Perception of the Nature of Thought
GA 161
10 January 1915, Dornach
Translated by M. Cotterell
Bearing in mind what we sought to study yesterday, let us consider how matters actually stand in regard to what we call man's Saturn evolution.
If we remember the course of yesterday's lecture,1“The Ego perceived externally as Speech and Song, as creative fantasy, as inner experience.” Dornach, 9th Jan. 1915 (Z69) we know that there is concealed within us, within our human being, something that was first implanted in us during the Saturn period, namely, the first rudiments of our physical bodily nature. What we have acquired from the ancient Saturn evolution can be met with nowhere today in the external world. In primeval ages the Saturn evolution arose and again passed away; it possessed characteristics, forces, which seek in vain if we look around us today. For even if we look out to the stars in cosmic space we do not at first find what prevailed within the old Saturn evolution.
After this ancient Saturn evolution had died away, there came as you know, the Sun evolution and then the Moon evolution and today we are living in the Earth evolution. Three evolutionary periods have gone by. And all that formed their peculiar characteristics has passed away with them and is no more to be found in our field of vision. We can only find the characteristics of the Saturn evolution among the hidden occult activities which pulsate through the world. We can still, as it were, uncover the forces which at that time worked upon our physical body.
If you recollect what was shown in my book Outline of Occult Science you are aware that there was an active co-operation at that time between the Spirits of Will and the Spirits of Personality. This co-operation still exists today though it cannot be discerned externally. We find it if we look into what we call our personal karma. Please note, my dear friends, that our personal karma is woven in such a way that what befalls us in successive earth lives is connected as cause and effect. The forces active in our personal stream of destiny cannot be investigated by the official Natural Scientist. He will find nothing among the forces disclosed in the field of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Physiology etc., which calls forth the connection of cause and effect that comes to expression in our personal karma. The laws prevailing there are withdrawn from physical observation as well as from the historical observation pursued today by the so-called cultural-scientist of a materialistic colouring. The modern investigation of historical evolution, the history which is written nowadays of Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, up to our own time, contains laws which have nothing to do with the forces active in our karma. Thus the historian, the modern materialistic scientist studying civilization does not discover the laws dependent on man's personal karma.
History is looked upon as a continuous stream and no one considers to what extent historical evolution depends on the fact that human souls, for instance, who were personalities in ancient Roman times are present again today. The fact that they participate in current events and that the way in which they do so flows out of their personal karma finds no place in modern materialistically coloured history.
If we seek therefore for forces having something of the nature-forces of old Saturn we have to go to the law of our personal karma. Only when we learn to read what is in the surrounding cosmos and not merely to observe it, do we gain an insight into how the laws of ancient Saturn are still in a certain way active.
If we turn our attention to the ordering and out-streaming of the twelve Signs of the Zodiac as a cosmic script, and consider what radiating forces pour into human life from Aries, Taurus, Gemini etc., we are then thinking in the sense of forces which were Saturn forces. And if we try to bring personal karma into connection with the constellations which relate to the zodiacal signs, we are then living approximately in the sphere of that world-conception which must be employed for the laws of the ancient Saturn epoch.
Thus nothing visible has remained, nothing that may be perceived, and yet there is still remaining an invisible element which may be interpreted out of the signs of the cosmos. Anyone who thought that Aries, Taurus, Gemini etc., made his destiny would be living under the same delusion as a man who had been sentenced by a certain legal passage and then conceived a special hatred of this paragraph in the law and believed that it had sent him to gaol. Just as little as a legal paragraph printed on the white page can sentence a man, can Aries, Taurus, or Gemini, bring about destiny. Yet one can read from the star-script the connection between the cosmos and human destiny. And thus we can say that what follows from the star script is a remainder of the ancient Saturn evolution, is indeed the ancient Saturn evolution become entirely spiritual, but leaving its signs behind in the star-script of the cosmos.
When we proceed from the Old Saturn evolution to the Moon evolution we must be clear that at first there is nothing so directly (I said; at first, so directly) in our surrounding field of vision; external nature contains in the first place in the main no forces which resemble those of the Old Moon evolution. These forces of the Old Moon have also drawn back into concealment, but they have not yet become spiritual to the same degree as the Old Saturn laws. The Saturn laws have become so spiritual that we can only investigate them in the laws of our personal destiny, that is to say, quite outside space and time. When we observe human life as a whole we still find today these ancient Saturn laws, still find what cannot be seen when we confront a man in the physical world.
We have said that in meeting man in the physical world, we have the physical body as coming from the Old Saturn evolution, the etheric from the Old Sun evolution; the astral body from the Old Moon, and the Ego. And when we look at man externally and observe his form it is solely this embodiment of the ego which is not a relic from other periods of evolution. It is the laws of Earth which prevail and are active when the ego fashions man for itself and embodies itself. The laws of the Moon evolution, the laws of the astral body have already withdrawn and are no longer outwardly active. Now if we encounter a man we shall say: “You, O Man, as you confront me as material man are an embodiment of the Ego. But deep in the background of your being lies your invisible personal destiny.” How this invisible human destiny is determined comes under the rule of ancient Saturn laws. There we are already appealing to something entirely spiritual when, from the earthly laws of the embodiment of the Ego, we look towards the ancient Saturn laws. If, however, we look from what stands before us in the human being towards what still prevails in him from the Old Moon laws we find something not so spiritual. But this too has withdrawn from the external activity of the world, this too is not directly under the active forces of Earth-existence.
Where then must we seek for what has remained behind from the ancient Moon activity? We must we seek it protected and embedded, veiled from Earthly existence. For it is active in the period before man enters Earth existence through his physical birth, it is active before the external physical ray of light can penetrate his eye, it is active before he can first draw breath. It is active from the conception to birth, active in the embryonic life. I beg you expressly to notice, however, it is not active in that which develops from the ovum to the external physical human being; in what grows from the ovum, becoming greater and greater through continuous division, the forces of the Earth are working. But it is active in what exists only in the mother and dies away during the embryonic development, in what is lost with the birth and perishes. In all that envelops the earthly human being and cares for its nourishment before it is born, in all that ensheaths the growing human being and then falls away from it—in that rule the ancient Moon laws. And with this we have something that goes beyond the single human life, that forms a connection between the individual man and his ancestors and is included in the concept of heredity.
Thus we see something that existed during the Old Moon evolution still playing an active part, though not in the external world. In the outer world it acts only, so to say, as a dying away in human development, as something that is overcome as soon as the human being draws the first active breath for earthly life.
If one would study the laws of the Old Moon existence—or at any rate a part of them—purely physiologically and not clairvoyantly, the only way to do so today would be to study the laws at work in the sheaths surrounding the human embryo before it draws the first breath, enfolding it and nourishing it. What is there enclosed in the mother's body, what can only thrive during earthly evolution within the protecting sheath of the maternal body was the whole nature during the Old Moon evolution; it filled the whole field of vision.
Thus there die not only beings in so far as they have a sheath-nature, but whole types of natural laws, and exist in succeeding ages solely as last remains. Now you will have to ask the question: How does it stand with what is derived from the Sun?
Let us look at yesterday's diagram. We have seen that through all complications that appear here, we have to do with the complete human being, with his physical body, etheric body, astral body, Ego,—etheric body, astral body, ego,—astral body, ego, and with the ego itself.
All that is above the dividing line is really the hidden part of human nature. If we wish to study the laws underlying the foundation of the physical body we must look to super-sensible laws determining man's destiny. If we look towards that which rules in the astral body and finds its embodiment in the physical body, we have something that is not so spiritual, so super-sensible, but something that melts from the sense-perceptible into the super-sensible. For the part that falls away from the human embryo becomes so to say more and more atomistic. The nearer the human being approaches birth the more it dissolves materially and becomes increasingly spiritual. For that which is attached to the human being as astral body and etheric body has originated through the spiritualising of those parts of the embryonic sheaths which fall away.
The question could now arise: how does it stand with regard to the Sun part? Can we find the Sun portion somewhere in the world? This too withdraws from sense perception. Whereas what we call karma, personal destiny, or, one might say, the Saturn part of man, lies in lofty spiritual regions, we have seen that we need not ascend so high in the case of the Moon part, for we found it still ensheathed in the sensible. Nor in the case of the Sun part need we ascend so high as for the Saturn part. One can still apprehend it but it is not easily recognised.
I should like to give you an example of something where you can still recognise the Sun-part that is active, although attention can only be directed to it in a veiled way. Those of you who have acquainted yourselves with the new edition of my book, Riddles of Philosophy in Outline will have found that four periods in the development of Philosophy are distinguished. I have called the first period “The World-conceptions of the Greek Thinkers”. This lasted from 800 B.C.—in round numbers—or 600 B.C. to the birth of Christ, i.e. into the age of the origin of Christianity. A second period lasted from the rise of Christianity to about 800 – 900 A.D. up to the time of John Scotus Erigena. Then came a third period which I have called “the World-conception of the Middle Ages”, and which lasted from 800, 900 A.D. to 1600 A.D. And then there is the forth period up to our own time; we are just in this period. Eight-hundred year periods have been assigned to the history of philosophy, presented in such a way as was possible in a book meant for a public still quite unacquainted with Spiritual Science.
The intention was to give everything that could stimulate the mind and let the spiritual structure of these periods work upon one. The characteristic of the first period consists in the fact that a transition is found from a very remarkable ancient thinking to what one can call the life of thought in ancient Greece. Our age has not made much progress in the understanding of such differences, the difference, for instance, between the thought life of our own time and that of ancient Greece. Our clumsy thinking believes that thought lived in an ancient Greek head just as it lives today in the head of modern man. Thought lived in Socrates, Plato, even in Aristotle quite differently from how it lives in present-day mankind; this present thought-life first awoke in the 7th, 6th century B.C. Before that there was no actual life of thought. As my book sets out, one can speak of a beginning, of a birth of thought-life in this age of ancient Greece.
People have conceived that most curious ideas about the great philosophical figures of Thales, Anaxagoras, Anaximenes, etc. It has been pointed out, for instance, that Thales believed that the world originated out of water, Anaxagoras out of air, Heraclitus from fire. I have shown how these ancient philosophers formed their philosophies from the human temperament. They were not based on speculation, but Thales established water as the original ground of things because he was of a watery temperament; Heraclitus founded the fire-philosophy because he was of a fiery temperament and so on. You find that shown in detail in my book.
Then comes the actual thought-life. And in the epoch described here the thought-life is still essentially different from that of modern times. The Greek thinker does not draw up thoughts from the depths of his soul, but thought is revealed to him just as external sound or colour is revealed to modern man. The Greek perceives the thought; he perceives it from outside and when we speak of Greek philosophy we must not speak of such a mode of thinking as is normal today, but of thought-perception. Thus in the first period we are concerned with thought-perception. Plato and Aristotle did not think in the way the modern philosopher thinks, they thought as today we see, perceive. They looked out into the world, as it were, and perceived the thoughts which they expound to us in their philosophies just as much as one perceives a symphony. They are thought-perceivers. The world reveals to them a thought-work; that is the essential character of the Greek thinker. And this perception of the thought-work of the world was brought to the highest pitch of perfection by the Greek thinker.
If the philosophers of today believe that they understand what Plato and Aristotle perceived as a universal symphony of thoughts, that is only due to a childish stage of the modern philosopher. The modern philosophers have a long way to go before they can fully grasp what Aristotle represents as Entelechy, what he gives as the members of the human soul nature—Aesthetikon, Orektikon, Kinetikon etc. The inner activity of thinking, where one draws the thoughts out of oneself, where one must make subjective efforts in order to think, did not as yet exist in Greece. It is completely foolish to believe that Plato thought he perceived thoughts. To believe that Aristotle already thought in the modern sense, is nonsense ... he perceived thoughts.
Modern man can hardly imagine what that is, for he makes no concepts of actual evolution. He gets slight goose-flesh if one tells him that Plato and Aristotle did not think at all in the modern sense, and yet it is a fact. In order that thinking in the modern sense might take root in the modern human soul, an impulse had to come that seized its inmost part, an impulse that has nothing to do with the thought-symphony in the surrounding world but which grips man's inmost being. This impulse came from Christ and hence this period of philosophy lasts up to the time of Christ.
In the second period we are concerned with a thinking that is still not man's own individual thought, but is stimulated by the impulse coming from the external world. If you go through all the systems of thought of the philosophers of the second period up to the time of Scotus Erigena you will find everywhere how the Christ-Impulse rules in them. It is what has flowed out of Christ himself, one might say, that gives man the first stimulus to create thoughts from within outwards. This gave the stamp, the physiognomy of the patristic philosophy of the Church Fathers, the philosophy of Augustine and others up to Scotus Erigena. We can therefore say that we no longer have thought-perception, but thought-inspiration stimulated by the spirit.
It was different again in the third period when the inner impulse proceeding from Christianity began to be seized by men themselves. In this third period man begins to be conscious that it is he who thinks. Plato and Aristotle did not think, but they could as little doubt that thought has a fully objective validity as a man seeing green on a tree can doubt that it has a fully objective validity.
In the second period it was the intense belief in the Christ Impulse that gave certainty to the awakening thought. But then began the period when the human soul began to say: “Yes, it is actually you yourself who thinks, the thoughts rise up out of you.” The Christ-Impulse gradually faded and man became aware that the thoughts arose out of himself. It began to occur to him that perhaps he framed thoughts that had nothing at all to do with what is outside. Was it possible that the objective external world had nothing to do with his thoughts?
