Second Lecture

That, for example, is the question that arose in the soul from the experience of agnosticism. And then, by drawing on everything that is active in the human process of cognition, it became clear what this activity, which is either merely formal or real, actually entails. If one now tries to find a characteristic contrast within this activity, one finds that which then takes one further, which places one in a position to answer the question of what was knowledge for Goethe and what was therefore not yet complete knowledge, because he had to break off between the plant world and the animal world. This question can only be answered if one clearly visualizes the contrast between thinking on the one hand and perception on the other. In human inner experience, there is actually no greater contrast than that between thinking and perception.