The Rudolf Steiner Archive

9. The Idea of Free Spiritual Activity

[ 1 ] The concept of the tree is conditioned for cognition by the perception of the tree. I can only single out a very specific concept from the general conceptual system in relation to the specific perception. The connection between concept and perception is determined indirectly and objectively by thinking about perception. The connection between the perception and its concept is recognized after the act of perception; however, the connection is determined in the thing itself.

[ 2 ] The process is different when cognition is considered, when the relationship of man to the world that occurs in it is considered. In the preceding remarks, an attempt has been made to show that it is possible to elucidate this relationship through an unbiased observation of it. A correct understanding of this observation leads to the insight that thinking can be viewed directly as a self-contained entity. Whoever finds it necessary to draw on something else to explain thinking as such, such as physical brain processes, or unconscious mental processes lying behind the observed conscious thinking, fails to recognize what the unbiased observation of thinking gives him. Whoever observes thinking lives during the observation directly in a spiritual, self-sustaining web of beings within it. Indeed, one can say that anyone who wants to grasp the essence of the spiritual in the form in which it first presents itself to man can do so in thinking based on itself.

[ 3 ] In the contemplation of thinking itself, what otherwise must always occur separately: concept and perception fall together into one. Anyone who does not see through this will only be able to see shadowy replicas of these perceptions in concepts developed from perceptions, and the perceptions will bring true reality to his mind. He will also construct a metaphysical world according to the pattern of the perceived world; he will call this world the atomic world, the world of will, the unconscious spirit world and so on, according to his mode of conception. And it will escape him that with all this he has only hypothetically built up a metaphysical world according to the pattern of his perceptual world. But he who sees through what is present with regard to thinking will recognize that only a part of reality is present in perception and that the other part belonging to it, which only makes it appear as full reality, is experienced in the thinking assertion of perception. He will not see in that which appears as thinking in consciousness a shadowy afterimage of a reality, but a spiritual beingness resting on itself. And of this he can say that it becomes present to him in consciousness through intuition. Intuition is the conscious experience of a purely spiritual content. Only through intuition can the essence of thought be grasped.

[ 4 ] Only when one has struggled through to the recognition of this truth about the intuitive essence of thought, gained through unbiased observation, is it possible to clear the way for a view of the human bodily-spiritual organization. One recognizes that this organization can have no effect on the being of thought. This seems to be contradicted at first by the quite obvious facts. Human thought appears to ordinary experience only in and through this organization. This appearance asserts itself so strongly that it can only be seen through in its true meaning by those who have recognized how nothing of this organization plays a part in the essential nature of thinking. Such a person, however, will then no longer be able to escape the peculiar nature of the relationship of human organization to thinking. For the latter does nothing to the essential nature of thinking, but, when the activity of thinking appears, it withdraws; it cancels its own activity, it makes a place free; and thinking appears in the place that has become free. The beingness that works in thinking is responsible for two things: firstly, it pushes back the human organization in its own activity, and secondly, it puts itself in its place. For the first, the suppression of the organization of the body, is also a consequence of the activity of thought. And that part of it which prepares the appearance of thought. From this we see in what sense thinking finds its counter-image in the organization of the body. And when one sees this, one can no longer fail to recognize the significance of this counter-image for thinking itself. Whoever walks over a softened ground, his footprints dig into the ground. One will not be tempted to say that the forms of the footprints have been driven up from below by the forces of the ground. One will not attribute to these forces any part in the formation of the footprint shapes. Nor will anyone who observes the essence of thought impartially ascribe to the traces in the bodily organism any share in this essence, which arise from the fact that thought prepares its appearance through the body. ^{1How the above view asserts itself within psychology, physiology, etc., has been presented by the author in various directions in writings that have followed this book. Here only that which the unbiased observation of thought itself reveals should be characterized.}

