The concept "tree" is conditioned for our knowledge by the percept
"tree." There is only one determinate concept which I can select from
the general system of concepts and apply to a given percept. The
connection of concept and percept is mediately and objectively
determined by thought in conformity with the percept. The connection
between a percept and its concept is recognised after the act of
perception, but the relevance of the one to the other is determined
by the character of each.
Very different is the result when we consider knowledge, and,
more particularly, the relation of man to the world which occurs
in knowledge. In the preceding chapters the attempt has been made
to show that an unprejudiced examination of this relation is able to
throw light on its nature. A correct understanding of this examination
leads to the conclusion that thinking may be intuitively apprehended
in its unique, self-contained nature. Those who find it necessary,
for the explanation of thinking as such, to invoke something else,
e.g., physical brain-processes, or unconscious spiritual processes
lying behind the conscious thinking which they observe, fail to
grasp the facts which an unprejudiced examination yields. When we
observe our thinking, we live during the observation immediately
within the essence of a spiritual, self-sustaining activity. Indeed,
we may even affirm that if we want to grasp the essential nature of
Spirit in the form in which it immediately presents itself to man,
we need but look at our own self-sustaining thinking.
For the study of thinking two things coincide which elsewhere must
always appear apart, viz., concept and percept. If we fail to see this,
we shall be unable to regard the concepts which we have elaborated in
response to percepts as anything but shadowy copies of these percepts,
and we shall take the percepts as presenting to us reality as it really
is. We shall, further, build up for ourselves a metaphysical world
after the pattern of the world of percepts. We shall, each according
to his habitual ideas, call this world a world of atoms, or of will,
or of unconscious spirit, and so on. And we shall fail to notice that
all the time we have been doing nothing but erecting hypothetically a
metaphysical world modeled on the world we perceive. But if we clearly
apprehend what thinking consists in, we shall recognise that percepts
present to us only a portion of reality, and that the complementary
portion which alone imparts to reality its full character as real,
is experienced by us in the organisation of percepts by thought. We
shall regard all thought, not as a shadowy copy of reality, but as a
self-sustaining spiritual essence. We shall be able to say of it, that
it is revealed to us in consciousness through intuition. Intuition
is the purely spiritual conscious experience of a purely spiritual
content. It is only through intuition that we can grasp the essence
of thinking.
To win through, by means of unprejudiced observation, to the
recognition of this truth of the intuitive essence of thinking requires
an effort. But without this effort we shall not succeed in clearing
the way for a theory of the psycho-physical organisation of man. We
recognise that this organisation can produce no effect whatever on
the essential nature of thinking. At first sight this seems to be
contradicted by patent and obvious facts. For ordinary experience,
human thinking occurs only in connection with, and by means of, such
an organisation. This dependence on psycho-physical organisation is
so prominent that its true bearing can be appreciated by us only if we
recognise, that in the essential nature of thinking this organisation
plays no part whatever. Once we appreciate this, we can no longer
fail to notice how peculiar is the relation of human organisation to
thought. For this organisation contributes nothing to the essential
nature of thought, but recedes whenever thought becomes active. It
suspends its own activity, it yields ground. And the ground thus set
free is occupied by thought. The essence which is active in thought has
a two-fold function: first it restricts the human organisation in its
own activity; next, it steps into the place of that organisation. Yes,
even the former, the restriction of human organisation, is an effect
of the activity of thought, and more particularly of that part of
it which prepares the manifestation of thinking. This explains the
sense in which thinking has its counterpart in the organisation of
the body. Once we perceive this, we can no longer misapprehend the
significance for thinking of this physical counterpart. When we walk
over soft ground our feet leave deep tracks in the soil. We shall
not be tempted to say that the forces of the ground, from below,
have formed these tracks. We shall not attribute to these forces any
share in the production of the tracks. Just so, if with open minds
we observe the essential nature of thinking, we shall not attribute
any share in that nature to the traces in the physical organism which
thinking produces in preparing its manifestation through the body. [3]
An important question, however, confronts us here. If human
organisation has no part in the essential nature of thinking, what
is its function within the whole nature of man? Well, the effects
of thinking upon this organisation have no bearing upon the essence
of thinking, but they have a bearing upon the origin of the "I," or
Ego-consciousness, through thinking. Thinking, in its unique character,
constitutes the real Ego, but it does not constitute, as such, the
Ego-consciousness. To see this we have but to study thinking with an
open mind. The Ego is to be found in thinking. The Ego-consciousness
arises through the traces which, in the sense above explained, the
activity of thinking impresses upon our general consciousness. The
Ego-consciousness thus arises through the physical organisation. This
view must not, however, be taken to imply that the Ego-consciousness,
once it has arisen, remains dependent on the physical organisation. On
the contrary, once it exists it is taken up into thought and shares
henceforth thought's spiritual self-subsistence.
