The Idea of Freedom 143have become so firmly connected in our consciousness
with mental pictures of certain situations in life that we
may, in any given instance, skip over all deliberation
based on experience and go immediately from the percept
into willing.
The highest stage of individual life is conceptual think-
ing without reference to a specific perceptual content. We
determine the content of a concept out of the conceptual
sphere through pure intuition. Such a concept initially
contains no reference to specific percepts. If we enter into
willing under the influence of a concept referring to a per-
cept—that is to say, a mental picture—then it is this per-
cept that determines our willing through the detour of
conceptual thinking. If we act under the influence of intu-
itions, then the motive power of our action ispure think-
ing. Since it is customary in philosophy to designate the
capacity for pure thinking as “reason,” we are fully justi-
fied in calling the moral driving force characteristic of
this stagepractical reason. The clearest account of this
motive force of the will has been given by Kreyenbuehl.^4
I count his essay on the topic among the most significant
creations of contemporary philosophy, particularly of
ethics. Kreyenbuehl calls the motive power in question
4.Philosophische Monatshefte, Band XVIII, Heft 3, 1882. Available
as Kreyenbuehl,Ethical-Spiritual Activity in Kant(translated by
Harold Jurgens), Spring Valley: Mercury Press, 1986.Kreyenbuehl
(1846–1929) was a Swiss scholar, teacher, journalist, seeker after
truth, and lecturer on Platonic philosophy. He wrote, among others,
on Schiller, Plato, Pestalozzi, the Gospel of Saint John, and the his-
tory of philosophy.