32 Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path
world-content but that is not normally applied to think-
ing itself.
Someone could object that what I have noted here
about thinking applies equally to feeling and other spiri-
tual activities. The feeling of pleasure, for example, is
also kindled by an object, and I observe the object, but not
the feeling of pleasure. This objection is based on an er-
ror. Pleasure does not at all stand in the same relation to
its object as the concept formed by thinking does. I am
definitely aware that the concept of a thing is formed by
my activity, while pleasure is created in me by an object
in the same way as, for example, a falling stone causes a
change in an object on which it falls. For observation,
pleasure is given in exactly the same way as the process
that occasions it. The same is not true of concepts. I can
ask why a specific process creates the feeling of pleasure
in me. But I certainly cannot ask why a process creates a
specific number of concepts in me. To do so would simply
be meaningless. Thinking about a process has nothing to
do with an effect on me. I learn nothing at all about myself
by knowing the concepts corresponding to the observed
change that a hurled stone causes in a pane of glass. But I
learn a great deal about my personality if I know the feel-
ing that a specific process awakens within me. If I say of
an observed object, “This is a rose,” then I express nothing
at all about myself. But if I say of the rose, “It gives me a
feeling of pleasure,” then I have characterized not only the
rose but also myself in relationship to the rose.
As objects of observation, then, thinking and feeling
cannot be equated. The same conclusion could easily be
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