The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Dear attendees! Apart from the general interest that questions such as the one that is the subject of today's reflection have, there is a very special reason for human souls to engage in such reflection in our time. As I ventured to suggest yesterday, and as must be obvious to every intuitive feeling today, we are going through blood and death, and the question of the nature of the human soul confronts us a thousandfold. Parents grieve or fear for their sons, sisters and brothers likewise, and we also see many signs that, among the great and significant things that we must assume are taking place in the throes of our difficult times, perhaps people's attention will be drawn to reflections such as the one that is to occupy us today. Now, from the point of view of spiritual science, which I have been allowed to speak of for many years now, including here in this city, it is truly not easy today to discuss the question: What is immortal in the human being? For one may say: in the face of the claim to really treat such a question scientifically, the most diverse habits of thought, the most diverse ways of imagining our time, which - I say again quite understandably - want to fight what can be said from the point of view of spiritual science, quite understandably, on the basis of the prerequisites for what they consider to be genuine science. It is indeed true that the whole development of scientific thinking, as we can follow it, through the last few centuries and especially through the nineteenth century, is very much at odds with what spiritual science has to say on such matters today.

And it must be emphasized again and again, my dear audience, that I would truly not speak from a spiritual point of view, as it is meant here, about such questions as the immortality of the human soul if I am not clear about the fact that what spiritual science has to say can, and does, fully take into account, at least can take into account, all that we call genuine, true scientific progress, scientific achievements in our present time. True spiritual science does not want to be confused with the many things that believe themselves to be related to true spiritual science and which also present all kinds of reasons and opinions about objects, such as the one we are dealing with today. In the face of such opinions, it must be emphasized that truly honest research and honest thinking have given rise to considerations and views which, I might say, run directly counter to all that seems to speak for the immortality of the human soul. And it must be said, it must be said sincerely, that the opponents of the idea of immortality have shown the highest degree of acumen and judgment if one looks at the mere ability to think, at the mere power of judgment, , and anyone who is well-versed in these matters will say that the quality of what has been put forward in recent times by the opponents of the idea of immortality is based on much better foundations than much, much of what is put forward in favor of this immortality. I am familiar with the countless arguments and reasons of the opponents of immortality, and I can say that I have the greatest respect for what is presented from this side. It is only on such premises that what is to be said in a positive way about the question: What is immortal in the human being?

This question can only be truly answered from the point of view of spiritual science, and the answer can truly be measured against what is otherwise considered science today. In order to conduct research into the nature of immortality, the human soul must take the path that leads it into the realms of spiritual existence, into the realms of the supersensible world. And I have often taken the liberty here of explaining how the human soul must proceed in order to really find the way into the spiritual worlds, into the supersensible existence. Today, since I spoke in particular from a certain point of view during my last visit here about the human soul finding its way into the spiritual worlds, I will take what was said then for granted and not speak again about what the human soul has to do in order to really be able to conduct spiritual research. I will only mention that only he can arrive at a real scientific consideration of spiritual-scientific questions who is able to maintain the same point of view in regard to these spiritual-scientific questions as one takes in regard to scientific researches that lie in the purely physical or chemical or some other sense-perceptible field.

Everyone will admit that when they have water in front of them, no speculation or judgment helps them to say that this water contains a substance like hydrogen, water is a liquid, water extinguishes fire; hydrogen is a gas that burns, and if you look at water, it is impossible to deduce from this observation of water anything through reflection or through any kind of research that does not amount to what the chemist calls the decomposition of water, to indicate that something is in the water that has completely different properties than water. By incorporating this point of view, one will become accustomed to admitting that the human being's actual spirit, the human being's actual soul, cannot be recognized from what we encounter of the human being in the outer world, just as little as the essence of hydrogen can be recognized from water. Just as the chemist has to separate hydrogen from water by means of his special methods, so that he has its properties before him, so the spiritual researcher has to extract from the human being what is spiritual-soul and cannot be recognized in the person as he stands before us, has to extract it from the ordinary person, as it were, by means of a spiritual chemistry. Then it shows itself in the same way that hydrogen shows itself in relation to water, since the soul-spiritual has quite different properties, quite different inner being, than the human being has in everyday life, that is, in sensory reality.

But the method of raising the soul and spiritual out of the human being as it appears to the senses is, of course, again a purely spiritual work. It cannot be accomplished by some external activity, but only through what the soul works out in itself, what the soul experiences in itself. And I have often explained here how, through a certain way of concentrating on thoughts, through certain kinds of inner experience, which can be described as meditation, in short, through certain intimate inner processes that are practiced with patience and perseverance, the soul can come to a discovery within itself. You can read more about this in my writing “How to Know Higher Worlds” and in my “Occult Science”, also at the end of my “Theosophy”. As I said, what is stated there is a description of the workings of thoughts, feelings, will and emotions, of a certain inner behavior of the soul, through which the soul makes an inner discovery, namely, that there are forces at rest in this soul, an inner life at rest, which are not observed at all in everyday life. In our daily lives, when we look at the soul, we become aware that our mental activity takes place in the life of thoughts and ideas, in the life of feelings and sensations, and in the life of will impulses.

Now, looking at what we can observe of the soul in terms of its ability to perceive, feel and will, I would like to say that today people are arguing about the question of immortality in much the same way as Simmias confronts Socrates in the old Plato dialogue on immortality. Socrates confronts us directly by standing before death. What he has experienced through his philosophical life shows itself to us as he speaks, that he has come to the realization that forces can be found in the soul that do not come before this soul experience in everyday life. Simmias, who replies to him, knows nothing of such a possible deepening of the soul life. Therefore he says: What the soul experiences is nothing more than the sounds of a lute; when the lute sounds, the physical parts of the lute are in motion, and this is expressed in sounds; but when the lute is destroyed, all sounding ceases. In this way he also compares the life of the human soul to the lute. The lute is, so to speak, the physical, and as physical activities take place, these physical activities are heard – figuratively speaking – in the soul experience. But when the external instrument of the physical is destroyed, then the soul life is destroyed as well, just as the sound of the lute can no longer be there when the lute itself is destroyed. One might say that what Simmias replies to Socrates contains in principle all the objections that today's thinking, which wants to be firmly grounded in science, has to the idea of immortality. And these objections seem well-founded, because any psychiatrist can tell you how what is called the human soul life, this living out of the soul in thoughts, in ideas, in feelings and will impulses, is disturbed by the fact that something in the external organs, in the nervous system, is not in order. And one can say: Such arguments must, quite understandably, have a decisive effect on today's convictions. Why do they have a decisive effect?

Well, you see, my esteemed audience, because basically, in the broadest scope of today's thinking, the question of immortality is asked quite wrongly. Attention is focused on the life of the soul as it expresses itself in the life of thoughts and feelings, in the life of the impulses of the will, and then the question arises: What actually remains of what the soul experiences within itself in everyday life when physical death overtakes the body, when the body is destroyed? And there are certainly many who say to themselves: By looking at thinking, feeling and willing, I experience something inwardly that is not identical with the physical and that must have an existence when the gate of death opens over the physical existence. Now spiritual science shows what this life of the soul is, which can be imagined, sensed, felt and willed. The way we experience it in the soul, this entire inner life of the soul is basically nothing more than a mirror image. And what we experience in the soul – it is a comparison that definitely relates to reality. What the soul experiences inwardly by simply observing its physical existence can be compared to the image that the mirror creates when we walk past it. And the one who searches for the eternity of this soul life, searches for the eternity of mere mirror images, and these images are really evoked in such a way that the actual soul is mirrored, and the mirror is the body, is the bodily essence of the human being. When we walk past the mirror, the mirror is the reason why we see the image; but the image is reflected back to us by the mirror. The one who asks: What of what we experience in the everyday life of the human soul is immortal, should ask: Yes, where has the mirror image that the mirror throws at me gone when I am no longer standing in front of the mirror?

That is what is so terribly misleading, that one seeks the essence of immortality in what is basically a mere image. And then it is quite natural that one can cite reasons, countless reasons, because what appears in the image cannot, of course, persist when the mirror, that is, the corporeality, has passed away, life has ceased. It is self-evident that one can give reasons for this, that this cannot be immortal, because these images must disappear when the person passes through the gate of death. If one knows nothing but what is the human body and what it can explain in the fields of anatomical, biological and chemical science, if one knows nothing but what the ordinary psychologist regards as the soul life, then one is not in the realm of what is immortal in man, and one is right when one says: All that one experiences in this way cannot be proved to be immortal in any way. That is why the objections to immortality that are raised from a scientific point of view are so convincing, because they prove the [mortality] of that which is truly mortal.

Spiritual science, on the other hand, has the task of going beyond this mortality into another realm, where the nature of that which is immortal in the human being can be found. This immortality does not lie in the experiences that the soul can have in everyday life, but lies in the deeper essences of the soul, which this soul must first enter through the spiritual path of knowledge - enter by energizes thinking to the point of meditation and concentration, and also energizes the life of feeling and sensation, thus bringing up from its depths into its consciousness what is not in its consciousness in everyday life. We come to what is immortal in the human being best if we first ask about what, so to speak, stands as an end point in our everyday experience.

What appears as an end point is what we ascribe to memory, to remembrance. We remember experiences we have had or things we have faced in life. What does that mean? It means nothing other than this: from the experience, from the contemplation, an inner essence remains in the soul, an image remains, and this image can, when the experience, when the object is no longer around us, this image can in turn arise before consciousness. Then there is an image before consciousness. How did this image come about? It has come about because the person, so to speak, has faced the event or the thing with the inner, living power of the soul and has done something inwardly through the experience, through the thing. And what he has done inwardly, he can experience again, it can arise again in the image. We can only recall our life experiences from our life between birth and death up to a certain point. In everyday life, everyone remembers up to a certain point in time, which admittedly still lies in early childhood, but which does not coincide with birth. Something happens to a person between birth and the point in time up to which he later remembers. What is the actual basis for this fact?

Yes, the powers of the soul through which we remember what we have experienced are already present in human nature before the point in time to which we remember. No power, not even in the spiritual, comes into being - this is a law that applies to the spiritual life just as it does to the physical life, where it is recognized - all powers only transform. The forces that we can call powers of remembrance, and which play such a great role in the continuity of our soul life, are also there before the point in time to which we remember back. But what is the task of these forces before this point in time? They have the task of having a formative effect in the human organism; they are formative forces.

When a person enters into physical existence, they must first work through what they have inherited in a plastic way over a certain period of time – this can also be followed anatomically and physiologically – and they work through it from the inside out. The still undeveloped nervous system and other organs are first plastically worked through by the inner forces of the soul. And what is said here in a figurative way, but points to a reality, is that at a certain point in time, the to which one remembers back, the human outer physical organism is so hardened, so plastically worked through, that these formative forces can stop their forming, their plastic shaping. At this point, because the formative forces are no longer used for the plastic shaping of the body, the body begins to no longer absorb these formative forces into itself, but instead it throws them back into the interior of the soul, it throws them back like a mirror. At this point, we begin to no longer pour our soul activity into the body. The reflecting back of soul activity is the basis for all human memory.

We really do face our body like a mirror, and memory in particular can show us how our inner spiritual experience is a sum of reflections. When we stand in front of a mirror, we have nothing else to do but passively surrender to what is happening. The physical forces cause an image to be reflected back by the mirror on its own. But now let us assume that we were able – which is of course not possible in the external physical world – to do through our own power what otherwise the mirror does: we would be able to experience ourselves inwardly, to experience ourselves so strongly that we could present an image of ourselves without a mirror – we cannot do this physically, but it can happen spiritually and psychically. It can happen spiritually and mentally, because the soul intensifies its experiences of thinking, feeling and willing. Then the soul is able to intensify the power that otherwise confronts us in our ordinary daily lives as the power of remembrance, so that the soul no longer needs the body to experience images inwardly, as it otherwise only has such images in its memory from past contemplations. Then the soul comes to such an inner strengthening that it really stands there as if we were casting a mirror image into the air through our bodily forces, without a mirror being present. The forces by which the soul, as it were, forms a mental image of itself, without taking into account the reflection of the body, do not lie in ordinary everyday consciousness, but must first be brought up from the depths of consciousness through a strengthening of the soul life. But when the soul does draw up these powers, which are always within her but unnoticed by her in ordinary life, then she has experienced inwardly what works as formative forces when the human being has received his body from his ancestors. Then she lives in these formative forces, not in something that is conveyed through the body but that first forms the body itself. Then something similar happens to the soul as to hydrogen when it is really lifted out of the water.

Through such inner soul processes, the soul is really freed from the body, so lifted out of the physical, that it now experiences itself in that which is independent of the body, yes, on which the body itself depends. You see, if you just look at what the soul experiences within itself, you do not get to what was there before birth or, let's say, conception and what can go through the gate of death. Rather, you have to go below the surface of ordinary life, so to speak, and bring up deeper forces that only express themselves when the soul has become free from the body; and this liberation can really occur, and the methods by which it occurs are precisely those that can be called those of a spiritual chemistry.

But then, when we have released the soul, it really does confront us with different qualities from the physical, just as hydrogen does from water. While we, when we are in the ordinary everyday life, certainly need the body to have images before the spiritual vision, when we have detached the soul, we are authorized, induced, if we want to experience anything, to experience it out of the inner, active powers of the soul. Man must make a constant effort, must be constantly active. If he wants to become a spiritual researcher, he cannot just give himself up passively.

So the first thing we encounter is a strengthening, an intensification of what we otherwise encounter in the power of recollection, in the power of memory; it is a free forming, now again of images, which are called imaginations, that one sets up by becoming aware inwardly, through experiencing, of what the soul is, free from the body. The soul creates its own counter-image and becomes aware that, beyond the body, it is something that can carry it through the gate of death. Because one expects that a person can stop at the inner experiences that he already has in everyday life, one makes so many mistakes in relation to immortality.

If you still believe that you can answer the question, “What is immortal about the human being?” by looking at what a person experiences inwardly in their soul in everyday life, then you cannot refute the arguments of someone who wants to prove immortality, because they will always be right. It is simply uncomfortable to be put in the position of having to find completely different concepts than one has, to find a completely different scientific language and way of speaking, so to speak. That is what one experiences again and again when such things are discussed; then comes the one who wants to refute them and says: I have these or those ideas that contradict what you have said. Of course, the person speaking knows this all by himself; because from the concepts and ideas that one already has, one cannot find immortality; one must move on to other concepts, just as one cannot find a concept of hydrogen from the ideas one has about water. The last thing we come to in our ordinary mental life is the passive memory that our bodily organization helps us to have. The first spiritual-scientific activity through which we enter the immortal human being is an activity carried out by the soul freed from the body, which, through its own inner strength, conjures up an image of the soul being.

But when we develop our soul through the path into the spiritual worlds, then our ordinary thinking, as we have it, in which we spread ourselves with our senses over the outside world and then inwardly make thought images, actually becomes different in our soul. It becomes different. Just as the power of memory is transformed into a higher power, so is the power of thought transformed into a higher power. While our thoughts are usually fleeting shadows of thoughts, the soul begins to perceive the path that also leads to, I would like to say, free formation of imaginations from memory. Yes, out of the life of thought something develops that one could compare to a shadow that one has recognized as a shadow suddenly beginning to develop a life of its own, or to a shadow cast by a person suddenly beginning to run away. So it is with our thoughts, they begin to develop a life of their own; one is no longer in the same position towards them as towards ordinary thought shadows.

Previously, one thought was united with another and separated from it; now thoughts begin to develop a life of their own. A thought becomes saturated with reality, as it were, it becomes substantial and goes like an inner essence to another thought. The life of thought becomes saturated with reality, it fills itself. One lives one's way out of the life of thought-shadows into the living weaving, to which thinking itself chooses and arises.

And so it is with the life of will and feeling. We experience the life of will in our ordinary existence, in that we do this or that through the mediation of our body; it emerges from the life of desire. What one experiences as will, and of which one says that it comes from one's soul, ceases to have this form. One learns to recognize how something flows into the life of the will that is outside of oneself, something that is outside of the soul, how one is taken up into a will that goes through the whole world. One is thus lifted out of one's body with its thinking, feeling, willing, and remembering and is transported into another world.

But one stands in relation to the body and also in relation to the external life in the same way as one stands in relation to external objects in sensory perception. Just as one stands in relation to the table and looks at it from the outside, so one looks at the body and the ordinary experiences between birth and the moment when one begins the observation; one sees them as something external because one has left the body with the soul. That is why it is so incredibly important that on the path the soul has to take into the spiritual world, self-knowledge plays a major role, real self-knowledge. And anyone who knows how difficult self-knowledge is and how far removed it is from everyday life, realizes that it must be difficult to come to the inner experience of the soul through spiritual research, in which the soul experiences itself independently of the body with completely new qualities.

If we look at what people have in terms of self-knowledge, we will have to admit what has just been said. One example among many will be given. A very famous contemporary philosopher, Dr. Ernst Mach, made a very remarkable statement on the third page of his famous book “Analysis of Sensations” about, I would say, a lack of self-knowledge with regard to the very utmost. The famous contemporary philosopher tells the following story about himself.

He says: As a very young man, he was once walking down the street and encountered a person whom he felt was: “What a repulsive face is coming towards me!” And then he discovered that he had passed a mirror and that the mirrors were tilted so that he saw his own image. So he mistook this for an “unsightly face”, so little did he have an idea of his own face. And further on, he recounts how, when he was already a university professor, he got on a bus after a tiring train journey and saw someone else getting on as well. He thought: what kind of down-at-heel schoolmaster is getting on here? And again he had to discover that it was his own mirror image that had confronted him there. So I recognized, he said, my generic habitus better than my individual special habitus.

Just as it is far removed from a person in the ordinary course of life to look at their own physical form, it is even further removed from them to somehow do something to really get to know their soul, to really see through it. But if you want to go the spiritual path, the path of supersensible research, which, as it were, tears the soul out of the body, you have to support yourself with self-knowledge. Because only by not just considering what you do now, but how you are actually characterized, so that you have the habit of presenting things in a certain way, how you are more in the depths of the soul , only in this way can one develop the ability needed to truly visualize the very different qualities of that which is immortal in the human being, in contrast to what one usually has before oneself as one's own soul being.

If I come back to the fact that the first property of the soul when it enters the spiritual world, when it grasps its immortality, is an advanced ability to remember, a freely formative ability to remember, then it must be said that this kind of inner soul activity is now quite different from that of ordinary memory. This kind of inner ability can be compared to a habit that one has acquired. For example, once you have really mastered the art of presenting something in the imagination through the strengthening of the soul's powers, which is now the counter-image of the soul free of the body, then it is not possible, for example, to recall this counter-image of the soul free of the body at a later point in time as you would recall something that you have experienced earlier with your ordinary power of recollection.

With the ordinary power of recollection, one has images that emerge from the horizon of the soul's life. This is not the case with what the soul experiences as its immortal being. Even if one has experienced it once, it is in vain for it to emerge; one must bring it up a second time through the same activities as the first time. It is difficult enough to remember a fleeting dream, because the dream only arises when the powers that summoned up the dream are set in motion. It is much more difficult to relive an experience of the kind described through the ordinary power of memory, because it is not there as an image. The image must be evoked anew. What remains is the intensified experience of the soul itself. These are therefore completely new forces, and to get close to them, one must acquire new ideas and new concepts.

What is immortal in the human being lies, I would say, veiled by the ordinary life of the soul. And what one thinks and feels and wills in the ordinary life of the soul is not enough to characterize what is immortal in the human being. But this immortal part of our nature lies behind our ordinary mental life, and spiritual research is the method of bringing this immortal part to the surface. And when a person has truly strengthened his soul powers to such an extent that he can, in free inner activity, transform what his nature is into images, then the supersensible world reveals itself to him through several stages.

The first thing that happens when one has strengthened and fortified one's inner soul life through the processes just mentioned is that one sees the world, which one also faces when one is in the body, from a point of view that the soul takes up when it is now outside the body. Everything is different there. For example, we cannot think about things outside the body in the same way as we do in the body; for the life of thought in the body consists in the soul invisibly ruling over everything and casting its inner rays of activity onto the body, which reflects them back to it. These are then the thoughts; basically they have no external essence.

But when we face the same world from outside the body, then we cannot think in this way; because then we cannot reflect back from the body the inner soul activity, but must reflect it back from that which is outside the sensory. Then we must live and weave in the supersensible; then we must let the spiritual radiate back to us from the things themselves. Then no thoughts are radiated back to us, but we experience what previously animated thoughts are. Thus we experience the shadows of thoughts that have come to life. We feel, as it were, spread out over everything we look at. When we are outside the body with the soul, we unite with everything that can become the object of our contemplation, and we live ourselves into what is thought activity. But these are now thoughts that are moving and full of life.

And it is similar with the life of feeling and will. We are now poured out over that which is just outside of us when we are in the body. There we experience that in fact everything that is otherwise present to us in shadowed thoughts, in abstract thought images of things, is essentially alive. The world is then filled with a hidden essence that lies behind the sensory existence. We immerse ourselves in the world of colors that appear to us on a surface, living within the surface and perceiving the external creation of the color. We immerse ourselves in a world of elementary movement. This is the first stage, I would say, of how we experience the world outside the body. All abstract thought ceases, everything is in motion, and we ourselves are placed in the midst of the moving life. And when we have completed the first step and what we undertake in intimate soul development continues to have an effect on this soul, then we arrive at another step. In this first step of spiritual experience, we have, as it were, seen the same world that we see within the body from the sensory side.

But the next step is that we really perceive a completely new world that has nothing in common with the external sense world. Perhaps I can express myself most easily by pointing out the following. In my “Occult Science” I have tried to describe how our Earth, as it is now, with all that is developing on it, has emerged from earlier planetary conditions, how it was another world body before it became Earth. I then tried to describe this other world body that perished first. Since nothing of this other world body remains today, it can only be seen by making real observations of the cosmos from outside the body, for then the perspective also opens up into periods of time that cannot otherwise be surveyed.

Now I would have to describe this in such a way that anyone who considers it possible what his five senses teach him, who only wants to admit that, must basically consider that description of how the earth developed to be twisted and insane, because what is now possible on earth was impossible with the earth's predecessor and because things were possible back then, events were possible that are impossible on today's earth. But such events can only be seen when one comes out of the world in which we are now enclosed and enters a completely different world than the ordinary one. So on the next level, one comes to worlds that have completely different properties, that are quite differently designed than what can be observed from Earth. And by entering these worlds, one is now able to observe what the soul's environment is, what the soul's spiritual life is, before the soul, through birth or, let us say, through conception, takes over what is assigned to it in the way of physical, material, bodily things. One sees into it when one observes this very different world, into the world that the soul passes through from a death that has concluded a previous life on earth to the birth or, let us say, conception, where it enters this life on earth. First, the soul separates from the body, comes outside of the body and observes the world in which we also otherwise exist. But as it progresses, it sees a new world and in this world it experiences the formative forces through which it lives in a spiritual world in the times when it is not physically embodied, through the natural course of development itself.

And then, when the soul is ready to observe this spiritual world – which is a completely different world than the one we observe through the sense organs – then, in turn, from this spiritual world, it can observe what is actually the human being's deepest core of being and what goes through births and deaths, what is truly the eternal, the immortal part of the human soul. We only become aware of that which dwells deep within us when we look at it from another world with different characteristics than from this world, which is only an image, drawn [by] our soul from the mirror of the body . We get to know ourselves in our deepest innermost being from the horizon of a world that we do recognize, but within which we are not aware of our innermost being, even though it is in us if we only make use of everyday powers. And only when we look at our inner being from this other world are we able to look back at past lives on earth, for they can only be glimpsed by looking at the supersensible in human nature.

Of all our previous earthly lives, what we experience in everyday life as mortal people has passed away. The eternal, which also rests in our being as our essence in all this transience, has gone through births and deaths, through life between birth and death, then again through life in the spiritual; it will go through life, which in turn will pass between death and new birth and new birth and death. The immortal begins where the mortal ends, which is a fleeting parable of it. The immortal rests deep within human nature and is connected to worlds hidden from sensory observation. So it is not by invoking a definition or anything else, but by describing how the soul finds its way to other worlds than those given by the senses, that one can shed light on the question, I would say show the way to illuminate this question: What is immortal in the human being?

Times will come when what has been indicated here in brief words, as it were in charcoal drawings, will be regarded as real science, just as physics and chemistry are regarded as real science today. No matter how many habits of thought may stand in the way, humanity will get used to drawing this supersensible into the realm of the scientific. Indeed, just as humanity has become accustomed to accepting the ordinary physical world view of the Copernican worldview, which also contradicts the statements of the five senses – the physical must, when seen in the right light, be accepted, that it contradicts the statements of the five senses – and humanity has become accustomed to it, will become accustomed to accepting a science from the supersensible, even if this science contradicts what are usually called the statements of the five senses and of the intellect. And in our time it is the case that for centuries external science has indeed made progress. This external science leads - we must admit - in a quite understandable way to denying the possibility of answering the question: What in the human being is immortal?

Let me emphasize once more: everything that is said, that with a slight destruction of our brain our soul life is disturbed, and that this proves that the soul life is connected to the brain, all this is irrefutable. And it is not the science of immortality that will triumph and become established in culture, which is therefore fought by natural science, but the one that admits that natural science is right from its point of view with its assertions. The science that first seeks the immortal in the human being through the paths that the soul must first go through, the science will triumph that does not speak in the ordinary scientific language about the known, but that speaks of the immortal as something still unknown to the ordinary soul life. Misunderstandings regarding natural science arise simply from the fact that today it is easy for the natural scientist to win the argument when it comes to what he is told comes from a supposed spiritual science. He only needs to point out how brain disorders disturb normal thinking, how with age the soul life weakens. What weakens are only the images of that which must first be found, and if one contradicts him, then one only disturbs him, then one only makes him unruly; for he is right for what he alone sees as soul life.

Humanity will have to get used to digging much deeper if it wants to meet the needs of a science of the supersensible in the future, as these needs are already consciously present in numerous human souls and unconsciously in countless others, so that these human souls can no longer be satisfied with what the old traditions or emotional ideas can give them when it comes to the question: What is immortal about the human being?

But a spiritual science will enter into cultural development that will investigate the immortal essence of the human soul in such a way that it will not contradict the fact that the immortal cannot be recognized from what is seen of the human being in everyday life any more than hydrogen can be recognized from water. A spiritual science will enter into human cultural development that will speak of what must be discovered as the immortal in man. It is there, but it must be discovered, just as what applies to science was always there but had yet to be discovered. And just as there was once no natural science in the modern sense, but rather it only emerged, so what is immortal in the human being is always present at the bottom of the mortal part of the human soul, but it must first emerge for consciousness. and will, as the need for the development of such knowledge arises, become for people that which will fill them with comfort, certainty, and strength in the most difficult moments of life and which will answer questions for them that ordinary science cannot answer.

A time will come when human life will only be half complete if it knows nothing of what spiritual science brings forth. And even if many people still believe today that one can live without this spiritual science, life needs will develop throughout humanity that will make spiritual science, in the sense indicated today, an absolute necessity for life. Today, things are still such that someone who stands firmly on the ground of natural science cannot be refuted by what is usually meant by the immortal soul, since he must be right in his objections; but times will come when it will be recognized that these objections can certainly be made, but that they do not apply to what spiritual science really reveals about the immortal nature of man.

If you have a mirror that has irregularities, then the reflection will also be irregular, and if you don't have a mirror at all, then no reflection will be visible, and you will realize that these are the comparisons for the immortal soul with the bodily life. If something is disturbed in the physical, then the mortal soul must be disturbed, and what science says must be right. Likewise, when something in the body has become unusable towards old age, the ordinary life of the soul, which is the only one experienced, cannot express itself. In the future, true spiritual science will be in complete harmony with what natural science has to say; but many of the prejudices still clinging to people today will have to be overcome.

For example, certain philosophical concepts about the human soul will have to be overcome. I know very well what philosophy has said about the concept of substance; but everything it thinks about what develops as soul is such that it lets something substantial, which is in some way a finer form of what one usually has before one, go through the gate of death, while what really goes through is a purely spiritual thing, a spiritual process, and leaves behind everything one has in ordinary experience. But we have heard that the first supersensible power of the soul is a further development of the power of memory, that it is a higher form of the power of memory. And that is important, because as the soul passes through the gate of death, it develops such abilities in the time it then undergoes, abilities to which, above all, this heightened power of memory, this looking at the counterpart of what the soul itself is, develops. This means that what remains for the soul after it has passed through the gateway of death, from the present life, is a real higher memory, a looking back at this life.

Nothing in the true spiritual-scientific sense contradicts the accepted fact that man, as he passes through the time between death and a new birth, can always look back in a higher memory on what he has gone through here between birth and death. I would like to say: where memory ends, higher memory begins, and after death we are in full, living contact with what we have experienced here. These are undeveloped, primitive thoughts that can still cause anxiety in people, as if the connection, the insight into what they have experienced here, was missing. She is not missing that. In its spiritual existence, with its completely different abilities and characteristics, the soul experiences a full connection, a continuation of the life it undergoes between birth and death, with what lies between birth and death. And that is the significant thing, that by artificially lifting itself out of the body, the soul develops an increased, heightened power of memory as its first strength. Just as this supersensible, cognizing soul can form the counter-image of itself, so after death it has the power of beholding in vision what it has experienced in the body. One must always bear in mind that the properties of the soul, which are really being investigated through spiritual science, are contained just as little in everyday life as the properties of hydrogen are already contained in water.

A science as spiritual science is in store for humanity, which is not just an abstract science, not just a science of thought, but which, in its effects, will pour into the life of feeling, into the life of feeling, into the life of the soul, so that the anxious question may arise for the human being in the future: What is it that is immortal in the human being? Then he will know that there is a spiritual science that speaks of that in the present human life that is independent of death and birth. Then the human being will know that his immortality does not begin only after death, but that what is immortal are the forces that are present in ordinary life, but below the surface of this life. And the forces that are needed for the new life of the future for the human being will flow from such an awareness of his living, immortal part.

Those people who will say that one should not concern oneself with this immortality will be confronted with the beneficial content of the human soul that spiritual science will bring, just as the person who says, “I have a piece of round iron in front of me; you say that there is a hidden power in it. What does that matter to me?” The other person will put the iron to higher use, who admits the magnetic power that is hidden in the iron. He brings about a full life, which must belong to the person who not only knows what everyday life shows, but who knows that it is permeated by the immortal core of being that goes through birth and death of the human being. And it may be mentioned, even if it is not directly related, that this spiritual science, as it is meant here, is really what was pointed to yesterday as a possible fruit of precisely German idealism.

As I said, even if it is only externally demanded by the events of the time, what is to be said now may perhaps be said after all. We see how German intellectual life at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries developed into the thoughts of German philosophical idealism in Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, the philosophers who are so strongly opposed today, whose greatness will only be recognized again. What is the peculiarity of this German idealism, as it also extends to the poets Lessing, Herder, Schiller, Goethe and so on? The essential thing is that these personalities feel something living in the life of thought and that they do not merely speak of these thoughts as one speaks of the shadows of thoughts in ordinary life, but they sense that there is really something living in thoughts, even if spiritual science could not yet be a product of its time; but they speak of the reality of thoughts. Today we know that this comes from the fact that when the soul lives itself out, it no longer lives in thought shadows, but shows this shadow life that is outside. It is for this reason that, just as the fruit is hidden in the blossom, something is now showing itself that can truly give us the sure hope that in the development of German spiritual life, which is currently flowing away, the path from idealism to true spiritual science will reveal itself. There are various signs of this.

Indeed, other nations have also endeavored to penetrate into the spiritual world, but they have always done so in a much more external way. When one sees how a philosopher, Troxler or Schubert, who is not at all [well-known] today, endeavored to ascend into the supersensible world by enriching the soul, not by wanting to ascend through external machinations, then one sees the inner path of spiritual development into spiritual science. And in the work of one thinker, in the wide-ranging work of Herman Grimm, one can see how the spiritual outlook of German intellectual life, its roots and blossoms, are everywhere bearing fruit. Two examples will suffice.

Herman Grimm is an admirable art historian. In this artistic research, one sees how he immerses himself in the work of art, how he brings to life from within, from the other soul, that which he wants to represent, how he really goes out with his soul even in artistic contemplation. If one asks oneself about the reasons and does not want to stray into the abstract, then one finds the reasons for this special ability in the way he himself has behaved in his poetic work of art. He says, for example, having written a novella, “The Singer,” or a novel, “Invincible Forces,” that he wants to pour consciousness into these works of art, that life is not limited to what happens between birth and death, but [with what] lies beyond death.

In the “Songstress”, a man falls in love with a somewhat flirtatious female character, and then descends into a terrible existential despair and shoots himself. Now it is shown how the friend of this man has to watch over the singer during the next few nights, how this singer – as Herman Grimm presents the matter, one has the distinct feeling that he does not want to present something that is suggestion, but something that is connected with the objective processes of the world – that this singer, unable to sleep, speaks to the one who has to watch over her. Then the man who shot himself comes in through the door and approaches her. And one sees that this is not meant to be an ordinary story of imagination, but that Herman Grimm wants to describe how what happens in life has a lasting effect. It is shown how the death of the singer is connected with what is left of the other, that life extends beyond ordinary life.

And if spiritual science, which I have cited as the soul separated from the body, that with a certain part becomes visible again to clairvoyant vision, it shows us that through the particular shock of life, the person who has broken away through death, that it is really him who appears. I do not give such examples because they happen to occur in literature; only the spiritual scientist, who looks at things in a specialized way, can say: This representation is appropriate for Herman Grimm. This matter should be brought up so that it is shown how such a spiritual experience gradually presents itself in outstanding spirits, that they themselves artistically and truly represent how the human being reaches beyond death with his or her immortality.

And in the novel 'Unüberwindlichen Mächten' (Insurmountable Powers) by Herman Grimm, he shows how the beloved is shot dead, but in his immortality remains in the spiritual world, while the bereaved lover dies. She already has the germ of death in her body and she dies. And now Herman Grimm, in a wonderfully expert presentation, shows how - as Emmy, that is her name, dies - a form is lifted out of the body, hand out of hand, head out of head, a spiritual image of what was physical. There we see how truly, I might say, the fruitful urge of spiritual science was contained in the flowering of German intellectual life, in German idealism, and, continuing to work, produced a spiritual current that points to what spiritual science seeks today.

If only people who want to study the most intimate essence of the German national spirit would go to the right places, they would not portray a somewhat narrow-minded schoolmaster as the type of German, as Rolland does, but would see how great and powerful things are being prepared behind what is alive in German cultural development today. Hundreds of preparatory works could be cited to show how the formative forces in German intellectual life point to spiritual science.

Among the many hundreds of examples, the following may be cited: A school director in Bydgoszcz who lived a lonely life and died in 1868 wrote a treatise on the immortality of the soul. It is not of particular value because it presents rational arguments that can be refuted by science. But the person to whom this school director – Johann Heinrich Deinhardt was his name – left his estate could testify that Deinhardt had intended to publish a second edition of his aforementioned essay. In it, he wanted to cite all the rational arguments that he had cited, but at the same time explain how it had become clear to him through an inner deepening of the soul forces that the soul develops a higher, an ethereal body within the physical body, which it carries through the gate of death so that it can continue to live in a new body afterwards. This new body, of which Deinhardt speaks, is nothing other than what the spiritual scientist experiences by freeing the soul from the tools of the body. Thus we see how the first shoots of spiritual-scientific fruits are appearing everywhere within German intellectual life.

Especially when we compare this German spiritual culture with other spiritual cultures, we find that this spiritual culture is particularly suited to follow the path that must be the path into the spiritual world in the future, namely the path that leads through energization, through strengthening the forces of the human soul itself, to that which otherwise does not enter human consciousness at all. This is what I, as I said, even if only externally related to what should be explained today, what I - perhaps not for a logical, but for a feeling context - but I was allowed to mention in a time when, through the events of the time, the question “What is immortal about the human being?” comes before our soul in such a meaningful way every day, where death raises the question of the immortal a hundredfold every day, where we see how our courageous, self-sacrificing contemporaries go to pass through the gate of death, and not with the will with which they go through the gate of death, want to give evidence for a materialistic world view, but for the fact that in them consciously or unconsciously lives the certainty: With death, not just death, a life, a higher life in the most diverse forms, is achieved.

The longing for a certainty regarding the question of immortality is already palpable today. It will become ever more intense and ever more burning. And in this respect, too, the present fateful times, which can be a torch that, in its glow, indicates that the time has come for humanity to develop a new search and a new quest regarding the question of immortality. This search and quest will lead to a spiritual science. Some strokes about the nature of this spiritual science should be given today. Above all, it should be indicated how the spiritual researcher of the future will show the person raising the question that we are considering today something that first separates itself from ordinary human life and which, through the way it presents itself, proves itself to be the immortal part of the human being.

I only wanted to hint at how humanity of the future will be able to educate will be able to educate themselves about the question of what is immortal in man, just as people today educate themselves about what is contained in material forces, with physicists and chemists. Just as today not everyone needs to be a chemist, a physicist, a biologist in order to benefit from the achievements of chemistry, physics and biology in the most diverse forms, so in the future not everyone needs to be a spiritual researcher if they want to strengthen their life with what spiritual research can give them. And if one only clears away the prejudices of the present time, its habits of thought, one will learn to admit that although the results of spiritual research can only be found by that research itself, that however the healthy human understanding, the healthy sense of truth of every human being can see, grasp, find corroborated what the spiritual researcher says. It is not that anything in the human soul is in truth contrary to the statements of spiritual science, but it is the prejudices with which man lays obstacles in his own way, that still hold back spiritual science today.

But with this I would like to summarize in a few words what formed the actual content of today's reflection, by expressing in a few lines the feelings that arise from this reflection. What can pour into the whole mind as an awareness of the one who will raise the question “What is immortal about the human being®” in the future, that is what I would like to express in the following lines, which are intended to be the result of the mind of what I have tried to express.

The senses speak to man
The things in the vastness of space;
The power of the soul proclaims itself
The change in the course of time.
Awakening itself to a spiritual being,
Man's inner being frees itself
From the body's limitations
And in thought beholds realities
Of the own existence's deep rule
In the realm of eternities.

Basel, April 9, 1915

Dear attendees! It is impossible to convince someone directly or to want to convince someone with a consideration in the field of spiritual science, as it is to be undertaken this evening, and it would be naive to assume such. For spiritual science as such, as it is meant here, is in the early stages of its development, and it only wants to gradually become part of the cultural development, of the spiritual life of people. Today, the ideas put forward by spiritual science completely contradict the usual conceptions of the widest circles. And it is much more natural, I might say much more to be expected, that objections arise against things as they had to be said this evening, that these things are seen as fantasies, as dreams. This is much more to be expected than if the things were immediately approved. In particular, anyone who has become familiar with the field of spiritual science or its results will not assume that they can easily convince anyone. Rather, what is the result of spiritual science must very slowly and gradually, as has always been the case with spiritual progress in the world, become part of our thinking habits, our whole way of conceiving of time.

And so it is only too understandable, even self-evident, that from many sides – and many more sides could be cited than can be mentioned in this introduction – objections and contradictions, even ridicule and mockery, must be raised against the results of spiritual science today. Above all, the most obvious objection is that spiritual science contradicts the well-founded achievements and ideas of natural science, which has made such great and powerful advances in our time. Today's lecture will perhaps be able to shed some light on this objection in particular. But objections also arise from other quarters, and as will hopefully become clear in today's and tomorrow's lectures, I would say understandable but unfounded objections.

The religiously inclined person, the adherent of this or that religious community, easily thinks - and I say again: understandably - that spiritual science could somehow behave in a hostile or antagonistic manner towards the religious deepening and religious life of the human soul. And in particular, there will still be many people today who are convinced that spiritual science - in that it wants to lead the soul to a world that is not the world of the senses and not the world of the ordinary mind, to a world of spiritual entities and spiritual activities - must fall into all sorts of superstitious beliefs and somehow spread them among those who want to become followers of spiritual science.

In particular, I might say that certain contemporary views must be ridiculed when spiritual science asserts its most fundamental tenet, namely, that man in his totality , in his totality, is not merely that which meets our external senses, that which he appears to himself for his external senses and that which he appears for the intellect, which is bound to the brain, to the nervous system. It is quite natural that from certain points of view today not only this is seen as a reverie, but that it is also ridiculed when it is said that this physical human being, as studied by ordinary science, this physical body, as it must be considered by many today as the only real thing - I must say - is not the only thing that can be recognized in a human being, but is, this physical body, only one limb of the entire human being.

Supernatural and invisible, as it were, - that is one result of spiritual science - in this physical body and underlying it, there is a fine, spiritual human being, who, in a certain way, as we shall see, is even the actor, the producer, the originator and activator of the physical body. And when spiritual science speaks of calling this second, supersensible, invisible body the etheric body, it is, as I said, quite understandable that such a result is presented as a blind assumption, ridiculed as a fantasy. And if spiritual science cannot be satisfied unless it establishes, in addition to this physical man, the spiritual man just mentioned, but must assume a higher link of human nature in addition to this, and if from some quarters this higher link of human nature is called the astral , for reasons that we shall return to today, then, as I said, it would be almost naive to believe that such assumptions would not be ridiculed from the point of view that is often considered the only scientific one today.

In the course of our present study, we want to create a little foundation for such supersensible members of human nature by presenting to the soul's mind the way in which spiritual science can arrive at such assumptions, what the spiritual scientist has to do in order to be allowed to present such assumptions to human knowledge.

True, real spiritual science is entirely in harmony with natural science as it has developed with its wonderful results. Indeed, it not only harmonizes with it, but it even wants to be a true, genuine successor to natural scientific research for spiritual phenomena, for the phenomena of the spiritual world. And when today, with regard to the life of the soul, the radical natural scientist says: Do we not recognize that this life of the soul, as it lives and develops in man, stands in intimate connection, in relationship, with the physical phenomena? Or does it not follow from this that this life of the soul is absolutely materially dependent, like the light and warmth of the flame, on the physical, material life? When the scientist of today, I say not out of a certain irreligious feeling, but out of his most fundamental conviction, presents this, then it must be said that true spiritual science, as it is beginning to develop today, for that, what natural science really has to say in relation to what has been hinted at, does not contradict natural science. On the contrary, it is entirely in agreement with natural science on all that is the legitimate result of natural science.

If we look at the soul as it initially presents itself in life, as we go through this life between birth and death, if we look at this soul life when we see through ourselves through self-knowledge with regard to our inner soul life, we can say that this soul life takes place in thinking, feeling and willing. And basically, in these three activities of the soul life, in thinking, feeling and willing, we have the scope, the horizon of the soul life before us. And if someone who does not yet stand on the ground of spiritual science, but would have the need, I would like to say, to understand something of the human being, to assume something that goes through the gate of death and after death dwells in a spiritual world, when such a one looks at the ordinary thinking, feeling and willing that presents itself in the everyday life of man and then, for some philosophical or other reason, would say: This thinking, feeling and willing is something that has nothing to do with the material processes in the human body, and if someone wanted to save the soul of man from physical destruction or from physical nature in general , the scientific researcher would come and say: But just look, it only takes a slight injury to the nervous system for this thinking, feeling and willing to be undermined. So, just as light and warmth depend on the flame, on the fuel, so does thinking, feeling and willing depend on physical processes. If these are interrupted in any way, then thinking, feeling and willing cannot take place in the right way.

In a plausible way, physiology, psychology and medicine know how to cite all sorts of reasons to prove that thinking, feeling and willing are entirely bound to these material processes of the nervous system, to the physical body in general.

Furthermore, it is pointed out: one can see how, in youth, with the development of the physical body, the soul life also develops; how in old age, when the activity of physical processes diminishes, thinking, feeling and willing also diminish. Does the scientifically minded person rightly say: “Can't we see that what we call the soul life is only an effect of physical and material processes?” The natural scientist may ask: “Is there anything left that could be said to enter the spiritual world through the gate of death as a living inner being?”

Again and again, the natural sciences draw our attention to an age-old contradiction in the explanation of the human soul, which we encounter in Plato's wonderful dialogue on the immortality of the human soul, which is linked to the death of Socrates. There we see how Socrates objects to Simmias, to the one who says: Ah, this whole soul life of man, we can grasp it as something like a game, the sounds of a lute, and the lute is the physical human body. When the forces of physical human life unfold, it is as if the strings of the lute unfold and produce a sound and give the context of the sounds. The physical activities and material processes of the human body give rise to the soul life, and when the lute is destroyed, the harmonies of the lute also cease. But the moment that which brings about material processes in man is destroyed, that which results from the sounding of human activities also ceases, and so does the soul life.

And it may even be said, my dear attendees, if one does not start from the subjective need of human life, from the longing for a life free of the body, then it is very difficult to escape if one only has the necessary feeling for the supporting forces of present-day scientific ideas, it is very difficult to escape from what science has to say from its point of view in the direction just mentioned. It is difficult to escape from it because the reasons that have to be given for the fact that the life of the soul, as it is known, as it takes place in everyday thinking, feeling and willing, is really demonstrably dependent on physical processes. The reasons to be presented for this are weighty for anyone who is able to see through the supporting forces of these reasons, who is at all able to enter into what present-day natural science has to give for general knowledge of the world, what it has to say.

But spiritual science stands - and this must be particularly emphasized - with regard to everything that has been said so far, completely on the ground of contemporary natural science. And there is - I cannot, of course, really mention the whole range of what would have to be mentioned now - there is nothing that can legitimately be brought forward in the indicated direction from the side of natural science that true, genuine spiritual science would contradict. Genuine, true spiritual science must fully admit that this thinking, as it confronts us in everyday life, that this feeling and willing, as it confronts us in everyday life, are the results of physical and material processes of the body and must therefore be extinguished the moment the body ceases to function at death. Everything that natural science has to say about this everyday life of the soul – and that alone is what it has to say – must also be a valid premise for true, genuine spiritual science.

But now, for the first time, true and genuine spiritual science is emerging, leading to paths of spiritual research that go beyond ordinary thinking, feeling and willing and that know how to cite yet another essence of the human soul. Yes, spiritual science says that what a person experiences in ordinary life as his thinking, feeling and willing is entirely dependent on bodily processes. But behind this thinking, feeling and willing are other soul forces, soul forces that are invisible and imperceptible to the ordinary soul life and that are independent of the physical, and that go through the gate of death when the body undergoes dissolution.

Ordinary thinking, it is carried out in such a way that, in our everyday lives, we perceive things through our senses and connect our thoughts to this perception. What we do, especially in spiritual science, must be admitted in the most serious sense that all of this is bound to the material processes of the nervous system. The actual soul does not come at all in everyday life, not even to the thinking consciousness. This soul life, as we shall see in a moment, also lies behind ordinary thoughts and ideas and it is this soul life that brings about the material processes. And because the material processes take place in the nervous system, images are created by the true soul life. These images are our thoughts. These images are, so to speak, no different from the mirror image that we see when we stand in front of a mirror.

As human beings, we stand before a mirror – this is meant to be a comparison, but it should mean something more than a mere comparison – if we cannot see ourselves, we see our image. The image is only there as long as the mirror stands before us; it depends entirely on the nature of the mirror. Dearly beloved attendees, with our soul life, with our true soul life, which spiritual science is only now discovering, which does not consist of ordinary thinking, feeling and willing, we stand like the person in front of the mirror who cannot see himself; and what this person does is that he causes processes in his nervous system in the unconscious. But this is what makes the nervous system a mirror, and thoughts and ideas are reflected back from this mirror. Thoughts and ideas are only there as long as the nervous system is able to function. Just as the mirror image has no reality of its own, so what we usually call our thinking has no reality other than as an image, a real image. It depends on the soul life being mirrored in the material processes of the nervous system.

Now, that which lives in thinking, the actual soul power, which can be compared to the person standing in front of the mirror and to whom his thoughts only appear as an image, this actual soul power must first be found through spiritual science. And in earlier lectures, I have already indicated from this point how the real, underlying soul life can be recognized in the mere pictorial existence that we experience in everyday thinking and imagining; I would like to say that which is present in thinking as the underlying soul power of thinking.

I have pointed out – you can read more about this in my books, in “How to Know Higher Worlds?” and in the second part of “Occult Science”. I can only hint at the principles of these things in the short time available to me here. I have already hinted at what then has to happen within the soul, so that what is reflected in thoughts and images in the picture becomes aware of itself, so that the life of the soul is truly grasped in that element which remains completely unconscious to it in ordinary, everyday life. What the soul has to accomplish within itself are intimate inner processes and experiences of the soul itself. If we only apply the thinking and imagining that we have in our ordinary daily experience, then we will never discover the real, supersensible soul that dwells in us and that passes through the gate of death even when the body is destroyed. For this, we have to undertake certain inner, intimate processes in our thinking, in our everyday thinking, which are called meditation and concentration of thought. I can only briefly hint at this.

While we usually follow the ordinary laws - imposed on us by the world - and let one thought follow another, in meditation and concentration, in the inner exertion and effort of thought, we try, through inner arbitrariness, to place certain thoughts, which we ourselves form or which we receive from somewhere, at the center of our attention. We try not only to let ourselves be guided by the world in terms of thinking, but to inwardly concentrate the soul's powers in such a way that these powers of the soul are directed towards a single series of ideas over a longer period of time. We endeavor to develop an inner activity of thinking, which one otherwise never develops in life, and to look with all the inner strength at a single thought; this is called meditation, concentrating on a thought.

It is not important that you merely think a thought, but that this thought is not prompted by any external stimulus, but arises from within, coming to the center of your consciousness and remaining in your soul for a long time, so that you can, as it were, survey this thought inwardly, so that your soul is directed towards it. It does not depend on what this thought says or whether it is true in relation to external appearances, but on the soul's inner focus. What matters is the soul's inner experience, what it experiences in its inwardly strengthened thought activity. It does not depend on what the soul presents. Therefore, it is better to focus on an allegorical idea that does not depict anything external. So it is important to use inner forces that one would not otherwise need for this presentation. It is then, however, necessary to have a great deal of patience and perseverance, because it sometimes takes years to develop an inner habit of thinking, so to speak, that is developed in this concentration, to such an extent that what is hidden, which lies behind thinking, which is active in thinking, as it were, but does not appear to ordinary consciousness, that this comes to consciousness. If you, and indeed often for years, in patience, energy and perseverance, I am now not just saying his thinking, but his inner powers, which underlie thinking, from the hidden, deep foundations, then you realize what it means not just to think, but to form in thought, to strengthen your inner experience in thought. What comes out of this, ladies and gentlemen, is an absolutely new experience of life, something that a person cannot have if they have not strengthened their thoughts in the way described. As I said, you can read more about this in the books mentioned; I can only give the basic principles now.

What does one find when one experiments purely in the realm of the soul and spirit? Well, dear listeners, what one finds can best be characterized by the following words: Where does ordinary thinking actually get us? If we really look at this ordinary thinking, as it develops in the human being in everyday life, with an open mind, we have to say: it gets as far as what we call remembering, as far as recollection, as far as the unfolding of memory. We have been able to point out that what actually lives in thinking stands before the bodily as before a mirror, and that what the ordinary thoughts are is reflected back by the body. But then this thinking, this imagining develops such thoughts, such ideas, which, as one usually thinks, so to speak, become ingrained in the soul life, remain there, so that later one can look back again and, without an external experience being present, what one has experienced earlier finds an echo in one's own soul life. Basically, all philosophy and all science is based on the fact that man can develop memory, that he can look back on that which is no longer present. And it is precisely with regard to that which one can call memory that the truly correct scientific conception of the world is in complete harmony with the spiritual researcher. However, one must not believe – and progressive natural science will prove this, it will prove what I will now have to explain as a result of spiritual science – one must not believe that something like a photographic image of an experience remains in the soul when it is recalled in memory. Nor should we believe that something remains in the nervous system which, when it becomes active again, has a similarity to the experiences we had years ago or even yesterday. Indeed, the ideas that people working in the field of natural science have today are still inadequate, to a certain extent. But it is precisely the direction of natural science that leads to what I am about to say.

