The Rudolf Steiner Archive

10. The Practical Training of the Mind

[ 1 ] Anthroposophical spiritual science, which is to be presented here in these lectures—naturally, only in fragments—is likely regarded by many people who do not know it or do not wish to know it as a field for dreamers, fantasists, and those who, as is so easily said, are not really engaged in real, practical life. Admittedly, anyone who seeks only a superficial understanding of the content and purpose of spiritual science from this or that pamphlet or from a single lecture will easily come to such a judgment, especially if they are equipped with the scant willingness to delve into the true spiritual realms—a willingness that is, after all, so abundant today—or if they are equipped with all the prejudices and suggestions that arise so frequently from our contemporary culture against such a field of research. And if, as is not at all uncommon today, ill will is added to the mix—whether consciously or unconsciously—then the judgment is quickly formed: “Oh, this spiritual science deals with things that the practical person—the person who wants to keep both feet firmly on the ground of life—shouldn’t concern themselves with!”

[ 2 ] Yet the humanities themselves feel a deep connection to the most practical areas of life, and when practiced correctly, they place the utmost importance on ensuring that the surest guide through real, practical life—that is, thought—also receives a thoroughly practical education. For, first of all, spiritual science is not meant to be something unworldly and detached, floating somewhere in a fantasy world and seeking to draw people away from ordinary, everyday life; rather, it is meant to be something that can serve us at every moment of our lives in everything we think, do, and feel. And second, spiritual science is, in a certain sense, indeed a preparation of our soul for those stages of knowledge through which human beings themselves penetrate into the higher worlds. It has often been emphasized that spiritual science is not only of value to those who already have eyes open to penetrate the spiritual world, but that sound common sense, unclouded reason, and sound judgment are capable of grasping what the spiritual researcher has to communicate from the higher worlds, and that accepting these messages has infinite value for a person long before they themselves can enter the spiritual realm. It can be said that spiritual science serves as a preparation for everyone to gradually unfold the higher organs of knowledge slumbering within the soul, through which the spiritual worlds become perceptible to us.

[ 3 ] We have already discussed some of the various methods and practices that a person must undertake in order to ascend into the spiritual worlds, and we will discuss others later. But there is always one absolute prerequisite: Anyone who wishes to ascend into the spiritual worlds, anyone who wishes to apply the methods precisely specified by spiritual research so that their spiritual senses may be opened, should never, under any circumstances, venture into these higher realms of life without standing on the foundation of sound, practically trained thinking. This sound thinking is the guide, the true guiding principle for entering the spiritual worlds. And those who do not disdain rigorously training themselves in a way of thinking bound to reality and its laws will best gain entry through the methods of spiritual science. However, when one speaks of true practical thinking, one easily comes into conflict with what is called “practice”—and indeed “practical thinking”—in our world. To characterize this, one need only recall something that has already been alluded to here on several occasions. Many in our world claim to be practitioners. But what is the “practice” that so-called practical people speak of today? Somewhere, someone is apprenticed to a master. There, they learn all those tasks and procedures that have been carried out for decades, perhaps for centuries, and that are strictly prescribed. They master all of this, and the less they think in the process—the less they form their own independent, free judgment, the more they follow well-worn paths—the more “practical” the world finds them, especially those active in this field. Anything that deviates even in the slightest from what has long been the practice is often called “impractical.” The maintenance of such a practice is usually not bound by reason, but solely by force. Anyone who holds a position in life and has to carry out tasks in a way that seems just right to them insists that everyone else active in this field must do exactly as they do. And if they have the power to do so, they drive out all those who wish to proceed differently.

[ 4 ] In many cases, practical life is shaped by such circumstances. This is where the right course of action emerges, as in the case where a major advancement was to be introduced: the first railroad was to be built from Fürth to Nuremberg. The opinion of an eminently practical body—the Bavarian Medical Council—was also sought on whether this railroad should be built at all. This opinion can still be read today. It stated that no railroad should be built because riding on it would ruin one’s nerves. And if one were to build railroads anyway, they would have to be fenced in on both sides with high wooden walls so that passersby would not suffer concussions. This is the judgment of practitioners. Whether these practitioners would still be regarded as such today is, of course, the question. Probably not.

