Donate books to help fund our work. Learn more→

The Rudolf Steiner Archive

a project of Steiner Online Library, a public charity

Necessity and Freedom
GA 166

27 January 1916, Berlin

Lecture II

The day before yesterday I endeavored to show you the universal mystery of necessity and freedom in its two equally significant aspects: world processes and human action. I began by drawing your attention to the full significance and difficulty of this mystery that is both cosmic and human, and today we will continue along the same lines. I used a hypothetical example demonstrating this difficulty in regard to world events. I said, “Suppose a party of people had set out to drive through a ravine where there is an overhanging rock, and had arranged to go at a definite time. The chauffeur, however, is negligent and delays the departure by five minutes. Because of this, the party arrives at the spot beneath the rock at the very moment when the rock falls down.” According to external judgment, and I say “external” deliberately, one would have to say that all those people were buried beneath the rock because of the chauffeur's negligence, that is, because of a circumstance that was apparently someone's fault.

Last time I wanted mainly to emphasize that we should not approach a problem of this sort too hastily with our ordinary thinking and believe we can solve it that way. I showed that in the first place we use our thinking only for the physical plane, therefore it has become accustomed to dealing with those requirements only, and gets confused if we go a bit beyond these.

I would like today to go on to show the serious nature of the whole problem. For we shall not be able to approach any kind of solution in the lecture intended for Sunday, unless we also examine all the implications for human knowledge itself, unless we fully examine why we get lost in blind alleys of thinking precisely in life's most difficult problems, why we are, so to speak, lost in the woods and imagining we are making progress when we are really just going round in circles. We do not notice we are going round in circles until we realize we are back at our starting point again. The strange thing is that where our thinking is concerned, we do not notice that we return again and again to the same point. We will have more to say about this.

I have indicated that this important problem has to do with what we call the ahrimanic and luciferic forces in world events and in what approaches the human being in his actions and his whole thinking, feeling, and willing. I mentioned that as late as the fifteenth century people had a feeling that just as positive and negative electricity play a part in natural processes, and no physicist would hesitate to speak about them, so Ahriman and Lucifer could also be seen in events of the world, even if people did not use these names. I showed this by the apparently remote example of the clock in the old town hall of Prague that is so ingeniously constructed that in addition to being a clock it is also a sort of calendar showing the course of the planets and eclipses of the sun and moon. In fact, it is a great work of art created by a very talented man. I told you that there are documents showing that it was a professor of a Prague university who made this work of art, though this point is of no further interest to us, for those are only the processes that took place on the physical plane.

I explained that a simple folk tale grew out of the feeling that in an affair of this sort ahrimanic and luciferic forces play their part. The story tells us that this clock in the Prague town hall was made beautifully by a simple man who received the power to create it entirely through a kind of divine inspiration. The story then goes on to say that the governor wanted to keep this clock all for himself and would not allow anything like it to be made in any other town. So he had the clockmaker blinded and forced him to retire. Not until he felt death approaching was the clockmaker allowed to touch the clock again. And then, with skillful manipulation, he gave the clock such a jolt that it could actually never be put right again.

In this folk tale we feel that on the one hand there was a sensing of the luciferic principle in the governor who wanted to have sole possession of the clock that could only be constructed by a gift of grace from the good, progressive powers, and that as soon as Lucifer appeared, he was joined by Ahriman, for the clock-maker's ruining of the clock was an ahrimanic deed. The moment Lucifer is summoned—and the opposite is also the case—he is countered by Ahriman. It is not only in the composition of this story that we see people's feeling for Ahriman and Lucifer, we also see it in another aspect, namely in the form of the clock itself. We see that the clockmaker, too, wanted to include ahrimanic and luciferic forces in the very construction of the clock, for besides all that I have already told you of its artistic perfection, this clock included something else as well. Apart from the clock face, the planetary dial, and all the other things it had, there were figures on both sides of the clock, Death on one side and two figures on the other. One of these figures was a man holding a money-bag containing money he could jingle, and the other figure represented a man holding a mirror in which he could see himself all the time.

These two figures are exceptionally good examples of the person who gives himself up to external values: the rich miser, the ahrimanic person—and the luciferic person who wants perpetually to have his vanity aroused, the man looking at himself in the mirror. The clockmaker himself confronts ahrimanic and luciferic qualities and on the other side there is Death, the balancer (we shall say more about this later), put there as a reminder that through the constant alternation of life between death and birth and between birth and death human beings rise above the sphere in which Ahriman and Lucifer are active. Thus in the clock itself we see a wonderful presentation of the feeling still existing at that time for the ahrimanic and luciferic element.

We must bring a feeling for this element to life again in a certain way if we want to solve the difficult question we have introduced. Basically the world always confronts us as a duality. Look at nature. Mere nature always bears the stamp of rigid necessity. In fact, we know that it is the scientists' ideal to be able to calculate future occurrences mathematically on the basis of past ones. Ideally, scientists would like to deal with all natural phenomena in the same way as with future sun and moon eclipses, which can be predicted through calculations based on the constellations in the heavens. In relation to natural phenomena people feel they are confronting absolute rigid necessity. Ever since the fifteenth century people have grown accustomed to accepting rigid necessity as the model for their world outlook. This has gradually led to historical phenomena also being perceived as imbued with a similar rigid necessity.

Yet where historical phenomena are concerned we should also consider another aspect. Let us take an example quite apart from our own life situation, for instance, Goethe as a historical phenomenon.1Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749–1832, German poet, playwright, and novelist. In certain respects we also are inclined to regard the appearance of Goethe and all he produced as being based on a sort of rigid necessity. But someone might bring the argument “Goethe was born on August 28, 1749. If this boy had not been born into this family, what would have happened? Would we have had Goethe's works?” It might be pointed out that Goethe himself refers to the fact that his father and mother brought him up in a special way, each contributing something toward what he later became. Would his works have been created if he had been brought up differently? Again, let us look at Goethe's meeting with Karl August, Duke of Weimar.2Karl August, Duke of Weimar, 1757–1828, Duke of Saxony and Weimar 1758–1828. If the duke had not called Goethe to him and given him the kind of life we know he had from the 1770s onward, would entirely different works have resulted? Or might not Goethe even have been quite an ordinary cabinet secretary if he had been brought up differently at home, and the poetic urge had not already been so alive in him? What would German literature and art after Goethe's time have been like if all these things had been different?

All these questions can be asked, and they show the very profound significance of this question. But we have not yet fully arrived at an answer which would be other than superficial. We can go deeper still and ask different questions. Let us return to the artist who made the old Prague town hall clock. He put on it the figures of the rich miser with the money-bag, the vain man and, opposite them, Death. Now it is possible to say that the man accomplished something by putting the figures there. But if we express it like that, we are naming a cause of countless possible effects. For just imagine how many people have stood in front of that rich miser, the vain man looking at his reflection, and Death. And how many people have also seen an even smarter thing the clockmaker arranged. Namely, every time the clock was about to strike, Death began to move first, accompanying the striking of the hour with a ringing apparatus, then the other figure moved. Death nodded to the miser and the latter nodded back. All these things were there to be seen, and they were important guides for life. They made a deep impression on the beholder.

We see this from the fact that the folk tale goes on to relate something unusual. Whenever the clock was about to strike, the skeleton, Death, opened its mouth and people saw inside it a sparrow that longed for nothing more than to break free. But just as it was about to do so, the mouth closed, and it was shut in again for an hour. People told an ingenious legend about this opening and shutting of the mouth, showing what a significant thing “time” is—what we so abstractly call “time” and “the marching on of time.” They wanted to give an indication that there are deep secrets hidden here.

Let us imagine that a person might have stood in front of the clock. I want to mention this folk tale as an indication of the thoughts a person might have about it, or rather the imaginations a person might see, for that sparrow was not mere invention. Some of the people who looked at the clock saw the sparrow as an imagination. I just wanted to mention that. Let us look at it rationally for a moment. A person in a state of moral uncertainty might observe the clock and see Death nodding both to the rich man, who has become dependent on his riches, and to the vain man. And the impression this has on him could divert him from the possibility of being misled in his own state of moral wavering.

We can also imagine something else. Taking this aspect into consideration we could say that the man who constructed this work of art through divine inspiration has done a great deal of good. For a lot of people may have looked at this work of art and improved morally in certain respects. It might be said what a favorable karma this man must have had, being able to have a good effect on so many people's souls! And one might begin to wonder just how many people's souls he had helped by means of this imagination. One might begin to think of the artist's karma. One might say that the making of that clock and placing Death and Ahriman and Lucifer upon it was the most wonderful starting point for a favorable karma. One might indulge in such an outlook and say that there are people who trigger off a whole series of good deeds by means of one single deed. So this series of good deeds must be put down in their karma. And one could begin to wonder how each of one's own deeds should be carried out so that a similar series of good deeds can arise.

Here you see the beginning of a train of thought that can go astray. An attempt to think out how to set about doing deeds that produce a series of good deeds would be nonsense when it comes to making it a principle of life, wouldn't it? Someone might suggest that a stream of good deeds does spring from what that man did. But someone else could argue “No, I have followed up the matter of this clock and am convinced that there has not been much in the way of such results.” That person might be a pessimist and say that times are too evil for such good effects. People do not believe it when they see things like that. He has seen something quite different happening in many cases. He has seen people looking at the clock who had a democratic frame of mind and a smoldering hatred of the rich. And when a person like that saw the clock, he noticed that it was only the rich man to whom Death nodded and who nodded back. “I will put that into practice” he said, looked for the first miser he could find and murdered him. Similar deeds of hatred were done by other people. The clock-maker brought all these about through his work of art. That is what will have to be put down in his karma.

And again, taking a shortsighted view, someone could say “Perhaps after all one should not make a perfect work of art, one that has great inner value, because it might have the worst possible effects; it might have countless bad effects on one's karma.”

This draws our attention to an immense temptation for the whole range of human soul capacities and knowledge. For one only needs to look at oneself a little to see that people have the greatest inclination to ask about everything, “What was the result of it?” and to estimate the value of what has been done in accordance with the results. But in the same way as we started to speculate when we tried to think out whether the double numbers in the right column were as many as those in the left column or half as many, which was the example I gave you last time—just as we became mentally confused then, we are bound to become confused in our thinking now if we want to judge our actions by asking, “What result will they have, what effect will they have on my karma?”

Here again the folk tale is wiser, even more scientific, in the sense of spiritual science. For it is a very trivial thing to say, of course, but the folk tale does say that the clockmaker was a simple man. He had no intentions beside the thought that inspired him; he made the clock according to that, and did not speculate on what the results of his deed might be in any direction.

True, it cannot be denied—and this is what is so tempting—that you really may get somewhere if you think along these lines and ask what the results of a deed will be. It is tempting for the very reason that there are such things as actions where you have to ask what the consequences will be. And it would obviously be one-sided to draw the conclusion from what I have said that we should always behave like that clockmaker and not consider the consequences of our actions. For you have to have the consequences in mind if you thrash a boy for having been lazy. There are obviously cases like this where we have to have the consequences in mind. However, here lies the very point we must take to heart and examine closely, namely, that we relate to the world in two ways.

On the one hand, we receive impressions from the physical plane, and on the other hand we receive impressions from the spiritual world, as indicated in the legend, when it tells us that the artist was a simple man inspired by a gift of grace from above. When we are given these impressions by the spiritual world, when our souls are stimulated to do a particular thing, those are the moments in life when we have a second kind of certainty, a second kind of truth—not in an objective but a subjective sense—when we are guided by truth, we have a second kind of certainty, which is direct, and which we cannot but accept as such. This is the root of the matter.

On the one hand we are in the physical world, and in this world it looks as though every event follows naturally from the preceding one. But we are also within the spiritual world. In the last lecture I tried to show that just as we have an etheric body within our physical body, there is also a supersensible element active in the whole stream of events of the physical world. We are also placed within this supersensible activity, and from this proceed those impulses that are absolutely unique and that we have to follow quite regardless of the results, especially those in the physical world. Because human beings are in the world, they acquire a kind of certainty when they examine external things. This is how people observe nature. Observing natural phenomena is the only way to come to any certainty about cause and effect. On the other hand, however, we can receive direct certainty if we want it, by really opening our souls to its influences. Then we have to stop and give our full attention to a phenomenon, and know to evaluate it on the basis of its intrinsic value.

This, of course, is difficult. Yet we are constantly being given a chance, a crucial one, by the very phenomena themselves, particularly historical ones, to appreciate events and processes according to their intrinsic value. This is always necessary. But if we go more closely into questions that would lead us very far if we understood them rightly, we find a sphere where confusion in thinking is very marked. As a rule this confusion cannot be controlled by the individual. Let us take the phenomenon of Goethe's Faust.3Faust, dramatic poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It is an artistic creation, isn't it? There will be very few people in this hall, particularly as we have made a number of studies of Faust, who will not hold the opinion that Goethe's Faust is a great work of art, one that is tantamount to an inspiration of grace.

Through Goethe's Faust, German cultural life in a sense conquered the cultural life of other nations too. Even in Goethe's lifetime Faust had a strong influence on many people. They regarded it as an absolutely unique work of art. However, a certain German was particularly annoyed that Madame de Stael expressed such an extraordinarily favorable opinion of it.4Madame de Stael (Germaine de Stael), 1766–1817, French writer and intellectual. I would just like to read you this man's opinion, so that you see that about such things that have to be judged individually there can be different opinions from those you may consider at this moment to be the only opinions one can possibly have of Goethe's Faust.

This critical opinion was written down in 1822 by a certain Franz von Spaun.5Franz von Spaun, 1753–1826, German essayist. The quotation from Faust is from Part I, “Night,” Translated by Sir Theodore Martin. Everyman's Library, (London: Dent, 1971). Here is his criticism of Goethe's Faust, which begins right away with the “Prologue in Heaven:”

[Right from the Prologue] we see that Herr von Goethe is a very bad versifier and that the Prologue itself is a true sample of how one ought not to write verse.

Past ages show nothing that can compare with this Prologue for presumptuous paltriness. ... But I must be brief, for I have undertaken a long and, alas, wearisome piece of work. I have to point out to the reader that this notorious Faust enjoys an usurped and unmerited renown that it owes only to the pernicious esprit de corps of an Associato obscurorum vitorum. ... It is not because I wish to rival this renown that I am compelled to vent the sarcasm of harsh criticism upon Goethe's Faust. I do not travel by his path to Parnassus, and should have been glad if he had enriched our German language with a masterpiece. ... Among the multitudes who applaud, my voice may be extinguished, yet it is enough for me to have done my best; and if I succeed in converting even one reader and recalling him from the worship of this atrocity, I shall not grudge my thankless labor. ... The wretched Faust speaks an incomprehensible gibberish, in the most atrocious rhyme of any fifth grade student. My teacher would have thrashed me soundly if I had made inferior verses such as the following:

Oh, broad bright moon, if this might be
The last of the nights of agony,
The countless midnights of toil and ache,
I've pass'd at this dreary desk awake!

Concerning the baseness of the diction, the paltriness of the verse, I will henceforth be silent; what the reader has seen is sufficient proof that the author, as far as the construction of his verse is concerned, cannot stand comparison with the mediocre poets of the old school. ...

