We have so far been discussing the ideal of the many-sidedness; the many-sided person and the person of character is one and the same, though regarded from different perspectives (PS I: 199; SW II: 89; cf. SW IV, esp. “Pädagogisches Gutachten usw.”: 519, ff). Herbart is particularly concerned with moral character, and its virtues of stability, hardness (Härte), and invulnerability. He wants to show that a many-sided interest serves moral character, and how pedagogy devoted to the former contributes to moral education (Weiss 1928: 211). For Herbart, (moral) character, like all spiritual (geistig) aspects of human life, is not a natural given, but a gradual acquisition. Psychologically speaking, it is the will that in the young child is stamped through repeated interaction with the outer world, settling into “uniform and stable [ways] in which [it pursues] certain goals while excluding others”; thus, the will becomes character (Weiss 1928: 211; cf. SW II: 90).