180 Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path
CHAPTER 12
MORAL IMAGINATION
(Darwinism and Ethics)
Free spirits act out of their impulses—that is, from intui-
tions chosen by thinking from the totality of their world
of ideas. The reason thatunfree spirits separate particular
intuitions from their world of ideas, to make them the ba-
sis of an action, lies in what theperceptualworld has giv-
en them—that is, in their previous experiences. Before
coming to a decision, unfree spirits remember what
someone did, or recommended, or what God commanded
in such a case, and so forth. Then they act accordingly.
Free spirits have other sources of action than these pre-
conditions. They make absolutely original decisions.
They worry neither about what others have done in their
situation, nor about what they have been commanded to
do. Purely conceptual reasons move them to select a par-
ticular concept from the sum of their concepts and trans-
late it into action. Their action, however, belongs to
perceptible reality. What they perform there will thus be
identical to a quite specific perceptual content. The con-
cept will have to realize itself in a concrete, individual
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