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The Mystery of Death
GA 159

9 May 1915, Vienna

8. The War as an Illness Process—Central Europe and the Slavic East—The Dead as Helpers of Human Progress

Our spiritual-scientific world view may not only turn to the development and advance of the individual souls, but above all it has also to help really to gain additional points of view for the observation of life. In our time it has to suggest itself to us in particular to gain such additional points of view for the judgement of life. Indeed, it is a big and also important task for the individual human being to help himself by that which he can gain as the fruit of the spiritual-scientific self-education. Only because the individual human beings really help themselves, can they co-operate in the development of humankind generally. But our attention should be directed not only to that, but we really should be able to feel as supporters of the anthroposophical world view the big events of our time from a high point of view, from a really spiritual point of view. We should be able to transport ourselves to a higher standpoint judging the events. Today some points of view just with reference to the big events of our time may be given, because our present meeting takes place in these destiny-burdened times.

We start from something that is near to us as human beings. Human beings have illnesses at certain times. One considers illnesses normally as that which damages our organism which penetrates our organism like an enemy. Such a general point of view is not always justified. Indeed, there are symptoms which must be judged from this point of view where as it were the illness comes like an enemy into our organism. But that is not always the case. In most cases, the illness is something completely different. The illness is not the enemy in most cases, but just the friend of the organism. That what is the enemy of the organism precedes the illness in most cases, it develops in the human being, before the externally visible illness breaks out. There are forces opposing each other in the organism, and the illness, which breaks out at any time, is the attempt of the organism to save itself from the forces opposing each other which were not noticed before.

Illness is often the beginning work of the organism to induce the healing. The illness is that which the organism undertakes to fight against the hostile influence which precedes the illness. The illness is the last form of the process, but it signifies the battle of the good juices of the organism against that which is lurking there at the bottom. Only if we look at the most illnesses in such a way, do we get the correct understanding of the illness process. Hence, the illness points to the fact that something has taken action, before the illness broke out, that should come out of the organism. If some phenomena of life are seen in the right light, you understand quite easily what I said. The causes may be in the most different areas. What it concerns, this is that which I have just suggested: the fact that we have to look at the illnesses as something that the organism defends itself against things which should be driven out.

I do not believe that there is a comparison which holds really as true as the comparison of such a sum of significant, deeply intervening events, as we experience them now since the beginning of August 1914 over a big part of the earth, with an illness process of the human evolution. Just this must strike us that these military events are actually an illness process. But wrong would it be to believe that we cope with it if we simply understand this illness process in the wrong sense as just many an illness process is understood: as if it is the enemy of the organism. The cause goes ahead of the illness process. It can strike us in our time particularly how little people are inclined in the present to take into consideration such a truth which must prove itself as immediately clear to somebody who takes up the spiritual-scientific world view not only in his reason, but also in his feeling.

We had to experience a lot of infinitely painful things just in the course of the last nine months—painful concerning the human ability of judgement. Is it not that way, actually, if one reads the literature, which is read mostly and is spread by the most different countries of the earth, is it not as if the people who judge about these events suppose that in July 1914, actually, history has begun? This was the saddest experience in which we had to take part beside all the other painful things that the people, setting the tone or rather giving articles, and making the public opinion, know basically nothing about the origin of the events and look only at the nearest. The infinite discussions, these invalid discussions came into being from that. Where is the cause of the present military conflicts? Over and over again one has asked: does this have the guilt? Does that have the guilt?—And so on. Always one hardly went back further than up to July, at most June 1914. I mention that because it is a characteristic feature of our materialistic time. One thinks usually that materialism only manages a materialistic way of thinking, a materialistic world view. This is not the case. Materialism manages not only this, but it also manages shortsightedness; materialism manages mental laziness, manages lack of insight. The materialistic way of thinking leads to the fact that one can prove everything and believe everything. It really belongs to that self-education which anthroposophy must give us to see that somebody who stops in the area of materialism can prove everything and believe everything.

I take a simple example. When one had something to say about the spiritual-scientific world view during the last years, somebody here or there believed to have to assert his view compared to the spiritual-scientific world view. One could often hear: Kant has already proved by his philosophy that the human being has limits of knowledge, and that one cannot get where the spiritual-scientific world view wants to attain knowledge.—Then the very interesting matters were stated by which Kant should have proved that one cannot penetrate to the spiritual world with human cognition. If one still went on representing spiritual science, then the people came and believed: he denies everything that Kant has proved. Of course, such a thing contained a little bit of the assertion: this man must be an especially foolish person, because he strictly denies proven matters.

It is not that way at all. The spiritual scientist does not deny at all that this is absolutely right what Kant has proved, it is clear that this is proved quite well. However, assume once that somebody would have strictly proved in the time in which the microscope was not yet invented, that there would be the smallest cells in the plant, but one could never find these because the human eyes were not able to see them. This could have been strictly proved, and the proof would be absolutely right, because the human eye, as well as it is arranged, could never penetrate to the organism of the plant up to these smallest cells. That is an absolutely right proof which can never be upset. However, life has developed this way that the microscope was invented, and that in spite of the strict proof people got the knowledge of the smallest cells. Only if once anyone understands that proofs are worthless for gaining the truth that proofs can be correct, but mean basically nothing special for the progress of the knowledge of truth, only then will one stand on the right ground. Then one knows: the proofs can be good, of course, but the proofs do not have the task to lead really to truth. Think only once of the comparison I have given, then you see that also, as absolutely strict the proof may be that the human visual ability does not reach to the cell, as strict can be the proof that human knowledge, as Kant says, does not reach to supersensible worlds.

The proofs were absolutely correct, but life goes beyond proofs. This is also something that is given to somebody on the path of spiritual research that he extends his ken and is really able to appeal to something different than to the human reason and its proofs. Who limits himself to materialistic ideas is really led to an uncontrollable confidence in proofs. If he has a proof in the pocket, he is generally convinced of the truth.

Spiritual research will just show us that anyone can prove the one and the other matter rather well that, however, proofs by reason have no significance for gaining real truth. That is why it is a concomitant of our materialistic time that people are enslaved by mental shortsightedness. If this mental shortsightedness is still infiltrated with passions, it comes about that we see today not only the European peoples fighting with arms, but feuding with each other. There anyone has to say all possible matters, and you cannot expect basically that one is able to persuade the other, not only during the war. If anybody believed that one day a neutral state could possibly choose between the allegations of two hostile states, he would have a naive confidence. Of course, one side can have its opinion and substantiates it by all kinds of proofs, but the other side will do the same. One gets insight only if one is involved in the deeper bases of the whole human evolution.

I tried already some years before the outbreak of this war to throw some light on it in the series of talks about the individual folk-souls and their effects on the individual human beings in the different European regions, how the individual nations face each other and that there really different forces hold sway over the different peoples. Today we want to complete that with a few other viewpoints.

Our materialistic time thinks too much in the abstract. Such a thing is not taken into consideration in our materialistic time at all that there is a real development in the life that the human being has to allow to be ripe that what is in him develops gradually to the real judgment. The human being—we know this and it is shown in detail in my essay Education of the Child in the Light of Spiritual Science—experiences such a development that during the first seven years his physical body, from the seventh up to the fourteenth years the etheric body develops in particular et cetera. This advancing development of the individual human being is taken into consideration a little, the parallel phenomenon, the synonymous phenomenon much less. The processes which take place within the individual nation's connections are directed and led—we all know this from spiritual science—by beings of the higher hierarchies. We speak of folk-souls, of folk-spirits in the true sense of the word. We know that, for example, the folk-soul of the Italian people inspires the sentient soul; the French folk-soul inspires the intellectual soul or mind-soul, that the inhabitants of the British islands are inspired by the consciousness-soul; in Central Europe the ego is inspired. I do not pass any value judgment on the individual nations, but I may only say that this is that way. The fact that, for example, an inspiration of the people that inhabit the British islands is based on the fact that it brings as nation everything into the world that is caused by inspiration of the consciousness-soul from the folk-soul. It is strange to which extent people become nervous in this field. When I emphasised here or there during the war what I had expressed in the mentioned series of talks, there were people who almost understood it like a kind of abuse of the British people that I said that it would have the task to inspire the consciousness-soul, while the German folk-soul has to inspire the human ego. As if one understood it as an insult when one says: salt is white, paprika is red.—It is a simple characterisation, the representation of a truth which exists, and one has to accept this as such a truth first of all. One manages that much better which prevails between the individual members of humankind if one looks at the characteristics of the individual peoples, and not, if one confuses everything, as the modern materialistic view does it.

Of course, the individual human being rises up above that which he gets from his folk-soul, and this is just the task of our anthroposophical society that it raises the individual human being out of the group-soul and raises him to the general humankind. But it remains that the individual human being, in so far as he stands in a people, is inspired by his folk-soul, that, for example, the Italian folk-soul speaks to the sentient soul, the French folk-soul to the intellectual soul or mind-soul, the British folk-soul to the consciousness-soul. We have to imagine that as it were the folk-soul is hovering over that which the individual human beings do in the single nations. But as we see that the human being develops already as we can say: the ego experiences a particular development in a certain time of life; we can also speak of a development of the folk-soul in relation to its people. Only this development is somewhat different from that of the individual human being.

We take, for example, the Italian people. There we have this people and the folk-soul belonging to this people. The folk-soul is a being of the supersensible world; it is affiliated to the world of the higher hierarchies. It inspires the sentient soul, and this always happens, as long as the people live, the Italian people, because we speak of this people, but it inspires the sentient soul in the different times in the most different way. There are times in which the folk-souls inspire the members of the single nations, so that this inspiration happens as it were on the level of the soul. The folk-soul floats in higher regions of spirit and its inspiration happens in such a way that it inspires the soul qualities only. Then there are times when the folk-souls float further down and make stronger demands on the single members of the peoples when they inspire them so strongly that not only the human being gets them in his soul qualities, but where they work so effectively that the human being becomes dependent on the folk-soul concerning his bodily qualities. As long as people are influenced by the folk-soul in such a way that it inspires the psycho-spiritual qualities, the type of the people is not coined so deeply. The forces of the folk-soul do not work there, so that the whole human being is seized up to the blood. Then a time comes when one can infer already from the kind how the human being looks out of his eyes, from the facial features how the folk-soul is working. It is revealed that the folk-soul has sunk deeply; it makes forceful demands on the whole human being.

Such a deep impression took place with the Italian people approximately in the middle of the 16th century, about 1550. Then again the folk-soul floated back as it were, and thenceforward that is passed on the descendants. You can say: the most intensive being together of the Italian people with their folk-soul was about 1550. At this time, the Italian folk-soul sank the deepest, this people of the Italian peninsula got their most distinctive character. If we go back to the time before 1550, we see that their character is not as strongly coined as from 1550 on. Then only the typical begins what we know as Italianità. The Italian folk-soul, so to speak, entered into marriage with the sentient soul of the individual human being, who belongs to the Italian people.

For the French people—I do not talk about the single human being who can rise up above the people—the similar point in time entered when the folk-soul sank the deepest and penetrated the people completely, about 1600, in the beginning of the 17th century. At this time, the folk-soul completely seized the intellectual soul or mind-soul.

For the British people the point in time entered in the middle of the 17th century, about 1650. Only then the British people got their exterior British expression.

If you know such matters, something will be explicable to you, because you can now put the question differently: how is it with Shakespeare in England?—Shakespeare worked in England, before the British folk-soul worked most intensively on the English people. That is why he is not understood in England substantially. As everybody knows, there are issues in which everything that does not correspond completely to the taste of the governesses is eradicated. Very often Shakespeare is extremely moralised. We know that the deepest understanding of Shakespeare was caused not in England, but in the Central European spiritual development.

Now you will ask: when did the folk-soul touch the members of the Central European people?—However, the case is somewhat different, because this folk-soul descends and ascends repeatedly. And thus we have in the time, when the boon legend world of Parzival, of the Grail originated, such a descent of the folk-soul which combines with the individual souls, then it ascends again and after that a next descending takes place in the time between 1750 and 1830. The Central European life is then touched by its folk-soul the deepest. Since that time the folk-soul is ascending. Thus you see that it is quite comprehensible that Jacob Böhme (1575–1624) lived in a time in which he could get little from the German folk-soul. There was not the time when the folk-soul combined with the individual souls of the people. Hence, Jacob Böhme is, although he is called the “Teutonic philosopher.” a person who is chronologically independent of his folk-soul; he stands as it were like an uprooted human being there, like an everlasting phenomenon within his time. If we take Lessing, Schiller, Goethe, these are also German philosophers, they are completely rooted in the German folk-soul. This is just the typical feature of these philosophers living in the time between 1750 and 1830 that they are completely rooted in the folk-soul.

You see that it does not depend only on the fact that one knows: with the Italian people the folk-soul works on the sentient soul, with the French people the folk-soul works on the intellectual soul, with the British people the folk-soul works on the consciousness-soul, with the Central European nation the folk-soul works on the ego. One has also to know that this happens at certain points in time. The events which happen become historically explicable only if one knows such matters really. That nonsense which is done as science where one gets the documents and enumerates the events successively and says that one has to derive one matter from the other, however, this nonsense of the historians does not lead to a real history, to an understanding of the human evolution, but just only, so to speak, to a falsification of that which exists and works in human history.

If one sees how differently that works on the individual peoples—I could still characterise other peoples—which forces drive these peoples, then one sees the conflicting matters which are there. And one sees that the events of today really did not happen only during the last years, but were prepared for centuries.

We look at the East, at the area of the Russian culture. The characteristic of the Russian culture is that it can develop when once the point in time can enter when the Russian folk-soul combines with the spirit-self—I already expressed this in the mentioned series of talks. A time has to come in which this characteristic of the European East is only revealed. This will be completely different from the development in the West or in the middle of Europe. Provisionally, however, it is quite explicable that that which is allotted to the Russian culture is not there at all, but that the Russian culture has such a relationship—like the individual human being—to the spirit-self that it turns always upwards. The single member of the Russian people and even profound Russian philosophers do not speak as one speaks of the biggest matters in Central Europe, but they speak quite differently.

We find something tremendously typical. What is the most characteristic of this Central European cultural life? You all know that there was a time of the great mystics in which Master Eckhart, John Tauler and others worked. They all sought for the divine in the human souls. They tried to find the God in their chests, in their souls, “the little spark in the soul,” as Master Eckhart expressed it. They said: therein something must be where the divinity is immediately present. Thus that striving originated through which the ego wanted to be united with its divinity in itself. This divinity wanted to be won by hard efforts; the divinity wanted to be won by the developing human being. This runs as a trait through the whole Central European being. Imagine which infinitely deep emotion it is when Angelus Silesius (1624–1677) who, I may say, stands internationally on the ground of the Central European culture and cultural life, says in one of his nice sayings The Cherubinic Wanderer: if I die, not I die, but God dies in me.—Imagine how infinitely deep this is. For he, who said this, seized the idea of immortality vividly, because he felt: if death happens in the individual human being,—because the human being is filled with God—this phenomenon of death is no phenomenon of the human being, but of God, and because God cannot die, death can be only a delusion. Death cannot mean destruction of life. He knows that an immortal soul exists and says: if I die, not I die, but God dies in me.—It is a tremendously deep sensation which lives in Angelus Silesius. This is a result of the fact that the inspiration takes place in the ego.

If the inspiration takes place in the sentient soul, it can happen what took place by Giordano Bruno. The monk got into the spirit with everything what he found with Copernicus, felt the whole world animated. Read a line of Giordano Bruno, and you find verified that he, in so far as he has grown out of the Italian people, just proves the fact that there the folk-soul inspires the sentient soul.

Cartesius, Descartes (1596–1650), is born almost in the characterised point of the French development, when the French folk-soul combined so surely with the French people. Read a page by Cartesius, the French philosopher, you find that he confirms on each page what spiritual science finds: the fact that there the inspiration of the folk-soul works on the intellectual soul.

Read Locke (1632–1704) or Hume (1711–1776) or another English philosopher, up to Mill (John Stuart Mill, 1806–1873) and Spencer (Herbert Spencer, 1820–1903), everywhere inspiration of the consciousness-soul.

Read Fichte (Johann Gottlieb Fichte, 1762–1814) in his struggle in the ego itself, then you have the inspiration of the ego by the folk-soul. This is just the characteristic that this Central European folk-soul is experienced in the ego, and that, hence, the ego is the actually striving force, this ego with all its power, with all its mistakes, with all its wrong tracks and also with all its conscious efforts. If this Central European human being should find the way to Christ, he wants to bear Him in his own soul.

