I had thought, long and intently, about these theses to discover as nearly as possible what distinguished their content from the usual view. The fundamental differences suggest an abundance of ideas whose importance grows in value as we apply them to various cases as illustrations. And I feel convinced that we shall yet have to occupy ourselves with these words of Einstein, which present themselves as a confession, as with the famous "hypotheses non fingo" that Newton set up as the idea underlying his work. The latter as well as the former implies something negative: it denies something. In Einstein's words there is apparently a repudiation of the really creative act in discovery; he lays stress on the gradual, methodical constructive factors, not omitting to emphasize intuition. There is no other course open to us but to seek indirectly a synthesis of these conceptions, and to eliminate what is apparently contradictory in them. I consider this possible if we decide to subdivide the discovery into a series of individual acts in which succession takes the place of instantaneous suddenness The creative factor may then remain intact; indeed, it attains a still higher degree of importance if we imagine to ourselves that a series of creative ideas must be finked together to make possible a single important discovery. The original idea never springs fully equipped and armed like Minerva out of the head of its creator. And it is wise to bear in mind that even Jupiter had to suffer in his head a period of pregnancy accompanied with great pain. It is only in the after-picture that Pallas Athene appears with the attribute of suddenness. It is the nature of our myth-building imagination to leap over the actual act of birth so as to give a more brilliant form to the finished creation. We feel great satisfaction when we learn that Gauss, the Prince of Mathematicians, declared in one of his valuable flashes of insight: "I have the result, only I do not yet know how to get to it." For in this utterance we see above all that he emphasizes a lightning-like intuition. He has possession of a thing, which is, however, not yet his own, and which can only become his own when he has found the way to it. Is this contradictory? From the point of view of elementary logic, certainly; but methodologically, by no means. Here it is a question of: _Erwirb es um es zu besitzen_! This makes necessary a series of further intuitions along the road of invention, and of construction. This is, then, where that phase commences, which Einstein denotes by the word "gradual," or "by steps." The first intuition must be present; its presence as a rule usually guarantees that further intuition will follow in logical sequence.