The World as Percept 53that is neither subjective nor objective; it goes beyond both
these concepts. I should never say that my individual sub-
ject thinks; rather, it lives by the grace of thinking. Thus,
thinking is an element that leads me beyond myself and
unites me with objects. But it separates me from them at
the same time, by setting me over against them as subject.
Just this establishes the dual nature of the human being:
we think, and our thinking embraces ourselves along with
the rest of the world; but at the same time we must also,
by means of thinking, define ourselves asindividuals
standing over against things.
Next, we must ask ourselves how the other element,
which until now we have characterized merely as the ob-
ject of observation, enters consciousness where it encoun-
ters thinking.
To answer this question, we must purge our field of ob-
servation of everything that thinking has already brought
into it. For the content of our consciousness at any mo-
ment is always already permeated by concepts in the most
varied way.
We must imagine that a being with a fully developed
human intelligence arises from nothing and confronts the
world. What this being would be aware of, before it
brought thinking into action, is the pure content of obser-
vation. The world would then reveal to this being only
the pure, relation-less aggregate ofsensory objects: col-
ors, sounds, sensations of pressure, warmth, taste, and
smell, and then feelings of pleasure and unpleasure. This
aggregate is the content of pure, thought-free observa-
tion. Over against it stands thinking, which is ready to