Think of the great difference between this and the thoughts of Plato and Aristotle: Plato and Aristotle perceived thoughts and therefore they could not doubt that the thoughts were outside. Now, in the third period men became aware: ‘One creates thoughts oneself ... well, then, what have thoughts to do with objective existence outside?’ And so the need arose to give certainty to thinking,—to prove thinking as was said. Only in this period could it occur to Anselm of Canterbury, for instance, to create validity for the idea of God;—for one did not see thoughts as perception. In the former Greek thinking that would have been a complete nonsense, because at that time thoughts were perceived. How can one doubt that God exists when thoughts of the Godhead are as clearly to be seen outside as the greenness of the tree? Doubt first began in the third period when men became aware that they themselves produced the thoughts. The need arose to establish the connection of that which one thinks with that which is outside. In essentials this is the epoch of scholasticism—the becoming aware of the subjectivity of thinking.
When you consider the whole thought-structure of Thomas Aquinas it stands entirely under the aegis of this epoch. The consciousness is present throughout; concepts are created within, concepts are linked together in the same way as the laws of subjectivity. Thus a support must be found for the idea that what is created inwardly also exists outside. There is still at first an appeal to traditional dogmatism, but there is no longer the same attachment to the Christ-Impulse as in the second period of philosophical development.
Then comes the fourth evolutionary period; the independent rule of thought from the external thought-perception, the independent creation of thought from within: free creation of thought, that free creation that comes to light so magnificently in the thought-structures of Giordano Bruno, Spinoza, Decartes, and their successors, Leibniz etc. If we follow up these edifices of thought we observe that they are produced entirely out of the inner being. And everywhere we find that these thinkers had an intense desire to prove that what they created in themselves had also real validity externally. Spinoza creates a wonderful ideal-edifice. But the question arises: Now is that all merely created within, in the human spirit, or has it a significance in the world outside? Giordano Bruno, and Leibniz create the monad which is supposed to be a reality. How does something thought out by man as monad exist at the same time as a reality in the outer world? All the questions which have arisen since the 16th, 17th century are concerned with the endeavour to bring free thought-creation into harmony with external world existence. Man feels isolated, abandoned by the world in his free thought creation. We are still standing in the midst of this.
But now what is this whole diagram?
If we go back to the perception of thoughts which prevailed in the time of the old Greek philosophers then we must say: Philosophic thought in ancient Greece—in spite of the fact that it was the age of the intellectual or mind-soul in ancient Greece—was still a perceptive thinking, was still deeply influenced by the sentient soul, in fact by the sentient, the astral, body. It still clung to the external. The thinking of Thales, of the first philosopher was still influenced by the etheric body. They created their Water—Air—Fire—Philosophies out of their temperament, and the temperament lives in the etheric body. One can therefore say that the philosophy of the sentient body goes into the philosophy of the etheric body. Then we come into the Christian period. The Christ- Impulse penetrates into the sentient soul. Philosophy is experienced inwardly but in connection with what one can feel and believe; the influences of the sentient soul are present. In the third period, that of scholasticism, the intellectual or mind-soul is the essential element of philosophical development. Now the development of philosophy follows a different course from that of human evolution in general. And for the first time since the 16th century we now have philosophy coinciding with the general evolution of mankind, for we have the free thoughts ruling in the consciousness soul.—Consciousness soul! The magnificent example of how free thought prevails from the abstraction of existence up to the highest spirituality, how a thought-organism, leaving aside the world entirely, rules purely in itself, that is the philosophy of Hegel—the thought that lives solely in the consciousness.
If you follow this scheme it is actually the part that I could not show in my book for the public, though it lies in it. And if you read the descriptions given of the separate epochs you will, if you are proper Anthroposophists, very clearly connect them with what I have written here (see diagram). There is thus a development corresponding to that of man himself: from the etheric body to the sentient body, to the sentient soul, to the intellectual soul, to the consciousness soul. We follow a path like the path of man's evolution, but differently regulated. It is not the path of human evolution, it is different. Beings are evolving and they make use of human forces in the sentient soul, in the intellectual soul etc. Through man and his works pass other beings with other laws than those of human development.
You see—these are activities of the Sun-laws!
Here we need not ascend to such super-sensible regions as when we investigate human destiny. It is in the philosophical development of mankind that we have an example of what remains from the Sun-laws.
We had yesterday to write here Angeloi as corresponding to the etheric body (see diagram).
Such Angeloi evolve. And while men believe that they themselves philosophise, Sun-laws work in them—inasmuch as men bear within them what the Sun-evolution laid down in their physical and etheric bodies. And the laws of the Sun-existence, working from epoch to epoch, cause philosophy to become precisely what it is. Because they are Sun-laws, the Christ, the Being of the Sun, could also enter them during the second period. Preparation is made in the first period and then the Christ, the Sun-Being, becomes active in the second period.
You see how everything is linked together. But inasmuch as the Christ, the Sun-Being, enters in, he comes into connection with an evolution which is not the human evolution, not man's earthly evolution, but actually Sun-evolution within Earth existence.
Sun-evolution within Earth existence! Just think what we have actually reached in these reflections. We are considering the course of philosophical development, philosophical thought since the time of ancient Greece, and when we consider how this has evolved from philosopher to philosopher we say to ourselves: there are active within not earthly laws, but Sun laws! The laws which at that time held sway between the Spirits of Wisdom and the Archangels come to light again on earth in the philosophical search for wisdom. Read in the book Occult Science how the Spirits of Wisdom enter during the Sun-evolution. Now during earthly evolution they enter again not into what is new but into what has remained from the Sun-evolution. And man develops his philosophy not knowing that in this development the Spirits of Wisdom are pulsing through his soul. The Old Sun existence lives in the evolution of philosophy; it really and truly lives within something that has stayed behind, something that is connected with the Old Sun-evolution.
Human beings, passing from generation to generation, evolve as external personalities in earthly evolution. But an evolution of philosophy goes through it from Thales up to our present time; the Sun-evolution lies within it. This gives opportunity for beings who have stayed behind to make use of the forces of philosophical evolution in order to carry on their ancient Sun existence; beings who remained behind during the Sun-evolution, who neglected at that time to go through the development that one can pass through in one's etheric body, sentient body, and sentient soul—in cooperation with Spirits of Wisdom and Archangeloi. These Spirits that missed their evolution during the Sun time can use man's philosophical evolution in order to be parasites within human evolution. They are Ahrimanic spirits!
Ahrimanic spirits yield to the enticement of creeping parasitically into what men strive for in philosophy and so of furthering their own existence. Men can thus evolve philosophically but at the same time they are exposed to Ahrimanic, Mephistophelean spirits.
You know that Ahriman and Lucifer are harmful spirits as long as one is not aware of them, as long as they work in secret. As long as they do not emerge and let men face them eye to eye spiritually Ahriman and Lucifer are harmful in one or another way. Let us suppose that a philosopher appears who develops thought of such a nature that one can grasp it in merely earth existence. He develops thoughts that can live through the instrument of earthly reasoning. That is Hegelian thought! It is pure thought, but only such as can be grasped with the instrument of the physical body and this as we know ends at death.
Hegel has achieved thought that is the deepest which can be thought in earthly life—but which must lose its configuration with death. Hegel's tragedy lies in the fact that he did not realise he grasped the spirit in logic, in nature, in soul-life, but only the spirit that exists in the form of thought and does not accompany us when we go through death. To have put this clearly before his mind he would have had to say: If I could believe that what goes through thought, that is to say what I think about abstract being by means of logic, thoughts of nature, thoughts of the soul and up to philosophy—if I could believe that this leads me behind the scenes of existence than I should be deceived by Mephistopheles!
This was realised by another: Goethe realised it and represented it in his Faust as the conflict of the thinker with Mephistopheles, with Ahriman. And in this fourth period of the evolution of philosophy we see how Ahriman presses into the Sun-evolution and how one has to face him consciously, really recognising and comprehending his nature.
Hence today we are also standing at a turning point of the philosophical thought of the outer world. In order to avoid falling prey to the allurements of Ahriman and becoming mephistophelean wisdom, philosophy must get behind this wisdom, must understand what it is, must flow into the stream of Spiritual Science.
Read the two chapters preceding the last one in the second volume of my Riddles of Philosophy. You will see that I tried to present the world concepts prevailing in the world, the philosophical concepts of the world, in order then in a concluding chapter to add A brief view of an Anthroposophy. There you will see how philosophy today in the free emancipated life of thought represents something which, to be sure, rises into the consciousness soul, but how this life, through the consciousness soul, must lay hold of what comes from Spirit itself, philosophically at first, otherwise philosophy must fall into decadence and die.
Thus you see at least one example of the working of the Sun-evolution in human earthly life. I said that one could encounter these sun-laws if one studied the course of philosophical evolution, though one does not always recognise that it is sun-law which is active in it. This must be recognised by Spiritual Science. Just reflect that in reality a Being is evolving which little by little acquires the same members as man himself.
If one were to go still farther back into ancient times one would find that not alone the etheric, but the physical body too gave rise to the forming of world concepts. It is difficult to give clear characteristics of the age that goes back beyond the 12th – 14th centuries B.C.; it lies before Homer, before historical times. But then something was evolving which is not man as man lives upon the earth.
Something lives in history which passes through the etheric body, the sentient body etc., a real, actual Being. I said in my book that in the Grecian era thought was born. But in modern times it comes to actual self-consciousness in the consciousness soul: thought is an independent active Being. This could not of course be said in an exoteric book intended for the public. The anthroposophist will find it however if he reads the book and notes what was the prevailing trend of its presentation. It is not brought into it, but results of itself out of the very subject matter.
You see from this that very many impulses of transformation as regards the spiritual life are coming forward in our time. For here we see something evolving that is like a human being except that it has a longer duration of life than an individual man. The individual man lives on the physical plane: for seven years he develops the physical body, for seven years the etheric body, for seven years the sentient body etc. The Being which evolves as philosophy (we call it by the abstract name ‘philosophy’) lives for 700 years in the etheric body, 700 – 800 years in the sentient body (the time is only approximate), 700 – 800 years in the sentient soul, 700 – 800 years in the intellectual or mind-soul and again 700 – 800 years in the consciousness soul. A Being evolves upwards of whom we can say: if we look at the very first beginnings of Grecian philosophy this Being has then just reached the stage of development which corresponds in mankind to puberty; as Being it is like man when he has reached the 14th – 16th year. Then it lives upwards to the time when a human being experiences the events between the 14th and 21st year; that is the age of Greek philosophy, Greek thought. Then comes the next 7 years, what man experiences from the age of 21 to 28; the Christ Impulse enters the development of philosophy. Then comes the period from Scotus Erigena up to the new age. This Being develops in the following 700 – 800 years what man develops between the ages of 28 and 35 years. And now we are living in the development of what man experiences in his consciousness soul: we are experiencing the consciousness soul of philosophy, of philosophical thought.
Philosophy has actually come to the forties, only it is a Being that has much longer duration of life. One year in a man's life corresponds to a hundred years in the life of the Being of philosophy. So we see a Being passing through history for whom a century is a year; evolving in accordance with Sun-laws though one is not aware of it.
And then only there lies further back another Being still more super-sensible than the Being that evolves as humanity except that a year is as long as a century. This Being that stands behind evolves in such a way that its external expression is our personal destiny, how we bear this through still longer periods, from incarnation to incarnation. Here stand the Spirits regulating our outer destiny and their life is of still longer duration than the life of those for whom we must say that a century corresponds to a year.
So you see, it is as if we look there into differing ranges of Beings, and how, if we wished, we might even write the biography of a Being who stands spiritually as much higher than man as a 100 years is longer than a year.
An attempt has been made to write the biography of a such a Being as had its puberty at the time of Thales and Anaxagoras, and has now reached the stage of its self-consciousness and since the 16th century has entered, so to say, into its ‘forties’. The biography of this Being has furnished a ‘History of Philosophy’.3Riddles of Philosophy
From this you see, however, how Spiritual Science gives vitality to what is otherwise abstract, and really animates it. What dry wood for instance, is the usual ‘History of Philosophy’! And what it can become when one knows that it is the biography of a Being which is interwoven in our existence, but evolves by Sun-laws instead of Earth-laws!
It was my wish to add these thoughts to what we have been considering lately about the life-forces which arise in us when we look at Spiritual Science not as a theory but seek it in the guidance to living. And it is just through Spiritual Science that we find the living. What is so unalive, so dry, and withered as the history of philosophy comes to meet us out of the mist as though we looked up to it as a Goddess who descends from divine cloud-heights, whom we see young in ancient times, whom we see grow even if with the slowness where a century corresponds to a year of human life. Yet all this becomes living—the sun rises for us like the Sun within Earth existence itself. For just as the sun rises on the physical plane, so do we see the ancient Sun still radiate into the earthly world in a Being that has a longer lifetime than man. As we follow man's development on the physical plane from birth to death so we follow the development of philosophy by seeing a Being within it. When in this way we look at what Anthroposophy can be to us we reach the point of seeing in it not only a guide to knowledge but a guide to living Beings who surround us even though we are unaware of them.
