Necessity and Freedom
GA 166
30 January 1916, Berlin
Lecture III
To continue last week's study I shall begin with a kind of hypothetical case. Where the deepest riddles of human existence are concerned the best way to avoid abstraction and to get close to reality is to give examples. My example will of course apply to every possible level of life. So let us begin with a hypothetical example.
Let us imagine we are in a school, a school of three classes, with three teachers and a headmaster. These three teachers differ tremendously in character and temperament. It is the beginning of a new school year. The headmaster discusses the coming year with his teachers. First of all it is the turn of the first teacher. The headmaster asks him what preparations he intends to make and what he thinks is the best way to proceed in the coming year. The teacher replies, “Well, during the holidays I noted down carefully all the areas where the pupils did not meet my expectations, areas that I had obviously not prepared well. And I have drawn up a new plan for next year containing all the things which I am sure were successful and got across to the children. All the work I will give them next year consists of the things that came off best last year and have proved successful.” A further question from the headmaster produced a complete schedule the teacher had made of the subject matter. He could also stipulate what work he would give the pupils to do in school and what would be set as homework in the course of the year. All his themes, both for schoolwork and homework, had been chosen from careful scanning of the previous year. The headmaster was very satisfied and said “You are doubtless a conscientious teacher, and I reckon you will achieve excellent results with your class.”
The second teacher also said, “I have gone through the whole curriculum I covered with my pupils last year and noted everything I did wrong. I have arranged the new schedule avoiding all the mistakes I made before.” And he, too, was able to show the headmaster a curriculum containing all the subjects he was going to give the pupils for schoolwork and homework in the course of the year, basing it on the experience of his last year's mistakes. The headmaster said, “The teacher I have just spoken to noted all the instances where he had achieved excellence, and tried to plan his curriculum accordingly, whereas you have endeavored to avoid mistakes. It can be done either way. I am assured that you will achieve excellent results with your class. I see with a certain satisfaction that I have teachers in my school who review their past achievements and let the wisdom of self-knowledge guide their future steps.” You see, a teacher who knows his priorities is bound to make a good impression on a headmaster.
Then it was the third teacher's turn. He said, “During the holidays I, too, have thought a lot about what happened in my class last year. I have tried to study the character of my pupils and have done a kind of review of what has taken place in the various individuals.” “Well,” said the headmaster, “you will also have seen the mistakes you made and the things you did well, and will have been able to draw up a schedule for the coming year.” “No,” replied the teacher. “I have certainly made mistakes; and some things I have done well. But I have only studied the pupils' characters and what has taken place there. I have not thought especially about whether I made any particular mistakes, or whether this or that was particularly good. I did not do that. I accepted that things had to happen the way they did. So I have just observed what I believe had to happen out of a certain necessity. The pupils had their various dispositions, and these I observed carefully. I too have a definite disposition, and the interaction of our different natures produced its own results. I cannot say more than that.”
“Well,” said the headmaster, “you seem to be a very self-satisfied person. Have you at least drawn up a schedule, and worked out the subjects you will give your pupils as schoolwork and homework during the year?” “No,” he answered, “I have not done that.” “Well, what do you intend to do with your class?” To this the teacher replied, “I will see what kinds of pupils I will have this year. And I believe I will be able to size this up better than last year, as each year I have always studied the previous year's characters during the holidays. But I cannot possibly know yet what they will be like next year. Only time will tell.” “Well, are you not intending to plan subjects for schoolwork and homework?” “Yes, but not until I have seen what my pupils' capacities are like. I will try to set the work accordingly.” “Well, really,” said the headmaster, “we would be thoroughly at sea in that case. We can hardly allow such things to happen.”
But there was nothing to be done. The headmaster had to agree to it, and the school year got under way. The headmaster inspected the school frequently. He saw the first two teachers doing exceedingly well, but with the third he always found that things were not on a good footing. There was no certainty, he said, one never really knew what would happen the following month. And it went on like this throughout the year. Then came the time for the report cards. From those of the first two teachers the headmaster was satisfied that they had been very successful. Of course, some of the pupils in their classes failed too, and others passed, but it all happened as expected. According to the report cards, the third teacher's results were no worse. Yet other people had come to the conclusion over the year that he was very lenient. While the other teachers were strict, he was so lenient that he frequently made allowances, and the headmaster was convinced that the third teacher's class had come out the worst.
Then the next year came. The holidays were over, and at the start of the school year the first two teachers spoke as before, and the third, too. Things happened similarly, with the school inspector also coming occasionally, and, of course, he noticed what the headmaster had as it were prepared him to see, namely that the first two teachers were very good, and the third only second-rate. It could not be otherwise. I hardly need mention that after a few years the two good teachers were nominated for decorations, and the headmaster received an even higher one. That is a matter of secondary importance, isn't it?
Some time later the following thing happened. The headmaster left the school and another came at the beginning of the year. He also discussed with his three teachers what their plans were, and so on, and each of the teachers answered in a similar way as before. Then the headmaster said, “There is certainly quite a difference between your methods. And I believe the first two gentlemen ought to take a little guidance from the third teacher.” “What!” said the first two gentlemen. “The previous headmaster always said that he ought to take guidance from us!” “I do not think so,” said the new head. “It seems to me that the first two should adapt to the third.” But they could not very well emulate him, for they could not see how anyone could possibly foresee what would happen in the coming year if he groped about as blindly as that teacher did. They just could not imagine it.
In the meantime the former headmaster, because of his insight into proper school administration, had himself become a school inspector, and was most astonished at the views his successor was expressing about the school he knew so well. How could such a thing happen? And he said, “The third teacher never told me anything except ‘I must first see what the pupils are like, then I can form my schedule from week to week.’ But that way you cannot look ahead at all! It is quite impossible to manage if you cannot anticipate a single thing.” To which the present headmaster replied, “Yes, but look, I have actually asked my teachers about their different ways of looking ahead. The first two gentlemen always say 'I know for certain that on February 25 next year I will present such and such items of school-work. I can say in detail what will be happening, and I know for certain that I will be talking about such and such a subject at Easter.' The third teacher says 'I do not know for certain what I will be doing at Easter, nor do I know what schoolwork I will set in February. I will set the work according to the kind of pupils I have.' And by that he meant that he can in a certain way foresee that all will be well. And,” said the new headmaster, “I actually agree with him entirely. You cannot know until afterwards whether your resolves have been entirely successful. It depends on the attitude you have to the previous year; if you study the character of last year's pupils, you acquire greater capacities to understand the character of the new pupils. I appreciate that more can be achieved this way.”
