The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Seventh Lecture

[ 1 ] For people today, there is always something alarming about prophetic predictions of future events. Now we have seen that even in the seven seals we had to point to certain facts of human development that will occur, that we had to practice prophetic arts, so to speak. As we reveal more and more of the Apocalypse of John, we will have to apply such prophetic arts to the fullest extent. Now the question arises: For what reasons is it permissible to speak about these things at all? We mentioned some of the underlying reasons at the beginning of our lectures. We said that at a certain level of initiation, the initiate in the spiritual world is shown what will then descend and become physical events. But with the last two observations we made, the last and the penultimate, we have created another basis for such prophetic arts. We have shown how human beings developed out of spiritual spheres to their present existence. And now, in a certain sense, all the future is also a repetition of the past. Not in the sense that the things of the past will happen again in the same way, but in a changed sense, past events will repeat themselves in future times.

[ 2 ] When we pointed out in our last reflections that human beings in the ancient Atlantean era had a kind of clairvoyance, that they consciously ascended into spiritual worlds, especially during their nighttime state, we must be clear that this state of a certain clairvoyance will repeat itself for humanity. Between this Atlantean period and the one that will follow the war of all against all, we have the period of time that we have described. In a certain sense, after our period of time, what was before, what was in the Atlantean period, will repeat itself, only with an enormous difference. Back then, in the old Atlantean era, human beings had a dreamlike, twilight clairvoyant consciousness, and when they ascended to higher worlds, their clear self-consciousness sank; then they felt as if they were in the group soul. After the great war of all against all, human beings will once again be able to see into the higher world in a certain way. What they had then as dim clairvoyance, they will have again after the great war, but they will have added to this clairvoyance what they have now gradually acquired in the outer physical world.

[ 3 ] Between the Atlantean flood and the great war of all against all, human beings had to renounce for a time their insight into the spiritual worlds. They had to content themselves with seeing only what was visible to them in their so-called waking consciousness, what was around them in the physical world. This is now the normal state of affairs. In return, however, it has become possible for human beings to fully develop their self-awareness, their individual ego, to feel themselves, so to speak, within their own skin as a complete ego personality. They have conquered this. Now they retain this individuality even when they ascend again to higher spiritual worlds, and this ascent will be possible for them after the great war of all against all. But this ascent would not be possible for them if they had not participated in the middle of our period of time in the physical world in that great cosmic event which we presented to our souls yesterday. Human beings would have had to sink into a kind of abyss if they had not been saved from this descent by the coming of Christ into our world. We must imagine that during this period of time, human beings have descended completely into the physical world.

[ 4 ] Imagine a line representing the physical plane and above it what we call the spiritual, or heavenly, world. Below that is what we call the abyss. Human beings actually reach the line separating the spiritual world from the abyss precisely in the fourth period we have described.

[ 5 ] We have described the ancient Indian period, when human beings were still relatively in a spiritual sphere. Before that, they were up in the spiritual world. In Atlantis, they still had a dim clairvoyance. Now they come down and reach the line when the world empire spreads out from Rome and in this world empire human beings become fully conscious as external, sensory beings, as personalities. That was when the Roman concept of law came into the world, when everyone wanted to be an individual personality, an individual citizen. Then human beings had reached this line. At this point, it was possible either to turn back or to sink down.

[ 6 ] Now we have indeed reached a point in human development — and everything I say corresponds entirely to the description in the Apocalypse — where humanity stands before a decision in a certain sense. We have already shown how, in our time, enormous spiritual forces are being used to satisfy the lowest needs. We have shown how the telephone, the telegraph, the railroad, the steamship, and other things that are yet to come have absorbed and will absorb enormous spiritual forces that are used only for the mere satisfaction of lower human needs. But human beings have only a certain amount of mental power. Consider the following: Human beings have used an enormous amount of mental power to invent and construct telegraphs, railroads, steamships, balloons, and so on, in order to promote external culture. — This had to be so. Humanity would have fared badly if it had not been so. But human beings have used these mental powers for many other things as well. Just think how human beings have gradually come to weave all social relationships into an incredibly fine web of understanding. What mental powers were required to bring us to the point where we can write a check in America and cash it in Japan? Enormous powers of the mind have flowed into this activity. These powers had to descend, so to speak, below the line of the physical plane that separates the spiritual realm from the abyss. For in a certain sense, human beings have already descended into the abyss, and anyone who studies time from the standpoint of spiritual science can see in the most mundane phenomena how this continues from decade to decade, how a certain point is always reached where the personality is just able to catch itself. If it allows itself to sink at this point, the personality is lost, and it is not saved to ascend into the spiritual worlds.

