The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Human life swings between work and idleness. The activity we are to discuss today, known as asceticism, is regarded either as work or as idleness according to the preconceptions of one person or another. An objective, unbiased study, such as Spiritual Science demands, is impossible unless we observe how what is called asceticism—in the highest sense excluding misuse of the word—influences human life, and either helps or harms it.

It is quite natural that most people today should have a somewhat false idea of what the word asceticism ought to mean. In its original Greek form it could apply as well to an athlete as to an ascetic. But in our time the word has acquired a particular colouring from the form taken by this way of life during the Middle Ages; and for many people the word has the flavour that Schopenhauer gave it in the 19th century.³⁵ Today the word is again acquiring a certain colouring through the manifold influences of oriental philosophy and religion, particularly through what the West usually calls Buddhism. Our task in this lecture is to find the true origin in human nature of asceticism; and Spiritual Science, as characterised in previous lectures, is called upon to bring clarity into this discussion, the more so because its own outlook is connected with the original meaning of the Greek word, askesis.

Spiritual Science and spiritual research, as they have been represented here for some years, take a quite definite attitude towards human nature. They start from the postulate that at no stage in the evolution of mankind is it justifiable to say that here or there are the limits of human knowledge. The usual way of putting the question, “What can man know, and what can he not know?”, is for Spiritual Science misdirected. It does not ask what man can know at a certain stage in his evolution; or what the boundaries of knowledge are at that stage; or what remains hidden because at that time human cognition cannot penetrate it. All these matters are not its immediate concern; for Spiritual Science takes its stand on the firm ground of evolution, in particular the evolution of human soul-forces. It says that the human soul can develop. As in the seed of a plant the future plant sleeps and is called forth by the forces within the seed and those which work on it from without, so are hidden forces and capacities always sleeping in the human soul. What we cannot know at one stage of development we may know later, when we have advanced a little in developing our spiritual faculties.

Which are the forces that we can develop in ourselves for a deeper understanding of the world and the attainment of an ever-wider horizon? That is the question asked by Spiritual Science. It does not ask where the boundaries of our knowledge are, but how man can surpass the bounds that exist at any given period by developing his capacities. Not through vague talk, but in a quite definite way, it shows how man can surpass the cognitive faculties that have been bestowed on him by an evolutionary process in which his own consciousness has not participated. In the first instance, these faculties are concerned only with the world perceived by our senses and grasped by our reason. But by means of the forces latent in the soul, man is able to penetrate into the worlds which are at first not open to the senses and cannot be reached by a reason bound up with the senses. In order that we may from the beginning avoid the charge of vagueness, I will describe quite briefly what you will find given fully in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds: How is it Achieved?

When we speak of passing beyond the ordinary bounds of knowledge, we must take care not to wander off into the blue, but rather find our way from the solid ground under our feet into a new world. How is it to be done?

In the normal human being of today, we have an alternation of the two conditions called “waking” and “sleeping”.³⁶ Without going into details, we may say that for ordinary knowledge the difference lies in this, that while man is awake, his senses and the sense-bound intellect are under constant stimulus. It is this stimulus which wakens his external cognition, and during waking hours he is given up to the external sense-world. In sleep we are removed from that world. A simple logical consideration shows that it is not irrational for Spiritual Science to maintain that there is something in human nature which separates itself during sleep from what we usually call the human body. We know that for Spiritual Science the physical body, which can be seen with the eyes and touched with the hand, is only part of man. He has a second part, the so-called etheric or life-body. When we are asleep, the physical and etheric bodies remain in bed, and we separate from them what we call the consciousness body or—don't be put off by the terminology—the astral body, the bearer of desire and pain, pleasure and sorrow, of impulse and passion. In addition we have a fourth part, one which makes man the crown of earthly creation: the ego. These last two parts split off during sleep from the physical and the etheric bodies. A simple consideration, as I said, can teach us that it is not irrational for Spiritual Science to declare that what we have as pleasure and pain, or as the ego's power of judgment, cannot vanish during the night and be reborn anew every morning, but must remain in existence. Think, if you will, of this withdrawal of the astral body and the ego as a mere picture; in any case it is undeniable that the ego and the astral body withdraw from what we call the physical and the etheric bodies.

Now the peculiar thing is that these inmost parts of the human being, the astral body and the ego, within which we live through what we call soul-experience, sink down during sleep into an indefinite obscurity. But this means simply that this inmost part of the human being needs the stimulus of the external world if it is to be conscious of itself and of the external world. Hence we can say that at the moment of falling asleep, when this stimulus ceases, man cannot develop consciousness in himself. But if, in the normal course of his existence, a human being were able so to stimulate the inner parts of his being, so to fill them with energy and inner life, that he had a consciousness of them even when there were no sense-impressions and the sense-bound intellect was inactive and free from the stimulus of the external world, he would then be able to perceive other things than those which come through the stimulus of the senses. However strange and paradoxical it may sound, it is true that if a man could reproduce a condition which on the one hand resembles sleep, and yet is essentially different from it on the other, he could reach super-sensible knowledge. His condition would resemble sleep in not depending on any external stimulus; the difference would be that he would not sink into unconsciousness but would unfold a vivid inner life.

As may be shown from spiritual-scientific experience, man can come to such a condition: a condition of clairvoyance, if the word is not misused, as it so often is today. I will give you briefly one example of the numerous inner exercises through which this condition can be attained.

If we wish to experience this condition safely, we must always start from the external world. The external world gives us mental images, and we call them true if we find that they correspond with external facts. But this kind of truth cannot raise us above external reality. Our task, therefore, is to bridge the gulf between external perception and a perception which is independent of the senses and yet can give us truth. One of the first stages towards this form of knowledge is concerned with pictorial or symbolic concepts. As an example, let us take a symbol which is of use for spiritual development, and expound it in the form of a conversation between a teacher and his pupil.

In order to make his pupil understand this kind of symbolic picture,³⁷ the teacher might speak as follows: “Think of the plant, how it is rooted in the earth and grows from it, sends forth green leaf after green leaf and develops to flower and fruit.” (We are not here concerned with ordinary scientific ideas, for, as we shall see, we are not discussing the essential difference between man and plant, but trying to get hold of a useful pictorial idea). The teacher may continue: “And now look at man. He certainly has a great deal that is not present in the plant. He can experience impulses, desires, emotions, a whole range of concepts which can lead him up the ladder from blind sensation and instinct to the highest moral ideals. Only a scientific fantasy could attribute similar consciousness to plants and to men; but on a lower level a plant has certain advantages. It has certainty of growth, without possibility of error, while man can deviate at any moment from his right place in the world. We can see how in his whole structure he is permeated with instincts, desires and passions which may bring him into error, delusion and falsehood. In contrast, the plant is in substance untouched by these things; it is a pure, chaste being. Only when man has purified his whole life of instinct and desire can he hope to be as pure on his higher level as the plant is in its certainty and security on the lower level.”

Then we can pass to a further picture. The plant is permeated with the green colouring matter, chlorophyll, which steeps the leaves in green colour. Man is permeated with the vehicle of instincts and emotions, his red blood. That is a sort of evolution upwards, and in its course man has had to accept characteristics not found in the plant. He must hold before his eyes the high ideal of one day attaining on his own level to the inner purity, certainty and self-control of which we have a picture at a lower level in the plant. So we may ask what we must do in order to rise to that level.

Man must become lord and master of the instincts, passions and cravings which surge around, unsought, within him. He must grow beyond himself, kill within him all that normally dominates him, and raise to a higher level all that is dominated by the lower. This is how man has developed from the plant, and all that has been added since the plant stage he must look on as something to be conquered, in order to derive from it a higher life. That is the proper direction of man's future, indicated by Goethe in the fine stanza:

Whoever cannot say
Die and renew thyself!
On our dark earth will be
A mournful guest!³⁸

This does not mean that man must kill his instincts and emotions, but that he cleanses and purifies them by removing their mastery over him. So, in looking at the plant, he can say: “Something in me is higher than the plant, but I have to conquer and destroy it.”

As a picture of what we have to overcome in ourselves, let us take that part of the plant which is no longer capable of life, the dry wood, and set it up in the form of a cross. The next task is to cleanse and purify the red blood, the vehicle of our instincts, impulses and cravings, so that it may be a pure, chaste expression of our higher being, of what Schiller meant when he spoke of “the higher man in man”. The blood will then be, as it were, a copy in man of the pure sap which flows through the plant.

“Now”—the teacher will resume—“let us look at a flower in which the sap, rising up continuously, stage by stage, through the leaves, finally merges into the colour of the flower, the red rose. Picture the red rose as an image of your blood when your blood has been cleansed and purified. The sap of the plant pulses through the red rose and leaves it without impulses or desires; but your impulses and desires must come to be the expression of your purified ego.” Thus we supplement our picture of the wood of the cross, which symbolises what we have to overcome, by hanging a garland of red roses upon the cross. Then we have a picture, a symbol, which does not appeal only to dry reasoning, but by stirring our feelings gives us an image of human life raised to the level of a higher ideal.

Someone may now say: Your picture is an invention which corresponds to nothing true. All that you conjure up, the black cross and the red rose is mere fancy. Yes, undoubtedly, this picture, as brought before the inner eye of anyone who wishes to rise into spiritual worlds, is an invention. That is just what it has to be! Its purpose is not to portray something that exists in the external world. If that were its function, we would not need it. We would be satisfied with the impressions of the outer world that come to us directly through our sense-perceptions. But the picture we create, though its elements are drawn from the external world, is based on certain feelings and ideas that belong to our own inner being. The essential thing is that we should be fully conscious of each step, so that we keep a firm hold on the threads of our inner processes; otherwise we should be lost in illusion.

Anyone who wants to rise to higher worlds through inner meditation and contemplation does not live only in abstract pictures, but in a world of concepts and feelings which flow from these pictures he creates. The pictures call forth a number of activities in his soul, and by excluding every external stimulus he concentrates all his powers on contemplating the pictures. They are not meant to reflect external circumstances, but to awaken forces that slumber within him. If he is patient and perseveres—for progress comes slowly—he will notice that quiet devotion to pictures of this kind will give him something that can be further developed. He will soon find that his inner life is changing: a condition emerges that is in some respects akin to sleep. But while sleep brings a submergence of conscious soul-life, the devotion I have mentioned, and meditation on the symbolic pictures, cause inner forces to awaken. Very soon he feels that a change is going on within him, although he has excluded all impressions of the outer world. So through these quite unrealistic symbols he awakens inner forces, and he soon realises that he can put them to good use.

Someone may object again by saying: “That is all very well, but even if we develop these forces and really penetrate into the spiritual world, how can we be sure that what we perceive is reality?” Nothing can prove this except experience, just as the external world can be proved to exist only by experience. Mere concepts can be very strictly distinguished from perceptions and the two categories will be confused only be someone who has lost touch with reality. Especially in philosophical circles today, a certain misunderstanding has been gaining ground. Schopenhauer,³⁹ for instance, in the first part of his philosophy starts with the assumption that the world of man is a concept. Now you can see the difference between a percept and a concept by looking at your watch. As long as you are in contact with your watch, that is percept; if you turn round, you have a picture of the watch in your mind; that is concept. In practical life we very soon learn to distinguish between percept and concept, or we should go badly astray. If you picture a red-hot iron, however hot it is, you will not be burnt, but if you touch it you will soon realise that a percept is something other than a concept.

It is the same with an example given by Kant;⁴⁰ from a certain point of view it is justified, but during the last century it has been the source of much error. Kant tried to upset a certain concept of God by showing that there is no difference in content between the idea of a hundred shillings and a hundred real shillings. It is wrong, however, to maintain that there is no difference in the content, for then it is easy to confuse a perception, which gives us direct contact with reality, with the content of a mere concept. Anyone who has to pay a debt of a hundred shillings will soon find out the difference.

It is the same with the spiritual world. When we awaken the forces and faculties which are latent within us, and when around us is a world we have not known before, a world which shines out as though from a dark spiritual depth, then someone who enters this realm uninitiated might well say that it is all illusion and auto-suggestion. But anyone who has had real experiences on this level will be well able to distinguish reality from fantasy, just as in ordinary life we can distinguish between an imaginary piece of hot steel and a real one.

Thus we can see that it is possible to call forth a different form of consciousness. I have given you only one brief example of how inner exercises can work on the sleeping faculties of the soul. Of course, while we are still practising the exercises, we do not see a spiritual world; we are occupied in awakening the faculties required. In some circumstances this may last not merely for years, but for a whole life or lives. In the end, however, the result of these exercises is that the sleeping forces of cognition are awakened and directed towards a spiritual world, just as we have learnt to adapt the eye with the help of unknown spiritual powers to observing the external world. This work on one's own soul, this development of the soul to the stage of perceiving a world in which we are not yet living but to which we gain access through what we bring to it—this training can be called asceticism in the true sense of the word. For in Greek the word means working on oneself, making oneself capable of accomplishing something, transforming sleeping forces into active ones. This original meaning of the word can still be its meaning today if we refuse to be led astray by the false use of the term which has become common down the centuries. We shall understand the true meaning of asceticism as described here, only if we remember that the purpose of this working on oneself is to develop faculties which will open up a new world.

Now, having discussed asceticism in relation to the spiritual world only, it will be helpful to see how the term applies to certain activities in the external world. There it can signify the training of certain forces and capabilities which are not going to be used immediately for their final purpose, but are first to be exercised and made ready for it. An example close at hand will illustrate this, and will also show how an incorrect use of the term can have harmful results. The term can be rightly applied to military manoeuvres; this is quite in keeping with the original Greek usage. The deployment and testing of military forces on these occasions, so that in real war they may be ready and available in the right numbers—that is asceticism exercise. Whenever forces are not used for their final purpose, but are tested in advance for efficiency and reliability, we have asceticism. Manoeuvres bear the same relation to warfare as asceticism does to life in general.

Human life, I said earlier, swings between work and idleness. But there are all sorts of intermediate stages: for example, play. Play, when it really is play, is the opposite of asceticism. And from its opposite one can see very well what asceticism is. Play is the active use of energies in the outer world for the sake of immediate gratification. The material of play is not, so to speak, the hard, unyielding substance of the external world that we encounter during hours of work. In relation to our energies it is malleable, amenable to our exertions. Play is play only when we do not knock up against the resistance of outer forces, as we do in work. Play is concerned with a direct release of energies which are transformed into achievement, and therein lies the satisfaction we get from it. Play does not prepare us for anything; it finds fulfillment in and through itself.

It is just the opposite with asceticism, if we take the term in its proper sense. In this case no gratification is gained from anything in the outer world. Whenever we combine things in asceticism, if only the cross and the red roses, the combination is not significant in itself, but only in so far as it calls our inner forces into activity, an activity which will find application only when it has ripened fully within ourselves. Renunciation comes in because we work inwardly on ourselves while knowing that at first we are not to be stimulated by the outer world. Our aim is to bring into activity our inner forces, so that they may be applied to the outer world later on. Play and asceticism, accordingly, are opposites.

How does asceticism, in our sense of the word, enter practically into human life? Let us keep to a sphere where asceticism can be practised both in a right and in a wrong way. We will take the case of someone who makes it his aim to ascend into spiritual worlds. If, then, a super-sensible world comes by some means or other to his attention, whether through another person or through some historical document, he may say: There are statements and communications concerning the super-sensible worlds, but at present they are beyond my comprehension; I lack the power to understand them. Then there are others who reject these communications, refuse to have anything to do with them. What is the source of this attitude? It arises because a person of this type rejects asceticism in the best sense of the word; he cannot find in his soul the strength to use the means I have described for developing higher faculties. He feels too weak for it.

I have repeatedly emphasised that clairvoyance is not necessary for understanding the findings of clairvoyant research. Clairvoyance is indeed necessary for gaining access to spiritual facts, but once the facts have been communicated, anyone can use unprejudiced reason to understand them. Impartial reason and healthy intellect are the best instruments for judging anything communicated from the spiritual worlds. A true spiritual scientist will always say that if he could be afraid of anything, he would be afraid of people who accept communications of this kind without testing them strictly by means of reason. He is never afraid of those who make use of unclouded intelligence, for that is what makes all these communications comprehensible.

However, a man may feel too weak to call forth in himself the forces necessary for understanding what he is told concerning the spiritual world. In that case he turns away from all this through an instinct for self-preservation which is right for him. He feels that to accept these communications would throw his mind into confusion. And in all cases where people reject what they hear through Spiritual Science, an instinct of self-preservation is at work; they know that they are incapable of doing the necessary exercises—that is, of practising asceticism in the true sense. A person prompted by the instinct for self-preservation will then say to himself: If these things were to permeate my spiritual life, they would confuse it; I could make nothing of them and therefore I reject them. So it is with a materialistic outlook which refuses to go a step beyond the doctrines of a science it believes to be firmly founded on facts. But there are other possibilities, and here we come to a dangerous side of asceticism. People may have a sort of avidity for information about the spiritual world while lacking the inner urge and conscience to test everything by reason and logic. They may indulge a liking for sensationalism in this field. Then they are not held back by an instinct for self-preservation, but are driven on by its very opposite, a sort of urge for self-annihilation. If anyone takes something into his soul without understanding it, and with no wish to apply his reason to it, he will be swamped by it. This happens in all cases of blind faith, or when communications from the spiritual worlds are accepted merely on authority. This acceptance corresponds to an asceticism which derives not from a healthy instinct for self-preservation, but from a morbid impulse to annihilate the self, to drown in a flood of revelations. This has a significant shadow-side in the human soul: it is a bad form of asceticism when someone gives up all effort and chooses to live in faith and in reliance on others.

This attitude has existed in many forms in many epochs. But we must not assume that everything which looks like blind faith is so. For example, we are told that in the old Pythagorean Mystery Schools⁴¹there was a familiar phrase: The Master has said. But this never meant: The Master has said, therefore we believe it! For his students it meant something like this: The Master has said; therefore it demands that we should reflect on it and see how far we can get with it if we bring all our forces to bear upon it. To “believe” need not always imply a blind belief springing from a desire for self-annihilation. It need not be blind belief if you accept communications springing from spiritual research because you trust the researcher. You may have learnt that his statements are in strictly logical form, and that in other realms, where his utterances can be tested, he is logical and does not talk nonsense. On this verifiable ground the student can hold a well-founded belief that the speaker, when he is talking about things not yet known to the student, has an equally sure basis for his statements. Hence the student can say: I will work! I have confidence in what I have been told, and this can be a guiding star for my endeavours to raise myself to the level of the faculties which will make themselves intelligible of their own accord, when I have worked my way up to them.

If this healthy foundation of trust is lacking and a person allows himself to be stirred by communications from the invisible worlds without understanding them, he will drift into a very wretched condition that is not compatible with asceticism. Whenever a person accepts something in blind faith without resolving to work his way to an understanding of it, and if therefore he accepts another person's will instead of his own, he will gradually lose those healthy soul-forces which provide the inner life with a sure centre and endow us with a true feeling for what is right. Lies and a proneness to error will beset a person who is unwilling to test inwardly, with his reason, what he is told; he will tend to drown and to lose himself in it. Anyone who does not allow himself to be guided by a healthy sense of truth will soon find how prone he is to lies and deceptions even in the outer world. When we approach the spiritual world we need to reflect very seriously that through this surrender of our judgment we can very easily fall into a life which no longer has any real feeling for truth and reality. If we seriously practise the exercises and wish to train our inner powers, we must never give up bringing before our souls the kind of knowledge I have been describing.

We can now penetrate further into what may be called the ascetic training of the soul in a deeper sense. So far we have considered only people who are not capable of developing these inner forces in a healthy way. In one case a sound instinct of self-preservation made a person refuse to develop these forces because he did not want to develop them; in the other case a person did not absolutely refuse to develop them, but he refused to bring his judgment and intelligence to bear on them. In all such cases the impulse is always to remain on the old level, at the old standpoint. But let us suppose a case where a person really does try to develop these inner faculties, and makes use of such forms of training as those we have described. Again there may be a dual result. It may be the result we always aim at, where Spiritual Science is taken seriously and worthily. A person will then be guided to develop his inner forces only in so far as he is capable of using them in a right and orderly way. Here, then, we are concerned with how a person has to work on himself—as is described in greater detail in my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds: How is it Achieved?—in order to awaken the faculties which will open the spiritual world to his inner sight. But at the same time he must be competent to discipline his faculties and to establish the right balance between his work on himself and his dealings with the outer world. The necessity of this has been proved by spiritual researchers down the ages.

If a person fails to apply his inner forces properly to his handling of the outer world and gives way to an almost uncontrollable urge to develop his soul-powers more and more to bring about all possible movement in his soul, so that he may thereby open his spirit-eyes and spirit-ears; and if he is too indolent to absorb slowly and in the right way the available facts of Spiritual Science and to work on them with his reason, then his asceticism may do him great harm. A person can develop all sorts of faculties and powers and yet not know what to do with them or how to apply them to the outer world. This, indeed, is the outcome of many forms of training and it applies to those who fail to pursue energetically the methods we have described, whereby the student is continually strengthening himself.

There are other methods with a different aim: they may be more comfortable but they can easily cause harm. Such methods aim at doing away with the hindrances imposed on the soul by the bodily nature, in order to enhance the inner life. This was in fact the sole endeavour of mediaeval ascetics, and it survives in part today. Instead of true asceticism, which sets out to give the soul an ever-richer content, false asceticism leaves the soul as it is and sets out to weaken the body and to reduce the activity of its forces. There are indeed ways of damping down these forces, so that the functioning of the body gradually weakens, and the result may then be that the soul, though itself remaining weak, gets the upper hand over the weakened body. A correct asceticism leaves the body as it is and enables the soul to master it; the other asceticism leaves the soul as it is, while all sorts of procedures, fasting, mortifications and so on, are used to weaken the body. The soul is then relatively the stronger and can achieve a kind of consciousness, although its own powers have not increased. That is the way of many ascetics in the Middle Ages: they kill the vigour of the body, lower its activities, leave the soul as it is, and then live in the expectation that the content of the spiritual world will be revealed to them with no contribution on their part.

That is the easier method, but it is not a truly strengthening one. The true method requires a person to cleanse and purify his thinking, feeling and willing, so that these faculties will be strengthened and able to prevail over the body. The other method lowers the tone of the body, and the soul is then supposed to wait, without having acquired any new capacities, until the divine world flows into it.

You will find plenty of references to this method under the heading of “asceticism” in the Middle Ages. It leads to estrangement from the world and is bound to do so. For at the present stage of human evolution there is a certain relationship between our capabilities of perception and the outer world, and if we are to rise above this stage we can do so only by heightening our capabilities and using them to understand the outer world in its deeper significance. But if we weaken our normal forces, we make ourselves incapable of maintaining a normal relationship with the outer world; and especially if we tone down our thinking, feeling and willing and give our souls over to passive expectation, something will then flow into our souls which has no connection with our present-day world, makes us strangers there, and is useless for working in the world. While the true asceticism makes us more and more capable in our dealings with the world, for we see more and more deeply into it, the other asceticism, associated with the suppression of bodily functions, draws a person out of the world, tends to make him a hermit, a mere settler there. In this isolation he may see all sorts of psychic and spiritual things—this must not be denied—but an asceticism of this kind is of no use for the world. True asceticism is work, training for the world, not a withdrawal of oneself into remoteness from the world.

This does not imply that we have to go to the opposite extreme; there can be accommodation on both sides. Even though it is true in general that for our period in human evolution a certain normal relationship exists between the external world and the forces of the soul, yet every period tends to drive the normal to extremes as it were, and if we want to develop higher faculties we need pay no attention to opposition that comes from abnormal trends. And because we find the opposition in ourselves, we can under certain circumstances go rather further than would be necessary if the times were not also at fault.

I say this because you have perhaps heard that many followers of Spiritual Science lay great stress on a certain diet. This does not at all imply that such a mode of life can do anything for the attainment or even the understanding of higher worlds and higher relationships. It can be no more than an external aid, and should be seen only in relation to the fact that anyone wishing to gain understanding of the higher worlds may find a certain obstacle in the customs and conventions he has to live with at the present day. Because these conventions have drawn us down too deeply into the material world, we must go beyond the normal in order to make the exercises easier. But it would be quite mistaken to regard this as a form of asceticism which can be a means of leading us to higher worlds. Vegetarianism will never lead anyone to higher worlds; it can be no more than a support for someone who thinks to himself: I wish to open for myself certain ways of understanding the spiritual worlds; I am hindered by the heaviness of my body, which prevents the exercises from having an immediate effect. Hence I will make things easier by lightening my body. Vegetarianism is one way of producing this result, but it should never be presented as a dogma; it is only a means which can help some people to gain understanding of the spiritual worlds. No-one should suppose that a vegetarian way of life will enable him to develop spiritual powers. For it leaves the soul as it is and serves only to weaken the body. But if the soul is strengthened, it will be able though the effects of vegetarianism to strengthen the weakened body from the centre of its own forces. Anyone who develops spiritually with the aid of vegetarianism will be stronger, more efficient and more resistant in daily life; he will be not merely a match for any meat-eater but will be superior in working capacity. That is the very opposite of what is believed by many people when they say of vegetarians within a spiritual movement: How sad for these poor folk who can never enjoy a little bit of meat!

So long as a person has this feeling about vegetarianism, it will not bring him the slightest benefit. So long as a desire for meat persists, vegetarianism is useless. It is helpful only when it results from an attitude that I will illustrate with a little story.

Not very long ago, someone was asked: “Why don't you eat meat?” He replied with a counter-question: “Why don't you eat dogs or cats?” “One just can't”, was the answer. “Why can't you?” “Because I would find it disgusting.” “Well, that is just what I feel about all meat.”

That is the point. When pleasure in eating meat has gone, then to abstain from meat may be of some use in relation to the spiritual worlds.

Until then, breaking the meat-eating habit can be helpful only for getting rid of the desire for meat. If the desire persists, it may be better to start eating meat again, for to go on tormenting oneself about it is certainly not the right way to reach an understanding of Spiritual Science.

From all this you can see the difference between true and false asceticism. False asceticism often attracts people whose sole desire is to develop the inner forces and faculties of the soul; they are indifferent towards gaining real knowledge of the outer world. Their aim is simply to develop their inner faculties and then to wait and see what comes of it. The best way of doing this is to mortify the body as far as possible, for this weakens it, and then the soul, though itself remaining weak, can see into some kind of spiritual world, however incapable it may be of understanding the real spiritual world. This, however, is a path of deception, for directly a person closes off his means of return to the physical world, he encounters no true spiritual world, but only delusive pictures of his own self. And these are what he is bound to encounter as long as he leaves his soul as it is. Because his ego keeps to its accustomed standpoint, it does not rise to higher powers, and he puts up a barrier between himself and the world by suppressing the functions which relate him to the world. It is not only that this kind of asceticism estranges him from the world; he sees pictures which can deceive him as to the stage his soul has reached, and in place of a true spiritual world he sees a picture clouded over by his own self.

There is a further consequence which leads into the realm of morality. Anyone who believes that humility and surrender to the spiritual world will set him on the right course of life fails to see that he is involving himself most strongly in his own self and becoming an egoist in the worst sense, for it means that he is content with himself as he is and has no wish to progress any further. This egoism, which can degenerate into unrestrained ambition and vanity, is the more dangerous because the victim of it cannot see it for himself. Generally he looks on himself as a man who sinks down in deepest humility at the feet of his God, while really he is being played on by the devil of megalomania. A genuine humility would tell him something he refuses to recognise, for it would lead him to say to himself: The powers of the spiritual world are not to be found at the stage where I am standing now: I must climb up to them; I must not rest content with the powers I already have.

So we see the results of the false asceticism which relies primarily on killing off external things instead of strengthening the inner life: it conduces to deception, error, vanity and egotism. In our time, especially, it would be a great evil if this course were followed as a means of entering the spiritual world. It serves merely to engross man in himself. Today the only true asceticism must be sought in modern Spiritual Science, founded on the firm ground of reality. Through it a person can develop his own faculties and forces and thus rise to a comprehension of a spiritual world which is itself a real world, not one that a man spins round himself.

This false asceticism has yet another shadow-side. If you look at the realms of nature around us, leading up from plants through animals to man, you will find the vital functions changing in character stage by stage. For example, the diseases of plants come only from some external cause, from abnormal conditions of wind and weather, light and sunshine. These external circumstances can produce illness in plants. If we go on to consider animals, we find that they also, if left to themselves are greatly superior to human beings in their fund of natural health. A human being may fall ill not only through the life he leads or through external circumstances, but also as a result of his inner life. If his soul is not well suited to his body, if the spiritual heritage he brings from earlier incarnations cannot adapt itself completely to his bodily constitution, these inner causes may bring about illnesses which are very often wrongly diagnosed. They can be symptoms of a maladjustment between soul and body.

We often find that people with these symptoms are inclined to rise to higher worlds by killing off their bodily nature. This is because the illness itself induces them to separate their souls from bodies which the soul has not fully permeated. In such people the body hardens itself in the most varied ways and closes in on itself; and since they have not strengthened the soul, but have used its weakness in order to escape from the influence of the bodily nature, and have thus drawn away from the body the health-giving strengthening forces of the soul, the body is made susceptible to all sorts of ailments. While a true asceticism strengthens the soul, which then works back on the body and makes it resistant to illness coming from outside, a false asceticism makes a person vulnerable to any illness of that kind.

That is the dangerous connection between false asceticism and the illnesses of our time. And it is this that gives rise in wide circles, where such things are easily misunderstood, to manifold errors as to the influence a spiritual-scientific outlook can have on those who adopt it. For people who seek to come to a sight of the spiritual world by way of a false asceticism are a fearful spectacle for onlookers. Their false asceticism opens up a wide field of action for harmful influences from the outer world. For these people, far from being strengthened to resist the errors of our time, are well and truly exposed to them.

Examples of this can be seen in many theosophical tendencies today. Merely calling oneself a “Theosophist” does not automatically guarantee the ability to act as a spiritual impulse against the adverse currents of the present time. When materialism prevails in the world, it is to some extent in tune with the concepts which are formed in observing the sense-world. Hence we can say that the materialism which applies to the external world and knows nothing of a spiritual world is in a certain sense justified. But in the case of an outlook which sets out to impart something about the spiritual world and takes into itself a caricature of the materialistic prejudices of our day because it is not founded on a real strengthening of spiritual forces, the result is much worse. A theosophical outlook permeated by contemporary errors may in some circumstances be much more harmful than a materialistic outlook; and it should be remarked that thoroughly materialistic concepts have spread widely in theosophical circles. So we hear the spiritual spoken of not as Spirit, but as though the spirit were only an infinitely refined form of nebulous matter. In speaking of the etheric body, these people picture only the physical refined beyond a certain point, and then they speak of etheric “vibrations”. On the astral level the vibrations are still finer; on the mental level they are finer still, and so on. “Vibrations” everywhere! Anyone who relies on these concepts will never attain to the spiritual world; he will remain embedded in the physical world to which these concepts ought to be confined.

In this way a materialistic haze can be thrown over the most ordinary occasions in daily life. For instance, if we are at a social gathering which has a pleasant atmosphere, with people in harmony, and someone remarks on it in those terms, that may be a humdrum way of putting it; but it is a true way and leads to a better understanding than if at a gathering of theosophists one of them says how good the vibrations are. To say that, one has to be a theosophical materialist with crude ideas. And for anyone with a feeling for such things, the whole atmosphere goes out of tune when these vibrations are said to be dancing around. In these cases one can see how the introduction of materialistic ideas into a spiritual outlook produces a horrifying impression on outsiders, who may then say: These people talk about a spiritual world, but they are really no different from us. With us, the light waves dance; with them the spiritual waves dance. It is all the same materialism.

All this needs to be seen in its true light. Then we shall not get a wrong idea of what the spiritual-scientific movement has to offer in our time. We shall see that asceticism, by strengthening the soul, can itself lead to the spiritual world and so bring new forces into our material existence. These are forces that make for health, not for illness; they carry healthy life-forces into our bodily organism. Of course it is not easy to determine how far a given outlook brings healthy or unhealthy forces with it, for the latter are strongly evident, as a rule, while healthy forces are usually not noticed. However, a close observer will see how persons who stand in the stream of true Spiritual Science are fertilised by it and draw from it health-giving forces which work right down into the physical. He will see also that signs of illness appear only if something alien to a spiritual stream is introduced into it. Then the result can be worse than when the alien influence takes its course in the outer world, where people are shielded by conventions from carrying certain errors to an extreme.

If we see things in this light, we shall understand true asceticism as a preparatory training for a higher life, a way of developing our inner forces; and we shall then be taking the good old Greek word in its right sense. For to practise asceticism means training oneself, making oneself strong, even “adorning” oneself (sich schmucken), so that the world can see what it means to be human. But if asceticism leads you to leave the soul as it is and to weaken the bodily organism, the effect is that the soul is sundered from the body; the body is then exposed to all sorts of harmful influences and the asceticism is actually the source of all manner of ailments.

The good and bad sides of egoism will emerge when we come to consider its nature. Today I have shown how true asceticism can never be an end in itself, but only a means of reaching a higher human goal, the conscious experiencing of higher worlds. Anyone wishing to practise this asceticism must therefore keep his feet firmly planted on solid ground. He must not be a stranger to the world in which he lives, but must always be extending his knowledge of the world. Whatever he can bring back from higher worlds must always be measured and assessed in relation to his work in the world; otherwise those who say that asceticism is not work but idleness could well be right. And idleness can easily give occasion for false asceticism, especially in our time. Anyone, however, who keeps a firm foothold on the earth, will regard asceticism as his highest ideal in relation to so serious a subject as our human faculties. Our ideas can indeed rise high if we have before us an ideal picture of how our faculties should work in the world.

Let us look for a moment at the opening of the Old Testament: “And God said, Let there be light.” Then we hear how God caused the physical sense-world to arise day by day from the spiritual, and how at the end of each day God looked at his creation and “saw that it was good.”

Similarly we must maintain our healthy thinking, our reliable character, our unerring feelings on the firm ground of reality, in order that we may rise to higher worlds and discover there the facts which give birth to the entire physical world. Then, when as searchers we come to know the spirit, and when we apply to the world around us the forces we have developed and see how well adapted to it they are, we can see that this is good. If we test the forces we have acquired through true asceticism by putting them to work in the world, then we have the right to say: Yes, they are good.

• 35. For his concept of asceticism see The World as Will and Representation, Book IV. Particularly from par. 68.
• 36. Cf. also the chapter “Sleep and Death” in Rudolf Steiner, Occult Science, An Outline.
• 37. Cf. also the chapter “Knowledge of the Higher Worlds” in Rudolf Steiner, Occult Science, An Outline.
• 38. Last verse of the poem “Selige Sehnsucht” from the Westöstliche Divan.
• 39. See note 20.
• 40. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Second Division, Book 11, Chapter III, Section 4: “The impossibility of an Ontological Proof of the Existence of God”.
• 41. Pythagoras of Samos, c. 580–495 B.C. Cf. also Rudolf Steiner, Christianity as Mystical Fact and The Riddles of Philosophy.

Today I would like to speak to you again about something that has been spoken about here often enough, but which can only be fully grasped if one looks at it from many different angles. Anyone who consciously lives today's spiritual and ultimately also material life and has truly settled inwardly and emotionally into what we call anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, must feel a heavy cultural concern for our events. This heavy cultural concern can be described something like this: On the one hand, we see the necessity that what we call initiation science, spiritual science, which can only be fathomed through the method of initiation, that this science must spread as far as possible among all thinking people, at least in terms of the main points, if we are to avoid further decline. People simply need to take this up into their intuitive life and allow themselves to be stimulated by this initiatory science for their mutual intercourse and reciprocal action among themselves. On the other hand, the vast majority of people – we only need to look at the few adherents of spiritual science – feel that they reject this initiatory wisdom, that they should continue to live in the same way as they have lived so far, without being influenced in any way by what this initiatory wisdom can give them. One would like to say, therefore, that on the one hand there is the most urgent necessity for the revelation of the spiritual worlds, and on the other hand, the radical rejection of this knowledge.

We must not be under any illusions about the fact that basically the way in which people have been taught by the traditional religions to think about the spiritual is largely to blame for this radical rejection of a wisdom from the spiritual worlds. Let us realize that, above all, the traditional creeds may only introduce people to one side, let us say, of the eternal in man, to that side that lies beyond death, and that there is a decided refusal on the part of the traditional creeds to point people today to that which is present of the eternal soul in man before birth, or let us say before conception. Much is said about the existence of the soul after death, albeit in a highly vague manner and always without pointing to knowledge, only to belief. On the other hand, all talk about the existence of the soul before birth or before conception is rejected. This is significant not only within the theoretical, as we have just mentioned it, within the pure cognitive judgments that say: We want to look at the time after death; we do not want to look at the time before birth – but this is significant for the whole nature of the human being. For the way in which one speaks about the immortal in man depends on this rejection of the prenatal. Just imagine how people usually speak of the soul's immortality. Appeals are made to people's finer egoistic instincts. These finer instincts of people tend to desire existence after death. The desire for this existence after death is present in people in the most diverse forms, and by speaking of this existence after death in the usual way, one must always appeal to these selfish instincts of people, to this desire for an existence after death. So one must appeal in a certain sense to human desire for immortality. And by appealing to it, one finds access to people's belief in this immortality after death. One would not easily find the same belief for the same kind of language if one were to speak of the eternal nature of the human soul as it exists before birth or before conception. Just consider one thing: one speaks of immortality. We are not talking about something that goes beyond birth in the same sense, because we do not have a word for it in the ordinary sense. We have the word 'immortality', but we do not have 'unborness', 'unborn-ness' – we would have to develop that first so that it would become familiar to people. From this you can see how one-sided the traditional religions' discussions of immortality are. And why is that so? Yes, it is quite different when one is to speak to people about the fact that they should regard their present life, which they have led from birth and continue to lead until death, as the continuation of a spiritual life, just as they want to regard the spiritual life after death as a continuation of this earthly life. For people it is like this: to learn about the afterlife is in a sense a pleasure for them; to learn about the prenatal life is not in the same sense a pleasure, because what we have become through birth, we have, we possess; so we do not desire that. Thus, inciting desire for the eternal before birth is out of the question. If one wishes to speak of this eternal before birth, one must first awaken in man the urge to look in that direction at all, to declare one's willingness to recognize such things.

This is connected with the fact that spiritual science must indeed presuppose a certain willingness to recognize before it can be recognized. What I mentioned in yesterday's public lecture as “intellectual modesty”: to feel towards the great insights of nature as a child would feel if it could feel, to feel five years old when faced with a book of Goethean poetry, with which it also cannot do anything, before it is educated to understand it — that is how man should feel when faced with nature unfolding. He can do nothing with it until he has prepared himself to penetrate it. Therefore, this preparation must be undertaken with intellectual modesty. And we must find ourselves inwardly ready to make something else out of ourselves than we are, if we have not yet taken our inner being in hand to advance it in soul and spiritual life. But for this it is necessary to look at certain things, which one does not really want to look at in the general slumber of the world to which one is devoted.

We as human beings have the ability to educate ourselves through our perceptions, through our thinking about the world. But we do not think much about the special peculiarity of this thinking. This thinking does have a special peculiarity, because it is actually unnecessary in relation to the outer life. We do not usually realize this. Apart from the fact that animals can also live, can find their food, can reproduce themselves between birth and death, without thinking in the human way, apart from that, we can see from this that we can also perform certain lower tasks of we can also perform certain lower tasks of life if we do not think in a human way. We only have to devote ourselves to a somewhat more thorough consideration of life and we will immediately see how thinking is actually unnecessary for the external physical life. We cannot rely on thinking at all when it comes to certain things. Right, we do science. Take any science, for example physiology, through which we learn about the way in which human organs function. In physiology, we learn, as well as it is possible in the materialistic or spiritual realm, to recognize what the digestive process is. But we can never wait for the thinking recognition of the digestive process; we have to digest properly first. We would get nowhere in life if we had to wait until we had thought about digestion, until we had realized it. We have to carry out the digestive activity without thinking, and so too the other activities of our organism. It is precisely with regard to what we do as human beings that thinking always comes afterwards. So for life in the sense world, we could basically do without thinking.

This is where the big question arises for the humanities scholar: what is the actual significance of this thinking, which cannot serve us at all in our ordinary physical-sensory body? Of course, one important thing must be pointed out. What is presented to us in outer technique would not be presented to us if we did not first think about it. But basically, thinking with its positive meaning only begins with outer technique and everything that outer technique demands. In everything that does not demand outer technique, thinking is something that actually comes afterwards and proves to be superfluous to our sensual existence. We therefore carry an element within us that makes no contribution to our sensory existence. This is what the humanities scholar says to himself, and then he comes to examine what this thinking actually is. Then he finds, as I have often explained to you, that this thinking is actually an inheritance from our prenatal existence, that thinking is precisely what we have developed most intensively between the last death and this birth, that we bring the ability to think into this sensual existence, that this thinking was actually developed for the supersensible world. We do not understand the significance of this thinking at all if we do not know that it is our inheritance from the supersensible world.

Thus the spiritual scientist gradually comes to see in thinking the inheritance of the life he has spent between the last death and this birth. What has actually been stripped away since the last life? The relationship of desire to the environment has been completely stripped away, because when we grasp the world with our thinking, we are without desire. That is the peculiarity of cognition, that desire does not permeate this cognition. Therefore, man must be educated to cognition. He must first be led to use cognition. For basically, he does not initially desire the things that become his through cognition. But spiritual science shows us something different in this area. It shows us, by means of our thinking, our thinking that we have a completely useless limb for the sensual world, that this thinking in us humans must be there for something other than for mere sensual life, and that we abuse this thinking when we leave it unapplied, when we do not apply it to penetrate not only into the sensual but into the supersensible. We have thinking as a gift, as an inheritance from the supersensible, and we must recognize that we must also apply it to acquire the supersensible.

What I have told you is expressed in life in the most diverse ways. If we look at life correctly, we can come across such things as those just mentioned. How do we actually enter into this life? By the ability to think gradually detaching itself more and more from the dark depths of our inner being, and by developing more and more the power to survey the world by thinking. How do we enter this world and how do we become more and more a part of it? Ask yourself very thoroughly, self-knowingly, ask yourself what kind of consciousness you connect with becoming more and more thoughtful. You directly link the need to communicate with this becoming of thought. When you think, you cannot help but want your thoughts to go into the souls of other people, so that you are able to communicate your thoughts to other people. As we think, this desire to communicate our thoughts to others grows in a certain way.

One need only hypothetically imagine what it would mean to have to keep one's thoughts to oneself, to find no one to share them with! But for most people, this is most certainly a need that applies only to the world of thoughts. With other possessions, it does not apply to most people, and even if you do find people who are happy to share their thoughts, perhaps even happier to share their thoughts than to share their other possessions (although the word “even” is really too much), they are not always so happy to share their other possessions. But there are people who really like to share. But then one must also analyze this willingness to give a little, and then one realizes that this willingness to give is connected with thinking. The thought: What will the other person think of you, what community will develop when you give him —, that is something that very strongly influences the giving of other goods, so that the need to share also lives very strongly in giving or working for another. The striving for community of thought is what plays a role here.

If you think about a question that a number of our anthroposophists have had to learn a lot about recently, about the pedagogical-didactic question, which had to be discussed a lot when founding or continuing the Waldorf school, which will soon have passed its first year of existence, then one comes to the conclusion that actually the one who has the greatest need to communicate has the best teaching profession. If someone likes being a teacher, it is because their need to communicate, to live in joint thinking with others, is particularly well developed in them, something they bring with them from the world we come from when we enter this sensual existence through birth. And since it is easier to communicate thoughts to children and to find understanding in children than in adults, the teaching profession is the one that arises precisely from an intense desire for success in the desire to communicate.

But once you recognize this, once you recognize, I would say, the soul teaching of teaching, then the other question arises, the question that has played the greatest role in the development of a pedagogy for the Waldorf school. It still sounds paradoxical to today's people, this other side of teaching pedagogy, and yet, in the training of the pedagogy of the Waldorf School, this other side has played the greatest role, and that is that we bring it to realization at the same time that the children who grow into the world are each a mystery in themselves and that we can really learn from the children. By being teachers, we not only satisfy our need to communicate, but at the same time our need to know, by saying to ourselves: You have grown older, but those who are coming in now bring you news from the spiritual world from a later time, they reveal to you that which has taken place in the spiritual world since your own birth, for they have remained in the spiritual world longer. The teachers at the Waldorf School have been taught in the most diverse ways to receive messages from the spiritual world in the growing child, to really think about it in every moment, and to feel it in particular: in the child that is given to you, what is sent to you from the spiritual world is revealed to you.

In this way, giving and taking are combined, and in this way one practically grows into living together with the spiritual world. The pedagogy of the Waldorf school is based on such an actual absorption of things of the spiritual world. Not just that one wants to theoretically explain some pedagogy that starts from the abstract principles of anthroposophy. That is not the point, but the teaching practice, which is expressed directly in the treatment of children. It is one thing to assume that the child brings you messages from the spiritual world into this world, and you have to solve the riddle that is brought to you from the spiritual world, and quite another to regard the child as a random plastic substance that you just have to educate. Solving this riddle leads to the practice of life that follows from what is observed and absorbed in anthroposophical spiritual science. And this anthroposophical spiritual science is not just there to represent principles or theories, but to be truly absorbed into the individual branches of life. That is what it is about.

In this way, we have pointed out how this work in education, in the sharing of one's thoughts – and ultimately it is a sharing of thoughts, whether I tell someone something, or whether I write a novel, or, if we think of the thought in the broader sense, whether I produce another work of art — how this whole life in thought is a living together with the spiritual world, a carrying in of that which we have experienced before birth, into this world here. This special feature of what is called spiritual experience, what is called spiritual civilization, must first be considered by anthroposophists. For it is through this that our spiritual life takes on its special character, that we, by being in this spiritual life, become aware that We are connected through it with everything that lies before our birth and everything that lies after our birth, in that children bring it to us from the supersensible worlds. But it is this that gives this spiritual life its special character. On the one hand, there is what should be, namely that the anthroposophist views the world much more realistically than other people today, that the anthroposophist learns to look at the subtleties of life. He should recognize how the outer life of civilization in the workings of the spiritual is connected with the prenatal, and how something actually unfolds there in the spiritual that is richer than the individual human being, that reaches beyond the individual human being. It is true that when we are dependent on communicating our thoughts to others, and thus also finding them in the hearts and feelings of others, spiritual life points us to a commonality, to something that we can only experience together with other people. It equips us with something that we do not want to have alone.

We know more, if I may express it paradoxically, than we are allowed to keep to ourselves, and our needs intersect in this respect. Whoever shares something with another should in turn receive something from another. It can't be any other way. So we shower each other with spiritual life, we pour out our riches on each other. That too is a peculiarity of this spiritual life. We have too much. We bring with us too much for this material world, because the spiritual life that we bring with us as thinking beings is at the same time destined for the supersensible. Because the supersensible lives itself out in it, it floods this physical world, as it were, like a flood. It is quite different when we turn our attention to economic life. There it is not the case that we so easily communicate our thoughts to others. First of all, we often do not want to do so. If we wanted to communicate thoughts of economic life to others as easily as we do with thoughts of pure teaching life, no one would patent anything, no one would keep a trade secret. The desire to communicate is not as great as in the field of spiritual culture. And you only have to imagine what the situation is in economic life to immediately see that there is no such flood of ideas passing from one person to another, but that things are quite different there.