Try once to look for the idea to experience the Christ or a God internally in the Russian cultural life, if it is not taken over externally by the west-European civilisation. You cannot find it at all. There one expects everywhere that a historical event happens really, so that it takes place, as Solovyov (Vladimir Solovyov, 1853–1900) says, as a “miracle.” The Russian cultural life is very much inclined to behold the resurrection of Christ in the supersensible realm, to revere the working of an inspiring power externally, as if the human being is beneath it, as if the inspiration moves over humankind like a cloud, not as if it enters into the human ego. This intimate being together of the ego with its God, or also, if it concerns Christ, with Christ, this desire that Christ is born in the soul is to be found only in Central Europe. If once the East-European culture develops as it is commensurate, again a kind of group-soul will appear because that culture will be founded which floats above the human beings. This kind of group-soul is only on a higher level than the old group-soul was. At the time being, we must find it quite natural that one speaks everywhere in that way, as the Russian philosopher does, about something that floats like the spiritual world above the human world. However, he can never approach that world as intimately as the Central European human being wants to approach with his ego the divine that flows and weaves through the world.

When I often spoke of the fact that the divinity flows through the world and weaves and surges, then that is out of the sentient world of the Central European human being and would not at all be understood by any other European people in the same way as it can be taken up by the Central European feeling nature. This is the typical, the characteristic of the Central European people.

These are the forces which live there in the individual peoples facing each other, which time and again are in competition, which must discharge by force as clouds discharge and cause flashes and thunderstorms.

Do we not hear, one could say now, a word sounding in the East of Europe which was as it were something like a slogan and should work thus, as if the culture of Eastern Europe should begin now to extend over the little valuable Western Europe, to overflow it? Do we not see that the Pan Slavists, the Pan-Slavism1was originally a scientific term for the relationship of the Slavic languages. The idea of nationality of the Slavophils led to the demand to unite all the Slavic peoples under Russian dominion. appeared, especially also appeared in spirits like Dostoyevsky (Fyodor Mikailovitch Dostoyevsky, 1821–1881) and similar people, with the particular points of his program as there was said: you West-Europeans altogether, you have a decadent culture that must be replaced by East Europe.—Then a whole theory was built up, a theory which culminated above all in the fact that one said: in the West everything has become decadent; this must be replaced by the fresh forces of the East. We have the really orthodox religion against which we do not fight, but we have just accepted it like the cloud of the folk-soul floating above the human beings et cetera. Then sagacious theories were built up, very sagacious theories, which the principles, which the intentions of the old Slavism could already be, that from the East the truth must now spread out over Central Europe and Western Europe.

I said that the single human being can rise up above his people. Such an individual being was Solovyov in a certain field, the great Russian philosopher. Although one also notices with him in each line that he writes as a Russian, nevertheless, he rises up above his people. In the first time of his life, Solovyov was a Pan-Slavist. But he has more exactly concerned himself with that which the Pan-Slavists and Slavophils2several Russian philosophers of the 19th century who stood up for the emancipation of the Russian culture in contrast to the “Westernisers.” put up as a kind of national philosophy, national world view. What did Solovyov, the Russian, find? He asked himself: is there already the real Russian being in the present? May it be included already in those who represent Pan-Slavism and Slavophilism?—And lo and behold, he did not rest, until he came on the right thing. What did he find? He checked the statements of the Slavophils to whom he had belonged before, he tackled them, and there he found that a big part of the forms of thinking, the statements, the intentions is got from the French philosopher de Maistre3Joseph-Marie Comte de Maistre (1753–1821) stood up for absolutism and the feudal form of society. He regarded Catholicism and the papal primacy as foundations of the national and social life friendly to the Jesuits, who was the great teacher of the Slavophils concerning their world view. Solovyov himself proved that Slavophilism does not grow on own ground, but originates from de Maistre. He proved even more. He discovered a German book of the 19th century which was forgotten for long time and which nobody knows in Germany. The Slavophils copied whole parts of that book in their literature. What a peculiar phenomenon appeared? One believes that something comes from the East, whereas it is a purely western import. It came over from the West and was then sent back to the western people again. The western people were confronted with their own thought-forms because own thought-forms do not yet exist in the East.

If anyone tackles the matters exactly, it is confirmed everywhere what spiritual science has to say. So that one already deals with something while rolling from the East that is still elementary, with something that will find its development when it takes up that as affectionately which has developed in Central Europe as this Central Europe took up the Greek and Latin cultural achievements from the South. Because development of humankind takes place, so that the following condition takes up the previous one. What I could characterise in the public lecture as the Faustic way of thinking of Central Europe by the words: there was a year 1770—Goethe felt it as a Faustic striving when he said:

I've studied, to my regret,
Philosophy, Law, Medicine,
and—what is worst—Theology
from end to end with diligence.
Yet here I am, a wretched fool
and still no wiser than before

Faust I, verses 354–359

There a very rich German cultural life came about, a most intensive striving. But if Goethe had written his Faust forty years later, indeed he would not have started: “I've studied now, to my regret, Philosophy ...” et cetera, and I have now become a wise man,—but he would have written exactly his Faust like in 1770. This vivid striving comes from the inspiration of the folk-soul in the ego, from that intimate being together of the ego with the folk-soul. This is a basic characteristic of the Central European spiritual culture. And the East European culture has to combine with it affectionately, it must take up it. What had to flow into Central Europe was received once from the southern culture, was taken up. Now, however, it is not different when from the East the elementary wave of development rolls, as if the pupil is furious with his teacher because he should learn something from him and wants to thrash him, therefore. It is a somewhat trivial comparison, but, nevertheless, it is a comparison which exactly applies to the matter. Human masses of quite different internal forces of development live in Europe together. These different forces of development must compete with each other; they must assert themselves in different way. The reluctant forces developed for a long time. If one looks at the details, one finds that they express everywhere what spiritual science has to say.

Is it not expressed so wonderfully, does not the wave of the European development crowd together in such a way that it is put symbolically before the whole humankind that in Central Europe the intimate living together of the ego with the spiritual world must be felt? That God is to be experienced in the “little spark in the soul,” that Christ is to be experienced in the “little spark in the soul?” Christ Himself must come to life in the human ego efficiently. That is why the whole development in Central Europe tends to the ego as in no other European language. “Ich” (ego) is “I-C-H.” Like a mighty symbol in the intimate interaction of that what can be the holiest to the soul stands there in Central Europe: I = I-CH—Jesus Christ. Christ Jesus and at the same time the human ego! The folk-soul is working that way, inspiring the people to express in typical words what the underlying facts are. I know very well that people laugh at such a thing, when I express that the folk-soul worked for centuries, so that the term “ich” has come about which is so typical, so symbolical. However, we let people laugh. Only few decades, and they will no longer laugh, but then they will regard it as more significant than what people call physical laws today.

What had an effect as a wave of development worked rather typically. Sometimes, the consciousness expresses a very small part of the truth only; but what works in the subconscious depths expresses itself much truer. We speak, for example, of “Germans” (Teutons, Germanic people). Words are formed by the active genius of language. A part of the inhabitants of Central Europe is called “Germans.” If a German speaks of “Germanic people” (Teutons), he counts the inhabitants of Germany, Austria, Holland, Scandinavia, but also the inhabitants of the British islands to them. He expands the word “German” about a wide area. However, the inhabitant of the British islands rejects this. He calls the German “German” only. He does not have the word German for himself. The German language embraces a much bigger circle. It is inclined to put the word into the service of selflessness; he not only is called “German,” he also encloses the others. The other, the Briton, rejects this. If you are once grasped by the creative genius of language, then you see something really wonderful in it. What people have in consciousness becomes maya, the big delusion. What exists in subconscious depths has a much truer effect. Something tremendously significant and deep expresses itself therein.

Compare now the rude way to look at the relations of the European peoples today with the way one has to go to work intimately to understand the European interplay of forces. Then only will you be able to see the devastation that the materialistic age caused in the human power of judgment. The fact that one started to think that matter carries and holds everything is not yet the worst, but that one has become shortsighted that one cannot look at the central issue, even does not do a step behind the veil which is woven as a maya over the truth, this is the actually bad.

Materialism well prepared what it intended. Also there the genius worked, only the genius who caused materialism as the highest leader is Ahriman. He had a powerful influence during the last centuries. I may still point briefly to a chapter to which one does not point with pleasure today. If it happens, one looks at it as a particular madness. One influences the human being the easiest, if one instills to him in his youth in his powers of imagination, in his soul what should grow up then in him. In the later life one cannot teach human beings anything thoroughly. Hence, Ahriman never would have, actually, better prospects to make the souls really materialistic, than when he instills in the youthful childish souls already that which works on in the subconsciousness. If in the time when the human being does not yet think intellectually already the materialistic forms of thinking are taken up, then people will learn to think thoroughly materialistically if materialism is already instilled in the children's souls. Ahriman did this in such a way that he inspired a writer of the materialistic age4Daniel Defoe (1660–1731) wrote The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York (1719) with the idea of Robinson Crusoe. Who allows to take in Robinson sees the materialistic ideas of Robinson thoroughly working. It does not seem so, but the whole—as Robinson is constructed as he is driven in this adventurer's life in the external experience to everything, until even the religion grows up finally like cabbages on the fields—all that prepares the child's soul very well to the materialistic thinking. If you imagine that there were in a certain time—in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries—Bohemian, Portuguese, Hungarian versions of Robinson et cetera as imitations of Robinson Crusoe, one must say: the job was performed thoroughly, and the portion that the Robinson reading had in the education of materialism is enormous.

Compared with such a phenomenon one has to point to something different that the children should take up in their understandings for their later lives. These are the fairy tales which live in Central Europe, and particularly the fairy tales which the brothers Grimm5Jacob Grimm (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786–1859) published their collection of fairy tales in 1810 for the first time. collected. This is a much better literature for the children than Robinson. And if one understands that which now happens between the European peoples in such a frightful, such a grievous and destiny-burdened way as an admonition to look at the way a little more exactly that developed in the subsoil of the events, at that which extends to himself in the present, then one will know above all, that it does not depend really on whether now a few German scholars send back their medals and certificates to England. If the admonition of the time is so strong that one recognises the materialistically inspired consciousness-soul of the British people in its significance, one also understands the significance of the Robinson reading and eradicates the whole Robinson once. Much more thoroughly, much more radically one will have to set to work if one is able to take into consideration the admonitions of our time correctly one day.

Thirty-five years have now passed since I started interpreting Goethe, just in his spiritual-scientific task. I tried to show that in Goethe's theory of evolution a really great, spiritual theory of evolution is given. The time must come when that is seen in wider circles. For Goethe gave a great, tremendous and spiritual theory of evolution. This was hard to understand for the people. Then Darwin could work better in the materialistic age who gave that in a coarsened, materialistic way which Goethe gave in a fine, spiritual way as a theory of evolution. It was a thorough Anglicisation which seized Central Europe. Now imagine the tragedy which lies, actually, in the fact that the most English naturalist in Germany, Ernst Haeckel, who swore completely on Darwin, had to appear with his furious hatred about the English. When this war broke out, he was one of the first who sent back the received medals and certificates to England. To send back the English coloured Darwinism, he is probably too old, however, that would be the essential, the more important action.

The concerning matters are tremendously deep and important, and they are connected with the necessary spiritual deepening of our time. If one sees once that the Goethean theory of colours is infinitely deeper than the Newtonian theory of colours that the Goethean theory of evolution is infinitely deeper than Darwin's theory of evolution, then one finally becomes aware of that which the Central European cultural life involves, also with regard to such highest fields.

I will only arouse a sensation in your souls which admonitions the present grievous, destiny-burdened events must be to us. An admonition to work which should induce us to reflect that which is there in the Central European cultural life and which is as it were an obligation to get it out. I also meant this when I spoke yesterday in the public lecture6The Human Destiny Seen in the Light of Spiritual Knowledge, Vienna, 8th May 1915, not yet published. about the fact that this Central European cultural life contains germs which must produce blossoms and fruits.

When we say time and again: the conscious soul-life takes place on the surface; however, beneath it there is something about which we have spoken during these days. Then we are also allowed to direct our thoughts to the fact that in the impulses of numerous human beings also in the present something lives that is quite different from that they are aware of. Do not believe that the human beings fight in the West and the East who have to defend the big Central European fortress only for that they are aware of in their consciousness. Look at the impulses above all which are unaware to many human beings who go through blood and death today. However, the impulses exist, and we should be able to get the sensation from spiritual science,—looking to the East and to the West—that in the impulses of those, who sacrifice their lives, something lives that the future has to bear only for the external experience, even if the fighters possibly have no premonition in their consciousness. Considering these events that way we can penetrate ourselves with the right feeling.

Take into account that many souls have gone through blood and death during these military events which cannot be compared with that which took place in the conscious history of humankind, and we imagine that these souls will look down on the death which was imposed to them by the big events of time. Imagine that for the purposes of what I said the day before yesterday the youthful etheric bodies permeate the spiritual atmosphere. Imagine that not only the souls, the individualities, are in the spiritual world, but that something useful of their young etheric bodies penetrates the spiritual atmosphere. Let us try to look at the admonitions which people should have, who are left here on the earth. Yes, the individual human being who has gone through the gate of death reminds us of the big tasks which are to be carried out in the European culture.

These admonitions must be heard. And people must be inclined to get recognising sensations of our conditions from the depth of the cultural life. If one feels once that way that everybody who remains today in the blossom of his years on the battlefield stands as an admonisher calling for the spiritualisation of humankind in the European culture, one will have properly understood it. One wants not only that from such sites as ours the abstract knowledge goes out: the human being consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego, the human being goes through many incarnations, the human being has a karma and so on,—but one would want that the souls who take part in our spiritual-scientific life are roused in their internal depths to the sentient life which has just been suggested, to experience also that which the admonitions of the early deceased are in the next future. The nicest we can acquire to us as supporters of spiritual science is the vivid life which should go like a breath through those who count themselves to us. Not the knowledge, not the knowledge only, but this life, this life becoming reality.

In the last times, several members left us from the physical plane. Also a young co-worker, our dear Fritz Mitscher, died. I had, arranged by karma, the task to speak at the cremation in Basel. I had to speak certain words to the disappearing soul. Among various matters, I spoke to the soul that we are aware of the fact that he also remains as a co-worker, after he has gone through the gate of death. I had to speak this out of the consciousness that what invigorates us is not only a theory, but that it must fill our souls completely with life. Then, however, we must behave to those who have gone through the gate of death like to those who are here still in life. We must not be waiting to say to ourselves: human beings living in physical bodies are prevented by the most manifold circumstances from fully realising the spiritual life. Which inhibitions can we notice in this physical life on earth with the human beings if the really big tasks of development are involved—and have to be fulfilled then. But we can rely on the dead often better. This feeling that they are among us that a special mission can be transferred to them allowed me to speak the obituary for our friend Fritz Mitscher appropriately who has gone as an early deceased through the gate of death. What was said for him concerns many others who have gone through the gate of death. We regard them as our most important co-workers, and it will not be misunderstood if I say: even more than on the living we can rely on the dead with our spiritual work.

But that we can generally express such a thing, we have to stand quite vividly in that which our spiritual movement can give us. I rely on the fact that just the dead are now the most important co-workers for the spiritualisation of the future human culture on the external field in our destiny-burdened time. For this death is a great master at which those look back who have gone through the gate of death. Some people need a stronger teacher than life can be today. You can see this at various examples.

I would like to give an example—some other could be given. A spectacular article7Wincenty Lutoslawski Rudolf Steiner's so-called Occult Science in Hochland October 1910, opposing against spiritual science, represented by me, appeared several years ago in a magazine which is published in South Germany, in the Hochland. This article caused a great sensation. It has made sense to many people because it was written by a quite famous philosopher. The editor of that magazine Hochland accepted this article. He supported, actually, as he thinks, such a view on this tricky spiritual science.

It does not depend really on defending oneself with external means against it. It is absolutely comprehensible that the quite clever people of the present consider spiritual science to be something foolish. But after the war had broken out, something different occurred. The editor of the mentioned magazine is a good German, a man feeling very German. Now the man whose article he accepted in those days has written letters to him, and this editor also has printed them, I may say, in his especially gifted “innocence” in the South German Monthly Magazine. Try once to read them, you will see that same philosopher venting his rage against the Central European spiritual culture so that the editor of the Hochland feels compelled to say: one can only find somebody, who thinks such matters, in madhouses in Central Europe. What an infinitely significant criticism. There is an editor of a South German magazine. This editor accepts an article which he considers to be authoritative to destroy spiritual science of which he says: this is a good article about spiritual science by a famous philosopher.—After some time the editor gets letters from the same man, who should be in a madhouse, as he says. So would one not have to continue, with the logic of life, and say: if the man is now a fool, he once was a fool, too, and the dear editor did only not realise in those days that he deals with a fool when he wrote against spiritual science.—This is logic of life. You cannot sometimes wait, until such logic of life works, but it already exists in our life. Thus you can sometimes experience something according to this prescription. In those days, the article appeared just against my spiritual science. People read him. People said: this is a famous philosopher and Platonist, he is especially clever.—The editor said to himself: if anybody who is so clever writes about spiritual science, this is a significant article.—Some time passes, and the same editor says: the man is a fool.—But he needed the proof in the just cited way. Such matters take place with the living human beings. Such people who have so little steady ground under their feet like that editor of the South German magazine need that they are taught by events which are given in much deeper sense by the life of the last times from the spiritual world than it is convenient.

