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World Mysteries and Theosophy
GA 54

17 November 1906, Hamburg

Translator Unknown

The Women-Question

It may perhaps seem strange that something like our theme today, which touches so strongly on current everyday issues, could be considered from the world-view of Spiritual Science, from a view of life and the world today which looks to the very greatest enigmas of human existence. In many circles which occupy themselves with Spiritual Science, or in such circles as have heard something of the spirit in this world-outlook, there is the view that Spiritual Science is something that does not concern itself in any way with current questions, with the interests of immediate life. People believe—some as a reproach to the Theosophical movement, and others seeing this as one of its advantages—that Spiritual Science concerns itself only with the great questions of Eternity, that it holds itself aloof from everyday events. People consider it, in both a good and a bad sense, to be something unpractical. But if, in our time, Spiritual Science is to fulfill a task, a mission, then it must take hold of what moves the heart, it must be able to take up a position with regard to those questions which play into our day-to-day thinking and into our day-to-day striving and hope.

It must have something to say about those questions which are a part of our times. For how could it be that questions which come so close to the human soul—like the question concerning women which is to occupy us today—how could it be that these, too, should not be judged from a world-view which looks to the great problems of human existence. And it is just this that is often and rightly said against Spiritual Science; that it has not found the way to life as it is in reality. Nothing would be more wrong than if Spiritual Science were to be led increasingly into asceticism, into a direction hostile to life. It will prove itself far more by building a real foundation for the practice of life. It must not float in Cloud-cuckoo land or lose itself in bare abstractions, but must have something to say to human beings of the present.

Just as we have spoken here about the social question, today we want to speak from a great cultural standpoint, from a spiritual-scientific standpoint, of the question regarding women. Of course, no one must imagine that Spiritual Science should speak about this question in the same way as do politics or current printed matter. But then again, one should not believe that what, in effect, is a sort of parochial politics is the only thing that is practical. The individual who has always shown himself to be truly practical is the one who can see beyond the immediate present. And who was the practical individual when in the last century the postage stamp had to be invented and introduced into everyday life, and which since then, has transformed the whole of our life of public commerce, our whole social life? It happened little more than fifty years ago. The idea of this arrangement—the practicality of which is doubted today by no one—came at that time from someone not engaged in practical things. The Englishman, Hill, did not work for the Post Office. But one who did, had the following ingenious comment to make; One could not believe that this arrangement would cause such a great change in commercial or business life, but were that to be the case, the post office buildings would not be large enough to cope with the postal demands!

Another example. When the first railway was to be built from Berlin to Potsdam, the head of the Post Office, Nagler said, ‘Well, if people want to throw their money out of the window they might as well do so directly. I send two post-coaches and nobody travels in them.’ And of course you know the other incident which occurred in the Bavarian college of doctors: the learned gentlemen were asked, purely from a practical, medical point of view, if the nervous system could stand it if railways were built. The learned gentlemen said it was unpractical to the highest degree, because it would cause severe damage to the nervous system.

This is by way of illustration of the relation of the ‘practical people’—in matters of the issues of the day—to those who, with somewhat broader vision, see beyond into the future. These, the disparaged idealists who do not remain attached to what has been the ‘done thing’ since the days of yore, these are the really practical ones. And from this point of view Spiritual Science appears also today as a vehicle which carries the answers to many questions—and also for our question today. For this reason anyone who deals with these questions from a higher point of view can accept such a reproach without feeling uneasy, and can remember other examples where, believing they had a monopoly in practicality, people have judged in a similar way.

Few will deny that the question regarding women is one of the greatest present questions of our culture, for today this is simply a fact. There are opponents to certain views on the question of women, but the fact that this question exists will be denied by no one. Yet if we look back to times that are not so far behind us, we find that even the leading scientific and other great minds have seen in the women's question something absurd, something to be suppressed by all possible means. As an example, we can recall the statements of the anatomist, Albert, a truly significant man, who twenty five years ago, pitted himself with the greatest energy against the admission of women into the learned professions, and who, from the standpoint of his anatomical-physiological knowledge, tried to prove that it would be impossible for women to get into the educated professions or ever be able to fulfill the profession of a doctor. With the great authority of natural science it is hardly surprising that one believes those to be capable of judgment who, in relation to the natural-scientific view of the human being, are supposed to know something. A short while ago a booklet came out in Germany: ‘Uber den Physiollogischen Schachsinn des Weibes’ (Concerning the physiological feeble-mindedness of women). This booklet stems from a man Möbius, who indeed, is not at all an insignificant physiologist, who has said some good things, but who, on the other hand, has exposed not so much himself but the science of Physiology to ridicule by presenting, little by little, all the various great personalities of world-historic development of recent times—Goethe, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche—as pathological phenomena. He has done this, furthermore, in such a grotesque and radical manner, that one would have to ask with each genius, ‘Where does the insanity lie?’ Goethe, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche—all are dealt with from the standpoint of psychiatry, of psychological pathology.

When one goes more deeply into these things, they all fall into only one category—one that is characterised by the example of the famous naturalist who tried some time ago to attribute the ‘inferior talent’ of women to the lighter weight of the female brain! This is no fable! This man asserted that the greatness of the spirit was dependent on the size of the brain, and that women, on average, have a smaller brain than men. And quite truly it then happened that the methods of this learned professor were applied to himself. After his death, his brain was weighed, and it turned out that he had an abnormally small brain, a much smaller brain than those women whom he held to be of inferior mind because of their lighter brain weight. It would be mischievous if one were to try and examine, from a psyche-pathological standpoint, a booklet like this one on the physiological feeble-mindedness of women, and if one were to try to catch out the writer in question as happened in the case of Professor Bischoff.

So you can see that the women's question does not bear witness to the fact that those who opposed it were particularly discerning The question regarding women includes far more than that of admitting women into the learned professions, and of the question of women's education. The issue concerning women embraces an economic, a social and a psychological side, and many other aspects as well. But it is precisely the question of women's education that has, in fact, borne fruits. Almost all the opinions in this area that have been formed out of theory have been refuted by actual practice. Little by little women have fought for, and won—in spite of the opposition of the opinions of a man's world—admission to most male professions, including that of lawyer, doctor, philologist and so on. Women have taken up these professions under significantly less favourable conditions than men. One has only to consider under what unfavourable circumstances women have recently entered universities. With the normal educational preparation this is really not to difficult, but women had to get there with very much less preparation. Not only through tremendous hard work, but also through a broad spectrum of abilities, they have for the most part overcome all the difficulties. In determination, in hard work, and also in mental ability they are in no way inferior to men, so that reality in practice, has resolved the matter in a completely different way than many, twenty to thirty years ago, had imagined in theory.

Various professors, led by their prejudices, refused women entry into university. And yet today, very many women graduates stand in the world, in no way less able or less perceptive than men.

This however, illustrates the outer situation alone, and only shows us that we must look more deeply into the nature of the human being, into the nature of women, if we want to understand the matter as a whole. For there is no one today who would not be affected in some way by the significance of this question. Although women have won access to the learned professions—and to numerous others—and although, in actual practice a large part of the question concerning women's abilities has been answered, nevertheless, if we wish to progress consciously, clearly, and with insight, if we wish to discuss this question from all sides, then we must look more deeply into the nature of the human being.

What a lot has been said about the difference between man and woman! Everywhere today you can read in short reviews how many different opinions there are concerning the difference between men and women, and how, from these differing opinions people have tried to form a view concerning the question of women. A great deal has been written on the psychological aspect of the women's question. There is no better book on this aspect—in so far as such books are written by non-theosophists—than the one by a gifted woman who is active generally in present day literature: ‘Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit’ (A critique of femininity) by Rosa Meyreder. You can find different views catalogued elsewhere so let us look at a few of them.

Let us take the man Lombroso. He describes Woman by saying that at the centre of her emotional character is the feeling of submissiveness, the feeling of dependence. George Egerton on the other hand says that every woman who looks dispassionately at a man sees him as a big child, and it is precisely from this that the love of power, of domination comes, which is so totally inherent in a woman that it insinuates itself more and more into the central position in the female soul.

A great scientist, Virchov, says that if one studies Woman from an external, physiological standpoint, one finds gentleness, mildness and calmness to be the basis of her being. Havelock Ellis, an expert of equally high standing in these matters, says that the fundamental characteristic of the female soul is quick temperedness, initiative and daredevilry. Mobius finds the basic feature of the female nature to be conservatism: to be conservative, he maintains, is the life-element of the female soul. Against this we can put the judgment of an old and good expert of the psyche, Hippel. He says that the real revolutionary within humanity is Woman.

Go to the vast majority of people and you will find a very strange but fairly common view of the relation between intellect, feelings and passion in men and women. Then, in contrast look at Nietzsche's view. He says that the intellect belongs primarily to Woman, and feelings and passion to Man. Compare this with the common view. It is the exact opposite. Thus we could say a great deal and, on the one side, could list all the views which ascribe to woman all the passive, the weak qualities, and on the other side all those which maintain the opposite. But certainty comes somewhat to a standstill when so many different views are possible.

Science too has occupied itself a great deal with this question, and Science enjoys great authority. But the statements of scientists concerning the real fundamental characteristics of woman immediately start contradicting one another. And if we move on from scientists and psychologists to cultural history and hold to what has always been said—that man is the really creative active one, and woman more the companion, the follower—then such a view would be prejudiced because we have taken too short a time span into consideration, one has only to look at those peoples who still represent what is left of ancient cultures, or at primitive peoples, and one has only to follow the history of humanity's development to see that there were times once, and there are still such peoples today, in which the woman, in the most eminent sense, participated and participates in ‘masculine’ work.

In short, the opinions vary in all directions. Even more noticeable for us is the fact that a woman of one particular people (or nation or tribe) will differ far less from a man of the same people than from a woman of another. From this we can draw the conclusion that we should not talk at all in terms of man and woman, male and female, but that, alongside the characteristics of sexual gender, there is possibly something far more important in human society than the sexual characteristics of gender and which is quite independent of them. If one looks impartially at the human being, it is usually possible to distinguish what is of necessity connected to all that is related to the sexes, and what points beyond these connections into other realms entirely. Of course a materialistic view of the world and of the human being, which recognises only what can be touched and seen, naturally sees in man and woman only the big physiological differences; and anyone who remains with this materialistic view will simply miss, will overlook something that is far greater and more decisive than sexual differences—he will overlook the individuality which goes beyond gender and is independent of it.

To shed light here, to see the human being here in the right way: this must be the task of a world-view oriented towards the spirit.

Before we look at the women's question from this point of view, we will just look at aspects of what this question represents.

People talk about ‘the women's question’ in general, but this also, like the concept of Woman, is an unacceptable generalisation. One should not really speak of the women's question in general at all, because this question must he modified in relation to the different social classes of humanity. Does the question concerning woman exist in the same way in the lower classes, in the manual-worker class, as in the educated classes? The lowest classes, the actual manual workers, try with all means at their disposal to get their women out of the factories and the textile mills, so that they can be with the family. The higher classes strive for exactly the opposite. They strive to make it possible for the woman of the family to work in the world outside. This then is something of the social aspect of the women's question.

Alongside this, of course, there is also the general social question concerning women which demands for them in the political and cultural context the same rights as those enjoyed by men. People have the view today that they are speaking of things which must follow from the very nature of humanity itself. People do not consider, however, that the life of humanity changes far faster than on the surface it may appear to do. A man, Naumann, who from his political standpoint also occupied himself with the women's question, was at pains to study in connection with this the St. Paul's Church discussions of 1848 in which a lot was said concerning human rights. There they debated to and fro the self-evident rights of man. Nowhere, however, is it mentioned that these rights should be the same for women as for men. That never entered anyone's head. The women's question came into this area only in the second half of the 19th century. And it seems fully justified here to throw up the other question: How is it then that this aspect of the women's question has been considered only in our time? Let us be quite clear about this.

In many ways today the women's question is presented, from both the masculine and the feminine side, as though it is only now that women have to struggle to gain a definite and significant influence in all areas of life. In many respects these discussions are characterised by great shortsightedness, for one must ask oneself: In other times, in all earlier times, have women then had no influence at all? Have they always been fettered beings? It would be ignorance if one were to assert such a thing.

We can look at the age of the Renaissance and take one of the most widely-used books about that period—the book by Burckhardt. Here we see what a profound influence women had, for example, on the whole intellectual life of Italy; how woman stood in the foreground of intellectual life, how they were equal to men and played a great part. And finally, had one spoken of women's lack of influence in the first half of the 19th century to such an individual as Rahel Varnhagen, she would have been astonished that such a theme could have been brought up. She would not have understood how anyone could think in such a way. But there is many a man today who exercises his general right to vote, or even debates in Parliament and gives long speeches, who is truly a non-entity when one thinks of the entire cultural progress that has been brought forth by this woman, Rahel Varnhagen. Anyone who studies the intellectual life of the first half of the 19th century and sees what sort of influence this woman had on the men of the 19th century, will no longer be tempted to say that woman was a being without influence on those times. The matter simply rests on the fact that opinions have changed. One did not believe at that time that one needed a simple right to vote, that one had to debate in Parliament, or that one had to study at university in order to have an influence on the course of culture. One looked at it differently in every way. This is not said with any conservative intention, but as evidence that the whole question is a product of our present culture and can be posed only today in the way it is posed at present, and can be posed only today in all areas of life (not only in the area of higher education).

