The Rudolf Steiner Archive

It is strange that history became a science during a time that was really least suitable for this. You can see this if you look more closely. My position will therefore be somewhat different today from the way it was the day before yesterday, when I wanted to establish links between anthroposophy and psychology. With psychology it was a matter of extending the area of natural scientific thinking to the phenomena of the psyche at a time when the more recent way of scientific thinking entered into human evolution. It was a matter of covering a field of phenomena relating to the psyche which had been considered in a different way before. The reason was that many people who were particularly involved in working in the sciences gained the impression, quite rightly so, that the spirit which prevails in modern scientific research was the only truly scientific one.

Now we have to say that when the modern scientific method is applied to psychology it is certainly brought to bear on something which is given. A true psychology may have to find completely different ways of investigation, as we have seen, but the object of research is given directly in the human being even where the modern scientific method is applied to psychology.

This would seem to be very different in the science of history. If attention is drawn to the facts that need to be considered here, facts we might almost call paradoxical, consideration must be given to something that is relatively little known or considered, which is that the science of history, as it is called, is of fairly recent origin. In the 18th century, those who developed and represented the concept of science certainly did not accept history as a science. The science of history is essentially a 19th century creation. It thus arose at a time when scientific methods had come to be acknowledged as having reached a high point in their development. 18th century people did not see history the way we do today. Let me refer to a typical statement that the German philosopher Christian von Wolff made in the 18th century. One could cite many others to show that at the time scientists considered history to be the recording of events but not something that deserved to be called a science. Wolff wrote: ‘As historical works merely narrate what happened, it does not need much intellect and reflection to read them.’²⁷ Methods of explanation, to put historical events in some order that made sense really, only came to be used to any greater extent in the course of the 19th century.

Among those who had come to be more and more immersed in the modern scientific way of thinking, it was Fritz Mauthner who in his big dictionary of philosophy expressed the opinion that the nature of history is such that it cannot be a science in the most radical terms. The article on history in this work is written very much from the point of view that ‘science’ is only possible in the study of the natural world. Reading it you find that the study of what we call ‘history’ is firmly said to be no science, and that it is even considered a paradox that, seeing that the methods developed in natural science were highly specific, history was to be called a science as well.

So far as people who think in the modern scientific way are concerned, one of the main premises on which they base their ideas as to what science is does not apply. What is the natural scientist’s aim in his investigations? He mainly wants to establish such a configuration of the conditions under which a natural phenomenon occurs that the natural event follows from this and he will be able to say: If conditions are similar or identical, the same phenomena must recur.

This focus on the repeatability of phenomena is particularly important to modern scientific thinkers. In their view a proper experiment must be such that one is, in a way, able to predict the results one is going to see under specific natural conditions.

Now we might indeed say that when such demands are made on history as a science, it is bound to fare badly. Let me give just a few examples. A strange view developed recently among people who wanted to think in historical terms, and it was refuted in a strange way, I would say in a highly realistic way. People who thought they had a degree of profound historical insight into social and economic situations developed the view—especially so at the beginning of the present war—that under the present economic and social conditions the war certainly could not last longer than four to six months at the most. The facts have radically disproved their assumption! Many people believed it to be a view with a solid foundation in science. How often do we hear, when people consider present events that are important in the life of humanity and which they therefore want to evaluate: ‘History teaches this, or that, about these events.’ People consider the events, want to form an opinion as to how they should relate to them, how they should think about the possible outcome; and you then hear people who have done some study of history say: ‘History teaches this or that!’ How often do we hear these words today in the face of the profoundly disturbing, tragic events that have come into human evolution. Well, if history teaches what those people think it teaches, namely that it will be impossible for these events to continue for more than four or six months, we can say that this knowledge drawn from history is strangely contradicted by the facts.

Another example, perhaps no less typical, is the following. A person who is certainly not without significance became professor of history in 1789. It was a time which we might call the dawn of historical studies. Schiller started to teach history in Jena in 1789. He gave his famous inaugural address on the philosophical and the external mechanistic approach to historical events.²⁸ In the course of this address he said a strange thing, something he believed he had concluded from a philosophical approach to human history. He believed he had developed a view on what we can ‘learn from history’, saying: ‘The community of European states appear to have become one large family; sharing the same house they may bear malice towards one another, but one hopes they will no longer tear each other limb from limb.’ This was a ‘historical opinion’ given in 1789 by someone who had certainly made a name for himself. There followed the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars! And if the lessons history had to teach had been learned, we’d also have to consider the present time in wanting to verify the statement that the European states may bear malice towards one another but will no longer tear each other limb from limb! Again a strange refutation of what people meant when they said that we can learn from history in order to form an opinion on present or future events. It is possible to give countless instances of what is suggested here. This is the one thing people say.

The other is that history, the course of events, must be ‘scientifically penetrated’ from all possible points of view. Did the 19th century really fare well with these methods? People who thought of applying strict scientific methods to history would no doubt be least satisfied when they came to ask themselves if proved useful in any way to apply methods that have their full justification in natural science to historical developments, so that they might be considered ‘in the light of a science’.

We merely need to consider a few things. It will not be possible today—for it is certainly not my aim to criticize the science of history as such today—to go into every detail of the attempts that have been made to develop a method for history. There is the view that it is great men who make history; then the view that the great have been given their character and their powers by their environment. Another view is that historical facts can only be understood if we consider the economic and cultural background, thus letting events in human history emerge from that background, and so on.

Some examples of attempts to approach history with the way of thinking that has proved its value in natural science may serve to show how the attempt has really—well, if not failed completely at least given no satisfactory results. To start somewhere, let us take Herbert Spencer’s²⁹ attempt to apply the modern scientific approach to the evolution of human history. Spencer wanted to penetrate the whole of world evolution and the existing world with the thinking developed in natural science. He made a surprising discovery. He knew that the individual organism, a human organism, for instance, but also the organism of higher animals, develops from three elements of a cell—ectoderm, endoderm and mesoderm. Three elements or parts of a cell, therefore, from which the organism develops.

Herbert Spencer saw a similar process in the organism of evolving humanity, as it were. He assumed that different organic systems would develop from these elements as the historical organism of humanity evolves, just as the organic systems of the human body develop from the three elements of the cell. Spencer said that in the historical organism, too, you have something like an ectoderm, an endoderm and a mesoderm. This English philosopher developed the unusual view that in the historical evolution of humanity the warrior people, anything warlike in the world, developed from the ‘ectoderm’; peace-loving, working people from the ‘endoderm’ and the traders from the ‘mesoderm’. A ‘historical organism’ thus evolved from the interaction of these three kinds of people. According to Herbert Spencer, the most perfect community organism develops from the ‘ectoderm’ in the course of history; this is because the nervous system develops from the ectoderm in the human organism. This English philosopher thus saw the warrior class, the military element in a state, as developing from the ‘ectoderm’, analogous to the element that holds the potential for developing the nervous system in the individual human organism, and to his mind the most perfect country was the one that had the best developed warrior class. Just as the brain derives from the nervous system which derived from the ectoderm, so Herbert Spencer said that in a community the ruling class should come entirely from among the warriors. I merely want to mention this strange approach, and in view of the current situation make no further critical comments on Herbert Spencer’s militaristic theory concerning the historical evolution of society.

Another attempt at bringing ideas taken from natural science into the study of history was made by Auguste Comte³⁰—I am limiting myself to the leading thinkers. He attempted to apply the laws of mechanics, of statics and dynamics, to developments in human history. Relationships between individual elements in a social system were considered under the heading of ‘historical statics’, whilst changes, movements or progression came under the heading of ‘historical dynamics’.

Many more such examples could be given. Taking a critical look at these and many other attempts it can be shown that it is hardly possible to get satisfactory results by transferring scientific ways of thinking, which are strictly controlled in their own fields, to a study of historical developments.

Individuals who lived in the dawn, we might say, of historical studies tried to bring something like explanatory principles to the subject. We only have to think of one of the most magnificent attempts from that period. It was made by Lessing in his famous small book, written when he was at the height of his mental powers.³¹ His attempt is particularly interesting because he tried to approach historical developments not in a natural scientific way but by using the concept of education, something, therefore, that also has an element of mind and spirit in it. Lessing thought that successive historical events could only be understood if one saw the way humanity lived in the progress of history as an education governed by historical powers that were active behind the developments we are able to perceive.

And it is interesting to see how Lessing established cohesion among successive historical phenomena. It was precisely because of the way he established this that people would say: ‘Ah well, Lessing was a great man, but he was past his best when he wrote his treatise on the education of the human race.’ This was because he tried to make the succession of historical events a kind of inner event, at least in theory to begin with. This led to the idea of repeated lives on earth for the human soul. He looked back into past periods of history and said: ‘The people who are alive today have lived many times before; in their souls they bring into this period the things they have taken up in earlier periods. The impulse which runs through historical evolution is something which lies in human souls.’

Taking this first of all as a hypothesis, we might at any rate say that infinitely many things in human evolution that would otherwise be riddles can be illuminated, even if only hypothetically, if we assume that human souls themselves take historical impulses from one period of history to the next. What has been a tissue of historical developments lacking in cohesion will then suddenly show itself to be a cohesive whole. This is the only way in which we can hope that individual historical data are no longer just there, side by side, but can truly be seen to arise one from the other, for we now have the principle that makes the one arise from the other.

The view Lessing expressed in his small book has not really been taken up, the reason being that the age of modern science was coming to its peak. For reasons which will be shown in the next lecture, people really had to be against the theory of repeated lives on earth in this age of modern science, and in this particular sphere it was quite right to be against it.

And so it happened that all kinds of attempts were made in the course of the 19th century. You need only think of Hegel’s attempt to see the whole of historical evolution as progressive awareness of human freedom, and so on.³² We could refer to hundreds of attempts, showing that people tried over and over again to bring explanatory principles into historical evolution and thus make history into a science. There were, of course, also people like Schopenhauer, for example, who believed that nothing repeated itself in history, so that one could not speak of a science. History, he said, could only refer to successive data but there were no impulses in history that might serve as explanatory principles as is the case with the facts on which the laws of nature are based.³³

The powerful protest Friedrich Nietzsche made against history as such is still fresh in our minds. He spoke of ‘historicism’, meaning the acquisition not of the ideas of history but of a historical way of thinking, acquiring a way of thinking where people insist on ‘what history establishes’, wanting to work with this in their souls. In his view historicism sucks the soul dry, as it were, whilst there is need for the human soul to be productive and active in the present time, dealing with events as they come in a fruitful way. For Nietzsche, therefore, someone who only felt historical impulses was rather like a creature that must always go without sleep, which would mean that it could never bring fruitful vital energies into its development but would always only be consumed and worn down by something as destructive and enervating as living in historicism. Nietzsche’s treatise on history’s benefits and disadvantages in life is one of the most significant works to have arisen from his whole way of thinking.³⁴

These introductory words should merely serve to demonstrate how much the idea of history as a science is in dispute today, from all kinds of directions, and is so to quite a different degree as yet than psychology is, for instance. The question which must arise from all this is: Where do such things come from? On the premises on which the anthroposophically orientated science of the spirit is based we have to say: Because initially attention was not directed to the important fundamental question: What aspect of the human being are we concerned with when we speak of historical developments? Which part of the human being is involved in these historical developments? To answer the question we will need to look at the nature of the human being from the anthroposophical point of view, for this essential nature goes much further than our ordinary conscious mind is able to encompass.

My starting point—you’ll see later why I have chosen it—will be a look at the inner life of the human being and the rhythmical way in which it again and again goes out of our ordinary state of conscious awareness. We must allow that state of conscious awareness to alternate with the sleep state. We’ll be considering the subject in more detail when we come to consider the natural world from the spiritual scientific point of view in the next lecture. Today I merely want to refer to the aspects that can provide a basis for the study of history.

When sleep comes in the inner life, our conscious awareness is reduced to a level where we may almost speak of unconsciousness, though to someone able to observe this exactly, we are certainly not completely unconscious in our sleep. The world of sensory perceptions we have in full daytime conscious awareness and our world of feelings and active will come to a halt, they go down into the darkness of unconscious or subconscious life. Between the two states—waking and sleeping—lies the dream state.

This dream state is something most remarkable. 19th century philosophers tried to apply their minds, more used to natural science, to penetrating the nature of this mysterious dream world, which rises from the unconscious sleep state and is so very different from the experiences we gain in the world in our ordinary state of consciousness. The philosopher Johannes Volkelt, for instance, who wrote a book on dream fantasies³⁵ in the 1870s, left the issue untouched as though it were a hot coal which one may pick up, only to drop it again immediately. Critics writing about his book who decided to take the matter seriously were actually accused of spiritualism.³⁶ It is amazing what things people can be accused of!

What is the nature of this dream world which rises from the depths of our sleep? What are those images that move and flow in our dreams? The question can really only be discussed if one has the level of conscious awareness of which I spoke the day before yesterday. Someone who progresses from ordinary conscious awareness to being able to gain insight in images, through inspiration and intuition, that is, someone who truly is able to let his soul be out of the body and live wholly in the world of the spirit, will be able to have insight into what happens in the human soul when it lives in dream images. I can, of course, only give a general idea today, referring to some of the results obtained in the science of the spirit. To take this further you will need to have recourse to my books.

Studying dream life with the methods we have been considering here you come to realize that the sphere in which the inner life finds itself during sleep—from going to sleep to waking up again—is indeed separate from our life in a physical body. This is something one gets to know with spiritual scientific methods. You come to know the condition of the soul when it is out of the body. We are therefore able to compare life in dream images to this state of being out of the body which can be scientifically investigated. And we then find that a dream is really much more of a composite than we tend to think.

Anything that lives in the soul when it is dreaming has nothing to do with our present time the way our waking daily life has to do with the present time. They are something which is developing in our organism, in the whole of our essential human nature, like a small seed in a growing plant. The seed developing in the plant is the physical cause of the next plant. Wrapped up in our dream images—if I may put it like that—something emerges from the dim depths of sleep in the human soul which is not physical but is the foundation in soul and spirit for the part of us that will go through the gates of death, entering into the spiritual world to live through a life between death and rebirth before it appears again.

This seed is weak, however, so weak that it does not find its inner content out of its own inherent powers. It therefore only contains things that relate to reminiscences, echoes of the world we have lived through in the present or in the past. Spiritual scientific investigation of dream life shows that as with many things, the feeling people have, though it may be superstitious, that the future may often be revealed in dreams, is indeed a truth which they can sense, yet it is also a dangerous superstition. It is dangerous because the soul as it develops for the future, that is, the eternal in our soul, actually lives in our dreams. We may have a feeling that the element in us which is dreaming may not hold the idea of, but certainly the living potential for, the future of the human being. The content of the dream is taken from reminiscences and so on which are interwoven in a chaotic way. It is therefore superstition to want to interpret the contents of a dream in any other way than by the spiritual scientific approach, yet we have to say that the principle in us which is dreaming does indeed have to do with the eternal nature of the human soul. It is therefore only the content of dream life which makes us cherish illusions.

Progressing from ordinary awareness to the awareness I called vision, we come to insights in images, to inspirations. With the contents of a mind that is gaining insight in visions we are in a world of the spirit. This is the world in which the soul lives when it is out of the body and dreaming. But it is there in a childlike way, I’d say, in a way that is not yet perfect. It is present in that world the way the seed is in the plant as the potential for the next plant. Through vision in images and inspiration a world shows itself to us in which the dreaming soul is also at home.

People usually think human beings dream only when they are asleep. This is the kind of error that must inevitably arise when one develops one’s ideas only in relation to the world outside the human being. But it is an error, an illusion. People who think more deeply, Kant among them,³⁷ have had some idea that the principle present in the soul in sleep and in dreams is there not only in sleep and in dreams but is present throughout life. When we wake up, part of our inner life does indeed enter into the realm where the concepts based on observations made by the physical senses are present. We are wholly taken up with these, giving them our attention, for it is like a powerful light that outshines everything else that lives in the soul. We see it as the only content of the mind in daytime waking consciousness, as it were. But that is an error. Whilst these contents fill our minds, other contents that are entirely the same as the dreams that emerge from sleep during the night live on in the subconscious depths of the soul. We dream on whilst awake, but are not aware that we are dreaming. And though it may sound odd, the following is also true: We do not only dream on; we also sleep on. In the waking state, our conscious mind is thus at three levels—up above, at the surface, as it were, waking daytime consciousness, down below, in the subconscious, an undercurrent of continuous dreaming; and still deeper down we go on sleeping.

We can also state with reference to what we dream and with reference to what we sleep! We dream with regard to everything that does not come to mind in ideas or in concepts that can be clearly stated, but is discharged in us as feeling. Feelings or emotions do not arise from a fully conscious, waking conscious state of mind; they rise up in us from a world where all is dream. It is not right to say that emotions arise from the interaction of ideas. Quite the contrary. Our ideas are filled with something that rises up from a deeper inner life where we dream on whilst in the waking state. Our passions and affects also rise from a life of waking dreams, though the fully conscious life of the mind makes this invisible. And our impulses of will continue to be such an enigma in the way they well forth from the inner life because they come from depths of soul where we are asleep even when we are in the waking state.

Our fully conscious ideas thus develop in waking consciousness up above; our feelings are like waves lapping up from a subconscious state, a daytime dream life; and our impulses of will rise up from a sleep life. The significance this has for the development of ideas in the sphere of social life and of rights, of ethical ideas, and the significance it has when it comes to freedom of will is something we will be considering in the last lecture.

Today the emphasis will be on something else, however. Some sharp minds have realized that we will never be able to explain passions, for example, unless we first seek an explanation for the dream world. Passions, even the best and noblest of them, only live in human beings because they dream even when awake, and what people dream does not come to conscious awareness but laps up into it from the region where dreaming takes place.

One feels some hesitation in the present-day climate in speaking about another finding made in the science of the spirit. It does rather go against accepted views, but then it is also a fact that many developments in science were initially controversial. They ultimately won through. Thus the Copernican view of the universe only came to be accepted by a certain element in our culture in 1822.³⁸ Perhaps the science of the spirit, or anthroposophy, may also have to wait a long time to gain recognition, this time not by that particular element but by modern scientists.

What is really going on, if we study the river of human life, cannot be reached with the concepts we go through in the waking mind, for it does not live there. It may sound controversial, but the impulses that billow and move in history are only dreamt by human beings. The principle that drives history is no more lucid than a dream in the human soul, nothing else. It is perfectly scientific to speak of the dream of evolution. We can see this clearly once we come to realize that it needs the capacity for perceptive vision to gain insight into the actual impulses that drive history. We need to penetrate those impulses with living research based on vision in images and on inspiration. The human being is part of history and plays a role in it. We are therefore dealing with something that cannot be observed in a way that allows concepts to be developed which are like the concepts we use in modern science. We are dealing with concepts that really only come to ordinary conscious awareness out of our dreams.

It would be easy to raise the objection that the science of the spirit lives out of fantasies, attributing important impulses to the products of sheer fantasy and indeed dreams. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that may well be so, but if the reality is something that must live as a dream in the human soul, we have to go and find this reality in the actual sphere where it can be perceived.

The objection which people who are dedicated to the thinking used in natural science have raised against considering history a science has in fact been that one is dealing with isolated facts in history but would never be able to understand what a historical fact actually is, and that one could not get the kind of clear picture of it which one does with the facts of nature, facts on which natural science is based.

This is perfectly correct, also from the point of view of spiritual science; but we need to take a much deeper view in spiritual science. We would first of all say: If you consider what historical impulses really are, they are not given if you direct your usual rational mind to them, an mind relating to facts in the physical world. Historical facts are only given if we direct image-based and inspired perception to nonphysical impulses that are not to be found in the facts of the physical world.

The insights brought to human awareness through the science of the spirit did not, however, arise entirely out of nothing in more recent times. People who have been wrestling with problems of gaining insight and have gone through inner dramas in the process, have already had to turn their attention, even if only for brief moments, to the things that are now given system and order in the science of the spirit. Again I could give many examples of how one individual or another has in a sense ‘divined’ one thing or another. One example which I have also given in the book³⁹ due to be published shortly is the following.

In lectures given in 1869 which have since been published,⁴⁰ the psychologist Carl Fortlage made a strange statement concerning the conscious mind and its connection with the phenomenon of death. He said: ‘If we call ourselves living creatures, ascribing a quality to ourselves which we share with animals and plants, we necessarily take the condition of being alive as one that never leaves us, continuing on in us whether we are asleep or awake. This is the vegetative life of nutrition in our organism, an unconscious life, a life of sleep. The brain is an exception in so far as during the intervals when we are awake this life of nutrition and sleep is dominated by the life of consumption. In those intervals the brain is exposed to a powerful process in which it is consumed. It therefore enters into a condition which would mean absolute debilitation or even death if it were to extend to all the other organs in the body.’

This is a magnificent flash of insight. Fortlage is saying no less than that if the processes that influence the human brain were to take hold of the rest of the body in full waking consciousness, they would destroy it. We are thus truly dealing with destructive processes in the human being when it comes to conditions relating to everyday conscious awareness. Fortlage had deep insight. He continued: ‘Conscious awareness is a lesser, partial death; death is a great, total state of conscious awareness, with the whole of our essential nature awakening in its inmost depths.’

Here we see the connection between death and conscious awareness intuited in a truly magnificent way. Fortlage knew that if we divide the event which happens once, when death comes upon us, into ‘atoms’, as it were, ‘atoms of time’ in this case, these ‘atoms’ would be the events that happen continually in our waking consciousness. In developing conscious awareness we develop an ‘atomistic’ dying process; death is the same process as the one which affects the brain at every moment of conscious awareness, only on a larger scale. For Fortlage, too, death thus was nothing but conscious awareness of the spiritual world awakening all at once. Conscious awareness is all the time killing us off in small steps, and this dying process is necessary for our ordinary daytime conscious awareness. So if we have a human being before us we can say—and Fortlage’s feeling is fully confirmed on the basis of spiritual science—that the element of soul and spirit in this person is really something that consumes and destroys him. The vegetative life he has will hold destruction at bay until death comes. Once death comes, we have on the large scale what develops slowly, atom by atom, we might say, in life. Death is always in us, but we also have the vitality that fights death in us, and the soul enters into this vitality.

If we therefore consider the individual, living human being who stands before us in his body, this body is an outcome of the inner life. We are going to consider this in more detail in the third lecture. We have death; but for as long as the vital energies are active, death is continually prevented from coming in. It might be said to be lurking behind the phenomena and is indeed an important element in life, for life would only be at plant level if death did not kill this life off all the time, with conscious awareness arising in the body exactly because of this.

Once we get to know this peculiar relationship which death has to the vital energies in the human body, our perceptive vision grows sufficiently clear to allow us to form an opinion and indeed find meaning in the course of historical events. Normally they are told in history the way they have happened in the world, which is how history is usually presented.

What do events, fact following fact in the world, actually represent? Again I have to say something that may sound highly controversial. The facts of history do not relate to their soul content—which human beings only dream in the process of historical evolution—the way a body does that bears death within it, but rather like a body that is already dead, with the soul outside it. This means that historical facts no longer have soul in them. In human life, death comes when life in the body has run its course. The soul had been present everywhere in bodily life and then the body is alone, without the soul element. When it comes to historical facts the whole organism is mere dead body, a dead outer form compared to the historical impulses that are alive and active from one age to the next. This can only be perceived if we do not focus on the external facts but on the living principle, which is so alive that we cannot derive it from outer facts.

Let me use an analogy to make this still clearer. Let us assume someone believes—many people do believe this—that he only has to understand the facts of history as clearly as possible, the way we understand the facts in natural science, and he will be able to produce a science of history from the succession of such historical insights. Someone who believes this is like one who—however strange this may sound—if he had a dead human body before him would believe he should be able to extract the life of the soul from it in some way. It is not in there! Nor do historical facts hold the soul of history in them. We perceive historical facts with the rational mind which is bound to sensory perception and evolves from it. Yet we only see what is dead in historical developments when we use the rational mind. Human beings can only penetrate into historical evolution with their common awareness when they are dreaming; they can only see through historical evolution, through the actual inner life of history with imaginative and inspired awareness. Because of this, all available historical facts can only be presented in anecdotes and accounts. It is really true what the great Jacob Burckhardt⁴¹ said: Philosophy is non-history, for philosophy sees one fact subordinate to another; and history is non-philosophy—this is the term he used—because it only has to do with coordination, with facts being put side by side.

This gives rise to a particular attitude in historical thinking. To arrive at truly historical thinking we must use the awareness in vision of spiritual science to gain a clear view of something which definitely can not be learned in the ordinary course of history, something which is there in the process but does not reveal itself at all in the external facts, just as the soul does not show itself in a dead body.

The question then is whether it is really possible to see, using imaginative and inspired insight, what truly lives in historical evolution. Well, having referred to so many peculiar things already, I will not hesitate to speak of some of the realities. One of them is the kind of vision which I characterized the day before yesterday and also dealt with in more detail in my books. With this vision, this imaginative, intuitive and inspired conscious awareness, we gain a view of human evolution that is to the external facts as the soul is to the dead human body. I want to speak in the most real terms possible, for I am after all giving an example.

When someone tries to enter into the things which the mind in its ordinary awareness only dreams of, he will above all be able to delimit the historical process by finding important nodal points in historical life, just as one also finds specific sections in the individual human organism. Children get their second teeth in about their seventh year; they reach puberty at about 14. We can record such nodal points in an individual human life if we consider human physiology. These important changes mean a great deal more in the science of the spirit than they do in ordinary physiology, a science that never comes to an end in its studies. Similar insights are gained in history if one considers it from the spiritual scientific point of view. Thus—now quite apart from external facts, but merely by considering what happens in the spirit—we find that there was a period in European history, and human history in general, that started in about the 8th century BC and came to a conclusion in the 15th century AD. Events between these two points in time form a whole, in a certain respect, just as the life of the child does from his seventh year, when he gets his second teeth, to the time when he reaches puberty. One can establish a whole there, until a change occurs that makes a greater difference in the human organism than the events that happened in between. In the same way we can say that such major changes occurred in the 8th century BC and in about the 15th century AD. Seen from the point of view of historical study based on the science of the spirit, the period between them seems to have had a specific nature, special characteristics with regard to the spiritual reality that lay behind historical facts. This made the period a whole if we consider history from the points of view of spiritual science, something that belongs together.

I can, of course, only mention some aspects. Characterizing such things on the basis of spiritual science one can discover all kinds of details, and indeed things as real as the realities you get if you follow the system of plants in botany, and so on. Let me just present some general aspects.

During that period the life of humanity in general—to perceive this we have to consider the inner life of human beings, leaving aside physical facts—was such that the mind was still working much more by instinct than it does today. Anything people did in full awareness was still much more also an action of the body; it was still much more closely bound up with the living body. The mind still worked more by instinct. If you study the different things said in my books⁴² you will find that the inner life is classified, if I may use this rather academic term, into the life of the sentient soul, which is at a very low level of consciousness, still almost unconscious; the rational or mind soul, which nevertheless works in such a way that its life does not develop in full conscious awareness but still has instinctive character; and then the spiritual soul, which has full conscious self-awareness of the I, emancipating the I from the life of the body, the rational mind being no longer instinctive but taking an independent, critical approach to things. The rational soul was especially active in the people of the period we are considering, that is, people living at the time when the Greek and then the Roman civilization was evolving. And the inner life of people at that time, which led to developments in social life, history, the sciences, the arts and religious life—all this took the course it did because the soul life was characteristically such that the rational mind was still acting by instinct.

These are the general principles, but we can see the truth of it in individual details. Inwardly, in the spirit, one can actually describe how the difference had to come. In Greece, the instinctive mental life developed more in the direction of the living body. Ancient Greeks would see the body as ensouled, and also understood the way in which such an ensouled body was part of social life. In Roman times, the impulse for Roman citizenship arose from this specific constitution of the soul, and so on.

Living through this in an inward way one comes to the significant moment of change that can be so clearly seen in the 15th century. Events naturally happen gradually. The impulses only emerge bit by bit. The change that came in the 15‘ century is clearly evident, however. Human nature was truly revolutionalized then. This is something which only someone who looks at things in such a way will discover; others will always think of a succession of events when in reality history moves in leaps and bounds. The mind then came to relate to human nature in a very different way. It became emancipated, gaining greater self-awareness. Thinking only became more materialistic and sensual because the rational mind had lost its connection with the subconscious. Human beings sought relationships at national level, structures of community life and relationships between countries, and developments in the other areas of civilization that would arise from this peculiar separation from the instinctive life, something we are not aware of in our ordinary conscious minds, only dreaming of the rational mind growing independent of the life of instincts.

Let me just mention some more general aspects. With the approach used in spiritual science it is possible to go back to the time before the 8th century BC. This takes us to a different major period which extends back as far as the 3rd millennium BC, a period that also had its special characteristics, details of which can be established.

We thus gradually find something behind the physical facts that can only be observed in form of images, with a mind inspired and able to perceive in visions. If we are able to do this—something which facts can never give us, gaining insight into things that people normally only dream as they observe the facts and use the thinking based on the observation of physical facts—we come to the process aspect of history. This lives in the human dream level of consciousness and can only be seen more clearly if we have imaginative and inspired awareness. It is this alone which can show the facts in their true light.

Looking at a dead body you have to say that it had significance when the soul was still in it. Just as the soul casts its light, as it were, on the dead body, so we live in the light that illumines the facts when we approach things of the spirit with perceptive vision. Individual facts find an explanation if we illuminate them out of what we have gained in this way.

History thus cannot develop as a science unless we develop perceptive vision. If you think it would be possible without it, you are like someone who lets a light fall on an object, then, using some kind of mechanism to rotate the light, lets it fall on a second object, and a third, and then says: The second object is illuminated as a consequence of the first being luminous; the third object is illuminated as a consequence of the second object being luminous. This would not be true. It is the same light which illuminates each object.

That is how it is with historical facts. Someone who tries to explain facts through other facts, coordinating them, putting them side by side is, as Jacob Burckhardt said quite rightly, like someone who deduces that the light which falls on the second object comes from the first. He should see that it is in fact the same light which falls on the first, the second and then the third object. The explanation for the historical fact lies in the world of the spirit, and it is from this world that we must throw light on facts that will otherwise remain dead, just as objects will not be luminous unless we let the light fall on them that shines on all.

This does call for a radical change in our approach to history, but that should not surprise us. History became a subject at a time when natural scientists were, quite rightly, rejecting anything subjective. People did at first apply the methods of natural science in a study of history that may be said to have evolved at the wrong time—which, of course, is not such a good thing to say—but history can only prosper if natural science is complemented with the science of the spirit.

Then, however, we will no longer search through history in an ethical way, nor in the way many others have done, using abstract ideas. Ideas cannot make things happen; ideas are entirely passive. We must look for the truly real spiritual entities and powers that are behind historical developments. These can only be studied if we have awareness in images.

Now it is remarkable—once you have this guideline, light is indeed cast on what people might sense from a sequence of events, whilst someone who merely looks at things side by side will not find an explanation. Historical development becomes a science when the science of the spirit strikes like lightning from above. If it is unable to strike, people will be presenting progressively more anecdotal, which is not scientific.

It is interesting to note that Jacob Burckhardt wrote that it was approximately at the point in time when in the science of the spirit we would put the beginning of the period of which I spoke today—except that these are not exact points in time, just as puberty, for example, continues for some years—in the 6th or 7th century BC that a common element showed itself that extended from China through Asia Minor to Europe, and this was a general religious movement. Outer history has the facts: Because there was such a change, those events happened! Light is thrown on them. And concerning the end of the period, for what happened after the 15th century, Jacob Burckhardt spoke of the religious movement connected with the name of Martin Luther—again very strange. Once again there were major changes, showing themselves in Europe and at the same time also in India. With the science of the spirit we can see how something which is beheld in the spirit creates a mirror image for itself in the facts, for it illuminates the facts. History changes from being an enumeration of facts to being a genuine science.

We have to say that in this respect, too, many people have been longing to find the right way. Herman Grimm⁴³ tried to take a spiritual approach to history but did not reach the point where one sees into the world of the spirit with perception in images. He used all possible means to discover some kind of historical impulses behind the events that had happened. It was as if he was feeling his way and arrived at a classification which he would repeat many times in his lectures at the university. He said that such historical developments as there had been so far should be divided into a first millennium—starting approximately at the time I have given for the period I have been describing—and then a second and third millennium. You see, he was feeling his way. His ‘first two millennia’ covered everything I included in the Graeco-Latin period, which ran from the 8th century BC to the 15th century AD. And our present life, which will continue for many centuries and can be seen to be a coherent whole if one uses perception in images, he considered to be the ‘third millennium’. He tried to have at least a surrogate, I would say, for the vision that can be had in the spirit by saying that history is the ‘work of the nations’ creative imagination’.⁴⁴ Unable to find the spiritual reality that is the driving power in historical developments he believed ‘creative imagination’ to lie behind historical events. He thus made it an illusion, but reminded us that the real impulses in history are only dreamt through by human beings in their ordinary state of conscious awareness.

Anything we are able to grasp with the rational mind with regard to history can only be the dead aspect. Again it is interesting to consider historians who may be said to have still been using their rational minds in an instinctive way and who did not seek to bring in all kinds of ideas from natural science in an artificial way, the way Herbert Spencer did, but were like Gibbon,⁴⁵ for instance, who did use the rational thinking which is also used in natural science, and were still doing so in an instinctive way. They were able—and this was something which puzzled Herman Grimm⁴⁶—to observe and describe the periods of decline particularly well; those were periods when little soul quality remained. Gibbon thus wrote of a time which did in fact have much by way of soul quality, inner development and growth to it, which was the period from the beginning of Christianity and throughout Roman history, but described the aspect which he called ‘decline’. Bringing his rational mind to bear, he described this whole evolution in the early Christian centuries as a decline. This is only natural, for when the rational mind is applied in the way in which it has to be applied in the study of nature, we can only see the decline in historical events. Gibbon was unable to see how something else, which had come into history out of the Christian impulses, was showing healthy growth in the midst of that decline. The way this works cannot be seen directly in historical events, however. It needs to be illuminated by the light provided through the science of the spirit.

Something else is also of interest, for example. Of course it is only possible to make history a science through the evolving science of the spirit. But the knowledge gained in the science of the spirit has always also come up in flashes of light in the heads of enlightened people, people of discernment. There is one really interesting phenomenon. In his historical and sociological lectures given at Basel University in the 1860s, Jacob Burckhardt would repeatedly refer to a historian, a historical philosopher from the first half of the 19th century who must have made quite an impression on him, even if he, Jacob Burckhardt, often went against his views. This was the philosopher Ernst von Lasaulx. He has never become widely known. Lasaulx wrote a strange book, and Burckhardt frequently spoke of this in his lectures.⁴⁷ Lasaulx did have some feeling for the historical impulses that human beings normally only dream through, but since it was the age of modern science, he concerned himself with what I might call interpretation of the facts.⁴⁸ Since he used his rational mind which was trained in modern science, he mainly focussed on the element of decline in the 19th century. There were, of course, also new developments in the 19th century. But these can only be seen with inspired and imaginative perception. At the very end of his book Lasaulx showed that he had some inkling of this. The things he said in his book are interesting beyond anything—forgive the words, but it is so. He considered European history from its beginning to the 19th century. And because of his modern scientific approach he was all the time describing decay, decline, the powers that really lead into the dying process. There are chapters in this book—if you read them they are like a description of powers of decline someone made prophetically in the 1850s, speaking of the powers that inevitably had to lead to the present situation, where the European nations of today are tearing each other limb from limb. We can say that no one else foresaw intuitively in such a deeply moving, magnificent way—his mind being focused on the element of decline—what has now proved itself to be such an outcome in the process of decline.

This kind of direct evidence is such that if you leave the sphere where you have direct vision of or dream the true historical impulses and instead consider only the separate external facts, it is as if you abandon waking consciousness and fall asleep, no longer seeing the element of growth and development, the pulse of which beats in history as the element that truly takes humanity forward. Once this principle of growth and development is recognized, history is lifted out of mere natural causality and assumes the rank of a science. We might say, therefore, that what Lessing felt dimly in his work, putting it clumsily, if you will forgive the expression, at the time and indeed incorrectly, is thus given a secure foundation. External facts show no cohesion. The element in which the human soul lives, lives as in a dream, becomes a continuous organic life in the spirit. I mean a life of spirit, however, if it is seen as the substance of history in the light of the science of the spirit.

You will then also discover, however, that the ordinary student is deceived if he considers historical development to be an organism. Doing this, one must often compare it with the development of an individual human life. In my young days I had a teacher who liked to compare the successive historical periods with human life—Persian and Chaldean history with the life of a young man; Greek life with the later part of youth; dawning full maturity with Roman life. The progression of history is often considered in analogy to human life. This is a distinct source of illusion regarding history. For if we come to see the evolution of the human soul in the course of historical development for humanity as a whole, that is, actually enter into the spiritual reality of historical developments, we can never perceive it the way we perceive the development of a human soul from childhood through youth to adult life and finally old age. The spiritual life which lies behind the facts of history does not develop in this way. It develops in another way. Once again we face a paradox. It seems paradoxical if it is put like this, though it is deeply rooted in the genuine spiritual scientific approach to which I am referring in these lectures.

It is possible to compare what shows itself, lives and can be observed as a whole in a given time in history with the periods in human life. Oddly enough, however, one should not compare the historical development with the development that goes from infancy and childhood through youth to adulthood but the reverse. You have to think of historical life going in the opposite direction. If you take the general state of mind for the period from the 8th century BC to the 15th century AD, for instance, this may be compared to the thirties in a human life. We can say that when people are in their thirties, the inner life connects with the body the way it did in the Graeco-Roman age that continued on into the 15th century (the constitution and inner relationship to essential human nature was different, of course). What followed in history cannot be compared to what follows on the thirties but to what went before. Compared to the life of a human individual, historical life thus goes from back to front.

In the course of its emancipation in our time, the rational mind does indeed relate to bodily life in a way that can be compared to the way the rational mind relates to bodily life for someone in his late twenties. A later period in history relates to the one that preceded it in such a way that we might dare to say the following. A young child learns from an older person who may well have worked in a more instinctive way through the things which the child is receiving in a later form. We always learn from people who have themselves been learning in their childhood. It is the same with successive periods of time when mind and spirit move on from one age to another. This progression in history becomes a phenomenon in the mind, though still at a dream level. Using Lessing’s idea of educating the human race, we are dealing not with education from childhood through youth and adulthood to ripe old age, but rather with retrograde education of the human race. And it is because of this that progress, as we may call it, is able to enter into historical development. Human beings are younger, as it were, in their inner approach to such things than they were in earlier times, and this also gives them a greater degree of freedom and of unawareness, a more childlike approach to other people, and this brings everything we normally call progress into world evolution.

In conclusion let me draw your attention to one phenomenon—we have been considering many things today—to demonstrate what I have been discussing—and that is the strange, significantly progressive relationship which came when Christianity spread from the nations of the Roman Empire, who had received it first, to the youthful Germanic nations. A strange phenomenon arose. How can we explain it? It can only be explained as follows. Throughout the historical evolution of Graeco-Roman life, which was the first to be taken hold of by the great impulses of Christianity, experience of life was at a later stage. Christianity therefore took the form we see in Gnosis and the development of other dogmas. When Christianity came to people whose experience of life was at a younger level—entirely in accord with the way the mind evolved in the course of history, as I have shown—it assumed other forms. It became more inward; religious awareness emancipated, as it were, from the instinctive rational mind; religion as Christian religion became more independent; and later on the religious and scientific ways of thinking and awareness separated completely.

The whole process becomes explicable if we take it as a phenomenon relating to conscious awareness, so that the German mind, which has its foundation in a different soul constitution, took over Christianity from the Roman one, we might say as a child does take something from an older person. Roman predecessors, not Roman ancestors, of course.

I have only been able to touch on some points, and I know as well as anyone else how many objections may be raised to these brief indications. To gain insight and understanding of what is meant here, it will be necessary to take up the development of spiritual science in a serious way, and on the other hand give serious consideration to all the mysteries and sphinx riddles that come up in the young science of history. In my fourth lecture, which will be next Wednesday, I will add the things needed for practical life, for social life, intervention in social life, and understanding of the things that touch us so deeply in immediate experience, bringing pleasure and pain, and events that are so much on our minds at the present time with all its tragic events. We will then consider the consequences for these things as they arise from the historical point of view.

I would like to conclude today’s discussion by pointing out how certain people with prophetic gifts instinctively also had this spiritual scientific thinking at an earlier time. They would instinctively come to the right conclusions regarding history. I am thinking of Goethe. He only considered historical problems occasionally, for instance in his history of the theory of colour, but he had a profound comprehension of history. Intuiting things, he formulated his perceptions in a different way from the one we have used here today. He was, however, able to gain the right approach to history because he had a feeling that humanity is really only going through historical developments in a dream, that is, experiencing them in the regions where feelings, affects, passions and emotions also arise. Goethe knew that all the concepts people produce relating to history, concepts similar to those used in natural science, cannot prove fruitful in human life, for they come from the region in our inner life where waking consciousness lives. This waking consciousness exists only for the world of nature, however. People live through historical events in the dream regions where passions, affects and emotions arise.

Before a human being thus comes alive in imaginative and inspired perception, and for as long as he considers historical developments in his ordinary state of mind, his soul and inner feelings can only be taken hold of by experience of history arising from the dream level of awareness. Abstract concepts and ideas coming from the rational approach used in natural science cannot really touch the human being. All this cannot bear fruit. The only fruitful perceptions are those that come from the same regions and are effective in the same regions where they are gained from history. This is the best thing about history. Because we dream it—Goethe did not conclude this but he sensed it—anything coming from history can also only take effect in the dream region of enthusiasm and the life of emotions. Goethe said that the best thing history is able to give us is the enthusiasm it arouses.⁴⁹ This is significant as a way not of formulating the science of history but of real understanding, born from a poet’s mind; this is something the science of the spirit must make its approach. For as long as we live in history with our ordinary way of thinking, we are not really involved in it. But if we meet it with enthusiasm and approach its phenomena in the way one does out of enthusiasm, we become involved in the life of history itself.

We shall only be able to learn from history the way we do from nature once we look at historical development with imaginative and inspired perception. To develop these thoughts further and apply them to nature and to social life will be our task in the lectures that follow.

Questions and answers

Following the lecture given in Zurich on 7 November 1917

Question. What is the situation as regards the materialistic view of history, with Marx, for example?

Well, with regard to this I have to say that in the science of the spirit, when we base ourselves on this science, the things I said in my previous lecture are and need to be taken very seriously. Speaking about the gradually developing inner approach to concepts as they are understood in relation to reality. I said that in our ordinary way of thinking we are satisfied once we have a concept that may be said to reflect reality. In the approach based on perception in images, we always have to seek to develop a whole number of concepts, which are like photographs taken from various angles. Anything established as a concept can never show the whole of reality, if we take the point of view of the spiritual world. Concepts can always only give one aspect of reality. That is also how it is with the most sublime philosophical ideas. In the ordinary way of thinking one is a pantheist or one is a monadist, to give you just two opposites. You recognize a divine principle that is alive and active in everything; this means you are a pantheist. Or, like the followers of Leibniz, for example, you recognize individual real monads; these interact to give the world as a whole.