[ 5 ] Here’s another example that can really show us whether progress stems from those who call themselves practitioners in life, or from other people: You surely find it very convenient that today you no longer have to go to the post office with every letter and that you no longer have to look up the postage based on distance in a rate book. It was not until the 1840s that the uniform letter postage rate was invented in England. But it was not invented by a “practitioner” of the postal service; rather, when the matter was to be decided in Parliament, one such practitioner said, first, that he did not believe such a benefit would result as Hill had calculated, and second, that the post office building would then have to be enlarged. He could not conceive that the post office building would adapt to the volume of mail—rather than the volume of mail adapting to the post office building. And when the first railroad line from Berlin to Potsdam was to be built, a practitioner—namely, the one who had been running two stagecoaches to Potsdam for years—said: “If people are determined to throw their money out the window, then by all means, let’s build the railroad.”

[ 6 ] Because this practice of the so-called “practitioners” is so impractical when it comes to the big things in life, one can find oneself at odds with these practitioners when speaking of the practical training of the mind. To the impartial observer, every area of life reveals something that can show the true state of practical living. I once encountered a very vivid example of what practical thinking can prevent. A friend from my college days came to me one day, agitated and with a bright red face. He said he had to go see the professor right away to tell him that he had made a great invention. He then came back and said he wouldn’t be able to speak with the expert for another hour, and then he explained his invention to me. It was a device that worked by using a very small amount of steam power—supplied just once—to set a machine in motion, and this machine then continuously performed an enormous amount of work. My friend was himself amazed that he had been clever enough to make such an invention, one that surpassed everything else and offered such great efficiency. I told him he should trace the whole thing back to a simple idea. I said, “Imagine you’re standing in a railroad car and you’re trying to push quite hard against the walls inside the car to move it forward. If you succeed in moving the railroad car while standing inside and pushing, then your machine is good, because it’s based on the same principle.”

[ 7 ] It dawned on me back then that a major obstacle to all practical thinking could be described using a technical term: One is an “inside wagon pusher!” That’s roughly what applies to the thinking of a great many people: They are “inside wagon pushers.” What does that mean? Nothing other than that one is capable of surveying a certain, narrowly defined field and applying what one has learned within that field; but one is also forced to remain within that field and cannot see at all that everything changes fundamentally as soon as one steps out of the “car.”

[ 8 ] This is one of the fundamental principles that must be observed above all else in the practical training of the mind: that every person who is active in any field must strive, quite independently of their own activity, to trace the connections to what borders their field. Otherwise, it is impossible for them to arrive at truly practical thinking. For it is a peculiarity linked to a certain inner inertia that human thought tends to isolate itself and forget what lies outside, even when it is within easy reach.

[ 9 ] I recently mentioned in other contexts how one attempts to prove the Kant-Laplace theory: Once upon a time, there was a cosmic nebula. For some reason, this nebula began to rotate; as a result, the individual planets of the solar system gradually separated from it and acquired the motion they still possess today. This is made very clear by a school experiment known as the Plateau experiment: A small drop of oil is allowed to float in water inside a vessel. An “equator” is then cut out of a sheet of cardboard. This is placed beneath the oil droplet. Then a needle is inserted through it, rotated—and small oil droplets separate off in the equatorial region, like planets, and they move around the larger droplet. In this process, one has committed a very impractical act from a conceptual standpoint: one has forgotten oneself—which is otherwise sometimes quite good—and one has forgotten that one was the one who turned the object. Of course, one must not do that—forget the most important aspect of a matter. If one wants to explain an experiment, however, one must bring into account all the factors that are relevant to it; that is the essential point.

[ 10 ] The first thing required of anyone who wishes to undergo a truly practical training in thinking is to have faith and confidence in reality—in the reality of thoughts. What does that mean? You cannot scoop water out of a glass that contains no water. And you cannot extract thoughts from a world in which there are no thoughts. It is utterly absurd to believe that the entire sum of our thoughts and ideas exists only within ourselves. If someone takes apart a watch and reflects on the laws according to which it is assembled, then he must assume that the watchmaker first assembled the parts of the watch according to those laws. No one should believe that any thought can be discovered in a world that is not constructed, designed, and shaped according to thought. Everything we discover about nature and its phenomena is nothing other than what must first have been placed within nature and its phenomena. There is no thought in our soul that has not first existed out there in the world. Aristotle put it more accurately than many modern thinkers: What man ultimately finds in his thinking is what first exists in the world outside.

