The Younger Generation
GA 217
9 October 1922, Dornach
Lecture VII
Yesterday I pointed out how the longing of the young today is permeated by something Janus-headed. Certainly, this appears to be permeated by enthusiasm which comes from opposition. But however strongly, at the beginning of the century, this feeling breathed of the present, whoever has now had experience of it no longer finds the opposition in its full measure. Many do not yet admit this impartially, particularly among the young themselves. Yet it indicates something very significant. The generation which at the beginning of the twentieth century confronted world-evolution in such a way that “facing Nothingness” was a most profound experience—this generation was quite new upon the scene in human evolution. But this feeling must reckon with many disappointments prepared out of its own depths.
The full spread of the sails as it was some twenty years ago is no longer there. Not only the terrible event of World War I has deflated these sails, but certain experiences working outward from within have arisen in young people and modified their original feeling. One such experience became evident, at the beginning of the twentieth century, in the feelings of those who had grown older in years but were not inwardly old. It was not clearly expressed in words, but in other than the literal words there was in the young something which pointed to a responsive tiredness.
Here I am placing before you an idea difficult to describe accurately, because what I really mean is only fully intelligible to those who have experienced the youth movement with a certain awakeness, whereas a great part of humanity has been asleep to this youth movement. When one speaks to people in the way I have during the past days, it is as if one were talking of something quite foreign to them, something they have slept through and towards which even today they adopt an extraordinarily sleepy attitude.
Responsive tiredness, I called it. In ordinary life organic existence requires not only activity but also after accomplished work the accompanying state of tiredness. We must not only be able to get tired, we must also from time to time be able to carry tiredness around within us. To pass our days in such a way that we go to sleep at night simply because it is customary to do so, is not healthy; it is certainly less healthy than to have the due amount of tiredness in the evening and for this to lead in the normal way into sleep. So too, the capacity to become tired-out by the phenomena meeting us in life is something that must be.
When education, for example, has been discussed, I have often heard it said that there must be an education which makes learning a game for children; school must be all joy for the child. Yes, those who speak like this should just try how they can make school all joy for the children, so that the children laugh all the time, so that learning is play and at the same time they are learning something. This is the very best possible educational principle for ensuring that nothing at all is learnt.
The right thing is for teachers to be able to handle what does not give the child joy, but perhaps a good deal of toil and woe, in such a way that the child as a matter of course submits to it. It is very easy to say what should be given to the child. But childhood can be injured through learning being made into a game. For it is essential that we should also in our life of soul be made tired by certain things—that is to say, things should create a responsive tiredness. One must express it thus, though it sounds pedantic. Tiredness existed among the young in earlier times, too, when they had to strive towards something living, a certain science, a certain kind of knowledge. I mean times when those possessing a certain amount of knowledge were still able to stand before the young, who wanted to acquire it, as an embodied ideal. Tiredness certainly existed even then.
My dear friends, there may be some here who take the above statement with mild scepticism. There are many people today who would take it with scepticism, for when it is claimed that those who knew something stood as a kind of ideal for those anxious to learn, this idea appears to many as unrealizable. For, at the present time, it is almost incredible that anybody should be regarded as a kind of embodied knowledge, embodied science, that is striven for as we strive for a personal ideal.
Yet, leaving out ancient times, this feeling was still present in a high degree even in the later Middle Ages. Those wonderful and inspiring feelings of reverence, permeating life with real recreative forces for the soul in the later Middle Ages, have to a great extent been lost. And because the urge that once existed was no longer there, the young could no longer get tired from what they were destined to experience. To give this concrete expression I should have to say: Science—I mean science as it was actually pursued, not what frequently goes by the name of science—could be stored up, something that is not in the heads of human beings but in the libraries. Science gradually was not really wanted any more. Hence it did not make people tired. There was no feeling of being overcome by an urge for it; it no longer made one tired. There was no longer any possibility of getting tired from a knowledge that was acquired with difficulty.
And from this, what permeated the young, at the turn of the nineteenth century, derived a quite special character—the character of the life-force in a human being who goes to bed at night before he is tired and keeps turning and twisting about without knowing why. I do not want to imply anything derogatory, for I am not of the opinion that these forces, which are there at night in the human being when he turns and twists about in bed because he is not tired, are unhealthy forces. I am not calling them unhealthy. They are quite healthy life-forces, but they are not in their proper place; and so it was, with those forces which worked in the young at the turn of the nineteenth century. They were thoroughly healthy forces, but there was nothing to give them direction. The young had no longer the urge to tire these forces by what was told them by their elders. But forces cannot be present in the world without being active, and so, at the time referred to, innumerable forces yearned for activity and had no guiding line.
And these forces appeared, for example, in the academic youth. And then one noticed things which I have indicated during these lectures, but which must receive more careful consideration if we want to understand ourselves.
Since the first third of the fifteenth century, all man's striving for knowledge has, out of intellectuality, taken on a character pre-eminently adapted to science, which hardly touches the human being at all. People no longer feel how the human element holds sway in writings of the twelfth or thirteenth century, for instance. This does not imply that we have to return to the twelfth or thirteenth century, to implicit belief in all we find there. We shall certainly not comply with the demands of certain churches in this direction.
But because of the indifference with which people study nowadays what is to be found in a chapter of modern biology—or of some other subject—it is impossible to understand what Albertus Magnus wrote. In that way we do not get to know what he wrote at all. We must take the book and sit down to it as if we were sitting down in front of another human being, because what he says cannot be taken with indifference, or objectively as one says; the inner being, the life of soul, is engaged, it rises and fails, and is quickened to movement. The life of soul is at work when we read even the driest chapter written at that time, by an Albertus Magnus, for instance. Quite apart from the fact that in these writings there is still the power of pictorial expression for what appear abstract things, there is always something in the general ideas which gives us a feeling of movement that we might be working with spade and shovel—from the point of view of our life of soul, that is—everything is brought into splendid human activity; through the pictures we are given we sense that the one who possesses this knowledge has full confidence in what he is imparting.
For such people it was not a matter of indifference if they discovered something of which they thought that in the eyes of God it could be either pleasing or displeasing. What a difference there is between the picture given, let us say, by Albertus Magnus, as the great scholar of the Middle Ages, and one of the eminent minds of the nineteenth century, as, for example, Herbart—one could name others but Herbart had a great influence on education up to the last third of the nineteenth century—whoever realizes what a difference there is must see it like this: Albertus Magnus seems to come before us as a kind of fiery luminous cloud. What he does when he devotes himself to knowledge is something that lights up in him or becomes dim. We feel him as it were in a fiery, luminous cloud, and gradually we enter this fire, because if one possesses the faculty of getting inside such a soul, even if for the modern soul it is antiquated, in steeping oneself in what is moral, writing about it, speaking about it, or only studying it, it is not a matter of indifference whether in the eyes of a divine-spiritual Being one is sympathetic or antipathetic. This feeling of sympathy or antipathy is always present.
On the other hand, if according to the objective scientific method, Herbart discusses the five moral ideas: good-will, perfection, equity, rights, retribution—well, here we have not a cloud which encircles us with warmth or cold but something that gradually freezes us to death, that is objective to the point of iciness. And that is the mood that has crept into the whole nature of knowledge and reached its climax at the end of the nineteenth century.
And so knowledge gradually became something to which people devoted themselves in a way that even outwardly was quite remarkable. It was only at the lecture-desk that one got to know those represented as men of knowledge. I do not know if others as old as myself have had similar experiences. But in the nineties of last century I was always having cause for annoyance. At that time I used to be mixing in all kinds of learned circles, and there I had much reason to rejoice, and was eager to discuss many questions. One could look forward to such conversations and say to oneself: Now we shall be able to discuss, let us say, “the difference between epigenesis and evolution”—and so on.
Yes, one might begin like that but very soon one heard: No, there is to be no “talking shop.” Anything that savored of talking shop was taboo. The man who knew his subject was only heard from the platform and when he left it he was no longer the same person. He took the line of speaking about everything under the sun except his own special subject. In short, life in science became so objective that those with a special subject treated this too very objectively, and wanted to be ordinary men when not obliged to deal with their subject.
Other experiences of a similar kind could be related. I have said this just for the sake of elucidation. But I will tell you the real point in another way. We may find that the teacher hands on to the young things he has only half learnt. We find here or there, for example, those who teach standing before their class with a note-book, or even a printed book by someone else—for all I know, the note-book too may contain things written by other people, but I will not assume that—and boldly setting to work to give his lesson out of this book. By such a procedure he is presupposing that there is no super-sensible world at all. How is it that people give their lessons from a note-book or some other book, thus presupposing that no super-sensible world exists?
Here too Nietzsche had one of his many interesting flashes of insight. He called attention to the fact that within every human being another is hidden. This is taken to be a poetic way of speaking, but it is no such thing. In every human being another is hidden! This hidden being is often much cleverer than the one to be seen. In the child, for example, this hidden being is infinitely wiser. He is a super-sensible reality. He is there within the human being, and if we sit in front of a class of say, thirty pupils, and teach with the help of a book or a notebook, we may perhaps be able to train these thirty pupils to regard this, in their visible selves, as something natural, but—of this we can be quite certain—all the thirty invisible human beings sitting there are judging differently. They say: “He is wanting to teach me something that he has first to read. I should like to know why I am expected to know what he is reading. There is no reason for me to know what he is only now reading for himself. He doesn't know it himself, otherwise he wouldn't be so uncertain. I am still very young and am expected to learn what he, who is so much older, doesn't know even yet and reads to me out of a book!”
