The Story of My Life
GA 28
Chapter X
[ 1 ] When I look back upon my life, the first three decades appeal to me as a chapter complete in itself. At the close of this period I removed to Weimar, to work for almost seven years at the Goethe and Schiller Institute. The time that I spent in Vienna between the first journey to Germany, which I have described, and my later settling down in the city of Goethe I look upon as the period which brought to a certain conclusion within me that toward which the mind had been striving. This conclusion found expression in the preparation for my book The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. [ 2 ] An essential part of the general ideas in which I then expressed my views consisted in the fact that the sense-world did not pass with me as true reality. In my writings and lectures at that time I always expressed myself in such a way as to make the human mind appear as a true reality in the creation of a thought, which it does not form out of the sense world but unfolds in an activity above the region of sense perception. This sense-free thinking I conceived as that which places the soul within the spiritual being of the world. [ 3 ] But I also emphasized strongly the fact that, while man lives within this sense-free thinking, he really finds himself consciously in the spiritual foundations of existence. All talk about limits of knowledge had for me no meaning. Knowing meant to me the rediscovery within the perceptual world of the spiritual content experienced in the soul. When anyone spoke of limits of knowledge, I saw therein the admission that he did not experience spiritually within himself the true reality, and for this reason could not rediscover this in the perceptual world.
[ 4 ] The first consideration with me in advancing my own insight was the problem of refuting the conception of the limitation of knowledge. I wished to turn away from that road to knowledge which looked toward the sense-world, and which would then break through from the sense-world into true reality. I desired to make clear that true reality is to be sought, not by such a breaking through from without, but by sinking down into the inner life of man. Whoever seeks to break through from without and then discovers that this is impossible – such a person speaks of the limitation of knowledge. But this impossibility does not consist in a limitation of man's capacity for knowledge, but in the fact that one is seeking for something of which one cannot speak in true self-comprehension. While pressing on farther into the sense-world, one is there seeking in a certain sense a continuation of the sensible behind the perceptual. It is as if one living in illusions should seek in further illusions the causes of his illusions.
[ 5 ] The sense of my conception at that time was as follows: While man is evolving from birth onward he stands consciously facing the world. He attains first to physical perception.
But this is at first an outpost of knowledge. In this perception there is not at once revealed all that is in the world. The world is real, but man does not at first attain to this reality. It remains at first closed to him. While he has not yet set his own being over against the world, he fashions for himself a world-conception which is void of being. This conception of the world is really an illusion. In sense-perception man faces a world of illusion. But when from within man sense-free thought comes forth to meet the sense-perception, then illusion is permeated with reality and ceases to be illusion.
Then the human spirit, living its own life within, meets the spirit of the world which is now no longer concealed from man behind the sense-world, but weaves and breathes within the sense-world.
[ 6 ] I now saw that the finding of the spirit within the sense-world is not a question of logical inferences or of projection of sense perception, but something which comes to pass when man continues his evolution from perception to the experience of sense-free thinking.
[ 7 ] What I wrote in 1888 in the second volume of my edition of Goethe's scientific writings is permeated with such views: “Whoever attributes to thinking his capacity for an awareness which goes beyond sense-perception must also attribute to thought objects which lie beyond mere sense reality. But these objects of thought are ideas. When this thinking of the idea grows strong enough, then it merges with the fundamental existence of the world; what is at work without enters into the spirit of man: he becomes one with objective reality at its highest potency. Becoming aware of the idea within reality is the true communion of man. Thinking has the same significance in relation to the idea as the eye has for light, the ear for sound. It is the organ of perception.1Cf. Einleitung zu Goethes naturwissenschaftlichen Schriften, in Kürschner's Deütsche National-Literatur, p. iv.
[ 8 ] I was then less concerned to represent the world as it is when sense-free thought advances beyond the experience of oneself to a spiritual perception, than I was to show that the being of nature as revealed to sense-perception is spiritual. I wished to express the truth that nature is in reality spiritual. [ 9 ] It was inevitable from this that my fate should bring me into conflict with the contemporary formulators of theories of cognition. These conceived, to begin with, a nature void of spirit, and therefore their task was to show how far man is justified in conceiving in his own spirit a spiritual conception of nature. I wished to oppose to this an entirely different theory of cognition. I wished to show that man in thinking does not form conceptions in regard to nature while standing outside of her, but that knowing means experiencing, so that man while knowing is actually inside the being of things.