A spiritual investigator cannot be a pantheist nor a monadist. Pantheism simply gives him a sum of concepts, and so does monadism. Both illuminate reality from different angles. Perhaps I may risk an analogy: a pantheist only concentrates on breathing out, a monadist on breathing in. Now we can’t keep life going if we only breathe either in or out, but need to have both. In the same way the spiritual reality can only be grasped if we come alive in our ideas and know how to let both pantheism and monadism illuminate reality for us. If someone is just a monadist, like Leibniz, this is to a spiritual investigator like someone who asphyxiates from too much air he has inhaled. You asphyxiate. And if someone is just a pantheist, this is to a spiritual investigator like someone who wanted to breathe in a room that has no air in it. If you take up the science of the spirit, the life of concepts comes alive to you. You have to think of this relationship to the world of concepts as being as alive as possible. For when such a living relationship is established, you are wholly and in a very real way inside the mutual conflict and harmonious reconciliation of concepts, entering into spiritual reality. With our ordinary way of thinking we live in our concepts in an abstract way. Even the simplest of concepts will thus relate to reality in a new way.

Let me give you an example. Today we learn at school that solids are impenetrable. The definition given is that they are impenetrable because a solid body occupies a space which no other body can occupy. A spiritual scientist cannot say this. He can never base himself on definition of concepts but only on characterization. In this case he would say that something which occupies a space in such a way that no other entity can be in that space is a material body. He therefore looks at things the other way round, and because his concept is a living one he only applies it within the limits where it can be applied. He does not state things in absolute terms. This happens with the simplest lines of thought if one really takes the leap which I would like to call the leap across the threshold to the spiritual, non-material world. This must be taken very seriously. People still want to talk in abstract terms today when they speak of the spiritual world. But the whole of our inner life, the way of thinking, changes its constitution when we enter into reality. You enter into the reality of concepts and live it through. You see, for someone who thinks in an abstract way a rose he has put in water in his room is, of course, something real. But it is not real at all. For in real life no rose can exist unless it grows on a rose bush and lives wholly in the context of that rose bush. A spiritual investigator is therefore always aware that things have to be considered in their existing context. He will know that a cut rose is unreal as a concept.

Now consider this extended to the whole shaping, the whole structure of our thinking and you’ll have an idea of the significant change experienced on crossing the threshold to the world of the spirit. There you find reality. There you get an inner idea of the full implications of concepts, an idea that comes alive to you. Messing around in the abstract world, which is what has to be done in natural science, you never realize how unreal the concepts are which you develop there.

On this kind of occasion I like to remember a lecture Professor Dewar gave in London at the beginning of the 20th century.⁵⁰ From the point of view of natural scientific thinking, it was a brilliant lecture. Taking the point of view of natural science, thinking in physical terms, he construed the end state of earth’s existence. This would come when so and so many million years had passed, temperatures had gradually changed, and so on. If you consider certain facts that present themselves today it is fairly easy to paint a picture of such an end state if you just draw the logical conclusions. Professor Dewar was quite ingenious in describing the way in which some substances which are not luminous today would then be luminous. If people applied certain substances to their walls, those walls would be giving off enough light that you could read your paper by them. It will be so cold by then, however, that one cannot imagine anyone printing papers then. Here we immediately come up against reality. But Dewar gave that picture. Things that would tear off today if you attached just a small weight, would have such powerful cohesion then that you could suspend tons of stuff from them, and so on. The whole had been properly thought through and it is certainly possible to construe an end state of the earth, with everything exactly described in physical terms. The lecture did of course make a great impression, for a physicist who was utterly familiar with physical concepts was here giving a descriptive picture of the earth’s end state that seemed very real indeed.

A spiritual scientist’s experience is that on hearing such a description he finds himself immediately guided towards concepts where a different light is thrown. What Professor Dewar was doing when he described this end state of the earth after millions of years, was arrived at in the same way as if you consider the consecutive states of the stomach and heart of a young person of 12, 13, 14 and 15 as it gradually changes, and then come to a logical conclusion as to what it will all be like in 200 or 300 years—the heart, the stomach, and so on. Now this may all be perfectly correct in natural scientific terms, that is, in abstract thinking. Only the individual will long since have been dead by then, and the stomach no longer there!

If we approach reality like this, side by side with the other view, which is truly ingenuous, and if we have living concepts, we can come to see that Professor Dewar’s description of the earth’s end state in some millions of years may be perfectly correct, but the earth will be dead by then and no longer in existence.

And it is the same thing if we go back 13, 12, 11 years and so on, to say how it was 150 years ago. Only the person was not yet alive then! This is the basis of Kant’s and Laplace’s theory,⁵¹ for they construed the beginnings of the earth quite brilliantly from the physical data, saying it was a nebula, and so on, from which everything arose. But the fact is that none of it existed at the time which one would have to assume for this.

This is where we move from abstract thinking to thinking in real terms. Having given a general characterization I may now say that the materialistic view of history with its concepts arose from a degree of necessity, considering that historical events were really only based on class struggles, with material interests brought into play. The concept of materialism does not have the same meaning in the materialistic view of history as it does in natural science. It developed because certain, entirely feasible concepts were created. One would, however, have to maintain a point of view where one asks: How much of historical development is covered by those concepts? They cover one stream only, a stream which in fact only came up in the 16th century.

People do not believe in authority today, of course they don’t! They have done away with that. Yes, but ‘science’ is a powerful authority at the least. And if you swear by a number of dogmas, everything else is folly and miserable nonsense. Years ago I used to lecture to working-class people, giving many lectures over the years, including lectures on history. I tried to characterize history the way it shows itself, using an undogmatic approach.⁵² However, when I had gained a fairly faithful audience, which continued to grow—I can say this without boasting—some leading social democrats realized that I was not teaching orthodox Marxism, the orthodox materialistic view of history, but actually presented the peculiar view that the concepts of the materialistic approach to history only came to be used from the 16th century onwards. They actually could not be used before that. They came to be used out of the undercurrents in history itself, for that was the time when the rational mind emancipated, as I have shown. It was the time when human beings first emancipated from a more instinctive life and so on, with material interests providing the necessary counterthrust. We thus arrive at the materialistic view of history—even if only as one of the historical ingredients—which does allow us to throw a light on some of the phenomena. However, if we make this materialistic view the only one, we’ll not have history as a result, for many other impulses have not been taken into account. The concepts developed in Marxism must therefore be seen as one aspect, providing a snapshot of reality from one angle. This has to be complemented with views taken from other angles. - Those leading social democrats then stopped the lectures.

It is characteristic of the science of the spirit that it can do justice to impulses that have inner validity, impulses arising in one sphere of culture or another, and is able to perceive their relative value. Error will immediately arise if we make a one-sided aspect absolute, basing all our explanations on it. This is indeed the point.

Life is such, of course, that people will stick to a concept. People altogether prefer to live in concepts rather than reality, in abstractions rather than reality. They are much happier if they have some concepts, and all kinds of things can then be pegged into these. But reality is not like this. Just as to have a tree you need to photograph it from one point of view to get one aspect, and another point of view for another aspect—I have to keep coming back to this analogy—so it is with reality as a whole, if we really want to take it the way it really is.

It has to be said that with material interests having entered so powerfully into historical developments in the last three or four centuries it is only natural that a materialistic view of history developed, representing the view that the outer course of history can be studied using the crudest concepts which are only appropriate for the natural world. However, everything you get that way is dead, non-living. I will be speaking of this again in my fourth lecture when I will mainly be considering ethical and social life. The lack of reality would soon be evident if reality were approached solely with such concepts. Then you would see that such concepts, if they were to take root, would kill reality; they can prove fruitful, however, if we consider them to be merely one aspect.

This is what I wanted to say with reference to this question. I could of course go on for hours on the subject.

Rudolf Steiner was asked to speak again on the process on which the recall of memories is based. He had described this in his first lecture.

I’ll be coming to this again in my next lecture and can therefore be fairly brief now. Above all I’d like to say that people are mistaken in thinking that an idea I have gained now from something perceived—let us say I see an object and form an idea of it at the same time—will remain. All I gain, the after effect which remains when I turn my eyes away from the object, is mere mirror image and not something that will come back again. Something is there and it is then truly lost, just as a mirror image of me is lost once I have walked past the mirror. It is wrong, therefore, to imagine a reservoir in the soul into which the ideas might go, to be fetched up again later from this reservoir. Ideas do not remain, they are gone!

Yet when I form an idea, a subconscious process happens at the same time. This is subconscious where our ordinary conscious awareness is concerned but can be observed imaginatively. This process is responsible for what happens in the organism when occasion arises for something to be recalled. If I gain an idea of an object because it influences my senses, the idea arises; if I have an idea that arises from memory, it is exactly the same, except that it is not the material object out there which makes am impression on me, letting me develop the idea on the basis of that object. Instead I am looking inside, as it were, at what has been taken in unconsciously, and develop my idea from this.

Let me present it in a schematic way. I form the idea ‘ten’; after some time the idea ‘ten’ comes up again; but it is not true that it is the same idea, that it has gone away and then come back again. What has remained is an unconscious engram. This unconscious engram, which has developed in parallel to the process of forming an idea, will remain. This is what I perceive when I have the idea again. So if ‘ten’ comes up, it is the result of an outside stimulus; when it comes up again, it is the result of an inner stimulus. Anything I remember I perceive from within. It is a process we can observe very well in the science of the spirit and which is very useful in education. Attentive teachers can observe it; all they need to do is to give their powers of attention the right direction.

Just consider how we learn things by heart. Observe it carefully. And you will simply see all the things people do to make sure the parallel process takes place! The idea is taken in, but they want the parallel process to go in such a way that it is drummed into something that remains subconscious. Observe when things are drummed in: the ideas will not lead to memory in some way, but a process which must arise to support the mere forming of an idea and does indeed lie in the subconscious sphere. And this way of working in the subconscious—just watch someone learning a poem by rote, all the things that are done to help the process—is something which a spiritual scientist observes directly. The light which is thus gained makes us see. Some people do all kinds of things when they learn by rote, striking their foreheads, and so on, and this certainly has nothing to do with their experience of the idea. If you go into the matter you’ll find that this is an important border region between psychology and physiology. The next time we meet we will see how physiology with a spiritual scientific orientation can discover things there.

Just to indicate the direction, therefore I would say that ideas are first of all formed in a primary process under the influence of something perceived outside, stimulated by an object on the outside; or else as a memory, with the stimulus coming from inside. On the one occasion I am reading with my eyes looking outwards, as it were, and the other time I am looking inwards. If I read a book twice in succession, the idea is gained from the same book, but these are successive acquisitions.

Perhaps this will serve to characterize the situation. More will be added when I speak of the human being as part of the natural world in my third lecture.

Question. Surely the higher forms of conscious awareness must differ between individuals?

As I said the last time, it is easy to think this way—that one person develops these states of higher awareness in a different form than someone else does. This should not let us shy away from entering into what I have called the drama of perceptive insight. The individual aspect is only an intermediate state. One does indeed go through a powerfully individualistic period, but one is aware of this and overcomes it. After this one comes to the objective inner aspect. It is only if we do not observe accurately that we may say that one person says one thing, another something else. It is not like that. The differences are no greater than the differences you get, for example, when two travellers describe the same region. One of them concentrates on one thing, the other on something else. The descriptions do not seem similar at all; yet they describe the same region, and it would be nonsense to think that the descriptions are therefore not leading to objectivity, or that the travellers themselves had not considered things objectively. I would therefore say that certainly, one may easily think of an individualized experience in higher states of awareness. But that is only an intermediate state. In reality we come to the objective spirit if we are able to exclude the subjective element in an imagination, just as we overcome subjectivity in the study of nature and come to see it objectively. Read in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Occult Science how this subjective element is excluded as one comes to live in higher states of conscious awareness. You will see that this leads to an objective spiritual view in the inner life just as we come to gain an objective view of nature in the outside world. It truly is the case that in natural science, the subjective element is excluded as we consider the outside world, and in the science of the spirit, the subjective element is excluded as we consider the realm of the spirit.

• 27. Wolff, Christian (1679–1754), German philosopher. Rudolf Steiner was quoting from Fritz Mauthner’s Wörterbuch der Philosophy, 1. Bd., München & Leipzig 1910, S. 403.
• 28. Schiller, Friedrich von (1759–1805), German poet, historian and dramatist. Inaugural address, Jena 26 & 27 May 1789: What is universal history and what is the purpose of studying it?
• 29. Spencer, Herbert (1820–1923), English philosopher. See among other things his Principles of Biology, London 1864 ch. VI, par. 288f, and Principles of Psychology, London 1870-72, ch. IV, par. 238.
• 30. Comte, Auguste (1798–1857), French philosopher. Cours de Philosophic positive, Paris 1830-42; Système de politique positive, Paris 1851-54. Comte was a mathematician and also relied on mathematics and mechanics in structuring the body social. See above all ch. 16 in the second work.
• 31. Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim (1729–81), German writer and dramatist. Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts (1780), see paragraphs 94-100 concerning the idea of repeated lives on earth.
• 32. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1770–1831), German philosopher. See his 'Vorlesungen über die Philosophic der Geschichte’ in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegels Werke, Berlin 1845, 9. Band, 3. Auflage, S. 24 (Introduction) and S. 546f. (Conclusion).
• 33. Schopenhauer, Arthur (1788–1860), German philosopher. See Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung II, para. 38 ‘Ueber Geschichte’ in Arthur Schopenhauers sämtliche Werke in zwölf Bänden. Mit Einleitung von Dr Rudolf Steiner. Stuttgart o.J. (1894), Bd 5, S. 286-295.
• 34. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm (1844–1900), German philosopher and writer. Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historic für das Leben. Zweite unzeitgemässe Betrachtung, Leipzig 1874.
• 35. Volkelt, Johannes (1848–1930). Die Traum-Phantasie, Stuttgart 1875.
• 36. Vischer, Friedrich Theodor (see note 4). He was accused of being a spiritualist because he gave consideration to Volkelt’s book. Altes und Neues. ‘Der Traum. Eine Studie zu der Schrift: Die Traumphantasie von Dr. Johann Volkelt’, Stuttgart 1881.
• 37. Kant, Immanuel (1724–1804), German philosopher. See Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht (1789), par. 5 ‘Von den Vorstellungen, die wir haben, ohne uns ihrer bewusst zu sein.’
• 38. The Roman Catholic Church authorities resolved on 11 September 1822 and the Pope confirmed on 25 September 1822 that the printing and publication of works that teach the movement of the earth and non-movement of the sun would no longer be banned. The Index Congregation had resolved as early as 1757 to omit the decree which banned such books, without expressly permitting their printing and publication.
• 39. Von Seelenrätseln (see note 1).
• 40. Fortlage, Carl. Acht psychologische Vorträge, Jena 1869, S. 35 (Erster Vortrag).
• 41. Burckhardt, Jacob Christopher (1818–1879), Swiss historian. See his published lectures Ueber das Studiuni der Geschichte, publ. posthumously by J. Oeri, Berlin and Stuttgart 1905, ch. 1 ‘Einleitung’, 1. ‘Unsere Aufgabe’.
• 42. Steiner R. Theosophy (various translations), chapter on the essential nature of the human being.
• 43. Grimm, Herman (1828–1901), German historian. Goethe, Vorlesungen, Berlin 1876, 8. Auflage Stuttgart und Berlin 1903, 2. Bd, S. 7ff (16. Vorlesung).
• 44. In the story of his life (GA 28, various translations), chapter 14, Rudolf Steiner told of a talk with Herman Grimm: ‘He spoke to me of his idea of a “history of German creative imagination”, something which lived in his soul. I gained the impression at the time that he intended to write this. He did not get round to it. But he told me most beautifully how the continuous stream of historical evolution had its impulses in the creative imagination of the people, which in his view assumed the character of a living, active, supersensible genius.’ See also Steiner’s lecture ‘Die Weltanschauung eines Kulturforschers der Gegenwart, Herman Grimm, und die Geistesforschung’, Berlin, 16 January 1913, in Ergebnisse der Geistesforschung, GA Bibl.-Nr. 62, S. 249-285.
• 45. Gibbon, Edward (1737–1794), English historian. History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 6 vols, 1776-88.
• 46. Grimm Herman (see note 43). Wrote on Gibbon in 15 Essays, 1. Folge, 1. Auflage, Berlin 1874, S. 80.
• 47. Burckhardt (see note 41). Probably referring to his lectures Ueber das Studium der Geschichte.
• 48. Lasaulx, Ernst von (1815–1861). Neuer Versuch einer alien, auf die Wahrheit der Tatsachen gegruendeten Philosophic der Geschichte, Muenchen 1856.
• 49. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1749–1832). See Sprüche in Prosa (aphorisms in prose) in Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften (see note 10), [Tr.: possibly in Goethean Science, Spring Valley: Mercury Press 1988. See also in Maxims and Reflections].
• 50. Dewar, Sir James (1842–1923), Scottish chemist and physicist. Inventor of thermos flask. It has not proved possible to trace the lecture to which Rudolf Steiner was referring.Dewar, Sir James (1842–1923), Scottish chemist and physicist. Inventor of thermos flask. It has not proved possible to trace the lecture to which Rudolf Steiner was referring.
• 51. Kant, Immanuel (1724–1804) considered the shape of nebulous stars representing other universes to be due to their rotation. Laplace, Pierre Simon, Marquis de (1749–1827) developed the nebular hypothesis of planetary origin.
• 52. See Rudolf Steiner’s story of his life (note 44), ch. 28, and the volume of lectures entitled Über Philosophic, Geschichte and Literatur (GA 51).

During these last days we have taken leave of a dear friend and loyal collaborator who has left the physical plane, Herman Joachim. He could be seen here in our circle practically every week during the war years. When we contemplate the event of death of someone near to us—filled with sentiments engendered by knowledge which we seek through spiritual science—we may find through this event also our own relation to the spiritual world. We look back on the one hand to the time we were privileged to share with him, but we also look forward into that world which is receiving the soul of the one with whom we were together. We remain united with him, for the bonds that bind us together are spiritual and cannot be severed through the event of physical death.

The name Herman Joachim is like a beacon, throwing its light far and wide, ahead of the one we have lost as far as the physical plane is concerned. It is a name that is very much connected with the development of art in the 19th century; particularly in the sphere of aesthetic interpretation of music. Indeed there is no need for me to explain here what this name stands for in recent cultural achievements. However, if Herman Joachim—who has gone into the spiritual world with all his incomparable and beautiful qualities—had come among us as someone unknown, even then, those whose good fortune it was to know him and share with him their endeavours, would have counted him among the most valuable personalities of their lives. The strength of his personality, the greatness and radiance of his soul would ensure it.

There came to expression in his human relationships with others a cultural artistic quality of a high order, passed on to him from his father. One could say that on the one hand this artistic influence came to expression in everything Herman Joachim thought and did, but it was carried and enhanced by the spirituality of his own will, his own feelings and by his striving for spiritual insight. While his father's great influence held sway in the blood so was there something in Herman Joachim's spiritual makeup which had a beautiful beginning in his life by the fact that Herman Grimm—this distinguished and unique representative of Central European cultural life—held his hand in blessing over him when a child. For Herman Grimm was godfather to Herman Joachim. I was very pleased to learn this as you will understand after the many things I have said, especially in this circle, in appreciation of Herman Grimm's contributions to cultural life in recent times. When a dear friend of his, the unique personality Walter Robert Tornow died, Herman Grimm wrote: “He departs from the society of the living and is received into the society of the dead. One feels one ought to announce to the dead just who it is that joins their ranks.” Herman Grimm did not intend these words to apply only to the one for whom he spoke them. He meant them in the sense that they express a feeling which is present in human beings in general, when someone near departs from the physical into the spiritual world.

When we look back to characteristic experiences which we were privileged to share with someone who has died, then these experiences become windows through which we can follow the further life of a now infinite being. For every human individuality is an infinite being and the experiences we shared can be compared to windows through which we look out on an unlimited landscape. However there are moments in a human life which are of special significance, it is then possible to look deeper into a human individuality. In such moments the secrets of the spiritual world reveal themselves with particular power. It is also in such moments that much of what in ordinary life is the goal of noble, intense striving, is revealed in comprehensive thought pictures permeated with feeling.

I venture to describe a moment of this kind because I consider it symptomatic of Herman Joachim. He had been connected with our movement for years when in Cologne, not long after we had become personally acquainted, we had a conversation. During this conversation it was revealed to me how this man had related his innermost soul to the spiritual powers which live and weave through the cosmos.—Perhaps I can put it in these words: I was able to recognize that he had discovered that there is an important link between responsible human souls and those Divine-spiritual powers whose wisdom governs worlds. In significant moments of his life an individual may come face to face with these powers. In such moments when he puts to himself the question: How do I unite with the world-guiding spiritual powers that are revealed to my inner sight? How can it become possible for me to think of myself as a responsible link in the world's spiritual guidance which, in my innermost self, I know I am meant to be?—Thus it was revealed to me what Herman Joachim consciously felt and experienced with all the deep seriousness of his being in such moments when man's relation to the spiritual world becomes manifest to him.

Herman Joachim had gone through many difficulties. When this endless calamity under which we all suffer broke out^* it brought him great hardship. He was in Paris where he had lived for years and where he had found his dear life companion. But now his duty obliged him to return to his former profession as a German officer. Nevertheless it was a duty with which he also had a deep inner connection. He had already fulfilled his task as officer on important occasions, doing his duty not only with expertise but with compassion and self-sacrifice. There are many who have grateful memories because they have benefitted from the true humaneness and social friendliness with which he fulfilled his calling. For myself I often remember the conversations we had during these three years of grief and human suffering, conversations in which he revealed himself as a man who was able to follow with far-reaching understanding the events of our time. There was no question of his objective judgement being clouded by thoughts of either hatred or love for the one or the other side. His intelligent assessment made him fully aware of the gravity of the situation facing us all. Nevertheless, because of his trust in the spiritual guidance of the world he was full of hope and confidence.

Herman Joachim belongs to those who accept spiritual science in a completely matter-of-fact way as something self-evident; while at the same time this matter-of-factness protects them from superficial surrender to anything of a spiritualistic nature. Such souls are not easily led astray into what can be the greatest danger: fanciful illusions and the like. After all, such illusions have their roots in a certain self-indulgent egoism. Herman Joachim had no inclination whatever towards egotistical mysticism but all the more towards great ideals, towards powerful, effective ideas of spiritual science.

He was always concerned about what each individual can do in his own situation in life, to make spiritual science effective. As a member of the Freemasons he had looked carefully into the nature of masonic practices and had resolved to do all he could to bring the life of spiritual knowledge into masonic formalism. His high position within Freemasonry enabled him to make his own, to an exceptional degree, all the profound but now formalized and rigidified knowledge accumulated over centuries. Just because of his high position he saw the possibility to bring the life and spiritual power which can only come from spiritual science into this rigidified knowledge. His aim was to enable it to enter rightly into the stream of human culture. Anyone who is aware how hard he worked towards this goal during these difficult years, how he pursued it with earnestness and integrity; anyone who realizes the strength of his will and the volume of his work in this sphere will also know how much the physical plane has lost with Herman Joachim.—I am often reminded in cases like this of someone, regarded as belonging to the intelligentsia, who is recorded as saying: No man is irreplaceable; if one goes, another steps forward to take his place. It is obvious that such an expression reveals a gross ignorance of real life; for real life shows in fact the opposite. The truth is rather that in regard to what a man accomplishes in life no one can be replaced. This truth strikes us all the more in exceptional cases such as the present one. The death of Herman Joachim strongly reminds us of the working of karma in human life. Only an understanding of human karma, the comprehension of the great karmic questions of destiny, enables us to come to terms with the death of someone, at a comparatively early age, leaving behind an important and necessary life task.

I have followed day by day the soul of our dear friend slowly leaving this realm, in which he was to accomplish so much, and entering another realm where we can find him only through the strength of our spirit, a realm from which he will be an even stronger helper than before. During this time of taking leave I was strongly aware of something else; namely, that human beings themselves demand the necessity of karma; demand it with all their inner courage and strength of spirit. It becomes evident to one's inner sight when experiencing a death of this kind. In these circumstances things must often be spoken of which can be spoken of only in our circles, but then, it is also within our spiritual movement, that human beings can find the great strength which reaches beyond death, the strength that encompasses both life and death.

Herman Joachim's soul stands clearly before me. So it stood clearly before me when, out of his own free will, he took on a spiritual task. And it comes vividly before me how he is taking hold of this task now. His death is revealed to me as something he freely chose because, from that other world his soul is able to work more actively and with stronger forces; forces more appropriate to what is necessary. Under these circumstances one may even speak of the death of an individual as a necessity, as a duty, at a quite specific moment. I know that not everyone will find what I am saying a consoling or a strengthening thought; but I also know that there are souls today to whom these thoughts can be a support when they are faced with the kind of difficulties which in our time must be endured with pain and sorrow, difficulties that one comes up against when trying to solve important and necessary tasks, difficulties that arise from the fact that we are in the physical world, incarnated in physical bodies in a materialistic environment. Yet in all our pain and sorrow we may gradually come to value the thought that death, as far as the physical plane is concerned, was chosen by someone in order to be better able to fulfill his task.

We may balance this thought against the pain which our dear friend, the wife of Herman Joachim, is suffering. We may balance it against the pain we ourselves feel over our dear friend, we may attempt to enoble our pain by thinking of him in the light of a sublime thought such as the one I have just put before you. This thought may not ease or tone down the pain, but its spiritual insight can shine like a sun into the pain and illumine our understanding for the necessity that governs man, the necessity of human destiny. Thus the event of the death of someone near to us can become an experience which brings us into contact with the spiritual world. For if our thoughts about him strengthen our soul's propensity towards the realms in which the departed sojourns then we shall not lose him; we shall remain actively united with him. Furthermore, if we grasp the full implication of the thought that someone who loved his life more than most, nevertheless accepted death because of an iron necessity, then that thought will truly express our spiritual-scientific view of the world. If we honor our friend in this way we shall remain united with him. And his life companion, left here on the physical plane, shall know that we remain united with her in thoughts of the loved one; that we, her friends, remain close to her.

The death of our dear friend Herman Joachim is one of several bereavements suffered within our society during this difficult time, one which was for me especially sad, one I have not yet been able to speak about. The great personal loss and close involvement prevents me from touching on many aspects of this bereavement.

A great many of those present will remember with love a dear and loyal member whom we have also lost from the physical plane in recent months, Olga von Sivers, the sister of Marie Steiner. She was not a personality one would come to know immediately at first encounter; she was a thoroughly modest and unassuming person. But my dear friends, setting aside the pain Marie Steiner and I suffer over this irreplaceable loss I venture to say something else about Olga von Sivers. She belongs to those among us who, from the beginning, went straight to the root of our anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. She took it up with deep understanding and warmth of soul. When Olga von Sivers devoted herself to such matters she did so with her whole being for that was her nature. And she was indeed a human being in the fullest sense as everyone connected with her will know. She strongly rejected everything which nowadays, as a kind of mystical Theosophy, distorts man's inner path and leads spiritual life into wrong channels. She had a keen sense of discernment when it came to distinguishing between those spiritual impulses which belong to our time and advance man's inner progress; and others which arise from quite different impulses. The latter are often disguised as theosophical or other mystical striving. Olga von Sivers is an outstanding example of someone taking hold, in a fundamental way, of the spiritual truths which we in our movement especially strive to attain. Despite her full participation in our work it was not in her nature to neglect or disregard in any way the many and often difficult duties imposed upon her by external life. She absorbed the content of spiritual science from the start with complete understanding and was able to pass it on to others. Whenever this was granted her she undertook the task in exemplary fashion. She knew how to endow the ideas she conveyed to others with the kindness and enormous good will of her nature.

Her work continued also when she was separated from us by the frontiers which today so often and so cruelly come between human beings who are close to one another. But no frontiers prevented her from working for our cause also in regions which are now, in Central Europe, considered to be enemy country. She knew tragic experiences, all the horror of this frightful war in which she carried out truly humanitarian work right up to her last illness. She never thought of herself but was always working for others whom the horrors of war had brought into her care. She carried on this Samaritan work in the noblest sense, permeating all she did with the fruits of what she herself had accomplished within our spiritual movement. Although she is closely related to me I venture to speak with deep feeling about this aspect of Olga von Sivers, who, ever since the founding of our movement was a self-sacrificing member. To Marie Steiner and myself it was a beautiful thought that she should be physically with us once more when better times had replaced our bleak present. But here too iron necessity decided otherwise.

This again is a case when death of someone near can clarify and illumine life if we seek to understand it with spiritual insight. Certainly there are things in our society which are open to criticism, often they are things which the society itself brings to light. But we also see all around us other things which are direct results of the strength that flows through our Anthroposophical Movement, things which belong to our most beautiful, loftiest and significant experiences. Today I venture to speak of examples of this kind.

Many of you will also remember someone who, though she did not belong to this branch, I would nevertheless like to remember today because, together with her sisters she often did appear here and will be known to many of you: our Johanna Arnold who not long ago went from the physical plane into the spiritual world. One of her sisters who was equally a loyal and devoted member of our movement died two years ago.

I have in these days been working on a pamphlet to answer the spiteful attacks on our movement by professor Max Dessoir, and I constantly come across statements to the effect that I know nothing of science and that my supporters have to renounce all thoughts of their own.—Well, a personality like Johanna Arnold is a living proof that such statements coming from this ignorant professor are utter lies. Johanna Arnold's deep devotion to spiritual science contributed to the nobility of her life and also to the nobility with which she died. She is indeed a living proof that the most valuable people are among those who recognize and cultivate spiritual science. Her life brought many trials but it was also a life that developed strength of personality and brought out all the greatness of her soul. During the years in our movement she was a vigorous supporter in her branch and neighbouring circles. She did in fact, together with others, a most valuable work throughout the Rhine region. One of the others was Frau Maud Künstler who also died recently. She too was much appreciated and was also intimately connected with our movement.

Not only in her work within our movement did Johanna Arnold give evidence of her strong vigorous character. At the age of seven she, with great courage, saved her older sister from drowning. Part of her life was spent in England. She gave ample proof that not only is life a great teacher but it can also make a soul strong and powerful. Moreover in her case life revealed to her the divine spiritual for which the human soul longs. Through her inner mobility and strength Johanna Arnold became a benefactress to the Anthroposophists whose leader she was. To us who saw the extent of her commitment to our movement she became a dear friend. During these last years since the beginning of this dreadful war—in her attempt to understand what is happening to mankind—Johanna Arnold would ask me significant questions. She was constantly occupied with the thought as to the real meaning of this most difficult trial of the human race and concerned about what each one of us can do in order to go through it in a positive way. None of the daily occurrences of the war escaped her notice. But she was also able to see them in their wider context, bringing them into relation with mankind's spiritual evolution in general. In her attempt to solve the riddle of mankind she made a close study of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Robert Hamerling.

There are indeed many examples in our movement which can show how spiritual science affects man's whole life, his way of working, his inner development. And Johanna Arnold is a living proof, if such is required, that it is a blatant lie to say that individual thought must be renounced in our movement. She was looked up to as an example by those who knew her, not only through her devotion and loyalty to our spiritual-scientific movement but also because she sought through earnest independent thinking, to fathom the secrets of man's existence.—I am personally grateful to all those who so beautifully expressed their appreciation at the funeral of our friend. Her sister who is with us today has witnessed within a short time the death of Johanna Arnold as well as that of another sister; to her we would say that we shall remain united with her in loyal thoughts of those who have gone from her side into the spiritual world. We shall cherish their memory and retain a living connection with them.

These thoughts concerning departed friends, linked as they are with sorrowful experiences, also belong to our studies—using the word here free from all pedantry. We know that for the human soul there is survival and new beginning, but does the same apply to the many hopes and expectations we witness that come to nothing especially in our times? Why is it, we may ask, that even those who have a measure of insight into mankind's evolution nurture unjustified hopes and expectations? The answer is that we must nurture them, for they are forces, effective forces. Any doubt we may have as to whether they will be fulfilled should not prevent us from cherishing them because while we do they act as forces and produce effects whether they are fulfilled or not. We must accept it if, for the time being, they come to nothing. How gladly we set our hopes on many a person when he shows the first signs of warm understanding for the spiritual world. One has such hopes despite the fact that in our materialistic age they are often shattered. In recent lectures I have described deeper reasons as to why such hopes are shattered.

In this connection we must be clear that what we call human courage, which we see today in such abundance in many spheres of external life, is very seldom found in relation to spiritual life. This is why the personalities I spoke of today are really models even in regard to more external aspects of our society and movement. It is dawning on many people today that materialism will not do. But what I have often referred to as man's love of ease prevents them from committing themselves to spiritual science. Yet nothing else can save human civilization from plunging into disaster. There are people who are often quite near the point of crossing the threshold into spiritual science; that they do not is basically due to indolence. It is love of ease that prevents them from making their soul receptive and pliable enough to grasp ideas that quite concretely explain the spiritual world. There are many today who enthuse in general about the mystical unity of worlds, vaguely declaring that science alone does not explain everything; faith must come to its aid. But the courage to penetrate earnestly into the descriptions and explanations of the spiritual world that lies at the foundation of the sense world, that courage is greatly lacking.

Last winter I spoke about Hermann Bahr, about his path of knowledge. His latest books, “Expressionism” and the novel “Ascension,” suggested that he was at the point of becoming conscious of the spiritual world. There is no doubt that despite his vacillations and changes of direction he was at last striving towards the spirit. But his very latest writing which he has just sent me is very curious. Its title is “Reason and Knowledge”^* and it deals with the way modern humanity, in contrast to former times, relies more on reason when seeking spiritual insight, when trying to understand the World Order. Hermann Bahr begins by asking what reason has achieved. In the 18th Century, striving to develop reason was synonymous with so-called enlightenment which also played a decisive role in the 19th Century. He begins by saying that: “Before the war the West imagined that its peoples shared a feeling of community. They were cosmopolitans or else ‘good’ Europeans. There was the glittering world of millionaires, there were the dilettante and the aesthetes and also the international set, the uprooted vagabonds, spending their lives in sleeping cars and in grand hotels by the sea. And there were the proud communities of scientists and artists. Furthermore we had people's rights, we had humanitarianism. Internationally we shared the fruits of industry, commerce, money, thoughts, taste, morals and humour. All the nations in the West had aims and goals in common. They even thought they had also a means in common by which to attain these shared goals: the means of human reason! The hope was that, through united effort and human reason, mankind would attain what was perhaps beyond the reach of single individuals: ultimate truth. We have been robbed of all this by the war; it has all vanished.”

Thus Hermann Bahr, looking at the state of the world, concludes that modern man places a one-sided emphasis on reason. He recalls an interesting episode in Goethe's life. In Bohemia Goethe observed a strangely shaped mountain, the Kammerbühl and he concluded that the mountain must be of volcanic origin. He was convinced it had been formed in an ancient volcanic eruption. But others did not share his view; they presumed the mountain had originated through sedimentation which had been driven upwards by the force of water. Goethe was unable to convince these people that his assumption was the right one. He felt an inner impulse which convinced him that the mountain was of volcanic origin. The others were equally certain it had come about through sedimentation. This argument suggested to Hermann Bahr that impulses, quite different from reason, influence man's judgments; he saw them as impulses at work behind reason. Hermann Bahr concedes that not everyone is a Goethe; nevertheless, it seems to him that while people think they are following reason they are in fact determined by impulses. Earlier, in the Middle Ages, people were exhorted to have faith, to base their thoughts about the world on faith. But faith has become a mere phrase, it has lost its influence except in aspects of life in which science plays no role. Thus to Hermann Bahr man seems to be determined by his impulses. He asks: What kind of impulses are at work in modern man? He goes on to enumerate some impulses and emotions which delude people into believing they are following solely their reason. He says that Americans for example have a particularly strong impulse towards pragmatism. They want what is useful and practical, hence the famous pragmatism of William James.¹⁴ However Hermann Bahr now asks: What has come of this urge toward the useful? He is of the opinion that: “there are two main urges in Western man.” He then points to the much quoted expression that in the Middle Ages science was the handmaid of Theology; looking at modern culture he concludes that reason is certainly not the handmaid to Theology, rather has it become the handmaid of Greed. He then goes into still deeper problems; the individual, he says, cannot exist by himself, he must live in a community. This community is the State in which the individual has his place. This observation inevitably leads Hermann Bahr to ask if, here again, are not emotions the determining factors within the various States? At this point he attempts to link a spiritual element to the individual human soul. This spiritual element he tries to find first in Goethe and Kant; and he finally comes to the following thought: We see inner impulses at work in our lower life, impulses which draw reason along with them. It is therefore not reason which proves to us whether something is true or untrue. We judge things according to our inner impulses, according to what we want them to be. Thus Goethe wanted the Kammerbühl to be of volcanic origin while his opponents wanted it produced by sedimentation. Hermann Bahr came to the conclusion that there must be impulses in man other than those which stem from the lower nature. This thought brings him to the idea of Genius. What is done by a genius is also done out of impulse, but not a lower one. A genius is someone who is influenced by an element of a cosmic nature. However, the word genius almost makes Hermann Bahr split hairs. He consults Grimm's dictionary to get to the bottom of what the word Genius means; he familiarizes himself with what Goethe, Schiller, the Romantics and others, meant by it. He comes to see that the word genius cannot be applied indiscriminately. For example, if it is used to denote the highest impulse in the pursuit of knowledge then all professors would claim to be geniuses and there would be as many of them to venerate as there were professors. Hermann Bahr had no wish for that, so he looks for another way out. He comes to the conclusion that Goethe was quite right in applying the word genius only to a few special individuals. If applicable only to a few then it cannot be considered as an impulse for scientific endeavour. In short Hermann Bahr reaches a point where he senses that the soul of man has a connection with the spiritual world. He says: “You may tear me to pieces but I cannot explain the logical connection between the impact on the human soul of the hymn: ‘Veni Creator Spiritus’ (‘Come Holy Ghost’) and the meaning of genius in the Goethean sense. The connection is there and is sublime, powerful and real, yet I cannot explain it.”

However, there is one thing that Herman Bahr does want to explain; namely, that relying merely on reason does not help; reason as such, he says, does not lead man to truth. He rejects what in the age of enlightenment had been seen as the supremacy of reason, had been seen as reason's ability to explain everything observed and investigated. He wants to dethrone reason for in his view it has become subservient to external trade and technology and it simply follows man's impulses.

One thing these inner impulses of man do demonstrate is how a man like Hermann Bahr is able to reach the portal of spiritual science and then, because of lack of initiative to get to grips with spiritual science he holds back. He remains at the point of view that reason on its own is helpless, faith must step in to guide it. Thus the impulses that are to guide man must come, not from his lower nature but from God. He must receive them through faith. Knowledge must be guided by faith, reason alone can attain nothing. Hermann Bahr makes great effort to find confirmation of this idea. For example he makes an interesting reference to Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi¹⁵ who in a letter once expressed the perceptive idea that when it comes to the human soul's ability to grasp truth it is as if it were capable of elasticity, of expansion. This is a very ingenious idea of Jacobi's. I expressed the same thing somewhat differently in my Philosophy of Freedom where I spoke of an organism of thought, wherein one thought grows out of the preceding one. Whenever one arrives at the "elasticity" of man's inner nature, thinking continues, through its own power, the line of thought. When this happens one is experiencing the power of the spirit in one's own soul. Both Jacobi and Hermann Bahr point to the fact that something of a spiritual nature lives and acts in the human soul. What is so remarkable about Hermann Bahr is that he attempts to find in man the higher, the divine man, by demonstrating that reason is subservient to faith. In so doing he denies validity to the very impulse, i.e., reason that governs modern scientific endeavour.

One impulse Hermann Bahr does not discover: the Christ impulse which lives, or at least can live, in modern man. He points to Christ in only one place—two other places where he mentions Christ have no significance—and what he says there does not come from him but is a quotation from Pascal.¹⁶ It comes from Cascali “Pensus” when he says that “we human beings only know ourselves through Jesus Christ; that we know life and death only through Jesus Christ; through ourselves alone we know nothing either of our life or our death; nothing of either God or ourselves.”—Here Pascal is pointing to an impulse that comes from within man yet does not stem from himself; i.e. the Christ impulse. To understand it a sense of history is needed, for it has only been on earth since the Mystery of Golgotha.

Thus Hermann Bahr gets no further than Harnack and others. He comes as far as the idea of a universal God who speaks through nature, but not to a living understanding of Christ. This, once more, is an example of someone who is striving for truth yet cannot find the Christ and is unaware that he does not find Him. Hermann Bahr is at pains to show that throughout the evolution of the world man's striving is in evidence. He says beautiful things about Greek and Roman culture and even about Mohammed. The only thing he leaves out is the Mystery of Golgotha. He speaks of Christianity only in a reference to St. Augustine. But no amount of preoccupation with reason and the like can lead to Christ; it can lead only to a universal God. Christ, the God who descended from cosmic heights into earthly life, lives in us as truly as our own highest being lives in us. As Pascal indicated, we can attain knowledge of life and death; of God and ourselves only through being permeated by Christ. This truth can be recognized and understood only through spiritual science.

Goethe did pave the way to spiritual science. But when Hermann Bahr—in order to justify why he finally turned to faith—tries to explain the value of all kinds of statements by Goethe, all he says is: “It will not be necessary for me to testify that I acknowledge the teaching of the Vatican and the views of Goethe and Kant.” Here we see the influence of an external power which at present clearly indicates its intention to increase that power. Yet people remain deaf and blind to the signs of the times; they let what can explain the signs of the times pass them by. Hermann Bahr in his own way is well able to read these signs. He knows of the many things that induce modern man to say things like: “It will not be necessary for me to testify that I acknowledge the teachings of the Vatican and the views of Goethe and Kant.” It is a supreme example of how indolence can make a man come to a standstill in his endeavour. I love Hermann Bahr and have no wish to say anything against him. I only want to indicate what in such a characteristic way can influence a talented and significant personality of our time.

It is easy enough to blame reason, much can be said against it. It can be accused of not leading man to truth. However, blaming reason simply shows that the matter has not been thought through. Sufficient exploration will reveal that it is only when reason is permeated by Ahriman that it leads away from truth. Similarly if faith is permeated by Lucifer it also leads away from truth. Faith is in danger of being saturated with Lucifer, reason with Ahriman. But neither faith nor reason as such lead to untruth or error. In the religious sense they are gifts of God to man. When they follow their rightful path they will lead to truth, never to either error or untruth. Deeper insight reveals how Ahriman comes to insinuate himself into reason and bring about confusion. This knowledge can be obtained however, only by penetrating into the actual spiritual world. To do this requires one to make the effort to grasp the ideas, the descriptions which depict the spiritual world. If man persists in living in arid abstractions he sins against reason and remains ignorant of the fact that through the development of reason in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch man's ‘I’ is to enter the consciousness soul. People talk about man's relation to the spirit like the blind talk about colors. However, no matter how much the ignorant accuse one of contradictions—when speaking from the point of view of spiritual science—it is essential, as already explained, to stand by the results obtained when the spirit is investigated by spiritual means. One has a personal responsibility for the spirit.

This is the kind of responsibility I was able to speak about earlier in connection with special personalities whose example illustrates man's greatness when he feels responsible, not only for his actions, but also for his thoughts and feelings. By contrast you here have someone with no feeling of responsibility; without trying to discover what the present needs, he links onto influences in man's evolution which belong in the past. Consequently Hermann Bahr can say: “If anyone is interested in the path that led me to God, he may refer to my publication ‘Taking Stock’ and ‘Expressionism’ but I must ask the reader not to generalize my personal experiences; they have helped me but may not necessarily help others” and “Should the reader come upon any passage which deviates from the fundamental issue I must ask him to balance it against my good intentions. Any unfortunate ambiguous phrase caused by negligence is against my will and to my regret.” In other words if one simply accepts whatever decree that goes out from the Vatican there is no need to be personally responsible for one's actions.

