I. Conscious Human Action

I do not mean to imply that all our active doing springs only from the sober deliberations of our reason. I am very far from calling only those actions “human” in the highest sense, which proceed from abstract judgments. But as soon as our conduct rises above the sphere of the satisfaction of purely animal desires, our motives are always permeated by thoughts. Love, pity, and patriotism are springs of action which cannot be analysed away into cold concepts of the understanding. It is said that here the heart, the mood of the soul, hold sway. This is no doubt true. But the heart and the mood of the soul do not create the motives. They presuppose them and let them enter. Pity enters my heart when the representation of a person who arouses pity comes forward in my consciousness. The way to the heart is through the head. Love is no exception. Whenever it is not merely the expression of bare sexual instinct, it depends on the representation we form of the loved one. And the more idealistic these representations are, just so much the more blessed is our love. Here, too, thought is the father of feeling. It is said that love makes us blind to the failings of the loved one. But the opposite view can be taken, namely, that it is precisely for the good points that love opens the eyes. Many pass by these good points without notice. One, however, perceives them, and just because he does, love awakens in his soul. What else has he done except to have achieved a representation of what hundreds have failed to see? Love is not theirs, because they lack the representation.