The Rudolf Steiner Archive

10. Synthesis and Analysis in Human Beings and in Education

[ 1 ] You will have seen how Spiritual Science is working precisely toward using all subject matter simultaneously as a means of education. The curriculum is stripped of its scientific form and presented to the child in such a way that, I would say, the forces within the child that prepare it for development are drawn out from every aspect of it. Now, if we want to put what we have as curriculum to good use in this practical way, we must observe how the soul activity of the human being—and of the child above all—actually unfolds. When we look at human mental activity, we must consider two things: first, something that, in a sense, tends toward analysis—if I may say so—and something that tends toward the formation of syntheses. Everyone knows from logic or psychology what the essence of analysis and synthesis consists of. But the point now is not merely to grasp these things in the abstract form in which they are usually understood, but to view them in a living, concrete way. Analysis—we can visualize it by saying, for example: Well, if we have the number 10, 10 things, then we can also create mental images of these 10 things by picturing 3, 5, and 2, and adding the idea that the 10 can be separated—that is, analyzed—into 3, 5, and 2.

[ 2 ] We are dealing with a synthesis when we can do the opposite—when we simply add, when we add 3 and 5 and 2. As I said, when analysis and synthesis are objectified in this way, separated from us, then we are familiar with them. But when we grasp human soul life in a living way, we find that our soul is constantly engaged in an analytical process that always points back to an impulse to form synthetic processes. We are, after all, constantly forming synthetic processes, for example, by perceiving individual members of an animal species and forming from them a common concept—the species concept. There we summarize; there we synthesize. Analysis, I would say, lies much deeper. It lies almost in the unconscious of human mental activity. There is always an impulse present in the soul to move from unity to division. Precisely because this is so rarely taken into account, so little has been understood of what human freedom actually represents in the soul. If human soul activity were exclusively synthetic—or rather, if human beings were related to the external world in such a way that they could only synthesize, form species concepts and generic concepts, and also organize their lives in such a way that they would strive to classify them according to concepts as much as possible—which is, after all, a primary human activity—then human beings could hardly speak of freedom at all. For the way we proceed in such cases is usually dictated to us by external nature.

[ 3 ] In contrast, all our actions are fundamentally based on an analytical process, and it is this analytical process that enables us to develop freedom even within the realm of pure imagination. When I have to add 2, 5, and 3—to form the sum—I have no freedom in that process. There is a law underlying how much 2, 5, and 3 add up to. But if I have 10, I can represent this 10 as 9+1, 5+5, I can represent this 10 as 3+5-+2, and so on. When analyzing, I am engaged in a completely free inner activity. When synthesizing, I am compelled by the external world to unfold my inner life in a certain way. When, then, do we analyze in practical life? We analyze in practical life when we adopt a certain standpoint, for example, and say to ourselves: We want to consider this or that from a certain perspective. Then we break down what we know about a thing into two parts. We analyze, setting everything else aside, and adopt a certain standpoint. Let me say: I’ll consider getting up early, setting aside everything else, purely from the standpoint of—well, a greater inclination to perform work early in the morning. I could also consider this act of getting up from another perspective. I may then be able to analyze it to the point where I have a second and a third perspective. In this analytical mental activity, I am free in a certain sense. And because we are actually constantly developing analytical mental activity—more or less unconsciously—in every area of our lives, we are free human beings; and no one who does not understand how human beings are predisposed toward analytical activity will easily overcome the difficulty of the problem of freedom.

