THREE tremendous advantages that the free spirit has over his fellow human beings are those of resourcefulness, creativity and imagination. The latter, in particular, fulfils a very important role.

Unlike those whose actions are informed by the ideas that are given to them by others, i.e. solely through inherited percepts that form part of the memory, the free spirit selects his ideas on the basis of thought:

His decision is absolutely original. He cares as little what others have done in such a case as what commands they have laid down. He has purely ideal (logical) reasons which determine him to select a particular concept out of the sum of his concepts, and to realise it in action. But his action will belong to perceptible reality. Consequently, what he achieves will coincide with a definite content of perception. His concept will have to be realised in a concrete particular event. As a concept it will not contain this event as particular. It will refer to the event only in its generic character, just as, in general, a concept is related to a percept, e.g., the concept lion to a particular lion. The link between concept and percept is the idea. (p.100)

In the absence of freedom, on the other hand, an individual simply receives the link between a percept and a concept in the form of a motive that already lies deep in his consciousness and which has been shaped either by watching others behave or blindly following existing laws and strictures. In the case of the latter, Steiner explains, rules

have less value for telling men positively what to do than for telling them what to leave undone. Laws take on the form of universal concepts only when they forbid actions, not when they prescribe actions. Laws concerning what we ought to do must be given to the unfree spirit in wholly concrete form. Clean the street in front of your door! Pay your taxes to such and such an amount to the tax-collector! etc. Conceptual form belongs to laws which inhibit actions. Thou shalt not steal! Thou shalt not commit adultery! But these laws, too, influence the unfree spirit only by means of a concrete idea, e.g., the idea of the punishments attached by human authority, or of the pangs of conscience, or of eternal damnation, etc. (p.100)

Those considered more productive on the basis of employing thought for the purposes of autonomous spiritual activity, are said by Steiner to be practicing a form of “moral imagination”. Conversely, the individual who promulgates morality in a purely secondhand fashion – i.e. by repeating the established directives of a religious tradition – are considered “morally unproductive” in the way that one might lecture others on art without ever applying oneself to a canvas.

To utilise the moral imagination means taking hold of percepts and shaping them in accordance with one’s own individual character, a process that involves transforming the law of an object – or mode of action – into something new. This does not, however, mean ignoring or overlooking the natural laws which govern the object itself:

This ability is moral technique. It may be learnt in the same sense in which science in general may be learnt. For, in general, men are better able to find concepts for the world as it is, than productively to originate out of their imaginations future, and as yet non-existing, actions. Hence, it is very well possible for men without moral imagination to receive moral ideas from others, and to embody these skilfully in the actual world. Vice versa, it may happen that men with moral imagination lack technical skill, and are dependent on the service of other men for the realisation of their ideas. (p.101)

It is through the natural sciences that we acquire knowledge of those objects upon which we are intending to act, although Steiner is keen to point out that moral laws only come into being when we ourselves create them. Whilst the laws of nature have already been codified, the fact that moral laws are passed down from one generation to another should not imply that they are “fixed” in the same way and therefore in a state of authentic individual freedom the “moral agent” shapes his or her own set of laws.

Inevitably, Steiner’s discussion of naturalism brings us on to the question of evolution and this is interpreted as nothing other than things developing out of something that was prior in accordance with natural law. Whilst the notion that we have the capability to produce our own moral laws appears to conflict with this theory, Steiner argues, it remains consistent if one is prepared to accept that things operate differently in relation to Ethics. Indeed, although it impossible to distinguish the connection between later moral concepts and those which appeared earlier, it would be foolish to suggest that a new “moral idea” can be gleaned from those earlier concepts because we ourselves are responsible for creating them:

This content, thus produced, is for Ethics a datum, as much as reptiles are a datum for Natural Science. Reptiles have evolved out of the Proto-Amniotes, but the scientist cannot manufacture the concept of reptiles out of the concept of the Proto-Amniotes. Later moral ideas evolve out of the earlier ones, but Ethics cannot manufacture out of the moral principles of an earlier age those of a later one. The confusion is due to the fact that, as scientists, we start with the facts before us, and then make a theory about them, whereas in moral action we first produce the facts ourselves, and then theorise about them. In the evolution of the moral world-order we accomplish what, at a lower level, Nature accomplishes: we alter some part of the perceptual world. Hence the ethical norm cannot straightway be made an object of knowledge, like a law of nature, for it must first be created. Only when that has been done can the norm become an object of knowledge. (p.103)

The way in which evolutionists approach existing facts, therefore, is quite different to the generative process that takes place within the sphere of Ethical Individualism. Steiner is fully prepared to accept that the moral ideas we receive from our forebears have value, but at the same time it is imperative for humans to produce their own.

Of course, the fact that evolution rejects metaphysics and is based purely on materialistic principles means that it adopts a similar approach with regard to morality and will only accept those moral principles which, entirely devoid of the supernatural, can only be obtained from the exterior world. Nonetheless, for Steiner moral action is fully compatible with evolutionary method:

The consistent Evolutionist does not easily fall a prey to such a narrow-minded view. He cannot let the process of evolution terminate with the ape, and acknowledge for man a supernatural origin. Again, he cannot stop short at the organic reactions of man and regard only these as natural. He has to treat also the life of moral self-determination as the continuation of organic life. The Evolutionist, then, in accordance with his fundamental principles, can maintain only that moral action evolves out of the less perfect forms of natural processes. He must leave the characterisation of action, i.e., its determination as free action, to the immediate observation of each agent. All that he maintains is only that men have developed out of non-human ancestors. What the nature of men actually is must be determined by observation of men themselves. The results of this observation cannot possibly contradict the history of evolution. Only the assertion that the results are such as to exclude their being due to a natural world-order would contradict recent developments in the Natural Sciences. (p.104)

This is a very clear example of how the spiritual science inherit within the Steinerian worldview is said to accord with the natural sciences themselves, even maintaining the fundamental principle of freedom by allowing the individual to first observe and then act.

Contrary to Hamerling’s earlier contention that freedom is based merely on the idea that a man can do whatever he wants and yet “cannot will what he wills” on account of his will being determined by motives (see Part Two of this series), Steiner insists that true freedom lies in possessing the ability to determine the motives of “one’s volitions”. After all, to succumb to the will of others – either through received moral tradition or in general – results in the denial of freedom itself.

One way of exerting control over others is through psychology and although many of us are familiar with the notion that it is possible for the human body to be in a state of enslavement whilst the mind is still free, Steiner argues in favour of preserving this most sacred realm of the self:

Not until they enslave my spirit, drive my motives out of my head, and put their own motives in the place of mine, do they really aim at making me unfree. That is the reason why the church attacks not only the mere doing, but especially the impure thoughts, i.e., motives of my action. And for the church all those motives are impure which she has not herself authorised. A church does not produce genuine slaves until her priests turn themselves into advisers of consciences, i.e., until the faithful depend upon the church, i.e., upon the confessional, for the motives of their actions. (p.105)

Little wonder, then, that so many totalitarian regimes have been centred on the idea of manipulating the mind in order to drive out the last vestiges of individuality. Be it the mass terror of Soviet Russia, the medical experimentation of Nazi Germany or the so-called “transhumanist” architects of today, the only way in which to retain the principle of freedom is to protect and cultivate the free spirit.