The Ego-consciousness is built upon human organisation. The latter
is the source of all acts of will. Following out the direction of
the preceding exposition, we can gain insight into the connection of
thought, conscious Ego, and act of will, only by studying first how
an act of will issues from human organisation. [4]
In a particular act of will we must distinguish two factors: the
motive and the spring of action. The motive is a factor of the nature
of concept or idea; the spring of action is the factor in will which
is directly determined in the human organisation. The conceptual
factor, or motive, is the momentary determining cause of an act
of will; the spring of action is the permanent determining factor
in the individual. The motive of an act of will can be only a pure
concept, or else a concept with a definite relation to perception,
i.e., an idea. Universal and individual concepts (ideas) become
motives of will by influencing the human individual and determining
him to action in a particular direction. One and the same concept,
however, or one and the same idea, influence different individuals
differently. They determine different men to different actions. An
act of will is, therefore, not merely the outcome of a concept or
an idea, but also of the individual make-up of human beings. This
individual make-up we will call, following Eduard von Hartmann, the
"characterological disposition." The manner in which concept and idea
act on the characterological disposition of a man gives to his life
a definite moral or ethical stamp.
The characterological disposition consists of the more or less
permanent content of the individual's life, that is, of his habitual
ideas and feelings. Whether an idea which enters my mind at this
moment stimulates me to an act of will or not, depends on its
relation to my other ideal contents, and also to my peculiar modes of
feeling. My ideal content, in turn, is conditioned by the sum total
of those concepts which have, in the course of my individual life,
come in contact with percepts, that is, have become ideas. This,
again, depends on my greater or lesser capacity for intuition,
and on the range of my perception, that is, on the subjective and
objective factors of my experiences, on the structure of my mind and
on my environment. My affective life more especially determines my
characterological disposition. Whether I shall make a certain idea
or concept the motive for action will depend on whether it gives me
pleasure or pain.
These are the factors which we have to consider in an act of will. The
immediately present idea or concept, which becomes the motive,
determines the end or the purpose of my will; my characterological
disposition determines me to direct my activity towards this end. The
idea of taking a walk in the next half-hour determines the end of
my action. But this idea is raised to the level of a motive only if
it meets with a suitable characterological disposition, that is, if
during my past life I have formed the ideas of the wholesomeness of
walking and the value of health; and, further, if the idea of walking
is accompanied by a feeling of pleasure.
We must, therefore, distinguish (1) the possible subjective
dispositions which are likely to turn given ideas and concepts into
motives, and (2) the possible ideas and concepts which are capable
of so influencing my characterological disposition that an act of
will results. The former are for morality the springs of action,
the latter its ends.
The springs of action in the moral life can be discovered by analysing
the elements of which individual life is composed.
The first level of individual life is that of perception, more
particularly sense-perception. This is the stage of our individual
lives in which a percept translates itself into will immediately,
without the intervention of either a feeling or a concept. The spring
of action here involved may be called simply instinct. Our lower,
purely animal, needs (hunger, sexual intercourse, etc.) find their
satisfaction in this way. The main characteristic of instinctive
life is the immediacy with which the percept starts off the act
of will. This kind of determination of the will, which belongs
originally only to the life of the lower senses, may, however,
become extended also to the percepts of the higher senses. We may
react to the percept of a certain event in the external world without
reflecting on what we do, and without any special feeling connecting
itself with the percept. We have examples of this especially in
our ordinary conventional intercourse with men. The spring of this
kind of action is called tact or moral good taste. The more often
such immediate reactions to a percept occur, the more the agent will
prove himself able to act purely under the guidance of tact; that is,
tact becomes his characterological disposition.