Thus you understand when I return to that which I said just now: our time had many reluctant forces, and if we call the war an illness—we can do this,—this is an illness which was caused by something that took place long ago, and it is there to the recovery, so that something is eradicated that had to lead to the damage of the life of the whole culture gradually. If we call it illness in this sense, if we look at the illness as a defence, we understand this war and the destiny-burdened events of the present, understand it also in its significant hints and admonitions. We then experience it with all internal forces of our souls, so that we can surely take notice of those who have gone through the gate of death and look at the next future and really have learnt what they can inspire in the souls which they want to hear. That spiritual deepening which is necessary for the human welfare and progress in the next future must come into them.

If your souls can rightly take up that which I would like to say with these words, you are supporters of our spiritual-scientific world view in the right sense only now. If your souls can make the decision to become such souls which turn their attention to that which is murmured down from those who have gone through the gate of death because of the destiny-burdened events.

A connecting bridge between the living and the dead should be built by spiritual science just for the next future, a connecting line by which the inspiring elemental forces of those who have made the big sacrifices in our time are able to find their way to us.

That is why I wanted to stimulate sensations during these days, teaching to your souls. These sensations should be like sensations expecting that which is said to the souls by the effects of our destiny-burdened time. In this sense, I may close today again with the words that I already spoke here the day before yesterday that should have an effect like a mantram in our souls, so that our souls expect the inspiration which will come there from the dead who become particularly living in spirit:

From the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of the battles,
From the grief of the bereaved,
From the nation's sacrifices
Will grow up the fruits of spirit
If souls aware of spirit turn
Their senses to the spirit-land.

Der Krieg, Ein Krankheitsprozess Mitteleuropa Und Der Slawische Osten Die Toten Als Helfer Des Menschheitsfortschrittes

Nicht nur darf unsere geisteswissenschaftliche Weltanschauung sich wenden an die Entwickelung und das Emporkommen der einzelnen Seelen, sondern sie muß auch vor allen Dingen wirklich uns helfen, weitere Gesichtspunkte zu gewinnen für die Anschauung des Lebens. Und in unserer Zeit muß es uns ganz besonders nahegehen, solche weiteren Gesichtspunkte für die Beurteilung des Lebens zu gewinnen. Gewiß, es ist eine große und auch bedeutungsvolle Aufgabe für den einzelnen Menschen, durch dasjenige, was er als die Frucht der geisteswissenschaftlichen Selbsterziehung gewinnen kann, sich selbst weiterzubringen. Und nur dadurch, daß sich die einzelnen Menschen wirklich weiterbringen, können sie mitarbeiten an der Entwickelung der Menschheit überhaupt. Aber nicht allein darauf soll unser Augenmerk gerichtet sein, sondern wir sollen wirklich als Bekenner der anthroposophischen Weltanschauung auch die großen Ereignisse der Zeit von einem hohen Gesichtspunkte, einem wirklich geistigen Gesichtspunkte aus empfinden können. Wir sollen uns wirklich auf einen höheren Standpunkt versetzen können bei der Beurteilung dessen, was geschieht. Und einige Gesichtspunkte gerade mit Bezug auf die großen Ereignisse unserer Zeit mögen heute angegeben sein, weil unsere gegenwärtige Zusammenkunft in dieser schicksaltragenden Zeit liegt.

Gehen wir von etwas aus, was uns als Menschen naheliegen kann. Menschen werden zu gewissen Zeiten von Krankheiten befallen. Krankheiten betrachtet man gewöhnlich als dasjenige, was unseren Organismus schädigt, was wie ein Feind in unseren Organismus eindringt. Nun ist ein solcher allgemeiner Gesichtspunkt keineswegs immer gerechtfertigt. Gewiß, es gibt Krankheitserscheinungen, die von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus beurteilt werden müssen, wo gewissermaßen die Krankheit wie ein Feind hereindringt in unseren Organismus. Aber nicht immer ist es so. Es ist sogar nicht einmal in den meisten Fällen so, sondern die Krankheit ist in den meisten Fällen ganz etwas anderes. Die Krankheit ist in den meisten Fällen nicht der Feind, sondern gerade der Freund des Organismus. Dasjenige, was der Feind des Organismus ist, geht in den meisten Fällen der Krankheit voran, entwickelt sich im Menschen, bevor die äußerlich sichtbare Krankheit zum Ausbruch gekommen ist. Da sind einander widerstrebende Kräfte im Organismus darin, und die Krankheit, die zu irgendeiner Zeit ausbricht, ist der Versuch des Organismus, sich zu retten vor den einander widerstrebenden Kräften, die vorher nicht bemerkt worden sind. Die Krankheit ist oftmals der Beginn in der Arbeit des Organismus, die Heilung gerade herbeizuführen. Die Krankheit ist das, was der Organismus unternimmt, um die feindlichen Einflüsse, die der Krankheit vorangehen, zu bekämpfen. Die Krankheit ist die letzte Form des Prozesses, aber sie bedeutet den Kampf der guten Säfte des Organismus gegenüber demjenigen, was da unten lauert. Sie ist da, um das herauszutreiben aus dem Menschen, was da unten lauert. Nur dann, wenn wir die weitaus größte Anzahl der Krankheiten so ansehen, dann kommen wir zu einem richtigen Auffassen des Krankheitsprozesses. Es deutet also die Krankheit darauf hin, daß etwas vorgegangen ist vor dem Ausbruch der Krankheit, das gerade durch die Krankheit aus dem Organismus herauskommen soll. Wenn manche Erscheinungen des Lebens im richtigen Lichte gesehen werden, dann kommt man ganz leicht auf das, was eben gesagt worden ist. Die Ursachen können auf den verschiedensten Gebieten liegen. Worauf es ankommt, das ist das, was ich eben angedeutet habe: daß wir die Krankheiten ansehen als etwas, was ein Sich-zur-Wehr-Setzen des Organismus ist gegen die Dinge, die ausgetrieben werden sollen.

Nun glaube ich nicht, daß es einen Vergleich gibt, der wirklich so zutreffend sein kann als der Vergleich einer solchen Summe von bedeutsamen, tief eingreifenden Ereignissen, wie wir sie jetzt seit dem Beginn des August 1914 über einen großen Teil der Erde hin erleben, mit einem Krankheitsprozeß des Menschenwerdens. Gerade das muß uns auffallen, daß diese kriegerischen Ereignisse wirklich ein Krankheitsprozeß sind. Aber falsch wäre es, zu glauben, daß wir damit fertig werden, wenn wir einfach diesen Krankheitsprozeß in dem unrichtigen Sinne auffassen würden, wie eben mancher Krankheitsprozeß aufgefaßt wird: als wenn er der Feind des Organismus wäre. Was als Ursache vorliegt, geht voraus dem Krankheitsprozeß. Nun kann uns gerade in unserer Zeit ganz besonders auffallen, wie wenig die Menschen in der Gegenwart geneigt sind, solche Wahrheiten zu berücksichtigen, die sich demjenigen unmittelbar als einleuchtend erweisen müssen, der geisteswissenschaftliche Weltanschauung nicht bloß in den Verstand, sondern auch in die Empfindung aufnimmt.

Wir haben ja vieles unendlich Schmerzliche erfahren müssen gerade im Laufe der letzten, sagen wir, neun Monate — Schmerzliches erfahren müssen mit Bezug auf die Urteilsfähigkeit der Menschen. Ist es denn nicht eigentlich so, wenn man das, was schließlich doch durch die Literatur, die am meisten gelesen und von den verschiedensten Ländern der Erde verbreitet wird, liest, ist es denn nicht so, als wenn die Menschen, die urteilen über die heutigen Ereignisse, annehmen würden, daß im Juli 1914 eigentlich die Geschichte ihren Anfang genommen hat? Das war die traurigste Erfahrung, die wir neben allem andern Schmerzlichen haben mitmachen müssen, daß sich gezeigt hat, wie gerade die tonangebenden oder vielmehr artikelangebenden Menschen, die die öffentliche Meinung machen, im Grunde nichts von dem Werden der Ereignisse wissen und nur auf das Allernächste hinschauen. Daher sind die unendlichen Diskussionen, diese ganz hinfälligen Diskussionen entstanden. Wo liegt die Ursache zu den gegenwärtigen kriegerischen Konflikten? Immer wieder und wiederum hat man gefragt: Hat der die Schuld? Hat jener die Schuld? - und so weiter. Immer ist man kaum weiter zurückgegangen als bis zum Juli, höchstens Juni 1914. Ich erwähne das aus dem Grunde, weil ja das, was ich sage, wirklich ein Charakteristikum unserer materialistischen Zeit ist. Man glaubt gewöhnlich, der Materialismus bringe nur materialistische Denk weise, materialistische Weltanschauung zustande. Das ist nicht so. Der Materialismus bringt nicht nur diese zustande, sondern er bringt auch Kurzsichtigkeit zustande; der Materialismus bringt Denkfaulheit, bringt Einsichtslosigkeit zustande. Dasjenige, was materialistische Denkweise ist, führt dazu, daß man zum Schlusse alles beweisen und alles glauben kann. Und es gehört wirklich zu jener Selbsterziehung, die uns wahrhaft richtig gemeinte Anthroposophie geben muß, daß wir das einsehen, daß man, wenn man bloß auf dem Gebiete des Materialismus stehenbleibt, alles beweisen und alles glauben kann.

Nehmen wir ein einfaches Beispiel. Wenn man in den letzten Jahren da oder dort die geisteswissenschaftliche Weltanschauung vorgebracht hat und der oder jener glaubte, gegenüber der geisteswissenschaftlichen Weltanschauung seine Ansicht geltend machen zu müssen, konnte man oftmals hören: Ja, Kart hat doch schon durch seine Philosophie bewiesen, daß der Mensch Grenzen des Erkennens habe, und daß man da nicht hinkommen kann, wo die geisteswissenschaftliche Weltanschauung hinkommen will im Erkennen. — Dann wurden angeführt die gewiß sehr interessanten Sachen, wodurch Kant bewiesen haben soll, daß man nicht in die geistige Welt hineindringen könne mit dem menschlichen Erkennen. Wenn man nun dennoch Geisteswissenschaft vertrat, dann kamen die Menschen und glaubten: Der leugnet ja alles, was Kant bewiesen hat! Und selbstverständlich steckte darin so etwas von der Behauptung: das müsse also ein besonders törichter Mensch sein, denn er leugne ja das streng Bewiesene.

So ist es gar nicht. Der Geisteswissenschafter leugnet gar nicht, daß das absolut richtig ist, was Kant bewiesen hat, sondern es ist klar, daß das ganz gut bewiesen ist. Aber nehmen Sie einmal an, irgend jemand hätte in der Zeit, in welcher das Mikroskop nicht gefunden war, streng bewiesen, daß es kleinste Zellen in der Pflanze gäbe, aber man könne diese niemals finden, weil die menschlichen Augen nicht dazu eingerichtet seien. Das hätte sich streng beweisen lassen, und der Beweis wäre absolut richtig, denn das menschliche Auge, so wie es eingerichtet ist, kann niemals in den Organismus der Pflanze bis zu diesen kleinsten Zellen hineindringen. Ein absolut richtiger Beweis, der niemals umgestoßen werden kann. Doch das Leben hat sich so entwickelt, daß zum Menschenauge das Mikroskop gefunden worden ist, und daß trotz des strengen Beweises die Menschen zum Erkennen der kleinsten Zellen gekommen sind. Erst wenn einmal eingesehen wird, daß für die Erringung der Wahrheit Beweise ganz wertlos sind, daß Beweise richtig sein können, aber im Grunde nichts besonderes bedeuten für den Fortschritt der Wahrheitserkenntnis, erst dann wird man auf dem richtigen Boden stehen. Dann wird man wissen: Die Beweise können natürlich gut sein, aber die Beweise haben gar nicht die Aufgabe, wirklich zur Wahrheit zu führen. Denken Sie nur einmal an den Vergleich, den ich gegeben habe, dann werden Sie sehen, daß ebenso, wie absolut strikte der Beweis sein kann, daß die menschliche Sehfähigkeit nicht zur Zelle reicht, auch strikte sein kann der Beweis, die menschliche Erkenntnis könne, wie Kant sagt, nicht zu übersinnlichen Welten reichen. Die Beweise waren absolut richtig, aber das Leben geht über Beweise hinaus. Das ist nämlich auch etwas, was einem auf dem Wege der Geistesforschung gegeben wird, daß man seinen Gesichtskreis erweiternd wirklich dazukommt, an ein anderes zu appellieren als an den menschlichen Verstand und seine Beweise. Und derjenige, der sich auf materialistische Vorstellungen beschränkt, wird tatsächlich zu einem unbändigen Glauben an Beweise geführt. Wenn er einen Beweis in der Tasche hat, ist er überhaupt von der Wahrheit überzeugt. Geistesforschung wird uns gerade zeigen, daß man im Grunde das eine und das andere recht gut beweisen kann, daß aber Verstandesbeweise für die Erringung der wirklichen Wahrheit keine Bedeutung haben. Und so ist es denn eine Begleiterscheinung unserer materialistischen Zeit, daß die Leute in Verstandeskurzsichtigkeit verfallen. Und wird diese Verstandeskurzsichtigkeit auch noch von den Leidenschaften durchsetzt, so kommt das zustande, was wir heute nicht nur in den mit den Waffen kämpfenden europäischen Völkern sehen, sondern was wir sehen in der Befehdung der europäischen Völker gegenseitig, wo einer über den andern alles mögliche vorbringt und im Grunde keine Aussicht besteht, daß der eine den andern jemals — nicht nur während des Krieges — überzeugen könnte. Und wer den Glauben hat, daß ein neutraler Staat zwischen den Behauptungen zweier feindlicher Staaten etwa jemals wählen könnte, der hätte einen naiven Glauben. Selbstverständlich läßt sich das, was auf dem einen Boden gesagt wird, ebensogut vertreten, ja belegen durch allerlei Beweise wie dasjenige, was auf dem andern Boden gesagt wird. Einsicht bekommt man nur, wenn man sich einläßt auf die tieferen Grundlagen der ganzen menschlichen Entwickelung.

Nun habe ich schon einige Jahre vor Ausbruch dieses Krieges versucht, durch den Zyklus über die einzelnen Volksseelen und ihre Wirkung auf die einzelnen Menschen in den verschiedenen europäischen Gebieten ein wenig Licht zu werfen darauf, wie sich die einzelnen Nationen gegenüberstehen, und daß da wirklich verschiedene Kräfte bei den verschiedenen Völkern herrschen. Heute wollen wir dasjenige, was dort gesagt ist, noch durch ein paar andere Gesichtspunkte ergänzen.

Unsere materialistische Zeit denkt allzu abstrakt. Vor allen Dingen wird so etwas in unserer materialistischen Zeit gar nicht berücksichtigt, daß es im Leben eine wirkliche Entwickelung gibt, daß der Mensch heranreifen lassen muß dasjenige, was in ihm ist, damit es eben nach und nach reif werde zum wirklichen Urteil. Der Mensch - das wissen wir ja und es ist genügend ausführlich dargestellt in «Die Erziehung des Kindes vom Gesichtspunkte der Geisteswissenschaft» — macht eine Entwickelung durch so, daß ungefähr in den ersten sieben Jahren sein physischer Leib, vom siebenten bis zum vierzehnten Jahre der Ätherleib und so weiter ihre besondere Entwickelung finden. Wird schon dieser Fortschritt in der Entwickelung des einzelnen Menschen wenig berücksichtigt, so wird die parallele Erscheinung, die gleichbedeutende Erscheinung noch viel weniger berücksichtigt. Die Vorgänge, die sich innerhalb der einzelnen Volkszusammenhänge abspielen, werden ja gelenkt und geleitet — das wissen wir schon alle aus der Geisteswissenschaft - von Wesenheiten der höheren Hierarchien. Wir sprechen im wahren Sinne des Wortes von Volksseelen, von Volksgeistern. Und wir wissen, daß zum Beispiel der Volksgeist des italienischen Volkes inspiriert dasjenige, was wir Empfindungsseele nennen; daß der französische Volksgeist inspiriert dasjenige, was wir Verstandes- oder Gemütsseele nennen, daß die Bewohner der britischen Insel inspiriert werden durch die Bewußtseinsseele; in Mitteleuropa wird inspiriert dasjenige, was wir das menschliche Ich nennen. Damit wird nun aber kein Werturteil gefällt über die einzelnen Nationen, sondern es wird nur gesagt, daß das so ist. Daß zum Beispiel eine Inspiration des Volkes, das die britische Insel bewohnt, darin beruht, daß es als Nation alles das in die Welt hereinbringt, was durch Inspiration der Bewußtseinsseele von seiten des Volksgeistes bewirkt wird. Es ist merkwürdig, wie nervös geradezu auf diesem Gebiet die Menschen werden. Als das da oder dort während der kriegerischen Ereignisse von mir wiederum betont wurde, was, wie gesagt, in dem erwähnten Zyklus schon früher ausgesprochen worden ist, ja, da hat es Menschen gegeben, die es geradezu aufgefaßt haben wie eine Art Beschimpfung des britischen Volkes, daß gesagt worden ist, sie hätten die Aufgabe, die Bewußtseinsseele zu inspirieren, während die Volksseele, welche die deutsche Volksseele ist, das menschliche Ich zu inspirieren hat. Es war das gerade so, als wenn man es als Schimpf auffassen würde, wenn man sagt: Salz ist weiß, Paprika ist rot. — Es ist eine einfache Charakteristik, die Darstellung einer Wahrheit, die besteht, und als eine solche Wahrheit hat man das zunächst hinzunehmen. Man wird viel besser zurechtkommen mit dem, was waltet zwischen den einzelnen Gliedern der Menschheit, wenn man hinschaut auf die Eigentümlichkeiten, welche die einzelnen Völker haben, und nicht, wenn man alles durcheinanderrührt, wie es die heutige materialistische Anschauung macht. Selbstverständlich, der einzelne Mensch erhebt sich über dasjenige, was ihm durch seine Volksseele wird, und das ist ja gerade die Aufgabe unserer anthroposophischen Gesellschaft, daß sie den einzelnen Menschen heraushebt aus der Gruppenseelenhaftigkeit, daß sie ihn zum allgemeinen Menschentum erhebt. Aber dabei bleibt doch bestehen, daß der einzelne Mensch, insofern er in einem Volkstum steht, von diesem Volkstum in der Richtung inspiriert wird, daß zum Beispiel der italienische Volksgeist zu der Empfindungsseele spricht, der französische Volksgeist zu der Verstandes- oder Gemütsseele, der britische Volksgeist zu der Bewußtseinsseele. Wir haben uns also vorzustellen, daß gleichsam über dem, was die einzelnen Menschen in den einzelnen Nationen beginnen, der Volksgeist schwebt. Aber wie wir sehen, daß beim Menschen schon eine Entwickelung vorhanden ist, wie man beim einzelnen Menschen sagen kann: Das Ich kommt in einer gewissen Weise zur Entwickelung, zu einer besonderen Entwickelung in einem bestimmten Zeitraum des Lebens, so kann man auch mit Bezug auf die Volksseele im Verhältnis zu ihrem Volk von einer Entwickelung sprechen, richtig von einer Entwickelung. Nur ist diese Entwickelung etwas anders als beim einzelnen Menschen.