What actually remains when we have an experience and then days or years pass and we later recall what we have experienced from the well of our memories? What remains then? Does an image remain? No.

Dear attendees, natural science in particular will prove that what remains in the body when we remember something looks, so to speak, no more like what we are remembering than the letters on a piece of paper. And we read what we remember as we read these letters. Natural science will prove that this memory bears a similarity to subconscious reading, that what remains in our memory is nothing but signs that must first be interpreted by the deeper soul life. Just as someone who would describe: There is a letter that has a vertical line, an upward line, a curve, there is a letter that has the curve ahead, then vertical lines and so on – how one does not read, but how the one who has learned to read does not describe what he on paper, but rather, through his ability to read, forms certain ideas that have nothing to do with what is on the paper, so it is with what remains as a sign in the bodily organization in relation to what we then have in the actually experienced memory. This memory is an inner reading. As I said, science will prove this, especially from its point of view. It will increasingly move away from the adventurous ideas it currently has. You will soon see that spiritual science can come to such an insight, as it has just been expressed, when other types of spiritual scientific ideas are discussed.

In this way, the human being's thinking comes to a point where it goes beyond mere perception of mirror images, to a kind of backward reading, to a subconscious backward reading. This too is a kind of mirror; but what is mirrored are only signs, not an actual image, but signs that we later evoke through what we have within us as soul power, to what the resurgence of memory then is. Let us note from this that when we weave and live in our memories, we are actually weaving and living in a truly spiritual realm. At the moment when thinking passes over into memory, a deeper, purely spiritual-soul power is already at work in this thinking; one just does not want to admit it in the ordinary way. For when we remember, we cannot conjure up the process that remained in the brain — that would be nothing more than a description of the letters. We live and weave in a real being. In a real inner experience, we are in remembrance. It is through memory that man ascends from thinking, feeling and willing, which are still bound to the body in the broadest sense, to the spiritual. And when man trains his will sufficiently, he becomes aware that when he lives in memory, he lives in the soul, in the soul that is independent of the body, in that only the signs are in the body.

When, through meditation and concentration, thinking is strengthened and enlivened in the manner described, one comes to transform this thinking itself into what it is not in ordinary life. This thinking then gains in inner activity. It is just the same with this thinking as when one stands before a mirror and makes it so active that one thereby wipes out the mirror image and then becomes aware of oneself as standing there in one's own soul-power. So it is with thinking in concentration. You extinguish the ordinary thoughts, but you awaken in the power of thinking, and then you realize: You are awakening in something that no longer has anything conditional in the body; you become aware of something completely new. You also notice the difference, which consists in the fact that ordinary thinking is completely bound to the body; if the body does not reflect the thinking back as a mirror image, it is not there. But now one becomes aware that there is a thinking that is independent of bodily experience. As I said, it is still difficult today for a person to readily admit, without the usual ideas and habits of thinking, that there really is an inner soul force that underlies thinking, and that this force becomes so aware that the person, by having this inner experience, becomes completely independent of the body. So that one can say: The thinker, by experiencing himself in the power of thinking, in his own thinking, slips out of the body and becomes independent of the body. Now he can also judge that this inner power of thinking is really something that is independent of the body. With concentration, a real process has been achieved, a soul has become something else, has become that which can know itself independent of the body.

And now, just when you have patiently and persistently and energetically done such exercises, through which you have become more and more powerful inwardly and have come to an experience, something significant occurs; an inner tragic experience occurs. I would like to say that it is like this: basically, everyone who seriously undergoes these methods of spiritual research must experience these processes. It is the case that, by concentrating and developing the soul forces on which thinking is based, we do indeed feel more and more alive inwardly. But this is only possible up to a certain point. There comes a point in the inner experience when the inner strength comes to an end, when, without exaggeration, one can say that the whole burden of an unknown world weighs on the soul. And then the possibility of experiencing this strengthened thinking disappears. One feels how this inner experience is extinguished by an unknown power. If one were to do only the exercises that I have listed so far, one would indeed come to a point through these exercises where, as if in a kind of inner, tremendous strain, one feels as if one's soul has dissolved into nothingness.

Therefore, no true spiritual scientific method can recommend for the path into the spiritual world only what has been presented to you now. Rather, other exercises must be done at the same time as this meditation, this concentration. For you have been able to see how the practice discussed so far develops and draws on the soul forces on which thinking is based. We would really enter into phenomena that would tear us apart like a tremendous resistance from an unknown power if we wanted to do this exercise in a one-sided way. In addition to this thinking, the human will must be developed, which is more the active soul power. When a person begins not only to deepen his thinking through meditation and concentration, but also to seek inner strength for this thinking, which otherwise lies hidden in the deep well of the soul life, only then does he arrive at the right thing.

Now it is of course possible - I refer again to the books mentioned - that one can also make one's life of will more and more calm and serene through intimate, inner soul-searching, that one can extract from it more and more of what the human soul's ordinary egoistic drives and passions are. But I would like to mention those exercises through which one can most surely come to an inwardly developed soul life in the same way as one comes to the development of the thinking life in the other way. There we must approach something that enters human life in such a mysterious, often terrible, but always unfathomable way for ordinary experience. This is what we call human destiny. Not that we can develop our will only in the face of fate, as it is now being presented. But it is, in a sense, a position in relation to human fate that is to be characterized now, the next way in which we can achieve this inner cultivation of the will in us.

This fate, how does it approach man in ordinary life? Well, it is often said: the blows of fate fall upon us. Something happens, and we can either be touched sympathetically or antipathetically by what happens to us; we can undertake this or that against the blows of fate, but in this life between birth and death we will feel fate as a power that shapes our lives, but to which we can only relate as to an unfathomable, mysterious power.

But if you look at this human life without prejudice, you will come to a different view of fate in ordinary life. Let us try to understand how we are what we are in this moment of life – not in the abstract, but in reality. Let us try to understand how we are what we are in reality. We can do this or that; we do this or that; we are capable of applying this or that strength, of rejecting this or that in ourselves. Let us think about how we can do this, how we have become the whole human being that we are now, how we are this. We will find that if we look back over our lives, something happened so many years ago that intervened in our lives as if by chance. If it had not happened to us, we would not have done this or that, we would not have developed this or that strength, we would not have acquired these or those inclinations. The way we are configured today is the result of what fate brought us at that time. After years, we see it quite differently. We see that fate has forged us. We couldn't even write today if we hadn't lived in the second half of the nineteenth century, when we were taught how to write.

What is it, then, that we call our self? What is it other than the result of our destiny, the result of what has flowed into us, what we now want because we want to do it, if fate had not shaped our will, forged our will, in life between birth and death? When we confront our destiny in this way, we realize that we ourselves, our ego, our self, are actually a product of this destiny, that this destiny has coagulated in our self, in our ego, just as the mass of a mineral coagulates in a crystal. We are formed out of our destiny. What we want now has coagulated out of everything that has formed our destiny.

If you live abstractly in these thoughts, they do not mean much, dear attendees, but if you look at your entire inner soul life, with the totality of your feelings and sensations, you might say, as if at something very substantial, at a fixed point, then you begin to develop certain feelings, certain sensations towards this fate. You may develop gratitude to this fate for having shaped you into what you are now, even if it has inflicted terrible and painful blows on you. But all the feelings that arise can be characterized by one common trait: you grow together with your destiny in the life between birth and death; you learn to recognize how you are a result of this destiny, how destiny is inherent in what you are. As a result, you grow together with your entire stream of destiny. What you have within you as a sense of your own identity is what you tear out of yourself and identify with intimately in the stream of fate. However, this must not remain an abstract thought, but a deep, inner experience must again be that the soul frees itself from this corporeality and now no longer feels itself as I just in its skin, but really feels itself in its stream of fate. One looks at one's destiny and says to oneself: That is you yourself; you would not be what you are if it had not been for your destiny.

Just as the power of thought frees itself from the body, as described earlier, so such contemplation - but it must take hold of the mind, the feeling, the will - frees the human being from the body and flows out into destiny.

But it does not stop there, that is the peculiar thing, but by doing the one exercise of the power of thought, which I have mentioned, and doing the other exercise, which tears him out of himself and identifies him with his destiny, he comes to stand before a truly new world. If we were to do the thinking exercise alone, we would come to the point where we say: it is as if the whole development of the world were waiting for us. But if we do the whole exercise at the same time, which relates to the will and through which an outlook on destiny can be formed, then the thinking exercise is also stimulated.

The two exercises stimulate each other and make something completely new out of the soul, tearing the soul out of the body. And while in the ordinary memory the human being must still live in his body for the images to emerge, the images of the memory of past experiences - there must indeed be signs in the physical -, we are able to develop a world of images; a completely new world that was previously unknown to us emerges. This exercise of the will must go hand in hand with the thinking exercise.

Why do I call this exercise, which is related to destiny, an exercise of the will? Because the human being comes to truly say to himself: this destiny has not just happened to me, but I have wanted it. As true as the will I develop is won from destiny, so true have I shaped my destiny out of my will. By practicing this exercise of will, the human being is able to tear his will out of himself and identify with his destiny. And so, by deepening his thinking and thereby discovering a new power of soul, a new power of thinking, and by tearing his will out of himself and developing it into a new power, the human being is able to have before him not just a world himself, but to have a world before him that he experiences in such a way that he knows, by experiencing it, that he is independent of his body, that he lives in the merely spiritual-mental.

To make us better understand each other, it should be said that man, in a certain way, knows what I have now described as a world of images that appears before man when he discovers a hidden power within himself through meditation and concentration. Man knows what I am talking about, but he knows it in a merely chaotic way, in chaotic images, in scraps of imagination. When a person sinks into sleep every day, dream images can arise from this, as is well known. But what do we have in front of us in these dream images? Now, you see, when a person lives in their dreams, as is the case in ordinary life, there is nothing special in these dreams. But when one gradually comes to discover the power of thought as a deepened power within oneself, then one knows that with the soul, with which one steps out of the body, one is now also out of the body in sleep, only one remains unconscious in the process.

One is not in one's body during sleep, one has gone out of the body with what one has discovered in the described way. But one has not developed the powers initially, so the soul remains unconscious when it is outside the body. But the dreams can emerge. They arise from the fact that the human being is bound to the body by an inner force. During waking life, the body reflects the soul life in thinking, feeling and willing. Dreams are formed from the body mirroring the soul life. In this state, the human being does not understand what is happening. Only as a spiritual researcher can one understand that during sleep one is really outside of the body. Only a spiritual researcher can understand that the body is an object for the sleeping soul outside of it. Because the human being does not yet have a full understanding of these things, they interpret everything in the context of ordinary life. Only when one's soul life deepens, as I have described, one does not come to a dream life only, not at all to a dream life only, nor to something morbid, somnambulistic, but one comes to a life that also takes place in images, but in images that one knows mean something real, that they are not mirror images.

What do these images mean? By developing the soul power on which thinking is based, one encounters something that is like a memory power that is no longer bound to bodily signs but develops freely in the soul-spiritual. It is not at all like the kind of thing we know as somnambulistic clairvoyance, but an inner life comes to meet us, which, in terms of its configuration, is the same as the power of remembrance. And now one can learn to decipher that which one recognizes as belonging to oneself, but which was within oneself without one consciously feeling it; that is this world of images. From this one gradually realizes that it is the world from which our physicality, our physical life, was first formed. One recognizes from what one is aware that it has connected with what has come to one as physical from father and mother through inheritance, what announces itself to us within this physical as our self, what has descended from the spiritual world and permeates and shapes us inwardly. We come to recognize ourselves as coming from a state that existed before our birth, a state in a spiritual world. An imaginative world comes towards us. But this imaginative world contains everything that unites with the physical materiality that we have inherited from our father and mother. This world contains the eternal soul, which now works in the physical body, which is mirrored in thinking, feeling and willing; the real soul life, which cannot be investigated by scientific methods, which lies behind all that is known as soul life in ordinary life. It is this that now also passes through the portal of death into a spiritual world. And our life is thereby directly included in the life that takes place in the spiritual world, in a spiritual existence. This becomes an experience for true spiritual research, a real inner experience.

And when the spiritual researcher has progressed so far as to apply this art of inner experimentation, he experiences not only what he now knows as his spiritual and psychological experience; he does not merely experience something that can so easily be ridiculed. he truly experiences that there is an ethereal, a finer existence, that he finds a finer body underlying his physical body, which descends from the spiritual world and returns to the spiritual world. He not only experiences this, but, just as we not only have eyes and ears, but also experience the things of the world ourselves, which stand outside of us, so we can, in the moment when we enter into our own spiritual being, come into contact with the spiritual being that underlies all being. We enter into an elementary world, into a world where spiritual experiences and processes take place that we have not known before and that underlie all physical experiences and processes. This is not philosophical speculation, it is not something imagined, of which spiritual science speaks; it is the result of the most serious research. It is true that this research is not carried out in the laboratory with external objects and instruments in external activities, but it proceeds in direct inner, intimate experiences of the soul itself. The soul-spiritual must be explored through methods that are applied to the spiritual-soul in man. Of course, great harm is being done to spiritual science by people who believe that they can already stand in this spiritual science, talking about all sorts of foolish things that can be attained without renunciation in one's soul, without work in one's soul that is much more difficult, much more renunciation than work in the outer natural sciences.

If it is repeatedly believed that someone who has applied this spiritual-scientific method to his soul can proclaim anything about the spiritual world, then one has a naive idea about these things. The work that needs to be done to explore the slightest thing in the spiritual world requires real inner exertion of the human soul. The soul must first tear itself away from the physical for the particular area it wants to explore spiritually, in order to place itself in the spiritual. And one cannot say that one can write down the rules by which the soul rises to a body-free realization in a small booklet and then say: Follow these rules and you will enter an area that leads into the spiritual world. Rather, one must say: what has to happen there changes according to the preconditions one brings with one. It cannot be grasped in individual rules, but one must recognize inwardly through direct experience: Now you are facing a real new world, a completely real new world, not a world of fantasy.

When we have reflected on our own soul and spirit and are able to see that, with our soul and spirit, we also enter a spiritual and soul world of supersensible processes, we can ask again: What happens when we then also develop our will using the example of fate? Where does the human being end up when he says to himself: My will is in the whole stream of my destiny; I say “Yes” to everything that has affected me; I myself have flowed out of what is the stream of my destiny; I am not in myself, but in the stream of destiny? When one really makes the experience of becoming one with destiny, then one comes to experience something even higher in human nature. We do not just experience what I have described, that I said it is there before birth. Rather, by developing our will, we experience a core of our being that lies very deep in our soul. And we gradually learn to recognize: Yes, this destiny, it is really the case that only the person who identifies this destiny with his or her being can truly grasp this destiny. Just as someone who has never heard of natural science cannot unravel the why when he sees lightning and thunder and other forces of nature outside in nature, as it stands before such a person quite incomprehensibly before the soul, but these processes can be explained by someone who has studied natural science, so it is with destiny using the spiritual scientific method. Something comes into fate that we ourselves are in our deeper essence. We flow out into our fate. But by flowing out into fate with our whole being, we get to know our inner soul core.

However, you then have to learn to use the knowledge you have gained to dissect this fate. Just as natural phenomena were only deciphered over centuries and centuries, you have to learn to decipher fate in order to find an inner order. Then we find that what presents itself as our destiny when we identify with it represents what we were in previous lives. And by getting to know the inner order of our destiny, we learn that this destiny is connected with earlier lives on earth. In this way, our knowledge of our life is not composed of an overview of our present life on earth, but we recognize that our destiny contains what was once or repeatedly present for us as an earthly life, which has now formed that which we have imaginatively recognized in images as our core being, so that it is revealed as it stands before us now. That which we explore through the power of deepened thinking, we learn to relate to our supersensible life before birth and after death. And that which we explore by deepening our will and destiny, we learn to understand in such a way that it refers us back to earlier earthly lives and points us to future earthly lives. As this fate melts together with the world of inner images, we know that this world of images is like a core that takes hold of our fate and carries it over into a life between death and a new birth, and in turn leads us into a new earthly existence.

In this way, we get to know a part of human nature by deepening our thinking. We learn to recognize, as it were, our etheric being, that which, as a supersensible body, underlies our physical body, as soul power. When the spiritual researcher speaks of an etheric body, this etheric body is found by a method that is just as reliable as the method used by the chemist to separate hydrogen from oxygen. Just as it cannot be seen from water that it contains a substance that burns, hydrogen, while water does extinguish fire, so too, when a person is standing in front of you, if you just look at the person with your ordinary mind, you cannot see that a supersensible person in this physical man lives and can extend his life beyond birth and death; but who can be investigated by just as certain, even if inward scientific methods, as it is the just mentioned method, through spiritual science, which rises with it to the rank of a real science. That which underlies man as an ethereal being — not speculation, not some kind of fantasy leads to this, but a real experience, an experience, however, that must first be developed.

By going even further and deepening our will, we come to grasp the astral human being – it is easy to ridicule the word, the 'astral' human being, but this word is justified, as we shall see presently, we come to take hold of the astral man, the human being who develops from life to life and who then becomes aware that he is no longer bound to his body but is connected with the whole world. In this way, the human being comes to recognize himself in his astral body, in that he is dependent on the whole cosmos, in which the laws of the stellar world prevail. Therefore, in a comparative expression, one can call this human being, who is not bound by the laws of what we experience between birth and death, but by the laws of the whole world, the astral human being.

You can see that anyone who approaches spiritual science can truly live in the belief that, with this spiritual science, we are at the end of a spiritual development. The spiritual scientist, as I have already mentioned here, is unconcerned when he is told: Yes, you are claiming something that you cannot claim at all if you use your five senses. You are well aware that this is also how it was said when Copernicus tried to make people understand that the Earth does not stand still and the Sun revolves around the Earth, but that, conversely, the Sun stands still, so to speak, and the Earth revolves around the Sun. This also went against the five senses, and it took a long time for people to adapt their way of thinking to what was a better truth than the earlier one that corresponded to the five senses.

That which is being researched from the depths of being must first become established in the understanding of people, despite the resistance of the world. The spiritual researcher is unconcerned that this will happen, but it takes time.

And in the same way, one can say: Yes, what the spiritual researcher has to present as a world that stands above the ordinary world of the senses is very different from what a person perceives in this world. It has to be different. For with regard to everything that the ordinary life of the soul contains, this thinking, feeling and willing, which science can only speak about when it becomes psychology, the spiritual researcher is in complete agreement with the natural scientist. He will not speak in a dilettantish way of an immortality that merely lives out in images, which must disappear with the mirror of the brain, with physicality in this form. But that is precisely the peculiarity of spiritual science: it agrees with natural science in all that it contains, and it never says that spiritual science must turn against natural science, because the spiritual researcher fully admits all the justified criticisms of natural science. He only discovers through his methods that which cannot be present in ordinary life, and which is nevertheless what is to be regarded as the eternal, immortal essence of man, who goes through births and deaths and through repeated earthly lives and who bears within him the character of the eternal.

When the natural scientist comes and says: From my way of thinking I must reject this, — then the spiritual researcher must say to the natural scientist: So give your reasons. Then the natural scientist gives the reason: The soul life is dependent on the brain. The spiritual researcher will say: You are right. He will agree with the natural scientist on all points. But he will say: Only then, after one has entered your territory, does the investigation of the spiritual-soul life begin, which has to do with completely different forces than those for which natural science is fully justified. Therefore, it is indeed a thoroughly understandable misunderstanding when one or the other objection is raised against spiritual science from the point of view of natural science. Spiritual science knows very well what it has in natural science. And it would be dilettantism in the field of spiritual science if it were to oppose natural science. And nor can it be said that the spiritual researcher cultivates superstition in any way.

This spiritual science leads into a real spiritual world. By discovering the real spiritual world - not the spiritual world that is dreamed up by those who only want to dream up a spiritual world but cannot find one - it actually confronts superstition. Spiritual science is precisely that which can and will heal all superstitious beliefs. Superstition flourishes where spiritual science is not accepted, yet people still want to enter the spiritual world. Spiritual science leads people into the spiritual world in a fully satisfying way and shows them the real course of a spiritual event behind the world of the senses. It shows the human being that his soul, as a spiritual being, is part of this spiritual world and that it formed the body itself out of this spiritual world before birth, with which it is part of this earthly life. But by discovering a real spiritual world, an unjustified spiritual world, as it underlies superstitious beliefs, is counteracted.

And as for the standpoint of spiritual science in relation to religion, here, too, one very often encounters misunderstandings. I will have to deal with this in more detail tomorrow in my lecture, which is intended to provide information about the building that we are constructing as a place of care for this new kind of science, spiritual science. Today, I have only allowed myself to speak to you about some of it, to stimulate your souls, certainly not with the intention of convincing you, but only to give you some food for thought.

The subject will be how spiritual science must be cultivated in a building that, in its artistic design, can truly serve as an environment for this spiritual science, and to show what is meant by the building, what is meant by placing spiritual science in the artistic endeavors of our time. In doing so, a spotlight will also be thrown on the extent to which it is unfounded when religious minds believe they have to address spiritual science as something hostile to religion. Today I would like to say only this much about it: While it is true that natural science with its ideas leads people to stray from religion, to become alienated from religious ideas, spiritual science, by showing people how the spiritual world is a reality, how the spiritual world really exists, will stimulate people's minds in such a way that even those who may consider themselves enlightened can in turn find a religious deepening.

Spiritual science cannot replace religion. It cannot dissuade anyone from their religion. This is because the task of religion is different from that of spiritual science. Religion must be cultivated alongside spiritual science. But by presenting itself as a science of the spiritual world, spiritual science does not, like natural science, lead people who want to be enlightened away from religion, but rather leads them to religion. And so those who are sincere about religious life must welcome spiritual science as the movement that can lead enlightened people to a deeper religious experience, to religious contemplation, to a true, genuine faith.

But I would like to talk about that tomorrow in connection with what I will have to say about the place of care that is to be built for spiritual science over in Dornach. But what I have tried to develop before you today as the basis of spiritual science should be something that can ultimately be summarized in a basic feeling of the human soul. For that is the peculiarity of spiritual science, that it does not merely stimulate our intellect, which is bound to the brain, but that it speaks to that which lives in every human soul, independently of all diversity. One should not think that one must become a spiritual researcher, but anyone can become one. I would ask you to read up on this in my books.

You don't have to be a spiritual researcher, but the spiritual researcher speaks to what is in every person, what lives in every human soul. He speaks to that in man which passes through births and deaths; to that which is eternal in the human soul. And what the spiritual researcher says can be understood by every human being, who just clears away the debris and obstacles in themselves that have arisen through today's habits of thinking. And that will, in a sense, be the spiritual scientific development of the future, that there will be individual spiritual researchers, as there are individual chemists, who will put what they produce through their research at everyone's disposal. There will be individual spiritual researchers who will be guided into the spiritual world by what has been described as the spiritual scientific method, and they will be able to speak about this spiritual world. But what they will say about this spiritual world will be able to be inscribed in every soul with understanding when the many prejudices that still exist today have been removed. But that will then be able to engender a new life in the soul, a life that the soul needs in the face of the ever more complicated and complex conditions of the outer world, which in the present time everywhere, wherever we look in the non-neutral countries, present such a sad picture. But even apart from such aspects: we can recognize that the soul will need these strong life forces in the face of ever more complicated and complex circumstances. Spiritual science wants to give the soul these strengthened life forces, which will stimulate an inner fulfillment and strengthening in it that can cope with everything that will flow into the soul, more than has ever been the case in the past.

And so I would now like to summarize, not in a rational judgment, but in a sentence of feeling, what I have tried to suggest to your souls through these reflections. For it is not what we intellectually retain and know of spiritual science that matters, but what is awakened in the soul as direct experiences of feeling, emotion, and mind, that is what matters.

And what should be stimulated by the words of the lecture, I would now like to let it flow together into an overall feeling that, like a result, should summarize the lecture and conclude it:

The senses of man speak to
The things in the vastness of space;
They have an effect on the human soul,
Changing in the course of time.
Experiencing itself, the soul seizes
The boundlessness of space,
The boundlessness of time,
The spirit's realm of being
In its eternal uniqueness.

Dear attendees! For quite a while now, I have been privileged to give lectures here in Vienna every year on topics from what I dare to call the spiritual-scientific worldview. The friends of our spiritual-scientific world view here in Vienna have been of the opinion that, even in these eventful and fateful times, it would not be inappropriate to hold two such lectures from this spiritual-scientific field this year, and this may well be because this spiritual-scientific field scientific field touches the deepest foundations of the human soul, those foundations in which the human soul is connected with the powers we call eternal, with those powers to which Goethe's words refer: “All that is transitory is only a parable.”

A consideration from the field of spiritual science is directed in particular to those foundations of the human soul, from which arise both life's harshest disappointments and its most difficult trials, as well as the admirable deeds that are being performed in such a significant way in our time for the salvation and progress of humanity. Spiritual science, dear attendees, is based on a view of life that is by no means one of the recognized ones in our present time, a view that is completely rejected by the most educated of our educated for a variety of reasons; rejected on the one hand because it is considered to be completely contradictory to everything that scientific world observation of our time, because, on the other hand, as we shall see, it is associated in a very misleading way with the shallows of human superstition, because, furthermore, it is erroneously regarded as a point of view that takes from many people that which gives them support and security in life, the right adherence to religious belief.

I hope, dear attendees, that all three misconceptions of the spiritual scientific point of view can at least be somewhat dispelled by what today's reflection will endeavor to offer. Nevertheless, it must be said from the outset that the opposition to spiritual science, and even the accusation that it completely contradicts what is even called common sense in the broadest circles today, that all these challenges and accusations are fully understandable to the person who stands completely on the ground of this spiritual science. And so understandable, so comprehensible are they to him that he must repeatedly remind people that in the course of human development, what appears to be self-evident to a bygone age, what alone corresponds to common sense, must be replaced by something completely opposite.

We must always be reminded of such a turnaround in human development, as it has been experienced at the present time, when the newer natural science has taken possession of the human world view. At the time when Copernicus introduced a new view of the spatial universe, people had to break with everything that for centuries, indeed one can say millennia, had been considered to be shown by the healthy five senses and understood by common sense. The human soul clings to that which it has become accustomed to in its thinking and imagining, just as there are people — although this is a grotesque example — who, after moving into a new apartment, still go home thinking about their old apartment in the evenings. Just as the people in this grotesque example show how they cling to their habits of thinking, so they also do so with regard to the great world-view questions and world-view standpoints. For centuries, humanity has been educated and has become accustomed to a world-view that is opposed to what spiritual science wants to bring to the present and the future. And so today one would be more surprised if, I would say, at the first hint, someone who has not yet heard of spiritual science in the sense in which it is meant here were to immediately agree with something, than if contradiction were to arise over contradiction at such a first encounter with this spiritual science.

In my last lecture here, I tried to illuminate the paths that lead to this spiritual science. Today, because I would like to touch on what the spiritual scientist can and may feel in our fateful time, I will only be able to briefly and sketchily hint at how spiritual science comes to its insights, to these insights that are just as contested and so difficult to understand today.

The first objection that must be raised, quite understandably, precisely in the souls of the present day, which are among the most educated, is that spiritual science seems to contradict everything that has been gained on the firm ground of natural science. It is difficult to realize that spiritual science, for our time and for the immediate future of humanity, seeks to achieve for the field of spiritual knowledge, for the knowledge of the soul, what natural science has achieved for external, spatial and temporal knowledge and its application in practical human life. It is also difficult to realize that this spiritual science, when examined thoroughly, is in complete harmony with all the remarkable advances that natural science has made in the course of the last few centuries. Indeed, spiritual science does not want to be anything other than the continuation of the natural scientific world view for the spiritual realm. Precisely because it aspires to this, the method of spiritual science must relate to all human activities, especially to the most intimate human activities of thinking, feeling and willing, quite differently than the external science recognized today.

The often-asserted claim that spiritual science is not in harmony with the religious feelings of man is also based on a complete misunderstanding. On the contrary, the opposite is true. Indeed, it can be said that while external natural science has often really alienated people from religious feeling, and has led many to believe that they are particularly enlightened when they reject everything religious, spiritual science, because it also scientifically points to the soul in the spiritual, will precisely strengthen religious life in people's minds. It will lead people back to religion in the most beautiful sense of the word, while external natural science has alienated them from it.

Above all, the path that spiritual science takes to its insights will be discussed. This path is described in detail above all in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds,” to which I must refer, since here I can only give a few, I might say charcoal strokes to sketch the path of spiritual science.

Human thinking and human imagination must be treated in a completely different way for the purposes of spiritual science than they are for the purposes of external science and external life. How do we behave, honored attendees, when we put thinking and imagining at the service of external science and external life? We behave in such a way that we form concepts, images and ideas about what surrounds us based on what our senses show us in our environment. And we are justifiably satisfied with this external view of the world when we come to the point where our ideas and images give us a picture of what is going on outside in nature and in human life. In the ordinary course of existence, people strive for a mental image of the life of nature and of historical life. But the power of thought, which is used in the manner indicated for ordinary science and ordinary life, must be used in a completely different way when the path of spiritual science, the path of spiritual research, is followed.

It is not a matter of the spiritual researcher thinking about what the senses externally reveal to man; it is not a matter of using thought to gain a picture of an external, perceived reality, but rather of using thought like a living force that lives in the pure inner life of the soul, I would say in a self-education applied to the soul. Thought is not used as a reflection of external reality; thought is used in such a way that it is experienced in consciousness. And it is experienced inwardly in such a way that the soul focuses on this thought, focusing in such a way that it turns its attention solely to one thought or a monotonous train of thought for a long, long time, so that what is thought , but what counts is the inner effort of the soul, the inner expenditure of the soul that one has to undergo when, through inner effort, through inner concentration, one focuses all one's attention on one inner point, on one thought, on one idea.

Where ordinary science, where the thinking of ordinary life ends, that is where the work of the spiritual scientist begins. What has to be kept in mind for ordinary science is taken up by the spiritual scientific method and is, as it were, sunk like a seed into the soil of the soul. You ask your own experience the question: What does your thought do, on which you have focused your entire soul life to the exclusion of paying attention to everything else? What does the thought do when you give yourself completely to it, when you forget everything you have ever you have perceived, what your habits, your experiences, your inclinations, your passions are, when you live solely and exclusively in this thought, when you completely immerse yourself in the life of your soul?

With this spiritual-scientific method, one comes to one's own relief when one does not even take a thought that is borrowed from the outer life. With such a thought, which reflects something from the realm of outer life, one is too tempted to look at this outer truth of the thought. But in this case it is not the external truth that matters, but what the thought brings about in us and what we experience when we allow the thought to take effect in our soul as a living essence. Therefore, it is best to fix a symbolic thought, a thought that does not depict anything external, inwardly, as it were. What I mean is this: the thought 'Wisdom shines in the light' is a simple thought; it is certainly not a truth in the sense of an external science. But that is not the point. What is important is that such a thought be placed at the center of the soul's life and that all the soul's powers, as I have just described, be directed towards this thought for a certain period of time. It is only with the experience of the thought, up to which external life and ordinary science go, that research in the spiritual realm begins. If one does not associate the word with any kind of mystical concepts in the bad sense, one calls such a life and weaving in thought, which must be continued for a long, long time with patience and perseverance and inner energy, a meditation in thought, a concentration on certain thoughts. These are, so to speak, technical expressions of the spiritual scientific method.

The spiritual researcher, esteemed attendees, when describing these things, cannot help but speak like the chemist when he briefly describes the methods he uses in his laboratory to eavesdrop on these or those natural forces and phenomena. The spiritual researcher must enter into an inner laboratory of the soul, in which he searches for everything connected with our soul's happiness, with our soul's upliftment, with all the deepest soul mysteries, soul pains and soul questions. And what he experiences in this purely inner laboratory is what he alone can speak of, the experiences of what cannot be presented in external vision, before the outer eyes, but only in the intimate inner, but objective, non-subjective inner experience. The task of spiritual science is to gradually incorporate the existence of such inner, spiritual laboratory work into the spiritual culture of humanity as a solid worldview.

Every single objection raised by the scientific worldview, honored attendees, is as well known to the spiritual researcher as what can be said against his research in general. For example, the spiritual researcher knows that it can be claimed that what the soul achieves by fixing its attention entirely on dwelling on thoughts in the intimate life of the soul is only that the soul can suggest itself, that everything the soul arrives at in this way is a kind of self-suggestion. Of course, the spiritual researcher knows this, but for someone who is not familiar with spiritual science and only knows what modern natural science has to say about the methods of suggestion, it is unknown that through the special way in which the spiritual researcher, purely inwardly, with all the soul forces that he has consciously developed, in full consciousness, directed towards some thought or other, towards some inner experience - it can also be an experience of the will -, [how] this spiritual researcher lives inwardly in that part of his soul that is put to sleep in hypnotic suggestion. It is precisely that which is put to sleep in hypnotic suggestion, while the outer physical, I might say imitates the soul functions, that is developed through the method of spiritual science. Precisely those forces are drawn from the innermost soul life, over which sleep and paralysis are spread in ordinary suggestion. All methods of spiritual research work towards making inner experience independent of outer physical experience, awakening in inner experience those strong forces through which thinking, imagining unfolds a life of its own.

And when the spiritual researcher has worked in the “laboratory of his own soul” for a sufficiently long time, then - and it is not a matter of making this happen, but of waiting for it to happen, as one must wait, as one must wait with a flowering, until its growth forces have developed through the objective world context to such an extent that it flowers - then what must appear fantastic, dreamy, absurd, and paradoxical to our present way of thinking occurs.

For what is achieved in this way, dear attendees, is a complete detachment of spiritual-mental experience from physical, bodily experience. As improbable as it may seem to someone who has never heard of chemistry that the water in front of you can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen by the forces of electricity or in some other way, that the hydrogen, which is quite different from water, can actually be extracted from water, as improbable as it must seem to anyone who has never heard of chemistry, unlikely as it must appear to anyone who has never heard of chemistry, so unlikely must it appear, of course, to someone who does not want to engage in spiritual science, that there are such inner, I might say inner-growing, thought processes through which that in man is released that is not subject to birth and death , is not subject to external life, but passes through birth and death as the eternal part of man, that this is truly detached from physical conditions and that it is scientifically grasped in its independence, in its eternal significance, of which “all that is transitory is only a parable”.

It is obvious that especially in our time, real objections arise at every turn against what is asserted in this way. It is quite natural that someone who is, so to speak, schooled in the newer, well-founded habits of thought, comes and says: Now here, here comes the spiritual researcher and talks about the fact that there are inner methods of spiritual experience by which the soul-spiritual can be released so that it appears in its original essence and independently of birth and death, just as hydrogen appears when it is released from water, from all its properties and its entire behavior.

Can we not see that this leads into the darkest depths of superstition, when science has so thoroughly demonstrated how mental and spiritual experience is dependent on physical experience, how this mental and spiritual experience grows as the human being develops through the years from childhood onwards? The soul and spiritual experience grows to the same extent that physical functions develop. We see how the spiritual life fades again in old age, when bodily functions decline or gradually become paralyzed. Furthermore, we see – and this is precisely thanks to the great advances in psychiatric research – how the mental functions are switched off with the injury of only one part of the human brain and nervous system. Do we not realize here how everything of a soul-spiritual nature is, in the most eminent sense, only an effect of the physical-corporeal? Now the spiritual researcher comes and explains that this spiritual-soul nature can be detached from the physical-corporeal.

Yes, dearest ones, if the spiritual researcher had to rebel against the well-founded assumptions of modern science, then he would have no hope of ever introducing his knowledge into the world view of mankind, because this newer science is based on good reasons, even if it still has this or that hypothetical or unfounded assertion among its assertions today. Its whole attitude, its whole inner tendency is fully justified and leads to the greatest achievements of mankind. Spiritual science will not deny this, but will admit it just as much as every natural scientist or anyone professing natural science must admit it.

But, dear attendees, spiritual science in the true sense of the word is not based on any different ground than natural science, not even with regard to everything that natural science can talk about. When we consider ordinary thinking in everyday life and ordinary science, how does it appear to the spiritual researcher? It appears to him that this ordinary thinking, that which man can muster in thinking and imagining in ordinary life and in ordinary science, is bound in the strictest sense to the life of the human body, in the narrower sense to the human nervous system. And in so far as natural science today is already beginning to show a knowledge in this direction, which promises to give much more in the future, the spiritual researcher stands completely on the ground of natural science. But for natural science it is only a matter of ordinary thinking, of the inner power of thinking that has not yet been detached from the physical. The spiritual researcher is well informed about the thoughts of everyday life, about what can be imagined in ordinary science. All this thinking of everyday life is just as bound to the physical if it is to come to consciousness in the human being as the image that is to appear to us of ourselves is bound to the mirror before which we stand.

Spiritual science in particular recognizes, through the connections it sees when it progresses along the paths that have been described, that what has now been described as a higher power in the power of thought, and to which spiritual science can arrive at, that this is actively mirrored in the organs of the bodily life and that nothing can enter into the life between birth and death in the consciousness as that which appears to the consciousness with the help of the physicality that mirrors the soul life. Just as a person stands before the image reflected back to him by the mirror and sees not himself but the image reflected back to him by the mirror, so the soul, endowed with the power that is first discovered on the path of spiritual research, stands behind the thinking that is everyday thinking; and everyday thinking is a fleeting reflection mirrored from the life of the body. All the knowledge that natural science can provide in its field is true because it deals with that which has not yet been demonstrated as the actual power that lies behind the ordinary life of consciousness and that passes through births and deaths, which belongs to a completely different world from the one we see with our senses.

Thus it can be said: spiritual science says no to nothing that science says; it only explains that one can go beyond this natural science just as one goes beyond the hand movements of ordinary life in scientific chemistry. And anyone who wants to turn against spiritual science from a scientific point of view does not turn against it because something scientific about spiritual science is doubted, but turns against spiritual science out of pure tyranny, out of the will to accept nothing but what he likes to accept. One must artificially assume the standpoint that no one is allowed to know anything other than what one knows oneself if one wants to reject spiritual science in its claim to continue the path of natural science.

But now, dear attendees, as I said, the spiritual researcher can, to a certain extent, allow the other person, who has not yet approached spiritual research, to see into his or her “soul laboratory”. For this life in the soul laboratory of the spiritual researcher brings about many things that are not known to ordinary experience and observation either. Spiritual research is not only connected with those experiences with which external science is connected, spiritual research is connected with the deepest upheavals of the soul life, with the innermost tragedy of the soul life, with the carrying of the soul to lonely, icy heights, with the falling of the soul into terrible abysses of existence.

Certainly, dear honored attendees, the first steps of spiritual research, as indicated in my book “How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds,” can be taken by anyone, and anyone can thereby convince themselves of the correctness of the spiritual researcher's indications. But when one follows the path of spiritual research to its conclusion, it leads through experiences such as those just indicated. Above all, at the moment when, through the method described, one succeeds in detaching the inner power of thought from the support it has in the brain, at the moment when one's thinking in one's soul-spiritual experience rises out of one's body — I because it is literally correct — in the same moment when man's eternal powers are truly glimpsed in the soul, in this moment, a spiritual researcher feels as if, I would like to say, they could experience the growth of the plant.

Let us assume that the plant could experience, that it could experience all its own characteristics, all its own being, as it unfolds from leaf to leaf, to the flower, to the colorful flower, and then, having developed into the colorful flower, it would have to immerse itself with its entire being in the forces that form the seed, which is not at all destined for this life of the plant in the present, but is destined to carry this plant life beyond the present into the plant that will develop from this plant in the future. The plant would experience by concentrating all its powers of experience into this germ, as if, by gathering these powers together, it were developing precisely that which is like a killing, a dying off of the outer being that has developed in the leaves and in the colorful blossoms. She would experience how she would have to die herself, as what she was, so that she could live on through the seed. So the human soul must experience, if it really goes through what has just been sketched out in front of you with a few lines of charcoal.

Dear attendees, the spiritual researcher experiences how he becomes more and more absorbed in what connects his soul with what he has taken in through his thoughts. But this does not appear to him now in his soul life as if he were only experiencing something new, but as if he were now living in the forces that, through their inner peculiarity, would be killing forces for the outer life, that are connected with all that makes the outer life die, that paralyzes the outer life from day to day, from hour to hour. And so it is, as if one had stood in it in life, felt all joy, all zest in life, all justified joy, all justified zest in life, gladly applied all energy in life, and now, in order to recognize, must break out of this life, but must turn precisely to those forces that continually fight this life. One would like to say that one must leave the conviviality of life, the convivial togetherness with nature, its beauty and sublimity, and enter into solitude, where one is truly only with oneself, where one can only turn one's gaze to one's own innermost forces.

Now it might appear, esteemed attendees, that this whole process of spiritual research is highly unhealthy. But we must bear in mind that it is a cognitive process. Just as nothing in this room is changed in terms of its outward appearance by the fact that my eyes are directed towards this room and my thoughts are visualizing this room, so this knowledge changes nothing in this room. Everything that the spiritual researcher experiences is knowledge, and everything that he then beholds through his knowledge lies, unnoticed by the outer life, at the bottom of every soul life. Only through observation can the spiritual researcher be convinced of what really lives in every soul. In every soul live the powers that constantly draw on life from hour to hour, from minute to minute, from second to second, just as the plant germ draws on the present plant.

Only through this contemplation, esteemed attendees, only through this immersion in the powers that sustain life, does one become immersed in the realization of how, over and over again, that which is death is overcome. For as one sees that life is maintained by the forces being constantly active from birth to physical death, which the spiritual researcher experiences, so one also becomes convinced through spiritual research that these same forces also overcome death, which concludes physical life like a gate, and introduce man into the world of the spiritual. Spiritual science does not understand death in the way one would like to recognize it out of fear of death, out of the expectation of another life, but spiritual science recognizes it by leading the soul's spiritual powers of cognition to the of death and then sees how death works throughout a person's entire life, so that when it draws its conclusion, it can be overcome by the same forces that are always at the basis of our souls.

Yet another difficulty arises, honored attendees, for the one who thus explores the spiritual world, I would like to say again and again in an inner soul laboratory. This other difficulty is this: when thinking, when imagining, has thus detached itself from the physical, when the human being now knows: you now live in the spiritual-soul realm in such a way that you are not in your body, that you move purely in the fabric of the soul-spiritual itself, when man has developed to this degree in his inner spiritual laboratory, then he lives in soul-spiritual forces which are the least, the very least related to that which we call our memory powers. And when we consider what depends on our powers of memory, how our whole life could not exist in everyday life if we did not remember what we had experienced in the previous moment, if we did not remember in our whole life what brings coherence to our life brings coherence to our lives, when we consider what memory means, then we will be able to understand how differently those forces act on the soul that must almost stop before the power of memory, that appeal to nothing in the ordinary power of memory in everyday life.

Thus it is that at first, when the spiritual researcher reaches the point where he is truly liberated from the bodily life in his spiritual and soul life, his presentation hurries away like a dream that cannot be remembered, and only only when one continues patiently with the exercises mentioned, the exercises in meditation and concentration, does another power develop in place of the ordinary memory, which must not be involved in this. We could call this power an “inner force of habit”. We become capable of repeatedly performing, habitually, what we have thus appropriated as an inner experience. We perform the inner gesture again and again, as it were. Spiritual science cannot work on the basis of memory, but goes beyond this ordinary basic power of life, beyond memory, and imprints such habits on the spiritual-soul realm that has been freed from the physical, so that one can repeatedly carry out the inner tasks that need to be done in order to feel at one with one's free spiritual-soul realm in the spiritual world.

If I, dear attendees, may touch on something personal – just to make something clearer – then let it be this: When we talk about things that are experienced through the outer senses, then it is the case that if, for example, I have given a lecture once, I remember how I gave it, so that when I give it for the twelfth, for the thirtieth time, I present it from my inner being in a completely different way than the first, second, third time, when I have not yet fully memorized it. This is not the case when one speaks in all sincerity about matters of spiritual science, but rather, each time, through the inner gestures that have been acquired by the soul, what is the content of spiritual science must be brought forth anew. It makes no difference whether one speaks about something for the first time or for the hundredth time, because one's memory is basically more of a hindrance than a help. Of course, one can always recount from memory what one has spoken about the content of spiritual science, but the one who stands on the ground of genuine spiritual science, honestly and sincerely, feels an inner obligation to present in ever-renewed liveliness that which he himself experiences. Therefore, he must experience it again and again, for he presents it not from memory, not through knowledge, but through a skill that he has acquired.

But our entire inner soul life is changed in yet another way. When we proceed intimately in the manner described, again and again performing such inner, we can now say purely conceptual, acts of the will, through which we place simple thought-content at the center of our consciousness and become completely absorbed in it, then we also experience something through our will. But this life of the will is different from that which underlies outer actions. What underlies outer actions develops a life of the will in which the will is asleep. For the way in which the human being intervenes with his thoughts in his will – this is indeed an old riddle of philosophy, which will not be discussed further here – the connection between the thought and the outer action, is in the deep foundations of the soul life. But it is precisely into these deep layers of the soul that spiritual science must descend if it is to ascend to supersensible knowledge. And by repeatedly, repeatedly bringing to life inwardly that which is the object of meditation and concentration in thinking, by doing so again and again out of inner will, out of strong inner soul forces – repetition is important – other processes occur in the soul than those of outer action. Such activities occur in the soul that do not take place in the same way as external actions, where we always have to intervene with our thoughts, but rather those that repeat themselves with regularity, I would say internally, automatically.

This is often disturbing for those who deal with spiritual methods, that by practicing and repeatedly fixing their soul on this or that thought - but they have to do it repeatedly, patiently, patiently, energetically, persistently - it is often disturbing that the whole inner activity becomes as mechanical as breathing for the body, where we are also not aware of how the impulse of breathing intervenes. While on the one hand we lift ourselves up into the highest spiritual state of consciousness, of thought itself, which leads us to what is behind the thought, to the inner experience of the power of thought, the very tasks that we perform in perpetual repetition become as if they were mechanical, so that we gradually learn to feel how something takes place in this detached soul life, which is so peculiar to it, in rhythmic sequence, as breathing is peculiar to the body in rhythmic sequence. We experience our corporeality as external to us, and we experience our soul as being lifted out of the corporeal, but in such a way that it is as if it is in an inner action, but now faces the body with this inner action.

This, in turn, is linked, honored attendees, to what one might call: the deepest inner soul-shaking. Just as one descends into a loneliness, into a loneliness that kills all external world-witnessing, when one goes to the one side of mental power expressions, through which basically all our everyday life consists, so one descends on the other side as if to the automatic life, as to the life that takes place in us, but without our intervention. Just as we become fully active on the one hand, so active that we are not even supported by memory, on the other hand we become aware of something within us that is active by itself, which we can only look at, which we can only watch. Indeed, it is so that we feel as if bewitched, as if spellbound in such an automatism of life that goes with us through life, we feel all the faintheartedness of life, all that which shows the heaviness, the weight of life, all this can overcome us, and anyone who does not come to the stage of knowledge just mentioned with the right method and sufficient preparation can easily reach a point of complete despair in their inner life when they see what is in them.

For again, it is only through knowledge that we become aware of everything that is in us, that at the bottom of life is a life automatism, when one sees how one is placed in life and what through the human being like clockwork - but only in a spiritual way, not mechanically like clockwork - what is spread throughout the universe as the cosmic life forces. There one learns to empathize with the whole universe as one piece, as a part of this universe, but one feels in it as if one were completely alienated from oneself, as if one had become a petrification, a petrefact, in this life. Then one realizes that everything one experiences is only the realization of what is down there in the soul. And that is a perpetual struggle between what is petrified in us, as if striving for automatism, and on the other hand, as if rising into spiritual solitude for perpetual activity, an inner war, an inner life of struggle that is withdrawn from us in the sight of everyday life. What has been described is at the bottom of our soul. And from such an inner life of struggle, from a struggle that takes place in every soul, which the spiritual researcher only observes, from such a life of struggle, he draws his knowledge. And what you now find in the literature of spiritual science has been drawn from the depths of the soul, drawn from this life of struggle.

Of course, I say that anyone can go through the beginnings of spiritual research, and in this way everyone can be convinced today that what spiritual research presents is correct. But what one has to go through when one comes to decisive turning points in relation to spiritual knowledge comes from the soul's inner experiences, which are full of struggle, wild movement and tragedy. These experiences come from regions of the soul that stir up everything, everything, and one gains a respectful of life and of the wisdom that permeates life when one realizes that in everyday life, man has the grace of having a veil woven over all that is at the bottom of his soul.

But humanity is evolving, honored attendees. And the time of development in which people could only live in consciousness, deprived by a veil of that which rules and lives in the depths of the soul, these times are coming to an end, and the times are opening up in which humanity must, through the natural powers of the soul, become acquainted with that which lives and moves in the depths of the soul. Just as at a certain point in human development, people had to be disabused of the view, in line with earlier common sense, that the earth stands still and the starry sky and the sun move around it . It is within the bounds of earthly evolution that humanity must be disabused of the notion that all soul life is built upon such a foundation as that just described.

Humanity wants to recognize that the life concerns we carry with us, the life triumphs, the zest for life and suffering, the life force, the life disappointments and the life deeds we admire in our fellow human beings, that all this is achieved through a victory that takes place on the basis of subconscious soul experience. The fact that we live because forces are at work behind the world of the senses that are engaged in the most lively struggle to gain that which we rejoice in, that which gives our lives meaning, will give people invigorating soul strength in the future when they will know what must be fought for, what must be suffered, and what must be overcome in the world of the senses, through unknown powers. This will give man a living sense of his connection with the spiritual powers that stand behind the world of the senses.

And when man has an overview of the two battlefields of the life of thought, which is detached from the body, and the life of will, which is detached from the body, then he enters into that knowledge of repeated earthly lives, which today seems so fantastic to our way of thinking, although Lessing asserted it within the spiritual life of modern humanity. And he enters into the real connections of human destiny, which present us with so many riddles.

What I would like to touch on today is that when we look at life, this life appears to us with what it expresses in everyday life, as through victories and wars of unknown spiritual powers, but of recognizable spiritual powers; and so when we recognize life, we also recognize the great events of the times in a different way than usual.

We, honored attendees, are indeed standing in our fateful present in difficult events that also promise great things. The question can be raised: what effect can the things we are now experiencing – the daring deeds of courage, the daring deeds of overcoming fear of death, the noble deeds of willingness to make sacrifices – have on a soul that absorbs what spiritual research wants to give to humanity? We are not living in a small time! For months events in our surroundings have been presenting themselves to us in a way that, one might well say, has not been seen in all of human history, not in such magnitude and with such significance. If one adds up the various nationalities fighting on the side of the Central European powers, even leaving out minor tribal differences, one arrives at twenty-one different peoples from the most diverse parts of the world. And if we count the various nations fighting on the side of the Central European powers, we get, again leaving out minor tribal differences, fourteen fighting individual nations; so that we can say that over a large part of the inhabited earth, thirty-five nations, leaving out minor tribal differences, are fighting each other today. And if, from the point of view of spiritual science, we turn our eyes to that which is intervening in such a powerful historical way in our time, oh, there a very special nuance of feeling presents itself to us.

What does it actually mean that spiritual science basically only wants to be a continuation of natural science? Yes, honored attendees, what Goethe emphasized so much is that we will only arrive at a true science when we no longer look at nature, at that which visibly surrounds us, in terms of reasons of expediency, when we no longer ask, “Why does the ox have horns? So that he can gore,” but when one realizes that the ox gores because he has horns, when one regards everything in terms of cause, not in terms of expediency. If this is the peculiarity of the external world view, if the best minds have fought for this causal world view, asking about the causes everywhere, then spiritual science also stands on the ground of asking about the causes, but about the deeper causes that elude sensory perception.

