Psychological Aphorisms

In economic life, man is raised above animality by the fact that he transforms the instinct-determined economy of animals into one that is soul-determined. The animal remains within the determination of nature with its organization of labor and its accumulation of capital. Man first elevates the organization of labor to the level of soul-determination. He cannot do this completely with the natural basis of the economy. But because his instincts do not work with the same power as those of animals, a part of economic life disappears from his conscious economic organization, just as the ultra-red parts of the spectrum disappear from the effect of illumination. It can therefore be seen how the knowledge of the natural given in economic life is not fully transparent to the national economy built on consciousness. The organization of labor belongs to the light of consciousness, as does the middle part of the spectrum. The accumulation of capital and its effects, however, elude conscious thought. What arises economically in the world as the effects of capital goes beyond the scope of ordinary economic thinking, as the ultraviolet part of the spectrum goes beyond light. — Economic science strives beyond the ordinary scientific methods like the spectrum beyond its light part. — One will therefore need a striving for knowledge to a complete economic science, which finds the spirit in the instincts of nature and the transition to nature-like facts in the soul-determined capital effects.