Jung’s Portrait of the ENTJ / ESTJ Types

Jung did not distinguish between the ENTJ and ESTJ types. Instead he focused on what was common to these two types as both were dominated by Extroverted Thinking (Te). Jung has been noted by many to be a forbidding and inaccessible writer and reading him is indeed difficult.

Jung’s Portrait of the ENTJ / ESTJ Types

by Carl Gustav Jung, first published 1921

Extroverted Thinking [Te] in General

As a result of the general attitude of extraversion, thinking is orientated by the object and objective data. This orientation of thinking produces a noticeable peculiarity.

Thinking in general is fed from two sources, firstly from subjective and in the last resort unconscious roots, and secondly from objective data transmitted through sense perceptions.

Extraverted thinking is conditioned in a larger measure by these latter factors than by the former. judgment always presupposes a criterion ; for the extraverted judgment, the valid and determining criterion is the standard taken from objective conditions, no matter whether this be directly represented by an objectively perceptible fact, or expressed in an objective idea ; for an objective idea, even when subjectively sanctioned, is equally external and objective in origin. Extraverted thinking, therefore, need not necessarily be a merely concretistic thinking it may equally well be a purely ideal thinking, if, for instance, it can be shown that the ideas with which it is engaged are to a great extent borrowed from without, i.e. are transmitted by tradition and education. The criterion of judgment, therefore, as to whether or no a thinking is extraverted, hangs directly upon the question: by which standard is its judgment governed — is it furnished from without, or is its origin subjective? A further criterion is afforded by the direction of the thinker’s conclusion, namely, whether or no the thinking has a preferential direction outwards. It is no proof of its extraverted nature that it is preoccupied with concrete objects, since I may be engaging my thoughts with a concrete object, either because I am abstracting my thought from it or because I am concretizing my thought with it. Even if I engage my thinking with concrete things, and to that extent could be described as extraverted, it yet remains both questionable and characteristic as regards the direction my thinking will take; namely, whether in its further course it leads back again to objective data, external facts, and generally accepted ideas, or not. So far as the practical thinking of the merchant, the engineer, or the natural science pioneer is concerned, the objective direction is at once manifest. But in the case of a philosopher it is open to doubt, whenever the course of his thinking is directed towards ideas. In such a case, before deciding, we must further enquire whether these ideas are mere abstractions from objective experience, in which case they would merely represent higher collective concepts, comprising a sum of objective facts ; or whether (if they are clearly not abstractions from immediate experience) they may not be derived from tradition or borrowed from the intellectual atmosphere of the time. In the latter event, such ideas must also belong to the category of objective data, in which case this thinking should also be called extraverted.

Although I do not propose to present the nature of introverted thinking at this point, reserving it for a later section, it is, however, essential that I should make a few statements about it before going further. For if one considers strictly what I have just said concerning extraverted thinking, one might easily conclude that such a statement includes everything that is generally understood as thinking. It might indeed be argued that a thinking whose aim is concerned neither with objective facts nor with general ideas scarcely merits the name ‘thinking’. I am fully aware of the fact that the thought of our age, in common with its most eminent representatives, knows and acknowledges only the extraverted type of thinking. This is partly due to the fact that all thinking which attains visible form upon the world’s surface, whether as science, philosophy, or even art, either proceeds direct from objects or flows into general ideas. On either ground, although not always completely evident it at least appears essentially intelligible, and therefore relatively valid. In this sense it might be said that the extraverted intellect, i.e. the mind that is orientated by objective data, is actually the only one recognized.

There is also, however — and now I come to the question of the introverted intellect — an entirely different kind of thinking, to which the term I “thinking” can hardly be denied: it is a kind that is neither orientated by the immediate objective experience nor is it concerned with general and objectively derived ideas. I reach this other kind of thinking in the following way. When my thoughts are engaged with a concrete object or general idea in such a way that the course of my thinking eventually leads me back again to my object, this intellectual process is not the only psychic proceeding taking place in me at the moment. I will disregard all those possible sensations and feelings which become noticeable as a more or less disturbing accompaniment to my train of thought, merely emphasizing the fact that this very thinking process which proceeds from objective data and strives again towards the object stands also in a constant relation to the subject. This relation is a condition sine qua non, without which no thinking process whatsoever could take place. Even though my thinking process is directed, as far as possible, towards objective data, nevertheless it is my subjective process, and it can neither escape the subjective admixture nor yet dispense with it. Although I try my utmost to give a completely objective direction to my train of thought, even then I cannot exclude the parallel subjective process with its all-embracing participation, without extinguishing the very spark of life from my thought. This parallel subjective process has a natural tendency, only relatively avoidable, to subjectify objective facts, i.e. to assimilate them to the subject.

