Thinking in the Service of Understanding the World 47activity of the soul.
A person whom the author of this book values very
highly as a thinker has objected that one cannot speak of
thinking as I have done here, because what we believe
we observe as active thinking is only an appearance.^6 In
reality, one only observes the results of a non-conscious
activity that lies at the basis of thinking. And only be-
cause this non-conscious activity is unobserved does the
illusion arise that the thinking that we do observe exists
in itself, as when we imagine ourselves to see movement
in a rapid succession of electrical sparks. This objection,
too, rests on an inexact view of the facts. It fails to take
into account that it is the “I” itself that—withinthink-
ing—observesits own activity. If it could be fooled, as
we are by the rapid succession of electrical sparks, the
“I” would have to be outside thinking. We could say in-
stead that anyone who makes such a comparison de-
ceives himself or herself mightily, a bit like one who
claims that a light perceived to be in motion is re-lit by
an unknown hand wherever it appears.—No, whoever
wishes to see in thinking something other than what is
produced within the “I” itself as surveyable activity must
first become blind to the simple state of affairs available
to observation, in order then to lay a hypothetical activity
at the base of thinking. Those who do not blind them-
selves must recognize that whatever they “think up” in
this way and add to thinking leads away from the essence
of thinking. Unprejudiced observation shows that noth-
- Eduard von Hartmann.