“Yes, but you still cannot know anything in advance! Everything is in the realm of uncertainty. How can you predetermine anything for the whole school year?” asked the former headmaster. “You cannot anticipate anything. But you must be able to look ahead a little bit, if you want to make proper plans.” “You can foresee that things will go well,” said the new headmaster, “if you join forces as it were with the spirit at work in the pupils, and have a certain faith in it. If you, so to speak, pledge yourself to this and depend upon it, then even if you cannot anticipate the school work you will be presenting in February, you will know that it will be the right work.” “Yes, but you cannot foresee anything with certainty, and everything remains vague,” said the school inspector, to which the new headmaster replied, “You know, I once studied the sort of thing people call spiritual science. And I still remember from this that beings on a much higher level than human beings are actually supposed to have acted in this way in much more important affairs. For at the beginning of the Bible it says 'And God made light.' And only after he made the light does it say 'And he saw that it was good.'“ To this the inspector had nothing suitable to say.
Things continued in the same way for a time. There are few headmasters like the second one I chose as a hypothetical example, aren't there? I could call him hypothetical to the second degree, for even with it being a hypothesis it is hypothetical to assume a headmaster like that. Therefore he was dismissed very soon, and another one more like the inspector was appointed. And things ran their course until one day it went so far that the completely “undecorated” teacher was driven away from the school in disgrace and another of the same style as the first two was appointed in his place. The outcome could not possibly have been any different at the time, for in all the yearbooks and personnel files it was recorded what great progress had been achieved by the first two teachers, while of the third one it was recorded that he sent out only poor students from the school for the simple reason that he made allowances; otherwise all his pupils would have failed. There was absolutely nothing that could be done about a person like this third teacher.
Many years passed. By chance a very unusual event followed. The headmaster who had been dismissed tried to go more deeply into how matters had turned out with the two teachers who had always practiced strict self-observation, for example, with the one who noted the subjects that yielded fewer successes and selected the more successful ones. The former headmaster also wanted to know what the second and the third teachers had achieved. He even followed up what their pupils had achieved under other teachers, and he discovered that with different teachers the third teacher's pupils made much less progress than those of the first two. But the former headmaster did not stop there. He went even further into the matter and traced the subsequent life of the former pupils of these teachers. He then discovered that those taught by the first two teachers, with a few exceptions naturally, had all become respectable citizens, yet they had achieved nothing outstanding. Among the pupils taught by the third teacher, however, were people of considerable importance, who accomplished things of far greater significance than the pupils of the others.
He was able to prove these things in this particular case. But it made no special impression on people, for they said, “We cannot always wait to follow up the pupils' whole subsequent lives! That is impossible, isn't it? And that is not the point, anyway.”
Now why am I telling you all this? There is an important difference between the first two teachers and the third. Throughout the holidays, the first two teachers kept focusing their attention on the way they had done their work the previous year. The third teacher did not do this, for he had the feeling that it had to happen as it did. When the headmaster, the first one, kept telling him again and again, “But you won't have any idea how to avoid mistakes next year, or how to do the right thing, if you don't study what you did well last year,” he did not answer immediately, for he did not feel like explaining this to him. But afterwards he thought to himself, “Well, even if I did know what mistakes happened in the course of the work my pupils and I did together, I will after all have different pupils this year, and our working together is not affected by the mistakes made last year. I have to work with new pupils.”
In short, the first two teachers were wholly entrenched in a dead element, while the third teacher entered into what was alive. You could also say that the first two teachers always dealt with the past, the third teacher with the immediate present. He did not brood over the past, but said, “Of necessity it had to happen as it did according to the conditions that prevailed.”
The point is that if things are judged in a superficial way according to external judgments, one can indeed go astray where actual facts are concerned. Because if you were to do things the way the first teachers did them you would be judging the present according to what is dead and gone and what ought to be allowed to remain so. The third teacher took what was still alive from the past, arriving at it by simply studying character, and made himself more perfect by doing so; in fact, he did it with this in view. For he told himself, “If I can make myself more efficient in this way, the greater capacities I thus acquire will help me achieve what I have to do in the future.”
The first two teachers were somewhat superstitious about the past and told themselves, “Past mistakes must be avoided in the future and evident good qualities must be used.” But they did this in a dead way. They had no intention of enhancing their abilities but only of making their decisions according to outer observation. They did not have the wish to be effective as a result of working in a living way on themselves; they thought the only means to gain anything for the future was observation and its results.
In accordance with spiritual science we have to say that the first teacher, who investigated so carefully the good qualities he had established in the past and wanted to incorporate them in his future work, acted in an ahrimanic way. It was an ahrimanic approach. He clung to the past, and out of personal egotism looked with complacent satisfaction at everything he had done well and prided himself on it.
The second teacher's character was governed more by luciferic forces. He brooded over his mistakes and told himself, “I must avoid these mistakes.” He did not say, “The things that happened were necessary, and had to happen like that,” but said, “I have made mistakes.” There is always something egotistic about it when we would like to have been better than we actually were, and tell ourselves we made mistakes that ought to have been avoided and that we must now avoid. We are clinging to the past, like Lucifer does, who, on a spiritual level, brings past happenings into the present. That is thinking in a luciferic way.
The third teacher was, I would say, filled with the forces of divine beings who are progressing in a normal way, whose correct divine principle is expressed right at the beginning of the Bible, where we are told that the Elohim first of all create and then they see that their creation was good. They do not look upon it egotistically as though they were superior beings for having made a good creation, but they admit that it is good in order to continue creating. They incorporate it into their evolution. They live and work in the element of life.
What is important is that we realize that we ourselves are living beings and a part of a living world. If we realize this, we will not criticize the gods, the Elohim, for instance. For anyone wishing to set his own wisdom above that of the gods might say, “If gods are supposed to be gods, could they not see that the light would be good? Those gods do not even sound like prophets to me. If I were a god, I would of course only create light if I knew beforehand what light was like, and did not have to wait till later to see that it was good.” But that is human wisdom being placed above divine wisdom.
In a certain way the third teacher also saw what would come about, but he saw it in a living way in that he surrendered himself to the spirit of becoming, the spirit of development. When he said, “By incorporating what I have gained through the study of last year's characters and not focusing on the mistakes I made of necessity, simply because I was as I was, nor applying criticism to what I encountered as my own past, I have enhanced my capacities and acquired in addition a better understanding for my new pupils.” And he realized that the first two teachers were considering their pupils merely in the light of what they had done the previous year, which they could not even estimate properly. So he could say, “I am quite certain I will give my pupils the right schoolwork in four weeks time, and I have every confidence in my prediction.”