[ 10 ] Moreover, it was my fate to knit my own views to those of Goethe. In this union there were many opportunities to show how nature is spiritual, because Goethe had striven toward a spiritual nature; but one does not in the same way have the opportunity to speak of the world of pure spirit as such since Goethe did not carry his spiritual view of nature all the way to direct perception of spirit.
[ 11 ] In a secondary degree I was then concerned to find expression for the idea of freedom. When man acts upon his instincts, impulses, passions, etc., he is not free. Then impulses of which he becomes conscious as he does of the impressions from the sense-world determine his action. But his true being is then not acting. He is then acting on a plane where his true being has not yet manifested itself. He then discloses himself as man just as little as the sense-world discloses its being to mere sense-observation. Now, the sense-world is not really an illusion, but is only made such by man. But man in his action can permit the sense-like impulses, desires, etc., really to become illusions; then he permits illusions to act upon him; it is not he himself that acts. He permits the unspiritual to act. His spiritual being acts only when he finds the impulses for action in the moral intuitions of his sense-free thought. Then he alone acts, nothing else. Then he is a free being acting from within. [ 12 ] I desired to show that whoever rejects sense-free thought as something purely spiritual in man can never grasp the conception of freedom; but that such a conception comes about the moment one understands the reality of sense-free thinking.
[ 13 ] In this field I was at that time less intent upon representing the world of pure spirit, in which man experiences his moral intuitions, than to emphasize the spiritual character of these moral intuitions. Had I been concerned with the former should have been obliged to begin the chapter in The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity on “Moral Imagination” in the following way: “The free spirit acts upon his impulses; these are intuitions which are experienced by him apart from the existence of nature in the world of pure spirit without his being aware of this spiritual world in the ordinary state of consciousness.” But it was my concern then only to describe the purely spiritual character of moral intuitions. Therefore I referred to the existence of these intuitions within the totality of the world of human ideas, and said in regard to them: “The free spirit acts upon his impulses, which are intuitions that by means of thought are selected from the totality of his world of ideas.” – One who does not direct his gaze toward a world of pure spirit, and who could not, therefore, write the first statement, could also not entirely admit the second. But allusions to the first statement are to be found in plenty in my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity; for example: “The highest stage of the individual life is thinking in concepts without reference to a specific content of perception. We determine the content of a concept by means of pure intuition out of the sphere of ideas. Such a concept then shows no relation to definite perceptions.” Here sense-perceptions are intended. Had I then desired to write about the spiritual world, and not merely about the spiritual character of moral intuitions, I should have been forced to refer to the contrast between sense-perceptions and spiritual perceptions. But I was concerned only to emphasize the non-sensible character of moral intuitions.
[ 14 ] My world of ideas was moving in this direction when the first chapter of my life ended with my thirtieth year, and my entrance upon the Weimar period.
Chapter X
[ 1 ] Wenn ich auf meinen Lebensgang zurückblicke, so stellen sich mir die drei ersten Lebensjahrzehnte als ein in sich abgeschlossener Abschnitt dar. Am Ende desselben übersiedelte ich nach Weimar, um da fast sieben Jahre am Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv zu arbeiten. Ich blicke auf die Zeit, die ich zwischen der geschilderten Weimarischen Reise und meiner Übersiedelung in die Goethe-Stadt noch in Wien verbrachte, als auf diejenige zurück, die in mir zu einem gewissen Abschlusse brachte, was meine Seele bis dahin erstrebt hatte. In dem Hinarbeiten auf meine «Philosophie der Freiheit» lebte dieser Abschluß.
[ 2 ] Ein wesentlicher Teil im Umkreise der Ideen, durch die ich damals meine Anschauungen ausdrückte, war, daß mir die Sinneswelt nicht als wahre Wirklichkeit galt. Ich sprach mich in den Schriften und Aufsätzen, die ich damals veröffentlichte, stets so aus, daß die menschliche Seele in der Betätigung eines Denkens, das sie nicht aus der Sinneswelt schöpft, sondern in freier, über die Sinneswahrnehmung hinausgehender Tätigkeit entfaltet, als eine wahre Wirklichkeit erscheint. Dieses «sinnlichkeitsfreie» Denken stellte ich als dasjenige hin, mit dem die Seele in dem geistigen Wesen der Welt darinnen steht
[ 3 ] Aber ich machte auch scharf geltend, daß der Mensch, indem er in diesem sinnlichkeitsfreien Denken lebt, auch wirklich sich bewußt in den geistigen Urgründen des Daseins befinde. Das Reden von Erkenntnisgrenzen hatte für mich keinen Sinn. Erkennen war mir das Wiederfinden der durch die Seele erlebten Geistes-Inhalte in der wahrgenommenen Welt. Wenn jemand von Erkenntnisgrenzen sprach, so sah ich darinnen das Zugeständnis, daß er die wahre Wirklichkeit nicht geistig in sich erleben und sie deshalb auch in der wahrgenommenen Welt nicht wiederfinden könne.