In relation to what is going on around us, however, in terms of historical events, something else must develop as a counterpoint to spiritual science. If you see how the powerful play out around us, you see how humanity suffers and develops the boldest acts of heroism, then you are led by observing what human will unfolds to the feelings - you cannot prove this because it is based on a transformation of the whole life of feeling. Then one is led by the feeling to look at everything in this life in which one is placed, not in terms of how the causes prevail, but in terms of what must arise as goals, as effects, from what is fought for in hot struggle, what is achieved through great sacrifices. Just as in the life we are observing we have to look at the causes everywhere, so too in what we experience, as we experience today, we have to look at the effects everywhere. And these effects, oh, these effects, they become meaningful for us above all by enabling us to see from a spiritual-scientific point of view how what is called Central European spiritual life really forms a whole.

Oh, this Central European intellectual life, how it has basically been achieved and how it differs in its peculiarity – I do not want to make any value judgments now – from that intellectual life, from which it is now surrounded and besieged as if in a mighty fortress! For those who can grasp the spiritual connections, this peculiarity of Central European intellectual life is evident in full clarity. One can say that the blossoms reveal what is in the roots. And so let us turn our gaze, just as an example, to a flower of Central European intellectual life, to a flower that is well known to you, esteemed attendees, that you have all often let your soul dwell on, to that which, as if from all the depths of Central European intellectual life, the great spirit of modern times, Goethe, created in his “Faust”. And we shall point out only one passage in this Faust. We see Faust at the beginning of the story, having passed through life and learned everything that can be learned by ordinary thinking:

Now, alas! I have studied philosophy,
jurisprudence and medicine,
and unfortunately theology too!
very thoroughly, with great endeavor.
There I stand, poor fool that I am,
and am as wise as before.

Goethe wrote this in the 1770s, during the striving and yearning of his youth. What was achieved by people in external thinking and external research at that time affected his Central European mind. Now, let us follow the course of this Central European spiritual life after Goethe wrote this scene in Faust, which has become almost trivial today, but which, if you allow it to take effect on your soul in its elementary originality, is deeply moving. Since Goethe wrote this, has been through in his soul, there have been minds at work in Central European intellectual life that have tried to penetrate to the sources of life in a truly Faustian way, with bold intellectual courage, with bold philosophical courage.

Today, the great idealistic thinkers of Central Europe, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and the others, are misunderstood. There is no need to go into what they created in terms of content; in the strictest sense, one can even be opposed to much of what they created in terms of content. However, one need only look at the innermost, most honest and sincere urge and path to truth , out of which they strove and which they were willing to go, and one needs only to look at how such thinkers have truly made this Faustian word come true, to expand one's own self to the self of the whole world, to witness that which is in the whole cosmos.

And so, how does a thinker who is rooted in Central European culture in the most eminent sense, like a Johann Gottlieb Fichte, stand before us? From the innermost nerve of human will and thought, from the will borne by thought, from the thought permeated by will, he seeks to grasp that in man by which man can connect himself in his own self with the eternal, divine self that rules and blows through the world. And so, as he also demanded, there was one thing in him that he lived and thought and philosophically strived for, so one that, when he was in the last hours of his feverish delirium from the illness of his wife, which she had acquired while caring for the warriors, that he received from his wife's illness, he, the most Central European of philosophers, still lived in the feverish delusion in the immediate life of his time, in the life through which Central Europe wanted to free itself from the tyranny of Western Europe, with Blücher's crossing of the Rhine, the philosopher Fichte lived. This great, powerful personality, who inwardly awakened life and strengthened his people at that time with his mighty “Speeches to the German Nation,” left his mark on his feverish fantasies.

We see them passing by, these thinkers. And we could say something similar about the others, even if we do not agree with the content of their thinking, with reference to their great and powerful striving. We see the best forces of Central European culture blossoming and passing by, the same forces that we may believe are now working in a completely different way for the benefit and progress of Central Europe on battlefields in the east and west. We see them pushing up into the spiritual light in the future.

And now we ask ourselves, honored attendees, let us assume that Goethe had still lived in 1840, had still lived at that time, when Fichte's intellectual feat, Schelling's wonderful artistic construct of the universe, Hegel's magnificent logical image of the universe had been cast over Central European culture - oh these thinkers , they truly brought philosophy in a new form to humanity and, if we consider that Fichte wrote a “natural right”, Hegel wrote a “natural right”, they also renewed jurisprudence, Schelling published a medical journal, immersed himself deeply in medicine, and theologians wanted them to be, basically, all these philosophers. But what would Goethe have done if he had started his Faust in 1840 instead of 1770? What would he have put at the beginning of the Faust saga? Certainly not this, despite the fact that these great, powerful thinkers have walked the spiritual skies of Central Europe. Despite this, he would certainly not have put:

Now, thank God, I have
studied philosophy with Fichte, Schelling, Hegel,
law and now also medicine,
and I stand here now, highly satisfied, I wise man!

No, again he would have begun in 1840:

Habemun, sch! Philosophy,
Jurisprudence and Medicine,
And unfortunately also Theology!
I have studied them all, with great zeal.
And now I stand, poor fool,
And am as wise as before.

That is what characterizes Central European culture! This Central European culture will only gradually be understood in its deepest peculiarity by those who live in it. This Central European culture is truly the expression of what is also written in “Faust”: “Whoever strives, we can redeem” - eternal striving. And when one stage of striving has been achieved, striving itself leads beyond this stage. One is born as a Frenchman, one is born as an Italian, one is born as an Englishman, and one knows what one is; but one must educate oneself to become what one is as a Central European, one must strive in one's soul not only once but continually to attain that which makes us a Central European. In this way, it becomes an individual in the highest sense, in this way it becomes one in which every human being must work directly, one that must always be achieved anew.

If I may, just to make something clear, touch on something personal, I can say that, as an Austrian, I lived in my childhood, in the sixties and seventies here in Austria, in a time when there was full opposition in Austria to everything that was going on in the German Reich, when it was still difficult for Austrians, including Austrian Germans, to look with satisfaction at what was happening in the German Reich. And then we lived contrary to that which had to be overcome first, out of German individualism, so that the Reich could be forged together, which is now fighting at Austria's side against the besiegers of the great Central European fortress.

Everything must be achieved for Central European culture. One would like to say, if the word is not misunderstood: in other nationalities, in other states, one is born into what one is; in Central Europe, one has to acquire everything – again according to a Goethean saying: “What you have inherited from your fathers, acquire it to possess it.” But this gives rise to an attitude that permeates all Central European culture like a magical breath, that forges together what is Central European, even forging together all national differences, that consciously strives towards what one is. And this also guarantees that everything that has already been achieved in Central Europe must always be increased and elevated in continued striving, that the spirit of striving, I would say the Faustian mood, must be continued.

Just as Faust would have said the same thing in 1840 at the starting point of his quest as in 1770, despite so much intellectual striving having been done about Central Europe, so too is that which has already been done constantly renewed by the Central European soulfulness. And so we stand, strengthened precisely by spiritual scientific feelings, full of hope for what must develop as goal and effect from blood and death, suffering and pain, from sacrifice and offering, from our time.

Oh, honored attendees, I cannot, of course, go into all the details of our fateful time. But if that which has conquered the world in a materialistic sense in recent times could only develop out of struggle, then that which must spread out of the spiritual life of Central Europe will develop more and more over the great world, over the territories of all the peoples who today still fight against this Central Europe. It must develop out of struggle and war. And the strengthening of the soul power, it will, if we consider that we can show through spiritual science how in individual human lives that which is the substance of life develops on the basis of what is the war and struggle in the depths of the soul, as we had to describe it.

Now, in the outer life, honored attendees, people are witnesses and participants in struggles over and over again, and these struggles must be there. Just as these struggles are veiled by a beneficent veil within the soul of the individual, so we must be placed in the outer, historical life in these struggles, from which that which is the outer, historical life must develop. Just as what Greek life became for the world developed in the struggle against the mighty Persian armies, and just as what was imported from Roman and Latin culture into world civilization developed on the basis of hard struggles, so what is in Faustian striving – and this Faustian striving also goes as far as those souls that know nothing of Faust – must spread out on soil that is soaked with the blood of our noblest, in an atmosphere that is permeated with the sentiments that can only develop today in our fateful time.

It has often been emphasized, especially in Germany recently, that it is due to the developmental conditions of modern times that this war is basically only being waged for external reasons, that it is being waged so that the infinite diligence of those in external industry and external trade can be applied freely in the world. Certainly, such statements are absolutely correct and should not be opposed in any way. We are living in a materialistic age, more or less, as regards our material life, and even the most difficult sacrifices we make are for the sake of material goods. But we are sure that from this Central Europe, even if only material culture is carried out into the world, through the gates opened by the struggle in the most diverse foreign areas, if perhaps not by the fathers themselves, then by the sons of those who go out into foreign areas in industry and trade , and which is carried everywhere by those who enter into industry and commerce. Everything that grows out of that spirit, which found its flower-like expression in that Faust who wants to “stand in an open space with an open people,” and who wants to attain freedom and life only by conquering them anew every day.

And if we look at the peculiarity of this Central European intellectual life, how it has forged the nations of Central Europe, if we look at this Faustian peculiarity, then we have to say: this Central European intellectual life is called upon to give the soul to the world-earth body, to incorporate soul into the earth development of humanity. It is very remarkable that, for example, we hear from the northwest - we can hear it every day, honored attendees - that those mighty external material conquests that the inhabitants of the British Isles, for example, have made, that these - as if mocking us, insulting us in Central Europe, such words are shouted over and over again from abroad, that everything that is to be undertaken is to be undertaken in the name of freedom, of the liberation of the peoples.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, it cannot be denied that the inhabitants of the British Isles have made great conquests in the fields of external and material life. But look at what these conquests were made on account of! From 1856 to 1900, England waged 34 wars of conquest, conquered four million square miles of land, and made 57 million people new British subjects – that's over the course of about 44 to 45 years, 34 wars of conquest! The material culture that the British Empire alone could spread across the world has grown out of this. Out of blood and death, out of suffering and pain, out of numerous sacrifices, there must come forth that which, in the course of history, matures as the life-substance for humanity.

And if we want to shed light on Central European intellectual life in comparison with what spiritual science shows us for the individual, we will say: If we look at its effects, if we look at the goals that are hidden in what is watering the soil with blood today, we see that the threatened area must be reclaimed as such effects. Just as a person must continually re-conquer his body after a few years so that it may be an instrument for the soul, so too in the outer historical life must the people of Central Europe re-conquer their territory so that it is all the better equipped with the soul-like qualities through which this Central European humanity will be able to carry into the future that which is rooted in the depths of its soul life.

Oh, when we look at what we can see in the outer life of our fateful time, compared with what spiritual science says for the individual human life, then it becomes understandable not only for the mind, but for the whole heart, that we know what is being prepared for the future, because it can only be prepared through struggle and war, then we learn in a certain way - however painful it is in the individual case, which must take place around us - we learn to understand it as being in the service of the great development of humanity, in that we must feel that we are part of it with every moment of our lives. And so, through a true contemplation of individual life, the human being reconciles himself with the most fateful events that take place around him.

Allow me to summarize what I have just said in a few words, in which I express, I would like to say, what I have developed as individual results of spiritual research, in a way that is intuitive to me. I would like to express in a few words what spiritual science has to take hold of the human soul in its most intimate life, so that through this taking hold a basic feeling and a basic will can arise that understand and permeate life. What I took the liberty of saying can be summarized in the following words, which the soul strengthened by spiritual science can make the basic values of its own being:

Where sense knowledge ends,
There stands the gate,
The realities of life
To the soul's being opens;
The key creates the soul,
When she strengthens in herself
In the struggle, the world powers
On their own grounds
With human powers lead;
When it drives out of itself
the sleep that envelops the powers of knowledge
at the boundaries of its senses
with spirit.

Dear attendees! As a continuation of the spiritual-scientific considerations that were presented here the day before yesterday, today I would like to give a continuation of what was suggested, a continuation that is intended to apply the gained perspectives to the significant question of human destiny.

In the lecture the day before yesterday, dear attendees, it was pointed out that spiritual science is entirely based on the inner work of the human soul, and I would like to briefly reiterate a few thoughts from the day before yesterday's lecture. The point of spiritual research is never, as in the other sciences that extend to the outer life and to the outer world of facts, to cultivate outwardly perceptible activities for the senses, never to carry out the outer world in any way at all, but the path into the spiritual world is an intimate path of the human soul. And one link in this path of the human soul, by which this soul prepares itself to enter the spiritual world, as was already indicated the day before yesterday, is a special way of treating what we call human imagination, human thinking.

I said: By allowing us to look into his inner spiritual laboratory, as it were, the spiritual researcher must point out that the human soul's imagining and thinking must be treated in a completely different way than they are treated in everyday life or in external science. In external science, we consider the thought, the idea, the concept that we have acquired on the basis of sensory observation or on the basis of experiment or in some other way; we consider the concept as that which we have acquired, as that which reflects the external world to us. And in that it depicts, be it processes in the external world, be it laws, natural laws or the like in the external world, we are satisfied when we have, so to speak, arrived at the thought, when we have arrived at the idea of what is going on outside, or how the external processes are connected in a lawful way.

But this is where spiritual scientific research begins, where the work of the mind, the life of the mind in everyday life or in external science ends. The point of spiritual scientific research is not to have a thought, not a thought as a reflection of the external world, but to live with the thought, with the idea in the inner soul. So that, as I have already mentioned, in this inner exercise, in this inner work of the spiritual world, it does not matter at all whether we are in the thought, in the idea, through which we practice the soul, through which we advance the soul, as it were, in higher self-education, whether we depict something external in the thought, in the imagination, whether in the ordinary sense of external science or of external life these thoughts are images of something in the external world; they can be symbols, as I mentioned. What matters is that we sink a thought into the soul, that we become completely one with that thought, that we divert all attention from what otherwise occupies us in the world, and, as it were, fix all the powers of the soul within us on this one thought.

And now we must immediately recognize, by doing this, that we are carrying out a completely different task than the tasks of ordinary science. In the tasks of ordinary, external science, we can stop when we have the thought, we can be satisfied when we have the thought. And we are convinced in ordinary science when the thought logically satisfies us, when the thought corresponds to our sense of truth; then we can stop our research work for the time being. This is not the case with the way one does spiritual research. It is never the case that you stop when you have the thought, which you place at the center of your consciousness through arbitrariness, through an inner will initiative; you basically have nothing when you have placed the thought at the center of your consciousness and directed the attention of all the powers concentrated in the soul to it. Just as one has very little when one has sunk the seed of a plant into the earth, so one has very little when one has fixed the thought in the soul. One must wait until the forces from the air, the forces from the earth, the forces from the sun and so on interact to develop the plant germ into a plant - one must wait and see what is not done by us, what is done by the cosmos, what is done by the outer world.

In exactly the same way, we as spiritual researchers must treat a thought. We must, as it were, sink it into the soil of the entire soul life and then wait and see what it becomes in it. We cannot help ourselves other than by repeating the same process of looking at a thought every day. It does not take long, minutes are enough every day, but it must be repeated every day; and it takes a long, long time. And all we can do is wait and see what becomes of this thought by devoting all the powers of the soul to it and looking at nothing else, feeling nothing else, sensing nothing else but this thought. The important thing in spiritual research is to watch something growing within ourselves. While in other research it is important to carry out a certain task and to explore the lawful connection through thought, that is, while it is about doing something that has, I would say, a beginning and an end through our own will, in spiritual research we have to watch what becomes of the growing, sprouting thought in us.

And then the time comes – earlier for some, later for others, depending on how their destiny is laid out – then the time comes when forces hidden in the soul become active and more and more active, and by applying that inner energy, which we otherwise cannot summon up in our everyday life and in ordinary science, we really bring about what can be said to truly tear our soul-spiritual out of the physical-bodily, and it leaves the physical-bodily. By expressing this thought and calling attention to the fact that it is a spiritual-scientific method, one immediately touches something in this spiritual-scientific method that completely contradicts the thinking habits of the present time. . By expressing this thought and calling attention to what spiritual-scientific method is, one immediately touches something in this spiritual-scientific method that completely contradicts the thinking habits of the present time. These thought habits of the present time cannot imagine that it is really possible for a person to find such inner strength in his soul, that his spiritual and mental self is so torn from the physical and bodily as the hydrogen is torn from the water by the procedures used by the chemist. But everything depends on whether the human being, by continuing to do what has just been described at its most elementary level, really comes to perceive another person living within him, another person who underlies our existence and who does not need to use the external senses to have a world around him, who does not need to use the mind, which is connected to the brain or the nervous system, to have an external world around him.

The world view, esteemed attendees, which corresponds to today's thinking and which often emphasizes that it stands on the solid ground of the so admirable natural science, this world view often speaks of the limits of human knowledge, it speaks of it in such a way that it says : Yes, there may be a spiritual world, a supersensible world that underlies the sensual facts and everything that can be known through the intellect, which is connected to the brain, but humans are not designed to penetrate this world. And we know that there have been philosophies over and over again in the course of human development, philosophies that have endeavored to determine the limits of human knowledge.

Basically, these limits of knowledge are only the limits of those insights that are bound to the physical and bodily. And why this is so can also be seen by the spiritual researcher if he really applies the methods described in a few strokes to his soul life. For a very peculiar phenomenon occurs when one endeavors, through ever more energetic and energetic concentration of the soul power in the indicated sense, to become, as it were, completely one with that which one has placed at the center of one's perception, one's thinking, one's entire consciousness. After a time, one notices how something really does grow inwardly, something really does contract inwardly, namely our soul-spiritual nature, which is dependent on the body. But after some time one notices that one is heading straight for the opposite extreme. Not only do all kinds of other thoughts keep coming into one's attentive consciousness and confusing one on the path one is seeking with one's soul life, but this is something that can be overcome relatively quickly. However, what the spiritual researcher encounters when he tries to develop his soul is that, while he first experiences an increase of the forces that otherwise underlie thinking - [at a certain point there occurs what could be called “a darkening, a weakening” of this inner soul force], and that which the soul experiences there is, basically, quite harrowing. For one experiences nothing less than a feeling of approaching powerlessness, a powerlessness that says to oneself: Alas, these soul powers are not sufficient to penetrate the whole extent of the spiritual world! It comes over the consciousness like a terribly paralyzing sleep. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what those philosophers do not allow themselves to approach when they speak of the limits of knowledge, but what the soul, I would say unconsciously feels when it philosophizes.

For not only that lives in the depths of the soul, of which the soul is aware in ordinary life, but down there in the depths of the soul, in the hidden depths of the soul, there lives so much that is not in everyday consciousness. And the fact that we know nothing about it does not mean that what is down there in consciousness is not effective. There, in the unconscious, is something that the spiritual researcher experiences at the moment when he has this feeling of powerlessness, of which I have just spoken. The spiritual researcher notices: there is an unconscious fear in the soul, a fear of losing the ability to perceive and understand the world. And there is no other way to overcome this fear, as soon as it becomes conscious, than to intensify the already described efforts of concentrating the soul life more and more. Then, I would say, into the empty space of consciousness, in which the power that otherwise underlies thinking and feeling had already been paralyzed, there enters that which can enter through the increased strength and inner energy of the soul life.

It was a hidden fear, one that had not come to consciousness, when Kant spoke of the limits of human knowledge. He felt that knowledge in which the body helps us cannot go beyond the realm of sensory life and the laws of sensory life. He did not want to make use of the spiritual scientific method. He called it, although he sensed that there was something like a development of the soul towards independence from the physical body, he called it: “an adventure of reason”. And Goethe gave the great, one may say the powerful answer, that one must dare to pass this adventure of reason.

Powerlessness is what one really has at the bottom of one's soul, what is always at the bottom of one's soul. And one would like to say, honored attendees, that this powerlessness at the bottom of the human soul is fully justified. For if this powerlessness were not there, then the urge of man would be invincible to use the soul-spiritual powers forever for that which leads beyond the sensory world. But the fact that we feel, perceive and recognize the world of the senses is based on the fact that we, I would say, become accustomed to our physical body, to the physical-bodily, and that we regard it as a necessity to live in relation to the world in this physical-bodily. Just as one carries out a chemical experiment in such a way that it leads to the abnormality of external nature and thereby unravels nature, so one must develop something abnormal in the soul, something abnormal for everyday life, in order to truly look into the spiritual world, I would say through inner chemistry.

And by living in the spiritual world, one certainly gets a different idea of this newly acquired knowledge than one had of all knowledge before. Yes, knowledge is something that so many people associate with the idea that one actually recognizes best when one limits oneself to the intellect and the outer senses, which basically leave us sober and cold, and which occupy only a part of our life. The moment the spiritual researcher truly enters the spiritual world in the manner described, the moment he has torn his soul and spirit away from the physical body, he is surrounded by a spiritual world just as he is surrounded by a sense world within the body. In the same moment in which the spiritual researcher truly enters this world of the spiritual, in that same moment he feels as though he has awakened in this spiritual realm. But at the same time he feels that he can no longer be with the world with only a part of his soul life, as in outer knowledge, but that he must immerse his entire being in what presents itself to him as the spiritual world.

Just as abstract, I would even say sober and dry, as the world is that only animates and occupies part of our soul as the world of ordinary knowledge, the connection with the spiritual world is just as intensely effective in our soul. One can say: in the ordinary sense of the word, intellectual knowledge of the external world cannot hurt or cause us pain. In the moment when we enter the spiritual world in the way described, we must immerse ourselves with our whole soul in the beings that belong to the world into which we are entering. Everything we recognize there makes the deepest, most intense impression on our sense of pleasure or pain, on our sense of sublimity or on our sense of oppression. Our whole being is immersed. With our whole being, we have to live with the world in which we live, whether it be full of sorrow or joy. And again, it is fear, but a secretly felt fear that does not come to consciousness, which prevents the ordinary consciousness from immersing itself in this world. Truly, one does not become poorer in world content when one approaches this spiritual world. On the contrary, honored attendees, one becomes richer in world content, because one realizes what this fear of a subconscious powerlessness is actually based on. It is based on the fact that the world is much richer, infinitely richer in its glory, in its greatness, in its inner lawfulness, than what we are only able to think when we make use of the powers that are bound to our body.

And the riches of the world are what immediately arise before the soul in an overwhelming and numbing manner when it confronts the spiritual world through inner strength. But the soul, which is bound to the physical with its consciousness, feels, despite knowing nothing about it, it feels powerless, and it wants to avoid this powerlessness out of fear, the powerlessness that exists in the face of the spiritual world. Therefore, we see how, on the one hand, people shrink back and delude themselves about the limits of knowledge, so that they say that knowledge cannot penetrate into the spiritual world at all, or, on the other hand, when they have a deep yearning for the spiritual world, they satisfy it in a completely different way than the one described. The way described is that of genuine, true spiritual research. But the way described presupposes that one is serious about freeing oneself from the physical body. This can only be achieved through increased inner soul activity, this can only be achieved through the application of an energy that is never necessary for us as inner energy in everyday life or in everyday science.

But people want to apply the very thing they are accustomed to in everyday life when they approach the higher worlds. Human consciousness, after all, feels precisely the powerlessness described, and, I might say, in a way that is quite understandable, this consciousness feels this powerlessness described precisely when it wants to confront the more intense, the richer, the more exalted world of the spirit. Therefore, man would prefer to eliminate what dwells in his body rather than exerting himself to a greater extent in order to recognize the spiritual world. The feeling of hidden powerlessness makes him come to the conclusion that precisely because he is powerless in the face of spiritual life, he must eliminate the means by which he recognizes in ordinary life; instead of developing it, he wants to eliminate it. Then he does not approach to recognize the spiritual world, to develop his inner being, but then he approaches and seeks either through some external events or by using, as one says, a medium in whom precisely the spiritual, instead of being developed, is asleep, he tries to gain knowledge of the spiritual world through the automatism of the bodily life of the medium, without his inner involvement. There is only the fearful shrinking from reliving the experience of unconsciousness. For this feeling of unconsciousness must be experienced; only by overcoming it, by consciously experiencing it, does man advance in knowledge. But in the secret feeling of this feeling of unconsciousness, it is precisely that which man wants to shut out, that which leads him to spiritual knowledge. That is why so many seek through mediums or spiritists to communicate with them from the spiritual world. It is easy to see that this search through mediums or spiritists is the extreme, the ultimate expression of the feeling of powerlessness in the face of the spiritual world.

But our time, honored attendees, needs strength, needs power, because as the outer life becomes more and more complicated and complicated by the wonderfully developing natural science, especially in its social ramifications, man, in wanting to penetrate the spiritual world, must develop ever stronger and stronger powers. That which appeals to weakness, to the exclusion of the spiritual and soul, can never have a future; it can lull and lull man to sleep in the face of what is to be brought out of the hidden depths of the soul.

Now one can imagine how much what has been said is rejected as – let me say it again – a mental laboratory process of the thought habits of our present time, how much it is rejected, one can imagine when one sees that just the opposite extreme of what has been described has become the ideal for a large part of the educated people of today. For where is the spiritual researcher led when he enters the spiritual world by the method just described? He is led to say to himself: Not only does the world of sense live in your surroundings, but a spiritual world also lives in your surroundings! And he recognizes: This spiritual world contains the causes, the foundations for the existence of the world of sense. But the ideal of very many who truly believe that, as trained and educated people, they stand on the firm ground of natural science, with which, as I mentioned the day before yesterday, spiritual science is in fact completely in harmony. But most of those people, whose nature has been indicated, who believe that they see the ideal in eliminating everything that is found in the characterized way, believe that the ideal of knowing nature is to see only mechanically interacting causes and facts everywhere, to eliminate everything spiritual from external natural processes. That is the ideal of very many who have the thinking habits of the present day.

And it is basically considered a remnant of old superstition to see anything in nature or behind nature that is spiritual; [rather, one wants to] explain as much of nature as possible only by facts that are built according to the pattern of what can be observed by the senses. In this way one wants to comprehend external physics, biology, physiology and even the processes of the soul. I hinted at this the day before yesterday.

The ideal of a knowledge that excludes everything that the spiritual researcher comes to when he applies spiritual scientific methods is the ideal of the most educated people, many of the most educated people of today. So one might say: mechanical natural order is what is taken as the basis of nature. And the counterpart to this, dear ladies and gentlemen, is the observation of human life. Once we have become accustomed to seeing nothing but mechanical order in nature, we then become accustomed to rejecting precisely what the spiritual researcher must come to. And a sum of coincidences is basically what people see in what befalls them in their lives between birth and death, in the physical life of the body.

So how does a person relate to what happens in this life between birth and death? When something happens to him that he regards as a stroke of fate, for better or for worse, his initial response to this stroke of fate is what can be called the sympathy and antipathy of the mind. Just as a person searches for causes and effects in nature outside, he basically leaves what plays a role in his destiny as a mere series, as a mere sequence of coincidences.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, since we can say that the spiritual-soul content awakened in the spiritual researcher actually slumbers in the human being in ordinary life, it must be said that even in the fully waking life, when a person is engaged in action, when a person acts in such a way that he uses his outer body and the outer sense world to carry out actions, something in the person also sleeps. And what sleeps there prevents him from seeing a connection in the process that is unfolding, in the coincidences of life. Basically, what happens to man in the context of life is the same as what happens to many people in the course of history and still does today in the face of natural facts. A person who does not study natural science sees the sun rise and set; he observes the individual positions of the sun; for him, external facts exist that occur over time and in space. Then he, with his thinking, with his science, with his methods, approaches what are otherwise external facts, and he brings coherence into this world of external facts by replacing mere staring at the facts with the coherence that is expressed in the laws of nature. Man does not bring such a connection into what he calls external life coincidences, initially, because the forces within him that mean the same for this area as the forces of cognition mean for the facts of external nature, remain dormant for ordinary life. We must apply our knowledge to the facts of external nature in order to see laws in external nature. According to ordinary habits of thinking, man is not inclined to apply to that which takes place as his fate between birth and death such inner processes as he applies to the facts of external nature. And I will now indicate the path that arises for spiritual research in order to bring a similar law into the sequence of events of fate, as external thinking brings it into the sequence of natural facts.

What we call fate, I would like to say, let us look at it only - not to say anything special about it now, but only to illustrate what I want to say later - let us look at what we call fate, first of all for the life between birth and death, for the outer life that always surrounds us, in which we are always wrapped up and which our fate imposes on us.

We can say that when we look at ourselves in any particular phase of our lives: What are we actually in this phase of our lives? Yes, we say: we are a self, we are an I; we have a certain inner soul life. But certain things in this inner soul life that lie on the surface, we learn to understand and look at quite differently when we look back at earlier phases of our lives. If, for example, after we have turned fifty or forty-five or forty years old, we allow ourselves to look back – say, to the time we went through between the tenth and the eighteenth or twentieth year – when we look back at the so-called coincidences of fate that occurred in our lives at that time, yes, when we fully realize what lies in these coincidences of fate, then we will very soon be able to say the following to ourselves: You can do something now. You are able to think in this or that way, to act in this or that way. Basically, you are nothing other than this ability, this ability to understand, this ability to act. That you understand something more or less spiritually, that you act in one way or another, that is basically what you are. Why is it you? Just think how you would be different, how you would really be a completely different inner self if the events had not occurred that you can look back on between the tenth and twentieth year. They forged you into what you became; what you became there is concentrated in your self. These events now act out of you in many ways. They have concentrated you in essence; they have formed your self. And when we study our self at a particular moment in our life, we find it, I might say, put together like the sum of an addition from the addends. One can now survey one's life in this way. It is not a matter of finding all kinds of interesting things in one's life. What in ordinary life we call self-observation does not actually lead the soul very far beyond itself. But there is a special way of developing one's soul life when one really comes to look at the experiences of fate one has with sympathy or antipathy, but when one looks at them in such a way that they are the basis for what one actually is.

It is not this insight that is important in spiritual research, but the feeling that You have found yourself as a result, as a product of your destiny! This feeling can be increasingly awakened in oneself. And now two things can come together: what one has previously awakened as a spiritual researcher through the concentration of thought, of feeling, as it has been described, what one has experienced as the emergence of the spiritual-soul from the physical-bodily, and the development of this feeling. They can meet in the soul, these feelings, just as in ordinary life between birth and death one is actually the result of fate.

And when one meditates in this way, when one develops this coloring, this nuance of feeling in the soul, when one concentrates more and more on how, as it were, the inner self of the human being flows out completely and into the current of our destiny, when one makes these ideas completely alive within oneself, when one comes to literally see: Yes, what you are in your inner being, as your self, you see flowing into your destiny. When this becomes very much alive, when it is repeated again and again, so that it becomes a habitual inner experience, then we indeed experience a transformation, a transformation of our soul life. We experience such a transformation, such a transformation of our soul life, that only now is it experienced as a fulfilled, complete whole, which can be called the spiritual-soul that is free from the body.

And this soul-life, this spiritual-soul life, which is free from the body, shows itself to us, honored attendees, when we continue the spiritual scientific methods, as they have been described, and shows itself to us as that which underlies our life between birth and death. It does not reveal itself by logical deduction, but by developing such an inner life as has been described, the soul, as it were, opens a spiritual eye, to use this expression of Goethe's; as if the eye had not yet developed and only developed in the course of life and then our vision opened, it is like this when we work on our inner being, that a new person arises in our inner being, a person who now stands before us in such a way that he is now not just the result of fate, as it has been stated in a trivial way for the time between birth and death, but that he really grows together with his fate.

And now something new arises; so if one has developed the soul, something arises again that can be called: the perception of a secret fear otherwise hidden in the soul. So when you let the soul, as it were by seeing it in the river of fate, snatch itself from the body, then, then you discover - not what you are as a bodily human being - but then you discover within the spiritual world, which you have already conquered in the way described, you now discover yourself. Now you discover what you never knew about yourself before, now you discover the true human being. Now you discover the human being that underlies the ordinary human being who lives between birth and death – or, for that matter, between conception and death. Now we discover the human being who descends from a spiritual world as the true cause of physical human existence, who has an attraction to what can be given to him through the ancestral line, through parents and pre-parents, who brings down the forces from the spiritual world that only form themselves through what can be given to him materially through parents and pre-parents. And now, honored attendees, a fact to which, I would say, the great modern thinker Lessing pointed with deep inner truth, now a truth becomes the realization that what is at work in our body is the result of previous lives on earth. And that what works hidden in our body, without us being able to sense it in our ordinary life, that this is like a germ that after death first enters a spiritual world and, after it has developed in this spiritual world in such a way as the plant germ must develop, it pulls itself together again, so to speak, for a new life on earth. The realization that the whole of human life proceeds in such a way that there are repeated earthly lives for man, this realization must be acquired by the soul's distinguishing itself from the physical body.

In the ordinary experience, honored attendees, one basically has only a single reference to what lives in us as a human core, which goes from life to life and always stays in a spiritual world between death and a new birth. In spiritual knowledge, one lives in this core of life, in this essence of the human being. In ordinary life, we only have a certain point of reference for this when a person falls asleep at night. Spiritual scientific observation shows that falling asleep is conditioned by the fact that what is the core of a person's soul and spirit really lifts itself out of the physical body. But because the powers are not developed, as has been mentioned today, this spiritual-soul core of being remains unconscious from falling asleep until waking up. But very often, as everyone knows, something emerges from this unconsciousness of ordinary sleep life: the chaotic, but often also very interesting, structures of the dream.

What presents itself to a person in a dream is very often observed incorrectly. Among the many dream images – I cannot, of course, go into great detail about what a dream presents, although it would be very interesting to see what one can experience there – the most interesting dreams are probably those in which someone in later life, for the dream life, the dream consciousness, sees some scene in which people appear with whom he may not have had any contact for a long time, many of whom may have died, people with whom he now enters into relationships in his dream consciousness. Whole stories can unfold. If you look at such a dream in the sense of an ordinary memory activity, you are very much mistaken. It would take too long to explain this sentence in more detail, although it can be explained in more detail.

If you want to properly assess the events of a dream that take place in the unconscious mind, you don't have to look at the content at all. These images, everything that takes place, is basically only as significant for the essence of the dream as it would be if one were to say: 'There is a sheet of paper, on it I find a vertical line, a line that goes askew from right to left, one that goes askew from left to right, and so on. In this way he would describe all the letters that are on the paper. But it is not the person who describes the letters on the sheet of paper who is relating to the paper in the right way. Rather, the only person who relates to it in the right way is the person who, having learned to read, deciphers the meaning of what the letters, combined into words, express, without even bringing into his consciousness what the letters look like. What the dream presents is, in relation to what it is in essence, really nothing but letters, which, however, are not as exact as the letters of our ordinary writing, but change with each dream. And it is a deeper realization that can look at the dream and decipher it, just as we remain unconscious of the unconscious when we read the forms of the individual letters and words; that is what is actually contained in the processes of the dream, it is more the character of the human soul core that conjures up these images.

For example, we dream that a person who has long since died tells us this or that, that he does this or that with us. We do not dream it because this image of the dream wants to tell us something special, but we dream it because our soul essence has an inner quality, an inner power, which can best be visualized in this way, can best be visualized by putting itself into a relationship, symbolically into a relationship with a person, with this person whom one has encountered in life. That which is not expressed in the dream at all, which is at the bottom of the soul as the inner strength of the soul, as the character of the soul, that is the essential thing. And if one engages in the scientific recognition of the dream experience, precisely through the method of spiritual research that has been mentioned, by perfecting it in this way, if one engages not in interpretation but in the scientific recognition of the dream experience, then one also finds in the dream experiences that something that is in a person is shaped by special circumstances - which could also be described, but which the short time available today does not allow - into such images. And spiritual research shows us that what a person has acquired in the time between death and a new birth has matured in him a life core, a life germ.

We act and think in the life between birth and death, but what we think and how we act always expresses only a part of what we are, namely the part that lives through the fact that we are in a body. Just as the essence of the other person, who has been described and discovered through spiritual science, is hidden in the everyday life of the person, so this core of being is hidden in the human being. Only through those special occasions in our particular life, in our dream life for example, does the human soul core, which is free of the body when we fall asleep or awaken and is not yet completely at one with the bodily life, reveal itself. how it is mirrored in the bodily life, with which it is still imperfectly united, and what has passed through the human being in every action, but has been stored away, what has remained, what we have not fully lived out, what we have incorporated into our inner self. In dreams, that which passes through the gate of death reveals itself, that which passes through a spiritual world to reappear in a new life on earth. However, one can only recognize it through the dream if spiritual research has preceded all of this, honored attendees!

Thus we see how, in the course of spiritual research, man not only has to experience the unconsciousness of which we have spoken, and how, in overcoming this unconsciousness, he has to find his way into the spiritual world, but we also see how man has to discover his true self first.

Now, before this discovery, man has a secret fear. For the process is the process of losing ourselves in the body as human beings, while discovering ourselves as true human beings who go from life to life. As a spiritual researcher, the human being must first get used to looking at himself outside of himself in the world; he must first get used to discovering himself in his fateful work, and by mustering the courage to overcome the fear and shyness one has of oneself, one discovers oneself in one's true self. And now you discover that this true self is the forge of that which otherwise appears to us as the result of the coincidences of life. You now discover yourself in your destiny. And a completely new feeling, a completely new experience, interweaves and surges through the soul.

We are confronted by a heavy blow of fate, a blow of fate that we otherwise only face when it causes us bitterness and suffering, when it shakes our mind and we feel unhappy under its influence. If, as a spiritual researcher, you have discovered your higher self in the way described, you say to yourself: You have gone through many earthly lives with this higher self of yours. You have lived, thought and acted in these earthly lives in such a way that you have brought with you a certain quality in your soul from previous lives. This quality of the soul adheres to you just as the magnetic force is in the magnet. This quality, this power, exerts a secret attraction on the event that has entered your life as a misfortune, just as a magnet attracts iron filings. You have sought out this misfortune for yourself!

Do we not see in life what can be, once we have gained this point of view, honored attendees? We go through life. Much, much passes our eyes, ears, minds, feelings and wills. We meet many people. Among many and many people there is one whom we, as it were, feel attracted to by mysterious forces of our being, with whom we enter into a life partnership in friendship or otherwise. Why did we do that? Because the forces that we brought with us from previous lives were seated within us, and because these forces were attracted to what lives in this person's soul, just as a magnet is attracted to iron filings. This force passed by the other person. But through this we shape for ourselves everything that we now experience together with this person as fate.

In the same way, however, we also shape our destiny by descending from the spiritual world in which we live between death and new birth to the new birth. In our physical existence on earth, there are those forces that our ancestors can give us through inheritance. We are drawn to those forces that we need according to the qualities of our soul, and we connect with them. We notice the secret bond that exists between us – long before birth, before conception – and that which can be given to us by the hereditary powers of our ancestors. Indeed, more exact spiritual research even shows us, honored attendees, that this bond has been forming long before there can be any talk of our birth or our conception.

Once logic takes the place of what is currently believed to be logic, but is in fact pure illogic, a completely different way of thinking will take hold. Today, many people say: You can see that a person who displays certain qualities in life must have inherited these qualities from his or her parents or ancestors. Spiritual science wants to come and show that the human being, as a core, so to speak, envelops the inherited qualities he has chosen for himself. According to today's thinking, we should be glad that external science has brought it to recognize how the qualities of ancestors revive in descendants, as ordinary physiology can explain.

And particularly the core of this logic is what people want to play out when they say: you can see that in genius. If you observe genius, you can see that the qualities that are concentrated in genius can be found in the parents, grandparents and so on and so forth. Genius usually occurs at the end of a developmental series. Nice logic, that! Because it is quite similar to when someone finds it particularly helpful to explain that they are wet when they have fallen into water and are being pulled out. Of course, if you are at the end of a line of inheritance, you must bear the qualities that surrounded you in the body through that line of inheritance, just as water surrounds you when you fall into a stream. But there would be real logic in the matter if one could show that what lived in the ancestors as qualities of genius would live in the descendants. Not by looking up from the genius to the ancestors, but by descending from the genius to the descendants, that would be real logic. You don't even realize how you are contradicting all logic when you proceed in this way, when you judge as it happens. Because you will stay pretty, that you always look for the qualities of genius in the descendants. One need only point out great geniuses and then show how it sometimes looks, especially with their descendants! Here one will soon find that what a person has worked for himself, what he is inside, that this is what provides the attractive force for events, for all the processes of outer life that converge in his destiny.

Thus we will be able to say: From birth to death, we bring order into the succession of our other coincidences of fate when we recognize ourselves, when we overcome our fear of ourselves and recognize ourselves in our true humanity. Because then we also recognize that we have brought misfortune upon ourselves because we want to steel ourselves against this misfortune, because we lacked a strength and the lack of this strength evoked an attribute in us that forms an attraction for precisely this misfortune.

In addition to such a worldview, which thus discovers the actual human being in destiny, comes the realization that the only reason the human being does not want to discover himself in his destiny is because he is afraid of arriving at this view. This is difficult, honored attendees, but once the truths of spiritual research have been discovered, then one does not need to be a spiritual researcher – although, as I explained the day before yesterday, to a certain extent everyone today can become a spiritual researcher by observing the rules written in the book “How to Know Higher Worlds”. To a certain extent, I said – but one does not need to be. Once the truths of spiritual research have been expressed, they can be understood and recognized by the sense of truth that exists in everyone, provided it is unbiased.

Just as one does not need to be a chemist to benefit from everything a chemist produces – here one does not need to understand it, only to benefit from it – so one does not need to be a spiritual scientist to find truth, because, to use a trivial word, to find truth is the benefit of spiritual scientific discoveries. Just as one can apply chemical products in life, so can one apply that which spiritual research brings, because it is there and one only needs to approach it without the prejudices that come from ordinary habits of thought, which have been sufficiently described, if one only does not approach it, it will have an effect on the natural person.

The spiritual researcher relies on nothing else, on no authority, he relies on nothing else but the fact that he discovers and explores nothing but what lives in every soul. Through his knowledge, nothing is added to reality; what he discovers lives in every soul. Therefore, it only needs to be expressed, therefore what lives in the depths of every human soul must profess what the spiritual researcher has to say.

Even if this is not yet the case today, yes, if it must seem understandable, as I said the day before yesterday, that today much more opposition, disregard, scorn and ridicule is being expressed towards what the spiritual researcher has to say, it is still true that the development in the next future will proceed in such a way that people will just be willing to acknowledge that human life in truth continues through many earthly lives, that fate becomes understandable to us when we see the higher human being prevailing even in the indicated way, in this fate. Thus men will be willing to recognize this, as they have been willing to recognize that which, as it was said at the time, “contradicts the healthy five senses,” namely, that it is not the earth that stands still and the sun that moves around and the stars that move around, but that it is the other way around, that the earth moves around the sun.

Those who come today and say, “What the spiritual researcher has to say contradicts the healthy five senses!” are on the same ground as those people who came at the time of Copernicus and said, “Well, that the sun should stand still, that contradicts the healthy five senses!” No healthy, thinking person can acknowledge that. As in those days – I have already said this here in earlier years – as in those days, when Copernicus's new teaching was accepted, Giordano Bruno came and said: Our five senses have taught us that up there is the blue firmament and under this firmament the stars revolve. But the truth is that there is no blue firmament up there, but that only the limitations of human perception set the firmament - the firmament feigns to you - while the universe goes out into infinity and embedded in the universe are the innumerable stars. Just as Giordano Bruno had to reveal the spatial firmament as a mere appearance, which is evoked by the limitations of human perception, so spiritual science must, I would say, reveal the temporal firmament of the human soul life, which is limited by birth or, let us say, conception and death. Just as there is no firmament above, there are no limits where birth or conception and death are concerned. Only human observation and human thinking in ordinary life are limited there; and this one life is embedded in the whole stream of time.

Today, esteemed attendees, we stand at precisely the same turning point in spiritual knowledge as the world stood in relation to natural knowledge when Giordano Bruno had to step forward and emphasize the deception of the outer space firmament, just as we today must emphasize the deception of the time firmament, of birth and death. But when people will understand, even without becoming spiritual researchers - because just as there are individual chemists, individual astronomers, there will always be individual spiritual researchers in the future - when people have put aside all prejudices against spiritual research, just as they have put aside all prejudices against the scientific world view, then, just as the scientific world view has flowed into the activities of our outer life, how it has, I might say, built up everything around us in our outer life in the modern world, so too will spiritual science, in relation to the life of the soul, into which we live as human beings by living towards the future, that is, into what the spiritual-scientific ideas are.

And above all, it should be noted that these spiritual scientific ideas are incorporated into our feelings and perceptions. And how different these feelings and perceptions become when they are permeated, imbued and suffused with spiritual scientific ideas, for example when we ask ourselves the question of fate. We will find fate intimately linked to what the higher part of ourselves, the actual spiritual soul that goes from birth to birth, accomplishes. Just as we see the laws of nature in the external nature as the connection of the external natural facts, so we will see our higher self, ruling in our destiny.

Of course, the question can always be raised, I just want to say that as an interjection, dear ladies and gentlemen, whether this will always continue in this way for all eternity with earthly life. Well, only as long as the earth is under the same conditions as it is now, will earthly life continue in this way. Spiritual science leads us straight back – you can read more about this in my 'Occult Science' – to very different conditions on Earth. There, the human being has also developed out of very different conditions into a life that leads him through repeated lives on Earth. And when the Earth has taken on completely different forms, there will also be completely different conditions on Earth, as physics already teaches us, then the human being will also take on completely different forms. This life on earth is an intermediate state, from one birth to the next. But as we now live this life on earth, spiritual science is what brings coherence to all our coincidences of fate, what allows us to grow together with our destiny. And it is certainly the case in our time, and I do not want it to be felt as out of place, when it is said that the difficult time that we are going through in these days, weeks and months must particularly direct our souls to such an understanding of human destiny. We see – as I mentioned the day before yesterday – how, in countless sufferings, but also in countless acts of courageous bravery, in admirable acts of sacrifice, what must be lived out in the course of history is being lived out precisely through today's events.

And how can a person who finds himself in these events feel a sense of belonging to these events, how can he feel a sense of belonging to these fateful events of our time, if he can feel how the secret bond of attraction, which has been said to emanate from his being and to prepare his destiny, has placed him precisely in this fateful time? How does one feel, growing together with such a difficult time, when one feels the growing together between the human being in the higher sense and destiny in the sense of spiritual science? And how does that trust grow, which we must have in events, when one sees the connection between the human being and his destiny? On the one hand, we see how we, with our higher self, have chosen this time as our appropriate lifetime, as the lifetime that most closely corresponds to the qualities that we have hidden in our core being, and how we have placed ourselves in this time. In this way we also gain confidence: we will have the strength to truly fulfill the demands that this time must place on us. Not through mere admonitions, not through mere coaxing, not in some sentimental way do we want to be prompted by spiritual science to have confidence, but by saying to ourselves: one thing always demands another. The qualities in our soul that have brought us into this time are connected with others that will also enable us to lead what our time lets us experience to such ends as were presented in the lecture the day before yesterday as arising from the demands of our time.

We do not rely on admonitions, not on sentimental coaxing, but on the knowledge that we can have of the forces that are there to overcome, after the forces were there that led us into the time. For man gains, when he really immerses himself in spiritual science with his soul, honored attendees, that he gains a full awareness of it: Yes, down there in your depths, there are soul forces that you know nothing about, but that can come up from these depths! Above all, man gains trust in himself, trust in the forces that are in him, in the depths of his soul. This is what lies in spiritual science itself as a strengthening soul force. And if we again take up the thread of what I allowed myself to take up the day before yesterday, of Central European culture, how it is, one might say, enclosed by its enemies as if in a great fortress, we can say: this trust is strengthened in us in yet another way.

The day before yesterday, I pointed out how this Central European culture is truly called upon to develop a very special spiritual life, and how this spiritual life can be characterized by saying that the members of other nationalities are born into their nationality; as they are born, so to speak, people stand within their nation, and when you see [how other nations emphasize the national principle], you always find it traced back to the fact that the person was born into that nation. That is precisely what is peculiar about the Central European people, that they are becoming. To use Goethe's words: “Whosoever strives, we can redeem him” — that is the motto of the Central European. To discover what one is, that is the essential thing. To discover during one's lifetime what one is as a Central European cultural being, that is the peculiarity of the Central European, the seeking, the striving.

And so we find, when we look, I would say, properly at the folk spirits of the Central European people, we find, as germinally predisposed, everywhere, the very thing that spiritual science wants to express as its innermost lifeblood, which it hopes will increasingly incorporate itself into culture. And there we see that the germs appear everywhere in the Central European cultural soul, just as it is true that the germs, if cultivated in the right way, must develop into flowers and fruits, so it is true that we may trust that will bear blossoms and fruits and that it will not be possible to prevent this Central European spiritual life from bearing these blossoms and fruits, no matter how many enemies arise against it in the east and west and north and south. For the forces lie within it, the forces do not lie in anything that comes from outside this Central European spiritual life.

So we see, to pick just a few examples, how there are people within Central European intellectual life who are completely immersed in it with all its soul forces and who, I would like to suggest, are pointing to what spiritual science in its full light wants to present to humanity. In this connection I would like to draw attention to a spirit who, especially under the present conditions, has had even less influence on Central European intellectual life, but who is truly completely immersed in it and is characteristic of this Central European intellectual life in the deepest sense: one could call him 'Goethe's deputy'. I am talking about Herman Grimm, the great art historian of the second half of the nineteenth century. I do not want to go into the peculiarities of Herman Grimm's art research, which is so misunderstood by many, today. But I would like to point out that Herman Grimm wrote wonderful novellas and also an extraordinarily significant novel, “Unüberwindliche Mächte” (Insurmountable Forces) is the title.

I would like to draw attention to something in this work of art – which has not been recognized, which is contained in this work of art and which we recognize as characteristic of Central European intellectual life – in just a few strokes. I would like to highlight a few characteristic features. Herman Grimm attempts to depict the fate of people, but everywhere he feels the need to work as an artist towards what spiritual science should bring to the living scientific life of humanity, namely: to link human fate not only to what can be presented externally as events that can be pursued by the mind, but to what stands behind these events.

He has written a novella, 'The Songstress', a very remarkable novella. I mention this novella not because I want to prove something about spiritual science through a work of art, but for the opposite reason, because I want to show how someone who has immersed themselves in spiritual science can find that here an artist describes something in such a way that the spiritual researcher feels: he does not describe certain spiritual processes in a dilettantish way, but he describes spiritual processes in such a way that they correspond to what the spiritual researcher must gradually discover. In this singer, we find a portrayal of how a somewhat flirtatious but nevertheless spiritually advanced lady exerts a great attraction on a person who has to face her in life. But the lady attracts him, the one who loves her so much, and repels him again. And now the novella is constructed in such a way that the one who writes it, who gives the story of himself, is not the lover, but someone else who takes part in telling it in the first person. He says that he has become acquainted with the lady's lover, that he has seen how the lover is drawn to and then repelled by the lady, and how the lover finally comes to be completely ostracized by the lady, and how he comes to lose all comfort and all hope and all security in life. Now we see how the other man, who is his friend, later meets him on a journey, after he has already lost all confidence in life, how he takes him to his house, how he finds out about him, how he is so saddened to death that he really no longer wants to live. So this friend brings the singer herself; she is to come to the house so that the two can meet again. Meanwhile, however, the lover has arranged it so that when the two, the friend and the singer, arrive at the friend's home, the shot is fired and the lover ends his life by suicide upon their arrival. And now we see, as described in a wonderful way by Herman Grimm, how this lady is in the friend's house in the next few nights and how she experiences - after the lover has killed himself - how she experiences, in spirit form, what has passed through the gateway of death from her lover. And Herman Grimm lets us sense that what has gone out through death is actually the determining factor of fate. It is so much a part of this that precisely through the effect that emanates from the appearance of the dead person, I would say the ghostly apparition, the lady herself wastes away and finally dies.

Again, just as with the dream, I do not want to place too much emphasis on the content that is presented, but rather on the fact that here we have an artist who does not stop at the mere one-sided reality of the external sensory world and in the mere summary of the external coincidences of fate, as one says, but who tries to see the chains of human destiny in their connection with what passes through the gateway of death and also to represent it artistically.