It may be a good thing when someone openly and sincerely makes such a confession. However what it implies could not be further from the attitude of anthroposophically orientated spiritual science. What Hermann Bahr is confessing actually expresses a fundamental condition demanded by that spiritual stream which is again trying to assert itself. A condition one could sum up by saying: “The authority of the Vatican decrees what the world in general should believe and profess. And I concede from the start that what as a single individual I hold dear, my belief, my view of things are not the concern of the world in general. I may add my voice but only to the extent it finds approval with the Vatican.”

I do not know to what extent it is still fashionable to make confessions of this kind. What I do know is that spiritual science must rest on its own independent research and take full responsibility for that research. It must also accept disillusions and shattered hopes no matter how often they occur, also when they are, as in the case of Hermann Bahr, completely unexpected.

• *. The first World War
• *. “Vernunft and Wissenschaft”
• 14. William James 1842–1910 American Philosopher, founder of Pragmatism
• 15. Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi 1743–1819 Philosopher and Novelist.
• 16. Blaise Pascal 1623–1662 French Natural Philosopher

This evening, too, I would like to take a look at the more general conditions of the German essence within this lecture cycle, because it seems to me that in our great, but also painful and sorrowful time, spiritual-scientific considerations have a kind of ethical obligation in a certain respect, and because, in addition, the truly human feeling is to illuminate the horizon of the fateful events within which we stand from a spiritual-scientific point of view. This evening, however, it will be more a matter of allowing the “light of feeling” given by spiritual science to fall, as it were, on certain processes in German intellectual life and on the understanding that is brought to bear on this intellectual life. Tomorrow I will again take the liberty of dealing with a more specific spiritual-scientific topic.

If we look at those phenomena in German intellectual life that can particularly express the whole character of this intellectual life to us, one of them is the one that has already been these lectures: Herman Grimm, the great German art historian, who viewed art from the deepest sources of what German intellectual life, with all its impulses, has poured into his soul. In one of the lectures this winter, I took the liberty of calling Herman Grimm, so to speak, “Goethe's governor in the second half of the nineteenth century.” In the way he lived with everything he produced, in what – concentrated in Goethe – was contained as German essence, as essence in the German folk soul, and what then poured into the stream of German intellectual life – in this way Herman Grimm is, in a certain respect, a representative personality of German intellectual life from the second half of the nineteenth century.

Not quite two years before Herman Grimm's death, essays from the last period of his life appeared, which he gave the collective title “Fragments”. In the preface to these fragments, he says something extraordinarily characteristic. He points out that these individual, sometimes very short essays on this or that question of German or foreign culture arise from a whole of his intellectual world view. And Herman Grimm mentions that he had intended to combine the lectures he had given on this subject over fifty years at the University of Berlin into a single book, which would present the growth and development of the German spirit. But at the same time, he points out how, each time he moved on to the next lecture, he found himself compelled to rework what he had already written. And now he says that this would have to be done for the last time if these lectures were to be combined into a book on German intellectual life as a whole; he does not know whether he will live to do so, because this reworking requires a lot of effort and time. But – and this is the characteristic thing – this whole of German intellectual life stands before his soul, and he wants the individual essays that he publishes to be understood as if they were individual parts, taken from the whole, that stands before his soul.

Herman Grimm did not live to write the book he had in mind. He died in 1901, not quite two years after publishing these “Fragments”. He had actually planned to write an entire spiritual history of the development of the European peoples during his youth. And if we now consider how he in turn – as he often emphasized – wanted the individual main parts that he had given to be understood from this overall presentation of European intellectual life – his great work on Homer, his biographies or monographs on Michelangelo and Raphael and finally his work on Goethe – if we take this into account, we are confronted with something extraordinarily characteristic. We are actually dealing with something that lived in Herman. . Grimm's soul, which was never really portrayed by him in the form in which it lived in his soul, but from which, one might say, every single line he wrote and every single word he spoke in his life emerged. And if we now consider the whole way in which Herman Grimm speaks about art and German cultural life, something else in addition to what has just been said emerges. Herman Grimm always endeavors to advocate with all his soul, with his entire undivided personality; and anyone who has the urge to have all things clearly “proven,” who loves a line of argument that advances from judgment to judgment in a demonstrative manner, will not find what he is looking for in Herman Grimm's presentation. One would like to say: everything he has written springs directly from his entire soul, and one has nothing as proof of the truth but the feeling that overcomes one: the man, this personality, has experienced a great deal in the broadest sense in the things he presents; and he presents his experience. Thus the individual thing he presents springs from a whole that is not really there at all.

What is it, then, that lives in Herman Grimm? What is it that teaches us the conviction that every single thing arises out of a whole? What do we sense, as it were, as a shadow of the spirit behind all the details that Herman Grimm presents, that he has given to the world?

I would like to describe what one senses and what permeates one as one turns the pages of his books: it is the sustaining power of the German spirit, that German spirit which, for those who truly understand it fully, is not just some abstraction that one categorizes with concepts , with ideas, that one expresses in images, but which is really felt like a living being through all of German history; like a being that one feels as if one were holding a dialogue in one's soul with this being and allowing oneself to be inspired by it for everything one has to say. So that basically, once you have such an experience, you need nothing more than the certainty that this spirit is behind it as an inspirer – and you have given something that has good “proven” reason. This being, which one can say is the living German spirit, is slowly and gradually approaching German development; but it is entering the consciousness of the best minds in the most definite way.

We can find this German spirit, this fundamental German spirit, particularly characteristic in one remarkable place. It is there where one of the best, one of the most brilliant Germans, Johann Gottfried Herder, has tried to depict the overall life of humanity in its development. Herder, this great predecessor of Goethe, basically set out early on to let his gaze wander over all the development of the peoples in order to get an overall picture of the forces, of the entities that live in this development of the peoples. And what he was then able to accomplish as a presentation of his ideas about this process of development, he summarized in his “Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Humanity”. In these “Ideas” we encounter a tableau, a journey through the development of humanity in such a way that we sense that in all the individual phenomena and events, beings and forces live that all have a fully vital effect on Herder's soul. Already in his early youth, Herder turned against Voltaire's historical approach. He fully recognized that Voltaire was one of the most ingenious men; but what he found in his view of history was that this whole view ultimately culminated in a sum of ideas that prevail throughout history, as it were. In contrast to this, Herder objected that ideas only ever give rise to ideas. Herder did not want people to speak only of the “ideas” that are effective in history. He wanted to speak of something less abstract, something more alive and more concrete than the ideas of history. He wanted to speak of how invisible living beings are behind all historical events. He once said, for example: What the outer historical events are is actually only of value to the observer if one takes into account the spirits and spiritual forces at work behind them, from which what can be perceived through the senses first clearly emerges; for what takes place externally is only like a cloud that arises and passes away, but behind which lies the whole activity of the spirit that runs through human history, which one has to observe.

Slowly and gradually, German development rose to such a grandiose historical perspective. It can be said that such a historical perspective was already present in ancient Greece. We find there already echoes of it, longings to give such an overall picture of human development. But such efforts then receded again; and only later, as in Italy in the fifteenth century, do we find new attempts in this direction, as well as in the rest of Western Europe, in France and England. People began to seek connections in the historical development of humanity. But these connections were conceived in a certain materialistic sense. What happens in the course of history is made dependent on climate, geographical conditions and all sorts of other factors. It was only when the German mind took hold of this comprehensive view of history that it was truly brought to life, one might say. And in Herder's soul arose an image that synthesizes natural events and the crowning human events that take place upon them. Herder first turned his attention to how the beings of nature develop and how the spirit, which works in nature at a subordinate level, comes to be more characteristically expressed in man. This spirit, which Herder consciously lets emerge from the essence of the All-Divinity, works in nature, but it also interweaves the human soul. And what man accomplishes in history is not for him merely a sum of successive events, but it has significance in that man on earth himself continues the coherent plan of the divine spiritual entities through what he does.

There is greatness in Herder's calling man an “assistant of the deity” in his earthly work. In this there is again something of the ideas and intuitions and feelings of German mysticism, which seeks God directly in the human soul itself. Herder seeks God in history, as He manifests Himself in the deeds that take place in historical development. God Himself does what historical development is; and man, insofar as he is imbued with God, is God's assistant. For Herder, the whole of nature is built upon the next, then the human kingdom and on that the kingdom of higher spirits; and he makes the significant statement: Man is a middle creature between animal and angel. Herder thus places man in the overall development in such a way that man appears as a direct expression, as a revelation of divine spirituality. And when one examines how Herder, who was not a systematizing philosopher and was far from constructing any abstract ideas, came to sketch out an overall picture of development with inexpressible diligence and truly ingenious foresight, through which the deeds of man can be summarized with the deeds in nature, then one must say: It is a divine power that inspires Herder himself. He is aware that the divine powers that rule in history live in himself. It is the sustaining power of the German spirit in Herder that creates an overall picture of human development and also of natural development.

“Evolution” has become the magic word that seems so significant for the world view of our time. In the days when Herder lived and when Goethe spent his youth, he rose through Herder and others to the world view supported by the German spirit. The idea of evolution entered into German intellectual life. This idea of development was more profound and more profound than it is taken from the materialistic world view. For in what is regarded as “developing”, the German mind saw the mind at work; and in every single natural product, insofar as development is considered, he saw mind as the architect, the carrier, the accomplisher of development. Thus he was able to introduce the idea of the spirit as developing, shown in the becoming of man, fruitfully into the history of ideas, into the whole history of development.

And standing beside Herder as one of the great signposts in the spiritual life is Winckelmann, who first brought art history into that current which can be called: the world view based on the history of development and carried by the German spirit. Goethe says of Winckelmann, the first German art critic: “Winckelmann, a second Columbus, discovered the evolution and destiny of art as bound to the general laws of evolution, keeping pace with the rise and fall of civilization and the destinies of the people.

Thus we see how, through these minds – it has already happened through Lessing – mind is seen in all becoming as the actual bearer, as the actual substance of development. And this world view leads directly to a sense of being carried by the mind, to being carried by the mind. And this permeates the soul with confidence and inner strength. One is tempted to say that all this already contained an inkling that this German spirit, with all its idealism, contains the seeds of a truly scientific spiritual world view that humanity must move towards. For when we consider that spiritual science strives for knowledge of the world, which is attained through the soul developing its inner powers slumbering in its depths, so that it comes to see with the organs of the spirit or — to use Goethe's words — with the spiritual eyes and spiritual ears, to see what, as the invisible, works and lives behind the visible. If one considers this and then recalls a certain saying of Herder's, then a feeling of confidence comes over the soul: humanity will one day partake of spiritual world-view. For how beautifully Herder's saying resounds: “The human race will not pass away until the genius of enlightenment has passed through the earth.” Herder's gaze was always directed towards the intimate weaving and essence of the spiritual that prevails in all sensuality. Herder regards every human being – not just the great historical figures – as thoughts that are not merely thoughts grasped by our brain, but as something living, existing and weaving. And when they are suited to be seized by the spirit of the age and incorporated into the stream of events, then Herder speaks of those people who, through such thoughts, have a formative effect on an entire era: often these people – the geniuses – live and work in the greatest silence; but one of their thoughts, grasped by the spirit of the times, brings a whole chaos of things into good form and order.

When we consider these things, we can never say that they arose out of mere abstract philosophical reflection; for they do not stand in isolation as the impressions of a personality, but stand as if organically with the continuous stream of German intellectual life, and always in such a way that one must regard the personalities who express them, who thereby reveal their convictions, as inspired by the sustaining power of the German spirit. And this sustaining power of the German spirit is deeply felt even in the most recent times by those who have an inkling of it. What is felt as this sustaining power of the German spirit is not only taken up in an abstract philosophy; it is taken up in the deepest feeling of souls.

Thus, for example, when the late Paz! de Lagarde (who died in 1891) – another of the most German minds – once said the following, which is quite characteristic of his whole attitude to this fundamental force of the German spirit: “On one occasion I was requested by a relative of a friend whom I was accompanying to the grave to deliver the funeral oration, and to do so first at the cemetery.” Apparently, Lagarde then spoke of what connects the human soul with the eternal, with the spiritual, what passes through the gate of death as a living being, for now he continues: “Now I actually felt ashamed. What was I then actually? What am I then actually, that I dare to speak of that which is connected with the eternal-spiritual? I was ashamed, but I found that what I had said found fertile soil in the minds that had escorted the dead to the grave.” And now Lagarde says, drawing the conclusion, as it were: “That is how it is for the German when he speaks of love of country: he feels that this speaking of love of country is basically such an intimate, sacred thing that he feels ashamed to speak of it; but he also feels: if he speaks of it, it can fall on receptive minds.”

One need only recall this saying, which truly captures the essence of the German character in the most eminent sense, and one can see from it how the German, when he feels truly at home within the German national character, must to the spirit of his nation, in which he perceives the expression of the divine spirituality of the world in general, and how he feels it to be a living being, which he approaches — even with knowledge — only in reverence. Lagarde is one who, in the second half of the nineteenth century, out of deep learning but also out of deep, soulful feeling, spoke about Germanness in many ways, about the sources of Germanness, about the prospects of Germanness. He is one of those who never tire of pointing out again and again that the essence of Germanness resides in the spiritual, in that which, as the spirit common to all, permeates the entire German evolution. He who wishes to grasp the essence of Germanness at its root is not satisfied with what a materialistic view designates as “blood” or “race” in the nature of a people. Lagarde was not satisfied with this; for he felt that the essence of Germanness can only be expressed through spiritual ideas, through spiritual perceptions. Thus Lagarde says: “Germanness lies not in the blood but in the soul. Of our great men, Leibniz and Lessing are certainly Slavs, Handel, a son of a Halloren, is a Celt, Kant's father was a Scot: and yet, who would call these un-German?” — In which Lagarde, one of the most German of Germans, seeks the German essence, that is the supporting force of the German spirit, in which the one can immerse himself who understands German essence within himself and how to realize it. Time and again, the best Germans never tire of explaining how the essence of the German can only be expressed and revealed through the spiritual.

When one reflects in this way, the German spirit takes on an ever more concrete and real essence. One feels it flowing through the stream of German life, especially through the stream of German intellectual life; and one then understands how the German, in the course of his development, felt the need to enrich his own being in the present more and more with what the German spirit had already allowed to flow from its sources into the German nation in older times.

Thus we find, as the German Romantics, leaning on Goethe, as it were, renewing the old German essence, delving not only into the folk song but into the entire German spiritual being, in order to absorb it and revive it in their souls, so as to allow what is peculiar to Germanness as a whole to take effect in their own souls. And then we see again how the German development in the Brothers Grimm is inspired by what German essence produced in ancient times. We see how the Brothers Grimm descend to the people and have the old fairy tales told to them in order to collect them. And what lies in this collection of German fairy tales, which really convey such a hundredfold impression, taken directly from the people's minds? Nothing else lies in them but the fundamental power of the German spirit!

And how does this fundamental power of the German spirit continue to work?

We have been able to see it particularly in the achievements of the already mentioned Herman Grimm. Often, when one allows these fine, elegant, comprehensive artistic characteristics of Herman Grimm to take effect on the soul, when one especially visualizes some of the extremely intimate subtleties that lie in these writings, one must ask oneself: How did this personality manage to make the soul so elastic, so pliable that it could delve into the deepest secrets of artistic work and artistic creation? And I believe there can be no other answer than the one that follows from the clues as to how Herman Grimm, before he began to contemplate the art of humanity, expressed himself poetically and artistically. For this expression is particularly characteristic of the supporting force of the German spirit. I would like to point out only a few.

The first of the stories and poems collected in the volume Novellen is Herman Grimm's The Songstress. This is a story that, as is usually the case when presenting novellas, is used only to depict events that take place before the eyes of people, that can be grasped directly with the imagination that is tied to the body. Herman Grimm also masterfully presents what takes place in the external world: he presents a female personality that is deeply attracted to a male personality; but through her character and her whole being, this female personality rejects the male one. It would take too long to go into the details now. So it comes about that the male personality commits suicide. The female personality remains behind. And now, after the death of the man who loved her, she feels not only pain and suffering; no, something intervenes in her soul life that is directly supersensible. She spends a night at a friend's house, the friend at whose house the suicide of her lover had taken place. She feels disturbed. At first she does not know the reason for it. But then she says that she cannot sleep alone in the room; the friend should watch over her. And as he watches over her, it turns out that she has a vision, which the poet clearly shows that he wants to express more than a mere play of the imagination. At the door of the bedroom, the ghostly figure of the deceased enters. And if one investigates what Herman Grimm actually wants to express with this apparition, it is that he wants to say: with what is happening here before the eyes of man on earth, the event is not yet exhausted; but spiritual factors, spiritual entities intervene in physical events; and when death has occurred, what has passed through the gate of death is present there in the spiritual world and is effective for those who are receptive to it.

Herman Grimm is thus a novelist who allows the spiritual world to shine through his artistic portrayal. What actually appears to the bereaved lover has often been described in these lectures. It is what the etheric body of the deceased in question can be called, which can show itself in the form of the deceased to those who are receptive to it. But not all people are receptive to this.

Herman Grimm also wrote a novel, “Unüberwindliche Mächte” (Insurmountable Forces), which is of great importance as a cultural-historical novel and also otherwise in the spiritual history of humanity, but unfortunately it has been neglected. Here too, the lover dies. And when she seeks healing in a place in the south, she wastes away more and more in the memory of her lover and finally dies. Herman Grimm describes her death in a very unique way in the final chapter of 'Unüberwindliche Mächte'. He describes how a spiritual figure rises out of her body and rushes towards her lover. Again, Herman Grimm does not conclude the account with the events visible on earth, but brings together what is visible to the senses, what is visible to the mind, with the supersensible, which continues beyond death.

I would not cite such examples if they did not correspond entirely to what spiritual science has to say about these things. Of course one cannot cite artists as proof of spiritual science. But if one cites such examples as proof of what spiritual science has to offer humanity, it can be done to the extent that the nascent spiritual science lies in a spirit like Herman Grimm, who was artistically active in the second half of the nineteenth century. He is not yet able to express spiritual science as such, but artistically he presents things in such a way that one perceives: spiritual science wants to make its entry into the spiritual culture of humanity out of the supporting power of the German spirit.

Herman Grimm — this emerges from his entire literary work — never wanted to admit to himself what actually formed the basis for his giving such descriptions. He was somewhat shy about bringing these things, which he only wanted to approach in the most intimate, artistic and spiritual way, into ordinary concepts. But if he was not able to approach these things in the way that spiritual science can speak about them today, and yet these things are properly – one might say “expertly” – presented by him, then what lived in him? The inspiring force was the sustaining power of the German spirit! And so we find this sustaining power of the German spirit to be a very real entity, and we must turn our spiritual gaze towards it if we want to get to know the German character at all.

Now Goethe once spoke a very significant word, which should be taken into account when speaking of the relationship between the German spirit and the individual German, when speaking of how German essence lives directly in German lands – one might say – lives before the eyes of people when they have fixed their eyes on any personalities and any people within the German lands. In a confidential conversation in recent years, Goethe said to his secretary Eckermann: “My works cannot become popular; anyone who thinks and strives for that is mistaken. They are not written for the masses, but only for individual people who want and seek something similar and who are moving in similar directions.”

This is a significant statement. One would like to say: it is in the nature of Germanness — to use this word of Fichte's — to really feel the German spirit as a living thing and to still experience the totality of the German essence, the unity of the German spirit, as something special alongside what appears externally as German life. The totality of the German essence is no less real for that; it can at least be present for each individual. Hence the urge of the German to consider the individual phenomena of the world in connection with the whole development of the world and of humanity. In the second half of the nineteenth century, a poet living in the German-speaking districts of Austria went, one might say, around the whole world to understand the individual human being from the perspective of the overall spirit, despite the most diverse cultural influences. I refer to Robert Hamerling, who in his poem 'Aspasia' attempts to make the collective Greek spirit speak through an individual human being; who then attempts to portray the intensely personal German character in his 'King of Zion'; who further tries to express the actual spirit of the French revolutionary hearth in his drama “Danton and Robespierre” and finally wants to express the spirit of our time in his “Homunculus” in a grandiose, comprehensive way through poetry. Hamerling always feels the need to depict the individual in connection with what, as a spiritual weaving and becoming and as a sum of spiritual entities, animates and permeates the stream of human events. The view of the whole, of a living spiritual reality, interweaves the German intellectual work through the individual phenomena where it appears in its most intense manifestations.

Therefore, for someone who—one might say—does not look much further than a few meters beyond his own nose and considers something in a limited area of German life, it is extremely difficult to grasp the German character; for it can only be grasped by really considering the connection between the German soul and the spiritual entities that are weaving through the world and bringing themselves to revelation in the German spirit. And this is, in addition to much that has already been mentioned in these lectures, the reason why this German spirit, why this fundamental German spirit can be so misunderstood, why it is now so reviled and so insulted. One must ask oneself: How does this German spiritual life relate to the spiritual life of other nations?

I would like to discuss a characteristic example today, tying it in with a specific occasion when it became clear how difficult it is for a German who feels connected to the German spirit to make himself fully understood when the application of what he feels from the German spirit is to be applied to a single phenomenon. Recently, there has been much talk of the fact that the aging, somewhat decadent French intellectual life has undergone a kind of rejuvenation, that there are young French people who no longer go along with official Frenchness. And in many circles, which will hopefully have their eyes opened more by this war than they were previously open, people had begun to see something in this young Frenchness that would now understand the German mind much better than official Paris and official Frenchness. People had pointed to characteristic phenomena within young Frenchness. Indeed, there is much to be found there that one might say is quite significant. There are young French intellectuals who are not satisfied with official France itself – but that is the France that is currently at war with Germany.

What do such young Frenchmen say? – I would like to give just one brief example by quoting what Leon Bazalgette has said:

You can see how they swell with satisfaction when they utter the words: “French Renaissance” (three years of existence – they announce – the child is chubby-cheeked and already playing with little soldiers), “Awakening of national pride”,

These are the men who would divert the entire energy of a people to pour it into the enthusiasm of that still unknown virtue: hatred. In an age when the whole world trembles with activity, ambitious endeavors, dreams and new desires that cross borders, their only thought and aspiration, of which they are proud, is to settle an old neighborhood dispute with a fist fight. Oh, poor conceited people, who are incapable of conjuring up other forms of heroism than the “revenge”. Poor little fools of passion, who have no more appropriate desires to satisfy your hunger for action...

... In the name of what great idea – one of those ideas for which almost no one at all times has hesitated to give up his life – would we go to war with Germany? Is it about our freedom? Do we live under the yoke or are we threatened by it? Is it about countries that need to be civilized by being annexed, or about peoples that need to be snatched from slavery? No, it is solely about trying to reconquer territories that belonged to us and that we lost in a war, territories of which a good half are no more French than German...; and even less is it about reconquering these territories as such as it is about satisfying an old desire for revenge. That is the “idea in the name of which this country, which likes to give itself the title of ‘fighting for noble causes,’ would start a war.

One was — one would like to say — somewhat touched by the charity in certain circles at the sound of some voices that came from the young Frenchmen, those young Frenchmen of whom it was said that they wanted to found a new France. And one of those who, especially before the war, was also counted among these young Frenchmen by certain Germans who would create a new France, is Romain Rolland, who wrote a great novel, “great” in the sense of spatial expansion, because it has very many volumes. It is interesting to note how certain circles here, albeit perhaps smaller ones, viewed this particular novel by Romain Rolland.

One critic could not refrain from saying that this novel “Jean Christophe” — the German name is Johann Christof Kraft — is the most significant act that has been done since 1871 to reconcile Germany and France. In fact, there were quite a number of those who said: This novel 'Jean Christophe' shows how one of those young Frenchmen looks at Germany with love, with intimate love, and how he is one of those who will make it impossible for these two nations to live in discord in the future.

Not only has this proved to be a deceptive hope, but something else has emerged: Romain Rolland is one of those who, with Maeterlinck, Verhaeren and so on, immediately expressed themselves in a rather unmodest way about Germany and the German character when the war began. But now it is interesting to see a little how this man, Romain Rolland, of whom so many of us said that he could understand the German character so well, that he really grasped from the innermost core of the German national soul and the German spirit what is the supporting force of the German spirit – how this man understood the German character. I am well aware that I am not offending any true aesthetic sensibilities by saying what I must say, uninfluenced by the many judgments that have been passed on this novel, especially in the direction I have indicated.

What particularly excited people is that the Frenchman portrays a German, Johann Christof Kraft, who has outgrown the German way of being — we will see in a moment how — and who, after spending his youth in Germany, goes to France to find his further development there. In this, one sees a very special bridging of the contrast between the German and French way of being. Now, in order to fully understand what is to be said, we must first visualize the basic structure of this Jean Christophe.

I know how highly the critics regard this novel, and they have expressed their opinions as follows: the character of Jean Christophe is one that has been taken directly from life; no trait—so they feel—could be different in this drawing. But I must say: this Jean Christophe seems to me to be a rather indigestible ragout, his character welded together rather disharmoniously from the traits of the young Beethoven, Wagner, Richard Strauss and Karl Marx. The admirers of Jean Christophe may forgive me, but that is the impression. This Jean Christophe grows up – he is simply transported to the present – in much the same way as Beethoven grew up. One recognizes all the traits of the young Beethoven – but distorted into caricature – down to the last detail, but in such a way that the life of the young Beethoven appears everywhere as a grandiose work of art, while the life of Jean Christophe appears as a caricature. Now, it is not the poet's task, when he alludes to history, to be faithful to that history. I can make all the objections that critics make in this regard myself; nevertheless, I must say this: Jean Christophe grows up in an environment that, in the opinion of many people, provides a picture of the German character. His grandfather, grandmother, uncle and other friends are presented. He grows up in such a way that the German character, which he outgrows, is perceived as the greatest obstacle to his developing genius. German character, for example, is presented as follows. Like Beethoven, young Jean Christophe is a kind of early composer; he makes compositions at a young age. His father, who is a drunkard, feels compelled to show off this precocious talent to the world. This father is a secretary, servant to a small German prince. The particular Germanic nature of this father is presented in cultural-historical terms when, while planning a concert with the young, seven- to eight-year-old Jean Christophe, at which the prince is also to be present, he reflects on how he should dress the boy. In the end, he comes up with a very clever idea, which is described as “a culturally historical idea of genuine, true Germanism”: he has him put on long trousers and a tailcoat, along with a white bandage, so that the boy looks like an eight-year-old little man. I will not recount how this German undertaking later unfolds, because that would take us too far afield. I will also not describe in detail how he feels disgust for everything that the entire German environment offers, this environment that is marked with “love” — according to some people — and that is supposed to give a true picture of the German character. But when he can no longer stand this environment, he feels compelled — as it says in the book — to be inspired by the Latin spirit. So he goes to Paris. There he finds a friend who is a clear reflection of Romain Rolland himself in many ways. This is the person who expresses what the young, newly emerging French identity promises for the future; it is he who teaches this confused mind, this doll welded together from the young Beethoven, Wagner, Richard Strauss and others, some order of mind. That is the “love” with which, according to certain people, a German character, Jean Christophe, is drawn. Jean Christophe then also goes through various experiences in Paris – we now notice some traits of Richard Wagner. And when he loses his friend, he turns further south, undergoes many experiences that border on the criminal, which even lead him to suicide, which then only fails. And now, after Jean Christophe, who has not been able to flourish in his German surroundings, has gone through Latin ways, he comes to himself, as it were, in a lonely old village; he conquers his own spirit. Eternity opens up for him.

Now let us just take in a few examples of the truly loving immersion in the German character, taken from the novel. For example, the father, who is portrayed as Beethoven's father, Melchior, is characterized. Of course I know that someone might say: You are taking words out of a novel that may not actually reflect the author's opinion. But the artistic composition of this novel is entirely in line with what Schiller demanded in the beautiful words he wrote about “Wilhelm Meister” and what really belongs in the artistic composition of a novel. When Goethe was criticized for the fact that certain traits of the personalities in his novel did not appear entirely morally, Schiller said: “If people can prove to you that the immorality comes from your own soul, then you have made an aesthetic mistake; but if it comes from the characters, then you are justified in every respect.” This golden rule of art is also something that was later incorporated into the sustaining power of the German spirit. The best works of art that we find in Germany were truly written under the influence of this Schiller-Goethe attitude. But in Romain Rolland's work, one constantly encounters, almost on every third page, statements that clearly show that it is the author speaking and not the characters. Therefore, it is only an excuse in this case if one objects that one should not find what the author says on occasion – one cannot even say that it is the characters who express it – but what the author says on occasion of the characterizations characteristic of the way in which the author has immersed himself in the German essence. For example, Father Melchior is described in the following way:

“He was a smooth-talker, well built, if a little plump, and the type of what is considered classical beauty in Germany: a broad, expressionless forehead, strong regular features and a curly beard: a Jupiter from the banks of the Rhine.”

Then, to characterize Melchior's friends, how they gathered at the father's house and played and sang there together:

“Occasionally they would sing together in a four-part male choir one of those German songs that, one like the other, move along with solemn simplicity and in flat harmonies, ponderously, as it were, on all fours.”

What a loving description of the German character! I will only quote it as a characterization. Then there is an Uncle Theodor in the novel who is actually the grandfather's stepson; he is described in the following way. I have nothing to say against the fact that individual persons are presented in this way, but I do object to the fact that this description is supposed to be a cultural image of the German character; for one notices that Romain Rolland continually mixes in what itches him so that he can say it about the German character. Of this Uncle Theodor it is said:

What a loving description! Then Jean Christophe falls in love with a young noblewoman, who is portrayed as the epitome of a young German girl. Her name is Minna:

“Minna, for all her sentimentality and romanticism, was calm and cool. Despite her aristocratic name and the pride that the little word ‘von’ instilled in her, she had the mind of a little German housewife –” and then it continues:

“Minna, this naively sensual German little girl, knew some strange games.”

And now, to explain in cultural-historical terms what is supposed to be particularly characteristic of the German character, it is stated that she also understood how to spread flour on the table and put certain objects in it, which one then had to search for with one's mouth.

Now it will be shown why the German character becomes so unpleasant for Christof; and again, one can only say that the author is itching to express how he himself feels about the Germans. He wants to describe the dishonesty and hypocrisy in German idealism, the idealism that Romain Rolland believes was invented because people find the truth uncomfortable and therefore look to the ideal. They lie about the truth and call it idealism. Thus the Germans have the characteristic of not looking at people calmly, but of “idealizing” them, of lying to themselves about their true characteristics. Christof had also appropriated this characteristic, but it had become increasingly distasteful to him:

“Once he had convinced himself that they” — certain people — “were excellent and that he should like them, he, as a true German, tried hard to believe that he really liked them. But he didn't succeed at all: he lacked that compliant Germanic idealism that doesn't want to see and doesn't see what it would be embarrassing to discover for fear of disturbing the comfortable calm of their judgment and the comfort of their lives.” ‘German idealism’ invented for the sole reason of not disturbing the comfort of life! Now, once again, a young girl is described, with whom Jean Christophe naturally falls in love, an archetype of ugliness, “little Rosa.” One can literally feel from the novel how her nose is hardly in the right place on her face, and much more; but from a loving cultural description of her, it is said:

"The Germans are very indulgent when it comes to physical imperfections: they manage not to see them; they can even come to embellish them with a benevolent imagination, finding unexpected relationships between the face they want to see and the most magnificent examples of human beauty. It would not have taken much persuasion to get old Euler – Rosa's grandfather – to declare that his granddaughter had the nose of Juno Ludovisi.

But after he had tested the mendacity of German idealism on his own person – we have experienced this again and again with well-known “geniuses”; but we did not believe that it should be characteristic of the German character, that it should be a special characteristic of the Germans, that they 'idealize' people, was not believed earlier – he now also comes to the conclusion that basically all German musicians have a catch, something is wrong somewhere; this is also connected with German idealism! And now he comes to the conclusion that he must be more significant than all the rest. As a characteristic example, a few words about Schumann:

Now that he is only a: returned Beethoven – who of course lives according to Wagner – and is supposed to become a genius the like of which has never been seen, he must also vent his anger on Wagner. And so all kinds of affectionate things are then put into his mouth – you really can't say, “Johann Christof,” which would be forgivable; instead, they are always expressed in such a way that they are separate from the person of Johann Christof and become something that the author himself gives the absolute coloration to. So, with reference to Lohengrin and Siegfried, it is said about Richard Wagner:

“Germany revelled in this art of childish maturity, this art of wild beasts and mystically quacking maidens.”

Well, I would like to say that the German character is characterized even more profoundly in such a loving way. Here is another example:

"Especially since the German victories, they did everything to make compromises, to bring about a disgusting mishmash of new power and old principles. They did not want to renounce the old idealism: that would have been an act of courage that they were not capable of; in order to make it subservient to German interests, they contented themselves with falsifying it. They followed the example of Hegel, the cheerfully duplicitous Swabian, who had waited for Leipzig and Waterloo to adapt the basic idea of his philosophy to the Prussian state,” – it may perhaps be said that Hegel's fundamental work, ‘The Phenomenology of Spirit’ – but Romain Rolland probably knows very little about this when he says that Hegel's philosophy was created after Leipzig and Waterloo – was written during the cannonade of the Battle of Jena, that is, in 1806, and already contains Hegel's entire philosophy –

"And now, after the interests had changed, the principles were also changed. When they were defeated, they said that Germany's ideal was humanity. Now that they were beating the others, they said that Germany was the ideal of humanity. As long as the other countries were the more powerful, they said with Lessing that patriotism was a heroic weakness that could very well be dispensed with, and they called themselves citizens of the world. Now that victory had been achieved, there was no lack of contempt for “French” utopian dreams: world peace, brotherhood, peaceful progress, human rights, natural equality; it was said that the strongest nation had an absolute right over the others, while the others, as the weaker ones, had no rights over it. It seemed to be the living God and the incarnate spirit, whose progress was achieved by war, violence and oppression. Now that it was on their side, might was canonized. Might was now the epitome of all idealism and all reason. To give honor to the truth, it must be said that Germany for centuries...

perhaps the only thing people seek in Germany, to do honor to the truth! — “had suffered so much from having idealism without power that after so much trial it was well justified in now making the sad confession that it needed power above all, however it might be constituted. But how much hidden bitterness lay in such a confession of the people of a Herder and a Goethe! And what renunciation, what humiliation of the German ideal lay in this German victory! — And, alas, this renunciation found only too much compliance in the lamentable tendency of all the best Germans to subordinate themselves.

“What characterizes the German,” said Möser more than a century ago, “is obedience.”

And Frau von Stael:

"They obey well. They use philosophical reason to explain the most unphilosophical thing in the world: respect for power and the habituation to fear that transforms respect into admiration.” Christof found this feeling in Germany at all levels, from the greatest to the smallest – from Wilhelm Tell, the deliberate, small-minded bourgeois with the muscles of a porter, who, as the free Jew Börne says, in order to reconcile honor and fear, walks past the post of “dear Mr. Geßler” with his eyes downcast, so that he could appeal to the fact that he who did not see the hat was not disobeying – “up to the honorable seventy-year-old Professor Weiße, one of the most respected scholars in the city, who, when a lieutenant passed by, quickly left the footpath to him and went down to the road.”

And further it says:

“Moreover, Germany did indeed bear the heaviest burden of sins in Europe. When one has won the victory, one is responsible for it; one has become the debtor of the vanquished. One tacitly assumes the obligation to lead the way for them, to show them the way. The victorious Louis XIV brought the splendor of French reason to Europe. What light did the Germany of Sedan bring to the world?”

This is the loving description. But I must not forget anything, and in order not to be unjust, I must not conceal the fact that at one point something of the loving description of the German character from this novel shines through clearly and distinctly. It is where a German professor in a small town – his name is, of course, Schulz – is enthusiastic about the early works of Johann Christof, which are misunderstood by everyone else. Johann Christof is once able to visit the old professor. Two other acquaintances turn up, and then there is – in addition to Johann Christof demonstrating his works to the delight of the three people – a feast, a huge midday feast. Salome (!), the old professor's cook, who has been a widow for a long time, takes particular pleasure in how everyone can eat. And now a piece of German character is described in a truly “historically accurate and loving” way.

Salome, to see how they were enjoying a piece of German culture inside, looked through the crack in the door; and what she saw is described as:

It is not surprising that Johann Christof, after having gone through all that, wants to get out of this environment, because his genius cannot flourish in this environment. But he doesn't really know anything about France, this Johann Christof. He is completely uneducated, just a great musician. But since he knows nothing, his going to France is characterized in the following way:

“Instinctively (since he didn't know France!) his eyes looked towards the Latin south. And first of all towards France. Towards France, the eternal refuge from German confusion.”

In France, he meets his friend Olivier, who enlightens him about the young French. And perhaps it is what these young French say about the Germans that is so appealing on this side of the Rhine. Olivier tells Johann Christof about the young French's particular view of the nature of official Paris and about what he used to polemicize against like the others:

"The best among us are shut out, imprisoned on our own soil... Never will they know what we have suffered, we who cling to the genius of our race, who, like a sacred trust, guard the light we have received from it and desperately defend it against the hostile breath that would extinguish it; and yet we stand alone, feeling the polluted air of those metics all around us, who, like a swarm of mosquitoes, have attacked our thinking and whose disgusting larvae gnaw at our reason and defile our hearts; we are betrayed by those whose mission it would be to defend us, our superiors, our stupid or cowardly critics; they flatter the enemy to obtain forgiveness for being of our generation; we are abandoned by our people, who do not care about us, who do not even know us... What means do we have to make ourselves understood? We cannot reach them... And that is the hardest part. We know that there are thousands of us in France who think the same; we know that we speak on their behalf, and there is nothing we can do to be heard! The enemy occupies everything: newspapers, magazines, theaters... The press shuns every thought or only allows it if it is an instrument of pleasure or a party weapon. Intrigues and literary cliques only leave room for those who throw themselves away. Misery and overwork crush us to the ground. The politicians, who are only concerned with enriching themselves, are only interested in the corruptible proletariat. The indifferent and self-interested citizens watch our dying. Our people do not know us; even those who fight with us, who are shrouded in silence like us, know nothing of our existence, and we know nothing of theirs... Unhappy Paris! It is true that it has also done good by organizing all the forces of French thought into groups. But the evil it has created is at least equal to the good; and in an epoch like ours, good itself turns into evil. It is enough for a pseudo-elite to usurp Paris and ring the immense bell of the public to stifle the voice of the rest of France. Far more than that: France confuses itself; it remains silent in dismay and fearfully pushes its thoughts back into itself... I used to suffer greatly from all this. But now, Christof, I am calm. I have understood my strength, the strength of my people. We just have to wait until the flood has passed. It will not gnaw away at France's fine granite. I will let you feel it under the mud it carries with it. And already, here and there, tall peaks are emerging...

You don't really need more than that to characterize the French character that is now waging war against Germany. But now, I would like to say, there is something even more beautiful. So this novel was published. It has also been translated into German. I would now like to read you a few words from a German critic of this novel, addressed to Romain Rolland in the form of a letter printed in a Berlin newspaper.

"For me, the completion of your 'Jean Christo is even more of an ethical event than a literary one... Gobineau, Maeterlinck, Verhaeren and even Verlaine have had their greatest impact and achieved their greatest fame in Germany rather than in France, and it would be only fair if you too were appreciated earlier in our country than in your homeland, because your book belongs in Germany, in the land of music, more than any other book. In many ways it is a German book, a coming-of-age novel like Green Henry or Wilhelm Meisten. German music, which Germany has given the world, has also made you its advocate. It was music that led you to the German language and made you love Goethe, whom you have memorialized many times in your work with love and admiration.

I find myself at a loss as to how many times I should actually thank you. The human being, the connoisseur, the artist, the German, the world-joyful in me, each of them wants to come forward and say a word to you. But another time the artist will say a word about this novel, another time the connoisseur, and the human being will wait until he can shake your hand again. Today only the German should thank; because I have the feeling that French youth has become closer to us through this book, which has done more than all the diplomats, banquets and associations."

This is a prime example of how the sustaining power of the German spirit can be misunderstood, and how the painfully great events we are having to live through must have an eye-opening effect in many respects, truly: must have an eye-opening effect. And please forgive me if I bring up something at the very end that seems personal, but which only ties in with personal matters because I have only just learned about it today.

The spiritual science movement to which we belong was for many years connected with a theosophical movement based in England and India. This movement gradually became so absurd that anyone with a sense of truth could no longer have any connection with much of this Anglo-Indian theosophical movement. Therefore, many years before this war, we completely separated from it. At that time we were reviled enough, even by German followers of that movement; perhaps stronger words could be used. But one would have thought that the matter was now over and that there would be no reason to return to it now. But the president of this Anglo-Indian movement has found it necessary to refer to this matter again and to characterize us Germans. And she does so with the following words, which are not mentioned here out of personal considerations, but to show how, from a certain point of view, one is capable of characterizing in such a way what we as Germans had to do out of our sense of truth:

”... Now, looking back, in the light of German methods as revealed by the war, I realize that the long-standing efforts to capture the Theosophical Society and place a German at its head, the anger against me when I frustrated those efforts, the complaint that I had spoken about the late King Edward VII as the protector of European peace, instead of giving the honor to the Kaiser – that all this was part of the widespread campaign against England, and that the missionaries were tools, skillfully used by German agents here – in India – to push through their plans. If they could have turned the Theosophical Society in India, with its large number of officials, into a weapon against the British government and trained it to look to Germany as its spiritual leader – instead of standing, as it has always done, for the equal alliance of two free nations – then it could gradually have become a channel for poison in India.

So that is what we are, seen through English-Theosophical eyes, in our spiritual scientific movement. But I may say – forgive this remark; you know that I do not like to make personal remarks – I can give the assurance that I had no intention of doing all this, and especially had no intention of leaving the German spiritual scientific movement. For such a thing did not live in me and, I believe, did not live in many others either, who know that they are connected with the German spirit and its sustaining power – something that lived in Johann Christoph Arnold, who was driven out of Germany by his instinct. For even if it is difficult to find the immediate manifestations of the sustaining power of the German spirit in the immediate phenomena that Rolland, the traveler, with his uncomprehending eye, has focused on, it must be said that the truthfulness of the German spirit will make it more and more possible, especially through the experiences of our fateful time, to build a bridge between what we experience in everyday life and what is the fundamental force of the German spirit. And when we are presented with all the figures in Johann Christian's environment, from which his “genius” drives him out, then perhaps, in conclusion, and without arrogance, something may be said.

I don't want to quote a foreigner now. But I may quote someone who has been dead for a long time, who died in 1230 and who, for his part, also expressed an opinion on whether a German genius must necessarily be driven out of all that lives in it by its environment, out of all the Minnas and Rosas with crooked noses, which German idealism knows as the nose of Juno Ludovisi. Perhaps not with a genius like Johann Christoph, but with one of whom we know from the context with the supporting power of the German spirit that he was a German genius. With such a German genius we may perhaps, without arrogance, think for a moment: with Walther von der Vogelweide. And we may admit to ourselves: it is not with Johann Christof, the hero that Romain Rolland has drawn, that we judge how German men and German women affect a genius, but rather with a spirit like Walther von der Vogelweide. With his words, then, let these reflections be closed, to be followed tomorrow by a special lecture on the humanities.