The others were better prophets. They could actually say “I will present the schoolwork I have written down; I will give them that for sure.” But that was a foreseeing of facts, not a foreseeing of the course of the forces of movement. We must hold very firmly to this distinction. Prediction as such is not impossible. But predicting in detail what will happen when these details are interwoven with a living element that is to work out of itself is possible only when we consider the phenomena that Lucifer and Ahriman carry over from the present into the future.
We are gradually getting closer to the big problem occupying us in these lectures on freedom and necessity. However, as this particular problem affects so profoundly the whole matter of world processes and human action, we must not fail to look at all the difficulties. For instance, we must realize clearly that when we look back at events that have happened and in which we have been involved, we look at them as necessity. The moment we know all the circumstances, we consider the events as necessity. There is no doubt about the fact that we look upon what has happened as a necessity.
But at the same time we have to ask, “Can we really, as so often happens, always find the causes of events in what immediately preceded them?” In a certain way natural science has to look at what has just happened to see what will happen next. If I carry out an experiment, I have to realize that the cause of what takes place later obviously lies in what took place previously. But that does not mean at all that this principle applies to every process in the world. For we might very easily deceive ourselves about the connection between cause and effect if we were to look for it along the lines of what comes first and what comes later. I would like to explain this with a comparison.
When we penetrate external reality with our senses, we can say, “Because this thing is like this, then the other must be like that.” But if we apply this to every process, we very often arrive at the error I want to illustrate. For the sake of simplicity let us take a man driving himself in a cart, an example I have often taken. We see a horse with a cart behind it and a man sitting in it holding the reins. We look at it and quite naturally say that the horse is pulling and the man is being pulled. The man is being taken wherever the horse takes him. That is quite obvious. Therefore the horse is the cause of the man's being pulled along. The pulling being done by the horse is the cause, and the fact of the man being pulled is the effect. Fair enough! But you all know very well that that is not so; that the man sitting up there driving himself is leading the horse where he wants him to go. Although the horse is pulling him, it is taking him where he wants to go.
Such mistakes happen often when we judge purely externally, on the basis of happenings on the physical plane. Let us look once more at the hypothetical examples I gave you a few days ago, in which a party of people set out for a drive, got into the coach, but the driver was delayed, and they were five minutes behind time. Therefore they arrive beneath an overhanging boulder at the moment it falls, and it crushes them all. Now if we trace the cause on the physical plane, we can naturally say, “This happened first and then that and then the other.” And we will arrive at something. But in this case we could easily make the same mistake we make if we say the horse pulls the driver wherever it wants and overlook the fact that the driver is leading the horse. Perhaps we make this mistake because the controlling force in this case is possibly to be found in the spiritual world. If we merely trace events on the physical plane we really judge in the sense of saying the man is going where the horse takes him. However, if we penetrate to the hidden forces at work in the occurrence, we see that events were directed toward that point and that the driver's belated arrival was actually part of the whole complex of circumstances. It was all necessary, but not necessary in the way one might believe if one merely traces events on the physical plane.
Again, if you believe you can find the cause by assuming it to be what has happened immediately beforehand, the following might happen. Seen externally it looks like this. Two people meet. We now proceed in the proper scientific manner. The two have met, so we enquire where they were during the hour before they met, where they were an hour before that, and how they set out to meet one another. We can now trace over a certain length of time how one thing has always led to another, and how the two were brought together. Someone else who does not concern himself with this sort of thing hears by chance that the two people had arranged five days beforehand that they would meet, and he says, “They have met because they planned to do so.”
Here you have an opportunity to see that the cause for something is not necessarily connected with the immediately preceding event. In fact if we break off looking for the chain of causes before we come to the right link in the chain, we shall never find it, for after all we can only follow the chain of causes up to a certain point. In nature, too, we can only follow it up to a certain point, particularly in the case of phenomena involving human beings. And if we do this, and go from one event to the other, tracing what was before that and before that again, and imagine we will find the cause this way, we are obviously laying ourselves open to error, to deception.
You have to grasp this with what you have acquired from spiritual science. Suppose a person carries out some action on the physical plane. We see him doing it. If we want to limit our observations to the physical plane, we will look into his behavior prior to the action. If we go further, we will look into how he was brought up. We might also follow the modern fashion of looking at his heredity, and so on. However, let us assume that into this action on the physical plane something has entered that is only to be found in the life of that person between his previous death and rebirth. This means that we must break off the chain of causes at his birth and pass over to something that resembles the prior arrangement made by the two people in my example. For what I have just described may have been predetermined hundreds of years before in the life between the last death and the birth into the present life. What was experienced then enters into our present actions and resolves.
Thus it is inevitable that unless we include the sphere of the spirit, we cannot find the causes of human actions at all, certainly not here on the physical plane, and that a search for causes similar to the way people look for causes of events in outer nature may go very wrong.
Yet if we look more closely at the way human action is interwoven with world processes, we will arrive at a satisfactory way of looking at things, even of looking at what we call freedom, although we have to admit that necessity exists also. But what we call the search for causes is perhaps for the time being limited most of all by the fact that on the physical plane one cannot penetrate to the place where causes originate.
Now we come to something else that has to be considered. The two concepts freedom and necessity are extremely difficult to grasp and even more difficult to reconcile. It is not for nothing that philosophy for the most part fails when it comes to the problem of freedom and necessity. This is largely due to the fact that human beings have not looked fairly and squarely at the difficulties these problems entail. That is why I am trying so hard to focus in these lectures on all the possible difficulties.
When we look at human activities, the first thing we see everywhere is the thread of necessity. For it would be biased to say that every human action is a product of freedom. Let me give you another hypothetical example. Imagine someone growing up. Through the way he is growing up, it can be shown that all the circumstances have gone in the direction of making him a postman, a country postman, who has to go out into the country every morning with the mail and deliver letters. He does the same round every day. I expect you will all agree that a certain necessity can be found in this whole process. If we look at all that happened to this lad in his childhood and take into account everything that had its effect on his life, we will certainly see that all these things combined to make him a mailman. So that as soon as there was a vacant position he was pushed into it of necessity, at which point freedom certainly ceased to exist, for of course he cannot alter the addresses of the letters he gets. There is now an external necessity that dictates the doors at which he has to call. So we certainly see a great deal of necessity in what he has to do.
But now let us imagine another person, younger perhaps. I will assume him to be younger so that I can describe what I want to describe without your objecting too strongly to the way he behaves. Well then, another, younger person, not out of idleness but just because he is still so young, makes up his mind to go with the mailman every morning and accompany him on his round. He gets up in good time every morning, joins the postman and takes part in all the details of the round for a considerable while.
