"We cannot ask: are human beings free? In terms of what nature gives us, we are not free, but we can become increasingly free by awakening forces that lie dormant within us, forces that nature does not awaken for us.The appropriate question is not whether human beings are free, but simply, is there a way for human beings to acquire freedom? And yes, there is a way. Thirty years ago, I attempted to show that when we progress to the point of developing an inner life in which we grasp the ethical motivation for our actions in pure thoughts, we can then attribute our actions to real thought-impulses, not simply to instinctive emotions.Such thoughts merge with outer reality as lover and beloved become one. When this happens, we approach freedom. Freedom, therefore, is as much the child of thought (conceived in spiritual clairvoyance rather than under outer duress) as the child of true, devoted love for the object of one's actions.This is what German culture was striving for through Schiller when he opposed Kant and sensed something of this freedom. We would do well to continue to cultivate it today. It became apparent to me, however, that we can speak only about what underlies moral actions—a foundation that does exist, although people remain unconscious ¹".
1) Rudolf Steiner 1919.
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