Just take a look at the relation of man and woman in earlier times when quite different economic conditions prevailed. Look at the peasant woman, the female labourer in earlier centuries. One cannot say that the peasant woman had fewer rights than the peasant, or a more limited sphere of influence. She had one particular department to look after and he another. And it was just the same in the crafts. What in the working classes has today become the real women's question has become so because in past centuries and particularly in the last century, our culture has become, in the greatest sense, a male culture (Männerkultur). The age of the machine is a product of the male culture, and it is simply the quality and nature of this culture that renders far more impossible the way a woman can work and be active than was the case in earlier economic life. Woman is not suited to the factory and there are quite different problems there than when she is engaged in the farmyard, in the house or in the old craft-industries as manageress, contractor or co-worker. Also, as regards the academic professions, everything in our world, in our perception, has changed. Our whole estimation of the professions has become something different. It is not so long ago that what today is regarded as a learned profession was really little more than a higher craft. There was a particular way of being active in law, in medicine, and even a relatively short time ago it would never have entered anyone's head to derive a religious world-view from what was presented in medicine, in law or in natural science. Today it is the specialist knowledge of what is researched in the laboratory that has gradually become the domain of men; and it is from this that a higher world-view is extracted. Earlier, however, like a spirit over everything that was studied in the university faculties, there hovered Religion and Philosophy—and it was within these, to begin with, that higher education was to be sought. The truly human element that which spoke to the heart and soul, that which spoke to the human being of his yearnings and hopes of eternity, that which gave him strength and certainty in life—this element was the same for both men and women, it arose from an origin other than from the laboratory or from physiological research. One could attain to the highest heights of philosophical and religious development without any kind of academic education at all. One could do this at any time—even as a woman. Only because the materialistic age has made so-called positive science with its so-called facts and basis of higher problems only because of this is it so that, alongside the general inclination arising from practical life, another inclination, one of the heart, a longing of the soul had to arise and drive women even to look into the mysteries offered us by the microscope, the telescope, and the research of physiology and biology. For, as long as people thought that decisions could not be made by means of a microscope concerning the life and immortality of the human being, so long as people knew that these truths had to be drawn from quite other sources, there could not be such a clamouring for scientific studies as there is today. We must be aware of this: that the trend of our age has generated this desire for academic education and that the women's question itself has come up in our time through the whole nature of our culture.

However, in contrast to everything that this new age has brought, in contrast to everything that rests on a purely materialistic basis, we also meet, in the spiritual-scientific outlook, a movement that is still little heeded. It is the spiritual-scientific world-view which will have to solve the questions of Life and co-operate in all the cultural streams and strivings of the future. But no one can fail to recognise this world-view when one believes it to be nothing but the imaginings of a wild fantasy. Yet it is the outcome of the spiritual research of those best acquainted with the needs and longing of our time, who take it most seriously. Only those who do not wish to know anything about the needs of our time can still remain distant from this world-stream which extends eminently and practically into all questions. Spiritual science is not something that indulges in unfruitful criticism, it is not something conservative. It regards materialism as justified, and takes into account that it arose in the last century. It was necessary that old religious feelings and traditions lost their importance in comparison to the claims of the natural sciences. Spiritual science can see how it has come about that physiology and biology have become deniers of immortality, even if it doesn't agree with them. This had to happen. But humanity will never be able to live without a glimpse of, without knowledge of real super-sensible, spiritual things. Only for a short time will people be able to keep on making do as they do today with specialist knowledge and with what arises in many ways from this direction as religious results or non-results.

But a time will come when people will feel that the wellsprings of the spirit in life must be opened. And Spiritual Science is the advance post of this battle for the opening of the true spiritual wellsprings of humanity. Spiritual Science will, on a much broader basis, be able again to tell humanity how it is related to the being of the soul, to what rises up above the transient and the fleeting. On a far broader basis than was ever formerly the case in the public world, Spiritual Science will proclaim that which gives certainty, strength, courage and endurance in life, that which can shed light into those questions which occupy day-to-day living and which cannot be solved from the material side alone.

It is a strange coincidence—many will understand this that at the beginning of the Theosophical movement there stands a woman, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky—that precisely here we have the unprecedented experience, that here we have a woman with the most all-embracing mind, with the most penetrating force and energy of mind who has written works compared to which all the spirituality which our culture (Geisteskultur) has otherwise produced is but a trifle.

Now, perhaps you believe nothing of the so-called occult teachings, the so-called insights into the spiritual world that are contained in Blavatsky's ‘Isis Unveiled’ or the so-called ‘Secret Doctrine’—perhaps you believe nothing of this; but take a look at these books some time and ask yourself: ‘How many thinkers of today have known more penetratingly about so many things as Blavatsky?’

The two enormous volumes of The Secret doctrine give information on almost all areas of spiritual life, ancient culture, ancient religion; on all possible branches of natural science, social life, astronomy and physiology. Perhaps what is said there is incorrect; but even if it were, I would still ask you: who is in the position today to speak in such a competent way even if incorrectly—about all these areas, and to show thereby that he has acquainted himself deeply with all of them? you need only take into account not solely the correctness, but also the breadth of mind—which cannot be denied—and you have the example of a woman who has shown, not in this or that branch of human thinking, but in the entire range of human mental and spiritual life what the female mind can achieve with regard to a higher world-view. Even if one takes an unbiased view of Max Muller's works on religious history, and compares their content with the all-embracing content of the Secret Doctrine, one will see how far the latter surpasses the former. Thus it is a strange circumstance that a woman stands at the outset of this Theosophical movement. This is perhaps explained precisely through those things which have also shown us the women's question as arising from our present intellectual and spiritual life.

If we look more deeply into the course of human spiritual development, then what otherwise might astound us will perhaps appear as a spiritual-historical necessity. In order, however, to be able to do this fruitfully, we must briefly look once more into the being of Man. We will give a picture, sketching human nature in broad outline.

What materialism, what the everyday world-view of human beings is aware of, is regarded by spiritual-scientific research, by Theosophy, as just one part of the human being. I can only give you a few rough sketches today. They are not mere imaginings or daydreams, but are things that are as certain as mathematical judgments are for mathematicians.

So, what the human being knows in his everyday view, in his usual knowledge of human beings, is just one part of the human being: the physical body. This human physical body has the same physical and chemical forces, laws and substances that are found outside in so-called inanimate nature. Outside are the forces which form the dead stone and are the ‘life’ within the stone and the same forces are also in the physical body of the human being. Beyond this, however, the spiritual-scientific world-view sees a second body in man's nature, to begin with, which man has in common with plants. Present-day science in its speculations already speaks a little of that which Spiritual Science is pointing to, of a particular ‘life-principle’, for the laws of materialism which, fifteen years ago were still valid for many, have been overcome by those with insight. But present day scientific research will only be able to deduce this second body through a kind of speculation. Theosophical, spiritual research, however, has reference to the testimony of those who have a higher faculty of perception, and who have a similar relation to the average person in the street as does a sighted man to a blind one. This research has reference to the testimony of such individuals who know this second body as something real, something actually there. Anyone who knows nothing of this has no more right to judge than a blind person has the right to pass judgment on colours.

All talk of limits to human knowledge is a nonsense. One should rather ask: Is it not possible for the human being to rise to a higher level of knowledge? Are not what one calls the eyes and the ears of the spirit perhaps a reality? There have always been individuals who have worked on certain latent faculties and who can thus see more than others. Their testimony might be just as valid as the testimony of those who look through the microscope. How many people have actually seen what the scientific history of creation teaches? I would like to ask, how many people have seen what they talk about? How many, for example, have in actual fact, proof of the development of the human embryo? If they were to ask themselves such questions they would see what a blind faith it is that governs them. And if it is a justified faith, then the faith based on the testimony of the Initiates who speak from their spiritual experiences is equally justified.

Thus, in a spiritual-scientific sense, we speak of a second body of man's being. It is the same thing which, in the Christian religion, we find designated by St. Paul as the spiritual body. We speak of the etheric or life-body. Any particular sum of chemical and physical forces would never crystallise themselves into a life form if they were not formed principally by that which permeates every living body as its etheric or life-body. Thus we call this second body the etheric or life body. It is that which the human being has in common with the entire plant and animal world.

But the plant does not have what we call urges, desires, passions. A plant has no inner sensation (Empfindung) of pleasure or pain, for one cannot speak of sensation when one observes that a being reacts only to what is external. One can only speak of sensations when the outer stimulus is reflected inwardly, when it is there as an inner experience. This domain of present-day physiology, which speaks of a body of sensations in the plant, only shows a tremendous dilettantism in the comprehension of such concepts.

Where animal life begins, where pleasure, pain, urges, desires and passions begin, one speaks of the third body of the human being, the astral body. Man has this in common with the whole animal world.

Now there is something in the human being which goes over and beyond the animal world and which makes man the crown of creation. We can best bring this before our souls by making a small and subtle observation.

There is in the whole range of the language one name which differs from all others. Everyone can say ‘table’ to a table, or ‘chair’ to a chair. But there is one name which cannot be used in the same way. No one can say ‘I’ to me and mean me. The word ‘I’ can never fall on our ears when it means me. People have always felt this to be something of essential importance. And one found, even in the most popular of ancient religious faiths, that an important point regarding the soul lay here. Where the soul begins to feel the divine in itself, where it begins in this dialogue with itself to say ‘I’ to itself, to converse with itself in such a way that cannot come from outside, then that is where the divine being of the soul begins its path of development in man. The god in the human being is made known here. The secret and ancient teachings of the Hebrews perceived this. Thus this name was called the unutterable Name of God, the name which means: “I am the I-am”.

In the belief of the Old Testament, this name signified the annunciation of the Godhead in the human soul. For this reason tremendously powerful feelings and sensations went through the throng when the priest announced this name of the Godhead in the human soul: Jahve. This is the fourth body in the human being, with which his external nature ends and his divinity begins. And we have seen how man is guided, as it were, by outer forces upwards to the ‘I’. There he stands, and from then onwards he begin to work in himself. This ‘I’ works downwards into the three other parts of the human being. Be quite clear about this difference that exists between human beings from this point of view. Compare a savage with an average European, or with a noble idealist perhaps Schiller or Francis of Assisi.

If the astral body is the bearer of desires and passions, we must say: the astral body of the savage is completely surrounded by the forces of Nature, but the average European has worked something into his astral body. He says to himself of certain passions and desires, ‘you cannot pursue these’—for he has transformed his astral body. And it has been transformed even more by such a personality as Schiller, and still more by a personality who stands in no relation at all to passions—such as Francis of Assisi—and who has completely purified and is master of this astral body, over all urges and desires. Thus one can say of a human being who has worked on himself, that his astral body consists of two parts. One part is that which is given by Nature, by divine powers; and the other is that part which he himself has developed within it. This second part, the part transformed by the ‘I’, we call Spirit-Self or Manas.

Now there are things which go more deeply still into the nature of man, where the ‘I’ works down further than just into the astral body. As long as you check your vices simply by moral and legal maxims, you are working on your astral body. But there are other cultural means whereby the ‘I’ works on itself, and those are the religious impulses of humanity. What stems from religion is a driving force of the spiritual life, is more than external legal maxims or moral tenets. When the ‘I’ works on the basis of religious impulses it works into the etheric body. In just the same way, when the ‘I’ is absorbed in gazing on a work of art and gains an intimation that behind the existence of the senses there can be embodied an eternal, hidden element, then the artistic image works not only into the astral body of the human being but ennobles and purifies the etheric body. If you could only observe, as a practicing occultist, the way in which a Wagner opera works on the different members of the human nature, it would convince you that it is especially music which is able to send its vibrations deep into the etheric body.

The etheric body is also the bearer of everything that is more or less permanent in human nature. One must be quite clear what kind of difference exists between the development of the etheric body and the astral body. Let us recall our own life. Just think of all you have learnt since you were eight; it is a tremendous amount. Consider the content of your souls: principles, mental pictures and so on. These are changes, transformations of your astral body. But now think how little in most people—there has been a change in what we call habits, temperament and general abilities. If someone is short-tempered, this already showed itself early on and has changed little. If someone was a forgetful child, he will still be a forgetful person today. One can show this unequal development by a small example. Think of this development as if the changes in the astral body could be shown by the minute-hand of a clock, and the changes in the etheric body by the hour-hand. What the human being changes in his etheric body, what the ‘I’ has made out of the etheric body, is called Buddhi or, if one wishes to use the term—Life-Spirit.

There is a still higher development which the occult pupil undergoes. This rests on the fact that one becomes a completely different human being in the etheric body. When the ordinary person learns, he learns with the etheric body. When the pupil of Spiritual Science learns, he must become a different person. His habits and temperament must change; for it is this that allows him to see into other worlds. His whole etheric body is gradually transformed.

The most difficult thing for a human being is to learn to work, even into the physical body. One can become master of how the blood circulates; one can gain influence over the nervous system over the process of breathing and so on; one can also learn here. When the human being is able to work into his physical body and learn thereby to enter into a connection with the Cosmos, he develops his Atman. This is the highest member of the being of Man; and because it is connected with the process of breathing (Atmung) it is called Atman. Spirit-Man is then found in physical man.

Thus, just as the rainbow has seven colours and the scale seven notes, so we have seven members of the being of man. The human being, then, consists of: first, the physical body; second, the etheric body; third, the astral body; fourth, the ‘I’; fifth, Manas; sixth, Buddhi; and seventh, Atman. When Man arrives at the highest stage of his development, when he makes his own physical body, then we have true Spirit-Man.

Now with regard to the question concerning us today, we must look more closely at this being, at this nature of Man. A riddle in the relations between man and woman will resolve itself here in a strange way out of human nature itself. It is precisely occultism, or the intimate observation of the human nature, that guides us into the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, the ‘I’, and that which the ‘I’ has done.

In every human being—this is a fact—the etheric body consists of two parts; the etheric body of a man, as he lives among us, shows itself to have feminine features, and the etheric body of a woman to have masculine features. Many facts in life become clearer when we recognise that in a man there is something of the feminine nature, and in a woman, a more masculine nature. From this it can be explained why certain character features can arise in Man. In truth we never have before us in the physical, material human body anything other than a physical expression of the totality of the individuality. The human soul forms for itself a body with two poles, just as a magnet does. It forms for itself a masculine and a feminine part, each of which can be either a physical body, or reacts at another time as the etheric body. Hence, with regard to those emotions which are associated with the etheric body—devotion, courage, love—a woman can clearly evince masculine characteristics, and a man womanly characteristics. In contrast, with regard to all those characteristics which depend more on the physical body, the consequences of gender will express themselves in outer life.

Hence it seems clear that in every human being, if we wish to consider him as a totality, we have a phenomenon before us with two parts—one revealed and material, and one hidden and spiritual. And only that man is a complete human being who is capable of combining an external masculinity with a beautiful feminine character within. And it is precisely this that the greatest spirit, namely, those of a mystical nature, have always felt in the spiritual life of the past.

This is an important point. Men have played a greater part because materialism impels itself towards an external culture. This external culture is a man's culture because it was meant to be a material culture. But we must also be aware that in the development of world history one cultural epoch gives way to another, and that this one-sided masculine culture must find its completion through that which lives in every human being. One senses this precisely in the age of this masculine culture. That is why, when the mystics spoke from the innermost depths of their souls, they defined this soul as something feminine. And it is from this that you find everywhere the comparison of the soul, receptive as it is to the world, with Woman; and on this is based Goethe's saying in the ‘Chorus mysticus':

Everything transient
Is but illusion
The inadequate—
Here it becomes event;
The indescribable—
Here it is done;
The Eternal-feminine
Bears us aloft.