The second level of human life is feeling. Definite feelings accompany
the percepts of the external world. These feelings may become springs
of action. When I see a hungry man, my pity for him may become the
spring of my action. Such feelings, for example, are modesty, pride,
sense of honour, humility, remorse, pity, revenge, gratitude, piety,
loyalty, love, and duty. [5]
The third and last level of life is to have thoughts and ideas. An
idea or a concept may become the motive of an action through mere
reflection. Ideas become motives because, in the course of my life,
I regularly connect certain aims of my will with percepts which recur
again and again in a more or less modified form. Hence it is that, with
men who are not wholly without experience, the occurrence of certain
percepts is always accompanied also by the consciousness of ideas of
actions, which they have themselves carried out in similar cases or
which they have seen others carry out. These ideas float before their
minds as determining models in all subsequent decisions; they become
parts of their characterological disposition. We may give the name of
practical experience to the spring of action just described. Practical
experience merges gradually into purely tactful behaviour. That
happens, when definite typical pictures of actions have become so
closely connected in our minds with ideas of certain situations in
life, that, in any given instance, we omit all deliberation based on
experience and pass immediately from the percept to the action.
The highest level of individual life is that of conceptual thought
without reference to any definite perceptual content. We determine
the content of a concept through pure intuition on the basis of an
ideal system. Such a concept contains, at first, no reference to any
definite percepts. When an act of will comes about under the influence
of a concept which refers to a percept, i.e., under the influence of
an idea, then it is the percept which determines our action indirectly
by way of the concept. But when we act under the influence of pure
intuitions, the spring of our action is pure thought. As it is the
custom in philosophy to call pure thought "reason," we may perhaps
be justified in giving the name of practical reason to the spring of
action characteristic of this level of life. The clearest account of
this spring of action has been given by Kreyenbühl (Philosophische
Monatshefte, vol. xviii, No. 3). In my opinion his article on this
subject is one of the most important contributions to present-day
philosophy, more especially to Ethics. Kreyenbühl calls the spring
of action, of which we are treating, the practical a priori i.e.,
a spring of action issuing immediately from my intuition.
It is clear that such a spring of action can no longer be counted in
the strictest sense as part of the characterological disposition. For
what is here effective in me as a spring of action is no longer
something purely individual, but the ideal, and hence universal,
content of my intuition. As soon as I regard this content as the
valid basis and starting-point of an action, I pass over into willing,
irrespective of whether the concept was already in my mind beforehand,
or whether it only occurs to me immediately before the action, that is,
irrespective of whether it was present in the form of a disposition
in me or not.
A real act of will results only when a present impulse to action,
in the form of a concept or idea, acts on the characterological
disposition. Such an impulse thereupon becomes the motive of the will.
The motives of moral conduct are ideas and concepts. There are
Moralists who see in feeling also a motive of morality; they assert,
e.g., that the end of moral conduct is to secure the greatest possible
quantity of pleasure for the agent. Pleasure itself, however, can
never be a motive; at best only the idea of pleasure can act as
motive. The idea of a future pleasure, but not the feeling itself,
can act on my characterological disposition. For the feeling does not
yet exist in the moment of action; on the contrary, it has first to
be produced by the action.
The idea of one's own or another's well-being is, however, rightly
regarded as a motive of the will. The principle of producing the
greatest quantity of pleasure for oneself through one's action, that
is, to attain individual happiness, is called Egoism. The attainment
of this individual happiness is sought either by thinking ruthlessly
only of one's own good, and striving to attain it even at the cost
of the happiness of other individuals (Pure Egoism), or by promoting
the good of others, either because one anticipates indirectly a
favourable influence on one's own happiness through the happiness
of others, or because one fears to endanger one's own interest by
injuring others (Morality of Prudence). The special content of the
egoistical principle of morality will depend on the ideas which we form
of what constitutes our own, or others', good. A man will determine
the content of his egoistical striving in accordance with what he
regards as one of life's good things (luxury, hope of happiness,
deliverance from different evils, etc.).