Recently, I have often been able to point to an example that makes it easy to see what I actually mean. In the middle of the nineteenth century, people who had something to say about such matters began to express the urge to talk about free world trade and to make free trade, that is, no tariff barriers, the general way of people in the field of economic life across the world. At the same time as this thinking about free trade, another tendency arose: to replace bimetallism, the gold and silver currency, with the gold currency. This striving for the unified gold currency emanated from England, in particular; but it also took hold in other countries, as you know. And you can see in the parliamentary reports, or elsewhere, where such things were discussed, how people, in a very practical way, expressed themselves about the effect of the gold standard at a certain time in the 19th century. They said: Free trade will develop under the effect of the gold standard; the gold standard will bring about free trade by itself! And after the most respected parliamentarians and practitioners had championed this theory until the 1870s, what actually happened? Customs barriers were erected everywhere under the influence of the gold standard! The exact opposite of what the greatest theorists and practitioners had predicted!

This is a very interesting example of thinking in the economic field. Anyone who looks into economic matters at all today – the people, the practitioners do not notice – notices that it is the same in all fields. As a rule, the opposite of what people predict occurs in business transactions. One need only study the concrete cases, need only not take into account what one wants to declaim as a so-called practitioner of life, who looks down on everything idealistic, but really look at what is going on, then one already finds that this is the case.

So what I want to say – as you will assume – is that all those fools who predicted in parliaments and in debates that the gold standard would lead to free trade, while in reality the erection of customs barriers has occurred. No, that's not what I want to say. I don't want to say that they were fools at all. They were very, very clever people – some of them, of course; there were extremely clever people among them. And anyone who goes through the arguments they put forward and doesn't look deeper into the whole fabric of human coexistence can't help but be amazed at the cleverness with which such people were dominated when they declaimed a completely false prophecy.

Where does this come from? Precisely from the fact that in more recent times we have grown into individualism of thinking, that everyone wanted to think for themselves in such matters. Just as we have what we bring with us as actual spiritual thinking for everyone else, and how we can shower the others with it, so we have the thinking that we are to extract from life in the first place, not at all to pour out. We can only acquire it in life by having it very partially, by always distorting it to the point of caricature when we want to apply it generally. The judgment with which we are born, we have not only so that we can judge the world, but we have it so that it is also enough to give something to the other, so that he too can judge according to our judgment. Our economic judgment and that which is similar to economic judgment is more briefly summarized. This is not enough to communicate to the other, but to make it effective, it is necessary that associations be formed, that groups of people with the same interests, consumer interests or interests of a particular type of business, and so on, come together; because only groups of people together can bring about the living experience of what the other can contribute to them, what he can know and what the other must believe, on trust, when he is with him in the association.

This in turn raises a big question for those who, I would say, now look at the world with a clear eye of the soul. They say to themselves: We bring with us a certain amount of judgment that we can pour out on other people. These connect us with life before birth. But then we only acquire useful judgments in the realm of external, namely economic life, when we join with others in a lasting way, when we form associations with them, when we judge together with them, when we, so to speak, piece our judgment and their judgments together. We cannot communicate with them, but in order for our judgment to exist at all, we have to piece our judgment together with theirs. Where does this come from? That is the big question. It comes from the fact that we as human beings are really at least a dual being. We are actually a threefold being, but I will not take that into consideration today. You can read more about it in my book 'Von Seelenrätseln'; but I will first take the dual nature into consideration by summarizing the second and third more. What we bring from the spiritual world into this world, what we can pour out over man, that forms our head, the head that is now really more than a mere expression, a mere tool, that really is an image of what we were before birth, that also expresses our soul , and thus does more than the rest of the organism, which, when we are not moving, does not truly visualize our soul directly in activity, and does not truly express our soul directly as the face and head express our soul.

On the one hand, we are truly human beings, and through our heads we carry the external image of what we have become before birth into the world. And the rest of the human organism is joined to this. It is only with the help of the head that the rest of the human organism has to judge something like economic life. We do not use our heads to judge economic life at all, because the head is not particularly interested in economic life. It does want to be nourished as well, but it only makes this demand of its own organism, not of the outside world. The head itself only corresponds to the rest of the organism in terms of its nutritional needs. It is actually placed on this rest of the organism in such a way that it is, so to speak, really carried by this rest of the organism. Just as a person sits in a cab, our head sits on the rest of the organism and does not participate in the movements. Just as we do not need to exert ourselves in the cab when we are riding in it, for example, to work with our arms and legs on the forward movement of the cab, our head does not participate in the movement of the legs and feet. Our head is something that rests on the rest of the organism. It is an organization of a completely different kind than the rest of the organism, and it judges in such a way that it brings the power of this judgment with it into physical existence through birth. The rest of the organism is built out of this world. This can also be demonstrated with the help of embryology, if only one really does embryology, not the caricature of embryology that is done by today's science. The way in which embryology is developed proves immediately what I am saying here. This remaining organism is what now enters into a relationship with the rest of the world, including the social world, and is dependent on the structures into which we enter into the outer world.

We can say that the human being confronts the world with two very different organizations. He counters spiritual life with his head, and economic life with the rest of his organism. But the rest of the organism already shows its dependence on the human outer world through its purely natural constitution. Consider: in relation to the rest of the organism, the human race is divided into men and women, and the fact that the world endures as the human race stems from the interaction of men and women. So here you already have the archetype of social interaction. What is the main organization, is not somehow dependent on interacting with others in such a way that the activities are joined together, but rather we give what the head produces to the other people, shower the other people, as it were. This forming of associations, this living together with other people in associations, is only, I would say, a further form of living together, which the human being enters through the rest of his organization, apart from the head. Something quite different from what appears through our head organization comes into the world. What we must say about it is that we only get it in the eminent sense by integrating ourselves into this physical world. — At first, this other part of the human organization is actually only born in its astral form: desire without wisdom. While the head does not develop desire, must first be educated to desire the world cognitively, the human being develops desire through the rest of his organism, but it is not permeated by wisdom, and must first seek its wisdom in living together with the head.

On the one hand, you have the spiritual world with very different qualities than the world we have on the other hand, the world of economic life: I have characterized the world of spirituality by showing you how it is carried in from our prenatal life; the world of economic life is formed, but cannot be fully developed by the individual human being, but only in living together with other people, in association, which actually mainly extends to desire, in which wisdom does not at all encompass what is desired in a person. We want to relate this completely different world to the other world in the threefold organism in the right way. But we can look at these two worlds, and something will become clear to us that we mentioned at the beginning of our reflections. What is present in economic life, in the outer life in general, speaks to the desire. But the traditional religions also appeal to this; they appeal to desire. They appeal to that which is subject to human egoism. They incite egoism in order to make people receptive to the idea of immortality. Our spiritual science wants something different. It does not want to incite people's egoism in order to arrive at the idea of immortality, but it wants to develop in man that which man brings with him through birth out of his unborn self. It wants to speak to that in man which refrains from desire, which does not succumb to human egoism. It wants to speak to human knowledge, not to human desire, about the immortal or unborn human soul. It wants to speak to the purest part of the human being, to the light-filled knowledge, and wants people to rise through this path of light-filled knowledge to grasp the eternal in human nature. But this brings a new element into life in general. As a result, this earthly life appears to us as a continuation of our prenatal life. But then an element of responsibility runs through earthly life, which it would not otherwise have. One becomes aware that one is sent into this earthly life from higher worlds, and that one has a mission to fulfill in this earthly life.

It can also be expressed differently: other beings count on this human life on earth, and we actually address these beings as our gods, as the spiritual beings that stand above us. They live with us between death and a new birth. In a sense, we are in lively contact with them. Then the moment comes for every human being when, in a sense, these spiritual beings, these divine beings of the world, say to themselves: Here in this world of the spirit, we can only bring the person to a certain degree of perfection; we can no longer let him into our world. We would not achieve through man that which is to be achieved through man if we let man into our world. We have to send him out. There he will also conquer for us, the gods, what he cannot conquer for us here, what we gods cannot conquer for ourselves if we do not send people out into the other world. So we are sent out here by the gods to develop within the earthly body that which could not be developed in the spiritual world.

Thus, immortality after death, which is certainly all too justified – we know this and we describe it, after all – appears as something that man wants to enjoy. He wants to enjoy at least the thought of it throughout his life. Not giving birth is connected with a certain responsibility and obligation towards life, with a mission to the effect that we should try to understand life in such a way that we truly give back to the gods that which they expect from us at death. Through spiritual science, our life takes on a meaning. Our life has a significance for the spiritual world. We do not live in vain on this earth. We do not just experience things on earth for ourselves, but also for the gods, so that they too have them. It is precisely through this that life acquires meaning, and without such meaning one cannot live.

If one has become accustomed to the scientific questioning of the present, one can certainly say that it is not at all necessary to ask about the meaning of life. You just live and don't ask about the meaning of life. But of course you don't need to ask about the meaning of life if you put it so simply that you only ask about the meaning of life out of arbitrariness. You don't ask about the meaning of life out of arbitrariness at all, but when you realize, or should realize, that you cannot find a meaning to life, then life becomes meaningless. Not asking about the meaning of life means at the same time recognizing the nonsense of life. That is the important thing. It makes a difference whether one asks about the meaning of life merely out of human arbitrariness or whether one is clear about the fact that not asking about the meaning of life means recognizing life as nonsense. But that means denying the spirit as such, and anyone who does not ask about the meaning of life denies the spirit. Only from this point of view does the real meaning of life then also become apparent, and we can then say to ourselves: This life has a meaning because the supersensible needs this sensual life to complete it. From this, however, you will see how infinitely wrong the world is thinking at present, since, from the education of civilized humanity that has taken place in the last three to four centuries, it wants to base a social existence in which people between birth and death would actually all like to be completely happy, would like to experience everything that can be experienced.

Where does it come from that one even asks the question about the meaning of life in this way? It comes only from the fact that one no longer grasps the meaning of the sensual life in the supersensible, that the last three to four centuries have brought forth such materialism that one seeks the meaning only between birth and death, or finds no meaning of life there, but would actually like to develop it only out of desire. This leads to the formulation of socialist ideals such as those evident in Leninism and Trotskyism. They are only the result of the materialistic mode of perception and cannot be eliminated from the world in any other way than by returning to a spiritual mode of perception.

It is necessary to repeatedly and repeatedly point out the peculiar fact – it cannot be pointed out sharply enough – that is expressed by answering the question: What is the actual state philosophy of the current Russian Soviet government, of Bolshevism? If you want to answer this question, you don't have to go to Russia, because the state philosophy of Bolshevism is a philosophy that was truly founded by a very worthy bourgeois, by Avenarius, and by the students of Mach, the student of Avenarius, who did not live in Switzerland, but many of Mach's students did live in Switzerland. One of them is... the most important is Friedrich Adler, who shot the Austrian Count Stürgkh; he lectured in Zurich. At that time they were - no longer Adler, but Mach and Avenarius - certainly respectable bourgeois who were not out of touch with the world around them. But they developed a philosophy out of materialism, a very consistent, sharply defined one. This philosophy makes sense to people who think in a Leninist, a Trotskyist sense in the practical, political realm. It is not only because many Bolsheviks studied in Switzerland that Avenarius's philosophy, as it was cultivated here in Switzerland, in Zurich in the 1970s, is now the state philosophy of Bolshevism, but rather it is the case that for for those who see things not only in terms of their abstract logic, but in terms of their reality context, for those, after a few decades, when the second generation comes, the lecturing that takes place in the manner of Avenarius becomes Bolshevism. From the materialistic teachings on the chairs, Bolshevism arises in the second generation. That is the actual context. And anyone who wants to continue to cultivate materialism in their knowledge must be aware, from the study of spiritual science, that after two generations it will be much worse and will bring about something much worse than what is there now, because in Russia there are about six hundred thousand people (in 1920) – there are no more Leninists there – who rule over millions. At present, the others have to obey them much more than the Catholics have ever obeyed their bishops.

These things all develop with an inner necessity, and materialism, as it has been cultivated in the second half of the 19th century, is intimately connected with what is now emerging as social chaos. The cure lies only in the direction of returning to the spirit in thinking, in feeling, in the impulses of the will, to permeating oneself with the spirit in feeling, to letting impulses come from the spirit in the will. The appeal to the spiritual life is expressed in such considerations, and that is the concern of culture. This appeal is all too justified, for on the other side stands the rejection of precisely the spiritual life in the broadest circles.

When we have often considered the development of our present culture together, we have had to say: materialism gradually emerges in the middle of the 15th century, takes hold of the minds and reaches its culmination in the present. Before that, other soul feelings were at the basis of culture, of that cultural period that began in the 8th century before the emergence of Christianity and ended around the middle of the 15th century, and which we call the Greco-Latin cultural period. Then we go further back into the Egyptian-Chaldean, into the pre-Persian, pre-Indian time, until we come to the Atlantic catastrophe. If we visualize these cultural currents, we can say that we have an ancient Indian culture, an ancient Persian, an Egyptian-Chaldean, a Greek-Latin, and then our own, which begins in the middle of the 15th century. It is not that we can get by with such a schematic equation of the individual successive cultures, but when we look back to the older cultures – actually, written documents are only available from the third post-Atlantean culture , we can only look back at the earlier ones with the help of the Akasha Chronicle. When today the external scholars in archaeology, anthropology and so on collect the records of older cultures, there is little understanding associated with what is brought up as a result. These records are treated in an external way. But if one gradually works one's way into the spiritual world through spiritual scientific methods, one can learn to recognize something of the secrets of the spiritual world again, and then look back at the earlier cultures. Then they appear in a different light; then one says to oneself: these older peoples did have an atavistic way of seeing, a more instinctive way of seeing. We have to struggle to get to the spiritual world at all, to an awareness of the spiritual world. The ancient peoples did not have such a clear awareness of it, but they did have a mythicizing way of living their lives. But when one sees the results of this atavistic, instinctive penetration into the spiritual world, the results in the Vedas, in Vedanta philosophy, in Persian and even Chinese documents, then one is filled with great reverence, even if one does not yet go into the mystery culture, great reverence for what was once given to humanity as primeval wisdom and which has actually declined more and more. The further back we go, the more human cultures prove to be imbued with spirituality, even if it was a sensed spirituality, an instinctive spirituality. Then spirituality fades, gradually dries up, and it has dried up the most in our fifth post-Atlantic age, which began in the mid-15th century.

Now imagine someone who knows nothing about this spiritual science, who also seriously does not want to know about this spiritual science, approaches the present culture of the West, looks at it, but looks at it impartially, without rhetorical empty phrases and phrasemongering declamations. He looks at it as a connoisseur, but he does not see that what was there once, the original wisdom of the divine spiritual beings, has gradually dried up, but he only sees what is there now. He looks at them in the way one has become accustomed to looking at things; he looks at them in a sense with the gaze of the natural scientist, and thus also looks at culture with the gaze of the natural scientist. There you have this Western civilization, but something that has emerged like the earlier civilizations and is passing away like the earlier civilizations. He notices the analogy with the birth of the outer physical human being, with the maturing of the outer physical human being, with the dying of the outer physical human being. He will say this, while we say: Not only was there this original culture once upon a time, but there was also an original wisdom, only it descended ever deeper, and now in the last cultural period it has more or less dried up. But if we want to make progress, we must appeal to the inner being of human beings. Then a new impulse of spirituality must be brought forth, so that what has disappeared in our culture can be rekindled: the spiritual wisdom of the human being. A new impulse must come, a new ascent. But this can only come about by descending into our own inner being, by bringing the spirit there again. Those who know nothing of this, how do they view Western culture? Those who have not acquired this spiritual-scientific perspective, but only the natural-scientific perspective, will believe that cultures come and go in the same way that an organic being is born, matures, grows old, and perishes. He will see our Western culture, compare it with others, and be able to calculate how long it will last before its complete death. But because he does not see that something must arise again in man himself that has been lost, he has no hope. He sees no elements of rebirth in culture; he speaks only of dying.

Today, such a person is no longer a hypothesis, for he is already present in the most significant way in Oswald Spengler, who wrote a book about the “Decline of the West,” of Western civilization. There you have a person who, one might say, has a complete command of twelve to fifteen contemporary sciences, who looks at present-day civilization with the eye of a naturalist, and who knows nothing of the fact that once there was a primeval wisdom and has dried up, that now the source of ascent must be sought from within man, who therefore sees only the decline and predicts for the 3rd millennium with great genius. The book is written with great genius. One can say about what we are experiencing that we see decline everywhere, and now the scholar has emerged who proves that this decline must come, that this Western culture must die a bleak death. I brought with me the bitter impression of that when I came back from Germany, because there, among the youth, Oswald Spengler's book has made the most significant impression. And those who still think think under the impression of the proof that barbarism must spread and must be present within the Occident and its American appendage until the beginning of the third millennium; for that has been proved, rigorously proved by the same means that scientific facts are rigorously proved, by a man who masters twelve to fifteen contemporary sciences.

This already points to the seriousness of the situation in which we currently find ourselves, but it also points to the fact that just as Spengler is imbued with the seriousness of life and knows nothing and wants nothing of what alone can be the salvation: spiritual science, spiritual insight, that one can talk about nothing else, if one talks honestly and sincerely, than precisely the decline of our civilization. Any insistence on some vague hope — “it will come” — is not the point today; only building on human will, appealing to human will to take up the impulses of spiritual science. Western culture and the development of humanity will come to an early end if people do not decide to save it. Today it depends on people, and the proof is that what has come from ancient times, if one wants to rely on it, only leads to decline, that a new one must be found from the depths of human nature if the earth is to reach its goal. All mere belief that there will already be powers that will carry civilization forward does not apply today. Only what people do by saving the declining civilization out of themselves applies. This must be said again and again.

That is how serious things are today. I must say that if you take things seriously today, then you have to look at them carefully. I had to give a lecture on our spiritual science to the student body of the Technical University in Stuttgart, and I know with what feelings I went to this lecture, thoroughly imbued with everything that can weigh on the soul as a feeling for today's youth as a result of the impact of Spengler's book. But all this points to one fact: the wisdom of initiation must make its way into external intellectual culture. Without this, we will not make progress. On the other hand, there are difficulties standing in the way. Today, when speaking of the things that are necessary, one is not always able to find the right words easily. I am probably saying something paradoxical with this sentence as well. When have words been easier to find than today! You only have to look through the popular feuilleton literature, that which most people quote from the newspaper today. Where there is literary care, it is truly easy to find the words, it is not difficult to find the words. Let me give you an example, truly not out of any silliness, but precisely to characterize the present.

Recently, in Stuttgart, in a public lecture to a large audience, I tried to characterize the connections that lead to Leninism and Trotskyism, and I searched for words to express what prevailed in people's minds when the transition was sought between the old bourgeois life and Leninism, Trotskyism. I tried to point out these instincts, to which I have pointed you today in a more spiritual scientific way. And truly, from a struggle for an expression, the expression emerged: Leninism, Trotskyism flows from “perverse” instincts. I couldn't find another expression. After the lecture, a doctor who obviously thought communistically approached me and was deeply hurt by this expression. Of course, the doctor, who takes such expressions with a completely different weightiness than the rest of the world today, who is too accustomed to feature articles and fiction, the doctor feels the full weight of the expression “perverse instincts” in political life. He felt offended and said how one could use such an expression. He knew what pathological abnormalities such an expression was used for. But after a while I had persuaded the gentleman to say: “So I see you didn't mean what you said in a literary or journalistic sense; then it's a different matter.” — That is necessary today, in order to understand at all that someone is learning to feel: there is a struggle for expression, there is a necessity to first search for the right word, while in public life words flow easily , but these words are then such that, in view of the way they are used today, using such strong words as “perverse” in such a context seems like frivolity.

I wanted to give you such an example so that you can see how today's general thinking is light-minded and how we need to delve into the seriousness of life. This can be seen in the details of life. Today we need talent to look at the one-sidedness of the traditional creeds, which speak only of immortality but not of birthlessness, and which therefore speak only to people's selfish instincts and are unable to appeal to their selflessness when eternity is mentioned. Spiritual science must be able to speak of eternity by not merely reflecting on the egoistic instinct of carrying existence beyond death, but by reflecting on the continuation that spiritual and prenatal life experiences here in this life, where we have a mission, where we have to give this life meaning by becoming aware that we bring something spiritual into this world.

But we will not be able to properly understand the pre-birth if we do not know how to connect the pre-birth and the after-death in the right way. And we only do that in spiritual science. For when we understand in the right sense how we spend the time between the last death and a new birth, and again between this death and a later birth, then the prenatal and the after-death join together to form the realization of repeated earthly lives, then this conviction of repeated earthly lives becomes a self-evident developmental truth. Repeated earthly lives carry within them the secret of pre-existence, the secret of pre-existence that the creeds are so eager to eliminate, that they do not want to talk about. The ancient wisdom of man has spoken of this pre-existence. It was only during the Middle Ages, with the adoption of Aristotelianism, that the doctrine of pre-existence was lost. But today the Christian confessions regard the rejection of prenatal life as a dogma connected with Christianity. This rejection has nothing to do with Christianity, it has only to do with the philosophy of Aristotle. The idea of immortality, as we are speaking of it here in the field of spiritual science, is entirely compatible with Christianity itself.

It will not improve in relation to the general culture of humanity until people in their social lives also perform acts that are dominated by this idea of pre-existence. In today's culture, one is only honest when one speaks, as Oswald Spengler does, of the decline of the West, insofar as one knows nothing about spiritual science or does not want to know about it. For only he who ascribes the power of this ascent and the strength of this ascent to the spirit active in human will, only he who now truly says out of the inmost conviction: “Not I, but the Christ in me!” But then one must also include this Christ in the idea of immortality; then one must actually appeal to the transformation of human nature, to the Christification of human nature, not merely to the pagan inclusion of the idea of God in the creed without the person having changed. The fact that it has been accepted in the broadest circles of the Protestant confession that the theologian Harnack could say: Only the Father-God belongs in the Gospel of Jesus, not the Christ, for Jesus taught only about the Father-God, and it was only later that Christianity adopted the view that Christ Himself is a divine being. — That is today's most modern theology: to exclude the Christ from Christianity. We spiritual scientists must reinclude Him. We must recognize how he fits into human history; we must permeate the cultural epochs with the Christ. Then they will not merely be what they are in Spengler's spirit, but will become something for our time that teaches us: we need a Naissance, not just a Renaissance, we need the rebirth of the spirit. This awareness is what really makes an anthroposophist, not the assimilation of individual teachings, but this awareness that we are called upon to enter not just into a rebirth, but into the birth of a spiritual element in our time. The more we become aware of this, the better we will become as adherents of the anthroposophically oriented worldview. But in order to become aware of this, it is necessary to familiarize oneself with the anthroposophical way of thinking by reading what has been offered and by inwardly contemplating what has been given and suggested. At the same time, becoming familiar with the anthroposophical way of thinking means everything else that is to arise from the depths of our consciousness. Threefolding is nothing other than a branch on the tree of Anthroposophy.

This is what I wanted to bring to your hearts today, as we have been brought together again through these reflections. I hope that through such reflections we will continue to progress in being imbued with the consciousness that constitutes our true connection with Anthroposophy.

Man really only faces the riddles of existence when he has developed a degree of awareness of life, when he feels compelled to form ideas, sensations, feelings about his relationship to the world. But then, when he has reached such a situation, then the riddles of existence mean to him what can be called a vital question, because they are not only connected with some theoretical longings, with mere external questions of education, but the whole position of man in the world depends on them, the way in which man can find his way in the world, the degree of security he can have in life, and the inner support with which he can move through this life.

But now there is a considerable difference between the various types of riddle of existence. Man stands in the face of nature, must form ideas and feelings about his relationship to nature, and if I may use a comparison, I would like to say: When man has come to consciousness in the way I have characterized it, and he cannot find his way into certain things that confront him as mysteries of nature of nature, then existence, to which he once belonged — as I said, it is only expressed as a comparison — appears to him as a spiritual darkness; he feels as if he has been placed in a dark world, he feels that he cannot orient himself in this dark world. But to a certain extent this whole relationship to the world secrets of outer natural existence remains something external for the human being; it concerns his outer relationship to existence.

The human being's attitude to the riddles of his own soul is quite different. These riddles are what he lives by, and what basically constitute mental health and illness, but which can also become physical health and illness. For the life of the soul is something extraordinarily complicated, however simple it may initially appear. What we carry in our consciousness during our waking hours from morning to evening – it is indeed scientifically recognized today – is only a part of our soul life. A large part of our soul life rests in unconscious or, I could also say subconscious depths; it rises to the surface in the form of vague feelings, of vague moods, and also of all kinds of other soul content, and forms what is an indefinite basic state of our soul life. But what takes place and surges up in this more or less indeterminate way in the depths of our soul life is intimately connected with what actually constitutes the happiness or suffering of our lives. And anyone who tries to penetrate into the soul life of a human being by anthroposophical means will soon notice how everything that surges up indeterminately from the depths of the soul is connected with the physical body, and then more and more our entire state of health, which makes us capable of living or unable to live, can depend on these subconscious soul moods.

Today, however, I do not want to speak to you in the way that this unconsciousness of the soul is currently spoken about very often, by simply placing everything that shimmers unclearly in consciousness into the great container of this unconscious and by having more or less vague ideas about how this unconscious or subconscious works. I have been speaking here in this place about questions of anthroposophical research for many years and therefore cannot start from the most elementary of this research today, but I would like to consider the questions of soul life in their very essence in the way that they are connected to the happiness or unhappiness of life. But to do that, we must enter into what, flooded with all kinds of elements that are initially unknown, can have a disturbing or calming, happy or sorrowful effect on human mental life, which we want to point out more or less clearly through today's reflections, and what lies in between.

Now, if we look at our soul life, even if only superficially, we find two clearly distinguishable poles: on the one hand, the life of the imagination, which encompasses everything that takes place clearly and brightly in our consciousness, and on the other hand, the life of the will, which, in a certain way, initially emerges from the depths of the soul in darkness and darkness.

We distinguish – as I have often mentioned here – in the ordinary course of a person's life between two states of consciousness, of which only one is actually a distinct state of consciousness: the waking state and the sleeping state. In the sleeping state, the conscious life of imagination ceases; the entire soul life sinks down into a more or less dark darkness. But when we look at our soul life in the waking state with complete impartiality, we can only speak of the fact that we are truly awake with regard to everything that is conceptual. We have, so to speak, taken possession of ourselves as waking human beings, in that we have filled our consciousness with clear images, with thoughts full of light. We also accompany our volitional impulses, we accompany our actions with thoughts. But even in the simplest movement of the human body, how the thought of consciousness is connected with what actually happens during a volitional impulse, during an action, remains completely dark. How dark it is, what actually happens inside the arm when I just raise this arm, when the thought that has the goal of raising this arm wants to realize itself, so to speak, wants to shoot in and voluntarily set the arm in motion.

What happens in our own organism eludes our waking consciousness just as much as what happens in the human soul from falling asleep to waking up, so that we actually have to say: It is the case for the human soul that even in the waking state we have an element of sleeping, that the state of sleeping constantly permeates us and that we are only fully awake in the act of imagining, in the experience of clear, luminous thoughts. Between these two states, between the, I would say, fully waking state of imagination and the will life immersed in darkness, participating in both, lies the life of feeling and of the mind. Our feelings permeate our ideas. We bring certain sympathies and antipathies from our feelings into our imaginative life, and in doing so we usually either connect or separate our ideas. We accompany what flows into our will impulses with our emotional judgment, in that we perceive some actions as being in accordance with duty and others as transgressions of duty. And because we experience a certain emotional satisfaction when we perform our duties or dissatisfaction when we fail to fulfill our duties or for some other reason, our emotional life flows back and forth between our mental and our volitional life.

But the real soul mysteries do not present themselves to the dull person who, in the manner just described, devotes himself to the life of ideas on the one hand and to the life of feeling and the life of will on the other, but these soul mysteries emerge as man becomes more and more aware and aware. And even then the riddles of the soul do not arise in full consciousness, but they belong to the more or less subconscious experiences of the human being. Man never becomes quite clear in his consciousness as to the actual origin of the moods and dispositions of his soul life, which so influence his daily happiness and daily suffering. One must seek out and clearly express that which lives unclearly in the consciousness. And this is what I ask you to bear in mind first of all when I make the following remarks: that I will be obliged to express something in clear words that never lives in this clarity in the consciousness, but that is present in the soul life, healing and causing illness, that the person feels without being able to bring it to consciousness. And because this is so, the riddles of the soul are not merely theoretical, they are riddles of existence that are thoroughly experienced.

When man devotes himself to the life of imagination — as I said, I am speaking clearly about what is only felt vaguely, what is never fully brought to consciousness — he feels something like the vanity of his own existence. The life of imagination is an experience of images. The life of imagination is something that fills up during our waking day-to-day life with what we receive from the outer world in the way of impressions and perceptions. What we experience from nature forms the content of our imagination, it lives in us, it is what we draw up out of our memories. But we are aware: Yes, you are active in that you process your ideas in your ideas, in that you separate and connect the ideas; you are active inwardly, but you do not have your activity fully present in your mind; what is present in your mind is basically a reflection of the outer world. We know that we have to base our imaginative life on this external world. What we have is merely a picture of the external world; we live in pictures when we live in our imaginations, we do not feel fully alive in our imaginative life.

And this feeling, it lives subconsciously, as strange and paradoxical as it may sound. And as little as it is present in consciousness, it is alive in the subconscious; this feeling lives out in certain anxious feelings in relation to the life of ideas, in feelings of fear.

It sounds paradoxical, but this undercurrent of the human soul does exist. Most people know nothing about it, but most people, or actually all people, are constantly under its influence. And this undercurrent is an anxious current, that we could, so to speak, lose ourselves in the world, that we stand over an abyss because our world of imagination is a world of images. And again, the indefinite longing lives in the human soul: How do I find existence in this mere world of images?

This unconscious feeling in the undercurrent of the soul can be compared to the feeling that a person has when they are physically short of air, when they suffer from air hunger and thus consciously fall into anxious feelings. What a person consciously experiences through physical conditions is actually always unconsciously felt as a concomitant of the life of ideas. And so, on the one hand, attention can be drawn to a mystery of the soul, not in theoretical formulation, but by bringing up from the depths of the soul something that germinates or slumbers in this soul.

On the other hand, by living towards the element of will, the human being feels the opposite state. There is a different undercurrent in the life of the soul. Here the human being senses how he is exposed to his drives, his emotions, his instincts, how something natural plays into the human soul life that does not open up to the clarity of thinking, that is always immersed in a certain way in a reality that we cannot penetrate with light, that forms a darkness within ourselves. And if one can penetrate into these undercurrents of the soul with unbiased observation, one can indicate - one must always say a contradiction if one wants to characterize that which exists in the depths of the soul - how that which lives there is unconsciously felt. One must then characterize it by saying: It is felt in the same way as anger is felt in consciousness, or also the way a person feels when he cannot breathe out, when his blood circulation is so disturbed that the inhaled air is not properly converted in his body, when a kind of suffocation sets in. Something like anger-patience is always there in the human soul as a result of such a way of living towards the element of the will.

These are forces that live deep in the unconscious of the human soul, that surge up and constitute the real mystery of the human soul's life. And if you merely take the ideas in their pictorialness, the will in its instinctuality, as they present themselves to consciousness, you may feel these soul mysteries as something vague, as an indefinite sensation of the soul, but he does not make these soul riddles clear to himself, he does not really know what the indeterminate workings in him are that deeply influence his happy or unhappy mood in life.

It must be said again and again: the soul riddles are not the same as those we feel in nature; the soul riddles are those that are experienced inwardly, that flood up from the deep undercurrents of the soul and that must first be interpreted. That is why all science – which of course, as I have already emphasized here, has nothing to object to in its legitimate field – knows little about the actual mysteries of the soul. We see it – and I would like to cite two examples of this – in all of modern scientific thinking, how helpless science, which celebrates such great triumphs in other fields, actually is when it comes to the soul life, despite the fact that the greatest riddles of existence are connected to this soul life of man. I would like to recall two examples, which, however, I am convinced are deeply significant of what is there and of what is scientifically necessary in order to penetrate into the actual realm that the human being experiences as a soul mystery.

Almost half a century ago, the great physiologist Du Bois-Reymond gave a speech at the 45th Naturalists' Conference in Leipzig that must be referred to again and again, although it has been discussed extensively and is now almost forgotten and has disappeared from the discussion. This speech was about the “limits of knowledge of nature”, and Du Bois-Reymond rightly states, on the one hand, that the material world is the limit of knowledge of nature in its essence. He says: Into the realm of matter the human spirit cannot penetrate. It penetrates into the outer observation of the outer sense phenomena to the revelation of material existence, but it cannot state what matter itself actually is. Du Bois-Reymond states this as the one limit. As the other limit, he states that of human consciousness; but today this is nothing other than that of the human soul life. He says: With the most perfect knowledge of nature, one cannot even gain any idea of how the simplest sensation in the human soul comes about. Even if one knew quite clearly how atoms of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen move in the human brain, one would never be able to fathom from a clear insight into these movements how the simplest sensation - “I see red”, “I smell the scent of roses” - comes about, that is, how the first elements of mental life come about.

And Du Bois-Reymond is actually completely right in this statement. There is a second limit for external natural science here, except that Du Bois-Reymond's conviction is precisely the one that must be overcome through anthroposophical research. Du Bois-Reymond believes that the boundaries of knowledge of nature are the boundaries of all science. Therefore, he says: If one wants to penetrate into this realm of the spiritual and soul, one must do so by means other than scientific ones, because where supernaturalism begins, where, in other words, one enters the realm of the spiritual and soul, science ends. Anthroposophical research seeks to defend the idea that science need not be limited to the external natural world, but can develop the means to penetrate into the spiritual and soul realms.

The other example I would like to give is that of an outstanding personality, Franz Brentano, who wanted to establish a psychology entirely according to the method of modern natural science. That was his ideal. I have discussed the whole situation underlying Franz Brentano's research in detail in the third part of my book 'Von Seelenrätseln' (Puzzles of the Soul) and would like to mention only a few principles here. Franz Brentano then tried to write a psychology at the beginning of the seventies of the last century. The first volume was published in spring 1874. The second volume was promised for the fall; it never appeared. The whole work was intended to be in four volumes; except for the first volume, nothing was ever published except individual attempts, which, however, are always only attempts. The whole work remained a torso. In the work mentioned, I have discussed why this had to be so. Franz Brentano wanted to conduct research into the life of the soul in the same way as in the natural sciences, and in this first volume one finds a remarkable confession by Franz Brentano. He says, for example: With this scientific research, it is possible to find one's way around the details of mental life in a modest way; one can indicate how one idea connects with another, how one idea separates from another, how certain feelings attach to ideas, how volitional impulses attach to ideas, how memory works, and so on. But if, as Franz Brentano says, it had to remain the case that one could only investigate these details of mental life, and if knowledge of the most important questions of human existence had to be bought with this strict scientific method, where would that get us? For Brentano finds justified the yearning that already lived in Plato, in Aristotle, in ancient Greece: to pursue that which can be investigated in detail about the human soul all the way to the great questions from birth to immortality. And it would be sad, says Franz Brentano, if, in the desire to be scientific in our exploration of the soul's life, we had to renounce knowledge of how the better part of the human being in us fares when the physical part is handed over to the earth at death.

And it can be seen from what Franz Brentano has expounded in the first volume of his psychology that his whole scientific yearning is to lead the individual questions, which basically have little to do with the wider public and which this wider public is willing to leave to the scholars, on a long path to the great questions of human immortality and the divine-spiritual content of the world, as reflected in the soul. But Brentano did not find this way out of his natural scientific way of thinking, and because he was an honest researcher by nature, he left the following volumes, for which he found no research path, unwritten until his death a few years ago.

I would like to say that it is precisely this researcher's fate that shows in the truest sense how tragic it is that what is often recognized today as the only scientific approach must falter when faced with the great riddles of the human soul. That is it - again I have to say it - that anthroposophy must defend before the world today: that the path that Brentano could not find from natural science can be found! And it can be found if we do not stop at the ordinary capacities of the soul life, as they present themselves in outer life and as they are used in ordinary science.

I have often said that there are dormant, let us say, scientifically latent cognitive abilities in every human soul that must first be brought out of this soul, just as certain abilities must be brought out of a child through education. Those who have already matured for the ordinary cognitive abilities must train themselves in devotional inner soul exercises so that they develop those soul abilities through which not that which I have characterized on both sides as human, enigmatic soul - the experience in relation to the ideas, the experience in relation to the impulses of the will - but so that the human soul process becomes, so to speak, transparent, so that one can penetrate into what actually takes place in the human life of ideas and in the human life of will. For without penetrating into these everyday soul riddles, one cannot find the way to the great questions of human immortal existence and the divine-spiritual content of the world, in which the human soul also originates.

Now, in my lectures here, I have often described how a person can do inner exercises, purely soul-spiritual exercises, through which he awakens the otherwise dormant cognitive abilities to existence, so that they can really help him in his knowledge. I have pointed out how one can strengthen one's own power of imagination. Just as we strengthen a muscle when we use it continually in work, so we can strengthen our imaginative life when we, in the way I have described in detail in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds,” , when we direct this life of imagination in a certain direction through inner soul work, when we bring certain easily comprehensible images into the center of consciousness and thus repeatedly devote ourselves to this kind of imaginative work to which we would otherwise not devote ourselves. I can only hint at this in principle here, but you will find clear indications in the work just mentioned and also in the second part of my “Occult Science” that the imaginative life of the human being can become something quite different through such meditation and concentration exercises of thinking. I would like to say: without any kind of abnormal practice, but through the mere development of what is normal in a person's thought life, a stronger, more powerful thought life can be created.

And by generating this stronger imaginative life, by elevating oneself through meditation and concentration above that which is merely pictorial in our ordinary imaginative life, one comes to what I call in the books mentioned, the imaginative presentation rich in content.

This imaginative presentation lives with such inner vividness in the mere thought as otherwise man lives in his outer perceptions. But through this, one gradually comes to the point where the life of the imagination is no longer merely abstract, I might say merely pictorial, but through purely inward research — which, however, is pursued with the same seriousness as any scientific research — one makes the discovery that the soul, which could otherwise only fill its imaginative life with the results of external impressions, is inwardly filled with forces that, so to speak, shoot into the soul life. The images are no longer merely this light fluid when they are formed through meditation and concentration, but they are imbued and permeated with forces that I would like to call formative forces, forces that make up an inwardly spiritual-plastic element. And after a while one discovers that through this training of the life of imagination one grows together with that which the formative forces of the human body itself are; after some time one makes the discovery that the life of thought is, so to speak, nothing other than the rarefied life of forces of human growth. What gives us our physical body from birth to death in a plastically formative way is, I would say, in a 'diluted' state our imaginative life in ordinary consciousness.

We look at the newly born child. We know that in this newly born child, starting from the brain, the plastic forces are at work shaping the body. We follow the growth of the child, how it radiates straight from the plastic brain activity, we follow it to a certain point in human life on earth, until the teeth change, until around the age of seven. We will initially perceive this life of forces, which pulsates in man and is vividly active in him, as something indeterminate. On the other hand, by powerfully developing our life of ideas through meditation and concentration, we are unconsciously led to the same element that has been vividly working in us from our earliest childhood. And this is a significant discovery of the inner human life: that one can strengthen the life of the imagination to such an extent that one can make it so intense inwardly that one then feels oneself in it, in what the human formative forces are, what formative forces are in one's growth, in one's metabolism. However strange it may still sound to today's research, it is the case that it is possible to grow into what, so to speak, then takes us up as that which plastically shapes our outer physical body as its formative forces, by strengthening our soul life. One grows into reality through the life of the imagination; one grows into a formative element.

And in this way one gets to know what lies behind the mere thought process; one learns to recognize how a spiritual, with which one has now connected oneself, works in the human organism from birth to death. The life of thinking acquires its reality; the life of thinking is no longer the mere life of picturing, the life of thinking becomes a life of strength that is inherent in existence itself.

And only through such an insight can that which the undercurrent of anxiety and fear produces in the human soul be conquered from consciousness, so that it is indeed not a theoretical solution to the riddles of the soul that anthroposophy points to here, but a thoroughly inward, practical solution that can be experienced.

Anthroposophy must point out that, on the basis of its research, what lives in the human being, what, I might say, only appears to have become so rarefied as to emerge as our ordinary life of thought, but which in truth is the inner sphere of growth of our existence, can enter into human consciousness and be grasped through human consciousness. And on the other hand, when a person loses the main focus of their mental life and enters into a fearful undercurrent of this soul life, they can absorb the results of spiritual science anthroposophy through their mental life and can consolidate this mental life through the path of knowledge. Anthroposophy does not offer a solution to this soul riddle by putting forward a theory, but by putting a result in front of the human being that he can fully grasp with his common sense and that then - like giving weight - appears in the life of ideas for his consciousness, for his soul life, so that the soul mood, the soul constitution, can flow into it, solving riddles, which Anthroposophy seemingly asserts as mere knowledge about the life of ideas.

On the one hand, we can see how the human being is a formed being, how he appears as a whole in a certain form, how his individual organs are formed out of the spirit and how we — so that we can be free beings, so that we do not act only through these inner forces, but can surrender to free mirror images until our merely pictorial representations develop into something vividly formed. I explained this at the beginning of the nineties of the last century in my 'Philosophy of Freedom', by showing that man is a free being precisely because he can live in pure thoughts that are not connected with any external reality for his consciousness, that he can form his moral impulses in these pure thoughts. In relation to mirror images, one will be in the position of having to do something oneself if the mirror image is to change; mirror images do not determine one causally. A human being would never be free if he were determined by a reality in his ordinary consciousness. In his ordinary consciousness, ideas live as images, but he is not determined by them, just as one is not determined by mirror images. He is free. In order for him to be free, his life must be distinguished from that which permeates it in a plastic way as a growth force, as a body of growth, one could say, as a body of formative forces. But this life in freedom must be paid for by the person with the characterized anxious undercurrent in his or her soul life, and therefore, in his or her ordinary consciousness, the person must come to fully experience his or her sense of freedom, but also, as a polar opposite, to be able to counter this experience of freedom with what anthroposophy can give as a way of strengthening the life of ideas in the way indicated.

But if one continues along this path, one does indeed advance from what I would call the very rarefied, purely pictorial life of ideas to what is real reality, what lives in the human being in a formative way. It is not the physical body, it is not the physical organs, it is a supersensible force, but it is there. One grasps something that lies outside the physical body, and by simply pursuing the riddles of the soul in one direction, one penetrates into that which has a supersensible reality in man, independently of the human physical body. One advances to that which is prepared by birth or by conception as a human physical body, by mere hereditary conditions, by mere external natural facts. One learns to recognize how the inherited traits, which come from parents or ancestors, combine with the whole body, which is formed in the maternal organism, from the spiritual world, to create what one finds in life when one strengthens one's imaginative life.

One arrives, I would say, at one side of the question of immortality. One looks at what is immortal, what is eternal in human nature, because it penetrates from a spiritual world through conception and birth into what is humanly physical, and because it continues to have an effect during earthly life as the inner plastic formative power with which we connect by strengthening our thought life in the manner indicated.

In this way, anthroposophy offers the perspective that someone like Franz Brentano was looking for. Brentano also began with an investigation of thoughts, but he left thoughts as they are in ordinary consciousness. He confined himself to merely registering what was present in ordinary consciousness. It is only by strengthening the life of thought through meditation and concentration that this life of thought leads to the inner, plastic formative power, and it really leads along the path that begins with the grasping of the simple everyday thought and ends with the spiritual-soul that lived in the spiritual and soul realm before birth, before conception, and that has connected with the hereditary forces and the physical forces of the human body.

There is no other solution to the riddle of the soul than to really find this path from the simplest phenomena of everyday life to the great riddle of existence.

So far, I have pointed out what a person can achieve in relation to their thoughts. There he comes to what, so to speak, drives the human being out into space, what vividly permeates the human being's spatial corporeality, what is lived out in form, what, as I have indicated, descends from the spiritual world and flows into the outer form of the human being, and also into the form of his inner organs. But this is only one side of human life, and the soul also participates in the other side of human life. Just as we can develop our thinking through meditation and concentration, we can also develop our will, not in the sense of strengthening it, but in the sense of making it more devoted and spiritualized.

This can be achieved by, in a sense, tearing the life of the will away from its everyday nature. I have given many individual exercises. Spiritual science is no easier than research in an observatory or in a clinic. These exercises would have to be practised for years, but I would like to pick out just a few to suggest the principles. It can happen that [this breaking away] by the fact that one, which works in ordinary thinking as a will - because in thinking there is always a will, the thoughts are shaped by the will, the thought is only one side, in the life of the soul is always the will is interwoven with the thoughts and the thoughts with the will - that one tears this element of will, which lives in the thoughts, away from its usual course, which adheres to external physical facts, by, for example, presenting something backwards. Let us say, for example, that instead of presenting a drama from the first act to the fifth, we present it backwards, starting from the last scenes and working back to the beginning. We then proceed to present external facts backwards. For example, one can imagine one's usual daily life in reverse, proceeding in as small portions as possible, from evening to morning, even to the point of imagining going up a staircase in such a way that one imagines it as going down backwards from the top step to the penultimate step and so on.

Because we are accustomed to thinking in the same direction as external facts unfold, thinking actually plays a passive role for us in relation to the will that unfolds in it. It becomes actively inwardly active, permeated with inner initiative, when we train it through such exercises as retrospection, where we tear it away from the course of external facts and make it rely on itself. For if we reinforce what we achieve in this way through careful and energetic exercises with a truly serious self-observation, observing what we do as a person of will as if we were standing beside us and observing ourselves piece by piece in our development of will, or even if we were to proceed to action, if we were to do exercises with the express purpose of making a resolution and then executing it with iron energy exactly, so that we live completely in the element of will. I just wanted to mention in principle such exercises that not only tear the will away from external facts, but also from its ties to the body itself, that make the will independent, spiritualize it. Then we actually come to a development of the will in this way, so that we experience ourselves with our soul life, which now develops the will, outside of our body. It is a momentous experience. But only through this do we begin to understand what the will is. In ordinary life, the will is bound to the organs. We see it unfold as we move our limbs. We observe the processes, the effects of our will, only through our thought life. We see into it when we have detached it from the body, when we experience it in itself, when we become completely one with it. Then it is permeated by an elevation of the power that is otherwise also bound to our physical organism, permeated by the power of love. And that devoted element in our soul life is developed into a transparent, bright clarity, which - I would say dark, as an emotional life of will in love - rode towards us.