[ 4 ] Yet it is precisely this analytical activity that we usually take far too little into account in teaching and education. We rely on the fact that the external world demands a synthesizing activity from human beings, and this has led—I would say, out of a certain pedagogical instinct, which is, however, one-sided—to a focus primarily on synthesizing, rather than on analyzing. This has great practical significance. For you see, precisely when one wants to develop what I drew attention to yesterday, for example—starting from the dialect in language instruction—it becomes clear how necessary it is to analyze. The child brings us something ready-made in the form of dialect. By having the child speak sentences, we must then analyze those sentences together with the child, starting from what is already there, in order to develop the laws of language formation from those sentences. We must analyze. But we can expand analytical activity in the classroom much further still, take it much further. I may be drawing your attention here to something that you have already encountered sufficiently in one form or another. But you will see that it is precisely from this perspective that we must further develop the matter. The point is that, for example, even when explaining the letters, one should not proceed primarily from a synthetic approach, but rather from an analytical one. Let’s say, for example, I have the child say a word—the word “fish”—and then I simply write it on the board—relying on the fact that I have been drawing with the child, as I have described—I write the word “fish” for the child before the child knows anything about letters. I even try to have the child memorize this entire word image without first breaking it down into letters. I even try, after the child has spent enough time drawing as I have explained, to have the child reproduce the word without initially having any idea that there is an “F-I-SCH” in it. The child is simply supposed to imitate what I have on the board. And before I move on to the letters, I often try to have the child trace complete words. Then I attempt the analysis. I try to draw the child’s attention to how the word begins: F—isolate the F, then isolate the I, and so on. So it’s something that simply aligns with human nature—that one doesn’t start with the letters and synthetically assemble them into words, but rather starts with the whole word and works backward analytically to the letters.

[ 5 ] You see, this must also be taken into account, particularly from the perspective of the development of the human soul in preparation for later adulthood. For, as you all know, we are actually suffering today—perhaps you will take offense at my use of the word “suffering,” but that is how I must feel—we are suffering today under the materialistic worldview. This worldview consists not only in, so to speak, recognizing only the material, but also in reducing the entire world to atomistic activity. It does not matter whether one conceives of these atoms as they were conceived in the 1880s—that is, as small, elastic particles of unknown material composition—or whether one conceives of them, as is done today, as the generation of electrical forces or as centers of electrical energy. What matters is simply that, in materialism, the material realm—which is then also applied to the instruments of the spiritual and soul—is conceived as composed of the smallest parts and dependent on the activity of these smallest parts. This has already gone so far today that people are no longer even aware that they are dealing with hypotheses; rather, most people believe it to be a certain scientific result that atoms underlie the phenomena of the external world. How did it come to be that in our age people—I would say—have developed a penchant for atomism? It has come about because, in our age, we have not developed enough analytical activity with children. If we were to develop in children that analytical activity which starts from the finished, unified word form and analyzes it down to its letters, then the child, at the age when it craves such activity, would act on its urge for analysis, and that urge would not be reserved for later engagement in conceptualizing atomic structure and so on. It is simply the unsatisfied analytical drive that so fosters our materialism. If we were in fact to satisfy the analytical drive in the way I have indicated here—through the analysis of the entire word image into letters—then we would certainly divert people’s sympathies away from the materialist worldview.

[ 6 ] That is why, in Waldorf schools, we teach in such a way that we do not start with the letters and work our way up, but rather begin with the complete sentence, analyze the words from the sentence, then take the words and analyze the letters from them, and finally identify the sounds associated with the letters. In this way, we actually achieve true internalization. For what constitutes a sentence or a word is something the child already possesses. What we then use to awaken consciousness is accomplished by analyzing sentences and words.

[ 7 ] If one accepts the child just as it speaks dialect, then there is no need to assume a contradiction in the first place; for the child, much more than one might think, brings with it the unity of sentences. This also has the effect that, in fact, a person who is raised as a child in such a way that we accommodate their analytical inclination develops a greater spiritual alertness than is generally the case among our population today. With regard to spiritual alertness, we have indeed sinned tremendously through our methods of education. One might say: truly, we do not merely sleep from the moment we fall asleep until we wake up, nor do we merely stay awake from the moment we wake up until we fall asleep; rather, albeit to a lesser degree and with lesser intensity, states of wakefulness and sleep constantly alternate within us throughout our daily lives. Indeed, even every time we inhale and exhale, there is simultaneously an illumination and a darkening in this inhalation and exhalation, even if this goes unnoticed; first, because it happens quickly, and second, because the darkening is very faint compared to the brightening; thus, the speed with which it passes and the slight variations in intensity mean that it goes unnoticed. But in fact, it is true that every time we inhale, we fall asleep in a certain way, and every time we exhale, we wake up in a certain way. And we may therefore say that even in this respect, waking and sleeping continually alternate within us. But this alternation also occurs on a psychological level. A person is more or less awake with regard to this or that experience.

