III. Thinking in the Service of Understanding the World

With this I consider that I have sufficiently justified making thinking my starting point in my approach to an understanding of the world. When Archimedes[^6] had discovered the lever, he thought that with its help he could lift the whole cosmos from its hinges if only he could find a point upon which he could support his instrument. He needed something that was supported by itself, that was not carried by anything else. In thinking we have a principle which exists by means of itself. From this principle let us attempt to understand the world. Thinking we can understand through itself. So the question is only whether we can also understand other things through it.