It is nonsense to analyse this saying in a trivial way. One can analyse it in a right way, and in the true Goethean sense, when one says: He who knew something of noble spiritual culture also pointed to the feminine character of the soul; and precisely from this masculine culture did the saying: ‘The Eternal feminine bears us aloft’ struggle free. Thus the greater world, the Macrocosm was pictured as a man, and the soul, which was fructified by the wisdom of the Cosmos, as the feminine.

And what then is this peculiar way of thinking which has developed in men over the centuries, this logic? If we wish to look into the depths of its nature, then we must see something feminine—imagination—which must be fructified by the masculine.

Thus, when we consider that which grows over and beyond the differences of gender, we see the higher nature of the human being—that which the ‘I’ creates out of the lower bodies. Man and woman must look on their physical body as an instrument which enables them, in one direction or another, to be active as a totality in the physical world. The more human beings are aware of the spiritual within them, the more does the body become an instrument, and the more do they learn to understand people by looking into the depths of the soul.

This, indeed, will not give you a solution to the Woman's question, but it will give you a perspective. You cannot solve the Woman's question with trends and ideals! In reality you can only solve it by creating that concept, that disposition of soul which enables men and women to understand each other out of the totality of human nature. As long as people are preoccupied with matter, a truly fruitful discussion on the Woman's question will not be possible.

For this reason it should not surprise us that, in an age that has given birth to a masculine culture, the spiritual culture which has begun in the Theosophical movement had to be born from a woman. Thus this Theosophical or spiritual-scientific movement will prove itself to be eminently practical. It will lead humanity to overcome gender in itself and to rise to the level where Spirit-Man or Atman stands which is beyond gender, beyond the personal—to rise to the purely human. Theosophy does not speak of the genesis and development of the human being in general, so that it is gradually recognised. Thus there will gradually awake in woman a consciousness similar to that which, during this masculine culture, has awoken in men. Just as Goethe speaking from the depths of soul, once said, ‘The Eternal-feminine bears us aloft’, so others too who, as women feel in themselves the other side of the human being, and who, in a truly practical sense understand it spiritual-scientifically, will speak of the Eternal-masculine in the feminine nature. Then true understanding and a true solution of soul will be possible for the Women's question.

For external nature is the physiognomy of the soul life. We have nothing in our external culture other than what human beings have created, what human beings have translated from impulses into machines, into industry, into the legal system. In their development, external institutions reflect the development of the soul. An age, however, which clung to the outer physiognomy, was able to erect barriers between men and women. An age that is no longer entrenched in what is material, what is external, but which will receive knowledge of the inner nature of the human being which transcends sex, and will, without wishing to crawl into bleakness or asceticism or to deny sexuality, enable and beautify the sexual and live in that element which is beyond it. And people will then have an understanding for what will bring the true solution to the woman's question, because it will present, at the same time, the true solution to the eternal question of humanity. One will then no longer say: ‘The Eternal-feminine bears us aloft’, or ‘The Eternal-masculine bears us aloft’, but, with deep understanding, with deep spiritual understanding one will say: ‘The Eternal-human bears us aloft’.

Die Frauenfrage

Es könnte vielleicht sonderbar erscheinen, daß aus der geisteswissenschaftlichen Weltanschauung, also aus einer nach den höchsten Rätseln des Menschendaseins ausschauenden Welt- und Lebensanschauung, eine so fest an die Tagesfragen heranstreifende Sache, wie unser heutiges Thema, behandelt wird. Man hat ja in vielen Kreisen, die sich mit Geisteswissenschaft beschäftigen, oder in solchen, die etwas von dem Geiste dieser Weltanschauung gehört haben, die Ansicht, daß die Geisteswissenschaft erwas sein soll, das sich um die Fragen des Tages, um die Interessen des unmittelbaren Lebens ganz und gar nicht kümmert. Man glaubt — und zwar der eine, indem er das der theosophischen Bewegung zum Vorwurf macht, der andere, indem er es ihr zum Vorteil anrechnet —, daß die Geisteswissenschaft sich nur mit den großen Ewigkeitsfragen beschäftigen solle, daß sie über den alltäglichen Ereignissen schweben solle. Man hält sie im guten wie im schlechten Sinne für etwas Unpraktisches. Aber wenn die Geisteswissenschaft in unserer Zeit eine Aufgabe und Mission erfüllen soll, dann muß sie eingreifen in dasjenige, was das Herz bewegt, dann muß sie Stellung nehmen können zu denjenigen Fragen, die hineinspielen in unser alltägliches Denken und in unser alltägliches Streben und Hoffen. Sie muß etwas zu sagen haben zu dem, was die Zeit erfüllt. Denn wie sollte es nicht sein, daß Fragen, die so nahe an die menschliche Seele heranrücken wie die Frauenfrage, die uns heute beschäftigen soll, wie sollte es nicht sein, daß sie gerade durch eine nach den großen Problemen des Daseins ausschauende Weltansicht eine Beurteilung erfahre? Das ja gerade ist es, was man mit Recht vielfach der Geisteswissenschaft zum Vorwurf macht, daß sie nicht den Weg gefunden hat zu der wirklichen Lebenspraxis. Nichts wäre falscher, als wenn die Geisteswissenschaft hineingeleitet werden würde immer mehr und mehr in eine asketische Richtung, in eine lebensfeindliche Richtung. Vielmehr wird sie sich dadurch bewähren, daß sie eine wirkliche Grundlage für die Lebenspraxis bildet. Sie darf nicht im Wolkenkuckucksheim schweben, sich nicht in bloße Abstraktionen verlieren, sie muß den Menschen der Gegenwart etwas zu sagen haben.

Ebenso wie wir hier gesprochen haben über die soziale Frage, ebenso wollen wir heute vom großen Kulturstandpunkte, vom geisteswissenschaftlichen Standpunkte aus über die Frauenfrage sprechen. Natürlich darf sich niemand vorstellen, daß die Geisteswissenschaft über die Frauenfrage in derselben Weise sprechen müßte wie die Tagespolitik oder die Tagesschriftstellerei. Aber man darf auch nicht glauben, daß just nur dasjenige praktisch ist, was eine Art Kirchturmpolitik bedeutet. Derjenige hat sich ja von jeher als der eigentliche Praktiker erwiesen, der über die unmittelbare Gegenwart hinauszuschauen vermag. Wer war der Praktiker damals, als im vorigen Jahrhundert die Postmarke gefunden und ins Leben eingeführt werden sollte, die seit jener Zeit unser ganzes öffentliches Verkehrsleben, unser ganzes gesellschaftliches Leben umgestaltet hat? Es ist etwas über fünfzig Jahre her. Damals kam der Gedanke an diese Einrichtung, an deren Praxis heute niemand zweifelt, von einem Unpraktiker. Der Engländer Hill war kein Postpraktiker. Derjenige, der ein Praktiker war, äußerte die geistreiche Redensart: Daran könne man nicht glauben, daß diese Einrichtung einen so großen Umschwung im Verkehrsleben hervorrufen könne; wenn es aber schon der Fall wäre, dann würden die Postgebäude nicht mehr ausreichen zur Beförderung der Briefe.

Ein anderes Beispiel. Als die erste Eisenbahn von Berlin nach Potsdam gebaut werden sollte, sagte der Generalpostmeister Nagler: Wenn die Leute durchaus ihr Geld zum Fenster hinauswerfen wollen, dann sollen sie es doch lieber direkt tun. Ich lasse täglich zwei Postkutschen abfahren und es sitzt niemand darinnen. — Und die andere Sache kennen Sie ja, die im Bayerischen Ärztekollegium passiert ist: Da fragte man die gelehrten Herren rein von der hygienischen Praxis her, ob es denn dem Nervensystem zuträglich sei, wenn man Eisenbahnen baue. Die gelehrten Herren sagten, es wäre im höchsten Grade unpraktisch, denn das würde schwere Schädigungen des Nervensystems verursachen.

Dies zur Illustration des Verhältnisses der Praktiker, wenn es sich um Fragen des Tages handelt, zu denjenigen, die mit etwas weitsichtigerem Blicke in die Zukunft hinausschauen. Die letzteren, die verschrieenen Idealisten, die nicht haften bleiben an dem, was seit Urväterzeiten üblich ist, sie sind die eigentlichen Praktiker. Und von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus erscheint heute auch die geisteswissenschaftliche Weltanschauung als ein Motor für die Praxis vieler Fragen und für die unsrige. Daher darf derjenige, der die Fragen von einem höheren Gesichtspunkte aus behandelt, ruhig einen solchen Vorwurf hinnehmen und sich an die andern Beispiele erinnern, wo Leute, die glauben, die Praxis gepachtet zu haben, in einer solchen Weise geurteilt haben.

Daß die Frauenfrage eine der größten Kulturfragen der Gegenwart ist, leugnen wenige, denn das ist heute Tatsache geworden. Es gibt Gegner gewisser Anschauungen in der Frauenfrage, aber daß sie da ist, wird niemand leugnen. Blicken wir jedoch zurück auf Zeiten, die gar nicht lange hinter uns liegen, so haben selbst tonangebende Wissenschafts- und andere Größen in der Frauenfrage eine Phantasterei gesehen, etwas, was man mit allen möglichen Mitteln unterdrücken müsse. Ein Beispiel: Es sei erinnert an die Ausführungen eines wahrhaft bedeutenden Mannes, des Anatomen Albert, der vor fünfundzwanzig Jahren mit aller Energie sich gegen die Zulassung der Frauen zu den gelehrten Berufen wendete, der von dem Standpunkte seiner anatomisch-physiologischen Wissenschaft den Beweis führen wollte, daß es unmöglich sei, daß die Frauen einrücken könnten in die gelehrten Berufe, daß sie jemals den ärztlichen Beruf auszufüllen vermöchten. Bei der großen Autorität der Naturwissenschaft kann es gar nicht wundernehmen, daß man denen ein Urteil zutraut, die in bezug auf naturwissenschaftliche Anschauungen hinsichtlich des Menschen Bescheid wußten. Noch vor kurzem ist hier in Deutschland die geistreiche Broschüre erschienen: «Über den physiologischen Schwachsinn des Weibes.» Diese Broschüre rührt von einem Manne her, der ja allerdings keineswegs ein ganz unbedeutender Physiologe ist, Möbius, der manches Gute gesagt hat, der allerdings auf der andern Seite nicht so sehr sich selbst als die physiologische Wissenschaft blamiert hat, indem er nach und nach all die verschiedenen Größen der weltgeschichtlichen Entwickelung der letzten Zeit Goethe, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, als pathologische Erscheinungen hingestellt hat und das so grotesk und radikal, daß man bei jedem Genie des Geisteslebens fragen müßte: Wo sitzt eigentlich der Wahnsinn? — Goethe, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, sie alle werden vom Standpunkte der Psychiatrie, der psychologischen Pathologie aus behandelt.

Wenn man tiefer eingeht auf diese Dinge, dann fallen sie alle nur unter eine Kategorie, die sich charakterisiert durch das Beispiel eines berühmten Naturforschers, der vor längerer Zeit aus dem geringen Gewichte des Frauenhirns die mindere Begabung der Frau ableiten wollte. Es ist keine Fabel: Der Mann hat behauptet, daß die Größe des Geistes von der Größe des Gehirns abhängt, und daß die Frauen durchschnittlich ein kleineres Gehirn haben als die Männer. Und wahrhaftig, es ist passiert, es konnte passieren, daß man die Methode dieses Gelehrten auf ihn selbst angewendet hat. Man hat nach seinem Tode sein Gehirn gewogen und da hat sich herausgestellt, daß er gerade ein abnorm kleines Gehirn, ein viel kleineres Gehirn hatte als diejenigen Frauen, die man eben wegen ihres geringen Gehirngewichtes für minderwertigen Geistes gehalten hat. Es würde etwas boshaft sein, wenn man versuchen würde, einmal vom psychopathologischen Standpunkte aus eine solche Broschüre zu untersuchen, wie diese über den physiologischen Schwachsinn des Weibes, und wenn man versuchen würde, aus gewissen Gedankensprüngen heraus dem betreffenden Verfasser ebenso einen Strick zu drehen wie dem Professor Bischoff.

So also sehen Sie, daß die Frauenfrage nicht gerade dafür zeugt, daß diejenigen sehr urteilskräftig waren, die sich gegen sie gewendet haben. Die Frauenfrage ist viel umfassender als die Frage nach der Zulassung der Frauen zu den gelehrten Berufen, als die Bildungsfrage der Frau; die Frauenfrage umfaßt eine ökonomische, soziale und psychologische Seite und noch manche andere Dinge. Aber gerade die Bildungsfrage der Frau hat ja in den Tatsachen wunderbare Früchte gezeigt. Fast alle Urteile, die von der Theorie gefällt worden sind, sind durch die Praxis auf diesem Gebiete widerlegt worden. Nach und nach haben sich gegen die Meinungen der Männerwelt die Frauen den Zugang zu den meisten männlichen Berufen erzwungen, zu denen der Juristen, Mediziner, Philologen und so weiter. Die Frauen haben diese Berufe ergriffen unter wesentlich ungünstigeren Verhältnissen als die Männer. Man muß nur berücksichtigen, unter welch ungünstigen Verhältnissen die Frauen vor kurzem an die Universität herangekommen sind. Nach dem normalen Vorbildungsgange ist dies keine große Kunst; die Frauen kamen aber mit höchst ungenügender Vorbildung. Nicht nur durch riesigen Fleiß, sondern auch durch umfassende Fähigkeiten haben sie zum großen Teil alle Schwierigkeiten überwunden. Im Ernst, im Fleiß, auch in den geistigen Fähigkeiten haben sie den Männern nichts nachgegeben, so daß die Praxis diese Sache vollständig anders gelöst hat, als mancher sich in der Theorie vor zwanzig bis dreißig Jahren eingebildet hat. Verschiedene Professoren, geführt von ihren Vorurteilen, haben den Frauen den Zutritt zur Universität verweigert. Eine ganze Menge von absolvierten Frauen steht heute im Leben und keineswegs urteilsloser und weniger einsichtsvoll als die Männer.