Yes, my dear friends, something of this was only felt by Christian Morgenstern. And by feeling this, feeling it in the deepest part of his soul, our friend Christian Morgenstern could put into writing a beautiful sentiment, a true anthroposophical sentiment which shows how a soul can express itself which in its inmost being knows itself to be one with our Anthroposophy—not merely as with something giving us various facts of knowledge—but as something that gives us life. In the wonderful poem Lucifer by Christian Morgenstern we have a wonderful example of this. The feeling of this poem lives entirely in the inspiration of which ones feels a breath when, as we have tried to show today, one finds the transition from the presentation of the idea in Anthroposophy to the grasping of living beings.
Lucifer
“I'll keep my light from light of your excluded,
I want you not, your light shall be precluded,
Until my light's my own and separated.So do I bring the Evil to expression
As Spirit of negation, self-possession,
Yet is new world by ranks of mine created.By off'ing to un-erring Beings resistance,
A race of err-ant gods has found existence
Who act on their—and not your—discretion.Who have not walked in Truth from the beginning
Who only reach the Truth through suffering, sinning,
Who only read the truth through sin's transgression.”
If the feeling in this poem leads you to reflect how alive something can becomes that is understood theoretically in Anthroposophy, so that, as it were, one can grasp the Beings who approach us out of the dark abyss of existence, if you take this poem, stimulated by feelings I wished to arouse through today's lecture, then you will see that this figure of Lucifer is really perceived, fashioned in a wonderful way. It is a model example of how what is brought to us by Anthroposophy can become alive and grip our whole soul.
Zweiter Vortrag
In Erinnerung an das, was wir gestern zu betrachten versuchten, denken wir daran, wie es zunächst mit dem, was wir die Saturnentwickelung des Menschen nennen, eigentlich beschaffen sein muß.
Wenn wir das ins Auge fassen, was wir gestern ausgeführt haben, so wissen wir, daß in uns, ich möchte sagen, in unserer Menschenwesenheit auf verborgene Art dasjenige vorhanden ist, was in der Saturnzeit zuerst in uns verpflanzt worden ist: die erste Anlage der physischen Leiblichkeit. Das was die alte Saturnentwickelung an uns getan hat, das ist heute nicht mehr irgendwo innerhalb unserer äußeren Welt anzutreffen. Diese alte Saturnentwickelung ist in urferner Vergangenheit einmal heraufgezogen, ist wiederum vergangen, hat Eigentümlichkeiten, Kräfte gehabt, die wir heute, wenn wir um uns herumblicken, zunächst vergeblich suchen. Denn auch, wenn wir zu den Sternen aufschauen in den Weltenraum hinaus, finden wir heute zunächst nicht das, was innerhalb der alten Saturnentwickelung herrschend war.
Es ist ja, nachdem diese alte Saturnentwickelung abgedämmert war, die Sonnenentwickelung und dann die Mondenentwickelung gekommen. Heute leben wir innerhalb der Erdenentwickelung. Drei Entwickelungsperioden sind vergangen. Das, was ihre Eigentümlichkeiten waren, ist mit vergangen, ist jetzt nicht mehr, ich möchte sagen, inunseremBlickfelde. Nur unter den verborgenen, unter den okkulten Wirkungen, die die Welt durchwallen, können wir das finden, was Eigentümlichkeit der alten Saturnentwickelung war. Wir können noch die Kräfte gewissermaßen entdecken, die dazumal an unserem physischen Leibe gearbeitet haben.
Wenn Sie sich erinnern an das, was in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß» dargestellt ist, so werden Sie wissen, daß damals tätig war ein Zusammenwirken der Geister des Willens und der Geister der Persönlichkeit. Dieses Zusammenwirken ist auch heute noch da, aber, wie gesagt, wir können es nicht im äußeren Blickfelde finden. Wir finden es, wenn wir in das hineinblicken, was wir unser persönliches Schicksal nennen. Unser persönliches Schicksal wird ja so gewoben, daß in den aufeinanderfolgenden Inkarnationen das, was uns trifft, wie Ursache und Wirkung zusammenhängt. Und was da wirksam ist in unserem persönlichen Schicksalsstrom, das sind keine Kräfte, die der äußere Naturwissenschafter untersuchen kann. Denn er wird unter den Kräften, die er auf dem Gebiete der Physik, Chemie, Biologie, Physiologie und so weiter entdeckt, nichts finden, was hervorruft jenen Zusammenhang von Ursache und Wirkung, der in unserem persönlichen Karma zum Ausdruck kommt. Die Gesetze, die da walten, entziehen sich der physikalischen Beobachtung. Aber sie entziehen sich auch der historischen Beobachtung, derjenigen Beobachtung, die die sogenannten Kulturwissenschafter materialistischer Färbung heute pflegen. Wie man untersucht, was im geschichtlichen Werden vor sich geht, wie man heute Geschichte schreibt, von den persischen, ägyptischen, griechischen und römischen Zeiten bis in unsere Gegenwart, das enthält Gesetze, die nichts zu tun haben mit jenen Kräften, die in unserem Karma wirksam sind. Daher kommt der Historiker, der heutige Kulturwissenschafter materialistischer Färbung auch nicht auf die Gesetze, die abhängen von dem persönlichen Karma der Menschen.
Die Geschichte wird so betrachtet wie ein fortlaufender Strom, und es wird zum Beispiel ganz außer acht gelassen, inwiefern das geschichtliche Werden davon abhängt, daß, sagen wir, Menschenseelen, die Persönlichkeiten waren in der alten Römerzeit, heute wiederum vorhanden sind, daß sie teilnehmen an den Ereignissen, die um uns herum sind, und so teilnehmen, daß die Art, wie sie heute teilnehmen, aus ihrem persönlichen Karma fließt. Das wird ausgeschaltet bei dem Historiker materialistischer Färbung.
Also wenn wir suchen, was noch vorhanden ist an Kräften, die, ich möchte sagen, die Naturkräfte der alten Saturnentwickelung waren, so müssen wir zu der Gesetzmäßigkeit unseres persönlichen Karmas gehen. Erst wenn wir lernen, den Kosmos, der in unserem Blickfelde ist, nicht bloß zu betrachten, sondern zu lesen das, was in ihm ist, dann bekommen wir einen Einblick, wie in dem, was um uns herum ist, noch immer die alten Saturngesetze in einer gewissen Weise wirksam sind.
Wenn wir die Anordnung und Ausstrahlung der zwölf Tierkreiszeichen wie eine kosmische Schrift ins Auge fassen, wenn wir ins Auge fassen, welche Kräfteausstrahlungen sich hineinergießen in das Menschenleben von Widder, Stier, Zwillingen und so weiter, dann denken wir im Sinne derjenigen Kräfte, die Saturnkräfte waren. Und wenn wir versuchen, das persönliche Karma in Zusammenhang zu bringen mit den Konstellationen, die sich auf diese Tierkreiszeichen beziehen, dann leben wir ungefähr in der Sphäre der Weltbetrachtung, die angewendet werden müßte auf die Gesetze der alten Saturnepoche.
Es ist also zurückgeblieben gewissermaßen nichts, was man sehen kann, sondern etwas Unsichtbares, was aber noch aus den Zeichen des Kosmos zu deuten ist. Derjenige, der glauben würde, der Widder, der Stier, die Zwillinge machen sein Schicksal, der würde in demselben Irrtume leben wie derjenige, der durch einen gewissen Gesetzesparagraphen verurteilt wird und nun auf diesen Gesetzesparagraphen einen besonderen Haß bekäme und glaubte, daß der ihn ins Gefängnis geschickt habe. So wenig ein einzelner Gesetzesparagraph — das, was auf dem weißen Blatt als Druckschrift steht - einen Menschen verurteilen kann, so wenig können der Widder, der Stier oder die Zwillinge das Schicksal bewirken. Aber lesen kann man dasjenige aus der Sternenschrift, was aus dem Kosmos heraus mit dem Menschenschicksal zusammenhängt. Wir können also sagen: Das, was so aus der Sternenschrift folgt, ist ein Rest der alten Saturnentwickelung, ist die alte Saturnentwikkelung, rein geistig geworden, nur ihre Zeichen zurücklassend in der Sternenschrift des Kosmos. .
Wenn wir von der alten Saturnentwickelung fortschreiten zur Mondenentwickelung, dann müssen wir uns klarmachen, daß wir auch zunächst von der Mondenentwickelung so unmittelbar - ich sage: zunächst, so unmittelbar — nichts in unserem Blickfelde haben, das uns umgibt. Das, was äußere Naturwirkungen sind, enthält zunächst in der Hauptsache keine Kräfte, die etwa gleichkämen den Kräften der alten Mondenentwickelung. Auch die Kräfte der alten Mondenentwickelung haben sich gewissermaßen ins Verborgene zurückgezogen, aber sie sind noch nicht in demselben Grade geistig geworden wie die alten Saturngesetze. Die alten Saturngesetze sind so geistig geworden, daß wir sie in den Gesetzen unseres persönlichen Schicksals, also ich möchte sagen, ganz außerhalb des Raumes und der Zeit nur erforschen können. Wenn wir das Menschenleben im ganzen betrachten, so finden wir heute noch diese alten Saturngesetze, finden noch das, was wir, wenn wir dem Menschen entgegentreten in der physischen Welt, nicht sehen können.
Wir haben gesagt: Wenn wir dem Menschen in der physischen Welt entgegentreten, haben wir den physischen Leib als Rest der alten Saturnentwickelung, den Ätherleib als Rest der alten Sonnenentwickelung, den Astralleib als Rest der alten Mondenentwickelung, und das Ich. Und eigentlich nur die Verkörperung dieses Ich sehen wir nicht als Rest, wenn wir den Menschen äußerlich anschauen, wenn wir seine Gestalt betrachten. Die Gesetze also, die waltend und wirksam sind, indem das Ich sich den Menschen gestaltet, sich verkörpert, sind die Erdengesetze. Und schon die Gesetze des astralischen Leibes, die Gesetze der Mondenentwickelung, haben sich zurückgezogen, sind nicht mehr äußerlich wirksam. Aber sie sind so, daß wir, wenn wir dem Menschen gegenübertreten, sagen werden: Du, Mensch, bist, wie du mir gegenübertreten als materieller Mensch, eine Verkörperung des Ich. Aber tief im Hintergrunde deines Wesens liegt dein unsichtbares, persönliches Schicksal. Wie dieses unsichtbare, persönliche Schicksal bestimmt ist, so walten in ihm die alten Saturngesetze. Da appellieren wir schon an etwas ganz Geistiges, wenn wir von der Verkörperung des Ich, also von den Erdengesetzen, auf die alten Saturngesetze hinblicken. Nicht etwas so Geistiges ist es, wenn wir von dem, was vor uns steht im Menschen, hinblicken auf das, was in ihm von den alten Mondengesetzen noch waltet. Aber auch das hat sich zurückgezogen von der äußeren Weltwirksamkeit, auch das ist nicht so unmittelbar sozusagen unter den Wirkungskräften des Erdendaseins.
Wo müssen wir es suchen, was von der alten Mondenwirksamkeit zurückgeblieben ist? Wir müssen es suchen geschützt und eingebettet, verhüllt vom Erdendasein. Denn es ist wirksam in der Zeit bevor der Mensch durch seine physische Geburt ins Erdendasein tritt, es ist wirksam bevor der äußere, physische Lichtstrahl in sein Auge dringen kann, es ist wirksam bevor er den ersten Atemzug begonnen hat. Es ist wirksam von der Empfängnis bis zur Geburt, wirksam im Embryonalleben, aber nicht wirksam - das bitte ich ausdrücklich zu beachten - in dem, was sich zum äußeren physischen Menschen entwickelt von der Eizelle aus, also in dem, was von der Eizelle aus wächst, durch fortwährende Zellteilung größer und größer wird — da sind die Erdengesetze drinnen -, sondern wirksam in dem, was nur in der Mutter vorhanden ist und abstirbt während der Embryonalentwickelung, um sich mit der Geburt zu verlieren und in den Tod überzugehen. In dem, was da die Mutter umhüllt und für die Ernährung des Erdenmenschen sorgt, solange er noch nicht geboren ist, was einhüllt den werdenden Menschen und dann von ihm abfällt: in dem walten die alten Mondengesetze. Und mit dem hängt zusammen dasjenige, was über das einzelne Menschenleben hinausgeht, was einen Zusammenhang schafft zwischen dem einzelnen Menschen und seinen Vorfahren, was sich einschließt in den Begriff der Vererbung.
So sehen wir allerdings dasjenige noch wirksam, was während der alten Mondenentwickelung da war, aber nicht in der äußeren Welt. In der äußeren Welt wirkt es nur gleichsam als Absterbendes im Menschenwerden. Es wird überwunden, sobald der Mensch seinen ersten, wirksamen Atemzug für sein Erdenleben tut.
Will man die Gesetze des alten Mondenseins studieren, rein physiologisch, nicht hellseherisch, so würde es heute keinen anderen Weg geben — wenigstens für einen Teil dieser Gesetze der alten Mondenwirksamkeit -, als die Gesetze zu studieren, die wirksam sind in den Hüllen, die den menschlichen Embryo umgeben, bevor er seinen ersten Atemzug tut, die ihn umhüllen und ernähren. Was da eingeschlossen ist im Leibe der Mutter, was da gedeihen kann während der Erdenentwickelung nur unter der schützenden Hülle des Mutterleibes, das war ganz Natur während der alten Mondenentwickelung, das erfüllte das ganze Blickfeld während der alten Mondenentwickelung.
