In the second part of this book the attempt has been made to justify
the conviction that freedom is to be found in human conduct as it
really is. For this purpose it was necessary to sort out, from the
whole sphere of human conduct, those actions with respect to which
unprejudiced self-observation may appropriately speak of freedom. These
are the actions which appear as realisations of ideal intuitions. No
other actions will be called free by an unprejudiced observer. However,
open-minded self-observation compels man to regard himself as endowed
with the capacity for progress on the road towards ethical intuitions
and their realisation. Yet this open-minded observation of the ethical
nature of man is, by itself, insufficient to constitute the final court
of appeal for the question of freedom. For, suppose intuitive thinking
had itself sprung from some other essence; suppose its essence were
not grounded in itself, then the consciousness of freedom, which issues
from moral conduct, would prove to be a mere illusion. But the second
part of this book finds its natural support in the first part, which
presents intuitive thinking as an inward spiritual activity which man
experiences as such. To appreciate through experience this essence
of thinking is equivalent to recognising the freedom of intuitive
thinking. And once we know that this thinking is free, we know also
the sphere within which will may be called free. We shall regard man
as a free agent, if on the basis of inner experience we may attribute
to the life of intuitive thinking a self-sustaining essence. Whoever
cannot do this will be unable to discover any wholly unassailable
road to the belief in freedom. The experience to which we here refer
reveals in consciousness intuitive thinking, the reality of which
does not depend merely on our being conscious of it. Freedom, too,
is thereby revealed as the characteristic of all actions which issue
from the intuitions of consciousness.