Further, the purely conceptual content of an action is to be regarded
as yet another kind of motive. This content has no reference, like the
idea of one's own pleasure, solely to the particular action, but to
the deduction of an action from a system of moral principles. These
moral principles, in the form of abstract concepts, may guide the
individual's moral life without his worrying himself about the origin
of his concepts. In that case, we feel merely the moral necessity of
submitting to a moral concept which, in the form of law, controls
our actions. The justification of this necessity we leave to those
who demand from us moral subjection, that is, to those whose moral
authority over us we acknowledge (the head of the family, the state,
social custom, the authority of the church, divine revelation). We
meet with a special kind of these moral principles when the law is
not proclaimed to us by an external authority, but comes from our own
selves (moral autonomy). In this case we believe that we hear the
voice, to which we have to submit ourselves, in our own souls. The
name for this voice is conscience.
It is a great moral advance when a man no longer takes as the motive
of his action the commands of an external or internal authority, but
tries to understand the reason why a given maxim of action ought to be
effective as a motive in him. This is the advance from morality based
on authority to action from moral insight. At this level of morality,
a man will try to discover the demands of the moral life, and will
let his action be determined by this knowledge. Such demands are (1)
the greatest possible happiness of humanity as a whole purely for its
own sake, (2) the progress of civilisation, or the moral development
of mankind towards ever greater perfection, (3) the realisation of
individual moral ends conceived by an act of pure intuition.
The greatest possible happiness of humanity as a whole will naturally
be differently conceived by different people. The above-mentioned maxim
does not imply any definite idea of this happiness, but rather means
that every one who acknowledges this principle strives to do all that,
in his opinion, most promotes the good of the whole of humanity.
The progress of civilisation is seen to be a special application of
the moral principle just mentioned, at any rate for those to whom the
goods which civilisation produces bring feelings of pleasure. However,
they will have to pay the price of progress in the destruction and
annihilation of many things which also contribute to the happiness
of humanity. It is, however, also possible that some men look upon
the progress of civilisation as a moral necessity, quite apart from
the feelings of pleasure which it brings. If so, the progress of
civilisation will be a new moral principle for them, different from
the previous one.
Both the principle of the public good, and that of the progress of
civilisation, alike depend on the way in which we apply the content
of our moral ideas to particular experiences (percepts). The highest
principle of morality which we can conceive, however, is that which
contains, to start with, no such reference to particular experiences,
but which springs from the source of pure intuition and does not
seek until later any connection with percepts, i.e., with life. The
determination of what ought to be willed issues here from a point of
view very different from that of the previous two principles. Whoever
accepts the principle of the public good will in all his actions ask
first what his ideals contribute to this public good. The upholder of
the progress of civilisation as the principle of morality will act
similarly. There is, however, a still higher mode of conduct which,
in a given case, does not start from any single limited moral ideal,
but which sees a certain value in all moral principles, always asking
whether this or that principle is more important in a particular
case. It may happen that a man considers in certain circumstances
the promotion of the public good, in others that of the progress of
civilisation, and in yet others the furthering of his own private good,
to be the right course, and makes that the motive of his action. But
when all other grounds of determination take second place, then we
rely, in the first place, on conceptual intuition itself. All other
motives now drop out of sight, and the ideal content of an action
alone becomes its motive.
Among the levels of characterological disposition, we have singled
out as the highest that which manifests itself as pure thought,
or practical reason. Among the motives, we have just singled out
conceptual intuition as the highest. On nearer consideration, we now
perceive that at this level of morality the spring of action and the
motive coincide, i.e., that neither a predetermined characterological
disposition, nor an external moral principle accepted on authority,
influence our conduct. The action, therefore, is neither a merely
stereotyped one which follows the rules of a moral code, nor is it
automatically performed in response to an external impulse. Rather
it is determined solely through its ideal content.
For such an action to be possible, we must first be capable of moral
intuitions. Whoever lacks the capacity to think out for himself the
moral principles that apply in each particular case, will never rise
to the level of genuine individual willing.
Kant's principle of morality: Act so that the principle of your action
may be valid for all men--is the exact opposite of ours. His principle
would mean death to all individual action. The norm for me can never
be what all men would do, but rather what it is right for me to do
in each special case.