[ 11 ] But if one has this trust in the thoughts contained within the world, then one will very easily realize that one must first train oneself to think about the world with interest—to embrace that great, beautiful ideal of thinking as described by Goethe: concrete thinking, that kind of thinking which separates itself as little as possible from things and clings to them as closely as possible. Heinroth, the psychologist, aptly applied to Goethe the beautiful statement that his thinking was concrete—a kind of thinking in which thoughts express nothing other than what is contained in the things themselves, and in which nothing is sought in the things other than the true creative thought. And if one has this trust, this belief in the reality of thoughts, one will easily see how one can train oneself—in harmony with one’s surroundings, in harmony with reality—to develop a truly practical, healthy way of thinking that does not distance itself from things.

[ 12 ] There are three things to consider if a person truly wishes to undertake an education in the spirit of practical thinking: First, a person must and should develop an interest in the external reality surrounding them—an interest in facts and objects. Interest in the environment—that is the magic word for the education of the mind. Joy and love for what we do—that is the second. And satisfaction in what we reflect upon—that is the third. Anyone who understands these three things—interest in the environment, joy and love in doing, and satisfaction in reflection—will soon find that these are the main requirements for a practical education of the mind. However, interest in our environment depends in many ways on factors that we will discuss only in the next lectures, when we will speak about the invisible aspects of human nature and the temperaments.

[ 13 ] The greatest enemy of thought is, in essence, often thought itself. For if one believes that only one can think and that things do not possess thoughts of their own, then one is actually hostile to the practice of thinking. Let’s suppose a person has formed some very narrow ideas about human beings, has come up with a few stereotypical, schematic concepts of people. Now he encounters someone who roughly fits the characteristics of his template. At that point, he has already made up his mind and does not believe that this person can tell him anything special. If we approach everything around us with the sense that every fact can tell us something special—that we have no right to let anything other than the things themselves judge them—then we will soon realize the fruits that such a concrete sensibility bears. The belief that things can tell us far more than we are capable of saying about them is yet another such magical ideal for the practice of thinking. Things themselves should be the educators of our thinking—the facts themselves.

[ 14 ] Just imagine that a person could bring himself to apply the following two important educational methods to the practical training of his thinking: He confronts some fact—let’s say, for example, that someone took a walk here or there just today. That is what he first learns. Now, the person in question wants to train their thinking. It is helpful for them to say to themselves: I have learned this and that; now I want to reflect on the causes from yesterday, the day before yesterday, and so on, that led to today’s event. I go back and try to form a mental picture of what might have happened based on what is happening now. Once I have chosen such an event and, using my intellectual imagination, identified a cause for it, I can investigate whether the actual cause matches what I had thought. In such a comparison—whether the two align or not—I gain something very important. If my thoughts match what I can discern as the cause, then that is good. In most cases, this will not be the case. Then one investigates where one went wrong and tries to compare the incorrect thoughts with the actual course of events. If you do this over and over again, you’ll notice that, after a shorter or longer period of time, you’ll no longer make mistakes, but rather that you’ll be able to distill such a thought from a fact that corresponds to the objective course of events. — Or you can do the following: Take another event and try to mentally construct what might result from it tomorrow or in a few hours. Now wait calmly to see if what you imagined actually happens. At first, you will find that what you imagined is not true. But if you continue this practice, you will see how your thinking gradually becomes so immersed in the facts that it no longer forms arbitrary concepts detached from reality, but rather your thoughts will unfold just as events unfold. This is the development of a sense of reality. If one now also refrains from forming detached, abstract concepts, one will see how one gradually becomes one with things and how one gains a sound judgment.

