arrive by observation at a knowledge of
what we have done. We ourselves create the object for the
observation of thinking. The presence of all other objects
has been taken care of without our participation.
Someone could oppose my proposition that we must
think before we can observe thinking with the proposition
that we also have to digest before we can observe the pro-
cess of digestion. That objection would be similar to the
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- Blaise Pascal (1625–1662). French mathematical prodigy, physi-
cist, philosopher, and mystic. He wrote an original work on conic
sections at sixteen; studied infinitesimal calculus; solved the problem
of the general quadrature of the cycloid; developed the differential
calculus; originated (with Fermat) the mathematical theory of proba-
bility; invented the first calculator, etc.