[ 7 ] Even in the most mundane things, this can be proven. For example, I could prove it to you in the details of the development of banking in the second half of the nineteenth century. It may be reserved for future historians to clarify that a fundamental change took place there, which we can describe as follows: in banking, the personality gradually fragmented. I would have to refer you to the time when the four Rothschilds set out from Frankfurt, one to Vienna, another to Naples, the third to London, and the fourth to Paris, and how the entire banking system was brought into a personal sphere through their personal talents, which were directed toward this end. Personality became involved in the monetary system. Today, you see the entire banking system becoming impersonal. Capital is passing into the hands of joint-stock companies; it is no longer managed by individual personalities. Capital is beginning to manage itself. We have purely objective forces operating within capital, and even forces within this sphere that are drawing all the will of the personality to themselves, so that the personality has become powerless. Thus, with clear eyes, one can follow the matter into these worldly things and see everywhere how humanity has descended to the lowest point in relation to personality.

[ 8 ] Now the personality can save itself and rise again. It can save itself by, for example, strengthening its inner spiritual powers and truly learning to stand on its own two feet, to become independent of the objective forces of capital. But the personality can also throw itself into these forces, can in a sense sail into them and sink down into the abyss, allowing itself to be ensnared by the forces at work in capital.

[ 9 ] The most important point at which the human personality descends to earth and at which it must turn back is the point at which Christ Jesus appeared on earth. He gave the earth the power that enabled humanity to ascend again. And humanity ascends to the same extent that it has communion with Christ Jesus. To the extent that a greater part of humanity gains an understanding of what this event was, to the extent that the Christ impulse becomes the impulse of their own inner being, from which they work and weave their existence, to the same extent will humanity ascend. More and more, human beings must learn to understand what Paul said: It is not I who do it, but Christ who does it in me.

[ 10 ] So when the impulse that descended onto our physical plane in the fourth period takes root in people's hearts, when it becomes the driving force behind their actions, then the upward ascent takes place. And all the souls that find this connection, that achieve union with the Christ principle, find their way upward. But all souls that do not find this union must gradually descend into the abyss. They would have conquered the ego, but would be unable to ascend with this ego into the spiritual world. And the consequence for such a person who does not find a connection to the Christ principle would be that they detach themselves from spiritual ascent. Instead of ascending, he would descend and become increasingly hardened in his ego. Instead of finding in matter only the opportunity to acquire the ego and then ascend again, he would sink deeper and deeper into matter.

[ 11 ] Yes, everything repeats itself. Human beings have come into a position where they can enter our physical world. By surviving the Atlantean flood, they have gained the opportunity to develop their present human form. This is truly a reflection of the spiritual I-godhead dwelling within human beings. Only because, toward the end of the Atlantean epoch, the etheric body merged with the physical body and the forces of the etheric body entered the physical head did human beings acquire their present human countenance, which already allows the spirit of God to shine through. Let us suppose that he would deny that it is the spirit that has given him the human face. Then he would not use the body as an opportunity to attain self-consciousness and become spiritual again, but would grow together with the body, become so attached to it that he would feel at home only in it. He would remain connected to the body and descend into the abyss, and because he did not use the power of the spirit, his outer form would also become similar to his former form. The human being who descends into the abyss would become animal-like. Thus humanity will accomplish what we have already indicated: those who do not use their life in the body merely as an opportunity to attain self-consciousness will descend into the abyss, and they will form the evil race. They have turned away from the impulse of Christ Jesus, and out of the ugliness of their souls they will again develop the animal form that humans had in earlier times, and down in the abyss the race of the evil ones with their wild instincts will be in animal form. And when those who have become spiritualized, who have taken the Christ principle into themselves, proclaim what they have to say concerning their union with the name of Christ Jesus, then here below there will be heard names of blasphemy, of rejection of what appears as spiritual transformation.

