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Chance, Necessity and Providence
GA 163

29 August 1915, Dornach

4. Necessity as Past Subjectivity

If you look at works such as that of Fritz Mauthner, to whom I have repeatedly referred, you will see what consequences necessarily result from taking the prevailing modern outlook seriously. Mauthner arrives at all sorts of very strange conclusions. One example is the way he links the concept “supply” with that of a “supply of words,” for he is a philologist. He divides the word “supply” into two categories of “illusory” and “useful” concepts. The real purpose of his philosophical dictionary is to demonstrate that most philosophical concepts belong in the useless category. Those who give a thorough reading to his comments on a concept or word in his Dictionary of Philosophy always end up with the admittedly subjective feeling of whirling around like a Chinaman trying to grab his own pigtail. You have the feeling as you finish one of his articles that you have been trying all the way through it to get hold of your pigtail, which a Chinaman wears hanging down behind him. But at the end there it is, still behind you; no amount of twirling results in catching up with it. There are, I must say, some very, very upsetting things for healthy minds to endure as they read an article such as the one on “Christianity.” But that is true of almost all the articles Mauthner has written.

Now he takes great pains to eliminate all illusory concepts, admitting some of them into his dictionary for the sole purpose of denouncing them. I'll read a few very characteristic sentences from his introduction by way of illustration:

What is an illusory concept? This dictionary will denounce as illusory many concepts held in general esteem. I am not at a loss, you see, for examples. Nevertheless, it is not an easy matter to describe in general terms what distinguishes a useful from an illusory concept, a true one from a false one, a living concept from a dead one.

These opposite characteristics already point to some sources of the difficulty. The mere appearance of usefulness cannot always be attributed to the same source, and it is not in every case a simple matter to determine a concept's falsity or deadness. It may be that the falsity was inherent, or else became attached to the concept as language underwent changes over a period of time and did not need to wait for a scientifically and critically advanced generation to discover it. A concept could also have been dead to begin with, or death can have overtaken it unnoticed in popular usage after a shorter or longer life. The boundaries cannot be sharply drawn because all these concepts are relative. The concepts absolute and phlogiston were false from the start; exact scrutiny could all along have discovered that they contradicted the facts of experience.

Now wouldn't you agree that this is quite nice? Humanity took many millennia, not just centuries, to replace phlogiston with another concept, and Lavoisier's replacement of phlogiston with evidence of the true nature of combustion was considered a most significant deed.1Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, 1743–1794, French chemist. In 1774 he refuted the theory claiming that a substance called phlogiston escapes during the combustion process. In 1777 Lavoisier discovered that combustion consists in the combination of a substance with oxygen. He discovered that breathing is also a combustion or oxidation process. But Mauthner finds it possible to comment that “the concept was false from the start because exact scrutiny could have discovered all along that it contradicted the facts of experience.”

It really sounds as though if Fritz Mauthner had been born early enough, he would have seen to it that people didn't have to suffer for so long a time from the false concept phlogiston. He goes on to say, “The concept which only became a false one when the concept devil fell by the wayside, and the godless female could therefore no longer enter into fleshly commerce with the illusory concept devil. The concept devil too lived a sufficiently lengthy span and died out only when human learning became convinced that neither the devil nor any of his works were observable in the sphere of reality.”

We could be tempted to repeat that
Not if he had them by the neck, I vow,
Would e'er these people scent the devil.

One can't help thinking of this on hearing such a statement. A lot depends today on the decisions people make about searching out viewpoints able to shed light and guide them.

Yesterday we discussed how a deepening of our soul nature must be accompanied by a profounder grasp of concepts such as necessity. It was pointed out how decisive an influence on destiny a sense of the necessity in everything in existence, and the submersion of the individual in that necessity, could have for a person like Faust. But Mauthner says, “Necessity—What is it? Just a way of looking at things.” He finds no reason to think of the element of necessity as existing objectively in things. In his opinion the stream of cosmic events bypasses human beings. People say that “the sun rose today, it rose yesterday and it rose the day before yesterday, so we assume that it will rise tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, and so on.” They form the concept of necessity from these external thoughts about the regular succession of events, saying that the sun necessarily rises. But this necessity of theirs is subjective, just a human concept.

And Mauthner makes the nice rejoinder to the philosopher Husserl,2Edmund Husserl, 1859–1938, German Phenomenological philosopher. an exponent of the view that necessity is inherent in the nature of things, “If I only knew how necessity, a human way of regarding reality, could be made objective reality!” “If I only knew,” is Mauthner's reaction. Mauthner, you see, lacks any possibility of understanding how something subjective could turn into objective reality. He's a queer kind of eurythmist, this Mauthner; he can never dance his way from the subjective into the objective because he has totally lost the capacity to involve himself in the inner choreography that leads from the subjective into the objective. And the reason for that is that we are not in a position to look for essential being at the characteristic place where the subjective element actually passes over into the objective realm.

Let us seek out such a place and examine it from a spiritual standpoint. When the human soul raises a question, it seeks an answer to it, and proceeds subjectively to set in motion all those processes, those inner or external actions, that might serve to supply it. You know, of course, that the putting of questions and finding of answers is indeed a subjective process, so subjective that one person engages in it with finesse and another clumsily; all possible nuances exist. It is really an inner activity. But now let us assume the following: Let us picture a person on fire with a desire to know, filled to the brim with a longing for insight, who therefore raises a question in his soul. But he finds no answer to it. The situation thus far is subjective. But now let us imagine time passing and the person continuing to live. What has happened subjectively is that this person has experienced the question and the lack of an answer to it, and he goes on living. He can remember the question later on, and the fact that he has not found an answer. But it could turn out entirely differently: his question can have been totally forgotten. But that doesn't mean that the question and the lack of an answer are completely unreal within him; it just means that he hasn't found the answer.

Someone able to see into the situation may find that what began as a purely subjective element later makes its appearance in the person concerned in the uncertain way he behaves in life. A sensitive observer will be able to say that such a person has a curiously uncertain way of gesturing and glancing. These are very delicate matters when it comes to individual cases, but such situations do exist, and it can be discovered that many an uncertain look and gesture or the like that shows up in later years can be traced back to an unanswered question or complex of questions. The presence of this uncertainty in look and gesture is an objective, an entirely objective fact. An objective situation has actually been created and emerged from a subjective one. We can rediscover years later in the objective processes in us what we experienced at first subjectively.

If you follow up such leads, you will find that they open up a reliable route to answering questions that Mauthner in his incapacity cannot answer. That is why he says, “If I only knew how necessity, a human way of regarding reality, could be made objective reality!” The subjective can indeed become objective! This becomes clear to us particularly when we take fully into account what I pointed out yesterday: that memory is a distinct state of consciousness in addition to sleeping and waking. Remembering is still in its infancy; however, it will play a much larger role when humanity has advanced to the next planetary stage, and it will find expression in the recognition of earlier experiences. This recognition will bring these experiences before us in a form quite different from their previous appearance. Subjective experiences we may have had recur much later in a mild form in our individual lives. They will appear in the next incarnation in a much more significant form. What was once a subjective experience then resurfaces in our external aspect as a characteristic objective element. And if we ask what has become of much that we have forgotten, we would discover it if we were to concern ourselves really seriously with what spiritual science gives us; we would find it in our lives. What has sunk into our souls' depths and no longer remains in the subjective sphere lives and moves down below in our subconsciousness. The subjective invariably becomes objective.