Walther von der Vogelweide is not driven out of Germany by his instinct; he must think differently about those among whom he lives. I don't know how they would be described if they were to fall under Romain Rolland's fingers; but Walther von der Vogelweide says of them – and this seems to me to indicate a better understanding than Romain Rolland reveals –:

German men are well-bred,
their women are as pure as angels.
He who scolds them is deceived,
I could never understand it otherwise.
Virtue and pure love,
Whoever seeks them
Shall come to our land, where there is much bliss.
Long may I live in it!

Although I already touched on Goethe's “Faust” in this space this winter, in a consideration of Goethe's world view in the context of German idealism, I will take the liberty today of coming back to you with a consideration of Goethe's “Faust” as a kind of introduction to the six lectures I have announced. I believe that in connection with Goethe's Faust, the world view that I am representing here yields so many insights that some light will fall on the following, which will be spoken here in the near future. Of course, today I will only be able to make aphoristic remarks about the topic I have set myself, because this topic is so extensive in itself that one can never get further than highlighting this or that point of view from a wealth of points of view. And of course it also follows that one must be one-sided with each such consideration of Goethe's “Faust”. But that is a risk one must be willing to take.

After a consideration of Goethe's “Faust” that lasted more than half a century, my old friend and teacher Karl Julius Schröer completed the third edition of his “Faust” edition 1892 with a preface in which the words are found: “Only the German way of thinking was able to solve the Faust problem.” And it is essentially on these words that I would like to base my reflections today.

According to a certainly justified opinion of Herman Grimm, who was so deeply involved in all that Goethe had striven for and experienced, the Faust problem will be the starting point for recurring reflections on Goethe's “Faust” through the centuries, even millennia, which will certainly differ considerably from one another in the succession of times. In this regard, Herman Grimm already spoke a very significant word in the 1870s, which I would now also like to mention in my introduction. Herman Grimm said at the time: “We are still too deeply immersed in the world that Goethe wanted to depict allegorically and symbolically in the second part of the play; here, too, only later times will gain the right point of view.” It may be said that the standpoint which Herman Grimm assumes here is as modest as it is lofty, for he speaks from a deep consciousness of all that has been poured into this Faustic poetry, which was given to the world through Goethe. And Herman Grimm continues: “We would do an injustice to Goethe's Faust if we took it only for what his many-colored experiences make it appear, and the time will yet come when the interpreters of this poem will occupy themselves more with what lies in it than with what merely clings to it.”

Of course, such statements must still apply in many respects today. Nevertheless, decades have passed since Herman Grimm wrote these words, and today, we may perhaps already entertain the hope, from the many insights that spiritual life has experienced, that we can get more into what lies in Faust than what hangs on Faust, as Herman Grimm puts it.

And so today I would like to draw your attention to how the world wandering that Faust undertakes from his study to the world, in which people more or less live, came about, and how through this world wandering, he gradually rises to the point of view of a worldview in the broadest sense of the word, which represents a kind of rebirth of Faust out of German intellectual life, insofar as Goethe himself participated in this German intellectual life. I believe that we shall only be able to arrive at a full understanding of the figure of Faust and its significance for life if we seek from the outset to delve into what is actually living in Faust's soul at that moment when we have him before us as a poetic figure at the beginning of the Faustic poetry, as it has now been completed by Goethe. What lives in Faust, as expressed in the opening monologue, “Have now, alas, philosophy...” and so on, speaks in a deeply significant way. But a kind of light must also be cast on what lives in Faust's soul at the moment that the poetry presents to us at its beginning, from a deepening into all that takes place later in the course of the events that the Faust epic represents. Faust stands there in opposition to the sciences that he lists as the sciences of the four faculties, and we see quite clearly from what he expresses how unsatisfied he is with the sciences that have affected his soul. We may ask: What does Faust really want? And perhaps this question can only be answered adequately if we bear in mind in the further course of the first monologue that Faust, despite having absorbed the sciences of the four faculties, has devoted himself to magic, that is, to what he has been able to learn as traditional, conventional historical magic from the various writings about this magic.

I would like to point out right away that a misunderstanding of the first Faust monologue can easily arise from the fact that one might believe that the moment in which Faust surrenders to magic coincides with the moment in which he speaks this monologue, and that Faust had not yet surrendered to magic before those feelings that live in this monologue go through his soul. That would be a misunderstanding and would make understanding the whole state of Faust's soul extremely difficult. Rather, we must assume that Faust, at the very moment when he expresses his feelings in that monologue, is already deeply immersed in what he addresses as magic; that he has done a great deal of study on this magic. And we can prove this from the Faustian legend itself. When the poodle that accompanies Faust on his Easter walk later takes on different forms and Faust does not know what is in this poodle, Faust reaches for a magical-occult book and now knows exactly, at least in his opinion, how he can use all sorts of incantations from these books to get to the bottom of the secret of this poodle and how he should behave towards this spiritual manifestation that he believes he has before him. We must therefore assume that Faust has already, to a certain extent, familiarized himself with these things.

Now we learn that Faust takes a book of magic and that he wants to assuage his dissatisfaction by first turning to the spirit of the great world, to the spirit of the macrocosm, as he puts it. What does he actually want? Perhaps we shall only be able to see what he wants if we delve a little into Goethe's soul itself, which indeed placed its feelings in the Faust character, at least during the time when the first Faust monologue and the first parts of “Faust” were created.

What world and worldview did Goethe actually face? Goethe was confronted with a worldview that could be built on the basis of what had been recognized about natural and spiritual life. He was in the midst of a worldview that fully took into account the scientific revelations made by Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and so on. Goethe was confronted with what, in the spirit of Kant, could be called the world view of the Enlightenment, the penetration into the secrets of nature by means of the mind, which synthesizes the experiences of the senses and the experiences of history. What presents itself to the human soul in the way of ideas, which, as we would say today, are grasped in a healthy way by the normal mind and which arise above and beyond what can be investigated by the normal experience of the outer senses, it was such a world view that surrounded Goethe. How could he and his needs live into the world view that could give such a world view? He could not completely live himself into such a world view; for what Goethe constantly wanted, and what he now lets his Faust want, is a direct growing together of the innermost soul with what weaves and lives through the world outside, a growing together of the soul itself with the world secrets present in the world, with the deeper revelations and the revealing powers and entities of the world.

Now Goethe's Faust faced the view of the Enlightenment of nature and the spirit of the world in such a way that what could result in the way just characterized a world view seemed far removed from being able to grasp the entities that pervade the world and that he wanted to grasp with the innermost powers of the soul, with which he wanted to live together. For what this world view, based on the science of the time, could give him, at most it gave him knowledge, something that filled his head, his mind, but which could not identify so closely with human inner experience that one could really have entered with this inner experience into the forces that live and weave in nature and the spirit world. “Thus must I seek,” says Goethe's Faust, ”to get at the inmost powers and entities of the world in such wise that, by grasping them, my soul may be partaking in the spiritual-natural weaving and living of the world. But if I grasp only that which can be grasped from the present standpoint of a scientific world-view, then I grasp only in a dry, sober way with the knowledge these mysterious connections of the world, that which moves the world in its inmost being. And this knowledge can never give me that fullness which lies in grasping that which lets me live together with the secrets of the world.

And so Goethe's Faust wants to delve into what permeates and gives life to the world, into the world of nature and the spirit, in a different way. And since Goethe was certainly never of the opinion held by many people today and in the past, that what is current and has been achieved in their own time is necessarily right — in contrast to which one can say how gloriously far we have come — Goethe wants to tie in with what has gone before, from which the present has developed. And so he also lets his Faust tie in with the world view from which the world picture surrounding him has developed, with a world view that certainly had the belief that with what it gained, it entered into an experience of the secrets of existence. What kind of world view was that?

Well, you only need to pick up something like the works of Agrippa von Nettesheim or some other similar medieval philosopher, and you will be able to gain an insight into what Goethe's Faust actually means when it invokes the spirit of the macrocosm. Such concepts, such ideas, as surrounded Faust in the philosophy of the Enlightenment — I am referring to Goethe's Faust, not the sixteenth-century Faust — did not yet exist at the time when Agrippa von Nettesheim wrote. At that time, people did not yet form a picture of the world in such abstract terms as in the Age of Enlightenment. Instead, by developing philosophical worldviews, they lived, I would say, in images, in imaginations. But one also lived in the belief that one could bring about something through which nature and the spiritual world would express themselves intimately about what they actually are. And what one now got as a world view was at the same time interwoven with the feelings and perceptions of the soul, was in a certain way the same as what the soul experienced within itself. Today one would say: it was very anthropomorphic. That is certainly true; it was the case that in what he abstracted from the world, man felt forces that were related to the forces of his own soul. One spoke of sympathies and antipathies of things and similar forces in the natural world, as one experienced them in one's own soul existence. But further: In the time in which Agrippa von Nettesheim wrote, little was believed that could be attained by man through himself, that man could simply achieve by developing the powers of his soul life, by developing those powers of cognition in order to give them a higher form than that which man has by nature. They did not believe in the power of research of the human soul itself; they rather believed that through all kinds of external activities, these or those experiments — but not experiments in our present sense — they would, so to speak, give the spiritual that lives in nature the opportunity to show how it lives in natural facts. Through all kinds of events, it was thought that the secrets of nature could be discovered. It was not believed that consciousness can directly penetrate nature through the powers it acquires. It was believed that one had to perform certain actions or events in order to, as it were, by means of magic, make nature speak and express its spirit. Man's consciousness itself was to seek this separately. They wanted to do something in the external world that would cause nature to reveal its secrets and finally express how the forces in nature are arranged, from which man himself then builds himself out of nature and the spiritual world. So they wanted just what Goethe's Faust craves: to live together with the weaving and essence of nature itself; and they believed they could achieve it.

What stood before man as nature and spiritual world had been thoroughly permeated by spirit. And the development necessitated by the world had to set in place an outer image of nature, precisely the image of nature of a Copernicus, a Kepler, a Galileo, or what has come from that, an image of nature from which precisely that which these medieval philosophers wanted to seek out of nature has been removed. In this world view of Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo, and in what has been created from it, it was precisely these ideas that were the decisive, the decisive, the justified ones, which Goethe's Faust did not perceive closely enough, were not inwardly full enough to face the world with them in such a way that one can fully experience this world in one's own soul.

And so, in the moment in which the first monologue transports us, there lives in Faust's soul the urge to experience the secrets of the world through that ancient magic, to connect the laws and essence of the world with the experiences of his own soul. And he believed that he could achieve this by devoting himself to the formulas and images that were supposed to represent the macrocosm from the book he picked up.

But Faust – I emphasize this expressly – Goethe's Faust, not the sixteenth-century one – is precisely the human being, the personality of his time. Humanity advances precisely in its organization, even if it is not visible to a rough observation. In this time, one could no longer get behind the secrets of existence in the same way as Agrippa von Nettesheim, for example. One could no longer indulge in the belief that what one attains, whether through imagination or external influence, through magical experimentation, really has something to do with the innermost workings of the world. And so Faust is finally faced with the realization: Yes, I try it the way these ancients did, to connect with the spiritual, with the natural forces of existence - but what does it give me? Does it really lead me into what lives and moves in nature and the spiritual world? No, it gives me a spectacle - what a spectacle! But alas, only a spectacle!

And in this sense, Goethe's Faust is truly representative of the Goethean period. It has become impossible to reach the sources of existence in this way, to grasp infinite nature, not merely to penetrate it with ideas or with laws of nature, but to experience it. He cannot succeed because the time when one could believe that real knowledge of nature and the spiritual world could be attained in this way is past. What a spectacle! And he turns away from what the contemplation of the signs of the macrocosm can give him. He turns to the microcosm, to the earth spirit.

What is this earth spirit? Well, if you take the whole of what is presented in Goethe's “Faust” in connection with the appearance of the earth spirit, you find that this earth spirit is the representative of everything that, in the course of historical development, flows over the earth in the broadest sense flows over the earth, which works in such a way that what lies in our deepest drives, what, as it were, orbits the earth and places us human beings with our innermost selves into its currents, comes out of it into our soul, into our heart, into our very innermost being. In a sketch that he later made for his 'Faust', Goethe himself summarized the idea of this earth spirit, as it were, as a world and deed genius. This reminds us that what Goethe actually addresses in his poetry as the earth spirit is something that lives in the course of historical development, that has an effect on our soul, insofar as we are children of a particular age, insofar as certain impulses live in us, a certain form of that which can be achieved in existence in one way or another lives in us. But this depends on how we are placed in a particular epoch in relation to what flows out of the earth spirit that has been ruling over the earth throughout the ages. So this earth spirit, as it is written in Faust, may say:

... in the storm of action
I surge up and down,
Woe to and fro!
Birth and grave,
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.

Now, I would like to say, a word is uttered in “Faust” that is often misleading when given a slightly exaggerated explanation. I do not want to fall into the trap that many all too easily fall into, of reading all kinds of things into a poem like the Faust poem. And I know very well that almost every explanation that one can dream up fits, if one twists it skillfully, almost everything. I would like to try to derive everything I have to say from the Faust legend itself. I now mean at this moment the word:

Two souls, alas! dwell in my breast,
The one seeks separation from the other...

One of these characterizes Faust as if it lived in all the impulses of this earthly life. He explicitly says of the other soul that it wants to rise from the dust of earthly life to the realms of the high ancestors. Now, I think it is an oversimplified explanation when one simply says that this is the lower and that the higher nature of man. Of course, with such abstractions one always comes close to the truth. One cannot go wrong, because the more abstract one is, the more correctly one will express oneself as a rule. But with a work of fiction such as Faust, it is important to accurately and specifically capture the feelings that are embodied in the work of fiction. And it seems to me, in fact, when Faust speaks of his two souls, that one soul is the one that experiences, above all, what the human inner being is, that experiences the influx of the forces, the impulses of the earth spirit, the one soul that perceives how impulses rise up from the deep foundations of human existence of the individual human individuality and fill the soul life. The other soul seems to me to be the one that has been active in striving for what the spirit of the macrocosm is to reveal, that wants to rise from the mere dust of earthly existence to the realms of high ancestors, that is, to all the spiritual that lives in the natural and spiritual world and from which the human being not only as a historical being, but from which he has emerged as a complete, as a whole being, as a natural and historical being, to the universe as it has gradually developed over the centuries, millennia, millions of years, into which the spirits of the centuries, millennia and millions of years have laid their impulses. It is to this universe, then, to the spiritual ancestors from whom this human being on earth has developed, that this soul wants to rise. Of course, as soon as one expresses such things in such sharply defined words as I have just done, one again makes the meaning somewhat one-sided. That too should certainly not be denied. But nevertheless, I believe that the two directions of feeling that live in Faust's soul and that he describes as his two souls are these: one of them goes out into the macrocosm, into the universe, and encompasses spiritual beings, as a whole, as a great thing, and nature at the same time, the whole cosmos, insofar as man is grounded in this cosmos as a microcosm. And in the other direction of feeling, I believe I must recognize that which flows from the current of historical becoming into the human soul and makes man a member, a child of a very specific time; so that we are Earth Spirit, as the opposite of the spirit of the great world, we are led to that which stirs in our own soul as the striving to embrace the full human being, in contrast to the individual expressions, which must always remain in the individual human life. Faust believes he can feel at one with this spirit, which makes man a whole human being, and indeed now as a historical being, by confronting the Earth Spirit. But the Earth Spirit rejects him. He refers him to the spirit that he understands. And at the same time he makes it clear to him how he, Faust, is not the same as the Earth Spirit itself. What is the underlying reason for this?

Now, we can perhaps recognize what is at the root of this if we consider the further progress of Goethe's Faustian poetry. Where does Faust feel he is placed immediately after he is rejected by the Earth Spirit? Wagner is the one he feels himself confronted with! And one may look for so much of the most noble humor in Goethe's world literature that one can, to a certain extent, be of the opinion: By the Earth Spirit rejecting Faust and pointing to the spirit that he understands, he is actually pointing him in a certain respect to the spirit of Wagner, whom Faust will face in the very next moment. Thus the Earth Spirit is actually saying to Faust: First become aware of how similar what lives in your inner being, what you have been given out of the spirit of the earth, is to the whole formation of Wagner's soul! And what emerges from this Wagnerian soul in the course of Goethe's poem? Yes, we see how Wagner lives on in the poem up to a certain point in time, which is precisely indicated to us in the second part of Goethe's “Faust” in the classical Walpurgis Night, where that which Wagner has brought forth out of his world view, the homunculus, must dissolve in the weaving and ruling of the whole world, as Goethe characterizes it in the various figures of the classical Walpurgis Night. And so we are led, I would say, to the ideal, to the ultimate goal of Wagner's striving. We may well call this the creation of the homunculus.

What then is this homunculus? Certainly, Goethe's Faustian poetry - and this is the incomparably great thing about it - presents in a magnificent, dramatic way these things that are otherwise often only the subject of abstract philosophical consideration. But that is precisely the great thing, that for once in the world it has been possible to bring that which other people can only approach in philosophical ideas to a truly poetic, genuinely artistic form. What then is this homunculus, this homunculus idea, when we present Goethe's world view, interwoven with his artistic sensibilities? Wagner is steeped in the world view that had developed by the time the young Goethe felt he was stepping into it, a world view that, so to speak, only takes into account the mechanistic view of nature and history, which emerged as the first product of what Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler - certainly out of necessity - had to make of the old world view. In place of the living, organic element, which in the pre-Copernican world view was interwoven into the human world view, into the world view of the philosophers, there now arises a world view that is more and more interwoven only with concepts and ideas that represent the world as a mechanical one. And so Wagner was still able to cling to the habit of deriving an understanding of the human being from the world as a whole, from the cosmos as a whole. Thus he was able to come to the view that man, too, could be created through a correspondingly complicated mechanistic juxtaposition of the mechanical laws that permeate and animate the world. And this creation of man, which brings only that into the image, into the conception of man, into that which one can feel and prove and experience about man, which flows from the mechanistic world view, we see this in what the ideal of Wagner represents, in the Homunculus.

Thus, the Earth Spirit clearly shows Faust the direction in which he would actually end up if he remained at the level of the world view at which he is currently standing. He points the way clearly, and one is tempted to say: Don't we see, when we want to dig deeper into the feelings and emotions that underlie the Faustian legend, that if Faust stops where he is before his world wandering, he would come to where Wagner comes: to grasp the human being as a mechanism that is only capable of life, even as an idea, if it can merge with what the world itself lives through and surges through, and where Faust's soul in particular wants to pour out into a higher, experienced knowledge, in contrast to the knowledge that Wagner can achieve, who is completely immersed in the world view of the Enlightenment.

Now we have to look a little into Goethe's soul itself if we want to discover what the role of Homunculus actually is in the whole of “Faust”. We know, if we have explored Goethe's world view a little, how Goethe sought knowledge in his own way, how he wanted to get behind the appearances of nature. Over many years, I have tried to show how Goethe worked in this direction in the introductions to my edition of Goethe's scientific writings and also in my book “Goethe's World View”. Goethe tried to find out for himself what lives in the processes and beings of external nature. And in a certain contrast to what surrounded him as science, he developed his metamorphosis doctrine, his ideas of the primal plant, the primal animal, of the primal phenomenon. What did he actually want with that? What he wanted with it is closely related to what he wanted to pour into his Faust, and what really shows how Goethe strove from a completely different attitude to knowledge than the science around him. In a passage in which Goethe seeks to describe what became clear to him during his travels through Italy, his idea of the archetypal plant, the mental image he sought to see in every plant and which would explain all plant life and every individual plant , he says: If you have this original plant, if you have truly grasped what this original plant should be, then you have something from which you can even invent individual plant forms that could live quite well. This goes to the very heart of Goethe's scientific endeavour. Through his scientific endeavour, Goethe did not want to arrive at ideas such as the world view of the Enlightenment around him. Goethe wanted to arrive at ideas that, so to speak, only represent in the soul, but activate the same forces that we have outside in plants, in animals, in all of nature itself. Goethe wanted to unite what grows and happens in the plant, and he did not want to have an idea that appears as an abstraction compared to what lives and weaves out there in nature; he wanted to have an idea that one can say lives in the imagination as something that is of the same nature as what lives out there in the plant. Goethe did not want to gain ideas that could be said to represent what is out there in the world, but in reality what is out there in the world is quite different. Goethe wanted to gain ideas through which what lives outside in a natural way would come to life in the soul in a way that is appropriate to the soul. That was his whole endeavour. Goethe wanted a kind of knowledge that can be described as living knowledge, as living together with nature. That is to say, he wanted to be able to walk through nature and its formations with the ideas he had in such a way that these ideas relate to the inner life of nature and its formation. As the forms of nature change, so should what lives in the soul change. There should be nothing living in the soul that the soul has merely abstracted from nature, but the soul should have merged with nature, lived together with it. Goethe strove for a knowledge that he really presents in a wonderful and artistic way in the fate of the homunculus in the classical Walpurgis Night. Homunculus is an idea derived from the human being, which must therefore remain with mere mechanism, with mere abstraction. Just as Goethe's ideas, Goethe's metamorphosic ideas, are not supposed to be such ideas, but rather represent the forces and living essence of nature itself, so this homunculus, instructed by a view of nature , which was even closer to nature than that which surrounded Goethe, taught by the natural philosophy of the ancient Greek philosophers, Thales, Anaxagoras, but also taught by the transformative being Proteus, must dissolve. Just as Goethe's metamorphic ideas should unite with nature itself, so should the homunculus unite with world events. He cannot live as he has emerged from Wagner's views. He is a mere idea, a mere thought. He must connect with existence. When the homunculus is seized by the living, the role of Wagner is played out.

Faust must begin a world wandering that takes him beyond what he could have achieved, but which must play out in this way, as the role of Wagner played out with the creation of the homunculus. And to this end, Goethe shows us how Faust now develops not those powers as his powers of knowledge that lead him to the macrocosm in the sense in which the macrocosm can only be grasped in the Copernican, Keplerian, Galilean way; but Goethe shows us how Faust now wills just that which the Earth Spirit can give out of the realm of the innermost, one might also say, the lowest forces of soul existence. With the forces that can come from this, Faust is to begin his journey through the world. And now we see Faust going through this journey through the events that are first presented in the first part of Goethe's “Faust”. There we see how Mephistopheles confronts Faust. I do not want to get involved here in all possible explanations of what this Mephistopheles actually is; but I want to go into what necessity shows us, that Goethe must go beyond what is presented in the first part of “Faust”. According to what we have just considered, Goethe has, to a certain extent, initially presented Faust as powerless in the face of the spirit of the macrocosm. But he does not immediately present him as powerless in the same way in relation to the spirit of the earth. But Faust – and this must certainly be emphasized – initially still stands by what a bygone age, from which humanity had in turn come to a more developed world view, still regarded as something right or at least as something possible. I will not go into what Mephistopheles becomes in his relationship with Faust in terms of the soul, nor into how Mephistopheles is more or less a realistic, more or less a mythological figure. I just want to draw attention to what happens to Faust under the influence of Mephistopheles.

On the one hand, in ancient times, magic, imagination or external actions were used to uncover the secrets of nature. Faust cannot be associated with this, as we will see. On the other hand, however, there was something else connected with the search for the secrets of the world in ancient times, something that has been preserved to our times: the belief that something could be learned about the secrets that prevail in man by, as it were, — we shall speak about this healthy power of the soul in particular tomorrow in connection with spiritual research — and that one exposes something in man that is less than this healthy power of the soul, which one can perhaps call, improperly but with a word that is understandable to us at this moment, the normal power of the soul. We need only recall words such as hypnotism, somnambulism, all the forms of superstitious clairvoyance, and we have the whole wide area into which we are led, perhaps in a not immediately transparent way, by the events of the first part of Goethe's Faust. And Mephistopheles is simply, I might say, such an emissary of the Earth Spirit, who for a while brings Faust to become really similar to the medieval Faust, be it the real historical Faust, who received his doctorate in Heidelberg in 1509, who is really an historical personality, be it the Faust of the folk book or one of the other numerous figures, or the Faust of the puppet show that Goethe got to know. This Faust of the puppet theater, this Faust of the sixteenth century, as he then continued to live on through the centuries, cannot be understood without taking into account unhealthy, morbid forces of the human soul, as we must call them today, forces of the human soul that are achieved by a damping down, a paralyzing of the human consciousness, as it is present in normal life. Whether one reads the life story of Faust — the Faust who received his doctorate in Heidelberg in 1509 — or delves into the book Faust, which appeared in 1589, one encounters on the one hand a real personality on the one hand and on the other a poetic personality, who is to the highest degree what today, with a more or less apt word, is called “medial”, “medial” with all the morbid, abnormal phenomena associated with it.

Now it is not immediately apparent that Goethe wanted to show Faust, for example, the mediality of the appearance of the earth spirit until the end of the first part of his “Faust”, but what happens really leads us into this realm. And one would like to describe Mephistopheles as the spirit who, in Faust's nature, evokes such a world view that people can believe that it solves deeper secrets of existence, namely, people who do not really trust in human full consciousness and therefore believe that one must first paralyze and cloud this consciousness in order to get behind the secrets of existence. In a book that is certainly one-sided but by no means undeserving, Kiesewetter has portrayed Mephistopheles as a kind of second ego of Faust, not as a higher ego, but as the ego that one recognizes if one disregards the part that expresses itself in a person's normal higher mental life and descends into the regions of the soul, where the instinctive nature, where, I might say, the sub-sensible — by no means the supersensible! — comes to expression. In a way that is not immediately apparent, but which becomes quite clear to anyone who follows the events in the first part of “Faust” with understanding, it now becomes apparent that Faust, in his wanderings through the world, really can be believed to be attained by the path of such an abnormal, subdued, somnambulant consciousness, or in the ordinary, trivial sense, by one who is not clear-minded. But something else is also made clear to us, something that is extraordinarily important for understanding both the human soul and the “Faust” poem. While Faust is becoming familiarized with everything that can be recognized with deeper, but only sub-sensuous, driving forces, which then expresses itself in the witches' kitchen, in Walpurgis Night and so on, he is at the same time becoming familiarized, we may say, with tragic-moral aberrations, with the rule of impetuous drives. Of course, what we encounter, for example, in the “Gretchen” poem is one of the perfect flowers of world literature. But it is perhaps one of the perfect flowers of world literature precisely because the poet has succeeded in depicting the tragedy that flows from human drives that are not clarified by what one can call higher human nature in the true sense of the word. And Mephisto throws together for Faust a certain world knowledge, a satisfaction of knowledge, with this emergence of blind instinct from the depths of the soul, where man abandons himself to his nature without accompanying his life with a moral judgment of the world. This is portrayed in Goethe's poetry in a grandiose and tragically manner. But at the same time it shows us how everything that is realized in the field of what is so often referred to as clairvoyance - we will talk about these things again in more detail tomorrow - what could be called somnambulistic clairvoyance, which arises from the consciousness being , that in addition to the powers of cognition, the corporeality of the human being is altered and used in this, even if it is a subtle change; how all that is achieved in this area is on exactly the same level of human nature as the blind nature of drives and passions. This result, which for many people is a terrible one, emerges from the way in which Goethe presents the aforementioned clairvoyance, somnambulism, as arising when one transforms into powers of knowledge what lives in the drives of the human being, in those instincts that have not yet been clarified into normal human cognitive ability, in the blind, unconscious instincts that follow impulses, but impulses not interwoven with the realm of moral judgment. And Goethe wants to show that such a view of the world, as expressed in the witches' kitchen on Walpurgis Night, is only the opposite of the blind rule of the drives, where man rules with his morbid soul life. This intimate connection between the lower human instinctual life and what is often seen as clairvoyance and which is believed to lead to higher knowledge of human nature, because one has no trust in normal human nature, is dramatically characterized in the first part of Faust. And it is stated with sufficient clarity that the person who attains such clairvoyance does not rise above normal people, but sinks below what are ordinary scientific powers of knowledge, into the same regions of human existence where blind drives prevail. If one wishes to study the physiology of blind instincts in greater detail, one can delve into the revelations of somnambulists, hypnotized subjects, and mediums. But if one wants to penetrate to the real higher secrets of existence (and we will talk about this in more detail tomorrow), one must realize that with such clairvoyance one does not rise above normal people, but sinks below them human being, — a clairvoyance that Goethe, not preaching morality but artistically depicting, dramatically interweaves into the aberrations of the human subconscious being. This is what Faust had to go through during that world wandering, which is presented to us in the first part.

And now we see how Goethe, in a remarkable way, at the very beginning of the second part, has Faust face both natural and spiritual life. He interprets this very clearly, I might say magnificently clearly, not, of course, with philosophically abstract words, but through the power of creation. We shall not concern ourselves today with the question, which has also been raised by some commentators on Faust, as to whether a personality such as Faust can really recover from the serious crimes he has committed in the events depicted in the first part when, as has been said, he goes out into the wide expanse of nature and experiences what is depicted at the beginning of the second part. To what extent the guilt that he has incurred continues to prevail in Faust's soul is not something we want to dwell on today. It can continue to prevail. What Goethe wants to show, however, is how Faust rises out of his entanglement in the sub-sensible humanity. And there we see Faust at the beginning of the second part, I might say, placed in the healthiest way in nature and see the spiritual world working on him in the healthiest way. For what Goethe presents by having the chorus of spirits act on Faust is really only an external dramatic representation of a process that can be described, more or less accurately, as an internal process that takes place in exactly the same way as it does when the genius seizes the poet, when it is not something in the external sense that has a magical effect on the person, when it is not human consciousness is dulled, as in some kind of somnambulistic vision, but rather where something flows into human consciousness, which is indeed a spiritual influence, but which does not flow into a consciousness that is tuned down, into a consciousness that is dulled, but into the consciousness that is most healthily immersed in the natural and historical life of humanity. And has Faust progressed on his journey through the world since he beheld the sign of the Macrocosm and addressed the world as a spectacle? Yes, Faust is further along, quite considerably further! And Goethe wants to show that Faust's healthy nature has withstood the temptations that Mephistopheles has brought upon him so far, and which have consisted in his wanting to push him down into the sub-sensible, into that which lives in man when instinctive forces and not elevated powers of knowledge are brought to some world-view. At the moment depicted at the beginning of Part One, Faust has opened the book of Nostradamus. The sign of the macrocosm appears before his soul. He tries to put himself in the place of that which can be represented to him through the words and signs of this macrocosm. “What a spectacle! But alas! Only a spectacle!” At this moment, one might say, Faust aspires to a kind of morbid mental life, in which he then also remains, although the word “morbid” should not be understood here in a philistine sense.

Now that Faust has been placed in the midst of a healthy experience of nature and spirit, and the spirit has had its effect on his normal consciousness, he utters another word, a parallel word, I would say, to the word “What a spectacle! But alas! Only a spectacle!” Faust confronts the phenomena caused by the sunshine; but he turns away and turns to the waterfall, which reflects in colors what the sun can do. “So let the sun remain behind me,” says Faust. He wants to look at the reflection of what the sun causes. ‘We have life in the colored reflection’ – a wonderful intensification compared to the first word: ”What a spectacle! But alas! Only a spectacle!” Now Faust can grasp how what appears to him as nature is truly spiritual, because he knows how to relate to what lives in nature in the sense of the word with which the second part of Faust concludes: “All that is transitory is but a parable” - grasping in the parable what lives spiritually in nature. And so we see how, at the beginning of the second part of Faust, through an effect of the spiritual world on normal consciousness, Faust is brought to a healthy position in relation to the world; how he is now really no longer, I would like to say, in the belief that one can achieve something by going back to the old magic, and how he has now also learned that one can achieve nothing with all that is false clairvoyance, that is somnambulism. Now he faces the world as a healthy person. He can nevertheless attain life in a colorful reflection, that is, attain what lies behind the world of nature and history.

And truly, we now see how Faust develops more and more into what Goethe himself wanted to develop into. Of course, when we look at Goethe's development of world view, everything appears to us, I might say, more in an abstract, philosophical form. But that is precisely, as I said, the great thing that Goethe has succeeded in doing, to shape it dramatically on the outside, which other people can only rise to in philosophy. And so we see that Faust is now able to place himself in the world of historical development, that he is able to find the eternal-meaningful, the spiritual-real in this historical development. But for this it is necessary that Faust now really experiences in his soul an increase of his powers of knowledge. Through what he has experienced with Mephistopheles, he has not experienced an increase, but a damping down of his power of knowledge; he is not seeing, he has been blinded. Now, out of historical becoming, he longs to have a figure like Helen of Troy brought to life before him again. How can he achieve this? Precisely by developing something within himself, which is so beautifully and profoundly portrayed in the scene that represents the “walk to the mothers”. Goethe himself confessed to Eckermann that he got the inspiration to include this mother scene in the second part of “Faust” from reading Plutarch, where it is described how a personality of ancient times, who went around in a difficult situation as if he were insane and spoke of the “mothers,” of those mothers who were referred to as goddesses, who were deeply revered in the secrecy of ancient mysteries. Why should Faust descend to these mothers? Goethe speaks to Eckermann in a strangely mysterious way. He says that with regard to this scene, he betrayed himself the least. We may well assume that Goethe did not express this in full, clear, abstract terms, but that which really lived in his soul as his path to the mothers in full, clear realization. I have often spoken about this path to the mothers, but today I would just like to hint: When we immerse ourselves in the ancient world view into which Goethe places Faust, into the classical age of Greek civilization, into which he has already placed us when he encounters Helen, when we immerse ourselves in this ancient world, into which Faust is now also supposed to plunge, we find that this ancient world brought forth something out of itself with the powers that were still peculiar to ancient man: powers of knowledge that, one might say, penetrate more deeply into the workings of the world because they were even more deeply connected to the nature of existence than the powers of knowledge of the souls of the time in which Goethe lived, which had already become more separated from the direct life with the natural existence and had to find the way back into the natural existence. But it has already been indicated that when man delves into the life of his soul, he can find something that is not the same as what was indicated earlier as the sub-sensible driving forces, as those impulses that leave a person blind, but still work as impulses; but that a person can dive down into the depths of their soul life with full consciousness, with nothing other than their normal consciousness, which only dives deeper into their soul. Then, through this immersion in his deeper soul powers, he attains something quite different from the sub-sensible soul powers of somnambulism or hypnotism or similar phenomena of human life, as just described. He has the possibility of descending so deeply into his soul that he really brings up powers that are just as conscious and that he masters just as much as the powers of normal consciousness, to which he is not a slave as in somnambulism or in ordinary mediumship. And that Faust descends to the mothers, after he has recovered as far as it has been indicated, that is precisely the dramatic representation of this descent to those powers of the soul, which, when we grasp them in our soul, bring an inner higher man to the outer world, so that we can also see more in the outer world than what the mere senses or the mind bound to the senses see.

And now we see how Faust can continue his journey through the world by consciously descending into the depths of the soul; and how, in contrast to this, Wagner is presented with his Homunculus , who only arrives at the abstract idea of humanity, which must merge with life, which cannot sustain itself, which, before an insight, if it merely remains mechanistic, is scattered. This is contrasted with what Faust achieves in the ascent of his world wanderings. But there is something else! We are also clearly shown how Mephistopheles really brought those forces to Faust that are below the senses, in that Mephistopheles, one might say, morally ends, if the word may be applied here in the classical Walpurgis Night, when he unites with the Phorcys, with those entities that are born out of the darkness and the abyss, out of that abyss that represents the lower human nature. If we really go into what Goethe, in his own words, has incorporated into 'Faust', it is presented to us quite clearly and distinctly. The forces that Mephistopheles now feels are with him on the classical Walpurgis Night are not superhuman, they are subhuman. One cannot arrive at a different view of the world with those powers of perception that go beyond the ordinary powers of perception, except by enhancing and enriching what one has in the ordinary powers of perception. But with the supersensible powers of perception, one arrives at something that is fundamentally poorer than normal human life. And it cannot be emphasized often enough that it was also said in Faust that the life that is attained through a dimming of human consciousness, whether through somnambulism or mediumship, is poorer than what man attains with his normal consciousness of the world. When man looks at the world with his normal consciousness, he has his two eyes through which he looks out into the world. This is a certain richness in the sensory world. Where Mephistopheles is with the spirits of darkness, they have only one eye between them and have to pass it from one to the other. They are poorer. Mephistopheles belongs to a world — at least he feels a kinship with this world — that is poorer than the normal human world. This world has nothing more to offer Faust, now that he has begun the descent to the mothers, that is, to the deeper forces of the human soul, to which Mephistopheles can still pass the key, but to which Mephistopheles himself cannot lead him.

And now we see how Goethe, at a higher level of his world wanderings, is able to place Faust in the right way in relation to the real, truly surviving spirit of the past. Indeed, Goethe has the following written next to the title of the third act of the second part: Classical-Romantic Phantasmagoria. This is not presented as reality, but he has life “in a colorful reflection”. He grasps it with the deeper but conscious powers of the human soul and then strips it away again, as we are shown in the fourth act of part two. And so, if time allowed, we could still teach many more things that would make it clear to us how Goethe lets his Faust undergo a world journey, out of the aberrations that arise when one has no faith in normal human consciousness. The old magic that Faust first falls prey to and surrenders to has no trust in what consciousness is able to give, and separates the events that are supposed to take place magically out there in all kinds of ceremonies from consciousness. What takes place in the weaving and working of the spirits outside of full consciousness is supposed to reveal the spiritual world; but not what takes place in normal consciousness, but what takes place in the subconscious, in the dark drives, is supposed to explain what flows through the world as a secret. From this Goethe had to lead his Faust to that which can be recognized as the spiritual world without any impairment of normal consciousness, through a further development of normal consciousness. This is, it seems to me, very clear, if not as an idea - Goethe himself said this - but as an impulse that is shaped entirely artistically, in Goethe's “Faust” among many others, it is also embodied. From this point of view, if I may use the trivial word, it really appears to be entirely in the role of Goethe's Faust when, after he has found the deepening of normal consciousness, he has really come to has really come to the point of rejecting all false seeking along false, magical, somnambulistic paths, and wants to face the world as a human being who seeks to know the higher only through an elevation of the soul forces.

Thus we read in the second part of “Faust”:

Unhappy phantoms! Thus you treat
The human race a thousand times over;
Even indifferent days you transform
Into hideous confusion of web-enmeshed torments.
Demons, I know, are hard to get rid of,
The spiritual bond cannot be severed...

And further: I have not yet fought my way into the open.
If I could remove magic from my path,
Unlearn the spells altogether,
I would be a man alone in front of you,
Then it would be worth the effort to be human.

Faust wants to be a person who, through neither outer magic nor inner clouding of consciousness, faces the world of the spirit and is also able to introduce this world of the spiritual from this consciousness into social human life, into the life of 'deed'. And this is portrayed towards the end of the second part of 'Faust' in such a wonderful, in such a grandiose way. So Goethe has tried in his own way to show how man, through a development of the powers within him, can truly penetrate to the secrets of existence, by also clearly and dramatically portraying the aberrations that stand in man's way.

One would like to say that the human being who wants to come out of human forces themselves to a coexistence with the spiritual world really stood in a Faustian form - not by being called Faust, but really in a Faustian form - already opposite Augustine, who indeed attributes to the Manichean bishop Faustus the possibility of coming close to the secrets of the world through an inner elevation of human powers of knowledge. Goethe, in allowing the medieval Faust to have an effect on him, found himself in a world that had already passed judgment on this kind of Faust. The judgment was that a person who wanted to come to the secrets of existence out of his own powers in such a way must fall away from the stream of humanity as an evil element. Goethe could not agree with this view. Goethe was clear about the fact that a human being can only be a complete human being when he is capable of realizing the striving of Faust, even if not in the old way in which the Faust of the folk tale or that of the sixteenth century wanted to realize it. And Goethe was able to arrive at this view because he was deeply imbued with what, as I have often said here, can be called idealism, world-view idealism in the development of German thought.

In these lectures, I have tried to present figures such as Fichte, Schelling and Hegel in their - albeit only philosophical - striving to grasp the spiritual world. I have also sufficiently emphasized that one need not be a dogmatic adherent of any one of the Fichtean, Schellingian, or Hegelian schools in order to be truly impressed by the greatness of these figures, who stand at the center of German idealism. One should take them as seekers of knowledge, as human beings with a certain kind of inner life. Disregarding the details of their specific world-view, But they do stand there in a striving for a world-picture that is closely akin to Goethe's striving for a world-picture and that, when it is seen in its deeper inter-connections, shows itself to be fundamentally the same as the striving for a world-picture in Germany at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century. This striving is destined to continue to work within the process of German evolution.

We know that Kant developed a world view that was not related to Goethe's. I have often pointed this out. It cannot be justified here, I just want to mention it. Kant came to the view that, fundamentally, man cannot see into the deeper sources of nature and spirit. And he stated that if man really wanted to delve into the workings of the world with his ideas, he would need a completely different faculty of perception than he actually has. Then, not only concepts and ideas that depict things would have to flow into his knowledge, but the living stream of existence itself. We can see that Goethe felt this, for example, in his idea of metamorphosis with the primal plant, the primal animal, which Kant excluded from human cognition. And Kant said: “The one who wanted to embrace faith – I am quoting inaccurately, but it roughly corresponds to the wording – that he really looks into the sources of existence, would have to embark on an adventure of reason, to a kind of contemplative judgment; he would have to not only comprehend, but inwardly experience and contemplatively experience the stream of world existence itself.

In the beautiful little essay on “Contemplative Judgment,” Goethe expounds on this Kantian idea, and explicitly says: If one can rise to a higher region with regard to the ideas of freedom and immortality, why should one not also dare to take on the adventure of reason with what the human soul can otherwise experience in nature, in itself? What does Goethe actually want? That means nothing other than: Goethe wants to stir up such knowledge in himself that makes it possible for him, with what he has in his soul, to truly immerse himself in the living world, not just to know the world, but to experience it. Goethe himself strove for such knowledge and for such a position in relation to world phenomena, as he dramatically embodies them in his “Faust”. And Goethe had developed within himself the conviction that man can not only acquire knowledge that reflects a world outside of him, but that he can also awaken within himself a world of ideas that experiences the stream of the existence of the world; but that this is possible only by undertaking what Kant still calls an adventure of reason: to draw up from the depths of the soul the powers that can cognize more than the senses and the understanding limited to the senses. And that is the great thing, that Goethe, who regarded what he did as the nerve of his own cognitive faculty, at the same time understood as a vital impulse, that he felt compelled to solve the problem of knowledge not only philosophically, but as a living man; that for him the question of what can be known of the world and how one can work within the world of deeds, what one can hold in one's soul as the content of knowledge and as an impulse for action in the world of deeds, becomes a life problem. That is the great and significant thing, that for him the happiness and ruin of man depends on it; that for him the satisfaction of a longing depends on it, which concerns the whole person. But it is through this that the problem of knowledge could become for Goethe an artistic, a dramatic, a vital problem in the widest sense of the word. And because Goethe conceived knowledge as something that really leads to life, Faust, in his presentation, was truly satisfied in what he sought by growing together, as it were, with Goethe's world-view itself. For has not his soul, from the very beginning, sought to live in communion with what is spread out spiritually in nature? In Faust it is a quest from the very beginning. In order to realize it to some extent within himself, he needed his wanderings in the world. While he is still in his world, in the “cursed, dull wall-hole,” what kind of longing does he have there?