[ 5 ] But a significant question arises here. If the human organization has no part in the being of thought, what significance does this organization have within the overall being of man? Well, what happens in this organization through thinking probably has nothing to do with the essence of thinking, but it does have to do with the emergence of ego-consciousness out of this thinking. Within the essence of thinking lies the real "I", but not the I-consciousness. This can be seen through by those who observe thinking impartially. The "I" is to be found within thinking; the "I-consciousness" arises through the fact that the traces of thinking activity are engraved in the general consciousness in the sense described above. (I-consciousness thus arises through the organization of the body. But do not confuse this with the assertion that the I-consciousness, once it has arisen, remains dependent on the organization of the body. Once it has arisen, it is absorbed into thinking and henceforth shares its spiritual essence).

[ 6 ] The "I-consciousness" is built on the human organization. The acts of will flow from this. In the direction of the preceding explanations, an insight into the connection between thinking, the conscious ego and volitional action can only be gained if we first observe how volitional action emerges from the human organization. ^{2p. 142 up to the above passage is an addition, or rather a revision for the new edition (1918).}

[ 7 ] For the individual act of will, the following can be considered: the motive and the drive. The motive is a conceptual or imaginative factor; the instinctual spring is the directly conditioned factor of volition in the human organization. The conceptual factor or motive is the momentary determinant of volition; the mainspring is the permanent determinant of the individual. The motive of volition can be a pure concept or a concept with a specific reference to perception, which is a concept. General and individual concepts (ideas) become motives of volition in that they act on the human individual and determine him to act in a certain direction. One and the same concept, or one and the same idea, however, acts differently on different individuals. They cause different people to act in different ways. The will is therefore not merely a result of the concept or idea, but also of the individual constitution of the person. We want to call this individual constitution - we can follow Eduard von Hartmann in this respect - the characterological disposition. The way in which concept and imagination affect a person's characterological disposition gives his life a certain moral or ethical character.

[ 8 ] The characterological disposition is formed by the more or less permanent life content of our subject, that is, by our conceptual and emotional content. Whether a presently occurring idea stimulates me to will depends on how it relates to the rest of my imaginative content and also to my emotional characteristics. But my imaginative content is again conditioned by the sum of those concepts that have come into contact with perceptions in the course of my individual life, that is, that have become ideas. This in turn depends on my greater or lesser capacity for intuition and on the scope of my observations, that is, on the subjective and objective factors of experience, on the inner determination and the scene of life. In particular, my characterological disposition is determined by my emotional life. Whether I feel pleasure or pain from a certain idea or concept will determine whether I want to make it the motive for my actions or not. - These are the elements that come into consideration in an act of will. The immediately present idea or concept, which becomes the motive, determines the goal, the purpose of my volition; my characterological disposition determines me to direct my activity towards this goal. The idea of going for a walk in the next half hour determines the goal of my actions. This idea, however, only becomes a motive of volition if it meets with a suitable characterological disposition, that is, if my previous life has formed in me the ideas of the expediency of going for a walk, of the value of health, and furthermore, if the idea of going for a walk is associated in me with the feeling of pleasure.

[ 9 ] We thus have to distinguish: 1. the possible subjective dispositions that are capable of turning certain ideas and concepts into motives; and 2. the possible ideas and concepts that are capable of influencing my characterological disposition in such a way that a volition results. The former represent the motives, the latter the goals of morality.

[ 10 ] We can find the driving forces of morality by looking at the elements that make up individual life.

[ 11 ] The first stage of individual life is perception, namely the perception of the senses. We are here in that region of our individual life where perception translates directly into volition, without the intervention of a feeling or concept. The human driving force that comes into consideration here is referred to as drive per se. The satisfaction of our lower, purely animalistic needs (hunger, sexual intercourse, etc.) comes about in this way. The characteristic of the instinctual life consists in the immediacy with which the individual perception triggers the will. This kind of determination of volition, which is originally peculiar only to the lower sensory life, can also be extended to the perceptions of the higher senses. We allow the perception of some event in the external world to be followed by an action without further thought and without any particular feeling being attached to the perception, as happens especially in conventional dealings with people. The mainspring of this action is called tact or moral taste. The more often such a direct triggering of an action takes place through a perception, the more suitable the person concerned will prove to be to act purely under the influence of the tact, that is: the tact becomes his characterological disposition.