I know how little people today want to accept love as a force of knowledge. In ordinary life it is not; but when it is so developed that the will is no longer rooted in instincts, in drives, in emotions, but that it lives in the purely soul realm, apart from the body, then this will is actually only recognized in its essence, and then it shows itself as something quite different from what the thought element has shown itself to be. The thought element, in its intensified form, has shown itself to be that which shapes in a constructive way, which, I might say, allows an organ to flow out of an organ, which culminates in human reproduction. The thought element unfolds as the plastic activity, from the soul into the human body. The will element unfolds in the body in such a way that, when it is recognized separately from the body, one can see how it affects the body. The physical body is not shaped plastically, but rather the plastic form is reduced, dissolved, atomized, made to flow. The element of will is what continually — please do not misunderstand me — I would like to say, again burns the formed elements of the human being, lets them go up in flames, spiritually speaking. The expression is meant figuratively, but it means something very important.

Human life, as it pours out of the soul into the body, can only be understood by seeing it, on the one hand, as this plastic element and, on the other hand, as the re-dissolving of the plastic element, as that which, I would like to say, lets the plastic element enter into the atomized and the deliquescent. And in that everything that unfolds as will in the human being is such a dissolving, atomizing, and deliquescent element in the human body, this will-like element is what is now experienced as pointing the way to the other side of human life, pointing the way to death.

Just as we first get to know the spiritual-plastic element of the human soul through the sculpture of thinking, which moves into the physical body through birth or conception, so we learn to recognize how the will-like element dissolves the human body, but in dissolving - as I said, figuratively speaking - pure spirituality emerges from the flame. We get to know the soul's departure from the body. In this way we learn to understand death through the dissolution of the will element. We learn to understand what happens to a person in death because we learn to understand what happens in a person in everyday volitional decisions. The everyday volitional decision brings about a kind of burning process in the physical body, but it is out of this burning process that our inner soul life emerges. What we feel inwardly as soul could not be there if we were always merely body, merely shaped in a plastic way. The plastic must be broken down, flow, and from the flowing of the plastic, from the ever-continuing destruction of the bodily, the experiencing of the soul arises. And we comprehend the departure of the human soul from the physical body at death, which, summarized into a single moment, represents that which is always represented in the unfolding of the will to the spirituality of the soul. Just as I experience my will in the present moment, how it forms a kind of process of combustion, dissolution in the body, how through this destruction the spiritual comes to life in the human body, so I learn to recognize how the other destruction of the body in death, which is nothing other than the last effect of the will hidden in the body, how the spiritual returns to the spiritual and soul world.

This is what leads us from anthroposophy into the riddles of the soul in a living way. Anthroposophy is not intended to be a theory; it certainly wants to provide knowledge, but not theoretical knowledge. It wants to provide knowledge that nourishes the soul. And in this way it can present the individual daily experiences of the soul being before the spiritual eye; it can then proceed from these individual experiences to the great questions of soul life.

Allow me to go into one detail so that you can see what is at the very basis of what anthroposophy is meant to bring to the riddles of the human soul. Allow me to give the details of human memory.

Once one has attained the intensified life of imagination that I have characterized, and once one has also become acquainted with how the plastic is continually being broken down by the life of will, then one also sees the inner soul processes with transparent clarity for the first time. One sees how the human being stands in relation to the outer world, how he receives his impressions from the outer world, how he then forms ideas and thoughts about these outer impressions, how after some time - or even after a long time - he brings up these ideas as memories from certain backgrounds or how they also arise of their own accord, as one says today, as “free-rising” memory ideas. For anyone who wants to look at the human soul with an open mind, the mere emergence of these memories heralds a significant psychological puzzle. It can be said that, in a very curious way, people have spoken of what the essence of memory actually is. People have imagined – and sometimes still do today – that impressions are evoked by the senses, then they are passed on through the nervous system, and finally they are transformed by the power of imagination. These images then enter into certain depths of the soul and come to the surface when they are remembered. Now, no person who thinks impartially can form any clear idea about how these ideas, when we do not have them, are supposed to go for a walk down there in unknown depths of the soul's life, only to come up again through arbitrariness when they are either needed or want to lean against something that appears as a new perception, as a new impression of the outside world.

Anthroposophy goes beyond this to the real, true observation of the human soul life itself. By knowing the intensified life of imagination and the spiritualized life of will, it sees through the whole process that takes place from the perception of the external thing through the formation of imagination, through the formation of memory, to the re-emergence of the remembered imaginations. The fact that anthroposophical research penetrates to the forces of knowledge through such a shaping of the life of imagination and will, as I have indicated, transforms the whole process of soul and body and the way in which these two interact with each other, is so transformed that, if I may compare it to something very dark and opaque that I have before me, it is suddenly made transparent by being illuminated. The whole human soul process becomes transparent through this strengthened life of imagination and spiritualized life of will.

And what do we now see with regard to what I have indicated? We see how the outer impressions stretch for miles, how the whole process continues and how, in fact, what I have described as the formative, plastic element of the intensified life of thought, works in the ordinary process of perception as a continuation. I perceive outwardly, but it is not only the abstract thoughts that I have in my ordinary consciousness that work in me, but also what is merely fathomed through spiritual science, that works continually; this plastic quality in the perceptions works down into the depths of the human soul and body. And then, when this has happened, when the thought has taken shape in the depths of the soul and body, then the human being moves on to something else. A volitional decision is at work here, the will is active, but the spiritualized will is present. In that part of the human being that is connected to the external brain, this will unfolds, it builds by dissolving the plasticity of the brain, what the impression has built up for the ordinary consciousness, so that we have spread an outer brain surface, if I may express myself roughly, over substrates, but where the plasticity continues to have an effect.

Now let us assume that I remember something in an arbitrary way, then it happens in such a way that I unfold this will out of a certain series of images. The development of the will is in turn connected with a breakdown, if external impressions do not now penetrate; and the fact that these do not come is ensured by the development of the will, which is a breakdown. And this dismantling allows what is in the subconscious during the voluntarily evoked memory to emerge as a sculpture of the human being. If free-floating ideas arise, the opposite happens. There is some external impression that forms into a thought. The thought is vividly active. It is imprinted on the brain. This plastic activity is similar to that which has formed in the subsoil that which can live in a certain form in the subsoil. This lives in the plastic that the thought has now formed.

You see, in this way the life of the soul becomes transparent; one learns to recognize it in its interaction with the life of the body, in the interaction of the spiritual with the bodily and with the soul; one learns to recognize it in its inner plastic structure, in its continuous extinguishing, burning away through the will element. And by learning to understand every single moment of life, one learns to grasp in these currents of life what the great questions of life are. One learns to recognize from the thoughts what moves into physical life at birth, one learns to recognize from the will what moves out into the spiritual world at death.

In this way, the results of anthroposophical research appear to penetrate from the details of life to the enigmatic essence of the human soul.

In this way, by recognizing how thought already works plastically in ordinary memory, as if something is being formed in the body, we also experience how that which is not yet in the body, but connects with the body through birth and conception, how that intervenes plastically in the body. We get to know the human life element in this plastic form because we get to know the individual plastic element that already appears in the formation of memory.

Anthroposophy wants to look at the riddles of the soul with a full life! This should be understood as the essence of anthroposophical research: that it stops everywhere at the scientific conscientiousness that has been cultivated today through the great, powerful advances of external natural science, but that by stopping at this conscientiousness, it simultaneously goes beyond what mere external observation and mere external experiment can offer, that it progresses from the abilities which, precisely by their special presence, make the human soul a mysterious being for the human being himself, that through the development of these abilities it leads to the soul's riddles being solved not theoretically but practically.

There is no need to fear that someone who approaches the so-called solution of the soul's riddle from this point of view might one day, as if it were a fait accompli, present the solution as a completed insight, so that the soul might then fall into lethargy and carelessness towards its own life. No, the soul poses the riddles that I have mentioned today as the living, as the experienced soul riddles, in every moment of life, and in every moment of life we need the results of spiritual research anew, which have a balancing effect on that which arises so mysteriously from the dark depths of the soul. What I have called the anxious undercurrent of human soul life and the wrathful undercurrent are nothing other than the inner call of the human soul not to take itself for granted, but to accept itself in such a way in its full ongoing experience that this human soul is constantly a mystery to itself, that it constantly needs the solution to this mystery. And it is precisely such a continuous solution to the mystery of the soul that anthroposophical research seeks to offer, linking it to the reality of existence in such a way that one can say – if I may use a trivial comparison – Just as a person in their physical life is a being that must constantly take in nourishment, that cannot be satisfied with a single intake of nourishment because they consume this nourishment, because they combine this nourishment with their life process, so it is with what is offered to us by anthroposophy as the result of the soul's riddle. Its intense inner effectiveness eludes us if we do not constantly contemplate it, if we do not constantly progress. Because we are dealing here with a reality, not with a theory that can be learned and memorized, as with the reality of nourishment, we are dealing with something that must penetrate the ongoing process of life through anthroposophy.

And it is true. The human being will become aware of the following when dealing with the results of anthroposophy in relation to the riddles of the soul: learning – as strange as it may sound, it is a truth that anyone who deals with anthroposophy can experience with regard to the riddles of the soul – basically, you cannot learn anthroposophy; you can let its results approach you, you can read books, listen to lectures; but if you do not continually experience what you have absorbed in this way, if you do not, in a continuous process, just as one continually connects the bodily substances of the external world with the bodily processes through the process of nutrition and metabolism, one connects that which is presented in anthroposophy with the human soul, with the soul process. If this is not continually introduced into this bodily process, one will see that it loses its significance for the soul, just as the physical loses its significance for the body if it is not continually introduced into this bodily process. And just as hunger and thirst express themselves physically in the absence of physical nourishment, so a fearful and morbidly angry nature that wells up from the depths of the soul expresses itself when it is influenced by a real knowledge of the spiritual significance of the life of the imagination and the will. And if a person advances by always being able to cultivate in his consciousness, as a nourishment for his soul, what anthroposophical research gives him, then he finds what he needs to balance his soul life, what he must feel and experience as a continuous living solution of the soul riddles that are also continuously alive.

And it must be said again and again: although the fact that one allows and examines what is set out in the books mentioned above can lead one to embark on the path of independent anthroposophical research, anthroposophy does not depend on every person being able to verify what is presented in anthroposophy by following this path. Even if one does not do this, one can still use one's common sense to find what comes to light in anthroposophy reasonable or unreasonable. A person can use his or her common sense to follow what the anthroposophical researcher claims without becoming an anthroposophical researcher himself. But apart from this common sense, a person has something else. A person, even if he is a layman in the physiological or biological field, does not know the chemical composition of his food; but he tests what food really is for a human being by consuming it, by combining the forces with the forces of his bodily processes. In this way, he can unite the results that anthroposophy offers him, and the way in which it solves the soul's riddles, with his soul life, and he will find that it satisfies him soulfully. And what, in essence, are soul riddles in front of this anthroposophical forum? Soul riddles, grasped in their vitality, are nothing other than the expression of soul-spiritual hunger and soul-spiritual thirst. And the solution of soul riddles is basically nothing other than the assimilation of true spiritual content, true spiritual beings, which unite with the human spirit and with the human soul life. And so, I would say, spiritual saturation, which must continually repeat itself, is the solution to the riddle of the soul. The more vividly one grasps the process and the more one realizes how anthroposophy seeks to reach into every aspect of practical life, how it seeks to take root in the most mundane things and reach up to the great riddles of existence, by introducing the human being to the divine spiritual source of existence, by leading him to his own immortality, the more one will realize that anthroposophy cannot be theory, but something that can be experienced.

From this point of view, anthroposophy tries to have an effect on the most diverse practical areas of life; from this point of view, it has tried to shape what I have often presented here as the founding of our Waldorf School by Emil Molt, that is, something that is done in the practical social sphere.

Anthroposophy, as you can see, solves the riddle of the soul by addressing the whole living human being, body, soul and spirit. In doing so, it overcomes the one-sidedness of the knowledge and soul life that necessarily had to arise with the fully recognized results of modern natural science in their field, which is also thoroughly recognized as a triumph by anthroposophy.

But people would take note of such things – and they would be taken note of if anthroposophy were not so misunderstood – as happened, for example, here in Stuttgart at the anthroposophical Congress, where Dr. von Heydebrand, in a lecture that was also printed, used Waldorf education to explain the one-sidedness of mere external experimental psychology. Not because opposition should be taken against this experimental psychology – it will be possible to appreciate it in the right way in its own field with its own results, if on the other hand what is explored in such an external way can be combined with what can be achieved spiritually and soulfully through anthroposophy. For it is through anthroposophy that what works spiritually and soulfully out of spiritual and soulful worlds in the physical body of man is understood. But in this way, all external research can be enlivened, as can education, medicine (this too has been discussed here in earlier lectures), and social life.

Here, too, I would like to refer to a fine example in the lecture given by Emil Leinhas at the above-mentioned congress – which is also available in print here – which explains what economics, which has been developed purely on the basis of imitated natural science methods, cannot achieve. A start has been made here on a real recovery of social life that comes from the spiritual and soul realms. And what is the reason for this in the end?

Through anthroposophy, we can see how thought has a formative effect. Now, it not only has a formative effect in the human body as the soul-spiritual, it also has a formative effect when we can introduce it into human social life in the right way as social ideals, and the will that has been understood in the right way also works in a social relationship. For just as we know that the human body is dissolved through it and led to a certain combustion, so that which is introduced into social life as a comprehended element of will will recognize at the right moment when any institution has outlived itself and must disappear so that its fruits can be reborn in a new form. Just as the soul and spirit rise up out of the physical in the way described, so the higher structures of social life rise up through the disappearance of certain external institutions that have outlived their purpose, and through this disappearance working together with the formative and constructive. What is seen in the right anthroposophical understanding of the human soul riddle can flow out into social life, I would even say, solving the riddle of social problems as well.

But this is how the human being comes to understand himself in the right way, to be filled with the right inner strength, with the true strength of his real self, which lives in human feeling, in human soul. Between the life of imagination and the life of will, there lives the always incomprehensible, always unfathomable, but no less tangible emotional life of the human being; and in this emotional being, for those who are able to look at life in this way, as I have characterized it today in relation to the riddles of the soul, the eternal self is revealed, which goes through repeated lives on earth. Then one knows how to look at the plastic-creative, developed life of the imagination and the spiritualized life of the will, which breaks it down.

In this way one learns by touching the human being what has entered into the human being through birth or conception in such a way that it initially points back to earlier earth lives to the state in which, in all primeval times, the outer cosmic was so little separated from the inner human life that it required not repeated earth lives but a continuously progressing spiritual-soul-natural life in order to bring about progress. One learns to look at repeated earth lives, at spiritual-soul lives lying between them; one learns to look into the future until a state where man will again have connected himself so strongly with the spiritual that the repeated earth-lives lose their meaning - in that man rises to the spiritualization of his existence, I might say, with an experience that rises out of the mere inanimate into spirituality.

One is led to the true solution of the riddle of the world through the solution of the riddle of the soul; one rises to the human soul, to the cosmos. But through this one attains living knowledge, living insight, which, as I have already indicated, is spiritual nourishment. But through this, knowledge as it is presented by anthroposophy becomes a real inner support for the soul in the element in which life wants to falter. Security, support and orientation in life can be found by seeking the spiritual nourishment that comes from anthroposophy. It brings us back to ourselves, transforming it into inner support, giving our inner balance an inner center of gravity. And in the difficult moments of life, when we are often in danger of sinking into misfortune, we can also find support in a mood of the soul that is carried inwardly by the full consciousness of the spirituality that fills the human being, when we become fully aware that the life of thought is not in vain, that it can find reality in the power of the soul to shape the world in a plastic way, and that the will is that which always gives this plastic shaping of the soul power. that the life of thought is not in vain, that it can find reality in the power of the soul and the world, and that the will is that which brings this power of the soul back to the spirit again and again. This gives support in the difficult moments of life, it puts life on a firm foundation and leads in the right way to the end of life.

And so, here, in reference to what has been said today, we can be reminded of the saying of an old Greek, pre-Socratic sage, who, out of an initially intuitive realization, speaks the weighty word: “When the human soul, freed from the body, soars into the free ether, it is an immortal spirit, freed from death.”

Yes, the riddles of the soul can be solved through real science. One can come to this conviction by trying to solve the riddles of everyday life of the soul through real spiritual insight. One can see a reflection of the knowledge of immortality in the ordinary events of life. And he who can judge the individual unfolding of thought, of feeling, of will in the right way, already sees the immortal in them, and he then looks up to the immortal in the all-embracing sense and thus comes to a real grasp of the eternal in human nature, which is rooted in the eternal ground of the existence of the Cosmos, of the evolution of the world.

“Spiritual science aims to show what can be gained in widening one's spiritual horizons. It can be said that for the purpose of gradually entering into the whole outlook inherent in spiritual research, anyone immersing himself in Herman Grimm?s spirit has the finest precepts.”—Rudolf Steiner, GA 62

This is a lecture, given by Rudolf Steiner, entitled Die Weltanschauung eines Kulturforschers der Gegenwart, Herman Grimm, und die Geistesforschung and contained in the volume Ergebnisse der Geistesforschung (Results of Spiritual Research) GA 62. The series in which this lecture was given at the Architektenhaus in Berlin, may be said to underline its overall importance for Rudolf Steiner: Held January 16th 1913 subsequent to a lecture January 30th on Raphael. Also known as, Herman Grimm, Contemporary Culture and Spiritual Developments, and Anthroposophy.

This single lecture is the 8th of 14 lectures in the lecture series entitled, Results of Spiritual Investigation, published in German as, Ergebnisse der Geistesforschung. Translated by Peter Stebbing

Translated by Peter Stebbing

It could easily appear as though what is set forth here as spiritual science stood in isolation to what is otherwise proclaimed and of a tone-setting nature in the cultural life of the present. However, it can only appear so to one who conceives of this spiritual science in a somewhat narrow-hearted sense, seeing in it nothing more than a sum of teachings and theories. On the other hand, whoever recognizes it as a spiritual stream open to new sources will become aware that parallels can be drawn to modern cultural life in various ways. It will be seen that this manner of viewing life called spiritual science can be applied to other, in some degree related directions. A direction of this sort is the subject of today's considerations—as represented by a prominent personality of modern cultural life, the art historian and researcher Herman Grimm.

Herman Grimm [the son of Wilhelm Grimm of the Brothers Grimm] was born in 1828 and died in 1901. He appears indeed as a quite characteristic figure of modern life, and yet he is, at the same time, so distinctive and unique as to stand apart. Today's considerations can connect especially well onto this personality. To anyone having occupied himself with Herman Grimm, he appears as a kind of mediator between all that relates to Goethe, and to our own spiritual life.

By reason of his marriage to the daughter of a personality, who stood close to the circle of Goethe, namely the sister of the romantic poet Clemons von] Brentano,[ Bettina Brentano [1785-1859], Herman Grimm was connected in a quite special sense with everything associated with the name of Goethe. Herman Grimm was related to her in that she was his mother-in-law, the same Bettina Brentano who had brought out Goethe's remarkable exchange of letters with a child. Bettina Brentano's unique memorial shows us Goethe enthroned like an Olympian, a musical instrument in his hands, while she presents herself as a child grasping at the strings. From the Frankfurt circle of La Roche, in her relation to Goethe she was able (like few others) to enter into Goethe's spirit. Even if some things as presented in the letters are inexact, being colourfully mixed together in various ways—a combination of poetry and truth—it still has to be said: Everything in this remarkable book, Goethes Brefwechsel mit einem Kinde [Goethe's Exchange of Letters with a Child], grew in a heartfelt manner out of sensing Goethe's whole outlook. In a wonderful way, it grants us an echo of his wisdom-imbued worldview. Bettina Brentano was married to the poet Achim von Arnim [l781-1831], who had contributed to bringing out the fine collection of folk poems called Des Knabens Wunderhorn [1806] [The Boy's Magic Horn]. By virtue of the connection with this circle—as mentioned, Gisela Grimm, Herman Grimm's wife, was one of the daughters of Bettina von Arnim—Herman Grimm grew up from youth onwards, as it were, amid personalities who stood in close proximity to Goethe. In all that he took up in his education, Herman Grimm absorbed something of an immediate, elemental spiritual breath of Goethe. Thus, he felt himself as belonging to all those who had stood personally close to Goethe, even though he was still a child the time of Goethe's death [in 1832J, rather than one who had “studied” Goethe and Goetheanism. Herman Grimm counted as having taken into himself, in a direct and personal way, something of Goethe's essential being, his magical power, his natural humanity.

With inner participation, Herman Grimm experienced the development of German cultural life during the decades of the mid-nineteenth century. In doing so, he established, so to say, his own “kingdom” within this German cultural life. He can be called a spirit who, in an individual manner, starts out from whatever stimulated him, that furthered the development of his own powers. In this way, out of the whole range of cultural life, a realm subdivided itself for Herman Grimm that suited his aims, a realm in which he felt at home. Within this domain in which Herman Grimm felt himself at home, he understood himself to be, lo to say, the spiritual “governor” with respect to Goethe. Goethe's spirit appeared to him as though it lived on. And in seeking out what derived from Goethe and what was compatible with him in cultural life, entering into this, it was always the essence of Goethe that he sought. This then became a yardstick for him in evaluating everything in cultural life.

These were decades of struggle in German cultural life, decades in which everything to do with Goethe receded, following his death. So much else of immediate everyday concern stood in the forefront, rather than what proceeded from Goethe. During that period, numerous other things asserted themselves in the cultural life of Germany, while little was heard of Goethe. On account of his connection with Goethe, Herman Grimm regarded himself as one whose task it was, quietly yet actively to cultivate and carry over Goethe's ethos to a future time that he certainly hoped would come, a time in which Goethe's star would shine out once more in the European spiritual firmament.

In that he regarded himself as, so to say, the “governor” of Goethe's spiritual domain, Herman Grimm stood somewhat apart in his relation to cultural matters. It seemed appropriate, if not self-evident to see him as having the air of a “lord.” Even in his stature, his physiognomy, his gestures, in his conduct, there was something about him suggestive of an aristocrat. And, it can be said: For anyone not accustomed to looking up to someone as to a lordly personality, Herman Grimm's whole demeanour as though compelled acknowledgement of the aforementioned status. I still fondly recall being together with Herman Grimm in Weimar, which he often liked to visit. On one occasion, he invited me as his only guest to a midday meal. We spoke about various matters that interested him. We also talked—and I was pleased that he wanted to have this conversation with me—about his comprehensive life-plans. And when a certain time had passed after the meal, he said, in his inimitable, humorous and quite natural manner, such that one accepted it from him as something innate, “Now, my dear Doctor, I wish graciously to dismiss you!” As though a matter of course, it actually made a self-evident impression on me. And it accorded with Herman Grimm's whole manner of conducting himself, so that, one granted him a certain air of lordliness.

Herman Grimm's whole lifework bears something of the same attribute. One cannot take up one of his major or minor writings, with their harmonious and so succinctly constructed sentences without feeling: all this affects one as though the author's personality stood behind it, regarding one with soulful participation. This contributes to the wonderful quality in Herman Grimm's writings. In every respect they are the product of his soul-imbued personality and have their immediate effect as such. In this way, his style takes on a certain justified, noble pathos. However, this noble pathos is mitigated everywhere by the individual, human element that breaks through. One accepts his style despite its elegance. Everywhere, one senses his origins in having sincerely absorbed Goethe's spirit. Yet this is not all; it becomes apparent that with him the Goethean element has undergone something of the development of German Romanticism. We sense in Herman Grimm's style a liberation from all that can broadly be termed “commonplace” or “customary.” We have the impression of a singular personality secluded within himself.

Herman Grimm's orientation could possibly have led to a certain one-sidedness, had something else not played a part, binding him closely to tradition; Herman Grimm was, after all, the, son of Wilhelm Grimm and the nephew of Jakob Grimm. Known for inaugurating modern linguistic research, these two collected the German fairy tales that have in the meantime profoundly permeated German life. They listened to the sagas and fairy tales told them by simple folk, that were almost forgotten and remembered by only a few remaining souls. Brought to life again by the Brothers Grimm, they now live on.

Despite a refined style in everything he produced, Herman Grimm also had close ties to popular tradition, combining this with what might otherwise have been a one-sided direction. We still have to stress something further by which he appears harmonious and complete. In taking up the works of Herman Grimm, we encounter something of his adaptability—a capacity to connect with the various spiritual phenomena in which he immersed himself in the course of his life. A certain isolation is required for someone to submerge themselves fully in the phenomena and facts of past centuries. This adaptability, this quality of “softness” with regard to Herman Grimm acquires its “skeleton,” however, its necessary “hardness,” by reason of something else that intervened in his upbringing. Both his father and his uncle belonged to the “Göttingen Seven,” who in the year 1837 submitted their proclamation protesting the abolition of their country's constitution. They were consequently expelled from the University of Göttingen. Thus, already as a child, Herman Grimm experienced a significant event and its aftermath. For there were consequences both for his father and his uncle, in that they not only lost their positions, bur their daily bread as well, at the time. Herman Grimm often referred to how he had experienced historical change in this way, even already as a nine-year old boy, and not merely via book-learning.

At a time when little was said of Goethe in Germany, attention having been diverted to other things, Herman Grimm viewed himself as a representative of Goethe's ethos. But he did experience a resurgence of interest in Goethe and was himself able to contribute to it. At the beginning of the seventies of the nineteenth century, he was able to hold his famous Goethe lectures [“Goethe-Vorlesungen” 1874-75] at the University of Berlin, also published in book form. Anyone getting hold of it as a young person, and able to find the right relation to it, will undoubtedly speak of it in later years as being of special significance. And, as set forth in this book, Herman Grimm clearly shows himself as someone who knew the various ramifications of Goethe's soul life.

We gain a clear sense of how Herman Grimm viewed a personality such as Goethe. We find nothing of a small-minded biographical compulsion—to flush out all manner of more or less indifferent traits. Rather do we find an immersion in everything that was important for Goethe's development—the endeavour to pursue what Goethe experienced in life, what lived in his soul, and how this re-constituted itself, taking on form to become a creation, of Goethe's phantasy. How, he asks, in forgetting everything of a particular life experience, did this re-arise for Goethe to become the product of creative phantasy—a new experience?

Thus, in Herman Grimm's interpretation, Goethe raises his life-experiences a stage higher, to a sphere of pure spiritual contemplation. We see Goethe ascend to spiritual experiences. Herman Grimm demonstrates this with regard to each of Goethe's works. And we gladly follow him in pursuing this course, since with Herman Grimm nothing intrudes that can otherwise so easily enter into such a portrayal—that a single soul-force, e.g., reason or phantasy, becomes paramount, as it were, and one no longer feels the connection to immediate life. Herman Grimm goes no farther than he can go as an individual in contemplating Goethe's work. In the end, we are led by Herman Grimm to the point where the work takes its start from Goethe's life experience. One feels oneself transported everywhere into unmitigated spiritual life. Goethe becomes a sum of spiritual impulses. This breath of the spiritual extends throughout Herman Grimm's Goethe book.

What Herman Grimm ascribed to Goethe in this way has its roots deep in Herman Grimm's spiritual configuration. Long before commencing these considerations that led to his lectures on Goethe, a grand, a colossal idea had stood before him—the idea of viewing occidental cultural life as a whole in the same way he had done, individually, with regard to Goethe. The idea stood before his mind's eye of following three millennia of western cultural life so as to reveal everywhere how human sensibility transforms everyday events in the physical world to what the human soul experiences upon ascending to the realm of “creative phantasy,” as Herman Grimm called it. Thus, he becomes a unique kind of historian. For Herman Grimm, history was, so to say, something altogether different from what it is for other modern historians.

History is, after all, customarily studied in that documents, materials, are first collected, and from these the attempt is made to present a picture of humanity's development. Although materials, external facts, were of enormous importance for Herman Grimm, they were nonetheless not at all the main thing. He often entertained the thought: Could it not be that for some epoch or other precisely the most significant documents, the decisive ones, have disappeared without a trace—lost, so that one actually passes by the truth most of all in focussing too conscientiously and exactly on the documents? Hence, he was convinced that, in abiding most faithfully by external documents, one is least of all capable of providing a true picture of human development. Only a falsified picture could arise in keeping strictly to external documents alone.

However, something else has arisen in the cultural life of humanity. What took place outwardly, what happened has, thanks to leading individualities, undergone a spiritual rebirth. This is evidenced by personalities who have transformed it artistically, who have utilized it for cultural purposes. Thus, in looking back for instance to the time of ancient Greece, Herman Grimm said to himself: Some documents exist concerning this Greek age, but these are insufficient to enable one to understand the Greek world. Yet what the Greeks experienced has found its rebirth in the works of Greek art, has been re-enlivened by significant Greek personalities. Immersing oneself in them, letting the Greek spirit affect one, a truer picture of the Greek world is attained than in merely assembling external facts. In this way, the facts themselves disappeared, so to say, for Herman Grimm. One is inclined to say, they melted away from his world-picture. What remained in his world-picture was a continuous stream of what he called the creations of “folk-phantasy.”

In contemplating Julius Caesar, for example, he not only took account of the historical documents, he considered what Shakespeare had made of Caesar as of equal significance, comparable to what is contained in the existing documents. Through characteristic human beings he looked back at the age in question. For Herman Grimm, the course of humanity's development became something always handed on from one personality to another, seeing it as a spiritual process encompassed by what he termed creative phantasy. Proceeding from this point of view, he sought to gain a picture of the creative folk-phantasy at work in western culture—a sense of the actual course of events in the development of humanity, so as to be able to say: The epochs of western culture follow one upon the other, supersede each other—from the earliest epochs up to the present, i.e., from the oldest times to which he wished to return, up to his own period, the age of Goethe. They therefore represent an ongoing stream, the influence of folk phantasy within western cultures.

Starting out from this urge, he turned his attention early on to that grandiose phenomenon of western cultural life, Homer's “Iliad.” This occupied him for a period of time during the 1890s, leading to his truly exemplary book, Homer. One gladly takes up this volume again and again in wanting, from a modern viewpoint, to immerse oneself in the beginnings of the Greek world. Adopting his general standpoint, it shows us Herman' Grimm from another side. His gaze is directed to the world of the gods as depicted in Homer's “Iliad”—to the battling Greek and Trojan heroes, and the question arises for him: How do matters actually stand with regard to this interplay of the world of the gods with the normal human world of warring Greek and Trojan heroes? This becomes a question for him. It is indeed striking, what a tremendous difference there is in the Homeric portrayal, between the humans walking around and the nature of those beings described as immortal gods. And Herman Grimm attempts to present the gods in Homer's sense as portraying, so to say, an “older” class of beings wandering on the earth. Even if Herman Grimm, in his more realistic way, sees these beings as “human beings,” he does look back into a culture that in Homer's time had long lost its significance, a culture that had been superseded by another, to which the Greek and Trojan heroes belong. Thus, Herman Grimm has an older and a younger class of humanity play into one another in Homer's “Iliad;” and what has remained over of real effects of a class of beings that had lived previously, enters for Herman Grimm (in Homer's sense) into what takes place between Greece and Troy.

Herman Grimm saw the further progress of humanity in this way—as a continual supplanting of older cultural cycles by newer ones and an interplay of older cycles with newer ones. Each new cultural cycle has its task, that of introducing something new into the general development of humanity. The old remains extant for a while and still interacts with the new.

It can be said that what Herman Grimm investigated, to the extent possible in the last third of the nineteenth century, has now to be set forth once more from the point of view of spiritual science. He did not look further back than the Greek age. For this reason, he was unable to arrive at what recent spiritual research describes in looking to the lofty, purely spiritual beings of primeval antiquity, exalted above the human being. He did, however, frequently touch upon results of recent spiritual research—as nearly as anyone can without conducting such research themselves.

In going back to earlier stages in the development of humanity, we attempt, in spiritual research, to show that we do not arrive at the animal species in the sense of the Darwinian theory that is interpreted materialistically nowadays. Rather, we attempt to show that we come to purely spiritual ancestors of the human being. Prior to the cycle of humanity in which human souls live in physical bodies, there is another cycle of humanity in which human beings did not yet incorporate themselves in physical bodies. Herman Grimm leaves the question undecided, so to say, as to what was actually involved with the “gods,” before human beings stepped onto the earth. However, he does recognize the ordered sequence of such cycles of humanity. And this results in an important point of contact with what spiritual science presents. That he takes account of such regular periodic stages taking place ~~ brings him especially close to us.

He attempts to extend his spiritual observations over three millennia. The first millennium for him is the Greek millennium. With Herman Grimm, one is inclined to say, there is something like an undertone in his manner of characterizing the Greeks, as though he were to say: In looking to the Greeks, they do not appear constituted like human beings of today, particularly in the oldest periods. Even someone like Alcibiades [ca. 450-404 B.C.] appears to us like a kind of fairy-tale prince, it is as though one beheld what is superhuman. Still, out of this Greek world that, as already mentioned, Herman Grimm presents as being altogether unlike the later human world, there towers ell that arose in the subsequent Greek world end in what follows, becoming the most important constituent of our cultural life. And finally, at the end of the first thousand years contemplated by Herman Grimm, the most significant impulse in humanity's development stands before his soul: the Christ impulse.

Herman Grimm is sparing in what he has to say about the figure of Christ, just as he is restrained in various other matters. But the occasional observations he makes show that he would as little go along with those who would “dissolve” Christ, as it were, to the point of a mere thought impulse, as he would go along with those who want to see Christ Jesus only in human terms. He emphasizes that two kinds of impulses actually proceed from the figure of Christ—one of colossal strength, that continues to work on throughout the further development of humanity—and the other impulse which consists in immense gentleness. Herman Grimm sees the entire second millennium of western cultural development taking shape in such a way that the Greek world is as though absorbed by the Christ impulse and the resulting mixture of Christianity and Greekness is incorporated into the Roman world, overcoming it. Out of this something quite unique arises. That is his second millennium, the first Christian millennium. The Roman element is not the main thing for him, but rather the Christian impulses. Everything of a political or external nature disappears for Herman Grimm in this millennium. He looks everywhere at how the manifold Christ impulse makes itself felt. His conception of Christ is neither narrow. nor small, but broad. When a book on the life of Jesus, La Vie de Jesus [1863], by Ernest Renan was published, Herman Grimm referred to it in the periodical he edited at the time, “Künstler und Kunstwerke” [Artists and Works of Art]; he attempted to show how pictorial representations of the Christ figure had undergone changes over the centuries both in the visual arts and in literature. He sought to demonstrate how the Christ impulse undergoes changes. He pointed out that people had always conceived of the Christ impulse according to their own outlook. In Ernest Renan he saw an instance of someone in the nineteenth century who conceived of Christ once again in a narrow sense only.

In Herman Grimm's view, Christianity needed about a thousand years to send its impulses into the rivulets and streams of western spiritual life. Then came the third millennium, the second Christian one, in which we still find ourselves today. It is the millennium at the dawn of which spirits such as Dante and Giotto arose, as also artists like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and so on, followed by the works of Shakespeare and Goethe. These cycles in the development of humanity, an ongoing stream_, he spoke of as an expression of the being of creative phantasy. Again and again Herman Grimm sought to present in lectures give to his students, this rhythmically subdivided, ongoing stream of humanity's development. Herman Grimm aimed to show how single creations had their place within the unbroken flow.

Thus, for him, Michelangelo, along with Raphael, Savonarola, Shakespeare and others, such as Goethe, were in a manner of speaking the spiritual constituents that become explicable on seeing them against the background of the ongoing stream of creative phantasy. For Herman Grimm this was especially apparent at the source, in the ninth or the tenth century before our era, with Homer. Thus, Herman Grimm addresses himself in an immediate way to the human soul, in drawing our attention to a specific work of art—be it Raphael's “'Marriage of Mary and Joseph,” a painting, of the Madonna, or one of the creations of Leonardo da Vinci, or. later, of Goethe. He grants us the feeling of standing as though directly within the unique qualities of the particular work. In considering with him the arrangement of colours, the figures and their gestures, while standing inwardly before the work of art, there emerges for us something like a tableau of the entire progress of humanity—now called forth by a single entity in that onward-flowing, all-encompassing stream of creative phantasy—over three millennia.

Thus, with Herman Grimm, one is first conducted into the intimate aspects of the work of art in question and is then led up to the summit from which the total stream can be surveyed. However, that is not something he considered in a theoretical manner. It seemed entirely natural for Herman Grimm to look at the totality of the onward flowing spiritual stream of humanity's development in this way. As he explained it to me, as mentioned at a midday meal, with his whole soul. he actually lived, as a matter of course, within this spiritual stream, and he could not look at a single phenomenon in any other way than as though it were excerpted from this mighty stream of humanity's development.

The whole of western cultural development, seen as folk phantasy, stood before his soul, though not as a general abstract idea, but filled with real content. He saw himself as inwardly connected with this luminous content extending over millennia, such that everything he wrote appears to one as individual segments of an enormous work. Even in only reading a' book review by Herman Grimm, one has the impression as though it were cut out from a colossal work setting forth the whole development of humanity. One feels oneself positively placed before such a colossal work, having opened it, and as though one were reading a few pages in it. It is the same with an article or an essay by Herman Grimm. And one comprehends how Herman Grimm could say of himself, in the evening of his life, in writing the preface to his collection of Fragments, that the idea had floated before him of a portrayal of the ongoing stream of folk phantasy, and that therein the whole of western culture had appeared to him, A particular subject he had pursued appeared as if it had been taken out of a finished work. However, he placed no more value on what had been printed than on what he had only written down, and on what he had written down, no more value than on what lived in his thoughts.

In referring to this, one would like to add a further impression, without putting it into an abstract formula—having been fond of Herman Grimm, remaining so, and in valuing his work and the kind of person he was. Herman Grimm was never able to reach the point of actually carrying out what stood before his mind's eye as something so beautiful, so colossal, so magnificent that even his works on Homer, on Raphael, on Michelangelo, on Goethe, appear to us as fragments of this comprehensive, unwritten work. We read the lines of the introduction to the Fragments mentioned above with a certain feeling of wistfulness. He states there that, though it would most likely not come about, it would perhaps be feasible to rework into a book what he had to say to his students year after year—and newly revised every year—concerning the progression of European cultural life in the last form these lectures took. One reads these lines today the more wistfully, as it did indeed not come to such a rewriting. We had to see Herman Grimm pass away, knowing what lived in his soul intended for present-day culture—having this sink with him into the grave.

We have characterized the sweeping cultural horizons underlying Herman Grimm's written works. Spiritual science intends to show what can be gained in widening one's spiritual horizons. It can be said that for the purpose of gradually entering into the whole outlook inherent in spiritual research, anyone immersing himself in Herman Grimm's spirit has the finest precepts. Apart from the breadth of his horizons, we see how he approached the phenomena, how his thoughts and feelings led him to everything he wrote in his comprehensive works on Homer, Raphael, Michelangelo and Goethe. And, bearing in mind what is set forth in his other writings, one sees that Herman Grimm distinguishes himself in significant ways from other spirits, in possessing attributes belonging to the kind of soul-deepening we have spoken of in describing the path the soul has to take in order to enter the spiritual worlds.

We have stressed that for the spiritual path, the intensity of soul-forces has to become greater. Deeper soul-forces are to be called forth that otherwise slumber. Inner strength, inner courage and boldness are required to a greater extent than in ordinary life; concepts are to be grasped more sharply. The soul needs to identify itself more fully with its own being, with the forces of thinking, feeling and willing. Initial signs of this are evident everywhere with Herman Grimm, by which he was, for example, in a position to describe works of art in such an intimate and personal way, as in the case of Raphael and Michelangelo. This is a precursor, however, to further illuminating the spiritual world. The basis of Herman Grimm's historical research does not lie in what is nowadays called “objectivity,” but in his allying himself with the cultural phenomena he portrays, as accords with the spiritual world. In this way, wholly forgetting itself and yet in a rare sense conscious of itself, the soul immerses itself in the corresponding cultural manifestation.

This becomes particularly evident when he directs his attention to a single cultural phenomenon, such as Raphael, elevating this to the overall stream of human spiritual life. His impressions then become bold, powerful ideas—and what others do not venture to say with the same shade of feeling, or with the same subtlety of ideas, Herman Grimm does venture, becoming in this way a representative of the spirit. And he then stands before us with such boldness that we are sometimes reminded of the Gospel writers. It is just that they wrote more in keeping with mysticism, while Herman Grimm wrote in the sense of a modern spiritual discourse. Just as the Gospels reach upward to attain the horizon of mankind as a whole, so Herman Grimm reaches upward with his Raphael book to the horizon of mankind as a whole.

It is miraculous when, in his audacious way—seemingly tearing his soul out of himself and striding as though alongside Raphael—as in an overall stream of evolution—he erupts in words that can truly tell us more than any mere presentation of world history: “Raphael is a citizen of world-history; He is like one of the four rivers that according to the belief of the ancient world flowed out of Paradise.”

In letting such a sentence duly affect one, Herman Grimm's perception of Raphael takes on an altogether different character, compared to what other authors have to say. Hence, for Herman Grimm, the various personalities of history merge into the overall stream of spiritual life. It could also be said, he brings the highest spiritual spheres down to the personal element. And in speaking the following heartfelt words, Herman Grimm further expresses his relation to leading cultural figures:

“If, by some miracle, Michelangelo were called from the dead, to live among us again, and if I were to meet him, I would humbly stand aside to let him pass; if Raphael came by, I would follow him, to see whether or not I might have the opportunity of hearing a few words from his lips. With Leonardo and Michelangelo one can confine oneself to reporting what they once were in their day; with Raphael one has to start from what he is for us today. Concerning the two others, a slight veil has passed over them, but not over Raphael. He belongs among those whose growth is as yet far from being at an end. we may imagine that Raphael will present ever new riddles to future-generations of humanity.” [Fragments, Vol. II, p.170]

This counts as a characteristic mood, rather than as something normally objective in the sense of what is normally demanded nowadays. But if does describe matters in such a way that we feel ourselves transposed, in an immediate way to what had lived in Herman Grimm's soul in writing- such sentences. It becomes understandable that such a spirit had to struggle in coming to terms with such a world-historical figure as Raphael. Oddly, as he himself relates, it was quite different for him, in describing the life of Michelangelo. The portrayal of the life of Michelangelo by Herman Grimm is a marvellous document, though in some respects perhaps, it counts today as having been surpassed. Seen against the background of the life of that time, the figure of Michelangelo stands out significantly from other figures—as also from the unique description of the city of Florence. Herman Grimm places a tableau before us in contrasting two spiritual entities, Athens and Florence. With that, the weaving together of three millennia as characterized by Herman Grimm, appears as a mighty background upon which Dante and Giotto appear, along with other painters of that time—followed by figures such as Savonarola, and finally Michelangelo himself, evident.

It becomes evident that Herman Grimm responded differently to Raphael and his surroundings than to Goethe, while presenting everything with no less familiarity. In the case of Herman Grimm's Goethe portrayal, we sense everywhere that he had grown up as a spiritual descendant of Goethe. With his Michelangelo portrayal, we feel how he enters into everything personally, wandering the streets, visiting every palace in Florence. ... other matters, as it were. Besides personally acquainting himself with other matters, he succeeds in standing as it were, before Michelangelo, and in depicting his actual manner of working. All this is as though cast from the same mould.

This differs from what he presents concerning Raphael. There we sense a wrestling with the material, with the spiritual image of Raphael. It is as though Herman Grimm were never able to achieve satisfaction. He describes having taken up the material again and again, while nothing appeared adequate to him of what he had already published. That was true even of his last works—of what he finally attempted as a portrayal of Raphael's personality. This remained a fragment, appearing in the collection of essays entitled Raphael as a World Power, from which the sentences derive that were just read out.

Why did Herman Grimm struggle with the material, precisely in the case of Raphael? It is because he could only present something to his own satisfaction in uniting himself completely with the material. In Raphael, however, he saw a spirit characterized in the words quoted: “Raphael is a citizen of world-history. He is like one of the four rivers that, according to the belief of the ancient world, flowed out of paradise.” And thus, with every statement applied to him, Raphael grew to giant size. Herman Grimm could never be satisfied, since he could not capture this “world-power” in a book. If the comprehensive breadth and grace of his spirit is evident in the portrayals of Homer, Michelangelo and Goethe with his Raphael discourse we see the profound uprightness, the profound honesty of Herman Grimm's personality.

Whoever takes up his book on Homer will possibly find it not scholarly enough. But Herman Grimm states on the very first page, that this book is not meant to be a contribution to Homer research. As already set forth; here, Herman Grimm could conduct himself in this and similar matters much like a spiritual “lord.” Thus, it appears quite natural that, in collecting his ideas on Goethe for publication, he boldly started out from the view that every other book he had come across concerning Goethe fell short. What seems like brazenness to some, can be taken for granted in the context of his literary and artistic abilities.

That is how he relates to everything in cultural life. Hence for those who adhere to the standpoint of erudite scholars, Herman Grimm's Homer book may seem intolerable. All the many questions that have been raised concerning Homer—whether or not he actually lived, whether the “Iliad” was put together from so and so many details, and so forth—all that did not concern him. He took it as it was. In this way, however, it became clear to him how wonderfully it is composed, how what comes later always refers to what preceded it. Everything that shows this inherent composition appears to us inwardly coherent. But apart from that, what appears most salutary for a spiritual researcher, is his immersion in the soul-life of the Homeric heroes. Everywhere, we see Herman Grimm's soul-imbued style extend to the soul-life of Homer's heroes. Everywhere we see the Achilles-soul comprehended, the Agamemnon-soul, the Odysseus-soul, and so on. As a description of souls, this book is overpowering in its effect, in spite of the familiarity of the stylistic presentation! We are led not only to the heights of historical contemplation, but also deep into the souls of the single Homeric figures, some scholars will inevitably say, Herman Grimm has taken the “Iliad” at face value, with disregard for the whole of Homer research and all preliminary study, accepting it verse for verse! Indeed, he does so—quite “amateurishly”—and the dry conclusion could then be: There someone has written a book without any preliminary study.

Did Herman Grimm in fact write this book without any preliminary study? Anyone concerning himself with the works of Herman Grimm will find the preliminary studies, only they look different from the preliminary studies of the usual experts. The preliminary studies of Herman Grimm lay in soul studies, in immersing himself in the secrets of the human soul. And one can convince oneself that no one could have shed such light on the Homeric heroes without those preliminary studies. Herman Grimm looks for what held sway in Homer's Phantasy. But what he says reveals him to be the finest knower of human souls. We may expect remarkable things of him in considering the way viewed Homer's heroes—from Achilles to Agamemnon to Odysseus. How did he find the words to write, in his Homer book and other works, what can seem to the researcher so uncommonly spiritual? He was able to do so on account of quite definite preliminary studies. And these are to be found among the works of Herman Grimm's first period.

Above all, we have the wonderful collection of novellas [1862] that is perhaps less read today than other modern products of its kind. However, these should be read by those who take an interest in spiritual things. As a collection of novellas, it is an intensive attempt to get to know human souls, to fathom human secrets and the soul's activity beyond the physical plane. The first of these novellas, “The Singer,” belongs to Herman Grimm's earliest phase as an author. In this work it is shown how a man acquires a deep, passionate yearning for a woman of a broad spiritual nature. However, these two personalities are never able to come together. The woman sends this ardent man away from her social circle, while everything lives on in the man's soul in the way of impulses that drew him to her. On the other hand, what proceeds from his soul saps at his bodily strength. Set forth as corresponds to spiritual research, we see him gradually destabilized in his soul. He is taken in by a friend to live on his estate, becoming, however, entangled again in the woman's “net.” The friend recognizes that it is high time to fetch this person his friend adheres to so completely. She does come—but too late. Whereas she is in front of the house, the individual concerned shoots himself.

