ABSTRACT
In the last ten thousand years, however, one has reached the point, step by step, in a few large regions on the earth, where it is no longer the consequences but the origin of an action that one allows to decide its value. The intention as the whole origin and prehistory of an action-almost to the present day this prejudice dominated moral praise, blame, judgment, and philosophy on earth. In short, we believe that the intention is merely a sign and symptom that still requires interpretation moreover, a sign that means too much and therefore, taken by itself alone, almost nothing. We believe that morality in the traditional sense, the morality of intentions, was a prejudice, precipitate and perhaps provisional-something on the order of astrology and alchemy-but in any case something that must be overcome. Words are acoustical signs for concepts; concepts, however, are more or less definite image signs for often recurring and associated sensations, for groups of sensations.