Mephistopheles himself realized even before the contract was signed that Faust was possessed by a devil. We, however, think he belongs in a lunatic asylum rather than in Hell, with all his accessories—hands and feet, head and posterior. Of sublime galimatias, of nonsense in high-faluting words, many poets have given us samples, but Goethe's nonsense or galimatias might be called a popular galimatias, a genre nouveau, for it is presented in the commonest, most atrocious language.

The more I think about this long litany of nonsense, the more probable it seems to me that there must have been a wager to the effect that if a celebrated man permitted himself to patch together the dullest, most boring nonsense, a legion of literary simpletons and deluded readers would find deep wisdom and great beauty in this insipid nonsense and know how to expound upon it. Famous men have this in common with Prince Piribinker and the immortal Dalai Lama that their rubbish is served up as sweetmeats and revered as relics. If this was Herr von Goethe's intention, he has won the wager....

There may well be some intentions behind Faust, yet a good poet does not hurl them at his readers; he should know the art of presenting and illuminating them properly. A richer theme for poetry than this is not easy to find, and people will be cross with him for bungling it so miserably. . ..

This diarrhea of undigested ideas is not caused by an excessive flow of healthy fluids but by a relaxation of the floodgates of the mind, and is an indication of a weak constitution. There are people from whom bad verse flows like water, but this incontinentia urinae poeticae, this diabetes mellitus of lame verses never afflicts a good poet. ... If Goethe's genius has freed itself from all fetters, the flood of his ideas cannot break through the dams of art, for they have already been broken through. Yet although we do not disapprove of an author's breaking away from the conventional rules of composition, he must still hold sacred the laws of sound human reason, of grammar and rhythm. Even in dramas where magic plays a part, he is only allowed the machinery of hypothesis, and he must remain faithful to this. He must make a good plot with a knot to be unraveled and the magic must lead to grand results. In the case of Faust the outcome is to seduce the victims to dastardly crimes, and his seducer does not need magic; everything he does any matchmaking scoundrel could have done just as well without witchcraft. He is as stingy as a miser, not using the hidden treasures at his command.

In short, a miserable wretch who might learn something from Lessing's Marinelli. Therefore, in the name of sound human reason I quash the opinion of Madame de Stael in favor of the aforesaid Faust and condemn it, not to Hell, which might be cooled off by this frigid production that even has a wintry effect on the devil, but to be thrown into the sewer of Parnassus. And by rights.

As you see, this judgment was actually passed upon Faust at one time, and the context in which the man passed it does not at all prove him to be entirely dishonest, but someone who believed what he wrote. Now imagine what would have happened if this man, who said that his own fifth grade teacher would have kept him from writing such rubbish as Faust, had himself become a school teacher and passed on this nonsense to a great number of boys. These boys might in their turn have become teachers and remembered something of this verdict on Faust. Just think of all the speculations you can make regarding all the karmic damage this person might have done by means of his judgment.

However, I am less concerned about that than about the fact that it is difficult to form a true, permanent judgment concerning events possessing their own intrinsic value. I have emphasized in some of my lectures that many a great personality of the nineteenth century will no longer be considered great in centuries to come, whereas people who have been quite forgotten will by that time be regarded as very significant indeed. Time puts such things right. I only wanted to point out how extremely difficult it is to form a judgment about an event needing to be looked at on its own merit.

We must now ask why that causes us such difficulty. We shall begin our reflections by seeing the critic as a different person from the one who is being judged. Nowadays we would say that the people who even in those days considered Goethe's Faust to be a great work of art and in a certain way judged it objectively eliminated themselves, so to speak. The man who wrote what I have just been reading to you did not eliminate himself. How do we arrive at judgments that are not objective? People judge without objectivity so often that it never occurs to them to ask why they do this. They do it because of the forces of sympathy and antipathy. Without sympathy and antipathy our judgments would never be other than objective.

Sympathy and antipathy are necessary in order to obscure the objectivity of judgment. Does this mean they are bad, however, and that we ought immediately to do away with them? We need only reflect a little to find that this is not so. For no sooner do we engross ourselves in Goethe's Faust than we like it and develop more and more feelings of sympathy towards it. We must have the possibility to develop sympathy. And after all, if we were unable to develop antipathy we would not arrive at an absolutely correct judgment of the man whose opinion we have just heard. For I imagine some antipathetic feelings against the man may have arisen in you, and they could well be justified.

But there again we see that it depends on not accepting these things as absolute but considering them in their whole context. It is not merely that human beings are brought to feelings of sympathy and antipathy by outer things but that we carry sympathy and antipathy into life. We bring our sympathy and antipathy to meet the things themselves, so that they do not work upon us but upon our sympathy and antipathy. What does this mean? I approach an object or a process accompanied by my sympathy and antipathy. Naturally the man I was speaking about did not exactly bring along his antipathy to Faust but he brought the kind of feelings that made him see Faust as antipathetic. He judged absolutely according to his instincts.

What does this signify? It means that sympathy and antipathy, to start with, are only words for real spiritual facts. And the real spiritual facts are the deeds of Lucifer and Ahriman. In a certain way Lucifer is in every expression of sympathy and Ahriman in every expression of antipathy. By letting ourselves be carried through the world by sympathy and antipathy, we are letting ourselves be carried through the world by Lucifer and Ahriman. Only we must not fall into the mistake I have often described and say yet again “We must flee from both Lucifer and Ahriman! We want to become good. So we must avoid Lucifer and Ahriman, avoid them at all costs! We must drive them away, right away!” For then we should also have to leave the world. For just as there can be both positive and negative electricity and not only the balance between them, so we encounter Lucifer and Ahriman wherever we go. It all depends on how we relate to them. These two forces must be there. The important thing is that we always bring them into balance in life. For instance, without Lucifer art would not exist. What matters is that we create art that is not purely luciferic.

Thus it is a matter of becoming aware that when we confront the world with sympathy and antipathy, Lucifer and Ahriman are at work in us. That is to say, we must be able to allow Lucifer and Ahriman really to be active in us. But while we are conscious that they are at work in us, we must nevertheless acquire the capacity to confront things objectively. This we can do only if we consider not merely how we judge external things and events in the world outside us, but also consider how we judge ourselves in the world. And this “judging ourselves in the world” leads us a step further into the question and the whole complex of questions we started with. We can form a judgment of ourselves in the world only if we apply to ourselves a uniform method of consideration. We must now consider this problem.

We look out upon nature. On the one hand, we see rigid necessity; one thing arising from another. We look at our own deeds and believe that they are subject only to freedom and are connected solely with guilt and atonement and so on. Both views are one-sided. In what follows it will be shown that each view is one-sided because neither correctly estimates the position of Lucifer and Ahriman. If we look at ourselves as human beings existing here on the physical plane, we cannot look into our own souls and see only what is taking place in the immediate present. If each one of us were to ask ourselves what is taking place within us right now, it would certainly be a piece of insight into ourselves. Yet this insight would be far from giving us everything we required even for superficial self-knowledge.

Without hurting anyone's feelings, of course, let us consider all of us here: I who am speaking and you who are listening. I would not be able to speak as I do if it were not for everything that has previously happened in my present life and in other incarnations. Looking only at what I am saying to you now would produce a very one-sided kind of self-knowledge. But without hurting anyone's feelings it must be obvious that each one of you listens differently, and understands and feels what I say slightly differently. That goes without saying. In fact your understanding is in accordance with your life up to now and your previous incarnations. If each one of you did not grasp differently what is being said, you would not really be human beings.

But that leads much further. It leads to the recognition of a duality in ourselves. Just think for a moment that when you pass judgment, you do it in a certain way. Let us take a random example. If you see one thing or another, a play directed by Max Reinhardt, for example, you say, “It is charming!” while someone else says “That is the ruin of all art!”6Max Reinhardt, 1873–1943, director of the German theater in Berlin. I am certainly not criticizing either opinion just now. It is possible for one person to say this and another that. On what does it depend that one person has a different opinion from another? That depends again on what is already in them, upon the assumptions with which they approach matters.

But if you think about these assumptions, you will be able to say “At one time these assumptions did not exist.” What you saw when you were eighteen, for instance, or learned at the age of thirteen, enters into your present judgments. It has become part of your whole thinking, resides in you, and contributes to your judgment. Everyone can of course perceive this in himself if he wishes to do so. It contributes to your judgment. Ask yourself whether you can change what is now in you, or whether you can tear it out of yourself. Think about it for a moment! If we could tear it out, we would be taking away the whole of our life up to now; we would be obliterating ourselves. We can no more get rid of our previous resolutions and decisions than we can give ourselves another nose if we do not like what we see in the mirror.

It is obvious that you cannot obliterate your past. Yet if you wish to rise early in the morning, you see, a resolution is always necessary. This resolution, however, is really dependent upon the prior conditions of your present incarnation. It depends on other things as well. If we say it depends on this or that, does that detract from the fact that I have to resolve to get up? This decision to get up may be so faint that we do not notice it at all, but at least a faint resolve to get up has to be there, that is to say, getting up must be a free deed.

I knew a man who belonged for a time to our Society and who is a good illustration of this, for he actually never wanted to get up. He suffered terribly because of it, and often deplored it. He said, “I simply cannot get up! Unless something occurs in the way of an external necessity to make me rise from my bed, I would stay there forever.” He confessed this openly, for he found it a terrible temptation in life not to want to get up. From this you can easily see that it really is a free deed. And although certain prior conditions have been laid down in us which suggest one or another motive, it does not prevent our doing a free deed in the particular instance.

In a certain way it is like this: Some people drag themselves out of bed with the help of strong determination, while others enjoy getting up. We could easily say that this shows us that the existing prior conditions signify that the one was brought up well and the other badly. We can see a certain necessity there, yet it is always a free decision. Thus we see in one and the same fact, in the fact of getting up, free will and necessity interwoven, thoroughly interwoven. One and the same thing contains both freedom and necessity. And I beg you to note well that, rightly considered, we cannot dispute whether a person is free or unfree in a certain matter, but we can only say that first of all freedom and necessity are intermingled in every human deed.

How does this happen? We shall not progress with our spiritual science unless we realize that we have to consider things both from the human and the cosmic standpoint. Why is this so? It is because what works in us as necessity—I will now say something relatively simple yet of tremendous significance—what we regard as necessity belongs to the past. What works in us as necessity must always be from the past. We must have experienced something, and this experience must have been stored up in our souls. It is then within our soul and continues to work there as necessity.

You can now say that everybody bears his past within him, and this means bearing a necessity within him. What belongs to the present does not yet work as necessity, otherwise there would be no free deed in the immediate present. But the past works into the present and combines with freedom. Because the past works on, freedom and necessity are intimately connected in one and the same deed.

Thus if we really look into ourselves, we will see that necessity exists not only outside us in nature but also within ourselves. When we look at this latter kind of necessity, we have to look at our past. This is an extremely important point of view for a spiritual scientist. He learns to understand the connection between past and necessity. Then he begins to examine nature, and finds necessity there. And in examining natural phenomena he realizes that all the necessities the natural scientist finds in nature are the result of past events. What is nature as a whole, the whole realm of nature with its necessity?

We cannot answer that unless we look for the answer on the basis of spiritual science. We are now living in earth existence, a condition which was preceded by the moon, sun and Saturn conditions. In the Saturn condition, as you see in Occult Science, the planet did not look like the earth does now but entirely differently.7Rudolf Steiner, An Outline of Occult Science, (Spring Valley, N.Y.: Anthroposophic Press, 1972). If you examine Saturn, you will see that then everything was still of a thought like nature. Stones did not yet fall to the ground. Dense physical matter did not exist as yet. Everything came from the activity of warmth. This state is similar to what goes on within the human being itself. Everything is soul activity, thoughts that divine spirits have left behind. And they have remained in existence.

All of present nature that you understand with its necessity was once in a state of freedom, a free deed of the gods. Only because it is past, because what developed on Saturn, sun, and moon has come to us in the same way as our childhood thoughts continue to work in us, the thoughts of the gods during Saturn, sun, and moon continue their existence on earth. And because they are past thoughts, they appear to us as necessity.

If you now put your hand on a solid object, what does that mean? It means that what is in the solid object was once being thought in the long distant past, and has remained in the same way as your childhood thoughts have remained in you. If you look at your past, regarding past activities as something living, you see nature in the process of becoming within you. Just as what you now think and say is not a necessity but is free, so earth's present state was once free in earlier stages of existence. Freedom continually evolves, and what is left behind becomes necessity. If we were to see what is taking place in nature now, it would not occur to us to see it as a necessity. What we see of nature is only what has been left behind. What is happening now in nature is spiritual, and we do not see that.

This gives human self-knowledge a very special cosmic significance. We think a thought. It is now within us. Certainly we might also not think it. But if we think it, it remains in our soul, where it becomes an activity of the past. It now works on as a necessity, a delicate, insubstantial necessity, and not dense matter like outer nature because we are human beings, not gods. We can perceive only the inner nature that remains in us as memory and is operative in what are necessities for us. But our current thoughts will become external nature in the coming Jupiter and Venus conditions. They will then be the external environment. And what we now see as nature was once the thoughts of the gods.

Nowadays we speak of angels, archangels, archai, and so on. They were thinking in the past, just as we are thinking today. And what they thought has remained as their memory, and it is this memory we now perceive. We can only perceive within us what we remember during earth existence. But inwardly it has become nature. What the gods thought during earlier planetary conditions has been externalized and we see it as external nature.

It is true, profoundly true, that as long as we are earthly human beings we think. We send our thoughts down into our soul life. There they become the beginning of a natural world. But they remain in us. Yet when the Jupiter existence comes, they will come forth. And what we are thinking today, in fact all that we experience, will then be the external world. The external world we will then look down upon from a higher level will be what is now our inner world. What is experienced at one time in freedom changes into necessity.

These are very, very important aspects, and only when we see the world in this way will we be able to understand the real course of historical events and the significance of today's events. For these lead us directly to the point where we always pursue the path from subjectivity to objectivity. Strictly speaking, we can be subjective only in the present. As soon as the present is over, and we have pushed the subjective elements down into our soul life, they acquire independent existence, though at first only within us. As we continue living with other thoughts, the earlier thoughts live on, only in us, of course. For the time being we still house them. But this covering will some day fall away.

In the spiritual realm matters are very different. So you must look at events, such as the hypothetical one I gave you, from this different point of view. Looked at from outside, a boulder fell and buried a party of people. But that was only the external expression of something that happened in the spiritual world, this latter event being the other half of the experience and existing just as objectively as the first one. This is what I wanted to present to you today, showing how freedom and necessity play into one another in world evolution and in the evolution in which we are involved as living beings; how we are interwoven with the world, and how we ourselves are daily, hourly, becoming what nature shows us externally. Our past, while within us, is already a piece of nature. We progress beyond this piece of nature by evolving further, just as the gods progressed in their evolution beyond their nature stage and became the higher hierarchies.

This is only one of the ways, of which there are many, that ought to show us again and again that nothing taking place on the physical plane can be judged solely according to its physical aspect, but should be judged based on the knowledge that it has a hidden spiritual content in addition to the physical one. As sure as our physical body has an etheric body in it, everything perceived by the senses has a supersensible part underlying it. Therefore, we must conclude that we are really regarding the world in a very incomplete way if we examine it solely according to what it presents to our eyes and according to what takes place externally, for while something quite different is taking place externally, inwardly something can be happening spiritually that belongs to the outer event and is of immensely greater significance than what is presented to our senses. What the souls of the people who were buried under the boulder experienced in the spiritual world may be infinitely more important than what happened physically. The occurrence has something to do with the future of those souls, as we shall see.