So ersterben nicht nur die Wesen, insofern sie eine Hüllennatur haben, sondern so ersterben ganze Typen von Naturgesetzlichkeiten und sind bloß noch in ihren Resten vorhanden in den folgenden Zeiten.
Nun werden Sie die Frage aufwerfen müssen: Wie ist es denn mit dem, was von der Sonne herrührt? — Betrachten wir das gestrige Schema. Wir haben gesehen, daß durch all die Komplikationen, die hier eintreten, wir es zu tun haben bei dem vollständigen Menschen mit seinem physischen Leibe, Ätherleibe, Astralleibe, Ich; Ätherleib, Astralleib, Ich; Astralleib, Ich; und mit dem Ich selber. Im Grunde genommen ist alles das, was hier oben ist (über der Abgrenzung), der verborgene Teil der Menschennatur. Wenn wir die in der physischen Leibesanlage wirksamen Gesetze studieren wollen, müssen wir hinblicken auf das, was im Menschen schicksalbestimmende Gesetze, übersinnliche, schicksalbestimmende Gesetze sind. Wenn wir hinschauen auf das, was im Astralleibe waltet und seine Verkörperung findet im physischen Leibe, dann haben wir nicht so Geistiges, nicht so Übersinnliches, aber wir haben ein sich vom Sinnlichen ins Übersinnliche Auflösendes. Denn das, was da abfällt von dem menschlichen Embryo, das wird immer, ich möchte sagen, atomistischer und atomistischer, je mehr der Mensch zur Geburt heranreift; es geht materiell seiner Auflösung entgegen. Und in demselben Maße, in dem es materiell seiner Auflösung entgegengeht, wird es geistiger und geistiger, denn was sich da angliedert an den Menschen als astralischer Leib und ätherischer Leib, das entsteht durch die Vergeistigung dieser abfallenden Teile der Hüllen, der embryonalen Hüllen.
Nun könnte die Frage entstehen: Wie ist es denn nun aber mit dem Sonnenteile? Können wir irgendwo in der Welt finden den Sonnenteil? Auch dieser Sonnenteil entzieht sich der sinnlichen Beobachtung. Während das, was wir Karma nennen, das persönliche Schicksal, ich möchte sagen, der Saturnteil des Menschen, in hochgeistigen Regionen liegt, brauchen wir, wie wir gesehen haben, beim Mondenteil nicht so hoch hinaufzusteigen, denn wir finden ihn noch im Sinnlichen verhüllt. Beim Sonnenteil brauchen wir auch nicht so hoch hinaufzusteigen wie beim Saturnteile. Er ist gleichsam noch ergreifbar, dieser Sonnenteil des Menschen, aber er wird nicht leicht erkannt. Ergreifbar ist er, aber er ist nicht leicht zu erkennen.
Ich möchte ein Beispiel anführen für etwas, wo Sie den Sonnenteil, der wirksam ist, noch erkennen können, wenn auch nur verhüllt auf ihn aufmerksam gemacht werden kann. Diejenigen der lieben Freunde, welche sich bekannt gemacht haben mit meinem Buche in der neuen Auflage «Die Rätsel der Philosophie, im Umriß dargestellt», werden gefunden haben, daß unterschieden worden sind vier Epochen der philosophischen Entwickelung. Eine erste Epoche, die etwa währt - ich habe sie überschrieben «Die Weltanschauungen der griechischen Denker» - vom Jahre 800, das ist rund genommen, oder 600 vor Christus bis zu Christi Geburt, also bis in die Zeit der Entstehung des Christentums; eine zweite Epoche, welche währt von der Entstehung des Christentums bis etwa 800 bis 900 Jahre nach Christo, also bis zu der Zeit des Johannes Scotus Eriugena; dann eine Zeit, welche ich genannt habe «Die Weltanschauungen im Mittelalter»; eine dritte Epoche, die etwa dauert vom Jahre 800 oder 900 bis zum 16. Jahrhundert nach Christo; und eine vierte Epoche vom 16. Jahrhundert bis auf weiteres. Wir sind grade drinnen in dieser Epoche. Sieben- bis achthundertjährige Epochen in der Philosophiegeschichte sind angegeben worden, so wie ich sie darstellen konnte in diesem Buche für die noch ganz von der Geisteswissenschaft unberührte Welt.
Es sollte etwas gegeben werden, was anregen kann, wenigstens einmal die geistige Struktur dieser Epochen auf sich wirken zu lassen. Das Eigentümliche der ersten Epoche besteht darinnen, daß der Übergang gefunden wird aus einem sehr merkwürdigen alten Denken zu dem, was man nennen kann das Leben des Gedankens im alten Griechenland. Unsere Zeit ist ja wirklich noch nicht sehr weit in dem Verstehen solcher Unterschiede wie desjenigen zwischen dem Gedankenleben unserer Zeit und dem Gedankenleben des alten Griechenlands. Unser grobklotziges Denken meint, der Gedanke habe in einem alten griechischen Kopf so gelebt, wie der Gedanke in einem jetzigen Kopfe lebt. In Sokrates, in Plato und auch in Aristoteles lebte der Gedanke in ganz anderer Weise als in einem modernen Menschen, und dieses Gedankenleben ist im 7. oder 6. Jahrhundert vor der christlichen Zeitrechnung im Grunde erst erwacht. Vorher gab es nicht so recht ein eigentliches Gedankenleben. So wie es in meinem Buche dargestellt ist, kann man von einem Anfange, von einer Geburt des Gedankenlebens in dieser Zeit des alten Griechenlands sprechen.
Die kuriosesten Vorstellungen hat man gefaßt über die ersten griechischen Philosophen, über jene großen Philosophengestalten Thales, Anaxagoras, Anaximenes und so weiter, indem man zum Beispiel hingewiesen hat darauf, daß Thales die Welt aus dem Wasser entstehen ließ, Anaximenes aus der Luft, Heraklit aus dem Feuer. Ich habe darauf hingewiesen, daß diese alten Philosophen ihre Philosophien noch aus dem menschlichen Temperamente hervorgehen ließen, daß diese Lehren nicht auf Spekulation beruhten, sondern daß Thales das Wasser als den Urgrund der Dinge hinstellte, weil er von wässerigem Temperamente war, daß Heraklit die Feuerphilosophie fand, weil er von feurigem Temperamente war und so weiter. Das finden Sie im einzelnen nachgewiesen in meinem Buche.
Dann kommt das eigentliche Gedankenleben. Und noch in der Epoche, die hier geschildert ist, ist dieses Gedankenleben anders als das heutige Gedankenleben, wesentlich anders als das heutige Gedankenleben. Der griechische Denker zieht nicht den Gedanken aus dem Grunde seiner Seele herauf, sondern bei ihm offenbart sich der Gedanke, wie sich für den heutigen Menschen der äußere Ton oder die Farbe offenbart. Der Grieche nimmt den Gedanken wahr; von außen her nimmt er ihn wahr, und wir müssen, wenn wir von der griechischen Philosophie sprechen, nicht von einem solchen Denken sprechen, wie heute gedacht wird, sondern von Gedankenwahrnehmung. Also in der ersten Epoche haben wir es zu tun mit Gedankenwahrnehmung. Plato und Aristoteles denken nicht so, wie ein heutiger Philosoph denkt, sondern sie denken so, wie man heute anschaut, wie man heute wahrnimmt. Sie blicken gleichsam in die Welt hinein und nehmen die Gedanken, die sie uns erzählen in ihren Philosophien, so wahr, wie man eine Symphonie wahrnimmt. Sie sind Gedankenwahrnehmer. Die Welt offenbart ihnen ein Gedankenwerk: das ist das Wesentliche der griechischen Denker. Und in bezug auf diese Wahrnehmung des Gedankenwerkes der Welt bringen es die griechischen Denker zu einer hohen, zu einer höchsten Vollendung.
Wenn heute die Philosophen glauben, das schon verstanden zu haben, was Plato und Aristoteles wie eine große Weltsymphonie von Gedanken wahrgenommen haben, so rührt dies nur von einer kindischen Einstellung der gegenwärtigen Philosophen her. Das, was Aristoteles als Entelechie, was er als Seelenglieder der Menschennatur — Ästhetikon, Orektikon, Kinetikon und so weiter — darlegt, vollständig zu begreifen, dazu werden die modernen Philosophen noch lange Wege machen müssen. Jenes innere Gedankenarbeiten, wo man die Gedanken aus sich herausholt, wo man subjektive Anstrengungen machen muß, um zu denken, das gab es in Griechenland noch gar nicht. Ganz unsinnig ist es, zu glauben, daß Plato gedacht hat; er hat Gedanken wahrgenommen. Daß Aristoteles im heutigen Sinne schon gedacht hätte, ist ein Unsinn; er hat Gedanken wahrgenommen.
Wie das eigentlich ist, kann der moderne Mensch sich kaum denken, weil er sich gar keine Vorstellung macht von der wirklichen Entwickelung. Er bekommt eine leichte Gänsehaut, wenn man ihm sagt, Plato und Aristoteles haben gar nicht gedacht im modernen Sinne; und dennoch ist es so. Damit das Denken im modernen Sinne überhaupt Platz greifen konnte in der modernen Menschenseele, mußte ein Impuls kommen, der das Innerste dieser Menschenseele erfaßte, ein Impuls, der nichts zu tun, hat mit der Gedankensymphonie in der Umwelt des Menschen, sondern der ins innerste Wesen des Menschen hineingreift. Dieser Impuls kam von dem Mysterium von Golgatha. Daher geht geradezu bis zu Christus diese philosophische Epoche.
In der zweiten Epoche haben wir es zwar schon mit einem Denken zu tun, aber mit einem Denken, das eigentlich noch kein eigenes Denken der Menschen ist, das durch einen Impuls, der von der geistigen Welt kommt, angeregt ist. Gehen Sie durch die Gedankensysteme all der Philosophen dieser zweiten Epoche, so werden Sie überall finden, wie der christliche Impuls darinnen waltet bis zu Scotus Eriugena herauf. Es ist, man möchte sagen, etwas ausgeflossen von Christus selber, was den ersten Antrieb, Gedanken von innen heraus zu erzeugen, in dem Menschen hervorbringt. Das gibt der patristischen Philosophie, der Philosophie der Kirchenväter, der Philosophie des Augustinus, der Philosophie herauf bis zu Scotus Eriugena das Gepräge, die Physiognomie. So daß wir sagen können: Jetzt haben wir es nicht mehr mit Gedankenwahrnehmung zu tun, sondern mit vom Geiste angeregter Gedankeninspiration.
Wieder anders wird es in der dritten Epoche, wo dieser innere Impuls, der vom Christentum ausgeht, beginnt von den Menschen selber erfaßt zu werden. Der Mensch wird jetzt, in dieser dritten Epoche, gewahr, daß er es ja ist, der denkt. Plato und Aristoteles haben noch nicht gedacht. Die konnten daher ebensowenig zweifeln, daß der Gedanke eine volle, objektive Gültigkeit habe, wie der Mensch zweifeln kann daran, daß, wenn er Grün am Baume sieht, das Grün wirklich volle, objektive Gültigkeit hat.
In der zweiten Epoche, da war es der intensive Glaube an den Christus-Impuls, der dem erwachenden Denken Sicherheit gegeben hat. Aber jetzt begann die Epoche, wo die Menschenseele anfing zu sagen: Ja, du bist es doch eigentlich selbst, der denkt, die Gedanken steigen aus dir heraus. - Der Christus-Impuls verblaßte allmählich, der Mensch‘ wurde gewahr, die Gedanken steigen aus ihm heraus, und er kam zu der Frage: Machst du dir vielleicht Gedanken, die gar nichts zu tun haben mit dem, was draußen ist? Könnte nicht vielleicht die objektive Außenwelt nichts zu tun haben mit deinen Gedanken?
Denken Sie sich den großen Unterschied gegenüber dem Denken des Plato und Aristoteles! Plato und Aristoteles nahmen Gedanken wahr; da konnten sie nicht zweifeln, daß die Gedanken draußen sind. Jetzt, in der dritten Epoche, wurden sich die Menschen bewußt: Man erzeugt selber den Gedanken, und sie begannen zu fragen: Ja, was haben denn die Gedanken mit dem objektiven Sein draußen zu tun? - Und nun entstand das Bedürfnis, dem Denken Sicherheit zu geben, wie man sagte, das Denken zu beweisen. Erst in dieser Epoche konnte zum Beispiel Anselm von Canterbury daran denken, einen Beweis für die Gültigkeit der Idee Gottes zu schaffen. Das wäre früher völliger Unsinn gewesen in dem griechischen Denken, aus dem Grunde, weil man da die Gedanken gesehen hat. Wie soll man zweifeln, daß Gott existiert, wenn man so sieht, außen, die Gedanken der Gottheit, wie man draußen sieht die Grünheit des Baumes? Der Zweifel begann erst in der dritten Epoche, als man sich klar wurde, daß man selbst es ist, der denkt. Es entstand das Bedürfnis, zu beweisen, nachzudenken über den Zusammenhang dessen, was man denkt, mit dem, was da draußen ist. Und das ist im wesentlichen die Epoche der Scholastik: das Gewahrwerden der Subjektivität des Denkens.