[ 12 ] A person who thinks only halfway might now say: Yes, but there have been so many who have lived who knew nothing of the Christ impulse, why should they not have shared in the impulse of Christ Jesus? — The materialistic thinker will object: Why should salvation have come only with Christ Jesus? — If people who are not anthroposophists say this, it is understandable. But if anthroposophists say this, it is incomprehensible, because they should know that human beings return again and again. And the souls that have lived before will return in new bodies in the time after Christ's appearance, so that there will be no human beings who could miss the event of Christ Jesus. Only those who do not believe in reincarnation can raise such objections as those mentioned above.

[ 13 ] Thus we see how the division is taking place and that a time will come when those who have strived for spiritualization will be able to live in the spiritual world; a time when what they have previously acquired will come forth, when they will bear the name Christ on their foreheads, because they have learned to look up to him. Now, after the seals have been broken, human beings will have in their outer form what they carry within their hearts. Those who carry Christ within their souls will, after the breaking of the seals, bear the mark of Christ Jesus on their faces; they will outwardly resemble Christ Jesus in form. But those who remain with the cultures that preceded the appearance of Christ Jesus will have to experience something else. These four cultures, the ancient Indian, the ancient Persian, the Assyrian-Babylonian-Chaldean-Egyptian-Jewish, and the Greek-Latin cultures, were preparatory times. The soul had to pass through the bodies of these cultures in order to prepare itself for the great event of the appearance of Christ Jesus on earth. At that time, during the period of preparation, two forces were at work. The forces that brought people together are forces that have their material basis in the blood. If human beings had simply been placed side by side in their present form, what was to develop in humanity would never have come about.

[ 14 ] Before the Earth, the Moon was the carrier of our creatures. This old Moon was the cosmos of wisdom; our Earth is the cosmos of love. Our development is aimed at bringing people together in love. When the Earth once dissolves after the seventh trumpet sounds, when it loses its physical substance and transforms into an astral heavenly body, then the love that has developed it in everything earthly will be instilled in the entire human race. For it is this power of love that must be instilled as the earthly mission of humanity, just as you now see the power of wisdom in your surroundings. It has often been pointed out: if you look at just a piece of thigh bone, what a wonderful structure it is! It does not consist of a compact mass, but of many fine scaffolding threads that are so wonderfully arranged that the greatest load-bearing capacity is achieved with the least amount of material, something that no engineer today would be able to produce. And if we were to search everything, we would find that what humans have acquired as their wisdom in the course of their earthly development was already implanted in the earth beforehand.

[ 15 ] Time and again in the course of our history lessons, we are told how man has made progress upon progress, becoming ever wiser and wiser. You remember how the individual stages of becoming wise were presented to you, how you were shown, for example, that in the beginning of modern times, man arrived at the invention of gunpowder, linen paper, wood paper, and so on. Your soul rejoiced at how human beings had advanced. Humans learned to make paper out of their intellect; they invented it completely anew, one might think. But those who view the world in its great context see it in a different light. Wasps were able to do this much earlier, because a wasp's nest is exactly the same as paper. So what humans later conquered in their subjective wisdom was already present in wasp nests thousands of years earlier. The individual wasp cannot produce paper, but the group soul, the ego that encompasses the entire group of wasps, is as wise as humans have become. And everywhere you look, if you are not blind but seeing, wisdom will meet you in things.

[ 16 ] Do not believe that this wisdom did not have to come into being. Oh, the world was not always so imbued with wisdom. During the evolution of the moon, this wisdom gradually flowed into what surrounds us today. During the evolution of the moon, what appeared to be chaotic disorder developed into wisdom. If you could turn your gaze to the old moon, you would find everything still in a state of chaos, not yet wise. In the course of the moon's development, wisdom was poured into beings and creatures, instilled in them, and it was there when the earth emerged from the twilight. Now all things appeared imbued with wisdom. And just as man today looks at his surroundings and sees wisdom springing forth everywhere, so when he reaches Jupiter, he will see all beings around him in a strange way: they will pour out something like the fragrance of blissful love. Love will flow from all things, and it is the mission of Earth's development to unfold this love. Love will then flow through all things, as wisdom now reigns in all things. And this love is poured into the development of the earth through the fact that man has gradually learned to develop love.

