X. Monism and the Philosophy of Spiritual Activity

Monism will have to admit the partial justification of Naive Realism, with which it agrees in admitting the justification of the world of percepts. He who is incapable of producing moral Ideas through intuition must receive them from others. In so far as a man receives his moral principles from without he is actually unfree. But Monism ascribes to the Idea the same importance as to the percept. The Idea can manifest itself in the human individual. In so far as man follows the impulses coming from this side he feels himself to be free. But Monism denies all justification to Metaphysics which merely draws inferences, and consequently also to the impulses of action which are derived from so-called “Beings-in-themselves.” According to the Monistic view, man's action is unfree when he obeys some perceptible external compulsion; it is free when he obeys none but himself. There is no room in Monism for any kind of unconscious compulsion hidden behind percept and concept. If anybody maintains of the action of a fellow-man that it has not been freely done, he is bound to point out within the perceptible world the thing or the person or the institution which has caused the agent to act. And if he supports his contention by an appeal to causes of action lying outside the perceptible or spiritually real world, then Monism must decline to take account of such an assertion.