ABSTRACT
An intimate knowledge of the potentialities of the self is the root of all ethical action. The crux of the matter for Viereck is that the knowledge required for ethical action is only acquired through concrete introspection, not metaphysical speculation. Ethical action is neither haphazard nor spontaneous but the result of constant, concentrated, introspective effort. For Babbitt and Viereck, "Civilization is something that must be deliberately willed; it is not something that gushes up spontaneously from the depths of the unconscious. Plato's Republic provides several classic examples of inner action. For Viereck, the vitality of civilization rests upon our keen recognition, not only of the baser potentialities of human nature but also of the sole viable means of controlling them: the imagination. The conservation of a humane political order, as it were, requires the vital incarnation of goodness, truth, and beauty in the personality through the ethical vision of the moral imagination.