And now comes something, taken up unreservedly in spiritual research, which Herman Grimm so often touches upon in artistic expression, but allows to devolve into indefiniteness. Briefly and succinctly he describes how, in the singer's imagination the deceased lives on. The scene is unforgettable in which, feeling her entire guilt in the death of this man, she sees him approaching from the realm of the dead, night after night. This now fills the content of her soul. It is not described as being a mere figment of her imagination, but in the sense of someone who knows there are secrets that reach beyond the grave. It is a wonderful description, that tells how the friend plants himself in front of the woman when she says the deceased comes to her—continuing right up to her final letter to the friend, in which she expresses that she herself now feels close to death. For her, the deceased, to whom she was so closely bound, had drawn her towards him from the realm of the dead. Probably no modern author has found the right tone, in touching on the spiritual world with such sincerity.

In spiritual research we present how, in going through the portal of death, what otherwise always remains united with the human being—also in sleep—the so-called etheric body, raises itself along with the higher soul-members, out of the physical body, passing over into the spiritual world. In the field of spiritual research, we draw a picture of how the corpse-remains behind and how the human being with his ether body loosens himself, step by step, one member after the other, from the physical body. The etheric body is then for a time the enclosure for the higher soul-members of the human being. That is an idea with which those who approach closer to spiritual research can become more and more conversant. In what follows we shall be able to consider in what an admirable way the artistic soul of Herman Grimm touches upon these facts of the spiritual world. This will lead us again to the question as to why, for deeper reasons, Herman Grimm did not develop his cultural discourse into a comprehensive work.

Apart from his novella, Herman Grimm wrote a further work, a novel, Unüberwindliche Mächte [1867], [Insurmountable Powers], in which, as with his work in general, his refined style leads us to a contemplation of the world and of life. Particularly remarkable is what might be called the clash of two cultures in miniature. The one world adheres to title, status and rank. Deriving from an old lineage, an impoverished count lives in the afterglow of his hierarchical status. Wonderfully contrasted in this novel is the way in which the world of old prejudices and rankings encounters the New World. The quite different views and notions of America play into this. The individual identifying himself with hierarchical prejudices, whom Herman Grimm calls Arthur, encounters Americans. He meets Emmy, the daughter of Mrs. Forster, who has grown up with American values. We see this count passionately enraptured by Emmy.

It would be impossible even to outline the rich content of this novel adequately. We encounter the whole contrast of Europe and America. In addition, there is the contrast of the old Prussian milieu and the newly constituted Prussian milieu arising as the outcome of wars. It is a tremendous cultural “painting” in which the characters are featured, and from which they emerge. Only this much can be indicated: that, as a result of the confluence of these streams, Arthur, the count, dies a tragic death right before he was to marry Emmy. A deluded relative considers himself the rightful heir to the count's lineage, seeing the count as a bastard. Stung with envy and jealousy, he opposes the count, and on the eve of his marriage, the count is shot down by this individual.

Someone wanting to contemplate this novel merely rationalistically might consider it as concerned with the unbridgeable prejudice outstanding, However, the expression “insurmountable powers” can perhaps hardly seem more justified than when Herman Grimm, unintentionally indicates the idea of karma, the idea of the causal connection of destinies in human life—as though knotted together one after another. We see him depict forces at work in destiny that can only come into play in working over from earlier embodiments—from previous earth-lives. He does not describe this in speaking theoretically of “forces” or of “karma,” but in simply letting the facts speak for themselves, giving expression to these powers that, then appear in a certain way corresponding to the ideas of spiritual research. We see a karmic destiny unfold; we see insurmountable karmic powers come to expression. And we see something further:

Emmy remains behind. The final glance that fell into Arthur's eyes as he lay there, his heart shot through, was when she bent over him and their eyes met in a certain expression. An utterance of Herman Grimm remains unforgettable, in saying, the spirit gave way at the moment his eyes assumed the peculiarity of appearing as no more than physical instruments. But now we encounter once more Herman Grimm's penetration of worlds that lie beyond death—what one would like to call his chaste penetration of worlds out of which souls work on, in remaining real once they have gone through the portal of death.

In a brief concluding chapter, Herman Grimm shows us Emmy gradually becoming infirm. It is entirely characteristic of his close connection to matters of soul and spirit, that he describes Emmy's approaching death. She is brought to Montreux. Montreux and its surroundings are uniquely described. However, Herman Grimm does not describe Emmy's passing like authors who have no relation to spiritual matters, but rather as someone taking account of how the secrets of death, of the realm beyond, speak to the soul. I would render something incomplete if I did not add in conclusion Herman Grimm's own words on the death of Emmy:

“This was Emmy's dream.

“Between midnight and morning, she believed she woke up.

“Her initial glance at the window, through which a pale light streamed in, was free and clear and she knew where she was. She also heard her mother, who slept next to her, breathing, However, a moment later, with a sense of pressure she had never felt before, overwhelming anxiety overcame her. It was no longer the thoughts that had tormented her during the last few days, but as though a giant hand were holding all the world's mountains over her by a thin thread, and that at any moment the fingers holding them could loosen, and the whole mass would fall down on her, to remain lying on her eternally. Her eyes wandered hither and thither looking for a glimmer of light, but there was none; the light of the window extinguished, her mother's breathing no longer audible, and stifling loneliness all around, as though she would never come alive again. She wanted to call out, but could not; she wanted to touch herself, but not a limb obeyed her. All was completely silent, completely dark; no thoughts could be grasped in this frightful, monotonous anxiety: even memory was taken from het—and then, at last a thought returned: Arthur!

“And wondrously now, it was as if this one thought had transformed itself into a point of light that became visible to the eyes. And to the extent the thought grew to become boundless longing, this light grew, spreading out, and suddenly, as though it sprang apart and unfolded itself, it took on form—Arthur stood before her! She saw him, she recognized him at last. It was surely he himself. He smiled and was close beside her. She did not see whether he was naked, nor whether he was clothed: but it was him, she knew him too well; it was he himself, no mere phantom that had taken on his form.”

Thus, Herman Grimm has the one who has long since gone through the portal of death approach her, now a seeress; at the moment of her death she approaches the deceased, addressing his soul: “She did not see whether he was naked, nor whether he was clothed: but it was him, she knew him too well; it was he himself, no mere phantom that had taken on his form.”

“He stretched out his hand to her and said, ‘Cornel’ Never had his voice sounded as sweet and enticing as now. With all the strength she was capable of, she tried to raise her arms towards him, but she was unable to do so. He came still closer and stretched out his hand closer to her, ‘Come!’ he said again.

“For Emmy it was as though the power with which she attempted to bring at least a word over her lips, would have been capable of moving mountains, but she was not able to say even this one word.

“Arthur looked at her, and she at him. With only the possibility of moving a finger, she would have touched him. And now, most terrible of all: he appeared to shrink back again! ‘Come!’ he said for the third time. Sensing he had spoken for the last time, that the terrible darkness would break in again upon his heavenly gaze, filled now with a fear that tore at. Her as frost splits trees, she made a final attempt to raise her arms to him. It was impossible to overcome the weight and the cold that held her captive—but then, as a bud bursts open, from which a blossom grows before our eyes, there grew out of her arms, other shining arms, out of her shoulders, gleaming new shoulders. And lifting these arms toward Arthur's arms, his hands grasping her hands, and floating slowly backwards, drawing her after him, the whole magnificent figure with him, rose out of Emmy's.”

The emergence of the etheric body out of the physical body cannot be described more wonderfully, in having been undertaken by a pure artist-soul. That was a spirit, that was a soul that lived in Herman Grimm, of which we may say that it came close to what we seek so eagerly in spiritual research. Herman Grimm provides evidence that, in approaching the -twentieth century, the modern human being sought paths to spiritual life.

So we turn gladly to Herman Grimm, wanting only to continue further on the same path. We see him elevate the creations of Raphael, the creations of Michelangelo, the experiences of Goethe, the Greek-soul of Homer, to the stream that he sees flowing onward as “creative phantasy” through millennia. We then know how close Herman Grimm was, in his entire feeling and perception, to what lives and weaves as the soul-spiritual behind all physical reality. For when Herman Grimm refers to his “creative phantasy” we are not dealing with total abstraction. In so far as it is still perhaps a matter of residual abstraction, to that extent it can seem necessary to break through the thin wall separating Herman Grimm from the living spirit, effective not only as creative phantasy, but living as immediate spirit_s effective behind the entire sense world. It could appear a form of unwarranted restraint, to say no.- more than Herman Grimm in speaking of the continual onward working of the phantasy of humanity. After all, as an artist, he touched so intimately on the still living soul that has gone through the portal of death. Hence, it will not be difficult for us, where Herman Grimm speaks of creative phantasy, to see the living spirit that, as spiritual researchers, we seek behind the sense world.

Perhaps it will not seem unjustified if it is even asserted that-, for a spirit that struggled so honestly and uprightly for truth—wanting to approach this creative phantasy ever and again—it was, after all, too much of an abstraction for him. It urged him to grasp the living spiritual element, and for that reason the great work he intended could not come about—since if it had been written, it would have had to become a work that portrayed the spiritual world not merely as creative phantasy, but as a world of creative beings and individualities.

Spiritual research has not been placed into the modern age arbitrarily. It is demanded by seeking souls of our time—seeking souls to whom, as we have seen, Herman Grimm.so-clearly and. characteristically belongs. In this way we can become aware that with spiritual research we do not stand as alien and isolated in modern cultural life. We have been able to look to Herman Grimm as to a related spirit. Even if he does not share the same standpoint completely, we do nonetheless stand—or can at least stand, immeasurably near to him. It is better to contemplate such a figure as a whole, rather than scrutinizing every detail—to look at the harmony of soul with which Herman Grimm can affect us, its mildness and then again keenness and strength of soul, with which he can likewise affect us. We may treat this or that question differently from Herman Grimm, but I know that it is not altogether out of keeping with his style, if I summarize what I actually wanted to say in the following words; One could arrive at the thought—let us call it for that matter a delusory thought, one that could be entertained as a beautiful illusion: If higher spirits, other-worldly spirits wanted to acquaint themselves prefer with what happens on the earth by means of reading, they would prefer most of all to read such writings as those in which Herman Grimm depicts the earthly destinies of human beings.

This feeling can reverberate as though from almost every line of Herman Grimm's writings, lifting one upwards to a sphere beyond the earth. One then feels so akin to this personality that, if one were to characterize what has been said today concerning Herman Grimm, a beautiful saying could come to mind that he himself employed in eulogizing his friend Treitschke [Heinrich von Treitschke, German historian, 1834-56] whom he valued so much.

“With what existential joy did this human being stand in life. What courage he showed in battle. What a gift lie had for language. How new his latest book. How little could those take exception to his ‘elbows’ in the general exchange of ideas. They too will join in declaring: ‘Yes, he was one of ours!’”

These words are at the same time the last words that Herman Grimm wrote and had printed, as we know from the publisher of his works, Reinhold Steig. And I should like also, in conclusion, to summarize this evening's considerations with the words: With what existential joy did Herman Grimm stand in life; how mild—and yet how individual! How little can even those distance themselves from him, if they but understand themselves aright, who differ from him in their ideas and in other ways! And, proceeding from whatever field of investigation, how closely allied to him must those feel who seek paths to the spirit! What kinship to him must they feel, when his mild figure appears before them—prompting them to break out in the words: Yes, he was one of ours!

Jakob Hugentobler: Dear Sirs and Madams! I warmly welcome you to our lecture event. The intention of this lecture is to present you with something positive from anthroposophical spiritual science in contrast to the mostly negative criticism that is so widespread today.

Anyone who keeps their eyes open today, who opens themselves to a deeper understanding of their environment, sees newer phenomena emerging in all cultural fields - in the fields of science, religion and art. They see beginnings that look like something that wants to break through, that has not yet found the actual path for this breakthrough. In anthroposophical spiritual science, an attempt is now being made to show the roots for everything that shows itself as a healthy new thing here in its beginnings - to show how one can penetrate to a deeper spiritual realm and how something can grow out of this spiritual realm, which must again become a union of all that is making itself felt today in so many separate movements. It is because of this possibility of a deeper knowledge that anthroposophical spiritual science claims to extend to all areas of life, to penetrate all areas of life with its new knowledge. This spirit, which wants and must be active as a fertilization of today's entire cultural life, is to be spoken of here. Therefore, we must no longer speak with indignation, amazement, and astonishment about the fact that anthroposophical spiritual science is spreading to all areas of life, as was so often the case in the past. The fact is that it wants to claim to be a truly comprehensive world view. This lecture will be based on such a real world view.

You will have the opportunity to take part in specialist eurythmy courses here – eurythmy, this new art of movement that was inaugurated by Dr. Rudolf Steiner. It is based on anthroposophical spiritual science, and so this new art of eurythmy will be taught in individual courses. Likewise, there will be opportunities to delve more deeply into anthroposophical spiritual science by attending introductory courses, which will also be held here in Zurich. If you are interested, you can write down your name and address. You can see the rest from the programs that have been distributed.

Rudolf Steiner: Dearly beloved! When a distorted image of anthroposophy is so often created and this distortion is then fought, so that in this fight little of what anthroposophy really represents is actually encountered, it is probably because that today many people still understand anthroposophy as something that stands, as it were, in the middle between science in the strict sense of the word on the one hand and the various religious views on the other.

In order to draw attention to the fact that the judgments that assign such a fluctuating position to anthroposophy, as it is meant here, are inaccurate, I would like to discuss the sources, the actual origins of anthroposophical research, in this introductory lecture today. And here I must first draw attention to the following. However much it is the case that what comes to light through anthroposophy touches people's religious feelings and religious sentiments, anthroposophy itself did not arise from any religious impulse, but rather it emerged from the natural science of our time, from a natural scientific world view. This may at first seem paradoxical from some points of view, but in order to characterize the scientific spirit of anthroposophy in the right way, this origin from a scientific basis must be emphasized particularly strongly.

In turning to anthroposophy, one is thoroughly imbued with the idea that the more recent development of humanity owes its greatest achievements and strongest forces to what are today called scientific insights. And I myself would like to admit that, in my opinion, no other spirit should prevail in anthroposophy than that which has been trained through the scientific research of modern times, which, above all, has come to know the conscientious, exact methods of observation, experimentation and scientific thinking of the present day. However, when we speak of a kind of scientific preparation for anthroposophy, we are less concerned with the results - I would even say triumphant results - of modern science than with the spirit of training that which a person acquires when he learns to work scientifically, that is, experimentally and observantly, to gain a scientific view of the entities and facts of the world in a serious way.

Now it has come about that in the course of the development of natural science in recent times, so to speak, more and more has been drawn into this research the sense of the exclusive significance of the world of sensual facts – of that which is based on certain facts that can be observed through the senses and whose observation can be intensified by instruments. Only what can be based on this is considered a true foundation of modern scientific research. And the more progress was made, the more this was abandoned, in thinking, in methodical reflection, to rise above this world of facts. One has more and more proceeded to regard the facts, so to speak experimentally, in such a way that they express themselves through their own mutual relations, and in this way one arrives at the laws of nature, as they are called.

Of course, not so long ago, when dealing with facts, one did not shy away from going from these facts to more or less bold hypotheses. In more recent times, these have developed into systems of concepts. And so insights have been gained, for example about the universe. We are now living in a time, however, in which some doubt has been cast on hypotheses that appear so plausible in their own way, for example, on the Kant-Laplace hypothesis of the origin of the world. It is certainly regarded as somewhat uncertain, although on the other hand it is admitted that if one wants to arrive at a satisfactory overview of the world of phenomena, such hypotheses cannot be entirely dispensed with. This characterizes one aspect of it. Well, I could only hint at what confronts someone who really goes into the field of natural science today with a sense of inquiry.

But perhaps the second aspect is even more important today. This is that today, in view of the exactitude that has been assumed in natural science, one will no longer be able to get by - not even in the descriptive natural sciences - without a certain basic mathematical education. Indeed, in the natural science of the most recent times a definition has emerged that may seem somewhat paradoxical, somewhat extreme, but which shows the spirit that actually inspires this natural science thinking. The definition has emerged: Being is that which can be measured. Such a definition indicates how much the natural scientist today feels in his element when he has mastered the art that lies in geometry and in the exact measurement that geometry produces, in arithmetic and in the other branches of mathematics. This mathematical training is, so to speak, something that must be brought along today as a basic condition for beneficial scientific research.

What I want to say about anthroposophy today is less about what can be achieved as individual results of scientific research through measurement, counting and so on, but rather about the peculiar state of mind in which the researcher finds himself when he — equipped with the transparent weave of arithmetic, geometric or algebraic concepts, concepts from the world of differential or integral calculus or even synthetic geometry and so on, when he, equipped with the whole weave of these concepts, which are, after all, concepts generated entirely in the human personality itself, approaches the external world of phenomena and then finds: With what you have gained from your own inner being, with what you have formed into formulas and images from your inner being, you can delve into what the senses present to you. And he feels: with what you have, so to speak, spun out of yourself, you can embrace and interweave all that appears to you as completely alien from the external world of facts. This confluence of the mathematical, which is obtained in full clarity, with free, all-encompassing inner volition as a structure, as formulas, this confluence of the mathematical with what confronts us externally, so to speak, from the outside, that is what constitutes the special state of mind of someone who approaches nature in the sense of today's exact natural science.

Now, I would like to draw the attention of those present to what one learns in this way when mathematizing, that is, when forming algebraic or other formulas or geometric structures. I would like to point out that it is indeed possible for a person to observe themselves, as it were, by looking backwards, to see how they behave in this mathematization, how they come to an initially formal certainty in this mathematization, an certainty of the inner truth of these formulas and structures. He can do this on the one hand, and in doing so he gains a kind of insight into the psychological process that takes place when he mathematizes. Certainly, in the emergence of natural science, one has, I would say, been satisfied with the application of the mathematical. One has paid little attention to this psychological process. But if we want to get to nature, if we want to progress from mere scientific research, then it will be necessary to take a really close look at the processes that actually take place in the soul, at what takes place when we develop the mathematical. Because why? When we consider the process that takes place in observation or in controlled experimental observation, when we penetrate the external world with mathematics by observing this process of scientific research, so to speak, observing this scientific research process in one's own personality, one comes to not only conduct scientific research, but also to be able to educate oneself in a conscious way to that kind of grasping of truth that can be grasped through such research. Now, my dear audience, you see, what can truly be called Anthroposophy, as it is meant here, has its origin in such studies - first of all in such a scientific method of research and in such a view of the researcher's activity, the inner researcher's activity. And all that presents itself as Anthroposophy should be measured against this view, this inner view. I freely admit, ladies and gentlemen, that there is an original sense of truth in man, so that numerous personalities, when they hear about the results that appear in the field of Anthroposophy, are inwardly convinced to a certain extent. But, however true it may be that this feeling of truth is based on a certain elementary sense of truth, it is equally true that only those who have undergone the training and self-observation that I have just mentioned, based on natural scientific research, are capable of forming a judgment and, if I may use the term, of “research” in the field of anthroposophy. It is so easy, because of the attractiveness of the anthroposophical results, to lapse into a kind of amateurism that in turn attracts amateurs. But this dilettantism is not at all to be found at the origin of that which, as Anthroposophy, is to present itself to the world today. On the contrary, Anthroposophy seeks to keep every trace of dilettantism out of it, and to be able to give account, so to speak, to the strictest scientific mind of the present time, of its results, and especially of the way in which it has arrived at them. That is why I do not call what occurs in anthroposophy just any kind of religious belief, but something that can stand alongside contemporary science and permeate it. The spirit that has been trained in what is demanded by science today, which underlies today's recognized science, is the same scientific spirit that underlies anthroposophy.

But precisely when one is imbued with this scientific spirit, when one looks back from the mere mathematizing indulgence in external facts to the living research, to what is becoming, when one carries this science in one's soul - leaving the outer facts - then, when one looks back, especially when one looks back on what remains for one as a human being from this science, then one is immediately confronted with a problem that stands out as a major central problem. Only someone who has been educated in the scientific way of thinking can truly grasp the full magnitude of this: this is the problem of human freedom.

Natural science and the philosophy dependent on it – today's dependent philosophy – cannot but start from what is so interwoven in things that we have to speak of necessity. It is impossible for us to start from anything other than necessity with the spirit that prevails in natural science today. And it is virtually the ideal of science to see through what confronts us in the external world as a system of internally necessary, interrelated entities and facts. When you engage in scientific research in this way, you do not come close to what confronts you in the inner fact of human freedom as an immediate experience. You do not come close to it. And so we are confronted with the significant question that leads us to a cognitive abyss: freedom as an immediate experience is given to you! Why then, by stretching out your mathematical web of knowledge over scientific facts and in this way creating a world view, cannot you approach what cannot be denied as an immediate experience: freedom!

If I may interject something personal here, I would like to point out that, as early as the 1880s, my spiritual scientific research confronted me with the scientific necessity, on the one hand, the significance of which for objective research should not be denied in the least at first, but fully recognized, and on the other hand, the problem of freedom. And in my Philosophy of Freedom, published in 1893, I tried to deal with philosophy in the way that a scientifically minded person in the present day had to do.

Now, if we already had a psychology or theory of the soul that was developed and suited to our scientific needs – we don't have it, of course – it would be easier to talk about what I have to talk about at this moment. In recent times, the doctrine of the soul has undergone a peculiar development. Whenever I want to characterize the fate of psychology, of the doctrine of the soul, I always have to refer to an outstanding thinker of recent times, who died here a year ago on the Zürichberg, Franz Brentano.

At the beginning of the second half of the 19th century, Franz Brentano was completely immersed in natural science thinking, and when he first formulated his theses for his professorship in Würzburg, he included among them the main thesis that in the science of the soul no other method may be applied than that which is applied in the external sciences. In 1874, Franz Brentano published the first volume of his “Psychology on an Empirical Basis,” and he promised that when this volume of “Psychology” appeared in the spring of that year, he would deliver the second volume in the fall and, in rapid succession, the next four volumes in the following years. Franz Brentano has since died – no continuation of the first volume has appeared!

Anyone who reads this first volume of Brentano's psychology without prejudice will understand, I would say from the way in which this psychology is presented, why such a continuation has not been published. In this first volume, Franz Brentano frankly and freely states that if one were to stop at where he stopped, one would first have to admit to oneself that one actually knows nothing. If you look at the connection of ideas and their relationship to memory, the socialization of ideas, as it is usually called, and so on, if you apply the purely scientific method to that, then that is no substitute for the kind of psychology that Plato and Aristotle had hoped for. It would not be a substitute for a psychology that can also deal with what can be described as the eternal in man, or – as Franz Brentano puts it – that can deal with the part of man that remains when the temporal life falls away from him as a body. Franz Brentano wanted to solve this problem, which in the popular sense could be called the problem of immortality, in a scientific-psychological sense. He wrestled with it. I would like to make it clear that he did not want to enter the field that I have to refer to here as anthroposophy; it did not seem scientific enough to him. But because he was an honest researcher, he simply could not continue writing. Combining honesty in the field of the doctrine of the soul with a scientific spirit of research is only possible if one is able to develop that continuation of scientific thinking along the way, which is precisely what anthroposophical spiritual science demands.

I would like to say that Franz Brentano's unfinished business with psychology is living proof that we do not have a proper psychology today. If we had a psychology, a proper psychology, then we would be able to look at certain things differently than we usually do today. And here I would like to point out one thing in particular. When we indulge in natural science, when we express natural scientific facts in laws and then incorporate these laws into our intellect, so that we carry within ourselves what has been revealed to us through external observation and experimentation, we notice that the The more we distance ourselves from external facts, the more we work inwardly with the intellect, which proves itself so excellently when guided by experiment and observation, the more we continue to work with this intellect, the more we - in other words - enter the realm of hypothesis, the realm in which we seek to formulate, with the aid of the intellect, the principles underlying these phenomena, we feel more and more distinctly that we are entering a realm in which we cannot, in the long run, satisfy ourselves. The more one, I might say, freely indulges at first in the kind of thinking that can be quite well applied in scientific research, the more one indulges in this thinking, in this forming of thought hypotheses, the more one comes to something unsatisfactory. And this unsatisfactory state is basically evident in the whole course of scientific development.

It is evident from the fact that we see how the most diverse hypotheses have been put forward - hypotheses about light, about the phenomena of electricity, about gravity, and so on. We see how these hypotheses are always replaced by others. And anyone who does not want to completely accept the point of view that we have “come so gloriously far” today must, from these feelings that he may have about this building of hypotheses, say: the hypotheses that have been developed recently will in turn be replaced by others. We are, so to speak, in the middle of replacing the old light hypothesis with another, taken from electrical phenomena. And we have to say to ourselves: we are entering an area where we form hypotheses based on the laws of nature that the mind can gain from external observation and through external experimentation in relation to the sensory world. We come into a region where this mind, so to speak, encounters a fluid, a something that cannot evoke in us the feeling that we can actually approach a being with these mental constructs that we hypothetically form and that, if they are to have a value, can only have this value if they point to something real, to something that exists.

And anyone who, in genuine inner empiricism, that is, equipped with unprejudiced observation of the inner facts of the soul, especially of the will, now considers the element in the soul that includes the fact of freedom, finds this in wonderful harmony with the impossibility of arriving at hypotheses in which there is still the same necessity that we have when we classify and systematize natural phenomena with our thinking. One then feels: if one approaches the soul life with this thinking and only wants to develop hypotheses in the soul life, one swims, as it were, in a liquid. One encounters nothing solid in the soul life. And this harmonizes wonderfully with the fact that the impulse is rooted in the soul life, which can be active without necessity prevailing in it, which can therefore move freely.

I would like to say that through external scientific research we come to a region of our soul life that shows us: if we want to extend the area of necessity into it, it also fails theoretically; it does not satisfy us theoretically either. We come across something in our soul life where freedom is rooted, where freedom can be fully experienced. And we will only be able to properly distinguish this area of freedom from the rest of the world that we can see, when we realize that, as long as we are in the necessity of the world that we can see, we cannot use this necessity to approach what is experienced inwardly when we are in the realm of freedom. I believe that a psychology that is equal to today's scientific exactitude would point to the special kind of inner satisfaction that one has in the game of hypotheses and in the harmony with what one now experiences inwardly, in one's soul, by experiencing the fact of inner freedom.

I would like to make it very clear that I am not talking here about some method or other or some theory or other about freedom, but about the fact of freedom, which we simply discover by deepening unselfconsciously into our own soul life. And then, when we are in a position to do so, when we, equipped with a genuine scientific spirit, so to speak, go against ourselves — not going outwards, but against ourselves — to the limit where we can still reach with scientific thinking and where we can move on to what can be experienced in us as freedom, then we come close to sensing the possibility, the justification of anthroposophy. For, in setting forth its scientific character, Anthroposophy must first start from this experience of the impossibility of approaching freedom through the medium of that which has led outwardly to such great theoretical and practical triumphs – namely, natural science.

Now we stand in this experience of freedom. But if we do not stand in it with abstract concepts, but rather stand inwardly before it, as before an intimately experienced inner fact, then we also know, in a sense, by inwardly experiencing the soul, by being permeated and pulsating with what is experienced as freedom: We cannot enter it with the thoughts that the external laws of nature give us, but if we as human beings really want to engage with life, if, for example, we have ideals, if we are familiar with the true demands of life, in order to take hold of it here or there - we do not enter this sphere of freedom thoughtlessly. We stand in the sphere of freedom by developing free thinking, and we can get to know thinking that moves in the element of freedom, free thinking, which is initially only an inner soul activity, which does not have external observation as a guide, does not have external experiment as a guide. As a progressive inner impulse, it is, so to speak, self-created and rooted in the soul. In my Philosophy of Freedom, I call this thinking pure thinking.

This thinking forms, as it were, the content of consciousness when we have trained this consciousness as I have just indicated. But then, when we move in this thinking, we can remember the concept of being, the concept of reality that we have appropriated from the outer world, especially from the scientifically researched outer world as presented to us by natural science. On the one hand, we take this concept of reality. It need not be particularly clear at first; it can simply be the idea that takes root in us through our direct and scientific contact with the external world. We take this concept, this idea of reality on the one hand, and on the other hand we take what we consciously experience when we engage in free thinking, then something occurs in our soul – yes, I could call it a basic law, I could call it an experience – something occurs to which one must inwardly confess to oneself by saying: I think, but I am not in thinking, that is, I am not as I have come to know existence in the outer world. And the momentous sentence appears before us: I think, therefore I am not.

That is the first thing one has to grasp for one's consciousness, my dear audience. And that is why it is so difficult to deal with the present, which is actually the starting point for the scientific nature of anthroposophy, because, as perhaps most of you know, more recent philosophy still more or less consciously or unconsciously starts from Descartes' sentence: Cogito ergo sum – I think, therefore I am. So one starts from the great error that in thinking one grasps something of a reality, of a reality such as one has initially formed it as a reality in one's mind. We must first admit to ourselves: Whatever arises as I think, I think freely. This is the experience of non-reality, which is an experience that is at the same time a thinking experience and a will experience, a pure will experience, a desire experience.

Dear attendees, this experience is of tremendous importance for the life of the soul. One should actually spend a long time meditating on this experience until we feel, as it were, that we have hollowed out our ego when we admit to ourselves: I think, and in this thinking my ego lives. It is as if I were looking at a colored wall with a black circle in the middle. There is darkness, there is no light. Nevertheless, I see the black circle. I see the black circle within the light. When I become self-conscious in ordinary life and confess to myself: in that I think, I do not look into a reality, I look, if I may express it this way, into the black circle; I look into the non-light, which is darkness. I believe that I actually see myself, because within the content of my consciousness, the ego is left out. It is precisely because there is a nothing within the content of my consciousness and I see this non-being in the being that I initially consider myself to be an ego in ordinary thinking. This is a fundamental fact of psychology and philosophy. However, it may take a while before philosophers are willing to engage with the analysis that is necessary to do this. I can only hint at it here, I can only point to what is there. Much can still be discussed in very long psychological-philosophical expositions before such an analysis is finally done.

You see, my dear audience, once you have realized that when you think you are actually looking into the emptiness of the inner world, once you have realized that something of a volitional nature is at work there, then you are at the right starting point for what can now occur in inner methodological anthroposophical research. And this inner, methodical, anthroposophical research consists of the following: starting from what one has inwardly experienced in the sphere of freedom in the nature of thinking, and what one has then investigated in the 'I think, therefore I am not' in the sense of the being of the beings outside, by letting it take effect on oneself, by, I would like to say, inwardly grasping this atom of will-being, one can then be in the soul mood from which that meditation starts, which one needs to come to a real inner insight.

May people condemn as heresy what appears as an anthroposophical method and thereby distort it in a certain way before humanity, by presenting it as if it were something inferior in a bad sense, as one often calls it so “inferior” in the field of experiments, pragmatism and so on - in all the fields of manifold superstition, people may, may, as I said, distort all that the spiritual researcher develops there, by starting from a fixed philosophical basis. The methods and meditative techniques developed there, ladies and gentlemen, are nothing other than a further development of those inner soul forces that we have when we do mathematics and whose application in external natural science has yielded such great and significant results. Once we have learned what is present in the soul as an activity when we mathematize, once we have familiarized ourselves with this peculiar, scientifically formed form of creation, we can develop it further by, so to speak, recreating what arises in our memory, so that we have a kind of guiding impulse for our lives from this memory. We have these impulses for our lives as guiding impulses because what occurred as external experiences at a certain point in our childhood is transformed into inner experiences. We can, so to speak, always bring up images from the unfathomable depths of the soul of what we have experienced. But we can also distinguish between the living experience of being inside the experience, as we had it ten years ago, and the act of bringing up what was experienced back then. And no matter how vivid the images may be, the essential thing in this memory life is that we make what we are experiencing temporarily into a lasting one in us through imagination, although it is a lasting one that we cannot immediately determine as to what is going on down there in the soul life - or perhaps also in the organic life. But we can determine what we have before us if we bring up from these depths what we have experienced.

If we now immerse ourselves in the way we have a memory picture, how we have a memory picture vividly within us when we remember something we have experienced over a long period of time, we learn from this 'having' of a memory picture what is necessary for meditation, for the fundamental meditation of the anthroposophical research method. It is necessary for us to place a readily comprehensible idea at the center of our consciousness, and it does not matter whether it refers to something external or whether it is formed only internally, even if it comes from the imagination. The truth of the idea is not important at first, but it is important that we can easily grasp it. I have described all this in relation to this anthroposophical research method in my books “How to Know Higher Worlds,” in “Occult Science” and in other books; there I have described the way in which one enters into this form of meditative imagination in the soul in exactly the same way as one does in mathematizing.

You will then find it absurd if someone compares this activity of the soul, which goes beyond mathematization and is thoroughly permeated by the will, with something hallucinatory or with something subconscious. That is precisely why so much is given to a mathematical preparation for anthroposophy, because it teaches one to recognize how one has a free hand in creating and holding on to ideas in consciousness. And anyone who says that the inner will that anthroposophy aims to achieve could be hallucination, either deliberately or because they are unable to do so, does not fully appreciate the way in which this meditative life is actually pursued, how it is maintained by first placing easily comprehensible ideas into one's consciousness so as not to bring up reminiscences from the subconscious. But by doing so, one exercises an activity - through inner strength, with effort of the will - that one otherwise exercises only on the basis of external facts, because otherwise one proceeds on the basis of external facts and experiences and allows the life of ideas to develop on the basis of these external facts and experiences. But now you free yourself from those external facts and experiences - I can only hint at the principle here, you can find more details in the books mentioned - now it is a matter of holding on to the ideas through inner will and thus constantly evoking an activity of the soul, which otherwise only ignites at external facts and runs in the inner being of man, bound to external existence. But by developing such meditation further and further, by practicing for years to make ideas that are easily comprehensible permanent, by learns to know that soul activity which tears thinking, raised above ordinary existence, away from the bodily, one rises to that which I have presented in the books mentioned as imaginative knowing.

Not fanciful images, not fantastic notions! Imaginative cognition is a state of consciousness filled with images that are present in the soul in the same way as mathematical configurations and formulas. And in this free handling of supersensible reality, which one distinguishes from every [physical] reality just as one distinguishes the triangle drawn with chalk on the blackboard as a mere symbol with full inner consciousness [from the purely spiritual concept of the triangle]. By being able to remain in this imaginative life of the soul for a while, one comes to know the life of the soul as something that can be torn away from the body. We are so used to our life being bound to the nervous system and the rest of the organism that we only really recognize this when we do such exercises. We see that, independently of the organism, the soul-spiritual runs in itself, and that the soul-spiritual can be filled with images. Only through this does one get to know the meditative life. These images are quite like the memory images - not like hallucinations. It is not true that one is filled with something like hallucinations or visions when doing anthroposophical research, but one gets to know the novelty, the new kind of content, through the existence of the memory being, in which the images of imaginative cognition or imaginative consciousness appear. But one also knows that one can no longer say when these images occur: I imagine, therefore I am not – as one can say about thinking.

Now, as I ascend to imagination, I encounter in a strange way what I first encountered in the external world – I encounter necessity. I can form my images in imagination, but I cannot throw them back and forth in any old way in relation to a new world that is now emerging. I see myself gradually forced to relate these images that arise in my imaginative life to a new world that I am getting to know, to a spiritual world. I learn to recognize: I must confront this image, which I have prepared, as a question of some fact of the spiritual world, and through this image, which I have built up, I enter into a connection with this world. I gain access to the spiritual world through the consciously created images of the imagination, just as I come into contact with the sensory world through the images created by my eyes or the sound images created by my ears. These latter images, which are created in the eye and ear, are produced without my arbitrariness. What is produced in the imagination as a world of pictures is, however, attained after such thorough schooling as I have just described in the books mentioned, “How to Know Higher Worlds” and so on. But in this way one acquires the possibility of holding out something to the spiritual world in the way of inner activity, just as our senses can hold out something to the outer, natural world in the way of eye activity, ear activity, so that we receive pictures from it. What spiritual knowledge of the world is to open up for us must first be developed in us, it must first be brought up from the depths of the soul. And that happens in the first stage of supersensible knowledge, in imaginative consciousness. But it is significant that we enter into this state as if by necessity. And now we learn all the more to recognize what freedom actually is.

You see, someone who hallucinates or has visions creates images from his body. He is simply following an inner necessity, an inner compulsion. Someone who lives in fantasy creates images from his soul. He is more or less aware of how he creates these images. And if he is a healthy person and not a lunatic, then he knows that he lives in an unreal fantasy world. What one produces in the imaginative consciousness, one knows – because the ordinary, normal consciousness, the consciousness that experiences itself in freedom, remains present – that in the imaginative consciousness one forms the images oneself, just as in mathematics one forms the formula oneself, through which one comprehends reality. But one also knows that when one enters into the spiritual world, one grasps a spiritual world through these images. So one can see that as human beings with ordinary external consciousness, we can grasp this process. In our ordinary lives and in ordinary science, we have the opportunity to gain freedom – and that is because, with mere pictorial imagining, which is not in reality, one must say: I think, therefore I am not – cogito ergo non sum. If one develops one's freedom with this thinking and then looks back into the spiritual world, one looks back into a world in which the same necessity reigns that one first encountered in the external world. In the external world, one starts from the necessity of facts. One advances into a thinking in which, so to speak, freedom repels the certainty of inner thinking.

One proceeds from this free thinking to imagination, which also claims to have an existence, and thus one comes again into a world of necessity. One comes into this necessity again in an inner way. In this way one learns above all to really see through that which is spoken about so often, but which actually always confronts one in a certain nebulous, poorly mystical way. If one learns to recognize the imaginative consciousness of which I have spoken, then self-observation becomes possible for the first time. I would like to say that what used to be the starting point of the I, when one looked at the non-I, begins to brighten up a little. The will penetrates into it and begins to grasp something. And one also feels oneself again in a world of necessity. This is how one arrives at self-awareness.

If you continue your exercises, you will come to an exercise in particular where you can make the images disappear just as you feel them coming up. And this must be done, otherwise one does not remain master of it, but becomes a visionary and not a spiritual researcher. When one is able to erase the images from one's consciousness, one arrives at the complete inner exercise of will in this world of images, so that one can also erase the image whose becoming one has experienced in the soul. What I have called the second stage - the inspired consciousness - occurs. Please do not be put off by the expression. After all, we have to use expressions as technical aids. It was used in an analogous sense, in reference to old expressions, but it is definitely a new fact, a self-explored fact, that is meant by it; the new, the inspired consciousness is meant by it. And with this one now stands in the spiritual reality. And when one is so immersed in spiritual reality that one is surrounded by it, really surrounded by it, by a world of spiritual beings, then one also beholds one's own soul in its true essence. Then what anthroposophy describes as repeated earthly lives becomes an immediate fact. And one sees more and more of the soul as it passes from life to life, with the intervening life between death and a new birth — one sees this journey of the soul. One has, so to speak, expanded one's imagination so that it can, in principle, when directed inward, move in the opposite direction to which the imagination normally moves.

Let us ask ourselves: How does imagined thinking move? As I said, we first have the experience of being connected to the outside world; we live ourselves into some event in the outside world with our whole being. This speaks to our will impulses, or rather, it speaks to our feelings; it also speaks to our thoughts. We live in it with our whole being. We may even make a physical effort in having the experience. In short, we live in it with our whole being. In this way, this soul, in having our ideas, plunges down into the depths, and in the image we can bring it up again. We can say: in ordinary experience, we proceed from the external experience to ordinary memory in that the external images undergo a certain inner metamorphosis. In meditation, which is available in anthroposophical research, we go the other way. We first learn to have an image that is not allowed to link to an external experience, not to subconscious reminiscences, and learn to progress — now not to an external experience, but to a supersensible experience, also to those experiences that lie before our birth or before our conception. In this way we get to know the pre-existence of the soul, the spiritual being of the soul, in a way that we otherwise only get to know what external experiences have brought us up to a certain point in our childhood. It is the reverse experience, but one that leads us to spiritual experience, where we start from the image and ascend to the experience. And if at the same time we practise a certain self-discipline, namely a self-discipline that increasingly leads us to act out of what we know in ordinary life as the feeling of love, then we learn to recognize objectively where we can develop our activity in love from the tasks that the outer world gives us. If we get to know this life in the outer world, then after much practice, the progression from image to reality will gradually be such that we progress from the imaginative consciousness through the inspired to the intuitive consciousness. This means that we learn to stand within the inner objectivity, within the inner necessity of the spiritual world.

You see, dear attendees, in nature research we start from necessity. In a sense, we approach the human being in such a way that we can only contribute something to thinking if we can inwardly preserve and say to ourselves, in order to be a human being in the right sense, you carry within you something that is connected with the nature of the whole world. But by making the attempt to approach man with that thinking, which is extraordinarily well suited for use in the study of nature, in outer life, one comes to a point – I have characterized this, you can read about it in my Philosophy of Freedom – where one can go no further. The hypotheses become uncertain.

But if you develop what can be experienced in the realm of freedom, you will penetrate the objectivity of the mind in a reverse way. And here you can be helped if you use thinking, in the Goethean sense (as explained in his scientific writings), not to spin out hypotheses, but only to put together phenomena.

By assembling phenomena, one learns to recognize how to approach this world. One does not arrive at the realm of atoms - not at atoms, not at electrons and so on, which are justified to a certain extent, as far as external appearance is concerned. One only comes to the outer appearances in this physical-scientific way of looking at and researching. If, on the other hand, one presents these purely as phenomena, then one can penetrate to what lies behind the phenomenon - to which we ourselves belong in our eternal core - by ascending into the imaginative, inspirational, intuitive. And in this way, ladies and gentlemen, we also arrive at a certain self-knowledge, at realizing what we demand in self-observation. By developing the imaginative consciousness, we learn to look into ourselves. What is memory based on? It is based, so to speak, on the fact that we absorb what we experience in the outside world in our imagination. Not in the way it is the case, for example, in the first days of our childhood — there it is transferred down into the organization — but in such a way that it is mirrored, that it has, as it were, a mirror wall on our organization and that we absorb it by remembering, in the memory image of the experience. By developing the memory that we need for a healthy social and scientific life in this way, we overcome the bond to the physical organization through anthroposophical research. However, ordinary consciousness must always be present; it must not be as in hallucination. Rather, anyone who ascends to imaginative consciousness is always a rational human being at the same time, always has ordinary consciousness alongside. This is precisely what distinguishes imaginative envisioning, inspired envisioning, from hallucination. Hallucinations and visions live in what the body produces, so that when we develop physical images from the body, we are dealing with visions and hallucinations. When we compose images from the soul, we are dealing with imaginative creations; when we compose images from the spirit, which we grasp by learning to work freely from the body, purely in spirit and soul, we are dealing with spiritual reality. So, it is the body that produces the images by coming to hallucinations and visions. The soul composes images by coming to fantasies, not to visionary images. The spirit within us composes images by approaching spiritual realities.

But when we look back into ourselves, we see, as it were, through the looking-glass, just as we should see through an actual looking-glass if we were to pierce it or take away some of the coating. And there we do not encounter in our inner being what the nebulous mystics talk about; we encounter something quite different, because the soul has experienced many things before it believes it unites with some deity in its inner being. They speak of divine manifestations in the ego. They speak of something they dream up. But anyone who penetrates into their inner being with genuine spiritual science comes to something quite different. He comes to see materially that which is otherwise given to him spiritually. Otherwise, his thinking, feeling, willing, desiring and coveting are given to him spiritually; now, however, he sees through everything that he feels, which is more or less connected with memory, and he sees into the actual inner laws of his organism. He gets to know his organism. He will not prattle and ramble on about nebulous mysticism, but will speak of the actual nature of the liver, lungs and stomach, which he gets to know through inner vision. He can add his inner vision to what conscientious external-physical anatomy provides. There you see the possibility of ascending to a real science of pathology. There you see how spiritual science, which does not turn to nebulous, rambling mysticism but which starts from exact methods, can really enter into the whole field of science. Yes, you get to know much more. Above all, one recognizes that even with the mystics who, of course, sound so magnificent, even with St. Therese or Mechthild of Magdeburg, that basically physical abnormalities are involved. One learns to recognize how abnormal liver, spleen and so on functions can arise from an imperfect, inharmonious functioning, from which arise the images that we otherwise so admire in mysticism.

Dear attendees! Knowledge is one thing that cannot be grasped by means of life prejudices, no matter how beautiful they may be. I believe that for those who can immerse themselves in knowledge without prejudice, there is a deeper insight into the foundations of existence, because they know how the human organism “boils” such beautiful things as they encounter in the noblest forms, namely in a Saint Therese or even in a Mechthild of Magdeburg, when they mystically indulge in raptures in the mist and dream of all kinds of things that are supposed to arise from the soul and spirit within. That is the remarkable thing: that we are progressing to the materiality of the human organism through self-observation. This will increasingly distinguish exact anthroposophy from all the ramblings and ramblings of inner mysticism, namely that it does not lead into the nebulous, but into realities. It teaches that which cannot be developed through external anatomy, because what can be learned from external physiology and anatomy is only one side; in this way it shows that the soul is pre-existent. She shows how this soul works down from its more comprehensive being to shape what is formed in the mother's womb from the spiritual. Thus, the real arises out of the spiritual world. We delve into the realm of reality by meditatively penetrating forward.

In science, we approach the human being from the outside world, whereas in anthroposophy, the full knowledge of the human being extends to the realm of nature. This is how we arrive at the harmony of spirit and matter that the human being must experience if they are to be fully human in the appropriate sense. He arrives at the point where, out of an inner urge, he passes directly from inner feeling and will to direct knowledge. It follows that without this knowledge we are always compelled to appeal to an atomistic world, and that we do not really get to the heart of the material. When we learn to recognize more and more of the material, then we also learn to recognize the nature of the spiritual outwardly. We really learn to build that bridge that leads us cognitively from spirit to matter, from matter to spirit. We need not believe that it is possible to solve all the riddles of the world at once. Weak-minded natures may perhaps say: The life of today's man must be a tragic one, since he inevitably comes up against the limits of knowledge, which make the riddles of the world appear insoluble to him. But it is not so. When we ascend in this way and get to know the spiritual life as it really is, when it suddenly flashes into us and when, on the other hand, we encounter the material world again when we approach the world with real powers of perception, , we learn, in essence, by ascending to such knowledge, not to experience something that carries us into the slumber from the outset in relation to knowledge, but we learn to recognize the struggle in which we are interwoven as human beings. Man sees how he lives outside in the struggles of spiritual worlds and beings, how he participates in this struggle through the moral world, the religious world, how he brings social life out of this struggle. He gets to know something that does not, so to speak, superficialize the inner soul state in solving the riddles of the world, but on the contrary, deepens it.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what anthroposophy basically wants. It is the way to meet natural science. Anyone who wants to fight anthroposophy from a scientific point of view or, following on from science, from a philosophical point of view, is tilting at windmills, because anthroposophy addresses everything that science legitimately brings up; it can only accommodate what can be achieved through such science and philosophy through full knowledge. But this full realization was not wanted. Over a long period of time, the newer spiritual life and the newer life of civilization has brought about what has become known in recent times as agnosticism. Again and again, those thinkers who did not want to come to a further development of thinking, who did not want to enter into the world of the imaginative, inspired and intuitive, spoke of an ignoramus and thus presented something to people - which is significant - that must be considered as something unrecognizable and incomprehensible. But because man always knows that he is spirit, he should actually be able to distinguish the spiritual origin from nebulous mysticism and the like. The cause of all that is literally superstition in the various areas of life does not lie in anthroposophy, which strives for clarity and exact natural science, but the origin of it lies in ignorabimus, in agnosticism. These created the “foggy” mysticism. It is precisely the ignorabimus that leads to agnosticism, because man must continually seek the spirit. All nebulous movements emanate from the ignorabimus and agnosticism.