[ 4 ] Auf die Widerlegung der Anschauung von Erkenntnisgrenzen kam es mir beim Vorbringen meiner eigenen Einsichten in erster Linie an. Ich wollte den Erkenntnisweg ablehnen, der auf die Sinneswelt sieht und der dann nach außen durch die Sinneswelt zu einer wahren Wirklichkeit durchbrechen will. Ich wollte darauf hindeuten, daß nicht in einem solchen Durchbrechen nach außen, sondern in dem Untertauchen in das Innere des Menschen das wahre Wirkliche zu suchen sei. Wer nach außen durchbrechen will, und dann sieht, daß dies eine Unmöglichkeit ist, der spricht von Erkenntnisgrenzen. Es ist aber nicht deshalb eine Unmöglichkeit, weil das menschliche Erkenntnisvermögen begrenzt ist, sondern deshalb, weil man etwas sucht, von dem man bei gehöriger Selbstbesinnung gar nicht sprechen kann. Man sucht da gewissermaßen, indem man weiter in die Sinneswelt hineinstoßen will, eine Fortsetzung des Sinnlichen hinter dem Wahrgenommenen. Es ist, wie wenn der in Illusionen Lebende in weiteren Illusionen die Ursachen seiner Illusionen suchte.
[ 5 ] Der Sinn meiner Darstellungen war damals dieser: Der Mensch tritt, indem er sich im Erdendasein von der Geburt an weiter entwickelt, der Welt erkennend gegenüber. Er gelangt zuerst zur sinnlichen Anschauung. Aber diese ist erst ein Vorposten des Erkennens. Es offenbart sich indieser Anschauung noch nicht alles, was in der Welt ist. Die Welt ist wesenhaft; aber der Mensch gelangt zuerst noch nicht zu diesem Wesenhaften. Er verschließt sich noch vor demselben. Er bildet sich, weil er sein eigenes Wesen noch nicht der Welt gegenüberstellt, ein Weltbild, das des Wesens entbehrt. Dieses Weltbild ist in Wahrheit eine Illusion. Sinnlich wahrnehmend steht der Mensch vor der Welt als einer Illusion. Wenn aber aus seinem Innern zu der sinnlichen Wahrnehmung das sinnlichkeitsfreie Denken nachrückt, dann durchtränkt sich die Illusion mit Wirklichkeit; dann hört sie auf, Illusion zu sein. Dann trifft der in seinem Innern sich erlebende Menschengeist auf den Geist der Welt, der für den Menschen nun nicht hinter der Sinneswelt verborgen ist, sondern in der Sinneswelt webt und West.
[ 6 ] Den Geist in der Welt zu finden, sah ich damals nicht als eine Sache des logischen Schließens, oder der Fortsetzung des sinnlichen Wahrnehmens an; sondern als etwas, das sich ergibt, wenn der Mensch vom Wahrnehmen zum Erleben des sinnlichkeitsfreien Denkens sich fortentwickelt.
[ 7 ] Von solchen Anschauungen durchdrungen ist, was ich im zweiten Bande meiner Ausgabe der naturwissenschaftlichen Schriften Goethes 1888 schrieb: «Wer dem Denken seine über die Sinnesauffassung hinausgehende Wahrnehmungsfähigkeit zuerkennt, der muß ihm notgedrungen auch Objekte zuerkennen, die über die bloße sinnenfällige Wirklichkeit hinaus liegen. Diese Objekte des Denkens sind aber die Ideen. Indem sich das Denken der Idee bemächtigt, verschmilzt es mit dem Urgrunde des Weltdaseins; das, was außen wirkt, tritt in den Geist des Menschen ein: er wird mit der objektiven Wirklichkeit auf ihrer höchsten Potenz eins. Das Gewahrwerden der Idee in der Wirklichkeit ist die wahre Kommunion des Menschen. - Das Denken hat den Ideen gegenüber dieselbe Bedeutung wie das Auge dem Lichte, das Ohr dem Ton gegenüber. Es ist Organ der Auffassung.» (Vgl. Einleitung zu Goethes naturwissenschaftlichen Schriften in Kürschners Deutscher National-Literatur, 2. Bd., S.IV.)