Now it is obvious that we cannot talk of necessity in the case of the second fellow in the same sense as we can of the first. For everything the first fellow does must happen, whereas nothing the second fellow does has to be done. He could have stayed at home any day, and exactly the same things would have happened from an objective standpoint. This is obvious, isn't it? So we could say that the first man does everything out of necessity and the second everything out of freedom. We can very well say this, and yet in one sense they are both doing the same thing. We might even imagine the following. A morning comes when the second fellow does not want to get up. He could quite well have stayed in bed, but he gets up all the same because he is now used to doing so. He does with a certain necessity what he is doing out of freedom. We see freedom and necessity virtually overlapping.
If we study the way our second self lives in us—the one I told you about in the public lecture,1See lectures of December 3 and December 10, 1915, in Berlin in Aus dem mitteleuropäischen Geistesleben (Of Central European Cultural and Spiritual Life), GA/Bn 65. Not yet translated. our actual soul nature, which will pass through the gate of death—it could, after all, be compared with someone accompanying the outer human being in the physical world. An ordinary materialistic monist would think this was a dreadful thing to say. But we know that a materialistic monist takes the view that people are terrible dualists if they believe water consists of hydrogen and oxygen. For them everything must be undifferentiated. They think it is nonsense to say that the monon “water” consists of hydrogen and oxygen. But we must not let monism deceive us.
The crux of the matter is that what we are in life really consists of two parts that come together from two different directions, and these two parts can indeed be compared with the oxygen and hydrogen in water. For our external physical nature comes through the line of heredity, bringing not only physical characteristics with it but also social status. It is not just our particular form with its nose, color of hair, and so on that we get from our father and mother, but our social position is also predestined through our ancestors' positions in life. Thus not only the appearance of our physical body, the strength of our muscles and so on, but our position in society and everything pertaining to the physical plane comes through the line of heredity from one generation to the other.
Our individual being originating in the spiritual world comes from a different direction, and at first it has nothing to do with all the forces in the stream of heredity through the generations, but brings with it causes that may have been laid down in us centuries before, and unites them on a spiritual level with the causes residing in the stream of heredity. Two beings come together. And in fact we can only judge the matter rightly if we regard this second being coming from the spiritual world and uniting with the physical being as a kind of companion to the first one. That is why I chose the example of the companion who joins us in everything. Our soul being in a certain sense joins us in the external events in a similar way.
The other person accompanying the postman did it all voluntarily. This cannot be denied. We could certainly look for causes, but compared with the necessity that binds the first postman the causes for the second man's actions lie in the realm of freedom. He did it all voluntarily. But look closely and you will see that one thing follows with necessity from this freedom. You will not deny that if the second person had accompanied the first person long enough, he would doubtlessly have become a good mailman. He would have easily been able to do what the man he accompanied did. He would even have been able to do it better, because he would avoid certain mistakes. But if the first fellow had not made these mistakes, the second man would not have become aware of them. We cannot possibly imagine that it would be of any use if the second fellow were to think about the first one's mistakes. If we think in a living way, we will consider this to be an utterly futile occupation. By specifically not thinking about the mistakes but joining in the work in a living way and just observing the proceedings as a whole, he will acquire them through life and will as a matter of course not make these mistakes.
This is just how it is with the being that accompanies us within. If this being can rise to the perception that what we have done is necessary, that we have accompanied it and will furthermore take our soul nature into the future in so far as it has learnt something, then we are looking at things the right way. But it must have learnt those things in a really living way. Even within this one incarnation, we can really confirm this. We can compare three people. The first person plunges straight into action. At a certain point in his life, he feels the urge to acquire self-knowledge. So he looks at the things he has always done well. He revels in what he has done well, and thus he decides to go on doing what he has always done well. In a certain sense, he is bound to do well, isn't he?
A second person is inclined to be more of a hypochondriac, and he looks more at his failings. If he can get over his hypochondria and his failings at all, he will get to the point of avoiding them. But he will not attain what a third could attain who says to himself, “What has happened was necessary, but at the same time, it is a basis for learning, learning through observation, not useless criticism.” He will set to work in a living way, not perpetuating what has already happened and simply carrying the past into the future, but will strengthen and steel the companion part of himself and carry it livingly into the future. He will not merely repeat what he did well and avoid what he did badly, but by taking both the good and the bad into himself and simply letting it rest there, he will be strengthening and steeling it.
This is the very best way of fortifying the soul: to leave alone what has happened and carry it over livingly into the future. Otherwise we keep going back in a luciferic-ahrimanic way over past happenings. We can progress in our development only if we handle necessity properly. Why? Is there a right way of handling things in this area? In conclusion, I want to give you something like an illustration of this too, about which I want you to think a little between now and next Tuesday. Then, taking this illustration as our starting point, we shall be able to get a little further with our problem.
Suppose you want to see an external object. You can see it, though you cannot possibly do so if you place a mirror between the object and yourself. In that case you see your own eyes. If you want to see the object, you must renounce seeing your own eyes, and if you want to see your own eyes, you must renounce the sight of the object. Now, by a remarkable interworking of beings in the world, it is true with regard to human action and human knowledge that all our knowledge comes to us in a certain sense by way of a mirror. Knowing always means that we actually know in a certain sense by way of reflection.
So if we wish to look at our past actions, we actually always look at them by putting what is in fact a mirror between the actions and ourselves. But when we want to act, if we want to have a direct connection between ourselves and our action, between ourselves and the world, we must not put up the mirror. We must look away from what mirrors ourselves. This is how it is with regard to our past actions. The moment we look at them, we place a mirror in front of them, and then we can certainly have knowledge of them. We can leave the mirror there and know them in every terrible detail. There will certainly be cases where this will be a very good thing. But if we are not capable of taking the mirror away again, then none of our knowledge will be any good to us. The moment we take the mirror away we no longer see ourselves and our past actions, but it is only then that they can enter into us and become one with us.
This is how we should proceed with self-observation. We must realize that as long as we look back, this review can only be the inducement for us to take what we have seen into us livingly. But we must not keep on looking at it, otherwise the mirror will always be there. Self-observation is very similar to looking at ourselves in a mirror. We can make progress in life only if we take what we learn through self-observation into our will as well.
Please take this illustration to heart, the illustration of seeing one's own eyes only if one renounces seeing something else, and of the fact that if one wants to see something else, one must renounce seeing one's own eyes. Take this illustration to heart. Then, taking this illustration as a basis, let us talk next Tuesday about right and wrong self-observation, and get nearer and nearer to the solution of our problems. In this most difficult of human problems, the problem of freedom and necessity and the interrelationship of human action and world events, it is certainly necessary that we face all the difficulties. And those who believe they can solve this problem before they have dealt with all the difficulties in fact are mistaken.