Nehmen wir zum Beispiel herausgreifend das italienische Volk. Da haben wir also dieses Volk, und dann die zu diesem Volke gehörige Volksseele. Die Volksseele ist ein Wesen aus der übersinnlichen Welt, ist der Welt der höheren Hierarchien angehörig. Sie inspiriert die Empfindungsseele, und das geschieht nun immer, solange das Volk lebt, das italienische Volk - weil wir von diesem Volk sprechen -, aber sie inspiriert die Empfindungsseele in den verschiedenen Zeiten in der verschiedensten Weise. Es gibt Zeiten, in denen die Volksseelen die Angehörigen der einzelnen Nationen so inspirieren, daß diese Inspiration gleichsam seelisch geschieht. Da schwebt die Volksseele in höheren Regionen des Geistes, und ihre Inspiration geschieht so, daß sie nur in seelische Eigenschaften hinein inspiriert. Dann gibt es Zeiten, wo die Volksseelen weiter herunterschweben und stärker in Anspruch nehmen die einzelnen Angehörigen der Nationen, wo sie sie so stark inspirieren, daß nicht nur der Mensch sie in seine seelischen Eigenschaften hereinbekommt, sondern wo sie so stark wirken, daß bis in die körperlichen Eigenschaften hinein der Mensch von den Volksseelen abhängig wird. Solange ein Volk unter dem Einflusse der Volksseele so steht, daß sie nur die seelisch-geistigen Eigenschaften inspiriert, ist noch der Typus des Volkes nicht so ausgeprägt. Da wirken die Kräfte der Volksseele nicht so, daß der ganze Mensch bis in das Blut hinein ergriffen wird. Dann kommt eine Zeit, wo man’ gleichsam schon in der Art, wie der Mensch aus den Augen schaut, aus den Zügen, die sein Gesicht trägt, entnehmen kann, wie der Volksgeist heineinwirkt. Das prägt sich aus, daß die Volksseele sich tief herabgesenkt hat; sie nimmt stark und intensiv den ganzen Menschen in Anspruch.

Beim italienischen Volke war es so, daß der Zeitpunkt, von dem ich gesprochen habe, wo der Volksgeist sich tief heruntersenkt, wo er so hineinwirkt, daß man in einzelnen Menschen den Abdruck finden kann, in der Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts ungefähr war, so um 1550 herum. Dann wiederum schwebte die Volksseele gleichsam zurück, und von dieser Zeit an vollzieht sich das durch Vererbung auf die Nachkommen. Man kann also sagen: Das intensivste Zusammensein des italienischen Volkes mit seiner Volksseele war um 1550 herum. Da hat sich die italienische Volksseele am tiefsten heruntergesenkt, da hat dieses Volk der italienischen Halbinsel seinen präzisesten Charakter bekommen. Gehen wir zurück in die Zeit vor 1550, da sehen wir, daß die Charakterzüge durchaus nicht so ausgeprägt sind, daß einem das so stark entgegentreten könnte, wie von 1550 an. Da beginnt eigentlich erst das Charakteristische, was wir eben als Italienertum kennen. Da ist sozusagen die eigentliche Ehe erst geschlossen worden zwischen der italienischen Volksseele und der Empfindungsseele des einzelnen Menschen, der der italienischen Volkheit angehört.

Für das französische Volk - ich rede also nicht von dem einzelnen Menschen, der sich über das Volkstum erheben kann - trat der ähnliche Zeitpunkt, wo also der Volksgeist sich am tiefsten heruntersenkte und das Volk ganz durchdrang, ungefähr um 1600 ein, im Beginne des 17. Jahrhunderts. Da ergriff der Volksgeist ganz die Verstandes- oder Gemütsseele.

Für das britische Volk trat der Zeitpunkt ein in der Mitte des 17. Jahrhunderts, etwa um 1650 herum. Da bekam erst das britische Volk seinen äußerlichen britischen Ausdruck.

Wenn Sie solche Dinge wissen, dann wird Ihnen manches erklärlich sein, denn Sie können jetzt zum Beispiel in einer ganz andern Weise die Frage aufwerfen: Wie ist es mit Shakespeare in England? — Shakespeare hat in England gewirkt, bevor der britische Volksgeist am intensivsten gewirkt hat auf das englische Volk. Daher ist es, daß er nicht in England ordentlich verstanden wird. Bekanntlich gibt es dort Ausgaben, in denen alles ausgemerzt ist, was nicht ganz im Geschmack der Gouvernanten ist. Es ist Shakespeare sehr häufig im alleräußersten Sinne moralisiert. Und wir wissen ja, daß das tiefste Verständnis Shakespeares herbeigeführt worden ist nicht in England, sondern in der mitteleuropäischen Geistesentwickelung.

Nun werden Sie die Frage aufwerfen: Wann war denn diese Berührung des Volksgeistes mit den Angehörigen des mitteleuropäischen Volkes? — Da ist es allerdings so: Dadurch, daß in Mitteleuropa das Ich das maßgebende ist, daß wirklich eine Art Herabschweben des Volksgeistes stattfindet, dann ein Wiederzurückgehen, dann wieder ein Herunterschweben, wieder ein Zurückgehen, da finden Wiederholungen statt. Und so haben wir in der Zeit ungefähr, in der die wunderbare Sagenwelt des Parzival, des Gral entstanden ist, ein solches Heruntersteigen des Volksgeistes, ein Sich-Vereinigen mit den einzelnen Seelen, ein Wiederzurückgehen und ein nächstes Herunterschweben ungefähr zwischen den Jahren 1750 und 1830. Da wird am tiefsten ergriffen dasjenige, was in Mitteleuropa lebt, von dem, was mitteleuropäischer Volksgeist ist. Seither ist wiederum ein Zurückgehen des Volksgeistes. So sehen Sie, wie eigentlich es ganz begreiflich ist, daß, sagen wir, Jakob Böhme in einer Zeit gelebt hat, in der er gerade wenig vom deutschen Volksgeist haben konnte. Da war nicht die Zeit, in der der Volksgeist sich verband mit den einzelnen Seelen des Volkes. Jakob Böhme ist daher, obwohl er der «Teutonische Philosoph» genannt wird, ein Mensch, der zeitlich unabhängig ist von dem, was sein Volksgeist ist; der gleichsam wie eine entwurzelte Erscheinung dasteht, wie eine ewige Erscheinung innerhalb seiner Zeit. Wenn wir Lessing, Schiller, Goethe nehmen, das sind auch deutsche Philosophen, die wurzeln ganz im deutschen Volksgeiste. Und das ist gerade das Charakteristische, daß diese in der Zeit zwischen 1750 und 1830 lebenden Philosphen im Volksgeiste ganz darin wurzeln. So sehen Sie also, daß es nicht bloß darauf ankommt, daß man nur weiß: Beim italienischen Volke wirkt der Volksgeist durch die Empfindungsseele, beim französischen Volke wirkt der Volksgeist durch die Verstandesseele, beim britischen Volke wirkt der Volksgeist durch die Bewußtseinsseele, beim mitteleuropäischen Volke wirkt der Volksgeist durch das Ich -, sondern daß man auch wissen muß, daß dieses in gewissen Zeitpunkten geschieht. Und die Ereignisse, die sich abspielen, werden geschichtlich nur erklärbar, wenn man solche Dinge wirklich weiß. Jener Unfug, der als Wissenschaft getrieben wird, wo man die Dokumente hernimmt und nacheinander die Ereignisse aufzählt und sagt, eines müsse man aus dem andern herleiten, dieser Unfug der Geschichtsforscher führt allerdings nicht zu einer wirklichen Geschichte, zu einem Verständnis des Menschwerdens, sondern eben nur, man kann sagen, zu einer Fälschung desjenigen, was in der Menschengeschichte waltet und wirkt.

Und wenn man nun sieht, wie in ganz verschiedener Weise auf die einzelnen Völkerschaften - es könnten ja noch andere charakterisiert werden — dasjenige wirkt, was als Kraft diese Völkerschaften treibt, dann sieht man die gegensätzlichen Dinge, die da sind. Und man sieht, daß das, was heute geschieht, wahrhaftig nicht erst in den letzten Jahren geschehen ist, sondern in den Jahrhunderten sich eben vorbereitet hat.

Schauen wir hinüber nach dem Osten, nach dem Gebiet, das die russische Kultur trägt. Das ganz Eigentümliche der russischen Kultur ist dieses, daß die russische Kultur erst dann zur Entfaltung kommen kann, wenn einmal der Zeitpunkt eintreten kann, wo die russische Volksseele sich verbindet mit dem Geistselbst — das ist auch schon ausgesprochen in dem genannten Zyklus. Das heißt, es muß ein späterer Zeitraum kommen, in dem dasjenige, was Charakteristik dieser Eigentümlichkeit des europäischen Ostens sein kann, sich erst ausprägen wird. Und das wird dann ganz verschieden sein von demjenigen, was im Westen von Europa oder in der Mitte von Europa sich abwickelt. Vorläufig aber ist es ganz erklärlich, daß dasjenige, was der russischen Kultur zugeteilt ist, überhaupt noch gar nicht da ist, sondern daß die russische Kultur — wie der einzelne Mensch - so zum Geistselbst steht, daß sie sich immer nach oben wendet. Der einzelne Angehörige des russischen Volkes und selbst tiefsinnige russische Philosophen sprechen nicht so, wie in Mitteleuropa das Größte gerade gesagt wird, sondern sie sprechen in ganz anderer Weise.

Da finden wir etwas höchst Charakteristisches. Was ist denn ein Eigentümlichstes dieses mitteleuropäischen Geisteslebens? Sie wissen alle, daß es eine Zeit der großen Mystiker gegeben hat, in der Meister Eckart, Johannes Tauler und andere gewirkt haben. Sie alle haben im menschlichen Gemüte das gesucht, was in diesem menschlichen Gemüte selber enthalten ist als das Göttliche. Sie haben gesucht, den Gott in der eigenen Brust, in der eigenen Seele zu finden, «das Fünklein im Gemüte», wie Eckart sich ausdrückte. Dadrinnen, so sagten sie, muß es etwas geben, wo die Gottheit unmittelbar anwesend ist. Und so entstand jenes Streben, wo das Ich sich zusammenschließen wollte mit seiner Gottheit in sich selbst. Erkämpft sein wollte diese Gottheit; im Werden erkämpft sein wollte die Gottheit. Das geht als ein Zug durch das ganze mitteleuropäische Wesen hindurch. Denken Sie, wie unendlich gemütstief es ist, wenn derjenige, der ganz, ich möchte sagen, international auf dem Boden der mitteleuropäischen Kultur und des mitteleuropäischen Geisteslebens steht, Angelus Silesius, wenn der in einem seiner schönen Sprüche «Cherubinischer Wandersmann» sagt: Wenn ich sterbe, so sterbe nicht ich, sondern Gott stirbt in mir. - Denken Sie, wie unendlich tief das ist! Denn der das sagt, er ergriff lebendig die Idee der Unsterblichkeit, denn er fühlte: Wenn der Tod eintritt im einzelnen Menschen, so ist das, weil der Mensch durchdrungen ist von der Gottheit - diese Erscheinung des Todes ist nicht eine Erscheinung des Menschen, sondern des Gottes, und da der Gott nicht sterben kann, so kann der Tod nur eine Täuschung sein. Der Tod kann also keine Zerstörung des Lebens sein. Er weiß, daß eine unsterbliche Seele besteht, wer da sagt: Wenn ich sterbe, so sterbe nicht ich, sondern Gott stirbt in mir. — Es ist eine ungeheuer tiefe Empfindung, die bei Angelus Silesius lebt. Das ist eben durchaus eine Folge dieses Umstandes, daß hier die Inspiration im Ich geschieht.

Wenn die Inspiration in der Empfindungsseele geschieht, kann das eintreten, was zum Beispiel bei Giordano Bruno eingetreten ist. Der Mönch fühlt sich mit aller Leidenschaft ein in das, was Kopernikus gefunden hat, fühlt die ganze Welt belebt. Lesen Sie eine Zeile bei Giordano Bruno, und Sie werden bestätigt finden, daß er, insofern er aus dem italienischen Volkstum herausgewachsen ist, gerade den Beweis dafür darstellt, daß da die Volksseele inspiriert die Empfindungsseele.

Cartesius, Descartes, ist geradezu an dem charakterisierten Punkt der französischen Entwickelung geboren, wo der französische Volksgeist sich so recht vereinigte mit dem französischen Volk. Lesen Sie eine Seite bei Cartesius, dem französischen Philosophen, Sie werden finden, daß er auf jeder Seite bestätigt, was Geisteswissenschaft findet: Daß da die Inspiration des Volksgeistes auf die Verstandesseele wirkt.

Lesen Sie Locke oder Hume oder einen andern englischen Philosophen, bis Mill und Spencer, überall Inspiration der Bewußtseinsseele.

Lesen Sie Fichte in seinem Ringen im Ich selber, dann haben Sie die Inspiration des Ich durch die Volksseele. Das ist gerade das Eigentümliche, daß diese mitteleuropäische Volksseele im Ich erlebt wird, und daß daher das Ich das eigentlich Strebende ist, das Ich, ich möchte sagen, mit all seiner Stärke und all seinen Irrtümern, mit all seinen Irrwegen und auch mit all seinen Überwindungen. Wenn dieser mitteleuropäische Mensch zum Christus den Weg finden soll, so will er ihn in der eigenen Seele gebären.

Versuchen Sie einmal nur irgendwie zu suchen — wenn es nicht äußerlich von der westeuropäischen Kultur übernommen ist -, in dem russischen Geistesleben diese Idee, den Christus oder einen Gott im Inneren zu erleben. Sie können es nicht finden. Da wird überall erwartet, daß dasjenige, was hereintritt in die Geschichte, wirklich so hereintritt, daß es, wie Solowjow sagt, wie ein «Wunder» hereintritt. Das russische Geistesleben ist sehr geneigt, im Übersinnlichen die Auferstehung des Christus anzuschauen, äußerlich das Hineinspielen einer inspirierenden Macht zu verehren, aber diese spricht so, wie wenn der Mensch darunter wäre, wie wenn sich das Inspirierende wie eine Wolke über die Menschheit hinbewegte, nicht wie wenn es hineinginge in das menschliche Ich. Dieses intime Beisammensein des Ich mit seinem Gott, oder auch, wenn es sich um Christus handelt, mit dem Christus, dieses Verlangen, daß der Christus im eigenen Gemüt geboren werde, das ist nur in Mitteleuropa zu finden. Und wenn einmal die ost-europäische Kultur zu der Entwickelung, die ihr angemessen ist, kommen wird, so wird sich das dann dadurch zeigen, daß jene Kultur begründet werden wird, die wie über den Menschen schwebt, die wiederum eine Art von Gruppenseelenhaftigkeit darstellt, nur auf einer höheren Stufe, als die alte Gruppenseelenhaftigkeit war. Vorläufig müssen wir es ganz naturgemäß finden, daß in der Art und Weise, wie selbst der russische Philosoph spricht, überall gesprochen wird von etwas, was wie die geistige Welt über der Menschenwelt schwebt, dem man aber nie so intim nahen kann, wie der mitteleuropäische Mensch mit seinem Ich sich dem nähern will, was das Göttliche ist, dem, was als Göttliches durch die Welt wallt und webt.

