220 Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path
extirpation of all striving for pleasure so that bloodless,
abstract ideas can assert their dominance unchallenged
by a strong yearning for enjoyment in life. Ethics is based
onstrong will, borne by conceptual intuitions, that attains
its goal even if the path is thorny.
Ethical ideas spring from human moral imagination.
Their realization depends upon their being desired
strongly enough to overcome pain and suffering. Ethical
ideals arehuman intuitions, the driving forces that our
own spirit harnesses. Wewant them because their realiza-
tion is our highest pleasure. We do not need ethics to for-
bid us to strive for pleasure and then tell us what we
should strive for. We shall strive for ethical ideals if our
moral imagination is active enough to endow us with in-
tuitions that give our willing the strength to make its way
against the obstacles—including the unavoidable pain—
lying within our organization.
Those who strive toward ideals of sublime greatness do
so because such ideals are the content of their being, and
to realize them brings an enjoyment compared with
which the pleasure that pettiness derives from satisfying
everyday drives is trivial. Idealistsrevel spiritually in the
transformation of their ideals into reality.
Whoever would extirpate the pleasure in fulfilling hu-
man longing must first make humans into slaves who act
not because they want to, but only because they ought to.
For the achievement of what we want gives pleasure.
What is called “the Good,” is not what weought to do, but
what wewantto do when we express our full, true human
nature. Those who do not recognize this must first drive
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