quote · Legacy record
Man is not better treated by nature in his first start than her other works are; so long as he is unable to act for himself as an independent intelligence she acts for him. But the very fact that constitutes him a man is that he does not remain stationary, where nature has placed him, that he can pass with his reason, retracing the steps nature had made him anticipate, that he can convert the work of necessity into one of free solution, and elevate physical necessity into a moral law.
Man is not better treated by nature in his first start than her other works are; so long as he is unable to act for himself as an independent intelligence she acts for him. But the very fact that constitutes him a man is that he does not remain stationary, where nature has placed him, that he can pass with his reason, retracing the steps nature had made him anticipate, that he can convert the work of necessity into one of free solution, and elevate physical necessity into a moral law.
Approximate author period: c. 1782 AD · early modern
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- Author or tradition
- Friedrich Schiller
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1782 AD · early modern
author lifetime midpoint (1759–1805)
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 244512; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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