The question as to in which direction the spiritual life moves in man is implied through our whole investigation, and in it receives an answer. Nevertheless, it requires to be definitely stated and treated by itself, so that the distinctive character of the movement and its influence in the moulding of life may be fully acknowledged. It has become clearly evident to us that an independent and, therefore, genuine spiritual life cannot arise out of life in its usual condition, but only in opposition to this condition. For, however little this condition of life may lack spiritual elements, they are mixed and bound up with other elements far too much to be able to bind themselves immediately into a whole, and to display an independent power. That the spiritual life must and can gain a basis independent of this condition of life is the indispensable, fundamental idea of Idealism. But such attainment of independence of the usual condition would help little if the spiritual life which is based upon itself had not a particular nature of its own, and if from this it did not oppose everything alien and partly alien to itself. The doctrines of innate ideas, of an _a priori_, and so on, which have occupied humanity for thousands of years did not intend anything different from this. The details of the conception of these were indeed often open to criticism: it was sought to exhibit individual conceptions and propositions as existing complete at the beginning, where rather movements or tendencies are in question, which can find their realisation only within the work of life. Again, the _a priori_ was limited to the intellectual sphere, whereas it is indispensable to all spiritual activity; for example, how can morality, rising above merely natural preservation and rejecting all mere utility, as it does, be conceived without such an _a priori_? To deny to spiritual life an original nature and power--an _a priori_ in this more comprehensive sense--means nothing else than to eliminate that life as an independent factor, and to reduce it to the position of a secondary product. For without an original nature the spiritual life would be like soft wax that may be shaped in one form or another to suit our own pleasure: then the spiritual life could not possibly follow its own aims, could not possibly attain to an independence in the inner life, in which we recognised the characteristic nature of the inner life. As certain as it is that there is a spiritual life at all, so certainly does it bring certain fundamental tendencies and movements with it; as surely as it develops in particular directions--and that it does this we have seen--so surely is this _a priori_ also differentiated. To trace this fundamental state of spiritual activity in all its relations and multiplicity is an especially important task of philosophic research.