Und wenn ich oftmals davon sprach, daß die Gottheit durch die Welt wallt und webt und wogt, so ist das aus der Empfindungswelt des mitteleuropäischen Menschen heraus und würde gar nicht verstanden werden können in derselben Weise, wie es vom mitteleuropäischen Gemüt aufgenommen werden kann, von irgendeinem andern Volkstum in Europa. Das ist das Charakteristische, das Eigentümliche des mitteleuropäischen Volkes.

Das sind die Kräfte, die da leben in den einzelnen Völkern, und die sich gegenüberstehen, die daher immer wieder und wiederum in Wettstreit treten müssen, die sich gewaltsam entladen müssen, wie Wolken sich entladen und Blitze und Gewitter bewirken.

Aber sehen wir denn nicht, so könnte man jetzt sagen, wie im Osten von Europa ein Wort ertönt hat, das gewissermaßen wie ein Losungsruf war und so wirken sollte, wie wenn die Kultur von Osteuropa etwa jetzt beginnen sollte, sich über das wenig wertvolle Westeuropa auszudehnen, es zu überströmen? Sehen wir denn nicht, wie die Slawophilen, die Panslawisten, der Panslawismus auftrat, besonders auch in Geistern wie Dostojewskij und ähnlichen, wie er auftrat mit den besonderen Punkten seines Programms, wie da gesagt wurde: Ihr Westeuropäer allzusammen, ihr habt eine faulgewordene Kultur, die muß ersetzt werden von Osteuropa. - Dann wurde eine ganze Theorie aufgebaut, eine 'Theorie, die vor allen Dingen gipfelte darin, daß gesagt wurde: Im Westen ist alles faul geworden, das muß ersetzt werden durch die frischen Kräfte des Ostens. Wir haben die gut orthodoxe Religion, die wir nicht bekämpfen, sondern die wir hingenommen haben eben wie die über den Menschen schwebende Wolke des Volksgeistes und so weiter. Und da wurden dann geistvolle "Theorien aufgebaut, ganz geistvolle Theorien, was jetzt schon die Grundsätze, die Intentionen des alten Slawentums sein könnten, wie vom Osten jetzt schon die Wahrheit sich über Mittel- und Westeuropa ausbreiten müsse.

Ich sagte, der einzelne kann sich über sein Volkstum erheben. Solch ein einzelner war auf einem bestimmten Gebiet auch Solowjow, der große russische Philosoph. Obwohl man auch bei ihm in jeder Zeile merkt, daß er als russischer Mensch schreibt, so steht er doch über seinem Volkstum. In der ersten Zeit seines Lebens war Solowjow Panslawist. Aber er hat sich genauer befaßt mit dem, was die Panslawisten und Slawophilen als eine Art Völkerphilosophie, Völkerweltanschauung aufgestellt haben. Und was hat Solowjow, der Russe, gefunden? Er hat sich gefragt: Ist denn wirklich dasjenige, was das Russentum ist, schon in der Gegenwart da? Ist das vielleicht schon enthalten bei denjenigen, die den Panslawismus vertreten, die das Slawophilentum vertreten? - Und siehe da, er ruhte nicht, bis er auf das Richtige kam. Was hat er gefunden? Er hat die Behauptung der Slawophilen, zu denen er vorher gehört hatte, nachgeprüft, er ist ihnen zu Leibe gerückt, und da hat er gefunden, daß ein großer Teil der Denkformen, der Behauptungen, der Intentionen, hergenommen ist von dem jesuitenfreundlichen französischen Philosophen de Maistre, daß er der große Lehrer der Slawophilen auf dem Gebiete der Weltanschauung ist. Solowjow hat selbst bewiesen, daß das nicht auf eigenem Boden gewachsen ist, was Slawophilismus ist, sondern von de Maistre herstammt. Und er hat noch mehr bewiesen. Er hat aufgestöbert ein längst vergessenes deutsches Buch aus dem 19. Jahrhundert, das in Deutschland kein Mensch kennt. Ganze Partien desselben haben die Slawophilen abgeschrieben in ihrer Literatur. Was ist da für eine eigentümliche Erscheinung eingetreten? Man glaubt, vom Osten komme etwas, was im Osten entstammt sein soll, und es ist rein westlicher Import. Es ist herübergekommen aus dem Westen und dann den westlichen Menschen wieder entgegengeschickt. Die westlichen Menschen werden mit ihren eigenen Gedankenformen bekanntgemacht, weil die eigenen Gedankenformen im Osten noch nicht vorhanden sind.

Gerade wenn man den Dingen genau zu Leibe geht, bestätigt sich überall das, was Geisteswissenschaft zu sagen hat. So daß man es schon in dem, was sich vom Osten heranwälzen will, mit etwas zu tun hat, was noch elementar ist, mit etwas, was erst seine Entwickelung finden wird, wenn es ebenso liebevoll aufnimmt dasjenige, was in Mitteleuropa sich entwickelt hat, wie dieses Mitteleuropa einmal liebevoll aufgenommen hat das griechische und lateinische Wesen vom Süden her. Denn so geschieht die Entwickelung der Menschheit, daß das Spätere das Frühere aufnimmt. Und das, was ich in dem öffentlichen Vortrag als die faustische Denkweise Mitteleuropas charakterisieren konnte durch die Worte: Es gab ein Jahr 1770 - Goethe empfand es als ein faustisches Streben, als er sagte:

Habe nun, ach! Philosophie,
Juristerei und Medizin,
Und leider auch Theologie
Durchaus studiert mit heißem Bemühn.
Da steh ich nun, ich armer Tor,
Und bin so klug als wie zuvor!

Da kam ein ungeheuer reiches, deutsches Geistesleben, ein ungeheuer intensives, reiches Streben im deutschen Geistesleben. Aber wenn Goethe seinen «Faust» vierzig Jahre später geschrieben hätte, gewiß hätte er nicht angefangen: «Habe nun, ach! Philosophie... .» und so weiter studiert und bin nun der für alle Zeiten weise Mann geworden -, sondern er hätte genau ebenso seinen «Faust» geschrieben wie 1770. Dieses lebendige Streben kommt eben her von der Inspiration der Volksseele in das Ich hinein, von jenem intimen Zusammensein des Ich mit dem Volksgeiste. Das ist eine Grundeigentümlichkeit der mitteleuropäischen Geisteskultur. Und mit dieser muß sich die osteuropäische Kultur liebevoll verbinden, muß sie aufnehmen. Dasjenige, was einfließen mußte nach Mitteleuropa, es wurde einmal von der südlichen Kultur empfangen, aufgenommen. Jetzt aber ist es nicht anders, wenn vom Osten her die elementare Entwickelungswelle sich wälzt, als wenn der Schüler auf seinen Lehrer wütend ist, weil er von ihm etwas lernen soll und ihn deshalb durchprügeln will. Es ist ein etwas trivialer Vergleich, aber es ist doch ein Vergleich, der durchaus präzise die Sache gibt. Menschenmassen mit ganz verschiedenen inneren Entwickelungskräften wohnen in Europa zusammen. Diese verschiedenen Entwickelungskräfte müssen in gegenseitige Konkurrenzwirksamkeit kommen, sie müssen sich in verschiedener Weise behaupten. Was da ist an widerstrebenden Kräften, an Kräften, die ins Widerspiel kommen, das hat sich lange, lange entwickelt. Und gerade wenn man auf die Feinheiten sieht, so findet man, wie sich darin überall dasjenige ausspricht, was Geisteswissenschaft zu sagen hat.

Ist es denn nicht so wundervoll ausgesprochen, drängt sich nicht die Welle der europäischen Entwickelung so zusammen, daß gleichsam symbolisch vor die ganze Menschheit hingestellt wird, wie in Mitteleuropa empfunden werden muß das intime Zusammenleben des Ich mit der geistigen Welt; wie der Gott erlebt werden soll im «Fünklein im Gemüte», wie der Christus erlebt werden soll im «Fünklein im Gemüte»! Der Christus selber muß im menschlichen Ich wirksam lebendig werden. Daher neigt sich in Mitteleuropa wie in keiner andern europäischen Sprache allmählich die ganze Entwickelung dem zu, daß das «Ich» genannt wird. Und Ich ist «I-C-H». Wie ein mächtiges Symbolum im intimen Zusammenwirken dessen, was dem Gemüte das Heiligste sein kann mit diesem Gemüte selber, steht das da in Mitteleuropa: Ich = I-CH - Jesus Christus! Jesus Christus und zugleich das menschliche Ich. So wirkt der Volksgeist, inspirierend das Volk, um in charakteristischen Worten auszudrücken, was die zugrunde liegenden Tatsachen sind. Ich weiß wohl, daß die Menschen lachen, wenn so etwas gesagt wird; wenn ausgesprochen wird, daß jahrhundertelang der Volksgeist gearbeitet hat, damit die Bezeichnung Ich zustande gekommen ist, die so symbolisch bezeichnend ist. Aber lassen wir die Menschen lachen! Nur noch wenige Jahrzehnte, und sie werden nicht mehr lachen, sondern sie werden das dann viel bedeutender nennen, als was die Leute heute Naturgesetze nennen.

Was so wirkte als Entwickelungswelle, das wirkte recht charakteristisch. Das Bewußtsein sagt manchmal nur einen ganz geringen Teil der Wahrheit; aber was in den unterbewußten Tiefen wirkt, das spricht sich viel, viel wahrer aus. Wir sprechen zum Beispiel von Germanen. Worte bilden sich durch den wirkenden Sprachgenius. Ein Teil der Bewohner Mitteleuropas nennt sich «Deutsche». Wenn er aber von Germanen spricht, so rechnet er dazu Deutschland, Österreich, Holland, die skandinavischen Völker, aber auch die Bewohner der britischen Insel. Er dehnt das Wort Germanen über ein weites Gebiet aus. Der Bewohner der britischen Insel aber weist das zurück. Er nennt bloß den Deutschen «German» — Germane. Er selbst hat nicht das Wort Germane für sich. Die deutsche Sprache umgreift mit dem Wort einen viel größeren Kreis. Sie ist als solche geneigt, das Wort in den Dienst der Selbstlosigkeit zu stellen; er nennt nicht bloß sich Germane, der Deutsche, er umfaßt die andern mit. Der andere, der Brite, weist das zurück. Gehen Sie einmal auf das Wunderbare im sprachschöpferischen Genius ein, dann werden Sie sehen, daß darin wirklich Wunderbares ist. Mit Bezug auf das, was die Menschen im Bewußtsein haben, entsteht die Maja, die große Täuschung. Was in unterbewußten Tiefen waltet, das wirkt viel, viel wahrer. In dem spricht sich ungeheuer Bedeutsames und Tiefes aus.

Und jetzt vergleichen Sie mit der Art, wie man intim zu Werke gehen muß, um die europäischen Kräftespiele zu verstehen, vergleichen Sie mit dieser intimen Art die grobklotzige Art, mit der man heute die Verhältnisse der europäischen Völker zueinander ansieht, und Sie werden erst einsehen können, welche Verwüstung in der menschlichen Urteilskraft das materialistische Zeitalter angerichtet hat. Daß man angefangen hat zu denken, die Materie trägt und hält alles, ist noch nicht das Schlimmste, sondern daß man kurzsichtig geworden ist, daß man auf die Hauptsache nicht sehen kann, nicht auch nur einen Schritt hinter den Schleier tut, der als Maja über die Wahrheit gewoben ist, das ist das eigentlich Schlimme.

Der Materialismus hat gut vorbereitet, was er gewollt hat. Und auch da hat der Genius gewirkt, nur ist der Genius, der den Materialismus als der höchste Anführer bewirkt hat, Ahriman. Er hat einen mächtigen Einfluß gehabt in den letzten Jahrhunderten, einen recht mächtigen Einfluß. Und ich möchte noch kurz auf ein Kapitel hinweisen, auf das man vielleicht nicht gerne heute hinweist. Wenn es geschieht, betrachtet man es als eine besondere Verrücktheit. Man kommt dem Menschen am leichtesten bei, wenn man ihm, wenn er noch jung ist, in sein Vorstellungsvermögen, in sein Gemüt dasjenige hineinträufelt, was dann in ihm auswachsen soll. Im späteren Leben ist ja den wenigsten Menschen noch etwas gründlich beizubringen. Nie hätte Ahriman daher eigentlich bessere Aussichten, die Seelen richtig materialistisch zu präparieren, als wenn er in die jugendlichen, die kindlichen Seelen schon hineinträufelt, was dann selber weiter wirkt im Unterbewußten. Wenn in dem Zeitraum, wo der Mensch noch nicht mit Verstandeskräften nachdenkt, schon die materialistischen Denkformen aufgenommen werden, dann werden die Menschen gründlich materialistisch denken lernen, wenn der Materialismus schon in die kindlichen Gemüter gepflanzt wird! Das hat Ahriman in der Form getan, daß er einen Schriftsteller der materialistischen Zeit mit der Idee des «Robinson Crusoe» inspiriert hat. Wer nämlich wirklich sehenden Geistes den «Robinson» auf sich wirken läßt, der wird dadrin sehen, wie im «Robinson» gründlich die materialistischen Vorstellungen wirken. Es sieht nicht so aus, aber das Ganze - wie der «Robinson» aufgebaut ist, wie er in diesem Abenteurerleben im äußeren Erleben zu allem getrieben wird, bis zuletzt selbst die Religion wie Kohlköpfe auf Feldern aufwächst — das alles präpariert das kindliche Gemüt sehr gut zum materialistischen Denken. Und wenn man bedenkt, daß es in einem gewissen Zeitraum — im 16., 17., 18. Jahrhundert - einen böhmischen, einen portugiesischen, einen ungarischen und so weiter Robinson als Nachahmung des «Robinson Crusoe» gegeben hat, so muß man sagen: die Arbeit ist gründlich geleistet worden, und der Anteil, den die «Robinson»-Lektüre an der Ausbildung des Materialismus gehabt hat, ist etwas Ungeheures.

Gegenüber solchen Erscheinungen muß daraufhingewiesen werden, daß es auch etwas anderes gibt, was die Kinder in ihr Verständnis bis spät ins Leben aufnehmen sollen: das sind die Märchen, die in Mitteleuropa leben, und besonders die Märchen, welche die Brüder Grimm gesammelt haben. Das ist eine viel bessere Literatur für die Kinder als der «Robinson». Und wenn in unserer Zeit dasjenige, was zwischen den europäischen Völkern in so furchtbarer, so schwerer, schicksaltragender Weise geschieht, als eine Mahnung aufgefaßt wird, etwas genauer hinzusehen auf die Art und Weise, wie sich in dem Untergrund der Ereignisse entwickelt hat dasjenige, was sich in die Gegenwart hineinerstreckt, dann wird man vor allen Dingen erkennen, daß es schließlich wirklich nicht darauf ankommt, ob nun ein paar deutsche Gelehrte ihre Orden und Diplome nach England zurückschicken! Wenn sich die Mahnung der Zeit so stark erweist, daß man die materialistisch inspirierte Bewußtseinsseele des britischen Volkes in ihrer Bedeutung erkennt, so wird man auch die Bedeutung der «Robinson»-Lektüre durchschauen und den ganzen Robinson einmal ausmerzen. Viel gründlicher, viel radikaler wird zu Werke gegangen werden müssen, wenn man die Mahnungen unserer heutigen Zeit einmal im richtigen Sinne wird berücksichtigen können.

Es ist jetzt fünfunddreißig Jahre her, daß ich angefangen habe, Goethe zu interpretieren, gerade in seiner geisteswissenschaftlichen Aufgabe. Ich habe versucht zu zeigen, wie in der Goetheschen Entwickelungslehre eine wirklich große, geistgemäße Entwickelungslehre gegeben ist. Es muß die Zeit kommen, wo das in weiteren Kreisen eingesehen wird. Denn Goethe hat eine große, gewaltige Entwickelungslehre gegeben, die geistgemäß ist. Das war den Menschen schwierig, zu verstehen. Da hat dann im materialistischen Zeitalter Darwin besser wirken können, der in vergröberter, materialistischer Weise das gegeben hat, was Goethe in feiner, geistiger Weise als Entwicklungslehre gegeben hat. Es war eine gründliche Verengländerung, die Mitteleuropa ergriffen hat. Nun denken Sie sich die Tragik, die eigentlich darin liegt, daß der englischste Naturforscher in Deutschland, Ernst Haeckel, der ganz schwor auf Darwin, auftreten mußte mit seinem wütenden Haß gegen das Engländertum, und als dieser Krieg ausbrach, einer der ersten war, die an England die erhaltenen Orden und Diplome zurückschickten. Um den englisch gefärbten Darwinismus zurückzuschicken, wird er wohl schon zu alt gewesen sein, das aber wäre das Wesentliche, das Wichtigere.