Aber das beleuchtet nur die äußere Situation, und es zeigt uns gerade, daß wir tiefer hineinschauen müssen in das Wesen des Menschen, in das Wesen der Frau, wenn wir die ganze Sache verstehen wollen. Denn es gibt heute niemanden, der nicht irgendwie von der Bedeutung dieser Frage berührt würde. Wenn nun auch die Frau sich den Zutritt zu den gelehrten Berufen erzwungen hat, auch zu zahlreichen andern Berufen heute Zugang gewonnen hat, wenn auch in der Praxis ein großer Teil der Frauenfrage gelöst ist: wollen wir bewußt und klar, einsichtsvoll vorwärtsschreiten, wollen wir diese Frage nach allen Richtungen erörtern, dann müssen wir tiefer in das Wesen des Menschen hineinschauen.

Was ist nicht alles vom Unterschied zwischen Mann und Frau gesprochen worden! Sie können es heute schon überall in kurzen Übersichten lesen, was für verschiedene Urteile über den Unterschied zwischen Mann und Frau gefällt worden sind und wie man aus diesen Urteilen sich eine Ansicht bilden wollte über die Frauenfrage. Viel ist geschrieben worden über die psychologische Seite der Frauenfrage. Über diese Seite gibt es kein besseres Buch, soweit solche von Nichttheosophen verfaßt sind, als dasjenige einer geistvollen Frau, die überhaupt in der gegenwärtigen Literatur sich betätigt: «Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit» von Rosa Mayreder. Sie können die Urteile anderswo verzeichnet finden, nur ein paar lassen Sie einmal Revue passieren. Da haben wir einen Mann Lombroso. Er charakterisiert die Frau dadurch, daß er sagt: Bei ihr steht hauptsächlich das Ergebenheitsgefühl, das Abhängigkeitsgefühl im Mittelpunkt ihres seelischen Charakters. George Egerton sagt, daß jede Frau, die unbefangen einen Mann betrachtet, ihn als großes Kind ansieht und daß gerade daraus die der Frau ganz eigene Herrschsucht komme, so daß die Herrschsucht in den Mittelpunkt der Frauenseele immer mehr und mehr einrücke. Ein großer Naturforscher, Virchow, spricht davon, wenn man die Frau in äußerlich-physiologischer Hinsicht studiere, so werde man auf dem Grunde ihres Wesens die Sanftmut finden, die Milde, die Gelassenheit. Havelock Ellis, ein ebenso guter Kenner der Sache sagt, daß der Grundzug der Frauenseele Zornmütigkeit, Initiative, Draufgängertum sei. Möbius findet den Grundzug des Frauengemüts im Konservativismus. Konservativ sein, das sei das eigentliche Lebenselement der Frauenseele. Stellen wir das Urteil eines alten, guten Seelenkenners, Hippel, dagegen. Der sagt, der eigentliche Revolutionär in der Menschheit sei die Frau. Gehen Sie zu der großen Menge, da werden Sie über das Verhältnis zwischen Verstand, Leidenschaft und Gemüt bei Mann und Frau ein ganz eigentümliches, aber ziemlich landläufiges Urteil finden. Sehen Sie sich dagegen Nietzsches Urteil an. Er sagt, der Frau sei vorzugsweise Verstand, dem Mann Gemüt und Leidenschaft eigen. Vergleichen Sie dies mit dem landläufigen Urteil: es ist das gerade Gegenteil.

So könnten wir viel reden und auf der einen Seite diejenigen Urteile verzeichnen, die der Frau allc passiven, alle schwachen Eigenschaften zuschreiben, auf der andern Seite jene, die das gerade Gegenteil sagen. Es hapert doch etwas mit der Sicherheit, wenn so verschiedene Urteile möglich sind.

Auch die Naturwissenschaft hat sich viel mit der Frage beschäftigt und sie genießt hohe Autorität. Aber auch die Aussagen der Naturforscher widersprechen sich schnurstracks über den eigentlichen Grundcharakter der Frau, Und wenn wir von Naturforschern und Psychologen zu der Kulturgeschichte übergehen und uns an dasjenige halten, was immer gesagt wird: der Mann ist der eigentlich Schaffende, die Frau ist mehr die Gefährtin, die Nachschaffende —, dann würde ein solches Urteil auch davon beeinträchtigt, daß man eine viel zu kurze Spanne Zeit in Betracht zieht. Man braucht sich nur ein bißchen bei jenen Völkern umzusehen, die alte Kulturreste darstellen, oder bei primitiven Völkern, und man braucht nur die Entwickelungsgeschichte der Menschheit zu verfolgen, so wird man sehen, daß es Zeiten gegeben hat und daß es heute noch solche Völker gibt, wo die Frau im eminenten Sinne beteiligt ist an den männlichen Arbeiten.

Kurz, die Urteile schwanken nach jeder Richtung hin. Und noch auffälliger muß uns das erscheinen, daß die Frau eines Volkes sich von dem Manne desselben Volkes viel weniger unterscheidet, als die Frau dieses Volkes von der Frau eines andern Volkes. Daraus können wir den Schluß ziehen, daß wir überhaupt nicht so sprechen sollten: Mann und Frau, Mann und Weib, sondern daß es neben der Geschlechtscharakteristik möglicherweise etwas geben kann, was viel wichtiger ist in der menschlichen Gesellschaft als die Geschlechtscharaktere und was von diesem Geschlechtscharakter unabhängig ist. Gerade wenn man unbefangen das menschliche Wesen ansieht, dann wird sich gewöhnlich auseinanderlegen lassen, was notwendigerweise mit den Beziehungen der Geschlechter zusammenhängt und was über diese Beziehungen der Geschlechter hinausgehend in ganz andere Regionen hineinweist. Allerdings, eine materialistische Anschauung der Welt und des Menschen, die zunächst ja nur das Handgreifliche und Augenfällige sieht, sieht natürlich bei Mann und Frau nur die großen physiologischen Unterschiede, und wer hängen bleibt an dieser materialistischen Anschauung, der wird einfach übersehen, was viel größer und einschneidender ist als die Geschlechtsunterschiede, der wird übersehen die Individualität, die über das Geschlecht hinausgeht, gegenüber dem, was vom Geschlecht abhängig ist. Da aber hineinzuleuchten, da den Menschen in der richtigen Weise zu sehen, das muß Aufgabe einer auf den Geist gerichteten Weltanschauung sein.

Bevor wir die Frauenfrage von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus betrachten, wollen wir uns nur einmal etwas vorlegen von dem, was die Frauenfrage heute darstellt. Man spricht von einer Frauenfrage im allgemeinen, aber auch dies ist, wie der Begriff der Frau, eine unmögliche Generalisation. Man sollte eigentlich gar nicht von der Frauenfrage im allgemeinen sprechen, denn diese Frage modifiziert sich nach den verschiedenen Gesellschaftsklassen der Menschheit. Besteht etwa in den unteren Ständen, in den Ständen der Handarbeiter, dieselbe Frauenfrage wie in den gebildeten? Die untersten Stände, die eigentlichen Handarbeiter, streben mit allen Mitteln dahin, die Frau herauszukriegen aus der Fabrik und aus dem Gewerbe, um sie der Familie zu geben. Die höheren Stände erstreben genau das Gegenteil. Sie erstreben für die Frau in der Familie die Möglichkeit, im öffentlichen Leben zu wirken. Das ist etwas von der sozialen Seite der Frauenfrage.

Daneben steht natürlich die allgemeine soziale Frauenfrage, die für die Frauen in politischer und kultureller Beziehung dieselben Rechte fordert, wie sie die Männer haben. Da hat man heute die Anschauung, daß man eigentlich von Dingen spreche, die im Grunde genommen aus der Natur der Menschheit selbst folgen müßten. Man bedenkt aber nicht, daß sich das Leben der Menschheit viel schneller ändert, als man eigentlich so oberflächlich hinsieht. Ein Mann, der sich von seinem politischen Standpunkt aus auch mit der Frauenfrage befaßt hat, Naumann, hat sich die Mühe gemacht, einmal die Verhandlungen der Paulskirche von 1848 auf diese Sache hin durchzustudieren, in denen viel von Menschenrechten die Rede war. Man debattierte hin und her über die selbstverständlichen Rechte der Menschen. Davon aber ist nirgends die Rede gewesen, daß diese Rechte für Mann und Frau in gleicher Weise gelten sollten. Das fiel niemandem ein. In diese Richtung ist die Frauenfrage erst in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts gekommen. Und da scheint es wohl berechtigt, die andere Frage aufzuwerfen: Woher kommt es denn, daß diese Seite der Frauenfrage in unserer Zeit erst aufgerollt worden ist? — Machen wir uns das ganz klar.

Vielfach stellt man heute von männlicher und weiblicher Seite die Frauenfrage so dar, als ob erst jetzt die Frau einen gewissen bedeutsamen Einfluß auf alle Lebensgebiete erringen müsse. In mancher Beziehung ist den Erörterungen eine große Kurzsichtigkeit eigen, denn man muß sich fragen: Haben denn zu andern Zeiten, in allen früheren Zeiten die Frauen gar keinen Einfluß gehabt? Waren sie denn immer nur geknechtete Wesenheiten? Es wäre Unkenntnis, wenn man das behaupten wollte. Betrachten wir einmal das Renaissancezeitalter und nehmen eines der gebräuchlichsten Bücher, Burckhardts Buch über die Renaissance, zur Hand. Da sehen wir, welchen tiefgehenden Einfluß die Frau zum Beispiel auf das ganze Geistesleben Italiens gewonnen hatte, wie die Frauen im Vordergrunde dieses Geisteslebens standen, wie sie den Männern ebenbürtig waren und große Rollen gespielt haben. Und endlich, würde man von der Einflußlosigkeit der Frau in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts einer solchen Persönlichkeit gegenüber gesprochen haben, wie Rahel Varnhagen war, so würde sie höchst erstaunt gewesen sein, daß überhaupt ein solches Thema aufgeworfen wird. Sie würde gar nicht verstanden haben, wie man dazu kommt, in solcher Weise zu denken. Aber es ist so mancher, der heute sein allgemeines Stimmrecht ausübt, oder sogar im Parlamente debattiert und lange Reden hält, der wahrhaftig eine Null ist, wenn man den gesamten Kulturprozeß bedenkt, der durch die Frau, die eben genannt worden ist, hervorgerufen wurde. Wer das Geistesleben der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts studiert und sieht, was diese Frau für einen Einfluß auf die Männer des 19. Jahrhunderts gehabt hat, der wird nicht mehr versucht sein zu sagen, daß die Frau ein einflußloses Wesen in der damaligen Zeit war. Die Sache beruht einfach darauf, daß sich die Ansichten geändert haben. Man glaubte damals nicht, daß man ein einfaches Wahlrecht brauche, daß man in den Parlamenten debattieren müsse, daß man auf der Universität studieren müsse, um auf den Kulturprozeß großen Einfluß zu haben. Man hatte nach jeder Richtung hin andere Anschauungen. Das ist nicht in einer konservativen Absicht gesagt, sondern als Beleg dafür, daß die ganze Frage ein Produkt unserer gegenwärtigen Kultur ist und erst heute so gestellt werden kann, wie sie gestellt wird, und erst heute gestellt werden kann auf allen Gebieten des Lebens, nicht nur etwa auf dem Gebiete der Bildung, der höheren Geistesbildung.

Sehen Sie sich einmal in früheren Zeiten, als noch andere wirtschaftliche Verhältnisse vorhanden waren, das Verhältnis von Mann und Frau an. Sehen Sie sich die Bäuerin, die Handwerkerin in früheren Jahrhunderten an. Man kann nicht davon sprechen, daß die Bäuerin geringere Rechte hatte als der Bauer, oder einen geringeren Wirkungskreis. Sie hatte ein gewisses Departement zu versorgen und er ein anderes. Und ebenso war es im Handwerk. Dasjenige, was heute in den arbeitenden Ständen eigentlich die Frauenfrage geworden ist, das ist sie dadurch geworden, daß in den Jletzten Jahrhunderten, und namentlich im letzten Jahrhundert unsere Kultur im eminenten Sinne eine Männerkultur geworden ist. Das Maschinenzeitalter ist ein Produkt der Männerkultur, und einfach die Art und Weise dieser Kultur macht die Betätigungsweise für die Frau in einem höheren Maße zur Unmöglichkeit als die Betätigungsweise des früheren Wirtschaftslebens. In die Fabrik paßt die Frau nicht hinein, und es ergeben sich ganz andere Kalamitäten, als wenn sie im Wirtschaftshofe, im Hause oder im alten Gewerbe als Leiterin, Übernehmerin oder als mittätige Person beschäftigt ist. Auch in bezug auf die gelehrten Berufe hat sich alles in unserem ganzen Leben, in unserer Auffassung geändert. Die ganze Wertschätzung der gelehrten Berufe ist eine andere geworden. Es ist noch nicht lange her, da war dasjenige, was man heute als gelehrten Beruf auffaßt, alles mehr oder weniger nur höheres Handwerk. Es war eine Art und Weise, beruflich tätig zu sein in der Juristerei, Medizin, und niemandem wäre es vor verhältnismäßig kurzer Zeit eingefallen, aus dem, was Medizin, Juristerei, was die Naturwissenschaft geboten hat, eine Art religiöse Weltanschauung abzuleiten. Heute ist es die Spezialwissenschaft desjenigen, was im Laboratorium erforscht wird, was nach und nach zur Domäne der Männer geworden ist, woraus eine höhere Weltanschauung gewonnen wird, während früher gleichsam wie ein Geist über allen diesen Dingen, die in Fakultäten getrieben worden sind, die Religion und die Philosophie schwebten und höhere Bildung erst innerhalb derselben zu suchen waren. Das eigentlich Menschliche, das, was zum Herzen, was zur Seele sprach, das, was dem Menschen davon sprach, welches seine Ewigkeitssehnsuchten und Ewigkeitshoffnungen waren, das, was ihm Kraft und Sicherheit im Leben gab, das war für Mann und Frau gemeinschaftlich. Das stammte aus einer andern Quelle, als aus dem Laboratorium oder aus der physiologischen Untersuchung. Man konnte ohne irgendwelche Universitätsbildung zu den höchsten Höhen philosophischer und religiöser Feinbildung kommen. Man konnte das jederzeit, auch als Frau. Erst dadurch, daß das materialistische Zeitalter die sogenannten positiven Wissenschaften mit ihren sogenannten Tatsachen zur Grundlage der höheren Probleme gemacht hat, mußte neben dem allgemeinen, aus dem praktischen Leben hervorgehenden Zug, ein Zug des Herzens, eine Sehnsucht der Seele die Frau antreiben, um selbst hineinzuschauen in die Geheimnisse, die uns das Mikroskop, das Teleskop, die Untersuchungen der Physiologie und Biologie bieten. Solange man nicht gedacht hat, daß durch das Mikroskop irgend etwas entschieden werden kann über Leben und Unsterblichkeit des Menschen, solange man gewußt hat, daß aus ganz andern Quellen diese Wahrheiten geschöpft werden müssen, so lange konnte auch nicht ein solcher Drang nach den wissenschaftlichen Studien sein, wie er heute ist. Das müssen wir uns vorhalten, daß die Richtung unserer Zeit dieses Drängen nach der gelehrten Bildung erzeugt hat, und daß überhaupt die Frauenfrage durch die ganze Art und Weise der Kultur in unserer Zeit aufgeworfen ist.