Oh, would you, full of moonlight,
For the last time on my pain,
Which I so many a midnight
At this desk herangewacht:
Then, over books and paper,
Trübsel'ger friend, you appeared to me!
Ah! could I but on mountain heights
In thy dear light go,
Around mountain caves with spirits hover,
On meadows in thy dawn weave,
From all knowledge smoke unburden,
In thy dew healthy me bathe!

He wants to get out with his soul, to unite with what lives in nature. He has come there, he has been reborn after his world wandering in that which Goethe has imbued with his soul and lives through as what can be called: the highest, most beautiful flowering of German intellectual life.

Therefore, it can be said that Goethe really did incorporate into his “Faust” what he had gained for himself in a struggling life of knowledge and the world throughout his entire life, for “Faust” accompanied him throughout his entire life. Many secrets are still contained in this “Faust”. But it also contains the fact that Faust's journey through the world has brought him to the point where, through the experiences of his own life, he has matured to take in what Goethe had acquired for himself, not as an adventure of reason, but as something that can be attained by descending to the 'Mothers', that is, by attempting in a healthy way to develop the normal spiritual powers already present in one's soul. In this way one finds not something below the soul nor something outside of it, but something truly super-sensuous. And the fact that within the development of the German soul a work like Faust has become possible characterizes the whole of this development, and determines the position which it must hold in the evolution of the world.

There was always an awareness that more is given with “Faust” than merely that which lived in Goethe. Of course, there were always Mephistopheles-like natures in the outer world as well; they cannot comprehend anything like that which lives in Goethe's Faust. And finally, I would like to point out to you just such an external Mephistophelean nature. I would like to read a critique of Goethe's “Faust” that was written in 1822, from which you can see that “Faust” was also judged differently from the way it is judged by those who try to immerse themselves in it selflessly. One would like to say, a criticism that comforts one that so very often the Mephisto natures in the world confront that which honestly and convincingly seeks the sources and reasons for existence. For such natures as that which wrote on Faust in 1822 are not so rare in the present day either. Now that I have tried to lead you on a journey through Faust's experiences, let us also hear something of the echo that Faust has found in a Mephistophelean nature. I shall omit those passages that are not suitable for a public lecture because they are too cynical. The prologue in heaven, where the Lord discusses Faust's nature with Mephisto, shows this man, after he has established “that Mr. von Goethe is a very bad versifier,” the following:

“This prologue is a true model of how one should not write in verse.”

And now the critic continues – in 1822, ladies and gentlemen! –:

"The ages that have passed have nothing to show that could be compared to this prologue in terms of presumptuous wretchedness... But I must be brief because I have taken on a long and unfortunately also boring piece of work. I shall show the reader that the infamous Faust enjoys an usurped and undeserved celebrity only due to the corruptive collective mind of an associatio obscurorum vivorum... I am not motivated by any rivalry for fame to pour out the lye of strict criticism on Mr. von Goethe's Faust. I do not walk in his footsteps to Parnassus and would be glad if he had enriched our German language with a masterpiece... Among the crowd of bravos, my voice may indeed fade away, but it is enough for me to have done my best; and if I manage to convert even one reader and bring him back from worship of this monster, then my thankless effort will not be regretted... Poor Faust speaks a completely incomprehensible gibberish, in the worst rhyming nonsense ever written in Quinta by any student. My preceptor would have beaten me if I had made verses as bad as the following:

Oh, full moon, thou that dost sow
On me my punishment,
For many a midnight
At this desk I have watched.

I will not dwell on the inferiority of the diction or the wretchedness of the versification; the reader has enough evidence from what he has seen that the author cannot compete with the mediocre poets of the old school when it comes to verse construction.

Mephistopheles himself recognizes that Faust was already possessed by a devil before the contract. But we believe that he does not belong in hell, but in the madhouse, with all that is his, namely hands and feet, head and so on. Many poets have given us examples of sublime gibberish, nonsense in grandiose words, but I would call Goethe's gallimathias a genre nouveau of popular gallimathias, because it is presented in the most vulgar and bad language...

The more I think about this long litany of nonsense, the more likely it seems to me that it is a bet that if a famous man comes up with the shallowest, most boring nonsense, , there will still be a legion of silly writers and gullible readers who will find and exegize profound wisdom and great beauties in this flat-footed nonsense.

And so it goes on. Finally, he says:

"In short, a miserable devil who could learn from Marinelli in Lessing. After him, I, in the name of common sense, reverse the judgment of Mrs. von Staël in favor of the aforementioned Faust and do not condemn him to hell, which could cool this frosty product, since even the devil feels wintery inside, but to be hurled into Cloaca Paranassus. By rights.

The world ignores such judgments. And the world sees in Faust one of the deepest attempts of the human spirit, not only in a philosophical way, but in a dramatic, very lively way, to present the problem of knowledge and humanity in the broadest sense to people, to fathom it at all. And there was always an awareness that Goethe succeeded not only in expressing the Goethean world view and Goethean sentiments in his Faust, but, as Herman Grimm says so beautifully, the entire world view of the entire century. And Herman Grimm was right to use this word. “We have,” he says, “a literature of our own, the purpose of which is not only to prove Goethe's credo, but also the credo of his entire century in Faust.”

I could also point out how deeply rooted the rebirth of Faust is in the entire German intellectual life after his world wandering. The depth to which this German spiritual life itself has sunk is shown by the fact that the whole wealth of this spiritual striving could find expression in a work such as Goethe's Faust, and Herman Grimm's words will certainly prove true: not only Goethe's Weltanschhauung, but the Weltanschhauung of the whole century. And a Weltanschhauung such as will live on in the coming centuries in the very broadest sense has been expressed in Goethe's Faust. That German intellectual life was able to produce this work will be a fact for all future times, which, despite all prejudices about German intellectual life, will be recognized by those who can grasp this German intellectual life impartially and objectively. By expressing the deepest striving of the German spirit through Goethe in Faust in such a great way, this German spirit has spoken for all time to all people of the development of the earth an imperishable word of knowledge of human life in being and in free will and in work, a word that will remain, just as will remain that which is the true, deep fruits of German spiritual life. Among these deepest, truest, most imperishable fruits will be found what we can find in Faust. And so we may say: by immersing ourselves in Goethe's Faust, we become acquainted with a part of the imperishable nature of the German spirit itself. And this German spirit has spoken to the whole world by being able to express such things as are hidden in an obvious secret in Faust, to use another of Goethe's words – obvious if one only seeks it. In the face of Faust, we may apply Goethe's own saying: “All that is transitory is but a parable.” But we may also expand on this saying: in works that, out of the transitory, incline towards the eternal, as Goethe's Faust does, the immortal speaks at the same time in an eternal way to the eternity of human existence.

[ 1 ] The decision to give public expression to the esoteric from my own inner experience impelled me to write for the Magazine for August 28, 1899, on the occasion of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Goethe's birth, an article on Goethe's fairy-tale of The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, under the title Goethes Geheime Offenbarung.¹ This article was, of course, only slightly esoteric. But I could not expect more of my public than I there gave. In my own mind the content of the fairy-tale lived as something wholly esoteric, and it was out of an esoteric mood that the article was written.

[ 2 ] Since the 'eighties I had been occupied with imaginations which were associated in my thought with this fairy-tale. I saw set forth in the fairy-tale Goethe's way from the observation of external nature into the interior of the human mind as he placed this before himself, not in concepts, but in pictures of the spirit. Concepts seemed to Goethe far too poor, too dead, to be capable of representing the living and working forces of the mind.

[ 3 ] Now in Schiller's letters concerning education in aesthetics, Goethe saw an endeavour to grasp this living and working by means of concepts. Schiller sought to show how the life of man is under subjection to natural necessity by reason of his corporeal aspect and to mental necessity through his reason. And he thought the soul must establish an inner equilibrium between the two. Then in this equilibrium man lives in freedom a life really worthy of humanity.

This is clever, but for the real life of the soul it is far too simple. The soul causes its forces, which are rooted in the depths, to shine into consciousness, but to disappear again in the very act of shining forth after they have influenced other forces just as fleeting. These are occurrences which even in arising also pass away; but abstract concepts can be linked only to that which continues for a longer or shorter time.

[ 4 ] All this Goethe knew through experience; he placed his picture-knowledge in a fairy-tale over against Schiller's conceptual knowledge.

[ 5 ] In experiencing this creation of Goethe's, one had entered the outer court of the esoteric.

[ 6] This was the time when I was invited by Count and Countess Brockdorff to deliver a lecture at one of their weekly gatherings. At these meetings there came together seekers from all sorts of circles. The lectures there delivered had to do with all aspects of life and knowledge. I knew nothing of all this until I was invited to deliver a lecture; nor did I know the Brockdorffs, but heard of them then for the first time. The theme proposed was an article about Nietzsche. This lecture I gave. Then I observed that among the hearers there were persons with a great interest in the spiritual world. Therefore, when I was invited to give a second lecture, I proposed the subject “Goethe's Secret Revelation,” and in this lecture I became entirely esoteric in relation to the fairy-tale. It was an important experience for me to be able to speak in words coined from the world of spirit after having been forced by circumstances throughout my Berlin period up to that time only to let the spiritual shine through my presentation.

[ 7 ] The Brockdorffs were leaders of a branch of the Theosophical Society founded by Blavatsky. What I had said in connection with Goethe's fairy-tale led to my being invited by the Brockdorffs to deliver lectures regularly before those members of the Theosophical Society who were associated with them. I explained, however, that I could speak only about that which I vitally experienced within me as spiritual knowledge.

[ 8 ] In truth, I could speak of nothing else. For very little of the literature issued by the Theosophical Society was known to me. I had known theosophists while living in Vienna, and I later became acquainted with others. These acquaintance ships led me to write in the Magazine the adverse review dealing with the theosophists in connection with the appearance of a publication of Franz Hartmann. What I knew otherwise of the literature was for the most part entirely uncongenial to me in method and approach; I could not by any possibility have linked my discussions with this literature.

[ 9 ] So I then gave the lectures in which I established a connection with the mysticism of the Middle Ages. By means of the ideas of the mystics from Master Eckhard to Jakob Böhme, I found expression for the spiritual conceptions which in reality I had determined beforehand to set forth. I published the series of lectures in the book Die Mystik im Aufgange des neuzeitlichen Geisteslebens.²

[ 10 ] At these lectures there appeared one day in the audience Marie von Sievers, who was chosen by destiny at that time to take into strong hands the German section of the Theosophical Society, founded soon after the beginning of my lecturing. Within this section I was then able to develop my anthroposophic activity before a constantly increasing audience.

[ 11 ] No one was left in uncertainty of the fact that I would bring forward in the Theosophical Society only the results of my own research through perception. For I stated this on all appropriate occasions. When, in the presence of Annie Besant, the German section of the Theosophical Society was founded in Berlin and I was chosen its General Secretary, I had to leave the foundation sessions because I had to give before a non-theosophical audience one of the lectures in which I dealt with the spiritual evolution of humanity, and to the title of which I expressly united the phrase “Eine Anthroposophie.”³ Annie Besant also knew that I was then giving out in lectures under this title what I had to say about the spiritual world.

[ 12 ] When I went to London to attend a theosophical congress, one of the leading personalities said to me that true theosophy was to be found in my book Mysticism ..., I had reason to be satisfied. For I had given only the results of my spiritual vision, and this was accepted in the Theosophical Society.

There was now no longer any reason why I should not bring forward this spiritual knowledge in my own way before the theosophical public, which was at first the only audience that entered without restriction into a knowledge of the spirit. I subscribed to no sectarian dogmatics; I remained a man who uttered what he believed he was able to utter entirely according to what he himself experienced in the spiritual world.

[ 13 ] Prior to the founding of the section belongs a series of lectures – which I gave before Die Kommenden, entitled Von Buddha zu Christus.⁴ In these discussions I sought to show what a mighty stride the mystery of Golgotha signifies in comparison with the Buddha event, and how the evolution of humanity, as it strives toward the Christ event, approaches its culmination. [ 14 ] In this circle I spoke also of the nature of the mysteries.

[ 15 ] All this was accepted by my hearers. It was not felt to be contradictory to lectures which I had given earlier. Only after the section was founded – and I then appeared to be stamped as a “theosophist” – did any objection arise. It was really not the thing itself; it was the name and the association with the Society that no one wished to have.

[ 16 ] On the other hand, my non-theosophical hearers would have been inclined to permit themselves merely to be “stimulated” by my discussions, to accept these only in a “literary” way. What lay upon my heart was to introduce into life the impulse from the spiritual world; for this there was no understanding. This understanding, however, I could gradually find among men interested theosophically.

[ 17 ] Before the Brockdorff circle, where I had spoken on Nietzsche and the on Goethe's secret revelation, I gave at this time a lecture on Goethe's Faust, from an esoteric point of view.⁵

[ 18 ] The lectures on mysticism led to an invitation during the winter from the same theosophical circle to speak there again on this subject. I then gave the series of lectures which I later collected into the volume Christianity as Mystical Fact.

[ 19 ] From the very beginning I have let it be known that the choice of the expression “as Mystical Fact” is important. For I did not wish to set forth merely the mystical bearing of Christianity. My object was to set forth the evolution from the ancient mysteries to the mystery of Golgotha in such a way that in this evolution there should be seen to be active, not merely earthly historic forces, but spiritual supramundane influences. And I wished to show that in the ancient mysteries cult-pictures were given of cosmic events, which were then fulfilled in the mystery of Golgotha as facts transferred from the cosmos to the earth of the historic plane.

[ 20 ] This was by no means taught in the Theosophical Society. In this view I was in direct opposition to the theosophical dogmatics of the time, before I was invited to work in the Theosophical Society. For this invitation followed immediately after the cycle of lectures on Christ here described.

[ 21 ] Between the two cycles of lectures that I gave before the Theosophical Society, Marie von Sievers was in Italy, at Bologna, working on behalf of the Theosophical Society in the branch established there.

[ 22 ] Thus the thing evolved up to the time of my first attendance at a theosophical congress, in London, in the year 1902. At this congress, in which Marie von Sievers also took part, it was already a foregone conclusion that a German section of the Society would be founded with myself – shortly before invited to become a member – as the general secretary.

[ 23 ] The visit to London was of great interest to me. I there became acquainted with important leaders of the Theosophical Society. I had the privilege of staying at the home of Mr. Bertram Keightley, one of these leaders. We became great friends. I became acquainted with Mr. Mead, the very diligent secretary of the Theosophical Movement. The most interesting conversations imaginable took place at the home of Mr. Keightley in regard to the forms of spiritual knowledge alive within the Theosophical Society.

[ 24 ] Especially intimate were these conversations with Bertram Keightley himself. H. P. Blavatsky seemed to live again in these conversations. Her whole personality, with its wealth of spiritual content, was described with the utmost vividness before me and Marie von Sievers by my dear host, who had been so long associated with her.

[ 25 ] I became slightly acquainted with Annie Besant and also Sinnett, author of Esoteric Buddhism. Mr. Leadbeater I did not meet, but only heard him speak from the platform. He made no special impression on me.

[ 26 ] All that was interesting in what I heard stirred me deeply, but it had no influence upon the content of my own views.

[ 27 ] The intervals left over between sessions of the congress I sought to employ in hurried visits to the natural-scientific and artistic collections of London. I dare say that many an idea concerning the evolution of nature and of man came to me from the natural-scientific and the historical collections.

[ 28 ] Thus I went through an event very important for me in this visit to London. I went away with the most manifold impressions, which stirred my mind profoundly.

[ 29 ] In the first number of the Magazine for 1899 there appears an article by me entitled Neujahrsbetractung eines Ketzers.⁶ The meaning there is a scepticism, not in reference to religious knowledge, but in reference to the orientation of culture which the time had taken on.

[ 30 ] Men were standing before the portals of a new century. The closing century had brought forth great attainments in the realm of external life and knowledge.

[ 31 ] In reference to this the thought forced itself upon me: “In spite of all this and many other attainments – for example, in the sphere of art – no one with any depth of vision can rejoice greatly over the cultural content of the time. Our highest spiritual needs strive for something which the time affords only in meagre measure.” And reflecting upon the emptiness of contemporary culture, I glanced back to the time of scholasticism in which, at least in concepts, men's minds lived with the spirit. “One need not be surprised if, in the presence of such phenomena, men with deeper intellectual needs find the proud structure of thought of the scholastics more satisfying than the ideal content of our own time. Otto Willmann has written a noteworthy book, his Geschichte des Idealismus⁷ in which he appears as the eulogist of the world-conception of past centuries. It must be admitted that the human mind craves those proud comprehensive illuminations through thought which human knowledge experienced in the philosophical systems of the scholastics ... Discouragement is a characteristic of the intellectual life at the turn of the century. It disturbs our joy in the attainments of the youngest of the ages now past.”

[ 32 ] And in contrast to those persons who insisted that it was just “true knowledge” itself which showed the impossibility of a philosophy comprising under a single conception the totality of existence, I had to say: “If matters were as they appear to the persons who give currency to such voices, then it would suffice one to measure, weigh, and compare things and phenomena and investigate them by means of the available apparatus, but never would the question be raised as to the higher meaning of things and phenomena.”

[ 33 ] This is the temper of my mind which must furnish an explanation of those facts that brought about my anthroposophic activity within the Theosophical Society. When I had entered into the culture of the time in order to find a spiritual background for the editing of the Magazine, I felt after this a great need to recover my mind in such reading as Willmann's History of Idealism. Even though there was an abyss between my perception of spirit and the form of Willmann's ideas, yet I felt that these ideas were near to the spirit.

[ 34 ] At the end of September 1900, I was able to leave the Magazine in other hands.

[ 35 ] The facts narrated above show that the purpose of imparting the content of the spiritual world had become a necessity growing out of my temper of mind before I gave up the Magazine; that it has no connection with the impossibility of continuing further with the Magazine.

[ 36 ] As into the very element suited to my mind, I entered upon an activity having its impulse in spiritual knowledge.

[ 37 ] But I still have to-day the feeling that, even apart from the hindrance here described, my endeavour to lead through natural-scientific knowledge to the world of spirit would have succeeded in finding an outlet. I look back upon what I expressed from 1897 to 1900 as upon something which at one time or another had to be uttered in opposition to the way of thinking of the time; and on the other hand I look back upon this as upon something in which I passed through my most intense spiritual test. I learned fundamentally to know where lay the forces of the time striving away from the spirit, disintegrating and destructive of culture. And from this knowledge came a great access of the force that I later needed in order to work outward from the spirit.

[ 38 ] It was still before the time of my activity within the Theosophical Society, and before I ceased to edit the Magazine, that I composed my two-volume book Conceptions of the World and of Life in the Nineteenth Century, which from the second edition on was extended to include a survey of the evolution of world-conceptions from the Greek period to the nineteenth century, and then appeared under the title Rätsel der Philosophie.⁸

[ 39 ] The external occasion for the production of this book is to be considered wholly secondary. It grew out of the fact that Cronbach, the publisher of the Magazine, planned a collection of writings which were to deal with the various realms of knowledge and life in their evolution during the nineteenth century. He wished to include in this collection an exposition of the conceptions of the world and of life, and this he entrusted to me.

[ 40 ] I had for a long time held all the substance of this book in my mind. My consideration of the world-conceptions had a personal point of departure in that of Goethe. The opposition which I had to set up between Goethe's way of thinking and that of Kant, the new philosophical beginning at the turning-point between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Fichte, Schelling, Hegel – all this was to me the beginning of an epoch in the evolution of world-conceptions. The brilliant books of Richard Wahle, which show the dissolution of all endeavour after a world-conception at the end of the nineteenth century, closed this epoch. Thus the attempt of the nineteenth century after a world-conception rounded itself into a whole which was vitally alive in my view, and I gladly seized the opportunity to set this forth.

[ 41] When I look back to this book the course of my life seems to me symptomatically expressed in it. I did not concern myself, as many suppose, with anticipating contradictions. If this were the case, I should gladly admit it. Only it was not the reality in my spiritual course. I concerned myself in anticipation to find new spheres for what was alive in my mind. And an especially stimulating discovery in the spiritual sphere occurred soon after the composition of the Conceptions of the World and of Life.

[ 42 ] Besides, I never by any means penetrated into the spiritual sphere in a mystical, emotional way, but desired always to go by way of crystal-clear concepts. Experiencing of concepts, of ideas, led me out of the ideal into the spiritual-real.

[ 43 ] The real evolution of the organic from primeval times to the present stood out before my imagination for the first time after the composition of Conceptions of the World and of Life.

[ 44 ] During the writing of this book I had before my eyes only the natural-scientific view which had been derived from the Darwinian mode of thought. But this I considered only as a succession of sensible facts present in nature. Within this succession of facts there were active for me spiritual impulses, as these hovered before Goethe in his idea of metamorphosis.

[ 45 ] Thus the natural-scientific evolutionary succession, as represented by Haeckel, never constituted for me something wherein mechanical or merely organic laws controlled, but as something wherein the spirit led the living being from the simple through the complex up to man. I saw in Darwinism a mode of thinking which is on the way to that of Goethe, but which remains behind this.

[ 46 ] All this was still thought by me in ideal content ; only later did I work through to imaginative perception. This perception first brought me the knowledge that in reality quite other beings than the most simple organisms were present in primeval times. That man as a spiritual being is older than all other living beings, and that in order to assume his present physical form he had to cease to be a member of a world-being which comprised him and the other organisms. These latter are rejected elements in human evolution; not something out of which man has come, but something which he has left behind, from which he severed himself, in order to take on his physical form as the image of one that was spiritual. Man is a microcosmic being who bore within him all the rest of the terrestrial world and who has become a microcosm by separating from all the rest – this for me was a knowledge to which I first attained in the earliest years of the new century.

[ 47 ] And so this knowledge could not be in any way an active impulse in Conceptions of the World and of Life. Indeed, I so conceived the second volume of this book that a point of departure for a deepening knowledge of the world mystery might be found in a spiritualized form of Darwinism and Haeckelism viewed in the light of Goethe's world-conception.

[ 48 ] When I prepared later the second edition of the book, there was already present in my mind a knowledge of the true evolution. All through I held fast to the point of view I had assumed in the first edition as being that which is derived from thinking without spiritual perception, yet I found it necessary to make slight changes in the form of expression. These were necessary, first because the book by undertaking a general survey of the totality of philosophy had become an entirely different composition, and secondly because this second edition appeared after my discussions of the true evolution were already before the world.

[ 49 ] In all this the form taken by my Riddles of Philosophy had not only a subjective justification, as the point of view firmly held from the time of a certain phase in my mental evolution, but also a justification entirely objective. This consists in the fact that a thought, when spiritually experienced as thought, can conceive the evolution of living beings only as this is set forth in my book; and that the further step must be made by means of spiritual perception.

[ 50 ] Thus my book represents quite objectively the pre-anthroposophic point of view into which one must submerge oneself, and which one must experience in this submersion, in order to rise to the higher point of view. This point of view, as a stage in the way of knowledge, meets those learners who seek the spiritual world, not in a mystical blurred form, but in a form intellectually clear. In setting forth that which results from this point of view there is also present something which the learner uses as a preliminary stage leading to the higher.

[ 51 ] Then for the first time I saw in Haeckel the person who placed himself courageously at the thinker's point of view in natural science, while all other researchers excluded thought and admitted only the results of sense-observation. The fact that Haeckel placed value upon creative thought in laying the foundation for reality drew me again and again to him. And so I dedicated my book to him, in spite of the fact that its content – even in that form – was not conceived in his sense. But Haeckel was not in the least a philosophical nature. His relation to philosophy was wholly that of a layman. For this very reason I considered the attack of the philosophers that was just then raging around Haeckel as quite undeserved. In opposition to them, I dedicated my book to Haeckel, as I had already written in opposition to them my essay Haeckel und seine Gegner.⁹ Haeckel, in all simplicity as regards philosophy, had employed thought as the means for setting forth biological reality; a philosophical attack was directed against him which rested upon an intellectual sphere quite foreign to him. I believe he never knew what the philosophers wished from him. This was my impression from a conversation I had with him in Leipzig after the appearance of his Riddle of the Universe, on the occasion of a presentation of Borngräber's play Giordano Bruno. He then said: “People say I deny the spirit. I wish they could see how materials shape themselves through their forces; then they would perceive ‘spirit’ in everything that happens in a retort. Everywhere there is spirit.” Haeckel, in fact, knew nothing whatever of the real Spirit. The very forces of nature were for him the “spirit,” and he could rest content with this.

[ 52 ] One must not critically attack such blindness to the spirit with philosophically dead concepts, but must see how far the age is removed from the experience of the spirit, and must seek, on the foundation which the age affords – the natural biological explanation – to strike the spiritual sparks.

[ 53 ] Such was then my opinion. On that basis I wrote my Conceptions of the World and of Life in the Nineteenth Century.

• 1. Goethe's Secret Revelation.
• 2. Mysticism at the Beginning of the Modern Spiritual Life.
• 3. “An anthroposophy.”
• 4. From Buddha to Christ.
• 5. This was the lecture which was later published, together with my discussions of Goethe's fairy-tale, by the Philosophische-Anthroposophische Verlag.
• 6. New Year Reflections of a Sceptic.
• 7. History of Idealism.
• 8. Riddles of Philosophy.
• 9. Haeckel and His Opponents.

We speak in the correct sense, as it were, of the spiritual forces which are driving forward; we speak of the different hierarchies and we know that certain of the beings of these hierarchies remain behind. Then when they reach a later stage, in so far as they remained behind at an earlier stage, they do not unfold that activity which they would have unfolded if they had progressed in the right way, but they develop an activity which corresponds to an earlier stage of world development. We call those beings the Luciferic and Ahrimanic beings, beings who exercise their activity for the earth, and beings who in a normal way exercised their activity during the Moon existence. From various points of view, we have mentioned what the significance is of the inter-weaving of such Luciferic and Ahrimanic beings in the whole world development.

You see, my dear friends, centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha occurred, there was something very immense which proceeded from ancient India, a teaching which is indicated in the Bhagavad Gita and in other writings of the Orient. At that time you had something great, something full of significance, and nothing of our spiritual science ever attempted to belittle the immense significance of such phenomena. You can realize this from the cycle I gave about the Bhagavad Gita in Helsingfors where I pointed to the immensity of the deep truths which exist in the Bhagavad Gita. It is also very good for present day man to deepen himself in that which at that time was very great and important for mankind. However, since then, the Mystery of Golgotha has come over mankind and the importance of this Mystery of Golgotha is indicated by the fact that we divide history into two parts, that which preceded the Mystery of Golgotha and that which came afterwards. But the Orient does not possess this historical concept, because it is unable to acquire a real understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. As far as the Orient is concerned, you have one absolute truth which is valid for all age, and they do not ascribe to an evolution of truth.

It is still very difficult in our time for human beings to understand and think about the development of knowledge. This proceeds from the fact that we have not yet been able to completely permeate ourselves with the meaning of the Mystery of Golgotha. Let us assume that someone appeared in our time and wanted to speak in the same way as the author of the Bhagavad Gita spoke or as Buddha spoke in his time; that person would do something which would be perfectly valid for a time dating back centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha. One could say that if the person in question said that at that time when the Bhagavad Gita was brought forward, then it would be a correct deed in the evolutionary sense. However, if he appears today and tries to speak in the same sense as the Bhagavad Gita speaks, that is a Luciferic act and something which really was valid for an earlier period has been brought over into our time. A person who does that would extinguish the whole development of the intellect, of the power of conceptualization which has developed in the evolution of thinking. Now, I am not speaking about something abstract, but about all this because I want to bring a very significant concrete phenomena to your attention. A book appeared in 1912 entitled The High Goal of Knowledge, The Aranada Upanashad written by a man who signs his name as Omar al Rashid Bey. This Omar al Rashid Bey is really a very good German. We see that this book really belongs to the centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha and therefore today we have to grasp it as a Luciferic phenomenon.

Now, in the very near future a book by me will appear which contains a great many of the ideas which I have put forth in the public lectures over the last two winters. There will be much in this book. However, of that which goes beyond what one can find in ancient India, because it belongs to the world conception idealism appropriate to the times after the Mystery of Golgotha. As a matter of fact, my dear friends, that which Fichte, Hegel, Schelling and the others who I have mentioned in this book, what they have done is far superior to that which is contained in the oriental wisdom, contained in Brahmanism and the fact that human beings today do not recognize it is the result of the following. Usually it is very difficult for people to grasp the ideas in this book, and for that reason I have written about it in my book, The other reason is that we, in the main, do not have a talent to appreciate and look up to knowledge in the way possessed by the oriental. In this book entitled The High Goal Of Knowledge you will find not only that knowledge is imparted, but from the beginning to the end people are made to remember that what is being dealt with here is an elevated knowledge, and you have to reverence this knowledge highly and realize that it is available to specially selected people and is known by the highest masters of wisdom who have deigned to stoop down to enable you poor people to have this knowledge available to you. This sort of approach is what people like to get hold of, they think this is really good, especially when it starts off with something like this: “Peace and blessings be to you, oh dear ones.”

When you compare this with the writings of the German classical philosophers who you will read about in this book which will appear shortly, you will find those people who have developed the new world conception idealism and that they put the main emphasis an man's ability to live in the ego, to experience the ego; for this is what it must be after the Mystery of Golgotha. But the oriental wisdom goes not only towards being able to experience the ego, but actually to overcoming it, to extinguishing it. This selbstsucht, this egotism, this searching for the self, this actually exists before the finding of the ego. As long as a person is looking for his “I”, so long does he develop this selbstsucht, this egotism and in order to free himself from this seeking for the self, this egotism, he must find the ego. Once you have found the ego, then you are no longer afflicted by the seeking for the self, therefore finding the ego is the only real possibility of overcoming this egotism. That person today who after the Mystery of Golgotha wants to flee away from the ego and says that which was said in ancient India, that all that is thrown back out of the ego into the seeking of the ego, that person is really fostering egotism. Hence, such books make an egotistical impression on us today, an impression which shows us that those very people want to draw away from the world, and do not really want to seek for their immortal part; they do not in reality want to seek for the spiritual, but want to withdraw from the reality of the spiritual in order in an egotistical way to try in their own dreamingness try to seek for knowledge. This is egotism of knowledge and this egotism of knowledge which does not notice itself is the worst form of egotism. Hence the book entitled The High Goal of Knowledge written by Omar al Rashid Bey, who really is a very good German, is reproducing all that ancient Indian stuff which is the worst type of egotism.

Before the Mystery of Golgotha when the ego had not entered into the development of mankind through Christ, then the way that the oriental spoke was not too dangerous, but to speak in that way today is to try to push the ego away and you really get sucked in by Lucifer and do not notice that you get, into an egotistical state of mind. This same book furthermore states: “The person who seeks for salvation in this world remains a victim of this world.” Now, on the other hand we say that since the Mystery of Golgotha, the person who does not seek for his salvation in the spiritual of the world but wants to draw himself from the world, actually falls victim to the world, he falls a victim to that part of the world which is dreaming in him. We say that after the Mystery of Golgotha, the person who unites himself with the eternal nature of this world and seeks the eternal within the time aspect, does not fall a victim to this world. One can take every sentence in this book and reverse it and then you will find the right thing. I have noted the following in the margins of this book: The person who flees from the ego falls a victim to the search for the ego, since the search creates the “I” for itself. The finding of the ego frees you from the searching for the ego, frees you from egotism. That person who is able to see through this world can win this world, whereas the book itself says: “Whoever is not able to lift himself out of this world lives and falls a victim to this world.” Today, after the Mystery of Golgotha we say that the person who today is able to see through this world is the person who can become a victor over this world. You can see from all this how such a book is a very Luciferic book. These people are trying to teach something in the present which really was valid thousands of years ago; hence we can call it Luciferic.

The person who has vision permeated with reality is passed by by most of our contemporaries; they are not able to come to terms with people who are trying to share reality with them. A person who, from a certain point of view, could be called a real seer is Robert Hammerling, the great modern poet of Central Europe. Now I will not speak of Robert Hammerling's poetry nor about his philosophy in general. You can read about that in the book I have recently written. What I would like to bring to your attention is Hammerling's seer vision, how he really is able to see through what is happening in this world and therefore wrote the great satire entitled Homunculus shortly before his death. Homunculus typifies the people of today who say everything that exists is subject to and stands under mechanistic materiality; also all spiritual phenomena and experiences are subject to mechanistic materialistic laws of force and substance. Hammerling responds to this question with a real artistic poetical power in so far as he presents a person to us such as Homunculus which mankind must become if they consider the world purely in this materialistic way.

Now this Homunculus achieves a great deal. The brain, in a certain sense, is really a mechanical tool and can itself be produced out of mechanical action; therefore the brain can produce a very, very strong wisdom. So Homunculus, Hammerling is very wise and is able to know what exists in the world and combines it all together, he founds a universal newspaper and becomes a billionaire. You can do that sort of thing in a world in which the spiritual is neglected. But he goes further. He produces a school of apes, because naturally materialistic Darwinism has the idea that man descended from apes. Therefore, all they have to do is handle the apes in a very pedagogical way and naturally they would turn into men. This school of apes is a very fine chapter in Hammerling's Homunculus. He also shows the type of people who write rubbish in their articles. In the 1880's Hammerling really had a good sense of seership and wrote his Homunculus out of the reality of his seership. Homunculus finds a soulless woman and Homunculus, whose knowledge is not accessible to soul and spirit, becomes the typical man without a soul.

Hammerling had an inkling that in the future people would come along and say: “Thank God we have overcome all this Goethean classicism and everything connected with it. We have overcome this belief in homo sapiens, this belief of the wise man who can find something in his spirit and therefore establishes human ordering. However, we know that all of human ordering is purely conditioned by external economic relationships; therefore man depends only upon these external economic relationships and fortunately we have overcome this ancient classicism which emphasizes and looks upon men as men of wisdom, as homo sapiens and replaces that by homo economicus. Actually today we have a real homunculism which Hammerling prophesied in the 1880's. We have homunculism in our philosophical world conception; Homunculus becomes not only a billionaire; he establishes a universal newspaper; he writes the book The Renewal of Austria Political Programs by Dr. Karl Renner. Hammerling was a seer. He could visualize what was going to come. It is very important for us to realize that and to obtain an understanding of the greatness of such an artistic creation as Homunculus. The greatness of such a creation consists in the fact that without spiritual science, Hammerling said to himself: What would happen to the human being if he considered that all he has is a physical body? Therefore he depicted Homunculus as a person who, in the main, brought nothing with him as heredity from Saturn, Sun and Moon developments, but only has that which Earth evolution has given him. The significant parts of the ego, astral body and the ether body are lacking. Therefore we can understand Hammerling's Homunculus correctly precisely from the point of view of spiritual science.

The last time I told you that the science of the spirit brings together three things in order to understand the Mystery of Golgotha. First Jesus as He is incarnated as Zarathustra in the Solomon Jesus Child and how he brings through this Solomon Jesus Child that which mankind has experienced through its historical development since he himself has passed from incarnation to incarnation. I have told you about the Nathan Jesus Child who has within him that which was actually predestined for the earth but never went through this earth evolution; it was held back. I have showed you how the Nathan Jesus Child was completely described in the Koran to the point where it says that the Nathan Jesus Child actually spoke when he was born. The Christ Being incarnates in the Nathan Jesus Child with the Solomon Jesus Child, the Christ Being Who comes from beyond the super-earthly, Who draws into the personality of this Solomonic Nathanic Jesus in the 30th year so that we can recognize in Christ a union of the spiritual worlds external to the earth with that which has occurred upon the earth. And I have brought to your attention the fact that it is necessary in our time to become able to understand the concept of the immensity of the greatness of the Jesus figure, and with that the greatness of the Mystery of Golgotha, since our time has certainly developed the intellect, the intellectual thinking in its 5th post-Atlantean period. However, the spiritual comprehension of the would has to be added to this intellectual thinking. Then it will be possible to understand the Mystery of Golgotha again as it was understood many, many years ago but understood now in a very advanced way. I might say that before the understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha could have been acquired, that which was inserted into human understanding through the Ahrimanic powers had to occur. As a matter of fact, I can say that all the good spirits are really waiting for mankind to understand the Mystery of Golgotha; yet in spite of that people are fighting against this understanding. They do not want to enter into the understanding of this Mystery of Golgotha and therefore deny it in an unconscious way. They also unconsciously deny the figure who stands in the centerpoint of this Mystery of Golgotha. You know that when a very intellectual person tests the Gospels in a critical way, he finds contradictions in them which show that these refer at the most to the fact that a good man lived in Nazareth. He says that a reasonably intelligent man cannot believe that other things are contained in the Gospels, only a weak-minded person can say: I follow the Christ Jesus.

I would like to bring a book to your attention entitled The Fool in Christo Emanual Quint, a novel by Gerhard Hauptmann which contains what I have just indicated to you. Now, I am not going to say that Gerhard Hauptmann had not written a very fine drama at an earlier time, however our time is ripe for that which this great poet of the present applies as a weak mind in order to represent Christ. I know very well that many will come to me and say: You are condemning this Fool in Christo Emanual Quint by Gerhard Hauptmann because you are looking at it from the religious or philosophical aspect and do not have any understanding for the purely esthetic. But I might say this: From the purely esthetic point of view, this work is just an imitation, a very bad reproduction of Dostoevski's Brothers Karamasov. I prefer to read Dostoevski and I advise everyone to read him rather than reading this weak imitation of his work which Gerhard Hauptmann has written. (Rudolf Steiner reads portions from this book to show that it resembles the things found in the Brothers Karamasov, but not in an artistic way.)

This book, The Fool in Christo Emanual Quint by Gerhard Hauptmann is highly praised by the critics and they say that because of its popularity many editions will have to be printed, also it will be translated into many languages. Both young and old will appreciate it; it will become a classic. It really is a novel of the religious battles of our age in which a person who was a son of the people rises up to become a son of God. Every religious person will be able to appreciate what is involved in this novel. This can be an example of how we are permeated by sick thought and this is why I emphasized time and again in the course of the winter's lectures how one of the functions of the spiritual science is to make our thinking healthy, to enable our thought forms to be constructed along the correct paths. When one abstractly states that today the classical time of homo sapiens is passed and that we must put homo economicus in its place, then you should be sufficiently awake to see that this man is an idiot even though he does not think so. He thinks he is the great culture bringer of our age who is solving the great riddle of our life. So much around us is trying to prevent people from developing the sort of thinking that deals with reality. You will be able to find what I mean when I say “Thinking according to reality” when you read my book in which these ideas are clearly presented. The book which will appear shortly.

Remember that we have Emanuel Kant who has written the book The Critique of Pure Reason in which he makes very clear that everything is only an appearance, that one can never arrive at the reality of the thing in itself behind the phenomena. We also have a Critique of Language who wants to foster the fame of this Critique of Language. You get all sorts of journalists who consider it to be the monumental world of the present time; whereas it is nothing more than frightful philosophical dilettantism. Fritz Mauthner cannot advance to a single real concept. All he can do is to say that the word has nothing in it. All the word is is just a gesture, a pointer. Mauthner does not have the slightest inkling of language of words. He criticizes the word, believes that people themselves have created words and that the words are really hiding reality. Indeed, you cannot criticize reality because you are criticizing the word. I will try to make this clear to you through a drastic example.

Just think what this Fritz Mauthner does. He has written Critique of Language which comprises three thick volumes, a Dictionary of Philosophy comprising two think volumes in which he has gathered together the concept of existence, the concept of knowledge, and so on. All of this is handled according to the words: Where words proceed from; where words first appear; how one word changes from one language into another. And in so far as he does all this describing of how the word changes itself from one language into the other, then he believes that he can say something about these things. I will try to make this clear with a drastic example. Let us assume that Fritz Mauthner traveled through Austria and found a word which has been formed there, the word Boehmishe Hoffrat—Bohemian privy counselor. This word is used all over Austria; every other person is a Boehmishe Hoffrat. What would this critic of speech, this Fritz Mauthner make out of this word using his method? Naturally he would look under ‘B’ in his philosophical dictionary, analyze the word Boehmishe in an orderly way and discover that it is a part of the concept berman. Then he would look under the letter ‘H’ to find Hoffrat and would then take that concept and analyze it in an orderly fashion and in this way he tried to discover the reality of what Boehmishe Hoffrat means. However, the singular fact is that in Austria, a Boehmishe Hoffrat is neither a Bohemian nor is he a privy counselor. On the contrary, most of the Boehmishe Hoffrate in Austria are neither one nor the other. It is only an accident when one is a privy counselor or a Bohemian. In Austria, a Boehemishe Hoffrat indicates a person who is an intriguer, who has the talent for displacing those above him, climbing the ladder into their place at the top. It has nothing to do with the Bohemian nor with the privy Counselor. A person can be an office attendant born in the Steimark and still be a Boehmishe Hoffrat. So you see how words are formed and how they relate to reality. All words are formed that way. When you want to seek the reality behind words, then you find very little of it behind the word Boehmishe Hoffrat if you do not have the ability to penetrate deep within the words and find out how there content was arrived at and what the word signifies.

You see, my dear friends, our present age has reached this degree of confusion and people have arrived at a point in their confusion where they look on a book such as Fritz Mauthner has written as an epoch making creation. It is not really without significance to know that the tasks of people arise out of works in which the fantasy of human beings is poisoned as is done by Gerhard Hauptmann in his book The Fool in Christo Emanual Quint. It is not really an arbitrary thing when the thinking of the human being is confused by a book such as Fritz Mauthner's Critique of Language or something like it. These are the outflow of the intellectual pride which places itself against acquiring a real understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha, that understanding which is so necessary for the present time. I might say the following: Just as the crucifixion had to enter for Christ Jesus, so also must the concept of Christ as it appears at the present time in mankind also be crucified. And this concept of Christ is crucified through books such as The Fool in Christo Emanual Quint by Gerhard Hauptmann. Surely Gerhard Hauptmann feels himself especially clever because he points to the fact that bishops, pastors and officials have thrown out the fool, Quint when he came and announced that he was Christ. But Hauptmann in an eloquent way adds that eventually this fool could actually be Christ, then the people would have thrown Christ out.

There is so much of what is happening in the present time which prevents people from penetrating to the threefold understanding of the Christ, to the historical Christ, to the Zarathustra Child in which the Christ Being entered, to the earthly Christ, namely, to the Nathan Jesus Child who, however has not worked into the earth; to the Christ understanding, to that Power which descended out of the spiritual heights and has fructified all earth life. This threefold understanding must be acquired, my dear friends. It will be acquired when spiritual science is able to permeate through all the egotism and pride of those who say that they have reached the highest goal of knowledge. In spite of all that, there will be people who are able to enter to an understanding of this threefold Christ. When we come together again, I will be able to attach something else to what I have said today.