Dritter Vortrag
Was ich heute als Fortsetzung der Betrachtungen der verflossenen Woche zu geben habe, werde ich versuchen, zunächst durch eine Art hypothetischen Fall wiederum klarzumachen. Man kann manche Dinge, die gerade mit den tiefsten Rätseln des menschlichen Daseins zusammenhängen, eben am besten der abstrakten Betrachtungsweise entheben und dem Wirklichen mehr nähern, wenn man Beispiele nimmt. Selbstverständlich gilt dasjenige, was ich als ein Beispiel ausführen werde, das hypothetisch angenommen wird, für alle möglichen Lagen des Lebens. Nehmen wir also zunächst einmal ein hypothetisches Beispiel.
Wir versetzen uns in eine Schule, vielleicht in eine Schule von drei Klassen, denen drei Lehrer vorgesetzt sind und ein Direktor. Diese drei Lehrer, nehmen wir an, seien von sehr, sehr verschiedener Charakter- und Temperamentsart. Wir denken, es sei der Beginn eines neuen Schuljahres. Der Direktor bespricht sich mit seinen Lehrern über das kommende Schuljahr. Da ist zunächst ein Lehrer einer Klasse. Der sagt zu dem Direktor, nachdem ihn der Direktor gefragt hat, wie er sich einzurichten gedenke, wie er am besten vorwärtszukommen gedenke im nächsten Schuhjahr: Nun, ich habe während der Ferienzeit sorgfältig dasjenige mir aufgeschrieben, wovon ich angenommen habe, daß es in meinen Anordnungen, in meiner ganzen Schulleitung im vorigen Jahre von den Schülern nicht ganz gut getroffen worden ist, was also von mir nicht gut eingerichtet war. Und ich habe mir nun fürs kommende Jahr einen neuen Plan zurechtgerückt, einen Plan, der alles dasjenige enthält, wovon ich mich überzeugt habe, daß es im vorigen Jahre gut getroffen worden ist, daß es in die Hirne, in die Köpfe hineingegangen ist. Ich habe alle Aufgaben, die ich im Laufe des Jahres stellen werde, so eingerichtet, daß in meinem ganzen Plane für das kommende Jahr dasjenige enthalten ist, was am allerbesten im verflossenen Jahre getroffen worden ist, wovon man also annehmen kann, daß es sich im verflossenen Jahre gut erprobt hat. - Als ihn der Direktor etwas weiter fragte, da konnte er sogleich herausrücken mit einem Plane, den er sich über die Verteilung des Lehrstoffes zurechtgelegt hatte. Er konnte ferner anführen, welche Schulaufgaben er im Laufe des Jahres geben werde, welche Hausaufgaben er geben werde. Alle Themen für Schul- und Hausaufgaben hatte er nach den sorgfältigen Erfahrungen, wie er sagte, des vorigen Jahres sich zurechtgelegt. Da meinte der Direktor: Nun, ich bin sehr zufrieden. Sie sind zweifellos ein sorgfältiger Lehrer, und Sie werden mit Ihrer Klasse, wie ich glauben kann, etwas Ausgezeichnetes erreichen.
Der zweite Lehrer sagte in einer ähnlichen Weise: Ich habe das ganze Pensum, das ich mit meinen Schülern in dem vorigen Jahre absolviert habe, durchgenommen, und ich habe gesehen, was ich alles verfehlt habe. Ich habe mir nun den neuen Plan so eingerichtet, daß ich alle Fehler, die gemacht worden sind, vermeiden werde. — Und er konnte ebenfalls dem Direktor ein ausgearbeitetes Pensum zeigen: Themen für alle Schul- und Hausarbeiten, die er im Laufe des Jahres den Schülern auf Grundlage, wie er sagte, der Erfahrungen des vorigen Jahres, der Erfahrungen über seine Fehler, die er gemacht habe, geben wollte. Der Direktor sagte: Der, den ich vorher gesprochen habe, hat versucht, sich alles Vorzügliche, was ihm gelungen ist, zu notieren und danach sein Pensum zu notieren. Sie haben versucht, alle Fehler zu vermeiden. Man kann es auf beide Arten machen. Ich habe die Beruhigung, daß Sie etwas Ausgezeichnetes mit Ihrer Klasse erreichen werden. Ich sehe mit einer gewissen Befriedigung, daß ich Lehrer in meiner Schule habe, welche, indem sie zurückschauen auf dasjenige, was sie geleistet haben, sich durch eine weise Selbsterkenntnis in entsprechender Weise zu verhalten wissen. - Die Vorzüge gut erkennen, das ist etwas, was auf einen Direktor einen sehr guten Eindruck machen muß.
Nun kam der dritte Lehrer daran. Der dritte Lehrer sagte: Ich habe auch mir während der Ferien viel durch den Kopf gehen lassen, was sich im vorigen Jahre in meiner Klasse ereignet hat. Ich versuchte, die Charaktere der Schüler zu studieren, habe eine Art Rückschau gehalten auf dasjenige, was sich bei dem einen zugetragen hat, und was sich bei dem anderen zugetragen hat. - Nun, sagte der Direktor, da werden Sie ja auch gesehen haben, was Sie für Fehler gemacht haben und was Sie Gutes geleistet haben, und werden sich auch eine Art Programm machen können für das kommende Jahr. - Da sagte der Lehrer: Nein. Fehler werde ich schon gemacht haben. Einiges werde ich auch gut gemacht haben. Aber ich habe nur studiert die Charaktere der Schüler und dasjenige, was sich zugetragen hat. Ich habe nicht besonders nachgedacht darüber, ob ich besondere Fehler gemacht habe, ob dies oder jenes besonders gut war. Das habe ich nicht getan. Ich habe mir gedacht: Ja, so wie es gekommen ist, hat es eben einmal kommen müssen. Und so habe ich eben nur das studiert, wovon ich glaube, daß es durch eine Art von Notwendigkeit hat kommen müssen, Die Schüler waren in einer gewissen Weise geartet. Wie sie geartet waren, das habe ich sorgfältig studiert. Ich war auch in einer bestimmten Art geartet, und durch unser beider Artung ist eben das herausgekommen, was herauskommen konnte. Ja, mehr kann ich nicht sagen, meinte der dritte Lehrer. - Nun, sagte der Direktor, es scheint ja, als ob Sie ein recht selbstzufriedener Mann wären. Haben Sie nun auch sich ein Programm gemacht, haben Sie auch die Themen ausgearbeitet, die Sie im Laufe des Jahres Ihren Schülern geben werden als Schul- und Hausaufgaben? - Nein, antwortete der Lehrer, das habe ich nicht gemacht. - Ja, wie wollen Sie es dann machen in Ihrer Klasse? - Da sagte der Lehrer: Ich werde sehen, was ich nun in diesem Jahr für Schülermaterial haben werde. Und ich denke, daß ich das werde besser erkennen können als im vorigen Jahre, weil ich immer während meiner Ferien die Charaktere vom vorigen Jahre studiert habe. Aber wie sie dieses Jahr sein werden, das kann ich ja nicht wissen, das wird sich ja erst ergeben. Ja, werden Sie denn nicht Themen ausarbeiten für die Schul- und Hausaufgaben? - Ja, aber das werde ich machen dann, wenn ich sehen werde, wie die Schüler begabt oder unbegabt sind. Ich werde versuchen, mich danach einzurichten. - Nun ja, sagte der Direktor, da können wir schön ins Unbestimmte hineinsegeln. Darauf kann man sich ja kaum einlassen.