[ 15 ] There are people who are guided by a certain sure instinct toward this kind of thinking. This stems from the fact that they are born with a special predisposition to develop this kind of thinking. Goethe was such a person. He was so at one with things that his thinking did not take place in his head at all, but rather within the things themselves. Goethe, who had once been a lawyer, possessed sound judgment and a sure instinct for how to approach matters. There was no lengthy poring over documents or studying files when a case had to be taken on. That was not Goethe’s way. He was a man of action. And once all the ministerial files of Goethe, the Weimar minister—I have seen large portions of them—are published, then the world will finally see how Goethe was an eminently practical man, not someone out of touch with reality. It is well known that he accompanied the Grand Duke to Apolda for recruit training. He observed everything that was going on—and at the same time he wrote his *Iphigenia*. Compare this with all the things that must not disturb a modern poet while at work. And yet Goethe was a far greater poet than all those who must not be disturbed today. Because of his eminently practical way of thinking, he could, for example, say when he stepped up to the window: “We cannot go out today, for it will rain in three hours.” — He had studied clouds, but had not formulated any crude theory. What happened was that what unfolded in nature outside developed in tandem with his own thinking. This is called concrete thinking. One acquires such concrete thinking by doing exercises such as those just mentioned. This is, of course, connected with a certain selflessness, strange as that may sound. But there are also laws in the soul, and one who thinks only of oneself when conducting such experiments will not achieve much. For example, if one looks at a fact and immediately says, “Aha, didn’t I tell you so!”—that is the surest obstacle to practical thinking. We could cite many examples to show how one can systematically address the tendency of thoughts to cling to things out of self-interest, so that one learns to think within things.

[ 16 ] The second is joy and love in everything we do. They are present in the true sense only when we can do without success. Where success is the only thing that matters, joy and love are not present to their fullest extent. Therefore, even those for whom success is the only thing that matters cannot develop the calmness of experimentation necessary for joy and love in what we do to gradually inspire us. We learn more from nothing than from trying our hand at all sorts of things, while setting aside all so-called success. I knew a person who had the habit of binding his own schoolbooks. They looked terrible, but he learned an immense amount from doing so. Had he focused on success, he might have refrained from doing it. But it is precisely through doing that we develop the qualities and skills that eventually enable us to become skilled down to the very details of our actions. We will never become skilled if we focus particularly on the success of our actions. If we are unable to tell ourselves that the failures in our actions are just as dear to us as our successes, then we will never reach the second stage necessary for the development of thought.

[ 17 ] Third, we must find satisfaction in thinking itself. This is something that seems so unassuming and yet is the most hotly contested today. How often do we hear people say: Why do our children need to learn this or that? They won’t have any use for it in practical life. — This principle—of considering only what one might need—is the most impractical principle of all. If a person wants to think in a way that is practical for life, there must be areas where the mere act of thinking provides him with satisfaction. If a person—whatever he may be: a mechanical engineer, a painter, a poet, a philosopher, a mason, a carpenter, a shoemaker, a tailor—if he cannot find time, even if only briefly, to do something that is purely intellectual and that satisfies him intellectually—for example, reflecting on certain questions whose solutions he is curious about, or on aspects of life that have nothing to do with his profession—if he cannot find such an area, then he can only ever remain on well-trodden paths. But if he finds something like this—something he does purely out of inner interest—then he has something that exerts a great, powerful effect on him, something that works its way into the finer organization, the finer structure of his organism. The things that bind us to life and make us slaves never have a creative, formative effect; they wear down our abilities and rob us of our life forces. But the things we pursue intellectually solely for our own satisfaction—these create life forces within us, these create new abilities within us; they penetrate the finest structure of our being and enhance our development, refining the structure of our organism. It is not through work for practical benefit, nor through work for the outside world, but through what we do for our own satisfaction that we create something which advances us to the next stage of development. When we then approach practical work again with this more refined organization, it has an effect on that work, and everyone can see that it is correct.

[ 18 ] Take a painting—for example, Raphael’s *Sistine Madonna*—and place a person and a dog in front of it. The painting will make a completely different impression on the dog than on the person. The same is true of how we live our lives. If one remains bound to life, things always make the same impression on us, and we are unable to intervene creatively. If we develop our thinking to a higher level, we face these impressions as the same being in two different forms. At one moment, we face them with the part of ourselves we have not yet worked on; at another, with the part we have worked on. One becomes increasingly practical in life because the impressions that things make on us become ever more elevated. Therefore, although there is a loss of time when one engages in such activities that do not directly pertain to practical life, they indirectly promote practical life in an extraordinary way.

[ 19 ] These are the three stages of any practical training of the mind: interest in the environment, a desire and love for trying everything and being active, and constantly monitoring oneself. Consider, for example, how one of the people who examined these connections with extraordinary insight—Leonardo da Vinci—describes how to proceed, particularly when experimenting. He does not shy away from explaining how one gradually masters drawing through practice. He says: Trace onto tracing paper, place what you’ve traced over the original, and then look to see where the tracing is incorrect. Then do it again, trying to correct the mistakes in the right places. — In this way, he shows how enthusiasm and love for the activity are essential. The third is the satisfaction found in contemplation, which turns away from the external world and can remain calmly within oneself.