These things must be taken concretely. To speak of a super-sensible world does not mean merely to lose oneself in phantastic mysticism and to talk of things which—I say this in inverted commas—are “hidden” from one; to speak of super-sensible worlds means in the face of life itself to speak about actual realities. We are speaking of actual realities when we speak as the thirty invisible children about the teacher of the thirty visible ones who perhaps on account of discipline were too timid to say this aloud. If we think it through, it does not seem so stupid; the statements of these thirty invisible, super-sensible beings are, in fact, quite reasonable.
Thus, we must realize that in the young individuality sitting at the feet of someone who is to teach or educate, much goes on that is entirely hidden from outer perception. And that was how there arose deep aversion to what came in this way. For naturally one could not have a great deal of confidence in a man who faced the hidden being in one in such a way that this job of his had become as objective as the approach to knowledge generally at the end of the nineteenth century. So a deep antipathy was felt; one simply did not try to take in hand what should have carried one through life, and consequently could not get tired from it. There was no desire to have what would have made one tired. And nobody knew what to do with the forces which could have led to the tiredness.
Now one could also meet on other ground those who were in the youth movement at the turn of the nineteenth century. Often they were not young physically—mostly very old. They were to be met in movements like the theosophical movement. Many were no longer young, yet had a feeling towards what contemporary knowledge gave them similar to the young. They did not want this knowledge, for it could no longer make them tired. Whereas the young, as the result of this incapacity to get tired, raged,—forgive the expression—many theosophists were looking in their theosophy for a kind of opiate. For what is contained in theosophical literature is to a great extent a sleeping draught for the soul. People were actually lulling themselves to sleep. They kept the spirit busy—but look at the way in which they did so. By inventing the maddest allegories! It was enough to drive a sensitive soul out of its body to listen to the explanations given to old myths and sagas. And oh! what allegories, what symbols! Looked at from the biology of the life of soul, it was sheer narcotics! It would really be quite good to draw a parallel between the turning and twisting in bed after spending a day that has not been tiring and the taking of a sleeping draught in order to cripple the real activity of the Spirit.
What I describe are not theories but moods of the age, and it is imperative to become familiar with these moods by looking from every angle at what was there. This incapacity to get tired at the turn of the nineteenth century is extraordinarily significant. Yes, but this led to the impossibility of finding anything right, for human evolution had arrived at a point where people said with great enthusiasm: “We shall allow nothing to come to us from outside; we want to develop everything from within our own being. We want to wander through the world and wait until there comes out of our own inner being what neither parents, nor teachers, nor even the old traditions can give us any longer. We want to wait for the New to approach us.”
My dear friends, ask those who have spoken in such a way whether this new thing has come to them, whether ready-prepared it has dropped into the laps of those who have had this great longing. Indeed the intoxication of those times is beginning in some degree to be followed by the “morning after” headache. My only aim is to characterize, not to criticize. The first thing that arose was a great rejection, a rejection of something which was there, which man could not use for his innermost being. And behind this great rejection there was hidden the positive—the genuine longing for something new.
But this genuine longing for what is new can be fulfilled in no other way than by man permeating himself with something not of this earth. Not of this earth in the sense that when man only lets soul and body function as they do, nothing can come with the power really to satisfy. The human being unwilling to take in anything is like a lung which finds no air to breathe. Certainly a lung which finds no air to breathe may first, before it dies, even if only for a moment, experience the greatest thirst for air. But the lung cannot out of itself quench this thirst for air; it has to allow for the air to come to it. In reality the young who honestly feel the thirst of which we have been speaking, cannot but long for something with which to be in harmony, that does not come only out of himself like the science that has grown old and is no longer wholesome for the soul to breathe in.
That was felt in the first place but far too little that a new young science must be there, a new spiritual life, able once again to unite with the soul.
Now what belongs to present and future ages must link itself with older phenomena of human evolution. The difference consists in these old phenomena of human evolution arising from a life of soul that was full of pictures and dream-like, whereas the life of soul we bear within us and towards which we are still striving, must become fully conscious. But we must in many respects go back to older contents of the soul.
Now I should like to turn your mind's eye to a constitution of the Spirit prevailing in old Brahmanism in the ancient East. The old Brahmin schools spoke of four means to knowledge on the path of life. And these four means for gaining knowledge are—well, it is difficult to give ancient thoughts in a suitable form considering we are living not only centuries but thousands of years later—but, in order to get somewhere near the mark, I will depict these four means to knowledge in the following way. First, there was that which hovered, as it were, midway between tradition and remembrance, something connected with the Sanscrit root smrti (s-mr-ti—Tradition, Remembrance.) which at present man only has as idea. But it can be described. Everyone knows what remembrance, personal remembrance is. These people did not connect certain concepts with personal remembrance in the rigid way we do, where the idea I have here in mind was concerned. What they remembered out of their own childhood became one with what their fathers and grandfathers had told them. They did not distinguish between what they themselves remembered and what they received through tradition. If you were to practise a more subtle psychology, you would notice that actually these things flow together in what lives in the soul of the child, because the child takes in a great deal that is based on tradition. The modern human being sees only that he acquired it as a child. The ancient Indian did not see this. He paid much more heed to its content, which did not lead him into his own childhood but to his father, grandfather and great-grandfather. Thus tradition and personal remembrance flowed into each other indistinguishably. That was the first means of acquiring knowledge.
The second means for acquiring knowledge was what we might describe as “being represented”, (not a “representation” as the word is applied in ordinary intercourse today, but literally—an “appearing before the eyes”)—what we call “perception.”
The third means to knowledge was what we might call thinking that aims at synthesis.
Thus we could say: remembrance with tradition, observation, and the thinking that aims at synthesis.
But a fourth means for acquiring knowledge was also taught with all clarity in ancient Brahmanism. This can be described by saying: Having something communicated by other human beings.
So I ask you to notice that in ancient Brahmanism tradition was not identified with having something communicated by other human beings. This was a fourth means for the attainment of knowledge. Perhaps this will be clearer if we link it up with what is tradition and at the same time of the nature of remembrance. Where tradition is concerned, the human being did not become conscious of the way in which it came to him, he was conscious only of the content. But in man's remembrance he had in mind that it had been communicated to him by someone else. The fact of having received something from others was an awakening force in knowledge itself.
Today many of those who are true sons of the nineteenth century are shaking their heads, if we count this “what is told us by others” as one of the means of acquiring knowledge. A philosopher who dabbled in thinking that aimed at synthesis and regarded what he was told by others as a means to knowledge would never get through with his thesis nor be accepted as a university lecturer. At most he might become a theologian, for theology is judged in a different way. What is at the bottom of all this? In olden times men understood the experience of having something kindled within them in mutual intercourse with another human being. They counted somebody else telling them what they themselves did not know among the things needed for life. It was reckoned so emphatically as one of the factors necessary for life that it was considered equal to perception through eyes and ears.
Today people will naturally have a different feeling—that it is splendid for a human being to tell another what the other does not know, and the world calls for this. But it has nothing to do with the essence of things. What is essential is for observations and experiments to be made and for the results to be clearly expressed. The other has nothing to do with the essential nature of knowledge. Today it will be natural to feel this. But from the human standpoint it is not correct. It is part of life that man should be permeated in soul and spirit by what I described yesterday as a necessary factor of the social life, namely, by confidence. In this particular domain, confidence consists in what one human being tells another, thus becoming for the other a source of experience for soul and spirit.
Confidence must above all things be evoked in the young. Out of confidence there must be found that for which the young are thirsting. Our whole modern spiritual development has moved in the opposite direction. Even in theoretical pedagogics no value is attached any longer to the fact that a human being might have something he would like to tell another which the latter did not know. Theoretical pedagogics was thought out in such a way that as far as possible there was only presented to the young what could be proved in front of them. But that could not be a comprehensive proof. In this regard people have remained at a very infantile stage. Pedagogy envisaged: How can I give the children something under the assumption that they do not believe me? How can I introduce a method which perceptibly proves? No wonder that there came the corresponding echo and that it was henceforth demanded of teachers: Yes, now prove that for me! And now what I am going to say may sound antiquated, my dear friends. But I do not feel it at all antiquated; I feel it as something really young, even as part of the youth movement.
Today when someone stands there before a number of young people who are to be taught, it is as if there sounds towards him out of the young souls even before he is in their presence: “Prove that for me, prove that for me; you have no right to ask us to believe you!” I feel it as tragic—and this is no criticism—that the young should suffer from having been educated by the old so that they have no longer the ability to receive what is necessary for life. And so there arises a tremendous question, which we shall be considering in the next few days. I should like to give you a graphic description of it.
Let us imagine the youth movement progressing and taking hold of younger and younger human beings—finally mere infants. We should then get an infant youth movement, and just as the later youth movement rejects the knowledge that can be given to it, so will the infants who ought still to be at their mothers' breasts, say: “We refuse it, we refuse to receive anything from outside. We don't want our mothers' milk any longer; we want to get everything out of ourselves!”