[ 8 ] Now we can quite legitimately say: Every time we engage in analytical activity, we wake up; every time we engage in synthetic activity, we fall asleep. This, of course, should not be understood to mean that sleeping and waking should be regarded as they are in ordinary states—as what we do at night. But with a corresponding dulling of intensity, analyzing means waking up; synthesizing means falling asleep. This is why the tendency to face the world with an alert soul is also fostered when we accommodate the child’s drive to analyze, when we encourage the child as much as possible to extract details from units in a wide variety of ways.

[ 9 ] This is particularly relevant when it comes to arithmetic. Arithmetic is, after all, something whose relationship to the child’s entire inner life is not considered thoroughly enough. First of all, arithmetic must be distinguished from mere counting. Some people even believe that counting is already a mental image of addition. It is not. Counting is merely the naming of different quantities—a process of naming. Counting must, in fact, necessarily precede arithmetic, at least up to a certain number. We must certainly teach the child to count. But then the point is that we use arithmetic specifically to give proper weight to the powers of analysis that are seeking to reveal themselves in the soul. We must try, first of all, let’s say, to start with 10 and then break it down in various ways, showing the child how 10 can be broken down into 5 and 5, or into 3 and 3 and 3 and 1, or broken down in other ways. One does an immense amount to accommodate what human nature actually strives for from its innermost forces when, in arithmetic, one does not begin by adding in such a way that the addends are on the left and the sum on the right, but rather by having the sum on the left and the addends on the right. One should start by analyzing the sum and only then work backward to addition.

[ 10 ] Today, anyone who wishes to can dismiss this account as a bold assertion. However, anyone who develops an unbiased perspective on the forces of human nature will recognize the validity of what has been presented and be able to say to themselves: By having the sum on the left and the addends on the right—and by first teaching the child to decompose the sum in any way they choose—we accommodate the child’s drive to analyze, and only then do we address the drive that does not actually originate within the soul itself, but rather arises in the individual’s interaction with the external world. For what the child analyzes out of a unity is, in essence, there only for the human being itself. What is synthesized is always there for external human nature. You will say: Yes, but you just said that generic concepts, for example, are the result of synthesis. They are, indeed. But we must not regard them merely as abstract concepts when we synthesize. Don’t people believe that when we form general concepts like “wolf” or “lamb,” these are merely general concepts formed in our minds? That is not the case. For that which exists apart from all substance—what we grasp merely in the idea of the wolf or the lamb—is a reality. If that were not a reality, if only matter were a reality, then surely, if we were to lock up a wolf and feed it nothing but lambs, it would, after some time, become as docile as a lamb. It certainly will not, because as a wolf it is something other than the matter of which it is composed. But precisely that which it is besides this becomes clear to us through the concept we synthesize; this concept corresponds entirely to an external reality. In contrast, what we ultimately isolate as parts from something—especially when it comes to identifying perspectives and the like—corresponds in very many cases to something subjective. At the very least, it is initially a subjective activity when I break down the sum on the left into its addends; on the right, I have the addends: then what is to be on the right is given. If I have the sum on the left and then break it down, I can do so from a wide variety of perspectives. Then the addends can take on a wide variety of forms. This is so important that one must develop this freedom of will with children.

[ 11 ] Similarly, when multiplying, one should not start with the factor and move directly to the product, but rather start with the product and form the factor from it in any way one chooses, and only then return to the synthesizing activity. Then, through arithmetic, a person truly gains the opportunity to develop that rhythmic activity of the soul’s life which consists of analysis and synthesis. In a sense, when we learn arithmetic, we very often emphasize one aspect too strongly. This is just as harmful to the soul as if we were to overwhelm the body with inhalation alone and not allow it to exhale properly. It is precisely a matter, in every respect, of being able to respond to the individuality of the human being in the right way. This is exactly what I mean by the enrichment that the art of education can experience through Spiritual Science. We must become attentive to what actually seeks to emerge from the child’s individuality. Otherwise, it is of no use to repeat the abstract principle over and over again that one should not impose something on the child, but rather draw something out of the child. Indeed, one must first know what can be drawn out; one must first have made that clear to oneself. The child first has a longing to be analytically satisfied and then to synthesize what has been analyzed. These are the things that must be specifically taken into account when observing human nature; otherwise, even the best pedagogical principles will always remain something that, while quite satisfying to apply—one then believes, one is meeting all requirements—but only because one is not looking at life, because one is not actually interested in observing what emerges in life as the result of education. One might say: people are, after all, so strangely short-sighted in their judgment.