[ 12 ] The second sphere of human life is feeling. Perceptions of the outside world are linked to certain feelings. These feelings can become driving forces for action. When I see a starving person, my compassion for them can be the driving force behind my actions. Such feelings include: shame, pride, honor, humility, remorse, compassion, revenge, gratitude, piety, loyalty, love and duty. ^{3A complete compilation of the principles of morality can be found (from the standpoint of metaphysical realism) in Eduard von Hartmann's "Phenomenology of Moral Consciousness"}

[ 13 ] Finally, the third stage of life is thinking and imagining. An idea or concept can become the motive for an action through mere reflection. Ideas become motives by the fact that in the course of life we continually link certain aims of volition to perceptions which recur in a more or less modified form. Hence it is that in people who are not entirely without experience, ideas of actions which they have carried out or seen carried out in a similar case always come into consciousness with certain perceptions. These ideas float before them as determining patterns for all subsequent decisions; they become elements of their characterological disposition. We can call the driving force of volition thus designated practical experience. Practical experience gradually merges into purely tactful action. When certain typical images of actions have become so firmly connected in our consciousness with ideas of certain situations in life that, in a given case, we pass directly from perception to volition, skipping all considerations based on experience, then this is the case.

[ 14 ] The highest stage of individual life is conceptual thinking without regard to a specific perceptual content. We determine the content of a concept through pure intuition from the ideal sphere. Such a concept then initially contains no reference to specific perceptions. When we enter into volition under the influence of a concept that points to a perception, that is, a concept, it is this perception that determines us in a roundabout way through conceptual thinking. When we act under the influence of intuitions, the driving force behind our actions is pure thinking. Since we are accustomed in philosophy to refer to the pure faculty of thought as reason, it is probably also justified to call the moral impulse characterized at this level practical reason. Kreyenbühl (Philosophische Monatshefte, vol. XVIII, issue 3) has dealt most clearly with this driving force of the will. I consider his essay on this subject to be one of the most important products of contemporary philosophy, especially ethics. Kreyenbühl describes the driving force in question as practical a priori, i.e. the drive to act that flows directly from my intuition.

[ 15 ] It is clear that such a drive can no longer be counted in the strict sense of the word as belonging to the realm of characterological dispositions. For what acts here as a driving force is no longer something merely individual in me, but the ideal and consequently general content of my intuition. As soon as I regard the justification of this content as the basis and starting point of an action, I enter into volition, regardless of whether the concept was already present in me beforehand or only enters my consciousness immediately before the action, that is: regardless of whether it was already present in me as a disposition or not.

[ 16 ] A real act of will only occurs when an instantaneous impulse to act in the form of a concept or an idea affects the characterological disposition. Such a drive then becomes the motive of volition.

[ 17 ] The motives of morality are ideas and concepts. There are ethicists who also see feelings as a motive for morality; they claim, for example, that the aim of moral action is to promote the greatest possible amount of pleasure in the acting individual. Pleasure itself, however, cannot become a motive, but only an imagined pleasure. The imagination of a future feeling, but not the feeling itself, can have an effect on my characterological disposition. For the feeling itself is not yet there at the moment of the action, but rather is only to be produced by the action.

[ 18 ] The conception of one's own or another's welfare, however, is rightly regarded as a motive of volition. The principle of bringing about the greatest sum of one's own pleasure through one's actions, that is: to achieve individual happiness, is called egoism. This individual happiness is sought either by ruthlessly seeking only one's own good and striving for it even at the expense of the happiness of other individuals (pure egoism), or by promoting the good of others for the reason that one then indirectly expects a favorable influence on one's own person from the happy individualities of others, or because one also fears a threat to one's own interests by harming other individuals (prudent morality). The particular content of the egoistic principles of morality will depend on the idea a person has of his own or another's happiness. According to what one regards as a good of life (well-being, hope for happiness, salvation from various evils, etc.), he will determine the content of his egoistic striving.

