The student's task does not end and cannot end with metaphysical study alone, nor with ultra-mystical contemplation alone. Action is also needed. Indeed, the illumination thus gained will of itself eventually compel him to add this factor spontaneously by an inward compulsion, if he has not already begun to do so by an external instruction. This is true of all the qualifications which philosophy demands of the aspirant: mystical feeling, metaphysical thinking, and altruistic action. Each of the trio, when a certain ripe degree of its own development has been reached, will spontaneously impel him to seek after whichever of the others he has neglected. For himself this means that he can claim to understand a truth when he feels and knows it so profoundly and acts up to it so faithfully that it has become a part of himself--not before. There is then not merely understanding alone, not merely mystic experience alone, but also a transformation of contemplation into action. Life thereafter is not merely thought out in the truest way but also lived out in the loftiest way.
-- Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? > Chapter 3 : Its Requirements > # 370