The theme of this cycle of lectures was not chosen because it is traditional within academic or philosophical disciplines, as though we thought epistemology or the like should appear within our courses. Rather, it was chosen as the result of what I believe to be an open-minded consideration of the needs and demands of our time. The further evolution of humanity demands new concepts, new notions, and new impulses for social life generally: we need ideas which, when realized, can create social conditions offering to human beings of all stations and classes an existence that seems to them humane. Already, to be sure, it is being said in the widest circles that social renewal must begin with a renewal of our thinking.¹ Yet not everyone in these widest circles imagines something clear and distinct when speaking in this way. One does not ask: whence shall come the ideas upon which one might found a social economy offering man a humane existence? That portion of humanity which has received an education in the last three to four centuries, but particularly since the nineteenth century, has been raised with certain ideas that are outgrowths of the scientific world view or entirely schooled in it. This is particularly true of those who have undergone some academic training. Only those working in fields other than the sciences believe that natural science has had little influence on their pursuits. Yet it is easy to demonstrate that even in the newer, more progressive theology, in history and in jurisprudence—everywhere can be found scientific concepts such as those that arose from the scientific experiments of the last centuries, so that traditional concepts have in a certain way been altered to conform to the new. One need only allow the progress of the new theological developments in the nineteenth century to pass before the mind's eye. One sees, for example, how Protestant theology has arrived at its views concerning the man, Jesus, and the nature of Christ, because at every turn it had in mind certain scientific conceptions that it wanted to satisfy, against which it did not want to sin. At the same time, the old, instinctive ties within the social order began to slacken: they gradually ceased to hold human life together. In the course of the nineteenth century it became increasingly necessary to replace the instincts according to which one class subordinated itself to another, the instincts out of which the new parliamentary institutions, with all their consequences, have come with more-or-less conscious concepts. Not only in Marxism but in many other movements as well there has come about what one might call a transformation of the old social instincts into conscious concepts.

But what was this new element that had entered into social science, into this favorite son of modern thought? It was the conceptions, the new mode of thinking that had been developed in the pursuit of natural science. And today we are faced with the important question: how far shall we be able to progress within a web of social forces woven from such concepts? If we listen to the world's rumbling, if we consider all the hopeless prospects that result from the attempts that are made on the basis of these conceptions, we are confronted with a dismal picture indeed. One is then faced with the portentous question: how does it stand with those very concepts that we have acquired from natural science and now wish to apply to our lives, concepts that—this has become clearly evident in many areas already—are actually rejected by life itself? This vital question, this burning question with which our age confronts us, was the occasion of my choosing the theme, “The Boundaries of Natural Science.” Just this question requires that I treat the theme in such a way that we receive an overview of what natural science can and cannot contribute to an appropriate social order and an idea of the kind of scientific research, the kind of world view to which one would have to turn in order to confront seriously the demands made upon us by our time.

What is it we see if we consider the method according to which one thinks in scientific circles and how others have been influenced in their thinking by those circles? What do we see? We see first of all that an attempt is made to acquire data and to order it in a lucid system with the help of clear concepts. We see how an attempt is made to order the data gathered from inanimate nature by means of the various sciences—mechanics, physics, chemistry, etc.—to order them in a systematic manner but also to permeate the data with certain concepts so that they become intelligible. With regard to inanimate nature, one strives for the greatest possible clarity, for crystal-clear concepts. And a consequence of this striving for lucid concepts is that one seeks, if it is at all possible, to permeate everything that one finds in one's environment with mathematical formulae. One wants to translate data gathered from nature into clear mathematical formulae, into the transparent language of mathematics.

In the last third of the nineteenth century, scientists already believed themselves very close to being able to give a mathematical-mechanical explanation of natural phenomena that would be thoroughly transparent. It remained for them only to explain the little matter of the atom. They wanted to reduce it to a point-force [Kraftpunkt] in order to be able to express its position and momenta in mathematical formulae. They believed they would then be justified in saying: I contemplate nature, and what I contemplate there is in reality a network of interrelated forces and movements wholly intelligible in terms of mathematics. Hence there arose the ideal of the so-called “astronomical explanation of nature,” which states in essence: just as one brings to expression the relationships between the various heavenly bodies in mathematical formulae, so too should one be able to compute everything within this smallest realm, within the “little cosmos” of atoms and molecules, in terms of lucid mathematics. This was a striving that climaxed in the last third of the nineteenth century: it is now on the decline again. Over against this striving for a crystal-clear, mathematical view of the world, however, there stands something entirely different, something that is called forth the moment one tries to extend this striving into realms other than that of inanimate nature. You know that in the course of the nineteenth century the attempt was made to carry this point of view, at least to some extent, into the life sciences. And though Kant had said that a second Newton would never be found who could explain living organisms according to a causal principle similar to that used to explain inorganic nature, Haeckel could nevertheless claim that this second Newton had been found in Darwin, that Darwin had actually tried, by means of the principle of natural selection, to explain how organisms evolve in the same “transparent” terms. And one began to aim for just such a clarity, a clarity at least approaching that of mathematics, in all explanations, proceeding all the way up to the explanation of man himself. Something thereby was fulfilled which certain scientists explained by saying that man's need to understand the causes of phenomena is satisfied only when he arrives at such a transparent, lucid view of the world.

And yet over against this there stands something entirely different. One comes to see that theory upon theory has been contrived in order to construct a view of the world such as I have just described, and ever and again those who strove for such a view of the world called forth—often immediately—their own opposition. There always arose the other party, which demonstrated that such a view of the world could never produce valid explanations, that such a view of the world could never ultimately satisfy man's need to know. On the one hand it was argued how necessary it is to keep one's world view within the lucid realm of mathematics, while on the other hand it was shown that such a world view would, for example, remain entirely incapable of constructing even the simplest living organism in thought of mathematical clarity or, indeed, even of constructing a comprehensible model of organic substance. It was as though the one party continually wove a tissue of ideas in order to explain nature, and the other party—sometimes the same party—continually unraveled it.

It has been possible to follow this spectacle—for it seems just that to anyone who is able to view it with an unprejudiced eye—within the scientific work and striving of the last fifty years especially. If one has sensed the full gravity of the situation, that with regard to this important question nothing but a weaving and unraveling of theories has taken place, one can pose the question: is not the continual striving for such a conceptual explanation of phenomena perhaps superfluous? Is not the proper answer to any question that arises when one confronts phenomena perhaps that one should simply allow the facts to speak for themselves, that one should describe what occurs in nature and forgo any more detailed accounting? Is it not possible that all such explanations show only that humanity is still tied to its mother's apron strings, that humanity in its infancy sought a kind of luxury? Would not humanity, come of age, have to say to itself: we must not strive at all for such explanation; we get nowhere in that way and must simply extirpate the need to know? Why not? As we become older we outgrow the need to play; why, if we were justified in doing so, should we not simply outgrow the need for explanations?

Just such a question could already emerge in the most extraordinarily significant way when, on August 14, 1872, du Bois-Reymond stood before the Second General Meeting of the Association of German Scientists and Physicians to deliver his famous address, “The Boundaries of Natural Science” [“Grenzen des Naturerkennens”], an address still worthy of consideration today. Yet despite the amount that has been written about this address by the important physiologist, du Bois-Reymond, many still do not realize that it represents one of the important junctures in the evolution of the modern world view.

In medieval Scholasticism all of man's thinking, all of his notional activity, was determined by the view that one could explain the broad realms of nature in terms of certain concepts but that one had to draw the line upon reaching the super-sensible. The super-sensible had to be the object of revelation. They felt that man should stand in a relation to the super-sensible in such a way that he would not even wish to penetrate it with the same concepts he formed concerning the realms of nature and external human existence. A limit was set to knowledge on the side of the super-sensible, and it was strongly emphasized that such a limit had to exist, that it simply lay within human nature and the order of the universe that such a limit be recognized. This placement of a limit to knowledge was then renewed from an entirely different side by thinkers and researchers such as du Bois-Reymond. They were no longer Schoolmen, no longer theologians, but just as the medieval theologian, proceeding according to his own mode of thinking, had set a limit to knowledge at the super-sensible, so these thinkers and researchers set a limit at the sensible. The limit was meant to apply above all to the realm of external sensory data.

There were two concepts in particular that du Bois-Reymond had in mind, which to him established the limits natural science could reach but beyond which it could not proceed. Later he increased that number by five in his lecture, “The Seven Enigmas of the World,” but in the first lecture he spoke of the two concepts, “matter” and “consciousness.” He said that when contemplating nature we are forced, in thinking systematically, to apply concepts in such a way that we eventually arrive at the notion of matter. Just what this mysterious entity in space we call “matter” is, however, we can never in any way resolve. We must simply assume the concept “matter,” though it is opaque. If only we assume this opaque concept “matter,” we can apply our mathematical formulae and calculate the movements of matter in terms of the formulae. The realm of natural phenomena becomes comprehensible if only we can posit this “opaque” little point millions upon millions of times. Yet surely we must also assume that it is this same material world that first builds up our bodies and unfolds its own activity within them, so that there rises up within us, by virtue of this corporeal activity, what eventually becomes sensation and consciousness. On the one hand we confront a world of natural phenomena requiring that we construct a concept of “matter,” while on the other hand we confront ourselves, experience the fact of consciousness, observe its phenomena, and surmise that whatever it is we assume to be matter must also lie at the foundation of consciousness. But how, out of these movements of matter, out of inanimate, dead movement, there arises consciousness, or even simple sensation, is a mystery that we cannot possibly fathom. This is the other pole of all the uncertainties, all the limits to knowledge: how can we explain consciousness, or even the simplest sensation?

With regard to these two questions, then—What is matter? How does consciousness arise out of material processes?—du Bois-Reymond maintains that as researchers we must confess: ignorabimus, we shall never know. That is the modern counterpart to medieval Scholasticism. Medieval Scholasticism stood at the limit of the super-sensible world. Modern natural science stands at the limit delineated in essence by two concepts: “matter,” which is everywhere assumed within the sensory realm but nowhere to be found, and “consciousness,” which is assumed to originate within the sense world, although one can never comprehend how.

If one considers this development of modern scientific thought, must one not then say to oneself that scientific research is entangling itself in a kind of web, and only outside of this web can one find the world? For in the final analysis it is there, where matter haunts space, that the external world lies. If this is the one place into which one cannot penetrate, one has no way in which to come to terms with life. Within man one finds the fact of consciousness. Does one come at all near to it with explanations conceived in observing external nature? If in one's search for explanations one pulls up short at human life, how, then, can one arrive at notions of how to live in a way worthy of a human being? How, if one cannot understand the existence or the essence of man according to the assumptions one makes concerning that existence?

As this course of lectures progresses it shall, I believe, become evident beyond any doubt that it is the impotence of the modern scientific method that has made us so impotent in our thinking about social questions. Many today still do not perceive what an important and essential connection exists between the two. Many today still do not perceive that when in Leipzig on August 14, 1872 du Bois-Reymond spoke his ignorabimus, this same ignorabimus was spoken also with regard to all social thought. What this ignorabimus actually meant was: we stand helpless in the face of real life; we have only shadowy concepts; we have no concepts with which to grasp reality. And now, almost fifty years later, the world demands just such concepts of us. We must have them. Such concepts, such impulses, cannot come out of lecture-halls still laboring in the shadow of this ignorabimus. That is the great tragedy of our time. Here lie questions that must be answered.

We want to proceed from fundamental principles to such an answer and above all to consider the question: is there not perhaps something more intelligent that we as human beings could do than what we have done for the last fifty years, namely tried to explain nature after the fashion of ancient Penelope, by weaving theories with one hand and unraveling them with the other? Ah yes, if only we could, if only we could stand before nature entirely without thoughts! But we cannot: to the extent that we are human beings and wish to remain human beings we cannot. If we wish to comprehend nature, we must permeate it with concepts and ideas. Why must we do that?

We must do that, ladies and gentlemen, because only thereby does consciousness awake, because only thereby do we become conscious human beings. Just as each morning upon opening our eyes we achieve consciousness in our interaction with the external world, so essentially did consciousness awake within the evolution of humanity. Consciousness, as it is now, was first kindled through the interaction of the senses and thinking with the outer world. We can watch the historical development of consciousness in the interaction of man's senses with outer nature. In this process consciousness gradually was kindled out of the dull, sleepy cultural life of primordial times. Yet one must only consider with an open mind this fact of consciousness, this interaction between the senses and nature, in order to observe something extraordinary transpiring within man. We must look into our soul to see what is there, either by remaining awhile before fully awakening within that dull and dreamy consciousness or by looking back into the almost dreamlike consciousness of primordial times. If we look within our soul at what lies submerged beneath the surface consciousness arising in the interaction between senses and the outer world, we find a world of representations, faint, diluted to dream-pictures with hazy contours, each image fading into the other. Unprejudiced observation establishes this. The faintness of the representations, the haziness of the contours, the fading of one representation into another: none of this can cease unless we awake to a full interaction with external nature. In order to come to this awakening which is tantamount to becoming fully human—our senses must awake every morning to contact with nature. It was also necessary, however, for humanity as a whole to awake out of a dull, dreamlike vision of primordial worlds within the soul to achieve the present clear representations.

In this way we achieve the clarity of representation and the sharply delineated concepts that we need in order to remain awake, to remain aware of our environment with a waking soul. We need all this in order to remain human in the fullest sense of the word. But we cannot simply conjure it all up out of ourselves. We achieve it only when our senses come into contact with nature: only then do we achieve clear, sharply delineated concepts. We thereby develop something that man must develop for his own sake—otherwise consciousness would not awake. It is thus not an abstract “need for explanations,” not what du Bois-Reymond and other men like him call “the need to know the causes of things,” that drives us to seek explanations but the need to become human in the fullest sense through observing nature. We thus may not say that we can outgrow the need to explain like any other child's play, for that would mean that we would not want to become human in the fullest sense of the word—that is to say, not want to awake in the way we must awake.

Something else happens in this process, however. In coming to such concepts as we achieve in contemplating nature, we at the same time impoverish our inner conceptual life. Our concepts become clear, but their compass becomes diminished, and if we consider exactly what it is we have achieved by means of these concepts, we see that it is an external, mathematical-mechanical lucidity. Within that lucidity, however, we find nothing that allows us to comprehend life. We have, as it were, stepped out into the light but lost the very ground beneath our feet. We find no concepts that allow us to typify life, or even consciousness, in any way. In exchange for the clarity we must seek for the sake of our humanity, we have lost the content of that for which we have striven. And then we contemplate nature around us with our concepts. We formulate such complex ideas as the theory of evolution and the like. We strive for clarity. Out of this clarity we formulate a world view, but within this world view it is impossible to find ourselves, to find man. With our concepts we have moved out to the surface, where we come into contact with nature. We have achieved clarity, but along the way we have lost man. We move through nature, apply a mathematical-mechanical explanation, apply the theory of evolution, formulate all kinds of biological laws; we explain nature; we formulate a view of nature—within which man cannot be found. The abundance of content that we once had has been lost, and we are confronted with a concept that can be formed only with the clearest but at the same time most desiccated and lifeless thinking: the concept of matter. And an ignorabimus in the face of the concept of matter is essentially the confession: I have achieved clarity; I have struggled through to an awakening of full consciousness, but thereby I have lost the essence of man in my thinking, in my explanations, in my comprehension.

And now we turn to look within. We turn away from matter to consider the inner realm of consciousness. We see how within this inner realm of consciousness representations pass in review, feelings come and go, impulses of will flash through us. We observe all this and notice that when we attempt to bring the inner realm into the same kind of focus that we achieved with regard to the external world, it is impossible. We seem to swim in an element that we cannot bring into sharp contours, that continually fades in and out of focus. The clarity for which we strive with regard to outer nature simply cannot be achieved within. In the most recent attempts to understand this inner realm, in the Anglo-American psychology of association, we see how, following the example of Hume, Mill, James, and others, the attempt was made to impose the clarity attained in observation of external nature upon inner sensations and feelings. One attempts to impose clarity upon sensation, and this is impossible. It is as though one wanted to apply the laws of flight to swimming. One does not come to terms at all with the element within which one has to move. The psychology of association never achieves sharpness of contour or clarity regarding the phenomenon of consciousness. And even if one attempts with a certain sobriety, as Herbart has done, to apply mathematical computation to human mental activity [das Vorstellen], to the human soul, one finds it possible, but the computations hover in the air. There is no place to gain a foothold, because the mathematical formulae simply cannot comprehend what is actually occurring within the soul. While one loses man in coming to clarity regarding the external world, one finds man, to be sure—it goes without saying that one finds man when one delves into consciousness—but there is no hope of achieving clarity, for one swims about, borne hither and thither in an insubstantial realm. One finds man, but one cannot find a valid image of man.

It was this that du Bois-Reymond felt very clearly but was able to express only much less clearly—only as a kind of vague feeling about scientific research on the whole—when in August 1872 he spoke his ignorabimus. What this ignorabimus wants to say in essence is that on the one hand, we have in the historical evolution of humanity arrived at clarity regarding nature and have constructed the concept of matter. In this view of nature we have lost man—that is, ourselves. On the other hand we look down into consciousness. To this realm we want to apply that which has been most important in arriving at the contemporary explanation of nature. Consciousness rejects this lucidity. This mathematical clarity is entirely out of place. To be sure, we find man in a sense, but our consciousness is not yet strong enough, not yet intensive enough to comprehend man fully.

Again, one is tempted to answer with an ignorabimus, but that cannot be, for we need something more than an ignorabimus in order to meet the social demands of the modern world. The limit that du Bois-Reymond had come up against when he spoke [about] his ignorabimus on August 14, 1872 lies not within the human condition as such but only within its present stage of historical human evolution. How are we to transcend this ignorabimus? That is the burning question.

• 1. “... that social renewal must begin with the renewal of our thinking.” The original German (“... dass die soziale Erneuerung vom Geiste ausgehen musse”) might be translated alternately “that social renewal must proceed from the spirit.” The German word “Geist”—bane of all who would translate German into English—embraces two meanings that remain in English quite distinct “mind” and “spirit.” The translator must choose one, even though the German always implies both. If he chooses the former, he runs the risk of seriously distorting the author's intentions (as did the man who translated Hegel's Phanomenologie des Geistes as The Phenomenology of Mind). If he chooses the latter, he flies in the face of the dubious connotations that “spirit” and “spiritual” convey—no doubt as a result of the basically empirical cast of English thought. Although “Geist” as Steiner uses it should almost invariably be translated “spirit” (which of course comprehends “wind”), here the context has led us to choose the more restricted meaning.

Dear attendees, already in earlier years I was allowed to give lectures in this city on questions of world view, which are based on what I dare to call “spiritual science”. And also in this fateful time of ours, the friends of our spiritual scientific world view here in this city thought that it would be possible to talk about some things in the field of this spiritual science here. And that should be appropriate for this time as well; after all, what is called spiritual science here is about the deepest, most fateful things in human beings, about that which leads people to the bitterest disappointments of life, but also to those feelings that we see unfolding so powerfully in our time in terms of courage and willingness to make sacrifices.

Now, dear attendees, what is called spiritual science in the sense of tonight's reflections is by no means something that can find any approval or recognition in wide circles of our present time. And it must be said that precisely the person who is completely and with all his soul immersed in this spiritual-scientific world view will find it self-evident that precisely the most highly educated people in our time raise objections against what this spiritual science presents. And it will appear to them much more understandable when it is said that this spiritual science is a collection of dreams, fantasies or even worse, than when someone who is completely immersed in the thought patterns that completely immersed in the thought patterns that have emerged over the past few centuries, is immersed in a scientific training that is in line with the times, if he could immediately agree with this spiritual science at first hearing.

In particular, it is quite obvious and understandable that objections, perhaps even ridicule and scorn, will be raised against what this spiritual science has to say, especially from three sides. First of all, from those who believe that they are standing on the firm ground of a scientific worldview in the present day. They will have to say – and I say expressly – they will still have to say today that this spiritual science denies everything that the so admirable natural science has achieved for humanity in the course of the last three to four centuries in the most careful way, both theoretically and practically, in human development. And from another side, objection after objection will have to be raised against this spiritual science from the side that believes that everything possible from old superstition and old prejudices is to be listed by what this spiritual science has to bring forward.

And still a third may always arise against this spiritual science. It is the opinion that the most valuable, the most profoundly significant thing that the human soul can hold and carry in life, that the religious element could be endangered by what spiritual science has to say.

Now, esteemed attendees, I hope that even if I do not directly address the refutation of the objections from these various sides, this evening's remarks themselves will show how unfounded and based on misunderstandings what is being said against spiritual science is. Above all, what does this spiritual science want to be? It wants to be one for our time, one for the present path of development of humanity, appropriate continuation of that which the so admirable natural science has brought to humanity. Only, however, it wants to be that which natural science is for external life and external sense observation, it wants to be that for the observations, for the insights of the spiritual world. And precisely for this reason, because it wants to be the genuine, true successor of natural science in the field of spiritual science, it must, in a certain way, in order to be just as scientific as natural science is in its fields, take different paths and methods than natural science.

And to get straight to the point, I would like to discuss the relationship between what a spiritual researcher is, a researcher in the field of the spiritual worlds, in contrast to the natural scientist, who extends his sensory observations, his experiments, his thinking to that which is spread out in time and space. Particularly if spiritual science wants to be truly scientific, it must, in a sense, continue its research where natural science, where all the thinking and feeling and sensing of everyday life ends. And here we immediately come to what runs directly counter to the thinking habits of by far the largest circles of educated people in our society today.

When you are immersed in everyday life, when you let your senses roam over this everyday life, when you think, when you feel about this everyday life, then you are rightly satisfied when you think, feel, sense, imagine, and have ideas about what is out there in space and passing through time. And one recognizes, again with full justification, that one has knowledge, that one has something that can satisfy people, that one has, so to speak, images in concepts and ideas of what takes place in space and time. One remains, so to speak, with the concepts and ideas, one preserves them as that into which one has transformed the outer world.

As a spiritual researcher, one has to start at the point where one stops with one's perceptions and ideas in order to find one's way into the spiritual worlds. I would like to say: the spiritual researcher also has his laboratory and experimental methods, just like the natural scientist and the chemist. But his laboratory is situated entirely within the soul itself. His methods are not such as are used by the chemist, the physicist, the clinician, who carry out their work in space and time and whose work involves listening out for the laws of space and time. The work of the spiritual researcher involves intimate processes that take place entirely within the soul itself. While in everyday life, while in ordinary science, one stops at representations and concepts, in spiritual research one must begin with concepts, ideas and perceptions. And one must not store these perceptions, which one receives in the outer world, in the soul, but one must live intimately with what the soul develops in the life of perception and feeling, living together in a different way than one is accustomed to in the ordinary existence of the day. And since I do not want to talk in abstract terms, but really want to show what the spiritual research path is, I would like to get straight down to specifics.

A person's soul must become something quite different from what it is in everyday life if it wants to observe that which is in the spiritual world. And it can become so if it gets used to living inwardly with that which otherwise merely ... Let us assume that we place some arbitrary idea, a concept, from our own inner soul power into the center of our consciousness and now, instead of asking ourselves, as we do in everyday life, as we do in ordinary science, “What does this concept express to us?” Instead, as spiritual researchers, we try to live with the concept, the idea, the feeling, and also with the impulse of the will, to live in meditation; I mean to live for minutes or for half an hour. In doing so, it is even advantageous if we use not concepts and perceptions that depict something external for this, I would say, inner laboratory work of the soul, but if we use perceptions, ideas that are symbols that do not depict anything external.

What I mean is, take for example the idea: “In the light that permeates and governs the world, living wisdom lives.” Of course, someone might say: this idea does not depict anything real. It is purely the product of the imagination. That is not the point. The point is that we now place this idea at the center of our consciousness, that we now withdraw our attention from everything else that is around us in everyday life or that constitutes the subject of science. This means that all impressions of the senses, all representations that depict something external, memory images, emotions, must be forgotten in the moments when we place such a representation at the center of all our soul activities, as it has just been characterized. Then we gather together all the powers of our soul, which we otherwise distribute among external perceptions and external experiences; we concentrate them and fix them on this single idea. Now it does not depend on what we have in mind. That is why I said: such an idea can be better formed through the exercise of the will. It does not depend on what we imagine, but on the fact that we apply inwardly those strong forces that the soul must apply in order to concentrate everything that is in it through inner willpower in this inner work towards this one point. Doing this only once or twice has no influence at all on the human soul. But it is different when we make what has just been characterized the continued exercise of the soul. Depending on the disposition of the person, one person may have to concentrate their inner soul life on one point for only a few weeks, while another may have to do so for years, always for short periods of time. What matters is that we always repeat the same idea in the right way or also alternate it with other ideas.

Of course, I can only discuss the principles here; you can find more details in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds” and also in the second part of my “Occult Science”, where I discuss how to carry out this, I would like to say again and again, this laboratory work of the soul in detail. This is something that is easily described and of which one can also imagine that it proceeds easily in the soul; but I would like to apply the word used by Goethe to it: “Although it seems easy, yet the easy is difficult.” For the point is that the powers the soul applies in such tasks are completely untrained in ordinary life. So by distracting one's attention from all external and internal impressions and concentrating one's entire mental life through inner arbitrariness – these tasks are called “meditation” and “concentration” – an inner, intimate change takes place in the soul. This change does not occur immediately; nor can it be achieved by simply resolving: “I will now do a great deal and will then achieve what I set out to achieve.” That is not the case. Rather, the essential thing is that we do not use a concept, an idea, a feeling, or any other emotional impulse in the same way as we usually do, but that we live with them, that we give ourselves over to them completely.

Then we must wait, not for what we do with them, but for what they become as we give ourselves to them. Our inner soul is transformed as if we were spectators of what is happening within us, in that we completely identify with what we have placed at the center of our consciousness. Not much time is needed during the day. A few minutes are enough for some, half an hour for others during the day; but it must be done continuously for a long time, and again and again these otherwise hidden powers of the soul must be directed in such a way as I have just described. Then the one who devotes himself to such exercises, who really wants to become a spiritual researcher, notices that something is going on within him of which one has no concept in the outer life. Nor can one have any idea of how someone who has never heard of chemistry can imagine that hydrogen can be released from water through special chemical processes; hydrogen, which is a gas, which looks quite different from water, which burns while water extinguishes. Just as someone who has never heard of chemistry cannot have any idea of what can come out of water as hydrogen, so in ordinary life one cannot have any idea of what happens when the soul, with the expenditure of tremendous inner energy and perseverance, constantly concentrates forces that it otherwise does not apply on one point.

Then the soul gradually realizes that something is happening that does not occur in ordinary life. The soul experiences detachment from the physical body. It is one of the most harrowing experiences for the spiritual researcher to actually experience what is denied in everyday life or in external science. It cannot be said that the soul is already detached from ordinary life. No, it is connected to it. But as the spiritual researcher works in the way that has been characterized, the soul will gradually appear detached from the physical. He really experiences this detachment, before one can really say that the soul-spiritual slips out of the physical-bodily. He enters into a state in which he knows: You are no longer in the body with your thoughts and feelings, but you are outside the body. It is precisely this that must be experienced, which the most scientifically minded world view of the present denies, that there is a spiritual-soul life independent of the body.

What the spiritual researcher experiences next is surprising. At first, one feels how one lives more and more strongly and strongly within oneself in powers that one did not know before. Then there comes a moment when this inner, strong energy and power, in which one already feels, I might say, like in a kind of inner well-being, is dampened, that it is dampened down. And there comes a moment when one experiences something like darkness spreading over the consciousness that one has acquired outside of the body. One could also say: a kind of inner powerlessness, a disappearance and sinking into something that one has as an inner experience.

All that the spiritual researcher goes through is not as indifferent to the soul as the experiences that the ordinary scientist goes through. For this seizes him in his whole mind, it takes up all his attention, it pours out a wealth of initially harrowing experiences upon the soul. The experience one has when one advances in the indicated manner is something like destruction, like an enormous feeling of loneliness.

And there is something else that one experiences, which I will characterize by a comparison, but which should be more than a comparison: Suppose that the germ that develops in the plant could imagine something, could think. As the plant grows from the root to the individual leaves and to the flower, the germ prepares itself; within it are the forces that will later develop into a new plant. It can only develop by drawing its forces from the entire plant. Now, let us assume that it could empathize with the life of the plant – what would it have to feel? He would have to say to himself: As I become stronger and stronger, as I develop more and more, I do so at the expense of the plant on which I develop. I cause what is in the leaves and flowers to wither and fall off because the forces in me are growing strong. That must die. And so, too, he who advances in the manner described, through concentration, through meditation, to that which is indeed a real core, but a spiritual-soul core in the whole life of man — so he feels, really, so he feels and senses, as if he must feel this body itself, to the same extent that he develops, as withering, as melting away, in the whole universe. But anyone who wants to have real knowledge in the spiritual world must have this feeling.

Now you know that ordinary scientific philosophy speaks of the limits of knowledge, of the fact that human knowledge cannot penetrate beyond a certain point. Very many say that man cannot penetrate beyond what is given to the senses, which is grasped by the intellect, which is bound to the brain. Logical proofs are adduced to show that man cannot go beyond certain limits of knowledge. But these logical proofs are a very special matter. Something can be very well proved logically, but life, life in truth, overcomes that which is only logical proof. I will clarify what I actually want to say by means of a comparison, although this comparison is also intended to be more than just a comparison. Consider: in the days before the invention of the microscope, certain people sensed that the smallest cells and structures in plants could be discovered, but they said: the human senses are so arranged that such small cells cannot be seen. Therefore, even if they were present, they will never be seen. Such proof could be quite right. Nothing could be said against it. But life has gone beyond that: they found the microscope and discovered the small plant cells.

At some point, humanity of the present and the future will have to come to terms with the fact that evidence means nothing when it comes to knowledge. Something can be strictly proven and yet, life in truth can go beyond it. Someone may say: Here comes such a complicated spiritual researcher and talks about the fact that the human being, human knowledge, can grow into the spiritual world, while Kant and others have irrefutably proven that human knowledge has limits. The spiritual researcher does not want to touch such proofs at all. But they are no more valuable than the proof mentioned earlier. Life will go beyond it. But another question: how is it that there are philosophers at all who speak of the limits of knowledge, who say that one cannot penetrate into spiritual realms?

Now, what the spiritual researcher finds is not created by him, it is only recognized; by recognizing something, one does not change what is there. What the spiritual researcher experiences as an inner powerlessness of the soul, as an inner loneliness of the soul, is always spread out at the bottom of the soul. It lies down there in the soul, covered only by a veil of a merciful wisdom, and remains unconscious to the person. And now the philosopher comes; he works only with the consciousness that is bound to the brain. He does not know that down there in the soul there is secret fear and shyness of rising to the point where knowledge initially feels like a lonely powerlessness. He knows nothing of this, and unconsciously he shrinks back from it. He is only afraid to go further than the thinking that is bound to the brain. Now what I have described does not last - or at least it should not last beyond a certain time.

The human being must not only enter into the inner mood that I have just described, but, if he wants to become a true spiritual researcher, he must do a parallel exercise. He must do another exercise, which you will find described in detail in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds”. Wherever spiritual research methods are properly practiced, the approach just described is not the only one recommended, but the other approach is also taught.

This other path – I can best make it understandable through the following – is connected with an understanding of what the word “fate” encompasses for human life, which is infinitely significant. What does the word “fate” encompass for human life! But how do those facts approach man that are usually referred to as fate? We live in the world. That which comes to us as suffering or joy, as pain or pleasure-inducing fate, is usually understood as coincidences that happen to people. And the course of our fate between birth and death is understood as a sum of events, in the context of which one does not look further than whether one finds one thing pleasant or another unpleasant. When a person faces their destiny in ordinary life, it is as if someone who has never heard of natural science faces the facts of the external world. The sun rises; the stars rise and set; wind and weather come and go, and so on. Someone who has never heard of natural science does not seek any connection in these facts; he does not seek the laws that govern them.

But just as someone who has not heard of natural science relates to a natural scientist, so man in ordinary life relates to the spiritual scientist, as the spiritual scientist now has to understand this fate. We start from something very ordinary, from the most everyday in this our human life. Let us ask ourselves without prejudice and with an open mind what we are in relation to our self at any given moment in our lives – let us speak only of the ordinary life between birth and death for the time being. Yes, that which we call our self, it consists in what we can do, what we are capable of, what our abilities are, how strongly or weakly we face life. But where does it come from?

If we look at life in this way, we will be able to see it when we look back from a later age to an earlier one, say the twenties, we will be able to see that we were confronted by these or those events, which we call coincidences of fate. Let us consider: What came to us through these events determines what we are capable of today. If it had not come to us, we would be quite a different person. We have become who we are through our experiences. What is meant here can be described as 'easy', but here too one can say: 'But the easy is difficult'. For the spiritual researcher is first led into spiritual science by looking at the destiny, as the blacksmith does of our self with all his skill, with all his abilities, and by making this looking an inner exercise, he becomes more and more aware that he is actually nothing other than what fate has forged out of him. Look at the stream of your destiny, then you will find that you let yourself go completely; you have to follow yourself as it flows in destiny. This must become a habit of feeling, awakening in the human being, so that he now really comes out of himself in this way and that he sees himself as his creator in the flowing stream of the experience of destiny. If this is repeated again and again, then something of our experience of fate falls away.

Earlier I said that in ordinary life we look at our fate in such a way that one thing is sympathetic and the other is antipathetic. This feeling of what is sympathetic and what is antipathetic ceases, must cease, when we look at fate as the creator of ourselves. And the more we overcome this sympathy and antipathy methodically within ourselves, in the innermost laboratory of the soul, the more we come to look up to fate and say: You have created me, I have emerged from you, the more this sense of identification with fate deepens. But much more happens with this. As this sensation arises more and more, voluntarily through inner meditation - now more through meditation of sensation and feeling - we become free in this sensation and feeling, free from our physical body. And we feel how we step out again from this physicality, but now not into an annihilation, but so that we, by going out of ourselves, as into the entire outer world, into the universe, into the cosmos, merge.

But not into that which we in that sense [gap in the text], but by our destiny being willed. We merge with our self into the element of will of higher spiritual beings, weaving and living through the world. We emerge from ourselves and we have the feeling: the eye on you is embedded in your organism, so you are woven into the whole cosmos. You are willed out of the cosmos, you are an act of will out of the cosmos.

And if one wants to characterize what one feels again in a shattering way – because everything that is a spiritual scientific method is at the same time, at least in its beginnings, interwoven with shattering events – if one wants to characterize that, one could express it with the following words: What you were or thought you were, this self with all its abilities, with all that you are, you have actually lost. This has first flowed out into the world of destiny, then into the general universe, and you have to receive yourself from the whole world in a new way, to face yourself. It becomes an experience in which you say to yourself: You are no longer what you used to be. But you encounter a higher self from the whole world, you look at yourself.

This feeling is in turn linked to something subconscious in the feeling that one does not know in ordinary life, over which in turn a veil is mercifully woven, with the feeling of fear, the fear of what one is in truth, when one finds oneself as the world wants one to be. And this fear must be overcome. You cannot come to a real self-knowledge unless you first overcome the fear of the self.

So you have to go through two experiences: a kind of feeling of powerlessness and a kind of feeling of fear. While you get to know loneliness through the first experience, you find yourself through the second experience, so that what you have lost earlier by going out of the body through meditation, concentration, what has passed into a kind of sense of annihilation, now appears to you again from the other side, by seeing how you are wanted by the universe. You are reflected by the universe.

Those who, in the course of human development, have had some knowledge of such truly profound experiences of knowledge have aptly described what could be experienced there: the spiritual researcher comes close to the gateway of death by having these experiences. And indeed, what was first described as a kind of unconsciousness, leads one to the vicinity of death. Let us now look at how the outer life presents itself in ordinary existence. Growing up in childhood, it presents itself to us in that our strength is growing stronger. But when life goes downhill again, we see how destruction takes hold of our lives. And that we are heading towards death is indicated to us by destruction. And all that man knows of death in ordinary life is nothing other than that death is the destruction of what man has become through birth. And because man clings to external destruction, death appears to him as the conclusion of external life.

When we have the first experience described, we realize that we actually owe our thinking, our soul life, to the very forces that have a destructive effect on the human body; that is what is so tragically shocking in the progression of knowledge. We see that our soul life is connected not with the forces of growth but precisely with the destructive forces, with the forces that in ordinary life work from birth towards death. And so we realize that with everything that begins at birth, life is given up to these destructive forces, in which our soul life is rooted by overcoming the external physical forces of growth.

We then experience that the human being needs the moment of death, the moment when the physical body falls away, and that this moment gives consciousness for life in the spiritual world just as much as the forces of birth give consciousness for ordinary life. We notice that death is the creator of consciousness after death, that we have death as the creator of post-mortal consciousness. And we perceive the significance of death for life; we perceive how death, always prevailing in us, leads us, as spiritual researchers, to recognize that we carry a core of being within us that, as a spiritual soul, goes out of us after death. Just as the plant germ emerges from the plant and brings forth a new plant, so this spiritual-soul core of our being passes through the gate of death into a spiritual world, where it then continues to develop. And just as we ourselves have developed out of the world, so it becomes clear to us through the other, how we have wanted out of life.

And when the spiritual researcher develops what has been described in two directions and the spiritual-soul aspect frees itself from the physical-bodily aspect, then the outer, physical-sensory world sinks away. The spiritual researcher knows that he has left it behind, but he enters into a spiritual world. He now knows that he is active in this spiritual world. He knows that he is an entity in there, because he has learned to observe how this entity can detach itself from the physical body. And by observing how one wants to escape from the world, one comes to completely different contents of the world. One gets a different awareness of a world that one did not know before, which is a real spiritual world. And now it really becomes an experience that behind the sensual-physical world there is a world of spiritual beings, that the physical world is a veil behind which the spiritual beings are. So when a person has found out for himself how he is willed out of the universe, he finds the spiritual world, a world of real beings, not just of concepts and ideas, as pantheism says. Yes, man finds much more. It is precisely by developing this element of feeling, this feeling that begins with identifying with fate, that man gradually enters the world in which people find themselves when they have passed through the gate of death.

I do not want to shy away from this, esteemed attendees, because I do not want to talk in the abstract alone, but rather show something concrete, and really cite something concrete: what happens in the spiritual world, one experiences it differently than one experiences things here in the physical-sensory world. Here the entities are outside of us, we stand before them, we perceive them, we understand them through the intellect. When we step out of our body in the way described, we are seized by the entities of the spiritual world. I would like to say: as if from the front, the entities and facts in the sensual world approach us. Taking us, as it were, from behind and placing us within themselves, we become aware of what is really there in the spiritual world as entities.

I would like to give you a single example today. I would like to say from the outset that I am well aware that, especially when one goes into such individual examples, what is said again and again arises: “All this is just a crazy fantasy!” And I find it quite understandable that the thought habits of the present speak in this way. But I will say in a moment what point of view the spiritual researcher must take on this point. Some time ago - forgive me for mentioning something personal, but the chemist must also mention this to show what he has discovered in his laboratory - some time ago I was obliged to follow the spiritual course of human development historically in a certain direction. It was when I was writing the introduction to my book 'Riddles of Philosophy'. In an introductory chapter, I wanted to present the major aspects that shaped the periods of philosophy in the development of humanity. I was able to discern that important impulses were present in Western intellectual life, particularly for the first few centuries of Christian development. But if one takes the study of intellectual life seriously, one will very soon have the opportunity to realize how modest one becomes with respect to what the human sense of inquiry can achieve in the depths of the world. And here I openly confess – and precisely from the openness with which I confess it, you will be able to sense something of the truth that permeates what is to be said – I openly confess that at first I found my own sense of research blunt precisely in the face of the philosophical peculiarity of the first Christian centuries. Now a friend of our spiritual movement had died some time before; and what was in the spiritual world as the soul of this friend of ours, I was able to feel as approaching me, as I searched for these peculiarities of philosophical development in the first Christian centuries. And since I knew that personality quite well here in the physical world, it was possible to recognize what now penetrated into my own feelings and thoughts - I mean this penetrating from behind - as coming from that personality. And very soon I was able to make the acquaintance of this soul, which had more accurate insight after death into the first Christian centuries; and in my own description of the peculiarity of the character of the first Christian centuries, there flowed in that which this soul inspired. And what I myself was able to do at that time, what I characterized in my “Mysteries of Philosophy” about this period, I owe to the spiritual union with this so-called dead soul, which had just entered the spiritual world some time before.

The spiritual researcher in particular will find it quite understandable in the present day when such things, when they are expressed, only meet with ridicule and scorn. However, ridicule and scorn and contradiction about the “fantasy” has already been raised, dear attendees, when something has come up that has contradicted people's thinking habits. I can well imagine that there are those who say: What he claims is completely contrary to the five senses! There was once a time when it was reasonable for the five senses to believe that the earth stood still and that the sun moved around the earth and the stars around the earth. That was entirely in line with the five senses. Then Copernicus came and explained that in reality it is quite different. And as people have become accustomed, very slowly becoming accustomed, to accepting as truth what contradicts the so-called five senses, so mankind will also become accustomed to accepting what seems to contradict the five senses with regard to what has been indicated here about penetrating into spiritual worlds.

Then, after Copernicus, it was Giordano Bruno who had to say, after he had absorbed the Copernican world view with all his soul: the development of your senses - and in those days it really did correspond to all healthy senses - makes you see the blue firmament up there. You take it for reality, but it is not there at all. Infinite worlds are embedded in infinite space, and only the limitations of your ability make it so that the blue firmament is up there. So this firmament was explained as a limitation of the human ability to see. But in this way, there is also a temporal firmament for materialistic thinking. This is limited on one side by birth and on the other by death. Just as the blue firmament of space is not there, so is not there that temporal firmament, that boundary of life that flows between birth and death, but life extends beyond birth and death into infinity. And embedded in that infinity is what true human life is.

It was, as is well known, the great thinker, the leading thinker of modern times, Lessing, who first spoke of the fact that the whole historical course of humanity has only one meaning if one imagines that people complete their lives in repeated lives on earth; so that the whole of human life proceeds in such a way that we live between birth and death, or for that matter between conception and death, then lead a spiritual life between death and a new birth, enter into an earthly life again through a new birth, and so on until conditions arise for which this no longer applies. Likewise, we can also look back into the past at repeated earth lives. I cannot go into what preceded as conditions before the repeated earth lives began. Lessing, so people say, Lessing has indeed created great things, but when he wrote 'The Education of the Human Race', he was already decrepit. Nevertheless, this is the most significant spiritual document that Lessing has given to mankind. In it, he was the first to draw attention to the connection between the past and the future of world development. Our souls themselves have lived in past epochs and carried the fruits of these lives over into our present; and what they are now living through, they will in turn carry into later epochs, applying them in later epochs.

It is like a powerful presentiment of what is experienced as reality by those who thus free the soul from the body, who truly penetrate to the spiritual and soul essence of the being in the manner described. When you see how you are wanted out of the universe, something in this wanted, what you are now yourself, in this fate that you have prepared for yourself in previous lives. You first have to ascend, as I have described, to encounter this higher self. Then you see this higher self throughout repeated lives on earth.

This is just as much a result of real science as the results of physics, astronomy and chemistry are. These things will be no different from what Copernicus and Giordano Bruno brought to mankind. Copernicus had his opponents who fought him fiercely. Giordano Bruno had a tragic fate, he was burned. Nowadays people are no longer burned, but they are laughed at. That is what happens to those who think outside the box in today's world. Those who want to bring what is necessary for the future for spiritual areas are today decried as fantasists, as dreamers, yes, as worse.

Of course, there will be people today who are very naive and who say: Yes, what Copernicus discovered are facts, whereas what spiritual research discovers are things that have been imagined! The people who speak in this way do not know how naive they are and how Copernicus did not observe facts; it was not the case that he took a chair and sat down in space, as children are shown at school; but all of this was only the result of calculations and nothing else; it was certainly not a fact that could be observed with the senses.

The spiritual researcher must, dear attendees, look at the course of spiritual development of humanity, then he will know, in the face of all contradiction, that today numerous souls long for a deeper knowledge of what lives in us and what conquers birth and death, what our eternal essence is, and that this can be explored.