[ 19 ] The purely conceptual content of an action is then to be regarded as a further motive. This content does not refer to the individual action alone, like the idea of one's own pleasure, but to the justification of an action from a system of moral principles. These moral principles can regulate moral life in the form of abstract concepts without the individual caring about the origin of the concepts. We then simply perceive submission to the moral concept, which hovers over our actions as a commandment, as a moral necessity. We leave the justification of this necessity to the one who demands moral submission, i.e. the moral authority that we recognize (head of family, state, social custom, ecclesiastical authority, divine revelation). A special kind of these principles of morality is where the commandment is not made known to us by an external authority, but by our own inner self (moral autonomy). We then hear the voice within ourselves to which we must submit. The expression of this voice is the conscience.

[ 20 ] It signifies moral progress when man does not simply make the commandment of an external or internal authority the motive of his actions, but when he endeavors to understand the reason why some maxim of action should act as a motive in him. This progress is that from authoritative morality to acting from moral insight. At this stage of morality, man will seek out the needs of moral life and allow his actions to be determined by his knowledge of them. Such needs are 1. the greatest possible welfare of mankind as a whole purely for the sake of this welfare; 2. the progress of culture or the moral development of mankind to ever greater perfection; 3. the realization of purely intuitively grasped individual moral goals.

[ 21 ] The greatest possible good of mankind as a whole will naturally be understood in different ways by different people. The above maxim does not refer to any particular conception of this good, but to the fact that each individual who recognizes this principle will strive to do that which, in his opinion, will most promote the good of mankind as a whole.

[ 22 ] The progress of culture proves to be a special case of the previous moral principle for those who attach a sense of pleasure to the goods of culture. He will only have to accept the ruin and destruction of some things which also contribute to the welfare of mankind. But it is also possible for someone to see a moral necessity in cultural progress, apart from the feeling of pleasure associated with it. Then it is for him a special moral principle alongside the previous one.

[ 23 ] Both the maxim of the common good and that of cultural progress are based on the imagination, that is, on the relationship that one gives to the content of moral ideas to certain experiences (perceptions). The highest conceivable principle of morality, however, is that which contains no such relationship from the outset, but springs from the source of pure intuition and only subsequently seeks a relationship to perception (to life). The determination of what is to be willed proceeds here from a different instance than in the previous cases. He who pays homage to the moral principle of the common good will first ask in all his actions what his ideals contribute to this common good. He who professes the moral principle of cultural progress will do the same here. There is, however, a higher principle, which in the individual case does not proceed from a certain single moral aim, but which attaches a certain value to all moral maxims, and in a given case always asks whether one or the other moral principle is the more important. It may happen that under given circumstances a man may regard the promotion of cultural progress, under others that of the general welfare, in the third case the promotion of his own welfare, as the right thing to do, and make it the motive of his action. If, however, all other determinants only take second place, then the conceptual intuition itself comes into consideration first and foremost. The other motives thus step down from the leading position, and only the idea content of the action acts as its motive.

[ 24 ] We have designated as the highest of the stages of the characterological disposition that which acts as pure thinking, as practical reason. Among the motives, we have now designated conceptual intuition as the highest. On closer consideration, it soon becomes apparent that at this level of morality, impulse and motive coincide, that is, neither a previously determined characterological disposition nor an external, normatively assumed moral principle have an effect on our actions. The action is therefore not a template that is carried out according to any rules, nor is it one that man carries out automatically in response to an external impulse, but one that is determined by its ideal content.

[ 25 ] The prerequisite for such an action is the capacity for moral intuition. Whoever lacks the ability to experience the particular moral maxim for the individual case will never achieve a truly individual will.

