ABSTRACT
There is another mode of contemplation that has had a profound effect on human society, influencing from generation to generation the aspirations and the beliefs of the peoples. In contemplation, the mind absorbs itself in the scene, the object, the situation, with no attempt at control or manipulation, with no ulterior end to serve. Contemplation is the leisure time of the mind, when it is no longer the servant of its drives. In one respect it is close to the scientific attitude, since it equally seeks to view situations for themselves, as themselves, aside from their utility to us. But its approach is quite different from that of the scientific researcher. The habit of contemplation can be learned only in solitude—which does not here mean in loneliness but in withdrawal into the privacy of one’s own thought. The contemplative spirit is the expression and the guarantee of this inner freedom.