Anthroposophy does not want to be fog, Anthroposophy wants to be light, Anthroposophy wants to be the continuation of the light that it itself recognizes in modern science as a truly spiritual light that carries humanity forward. This is how it itself sees the relationships between modern science, modern philosophy and itself as Anthroposophy.

Two years ago, as the catastrophic events of recent times were approaching their decision, the circumstances revealed that the friends of our School of Spiritual Science in Dornach wanted to change the name of this School of Spiritual Science. The intention was to express how, out of an awareness of German intellectual life, they wanted to courageously oppose everything that might arise against this intellectual life in the present or in the future. In those days — and you will feel the significance of this naming — that building, which is also intended to reflect in its artistic design what lives in anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, was called the School of Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum. And so this Goetheanum stands on one of the most north-westerly hills in Switzerland as a symbol of a truly international spirit, but of a spirit that wants to have that significant element in itself that can be linked to the name Goethe. And so it will be allowed, in spiritual scientific considerations, as they are practiced here, to occasionally recall Goethe's.

Today I will apparently take something far-fetched as a starting point, but this apparent far-fetchedness may be suitable to point out a characteristic of the spiritual science meant here.

It may be known how Goethe, after taking up his duties in Weimar, devoted himself intensively to scientific observations out of certain contexts of his life there. And when, after having conducted the most diverse experiments and studies on plants and animals in Weimar and in the neighboring town of Jena, he had traveled to Italy in the mid-1880s and had occupied himself with all the natural sciences as he wandered from region to region, he once wrote about the ideas that he now had to form about the connection between plants and the earth. He wrote to his friends in Weimar that he had now fully grasped the idea of the primal plant, the plant that he was convinced was a concept that could only be grasped in the mind, that was something that all individual plant forms were based on, but that was only a spiritually grasped unified form. And he wrote a remarkable sentence to his friends in Weimar at the time: With this image in the soul, one must be able to recognize the plant world in such a way that, if one modifies this image - Goethe called it a sensual-supersensory image - in the appropriate way, by giving it a concrete form, one must inwardly create something in the spirit that has the possibility of becoming external reality. With this primal plant in one's soul, one must have grasped plant life so deeply that one could invent a fantasy plant that would have just as much justification for being an external reality as the plants that grow outside in the meadows and in the forests and on the mountains.

What did Goethe mean and how did he feel when he uttered such a thing at the moment when he believed himself to be at the pinnacle of his insight in a certain field of knowledge? Do we not see from this saying, especially when we consider everything that lived in Goethe's nature, that Goethe strove for a knowledge of nature that, as he puts it, is spiritual, that is, a knowledge in which not only the senses, not only the intelligence, are involved, but a knowledge in which the whole of the human being's spiritual nature is involved? But don't we also see how Goethe strives for such knowledge, which can delve into the essence of things, which knows itself so intimately with things that, by creating the idea of things within itself, it can be clear to itself that in this creative power, which lives and is productive in the soul, the same lives and moves as in the growth force of the plant outside? Goethe was clear about this: when the plant grows out there, when it develops leaf by leaf, node by node, blossom by blossom, growth force lives in it. But Goethe wanted to connect with this growth force that lives out there; he wanted to let it live in his own soul. Something should live in what he created as cognitive ideas about things, something that is the same as what lies out there in the things.

Such knowledge strives for an incredible intimacy of shared experience with external things. Today, we still underestimate the impact that Goethe's ascent to such ideas had on the quest for knowledge in humanity; for, basically, we live in a completely different era of knowledge. However, the anthroposophically oriented spiritual science referred to here wants to be Goetheanism, that is, not Goethe science in the way that this or that Goethe collection does with what Goethe said or wrote, but in the sense that that it seizes what lived in Goethe in an initial, elementary way, but which has an inner vitality to bear fruit again and again, which today is something quite different than it could be in 1832, when Goethe died. A spirit lived in Goethe that continued to develop, even after Goethe was dead to this earth. Today we can speak of a Goetheanism of 1919. It does not need to reheat what Goethe himself said word for word, but it must work in his spirit. And one can best work in his spirit if one takes what he tried to do for his time almost a century and a half ago in a small area, that of plants and a little of animals, and only in terms of outer forms, and makes it the impulse for a comprehensive world view, and above all, includes the human being in this comprehensive world view. But in doing so, one professes a Goetheanism that must have a transforming effect on everything that today wants to grow from the most respected parts of our quest for knowledge, from the natural sciences, into a world view.

Perhaps I may, with some reference to what I have already said in previous lectures, once more characterize the spiritual development of civilized humanity over the last four centuries. What have we seen as the main force in human development and in the quest for knowledge? We have seen the rise of intellectual and rational life, and even if we have experienced great triumphs in the field of natural science, we must still say: Although natural science describes external facts to us in abundance , the way in which we, as human beings, approach the external world, namely how we form ideas in our souls about external nature and about life, is steeped in intellectualism through and through.

If one takes the intellectualistic moment in human nature as one's guiding principle, one arrives at something very spiritual. Our abstract ideas and concepts are, of course, very spiritual within. As they have asserted themselves over the last four centuries, they are spiritual in themselves, but they are not capable of becoming anything other than mirror images of external sensual facts. That is the characteristic feature of our intellectual and spiritual life: we have gradually developed abstract, very fine ideas and concepts that have filtered into the spiritual, but they are ideas and concepts that only dare to approach the external sensual reality, that do not have the strength within themselves to grasp anything in life other than the external sensual reality. Those who today strain their soul in this intellectualistic direction often believe that they are pursuing the paths of their research and thinking quite unconditionally and impartially. But this thinking and research, which moves along such intellectualistic paths, is by no means independent of historical development. And it is interesting to see how many people who call themselves philosophers or scientists today believe that they can somehow justify their research in this or that way on the basis of human nature or the essence of the world, whereas the way they research is only the result of thousands of years of human education.

If we go back first – and today I can only give a general characterization – through the centuries after Christ to ancient Greece, we find in the last centuries of pre-Christian Greece the first echoes of that intellectualistic thinking to which we have completely surrendered in the Western civilized world since the 15th century. In ancient Greece, we find the emergence of what was long called dialectics. This dialectics is the inner mobilization of a thought element that increasingly tends towards abstraction. But anyone who looks at Greek life impartially will see that this life of the intellect, which in Plato is still very spiritualized and in Aristotle is already purely logical, goes back to a fully substantial soul-filled life. And if one goes back to the earliest times of Greek thought and cultural development, as Nietzsche did – grandiosely, even if somewhat pathologically – then one finds that in what Nietzsche called the tragic age of the Greeks, the intellectual life does not yet include the abstract dialectical, logical element, nor is there a turning to the merely external world. Instead, this spiritual life still contains something that can only arise from the innermost nature of man itself, which, as if from within itself, bears the essence of the world in the most diverse forms. And if we trace the origin of what arose in Greece further back, what was later filtered down to mere logic, then in the Orient we find what I recently pointed out, what could be called a mysterious knowledge of the mysteries that is accessible to today's humanity — but only to today's humanity. It is a kind of knowledge that is gained in a way that modern humanity can no longer even imagine in its normal life. In those schools of the ancient Orient, which were simultaneously schools and art institutions and religious sites, the individual did not merely have something to learn or to explore intellectually. Rather, before he was even introduced to the secrets of existence, he had to undergo a transformation of his entire being. In these mysteries of the Orient, it was taken for granted that man, in the way he lives his outer life, could not penetrate to the secrets of existence. Therefore, one had to lead man, through strict discipline of his entire being, to that state in which he became a different being, and to this other being one then imparted what was called the content of knowledge. Once upon a time, in the East, knowledge was built up out of a rich, historically no longer existing, but intellectually verifiable, soul-spiritually concretely shaped life. This knowledge then spread to Greece, where it was filtered into dialectics , to logic, to mere intelligence, and which then was filtered further and further until it became the mere intellectualism in which we have been immersed in modern civilization since the middle of the 15th century.

Without directing the eye of the soul unreservedly to such things as I have characterized them, one cannot look into the various cultural currents and balances of culture in today's existence, one cannot come to fruitful views on what is necessary for humanity today. Today it is a matter of looking unreservedly at what has become, and from that recognizing in which spiritual worlds we actually stand in it. If we follow the way in which a spiritual life from the Orient that was more or less foreign to us was transplanted to Greece and filtered into our intellectualism, then we come to the question: How did this spiritual life actually develop?

This spiritual life could not have developed in any other way than by being bound in a certain way to something natural in the human being. If we examine what has actually been working and weaving in human nature so that this spiritual life could develop through the transformation of the human being described, we must say that the fact of heredity, the fact of blood inheritance, plays a major role in this. And we can only study how the development of knowledge has taken place in humanity if we extract it from the knowledge of the fact of blood development. Therefore, the knowledge in the times to which I have referred, in order to explain the origin of our present knowledge, is bound to individual peoples, to individual races, to blood connections, to hereditary conditions. Knowledge arises differentiated according to the individual peoples. What had to be taken into account when the pupil was brought in from the outer life into the mystery school of which I have spoken, and what had to be taken into account in his education, was: What blood, what temperament in the blood, what gift based on the blood lived in him? And this natural element was developed until everything that could arise from it emerged in the knowledge of the person concerned.

Anyone who really knows the developmental history of humanity, who does not cling to — I may use this word again — the fable conveniale-like, what is called history today, but to the real developmental history of humanity, will find that this bondage of the human soul and spiritual life to blood ties and blood facts radically ceases around the middle of the 15th century for the Western civilized world. Something begins to set the tone that can never be bound to blood in the development of man. It is very interesting to see how everything that has been artistically developed since the 15th century in modern humanity emerges from the sources of the human soul, which have nothing to do with the natural and elemental aspects of even the greatest intellectual achievements of earlier times. This may be misunderstood in many circles. But anyone who really wants to understand what lives in Aeschylus, what lives in an ancient Greek philosopher like Heraclitus or Anaxagoras, anyone who wants to comprehend what lived in those ancient civilizations must realize that something lives in them that is bound to the blood of certain races. The Greeks were still aware that all their spiritual being was bound to what their blood produced as a spiritual blossom. This can be seen by studying Greek works of art with any sense, for example, the typical sculpted figures. If you try to understand the nature of these figures, you will find that three types live in the realm of Greek sculpture: first the satyr type, then the Mercury type, which appears particularly in all Mercury heads, but then the type that we find in Zeus, in Hera, in Athena, in Apollo. If we carefully compare the shape of the nose, the shape of the ears, everything about these three types, it will be obvious how the Greeks wanted to represent in the satyr type and in the Mercury type the subordinate humanity within which, as the blood-related superior humanity, that Aryanism had spread, which the Greeks gave their image to in the head of Zeus. One would like to say: It expresses the consciousness of how the Greek felt his spirituality bound to the blood-related, elementary in the development of mankind. This gradually petered out and ceased to have any significance for humanity by the middle of the 15th century. Since that time, the intellectual element, the element of imagination, has been alive in what is produced in the normal life of the spirit, so that everything that arises in the soul, the artist of the soul, has nothing more to do with what surges in the blood, what the blood produces. Today even trivial philosophers have to admit that what lives in intellectualized ideas is not bound to the body, least of all to the blood, and in any case has nothing to do with what played such a great role in the old spirituality: with heredity, with the fact of blood relationship within heredity.

Since the middle of the 15th century, something has emerged in human development that is, so to speak, a very thin spiritual, just merely intellectual, but it educates this modern humanity to independence from everything merely natural, which, however, also removes this humanity from everything that was previously felt to be human. And a strange, I might say tragic, thing occurred in this development of modern humanity. It had to rise to an experience that is independent of the natural, elemental, but it could no longer understand itself with what it received in the soul. In that ancient spirituality, in that spiritual knowledge which was still based on blood, one had, together with the inner knowledge, a knowledge of human nature and essence itself; now one had risen to an abstract spirituality, which can experience great triumphs in natural science, but which cannot possibly go into the essence of man himself, which remains far removed from the essence of man.

But that had another consequence. If we look back at this development, which I have characterized as being bound to the natural, elementary, and turn our gaze not to the nature of knowledge, but to what happens in history in terms of good or evil, sympathetic or antipathetic deeds, we find that these deeds are connected to natural cognition, to the natural experience of the spirit, and are the expression of the natural experience of the spirit: Man experiences himself through his blood, rises through his blood to spirituality, experiences what his blood gives him in powerful images, in imaginations that are representations of the spiritual experienced, and what he experiences in his soul passes over into his whole being. And the outflow of what pulses from his perceptions, from his sensed perceptions, sensed ideas, becomes his deeds.

And today? We have arrived at a point of culmination. We have three to four centuries of intellectual life behind us. We look around us in the modern civilized world and find everywhere an intensive development of intellectual research, the most diverse ideas, but all these ideas are so abstract and so far removed from life that they cannot be transformed into impulses for action. When we see the general spiritual slumber in which people find themselves today, from which they are always and forever unwilling to admit how much we are on a slippery slope and how much we need to draw to draw from our soul life the strength to find the impulses that can lead to action. This reminds one of a saying that was used in earlier centuries to call to the Germans, who were already found to be sleepy at the time: “Sleep, Michel, sleep, in the garden a sheep is walking, in the garden a little Pfäflelin is walking, it will take you to heaven. Sleep, Michel, sleep!” Yes, that is the attitude of many today: listening to some abstract religious teaching that has no connection with the immediate external reality and life in this reality. We have lost the connection between the external knowledge of nature, which we grasp only intellectually, and what lives in our soul and what was included in the old, blood-based knowledge of nature, the view of the essence of man.

I know how reluctant people are today to listen to such characterizations, which they regard as something outlandish, as fantasies that seek to exaggerate things. Nevertheless, it must be said: unless we listen to what comes from this quarter, we will not arrive at fruitful ideas about a reorganization or a new structure, which seems so necessary today if we observe things impartially. The spiritual and the soul — well, our school philosophers still talk about something soul-like in relation to the external world; but that clear grasp of the human being as body, soul and spirit is no longer part of our Western way of looking at things. There we can perceive a very remarkable fact. As I have already explained in other lectures, we can only come to terms with the essence of the human being if we are able to divide the human being into body, soul and spirit. For the body is what provides the tool for the spiritual powers between birth and death, the spirit is what makes use of this tool, and the soul is what is neither body nor spirit, but what connects the two. Without understanding this trinity, one cannot penetrate the essence of man. But even outstanding philosophers speak of it: man consists of body and soul. They believe they are pursuing unprejudiced science. Yes, unprejudiced science! They only do not know: In intellectual life we are dependent on the entire oriental development. Thus, in our looking at body and soul, we are dependent on the 8th General Council of Constantinople in 869, where the dogma was established that as a Christian one should not believe in body, soul and spirit, but only in body and soul, and one should believe that the soul has some spiritual properties. This has since become a dogma of the Catholic Church, it has become a commandment for those who have searched externally. And today people believe that they are pursuing an unbiased search that they are spinning out of themselves, while they are only following the old education that was inaugurated by the general council at Constantinople in 869, where the spirit was abolished.

All this has contributed to our spiritual life becoming so abstract, so intellectualistic, that there is no longer anything in it - but humanity is subject to a development, and there can no longer be anything in it - that lived in the old spiritual life and gave impulses to the will. And a time would have to come in which man would appear completely paralyzed in relation to his deeds if we retained only materialism within our Western intellectual life. From the course of Western intellectual development, it must be felt that a new fertilization of this intellectual development is necessary; that we must regain what we have lost as old blood from another side. It was right for humanity to undergo an intellectual development independent of blood for three to four centuries. In this way it educated itself to freedom, to a certain emancipation from the merely natural. But what we have developed in terms of intellectualism must in turn be impregnated, it must in turn be filled in our being with a kind of knowledge that can flow into human action, that can soul and spiritualize the human being at will. Such spiritual knowledge, a modern spiritual knowledge that wants nothing to do with a revival of the old oriental spiritual knowledge, is what anthroposophically oriented spiritual science strives for. And in this sense, it now seeks to achieve that intimacy with everything that lives in the universe, not only for plant and animal forms, but especially for humans, whereby one can say: the forces that live outside enter into our being, they awaken in our being itself, and by recognizing them, the growth forces of nature and the spiritual world live in us, above all our own human growth forces. So when we impregnate our intellectual life with spiritual experiences, we stand in modern civilization in such a way that not only something blood-related, but also something seen in the free spiritual lives in us, which in turn can have an inspiring and invigorating effect on our life of action.

It is true that the human life of will and deed would have to weaken if it did not receive the impact of what can be seen in the spirit. It is fair to say today, for example: Yes, but the insights of this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science are gained in the inner, contemplative life! Of course they are won in the inwardly contemplative life, just as, after all, chemical knowledge is also won, closed off from the application of chemical achievements in the practical world, in secluded laboratories and study rooms. What we need to do is to gain knowledge that can shed light on the human being, that can form the content of a true spiritual knowledge today, in which, again, but in a very different way than in the ancient mysteries, the human being transforms himself and comes to gain a spiritual view, as he has a sensory view here in the sensory world through his sensory organs and an intellectual view through his mind. This intellectual modesty, of which I spoke in the penultimate lecture here, must be developed so that one says to oneself: just as a five-year-old child must first be educated to learn to read, so too must a person who is involved in external life first transform himself in order to approach the real secrets of the natural and spiritual world. And it is only through renunciation, through voluntarily borne suffering, that real knowledge of the human being can be gained. You can see this from the fact that it is necessary for the truly cognizant person, the person penetrating into the spiritual world, no longer to look at the world as if with different eyes, to hear as if with different ears, to think as if with different thoughts, but to look at the world in an independent spiritual organism. But between birth and death one is not adapted to this world, into which one enters; one enters into a world, to which one stands as a stranger. This non-adaptation, this being placed into a world, to which one, insofar as one makes use of one's body, does not belong, is something that must be characterized by a spiritual-soul pain, which of course can only be recognized through experience. Through such and similar things, which certainly lie far removed from the outer storms and floods of life, one must penetrate into the spiritual world. But what is gained through the spiritual science meant here is slandered when one says: This is a mysticism that is unworldly; when one says: This is something that is alien to life or hostile to life. No, what is gained in spiritual research, albeit apart from life, is something that, when presented to humanity, is knowledge, a realization that can be grasped by common sense, but then impels the human being in such a way that it can become the bearer of his life of will and action.

What knowledge does spiritual science oriented towards anthroposophy strive for in its desire to develop a comprehensive Goetheanism? It strives for a knowledge of the spirit that can be the foundation for a strong life of will and deed. Our world can only be helped if that which can be seen out of the spirit enters into our life of will and deed. Intellectual knowledge and its application, knowledge of nature, is something contemplative, it is something that can at most be transferred into technology, into the extra-human. But what is seen out of the spirit will become an impulse to steer social life, this social life that is becoming so difficult, in truly salutary ways.

One could reflect a little and consider whether such characteristically spiritual scientific demands should not be taken into account after all, when one sees the immense suffering caused to humanity by the fact that so much is going wrong in social life today, that Leninism and Trotskyism and the like are introduced into social life. These are nothing but the intellectual poison which, during the four centuries, was admittedly needed for the liberation of humanity, but could only be used as long as the old social form was not yet affected by it. The moment it is affected, the poisonous effect of mere intellectualism in social life must show itself. It will begin to show itself in terrible manifestations, and it will show itself more and more. It is a terrible illusion when people believe that they are not just at the beginning in this area, but at a point where one can watch calmly. No, we are at the beginning, and healing can only come if it comes from the spirit. Spiritual knowledge must become the foundation. Instead of letting off all kinds of sometimes well-meant declamations, for example about the way in which this spiritual science has nothing to do with religion, it would be better to look the phenomena of life in the eye without bias.

So I was told that here in Stuttgart a lecture was given on anthroposophically oriented spiritual science in which it was said: All kinds of things may be brought to light by clairvoyant powers, of which spiritual science speaks; but this has nothing to do with the simple childlikeness that is said to be effective in religion, in the religious understanding of Christianity as well. This is how one can declaim, how one can believe one is allowed to speak when one is abandoned of all spirits of historical observation, of all spirits that explain the development of humanity. If one is not abandoned by them, then the spirit of human development proclaims loudly and clearly that this abstract talk of an abstract unifying of something in man, which one cannot define either, with an undefinable word, or Christ, that this enthusiasm for a childlike element has led us into the social misery in which we find ourselves. At first the spiritual and intellectual element was monopolized by the confessions. This gave rise to a natural science in which there is no spirit, which presents the image of nature in a spiritless way. And by admitting that all kinds of spiritual realities can be revealed to humanity through spiritual science, it is now demanded that it should be confessed that in this spiritual reality nothing is alive of what man should seek as his divine. Yes, the materialism of natural science has successfully managed to de-spiritualize nature. This religiosity will increasingly lead to the de-divinization of the spirit. And then we will have a de-spiritualized nature, a de-divinized spirit and a religion without content. This religion without content will not inspire any deeds. Spiritual knowledge must bring about deeds, otherwise our moral impulses for our Western intellectual life are in the air. Our moral impulses strive from within us in a completely different way than intellectual knowledge. Anyone who is able to look at themselves impartially knows that the intellectually conceived, for example, scientific knowledge in the life of the soul is something quite different from those impulses that arise within us as moral drives, as moral intuitions, and demand that we introduce them into life. But this modern intellectualism, through its intellectualism, has no bridge between its knowledge of nature and its moral life. What has become of the moral worldview? If we disregard a religious worldview that has now become more or less meaningless, if we look at those honest people who build a worldview out of science, which is certainly highly one-sided but still honest , we have to say: they imagine that some kind of connection between vortex phenomena arose from a Kant-Laplacean cosmic fog, and that little by little what we now call our world with natural beings and human beings arose from it. But moral ideals and moral intuitions arise in the human being. If we believe only in the natural context, then these moral ideals, these moral intuitions, are merely what emerges, what is valid only as long as people say so. Many old instincts from that human development are still alive, which actually came to an end in the 15th century. If these instincts were not to live on, if they were to be eradicated and nothing else were to enter into human spiritual life, then one would have to limit oneself to the external documentation of what we call moral ideals. And instead of feeling inwardly bound to our moral ideals, instead of feeling bound to the spiritual life that rises above all physical life, instead of this, at most, one might find it honorable to be thought a moral person by other people, one might find it opportune not to violate what is established by law in the state. In short, if our intellectuality remains, that glowing of a spiritualized soul should also disappear from the human moral life. For reality can only be given to our moral life when spirit-perception again impregnates and permeates all that we have acquired for ourselves through three to four centuries. By no means should this be criticized in a reactionary way, but only the necessities should be emphasized. But what does this spiritual insight show us, what is the moral of our spiritual insight? This spiritual insight recognizes external nature, it sees in it, in an initial sense, what reasonable geologists - I want to speak comparatively - assume for the geological formation of the earth. Such geologists say: a large part of our geological development is already in a state of decline. In many regions of the earth, we are walking over dead matter when we walk across the ground. But such dead matter is much more universally present than merely in the geological; it also permeates our cultural life, and in more recent times we have acquired a natural science that is directed only towards the dead, the inanimate, because we are gradually surrounded by the dying in our culture. We get to know what is dying out, what comes from ancient times of development and what is reaching its last phase in the development of the earth. But then we can compare what is reaching its last phase there with what blossoms in us as our moral ideals and intuitions. What are these moral ideals and intuitions? These moral ideals and intuitions, when they arise in us, reveal themselves to what is here called anthroposophically oriented spiritual science in such a way that one sees in them something that could be compared to the germ for the next plant contained in a plant blossom, while what dies off in the blossom is the inheritance from the previous plant. We see our moral life sprouting up within us. By experiencing the natural, we experience what has developed from ancient times to the earth; by feeling the moral ideals flourish, we experience what, when the earth is once thrown off like a slag corpse, will go out with the human souls into a cosmic, immortal life, just as the individual human being, when he discards his corpse, enters into spiritual-soul existence. Thus we see the germs of future earth metamorphoses sprouting within us as we unfold our moral life.

If you are able to take such an idea, which may certainly still seem fantastic to today's humanity, in its full seriousness and in its entire depth, then think what will become of a concept such as moral responsibility! You say to yourself: What are you, human? You are a result of the past and of the whole development of the earth. As such you are going downhill. Your moral sense is awakening within you; it is the germ of the future, which now seems unreal, so much so that we consider it to be merely abstract. But it is the first beginning of a future rich reality. And one should still say to oneself: If you do not practise this morality, if you do not connect with it, then you sin not only against your fellow man, but also against the spiritual worlds. For they have placed in you the seed through your morality to grow into the future of the world. If you are immoral, you exclude yourself from the future of humanity. In addition to the strength that comes from the knowledge of the spirit for the will and the life of deeds, such seriousness, I would even say cosmic, universally oriented human responsibility, can still be added to the life of morals. We can feel: In ancient Greece, the horizon of the educated was limited. One was a citizen of the country. Then came the newer times. America was discovered, and the globular shape of the earth was rediscovered through direct travel around the earth, through experience. Man became a citizen of the world. Once again, we have progressed. Mankind has passed through the stage of being a citizen of the country and of the earth. Today, it is called upon to become a citizen of the world in the truest sense of the word, that is, to feel itself as a citizen of those worlds that are outside our earth, but which belong to it as part of a whole, and to be a citizen of those future worlds to which I have alluded.

In this way, an ethical view can be rooted in spiritual knowledge in a new way. Only when such strength permeates our moral life will we be able to transform the moral doctrine into a socially effective view of life.

Approaches such as those outlined here have been attempted in something like the threefold social organism and in something like my book The Core Issues of the Social Question. Many people consider these to be abstractions, utopias, and yet they are the most real, because they are based on that new understanding of reality that cannot be achieved by any natural science, since it is too much affected by intellectualistic life. This intellectual life has gradually led man to turn in on himself. Today we can see remarkable examples of how man, no longer comprehending the human being from his external knowledge of nature, has become egotistical. At the same time as intellectualism has entered into all outer and inner human life during the last three or four centuries, this intellectualism, this egoism has also seized religious life. Today, unfortunately, human education over the centuries has prepared the way for speaking about the immortality of the human soul only from a certain egoistic point of view. People today recoil from the thought that — as it is not a matter of course, but as it would be possible — the cessation of their spiritual and soul-life could occur if the corpse were returned to the earth. This contradicts what is left of the natural as a clear last thing; it contradicts a clear egoistic urge. One indulges in this egoistic impulse when one speaks, as one does under the compulsion of dogmas, only of the continuation of the human soul-life after death, which, of course, is fully substantiated by spiritual science; but one does not speak of the fact that our spiritual soul was in a spiritual world before our birth or conception. Before we descend into physical corporeality and take on the covering given to us by the inheritance of father and mother, we undergo a development in a spiritual-soul world just as we do here on earth. And just as our life after death is a continuation of our life here on earth, a development of the experiences we have had here, so the life we undergo between birth and death is a continuation of the life we had before birth.

This, for example, imposes great duties on the educator when he is fully aware of the responsibility that weighs on his soul, in that he has to develop that which has descended from eternal spiritual heights into a human body and, through the outer form and shell, expresses itself more and more from year to year. This is the other thing that can be added to the knowledge that accommodates egoism, which only takes into account the fact of the immortality of the human soul in the face of death, which is of course an established fact. This is the other side that spiritual science in particular must emphasize for the modern human being: life before birth or before conception and the continuation of that same life here. It is easy to become world-weary when one speaks only of the afterlife. Anyone who seriously considers the prenatal period will feel obliged - since the order of the world is such that the human being has to descend into physical existence - to make this an active one. For only in this way can we shape what we are seeking to shape if we know that we descend into physical existence through birth. While the mere prospect of what comes after death leads to the deadening of the soul and spirit in physical existence, the consciousness that we have descended into this physical-sensual existence as spirits must lead to the strengthening of our will, to the working through of our whole life. Human hopes for the future can only arise with certainty from spiritual insight if we are rooted in spirit with our insight, if we permeate and impregnate our intellectual nature with what spiritual science gives us. Then, in turn, the impulse of deed and the impulse of will can enter into our lives. And our life will need these spiritual impulses, for this life is a descending one. Former generations could still rely on their instincts. We can see that in the ancient Greeks, those who matured for public life only needed to develop their blood instincts. This will no longer be possible; education would have to disappear if we were to rely only on what the earth could still bring us from human instincts. Present-day Eastern European socialism relies on these instincts; it relies on a zero. One reality will be relied upon if the hope is raised that socialism should be built on a spiritual-scientific basis. However, such views as have been put forward here are not yet taken seriously in their full import, at least not by a large number of people. Some people do take them seriously, but only from a very particular point of view. For example, in our journal 'Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus' (Threefolding of the Social Organism), when I was still working in Dornach, I read how something that comes from a certain quarter is taken very seriously; and I read that a remarkable lecture was given there, I believe even accompanied by music which was based on something that appears like a program from a certain quarter, for example, in the “Stimmen der Zeit” [Voices of the Times] by the Jesuit Father Zimmermann, in almost every issue, and which produces just such reactions as the one that is said to have occurred here. It was said, and by a member of the cathedral chapter at that, that one could indeed inform oneself about what Steiner says from the writings of his opponents, because the writings that he himself writes and those of his followers are not allowed to be read by Catholics because the Pope has forbidden them. In fact, the Sacred Congregation of the Roman Church of July 18, 1919, issued a general edict prohibiting the reading of theosophical and anthroposophical writings, at least according to the interpretation of this general edict by Father Zimmermann, a Jesuit priest. And yet one cannot believe that this Jesuit Father Zimmermann always lies. He lied: he claimed that I had been a former priest, that I had escaped from a monastery. I was never in a monastery. Then he said: 'The claim that Steiner was a runaway priest can no longer be maintained today'. A strange way to make up for telling a lie! Now I do not believe that what has found this strange expression is also a lie. It goes that one can educate oneself from the writings of my opponents because the anthroposophical writings were banned by the Holy Congregation of July 18, 1919. Yes, on this side one senses that something in anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, which has very real powers, wants to be placed in the present.

This anthroposophically oriented spiritual science – let me say this in conclusion, I would like to say, as an objective and at the same time personal comment – this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science will continue to represent what it has to represent as the basis of knowledge for the life of action, as the basis of knowledge for the moral and social life, as the basis of knowledge for the most beautiful human hopes, against all resistance, as well as it can. As far as I am concerned, it can be gagged; but as soon as it can stir even a little, it will again assert what it believes it can recognize as the truth necessary for humanity. And just as, at the moment when the prospect of victory began to turn against us, a testimony to international spiritual life was created in the Goetheanum for the whole international world, without shying away from the fact that what is now developed Goetheanism comes from the roots of German spiritual life, then this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science will also fight for the recognition that everything else that wants to stand in the way as an obstacle, for the knowledge that has become part of their conviction, as a world content.

Thirty-five years ago, in one of my first essays, I wrote the words as a call to arms to the German people, to characterize how the German essence must necessarily return to the best spiritual sources of its strength. an appeal to the German people: “Despite all the progress we have made in the most diverse fields of culture, we cannot escape the fact that the signature of our age leaves much, very much, to be desired. Most of our progress has been only in breadth and not in depth. But only progress in depth is decisive for the content of an age. It may be that the abundance of facts that have come upon us from all sides makes it understandable that we have momentarily lost sight of the broader view in favor of the deeper one. We only wish that the severed thread of progressive development would soon be re-established and that the new facts would be grasped from the spiritual height that has been attained.

In the feeling that if the spiritual low of that time did not meet with a counterpoise in a real spiritual upliftment, something catastrophic must happen, in this feeling, with a heart-wrenching pain, I wrote these words down and had them printed 35 years ago. I believe that today, from the same point of view as I have stated, I may refer to these words in a factual and personal way. For the course of events in these three and a half decades is proof that it is justified to let the call for spirituality resound again. May it, since it was not heard at the time, be heard today and in the near future by the Germans, so that they can build from within, out of a grasped spirituality, what has been so terribly way in recent years, indeed, what has only just begun to be destroyed, and what will certainly continue on the paths of destruction if one does not take spirituality with them for the new building.

That is what one would like to appeal to today: the will to spirituality in the German people in particular. And one may appeal to this will to spirituality; for it is certain: if the German people develop this will to spirituality, then they must find it. As I said recently, there seems to be no talent for materialism – the events of the last few decades prove this; but there is talent for spirituality, as proven by the spirit of our development over the centuries. Therefore, one may appeal to the will for spirituality: the German people, if they only develop the will, will find spirituality, they have the talent for it. But because it has this gift, it also has a great responsibility before the call for spirituality. May the awareness of this responsibility awaken, awaken in such a way that the German people may once more intervene energetically in the development of humanity on a spiritual basis and from spiritual impulses, may continue what it has done for the benefit of humanity through its greatest spirits for many centuries.

Dear attendees!

It was in the late summer of 1831 – that is, [not quite] a year before Goethe's death – that the great poet sealed a package. The contents of this package were to remain untouched until after his death.

What Goethe sealed at the time was the conclusion of his great life's work, the second part of his “Faust” as it is presented to us today. And the words that Goethe spoke to one of his friends when he had completed this great work of poetry sound significant. He said: “My life's work is now complete, and basically it doesn't matter what I do now and whether I do anything at all.

It is a peculiar feeling that must creep into our soul when we see such a personality arrive at the height of life and at the same time in the evening of life, and when such a feeling passes through the soul of this personality. This statement by Goethe implies that our poet feels something deeply inwardly concluded in his life's work: he feels, so to speak, that he has brought to an end and to a goal something that he had been working on for a long, long time – not years, but decades! And when we consider that the work in which he has invested his highest ideals and views of life has been completed, then we must attach a very special importance to such a work – such a rich, meaningful life that can speak of itself with such inner harmony and with the consciousness of having reached a goal [that he has given the world what he had to give, that is the deep meaning]. To have given to humanity the best you have to say! [With this great poet, we can understand how his work grows with development, becoming richer and richer.]

We can get an impression of what that means if we put ourselves back into the poet's life, into that time when he, in September of the year 1783, in Ilmenau, carved into a [wooden wall] the words:

Over all the hills
There is peace,
In all the treetops
You can barely feel
A breath;
The little birds are silent in the forest.
Just wait, soon
You too will rest.

Even if we have to understand such a poem based on the situation and perhaps have to remember that it was born in such a moment of inspiration as Goethe had – it was evening – out of the evening mood, we can still say that these words, so full of meaning, were written out of Goethe's mood at the time, out of that mood of heavy worries of the inner life, when heavy riddles weighed on his soul.

It was at the end of his life, when he was back at the place where he had written these words. He reread them in old age, and with tears of emotion he looked back to this youthful mood. What lies between two such moments in Goethe's life! What ultimately lies in Goethe's life between the time when he began to invest all his thirst for knowledge as a yearning for the ideals of life in the youthful [first parts of] Faust, and the moment shortly before his death, which brings this work to a close! Oh, it is very peculiar that we can follow several steps in this work of the poet's, where it shows us how it grows and grows with the poet's personality. Even when he arrived in Weimar in his [mid] seventies, he brought with him certain parts of his “Faust”. That was the first form in which he expressed his life ideals and riddles. This version was not available in print for a long time – it was preserved until the nineteenth century, when it was found in the estate of a Weimar court lady. Rediscovered when the archives were opened, the “Faust” was printed as a fragment in 1790. [From then on, the “Faust” grew more and more.]

Today, my task is to characterize this mighty poem from the outside and thus create the conditions for tomorrow's lecture, which will delve deeper into the profound secrets. There has been much talk about the incomprehensibility of the second part. In response to this, I would simply like to raise the question: Do you believe that a personality such as Goethe, at the end of his life, is as easy to understand as he was in his earlier years? Should we not rather endeavor to penetrate with all our might into what he had to say in his old age?

We have three versions of Faust: first, the youthful Faust, which is called the first part. This is available to us in the manuscript that was found in the Weimar estate of the aforementioned court lady. The second version dates from 1790. And the third appeared in 1808. This is the form in which the first part of “Faust” is now available to us. From then until the 1820s, Goethe did not think about continuing his “Faust.” [We will see what the reasons for this were.] For Goethe, the problem was too great to simply bring it to a conclusion. It was only in 1820, when he was at the height of his powers, that the poet took up the work again and completed it with energy and strength in the last year of his life. Oh, in Goethe we have a person who is already confronted with the greatest issues of life in his youth, but at the same time a personality who, from decade to decade, was able to look into his own soul and say: Now you have come a step further.

And when we see how far above us this ever-striving personality stands, must we not be inspired to follow the steps he took between the first and second parts of his “Faust”? [Truly, there is a tremendous difference between the stages of the first part of “Faust” and between the first and second parts.] If we first consider the figure that could have been printed in 1775, we would see a personal work in which Goethe's most intimate yearning and striving have been incorporated. Everything that Goethe has felt in terms of mystery and profound experience has been poured into this work.

Then we find that “Fragment” that first came to our attention in 1790. There we find a remarkable difference compared to the first one: Goethe is already more serene. What first comes to us as a personality with an individual touch and nuance is more elevated into the impersonal and serene. We feel more that what is being discussed concerns not only Goethe in his youth, but also all of us to a greater or lesser extent.

And if we then consider the figure from 1808, we find that he [“Faust”] has moved more from the human into the superhuman, into a sphere where the powers of heaven fight for man and man is placed in the struggle between good and evil – expressed in particular in the “Prologue in Heaven”. In the first part, we see the striving of the Goethe soul to participate as a human being, but in 1808 we see him placed in the whole of humanity, his perspective broadened from the human-personal to a grand tableau of the world.

But in the inner character we find that the first part contains something that Goethe himself, in the age of life, feels as something personal and unclear, not as something universally human. Those who delve into it find something theoretical in it: the way a person speaks when faced with things unknown to him, of which he has only a presentiment. The second part – however strange this may sound in view of our usual preconceptions – is a realistic work, flowing from the most fundamental experiences after he could say of himself that he had arrived at a satisfactory solution to all the questions of life. [In this respect the second part is raised even higher above the personal level]. Therefore, if we understand him correctly, Faust fills us with the same satisfaction as all literary works of which we can say: here an artistic individuality has struggled to speak to all people, to inner peace, to inner harmony.

How Goethe allowed the content of “Faust” to flow out of his innermost being can help us understand why the first part is more theoretical and the second more realistic in the way it recounts Goethe's experiences of what he experienced.

If we want to find Goethe in his “Faust”, we have to realize that the goal was contained in his disposition from childhood on. That is why it is so significant that seven-year-old Goethe already felt unsatisfied as a boy [from what his environment told him] about the great underpinnings of life. Of course, he cannot express it then, only feel and sense it; but he feels in the direction that he was later able to present in such sharp contours. And so we find that one day he is looking for an expression for his feelings about the divine: He takes a music stand and places on it everything he can find of natural products in his father's collection of natural objects. He has erected a kind of altar for himself, and through the products of nature he allows the creator, the creative spirit behind it all, to speak to him. For the seven-year-old boy intended to make an offering to the god he was seeking. And on top of it he places a small incense stick, and he takes a burning glass, collects the rays of the rising sun with the burning glass and ignites the small incense stick. He has made a sacrifice to his god at the very source of nature. [This is the direction of Goethe's soul, his striving towards the sources of life.] In his memoirs, he himself says that as a boy he wanted to sacrifice to the deity. This urge remained in his soul and was expressed in all his later endeavors.

Thus we see him, when he was supposed to be studying law as a student in Leipzig, mainly occupied with what he could take from the natural science of the time; and in all other sciences and knowledge of life he looks around, just as he had looked around at the end of the sixties [of the seventeenth century] in all knowledge. But he does not seek [individual insights] as one otherwise [as a young student] sought under the constraints of circumstances. He sought to blaze a trail to insights of all kinds; he strove [for a general knowledge of the spiritual source of humanity], thereafter, what was then expressed in abstract terms, in sober, dry observations of external life impressions, that he sought to connect with the innermost longings and needs of his soul: the insights should bring him enlightenment about the riddles of life. The knowledge of the time was not suited for this purpose.

Everything that came to him was connected in Goethe with his very individual quest, with all the questions that arose in him about the infinite. And his life, even in his youth, was such as to point him to the spiritual and eternal. But that which was so suited to deepen his whole life from youth on was particularly expressed in various events of his life.

Only two of these will be mentioned here: During a serious illness, he felt close to death. Yes, death stood at his bedside in his early youth. He was touched by this event in his life by the transience of all externals, and his soul was also directed outwardly to the pursuit of the immortal.

Anyone who follows Goethe's life at the time will see how this event deepened his life. He was suited to encounter very special [intellectual circles] in Frankfurt. And the personalities who, in the most eminent sense, direct the soul towards investigating [the riddles of life], the spirit and the sources of existence, who have worked their way out of the traditional moods of religion, who ask: Where are the limits of our knowledge? How much do we have to leave to mere religious traditions and how much to our own insight? [Those who do not ask about the limits of knowledge, about the limits of science and revelation] did not feel at home with those who were Goethe's friends at the time.

Meanwhile, a different mood prevailed among those in the midst of whom stood the sincere Fräulein von Klettenberg, whom Goethe later immortalized in his “Confessions of a Beautiful Soul.” In this circle, people said to each other: There is something in the human soul that can be developed, that can mature ever higher and higher. Man is not always mature enough to recognize the highest, but forces slumber in his soul that he can develop [that can be brought out if one strives and works on himself. One then acquires inner spiritual powers that are otherwise not present in the soul]. And what he cannot achieve, no matter how humanly he tries, he can achieve if he develops powers that cannot be achieved in ordinary life. The content of this circle of friends was the development of the soul; because it was their conviction that there is something in the soul that remains unconscious, or let's say subconscious, in ordinary life. [In ordinary life, people are unconcerned about the mysterious powers that are there.] If a person lives in such a way that he devotes himself only to sensory perception, and processes this sensory perception only with the intellect, he does not approach the sources of life, he passes by the hidden powers of the soul, which he can develop and work on. And when a person has brought himself to a higher level of development, then he penetrates deeper into what is hidden behind the objects. Then the spiritual, the eternal, the imperishable comes to meet him. Such was the mood of these friends.

So you can see that these people had a different attitude to the question of the immortality of the human soul than many people have in their lives, where they often refrain from seeking insight into what is eternal in nature or in art, or leave it to traditional lore. It was not so with these friends. They said to themselves: There is something immortal out there in nature, and there are forces that are in the human organization as they are out there in nature. What is transitory and shows itself to be transitory on the outside is also transitory within the human being. And if we only see our powers with this transitory, then the immortal will never reveal itself. But in the hidden depths of the soul lie deeper powers of the human being, powers that are covered as if by a veil because the human being only gives some to the outer sense perceptions and the mind that combines them. Through such powers, which are purified and which give objective knowledge [of the eternal] [in the same way as the intellect gives it for the sensual world], we must purify the senses and try to distract them from the transitory. That is what they said to themselves: When I connect with the eternal in my own soul, then I stand spiritually face to face with the immortal, then I have brought it out of myself, then nothing can take away the certainty of immortality, then I am connected with the spirit in my own breast, which comes from the Spirit of God just as sense things come from the outer belonging and harmony.

Goethe felt a deep kinship with these souls. But there was much that was unclear in these souls. What I have now explained with certain words was expressed by them more in the form of intuitions, of unexpressed feelings of the soul; it was expressed more in certain soul gestures than in sharply outlined insights.

It was into this society that young Goethe came. And this society had a certain preference for a certain kind of writing that emerged from a medieval knowledge that had already passed away. Writings that expressed the way in which one sought to approach the great secrets of human nature. Goethe also came into contact with these writings, and we can see what the basic mood of his heart was when we see him searching in these medieval writings with an unceasing thirst for knowledge, in order to find means to develop the hidden forces of his soul that would finally lead to the knowledge of the immortal. One such work was that of Valentinus Basilius and Theophrastus Paracelsus, [Welling's “Opus macrocabalisticum et theosophicum”, but especially Kirchweger's “Aurea catena Homeri”], which he himself calls cabalistic-theosophical.

What do these writings contain that a person with a modern attitude at the time would delve into such writings as if a modern-day Haeckelian or other modern educated person would occupy themselves with the strange writings of Eliphas Levy? [If an ordinary person delved into them at the time, they would consider these writings to be pure nonsense, a flight of fancy.] And that is exactly how it was in those days: a modern person would feel that it was pure nonsense, that only a fantasist could devote himself to such things. One can understand this attitude, then and now. From a certain point of view, it can be recognized as a justified attitude. One need not be surprised that someone who is not far enough along in the development of his soul can only see pure nonsense in it. Goethe found more than mere nonsense in it. But some of it was pure nonsense. It still belonged to the time before the invention of printing, when everything was still written by hand; to the time when science had not yet been enriched by what Galileo and Kepler had taught. In those days, people sought to understand nature in a completely different way. If we want to characterize the way in which people wanted to approach the source in that time before the great achievements of natural science, we have to say that before that time, people sought to enter into nature and the world with everything that was in their soul, to enter into nature and the world with everything in his soul, not only with his intellect; but to purify his will and feeling in such a way that he also recognizes objectively with his feeling in the same way that mathematical knowledge searches. [Something that today's man can hardly imagine. In the same way, desire can become a power of knowledge. But for that, man must change it; he must work on it; he must purify and purify it of all selfish feelings. In the same way, the will can be elevated to a power of knowledge. But for that, man must not leave feeling, sensation and desire as they are – he must work on them!

The circle of friends around Goethe knew how to work on it. While the mind can be left as it is, because it is already as one can leave it, [one must reshape feeling, emotion, will and desire so that they become powers of knowledge]. Only through this work can one extract the hidden abilities of the soul that give man a knowledge of the eternal. The intellect, which is conveniently left alone, can only provide enlightenment about the transitory. This kind of knowledge through will and feelings had been more neglected [compared to intellectual knowledge at the time], even in Goethe's youth. On the other hand, what was gained through external sensory perception and the intellect prevailed, as is also the case today. But Goethe knew the limits of sensory-intellectual knowledge. [So he could not really find his way around in these writings, which, since they were written by latecomers who no longer had their own knowledge, contained a lot of nonsense.] His soul received nourishment from these books, although he could not understand them. They contained much that was pure nonsense, but anyone who could see beyond that to what was more deeply contained in these writings could feel that there was knowledge lying dormant within them. And this is what Goethe felt: the realization that does not aim to take the world as it is, but to develop the soul, to shape it, to bring up the forces that lie dormant within it. (He now wants to develop the ability to grasp these within himself.)