You see that if we are really intent upon understanding life, we have to deal seriously and conscientiously with matters like these. We have to try very conscientiously indeed to develop our thinking, noting errors of thought where they occur, for they are intimately bound up with errors in the way our lives are lived. How often one comes upon people who are constantly saying that they are certainly not vain—but the very fact that they emphasize it at every opportunity is due to vanity. They are so frightfully vain that they have to keep saying how free from vanity they are. They simply haven't dwelt sufficiently and realistically enough on the cancelling out that occurs when a Cretan says that all Cretans are liars. If that were true and a Cretan states it, he would be doing so as a liar. So his statement that all Cretans are liars can't be true.

But all such matters have to be translated into living reality. We need to see to it that we make a habit of a certain discrimination in thinking. In this connection I want to call your attention to an error in thinking that crops up in Mauthner's case too, in one of his many characteristic observations. He has an article on necessity in his philosophical dictionary. He is at pains to show that necessity is merely a human idea and that there is no such element inherent in things. There is a very special reason why this article exemplifies the strange experiment of whirling around and trying unsuccessfully to catch hold of his own pigtail. For the only thing he achieves clarity on is that it is not necessary for necessity to inhere in things, that no such necessity exists. But necessity could indeed inhere in things without there being any necessity for its doing so. The fact that Mauthner sees that it isn't necessary for necessity to inhere in things doesn't prove that it doesn't so inhere. It could just be the case that no necessity exists for it to do so. That is what we must always bear in mind.

The question that concerns us, however, is where to look for necessity. We will make a closer study of this tomorrow; for today I just want to try to guide your thoughts in the right direction by citing examples.

Let's consider the following: The subjective content of our thoughts sinks down to become a content of our memory, but is lost sight of down below there and becomes objective. And now we look out into the surrounding world and seek the objective there. We certainly find objective elements in ourselves, in our individual lives, in the form of gestures, facial expressions, and the like. Remember that I spoke yesterday at the close of the lecture about how what begins as a subjective element is encountered later as objective fact. So we will need to ask whether what is thus externally encountered can perhaps be traced back to something that was once subjective. And we would accordingly find in the external world that everything to which we must ascribe necessity was rendered necessary by the fact that it has left the subjective realm and become objective.

Imagine yourselves transposed from earthly existence back to the ancient sun existence. We were involved there with those beings who reigned during the sun period. And we can picture these beings who went through inner, subjective soul experiences and were active during the period of that sun existence as similar to us in our present day thinking, feeling, and willing. What they went through on the sun at that time is now to be found externalized in the world around us; now it confronts us from outside as world-gesture, world-expressiveness, world-physiognomy. It has become objective. Crudely put, a being of the sun period may have sent out rays of will just as subjectively as we allow what we have thought or felt to sink down into our memory and become objective there. Exactly so did this will element, this raying out of the ancient sun beings, sink down and become memory, and we now find it confronting us. Just as we perceive in a person's glance as externalized, objective fact some earlier experience that he has had, we now perceive in the sun's radiating light a decision of will on the part of beings subjectively active on the ancient sun. We behold it. Indeed, if we should encounter an elderly person with a sour-tempered look around the mouth, we can certainly call it a fact objectively perceptible in the outer world, and if we follow it up, we may well be able to trace it back to bitter experiences of a subjective nature suffered in childhood. What was subjective has become objective.

Where mountains tower up today it is possible to trace back this feature of the earth, for example, in the great chain of the Alps. If we go back far enough, perhaps as far back as ancient Saturn, we come across subjective soul and spiritual events experienced during that period that are retained in present-day physical aspects of the earth. But things could have taken a somewhat different course at that period if the gods who had those experiences of soul and spirit had come to different decisions; in that case, of course, the Alps would not have come to be as they are today. But just picture the gods on Saturn deciding on some particular inner action and then going through the sun and moon periods. Then, as the moon developed into the earth, it was no longer possible for them to change their decisions. That is like the difference we experience in trying to learn in later life something we failed to learn before we reached our eighteenth year. We can catch up, but the fact of having to do so creates a situation that would not have existed had we undergone the learning at an earlier age.

You will see from this that although the gods were free to make this or that decision during the Saturn period, once having made it, they were no longer free during the moon evolution to effect a change in the east-west orientation of the Alps. They bound themselves by the terms of their earlier thinking, and the result could no longer be changed. What has been done cannot be undone if we want to stick by the truth. People can try subjectively to wipe out what they experienced subjectively, but what has developed as objective fact cannot be wiped out.

If, for example, I have been guilty of neglect in younger years in failing to educate someone whose education was my responsibility, that corresponded to my subjective state at the time. Twenty years later I can deny that I was neglectful, but that changes nothing in the objective situation that grew out of the subjective one. The individual who went uneducated became what he is as a result of what I neglected to do. The objective outcome of our subjectivity takes on a necessity that cannot be denied, and necessity enters the picture to the degree that the subjective is transformed into the objective.

If the concepts involved here are followed up with strict logic from this point of view, we come upon an intimate relationship between the past and everything that can be termed necessity. And the past resurfaces in everything we encounter in the present; it is present there. There is as much necessity in the present as there is past in it. Life congeals into the past, but the past becomes necessity in the process.

I'd like to put all this before you more pictorially. It is superstition to assume that what is recognized to be an interrelationship based on law in a series of events can be changed by a miracle. Why is this the case? The past that underlies these events determines what must happen in accordance with the laws of necessity. The gods would not be telling the truth if they were to interfere with the lawfulness governing such a relationship. They would be denying what they had previously established. And we can no more change the past inhering in situations as necessity than we can change what happened in the past by some statement about it. What we cannot change in a situation is the part the past played in it. The concept of necessity must coalesce with the concept of the past; that is tremendously important. The past inheres in every object and in every creature, constituting the necessity in them; necessity is present in them to an extent corresponding to their past. The necessity that inheres in things does so because it is the recurring past, and what has taken place cannot be dismissed. We can easily picture anything that has become necessity now, for it goes back to a previous event. It happened in the past and now confronts us in reflected form.

You can no more change that reflection than you can remove in the mirror a wart on your forehead that you see reflected there; you would have to remove it beforehand. It is equally impossible to make any change in what appears as present necessity, since what appears as necessity now really occurred some time ago. It is past, and now merely shows up in its subsequent reflection. Everything of the nature of necessity in us is of the past and is merely bringing about its reflection in us. Only if people bestir themselves to grasp that the events that took place in the ancient moon, sun, and Saturn periods are now reflected in us, and are merely reflections of those ancient events, will they come to understand necessity.

And now think back to our discovery that our conceptual world is of moon origin. On an earlier occasion I described how we are really looking back on a moon panorama when we observe our present-day environment. Here you have the link. It is simply not true that certain things that seem to be going on in us really happen in the present; they are just reflections in a mirror. The reality is that they took place in earlier stages of the earth's development. I have said in earlier lectures that our heads are actually hollow. And why are they hollow? Because what constitutes their content is of earlier origin, and now there is only a reflection there of earlier events in our heads. But if we are incapable of grasping this concept of mirror images, we will always be prone, as we confront the Maya, the illusion of reality around us, to make the mistake that children (and, if you'll excuse me, modern science too) make when they see objects in a mirror and run around behind it to find them. But the objects have vanished when they get there. What was necessity has gone, and the fact that the past is reflected is the reason why there is necessity in the present. The past cannot be changed.

