II. The Physical World and the Moral-Spiritual Impulses

Every motive by which man rouses himself to activity, be it an inner or external process, finds its outlet in action and not in mere passive endurance. But every time action takes place, even if only in thinking that contains the initiative for action, a physical process takes place. Just as physical thinking gives rise to a process in the brain, and physical speech a modified breathing-process, so in the action prompted by the initiative of the will-forces we have to do with an inner process, a process which can be likened to that destruction of material substances which we observe in all processes of combustion.