Herman Grimm does this not only once, as he shows with his great novel “Unüberwindliche Mächte”. He shows this by letting the novel's heroine, young Emmy, experience how the one who has become the most precious thing in the world to her is murdered. He does not end up by suicide, he is murdered. She is already ill, the heroine, but with the death of her lover she now wastes away. And now Herman Grimm vividly describes how very peculiar death is, how what has passed through the gate of death plays a role in the case of the person who has been shot – he has been shot, has not ended his life by suicide – how this is still connected with the soul of the living, how it affects the living, how it forms a mysterious bond and actually causes the infirmity in this being, Emmy. And now Herman Grimm describes even that which only the spiritual researcher can understand in its full significance: he describes how the spirit form, which passes through death into the spiritual world, really rises. Herman Grimm wonderfully describes how, still in the physical body, I would say imitating head and hands and the whole figure, the spirit rises and passes into the spiritual world, in order to unite as a spirit, as the spirit of Emmy, with the spirit of her beloved friend. Here, too, Herman Grimm shows that he seeks the forces that actually play out human destiny in the spiritual world. Thus we see in this artist how the germ of spiritual-scientific deepening is present in Central European intellectual culture.

Sometimes this germ in the Central European spiritual culture comes to the fore in a very peculiar way. Just to mention one example out of the hundreds and hundreds that could be mentioned, I would like to highlight that of a German schoolmaster who once wrote a treatise on the immortality of the soul. He wanted to publish the second edition of this treatise. A friend of his published it in the posthumous writings. Strangely enough, this friend of the school director, Johann Heinrich Deinhardt, makes a very interesting interpretation in a note. He says that the school director wrote to him before his death saying that if he himself were to publish a second edition of this essay, he would have to describe what he had come up with, namely that in the life between birth and death, a spirit soul being is built up through what the person has worked for, and this passes through the gateway of death into the spiritual world.

When one sees how the way in which Central European intellectual life forms thoughts and feelings, how it tends, how it points everywhere to what spiritual science wants, how the germ points to the blossoms and the fruits, all this points to spiritual science.

And again I would like to say: This too becomes clear to us, especially when we look at the Austrian part of Central European intellectual life and cite some examples, and this too becomes clear to us, as was touched on the day before yesterday, that at the bottom of the soul there is pain and suffering and struggle and that only by conquering pain and suffering and struggle and, as we have seen today, by overcoming fear and powerlessness, is it possible for the human being to develop his life's treasure. This, too, presents itself to us in the outer life, in the whole way of striving, and this now especially, I would like to say, in the Austrian part of Central European intellectual life.

There is a spirit, a wonderfully attractive Austrian spirit, Bartholomäus Carneri. When Darwinism entered modern intellectual life, other spirits developed it in such a way that they drew the logical consequences and formed a one-sided world view, the one-sided world view of materialism. Bartholomäus Carneri wrote books such as the wonderful 'Morality and Darwinism'. Even if one does not agree with the content - because, of course, Carneri only came to a beginning and did not know spiritual science - if one goes into such a book as he wrote in the last period of his life, the book 'Modern Man', then one sees how this man, who was so rooted in Austrian Central European intellectual life, could not help but grasp Darwinism not only intellectually, but also in terms of what man carries in his mind as a moral force. And so Bartholomäus Carneri drew emotional and moral consequences from Darwinism and founded an idealism in a wonderful way based on Darwinism. One may consider this to be wrong, but this peculiar idealism of Bartholomäus Carneri is characteristic of Central European intellectual life.

And we can look at another mind that is truly characteristic, I would say, precisely for a certain state of development of Central European intellectual life, at the Austrian poet Robert Hamerling, who at the same time, as his book “The Atomism of the Will, shows that he was also a great philosopher who, in his last years, prophetically presented the mechanization of human life in his “FHomunkulus” and pointed out the necessity to overcome this mechanization of life.

However, esteemed attendees, we have not yet found the inner strength to fully feel everything that had a vital, spiritual effect in spirits such as the aforementioned Herman Grimm, Bartholomäus Carneri, and Robert Hamerling. Those who often dominate literature today have had completely different things to do. But our great fateful time will show where the great nerves of Central European cultural life lie.

There have been people who could not sufficiently delve into the greatness that lies in the characterization, but who have instead admired the greatness of a spirit that is supposed to be particularly outstanding, that has been particularly admired in recent years, and that was met with astonishment when he, as a Frenchman, spoke out so hatefully against Central European intellectual culture. I am referring to Romain Rolland, the author of the novel 'Jean-Christophe'. It is fair to say, esteemed attendees, that just as Robert Hamerling and Herman Grimm had a deep sense of reality, in that they knew that they had to seek reality in its fullness even where the senses no longer reach, as true as it is in Romain Rolland, in his “Jean-Christophe”, one might almost say hatred of reality, a tendency to grotesquely distort reality because it only wants to be looked at externally. And the much-admired novel, which in the eyes of many is supposed to be one of the greatest, “Jean-Christophe”, is, in the eyes of anyone who can feel this, who can feel the roundness and essence of a being, this novel is, in its creation of the hero, Jean-Christophe, a chaotic mishmash, mixed together from the characteristics of Beethoven, Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler.

Just as the elements of these four greats could never be combined in a person by nature, so too can this chaos never come together in a healthy artistic nature. Those who knew what Romain Rolland and his real art were like were really not surprised that this Romain Rolland so grotesquely misjudged Central European intellectual life after the war broke out. If only we could really get to the bottom of things, then many things would be understandable, especially in the present.

However, all this cannot make us despondent. It was said the day before yesterday and was also referred to again in today's lecture: that which is built on the surface of human life over an underground, over the struggle and war of opposing powers, contains fear and powerlessness, but something is built over it that must nevertheless be the courage to face life and the development of life; and so it is in the outer world as well. And it is perhaps no coincidence that the peculiarity that strikes us with such wonderful sympathy in Bartholomäus Carneri's philosophical writings has arisen in a life that has been physically and bodily heavily burdened in a paralyzed body; in a body that was paralyzed for a long time, Carneri has struggled to the insights of his noble idealism. There we see how treasures of the mind are wrested from the body. And Robert Hamerling, he lay for decades prostrate with a serious illness. Born of suffering is that which elevates people after it has been born! That which arises from suffering can be precisely that which permeates life with the highest delight and the highest joy.

When one peers into the secrets of life and discovers such peculiarities – the latter is only, I might say, particularly emphasized because it does not appear to be a coincidence – when one discovers such peculiarities, then one will find all the more in this Central European intellectual life the character that it yearns everywhere for such a deepening of the spirit as the future must demand of people. Everywhere minds are at work to find that which Goethe did not write into his “Faust” in his youth, but only later, after Goethe himself had matured, incorporated into his Faust.

Sublime Spirit, thou gavest me, [gavest me] everything,
Why I asked. Thou didst not in vain
Turn thy face to me in the fire.
Gavest me the glorious nature of a kingdom,
The power to feel and enjoy it. Not
Coldly marveling visitors you only allow,
allow me to look into her deep chest,
as into the bosom of a friend.
You lead the line of the living
past 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 as it falls. Then you lead me to the safe cave,then you show me myself, and my own heart is opened to its deep, secret wonders.

There we see, I would say, the whole gamut of human experience; already we see, in a foreboding way, the whole gamut of human experience, as it is to be opened up by what spiritual science is to explore for the human being of the future. But precisely because this Central European spiritual life has the character of striving, the character of becoming, it will strive more and more to see the related everywhere, to see a related everywhere, to also live in a related in outer nature. The spirit within man will find the spirit outside, truly recognize the brothers in the forest and meadow and in all that is alive. That is to say, the human self will expand and merge with and become immersed in the whole universe. And man will be led to the secure cave, and the mysterious wonders of the spirit's becoming and essence will open up – when he overcomes his fear through spiritual science, to find his true self in the great stream of destiny.

Oh, the forces that are set against this Central European spiritual life feeling like a single, great spiritual organism are also part of this Central European spiritual life. If I may again draw attention to something personal, not to bring up something personal, but only to clarify something, I would like to say: It is difficult for the people of Central Europe to really achieve what they have been predestined to achieve, to achieve, to grow together into a whole, because they have to achieve it through life – not through what they themselves do not strive for, through physical birth, but through the life they choose for themselves in their destiny. That is why it made a significant impression on me – and I am allowed to mention this personal thing, because I really spent half of my life in my Austrian homeland, and the other half of my life in the German Reich, and therefore, putting both on the same scale, I was really able to compare them well. I am allowed to mention such things because I have not only But I can say this because I have not only acquired intellectual but also sensitive judgment in the course of my life. It made a harrowing impression on me when I was sitting in a hotel in Weimar with Herman Grimm and the conversation, which at the time Herman Grimm directed to various really urgent and interesting things, then also came to the Austrian poet Grillparzer, this quintessentially Austrian poet. Herman Grimm said to me at the time: “Grillparzer, I can't understand him; I've been told that Grillparzer is also supposed to be a great German poet. I once passed through Munich, stayed there for a few days, and had some volumes of Grillparzer's dramas sent to me from the library. I tried – says Herman Grimm – to see if I could feel what people say, that Grillparzer is also a great poet. But it seemed to me as if Grillparzer were not a German poet at all, but as if what is in his dramas were translations from a completely foreign language. Thus spoke the honored guest, whom I myself had to describe today as a characteristic spirit, as one of the deepest and most meaningful spirits of Central European intellectual life. Therefore, he may be cited for the fact of how strong the sense of individuality is in the individual members of this Central European cultural humanity.

Even if these people of Central European civilization did not belong to different nationalities, even if they all belonged to one nation, like Grillparzer and Herman Grimm, they are so individually constituted that they can only find each other after great difficulties. This is connected with the opposing forces that are present. But the greater these opposing forces are, the greater must be the forces that are applied to shape the whole into a unified, organic whole. Then it will be in that, as in a cultural current bed, that deepening for the spiritual life can and must be found that can only be truly found within Central Europe, because this Central European spiritual life tends towards the spiritual deepening that I have taken the liberty of indicating today with a few very inadequate, but still a few strokes as the goals of spiritual science. This Central European spiritual life cannot rest until it has developed the blossoms and fruits of what lies within it as a germ.

And anyone who has learned to rely on the driving and sustaining power of inner spiritual forces knows from this inner knowledge that this Central European spiritual life, however besieged and threatened it may be and however fought and waged against it may be by its enemies, will not disappear from history until it has incorporated everything that it has to give to world culture.

And this, esteemed attendees, is still a great and mighty undertaking, for we recognize this spiritual life of Central Europe not yet as blossoms and fruits, but as a germ that must develop. And it is on the driving force of the germ that those who today seek courage and strength for our fateful days from spiritual knowledge itself build. This Central European spiritual life will not let go of what is inherent in it through minds like Goethe and all the others. Goethe has spoken a great and powerful word with regard to the unified recognition of the world as spirit and as outer physicality for those who shrink back in fear of self-knowledge and in the powerlessness to recognize the world. For them, Goethe has also spoken the right words, always finding the right words from his, I would say instinctive, spirit of knowledge, by saying, picking up on a word spoken by another, one of the fainthearted: “No created spirit penetrates into the innermost part of nature!”

No, says Goethe, what is in man is capable, if only it is properly developed, of penetrating into the innermost part of nature and into the inner nerve of the world. Therefore, Goethe says in his powerful language, rejecting Haller's “No created spirit penetrates into the innermost part of nature”:

I have been hearing this repeated for almost sixty years.
And I curse it, but furtively.

Haller continues:

Happy the man to whom she
Only shows the outer shell.

- namely, nature - and Goethe then says:

Nature has neither core
nor shell,
All at once it is everything.
You alone are tested most of all,
Whether you yourself are core or shell.

Central European intellectual life, however, has the task of developing the kernel into the shell in its soul everywhere. And so today, in a few words, let me summarize in a way that is in keeping with my feelings what I wanted to illustrate in today's and also in yesterday's lecture, to the effect that man is truly created not only to interior of nature, to penetrate the spirituality that permeates nature, but is also created to recognize itself in the flow of its destiny, to be reconciled with this destiny and to understand why it has grown together with the destiny of its time.

Goethe points to the same sentiment with meaningful, though simple words. He points out that what man seeks in spiritual development is indeed a mystery, but a mystery that can be fathomed. Goethe knew that the world is overwhelming, which can already justify the powerlessness of knowledge, but he also knew that this powerlessness can be overcome, that man can penetrate the veil of nature. That is why we want to conclude this reflection with Goethe's words, because they truly and sensitively summarize what is the attitude of spiritual science, what spiritual science wants to illustrate:

When observing nature, you must
always consider everything as one;
nothing is inside, nothing is outside.

Goethe says that what is hidden deep within us we find on the outside, and what we recognize as external, including the outer courses of fate - as spiritual science says - we recognize as the fates of the higher human being.

For what is within is without.
So seize without delay
Sacred public secret.

That, most honored attendees, is Goethe's attitude, that, in full development, will be the attitude of spiritual science and will be able to underlie that soul mood, that soul strengthening, which can arise from spiritual science, in difficult times, but also in such fateful times as we are experiencing today, as we are experiencing them again in our present.

Dear attendees! For a number of years now, I have been privileged to present here time and again on questions of world view from the point of view of spiritual science, as will also be the basis for tonight's reflections.

Now, the friends of our spiritual-scientific worldview here have essentially been of the opinion that such a lecture should also be given this year, in these difficult times of ours. And that may well not be inappropriate, because spiritual science, as it is meant here, is really connected with the deepest questions of the human heart, of human life, of the human soul, with all the questions that go to the bottom of the bitter disappointments of human life and the impulses that underlie the courageous, bold, sacrificial deeds of the time that bears so much in its womb and in which we are currently living.

Now, of course, spiritual science, as it is meant here, is not very appropriate in our time, nor is it in line with the thinking of the broadest circles. And anyone who is completely immersed in the subject of spiritual science, will not find it incomprehensible when one contradiction after another, one opposition after another, arises against what is said here from a spiritual-scientific point of view. It is also much more understandable to the representative of this spiritual science when general judgment and general opinion see something fantastic and dreamy in this spiritual science. Such judgments are first of all asserted by those who have had little contact with this spiritual science. This is easier to understand than if someone were to readily and wholeheartedly agree with such unfamiliar things. In particular, there are three points of view that are always asserted from the opponents of spiritual science.

First of all, it is said that what wants to present itself as spiritual science contradicts a world view that is based on the sensual foundations of scientific research in the present. The second objection, which must also be raised, is that this spiritual science, by its very nature, could easily lead to the dark sides of the human soul, to superstition, prejudices and the like. And a third point that is still being asserted is that the most valuable, the most esteemed human feelings and emotions, religious feelings, would somehow be affected by what spiritual science has to assert.

Now, esteemed attendees, I hope that from the suggestions I will allow myself to give this evening, it can be seen how these three objections to spiritual science, or, one could also say, to supersensible knowledge, can be defeated.

First, let us consider the relationship of spiritual science to natural science thinking, to a natural science-based world view in the present day. Again and again, I have emphasized here that true, non-dilettantish spiritual science will not in the least rebel against anything that is a proven result of the current natural science world view. On the contrary, spiritual science wants to be a continuation of what natural science is for the external, sensory and external-practical life, what natural science has achieved to such a high and admirable degree in recent centuries. In this way, spiritual science seeks to be a science in the same sense as natural science is a science for the external world. Therefore, this spiritual science must take a completely different path, must research in a completely different way than natural science has to do its task. And because, especially in the course of the last few centuries, namely the nineteenth century, until today, we have become accustomed to regarding only the way of approaching things that natural science does as truly scientific, it is quite natural that at present people do not yet want to accept as science something that on the one hand wants to be science but, as spiritual science, must be different from natural science.

Basically, it is the case that spiritual science only begins its research where natural science, where ordinary, everyday thinking, ends. And it is easiest to get an idea of what spiritual science wants to be and should be, how it wants to position itself in the overall cultural process of the time, by paying attention to how it differs from natural scientific research and everyday thinking. In the course of such scientific research and in ordinary thinking, we look at the objects of the sense world that are around us. We try to grasp the laws of the processes of this sense world with our brain-bound thinking. We try to bring coherence into the succession of phenomena. And in general, for ordinary thinking and also for ordinary science, we are quite content with the fact that we have acquired concepts, notions and ideas about what unfolds before our senses or what takes place in the course of historical development in humanity. When we have arrived at these conceptions, concepts and ideas, and when we can be convinced that they depict something of the external sensory reality, we have satisfied our need for this external knowledge.

But where ordinary science, this everyday thinking, has to stop, that is where spiritual science must begin its research. Spiritual science is not about conducting external experiments or applying any research methods based on things that can be externally surveyed by the senses, but about studying the most intimate processes of the soul, which, however, must first be evoked. The spiritual researcher has to do with a purely spiritual-soul work in a spiritual laboratory, as the chemist has to do with a sensory work in an outer laboratory and its processes. And just as the chemist allows people to see what he can extract from nature through his processes, so the spiritual researcher must be able to allow people to see into intimate soul processes, which, however, just as in the chemical laboratory the processes must be evoked through experiments, must first be evoked. This is what one must pay particular attention to. One does not arrive at the results of spiritual science through experiences of the soul that one already has in ordinary life or in ordinary science, but only by evoking soul-spiritual processes that do not exist at all in ordinary thinking, in ordinary imagining and feeling.

What the soul has to accomplish is usually referred to as meditation, as concentration of thought. And it will be my task to sketch out, at least with a few lines, the picture that should represent what the spiritual researcher has to do to find the way into the spiritual worlds. You can find everything in more detail in my books, in “How to Know Higher Worlds” and in the second part of my “Occult Science”.

What it is about is that one treats the thought, the concept, the sensation, in short, the whole soul life of man in a different way than one is accustomed to treating it in everyday life and in ordinary science. Where everyday life stops, spiritual research must begin. It is not about having a thought for spiritual science, but about living inwardly, becoming completely one with a thought experience, with an intuitive perception. Therefore, it is not at all important, not so essential, to have a thought, an intuitive perception, that initially depicts something external. I would like to say that one experiences more intimately in spiritual research if one initially devotes oneself to such thought experiences that do not depict anything external. I would like to introduce an example of this, a simple example.

Let us assume that someone forms the idea: “In the light that spreads through space, wisdom spreads through the world.” This is certainly not a thought that any scientist or the external, material life will recognize. But the point is not to depict something that is real in the external, sensual sense, but to now fully immerse the thought in the soil of the soul life and to awaken the strength in the soul that must be awakened if such a thought is to be held entirely within the soul life through inner effort. One must distract one's attention from everything else one sees and hears in the world; from everything else one is reminded of in life; from all that one can experience as suffering and joy in life, especially feelings that arise from the passions, from the instinctual life; one must distract oneself from all this for the time in which one wants to immerse oneself completely in such a thought, which one places at the center of one's soul life through inner arbitrariness.

All these soul forces, which are otherwise used for the unfolding life of the soul, are drawn from the outer life, including the everyday inner life. For what matters is not that one has this thought on which one wants to concentrate, not what it contains, but the inner, spiritual-soul activity, the spiritual-soul work of becoming aware of what the soul is doing by fixing itself on a single thought. But such an exercise should not be done just once as something temporary or repeated a few times, and then one should not expect that some experiences will already occur. This exercise, depending on the personal disposition of the person, must be continued for years. For some people it takes less time, for some more. But patience and perseverance and inner energy must be applied so that the path of spiritual research can be entered in this way. Above all, the exercise of patience must consist of holding the same thought again and again – you will soon see why this must be so. What matters is not a change of thoughts, but this concentrated soul activity.

Now, when the soul is urged in this way to perform an arbitrary task that it does not otherwise use in the outer life, then one gradually notices that what the soul does becomes more and more independent of what it otherwise depends on very much, of the bodily, the external bodily. One must experience for oneself what arises from this togetherness, this very intimate togetherness with such a soul activity. And that is what seems so grotesque, even paradoxical, to the thinking habits of our time when one hears what can arise from such an inner effort of the soul life. Just as little as someone who has never heard of chemistry and has only seen water can imagine that hydrogen, which has completely different properties than water - water is liquid and extinguishes fire, hydrogen is a gas and burns itself - can be extracted from water, hydrogen is something different than water, but it is in water, and you only notice it when you have extracted it through chemical methods. To someone who has never seen this, who has never heard of chemistry, it will sound amazing that a substance that burns can be obtained from water.

In the same way, it will sound paradoxical and fantastic to someone who has never heard of spiritual experiences or such experiences in the soul when they are told that through the repeated exertion of the soul in the direction described, the spiritual-soul element is really released from the physical-bodily element , that the soul-spiritual becomes completely free and one can speak of the fact that the end of the path, the beginning of which, as already mentioned, has been characterized with a few strokes, is that one experiences: You are no longer in your body with your thinking, your brain, you are outside your body with it. Your body has become an object outside of yourself, as the objects of the sensory world are outside of the physical body.

This is a great and significant experience, to which the spiritual researcher ascends. To have really experienced once that one can be independent in one's spiritual and mental activities from the physical and bodily, is one of the most harrowing things one can go through in one's mental experience. And that must be emphasized: the methods of the spiritual researcher are not ones that leave one as indifferent as external scientific methods. Even if I have had to describe to you what may have seemed to you to be an abstract inner process, it is nevertheless connected with the whole of our soul life, if one really succeeds in intensifying one's entire soul life with what has been brought into the center of one's soul life through free will. Not just the thoughts, but the impulses of the emotions and the impulses of the will move up from the depths of the soul. One has the feeling that one's entire inner being is drawn along by what the thought, on which one has concentrated, has torn out of oneself. The beginning of the path is that one feels energized inwardly, so to speak, and rises to the one sensation, which is first felt fully: You break away from your physical body; you move into a completely different world, into which your physical body cannot move. I am not telling you something constructed, but the real experiences of the researcher.

At first, you have this experience of coming out of the physical body. But then this experience changes. If you keep making efforts in this direction, you will notice that instead of further intensifying this inner experience, you now feel how it becomes paralyzed, this inner life; how it becomes weaker and weaker. Up to a certain point it becomes stronger and stronger, but then it becomes weaker and weaker. So that one has the feeling: not an external-physical fainting, but a mental-spiritual fainting begins. One has the feeling that one would lose all one's spiritual experiences when one has left one's body, as if some unknown force were taking them away.

If I were to try to characterize what one experiences inwardly, I would have to resort to concepts and comparisons, but these imply more than usual comparisons, which may seem unfamiliar at first. Let us assume that a plant grows out of the ground, towards the leaves and flowers, and finally into the fruit. In this plant there is also the power that ultimately brings forth the germ. Let us assume that the germ could become conscious by growing the plant in this way. Let us assume that the germ would have to have the feeling: I am becoming more and more powerful, more and more able to create a new plant out of myself. But the germ knows that the old plant is dying. It knows: I take its strength; only by causing the leaves to fall and the flowers to wither can I flourish as a germ. All this must lose its meaning, then I can develop as a germ.

This is also how it is, my dear attendees, when you immerse yourself in the spiritual and soul realm in the way described, which has now become free of the body. One feels as if one is living into an element that is always at the bottom of the soul, but the whole of human life between birth and death has within it forces that actually destroy it; forces that gradually cause the human being to die, the human being as he is in physical life, leading him towards death. One cannot look at this process in the depths of the human soul without first having brought before the spiritual eye the reasons that exist in man as reasons for the death that will come over him in physical life.

Therefore, for those who have known something about this process over the centuries, the experience that is meant is such that they have said: One arrives at the gate of death; one makes oneself known when the soul and spirit separate from the body, that one is continually being pulled and paralyzed by the best that one has in everyday life, by that which is our innermost life asset in the physical body. This is hidden from us in the ordinary life. There we only enjoy the fruit. We notice that we can think and feel. The spiritual researcher has made the discovery that if he really lifts out of his body what underlies thinking and feeling, it is that which actually constantly consumes the body, which lives in man as the power of thought, as the power of feeling, as the power of will. In its real form, it is that which harbors the destructive forces of the body and which ultimately really concentrates itself into death.

You can understand that the wise guides of the world had good reason to draw a veil over these processes for ordinary life. But anyone who wants to research the truth must not be afraid of the true nature of that which works in the depths of the soul and is always present. That is why one speaks of a powerlessness that comes over one when one has gone the spiritual research way to a certain point in the inwardly concentrated soul life. And when one has done everything to continue on this path, then the forces intensify, then one finally comes to overcome this inner powerlessness and to live fully consciously in the spiritual-soul, but now separated from the physical-bodily, lives in the spiritual-soul. It must now be emphasized that just as the spiritual researcher is generally well aware of the contradictions between the scientific world view and what he has to assert, he is also well aware of what can be objected to in detail about what he has to present.

Thus, the spiritual researcher knows very well that the medically or scientifically educated person can say: Yes, we are well aware of what you are telling us, that when a person hypnotizes himself or suggests a certain idea, he enters a state in which he then lives in an abnormal consciousness, in a pathological state. But we also know that such a state cannot lead to anything healthy, to any true knowledge. What science and the scientifically educated can object to in this way is very well known to the spiritual researcher. But the person who raises such objections against spiritual science is not familiar with what spiritual research presents, so that the path known to the physician and the natural scientist is avoided. For that which the physician and the natural scientist know and characterize in the manner just discussed is precisely what the spiritual researcher avoids, because all this is still bound to the body in a certain way. The unconsciousness that has been mentioned, all the upsetting things that the soul goes through, are experienced purely in the spiritual and soul realm; the physical is not involved at all.

Those who are familiar with the methods of spiritual research will find that what spiritual research provides as its methods and what lies after the soul has been healed is the opposite of what physicians or natural scientists believe to be the basis of this concentration and meditation. For everything that is experienced there is not experienced in the same way as in a hypnotized state or suggestion, but is based precisely on the soul-spiritual becoming free from that which can be hypnotized or comes to suggestion. That which is put to sleep when someone is hypnotized, that which is switched off when someone is given suggestive ideas, is what is brought to life in spiritual research, and it is what is switched off in that which is affected as in an automaton, what the hypnotist or the suggestor does. In hypnosis and suggestion, what is awakened in spiritual research is to be lulled to sleep. I can only hint at all these things; you can read more about them in my books and in our literature in general.

If the spiritual researcher now continues on his path as described, he comes to a real experience of a spiritual-soul core. This spiritual-soul core could be compared to something external; one could compare it to the plant germ, which forms from the forces that gradually arise in the plant, forming beyond the leaves, the petals, and then becoming a new plant. In this way, spiritual science can speak of a spiritual-soul core in the human being. But here I must particularly draw attention to the fact that the whole process of spiritual research is a process of knowledge. What the spiritual researcher discovers is not brought about by developing the methods within himself. All the methods that he develops within himself in this way do not lead to anything new in the human soul, but only to a knowledge of what is already there in the human soul. We can say that the plant germ, which is discovered by the spiritual researcher, does not change in any of its properties when I look at it. Likewise, what lies at the bottom of the soul and is only covered up for everyday life does not change when the spiritual researcher applies his methods to his own soul. He only looks at what is at the bottom of the soul. So this spiritual-soul core is at the bottom of every human soul. The spiritual researcher only discovers that he carries this spiritual-soul core in his soul, like the plant germ that grows from one plant to another.

He knows that what goes through birth and death, what existed in a spiritual-soul world before birth, what has descended from the spiritual world, is not brought about by bodily-physical processes , but that it itself, by living in the body, works on the formation of the body; that it then, in turn, passes through the gate of death into a spiritual world, after it has been woven and worked between birth and death in the bodily life. This is the essence of spiritual science, that this spiritual-soul core of the human being is truly contemplated.

If we now continue our meditation and concentration on life, namely on the side of the will, and continue this intimate soul life, then we notice something else. However, it is necessary to treat the will just as intimately as one treats the thought in meditation and concentration, in the absorbed way that has just been described. To make this clear, I would like to say the following. It is something simple, because these things always start from something simple; the first steps follow on from ordinary life. Only when we pursue the path energetically with inner strength can the end of that harrowing thing I spoke of be achieved.

We can simply reflect on our own destiny. In our daily lives, we experience how external circumstances bring us joy, pain, renunciation, and courage. Basically, in our daily lives, people relate to these twists of fate in the same way that people relate to natural phenomena. He who has no inkling of natural laws sees the sun rising and setting, and the stars rising in the night sky; he sees the processes that otherwise develop around him, but does not see any kind of connection between them. Now, through scientific knowledge, man is beginning to see laws in these successive facts and processes. If we have come so far in the course of human development that every educated person recognizes that external facts and natural processes can be understood through lawful connections, then we have only reached the starting point of the time that will decide to also see through what takes place as so-called life destinies, so that a connection can be found in them. How can we find this connection? Not in such an abstract way, that we search for laws as in natural science and history. This also depends on a devotion of the human soul forces to research. But, as I said, starting from the simple, we can make these two paths into the spiritual world clear.

If we ask ourselves: What are we as human beings who can do this or that, who have acquired abilities? If we reflect on how we have acquired such abilities, how we have acquired what we can do, we will come back to the earlier time of our present life. If we do not review our lives thoughtlessly, but really put ourselves into these life contexts, we have to say to ourselves: I would now not be able to do something that I can do if certain coincidences of fate had not befallen me between the tenth and twentieth year. It is because this or that happened to me that I have received these abilities. And if you follow this train of thought further, you come to the conclusion that you actually owe what you are to your destiny, that what is now our whole self has come together through fate. What the self is for the world is what one can do. And you will find an intimate connection between what you understand and what you have once experienced as the vicissitudes of life. And when we do not merely exercise our intellect in this train of thought, but engage our whole soul, that is, our whole feeling and willing nature, when we give our whole mind to this willing and immerse ourselves in such a process of experience, then what we are grows beyond ourselves and grows into destiny. We say to ourselves: Destiny is what sustains us. Just as the sea carries the iceberg on its waves, so the destiny that we survey carries our self. Our destiny has made it what it is now. This can be the beginning of such an inner experience.

But if you do not let this inner experience flash by, as you are accustomed to doing in your outer existence, but instead allow it to take place again and again as a spiritual-soul experience, if you repeat it over and over again, then the matter goes much further. Then a spiritual-soul experience will arise from it that is independent of the body, like the processes described above, except that this experience is quite different. It now shows us how we do not actually grow into our spiritual and mental core, but have to imagine ourselves growing together with the whole universe. We flow out into our whole universe, as it were. And we discover our self, not now within us, but in the world outside, where we previously only perceived objects that are outside of us. It is a long way again. We know that what we are otherwise accustomed to finding within us, we receive from the world; we have to lose ourselves in the way we always are, and we have to receive ourselves anew from the spiritual world in which we now are.

Man has an unconscious aversion to this experience at the bottom of his soul. He has a certain fear of having this experience, only he is not aware of it. There is much in our soul that does not come to our consciousness. But this fear is also covered by a veil. For we discover how we could previously feel like the plant germ [gap in the text] when it feels particularly strong, when we experienced powerlessness, we now feel as if we have been lifted out, but not in the same way as in the earlier exercise, when we lose the ground under your feet, but now you feel as if you are enchanted, as if you are petrified, frozen; you feel as if everything in us that is alive has frozen into stone, like a stone mass that is stuck in its existence. Now you realize that you learn more and more and more to distinguish: the rigid shows something that wants to continue forever, even into death, and what you recognize in it, wants to go through the gate of death, wants to enter a spiritual world.

It is something within us that guarantees that our existence does not end with death, but, just as a plant bears the germ of a new plant within itself, bears the germ of a later spiritual life within itself, in order to then return to a new life on earth. What one experiences in this way can be described something like this: One year you notice this stiffness; after a few years you find the results of your life even more rigid; after a few more years you have the experience of an even harder one, and finally you discover in what you experience what you have brought with you from the spiritual world through birth; what one has brought over from earlier earth lives into this life and what separates, consumes itself in the present life; what is driven to form the body between birth and death, to fill the ordinary life between birth and death. One experiences how, at the bottom of one's soul, in the subconscious, that which lies before the present life on earth collides with that which will lie after the present life on earth. And one perceives at the bottom of one's soul the powerlessness of that which cannot yet live, struggling with that which can no longer live.

And by discovering this struggle at the bottom of one's soul, one begins to know what this human life actually is. One begins to realize that this human life does indeed bring us the goods that we consider valuable above all in ordinary human life. But at the same time one notices that these goods, everything we live through in the waking state, is built on a struggle that takes place in the depths of the soul. At first, looking at this struggle is difficult. And when a philosopher speaks of the limits of knowledge, he basically does not know what he is talking about. What is he talking about? What I have described as the approaching powerlessness that one does not want to let come over one; what I have described as the fear that one shudders from, that does not come up into consciousness; the philosopher does not want to let it come up. He does everything to suppress it, and he masks that by saying: Man cannot know the world. He cannot know it without taking the path through powerlessness and fear. But this path is to be avoided. And by not admitting this to oneself, one states: human knowledge cannot go further than where Kant described it as being at its limit.

But the real reason for the fixation on the limits of knowledge lies in what I have just explained. But if you really look at what is going on at the bottom of the soul, you will not encounter a timid or despondent view of life, but you will know that this life, even the most mundane life that the simplest person can lead, is based on the fact that an infinite amount is going on in his soul. Yes, the life that we apply in thinking, feeling, and willing for our everyday tasks must be brought about by spiritual and soul forces that lie below the threshold of consciousness, in a real struggle; it must be won through a great and mighty victory. That we can live as human beings between birth and death is thanks to the victory of the powers that rule within us as described. The path of spiritual research is one of great sacrifice. But the result is such that it gives us strength of soul, because we experience inwardly that we could not be human if unknown spiritual powers did not have a tremendous task to accomplish in guiding us to what we are in everyday life.

We conquer trust, faith and hope as strength of soul when we allow the insights of spiritual research to take effect on us. And the objection is not justified, which would consist, for example, in saying: Yes, but all this can only be experienced by the spiritual researcher. No, it is not like that. Just as the chemist carries out his experiments in the laboratory and the other people are not present, so the spiritual researcher carries out these experiments in his spiritual-soul laboratory, experiments such as those just mentioned. And just as the chemist hands over what he has researched for the benefit of the general public, so the spiritual researcher can present what he has researched to his fellow human beings in a suitable way. And just as one does not need to be a chemist to have the products and their uses that the chemist produces, so one does not need to be a spiritual researcher to understand - I now say “to understand”, not just “to benefit from” - what the spiritual researcher brings forth in his spiritual laboratory, if one only overcomes the prejudices that come from clinging to the usual habits of thought.

This is precisely what must always be said: to explore things, to see into that which weaves and lives behind life, one needs spiritual research. But once things have been researched and put into words by the spiritual researcher in ordinary language, then it is only the prejudice that one has been brought up with by ordinary science that always tells one: That is not true. For spiritual science appeals to that which, as a natural sense of truth, is not only acquired but innate in man. And the time will come, most certainly the time will come, when people will not understand that they once resisted the results of spiritual science. Then people will say to themselves: Yes, the only reason why they did not understand what the spiritual researchers said, what they presented to people as the results of their research, was that they were accustomed, through scientific methods that had become common practice, to accept only what was called 'scientific', and that they did not want to think impartially about what the spiritual researchers said. Only because of this did they not see it.

Although - as you can read in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds” - anyone can become a spiritual researcher to a certain extent, at least to the extent that through inner development of the soul they can also recognize as true what the spiritual researcher finds on his path, they do not need to be one. But by ordinary, sound human understanding, if it is not clouded by prejudice, it can be recognized what spiritual research has to say. And the spiritual researcher must say: He immerses himself in the way in which spiritual culture has developed in the world, and then knows that truth and the knowledge of truth will find their way through all prejudices. Today, anyone who adheres to the conventional ideas of science can quite understandably come and say: Yes, what such a fantastic spiritual researcher says goes against common sense, against the healthy five senses! Yes, when Copernicus came and declared: The Earth moves, not the Sun; the Earth moves around the Sun; the Earth does not remain stationary and is orbited by the Sun and stars, but this is only simulated by the movement of the Earth - that was the case, it contradicted what the healthy five senses had always believed until then. The external world view could only be built on the fact that one no longer trusted the five senses. Humanity has also become accustomed to this, even if it took a long time. And so it will also have to get used to what spiritual science has to proclaim. We can recall what Giordano Bruno expressed when, in his deeply feeling soul, he contemplated what Copernicus brought to humanity. We can recall how he said: You humans look up there and see the blue vault of heaven. But this is not there at all; rather, by the fact that your vision works in a certain way, you create the blue firmament for yourselves. In doing so, you set yourselves limits. But space extends to infinity. It is your visual faculty that is to blame for the existence of the blue firmament. And an infinite number of worlds are embedded in infinite space. As Giordano Bruno asserted, it caused offence.

And just as Giordano Bruno spoke in relation to space, so today the spiritual researcher must say: That which man sets as a boundary is like a temporal firmament. In reality there is no boundary, just as there is no boundary to the blue firmament. Rather, human imagination sets its own boundaries. But just as space extends over countless worlds, so time expands in its course. And embedded in the course of time are the successive earthly lives of man, of which Lessing, in the most mature fruit of his life, already spoke as in a spiritual testament. The very clever people say, yes, Lessing wrote many important things, but then he grew old and came up with this crazy idea of repeated earthly lives. That is the method by which even the greatest minds are judged; what is the highest flowering of a great spirit is regarded as a product of the decadence of old age. But that which arose as a truth in the spirit of Lessing will not only provide external benefits, but above all it will have the strength of life. It will give the ever more complicated soul life of people the opportunity to find its way into this life, which we see approaching and which will become ever more complicated. People will need spiritual scientific knowledge as the basis for their spiritual experience, which in the future will have to guide people through circumstances that are becoming increasingly difficult.

Spiritual science will stand alongside scientific research. The spirit will be investigated in this way. Just as we have the sensual world and natural processes around us in this body, so with regard to the spiritual-soul body, we have a spiritual world around us and belong to a spiritual world in which we live in the time that elapses between death and a new birth and that also belongs to our life. This spiritual science wants to be a science not only for the mind, not only for external research, but a science for the whole person, for the human soul. It will fill the soul with what is the elixir of life. In addition to the sensual-physical world, the human being will recognize the spiritual world as it really is. But in doing so, all mere dark, dream-like ideas about the spiritual world will be rejected. For superstition is best combated by really getting to know the spiritual world, by really acquiring ideas about the world of the spirit.

And when it is said on the other hand that religious ideas and feelings are endangered by spiritual science, it must be replied that precisely because of the scientific world view, many a person has been dissuaded from their religious feelings. But spiritual science leads us precisely to the acknowledgment of a spiritual world. Therefore, spiritual science, the science of the spirit, will lead precisely those people who have been or can be alienated from religious thinking back to religious thinking and feeling. The course of the world cannot be held back by force, but goes its way. And just as it was believed that the Copernican world view could somehow endanger religious life, so that religion rose up against it, so it must do so today against the spiritual-scientific world view. However, just as the Copernican world view became established, so the spiritual-scientific world view will become established in souls without disturbing religious life. Yes, it will even be possible to say about the spiritual-scientific world view: When people come and say: Is not spiritual science waging a campaign against religious ideas? And when all sorts of things, including defamation and the spreading of untruths, are raised against spiritual science from such quarters, one would like to say: What kind of an idea of the power of this religion do those have, who are, so to speak, by profession in those communities, perhaps even exercising an office, what kind of an idea do they have, if they can believe that spiritual science could endanger them! He is truly steeped in the belief in the power of his religious ideas who says: the power of religion is so great that one need not fear spiritual science, that we can let what is true in this field approach as much as what science has produced; yes, much sooner. Spiritual science will lead many people back to faith, to religious experience and religious feeling, just as the scientific world view has alienated many people from religion.

It is not just a matter of asserting ideas before you this evening that only reflect knowledge, so to speak, but of showing how spiritual science can engage our whole soul, our whole mind, how it can give strength to strengthening power and courage; how man can be filled with something that radiates from the experiences of spiritual science, how he can strengthen himself with it, how he can face life stronger and more vigorously.

I have already said that the most everyday life is a victory over opposing powers in the depths of the soul. If we familiarize ourselves with the fact that we have something like this at the bottom of our soul, then we can also face with good courage what will increasingly and more intricately intrude into our lives. If we know that life means winning victories under the threshold, then we will have the strength of soul that we need in the bitter disappointments of life and also in the face of the demands of such a fateful time as ours. And even if what I have said in general about spiritual science and the possibility of supersensible knowledge seems to be only superficially and loosely connected, inwardly you will feel that it is well connected with what our fateful days, in the course of which we are living in the thick of it, I would still like to move on to a very brief, concise description of what the spiritual scientist can feel about this fateful time of ours.

If we observe on the one hand how the life we lead may not appear to be particularly agitated and turbulent, but is built on a hidden stormy foundation, then we also imagine ourselves differently in the storm of historical life when it is stirred up, as is the case in our days.

Now I would like to draw attention to something that does not arise theoretically, but sentimentally, from the results of spiritual science for historical life, for the placing of the human being in historical life. It must be emphasized that even the natural scientific world view, and even more so spiritual science, has sought to apply what is called causal thinking to our surroundings. It took a long time for people to get used to this causal thinking. Goethe still asserted: Why do we always want to assert that the ox has horns in order to butt with them? One should look at the organization and show how the forces of growth have developed into the horns. One should look at the causes and not always speak of the purpose alone. The greatest geniuses of modern thought have pointed this out, and more and more external natural science is also moving in this direction. And spiritual science goes much further in looking at the causes, at the unknown causes. But it is precisely by thinking causally in relation to what is happening that one is led to it; in the living experience of the spiritual-scientific results, it becomes a feeling. By looking at what is happening as events, it is not so much the causes that are important to ask about, but the effects. It is as if we are saying: We are in the midst of tremendous events, the like of which have never before taken place in world history, at least not as long as human thinking has consciously progressed. After all, if we disregard minor tribal differences, 34 different nations in the world are fighting each other today. What is being stirred up! And we know what individual nations think of each other, say about each other, claim about each other. But spiritual research leads us, and the results of spiritual science lead us, first of all to realize that a wave of historical development rises from unknown depths, just as thinking, willing and feeling arise from unknown depths.

We do not experience the subconscious soul struggles that we carry within us, but we do experience conflicting forces in history; we are right in the middle of them. In the outside world, we are standing in something that spiritual research shows us for the individual human inner life. And as we, because we lead our everyday lives, stand there as if we were inside the struggles down there - do you think we would not ask about the cause of the struggle, but rather: What can come of it? The struggle as such would not be able to confront us in this way. If we compare these struggles, we would not be satisfied if we did not say: Yes, these struggles develop what the human being first becomes, what first comes to consciousness in thinking, feeling and sensing. And when we are immersed in historical struggles, we are led to ask: What will become of these struggles? And truly, the declamation that confronts us today in our materialistic time, because we have not yet acquired the feelings that I have just characterized, the declamation that has arisen today - Who is to blame for the war? - which always ends with one nation blaming the other, disappears as unfruitful from the point of view that is chosen when one says: Well, these events, they are there, they have arisen in the course of the becoming of the world; what can arise as an effect from these struggles, what can arise from this when more than thirty nations in the world are fighting against each other? And here one must say: when such events confront each other, it depends on one's standpoint whether one can observe fairly. And this is possible in Central Europe. For just as the spiritual researcher sees the process of world evolution, he can say: This Central European spiritual life, which now seems to be besieged as if in a mighty fortress, is one that is developing out of these struggles with opposing forces into a valuable, all-encompassing good.

I could cite many examples to describe what is living in the body of Central European intellectual life, which has produced the great geniuses of Central Europe, with the powers that Central Europe has and which once found expression in genuine spiritual achievements, and today find expression in the fields of battle, where blood and death decide the fate of soul and body. From all this, because one recognizes things by their blossoms and fruits, I would like to characterize that which is present at the innermost core of this Central European intellectual life, throughout this Central European intellectual life, in all Central European nations.

One of the most characteristic spirits of Central Europe is undoubtedly Goethe. Others could be named, but let us single out Goethe. That which was given to mankind from the deepest inner being of the genius of Goethe, that something like that could not be produced by mankind living outside Central Europe, one will have to admit, as well as what must be said with regard to the following.

What Goethe has given to humanity is shown, especially in his greatness, by the fact that even as a young man, Goethe had already written the sentiment that one finds at the beginning of his Faust:

Have now, alas! Philosophy,
Law and medicine,
And unfortunately also theology
Thoroughly studied, with hot endeavor.
There I stand, poor fool, And am as wise as before!

Today, these words have become trivial for many people. But if you completely put yourself in the soul of Goethe, then you feel the whole relationship to what you can acquire, what you want to acquire in the words [to the] earth spirit.

But how does Goethe stand there? Let us take this mood and, with Goethe having written it down, let us now think of the following period, when the great philosophical geniuses – Fichte, Hegel, Schelling – passed through Central Europe. We do not need to agree with the content of their teachings, but when we look at the great spiritual energy with which Fichte represents what he teaches as philosophy; when we see how what he teaches emerges from his entire personality; how he strives to make philosophy an expression of the whole human being.

The following is not intended to evoke sentimental feelings, but to show how Fichte represents one aspect of the Central European genius. It may be described how Fichte, who felt closely connected with the great events that took place on the battlefields of his people, perished. How he, who throughout his entire life had concentrated his thoughts in the sharpest manner to discover the secrets of the world, how he lived in a feverish delirium in the last hours, witnessed the crossing of the Rhine with Blücher, how he lived with everything that had to happen at that time to save Central Europe from Western tyranny. In his delirium, Fichte felt that he was at the center of these events, he, the philosopher, who at the same time was a whole person, a person who at the same time brought the “human being” into his philosophy, even in his delirium. Thus it may be said with reference to Fichte: there the Central European spirit strives for a holistic conception of the world, and with Schelling, with Hegel - one need only look at how truth is presented there.

And now let us look back at this Faust, whom Goethe has speaking in the mid-eighteenth century:

I have now, alas! studied philosophy,
law and medicine,
and unfortunately theology too!
with great zeal and effort.
There I stand, poor fool that I am!
And I am no wiser than before.

Let us assume that Goethe would have been able to live in the forties of the nineteenth century, after the great philosophers had gone through the development of time, let us assume that he would have started his “Faust” in the forties, after he had gone through the culture of the time, through what a Fichte, Schelling, Hegel had achieved. These were indeed also representatives of jurisprudence; Hegel wrote a “Natural Right”, Schelling a journal of medicine; these philosophers wanted to be theologians in truth. Do you think that if Goethe had written these words in the forties, after so much had happened in German intellectual life, he would have written: “Now, thank God, I have studied philosophy, law with Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Kant and now, thank God, I stand as a wise man and am as clever as no one could have become before!” No, in the forties of the nineteenth century, Goethe would certainly have written the same at the beginning of his ‘Faust’ as in the seventies of the eighteenth century.

Now, alas! I have studied philosophy,
law and medicine,
and unfortunately theology as well
with great zeal.

There I stand, poor fool,

and am no wiser than before!

This is the peculiarity of Central European intellectual life, this Faustian striving, which can best be recognized by its representatives, this perpetual striving and never having the consciousness of being a finisher. This is what made Fichte so great, from a Central European intellectual culture, that he shows us that in this culture people have to live who can never be finished, never complete in their development. And it is fair to say that in Italy and France, you are born as what you are. You are Italian, you are French, and you refer to what you were born as. In Central Europe, you cannot say that. There you have to discover through your own way of thinking what it means to be a human being. You go beyond what you were born as into what you can achieve yourself. And it is a profound saying of Goethe's:

What you have inherited from your fathers,
Acquire it to possess it.

And the other saying:

Whoever strives, we can redeem.

This is one of the characteristics, but also the most significant, of this Central European intellectual life: never to rest, never to stand still. You become Central European. You are French, you are British – you become Central European! This Central European spiritual culture stands before humanity like a glorious ideal. This is what makes it so closely related to what has been presented today as spiritual science itself. And when Faust says – and Goethe only wrote these words at a very advanced age – these words that express the whole relationship of the human being to the world around him and to himself:

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

There stands Faust. There stands this striving, which must think vividly even in the face of the universe, and it finds not only matter, not only substances, but everywhere the supporting power of what is within ourselves in the universe outside. The spirit of the human spirit rises into other entities everywhere. But this striving also points man back to himself, to the fact that he must find himself. When we survey all this, we must say: Oh, this Central European spiritual life, it has so far shown itself to contain the seeds of what can be sensed today as the goals of a spiritual science itself. This Central European spiritual life cannot be destroyed by its enemies. For anyone who understands its nature knows that it still has much to do in the world, that it is not only growing and justified outwardly, but that it is strong within. And one can and may feel how spiritual science finds just the right soil in this Central European spiritual life. For that which is central European, when applied to the soul, cannot lead to anything other than a deepening of spiritual science. Therefore, it can be said that if conquests have been made in recent centuries, in predominantly materialistic centuries, by any other region of the world than Europe, then it is precisely those that are made by the central European population that must now be made, because mysteriously behind all that we see so painfully unfolding around us today, lives the urge to create a home for the spirit by defending Central European culture as if in a mighty fortress against its enemies.

Today there are people in the Northwest who claim that they must stand up for the freedom of smaller nations, for the well-being of small nations, that they must rebel against Central European militarism, against Central Europe's lust for conquest. The British, who were destined to spread a material culture across the earth, waged 34 wars of conquest from 1856 to 1900, in which they conquered 4 million square miles of land and made 57 million people British subjects. One need only consider these figures and one will realize the truth that can lie in the saying that one wants to eliminate the Central European lust for conquest from the world. This is not even a value judgment. But it must be said: It is evident from Central European intellectual culture that it will develop the spiritual as a result of what must now be fought for with blood, what must be achieved with so many victims, what must be born with so much pain.

It has often been said that the present war is a purely political war and that it is being waged by individual countries for material interests. We can see how even material conquests bear the Faustian character, and that this is not only incorporated as external knowledge, but as an attitude of human and world development, which resounds so characteristically as a Central European mood from the Faustian legend. Yes, there is, as in a flower, the sign of what lives in Central European culture, namely, what Goethe showed on the heights of humanity, what is being fought for today in East and West. For just as the hand must be counted as part of the human being, just as the brain, so must the fighters outside be counted as the spiritual expression of the whole people. This is a single organism. Just as the hand cannot be separated from the head, so too what is being carried out outside with the sacrifice of blood and life cannot be thought of separately from what lives spiritually in Central European culture.

A French philosopher who is respected in many circles today gave a lecture just at Christmas in which he said that everything in Germany is materialized. The old idealism had long since faded away and only the spiritual results were encountered everywhere in the form of warlike mechanisms. He could not deny that French mechanistic tools also work, but he could not get enough of a sharp assessment of the Central European essence, which would now have become completely and utterly materialistic. This French philosopher – yes, I don't know whether one can still call him by the name “Bergson” today, it doesn't sound particularly French, maybe he has already Frenchified it in the meantime – one would have to answer him: Yes, do you recognize the Central European essence in the mechanisms of war? Did you perhaps expect the soldiers to come and recite Novalis, Goethe or Schiller instead of shooting with cannons and rifles? Anyway, there is not much logic to be found in the documents about the current situation. It is quite obvious that they are very keen to prove that basically the Germans alone are to blame for the war; they wanted it! But this logic is no better than the other, which proves through strict logic that the Germans are actually to some extent to blame for the difficult, cruel course of the war. They invented gunpowder, after all! If they hadn't done that, it wouldn't be used today. You can't say that the French invented gunpowder. There are many examples like this. They are really everywhere in today's logic. You can also say: without the art of printing, which was also invented in Central Europe, it would not be possible for those peculiar “truths” that are now being poured out on Central Europe by the British and French press to be printed.