[ 26 ] The very antithesis of this principle of morality is Kant's: Act in such a way that the principles of your actions can apply to all people. This sentence is the death of all individual drives to act. Not how all people would act can be decisive for me, but what is to be done for me in the individual case.

[ 27 ] A superficial judgment could perhaps object to these statements: How can action be at once individually shaped to the particular case and situation and yet purely ideationally determined by intuition? This objection is based on a confusion between the moral motive and the perceptible content of the action. The latter can be a motive, and is so, for example, in cultural progress, in acting out of egoism, etc.; in acting on the basis of purely moral intuition it is not. My ego naturally directs its gaze towards this perceptual content; it cannot be determined by it. This content is only used to form a concept of knowledge; the ego does not take the corresponding moral concept from the object. The concept of knowledge from a certain situation that I am confronted with is only a moral concept at the same time if I stand on the standpoint of a certain moral principle. If I wanted to stand alone on the ground of the general morality of cultural development, then I would walk around the world with a fixed route. From every event that I perceive and that can occupy me, a moral duty arises at the same time; namely, to contribute my mite so that the event in question is placed in the service of cultural development. In addition to the concept that reveals to me the natural law context of an event or thing, the latter also have a moral label attached to them that contains ethical instructions for me, the moral being, on how I should behave. This moral etiquette is justified in its field, but it coincides at a higher level with the idea that arises for me in the specific case.

[ 28 ] People's intuition is different. One person's ideas come to them, while another acquires them with difficulty. The situations in which people live and which provide the setting for their actions are no less different. How a person acts will therefore depend on the way his intuition works in a particular situation. The sum of the ideas that are effective in us, the real content of our intuitions, constitutes what is individual in each person, despite the generality of the world of ideas. Insofar as this intuitive content relates to action, it is the moral content of the individual. The expression of this content is the highest moral impulse and at the same time the highest motive of those who realize that all other moral principles are ultimately united in this content. This point of view can be called ethical individualism.

[ 29 ] The decisive factor of an intuitively determined action in a concrete case is the discovery of the corresponding, entirely individual intuition. At this level of morality, we can only speak of general concepts of morality (norms, laws) insofar as these result from the generalization of individual impulses. General norms always presuppose concrete facts from which they can be derived. However, facts are only created through human action.

[ 30 ] If we seek out the lawful (the conceptual in the actions of individuals, peoples and ages), we obtain ethics, not as a science of moral norms, but as a natural theory of morality. Only the laws obtained in this way relate to human action in the same way as the laws of nature relate to a particular phenomenon. However, they are not at all identical with the impulses on which we base our actions. If we want to understand how an action of man springs from his moral volition, we must first look at the relationship of this volition to the action. We must first consider actions in which this relationship is the determining factor. When I or someone else later reflects on such an action, it may emerge which moral maxims come into consideration in it. While I am acting, the moral maxim moves me insofar as it can live intuitively in me; it is connected with the love for the object that I want to realize through my action. I do not ask a person or a rule: should I perform this action? - but I carry it out as soon as I have conceived the idea of it. Only in this way is it my action. He who acts only because he recognizes certain moral norms, his action is the result of the principles contained in his moral code. He is merely the executor. He is a higher automaton. Throw a cause for action into his consciousness, and immediately the wheels of his moral principles are set in motion and run in a lawful manner in order to accomplish a Christian, humane, selfless act or an act of cultural-historical progress. It is only when I follow my love for the object that I myself act. I do not act at this level of morality because I recognize a master over me, not the external authority, not a so-called inner voice. I do not recognize any external principle of my actions because I have found within myself the reason for action, the love of action. I do not check intellectually whether my action is good or bad; I carry it out because I love it. It becomes "good" when my intuition, immersed in love, is in the right place in the world context to be experienced intuitively; "evil" when this is not the case. I also don't ask myself: how would another person act in my case? - Instead, I act as I, this particular individuality, feel compelled to want. It is not what is generally customary, a general human maxim, a moral norm that guides me directly, but my love of action. I feel no compulsion, not the compulsion of nature, which guides me in my impulses, not the compulsion of moral commandments, but I simply want to carry out what lies within me.