Die Dinge, um die es sich handelt, liegen ungeheuer tief, sie sind ungeheuer bedeutungsvoll, und sie hängen zusammen mit der notwendigen geistigen Vertiefung unserer Zeit. Wird man einmal einsehen, wie unendlich tiefer die Goethesche Farbenlehre ist als die Newtonsche Farbenlehre, wie unendlich tiefer die Goethesche Entwicklungslehre ist als die Darwinsche Entwicklungslehre, dann wird man sich erst bewußt sein dessen, was das mitteleuropäische Geistesleben birgt, auch mit Bezug auf solche höchste Gebiete.

Ich will durch alles dies in Ihren Seelen nur eine Empfindung hervorrufen, welche Mahnung uns die gegenwärtigen schweren, schicksaltragenden Ereignisse sein müssen. Eine Mahnung zu arbeiten, die uns dahin führen soll, uns zu besinnen auf das, was da steckt im mitteleuropäischen Geistesleben und was gewissermaßen eine Verpflichtung ist, es heraus- und hervorzuholen. Das meinteich auch, alsich gestern in dem öffentlichen Vortrag sprach davon, daß dieses mitteleuropäische Geistesleben Keime enthält, die zu Blüten und Früchten führen müssen.

Und wenn wir immer wieder und wiederum bekennen: das bewußte Seelenleben, es geht an der Oberfläche vor sich, darunter liegt aber all das, wovon in diesen Tagen gesprochen worden ist, dann dürfen wir auch schon unsere Gedanken hinlenken darauf, daß in den Impulsen zahlreicher Menschen auch in der Gegenwart noch etwas ganz anderes lebt als das, dessen sie sich bewußt sind. Glauben wir nicht, daß die Menschen im Westen und Osten, die die mitteleuropäische große Festung zu verteidigen haben, nur für das kämpfen, dessen sie sich bewußt sind im Oberbewußtsein. Blicken wir vor allen Dingen hin auf die Impulse, die vielen unbewußt sind, die heute durch Blut und Tod gehen, aber da sind sie, die Impulse, vorhanden sind sie, und wir sollten aus der Geisteswissenschaft die Empfindung herausschöpfen können, indem wir nach Ost und West schauen, wie in den Impulsen derjenigen, die da die Opfer verrichten, dasjenige lebt, was erst die Zukunft noch für das äußere Erleben herausgebären muß, wovon vielleicht selbst die Kämpfenden kaum eine Ahnung in ihrem Bewußtsein haben. Dann erst, wenn wir es also betrachten, durchdringt sich uns dasjenige, was da geschieht, mit dem rechten Gefühl, mit der rechten Empfindung.

Aber bedenken wir, wie viele Seelen in diesen Ereignissen, mit denen an kriegerischer Größe sich ja nichts vergleichen läßt, was jemals da war in der bewußten Menschheitsgeschichte, bedenken wir, wie viele Seelen durch Blut und Tod gehen, und bedenken wir, daß diese Seelen herunterschauen werden auf den Tod, der durch die großen Ereignisse der Zeit über sie verhängt worden ist. Bedenken wir, daß im Sinne des vorgestern Gesagten die jugendlichen Ätherleiber die geistige Atmosphäre durchziehen. Bedenken wir, daß nicht nur die Seelen, die Individualitäten, in der geistigen Welt sein werden, sondern daß Brauchbares aus den jugendlichen Ätherleibern die geistige Atmosphäre durchziehen wird. Versuchen wir, von da ausgehend, auf die Mahnungen zu sehen, welche die Menschen haben sollen, die übrigbleiben hier auf der Erde. Ja der einzelne, der durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen ist, mahnt an die großen Aufgaben, die in der europäischen Kultur zu vollziehen sind. Und diese Mahnungen müssen gehört werden. Und geneigt müssen die Menschen werden, aus der Tiefe des Geisteslebens heraus sich Empfindungen, erkennende Empfindungen zu verschaffen, wie das eigentlich beschaffen ist, in dem wir darin leben. Wenn man einmal in diesem Sinne empfinden wird: mit jedem, der heute in der Blüte seiner Jahre draußen auf dem Schlachtfelde bleibt, steht ein Mahner, ein Rufer nach Spiritualisierung der Menschheit in der europäischen Kultur, dann wird man es richtig verstanden haben. Und nicht allein das möchte man, daß von solchen Stätten, wie die ist, an der wir stehen, nur ausgehe ein abstraktes Erkennen: der Mensch besteht aus physischem Leib, Ätherleib, Astralleib und Ich, der Mensch geht durch viele Inkarnationen, der Mensch hat ein Karma und so weiter —, sondern das möchte man, daß die Seelen, die teilnehmen an unserem geisteswissenschaftlichen Leben, in ihren innersten Tiefen aufgerüttelt werden zu dem Empfindungsleben, das eben angedeutet worden ist, zu dem Miterleben desjenigen, was Mahnrufe der Frühverstorbenen in der nächsten Zukunft sein werden. Das Schönste, was wir uns erwerben können als Bekenner der Geisteswissenschaft, es ist das lebendige Leben, welches wie ein Hauch durch die Reihen derer gehen soll, die sich zu uns rechnen. Nicht das Wissen, nicht die Erkenntnis allein, sondern dieses Leben, das Wirklichwerden dieses Lebens.

In den letzten Zeiten sind uns gerade mehrere Mitglieder vom physischen Plan hinweggegangen. Auch ein junger Mitarbeiter, unser lieber Fritz Mitscher. Und ich hatte, auch durch das Karma veranlaßt, die Aufgabe, bei der Einäscherung in Basel zu sprechen. Ich hatte der enteilenden Seele gewisse Worte nachzusprechen. Unter mancherlei anderem enthielten diese Worte, die ich zu der Seele sprach, daß wir das Bewußtsein haben, sie werde ein Mitarbeiter bleiben, auch nachdem sie durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen. Ich mußte dieses sprechen aus dem Bewußtsein heraus, daß das, was uns alle belebt, nicht nur wie eine Theorie dasteht, sondern daß das, was wir wie eine Theorie aussprechen, die ganze Seele mit vollem Leben erfüllen muß. Dann aber müssen wir zu denen, die durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind, stehen wie zu denen, die hier noch im Leben stehen. Ja, wir müssen nicht anstehen, uns zu sagen: Die im physischen Leibe Lebenden sind durch die mannigfaltigsten Umstände verhindert, voll auszuleben das geistige Leben. Was alles können wir doch in diesem physischen Erdenleben an Hemmungen bei den Menschen bemerken, wenn es sich darum handelt, die wirklich großen Aufgaben der Entwickelung zu erkennen —- und dann auch zu erfüllen! Aber auf die Toten können wir uns vielfach besser verlassen. Dieses Empfinden, daß sie in unseren Reihen sind, dieses Übertragen einer besonderen Mission ließen mich in entsprechender Weise den Nachruf sprechen für unseren Freund Fritz Mitscher, der als Frühverstorbener durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen ist. Und das, was für ihn gesagt ist, bezieht sich auf viele andere, die durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind. Wir sehen in ihnen unsere wichtigsten Mitarbeiter, und es wird nicht mißverstanden werden, wenn ich sage: Viel mehr als auf die Lebendigen können wir uns bei unseren geistigen Arbeiten auf die Toten verlassen.

Aber damit wir überhaupt so etwas aussprechen können, müssen wir ganz lebendig darinstehen in dem, was unsere spirituelle Bewegung uns geben kann. Ich baue darauf, daß gerade auch nun auf dem äußeren Felde für die Spiritualisierung der Menschenkultur der Zukunft die durch die Pforte des Todes Gegangenen in unserer schicksalschweren Zeit die wichtigsten Mitarbeiter sind. Denn dieser Tod, auf den jene zurückschauen, die durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind, er wird ein großer Lehrmeister sein. Und mancher braucht heute einen stärkeren Lehrer, als das Leben geben kann. Das kann man an mancherlei Beispielen sehen.

Ich möchte ein Beispiel anführen — manches andere könnte angeführt werden: Ein aufsehenerregender Artikel, gegnerisch gegen die von mir vertretene Geisteswissenschaft, erschien vor mehreren Jahren in einer Zeitschrift, die in Süddeutschland herauskommt, im «Hochland». Dieser Artikel hat sehr viel Aufsehen gemacht. Er hat vielen eingeleuchtet, weil er von einem ganz berühmten Philosophen geschrieben war. Der Herausgeber jener Zeitschrift «Hochland» hat diesen Artikel aufgenommen. Er hat also eigentlich propagiert, wie er meint, eine solche sehr in Betracht kommende Anschauung über diese vertrackte Geisteswissenschaft. — Sehen Sie, es kommt wahrhaftig nicht darauf an, mit äußeren Mitteln sich dagegen zu wehren. Es ist durchaus begreiflich, daß die ganz gescheiten Leute der Gegenwart Geisteswissenschaft töricht finden. Aber nachdem der Krieg ausgebrochen war, hat sich etwas anderes ereignet. Der Herausgeber der genannten Zeitschrift ist ein guter Deutscher, ein sich deutsch fühlender Mensch. Der Mann, dessen Artikel er dazumal aufgenommen hat, hat jenem Herausgeber jetzt Briefe geschrieben, und dieser hat sie nun auch, nun, sagen wir, in seiner besonders begnadeten «Unschuld» in den «Süddeutschen Monatsheften» abgedruckt. Versuchen Sie einmal, sie zu lesen, so werden Sie sehen, was alles an Gift und Galle gegen die mitteleuropäische Geisteskultur jener selbe Philosoph an den Herausgeber des «Hochland» schreibt, so daß jener Mann, also der Herausgeber, sich veranlaßt fühlt zu sagen: Wer so etwas denkt, den könnte man in Mitteleuropa nur in Irrenhäusern finden. — Denken Sie sich, was für eine unendlich bedeutsame Kritik! Es gibt einen Herausgeber einer süddeutschen Zeitschrift. Dieser Herausgeber nimmt einen Artikel auf, den er für maßgebend hält zur Vernichtung der Geisteswissenschaft, von dem er sagt: Das ist einmal ein guter Artikel über die Geisteswissenschaft von einem berühmten Philosophen! — Nach einiger Zeit bekommt der Herausgeber Zuschriften von demselben Mann, die er dann bezeichnet als herrührend von einem Menschen, der ins Irrenhaus gehört. Also müßte man nicht, mit Lebenslogik schließend, nun fortfahren und sagen: Wenn der Mann jetzt ein Narr ist, so war er auch früher ein Narr, und der gute Herausgeber hat es dazumal nur nicht erkannt, daß er es mit einem Narren zu tun hat, als er gegen Geisteswissenschaft schrieb. — Das ist Lebenslogik. Man kann manchmal nicht abwarten, bis solche Lebenslogik wirkt, aber sie waltet schon in unserem Leben, und so kann man manchmal etwas nach diesem Rezept erleben. Dazumal ist der Artikel erschienen gerade gegen meine Geisteswissenschaft. Man hat ihn gelesen. Man hat gesagt: Ja, das ist ein berühmter Philosoph und Platoniker, er ist also besonders gescheit. - Der Herausgeber hat sich gesagt: Wenn jemand, der so gescheit ist, über die Geisteswissenschaft schreibt, ist das ein bedeutender Artikel. - Es vergeht eine Zeit, und derselbe Herausgeber sagt: Der Mann ist ein Narr. — Aber er brauchte erst den Beweis auf die eben angeführte Weise. Ja, so geht es bei den Lebenden zu. Solche Menschen, die so wenig festen Boden unter den Füßen haben wie jener Herausgeber der süddeutschen Zeitschrift, haben schon nötig, daß sie belehrt werden durch Ereignisse, die in viel tieferem Sinne durch das Leben der letzten Zeiten von der geistigen Welt her gegeben werden, als es genehm ist.

Und so werden Sie verstehen, wenn ich zu dem vorhin Gesagten zurückkehre: Unsere Zeit hat viele widerstrebende Kräfte gehabt, und wenn wir den Krieg eine Krankheit nennen — wir können das tun -, so ist das eine Krankheit, die herbeigeführt wurde durch etwas, was längst vorher sich abspielte, und er ist da zur Gesundung, damit manches ausgemerzt wird, was zur Schädigung des Lebens der ganzen Kultur nach und nach führen mußte. Wenn wir ihn in dem Sinne als Krankheit bezeichnen, wenn wir aber die Krankheit als ein Sich-zurWehr-Setzen anschauen, dann verstehen wir diesen Krieg und die schicksaltragenden Ereignisse der Gegenwart, verstehen ihn auch in seinen bedeutsamen Winken und Mahnungen. Dann erleben wir ihn mit allen inneren Kräften unserer Seele, so daß wir recht aufmerksam werden können auf diejenigen, die durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind und die hinschauen auf die nächste Zukunft und wirklich das gelernt haben werden, was sie dann in die Seelen, die sie hören wollen, hineininspirieren können: daß spirituelle Vertiefung, die zum Menschenheil und Menschenfortschritt in der nächsten Zukunft notwendig ist, in sie hineinkommen muß.

Und wenn Ihre Seelen dasjenige, was ich mit diesen Worten sagen möchte, in der rechten Weise aufnehmen können, dann sind Sie erst im vollen rechten Sinne Bekenner unserer geisteswissenschaftlichen Weltanschauung. Wenn Ihre Seelen den Entschluß fassen können, zu solchen Seelen zu werden, die Aufmerksamkeit zuwenden werden dem, was heruntergeraunt wird von jenen, die durch unsere schicksaltragenden Ereignisse durch die Pforte des 'Todes gegangen sind.

Eine Verbindungsbrücke soll durch die Geisteswissenschaft geschlagen werden gerade für die nächste Zukunft zwischen den Lebendigen und den Toten, eine Verbindungslinie, durch welche die inspirierenden Elementarkräfte derer, welche die großen Opfer in unserer Zeit dargebracht haben, den Weg herüber werden finden können.

Deshalb wollte ich in diesen Tagen, lehrend zu Ihren Seelen sprechend, Empfindungen anregen. Diese Empfindungen sollen wie erwartende Empfindungen sein dessen, was den Seelen gesagt wird durch die Wirkungen unserer schicksalschweren Zeit.

In diesem Sinne sei auch heute wiederum mit den Worten geschlossen, die ich schon vorgestern hier sprach, die wie ein Mantram in unseren Seelen wirken sollen, damit unsere Seelen Erwartende werden, Erwartende der Inspiration, die da kommen wird von den Toten, im Geiste aber ganz besonders lebendig Werdenden:

Aus dem Mut der Kämpfer,
Aus dem Blut der Schlachten,
Aus dem Leid Verlassener,
Aus des Volkes Opfertaten
Wird erwachsen Geistesfrucht
Denken Seelen geistbewußt
Ihren Sinn ins Geisterreich.

War, a disease process Central Europe and the Slavic East The dead as helpers of human progress

Not only must our spiritual worldview address the development and advancement of individual souls, but it must also, above all, truly help us to gain further perspectives for viewing life. And in our time, it must be particularly important to us to gain such further perspectives for assessing life. Certainly, it is a great and also significant task for the individual human being to advance himself through what he can gain as the fruit of spiritual self-education. And only by truly advancing themselves can individuals contribute to the development of humanity as a whole. But our attention should not be focused solely on this. As adherents of the anthroposophical worldview, we should also be able to perceive the great events of our time from a higher perspective, a truly spiritual perspective. We should be able to place ourselves on a higher plane when judging what is happening. And some points of view, particularly in relation to the great events of our time, may be indicated today, because our present gathering is taking place in this fateful time.

Let us start from something that is close to us as human beings. At certain times, people are afflicted by illnesses. Illnesses are usually regarded as something that damages our organism, something that invades our organism like an enemy. Now, such a general point of view is by no means always justified. Certainly, there are symptoms of illness that must be judged from this point of view, where the illness invades our organism like an enemy, so to speak. But this is not always the case. In fact, it is not even the case in most instances; in most cases, illness is something completely different. In most cases, illness is not the enemy, but rather the friend of the organism. What is the enemy of the organism usually comes before the illness, developing in the person before the outwardly visible illness breaks out. There are opposing forces in the body, and the illness that breaks out at some point is the body's attempt to save itself from the opposing forces that weren't noticed before. Illness is often the beginning of the organism's work to bring about healing. Illness is what the organism does to combat the hostile influences that precede it. Illness is the final form of the process, but it represents the struggle of the organism's healthy juices against what lurks beneath. It is there to drive out of the human being what lurks beneath. Only when we view the vast majority of illnesses in this way can we arrive at a correct understanding of the disease process. Illness therefore indicates that something happened before the onset of the illness, which is now trying to leave the organism through the illness. When certain phenomena of life are seen in the right light, it is very easy to arrive at what has just been said. The causes can lie in a wide variety of areas. What matters is what I have just indicated: that we regard diseases as something that is a defense mechanism of the organism against the things that need to be expelled.