A superficial criticism might urge against these arguments: How can
an action be individually adapted to the special case and the special
situation, and yet at the same time be ideally determined by pure
intuition? This objection rests on a confusion of the moral motive
with the perceptual content of an action. The latter, indeed, may
be a motive, and is actually a motive when we act for the progress
of culture, or from pure egoism, etc., but in action based on pure
moral intuition it never is a motive. Of course, my Self takes
notice of these perceptual contents, but it does not allow itself
to be determined by them. The content is used only to construct a
theoretical concept, but the corresponding moral concept is not derived
from the object. The theoretical concept of a given situation which
faces me, is a moral concept also only if I adopt the standpoint
of a particular moral principle. If I base all my conduct on the
principle of the progress of civilisation, then my way through life
is tied down to a fixed route. From every occurrence which comes to
my notice and attracts my interest there springs a moral duty, viz.,
to do my tiny share towards using this occurrence in the service
of the progress of civilisation. In addition to the concept which
reveals to me the connections of events or objects according to the
laws of nature, there is also a moral label attached to them which
contains for me, as a moral agent, ethical directions as to how I have
to conduct myself. At a higher level these moral labels disappear,
and my action is determined in each particular instance by my idea;
and more particularly by the idea which is suggested to me by the
concrete instance.
Men vary greatly in their capacity for intuition. In some, ideas bubble
up like a spring, others acquire them with much labour. The situations
in which men live, and which are the scenes of their actions, are no
less widely different. The conduct of a man will depend, therefore,
on the manner in which his faculty of intuition reacts to a given
situation. The aggregate of the ideas which are effective in us,
the concrete content of our intuitions, constitute that which is
individual in each of us, notwithstanding the universal character
of our ideas. In so far as this intuitive content has reference to
action, it constitutes the moral substance of the individual. To let
this substance express itself in his life is the moral principle of
the man who regards all other moral principles as subordinate. We
may call this point of view Ethical Individualism.
The determining factor of an action, in any concrete instance, is the
discovery of the corresponding purely individual intuition. At this
level of morality, there can be no question of general moral concepts
(norms, laws). General norms always presuppose concrete facts from
which they can be deduced. But facts have first to be created by
human action.
When we look for the regulating principles (the conceptual principles
guiding the actions of individuals, peoples, epochs), we obtain a
system of Ethics which is not a science of moral norms, but rather
a science of morality as a natural fact. Only the laws discovered in
this way are related to human action as the laws of nature are related
to particular phenomena. These laws, however, are very far from being
identical with the impulses on which we base our actions. If we want
to understand how man's moral will gives rise to an action, we must
first study the relation of this will to the action. For this purpose
we must single out for study those actions in which this relation
is the determining factor. When I, or another, subsequently review
my action we may discover what moral principles come into play in
it. But so long as I am acting, I am influenced, not by these moral
principles, but by my love for the object which I want to realise
through my action. I ask no man and no moral code, whether I shall
perform this action or not. On the contrary, I carry it out as soon
as I have formed the idea of it. This alone makes it my action. If a
man acts because he accepts certain moral norms, his action is the
outcome of the principles which compose his moral code. He merely
carries out orders. He is a superior kind of automaton. Inject some
stimulus to action into his mind, and at once the clock-work of his
moral principles will begin to work and run its prescribed course, so
as to issue in an action which is Christian, or humane, or unselfish,
or calculated to promote the progress of culture. It is only when
I follow solely my love for the object, that it is I, myself, who
act. At this level of morality, I acknowledge no lord over me, neither
an external authority, nor the so-called voice of my conscience. I
acknowledge no external principle of my action, because I have found
in myself the ground for my action, viz., my love of the action. I
do not ask whether my action is good or bad; I perform it, because I
am in love with it. My action is "good" when, with loving intuition,
I insert myself in the right way into the world-nexus as I experience
it intuitively; it is "bad" when this is not the case. Neither do I
ask myself how another man would act in my position. On the contrary,
I act as I, this unique individuality, will to act. No general usage,
no common custom, no general maxim current among men, no moral norm
guides me, but my love for the action. I feel no compulsion, neither
the compulsion of nature which dominates me through my instincts,
nor the compulsion of the moral commandments. My will is simply to
realise what in me lies.