What I have here presented as a picture is a burning question for the youth movement. For the young are really asking: “Where are we to obtain spiritual nourishment?” And the way in which they have asked hitherto has been very suggestive of this picture of the infants. And so in the coming days we shall consider the question of “the source of life”, after which Faust was striving. The question I have put before you as a picture is intended to stimulate us to contribute towards a Solution, but a solution which may mean something for your perception, for your feeling, even for your whole life.
Siebenter Vortrag
[ 1 ] Gestern versuchte ich darauf hinzuweisen, wie die Sehnsucht, von welcher der junge Mensch heute durchdrungen sein kann, in einer gewissen Beziehung etwas Januskopf-artiges haben müsse. Zunächst erscheint diese Sehnsucht von einer Begeisterung durchdrungen, die aus der Opposition kommt. Aber so stark auch diese Empfindung bei der Jugend im Beginne des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts Gegenwart atmet, können wir heute doch schon sagen: Wer eine Empfindung hat für die gekennzeichnete Sehnsucht, der wird finden, daß dieser Gegensatz heute schon nicht mehr in vollem Maße vorhanden ist. Dies wird vielleicht von vielen Seiten, insbesondere von der Jugend selber, noch nicht unbefangen zugegeben werden. Aber ich denke doch, daß damit auf etwas sehr Bedeutungsvolles hingewiesen ist.
[ 2 ] Die Generation, welche im Beginne des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts vor der Weltentwickelung gerade so stand, daß sie dieses hier charakterisierte «Stehen vor dem Nichts» als eine tiefste menschliche Empfindung hatte, war ja tatsächlich etwas ganz Neues in der Menschheitsentwickelung. Heute steht die Sache schon wiederum so, daß diese Empfindung mit mancher Enttäuschung rechnen muß, die ihr aus ihren eigenen Untergründen heraus bereitet worden ist.
[ 3 ] Die vollen flatternden Segel, die man etwa vor zwanzig Jahren beobachten konnte, kann man heute nicht mehr beobachten. Und es ist nicht allein das furchtbare Ereignis des sogenannten Weltkrieges, welches diese Segel etwas schlaffer gemacht hat. Es ist durchaus so, daß auch in der Jugend von innen heraus gewisse Erlebnisse aufgestiegen sind, welche ihre ursprüngliche Empfindung wesentlich modifiziert haben. Eines wurde ja im Beginne des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts mit aller Wucht deutlich an den Empfindungen, die den schon an Jahren älter gewordenen, aber im Innern nicht alten Menschen entgegenkamen: Es wurde nicht mit deutlichen Worten ausgesprochen, aber es lag in manchen Dingen dem Wortlaut nach, ich möchte sagen hindeutend, in der Jugend etwas, was ich nennen möchte eine entgegengesetzte Müdigkeit.
[ 4 ] Ich stelle da einen Begriff vor Sie hin, der etwas präzis bezeichnen möchte, was schwer präzis zu bezeichnen ist. Es ist auch aus dem Grunde schwer präzis zubezeichnen, weil das, was ich eigentlich meine, vielleicht doch nur für jene ganz verständlich ist, welche die Jugendbewegung in einem gewissen Wachsein durchlebt haben, während ein großer Teil der Menschheit diese Jugendbewegung nicht wachend, sondern im wesentlichen schlafend durchlebt hat. Für vieleMenschen redet man heute, wenn man spricht, wie ich in den vorangehenden Tagen gesprochen habe, doch eigentlich von etwas, das ihnen ganz fern liegt, das sie im Grunde genommen ganz verschlafen haben und demgegenüber sie sich auch heute noch außerordentlich schläfrig verhalten.
[ 5 ] Eine entgegengesetzte Müdigkeit, sagte ich. Im gewöhnlichen Leben ist es ja so, daß nicht nur das Regsamsein zum organischen Dasein gehört, sondern auch das Ermüdetsein nach getaner Arbeit etwas ist, was eben notwendig zum Leben dazugehört. Man muß nicht nur müde werden können, sondern man muß auch wirklich von Zeit zu Zeit Ermüdung in sich herumtragen können. Es ist ganz gewiß nicht gesund, wenn wir den’Tag so zugebracht haben, daß wir abends nur darum einschlafen, weil es eben Gewohnheit ist, sich abends schlafen zu legen. Es ist das ganz gewiß weniger gesund, als wenn wir abends das ordnungsmäßige Maß von Ermüdung haben und diese Ermüdung uns, ich möchte sagen, in normaler Weise in den Schlafzustand hineintreibt. So ist auch das Ermüdet-werden-Können gegenüber denjenigen Erscheinungen, die uns im Leben entgegentreten, etwas, was sein muß.
[ 6 ] Ich habe oftmals, wenn zum Beispiel über die Pädagogik gesprochen wurde, gehört, man müsse eine Pädagogik haben, welche für die Kinder das Lernen zum Spiele macht, das Kind müsse in der Schule lauter Freude haben. Die so reden, sollten nur einmal versuchen, wie sie das zustandebringen, daß die Kinder lauter Freude in der Schule erleben, immerfort lachen können, daß das Lernen für sie ein Spiel ist und sie dennoch etwas lernen. Es ist nämlich diese pädagogische Anweisung die allerbeste, um es gründlich dahinzubringen, daß nichts gelernt wird.
[ 7 ] Das Richtige ist, daß man als Erzieher imstande ist, auch dasjenige, was dem Kinde nicht Freude macht, sogar im Augenblicke vielleicht große Mühen und Schmerzen macht, so zu behandeln, daß das Kind sich dem in einer selbstverständlichen Weise unterzieht. Man kann sehr leicht sagen, was man dem Kinde beibringen soll. Aber durch ein bloßes Im-Spielen-Lernen kann dem Kinde die ganze Kindheit verdorben werden. Denn es ist notwendig, daß der Mensch auch seelisch durch gewisse Dinge ermüdet, daß sie also Mühe erzeugend sind. Man muß sich so ausdrücken, auch wenn es pedantisch klingt. Ermüdung gab es für die jungen Leute auch in jenen Zeiten, in denen sie sich zu einem gewissen Wissen, zu einer gewissen Erkenntnis wie zu einem Lebendigen hinaufranken mußten, in den Zeiten, in denen diejenigen, die schon etwas wußten, vor den jungen Leuten, die lernen wollten, noch wie eine Art verkörperten Ideals standen. Ermüdung war auch da vorhanden.
[ 8 ] Ich weiß nicht, meine lieben Freunde, ob jetzt nicht solche unter Ihnen sind, die den eben ausgesprochenen Satz mit einer leisen Skepsis begleiten. Jedenfalls gibt es in der Gegenwart sehr viele Leute, die diesen Satz mit einiger Skepsis begleiten würden. Denn wenn da behauptet wird: Es standen einmal diejenigen, die etwas wußten, wie eine Art verkörperten Ideals vor denjenigen, die etwas lernen wollten, — so wird manchen diese Idee als etwas Unrealisierbares erscheinen. Es ist ja in der Gegenwart fast nicht zu denken, daß man zu jemand wie zu einer Art verkörperter Erkenntnis, verkörperten Wissens hinschaut, dem man wie einem persönlichen Ideale nachstrebt. Und dennoch war, von alten Zeiten ganz abgesehen, dieses Gefühl auch noch im späteren Mittelalter in hohem Maße vorhanden. Uns sind jene wunderbaren, befeuernden und das Leben mit wirklichen seelischen Neubildungskräften durchziehenden Verehrungsgefühle, die selbst im späteren Mittelalter noch vorhanden waren, zum großen Teile verlorengegangen. Weil der Drang, der einstmals die Menschen für die Wissenschaft befeuerte, nicht mehr da war, konnte die Jugend an dem Studium gewissermaßen nicht einmal mehr richtig ermüden. Wollte ich mich konkreter ausdrücken, so müßte ich sagen: Die Wissenschaft war zu etwas geworden, was nicht in den Menschenköpfen lebte, sondern in den Bibliotheken aufgehoben wurde. Die Wissenschaft war allmählich etwas geworden, was man eigentlich gar nicht mehr haben wollte. Daher ermüdete man nicht mehr an ihr. Weil man sich gar nicht von dem Drange nach ihr durchzogen fühlte, ermüdete man nicht mehr an ihr. Es fehlte einem die Möglichkeit, an der zu erringenden Erkenntnis zu ermüden.
[ 9 ] Dadurch bekam dasjenige, was die Jugend gerade um die Wende des neunzehnten zum zwanzigsten Jahrhundert durchzog, einen ganz besonderen Charakter: den Charakter, den die Lebenskraft eines Menschen hat, der sich abends ins Bett legt, nicht ermüdet ist und sich daher herumwälzt und nicht weiß, warum er sich wälzt. Nicht, daß ich mit diesen Worten irgend etwas Abfälliges sagen will, denn ich bin gar nicht der Ansicht, daß diese Kräfte, die da abends in dem Menschen sind, der sich im Bette herumwälzt, weil er nicht müde geworden ist, ungesund sind. Es sind ganz gesunde Lebenskräfte, nur passen sie nicht in die Situation hinein, — So war es in gewissem Sinne mit den Kräften, welche die Jugend um die Wende des neunzehnten, zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts beherrschten. Es waren recht gesunde Kräfte, aber Kräfte, für die nichts in der Welt da war, um ihnen eine Richtung zu geben. Die Jugend hatte nicht mehr den Drang, diese Kräfte an dem, wovon die Alten sprachen, zu ermüden. Aber Kräfte können gar nicht in der Welt sein, ohne daß sie sich betätigen, und so konnte man in der angegebenen Zeit eine Unsumme von Kräften sehen, die sich nach Tätigkeit sehnten und keine Orientierungslinie fanden, und diese Kräfte kamen auch zum Beispiel bei der studierenden Jugend heraus.