Let us interrupt these thoughts at this point today and continue them next Sunday. My aim today was to bring your thoughts and ideas into the direction that will show you that we can only acquire correct concepts of freedom and necessity, guilt and atonement, and so on, if we add the spiritual aspect to the physical one.

Zweiter Vortrag

Ich versuchte vorgestern hinzuweisen auf das gleich bedeutungsvolle Rätsel, das Weltengeheimnis von Notwendigkeit und Freiheit im Weltengeschehen und im menschlichen Handeln. Ich versuchte zunächst einmal, und auch die heutige Betrachtung wird sich noch in derselben Bahn halten müssen, auf die ganze Bedeutung und Schwierigkeit dieses Weltenrätsels und Menschheitsrätsels aufmerksam zu machen. Ich versuchte, durch ein hypothetisches Beispiel darauf hinzuweisen, wie uns im Weltengeschehen diese Frage entgegentreten kann. Ich sagte: Nehmen wir einmal an, eine Gesellschaft hätte sich aufgemacht, durch eine Bergschlucht zu fahren, im Laufe welcher ein überhängender Felsen ist, und die Zeit wäre ganz genau angesetzt. Der Kutscher aber versäumt durch eine Nachlässigkeit, fährt fünf Minuten zu spät ab. Dadurch kommt die Gesellschaft gerade in dem Augenblick, als der Fels abstürzt, an die betreffende Stelle, die unter dem Felsen ist. Man muß sagen nach äußerer Beurteilung - ich sage ausdrücklich: nach äußerer Beurteilung -, durch die Saumseligkeit des Kutschers, also durch ein Ereignis, das wie durch eines Menschen Schuld hereingetreten ist, sei die ganze Reisegesellschaft verschüttet worden.

Das letzte Mal wollte ich hauptsächlich darauf aufmerksam machen, daß wir nicht zu schnell mit unserem gewöhnlichen Denken an ein solches Rätsel herantreten sollen und glauben, es lösen zu können. Ich habe darauf aufmerksam gemacht, wie dieses menschliche Denken, das wir ja zunächst nur für den physischen Plan brauchen, sich auch gewöhnt hat, nur auf die Bedürfnisse des physischen Planes Rücksicht zu nehmen, und wie dieses menschliche Denken in Verwirrung kommt, wenn es ein wenig über den physischen Plan hinausgeführt wird. Heute möchte ich durch weiteres vor allen Dingen auf das Schwerwiegende des ganzen Rätsels hinweisen. Denn wir werden erst in der nächsten Betrachtung, die am Sonntag hier sein soll, uns einer Art Lösung dieses ganzen Problems nähern können, wenn wir es in seiner ganzen 'Tragweite und in seiner ganzen Bedeutung, auch für das menschliche Erkennen selbst überschauen; wenn wir zum Beispiel vollständig überschauen, wie wir hineingeraten können, gerade gegenüber den schwierigsten Lebensproblemen, in Spintisiererei, in ein Drängen und Leiten der Gedanken, die uns gewissermaßen in die Irre führen, so daß wir uns wie in einem Walde befinden, in dem wir weitergehen und glauben, weiter zu kommen, während wir uns im Grunde genommen im Kreise drehen. Erst wenn wir sehen, daß wir wieder auf den Punkt zurückgekommen sind, bemerken wir, daß wir uns im Kreise gedreht haben. Das Merkwürdige ist nur, daß wir beim menschlichen Denken nicht bemerken, wie wir immer und immer wieder auf demselben Punkte ankommen. Aber auch darüber wollen wir noch sprechen.

Ich habe angedeutet, daß dieses bedeutsame Problem zusammenhängt mit dem, was wir die Kräfte des Ahriman und die Kräfte des Luzifer nennen im Weltengeschehen und in dem, was an den Menschen in seinem Handeln, in seinem ganzen Denken, Fühlen und Wollen herantritt. Ich habe bemerkt, daß man noch bis in das 15. Jahrhundert herein sehen kann, wie die Menschen ein Gefühl gehabt haben davon, daß ebenso, wie in das Naturgeschehen positive und negative Elektrizität hereinspielt, und wie sich kein Physiker geniert, von positiver und negativer Elektrizität zu sprechen, so die Menschen auch gewußt haben das Ahrimanische und Luziferische doch im Weltgeschehen zu sehen, wenn sie auch diese Namen nicht ausgesprochen haben. Ich habe da auf ein anscheinend sehr fernliegendes Beispiel hingewiesen: auf die Uhr des Prager Altstädtischen Rathauses, die so kunstvoll eingerichtet ist, daß sie nicht bloß eine Uhr, sondern eine Art Kalender ist, so daß man jedes Ereignis darauf sieht, daß man auch den Gang der Planeten darauf sieht, daß man Sonnen- und Mondenfinsternisse, wenn sie eintreten, an der Uhr ablesen kann. Kurz, es hat da ein sehr kunstsinniger Mann ein großes Kunstwerk zustande gebracht. Ich habe darauf aufmerksam gemacht, daß man dokumentarisch nun sehr gut nachweisen kann, wie ein Professor einer Prager Hochschule dieses Kunstwerk zustande gebracht hat, daß uns das aber nicht weiter interessieren kann, denn das sind die Vorgänge, die sich auf dem physischen Plane abgespielt haben. Ich habe aber darauf hingewiesen, wie eine einfache Volkssage sich ausgebildet hat, in dem Gefühl, daß in ein solches Ereignis auch die ahrimanischen und luziferischen Kräfte hereinspielen, die Sage, daß diese Uhr also kunstvoll am Rathaus der Prager Altstadt angebracht worden ist durch einen Mann, der ein einfacher Mann war, der die ganze Begabung dazu durch eine Art göttlicher Eingebung erhalten hat, und daß dann die Sage weiter erzählt: aber der Herrscher, der wollte diese Uhr nur für sich allein haben, wollte nicht dulden, daß auch noch in irgendeiner anderen Stadt eine solche Uhr oder etwas Ähnliches konstruiert werde. Daher habe er den Meister der Uhr blenden lassen. Der mußte sich dann fernhalten. Nur als er seinen Tod herannahen fühlte, wurde ihm noch gestattet, an die Uhr heranzugehen. Und da gab er durch einen geschickten Eingriff der Uhr einen Stoß, und die Folge war, daß man sie eigentlich niemals wiederum in Ordnung bringen konnte.

In dieser Volkssage fühlt man, wie auf der einen Seite eben die Empfindung vorhanden war für das luziferische Prinzip, für jenes luziferische Prinzip in dem Herrscher, der die Uhr nur für sich allein haben wollte, die allein durch eine Gnadengabe konstruiert werden konnte, die also hereingekommen ist durch die guten, fortschreitenden göttlichen Mächte; und wie dann, sobald Luzifer aufgetreten ist, Ahriman dazu kommt, denn das war eine ahrimanische Tat, daß dann der geblendete Meister dieser Uhr durch seine Geschicklichkeit die Uhr verdorben hat. In dem Augenblick, wo Luzifer aufgerufen ist - und das Umgekehrte ist auch der Fall - kommt durch einen Gegenschlag dann Ahriman. Daß aber nicht nur das Volk in der Bildung dieser Sage etwas von Ahriman und Luzifer gefühlt hat, das geht noch aus etwas anderem hervor. Das geht aus der Ausgestaltung der Uhr selber hervor. Daraus geht hervor, daß auch der Meister ahrimanische und luziferische Kräfte anbringen wollte, indem er gerade diese Uhr konstruierte, denn diese Uhr zeigt außer dem, was ich Ihnen schon beschrieben habe an Kunstvollendetem, noch etwas ganz anderes. Es sind außer dem allem, was da angebracht ist, außer dem Zifferblatt, der Planetenscheibe und so weiter, noch auf den beiden Seiten Figuren angebracht, und zwar auf der einen Seite der Tod, und auf der anderen Seite zwei Figuren: die eine ein Mann, welcher einen Geldbeutel in der Hand hat mit dem Geld darin er klappern kann. Die andere Figur stellt dar einen Mann, dem ein Spiegel vorgehalten wird, so daß er immer sich selber sehen kann. Also wir haben in diesen zwei Figuren außerordentlich schön den Menschen, der hingegeben ist in seinem Wert an das Äußere: den reichen Geizhals, den ahrimanischen Menschen, und den luziferischen Menschen, der die Kräfte seiner Eitelkeit fortwährend aufgerufen haben will, in dem Menschen, dem der Spiegel vorgehalten ist, der fortwährend sich selber ansehen kann. Wir haben also durch den Meister selber das Ahrimanische und das Luziferische einander gegenübergestellt, und wir haben auf die andere Seite gestellt den Tod, das ist das Ausgleichende - wir werden auch davon noch zu sprechen haben -, das ist dasjenige, was dastehen soll eben als eine Mahnung daran, wie durch die fortwährende Abwechslung vom Leben zwischen Tod und Geburt und Geburt und Tod der Mensch eben hinauskommt über die Sphäre, in der Ahriman und Luzifer walten. Wir sehen also in der Uhr selber in einer wunderbaren Weise dargestellt, wie damals noch ein Gefühl für das Ahrimanische und Luziferische vorhanden war.

Dieses Gefühl für das Ahrimanische und Luziferische müssen wir uns in einer gewissen Weise beleben, wenn wir zu einer Lösung der angedeuteten schwierigen Frage kommen wollen. Im Grunde genommen tritt uns ja die Welt wirklich immer in einer Zweiheit entgegen. Schauen wir auf die Natur. Was bloß Natur ist, tritt uns wirklich entgegen, wir können sagen, in der Signatur, in dem Ausdruck, mit der Offenbarung einer starren Notwendigkeit. Wir wissen Ja, daß es sogar das Ideal des Naturforschers ist, künftige Ereignisse mathematisch aus den vorhergehenden Ereignissen berechnen zu können. Ein Ideal ist es, allen Naturerscheinungen gegenüber es so machen zu können, wie den künftigen Sonnen- und Mondesfinsternissen gegenüber, die man aus den Konstellationen der Himmelskörper vorherberechnen kann. Also das fühlt der Mensch: sofern er den Naturereignissen gegenübersteht, steht er gegenüber einer starren Notwendigkeit, einer absoluten Notwendigkeit. Gerade seit dem 15. Jahrhundert haben sich die Menschen gewöhnt, so recht diese starre Notwendigkeit sich zum Muster überhaupt einer Weltenbetrachtung zu nehmen. Dadurch ist es allmählich entstanden, daß man nun auch geschichtliche Ereignisse mit einer solchen starren Notwendigkeit durchzieht.

Nun aber muß man bei geschichtlichen Ereignissen auf der anderen Seite wiederum folgendes in Betracht ziehen. Wir wollen, nicht wahr, ein Ereignis nehmen, das unabhängig ist von der einen oder anderen Lebenssituation, in der wir sind. Nehmen wir also zum Beispiel einmal das geschichtliche Ereignis Goethe. Man hat in gewisser Beziehung das Bedürfnis, auch eine solche Erscheinung wie das Auftreten Goethes und all dasjenige, was er geschaffen hat, als in einer Art starrer Notwendigkeit begründet zu betrachten. Da kann aber einer kommen und kann sagen: Ja, aber sieh nur einmal an, Goethe ist doch am 28. August 1749 geboren. Wäre in dieser Familie nicht dieser Knabe geboren worden, was wäre denn dann geworden? Hätten wir dann auch die Werke Goethes? - Man könnte dann zeigen, daß Goethe ja selber darauf hinwies, wie er von seinem Vater und seiner Mutter in einer eigentümlichen Weise erzogen ist, wie jedes einen Beitrag geliefert hat zu der Art und Weise, wie er später geworden ist. Wenn er anders erzogen worden wäre, würden dann diese Werke entstanden sein? Und wir schauen hin auf das Zusammentreffen des Herzogs Karl August von Weimar mit Goethe. Hätte ihn der nicht gerufen, hätte ihm der nicht das gegeben, was wir als seinen Lebensverlauf von den siebziger Jahren an kennen, wären nicht da vielleicht ganz andere Werke entstanden? Oder hätte es nicht sogar sein können, daß Goethe ein ganz gewöhnlicher Minister geworden wäre, wenn er anders in seinem Vaterhause erzogen worden wäre, wenn nicht schon damals der dichterische Drang so lebendig in ihm gewaltet hätte? Wie würde sich dann dasjenige ausnehmen, was seit Goethe der Inhalt der deutschen Literatur und Kunst geworden ist, wenn das alles anders geworden wäre?

Das sind alles Fragen, die aufgeworfen werden können und die uns die ganze tiefe Bedeutung dieses Rätsels vor Augen stellen können. Aber was einer oberflächlichen Lösung entgegensteht, das kommt uns da noch nicht ganz ordentlich vor Augen. Wir können noch tiefer gehen und noch andere Fragen stellen. Schauen wir zum Beispiel wiederum auf den Künstler, der jene Uhr auf dem Altstädtischen Prager Rathaus zustande gebracht hat. Er hat diese Figuren hinaufgestellt: den reichen Geizhals mit dem Geldbeutel, hat hinaufgestellt also den eitlen Menschen, und den Tod gegenübergestellt. Nun kann man sagen: Damit hat dieser Mann etwas getan, er hat das hinaufgestellt. Aber indem wir das aussprechen, sprechen wir eine Ursache aus für unendlich viele mögliche Wirkungen. Denn stellen Sie sich das lebhaft vor, wie viele Menschen davorgestanden haben, vor diesem reichen Geizhals, vor diesem eitlen Menschen, dem sein Bild gezeigt wird, vor dem Tod. Und wie viele Menschen auch noch das gesehen haben, was noch eine weit größere Kunst dieses Uhrmachers war: nämlich jedesmal, wenn die Stunde schlagen sollte, bewegte sich zunächst der Tod, der den Stundenschlag durch ein Läutwerk begleitete, und die andere Figur bewegte sich auch, und es winkte der Tod hinüber dem reichen Geizhals, und der winkte wiederum zurück. Das alles konnte man sehen. Das alles waren wichtige Merkzeichen für das Leben. Das alles konnte einen Eindruck machen auf einen Menschen, der davorstand. Es hat das auch einen tiefen Eindruck gemacht. Das geht daraus hervor, daß die Volkssage noch weiteres ausgebildet hat, daß sie nämlich noch etwas Besonderes erzählt: Der Tod, dieses Skelett, hatte nämlich eigentümlicherweise jedesmal, wenn die Stunde schlagen sollte, den Mund aufgerissen, aufgeklappt, und die Volkssage sagte: Jedesmal, wenn man da hinschaut, sieht man, wie aus dem Mund ein Sperling herauskommt, ein Spatz, und dieser hat nur die einzige Sehnsucht, wieder herauszukommen in die freie Luft. Aber wenn er herauskommen will, so klappt der Mund zu, und er ist wiederum für eine Stunde eingeschlossen. Eine sehr geistvolle Sage hat das Volk auch noch sogar an dieses Auf- und Zuklappen des Mundes angeknüpft, wodurch dieses Volk zeigen wollte, welch Bedeutendes das eigentlich ist, was wir so abstrakt «die Zeit» nennen, was wir so abstrakt «das Vorrücken der Zeit» nennen. Daß da tiefe Geheimnisse drinnen walten, das wollte das Volk andeuten.

