Clearly, then, thought, when it became independent, discovered a new mode of activity for itself. To the practical thought which is directed upon the constitution of the light-things in the world-around, with reference to this or that practical end, there is added the theoretical, penetrating, subtilizing thought which sets itself to establish the constitution of these things “in themselves,” the _natura rerum_. From that which is seen, the light is abstracted, the depth-experience of the eye intensifies itself in a grand and unmistakable course of development into a depth-experience within the tinted realm of word-connotations. Man begins to believe that it is not impossible for his inner eye to see right through into the things that actually are. Concept follows upon concept, and at last there is a mighty thought-architecture made up of buildings that stand out with full clarity under the inner light. The development of theoretical thought within the human waking-consciousness gives rise to a kind of activity that makes inevitable a fresh conflict--that between Being (existence) and Waking-Being (waking-consciousness). The animal microcosm, in which existence and consciousness are joined in a self-evident unity of living, knows of consciousness _only as the servant_ of existence. The animal “lives” simply and does not reflect upon life. Owing, however, to the unconditional monarchy of the eye, life is presented as the life of a visible entity in the light; understanding, then, when it becomes interlocked with speech, promptly forms a _concept_ of thought and with it a _counter-concept_[10] of life, and in the end it distinguishes life as it is from that which might be. Instead of straight, uncomplicated living, we have the antithesis represented in the phrase “thought and action.” That which is not possible at all in the beasts becomes in every man not merely a possibility, but a fact and in the end an alternative. The entire history of mature humanity with all its phenomena has been formed by it, and the higher the form that a Culture takes, the more fully this opposition dominates the significant moments of its conscious being.