I agree that much effort is involved in grasping these concepts. So we'll stop here for today, and see if we can manage to think them through by tomorrow. We will then go on to study chance and providence and their connection with necessity.

Vierter Vortrag

Wenn man den Blick wendet auf solche Darstellungen wie die von Fritz Mauthner, auf die ich Sie wiederholt hingewiesen habe, dann das haben Sie ja schon gesehen — merkt man, zu welchen Konsequenzen ein Sich-selbst-Ernstnehmen der gegenwärtig herrschenden Weltanschauung führen muß. Mauthner nimmt wirklich die gegenwärtige Weltanschauung ernst. Er kommt zu allerlei höchst merkwürdigen Dingen. So zum Beispiel bildet er im Zusammenhang mit dem Begriff «Vorrat», weil er ja Sprachkritiker ist, den des «Wortvorrats», und er gliedert den Wortvorrat in Scheinbegriffe und brauchbare Begriffe. In seinem Wörterbuch will er eigentlich überall darstellen, wie die meisten philosophischen Begriffe zu den unbrauchbaren Begriffen gehören. Man hat immer, wenn man einen Mauthnerschen Begriff, ein Mauthnersches Wort in seinem «Wörterbuch der Philosophie» durchgelesen hat — es ist allerdings eine subjektive Empfindung -, ein Gefühl, als ob man versucht hätte, wie ein Chinese sich um sich selber zu drehen, um den eigenen Zopf zu erhaschen. Wenn man einen Artikel zu Ende gelesen hat, hat man das Gefühl, daß man während des ganzen Lesens sich bemüht hat, den Zopf zu erhaschen, den der Chinese hinten hat, und doch merkt man zuletzt: Der Zopf ist hinten hängengeblieben, durch alles Drehen kann man den Zopf nicht erreichen. Man wird allerdings einiges recht, recht Schwierige durchzumachen haben für ein gesundes Denken, wenn man etwa auf den Artikel «Christentum» eingeht. Aber das gilt fast von allen Artikeln, die er geschrieben hat. -— Nun ist er eben sorgfältig bedacht, die Scheinbegriffe alle auszumerzen, und solche Scheinbegriffe nimmt er in sein Wörterbuch immer nur auf, um sie als solche zu «denunzieren». Um aber auf diese Scheinbegriffe eingehen zu können, werde ich einige in der Einleitung stehende Sätze lesen, die sehr charakteristisch sind: «Was ist das, ein Schenbegriff? Dieses Wörterbuch wird viele Begriffe, die in allgemeinem Ansehen stehen, als Scheinbegriffe denunzieren. An Beispielen fehlt es mir also nicht. Dennoch ist es nicht leicht, allgemein auszusprechen, wodurch sich ein brauchbarer Begriff von einem Scheinbegriffe, ein richtiger Begriff von einem falschen, ein lebendiger von einem toten unterscheide. Mit diesen Gegensatzpaaren habe ich schon einige Gründe der Schwierigkeit genannt. Der bloße Schein der Brauchbarkeit ist eben nicht immer aus der gleichen Ursache zu erklären. Und auch die Falschheit oder der Tod eines Begriffes ist jedesmal nicht so einfach festzustellen. Die Falschheit kann dem Begriff von Anfang an angeheftet haben, kann aber auch im Verlaufe der Wortgeschichte entstanden sein, braucht nicht erst von einem wissenschaftlich und kritisch fortgeschrittenen Geschlechte erkannt worden sein; ein Begriff kann tot gewesen sein von Anfang, der Tod kann aber auch nach kürzerem oder längerem Leben des Wortes eingetreten sein, unbemerkt für den Sprachgebrauch. Ganz scharf sind die Grenzen nicht zu ziehen, weil alle diese Begriffe relativ sind. Die Begriffe absolut und Phlogiston waren von Anfang an falsch, weil eine genaue Aufmerksamkeit den Widerspruch mit den Tatsachen der Erfahrung von jeher hätte aufdecken können.»

Das ist ja ganz niedlich, nicht wahr? Die Menschheit hat viele, man kann sagen, nicht Jahrhunderte, sondern Jahrtausende gebraucht, um an die Stelle des Phlogiston etwas anderes zu setzen. Und als dann Lavoisier an die Stelle von «Phlogiston» den Nachweis des wahren Verlaufs der «Verbrennung» gesetzt hatte, so war das eine bedeutsame Tat allerersten Ranges. Aber Fritz Mauthner weiß dazu zu sagen: «Der Begriff war von Anfang falsch, weil eine genaue Aufmerksamkeit den Widerspruch mit den Tatsachen der Erfahrung von jeher hätte aufdecken können.»

Es klingt wirklich so, als ob nur Fritz Mauthner genügend früh hätte geboren zu werden brauchen, und er hätte dafür gesorgt, daß die Menschen nicht so lange unter dem falschen Begriff des Phlogistons gelebt hätten! Mauthner sagt weiter: «Der Begriff Hexe wurde erst falsch, als der Begriff Teufel gestorben war, mit dem Scheinbegriff Teufel konnte das gottlose Weib keine fleischliche Verbindung mehr eingehen. Der Begriff Teufel wiederum war lange genug lebendig und starb erst, als die menschliche Erkenntnis sich überzeugt hatte, daß weder ein Teufel noch irgendwelche seiner Wirkungen in der Wirklichkeitswelt zu beobachten wären.»

Da möchte man doch auch wieder verführt sein zu sagen:

Den Teufel spürt das Völkchen nie,
und wenn er sie beim Kragen hätte!