[ 10 ] Seit dem ersten Drittel des fünfzehnten Jahrhunderts hat eben alles Erkenntnisstreben aus der Intellektualität heraus einen ganz bestimmten Charakter angenommen: der Mensch soll sich an etwas hingeben, was man zwar Wissenschaft nennt, was aber eigentlich den Menschen wenig berührt, ihn wenig angeht. Heute kann man nicht mehr nachfühlen, was für eine Menschlichkeit etwa noch in einer Schrift des zwölften oder dreizehnten Jahrhunderts waltet. Damit soll natürlich nicht gesagt werden, man müsse zu dem Glauben an das zurückkehren, was in den Schriften des zwölften und dreizehnten Jahrhunderts steht. Den Forderungen bestimmter Kirchen in dieser Richtung wollen wir ganz gewiß nicht nachkommen.
[ 11 ] Es ist aber gar nicht möglich, sich mit demselben Grade von Gleichgültigkeit, mit dem man sich heute etwa in die Darstellungen eines biologischen oder anderen Werkes einarbeitet, in das zu vertiefen, was zum Beispiel Albertus Magnus zu seiner Zeit niedergeschrieben hat. Auf diese Weise kann man das gar nicht kennen lernen. Da muß man schon das Buch in die Hand nehmen und ihm so gegenübersitzen, wie wenn man einem anderen Menschen gegenübersäße, wo man auch nicht gleichgültig —- wie man sagt «objektiv» — hinnimmt, was der sagt, sondern wo das Innere, das Seelische engagiert wird, wo es auf und ab wogt, weil es sich regt und in Bewegung ist. Man tut mit seinem Seelischen mit, auch wenn man das trockenste Kapitel der damaligen Zeit, des Albertus Magnus zum Beispiel, liest. Ganz abgesehen davon, daß da die scheinbar abstraktesten Dinge noch mit der Kraft des bildhaften Ausdrucks behandelt werden, und daß man sich eigentlich beim Lesen, auch wenn allgemeinste Ideen behandelt werden, in einer solchen Regsamkeit fühlt, als ob man - seelisch meine ich — mit Schaufel und Spaten arbeiten würde. Ganz abgesehen von dieser schönen menschlichen Regsamkeit, in die man gebracht wird, ist durch die Bildhaftigkeit dafür gesorgt, daß der Erkennende mit seinem Erkennen bei demjenigen, was er da abhandelt, vertrauend dabei ist.
[ 12 ] Es war wahrhaftig für solche Leute nicht gleichgültig, ob sie bei ihrem Suchen irgend etwas fanden, wovon sie meinten, daß es Gott gefallen könnte, oder ob es ihm mißfallen müsse. Und wer sich einmal den Unterschied vergegenwärtigt zwischen dem Bilde, das ein Albertus Magnus als der große Erkennende desMittelalters darbietet, und einem bedeutenden unter den Geistern, die das neunzehnte Jahrhundert vorbereitet haben, zum Beispiel Herbart — ich könnte ebensogut einen anderen nennen, aber Herbart hat einen großen Einfluß auf die Pädagogik bis in das letzte Drittel des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts hinein gehabt -—, dem stellt sich Albertus Magnus überall in einer Art von feuerglänzender Wolke dar. Wenn Albertus Magnus sich der Erkenntnis hingibt, so ist es, wie wenn etwas in ihm aufleuchtet oder abglimmit. Man fühlt ihn wie in einer feurigen, glänzenden Wolke, und wenn man die Fähigkeit hat, sich in eine solche Seele hineinzuversetzen, kommt man nach und nach selber in dieses Feuer hinein. Wenn es auch für die heutige Seele antiquiert ist, man fühlt bei Albertus Magnus, daß es nicht gleichgültig ist, wenn man sich in Sittliches vertieft, es aufschreibt, es ausspricht oder auch nur durchdenkt, ob man dabei einem göttlichgeistigen Wesen sympathisch oder antipathisch wird. Dieses Gefühl, ob man da sympathisch oder antipathisch wird, spielt immer mit.
[ 13 ] Wenn man sich dagegen vertieft in die Art und Weise, wie bei Herbart objektiv-wissenschaftlich die fünf sittlichen Ideen abgehandelt werden: innere Freiheit, Vollkommenheit, Wohlwollen, Recht, Vergeltung, ja, da ist es nicht eine Wolke, die einen wie mit Wärme und Kälte umfängt, sondern es ist etwas, was einen nach und nach zum Erfrieren bringt, was eben objektiv bis zur Frostigkeit wird. Und das ist ja die Stimmung, die sich in alles Erkenntniswesen hineingeschlichen und ihre Kulmination erlangt hat mit dem Ende des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts.
[ 14 ] So gab man sich allmählich allem Erkenntniswesen in einer Weise hin, die einem auch äußerlich stark entgegentrat. Man erlebte diejenigen, die einem als Erkennende vorgestellt wurden, sozusagen nur noch auf dem Katheder. Ich weiß nicht, ob andere, die so alt geworden sind wie ich, Ähnliches wie ich erlebt haben. In den neunziger Jahren des vorigen Jahrhunderts hatte ich immer wieder Veranlassung zu einem fürchterlichen Ärger. Da war ich in mancherlei gelehrte Gesellschaften gekommen. Immer wieder hatte ich das Bedürfnis, an solchen gelehrten Gesellschaften Freude zu haben, und es lag mir nahe, dort von dieser oder jener Frage zu sprechen. Ich freute mich darauf, zum Beispiel wieder einmal vom Unterschied von Epigenesis und Evolution zu sprechen. Wenn man aber mit so etwas anfing, dann hieß es sehr bald: Nein, mit der Fachsimpelei wird es nichts. —- Man durfte nur ja nicht irgend etwas reden, was sich damals den Ruf der Fachsimpelei erworben hatte. Man erlebte den Erkennenden nur auf dem Katheder und er war, wenn er vom Katheder hinunterstieg, nicht derselbe, er war ein anderer. Er legte dann so etwas an, daß er von allem möglichen redete, nur nicht von dem, was sein Fach war. Kurz, das wissenschaftliche Treiben wurde so objektiv, daß diejenigen, die irgendein Fach hatten, auch ihr Fach sehr objektiv behandelten und vor allem einmal den Menschen anziehen wollten, wenn sie nicht nötig hatten, ihr Fach zu behandeln. Damit kann man dann noch andere Empfindungen verbinden. Was ich eben gesagt habe, war nur zur Verdeutlichung, aber ich will auf den eigentlichen Kern der Sache noch auf eine andere Art hindeuten.
[ 15 ] Der Lehrer kann das, was er halbwegs gelernt hat, so oder so an die Jugend heranbringen. Man erlebt zum Beispiel, daß einer, der etwas an die Jugend heranbringen will, mit einem Notizbuch oder sogar mit einem gedruckten Buche, das nicht von ihm ist - vielleicht enthält auch das Notizbuch manchmal Dinge, die nicht von ihm sind, ich will das aber nicht voraussetzen -, vor seiner Klasse steht und wacker aus diesem Buche heraus drauflos unterrichtet. Dabei setzt man nun wirklich voraus, daß es keine übersinnliche Welt gibt.
[ 16 ] Aber wie kommt man denn dazu, zu sagen, daß, wenn einer zu dem Unterrichte mit einem Heft oder mit einem Buche in der Hand geht, er damit die Voraussetzung macht, daß es keine übersinnliche Welt gibt? Auch da hat Nietzsche einen sehr interessanten Lichtblitz gehabt, wie er so manche andere hatte. Er hat darauf aufmerksam gemacht, daß in jedem Menschen ein anderer darinnensteckt. Man nimmt das als eine poetische Formel hin, aber das ist es nicht. In jedem Menschen steckt ein anderer! Der ist oft viel gescheiter als der andere, der in Erscheinung tritt. Beim Kinde ist er zum Beispiel unendlich viel weiser. Er ist eine übersinnliche Realität. Er ist im Menschen darinnen; und wenn man vor einer Klasse sitzt und meinetwillen dreißig Schüler hat und mit Hilfe eines Buches oder Heftes lehrt, dann wird man vielleicht diese dreißig Schüler dazu trainieren können, daß sie das mit ihrem offenbaren Menschen als etwas Natürliches anschauen; aber alle dreiRig verborgenen Menschen, die da vor einem sitzen — dessen kann man ganz sicher sein — urteilen anders. Die verborgenen Menschen sagen: Der will mir etwas beibringen, was er selber in diesem Momente erst ablesen muß. Ich möchte einmal wissen, wozu ich das wissen soll, was der im Momente erst abliest. Es ist ja gar keine Veranlassung für mich, das zu wissen, was der erst abliest. Er weiß es selber nicht, sonst würde er sich nicht mit dem Buche so dahinstellen. Ich bin noch so jung und soll schon wissen, was er, der soviel älter ist, selber nicht weiß und mir vorlesen muß!