[ 12 ] You see, if you lived in Austria in the 1970s like I did, you could hear it coming from across the border in Prussia—and certain people in Austria repeated it, because Prussia had defeated Austria in 1866—: “Yes, that’s because Austrian schools used to be worse than Prussian schools. Actually, the Prussian schoolmaster was the one who triumphed.” And everywhere in Prussia, you could hear that the Prussian schoolmaster had triumphed. Since October 1918, I haven’t heard a similar saying in Germany—even though, as a consequence, one should actually be hearing the opposite saying in Germany now. These things are quite instructive. They simply show how all too easily people are inclined to form judgments not based on facts, but on the sympathies and antipathies they happen to feel at the moment. All of this, however, stems from the fact that many aspects of human nature remain undeveloped—aspects that, as forces, demand to be cultivated. But we will always succeed if we take into account the rhythmic need within the whole human being—that is, if we say: We must not merely teach addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division; we must not merely answer the question in addition: ‘What sums do such-and-such addends yield?’—but above all, we must answer the question: ‘How can a sum be broken down into addends?’ In subtraction, we must answer the question: ‘From what must one subtract 5 to get 8?’ As a rule, all these forms of expression must first be practiced in reverse from the way they are then applied synthetically in interaction with the outside world. There, one can also—I would say—put arithmetic instruction and language instruction in the service of human development in parallel, by moving from the whole to the individual letters. And it is truly uplifting to see in our Waldorf school how the children strive, once they have the whole word image, to figure out: What does it look like, how does it sound, what’s in the middle? — and to move on to the letters in this way. If we break things down and analyze them in this way, the children will certainly have no inclination toward materialism or atomism—an inclination that all people have today for the very reason that they are encouraged in school only to synthesize, and thus seek to develop their analytical need, their need to break things down, into a worldview in their lives. This shows how intimately connected the special structure of the curriculum—from which we remove its scientific character and thus present it to the child in a way that precisely meets the child’s developmental needs—is with the needs that emerge year by year from the child’s nature.

[ 13 ] However, one cannot come to terms with all these things unless one also takes into account the fact that human nature, as I said yesterday, essentially begins with activity and only then transitions from activity to what is subsequently a state of rest. Just as a child begins by fidgeting and then comes to rest, so the entire nature of the human being begins with activity and must actually first acquire order and calm. But this must truly be cultivated in a very systematic way. And this involves, so to speak, shaping the human being from within the very activity of the human being. It is particularly easy to fall into error in this regard today. I have, in fact, tried to explain how important it is to focus on music and singing right from the start of elementary school education. It is one aspect of the artistic realm. The child’s musical needs must be met as much as possible. A devastating prejudice could very easily arise in this regard today. If we look at the world today—most of you will have noticed this—there are almost as many singing methods as there are singing teachers, and especially female singing teachers. In the view of those who teach these singing methods, the method they currently practice is always the very best. These singing and music methods, when applied to adults who have already passed the actual age of development, can certainly be left as pet projects to those who specifically want such methods. As a rule, all methods are based on a serious error. They assume that one must actually adjust human nature starting from the organs at rest in order to bring about activity—that one must, so to speak, adjust the lungs and so on so that the activity—that is, the activity that manifests itself in singing, for example—comes to light in the appropriate way. This is the opposite of what arises from the very nature of the human being. Almost all the singing methods I have come across are actually rooted in the materialism of our time, in the assumption that the human being is some kind of mechanical entity that must be adjusted, and from which one must then elicit some kind of activity by adjusting it correctly. This can never really be the case if one truly engages with the nature of the human being. The proper approach to learning to sing and to training the musical ear requires, first and foremost, that children be accustomed to hearing correctly, and then that their instinct to imitate be awakened in a way that aligns with this correct hearing. Here, too, the best method is simply for the teacher to sing as a model with a certain warmth, to address what is being done incorrectly, and for the student to develop a natural urge to imitate what they hear from the teacher and to correct what they do wrong. But in the act of singing itself, the child must master what instinctively results from the attunement of the organs.

