Thinking in the Service of Understanding the World 35thinking more immediately and intimately than any other
process in the world. Precisely because we ourselves pro-
duce our thinking, we know the characteristics of its
course and how it occurs. What can be found only indi-
rectly in other spheres of observation—the appropriate
connections and the relationship of individual objects—
we know in a completely immediate way in thinking.
Without going beyond the phenomena, I cannot know
why thunder follows lightning for my observation. But I
know immediately, from the content of the two concepts,
why my thinking links theconcept of thunder with that of
lightning. Naturally it is not a question of whether I have
correct concepts of lightning and thunder. The connection
between those that I do have is clear, by means of the very
concepts themselves.
This transparent clarity we experience in relation to the
thinking process is completely independent of our knowl-
edge of the physiological bases of thinking. I am speaking
here of thinking as given by observation of our spiritual
activity. I am not concerned with how one material pro-
cess in the brain occasions or influences another when I
carry out an operation in thought. What I observe about
thinking is not the process in my brain linking the concepts
of lightning and thunder, but rather the process enabling
me to bring the two concepts into a specific relationship.
Observation tells me that nothing guides me in combining
my thoughts except the content of my thoughts. I am not
guided by the material processes in my brain. In a less ma-
terialistic age than our own, this observation would of
course be completely superfluous. But today—when there