[ 17 ] So muß man die Dinge konkret fassen. Von einer übersinnlichen Welt sprechen, heißt ja nicht, sich in phantastischer Mystik zu ergehen und von Dingen zu reden, die einem - ich sage das in Gänsefüßchen — «verborgen» sind, sondern von übersinnlichen Welten reden heißt gerade dem Leben gegenüber von den wirklichen Realitäten sprechen. Man spricht schon von den wirklichen Realitäten, wenn man so spricht, wie die dreißig Unsichtbaren zu dem Lehrer der dreißig Sichtbaren gesprochen haben. Die genieren sich vielleicht nur aus Gehorsam, es laut herauszusagen. Geht man in sein Stübchen und denkt über die Sache nach, so kommt einem das gar nicht so dumm vor; man kann die Aussagen dieser dreißig Unsichtbaren, Übersinnlichen nur als etwas ganz Vernünftiges ansprechen.
[ 18 ] Man muß sich also darüber klar sein, daß in der jugendlichen Individualität, die vor jemandem, der lehren oder erziehen soll, sitzt, gar manches für die äußere Anschauung recht Verborgenes vor sich geht. Und so entstand jene tiefe Aversion dem gegenüber, was überhaupt auf diese Art an einen herankam. Denn natürlich, man konnte ja zu einem Menschen nicht sehr viel Vertrauen haben, der dem andern Menschen in einem aus einem so objektiv gewordenen wissenschaftlichen Betrieb heraus gegenübertrat, wie es am Ende des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts allmählich üblich geworden war. So fühlte man in seinem Innern eine tiefe Antipathie, ging an dasjenige, was einen als Mensch durch das Leben tragen sollte, gar nicht mehr heran und konnte daher auch nicht mehr daran ermüden. Man wollte dasjenige, woran man hätte ermüden können, gar nicht mehr haben. Und so wußte man mit den Kräften, die zum Ermüden hätten führen können, nichts mehr anzufangen.
[ 19 ] Solche Menschen, wie sie an der Wende des neunzehnten zum zwanzigsten Jahrhundert in der Jugendbewegung waren, hat man auch noch auf einem anderen Boden antreffen können. Nur waren sie da physisch manchmal nicht jung, sondern oft sehr alt. Man konnte sie noch antreffen in Bewegungen wie der theosophischen. Es waren zahlreiche Menschen darin, die nicht mehr jung waren, und die doch gegenüber dem, was ihnen die zeitgenössische Erkenntnis gab, ein ähnliches Empfinden hatten wie die Jugend. Sie wollten die zeitgenössische Erkenntnis nicht haben, weil sie an ihr nicht mehr ermüden konnten. Während die Jugend aus diesem Nicht-ermüden-Können heraus — verzeihen Sie den Ausdruck — tobte, suchten viele Theosophen in ihrer Theosophie ein Schlafmittel, eine Art Opium. Denn was in theosophischen Büchern steht, ist zum großen Teil seelisches Schlafmittel. Man lullte sich wirklich ein. Man beschäftigte den Geist; aber sehen Sie nach, wie man ihn oftmals beschäftigte: indem man die tollsten Allegorien erfand! Es war für eine empfindende Menschenseele zum Aus-derHaut-Fahren, alles dasjenige zu hören, was die Leute an Erklärungen für alte Mythen und Sagen erfanden, was da alles an Allegorien und Symbolen erdacht wurde! Seelisch-biologisch gesehen waren das alles Schlafmittel. Eigentlich wäre es ganz gut, einmal in Parallele zu setzen die Art des Sichherumwälzens nach dem Verbringen eines unermüdenden Tages und die Art, sich durch ein Schlafmittel für die eigentliche Regsamkeit des Geistes abzulähmen.
[ 20 ] Was ich Ihnen da schildern muß, sind nicht Theorien. Es sind Stimmungen des Zeitalters, und man muß sich in diese Stimmungen durchaus hineinfinden, indem man die Dinge von den verschiedensten Seiten anschaut. Außerordentlich signifikantist dieses Nicht-ermüden-Können an der Wende des neunzehnten, zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts. Ja, das aber führt dazu, daß eigentlich nichts Rechtes gefunden werden konnte, denn die menschliche Entwickelung war eben an jenem Punkte angelangt, wo man zwar recht begeistert wiederholen konnte: Wir wollen nichts Äußeres an uns herankommen lassen, wir wollen alles aus unserem Innern herausentwickeln, wir wollen durch die Welt wandern und warten, bis aus unserem Innern selber herauskommt, was nicht mehr Eltern und Lehrer und auch nicht mehr die alten "Traditionen geben können; wir wollen warten, bis das Neue an uns herankommt. — Meine lieben Freunde, fragen Sie viele von denen, die so gesprochen haben, ob das Neue an sie herangekommen ist, ob wirklich die Tauben der großen Menschheitserlösung denen, die diese tiefe Sehnsucht entwickelt haben, gebraten in den Mund geflogen sind. Man kann sogar sagen, daß in vieler Beziehung dem für jene damalige Zeit entzückenden Rausche doch mindestens jetzt schon etwas wie ein kleiner, vielleicht auch für manchen schon großer Katzenjammer zu folgen beginnt. Ich will aber nur charakterisieren, gar nicht kritisieren. Das erste, was aufgetreten war, war eine große Ablehnung dessen, was da war, was man aber für sein innerstes Menschenwesen nicht brauchen konnte. Und hinter dieser großen Ablehnung verbarg sich dann das Positive: die wirkliche Sehnsucht nach dem Neuen.
[ 21 ] Diese wirkliche Sehnsucht nach einem Neuen kann nicht anders erfüllt werden als dadurch, daß man sich als Mensch mit etwas durchdringt, was nicht von dieser Erde ist. Wenn man einfach die Seele und den Körper funktionieren läßt, wie sie funktionieren wollen, kommt eben durchaus nicht dasjenige herauf, was den Menschen wirklich befriedigen kann, Der Mensch, der nichts aufnehmen will, gleicht einer Lunge, die keine Atemluft findet. Ganz gewiß, eine Lunge, die keine Atemluft findet, wird vielleicht zunächst, bevor sie erstirbt, wenn auch vielleicht nur für einen Moment, den höchsten Grad von Luftdurst erleben. Aber sie kann nicht aus sich selbst heraus diesen Luftdurst stillen, sondern sie muß die Luft an sich herankommen lassen. In Wahrheit kann gerade derjenige, der als junger Mensch den Durst, von dem wir in diesen Tagen gesprochen haben, ehrlich fühlt, nicht anders als etwas ersehnen, was sich mit ihm zusammenfindet, was nicht nur aus ihm herauskommt, wie eben die alt gewordene Wissenschaft, die keine gesunde Atmungsluft für die Seele mehr ist.
[ 22 ] Das wurde zunächst gefühlt. Aber viel zu wenig wurde gefühlt, daß eine neue, junge Wissenschaft da sein müsse, ein neues Geistesleben, das sich wieder mit der Seele vereinigen kann. Sehen Sie, in vieler Beziehung muß dasjenige, was dem gegenwärtigen und zukünftigen Zeitalter angehört, an ältere Erscheinungen der Menschheitsentwickelung anknüpfen. Der Unterschied besteht darin, daß jene alten Erscheinungen der Menschheitsentwickelung aus einem Seelenleben kamen, das in Bildern lebte und traumhaft war, wogegen das Seelenleben, das wir in uns tragen und dem wir noch zustreben, ein voll bewußtes werden muß. Aber wir müssen in vieler Beziehung wiederum zu älteren Seeleninhalten zurückkommen.
[ 23 ] Da möchte ich Ihren Seelenblick nach einer Geistesverfassung wenden, die im alten Oriente, im alten Brahmanentum heimisch war. In den Brahmanenschulen sprach man von den vier Mitteln, durch die der Mensch sich auf seinem Lebenswege Erkenntnis erwirbt. Es ist schwer, die alten Gedanken ganz in der Form zu geben, die verlangt wird dadurch, daß jene Erkenntnisweise nicht nur Jahrhunderte, sondern Jahrtausende hinter uns liegt. Aber ich will doch, um die Sache annähernd zu treffen, diese vier Erkenntnismittel schildern.
[ 24 ] Das erste ist etwas, was so in der Mitte schwebt zwischen Tradition und Erinnerung, was mit dem Sanskrit-Stamm s-mr-ti zusammenhängt und was man in der Gegenwart nur als Idee hat. Man kann es aber charakterisieren: Jeder weiß, was Erinnerung, persönliches Erinnern ist. So stramm, wie wir gewisse Begriffe mit der persönlichen Erinnerung verbinden, taten es jene Menschen der Idee gegenüber, die ich hier im Auge habe, nicht. Vielmehr floß das, was sie aus der eigenen Kindheit erinnerten, und das, was ihnen der Vater und Großvater gesagt hatten, in eine Einheit zusammen. Man unterschied nicht zwischen dem, was die Menschen selber erinnerten, und was sie überliefert bekommen hatten. Wenn Sie eine feinere Psychologie hätten, würden Sie bemerken, daß diese Dinge in der Seele des Kindes auch heute noch zusammenfließen, weil das Kind ja vieles aufnimmt, was auf Tradition beruht. Der heutige Mensch sieht nur, daß er sich das als Kind angeeignet hat. Der alte Indier sah mehr auf den Inhalt, und das führte ihn nicht in seine eigene Kindheit, sondern zu seinem Vater, Großvater und Urgroßvater hinauf. So war Tradition und persönliche Erinnerung etwas, das ungeschieden ineinanderfloß. Das war das erste Erkenntnismittel.