[ 8 ] Mir kam es damals weniger darauf an, die Welt des Geistigen so darzustellen, wie sie sich ergibt, wenn das sinnlichkeitsfreie Denken über das Sich-selbst-Erleben zur geistigen Anschauung fortschreitet, als vielmehr darauf, zu zeigen, daß das Wesen der in der sinnenfälligen Anschauung gegebenen Natur das Geistige ist. Ich wollte zurn Ausdrucke bringen, daß die Natur in Wahrheit geistig ist.
[ 9 ] Das lag darin begründet, daß mich mein Schicksal zu einer Auseinandersetzung mit den Erkenntnistheoretikern der damaligen Zeit geführt hat. Diese stellten sich als ihre Voraussetzung eine geistlose Natur vor und hatten demgemäß die Aufgabe, zu zeigen, inwiefern der Mensch berechtigt ist, sich in seinem Geiste ein geistiges Bild der Natur zu gestalten. Ich wollte dem eine ganz andere Erkenntnistheorie gegenüberstellen. Ich wollte zeigen, daß der Mensch denkend nicht Bilder über die Natur wie ein ihr Außenstehender formt, sondern daß Erkennen Erleben ist, so daß der Mensch erkennend in dem Wesen der Dinge steht.
[ 10 ] Und weiter war es mein Schicksal, meine eigenen Anschauungen an Goethe anzuknüpfen. In dieser Anknüpfung hat man zwar viel Gelegenheit, zu zeigen, wie die Natur geistig ist, weil Goethe selbst nach einer geistgemäßen Naturanschauung gestrebt hat; man hat aber nicht in ähnlicher Art Gelegenheit, über die rein geistige Welt als solche zu sprechen, weil Goethe die geistgemäße Naturanschauung nicht bis zur unmittelbaren Geistanschauung fortgeführt hat.
[ 11 ] In zweiter Linie kam es mir damals darauf an, die Idee der Freiheit zum Ausdrucke zu bringen. Handelt der Mensch aus seinen Instinkten, Trieben, Leidenschaften usw., so ist er unfrei. Impulse, die ihm so bewußt werden wie die Eindrücke der Sinneswelt, bestimmen dann sein Handeln. Aber es handelt da auch nicht sein wahres Wesen. Er handelt auf einer Stufe, auf der sein wahres Wesen sich noch gar nicht offenbart. Er enthüllt sich als Mensch da ebensowenig, wie die Sinneswelt ihr Wesen für die bloß sinnenfällige Beobachtung enthüllt. Nun ist die Sinneswelt nicht in Wirklichkeit eine Illusion, sondern wird dazu nur von dem Menschen gemacht. Der Mensch in seinem Handeln kann aber die sinnlichkeitsähnlichen Triebe, Begierden usw. als Illusionen wirklich machen; er läßt dann an sich ein Illusionäres handeln; es ist nicht er selbst, der handelt. Er läßt das Ungeistige handeln. Sein Geistiges handelt erst, wenn er die Impulse seines Handelns in dem Gebiete seines sinnlichkeitfreien Denkens als moralische Intuitionen findet. Da handelt er selbst, nichts anderes. Da ist er ein freies, ein aus sich selbst handelndes Wesen.
[ 12 ] Ich wollte darstellen, wie derjenige, der das sinnlichkeitfreie Denken als ein rein Geistiges im Menschen ablehnt, niemals zum Begreifen der Freiheit kommen könne; wie aber ein solches Begreifen sofort eintritt, wenn man die Wirklichkeit des sinnlichkeitsfreien Denkens durchschaut.