Es ist tatsächlich das, was einem einfallen muß, wenn solche Dinge gesagt werden. — Es wird eben heute vielfach darauf ankommen, wie die Menschen sich entschließen werden, überall die maßgebenden, ich könnte auch sagen, die lichtgebenden Gesichtspunkte zu finden! Wir haben gestern darauf hingewiesen, wie gerade mit der Vertiefung der Menschen-Seelennatur auch eine Vertiefung gegenüber solchen Begriffen, wie zum Beispiel dem Begriff Notwendigkeit eintreten muß. Wir haben darauf hingewiesen, wie die Empfindung der Notwendigkeit alles Seienden, und das Hineingestelltsein des Einzelwesens in die Notwendigkeit des Seienden etwa für solch eine Menschenwesenheit, wie für den Faust, schicksalbestimmend sein könnte. Mauthner findet: Notwendigkeit — was ist das? Es ist nur eine Art, die Dinge anzuschauen. Für ihn ist gar kein Grund vorhanden, den Begriff der Notwendigkeit objektiv in den Dingen selber zu denken. Mauthner meint, der Strom des Weltengeschehens gehe einmal um die Menschen herum. Da sind Menschen gekommen, die haben gesagt: Heute ist die Sonne aufgegangen, gestern ist sie aufgegangen, vorgestern ist sie aufgegangen. Voraussetzen werden wir daraus, daß sie auch morgen, übermorgen und so weiter aufgehen wird. — Aus diesen äußeren Gedanken in der regelmäßigen Aufeinanderfolge der Tatbestände haben sie sich den Begriff der Notwendigkeit gebildet. Es wäre nötig, daß die Sonne aufgeht — haben sie gesagt. Aber diese Notwendigkeit ist subjektiv; das ist bloß ein Menschenbegriff. Und Mauthner sagt sehr niedlich gegen den Philosophen Husserl, der die Ansicht vertreten hat, daß eine Notwendigkeit auch objektiv in den Dingen drinnen wäre: «Wenn ich nur wüßte, wie Notwendigkeit, eine menschliche Betrachtungsweise der Wirklichkeit, jemals objektiv werden kann.» Wenn ich das nur wüßte! — meint Mauthner. Sehen Sie, Mauthner fehlt alle Möglichkeit, einzusehen, wie etwas Subjektives objektiv werden kann. Er ist, ich möchte sagen, ein merkwürdiger Eurythmiker, dieser Mauthner; er kann niemals aus dem Subjektiven in das Objektive herübertanzen, weil er vollständig die Fähigkeit verloren hat, jene Figur in sich zu vollziehen, die aus dem Subjektiven ins Objektive herüberführt. Und zugrunde liegt dem, daß man nicht imstande ist, das Sein da aufzusuchen, wo einmal an einer charakteristischen Stelle das Subjektive ins Objektive wirklich hinübergeht. Wir wollen versuchen, uns eine solche Stelle einmal vor das geistige Auge zu führen.

Wenn die menschliche Seele in sich eine Frage aufwirft, so will sie eine Antwort haben und wird subjektiv all diejenigen Vorgänge anstellen, diejenigen äußeren oder inneren Handlungen vollziehen, die zu der Beantwortung einer solchen Frage führen können. Nun wissen Sie ja, daß das Aufstellen einer Frage und das Finden einer Antwort wirklich ein subjektiver Vorgang ist. Es ist so subjektiv, daß der eine das geschickt, der andere das ungeschickt, in allen möglichen Nuancen macht. Das ist wirklich etwas, was zunächst in uns vor sich geht. Aber nehmen wir einmal das Folgende an. Nehmen wir an, ein Mensch wäre wirklich von Erkenntnissehnsucht durchglüht, von Erkenntnissehnsucht erfüllt und müßte sich deshalb in seiner Seele eine Frage aufwerfen. Er kann nun keine Antwort auf diese Frage finden. Nicht wahr, das ist subjektiv. Aber nehmen wir jetzt an: Zeit vergeht, wie man sagt, der Mensch lebt weiter. Der subjektive Vorgang ist der, daß der Mensch die Frage erlebt hat und das Nichtkommen zu einer Antwort erlebt hat, und er lebt jetzt weiter. Es kann sein, daß er sich später einmal erinnert an die Frage, mit dem Gedanken sich daran erinnert, daß er auf diese Frage keine Antwort erhalten hat. Aber es kann der ganz andere Fall eintreten. Es kann der Fall eintreten, daß ein reines Vergessen über der Frage sich bei dem betreffenden Menschen geltend macht. Aber dieses Vergessen wird nicht die Bedeutung haben, daß die Frage und das Nichtvorhandensein der Antwort ganz irreal in ihm ist, sondern daß der betreffende Mensch die Antwort nicht gefunden hat. Was rein subjektiv ist, kann später vielleicht für den, der diese Zusammenhänge durchschauen kann, zutage treten, daß darin der betreffende Mensch in bezug auf die Art, wie er sich im Leben darlebt, etwas Unsicheres zeigt. Man wird, wenn man fein zu beobachten versteht, sagen können: Dieser Mensch hat eine merkwürdig unsichere Gebärde, etwas merkwürdig Unsicheres im Blick. Es wird solch ein Zusammenhang zunächst, wenn man das einzelne Menschenleben in Betracht zieht, fein sein; aber man wird solche Zusammenhänge entdecken können und man wird entdecken können, daß manche unsichere Gebärde, manches Unsichere im Blick oder ähnliches in späteren Jahren zurückzuführen ist darauf, daß irgendeine Frage oder ein Fragenkomplex keine Antwort erhalten hat. Daß eine Geste da ist, daß etwas Unsicheres im Blick ist, das ist ein Objektives, ein ganz Objektives! Ein Objektives ist aus einem Subjektiven wirklich herausgekommen, hat sich herausgebildet. Wir können gewissermaßen dasjenige, was wir subjektiv erlebt haben, nach Jahren wiederfinden in den objektiven Vorgängen unseres Menschenwesens,

Wenn Sie diese Gesichtspunkte verfolgen, so werden Sie finden, daß hier ein realer Weg liegt, Fragen zu beantworten, die sich Mauthner aus seinem Unvermögen heraus nicht beantworten kann. Deshalb sagt er: «Wenn ich nur wüßte, wie Notwendigkeit, eine menschliche Betrachtungsweise der Wirklichkeit, jemals objektiv werden kann.» Das Subjektive kann eben objektiv werden! Das ist dasjenige, was uns insbesondere aufgehen wird, wenn wir das gründlich berücksichtigen, auf was ich gestern schon aufmerksam gemacht habe: daß im Grunde genommen Gedächtnis, Erinnerung ein besonderer Bewußtseinszustand ist neben dem Schlafen und Wachen. Dieses Erinnern ist allerdings heute erst im Beginne und wird, wenn der Mensch zu dem folgenden planetarischen Dasein fortgeschritten sein wird, eine viel größere Rolle spielen, und es wird sich aussprechen im Wiedererkennen desjenigen, was früher erlebt worden ist. In diesem Wiedererkennen tritt dasjenige, was wiedererkannt werden muß, in einer ganz anderen Form vor uns hin, als wie es vorher da war. Wenn wir zum Beispiel subjektiv irgend etwas erleben, so wird es nach langer Zeit im einzelnen Menschenleben leise auftreten. In der nächsten Inkarnation wird es bedeutender auftreten. Da wird uns etwas an unserem Äußeren charakteristisch objektiv entgegentreten können, was vorher subjektives Erlebnis war. Und wenn wir in bezug auf vieles, was wir vergessen haben, fragen: Wo ist es hingekommen? — wir würden es entdecken, wenn wir nur wirklich ernsthaftig auf das, was Geisteswissenschaft uns gibt, uns besinnen wollten. Wir würden das, was von uns vergessen worden ist, in unserem Leben entdecken. Das, was hinuntergegangen ist in die Tiefe der Seele und nicht mehr im Subjektiven ist, das waltet und webt in unserem Unterbewußten drunten. Das Subjektive wird immer objektiv!