[ 25 ] Das zweite Erkenntnismittel könnte man heute bezeichnen mit einem «Vorgestelltwerden», aber nicht mit dem Vorstellen eines Menschen, wenn man heute im konventionellen Verkehr den Namen nennt, sondern wörtlich das «Vor-die-Augen-treten»; es war das, was wir heute die Wahrnehmung nennen.
[ 26 ] Das dritte Erkenntnismittel würden wir das zusammenfassende Denken nennen.
[ 27 ] Wir könnten also auch sagen: Erinnerung mit Tradition, Beobachtung und zusammenfassendes Denken.
[ 28 ] Noch ein viertes Erkenntnismittel wird im alten Brahmanentum mit aller Deutlichkeit gelehrt, das man folgendermaßen charakterisieren kann: etwas von anderen Menschen mitgeteilt bekommen.
[ 29 ] Achten Sie bitte darauf, daß im alten Brahmanentum die Tradition mit diesem «etwas von anderen Menschen mitgeteilt bekommen» nicht zusammengeworfen worden ist. Dieses «etwas von anderen Menschen mitgeteilt bekommen» war ein viertes Erkenntnismittel. Vielleicht wird uns die Sache klarer, wenn wir gerade an das anknüpfen, was’Iradition und zu gleicher Zeit erinnerungsgemäß ist. Bei dem, was man Tradition nennt, wurde man sich nicht der Art und Weise bewußt, wie es an einen herangekommen war, sondern nur des Inhaltes. Bei dem vierten Erkenntnismittel aber war die Art und Weise des Herankommens das Wichtige. Bei dem, was man da in seiner Erinnerung hatte, hatte man im Auge, daß man es von einem anderen mitgeteilt erhielt. Das Faktum, eine Sache von anderen mitgeteilt erhalten zu haben, gehört zu dem, was weckend war in der Erkenntnis selber.
[ 30 ] Ich glaube, man wird bei vielen Menschen der Gegenwart, bei so richtigen Söhnen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, ein leises oder vielleicht starkes Kopfschütteln erregen, wenn man ihnen unter den Erkenntnismitteln «Mitteilung von anderen Menschen» aufzählte. Der Philosoph, der mit zusammenfassendem Denken experimentierte und auch die Mitteilungen von anderen Menschen als Erkenntnismittel ansehen würde, käme nicht einmal mit seiner Dissertation durch, geschweige denn als Privatdozent. Höchstens an der theologischen Fakultät käme er durch, weil man das da in anderer Form anerkennt. Was liegt da zugrunde? Da liegt zugrunde, daß man in den alten Zeiten das Erlebnis noch durchschaut hat, das darin besteht, daß ein anderer Mensch im gegenseitigen Verkehr in einem innerlich etwas angezündet hat. Man rechnete das, daß einem andere sagen, was man selber noch nicht weiß, unter die Dinge, die man brauchte, um leben zu können. Man rechnete es so stark unter die Dinge, die man braucht, daß man es der Wahrnehmung durch die Augen oder durch die Ohren gleichstellte.
[ 31 ] Heute wird man natürlich viel eher dieses ganz andere Gefühl haben: Es ist recht schön und gut und die Welt bringt es so mit sich, daß einer dem andern mitteilt, was dieser nicht weiß. — Aber das hat mit dem Wesen der Sache nichts za tun. Mit dem Wesen der Sache hat es zu tun, wenn beobachtet und experimentiert wird und wenn das, was sich dabei ergibt, in klaren Worten ausgedrückt wird. Das andere hat mit dem Wesen der Erkenntnis nichts zu tun. Das ist in der heutigen Zeit das natürliche Gefühl, aber vom menschlichen Standpunkte aus ist das nicht richtig. Vom menschlichen Standpunkte aus gehört es einfach zum Leben, daß man gerade auf geistig-seelischem Gebiete innerlich durchdrungen sein kann von dem, was ich gestern als das Vehikel des sozialen Lebens bezeichnet habe: vom Vertrauen. Auf diesem speziellen Gebiete besteht es darin, daß einem dasjenige, was einem ein anderer Mensch sagt, ein Quell eigenen geistig-seelischen Erlebens wird.
[ 32 ] Was ich gestern als Vertrauen charakterisiert habe, muß vor allen Dingen in der Jugend herangezogen werden. Aus Vertrauen heraus muß gefunden werden, wonach die Jugend dürstet. Unsere ganze neuzeitliche Geistesentwickelung hat sich nach der entgegengesetzten Seite bewegt. Darauf, daß irgend jemand etwas zu sagen hat, was der andere noch nicht weiß und was er ihm deshalb mitteilen will, wurde selbst in der theoretischen Pädagogik gar kein Wert mehr gelegt. Schon die theoretische Pädagogik wurde so ersonnen, daß man dem jugendlichen Menschen möglichst nur das brachte, was sich vor ihm selber bewies. Aber das konnten nicht sehr umfassende Beweise sein. Daher blieb man, in bezug auf das Beweisvermögen, auf einer sehr infantilen Stufe. Die Pädagogik dachte gewissermaßen so: Wie kann ich es machen, daß ich doch noch etwas an die Kinder heranbringe, selbst unter der Voraussetzung, daß sie mir gar nichts glauben? Wie kann ich eine anschaulich-beweisende Methode einführen? — Kein Wunder, daß das entsprechende Echo kam und man nunmehr von den Pädagogen für alles verlangte: Ja, nun beweise mir das! — Und jetzt sage ich eigentlich etwas, was Ihnen vielleicht alt klingen wird, meine lieben Freunde. Aber ich empfinde es gar nicht als alt, sondern gerade als recht jung, auch als einen Teil der Jugendbewegung.
[ 33 ] Wenn man heute erziehen will und vor einer Anzahl junger Leute steht, so tönt es einem, bevor man noch recht an sie herangekommen ist, aus den Kinderseelen entgegen: Beweise mir das! Du hast keinen Anspruch darauf, daß wir dir glauben. — Ich empfinde es als tragisch, daß die Jugend daran leidet - nicht als eine Kritik ist dies gemeint -, daß sie von den Alten so erzogen worden ist, daß sie gar nicht mehr die Begabung hat, zu empfangen, was doch für das Leben notwendig ist. Deshalb entsteht heute vor uns eine ungeheure Frage, die uns in den nächsten Tagen beschäftigen wird. Ich möchte diese Frage ein wenig radikal charakterisieren.
[ 34 ] Denken wir uns einmal, die Jugendbewegung geht fort und ergreift immer jüngere und jüngere Menschen und zuletzt die Säuglinge. Wir bekommen dann die Säuglingsjugendbewegung, und wie die spätere Jugendbewegung dasjenige zurückweist, was man ihr an Erkenntnis geben kann, so werden die Säuglinge, denen die Mutterbrust noch gegeben werden sollte, sagen: Wir lehnen sie ab, wir lehnen uns dagegen auf, daß wir von außen etwas empfangen sollen. Wir wollen die Mutterbrust nicht mehr haben, sondern wir wollen alles aus uns selber haben.
[ 35 ] Was ich Ihnen hier als Bild geformt habe, das ist eine brennende Frage für die Jugendbewegung. Denn eigentlich fragt die Jugend: Wo sollen wir die geistige Nahrung herbekommen? — Und die Art und Weise, wie sie bisher gefragt hat, war so, wie ich es in meinem Bilde von dem Säugling dargestellt habe. Und so wollen wir in den nächsten Tagen herangehen an die Frage nach des Lebens Quellen, nach denen der Faust strebt. Die Frage, die ich in einem Bilde vor Sie hingestellt habe, soll uns Veranlassung geben, einiges zu einer Lösung beizubringen, aber zu einer solchen Lösung, die Ihnen für Ihre Empfindung, für Ihr Gefühl, ja vielleicht für Ihr ganzes Leben etwas sein kann.
Seventh lecture
[ 1 ] Yesterday, I attempted to point out how the longing that can pervade young people today must, in a certain sense, have something of a Janus-like quality. At first glance, this longing appears to be imbued with an enthusiasm that stems from opposition. But however strong this feeling may be among young people at the beginning of the twentieth century, we can already say today that anyone who has a sense of this characteristic longing will find that this opposition no longer exists to the same extent today. This may not yet be freely admitted by many, especially by young people themselves. But I think that this points to something very significant.
[ 2 ] The generation that stood at the beginning of the twentieth century before the development of the world in such a way that it had this “standing before nothingness” characterized here as a deepest human feeling was indeed something completely new in human development. Today, the situation is such that this feeling must reckon with many disappointments that have been prepared for it from its own foundations.