Now it could be said: Yes, then only the spiritual researcher can know that there are spiritual worlds besides the material one, and that the human being belongs to the latter. That is not correct. Just as the chemist in his laboratory brings about certain results, which are then made practically useful, so the spiritual researcher in the spiritual laboratory brings about certain results. Just as one does not need to be a chemist to use what chemistry produces, so one does not need to be a spiritual researcher oneself to recognize in its truth what spiritual science is. I emphasize the difference very expressly: In chemistry one can establish the truth through practical use; in spiritual research it is a matter of the spiritual researcher being able to investigate that which can be investigated only by spiritual research. But when it is investigated, every soul can also see what the spiritual researcher has to say. If it is unable to do so, it is only because it has blocked its own path with prejudices formed over centuries from a purely scientific point of view. When people discard these prejudices, they will be able to absorb what the spiritual researcher has to say, even if they are not spiritual researchers themselves. In a sense, and to a certain degree, everyone today can become a spiritual researcher by observing the rules you can find in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds”; although everyone today can become a spiritual researcher to the extent that he can see for himself through his inner development that every word the spiritual researcher says is true.

New truths always contradict old prejudices. It is most understandable that such new truths are initially only received with hostility. But now, when we look at what spiritual researchers are proclaiming – I could only sketch out the picture of spiritual research with a few strokes of the charcoal, so to speak; you can find everything else in books, in our literature – what does it actually bring into a person's life? I have emphasized it many times: what the spiritual researcher brings about first is knowledge. Just by looking at this room, nothing is changed, the room would be the same without my looking at it. By recognizing, the spiritual researcher does not create the spiritual essence, which comes from eternal elements. The spiritual researcher does nothing but recognize that which is in the soul, which remains only unconscious, which rumbles and weaves and exists down there. So when the spiritual researcher ascends, as described, it is the case that he must first fight his way through the feeling of loneliness and powerlessness. And the way he feels can only be compared to a single note from a sonata, which has its meaning in the whole sonata, getting lost. Just as this tone must feel, since it draws its entire meaning from the sonata, so does a person feel when they have been brought to a state of lonely powerlessness by the first exercise; they feel the eternal that is within them, but in isolation.

And through the other exercise, where the person overcomes inner fear, where he comes before himself, where the realization comes before his soul that he is going through repeated lives on earth, the sound enters the sonata again. That is what those who have sensed something of these things have called the music of the spheres. The music of the spheres is not a philosophical abstraction that people dream up as philosophers, but a reality, a truth. When you hear it – as a human soul, a sound itself in the other sounds – you do not hear the totality of the sounds, but you are a sound and experience yourself in the music of the spheres. But before you get to what spiritual reality is, what lives and weaves and flows and works, before you ascend to it, you have to distinguish between the one sensation where you feel like melting away - while becoming lonely yourself - that which is physical and physical; and on the other hand, one feels fear penetrating one, like that which wants to leave the world, the universe, showing itself, one would like to say, like striving for petrification, for fossilization. On the one hand, one feels as if the spiritual world is merging into annihilation – there are no other words to express it – flowing into the ocean of the world; on the other hand, one feels that which solidifies within oneself. This struggle is always taking place at the bottom of the soul. And what do we gain when spiritual science draws our attention to what it recognizes? We know that our everyday life, in which we think and feel and will, proceeds as we have it as our life heritage, but it could not proceed if it were not for what lies below, which would produce powerlessness and fear if it were not graciously covered by a veil and only uncovered by spiritual research. But this is how one feels about the insights of spiritual science, which remained hidden for centuries when humanity was not yet prepared, but were only accessible to a few individuals; this is how one feels about these spiritual-scientific results, which must now gradually and towards the future penetrate into the spiritual development of humanity.

As a result of these spiritual-scientific findings penetrating, it becomes clear what is at the bottom of the soul, what kind of struggle is taking place – struggles in fear and powerlessness – and how this everyday life can only be attained through a victory over subconscious powers. But this makes one feel like a human being in the world, on the foundation of a system of opposing forces, against which the human being, even if it only lives in everyday consciousness, is victorious. But this brings us strength, strength of soul, knowing that life is a victory; at the bottom of our soul, supersensible powers fight against each other in order to bring about, in the mutual play of their forces, what we are in everyday life. It is a great victory that which is most everyday for us; it is the fruit of victories, of the play of opposing forces and powers, supersensible forces and powers, which are constantly fighting at the bottom of our soul. The results of spiritual science will be able to infuse soul strength, soul firmness, and inner courage into human souls.

And so, if I have characterized the actual spiritual-scientific field according to its content and methods, then it may appear, if not outwardly rational, then at least intuitively correct, in our fateful time, when I say a few words about how these soul-strengthening forces must have a certain significance in our fateful time, when we live in a time of external struggles and opposing forces, in struggles in the outer, historical world, in such a way that we can really perceive in them an external physical image of what we have just been able to characterize, that we can say: It is being discovered, struggling in the subconscious of the soul, by spiritual science. Ordinary everyday life is built up as a life asset on powers that oppose each other. If we know that the individual human life is a victory over powers that oppose each other, then, especially in a time like today's, we gain courage and confidence that the struggles we are in can be compared to what is going on at the bottom of every human soul. And just as the fruit of the struggles in the depths of the soul appears as a victory in the most ordinary life, so we can turn our gaze to what will emerge as the effect, as the fruit, of the struggles of the powers that confront us in the outer world.

In another sense, too, spiritual science is basically only a continuation of natural science. It was Goethe who rebelled against the theory of purpose, against what one might call a causal theory. It was Goethe who emphasized that one will only come to a true science when one no longer looks at nature only for reasons of purpose, when one no longer asks: Why does the ox have horns? so that he can gore! — but that the ox gores because he has horns. Goethe said: this causal thinking is increasingly penetrating into the scientific world view. Spiritual science leads precisely to the spiritual causes. It thus continues the causal thinking even further to the causes that are inaccessible to external observation.

When the opinion is expressed, often even in a defamatory way, but also frequently in a well-intentioned way, that spiritual science is likely to expel all religious feeling, then it must be said that the spiritual researcher has a higher opinion of what religion is than someone who believes that spiritual science can somehow destroy a religion. Religion has not been destroyed by the scientific world view for anyone who can see through things. That which is religion is so strong for the one who sees through it that no science can destroy it. While, however, the scientific world view of some who feel free because they only understand a quarter or an eighth of science has alienated them from religion, people will be led back to religion through spiritual deepening, because through spiritual science they will get to know the real spiritual world and because they will learn that their souls are connected to it. This will deepen people's feelings to such an extent that even those who were already estranged from religion will return to it to an ever greater degree.

The other important thing is that, with regard to what is happening historically, what is around us, spiritual science will lead us to the effects, to that which is to be lived out. We look to the causes of what is there, not to what we are. But when we are confronted with facts in history, it is important that we understand the facts in such a way that we look at the effects above all. How, however, is today's discussion influenced by the materialistic worldview? How does it extend to the question of which nations wanted the war and which did not, and which caused this or that? Spiritual scientific observation leads, as it otherwise leads to the true causes, precisely to the effects. One looks at what must be achieved in opposing powers through the sacrifice of blood and life. We look at it as we look at the subconscious life of the soul; we see how the conscious life of the soul develops from it. We look at what surrounds us in our time, what moves us with pain but also gives us hope, and at what can arise as an effect.

And each of us must stand firmly on the ground on which fate has placed us. We are standing in Central European culture. Fate has placed us on this ground of Central European culture. Anyone who is familiar with this Central European culture, even those who have once recognized the workings and weaving of the spirit, will see that it is like the body of a spiritual soul that is active in it. I could now cite many things that appear in our time as the actual characteristic soul and spirit of Central European culture. I will give just one example, but I would like us to bear in mind that just as the hand cannot be thought of without it being thought of in connection with what the human being thinks and feels, so what European sons in the East and West, courageously accomplish in blood and sacrifice, what is fought for with blood and life, cannot be thought of differently than in the context of the entire Central European intellectual life, with what the best times of this intellectual life have produced as the blossoms of this intellectual life.

Just as what a person's soul has produced is connected with what his hands have produced, so what Goethe, Schiller, Lessing and Hegel have produced is intimately connected with what warriors in the East and West have to accomplish as Central European beings. These things are one and the same. But we recognize things by their fruits. Therefore, we want to emphasize one – I will not even say one fruit, but one side of the fruits of this Central European spiritual life, to see if it has something particularly characteristic that is not peculiar to the others, who, as in a mighty fortress, enclose this Central European spiritual life today. But for that we have to go into specifics.

It was truly a momentous event when Goethe, this representative of German, Central European intellectual life, this spirit, who in the highest moments of his creativity was virtually able to hold an intimate dialogue with the German national spirit and produce what the German spirit of the German people has whispered throughout the ages when he wrote the words with which his “Faust” begins, those words that were written down as early as the 1770s as his own confession, which he put into the mouth of Faust. Goethe looked around at everything that the world of the senses and science can give. He longed for that which lies beyond the world of the senses, which he expresses in words that have almost become trivial today, but which, when felt in all their elemental power, appear as something quite powerful in the individual human experience:

Now, alas! I have studied philosophy,
law and medicine,
and unfortunately theology as well
with great endeavor.
There I stand, poor fool,
and am no wiser than before!

This is how Faust stands, according to Goethe's feelings in the seventies of the eighteenth century.

Then came that great period in German, Central European intellectual life, which is characterized not only by great musicians, great artists in other fields, but also by great idealistic philosophers of German life. Those philosophers – Fichte, Schelling, Hegel – one need not agree with the content of their works; one need only look at how they tried to approach eternal truths to gain insight into Fichte's great and powerful saying: “What kind of philosopher you are depends on what kind of person you are.” He wanted to connect the whole person with what blossoms out of the human being as truth. Therefore, he was able to eavesdrop on the German national spirit, those deep, but also penetrating and inward words that he spoke in Germany's painful times in his “Speeches to the German Nation,” which have had such a great effect. What he lived, thought and philosophically strove for was so unified in him that when he fell ill – his wife brought home an illness from the hospital where she cared for sick warriors, which was passed on to him – when he fell ill with fever and faced death, there, in his final hours, his son was at his side. He tells us that even in the feverish dreams of this most German of philosophers, this world philosopher, he experienced at the same time – and his experience was so great – what was being experienced in Central Europe at the time, when he was already In his feverish dreams, Fichte felt he was part of the army at Blücher's crossing of the Rhine; and he was completely immersed in it, he, the philosopher, who strove throughout his life in the most sober, most detached, most crystal-clear thinking. His experience goes hand in hand with that of his people, even in their feverish dreams. This is a man of one piece.

Central European philosophers strove – one may think as one likes about the content – but one must see this striving as striving, as an expression of humanity. Then again, consider the wonderfully artistic world-building that Schelling erected, consider Hegel's magnificent logical image of the universe – how they all went through the first half of the new century, these great philosophical figures, and all that they brought into the world! And now suppose that Goethe had still been alive in 1840 and had rewritten the beginning of his Faust. The great philosophers have lived. Fichte wrote a “natural right”, Hegel wrote a “natural right”, they renewed jurisprudence, Schelling wrote about medicine, they all wanted to be theologians – they added a great deal to what was there before and about which Goethe said:

Alas, now I have studied philosophy,
jurisprudence and medicine,
and unfortunately theology as well
with great endeavor.
There I stand, poor fool,
and am no wiser than before!

Enormous things have flowed into German intellectual life through them. Can you therefore believe that if Goethe had begun his Faust in 1840, he would have begun:

Now, thank God, I have studied philosophy with Fichte,
natural law with Schelling,
and law and medicine.
So there I am, a wise man,
and wiser than ever before.

Goethe would never have written this as the beginning of “Faust”, but rather would have begun his Faust:

I now, alas! have studied philosophy,
jurisprudence and medicine,
and unfortunately also theology
with great zeal.
There I stand, I poor fool,
And all my wisdom is as much as before!

But this is the important thing, which expresses in a representative way how there is a certain striving, an eternal striving, in Central European intellectual life; and as soon as you have finished striving, you are back to striving again. This is how you stand in what you grasp as your own nationality. While one is Italian, British or French by virtue of being born into that nation, as a German or a Central European one must discover what nationality is, what the innermost essence of nationality is.

What you inherit from your fathers
you must always conquer to possess.

And as a people, Central Europe also had to conquer what - forgive me for again bringing up something personal - I would like to say: I may perhaps ascribe to myself a modest judgment of what is important for this forging of Central European nationality. I have lived half of my life, roughly from the 1960s to the 1980s, in my Austrian homeland, and the other half in Germany. I was still in that Austria where everything that happened in Germany was hated as an effect of 1866. And now one experiences this coming together, this being forged together into a great Central European, into a world cultural act, that is what it has become. And when we look at what this Central Europe, including all the other nationalities that belong to this great fortress, what it holds within itself, we must remember that it is like the soul of a human being, which conquers through its work, that it is thus related to what spiritual-scientific striving is. This must lead the soul beyond itself. But Central European striving is on this path to becoming spiritual-scientific striving. Therefore, one can imagine that what once was will emerge in the future as the flowering of the Central European essence, that it has its seeds in what Central European folklore holds and which is magnificently presented in Faust. The interweaving with the universe, the feeling of oneself in the universe, the going-through-fear that I have characterized when one wants to stand before the eternal - how beautifully did Goethe characterize it when he wrote in his later years:

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 for a kingdom,
Strength to feel her, to enjoy her. Not
Coldly marveling 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.
And when the storm roars and creaks in the forest,
The giant spruce topples, crushing neighboring branches and trunks, and the hill thunders hollowly with its fall, then you lead me to the safe cave, then you show me to myself, and to my own breast, the deep, secret wonders open up.

The intimate interweaving of what man is with what is outside - where everywhere in the underlying entities are brothers, that is, soul beings, just as the human being himself is a spirit-soul being - is already contained in what Goethe and the other geniuses have poetically established. Just as the stem and leaves, the blossoms and fruits develop from the plant's germ, so too must the highest spiritual fruit of Central European culture develop from that which is germinating. Those who immerse themselves in spiritual matters can recognize, not for external reasons but for internal ones, the vitality that lives in the striving of Central European culture towards the spirit. When we look at this Central European culture and see its striving towards spiritualism – not towards idealism, but towards spiritualism – we can say to ourselves: there are reasons for us to be confident, to look at the current hard struggle from the perspective of spiritual science and say to ourselves: just as the individual human life is built on the struggle and war of opposing forces – we see war and struggle in the subconscious, on which our life assets are built – so we are in the midst of struggle and war; but the historical life assets, the cultural assets, will emerge from these struggles. And insofar as we feel at one with Central European intellectual life, we say to ourselves: the idealism, the spirituality of this Central European intellectual life will have to develop out of our time, which, as one can feel, carries something very profound in its bosom.

Indeed, our materialistic age was also built on struggle. There is a nation in the northwest – no value judgments are to be made today, only characterizations – the British, who most loudly proclaim that they want to fight for freedom, that they must fight against Central European “barbarism,” that they did not want the war. We keep hearing in Central Europe, and hear in abusive words, that Central Europe wanted the war. Perhaps one may ask: Did the British people not wage war in the past, for example in the years when the deepest peace was desired in Central Europe for the sake of blessing and salvation? From 1856 to 1900, England waged 34 wars, conquered four million square miles of land for purely material culture, which it spread across the globe, and made 57 million people new British subjects. This is a material culture, dearest attendees, which is based on struggle. In fact, it can be seen that logic does not flourish in our materialistic culture, especially in the broadest sense. There is a French philosopher – yes, I don't know whether you have to call him “fils de montagne” now; he used to be called “Bergson”; now things are changing. Bergson, who has been much overestimated, but at least attempted a philosophy of life in the face of dead materialistic philosophy – last winter he gave a speech at the Academy of Sciences in Paris in which he characterized German intellectual life something like this: If you look at Germany today, all idealism has passed, we are only confronted with mechanisms, the whole culture has become mechanical. He points to the cannons and everything that has been set up as a mechanical aid to confront the West. Perhaps one may answer with a question to characterize how thought and logic are applied today: Did Bergson expect that when Central European culture was attacked, people would stand at the Rhine border and quote Schiller and Goethe to prove that Central European culture had remained spiritual?

But sometimes people want to go even deeper, and then they say, for example: We did not want this war! The real cause of this war lies in Central Europe! The logic that one applies to this, if one really sees through it – and spiritual science also teaches a certain flexibility of mind, it makes thoughts so fluid that poor logic causes pain – if one sees through it, then the logic that is often applied today is this: one could also say that yes, much, much of the mockery and scorn and insult has been heard from the West to Central Europe. Yes, none of this would have happened if the art of printing had not been invented. The Germans invented the art of printing, so they are to blame for these slanders. And there would be no shooting, neither from the air nor on the ground, if the Germans had not invented gunpowder. The Germans have already invented gunpowder once. Not true, you can't say that the French invented gunpowder. So it is the Germans' fault that nations are facing each other with cannons!

Now, as threadbare as this logic would be, so threadbare is today's logic, which is applied to that which really develops from Central European culture: genuine life that develops into the spiritual, before which one has a secret fear, as before a higher power. But if it has been said that the present war is being waged only for material interests, then this may be correct in a limited sense. Certainly, much of what can only be achieved through this war must be achieved for trade and industry, for the material culture of Central Europe. But it is certain that, if not by our fathers, who work as industrialists and step out into the world, then at least by our sons, what as the ethos of Central Europe, which has found its expression in Faust, which emerges from Wagner, Beethoven, Fichte and Schelling, will be carried out into all the world; and that will be a new element in all the world. And just as our ordinary, everyday life is built on a victory over opposing forces, so the Central European cultural heritage will build itself up as a victory over that which must be so ardently striven for.

This is what really emerges as a strengthening power of the soul from the insights of spiritual science. Yes, opposing forces are now stirring around us in the world, just as the soul undercurrents stir within the individual human being. But just as the substance of life rises up from these soul foundations, so will the cultural heritage rise from what once had to be fought for. 34 nations - not counting smaller national differences - 34 nations are fighting with each other today; and we see how the fighting mood is spreading. But we look at what is happening by looking up at what must result as effects. And we in Central Europe, when we contemplate all this spiritually, we may say to ourselves: Just as the individual human being, in turn, has to build up his body in each individual embodiment and has to build it up again and again from seven to seven years — because after seven years the entire ingredients have changed, the body must be rebuilt several times, so must people go through struggles, so must humanity go through all the pain today in order to come to a higher life.

What Europe is now going through must stand as a warning in the higher sense. What is the body of Central Europe must be conquered anew against what is storming in from the east and the west. And it is not without reason that in the future what must arise from the great spiritual seeds that strive for inner development in Central Europe, that must develop after the soil around has been watered with the blood of our noblest, the air has been permeated with the sentiments that arise from the sacrifices that have become necessary in our time, when this air is heavy with the pain and suffering of those who, as brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, have lost their loved ones. Intuitively, I said, even if not intellectually, what I took the liberty of adding to the already lengthy lecture can be felt in connection with what has been said, because it should be shown how that which comes from spiritual science as a strengthening of the soul, really brings us together with what the eternal, death-conquering and all resistance-conquering immortal core of our being is in man, of which only a parable is the temporary dying.

And because, when we see that this treasure of life is based on victory, we can only have soul strengthening, not soul fainting as a result of spiritual science, so spiritual science brings us to what I would now like to summarize not in individual intellectual words, but in terms of feeling. The best thing that can come out of spiritual science is that it does not remain just a theory, just a body of knowledge, but that it pours out into our emotional life, that it becomes a power that strengthens our soul. For it shows us that the innermost being of man only begins where the impressions of the sense world end, where the intellect has nothing more to say. In conclusion, I would like to summarize with a few words, in an emotional and intuitive way, what can emerge from spiritual science as a feeling, as a basic mood of the soul, at any time and especially in our fateful time, which bears so much in its womb. This will conclude the lecture, with which I wanted to speak about the principles and prospects of spiritual science:

Where sense knowledge ends,
There stands the gate,
The realities of life
To the soul's being opened.
The key is created by the soul,
When it grows strong in itself
In the struggle that world powers
On their own ground
With human powers lead,
When it drives away through itself
The sleep that envelops the powers of knowledge
At the boundaries of its senses
With a spiritual night.

The pictures we shall show today will enable us to give a kind of recapitulation of various things that came before our souls in former lectures. I shall draw attention today to further aspects, arising out of what we have said before. In the course of these studies, we have distinguished between the more Southern European and the Northern or Mid-European artistic streams and we have indicated characteristic aspects of these two. I do not wish to repeat what has already been set forth. Today we are able to show some further reproductions of pictures by Raphael, and I wish to say a few words about him, unfolding—if I may so describe it—a more special outcome of our ideas concerning the artistic genius of the South.

Anyone who lets Raphael's creations work upon his soul, will admit that in Raphael—with respect to certain artistic intentions—the highest ideal has been attained. When we let them work upon us and try to understand them, we ask ourselves again and again: What is it that comes to expression in his works, and how does it stand in relation to the World? Think for a moment from this aspect of the Madonna della Sedia,—how this picture is placed in a great world-perspective: It is so, indeed, in all directions. To begin with, you may consider the picture as an outcome of the Christian world-conception. So perfectly does it express this theme: The Birth of Christ Jesus in connection with the Madonna, that we must say, 'The ides, the meaning, the impulse, the world-historic significance which it is desired to express, has here been expressed by means that cannot ever be transcended.

From a certain point of view you cannot imagine a further enhancement of this theme—the Madonna with the Jesus Child—in its impression on the human soul. One of the ideas of the Christian conception of the world has come to expression here in the highest imaginable way, seen from a certain aspect.

1. Raphael. Madonna With Child.

And now let us look at the picture for a moment as though we knew nothing of the Christian world-conception. Let us consider it in the way Herman Grimm once spoke of it, simply as an expression of the deep mystery of the relation of the mother to the child. A mother with her child: Once more, the highest means of expression have been found by Raphael for one of the most mysterious themes in the whole Cosmos, as it lies before us human beings living in the Physical. Thus even if we take the pure picture of Nature—the mother and child—apart from the world-historic happenings, once more the thing is perfect in itself, the highest of its kind.

It is always so with Raphael. His themes are of universal significance, and perfectly expressed,—the means of expression proceeding from those streams and influences which we recognise as characteristic of the South. Always, however, his themes must be seen in the context of great universal meanings. We can regard them from a Christian aspect (and the above two points of view are by no means the only ones),—looking at it in a Christian way, the theme places itself at once in a great context of Nature. Again it rises free from the individually human; we seem to forget the human being that worked to create it—the human being, Raphael himself. Behind the artist stand great cosmic perspectives—world-conceptions coming to expression in him. This, indeed, is to characterise such an artist as Raphael, as the artist of an epoch that was drawing to it close: the Fourth Post Atlantean epoch. Such epochs, when they draw near their end—or when their inner essence reaches beyond the boundary of times, often bring forth their very highest.

We shall presently see how very different it is when we consider in this light, say, the personality of Albrecht Dürer. There it is altogether different. But you might also think of the Sistine Madonna, even as we have now spoken of the Madonna della Sedia. Again we should have to say: What is here placed before us interests us, above all, inasmuch as it stands out against the background of a great world-conception. Without this background of a great world-conception, the Sistine Madonna is, indeed, unthinkable.

2. Raphael. Sistine Madonna With Child

3. Raphael. Sistine Madonna With Child (detail)

Looking at some of Raphael's pictures today, let us bear in mind the aspect which has thus been characterised. For Raphael to create in this way—for his pictures to arise out of a mighty world-perspective—something of cosmic law and principle had to be working in his very soul. This is, indeed, the case. It comes to expression in the remarkable course of his life, which was already emphasized by Hermann Grimm. Raphael's work takes its course in regular cyclic periods. At the age of twenty-one he creates the Sposalize; four years later the Entombment; four years after this he completes the Frescoes of the Camera della Segnatura; four years later, once again, the Cartoons for the tapestries in the Vatican and the two Madonnas. And finally, four years after this, at the age of thirty-seven, he is working at the Transfiguration, which stands unfinished when he leaves this physical plane. In cyclic periods of four years, something of the nature of a cosmic principle works in Raphael. Truly, we here have something that proceeds from a great cosmic background. Hence Raphael's work is so strongly separated from his personality. Again and again the question comes to us: How is it that the themes—and they are world-historic themes—come to expression in his work so perfectly; so self-contained, so inwardly complete?

Down to this day, the study of Art derives—more than from any other source—from that great Art in the center of which is Raphael.

The study of Art in the exoteric life today is more or less of this kind. All its available ideas have been learned from the Art which finds its highest expression in Raphael—the Art of the Italian Renaissance. Thus in the outer life the concepts to express this Art are the most perfect, and all other Art is measured by this standard. The works of this Art are the ideal, and we have few words at our disposal, few concepts and ideas, even to speak of any other streams in Art, specifically different from this one. That is the unique thing.

And now we will let pass before our souls a number of pictures by Raphael, most of which we have not yet seen in these lectures.

4. Raphael. The Vision of Ezekiel. (Florence, Palazzo Pitti.)

4. Raphael. The Vision of Ezekiel. (detail) (Pitti. Florence.)

The ideas, the living conceptions, out of which such a picture proceeded even in Raphael's time, are naturally no longer near us today. To represent so truly this wandering of the soul in human form through the spiritual world, would no longer be attainable today for those who have not Spiritual Science. The animal nature below expressed what man has cast aside from himself, but it is still there, needless to say, even in his etheric body, and we find it there when the etheric is freed from the physical. The union of the soul with something childlike, as it is is represented by the angel figures here, is an absolutely true conception. The conception corresponds to a reality. We must consider man in his full being, such as he really is. In recent communications on the Guardian of the Threshold we had to speak of the Threefold being of Man. This threefold nature of man emerges everywhere, where reference is made to the Spiritual part of man emancipated from the Physical. We find this threefoldness in manifold forms—not symbolic, but corresponding to spiritual Realities. And so we find it here, in the full-grown Man related to the Child and the Beast.

5. Perugino. The Marriage of Maria. (Vienna, Albertina.)

Today we are able to show a study from the Sposalizo, the picture with which Raphael's great career as an artist properly begins. He did this at the age of twenty-one—at the beginning of the four-year period which dominated all his work.

6. Perugino. “Sposalizo”. (Caen.)

7. Raphael. “Sposalizo”. (Milan, Brera.)

8. Raphael. The Call of St. Peter. (London, Kensington Museum.)

9. Raphael. The Road to Calvary. (Madrid, Prado.)

10. Raphael. Sketch of the Mourning for Christ. (Louvre. Paris.)

11. Raphael. Sermon of St. Paul at Athens. (London, Kensington Museum.)

We will now show once more a reproduction of the so-called “Disputa,” with certain details.

12. Raphael. Disputa. (Vatican. Rome.)

13. Raphael. The Holy Trinity. (Perugia, San Severo.)

The Holy Trinity, as it is called.

14. Raphael. Sketch for the Disputa. (Windsor.)

15. Raphael. St. Cecilia. (Bologna.)

And now, as an example of Raphael's portraiture:—

16. Raphael. Cardinal Bihbiens. (Pitti. Florence.)

The next two are examples of his tapestries in the Vatican.

17. Raphael. The Miraculous Draught of Fishes. (Tapestry in the Vatican.)

18. Raphael. The Healing of the Lame. (Tapestry in the Vatican.)

These are the things of which Goethe said that nothing he had known till then could compare with them in greatness.

Looking back once more over the pictures by Raphael which we have seen today, I beg you observe how we may recognise in them the echoing of a mighty tradition of great Art. Even the sketches which we have shown today reveal this most especially. Raphael's work is the last, the highest, the closing act in a great tradition. There is also another point I would ask you to consider. Think of the picture of the Sermon of St. Paul and others—the “Disputa,” for example. You may take any one of those that we have seen today. In every case, having distinguished the subject of the picture, you may naturally ask yourself about the event or personality represented. But it will never be sufficient to answer: The subject is such and such; it represents this or that. In Raphael's case you will have to ask: How is the artist contriving to express—whatever the subject is—in accordance with the ideas and canons of great Art? We cannot merely ask: How would St. Paul actually have lifted up his hand to speak? With Raphael we must ask: What angle will the arm have to make with the body according to aesthetic laws of balance and proportion? And so forth ... A magic breath is poured out over it all,—a magic breath of aesthetic traditions, of harmony and balance. Look at the boy who stands here, in this picture. It is not enough to ask: What is going on in the soul of the boy? Your question must, rather, be directed to these laws of artistic harmony. See how the line of the arm, reaching out on either side, is placed into the composition. In short, you can distinguish what is purely artistic from the underlying subject-matter. Here, however, the artist's power is so magnificent that it draws the subject-matter into its own sphere. With such an artist as Raphael, we may, indeed, pronounce the word, for it is literally true:—“Artistic truth makes all the rest true,—compels all the rest into its circle.”

You cannot apply this saying, in its present meaning, to the works we shall now let pass before our souls. We will begin with one by Martin Schongauer, who died in 1488.

19. Martin Schongauer. The Road to Calvary.

Here you see the very opposite. To begin with, the artist is simply concerned to express his subject. No longer is there poured out over it the magic breath of a peculiarly aesthetic truth, the climax of a great tradition. Here the effort is, to the best of the artist's technique and ability, with the artistic means at his disposal, to bring to expression what is there in the souls of men. Here the world speaks to us directly—not through the medium of a tradition of great Art.

We will now let work upon our souls the personality of Albrecht Dürer; showing a number of pictures which we did not see in the former lectures. In Albrecht Dürer, whom we may speak of as a contemporary of Raphael, we have before us an altogether different personality. It is impossible to think of Dürer's works in the same way as of Raphael's. In Dürer's case we shall not easily forget the personality, the human being. Not that we must always necessarily imagine him; but the pictures themselves are eloquent of all that is direct and intimate and near to the human soul, springing from the soul with elemental force. Raphael paints with the ever-present background of great world-perspectives. He is only conceivable if we imagine, as it were, the Genius of Christianity itself painting in the soul of Raphael. And, again, he is only conceivable as one who stands at the close of a great epoch, during which pupils were learning from their Masters many a tradition of aesthetic law, artistic harmony,—learning that certain things should be done in certain ways, to correspond with the canons of great Art.

In Raphael's works these things are always there before us. In Dürer's work, on the other hand, we feel in the background, as it were, the aura of the life of the time in Middle Europe,—the German towns and cities. Invisibly his pictures are pervaded by all that blossomed forth in the free life of the cities, working its way towards the Reformation. Nor does he stand before us with any cosmic perspectives in the background. It is, rather, the ordinary individual man's approach to the Bible and to his fellow-men, bringing his own soul to expression. The Human element can never be separated from his works. We cannot seek in Dürer for a cosmic principle working through his soul, as we can in Raphael. But we may look for something intimate and deep; deeply connected—we cannot say so too often—with the human soul, its feelings and its seeking, its longing and striving.

20. Dürer. The Four Witches. (Etching)

21. Dürer. Hercules.

22. Dürer. Melanchthon Etching.

Here we have a portrait of Melanchthon, the theological bearer of the Reformation, as against Luther, who was the “priestly” bearer.

23. Dürer. “Rosenkranzfest.” (Prague.)

This picture is now in the “Rudolfinum” at Prague. The Pope, the Emperor and representatives of Christianity are being crowned with roses by Mary, the Jesus Child and St. Dominic. The two figures against the tree trunk will be shown in detail in the next slide.

24. Dürer. Portrait of Himself and Pirkheimer. (Detail of the above.)

Further examples of Dürer's portraiture:—

25. Dürer. Portrait of his Father. (Uffizi. Florence.)

26. Dürer. Portrait. (Prado. Madrid.)

Looking at such a portrait, the whole life of the time comes vividly before you. Truly, in this sense Dürer is an historic figure of the very first rank. No historic document tells us so well, what the people of that time were like.

We shall now show some characteristic examples of Dürer's drawings—etchings and woodcuts. To begin with, from his cycle on the Apocalypse—fifteen leaves, done in 1498.

27. Dürer. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. (1498.)

28. Dürer. The Woman Clothed with the Sun and the Seven-headed Dragon (1498.)

29. Dürer. The Adoration of the Lamb and The Hymn of the Chosen. (1497).

30. Dürer. The Battle of the Angels. (1498.)

31. Dürer. Michael and the Dragon. (1493.)

And now we will show a number of pictures from the series of etchings of the Passion—known as the “Kupferstich-Passion.”

32. Dürer. The Kerchief of St. Veronica. (Etching)

Then the motif that occurs again and again in that time:—

33. Dürer. The Man of Sorrows. (Etching)

34. Dürer. The Scourging. (Etching)

35. Dürer. The Crowning with Thorns. (Etching)

36. Dürer. Ecce Homo. (Etching)

We will next show a number of pictures from the Holzschnitt-Passion—of thirty-six small woodcuts. They are extraordinarily tender and intimate. The first is the title-page:—

37. Dürer. Christ with the Crown of Thorns. (Woodcut)

38. Dürer. Saint Veronica. (Woodcut)

39. Dürer. The Last Supper. (Woodcut)

40. Dürer. The Scourging. (Woodcut)

41. Dürer. Ecce Homo. (Woodcut)

42. Dürer. The Way to Calvary. (Woodcut)

43. Dürer. Christ on the Cross. (Woodcut)

44. Dürer. Mourning for Christ. (Woodcut)

45. Dürer. The Resurrection. (Woodcut)

46. Dürer. The Ascension. (Woodcut)

We can also show two pictures by Hans Baldung, who worked for a certain time, at any rate—in Dürer's workshop. These pictures date from the end of the 15th or beginning of the 16th century.

47. Hans Baldung. The Three Fates.

48. Hans Baldung. Ecce Homo.

49. Hans Sebald Beham. The Man of Sorrows.

I would like to make the following remarks:—The transition from the Fourth to the fifth post-Atlantean epoch and all that is connected with it, finds expression—far more than we can realise from the ordinary textbooks of History—in the whole life of the 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. We must remember that at such times, at the turning-point of one epoch and another, many things are perceptible in the life of the time, expressing the mighty transformation that is taking place. History, truly, does not take its course—though the text-books might lead one to suppose so—like a perpetual succession of causes and effects. At characteristic moments, at the turning-points of epochs, characteristic phenomena emerge, in the most varied spheres of life. Thus, at the transition from the age of the Intellectual Soul or Soul of the Higher Feelings to that of the Spiritual Soul, phenomena appear in all domains of life, revealing how men felt when the impulses of the Spiritual Soul were drawing near. The evolution of the Spiritual Soul involved the development of those relationships with the purely physical plane into which men had to enter during the fifth post-Atlantean age. To a high degree, man was about to be fettered to that physical plane. Naturally, this brought in its train all the phenomena of reaction—of opposition and revulsion at this process. Moreover, at the same time many things emerged out of the former epoch, reaching over with multitudinous ramifications into the new.

Among the many symptoms of that time we see, for instance, the intense preoccupation of man with the phenomenon of Death. In many different spheres—as we can easily convince ourselves—the thought of Death came very near to men. Death as a great mystery—the Mystery of Death—drew near to men at the very time when their Souls had to prepare to come out most of all on to the physical plane of existence.

Moreover. the things of the fourth epoch were reaching over into the Fifth. There were the excesses of the Papacy which had degenerated more and more into a pure impulse of might. There were the excesses connected with the old divisions—the riches of the higher orders, their overweening arrogance, their growing superficiality of life,—while the religious themes themselves were being made external, flat and superficial. Those human beings, on the other hand, who attained some inwardness of soul were pondering deeply on the penetration of the Spiritual world into the physical. Added to this, there was the absolute need to turn one's attention to the spiritual world; inasmuch as the seeds of decay and destruction were entering most terribly into the physical world just at that time. For in those centuries the plague was raging far and wide in Europe—truly, an awful death, Death, in the Plague, came face to face with men as a visible phenomenon in its most awful form.

In Art, too, we see this intensive study of the significance of Death. It comes before us especially in the famous Procession of Death on the cemetery wall at Pisa—one of the earliest appearances of this kind. Then we find many pictures of Death as it draws near to men under the inexorable laws of Fate—draws near to man of whatsoever rank or class. The “Dance of Death,” the “Wandering of Death through the World,” Death's entry into all human relationships—this becomes a very favorite theme. It was out of this mood and feeling that Holbein himself created his cycle on the Dance of Death, three examples of which we shall now show. In Holbein's Dance of Death the object was especially to show how Death approaches the rich man, for instance; approaches man of every social rank—from the highest in the land to the lowest. Moreover, the object was to show Death as a righteous judge. Holbein in his Dance of Death desired to show every conceivable circumstance under which Death draws near to human life.

44a. Holbein. Death and the King.

Here we see Death coming to the King, to tear him away from his royal life.

44b. Holbein. Death and the Monk.

The people of that time had great delight in pictures such as these. This was the time when the Reformation strove to put an end to all the growing worldliness and emptiness of the religious life—to the corruption of the Church and the religious orders.

45. Holbein. Death and the Rich Man.

Death draws near to the rich man, and finds him with his pile of money.

My dear friends, we have seen how the German Art came to expression in these great examples—and especially in the greatest, in Dürer,—at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century. One question cannot but interest us again and again: How is it with the origin and evolution of this special stream of Art? In order to say a little more upon this subject, we shall presently show a few pictures revealing how the several factors stood at a characteristic moment. We can make very interesting studies on the evolution of the Mid-European or German Art—and notably the Southern German Art—at the beginning of the 15th century. True, the pictures of the period, which we shall show, give only the outcome of a long line of evolution. But this outcome appears in them strongly and characteristically. When we wish to characterise a great range of phenomena, we have to sum up many things in a few words; and if we desire to be true, it is by no means easy ... It may be that the characteristic pictures we choose does not fully represent all that is here intended. But if we take things on the whole, we shall find it is confirmed, undoubtedly.

The origin of the Mediaeval Art of the German people shows itself most characteristically on the slopes of the Alps reaching out into Southern Germany, into the regions of Southern Bavaria and Swabia. And we must realise that here was a flowing together of two factors. The one represented by all that was imported from the South along the paths of evolution of the Church—and notably the Roman Church system. We must decidedly imagine (though the historic documents contain little about it) that in artistic matters, too, many an impulse came through the Church and the clerical orders. This applies especially to the districts to which I have just referred. Undoubtedly, many priests and clerics also became painters—good and bad—and they, of course, were always in close connection with the whole system of the Church, working its way upwards with its Roman, Latin impulses from the South. They carried with them all that was living there as artistic tradition. Needless to say, this great tradition reached its eminence only in men of genius, but it existed and was taught as a tradition even among lesser men. Tradition was especially at home in Italy, and thence the priests and monks absorbed and carried it with them to the North.

With all the other things which they derived from the Roman Church, they also took with them these conceptions of how the artist should work, ideas of artistic harmony and balance: Of how one ought to group the persons in a picture, and how the lines should go, and so forth. All this that we see at its loftiest eminence, say in the works of Michelangelo and, above all, Raphael, too, did not create naively, but, as I said before, out of a far-reaching artistic tradition. These artists knew how the figures should be grouped, in the composition, how the single figures should be placed, and so forth. And as I mentioned recently, they had brought the laws of perspective to a high degree of perfection.

All this was taken Northward. Monks and Priests who had enjoyed artistic training would frequently discuss such things with those who showed signs of artistic talent. But it must be said that the people whose home was in the German-speaking districts of what is now called Austria or Southern Bavaria or Swabia absorbed these rules of Art only with great reluctance. There can be no doubt about it; they confronted many of these things without real understanding. They heard that a thing must be done so, and so; but it did not truly appeal to them, it did not strike home. They had not yet developed in themselves a vision for these things. For a period, from which little has been preserved, we must assume, proceeding from these districts, works of Art carrying forward in a very clumsy fashion whatever had to do with the great artistic tradition of the Latin, Roman South. They could not enter into it; they had very little talent for it. The talents of the people of these districts lay in another direction.

I have spoken of all that was carried Northward by the Roman priesthood. This, as I said, was the one factor. The other was what I would call the elemental originality of heart and mind of the human beings themselves who in these regions showed any kind of talent for the Art of painting. They had no talent to follow the rules which were considered the highest requirements of Art in the South. To begin with, they had no eye for perspective. That a picture must somewhat express the fact that one figure is standing more in the foreground and another towards the back,—this they could only understand with great difficulty. To the people of these districts in the first half of the 15th century the spatial conception was still well nigh a closed book. Yet these very districts are in many respects the source and fountainhead of German Art. They could not work their way through to feel the laws of perspective independently and of their own accord. At most, they felt that the things must somehow be expressed by overlapping. The figure that overlaps the other is in front, the other is behind. In this way they tried to bring some measure of spatial order into their pictures, and so they began to find their way into the laws of space.

Primitive as they still are, we see in these pictures—appearing so characteristically in the first half of the 15th century—how hard it is for that stream of evolution which tries to take shape out of the elemental forces of the human heart, to discover for itself the laws of artistic creation. We will now show some examples from the above-mentioned districts. We shall see that they had no real inner relation to the tradition that has been brought to them. They absorbed it, as it were, unwillingly, with reluctance. Nor had they yet the power to obey the laws of space out of their own understanding. To begin with, I will show you an artist of the first half of the 15th century: Lucas Moser.

46. Lucas Moser. The Voyage of Mary and Lazarus. (Altar-piece at Tiefenbronn.)

46. Lucas Moser. The Voyage of Mary and Lazarus. (detail)

Here you see how difficult, how well-nigh impossible the artist finds it to escape from the flat surface. He seems quite unable to obey any kind of perspective law. He creates out of the elemental forces of heart and mind, but his figures are in the flat—he can scarcely get out of the plane. It is, however, interesting for once to see something so primitive.

Lucas Moser was one of those artists, creating within a social order wherein undoubtedly some of the laws and canons of Art, that had been introduced from the South, were living. Some element of the Southern style undoubtedly plays into his works. At the same time he tries to contribute something of what he sees for himself. And the one thing does not quite agree with the other. For one does not actually see things in accordance with the laws of Art.

Look at this Voyage of the Saints across the Sea, as it is called. Look in the foreground (although one can scarcely speak of a “foreground” here),—see the water in which the ship is floating. The waves are merely indicated by the crests, painted in lighter color. If you try to imagine a visual point from which the whole picture might be seen, you will get into difficulties at once. We must imagine it high up so as to look down on the water. But that, again, will not agree with the aspect of the figures of the saints, below.

On the other hand, you see this artist is already striving towards what afterwards emerged—as their essential greatness—in the German artists of a later time, whom we have now considered. Look at the element of naturalism—the faithful portrayal of expression in the faces of these saints. And yet they are sitting on the very edge of the boat, so that they would certainly fall overboard at the least breath of wind. In spite of this, how intimate is the artist's observation; how delicately the souls are expressed. He makes an unskillful attempt to observe the laws of Art, and tries to be realistic at the same time, and the two things do not agree ... Needless to say, the face could not be in this position, in relation to the body (see the figure of the saint, with the mitre). There are countless faults of the same kind. It is all clue to the fact that the artist is striving on the one hand towards what afterwards became the real greatness of the German Art, while on the other hand he is impressed with certain rules. For instance: That there should be a full-face figure in the middle of the picture, and others in profile to contrast with it. He has been taught certain rules in arrangements of composition. All this he tries his best to observe. But he can only do so according to the measure of his own elementary conceptions. He has not yet worked his way through to any kind of perspective or observation of the laws of space.