[ 13 ] Auch auf diesem Gebiete ging ich in jener Zeit weniger darauf aus, die rein geistige Welt darzustellen, in welcher der Mensch seine moralischen Intuitionen erlebt, als vielmehr darauf, den geistigen Charakter dieser Intuitionen selbst zu betonen. Wäre es mir auf das erstere angekommen, so hätte ich wohl das Kapitel «Die moralische Phantasie» in meiner «Philosophie der Freiheit» so beginnen müssen: «Der freie Geist handelt nach seinen Impulsen; das sind Intuitionen, die von ihm außerhalb des Naturdaseins in der rein geistigen Welt erlebt werden, ohne daß er sich im gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein dieser geistigen Welt bewußt wird.» Aber mir kam es damals darauf an, nur den rein geistigen Charakter der moralischen Intuitionen zu charakterisieren. Deshalb wies ich auf das Dasein dieser Intuitionen in der Gesamtheit der menschlichen Ideenwelt hin und sagte demgemäß: «Der freie Geist handelt nach seinen Impulsen, das sind Intuitionen, die aus dem Ganzen seiner Ideenwelt durch das Denken ausgewählt sind.» - Wer nicht auf eine rein geistige Welt hinblickt, wer also nicht auch den ersten Satz schreiben könnte, der kann auch zu dem zweiten sich nicht voll bekennen. Hindeutungen auf den ersten Satz sind aber in meiner «Philosophie der Freiheit» genügend zu finden; zum Beispiel: «Die höchste Stufe des individuellen Lebens ist das begriffliche Denken ohne Rücksicht auf einen bestimmten Wahrnehmungsgehalt. Wir bestimmen den Inhalt eines Begriffes durch reine Intuitionen aus der ideellen Sphäre heraus. Ein solcher Begriff enthält dann zunächst keinen Bezug auf bestimmte Wahrnehmungen.» Es sind hier «sinnenfällige Wahrnehmungen» gemeint. Hätte ich damals über die geistige Welt, nicht bloß über den geistigen Charakter der moralischen Intuitionen schreiben wollen, so hätte ich den Gegensatz zwischen sinnlicher und geistiger Wahrnehmung berücksichtigen müssen. Mir kam es aber nur darauf an, den nicht-sinnlichen Charakter der moralischen Intuitionen zu betonen.
[ 14 ] In dieser Richtung bewegte sich meine Ideenwelt, als mein erster Lebensabschnitt mit dem dritten Lebensjahrzehnt, mit dem Eintritt in meine Weimarer Zeit, zu Ende ging.
Chapter X
[ 1 ] When I look back on my life, I see the first three decades of my life as a self-contained period. At the end of this period, I moved to Weimar to work at the Goethe and Schiller Archive for almost seven years. I look back on the time that I spent in Vienna between the Weimar journey described above and my move to the city of Goethe as the time that brought to a certain conclusion what my soul had been striving for until then. This conclusion lived in the work towards my "philosophy of freedom".
[ 2 ] An essential part of the ideas through which I expressed my views at that time was that I did not regard the sensory world as true reality. In the writings and essays that I published at that time, I always expressed myself in such a way that the human soul appears as a true reality in the activity of a thinking that it does not draw from the sense world, but unfolds in free activity that goes beyond sense perception. I presented this "sensory-free" thinking as that with which the soul stands within the spiritual essence of the world
[ 3 ] But I also sharply asserted that man, by living in this sensuality-free thinking, is also really consciously in the spiritual primal grounds of existence. Talking about the limits of knowledge made no sense to me. For me, cognition was the retrieval of the spiritual content experienced by the soul in the perceived world. When someone spoke of the limits of cognition, I saw in it the concession that he could not experience true reality spiritually within himself and therefore could not find it again in the perceived world.
[ 4 ] In presenting my own insights, I was primarily concerned with refuting the view of the limits of knowledge. I wanted to reject the path of knowledge that looks at the sensory world and then wants to break through the sensory world to a true reality. I wanted to point out that not in such a breaking through to the outside, but in the immersion into the inside of the human being the true reality is to be sought. Anyone who wants to break through to the outside and then sees that this is an impossibility is talking about the limits of knowledge. But it is not an impossibility because the human faculty of cognition is limited, but because one is seeking something of which one cannot speak at all with proper self-reflection. To a certain extent, by wanting to penetrate further into the sensory world, we are looking for a continuation of the sensory behind what we perceive. It is as if the person living in illusions sought the causes of his illusions in further illusions.
[ 5 ] The meaning of my descriptions at that time was this: Man, by developing further in his earthly existence from birth onwards, confronts the world in a recognizing way. He first arrives at sensory perception. But this is only an outpost of cognition. Not everything that is in the world is yet revealed in this perception. The world is substantial; but man does not yet reach this substantiality. He still closes himself off from it. Because he does not yet confront his own essence with the world, he forms a view of the world that lacks essence. This world view is in truth an illusion. Sensually perceiving, man stands before the world as an illusion. But when sensory perception is joined from within by sensory-free thinking, then the illusion becomes imbued with reality; then it ceases to be an illusion. Then the human spirit experiencing itself within itself encounters the spirit of the world, which for the human being is now not hidden behind the sensory world, but weaves in the sensory world and West.