[ 3 ] The full fluttering sails that could be observed about twenty years ago can no longer be seen today. And it is not only the terrible event of the so-called World War that has made these sails somewhat slack. It is quite true that certain experiences have arisen from within the youth that have significantly modified their original feelings. One thing became clear at the beginning of the twentieth century with all its force in the feelings that met people who were already older in years but not old at heart: it was not expressed in clear words, but in some things it lay in the wording, I would say suggestively, in the youth, something I would call a contrary weariness.
[ 4 ] I am presenting you with a term that attempts to describe something that is difficult to describe precisely. It is also difficult to describe precisely because what I actually mean is perhaps only fully understandable to those who experienced the youth movement with a certain awareness, while a large part of humanity experienced this youth movement not with awareness, but essentially asleep. For many people today, when they speak as I have spoken in the previous days, they are actually talking about something that is completely foreign to them, something they have basically slept through and towards which they still behave extremely sleepily today.
[ 5 ] A contrary fatigue, I said. In ordinary life, it is true that not only is activity part of organic existence, but also that fatigue after work is something that is necessary for life. Not only must we be able to become tired, but we must also be able to carry fatigue within us from time to time. It is certainly not healthy if we have spent the day in such a way that we fall asleep in the evening only because it is a habit to go to bed in the evening. It is certainly less healthy than when we have the proper amount of fatigue in the evening and this fatigue, I would say, drives us into a normal state of sleep. Thus, being able to become tired in the face of the phenomena that confront us in life is something that must be.
[ 6 ] I have often heard, for example when talking about education, that we need a form of education that makes learning a game for children, that children should have nothing but fun at school. Those who talk like this should try to achieve this themselves, to make children experience nothing but joy at school, to laugh all the time, to make learning a game for them, and yet still learn something. For it is precisely this pedagogical instruction that is the very best way to ensure that nothing is learned.
[ 7 ] The right thing is for educators to be able to treat even those things that do not give children pleasure, and may even cause them great effort and pain at the moment, in such a way that the child undergoes them as a matter of course. It is very easy to say what children should be taught. But simply learning through play can spoil a child's entire childhood. For it is necessary that human beings also become mentally tired through certain things, that these things require effort. One must express oneself in this way, even if it sounds pedantic. Fatigue was also present for young people in those times when they had to work their way up to a certain knowledge, to a certain insight, as if to something alive, in times when those who already knew something still stood before the young people who wanted to learn as a kind of embodied ideal. Fatigue was also present there.
[ 8 ] I don't know, my dear friends, whether there are some among you who view the sentence just spoken with a slight skepticism. In any case, there are many people today who would view this statement with some skepticism. For when it is claimed that there were once those who knew something who stood before those who wanted to learn something like a kind of embodied ideal, this idea will seem unrealizable to many. Nowadays, it is almost unthinkable that one would look up to someone as a kind of embodied knowledge, embodied wisdom, whom one strives to emulate as a personal ideal. And yet, quite apart from ancient times, this feeling was still very much present in the late Middle Ages. We have largely lost those wonderful, inspiring feelings of reverence that permeated life with real spiritual regenerative powers and were still present even in the late Middle Ages. Because the urge that once fired people's enthusiasm for science was no longer there, young people could not even really tire of studying. To put it more concretely, I would have to say that science had become something that did not live in people's minds but was kept in libraries. Science had gradually become something that people no longer really wanted. That is why they no longer tired of it. Because they did not feel driven by a desire for it, they no longer tired of it. They lacked the opportunity to tire of the knowledge to be gained.
[ 9 ] This gave what was going through the youth at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century a very special character: the character of the vitality of a person who goes to bed in the evening, is not tired, and therefore tosses and turns and does not know why he is tossing and turning. I do not mean to say anything derogatory by this, for I do not believe that these forces that are present in a person who tosses and turns in bed at night because he is not tired are unhealthy. They are perfectly healthy life forces, but they do not fit into the situation. This was true, in a certain sense, of the forces that dominated young people at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They were quite healthy forces, but forces for which there was nothing in the world to give them direction. Young people no longer felt the urge to exhaust these forces in what the older generation talked about. But forces cannot exist in the world without being active, and so in the period mentioned above, one could see an enormous amount of forces longing for activity and unable to find any direction, and these forces also emerged, for example, among young students.
[ 10 ] Since the first third of the fifteenth century, all intellectual pursuit of knowledge has taken on a very specific character: man should devote himself to something that is called science, but which actually touches him little and concerns him little. Today, it is no longer possible to understand what kind of humanity still prevailed in a text from the twelfth or thirteenth century. This is not to say, of course, that we must return to the beliefs found in the writings of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. We certainly do not want to comply with the demands of certain churches in this regard.
[ 11 ] However, it is not possible to delve into what Albertus Magnus, for example, wrote in his time with the same degree of indifference with which one today studies a biological or other work. One cannot get to know it in this way. You have to pick up the book and sit down with it as if you were sitting opposite another person, where you do not accept what they say indifferently – as one says, “objectively” – but where your inner self, your soul, is engaged, where it surges up and down because it is stirred and in motion. You engage with your soul, even when you read the driest chapter of the time, Albertus Magnus, for example. Quite apart from the fact that even the most abstract things are treated with the power of pictorial expression, and that when reading, even when the most general ideas are being discussed, one feels so animated that it is as if one were working with a shovel and spade — spiritually, I mean. Quite apart from this beautiful human liveliness into which one is brought, the pictorial nature of the text ensures that the reader is confident in his understanding of what he is dealing with.
[ 12 ] It was truly not a matter of indifference to such people whether they found anything in their search that they thought might please God or that would displease Him. And anyone who considers the difference between the image presented by Albertus Magnus as the great scholar of the Middle Ages and an important figure among the minds that prepared the way for the nineteenth century, for example Herbart—I could just as well have mentioned another, but Herbart had a great influence on education until the last third of the nineteenth century — Albertus Magnus is depicted everywhere in a kind of fiery cloud. When Albertus Magnus devotes himself to knowledge, it is as if something in him lights up or glows. One feels him as if in a fiery, shining cloud, and if one has the ability to put oneself in such a soul, one gradually enters into this fire oneself. Even if it seems antiquated to the modern soul, one senses in Albertus Magnus that it is not indifferent whether one immerses oneself in morality, writes it down, expresses it, or even just thinks it through, whether one thereby becomes sympathetic or antipathetic to a divine spiritual being. This feeling of becoming sympathetic or antipathetic always plays a role.
[ 13 ] If, on the other hand, one delves into the way in which Herbart deals with the five moral ideas in an objective, scientific manner: inner freedom, perfection, benevolence, justice, retribution, then it is not a cloud that envelops you with warmth and cold, but something that gradually freezes you to death, something that becomes objectively frosty. And that is the mood that crept into all knowledge and reached its culmination at the end of the nineteenth century.
[ 14 ] Thus, people gradually devoted themselves to all forms of knowledge in a way that was also strongly evident on the outside. Those who were presented as knowledgeable were experienced, so to speak, only from the lectern. I do not know whether others who have grown as old as I have experienced something similar. In the 1890s, I repeatedly had cause for terrible annoyance. I had come into contact with various learned societies. Again and again, I felt the need to enjoy such learned societies, and it seemed natural to me to talk about this or that question there. I looked forward, for example, to talking once again about the difference between epigenesis and evolution. But as soon as you started talking about such things, you would soon hear: No, let's not get into technical jargon. — You were not allowed to say anything that had earned the reputation of technical jargon at the time. You only encountered the knowledgeable on the lectern, and when they stepped down from the lectern, they were not the same person, they were someone else. They would then talk about all sorts of things, just not about their field of expertise. In short, scientific activity became so objective that those who had a particular field of expertise also treated their field very objectively and, above all, wanted to attract people when they did not need to deal with their field. Other feelings can also be associated with this. What I have just said was only for clarification, but I want to point out the real core of the matter in another way.
[ 15 ] Teachers can impart what they have learned reasonably well to young people in one way or another. For example, you see someone who wants to teach young people something, standing in front of their class with a notebook or even a printed book that isn't theirs—maybe the notebook also has stuff in it that isn't theirs, but I don't want to assume that—and they bravely start teaching from that book. In doing so, they're really assuming that there's no supernatural world.
[ 16 ] But how can one say that when someone goes to class with a notebook or a book in their hand, they are assuming that there is no supernatural world? Here, too, Nietzsche had a very interesting flash of insight, as he had many others. He pointed out that there is another person inside every human being. We accept this as a poetic formula, but it is not. There is another person inside every human being! This person is often much smarter than the one who appears on the surface. In children, for example, it is infinitely wiser. It is a supernatural reality. It is inside human beings; and if you sit in front of a class and, for my sake, have thirty students and teach them with the help of a book or a notebook, then you may be able to train these thirty students to regard this as something natural with their apparent human nature; but all three hidden human beings sitting there—you can be quite sure of that—will judge differently. The hidden human beings say: He wants to teach me something that he himself has to read at this moment. I would like to know why I should know what he is reading at this moment. There is no reason for me to know what he is reading. He doesn't know it himself, otherwise he wouldn't be standing there with the book. I am still so young and already supposed to know what he, who is so much older, does not know himself and has to read to me!