Wenn Sie das ganze Gedankengebäude des Thomas von Aguino nehmen, so steht es in dieser Epoche drinnen, ist ganz von dieser Epoche beherrscht. Überall ist das Bewußtsein vorhanden: die Begriffe werden im Inneren erzeugt, die Begriffe werden so zusammengefügt, wie die Gesetze der Subjektivität sind. Also muß man eine Stütze finden dafür, daß das, was in dem Inneren erzeugt wird, auch äußerlich vorhanden ist. Es wird noch zunächst appelliert an die überlieferte Dogmatik, aber man ist nicht mehr in solcher Weise verknüpft mit dem Christus-Impulse, wie es in der zweiten Epoche der Philosophie-Entwickelung der Fall war.
Dann kommt die vierte Entwickelungsperiode, das freie Walten des Gedankens im Inneren, ein noch weiteres Emanzipieren des Gedankens von der äußeren Gedankenwahrnehmung, jenes freie Gedankenschaffen im Inneren, das so großartig hervortritt in den Gedankengebäuden des Giordano Bruno, Spinoza, des Cartesius und der Folgenden, Leibniz und so weiter. Wenn wir diese Gedankengebäude verfolgen, so merken wir an ihnen, daß sie ganz aus dem Inneren heraus geschaffen sind. Und überall finden wir das intensive Bedürfnis dieser Denker, Gründe dafür anzugeben, daß das, was sie im Inneren schaffen, auch wirklich eine äußere Gültigkeit habe. Spinoza schafft ein wunderbares Ideengebäude. Die Frage entsteht aber: Ja, ist das alles bloß drinnen im menschlichen Geiste geschaffen, oder hat es eine Bedeutung da draußen in der Welt? Giordano Bruno, Leibniz schaffen die Monade. Die Monade soll etwas Reales sein. Wie kommt dasjenige, was die Menschen ausdenken als Monade, dazu, da draußen in der Welt etwas Reales zu sein? Alle Fragen, die seit dem 16., 17. Jahrhundert heraufgekommen sind, stehen noch immer unter dem Eindruck dieses Strebens, das freie Gedankenschaffen in Einklang zu bringen mit dem Weltendasein draußen. Der Mensch fühlt sich vereinsamt, verlassen von der Welt in seinem freien Gedankenschaffen. Da stehen wir noch jetzt mitten darinnen.
Was ist denn aber das Ganze jetzt hier? (Siehe Schema.) Wenn wir zurückgehen in die Gedankenwahrnehmung, wie sie war bei den alten griechischen Philosophen, dann müssen wir sagen: Das philosophische Denken im alten Griechenland wirkt so, daß - trotzdem im allgemeinen im alten Griechenland die Zeit der Verstandes- oder Gemütsseele ist dieses alte Denken noch ein Wahrnehmungsdenken ist, tief beeinflußt noch ist von der Empfindungsseele, sogar noch von dem Empfindungsleibe, dem astralischen Leibe. Es haftet noch an dem Äußeren.
Das Denken des Thales, der ersten Philosophen, war noch beeinflußt von dem Ätherleibe. Das Temperament sitzt im Ätherleibe und aus dem Temperament heraus schaffen sie ihre Wasser-, Luft-, Feuerphilosophien; so daß man sagen kann: der Philosophie des Empfindungsleibes geht eine Philosophie des Ätherleibes voraus. - Dann kommen wir in die christliche Zeit hinein. Der christliche Impuls dringt in die Empfindungsseele. Die Philosophie wird innerlich erlebt, innerlich empfunden, aber in Zusammenhang mit dem, was man glauben, was man fühlen kann; es sind da die Einflüsse der Empfindungsseele vorhanden.
In der dritten Epoche, in der Epoche der Scholastik, da haben wir als das wesentliche Element des philosophischen Werdens die Verstandes- oder Gemütsseele. Sie sehen, das philosophische Werden geht einen anderen Gang als die allgemeine Menschheitsentwickelung. Und jetzt erst, seit dem 16. Jahrhundert, haben wir allerdings die Philosophie zusammenfallend mit dem, was auch sonst allgemeine Menschheitsentwickelung ist: da haben wir den freien Gedanken in der Bewußtseinsseele waltend. Das großartigste Beispiel, wie der freie Gedanke von der Abstraktion des Seins bis in die höchste Geistigkeit hinauf waltet, wie ein Gedankenorganismus, ganz von der Welt ausgehend, nur in sich selber waltet, das ist die Philosophie Hegels: der nur im Bewußtsein lebende Gedanke.
Wenn Sie das hier verfolgen, so ist es allerdings der Teil, den ich nicht in meinem Buche darstellen konnte für die Außenwelt; aber es liegt darinnen. Und wenn Sie die Beschreibungen lesen, die von den einzelnen Epochen gegeben werden, so werden Sie, wenn Sie ordentliche Anthroposophen sind, sehr klar auf das hingewiesen werden, was ich hier links (siehe Schema) angeschrieben habe. Es entwickelt sich alles etwa so, wie sich der Mensch selber entwickelt: vom Ätherleib zum Empfindungsleibe, zur Empfindungsseele, zur Verstandesseele, zur Bewußtseinsseele. Wir verfolgen einen Gang, wie den Gang der Menschheitsentwickelung, aber anders geordnet. Es ist nicht der Gang der Menschheitsentwickelung, es ist etwas anderes. Wesen entwickeln sich, und die benützen die menschlichen Kräfte in der Empfindungsseele, in der Verstandesseele und so weiter. Durch den Menschen und sein Arbeiten gehen andere Wesen hindurch mit anderen Gesetzen, als die Gesetze des Menschenwerdens sind.
Sehen Sie, das sind Wirksamkeiten der Sonnengesetze. Da brauchen wir nicht in solch übersinnliche Regionen hinaufzusteigen, wie wenn wir das persönliche Schicksal untersuchen. Von dem, was als Rest der Sonnengesetze hier zu suchen ist, davon sehen wir ein Beispiel in der philosophischen Entwickelung der Menschheit.
Wir haben gestern, als entsprechend dem Ätherleibe, hierher Angelo zu schreiben gehabt.
Solche Angeloi entwickeln sich. Und während die Menschen glauben selber zu philosophieren, wirken in ihnen, indem sie die Sonnenentwikkelung in sich tragen - das heißt das, was als Sonnenentwickelung in ihrem physischen Leibe veranlagt war und auch in ihrem Ätherleibe wirkt -, die Gesetze des Sonnendaseins. Und die Gesetze des Sonnendaseins, von Epoche zu Epoche wirkend, sie wirken so, daß die Philosophie so wird, wie sie eben ist. Weil es Sonnengesetze sind, kann in ihnen auch der Christus, das Sonnenwesen, eingreifen in der zweiten Epoche. Es wird vorbereitet durch die erste Epoche, und dann greift der Christus, das Sonnenwesen, in der zweiten Epoche ein.
Sie sehen, wie sich alles zusammenschließt. Aber indem der Christus, das Sonnenwesen, eingreift, kommt er in Zusammenhang mit einer Entwickelung, die nicht die menschliche Entwickelung ist, nicht die menschliche Erdenentwickelung, sondern eigentlich Sonnenentwickelung innerhalb des Erdendaseins.
Sonnenentwickelung innerhalb des Erdendaseins! Denken Sie sich einmal, wozu wir da in dieser Betrachtung eigentlich kommen. Wir betrachten den Gang der philosophischen Entwickelung, betrachten den Lauf des philosophischen Denkens seit der alten griechischen Zeit, und wir sagen uns, wenn wir das alles vor uns hinstellen, wie das philosophische Denken von Philosoph zu Philosoph sich entwickelt hat: Da sind wirksam darinnen nicht Erdengesetze, sondern Sonnengesetze. Die Gesetze, die dazumal sich abgespielt haben zwischen den Geistern der Weisheit und den Erzengeln, treten in dem philosophischen Weisheitsstreben auf der Erde wiederum zutage. Lesen Sie nach in der «Geheimwissenschaft», wie während der Sonnenentwickelung die Geister der Weisheit eingreifen. Jetzt wiederholen sie dieses Eingreifen während der Erdenentwickelung, nicht in der neuen, sondern in den Resten der alten Sonnenentwickelung. Und indem der Mensch nicht bemerkt, daß in der philosophischen Entwickelung die Geister der Weisheit sein Gemüt durchpulsen, entwickelt er seine Philosophie. Das alte Sonnendasein lebt in der philosophischen Entwickelung. Es lebt wirklich und wahrhaftig darinnen. Dadurch aber, daß das die alte Sonnenentwickelung ist, lebt auch herein damit etwas Zurückgebliebenes, etwas, was mit der alten Sonnenentwickelung zusammenhängt.
Die Menschen, von Generation zu Generation gehend, entwickeln sich als äußere menschliche Persönlichkeiten in der Erdenentwickelung. Aber jetzt geht eine philosophische Entwickelung da hindurch, von Thales bis auf unsere heutige Zeit: da geht die Sonnenentwickelung hinein. Das gibt Anlaß, daß Wesenheiten, die zurückgeblieben sind, benützen können die Kräfte der philosophischen Entwickelung, um ihr altes Sonnendasein weiterzuführen, Wesen, die zurückgeblieben sind während der alten Sonnenzeit, die dazumal versäumt haben, die Entwikkelung durchzumachen, die man durchmachen kann in seinem Ätherleib, Empfindungsleib und in der Empfindungsseele, im Zusammenwirken von Geistern der Weisheit und Archangeloi. Diese Geister, die ihre Entwickelung während der Sonnenzeit versäumt haben, die können die menschliche philosophische Entwickelung benützen, um als Parasiten in der menschlichen Entwickelung darinnen zu sein. Das sind ahrimanische Geister!
Ahrimanische Geister unterliegen der Verlockung, in das, was die Menschen philosophisch erstreben, parasitisch hineinzukriechen und ihr eigenes Dasein dadurch zu pflegen. So können sich die Menschen philosophisch entwickeln, sind aber zugleich mit dieser philosophischen Entwickelung ausgesetzt ahrimanischen Geistern, mephistophelischen Geistern.
Sie wissen, daß Ahriman und Luzifer schädliche Geister sind, solange man ihrer nicht gewahr wird, solange sie gleichsam im Verborgenen wirken. Solange sie nicht so heraustreten, daß die Menschen sich ihnen im Geiste Auge in Auge gegenüberstellen, sind Ahriman und Luzifer schädliche Geister, schädlich in dieser oder jener Weise. Nehmen wir an, ein Philosoph tritt auf und entwickelt den Gedanken, und zwar den Gedanken, insofern man ihn im bloßen Erdensein erfassen kann. Dann entwickelt er den Gedanken so, wie er leben kann durch das Instrument der irdischen Vernunft. Das ist der Hegelsche Gedanke! Er ist reiner Gedanke, aber nur ein Gedanke, wie er gefaßt werden kann mit dem Werkzeug des physischen Leibes, der aber abstirbt mit dem Tode.
Hegel hat das Tiefste gedacht, was gedacht werden kann im Erdenleben, was aber in seiner Konfiguration mit dem Tode abstirbt. Und Hegels Tragik besteht darinnen: er hat nicht bemerkt, daß er den Geist in der Logik, in der Natur, im Seelenleben erfaßt, aber nur denjenigen Geist, der in der Form des Gedankens existiert, der aber nicht mitgeht, wenn wir durch den Tod gehen. Um dieses klar vor die Seele zu stellen, hätte er sich sagen müssen: Wenn ich glauben könnte, daß das, was durch das Denken hindurchgeht, was ich also denke vom abstrakten Sein durch die Logik, durch die Naturgedanken, durch die Seelengedanken und herauf bis zur Philosophie, wenn ich glauben könnte, daß das mich hinter die Kulissen des Daseins führt, dann wäre ich von Mephistopheles verlockt!
Das hat ein anderer wahrgenommen, das hat Goethe wahrgenommen, und das hat er in seinem «Faust» dargestellt: den Kampf des denkenden Menschen mit Mephistopheles, mit Ahriman. Und in dieser vierten Epoche der philosophischen Entwickelung sehen wir, wie in die Sonnenentwickelung hineinragt Ahriman und wie man in klarer Weise sich diesem Ahriman gegenüberzustellen hat, indem man seine Wesenheit wirklich erkennend erfaßt.
Deshalb stehen wir heute an einer Wende auch des äußeren philosophischen Denkens, deshalb muß dieses philosophische Denken, um nicht den Verlockungen des Ahriman zu verfallen, um nicht mephistophelische Weisheit zu sein, hinter diese Wesenheit kommen, muß sie erfassen, muß einmünden in die Geisteswissenschaft.
