The World as Percept 51bodies located among them, and because we have
therefore generalized the relationships between
such disturbances and such movements, we con-
sider this particular disturbance explained as soon
as we find that it represents an example of just this
relationship.^1
Examined more closely, however, the situation looks
quite different than this description suggests. When I hear
a noise, I first seek the concept that fits this observation.
Someone who thinks no more of it simply hears the noise
and leaves it at that. But by thinking about it, it becomes
clear to me that I must regard the noise as an effect. Only
when I combine the concept ofeffectwith the perception
of the noise am I inclined to go beyond the individual ob-
servation itself and seek acause. The concept of effect
evokes that of cause, and I then seek the causative object,
which I find in the form of a partridge. But I can never
gain the concepts of cause and effect by mere observa-
tion, no matter how many cases I may observe. Observa-
tion calls forth thinking, and it is only the latter that shows
me how to link one isolated experience with another.
When people demand of a “strictly objective science”
that it draw its content from observation alone, then they
must at the same time demand that it renounce all think-
ing. For thinking, by its very nature, goes over and above
what has been observed.
This is the moment to move from thinking to the being
who thinks. For it is through the thinker that thinking is
- Spencer,First Principles, Part I, Chapter IV.