In this way, it can certainly be said that Central European culture is to blame for all of this. In this materialistic age, we are simply blinded by a shortsighted logic. This can be seen everywhere. In contrast to this, it must be asserted that the actual character of Central European culture is not realized in this. One must say that this character, the core of Central European culture, appears only in a germinal way. One glimpses it when one thinks it further, how it bears ever more fruit and how it must spark precisely idealism, spiritualism, the spiritual life of humanity. And one then notices how it carries the soul, precisely out of the kind of connections that spiritual science provides. So it could also be said that spiritual science appears as a fruit that can be sensed for the future and that must develop out of what is the deepest, innermost essence of Central European culture. Therefore, the feeling that is born out of spiritual science gives Central European people strength and confidence and hope and faith for that which our fateful time carries in its bosom. This faith can arise out of what spiritual science gives when it takes hold of the whole mind.

Therefore, I would now like to summarize, not in an abstract way, but in a way that is in keeping with my feelings, what I have already expounded at length through my all-too-long consideration. For the best that spiritual science can give is that it does not ultimately lead to knowledge, not to a list of these or those laws, but that what can be known in it is concentrated in a fundamental feeling that that places the human being in the world in such a way that he knows: you do not only stand in the body in a physical universe, but you stand in a soul-spiritual universe with your immortal, eternal self. Through birth and death you have come to know death as life-giving. It is with this feeling that those who understand spiritual science go through life, soul-inspired, hopeful and also full of strength, and it is with this feeling that I would now like to conclude this evening's reflection before your souls:

Where sense knowledge ends,
There stands the gate,
The realities of life
Are revealed to the soul.
The soul creates the key,
When it grows strong within itself
In the struggle that world powers
On their own ground
with human powers,
When it expels through itself
the delusion of the powers of knowledge
in their sensory limitations
wrapped in spiritual night.

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.

A consideration based on spiritual science

The text of the lecture was created on the basis of a transcription of an only very difficult to read shorthand by Hedda Hummel (ST HH 2) with the help of a very legible but incomplete shorthand by Johanna Arnold (ST JA 12). Numerous unclear passages remain unresolved. For documentary reasons, the lecture is nevertheless published in the appendix, but only in its fragmentary state. Additions by the editor and completed quotations are in square brackets. The quotations were usually only written down in fragments in both stenograms. Therefore, the editor completed the quotations according to the original quotation. The quote itself and the length of the quote were derived from the fragments that were written down or from how they were quoted by Rudolf Steiner in other similar lectures in the present volume. In some cases, words or passages from Johanna Arnold's shorthand notes were inserted; these are indicated in each case.

Dear attendees! Almost every year in recent times, I have had the honor of giving a lecture here in this city in the field of cultural observations, which I take the liberty of calling a “spiritual-scientific worldview”. Since the friends of our spiritual movement in this city had the wish that I should also give such a lecture this year in these fateful times, it will seem understandable if such a reflection in our times is linked to that which concerns people of the immediate present in their deepest concerns the people of the immediate present in their deepest feelings, which deeply affects all of our minds - thinking, feeling and willing - when it is linked to what is happening around us in such a great, powerful, and all-embracing present, and which at the same time has caused so many victims, so much pain and suffering for our present humanity. But not to add yet another reflection to the overwhelming contemporary war literature, which is so abundantly expressed in brochures, books and lectures, even if it is held today, but because one could indeed believe, my dear audience, that with regard to what we are experiencing, a spiritual-scientific reflection also has something to say, even if, of course, this cannot be what other lectures of past years [could be] that [I] have given here and that related to this or that question of spiritual science; even if it must be that the spiritual-scientific aspect lies more in the nature of the contemplation, in the evoked sensations, such a spiritual-scientific contemplation can still appear justified in view of the events.

However, my dear attendees, one has already objected to much of what has been said – especially to what has been said from the standpoint of some kind of spiritual understanding of our present events – that one is dealing first and foremost with a purely political matter of nations. It has even been considered questionable when any kind of spiritual consideration interferes with the judgment of current events, and for all kinds of profound reasons, the cause of what we feel is happening is denied. It has been said that we should not delude ourselves with metaphysical haze when faced with today's events, but see through reality with clear thinking; not embellish with all kinds of fog the words that are so hotly contested in the world, but simply and clearly see what is happening. And it was, indeed it is, I would say, set apart from all kinds of spiritual considerations, that, to begin with, there is a purely political clash of interests between nations – to pick one – that it is, for example, between the German and the English people, a purely external clash of interests of the political past and the political future of Germany.

Now, my dear attendees, one could even, if one stands on a [purely] spiritual-scientific point of view, which is also turned towards realities and not fantasies, be in harmony with such a demand, if on the other hand, one would have to bear in mind that at the beginning of the Middle Ages, when Germanic peoples were fighting against the Roman Empire, one could also have spoken of a clash of interests between Germanic peoples and the Roman Empire. But out of the clash of interests at that time, little by little, all that surrounded us as a culture of more recent times developed. All spiritual reality, in which our souls are embedded today, was contained in this. For example, the fact that Christianity emerged from the Greco-Roman-Oriental world at that time, that at the same time as this Christianity the elemental forces of the Germanic peoples asserted themselves on European soil, and has shown itself in the course of historical development, that only through the influx of Christian impulses into the Germanic peoples - into their elementary forces - could what we see developing as European culture come into being; so that one must indeed say: For a direct examination of the present, there are only, I would say, in the near view, manageable clashes of interests. For those who look a little further, however, what is happening in history is what can contain the deepest impulses for the future development of humanity; and it is above all about this that we should be talking.

Of course, with words, with thoughts, with concepts that are only available to the speaker or to literature or science, nothing decisive can be done about the great events that are unfolding. That is decided by the weapons, by the courageous bravery of those who are on the field of events. But if you survey contemporary history in its context with the past and with a possible future, my dear audience, then you will indeed – I would say brought about by the fateful events of our time – come to a view that makes a deeper consideration of our current affairs not only possible or desirable, but perhaps even necessary.

It has already emerged from a variety of considerations, which have also been employed by others in the present, that, despite all the slander – from left and right, from north and south – against Central Europe in this time. What will emerge as a solid historical fact in the future, despite all these objections, is that the Central European peoples are waging a defense in that mighty struggle of the present, a defense that they did not bring about. This warlike defense, in which - I believe earlier times could not have imagined this - in which 34 individual nations of the earth are wrestling - this warlike wrestling appears before a deeper world observation as the expression of a completely other struggle, for a mighty battle that is also taking place among the spirits, for a battle in which Central Europe, and above all the German spirit, is now also standing in a defensive position, fighting for the most sacred of goods, as is happening in the external fields of battle. And this is the thought on which today's reflections are to be based. Not only have the economic, the external, and the political goods of the German people been attacked in the present - indeed, they have been in the past and will be in the future - not only have the economic, the external, and the political goods of the German people been attacked, but the spiritual life has been attacked and is actually forced to defend itself. And weapons will have to be forged to defend this spiritual life, just as weapons must be used to defend the political, the economic, and the social life.

Today we hear the call resounding from all sides: “These German barbarians!” Some people even add: [illegible word]. “How they have degenerated, the people among whom once lived minds like Goethe, Schiller, Fichte and so on!”

Now, I am sure that those of you who have a spiritual worldview will not take these accusations of barbarism too seriously. For with the same sophistry, the same drivel with which [it] is proclaimed today, [the accusation] will one day be refuted. One day, the words will be found for it, just as many hundreds of true words are found today to justify it. One day, people will say, “Yes, what the Germans have when they refer to Fichte, Schiller, Goethe and the others, Beethoven, that, of course, is not what we meant when we spoke of barbarians.” What was meant, they will say, was the way the war was waged, the way Germany treated other nations during the war itself. But when you look at it more deeply, things are not so simple. For anyone who is even a little familiar with the development of divine culture, of divine spiritual culture, it is not the first time that the saying has been heard that what we hold most dear, what we call our soul, what we call our culture, can basically be called “barbarism”. And strangely enough, my dear audience, in recent times – one has often seen the word 'barbarism' – perhaps most of all, as hard as it may be to believe, perhaps most of all the accusation of 'barbarism' against Central European culture, against Russia, has come from the Russian side. And here we need not refer to external newspaper literature or external newspaper statements, but precisely to what the leading spirits of the Russian essence have advocated as their most significant view.

And so that we can immediately go into something specific, it should be noted how a truly significant spirit in its own right appeared within Russian intellectual life in the nineteenth century: Khomyakov. He tried to survey and characterize the whole course of European culture from his Russian point of view. He tried to give a picture of European history. Three forces, he said, prevail in the course of this European cultural development. The first force is that which still stems from ancient Romanism. The second is that which stems from misunderstood Christianity. The third force is that which stems from Western European barbarism. However, at that time, what emerged through the peoples of the West who are now allied with Russia was also included in this Western European barbarism. And how did Khomyakov, from his point of view, attempt to characterize all the “barbarism” - as he put it - of the West? He said that what is rooted in the depths of the human soul and is directly based on the divine has been inherited by European spiritual development from Romanism. This Romanism had developed and was still effective today as a rationalism of thought. This Romanism had only an appreciation for external state institutions, for external material and social coexistence. But it had no sense for the depth of Christianity, for the Christianity that is to awaken impulses in the innermost chamber of the human being, in the deepest depths of the human soul. Chomjakow believes that the Romans did not understand that Christianity could be transformed or continued only by means of impulses from the soul, but only by means of an external means of state, social, purely political institutions. But this, according to Chomjakow, is the basis for the accusation of rationalism, of purely intellectual culture, which, according to his ideas, dominates the whole of European barbarism in such a profound way.

And then these European peoples tried to continue the course of development that had been initiated by the Romans, says Khomyakov, in such a way that they only evoked in thought that which was to move all the powers of the soul as a Christian impulse, turning it into scholasticism, philosophy, a rationalized Christianity, a thought-based, scientific hustle and bustle. And transplanted – so Chomjakow believes – this Romanism, this rationalized Christianity was into the barbaric soul of Central and Western Europe, [it was] their most significant instincts and impulses were just introduced. It was only from such a Christianity that the subjugation of every alien opinion and the imposition of one's own opinion on every other opinion could have come, and thus perpetual war and subjugation; so says Khomyakov, who, looking at Russia, wants to describe the whole of Central and Western European culture as “barbarism”. And one of his successors, Aksakov, declared, entirely in agreement with Khomyakov, that if one surveys Western European barbarism, one finds everywhere a spirit of subjugation, hatred, restriction of freedom, while - as he, Aksakov, believes - the whole Russian essence is permeated in its depths by “freedom, concord and peace”.

Dear attendees, Danilevsky is one of those who set the tone for the further development of this Slavism, the continuation of which is called Pan-Slavism today. In him, in particular, there is a very clear expression of what, so to speak, the Russian soul can think, feel as thought, about what is called from this side, by Central and Western European “barbarism,” what, with Danilewski, for example, must be called, from the point of view of the Russian, the “rotten, spiritual life of the West.” This is the expression that has repeatedly come to our attention, especially in recent times.

Danilewski attempts to show how certain types of cultural development have successively emerged in the historical development of the barbaric European West: the Romance-Germanic type, which Danilewski believes is initially behind the haze. He distinguishes himself by the fact that people have not been able to penetrate to that which the soul can grasp in its deepest depths, [which] can fill the soul with the awareness that it is connected to the divine spirit of the world. This awareness was only something conceptual, something external, scientific-rational in the Romance-Germanic being. The purely Germanic type of European life must be replaced by the genuinely Russian type, and this genuinely Russian type must know that for those who belong to such a cultural type, there is nothing in the whole wide world but the connection with this cultural type. Everything that can be a blessing for future humanity must be found in what the Russian people have to offer. What the Russian people are capable of must also be evident from the tasks of the Russian people.

[The following sentence is an uncertain reading.] And what is right is what arises from such tasks, but what is wrong is what does not arise from these tasks. It seems strange to the German sense of truth when one hears that the spread of Russia over the Balkans and the conquest of Constantinople is considered to be part of what should be considered truthful – as [for] Danilewski. He spoke of the fact that philosophical truth and what one thinks of the world depends on the fact that one strives to conquer Constantinople. What can come to light through such a view is demonstrated here, I would say, in a small sample.

Danilewski says that for Russia, “the next goal is the annexation of Constantinople,” [...] “without paying attention to the consequences that could arise for Europe itself, for humanity, for freedom, for culture.” This is the goal to strive for. “Without love and without hate – for in this world that is foreign to us,” [that is] all that lives so far removed from the unique cultural type of the Russian people, “nothing can evoke our sympathy or antipathy – to the same extent, indifferent to all, to red and white [...]. /omitting an illegible passage] “Most harmful and dangerous for Russia in Europe is the balance of political power, and any violation of it, from whatever side it may come, is therefore useful and desirable. [...] We must finally give up any solidarity with European interests.”

Dear attendees, one of the greatest minds that Eastern European culture has produced, a truly unique mind, Solowjow, did not find these views at all clear. For Solowjow, too, it was clear that Western European culture was ripe for destruction. It was also clear to Solowjow that salvation could only come from the Russian essence, but Solowjow was able to see that he could advocate for what he saw as future-oriented, because he saw a future in the essence of the Russian people, and he saw what chaotic and disorderly forces this people harbored in their souls in the present, especially in the souls of those setting the tone. And so Solowjow, the great philosopher, became the harshest critic within Russia itself of the Russian character that is characterized by Chomjakow, Danilewski, Katkow, Aksakow and others, and which has found its external expression, I would say symptomatic expression, in what Russia is currently planning against Europe in its greedy and [illegible word] appropriation.

Solowjow accused those in whose midst he himself liked to dwell – the Slavophiles – of having no sense of what is truly ideal, truly spiritual, of confusing the two, and of confusing the sense for the great fallacies of culture, with what is [marketable], what should only live among those who are windbags, corruptible people, corruptible for every slogan that is thrown in the way of culture. And so Solowjow, the Russian himself, found words – and it cannot be said of him that he was a friend of Western European ways – to characterize what is spiritually being prepared there, words that we can truly believe because of his sincere philosophical spirit, because of his deepest connection to the Russian national soul. Solowjow said: “Europe [...] looks at us with apprehension and with displeasure, because the elemental power of the Russian people is dark and mysterious, its spiritual and cultural powers inferior, its demands, on the other hand, clear, determined and great. The clamor of our nationalism, which seeks to crush Turkey and Austria, to beat the Germans, to take Constantinople and, if possible, to conquer India, resounds loudly in Europe.

Politics, as Solowjow said at the end of the nineteenth century, is everything that lives in opposition to the dominant souls of this Russian people.

“If we are asked how we will benefit humanity after the conquest and destruction of all this, we can only remain silent or spout meaningless phrases. [...] Thus [...] the most essential, indeed the only important question that honest and reasonable patriotism should address is not Russia's power and mission, but its sins.”

Not a German, not a Western European, but Solowjow, who knew his Russian present better than anyone, spoke these words. But Solowjow did more than that. He took a look at those who were the architects of what we are facing today in such a painful way. He looked at all those who had seduced the Russian soul into believing in their Pan-Slavic mission. And what did he discover? He found a wealth of Pan-Slavic literature around him. He came across something strange, something that he had to characterize as follows: “Yes, what do you want? You want to reproach the West with a rotten culture, a culture that has sunk into barbarism! You say that all the good fortune of humanity must come from what lives in the Russian people today, you spread this with only scientific principles, [but only] in scientific disguise! I have looked up where [you] got this scientific disguise from!"

And he had looked up, looked up carefully. He had once looked Danilevsky [and] Katkov a little - I would say, if the word were not justified, but I will say it anyway - on the spiritual fingers, and he came to the conclusion that the thought forms, the thought intentions with which these people had worked with as seducers, that they had all been taken from the rotten West, and the most important of these thought forms with which Slavism worked, he found, curiously enough, in the Western European philosopher de Maistre, who was deeply steeped in Jesuitism. These Slavophiles did not even bother to study de Maistre himself, but [Gaston] Bergeret, a somewhat [illegible word] of mind. Western, bad European thinking provided the impetus for Slavic theories.

And [he] looked over Danilevsky's shoulder with regard to his [cultural] historical types. And Solowjow found a half-insane writer, [Heinrich] Rückert, who wrote a book in the [18]50s that scientifically analyzed the follies that Danilewski [illegible word] [made about the development of contemporary history]. That was the discovery Solowjow made about the impulses that were alive around him. These were the weapons that were brought from the West to characterize this West as a rotten culture. Now, my dear attendees, I would like to say how a fundamental tone sounds through all the spiritual life of the last centuries of the East from this saying of the barbaric, rotten West, which is completely immersed in intellectual culture and violence. If you take a closer look, you have to say that all those who talk about the West in the East have become sleepy, dreamy, all that has been incorporated into the center of Europe from the depths of the German soul, of general world culture. Even what we call our treasures, which come from Fichte, Schiller, Goethe and others who cannot all be named, have become dreamy, of course.

But, esteemed attendees, if one tries to give to the souls of those who have sprung up on the soil of the East – which is considered so barbaric – what has sprung up there, , if you give them what has just been mentioned, then you will not get through, as the noble [illegible name] had to experience, who transplanted German Hegelian idealism to Russia. He did it beautifully, but not only did he fail to find an echo, but everywhere he encountered only rejection, contradiction, ridicule and scorn. And if you look more closely at what all this is based on, then it turns out that the whole way in which the German spirit stands to that - what he has to give to world culture, not as the representative of just any historical type, but as the outpouring of the depths of his soul - how the German spirit stands in relation to all this: the profound connection of the German spirit with its world view, the way in which its German world view springs forth from the depths of the soul, the depths in which the soul is intertwined with the divine-spiritual.

We see this way best expressed in Goethe, Schiller [and] Fichte, and it may well be time today to turn our gaze to this, as for a future that will most certainly come, the German also needs spiritual weapons from the armories that our folk spirits have erected, spirits like Schiller, like Fichte.

And not to evoke sentimental feelings, but, I would like to say, to present to our minds the very essence of the German character as exemplified by two important representatives of that essence – linked precisely to those moments in the lives of two great spirits of the German people, Schiller and Fichte, to the moments when these spirits left the physical world and passed over into another world of spiritual life, at the moments of death of Schiller and Fichte. This should be linked with the intimacy with which the German so readily expresses the (illegible word), which is also immediately and still now expressed by the word: “Geistig-Menschliches” (spiritual-human). Those who have to watch over the spiritual life of the German people in this new era, we can also look from what has been handed down to us historically at Schiller's last moments.

Then the younger Voß, the son of the translator of Homer, Voß, leads [us] into Schiller's death chamber, and shows us how, in the weeks and days before Schiller lay down to his last rest, [how] in his whole behavior and appearance before the world and [the] people, [ something spoke] of the tremendous inner victory of the spirit, the soul – the language that comes over a body that is actually already dead – [this] was written by Schiller with the enormous strength that he mustered / gap in the shorthand] and wrote down these last days, but wrote them down in full strength. Then he had to lie down. Then we see how, in his last moments, he still turned his soul to this - to that which he wanted to open up to humanity from the spiritual worlds -, we see how he then, how he received his youngest child, takes it, looks deeply into its eyes, and reveals this child – looking into the eyes, something very meaningful, perhaps painfully tragic, can be seen in his soul. Then he gave the child back and turned away, only incoherent sentences could he speak.

Once again, not to stir up sentimental feelings in you, but to show how one of the greatest Germans is connected to the spiritual essence and the essence of his people, attention is drawn to this Schillerian story. For truly, we can say, without being sentimental, that the look he directed at his child – which Voß believes he wanted to express how much he would have wanted to be the child and not have been able to be – this look – one can think that it met the entire German people – he how much he should still have been for them and could no longer be, and in relation to this people; yes, Schiller, he has expressed what he thinks about the world-historical calling of this, his people, what he thinks about everything that is connected with what he himself wanted to be for his people, what Schiller, as in a kind of testament – it was only found later, a century after Schiller wrote it down, it has only come to human eyes with the opening of the Schiller Archives – one sees in it what Schiller thought about what German essence, from this spiritual conception of the world, must be for humanity. Let us allow these words, which have been constantly coming before the soul of the Germans in recent times, to come before our soul:

He who forms and rules the spirit [must ultimately become the ruler, because
finally, at the goal of time, if the
world has a plan, if human
life has any meaning at all, finally
must custom and reason triumph,
brute force succumb to form
and the slowest people will catch up with all
the fast fleeting ones.
[...]
is destined for the highest,
and as he is in the middle of
Europe's peoples,
he is the core of humanity,
those are the flower and the] leaf.

[He is chosen by the world spirit to work
on the eternal construction of human education during the time struggle, to preserve what time brings,
therefore he has appropriated what was previously foreign
and preserved it within himself.
Everything that was valuable in other times
and peoples, that arose, developed and faded with the times, he has preserved; the treasures of centuries are not lost on him. Not to shine in the moment and to play his role, but to win the great process of time. Every people has its day in history, but
the day of the Germans is the] harvest of
all that time.

Dear attendees, what Schiller meant here is already what he had to believe – given his deep connection to the German essence – would provide the impetus for a world vocation of this German essence.

But what one can really believe – if only it is heard, sensed and felt by those who can only half think or not think at all, who are not connected to the German essence – is that it works like an aggressive being, really in such a way that it is brought about what one must call – because it has already developed and will develop more and more – [an] inevitability that the German defends that which he has among his spiritual treasures against a whole world.

[The following sentence is an uncertain reading.] In this sense, the cosmopolitan Schiller was never a negative spirit at heart, although he was not blind to external circumstances and interests. He saw so deeply into the German character. After all, he also spoke the words:

Two mighty nations [are wrestling
for sole possession of the world;
to devour the freedom of all countries,
they brandish the trident and lightning.

Gold must every landscape weigh for them
And, like Brennus in the rough times,
The Frank lays his brazen sword
In the scales of justice.

The British extend their merchant fleets
Greedily like polyp arms;
And the realm of the free Amphitrite
He wants to close, like his own] house.

Schiller could also be a realpolitiker.

Another phenomenon that presents itself to our eyes when we really want to consider what German impulses have flowed into German development is Fichte, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Fichte, the great philosopher, but at the same time the great human being. And again, the last moments of Fichte's external earthly existence are placed before our soul: At a time when Germany was in a state of decline, deeply beset by the European West, it was as if Fichte, I would say, was indirectly succumbing to the war events of the time. Fichte's wife, a rare woman, had brought home [military hospital fever] from military hospital service.

[She] herself recovered; it had been transferred to Fichte, and he succumbed. In his final moments, we see something most remarkable take place:

In the delirium of fever, the philosopher – the philosopher who spoke the great word, one chooses philosophy as one's worldview, which is dependent on one's character as a human being – the philosopher, in whom humanity and thought were in the most intimate harmony, lay there in his feverish dream. He was connected, not externally, but from the deepest fibers of his human being, with the events of the time. He had delivered the speeches in which he presented the world calling to the German people in a unique, powerful and powerful way during the most painful and difficult times. In his delirium, the feverish fantasy of the crystal-clear philosopher, it moves on the theater of war at that time, this feverish dream of the clear-thinking philosopher went to Blücher's crossing of the Rhine, and he spoke, when he received the news of German victories, expressing his deepest satisfaction with what he was only allowed to experience in a feverish dream. In him, too, the soul had triumphed over the external physical when he spoke. As he saw the remedy before him in his joyful dream in its moving effect, he pushed it away and said, “I will recover!” and he lay down and died.

So out of one casting, so out of one inner unity is this most German philosopher, but also this philosopher who saw the German [in it] called to grasp the spirituality of the whole world. We do not need to point out today which is the core idea of the speech. How Fichte attempts to show how the German essence differs from the Western European essence [in that the German speaks an] original language that comes from his most elementary development, whereas the Roman speaks a language that was grafted onto him later, and therefore cannot possibly be connected to the deepest sources of life itself, but that the German must already be connected to through his language. We need only point out the deep, true pathos with which Fichte presents the German character to his people.

But what spiritual science can assert with regard to Fichte is that Fichte, from tremendous depths, constantly emphasizes the spiritual foundation of the world. Indeed, everything in his philosophy, in his thinking, that also lay above his people, was drawn from the knowledge that he believed he had gained about the deepest essence of his people. Truly, all external world-study, all that seeks to be based on material things, has its powerful opponents in Fichte's truly German Weltanschauung. Thus Fichte says:

Time [and] eternity and infinity [sees] it

- and he means German philosophy -

in [its emergence from] the appearance and becoming visible of that One, which is in itself absolutely invisible, and only in this invisibility is grasped, correctly grasped.

[...] [All persistent existence that appears as non-spiritual life is only an empty shadow, thrown out of sight, mediated many times over by the Nothing, in contrast to which and through the recognition of it as a many times mediated Nothing, seeing itself is to rise to the recognition of its own Nothing and to the acknowledgment of the Invisible as the] only [true.]

But, esteemed attendees, not only has Fichte pointed out in general the spiritual foundation of the world from which the human soul, in the most difficult situations and in the highest tasks, must draw its own impulse, not only because spiritual science today may point to Fichte in such a way that one must say that spiritual science, which wants to have an effect on the future of humanity, must seek its sources in what German spirit, in a crystal-clear and deeply intimate way, has opened up to the world being. Not only that Fichte has thus pointed to all the spiritual foundations of the world, but it is precisely in Fichte that it has been shown how someone who but it was shown in Fichte how someone who wants to create his philosophy out of the whole essence of the German national soul and at the same time as a deep and truthful expression of his soul, how he felt and sensed what spiritual science must raise to full clarity today and in the future.

Fichte did not yet have a spiritual science, but the feelings and perceptions that can only be penetrated by real spiritual research lived in him. These perceptions and feelings point to the worlds that spiritual science seeks to reveal through its research today. And here, just one point is to be emphasized to show how spiritual science can truly be referred to Fichte. Spiritual science today stands on the ground of an extraordinarily active science, and [it says] that all external science, which only surrenders itself to thoughts and external senses, can only reveal one, the lesser side of the world, that must intervene - in order to find the real content of the world - an active science that appeals to the hidden powers of the soul, that must be brought out of the soul, and that leads to spiritual ears and spiritual eyes. It can then be shown that, through such powers, it can be shown, my dear audience, that man can truly know something about that which lies beyond birth and death. Spiritual science does not just speak in an ignorant way about the whole spiritual being of man, but it can be observed, as external substance can be observed, when man only goes through the necessary methods. Mankind does not want to know this. But in the future, through spiritual science, mankind will learn – and then spiritual science speaks like external science of oxygen and hydrogen – that the human soul being is something that cannot be recognized as long as it is connected to the body, but can be recognized by spiritual researchers when it is separated from the physical.

Today, no more than someone who has not heard of chemistry believes that there is hydrogen in water that burns, while water extinguishes. But just as there is physical chemistry today, there will be spiritual chemistry. It will speak of the fact that one can really research and observe the eternal being of man. Fichte could not yet speak of this. The time for spiritual science will only come in our present time. But the following is very strange: if the spiritual researcher speaks today of the eternal core of the human being, he would speak in such a way that this core, after death, receives its spiritual eyes and ears, [listens and] looks at [the] physical body that it has left behind, just as we today look at the outer world.

Of course, in today's lecture, I can only hint at all this, not explain it in detail, but just hint that what I have just said will be included in the sense of spiritual culture, as natural science was included centuries ago. And just as people objected to the scientific world view at the time, they object to spiritual science today. Now we discover the remarkable thing about Fichte, something that the ordinary admirer perhaps overlooks in the speeches. This announces something remarkable to us. He wants to say that he has devised an education through which the German people can enter a time in which the German people will free themselves from all foreign domination. He said that those who are completely in the present [who are completely caught up in prejudices] do not dream of education, and now he wants to explain how what he wants [the new] appears to him in relation to the [previous]; in this he expresses himself very strangely. The focus is not so much on the thoughts as on what lies in his feelings.

Time,

said Fichte,

seems to me like [an empty shadow] [that stands over its corpse, from which an army of diseases has just driven it, and laments, and cannot tear its gaze away from the once so beloved shell, and desperately tries all means to get back into the dwelling of the plague. The invigorating breezes of the other world, into which the departed soul has entered, have already taken her in and surround her with a warm, loving breath. Secret voices of her sisters already greet her joyfully and welcome her. She is already stirring and expanding in all directions, to develop the more glorious form into which she is to grow, but she has no feeling for these breezes or no hearing for these voices, or, if she had it, she is absorbed in pain over her loss, with which she believes to have lost herself.

Admittedly, Fichte is not speaking in a spiritual scientific way, but he is expressing perceptions and feelings that the modern spiritual researcher could not express differently.

We may say, my dear audience, that the development in which Fichte has intervened in such a way is called upon to give the world much of what spiritual knowledge of the world is, of what science of spiritual life is. And it is understandable, my dear audience, that those who are not familiar with this German essence can only sense something unknown in this German essence, something that is dangerous to them in a certain way. A guilty conscience develops towards this unknown, which one does not want to approach, and it expresses itself in accusations such as that of “barbarism”. But has it always been that way? In this respect, it is truly interesting to see how German character, in its entire development, has affected the outstanding minds of other nations.

It is certainly not easy to characterize German character in ourselves, the Germans, without using other people's words. It must be permissible, of course, to present those who are the representatives of this German character. But when we hear the word today, that the Germans are “barbarians,” [and] hear it from all sides, then it is surely appropriate - because this accusation of “barbarism” not only ridicules Germanness, but also because it affects many of those who, I would like to say, the intellectual representatives of the nationalities hostile to us, it is appropriate to see what outstanding intellectual representatives of other nations have thought about German nature, as it [illegible words], from the sources that have just been mentioned - have thought. Above all, Emerson should be mentioned, the outstanding representative of America. He spoke the following words about German nature:

One [quality in particular, which Goethe shares with his entire nation, makes him stand out in the eyes of both the French and English public, namely that everything in his work is based solely on inner] truth.

These words were not spoken in German in Belgium in front of the French, [but] they are spoken in English by Emerson. He continues:

In England and America, [people respect talent, but they are only satisfied when it works for or against a party of their conviction. In France, one is already delighted to see brilliant thoughts, no matter where they go. In all these countries, however, talented men write as far as their gifts reach. If what they present stimulates the discerning reader and contains nothing that offends against good manners, it is considered sufficient. So many columns, so many pleasantly and usefully spent] hours. The German mind

- as Emerson says in English —,

the German mind possesses neither [the French liveliness nor the Englishman's understanding, honed for practicality, nor, finally, the American adventurousness; but what it does possess is a certain probity that never stops at the outward appearance of things, but always comes back to the main question: “Where does this want to go?” The German public demands of an author that he stand above things and simply express himself. Intellectual agility is present, well and good: what does it advocate? What is the man's] opinion? Where does he get all these thoughts from?"

And further, Emerson says:

The English [see only the individual, they do not know how to grasp humanity as a whole according to higher laws.

The Germans think for] Europe.

No German has said: “The English do not appreciate the depth of the German [spirit],” as Emerson says in English.

From such statements, we can see the antagonism that has already developed and will continue to develop, not only against Germany's external political nature, but also against its intellectual life. German intellectual life must be defended, and one must know the methods and weapons with which it is to be defended. Emerson continues:

That is why the terms used in [high-level conversation are all German] in origin.

In this way he indicates the reason why this German essence is so uncanny to the other nations, because the German origins of this [German] essence had to create the distinguishing concepts for what higher spiritual contemplation is. But German essence will have to defend these distinguishing concepts.

While the English and French, who are mentioned here with distinction because of their acumen [and erudition], view their studies and their point of view with a certain superficiality, and their personal character is not too deeply connected with what they have taken up and with the way they express themselves about it], Goethe speaks,

- and again not Goethe alone, but he means the head and the content of the German nation -,

[not because he has talent, but truth concentrates its rays in his soul and shines] out of it.

Thus Emerson thinks, Goethe, the head of the German nation, the truth shines out of Goethe's soul and the truth concentrates its rays in this soul.

He is wise in the highest degree, [even though his wisdom may often be obscured by his talent. However excellent what he says is, he has something even better in mind.] [...] [He has that fearsome independence that springs from contact with the truth.

The impression this fearsome independence makes on others certainly produces in others that with which they want to save themselves from this fearsome independence. It produces the accusation of “barbarism”. What could be said: That was a long time ago, Emerson wrote these words in the [first] half of the nineteenth century, and that is basically what we are always told with anger, how the Germans have degenerated since the times of Goethe, Fichte, and Schiller, into this national substance.

Now, that would sound true if there were not other words that an English scholar wrote not long before the outbreak of the present war. These words were spoken by Herford, the gelchrten, in a northern English town because, as he says, he wanted to use his words to draw the attention of the English newspaper-reading public to what lies at the heart of the German character. Now, what the English newspaper-reading public [thinks] of the words that I will read to you in a moment, which were spoken not long before the war in England by the learned mind, you know from what you find in English newspapers today. Herford says:

The highly favored elite among [Descartes' and Newton's] compatriots

- by which he means the French and the English -

the spirit of science was unquestionably known; but the passionate urge for knowledge was taught to modern Europe, if at all, mainly by [thousands of German] researchers,

not in [illegible word] spoken in England in English.

The imagination, [feeling and will asserted their right to be heard alongside or beyond reason, and under their transformative pressure the universe became deeper, wider and more wonderful. The irrational] was [acknowledged as a source of enlightenment]; [wisdom was gleaned from children and flowers; science, philosophy and poetry came close together.

- so the Englishman says, let us compare it with what the [illegible words] said.

Back home in England

- so the Englishman says in English —

[this revival of the imagination created a noble poetry, but left the sciences and philosophy almost untouched. One of the keys to understanding the whole period is the fact that, while in England and France the poetic, philosophical, and scientific movements flowed mostly in separate channels, in Germany] they touched and [or] merged completely. [Wordsworth sang and Bentham calculated;] but Hegel caught the genius of poetry in the net of his logic; and the thought that discovers and explains, and the imagination that produces novelty, worked together in fruitful harmony in the genius of] Goethe.

And further from the Englishman shortly before the war:

In Faust [at the end of his eventful life, we see the present-day Germany foreshadowed, the Germany of restless, bold will and action, and we can understand all the better why the great citizen of the world, in whose eyes state and nationality were subordinate and sometimes harmful ideals, nevertheless claims his unassailable position as the highest poet of the German] Reich [besides Bismarck,] his creator.

And a dictum, spoken not in Belgium before the French, but in England in the English language, is from the same Englishman who characterizes German character: “No German words are more deeply imbued with the juice of national ethics than those that denote these things: true, thorough, faithful.”

That is how it sounded to us from across the Channel shortly before the war. Whoever says – because German cannons are unpleasant or the necessary war is not social – that the Germans are “barbarians” must admit that, having just said that this person generates the noblest thoughts in his head and the noblest feelings in his heart, he is a lout because he will definitely use his hands. Such a judgment is absurd, and no sophistry can help over such a judgment.

And the same Englishman continued in those lectures, which he gave, as I said, to teach the publicists:

[On the whole, there is no question that the establishment of the German Reich has been beneficial to world peace. This explanation will seem strange to those] who know nothing [but the events of the present, and for whom history is nothing more than an ever-changing, dazzling] cinematograph. But history should be something more. It is for her to let the light of the past shine on the confusion of the present, and in that higher light, things that seem hurtful will take on a natural appearance. For when we look to the past, we find that our ancestors looked at France with far greater fear than the wildest rabble-rousers today fear Germany.

A short time before the outbreak of the war, that was the sound coming from across the Channel.

And the fear of our ancestors –

he means the fear of France –

[...] So, to sum up, it can be shown that the founding of the German Empire was an asset for Europe, and therefore also for] Great Britain.

- says the Englishman -

Because the events [of the years 1866-1871 put an end once and for all to the possibility of waging predatory wars against the previously unprotected center of Europe, thus eliminating a temptation to war that in earlier centuries had had so often led astray, they enabled the German people to develop their hitherto stunted political abilities, and they helped to establish a new European system on a secure basis, which] maintained peace for forty years. This blessing resulted from the fact that German unity achieved in one fell swoop what Great Britain, despite all its expenditure of blood and money, had never been able to achieve, namely to secure the balance of power in such a decisive way that a major war became the most dangerous of all risks.

If the courage of England holds for the result of this historical consideration, then one probably also speaks in his sense – although he will not say this himself, because in the present, as one says [gap in the stenogram] – then all that is talked and rambled about today is German nature /gap in the stenogram]. This includes what he refers to as: “[On the whole, there is no question that the establishment of the German Reich has been beneficial to world peace.] This explanation will seem strange to those [who know nothing but the events of the present, and] to those [for whom] [history is nothing but an eternally changing, dazzling] cinematograph.” It does seem true today that people believe they don't need to know anything about the present. And he reminds us to understand everything that has happened since 1914.

[Lord] Haldane, a name that has caught your eye in human history, has written a preface to the printing of his lecture. And Haldane wrote in this preface:

[The source of the stream of his intellectual and political life lies in the Reformation. But at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, a current unique in world history began to flow in a way that has been as continuous as it has been characteristic since that time. Since the days of ancient Greece, the world has not seen such a spectacle of the closest fusion of the life of the statesman with that of the thinker. The spirit of present-day Germany is to a high degree concrete and practical.

And then he added why he wrote this:

The influence of true knowledge [alone can dispel the clouds of mistrust and free us from the burden of arming ourselves against attacks that in reality none of us has in mind.

My dear attendees, it is perhaps not possible to summarize in a few words what is characteristic of the judgments that outstanding people from other nations have passed on the German character in other times. One can only sense all the insults and attacks against German intellectual life that are taking place in the world today and against which German intellectual life must defend itself. We have, for example, had to experience that an outstanding Belgian intellectual, who wrote his words in French and was particularly recognized in Germany, Maurice Maeterlinck, has made the bitterest accusations against, as he German “barbarism”, that he mingled completely with the jesters of the street and used words about the so-called German “barbarism” that are worthy only of that street.

But let us listen to a fellow countryman of Maeterlinck, someone who wrote in the same language as him, and let me say [illegible word] for once. He wants to characterize the influence he has experienced, among other things, from the German character, where it has most deeply manifested itself, for example in Novalis. This French Belgian, I mean this fellow countryman of Maeterlinck's – we we shall see in a moment how close he is to Maeterlinck – he says that when you allow something like what Novalis created, arising out of the German essence, to take effect on you, you can say, you really can't find any words in Europe to characterize the significance of this Scelen essence of Novalis. You have to coin the words in the following way, when Shakespeare wrote this or that: [When Shakespeare or] Sophocles [let their characters act,] they deal with human affairs that interest people on earth. Novalis created something from the depths of the German soul that not only people on earth would be interested in, if you thought that angelic beings, cosmic entities, descended to earth. And if you want to offer them something that would interest them, you can't come up with Shakespeare or Sophocles. That has no meaning for them; you have to come up with something that is so imbued with the sources of the eternal – that also has meaning for other spiritual, ethereal worlds – as what Novalis wrote. And what does this fellow countryman of Maeterlinck's do when he speaks of what he has received from the eternal, weaving soul of Novalis:

But if he [needed other proof, she would lead him among those whose works almost touch silence.

He speaks of silence because language cannot express what one has to say.

[She would open the gate of the realm where some loved her for her own sake, without worrying about the small gestures of her body. They would go together to the lonely plateaus where consciousness rises by one level, and where all those who are restless about themselves attentively survey the immense ring that connects the world of appearances with our higher worlds. She would go with him to the borders of humanity; for at the point where man seems to end, he probably only begins, and his most essential and inexhaustible parts are only in the invisible, where he must be on his guard unceasingly. On these heights alone are thoughts that the soul can approve of, and ideas that resemble her and are as imperious as she is. There humanity has reigned for a moment and these dimly illuminated peaks are perhaps the only lights that announce the earth in the realm of spirits. Their reflection truly has the color of our soul. We feel that the passions of the mind and body in the eyes of a strange reason would resemble the tolling of bells; but the people I am talking about have come out of the little village of passions in their works, and have said things that are also of value to those who do not belong to the earthly community.

Well, esteemed attendees, I have kept you busy for a while with these words of a personality – as I said, one close to Maeterlinck. One may believe that what this personality feels, she could have spoken the words – when she heard what Maurice Maeterlinck presumed to say about German nature in recent times – she could have spoken the words, this soul:

In truth, it is difficult to question one's soul and to hear its weak child's voice amidst the useless] screamers that surround it.

But, my dear audience, I have only mystified you for a while, I would like to say /illegible word>. The one who says what I have read to you about Novalis is in fact Maeterlinck himself. And the one who spoke of the useless clamorers is also Maeterlinck himself. It is a small thing to form an opinion about the attitude that underlies the saying of the German “barbarians”.

[Illegible word], ladies and gentlemen, it was already in 1870 that the German [David Friedrich] Strauß conducted his printed correspondence with Renan, the writer of “The Life of Jesus”. The Frenchman spoke remarkable words about the German character at that time, when Germany had already invaded France in the war of 1870. Renan pointed out that it was only at a later age that he became acquainted with German intellectual life. I would like to present to you what is special about German intellectual life through the words of Renan himself:

One does not need to use German words to characterize what German essence should be for the world. But now let us hear the same Renan express what he thinks about the future of Europe and its relationship to France. He has spoken very interesting words. He has pointed out that there are two currents in France. The first is that which says: We want to try not to cede anything to Germany, we want to try to establish order in France itself and to form an alliance with Germany for the civilization of Europe. But then he pointed out another current, which says: We just want to have peace for once, cede Alsace-Lorraine, but then form an alliance with anyone with whom we can ally against the German race.

What kind of judgment is this, ladies and gentlemen? That is, a person understands, a person who is one of the leaders of his nation understands that what he has recognized in German intellectual life is related to other things that have been offered to him [like differential calculus to elementary mathematics]. And he finds it foolish that his nation is now allying itself with anyone who is available as an enemy of this German essence. Yes, one must not take history like a cinematograph, but one must go into it in depth if one wants to grasp the sentence that German essence will have much to defend in the world and that the tremendous struggle is only the external symptomatic expression. And what other words do we hear from those who, because of their inability – and let us say with Renan's words: to ascend to the “differential calculus of culture” – call us “barbarians”, what else do we hear? We often hear, and always again, that Germany was to blame for this world war. Only the short-sighted can actually be expected to make such a statement. It is easy to prove, ladies and gentlemen, how what is now clashing with each other in a warlike manner has been ruling and weaving in Europe for years and has been pressing for the outbreak. And to say, in the face of what was going on in the countries of Europe, that Germany wanted this war will one day be recognized as pure nonsense, as the unscrupulous claim of those who, to justify their lack of scruples, are afraid of what the Germans call 'barbarism'.

During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, a person with a broader view of European affairs said the following – allow me to add this in conclusion. Carl Vogt, the naturalist, said the following during the Franco-Prussian War:

As for me, I am in no doubt for a moment that a conflict between the Germanic and Slavic world is imminent, that it will be ignited either by the Orient, especially Turkey, or by the nationality dispute in Austria, perhaps by both, and that Russia will take the lead in it on one side. This power is already preparing for the eventuality; the Russian national press is spewing fire and brimstone against Germany. [.-.] The German press is already sounding its warning cries].

1870 is written.

Since then [after the Crimean War, Russia gathered, a long time has passed, and it seems that it is now considered appropriate in [St. Petersburg] to take up the Oriental question again.] If the Mediterranean Sea

- he continues -

[once referred to as the “French Sea” – a term more ostentatious than true – Russia has the even more positive intention of turning the Black Sea into a Russian Sea and the Sea of Marmara into a Russian pond. That Constantinople must become a Russian city and Greece a direct vassal state of Russia is a fixed goal of Russian policy, which finds its lever of support in the common religion and in Pan-Slavism. The Danube would then be closed at the Iron Gate by the Russian barrier.

And from this insight into the necessity of this war, from the desire for the East, the writer draws attention to this goal, how responsible it must become for European civilization if the East were to find its allies in the European West. /Omission of an illegible passage.

Finally, I would like to present something else to you as proof that we are not dealing with something that has only emerged in our present time, but that we are dealing with something that has inevitably developed out of the European conflict and that has prompted the Germans in Central Europe to defend this essence. I would like to characterize in a few words what has happened since early 1914, since a little more than a year ago. Those who have followed contemporary history will know that what I am about to characterize really captures the circumstances of the time. What we could see in the East was the rise of a certain press campaign that took up the ideals of Pan-Slavism. And it shows, long before the assassination of the Austrian heir to the throne, what they want to try to do to satisfy Russia's demands.

The following words could be put together to describe what has happened in just over a year: [...] how a kind of press campaign gradually began in St. Petersburg, [...] how Germany was suspected of this intention. These [attacks] increased in the following [weeks] to strong [demands for pressure that we should exert on Austria in matters where we] could not attack Austrian law [without further ado]. One could not lend a hand to this, because [if we alienated Austria, we would necessarily become dependent on Russia if we did not want to be completely isolated in Europe. Would such dependence have been tolerable? One might have believed in the past that it could be tolerable because one said to oneself: We have no conflicting interests; there is no reason why Russia should ever break off friendship with us. When one talks to Russian friends about such disputes, one cannot exactly contradict them. But the events showed that even a complete subordination of our policy to Russia's – for a certain period of time – did not protect us from coming into conflict with Russia against our will and against our aspirations.

This is how one could characterize what happened, let us say, up to the outbreak of the war. My dear audience, the words that I have just read to you to characterize this last period are not mine. I must read them to you again with a small change. They were spoken by Bismarck in the German Reichstag on February 6, 1888. There Bismarck said:

[...] how gradually [a kind of press campaign began in St. Petersburg, attacking German politics and personally suspecting me of ulterior motives. These attacks intensified during the following year] until 1879 [to strong demands for pressure to be exerted on Austria in matters where we could not readily challenge Austrian law. I could not lend my hand to this; for if we estranged ourselves from Austria, we would necessarily become dependent on Russia if we did not want to be completely isolated in Europe. Would such dependence have been tolerable? I had believed earlier that it could be, telling myself: We have no conflicting interests, there is no reason why Russia should ever break off friendship with us. At least I had not outright contradicted my Russian colleagues who explained such things to me. The incident at the Congress disappointed me, and showed me that even the complete subordination of our policy (for a certain period) to the Russian policy would not protect us from coming into conflict with Russia against our will and against our aspirations.

The same words apply to 1914, which applied in exactly the same way to 1888. And let no one say that this war was caused by Central Europe in 1914 in terms of its reasons. The current was always there. But I believe that today's only outlined discussion has shown that the attack - which includes Germany and Austria as if in a large fortress, and would most like to starve this Central Europe - is not only directed against the external configuration, not only against social economic conditions, but will increasingly be directed against what the German soul is, what the German spirit is. But one can assume, especially when considering minds like Fichte and Schiller, that what lies in the German essence and its development is only just beginning to be realized.

In our feelings and emotions, we can, through Fichte, access the knowledge of the spirit that must continue to spread. To answer the question, why do they call [the people a “barbarian people”? To answer this question,] it is essential to recognize the fog that people want to delude themselves about what must necessarily be defended by the German people for the sake of the world's development. German courage and bravery will decide the war of the present. But we shall need weapons taken from the most sacred part of the German soul to defend the German spiritual essence, which for the same reason will have to and has already experienced attacks. For this German spiritual essence - built on a knowledge of the spirit, sets its goals on [the] knowledge of the spirit - has as enemies all that merely wants to prevail in external philosophy, such as Spencerian or Danilevskyan, has as opponents even that which could develop out of Descartes' Frenchness and so on, and what it has for other philosophies.

This German essence draws its logic from deeper sources, from sources with which it wishes to be connected, this German essence, with the spirit itself. And logic is truly quite rare in the attacks that are still being made today, but if we look at philosophers like [Emile] Boutroux, [illegible name], Bergson – [illegible word] no longer Fils de Montagne – the way they speak, the way they have forgotten how to grasp the capture the living and to look at the spirit, how they are frozen by external materialism, then one would like to ask: Do you really believe that after you have surrounded Germany from all sides, Germany will defend itself by reading Novalis, Schiller and Goethe at its borders and that these poets will not hear your cannons?

You have called forth that which emerged from the German spirit only as a mechanism. But that will not be, without that from the essence, which just in /illegible words] Fichte once had to be brought out, as someone of him said quite aptly: The irresistible of the essence is the incessant mood of his mind through [military] defense of the spiritual essence.

The logic that prevails here, like [illegible word], bears witness to no more than a superficial overview of the facts. With the same logic that is used today to seek the cause of this war among the Germans, it can be said that the Germans are to blame for being attacked from all sides today, because one can only attack them, [because] the art of printing, they invented it, the Germans. So they are to blame for the disgrace that is being done to them. This is the same logic that is heard a lot today. For one can go even further, and say that, after all, gunpowder is used in a barbaric war. One cannot say of the French that they invented gunpowder. One must ascribe the invention of war to the Germans. Thus they are, in fact, also to blame for the fact that this war and all the wars of modern times are being waged at all. But all this is only external. And what the German is called to bring out of the depths of spiritual life, what is inherent in his best minds, what his best minds have pointed to, must be said to show that it breathes the past, it also shows the future, it has inner developmental causes and developmental forces, and from these the German mind and soul draws confidence and hope that the enemies will not overwhelm it, that it will find ways and means, will find strength and endurance to defend the German way of life for the world.

Based on the feelings that have informed everything I have been able to say to you today, I would like to say a few summarizing words in which I would like to express what [illegible word] for our soul can emerge from the contemplation of what is happening to the German essence in our time, what is being predicted and spoken by the power of the enemy to this German essence.

All that is said and chattered about the German character, all that is said about the German character being in decline; not against the German character, not merely out of dark feelings, but out of the clear realization of what the German character is, are the words in which I would like to summarize the core content of this lecture:

[The German spirit has not yet accomplished
what it is to bring to the world.]
He [lives in future] hopes full of hope,
[He hopes for future deeds full of life.
In the depths of his being, he feels powerful
secrets that must still mature.
How can a wish for his end, without understanding,

Dear attendees! In the past, almost every year I have been able to give a lecture in this city in the field that I have recently taken to calling spiritual science. Since our friends have also requested such a reflection in these fateful times, it shall be given this evening. But you will understand that in our present time, when all our feelings, our emotions and our thoughts are focused on the great events, on those events that claim so many hopes, so much confidence, on the events that undoubtedly most significant events are now unfolding, events that are also causing so much pain and suffering. You will understand that at this time, such a reflection, especially if it is to be based on the spiritual scientific worldview, must also be made in view of the fateful events of our time. But it cannot be my task to add yet another of the numerous reflections that are being set forth today in lectures on the things that are so powerfully moving our time. Rather, it must be my task to say, from the point of view of spiritual science, from which I have always spoken here, what can be said in brief about our time from precisely this point of view.

It has been emphasized many times that the present struggle, the present mighty struggle, in which, in fact, apart from smaller tribal and linguistic differences, 35 different peoples of the earth are at war with each other; it has been said often that this mighty struggle is caused above all by the present-day commercial, economic, social and political antagonisms, and that it is of primary importance to look clearly and energetically at reality and the values in question and not to obscure these considerations with metaphysical speculations. From the standpoint of spiritual science, one can only agree with such a view and never oppose it.

But spiritual science also wants to stand on the standpoint of reality. This is one way in which this evening's meditation will differ from those that are so often practiced, in that it takes into account the realistic admonition of our contemporaries, while also considering that this mighty struggle is, after all, part of the whole course of human development, in which, above all, great impulses are at work that can only be achieved through spiritual contemplation. One could also say: At that time, when the Germanic tribes of Central Europe threatened the southern empires, the Roman Empire at the beginning of the Middle Ages, only the Roman spheres of interest with their social and political intentions were confronted with what was to come from Central Europe. Of course, at the time, one could justifiably speak in this way. But if we look at things today, and judge from a higher point of view, as we must today, because the world has advanced, we would see that if these struggles had not taken place back then, the reorganization of Europe through these struggles, which were initially caused by the Roman spheres of interest, of course, took place in a certain way —, then the whole Western development up to our time would have taken on a different face. That is one thing.