Lesen Sie nach die beiden Kapitel, welche dem Schlußkapitel des zweiten Bandes meiner «Rätsel der Philosophie» vorangehen, wo ich die Weltanschauungen darzustellen versuchte, die draußen als philosophische Weltanschauungen existieren, um dann das Schlußkapitel hinzuzufügen «Skizzenhaft dargestellter Ausblick auf eine Anthroposophie». Da werden Sie sehen, wie die Philosophie heute im freien, emanzipierten Gedankenleben zwar darstellt etwas, was heraufgeht bis in die Bewußtseinsseele, wie sie aber innerhalb dieses Lebens in der Bewußtseinsseele erfassen muß das, was vom Geistselbst kommt — zunächst philosophisch -, da sonst die Philosophie in die Dekadenz verfallen, sich auflösen müßte.
So sehen Sie wenigstens ein Beispiel des Hereinwirkens der Sonnenentwickelung in das menschliche Erdenleben. Ich sagte, man kann diese Sonnengesetze erhaschen, indem man den Werdegang der Philosophie studiert, aber man erkennt nicht immer, daß darinnen die Sonnengesetze wirksam sind. Die Geisteswissenschaft hat das zu erkennen. Denken Sie nur einmal, daß in Wahrheit sich eine Wesenheit entwickelt, die nach und nach dieselben Glieder ansetzt wie der Mensch selber.
Wenn man noch weiter zurückgehen würde in den alten Zeiten, so würde man finden, daß nicht nur der Ätherleib, sondern auch der physische Leib Veranlasser war von Weltanschauungsimpulsen. Es ist schwierig, jene Zeit, die hinter das 12. bis 14. Jahrhundert vor Christi Geburt zurückgeht, die also vor Homer liegt, klarzumachen in ihren Eigentümlichkeiten, denn sie geht ja hinter alle Geschichte zurück. Da aber entwickelt sich etwas, was nun nicht Mensch ist, so wie der Mensch auf der Erde lebt.
In der Geschichte lebt etwas, was durch den Ätherleib, durch den Empfindungsleib und so weiter geht: eine wirkliche, reale Wesenheit. Ich habe in meinem Buche gesagt: In der griechischen Zeit wird der Gedanke geboren. Aber in der neueren Zeit kommt der Gedanke wirklich zum Selbstbewußtsein in der Bewußtseinsseele. Der Gedanke ist ein selbsteigen wirksames Wesen. Dieses letzte konnte natürlich nicht gesagt werden in einem exoterischen, für die ganze äußere Welt bestimmten Buch. Der Anthroposoph wird es aber finden, wenn er das Buch sinnend liest und merkt, was eigentlich das Beherrschende der Darstellung gewesen ist, was aber nicht hineingetragen ist, sondern sich eben aus der Sache selbst ergibt.
Sie sehen daraus, daß viele, viele Umwandlungsimpulse in bezug auf das geistige Leben in unserer Zeit sich geltend machen. Denn wir haben hier etwas sich weiter entwickeln sehen, was wie ein Mensch ist, nur daß es eine längere Lebensdauer als der einzelne Mensch hat. Der einzelne Mensch lebt auf dem physischen Plane: sieben Jahre entwickelt er den physischen Leib, sieben Jahre den Ätherleib, sieben Jahre den Empfindungsleib und so weiter. Und das Wesen, das sich als Philosophie entwickelt - wir nennen es mit dem abstrakten Namen «Philosophie» -, das lebt im Ätherleibe 700 Jahre, im Empfindungsleibe 700 bis 800 Jahre — die Zeit ist ja nur approximativ -, in der Empfindungsseele 700 bis 800 Jahre, in der Gemüts- oder Verstandesseele 700 bis 800 Jahre und ' wiederum in der Bewußtseinsseele 700 bis 800 Jahre. Ein Wesen entwikkelt sich herauf, von dem wir sagen können: Blicken wir auf die allerersten Anfänge der griechischen Philosophie, dann hat dieses Wesen gerade die Entwickelungsstufe erlangt, die beim Menschen der Geschlechtsreife entspricht: geradeso ist es als Wesen wie der Mensch, wenn er sein 14. bis 16. Jahr erreicht hat. Dann lebt es herauf bis zu der Zeit, wo der Mensch das erlebt, was er vom 14. bis zum 21. Jahre erlebt: das ist die Zeit der griechischen Philosophie, des griechischen Denkens. Dann kommt die Zeit der nächsten sieben Jahre, was der Mensch vom 21. bis 28. Jahre erlebt: der Christus-Impuls geht hinein in die philosophische Entwicklung. Dann kommt die Zeit von Scotus Eriugena bis in die neuere Zeit hinauf: dieses Wesen entwickelt in den nächsten 700 bis 800 Jahren dasjenige, was der Mensch entwickelt im Alter vom 28. bis zum 35. Jahre. Und jetzt leben wir in der Entwickelung dessen, was der Mensch in seiner Bewußstseinsseele erlebt: wir erleben die Bewußtseinsseele der Philosophie, des philosophischen Gedankens. Die Philosophie ist tatsächlich in die Vierzigerjahre gekommen, nur daß sie ein Wesen ist, das eine viel längere Lebensdauer hat. Was bei dem Menschen ein Jahr ist, das ist bei diesem philosophischen Wesen ein Jahrhundert. Da sehen wir durch die Geschichte ein Wesen hindurch walten, für das ein Jahrhundert ein Jahr ist. Man nimmt es nur nicht wahr; dieses Wesen entwickelt sich eben mit Sonnengesetzlichkeit.
Und dahinter liegt dann erst dasjenige, was noch übersinnlicher ist als dieses Wesen, das sich wie ein Mensch entwickelt, nur eben wie ein Mensch, bei dem ein Jahr wie ein Jahrhundert lang ist: hinter diesem steht ein Wesen, welches sich so entwickelt, daß sein äußerer Ausdruck unser persönliches Schicksal ist, wie wir dieses tragen durch noch längere Zeiträume, von Verkörperung zu Verkörperung. In diesem leben sich die unser äußeres Schicksal regelnden Geister aus, für die eine noch längere Lebensdauer vorhanden ist als für jene, von denen wir sagen müssen, daß für sie ein Jahrhundert gleich einem Jahre ist.
So sehen Sie, wie wir da hineinblicken gleichsam in Schichtungen von Wesenheiten, und wie wir, wenn wir nur wollen, sogar, ich möchte sagen, die Biographie eines Wesens schreiben könnten, das um so viel höher steht als der Mensch in bezug auf Geistigkeit, wie ein Jahrhundert länger ist als ein Jahr.
Versucht ist einmal worden, die Biographie eines solchen Wesens zu schreiben, das seine Geschlechtsreife zur Zeit des Thales hatte, zur Zeit des Anaxagoras, und jetzt zum Gebrauche seines Selbstbewußtseins gekommen ist, das seit dem 16. Jahrhundert gleichsam in die Vierzigerjahre getreten ist: die Biographie dieses Wesens ergab eine Geschichte der Philosophie.
Daraus ersehen Sie aber zugleich, wie wirklich die Geisteswissenschaft das, was sonst abstrakt ist, lebendig macht, richtig belebt. Was für trockenes Gestrüpp ist zuweilen das, was man sonst «Geschichte der Philosophie» nennt! Und was wird aus dieser Geschichte der Philosophie, wenn man weiß, sie ist die Biographie eines Wesens, das da hineinverwoben ist in unser Dasein, nur daß es sich statt mit Erdengesetzen mit Sonnengesetzen entwickelt!
Solches wollte ich noch hinzufügen zu allem, was ich Ihnen in diesen Zeiten gesagt habe über die Lebenskräfte, die uns aufgehen, wenn wir die Geisteswissenschaft nicht wie eine Theorie betrachten, sondern wenn wir in ihr suchen die Führerschaft zum Lebendigen. Und wir finden das Lebendige eben durch die Geisteswissenschaft. Dasjenige, was so unlebendig ist, so strohern wie die Geschichte der Philosophie oftmals ist, das wird, wenn wir uns der Führung der Geisteswissenschaft anvertrauen, so, daß uns aus dem Nebel der Geschichte der Philosophie ein Wesen entgegentritt, zu dem wir aufschauen wie zu einer Göttin, die herabsteigt aus göttlichen Wolkenhöhen, die wir jung sehen in alten Zeiten, die wir heranwachsen sehen, allerdings mit der Langsamkeit, daß ein Jahrhundert einem Jahre des Menschenlebens entspricht. Aber lebendig wird das alles. Die Sonne geht uns auf, wie die Sonne innerhalb des Erdendaseins selber. Denn so wie die Sonne aufgeht auf dem physischen Plan, so sehen wir die alte Sonne noch hereinstrahlen in die Erdenwelt in einem Wesen, das eine längere Lebensdauer hat wie der Mensch. Wie wir das Werden eines Menschen auf dem physischen Plan von der Geburt bis zum Tode verfolgen, so verfolgen wir das philoso_phische Werden, indem wir ein Wesen in ihm schauen.
Wenn wir so anschauen das, was uns die Anthroposophie sein kann, dann kommen wir dazu, in dieser Anthroposophie zu schauen eine wirkliche Führerin nicht nur zur Erkenntnis, sondern eine Führerin zu lebendigen Wesen, die uns umgeben, ohne daß wir von ihnen etwas wissen.
Ja, meine lieben Freunde, so etwas erfühlte auch Christian Morgenstern. Und indem er solches fühlte, fühlte in dem Tiefsten seines Seelenwesens, konnte er aufzeichnen — unser Freund Christian Morgenstern — eine schöne Empfindung, die so recht eine anthroposophische Empfindung ist, die zeigt, wie eine Seele sich aussprechen kann, welche im tiefsten Inneren sich eins weiß mit unserer Anthroposophie, nicht bloß als mit etwas, was uns Erkenntnis über dieses oder jenes gibt, sondern als etwas, was uns belebt. Ein wunderbares Beispiel für ein solches Sich-Belebenlassen von der Anthroposophie ist das, was wir in dem schönen Gedicht «Lucifer» unseres Christian Morgenstern finden, in jenem Gedichte, das, ich möchte sagen, in bezug auf die Empfindung so ganz in dem Hauche lebt, von dem man etwas fühlt, wenn man so, wie es heute versucht worden ist anzudeuten, den Übergang findet von der Darstellung der Idee in der Anthroposophie zu dem Ergreifen lebendiger Wesenheiten.
Ich will mein Licht vor eurem Licht verschließen,
ich will euch nicht, ihr sollt mich nicht genießen,
bevor ich nicht ein Eigenlicht geworden.So bring ich wohl das Böse zur Erscheinung,
als Geist der Sonderheit und der Verneinung,
doch neue Welt erschafft mein Geisterorden.Aus Widerspruch zum unbeirrten Wesen,
aus Irr-tum soll ein Götterstamm genesen,
der sich aus sich - und nicht aus euch - entscheidet.Der nicht von Anbeginn in Wahrheit wandelt,
der sich die Wahrheit leidend erst erhandelt,
der sich die Wahrheit handelnd erst erleidet.
Wenn Sie die Empfindung dieses Gedichtes so nehmen, daß Sie dabei bedenken, wie lebendig werden kann das, was in der Anthroposophie theoretisch verstanden wird, so daß man gleichsam durch unsere Geisteswissenschaft anfassen kann die Wesen, die aus dem dunklen Abgrunde des Seins an uns herantreten, wenn Sie dieses Gedicht so nehmen, wie Sie angeregt werden können durch die Empfindungen, die ich durch den heutigen Vortrag anregen wollte, dann werden Sie sehen, daß diese Gestalt des Luzifer wirklich in wunderbarer Weise empfunden, gestaltet ist. Damit ist ein Musterbeispiel gegeben, wie dasjenige, was die Anthroposophie an uns heranbringt, in uns lebendig werden kann, unsere ganze Seele ergreifen kann.
Second Lecture
In remembrance of what we tried to consider yesterday, let us think about what the Saturn evolution of the human being must actually be like.
If we consider what we discussed yesterday, we know that within us, I would say in our human nature, there is something hidden that was first implanted in us during the Saturn era: the first seeds of physical corporeality. What the ancient Saturn evolution did to us can no longer be found anywhere in our outer world today. This ancient Saturn evolution once arose in the distant past, then passed away, and had characteristics and forces that we search for in vain today when we look around us. For even when we look up at the stars in outer space, we do not initially find what prevailed during the ancient Saturn evolution.
After this ancient Saturn evolution had faded away, the Sun evolution and then the Moon evolution came. Today we live within the Earth evolution. Three periods of evolution have passed. Their peculiarities have passed away and are now no longer, I would say, within our field of vision. Only beneath the hidden, occult influences that permeate the world can we find what was peculiar to the old Saturn evolution. We can still discover, as it were, the forces that worked on our physical bodies at that time.
If you remember what is described in my “Outline of Occult Science,” you will know that at that time there was a cooperation between the spirits of the will and the spirits of the personality. This cooperation still exists today, but, as I said, we cannot find it in our outer field of vision. We find it when we look into what we call our personal destiny. Our personal destiny is woven in such a way that in successive incarnations, what happens to us is connected like cause and effect. And what is effective in our personal stream of destiny are not forces that can be investigated by the external natural scientist. For among the forces he discovers in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, physiology, and so on, he will find nothing that brings about the connection between cause and effect that is expressed in our personal karma. The laws that govern this are beyond physical observation. But they are also beyond historical observation, the kind of observation that so-called cultural scientists with a materialistic bent practice today. The way we investigate what happens in historical development, the way we write history today, from Persian, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman times to the present, contains laws that have nothing to do with the forces at work in our karma. This is why historians and contemporary cultural scientists of a materialistic bent do not come up with laws that depend on people's personal karma.
