The argument of this chapter is open to misapprehension by those who
obstinately insist on the apparent objection, that the will, as such,
is the irrational factor in man, and that its irrationality should
be exhibited in order to make man see, that the goal of his moral
endeavour ought to be his ultimate emancipation from will. Precisely
such an illusory objection has been brought against me by a competent
critic who urged that it is the business of the philosopher to
make good what animals and most men thoughtlessly forget, viz., to
strike a genuine balance of life's account. But the objection ignores
precisely the main point. If freedom is to be realised, the will in
human nature must be sustained by intuitive thinking. At the same
time we find that the will may also be determined by factors other
than intuition, and that morality and its work can have no other root
than the free realisation of intuition issuing from man's essential
nature. Ethical Individualism is well fitted to exhibit morality in
its full dignity. It does not regard true morality as the outward
conformity of the will to a norm. Morality, for it, consists in the
actions which issue from the unfolding of man's moral will as an
integral part of his whole nature, so that immorality appears to man
as a stunting and crippling of his nature.