[ 17 ] That is how one must view things concretely. To speak of a supernatural world does not mean indulging in fantastical mysticism and talking about things that are — I say this in quotation marks — “hidden” from us, but rather to speak of supernatural worlds means to speak of the real realities of life. One is already speaking of real realities when one speaks as the thirty invisible men spoke to the teacher of the thirty visible men. Perhaps they are only embarrassed to say it out loud out of obedience. If you go into your room and think about it, it doesn't seem so stupid; you can only address the statements of these thirty invisible, supersensible beings as something quite reasonable.
[ 18 ] One must therefore be aware that in the youthful individuality that sits before someone who is supposed to teach or educate, there is much going on that is quite hidden from external observation. And so arose that deep aversion to anything that approached one in this way. For, of course, one could not have much trust in a person who approached another human being from such an objective scientific perspective, as had gradually become customary at the end of the nineteenth century. Thus, one felt a deep antipathy within oneself could no longer relate to what was supposed to carry you through life as a human being, and therefore could no longer grow weary of it. You no longer wanted what you could have grown weary of. And so you no longer knew what to do with the forces that could have led to weariness.
[ 19 ] Such people, as they were in the youth movement at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century, could also be found on other grounds. Only there they were sometimes not physically young, but often very old. They could still be found in movements such as theosophy. There were numerous people in these movements who were no longer young, yet who had a similar feeling to the youth towards contemporary knowledge. They did not want contemporary knowledge because they could no longer tire of it. While the youth raged out of this inability to tire — forgive the expression — many theosophists sought in their theosophy a sleeping pill, a kind of opium. For what is written in theosophical books is largely a spiritual sleeping pill. People really lulled themselves to sleep. They occupied the mind, but look how they often occupied it: by inventing the most incredible allegories! It was enough to drive a sensitive soul out of its wits to hear all the explanations people invented for ancient myths and legends, all the allegories and symbols they came up with! From a spiritual-biological point of view, these were all sleeping pills. Actually, it would be quite good to draw a parallel between the way we toss and turn after a tireless day and the way we dull the actual activity of the mind with a sleeping pill.
[ 20 ] What I am describing to you are not theories. They are moods of the age, and one must find one's way into these moods by looking at things from different angles. This inability to tire at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is extremely significant. Yes, but this leads to the fact that nothing really right could be found, because human development had reached the point where one could repeat with great enthusiasm: We will not let anything external come to us, we will develop everything from within ourselves, we will wander through the world and wait until what our parents and teachers and even the old traditions can no longer give us comes forth from within ourselves; we will wait until the new comes to us. My dear friends, ask many of those who spoke in this way whether the new has come to them, whether the doves of the great redemption of humanity have really flown into the mouths of those who developed this deep longing. One can even say that in many respects, the intoxication that was so delightful at that time is now at least beginning to turn into something like a slight, perhaps for some even a great hangover. But I only want to characterize, not criticize. The first thing that arose was a great rejection of what was there, but which one could not use for one's innermost human being. And behind this great rejection lay the positive: the real longing for the new.
[ 21 ] This real longing for something new can only be fulfilled by allowing oneself to be permeated by something that is not of this earth. If one simply allows the soul and the body to function as they want to, then what can truly satisfy a human being will not emerge. A person who does not want to take anything in is like a lung that cannot breathe. Certainly, a lung that cannot breathe will perhaps experience the highest degree of thirst for air before it dies, even if only for a moment. But it cannot quench this thirst for air from within itself; it must allow the air to come to it. In truth, it is precisely those who, as young people, honestly feel the thirst we have been talking about these days who cannot help but long for something that comes together with them, something that does not come only from within them, such as the science that has grown old and is no longer healthy breathing air for the soul.
[ 22 ] This was felt at first. But far too little was felt that a new, young science must be there, a new spiritual life that can reunite with the soul. You see, in many respects, what belongs to the present and future age must tie in with older manifestations of human development. The difference is that those old manifestations of human development came from a soul life that lived in images and was dreamlike, whereas the soul life that we carry within us and to which we still aspire must become fully conscious. But in many respects we must return to older soul contents.
[ 23 ] I would like to turn your soul's gaze to a state of mind that was native to the ancient Orient, to ancient Brahmanism. In the Brahmin schools, they spoke of the four means by which human beings acquire knowledge on their path through life. It is difficult to convey the ancient ideas in the form required, because that way of knowing lies not only centuries but millennia behind us. But in order to approximate the matter, I will describe these four means of knowledge.
[ 24 ] The first is something that hovers somewhere between tradition and memory, which is related to the Sanskrit root s-mr-ti and which we now only have as an idea. However, it can be characterized: everyone knows what memory, personal memory, is. The people I have in mind here did not associate certain concepts as closely with personal memory as we do. Rather, what they remembered from their own childhood and what their fathers and grandfathers had told them flowed together into a single entity. No distinction was made between what people remembered themselves and what had been handed down to them. If you had a more refined psychology, you would notice that these things still flow together in the soul of the child today, because the child absorbs much that is based on tradition. People today only see that they acquired this as children. The ancient Indian looked more at the content, and that led him not to his own childhood, but to his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. Thus, tradition and personal memory were something that flowed together undifferentiated. That was the first means of knowledge.
[ 25 ] The second means of knowledge could be described today as “being presented,” but not in the sense of introducing a person by name in conventional social interaction, but literally “being brought before the eyes”; it was what we today call perception.
[ 26 ] We would call the third means of knowledge summary thinking.
[ 27 ] We could also say: memory with tradition, observation, and summary thinking.
[ 28 ] A fourth means of knowledge is taught very clearly in ancient Brahmanism, which can be characterized as follows: receiving something from other people.
[ 29 ] Please note that in ancient Brahmanism, tradition was not confused with this “receiving something from other people.” This “receiving something from other people” was a fourth means of knowledge. Perhaps the matter will become clearer if we take up what is both tradition and memory. In what is called tradition, one was not aware of the manner in which it came to one, but only of the content. In the fourth means of knowledge, however, the manner of coming to one was important. In what one had in one's memory, one was aware that it had been communicated to one by another. The fact of having received something from others belongs to what was awakening in cognition itself.
[ 30 ] I believe that many people today, true sons of the nineteenth century, would shake their heads slightly or perhaps vigorously if you listed “communication from other people” among the means of knowledge. A philosopher who experimented with synthetic thinking and also regarded communication from other people as a means of knowledge would not even get through his dissertation, let alone become a private lecturer. At most, he would get through at a theological faculty, because there it is recognized in a different form. What is the underlying reason for this? The underlying reason is that in ancient times, people still understood the experience that consists of another person igniting something within us through mutual interaction. They considered what others tell us that we do not yet know ourselves to be among the things we need in order to live. It was considered so essential that it was regarded as equivalent to perception through the eyes or ears.
[ 31 ] Today, of course, we are much more likely to have a completely different feeling: it is all well and good, and it is part of the world that one person tells another what they do not know. — But that has nothing to do with the essence of the matter. The essence of the matter has to do with observation and experimentation and with expressing the results in clear words. The other has nothing to do with the essence of knowledge. That is the natural feeling today, but from the human point of view it is not correct. From a human point of view, it is simply part of life that, especially in the spiritual realm, one can be inwardly permeated by what I yesterday called the vehicle of social life: trust. In this particular realm, it consists in the fact that what another person tells you becomes a source of your own spiritual experience.
[ 32 ] What I characterized yesterday as trust must be cultivated above all in youth. It is out of trust that we must find what youth thirsts for. Our entire modern spiritual development has moved in the opposite direction. Even in theoretical pedagogy, no value was placed on the fact that someone might have something to say that another person does not yet know and therefore wants to communicate to them. Theoretical pedagogy itself was conceived in such a way that young people were taught only what could be proven to them. But this could not be very comprehensive evidence. Therefore, in terms of the ability to prove things, we remained at a very infantile level. Pedagogy thought, in a sense: How can I still teach the children something, even on the assumption that they do not believe me at all? How can I introduce a vivid, demonstrative method? No wonder that the corresponding response came and that educators were now expected to prove everything: Yes, now prove it to me! And now I am going to say something that may sound old to you, my dear friends. But I do not consider it old at all, but rather quite young, even part of the youth movement.
[ 33 ] When you want to educate people today and you stand in front of a group of young people, before you have even really reached them, you hear the voices of children crying out: Prove it to me! You have no right to expect us to believe you. — I find it tragic that young people suffer from this — and I don't mean this as a criticism — that they have been brought up by their elders in such a way that they no longer have the ability to receive what is necessary for life. This is why we are now faced with an enormous question that will occupy us in the coming days. I would like to characterize this question in a somewhat radical way.
[ 34 ] Let us imagine that the youth movement continues and spreads to younger and younger people, and finally to infants. We would then have an infant youth movement, and just as the later youth movement rejects what it can be taught, so the infants, who should still be breastfed, would say: We reject it, we rebel against having to receive anything from outside. We no longer want our mother's breast, we want to have everything from ourselves.
[ 35 ] What I have presented to you here as an image is a burning question for the youth movement. For the youth is actually asking: Where are we to get our spiritual nourishment? — And the way they have asked this question up to now has been as I have depicted in my image of the infant. And so, in the next few days, we will approach the question of the sources of life that Faust is striving for. The question I have presented to you in an image should prompt us to come up with a solution, but a solution that can mean something to you, to your feelings, perhaps even to your whole life.