The other thing, however, is that anyone who follows the intellectual development of nations, the intellectual development in history, must really come to the conclusion, without indulging in any fantasies, without speculating, that what is now being fought out between thirty-five nations of the earth is, in fact, certainly the most significant thing imaginable for the present. It is not words that will fight it out, nor thoughts and human philosophies, but the bravery of the armies. But behind all this, one can see another struggle, a struggle of spiritual forces, a struggle of world views. And without going into what has often been said, I should perhaps emphasize that history will one day regard it as the most absurd of claims that Central Europe somehow provided the immediate cause of this world war. It will be seen more and more clearly, especially when viewed from a higher perspective, that Central Europe and particularly the German people are involved in a purely defensive struggle. But if we look at this defensive struggle, then from a certain point of view we can see how this struggle is one part of a great, mighty defensive struggle that German intellectual life, intellectual impulses, have already had to fight out in part, and in part have to fight out with ever-increasing strength, against that which is also a kind of intellectual encirclement of Central European intellectual life. What I mean by this, I would like to characterize it with a symptom that may not seem very meaningful to you. But one could cite many things and one would always find the same thing.

What we in many respects count among the greatest and most significant things that the spiritual life of modern times has taken up, is called the “idea of development,” the “worldview of development.” And no one tires of emphasizing how significant it was for the whole development of the spiritual life of humanity that people learned to see how not the individual entities of the world around us stand side by side, but that they have developed apart; how one can trace a developmental series from the lowest creatures up to humans.

The one who, out of the deepest impulses of the supporting forces of the German spirit, spoke of such a development in a deeply inward sense is none other than Goethe. And it may be said that, since Goethe, German culture has had a wonderful, to use a Goethean expression: a spiritual doctrine of development. This spiritual doctrine of development has not been taken up into the general world view, nor into the European world view. In contrast, it takes five to six decades for the general consciousness of modern cultural humanity to accept the doctrine of development - but in what form - in the form of Darwinism.

When something like this is said, it still seems to have a chauvinistic coloring for many today. But future times will see it in all the power that is inherent in it. Darwinism has given the idea of development a materialistic [utilitarian] slant; and in this slant, which has been forced upon it, the idea of development has been incorporated into modern cultural ideas by an entirely English thinker. And the deeper German developmental idea is definitely faced with the necessity of defending itself. In the future, the world will realize that it is not necessary to say that Darwinism is something wrong, something incorrect, but that it will be necessary to take the deeper foundations, the more vigorous knowledge from the sources of German intellectual life for the developmental idea as well. In other words, it will be necessary to forge weapons that can defend the spiritual goods of Central Europe against the attacks that are being waged in countless fields, as in the field just mentioned, against this Central European intellectual life. And just as it is not important, when one is in the midst of a struggle between nations such as that which exists today, to wage war with these or those words, so to speak, between individual nations, whether words of hatred or sympathy, but rather, as is much more natural, to take the position that one has to defend what one recognizes as one's fatherland, as one defend one's family without disparaging anything else, so in the field of spiritual struggles, which, as everything shows, we will face in the near future in a tremendous way, it is important to be fully imbued with what the forces of this Central European, especially German, intellectual life are. In these forces there will be weapons that will be needed in the future. I cannot go into more detail, but I would like to suggest that the current struggle of external weapons will only be the beginning of what is to come in terms of spiritual struggles, and that the ill-intentioned, malicious, defamatory views that are hurled at German culture from all sides already show us the beginning.

If we now want to talk about these things from the point of view of spiritual science, it is of course incumbent upon us to at least characterize this point of view of spiritual science with a few words. Even though today, as in other lectures that I have also given in this city, I cannot go into the details of this spiritual science, which is to enter the development of time and the world as something new, and even though I will not be able to say anything conclusive in favor of spiritual science, I would still like to indicate with a few words, with a few points of view, what spiritual science wants.

Spiritual science wants to be a real science of the spirit. Above all, it wants to show how the human soul life, that which we call our innermost human nature, is connected with the real and true spirit that flows and weaves through nature and humanity. And just as natural science renewed the world view of humanity a few centuries ago, so spiritual science today wants to enter into the spiritual development of humanity in a very similar way, albeit from a different point of view.

I would like to draw attention to the following: if you were to say to someone who knows nothing about chemistry, who has never heard of chemistry and only knows water – of course, we can only imagine such a person hypothetically – that in this water, which is liquid and extinguishes fire, extinguishes fire, there is a gas in it that can be separated out, that is hydrogen; this hydrogen burns, it is not liquid but gaseous, so the person who has never heard of chemistry may consider this to be a highly fantastic idea. Natural science has made this into a very ordinary, even trivial, idea today. There was certainly a time when those who claimed such things were thought of as fantasists.

Today, on the other hand, anyone who knows nothing of spiritual science is considered a fantasist who says: When we have the human body with its soul before us, it presents itself in such a way that we cannot recognize the essence of what is directly connected to it while this essence is inside the body itself. One must separate it by the spiritual-scientific method, the spiritual-soul from the physical-bodily, as one separates hydrogen from water by chemical methods, if one wants to recognize it. This spiritual-scientific method does not take place in an external laboratory, but in the intimate processes of the human soul itself.

But there are spiritual scientific methods by which man can truly become a spiritual scientist, by which he can come to separate his spiritual soul from the physical body so that it is outside, as hydrogen is outside of water. But then the spiritual researcher lives in this spiritual-soul realm. He learns to recognize the characteristics and nature of this spiritual-soul realm, that which goes through birth and death in man, that which passes through the gate of death into a spiritual world and then, after death, world with a higher consciousness, with a consciousness that the spiritual researcher learns to recognize when he applies the spiritual scientific method to his soul, just as the chemist learns the properties of water when he applies the chemical methods. A time will come when people will speak of these things as they speak today of the Copernican world view, which was also once regarded as fantasy, or of similar things.

Just as today the spiritual researcher has to present to humanity the truth that there is a spiritual core in us that passes through the gate of death to return to repeated lives on earth, to repeated and repeated lives on earth, so one day this will be a truth, as the idea of development in external natural science is considered true today. If today what the spiritual researcher has to say is quite naturally regarded as a dream, as a fantasy, from many sides, then those who have immersed themselves in these things may point out how, at a certain time, Copernicanism, which is generally recognized today, was regarded as contradicting the five senses. And so it is today. What spiritual science has to say about repeated lives on earth, about the independence of the soul, and so on, is said to contradict the five senses. And if you take a materialistic point of view, you say: the life of the soul is enclosed between birth and death.

One must compare such a view with another view that still existed in the Middle Ages: that the blue firmament arches over us, which is a conclusion, a boundary, a spatial boundary. Modern science shows us that this boundary is only formed by our ability to see, that space extends into an infinite world, that we are embedded in infinite space on the earth. When modern science dawned, the blue firmament was broken through and recognized as something that is evoked by human vision. Through spiritual science it will be recognized that the boundaries that seek to enclose life between birth and death are like the blue firmament in relation to space. Through spiritual science, people will learn to look beyond this temporal firmament, which is set by birth and death, and they will find human life embedded in a line of development from which it emerges again and again.

Between earthly lives lie realms of development of a purely spiritual nature. And so, by learning to experience himself in this way, the spiritual researcher has something to proclaim in spiritual science: in the spiritual and soul realm, the human being feels, not through philosophical speculation but through experience, a connection with the real spiritual world, which surrounds the physical, from which the spiritual-soul is released - spiritual science speaks of an experience of the spiritual world, a spiritual world in which spiritual beings are, as physical beings are around us here.

It is perhaps still somewhat unpopular today if one is obliged to present these basic concepts of spiritual science in this way. But we live in a time in which humanity is living in a time of transformation of all thinking. Just as a Copernicus or a Galilei had to be anticipated in the dawn of modern natural science, so one can see something in spiritual science that lies, as it were, in the bosom of our time.

If we now follow German spiritual life and really immerse ourselves in it, then from the point of view of spiritual science we will have to gain a very definite view of German spiritual life, of that which has constantly revealed itself in it. I cannot go into details now, only with regard to the last times of German spiritual life. Thus, I said, the peculiarity of spiritual science is that the spiritual researcher, through his special spiritual-scientific method, learns to experience himself in the spiritual-soul that has been freed from the physical body and now knows itself, not in time but in eternity.

Let us see, by visualizing this spiritual view, how the most German of philosophers, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, I would say, lived out his belief in immortality and his belief in the soul. Fichte, like his contemporaries, was not yet able to have a real spiritual science. But how he drew from the spiritual life and knew this life in connection with the life of his national spirit is shown in the speeches he addressed to his people in one of Germany's most difficult times. But I don't want to talk about that today, but rather about how Fichte expressed himself, for example, where he wanted to give a “directions for a blessed life” philosophically, about his doctrine of immortality and soul. There he says:

I cannot admit that one seeks the main thing in the immortal human life only after death. That which is most important to me is that we become aware in this life of the body within us of that which passes through the gate of death and then goes into a spiritual world and lives on in it. For this invisible element living in us, I want to live through this earthly life.

This is not yet spiritual science, but it is the germ of spiritual science. And this germ of spiritual science can be found wherever we look at the fruits of German intellectual life. Everywhere we find the urge, the longing, not to satisfy ourselves with the abstractions of thought, with the external spirit of science, from which the science of the senses or the combination of the sensual is born. The German does not seek only for concepts and ideas, but also for their connection with the living spirit. The German feels moved when he can realize that science is not an external absorption of knowledge, but that it is the true life of knowledge, which he strives for so that the soul communes with the spirit that pervades and permeates the world. In the real connection with what spiritually permeates and permeates the world, the German wants to see the ideal of his knowledge, that he does not just want to absorb ideas, not just concepts, a science that is like an image of something external. He wants to have something in his soul that flows like a spiritual lifeblood in him, like the God himself who lives in him. And this is expressed more intensely and powerfully in a creation that no nation in the world has; which may not stand at the pinnacle of world creation in an artistic sense, but in the way it expresses itself, in that the German does not strive for a merely external visual connection with the spirit, but for a confrontation, spiritual eye in spiritual eye, with the spirit. You know that by this creation I mean the Goethean “Faust” poetry.

Do we not see in Faust how his consciousness turns away from all that is mere external knowledge, what is mere derivation from something external? Do we not see how he strives for the source of life, the manifestation of the spirit; how he strives to confront this spirit eye to eye? How he turns away from the external and strives to experience supersensible worlds? The German can never be satisfied with something he has achieved as knowledge. This is best seen by looking at the following: the beginning of Goethe's “Faust” has become almost trivial. It reflects the mood of Goethe in the 1770s. We see how Faust wants to get out of a knowledge that is not connected to the living spiritual world. When we grasp its full depth, we are shaken when Faust speaks the words:

Alas, I have now studied philosophy,
jurisprudence and medicine,
and unfortunately also theology
thoroughly, with great endeavor.
There I stand, poor fool,
and am as wise as before!

Now let us see how this German intellectual life unfolds. Let us see how Goethe, in the 1770s, longs for the appearance of the earth spirit, for the sources of intellectual life, for higher self-knowledge, which is achieved by the soul immersing itself in the living spiritual of the transcendental world.

Then we see how greatly the German philosophers strove in this respect after Goethe's time. We see that, after Goethe wrote his “Faust”, German thought, German poetry and German music all seek to look at things from the deepest sources. We see the emergence of thinkers such as Fichte, Schelling and Hegel; we see them connecting with Goethe; we see how they create something from a knowledge that is supposed to be more original than all that has gone before, that is also supposed to come from the very depths of the human soul; we see that they are creating a philosophy; and when we consider that Hegel created a “natural right” and that Schelling published a medical journal, that all these minds were searching for a renewal of science, despairing at Faust! They also sought to renew theology, for they all wanted to be theologians. We see how all this greatness, which has not yet been properly appreciated, springs from the fundamental forces of the German spirit, and we can perhaps say: Goethe could have stood there, after he had seen all this pass him by, and could have said: What I felt in despair back then in the 1770s has been brilliantly brought forth by the German spirit from the sources of life! And let us assume that Goethe had grown even older than he did; let us assume – and I believe that no one would dispute this hypothesis – that Goethe had begun in 1840 [or let us assume that he had been even younger ], to write “Faust” again after all that had happened in the meantime in German intellectual life, can we believe that the beginning of “Faust” around 1840 would have sounded like this:

Now, thank God, I have studied philosophy,
law and medicine, with Fichte, Schelling, Hegel
and, thank God, theology as well
with great zeal and assiduity,
and here I am, a wise man,
as wise as one can be.

Do you think the beginning of “Faust” would have sounded like that? Certainly not. It would have sounded exactly the same as in 1772. Exactly the same!

But what does that tell us? It testifies that it is in the essence of this quintessentially German, Goethean idea of Faust to regard everything that has already been achieved not as something that can satisfy the individual, but that a striving is rooted in this German spiritual life, where it is manifested precisely in its representatives, that every individual, in turn, has to go through, in every age, an eternal becoming, never being complete. This is the case because German intellectual life can only describe the grasping of the spiritual as a true one if the spirit is experienced. But it can never be experienced if one wants to grasp it in an established way. To experience the spirit, one must always approach the spirit in a renewed way. But this is a typically German trait, and at the same time it is what can be called the “supporting force of the German spirit”.

Not concepts, not ideas, not something acquired in reason is what the German strives for, but what is to be striven for is that which can be grasped again at any time in original power. Not the spirit in a coffin, but the ever-living spirit is striven for. So that we may say: Admittedly, we do not see an archetypally German striving in the older times in the same way that we see spiritual science today. But we see the seeds; in what lives in the best, we see the same striving for direct experience of the connection with the spirit. This is always being witnessed anew. That means: a real life of the spirit is presupposed, in which the individual stands. That means: the supporting power of the spirit lives in him in such a way that they hold secret dialogue, that he is touched by what the German spirit wants from him. And this we see continuing to have an effect even where German intellectual life has been pushed back on itself by attacks from left and right, from above and below; we see the original German being carried by the real spirit continuing to have an effect. I would like to mention just one of the many phenomena that could be cited from the second half of the nineteenth century.

One of the most important representatives of the German spirit in the second half of the nineteenth century, who has not yet been fully recognized today, is Herman Grimm, the son of one, the nephew of the other of the Brothers Grimm, the great researchers of myths and legends, the researcher of the German language. Herman Grimm is first known as a German cultural historian, as an art historian. If you now delve into Herman Grimm's art history, you come across something peculiar. There is nothing in Herman Grimm's writings of what could be called pedantic erudition, of external systematics, but there is something that originally springs from the spiritual. The most important thing that one can gain from the works of Herman Grimm must be read between the lines, it must be sensed from what is said. Why? Because in Herman Grimm lives the sustaining power of the German spirit, which is brought to life by him, and through which he lets himself be whispered in each individual case through an inspiration as to what he has to say about an artistic phenomenon. So that one cannot but feel the affinity between the one who writes and the one who inspires him, one feels like a living conversation of the German national spirit with the one who speaks to us through his books in terms of art history. This Herman Grimm, he prepared himself in a peculiar way for his art historical profession. In his youth, he wrote novellas and also a significant novel. The recognition of these things also belongs to the living German intellectual heritage. For it is not because of their German nature that they have been forgotten, but because attacks have been made on German intellectual property from outside.

I will briefly outline one of Herman Grimm's novellas. We will see shortly what the purpose of this is. The novella is called “The Songstress”. We are presented with a very beautiful characterization of a woman. We see a man in the woman's surroundings. The man is deeply in love with the woman; the woman cloaks herself more in a nobly flirtatious being. He suffers terribly. Herman Grimm wrote a so-called first-person novella with this novella. What he writes is as if the story were being told by a person who lives next door to the couple and experiences everything that happens. And so, in the novella, the author – but in reality, of course, his friend – describes the events that transpire. The singer's coquettish behavior finally drives the lover completely mad. He distances himself from her. He cannot bear the situation. Later, his friend meets him again and sees that he has completely fallen apart. He takes him into his house and sees that this person has come to the edge of the grave because of his love. He sees that he is on the verge of suicide at any moment. So he takes him into his house. But he sees that it is necessary to get the singer over there. He fetches her. And lo and behold, as he approaches the house with the singer, who is to come as the unfortunate man's last hope, so to speak, they hear a shot. The unhappy lover has shot himself, he is dead. The content of the novella is wonderfully beautiful in its characteristics; but that is not what matters to me now. What matters to me is what happens to the singer now that she has found only the dead, suicidal lover. The singer stays in the friend's house for some time. She explains to her friend that she cannot remain in this house, that she is experiencing terrible things in this house. The friend to whom she relates her experiences does not believe this, of course; he is a rationalist. He thinks as rationalists of the present day think. So she asks him to watch with her for one night. And there he is convinced of what is happening to this woman as a result of the death of her lover. He sees for himself how the woman straightens up. He sees a figure enter through the door; that is, he only recognizes it from the words, he does not see the figure, but through what the woman sees, he is convinced that this is indeed a subjective but true experience, that the woman is really in contact with the dead, that this is a matter of the working out of destiny, which throws its rays over death.

Not because I want to use a work of fiction to prove spiritual science, but because the spiritual scientist has to say: Herman Grimm describes like a spiritual science expert, Herman Grimm wants to describe that a person's destiny is not only understood between birth and death. This novella is wonderfully moving, deeply moving, because it describes a person's life beyond death.

Now this is not a temporary phenomenon in writing. In his great cultural-historical novel, Herman Grimm again describes a female character who also has to experience the death of her lover. He describes how real the death is, how the death of the hero occurs, how the spiritual figure rises out of the physical figure. Now Herman Grimm describes how - appropriately - this figure enters into the spiritual world and how a connection remains between the dead and what rises out of the physical body of the heroine. I describe these things because they show how, in German literature, where one is confronted with representatives of the Germanic spirit, the supporting power of the German spirit works in such a way that the novellist, the novelist, too, can do so if he wants to rise into the world of real, supersensible reality. We are shown how the best minds do not stop at outward, visible reality, but how they follow the human soul into the spiritual world. These representatives of the German character did not yet have spiritual science, but their souls were so directed that they sensed the supporting power of the German spirit, which wants to lead the German character to the experience of the spiritual. Therefore, one can have the strongest confidence in the development of spiritual science when one looks at what is there as a germ for this spiritual science in German idealism, in the German longing, not for the abstract but to the living spirit that lives in the supersensible world, just as the mineral world, the plant world, and the animal world live in the sensory world around us. This testifies to the fact that to be German means to be connected in a very specific way as an individual human being with a totality of spiritual life. And in this respect, German experience is not only easily misunderstood, but is attacked and will be attacked again and again. It is not easy for German experience, which is more profound than anything that has developed around it, to take up the weapons with which German intellectual life, which has been pushed into a corner, will have to defend itself over the course of millennia against the hostile forces that come from all sides through the conditions of life.

What then springs from these original German spiritual impulses? They can perhaps be best characterized by pointing to an older time. This German spiritual life did not first appear with this character in modern times, but already in the Middle Ages. If we go back to the mystic Angelus Silesius, he has left many sayings. One particularly meaningful saying is where he says: “Not I as a human soul experience death, in the depths of my human soul dwells God, and God experiences death in me.” The depth of such a saying is not immediately apparent. It proves the primal German thinking and feeling and sensing, which experiences in itself a being with the world spirit that permeates and interweaves everything. Let us only think of the words of Faust:

[Ehrlicher Geist, du gabst mir, gabst mir alles,
Warum ich bat. Du hast mir nicht umsonst
Dein Angesicht im Feuer zugewendet.
Gabst mir die herrliche Natur zum Königreich,
Kraft, sie zu fühlen, zu genießen. Nicht
You only allow cold, astonished visitors,
Allow me to look into their deep chests,
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 in the forest roars and creaks, The giant spruce topples, crushing neighboring branches, And neighboring trunks, sweeping down, And the hill thunders hollowly with its fall;Then you lead me to the safe cave, show Then myself, and my own chest secret, deep wonders open up.)

That is what the German has always sought in his best representatives. That is what he has sought: to truly find in his soul, to find in his deepest inner being the living spirit, to live together with this living spirit. So that Angelus Silesius, in all his peculiarity, already expounds great ideas of immortality when he speaks of the experience of death. For God can only be felt as alive. But he who experiences God in this way within himself knows that he is immortal. For God must be immortal, therefore death can only be an appearance. From this feeling of the German soul, even the grasp of the immortal life for this German soul emerges. But that is what has given this German soul this certainty, this firm footing in its development. That is what has always brought this German soul, of all national souls, closest to what we today call spiritual science. I would like to bring this home to your souls from a certain point of view.

Let us compare this German spiritual life with Eastern spiritual life, not in its lower regions, but let us go up to the highest regions of Russian spiritual life. Let us try to visualize one of Russia's most outstanding minds, Soloviev. Soloviev, who really took everything that was in Russian intellectual life into his soul and gave it back as a world view – not just as what is called a “philosophical world view”, but in such a way that one feels the Russian life vibrating – gave something that lived in this deep soul. I can only refer here to his works, only a small part of which have been translated, I cannot go into all of them. But I would like to point out that this philosopher, who retained his faith throughout his life – the faith that lives in many Russians, that Western European life, and Central European life as well, is a dying life, the renewal of which can only come from Russia. He lives according to this error. But this error gives his philosophy its special character. And again and again, in rousing speeches, Solowjow assures his people of the creative and sustaining forces within them. Then came the end of his life. Solowjow ended his life by increasingly arriving at a meager worldview, which I will characterize by comparing it to what lives in a similar field in the German worldview.

Let us see what lives in the German world view: it is the certainty that the human soul can live together with the spirit of the world, that it can hold its dialogue with the spirit of the world. We have seen this in the representative figure of Faust. Solowjow does not speak of the certainty of spiritual experience in the way that a human soul speaks out of the Germanic nature. Rather, he speaks thus: Yes, the Russian people have a great mission, but it is fulfilled by a divine being from the other world, who, through grace, takes hold of the Russian people and gives them their mission. God must work in the Russian people. And the Russians are waiting for the miracle, for a god, a kind of manifestation of the light of Christ, to appear and call the Russian people to their task.

In Central European spiritual culture, people know that they can experience their soul, they can experience God in their soul. Soloviev is waiting for that which pushes and drives and urges him from outside; he is waiting for the miracle. But now, in the year of Solowjow's death, the remarkable thing is that Solowjow appeared before the Petersburg public with a speech that must have been wonderfully moving, because something deeply emotional spoke from his words, which so convinced the audience that this power of persuasion passed over to people like a magic breath. He said: “Everything that has ever been believed about humanity being able to find something within itself that would redeem it, that would lead it to a divine state, is a vain deception and illusion. All that is deception, what believes that humanity will ever find the strength within itself to experience the divine through what it is now. No, Solowjow emphasizes, everything that humanity has of strength now, everything that it has of seemingly highest culture, that must perish. “The whole world lies in ruins” - such are his words - for there is nothing in present-day humanity that could lead this humanity to a spiritual goal. Only when everything has perished will the God who redeems souls step in from outside the dissolved earth, the perished earth. We cannot find anything in our souls that points us to something we could seek ourselves.

And he also describes in detail what he expects. As in a powerful vision, he sees the Asian peoples approaching, he sees them waging war on Europe, he sees how, in the twentieth, twenty-first century, Christianity will have declined to such an extent that only one-tenth of those who are on earth will still be Christians, while the whole world will be flooded with a harsh, materialistic worldview, which is pouring over the world, because “the whole world is in a state of decay.” He who listened to what the greatest philosophical mind of the Russian people spoke out of a deep faith shortly before his death, just weeks before his death, might ask: What could have inspired the one who has passed away to say: My soul, through its own power, has lost all eternity.

Let us instead consider the will and testament of a German. There are still people today who scoff at Lessing's momentous will and testament, 'The Education of the Human Race', in which he describes how development continues through all times, how souls keep coming back. For Lessing was the first to incorporate the doctrine of repeated earthly lives into German spiritual life. People often say: Well, yes, Lessing was a great man, but when he wrote this 'Education of the Human Race', he was already an old man. Well, people always arrange what they want to acknowledge as they want. But Lessing did not weaken, rather he had ascended to a deep sense of this direct communion, this speaking of the human soul with the living spirit, which pours out its sustaining strength over the soul of the individual, so that the individual soul can live with it in the sustaining strength of the German spirit. Lessing said something like the following as the closing words of his will: Is it not clear to my soul, from what it experiences within itself, that it must keep coming back to a new life on earth in order to keep learning new things and developing ever higher? That would take a lot of time, well, isn't eternity mine? - That is what Lessing extracts from the depths of the human soul itself, that is what he lays down in his testament. This is a spiritual culture that comes to different words than the one that says: We will never find the strength from the human soul itself.

From such a juxtaposition of different moods, one will understand that in the East, the Russian spiritual mood is asserting itself, which stands without understanding in relation to what is taking place in Central Europe, and which does not overlook everything that is emerging here as a living spiritual life, but always speaks of the decaying culture of the West. Thus, the so-called intellectuals justify, from a spiritual point of view, what they had always intended to do against the West, including politically. The terrible war in which we are engaged was caused as much by the moods of the East as by external interests. But these moods will not disappear with this war. In order to bring German intellectual life to bear, it will be necessary to forge weapons from the spirit, from which the greatest minds of Central Europe have taken their weapons, for this confrontation with the spirit must always be renewed.

And how, by a completely natural process, the enemies of this German intellectual life must be encircled – we can see this if we take a look at how German intellectual life is understood, the German intellectual life that I was able to sketch out in a charcoal drawing, the subject of much discussion. In defense of and in an effort to understand this German intellectual life, I would like to call to mind a Western spirit that truly belongs to the best [Western spirits] of the nineteenth century, an American who wrote in English, Emerson. He is truly not someone to invoke when one wants to describe the contrast between the West and German intellectual life based on prejudice. Emerson portrays the English people as the first world people; but strangely, he places the Germans higher. Despite Emerson's description of the English as the first world people, he says:

The English do not appreciate the depth of German intellectual life.
The German thinks for Europe.

But now I would like to mention something else that is very characteristic from the point of view on which I have based this reflection today. Emerson wrote two wonderful essays, one about Shakespeare and one about Goethe. Unfortunately, people today only read with half a mind, but it could be interesting if a number of people really did what I am about to suggest. It would be interesting to get involved in the essays that Emerson wrote and that bear the title “Representatives of the Human Race,” reading the two essays, one about “Shakespeare, or the Poet,” the other about “Goethe, or the Writer.” You will not believe that I am so brutal, or, one could also say, so “barbaric”, that I want to denigrate Shakespeare in any way, or that I do not revere him to the highest degree as one of the greatest poets of humanity. That is what he is, for Emerson too. And Emerson states that if you want to characterize the poet, you have to name Shakespeare as the representative poet. By comparison, you have to call Goethe the representative writer. Now, one should not just read what is there, but one should feel from the words what passed through the whole soul of the presenter when he gave the characteristics. Emerson tries to present Shakespeare as the representative of the poet in general, based on the characteristics of the English national soul, and then Goethe as the representative of the writer in general. And Emerson seeks to draw out the traits that one must consider if one wants to truly characterize Shakespeare inwardly. And with Emerson it is the case that when he is confronted with an appearance, he characterizes the one appearance with all the power of the word, as if there were nothing else, he immerses himself in the individual appearance. In Shakespeare, when he discusses Shakespeare, in Goethe, when he discusses Goethe. [It is a special gift.] And what is it that he seeks to express when he contemplates Shakespeare, Shakespeare the poet, [whom he regards as the most exquisite poet and this as the most exquisite of the English, and this as the most exquisite of the peoples]? He feels compelled to say, while characterizing Shakespeare: An original mind is not, as is usually thought, one that creates everything out of itself, but one that works as Shakespeare did, who goes everywhere and takes the intellectual property he can find. And now he shows how the whole of England thought like Shakespeare, how he was only the echo of his people. On the other hand, he tries to show how Shakespeare used French and Italian sources, how he gathered everything together to become Shakespeare, how he became the great man by organizing the great intellectual goods from other worlds and other peoples. That is what Emerson comes to through Shakespeare. And I would like to read you a few characteristic words:

Great men are distinguished more by their comprehensive minds [and] by the height of the vantage point from which they look down than by their originality. If we demand that originality which, like a spider, draws its own web from its own entrails, which itself finds the clay, forms stones from it and erects the house, then great men are by no means original. The essence of truly valuable originality does not lie in dissimilarity to others.

Thus Emerson characterizes Shakespeare in such a way as to show: I must show why Shakespeare is so unoriginal. “The essence of truly valuable originality does not lie in dissimilarity to others.”

And one saying, to which particularly much value must be attached in Emerson's characteristics of Shakespeare, is the following, which is not said by me, but Emerson speaks thus about Shakespeare:

It has become a kind of practical rule among writers that once someone has shown themselves capable of creating something original, they may then also discreetly steal the works of others.

So Emerson, when characterizing one of the greatest minds of the world order, needs nothing less than to excuse Shakespeare for being original, even by stealing from others and combining what has been stolen. You have to look a little deeper into what the impulses of human development are when you are standing in such a momentous world period as today.

And then we turn the page, especially in the beautiful translation by Herman Grimm, which he made of Emerson's essays on Shakespeare and Goethe. Let us now turn to Goethe. Again, Emerson delves into Goethe, absorbed in the essence of Goethe, as if nothing else existed. And what comes to Emerson's mind now to characterize Goethe as the representative of writing? He comes up with the following words: All of nature, every stone, everything that is and will be strives to be expressed. The whole world strives for expression. And favored human souls, whom other souls cannot emulate, who therefore stand alone, they find the words to express, in wrestling with the world spirit, what is wrestling with the world spirit.

With Shakespeare, Emerson describes how he [makes references everywhere].

With Goethe, he describes how Goethe himself is connected to the world spirit, which works in the individual realms of nature. Compare the one with the other. About Goethe, Emerson says:

In my eyes, the writer stands as a man whose position was foreseen in the construction of the world.

In direct contrast to the beginning of the world, he brings Goethe. Shakespeare he believes he has to excuse. And further he says of Goethe:

The position he took, he owes nothing, but he entered the world from his birth as a free, [supervising] genius.

About Shakespeare, he says:

It is easy to see that all the best that has ever been written and done in the world was not the work of one man, but the product of a vast, collaborative effort in which a thousand like one, all driven by a single impulse, lent a hand.

Shakespeare is explained entirely out of the environment, out of the world that surrounds him. Regarding Goethe, Emerson says:

He is all eye and instinctively turns to where the truth lies. Say something, and he will immediately know whether it is true or false. It is hateful to him to repeat the old wives' tales, even if they have had the good faith of humanity for a thousand years, and to be made a fool of by them. No one else needs to strain their eyes for him to show them whether something is true or a lie.

I believe, my dear audience, that one can feel something deep and meaningful by comparing Emerson's essay on Shakespeare with his essay on Goethe; one will feel everywhere that this American had a certain right to say: “The English [do not appreciate the depth of German intellectual life. The German thinks for Europe.] He tried to fathom it, but in fathoming it, he sensed something of what I wanted to characterize today as the living forces of the German spirit, which penetrate into every single soul; not that power that flows from the commonality of human beings, but from the direct intercourse of the individual soul with the spirit. And one can feel how Emerson is imbued with this sustaining power of the German spirit when, at the end of his meditation on Goethe, he speaks words that must be taken with feeling, not just with the mind. At the end of his meditation on Shakespeare, Emerson says:

It must be admitted that these were only imperfect histories of imperfect men. The world is still waiting for the poet-priest, the reconciler, who, unlike Shakespeare, does not play, who, unlike the body-burial Swedenborg, does not search in graves, but who will see and speak and act with equal enthusiasm. For knowledge will give splendor to sunshine; justice is more beautiful than secret preference, and love is compatible with all-embracing wisdom.

What feelings does Shakespeare inspire in Emerson? The feeling that we must wait for the coming of the one who will bring reconciliation.

What does the contemplation of Goethe inspire in him? He says at the end of the contemplation:

The secret of genius is not to tolerate a lie, to make everything we are aware of a truth; in the sophistication of modern life, in art and science, in [the] books and in people, to awaken faith , certainty and trust, and to honor each truth, as we begin and as we end, as we go along and as we go forward, by not only knowing it but by making it a rule of action.

Thus, it was not only Goethe but also Shakespeare who inspired Emerson not to wait for anyone. And the words I have just read are preceded by the following:

We too must write sacred writings to reunite heaven and earth.

We would say today: We have to immerse ourselves in spiritual science, in what human science can be. But Emerson does not grasp the depth of German intellectual life, and is fundamentally hostile to it.

This, however, is precisely why German intellectual life will be in a kind of defensive position for a long time to come. For it experiences strange things even with those of whom it is said that they are trying to penetrate into this German intellectual life. I would also like to give you a sample of this.

Those who are reasonably familiar with the intellectual life of the recent past may have been surprised that such high hopes were placed in some German minds before this war taught people, let's say, about someone like Romain Rolland, a different lesson. The people who admired him represent, to a certain extent, a break in the intellectual life of the present. Those who admired him could not really understand how he could speak so contemptuously of the Germans after the outbreak of the war. One has indeed been able to read strange articles in Germany about Romain Rolland. I will only refer to one work by Romain Rolland, “Jean-Christophe”. In this novel, Romain Rolland portrays a German, but you will see in a moment how. Even this description of Jean-Christophe is to be said: it is given by a person who has never been touched by the real inner strength of the spiritual life. What is Jean-Christophe in the two-volume novel? It is a German musician and how he develops in his Germanness. Romain Rolland wants to describe that. And he really does describe something, yes, you can't say otherwise, than a chaotic mixture of the destinies of various Germans such as Beethoven, Richard Strauss, Wagner, Gustav Mahler and so on. All of this is mixed up in the most impossible way, and that gives the completely impossible character of Jean-Christophe, who has been so much admired, but who shows himself to be nothing more than the result of an artist's inability to face reality, which not only records external nature but also penetrates into the depths of existence, and can see the impossibility of mixing up such chaos.

I am well aware that there may be many people who will interpret what I am about to say about Romain Rolland as “barbaric”. But I believe that I can take on what these people defend from their apparent aesthetic high ground when it comes to judging the particular aesthetic and artistic nature of people like Romain Rolland. [It has nothing to do with what Schiller said to Goethe. “People say that there is something immoral in Wilhelm Meister. No, the characters are as they have to be.”] For with Romain Rolland, you never know what the author says and what his characters say. Therefore, what his characters say can be seen as the attitude of Romain Rolland himself. This attitude comes across to us wherever he talks about Germanness. For example, he describes the father of Jean-Christoph.

I will now only quote a few significant things that we can say are a Frenchman's recent judgment of the German character. And I will cite evidence because there were people who said: This novel is the first great act since 1870 that will bring about the reconciliation of Germans and French. No political act is as important for this reconciliation as Romain Rolland's novel, so people said. Well, anyone who reads the novel will agree with me if I disagree. You can't say that Romain Rolland didn't want to say what his characters say, you just have to look at it from an artistic point of view. Because what we are hearing from this Romain Rolland, this “reconciler between Germanness and Frenchness”, has recently been presented to us in the most defamatory way as German “barbarism” from the West. So it is said of the father:

He was a fine speaker, well built, if a little heavy, 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 he characterizes a number of chamber musicians, whom he considers typical of German chamber music, in the following way:

They played neither very accurately nor very in time; but they never went off the rails and faithfully followed the indicated expressive markings. They possessed that musical ease that requires little, and that perfection in mediocrity that is abundant in the race that is called the most musical in the world.

Romain Rolland characterizes Uncle Theodor, the stepson of Jean-Christophe's grandfather, as follows:

He was a partner in a large trading house that had business connections with Africa and the Far East. He was a typical example of the new type of German, who mockingly spurn the old idealism of the race and, drunk with victory, practice a cult that proves that they are not accustomed to living under that sign. But since it is impossible to suddenly change the centuries-old nature of a people, the suppressed idealism kept resurfacing in language, behavior, moral views, and Goethe quotes on the occasion of the slightest domestic events; and so, through the bizarre effort to reconcile the honorable principles of the old German bourgeoisie with the cynicism of these new shop-keepers, a strange mixture of conscientiousness and self-interest, a mixture that has a rather nauseating smell of hypocrisy, which amounts to making a symbol of all that is right, of all justice and truth, out of German strength, greed and the pursuit of personal interest.

That is Romain Rolland's description of certain Germans. We have heard it again through Romain Rolland. But then we are told about Jean-Christophe himself:

He lacked that compliant Germanic idealism that refuses to see and does not see what it would find embarrassing to discover, for fear of destroying the comfortable serenity of its judgment and the comfort of its life.

Of course, Romain Rolland sees German idealism, but he wants to show it in the light that, in his opinion, is the true light. He wants to characterize this German idealism somewhat, and there he says about this German idealism – since Romain Rolland is a good musician, his friends claim that he understands German music particularly well, he may refer to it –; Romain Rolland seeks to characterize German idealism as what the Germans delude themselves about as a blue haze that the Germans fear to see and therefore idealize. He sees in it something with which the Germans mask all kinds of things so as not to see reality. Then he says:

The Germans are not idealists for the reason that they falsify feelings.

– he speaks, I beg to be heard, he speaks as if it were a characteristic of Schumann and Wagner – that is not the problematic thing in music, that idealism fakes feelings, but that feelings are fake, that is shown in Schumann. The German feels fake. These are Romain Rolland's own words:

But it was precisely his example that led Christof to the realization that the worst falsity of German art did not lie where artists wanted to express feelings that they did not feel, but rather where they expressed feelings that they felt but that were false in themselves. Music is a relentless mirror of the soul. The more naive and trusting a German musician is, the more he reveals the weaknesses of the German soul, its insecure foundation, its [soft] sensitivity, its lack of candor, its somewhat devious idealism, its inability to see itself, to dare to look itself in the face.

He wants to get to the very heart of this German idealism. That is why he refers to Mrs. von Stael, who once characterized the Germans, as Romain Rolland reports. She said:

They are well-behaved. 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.

Romain Rolland refers to these words of Mrs. von Stael.

Christof found this feeling in the greatest and the smallest [in Germany]

— he says. And then, to say something quite characteristic of the Germans, he adds:

from Wilhelm Tell, the deliberate, small-minded bourgeois with the muscles of a porter, who, as the free Jew Börne says, “to reconcile honor and fear, walks with downcast eyes before the post of ‘dear Lord’ Gessler, so that he can invoke the fact that he who disobeyed who did not see the hat,” up to the portly, seventy-year-old Professor Weiße, one of the most respected scholars in the city, who, when a lieutenant passed him, hastily gave way to him on the footpath and went down to the road.

[He hated the brutal militarism that he felt weighing on him, all those sabers clanking on the pavement, those pyramids of rifles and cannons set up in front of the barracks, ready to fire with their muzzles pointed towards the city.

We are hearing all of this again now. The novel already contains the same words that we are hearing again now, with the only difference being that later on, the French no longer thought that the muzzles were only pointed at their own German cities, but sensed that they could be pointed elsewhere.

But it cannot be said that Romain Rolland is entirely unjust towards the Germans, whom he characterizes in this way. He does find that these Germans have nothing of the true esthete. In music, he grants them some talent. He calls thinking “clear but cloudy,” and so on. But in the opinion of this Frenchman, who is considered one of the best minds in France today, the Germans do not have much of a sense of beauty. He describes a German girl: “The nose [gap in the text] up one side, down the other.” That, according to him, is the typical German girl. I also ask you to consider the following words:

The Germans are fortunate in their tolerance when it comes to physical imperfections: they manage not to see them; they can even come to embellish them with benevolent imagination, finding unexpected relationships between the [face] they want to see and the most magnificent examples of human beauty.

This refers to the face with the nose that I just described. It would not have taken too much persuasion to get old Euler to declare that [his] granddaughter had the nose of Juno Ludovisi.

But it cannot be said that Romain Rolland is or wants to be completely unjust. He also praises where he wants to praise and recognizes in the German character what he believes he can acknowledge. For example, after he has shown how this Jean-Christophe, who is such a talented fellow that he cannot stand it in the German world, that he strives outwards, because such a genius cannot flourish in the German world. After showing this, he finally invites him to be a guest of a professor, whom he wants to depict as a typical German. And what unfolds in the presence of this German professor is where Romain Rolland does praise the Germans, finding something praiseworthy in them. You see, the professor takes great pains to have his housekeeper prepare the best meal possible. And she, so convinced that she has achieved great art, leaves the door ajar to see how the gentlemen are enjoying their meal.

It was an exhibition of unforgettable, honest, unadulterated German cuisine, with the aromas of all the herbs, the thick sauces, the nourishing soups, the exemplary meat dishes, the monumental carp, the sauerkraut, the geese, the homemade cakes, the aniseed and caraway breads.

You can see that he also has something good to say about the Germans! And he particularly benefits from the meal that has now been taken and a real German, a singing German, is to be described. He describes him in such a way that you can see; he is actually wondering why this particular specimen can sing, and even sing well. He says that the German actually has no idea how to sing:

They are seized by the power of the song, and the song works through them as through an instrument. The spirit of the songs takes hold of them, and they obey it. For the soul of the German must do so. This soul obeys the song as the soldier obeys the general.

The so-called German militarism has grown deep into the soul of those who speak of it today with voluptuous expressions. He now describes a real singer by saying: He was a fat man who always sweated when walking, but especially when he made sounds. - He describes his nature, his figure. Then he says: He looked like a Bavarian, a particular variety of German. He says that there are many of these Bavarians, because they have “the secret of this human race, which came about through a system of pasta-eating similar to how poultry is fattened.”

He wants to find out what the people who are actually able to practice this German art of singing, which he also admires, look like.

Now, it is no wonder that this mixture of Beethoven, Strauss, Wagner and Mahler, who has the peculiarity of not having a spark of any of the four in his soul, cannot endure this artificial construct in Germany. He must get out of Germanness! It is said that although he did not know it, he is driven by German confusion to “Golden Paris”.

But instinctively his eyes looked towards the Latin South. And first of all to France. To France, the eternal [refuge] from German confusion.

Now it is described how the one who has to leave Germanness has to find his way in Latin culture. There he becomes a great mystic. I hope you will excuse me from pursuing the further paths. But we would find many a characteristic there of what must be called the misunderstanding of that which sustains and carries the individual German from the supporting power of the living spirit, with which the German essence feels connected.

Therefore, it may be said that it must be clear to all those who believe that humanity's future lies in the strong and vigorous representation of intellectual life through a world culture how the German spirit has not yet completed its mission in the world, but how this German spirit has laid the seeds from which it can be seen that they must continue to flourish ever more abundantly.

And that appears to us as the fundamental strength of the German spirit, that we know: we can only hope for the blossoms and fruits of the future. We stand confidently in the midst of it, in the living experience of the German spirit. This must also give us the strength for the necessary defense, for the defense of German intellectual life as well, which, as perhaps few today already suspect, is in a fundamental struggle, just as much as the external life of the immediate present.

It would be out of place to present a reflection that was only meant as a consolation. Who needed weak consolation or who needed words of strength or the like, when a nation that knows how to defend its goods with such strength has shown and has already held out for almost a year with strength and courage and a willingness to make sacrifices?

But we must be aware that the German spirit must be on guard just as much as external German life had to be on guard. And when we look more deeply into this spiritual life of the German, we find something of which we can say: This is the core and the root of Germanness: its yearning for the living spirit, its living together with the living spirit.

Those who revile the Germans today and say: We do not mean this German spirit when we revile them, must be told: You seem to us like someone who says: I know there is a person with strong hands, but when he uses these hands, we do not like it!

The French philosopher Bergson said in a Christmas speech that the German mind today shows that it can no longer grasp the living, it can only grasp the mechanistic. Today, only cannons stand against the French; only mechanisms are seen coming from Germany, and armies.

There is not much logic in what he says, as logic is generally missing today when the world situation is discussed so beautifully. You would have to ask this philosopher Bergson whether he expected the French soldiers to be confronted with recitations of Schiller's poems or with Novalis' works.

But a glance, which I could only hint at with weak words – a glance into the essence and life, into the roots of the German spirit, shows us that, looking at this spirit, we can say:

It has not only not completed; it shows that it is taking its ascending path to a fully blossoming and fruitful spiritual life. And anyone who can trust in inner strength can have the utmost confidence in what the German spirit is willing to accomplish. And anyone who has such an insight into the inner effectiveness of the German spirit also knows what great and powerful things must be defended with external weapons today; he knows that the soul of the German nation still has much, much more to bear.

Therefore, let me express what I wanted to express to you today in a few words, and what I ask you to take more from what underlies my words as feelings and emotions. Finally, let me summarize it in a few words that are based on my feelings, which should be words of confidence for the soul, from what can be known about the sustaining power of the German spirit, in the past and into the future. I would like to say: If you follow through in your thoughts what I have only been able to sketch with a few lines of charcoal, you will increasingly come to the feeling that I would like to express at the end with the words:

The German spirit has not fulfilled
What it should bring to the world.
It lives hopefully in worries about the future,
It hopes for future deeds full of life; —
In the depths of its being, it feels powerfully
Hidden things that must still mature. —
How can a wish for his end arise in the power of the enemy without understanding, so long as life reveals itself to him, which holds him in the roots of his being?

Handwritten summary of contents for the censors.

During the war, public events were subject to the supervision of the censorship authorities. For this purpose, Rudoif Steiner wrote the following table of contents for his lecture scheduled for June 16, 1915 in Düsseldorf (NZ 1564-1566).

Contents of the lecture to be given by Dr. Rudolf Steiner in Düsseldorf. The lecture has already been given in Berlin, Leipzig and in a similar form in Munich.

The lecture begins with the introduction of personalities who, in fateful times within the development of German culture, placed the security, the confidence, the true invincibility of the German being before the soul of the people by evoking the soul's deep permeation with the effective power of the ruling spirit. For them, this “spirit” was not a “concept” or an “idea,” as it is for the naturalistically thinking consciousness; for them, the spirit was a real being with which the soul maintains contact in its deepest interior, from which it draws spiritual life-force, just as the body draws physical life-force from the air through the lungs.

Thus Fichte stood in the midst of his people when they had to work their way up to freedom, supported only by their own strength, by showing how the German people, in contrast to the Romance peoples, already prove through their language that they are connected in their very essence to the innermost roots of the vital impulse of spiritual existence. The German does not feel spiritual life as something that is only recognized in the individual human soul, but as something that reigns over this individual soul as an independent being and that carries the individual soul.

From this consciousness, a creation within German culture has emerged that is only possible within the German people: Goethe's “Faust”. Faust strives out of dead knowledge towards an inner living contact with the essence of the spirit. In Faust, the most ancient German consciousness of nature and the world comes to life again in a newer way. One does not need to deny the great significance of Shakespeare; but one must still say that in Faust, everything human rises to a nobler height than in Hamlet. Consider how, when confronted with the truly spiritual, the latter can only fall back on doubt and uncertainty, on the hopeless question, “To be or not to be?” By contrast, when confronted with the power of evil, of material things, Faust asserts the inner certainty of victory of his connection with the spirit: “In thy nothing I hope to find the All.”

Those who belong to the nations that today do not want to revile German deeds enough, must have come to the same conclusion that Ernest Renan expressed in 1870, when they sensed the nature of this in the development of German culture. 70, that Germany has added something to the development of humanity in terms of “depth and extent” that “for those who have experienced it, it is as if they only know elementary mathematics compared to those who are proficient in differential calculus”.

This connection of the German soul with the sustaining power of the world-ruling spirit has, in minds like Herder's, evoked the consciousness of the world-significant task of German culture, of the fact that this culture has a contribution to make to the overall education of the human race, insofar as this illuminates the lofty goal of working “until everything has happened, until the genius of enlightenment has traversed the earth.”

This consciousness warmed Lessing's soul as he wrote his incomparable testament to the “education of the human race,” which elevated all contemplation of history to an experience of the eternal spiritual activity of the world through the human soul.

And this consciousness lives on to the present day in the most exquisite minds of the German people. It will now be shown how this fundamental strength of the German spirit has led to a deep world view and outlook on life in individual personalities of the nineteenth century. Herman Grimm's genuine German character is characterized; lesser-known personalities are also mentioned to show what particular German character is in thinking, feeling and experiencing.

Finally, it is suggested how, in the present day, the consciousness that comes from the sources, in which the German essence is intimately connected with the power of the spirit, may live in the German mind, and how this consciousness may trust in its power within the world of enemies, in the face of which it has to assert itself in our fateful days.

Dearly beloved! For many years now I have been privileged to give one or more lectures here every year on the subject of what I dare call the spiritual-scientific world view. The friends of our spiritual-scientific world view were of the opinion that even in our fateful times such a lecture should be given here in this city again.

You will understand, dear ladies and gentlemen, that from the point of view of the spiritual-scientific world view, a consideration of our time must direct our feelings and emotions to what moves us in our immediate present as its most fateful content. We see various nations of the earth fighting with each other. Above all, we see Central Europe, as if locked in a great, mighty fortress, struggling for the most sacred goods. Every human soul must then, even if it wants to turn its thoughts to the most important, perhaps the highest riddle questions of existence, take with it the feelings that come from the events, which undoubtedly carry something tremendously significant in their womb , demand confidence, strength, hope from us, and above all demand of us that we survey the facts with open eyes, that we also allow the forces to come before our soul with open eyes, which come into play in the present.

Now it is truly not my intention to add yet another reflection to the already overwhelming literature and the abundant lectures on our current events. Tonight's discussion will cover a number of other topics that have often been discussed in our present time. It has already been said, and not without good reason, that one should not allow one's clear and certain view of the conflicting interests at stake in the present to become clouded, to become obscured by all kinds of mysticism, all kinds of metaphysical, that one must be clear about the fact that the present struggle owes its existence to political causes, social causes and the interests of the peoples, and that one should certainly not speak of the fact that the spiritual life can somehow be called fruitful among the causes of the present events.

Now, of course, the spiritual scientist in particular has every reason, my dear audience, to be careful not to fall into all sorts of speculation about how the world spirits themselves came into conflict with each other or the like. But one thing must always be emphasized: Even in those ancient times, at the beginning of the Middle Ages, when our ancestors, our Germanic ancestors, the inhabitants of Central Europe, were confronted with the old Roman Empire, which was coming to an end, even then people could say: It is only a question of the spheres of interest , on the one hand the Germanic peoples of Central Europe, on the other the peoples of Southern Europe, and one should not let one's clear view be clouded by all kinds of considerations of intellectual currents or the like when considering the immediate issue.

Of course, for the immediate present, for the view that only looks at the immediate present, it is so, it is fully justified. Nevertheless, the following may perhaps be considered. One will be able to say: Yes, certainly, just as English and German interests, political interests, are correctly viewed as being opposed to each other and have led to war, so in those days Central European and Southern European interests were opposed to each other; but if one considers the whole history that followed those events, one will still have to say: Yes, Europe was shaped back then as it had to be shaped so that the entire cultural development with all its content that has since taken hold could take place. And everything that happened intellectually afterwards was already in the womb of events back then. The way in which Christianity took root in Europe depended on the validity that the Germanic peoples were able to establish for themselves at the time. All subsequent culture, in which we are only beginning to immerse ourselves, was shaped by what happened at that time.

It is incumbent upon people of the present day not to live their lives only instinctively in the same way as people of that time, for example. Times have moved forward, and now it is a matter of allowing what is happening before one's soul, even from a certain higher point of view – I do not want to say that it underlies the events, I would like to emphasize that – but what is expressed in the tremendous struggle that has never been seen before in human development, to be seen with open eyes, that is, with full consciousness, I want to emphasize that.

