156 Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path
their fellows, but they expect it, because it is inherent in
human nature. This is not meant to indicate the necessity
of this or that outer arrangement. Rather, it is meant to in-
dicate theattitude, thestate of the soul, with which a hu-
man being, experiencing himself or herself amidst
esteemed fellow human beings, can best do justice to hu-
man dignity.
There are many who will object: The concept of thefree
human being that you sketch is a chimera; it has been real-
ized nowhere. We have to deal with real people, and the
only morality to hope for in them comes when human be-
ings obey an ethical commandment, when they formulate
their ethical task as duty and do not freely follow their in-
clinations and their love. I do not doubt this at all. Only a
blind man could. But if this is supposed to be thefinal in-
sight, then away with all hypocrisy about “ethics.” You
should then simply say that, as long as human nature is not
free, it must beforced into action. From a certain stand-
point, it is irrelevant whether unfreedom is enforced
through physical means or through moral laws, whether
humans are unfree because they obey their limitless sexual
drive or because they are enchained by conventional mo-
rality. But let us not claim that people can correctly call
their actionstheir own, if they are driven to them by a pow-
er other than themselves. Still, right in the midst of com-
pulsion, certain human beings lift themselves up,free
spirits, who, in the welter of custom, legal stricture, reli-
gious practice, and so forth, findthemselves. They arefree
to the extent that they obey only themselves; they areun-
free to the extent that they subject themselves to something
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