History is viewed as a continuous stream, and it is completely disregarded, for example, to what extent historical development depends on the fact that, let us say, human souls that were personalities in ancient Roman times are present again today, that they participate in the events around us, and that they participate in such a way that the way they participate today flows from their personal karma. This is eliminated by historians with a materialistic bias.
So when we look for what still exists of the forces that were, I would say, the natural forces of the ancient Saturnic evolution, we must turn to the laws of our personal karma. Only when we learn not merely to look at the cosmos that is in our field of vision, but to read what is in it, do we gain an insight into how the old Saturn laws are still effective in a certain way in what is around us.
When we contemplate the arrangement and radiation of the twelve signs of the zodiac as a cosmic script, when we contemplate the forces that pour into the human life of Aries, Taurus, Gemini, and so on, then we think in terms of those forces that were Saturn forces. And when we try to relate personal karma to the constellations associated with these signs of the zodiac, we are living in the sphere of world contemplation that should be applied to the laws of the ancient Saturn epoch.
So, in a sense, there is nothing left that can be seen, but something invisible that can still be interpreted from the signs of the cosmos. Anyone who believes that Aries, Taurus, or Gemini determine their fate would be living in the same error as someone who is convicted by a certain paragraph of the law and now harbors a special hatred for that paragraph, believing that it sent them to prison. Just as a single paragraph of law — what is printed on a white sheet of paper — cannot condemn a person, so the ram, the bull, or the twins cannot bring about destiny. But we can read from the script of the stars what is connected with human destiny from the cosmos. We can therefore say that what follows from the script of the stars is a remnant of the old Saturn evolution, is the old Saturn evolution, which has become purely spiritual, leaving only its signs behind in the script of the stars in the cosmos.
When we progress from the old Saturn evolution to the Moon evolution, we must realize that, at first, we have nothing in our field of vision that immediately — I say immediately — surrounds us. What are external natural effects do not initially contain any forces that are equivalent to the forces of the old Moon evolution. The forces of the old lunar evolution have also withdrawn into the hidden realm, so to speak, but they have not yet become spiritual to the same degree as the old Saturn laws. The old Saturn laws have become so spiritual that we can only investigate them in the laws of our personal destiny, that is, I would say, completely outside of space and time. When we consider human life as a whole, we still find these old Saturn laws today, we still find what we cannot see when we encounter human beings in the physical world.
We have said that when we encounter human beings in the physical world, we have the physical body as a remnant of the old Saturn evolution, the etheric body as a remnant of the old Sun evolution, the astral body as a remnant of the old Moon evolution, and the I. And actually, we do not see the embodiment of this I as a remnant when we look at human beings externally, when we consider their form. So the laws that are at work and effective in the ego shaping itself and embodying itself in human beings are the laws of the earth. And already the laws of the astral body, the laws of the lunar evolution, have withdrawn and are no longer effective externally. But they are such that when we stand before a human being, we say: You, human being, as you stand before me as a material human being, are an embodiment of the I. But deep in the background of your being lies your invisible, personal destiny. The ancient laws of Saturn rule in this invisible, personal destiny. We are already appealing to something entirely spiritual when we look from the embodiment of the ego, that is, from the laws of the earth, to the ancient laws of Saturn. It is not something so spiritual when we look from what stands before us in human beings to what still reigns in them from the ancient laws of the moon. But this too has withdrawn from its outer world activity; this too is not so immediately, so to speak, under the forces of earthly existence.
Where must we look for what remains of the old lunar influence? We must look for it protected and embedded, veiled by earthly existence. For it is effective in the time before human beings enter earthly existence through their physical birth; it is effective before the external, physical ray of light can penetrate their eyes; it is effective before they have taken their first breath. It is effective from conception to birth, effective in embryonic life, but not effective—and I ask you to note this explicitly—in what develops into the external physical human being from the egg cell, that is, in what grows from the egg cell, becoming larger and larger through continuous cell division—there the laws of the earth are at work—but effective in what only in the mother and dies during embryonic development, to be lost at birth and pass into death. In that which envelops the mother and provides nourishment for the earthly human being as long as he is not yet born, that which envelops the developing human being and then falls away from him: in this, the old lunar laws prevail. And connected with this is that which goes beyond the individual human life, which creates a connection between the individual human being and his ancestors, which is included in the concept of heredity.
Thus, we still see what was present during the ancient lunar evolution as effective, but not in the outer world. In the outer world, it only acts, as it were, as something dying in the process of becoming human. It is overcome as soon as the human being takes his first effective breath for his earthly life.
If one wants to study the laws of the old lunar existence purely physiologically, not clairvoyantly, there would be no other way today — at least for some of these laws of the old lunar activity — than to study the laws that are effective in the envelopes that surround the human embryo before it takes its first breath, enveloping and nourishing it. What is enclosed in the mother's body, what can flourish during the earth's development only under the protective shell of the womb, was entirely nature during the old lunar development; it filled the entire field of vision during the old lunar development.
Thus, not only do beings die insofar as they have a shell nature, but entire types of natural laws die and are only present in their remnants in the following ages.
Now you will have to ask the question: What about what comes from the sun? — Let us consider yesterday's diagram. We have seen that through all the complications that arise here, we are dealing with the complete human being with his physical body, etheric body, astral body, and I; etheric body, astral body, and I; astral body and I; and with the I itself. Basically, everything that is above (above the boundary) is the hidden part of human nature. If we want to study the laws at work in the physical body, we must look at what are the fateful, supersensible laws in human beings. When we look at what is at work in the astral body and finds its embodiment in the physical body, we do not find something spiritual or supersensible, but rather something that dissolves from the sensory into the supersensible. For what falls away from the human embryo becomes, I would say, more and more atomistic the more the human being matures toward birth; it is materially moving toward its dissolution. And to the same extent that it approaches its dissolution in a material sense, it becomes more and more spiritual, for what attaches itself to the human being as the astral body and the etheric body arises through the spiritualization of these falling parts of the embryonic sheaths.
Now the question may arise: But what about the sun part? Can we find the sun part anywhere in the world? This sun part also eludes sensory observation. While what we call karma, personal destiny, I would say the Saturn part of the human being, lies in highly spiritual regions, we do not need to ascend so high with the Moon part, as we have seen, because we still find it veiled in the sensory world. With the sun part, we do not need to climb as high as with the Saturn part. This sun part of the human being is still tangible, as it were, but it is not easily recognized. It is tangible, but it is not easy to recognize.
I would like to give an example of something where you can still recognize the sun part that is effective, even if it can only be pointed out to you in a veiled way. Those of my dear friends who have become acquainted with my book in its new edition, “The Riddles of Philosophy, Outlined,” will have found that four epochs of philosophical development have been distinguished. The first epoch, which lasts approximately from the year 800, roughly speaking, or 600 BC to the birth of Christ, that is, until the time of the emergence of Christianity; a second epoch, which lasts from the emergence of Christianity until about 800 to 900 years after Christ, that is, until the time of John Scotus Eriugena; then a period which I have called “The Worldviews of the Middle Ages”; a third epoch, which lasts from about 800 or 900 to the 16th century after Christ; and a fourth epoch from the 16th century until the present. We are currently in this epoch. Seven- to eight-hundred-year epochs in the history of philosophy have been identified, as I have been able to present them in this book for a world still completely untouched by spiritual science.
Something should be provided that can inspire people to at least once allow the spiritual structure of these epochs to have an effect on them. The peculiarity of the first epoch consists in the transition from a very strange ancient way of thinking to what can be called the life of thought in ancient Greece. Our time is really not yet very far in understanding such differences as that between the life of thought in our time and the life of thought in ancient Greece. Our crude thinking believes that thoughts lived in an ancient Greek mind in the same way that they live in a modern mind. In Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, thoughts lived in a completely different way than they do in a modern human being, and this life of thought only really awakened in the 7th or 6th century BC. Before that, there was no real life of thought. As I describe in my book, one can speak of a beginning, of a birth of the life of thought in this period of ancient Greece.
The most curious ideas have been formed about the first Greek philosophers, about those great philosophical figures Thales, Anaxagoras, Anaximenes, and so on, by pointing out, for example, that Thales created the world out of water, Anaximenes out of air, Heraclitus out of fire. I have pointed out that these ancient philosophers still derived their philosophies from human temperaments, that these teachings were not based on speculation, but that Thales posited water as the origin of things because he was of a watery temperament, that Heraclitus found the philosophy of fire because he was of a fiery temperament, and so on. You will find detailed proof of this in my book.
Then comes the actual life of thought. And even in the epoch described here, this life of thought is different from today's life of thought, essentially different from today's life of thought. The Greek thinker does not draw thoughts from the depths of his soul, but rather thoughts reveal themselves to him in the same way that external sounds or colors reveal themselves to modern humans. The Greek perceives thoughts; he perceives them from outside, and when we speak of Greek philosophy, we must not speak of thinking as we think today, but rather of the perception of thoughts. So in the first epoch we are dealing with the perception of thoughts. Plato and Aristotle do not think as a modern philosopher thinks, but they think as we look at things today, as we perceive them today. They look into the world, as it were, and perceive the thoughts they tell us in their philosophies in the same way that one perceives a symphony. They are perceivers of thoughts. The world reveals a work of thought to them: that is the essence of Greek thinkers. And in relation to this perception of the world's work of thought, Greek thinkers achieve a high, a supreme level of perfection.
If philosophers today believe that they have already understood what Plato and Aristotle perceived as a great world symphony of thoughts, this stems only from a childish attitude on the part of contemporary philosophers. Modern philosophers still have a long way to go before they can fully comprehend what Aristotle presented as entelechy, as the soul elements of human nature — aesthetic, oretic, kinetic, and so on. That inner work of the mind, where one draws thoughts from within oneself, where one must make subjective efforts in order to think, did not yet exist in Greece. It is completely nonsensical to believe that Plato thought; he perceived thoughts. That Aristotle already thought in the modern sense is nonsense; he perceived thoughts.
Modern man can hardly imagine what this is like, because he has no idea of the real development. He gets a slight shiver when he is told that Plato and Aristotle did not think in the modern sense; and yet it is so. In order for thinking in the modern sense to take root in the modern human soul, an impulse had to come that grasped the innermost core of this human soul, an impulse that has nothing to do with the symphony of thoughts in the human environment, but rather reaches into the innermost being of the human being. This impulse came from the Mystery of Golgotha. That is why this philosophical epoch extends right up to Christ.
In the second epoch, we are already dealing with thinking, but with a kind of thinking that is not yet really the thinking of human beings, but is stimulated by an impulse coming from the spiritual world. If you go through the thought systems of all the philosophers of this second epoch, you will find everywhere how the Christian impulse prevails in them up to Scotus Eriugena. It is, one might say, something that flowed out of Christ himself, which brings forth in human beings the first impulse to generate thoughts from within. This gives patristic philosophy, the philosophy of the Church Fathers, the philosophy of Augustine, and the philosophy up to Scotus Eriugena its character, its physiognomy. So we can say: Now we are no longer dealing with the perception of thoughts, but with thought inspiration stimulated by the spirit.
It becomes different again in the third epoch, when this inner impulse emanating from Christianity begins to be grasped by human beings themselves. In this third epoch, human beings become aware that it is they who think. Plato and Aristotle had not yet thought this. They could therefore no more doubt that thought has full, objective validity than human beings can doubt that when they see green on a tree, the green really has full, objective validity.
In the second epoch, it was the intense belief in the Christ impulse that gave security to the awakening mind. But now the epoch began in which the human soul began to say: Yes, it is actually you yourself who thinks; thoughts arise from within you. The Christ impulse gradually faded, and human beings became aware that thoughts arise from within them, and they came to ask: Do you perhaps have thoughts that have nothing to do with what is outside? Could it not be that the objective external world has nothing to do with your thoughts?
Consider the great difference between this and the thinking of Plato and Aristotle! Plato and Aristotle perceived thoughts; they could not doubt that thoughts were outside. Now, in the third epoch, people became aware that they themselves produce thoughts, and they began to ask: Yes, what do thoughts have to do with objective being outside? And now the need arose to give certainty to thinking, to prove thinking, as they said. It was only in this epoch that Anselm of Canterbury, for example, could think of proving the validity of the idea of God. Earlier, this would have been complete nonsense in Greek thinking, for the simple reason that thoughts were seen there. How could one doubt that God exists when one sees the thoughts of the deity outside, just as one sees the greenness of a tree outside? Doubt only began in the third epoch, when it became clear that it is oneself who thinks. The need arose to prove, to think about the connection between what one thinks and what is out there. And that is essentially the epoch of scholasticism: the realization of the subjectivity of thinking.
If you take the entire edifice of Thomas Aquinas's thought, it belongs to this epoch and is completely dominated by it. Consciousness is present everywhere: concepts are generated internally and are combined according to the laws of subjectivity. So one must find support for the idea that what is generated internally also exists externally. At first, appeal is still made to traditional dogma, but one is no longer connected to the Christ impulse in the same way as in the second epoch of philosophical development.