Sehen Sie, wenn man sich auf ein Verständnis des Lebens wirklich einlassen will, dann muß man es schon sehr ernst und gewissenhaft nehmen mit diesen Dingen. Man muß versuchen, das Denken wirklich gewissenhaft auszubilden. Man muß zum Beispiel achten auf Gedankenfehler, die gemacht werden, weil sie innig mit Lebensfehlern zusammenhängen. Wie leicht findet man Menschen, die bei jeder Gelegenheit sagen: Nun, eitel bin ich wirklich nicht -; und dennoch, daß sie das sagen bei jeder Gelegenheit, das geschieht aus Eitelkeit. Sie sind so furchtbar eitel, daß sie bei jeder Gelegenheit sagen, wie nichteitel sie sind! Sie haben nur nicht genügend bedacht, lebensvoll bedacht, daß es sich selber aufhebt, wenn ein Kretenser sagt: Alle Kretenser sind Lügner -; denn wenn ein Kretenser das sagt, und es wäre wahr, so müßte er ja ein Lügner sein! Also könnte das nicht wahr sein, was er sagt, daß alle Kretenser Lügner sind. Aber von solchen Dingen ist notwendig, daß sie in das Leben umgesetzt werden, daß man wirklich achtet darauf, daß eine gewisse Feinheit im Denken zu einer unserer Gewohnheiten wird. Und so möchte ich Sie auf etwas aufmerksam machen, was als Denkfehler in einer der vielen Betrachtungen charakteristisch auch bei Mauthner herrscht. Mauthner hat einen Artikel «Notwendigkeit» in seinem Wörterbuch. Da bemüht er sich zu zeigen, wie die Notwendigkeit nur ein Menschengedanke ist, wie die Notwendigkeit gar nicht in den Dingen drinnen liegt. Er macht bei diesem Artikel aus einem ganz besonderen Grunde dieses sonderbare Experiment des Um-sich-Herumtanzens und den Zopf bekommen wollen und ihn nicht erhalten können. Denn alles, was ihm klargeworden ist, das ist, daß es nicht notwendig ist, daß Notwendigkeit in den Dingen herrscht; daß keine Notwendigkeit besteht, daß Notwendigkeit in den Dingen herrscht. Es könnte ja in den Dingen auch Notwendigkeit herrschen, ohne daß das notwendig wäre! Dadurch, daß Mauthner eingesehen hat, es sei nicht notwendig, daß in den Dingen Notwendigkeit herrscht, dadurch ist noch nicht ausgemacht, daß keine Notwendigkeit in den Dingen herrscht; sondern das gerade könnte nicht notwendig sein, daß die Notwendigkeit da ist; das ist es, was man immer berücksichtigen muß.

Für uns aber entsteht die Frage: Wie können wir die Notwendigkeit aufsuchen? Nun, ich will heute - morgen werde ich auf diese Dinge genauer eingehen - bloß gleichsam exemplifizierend versuchen, Ihre Gedanken in die richtige Richtung zu bringen. Nehmen Sie den Gedanken: Dasjenige, was wir subjektiv denken, es geht hinunter, es wird Inhalt unseres Gedächtnisses, aber es verliert sich auch da unten, wird objektiv. Und jetzt blicken wir hinaus in die Welt und suchen zunächst das Objektive. Wir finden gewiß Objektives in uns, sogar schon im einzelnen Leben, an Gesten, Mienen und so weiter. Erinnern Sie sich nur an das, was ich am Schlusse des gestrigen Vortrages angeführt habe: Was zuerst subjektiv war in der Welt, finden wir später objektiv. Da haben wir dann nötig, uns zu fragen: Ja, können wir vielleicht auch mit diesem Objektiven ein Subjektives verbinden, was einmal da war, und was zu diesem Objektiven draußen geworden ist? — Und so würden wir in unserer Welt draußen finden, daß alles dasjenige, dem wir Notwendigkeit zuschreiben müssen, notwendig geworden wäre dadurch, daß es aus einem Subjektiven einmal herausgefallen ist und objektiv geworden ist. Versetzen Sie sich zurück vom Erdensein auf das Sonnensein. Da haben wir es zu tun mit den Wesen, die das Sonnensein geleitet haben. So wie wir jetzt denken, fühlen und wollen, werden ein Ähnliches getan haben diese Wesen, die dazumal während des Sonnenseins innerlich subjektiv in ihren Seelen etwas erlebt haben, etwas durchgemacht haben, tätig waren. Das, was sie damals durchgemacht haben während des Sonnenseins, finden wir jetzt draußen in der Welt. Jetzt tritt es uns als Weltengeste und Weltenmiene entgegen, als Weltenphysiognomie. Es ist objektiv geworden. Wenn ich grob sprechen will: Während des Sonnenseins habe meinetwillen ein Wesen seinen Willen ausstrahlen lassen, ganz subjektiv, so wie unser subjektiv Gedachtes oder Gefühltes ins Gedächtnis also hinuntergeht und dann objektiv wird. So ist dieses Wollen, dieses Ausstrahlen der alten Sonnenwesen heruntergegangen, wurde Gedächtnis, und wir schauen es jetzt von außen an. Wie wir im Blick irgendein früheres Erlebnis eines Menschen von außen anschauen, objektiv, so schauen wir heute in dem Lichtverbreiten der Sonne einen Willensentschluß von Wesen, die während des alten Sonnenseins subjektiv gewirkt haben. Wir schauen es. Wir können wirklich sagen: Ja, wenn ich einen Menschen sehe, der im Alter irgendeine Verbissenheit um den Mund herum hat, das ist doch gewiß etwas ganz objektiv draußen Befindliches in der Welt. Wenn ich dem nachgehen werde, so werde ich diesen Zug der Verbissenheit um seinen Mund vielleicht zurückführen können auf manches Bittere, das er ganz subjektiv in seiner Kindheit erfahren hat. Das Subjektive ist objektiv geworden.

Wenn ich dasjenige, was heute als Gebirge aufgetürmt ist, erblicke, so werde ich diesen Zug der Erde, der meinetwillen in der Aufgetürmtheit des ganzen Alpensystems da ist, zurückverfolgen können. Wenn ich es nur weit genug, bis ins Saturndasein vielleicht, zurückverfolge, so werde ich da irgendein seelisch-geistiges Erlebnis haben, das dazumal durchlebt worden ist, und das, jetzt wie in der Physis der Erde festgehalten, das dazumal subjektive Erlebnis darstellt. Dazumal hätte es anders sein können, dazumal hätte es so sein können, daß sich jene Götter, die das oder jenes Seelisch-Geistige erlebt hätten, auch zu anderem hätten entschließen können; dann würden heute selbstverständlich die Alpen anders sein. Aber denken Sie nur einmal: Bei dem Saturn haben sich die Götter entschlossen, irgend etwas Bestimmtes zu tun innerlich, dann sind sie durch das Sonnen-, Mondensein gegangen; dann, wie sich der Mond zur Erde entwickelt hat, haben sie schon nicht mehr sich umentschließen können. Das ist gerade so, wie wenn wir irgend etwas, das wir im achtzehnten Jahre noch nicht gelernt haben, nur sehr schwer nachholen können. Wir können es nachholen, aber daß wir es dann nachholen müssen, das bewirkt jedenfalls schon wiederum etwas, was nicht bewirkt würde, wenn wir es zu früherer Zeit durchgemacht hätten. Daraus werden Sie ersehen, daß es zwar zur Saturnzeit noch den göttlich-geistigen Wesen freigestanden hat, irgendeinen Entschluß zu fassen, aber nachdem der Entschluß gefaßt, waren sie zur Mondenzeit schon nicht mehr frei, es anders als so zu führen, daß der Alpenzug gerade von Westen nach Osten geht. Sie haben sich zum Beispiel gerade durch das, was sie früher gedacht haben, engagiert; das ist nicht mehr ungeschehen zu machen. Es ist nicht mehr ungeschehen zu machen — wenn man wahr bleiben will —, was geschehen ist. Subjektiv können ja Menschen versuchen, das, was sie subjektiv erlebt haben und was objektiv geworden ist, auszulöschen; aber objektiv wird dasjenige, was sich daraus entwickelt hat, nicht ausgelöscht sein. Wenn ich zum Beispiel in der Jugend eine Nachlässigkeit begangen habe, in der späteren Jugend irgend jemand, den ich hätte erziehen sollen, nicht erzogen habe, so entspricht das meinem Subjektiven von dazumal. Später, nach zwanzig Jahren, kann ich ja ableugnen, daß ich dazumal nachlässig gewesen bin, das ändert aber nichts an dem Objektiven, das aus dem Subjektiven hervorgegangen ist: der, den ich nicht erzogen habe, der ist zu dem geworden, was entstand durch das, was ich versäumte. Das Objektive, das aus unserem Subjektiven hervorgegangen ist, das nimmt den Zug von Notwendigkeit an; aus dem läßt sich die Notwendigkeit nicht herausleugnen. Und in dem Maße, als das Subjektive in das Objektive übergeht, schleicht sich in das Objektivwerdende die Notwendigkeit ein. Und um die Notwendigkeit zu leugnen, muß man geradezu etwas ableugnen.

