Herbart analyzes this chain into three main parts. First, there is virtue as “the picture of a beautiful reality”, belonging to imagination, dream, and fantasy, in which the need for intervening in reality is lacking: the Ideas are simply assumed as universally effective (SW II: 417–18). Second, the need to act arises, and the striving will encounters obstacles even within the sphere of thought.  Finally, we really act, and try to realize the beautiful world of thought (SW II: 418). While social reality hampers the achievement of virtue, the individual, conscious of his inner freedom, must try to find all possible avenues towards moral fulfillment (Weiss 1928: 156).  It is in preparing the individual for a life of moral action that education is required.