Whenever the chief value is given to the subjective process, that other kind of thinking arises which stands opposed to extraverted thinking, namely, that purely subjective orientation of thought which I have termed introverted. A thinking arises from this other orientation that is neither determined by objective facts nor directed towards objective data — a thinking, therefore, that proceeds from subjective data and is directed towards subjective ideas or facts of a subjective character. I do not wish to enter more fully into this kind of thinking here; I have merely established its existence for the purpose of giving a necessary complement to the extraverted thinking process, whose nature is thus brought to a clearer focus.

When the objective orientation receives a certain predominance, the thinking is extraverted. This circumstance changes nothing as regards the logic of thought — it merely determines that difference between thinkers which James regards as a matter of temperament. The orientation towards the object, as already explained, makes no essential change in the thinking function; only its appearance is altered. Since it is governed by objective data, it has the appearance of being captivated by the object, as though without the external orientation it simply could not exist. Almost it seems as though it were a sequence of external facts, or as though it could reach its highest point only when chiming in with some generally valid idea. It seems constantly to be affected by objective data, drawing only those conclusions which substantially agree with these. Thus it gives one the impression of a certain lack of freedom, of occasional short-sightedness, in spite of every kind of adroitness within the objectively circumscribed area. What I am now describing is merely the impression this sort of thinking makes upon the observer, who must himself already have a different standpoint, or it would be quite impossible for him to observe the phenomenon of extraverted thinking. As a result of his different standpoint he merely sees its aspect, not its nature; whereas the man who himself possesses this type of thinking is able to seize its nature, while its aspect escapes him. judgment made upon appearance only cannot be fair to the essence of the thing-hence the result is depreciatory. But essentially this thinking is no less fruitful and creative than introverted thinking, only its powers are in the service of other ends. This difference is perceived most clearly when extraverted thinking is engaged upon material, which is specifically an object of the subjectively orientated thinking. This happens, for instance, when a subjective conviction is interpreted analytically from objective facts or is regarded as a product or derivative of objective ideas. But, for our ‘scientifically’ orientated consciousness, the difference between the two modes of thinking becomes still more obvious when the subjectively orientated thinking makes an attempt to bring objective data into connections not objectively given, i.e. to subordinate them to a subjective idea. Either senses the other as an encroachment, and hence a sort of shadow effect is produced, wherein either type reveals to the other its least favourable aspect, The subjectively orientated thinking then appears quite arbitrary, while the extraverted thinking seems to have an incommensurability that is altogether dull and banal. Thus the two standpoints are incessantly at war.

Such a conflict, we might think, could be easily adjusted if only we clearly discriminated objects of a subjective from those of an objective nature. Unfortunately, however, such a discrimination is a matter of impossibility, although not a few have attempted it. Even if such a separation were possible, it would be a very disastrous proceeding, since in themselves both orientations are one-sided, with a definitely restricted validity; hence they both require this mutual correction. Thought is at once sterilized, whenever thinking is brought, to any great extent, under the influence of objective data, since it becomes degraded into a mere appendage of objective facts; in which case, it is no longer able to free itself from objective data for the purpose of establishing an abstract idea. The process of thought is reduced to mere ‘reflection’, not in the sense of ‘meditation’, but in the sense of a mere imitation that makes no essential affirmation beyond what was already visibly and immediately present in the objective data. Such a thinking-process leads naturally and directly back to the objective fact, but never beyond it ; not once, therefore, can it lead to the coupling of experience with an objective idea. And, vice versa, when this thinking has an objective idea for its object, it is quite unable to grasp the practical individual experience, but persists in a more or less tautological position. The materialistic mentality presents a magnificent example of this.

