[439] Now when you have these three concepts^a of the individual, it would be good if you always keep them asunder and don’t fall into the many traps and confusions which will immediately follow if you confuse them, if you don’t keep them asunder. I come now to another concept, the concept of person, or personality^b. The person arises on the basis of the individual human being. There are also legal persons, such as corporations, but we can leave them out for our present considerations and concentrate on person as something-- I will say immediately what--which rises on the basis of individual human existence. What is that?

When we discussed morality as one of the functions of man's spiritual life--in the beginning of this section of our lectures--we said morality^c is the totality of those acts in which an individual person sets itself, or establishes itself, as an individual person. This was the general definition of morality, in order to avoid the distorted form of morality that it is obedience to a set of laws^d whereby one would ask "Why?" "Where do the laws come from?" "Why do I have to be obedient to them?" If, however, we say that the principle of morality is the principle of the

self-establishment of the persona as persona, then the situation is different; then it isn’t estranged law; then it is WE OURSELVES who are centrally involved in the acts of morality. Persona--person: where does it come from? The word has a long history^e, and it is very important to know it in order especially to avoid pitfalls in the philosophy of religion^f and calling God^g "a Person"--which some people still do, in popular nonsense. But if we are clear what persona means, then we would avoid such a thing.