Nun tritt aber alldem, was uns diese neue Zeit gebracht hat, alldem, was auf einer bloß materiellen Basis beruht, in der geisteswissenschaftlichen Anschauung eine noch wenig beachtete Bewegung entgegen. Die geisteswissenschaftliche Weltanschauung ist das, was die Lebensfrage wird lösen müssen und wird mitarbeiten müssen an allen Kulturströmungen und -bestrebungen der Zukunft. Man kann diese Weltanschauung nicht mehr verkennen, als wenn man glaubt, daß sie nichts anderes ist als das Hirngespinst einiger Phantasten. Sie ist das Ergebnis der geistigen Forschung derjenigen, welche die Bedürfnisse und die Sehnsucht unserer Zeit am besten kennen und es am ernstesten damit nehmen, und nur diejenigen, die nichts wissen wollen von den Bedürfnissen unserer Zeit, können sich heute noch fernhalten von dieser eminent praktischen und eminent in alle Fragen eingreifenden Weltströmung. Geisteswissenschaft ist nichts, was in einer unfruchtbaren Kritik sich ergeht, nichts Konservatives. Sie betrachtet es als erwas Berechtigtes und rechnet damit, daß im letzten Jahrhundert der Materialismus heraufgerückt ist. Es war eine Notwendigkeit, daß die alten religiösen Gefühle und Traditionen ihre Geltung verloren haben gegenüber den Ansprüchen der Naturwissenschaften. Sie sieht ein, wie es gekommen ist, daß der Physiologe und der Biologe, wenn er es auch nicht zugesteht, zum Unsterblichkeitsleugner geworden ist. Das mußte so kommen. Aber die Menschheit wird niemals leben können ohne einen Aufblick, ohne ein Wissen von den wirklich übersinnlichen geistigen Dingen. Eine kurze Zeit nur wird so fortgewirtschaftet werden können, wie es sich heute mit der spezialisierten Wissenschaft und mit dem, was vielfach aus dieser Richtung als religiöses Ergebnis oder Unergebnis stammt, ergibt. Aber es wird die Zeit kommen, wo man fühlt, daß die Quellen des Geistes im Leben erschlossen werden müssen. Und die Geisteswissenschaft ist der Vorposten für diesen Kampf um Erschließung der wirklichen Geistesquellen der Menschheit. Auf einer viel breiteren Basis wird die Geisteswissenschaft der Menschheit wieder sagen können, wie es sich verhält mit dem Wesen der Seele, mit dem, was hinausragt über das Vergängliche und Vorübergehende; auf einer breiteren Basis, als jemals in der populären Welt der Fall war, wird die Geisteswissenschaft verkünden, was Sicherheit, Kraft, Mut und Ausdauer im Leben gibt, was hineinleuchten kann in diejenigen Fragen, die den Alltag beschäftigen und die nicht allein von der materiellen Seite her zu lösen sind.

Es ist eine eigentümliche Fügung — manche werden es einsehen —, daß am Ausgangspunkte der theosophischen Bewegung eine Frau stand, Helena Petrowna Blavatsky, daß man gerade hier das unerhörte Beispiel erlebt hat, daß eine Frau mit dem umfassendsten Sinn, mit eindringlichster Gewalt und mit Energie des Geistes Schriften verfaßt hat, gegen die wahrhaftig alles, was die Geisteskultur sonst hervorgebracht hat, eine Kleinigkeit ist. Glauben Sie meinetwegen gar nichts von dem, was an sogenannten okkulten Lehren, was an sogenannten Einsichten in die Geisteswelt etwa in der «Entschleierten Isis» oder in der sogenannten «Geheimlehre» von Blavatsky steht, glauben Sie gar nichts davon, aber nehmen Sie das Buch einmal zur Hand und fragen Sie sich, wieviel Geister der Gegenwart von so vielen Dingen etwas Eindringlicheres gewußt haben wieBlavatsky.

Die zwei gewaltigen Bände der «Geheimlehre» geben über fast alle Gebiete des geistigen Lebens, die Urkultur, die Urreligion, über alle möglichen Zweige der Naturwissenschaft, über das gesellschaftliche Leben, über Astronomie, Physiologie Aufschluß. Meinetwegen lassen Sie das, was darinnen gesagt ist, falsch sein, aber ich frage Sie, wer imstande ist, über alle diese Gebiete heute in sachkundiger Weise selbst Falsches zu sagen und damit zu zeigen, daß er sich in eindringlicher Weise mit alledem bekanntgemacht hat? Sie brauchen nicht allein die Richtigkeit, sondern auch das Umfassende des Geistes, das Sie nicht leugnen können, in Betracht zu ziehen, dann haben Sie das Beispiel einer Frau gegeben, welche nicht nur in irgendeinem Zweige menschlicher Geistesrichtung, sondern im ganzen Umkreise menschlichen Geisteslebens gezeigt hat, was Frauengeist in bezug auf höhere Weltanschauung leisten kann. Wenn man unbefangen selbst Max Müllers religionsgeschichtliche Abhandlungen nimmt und ihren Inhalt mit dem Umfassenden der «Geheimlehre» vergleicht, dann wird man sehen, wie weit die letztere die ersteren überragt. So ist es also eine eigentümliche Fügung, daß eine Frau am Ausgangspunkt dieser theosophischen Bewegung steht. Es ist vielleicht erklärlich gerade aus denjenigen Dingen heraus, die uns auch die Frauenfrage wie eine Geburt aus unserem gegenwärtigen Geistesleben gezeigt haben.

Wenn wir einmal tiefer in den geistigen Entwickelungsgang der Menschen hineinschauen, dann wird uns das, was uns sonst in Erstaunen versetzen kann, vielleicht als geistesgeschichtliche Notwendigkeit erscheinen. Um das aber in fruchtbringender Weise tun zu können, müssen wir in kurzer Weise schon einmal auf das Wesen des Menschen eingehen. Wir wollen die menschliche Natur mit ein paar skizzenhaften Strichen zeichnen.

Was der Materialismus, was die alltägliche Weltanschauung beim Menschen kennt, das betrachtet die geisteswissenschaftliche Forschung, die Theosophie, bloß als einen Teil der menschlichen Wesenheit. Ich kann Ihnen heute nur einige Skizzen geben, aber nicht Phantastereien, Träumereien, sondern Dinge, die so feststehen wie mathematische Urteile für die Mathematiker. Also dasjenige, was der Mensch in der alltäglichen Anschauung, in der gewöhnlichen Wissenschaft vom Menschen kennt, das ist ein Teil der menschlichen Wesenheit, das ist der physische Leib. Dieser physische Leib des Menschen hat dieselben physikalischen und chemischen Kräfte und Gesetze und Stoffe, die sich draußen in der sogenannten leblosen Natur finden. Das, was draußen an Kräften den toten Stein bildet und im Stein das «Leben» ist, dieselben Kräfte sind auch im physischen Leib des Menschen. Darüber hinaus sieht aber die geisteswissenschaftliche Weltanschauung noch andere Glieder der Menschennatur, zunächst ein zweites Glied, das der Mensch gemeinsam mit allen Pflanzen hat. Die heutige Wissenschaft spricht aus ihren Spekulationen schon etwas von dem, worauf da die Geisteswissenschaft hinzielt, von einem besonderen Lebensprinzip, weil ja die Gesetze des Materialismus, die noch vor fünfzehn Jahren für viele galten, bei den Einsichtigen überwunden sind. Aber die heutige Naturforschung wird nur aus einer Art von Spekulation dieses zweite Glied der menschlichen Wesenheit erschließen. Die theosophische Geistesforschung beruft sich aber auf das Zeugnis derjenigen, die ein höheres Anschauungsvermögen haben, die sich so verhalten zu dem gewöhnlichen Durchschnittsmenschen, wie ein Sehender zu einem Blinden sich verhält. Sie beruft sich auf das Zeugnis von solchen Personen, die dieses zweite Glied der menschlichen Wesenheit als etwas Reales, Wirkliches vorhanden wissen. Derjenige, der nichts weiß, hat kein Recht zu urteilen, ebensowenig wie der Blinde ein Recht hat, über Farben zu urteilen.

Alle Rederei von der Grenze der menschlichen Erkenntnis ist Unsinn. Man sollte reden und fragen: Kann sich der Mensch nicht zu einer höheren Erkenntnisstufe erheben? Ist das nicht vielleicht wirklich, was man Augen des Geistes und Ohren des Geistes nennt? Es hat immer Menschen gegeben, die gewisse schlummernde Fähigkeiten ausbildeten und die dadurch mehr sehen können als andere. Ihr Zeugnis muß geradeso gelten wie das Zeugnis derjenigen, die durch das Mikroskop schauen. Wie viele haben das gesehen, was die natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte lehrt? Ich möchte Sie fragen, wie viele Menschen haben das gesehen, wovon sie reden? Wie viele zum Beispiel haben tatsächlich Beweise von der Entwickelung des Menschenkeimes? Wenn sie sich prüfen würden, dann würden sie sehen, was das für ein Glaube ist, der sie beherrscht. Und wenn es ein berechtigter Glaube ist, so ist ebenso berechtigt derjenige Glaube, der sich auf das Zeugnis der Eingeweihten, der Initiierten stützt, die aus ihren geistigen Erlebnissen heraus sprechen.

Im Sinne dieser Geisteswissenschaft sprechen wir deshalb von einem zweiten Glied der menschlichen Wesenheit. Es ist dasselbe, was wir in der christlichen Religion bei Paulus als geistigen Leib bezeichnet finden. Wir sprechen vom Äther- oder Lebensleib. Niemals würde sich eine gewisse Summe von chemischen und physikalischen Kräften zum Leben kristallisieren, wenn sie nicht vorzüglich geformt würde von dem, was jeden lebendigen Leib als Lebens- oder Ätherleib durchzieht. So bezeichnen wir dieses zweite Glied als Lebensleib oder Ätherleib. Es ist das, was der Mensch mit der gesamten Pflanzen- und Tierwelt gemeinschaftlich hat. Aber eine Pflanze hat nicht dasjenige, was wir Triebe, Begierden und Leidenschaften nennen. Eine Pflanze empfindet keine Lust und kein Leid, denn von Empfindung kann man nicht sprechen, wenn man sieht, daß ein Wesen auf etwas bloß Außeres reagiert. Man kann von Empfindung nur sprechen, wenn der äußere Reiz sich im Inneren spiegelt, wenn er da ist als inneres Erlebnis. Dieser Teil der heutigen Physiologie, der von einem Empfindungsleib der Pflanze spricht, zeigt nur einen ungeheuren Dilettantismus in der Auffassung solcher Begriffe,

Da nun, wo das tierische Leben beginnt, wo Lust und Leid, wo Triebe, Begierden und Leidenschaften beginnen, spricht man vom dritten Gliede der menschlichen Wesenheit, von dem astralischen Leib. Ihn hat der Mensch gemeinschaftlich mit der ganzen Tierwelt. Nun gibt es eines, was innerhalb des Menschen hinausgeht über alle Tierwelt und was den Menschen zur Krone der Schöpfung macht und was wir uns am besten vor die Seele führen, wenn wir eine kleine subtile Betrachtung anstellen.

Es gibt im ganzen Umkreis der deutschen Sprache einen Namen, der sich unterscheidet von allen andern Namen. Zum Tisch kann jeder «Tisch», zum Stuhl jeder «Stuhl» sagen. Doch ein Name kann nicht so angewendet werden. Niemand kann zu mir «ich» sagen, so daß es mich bedeuten würde. Niemals kann «ich» an unser Ohr klingen, wenn es mich bedeutet. Dies hat man immer als etwas Wesentliches empfunden. Und selbst in den populären der älteren Religionsbekenntnisse hat man gefunden, daß da ein wichtiger Punkt der Seele liegt. Da wo die Seele anfängt, das Göttliche in sich zu fühlen, da wo sie anfängt, in diesem Dialog mit sich selbst zu sich «ich» zu sagen, mit sich selbst so zu sprechen, wie von außen nicht gesprochen werden kann, da beginnt die göttliche Wesenheit der Seele den Entwickelungsgang im Menschen. Der Gott im Menschen kündigt sich da an. Die alte hebräische Geheimlehre hatte das empfunden. Deshalb nannte man diesen Namen den unaussprechlichen Namen Gottes, den Namen, der da bedeutet: «Ich bin der Ich-bin.»

Nach alttestamentlichem Glauben bedeutet der Name die Ankündigung der Gottheit in der menschlichen Seele. Deshalb gingen auch gewaltige Gefühle und Empfindungen durch die Menge, wenn der Priester ankündigte diesen Namen der Gottheit in der Seele: Jahve.

Das ist das vierte Glied im Menschen, womit seine äußere Natur endet und seine Göttlichkeit beginnt. Und nun haben wir gesehen, wie der Mensch gleichsam von äußeren Kräften geführt ist bis zum Ich hinauf. Da steht er, und von da beginnt er dann in sich zu wirken. Dieses Ich arbeitet hinunter in die drei andern Teile der menschlichen Wesenheit. Machen Sie sich den Unterschied zwischen den Menschen von diesem Standpunkte aus klar. Vergleichen Sie einen Wilden mit einem europäischen Durchschnittsmenschen, mit einem edlen Idealisten, etwa Schiller oder Franz von Assisi.