Nun denken wir uns, es könnte ein Mensch davorgestanden haben, nicht wahr? Ich wollte, indem ich auch noch diese Volkssage berührte, andeuten, was alles gedacht werden könne, nicht nur gedacht, sondern in Imaginationen gesehen werden könne; denn einen solchen Spatz erfindet man nicht. Da haben sich natürlich Leute hingestellt, die den Spatz als Imagination gesehen haben. Ich wollte das nur andeuten. Aber nehmen wir das einmal, ich möchte sagen, rationalistisch. Da kann ein Mensch davorstehen, der vielleicht gerade in einem Augenblicke ist, wo er moralisch etwas abirren könnte, und er steht vor der Uhr und sieht: der Tod winkt in jeder Stunde dem Reichen, der sich von seinem Reichtum abhängig macht, und dem eitlen Menschen. Er könnte durch diesen Eindruck, den er empfangen hat, von einer gewissen moralischen Verirrungsmöglichkeit, der er schon ausgesetzt worden war, abgelenkt werden.

Aber man kann sich auch noch anderes vorstellen. Wenn man dieses in Erwägung zieht, könnte man sagen: Dieser Mann, der durch eine göttlich-geistige Eingebung dieses Kunstwerk konstruiert hat, hat eigentlich sehr viel Gutes getan. Denn sehr viele solche Menschen könnten vor diesem Kunstwerke gestanden haben und in gewisser Weise moralisch verbessert worden sein. Man könnte sagen: Was ist das doch für ein günstiges Karma dieses Menschen, daß er in so vielen Menschen günstige Seelenwirkungen auslösen konnte! - Und man könnte nun anfangen zu denken: Wie viele günstige Seelenwirkungen hat der Mensch nun in dem Festhalten durch dieses Bild ausgelöst! Man könnte nun anfangen zu rechnen mit dem Karma dieses Künstlers. Man könnte sagen: Was ist das, daß er diese Uhr gemacht hat und den Tod und Ahriman und Luzifer darauf hingestellt hat, was ist das alles für ein Ausgangspunkt für ein unendlich günstiges Karma! In einer solchen Betrachtung könnte sich jemand ergehen und sagen: Sehr, Menschen sind da, die durch eine Tat einen ganzen Strom guter Taten verrichten. Dieser Strom guter Taten muß also ganz auf ihr Karma geschrieben werden. - Man könnte anfangen, nun darüber zu denken: Ja, wie müßte ich eigentlich jede Tat einrichten, damit ein solcher Strom guter Taten daraus entsteht?

Hier sehen Sie den Anfang eines Denkens, das sich verirren kann. Ein Versuch, zu denken: Wie muß ich meine Taten einrichten, damit ein solcher Strom von guten Taten daraus fließt? - Eine Unmöglichkeit, nicht wahr, wenn man dieses zum Lebensprinzip machen wollte. Es könnte sich jemand darinnen ergehen, zu sagen: Ein solcher Strom von guten Taten fließt aus dem, was der Mann getan hat. Und da könnte ein anderer kommen und sagen: Nein, ich habe mich sogar persönlich überzeugt, ich habe ein wenig diese Sache verfolgt, wie es mit der Uhr ist. Von solchen Wirkungen habe ich eigentlich nicht viel vernommen. Er könnte Pessimist sein und sagen: Dazu ist die Zeit viel zu schlecht. Die Leute können sich so etwas nicht einreden, wenn man ihnen so etwas vormacht. Ich habe in mehreren Fällen etwas ganz anderes gesehen: wie Menschen hingekommen sind, die erfüllt sind mit einem gewissen demokratischen Gefühl, Haß gegen alles Reiche, der noch nicht zum Ausbruch gekommen ist. Und da stand solch ein Mensch und sah, wie der reiche Geizhals nur gewinkt bekam vom Tod, und wie er wieder zurückwinkt. Das will ich ausführen, sagte er, und suchte den nächsten reichen Geizhals, den er bekommen konnte, und ermordete ihn. Ähnliche Stücke des Hasses sind aus den einzelnen Menschen hervorgegangen. Das hat alles der Mann angerichtet mit seinem Kunstwerk. Das ist dasjenige, was man ihm nun auf sein Karma schreiben muß.

Wiederum nicht alles bedenkend, könnte jemand sagen: Ja, also könnte es ja sein, daß? man irgend etwas, was an sich künstlerisch vollendet ist, was an sich einen inneren großen Wert hat, gar nicht vollführen darf in der Welt, weil es die schlimmsten Wirkungen haben könnte, weil es unzählige schlechte Wirkungen haben könnte, die ja nun wiederum auf das Karma zurückfallen.

Wir sind damit aufmerksam gemacht, ich möchte sagen, auf etwas unendlich Versucherisches für das ganze menschliche Erkenntnis- und Seelenvermögen. Denn man braucht nur ein wenig Selbstschau zu halten - zu nichts neigt der Mensch mehr, als sich bei diesem oder jenem zu fragen: Was ist dabei herausgekommen? und dann den Wert desjenigen, was er getan hat, einzurichten nach dem, was dabei herausgekommen ist. Aber wie man in ein gewisses Spekulieren hineinkommt, wenn man nachdenken will, wie im Beispiel, das ich ihnen das letzte Mal gesagt habe, ob nun der doppelten Zahlen rechts gerade so viel sind wie der Zahlen links, oder ob sie nur die Hälfte sind, wie man da in eine Verwirrung des Denkens hineinkommt, so muß man unbedingt in eine Verwirrung des Denkens hineinkommen, wenn man bei der Betrachtung dessen, was man in irgendeiner solchen Weise getan hat, den Maßstab anlegen wollte: Was hat das für Wirkungen, was wird das zum Beispiel für mein Karma für ein Resultat haben?

Hier ist die Volkssage wiederum klüger und, man kann sogar sagen, im geisteswissenschaftlichen Sinne wissenschaftlicher. Denn es ist natürlich furchtbar trivial, wenn ich das ausspreche, aber die Volkssage sagte: Es war ein einfacher Mann, der die Uhr konstruiert hat. Er hat nichts anderes im Auge gehabt als den Gedanken, der ihm eingegeben war, und er hat die Uhr danach gemacht und hat nicht darüber spintisiert, was nun seine Tat nach der einen oder nach der anderen Richtung für Folgen haben könnte.

Nun ist es ja nicht zu leugnen und darinnen besteht gerade das Verführerische und Versucherische, daß man wirklich etwas herausbekommt, wenn man in der Weise, wie ich es angedeutet habe, gräbt; wenn man bei irgendwelchen Taten zunächst fragt: Was werden die für Folgen haben? - Es ist schon deshalb versucherisch, weil es durchaus auch solche Taten gibt in der Welt, bei denen man nach den Folgen fragen muß. Und es wäre selbstverständlich einseitig, wenn man nun wiederum aus dem, was ich gesagt habe, die Folgerung, die Konsequenz ziehen wollte, man sollte es immer so machen wie jener Meister, man sollte nicht fragen nach den Folgen. Denn man muß nach den Folgen fragen, wenn man zum Beispiel einen jungen Knaben, der faul gewesen ist, durchwichst. Also es gibt selbstverständlich Dinge in der Welt, bei denen man durchaus nach den Folgen fragen muß. Hier aber liegt eben das, was wir uns ganz genau nun einmal zu Gemüte, zur Seele führen müssen: daß wir im Weltenzusammenhange wirklich von zwei Seiten her Eindrücke empfangen, daß wir auf der einen Seite Eindrücke empfangen von dem physischen Plane her, und auf der anderen Seite - und die Volkssage deutete es an, indem sie sagte: es war ein einfacher Mann, eine Eingabe der göttlich-geistigen Mächte, von oben gnadevoll eingegeben -, auf der anderen Seite Eindrücke aus der geistigen Welt. Wenn uns diese Eindrücke aus der geistigen Welt gegeben werden, wenn aus der geistigen Welt etwas zu unserer Seele kommt, welches unsere Seele anregt, dies oder jenes auszuführen, dann sind die Momente im Leben, wo es eine zweite Art von Gewißheit gibt, eine zweite Art von Wahrheit, nicht im objektiven, aber im subjektiven Sinne, indem wir uns anleiten lassen von der Wahrheit, eine zweite Art von Gewißheit, die unmittelbar ist, und bei der wir als einer unmittelbaren stehenbleiben müssen. Das ist es, um was es sich handelt.

Wir stehen auf der einen Seite in der physischen Welt drinnen. In der physischen Welt sieht alles so aus, als wenn das folgende Ereignis ganz selbstverständlich aus dem vorhergehenden kommen würde. Aber wir stehen auch in der geistigen Welt drinnen. Ich versuchte das letzte Mal klarzumachen, wie geradeso, wie in unserem physischen Leib der Ätherleib drinnen ist, im ganzen Strome der Ereignisse der physischen Welt ein übersinnliches Geschehen drinnen waltet. Wir stehen auch in diesem übersinnlichen Geschehen drinnen. Aus diesem übersinnlichen Geschehen heraus kommen uns die Antriebe, die ursprünglich sind und denen wir zu folgen haben, ganz gleichgültig, wie sich dann die Wirkungen, namentlich in der physischen Welt, ausnehmen werden. Der Mensch hat nämlich, indem er in die Welt hineingestellt ist, eine Art von Gewißheit, die ihm kommen muß, wenn er die äußeren Dinge überschaut. So macht es der Naturbetrachter. Er kann auf eine andere Weise nicht zu irgendeiner Gewißheit über Ursache und Wirkung kommen, als indem er die Naturereignisse überschaut. Wir haben aber auf der anderen Seite die Möglichkeit, unmittelbare Gewißheit zu erhalten, wenn wie sie nur wollen, wenn wir nur wirklich unsere Seele öffnen den Einflüssen dieser unmittelbaren Gewißheit. Dann handelt es sich darum, daß wir stehenbleiben bei einem Ereignisse und es seinem Eigenwert, seiner Eigenart nach zu beurteilen verstehen.

Dies letztere ist selbstverständlich schwierig. Aber fortwährend geben uns die Ereignisse, namentlich die Ereignisse der Weltgeschichte, die entscheidende Veranlassung, die Dinge und die Vorgänge auch nach ihrem Eigenwert zu beurteilen, die Dinge und Vorgänge, die außer uns in der Geschichte ablaufen. Dies ist fortwährend notwendig. Aber hier ist die Verwirrung der Menschen wirklich so eminent hervorspringend, wenn man genauer auf die Dinge eingeht, was uns sehr weit führen wird, wenn wir es richtig auffassen. Sie ist im Grunde genommen gar nicht immer unmittelbar für jeden einzelnen zu kontrollieren. Nehmen wir das Ereignis von Goethes «Faust». Es ist eine Schöpfung, die aufgetreten ist, nicht wahr? Es wird vielleicht sehr wenige Menschen in diesem Saale geben, welche, namentlich nach den verschiedenen Betrachtungen, die wir ja auch schon über den «Faust» angestellt haben, nicht der Anschauung sind, daß mit dem Goetheschen «Faust» der Menschheit ein großes Kunstwerk geschenkt worden ist, ein Kunstwerk, welches wirklich auch einer gnadevollen Eingebung entspricht.

Mit Goethes «Faust» hat ja gewissermaßen das deutsche Geistesleben auch andere Geistesleben erobert. Goethes «Faust» hat auch schon zu Goethes Lebzeiten auf viele Menschen einen starken Einfluß geübt. Diese Menschen haben Goethes «Faust» als ein großes, einzigartiges Kunstwerk angesehen. Einen Mann in Deutschland hat es ganz besonders geärgert, daß Frau von Stael ein außerordentlich günstiges Urteil über Goethes «Faust» gefällt hat. Ich will das Urteil, das dieser Mann über Goethes «Faust» gefällt hat, einmal vorlesen, damit Sie sehen, wie gegenüber dem, was als Individuelles zu beurteilen ist, andere Meinungen auftreten können, als diejenigen, die Sie vielleicht in diesem Augenblick für die einzig möglichen halten über Goethes «Faust». Der Mann beginnt gleich beim Prolog im Himmel.

Also 1822 ist dies geschrieben von einem gewissen Herrn von Spaun. Er hat dazumal folgendes Urteil über Goethes «Faust» abgegeben:

Schon der Prolog zeige, «daß Herr von Goethe ein sehr schlechter Versifex sei, und der Prolog ein wahres Muster, wie man a nicht in Versen schreiben soll.»

«Die verflossenen Zeitalter haben nichts aufzuweisen, das in Rücksicht auf anmaßende Erbärmlichkeit mit diesem Prolog zu vergleichen wäre... Ich muß mich aber kurz fassen, weil ich ein lang und leider auch langweiliges Stück Arbeit übernommen habe. Dem Leser soll ich beweisen, daß der berüchtigte «Faust» eine usurpierte und unverdiente Celebrität genießet und sie nur dem verderblichen Gemeingeiste einer Associatio obscurorum virorum verdanke... Mich veranlasset keine Celebritätsrivalität, über des Herrn von Goethes «Faust» die Lauge strenger Kritik auszugießen. Ich wandle nicht auf seinem Pfade zum Parnasse, und würde mich freuen, wenn er unsere deutsche Sprache mit einem Meisterwerke bereichert hätte. .. Unter der Menge von Bravo-Rufern mag zwar meine Stimme verhallen, doch genügt mir, mein Möglichstes getan zu haben; und gelingt es mir, auch nur einen Leser zu bekehren, und von Anbetung dieses Ungeheuers zurückzubringen, so soll mich meine undankbare Mühe nicht gereuen . .. Der arme Faust spricht ein ganz unverständliches Kauderwelsch in dem schlechtesten Gereimsel, das je in Quinta von irgend einem Studenten versifiziert worden ist. Mein Präceptor hätte mir den Steiß vollgehauen, wenn ich so schlechte Verse wie die folgenden gemacht hätte:

O Sähst du, voller Mondenschein,Ereignisse Zum letztenmal(e) auf meine Pein,Ereignisse Den ich so manche MitternachtEreignisse An diesem Pult(e) herangewacht.

Von dem Unedlen der Diktion, von der Erbärmlichkeit der Versifikation, werde ich in der Folge schweigen; an dem, was der Leser sah, hat er Beweise genug, daß der Herr Verfasser in Beziehung auf den Versebau sich auch nicht mit den mittelmäßigen Dichtern der alten Schule messen könne...

Der Mephistopheles erkennt selbst, daß Faust schon vor dem Kontrakte von einem Teufel besessen war. Wir aber glauben, daß er nicht in die Hölle, sondern in das Narrenhaus gehöre, mit allem was sein ist, nämlich Händ und Füßen, Kopf und Hintern. Vom sublimen Gallimathias, Unsinn in hochtönenden Worten haben uns manche Dichter Muster gegeben, aber den goethischen Gallimathias möchte ich als ein genre nouveau, den populären Gallimathias nennen, denn er wird in der gemeinsten und schlechtesten Sprache vorgetragen ...

Je mehr ich über diese lange Litanei von Unsinn nachdenke, je mehr wird mir wahrscheinlich, es gelte eine Wette, daß, wenn ein berühmter Mann sich einfallen lasse, den flachsten langweiligsten Unsinn zusammenzustoppeln, so werde sich doch eine Legion alberner Literatoren und schwindelnder Leser finden, die in diesem plattfüßigen Unsinne tiefe Weisheit und große Schönheiten zu finden und herauszuexegisieren wissen werden. Die berühmten Männer haben dieses mit dem Prinzen Piribinker und dem unsterblichen Dalai Lama gemein, daß man ihren Kaka als Konfekt auftischt und als Reliquien verehrt. War dieses des Herrn von Goethes Absicht, so hat er die Wette gewonnen ...