[ 20 ] These are the kinds of things that can initially show us how, through trust in the thoughts found in nature and in the structure of the world’s thoughts, we grow into a truly intellectual practice. But we also make progress by believing that thinking itself is a creative force. Anyone who systematically does the following will do a great deal for their practical training in thinking: They reflect on something—say, what they have to do, or a question of worldview; it can be the most mundane thing or the most profound. If they are quick to find a solution right away, then they will generally not develop practical thinking. Rather, it involves telling oneself: You must actually interfere as little as possible with your own thoughts. — Most people can’t make head or tail of this when it’s said. This is a key requirement: that we allow thoughts to take effect within us, that we accustom ourselves to becoming a stage for the workings of our thoughts. We might think there is only one way to accomplish a certain task, or only one answer to a question. But we are not dogmatists for whom only one answer is correct. If we want to learn to think practically, we must try to come up with another answer ourselves—perhaps even a third or a fourth; indeed, there are things for which one can conceive of ten different answers. One must carefully visualize all of these in one’s mind—of course, only for matters where this is possible, not for those that must be done quickly; in such cases, it’s often better to do them poorly than too slowly. If one has ten possible solutions, one should carry out each one with love in one’s thoughts. Then tell yourself: Now I don’t want to think about this at all anymore; I’ll wait until tomorrow and let the thoughts take effect within me. These thoughts are forces at work in my soul, even when my conscious mind isn’t engaged at all. I’ll wait until tomorrow or the day after, and then I’ll bring these thoughts back to mind. — Perhaps I’ll do this a second or third time, and each time I’ll be able to see the individual aspects much more clearly and make a better decision than before. This is an extraordinary exercise in practical thinking: to consider various possible solutions to a problem in my mind, then let them rest, and take them up again later.

[ 21 ] Anyone who does this for a while will see how versatile their thinking becomes, and how, through a certain amount of practice, they develop presence of mind and quick wit. Then, precisely through this, one will grow closer to life even in the most mundane of matters and recognize what is skillful and unskillful, what is clumsy and what is wise. It will not even occur to you to behave the way so-called “practical” people often do. I have met many practical people who are very adept at navigating the well-trodden paths of their profession; but when you see such people in other situations—say, while traveling—their practicality often looks quite peculiar. The proof that the practical training of thought can lead to genuine practical living lies in experience. It will have an effect right down to your hands, right down to the way you handle things. You’ll be much less likely to drop plates and pots than other people if you work on your inner self in this way. Practical thinking extends all the way into your limbs. When it is carried out actively rather than abstractly, it makes you flexible and supple.

[ 22 ] But impractical thinking is most evident precisely where intellectual practice should be at work—for example, in science. I cited the hypothetical experiment from astronomy as an example. One often has the opportunity to experience just how terribly impractical today’s scientists are. Our science, of course, is in no way to be criticized for its actual methodological work or its outstanding achievements. But the ideas that people today come up with are often downright horrifying. Our microscopes and photography are highly advanced. One can observe all sorts of mysterious phenomena in various tiny organisms. When observing plants, one sees certain strange structures on them—for example, faceted organs resembling a fly’s eyes—and on some plants one even sees something like lenses in this or that spot. On other plants, one sees how certain insects are attracted to them, whereupon the plants close their leaves and trap the insects. All of this is observed with great precision. But how does one explain these phenomena given the impractical way of thinking prevalent today? People confuse the human soul—which, after all, internally reflects external processes—with what is observed purely externally in plants. They speak of the “animation” of plants, and they confuse the plant soul, the animal soul, and the human soul. People confuse these concepts. Certainly, no objection is to be raised here against the marvelous observations of nature that are made known to the world through popular writings. But the thinking of our contemporaries becomes confused when someone says that certain plants have their stomachs on the surface, with which they draw in and devour their food. This idea is roughly the same as if someone were to say: I know of a creature that is ingeniously organized and possesses an organ through which it exerts something like a magnetic force on small living beings, so that they are drawn in and devoured—this creature I have in mind is the mousetrap! This idea is exactly the same as the one that assumes the animacy of plants. You could speak of the animacy of the mousetrap in exactly the same sense as you speak of the animacy of the plant, if you truly think in this peculiar way.