Now, I do not believe that there is any comparison that can be as apt as that between such a sum of significant, deeply affecting events as we have been experiencing since the beginning of August 1914 over a large part of the earth, and the disease process of human becoming. We must realize that these warlike events are truly a disease process. But it would be wrong to believe that we can deal with them by simply understanding this disease process in the incorrect sense in which many disease processes are understood: as if it were the enemy of the organism. The cause precedes the disease process. Now, in our time, we can see particularly clearly how little people today are inclined to take into account truths that must be immediately apparent to anyone who takes a spiritual scientific view of the world not only with their intellect but also with their feelings.

We have had to experience many infinitely painful things, especially in the last, let us say, nine months — painful things with regard to people's ability to judge. Is it not actually the case that, when one reads what is ultimately published in the most widely read literature and disseminated throughout the most diverse countries of the world, it seems as if the people who judge today's events assume that history actually began in July 1914? That was the saddest experience we had to go through, apart from all the other painful things, that it became apparent how the people who set the tone, or rather the people who write articles and shape public opinion, basically know nothing about the development of events and only look at the immediate future. That is why these endless discussions, these completely futile discussions, have arisen. What is the cause of the current armed conflicts? Again and again, people have asked: Is he to blame? Is he to blame? And so on. People have hardly gone back further than July, or at most June 1914. I mention this because what I am saying is truly characteristic of our materialistic age. People usually believe that materialism only produces materialistic thinking and a materialistic worldview. That is not the case. Materialism not only produces these things, it also produces short-sightedness; materialism produces laziness of thought and a lack of insight. The materialistic way of thinking leads to the conclusion that everything can be proven and everything can be believed. And it is really part of the self-education that true anthroposophy must give us to realize that if one remains solely in the realm of materialism, one can prove everything and believe everything.

et us take a simple example. In recent years, when the spiritual scientific worldview has been put forward here and there, and someone has felt compelled to assert their opinion against it, one has often heard: Yes, Kant has already proven through his philosophy that human beings have limits to their knowledge and that it is impossible to arrive at the level of knowledge that spiritual science aims to attain. Then they cited the certainly very interesting things through which Kant is said to have proven that it is impossible to penetrate the spiritual world with human knowledge. If one nevertheless defended spiritual science, people would come and believe: He denies everything Kant proved! And of course there was something in this assertion that suggested that he must be a particularly foolish person, because he denied what had been strictly proven.

That is not the case at all. The spiritual scientist does not deny that what Kant proved is absolutely correct; it is clear that it has been proven quite well. But suppose that, at a time when the microscope had not yet been invented, someone had strictly proven that there were tiny cells in plants, but that these could never be found because the human eye was not equipped to see them. This could have been strictly proven, and the proof would have been absolutely correct, because the human eye, as it is designed, can never penetrate the organism of a plant down to these smallest cells. An absolutely correct proof that can never be overturned. But life has developed in such a way that the microscope was invented for the human eye, and that despite the strict proof, humans have come to recognize the smallest cells. Only when it is understood that proofs are completely worthless for the attainment of truth, that proofs can be correct but basically mean nothing special for the progress of truth-recognition, only then will we stand on the right ground. Then we will know that proofs may well be good, but they do not have the task of actually leading to the truth. Just think of the comparison I gave, and you will see that just as the proof that human vision cannot reach the cell can be absolutely strict, so too can the proof that human knowledge cannot reach supersensible worlds, as Kant says. The evidence was absolutely correct, but life goes beyond evidence. This is also something that is given to us through spiritual research, that by broadening our horizons we can truly appeal to something other than the human mind and its evidence. And those who limit themselves to materialistic ideas are actually led to an unbridled belief in evidence. If they have proof in their pocket, they are completely convinced of the truth. Spiritual research will show us that, basically, one can prove both sides quite well, but that intellectual proofs have no significance for the attainment of real truth. And so it is a concomitant of our materialistic age that people fall into intellectual short-sightedness. And when this intellectual short-sightedness is also interspersed with passions, the result is what we see today not only among the European peoples fighting with weapons, but also in the mutual hostility of the European peoples, where one side accuses the other of all sorts of things and there is basically no prospect that one side will ever be able to convince the other — not only during the war. And anyone who believes that a neutral state could ever choose between the claims of two hostile states would be naive. Of course, what is said on one side can be just as well defended, and indeed proven, by all kinds of evidence as what is said on the other side. Insight can only be gained by delving into the deeper foundations of human development as a whole.

Now, for several years before the outbreak of this war, I have tried, through the cycle on the individual national souls and their effect on individual people in the various European regions, to shed a little light on how the individual nations relate to one another and that there really are different forces at work among the different peoples. Today we want to supplement what has been said there with a few other points of view.

Our materialistic age thinks too abstractly. Above all, our materialistic age does not take into account that there is a real development in life, that human beings must allow what is within them to mature so that it gradually becomes capable of real judgment. Human beings—as we know, and as is described in sufficient detail in The Education of the Child from the Perspective of Spiritual Science—undergo a development in which, roughly speaking, the physical body develops during the first seven years, the etheric body from the seventh to the fourteenth year, and so on. If this progress in the development of the individual human being is already given little consideration, then the parallel phenomenon, the equivalent phenomenon, is given even less consideration. The processes that take place within individual communities are guided and directed — we all know this from spiritual science — by beings of the higher hierarchies. We speak in the true sense of the word of national souls, of national spirits. And we know, for example, that the national spirit of the Italian people inspires what we call the sentient soul; that the French national spirit inspires what we call the intellectual or emotional soul; that the inhabitants of the British Isles are inspired by the consciousness soul; and that in Central Europe, what we call the human ego is inspired. This is not a value judgment about individual nations, but simply a statement of fact. For example, the inspiration of the people who inhabit the British Isles is based on the fact that, as a nation, they bring into the world everything that is brought about by the inspiration of the consciousness soul on the part of the folk spirit. It is remarkable how nervous people become in this area. When I emphasized this again here and there during the war, which, as I said, had already been stated earlier in the cycle, there were people who took it as a kind of insult to the British people when it was said that they had the task of inspiring the consciousness soul, while the folk soul, which is the German folk soul, had the task of inspiring the human ego. It was just as if one were to take it as an insult to say: Salt is white, paprika is red. — It is a simple characteristic, the statement of a truth that exists, and as such a truth one must first accept it. One will get along much better with what prevails between the individual members of humanity if one looks at the peculiarities of the individual peoples and does not mix everything together, as the materialistic view of today does. Of course, the individual human being rises above what is given to him through his national soul, and it is precisely the task of our anthroposophical society to lift the individual human being out of the group soul and raise him to the level of universal humanity. But it remains true that the individual human being, insofar as he stands within a national culture, is inspired by that culture in such a way that, for example, the Italian national spirit speaks to the sentient soul, the French national spirit to the intellectual or emotional soul, and the British national spirit to the conscious soul. We must therefore imagine that the national spirit hovers, as it were, above what individual human beings begin in individual nations. But as we see that there is already a development in human beings, as we can say of the individual human being: The ego develops in a certain way, undergoes a particular development during a certain period of life, so we can also speak of a development in relation to the soul of a people in relation to its people, and rightly so. Only this development is somewhat different from that of the individual human being.

Let us take the Italian people as an example. So we have this people, and then the national soul belonging to this people. The national soul is a being from the supersensible world, belonging to the world of the higher hierarchies. It inspires the sentient soul, and this happens continuously as long as the people lives, the Italian people — because we are talking about this people — but it inspires the sentient soul in different ways at different times. There are times when the folk souls inspire the members of individual nations in such a way that this inspiration occurs, as it were, in the soul. The folk soul hovers in higher regions of the spirit, and its inspiration occurs in such a way that it inspires only the soul qualities. Then there are times when the folk souls descend further and make greater demands on the individual members of the nations, inspiring them so strongly that not only do human beings absorb them into their soul qualities, but they also have such a powerful effect that human beings become dependent on the folk souls even in their physical qualities. As long as a people is under the influence of the national soul in such a way that it only inspires the soul-spiritual qualities, the type of the people is not yet so pronounced. The forces of the national soul do not work in such a way that the whole human being is affected down to the blood. Then a time comes when one can already see, as it were, in the way a person looks out of their eyes, in the features of their face, how the national spirit is working within them. It becomes apparent that the national soul has sunk deeply; it takes hold of the whole person strongly and intensely.

With the Italian people, the time I spoke of, when the spirit of the people sank deeply and had such an effect that one could find its imprint in individual people, was around the middle of the 16th century, around 1550. Then the soul of the people rose again, as it were, and from that time on, this process was passed on to their descendants. One can therefore say that the most intense period of unity between the Italian people and their national soul was around 1550. That was when the Italian national soul sank to its lowest point and the people of the Italian peninsula acquired their most precise character. If we go back to the time before 1550, we see that the character traits are not at all so pronounced that they strike us as strongly as they did from 1550 onwards. It is only then that the characteristic features we know as Italianness really begin to emerge. It was then, so to speak, that the actual marriage was concluded between the Italian national soul and the soul of the individual who belongs to the Italian people.

For the French people — I am not talking about the individual who can rise above the national character — the similar moment came when the national spirit sank to its lowest point and permeated the entire people, around 1600, at the beginning of the 17th century. Then the national spirit completely took hold of the intellectual or emotional soul.

For the British people, this moment came in the middle of the 17th century, around 1650. It was then that the British people first acquired their outward British expression.

If you know such things, then many things will become clear to you, because you can now ask the question in a completely different way: What about Shakespeare in England? — Shakespeare was active in England before the British national spirit had the most intense effect on the English people. That is why he is not properly understood in England. As is well known, there are editions in which everything that is not entirely to the taste of the governesses has been removed. Shakespeare is very often moralized in the most extreme sense. And we know that the deepest understanding of Shakespeare was brought about not in England, but in the intellectual development of Central Europe.

Now you will ask the question: When did this contact between the folk spirit and the people of Central Europe take place? — It is indeed the case that, because the ego is the decisive factor in Central Europe, there is a kind of descent of the folk spirit, then a return, then another descent, then another return, and so on. And so, at about the time when the wonderful legends of Parzival and the Grail arose, we have such a descent of the folk spirit, a uniting with the individual souls, a return, and a subsequent descent, roughly between the years 1750 and 1830. At that time, what lives in Central Europe, what is the Central European folk spirit, is most deeply affected by what is happening in the world. Since then, there has been another return of the folk spirit. You see how it is actually quite understandable that, let us say, the what lives in Central Europe, what the Central European folk spirit is. Since then, there has been a decline in the folk spirit. So you see how it is actually quite understandable that, say, Jakob Böhme lived at a time when he could have little of the German folk spirit. It was not a time when the folk spirit was connected with the individual souls of the people. Jakob Böhme, therefore, although he is called the “Teutonic philosopher,” is a person who is temporally independent of what his folk spirit is; he stands, as it were, like an uprooted phenomenon, like an eternal phenomenon within his time. If we take Lessing, Schiller, and Goethe, they are also German philosophers who are deeply rooted in the German national spirit. And it is precisely characteristic of these philosophers who lived between 1750 and 1830 that they are deeply rooted in the national spirit. So you see that it is not enough to know that the spirit of the Italian people works through the soul of feeling, the spirit of the French people works through the soul of understanding, the spirit of the British people works through the soul of consciousness, and the spirit of the Central European people works through the ego — but that one must also know that this happens at certain points in time. And the events that take place can only be explained historically if one really knows such things. That nonsense which is peddled as science, where one takes documents and lists events one after the other and says that one must be deduced from the other, this nonsense of historians does not lead to a real history, to an understanding of the becoming of man, but only, one might say, to a falsification of what prevails and works in human history.

And when you see how the force that drives these peoples—and other peoples could be characterized in the same way—affects them in very different ways, then you see the contradictions that exist. And one sees that what is happening today has not really happened only in recent years, but has been preparing itself over the centuries.

Let us look over to the East, to the region that is the cradle of Russian culture. The distinctive feature of Russian culture is that it can only unfold once the moment arrives when the Russian national soul connects with the spirit self — this has already been expressed in the cycle mentioned above. This means that a later period must come in which the characteristics of this distinctive feature of the European East will first become apparent. And this will then be quite different from what is happening in Western Europe or in the center of Europe. For the time being, however, it is quite understandable that what is assigned to Russian culture is not yet there at all, but that Russian culture — like the individual human being — stands in such a relationship to the spirit that it is always turning upward. Individual members of the Russian people, and even profound Russian philosophers, do not speak in the same way as the greatest minds in Central Europe, but in a completely different way.

Here we find something highly characteristic. What is the most distinctive feature of this Central European spiritual life? You all know that there was a time of great mystics, when Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler, and others were active. They all sought in the human mind that which is contained in the human mind itself as the divine. They sought to find God in their own hearts, in their own souls, “the spark in the mind,” as Eckhart put it. There, they said, there must be something where the divinity is directly present. And so arose that striving in which the ego wanted to unite with its divinity within itself. This divinity wanted to be fought for; it wanted to be fought for in becoming. This runs like a thread through the whole of Central European being. Think how infinitely profound it is when someone who stands, I would say, entirely on the ground of Central European culture and Central European spiritual life, Angelus Silesius, says in one of his beautiful sayings, “Cherubinischer Wandersmann” (Cherubic Wanderer): When I die, it is not I who die, but God dies in me. Think how infinitely profound that is! For the one who says this has grasped the idea of immortality, because he felt that when death comes to the individual human being, it is because the human being is permeated by the divine — this phenomenon of death is not a phenomenon of the human being, but of God, and since God cannot die, death can only be an illusion. Death cannot therefore be the destruction of life. He who says, “When I die, it is not I who die, but God dies in me,” knows that an immortal soul exists. It is an enormously profound feeling that lives in Angelus Silesius. This is precisely a consequence of the fact that inspiration occurs here in the I.

When inspiration occurs in the sentient soul, what happened to Giordano Bruno, for example, can occur. The monk feels with all his passion what Copernicus has discovered, feels the whole world animated. Read a line by Giordano Bruno, and you will find confirmation that, insofar as he grew out of Italian folklore, he is precisely the proof that the soul of the people inspires the sentient soul.

Cartesius, Descartes, was born at the very point in French development where the French national spirit was so closely united with the French people. Read a page by Cartesius, the French philosopher, and you will find that he confirms on every page what spiritual science finds: that the inspiration of the national spirit acts upon the intellectual soul.

Read Locke or Hume or any other English philosopher up to Mill and Spencer, and everywhere you will find inspiration of the conscious soul.

Read Fichte in his struggle within the self, and you will find the inspiration of the self through the national soul. This is precisely what is unique about the Central European soul: it is experienced in the ego, and therefore the ego is what actually strives, the ego, I would say, with all its strength and all its errors, with all its wrong turns and also with all its victories. If this Central European human being is to find the way to Christ, he wants to give birth to him in his own soul.

Try to search somehow — if it has not been adopted externally from Western European culture — for this idea of experiencing Christ or a God within oneself in Russian spiritual life. You will not find it. Everywhere it is expected that what enters into history really enters in such a way that, as Soloviev says, it enters as a “miracle.” Russian intellectual life is very inclined to see the resurrection of Christ in the supernatural, to venerate the external intervention of an inspiring power, but this speaks as if man were beneath it, as if the inspiring power were moving like a cloud over humanity, not as if it were entering into the human ego. This intimate communion of the ego with its God, or, in the case of Christ, with Christ himself, this longing for Christ to be born in one's own mind, can only be found in Central Europe. And once Eastern European culture has reached the stage of development that is appropriate for it, this will become apparent in the establishment of a culture that hovers above human beings, which in turn represents a kind of group soul, only on a higher level than the old group soul. For the time being, we must find it quite natural that even the Russian philosopher speaks in a way that refers to something that hovers above the human world like the spiritual world, but which can never be approached as intimately as the Central European human being with his ego wants to approach what is divine, what flows and weaves through the world as the divine.

And when I have often spoken of the deity flowing and weaving and surging through the world, this comes from the world of feeling of the Central European human being and could not be understood in the same way as it can be taken up by the Central European mind by any other people in Europe. This is the characteristic, the peculiarity of the Central European people.

These are the forces that live in the individual peoples and that oppose each other, that must therefore compete with each other again and again, that must discharge themselves violently, like clouds discharge themselves and cause lightning and thunderstorms.

But can we not see, one might now say, how a word has sounded in Eastern Europe that was, in a sense, a rallying cry and was intended to have the effect of the culture of Eastern Europe now beginning to spread over and flood the less valuable Western Europe? Do we not see how the Slavophiles, the Pan-Slavists, Pan-Slavism emerged, especially in minds such as Dostoevsky and others like him, how it emerged with the specific points of its program, as it was said: All of you Western Europeans, you have a culture that has become rotten and must be replaced by Eastern Europe. Then a whole theory was constructed, a theory that culminated above all in the assertion that everything in the West had become rotten and had to be replaced by the fresh forces of the East. We have the good orthodox religion, which we do not fight against, but which we have accepted as the cloud of the national spirit hovering over the people, and so on. And then ingenious 'theories' were constructed, very ingenious theories about what the principles and intentions of the old Slavic culture might be, and how the truth must now spread from the East to Central and Western Europe.