Es mögen wohl einige Intentionen im «Faust» sein; allein ein guter Dichter muß sie nicht hinklecksen; er muß die Kunst verstehen, sie richtig zu zeichnen und zu illuminieren. Ein reicherer Stoff für die Poesie ist nicht leicht zu finden, und man wird dem Dichter gram, daß er ihn so jämmerlich verhunzt hat...

Diese Diarrhöe von unverdauten Ideen rühret nicht von einem übermäßigen Andrange von gesunden Flüssigkeiten, sondern von einer Relaxation des Sphinkters des Verstandes her, und ist ein Beweis einer schwachen Konstitution. Es gibt Leute, von denen schlechte Verse wie Wasser fließen, aber diese Incontinentia urinae poeticae, diese Diabetes mellitus fader Reimlereien befällt nie einen guten Poeten .... Wenn sich Goethes Genie von allen Fesseln freigemacht hat, so kann ja die Flut seiner Ideen die Dämme der Kunst nicht durchbrechen; sie sind schon durchbrochen. Doch wenn wir auch nicht mißbilligen, daß sich ein Autor über konventionelle Regeln der Komposition hinaussetze, so müssen ihm doch die Gesetze des gesunden Menschenverstandes, der Grammatik und des Rhythmus heilig sein; auch bei Dramen, wo der Zauberstab im Spiele ist, erlaubt man ihm nur eine Hypothese als Maschinerie, und dieser muß er treu bleiben. Es muß ein dignus vindice nodus geschürzt werden, die Hexereien müssen zu großen Resultaten führen. Bei dem Faust ist das Resultat, den Patienten zu ganz gemeinen Verbrechen zu verleiten, und seinem Verführer sind seine Zauberkünste nicht notwendig; alles, was er tut, hätte irgend ein kupplerischer Schuft ohne Hexerei ebensogut leisten können. Er ist filzig, wie ein Wucherer, ungeachtet ihm die vergrabenen Schätze zu Gebote stehen...

Kurz, ein miserabler Teufel, der bei Lessings Marinell: in die Schule gehen könnte. Diesem nach kassiere ich im Namen des gesunden Menschenverstandes das Urteil der Frau von Stael zugunsten des gedachten Fausts und verurteile ihn nicht in die Hölle, die dieses frostige Produkt abkühlen könnte, da sogar dem Teufel dabei winterlich im Leibe ist, sondern um in die Cloacam parnassi prezipitiert zu werden. Von Rechts wegen.»

Sie sehen, auch dieses Urteil ist einmal gefällt worden, und der Zusammenhang, in dem es gefällt worden ist, zeigt den Menschen nicht etwa als einen ganz unehrlichen Menschen, sondern als einen Menschen, der das auch geglaubt hat, was er geschrieben hat. Man denke sich nun wiederum, daß dieser Mann, der so darüber spricht, daß ihn sein Präceptor in der Quinta schon davor bewahrt hätte, solch ein Zeug zu schreiben, wie der «Faust» ist, daß dieser Mensch nun selber Präceptor geworden wäre und sehr viele Jungen zu unterrichten gehabt hätte und ihnen das Zeug eingeflößt hätte. Diese Jungen würden vielleicht wiederum Lehrer geworden sein und etwas behalten haben von diesem Urteil über den «Faust». Nun denke man, was man da noch spekulieren kann, was der Mensch nun karmisch angerichtet hat mit seinem Urteil. Das möchte ich aber weniger betrachten, sondern worauf ich hauptsächlich aufmerksam machen möchte, ist, daß es schwierig ist, den Ereignissen gegenüber, die in ihrem Eigenwert dastehen, ein wirkliches, richtiges Urteil zu gewinnen, ein Urteil zu gewinnen, das gewissermaßen stehenbleiben kann. In manchen Vorträgen habe ich ja gerade hier darauf aufmerksam gemacht, wie manche Größe des 19. Jahrhunderts in den folgenden Jahrhunderten nicht mehr als Größe angesehen werden wird, wie gerade Leute, die ganz vergessen worden sind, in den nächsten Jahrhunderten als große, bedeutende Menschen werden angesehen werden. Gewiß, so etwas stellt sich mit der Zeit richtig. Ich wollte nur darauf aufmerksam machen, wie unendlich schwierig es ist, zu einem Urteil zu kommen, wenn es sich darum handelt, ein solches Urteil gegenüber einem Ereignis zu gewinnen, das seinen Eigenwert haben soll. Und warum ist es denn eigentlich schwierig?

Wir müssen uns nun fragen: Was macht es uns denn schwierig? Und da werden wir zunächst die Betrachtung so anstellen, daß wir den Urteilenden in einem anderen Menschen sehen als dem zum Beispiel, der beurteilt wird. Nicht wahr, wir werden heute sagen: Diejenigen, die Goethes «Faust» dazumal schon für ein großes, bedeutendes Kunstwerk ansahen, die in einer gewissen Weise objektiv urteilten, schalteten sich aus. Dieser Mann schaltete sich nicht aus, der das geschrieben hat, von dem eben die Rede war. Aber wie kommt man denn überhaupt dazu, nicht objektiv zu urteilen? Die Menschen urteilen so oft nicht objektiv, daß sie die Frage gar nicht aufwerfen: Wie kommt man denn überhaupt dazu, nicht objektiv zu urteilen? Nicht objektiv zu urteilen, dazu kommt man, nun ja, durch Sympathie und Antipathie. Würden nicht Sympathie und Antipathie sein, so würde man zu einem unobjektiven Urteil gar nicht kommen.

Sympathie und Antipathie sind notwendig, um die Objektivität eines Urteils zu trüben. Aber sind denn Sympathie und Antipathie deshalb schlecht? Sind sie denn etwas, was wir geradezu aus dem Menschenleben ausschalten sollen? Wir brauchen nur ein bißchen nachzudenken und werden finden, daß dies nicht der Fall ist. Denn gerade, wenn wir uns in Goethes «Faust» vertiefen, wird uns der «Faust» sympathisch, und wir leben uns mehr und mehr in die Sympathie hinein. Wir müssen die Möglichkeit haben, Sympathie zu entfalten. Und schließlich, wenn wir gar nicht Antipathie entfalten könnten, so würden wir nicht ein ganz gutes Urteil über den Mann bekommen, dessen Urteil wir eben gehört haben. Denn ich denke mir, daß in Ihnen etwas von einem Antipathie-Gefühl gegen diesen Mann aufgestiegen sein könnte, und dieses Antipathie-Gefühl könnte vielleicht gerechtfertigt sein. Aber da sehen wir wiederum, wie es darauf ankommt, diese Dinge nicht so absolut zu nehmen, wie sie sind, sondern daß es darauf ankommt, diese Dinge in dem ganzen Zusammenhange zu betrachten. Der Mensch läßt sich nicht nur von den Dingen leiten zu Sympathie und Antipathie, sondern er geht mit Sympathie und Antipathie durchs Leben. Fr trägt den Dingen selbst schon Sympathie und Antipathie entgegen, so daß die Dinge nicht auf ihn wirken, sondern auf seine Sympathie und Antipathie wirken sie. Aber was heißt das? Also ich trete an ein Ding oder an einen Vorgang heran. Ich bringe meine Sympathie und Antipathie mit. Natürlich hat der betreffende Mann, von dem ich da geredet habe, nicht gerade seine Antipathie gegen den «Faust» mitgebracht, aber er hat solche Gefühle mitgebracht, die ihm dasjenige, was ihm im «Faust» entgegengetreten ist, eben antipathisch erscheinen lassen. Es hängt ganz von seiner Triebrichtung ab, wie er urteilt.

Was liegt da eigentlich vor? Das liegt vor, daß Sympathie und Antipathie zunächst nur Worte sind für reale geistige Tatsachen. Und die realen geistigen Tatsachen sind die Taten des Ahriman und des Luzifer. In jeder Sympathie steckt in einer gewissen Weise das Luziferische, und in jeder Antipathie steckt in einer gewissen Weise das Ahrimanische. Indem wir uns von Sympathie und Antipathie durch die Welt tragen lassen, lassen wir uns von Ahriman und Luzifer durch die Welt tragen. Wir müssen nur nicht wiederum in den Fehler verfallen, den ich schon oftmals hier eben als einen Fehler charakterisierte, daß wir sagen: Luzifer, Ahriman, die fliehen wir! Wir wollen gute Menschen werden. Also nichts von Luzifer und Ahriman, ja nichts von Luzifer und Ahriman! Die müssen weg von uns, ganz weg! - Dann müssen wir aber auch weg aus der Welt! Denn geradeso, wie es positive und negative Elektrizität geben kann, nicht nur den Ausgleich zwischen beiden, so gibt es überall, wo wir hintreten, Luzifer und Ahriman. Es handelt sich nur darum, wie wir uns zu ihnen stellen. Die beiden Kräfte müssen da sein. Es handelt sich nur darum, daß wir sie immer im Leben ins Gleichgewicht bringen. Wenn es zum Beispiel keinen Luzifer gäbe, gäbe es keine Kunst. Es handelt sich nur darum, daß wir die Kunst nicht so gestalten, daß vielleicht rein Luziferisches aus ihr spricht.

So handelt es sich darum, daß wir gewahr werden: indem wir mit Antipathie und Sympathie durch die Welt schreiten, wirken in uns Luzifer und Ahriman, das heißt, wir müssen die Möglichkeit gewinnen, Luzifer und Ahriman in uns wirklich wirken zu lassen. Aber indem wir uns bewußt sind, daß sie in uns wirken, müssen wir uns die Fähigkeit aneignen, dennoch den Dingen objektiv gegenüberzutreten. Das können wir nur dadurch, daß wir nun nicht bloß darauf sehen, wie wir das andere in der Welt beurteilen, wie wir dasjenige, was außer uns geschieht in der Welt, beurteilen, sondern indem wir auch darauf hinblicken, wie wir uns selber in der Welt beurteilen. Und dieses «Uns-selber-in-der- Welt-Beurteilen» führt uns wiederum ein Stück tiefer in die ganze Frage und in den ganzen Fragenkomplex hinein. Uns selber beurteilen in der Welt können wir, wenn wir auf uns selber in der Beurteilung eine einheitliche Betrachtungsweise anwenden. Diese Frage müssen wir jetzt aufwerfen.

Wir sehen hinaus in die Natur. Auf der einen Seite sehen wir eine starre Notwendigkeit; eins läuft aus dem anderen. Wir sehen auf unsere eigenen Taten und glauben, daß sie bloß der Freiheit unterworfen sind und bloß mit Schuld und Sühne und dergleichen verbunden sind. Beides ist eine Einseitigkeit. Daß beides eine Einseitigkeit ist, in der wir die Stellung von Luzifer und Ahriman nicht richtig beurteilen, das wird uns aus dem Folgenden hervorgehen. Wir können nicht in unsere eigene Seele so blicken, wenn wir uns als Menschen anschauen, die hier auf dem physischen Plane stehen, daß wir nur dasjenige in uns sehen, was jetzt unmittelbar in uns vorgeht. Indem wir jetzt jeder uns fragen, was jetzt unmittelbar in uns vorgeht, ist das gewiß ein Stück Selbsterkenntnis. Aber diese Selbsterkenntnis gibt uns lange nicht alles, was wir auch nur für eine oberflächliche Selbsterkenntnis verlangen können. Denn, selbstverständlich ohne irgend jemand zu nahe zu treten, nehmen wir uns alle, wie wir hier sind: ich, der ich zu Ihnen spreche, Sie, die Sie zuhören. Ich würde nicht so sprechen können, wie ich jetzt spreche, wenn nicht alles das andere vorangegangen ist, was in meinem jetzigen Leben und in anderen Inkarnationen vorangegangen ist. Also das Hinblicken bloß auf dasjenige, was ich jetzt etwa zu Ihnen spreche, würde ein sehr einseitiges sein in bezug auf meine Selbsterkenntnis. Aber, ohne irgend jemand zu nahe zu treten, ist es doch klar, daß jeder von Ihnen anders zuhört, und daß jeder von Ihnen um eine Nuance anders empfindet und auffaßt, was ich Ihnen sage. Das ist ja ganz selbstverständlich. Und zwar fassen Sie das alle auf wiederum nach Maßgabe Ihres vorangehenden Lebens und nach Maßgabe Ihrer vorangehenden Inkarnationen. Es würde ja notwendig sein, daß hier wirklich nicht Menschen sitzen, wenn nicht jeder in einer anderen Weise das auffaßte, was hier gesagt wird. Aber das führt viel weiter. Das führt dazu, in sich überhaupt eine Zweiheit zu erkennen. Denken Sie doch nur einmal darüber nach, daß Sie, wenn Sie ein Urteil fällen, dieses Urteil in einer gewissen Weise fällen. Nehmen wir ein herausgerissenes Beispiel! Sie sagen, wenn Sie dies oder jenes sehen, zum Beispiel eine Aufführung bei Reinhardt: «Ich bin entzückt.» Der andere sagt: «Das ist der Verderb aller Kunst!» Gewiß, beides soll jetzt nicht kritisiert werden. Das eine kann von dem einen, das andere kann von dem anderen möglich sein. Wovon wird das abhängen, daß der eine so, der andere anders urteilt? Wiederum von dem, was schon in ihm ist, von den Voraussetzungen, mit denen er an die Dinge herangeht.

Aber wenn Sie über diese Voraussetzungen nachdenken, dann werden Sie sich sagen können: Ja, diese Voraussetzungen sind Dinge, die einmal nicht vorauszusetzen waren. In Ihr Urteil, das Sie jetzt fällen, wird zum Beispiel einfließen, sagen wir, was Sie mit achtzehn Jahren einmal gesehen haben oder was Sie mit dreizehn Jahren gelernt haben. Das fließt ein, das hat sich mit Ihrem ganzen Gedankenstoffe vereinigt, sitzt jetzt in Ihnen, urteilt mit. Jeder kann das natürlich bei sich wahrnehmen, wenn er es wahrnehmen will. Das urteilt mit. Fragen Sie sich, ob Sie das ändern können, was da schon in Ihnen sitzt, ob Sie das aus sich herausreißen können. Fragen Sie sich einmal! Und wenn Sie es herausreißen können aus sich, so würden Sie ja Ihr ganzes jetzt vergangenes Dasein in dieser Inkarnation aus sich herausreißen, so würden Sie sich auslöschen müssen. Sie können ebensowenig dasjenige, was Sie erlebt haben an Gedankenentschlüssen, an Empfindungsentschlüssen, aus sich wegschaffen, wie Sie, wenn Sie in den Spiegel schauen und sagen: Meine Nase gefällt mir nicht, ich will eine andere haben -, wie Sie sich jetzt nicht eine andere Nase geben können. Das ist ganz klar. Sie können Ihre Vergangenheit nicht auslöschen. Dennoch, wenn Sie am Morgen früh aufstehen wollen, so werden Sie bemerken: dazu ist immer ein Entschluß notwendig. Dieser Entschluß hängt aber wirklich auch von Ihren Voraussetzungen in der diesmaligen Inkarnation ab. Er hängt noch von manchem anderen ab. Nicht wahr, wenn Sie sich nun sagen, daß das abhängt von diesem oder jenem, beeinträchtigt das die Tatsache, daß ich mir doch vornehmen muß, einmal aufzustehen? Vielleicht kann dieses Sich-Vornehmen aufzustehen so leise geschehen, daß man es gar nicht merkt, aber es muß ein wenigstens leises Vornehmen da sein, aufzustehen, das heißt, es muß das Aufstehen eine freie Tat sein.