Aber es war nichts anderes zu machen. Der Direktor mußte sich auf die Sache einlassen. Und nun ging es eben los für das nächste Jahr. Der Direktor inspizierte öfter die Schule. Er sah, wie es die beiden ersten Lehrer ganz ausgezeichnet machten. Bei dem dritten fand er immer, daß die Sache doch nicht so recht ginge. Man hätte keine Sicherheit, sagte er, man wisse eigentlich niemals, was im nächsten Monat geschehen werde. Nun, es ging aber so das Jahr hindurch. Und zum Schluß kam die Klassifikation. Aus der Klassifikation glaubte der Direktor zu erkennen, daß die beiden ersten Lehrer sehr günstig gewirkt hätten. Es sind ja bei ihnen selbstverständlich auch einige durchgefallen, andere durchgekommen von den Schülern, aber es ist alles in der Ordnung gegangen. Der dritte Lehrer hatte nach der Klassifikation keine schlimmeren Ergebnisse. Aber es hatte sich im Laufe des Jahres die Meinung verbreitet, er wäre eben sehr nachsichtig. Während die anderen strenge Lehrer waren, wäre er eben sehr nachsichtig, sehe sehr häufig durch die Finger, und der Direktor hatte die Überzeugung, daß die Klasse des letzten Lehrers eigentlich am schlimmsten abschnitte.
Nun kam das nächste Jahr. Die Ferien waren vorübergegangen. Das nächste Schuljahr kam, und die beiden ersten Lehrer sprachen sich in ähnlicher Weise aus, der dritte wieder in ähnlicher Weise wie im vorigen Jahr. Wiederum spielte sich eine ähnliche Sache ab. Der Schulinspektor kam ja auch öfter. Dem fiel natürlich dasjenige auf, was der Direktor gewissermaßen schon in ihm vorbereitet hatte: daß die beiden ersten Lehrer sehr gut seien, der andere aber ein sehr mäßiger Lehrer wäre. Ja, es war nichts anderes zu machen. Ich brauche kaum besonders zu sagen, daß die beiden guten Lehrer Orden bekamen nach einigen Jahren, dazu vorgeschlagen worden waren, daß der Direktor einen Orden höherer Klasse bekam. Das ist ja Nebensache, nicht wahr?
Nach einiger Zeit geschah das Folgende: Der Direktor kam weg von dieser Schule, und ein anderer Direktor kam hin im Anfang des Schuljahres. Der besprach nun auch mit den drei Lehrern, wie sie es machen würden im nächsten Schuljahre und dergleichen. Da sagte wiederum der erste Lehrer in einer ähnlichen Weise aus, wie ich es Ihnen schon geschildert habe; der zweite auch, der dritte auch. Da sagte der Direktor: Ja, ja, das ist allerdings ein gewisser Unterschied in der Behandlungsweise. Allein ich glaube doch, daß sich die beiden ersten Herren ein wenig nach dem dritten Lehrer richten müßten. - Was, sagten die beiden ersten Herren, der frühere Direktor hat doch immer gesagt, daß sich der nach uns richten müßte! - Ja, sagte dieser Direktor, das meine ich nicht; mir scheint, daß sich die beiden ersten Herren nach dem dritten richten müßten. - Sie konnten sich aber nicht recht nach ihm richten, denn sie konnten nicht einsehen, wie man überhaupt in irgendeiner vernünftigen Weise voraussehen kann, was in der Zeit des nächsten Jahres geschieht, wenn man in einer solch blinden Weise wie der letzte Lehrer in dieses nächste Jahr hineintapst. Sie konnten sich das einfach nicht vorstellen.
Der frühere Direktor war mittlerweile selbst, selbstverständlich durch seine Einsicht in den guten Gang der Schulereignisse, Schuliinspektor geworden. Er war nun höchst erstaunt über die Anschauungen, die sein Nachfolger ihm da entwickelte gerade in der Schule, die er doch sehr gut kannte. Wie denn das sein könne? Und er sagte: Ja, der dritte Lehrer, der hat mir nie etwas anderes gesagt als: ich muß erst sehen, wie die Schüler sind, dann kann ich mir von Woche zu Woche ein Programmbilden, - da kann man ja gar nichts voraussehen! Das geht doch ganz unmöglich, daß man nicht irgend etwas voraussieht. - Da sagte der Direktor: Ja, aber sehen Sie doch, gewiß, ich habe auch meine Lehrer gefragt, wie sie denn den Unterschied machen in bezug auf das Voraussehen. Es sagten mir die ersten beiden Herren immer: ich weiß ganz genau, am 25. Februar des nächsten Jahres werde ich diese und jene Schulaufgabe geben, da kann ich ganz genau sagen, was da geschehen wird, und ich weiß ganz genau: zu Ostern werde ich dies oder jenes durchnehmen. Der andere Lehrer, der sagte mir: ich weiß nicht gerade, wie ich’s machen werde zu Ostern, ich weiß auch nicht, was ich im Februar für eine Schulaufgabe geben werde, ich werde mich nach dem richten, wie es das Schülermaterial ergibt. Und da meinte er auch, er könne in einer gewissen Weise voraussehen, daß die Sache gut werden würde. Ich bin eigentlich, sagte der neue Direktor, mit ihm ganz einverstanden. Man kann immer erst nachher sehen, daß das, was man sich vorgenommen hat, ganz gut ist, daß aus dem, wie man sich verhält zum vorigen Jahre, indem man die Schülerchäraktere des vorigen Jahres studiert, man sich größere Fähigkeiten aneignet, die neuen Schülercharaktere kennenzulernen. Ich sehe ein, daß man dadurch mehr erreicht. - Ja, aber man kann da doch nichts vorauswissen! Da bleibt ja alles im Unbestimmten. Wo bleibt dann die Vorausbestimmung für das ganze Schuljahr? meinte der vorige, der frühere Direktor, man kann doch da gar nichts voraussehen. Man muß aber doch irgend etwas voraussehen können, wenn man irgend etwas vernünftig einrichten will. - Ja, meinte der neue Direktor, man kann voraussehen, daß die Sache gut gehen werde, wenn man sich gewissermaßen mit dem Genius, der in dem Schülermaterial waltet, verbindet, und ein gewisses Vertrauen zu dem Genius hat, der in diesem Schülermaterial wirkt. Und wenn man dem Genius vertraut, dem gleichsam gelobt: man hält sich an ihn, - so wird man zwar nicht voraussagen können, was im Februar als Schulaufgabe gegeben wird, aber man wird voraussagen können, daß die richtige gegeben wird. - Ja, aber da kann man nichts bestimmt voraussehen, da bleibt alles im Unbestimmten, sagte der Schulinspektor.- Da sagte der Direktor: Ich habe früher, sehen Sie, Herr Schulinspektor, einmal so etwas getrieben, was die Leute Geisteswissenschaft nennen. Da habe ich mir noch gemerkt von daher, daß Wesen, die sogar über den Menschen hinaus sehr viel erhaben sind, in viel wichtigeren Angelegenheiten es auch so gemacht haben sollen: denn am Anfange in der Bibel heißt es zum Beispiel «Und Gott machte das Licht», und erst nachdem er das Licht gemacht hatte, steht da «Und dann sah er, daß es gut war». - Ja, da konnte der Inspektor darauf gar nichts mehr Rechtes sagen.
