[142] the expression of these facts which we know anyhow. Why shall we listen to you?" Now I think these two caricatures which l gave you show clearer than any abstract definition what I mean with the confusion of genesis and validity^a. I have labored under this problem not so much by myself ---I learned the difference as a student already---but in talking with people, that it is really necessary to speak of it very definitively. And perhaps one more remark should be made. There are situations in which it IS justified to apply the genetic method. These situations can be described as situations in which the man with whom you talk shows a complete inconsistency in his thinking---not that he makes logical mistakes (that, we all do when we discuss something) but that he has a well-rounded point of view, and on some places he makes statements which are completely un-understandable in terms of his point of view. Then I would say a compulsory element has entered the consistency of his thinking. If this is the case, then the problem of validity^b can be complained, or supported, by the question of genesis, but only in such extreme cases, when you have in your discussion a compulsory resistance, not against something YOU say (when you call it compulsory, that may be your OWN compulsion that you call it so), but if it is inconsistent in an obvious way, in the whole of the other man's thought. Now this is something which, I also would say, you have to apply to all the great figures of the past. If you deal with them and have a picture of them which is in itself consistent, whether you accept it or not, then you have discussed with this man of the past (let us say, Martin Luther)^c in terms of his basic ideas. But then you come to some point in which he suddenly becomes stubborn and compulsory,