This is one thing. The other thing, however, my dear audience, is this: that anyone who considers the spiritual events of the present and the past, insofar as the present has developed out of this past, will see that not only at the present time, but basically for a long time already, a struggle, a wrestling of the peoples of the earth, of the people of the earth for spiritual goods is taking place, a wrestling that has often been neglected in its special nature, and perhaps especially in the last few decades. But what is happening today, what has to be fought for today in blood and death, must remind us to take a look at what is going on in souls and how in what souls strive for and want, there is also a field of battle on our earth.

It is not my responsibility to get involved in political matters. But I may touch on the fact that in the future all the declamations and sophistries that are practiced today about the causes of the war, about what one or the other did to bring about the war, that this will crystallize, especially when deeper and deeper into the future, which may not be so very far away, the situation will be understood, that it is a matter of a defense that the peoples of Central Europe, in particular the German people, have to lead against powerful nations that do not want to let it happen. It is also clear to the objective observer and will become ever clearer that the German people have to fight a defensive battle. I call attention to this for the reason that the word defensive struggle must also be applied to the spiritual goods that are to be given from the depths of the German national soul to the world, but which must be defended against attacks that no longer present themselves as attacks but which are nevertheless attacks in a spiritual sense, so to speak, on the stage of world events.

To illustrate what I actually mean, let me give an example that seems rather remote, but is only an example. For more than a century, our German intellectual culture has included a certain area of intellectual property, the tremendous value of which is unfortunately still not fully recognized. For a long time now, when speaking of a thorough-going Weltanschhauung in harmony with the present time, reference has been made to the idea of evolution. It is said that humanity has advanced to the point of realizing that individual forms of life do not stand side by side, but that individual forms develop side by side. With tremendous magnitude – to use this expression – in a spiritually appropriate way, Goethe, at the end of the eighteenth century, out of the depths of German thinking, of German intellectual research, placed this developmental idea into world development, into world culture. And it may be said that the way in which Goethe has placed the idea of development in the spiritual world culture is one of the greatest things that has emerged in the development of humanity, at least in the spiritual realm, even if one compares it with everything that Goethe achieved as a poet.

Now it must be said that not everything that Goethe gave to humanity has directly flowed into the great stream of spiritual progress. Basically, few have yet recognized the full value of Goethe's spiritual achievement. On the other hand, the idea of evolution has entered world culture through Darwinism, I would say in a purely external, more materialistic-utilitarian form, from a non-German ethnic group.

Of course, one cannot say that there is something like struggle and war when looking at things so externally and superficially. But if you look at them internally, it is clear that something greater has simply been pushed back by the intellectual and external power of a less significant, English-influenced Darwinian idea. That is one thing. But countless examples of this could be cited. Countless things could be cited – we need not concern ourselves here with the deeper reasons – that within German culture impulses have been given that are being oppressed as such, even waged against, that are to be replaced by those who have surrounded them. The intellectual encirclement began long ago. And it will be, one may say a world luck - if the word is not misunderstood - it will be a world luck, if that which we are now experiencing in such a hard way makes us aware that we also need spiritual weapons. The future will teach that we need spiritual weapons to protect the deeper against the less deep. For those who look a little deeper, what is happening today out of blood and death is only a beginning; a beginning of a struggle that will also take place on the spiritual scene.

Now many things can help to find the way in the confusion that has arisen in relation to spiritual currents - the word is of course itself challenged today, but it may still be used because it best describes the present situation. And today's reflection is intended to point the way.

Spiritual science is by no means something - as it is meant here - that is already recognized in wider circles today. Rather, spiritual science is something that is even regarded as folly, as fantasy or reverie in wider circles. But the spiritual scientist does not allow himself to be deterred by this. When Copernicus put forward the new natural scientific world view in relation to their first thoughts, when Copernicus and Galileo appeared, what they had to say to humanity was also seen as fantasy in the eyes of those who wanted to hold on to what corresponded to their habitual thinking. He who observes the way in which truth advances through the world knows that spiritual science today is in exactly the same position as natural science was several centuries ago. And he finds it understandable, indeed self-evident, that it is still regarded by the vast majority of people today as fantasy, as reverie or worse.

Now, in earlier lectures, I have had a variety of things to present here from the field of spiritual science, how the view should be directed to something else. Today I can only present, not prove, but only hint at, some basic ideas that may interest us today, the spiritual-scientific views.

Sometimes we speak of the soul of the nation. However, the soul of the nation is a concept that can, it is to be hoped, be placed in a new light by spiritual science. What is the soul of the nation in our more or less materialistically thinking times? Well, if one wants to raise oneself to the concept of the national soul at all, one says: one looks at the qualities that always emerge in a national community, that is, what a group of people, who are called a nation, have in common, and one then comes to an abstract concept and does not think of anything further, of anything real, when one speaks of the national soul.

The spiritual scientist, however, speaks of the soul of a nation as something very real, as something one can call personal reality, as something personally real. The spiritual scientist speaks from his spiritual scientific research that just as we are surrounded in the physical world by the realm of minerals, plants, animals and human beings, we are surrounded by higher realms of the soul and spirit, by beings of a supersensible world. He does not speak of these beings of a supersensible world as if they were abstract concepts, but he speaks of these entities as if they were real realities. Just as someone in ancient times who had no idea about the nature of the atmosphere could believe that there was nothing around where we live, while the modern person knows, of course, that he is surrounded by air, so the person who is familiar with spiritual science knows that, in relation to our soul and spirit, we are surrounded by spiritual beings everywhere. But not in the sense of pantheism, but in the sense of a spiritual world that is populated by spiritual beings everywhere. And we also count the folk soul among such spiritual beings, we count the individual folk souls of the various peoples. We speak of real and individual beings when we speak of the folk souls of the individual peoples. I can only hint at this briefly today because time is limited.

But what the national soul has as an entity can only be understood by considering the relationship of this national soul to the individual soul within such a nation. And here we immediately come to an area where all of today's psychology is quite inadequate in the face of spiritual research. With this consideration, especially with regard to the contemplation of the soul, one stands at the beginning of a completely new way of looking at things with spiritual science. The person who speaks of the soul in the usual way of soul science today speaks of the soul as if it were a simple thing in which will, feeling and thinking and so on surge up and down. For the spiritual researcher, this is just as if one were to speak of color in general or of light in general. Anyone who has heard a little about physics knows that we can get behind the nature of light by observing the rainbow band of the entire spectrum, by observing how light manifests itself in connection with the phenomena of the world, let us say in a sevenfold or, for the sake of simplicity, in a threefold way. On the one hand, light manifests itself in the spectrum in such a way that we have, so to speak, reddish yellow on the outside, green in the middle, and blue-violet on the other side. And it is precisely through this that we come to understand the way in which light works. This enables us to look at light in terms of the way it works and to know that light really does live in the seven colors of the spectrum.

Just as the physicist today takes this for granted, so too will the science of the soul one day take for granted, but also as a scientific necessity, a threefold mode of action of the soul. And there we call that in the field of spiritual science, which, as it were, expresses itself in the soul as reddish-yellow expresses itself in light; we call that in spiritual science, in relation to the soul, the sentient soul. And we call that which, as it were, constitutes the center of the soul, as green is the center of the band of colors, the mind or feeling soul. And we call that which, as it were, appears on the other side as the manifestation of the soul, as blue-violet appears in the band of colors, the consciousness soul. And spiritual science must stand on the standpoint that one recognizes the soul from this structure just as one recognizes the mode of action of light from the color band. And just as light expresses itself everywhere, in every link, in every nuance of the color band, so the threefold effect of the soul expresses itself through what we call our self, our actual I. Truly, there will come a time when there is a science of the soul, as scientific as today's physics is, when the spectrum of the soul will be characterized as the sentient soul, as the mind or feeling soul, as the consciousness soul.

And if we now look at the individual peoples of Europe, we find: What characterizes them – but now in a real way, not in the abstract way that it is characterized by the previous ethnology – what characterizes these peoples is how the folk soul, the real, real folk soul, relates to the individual soul, the soul of the individual human being who belongs to the community of peoples.

And here we find, first of all, that the whole nature of the Italian people can be understood in a luminous way through this – I cannot go into this in detail now, but if it were described in full, one would see how what was previously ethnology would would step forward in a radiant way. The Italian people are characterized by the fact that the folk soul, insofar as it belongs to their nationality, intervenes in the individual soul of the Italian people, insofar as it belongs to their nationality, in such a way that this intervention occurs primarily in the sentient soul. Everything that has emerged as Italian culture is, comparatively speaking, the expression of a dialogue between the Italian folk soul and the sentient soul of the individual members of the Italian people. And all the one-sidedness, but also all the greatness of the Italian development, is based on the fact that the link of the soul life, the nuance of the soul life, which we call the sentient soul, is inspired and impelled in a one-sided way by the forces of the Italian folk soul.

Now one might think that I am only talking about abstract concepts with all these things. This is absolutely not the case. For spiritual science further shows us that these three members of the life of the soul, which have been enumerated, are really connected with the whole being, the comprehensive being of the human soul. And from the research in spiritual science, we can say that what we call the sentient soul initially forms the expression of all passions, all impulsive aspects of human nature; that it is the expression of the sensations that well up from the center of the human soul. But at the same time, it is also the part of the human soul that, as elementary as it is, as much as it is initially at a childlike stage, so it is connected with that which passes through births and deaths of the human soul, which belongs to the eternal part of the human soul, which passes through the gate of death and enters the spiritual world after death. Much more than the other aspects of the soul's life is that which unfolds in the sentient soul, that which belongs to the eternal in the soul.

But it also belongs to the eternal that the sentient soul contains only that which is linked to the eternal in the temporal, so that the human being directly lives this eternal as elementary life. If I could expand on this further, which would take many hours, it would point out to us how, precisely through this dialogue and these interactions between the Italian folk soul and the individual soul as a sentient soul, great Italian painting came into being, Dante's poetry came into being, who, let us say, gave a picture of the eternal in his “Divine Comedy”. All these bearers of Italian culture have given these things in such a way that one must say: What they have given is the result of the interaction of the national soul with the sentient soul of the individual, through everything that is accessible to the sentient soul of the individual soul. These things will be characterized in more detail when we turn to other nations and compare their characteristics with those of the Italian people.

But now something very peculiar happens. Apart from the general facts that I have just mentioned, we must also bear in mind that each age, each historical epoch, is assigned, as it were, the effect on a particular part of the human soul as a special mission in the course of time. It cannot be said that the wisdom that rules in the development of the world is always the same in all ages, so that the sentient soul, the soul of understanding or mind, the consciousness soul can work in the same way. That which comes from the human soul must meet the demands of world culture. And now, a deeper consideration of the spiritual development of newer peoples and especially of Europe shows that the activity of the sentient soul was essentially concluded by the middle or end of the sixteenth century, and that therefore the greatness of a people that is based on the sentient soul must be concluded by the sixteenth century. This in turn explains why everything that has been formed within Italian culture since that time, up to the present day, gives the impression of being outdated, and this can be said quite objectively. When we refresh our soul – and this is deeply satisfying for everyone – by drawing on the essence of southern Europe, as so many artists, as Goethe and others have done, it is due to the greatness of the Italian national spirit, which in the sixteenth century; the other is all after-effects, and it could easily be shown how it is prepared in the depths of the historical impulses, that what has since been asserted as Italian greatness must sound so hollow and empty. These things can now only be hinted at, as I said.

Some things, because they have to be briefly mentioned, have to be stated somewhat radically; but if you follow the lines of thought that are presented here, you will see how much more easily they can penetrate into the understanding that we must seek in the present, the understanding of the interrelationships between the peoples of Europe.

If we now consider the French national soul, we have to look for the essential peculiarities in the fact that there is an interaction between the very real national soul and the intellectual or emotional soul.

And everything that French culture has ever achieved can be explained by this peculiar interaction between the national soul and the intellectual or emotional soul of the individuals who belong to the French nation. This also explains why the French are particularly predisposed to combining and assembling facts, and to applying even the most profound concepts only in a way that is convenient for this world. This explains why even in the poetry of the French people, even when it rises to the classical heights, there is still an effort to construct as systematically as possible, for example in drama, to proceed as far as possible according to certain rules; this is the peculiarity of the intellectual soul. This intellectual or emotional soul brings to manifestation in the soul that which, so to speak, half points to the eternal of the soul, but which, on the other hand, points to the completely transitory temporal, which the soul experiences only in the physical world, in connection with the physical between birth and death.

Recently, some psychological societies have once again been pondering why the French mind in particular is so materialistic, why, let us say, even the greatest philosopher of the French people, Descartes – or Cartesius – constructed a philosophy entirely according to the model of mathematics. This is for no other reason than that the whole culture of the French mind comes from the interaction between the soul of the people and the soul of the mind or soul. How often are we Germans quite peculiar when we try to establish harmony between meaning and form in poetry, when we try above all to allow the content to flow into the form in such a way that the content creates its form, how are we when we now look at the same thing in the artistic products of the intellectual or emotional soul of the French, where it is especially important to build rhythm and rhyme in a systematic way. The French have a completely different feeling for rhythm and rhyme than we Germans do. We Germans are quite capable – and Goethe showed this throughout many of his dramas – of creating rhyming rhythms without rhyme. The French, who want to be justifiably French poets, find this quite impossible. Everything that makes up the peculiar character of French poetry, that which makes up the peculiarity of French characters, comes from the interaction of the French national soul with the intellectual or emotional soul of the individual.

If we now turn to the English people, we find that the individual Briton who seeks his connection with the national soul in his nationality is subject above all to an interaction between this national soul and the consciousness soul. Now this consciousness soul is that which, in relation to the outer man, in relation to everything that man is in his dealings with the world of the senses, is the most highly developed part of the soul. But at the same time it is the only thing that is limited to the world we pass through between birth and death. We can, so to speak, look up to the loftiest expressions of the British spirit, we will find everywhere that its expressions come from the interaction of the British national soul with the consciousness soul of the individual British, which, so to speak, is directed into the physical world with its best powers.

This peculiarity of the British character will become even more apparent to us if we now immediately mention the peculiarity of the interaction between the German national soul and the soul of the individual German. There we see – and we shall understand this later through individual expressions of the German nature – there we see that just as light manifests itself in all color nuances, just as reddish yellow, green, blue violet are all expressions of light, so the soul as a whole is the expression of the self, of the I. And that which constitutes the substance of the German people is rooted entirely in the ego, in the self. And the interaction between what we call the German national soul and the individual German, insofar as he stands within his nationality, is the interaction between the national soul and the ego. Hence the peculiarity of the German soul, that it is not one-sidedly attuned to the revelations of the sentient soul, the intellectual soul or the mind soul or the consciousness soul, but that it expresses itself sometimes in this way and sometimes in that; that it strives for universality, for the all-embracing, and that at the same time it strives for inner depth, always wanting to experience more deeply all the different nuances of the soul life in a living way. It can be said that just as the I, the self, is the deepest part of the human being, and the sentient soul, the mind or emotional soul, and the consciousness soul are its expressions, so it is with the German, insofar as he belongs to his people , that in relation to the most intimate part of his mind, in relation to the depths of his soul, when he rises to the best that can flow from the German nature, he holds a dialogue with his deepest soul with the spirit of his people. Thus he also has a feeling, sometimes only an instinct, but on the heights of humanity also a clear consciousness of this confrontation with the spiritual powers of the world.

If we now look back again at the peculiarities of the British people, it becomes clear to us – and I would like to give an example that has greatness, because no one will accuse me of citing Shakespeare to denigrate him, and I would of course consider myself to be a madman, like anyone else, would consider myself a fool if I were to doubt Shakespeare's greatness in the slightest; of course I count Shakespeare among the best poets in the world – but it is one thing to recognize the foundations of the world's effectiveness and another to form value judgments.

Let us consider one of Shakespeare's most characteristic works, the work in which Shakespeare's thoughts and feelings can come to us so fully from his soul, let us consider his “Hamlet”. Let us see how real riddles of the world and of humanity are brought to our soul in Hamlet. “To be or not to be, that is the question.” The ghost of Hamlet's father appears; one might say that the dead intrude into the world of the living. But do we recognize Shakespeare's greatness on the one hand precisely in the fact that he is able to present his characters in such a wonderfully sharply outlined way, in a typical and completely individual characterization, showing us precisely that the part of his soul that is called the consciousness soul is directed towards the external-historical. What is solid in the world about the human being on two legs and reveals itself through the human being is characterized by Shakespeare from the consciousness soul with a wonderfully sharp contour. That is the remarkable thing, that he has become one of the greatest, that he was able to characterize a world from the consciousness soul as it stands before us. That is the characteristic.

But let us look at him just at the point where he wants to touch the boundary that leads beyond the sensual world into the supersensible. He wants to touch it. He wants to cross over this boundary. Hamlet's soul shows what happens to a person who wants to cross over this boundary. The question is raised: to be or not to be? He looks towards the other world, but how far does Hamlet get? He only gets to the threshold, he looks into that land from which no traveler has yet returned.

In this we have the entire workings of the consciousness soul in that the poet is great at characterizing what is in the physical world; but uncertainty immediately befalls the soul when it wants to go beyond the physical world. Shakespeare in particular shows us how he also emerged from the interaction of the folk soul with the consciousness soul.

If we now compare this with an episode in the greatest world poem, which is also the greatest German poem and the greatest German intellectual achievement, we conjure up the scene in the second part of Goethe's “Faust” where the question of “to be or not to be” also arises before the human soul, and the spiritual world and the sensual-material world stand before the human soul full of significance. Mephisto is there, he has the key to the spiritual world, but he is the representative of the materialistic view, he is the representative of those beings who only see the material, the transitory, out of the spirit. He has the key, just as science has the key to the higher secrets, but, if it is only filled with materialism, it cannot enter into these secrets. Goethe even depicts Mephisto as having to place himself in relation to the higher mysteries. And Mephisto addresses to Faust a question that touches so closely on the Hamlet question: “You will enter the indefinite, you will come to nothingness.” There is a reference to that which is to assert itself in Faust as spirit. And Faust replies to Mephisto: “In your nothingness I hope to find the All.”

You see, this is the answer that comes from the depths of the I, the I that knows it is connected to the world spirit, the I that is directly strengthened by the fact that it is the German I that experiences the interaction between the national soul and what lives as the self in the soul. Doubt alone enters into the one-sidedness of the consciousness soul, the Hamlet doubt, precisely that which is truly experienced as the deepest. Then certainty enters and says: Because I experience the divine that flows and is through the world in my own inner being, I know that I must find the All in your [Nothingness]. That is the significant thing, that precisely this nature of the German essence has been expressed in the greatest German intellectual achievement. And what I have discussed in this one scene from Faust, it goes, like the spirit of Faust, through the whole of Faust. That is the significant thing, that at this point this influence of the folk soul into the depths of the soul is expressed through all the nuances of the soul.

But that is also what is so difficult for other Europeans to understand. It is this that appears to the other Europeans as an enigma. And enigmas that cannot be solved are best banished from the soul by such means as are now being used in the sophisticated and defamatory declamations that are being directed from all sides out of hatred towards the German national character, because it cannot be understood.

But from this interaction of the national soul with the individual soul of the human being, insofar as this human being is rooted in his nationality, follows what I would like to call the ever-rejuvenating power of the German spirit, of the German national soul. For by cultivating his innermost being, by being able to hold a dialogue with the national soul, the German always draws closer to this national soul. And when any cultural period has expired, when a cultural period has become decrepit and dies, then a new interaction of the German national soul with the national spirit occurs, a rejuvenation of the whole being. But through this direct contact with the national soul, the German essence not only rejuvenates that which lives within the German spirit itself, but also that which, as spiritual culture in the world, must also flow into the German essence.

Let us see how Christianity flowed into the old, worn-out cultures at the end of ancient times. Oh, one can observe how this Christianity adopted old forms, ancient forms of religions in the Greek and Roman folk. How that which was Greek philosophy was superimposed like a religious element, superimposed over that which was carried into human development as a living impulse as the deed of the living Christ.

And then we see how Christianity enters into the self-refreshing and rejuvenating spirit of the German being. This can be observed in individual phenomena. For example, let us see how the “Heliand” was written in the ninth century, a German way of presenting the events in Palestine that are grouped around Christ Jesus. If we allow this remarkable ninth-century poem to take effect on us, it shows us above all the peculiarity that here, out of the German spirit, the events surrounding Christ Jesus are described, who has taken Christ Jesus completely into his own mind, who sees a longing, an ideal in it, to live in his own soul life in such a way that the forces of Christ permeate this own soul life. Everything that is German soul should be permeated with Christianity. This is the source of the feeling that arises when reading the Heliand and letting it take effect in one: All this is related to us, the eternal of Christ is described to us in such a way that it does not appear as renewing, as rejuvenating an old culture, but rather that it appears as if the power of Christ itself is absorbed in its youthfully fresh achievement and is directly present, rejuvenating itself.

And then we see how, for example, such profound poetry, which of course did not originate on German soil in its first form, like Parzifal – and I could name others – how such poetry has been seized by the German essence, how it has been deepened, how the adventurous nature that was formerly associated with Parzifal appears to us in the works of Wolfram von Eschenbach and later in those of other writers, and how we see Parzifal as a representative of the striving human soul in general. We see in it something that lives in such a way that its striving is intimately connected with the forces in the human soul that strive for the highest, for the path to the spiritual. And we see, for example, how medieval religious spiritual life is grasped so profoundly by the power of what I have just explained. We see, for example, in the work of Meister Eckhart, this profound German mystic, how he constantly speaks of the fact that the divine must merge with the soul itself, that the soul can feel how God lives in it. Yes, that everything the soul experiences as thinking, feeling and willing can be experienced as if God Himself were thinking, feeling and willing in it. To let God rule completely within oneself becomes the ideal of German mysticism, the ideal of Meister Eckhart and others.

And if we follow the course of this spiritual current, we find numerous expressions by him that show us the same way of thinking. One of his expressions, I would just like to present it to you now for the reason that it can show this way of thinking so extraordinarily characteristically. It is a saying by Angelus Silesius:

I die and do not live either. God himself dies in me,
And what I am supposed to live, he also lives for and for.

Here we have direct proof of the intimate union of the individual human soul with the all-embracing spirit of the world. And do we not see in this an expression of an infinitely profound idea of immortality, an idea of immortality that can confront us, so to speak, in gigantic grandeur? Here Angelus Silesius says: I die and do not live either, God Himself dies in me. But when God Himself dies in me, it means that the event of death is experienced by the God who lives in me; then death can only be an appearance, because God cannot die in me! One sees that this profound German mystic grasps even the thought of death in connection with the divine, living permeation of the world, and he comes to the certainty of immortality from the experience of the divine world within himself. This stems from the fact that the German cannot remain with an old realization, but, as is so magnificently expressed in Faust, always strives for the sources of life. And even if he has studied everything, like Faust himself, he strives beyond everything, he strives for direct contact with the spirit of the world. For that is the peculiar nature, that is the essence, that the self seeks interaction with the national soul in German intellectual life. Therefore, out of this nature of its essence, the true German mind also feels in harmony with the eternal forces of the world that lie beyond death.

That is why we find such profound words in the works of Jakob Böhme and later in those of Fichte, in different ways in both, but both striving in the same direction. They said: He who grasps the essence of death from the depths of the human soul actually grasps that which is already immortal within mortal human nature. That which we carry with us through death is the self, which we have within us even while we live here on earth between birth and death. Therefore, Jakob Böhme, and later Fichte in the manner of Jakob Böhme, regards it as the highest goal to become aware of that which passes through the gate of death, that which lives in man as the eternal, to become aware of it already in earthly life, so that that which can be recognized as the fully developed eternal can be carried through the gate of death, out of the mortal body. And here Jacob Böhme expresses in a wonderful way the saying that is so characteristic of the peculiarity of the German national character as described. He says:

He who does not die before he dies
Perishes when he dies.

These are profound words! For it should be said: Those who are unable to unite during their life on earth in the body with the immortal, cannot in a proper way achieve the consciousness of their unity with the spirit freed from the body after death.

He who does not die before he dies
Will perish when he dies.

These words are spoken with such depth of feeling, and they are spoken by someone who wants to unfold her best powers by allowing the spirit and soul of her nation to weave into her own depths what it wants to give her.

In this respect, the Russian national spirit is incomprehensible, quite incomprehensible, precisely in terms of what is most deeply characteristic of the German national soul. This Russian national spirit, whose characteristic peculiarity, however strange it may seem to some, may appear strange to some, but since I can only characterize many things very briefly, sometimes radical words must be used -, this Russian national spirit, whose peculiarity in relation to Western European and, above all, Central European intellectual culture is arrogance, pride. When people often speak of the modesty of the Russian national spirit, this is based, in relation to what we see as characteristic, on a complete misunderstanding of the innermost impulses of this Russian national spirit. If one can see in the Italian people how there is an interaction between the national soul and the soul of the individual; if one can see in the French people how there is an interaction between the national soul and the soul of the mind or emotions; in the British people how there is an interaction between the national soul and the consciousness soul of the individual; and in the German being, a direct experience of the national soul in the self of the individual, then one must say: the Russian being, to this day he lives in such a way, despite all the forces he carries within himself, that the Russian national soul has not yet found its way into the individual soul. That is why someone who is completely immersed in Russian national identity, whether as a philosopher or as an artist, does not experience the kind of intimate coexistence that the German seeks through the characteristics just described within his being.

The Russian person does not know this flowing in of the forces of the national soul into one's own soul, into the individual soul. The Russian person sees something in the national soul that hovers over the individual souls like a mist. A Russian person, even a profound philosopher like Soloviev, who is the greatest philosophical mind of the Russian people, does not speak as a German would, for example, saying: I have my trust in the deepest core of my soul, which is within me, and it can connect with the divine that flows and weaves through the world. And so he is certain of true spiritual progress for humanity because he feels the power within him through which God reigns in him, which finds expression in the great creations of the German spirit.

That conversation, which every German, the simplest, most original German instinctively feels, is basically quite unknown even to a philosophical Russian person. And so we see, especially in the case of the most outstanding spirit of the Russian people, of the Russian world-view striving, in Soloviev, who died in 1900, we see in this great philosopher: when we go through his works, then one has to – forgive the expression – get out of one's Western European skin in order to live one's way into what one encounters there. It has greatness – that should not be denied, greatness should be acknowledged wherever it is to be found in the world – but it has greatness in such a way that when Solowjow, for example, speaks of what should happen through Russian culture should come, it will come as if from the heights of the mist, as a kind of nourishment, as something that should be sprinkled down by grace at a certain time into the deeds of the Russian people. He is waiting for a miracle. When God Himself works from the heights of the beyond into people, then people will move forward.

The Russian sees the folk spirit above the individual souls; he does not see it working in the three characterized soul powers, let alone really being able to grasp that intimate experience of the spirit in the individual soul itself, which is precisely the characteristic of the Central European folk striving. Therefore, we also find in the great philosopher the peculiarity that the folk soul does not grasp with its powers either the sentient soul, the intellectual soul, the emotional soul, or the consciousness soul. We find in Solovyov the peculiarity that these individual soul powers are at work in him. We see how they string together one idea and one sensation after another according to rules that we in Central Europe would never be able to perceive as logic or inner necessity. We see, as it were, the spirit of the people, revered by the Russian people, hovering in airy heights. And we see: there the souls can be active with their chaotically whirling soul forces. That this can be made clear precisely in the case of one of the greatest minds of the Russian world is remarkable.

And again and again we must remind ourselves of the momentous words spoken by Lessing in his Testament. Oh, this Testament of Lessing's, which is called 'The Education of the Human Race'! He explains how the whole development of humanity is a great unity. And he expounds an idea which, through spiritual science, will be elevated to the rank of a scientific truth: the idea of the repeated earthly lives of human beings. There are very clever people today who say: Well, Lessing created great things, but then he grew old. One need not attach so much importance to the fact that he came up with the idea that the soul always carries over again into a later epoch that which can be made fruitful in a later epoch by an earlier one. But Lessing truly did not grow old and decrepit, nor did he become weak-minded, as very clever people say, even if they do not say it in relation to this 'Education of the Human Race'. Rather, it was precisely at this point that Lessing grasped in the deepest sense what the human soul experiences when it can experience the rule of the world spirit within itself as the most characteristic of its deepest experiences. From this consciousness Lessing spoke the weighty word as in a testament: “I feel as a human soul through its own content, through its own essence; I too have surged from time to time, from eternity to eternity.” Through what I am, I am immortal. And now he concludes: “Is not all of eternity mine?”

There is a conception of the spirit, a cultural conception, which is the direct consequence of this ever-rejuvenating power of the German national soul.

Let us compare this with the belief of the great Russian philosopher, Solowjow, that what man can achieve can only be achieved by a miracle giving the Russian people their mission themselves. If we compare these two beliefs, we have every reason to understand why what is Russian in nature cannot understand what is Western European, what is Central European, and especially what is German in nature. And therein lies the entire arrogance, the entire arrogance of the Russian intellectuals, these Russian intellectuals who have been talking for a long time about how what the West has achieved in terms of culture is actually rotten, ripe for destruction, and that it must be replaced by something that could emerge from the forces of the Russian character into world culture. This was not given much consideration in times that were not as war-torn as our present fateful times, but it has always been the basic tenor of Russian intellectual life that Western culture is rotten.

We have seen the most diverse minds, Khomyakov, Katkov, Aksakov and so on, appear in Russian intellectual life in the nineteenth century. They all repeatedly say: Western European intellectualism must perish. One of these minds even went so far as to say: In this Western European culture, everything has been led by the impulses of art to that human-selfish, to that egoistic individualism, which leads people apart and founds everything that is to be established on violence, on servitude and hatred.

According to important Russian minds of the nineteenth century, these are the characteristics of Western European culture: “violence, servitude and hatred”. While, according to the same minds, Russian culture is said to be based on “freedom, concord and love”.

Now, Solowjow was an important mind, an important spirit. And precisely because he was so great, the feeling that he had to develop from his intimate connection with the Russian essence was that he says: the national soul still hovers above us. We have not yet connected with it in our individual souls. God must perform a miracle, must radiate down to us that which is to be our mission.

But he was convinced that it is up to the Russian people to redeem the world, because Western European culture has reached its death throes, because it has become decrepit. So he, Soloviev, says further: We do not want to destroy this Western European culture, but we want to heal it.

What has just been said about Russian culture should not be seen as a special impulse within the spirituality of the Russian people. For precisely in Russia, what is to be mentioned can be counted among the symptoms that arise from the instincts of nationality. Therefore, in Solowjow, as in his Slavophile predecessors (although he fought against them), we see a connection between what they, out of their arrogance, characterize as the mission of the Russian people; we see how they deduce the whole course of future politics from it. We see them, out of these impulses, demanding that Russia expand ever further and further against the West, that Constantinople become a Russian city, that the Sea of Marmara become a Russian lake, and so on. Everything that we are experiencing today, everything that underlies the attack that the Russian essence is also politically waging against the Central European, the German essence, everything is completely permeated, in terms of feelings and emotions, especially in the best Russians, by what has just been characterized, by the haughty conviction that Russia alone can save European culture, indeed world culture.

It is precisely the contrast between the German and the Russian nature that makes it possible to understand what the driving forces of our present world culture are and what struggles the German nature will be drawn into in the future, which will most certainly come.

Dear attendees, one can refer back to Goethe's “Faust” when one wants to show what is mentioned here as the rejuvenating forces of the German national soul, what has been characterized as such. Don't we see Faust standing there – Goethe wrote this scene in the 1770s , the words have become almost trivial, having been heard so often and probably already declaimed by everyone themselves – we see Faust standing there, wanting to escape from everything he has absorbed from the forces of the past, because he wants to connect directly in his soul with living knowledge, we hear his words:

Alas, I have now studied philosophy,

law and medicine,

and unfortunately also theology

to the full, with great effort.

There I stand, poor fool that I am,

and am no wiser than before!

Goethe wrote this from his own consciousness, from what he himself felt in the seventies of the eighteenth century.

Then came what can truly be called a 'rejuvenation of the German spirit' through German idealism. Goethe himself, like Faust, strove to absorb the sources of life with his thinking, feeling and willing into his soul. Then the great German idealistic philosophy, which had been pushed back precisely by the invasion of the French and also the Russian worldviews, came to Central Europe itself. Then came what must be seen as an achievement: the fact that these struggles again made it possible for the greatness of this German philosophical idealism to be discussed in wider circles.

And so they came, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, who tried to present law and medicine to the German people in a rejuvenated way. And they were not only philosophers, for Schelling wrote a yearbook for medicine; Fichte wrote a treatise on the state. And they all wanted to be theologians. The German intellectual powers that emerged from the depths of the German soul after Goethe wrote these Faust words were tremendous.

Alas, I have now studied philosophy,
law and medicine,
and unfortunately also theology
to the full, with great endeavor.
There I stand, poor fool that I am,
and am as wise as before!

But let us now assume that Goethe did not write these words of Faust in 1772, but only in 1840, after a new philosophy, a new jurisprudence, a new theology had passed through the German soul. Do you think that Goethe, if he had written the beginning of Faust in 1840, only after emerging from the Faust mood, would have written the words as follows:

Now, thank God,
I have studied with Fichte, Schelling, Hegel;
so there I am, I wise man,
and no longer need to be as stupid as before?

Even in the 1790s, despite all this greatness that had passed through German culture, Goethe would certainly have said:

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

And again, just as before, Faust would have longed for the sources of life and sought his refuge in the living spirit that was to appear to him. The German does not crave knowledge that has grown old; he always craves that knowledge that has flowed from the depths of the soul and emerged into the visible world. He craves the rejuvenating power of the German spirit itself, as it lives in the interrelationship between the German national soul and the German soul of the individual.

That is what one must feel, ladies and gentlemen, if one wants to visualize the fundamental character of the German spirit. And one may say: it has actually been felt, felt even by those who now dare to say the most defamatory, hateful and poisonous things about the peculiarity of the German spirit in the most diverse languages.

Let us look, for example, to the West. It is very strange: if we go to the far West, we find an excellent spirit of the nineteenth century, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson, as is natural for an English-writing writer, names the English as the first people in the world. Yet in numerous passages of his writings, he shows us that he values the Germans more than the English. And today, we can reflect on some of what this English-writing writer said, because it would be unpleasant for us to give a characteristic of our own nature in our own words. Emerson, who had a sense of the rejuvenating power of the German national soul, said the following about Goethe:

One [quality] in particular, which Goethe shares with his entire nation, makes him stand out in the eyes of both the French and English public:

— spoken in English in the nineteenth century, mind you —

that everything in his work is based solely on inner truth.

Now, I would like to say: What more could you want? In English, you hear that Goethe is the representative of Germanness, that he expresses something that he has in common with the whole nation: “that everything in his work is based solely on inner truth.”

In England and America, people respect talent, but they are only satisfied when it works for or against a party of their conviction. In France, people are delighted when they see brilliant ideas, regardless of where they lead. In all these countries, however, talented men write as far as their gifts reach. If what they present stimulates the discerning reader and contains nothing that offends against good manners, it is considered sufficient. So many columns, so many pleasantly and usefully spent hours. The German mind possesses neither the French vivacity nor the Englishman's understanding, honed for the practical, nor, finally, the American adventurousness. What it does have, however, is a certain probity that never stops at the outward appearance of things, but always comes back to the main question: “Where is this going?” The German public demands of a writer that he stand above things and simply express himself on them. Intellectual agility is present, well and good: what does it advocate? What is the man's opinion? Where does he get his ideas?

The English [...] only see the individual, they do not know how to grasp humanity as a whole according to higher laws.

The Germans think for Europe.

The English do not appreciate the depth of the German genius.

Dear attendees, the entire nature of this presentation shows what I have tried to characterize for you today from the perspective of spiritual science. Emerson senses something of this intimate connection between the self of the individual German and that which passes through the world as the Spirit of Truth, as an ideal that indeed hovers over German development. Emerson also sensed this, as he says in the following words:

For this reason, the distinctive terms used in higher conversation are all of German origin. While the English and the French, who are mentioned with distinction because of their acumen and erudition, approach their studies and their point of view with a certain superficiality and their personal character is not too deeply connected with what they have taken up and with the way they express themselves, is not too deeply connected, Goethe, the head and content of the German nation, speaks, not because he has talent, but the truth concentrates its rays in his soul and shines out from it. He is wise in the highest degree, though his wisdom may often be obscured by his talent. However excellent what he says is, he has something in his eye that is even better. [...] He has that fearsome independence that springs from contact with the truth.

From many of the hateful words we hear today, my dear audience, if you are sensitive to such tones, you can discern what Emerson calls “the fearsome independence that springs from the truth”. That independence that is so unbearable to those who cannot muster sympathy for such things. One truly does not need to be chauvinistic to express these things. They arise not only objectively for the observer who stands in the midst of the spiritual essence, they also arise for those who can rise above the peculiarities of their nation.

But one also has such feelings in other places, and in order to illustrate to some extent what I have discussed from spiritual scientific research, I would also like to add the following: Perhaps you know that one of those who spoke the most brutal, hateful, venomous words against the German 'barbarians' was the Belgian-French poet Maeterlinck, Maeterlinck, who himself found so much recognition within the German character. I would like to draw attention to a peculiar compatriot of Maeterlinck. And I would like to tell you a little about this compatriot in a very brief way. So, he is a fellow countryman of Maeterlinck, and a Franco-Belgian poet. When he talks about the influence that an archetypally German spirit, an archetypally German soul, has had on him, when he talks about the influence that Novalis has had on him, this Franco-Belgian poet says some very strange and significant things. It was some time ago, but it is still characteristic to hear a Belgian who writes in French talk about what the soul of Novalis has become for him. This Belgian says: “Isn't Novalis, out of his German uniqueness, a spirit who created something that cannot even be expressed, that is not limited to the earthly at all!”

And so this Belgian writer comes up with something special to describe the purely spiritual influence and the deep impression that Novalis makes on him. He thinks of saying: When you read Schiller or Shakespeare, you find everything that is poetically depicted in Schiller and Shakespeare, but it is only of interest to what is experienced by people on earth. But if one wants to characterize what the soul of Novalis wrote, one would have to assume that spirits from the spiritual heights, spirits from other planets would be interested in it. What Schiller and Shakespeare said is only of interest to people on earth; what Novalis wrote must also interest angels, it must also interest beings that have never heard of the earth. So significant, so deeply connected is what Novalis wrote with the spiritual forces of the German national soul. He characterizes the nature of the influence that the original German, Novalis, has had on him very peculiarly, and he says:

But if he needed other proof, it would lead him among those whose works almost stir silence. She would open the gate of the realm where some loved her for her own sake, without worrying about the small gestures of their bodies. They would climb together to the lonely plateaus where consciousness rises [by one step] and where all those who are restless about themselves [feel] attentively survey the immense ring that connects the world of appearances with our higher worlds. She would go with him to the boundaries of humanity; for at the point where man seems to end, he probably [only] begins, and his most essential and inexhaustible parts are [only] in the invisible, where he must be on his guard unceasingly. On these heights alone, there are thoughts that the soul can approve of, and ideas [that resemble and are] as commanding as she is. There, humanity has ruled for a moment, and these dimly illuminated peaks are perhaps the only lights that announce the earth in the spiritual realm. Their reflection truly has the color of our soul. We feel that the passions of the mind and body would resemble the tolling of bells in the eyes of a [strange] reason; but [the people I am talking about have come out of the small village of passions in their works and said things that are also of value to those who do not belong to the earthly community [count].

This French-writing Belgian feels impressed by Novalis. He feels the magic breath of the German spirit as it flows from Novalis to him. If one were to believe what Maeterlinck, his fellow countryman, said about German “barbarism” after the outbreak of the war, one would not believe that this Belgian would have said: Oh, these useless screamers, who only resort to phrases, they should remain silent when it comes to matters of the mind!

In truth, it is difficult to question one's soul and to discern its weak childish voice amidst the useless clamor that surrounds it.

Yes well, my dear attendees, the French-writing Belgian whom I have quoted here has already spoken, but I have somewhat mystified you. It is the same person who said what I read about Novalis; it is Maeterlinck himself. He only spoke in this way in the healthy days of his soul. One can only believe when reading that it was said by a completely different personality. This is what has become of those who once felt something of the magic breath of the German soul. Maeterlinck himself wrote about Novalis in this way.

From this we can see what will be necessary to defend the German soul against the misjudgment of its essence, with the weapons that we ourselves must take from it as its members. And this defense will truly become more and more necessary. What good does it do that the German soul, having also become part of external culture, has already been understood! That which separates it from those who have become its enemies will speak ever louder if it is not defended by the German essence itself. And what we hear today, one will have to be convinced, as [what we have heard] is in some respects only a beginning, especially with regard to the deeper currents of human life.

I would like to give another example. Shortly before the outbreak of this war, an Englishwoman wrote a book about Germany. Yes, you see, an Englishwoman who differs from many of her compatriots in that she really got to know the German character. Because she was in Germany for eight years. She got to know universities, clinics, hospitals, educational institutions, all kinds of places. But she also got to know the German character, which, as an emanation of the German soul, must after all be present in every soul, even if it masks and hides itself in ordinary life. The book was written shortly before the war. As I said, not in Berlin, not in Cologne or Leipzig, but in England and in English, the following was said about Germany:

We read a great deal [...] about the new Germany and its new spirit. But there is no new Germany and no new spirit. What exists is the mature work of generations, which has always been. Blinded by the sudden splendor of Germany's prosperity, we are inclined to forget that, except for prosperity, it has rarely occupied a place other than one of the very top among nations. In religion and philosophy, Germany has shone at a time when everything around it was dark; in literature, it has made an epoch-making impact; in music, it has always dominated. [...]

German literature, German religion, German philosophy are books with seven seals for us. What we do know is how many dreadnaughts Germany has and how much its trade has increased. What is really important is not the dreadnaught, but the brain of its builder, the courage and talent of its commander. What is really important is not the increase in sales, but the human qualities that prompted it.

Forty years ago, Germany was fighting for its existence, and it is still fighting for it today. It is completely wrong to believe that Germany is already at its peak. It is fighting a quiet but determined battle against powerful rivals whose power and experience was gained generations ago.

At every border and across the water, the opponents sit, commercially and politically, eagerly awaiting the moment when Germany slackens just a little, so that they can pounce on her and overwhelm her. Germany knows this very well.

It would be good if those who are now reflecting on the cause of the war were also listened to, if those who say what the mood within Germany should be towards those who lurked in the period leading up to this war were also listened to.

And if we ask, my dear attendees: How do you understand German culture when you would like to destroy this German culture with more or less pride or from other points of view? A few more characteristics on this point at the end. There is, for example, a true Russian intellectual of the present day. If one picks up his latest book, one can get the impression, from the last words he says about Goethe, that he counts Goethe among the greatest in the development of humanity. We know how Goethe is connected with what must be called the rejuvenating forces of the German national soul. We know that his Faust, if not in an artistic sense, then at least in terms of the power of its characterization of humanity, rises above all other works of world literature. We know how nonsensical it would be to characterize Goethe without first seeing the great spirit of modern times that reigns in Goethe and from which his Faust could emerge. Mereschkowski, the Russian intellectual who certainly knows Faust and German culture as well as he can know it, judges Goethe from what I have just called the characteristic arrogance of the Russian intellectual. He judges the same Goethe about whom Emerson speaks as I read earlier, daring to say the following words:

When Goethe speaks of the French Revolution, he suddenly bends to the earth, as a giant might be crushed by an evil spell and shrink to the size of a dwarf; from a Hellenic demigod he becomes a German bourgeois and – may the shadow of the Olympian have mercy on me – a German philistine, a “Herr von Goethe”, a privy councillor of the Duke of Weimar and a decent son of the decent Frankfurt shopkeeper.

With certain people, it does not matter that such words may be correct, if one is a pedant, but it does matter whether the person who finds it appropriate to speak such words about Goethe understands the greatness of Goethe at all. Sometimes it does not matter what one says, but whether one is at all capable of saying something specific about a particular object or a particular person.

I said: One must seek the Russian national spirit as if floating above the Russian individual soul. But this means that this individual Russian soul, let us say, can easily live as if “down there” without being touched by its national spirit, without also having that confidence and security that arises from the way of dealing with the national spirit, as we were able to characterize it with the German national soul. Therefore, permeated by poetic values, but nevertheless like a worldview, what Mereschkowski calls the “barfoot worldview” as a newest kind of Russian worldview could arise. Now, we know how this barefoot worldview basically arises from the mood that must come when one feels so completely grounded and cannot find the connection with the folk soul, to see within the spirit, so to speak, to that which man is outside of the spiritual. Materialism has not yet taken this completely seriously, but it is characteristic that this Russian individual spirit has taken it seriously in his world view. And so he denies everything spiritual and comes to what an important Russian poet addresses as a characteristic of man. I would truly not mention this if it only occurred here and there. But it is something that the spirit of the East comes to, which characterizes the impulses that live there.

Yes, what is he to you, this human being? Do you understand? He takes you by the collar and crushes you under the nail like a flea! Then you may feel sorry for him! ... Yes! Then you may reveal all your foolishness to him. He will put you on seven different forms of torture for your pity. He will wrap your intestines around his hand and pull all the veins out of your body, one inch per hour. ... Oh you... Pity! Pray to God that you will be beaten without any mercy, and that's it! ... Pity! ... Ugh!

And Maxim Gorky says that these words are spoken entirely from his soul, because this is how he perceives what a person can find as his value when he looks at himself for what he actually is.

One must put such things together with the many things that have come from the East, the arrogance and the arrogance of Russian intellectualism in the course of the last few years, the outgrowth of which is the mood that speaks today of blood and death.

Among the Russian intellectuals I mentioned earlier, we must also mention Yushakov, who has written books that have not found a large audience but which nevertheless show what has been in the minds of many intellectuals in Russia. Yushakov has the following ideas about the course of world culture. I would like to briefly present these ideas to you. He says: This West, everything that this West of Europe has achieved in culture, is over. If you look over to the East, you find that there is actually still something in it of rejuvenation, of germs from which something can develop. But the West cannot develop this. This West has always shown [...] a gap in the text].

[In contrast, at the end of the nineteenth century, Yushakov writes about the Russian-English question in Asia: As far as Russia's mission in Asia is concerned, what the English are doing there is rotten through and through. What Russia is doing there is infinitely more spiritual.

The English – Yushakov says – have behaved towards Asia as if they believed that the Asian peoples existed only to “clothe themselves in English fabrics, fight each other with English weapons, work with English tools, eat from English vessels and play with English baubles”.

Russia alone, Yushakov believes, is capable of feeling an affinity with this Asia, which is now lying prostrate, groaning under the rape of Europe, because it cannot yet grasp the inner human being, which has been made sick and aged by the ego, like the European West.

It is an interesting book, published in 1885, about the relations between England and Russia. It highlights the superiority and arrogance of Russian over Englishness. In 1885, Yushakov has the following idea:

This West, it is over for him. If you look to the East, there is still something that can be developed, the West, especially England, have caused the darkening of India, Persia.

What have the English done in Asia? They have arrogated to themselves everything that was once established in Asia by the power of Ahriman. They have crept in where Ormuzd was at work. They have sat down everywhere where there was light to enjoy the fruits of that light. But what have the Russians done? The Russians have gone everywhere where Asia has been impoverished, where Asia was threatened and impoverished, where people had come down, where people were oppressed and oppressed, where people were plunged into poverty and darkness. Russia has taken care of these people. That is why Russia has its mission in Asia. Therefore, the world struggle between Russia and England must break out in Asia. Russia must be reinstated in the rights of Ormuzd against Ahriman, after it has behaved in this way, while the English have only interfered in what has been established in Asia in terms of fertility, greatness and beauty, and have exploited it.

This is how this Russian speaks about England. And he says: England exploits millions of Hindus. Its greatness and power depend on the people there. I do not wish anything similar for my fatherland. I can only rejoice that it is sufficiently far removed from this sad state of affairs.

Could one not actually wish that the Russians of today, who admire the English, would take a little time to study this book by Yushakov, which was only published in 1885 and deals with relations between Russia and England? It could be interesting at all sometimes if people would get to know something of the driving forces that have worked and will continue to work on the forces that have led to what is now around us, that reaches our souls.

I believe, my dear audience, that what I have said, based on the spiritual-scientific foundations of the nature of the German being, can be substantiated, even if it is illustrated by this or that. And I could cite similar evidence to support what I have said for a long, long time. One could cite such things for so long that no one in the room would be listening.

All of this, however, would illuminate the one truth that is so important now, when we first have to forge the weapons to defend what is also being attacked spiritually and what will be increasingly surrounded, all of this would lead us to the one great truth with which one must come to terms, the truth that the German, by virtue of his immediate national character, could see the direct relationship, the experienced relationship of the individual soul with the national spirit.

And when we see how this German idealism always worked in the whole mood of the German people and its great representatives, especially in the time that we can call the great epoch of the German spirit, how there are seeds, and when we see what is all that is contained in these germs, then we may say to ourselves: We can also trust in the inner strength of the German character, just as we trust in the germs that must unfold into blossoms and fruits in nature; we may have confidence in the German spiritual life. And we know that in many respects it still contains the germs, and that it contains the power of perpetual rejuvenation, that this power is its own. And we know from this what those who, at great sacrifice in the east and in the west, have to defend that which is enclosed as in a large fortress in Central Europe.

But there is also a way to direct the soul's eye to the inner forces of the spiritual world. Then one does not look at this German people as it may be looked at today by the enemies of the German spirit, but rather in such a way that one says to oneself: the German spirit has not yet been fully realized. It has powers within it that are only germinal powers, that must first fully develop in the future. Therefore, from such considerations, however imperfectly they may be presented, as they could only be presented in a lecture in such a short time, nevertheless that which can be summarized in certain feelings emerges, feelings that give the German soul confidence and courage and hope, precisely from the depths of this being.

On the one hand, we are completely convinced today that we have no need to give courage and confidence to those who have to suffer and bleed for the great events of the time based on certain, genuine knowledge and insight – the whole course of events within the realm of the German being, the Central European being, shows that this is not necessary. European being, shows how the Germans went to war, how they knew how to wage this war. No, not to talk about it, but to talk about what reigns and works in the innermost being of the German soul, so that it gives us [and those in the field] certainty about the future and fills us with hope. It is to point this out that today's reflections were made. And that is why I would like to summarize, because the feelings are the most important thing, the feelings that underlie the individual words of this evening. I would like to summarize some of the feelings that, as I believe, can arise for German feeling and sentiment precisely from the contemplation of the German essence and its connection with the German national spirit:

The German spirit has not yet been fulfilled,
What it should bring to the world.
It lives hopefully in future concerns,
It hopes for future deeds full of life; —
In the depths of its being, it feels powerful
Hidden things that must still mature.
How can a wish for his end, without understanding,

Dear attendees!

The German nation is engaged in a tremendously serious struggle. A struggle that shakes and throbs through all of us. A struggle in which a new wave of our nation's destiny is to be formed out of blood and out of acts of arms.

It is a time when, one might say, the furthest extremes of human feeling, human emotion, and human imagination collide, flowing through our hearts. Deep sorrow, which spreads over countless losses, pain and grief, blood – all this provides a kind of foundation, but one that is surmounted by an atmosphere of enthusiasm, an atmosphere of bliss at what the members of the German nation are able to do in order to to maintain and secure, in the face of the iron necessity imposed on them, that position in the world, that position within European culture, which they have inherited as a precious legacy from their fathers, as a precious legacy from the historical development of Europe itself. In such a time, in which a new destiny is being formed out of blood and military deeds: But the most important things of the present, of such a present, are spoken about in different words than those that can be spoken in such a reflection, as it is this evening. The weapons speak, of course in the figurative sense. Courage speaks, the bravery of those who are exposed to the great historical fields of our present events.

But especially in such a time everything must be close to us that is connected with the whole attitude, with all the tasks, with the whole feeling and will of the German people. Therefore, it may well be appropriate for us to devote an hour of reflection to that which can take shape in our soul when we turn our gaze to something that has developed not within the valor of arms, not within the arena of external events, but deep within the innermost being of the soul itself. But we feel, perhaps more than usual, especially in such a time, how – just as blood flows through all parts of the human organism, a blood flows through you – so a power, such an essence flows through all the expressions of life of the people. Therefore, in tonight's meditation, I would like to present as one of the symptoms of the German character what I would call the world view of German idealism.