[ 14 ] Speech must also serve to properly regulate the human breathing rhythm. Above all, we must ensure in school that the child learns to bring speech into a calm, regular rhythm. We must insist that the child speak clearly, syllable by syllable, speak slowly, round off the syllables appropriately, omit nothing from the words, and—above all—adapt to what is called “bound speech,” poetry, and the like—that is, to structured language—and that they follow the intonation of the verses from a consciousness rooted in feeling, not in the intellect, but in feeling. In short, here too it is a matter of our reading aloud to the child in the right way and the child listening and learning to listen. And then—it is indeed the case that the larynx and its neighboring organs are still adapting to hearing during childhood. As I said, for adults, the methods that are so numerous today may, as far as I’m concerned, be used; for there, too, whatever emerges from such pet projects will—in one way or another—organize life, or fail to do so. All these artificial methods must be kept out of the school. Above all, there must be a natural relationship between the teacher and the learner, between the educator and the one being educated. Indeed, the child’s loving devotion to the teacher must replace what might be called artificial attitudes and artificial methods. In fact, I would say that what lies at the foundation must be those intangible forces that have an effect. Nothing would be more disastrous than if music teachers were to gain access to schools with their methods. What should prevail in school is the very spirit of the matter. But that can only come about if one is deeply immersed in the subject matter oneself, not if one tries to convey it to the children through external methods.

[ 15 ] If there were more pedagogical artistry in schools in this regard as well, then, I believe, people’s inclination to learn all sorts of things using special methods would no longer flourish as it does today. If a child is taught singing and music in a natural way starting at age 6 or 7, he or she will later be far less likely to get caught up in all the convoluted methods that play such a major role in our modern civilization.

[ 16 ] But I believe that even today, part of the art of teaching is for the teacher to observe impartially all that is spreading and gaining ground as a result of the unnatural character of our age, and to eradicate it right there in the classroom and through education during the school years. As a rule, it is extremely difficult for us to combat certain things—such as the methods just mentioned—because the people who employ such methods are, after all, fanatical; they can see nothing but the world-reforming aspect of their methods, and it is generally quite futile to speak reasonably or impartially with people who engage in such practices. Such matters can really only be steered back onto the right course by the next generation. That is where we can indeed intervene. The next generation can always accomplish tremendous things in the social sphere. It is certainly true that the art of teaching and the art of education involve not only the methodological and didactic application of effective means, but above all the perspective that arises for the teacher or educator from the interest they feel in the general development of humanity. Above all, the teacher should have a comprehensive interest in the entire development of humanity. They should take a keen interest in everything that is happening in their own era. Above all, they must not isolate themselves within any narrowly defined or restricted sphere of interest. The interests we cultivate—I would say, in the cultural impulses of the entire era—in turn have a revitalizing effect on the teacher’s entire demeanor and conduct. And please forgive me for saying this outright: much of what is often rightly perceived as pedantry in schools would immediately disappear if teachers were primarily interested in the great realities of life and took an active part in public affairs. Admittedly, this is not looked upon favorably, especially in reactionary countries, but at the same time it is a pedagogical interest, not merely an external one.

[ 17 ] Now, perhaps in connection with what I have just said, we can address a question that was posed to me today: In what direction is language heading? What needs to happen so that the old, degenerate words no longer constitute an obstacle to the development of thought, but instead help build the new spiritual life? An English mathematician, who strove to schematize all types of thought using mathematical symbols, recently said in an educational lecture: “Style is the intellectual-ethical.” This, it seems to me, could establish a true literary ideal. To truly speak and write ethically, therefore, every person—and every nation—would need to have a distinct vocabulary of their own; for in language as it currently exists, the dramatic element develops only words, but rarely a universal human concept. How can we reshape language so that, in the future, both our individual mental images and feelings, as well as the universality of individual concepts, become audible or visible through it? Or should language disappear altogether and be replaced by something else in the near future?