Nun ging die Sache so weiter, eine Zeitlang. Nicht wahr, solche Direktoren wie derjenige, den ich hypothetisch angenommen habe, gibt es wenige, ich möchte sagen hypothetisch in zweiter Potenz, denn selbst in der Hypothese ist es schon hypothetisch, wenn man solch einen Direktor annimmt. Der Direktor wurde also sehr bald weggeschickt, und ein anderer, der dem Inspektor etwas ähnlicher war, wurde hingeschickt, und die Sache ging weiter, bis eines Tages es doch so weit war, daß der gänzlich «ordenlose» Mann von der Schule mit Spott und Schande weggejagt worden ist und ein anderer, der nach dem Zuschnitt der zwei ersten war, hingeschickt worden ist. Die Sache konnte auch zunächst gar nicht anders gemacht werden, denn in allen Registern und in allen Conduitelisten - ich glaube, man nennt es so - war eingetragen, welche großen Fortschritte gemacht waren von den beiden ersten Lehrern und wie bei dem dritten im Grunde doch nur schlechtes Material aus der Schule hervorgegangen ist, aus dem einfachen Grunde, weil er durch die Finger gesehen hat; sonst hätten ja immer alle durchfallen müssen. Es seieben nun einmal mit einem solchen Menschen, wie der dritte Lehrer war, gar nichts zu machen.
Es vergingen viele Jahre. Zufällig war eine sehr merkwürdige Tatsache gefolgt. Der Direktor, der weggeschickt worden war, hatte versucht, der Sache tiefer auf den Grund zu gehen: wie es denn wurde mit den zwei Lehrern, die immer genaue Selbstschau getrieben haben in der Form, daß sie sich aufgezeichnet haben die Themen, mit denen sie weniger Erfolge gehabt haben, und sich dann solche gewählt haben, mit denen sie Erfolg gehabt haben, und was der zweite erreicht hat, was der dritte erreicht hat. Man war sogar ein wenig nachgegangen dem, was dann die betreffenden Schüler immer bei anderen Lehrern wiederum erreichen konnten. Man hat gefunden, daß die Schüler des dritten Lehrers viel schlechtere Fortschritte machten als die Schüler der beiden ersten Lehrer, wenn sie dann zu anderen Lehrern gekommen waren. Aber dabei blieb der Direktor nicht stehen. Er ging der Sache noch etwas tiefer auf den Grund und verfolgte die Leute, die aus der Hand dieser Lehrer hervorgegangen waren, ins Leben hinein. Da fand er denn, daß diejenigen, die aus der Hand der beiden ersten Lehrer hervorgegangen waren, ja ganz gewiß ehrenwerte Menschen, mit Ausnahmen selbstverständlich, geworden waren, daß sie also etwas Besonderes schon nicht erreicht haben, aber sie waren recht nette Menschen geworden. Aber unter den Schülern, die der dritte Lehrer bei seinem Schülermaterial hatte, da waren solche, aus denen ganz bedeutende Menschen hervorgegangen waren, die viel Hervorragenderes geleistet haben als die Schüler der anderen.
Da konnte er in dem einen Fall das zeigen. Aber es machte keinen besonderen Eindruck auf die Welt, denn man sagte: Man kann doch nicht immer erst das ganze Leben derjenigen verfolgen, die aus der Schule hervorgehen. Nicht wahr, das geht doch nicht! Und darauf kommt es doch wohl auch gar nicht an. So meinten die Menschen.
Warum erzähle ich Ihnen denn das alles? Sehen Sie, es ist ein gravierender Unterschied zwischen den beiden ersten Lehrern und dem dritten Lehrer. Die beiden ersten Lehrer nagten während der Ferien hindurch an dem, wie sie im verflossenen Jahre gearbeitet hatten. Der dritte Lehrer nagte nicht daran, sondern er hatte ein Gefühl davon, daß es hat so kommen müssen, wie es gekommen ist. Wenn ihm der Direktor, der erste Direktor, immer wieder gesagt hat: Ja, dann können Sie ja gar nicht wissen, wie Sie Fehler vermeiden sollen im kommenden Jahr, oder wie Sie, wenn Sie nicht studieren, was Sie Gutes geleistet haben im verflossenen Jahr, das Gute verwirklichen können -, da hat er zunächst nichts gesagt darauf, denn er hat keine rechte Lust gehabt, diesem Direktor das klarzumachen. Aber hinterher hat er sich gedacht: Ja nun, wenn ich auch schon wirklich weiß, welche Fehler durch das Zusammenarbeiten von mir und meinen Schülern entstanden sind, so habe ich ja dieses Jahr andere Schüler, und da folgt gar nichts aus den Fehlern, die im vorigen Jahre gemacht worden sind. Ich muß rechnen mit dem neuen Schülermaterial.
Kurz, die ersten beiden Lehrer standen ganz drinnen im Toten, der letzte Lehrer fügte sich ein in das Lebendige. Man könnte auch sagen, die ersten Lehrer rechneten immer mit der Vergangenheit, der letzte Lehrer rechnete mit der unmittelbaren Gegenwart, und er grübelte nicht über die Vergangenheit, indem er sich von der Vergangenheit sagte: Das hat eben so stattfinden müssen, das ist notwendig so geschehen nach den gegebenen Bedingungen.
