[409] development of one’s unique individual potentialities, in the process of one's life. This is the second reason for the humanistic^a ideal of education^b. Then there is a third one: man, because of his central position in the universe, is able to decide autonomously, by the law^c of the structure of mind^d and universe^e which is embodied in him, about the true and the good. Man in the power of his autonomous reason controls world and nature and society. "Autonomous" means: the law is in himself. Please don’t misunderstand that word--I must say that now for 50 years, each time, because of the distortion the concept^f of autonomy has suffered in Neo-Orthodox theology, where it has been identified with individual willfulness. "Autonomous" is, as the Greek word nomos indicates, subjection to the law of the universe which is embodied in man and reality as a whole. Autonomy in Kant is just the opposite of willfulness: Kant construes willfulness as heteronomy, as dependent on one's whims, desires, fears,

anxiety, etc. That’s heteronomy, and that's used by ecclesiastical and political authorities in order to impose STRANGE laws, HETERONOMOUS laws, upon people. Nothing of this is implied in the concept of autonomy. So we have these three ideas: 1) Man can recognize the law of the universe^g in himself and in his world. 2) Man is a unique individual, actualizing unique potentialities, irrepeatably [sic.]. 3) And man is the microcosm^h in whom all the levels and dimensions of reality are united. This immediately gives to the problem of educationⁱ a definite content: make actual what is potential in man; help him to come to autonomy; help him to develop his individual potentialities; help him to mirror the universe in his mind. In the periods in which it was first conceived, this humanistic idea of course demanded, and partly carried through, a very special form of education--the private, aristocratic education, as Rousseau in his Émile (and others) demanded, an education in which the educator concentrates