AND ITS SELF-CONSERVATION. 33 



in your assumption that the mere private, and very likely 

 wholly undisciplined, thinking of the individual is the 

 only attainable form of thought, or that it is necessarily 

 true thought at all. If the thinking of each individual is 

 the truth for him, then there can be no truth at all, since 

 the untrained mind makes no effort to avoid contradictory 

 thought, nor does it even recognize the fact that contra- 

 dictions are constantly arising in its own thinking. And 

 yet thought can only be true, as thought, in so far as it is 

 consistent with itself. The contradiction of thought by 

 thought must be the utter negation of thought ; that is, 

 must prove that what was taken for thought is in reality 

 not thought at all. 



" If, therefore, you are sincere in your search for truth, 

 you must recognize that your standpoint is one-sided and 

 superficial, and therefore requires to be supplemented and 

 deepened through fusion with another element. That 

 element is the objective phase of thought. Thought, as 

 such, is universal and necessary in its nature. It is abso- 

 lutely consistent and unchanging. That is the funda- 

 mental characteristic of thought ; and because no sub- 

 jective caprice which you or I may entertain can ever, in 

 the least, affect this fundamental nature of thought, as 

 such, the latter may very properly be called objective or 

 true thought, in contrast with our own subjective, often 

 self-contradictory, and in such case necessarily untrue 

 thought. 



"I readily admit, and with you emphatically declare, 

 that it is only by our own individual thinking that we, as 

 individuals, can reach any conclusion at all. But I also 

 declare, with no less confidence, that we must ever and 

 inevitably be led to the conclusion I have just been 