In these writings, Goethe found strange figures that only a fool can find pleasing today. But there is something else behind these things; I will mention just one example. In that writing, “Aurea catena Homeri,” which made a particular impression on him, you will find a strange figure: two dragons. One formed at the top as a semicircle. It is full of life and gives the impression of a good being. Below, entwined with it, is a shriveled, dried-up dragon, which appears as a symbol of evil. The two are entwined in a circle. Within the circle are two triangles: one point facing upwards and the signs for the individual planets of our solar system at the corners.

How fascinated Goethe's soul must have been by such a sign, for what is experienced in the soul in relation to this sign does not leave the soul untouched. Inner soul forces stirred when he looked at this sign: what otherwise only served human needs, what will and desire is, stirred like the urge for knowledge. He felt something that is necessary for the knowledge of such writings.

If someone wants to say: Of course, if you just want to talk about the tasteless stuff, you show that you have no knowledge of science, such as philosophy and other sciences. This objection can be understood, even if one says: In our knowledge, we should see what is there in truth. What this fantastic stuff depicts does not depict truth. Those who speak in this way are absolutely right. But they do not know what is important! What matters is the impression that these images make on the soul; that they are precisely those that bring out what otherwise lies deep within the soul, that they have creative power for the soul. And Goethe felt how this sign affected him: “It affects your will,” he felt. It draws forces from your soul that connect with the universe. He felt that. But he felt something else as well, something terrible for him at the time. He was confronted with all these things, felt that they could trigger something in the soul, felt that they could work — but he did not feel the strength within himself to be able to let this something take effect. He only felt that they concealed something

and I cannot understand what I can sense there.

[He sensed something in them like the spirit of the world, but he cannot understand it through his education and his previous life.] It was terribly shattering for Goethe's soul when he sensed something like connections with higher soul forces, sensed what could flow out of this “Aurea catena Homeri”, and yet had to say to himself: You are not yet mature, you cannot penetrate the secrets of the world, your powers of knowledge have not yet matured. But he longed to follow such a path of knowledge. And so he came to other signs, to a symbol that represented not only the great world but also the working of the spirit on earth. He felt closer to it, but still was not able to extract the forces from the earth. Now we feel how what he experienced flowed into Faust. There he focuses on the title page of the 'Aurea catena Homeri'. It shows him how the forces go from planet to planet, how their inner relationship is indicated with human desires, [it draws them up to good, down to evil], in the forms of coiled dragons, with the triangles, one point of which is directed upwards. A few pages further on, he sees the picture that shows “heavenly powers ascending and descending”. There he must turn away, for he did not feel his powers ripe to understand this.

Now read the passage in Goethe's “Faust” that shows that you cannot grasp anything from ordinary knowledge, from scientific knowledge, nothing that is experienced in the depths of the soul:

There I stand now, I poor fool, And am as wise as before!

That was the mood when Goethe left Leipzig.

There he sought a different path in Frankfurt, as he expresses so beautifully in Faust. He opened the book of Nostradamus and saw the sign of the macrocosm. [There he sees the working of nature before his soul, he sees:]

How everything is woven into a whole,
One within the other, working and living!
How heavenly powers rise up and down
And pass each other the golden buckets!
With wings that smell of blessing
From heaven through the earth they penetrate,
Harmoniously resounding through the universe!

This is a beautiful and wonderful description of what so fascinated Goethe. This is how he expresses what he feels when he sees the sign of the first spirit. Then he turns to the sign that only concerns the processes that take place on earth. He sees the sign of the earth spirit. Again it fascinates him. Before, he felt the stirring of the powers that are otherwise expressed as interest and feeling for objects. These powers should now develop in the earth spirit sign in such a way that they become powers of knowledge. Try to imagine the powers that come into question as powers of knowledge for the soul; first the objective powers of the mind, the powers of thinking. These are easy to access. But then the powers of feeling and perception, which can only be purified in the described way and can be awakened by the signs that evoke the spiritual world. Now Goethe had unlocked such a sign, and now he felt that he was not yet ripe for it. He did not feel ripe to understand the powers of perception that connect only with the earth either. Not ripe!

Now something rises in his soul. But at first only terror and fear, which are reflected to us where “Faust” turns away from the earth spirit, whom he calls “terrible face”, and whereupon the earth spirit then says to him:

You resemble the spirit you understand, not me!

Thus Goethe's insights are reflected in the first part of “Faust”. But Goethe was not a personality who could necessarily remain a “fearfully cringing worm”; he was a personality who was powerful enough to strive on. What did the personality say to itself? It did not speak like other personalities who believe that they are seekers of knowledge and say: There are limits to knowledge. It is easy and comfortable to dismiss all this as nonsense. No! Goethe said to himself: I am not yet ready for this! That is something we can learn from Goethe: he said to himself, “You are not ready yet; you must first begin to work on yourself in order to mature to what is possible for the soul.” [Now he worked on himself to get ahead.] To achieve this, he now immersed himself in life in order to get to know life and people and science in all its aspects. And we see this when, after his time in Frankfurt, he comes to Strasbourg, looks around at nature, in order to grasp the things that he, as a seven-year-old boy, placed on his father's music stand, in order to get to know the divine-spiritual forces of being through their knowledge. But not only the divine-spiritual forces of what is formed externally in nature, but also of human life and its manifold forms. And now we can already see how he has the favorable opportunity to get to know all the ups and downs of the human soul, the human soul in its infinite kindness and love – but also in all its malicious, spiteful and harmful qualities, with all its longings, torments and sacrifices. [He experienced the greatest satisfaction, but also tormenting doubts, in the souls of people.] There he met the great personality of Herder in Strasbourg, a personality who strove throughout her entire life to come close to the sources of life, who also felt that the powers of her soul were not ripe. A terrible mood was in Herder's soul at that very moment, when, despite his titanic urge for knowledge, he loses courage and says to himself, [You cannot strive higher]. One's own inability is a general human inability. Herder was close to such moods, such moods had gained control in him and caused a lifestyle that was harsh and rejecting – only bearable for a soul like Goethe's, which was benevolent. Goethe had recognized the greatness of Herder's soul. And no matter how much Herder might have belittled him, Goethe knew that he was in the presence of greatness. And Goethe had a great soul, great enough not to pay attention to the unimportant when faced with the important. When he climbed the stairs of the Gasthof zum Heiligen Geist and unexpectedly saw this personality, who Herder introduced in a somewhat brusque manner – with his coat fluttering, his coat-tails criss-crossed in his pockets – Goethe sensed at a single glance that this personality was Herder, and he said: “You are Herder.” From that moment on, his respect for him increased.

Deep ideas lived in Herder, as we can find them, for example, in his treatise “Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Humanity”. But all this was not enough for him. Then Goethe got to know a tremendous striving that was on the verge of collapsing, and was held down by it. But Goethe had already learned from another personality the inadequacy of the ordinary mind: from his friend Merck. Of him, even the most well-meaning woman, Goethe's mother, said: “He can never leave Mephisto at home; he finds fault with everything.” Goethe saw these personalities, and he saw in them something that in turn had a significant effect on his soul: that they had particularly developed what he himself had in his own soul. As in a mirror, he saw his soul, himself! He saw the intellect into which error and superstition of the outer world creep. He sought to comprehend the spirit of the earth, which he has spoken in “Faust”:

In the flood of life, in the storm of action
I surge up and down,
weaving back and forth!
Birth and death,
An eternal sea,
A changing weaving,
A glowing life,
So I create at the whirring loom of time,
And work the living garment of the Godhead.

He had tried out of inner urge to grasp the spirit and soul that spoke to him in the forces of life, in the images of the “Aurea catena Homeri.” But he had also felt that he was not yet ready to soar to these heights of the mind. He had now realized why: because there was still too much of the sensual interests in him. Now he knew that the spirit to which he still resembled too much was the most evil, the Mephisto spirit.

You resemble the spirit you understand,

the Earth Spirit could speak, who saw the Mephistophelian in Goethe's soul.

Now a good part of the idea for Faust shone forth in Goethe: Why can't human beings, in their ordinary feelings and perceptions, achieve the same kind of clear insight as they do in their thinking? Why are desire and perception not as powerful as the powers of thought? Because there are forces at work within us that are not ourselves, but which have an effect on us. The forces that we embrace with our actions and desires, according to both ancient and new spiritual science, are the forces of Lucifer, and these bring our desires down to such a level that they cannot become an objective power of knowledge in this life. This is how Lucifer works.

But there is also another kind of force that makes us act, that our minds gain real knowledge when we direct our perception to this world. These are the forces that were first characterized by Zarathustra as ahrimanic. Thus the Ahrimanic forces, which are imbued with desire and would penetrate to the macrocosm, work in us. [They prevent feeling from becoming a power of knowledge in relation to the earth, just as the Luciferic spirits prevent desire from rising to cosmic knowledge.] The Luciferic entities work in us.

Goethe sensed what clouds the human gaze and leads to error, what is called the forces of Ahriman. For Ahriman is the same as what we are accustomed to calling Mephistopheles, after the one who characterizes human behavior as lying: from the Hebrew “Mephis” is liar and “tofel” is ruin. It means the same thing that Zarathustra calls Ahriman. But Mephisto does not mean Lucifer. He is the power that leads man to lie, to see outer life in deceptive forms, not in truth.

All these forces are at work where man passes through life and is led by his interests to see life in its deceptive forms.

Goethe, despite his most sincere efforts, could not penetrate to the sources of truth at that time because he still had too much of the Mephistopheles in him – You resemble the Mephistopheles, not me! And so [in the “Urfaust” immediately after the earth spirit] Mephisto appears suddenly, as if shot out of a pistol. [Sudden because Goethe only sensed the context, did not clearly recognize it.] Another deeply moving secret of the soul.

Thus we see how Goethe pours into “Faust,” as it were, what he experiences, how he tries to depict how Mephisto guides him to take pleasure in such stale stuff as in Auerbach's cellar, in many of the externalities of life, which he must call banal from a higher point of view. But this Mephisto leads him to something else as well. If we follow Goethe from Strasbourg to the time when he had passed the bar exam, a little later, we find two qualities that must have brought a deep and searching soul into strange conflicts. The first one comes to us when we seek him out as a legal scholar. He was not very good at the positive knowledge of the law, [he only knew a few legal paragraphs]. But when it was a matter of quickly grasping some case and penetrating it in no time, he was one of the very first, still admired today by experts who follow his processes. [He was a practical man who quickly found his way in practical life with his mind.] He is proof against the outrageous statement that those who seek access to the spiritual life must be impractical people in life. Goethe sought access to the spiritual worlds to the highest degree and at the same time was an eminently practical person compared to all those who are impractical because they are untalented. Some young poets think that it is part of being absorbed in the intellectual life that you have to be an impractical person. Such people are only talented up to a certain point. No one would ever dispute the special talent that Goethe showed in writing his “Iphigenia”. On his desk lay the lists for the recruitment of recruits. While the recruits were being drafted, he wrote the verses for his “Iphigenia” in between. That was a whole human being! Penetrating into the spiritual world never prevents one from finding one's way into the practical world. Goethe felt he was a practical person.

But he also felt this: when he was consulting with himself one day, he had to say something to himself that made a deep impression on his soul. There are many, many things in which you have not been at your own height in your life – and above all: you have become guilty! The self-knowledge: You have become guilty – in the face of such cases as the Frankfurt poet experienced in Sesenheim, in the face of the struggle of the most violent passions that confronted him there in Friederike. He also knew that they did not fit together, that he would be paralyzed in all his striving if he had sought a connection with her. But he knew that through the way he behaved, he had become guilty, knew that Mephisto had led him; as we are led by Mephisto when, instead of being led into clear circumstances, we are led into error and deception.

Goethe felt completely and in his deepest innermost being, because he grasped all these questions at their center, that this in the human soul, which guides everything in the human soul, that [this Mephistophelian power] can lead it far, to completely different self-confessions than what he had to clothe in words: You have become guilty. He knew that when these Mephistophelian forces intrude into the striving for knowledge, they can make a charlatan out of a person in the face of higher striving for knowledge! There he stood with his soul before something monstrous; there he stood [before a tremendous abyss] that he said to himself: You must go beyond what only the mind can experience, you must call upon the powers of feeling and emotion for knowledge, [those that Mephistopheles pulls down], but there is still something of Mephisto living in you. Another self lives in you besides. Only now did he clearly recognize a figure of the sixteenth century who [has interested and frightened so many people], who has instilled fear and horror in people. Now the “Faust” of the sixteenth century became clear to him. How did he become clear to him? We take a deep look into Goethe's psychological self-knowledge when we research it. Goethe said to himself, as many people could still say today: Man cannot help but seek access to the forces that transcend the sensual. That is why, in our time, which does so little for the deepest needs of the soul, we have so many currents that emanate from such people who seek access to the spiritual currents, to the spiritual foundations of the soul.

The first thing [that is necessary] for a person to find access [to the spiritual world] without harm, to purify and cleanse his soul, is that he free himself from everything that is now called, in Goethe's sense, Mephistophelian forces, from the merely negating, criticizing endeavors [that are directed only at the things of the outer world]. This is not easy; Goethe himself shows how difficult it is by being bound to Mephisto as to a spirit that makes up part of his soul.

If man listens to this Mephisto in him, then he does not tell his fellow human beings the truth, but rather what the Mephistophelian element, reinforced by the Luciferian element, incites him to, leading to arrogance, ambition, pride, charlatanry.

Truly, a very fine cobweb separates the charlatan from the true spiritual researcher. This can also be seen today. Theosophy or other spiritual movements arise because they correspond to the longing of our world. But it is not easy to become a messenger of the spirit.

If the researcher is not free from these Mephistophelean forces, then he is not a real researcher, but a charlatan who incites vanity in the field of knowledge. — Here a fine sense is really necessary to distinguish between noble striving for higher knowledge and charlatanry. And it is difficult for the one who does not penetrate deeply into the spiritual life to distinguish the charlatan from the spiritual researcher. This danger also exists in Theosophy. It is not easy to satisfy the longings. He who wants to penetrate into the spiritual world is in danger of falling into charlatanry. It is therefore only too understandable when the charlatan and the spiritual researcher are confused. The reproach of the outer world is only too justified: “One cannot distinguish the charlatan from the true spiritual researcher”. This, which can confront us so vividly in life, confronted Goethe in his soul. The Mephistophelean brings you so close in an entity, as it is to Faust, whom people fear, of whom one can say that he has united with the devil, has fallen prey to the forces that lead to lies and deception. And now the question arose in Goethe's soul: How can man save himself from the danger of charlatanry, so that Mephisto does not lead him down into the abyss? Thus the Faust question had become a matter of the heart for Goethe.

The first thing a person must say to himself when this question arises in his soul is: [You must become simple and humble]. You have to go through something, where you look for the individual thing in you; from the smallest experience, from the smallest observation, to find the divine in every single experience. Goethe embarked on this path. On this path we see him wandering through Italy, modestly, humbly collecting all the details. In the inconspicuous coltsfoot, he seeks to clarify the different effects of plant forms, [observing the difference in its appearance here and elsewhere]. We see him hurrying from picture to picture, from work of art to work of art, in an intimate, selfless way. Although he has read Spinoza at home to uplift himself, he does not dwell on it because he is humble. [He goes to the works of art and says to himself,] When I look at them, I know that the ancients created like nature, by raising forces to a higher level. There is necessity in this, there is God. He does not seek to build a worldview in a rush, from thing to thing, humbly seeking the smallest thing in order to modestly seek the divine-spiritual in the smallest thing. [Perhaps you sometimes find it inconvenient when someone who talks about spiritual science speaks of details.] The human quest for knowledge is not modest enough, does not want to go from detail to detail, wants to go straight up; one would like to span the whole world at once with one word. For example, in the theosophical movement, emphasis is placed on going from detail to detail in each step, so it is sometimes said, “I want to go straight to the highest levels of the Logos,” although the person in question does not understand more about the Logos than that the word “Logos” is composed of five letters. (Above all, modesty is needed; Goethe achieved this necessary modesty).

Goethe learns from detail to detail. That was what Goethe did. In doing so, he achieved the purity and refinement that he had after he had been on this path for a while, so that he can now speak in a different way about [his encounter with those spiritual forces like the earth spirit, from whom he had previously turned away, curled up in terror like “a timid worm curled up in terror”], of his encounter with the earth spirit, who experiences what is happening on the earth. At that time he had to listen to:

You resemble the spirit you comprehend, not me!

The spirit had appeared to him out of the fire. So now, after he had gone from piece of nature to piece of nature through modesty, through prudent research, so that he could incorporate the piece he wrote in Italy into “Faust,” now he addressed this spirit of the earth differently, as characterized in that beautiful monologue in “Forest and Cave”:

Sublime Spirit, thou gavest me, gave me everything,
why I asked. Thou didst not in vain
turn thy face to me in fire.
Gavest me the glorious nature of a kingdom,
strength to feel, to enjoy. Not
coldly marvelling visit thou only allowest,
allow me to look into her deep chest
As into the bosom of a friend.
You lead the line of the living
Before me, and teach me my brothers
In the silent bush, in air and water know.
And when the storm roars and creaks in the forest,
The giant spruce toppling neighbor branches
And crushing neighbor trunks,
And the hill muffled hollow thunders,
Then you lead me to the safe cave, show me
Then myself, and my own chest,
Secret deep wonders open up.

That was the progress Goethe had made through his endeavors. Now, after he had humbly followed in nature's footsteps step by step, he no longer felt like a sluggard of knowledge, and closer to the spirit that had previously rejected him. Now he was allowed to look into his soul with a different kind of satisfaction and bliss. What he had once sought to grasp in a single flight, he had now recognized in the most diligent study of detail. He had ascended in humility. Now he was face to face with the spirit that lives not only as an earth-spirit in the outer world, but also lives in the human soul. It led him to the secure cave within, to self-knowledge. He had gained a view of nature that now really allows the spirit to recognize nature:

You lead the line of the living
Before me, and teach me my brothers
In the silent bush, in the air and water.

Now he had ascended – albeit always with the powers that had triggered his Frankfurt aspirations back then – but he had ascended in humility. And now what lived in his own soul presented itself to him as the eternal, the immortal. With what he was able to connect, after he recognized this “spirit of the earth” in the outer world, the spirit led him to self-knowledge. Now he felt ready to find within himself the strength that he had previously sought by storming. And so we learn from the great Goethe how we, with him, should mature in the depths, carefully and humbly, and say: This cannot affect our soul now, but it wants to wait patiently and let it mature. Those who do so will say: It is good that you have done so, and have also opened up many things, because that had to mature in you first and then flourish. We can learn from Goethe: faith in the development of the human soul, faith in the necessity of maturing, so that we can believe in the immortality of the eternal, [so that we gradually grow into the spiritual world];

At the time when he found a cave in his inner soul in which the secrets of his own heart were revealed, he did not believe he was finished, but strove ever higher. And we will see how “Faust”, which appeared in fragment form in 1790, rises ever higher.

At that time, much of what he experienced was only external. But more and more, he connected with the experiences of the inner soul: he penetrated into the mystical. [After Goethe had seen the living earth spirit in the outer world, he also found his inner strength: “And the deep shafts of my own spirit open up” - the Goethe of 1790 strives deeper and deeper. Humbly and modestly, he looks up.] Thus he came to feel intensely in his deepest soul: There is something immortal, and the human soul can recognize it because it can recognize in itself that which is immortal. That was the testament that he left behind, sealed, in the completion of his “Faust”; which was expressed in the final words:

All that is transitory is but a parable.

In the lectures given here during the course on history¹ several things were mentioned which, particularly at the present time, it is especially important to consider. With regard to the historical course of humanity's development, the much-debated question mentioned to begin with was whether the outstanding and leading individual personalities are the principal driving forces in this development or whether the most important things are brought about by the masses. In many circles this has always been a point of contention and the conclusions have been drawn, more from sympathy and antipathy than from real knowledge. This is one fact which, in a certain sense, I should like to mention as being very important.

Another fact which, from a look at history, I should like to mention for its importance is the following. At the beginning of the nineteenth century Wilhelm von Humboldt² appeared with a definite declaration, stipulating that history should be treated in such a way that one would not only consider the individual facts which can be outwardly observed in the physical world but, out of an encompassing, synthesizing force, would see what is at work in the unfolding of history—which can only be found by someone who knows how to get a total view of the facts in what in a sense is a poetic way, but in fact produces a true picture. Attention was also drawn to how in the course of the nineteenth century it was precisely the opposite historical mode of thought and approach which was then particularly developed, and that it was not the ideas in history that were pursued but only a sense that was developed for the external world of facts. Attention was also drawn to the fact that, with regard to this last question, one can only come to clarity through spiritual science, because spiritual science alone can uncover the real driving forces of the historical evolution of humanity.

A spiritual science of this kind was not yet accessible to Humboldt. He spoke of ideas, but ideas indeed have no driving force [of their own]. Ideas as such are abstractions, as I mentioned here yesterday³ And anyone who might wish to find ideas as the driving forces of history would never be able to prove that ideas really do anything because they are nothing of real substantiality, and only something of substantiality can do something. Spiritual science points to real spiritual forces that are behind the sensible-physical facts, and it is in real spiritual forces such as these that the propelling forces of history lie, even though these spiritual forces will have to be expressed for human beings through ideas.

But we come to clarity concerning these things only when, from a spiritual-scientific standpoint, we look more deeply into the historical development of humanity and we will do so today in such a way that, through our considerations, certain facts come to us which, precisely for a discerning judgement of the situation of modern humanity, will prove to be of importance.

I have often mentioned⁴ that spiritual science, if it looks at history, would actually have to pursue a symptomatology; a symptomatology constituted from the fact that one is aware that behind what takes it course as the stream of physical-sensible facts lie the driving spiritual forces. But everywhere in historical development there are times when what has real being and essence (das eigentlich Wesenhafte) comes as a symptom to the surface and can be judged discerningly from the phenomena only if one has the possibility to penetrate more deeply from one's awareness of these phenomena into the depths of historical development.

I would like to clarify this by a simple diagram. Let us suppose that this is a flow of historical facts (see diagram). The driving forces lie, for ordinary observation, below the flow of these facts. And if the eye of the soul observes the flow in this way, then the real activity of the driving forces would lie beneath it (red). But there are significant points in this flow of facts. And these significant points are distinguished by the fact that what is otherwise hidden comes here to the surface. Thus we can say: Here, in a particular phenomenon, which must only be properly evaluated, it was possible to become aware of something which otherwise is at work everywhere, but which does not show itself in such a significant manifestation.

Let us assume that this (see diagram) took place in some year of world history, let us say around 800 A.D. What was significant for Europe, let us say for Western Europe, was of course at work before this and worked on afterwards, but it did not manifest itself in such a significant way in the time before and after as it did here. If one points to a way of looking at history like this, a way which looks to significant moments, such a method would be in complete accord with Goetheanism. For Goethe wished in general that all perception of the world should be directed to significant points and then, from what could be seen from such points, the remaining content of world events be recognized. Goethe says of this⁵ that, within the abundance of facts, the important thing is to find a significant point from which the neighbouring areas can be viewed and from which much can be deciphered.

So let us take this year 800 A.D. We can point here to a fact in the history of Western European humanity which, from the point of view of the usual approach to history, might seem insignificant—which one would perhaps not find worthy of attention for what is usually called history—but which, nevertheless, for a deeper view of humanity's development, is indeed significant. Around this year there was a kind of learned theological argument between the man who was a sort of court philosopher of the Frankish realm, Alcuin,⁶ and a Greek also living at that time in the kingdom of the Franks. The Greek, who was naturally at home in the particular soul-constitution of the Greek peoples which he had inherited, had wanted to reach a discerning judgement of the principles of Christianity and had come to the concept of redemption. He put the question: To whom, in the redemption through Christ Jesus, was the ransom actually paid? He, the Greek thinker, came to the solution that the ransom had been paid to Death. Thus, in a certain sense, it was a sort of redemption theory that this Greek developed from his thoroughly Greek mode of thinking, which was now just becoming acquainted with Christianity. The ransom was paid to Death by the cosmic powers.

Alcuin, who stood at that time in that theological stream which then became the determining one for the development of the Roman Catholic Church of the West, debated in the following way about what the Greek had argued. He said: Ransom can only be paid to a being who really exists. But death has no reality, death is only the outer limit of reality, death itself is not real and, therefore, the ransom money could not have been paid to Death.

Now criticism of Alcuin's way of thinking is not what matters here. For to someone who, to a certain extent, can see through the interrelations of the facts, the view that death is not something real resembles the view which says: Cold is not something real, it is just a decrease in warmth, it is only a lesser warmth. Because the cold isn't real I won't wear a winter coat in winter because I'm not going to protect myself against something that isn't real. But we will leave that aside. We want rather to take the argument between Alcuin and the Greek purely positively and will ask what was really happening there. For it is indeed quite noticeable that it is not the concept of redemption itself that is discussed. It is not discussed in such a way that in a certain sense both personalities, the Greek and the Roman Catholic theologian, accept the same point of view, but in such a way that the Roman Catholic theologian shifts the standpoint entirely before he takes it up at all. He does not go on speaking in the way he had just done, but moves the whole problem into a completely different direction. He asks: Is death something real or not?—and objects that, indeed, death is not real.

This directs us at the outset to the fact that two views are clashing here which arise out of completely different constitutions of soul. And, indeed, this is the case. The Greek continued, as it were, the direction which, in the Greek culture, had basically faded away between Plato and Aristotle. In Plato there was still something alive of the ancient wisdom of humanity; that wisdom which takes us across to the ancient Orient where, indeed, in ancient times a primal wisdom had lived but which had then fallen more and more into decadence. In Plato, if we are able to understand him properly, we find the last offshoots, if I can so call them, of this primal oriental wisdom. And then, like a rapidly developing metamorphosis, Aristotelianism sets in which, fundamentally, presents a completely different constitution of soul from the Platonic one. Aristotelianism represents a completely different element in the development of humanity from Platonism. And, if we follow Aristotelianism further, it, too, takes on different forms, different metamorphoses, but all of which have a recognizable similarity. Thus we see how Platonism lives on like an ancient heritage in this Greek who has to contend against Alcuin, and how in Alcuin, on the other hand, Aristotelianism is already present. And we are directed, by looking at these two individuals, to that fluctuation which took place on European soil between two—one cannot really say world-views—but two human constitutions of soul, one of which has its origin in ancient times in the Orient, and another, which we do not find in the Orient but which, entering in later, arose in the central regions of civilization and was first grasped by Aristotle. In Aristotle, however, this only sounds a first quiet note, for much of Greek culture was still alive in him. It develops then with particular vehemence in the Roman culture within which it had been prepared long before Aristotle, and, indeed, before Plato. So that we see how, since the eighth century BC on the Italian peninsula a particular culture, or the first hints of it, was being prepared alongside that which lived on the Greek peninsula as a sort of last offshoot of the oriental constitution of soul. And when we go into the differences between these two modes of human thought we find important historical impulses. For what is expressed in these ways of thinking went over later into the feeling life of human beings; into the configuration of human actions and so on.

Now we can ask ourselves: So what was living in that which developed in ancient times as a world-view in the Orient, and which then, like a latecomer, found its [last] offshoots in Platonism—and, indeed, still in Neoplatonism? It was a highly spiritual culture which arose from an inner perception living pre-eminently in pictures, in imaginations; but pictures not permeated by full consciousness, not yet permeated by the full I-consciousness of human beings. In the spiritual life of the ancient Orient, of which the Veda and Vedanta are the last echoes, stupendous pictures opened up of what lives in the human being as the spiritual. But it existed in a—I beg you not to misunderstand the word and not to confuse it with usual dreaming—it existed in a dreamlike, dim way, so that this soul-life was not permeated (durchwellt) and irradiated (durchstrahlt) by what lives in the human being when he becomes clearly conscious of his 'I' and his own being. The oriental was well aware that his being existed before birth, that it returns through death to the spiritual world in which it existed before birth or conception. The oriental gazed on that which passed through births and deaths. But he did not see as such that inner feeling which lives in the `I am'. It was as if it were dull and hazy, as though poured out in a broad perception of the soul (Gesamtseelenanschauung) which did not concentrate to such a point as that of the I-experience. Into what, then, did the oriental actually gaze when he possessed his instinctive perception?

One can still feel how this oriental soul-constitution was completely different from that of later humanity when, for an understanding of this and perhaps prepared through spiritual science, one sinks meditatively into those remarkable writings which are ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite.⁷ I will not go into the question of the authorship now, I have already spoken about it on a number of occasions. 'Nothingness' (das Nichts) is still spoken of there as a reality, and the existence of the external world, in the way one views it in ordinary consciousness, is simply contrasted against this [nothingness] as a different reality. This talk of nothingness then continues. In Scotus Erigena,⁸ who lived at the court of Charles the Bald, one still finds echoes of it, and we find the last echo then in the fifteenth century in Nicolas of Cusa⁹ But what was meant by the nothingness one finds in Dionysius the Areopagite and of that which the oriental spoke of as something self-evident to him? This fades then completely. What was this nothingness for the oriental? It was something real for him. He turned his gaze to the world of the senses around him, and said: This sense-world is spread out in space, flows in time, and in ordinary life world, is spread out in space, one says that what is extended in space and flows in time is something.

But what the oriental saw—that which was a reality for him, which passes through births and deaths—was not contained in the space in which the minerals are to be found, in which the plants unfold, the animals move and the human being as a physical being moves and acts. And it was also not contained in that time in which our thoughts, feelings and will-impulses occur. The oriental was fully aware that one must go beyond this space in which physical things are extended and move, and beyond this time in which our soul-forces of ordinary life are active. One must enter a completely different world; that world which, for the external existence of time and space, is a nothing but which, nevertheless, is something real. The oriental sensed something in contrast to the phenomena of the world which the European still senses at most in the realm of real numbers.

When a European has fifty francs he has something. If he spends twenty-five francs of this he still has twenty-five francs; if he then spends fifteen francs he still has ten; if he spends this he has nothing. If now he continues to spend he has five, ten, fifteen, twenty-five francs in debts. He still has nothing; but, indeed, he has something very real when, instead of simply an empty wallet, he has twenty-five or fifty francs in debts. In the real world it also signifies something very real if one has debts. There is a great difference in one's whole situation in life between having nothing and having fifty francs' worth of debts. These debts of fifty francs are forces just as influential on one's situation in life as, on the other side and in an opposite sense, are fifty francs of credit. In this area the European will probably admit to the reality of debts for, in the real world, there always has to be something there when one has debts. The debts that one has oneself may still seem a very negative amount, but for the person to whom they are owed they are a very positive amount!

So, when it is not just a matter of the individual but of the world, the opposite side of zero from the credit side is truly something very real. The oriental felt—not because he somehow speculated about it but because his perception necessitated it he felt: Here, on the one side, I experience that which cannot be observed in space or in time; something which, for the things and events of space and time, is nothing but which, nevertheless, is a reality—but a different reality.

It was only through misunderstanding that there then arose what occidental civilization gave itself up to under the leadership of Rome—the creation of the world out of nothing with `nothing' seen as absolute `zero'. In the Orient, where these things were originally conceived, the world does not arise out of nothing but out of the reality I have just indicated. And an echo of what vibrates through all the oriental way of thinking right down to Plato—the impulse of eternity of an ancient world-view—lived in the Greek who, at the court of Charlemagne, had to debate with Alcuin. And in this theologian Alcuin there lived a rejection of the spiritual life for which, in the Orient, this `nothing' was the outer form. And thus, when the Greek spoke of death, whose causes lie in the spiritual world, as something real, Alcuin could only answer: But death is nothing and therefore cannot receive ransom.

You see, the whole polarity between the ancient oriental way of thinking, reaching to Plato, and what followed later is expressed in this [one] significant moment when Alcuin debated at the court of Charlemagne with the Greek. For, what was it that had meanwhile entered in to European civilization since Plato, particularly through the spread of Romanism? There had entered that way of thinking which one has to comprehend through the fact that it is directed primarily to what the human being experiences between birth and death. And the constitution of soul which occupies itself primarily with the human being's experiences between birth and death is the logical, legal one—the logical-dialectical-legal one. The Orient had nothing of a logical, dialectical nature and, least of all, a legal one. The Occident brought logical, legal thinking so strongly into the oriental way of thinking that we ourselves find religious feeling permeated with a legalistic element. In the Sistine Chapel in Rome, painted by the master-hand of Michelangelo, we see looming towards us, Christ as judge giving judgment on the good and the evil.

A legal, dialectical element has entered into the thoughts concerning the course of the world. This was completely alien to the oriental way of thinking. There was nothing there like guilt and atonement or redemptinn. For [in this oriental way of thinking] was precisely that view of the metamorphosis through which the eternal element [in the human being] transforms itself through births and deaths. There was that which lives in the concept of karma. Later, however, everything was fixed into a way of looking at things which is actually only valid for, and can only encompass, life between birth and death. But this life between birth and death was just what had evaded the oriental. He looked far more to the core of man's being. He had little understanding for what took place between birth and death. And now, within this occidental culture, the way of thinking which comprehends primarily what takes place within the span between birth and death increased [and did so] through those forces possessed by the human being by virtue of having clothed his soul-and-spirit nature with a physical and etheric body. In this constitution, in the inner experience of the soul-and-spirit element and in the nature of this experience, which arises through the fact that one is submerged with one's soul-and-spirit nature in a physical body, comes the inner comprehension of the 'I'. This is why it happens in the Occident that the human being feels an inner urge to lay hold of his 'I' as something divine. We see this urge, to comprehend the 'I' as something divine, arise in the medieval mystics; in Eckhart, in Tauler and in others. The comprehension of the 'I' crystallizes out with full force in the Middle (or Central) culture. Thus we can distinguish between the Eastern culture—the time in which the 'I' is first experienced, but dimly—and the Middle (or Central) culture—primarily that in which the 'I' is experienced. And we see how this 'I' is experienced in the most manifold metamorphoses. First of all in that dim, dawning way in which it arises in Eckhart, Tauler and other mystics, and then more and more distinctly during the development of all that can originate out of this I-culture.

We then see how, within the I-culture of the Centre, another aspect arises. At the end of the eighteenth century something comes to the fore in Kant¹⁰ which, fundamentally, cannot be explained out of the onward flow of this I-culture. For what is it that arises through Kant? Kant looks at our perception, our apprehension (Erkennen), of nature and cannot come to terms with it. Knowledge of nature, for him, breaks down into subjective views ( Subjektivitäten); he does not penetrate as far as the 'I' despite the fact that he continually speaks of it and even, in some categories, in his perceptions of time and space, would like to encompass all nature through the 'I'. Yet he does not push through to a true experience of the 'I'. He also constructs a practical philosophy with the categorical imperative which is supposed to manifest itself out of unfathomable regions of the human soul. Here again the 'I' does not appear.

In Kant's philosophy it is strange. The full weight of dialectics, of logical-dialectical-legal thinking is there, in which everything is tending towards the 'I', but he cannot reach the point of really understanding the 'I' philosophically. There must be something preventing him here. Then comes Fichte, a pupil of Kant's, who with full force wishes his whole philosophy to well up out of the 'I' and who, through its simplicity, presents as the highest tenet of his philosophy the sentence: `I am'. And everything that is truly scientific must follow from this `I am'. One should be able, as it were, to deduce, to read from this 'I am' an entire picture of the world. Kant cannot reach the 'I am'. Fichte immediately afterwards, while still a pupil of Kant's, hurls the `I am' at him. And everyone is amazed—this is a pupil of Kant's speaking like this! And Fichte says:¹¹ As far as he can understand it, Kant, if he could really think to the end, would have to think the same as me. It is so inexplicable to Fichte that Kant thinks differently from him, that he says: If Kant would only take things to their full conclusion, he would have to think [as I do]; he too, would have to come to the 'I am'. And Fichte expresses this even more clearly by saying: I would rather take the whole of Kant's critique for a random game of ideas haphazardly thrown together than to consider it the work of a human mind, if my philosophy did not logically follow from Kant's. Kant, of course, rejects this. He wants nothing to do with the conclusions drawn by Fichte.

We now see how there follows on from Fichte what then flowered as German idealistic philosophy in Schelling and Hegel, and which provoked all the battles of which I spoke, in part, in my lectures on the limits to a knowledge of nature.¹² But we find something curious. We see how Hegel lives in a crystal-clear [mental] framework of the logical-dialectical-legal element and draws from it a world-view—but a world-view that is interested only in what occurs between birth and death. You can go through the whole of Hegel's philosophy and you will find nothing that goes beyond birth and death. It confines everything in world history, religion, art and science solely to experiences occurring between birth and death.

What then is the strange thing that happened here? Now, what came out in Fichte, Schelling and Hegel—this strongest development of the Central culture in which the 'I' came to full consciousness, to an inner experience—was still only a reaction, a last reaction to something else. For one can understand Kant only when one bears the following properly in mind. (I am coming now to yet another significant point to which a great deal can be traced). You see, Kant was still—this is clearly evident from his earlier writings—a pupil of the rationalism of the eighteenth century, which lived with genius in Leibnitz and pedantically in Wolff. One can see that for this rationalism the important thing was not to come truly to a spiritual reality. Kant therefore rejected it—this `thing in itself' as he called it—but the important thing for him was to prove. Sure proof! Kant's writings are remarkable also in this respect. He wrote his Critique of Pure Reason in which he is actually asking: `How must the world be so that things can be proved in it?' Not 'What are the realities in it?' But he actually asks: 'How must I imagine the world so that logically, dialectically, I can give proofs in it?' This is the only point he is concerned with and thus he tries in his Prologomena to give every future metaphysics which has a claim to being truly scientific, a metaphysics for what in his way of thinking can be proven: `Away with everything else! The devil take the reality of the world—just let me have the art of proving! What's it to me what reality is; if I can't prove it I shan't trouble myself over it!'

Those individuals did not, of course, think in this way who wrote books like, for example, Christian Wolff's¹³ Vernünftige Gedanken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des Menschen, auch allen Dingen überhaupt (Reasoned Thoughts an God, the World, and the Soul of Man, and All Things Generally). What mattered for them was to have a clean, self-contained system of proof, in the way that they see proof. Kant lived in this sphere, but there was still something there which, although an excrescence squeezed out of the world-view of the Centre, nevertheless fitted into it. But Kant had something else which makes it inexplicable how he could become Fichte's teacher. And yet he gives Fichte a stimulus, and Fichte comes back at him with the strong emphasis of the 'I am'; comes back, indeed, not with proofs—one would not look for these in Fichte—but with a fully developed inner life of soul. In Fichte there emerges, with all the force of the inner life of soul, that which, in the Wolffians and Leibnitzites, can seem insipid. Fichte constructs his philosophy, in a wealth of pure concepts, out of the 'I am'; but in him they are filled with life. So, too, are they in Schelling and in Hegel. So what then had happened with Kant who was the bridge? Now, one comes to the significant point when one traces how Kant developed. Something else became of this pupil of Wolff by virtue of the fact that the English philosopher, David Hume,¹⁴ awoke him, as Kant himself says, out of his dull dogmatic slumber. What is it that entered Kant here, which Fichte could no longer understand? There entered into Kant here—it fitted badly in his case because he was too involved with the culture of Central Europe—that which is now the culture of the West. This came to meet him in the person of David Hume and it was here that the culture of the West entered Kant. And in what does the peculiarity [of this culture] lie? In the oriental culture we find that the 'I' still lives below, dimly, in a dream-like state in the soul-experiences which express themselves, spread out, in imaginative pictures. In the Western culture we find that, in a certain sense, the 'I' is smothered (erdrückt) by the purely external phenomena (Tatsachen). The 'I' is indeed present, and is present not dimly, but bores itself into the phenomena. And here, for example, people develop a strange psychology. They do not talk here about the soul-life in the way Fichte did, who wanted to work out everything from the one point of the 'I', but they talk about thoughts which come together by association. People talk about feelings, mental pictures and sensations, and say these associate—and also will-impulses associate. One talks about the inner soul-life in terms of thoughts which associate.

Fichte speaks of the 'I'; this radiates out thoughts. In the West the 'I' is completely omitted because it is absorbed—soaked up by the thoughts and feelings which one treats as though they were independent of it, associating and separating again. And one follows the life of the soul as though mental pictures linked up and separated. Read Spencer,¹⁵ read John Stuart Mill¹⁶ read the American philosophers. When they come to talk of psychology there is this curious view that does not exclude the 'I' as in the Orient, because it is developed dimly there, but which makes full demand of the 'I'; letting it, however, sink down into the thinking, feeling and willing life of the soul. One could say: In the oriental the 'I' is still above thinking, feeling and willing; it has not yet descended to the level of thinking, feeling and willing. In the human being of the Western culture the 'I' is already below this sphere. It is below the surface of thinking, feeling and willing so that it is no longer noticed, and thinking, feeling and willing are then spoken of as independent forces.

This is what came to Kant in the form of the philosophy of David Hume. Then the Central region of the earth's culture still set itself against this with all force in Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. After them the culture of the West overwhelms everything that is there, with Darwinism and Spencerism.

One will only be able to come to an understanding of what is living in humanity's development if one investigates these deeper forces. One then finds that something developed in a natural way in the Orient which actually was purely a spiritual life. In the Central areas something developed which was dialectical-legal, which actually brought forth the idea of the State, because it is to this that it can be applied. It is such thinkers as Fichte, Schelling and Hegel who, with enormous sympathy, construct a unified image (Gebilde) of the State. But then a culture emerges in the West which proceeds from a constitution of soul in which the 'I' is absorbed, takes its course below the level of thinking, feeling and willing; and where, in the mental and feeling life, people speak of associations. If only one would apply this thinking to the economic life! That is its proper place. People went completely amiss when they started applying [this thinking] to something other than the economic life. There it is great, is of genius. And had Spencer, John Stuart Mill and David Hume applied to the institutions of the economic life what they wasted on philosophy it would have been magnificent. If the human beings living in Central Europe had limited to the State what is given them as their natural endowment, and if they had not, at the same time, also wanted thereby to include the spiritual life and the economic life, something magnificent could have come out of it. For, with what Hegel was able to think, with what Fichte was able to think, one would have been able—had one remained within the legal-political configuration which, in the threefold organism, we wish to separate out as the structure of the State¹⁷—to attain something truly great. But, because there hovered before these minds the idea that they had to create a structure for the State which included the economic life and the spiritual life, there arose only caricatures in the place of a true form for the State. And the spiritual life was anyway only a heritage of the ancient Orient. It was just that people did not know that they were still living from this heritage of the ancient East. The useful statements, for example, of Christian theology—indeed, the useful statements still within our materialistic sciences—are either the heritage of the ancient East, or a changeling of dialectical-legal thinking, or are already adopted, as was done by Spencer and Mill, from the Western culture which is particularly suited for the economic life.

Thus the spiritual thinking of the ancient Orient had been distributed over the earth, but in an instinctive way that is no longer of any use today. Because today it is decadent, it is dialectical-political thinking which was rendered obsolete by the world catastrophe [World War I]. For there was no one less suited to thinking economically than the pupils of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. When they began to create a State which, above all, was to become great through its economy, they had of necessity (selbstverständlich) to fail, for this was not what, by nature, was, endowed to them. In accordance with the historical development of humanity, spiritual thinking, political thinking and economic thinking were apportioned to the East, the Centre, and the West respectively. But we have arrived at a point of humanity's development when understanding, a common understanding, must spread equally over all humanity. How can this come about?

This can only happen out of the initiation-culture, out of the new spiritual science, which does not develop one-sidedly, but considers everything that appears in all areas as a three-foldness that has evolved of its own accord. This science must really consider the threefold aspect also in social life; in this case (as a three-foldness) encompassing the whole earth. Spiritual science, however, cannot be extended through natural abilities; it can only be spread by people accepting those who see into these things, who can really experience the spiritual sphere, the political sphere and the economic sphere as three separate areas. The unity of human beings all over the earth is due to the fact that they combine in themselves what was divided between three spheres. They themselves organize it in the social organism in such a way that it can exist in harmony before their eyes. This, however, can only follow from spiritual-scientific training. And we stand here at a point where we must say: In ancient times we see individual personalities, we see them expressing in their words what was the spirit of the time. But when we examine it closely—in the oriental culture, for example—we find that, fundamentally, there lives instinctively in the masses a constitution of soul which in a remarkable; quite natural way was in accord with what these individuals spoke.

This correspondence, however, became less and less. In our times we see the development of the opposite extreme. We see instincts arising in the masses which are the opposite of what is beneficial for humanity. We see things arising that absolutely call for the qualities that may arise in individuals who are able to penetrate the depths of spiritual science. No good will come from instincts, but only from the understanding (that Dr. Unger also spoke of here)¹⁸ which, as is often stressed, every human being can bring towards the spiritual investigator if he really opens himself to healthy human reason. Thus there will come a culture in which the single individual, with his ever-deeper penetration into the depths of the spiritual world, will be of particular importance, and in which die one who penetrates in this way will be valued, just as someone who works in some craft is valued. One does not go to the tailor to have boots made or to the shoemaker to be shaved, so why should people go to someone else for what one needs as a world-view other than to the person who is initiated into it? And it is, indeed, just this that, particularly today and in the most intense sense, is necessary for the good of human beings even though there is a reaction against it, which shows how humanity still resists what is beneficial for it. This is the terrible battle—the grave situation—in which we find ourselves.

At no other time has there been a greater need to listen carefully to what individuals know concerning one thing or another. Nor has there been a greater need for people with knowledge of specific subject areas to be active in social life—not from a belief in authority but out of common sense and out of agreement based on common sense. But, to begin with, the instincts oppose this and people believe that some sort of good can be achieved from levelling everything. This is the serious battle in which we stand. Sympathy and antipathy are of no help here, nor is living in slogans. Only a clear observation of the facts can help. For today great questions are being decided—the questions as to whether the individual or the masses have significance. In other times this was not important because the masses and the individual were in accord with one another; individuals were, in a certain sense, simply speaking for the masses. We are approaching more and more that time when the individual must find completely within himself the source of what he has to find and which he has then to put into the social life; and [what we are now seeing] is only the last resistance against this validity of the individual and an ever larger and larger number of individuals. One can see plainly how that which spiritual science shows is also proved everywhere in these significant points. We talk of associations which are necessary in the economic life, and use a particular thinking for this. This has developed in the culture of the West from letting thoughts associate. If one could take what John Stuart Mill does with logic, if one could remove those thoughts from that sphere and apply them to the economic life, they would fit there. The associations which would then come in there would be exactly those which do not fit into psychology. Even in what appears in the area of human development, spiritual science follows reality.

Thus spiritual science, if fully aware of the seriousness of the present world situation, knows what a great battle is taking place between the threefold social impulse that can come from spiritual science and that which throws itself against this threefoldness as the wave of Bolshevism, which would lead to great harm (Unheil) amongst humanity. And there is no third element other than these two. The battle has to take place between these two. People must see this! Everything else is already decadent. Whoever looks with an open mind at the conditions in which we are placed, must conclude that it is essential today to gather all our forces together so that this whole terrible Ahrimanic affair can be repulsed.