Those who hold to general moral norms will reply to these arguments
that, if every one has the right to live himself out and to do what he
pleases, there can be no distinction between a good and a bad action;
every fraudulent impulse in me has the same right to issue in action
as the intention to serve the general good. It is not the mere fact
of my having conceived the idea of an action which ought to determine
me as a moral agent, but the further examination of whether it is a
good or an evil action. Only if it is good ought I to carry it out.
This objection is easily intelligible, and yet it had its root in
what is but a misapprehension of my meaning. My reply to it is this:
If we want to get at the essence of human volition, we must distinguish
between the path along which volition attains to a certain degree of
development, and the unique character which it assumes as it approaches
its goal. It is on the path towards the goal that the norms play a
legitimate part. The goal consists in the realisation of moral aims
which are apprehended by pure intuition. Man attains such aims in
proportion as he is able to rise at all to the level at which intuition
grasps the ideal content of the world. In any particular volition,
other elements will, as a rule, be mixed up, as motives or springs
of action, with such moral aims. But, for all that, intuition may be,
wholly or in part, the determining factor in human volition. What we
ought to do, that we do. We supply the stage upon which duty becomes
deed. It is our own action which, as such, issues from us. The impulse,
then, can only be wholly individual. And, in fact, only a volition
which issues out of intuition can be individual. It is only in an age
in which immature men regard the blind instincts as part of a man's
individuality, that the act of a criminal can be described as living
out one's individuality in the same sense, in which the embodiment
in action of a pure intuition can be so described.
The animal instinct which drives a man to a criminal act does not
spring from intuition, and does not belong to what is individual in
him, but rather to that which is most general in him, to that which
is equally present in all individuals. The individual element in me
is not my organism with its instincts and feelings, but rather the
unified world of ideas which reveals itself through this organism. My
instincts, cravings, passions, justify no further assertion about
me than that I belong to the general species man. The fact that
something ideal expresses itself in its own unique way through these
instincts, passions, and feelings, constitutes my individuality. My
instincts and cravings make me the sort of man of whom there are
twelve to the dozen. The unique character of the idea, by means of
which I distinguish myself within the dozen as "I," makes of me an
individual. Only a being other than myself could distinguish me from
others by the difference in my animal nature. By thought, i.e., by the
active grasping of the ideal element working itself out through my
organism, I distinguish myself from others. Hence it is impossible
to say of the action of a criminal that it issues from the idea
within him. Indeed, the characteristic feature of criminal actions
is precisely that they spring from the non-ideal elements in man.
An act the grounds for which lie in the ideal part of my individual
nature is free. Every other act, whether done under the compulsion
of nature or under the obligation imposed by a moral norm, is unfree.
That man alone is free who in every moment of his life is able to obey
only himself. A moral act is my act only when it can be called free
in this sense. So far we are concerned here with the presuppositions
under which an act of will is felt to be free; the sequel will show
how this purely ethical concept of freedom is realised in the essential
nature of man.
Action on the basis of freedom does not exclude, but include, the
moral laws. It only shows that it stands on a higher level than
actions which are dictated by these laws. Why should my act serve
the general good less well when I do it from pure love of it, than
when I perform it because it is a duty to serve the general good? The
concept of duty excludes freedom, because it will not acknowledge the
right of individuality, but demands the subjection of individuality
to a general norm. Freedom of action is conceivable only from the
standpoint of Ethical Individualism.
But how about the possibility of social life for men, if each aims
only at asserting his own individuality? This question expresses yet
another objection on the part of Moralism wrongly understood. The
Moralist believes that a social community is possible only if all
men are held together by a common moral order. This shows that the
Moralist does not understand the community of the world of ideas. He
does not realise that the world of ideas which inspires me is no other
than that which inspires my fellow-men. This identity is, indeed,
but a conclusion from our experience of the world. However, it cannot
be anything else. For if we could recognise it in any other way than
by observation, it would follow that universal norms, not individual
experience, were dominant in its sphere. Individuality is possible only
if every individual knows others only through individual observation. I
differ from my neighbour, not at all because we are living in two
entirely different mental worlds, but because from our common world
of ideas we receive different intuitions. He desires to live out his
intuitions, I mine. If we both draw our intuitions really from the
world of ideas, and do not obey mere external impulses (physical or
moral), then we cannot but meet one another in striving for the same
aims, in having the same intentions. A moral misunderstanding, a clash
of aims, is impossible between men who are free. Only the morally
unfree who blindly follow their natural instincts or the commands of
duty, turn their backs on their neighbours, if these do not obey the
same instincts and the same laws as themselves. To live in love of
action and to let live in understanding of the other's volition, this
is the fundamental maxim of the free man. He knows no other "ought"
than that with which his will intuitively puts itself in harmony. How
he shall will in any given case, that will be determined for him by
the range of his ideas.