[ 31 ] The defenders of general moral norms could say in response to these statements: If every person only strives to live out his or her desires and do what he or she pleases, then there is no difference between a good action and a crime; every crookedness that lies within me has the same right to live out its desires as the intention to serve the common good. It is not the fact that I have conceived of an action in idea that can be decisive for me as a moral man, but the test of whether it is good or evil. Only in the former case will I carry it out.

[ 32 ] My reply to this obvious objection, which arises only from a misunderstanding of what is meant here, is this: Whoever wants to recognize the essence of human volition must distinguish between the path that brings this volition to a certain degree of development and the character that the volition takes on as it approaches this goal. On the way to this goal, norms play their legitimate role. The goal consists in the realization of purely intuitively grasped moral goals. Man achieves such goals to the extent that he possesses the ability to raise himself to the intuitive content of ideas in the world. In individual volition there will usually be something else mixed in with such goals as a driving force or motive. But the intuitive can still be a determining or co-determining factor in human volition. What one should do, one does; one provides the arena on which the should becomes the doing; one's own action is what one allows to spring from oneself as such. The impulse can only be a completely individual one. And in truth, only an act of will arising from intuition can be an individual one. That the act of the criminal, that evil is called an expression of individuality in the same sense as the embodiment of pure intuition, is only possible if the blind instincts are counted as part of human individuality. But the blind instinct that drives to crime does not stem from the intuitive, and does not belong to the individuality of man, but to the most general in him, to that which is equally valid in all individuals and from which man works his way out through his individuality. The individual in me is not my organism with its instincts and feelings, but rather the world of ideas that shines forth in this organism. My drives, instincts and passions establish nothing more in me than that I belong to the general species of man; the fact that an ideal lives itself out in these drives, passions and feelings in a particular way establishes my individuality. Through my instincts, drives, I am a human being, of which twelve make a dozen; through the particular form of the idea, through which I designate myself as I within the dozen, I am an individual. According to the difference of my animal nature, only a being alien to me could distinguish me from others; I distinguish myself from others through my thinking, that is, through the active grasping of that which lives itself out as the ideal in my organism. Thus one cannot say of the criminal's action that it arises from the idea. Indeed, that is precisely the characteristic of criminal acts, that they derive from the extra-ideal elements of man.

[ 33 ] An action is perceived as free insofar as its reason arises from the ideal part of my individual being; every other part of an action, regardless of whether it is carried out out of the compulsion of nature or from the compulsion of a moral norm, is perceived as unfree.

[ 34 ] Only man is free insofar as he is able to follow himself at every moment of his life. A moral act is only my act if in this view it can be called a free one. Here we are talking first of all about the conditions under which an intentional act is perceived as a free one; how this purely ethically conceived idea of freedom is realized in the human being will be shown below.

[ 35 ] The act of freedom does not exclude moral laws, but includes them; it only proves to be superior to that which is dictated only by these laws. Why should my action serve the common good less if I have done it out of love than if I have done it only because I feel it is my duty to serve the common good? The mere concept of duty excludes freedom because it does not want to recognize the individual, but demands submission of the individual to a general norm. Freedom of action is only conceivable from the standpoint of ethical individualism.

[ 36 ] But how is it possible for people to live together if everyone only strives to assert their individuality? This is an objection of misunderstood moralism. It believes that a community of people is only possible if they are all united by a common moral order. This moralism does not understand the unity of the world of ideas. It does not understand that the world of ideas that is active in me is no other than that in my fellow human beings. This unity is, however, merely a result of the experience of the world. But it must be such. For if it could be recognized by anything other than observation, then it would not be an individual experience but a general norm. Individuality is only possible if each individual being knows about the other only through individual observation. The difference between me and my fellow human being does not lie in the fact that we live in two completely different spiritual worlds, but that he receives different intuitions from the world of ideas we share than I do. He wants to live out his intuitions, I want to live out my own intuitions. If we both really draw from the idea and do not follow any external (physical or mental) impulses, then we can only meet in the same striving, in the same intentions. A moral misunderstanding, a clash is impossible with morally free people. Only the morally unfree, who follows the natural instinct or an assumed commandment of duty, repels the neighbor if he does not follow the same instinct and the same commandment. Living in the love of action and letting live in the understanding of the will of others is the basic maxim of free people. They know no other will than that with which their will is in intuitive harmony; how they will will in a particular case will be told to them by their faculty of ideas.