[ 17 ] But human beings could not immediately possess spiritual love; this love first had to be implanted in them at the lowest level. Love had to have a material vehicle: this is blood relationship. Practicing love in the realm of blood relationship was the first school. Through this, separate human beings were brought together, so that what flowed as common blood in their veins loved one another. This was the preparatory school of love, the great school of love. And the great impulse that spiritualizes this love, that does not leave it where it has its physical basis, but communicates it to the soul, is the Christ impulse in the world.

[ 18 ] Now, throughout all of prehistory, it would have been strange for human beings if only this one impulse of the community of love had been at work in the blood. The beings who were the guides of ancient times, above all Yahweh, brought human beings together in love so that they united in blood relationships. But if, before the appearance of Christ Jesus, human beings had been united only through blood ties, the individual would never have been able to develop a personality. The individual would have been lost in the crowd. Indeed, the individual was actually very much lost in the whole. The consciousness of being an individual was something that developed only gradually. In the Atlantean era, there could be no question of the individual feeling himself as an individual, but even later this still had an echo. People simply do not understand the old names, otherwise they would realize how people felt. Think of the confessors of the Old Testament: in pre-Christian times, if they really wanted to feel it, they did not feel their ego at all in their individual personality. Everyone who felt the impulse flowing from the Old Testament said to themselves: “I and Father Abraham are one.” For they felt secure in this community that reached back to Abraham, whose blood flowed through all their veins down to the youngest member. And so they said: “I feel that I am not a lost member when I feel that my blood is the same as that of Father Abraham.”

[ 19 ] And they tried to trace the community even further back. People felt secure in the group soul. They pointed to Noah, to Adam. People no longer know what these names mean. They do not know that in those ancient times, people's consciousness was still different from what it is today. Today, people can at best remember things from their childhood, and all memories are certainly lost at birth. Back then, in the patriarchal age, in the time of the ancient patriarchs, this was not the case. People remembered not only what they themselves had experienced, but also what their father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had experienced. These memories were as real to them as your memories of your childhood are to you. They did not know that their life began specifically with their birth. Memory went back centuries. No name was given to the separate consciousness; no meaning could be found in it. Because people remembered their father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and so on, a collective name encompassed the entire chain. “Adam” and “Noah” signify the memory through the generations. As far back as people could remember Noah, they called the chain Noah. This was an inner human being, a spiritual being that lived through the generations. It would have been meaningless to give the outer human being a name. Thus, the name Adam encompasses a spiritual being.

[ 20 ] The individual human being was therefore not yet conscious of his ego. He would have dissolved into the community if there had not been impulses that continually attacked this blurring in the community, working to tear people out of the blood ties that were supposed to lead them to independence. Such spiritual beings nestled in his astral body, giving him the impulses not to let his consciousness blur. These beings are the Luciferic beings. It was they who, in pre-Christian times, worked against the actual unification to which man owes his independence, his developing personality. It is very important to realize that what drew together is due to Yahweh, and what pulled apart is due to the Luciferic spirits.

[ 21 ] In the early days of Christianity, there was a saying that went: “Christus verus Lucifer,” Christ is the true light-bearer — for Lucifer means light-bearer. Why is Christ called the true light-bearer? Because through him, what was previously unjustified has now been justified. Previously, there was a tearing apart; people were not yet ready for independence. Now, through the impulse of the self that they received through Christ Jesus, people were ready to develop love for one another despite the self. Thus, what Lucifer wanted to give humanity, so to speak, in advance, when it was still immature, was brought to humanity by the true light bearer, by Christ Jesus. He brought the impulse toward independence, but also the spiritual love that brings together what is not related by blood. Through him came the epoch in which humanity matured into what Lucifer had wanted to bring about earlier. This saying, “Christus verus Lucifer,” was no longer understood later on. Only those who understand it correctly will learn the first teachings of Christianity.

[ 22 ] This is how we must understand this impulse, how we must see how humanity was prepared for the stage it was to reach. Thus, these four ages—the Indian, Persian, Egyptian, and Greek-Latin—were times of preparation, pointing to the great Christian event. But it is possible for human beings to become stubborn, so to speak. Let us imagine a person living at the time of Christ Jesus, and let us imagine that he could consciously decide what he wants. When Christ Jesus came, he could say: Oh, what was before is enough for me. I want nothing to do with him, I want no fellowship with Christ Jesus.” He would then have within his soul those forces, those impulses that could be gained in the time before Christ Jesus. He would have all the impulses that could be gained through Indian, Persian, Egyptian, and Greek-Latin culture. But in the cosmic evolution, one can only have such impulses until a new impulse comes. If one stands still, one remains at that stage. So one must not show a lack of understanding for historical development; one must not say: It is the same principle in all cultures. It is not for nothing that one culture is built upon another.