Observe these little hills,—and yet the picture does not really recede towards the background. You will realise the immense progress that has been made by the time of Dürer and Holbein. And yet how short was the intervening time! This alter-piece was done in the first half of the 15th century. How strongly the forces must have worked, overcoming the artistic traditions imported from the South (for these they did not want) and bringing forth a new stream out of an independent elemental impulse. They rebelled against the Southern tradition and tended to overcome it, and to find for themselves what they required. And you have seen how far they got in a comparatively short time.

We will now show another picture by the same artist.

47. Lucas Moser. Saints Asleep. (Marseilles. From the Altar of Tiefenbronn.)

Look at this creation! It shows how the artist combines a clear vision of Nature with an absolute disregard of some of the simplest natural facts. The tiled roof and the church tower—the whole ensemble is such that the artist cannot possibly have seen it anywhere. He just puts it together, having learned certain rules about the distribution of figures in space. Yet look how he brings out the single items according to his own vision. There is a decided beginning of Naturalism. He tries to be naturalistic and yet to express what he feels should be. His subject is "Sleeping Saints," but he conceives that they must appear worthy and dignified. Look at the figure of St. Cedonius (?) here, with his mitre.

48. Lucas Moser. Saints Asleep. (Detail)

49. Lucas Moser. Self Portrait. (Detail)

Once more the whole thing seems on the flat. But you will already observe the first attempt to bring out of the spatial effects by the strong shadows thrown. His relations to the laws of perspective are very strained, to say the least. But he contrives to get the effect of space by the strong shadows, and altogether by the distribution of light and dark.

This, as we saw in former lectures, is a peculiar characteristic of the German stream,—to feel the quality of space by catching the light, using the spatial virtue of the light itself. Here we do not take our start from the laws of lineal perspective—laws of perspective drawing. We extend the surface forward and backward by discovering the hidden effects of light itself.

We can see this most significantly in another artist, who already seeks for truth of Nature, but can still be characterised fundamentally in the same way as the former one. I refer to Multscher.

50. Multscher. The Nativity. (Berlin.)

Here is a representation of the Birth of Christ. Once again there is really nothing of those Laws of Space that came from the South. But you see the beginnings of the spatial working of the light itself. Space is born, as it were, out of the activity of light, and in this element the artist works with keen attention. This picture dates from 1437.

In Moser's and Multscher's works we have a true artistic impulse, born out of the very nature of the German South. Here is the element that afterwards rose to its height in Dürer, Holbein and the rest, though the latter were also influenced from Flanders and the Netherlands. The Cologne Masters, too, are rooted in these same impulses. Again and again we see how wonderfully the characteristics emerge even at the very beginning of the evolution of such an impulse. Observe in this picture the striving to express the inner quality of soul of every single person. And yet the artist's relation to certain other truths of Nature is very strained; Imagine you were in this crowd of people standing in the background. Look at the faces. Considering how near some of them are, they could not be standing side by side in that way unless their arms were chopped off, right and left; the artist pays no heed to these elementary matters of spatial distribution. One person is dovetailed into the other. The next is another picture by Multscher.

51. Multscher. Christ in Gethsemane. (Town Hall. Sterzing.)

The artist tries to find his way into the representation of landscape. Note how deeply he has felt the three figures of the apostles, left behind. Yet how little he succeeds in making any real distinction between foreground and background. He seems almost unable to follow any of the laws of space. But he tries once more to express the spatial by the effects of light. Here once again we see the element which afterwards became so great in German Art.

52. Multscher. The Entombment. (Stuttgart. Museum.)

In Lucas Moser and in Multscher we see the actual beginnings of German Art. There are others, too, but very little has been preserved; most of it is to be found in the churches. With all their primitive unskilfulness, we have here the beginning of what emerged with real greatness in the pictures of a later date, that we have seen. They paint out of a primitive feeling, while they simply cannot find their way into the traditions that come to them from the South. Their inwardness is in opposition to these laws in which they are instructed. One more picture by Multscher.

53. Multscher. The Resurrection. (Berlin.)

All that we have said of the two artists comes out very prominently in this picture. If you look for a point from which these figures with the sarcophagus (for so we might call it) are seen, you have to look high up above. We are looking down on the whole scene. And yet if you look at the trees you will see, they are seen from a frontal aspect. There is no single visual point for the picture as a whole. The trees are seen from in front; the picture as a whole, from above. There is no single point of vision according to the laws of space. Indeed, whatever of perspective you do see in the pictures would largely be eliminated were it not for the strong differentiation of the space through the effects of the light itself. In this respect, our eyes will easily deceive us. You would look in vain for line perspective in this picture. You would find mistakes everywhere. I do not mean naturally admissible mistakes, but errors which by themselves would make the picture quite impossible. We see once more the striving to get beyond the mere linear perspective by means of a spatial depth and quality which the light itself begets.

We see how these artists of Middle Europe have to feel their own way towards a totality of composition. There is another interesting point,—less evident in these pictures, but you will find it in other works by Multscher belonging to the same altar-piece. His fine feeling for light enables him to bring out the facial expression beautifully. But he is scarcely able to do the eyes with artistic truth. You can see it here to some extent, though it is less evident than on other pictures. And as for the ears—he does them just as he has been taught. Here he does not yet possess a free and independent feeling. Thus on the one hand he observes what he has been told, but without much artistic understanding. The things he does according to tradition he does badly. On the other hand, we see in him, in a primitive form, what was only afterwards able to appear more perfectly in German Art.

It is, indeed, remarkable how all these things, which we find in the German Art, emerge already in a highly perfect form in the Hamburg Master, Meister Francke, who was practically a contemporary of Moser and Multscher.

54. Meister Francke. The Man of Sorrow. (Hamburg.)

In this Ecce Homo, this Man of Sorrows, you see how high a degree of perfection the expression of the Head of Christ, which was elaborated by and by in the course of time, had already reached. Compare this Head of Christ with the one by Multscher which we saw just now. You will recognise a great advance. Likewise, in the whole forming of the figures. Of course, the peculiar quality which afterwards came out through greater skill and variety of technique in Dürer's work,—in his paintings, etchings and woodcuts,—is lacking still.

55. Meister Francke. The Resurrection. (Schwerin.)

All in all, considering the artistic developments that are potentially there in these first beginnings, and that produced Dürer and Holbein and the others, we must admit that the thread is broken. For afterwards there came a break; they turned back again to the Roman, Latin principle. And in the 19th century, artistic evolution was decidedly on a retrogressive path. There can, however, be no doubt that this fact is connected with deep and significant laws of human evolution. This stream of evolution in Art works out of the element of light and dark, and discovers—as I tried to explain in the lecture on Rembrandt—the inner connection of the world of color with the light and dark. Through the historic necessity of the time, it could not but tend towards a certain Naturalism; but it can never find its culmination in Naturalism. For in this peculiar talent to perceive the inwardness of things, the possibility to paint, to represent the spiritual Mysteries, still lies inherent. When I say “inwardness of things,” I mean not merely inwardness of soul, but the inwardness of things themselves, expressed in the spatial laws of light and darkness which also contain the mysteries of color. Goethe, as you know, tried to express this systematically in his Theory of Color. This possibility, therefore, still lies open and unrealised in evolution. The possibility to paint the spiritual Mysteries out of the inner virtues of the world of color, out of the inner essence of the light and dark. And the possibilities in this direction can be extended also to the other Arts.

But such a thing can only be brought about through the inspiration of Spiritual Science, of the anthroposophical conception of the world. In the none too distant future, the possibilities that lie inherent in the beginnings of this stream of Art must all be brought together. To create out of the inner light—out of the forming and shaping power of the light—will at the same time be to create out of the inner source of being, and that, I need not say, can only be the Spiritual. In the portrayal of the sacred History, this stream in Art could not, in the nature of the case, attain the high perfection which Raphael attained, for instance. (Nevertheless, in some respects it attained a perfection of its own—notably in the great artists whose works we have seen again today.) But the Spiritual that pervades the works of this Art is still alive. We must only find the connection of what surges through these works of Art, with the underlying laws of the spiritual life. Then will spiritual Imagination and artistic fancy join together and create a true Imaginative Art.

To some extent, as a first beginning, this has been attempted in our (Goetheanum) Building. For this is, after all, a beginning of new artistic impulses. Naturally, there is something primitive about every new beginning; but we have ventured, none the less, to strive for something new and in a grander style. The time may come when people will understand what we have been striving for in this Building. Then it will be realised why certain occult impulses that came already to expression in this art which we have seen today and in the preceding and contemporary sculpture (examples of which we have also seen) remained to this day unrealised. It will be understood why a certain break was inevitable in the evolution of this art. How remote, after all, is that which emerges in the 19th century in the art of a Kaulbach or a Cornelius from what is living in this art which we have seen today! In Kaulbach, Cornelius, Overbeck and the rest, we see a mere repeat of the Southern element. In this art, on the other hand, we see on all hands a radical rebellion and revolution against the Latin and Roman.

He who is prepared to look more closely, will find still deeper connections. Think of the four pictures by Multscher which we have shown today. They represent, if I may say so, the native Swabian tendencies in the realm of Art. Here we find a certain native talent for a flat surface with the help of light. Anyone who has a feeling for finer, more intimate relationships will perceive a similar quality in the Philosophy of Hegel—likewise a product of the Swabian talent, and in that of Schelling, of whom the same thing may be said, and in the poetry of Holderlin.

This grasp of the flat surface, but working forth from the flat surface with the help of light,—we find it not only in the primitive beginnings of this art; we find it again even in Hegel's Philosophy. Hence Hegel's Philosophy, if I may say so, makes such a ‘flat’ impression on us. It is like a great canvas, like an ideal painting of the world. It works from the surface; and in its turn, after all, it can but be the philosophic beginnings of what will now work its way—not merely into this projection of Reality on the flat—but into the full Reality itself. And this “Reality,” I need not say, can be none other than the Spiritual.

These things are interrelated in all truth. What I have lately been trying to describe to you for other realms of life, with regard to the history and civilisation of Europe, is wonderfully confirmed, in all detail, in the sphere of Art. All that we recognised in the lecture the day before yesterday—the impulses working in the different regions of Europe—you can trace it again in the life of Art. Bring before your minds again the art of the Netherlands which we have seen,—coming from thence into Western Germany. Then consider what we have studied today—as something growing absolutely and originally out of the German spirit itself. For the country of which we have spoken today, the soil on which Lucas Moser and Multscher worked, is, after all, the central region of the German Spirit. It is here that the German Spirit has evolved most originally and most truly. Here, too, Christianity was inwardly absorbed, as though by an inner kinship with the spiritual nature of the German heart and mind. The absorption of Christianity was a far more inward process in these districts; and here the original and elemental gifts of the German nature came forth in the realms of Art. They did not accept what brought Christianity to them from the South in a form already marred by Rome; they tried to recreate Christianity themselves artistically out of their inner heart and feeling.

Such a thing could not emerge in the same measure in the more Northern regions of Germany without the coming of an impulse from the South. We see the same thing once more in the fact that Hegel's philosophy received its quickening from the Southern region, and Schelling's too; while, on the other hand, the philosophy of Kant reveals itself quite evidently as a North German product. The peculiar quality of the Kantian philosophy is not unconnected with the fact that the originally Prussian districts remained Heathen for comparatively long. They were brought over to Christianity at a later period and by a rather external process—a conversion far more external than in the Southern German districts. Prussia, properly speaking, remained Heathen till a very late period.

The things we otherwise recognise in historic evolution—we can find them confirmed in the evolution of Art and in the evolution of the life of Thought. For this very reason I wanted to place Moser and Multscher before you at the close of our considerations for today.

The following lecture was given on, and dedicated to, the anniversary of Goethe's birthday, and in connection with the lecture series, Wonders of the World, Ordeals of the Soul and Revelations of the Spirit. This lecture is not a part of the 10 lectures in the above named lecture series, and was presumably translated from shorthand reports, unrevised by the lecturer, by an unknown translator.

My dear theosophical Friends!

The composition of “Faust” was Goethe's companion from his early years, on, one may say in the truest sense of the word,—till his death. For the second part of the poem was left behind by him, sealed, as his literary testament. The composition of certain important passages of the 2nd part of Faust really belongs to the closing years of that universal genius. Anyone who has had the opportunity of following Goethe's spiritual evolution, as revealed in his life-work, will discover many a thing of the most extreme interest, particularly in reference to the fact that Goethe's ideas continually altered regarding the course of development of his poem, when he returned again and again to this labour of his life. There is an interesting memorandum extant on the conclusion of “Faust” as it was intended to be, in accordance with Goethe's views of that date—a period which we may fix at the end of the ’eighties or beginning of the ’nineties of the eighteenth century. We find here, besides a few notes on the first and second parts, a short sentence containing an indication bearing on the conclusion of the poem. This scrap of writing shows the words jotted down in pencil by Goethe, “Epilogue in Chaos on the way to Hell.” This reveals to us that it was Goethe's intention at one time not to honour his Faust by the kind of apotheosis which forms the present conclusion of the poem, brought to an end in his extreme old age; but that, in accordance with the course indicated in the Prologue in Heaven,—from Heaven, through the world, to Hell—he desired to bring Faust to a conclusion with the Epilogue in Chaos on the Way to Hell. At that time Goethe entertained thoughts which led him to believe that knowledge which overstepped certain limits could only end in chaos. We may trace a certain connection between the frame of mind which prompted these words, which I quoted as Goethe's own, with that which was said yesterday regarding the ordeals of the soul; on the one hand the losing of itself in nothingness; on the other hand the descent into the turbid inner nature of the human being and the failure, in spite of all efforts, to find the junction. Goethe's personality was indeed one which compelled him to vanquish all difficulties, step by step, and to experience all vicissitudes in his own person. It is for this reason that all his creations leave such an impression of sincerity and truthfulness on us,—sometimes indeed the effect is so powerful that we cannot immediately keep pace with him; because it is impossible for us, unprepared, to transport ourselves into the particular phase of his personality prevailing at one period or another of his life. We may note a truly great advance in Goethe between the moment at which he intended to conclude his “Faust” with an epilogue in chaos on the way to hell, and that other period in which he brings his work to a close in the spirit of the monumental words “Wer immer strebend sick bemüht, den können wir erlösen.”¹ For when Goethe, wrote the present, universally-known conclusion to his “Faust,” the premonition of which we spoke yesterday was alive within him, coupled with that inner strength which brings the assurance that, though we must pass through all ordeals of the soul, we shall-inevitably accomplish the closing of the circle described yesterday. This, my dear theosophical friends, is intended as a slight indication of the most pronounced characteristic in Goethe's life. Those among us who love a harmonious life, who cannot accommodate themselves to its contradictions, though these are the vital element in a progressive life reveals many contradictions, and that Goethe's judgment of many matters in his old age differed from that of his youth. But this was only because he was forced to conquer every truth for himself. Goethe's personality is a striking example of the necessity of the lessons of life; it shows us that it is precisely life on the physical plane which evokes direct inner experiences, and that life, with its succession of events, is needful for us, in order that we may become human beings in the true sense of the word. When we pass in review Goethe's whole life and contemplate its successive stages, we are struck by the universality of his genius, the magnificent comprehensiveness and many-sidedness of his mentality. It is most important to study Goethe precisely from this point of view, in his life-time, and also to measure by our own time the importance of that which he was by reason of the universality of his spirit, and then to ask ourselves how Goethe can above all things influence our own epoch by the universality of his genius.

It is well for us, then, to devote a little study to the inner character of the time in which we live,—to our present epoch and its spiritual culture. It is especially important for theosophists to consider attentively the spirit of our age. It is often said that we live in an age of specialists, in which exact science must reign supreme. How frequently do we hear the words of the great physicist Helmholtz repeated, namely, that at the present day there can be no mind comprehensive enough to embrace all the various branches of human knowledge, as they now exist. It has become absolutely proverbial that there can be no doctor universalis at the present day, and that one must be content with a general knowledge of special subjects. But when we consider that life is one and undivided, that everything in life is involved with everything else, and that life does not ask whether our souls are capable of comprehending what belongs to the common spiritual living organism of our age;—when we consider this we must conclude that it would be a disaster for our age, were it impossible to find, at least to some extent, the spirit ruling in all specialisation. And our quest will be easiest, if we endeavour to approach the subject precisely by those avenues opened up by theosophy or spiritual science. That science must be universal; it must be in a position to survey at a glance the branches of the various sciences in all the different domains of civilised life. To-day let us examine at least one aspect of our modern intellectual life, and see how it appears in the light of theosophy. As our time is limited, we will avoid those departments of science which are more or less unaffected by the passage of time, as least as to their nature and purpose, in spite of the enormous extensions which they have undergone in our day,—I mean mathematics, although even here we might point to the fact that the weighty deliberations carried on in certain branches of mathematics during the nineteenth century may be said to have opened up the supersensuous world to that science. But it must be mentioned that great and wonderful discoveries have been made in all branches of science in the course of the last few decades, which testify everywhere, when examined in the proper light, to the fact that the teachings of theosophy exactly agree with science; whereas none of the theories that have been applied to these discoveries up to the present day at all coincide with the facts which have been accumulated with so much diligence and energy for the last forty or fifty years. Taking, for example, chemistry and physics, we see how remarkable has been the tendency in the development of these branches in that period. When we were young, in the ’seventies or ’eighties or earlier, the so-called atomistic theories prevailed in chemistry and physics. These theories attributed all phenomena to particular kinds of vibration, either of ether or some other material substance. In short we might say that it was customary then to explain everything in the world, in the final instance, by the theory of vibration. Then as we approached the last decade of the nineteenth century, it was shown by the facts which gradually came to light that the theory of motion, or atomistic theory, was untenable. It may even be called a remarkable achievement (in the most limited sense of the word), that Professor Ostwald, who was chiefly noted as a chemist and natural scientist, brought forward at a congress in Lubeck, in place of the atomistic theory, the so-called theory of energy, or energetics. In a certain respect this was a progressive step; but the later discoveries in the field of chemistry and physics, down to our own times, have finally given rise to a considerable amount of scepticism and want of faith regarding all theoretical science. The idea of attributing external physical facts, such as the phenomena of light, etc., to the vibration of minute particles, or to a mere manifestation of energy, is now only entertained by unprogressive minds. This opinion is chiefly strengthened by all that has become known of late years regarding the substances which gave rise to the theory of radium; and we can already note the extraordinary circumstance that, owing to certain facts which have come to light by degrees, distinguished physicists such as Thomson and others have found themselves obliged to throw overboard all theories, first and foremost the ether hypothesis with its artistic forms of vibration, once cultivated with such extreme seriousness and assiduous application of the integral and differential calculus. The theory of motion was therefore fated to be discarded by the great physicists, who then returned to the vortices of Cartesius, a theory which may be said to be based on ancient occult traditions. But even these theories have been relinquished in their turn; a feeling of scepticism towards all theorising shows itself precisely in physics and chemistry, as a result of the conviction that all matter crumbles away, as it were, under the experiments of modern physical science. Things have gone so far that, in view of the advance of modern physical science, the theories of atomistic vibration and of energetics can no longer be upheld. All that might still have found a hearing 5, 6 or more years ago, all on which so many fond hopes were built, when we were young, when even the force of gravitation was ascribed to motion,—in the eyes of those acquainted with the real facts, all this has been demolished. But we still of course hear of extraordinary ideas on the part of the unprogressive. There is an interesting fact in this connection, which I might mention, as it is my intention to discuss certain characteristics of our own time and of Goethe. A little book has just appeared which also takes the standpoint that there is no such thing as gravitation, that is, that there is no attraction between matter and the planets.—It has always been a difficulty for science to support this so-called theory of attraction, because one must ask: How can the Sun attract the Earth, if it does not stretch anything out into space? Now within the last few days this book has appeared, in which attraction is ascribed to the effect of concussion. For instance, we represent to ourselves a body, whether planet or molecule, upon which impacts are continually being exercised from all sides by other planets or other molecular bodies, How does it happen that these bodies impinge upon one another from all sides? For of course they do impinge upon each other everywhere, one in this, another in the opposite direction, an so on.

The essential point here is that when the number of impacts exercised from outside is compared with that produced by the bodies in the space between, the result is a difference. The last-mentioned are fewer and have less force than the outer. The consequence is that through the outer impacts the two bodies, whether molecules or planets, are driven together. According to this theory the force usually called attraction is attributed to the impacts of matter. It is refreshing to find something like a new thought now-a-days; but to any one who looks more deeply into the matter this theory is nothing more than refreshing. It is refreshing for the simple reason that the same theory had already been worked out with all possible mathematical quibbles. It is contained in a book, now out of print, written when I was a little boy, by a certain Heinrich Schramm, “The Universal Vibration of Matter as the First Cause of all Phenomena.” In this book the theory is much more thoroughly dealt with. Such ideas constantly reappear when scientists leave out of consideration the evolution of the spiritual life. In this respect the most extraordinary observations may be made;—errors caused by a one-sided view are repeated over and over again. What I should like to impress upon you above all is, that in consequence of the achievements of physics and chemistry of late years, abundant proofs have been furnished that that which is called matter is merely a human conception, which melts away under experiments, and that physics and chemistry, leaving behind all motion and energy, steer directly to the point at which matter merges into the spirit at its foundation. The body of facts accumulated by physics and chemistry already demand a spiritual foundation. Geology and paleontology are in a similar case. In these sciences more comprehensive theories, based upon vast aggregations of force, prevailed till about 1860–1870. To-day we find scepticism. everywhere; and among our best geologists and palaeontologists there is an inclination to restrict their labours to the bare registration of facts, because they dare not combine them in thought. A considerable amount of courage is needed to develop a system of thought embracing the series of facts before them. People are afraid to take the step now demanded even by geology and paleontology:—from the material to the spiritual,—a step which would transcend the Kant-Laplace theory. They dare not acknowledge that their imaginary universal nebula is finally merged in the spiritual regions, the world of the hierarchies, of which all that we might call the outer, physical, or perhaps the astrophysical theory, is but the garment. The case is different when we come to those sciences which have to deal more with life and the soul. We come in the first place to biology.

Now you all know how great were the hopes built on the progress of biology, the science of life, when Darwin's great work, “The Origin of Species”, appeared. Perhaps you also know that at the natural science Congress held in Stettin in the year 1863 Ernst Haeckel, with rare courage, extended to the human being the theory apparently applied by Darwin only to the animal, and we see that the science of biology afterwards developed in a remarkable way. We find cautious spirits who confine themselves more to the registration of facts; but others are there, who push forward impetuously, constructing daring theories on the results of investigations dealing with the relationship of forms among the different creatures. Foremost of all we find Haeckel boldly constructing pedigrees, showing how, from elementary forms of life, the most complicated structures have arisen through ever-new ramifications. But side by side with these more striking tendencies,—as we might call them—there is a line of investigation which it is also important to notice. This might be called the school of the anatomist, Carl Gegenbaur. In accordance with his nature, Gegenbaur was of opinion that, in the first place, we ought not to concern ourselves with the correlation existing between different creatures. He looked upon the Darwinian theory as a guiding principle of investigation, to be used as a standard, by the aid of which certain facts relating to the forms of living creatures could be traced. Let us suppose that the train of thought of a scientist might be expressed in the following words:—“I am not prepared to say that the higher animals might not be descended from the birds or fishes, but I will start from the principle that a relationship exists between them, and, keeping this in view, will examine the gills and fins, and will see whether more and more subtle resemblances do not come to light.” And in fact it was found that, by using Darwin's method as a clue, more and more important scientific facts were discovered. Important results were also arrived at when this method of research, stimulated by the Darwinian impulse, was applied to the descent of man, by following up all the evidence of paleontology and other archaeological records relating to geology. Wherever scientists have gone to work with caution, their method has been as follows: They begin by tracing the links, laying down Darwin's theory as a guiding principle. And here we have the astounding result that the Darwinian theory, used in this way, has shown itself to be extraordinarily fertile in results of late years, and that by the discoveries to which it has led up till the present time, it has contradicted and annulled itself! So that we may observe the remarkable fact, scarcely to be found to the same extent in any other domain of science, that the Darwinian scientists disagree on all points. Thus, there are still persons (certainly the very unprogressive) who relate the human being to the anthropoid apes still extant, or at least only slightly metamorphosed. There are some, particularly among those who pursue the modern analysis of the blood and the relationship among the components of the blood, who have returned to the older forms of the Darwinian theory. Katsch, for instance, affirms that it is impossible, in view of the facts which have come to light, to relate the human being to any animal form whatever now extant. All shades of opinion prevail, from that according to which man is related to the ape as he now exists,—on to others which diverge from the latter, but, following the descent of man is not traceable to the ancestors of these of these apes to any other mammals. It is held that we must retrace our steps to animals of which we can form no representation, and that from these man is descended on the one hand, while the mammals have branched off on the other hand, so that the apes are very distantly related to the human being. What strikes us as remarkable in this is the circumstance that when these scientists employ the forms familiar to us at present, in order to call up a picture of that real, primeval man, all existing physical forms dissolve into a nebulous mass;—the result is nil. How is this? Because there is a point in the science of biology, at which the outer physical facts arrived at by sincere effort, leads to the conclusion that the ancestors of man cannot be represented as physical beings, as all attempts in this direction fail. We at last arrive at the spiritual, primal form of man, the fruit of an earlier planetary evolution,—at that spiritual, primal man spoken of in theosophy. Precisely those facts which have been revealed by the researches of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries bear incontrovertible testimony to this truth, and the disagreement among scientists is concealed solely because the students only attend the lectures of one professor, and do not compare his teachings with those of others. If they compared the opinions of the various learned authorities, they would make strange discoveries. In the books of a certain naturalist they would find a passage very distinctly underlined, to the following effect: “If any of my students now preparing for his doctor's degree should propound this theory, which is brought forward by another, I would reject him unhesitatingly.” This assertion is however no exaggeration, it is only what is said by the professor of one university of his colleague of another university. And the disagreement mentioned is one of the most conspicuous phenomena in the field of biology; while in physics and chemistry the utmost resignation prevails with regard to theories. When we come to physiology we find still more singular conditions. We find that this science everywhere leads to the most extravagant theories. We see how even the mere outside husk of physiology is everywhere influenced by all sorts of things behind or within the physical, even among thinkers who, without knowing it, are yet absolute materialists in their mode of thought. I might mention hundreds of things in this connection, such for instance as the strange theories put forward of late years by a school of thought in Vienna, the so-called Freud school;—theories dealing with the manner in which the sub-conscious life of man, as it shows itself in dreams or other phenomena of life, comes within the domain of physiology. I can merely hint at these facts, and only mention them because they show that it is necessary everywhere, even theoretically speaking, that the mass of empirical facts of the outer senses be traced to spiritual causes. At the same time we find that the moment at which general comprehension, or conception of the impression necessarily made by science as a whole at the present day, makes itself felt, a kind of resignation sets in. In philosophy also we find the same resignation. You are probably aware that under the influence of William James in America, of Schiller in England and of other scholars in the philosophic field, a strange theory has been developed, which is really the outcome of a tendency inherent in facts, to strive towards their spiritual origin; but its followers nevertheless refuse recognise that origin in the spirit. This is the so-called pragmatism, which affirms that, in considering the various phenomena of life, we must, invent theories regarding them, as if they were capable of being combined; but that everything that we think out exists as an economy of the mind, and has no inner, constitutive, real value. This theory is the final refuse of the seared minds of the present day. It denotes the most absolute unbelief in the spirit, a reliance only on fragile theories, invented for the purpose of combining facts, and a failure to believe that the living spirit first implanted in the objects the thoughts which we find in them at last. The strangest fate of all sciences in this respect is reserved to psychology. There are certain psychologists who are incapable of finding the way to a living spirit, in which the soul finds itself as if reborn in the objects. On the other hand they cannot deny that, if any harmony at all can be established between the soul and the objects, something must be transferred to the objects from the soul. What is experienced in the soul must have something to do with the objects. And in connection with this, there is a curious word in circulation in German systems of psychology,—one which really flies in the face of all philological thought—the word “to feel into” (an object) (Einfühlen). There can be no clearer example of helping oneself out of a dilemma, than the use of such a word to avoid exact thought. As if it were of any importance that we should feel something into the objects, without being able to find in the things themselves the essential, real connection between the objects and that which we see in them. This is a state of forlornness, in which psychology finds itself bereft of the spirit, and tries to help itself out of the difficulty by the use of such a word. Thus we might find many similar masterpieces brought into existence at the present day by systems of psychology which cannot be taken seriously. Other systems of psychology confine themselves to a description of the outer instruments of the soul-life,—the brain, etc.; and it has gone so far that psychologists are listened to with respect when they prove by experiment that no force or energy absorbed or taken into our system in food and drink, is lost. This is supposed to prove that the law of the conservation of energy must also hold good for psychology, and that there is no such thing as a soul-nature independent of the body, and working apart through its bodily instruments. A conclusion such as this is perfectly illogical. One who can draw such a conclusion, and who is in a position to formulate such a thought at all, must also admit that it would be reasonable to stand in front of a bank, to calculate how much money is carried in and how much is carried out, and then to reckon how much remains in the coffers; and from this to draw the conclusion that there are no employees at work in the bank. Such conclusions are really drawn, and they are even regarded as scientific in our day. Theories like these are built up on the returns of modern research. They cast a veil over the real nature of the facts. We can observe the real status of psychology in a highly interesting personality, a truly remarkable man, who wrote a work on psychology in the ’seventies of the last century, Francis Brentano. He wrote the 1st. volume of a psychology which should have filled several volumes. Whoever is willing to follow the contents of the 1st. volume with an understanding of the real standpoint of psychological facts, must reflect that, considering the nature of the premise from which Francis Brentano starts, and if it be at all possible to advance on the basis of these premisses, his arguments must lead into spiritual science or theosophy. This is the only way open; and those who will not be led to spiritual science, or even will not make a slight effort to arrive at a reasonable comprehension of the life of the soul, may be supposed to be incompetent. And here we have the interesting fact that the first volume of a psychological work intended to embrace several volumes, had no successor. He only wrote the 1st. volume; and though Brentano dealt, in smaller works, with one or another of the problem which occupied him, he never found his way to spiritual science; hence he barred the way to any further progress in psychology.

By another and still more pregnant fact we may see how even the negative, principle, so conspicuous everywhere at present, demands that the thinkers who take their stand on the wonderful facts that have come to light during the last few decades, should tend towards spiritual science. This is doubtless a difficult step for many at the present day. Some are deterred by reasons into which we need not enter now; we will merely show how, on all hands, when we try to find the true forces in modern science, when we set to work with honesty and sincerity, comprehensively and energetically, the merging of science into theosophy is a necessary consequence. Farthest of all from the union with spiritual science is history, as it is written at the present day. The historians who apparently approach it most nearly,—those who do not merely regard history as a succession of fortuitous human impulses and passions and other facts belonging to the physical plane,—are those who recognise the existence of ruling thoughts. As if abstract thought could possibly have any influence! Unless we ascribe will to those thoughts, they cannot be spiritual powers, nor can they become active. To recognise governing ideas in history, therefore, apart from entities, is devoid of all sense. Not until active life has been infused into history, not until the spiritual life-principle is conceived as pervading the soul, expending itself ever more intensely as it passes from soul to soul,—not until history is understood as it is understood in “les Grands Inities” (by Édouard Shuré) has the point been reached at which that science merges into theosophy or spiritual sciences. Thus we may boldly affirm that it is evident to any unprejudiced observer that all learning imperatively calls for the theosophical mode of thought. Thinkers who penetrate deeply into the spiritual life, who follow the path of knowledge with heart and soul, and are not content merely to weave theories, but whose very heart is bound up with true knowledge,—spirits like these, it is true, show by their lives how life is everywhere in touch with spiritual science. As an example, I may cite a man who was known to the world for years as a celebrated poet, who was for long years condemned to a sick-bed and during that time wrote down the thoughts and experiences that came to him on the path of knowledge, as a bequest to posterity;—a poet who was not of course taken seriously as a philosopher, by philosophers. I mean Robert Hamerling. But the latter, who was perhaps only justly appreciated by Vincenz Knauer (who even made him the subject of lectures) was not a theoretical philosopher, but one who entered heart and soul on the paths of wisdom, and synthesised the sciences of chemistry, physics, philosophy, physiology, biology and history of modern times, as far as these were accessible to him, fertilising his knowledge by his poetic intuition. Robert Hamerling, who was able to fructify the thoughts regarding the world, by his own gift of poetic intuition, laid down in his “Atomistics of the Will” all that he found upon the path of knowledge. His path was not like that trodden by so many to-day, who start from the mere theory of some school of thought; it led directly from life itself. In his “Atomistics of the Will,” he has written much of importance for those who take an interest in the tendency of ordinary learning and intellectuality to merge into spirituality. A passage from the “Atomistics of the Will” written in 1891, will follow here as an example of the thoughts collected by him in his solitude, on the evolutionary path of knowledge on which he had entered. “It is possible,” says Hamerling on p. 145 of Vol.II. of “Atomistics of the Will,” “ that living beings exist, whose corporeality is more tenuous than atmospheric air. At regards other heavenly bodies, at least, nothing can be urged against this supposition. Beings whose corporeality is of such extreme subtlety would be invisible to us, and would exactly correspond to those beings ordinarily called spirits, or to the etheric bodies, or souls surviving after the death of individuals ... ” He continues in the same strain. Here we have an allusion to the etheric body in the middle of a book which is the outcome of the intellectual life of the present day. Let us suppose that truth and uprightness everywhere prevailed, together with an earnest striving to know what really lives in the thought of men; let us imagine that an honest desire existed to try to understand what we already possess; that, in other words, people should write fewer books, until they have learnt the content of other books already written,—then the work done in our time would be very different; there would be continuity in it. Were this so, it would have to be admitted that, during the last few decades, spiritual life has been breaking forth, and vistas opening of spiritual aims and perspectives, wherever science has been honestly and earnestly prosecuted. For there are many examples like that of Robert Hamerling.

Thus the special branches of the various sciences unite and demand that which can alone give a comprehensive view of the world at the present day, such as I have endeavoured to sketch lately in “Occult Science”. Into that work are woven, imperceptibly, the latest results of all the sciences, side by side with spiritual research. When we consider this we must acknowledge that open doors to spirituality are everywhere to be found; but we pass them by unnoticed. Whoever is acquainted with modern science finds without exception that its facts, not its theories, require a spiritual explanation. Were it possible for ordinary science to emancipate itself from all theories—the atomic, the vibratory, energetics and all other forms of one-sidedness with which the world is continually hedged about by a few stock ideas,—if scientists could only liberate themselves from such trammels; did they allow the great mass of facts now brought to light by science to speak for themselves, all contradiction between the spiritual science which we follow here and the genuine results of modern research would cease. Here, Goethe may be our great helper—Goethe, who fulfilled all the conditions of a universal mind so magnificently. He fulfilled those conditions even outwardly; for whoever is acquainted with Goethe's correspondence knows that he exchanged letters with countless naturalists on all the most important questions in the various departments of science. From his experimenting cabinets and from his study, communications went forth to the different branches of science at all points of the compass. He corresponded with botanists, opticians, zoologists, anthropologists, geologists, mineralogists and historians, in short with scientists in every field. And though unprogressive minds certainly refused to recognise him as an authority, because his investigations were beyond their understanding, he found other thinkers by whom he was most highly appreciated, and who consulted him when it became necessary to settle any question of special interest. This is an incident of no great importance, but at the same time we can see how Goethe worked in thought and also in deed with the foremost philosophers of his day, such as Schelling and Hegel. We find that the minds of a number of philosophers were fructified by him, and that Goethe's thoughts reappeared in their work, in the same or another form. Finally we can see how in the course of his life Goethe seriously occupied himself with the study of botany, zoology, osteology in particular, also with anthropology in a wider sense; further with optics and physical science in their wider scope. Isolate scientists in the domain of biology are now showing a disposition to do justice to Goethe in a small degree. On the other hand it is quite comprehensible that physicists are perfectly sincere in their inability to understand Goethe's teachings regarding colour, from their own standpoint. These truths regarding colour can only be understood in the future,—unless the acquaintance with theosophy has meantime brought about a change,—perhaps not before the second half of the twentieth, or even the first half of the 21st. century. The physical science of the present day can only look upon Goethe's ideas regarding colour as nonsense; this however is no fault of the teaching; the fault lies in the forms of modern science. If you read my book, “Goethe's Conception of the World,” also the preface to Goethe's works on natural science, published by Kirschner, you will see what I mean. You will see that the latter contains an appreciation, of Goethe's theory of colour, which is scientific in the truest sense, and, compared with which, all modern theories relating to physical science are mere dilettantism. Thus we see how Goethe laboured in all departments of science. We can see how his endeavours to understand the laws of nature were everywhere fertilised by the poetic forces of his genius. Goethe looked upon nothing as separate from the rest; everything intermingled in his soul. There no one pursuit interferes with another. Goethe is himself a proof that it is an absurdity to believe that the active pursuit of some branch of intellectual knowledge could hamper intuition. If both impulses are only present in strength and originality, they do not interfere with one another. We can form an idea of the living cooperation of the human forces of the soul, as they are expressed in the different sciences, and in the entire personality of the human being; the necessity of life makes it possible for us to form such an idea, and we are helped by the fact that a modern intelligence exists, in whom this cooperation of the different soul-forces of the whole personality was actually living. It is for this reason that Goethe's personality is a model, to which we must look up in order to study that living cooperation of the soul-forces. As he is a man whose progress we can watch from year to year, in the deepening of his own inner life and understanding of the world, he is an example to us of the manner in which man must strive, in order to attain a greater intensity of the inner life. Not the mere contemplation of Goethe, not the repetition of his words, nor even devotion to his works should be our duty on a day which the calendar shows us to be closely connected, in a narrow sense, with Goethe's life,—but to consider the grandeur that radiates from his whole person, in the light of a model for our epoch. Especially the scientific thinker of our day might learn much from Goethe. For in respect to the comprehension of the spiritual life, scientific thought is not in a flourishing condition; but precisely from that quarter we shall inevitably live to see a great revival of Goethe, and a gradual and increasing understanding of his genius. A contemplation of Goethe's life may throw a flood of light on our advance to spirituality, on theosophy in general; it will illuminate our progress healthfully, because in Goethe everything is healthy. He is trustworthy in every particular, and, where he contradicts himself, it is not his logic that is at fault. Life itself is a contradiction, and must be so in order that it may continue to live. This is a thought which I would fain kindle in you on this birthday of Goethe's, to show how necessary it is that we should become absorbed in the things lying open to us. Goethe can give us an infinity. We can learn most from him if we forget much that has been written in the countless works extant on Goethe, for such communications are more likely to cast a veil over the real Goethe than to make us acquainted with him. But Goethe has an occult power of attraction; there is something in him which works of itself. If we yield ourselves up to Goethe we shall find that we can celebrate his birthday within ourselves, and we shall feel something of that which is ever young and fresh in Goethe, of which we might say that Goethe may rise again in a soul steeped in theosophy. Though Goethe's name is so often heard and his works so often quoted, our materialistic age has but a meagre understanding of him. There was a time when people were really fascinated, even by very serious discussions on the subject of Goethe,—not literary and historical discussions in our sense of the word, for these are not serious. When Goethe was the subject of serious talk there were always listeners who were carried away by that inner spiritual vein which is never wanting in Goethe. We may recall the time when old Karl Rosenkranz, the Hegel scholar, who was on a level with the highest culture of his day, ventured between 1830 and 1840 to announce a series of lectures on Goethe at the university of Königsberg. He wished to state frankly a philosopher's opinion of Goethe. He prepared his lectures, and left his study with the thought: “Perhaps one or two may come to hear what I have to say!”—But thought nearly died within him, when he found himself outside in the midst of a wild snowstorm, so violent that no one could be expected to venture out to a lecture that was not obligatory. He made his way to the lecture-hall and behold, nothing could be more unfavourable than the conditions under which he had to deliver his lecture. It was a hall which could not be heated, the floor was in bad repair, and the walls ran water in streams. But the name of Goethe was an attraction and there was a good audience, even on the first evening, and though at each lecture the conditions grew worse, and the hall more uncomfortable, the audience grew more and more numerous. Finally the attendance at Karl Rosenkranz' lectures was so great that the hall could scarcely contain it.

Goethe is one of those thinkers who can best stimulate us theosophically. A healthy view of Goethe would be to regard him, in the light of theosophy, as a great spirit incarnated in the body of Goethe,—a spirit whom we must first learn to understand. We must not allow him to be represented to us as a fleshly form in which there dwells a great spirit whom we are bound to take on authority. There are really safe paths leading to theosophy, it is only necessary to follow them, without shrinking from the trouble. This is why I never hesitate, even when great numbers are present at a course of lectures, to shed light, sometimes in a manner inconvenient perhaps to many, on some bye-path of spiritual knowledge, to risk a bold assertion or to make a statement difficult to understand. I should never shrink from such a step, because I know that only in this way is it possible for theosophy to make sound progress, or to take root in modern civilised life. It seems to me that we may mount to the highest spiritual regions without losing our warmth of heart; it seems to me that all those assembled here must be conscious to some degree of the truth, that the methods applied to the interpretation of theosophy here are those of the most modern intellectual life, and the strange opinion which prevails even in theosophical circles, that a réchauffé of mediaeval learning is served up here, instead of facts in agreement with modern science, is a very grave departure from the truth. As this has been pronounced by many—even among theosophists—it must be pointed out that anyone who can follow with understanding will be convinced that no mediaeval learning, but the union of objective, scientific teachings with genuine, modern spiritual aspirations, is our aim. It is not my province to judge how far this object has been attained; but it ought to be clear to everyone that nothing mediaeval in its character, nor anything merely associated with traditions, but objective knowledge, on a level with modern science, is the object of our study here. It should also be experienced as a certainty that the conditions of life which are the outcome of our theosophical studies are able to fill our hearts with enthusiasm. What seems to me of most importance is that what our hearts have gained from such a course of study and we carry away with us into the world,—what we have grasped in the breadth of the conceptions and words, is concentrated in our hearts; it lives itself out in our feelings and sensations, in our compassion and in our actions, and we are then living theosophy. As the rivers can only flow over the lands when they have been fed by the sources, so the life of theosophy can only stream out into the world, when it draws its forces from the springs of wisdom open to us to-day by those spiritual Powers whom we call the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings. And we have grasped the true meaning of the word theosophy, or spiritual science, when it speaks to us in the forms of modern, intellectual life, when, at the same time, instead of leaving, our hearts and souls cold, it warms them, so that that warmth may communicate itself to others everywhere in the world. In proportion as you carry out into the world what has been said here, not only in your thoughts, but also in your feelings, your impulses of will and your actions, these lectures will have served their purpose. This is the aim of these lectures. With this wish, my dear theosophical friends, I always welcome you from the heart when you come, and with the same wish I take leave of you on this day, at the close of our series of lectures, with the words: “Let us remain united in the theosophical, in the intellectual and spiritual sense, even though we must live in space separated one from the other and from the present time, in which we can be more closely united in space; let us take, as the most inspiring mutual greeting and farewell, the thought that we are together in spirit, even when we are dispersed in space. In this spirit I take leave of you to-day, on the occasion of our celebration of Goethe's birthday, at the close of our course of lectures. Let us think often of the object which has brought us together, and may it also bear fruit for that personal bond which may always unite one theosophist with another in love. May we be together in this sense, even after we have parted, and may we ever anew be drawn together again, that we may rise to heights of spiritual and supersensuous life.

• 1. Approximately: “He who is ever striving, toils onward, him we can deliver.”