Wenn der astralische Leib der Träger von Begierde und Leidenschaft ist, so müssen Sie sagen: Der astralische Leib des Wilden ist ganz und gar umgeben von den Naturmächten, der europäische Durchschnittsmensch hat aber etwas hineingearbeitet in seinen astralischen Leib. Von gewissen Leidenschaften und Trieben sagt er sich: Denen darfst du nicht folgen. — Er hat seinen Astralleib umgestaltet. Noch mehr hat ihn umgestaltet eine solche Persönlichkeit wie Schiller, noch mehr eine solche Persönlichkeit, die in gar keiner Beziehung zu den Leidenschaften steht wie Franz von Assisi, die ganz und gar geläutert war und in diesem Astralleib Herr ist über alle Triebe und Begierden. So kann man denn von einem Menschen, der an sich gearbeitet hat, sagen: Sein Astralleib besteht aus zwei Teilen. Der eine Teil ist das, was von der Natur, von göttlichen Mächten gegeben ist, der andere Teil ist das, was er selbst darinnen erzeugt hat. Diesen zweiten, vom Ich umgestalteten Teil, nennen wir geistiges Selbst oder Manas.

Nun gibt es Dinge, die tiefer in die menschliche Natur hineingehen, wo das Ich weiter hineinarbeitet als bloß in den Astralleib. Solange Sie mit bloßen moralischen oder Rechtsgrundsätzen, mit logischen Grundsätzen Ihre Laster zügeln, so lange arbeiten Sie an Ihrem Astralleib. Aber es gibt andere Kulturmittel, wodurch das Ich an sich arbeitet, und das sind die religiösen Impulse der Menschheit. Was aus der Religion stammt, ist ein arbeitender Motor des Geisteslebens, ist mehr als äußere Rechtsgrundsätze und Moralgrundlagen. Wenn das Ich auf Grund religiöser Impulse arbeitet, dann arbeitet es in den Ätherleib hinein. Ebenso wenn das Ich aufgeht in Betrachtung eines Kunstwerkes und eine Ahnung erhält, daß hinter dem sinnlichen Dasein ein Ewiges, Verborgenes verkörpert sein kann, dann wirkt die künstlerische Vorstellung nicht nur in den Astralleib, sondern der Mensch veredelt und läutert den Ätherleib. Könnten Sie einmal als praktischer Okkultist beobachten, wie eine Wagnersche Oper auf die verschiedenen Glieder der menschlichen Natur wirkt, es würde Sie überzeugen, daß besonders die Musik es ist, die ihre Vibrationen tief hineinsenken läßt in den Ätherleib.

Nun ist auch der Ätherleib der Träger von alledem, was mehr oder weniger bleibend ist in der menschlichen Natur. Man hat sich klarzumachen, was für ein Unterschied ist zwischen Entwickelung des Ätherleibes und des Astralleibes. Erinnern wir uns an den eigenen Lebensgang. Denken Sie nach, was Sie alle gelernt haben seit Ihrem achten Lebensjahr; das ist ungeheuer viel. Bedenken Sie den Inhalt Ihrer Seele: Prinzipien, Vorstellungen und so weiter. Das sind Veränderungen, Umwandlungen Ihres Astralleibes. Aber nun denken Sie nach, wie wenig sich bei den meisten Menschen das ändert, was man Gewohnheiten, Temperament nennt, was man allgemein Fähigkeiten nennt. Wenn jemand jähzornig ist, so hat sich das schon früh angezeigt und hat sich wenig geändert. Wenn einer ein vergeßliches Kind war, so wird er heute noch ein vergeßlicher Mensch sein. Man kann für diese ungleiche Entwickelung ein kleines Beispiel gebrauchen. Diese Entwickelung verhält sich so, wie wenn die Veränderungen des Astralleibes durch den Minutenzeiger und die Veränderungen des Ätherleibes durch den Stundenzeiger der Uhr angezeigt würden. Dasjenige, was der Mensch an seinem Ätherleib ändert, was das Ich gemacht hat aus dem Ätherleib, nennt man Buddhi oder, wenn man ein deutsches Wort gebrauchen will, Lebensgeist.

Nun gibt es eine noch höhere Entwickelung, die der Chela durchmacht. Die beruht darauf, daß man ein ganz anderer Mensch wird auch im Ätherleib. Wenn der gewöhnliche Mensch lernt, so lernt er mit dem Astralleib. Wenn der Schüler der Geheimwissenschaft lernt, so muß er ein anderer Mensch werden. Da müssen sich seine Gewohnheiten und sein Temperament ändern; denn das macht es aus, was uns in andere Welten hineinsehen läßt. Da wird nach und nach sein ganzer Ätherleib umgewandelt.

Das Schwierigste für den Menschen ist, daß er bis in seinen physischen Leib hineinarbeiten lernt. Auch darüber, wie das Blut sich bewegt, kann man Herr werden; man kann Einfluß bekommen auf die Nervenströmungen, Einfluß auf dasjenige, was der Atmungsvorgang ist und so weiter. Auch darin kann man lernen. Wenn der Mensch in seinen physischen Leib hineinarbeiten kann und damit in Verbindung mit dem Kosmos treten lernt, dann entwickelt er sein Atman. Dies ist das höchste Glied der menschlichen Wesenheit, und weil es mit der Entwickelung des Atmungsprozesses zusammenhängt, deshalb heißt es Atman. Der Geistesmensch wird dann im physischen Menschen gefunden.

So haben wir sieben Glieder der menschlichen Wesenheit, ebenso wie der Regenbogen sieben Farben und die Tonskala sieben Töne hat. Es besteht so der Mensch aus: Erstens dem physischen Leib, zweitens dem Ätherleib, drittens dem Astralleib, viertens dem Ich, fünftens dem Manas, sechstens dem Buddhi, siebentens dem Atman. Wenn der Mensch auf der höchsten Stufe der Entwickelung ankommt, sich seinen physischen Leib macht, dann haben wir den wirklichen Geistesmenschen.

Nun müssen wir in bezug auf unsere heutige Frage dieses Wesen, diese Natur des Menschen näher anschauen. Da wird sich uns ein Rätsel in den Beziehungen zwischen Mann und Frau aus der Menschennatur heraus in einer eigenartigen Weise lösen. Gerade der Okkultismus oder diese intime Betrachtung der Menschennatur führt uns da hinein in den physischen Leib, in den Ätherleib, in den Astralleib, in das Ich und das, was das Ich gemacht hat.

Bei jedem Menschen — das ist eine Tatsache — ist der Ätherleib zweiteilig, und es stellt sich der Ätherleib des Mannes, wie er unter uns lebt, mit weiblichen Eigenschaften dar, und der Ätherleib des Weibes mit männlichen Eigenschaften. Eine ganze Fülle von Tatsachen in unserem Leben wird erklärt, wenn wir wissen, daß im Manne etwas von der Frauennatur ist, und gerade dasjenige, was wir eben besprochen haben als am Ätherleib hängend, hat beim Manne mehr Frauennatur und bei der Frau mehr Mannesnatur. Daher wird es sich erklären, daß gewisse Charaktereigenschaften beim Manne auftreten können. In Wahrheit haben wir in dem physischen materiellen Menschen niemals etwas anderes vor uns als einen physischen Ausdruck einer Totalpersönlichkeit. Die Menschenseele baut sich den Körper, wie aus zwei Polen sich der Magnet aufbaut. Sie baut sich einen männlichen und einen weiblichen Teil, das eine Mal den einen Teil als physischen Leib, das andere Mal als Ätherleib. Daher wird in bezug auf diejenigen Leidenschaften, die gerade am Ätherleib hängen: Hingebung, Tapferkeit, Liebe, die Frau offenbar männliche Charaktereigenschaften zeigen können und der Mann manchmal recht weiblich erscheinen. Dagegen mit Bezug auf alle Charaktereigenschaften, die mehr am physischen Leib hängen, da wird sich im äußeren Leben die Konsequenz des Geschlechts ausleben.

Deshalb muß es erklärlich erscheinen, daß wir in jedem Menschen, wenn wir ihn ganz betrachten wollen, eine Erscheinung vor uns haben mit zwei Teilen, einem offenen materiellen und einem verborgenen, dem geistigen. Und der ist erst ein vollständiger Mensch, der mit einer äußeren Männlichkeit im Inneren einen weiblichen schönen Charakter zu verbinden in der Lage ist. Gerade das haben die größten Geister, namentlich die mystischen Naturen, von jeher empfunden in unserem verflossenen Geistesleben.

Das ist ein wichtiger Punkt. Es hat der Mann eine große Rolle gespielt, weil der Materialismus zur äußeren Kultur hindrängte. Diese äußere Kultur ist eine Männerkultur, weil sie eine materielle Kultur sein sollte. Aber wir müssen uns klar sein, daß auch in der weltgeschichtlichen Entwickelung sich die Kulturepochen ablösen, und daß diese einseitige Männerkultur ihre Ergänzung finden muß durch dasjenige, was ja in jedem Manne lebt. Das hat man gerade in der Zeit der Männerkultur empfunden. Daher haben auch die Mystiker, wenn sie aus dem Tiefsten ihrer Seele sprachen, diese Seele als etwas Weibliches bezeichnet. Daher finden Sie überall den Vergleich der für die Welt empfänglichen Seele mit dem Weibe, und darauf beruht der Ausspruch Goethes im Chorus mysticus:

Alles Vergängliche
Ist nur ein Gleichnis;
Das Unzulängliche
Hier wird’s Ereignis;
Das Unbeschreibliche
Hier ist’s getan;
Das Ewig-Weibliche
Zieht uns hinan.

Unsinnig ist es, in einer trivialen Weise diesen Ausspruch auszulegen. Richtig ist er im Sinne Goethes und als wahre Mystik auszulegen, wenn man sagt: Derjenige, der etwas gewußt hat von edler Geisteskultur, hat auch auf den weiblichen Charakter der Seele hingewiesen, und gerade aus dieser Männerkultur rang sich der Spruch «Das ewig Weibliche zieht uns hinan». So wurde die große Welt, der Kosmos, vorgestellt als Mann, und die Seele, die sich befruchten läßt von der Weisheit des Kosmos, als das Weibliche.

Und was ist sie denn, jene eigentümliche Geistesart, die sich im Manne herangebildet hat seit Jahrtausenden, die Logik? Wollen wir in die Tiefe ihres Wesens sehen, so müssen wir etwas Weibliches sehen, die Phantasie, das befruchtet werden muß vom Männlichen.

So sehen wir die höhere Natur des Menschen, das, was das Ich aus den niederen Leibern macht, wenn wir das betrachten, was über die Geschlechtsdifferenz hinauswächst. Mann und Weib müssen ihre physischen Leiber wie Instrumente betrachten, die es ihnen möglich machen, sich als Totalität in der physischen Welt in der einen oder andern Richtung zu betätigen. Je mehr die Menschen das Geistige in sich fühlen, desto mehr wird der Körper zum Instrumente, desto mehr lernen sie aber auch den Menschen verstehen, wenn sie in die Tiefe der Seele sehen.

Das wird Ihnen zwar nicht eine Lösung der Frauenfrage geben, aber eine Perspektive. Nicht mit Tendenzen und Idealen können Sie die Frauenfrage lösen! Im Realen müssen Sie sie lösen, indem Sie jene Seelenvorstellung, jene Seelenverfassung erschaffen, welche es möglich macht, daß Mann und Frau von der Totalität der Menschennatur aus sich verstehen. Solange der Mensch im Materiellen befangen ist, so lange wird eine wirklich fruchtbare Erörterung der Frauenfrage nicht möglich sein.

Deshalb darf es nicht wundern, daß in einem Zeitalter, das die männliche Kultur geboren hat, die geistige Kultur, die in der theosophischen Bewegung ihren Anfang genommen hat, geradezu von einer Frau herausgeboren werden sollte. So wird sich denn diese theosophische oder geisteswissenschaftliche Bewegung als eminent praktisch erweisen. Sie wird die Menschheit dahin führen, in sich selber das Geschlecht zu überwinden und sich zu einem Standpunkt zu erheben, wo Geistselbst und Atman stehen, die übergeschlechtlich und überpersönlich sind, zum rein Menschlichen. Vom allgemeinen Menschwerden spricht nicht die Theosophie, sondern vom allgemein Menschlichen, so daß es stufenweise erkannt wird. So wird im Weibe allmählich ein ähnliches Bewußtsein erwachen, wie während der Männerkultur im Mann erwacht ist. Wie einer derjenigen, die tief aus der Seele heraus gesprochen haben, sagte: «Das ewig Weibliche zieht uns hinan», so werden diejenigen, die in sich die andere Seite des Menschen als Weib fühlen und im richtigen praktischen Sinne diese geisteswissenschaftlich verstehen, vom ewig Männlichen in der weiblichen Natur sprechen, und dann wird wahres Verständnis und wahre seelische Lösung der Frauenfrage möglich sein. Denn die äußere Natur ist eine Physiognomie des Seelenlebens. Wir haben nichts anderes in unserer, in der äußeren Kultur als das, was die Menschen geschaffen haben, was die Menschen aus Impulsen umgesetzt haben in Maschinen, in industrielle Dinge, in Rechtswesen. Wie die Seele sich entwickelt, so entwickeln sich die äußeren Institutionen. Ein Zeitalter, das aber an der äußeren Physiognomie hing, mochte Schranken aufrichten zwischen Mann und Frau. Ein Zeitalter, das nicht mehr am Außeren, am Materiellen haften wird, sondern dem die Erkenntnis des übergeschlechtlichen Inneren gegeben sein wird, wird das Geschlechtliche, ohne daß es sich in das Ode, Asketische verkriechen will oder etwa das Geschlechtliche verleugnen will, veredeln und verschönern und im Übergeschlechtlichen leben. Und dann wird man Verständnis haben für das, was die wahre Lösung in der Frauenfrage bringen wird, weil es zugleich die wahre Lösung zur ewigen Menschheitsfrage bieten wird. Man wird dann nicht mehr sagen, wenn man von Dingen des täglichen Lebens spricht: Das ewig Weibliche zieht uns hinan —, man wird auch nicht mehr sagen: Das ewig Männliche zieht uns hinan —, man wird mit Verständnis, mit tiefem Geistesverständnis sagen: Das ewig Menschliche zieht uns hinan.