When, as the result of a reinforced objective determination, extraverted thinking is subordinated to objective data, it entirely loses itself, on the one hand, in the individual experience, and proceeds to amass an accumulation of undigested empirical material. The oppressive mass of more or less disconnected individual experiences produces a state of intellectual dissociation, which, on the other hand, usually demands a psychological compensation. This must consist in an idea, just as simple as it is universal, which shall give coherence to the heaped-up but intrinsically disconnected whole, or at least it should provide an inkling of such a connection. Such ideas as “matter” or “energy” are suitable for this purpose. But, whenever thinking primarily depends not so much upon external facts as upon an accepted or second-hand idea, the very poverty of the idea provokes a compensation in the form of a still more impressive accumulation of facts, which assume a one-sided grouping in keeping with the relatively restricted and sterile point of view; whereupon many valuable and sensible aspects of things automatically go by the board. The vertiginous abundance of the socalled scientific literature of to-day owes a deplorably high percentage of its existence to this misorientation.

The Extraverted Thinking [ENTJ / ESTJ] Types

It is a fact of experience that all the basic psychological functions seldom or never have the same strength or grade of development in one and the same individual. As a rule, one or other function predominates, in both strength and development. When supremacy among the psychological functions is given to thinking, i.e. when the life of an individual is mainly ruled by reflective thinking so that every important action proceeds from intellectually considered motives, or when there is at least a tendency to conform to such motives, we may fairly call this a thinking type. Such a type can be either introverted or extraverted. We will first discuss the extraverted thinking type.

In accordance with his definition, we must picture a, man whose constant aim — in so far, of course, as he is a pure type — is to bring his total life-activities into relation with intellectual conclusions, which in the last resort are always orientated by objective data, whether objective facts or generally valid ideas. This type of man gives the deciding voice-not merely for himself alone but also on behalf of his entourage-either to the actual objective reality or to its objectively orientated, intellectual formula. By this formula are good and evil measured, and beauty and ugliness determined. All is right that corresponds with this formula; all is wrong that contradicts it; and everything that is neutral to it is purely accidental. Because this formula seems to correspond with the meaning of the world, it also becomes a world-law whose realization must be achieved at all times and seasons, both individually and collectively. Just as the extraverted thinking type subordinates himself to his formula, so, for its own good, must his entourage also obey it, since the man who refuses to obey is wrong — he is resisting the world-law, and is, therefore, unreasonable, immoral, and without a conscience. His moral code forbids him to tolerate exceptions; his ideal must, under all circumstances, be realized; for in his eyes it is the purest conceivable formulation of objective reality, and, therefore, must also be generally valid truth, quite indispensable for the salvation of man. This is not from any great love for his neighbour, but from a higher standpoint of justice and truth. Everything in his own nature that appears to invalidate this formula is mere imperfection, an accidental miss-fire, something to be eliminated on the next occasion, or, in the event of further failure, then clearly a sickness.

If tolerance for the sick, the suffering, or the deranged should chance to be an ingredient in the formula, special provisions will be devised for humane societies, hospitals, prisons, colonies, etc., or at least extensive plans for such projects. For the actual execution of these schemes the motives of justice and truth do not, as a rule, suffice; still devolve upon real Christian charity, which I to do with feeling than with any intellectual ‘One really should’ or I one must’ figure largely in this programme. If the formula is wide enough, it may play a very useful rôle in social life, with a reformer or a ventilator of public wrongs or a purifier of the public conscience, or as the propagator of important innovations. But the more rigid the formula, the more, does he develop into a grumbler, a crafty reasoner, and a self-righteous critic, who would like to impress both himself and others into one schema.

We have now outlined two extreme figures, between which terminals the majority of these types may be graduated.

In accordance with the nature of the extraverted attitude, the influence and activities of such personalities are all the more favourable and beneficent, the further one goes from the centre. Their best aspect is to be found at the periphery of their sphere of influence. The further we penetrate into their own province, the more do the unfavourable results of their tyranny impress us. Another life still pulses at the periphery, where the truth of the formula can be sensed as an estimable adjunct to the rest. But the further we probe into the special sphere where the formula operates, the more do we find life ebbing away from all that fails to coincide with its dictates. Usually it is the nearest relatives who have to taste the most disagreeable results of an extraverted formula, since they are the first to be unmercifully blessed with it. But above all the subject himself is the one who suffers most — which brings us to the other side of the psychology of this type.