[ 23 ] Let us suppose that someone wanted to sleep through the Christian development, then he would live on into the future until after the great war of all against all. But then he would have nothing of the great principle of love of Christ, which brings the I's together and makes communities out of human beings. He would have everything that is currently leading the I's down into the abyss. He would have the forces that drive people apart, the forces that fragment them. And this is shown to us by one circumstance that can lead us to the question: Why does the revelation of the first four seals give us such a bleak picture? — Because those people emerge who want to remain in these four preparatory cultures, in which the old form of Lucifer is present, driving them apart. Therefore, the opening of the seals shows us how they take on the form they have acquired. They have slept through the event of Christ Jesus, and they are reborn in the forms that can be given to them without the influence of the Christ principle. Therefore, what mere intelligence, mere reason indicates, appears again: four times in succession the horse appears! — The old form of man appears, which he has acquired by taking on the nature of the horse. This form appears when the first four seals are unsealed.

[ 24 ] And at the moment when the fifth seal is broken, what are we made aware of? To those who have learned to comprehend the event of Christ Jesus in the previous period. They are clothed in white garments, they have been disregarded, they have been figuratively strangled, they are those who are being kept for the spiritualization of the world. Thus, it is the connection with the Christ Jesus principle that brings people to wear these white robes and appear when the fifth seal is broken. Here we see clearly indicated that at this time, when Christ Jesus appears, an important epoch of humanity is beginning, the epoch that will bring about the reappearance of the four periods after the war of all against all, where those who have been left behind will be tormented by the materiality that has accompanied their development and to which they have become attached, where they will be tormented by all the evils and torments of hardened, coarsened materiality. And everything that is now described to us in the revelation of the seals represents nothing other than the descent into the abyss. While in the fifth period we are only briefly referred to those who are chosen, we are shown all those who remain in materiality, who enter the abyss, who take on the forms that were there before because they did not come along, because they did not take in the power to transform these forms.

[ 25 ] You can imagine this: Think of all your human forms today as made of rubber, and within these rubber human bodies, think of your inner soul power, which gives these rubber bodies their human form. Imagine we take the soul power out: the rubber bodies would shrink, and the people would take on animal forms. The moment you pull the soul out of the human rubber body, the person would show you their animal form. What people have achieved is like something they bring forth today through their own power. If you could see what he has previously created in his astral body, you would see how this animal-like quality is present. It is really something like an inner force that gives the rubber man his present form. Imagine this force removed, imagine man unfertilized by the Christ force — and man recoils into animal form. This is what will happen to those who fall back. They will subsequently form a world that lies, so to speak, beneath the present world, a world of the abyss, where human beings will once again have taken on animal form.

[ 26 ] In this way we learn to understand how evolution will actually be. Bit by bit, what is now being prepared will come to light, just as in our time, bit by bit, what was laid down in the Atlantean epoch has come to light. I have told you that in the last third of the Atlantean epoch, a small colony was formed from which our cultures are derived, and from which the two later cultures that will follow are also descended. For the next period, which will replace all these cultures, it will be somewhat different. There will not be a colony limited to one place, but from the entire mass of people, those who are mature, who are good, noble, and beautiful, will be recruited from everywhere to form the next culture after the war of all against all. This is again the progress made since the earlier Atlantean period, when the colony developed in a small place, but now we have the opportunity to recruit from all tribes across the whole earth those who truly understand the call of the Earth mission, who understand how to make Christ alive within themselves, to unfold the principle of brotherly love across the whole earth, and to unfold it in the right sense, not in the sense of the Christian denominations, but in the sense of true esoteric Christianity, which can emerge from all cultures. Those who understand this Christian principle will be there in the time that will follow the great war of all against all. Our present culture, our pure intellectual culture, everything that is developing more and more toward the abyss of the intellect in the present—and you can experience this in all areas of life—will be followed by a time when human beings will be slaves to their intelligence and will perish as personalities. There is only one means today of preserving the personality, and that is spiritualization. Those who understand how to develop spiritual life will belong to the small group of the well-sealed from all nations and tribes who will appear in white robes after the great war of all against all.