The Women's Question

It may seem strange that the spiritual scientific worldview, i.e., a worldview and outlook on life that seeks to understand the highest mysteries of human existence, should deal with a subject as closely related to current issues as our topic today. In many circles concerned with Spiritual Science, or in those who have heard something of the spirit of this worldview, there is a view that Spiritual Science should be something that is completely unconcerned with the issues of the day and the interests of immediate life. Some believe — some reproaching the theosophical movement for this, others crediting it as an advantage — that Spiritual Science should only concern itself with the great questions of eternity, that it should hover above everyday events. It is considered, in both a good and a bad sense, to be something impractical. But if Spiritual Science is to fulfill a task and a mission in our time, then it must intervene in what moves the heart; then it must be able to take a stand on those questions that play into our everyday thinking and our everyday striving and hoping. It must have something to say about what fills the times. For how could it be otherwise that questions so close to the human soul as the women's question, which should concern us today, should not be judged precisely by a worldview that looks at the great problems of existence? This is precisely what Spiritual Science is often rightly criticized for, that it has not found its way into real life practice. Nothing would be more wrong than for Spiritual Science to be led more and more in an ascetic direction, in a direction hostile to life. Rather, it will prove itself by forming a real basis for practical life. It must not float in cloud cuckoo land, it must not lose itself in mere abstractions, it must have something to say to the people of the present.

Just as we have spoken here about the social question, so today we want to speak about the women's question from the great cultural standpoint, from the spiritual-scientific standpoint. Of course, no one should form the mental image that Spiritual Science should speak about the women's question in the same way as daily politics or daily journalism. But neither should one believe that only what amounts to a kind of parochial politics is practical. Those who have always proved themselves to be the real practitioners are those who are able to look beyond the immediate present. Who was the practical person back in the last century when the postage stamp was invented and introduced, which has since transformed our entire public transport system and our entire social life? That was a little over fifty years ago. At that time, the idea for this institution, the practicality of which no one doubts today, came from someone who was not a practical person. The Englishman Hill was not a postal practitioner. The one who was a practitioner uttered the witty remark: “It is impossible to believe that this institution could bring about such a great change in transportation; but if it did, then the post office buildings would no longer be sufficient for the delivery of letters.”

Another example. When the first railroad was to be built from Berlin to Potsdam, Postmaster General Nagler said: If people want to throw their money out the window, they should do it directly. I send two stagecoaches out every day and there is no one sitting in them. — And you know the other thing that happened in the Bavarian Medical Association: The learned gentlemen were asked, purely from a hygienic point of view, whether building railroads was beneficial to the nervous system. The learned gentlemen said that it would be highly impractical, as it would cause serious damage to the nervous system.

This illustrates the relationship between practitioners, when it comes to current issues, and those who look to the future with a more far-sighted view. The latter, the much-maligned idealists who do not cling to what has been customary since time immemorial, are the real practitioners. And from this point of view, the spiritual-scientific worldview also appears today as a driving force for the practice of many questions, including our own. Therefore, those who deal with issues from a higher perspective can calmly accept such accusations and remember other examples where people who believe they have a monopoly on practicality have judged in this way.

Few deny that the women's issue is one of the greatest cultural issues of the present day, for this has become a fact today. There are opponents of certain views on the women's issue, but no one will deny that it exists. However, if we look back to times not so long ago, even leading scientists and other luminaries saw the women's issue as a fantasy, something that had to be suppressed by all possible means. One example: we should remember the statements of a truly significant man, the anatomist Albert, who twenty-five years ago vehemently opposed the admission of women to the learned professions, who, from the standpoint of his anatomical physiological science that it was impossible for women to enter the learned professions, that they would ever be able to fulfill the medical profession. Given the great authority of natural science, it is hardly surprising that people trust the judgment of those who are knowledgeable about scientific views on human beings. Just recently, a witty brochure was published here in Germany entitled “On the Physiological Weakness of Women.” This pamphlet comes from a man who is by no means an insignificant physiologist, Möbius, who has said many good things, but who, on the other hand, has embarrassed not so much himself as physiological science by gradually presenting all the great figures of recent world history, Goethe, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, as pathological phenomena, and did so in such a grotesque and radical way that one would have to ask of every genius of intellectual life: Where exactly does the madness lie? Goethe, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche—they are all treated from the standpoint of psychiatry, of psychological pathology.

If one delves deeper into these matters, they all fall into a single category, characterized by the example of a famous natural scientist who, some time ago, sought to deduce the lesser talents of women from the lower weight of the female brain. This is no fable: the man claimed that the size of the mind depends on the size of the brain, and that women on average have smaller brains than men. And indeed, it happened, it could happen, that this scholar's method was applied to himself. After his death, his brain was weighed, and it turned out that he had an abnormally small brain, much smaller than those of the women who were considered intellectually inferior precisely because of the low weight of their brains. It would be somewhat malicious to attempt to examine a brochure such as this one on the physiological feeble-mindedness of women from a psychopathological point of view, and to try to use certain leaps of thought to hang the author in question in the same way as Professor Bischoff.

So you see that the women's issue does not exactly testify to the sound judgment of those who opposed it. The women's issue is much more comprehensive than the question of women's admission to the learned professions, than the question of women's education; the women's issue encompasses economic, social, and psychological aspects, as well as many other things. But it is precisely the question of women's education that has borne wonderful fruit in practice. Almost all the judgments made in theory have been refuted by practice in this field. Gradually, against the opinions of the male world, women have forced their way into most male professions, including law, medicine, philology, and so on. Women have taken up these professions under much less favorable conditions than men. One need only consider the unfavorable conditions under which women recently gained access to university. Following the normal course of education, this is no great feat; but women came with highly inadequate preparation. Not only through enormous diligence, but also through comprehensive abilities, they have largely overcome all difficulties. In earnest, in diligence, and also in intellectual abilities, they have been in no way inferior to men, so that practice has resolved this issue completely differently than some imagined in theory twenty to thirty years ago. Various professors, guided by their prejudices, denied women access to university. Today, there are a whole host of women graduates who are by no means less discerning or less insightful than men.

But that only illuminates the external situation, and it shows us that we need to look deeper into the nature of human beings, into the nature of women, if we want to understand the whole issue. For there is no one today who is not affected in some way by the significance of this question. Even if women have now forced their way into the academic professions and gained access to numerous other professions today, even if a large part of the women's issue has been resolved in practice, if we want to move forward consciously, clearly, and insightfully, if we want to discuss this issue from all angles, then we must look deeper into the nature of human beings.

So much has been said about the difference between men and women! Today, you can read brief overviews everywhere about the various judgments that have been made about the difference between men and women and how people have tried to form an opinion about the women's issue based on these judgments. Much has been written about the psychological side of the women's issue. As far as books written by non-theosophists are concerned, there is no better book on this subject than that by a spirited woman who is active in contemporary literature: “Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit” (A Critique of Femininity) by Rosa Mayreder. You can find the judgments recorded elsewhere, but let's review just a few. There we have a man named Lombroso. He characterizes women by saying: “For her, the feeling of devotion, the feeling of dependence, is at the center of her emotional character.” George Egerton says that every woman who looks at a man impartially sees him as a big child, and that this is precisely where women's very own lust for power comes from, so that this lust for power increasingly takes center stage in the female soul. A great natural scientist, Virchow, says that if one studies women from an external physiological point of view, one will find gentleness, mildness, and serenity at the core of their being. Havelock Ellis, who is equally knowledgeable on the subject, says that the basic traits of the female soul are anger, initiative, and boldness. Möbius finds the basic trait of the female mind to be conservatism. Being conservative, he says, is the true element of life in the female soul. Let us contrast this with the judgment of an old, good connoisseur of the soul, Hippel. He says that the true revolutionary in humanity is the woman. Go to the masses, and you will find a very peculiar but fairly common opinion about the relationship between reason, passion, and temperament in men and women. Compare this with Nietzsche's opinion. He says that women are primarily characterized by reason, while men are characterized by temperament and passion. Compare this with the common opinion: it is the exact opposite.

We could talk at length and list, on the one hand, those judgments that attribute all passive and weak characteristics to women and, on the other hand, those that say the exact opposite. There is something lacking in certainty when such different judgments are possible.

Natural science has also dealt extensively with this question and enjoys high authority. But even the statements of natural scientists contradict each other outright about the actual basic character of women. And if we move from natural scientists and psychologists to cultural history and stick to what is always said: that men are the actual creators and women are more the companions, the re-creators — then such a judgment would also be compromised by the fact that it considers a much too short period of time. One need only look a little at those peoples who represent ancient cultural remnants, or at primitive peoples, and one need only follow the history of human development to see that there have been times, and that there are still such peoples today, where women are eminently involved in male work.

In short, opinions vary in every direction. And it must strike us as even more striking that the women of one people differ much less from the men of the same people than the women of this people differ from the women of another people. From this we can conclude that we should not speak at all in terms of man and woman, husband and wife, but that, in addition to gender characteristics, there may be something that is much more important in human society than gender characteristics and that is independent of these gender characteristics. If we look at human nature impartially, we can usually distinguish between what is necessarily related to gender relations and what goes beyond these gender relations and points to entirely different areas. However, a materialistic view of the world and of human beings, which initially only sees what is tangible and obvious, naturally only sees the major physiological differences between men and women, and those who cling to this materialistic view simply overlook what is much greater and more decisive than gender differences; they overlook the individuality that transcends gender in contrast to what is dependent on gender. But to shed light on this, to see human beings in the right way, must be the task of a worldview focused on the spirit.

Before we consider the women's issue from this point of view, let us first take a look at what the women's issue represents today. People speak of a women's issue in general, but this, like the concept of woman, is an impossible generalization. One should not really speak of the women's issue in general, because this issue varies according to the different social classes of humanity. Is the women's issue the same in the lower classes, in the manual laborers' classes, as it is in the educated classes? The lowest classes, the manual laborers themselves, strive by all means to get women out of the factory and out of industry in order to give them to the family. The higher classes strive for exactly the opposite. They strive for women in the family to have the opportunity to participate in public life. That is something from the social side of the women's issue.

In addition, there is, of course, the general social women's issue, which demands the same political and cultural rights for women as men have. Today, the view prevails that we are actually talking about things that should follow from the nature of humanity itself. However, we do not consider that human life is changing much faster than we might superficially assume. Naumann, a man who has also dealt with the women's issue from his political standpoint, took the trouble to study the proceedings of the Paulskirche of 1848 on this matter, in which there was much talk of human rights. There was much debate about the self-evident rights of human beings. However, there was no mention anywhere that these rights should apply equally to men and women. It did not occur to anyone. The women's issue only came up in this context in the second half of the 19th century. And so it seems justified to raise the other question: Why has this aspect of the women's issue only been raised in our time? Let's be very clear about this.

Today, both men and women often present the women's issue as if women only now have to gain a certain significant influence in all areas of life. In some respects, the discussions are characterized by a great deal of short-sightedness, because one must ask: Did women have no influence at all in other times, in all earlier times? Were they always just enslaved beings? It would be ignorance to claim that. Let us consider the Renaissance era and take one of the most widely read books on the subject, Burckhardt's book on the Renaissance. There we see the profound influence that women had gained, for example, on the entire intellectual life of Italy, how women were at the forefront of this intellectual life, how they were equal to men and played important roles. And finally, if one had spoken of the lack of influence of women in the first half of the 19th century to a personality such as Rahel Varnhagen, she would have been extremely astonished that such a topic was even raised. She would not have understood at all how one could come to think in such a way. But there are many today who exercise their universal suffrage, or even debate in parliament and make long speeches, who are truly insignificant when one considers the entire cultural process that was brought about by the woman just mentioned. Anyone who studies the intellectual life of the first half of the 19th century and sees what influence this woman had on the men of the 19th century will no longer be tempted to say that women were insignificant beings at that time. The matter is simply based on the fact that views have changed. At that time, people did not believe that one needed universal suffrage, that one had to debate in parliaments, that one had to study at university in order to have a major influence on the cultural process. People had different views in every direction. This is not said with conservative intent, but as proof that the whole question is a product of our current culture and can only be posed today as it is posed, and can only be posed today in all areas of life, not just in the area of education, higher intellectual education.

Take a look at the relationship between men and women in earlier times, when economic conditions were different. Look at the farmer's wife, the craftswoman in earlier centuries. It cannot be said that the farmer's wife had fewer rights than the farmer, or a smaller sphere of influence. She had a certain department to take care of and he had another. And it was the same in the crafts. What has become the women's issue in the working classes today has come about because in recent centuries, and especially in the last century, our culture has become, in the eminent sense, a male culture. The machine age is a product of male culture, and the very nature of this culture makes it much more impossible for women to participate than it was in the economic life of the past. Women do not fit into the factory, and this results in completely different calamities than when they are employed in the farmyard, in the home, or in the old trades as managers, successors, or co-workers. With regard to the learned professions, too, everything in our entire life, in our conception, has changed. The whole appreciation of the learned professions has changed. Not so long ago, what we now consider to be a learned profession was more or less just a higher craft. It was a way of working professionally in law or medicine, and until relatively recently, no one would have thought of deriving a kind of religious worldview from what medicine, law, and natural science had to offer. Today, it is the specialized science of what is researched in the laboratory, which has gradually become the domain of men, from which a higher worldview is gained, whereas in the past, religion and philosophy hovered like a spirit over all these things that were pursued in the faculties, and higher education could only be sought within them. That which was truly human, that which spoke to the heart, that which spoke to the soul, that which told people what their longings and hopes for eternity were, that which gave them strength and security in life, was common to both men and women. It came from a source other than the laboratory or physiological research. It was possible to reach the highest heights of philosophical and religious refinement without any university education. It was possible at any time, even as a woman. It was only because the materialistic age made the so-called positive sciences with their so-called facts the basis of higher problems that, in addition to the general trait arising from practical life, a trait of the heart, a longing of the soul, had to drive women to look into the secrets offered to us by the microscope, the telescope, and the investigations of physiology and biology. As long as it was not thought that anything could be decided about human life and immortality through the microscope, as long as it was known that these truths had to be drawn from completely different sources, there could not be such a drive for scientific studies as there is today. We must bear in mind that the direction of our time has created this urge for scholarly education, and that the women's question has been raised by the whole nature of culture in our time.

Now, however, everything that this new era has brought us, everything that is based on a purely material foundation, is being countered by a movement in spiritual science that has received little attention. The spiritual scientific worldview is what will have to solve the question of life and will have to contribute to all cultural trends and endeavors of the future. One cannot misunderstand this worldview any more than one can believe that it is nothing more than the fantasy of a few dreamers. It is the result of spiritual research by those who best understand the needs and longings of our time and take them most seriously, and only those who want to know nothing about the needs of our time can still distance themselves today from this eminently practical and eminently influential world trend. Spiritual Science is not something that indulges in barren criticism, nor is it conservative. It regards it as something justified and reckons with the fact that materialism has risen to prominence in the last century. It was a necessity that the old religious feelings and traditions lost their validity in the face of the demands of the natural sciences. It understands how it came about that the physiologist and the biologist, even if he does not admit it, has become a denier of immortality. This had to happen. But humanity will never be able to live without looking up, without knowledge of the truly supersensible spiritual things. It will only be possible to continue as we are today, with specialized science and with what often comes from this direction as a religious result or non-result, for a short time. But the time will come when people will feel that the sources of the spirit in life must be tapped. And Spiritual Science is the outpost for this struggle to tap the real spiritual sources of humanity. On a much broader basis, Spiritual Science will once again be able to tell humanity what the nature of the soul is, what transcends the transitory and the temporary; on a broader basis than has ever been the case in the popular world, Spiritual Science will proclaim what gives security, strength, courage, and endurance in life, what can shed light on those questions that occupy everyday life and cannot be solved from the material side alone.