Then comes the fourth period of development, the free reign of thought within, a further emancipation of thought from external perception, that free creation of thought within, which emerges so magnificently in the thought structures of Giordano Bruno, Spinoza, Descartes, and those who followed, Leibniz, and so on. If we follow these thought structures, we notice that they are created entirely from within. And everywhere we find the intense need of these thinkers to give reasons why what they create within themselves also has external validity. Spinoza creates a wonderful structure of ideas. But the question arises: Is all this merely created within the human mind, or does it have meaning out there in the world? Giordano Bruno and Leibniz create the monad. The monad is supposed to be something real. How does what people conceive as a monad come to be something real out there in the world? All the questions that have arisen since the 16th and 17th centuries are still influenced by this striving to reconcile free thought with the existence of the world outside. Man feels lonely, abandoned by the world in his free thought. We are still standing there in the middle of it all.
But what is the whole thing here now? (See diagram.) If we go back to the perception of thought as it was with the ancient Greek philosophers, then we must say: Philosophical thinking in ancient Greece works in such a way that, even though ancient Greece was generally the age of the intellectual or emotional soul, this ancient thinking is still a form of perception, deeply influenced by the sentient soul, even by the sentient body, the astral body. It still clings to the external world.
The thinking of Thales, the first philosopher, was still influenced by the etheric body. Temperament resides in the etheric body, and out of temperament they create their philosophies of water, air, and fire; so that one can say: the philosophy of the sentient body is preceded by a philosophy of the etheric body. - Then we come to the Christian era. The Christian impulse penetrates the sentient soul. Philosophy is experienced inwardly, felt inwardly, but in connection with what one can believe, what one can feel; the influences of the sentient soul are present here.
In the third epoch, the epoch of scholasticism, we have the intellectual or mind soul as the essential element of philosophical development. You see, philosophical development follows a different course from the general development of humanity. And only now, since the 16th century, do we have philosophy coinciding with what is otherwise the general development of humanity: we have free thought reigning in the consciousness soul. The greatest example of how free thought reigns from the abstraction of being up to the highest spirituality, how a thought organism, originating entirely from the world, reigns only in itself, is Hegel's philosophy: thought living only in consciousness.
If you follow this, however, it is the part that I could not present to the outside world in my book; but it is there. And if you read the descriptions given of the individual epochs, you will, if you are proper anthroposophists, be very clearly pointed to what I have written here on the left (see diagram). Everything develops in much the same way as the human being develops: from the etheric body to the sentient body, to the sentient soul, to the intellectual soul, to the conscious soul. We follow a path similar to that of human evolution, but in a different order. It is not the path of human evolution, it is something else. Beings develop, and they use the human powers in the sentient soul, in the intellectual soul, and so on. Through human beings and their work, other beings pass through with laws other than those of human development.
You see, these are the effects of the laws of the sun. We do not need to ascend into such supersensible regions as when we investigate personal destiny. We see an example of what can be found here as a remnant of the laws of the Sun in the philosophical development of humanity.
Yesterday, in accordance with the etheric body, we had to write here about angels.
Such angeloi develop. And while people believe they are philosophizing themselves, the laws of solar existence are at work within them, because they carry the solar evolution within themselves—that is, what was predisposed as solar evolution in their physical body and also works in their etheric body. And the laws of solar existence, working from epoch to epoch, work in such a way that philosophy becomes what it is. Because they are solar laws, Christ, the solar being, can also intervene in the second epoch. It is prepared by the first epoch, and then Christ, the solar being, intervenes in the second epoch.
You see how everything fits together. But when Christ, the sun being, intervenes, he comes into contact with a development that is not human development, not human earthly development, but actually solar development within earthly existence.
Solar evolution within the existence of the Earth! Just think about what we are actually arriving at in this consideration. We are looking at the course of philosophical evolution, looking at the course of philosophical thinking since ancient Greek times, and we say to ourselves, when we put all this before us, how philosophical thinking has developed from philosopher to philosopher: it is not earthly laws that are at work here, but solar laws. The laws that once played out between the spirits of wisdom and the archangels are once again coming to light in the philosophical quest for wisdom on Earth. Read in The Secret Science how the spirits of wisdom intervened during the development of the sun. Now they are repeating this intervention during the development of the Earth, not in the new sun, but in the remnants of the old sun. And because human beings do not notice that the spirits of wisdom are pulsing through their minds in the philosophical development, they develop their philosophy. The old solar existence lives in the philosophical development. It lives truly and really within it. But because this is the old solar evolution, something backward, something connected with the old solar evolution, also lives within it.
Human beings, passing from generation to generation, develop as external human personalities in the Earth's evolution. But now a philosophical evolution is passing through, from Thales to our present time: the solar evolution is passing into it. This gives rise to beings that have remained behind being able to use the forces of philosophical evolution to continue their old solar existence, beings that remained behind during the old solar period, that failed at that time to undergo the development that can be undergone in one's etheric body, sentient body, and sentient soul, in the interaction of spirits of wisdom and archangels. These spirits, who missed their development during the solar period, can use human philosophical development to be parasites in human development. These are Ahrimanic spirits!
Ahrimanic spirits are subject to the temptation to creep parasitically into what human beings strive for philosophically and thereby sustain their own existence. In this way, human beings can develop philosophically, but at the same time, with this philosophical development, they are exposed to Ahrimanic spirits, Mephistophelean spirits.
You know that Ahriman and Lucifer are harmful spirits as long as they remain unnoticed, as long as they work in secret, so to speak. As long as they do not step forward in such a way that human beings can face them spiritually, eye to eye, Ahriman and Lucifer are harmful spirits, harmful in one way or another. Let us suppose that a philosopher appears and develops a thought, namely the thought as it can be grasped in mere earthly existence. Then he develops the thought in such a way that it can live through the instrument of earthly reason. That is the Hegelian thought! It is pure thought, but only a thought as it can be grasped with the tools of the physical body, which dies with death.
Hegel thought the deepest thing that can be thought in earthly life, but in its configuration with death it dies. And Hegel's tragedy lies in this: he did not notice that he grasped the spirit in logic, in nature, in the life of the soul, but only that spirit which exists in the form of thought, which does not go with us when we pass through death. To make this clear to the soul, he should have said to himself: If I could believe that what passes through thinking, what I think of abstract being through logic, through natural thought, through soul thought, and up to philosophy, if I could believe that this leads me behind the scenes of existence, then I would be tempted by Mephistopheles!
Someone else perceived this, Goethe perceived it, and he portrayed it in his Faust: the struggle of the thinking human being with Mephistopheles, with Ahriman. And in this fourth epoch of philosophical development, we see how Ahriman protrudes into the solar evolution and how we must clearly confront this Ahriman by truly recognizing his essence.
That is why we are now at a turning point in external philosophical thinking as well. In order not to fall prey to the temptations of Ahriman, in order not to be Mephistophelean wisdom, this philosophical thinking must go behind this being, must grasp it, must flow into spiritual science.
Read the two chapters that precede the final chapter of the second volume of my “Riddles of Philosophy,” where I attempted to present the worldviews that exist outside as philosophical worldviews, and then add the final chapter, “Sketchy Outlook on Anthroposophy.” There you will see how philosophy today, in free, emancipated thought life, does indeed represent something that rises up into the consciousness soul, but how, within this life in the consciousness soul, it must grasp what comes from the spirit itself — initially philosophically — because otherwise philosophy would fall into decadence and dissolve.
So you see at least one example of the influence of the solar evolution on human life on earth. I said that one can glimpse these solar laws by studying the development of philosophy, but one does not always recognize that the solar laws are at work there. Spiritual science has to recognize this. Just think that in truth a being is developing that gradually acquires the same members as the human being himself.
If one were to go back even further in ancient times, one would find that not only the etheric body but also the physical body was the cause of worldview impulses. It is difficult to explain the peculiarities of the period before the 12th to 14th centuries BC, which lies before Homer, because it goes back beyond all history. But something is developing there that is not human as humans live on earth.
Something lives in history that passes through the etheric body, the sentient body, and so on: a real, actual entity. I have said in my book: Thought is born in the Greek era. But in more recent times, thought truly becomes self-aware in the consciousness soul. Thought is a self-acting entity. Of course, this last point could not be stated in an exoteric book intended for the whole external world. But the anthroposophist will find it if he reads the book thoughtfully and notices what has actually been dominant in the presentation, but which has not been written down, because it arises from the subject matter itself.
You can see from this that many, many impulses for transformation are making themselves felt in relation to spiritual life in our time. For we have seen something developing here that is like a human being, only that it has a longer life span than the individual human being. The individual human being lives on the physical plane: seven years to develop the physical body, seven years the etheric body, seven years the sentient body, and so on. And the being that develops as philosophy — we call it by the abstract name “philosophy” — lives 700 years in the etheric body, in the sentient body for 700 to 800 years — the time is only approximate — in the sentient soul for 700 to 800 years, in the mind or intellectual soul for 700 to 800 years, and again in the consciousness soul for 700 to 800 years. A being develops, of which we can say: if we look at the very beginnings of Greek philosophy, this being has just reached the stage of development that corresponds to sexual maturity in humans: it is just like a human being when they reach the age of 14 to 16. Then it lives on until the time when humans experience what they experience between the ages of 14 and 21: this is the time of Greek philosophy, of Greek thinking. Then comes the next seven years, which humans experience between the ages of 21 and 28: the Christ impulse enters into philosophical development. Then comes the period from Scotus Eriugena up to modern times: over the next 700 to 800 years, this being develops what human beings develop between the ages of 28 and 35. And now we are living in the development of what human beings experience in their consciousness soul: we are experiencing the consciousness soul of philosophy, of philosophical thought. Philosophy has indeed entered its forties, except that it is a being that has a much longer lifespan. What is one year for a human being is a century for this philosophical being. Through history, we see a being at work for whom a century is a year. We just don't perceive it; this being develops according to the laws of the sun.
And behind this lies something even more supersensible than this being, which develops like a human being, only like a human being for whom a year is like a century: behind this stands a being which develops in such a way that its outer expression is our personal destiny, which we carry through even longer periods of time, from incarnation to incarnation. In this being, the spirits that govern our outer destiny live out their lives, for which an even longer lifespan exists than for those of whom we must say that a century is like a year.
So you see how we look into it, as it were, in layers of beings, and how, if we only wanted to, we could even, I would say, write the biography of a being that is as much higher than man in terms of spirituality as a century is longer than a year.
An attempt was once made to write the biography of such a being, who reached sexual maturity at the time of Thales, at the time of Anaxagoras, and has now come to the use of his self-consciousness, which since the 16th century has, as it were, entered the forties: the biography of this being resulted in a history of philosophy.
From this you can see at the same time how truly spiritual science brings to life and properly animates what is otherwise abstract. What dry undergrowth is sometimes what is otherwise called “the history of philosophy”! And what becomes of this history of philosophy when we know that it is the biography of a being that is woven into our existence, only that it develops according to the laws of the sun instead of the laws of the earth!
I wanted to add this to everything I have said to you in recent times about the life forces that open up to us when we do not regard spiritual science as a theory, but when we seek in it the guidance to the living. And we find the living precisely through spiritual science. That which is so lifeless, as straw-like as the history of philosophy often is, becomes, when we entrust ourselves to the guidance of spiritual science, such that out of the fog of the history of philosophy a being emerges whom we look up to as a goddess, descending from divine cloud heights, whom we see young in ancient times, whom we see growing up, albeit with the slowness that makes a century correspond to a year of human life. But all this becomes alive. The sun rises for us, like the sun within earthly existence itself. For just as the sun rises on the physical plane, so we see the ancient sun still shining into the earthly world in a being that has a longer life span than man. Just as we follow the becoming of a human being on the physical plane from birth to death, so we follow the philosophical becoming by seeing a being within it.
When we look at what anthroposophy can be for us in this way, we come to see in anthroposophy a real guide not only to knowledge, but a guide to the living beings that surround us without our knowing anything about them.
Yes, my dear friends, Christian Morgenstern also felt something like this. And because he felt this, felt it in the depths of his soul, our friend Christian Morgenstern was able to record a beautiful sensation that is truly an anthroposophical sensation, showing how a soul can express itself when it knows itself to be one with our anthroposophy in its deepest inner being, not merely as something that gives us knowledge about this or that, but as something that enlivens us. A wonderful example of such enlivenment by anthroposophy is what we find in the beautiful poem “Lucifer” by Christian Morgenstern, in that poem which, I would say, in terms of feeling, lives so completely in the breath that one senses something when, as has been attempted today, one finds the transition from the representation of the idea in anthroposophy to the grasping of living beings.
I will hide my light from your light,
I do not want you, you shall not enjoy me,
until I have become my own light.Thus I bring evil to light,
as the spirit of peculiarity and negation,
but my order of spirits creates a new world.Out of contradiction to the unwavering being,
out of error, a tribe of gods shall arise,
who decide for themselves—and not for you.Those who do not walk in truth from the beginning,
who first learn the truth through suffering,
who first suffer the truth through action.
If you take the feeling of this poem in such a way that you consider how vividly what is theoretically understood in anthroposophy can become, so that one can, as it were, touch the beings that approach us from the dark abyss of being through our spiritual science, if you take this poem in this way, as you may be inspired by the feelings I have tried to awaken in you through today's lecture, then you will see that this figure of Lucifer is truly felt and shaped in a wonderful way. This is a prime example of how what anthroposophy brings to us can become alive within us and seize our whole soul.