Verfolgt man von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus streng logisch die Begriffe, dann findet man einen innigen Zusammenhang zwischen alledem, was man notwendig nennt, und alledem, was Vergangenheit ist, also zwischen Notwendigkeit und Vergangenheit. Und in alledem, was uns in der Gegenwart entgegentritt, tritt das Vergangene wieder auf. Das Vergangene ist in dem Gegenwärtigen da. Und soviel Vergangenes in einem Gegenwärtigen ist, so viel Notwendiges ist darin. Das Leben erstarrt auf der einen Seite in das Vergangene. Aber dabei wird das Vergangene notwendig. — Ich möchte Ihnen diese Sache etwas anschaulicher noch sagen: Es ist ein Aberglaube, anzunehmen, daß in dem gewöhnlichen Gang der Ereignisse dasjenige, was man als den gesetzmäßigen Zusammenhang erkannt hat, durch ein Wunder durchbrochen werden könne. Warum? Soviel muß geschehen nach notwendigen Regeln, als Vergangenes in den Ereignissen ist. Und würden die Götter in einem Zusammenhang dasjenige durchbrechen, was gesetzmäßig drinnen ist, so würden die Götter lügen; sie würden ableugnen das, was sie vor Zeiten festgestellt haben. Und so wenig wir ein Vergangenes anders machen können durch eine spätere Behauptung, ebensowenig können wir das Stück Vergangenheit, das als Notwendiges in den Dingen drinnen ist, ändern. Und nur das können wir an den Dingen nicht ändern, was an den Dingen Vergangenheit ist. Der Notwendigkeitsbegriff muß mit dem Vergangenheitsbegriff zusammenwachsen. Das ist ein ungeheuer Wichtiges. In allen Dingen und in allen Wesen steckt Vergangenheit und deshalb Notwendigkeit. Und so viel Notwendigkeit steckt in den Dingen, als Vergangenheit in den Dingen steckt. Und darum ist das Notwendige in den Dingen Notwendigkeit, weil es ein wiederkehrendes Vergangenes ist, und das, was geschehen ist, sich nicht ableugnen läßt. Sie können sich ganz gut bildlich irgend etwas vorstellen, was heute notwendig ist; denn das ist vor Zeiten geschehen. Vor Zeiten ist es geschehen, und jetzt tritt es einem entgegen in dem Spiegel.

Aber Sie können es im Spiegel ebensowenig ändern, wie Sie, wenn Sie eine Warze auf der Stirne haben und sich im Spiegel schauen, im Spiegel diese Warze wegmachen können. Sie müßte ja erst weggemacht werden von der Stirne. Ebensowenig können Sie an dem, was heute als notwendig erscheint, eine Änderung vollziehen; denn das heute notwendig Erscheinende, das ist in Wirklichkeit schon geschehen vor Zeiten. Das ist vorbei. Das erscheint nur in seinem späteren Spiegelbild. Alles, was in uns notwendig ist, ist eigentlich vorbei und wirft nur seinen nachzeitlichen Spiegel in uns herein. Und nur wenn die Menschen sich aufschwingen werden dazu, zu begreifen, daß Dinge, die schon auf dem alten Mond, im alten Sonnendasein, im alten Saturndasein geschehen sind, jetzt sich spiegeln in uns, nur das Spiegelbild des alten Geschehens in uns sind, nur dadurch wird die Notwendigkeit begriffen werden.

Und jetzt denken Sie zurück, daß eine gewisse Anschauung uns dazu führt, daß wir unsere Begriffswelt eigentlich im Mondendasein finden. Ich habe schon früher dargestellt, wie man eigentlich zurückschauen würde auf das Mondentableau, wenn man die heutige Umwelt begrifflich betrachtet. Da haben Sie den Zusammenhang. Es ist gar nicht wahr, daß gewisse Dinge, die jetzt scheinbar in uns vorgehen, jetzt wirklich vorgehen. Sie gehen nur im Spiegel vor. In Wirklichkeit haben sie sich in den früheren Stadien unserer Erdenentwickelung abgespielt. Ich habe in den verflossenen Vorträgen gesagt: Hohlköpfe haben wir eigentlich. Warum haben wir Hohlköpfe? Weil dasjenige, was Inhalt ist, früher sich abgespielt hat und jetzt nur das Spiegelbild früheren Geschehens zum Beispiel auch in unserem Kopfe sich abspiegelt. Aber wenn wir diesen Begriff des Spiegelbildes nicht fassen können, so werden wir immer der Maja, der äußeren Scheinwirklichkeit gegenüber in den Fehler verfallen, in den das Kind verfällt, und in den, verzeihen Sie, die moderne Naturwissenschaft verfällt: Man sieht die Gegenstände im Spiegel, und läuft hinter den Spiegel, um sie dahinter zu suchen. Und wenn man hinter den Spiegel kommt, so ist alles verschwunden. Das was notwendig ist, ist vergangen; und daß sich Vergangenes spiegelt, das ist der Grund, warum in der Gegenwart Notwendigkeit ist. Das Vergangene, das kann nicht geändert werden.

Es ist, ich gebe es zu, an diesen Begriffen einiges zu knacken, und deshalb wollen wir hier die Sache unterbrechen und sehen, wie wir bis morgen in uns selbst mit dem Durchdenken dieser Begriffe zurechtkommen. Morgen wollen wir dann übergehen zu den Begriffen des Zufalls und der Vorsehung und sie mit der Notwendigkeit verknüpfen.