If sociability were not deeply rooted in human nature, no external
laws would be able to inoculate us with it. It is only because human
individuals are akin in spirit that they can live out their lives
side by side. The free man lives out his life in the full confidence
that all other free men belong to one spiritual world with himself,
and that their intentions will coincide with his. The free man does
not demand agreement from his fellow-men, but he expects it none the
less, believing that it is inherent in human nature. I am not referring
here to the necessity for this or that external institution. I refer
to the disposition, to the state of mind, through which a man, aware
of himself as one of a group of fellow-men for whom he cares, comes
nearest to living up to the ideal of human dignity.
There are many who will say that the concept of the free man which
I have here developed, is a chimera nowhere to be found realised,
and that we have got to deal with actual human beings, from whom we
can expect morality only if they obey some moral law, i.e., if they
regard their moral task as a duty and do not simply follow their
inclinations and loves. I do not deny this. Only a blind man could
do that. But, if so, away with all this hypocrisy of morality! Let us
say simply that human nature must be compelled to act as long as it is
not free. Whether the compulsion of man's unfree nature is effected by
physical force or through moral laws, whether man is unfree because he
indulges his unmeasured sexual desire, or because he is bound tight
in the bonds of conventional morality, is quite immaterial. Only let
us not assert that such a man can rightly call his actions his own,
seeing that he is driven to them by an external force. But in the midst
of all this network of compulsion, there arise free spirits who, in
all the welter of customs, legal codes, religious observances, etc.,
learn to be true to themselves. They are free in so far as they obey
only themselves; unfree in so far as they submit to control. Which of
us can say that he is really free in all his actions? Yet in each of us
there dwells something deeper in which the free man finds expression.
Our life is made up of free and unfree actions. We cannot, however,
form a final and adequate concept of human nature without coming upon
the free spirit as its purest expression. After all, we are men in
the fullest sense only in so far as we are free.
This is an ideal, many will say. Doubtless; but it is an ideal which
is a real element in us working up to the surface of our nature. It is
no ideal born of mere imagination or dream, but one which has life,
and which manifests itself clearly even in the least developed form
of its existence. If men were nothing but natural objects, the search
for ideals, that is, for ideas which as yet are not actual but the
realisation of which we demand, would be an impossibility. In dealing
with external objects the idea is determined by the percept. We
have done our share when we have recognised the connection between
idea and percept. But with a human being the case is different. The
content of his existence is not determined without him. His concept
of his true self as a moral being (free spirit) is not a priori united
objectively with the perceptual content "man," so that knowledge need
only register the fact subsequently. Man must by his own act unite
his concept with the percept "man." Concept and percept coincide
with one another in this instance, only in so far as the individual
himself makes them coincide. This he can do only if he has found the
concept of the free spirit, that is, if he has found the concept of
his own Self. In the objective world, a boundary-line is drawn by our
organisation between percept and concept. Knowledge breaks down this
barrier. In our subjective nature this barrier is no less present. The
individual overcomes it in the course of his development, by embodying
his concept of himself in his outward existence. Hence man's moral life
and his intellectual life lead him both alike to his two-fold nature,
perception (immediate experience) and thought. The intellectual life
overcomes his two-fold nature by means of knowledge, the moral life
succeeds through the actual realisation of the free spirit. Every
being has its inborn concept (the laws of its being and action),
but in external objects this concept is indissolubly bound up with
the percept, and separated from it only in the organisation of human
minds. In human beings concept and percept are, at first, actually
separated, to be just as actually reunited by them. Someone might
object that to our percept of a man there corresponds at every moment
of his life a definite concept, just as with external objects. I can
construct for myself the concept of an average man, and I may also
have given to me a percept to fit this pattern. Suppose now I add to
this the concept of a free spirit, then I have two concepts for the
same object.