It is a peculiar coincidence — some will realize — that at the starting point of the theosophical movement stood a woman, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, that here we have witnessed the unprecedented example of a woman who, with the most comprehensive mind, the most penetrating power, and the energy of the spirit, has written works that truly dwarf everything else that intellectual culture has produced. For all I care, believe nothing of what is written in so-called occult teachings, in so-called insights into the spiritual world, for example in “Isis Unveiled” or in Blavatsky's so-called “Secret Doctrine.” Don't believe any of it, but pick up the book and ask yourself how many minds of the present have known anything more compelling than Blavatsky.

The two enormous volumes of The Secret Doctrine provide information on almost all areas of spiritual life, primitive culture, primitive religion, all possible branches of natural science, social life, astronomy, and physiology. For all I care, you can say that what is written in it is wrong, but I ask you, who is capable of speaking authoritatively about all these areas today and thus demonstrating that they have familiarized themselves thoroughly with all of them? You need to consider not only the correctness, but also the comprehensiveness of the spirit, which you cannot deny, and then you will have the example of a woman who has shown, not only in some branch of human intellectual activity, but in the whole sphere of human intellectual life, what the female spirit can achieve in relation to a higher worldview. If one takes Max Müller's treatises on the history of religion and compares their content with the comprehensiveness of The Secret Doctrine, one will see how far the latter surpasses the former. It is therefore a peculiar coincidence that a woman stands at the starting point of this theosophical movement. This can perhaps be explained by the very things that the women's question has shown us to be a product of our present spiritual life.

If we take a deeper look at the spiritual development of human beings, then what might otherwise astonish us may appear to us as a necessity of spiritual history. But in order to do this in a fruitful way, we must first briefly address the nature of the human being. Let us sketch human nature in a few broad strokes.

What materialism and everyday worldview recognize in human beings is considered by spiritual scientific research, by theosophy, to be only a part of the human being. Today I can only give you a few sketches, but not fantasies or daydreams, rather things that are as certain as mathematical judgments are for mathematicians. So what humans know in their everyday view, in ordinary science about humans, is one part of the human being, namely the physical body. This physical body of the human being has the same physical and chemical forces and laws and substances that are found outside in so-called lifeless nature. The forces that form the dead stone outside and are the “life” in the stone are the same forces that are also in the physical body of the human being. Beyond that, however, the spiritual scientific worldview sees other elements of human nature, first of all a second element that humans share with all plants. Today's science, based on its speculations, already speaks of something that spiritual science aims at, of a special principle of life, because the laws of materialism, which still applied to many fifteen years ago, have been overcome by those with insight. But today's natural science can only deduce this second element of human nature from a kind of speculation. Theosophical spiritual research, however, refers to the testimony of those who have a higher power of perception, who relate to the average person in the same way that a sighted person relates to a blind person. It refers to the testimony of such persons who know this second aspect of human nature to be something real and truly existing. Those who know nothing have no right to judge, just as the blind have no right to judge colors.

All talk of the limits of human knowledge is nonsense. One should talk and ask: Can't humans rise to a higher level of knowledge? Isn't that perhaps what is really meant by the eyes of the spirit and the ears of the spirit? There have always been people who have developed certain dormant abilities and who can therefore see more than others. Their testimony must be just as valid as the testimony of those who look through a microscope. How many have seen what the natural history of creation teaches? I would like to ask you, how many people have seen what they are talking about? How many, for example, actually have evidence of the development of the human germ? If they examined themselves, they would see what kind of belief dominates them. And if it is a justified belief, then the belief based on the testimony of the initiated, who speak from their spiritual experiences, is just as justified.

In the sense of this Spiritual Science, we therefore speak of a second link in the human being. It is the same thing that we find in the Christian religion described by Paul as the spiritual body. We speak of the etheric or life body. A certain sum of chemical and physical forces would never crystallize into life if it were not excellently formed by what pervades every living body as the life or etheric body. So we call this second member the life body or etheric body. It is what human beings have in common with the entire plant and animal world. But a plant does not have what we call drives, desires, and passions. A plant feels no pleasure and no pain, for one cannot speak of feeling when one sees that a being reacts to something merely external. One can only speak of feeling when the external stimulus is reflected internally, when it is present as an inner experience. That part of modern physiology which speaks of a feeling body in plants shows only tremendous dilettantism in its understanding of such concepts.

Now, where animal life begins, where pleasure and pain, where instincts, desires, and passions begin, one speaks of the third member of the human being, the astral body. Man shares this with the entire animal world. Now there is one thing within the human being that transcends the entire animal world and makes the human being the crown of creation, and we can best bring this to mind if we engage in a little subtle observation.

There is a name in the entire German language that differs from all other names. Anyone can say “table” for a table, or “chair” for a chair. But a name cannot be used in this way. No one can say “I” to me in such a way that it would mean me. ‘I’ can never sound like “me” to our ears. This has always been felt to be something essential. And even in the popular older religious creeds, it was recognized that this is an important point of the soul. Where the soul begins to feel the divine within itself, where it begins to say “I” to itself in this dialogue with itself, to speak to itself in a way that cannot be spoken from outside, there the divine essence of the soul begins its course of development in the human being. The God in man announces himself there. The ancient Hebrew secret teaching had sensed this. That is why this name was called the unpronounceable name of God, the name that means: “I am the I am.”

According to Old Testament belief, the name signifies the announcement of the deity in the human soul. That is why powerful feelings and emotions swept through the crowd when the priest announced this name of the deity in the soul: Yahweh.

This is the fourth member in the human being, where his outer nature ends and his divinity begins. And now we have seen how the human being is, as it were, led by outer forces up to the I. There he stands, and from there he begins to work within himself. This I works down into the other three parts of the human being. Make clear to yourself the difference between people from this point of view. Compare a savage with an average European, with a noble idealist, such as Schiller or Francis of Assisi.

If the astral body is the bearer of desire and passion, then you must say: the astral body of the savage is completely surrounded by the forces of nature, but the average European human being has worked something into his astral body. He says to himself about certain passions and drives: you must not follow them. — He has transformed his astral body. A personality such as Schiller has transformed it even more, and even more so a personality such as Francis of Assisi, who had no connection whatsoever with passions, who was completely purified and is master of all drives and desires in this astral body. So we can say of a person who has worked on themselves: their astral body consists of two parts. One part is what has been given by nature, by divine powers; the other part is what he himself has created within it. We call this second part, which has been transformed by the I, the spiritual self or manas.

Now there are things that go deeper into human nature, where the I works further than just into the astral body. As long as you curb your vices with mere moral or legal principles, with logical principles, you are working on your astral body. But there are other cultural means by which the ego works on itself, and these are the religious impulses of humanity. What comes from religion is a working motor of spiritual life, more than external legal principles and moral foundations. When the ego works on the basis of religious impulses, it works into the etheric body. Similarly, when the ego is absorbed in contemplating a work of art and receives an inkling that behind sensory existence there may be something eternal and hidden, then the artistic mental image not only affects the astral body, but the human being also ennobles and purifies the etheric body. If, as a practical occultist, you could observe how a Wagner opera affects the various members of human nature, you would be convinced that it is music in particular that allows its vibrations to sink deeply into the etheric body.

Now, the etheric body is also the bearer of everything that is more or less permanent in human nature. It is important to understand the difference between the development of the etheric body and that of the astral body. Let us remember our own life course. Think about everything you have learned since the age of eight; it is an enormous amount. Consider the contents of your soul: principles, mental images, and so on. These are changes, transformations of your astral body. But now think about how little changes in most people in terms of what we call habits, temperament, and what we generally call abilities. If someone is quick-tempered, this became apparent early on and has changed little. If someone was a forgetful child, they will still be a forgetful person today. A small example can be used to illustrate this uneven development. This development is like the changes in the astral body being indicated by the minute hand and the changes in the etheric body by the hour hand of a clock. What a person changes in their etheric body, what the ego has made of the etheric body, is called buddhi or, if you want to use an English word, the spirit of life.

Now there is an even higher development that the chela undergoes. This is based on becoming a completely different person, even in the etheric body. When the ordinary person learns, they learn with their astral body. When the student of secret science learns, they must become a different person. Their habits and temperament must change, for that is what enables us to see into other worlds. Gradually, their entire etheric body is transformed.

The most difficult thing for human beings is to learn to work into their physical body. It is also possible to master how the blood moves; one can gain influence over the nerve currents, influence over the breathing process, and so on. This too can be learned. When human beings can work within their physical bodies and thus learn to connect with the cosmos, they develop their Atman. This is the highest member of the human being, and because it is connected with the development of the breathing process, it is called Atman. The spiritual human being is then found in the physical human being.

So we have seven links in the human being, just as the rainbow has seven colors and the musical scale has seven tones. The human being thus consists of: first, the physical body; second, the etheric body; third, the astral body; fourth, the ego; fifth, the manas; sixth, the buddhi; and seventh, the Atman. When the human being reaches the highest stage of development and creates his physical body, then we have the real spiritual human being.

Now, in relation to our question today, we must take a closer look at this being, this nature of the human being. There, a mystery in the relationship between man and woman will be solved in a peculiar way from human nature. It is precisely occultism, or this intimate observation of human nature, that leads us into the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, the I, and what the I has made.

In every human being — this is a fact — the etheric body is two-part, and the etheric body of the man, as he lives among us, presents itself with feminine characteristics, and the etheric body of the woman with masculine characteristics. A whole host of facts in our lives can be explained when we know that there is something of the female nature in the man, and precisely what we have just discussed as being attached to the etheric body has more of the female nature in the man and more of the male nature in the woman. This explains why certain character traits can occur in men. In truth, in the physical, material human being, we never have anything other than a physical expression of a total personality before us. The human soul builds the body, just as a magnet is built from two poles. It builds a male and a female part, one time as the physical body, the other time as the etheric body. Therefore, with regard to those passions that are connected to the etheric body: devotion, courage, love, women can apparently display masculine character traits and men can sometimes appear quite feminine. On the other hand, with regard to all character traits that are more connected to the physical body, the consequences of gender will be lived out in outer life.

It must therefore seem understandable that when we consider each human being as a whole, we are faced with a phenomenon consisting of two parts, one open and material, and one hidden and spiritual. And only those who are able to combine an outward masculinity with an inner feminine beauty of character are complete human beings. This is precisely what the greatest minds, especially the mystical natures, have always felt in our past spiritual life.

This is an important point. It has played a major role for men because materialism has pushed us toward external culture. This external culture is a male culture because it was supposed to be a material culture. But we must be clear that, even in the development of world history, cultural epochs follow one another, and that this one-sided male culture must be complemented by that which lives in every man. This was felt especially during the era of male culture. That is why mystics, when they spoke from the depths of their souls, described the soul as something feminine. That is why you find everywhere the comparison of the soul, which is receptive to the world, with the woman, and that is the basis of Goethe's statement in the Chorus mysticus:

Everything transitory
Is but a parable;
The imperfect
Here becomes event;
The indescribable
Here is done;
The eternally feminine
Draws us upward.

It is nonsensical to interpret this saying in a trivial way. It is correct to interpret it in Goethe's sense and as true mysticism when one says: Those who knew something about noble intellectual culture also pointed to the feminine character of the soul, and it was precisely from this male culture that the saying “The eternal feminine draws us upward” emerged. Thus, the great world, the cosmos, was presented as male, and the soul, which is fertilized by the wisdom of the cosmos, as female.

And what is it, then, this peculiar spirit that has developed in man over thousands of years, this logic? If we want to look into the depths of its essence, we must see something feminine, the imagination, which must be fertilized by the masculine.

Thus we see the higher nature of the human being, what the ego makes of the lower bodies, when we consider what grows beyond the difference between the sexes. Men and women must regard their physical bodies as instruments that enable them to act as a totality in the physical world in one direction or another. The more people feel the spiritual within themselves, the more the body becomes an instrument, but the more they also learn to understand human beings when they look into the depths of the soul.

This will not give you a solution to the women's question, but it will give you a perspective. You cannot solve the women's question with tendencies and ideals! You must solve it in reality by creating that soul concept, that soul state, which makes it possible for man and woman to understand each other from the totality of human nature. As long as human beings are caught up in the material, a truly fruitful discussion of the women's question will not be possible.

It is therefore not surprising that in an age that gave birth to male culture, the spiritual culture that began in the theosophical movement should have been born out of a woman. This theosophical or spiritual-science movement will thus prove to be eminently practical. It will lead humanity to overcome gender within itself and rise to a standpoint where the spirit self and Atman stand, which are supra-gender and supra-personal, to the purely human. Theosophy does not speak of universal humanization, but of the universal human, so that it may be recognized step by step. Thus, a similar consciousness will gradually awaken in women, as it has awakened in men during the culture of men. As one of those who spoke from the depths of their soul said, “The eternally feminine draws us upward,” so those who feel within themselves the other side of humanity as woman and understand this in a practical sense through spiritual science will speak of the eternally masculine in female nature, and then true understanding and a true spiritual solution to the women's question will be possible. For outer nature is a physiognomy of the soul life. We have nothing else in our outer culture but what human beings have created, what human beings have translated from impulses into machines, into industrial things, into the legal system. As the soul develops, so do the outer institutions. But an age that clung to the outer physiognomy might erect barriers between man and woman. An age that no longer clings to the external, to the material, but is given the knowledge of the supra-sexual inner life, will ennoble and beautify the sexual, without wanting to hide it away in the ascetic, or deny it, and will live in the supra-sexual. And then there will be understanding for what the true solution to the women's question will bring, because it will at the same time offer the true solution to the eternal question of humanity. When speaking of everyday matters, people will no longer say: The eternal feminine draws us upward — nor will they say: The eternal masculine draws us upward — but with understanding, with deep spiritual understanding, they will say: The eternal human draws us upward.