[ 6 ] Finding the spirit in the world, I saw at that time not as a matter of logical reasoning, or the continuation of sensory perception; but as something that arises when man develops from perception to the experience of sensory-free thinking.
[ 7 ] What I wrote in the second volume of my 1888 edition of Goethe's scientific writings is permeated by such views: "Whoever acknowledges to thinking its perceptive faculty that goes beyond sense perception must of necessity also acknowledge to it objects that lie beyond mere sensory reality. But these objects of thought are the ideas. When thinking takes possession of the idea, it merges with the primordial ground of world existence; that which works outside enters the spirit of man: he becomes one with objective reality at its highest potency. The realization of the idea in reality is the true communion of man. - Thinking has the same significance in relation to ideas as the eye has in relation to light, the ear in relation to sound. It is the organ of perception." (Cf. introduction to Goethe's scientific writings in Kürschner's German National Literature, 2nd vol. p. IV.)
[ 8 ] I was less concerned at that time with presenting the world of the spiritual as it emerges when sensory-free thinking progresses via self-awareness to spiritual perception, than with showing that the essence of nature given in sensory perception is the spiritual. I wanted to express that nature is in truth spiritual.
[ 9 ] This was due to the fact that my destiny led me to an argument with the epistemologists of the time. They imagined a mindless nature as their premise and therefore had the task of showing to what extent man is entitled to form a mental image of nature in his mind. I wanted to contrast this with a completely different theory of cognition. I wanted to show that man thinking does not form images about nature like an outsider, but that cognition is experience, so that man stands cognitively in the essence of things.
[ 10 ] And furthermore, it was my destiny to link my own views to Goethe. In this connection one has much opportunity to show how nature is spiritual, because Goethe himself strove for a spiritual view of nature; but one has no similar opportunity to speak of the purely spiritual world as such, because Goethe did not carry the spiritual view of nature as far as the immediate spiritual view.
[ 11 ] In the second place, it was important to me at that time to express the idea of freedom. If man acts from his instincts, drives, passions, etc., he is unfree. Impulses, which become as conscious to him as the impressions of the sensory world, then determine his actions. But his true nature does not act there either. He acts at a stage where his true nature is not yet revealed. He does not reveal himself as a human being there any more than the sense world reveals its essence to mere sensory observation. Now the sense world is not in reality an illusion, but is only made so by man. Man in his actions, however, can make the sensual-like drives, desires etc. real as illusions; he then lets an illusory thing act in itself; it is not he himself who acts. He lets the unspiritual act. His spiritual acts only when he finds the impulses of his action in the realm of his sensuality-free thinking as moral intuitions. There he acts himself, nothing else. There he is a free being, a being acting of himself.
[ 12 ] I wanted to show how he who rejects sensuality-free thinking as a purely spiritual thing in man can never come to an understanding of freedom; but how such an understanding occurs immediately when one sees through the reality of sensuality-free thinking.
[ 13 ] In this area, too, I was less concerned at that time with depicting the purely spiritual world in which man experiences his moral intuitions than with emphasizing the spiritual character of these intuitions themselves. If I had been concerned with the former, I should probably have begun the chapter "The Moral Imagination" in my "Philosophy of Freedom" as follows: "The free spirit acts according to its impulses; these are intuitions which are experienced by it outside the natural world in the purely spiritual world, without it becoming aware of this spiritual world in ordinary consciousness." But at that time it was important to me to characterize only the purely spiritual character of moral intuitions. That is why I pointed to the existence of these intuitions in the totality of the human world of ideas and said accordingly: "The free spirit acts according to its impulses, these are intuitions that are selected from the whole of its world of ideas through thinking." - Anyone who does not look at a purely spiritual world, i.e. who could not write the first sentence, cannot fully commit to the second. However, there are enough references to the first sentence in my "Philosophy of Freedom"; for example: "The highest level 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." What is meant here are "sensory perceptions". If at that time I had wanted to write about the spiritual world, and not merely about the spiritual character of moral intuitions, I would have had to take into account the contrast between sensory and spiritual perception. But it was only important to me to emphasize the non-sensual character of moral intuitions.
[ 14 ] My world of ideas moved in this direction when the first phase of my life came to an end with the third decade of my life, when I entered the Weimar period.