I said that the individual can rise above his ethnicity. Such an individual in a certain field was Solovyov, the great Russian philosopher. Although one can see in every line that he writes as a Russian, he nevertheless stands above his ethnicity. In the early part of his life, Solovyov was a Pan-Slavist. But he took a closer look at what the Pan-Slavists and Slavophiles had established as a kind of philosophy of the peoples, a worldview of the peoples. And what did Solovyov, the Russian, find? He asked himself: Is what constitutes Russianness really already present in the present? Is it perhaps already contained in those who represent Pan-Slavism, who represent Slavophilism? And lo and behold, he did not rest until he found the right answer. What did he find? He examined the claims of the Slavophiles, to whom he had previously belonged, he got to the heart of the matter, and there he found that a large part of their ways of thinking, their claims, their intentions, had been taken from the Jesuit-friendly French philosopher de Maistre, who was the great teacher of the Slavophiles in the field of worldview. Solovyov himself proved that Slavophilism did not grow on its own soil, but originated with de Maistre. And he proved even more. He unearthed a long-forgotten German book from the 19th century that no one in Germany knows about. The Slavophiles copied entire passages of it in their literature. What is this peculiar phenomenon? People believe that something is coming from the East that is supposed to have originated in the East, but it is purely a Western import. It came over from the West and was then sent back to Westerners. Westerners are being introduced to their own thought forms because their own thought forms do not yet exist in the East.

When one gets to the heart of the matter, what spiritual science has to say is confirmed everywhere. So that even in what is coming from the East, one is dealing with something that is still elementary, with something that will only find its development when it lovingly accepts what has developed in Central Europe, just as Central Europe once lovingly accepted the Greek and Latin essence from the South. For this is how the development of humanity takes place: the later takes up the earlier. And what I was able to characterize in the public lecture as the Faustian way of thinking in Central Europe with the words: There was a year 1770—Goethe felt it as a Faustian striving when he said:

Now, ah! Philosophy,
Law and medicine,
And, alas, theology too,
Studied thoroughly with ardent effort.
Here I stand, poor fool,
As wise as I was before!

Then came an immensely rich German intellectual life, an immensely intense, rich striving in German intellectual life. But if Goethe had written his “Faust” forty years later, he certainly would not have begun: “Now, alas! Philosophy... .” and so on, and now I have become a wise man for all time — but he would have written his Faust exactly as he did in 1770. This lively striving comes from the inspiration of the soul of the people into the ego, from that intimate togetherness of the ego with the spirit of the people. This is a fundamental characteristic of Central European intellectual culture. And Eastern European culture must lovingly connect with this, must take it in. That which had to flow into Central Europe was once received and absorbed by the southern culture. But now, when the elemental wave of development is rolling in from the East, it is no different than when a student is angry with his teacher because he is supposed to learn something from him and therefore wants to beat him up. It is a somewhat trivial comparison, but it is nevertheless a comparison that accurately describes the situation. Masses of people with very different inner forces of development live together in Europe. These different forces of development must come into competition with each other; they must assert themselves in different ways. The conflicting forces, the forces that come into opposition, have developed over a long, long period of time. And when one looks at the subtleties, one finds that what spiritual science has to say is expressed everywhere in them.

Is it not wonderfully expressed, does not the wave of European development surge together in such a way that it is symbolically placed before all of humanity, showing how the intimate coexistence of the I with the spiritual world must be felt in Central Europe; how God must be experienced in the “spark in the mind,” how Christ must be experienced in the “spark in the mind”! Christ himself must become alive and effective in the human ego. That is why, in Central Europe as in no other European language, the whole development is gradually tending toward what is called the “I.” And I is “I-C-H.” Like a powerful symbol in the intimate interaction between what can be most sacred to the mind and the mind itself, this stands in Central Europe: I = I-CH—Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ and at the same time the human I. This is how the spirit of the people works, inspiring the people to express in characteristic words what the underlying facts are. I know well that people laugh when something like this is said; when it is stated that for centuries the spirit of the people has worked to bring about the designation “I,” which is so symbolically significant. But let people laugh! Only a few decades more, and they will no longer laugh, but will call it something much more significant than what people today call the laws of nature.

What appeared to be a wave of development had a very characteristic effect. Consciousness sometimes reveals only a very small part of the truth; but what works in the depths of the subconscious speaks much, much more truthfully. We speak, for example, of Germanic peoples. Words are formed by the genius of language. Some of the inhabitants of Central Europe call themselves “Germans.” But when they speak of Germanic peoples, they include Germany, Austria, Holland, the Scandinavian peoples, but also the inhabitants of the British Isles. They extend the word Germanic over a wide area. The inhabitants of the British Isles, however, reject this. They call only the Germans “German” — Germanic. They do not use the word Germanic for themselves. The German language encompasses a much larger circle with this word. As such, it is inclined to place the word in the service of selflessness; the German does not merely call himself German, he includes others as well. The other, the Briton, rejects this. If you consider the marvelous nature of the genius of language creation, you will see that there is truly something marvelous in it. With reference to what people are conscious of, the Maja, the great deception, arises. What reigns in the depths of the subconscious has a much, much greater effect. Something immensely significant and profound is expressed in this.

And now compare this with the intimate approach required to understand the European power games, compare this intimate approach with the crude way in which people today view the relationships between the European peoples, and you will begin to understand the devastation wrought on human judgment by the materialistic age. That people have begun to think that matter carries and holds everything is not the worst thing, but that they have become short-sighted, that they cannot see the main thing, that they do not take even one step behind the veil that is woven like a veil over the truth, that is the real evil.

Materialism has prepared well for what it wanted to achieve. And here too, genius has been at work, only the genius who brought about materialism as the supreme leader is Ahriman. He has had a powerful influence in recent centuries, a very powerful influence. And I would like to briefly refer to a chapter that people may not like to refer to today. When it happens, it is regarded as a particular form of madness. The easiest way to influence people is to instill in them, while they are still young, what is to grow within them later on. In later life, very few people can be taught anything thoroughly. Ahriman would therefore never have better prospects of preparing souls for materialism than by instilling in young, childlike souls what will then continue to work in the subconscious. If materialistic ways of thinking are already absorbed during the period when human beings do not yet think with their intellectual faculties, then people will learn to think thoroughly materialistically if materialism is already planted in the minds of children! Ahriman did this by inspiring a writer of the materialistic age with the idea of “Robinson Crusoe.” For anyone who truly lets “Robinson” work on them with a seeing mind will see how thoroughly materialistic ideas work in “Robinson.” It does not appear so, but the whole thing — the way Robinson is constructed, the way he is driven to everything in his adventurous life in the outer world, until finally even religion grows like cabbages in a field — all this prepares the child's mind very well for materialistic thinking. And when one considers that during a certain period — in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries — there was a Bohemian, a Portuguese, a Hungarian, and so on Robinson as imitations of Robinson Crusoe, one must say: the work has been thoroughly done, and the contribution that reading Robinson Crusoe has made to the development of materialism is enormous.

In contrast to such phenomena, it must be pointed out that there is something else that children should absorb into their understanding late in life: the fairy tales that live in Central Europe, especially those collected by the Brothers Grimm. This is much better literature for children than Robinson. And if, in our time, what is happening among the European peoples in such a terrible, difficult, and fateful way is taken as a warning to look more closely at the way in which what is extending into the present has developed in the background of events, then we will realize above all that it really does not matter whether a few German scholars send their medals and diplomas back to England! If the warning of the times proves so strong that one recognizes the significance of the materialistically inspired consciousness of the British people, then one will also see through the significance of reading Robinson and eradicate Robinson altogether. Much more thorough, much more radical measures will have to be taken if we are ever to take the warnings of our time seriously.

It is now thirty-five years since I began to interpret Goethe, particularly in his spiritual-scientific work. I have tried to show how Goethe's theory of evolution is a truly great theory of evolution in accordance with the spirit. The time must come when this will be recognized in wider circles. For Goethe gave us a great, powerful theory of evolution that is spiritual in nature. This was difficult for people to understand. In the materialistic age, Darwin was then able to have a greater impact, presenting in a crude, materialistic way what Goethe had presented in a subtle, spiritual way as a theory of evolution. It was a thorough Anglicization that took hold in Central Europe. Now consider the tragedy that actually lies in the fact that the most English natural scientist in Germany, Ernst Haeckel, who swore by Darwin, had to appear with his furious hatred of England, and when this war broke out, he was one of the first to send back the orders and diplomas he had received from England. He was probably too old to send back the English-influenced Darwinism, but that would have been the essential thing, the more important thing.

The issues at stake are enormously profound, they are enormously significant, and they are connected with the necessary spiritual deepening of our time. Once one realizes how infinitely deeper Goethe's theory of colors is than Newton's, how infinitely deeper Goethe's theory of evolution is than Darwin's, then one will become aware of what Central European intellectual life has to offer, even in such lofty realms.

Through all this, I want to evoke in your souls only one feeling, which must be a warning to us in the face of the present difficult and fateful events. A warning to work, which should lead us to reflect on what lies hidden in Central European spiritual life and what is, in a sense, an obligation to bring out and highlight. This is also what I meant yesterday in my public lecture when I said that this Central European spiritual life contains seeds that must lead to blossoms and fruits.

And if we repeatedly profess that conscious spiritual life takes place on the surface, but that beneath it lies everything that has been discussed in recent days, then we can also direct our thoughts to the fact that in the impulses of many people, even today, there is something quite different at work than what they are aware of. Let us not believe that the people in the West and East who have to defend the great fortress of Central Europe are fighting only for what they are conscious of in their superconsciousness. Let us look above all at the impulses that are unconscious to many who are going through blood and death today, but there they are, the impulses, they exist, and we should be able to draw the feeling out of spiritual science by looking to the East and West and seeing how, in the impulses of those who are making the sacrifices, there lives that what the future must still bring forth for our outer experience, of which perhaps even those who are fighting have hardly any idea in their consciousness. Only then, when we look at it in this way, does what is happening permeate us with the right feeling, with the right sense.

But let us consider how many souls are involved in these events, which cannot be compared to anything in the conscious history of humanity in terms of their military grandeur, let us consider how many souls are passing through blood and death, and let us consider that these souls will look down upon the death that has been imposed on them by the great events of the time. Let us consider that, in the sense of what was said the day before yesterday, the youthful etheric bodies permeate the spiritual atmosphere. Let us consider that not only the souls, the individualities, will be in the spiritual world, but that useful elements from the youthful etheric bodies will permeate the spiritual atmosphere. Let us try, starting from this point, to see the warnings that should be given to the people who remain here on earth. Yes, the individual who has passed through the gate of death warns of the great tasks that must be accomplished in European culture. And these warnings must be heard. And people must become inclined to gain feelings, knowing feelings, from the depths of their spiritual life, about what it is actually like in which we live. Once we feel in this way, that with every person who today remains on the battlefield in the prime of life, there stands a warning voice, a call for the spiritualization of humanity in European culture, then we will have understood correctly. And it is not only that we want such places as the one where we stand to be the source of abstract knowledge: that human beings consist of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and an I; that human beings go through many incarnations; that human beings have karma, and so on. Rather, we want the souls who participate in our spiritual scientific life be shaken in their innermost depths to the life of feeling that has just been indicated, to the co-experience of what will be the warning calls of those who died prematurely in the near future. The most beautiful thing we can acquire as confessors of spiritual science is the living life that should pass like a breath through the ranks of those who count themselves among us. Not knowledge, not insight alone, but this life, the becoming real of this life.

In recent times, several members have passed away from the physical plane. Among them was a young colleague, our dear Fritz Mitscher. And I had the task, also prompted by karma, of speaking at his cremation in Basel. I had to repeat certain words to the departing soul. Among other things, these words that I spoke to the soul contained the message that we are aware that she will remain a co-worker even after she has passed through the gate of death. I had to say this out of the awareness that what animates us all is not just a theory, but that what we express as a theory must fill the whole soul with full life. But then we must stand by those who have passed through the gate of death as we stand by those who are still here in life. Yes, we must not hesitate to say to ourselves: Those who live in the physical body are prevented by the most diverse circumstances from living the spiritual life to the full. How many obstacles can we observe in human beings in this physical earthly life when it comes to recognizing the truly great tasks of evolution—and then fulfilling them! But we can rely on the dead much better in many ways. This feeling that they are among us, this transfer of a special mission, led me to speak the eulogy for our friend Fritz Mitscher, who passed through the gates of death at an early age. And what has been said about him applies to many others who have passed through the gates of death. We see them as our most important co-workers, and it will not be misunderstood if I say: In our spiritual work, we can rely on the dead much more than on the living.

But in order to be able to say such a thing at all, we must be fully alive in what our spiritual movement can give us. I am counting on the fact that, especially now, in the outer field of the spiritualization of human culture in the future, those who have passed through the gates of death in our fateful time are our most important co-workers. For this death, which those who have passed through the gate of death look back upon, will be a great teacher. And many today need a stronger teacher than life can provide. This can be seen in many examples.

I would like to give one example—many others could be cited: Several years ago, a sensational article opposing the spiritual science I represent appeared in a magazine published in southern Germany called Hochland. This article caused quite a stir. It made sense to many because it was written by a very famous philosopher. The editor of Hochland accepted this article. He was thus propagating what he believed to be a very valid view of this complicated spiritual science. You see, it really does not matter whether one defends oneself against this with external means. It is perfectly understandable that the very intelligent people of today find spiritual science foolish. But after the war broke out, something else happened. The editor of the magazine is a good German, a person who feels German. The man whose article he published at the time has now written letters to the editor, and the latter has now, let's say, in his particularly gifted “innocence,” printed them in the Süddeutsche Monatshefte. Try reading them, and you will see all the venom and bile that the same philosopher writes to the editor of Hochland against the intellectual culture of Central Europe, so that the editor feels compelled to say: Anyone who thinks such things can only be found in madhouses in Central Europe. Imagine what an infinitely significant criticism that is! There is an editor of a South German magazine. This editor publishes an article which he considers decisive for the destruction of the humanities, saying: “This is a good article on the humanities by a famous philosopher!” After some time, the editor receives letters from the same man, which he then describes as coming from a person who belongs in a madhouse. So, using the logic of life, one would have to continue and say: If the man is now a fool, then he was also a fool before, and the good editor simply did not recognize at the time that he was dealing with a fool when he wrote against the humanities. — That is the logic of life. Sometimes one cannot wait for such logic to take effect, but it already prevails in our lives, and so one can sometimes experience something according to this recipe. At that time, the article appeared precisely against my spiritual science. People read it. They said: Yes, he is a famous philosopher and Platonist, so he is particularly clever. The editor said to himself: If someone so clever writes about the humanities, it must be an important article. Some time passes, and the same editor says: The man is a fool. — But he first needed proof in the manner just described. Yes, that's how it is with the living. People who have as little solid ground under their feet as the editor of the South German magazine need to be taught by events that, in a much deeper sense, are given by the spiritual world through the life of recent times, more than is acceptable.

And so you will understand when I return to what I said earlier: Our time has had many conflicting forces, and if we call war a disease—which we can do—then it is a disease that was brought about by something that happened long before, and it is there for healing, so that many things that would gradually have led to the destruction of the whole culture can be eradicated. If we describe it as a disease in this sense, but if we view the disease as a form of self-defense, then we understand this war and the fateful events of the present, and we also understand its significant signs and warnings. Then we experience it with all the inner powers of our soul, so that we can become truly attentive to those who have passed through the gate of death and who are looking toward the near future and will have truly learned what they can then inspire into the souls that want to hear them: that spiritual deepening, which is necessary for human salvation and progress in the near future, must enter into them.

And if your souls can take in what I am trying to say with these words in the right way, then you are only then, in the full sense of the word, confessors of our spiritual scientific worldview. If your souls can make the decision to become such souls, they will pay attention to what is whispered down from those who have passed through the gate of death through our fateful events.

A connecting bridge is to be built through spiritual science, especially for the near future, between the living and the dead, a connecting line through which the inspiring elemental forces of those who have made the great sacrifices in our time will be able to find their way over.

That is why I wanted to inspire feelings in you these past few days, teaching and speaking to your souls. These feelings should be like anticipatory feelings of what is being said to the souls through the effects of our fateful times.

In this sense, let us conclude today with the words I spoke here the day before yesterday, which should work like a mantra in our souls, so that our souls become expectant, expectant of the inspiration that will come from the dead, but who will become especially alive in spirit:

From the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of battles,
From the suffering of the forsaken,
From the sacrifices of the people
The fruit of the spirit will grow
Souls will think spiritually
Their meaning into the realm of spirits.