The fact that an intellectual formula never has been and never will be discovered which could embrace the abundant possibilities of life in a fitting expression must lead — where such a formula is accepted — to an inhibition, or total exclusion, of other highly important forms and activities of life. In the first place, all those vital forms dependent upon feeling will become repressed in such a type, as, for instance, aesthetic activities, taste, artistic sense, the art of friendship, etc. Irrational forms, such as religious experiences, passions and the like, are often obliterated even to the point of complete unconsciousness. These, conditionally quite important, forms of life have to support an existence that is largely unconscious. Doubtless there are exceptional men who are able to sacrifice their entire life to one definite formula; but for most of us a permanent life of such exclusiveness is impossible. Sooner or later — in accordance with outer circumstances and inner gifts — the forms of life repressed by the intellectual attitude become indirectly perceptible, through a gradual disturbance of the conscious conduct of life. Whenever disturbances of this kind reach a definite intensity, one speaks of a neurosis. In most cases, however, it does not go so far, because the individual instinctively allows himself some preventive extenuations of his formula, worded, of course, in a suitable and reasonable way. In this way a safety-valve is created.

The relative or total unconsciousness of such tendencies or functions as are excluded from any participation in the conscious attitude keeps them in a relatively undeveloped state. As compared with the conscious function they are inferior. To the extent that they are unconscious, they become merged with the remaining contents of the unconscious, from which they acquire a bizarre character. To the extent that they are conscious, they only play a secondary rôle, although one of considerable importance for the whole psychological picture.

Since feelings are the first to oppose and contradict the rigid intellectual formula, they are affected first this conscious inhibition, and upon them the most intense repression falls. No function can be entirely eliminated — it can only be greatly distorted. In so far as feelings allow themselves to be arbitrarily shaped and subordinated, they have to support the intellectual conscious attitude and adapt themselves to its aims. Only to a certain degree, however, is this possible; a part of the feeling remains insubordinate, and therefore must be repressed. Should the repression succeed, it disappears from consciousness and proceeds to unfold a subconscious activity, which runs counter to conscious aims, even producing effects whose causation is a complete enigma to the individual. For example, conscious altruism, often of an extremely high order, may be crossed by a secret self-seeking, of which the individual is wholly unaware, and which impresses intrinsically unselfish actions with the stamp of selfishness. Purely ethical aims may lead the individual into critical situations, which sometimes have more than a semblance of being decided by quite other than ethical motives. There are guardians of public morals or voluntary rescue-workers who suddenly find themselves in deplorably compromising situations, or in dire need of rescue. Their resolve to save often leads them to employ means which only tend to precipitate what they most desire to avoid. There are extraverted idealists, whose desire to advance the salvation of man is so consuming that they will not shrink from any lying and dishonest means in the pursuit of their ideal. There are a few painful examples in science where investigators of the highest esteem, from a profound conviction of the truth and general validity of their formula, have not scrupled to falsify evidence in favour of their ideal. This is sanctioned by the formula; the end justifieth the means. Only an inferior feeling-function, operating seductively and unconsciously, could bring about such aberrations in otherwise reputable men.

The inferiority of feeling in this type manifests itself also in other ways. In so far as it corresponds with the dominating positive formula, the conscious attitude becomes more or less impersonal, often, indeed, to such a degree that a very considerable wrong is done to personal interests. When the conscious attitude is extreme, all personal considerations recede from view, even those which concern the individual’s own person. His health is neglected, his social position deteriorates, often the most vital interests of his family are violated — they are wronged morally and financially, even their bodily health is made to suffer — all in the service of the ideal. At all events personal sympathy with others must be impaired, unless they too chance to be in the service of the same formula. Hence it not infrequently happens that his immediate family circle, his own children for instance, only know such a father as a cruel tyrant, whilst the outer world resounds with the fame of his humanity. Not so much in spite of as because of the highly impersonal character of the conscious attitude, the unconscious feelings are highly personal and oversensitive, giving rise to certain secret prejudices, as, for instance, a decided readiness to misconstrue any objective opposition to his formula as personal ill-will, or a constant tendency to make negative suppositions regarding the qualities of others in order to invalidate their arguments beforehand-in defence, naturally, of his own susceptibility. As a result of this unconscious sensitiveness, his expression and tone frequently becomes sharp, pointed, aggressive, and insinuations multiply. The feelings have an untimely and halting character, which is always a mark of the inferior function. Hence arises a pronounced tendency to resentment. However generous the individual sacrifice to the intellectual goal may be, the feelings are correspondingly petty, suspicious, crossgrained, and conservative. Everything new that is not already contained formula is viewed through a veil of unconscious and is judged accordingly. It happened only in middle of last century that a certain physician, famed his humanitarianism, threatened to dismiss an assistant for daring to use a thermometer, because the formula decreed that fever shall be recognized by the pulse. There are, of course, a host of similar examples.