This building stands here,¹⁹ incomplete though it is for the time being. Today we cannot get from the Central countries that which for the most part, and in addition to what has come to us from the neutral states, has brought this building to this stage. We must have contributions from the countries of the former Entente. Understanding must be developed here for what is to become a unified culture containing spirit, politics and economics. For people must get away from a one:sided tendency and must follow those who also understand something of politics and economics, who do not work only in dialectics, but, also being engaged with economic impulses, have insight into the spiritual, and do not want to create states in which the State itself can run the economy. The Western peoples will have to realize that something else must evolve in addition to the special gift they will have in the future with regard to forming economic associations. The skill in forming associations has so far been applied at the wrong end, i.e. in the field of Psychology. What must evolve is understanding of the political-state element, which has other sources than the economic life, and also of the spiritual element. But at present the Central countries lie powerless, so people in the Western regions—one could not expect this of the Orient—will have to see what the Purpose of this building is! It is necessary for us to consider What must be done so that real provision is made for a new culture that should be presented everywhere in the university education of the future—here we have to show the way. In the foundation of the Waldorf Schools the culture has proved to be capable of bringing light into primary education. But for this we need the understanding support of the widest circles.

Above all we need the means. For everything which, in a higher or lower sense, is called a school, we need the frame of mind I have already tried to awaken at the opening of the Waldorf School in Stuttgart.²⁰ I said in my opening speech there: `This is one Waldorf school. It is well and good that we have it, but for itself it is nothing; it is only something if, in the next quarter of a year, we build ten such Waldorf schools and then others'. The world did not understand this, it had no money for such a thing. For it rests on the standpoint: Oh, the ideals are too lofty, too pure for us to bring dirty money to them; better to keep it in our pockets; that's the proper place for dirty money. The ideals, oh, they're too pure, one can't contaminate them with money! Of course, with purity of this kind the embodiment of ideals cannot be attained, if dirty money is not brought to them. And thus we have to consider that, up to now, we have stopped at one Waldorf school which cannot progress properly because in the autumn we found ourselves in great money difficulties. These have been obviated for the time being, but at Easter we shall be faced with them again. And then, after a comparatively short time, we will ask: Should we give up? And we shall have to give up if, before then, an understanding is not forthcoming which dips vigorously into its pockets.

It is thus a matter of awakening understanding in this respect. I don't believe that much understanding would arise if we were to say that we wanted something for the building in Dornach, or some such thing—as has been shown already. But—and one still finds understanding for this today—if one wants to create sanatoria or the like, one gets money, and as much as one wants! This is not exactly what we want—we don't want to build a host of sanatoria—we agree fully with creating them as far as they are necessary; but here it is a matter, above all, of nurturing that spiritual culture whose necessity will indeed prove itself through what this course²¹ I has attempted to accomplish. This is what I tried to suggest, to give a stimulus to what I expressed here a few days ago, in the words 'World Fellowship of Schools' (Weltschulverein).²²

Our German friends have departed but it is not a question of depending on them for this 'World Fellowship'. It depends on those who, as friends, have come here, for the most part from all possible regions of the non-German world—and who are still sitting here now—that they understand these words 'World Fellowship of Schools' because it is vital that we found school upon school in all areas of the world out of the pedagogical spirit which rules in the Waldorf School. We have to be able to extend this school until we are able to move into higher education of the kind we are hoping for here. For this, however, we have to be in a position to complete this building and everything that belongs to it, and be constantly able to support that which is necessary in order to work here; to be productive, to work on the further extension of all the separate sciences in the spirit of spiritual science.

People ask one how much money one needs for all this. One cannot say how much, because there never is an uppermost limit. And, of course, we will not be able to found a World Fellowship of Schools simply by creating a committee of twelve or fifteen or thirty people who work out nice statutes as to how a World Fellowship of Schools of this kind should work. That is all pointless. I attach no value to programmes or to statutes but only to the work of active people who work with understanding. It will be possible to establish this World Fellowship—well, we shall not be able to go to London for some time—in the Hague or some such place, if a basis can be created, and by other means if the friends who are about to go to Norway or Sweden or Holland, or any other country—England, France, America and so on—awaken in every human being whom they can reach the well-founded conviction that there has to be a World Fellowship of Schools. It ought to go through the world like wildfire that a World Fellowship must arise to provide the material means for the spiritual culture that is intended here.

If one is able in other matters, as a single individual, to convince possibly hundreds and hundreds of people, why should one not be able in a short time—for the decline is happening so quickly that we only have a short time—to have an effect on many people as a single individual, so that if one came to the Hague a few weeks later one would see how widespread was the thought that: 'The creation of a World Fellowship of Schools is necessary, it is just that there are no means for it.' What we are trying to do from Dornach is an historical necessity. One will only be able to talk of the inauguration of this World Fellowship of Schools when the idea of it already exists. It is simply utopian to set up committees and found a World Fellowship—this is pointless! But to work from person to person, and to spread quickly the realization, the well-founded realization, that it is so necessary—this is what must precede the founding. Spiritual science lives in realities. This is why it does not get involved with proposals of schemes for a founding but points to what has to happen in reality—and human beings are indeed realities—so that such a thing has some prospects.

So what is important here is that we finally learn from spiritual science how to stand in real life. I would never get involved with a simply utopian founding of the World Fellowship of Schools, but would always be of the opinion that this World Fellowship can only come about when a sufficiently large number of people are convinced of its necessity. It must be created so that what is necessary for humanity—it has already proved to be so from our course here—can happen. This World Fellowship of Schools must be created.

Please see what is meant by this Fellowship in all international life, in the right sense! I would like, in this request, to round off today what, in a very different way in our course, has spoken to humanity through those who were here and of whom we have the hope and the wish that they carry it out into the world. The World Fellowship of Schools can be the answer of the world to what was put before it like a question; a question taken from the real forces of human evolution, that is, human history. So let what can happen for the World Fellowship of Schools, in accordance with the conviction you have been able to gain here, happen! In this there rings out what I wanted to say today.

• 1 . These were the lectures given by Dr Karl Heyer on 14, 15 and 16 October 1920, during the first course of the School of Anthroposophy at the Goetheanum with the theme: 'The Science of History and History from the Viewpoint of Anthroposophy' ('Anthroposophische Betrachtungen Ober die Geschichtswissenschaft und aus der Geschichte'). These are printed in Kultur und Erziehung (the third volume of the Courses of the School of Anthroposophy), Stuttgart, 1921.
• 2 . See Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835): Über die Aufgabe des Geschiclztsschreibens (The Task of the Historian) in Volume IV of Humboldt's Works published by Leitzman, Berlin 1905 (see pages 35-56). Some relevant passages taken from these are as follows:
  
  "The business of the historian, in the last but simplest analysis, is to portray the striving of an idea to attain existence in reality. For it is not always that it succeeds in this at the first attempt; and it is not so rare that the idea degenerates because it is unable to master in a pure way the matter counteracting it."
  
  "The truth of everything that happens lies in the addition of the above-mentioned invisible part of every fact, and thus the history writer must add this to the events. Seen from this angle he is self-acting and even creative—not, indeed, by producing what does not already exist, but by forming out of his own inner strength that which, as it is in reality, he could not perceive through mere receptivity. In different ways, but just like the poet, he must in himself transform the scattered fragments into a whole."
  
  "It may seem dubious to allow the realm of the history writer and that of the poet to meet, even at only one point. But the activity of both is undeniably related. For if the historian, like the poet, can achieve truth in his presentation of past events only by completing and linking the incomplete and disjointed elements of direct observation, then he does so, like the poet, only through imagination. Because, however, he places imagination subordinate to experience and the fathoming of reality, there is a difference here which cancels out all danger. Imagination does not work, at this lower position, as pure imagination, and is therefore more properly called an intuitive faculty and a talent for finding links."
  
  "Of necessity, therefore, the historian too, must strive; not, like the poet, to give his material over to the dominion of the form of necessity but to hold steadily in consciousness the ideas which are its laws, because, permeated only by, these, he can then find their trace in the pure research of the real in its reality."
  
  "The historian encompasses all the threads of earthly activity and all varieties of supersensible ideas; the sum-total of existence, more or less, is the object of his work and he must therefore also follow all avenues of the mind and spirit. Speculation, experience and poetry, however, are not separate, opposed and mutually-limiting activities of the mind, but different planes of its radiance."
  
  "Apart from the fact that history, like every scientific activity, serves many subsidiary purposes, work on history is no less a free art, complete in itself, than philosophy and poetry."
  
  "Just as philosophy strives for the first foundation of things, and art for the ideal of beauty, so history strives for a picture of human destiny in faithful truth, living abundance and pure clarity that are perceived by the warm inner-being [of the historian] in such a way that his personal views, feelings and demands are lost and dissolved away. It is the final purpose of the history-writer to awaken and nourish this mood, which, however, he only attains when he pursues for his fellow human beings the simple presentation of past events with conscientious faithfulness."
• 3 . See the final words of Rudolf Steiner, on 16 October 1920, after the close of the first course of the Anthroposophical School, in Die Kunst der Rezitation and Deklamation (First Edition) Dornach, 1928, page 118.
• 4 . See i>Geschictliche Symptomatologie (GA 185), nine lectures given in Dornach in 1918, only two of which are translated in From Symptom to Reality in Modern History.
• 5 . See Bedeutende Fordnis durch ein einziges geistreiches Wort in Goethes Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften, edited and with a commentary by Rudolf Steiner in Kürschner's Deutsche National-Literatur, Volume II, page 34 (GA lb). Goethe says here:
  
  "I do not rest until I find a significant point from which a great deal can be deduced or, rather, which of its own will brings forth a great deal and presents this to me, and which I then, with attention and receptivity, work on further faithfully and carefully. If, in my experience, I find some phenomenon which I cannot deduce, I simply let it lie as a problem; and I have found, in my long life, this way of doing things to be very beneficial. For when I was not able for a long time to unravel the origin or connection of some phenomenon but had to put it to one side, I found that, years later, it all suddenly became clear in the most beautiful way."
• 6 . Alcuin (also Alhuin or Alchwin, i.e. 'Friend of the Temple') was rector of the monastery school at York around 735 to 804. In 782 he followed the summons of Charlemagne and took on the headship of the court school. He encouraged the sciences in the monasteries and raised to the central seat of the sciences the monastery school of St Martin at Tours, which he founded and whose Abbot he became in 796.
  
  The debate with the Greek is described in Karl Werner's book Alcuin and sein Jahrhundert (Alcuin and His Century) Vienna 1881, Chapter 11. page 166, as follows:
  
  Thus Charlemagne once wanted to know from Alcuin what should be made of the view of a Greek scholar, who presumably was a member of a Byzantine legation at Charlemagne's court, who had expressed the opinion to the emperor that Christ had paid the expiation for our sins to death. Alcuin found this manner of expression and the idea behind it to be inadmissible, for Christ was not—death's debtor and could not become so—the price of our redemption was paid by Christ to our divine Father, to whom, in dying, He commended His soul. Death [so Alcuin argued] is in no way a reality of being and substance but, to his way of thinking, was something purely negative, the mere absence or 'Carence' (Church Latin: the interval before benefits become available) of life; it is nothing existing in itself, and thus cannot receive anything, no payment can be paid to it. On the contrary, in the person of Christ, death itself, which God did not create, became the ransom for our debt and won life for us thereby, which He Himself gives us in His saviour power.'
• 7 . Rudolf Steiner drew attention at different times to the fact that the content of the writings of 533 A.D., attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite, do indeed stem from the person of this name mentioned in The Acts of the Apostles 17, 34. See the lectures on 17 and 25 March 1907 in Christianity Began as a Religion and Festivals of the Seasons respectively.
• 8 . Johannes Scotus Erigena (c. 810–877) translator of the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite into Latin (see note 7).
• 9 . Nicolaus of Cusa (or Kures) (1401–1464), cardinal.
• 10. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804): Critique of Pure Reason, 1781; Prolegemena, 1783.
• 11. Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) Erste und zweite Einleitung in die Wissenschaftslehre und Verstwh einer neuen Darstellung der Wiyenschaftslehre (First and Second Introduction into the Doctrine of Knowledge and an Attempt at a New Presentation of the doctrine of Knowledge).
• 12. Grenzen der Naturerkenntnis (Limits to a Knowledge of Nature (GA 322)—eight lectures given during the first course (Hochschulkurs) of the School of Spiritual Science in Dornach, 27 September to 3 October 1920 (GA 322).
• 13. Baron Christian von Wolff, philosopher and mathematician, Vernünftige Gedanken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des Menschen, auch allen Dingen überhaupt, 1719.
• 14. David Hume (1711–1776), philosopher.
• 15. Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), philosopher.
• 16. John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), philosopher.
• 17. Towards Social Renewal, 1919, (GA 23).
• 18. In the third week of the first course (of the School of Spiritual Science), Dr Carl Unger (1822–1929) gave lectures under the title of 'Rudolf Steiner's Works'. These six lectures, edited by Unger, can be found in Volume I of Carl Unger's Writings, Stuttgart, 1964.
• 19. The first Goetheanum building, begun in 1913, was already put into use in 1920, although still under construction supervised by Rudolf Steiner and with the interior not yet finished. On New Year's Eve 1922–3 it was destroyed by fire.
• 20. The Free Waldorf School was founded in Stuttgart in the spring of 1919 by Dr Emil Molt for the children, to begin with, of the employees of the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory. The school was under the supervision of Rudolf Steiner who appointed the teachers and gave the preparatory seminar courses.
• 21. The first anthroposophical course of the Free School for Spiritual Science took place at the Goetheanum from 26 September to 16 October 1920. See also notes 1,3,12, and 18.
• 22. i.e., a form of international support body for Waldorf Schools. Rudolf Steiner suggested the founding of a World Fellowship of Schools during an assembly of teachers on 16 October 1920. There is no available transcript of this talk.

When we look over the history of the last few years and ask ourselves how the social problems and needs occupying the public mind for more than half a century have been dealt with, we can find only one answer. Although in the greater part of the civilized world, opportunity to carry out in practice their ideas of reconstructing social life was given to people who, after their own fashion, had devoted themselves for decades to the study of social problems, yet it must be regarded as extremely characteristic of the age that all the theories and all the views which are the result of half a century of social work from every quarter have shown themselves powerless to reconstruct the present social conditions.

Of late years, much has been destroyed and, in the eyes of all observant persons, little, or probably nothing, built up. Does not the question force itself here upon the human soul: What is the cause of this impotence of so-called advanced views, in the face of some positive task? Shortly before the great catastrophe of the World-War, in the spring of 1914, I ventured to answer this question in a short series of lectures which I delivered in Vienna before a small audience. A larger number of hearers would probably have treated what was said with ridicule. In regard to all the assumptions of the so-called experts in practical affairs as to the immediate future, I ventured to say that an exact observer of the inner life of humanity could see in the social conditions prevailing all over the civilized world something like an abscess, like a social disease, a kind of cancerous growth, which must inevitably very soon break out in a terrible manner over this world. Those practical statesmen, who were then talking of the “improvement in political relations” and the like, looked upon this as the pessimism of an idealist. But that was the utterance of a conviction gained by a study of human evolution from the point of view of spiritual science, which I will describe to you this evening. To this kind of research the building known as the Dornach Building, the Goetheanum, is dedicated. Situated in the corner of the northwest of Switzerland, this building is the outer representative of the movement whose object is the study of the spiritual science of which I speak. You will hear and read all kinds of assertions about the aims and object of this building and the meaning of the movement which it is intended to represent. And it may be said in most cases that the gossip about these things is the very opposite of the truth; mysterious nonsense, false and senseless mysticism, many varieties of obscure nonsense are attached to the work attempted by this movement in the building at Dornach representing it. It cannot be expected that anything but misunderstandings without number should still exist regarding this movement of spiritual life. In reality, the meaning of the movement is to be found in its striving with set purpose to bring about a renewal of our whole civilization, as it is expressed in art, religion, science, education, and other human activities; in fact, it may truly be said that a renewal is sorely needed from the very foundations of social life upwards. This stream of spiritual life leads us to the conviction, already indicated by me. in these lectures, that it is no longer of any use to devise net schemes for world-improvement; from its very nature, human evolution demands a transformation of thoughts and ideas, of the most intimate life of feeling of humanity itself. Such a transformation is the aim of spiritual science, as it is represented in this movement. Spiritual science stimulates the belief that the views of society, of which we have just spoken, proceed from the old habits of thought which have not kept pace with the evolution of humanity and are no longer suited to its present life. These views have been clearly proved useless in aiding the reconstruction of social life.

What we need is understanding. What is really the meaning of all the subconscious yearnings, of the demands, which have not yet penetrated into the conscious thought of our present humanity? What do they mean, above all things, with regard to art, with regard to science, religion, and education? Let us look at the new directions followed by art, especially of late! I know well that in giving the following little sketch of the development of art, I must inevitably give offence to many; indeed, what I am going to say will be taken by many as a proof of the most complete lack of understanding of the later schools of art.

If we except a few isolated, very commendable efforts of recent years, the chief characteristic in the development of modern art is that it has lost that inner impulse which should drive it to place before the world that which is felt by humanity as a pressing need. The opinion has grown more and more common that, in contemplating a work of art. we must ask: How much of the spirit and significance of outer reality does it express? How far is external nature or human life reflected in art? One need only ask, what meaning has such a criterion with respect to a “Raphael”, or a “Leonardo”, or to any other real work of art? Do we not see in such great works of art that the resemblance to the outer reality surrounding us is by no means the measure of their greatness? Do we not see the measure of their greatness in the creation of something from within that is far removed from the immediate outer reality? What worlds are those that unroll before us as we gaze at the now almost effaced picture at Milan, Leonardo's Last Supper, or when we stand before a “Raphael”? Is it not a matter of secondary importance that those painters have succeeded more or less well in depicting the laws of nature in their work? Is it not their chief aim to tell us something of a, world which we do not see when we only use our eyes, when, we perceive only with our outer senses? And do we not find more and more that the only criterion now applied in judging a, work of art, or in judging anything artistic, is whether the thing is really true, and “true” here is to be understood in the ordinary naturalistic sense of the word. Let us ask ourselves—strange as the question may appear to the holders of certain artistic views—what does an art confer on life, actually on social life, what is an art, which aspires to nothing higher, than the reproduction of a part of external reality?

At the time in which modern capitalism and modern technical science became a power, landscape painting began to be developed in the world of art. I know, of course, that landscape painting is justified, fully justified from an artistic point of view. But it is also true, that no artistically perfect landscape painting, however perfect, equals in any sense the scene lying before me, as I stand on a mountain side and contemplate Nature's: own landscape. Precisely the rise of landscape painting shows to what an extent art has taken refuge in the mere imitation of nature, which it can never equal. Art turned to landscape painting because it had lost touch with the spiritual world; it could no longer create out of the spiritual and super-sensible world., What will be the future of art, if it is inspired only by the recent impulses toward naturalistic art? Art such as this can never grow out of life, as a flower grows from its roots; it will be a luxury outside life, an object of desire for those only for whom life has no cares. Is it not comprehensible that people who are absorbed in the pressing cares of life from morning till evening, who are shut off from all culture, the object of which is the understanding of art, should feel themselves separated as by an abyss from art? Though one hardly dare to put the sentiment into words now-a-days, because to many it would stamp the speaker as a philistine, it is distinctly evident in social life that great numbers of people look on art as something remote, and unconsciously feel it to be a luxury of life, something that does not belong to every human life, and to every existence worthy of a human being, although, in truth, it brings completion to every human life worthy of the name.

Naturalistic art will always be in one sense a luxury for those whose lives are free from care, and who are able to educate themselves in that art. I felt this when I was teaching for some years in a working-men's college, where I had the opportunity of addressing the workers themselves directly in order to help them understand the socialist theories which were being instilled into their minds, to their ruin, by those who called themselves “leaders of the people.” I learnt to understand—forgive the personal remark—what it means to bring scientific knowledge from a purely human standpoint⁷ within reach of those unspoiled minds. From a longing to know something also about modern art a request was made by my students that I take them through the museums and picture galleries on Sundays. Though it was possible, of course, to explain a great deal to them, since they had themselves the desire to be educated, I knew quite well that what I said did not at all make the same impression on these minds as did the things that I had told them from the standpoint of universal humanity. I felt that it would be a cultural untruth to tell them about the luxury art of the later naturalistic school, so far removed from actual life. This on the one hand.

On the other hand, do we not see, how art has lost its connection with life? Here, too, praiseworthy endeavors have come to light in the last few decades; but these have been by no means decided enough, though much has been done in the direction of industrial art. We see how inartistic our everyday surroundings have become. Art has made an illusory progress. All the buildings around us with which we come in contact in our daily routine are as devoid of artistic beauty as possible. Practical life cannot be raised to artistic form, because art has separated itself from life. Art which merely imitates nature cannot design tables and chairs and other articles of utility in such a manner that when we see them, we at once have the feeling of something artistic. These objects must transcend nature as human life transcends itself. If art merely imitates, it fails in the shaping of practical life, and practical life thereby becomes prosaic, uninteresting and dry, because we are unable to give it an artistic form and to surround ourselves with beautiful objects in our everyday lives.

This might be further amplified. I shall only indicate the decided direction which the evolution of our art has nevertheless taken. In like manner we have moved in other domains of modern civilization. Have we not seen that science has gradually ceased to proclaim to us the foundation which lies at the base of all sense-life? Little wonder that art has not found the way out of the world of sense since science itself has lost that way. By degrees science has come to the point of merely registering the outer facts of the senses, or at most to comprise them in natural laws. Intellectualism of the most pronounced type has over-spread all modern scientific activity to an ever increasing degree, and a terrible fear prevails among scientists lest they should be unable to exclude everything but intellectualism in their research, lest something like imaginative or artistic intuitions should perchance find their way into science. It is easy to see by what is said and written on this subject by scientists themselves how great is the terror they experience at the thought that any other means than the dry, sober intellect and the investigation by sense-perception should find entrance into scientific research. In every activity which does not keep strictly to intellectual thought men do not get far enough away from cuter reality to judge it correctly. Thus the modern researcher, the modern scientist, strives to carry on his work by intellectualism only; because he believes he can by this means get away far enough from the reality to judge it, as he says, quite objectively. Here the question might perhaps be asked: Is it not possible through intellectualism to get so far away from reality that we can no longer experience it? And it is this intellectualism, above all, which has made it impossible for us to conquer reality by science, as I have already indicated in these lectures and into which I will enter more fully today.

Turning to the religious life: with what mistrust and disapproval is every attempt to penetrate into the spiritual world by means of spiritual science received by the religious communities! On what grounds? People are quite ignorant of the reason of their disapproval. From official quarters we learn of a science which is determined to keep to the mere world of the senses, and we hear that in these official quarters the claim is apparently allowed that it is only in this way that strict and true scientific knowledge can be attained. But the student of historical evolution does not view the matter in this light. To him it appears that for the last few centuries the religious bodies have more and more laid claim to he the only authority in matters relating to the spirit and soul, and have recognized as valid only those opinions which they themselves permit the people to hold. Under the influence of this claim to the monopoly of knowledge by the Church, the sciences have neglected the study of everything except the outer sense-perceptions, or at most they have attempted to penetrate into the higher regions with a few abstract conceptions. They believe they are doing this purely in the interests of exact science, and do not dream that they are influenced by the Church's pretension to the monopoly of knowledge, the knowledge of the spirit and the soul as contained in their religious creeds. What has been forbidden to the sciences for centuries, the sciences themselves now declare to be an absolute condition for the exactness of their research, for the objective truth of their work. Thus it has happened that the religious communities having failed to develop their insight into the world of soul and spirit, and having preserved the old traditions, now see in the new methods of spiritual research, in the new paths of approach to the soul and spirit, an enemy to all religion, whereas they ought to recognize in these new methods the very best friends of religion.

We shall now speak of these three regions of culture, art, science, and religion. For it is the mission of Anthroposophy or spiritual science to build up a new structure in these three regions of culture. To explain what I mean, I must indicate in a few words the vital point of spiritual science. Its premises are very different from those of science as it is commonly known today. It fully recognizes the methods of modern science, fully recognizes also the triumphs of modern science. But because spiritual science believes it understands the methods of research of modern science better than the scientists themselves, it feels compelled to take other ways for the attainment of knowledge regarding spirit and soul than those which are still regarded by large numbers of people as the only right ones. In consequence of the enormous prejudice entertained against all research into the higher worlds, great errors and misunderstandings have been spread abroad regarding the aims of the Dornach movement. That here is truly no false mysticism, nothing in any way obscure in this movement, is plainly evident in my endeavors in the beginning of the 'nineties, which formed the starting-point for the spiritual-scientific movement to which I allude, and of which the Building at Dornach is the representative. At that time I collected the material which seemed to me then most necessary for the social enlightenment of today in my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. Whoever reads that book will hardly accuse the spiritual science of which I speak of false mysticism; but he may see what a difference there is between the idea of human freedom contained in my book and the idea of freedom as an impulse prevalent in our modern civilization.

As an example of the latter, I might give Woodrow Wilson's idea of freedom; an extraordinary one, but very characteristic of the culture, the civilization of our age. He is honest in his demand for freedom for the political life of the present day. But what does he mean by freedom? We arrive at an understanding of his meaning when we read words like the following: ‘A ship moves freely,’ he says, ‘when it is adapted to all the forces which act upon it from the wind, from the waves, and so on. When its construction is exactly adapted to its environment, no hindrance to its progress can arise through the forces of wind or wave. Man must also he able to motive freely through life, by adapting himself to the forces with which he comes in contact in life, so that no hindrance may ever come to him from any direction.’ He also compares the life of a free human being with a part of a machine, saying: ‘We say of a part, built into a machine, that it can move freely when it has no connection with anything anywhere; and when the rest of the machine is so constructed that this part runs freely within it.’ I have just one thing to say to this; we can only speak of freedom with regard to the human being when we see in it the very opposite of such an adaptation to the environment, we can only speak of human freedom when we compare it, not with the freedom of a ship on the sea, perfectly adapted to the forces of wind and weather, but when we compare it with the freedom of a ship that can stop and turn against wind and weather, and can do so without regarding the forces to which it is adapted. That is to say, at the bottom of such an idea of freedom as this lies the whole mechanical conception of the world, yet at the present day it is considered to be the only possible one. This world-conception is the result of the mere intellectualism of modern times. In my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity I have felt compelled to take a stand against views of this kind. I know very well—forgive another personal remark—that this book has fragments of the European philosophical conception of the world, out of which it is born, still clinging to it, as a chicken sometimes retains fragments of the eggshell from which it has emerged. For the book has. of course, grown out of European philosophical world-conceptions. It was necessary to show in that book the erroneous thought in those world-conceptions. For this reason the book may appear to some to be pedantic, though this was by no means my intention. The contents are intended to work as an impulse in the immediate practice of life, so that, through the ideas developed in that book, the impulse thus generated in the human will may flow directly into human life.

For this reason, however, I was obliged to state the problem of human freedom quite differently from the usual manner of doing so wherever we turn, throughout the centuries of human evolution, the question regarding the freedom of human will and of the human being has been: Is man free, or is he not free? I was under the necessity of showing that the question in this form was wrongly framed and must be put from a different standpoint. For if we take that which modern science and modern human consciousness look upon as the real self, but which ought to be regarded as the natural self, then, certainly, that being can never he free. That self must act of inner necessity. Were man only that which he is held to be by modern science, then his idea of freedom would be the same as that of Woodrow Wilson's. But this would be no real freedom; it would be only what might be called with every single action the inevitable result of natural causes. But modern human consciousness is not much aware of the other self within the human being where the problem regarding freedom really begins. Modern human consciousness is only aware of the natural self in man; it regards him as a being subject to natural causality. But those who penetrate more deeply into the human being must reflect that man can become something more in the course of his life than that with which nature has endowed him. We first discover what the human being really is, when we recognize that one part of him is that with which he is born, and all that which he has inherited; the other part is that which he does not owe to his bodily nature, but which he can make of himself by awakening the real self slumbering within him. Because these things are true I have not asked: Is man free or not free? I have stated the question in the following way: Can man become a free being through inner development, or can he not? And the answer is: He can become free if he develops within himself that which otherwise slumbers, but can be awakened; he can only then become free. Man's freedom is not a gift of nature. Freedom belongs to that part of man which he can, and must, awaken within himself. But if the ideas contained in my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity are to be further developed and applied to external social life, so that these truths may become clear to a larger circle of people, it will be necessary to build a superstructure of the truths of spiritual science on the foundation of that philosophy. It had to be shown that by taking his evolution into his own hands, man is really able to awaken a slumbering being within him. I endeavored to do this in my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, and in the other books which I have contributed to the literature of spiritual science. In these books I tried to show that the human being can indeed take his own evolution in hand and that only by so doing, and thus making of it something different from that to which he is born, can he rise to a real knowledge of soul and spirit. It is true that this view is considered by a large part of humanity at the present day to be a most unattractive one. For what does it presuppose? It presupposes that we attain to something like intellectual humility. But few desire this today. I will explain what I mean by this quality of intellectual humility, to which we must attain.

Suppose we give a volume of Goethe's lyric poems to a child of five. The child will certainly not treat the book as it deserves; he will tear it to pieces, or spoil it in some other way. In any case he does not know how to value such a book. But suppose the child to have grown ten or twelve years older, that he has been taught. and trained; then he will treat Goethe's lyric poems in a different manner. And yet there is no great difference externally between a child of five and one of twelve or fourteen with a book of Goethe's poems before him. The difference lies within the child. He has developed so that he knows what to do with such a volume. As the child feels towards the volume of Goethe's lyrics, so must the man feel towards nature, the cosmos, the whole universe, when he begins to think seriously of soul and spirit. He must acknowledge to himself that, in order to read and understand what is written in the book of nature and the universe, he must do his utmost to develop his inner self, just as the five-year-old child must be taught in order to understand Goethe's lyric poems. We must acknowledge with intellectual humility our impotence to penetrate the universe with understanding by means of the natural gifts with which we are born; and we must then admit that there may be ways of self-development and of unfolding the inner powers of our being to see in that which lies spread out before the senses the living spirit and the living soul. My writings to which I have referred show that it is possible to put this in practice. This must be said, because intellectualism, the fruit of evolution of the last few centuries, is no longer able to solve the riddles of life. Into one region of life, that of inanimate nature, it is able to penetrate, but it is compelled to halt before human reality, more especially social reality.

That quality which I have called intellectual humility must be the groundwork of every true modern conception of the impulse towards freedom. It must also be the groundwork of all real insight into the transformation necessary in art, religion, and science. Here intellectuality has plainly, only too plainly, shown that it can attain no real knowledge which truly perceives and attains to the things of the soul and spirit. As I leave already pointed out, it has confined itself to the outer world of the senses and to the combining and systematizing of perceptions Hence it has been unable to prevail against the pretensions of the religious bodies, which have also not attained to a new knowledge of matters pertaining to the soul and spirit, but have on this account carried into modern times an antiquated view, unsuited to the age. But one thing must be conquered, that is the fear I have already described, the fear that we might become too much involved in the objects of the senses, in our endeavors to gain a spiritual knowledge of them. It is so easy to call oneself a follower of intellectualism, because, when we occupy ourselves merely with abstract ideas, even of modern science, we are so far removed from the reality that we only view it in perspective, and there is no danger of our being in any way influenced by the reality. But with the knowledge that is meant here, which we gain for ourselves when we take our own evolution in hand, with such knowledge we must descend into the realities of life, we must plunge into the profoundest depths of our own nature, deeper than those reached by mere self-training in intellectualism. Within the bounds of intellectualism, we only reach the upper strata of our own life. If with the help of the knowledge here spoken of, we descend into the depths of our own inner nature, we find there not only thoughts and feelings, a mere reflection of the outer world, we find there happenings, facts of our inner being, from which the merely intellectual thinker would recoil in horror; but which are of the same kind as those within nature herself, of the same kind as those which happen in the world. Then, within our own nature, we learn to know the nature of the world. We cannot learn to know that life of the world if we go no further than mere abstract conceptions or the laws of nature. We must penetrate so far that our own inmost being becomes one with reality. We must not fear to approach reality; our inner development must carry us so far that we can stand firm in the presence of reality, without being consumed, or scorched, or suffocated. When we stand in the presence of reality, no longer held at a distance by the intellect, we are able to grasp the truth of things. Thus we find described in my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, the inner development of the human being to the stage of spiritual knowledge at which he becomes one with reality, but in such wise that, being merged in reality, he can imbibe from it knowledge which is not a distant perception by means of the intellect, but is instead saturated with reality itself and for this reason can merge with it.

You will find that one characteristic feature of the spiritual science which occupies us here is that it can plunge into reality, that it does not merely speak of an abstract spirit, but of the real, tangible spirit, living in our environment surrounding us just as the things of the sense-world surround us. Abstract observations are the fruit of modern intellectualism. Take up any new work, with the exception of pure natural science or pure philosophy, and you will find the conception of life it contains, often a would-be philosophical view, is far removed from actual life or from a real knowledge of things. Read what is said about the will in one of the newer books on psychology, and you will find that there is no profound meaning underlying the words. The ideas of those who devote themselves to such studies have not the power actually to penetrate to the core, even of nature herself. To them matter is a thing outside, because they cannot penetrate it in spirit. I should like to elucidate this by an example.

In one of my last books, Riddles of the Soul, Von Seelenraetseln, I have shown how an opinion of long standing, prevailing in natural science, must be overcome by modern spiritual science. I know how very paradoxical my words must sound to many. But it is just those truths which are able to satisfy the demands—already making themselves heard and becoming more and more insistent as time goes on—for a new kind of thought which will often appear paradoxical, when compared with all that is still looked upon as authoritative. Every modern scientist who has occupied himself with the subject maintains that there are two kinds of nerves⁸ in human and animal life (we are now only concerned with human life, one set, leading from the sense organs to the central organ, is the sensory nerves, which are stimulated by sense-perceptions, the stimulus communicating itself to the nerve center. The second kind of nerves, the so-called motor nerves, pass from the center out to the limbs. These motor-nerves enable us to use our limbs. They are said to be the nerves of volition, while the others are called the sensory nerves.

Now I have shown in my book, Riddles of the Soul, though only in outline, that there is no fundamental difference between the sensory and the so-called motor nerves or nerves of volition, and that the latter are not subject to the will. The instances brought forward to support the statement that these nerves are obedient to the will as is shown by the terrible disease of locomotor ataxia really prove the exact opposite, which can easily be shown. They, indeed, prove the truth of my contention. These so-called voluntary nerves are also sensitive nerves. While the other sensitive nerves pass from the sense organs to the central organ, so that the outer sense-perceptions may be transmitted to it, the voluntary nerves, as they are called, which do not differ from the other set, perceive that which is movement within ourselves. They are endowed with the perception of movement. There are no voluntary nerves. The will is of a purely spiritual nature, purely spirit and soul, and functions directly as spirit and soul. We use the so-called voluntary nerves, because they are the sensory nerves for the limb which is going to move and must be perceived if the will is to move it. For what reason do I give this example? Because countless treatises on the will exist at the present day, or may be read and heard, in which the will is dealt with. But the ideas developed have not the impelling power to advance to real knowledge, to press forward to the sight of will in its working. Such knowledge remains abstract and foreign to life. While such ideas are current, modern science will continue to tell us of motor nerves, of nerves of volition. Spiritual science evolves ideas regarding the will which at the same time show us the nature of the physical human nervous system. Spiritual science will penetrate the phenomena and facts of nature. Instead of remaining in regions foreign to life, it will find its way into reality. It will have the courage to permeate material things with the spirit, not to leave them outside as things apart. For spiritual science everything is spiritual. Spiritual science will be able to pierce the surface and penetrate into the social order, and will work for a reality in social life, which baffles our abstract, intellectual natural science. And thus, spiritual science will again proclaim a spiritual knowledge, a new way of penetrating into the psychic and the spiritual in the universe. It will proclaim boldly that those spiritual worlds, represented in pictures envisioned by artists such as Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci, can no longer suffice for us. In accordance with the progress of human evolution, we must find a new way into the spiritual world. But if we learn to understand the spiritual world anew, if we penetrate into that world, not in the nebulous manner of pantheism, by a continual repetition of the word “spirit”, a universal, abstract, vague spirit which “must he there”: if we pierce through to the real phenomena of the spiritual world not by spiritualism, but by the development of the human forces of spirit and soul in the manner described above, then again we shall know of a spiritual world in the only way adapted to the present development of humanity. Then the mysteries of the spiritual world will reveal themselves to us, and then something will happen of which Goethe spoke. Although he was only a beginner in the things which modern spiritual science goes on developing in accordance with his own spirit, but of which he had a premonition, Goethe beautifully expressed that which will happen in the words: “He to whom nature begins to reveal her open secrets, experiences a profound longing for her worthiest exponent—art.” Once more will the artist receive a revelation from the spiritual world; he will then no longer be led astray in the belief that his portrayal of spiritual things in a material picture is an abstract, symbolic, lifeless allegory; he will know the living spirit and will be able to express that living spirit through material means. No longer will the perfect imitation of nature be considered the best part of a work of art, but the manifestation of that which the spirit has revealed to the artist. Once more an art will arise, filled with spirit, an art which is in no way symbolical, in no way allegorical, which also does not betray its luxurious character by attempting to rival nature, to the perfection of which it can never attain. It demonstrates its necessity, its justification, in human life by proclaiming the existence of something of which the ordinary, direct beholding of nature, naturalism, can give us no information. And even if the artist's attempt to give expression to something spiritual be but a clumsy effort, he is giving form to something which has a significance, apart from nature, because it transcends nature. He makes no bungling attempts at that which nature can do better than he. A way opens here to that art in which a beginning has been made in the external structure and the external decoration of the Goetheanum at Dornach.

The attempt has been made there to create a University of Spiritual Science for the work to be carried on within it. In all the paintings on the ceilings, the wood carvings, etc., an attempt has been made to give form to all that spiritual science reveals in that building. Hence the building itself is a natural development. No old architectural style could be followed here, because the spirit will be spoken of in a new way within it. Let us look at nature and consider the shell of a nut; the kernel within determines the form of it; in nature every sheath is formed in accordance with the requirements of the inner core. So the whole of the building at Dornach is formed in consonance with that which as music will one day resound within it; with those mystery dramas which will one day be presented there; with those revelations of spiritual science which will one day be uttered within its walls. Everything described here will echo in the wood carvings, in the pillars, and in the capitals. An art as yet only in its beginnings, which is really horn of a new spirit, altogether born of the spirit, is there represented. The artists who are working there are themselves their own severest critics. In such an undertaking one is, of course, exposed to misunderstandings; this is only natural. Objections are raised against the Dornach Building by visitors, who say: “These anthroposophists have filled their building with symbols and allegories.” Other visitors who increase in number from day to day, understand what they see here.

Now the characteristic of the building is that it does not contain a single symbol or allegory; in the work attempted here the spirit has flowed into the immediate artistic form. That which is expressed here has nothing of symbolism, nothing of allegory, but everything is something in its own form. Up to the present we have only been able to build a covering for a spiritual center of work; for external social conditions do not yet permit us to erect a railway station or even a bank building. For reasons, which may perhaps be easily comprehensible to you, we have not yet been able to find the style of a modern bank or of a modern department store; but they must also he found. Above all things, the way must be found along these lines to an artistic shaping of actual practical life.

Just think of the social importance of art, even for our daily bread; for the preparation of bread depends on the manner in which people think and feel.

It is a matter of great and social significance to men, that everything by which they are immediately surrounded in life should take on an artistic form; that every spoon, every glass, should have a form well adapted to its use, instead of a form chosen at random to serve the purpose; that one should see at a glance, from its form, what service a thing performs in life, and at the same time recognize its beauty. Then for the first time large numbers of people will feel spiritual life to be a vital necessity, when spiritual life and practical life are brought into direct connection with each other. As spiritual science is able to throw light on the nature of matter, as I have shown in the example of the sensory and motor nerves, so will art, born of spiritual science, attain to the power of giving direct form to every chair, every table, to every man-created object.

Since it is plainly evident that the gravest prejudices and misunderstandings come from the churches, we may ask: What is the position finally reached by the religious creeds? If they have any justification at all, they must have a connection by their very nature with the spiritual world. But they have preserved into our period of time old traditions of these worlds, grown out of very different conditions of the human soul. Spiritual science strives to advance to the spiritual world, in accordance with the new mode of thought, with the new life of the soul. Should this be condemned by the religious sentiment of humanity, if it understands itself aright? Is such a thing possible? Never! What is the real aim of religious sentiment and of all religious work? Certainly not the proclamation of theories and dogmas pertaining to the higher worlds. The aim of all religious work should be to give all men an opportunity to look up with reverence to higher worlds. The work of religion is to inculcate reverence for the super-sensible. Human nature needs this reverence. It needs to look up in reverence to the sublime in the spiritual worlds. If human nature is denied the present mode of entrance, then, of course, the old way must still be kept open. But since this way is no longer suited to the thoughts of our day, it must be enforced, its recognition must be imposed by authority. Hence the external character of religious teaching as applied to modern human nature. An antiquated outlook on the higher worlds is imposed by the religious teachers.

Let us suppose that there are communities in which an understanding exists of the true nature of religion consisting in reverence for spiritual things. Must it not be to the highest interest of, such communities that their members should develop a living knowledge of the unseen world? Will not those whose souls contain a vision of the super-sensible, whose knowledge gives them a familiarity with those worlds be the most likely to reverence them? Since the middle of the fifteenth century human evolution has taken the line of development of the individuality, of the personality. To expect of anyone today that he should attain a vision or an understanding of the higher worlds on authority, or in any other way than by the force of his own individuality or personality, is to expect of him something which is against his nature. If he is allowed freedom of thought with respect to his knowledge of the super-sensible he will unite with his fellow-men in order that reverence for the spiritual world, which everyone recognizes in his own personal way, may be encouraged in the community. When men have attained freedom of thought to approach knowledge of the spiritual world through their own individuality, then the common service of the higher worlds, true religion, will flourish.

This will show itself especially in the conception of the Christ Himself. This conception was very different in earlier centuries from that even of many theologians of the later centuries, especially of the nineteenth. How greatly has humanity fallen away from the perception of the true super-sensible nature of the Christ, who lived in the man Jesus! How far is it removed from the understanding of that union of a super-sensible being with a human body, through the Mystery of Golgotha, in order that the earth in its development might have a deeper meaning! That union of the super-sensible with the things of the senses, which was consummated in the Mystery of Golgotha, how little has it been understood even by theologians of a certain type in recent times! The man of Nazareth has been designated “the simple man of Nazareth”, the conception of religion has become more and more materialistic. Since no one was able to find a way into the higher worlds, suited to modern humanity, the super-sensible path to the Christ-Being was lost. Many who now believe that they are in communion with the Christ, only believe this. They do not dream how little their thought of Christ and their words concerning Him correspond to the experiences of those who draw near to the great Mystery of Humanity with a spiritual knowledge that is suited to our time.

It must be said that spiritual science makes absolutely no pretension of founding a new religion. It is a science, a source of knowledge; but we ought to recognize in it the means for a rejuvenescence of the religious life of humanity. As it can rejuvenate science and art, so can it also renew religious life, the very great importance of which must lie apparent to anyone who can appreciate the extreme gravity of the social future. Much, very much has been said recently on the subject of education, yet it must be acknowledged that a large part of the discussion does not touch the chief problem. I endeavored to deal with this problem in a series of educational lectures which I was asked to deliver to the teachers who are to form the staff of the Waldorf School in Stuttgart, which was founded last September [1919], in conformity with ideas underlying the Threefold Social Order.

At the foundation of the school I not only endeavored to give shape to externals, corresponding to the requirements and the impulse of the Threefold Order; I also strove to present pedagogy and didactics to the teaching-staff of this new kind of school in such a light that the human being would be educated to face life and be able to bring about a social future in accordance with certain unconquerable instincts in human nature. It is evident that the old-fashioned system of normal training, with its stereotyped rules and methods of teaching, must be superseded. It is true nowadays that many people agree that the individuality of the pupil ought to be taken into account in teaching. All sorts of rules are produced for the proper consideration of the child's individuality. But the pedagogy of the future will not be a normal science; it will be a true art, the art of developing the human being. It will rest upon a knowledge of the whole man. The teacher of the future will know that in the human being before him, who carries on development from birth through all the years of life, a spirit and soul element is working through the organs out to the surface. From the first year of school, he will see how every year new forces evolve from the depths of the child's nature. No abstract normal training can confirm this sight; only a living perception of human nature itself. Much has been said of late on the subject of instruction through observation and, within certain limits, this kind of tuition is justified. But there are things which cannot be communicated through external observation, yet which must be communicated to the growing child; but they can only be so communicated when the teacher, the educator, is animated by a true understanding of the growing human being, when he is able to see the inner growth of the child as it changes with every succeeding year; when he knows what the inner nature of the human being requires in the seventh, ninth, and twelfth years of his life. For only when education is carried on in accordance with nature, can the child grow strong for the battle of life. One comes in contact with many shattered lives at the present day, many who do not know what to make of life, to whom it has nothing to offer. There are many more people who suffer from such disrupted lives than is commonly known. What is the reason.? It is because the teacher is unable to take note of important laws of the evolving human being. I will give only one instance of what I mean. How very often do we hear well-meaning teachers say emphatically that one should develop in the child a clear understanding of what is being offered him as mental food. The result of this method in practice is banality, triviality! The teacher descends artificially to the understanding of the child, and that manner of teaching has already become instinctive. If it is persisted in, and the child is trained in this false clarity of understanding, what is overlooked? A teacher of this kind does not know what it means to a man, say thirty-five years of age, who looks back to his childhood and remembers: “My teacher told me such and such a thing when I was nine or ten years old; I believed it because I looked up with reverence to the authority of my teacher, and because there was a living force in his personality through which I was impressed by his words. Now, looking back, I find that his words have lived on in me; now I can understand them.” A marvellous light is shed on life by such an event, when through inner development we can look back in our thirty-fifth year at the lessons we have learnt out of love for our teacher which we could not understand at the time. That light, which is a force in life, is lost when the teacher descends to the banality of the object-lesson, which is praised as an ideal method. The teacher must know what forces should be developed in the child, in order that the forces which are already in his nature, may remain with him throughout his life. Then the child need not merely recall to memory what he learnt between his seventh and fifteenth years; what he then learnt is renewed again and again, and wears a new aspect in each successive stage of life. What the child learnt is renewed at every later epoch of life.

The foregoing is an effort to place before you an idea of the fundamental character of a system of pedagogy which, if followed, may truly grow into an art; by its practice the human being may take his place in life and find himself equal to all the demands of the social future. However much people may vaunt their social ideals, there are few who are at all capable of surveying life as a whole. But in the carrying out of social ideals, a wide outlook on life is indispensable. People speak, for instance, of transferring the means of production to the ownership of the community and believe that by withdrawing them from the administration of the individual human being, much would be accomplished. I have already spoken on this point, and will go into the subject again more thoroughly in the following lectures. But assuming for a moment that it is possible to transfer the means of production to the ownership of the community at once, do you suppose that the community of the next generation would still own them? No! For even if the means of production were transmitted to the next generation, it would be done without taking into account the fact that this next generation would develop new and fruitful forces, which would transform the whole system of production, and thus render the old means useless. If we have any idea of molding social life. we must take part in life in its fullness, in all its phases. From a conception of man as a being composed of body, soul, and spirit, and from a real understanding of body, soul, and spirit, a new art of education will arise, an art which may truly be regarded as a necessity in social life.