I would like to present it as it has been incorporated into the various world views of the European peoples. The nations that are fighting with each other in our present time have also been touched in their interrelations by what the content of their worldview, their conception of life, is. And in this struggle of worldviews and conceptions of life, what can be called the worldview of German idealism has emerged. I would not, dear ladies and gentlemen, wish to fall into the tone in which Germany's enemies today fall when they endeavor to describe German thinking and German feeling to their own people. I think it is much more in keeping with the German character to let the facts speak for themselves. Especially in this area, where the most inner and sacred goods of the human soul are at stake. The judgment about the significance of the German people in the development of mankind can only be formed from a calm, serious, objective consideration of the facts of the spiritual development of mankind itself.

If we now consider the interrelationships of those nations with which the German people have come into contact in the course of their more recent struggle for a world view, if we consider these, then a central theme emerges from precisely that point of view which has been taken for years in these lectures, also in this city, from this place, from the point of view of spiritual science, from which I have been allowed to lecture every winter for years in this city as well.

If one wants to look into the soul of a nation, then it is necessary to first look at the essence of the individual human soul. I cannot discuss today in detail the thoughts that I have often expressed here about this individual human soul; I will only touch on them from the point of view that should lead to our reflection today. Particulars that are to be mentioned today will be the subject of tomorrow's lecture. But by pointing out some of the things I have been allowed to say here over the years, also proving them from the foundations of spiritual science, it may be said that, before the eye of spiritual research, this human soul does not present itself as the vague surge of inner life, as which it so often presents itself to today's soul teaching, which is more influenced by a positivistic - as it were - view. Spiritual science regards this mixing up of all the individual expressions and structures of the soul life, as is often found in the external soul science of today, as just as unscientific and as unfruitful for a true contemplation of life as it would regard the failure to break water down into hydrogen and oxygen in scientific observation when one wishes to consider it in its connection with world phenomena. I have often said, as here, that just as the chemist breaks down water into hydrogen and oxygen in order to be able to observe it in its context in the natural world, so the spiritual observer must explore the human soul in its , which is not an arbitrary abstraction, which does not correspond to a mere external judgment, but to a real experience of that which makes up the whole extent of human soul life.

The spiritual researcher must first divide this human soul life into a sum of those processes that he designates with the term sentient soul. This sentient soul is connected with the elementary effects of the human soul, with that which, I might say, is still directly released from the physical, the bodily. The sentient soul is connected with this; with that which still lies partly in our blood; with that which breaks away from our inner feelings to become impulses of our being, without us being able to completely radiate it with the light of our consciousness. The sentient soul is spiritual, but it is the part of the human soul that is most intimately bound to the body of all the human soul parts. But it is also the soul element that causes the human being to direct his soul outwards. It is the soul element that ensouls the senses: the eyes when they look out into the world that is to be observed by the human being; the other senses when they come into contact with the surrounding world.

A soul element that then breaks away more, that is already more permeated by human consciousness, by the inner intentionality of the human soul, that is less bound to the elementary of human physical nature, is the mind or emotional soul. Of course, on the one hand, dear honored attendees, this mind or emotional soul is freer from the outer physical nature than the sentient soul, but it is also poorer for it. All the richness that is poured into our soul life through the elemental impulses of our entire human nature being poured into the sentient soul is no longer present in the intellectual or mind soul. As a mind soul, it is inward, but it is more loosely connected to the whole extent of the outer life of nature.

The soul element in which the human being can best, I would say, fulfill his present task in this life through the activity inherent in him, is then the consciousness soul. It is the soul through which the human being most comprehends himself as a personality, most becomes aware of himself as an individuality in the world. It is the faculty by which man can develop the highest degree of consciousness in himself, by which he can know himself as a self. But it is the soul element that, because it is most inward, shows least how man is connected with all the depths of outer existence. It is the soul member that is most closely connected to the human conscience, to that which is most personal to the human being, and at the same time it is most devoted to what the human being designates and must designate as his useful purposes, which are satisfied in external existence.

Precisely in the same way, to use yet another comparison that shows how spiritual science thinks entirely in terms of natural science, precisely in the same way as there are seven colors in a rainbow, but we can trace them back to three —, just as there are three color shades in a rainbow and the observation of these three nuances does not correspond to some kind of amateurism, but to real science - the reddish-yellow nuance, the greenish nuance, the blue-violet nuance - so the triad of these nuances is present in the life of the soul: the sentient soul, the soul of mind or feeling, and the consciousness soul. And just as the unified light is expressed through the nuances of the rainbow, so it is through the nuances of the soul, through the three, I could also say modes of activity of the human soul, that which we describe as the actual I, as the reality of the human inner being. Just as light appears through the yellow-reddish, through the green, through the blue-violet, so the I appears through the sentient soul, through the mind or emotional soul, through the consciousness soul.

Now, esteemed attendees, just as we can find this very structure in the individual human soul – as I said, I can only mention this today – so we can only truly get to know the souls of nations if we illuminate them from the point of view that we gain from this view of the human soul itself. We then gain the insight that, insofar as the souls of nations express themselves in the whole of human development, these national souls themselves are nuanced in such a way that one national soul expresses more the character of the sentient soul, another more the character of the mind or emotional soul, and yet another national soul more the character of the consciousness soul. It is really not an arbitrary way of looking at it. It is not, I might say, a forced abstraction when one regards the peoples of Western Europe, the Western and South-Western European peoples, in this way, according to the character of their folk souls. On the contrary: an unbiased study of the way in which the folk soul expresses itself leads to such a conception.

Let us now consider the soul nature of the Italian people from this point of view. Of course, dear readers, the individual stands out from his people when he strives to do so. But that is why there is a national character that bears the nuance of the national soul. There is no need to construct something arbitrarily, but only to go into what – if one has just one guiding thread from the knowledge of the human soul – naturally follows from the nature of the folk soul. Then the following consideration can be described as by no means unfruitful, as it seems to me.

The nuance of human soul nature that is expressed in the Italian soul can be described as the nature of the sentient soul. And if we, esteemed attendees, turn our gaze, our soul's gaze, to the cultural development that has been poured out on the peoples of Europe since the dawn of modern cultural development, since the sixteenth or seventeenth century, we find in it the opportunity to become acquainted with the various soul nuances and their mutual relationships and their mutual forces of influence, I would say, in an unbiased way. We find that in a very special way in the sixteenth century, there emerges that which one can say It is the task that was precisely the task of the Italian national soul, by virtue of the character of its sentient soul. Yes, precisely the greatest thing that came from this side, both from this time and from what immediately preceded this time, testifies to us that it has this character.

Let us take the personality who is so often referred to when speaking of the dawn of the modern world view. Let us take Giordano Bruno; he who fell victim to the fanaticism of the opposing world view of the sixteenth century. When we let the peculiar world-view of this man take effect on us, we feel in this personality the echo of what comes to us from Dante. We feel in it, in the world-view of Giordano Bruno, the echo of what comes to us in colors and in the richness of form from the painting of Raphael or Michelangelo. What do we find in all this? Just when you delve into the way in which Giordano Bruno presents himself to the world, how he presents himself to the world - placing himself in it, surveying the whole universe, breaking through what the medieval world view still saw as an outer boundary - how he breaks through the firmament of the space and pointing out into the infinite, as he could do it through his sensory activity inspired by inner feeling, so we can say to ourselves: He has conjured up this image of the world, which is as much scientific as artistic, out of direct perception, out of the same inner soul activity through which Dante, by virtue of his feelings, conjured that which he felt for the individual members of his people into the mighty image he created of the spiritual worlds into which the soul passes through the gate of death according to his vision. The essential thing – today we can only touch on this – in Giordano Bruno's world view, and also in the world view that his predecessor – from whom he adopted much, Telesius had, and also in the world view that Galileo wove into his world view, we see everywhere that the main emphasis is on directing the human being's attention to what external perceptions [and what] the sensory world gives. To explore this sensual world in such a way that one also uses all the powers of the mind, that is, the powers of the mind or soul, the powers of the consciousness soul, in order to achieve the sensual image in perfection. We see this as a task that opens up for us in this field of the culture of the national soul.

Thus we see a world picture emerging in southwestern Europe, which owes its greatness primarily to the fact that it is focused on external sensuality, and all the other powers of the soul that are not sensuality are used to arouse this sensuality in a pure way. This world view emerges from the elementary powers of the sentient soul.

And if we ascend to the Western peoples of Europe, and consider French culture from this point of view, we find expressed in it - I can only describe these things symptomatically today, by placing individual personalities before you as the living symptoms of historical development. If we look at this culture, we find a man like Cartesius, like Descartes, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, shaping into a world picture, I might say, the very essence of this culture. And if we engage with this world view, if we ask ourselves: what forces in the human soul shape this world view, in contrast to the forces of the sentient soul, which have just been cited for the Italian world view? We find that it is the powers of the intellectual soul or the soul of feeling. Just as I might say that the Italian conception of the world is supposed to present to the human soul what I might call the purely sensuous nature, so the conception of the world of the scientific intellect, or what we may here call purely rationalistic judgments about the world, is supposed to form a conception of the world. The human mind, which is so directed to the finite in the human conception of the world precisely because it is placed in the finite human being, is cultivated by Cartesius: What are the sources of your certainty? How can you say something certain about that which is true, which is truthful, real? And because he draws from the sources of thought, from the rationality of human beings, Cartesius, Descartes, develops rationalism as - I would say - the characteristic expression of the French national soul. This intellect first of all attaches itself to that which is immediately present: to the human self itself, to the inner personality. It attempts to attain certainty of life and the world from this inner personality, from that power which in turn is most intimately connected with this personality. “I think, therefore I am!” the world-famous saying of Descartes. Man assures himself of his existence by becoming aware of his mind at work within him. He cannot doubt his mind. Therefore, he can find in his mind the sources of certainty that can be given to him.

But a world picture emerges from it, dear honored attendees, over which the whole nature of the mind is poured out. The mind has the peculiarity that it is, so to speak, a self-contained entity in itself and also in its setting in the human personality. It does not go beyond the boundaries of the human personality. I would like to say: Descartes also remains in a sense in thinking. He does not stimulate in himself the other powers of the soul, those powers of the soul through which we can let the whole human being flow into nature and its secrets, in order to feel and sense this nature and to live with it. Descartes remains in thinking, remains in ratio. This characterizes his entire world view. The characterization, which is particularly characterized, dear attendees, by the fact that Cartesius, by only focusing on self-assurance - on what his own thinking assures him of as certain - comes to believe that animals are only living machines. They are not ensouled like humans. The thinking that has become fixed in one's own personality - I would like to say - does not find the way out of itself to submerge lovingly into the outer nature. It does not even reach as far as the soul for the animal world. Soul-less machines, mechanisms, moving machines are the animals. [He penetrates even less to the essence of the other nature. To arrive at certainty, realism withdraws the means by which it could penetrate to the soul of all the rest of nature. One would like to say: This world view wanted to secure human truth; and in this way it secured it, that it renounced a way of living in nature.

Thus we see a world picture over which spreads – I would like to say – that which man finds in himself through his thinking. This world picture then worked through the whole French world-view development. We find it today in a certain sense in Bergson and Boutroux. Everywhere we see how people rely on what is supposed to follow only from human thinking. We see it emerge particularly characteristically at the end of the eighteenth century, [...] where it is expressed in the materialism of French thought as a worldview, which is basically the father of all theoretical materialism, [yes] of all materialistic worldviews of the most recent times; before which Goethe once by confronting it – and thus in the personality in whom the world view of German idealism was most vividly present – faced Goethe, by saying: There the world of moving atoms is presented to us. If we could at least see some reason why these atoms move, and if we could see why our whole beautiful, diverse and magnificent world with all its wonders arises from these moving atoms.

But materialism – so Goethe believes – [...] only lives in some concepts of moving atoms, and does not show – since it has no need to show – how connected that is, which it thus assumes to be behind the phenomena, with the great diversity and beauty of the world's phenomena! We see one of the most German of Germans, Goethe, rebelling against this materialist world view. This world view expresses the entire character of the intellectual soul or mind soul.

And if we look at British culture from this perspective, we find that this British culture, as it begins in more recent times, directly channels the power of the human soul to that which is spread out before human observation. We see how Bacon von Verulam appears - a personality who demands of the human soul in the most incisive way that it purify all that [which leads it away from what it can observe by being in the world, what it can observe with its senses - with the consciousness that is peculiar to us as human beings! Bacon wanted to cleanse the world view of all that man can bring into it through his mere thinking, through a deepening into his inner self.

Just as sensualism is the world view corresponding to the Italian national character; just as rationalism is the world view corresponding to the French national character, so is so-called empiricism, the focus on external reality, which of course initially only has a meaning for the human consciousness soul, for that in which the human being wants to place himself here as an earthly being with his conscious purposes. This outer reality, what is given in empiricism, as it is said, is the object of the outer consciousness soul. That is what one wants to gain when one looks at it in terms of its characteristic properties, the British world view, that is, all the content it can contain. And from the dawn of modern spiritual life up to Darwin and Spencer, up to the present English world view, we find this basic trait everywhere. But we see that in recent times, strangely enough, it has united with that which lives so truly in the consciousness soul. The consciousness soul, as I said earlier, sets out to get to know the human being through the purposes he pursues as an external being on earth in his immediate sensory surroundings. The consciousness soul focuses on these purposes. On what is useful to man. Let us look back at the example of Darwin. And we see from the form that Darwin gave to the theory of the development of the organic how the principle of usefulness is already being considered in the becoming of the beings. The beings arise and perfect themselves in the struggle for existence. How in the struggle for existence? Because the being that is organized in such a way that it is most useful to itself displaces the others.

It is characteristic that the emergence of the so-called pragmatism – this name was coined in England and more recently in America – is the latest form of the world view prevailing there. What is this pragmatism? It asks: Yes, to what extent can a person, who wants to approach truth through thought, arrive at the truth? It was felt quite intensely that one cannot actually educate oneself with one's soul powers through mere thoughts. Yes, but what are mere thoughts? What are thoughts that a person can form when he looks at phenomena? Is there a world of thoughts that one could say are real? Man goes through the world, so they say, he looks at things. He thinks about them. Is there somehow a power that forms the truth in man? So pragmatism asks. - No, man cannot find such an external power. But man forms concepts, and he can then have them. How can he have them? In such a way that they enable him to summarize the phenomena of the world in a purposeful way. This pragmatism does not seek some background of a source of truth, but it seeks to form such a conception that is expedient for summarizing the multiplicity of phenomena, thereby summarizing the multiplicity of phenomena in the best possible way. This is a concept that can be perceived because it serves to summarize the phenomena. There is no other source of truth.

When we speak, for example, of a unity in the human soul's manifestation – we can assume this unity from what has been said – then we can summarize the individual expressions of the human soul in a purposeful way.

When we speak of gravity, we do not do so because of any inner truth. There is nothing else that prompts us to speak of gravity when we form the concept of gravity, other than the fact that it corresponds to the purpose of summarizing many phenomena that we encounter in the world under one unifying concept. Utility pours over the whole human striving for a world view within pragmatism.

I did not in any way attempt to characterize the facts from any point of view of sympathy or antipathy, but I tried to identify the guiding thread of the worldviews of the three nationalities according to the nuance of soul that expresses itself in the corresponding people, in the corresponding culture. One can see that what I have briefly characterized – and this is why it can only appear arbitrary – but precisely if one were to go deeper, all arbitrariness would disappear, it could be traced through the entire scope of the development of the worldviews of the respective peoples could be traced through the entire scope of the development of the world view of the peoples concerned – testifies to us: Italian culture has particularly developed the sentient soul character; French culture the rational mind or mind soul character; British culture the consciousness soul character.

Now let us turn our gaze to the center of Europe. Let us try to let this soul's gaze briefly roam over those phenomena that also present themselves to us within the last period of human development. This new period announces itself in a peculiar way. There we see, I might say, in a world view of beauty, Giordano Bruno creating out of a purified sensualism, in a state of drunken sensuality. But at the same time, there we see in the sixteenth century, in the seventeenth century in France, Montaigne creating out of the intellectual or emotional soul a world view of pure doubt. Here we see, in Montaigne, I might say, in a different way, less ingeniously, less philosophically than in Descartes, but in him, how one of the most significant signs of this culture is expressed. We see how he is confined to what man alone is capable of thinking, to what is connected with his thinking; but at the same time, he senses that this thinking is limited in its validity as truth by the fact that it dwells only within us. This gives him doubt about the external sense world. That is why Montaigne says: Yes, the external senses provide us with a certain image of the external world. But does it have to be true? We have no means of knowing, for we can only believe our reason. But we have no means in it of proving that something is not revealing itself that is something quite different from what we can suspect behind the sensory phenomena. The sensory phenomena can be deceptive. But can what we have in reason tell us the truth either? We see that we want to prove something in our reason. But soon we come to realize how deceptive this reasoning was in us. Now we have to prove what we have proved all over again. And that presents itself to us immediately, as if from this or that point of view. But it is questionable. We begin to demand a proof of the proof of the proof. The true sage, says Montaigne, is the only one who doubts everything, who goes through the world with a soul that can bear doubt.

And in the field of world view, the Italian's and the Frenchman's contemporary is precisely Bacon, who wants to refer the human soul, as I have characterized it, to that which is purely the object of external utility. This contemporary of his, regardless of what objections one might otherwise have against him, regardless of what point of view one might take: it is characteristic of the development of Central Europe, characteristic of the development of German folk culture, this personality – a contemporary of Giordano Bruno, intoxicated, as it were, with sensuality, of the doubter Montaigne, of Bacon, who referred to mere external empiricism, is Jakob Böhme, the profound German mystic. He – who, while Giordano Bruno wants to connect the drunken mind with the whole world, the outer sensual infinity of the world, who, while Montaigne wants to find man alone wise when he is able to doubt everything, the contemporary of Bacon – is Jakob Böhme, [the contemporary contemporary of just that Bacon] who, when he wants to point man to the truth, points him away from everything he might possibly imagine or develop within himself, and points him to the mere intellectual and conceptual summarization of the phenomena of the consciousness soul. The contemporary of these three, who all point man outward, is Jakob Böhme, who at the same time turned his inner path toward those realms that the human soul can enter when it becomes fully conscious of itself in its deepest inwardness.

And let us turn to this wonderful world picture of Jakob Böhme. We see how this contemporary of Montaigne, the greatest modern doubter, seeks certainties borne inwardly by the deepest soul faculties in a purely spiritual, supersensible world, in a world of human inwardness, which he knows at the same time, because it is human inwardness, to be the inwardness of that which confronts us in the external world, in outer existence. The great affinity of that which man finds when he reaches most deeply into his inner being, with that which man finds when he roams most widely through the whole extent of outer existence, that is what Jakob Böhme wants to show, out of the German soul.

The greatest seeker of certainty – a contemporary of the greatest doubters. The greatest believer in human inwardness, and at the same time the greatest denier of what human inwardness might assert with certainty about any phenomenon in the world. We see emerging at the dawn of the newer development of the world a mind that has arisen out of the culture of the German people and that wants to go to the center of the soul's being and, from the activity of this center, wants to illuminate all that lives in the lives in the sentient soul, in the intellectual soul or mind, in the consciousness soul, like light in the color nuances that appear to be externally divided into reddish-yellow, greenish, and bluish-violet. A culture of the I, a culture that finds its way into the human interior, seeks because it is clear that if you dive deep enough into this human interior, you will find in these depths, in the abyss of the human interior, the gateway to what is still behind what the drunken science of Giordano Bruno finds as the exterior. Jakob Böhme knows how to find the inner core of this outer appearance for himself, in accordance with his attitude and the tenor of his world picture, by descending into his own inner being. Thus, in the heart of Europe, at the dawn of the newer evolution of humanity, we find a world picture that mysticism has sensitively characterized.

Even if we consider it imperfect from our present-day point of view, ... we find that it sets the tone for the development of world-view, showing us - as I said, it is not intended to present any dogmatic world-view, only to characterize the development - how the German worldview strives to seek the forces that it is supposed to shape in the human ego, which is aware of immersing itself in the spirit of the universe when it only delves deeply enough, in the human ego, in the intimate, in the innermost nature of the human soul itself. And we find this character, ladies and gentlemen, held throughout the more recent development.

He who stands as it were as the first cornerstone of this newer Central European, this newer spiritual world-view development is much misunderstood: Kant. It often seems to people as if Kant had wanted to put forward a world-view of doubt, a world-view of uncertainty. But in another way, what Kant wanted has also been formed from the depths of the human being's ego nature. And now something very peculiar in the newer development comes to light. As I said, I only want to emphasize the facts, let the developments be characterized by an at least striving - I don't know how far I will achieve it, but at least striving - impartiality towards the facts. One thing in particular comes to us from this German development. That which must inspire man in his innermost being, although it is not directly real, is placed in the focus of the soul: the idea, the ideal.

The most alien thing to the times in which Kant lived and the culture from which Kant emerged would be the British view of today, as expressed in the British world view: that truth should have no other source [than the expediency for which external phenomena are to be summarized]. For absolutely valuable, so that no doubt, nothing that could somehow take away certainty, should approach it, absolutely certain is that which makes human life valuable, although it is not an external sensual reality, that is the idea, that is the ideal. This world view felt that ideas and ideals reach into the human soul and give the human soul the highest value. No matter whether the human soul attains such a high value from nature or from some other source, it attains the highest value through the fact that ideas can be present in it. And now, more or less unconsciously, Kant was already living with the impulse to eliminate everything that did not want to recognize the absolute, unconditional validity of the ideas, their highest value for the human soul. He found that A science has been developed, a world view has emerged that is based on the sensory world. But man cannot, with the powers that come from his soul, grasp this sensual world view in such a way that he can get to its direct sources — if I may use the pedantic word, but it is from Kant himself —, to the “thing in itself”. So Kant tried to get to the bottom of this sensuality, this external reality, as it presents itself to the human senses, to bring clarity to it. He examines the human soul life in his own way. He finds: What presents itself as the sensory world is not the immediate reality. And the human soul is not at all able to penetrate into the immediate reality with the powers it has. Only through those forces that are the forces of the idea, the forces of the ideal, can it experience reality directly within itself. And so we see the remarkable thing about Kant: that he does not, as is often believed, want to present a world view of doubt, of groundlessness, of non-recognition, but that he was seeking a world view that would remove all doubt by making it clear that we cannot know anything about the senses, but because we cannot know anything, we can give all the more to the fact that what projects into our soul life as an idea, as an ideal, has an unconditional value. Sensuality must not disturb us in our contemplation of the absolutely valuable, the idea, the ideal, by the certainty it has. Kant does not present a world view of doubt, but a world view that seeks to eliminate doubt from the world. However, he does come to say that he must fight knowledge. Kant says it in order to make room for faith. At first, he only believes that a kind of faith can unfold for that which enters the human soul in an idealized way; but that is precisely what characterizes him: the ideal, the idea, is so valuable to him that he himself dethrones knowledge for its sake, in order to provide this ideal with the right throne, the right world standing.

And now we see how the individual heroes of the world view of German idealism follow. We see how directly the – I would say – very own national philosopher of the Germans, how directly Johann Gottlieb Fichte, embraces this Kantian world view. Let us look back at rationalism, at the purely intellectual world view of Descartes, which represents the original form of the world view of French popular culture: “I think, therefore I am”. In thinking, something is seen that can be trusted as a source of certainty. But from this thinking one must conclude – but I don't want to get involved in philosophical ravings now or have to come to it by some other means than by conclusion – that this thinking is based on a being, a first being that can be recognized by thinking, that can be looked at, because it proves that it must be there because one thinks. It is there, because one thinks, because thinking emerges from it. All this, if you look at it carefully, is so utterly alien to Fichte's remarkable, magnificent – I would even say heroic, in a world-view sense – soul. Fichte creates a completely different view of the human inner being, of the deepest soul. One that is still extremely difficult to understand today. For Fichte does not want to arrive at the soul, at the ego, by grasping it in its being. Rather, Fichte wants to grasp being [in its being generated] as an act of doing, that is, in order for me to experience my ego as me, I must continually create myself. In the moment when I lose the creative powers in me, when I cannot, out of unknown depths, place myself in a direct existence for my inner being, I am no longer an ego. With that, the thought, the “I think” is submerged in the will. And the inseparable unity of will and thought is made the basis of the human ego. At the same time, the characteristic of the self refers to something that is in a state of constant creation, of constant activity. You are only with yourself if you bring about this state of being with yourself every moment. To the extent that you can and do create yourself, in every moment of your sensual-physical and intellectual existence, you are a self.

What does Fichte, the most national of German philosophers, want? He wants to grasp the center of human existence, and he wants to grasp it in such a way that he does not develop in it a lasting, an actually lasting, [that he seeks a] unchanging being, but a continually active, a never resting. The human being, who is then his own creature. The most wonderful thing about strength, about human capacity, placed at the center of the soul's light, appears to us at the same time as the center of Fichte's world view. And here at this center, Fichte wants to grasp the self-generating I, the I that is endowed not only with the ability to think about its being, but with the ability to continually will itself. Here he wants to grasp at the same time, not in an existence that one wants to seek behind appearances, that one wants to seek here or there through some other science, but in the volition that the ego itself generates, Fichte wants to seek what lives within, in this human volition, in this human inner activity, through which the ego continually generates itself: the idea, the ideal. The I generates itself, and into this stream of self-generation the idea, the ideal, pours itself. Into this stream of self-generation the most intimate coexistence of the divinely high ideal, the divinely pure idea, with what man calls his most intimate inner experience, pours itself directly into it.

And now, I would say, Fichte advances to what is perhaps the boldest – there is, of course, much that is debatable, but still: boldest – thought that a thinking world view, a merely thinking world view, has ever conceived. Fichte looks at this self-creating I, at this I that is in the one moment because it creates itself, but does not merely sustain this being now until the next moment, but also lives through its deeds in the next moment, and in the next moment again, which never rests, always creating itself - Fichte looks at this I, and in it he now finds his reality. True reality must be measured by the standard of this reality. What, as we have just seen, intrudes into this I? As this I creates, ideas and ideals flow into its creative powers. They are the absolute valuable.

But now this I, with the help of the bodily organization, confronts the external sense world. This external sense world is permanent, it is something that cannot create itself, and is therefore less real than the I, which is constantly creating itself. Why then does the I, this absolutely creative I, enter the less real sense world? Because this I, with the ideas, the ideals, with the moral duty - which flows into the ideas, the ideals, into this I - needs a field of activity to live itself out. For Fichte, the world of the senses is not there for its own sake, but, as he says, as a sensitized material for the reception of duty, that is, of ideas and ideals. For Fichte, the world is there because duties, ideas, and ideals are paramount in spiritual life, and because these ideas and ideals need a world of the senses in order to be active. Thus the world of sense must be there as the consequence of ideas and ideals. Today we need not go into what we have on our soul, perhaps against the scope or the fundamental truth of such a world view; we only want to go into the way of the people's striving. We want to go into what strives within the soul power of the people to recognize the truth. We want to trace the character of this popular striving in the time that preceded the one in which the German people created their state, the external structure of their activity, which they must now defend with blood and arms, but which they created because they drew the strength to do so from what preceded this state, but which is rooted in the deepest peculiarity of the German national soul. And from this point of view, let us also direct our gaze to the man who has now continued Fichte in a certain way, who has worked alongside Fichte, after Fichte, the much-tried Schelling.

To focus on that which forms Fichte's basic essence, on a world view that is above all permeated by the ideas and ideals that flow into human beings and that require external sensuality to because the ideas and ideals - to fill out the world view - need an object within which they can operate, building on this Fichtean premise, Schelling also delved into this center, into the human ego. That center, where, according to Fichte's view, this thinking is linked to the soul of the world. But Schelling, he feels differently than Fichte. To him it seems prosaic, it seems abstract to name all of nature with all its diversity, with all that delights our senses, with all that promotes our welfare, our happiness, with all that the mind so gladly, so willingly immerses itself in, from which it draws so draws so much from — that which spreads out in the wide, visible nature —, that only looks at it from the point of view that it is there to give a sensualizing material to the duty, to the spiritual in the world picture, which flows into the ego; Schelling finds this impossible in view of his attitude. He has, I would say, too much German feeling in him.

Fichte's greatness is German willpower. Schelling's greatness is the German mind, which lovingly wants to engage with the smallest and the greatest phenomena of nature, with that which pours gloriously through space, that which spreads out in time. But while he wants to penetrate into every detail with a loving mind, he is also clear about one thing: certainty, security, true reality can only be found where you immerse yourself in yourself, where you can find the union of the human soul with the world soul in your own self. What you seek there and [...] find, you find because you experience it directly, because you experience it in such a way that, by being, you are at the same time with you [...] as that which, as true reality, pulses through life. What you can find in yourself, you will never find in outer nature. Therefore, fill yourself with that within you which can be a reflection of that which is most profound in this external nature as well. And so, what Schelling experienced within grew to such an extent that when he observed nature, he merged with the external existence of nature. Thus, nature itself became soul-like and spiritual to him. So Schelling looks into nature and says to himself: the essence of the human soul rests within it. But when I look out into nature, it is the same essence. I look at the stone: it has something, is connected with something, which is like the essence of the human soul; it only has it enchanted in form, in external nature; it has brought it into forms. And so the plant world in all its diversity. And so the animal world. And so also the outer physical human world. If I want to express myself figuratively: for Schelling it becomes as if - before the human soul entered this physical existence - a world spirit soul deeply related to the human soul... that which the human soul only and feels within itself, had first spread out before itself in forms, so that the human soul can see itself here twice..., and its essence poured out, magically poured out in space and in time, as it lives outside in nature.

But then Schelling says to himself, if that is so, if this nature is an enchanted soul-being, then I must find - when I experience nature by fully putting myself in the place of every single being, in every single form of life - the spirit of nature living out itself everywhere. But I do not find it by looking at nature dull. I must create it. My soul must create out of my soul that which lives most deeply in animal, plant and stone. My soul must put itself in that place and thereby create it. Hence Schelling's bold expression: to comprehend nature is to create nature.

And thirdly, we see the person who most fully developed this world view of German idealism, albeit only in abstract thoughts that are difficult for some to grasp. We see Hegel, the man from Stuttgart, the profound one, the most profound of the three. We can call Fichte the most powerful, the man of the German will, Schelling the man of the German mind, we can call Hegel the man of German reason itself. While Schelling immerses himself in nature, but only by taking the creative power of the ego with him, in order not just to comprehend nature, but to create nature out of the human soul through contemplation, Hegel wants to, as it were, from the soul, from what it is directly, from the universe that it creates for itself according to the Fichtean ego being, from which he wants to penetrate into what the soul is together with the deepest world thoughts. From the individual spirit, from the individual ego, Hegel wants to go to the world spirit, which is connected at one point with the individual spirit of man.

From the human ego to the world ego, Fichte sought a human essence that has within itself the power to continually generate and thus to develop and educate itself. Schelling seeks in the human being the power that can create in the ideal world picture that which is inherent in nature, while Hegel seeks in the human soul that which can receive the divine world spirit in itself, where it can hold a dialogue with this divine world spirit. While Schelling wants to pour the whole human soul into the soul-like nature, Hegel wants to sink all of this human soul-like nature into the essence of the world spirit, into the essence of the world soul. And he is clear about one thing: when the soul looks beyond what is outwardly spreading, when it lives completely with itself, then it communes with the world spirit. Then that which lives in it as concept, as idea, as ideal, is that which the world spirit lets flow into it. And by going from idea to idea, developing the whole organism of ideas that it can develop, the soul does not merely follow itself, no, it is aware that when it withdraws from all externality in this way, it unites with the world spirit. She does not think for herself, the world spirit itself thinks its thoughts in her. I surrender myself to the thinking of the world spirit, to the rule of world reason. As a result, the whole organism of the world idea - the world view of German idealism - spreads in the soul.

We can certainly say, esteemed attendees, that Fichte sought the human ego in its power, in its self-creative activity, but he remained - and because a greatest is boldly striven for, this greatest - I would say — itself the error of its virtue, it has its one-sidedness. Fichte stopped at this self-creative of the ego at something, so that one must say, at the point where he stopped, because the human soul actually creates itself only as a knowing being. It is therefore characteristic that Fichte calls what he has created as philosophy, as a world view, the theory of knowledge. The way Fichte grasps this self-creative I is actually only the knowing human being. But for us it is the path that matters, not a dogma, not an absolute truth, but the search for the German national soul. One would like to say: All that is spread out in this human nature, in that it experiences the whole fullness of the world of feeling, that the whole of outer nature is mirrored in it, all that is formed in the totality of the human inner soul life, with its deep pain, its high bliss and deep suffering, it is not directly explainable in the way in which the self-creative I is active in Fichte. The only thing that can be explained is – I would like to say – the knowing I. If man were to stand in the world as a knower, as a mere recognizer, if man's only task in the world were to have knowledge, then it would be as Fichte thought. But we see a wonderful development of strength in the fact that, on the one hand, all thinking, all research, all reflection is devoted to incorporating this one impulse into the world view of German idealism. Even if Fichte believed that he was answering all the riddles of the world, he did not answer them in their entirety, but he did show the one thing: How does man, as a cognizer, as a knower, as one who investigates the world, stand before himself? And how is he, as a knowing human being, connected to the sources of existence? To place this nuance in the world view of German idealism was, after all, Johann Gottlieb Fichte's task.

In Schelling, we find how the whole of external nature becomes something for him – I would like to say – that stands before his soul as a human physiognomy stands before our soul. We do not merely perceive it by describing individual lines, by characterizing its expression, but we perceive it in such a way that we perceive the soul speaking through it in it, in its inwardness, and allow ourselves to be affected by what is behind the physiognomy as the soul-like. Thus, what is spread out before man in nature, in its wonderfully deep unity, becomes the great physiognomy of the world soul that Schelling tried to decipher. But because he sets out in the strictest sense of the word to create everywhere: by enjoying nature and observing it, he can only create as much as was already revealed by nature according to the character of his time. This general character of human soul-creation, insofar as the soul-like is a reflection of nature's creation, that is what Schelling reveals. But while man stands in relation to nature in such a way that all his deepening of his soul life cannot replace for him the direct experience, the loving engagement with phenomena, insofar as one can observe them, Schelling believes that he can create more from within about nature than the mere predisposition for observation. Once again, with the error of a great spiritual virtue, he grasps a nuance of the world view of German idealism in a one-sided way!

Hegel seeks to experience the ruling world spirit itself in the human soul. He seeks to have such thoughts in the soul, such a developing reason, as if the world spirit itself were made to speak in the soul. But Hegel remains one-sided. For him, this world spirit does not appear as the one [that in all activity, at one time imparts the essence of the activity of the one being and at another time, in another activity, reveals a different essence.] In Hegel this world spirit appears as the great logician, who alone unfolds the details of the world's reason, and the world's reason becomes the only all-existing. But to present this single thing in its characteristic before the world, to incorporate this nuance into the world view of German idealism, this mistake of a great virtue, this one-sidedness, was necessary to grasp the thought in its highest degree: Man, when he plunges into his inner self, can depart from his ego to such an extent that he is so powerfully active in his ego that he extinguishes this ego itself, so that the world spirit may shine forth in him! In order to grasp this thought with the greatest intensity, it had to be grasped in this one-sided way. For in the search for truth, it is the power of comprehension that matters most to us, and not that the world spirit itself be conceived like a mere logician.

But we also see, we also know, honored attendees, how these three nuances in the world view of German idealism are intimately connected with the entire spiritual striving of the German people. For when this world-evolution of the German people was to be shaped into a personality, when the deepest, most intimate and at the same time most comprehensive and most living human and spiritual striving of this people was to be embodied in Goethe, then, I might say, he embodied in synthesis what had emerged with the greatest emphasis of one-sidedness in Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. But at the same time, by building up thoughts, I might say, with all the inwardness of the human soul and with all the powers of natural existence, living through them in the image of the human striving personality itself in Faust, [by characterizing him in such a way that as Goethe did] depict it, the universality of the human soul's striving for light could only emerge in modern times from [that] folk culture, which seeks the light at the center of the soul's life, while the other modern cultures seek the individual color nuances of the soul. We see, but we see the nature of the human ego as it is always creatively active, as it must intervene in every subsequent moment to create its being anew, to transform itself. We see this distinctly - only in all its broad vitality and in full abundance - I would say - the merely ideal in the human being embodied in Faust, in that Faust whose motto is: “Whoever strives, we can redeem him!” In that Faust, who is indeed presented to us as being in the concrete, in the immediately elementary, striving for what Fichte presents as theory. So that this Faust-I continually creates itself throughout the entire plot of Faust in order to successively insert its I into other spheres, other fields of world existence, in order to become related to other spheres, to other fields of world existence.

And we see how Schelling lives as a nuance, Schelling's view as a nuance in “Faust”. Schelling stands before nature, as before the great magician, and experiences: even if it is an illusion, it is an illusion to ignite a great aspiration; I say not to depict, but to ignite. Schelling stands before nature as if he could create it from within by wanting to understand it. Understanding nature means creating nature – and we see Faust transformed into the living, into the fullness of human existence. Faust, as he wants to reach “all life force and seed”. How he longs with all his might, which itself is magical power, to grasp that which creates and lives in nature, to unite with it, to unite with the spirit of nature. He wants the spirit, the spirit of life, which “swells and ebbs in the tides of life, in the storm of action,” to stand before him. He does not seek to create nature, he seeks to understand, he seeks that which creates in nature, as the world and deed genius.

Schelling sought in an abstract way in his soul the creator in nature. Faust sought the center in nature, where the essence is to be found, which, as the creator, stands in opposition to the created. Like Schelling, he wants to achieve a living force that creates as nature does. Faust, on the other hand, seeks to reveal such a being that flows and surges from one individual being to another in nature and shows us not only what has been enchanted and created, but also what lives in everything created as a creator.

And just as Hegel, as a philosopher, incorporated his nuance of reason, which is supposed to be the conversation of the world spirit itself in the individual human soul, into the world view of German idealism, so we see - and this in turn is implemented in the living so admirably in the whole striving of Faust - we see, as the goal that appears to us, what man can experience in his inmost being when he has always endeavored, when he has become akin to all the self-creative powers that the I continually creates and fathoms, but thereby continually develops, ceaselessly develops. When man has gone through this, when he has knocked at those gates through which nature unlocks its creativity, when he has found the spirit that he addresses as “Exalted Spirit, you gave me everything, everything” - in other words, the spirit that the creator stands vis-a-vis the created – he comes through all possible stages of human development to the one where he is able, when his eyes are closing, when he goes blind, when he is standing directly before death, to unite with the world spirit. Admittedly, Goethe touches here on an inner experience of the union of the human soul with the world spirit, which in its abundance and experiential content infinitely transcends the mere abstraction of Hegel's reasoning world spirit. But the attitude is the same in both cases.

We could cite many more examples, and we would see everywhere the German way of seeking the foundations and sources that underlie ideas and ideals, so as to have the world not merely as a symbol before the external senses, but as a weaving, surging world picture of ideas and ideals. And like this world picture of German idealism, such a shaping of this knowledge demands that it can say: Yes, all external sensuality is such that what stands as the most valuable for the soul life can intervene: the ideas and ideals originating from the divine sources of the world. In this way, in the sense of human striving within German culture, that which strives towards the world view of German idealism places itself within the other world views. And I believe that the German may objectively describe as his striving what has been characterized there, without his being able to believe that the slanderous accusations now made by his enemies have any value. He may say: He does not seek the individual color nuances of the soul; he seeks what - like the light shining through the individual color nuances - shines through and flows through these individual color nuances as the innermost, as the best of the human soul.

And one can indeed say, dear attendees, that when one points to this world view of German idealism, one reveals something that cannot live in every soul. Certainly, it appears that way; but two things must be emphasized. I can only hint at these two things, but they could also be explained further if one goes into the phenomena that were just pointed out. So great, so powerful was the will in this striving for the world view of German idealism, in the time of Germany, which was the most significant time of idealistic struggle – as our present time will undoubtedly appear as the most significant time of real struggle – so this world view of German idealism in Germany's most ideal time seems to present itself to our minds that we can say: What the people who have endeavored to achieve worldviews and the most diverse tasks in the nineteenth century and up to the present day within our culture have done, was to try to penetrate from different points in order to understand these individual representatives of the worldview of German idealism more precisely. Even their opponents were always somehow trying to penetrate this world view from different angles, at least to fight and struggle with it. And whatever world views and attitudes towards life have developed since then, we can feel the pulse of German idealism everywhere, even from opposing points of view. We can feel it to this day. We feel it as something that belongs to the best of the German character, to that which is realized in this German character. We feel it as one of the most characteristic expressions of the German essence. We feel it as that which symptomatically denotes the greatness and power of the German mission, and which may be so designated because there is truly in such a designation a striving that cannot make this designation appear as megalomania, but that the fullest modesty is connected with this characteristic.

Thus we see that we are still standing inside – and to what extent we are standing inside, I will have to elaborate on tomorrow in the lecture – we see how we are standing inside with all our striving in the full revelation of what was struck at that time, what was struck by individuals. That is the one thing I want to emphasize: the greatness of the world view of German idealism. Above all, it is connected with what has been done to this day by those who strove for a conception of the world and of life, and what will be done for those who follow in this sense for a long time to come.

The other thing I want to emphasize is that every impulse of a worldview that enters the worldview initially occurs in a few people. And the way it occurs is not decisive for the way it works. But if one delves into it, not intellectually, but rather in terms of feeling and emotion, not in terms of dogma, but in terms of the will, in terms of the particular orientation that underlies the world view of German idealism, then one finds that there is something in it that can still be lived out, that can still be developed, that one can say: something can arise from it that bears no resemblance to the difficult-to-understand arguments of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, something that can develop in such a way that it can be easily understood by the simplest mind.

Dear attendees! It is only through years of immersing myself in this world view of German idealism that I have come to the full conviction that there is something in it that can be implanted in human nature from childhood on, that there is a trinity to which the human being can be educated, to a feeling of self-creation in the I, which directly gives the human being - I would like to say - in all his striving a religious trait, as was the case with Fichte. Not Fichte's philosophy, but the forces that lived in Fichte's philosophy, to let them take effect on oneself, and to transfer them to general culture, to the simple man, to each individual, that will be possible one day. To become aware that something lives in the human soul that is intimately related to nature, to that which lives in the innermost part of nature, this special attitude towards nature, this life with the mind towards nature, this feeling of oneself in — The tendency of Hegel is that man can descend so deeply into his soul that he can hold a dialogue there with the world soul itself. Hegel's tendency for man to be able to descend so deeply into his soul that he can hold a dialogue with the world soul itself, that when he becomes free from the life in the outer natural and sensual world, he can hear his harmony with the world spirit resound spiritually within him, this attitude towards the divinely active, ruling world spirit, that will, without the Hegelian world view with the logical character perhaps even being known, be encouraged in the simplest soul by the person to whom one wants to transfer what I mean.

The world view of German idealism, not as it is dogmatic, but as it has been lived as a goal, as a spiritual impulse, can become popular. And however paradoxical and strange it may sound, the effect that this world view of German idealism can have on a human soul, what it can trigger in a human soul, how it can attune this human soul spiritually, sensually, working, creating in everyday life, is just as possible as the deeper meaning of the Grimm fairy tales becoming part of the human soul. It is no more difficult to live together intimately with the sense of the Grimm fairy tales, with the sense of the German folk tale, the German folk legends, than with the sense of that which lives in the world view of German idealism. But this points us to a development of that to which this world view of German idealism is the root, into far-off futures. And what is destined to develop will develop, however many those circling around Germany, around the German people, those who want to fight against the existence of the German people. The great trust that the German can have in his future can arise from the insight into what he has tied to his most sacred, to his national feeling.

And so, from the feeling that can be absorbed from the world view of German idealism, from what has been striven for and from the fact that these forces that could strive for such things are in the German nation, the great confidence that the German has in his further development, which he may express in the confidence that he may have in all the difficult struggles and the terrible struggles in which he is involved, and could still be involved. In this way, without resorting to sympathy or antipathy, and above all without resorting to antipathy, preconceived notions or hatred for what other national souls have to shape, one can describe the peculiar character of German national striving, as it expresses itself in one of its blossoms, in the world picture of German idealism, and one can say: Those who can understand something like that will understand whether the German people have a mission peculiar to them, to which they must cling, regardless of their nationality. Whether there is much understanding for this world view of German idealism in our time, especially among our enemies, is another question. And again: by speaking about this world view of German idealism, the German can at the same time show that he can speak differently, can speak from the spiritual facts, and that this is different from the way in which many of those who want to dispute the German's existence speak today, who have imposed on him the necessity of a fierce struggle for this existence.

I think, esteemed attendees, that the German need only emphasize in such a way what is most profound in his world view - and in nothing disintegrate those slanders that also encircle Germany, that encircle the German people. Let us see how differently one must speak in the context of the German essence. It is also a simple fact. Esteemed attendees! What, for example, did the inhabitants of Britain have to invent to justify what is expressed in their current struggle? How did the Germans merely have to point out that the necessity of their struggle for existence was imposed on them, whereas the inhabitants of Britain had to point out? They had to point to something that cannot be described as anything other than a mask. Could they point to something about which the German can say: he had to create the German state in the last decades, after the German, out of his nature, had worked towards this state until then? Could the inhabitants of Britain justify the necessity of their existence in the way they created it through the Boer War, in about the same way as the German can justify what the German does today as the consequence of the war of 1870/71? The true reasons had to be masked there. That the struggle for freedom of other nations is not the ideal there, one need only refer to the history of Britain.

The French had to – and this is again not something that arises from some kind of hatred, but from the mere characterization, from the mere objective characterization of the facts – invent a new sophistry through the minds of Bergson and Boutroux, who characterize the German world view by wanting to conclude from the innermost character – as Boutroux wanted in a lecture he gave to his French audience, based on this German world view – that, by its very character, it is a world view that wants to conquer everything in the world, that wants to clash with everything in a warlike manner.

Bergson had to invent his own philosophical sophistry to show how France's struggle against the German essence is a struggle of the spirit against matter, a struggle of civilization against barbarism. We see a completely new sophistry blossoming.

Russia has prepared herself well for what she needed to do in order to prepare in a corresponding way for what now threatens the German essence from there. Russia needs a new term for her old delusion, so as not to point to her mission as a matter of course, as the Germans do, but to point to something that lives as a delusion. Now, again, it is not the intention here to make a characterization from the outside, but because I naturally do not have the time to characterize in detail the extent to which the striving that threatens us from the East is a delusion, I would like to cite another key witness, a spirit who must know this, a spirit who is most deeply rooted in modern Russian intellectual life, the great Soloviev, who is placed in the nineteenth century and who – I would like to say – brings the whole of Russian intellectual life together as if in a philosophical focus for reflection. He speaks of how another spirit of Russia summarizes Russia's world-historical mission in the words: Why does Europe not love us, why does Europe fear us? Danilevsky poses this question. And he says:

“Europe fears us as the new and higher type of culture, called to replace the decrepitude of Romance-Germanic civilization.”

These words express the entire delusion of the East. It should not be denied that the seeds germinating in the East contain magnificent and powerful seeds for the future of humanity. In the way they are now living, I will characterize it by reading Solowjow's, the great Russian's, answer to this characteristic of Danilewski:

“Nevertheless, both the content of Danilevsky's book and his later admissions and those of his like-minded friend”

- meaning a certain Strakhov -

"Europe looks at us with apprehension and mistrust because dark and unclear elemental forces live in the Russian people, because its spiritual and cultural forces are poor and insufficient, but because its demands are clear and sharply defined. The calls for what the Russian people want as a nation resound powerfully out into Europe: that it wants to destroy Turkey and Austria, defeat Germany, conquer Constantinople and, if possible, also India.

The great Russian Solowjow characterized the comprehensive Russophobia long before it had been reborn in a new form, long before it had been reborn in the form that it currently poses as a threat from the East. And then he continues:

“And when we are asked how we intend to replace what we have destroyed and lost, how we propose to bless humanity, what spiritual and cultural rejuvenation we can bring into world evolution, then we must either remain silent or spout senseless phrases.”

I do not want to say this; one of the greatest of Russian minds characterizes what appears to be a Russian delusion from the East, thus.

“And,”

he continues,

“If Danilevsky's bitter confession is true, that Russia is beginning to fall ill”

written in the 80s of the nineteenth century,

"then, instead of asking ourselves why Europe does not love us, we should rather be asking ourselves a different, more important question that is closer to us: why and how did we become ill? Russia is still quite physically strong, as it showed in the last Russian war; so our suffering is a moral one. We are burdened, in the words of an old writer, by the sins hidden in the national character and of which we are not aware - and so it is above all necessary to bring these into the light of clear consciousness."

Written in the 80s of the nineteenth century!

“As long as we are spiritually bound and paralyzed, all our elementary instincts must only harm us. The essential, indeed the only essential question for true patriotism is not the question of power and vocation, but of Russia's sins.”

The question may arise: Is this the Russian patriot who has ignited the present war with the ideals of the madness that Soloviev rejects here, or is it Soloviev who, in this way, vigorously points out what Russia needs and what most certainly could not have led to this war?

Italy, to justify what it has developed from its world conquest plan as its current actions – it would have to be much too detailed, one would come to far too much detail if one wanted to somehow characterize the strange words of d'Annunzio, but I think one will be able to add the whole peculiarity of what sounds like a justification from there to the justification of the opposing states, if one merely points out the one thing: The Italian people were looking for a justification for their current actions, and many, many words were spoken; but one in particular was always mentioned, which indicates that The French need a new sophistry, the English need a new mask, the Russians need their old delusion, and the Italians need – a new saint. Through completely profane means, egoism has been canonized! For the word of “holy egoism” as the justifying essence of that which arises from below is repeatedly heard by us anew.

It can be left to objective judgment to decide whether this – as one may speak of the innermost part of the German, as in the sense of the world view of German idealism – whether this justifies more objectively the mission of the German people or the sophistry, the mask, the delusion there and even the new saint there.

In view of the world view of German idealism, esteemed attendees, as in one of the nuances in the essence of the German national soul, to which the German so intimately wants to and must connect today, in view of the many nuances in this national soul, also precisely on this nuance of German idealism, the world view of German idealism, one may also recognize in it that which I believe, that in all modesty – without being guilty of that which is so slanderously spoken about the German from all sides today – in all modesty the German may say that he recognizes in three ways that which is his duty today. He feels in three ways that it is his duty today. He feels justified in this threefold way before the innermost part of his conscience, his conscience as a human being and as a part of history, knowing that he has no right to speak in a sophistical way about other inferior national spirits, about their barbaric habits. He need only call to mind the most sacred part of his own striving and recognize this most sacred part of his own inner striving as the precious, holy legacy of German prehistory. Then he can feel that the one thing by which he knows how to position himself powerfully in the German present and in the right way - is the love of the German past and of all that German past has been handed down to the German of the present, which he must adhere to, for which he stands up in love because he recognizes it in his innermost being, which makes him happy, which inspires him, which lifts him above pain and suffering. It is the love for the past.

And what sustains him through the difficult duties of the present is his faith in the present of the German spirit, in the power that flows from this German spirit into the present and that must bring about what will maintain the German spirit in its position as firmly as it has been handed down from the bright past. Love for the past and faith in the present join the third, which flows from the other two, and which pours into the soul strength and confidence, which follow from the other two in a living way. They join, the first two, love and faith, to the well-founded hope, flowing from the innermost nature of Germanness - to use this Fichte word - for the future fulfillment of that which the past has inspired for the German, for which the German present strives. Love for the past, faith in the present, hope for the future: these are what hold us together in our hard, but also blissful present, in body, soul, and spirit.