[ 18 ] Now, that in turn raises a whole host of questions. Nevertheless, I would like to address a few of these questions today—with more detailed discussion to follow tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. It is indeed necessary to consider how, fundamentally, precisely because our civilized languages have advanced in a certain way, an external relationship between one language and another has come about. For example, it is, after all, something entirely external when we translate by taking a text in one language and looking up the corresponding word in the other language—a word that is usually found in the dictionary. In this way, one generally fails to grasp what lies beyond the purely superficial in language. For language is not, first and foremost, merely that which is imbued by the intellect; language is something experienced and felt directly. Therefore, a terrible alienation of human beings would indeed occur if one were to introduce a universal language—such as Esperanto or similar systems—amongst humanity. I have heard excellent, beautifully sounding poems in Esperanto. I am by no means biased, but such a universal language would, to a large extent, cause the very emotional, heartfelt, and living elements that give language its life to be lost—and these are always lost when words are simply transferred from one language to another according to a dictionary. And so one must say that, in a sense, the man who said this is quite right, although it is actually not very good to reduce such things to formulas again—intellectual work that can be schematized mathematically, and the like, which are also, in a sense, pet projects. But this much can be said: the point is that we once again need to imbue our language with spirit. Our language has, like all civilized languages, become heavily entrenched in clichés. Precisely for this reason, it is good to turn once again to the dialect. Where it is spoken, the dialect is even more alive than the so-called educated colloquial language. The dialect still contains much more that is personal, and it contains—I would say—secretly personal, intimately personal elements. You see, those who speak in dialect will speak more conscientiously than those who speak only in standard written language. One hardly lies in dialect in such a comprehensive sense as one does in standard written language. This assertion may seem paradoxical to you, but it is nevertheless true in a certain sense. Of course, I don’t mean to say that there aren’t also brazen liars who speak in dialect—I don’t mean to say that—but the depravity of their character must then be greater than it needs to be when one lies only in the educated vernacular. One doesn’t have to be quite as bad a person to lie, because the language allows for lying more readily than when one lies in a dialect. One really has to be a thoroughly bad person to lie in a dialect; for people much prefer a dialect word to a word from the educated colloquial language. One feels ashamed to use a dialect word merely as a cliché, whereas a word from the educated vernacular very easily becomes a cliché. We must instill this in people once again—that they have genuine experiences behind their words. But then, life must be breathed into the language.

[ 19 ] These days, people hardly forgive you anymore if you try to breathe life into language. I really did try to do so—in a very homeopathic dose—in my writings. You see, simply to make certain things more vivid, I needed a term in my writings for something that relates to power the way water flowing in a stream relates to the crust of ice that has formed; I used the word “kraften.” We generally only have the word “Kraft”; we don’t speak of “kraften.” And so one ends up using similar words. But then again, if you want to breathe life into language, you need not a dead syntax, but a living one. Today, you’re immediately corrected if you place the subject in a different position than people are used to. But these things are still possible in German. In German, you can actually still exercise a certain degree of freedom. The Western European languages—it’s truly appalling just how many things are wrong with them! Every moment you hear: “You can’t say that; that’s not English; that’s not French.” The equivalent—“That’s not German”—simply doesn’t exist. In German, you can actually place the subject anywhere. You can also, in a sense, breathe life into the sentence and so on. I truly don’t mean to sound like a journalist, but I want to state a fact. That is precisely the process of a language’s decline. Language begins to die when you’re constantly told: “You can’t say that,” “That’s not spoken correctly.” It’s actually just like—though it doesn’t strike you as so paradoxical—if a hundred people were to walk through any given door, and I, based on the types of people that I alone consider correct, were to say: “Aha, that’s a real person, that’s a fake person.” Life does not tolerate categorization. That’s when it immediately appears grotesque everywhere, isn’t it? Life demands that everything be in motion. Therefore, syntax and grammar must arise from sensuous life, not from the stifling intellect. This will lead us back to the living development of language.

[ 20 ] Goethe introduced a great deal of dialectical elements into language. It is always a good idea to enliven written language through dialect, because in dialect the word is felt to glow even more vividly and to be imbued with warmth. These are the kinds of things that come into play in the development of language, in the evolution of language. But it is also important to consider that a kind of ethical life truly enters into speech. This certainly does not mean that one becomes humorless in speech. V-Vischer—that is, Friedrich Theodor Vischer—wrote a very fine essay on the difference between frivolity and cynicism. In addition to aptly characterizing the difference between frivolity and cynicism, it also contains many observations on language use, on living within the language, and so on. It is indeed true that a certain sense of obligation one imposes on oneself with regard to speech serves as good ethical training for life in general. But it must come from the heart; it must not be the kind that arises from convention. It truly leads one further and further away from the vitality of language when one is constantly told—as is the case in Western European languages—that this or that turn of phrase is wrong, and that only a very specific approach—if we were dealing with Spanish, one might say, one that is constricted into Spanish boots—is correct.