[ 27 ] Now we are beginning to understand the spiritual world out of our immediate present culture of the intellect. This is the true anthroposophical striving: to understand the spiritual world out of today's culture of the intellect, to gather together those people who can understand the call for the spiritualization of the world. They will not form a closed colony, but will come from all nations, and little by little they will live over into the sixth epoch, that is, not yet over the great war, but first into the sixth epoch. For the time being, there are still necessities that are connected with old racial necessities. In our period, the racial and cultural epochs are still mixed up. The actual concept of race has lost its meaning, but it still plays a role. It is by no means possible that every mission is already being carried out in an equal manner by every people among us. Some peoples are particularly predestined for this.

[ 28 ] The nations that are today the bearers of Western culture were chosen to bring the fifth period to its height. These were the nations that were to develop the intellect. Therefore, where this Western culture spreads, we find primarily the culture of the intellect, and this is not yet complete. This intelligence will continue to spread. With even greater intellectual powers, people will achieve what is necessary for the body's needs, and with even greater intellectual powers, they will strangle each other before the great war of all against all. Many discoveries will be made to wage war more effectively, and infinite intelligence will be mustered to satisfy base instincts. But in the midst of all this, something is preparing for which certain nations of the East and the North East are predisposed. Nations are preparing to rise out of a certain dullness and bring about a great and powerful impulse, which will be a spiritual impulse, something like the opposite pole to intelligence. Before the sixth cultural epoch, represented by the church in Philadelphia, we will experience something like a mighty marriage of nations, a marriage between intelligence and reason and spirituality. Today we are only experiencing the dawn of this marriage, and no one should take what has just been said as a song of praise for our time, for one does not sing songs of praise to the sun when the first signs of dawn are just appearing. But we do see strange phenomena when we compare East and West, when we look into the depths and shallows and undercurrents of nations.

[ 29 ] Let us not interpret this as wanting to take sides. These lectures, which aim to be objective, are as far removed as possible from taking sides. But you can objectively compare what has been achieved in Western Europe in terms of science and philosophy with what has emerged in the East, say in Tolstoy. You don't have to be a follower of Tolstoy, but one thing is true: in a book like Tolstoy's “On Life,” you can read one page, if you know how to read, and compare it with entire libraries in Western Europe. And then you can say to yourself: in Western Europe, intellectual culture is created with the mind, people chisel out details to form things that are supposed to make the world understandable. And in this respect, Western European culture has achieved something that no age will ever surpass. But what can be said in thirty volumes of such Western European libraries can sometimes be condensed into ten lines if you understand a book like Tolstoy's “On Life.” Something is said there with primitive force, but a few lines have an impact equal to that which is chiseled out of the details there. — One must be able to judge what comes from the depths of the mind, what has spiritual underpinnings and what does not. Just as overripe cultures have something withering about them, so emerging cultures have fresh life and new impact within them. Tolstoy is indeed a premature blossoming of such a culture, having come much earlier than it would have been possible for it to develop fully at this point. Therefore, he is afflicted with all the faults of a premature birth. Everything he brings forth in his grotesque portrayal of certain Western European things, everything that is unfounded, everything he brings forth in his foolish judgments, shows precisely that great phenomena have the faults of their virtues, that great cleverness has the folly of its wisdom.

[ 30 ] This should only be seen as a symptom of the future, when the spirituality of the East and the intellectualism of the West will unite. From this confluence will emerge the time of Philadelphia. All those who take in the impulse of Christ Jesus will find their way into this marriage, and they will form the great brotherhood that will survive the great war, which will be hostile, will experience the most varied persecutions, but will lay the foundation for the good race. After this great war has been brought about, the animal nature within those who have remained in the old forms will rise, and this good race will arise. They will carry over into the future what is to be the spiritually elevated culture of that future time. Thus we will also experience that in our time, between the great Atlantic flood and the great war of all against all, in the period represented by the community of Philadelphia, a colony will form that will not emigrate but will be everywhere, so that everywhere, in the spirit of the community of Philadelphia, in the spirit of the union of humanity, in the spirit of the Christian principle, there will be activity.