Fourth Lecture

If you turn your attention to descriptions such as those by Fritz Mauthner, to which I have repeatedly referred you, then you will have already seen — you will notice the consequences that taking the currently prevailing worldview seriously must lead to. Mauthner really does take the current worldview seriously. He arrives at all sorts of highly curious conclusions. For example, because he is a language critic, he forms the concept of “word stock” in connection with the concept of “stock,” and he divides word stock into pseudo-concepts and useful concepts. In his dictionary, he actually wants to show everywhere how most philosophical concepts belong to the useless concepts. Whenever you read a Mauthnerian term, a Mauthnerian word in his “Dictionary of Philosophy” — although this is a subjective impression — you have the feeling that you have been trying, like a Chinese person, to turn around yourself in order to catch your own pigtail. When you have finished reading an article, you feel as if you have been trying to catch the Chinese man's braid the whole time, and yet in the end you realize that the braid is still hanging behind him and that no amount of turning will allow you to reach it. However, you will have to go through some really difficult things for healthy thinking if you delve into the article “Christianity,” for example. But that applies to almost all the articles he has written. — Now, he is very careful to eliminate all false concepts, and he only includes such false concepts in his dictionary in order to “denounce” them as such. But in order to be able to discuss these pseudo-concepts, I will read a few sentences from the introduction that are very characteristic: “What is a pseudo-concept? This dictionary will denounce many concepts that are generally accepted as pseudo-concepts. So I have no shortage of examples. Nevertheless, it is not easy to say in general terms what distinguishes a useful term from a pseudo-term, a correct term from a false one, a living term from a dead one. With these pairs of opposites, I have already mentioned some of the reasons for the difficulty. The mere appearance of usefulness cannot always be explained by the same cause. And the falsity or death of a concept is not always easy to determine. Falsehood may have been inherent in the concept from the outset, but it may also have arisen in the course of the word's history and need not have been recognized by a scientifically and critically advanced generation; a concept may have been dead from the outset, but death may also have occurred after a shorter or longer life of the word, unnoticed in everyday usage. The boundaries are not clear-cut, because all these concepts are relative. The concepts of absolute and phlogiston were false from the outset, because careful attention would have revealed their contradiction with the facts of experience since time immemorial.

That's quite cute, isn't it? Humanity has taken many, not centuries, but millennia, to replace phlogiston with something else. And when Lavoisier replaced “phlogiston” with proof of the true process of “combustion,” it was a significant achievement of the highest order. But Fritz Mauthner has this to say: “The concept was wrong from the start, because careful attention would have revealed the contradiction with the facts of experience.”

It really sounds as if only Fritz Mauthner needed to have been born early enough, and he would have ensured that people did not live so long under the false concept of phlogiston! Mauthner goes on to say: “The term witch only became wrong when the term devil died. With the fictitious term devil, the godless woman could no longer enter into a carnal relationship. The term devil, in turn, lived long enough and only died when human knowledge had convinced itself that neither a devil nor any of his effects could be observed in the real world.”

One is tempted to say again:

The devil is never felt by the little people,
even if he has them by the throat!

That is indeed what comes to mind when such things are said. — Today, it will depend in many ways on how people decide to find the decisive, I might even say illuminating, points of view everywhere! Yesterday we pointed out how, with the deepening of the nature of the human soul, there must also be a deepening of concepts such as necessity. We pointed out how the feeling of the necessity of all that exists, and the fact that the individual being is placed within the necessity of existence, could be fateful for a human being such as Faust. Mauthner finds: Necessity — what is that? It is only a way of looking at things. For him, there is no reason whatsoever to think of the concept of necessity objectively in things themselves. Mauthner believes that the stream of world events flows around human beings. People have come along and said: Today the sun rose, yesterday it rose, the day before yesterday it rose. We will assume from this that it will also rise tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and so on. From these external thoughts in the regular succession of facts, they have formed the concept of necessity. It is necessary that the sun rises, they said. But this necessity is subjective; it is merely a human concept. And Mauthner says very nicely to the philosopher Husserl, who held the view that necessity is also objectively present in things: “If only I knew how necessity, a human way of looking at reality, could ever become objective.” If only I knew! — says Mauthner. You see, Mauthner lacks any possibility of understanding how something subjective can become objective. He is, I would say, a strange eurythmist, this Mauthner; he can never dance from the subjective into the objective because he has completely lost the ability to perform that figure within himself that leads from the subjective to the objective. And underlying this is the inability to seek being where the subjective truly passes over into the objective at a characteristic point. Let us try to bring such a point before our mind's eye.

When the human soul raises a question within itself, it wants an answer and will subjectively initiate all those processes, perform all those external or internal actions that can lead to the answer to such a question. Now you know that asking a question and finding an answer is really a subjective process. It is so subjective that one person does it skillfully, another unskillfully, in all possible nuances. This is really something that happens within us first. But let us assume the following. Let us assume that a person is truly consumed by a thirst for knowledge, filled with a thirst for knowledge, and therefore has to ask himself a question. He cannot find an answer to this question. That is subjective, isn't it? But let us now assume that time passes, as they say, and the person continues to live. The subjective process is that the person has experienced the question and has experienced not finding an answer, and now he continues to live. It may be that he later remembers the question, remembering that he did not receive an answer to it. But the opposite may happen. It may happen that the person concerned simply forgets the question. But this forgetting does not mean that the question and the absence of an answer are completely unreal in him, but rather that the person concerned has not found the answer. What is purely subjective may later become apparent to those who can see through these connections, namely that the person in question shows something uncertain in the way they live their life. If one knows how to observe closely, one will be able to say: This person has a strangely uncertain demeanor, something strangely uncertain in their gaze. When considering individual human lives, such connections will initially be subtle, but one will be able to discover them and realize that many uncertain gestures, uncertain looks, or similar behaviors in later years can be traced back to a question or set of questions that has not been answered. The fact that there is a gesture, that there is something uncertain in the look, is an objective fact, a completely objective fact! An objective fact has actually emerged from a subjective fact, has developed. In a sense, we can rediscover what we have experienced subjectively years later in the objective processes of our human being.

If you follow these points of view, you will find that there is a real way to answer questions that Mauthner cannot answer because of his inability to do so. That is why he says: “If only I knew how necessity, a human way of looking at reality, could ever become objective.” The subjective can indeed become objective! This is what will become particularly clear to us if we thoroughly consider what I pointed out yesterday: that memory, recollection, is basically a special state of consciousness alongside sleeping and waking. However, this remembering is only in its infancy today and will play a much greater role when human beings have progressed to the next planetary existence, and it will manifest itself in the recognition of what has been experienced in the past. In this recognition, what must be recognized appears before us in a completely different form than it was before. For example, when we subjectively experience something, it will quietly reappear after a long time in the individual human life. In the next incarnation, it will appear more significantly. Something that was previously a subjective experience will be able to confront us objectively in our external world. And when we ask about many things we have forgotten, “Where has it gone?”, — we would discover it if we were only willing to reflect seriously on what spiritual science gives us. We would discover in our lives what we have forgotten. That which has sunk down into the depths of the soul and is no longer in the subjective realm is at work and weaving in our subconscious below. The subjective always becomes objective!