[ 37 ] If the primordial reason for compatibility did not lie in the human being, it would not be inculcated by any external laws! Only because human individuals are of one spirit can they live side by side. The free man lives in the confidence that the other free man belongs to a spiritual world with him and will meet with him in his intentions. The free person does not demand agreement from his fellow human beings, but he expects it because it is part of human nature. This does not refer to the necessities that exist for this or that external institution, but to the mindset, to the soul constitution, through which man in his self-experience among his esteemed fellow human beings does the most justice to human dignity.

[ 38 ] There will be many who will say: the concept of the free human being that you are outlining is a chimera, has not been realized anywhere. But we are dealing with real people, and with them we can only hope for morality if they obey a moral commandment, if they see their moral mission as a duty and do not freely follow their inclinations and their love. - I do not doubt this at all. Only a blind man could. But then away with all hypocrisy of morality, if this should be the ultimate insight. Simply say then: human nature must be forced to its actions as long as it is not free. Whether the lack of freedom is conquered by physical means or by moral laws, whether man is unfree because he follows his immoderate sexual instinct or because he is constricted in the fetters of conventional morality, is quite indifferent from a certain point of view. But let it not be said that such a man is justified in calling an act his own, since he is driven to it by an external force. But out of the midst of coercion, men arise, the free spirits, who find themselves in the tangle of custom, legal compulsion, religious practice and so on. Free they are, insofar as they only follow themselves, unfree, insofar as they submit. Who of us can say that he is truly free in all his actions? But in each of us dwells a deeper essence in which the free man expresses himself.

[ 39 ] Our lives are made up of acts of freedom and unfreedom. However, we cannot think the concept of the human being through to the end without arriving at the free spirit as the purest manifestation of human nature. We are only truly human insofar as we are free.

[ 40 ] That is an ideal, many will say. Without doubt, but one that works its way to the surface in our being as a real element. It is not an imagined or dreamed-up ideal, but one that has life and that announces itself clearly even in the most imperfect form of its existence. If man were a mere natural being, then the pursuit of ideals, that is, of ideas that are momentarily ineffective but whose realization is demanded, would be an absurdity. In the things of the external world the idea is determined by perception; we have done our part when we have recognized the connection between idea and perception. This is not the case with man. The sum total of his existence is not determined without himself; his true concept as a moral human being (free spirit) is not objectively united in advance with the perceptual image "human being" in order to be established merely afterwards through cognition. Man must automatically unite his concept with the perception of man. Concept and perception only coincide here if man himself brings them into congruence. But he can only do so if he has found the concept of the free spirit, that is, his own concept. In the objective world, our organization draws a line between perception and concept; cognition overcomes this line. In subjective nature this boundary is no less present; man overcomes it in the course of his development by giving form to his concept in his appearance. Thus the intellectual as well as the moral life of man leads us to his dual nature: perception (direct experience) and thinking. The intellectual life overcomes the dual nature through cognition, the moral life through the actual realization of the free spirit. Every being has its innate concept (the law of its being and working); but in external things it is inseparably connected with perception and is only separated from it within our spiritual organism. In man himself, concept and perception are initially actually separate, only to be actually united by him. One can object that a certain concept corresponds to our perception of man at every moment of his life, just as it does to every other thing. I can form the concept of a template human being and can also have given such a concept as perception; if I also bring to this the concept of the free spirit, then I have two concepts for the same object.