Such an objection is one-sided. As object of perception I am subject
to perpetual change. As a child I was one thing, another as a youth,
yet another as a man. Moreover, at every moment I am different, as
percept, from what I was the moment before. These changes may take
place in such a way that either it is always only the same (average)
man who exhibits himself in them, or that they represent the expression
of a free spirit. Such are the changes which my actions, as objects
of perception, undergo.
In the perceptual object "man" there is given the possibility of
transformation, just as in the plant-seed there lies the possibility
of growth into a fully developed plant. The plant transforms itself
in growth, because of the objective law of nature which is inherent
in it. The human being remains in his undeveloped state, unless he
takes hold of the material for transformation within him and develops
himself through his own energy. Nature makes of man merely a natural
being; Society makes of him a being who acts in obedience to law; only
he himself can make a free man of himself. At a definite stage in his
development Nature releases man from her fetters; Society carries his
development a step further; he alone can give himself the final polish.
The theory of free morality, then, does not assert that the free spirit
is the only form in which man can exist. It looks upon the freedom of
the spirit only as the last stage in man's evolution. This is not to
deny that conduct in obedience to norms has its legitimate place as a
stage in development. The point is that we cannot acknowledge it to be
the absolute standpoint in morality. For the free spirit transcends
norms, in the sense that he is insensible to them as commands, but
regulates his conduct in accordance with his impulses (intuitions).
When Kant apostrophises duty: "Duty! Thou sublime and mighty name,
that dost embrace nothing charming or insinuating, but requirest
submission," thou that "holdest forth a law ... before which all
inclinations are dumb, even though they secretly counterwork it," [6]
then the free spirit replies: "Freedom! thou kindly and humane name,
which dost embrace within thyself all that is morally most charming,
all that insinuates itself most into my humanity, and which makest
me the servant of nobody, which holdest forth no law, but waitest
what my inclination itself will proclaim as law, because it resists
every law that is forced upon it."
This is the contrast of morality according to law and according
to freedom.
The philistine who looks upon the State as embodied morality is sure
to look upon the free spirit as a danger to the State. But that is
only because his view is narrowly focused on a limited period of
time. If he were able to look beyond, he would soon find that it is
but on rare occasions that the free spirit needs to go beyond the
laws of his state, and that it never needs to confront them with any
real contradiction. For the laws of the state, one and all, have had
their origin in the intuitions of free spirits, just like all other
objective laws of morality. There is no traditional law enforced by
the authority of a family, which was not, once upon a time, intuitively
conceived and laid down by an ancestor. Similarly the conventional laws
of morality are first of all established by particular men, and the
laws of the state are always born in the brain of a statesman. These
free spirits have set up laws over the rest of mankind, and only he is
unfree who forgets this origin and makes them either divine commands,
or objective moral duties, or--falsely mystical--the authoritative
voice of his own conscience.
He, on the other hand, who does not forget the origin of laws, but
looks for it in man, will respect them as belonging to the same world
of ideas which is the source also of his own moral intuitions. If he
thinks his intuitions better than the existing laws, he will try to
put them into the place of the latter. If he thinks the laws justified,
he will act in accordance with them as if they were his own intuitions.
Man does not exist in order to found a moral order of the world. Anyone
who maintains that he does, stands in his theory of man still at
that same point, at which natural science stood when it believed
that a bull has horns in order that it may butt. Scientists, happily,
have cast the concept of objective purposes in nature into the limbo
of dead theories. For Ethics, it is more difficult to achieve the
same emancipation. But just as horns do not exist for the sake of
butting, but butting because of horns, so man does not exist for the
sake of morality, but morality exists through man. The free man acts
morally because he has a moral idea, he does not act in order to be
moral. Human individuals are the presupposition of a moral world order.
The human individual is the fountain of all morality and the centre of
all life. State and society exist only because they have necessarily
grown out of the life of individuals. That state and society, in turn,
should react upon the lives of individuals, is no more difficult to
comprehend, than that the butting which is the result of the existence
of horns, reacts in turn upon the further development of the horns,
which would become atrophied by prolonged disuse. Similarly, the
individual must degenerate if he leads an isolated existence beyond
the pale of human society. That is just the reason why the social
order arises, viz., that it may react favourably upon the individual.
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