You see, if you really want to understand life, you have to take these things very seriously and conscientiously. You have to try to train your thinking really conscientiously. For example, one must pay attention to errors in thinking, because they are intimately connected with errors in life. How easy it is to find people who say at every opportunity: “Well, I'm really not vain” — and yet the fact that they say this at every opportunity is out of vanity. They are so terribly vain that they say at every opportunity how un-vain they are! They have simply not considered sufficiently, not considered it through to its logical conclusion, that when a Cretan says, “All Cretans are liars,” this negates itself, for if a Cretan says this and it is true, then he must be a liar! So what he says, that all Cretans are liars, cannot be true. But it is necessary that such things be put into practice in life, that we really take care to make a certain subtlety of thought one of our habits. And so I would like to draw your attention to something that is characteristic of Mauthner's thinking in one of his many observations. Mauthner has an article entitled “Necessity” in his dictionary. In it, he endeavors to show how necessity is only a human concept, how necessity does not exist in things at all. In this article, for a very special reason, he performs this strange experiment of dancing around and wanting to get the pigtail and not being able to get it. For all that has become clear to him is that it is not necessary for necessity to prevail in things; that there is no necessity for necessity to prevail in things. Necessity could also prevail in things without it being necessary! The fact that Mauthner has realized that it is not necessary for necessity to prevail in things does not mean that there is no necessity in things; rather, it could be that it is not necessary for necessity to exist; that is what one must always take into account.

But for us the question arises: How can we seek necessity? Well, today I will try to point your thoughts in the right direction, merely by way of example, so to speak. Tomorrow I will go into these things in more detail. Take the thought: What we think subjectively goes down, becomes the content of our memory, but it also loses itself down there, becomes objective. And now we look out into the world and first seek the objective. We certainly find the objective in ourselves, even in our individual lives, in gestures, facial expressions, and so on. Just remember what I said at the end of yesterday's lecture: What was first subjective in the world, we later find objective. We then need to ask ourselves: Yes, can we perhaps also connect this objective with a subjective that once existed and has become this objective outside? — And so we would find in our world outside that everything to which we must attribute necessity would have become necessary by once falling out of the subjective and becoming objective. Transport yourself back from being on earth to being in the sun. There we are dealing with the beings who guided the sun. Just as we now think, feel, and want, these beings, who at that time, during the sun, experienced something subjectively in their souls, went through something, were active, will have done something similar. What they went through during the sun, we now find outside in the world. Now it confronts us as the world's gestures and expressions, as the world's physiognomy. It has become objective. To put it crudely, during the Sun era, a being radiated its will for my sake, completely subjectively, just as our subjective thoughts and feelings descend into memory and then become objective. Thus, this will, this radiating of the old sun beings, descended, became memory, and we now look at it from outside. Just as we look at some past experience of a human being from outside, objectively, so today we see in the light spreading from the sun a decision of will made by beings who acted subjectively during the old sun existence. We see it. We can truly say: Yes, when I see a person who has a certain stubbornness around their mouth in old age, that is certainly something completely objective that exists in the world. If I investigate this, I may be able to trace this stubbornness around their mouth back to some bitter experiences they had in their childhood. The subjective has become objective.

When I see what today is piled up as mountains, I will be able to trace back this feature of the earth, which is there for my sake in the piled-up form of the entire Alpine system. If I trace it back far enough, perhaps to the Saturn existence, I will have some kind of soul-spiritual experience that was lived through at that time and which, now fixed in the physical nature of the earth, represents the subjective experience of that time. Back then, it could have been different; back then, it could have been that those gods who experienced this or that spiritual thing could have decided to do something else; then, of course, the Alps would be different today. But just think: on Saturn, the gods decided to do something specific inwardly, then they passed through the sun and moon phases; then, as the moon developed into the earth, they could no longer change their minds. It is just as when we find it very difficult to catch up on something we did not learn in our eighteenth year. We can catch up, but the fact that we have to catch up causes something that would not have happened if we had gone through it earlier. From this you will see that during the Saturn epoch, the divine-spiritual beings were still free to make any decision, but once the decision had been made, they were no longer free during the Moon epoch to do anything other than have the Alps move from west to east. For example, they committed themselves precisely through what they had thought earlier; that cannot be undone. What has happened cannot be undone—if one wants to remain true to the truth. Subjectively, people can try to erase what they have experienced subjectively and what has become objective; but objectively, what has developed from this will not be erased. If, for example, I committed an act of negligence in my youth, if in my later youth I failed to educate someone I should have educated, this corresponds to my subjective view at the time. Later, after twenty years, I can deny that I was negligent at the time, but that does not change the objective reality that emerged from the subjective reality: the person I did not educate has become what he became as a result of my failure. The objective that has emerged from our subjective takes on the character of necessity; necessity cannot be denied. And to the extent that the subjective passes into the objective, necessity creeps into what is becoming objective. And in order to deny necessity, one must deny something.

If one follows the concepts strictly logically from this point of view, one finds an intimate connection between everything that is called necessary and everything that is past, that is, between necessity and the past. And in everything that confronts us in the present, the past reappears. The past is present in the present. And as much of the past as is present in the present, so much necessity is present in it. On the one hand, life freezes into the past. But in doing so, the past becomes necessary. — I would like to explain this to you a little more clearly: it is superstition to assume that in the ordinary course of events, what has been recognized as a lawful connection can be broken by a miracle. Why? As much must happen according to necessary rules as is present in events as past. And if the gods were to break what is lawful in a connection, they would be lying; they would be denying what they had established in times past. And just as little as we can change the past by a later assertion, so little can we change that part of the past which is necessary in things. And we cannot change anything in things that is past in things. The concept of necessity must grow together with the concept of the past. This is enormously important. In all things and in all beings there is the past, and therefore necessity. And there is as much necessity in things as there is past in things. And that is why what is necessary in things is necessity, because it is a recurring past, and what has happened cannot be denied. You can easily imagine something that is necessary today, because it happened in the past. It happened in the past, and now it confronts you in the mirror.

But you cannot change it in the mirror any more than you can remove a wart from your forehead when you look in the mirror. It would first have to be removed from your forehead. In the same way, you cannot change what appears necessary today, because what appears necessary today has in reality already happened in the past. It is over. It only appears in its later reflection. Everything that is necessary within us is actually over and only casts its reflection into us after the fact. And only when people rise to the task of understanding that things that already happened on the old moon, in the old sun existence, in the old Saturn existence, are now reflected in us, are only the mirror image of the old events in us, only then will necessity be understood.

And now think back to how a certain view leads us to find our conceptual world in the lunar existence. I have already explained how one would actually look back on the lunar tableau if one were to consider today's environment conceptually. There you have the connection. It is not at all true that certain things that now seem to be happening within us are really happening now. They only take place in the mirror. In reality, they took place in the earlier stages of our Earth's development. I said in previous lectures: We actually have empty heads. Why do we have empty heads? Because what is content took place earlier and now only the mirror image of earlier events is reflected, for example, in our heads. But if we cannot grasp this concept of reflection, we will always fall into the error of Maya, of external illusory reality, into which the child falls and into which, forgive me, modern science falls: one sees objects in the mirror and runs behind the mirror to look for them behind it. And when one gets behind the mirror, everything has disappeared. What is necessary has passed; and the fact that the past is reflected is the reason why there is necessity in the present. The past cannot be changed.

I admit that there is something to be said against these concepts, and so let us pause here and see how we can come to terms with them by tomorrow. Tomorrow we will move on to the concepts of chance and providence and link them to necessity.