222 Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path
such ideals are wanted by human beings just as we want
satisfaction of the so-called animal drives.
There is no denying that the views sketched here may
easily be misunderstood. Immature people, with no moral
imagination, like to see the instincts of their own half-de-
veloped natures as the full content of humanity and dis-
miss all ethical ideals not of their own making, so that
they can “express themselves” undisturbed. It is obvious
that what is right for the complete human being does not
apply to half-developed human nature. What we would
expect of mature human beings cannot also be expected
of those who still need to be educated for their ethical na-
ture to pierce the husk of their lower passions. But I have
not tried to show here what must be impressed on an un-
evolved human being, but rather what lies within the na-
ture of a mature human being. The goal was to
demonstrate the possibility of freedom, and freedom does
not appear in acts based on sensory or psychic constraint,
but in acts borne by spiritual intuitions.
Mature human beings assign themselves their own val-
ue. They do not strive for pleasure, handed to them as a
gift of grace by nature or by the creator; nor do they fulfill
an abstract duty that they recognize as such after having
renounced the striving for pleasure. They act as they want
to—that is, according to the standard of their ethical intu-
itions—and they feel their true joy in life to be the
achievement of what they want. They determine the value
of life by comparing what has been achieved with what
was attempted. The ethics that replaces want with
should—that replaces inclination with duty—logically
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