Arising from this way of thinking, something has developed within the spiritual movement, centered at Dornach, which has to a great extent met with misunderstanding. There are a number of persons who have learnt in the course of years to think not unfavorably of our spiritual-scientific movement. But when we recently began, in Zurich and elsewhere, to give representations of the art known as eurythmy, an art springing naturally out of spiritual science itself, but, as we are fully aware, as yet only in its infancy, people began to exclaim that after all, spiritual science cannot be worth much, for to introduce such antics as an accompaniment to spiritual science only shows that the latter is completely crazy. In such a matter as this, people do not consider how paradoxical anything must appear which works towards reconstituting the world on the basis of spiritual science. This art of eurythmy is a social art in the best sense; for its aim is, above all things, to communicate to us the mysteries of human nature. It uses the capacities for movement latent in the human being, bringing to expression these movements in a manner to be explained at the next representation of the eurythmic art. I will only mention here that eurythmy is a true art; for it reveals the deepest secrets of human art itself by bringing to evidence a true speech, a visible speech expressed by the whole human being. But beside the mere movements of the body, founder on physiological science and a study of the structure of the human form, eurythmy presents to us at the same time a capacity of movement through which man, ensouled and inspired, yields himself up to movement. The purely physiological, gymnastic exercises of our materialistic age may also be taught to children, and they are now taught in the Waldorf School of which I have spoken. Ensouled movement, however, actually employs the whole being, while gymnastics on physiological, merely material lines employs only a part of the whole nature of the human being, and therefore, unless supplemented by eurythmy, allows much to degenerate in the growing human being Out of the depths of human nature spiritual life in a new form must enter into the most important branches of life.

It will be my task in the next few days to show how external life may really be given a new form in the present and for the future, when the impulse for the change comes from such a new spirit. Many people of all sorts, noteworthy people, feel today the necessity of understanding spiritually the modern pressing demands of social life. It is painful to see the number of people who are still asleep as regards these demands, and the many others who approach them in a confused way as agitators. We find faint indications of a feeling that none of the mere superficial programs can be of any use without a change of thought, of ideas, a new mode of learning from the spirit. But in many cases how superficial is the expression of that longing for a new spirit! We may say that the yearning for a new spirit is dimly and imperceptibly felt here and there in remarkable men, who most certainly have no idea of that which the Dornach Building represents in the outer world. But the expression of a longing for this new spirit can be heard. I will give one out of many examples of this.

In addition to the numerous memoirs published in connection with the disaster of the World War just ended, those of the Austrian Statesman, Czernin, will soon appear. This book promises to be extremely interesting. It is difficult to express what I wish to say without the risk of being misunderstood; I mean that it is interesting, because Czernin was a good deal less pretentious than the others who up to now have given expression to their opinions on the War, and he should therefore be leniently judged. In this book of Czernin's we may read something like the following passage:

‘The War continues, though in another form. I believe that coming generations will not call this great drama which has held the world in thrall for five years, the World-War; they will call it the world-revolution and they will know that the world-revolution only began with the World-War. Neither the Peace of Versailles nor that of St. Germain will create a lasting effect. This peace contains within it the destructive germ of death. The conflicts which shake Europe are not yet on the wane. As in a mighty earthquake, the subterranean rumbling still goes on. Now here, now there, the earth will continue to open and hurl fire towards heaven. Again and again events of elemental vehemence will sweep over the lands, bringing destruction in their train, till everything has been swept away, reminiscent of the madness of this War. Slowly, out of: unspeakable sacrifice, a new world will be born. Coming generations will look back to our times as to a long, terrible dream. But the darkest night is followed by the dawn. Generations have sunk into graves, murdered, starved, victims of disease. Millions have died in the effort to annihilate, to destroy, their hearts filled, with hatred and murder. But other generations will arise, and with them a new spirit. They will build up, what war and revolution have destroyed. Every winter is followed by spring. It is an eternal law in the circuit of life that resurrection follows death. Happy those who are called upon to cooperate as soldiers of labor in the work of rebuilding the world.’

Even this man speaks of a new spirit, but this new spirit is only a shadowy conception, a dim presentiment in heads like his. In order that this new spirit may take hold of the hearts, of the minds, of the souls of men in a really concrete form, the spiritual science and the art of education of which I wished to speak today in connection with human evolution, will labor for the social future of humanity.

• 7. or a deeper understanding of this, the reader is referred to Rudolf Steiner's The Story of My Life, page 274:
  
  “It is my impression that if the workers' movement had been followed with interest by a greater number of unprejudiced persons, and if the proletariat had been dealt with understandingly, this movement would have developed quite differently. But we have left the people to live in their own class, and we have lived in ours. The conceptions of each class of men held by the others were merely theoretical. There was discussion of wages when strikes and the like forced it; and all sorts of welfare movements were established. These latter were exceedingly creditable.
  
  “But the submerging of these world-stirring questions into a spiritual sphere was wholly lacking. And yet only this could have taken from the movement its destructive forces.”
  
  >We offer this quotation in order to show that the many remarks made by Rudolf Steiner in these lectures, characterizing the proletarian movement and its Marxian ideology, should not give the impression that he was hostile toward the proletariat. Quite the contrary was the case. His untiring efforts in 1919 and later were deeply concerned with the need of establishing a mutual understanding between the two classes—the bourgeoisie and the proletariat—which were fighting one another for political power.
  
  In 1919, when the workers were in power in Central Europe—in Russia since 1917—Rudolf Steiner continued this effort by offering a cultural, instead of a political-economic viewpoint. In doing this, he found it necessary for an understanding of the problem to make clear to the proletariat the nature of the destructive forces at work in their midst, embodied in an erroneous materialistic ideology. It must be emphatically stressed, too, that Rudolf Steiner made it clear that the same destructive forces were at work with an equal degree of fatality in the egotistic and unintelligent attitude of the members of the other class—the bourgeoisie—toward life and its world problems.
• 8. The original statement about the nature of the nerves can be found in the appendix of Rudolf Steiner's previously mentioned book, The Riddles of the Soul, (Von Seelenraetseln, Riddle of the Soul (1996).
  
  This most important statement shows how Anthroposophy solves the crucial problem of modern physiology and psychology, that is to say, it explains the relation between body and soul. The reader will learn that the human body functions in a threefold way, or one may say, there are three systems of organic activity: (a) the nervous system, including the senses; (b) the metabolic system, in connection with the limb-system; and (c) the rhythmic system, i. e., blood circulation and breathing.
  
  The important discovery made by Rudolf Steiner reveals the fact that the human soul in her entirety is not limited to a mere relationship with the nervous system, for this is only one of her several special functions, manifest in thinking, in so far as this activity depends on sense perception. Another function of the soul—feeling—is supported by the bodily rhythmic system, and a third soul function—willing—finds its bodily counterpart in the metabolic system. All this means that the human soul, as a whole, with her three functions is connected with the bodily organism as a whole. She functions through three systems which are intimately interwoven and mutually interplaying.
  
  Rudolf Steiner's statement shows further that by devoting herself to a certain training, the soul is able to detach herself, bond by bond, from the connection with the body and to turn her perceptions with transformed thinking, feeling, and willing toward the spiritual world.
  
  It must be emphasized, however, that the discovery of the threefold physiological and mental organism of man did not lead Rudolf Steiner to develop forthwith the idea of the three-fold social organism. The threefold structure of the body-social was discovered by him through independent research without taking the human organism into account. To quote the words of Rudolf Steiner:
  
  “The present comparison is not an attempt to take some natural science truth and transplant it into the social system. Its object is quite different: namely, to use the human body as an object lesson for training human thought and feeling to a sense of what organic life requires, and then to apply this perceptive sense to the body social.” (The Threefold Commonwealth.)
  
  >Bernhard Behrens.

Das Wesen Der Anthroposophie. (The Nature of Anthroposophy. Lecture given at Elberfeld, Germany, January 24, 1922)

Goethe's observation of human beings and of humanity led him to the following short but comprehensive and significant conclusion that “the most valuable thing about history is the enthusiasm it stimulates.”

We may well be surprised at such a view of historical knowledge, for Goethe was, after all, a person who had deep insight into human life, and yet what he seems to be saying is that it is not the knowledge we acquire about the course of human history that is important, but rather the feelings and enthusiasm that history stimulates. However, the more we feel impelled to go into what is called historical knowledge, the more Goethe's judgment seems to be confirmed. We only need remember that when the catastrophic events began in which the whole of humanity is now embroiled, a number of people—and there were quite a few of them—believed from their reading of history and especially their picture of economic and other material causes in world history, that the war could last four or six months at the most. We have to admit that this conclusion was really not at all stupid. Nor, judging by the historical standards that humanity is accustomed to apply to its own historical evolution, was it in any way shortsighted. And yet, despite this—was this conclusion really founded on what was actually happening?

Let us take as another example what happened to a not insignificant person. It is true that it took place a long time ago, but it can still be mentioned. It concerns a professor of history at a university. This person gave a brilliant inaugural lecture in which he said that a study of the historical evolution of humanity suggested that the European countries would in future form a more or less united family in which there could be all sorts of differences but in which it would become impossible for the various peoples, the members of this great family, to cut each other to pieces. This judgment, the reality of which can hardly be doubted, was made on the basis of historical observation by Friedrich Schiller when he took up his professorship at the University of Jena in 1789. One has the impression that Schiller believed he could arrive at conclusions in his study of history that in a sense rise to a kind of prophecy. Immediately after Schiller had come to this conclusion there followed the events of the French Revolution and all that it brought with it. And if we take everything that has happened up to the present day we find that what even this gifted man had learned from his study of history has been completely disproved by the facts in the most terrible way. We could add hundreds and hundreds of similar examples.

This makes it imperative to take a closer look at what we normally call history and to see how far it really enables us to form judgments about what is going on around us. In such times as ours this is particularly important. History should teach us to recognize what each day brings—and today each day brings a very great deal. Catastrophic events breaking over the whole earth demand judgment from us. We must know what to think of the American West and how it can evolve in the future, and of the Asiatic East. How can we do this if history is regarded in the way we have just touched upon?

Let us take one or two examples by way of introduction to see how a view of history is attained from all the various things that happen in human life. I would like to characterize different aspects of this, starting from the various assumptions that lie close at hand.

At the beginning of our present century, when the events we are now witnessing were being prepared, it happened by what we normally call chance that two men made an historical, all embracing judgment about their country. It is most interesting to study the particular way in which these two looked at history. Although they lived not so far from each other, their two nations are quite different in character. The one is the German historian, Karl Lamprecht, who in 1904 at the invitation of Columbia University in America gave his American listeners his comprehensive judgment about the history of the German nation. The other is Wilson, who at about the same time gave a lecture in which he presented his comprehensive judgment about the American nation. It is interesting to compare these two, and it would be even more valuable to take a third, but the time is too short.—For instance, I can only recommend you to compare what I am saying today with a wonderful statement of Rabindranath Tagore about the spirit of Jesus. If the time allowed us to compare all three we would have a wonderful picture of literary, historical study.

I shall begin with the rather odd views that Karl Lamprecht, the German historian, came to about his own German nation. He has got beyond the merely factual kind of historical observation pursued by Ranke and others, for he sets out to study the inner course of human evolution. He seeks the motivating forces and directs his view to the example of his own nation. I can only give a brief picture of the views that Karl Lamprecht came to, and which he then presented in these lectures at Columbia University. He said that German history can be divided into clearly differentiated epochs according to the inner character of human deeds, of the constitution of the human soul, of the way in which human beings work.

We can go back to a period which came to an end in about the third century A.D. and we find that everything that happened in the German nation at that time arose out of a kind of activity of the imagination which felt itself stimulated to think in symbols and images. Even revered figures and personalities are often presented to the people in images and revered in images. Then there comes a time which is sharply differentiated from this. Whereas in the earlier period it is clear that the imaginative conception of life, which, according to Lamprecht's view, lies at the root of history, leads to the fact that social conditions are organized in a military structure, we see that from the 4th or 5th century to the 11th century it is superseded by a quite different way of thinking and quite different inner motives. In place of the merely comradely sort of life we find a kind of life that is more like a society. And in place of a living in images that always sees images for the things that happen, we have now, thinks Lamprecht, the concept of type. The single, eminent personality is regarded as a type of the times and revered, portrayed and characterized as such from all sides, even in the primitive art that has come down to us.

Then follows a relatively short period, from the 12th to the middle of the 15th century. Lamprecht characterizes this as arising out of all the impulses that were at work when power based on land and obedience evolved out of the old estates and the conditions on them, or being concerned with the way in which the constitution of the soul came to expression in art, with the way men were respected, with the way they acted, and finally with the way knighthood and town life evolved. Lamprecht characterizes it as the time of the conventional conception of life, for at that time life was based on conventions, agreements and a generally fixed way of doing things. For Lamprecht there is then an important break in the historical evolution of the German people which happens at around the middle of the 15th century. He believes that the individual personality that begins to break through for the first time, for the conventional relationships between human beings which are governed by considerations going beyond the merely individual, are no longer uppermost. The individual then enters decisively into historical evolution. Lamprecht shows quite justifiably how something very important begins at this time. Until then, human beings had lived an existence primarily based on deeds, on actions, founded on impulses of the will which arose out of the deepest recesses of the soul, whereas from the middle of the 15th century onward it is the intellect, the understanding, that belongs to the individual personality, that becomes the decisive factor. This lasts until the middle of the 18th century.

What then follows we should call a higher stage of individualism. Lamprecht differentiates it from the earlier period by saying that the age of subjectivism then begins in which a higher kind of understanding becomes particularly significant for human evolution. Lamprecht describes various aspects of this evolution from this viewpoint quite well. He shows, for instance, how the more rudimentary impulses of earlier centuries which prevailed in the relations of the various peoples to each other, turn into a kind of diplomacy based solely on the understanding and intellect. He gives many such examples from many aspects of life. We are still in this age of subjectivism.

From this brief description I have given you can see how an historian tries to explain what happens in history in terms of the nature and evolution of the human being himself. As we shall see in a moment, what Lamprecht put forward is intimately connected with the German way of looking at things. We can see that it is an attempt to use every possible means that are available for reaching a reality which has soul-spirit factors, for penetrating into the real nature of history. But if we then investigate how Lamprecht applies the ideas outlined in his lectures to his detailed description of history, we cannot help feeling bitter disappointment. This is because Lamprecht's views of history never convince us that the efforts he makes in observing certain inner powers of the human soul lead to any sort of convincing result. It is a struggle for a new view of history, but nowhere would we stop and say: Now we can, for instance, really see the inner reasons why the German people have evolved to what they are today. And this question constantly comes to mind when we study Lamprecht's view of history.

Let me compare it with Wilson's view of his own American people. It is something very remarkable, and in order not to be misunderstood I would point out that I am anything but an admirer of Woodrow Wilson. The actual fact of the matter will become clear in further lectures. For the moment I would only mention that my attitude toward Wilson has not arisen during the last six years, for already before the war I expressed my rejection of his approach in a lecture cycle given in Helsingfors in 1913 at a time when many in this country rejected the views expressed in his book, “Only Literature,” which was translated into German, and in his dissertations on freedom—as there were also many in Germany who were deceived and thought he was a great man for reasons which I will not go into now. It is neither chauvinism, that has grown to such proportions today, nor anything other than an entirely objective study of Wilson's approach that leads me to say what I have to say about him.

I have been particularly interested by this parallel phenomenon of Wilson speaking in his lectures about the American people. It is particularly important from one viewpoint because Wilson, when it comes to discovering the virtual factor in viewing a limited phenomenon of historical evolution and in what is needed in order to have some understanding of it, really hits the nail on the head. In this lecture Wilson says that those who live in the east, the New Englanders, do not look at the American people in the right way. And he also describes the quite wrong attitude taken by those living in the south. For he derives the nature of the American and his historical evolution from the events that took place in the 19th century in the center between the west and the east of the North American states when all sorts of people mixed with each other.—Out of their way of life there then arose what Wilson calls the American nation.

It is interesting to see how he succeeds in showing that American history really only begins when those who lived in the east looked toward the west and began to colonize it. Dutch, German, English, French and so on, all came together and formed something that did not come into being through the work of politicians but through those who tilled the land and tended the forests. And then he describes how the three most important political questions of America find their solution under the influence of these conditions. I cannot go into details but would like all the same to state what I think is the important point: the most important questions were those of the attitude of the state toward property, of tariffs and of slavery. All these arose under the influence of these conditions. As far as these conditions are concerned his view of history hits the nail on the head. And there are also further lectures in addition to this one where he speaks about history in general, where he gives his opinion as to how history ought to be studied. And something quite remarkable can happen to anyone viewing things as a whole.

I must say that I find Woodrow Wilson as a thinker and scientist an extraordinarily unsympathetic personality. On the other hand, in another person who has perhaps been too little recognized. I find an extraordinarily sympathetic personality, and this is Hermann Grimm, who applied his historical approach primarily to art, in which, however, his historical ideas are to be found. I have it from him personally because he himself described it to me on many occasions. It lived in him in a wonderfully comprehensive way. On one hand I read in “Only Literature” some of the things that Wilson laid down. On the other, I read what Hermann Grimm said about how history should be studied and how he looked at the evolution of humanity in the light of history. And one comes to the remarkable conclusion that in reading Wilson and Grimm a sentence of Grimm could often be transposed word for word into Wilson's work, and vice-versa. Sometimes there are quite short paragraphs that, from a superficial viewpoint could belong quite well to either of them. Only try to acquire the necessary knowledge, which is quite easy to do in this subject, and you will see the truth of what I say.

How are we to understand this? There is, after all, an enormous difference between these two people and the way they look at history.—There is nothing better than such an example for showing what has to be learned at the present time: that the literal content of a matter is not the whole matter! This is something our age has got to learn, but finds so difficult to learn. For however much our age imagines it lives in reality, it really loves the abstract and theoretical. When they find a few sentences the same with two different authors people are inclined to say that it is the same! The content, the purely literal content, is sometimes quite remote from the actual reality, and however odd this may sound it is proved by this example. For what are we dealing with here? Only the science of spirit can enlighten us, and only the science of spirit can detect the difference between the American historical approach of Woodrow Wilson and that of Karl Lamprecht. The abstract minds of the present time are completely taken in by what Woodrow Wilson says. Now it is not so, but before the war they were taken in. For they do not see the real point. Wilson says many excellent things. But compare them with what Hermann Grimm says, with what Karl Lamprecht says, who perhaps even make great mistakes. What Grimm and Lamprecht say, even when it sounds the same as what Wilson says, is achieved in wrestling with the matter in their souls; it always has the mark of having been permeated by the personality.

For one who is able to see through such things, Wilson's words betray the fact that the personality is possessed by its views. Of course one would have to see the details of the content of his words in the spirit in which it lives in him. Nevertheless, we can see that these things rise up from the unconscious depths of the soul and are not worked over personally by the soul, but simply push through from below. This personality is possessed by what lives below the consciousness.

I certainly do not pass this judgment lightly for I am quite aware that it has far reaching consequences. But I am also aware that it has been arrived at objectively. This is the great difference—on the one hand a personal struggle with truth, on the other a statement of something by which one is merely possessed, where one is more or less an outward medium for something rather indefinite. In this respect Wilson provides a brilliant characterization of his people, one that could hardly be bettered. I must say that some of the statements he makes about the Americans hit home. He says that it is because the American nation has come into being on the basis of work on the land and in the forests that the people have evolved what characterizes them today—the mobility of the eyes, the tendency suddenly to take up bold and adventurous ideas and the tendency to think up plans that can be realized anywhere without much feeling for one's home.

Mobility of the eyes, tendency toward bold, adventurous ideas—these are characteristic of a situation where there is no direct personal struggle, no conscious struggle with the things that are going on, but of a situation where something unconscious plays a part, where the human being is really only more or less a mediator for what is at work. Wilson could offer no greater proof of what he described as American than the history he himself wrote.

I only wanted to show by way of introduction how our view of history is dependent upon the sort of people we are, and how even today historical observation is still largely dependent upon this. I wanted to show how a study of the writing of history itself should enlighten us as to the real nature of the situation.

Now, for example, what is Karl Lamprecht's intention, for he is certainly not possessed by his ideas but, struggles personally for his ideas of history? He wants to introduce a science of soul into history. He wants to understand the historical evolution of humanity on the basis of soul impulses. He is seeking a science of soul applicable to his own times. What does he find? He looks for it in the so called psychologists, in those who investigate the soul. In these psychologists he honestly tried to find something their souls experience within themselves, something that he could then apply to his historical studies. But precisely this made him unsure, and resulted in the fact that there is nothing in his way of looking at history that can offer any convincing satisfaction. Why is this? Because what nowadays is officially pursued as psychology hardly penetrates into the true self, into the real inner soul being of man.

Now the inner soul life of man comes to expression in a quite different way when one is confronted by another person and has to act with him in this situation. And it is on this basis that the historical evolution of humanity proceeds. What proceeds there cannot be viewed in the way that historical research of the present time views it. What has modern historical research grown accustomed to? What has Karl Lamprecht found in the psychologists that can help historical research? He found what has evolved on the pattern of scientific method. And in the 19th century historical research was drawn more and more into a sphere where history is regarded in the same way as nature. The same method of acquiring knowledge, the same kind of knowledge, the same kind of judgment that are used to observe and understand the phenomena of nature were applied to the historical evolution of humanity. Karl Lamprecht sees something significant in applying to his method of looking at history what had led to sure results in natural science.

In this respect too, one can say out of an historical instinct, Hermann Grimm made an excellent observation when he gave his opinion of the famous historian Gibbon. Gibbon, who wrote a history of the decline of the Roman Empire, is an historian who really carries out in exemplary fashion the kind of method suited to studying nature, only he has applied it to history. What really happened here? Hermann Grimm observed quite correctly. Gibbon was a very shrewd, scientific observer of history, but he described all the forces, which he did excellently for the first Christian centuries, all the forces which tend toward decay, which led to the fall of the Roman Empire, which brought to an end the evolution which had been in progress for a long time. Grimm rightly reproaches Gibbon with the fact that something quite different was also happening in the centuries when the Roman Empire was declining, something positive, for the forces connected to the birth of Christianity were entering into historical evolution. These are the forces of progressive evolution, the forces which existed positively alongside the negative forces of decay. They are simply missing from Gibbon's history.

Herman Grimm came to this important observation out of his historical instinct. He did not know the basis for it, for it is only with the science of spirit that we can get to the bottom of such things—the science of spirit whose method works with forces that otherwise slumber in the soul and which will be developed thus enabling the human being really to see into the spiritual. This science of spirit discovers that we cannot grasp the progressive forces of historical evolution bearing the future if we use only the form of knowledge that happens to be excellent for natural science.

What happens when we apply to historical evolution the method that is right for natural science? We find the forces of decay. We find the part of life that becomes dead in historical evolution, in the social life of humanity. If we apply only what our understanding, our ordinary consciousness can grasp, then we find ourselves restricted to studying the impulses of decay. The impulses of growth, of forward evolution, that carry historical evolution in a positive sense, elude this kind of observation. They also elude this kind of observation when we are confronted by real life and wish to take hold of it.

It is shocking that one must say such things, but the present time must learn to grasp things as they really are. Taking care to observe what happens and not to sleepwalk through reality, we should try to get together a parliament or something similar where only people intellectually educated according to the scientific pattern have to vote on what should happen both in social life and in life as a whole; we should create a parliament of people who have fashioned their intellect according to scientific method and let no one else in except those who are fully educated in these things, and you can be quite sure that these people will come to decisions which will very quickly lead the community into decline in every possible sphere. For their way of thinking can be applied only to the forces of decline and decay. It can observe only the declining forces in human evolution. The forces of growth are such that they cannot be comprehended by the powers of our ordinary consciousness. And here I must come back to something that I indicated here several months ago in a lecture about how the unconscious comes to be revealed.

Looked at superficially, this human soul life, in fact human life as a whole, proceeds in alternating states of waking and sleeping. Because we are naturally all very industrious, we are awake two thirds of our lives and are asleep one third. These conditions alternate. But this is not absolutely correct, for what we call sleeping and dreaming also extends to a large extent into our waking life. Our waking life is completely awake only in part. Beneath the surface of our waking life is something that sleeps, even when we are awake. A very significant man, Friedrich Theodor Vischer, had a kind of instinctive feeling for this when he pointed out how closely our feeling life and our passions are related to our dream life. Those who are really able to investigate and observe such things discover that what we experience as our feelings are conscious in us in a quite different way from our perceptions and mental images. For, in fact, we are only really awake in the latter. Our feelings shine through out of the unconscious spheres of the soul just as dreams do. We are not more strongly conscious of our feelings than we are of our dreams; we do not know them as they really are, but only observe their reflection in the sphere of consciousness. We raise our feelings into the waking condition by having them before our minds. We dream the whole day by allowing our souls to be permeated by feelings, and we are asleep inasmuch as we have will impulses and go through the world with such impulses, the motive you know as coming from your will impulses. You know what it is that as perception stimulates the will. How what you want comes about, how your mental images lead to movement in your limbs and hands,—all this proceeds in a sleeping state. We sleep and dream beneath the surface of our normal consciousness.

Having learned to look at the human being in this way, if we then learn to see history as it really is, we become aware of all those actions and impulses at work in the historical evolution of humanity, which are not forces of decay. They come to be recognized as something which the whole of humanity in living together dreams and sleeps. However odd and paradoxical it may sound this will become a most important truth once more, without which there can be no satisfaction in historical research—that the forces carrying humanity forward in its historical evolution do not belong to the normal forces, we use in natural science, for these impulses in history in no way proceed from our ordinary waking consciousness, but proceed from our dreaming and sleeping. This is not a comparison or picture but something real in the deepest sense.

This is why in earlier times, when people were still connected with the life of the spirit in their soul life, even if only unconsciously, they sought their information about social life and historical evolution from a different source than what we call history today. They sought their knowledge in myths, sagas, pictures. And they knew more about the impulses to be found in their own people than can be discovered today purely by means of the understanding that is confined to our ordinary consciousness, and that has provided such magnificent results in science. That is where it belongs.

Now Karl Lamprecht quite rightly observed that a new age began in the middle of the 15th century. But he was not able to make use of this fact. He said that the individual human being then began to be significant, to become intellectual. History really only begins in this age. At first it is studied according to the pattern of science. Of course, we cannot return to the old ways, but the impulses which lie at the root of historical evolution are subconscious.

When a person is possessed by something in the subconscious working in his soul, then something bursts through from the subconscious, as with Wilson, resulting in a brilliant and appropriate observation. But this makes it all the more difficult for someone who is called to be an individuality, an individual soul, to struggle for the truth. It is therefore necessary, especially in this intellectual age, in order to understand social, historical and moral life that something else emerge that can see into the part of the human being that cannot be grasped by our ordinary consciousness, that can see into the part where our ordinary consciousness no longer operates, where we dream and sleep away our normal life.

I have previously described this as imaginative knowledge, inspired knowledge and intuitive knowledge.—This is what looks into the spiritual world, and what can look below the threshold of our consciousness, where the real, true spirit works. The real nature of history, that humanity normally only dreams and sleeps through, can only be called forth if history is studied with the help of imagination and inspiration. In other words, because the real course of history is something that proceeds in the subconscious and does not reveal itself to our ordinary consciousness, it is imperative to apply what I have called the spiritual scientific method,—imagination, inspiration and intuition—to history, to the social, moral and legal life of humanity if we wish to come to know them as they are fundamentally. These facets of reality which first appear before the soul in pictures, in imaginations, must be called forth from the depths of historical evolution. These imaginations must then inspire. Then we shall come upon what is really at work in historical evolution. Attempts in the past such as those of Karl Lamprecht can occasionally come about through instinct, but it can only become truly spiritually enlightened knowledge when history is deepened by the science of spirit.

Now I do not wish to omit contrasting what today is called history with a few historical findings of the science of spirit. I would like to take as my starting point the fact that Karl Lamprecht instinctively divined something I have already mentioned—that a new age arose out of the old around the middle of the 15th century.

If we look with the eye of the seer—if we look with our perceptive consciousness into history, we do in fact find that there is an important turning point that begins roughly about the beginning of the 15th century. Everything that Karl Lamprecht says about subjectivism and the type is of lesser importance than this. Something begins at the turn of the 15th century that is not sufficiently recognized, that brings about a significant and tremendous change in the whole of human life, and which comes to expression most typically in the life of Central Europe. If we go back to the time before this age we find that the configuration, the structure of the human being and his actions are characterized by the fact that his understanding still operates in an instinctive way. In the science of spirit we therefore distinguish the more instinctive rational soul, where cleverness itself is still instinctive. This is superseded around the middle of the 15th century, and not according to the comfortable notion that nature makes no leaps, but is superseded by decided a leap, by a quite different configuration of the human soul. What in the science of spirit we call the consciousness soul which grasps everything through the consciousness, now becomes typical for humanity. And we can grasp what has happened since that time when we recognize that a whole age can be understood only by taking into consideration how this instinctive understanding, this rational soul, began to operate in more or less the same way in the 7th or 8th century B.C., how this understanding molded Greek history, Roman history, Roman law, Roman politics. Thus everything can be grasped only in the light of this instinctive kind of understanding. And we can comprehend what begins to happen around the middle of the 15th century, what is suddenly different in what takes place, only if we know that at that time the consciousness soul began to work.

The consciousness soul has a quite different relationship to reality, for it does not work instinctively from within, but makes the human being think and consider, drawing conclusions and proceeding purely intellectually. It is in this age that we live today. And what we have to study, and what can be observed in every detail, is what this consciousness soul brings to the very foundations of the soul. For the soul life comes to expression quite differently in such people as the Italian or Spanish who still have much that belongs to an older heritage, from such people as the British who have been particularly attracted to the material aspects of life by their geographical situation in evolving the consciousness soul. It is different again in Eastern Europe where there is no natural tendency for the consciousness soul to evolve, where today the evolution of the consciousness soul is slept through. And it is only in the age that will follow this present age of the consciousness soul that those who today are the Russian people will be ready to evolve their particular kind of soul which at the moment cannot be observed at all with the ordinary senses in the people who live in the east of Europe. Today it is imperative to acquire a deeper understanding for what is happening all over the earth. And also a deeper understanding is needed for what is taking place in the individual human being, inasmuch as he belongs to the great dream of history that can be understood only when we can call forth something from the dreaming human soul that cannot be approached with our normal observation: that from the 7th, 8th century until the 14th, 15th century instinctive willing and understanding evolved, and that a great change then comes about, under whose influence we now stand. This is one example.

I will cite another example. At a place such as this, where I have spoken for so many years, I will not shrink from describing the findings of the science of spirit quite concretely for the simple reason that we would not make any progress with the science of spirit if we did not gradually proceed to a description of concrete events.

Normally history draws only upon ordinary observation and ordinary documents for its study of earlier epochs. As I have said previously, the spiritual scientific method is based upon a particular development of powers slumbering in the human soul. It was explained how the soul is led to perceive spheres of life that never manifest themselves in the soul in normal life. Then was shown how the soul can free itself from the body, how it can then pursue knowledge independently of the body. Then the soul begins to utilize forces which, it is true, are present in normal life, but which remain in a slumbering state in the subconscious, the unconscious. Man's real life cannot be grasped by our ordinary powers of knowledge.

Let us take an ordinary phenomenon, but one which leads us deeply into the mysteries of human life, even of ordinary, everyday life. Let us take the fact that we can learn something by heart. In this way we can study how the human memory behaves. Now people usually believe that we master a mental image of what we take in, that we then have it in our consciousness and after a time it rises up again out of consciousness. This superstition is taught by countless psychologists. This is supposed to be science, this superstition that the ideas that we take in wander down into some indefinite sphere, wander about in the unconscious part of the soul, and that when need them they rise up again and appear as memory images. Such a view can only come about because no one has learned how to observe the real life of the soul. In fact, what happens is quite different. At the time we take in a mental image there is in our consciousness only the fact of this taking in. Parallel with this activity is another of quite a different nature that remains unconscious, that slips into the human organization and is responsible for something happening that is quite different from the formation of the mental image. This activity that takes place parallel with the formation of the image is unconscious. The memory is developed unconsciously. Now we have taken in new images. The parallel activity has functioned.

You can get a rough idea of what it is like—the time is too short to provide further proof—by remembering what it is like yourselves. Think of all the various other things you have had to do when learning a poem by heart or when trying to remember things for exams when you really have to cram,—think of all the things you have to do apart from taking in the image in order that the thing sticks! With our consciousness we try to support what happens unconsciously. There is really a parallel activity, and when people strike their foreheads when cramming themselves with what they have to remember, it is all a support for this unconscious activity. The mental image that we take in does not remain; it is temporary. What exists down below and is shaped and prepared there is something that we can perceive inwardly just as we can perceive things outwardly—the mental image is formed anew, it is something different from the original one.

Every time we use our memory the mental image has to be formed anew according to the inner copy. This is the true state of affairs. But the activity on which the memory rests, remains unconscious. Supposing it is drawn up into the consciousness so that we work in it and do consciously what otherwise takes place subconsciously in the parallel activity of forming images,—what have we then? It is the same power that is used when we apply imaginative knowledge. It forms the organism. We penetrate below the thresh-hold of consciousness, we penetrate to a sphere that we constantly exercise in life, but which remains unconscious. And we can always penetrate even deeper. The money then expands. We then acquire the possibility—and here I have to make a rather big leap because I have still to describe further findings—of following historical evolution from a purely spiritual viewpoint and of acquiring insight into the meaning and into the forces existing over the whole earth that carry the evolution of humanity. A number of laws are then revealed that go far beyond that ordinary observation can provide, but which for the first time raise what the human being sleeps and dreams through in his normal historical evolution, into consciousness.

The science of spirit, working with imagination, inspiration and intuition, can reach further back through the expansion of our memory into the memory of humanity so that we are really able to perceive what humanity has experienced. This can come about through the continuation of our own memory. It is true that it is much more difficult to do this than any other kind of scientific work—because we are ourselves deeply involved in it. Then we are able to reach back into earlier epochs of human evolution than the one I have just mentioned, which began in the 7th, 8th century B.C. and continued until the 15th century. We reach back into earlier times than this, into the time which followed what geology calls the ice age and by many geologists is called the flood. We must think of this as having taken place earlier than is normally believed—we go back thousands of years. What we come to then is not an ape-like humanity—this is a scientific superstition—but to a humanity whose soul constitution is quite different to today's. Allow me for once to risk describing in public a finding of the science of spirit. One must approach the science of the spirit without bias if one is not to regard its findings as merely fantastic. We reach back into an ancient epoch of earth evolution, about which we may say the following:

If we look at a human being and observe how he evolves, we see that what has to do with his bodily development takes place in the first years of childhood and in the later years of childhood up to puberty. And if we look still further we note that what develops in our souls goes hand in hand with our bodily development, right into the twenties. But then it stops. Our soul development no longer participates in this bodily development as it does with a child at the change of teeth, in growing and at puberty. The body and the soul then go their own separate ways. This is typical of our development from between the 25th and 30th years until old age—our souls no longer participate in what is developing in the body.

This was quite different in the first age that I will now describe, and which reaches back thousands of years. At that time the soul remained connected with the development taking place in the body until old age. The soul participated in this development right into the fifties and in the decline of the body in a way that today only happens in our childhood years. Because of this, the human being was able to experience something that he can no longer experience. As a matter of course we no longer experience in our souls the decline of our bodily organism. We are already withdrawn from our bodies. What happens in the soul comes to expression in our cultural life, where the soul is no longer dependent upon the bodily organism. At that time in Asia and India the soul-spirit life remained dependent on the life of the physical body until the fifties. This was quite a different kind of experience.

Then came the next epoch of historical evolution, when the dependence did not last so long, for at that time the soul's participation in the life of the body lasted until the forties. Then there was a further epoch when this participation lasted until the middle of the thirties. Here something quite special happened, which was still experienced by the old Egyptians and Chaldeans. And this was, that because the human being begins to decline in the life of the body after the age of 35, they were still able to experience this decline in their souls. Then this age came to an end, which was followed by the age I have already mentioned: the age of Greece and Rome, the effects of which lasted into the 15th century. In their soul life at that time people still remained more or less participants in the life of the body at least into their thirties. No one believes this today because no one really studies with inner personal interest what has come into being through the evolution of humanity. Since the 14th, 15th centuries the age has begun when the human being participates with his bodily life in the spirit-soul life until the end of the twenties. We no longer experience what the decline of human life is. In Greek and Latin times the beginning of the thirties was experienced within the instinctive understanding. At the present time this participation of the bodily life is concluded at the end of the twenties.

You can see that this is a remarkable law of history! As far as soul experience is concerned the age is progressively reduced, its final experience of the body is connected with an ever younger age. This is one of the most comprehensive and important laws of human evolution. Whereas the individual human being always grows older, humanity—if you now carry what I have just said to its logical conclusion—in its experience of the body, becomes younger. This means that it does not experience growing old as a reflex feeling in the soul; it only experiences its effect. But what the soul actually experienced in earlier times was quite different. It had something which enabled a person to look directly into the spiritual world by means of his instinctive knowledge. This must now be achieved again by humanity, only consciously. We have to learn to look into a sphere that cannot be perceived because today humanity can only experience what the body produces up to the age of 27.

I realize it is probably a bit much to speak about this growing younger of humanity, about the non-participation of the soul-spirit in the life of the body. But it does form the beginning of a true knowledge of history. For this true knowledge of history will be concerned with what is otherwise slept through, and we shall be able to understand properly what happens in history when we are able to appreciate such great, all-embracing laws.

I may be permitted to mention a personal experience. Those who have often heard me speak know that I mention personal experiences only if there is a particular reason to do so. It was because I directed my spiritual investigation to such matters that I came to know about what I have just told you—the growing younger of humanity and the influence on humanity due to the fact that the soul-spirit nature only experiences the life of the body in our younger years. That is how I found out about it. And I am quite convinced that anyone else applying the method of the science of spirit will find a law of history, though not of the kind that I characterized at the beginning of the lecture. And so I asked: How old was humanity then in the Greek age in its participation in the life of the body? At that time it continued until the beginning of the thirties. This was a tremendous change. For it is at this age that the human being enters upon a declining development. And in earlier times when he noticed this decline of the body he was granted a special form of spirituality. We study this spirituality when we study ancient wisdom and learning.

I have said that thinking is connected with a declining development. When the soul shared to a very large extent in the declining development of the body, it evolved a particular wisdom. This wisdom became lost in the age which began in the 7th century B.C. and ended in the 15th century. This age—inasmuch as we are interested in it and are still in it—represents the middle of evolution. If a new impulse had not arisen at that time there would have been the threat of a total break in our spiritual connection to the universe. The impulse came. When studying this growing younger of humanity I certainly did not think about such an impulse. That came later, and it belongs to one of the most shattering findings of the science of spirit.

I could see that the general course of human evolution had brought humanity to a crisis where its connection with the spiritual was threatened. What happened in this crisis?—I first came upon it after having found out about its origin. This is important, and I must single it out as a personal experience. I was shown the significance of the Mystery of Golgotha that occurred just in this age: the new impulse that gave humanity a fresh impetus. The Mystery of Golgotha thus finds its place in the historical evolution of humanity in a wonderful way.

Only for special reasons would I ever break what is expressed in the law that one should not use the name of God in vain. The science of spirit certainly leads to the great religious impulses, but I regard it as a duty to allow religious impulses to be cultivated by those who are called to do so. However, I know that what is achieved by the science of spirit also deepens the religious impulses of the human soul. It is precisely the thoughts presented by the science of spirit that can provide a really Christian view of life. But you cannot get people to accept this. They would only reproach us if they found that we have constantly to speak about the great religious content of evolution in a way that does not please them. They also reproach us if we do not do this because we leave it to them, knowing full well that by occupying ourselves with the science of spirit the religious life will certainly be deepened. For they say that the science of spirit, of course, does not talk about Christianity. These are the misunderstandings which are readily thrust into the battle against the science of spirit. We are reproached for whatever we say. If we do not speak about something because we feel that others are called to do this, we are then misunderstood and told that the science of spirit has no Christianity, or whatever it may be.

As I have said, the fact that this event concerning the whole cosmic connections of the universe happens at one particular moment in the evolution of humanity, belongs to the most shattering things that we can experience, especially since in my case—if you will allow me this personal remark—it was an experience quite unsought for.

I only wanted to indicate to you the beginning of a view of world evolution as seen by the science of spirit.

The forces that seek to penetrate more deeply into history have been divined instinctively, especially in our central European evolution. We only have to ask: How does the individual soul participate in this historical evolution? I have mentioned previously how in looking at thinking on the one hand and at the will on the other, we bring to expression in the overdevelopment of the sexual organism something that leads our spiritual-scientific observation to the eternal in the soul, to that which exists in the spiritual world before birth or conception, and which enters through the gate of death. This also leads to something else. The part of us that unites with our physical organism and that comes down from the spiritual world when we are conceived, when we are born, is intimately related—I have already said this today—to the part of us that operates throughout the whole course of our lives and makes us into complete and living human beings, intimately related to what works out of our souls as memory. If we now grasp not only the fact that the thinking can be conceived as inspiration, but also grasp the element that unites with our bodily organism, that flows out of inspiration and accompanies our memory and our growth, then we find that we not only emerge from a spirit-soul existence before beginning this bodily life, and which is united to what we evolve in life, but that within the part of us that goes through death is contained the desire to enter a human life again after the soul has been through a purely spiritual life, and that within this part of us is to be found not only what inspires us, but forms us, which not only comes from a spirit-soul existence before birth, but comes from previous incarnations upon earth.

Imagination, inspiration and intuition provide us with a true idea of previous lives on earth and a justified prospect of future lives on earth. I can only touch upon this for there is insufficient time for a more detailed description. But when we look at individual human life as it proceeds through repeated existences upon earth, we find something in historical evolution that can be grasped concretely. The human being naturally takes part in the various epochs I have described. He lives through the various cultures of the earth and he bears himself as soul from one epoch to the next, taking with him what he has evolved.

In the present epoch, when the consciousness soul is evolved, the human being unconsciously brings with him what he possesses from the previous epoch in which he once lived, and in which the instinctive soul worked instinctively in the understanding, and he now works upon this. Now we can fully grasp what this dream of history consists of, how human souls that live in each epoch work together and return again and again. This idea arose instinctively in the cultural life of Central Europe. But it has never been developed. The science of spirit is called upon to do this.

The pedants or “very clever people”—and I mention this in inverted commas—say: Of course, Lessing managed some wonderful things, but then he grew old and wrote his Education of the Human Race. If one has the necessary mean attitude, it is easy to be so very clever, much easier than being able to penetrate the mysteries of human life as did Lessing. Lessing achieved something immense. He indicated, if only in somewhat amateur fashion, how inner forces guide the evolution of man and of humanity. He says: There was once a time when human beings were educated in a quite particular way. Then there was a time when people were educated differently. Now is the time when self-education begins.—He had a feeling for the successive epochs, just as Karl Lamprecht had. Lessing had a feeling for even more in that he pointed out that the forces of one epoch are taken over into the following epochs by the human souls constantly reincarnating.

Of course it is easy to object to this by saying that human souls do not remember their previous lives. This is the same as saying that a four year old child cannot do arithmetic, therefore the human being cannot do arithmetic. Memory of earlier lives has first to be gained through the kind of knowledge I have referred to previously. Without this knowledge it is not possible to penetrate the sphere that is dreamed as history. This is something that humanity must grasp, for it is intimately connected with the present evolution of humanity.

Tremendous questions are presented to our souls today. One question is: What is the constitution of the human soul like in the east, in our center and in the west? We possess a science of history which, as we saw at the beginning, has gone quite astray. We need a science of history that can penetrate to those deeper forces of the human soul which bring what otherwise only dreams and sleeps, into our consciousness. When imagination and inspiration reach down into our experience of history that otherwise sleeps, we shall realize what it is that works between man and man in our social existence. Then quite different social laws will come into being from the ones of the past few centuries. What then emerges will be quite equal to the demands of life, the demands of reality. People experience history today in an odd way, and in conclusion I would like to give a few examples of this.

A certain J. H. Lambert was born in a South German city in the 18th century. In the 19th century, roughly in the middle of the forties, a monument was erected to him in that city. On the monument is a celestial globe as a sign that this man penetrated the laws of the heavens, as these things were done in the 18th century. Not much is known about this. He penetrated further than is possible with the Kant-Laplace theory. In the 1840's his native city erected a monument to him. A hundred years earlier his father, after several people had pointed out to him that his fourteen year old son was very talented and should be supported, applied for support. The worthy city gave 40 franks, but on condition that the son take himself off and did not return. A hundred years later—such is the course of history—a monument was erected.

Such things happen again and again. You may remember at the beginning of the war, particularly here in this city, I often had occasion to refer to a most significant thinker who once lived here, Karl Christian Planck. I referred to him at that time and had also spoken of him much earlier in my books. Now we see that people begin to take note of him, but not in the way that I meant. If Planck were alive today in conditions that are quite changed, he would express what he said, even in the 1880's, quite differently. Humanity can make use only of what is ardently experienced of reality, and not of what comes from looking back. Because people believe we need a new impetus, they think that a highly gifted and thoughtful person would say the same things today as he said in the 1880's. We honor the memory of such people if we continue to work in their spirit, and if we ask: How would they speak today if they were to speak out of the great spirit out of which they spoke then?

Today the times demand that we grasp what underlies the evolution of humanity, particularly concerning history. Then we shall not hear judgments like those I quoted at the beginning of the lecture. Nor will vague prophecies be uttered. But history will be described in such a way that we confront reality with feeling, which otherwise is only dissipated in dreams; that we confront reality with deeper forces, that we are equal to the demands made upon us. And the demands of the present time are tremendous.

We must know what is stirring in humanity from east to west, what is coming out in the events of today. We must be equal to this reality that is hammering so dreadfully upon our doors. We must take up the laws of history that are not contained in the laws today, laws that penetrate deeper than the purely intellectual, than the kind of understanding that has produced such great results in science, but which cannot grasp the social, political, historical and moral life of man. Goethe felt this. He not only expressed his impressions of the historical knowledge of his time, but he also expressed something that should come to be. What made an impression upon him was the best thing about history is not its abstract laws but the impulses that penetrate into our feelings and our enthusiasm.

By means of imagination, inspiration and intuition it will be possible to unveil what men sleep through. This will sink down into our feelings and enthusiasm. When reality draws toward us and we can approach reality, inwardly permeated by these impulses, we shall not utter prophetic or vaguely mystical statements, but in future our study of history will result in the fashioning of spiritual laws, not such as it has already, but laws which penetrate the human soul to the point of arousing enthusiasm which is equal to and can tackle the situation as it really is.

Not only is what Goethe said at that time true—what can be said today is also true. For today the following holds good: History must generate enthusiasm for the true, real and complete understanding of reality, for it is the best that can be offered to the life of the soul.

The most valuable aspect of history in the future will be the enthusiasm that it generates in the human soul.