Thinking which in other respects may be altogether blameless becomes all the more subtly and prejudicially, affected, the more feelings are repressed. An intellectual standpoint, which, perhaps on account of its actual intrinsic value, might justifiably claim general recognition, undergoes a characteristic alteration through the influence of this unconscious personal sensitiveness; it becomes rigidly dogmatic. The personal self-assertion is transferred to the intellectual standpoint. Truth is no longer left to work her natural effect, but through an identification with the subject she is treated like a sensitive darling whom an evil-minded critic has wronged. The critic is demolished, if possible with personal invective, and no argument is too gross to be used against him. Truth must be trotted out, until finally it begins to dawn upon the public that it is not so much really a question of truth as of her personal procreator.

The dogmatism of the intellectual standpoint, however, occasionally undergoes still further peculiar modifications from the unconscious admixture of unconscious personal feelings; these changes are less a question of feeling, in the stricter sense, than of contamination from other unconscious factors which become blended with the repressed feeling in the unconscious. Although reason itself offers proof, that every intellectual formula can be no more than a partial truth, and can never lay claim, therefore, to autocratic authority; in practice, the formula obtains so great an ascendancy that, beside it, every other standpoint and possibility recedes into the background. It replaces all the more general, less defined, hence the more modest and truthful, views of life. It even takes the place of that general view of life which we call religion. Thus the formula becomes a religion, although in essentials it has not the smallest connection with anything religious. Therewith it also gains the essentially religious character of absoluteness. It becomes, as it were, an intellectual superstition. But now all those psychological tendencies that suffer under its repression become grouped together in the unconscious, and form a counter-position, giving rise to paroxysms of doubt. As a defence against doubt, the conscious attitude grows fanatical. For fanaticism, after all, is merely overcompensated doubt. Ultimately this development leads to an exaggerated defence of the conscious position, and to the gradual formation of an absolutely antithetic unconscious position; for example, an extreme irrationality develops, in opposition to the conscious rationalism, or it becomes highly archaic and superstitious, in opposition to a conscious standpoint imbued with modern science. This fatal opposition is the source of those narrow-minded and ridiculous views, familiar to the historians of science, into which many praiseworthy pioneers have ultimately blundered. It not infrequently happens in a man of this type that the side of the unconscious becomes embodied in a woman.

In my experience, this type, which is doubtless familiar to my readers, is chiefly found among men, since thinking tends to be a much more dominant function in men than in women. As a rule, when thinking achieves the mastery in women, it is, in my experience, a kind of thinking which results from a prevailingly intuitive activity of mind.

The thought of the extraverted thinking type is, positive, i.e. it produces. It either leads to new facts or to general conceptions of disparate experimental material. Its judgment is generally synthetic. Even when it analyses, it constructs, because it is always advancing beyond the, analysis to a new combination, a further conception which reunites the analysed material in a new way or adds some., thing further to the given material. In general, therefore, we may describe this kind of judgment as predicative. In any case, characteristic that it is never absolutely depreciatory or destructive, but always substitutes a fresh value for one that is demolished. This quality is due to the fact that thought is the main channel into which a thinking-type’s energy flows. Life steadily advancing shows itself in the man’s thinking, so that his ideas maintain a progressive, creative character. His thinking neither stagnates, nor is it in the least regressive. Such qualities cling only to a thinking that is not given priority in consciousness. In this event it is relatively unimportant, and also lacks the character of a positive vital activity. It follows in the wake of other functions, it becomes Epimethean, it has an ‘esprit de l’escalier’ quality, contenting itself with constant ponderings and broodings upon things past and gone, in an effort to analyse and digest them. Where the creative element, as in this case, inhabits another function, thinking no longer progresses it stagnates. Its judgment takes on a decided inherency-character, i.e. it entirely confines itself to the range of the given material, nowhere overstepping it. It is contented with a more or less abstract statement, and fails to impart any value to the experimental material that was not already there.