Ich habe einen Mann gekannt, der eine Zeitlang unserer Gesellschaft angehörte, der die Sache in der Weise sehr gut illustrierte, daß er eigentlich niemals aufstehen wollte. Er litt furchtbar daran, und er beklagte das immer wieder. Er sagte: Ja, ich kann nicht aufstehen! Wenn nicht irgend etwas eintritt, was die Notwendigkeit von außen herbeiführt, daß ich mich aus dem Bette erhebe, so würde ich immer liegen bleiben. - Er beichtete das so ohne weiteres. Er beichtete das, denn er empfand es als etwas furchtbar Versucherisches, was in seinem Leben drinnensteht: er will eben nicht aufstehen! Daraus sehen Sie schon, es ist eben doch eine freie Tat. Das hindert nicht, daß in uns gewisse Vorbedingungen festgelegt sind, die uns diese oder jene Ursache nahelegen, daß wir dennoch im einzelnen Fall eine freie Tat ausführen können. In gewisser Beziehung ist also durchaus die Sache die: Es gibt Leute, die wurzeln sich langsam aus dem Bett heraus, die brauchen einen stärkeren Entschluß; anderen ist es eine Freude, aufzustehen. Man kann geradezu sagen: Daraus sieht man, daß diese Vorbedingungen, die da sind, die Bedeutung haben, daß der eine gut erzogen ist, der andere schlecht erzogen ist. Wir können eine gewisse Notwendigkeit darinnen sehen, aber immer ist es doch ein freier Entschluß. Wir sehen also in einer und derselben Tatsache, in der Tatsache unseres Aufstehens, Freiheit und Notwendigkeit durcheinanderverwoben. Sie sind durchaus durcheinanderverwoben. Eine und dieselbe Sache trägt Freiheit und Notwendigkeit in sich. Und das bitte ich recht ins Auge zu fassen, daß, wenn man es recht betrachtet, man nicht streiten kann: darin ist der Mensch frei oder unfrei, sondern man kann nur sagen: In jeder Tat des Menschen ist zunächst Freiheit und Notwendigkeit durcheinandergemischt.

Wodurch entsteht denn das? Wir kommen in unserer Geisteswissenschaft nicht weiter, wenn wir dasjenige, was wir menschlich betrachten, nicht zugleich im ganzen Weltenzusammenhange betrachten müßten. Woher kommt denn das? Das kommt davon her, daß, was als Notwendigkeit in uns wirkt - ich werde jetzt etwas verhältnismäßig Einfaches sagen, was aber eine ungeheure Tragweite hat -, was wir als Notwendigkeit betrachten, das ist das Vergangene in uns. Was in uns als Notwendigkeit wirkt, das muß immer vergangen sein. Wir müssen etwas durchgemacht haben, und dieses Durchgemachte muß sich auf unsere Seele abgelagert haben. Es ist dann in unserer Seele und wirkt in unserer Seele weiter wie eine Notwendigkeit.

Jetzt können Sie sich sagen: Jeder Mensch trägt in sich seine Vergangenheit, jeder Mensch trägt in sich damit eine Notwendigkeit. Was gegenwärtig ist, das wirkt noch nicht als notwendig, sonst wäre die freie Tat in der Gegenwart unmittelbar nicht gegeben. Aber das Vergangene wirkt in die Gegenwart herein und verknüpft sich mit der Freiheit. Dadurch, daß das Vergangene weiterwirkt, sind in einem und demselben Akte Notwendigkeit und Freiheit innig miteinander verknüpft.

Blicken wir also in uns hinein, führen wir wirklich diese Selbstschau aus, so werden wir sagen: Nicht nur in der Natur draußen ist Notwendigkeit, sondern in uns selber da drinnen ist eine Notwendigkeit. Aber indem wir auf diese Notwendigkeit schauen, müssen wir hinschauen auf unsere Vergangenheit. Das ist etwas, das dem Geisteswissenschafter einen unendlich wichtigen Gesichtspunkt abgibt. Er lernt den Zusammenhang zwischen Vergangenheit und Notwendigkeit kennen. Und jetzt fängt er an, die Natur zu prüfen, und findet in der Natur Notwendigkeiten drinnen, und lernt erkennen, indem er nun die Naturerscheinungen prüft, daß alles, was der Naturforscher als Notwendigkeiten in der Natur findet, auch Vergangenes ist. Was ist die ganze Natur, die ganze Natur mit ihrer Notwendigkeit?

Das kann man nicht beantworten, wenn man die Antwort nicht auf Grundlage der Geisteswissenschaft sucht. Wir leben jetzt im Erdendasein. Dem Erdendasein ist das Monden-, das Sonnen-, das Saturndasein vorangegangen. Auf dem Saturndasein - lesen Sie es nach in der «Geheimwissenschaft» - da schaute der Planet noch nicht so aus, wie jetzt die Erde aussieht, da war etwas ganz anderes. Wenn Sie den Saturn prüfen, werden Sie sehen: da ist alles noch so wie Gedanken drinnen. Da fallen noch nicht Steine zur Erde. Da gibt es noch nicht dichtes Physisches. Da sind alles Wärmewirkungen. Da ist alles so, wie es im menschlichen Inneren selber vor sich geht. Das sind Seelenwirkungen, Gedanken, welche die göttlichen Geister zurückgelassen haben. Und die sind geblieben. Die ganze jetzige Natur, die Sie in ihrer Notwendigkeit überschauen, die ist einmal in Freiheit gewesen, ist eine freie Tat der Götter gewesen. Und nur, weil sie vergangen ist, weil das, was auf Saturn, Sonne und Mond sich entwickelt hat, zu uns herübergekommen ist, so wie unsere Gedanken, die wir hatten, als wir ein Kind waren, in uns weiterwirken: so wirken die Gedanken der Götter während des Saturn-, Sonnen- und Mondendaseins im Erdendasein weiter, und weil sie vergangene Gedanken sind, so erscheinen sie uns in einer Notwendigkeit.

Wenn Sie jetzt Ihre Hand auf einen festen Gegenstand legen, was heißt das eigentlich? Nichts anderes als: das, was da drinnen ist in dem festen Gegenstand, das wurde einmal gedacht in langer Vergangenheit, und der Gedanke ist zurückgeblieben, wie der Gedanke, den Sie gedacht haben in Ihrer Jugendzeit, in Ihnen zurückgeblieben ist. Wenn Sie auf Ihre Vergangenheit schauen und das Vergangene als etwas Lebendiges anschauen, sehen Sie das Naturwerden in sich. Wie das, was Sie jetzt denken, sprechen, heute keine Notwendigkeit, sondern eine Freiheit ist, so ist dasjenige, was heute Erdendasein ist, Freiheit gewesen in früheren Daseinsstufen. Freiheit entwickelt sich immer weiter, und indem sie bleibt, wird sie zur Notwendigkeit. Würden wir dasjenige sehen, was jetzt in der Natur geschieht, so würde es uns gar nicht einfallen, darinnen Notwendigkeit zu finden. Wir sehen von der Natur nur das Zurückgebliebene. Was jetzt geschieht als Natur, das ist geistig. Das sehen wir nicht.

Dadurch gewinnt die menschliche Selbsterkenntnis eine ganz eigentümliche kosmische Bedeutung. Wir denken jetzt einen Gedanken. Jetzt ist er in uns. Wir könnten ihn gewiß auch nicht denken. Aber indem wir ihn gedacht haben, bleibt er in unserer Seele. Jetzt ist er vergangen. Jetzt ist er als eine Notwendigkeit wirkend da, ist als eine noch feine Notwendigkeit da, ist noch nicht so dichte Materie wie draußen in der Natur, weil wir Menschen und keine Götter sind. Wir bringen es nur dahin, daß wir jene innere Natur in uns erblicken, die als unser Gedächtnis, als unsere Erinnerungen in uns bleibt und wirksam ist in unseren Notwendigkeiten. Aber das, was jetzt in uns Gedanken sind, wird bei dem nächsten Jupiter-, Venusdasein schon äußere Natur werden. Da wird es als äußere Umgebung wirken. Und dasjenige, was wir jetzt als äußere Natur sehen, das war einmal Gedanke der Götter.

Wir sprechen heute von den Archai, wir sprechen von den Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai und so weiter. Die haben gedacht in der Vergangenheit, wie wir jetzt denken. Und dasjenige, was sie gedacht haben, das ist als ihr Gedächtnis geblieben, und dieses ihr Gedächtnis schauen wir an. Wir können nur das, was wir während des Erdendaseins erinnern, innerlich anschauen in uns. Aber innerlich ist es Natur geworden. Was die Götter während früherer planetarischer Zustände gedacht haben, das ist äußerlich geworden, und das schauen wir jetzt als Äußerliches an.

Wahr, tief wahr ist es: solange wir Erdenmenschen sind, solange denken wir. Die Gedanken senken wir gleichsam hinunter in unser Seelenleben. Da werden sie der Anfang eines Naturdaseins. Sie bleiben aber in uns. Aber wenn das Jupiterdasein kommen wird, da gehen sie aus uns heraus. Und dasjenige, was wir heute denken, was wir heute überhaupt in uns erleben, das wird dann Außenwelt. Wir werden dann auf einer höheren Stufe auf das herunterschauen, was heute unsere Innenwelt ist, als auf eine Außenwelt. Was einmal in Freiheit erlebt wird, das verwandelt sich in eine Notwendigkeit.

Dies sind sehr, sehr wichtige Gesichtspunkte, und nur wenn man diese wichtigen Gesichtspunkte hat, kann man ein Verständnis gewinnen für den eigentümlichen Fortgang der geschichtlichen Ereignisse, für dasjenige, was die gegenwärtigen Ereignisse sind, was sich gegenwärtig abspielt. Denn diese leiten unmittelbar dahin, daß wir eigentlich den Weg immerfort einschlagen, aus dem Subjektiven ins Objektive hineinzukommen. Subjektiv können wir im Grunde genommen nur in der Gegenwart sein. Sobald wir über die Gegenwart hinaus sind und das Subjektive hinuntergestoßen haben ins Seelenleben, bekommt es ein selbständiges Dasein. Freilich zunächst nur in uns, aber es bekommt ein selbständiges Dasein. Und während wir weiterleben mit anderen Gedanken, leben allerdings zunächst die früheren Gedanken, die wir gehabt haben, nur in uns. Wir geben ihnen vorläufig noch eine Hülle. Aber diese Hülle wird einmal abspringen. Im Geistigen ist die Sache schon anders. Deshalb müssen Sie solch ein Ereignis, wie ich es Ihnen hypothetisch angegeben habe, schon auch von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus sehen. Äußerlich angeschaut, ist ein Fels heruntergefallen, hat ein Gesellschaft überschüttet. Aber dies ist nur der äußere Ausdruck für etwas, was sich geistig vollzieht, und das, was geistig sich vollzieht, das ist der andere Teil des Ereignisses, der ebenso objektiv da ist wie das erste Ereignis.

Das war es, was ich heute ausführen wollte, um zu zeigen, wie Freiheit und Notwendigkeit ineinanderspielen im Weltenwerden und in demjenigen Werden, in dem wir selber drinnenstehen, indem wir lebendige Menschen sind, wie wir verwoben sind mit der Welt, wie wir selber täglich, stündlich werden zu dem, was uns die Natur äußerlich zeigt. Unsere Vergangenheit ist in uns selber schon ein Stück Natur. Wir schreiten über dieses Stück Natur hinaus, indem wir uns weiterentwickeln, wie die Götter über ihre Entwickelung hinausgeschritten sind, über ihre Naturentwickelung, indem sie zu höherstehenden Hierarchien geworden sind.

Das ist wiederum nur einer der Wege gewesen, von denen viele einzuschlagen sind, die uns immer wieder zeigen sollen, wie alles dasjenige, was im Physischen vor sich geht, nicht einseitig bloß nach dem physischen Anblicke beurteilt werden darf, sondern wie es beurteilt werden muß danach, daß es neben dem physischen Anblicke noch ein verborgenes Geistiges in sich hat. So wahr, wie unser physischer Leib noch unsern Ätherleib in sich hat, so wahr liegt allem Sinnlichen ein Übersinnliches zugrunde. Daraus müssen wir die Folgerung ziehen, daß wir eigentlich die Welt recht unvollständig betrachten, wenn wir sie nur danach ansehen, was sie unserem Auge darbietet, was äußerlich geschieht, und daß, während äußerlich etwas ganz anderes geschieht, innerlich, gleichzeitig dazu gehörig, geistig etwas geschehen kann, was eine viel größere, eine unendlich größere Bedeutung hat als dasjenige, was unserem physischen Anblicke sich darbietet. Was die Seelen, die da verschüttet worden sind, erlebt haben im Geistigen, das kann etwas unendlich viel Bedeutenderes sein als dasjenige, was äußerlich sich zugetragen hat. Das aber, was da geschehen ist, das hat mit der ganzen Zukunft dieser Seelen etwas zu tun, wie wir sehen werden.

Doch wir wollen diese Gedanken heute hier abbrechen und wollen sie am nächsten Sonntag fortsetzen. Ich wollte heute eben durchaus nur das erreichen, daß ich Ihre Gedanken, Ihre Ideen in jene Richtung gebracht habe, die Ihnen zeigen soll, wie wir über Freiheit und Notwendigkeit, über Schuld und Sühne und so weiter richtige Begriffe nur bekommen können, wenn wir zu dem Physischen auch noch das Geistige dazunehmen.

Second Lecture

The day before yesterday, I attempted to point out the equally significant mystery, the world mystery of necessity and freedom in world events and human actions. I first attempted, and today's reflection will also have to follow the same line of thought, to draw attention to the full significance and difficulty of this world mystery and mystery of humanity. I tried to use a hypothetical example to show how this question can confront us in world events. I said: Let us suppose that a society had set out to drive through a mountain gorge, in the course of which there is an overhanging rock, and the time had been set very precisely. But the coachman, through negligence, leaves five minutes late. As a result, the group arrives at the spot below the rock just as it is falling. One must say, based on an external assessment—I say explicitly: based on an external assessment—that the entire group of travelers was buried because of the coachman's sluggishness, that is, because of an event that occurred as if through human fault.

Last time, I wanted to draw attention mainly to the fact that we should not approach such a puzzle too quickly with our usual thinking and believe that we can solve it. I pointed out how this human thinking, which we initially need only for the physical plane, has also become accustomed to taking only the needs of the physical plane into consideration, and how this human thinking becomes confused when it is taken a little beyond the physical plane. Today I would like to point out, above all, the seriousness of the whole mystery. For it is only in the next consideration, which will be here on Sunday, that we will be able to approach a kind of solution to this whole problem, when we survey it in its entire scope and significance, including for human cognition itself; when we survey, for example, how we can get into , especially when faced with the most difficult problems of life, into speculation, into a pushing and guiding of thoughts that lead us astray, so to speak, so that we find ourselves in a forest in which we walk on and believe we are making progress, while in fact we are turning in circles. Only when we see that we have come back to the starting point do we notice that we have been going round in circles. The strange thing is that in human thinking we do not notice how we arrive at the same point over and over again. But we will talk about that later.