[ 23 ] The point is to be able to penetrate the very essence of thinking itself, and to avoid becoming an “inner pusher” even in this realm. And there is something else that is important for the practical training of thinking, and that is having trust in one’s inner spiritual organ of thought. For most people, their benevolent nature ensures that this spiritual organ of thought is not completely ruined by the fact that they must sleep. And because the spiritual does not cease to exist—because it is always there—this organ of thought functions on its own, and a person cannot continually ruin it. But it is quite another matter whether, when faced with important and serious facts of life, a person leaves thinking entirely to nature, or whether they take it into their own hands. Allowing the thinking organ to work on its own, without one’s active involvement, is a very, very important principle. And one practices this by trying, even for just a short time each day, not to think at all. It takes a great, powerful resolve to sit or lie down somewhere without letting any thoughts pass through one’s mind. It is much easier to let these ebbing and flowing thoughts play out within oneself until one is relieved of them by a good night’s sleep than to command oneself: “Now you will be awake, and yet you will not think for yourself; rather, you will think of nothing at all.” If one is able to sit or lie still and think nothing while fully conscious, then the thinking faculty functions in such a way that it gains strength within itself, accumulating power. And whoever repeatedly puts themselves in this position—of not thinking while fully conscious—will see how the clarity of their thinking increases, how, in particular, their quick wit grows, not merely by leaving their thinking apparatus to its own devices during sleep, but by allowing that thinking apparatus to work under their own guidance.

[ 24 ] Only someone who has been forsaken by all the spirits of spirituality can believe that no thinking takes place at all in such a state. Here, the words Goethe spoke of nature apply: “She has thought, and she thinks constantly.” Even the deepest inner being of a human being has thoughts and nurtures thoughts, even when the person is not present with their conscious thoughts. And even in cases where a person is not at all present in their thinking, something within them is still thinking—they are simply not aware of it. In these moments, when a person lies there without their own personal thoughts, a Higher Power is truly thinking within them, and this Higher Power has an immensely formative and educational effect on them. It is essential and important that a person also allow the superconscious, the divine, to work and weave within them—a force that does not reveal itself directly but makes its presence known through its effects. One gradually becomes a clearer and more quick-witted thinker when one has devoted oneself to such thinking exercises. It takes a certain amount of drive and energy to cultivate such thinking exercises.

[ 25 ] From the individual examples given today, you can see how one can cultivate this way of thinking through one’s own efforts. Only a few examples of the self-education of thought could be given today, but these examples have shown that it is possible to point to genuine remedies for the mind, the fruits of which can be provided only by experience—by life itself. Those who train their thinking in this way will find that, on the one hand, they can ascend to the highest realms of spiritual life, but that, on the other hand, they can also apply this thinking in the realm of everyday life. What is gained from surveying the great spiritual truths should be applied to practical life. All areas of daily life—but especially education—could be immensely enriched by this, and a completely different perspective on the practice of life would take hold all around us. But even those who wish to develop the qualities lying dormant within them in order to ascend into the spiritual realms would have a secure foundation and stand firmly in life. This is something that must absolutely be achieved before anyone ascends into the higher spiritual realms. And even conventional science could gain immensely if it allowed itself to be enriched by spiritual science.

[ 26 ] The “cart-pushers” of thought, who often consider themselves great practitioners, do not possess this practical way of thinking; they lack it. They are unable to trace anything back to a simple, comprehensive idea. This is what spiritual science gives us: it enables us to view what is otherwise small and intricate in life from broad, comprehensive perspectives. Through this, a person will come to realize that they are capable of thinking their way into the small details from broad perspectives; then they will be led to true practical living.

[ 27 ] Let’s look at Leonardo da Vinci, who was a practitioner in many fields; we can take him as a role model. He said: “Theory is the captain; practice is the soldiers.” — Anyone who wants to be a practitioner without mastering the principles of practical thinking is like someone who boards a ship without a compass; they have no way of steering the ship properly. Goethe repeatedly demonstrated, based on his practical way of thinking, how scholarship in particular can lead to fruitless speculation through impractical thinking. There are those who reduce the external world to atoms, and others who reduce it to motion; still others deny motion altogether. In contrast, the most practical thinkers point out that simplicity stems from the grandeur of one’s worldview. This statement is entirely apt, and we can keep Goethe’s maxim in mind:

You may spot something hostile,
Stay calm, stay silent;
And if they deny you the freedom to move,
Go right under their noses.