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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
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PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPES
13
proceeds to amass an accumulation of undigested empirical material. The oppressive mass of
more or less disconnected individual experiences [p. 434] 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.
2. The Extraverted Thinking Type
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 [p. 435] 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
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