The inherency-judgment of such extraverted thinking is objectively orientated, i.e. its conclusion always expresses the objective importance of experience. Hence, not only does it remain under the orientating influence of objective data, but it actually rests within the charmed circle of the individual experience, about which it affirms nothing that was not already given by it. We may easily observe this thinking in those people who cannot refrain from tacking on to an impression or experience some rational and doubtless very valid remark, which, however, in no way adventures beyond the given orbit of the experience. At bottom, such a remark merely says ‘I have understood it — I can reconstruct it.’ But there the matter also ends. At its very highest, such a judgment signifies merely the placing of an experience in an objective setting, whereby the experience is at once recognized as belonging to the frame.

But whenever a function other than thinking possesses priority in consciousness to any marked degree, in so far as thinking is conscious at all and not directly dependent upon the dominant function, it assumes a negative character. In so far as it is subordinated to the dominant function, it may actually wear a positive aspect, but a narrower scrutiny will easily prove that it simply mimics the dominant function, supporting it with arguments that unmistakably contradict the laws of logic proper to thinking. Such a thinking, therefore, ceases to have any interest for our present discussion. Our concern is rather with the constitution of that thinking which cannot be subordinated to the dominance of another function, but remains true to its own principle. To observe and investigate this thinking in itself is not easy, since, in the concrete case, it is more or less constantly repressed by the conscious attitude. Hence, in the majority of cases, it first must be retrieved from the background of consciousness, unless in some unguarded moment it should chance to come accidentally to the surface. As a rule, it must be enticed with some such questions as ‘Now what do you really think?’ or, again, ‘What is your private view about the matter?’ Or perhaps one may even use a little cunning, framing the question something this: ‘What do you imagine, then, that I really think about the matter?’ This latter form should be chosen when the real thinking is unconscious and, therefore projected. The thinking that is enticed to the surface this way has characteristic qualities; it was these I had in mind just now when I described it as negative. It habitual mode is best characterized by the two words ‘nothing but’. Goethe personified this thinking in the figure of Mephistopheles. It shows a most distinctive tendency to trace back the object of its judgment to some banality or other, thus stripping it of its own independent significance. This happens simply because it is represented as being dependent upon some other commonplace thing. Wherever a conflict, apparently essential in nature, arises between two men, negative thinking mutters ‘Cherchez la femme’. When a man champions or advocates a cause, negative thinking makes no inquiry as to the importance of the thing, but merely asks ‘How much does he make by it?’ The dictum ascribed to Moleschott: “Der Mensch ist, was er isst” (” Man is what he eats “) also belongs to this collection, as do many more aphorisms and opinions which I need not enumerate.

The destructive quality of this thinking as well as its occasional and limited usefulness, hardly need further elucidation. But there still exists another form of negative thinking, which at first glance perhaps would scarcely be recognized as such I refer to the theosophical thinking which is to-day rapidly spreading in every quarter of the globe, presumably as a reaction phenomenon to the materialism of the epoch now receding. Theosophical thinking has an air that is not in the least reductive, since it exalts everything to transcendental and world-embracing ideas. A dream, for instance, is no longer a modest dream, but an experience upon ‘another plane’. The hitherto inexplicable fact of telepathy is ,very simply explained by ‘vibrations’ which pass from one man to another. An ordinary nervous trouble is quite simply accounted for by the fact that something has collided with the astral body. Certain anthropological peculiarities of the dwellers on the Atlantic seaboard are easily explained by the submerging of Atlantis, and so on. We have merely to open a theosophical book to be overwhelmed by the realization that everything is already explained, and that ‘spiritual science’ has left no enigmas of life unsolved. But, fundamentally, this sort of thinking is just as negative as materialistic thinking. When the latter conceives psychology as chemical changes taking place in the cell-ganglia, or as the extrusion and withdrawal of cell-processes, or as an internal secretion, in essence this is just as superstitious as theosophy. The only difference lies in the fact that materialism reduces all phenomena to our current physiological notions, while theosophy brings everything into the concepts of Indian metaphysics. When we trace the dream to an overloaded stomach, the dream is not thereby explained, and when we explain telepathy as ‘vibrations’, we have said just as little. Since, what are ‘vibrations’? Not only are both methods of explanation quite impotent — they are actually destructive, because by interposing their seeming explanations they withdraw interest from the problem, diverting it in the former case to the stomach, and in the latter to imaginary vibrations, thus preventing any serious investigation of the problem. Either kind of thinking is both sterile and sterilizing. Their negative quality consists in this it is a method of thought that is indescribably cheap there is a real poverty of productive and creative energy. It is a thinking taken in tow by other functions.