I have indicated that this significant problem is connected with what we call the forces of Ahriman and the forces of Lucifer in world events and in what comes to meet human beings in their actions, in their entire thinking, feeling, and willing. I have noticed that even into the 15th century, one can see how people had a feeling that that just as positive and negative electricity play a role in natural events, and just as no physicist is embarrassed to speak of positive and negative electricity, so too did people know how to see the Ahrimanic and Luciferic forces at work in world events, even if they did not use these names. I pointed to an apparently very distant example: the clock on Prague's Old Town Hall, which is so artistically designed that it is not merely a clock but a kind of calendar, so that one can see every event on it, one can see the movement of the planets on it, one can read solar and lunar eclipses on it when they occur. In short, a very artistic man has created a great work of art. I pointed out that it can now be very well documented how a professor at a Prague university created this work of art, but that this is of no further interest to us, because these are events that took place on the physical plane. However, I pointed out how a simple folk tale developed from the feeling that the Ahrimanic and Luciferic forces also played a role in such an event, the tale that this clock was artfully installed on the town hall of Prague's old town by a simple man who received all the talent for it through a kind of divine inspiration, and that the legend goes on to say that the ruler wanted this clock for himself alone and would not tolerate such a clock or anything similar being constructed in any other city. Therefore, he had the master clockmaker blinded. He then had to stay away. Only when he felt his death approaching was he allowed to approach the clock. And there, with a skillful maneuver, he gave the clock a push, and the result was that it could never be repaired.

In this folk tale, one senses how, on the one hand, there was a feeling for the Luciferic principle, for that Luciferic principle in the ruler who wanted the clock for himself alone, which could only have been constructed through a gift of grace, which had thus come about through the good, progressive divine powers; and how then, as soon as Lucifer appeared, Ahriman came along, for it was an Ahrimanic deed, the blinded master of this clock spoiled it through his skill. At the moment when Lucifer is called upon—and the reverse is also true—Ahriman comes through a counterstroke. But that it was not only the people who felt something of Ahriman and Lucifer in the formation of this legend is evident from something else. It is evident from the design of the clock itself. It shows that the master also wanted to incorporate Ahrimanic and Luciferic forces in the construction of this clock, for this clock shows something else entirely besides the artistic perfection I have already described to you. In addition to everything that is attached to it, apart from the dial, the planetary disc, and so on, there are figures on both sides, namely Death on one side and two figures on the other: one is a man holding a purse in his hand with money in it that he can rattle. The other figure represents a man who is holding up a mirror so that he can always see himself. So in these two figures we have an extraordinarily beautiful representation of the human being who is devoted to his external value: the rich miser, the Ahrimanic human being, and the Luciferic human being who wants to continually call upon the powers of his vanity, in the human being who has the mirror held up to him and can continually look at himself. So, through the Master himself, we have the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic opposed to each other, and on the other side we have death, which is the balancing force — we will talk more about this later — which is what should stand there as a reminder of how, through the constant alternation of life between death and birth and birth and death, human beings rise above the sphere in which Ahriman and Lucifer reign. So we see in the clock itself, represented in a wonderful way, how a feeling for the Ahrimanic and Luciferic still existed at that time.

We must revive this feeling for the Ahrimanic and Luciferic in a certain way if we want to arrive at a solution to the difficult question I have indicated. Basically, the world always appears to us in a duality. Let us look at nature. What is merely nature appears to us, we can say, in its signature, in its expression, with the revelation of a rigid necessity. We know that it is even the ideal of the natural scientist to be able to calculate future events mathematically from previous events. It is an ideal to be able to do this with all natural phenomena, as with future solar and lunar eclipses, which can be predicted from the constellations of the heavenly bodies. This is what humans feel: when confronted with natural events, they are faced with a rigid necessity, an absolute necessity. Since the 15th century in particular, people have become accustomed to taking this rigid necessity as the very pattern of their view of the world. As a result, it has gradually come about that historical events are now also viewed with such rigid necessity.

Now, however, when it comes to historical events, we must consider the following. Let us take an event that is independent of the particular circumstances of our lives. Let us take, for example, the historical event of Goethe. In a certain sense, we feel the need to regard the appearance of Goethe and all that he created as based on a kind of rigid necessity. But someone might come along and say: Yes, but just look, Goethe was born on August 28, 1749. If this boy had not been born into this family, what would have happened? Would we then also have Goethe's works? One could then point out that Goethe himself pointed out how he was educated in a peculiar way by his father and mother, how each contributed to the way he later became. If he had been educated differently, would these works have been created? And we look at the meeting of Duke Karl August of Weimar with Goethe. If he had not called him, if he had not given him what we know as his life from the age of seventy onwards, would not completely different works have been created? Or could it even have been that Goethe would have become an ordinary minister if he had been brought up differently in his father's house, if the poetic urge had not already been so alive in him at that time? How would what has become the content of German literature and art since Goethe look if everything had turned out differently?

These are all questions that can be raised and that can reveal to us the full depth of this mystery. But what stands in the way of a superficial solution is not yet entirely clear to us. We can go even deeper and ask other questions. Let us look again, for example, at the artist who created the clock on the Old Town Hall in Prague. He placed these figures on top: the rich miser with his money bag, thus representing the vain man, and opposite him, Death. Now one could say: this man did something, he put it there. But in saying that, we are expressing a cause for an infinite number of possible effects. Imagine how many people stood in front of this rich miser, this vain man, seeing his image, facing death. And how many people also saw what was an even greater feat of artistry by this clockmaker: namely, every time the hour was about to strike, Death first moved, accompanying the striking of the hour with a bell, and the other figure also moved, and Death waved to the rich miser, who waved back. All of this could be seen. All of these were important symbols of life. All of this could make an impression on a person standing in front of it. It did make a deep impression. This is evident from the fact that the folk tale developed further, telling something else special: Death, this skeleton, had the peculiar habit of opening his mouth wide every time the hour was about to strike, and the folk tale said: Every time you look there, you see a sparrow coming out of his mouth, and this sparrow has only one desire, to get out again into the open air. But when it wants to come out, the mouth closes, and it is locked in again for another hour. The people have even linked a very clever legend to this opening and closing of the mouth, by which they wanted to show how significant is what we so abstractly call “time,” what we so abstractly call “the passing of time.” The people wanted to suggest that there are deep secrets at work here.

Now let us imagine that a person could have been standing there, couldn't they? By touching on this folk tale, I wanted to suggest what can be thought, not only thought, but seen in the imagination; for one cannot invent such a sparrow. Of course, there were people who saw the sparrow as a figment of the imagination. I only wanted to hint at that. But let us take this, I would say, rationally. A person may be standing there who is perhaps at a moment when he could stray morally, and he stands before the clock and sees: death beckons every hour to the rich man who makes himself dependent on his wealth, and to the vain man. He could be distracted by this impression he has received of a certain moral aberration to which he has already been exposed.

But one can also imagine something else. If one considers this, one could say: this man, who constructed this work of art through divine-spiritual inspiration, has actually done a great deal of good. For many such people could have stood before this work of art and been morally improved in a certain way. One could say: what favorable karma this man has, that he was able to trigger favorable soul effects in so many people! And one could now begin to think: How many favorable effects on the soul has this person triggered by preserving this image! One could now begin to calculate the karma of this artist. One could say: What is it that he made this clock and placed death and Ahriman and Lucifer on it? What kind of starting point is this for infinitely favorable karma! In such a consideration, someone might indulge themselves and say: “Indeed, there are people who, through one deed, perform a whole stream of good deeds. This stream of good deeds must therefore be written entirely on their karma.” One could begin to think about this: “Yes, how should I actually arrange every deed so that such a stream of good deeds arises from it?”

Here you see the beginning of a line of thinking that can go astray. An attempt to think: How must I arrange my deeds so that such a stream of good deeds flows from them? An impossibility, isn't it, if one wanted to make this a principle of life. Someone might indulge in saying: Such a stream of good deeds flows from what the man has done. And then someone else might come along and say: No, I have personally convinced myself, I have followed this matter a little, as with the clock. I have not really heard much about such effects. He might be a pessimist and say: The times are far too bad for that. People cannot be persuaded of such things when they are presented to them in this way. I have seen something quite different in several cases: how people have arrived who are filled with a certain democratic feeling, hatred of everything rich, which has not yet broken out. And there stood such a person and saw how the rich miser was only waved away by death, and how he waved back. I want to do that, he said, and he looked for the nearest rich miser he could find and murdered him. Similar acts of hatred emerged from individual people. The man caused all this with his work of art. That is what must now be written on his karma.

Again, without thinking everything through, someone might say: Yes, so it could be that something that is artistically perfect in itself, that has great inner value, must not be done in the world because it could have the worst effects, because it could have countless bad effects, which would then fall back on karma.

This draws our attention, I would say, to something infinitely tempting for the whole of human knowledge and soul capacity. For one need only look a little into oneself—there is nothing more natural to human beings than to ask themselves about this or that: What has come of it? And then to judge the value of what they have done according to what has come of it. But how one gets into a certain kind of speculation when one wants to think, as in the example I gave you last time, whether the double numbers on the right are just as many as the numbers on the left, or whether they are only half as many, how one gets into a confusion of thinking, so one must inevitably get into a confusion of thinking when one considers you have done something in this way and want to apply the standard: What effects does this have, what will be the result for my karma, for example?

Here, the folk tale is again wiser and, one might even say, more scientific in the spiritual sense. For it is, of course, terribly trivial when I say it, but the folk tale said: It was a simple man who constructed the clock. He had nothing else in mind but the idea that had been given to him, and he made the clock according to that idea and did not speculate about what consequences his action might have in one direction or another.

Now, it cannot be denied, and this is precisely what makes it so seductive and tempting, that you really do get something out of digging in the way I have suggested; when you first ask yourself, in relation to any action: What consequences will this have? It is tempting because there are indeed actions in the world where one must ask about the consequences. And it would of course be one-sided to draw the conclusion from what I have said that one should always do as that master did and not ask about the consequences. For one must ask about the consequences when, for example, one spanks a young boy who has been lazy. So there are of course things in the world where one must definitely ask about the consequences. But here lies precisely what we must take to heart, to our very soul: that in the context of the world we really receive impressions from two sides, that on the one hand we receive impressions from the physical plane, and on the other hand — and folk wisdom hinted at this when it said: it was a simple man, an inspiration from the divine spiritual powers, graciously imparted from above — on the other side, impressions from the spiritual world. When these impressions from the spiritual world are given to us, when something comes to our soul from the spiritual world that inspires our soul to do this or that, then these are the moments in life when there is a second kind of certainty, a second kind of truth, not in the objective sense, but in the subjective sense, in that we allow ourselves to be guided by the truth, a second kind of certainty that is immediate and in which we must remain as an immediate being. That is what it is all about.

On the one hand, we are inside the physical world. In the physical world, everything looks as if the next event would naturally follow from the previous one. But we are also inside the spiritual world. Last time, I tried to explain how, just as the etheric body is inside our physical body, a supersensible event reigns within the entire flow of events in the physical world. We are also within this supersensible happening. From this supersensible happening come the impulses that are original and that we must follow, regardless of how the effects will then appear, especially in the physical world. For, being placed in the world, human beings have a kind of certainty that must come to them when they survey external things. This is how the observer of nature proceeds. He cannot arrive at any certainty about cause and effect in any other way than by surveying natural events. On the other hand, however, we have the possibility of obtaining immediate certainty whenever we want, if we only really open our souls to the influences of this immediate certainty. Then it is a matter of pausing at an event and understanding how to judge it according to its intrinsic value, its unique nature.

The latter is, of course, difficult. But events, especially events in world history, constantly give us the decisive incentive to judge things and processes according to their intrinsic value, things and processes that take place outside of us in history. This is constantly necessary. But here, when we look more closely at things, the confusion of human beings is truly so eminently apparent that it will lead us very far if we understand it correctly. Basically, it is not always immediately apparent to every individual. Take the event of Goethe's Faust. It is a creation that has come into being, is it not? There are probably very few people in this room who, especially after the various considerations we have already made about Faust, do not believe that Goethe's Faust is a great work of art that has been given to humanity, a work of art that truly corresponds to a gracious inspiration.

With Goethe's Faust, German intellectual life has, in a sense, conquered other intellectual lives. Even during Goethe's lifetime, his Faust exerted a strong influence on many people. These people regarded Goethe's Faust as a great and unique work of art. One man in Germany was particularly annoyed that Madame de Stael had expressed an extremely favorable opinion of Goethe's Faust. I would like to read out the judgment that this man made about Goethe's Faust so that you can see how, when it comes to something that is to be judged as individual, opinions can arise that differ from those that you perhaps consider to be the only possible ones about Goethe's Faust at this moment. The man begins right at the prologue in heaven.

This was written in 1822 by a certain Mr. von Spaun. At that time, he made the following judgment about Goethe's “Faust”:

The prologue alone shows “that Mr. von Goethe is a very poor versifier, and the prologue is a true example of how not to write in verse.”

"The past ages have nothing to show that can be compared with this prologue in terms of presumptuous wretchedness... However, I must be brief, because I have taken on a long and, unfortunately, tedious task. I must prove to the reader that the notorious “Faust” enjoys an usurped and undeserved celebrity, which it owes solely to the pernicious common spirit of an Associatio obscurorum virorum... I am not motivated by any rivalry for celebrity to pour the lye of harsh criticism over Mr. Goethe's “Faust.” I do not walk in his footsteps to Parnassus, and I would be delighted if he had enriched our German language with a masterpiece. My voice may be lost among the crowd of cheerers, but it is enough for me to have done my best; and if I succeed in converting even one reader and bringing him back from the worship of this monster, I shall not regret my thankless effort. Poor Faust speaks a completely incomprehensible gibberish in the worst rhymes ever versified in Quinta by any student. My tutor would have beaten me black and blue if I had written verses as bad as the following:

O did you see, bathed in moonlight, events,
For the last time (e) on my torment, events
That I have watched so many a midnight event
At this desk.

I will refrain from commenting on the vulgarity of the diction and the wretchedness of the versification; what the reader has seen is proof enough that the author cannot even measure himself against the mediocre poets of the old school when it comes to versification...

Mephistopheles himself recognizes that Faust was possessed by a devil even before the contract. We, however, believe that he belongs not in hell but in a madhouse, with everything that is his, namely his hands and feet, his head and his rear end. Many poets have given us examples of sublime gibberish, nonsense in high-sounding words, but I would like to call Goethe's gibberish a genre nouveau, popular gibberish, because it is presented in the most vulgar and worst language ...

The more I think about this long litany of nonsense, the more I am convinced that it would be a safe bet that if a famous man were to come up with the most shallow and boring nonsense, a legion of silly writers and gullible readers would be found who would find deep wisdom and great beauty in this flat-footed nonsense and know how to exegete it. Famous men have this in common with Prince Piribinker and the immortal Dalai Lama, that their cocoa is served up as confectionery and revered as relics. If this was Mr. Goethe's intention, he has won the bet ...

There may well be some intentions in “Faust”; but a good poet does not have to spit them out; he must understand the art of drawing them correctly and illuminating them. A richer subject for poetry is not easy to find, and one resents the poet for having so miserably botched it...

