The Origin of an Action

The value or non-value of an action was inferred from its consequences. In the last ten thousand years, on certain large portions of the earth, one has gradually got so far that one no longer lets the consequences of an action but its origin decide with regard to its worth. Is it not possible that we may be standing on the threshold of a period which, to begin with, would be distinguished negatively as ultra-moral? Nowadays, at least among us immoralists, the suspicion arises that the decisive value of an action lies precisely in that which is not intentional. The first attempt at self-knowledge is thereby made. And, assuredly, an inversion affected only after long struggle