[ 41 ] This is one-sided thinking. As an object of perception, I am subject to constant change. I was a different person as a child, a different person as a boy and as a man. Yes, at every moment my perceptual image is different from the previous ones. These changes can take place in the sense that they only ever express the same (template man), or that they represent the expression of the free spirit. The object of perception of my actions is subject to these changes.

[ 42 ] There is the possibility in the human object of perception to transform itself, just as there is the possibility in the plant germ to become a whole plant. The plant will transform itself because of the objective lawfulness that lies within it; man will remain in his incomplete state if he does not take up the transformation material within himself and transform himself through his own power. Nature makes of man merely a natural being; society makes of him a being that acts according to law; he can only make of himself a free being by himself. Nature releases man from its fetters at a certain stage of his development; society leads this development to a further point; only man himself can give himself the final touch.

[ 43 ] The standpoint of free morality therefore does not assert that the free spirit is the only form in which a human being can exist. It sees in the free spirit only the last stage of human development. This does not deny that acting according to norms has its justification as a stage of development. It just cannot be recognized as an absolute moral standpoint. The free spirit, however, overcomes the norms in the sense that it not only perceives commandments as motives, but also arranges its actions according to its impulses (intuitions).

[ 44 ] When Kant says of duty: "Duty! thou sublime, great name, who dost not grasp in thyself anything that is popular, that leads to ingratiation, but dost demand submission", who dost "establish a law . . before which all inclinations fall silent, even if they work against it in secret", then man replies from the consciousness of the free spirit: "Freedom! thou friendly, human name, who containest in thee all that is morally pleasing, which is most worthy of my humanity, and makest me no man's servant, who dost not merely lay down a law, but wait to see what my moral love itself will recognize as law, because it feels itself unfree in the face of every merely imposed law."

[ 45 ] This is the contrast between merely lawful and free morality.

[ 46 ] The Philistine, who sees the embodied morality in an outwardly established person, will perhaps even see a dangerous person in the free spirit. But he only does so because his view is confined to a certain era. If he could look beyond it, he would soon find that the free spirit has as little need to go beyond the laws of his state as the philistine himself, but never to set himself in real contradiction with them. For the laws of the state have all sprung from the intuitions of free spirits, as have all other objective moral laws. No law is exercised by family authority that has not been intuited and established as such by an ancestor; even the conventional laws of morality are first established by certain men; and the laws of the state always originate in the mind of a statesman. These spirits have set the laws above other men, and only he becomes unfree who forgets this origin, and makes them either into extra-human commandments, into objective moral concepts of duty independent of the human, or into the commanding voice of his own falsely mystically imperative inner being. But he who does not overlook the origin, but seeks it in man, will reckon with it as a member of the same world of ideas from which he also draws his moral intuitions. If he believes he has better ones, he seeks to bring them into the place of the existing ones; if he finds them justified, then he acts in accordance with them as if they were his own.

[ 47 ] The formula must not be coined that man is there to realize a moral world order separate from himself. Anyone who asserted this would still be on the same standpoint with regard to human science as the natural scientists who believed that the bull had horns so that it could thrust. The natural scientists have happily consigned such a concept of purpose to the dead. It is more difficult for ethics to free itself from it. But just as the horns are not there because of the thrusting, but the thrusting through the horns, so man is not there because of morality, but morality through man. The free man acts morally because he has a moral idea; but he does not act in order that morality may arise. Human individuals with the moral ideas belonging to their nature are the precondition of the moral world order.

[ 48 ] The human individual is the source of all morality and the center of life on earth. The state and society only exist because they arise as a necessary consequence of individual life. It is just as understandable that the state and society then have an effect back on individual life as the fact that the thrusting, which is there through the horns, has an effect back on the further development of the bull's horns, which would atrophy if they were not used for a long time. In the same way, the individual would have to atrophy if it led a separate existence outside the human community. This is precisely why the social order is formed, in order to have a favorable effect on the individual.