This diarrhea of undigested ideas does not stem from an excessive influx of healthy fluids, but from a relaxation of the sphincter of the mind, and is evidence of a weak constitution. There are people from whom bad verses flow like water, but this incontinentia urinae poeticae, this diabetes mellitus of insipid rhymes, never afflicts a good poet.... When Goethe's genius has freed itself from all fetters, the flood of his ideas cannot break through the dams of art; they have already been broken. But even if we do not disapprove of an author going beyond the conventional rules of composition, the laws of common sense, grammar, and rhythm must still be sacred to him; even in dramas, where the magic wand is at play, he is allowed only one hypothesis as a mechanism, and he must remain faithful to it. A dignus vindice nodus must be created, the sorcery must lead to great results. In Faust, the result is to lead the patient into very common crimes, and his seducer does not need his magic powers; everything he does could just as well have been done by any matchmaking scoundrel without witchcraft. He is sleazy, like a usurer, even though he has buried treasures at his disposal...

In short, a miserable devil who could go to school with Lessing's Marinell. In the name of common sense, I therefore overturn Madame de Staël's judgment in favor of the Faust we have in mind and do not condemn him to hell, which could cool this frosty product, since even the devil feels winter in his bones, but rather to be precipitated into the Cloacam parnassi. By right."

You see, this judgment was also once made, and the context in which it was made shows the man not as a completely dishonest person, but as someone who believed what he wrote. Now imagine that this man, who speaks in this way, that his teacher in fifth grade had prevented him from writing something like Faust, had himself become a teacher and had many young boys to teach, and had instilled this in them. These boys might in turn have become teachers and retained something of this judgment about Faust. Now think about what else you can speculate about what this man has done karmically with his judgment. But I would like to look less at that and focus instead on the fact that it is difficult to arrive at a real, correct judgment about events that stand on their own merits, a judgment that can, so to speak, stand the test of time. In some lectures, I have pointed out how some great figures of the 19th century will no longer be regarded as great in the centuries to come, and how people who have been completely forgotten will be regarded as great and important figures in the centuries to come. Certainly, such things become clear with time. I just wanted to point out how infinitely difficult it is to arrive at a judgment when it comes to forming such a judgment about an event that is supposed to have intrinsic value. And why is it actually difficult?

We must now ask ourselves: What makes it difficult for us? And here we will first consider the matter in such a way that we see the judge as a different person from the one being judged. Isn't it true that we would say today that those who regarded Goethe's Faust as a great and significant work of art at the time, who judged it objectively in a certain sense, excluded themselves? The man who wrote what we have just been discussing did not exclude himself. But how does one come to judge something subjectively in the first place? People so often fail to judge objectively that they do not even ask the question: How does one come to judge subjectively? One comes to judge subjectively through sympathy and antipathy. Without sympathy and antipathy, one would not arrive at a subjective judgment at all.

Sympathy and antipathy are necessary to cloud the objectivity of a judgment. But does that mean that sympathy and antipathy are bad? Are they something we should eliminate from human life altogether? We only need to think about it for a moment to realize that this is not the case. For it is precisely when we immerse ourselves in Goethe's “Faust” that we find “Faust” likable, and we become more and more sympathetic toward him. We must have the opportunity to develop sympathy. And finally, if we were unable to develop antipathy, we would not be able to form a completely accurate judgment of the man whose judgment we have just heard. For I imagine that some feeling of antipathy toward this man may have arisen in you, and this feeling of antipathy may perhaps be justified. But here again we see how important it is not to take these things as they are in absolute terms, but rather to consider them in their entire context. Human beings are not guided to sympathy and antipathy solely by things, but go through life with sympathy and antipathy. They already have sympathy and antipathy toward things themselves, so that things do not affect them, but rather affect their sympathy and antipathy. But what does that mean? I approach a thing or a process. I bring my sympathy and antipathy with me. Of course, the man I was talking about did not bring his antipathy toward Faust with him, but he did bring feelings that made what he encountered in Faust appear antipathetic to him. How he judges depends entirely on the direction of his impulses.

What is actually going on here? What is going on is that sympathy and antipathy are initially only words for real spiritual facts. And the real spiritual facts are the deeds of Ahriman and Lucifer. In every sympathy there is, in a certain sense, something Luciferic, and in every antipathy there is, in a certain sense, something Ahrimanic. By allowing ourselves to be carried through the world by sympathy and antipathy, we allow ourselves to be carried through the world by Ahriman and Lucifer. We must not fall into the mistake that I have often characterized here as a mistake, namely, that we say: Lucifer, Ahriman, we flee from you! We want to become good people. So nothing of Lucifer and Ahriman, nothing of Lucifer and Ahriman! They must be removed from us, completely removed! But then we must also leave the world! For just as there can be positive and negative electricity, not only the balance between the two, so there is Lucifer and Ahriman everywhere we go. It is only a question of how we relate to them. The two forces must be there. It is only a matter of always bringing them into balance in our lives. If, for example, there were no Lucifer, there would be no art. It is only a matter of not shaping art in such a way that perhaps purely Luciferic forces speak through it.

So it is a matter of becoming aware that as we go through the world with antipathy and sympathy, Lucifer and Ahriman are at work within us, which means that we must gain the ability to allow Lucifer and Ahriman to truly work within us. But because we are aware that they are at work within us, we must acquire the ability to nevertheless face things objectively. We can only do this by not merely looking at how we judge others in the world, how we judge what happens outside of us in the world, but also by looking at how we judge ourselves in the world. And this “judging ourselves in the world” leads us in turn a step deeper into the whole question and into the whole complex of questions. We can judge ourselves in the world if we apply a uniform way of looking at ourselves in our judgment. We must now raise this question.

We look out into nature. On the one hand, we see a rigid necessity; one thing follows from another. We look at our own actions and believe that they are subject only to freedom and connected only with guilt and atonement and the like. Both are one-sided. That both are one-sided, in that we do not correctly assess the position of Lucifer and Ahriman, will become clear from what follows. We cannot look into our own souls when we look at ourselves as human beings standing here on the physical plane in such a way that we see only what is immediately going on within us. When we now ask ourselves what is immediately going on within us, this is certainly a piece of self-knowledge. But this self-knowledge does not give us everything we could demand, even for a superficial self-knowledge. For, without wishing to offend anyone, we all take ourselves as we are here: I who am speaking to you, you who are listening. I would not be able to speak as I am speaking now if everything else that has happened in my present life and in other incarnations had not happened before. So looking only at what I am saying to you now would be very one-sided in terms of my self-knowledge. But, without offending anyone, it is clear that each of you listens differently and that each of you perceives and understands what I am saying to you in a slightly different way. That is quite natural. And you all understand this according to your previous life and according to your previous incarnations. It would be necessary for there to be no people sitting here if everyone did not perceive what is being said here in a different way. But that leads much further. It leads to recognizing a duality within oneself. Just think about it: when you make a judgment, you make that judgment in a certain way. Let us take an example out of context! When you see this or that, for example a performance at Reinhardt's, you say, “I am delighted.” Someone else says, “That is the ruin of all art!” Of course, neither of these statements is to be criticized now. One may be possible for one person, the other for another. What will determine that one person judges one way and the other differently? Again, it depends on what is already within him, on the assumptions with which he approaches things.

But if you think about these assumptions, you will be able to say to yourself: Yes, these assumptions are things that were not necessarily true in the past. Your current judgment will be influenced, for example, by what you saw when you were eighteen or what you learned when you were thirteen. These things have become part of your thinking, are now part of you, and influence your judgment. Everyone can perceive this in themselves, of course, if they want to. It plays a part in your judgment. Ask yourself whether you can change what is already within you, whether you can tear it out of yourself. Ask yourself! And if you could tear it out of yourself, you would tear out your entire past existence in this incarnation, and you would have to annihilate yourself. You cannot remove from yourself what you have experienced in terms of thoughts and feelings any more than you can give yourself a different nose when you look in the mirror and say, “I don't like my nose, I want a different one.” That is quite clear. You cannot erase your past. Nevertheless, when you want to get up early in the morning, you will notice that a decision is always necessary. However, this decision really depends on your circumstances in this incarnation. It also depends on many other things. Isn't it true that if you say to yourself that it depends on this or that, it detracts from the fact that you still have to decide to get up? Perhaps this decision to get up can be made so quietly that you don't even notice it, but there must at least be a quiet decision to get up, that is, getting up must be a free act.

I knew a man who belonged to our society for a while, who illustrated this very well in that he never really wanted to get up. He suffered terribly from this and complained about it repeatedly. He said: Yes, I can't get up! Unless something happens that forces me to get out of bed, I would always stay in bed.” He confessed this quite openly. He confessed it because he felt it was something terribly tempting that was part of his life: he simply did not want to get up! From this you can see that it is indeed a free act. This does not prevent certain preconditions from being established within us that suggest this or that cause to us, but we can still carry out a free act in individual cases. In a certain sense, the situation is this: there are people who slowly root themselves out of bed and need a stronger decision; for others, getting up is a joy. One can say that these preconditions have the meaning that one person is well-educated and another is poorly educated. We can see a certain necessity in this, but it is always a free decision. So we see freedom and necessity interwoven in one and the same fact, in the fact of our getting up. They are thoroughly interwoven. One and the same thing carries within itself freedom and necessity. And I ask you to take this to heart: if you look at it properly, you cannot argue that in this the human being is free or unfree, but you can only say that in every human act, freedom and necessity are initially mixed together.

How does this come about? We cannot make any progress in our spiritual science unless we consider what we regard as human in relation to the whole world. Where does this come from? It comes from the fact that what acts as necessity within us—I am now going to say something relatively simple, but which has enormous implications—what we regard as necessity is the past within us. What acts as necessity within us must always be past. We must have gone through something, and this experience must have been deposited in our soul. It is then in our soul and continues to act in our soul as a necessity.

Now you may say: Every human being carries their past within them, every human being therefore carries a necessity within them. What is present does not yet act as a necessity, otherwise free action in the present would not be immediately possible. But the past acts into the present and connects itself with freedom. Through the fact that the past continues to act, necessity and freedom are intimately connected in one and the same act.

So if we look within ourselves, if we really carry out this self-examination, we will say: Necessity is not only in nature outside, but there is also a necessity within ourselves. But when we look at this necessity, we must look at our past. This is something that gives the spiritual scientist an infinitely important point of view. He learns about the connection between the past and necessity. And now he begins to examine nature and finds necessities within it, and by examining natural phenomena, he learns to recognize that everything the natural scientist finds as necessities in nature is also past. What is the whole of nature, the whole of nature with its necessity?

This cannot be answered unless the answer is sought on the basis of spiritual science. We now live in the earthly existence. Earthly existence was preceded by lunar, solar, and Saturnian existence. During Saturnian existence—you can read about this in The Secret Science—the planet did not look like the Earth does now; it was something completely different. If you examine Saturn, you will see that everything there is still like thoughts. Stones do not yet fall to the earth. There is no dense physical matter. Everything is heat. Everything is as it is within the human being. These are soul effects, thoughts left behind by the divine spirits. And they have remained. The whole of nature as you see it now, in all its necessity, was once free; it was a free act of the gods. And only because it has passed, because what developed on Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon has come over to us, just as the thoughts we had when we were children continue to work within us, so the thoughts of the gods continue to work during the Saturn, Sun, and Moon existences in the Earth existence, and because they are past thoughts, they appear to us as necessity.

If you now place your hand on a solid object, what does that actually mean? Nothing other than this: what is inside that solid object was once thought in the distant past, and the thought has remained, just as the thoughts you had in your youth have remained within you. When you look at your past and see the past as something alive, you see nature becoming in yourself. Just as what you think and say today is not a necessity but a freedom, so what is earthly existence today has been freedom in earlier stages of existence. Freedom always develops further, and by remaining, it becomes necessity. If we could see what is happening in nature now, it would not occur to us to find necessity in it. We see only what remains of nature. What is happening now as nature is spiritual. We do not see that.

This gives human self-knowledge a very special cosmic meaning. We now think a thought. Now it is within us. We certainly could not think it. But by having thought it, it remains in our soul. Now it has passed. Now it is there as a necessity, as a still subtle necessity, not yet as dense matter as outside in nature, because we are human beings and not gods. We only manage to see that inner nature within us which remains in us as our memory, as our recollections, and is effective in our necessities. But what are now thoughts within us will become external nature in the next Jupiter or Venus existence. There it will act as the external environment. And what we now see as external nature was once the thoughts of the gods.

We speak today of the Archai, we speak of the Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai, and so on. They thought in the past as we think now. And what they thought has remained as their memory, and it is this memory that we see. We can only look inwardly at what we remember during our earthly existence. But inwardly it has become nature. What the gods thought during earlier planetary states has become external, and we now see this as external.

It is true, deeply true: as long as we are earthly human beings, we think. We lower our thoughts, as it were, into our soul life. There they become the beginning of a natural existence. But they remain within us. However, when the Jupiter existence comes, they leave us. And what we think today, what we experience within ourselves today, becomes the outer world. We will then look down on what is now our inner world as an outer world, from a higher level. What is once experienced in freedom is transformed into a necessity.

These are very, very important points of view, and only when one has these important points of view can one gain an understanding of the peculiar course of historical events, of what the present events are, of what is happening at present. For these lead directly to the fact that we are actually always taking the path from the subjective to the objective. Subjectively, we can basically only be in the present. As soon as we are beyond the present and have pushed the subjective down into our soul life, it takes on an independent existence. Admittedly, only within us at first, but it takes on an independent existence. And while we continue to live with other thoughts, the earlier thoughts we had initially live only within us. We give them a temporary shell. But this shell will eventually fall away. In the spiritual realm, things are different. That is why you must also view an event such as the one I have hypothetically described to you from this perspective. Outwardly, a rock has fallen and buried a community. But this is only the outward expression of something that is happening spiritually, and what is happening spiritually is the other part of the event, which is just as objective as the first event.

That was what I wanted to explain today, to show how freedom and necessity interact in the becoming of the world and in the becoming in which we ourselves are involved, in that we are living human beings, in that we are interwoven with the world, in that we ourselves daily, hourly, become what nature shows us externally. Our past is already a piece of nature within us. We go beyond this piece of nature by evolving, just as the gods went beyond their evolution, beyond their natural evolution, by becoming higher hierarchies.

This, in turn, has been only one of the paths to be taken, of which there are many, which are intended to show us again and again how everything that happens in the physical world cannot be judged one-sidedly according to physical appearances alone, but must be judged according to the fact that, alongside physical appearances, there is also a hidden spiritual element within it. Just as our physical body still contains our etheric body, so everything sensory has a supersensible basis. From this we must conclude that we actually view the world quite incompletely if we look at it only in terms of what it presents to our eyes, what happens externally, and that while something completely different is happening externally, something spiritual can happen internally at the same time that has a much greater, infinitely greater significance than what presents itself to our physical sight. What the souls that have been buried have experienced in the spiritual realm can be infinitely more significant than what has happened externally. But what has happened there has something to do with the entire future of these souls, as we shall see.

But let us leave these thoughts here for today and continue next Sunday. My aim today was simply to direct your thoughts and ideas in a direction that will show you how we can only arrive at correct concepts of freedom and necessity, of guilt and atonement, and so on, if we add the spiritual to the physical.