Es handelt sich darum, daß man, wenn man die Dinge so oberflächlich nach äußeren Urteilen ansieht, dann in der Tat dem wirklichen Geschehen der Welt gegenüber irregehen kann. Man geht irre aus dem Grunde, weil, wenn man es im Sinne der ersten Lehrer macht, man die Gegenwart beurteilt nach dem Toten der Vergangenheit, nach demjenigen, was in der Vergangenheit vergangen bleiben muß. Der dritte Lehrer hat von der Vergangenheit das Lebendige genommen und dieses Lebendige dadurch herausbekommen, daß er einfach die Charaktere studiert hat und durch das Studieren der Charaktere sich selber vollkommener gemacht hat, daß er vor allen Dingen darauf bedacht war, sich selber weiterzubringen dadurch, daß er seine Rückschau auf die Vergangenheit gemacht hat. Dann sagte er sich: Wenn ich mich dadurch weiterbringen kann, wird dasjenige, was ich in Zukunft zu tun habe, mit meinen größeren Fähigkeiten, die ich mir dadurch angeeignet habe, erreicht werden.
Die beiden ersten Lehrer sagten sich, indem sie einen gewissen Aberglauben an die Vergangenheit hatten: Fehler, die sich in der Vergangenheit gezeigt haben, muß man in der Zukunft vermeiden, und Vorzüge, die sich in der Vergangenheit gezeigt haben, müssen in der Zukunft angewendet werden. Aber sie machten es im toten Sinne. Sie machten es so, daß sie nicht ihre Fähigkeiten steigern wollten, sondern sie wollten nur durch die äußere Beobachtung entscheiden. Nicht durch lebendige Arbeit an sich selber wollten sie wirken, sondern sie meinten, aus der Beobachtung allein, aus demjenigen, was sich der Beobachtung ergibt, könnten sie irgend etwas für die Zukunft gewinnen.
Geisteswissenschaftlich müssen wir sagen: Der erste der Lehrer, der sorgfältig untersucht hat, welche Vorzüge er in der Vergangenheit geltend gemacht hat und diese Vorzüge nun in der Zukunft wiederum seinem Wirken einverleiben will, der handelt in ahrimanischem Sinne. Das ist ahrimanisch gehandelt. Da klebt man an dem Vergangenen und betrachtet in selbstgefälliger Art aus dem persönlichen Egoismus heraus mit Befriedigung alles dasjenige, was man gut gemacht hat, und tut sich etwas zugute darauf. Das Wort ist ja nicht schlecht gewählt, weil man wirklich auf das hinsieht, was man gut gemacht hat und das weiter entwickeln will. Man tut sich etwas zugute darauf, daß man das oder jenes so gut getroffen hat und es nun weiter verwenden kann.
Der zweite der Lehrer hatte einen Charakter, der mehr von luziferischen Kräften beherrscht war. Der grübelte nach, was er für Fehler gemacht hat, und sagte sich: Nun, diese Fehler muß ich vermeiden. Er sagte sich nicht: Das, was geschehen ist, war notwendig, es mußte so geschehen -, sondern er sagte: Ich habe Fehler gemacht. Dazu gehört immer etwas Egoistisches, daß man eigentlich besser gewesen sein möchte als man wirklich war, wenn man sich sagt, man habe Fehler gemacht, die hätten vermieden werden sollen, und man müsse sie jetzt vermeiden. Aber man klebt an dem Vergangenen, wie Luzifer auch, der geistig das Vergangene in die Gegenwart hinüberträgt. Das ist luziferisch gedacht.
Der dritte Lehrer war, ich möchte sagen, beseelt von den Kräften der naturgemäß fortschreitenden göttlichen Wesenheiten, deren richtigem göttlichem Prinzip, welches schon im Beginne der Bibel dadurch ausgedrückt ist, daß die Elohim zuerst schaffen, und dann sehen, daß das Geschaffene gut war; aber nun nicht darauf sehen in egoistischer Weise, wie sie selber vorzügliche Wesen seien, weil sie das, was sie geschaffen hatten, gut gemacht haben, sondern daß es gut war, das nehmen sie auf, um nun weiter zu schaffen. Das verleiben sie ihrer Entwickelung ein. Sie leben im Lebendigen und weben in diesem Lebendigen.
Darauf kommt es an, daß wir einsehen, wie wir selber als ein Lebendiges in eine Welt von Lebendigem hineingestellt sind. Wenn wir dieses einsehen, dann werden wir gewissermaßen auch nicht zu Kritikern der Götter, zum Beispiel der Elohim. Denn derjenige, der seine Weisheit über die Weisheit der Götter stellen möchte, der könnte ja sagen: Na, haben denn diese Götter nicht einmal, wenn sie Götter sein wollen, vorausgesehen, daß das Licht gut sein werde? Das sind mir nicht einmal Propheten, diese Götter! Wenn ich ein Gott wäre, dann würde ich selbstverständlich das Licht nur schaffen, wenn ich vorher weiß, wie das Licht ist und wenn ich nicht nachher erst sehen muß, daß das Licht gut ist.
Aber das ist die Menschenweisheit, die über Götterweisheit gestellt wird. In gewissem Sinne sah auch der dritte Lehrer voraus, was kommen werde, aber er sah es in lebendigem Sinne voraus, in dem er sich hingab, ich möchte sagen, dem Genius des Wirkens, dem Genius der Entwickelung, indem er sich sagte: Indem ich mir einverleibe das, was ich durch das Studium der Charaktere im vorigen Jahre gewonnen habe, indem ich nicht genagt habe an den Fehlern, die ich gemacht habe notwendig aus dem einfachen Grunde, weil ich es eben so gab, wie ich gewesen bin, und indem ich sorgfältig studiert habe, ohne eine Kritik anzuwenden gegen dasjenige, was sich mir entgegenstellte als meine eigene Vergangenheit, dadurch habe ich meine Fähigkeit erhöht und habe mir außerdem einen fähigeren Blick erworben für das, was nun mein neues Schülermaterial ist. - Und er sah ein, daß die zwei ersten Lehrer doch nur das Schülermaterial ansehen durch die Brille desjenigen, was sie im vorigen Jahre gemacht haben, das sie doch niemals richtig beurteilen können. So konnte er sagen: Ja, ganz gewiß, ich glaube es, daß ich in vier Wochen den Schülern die richtige Schulaufgabe geben werde, und ich kann ganz gewiß auf diese meine Prophetie vertrauen, daß ich die richtige Schulaufgabe geben werde.
Die anderen waren bessere Propheten. Sie konnten nämlich sagen: Ich werde diejenige Schulaufgabe geben, die ich mir aufgeschrieben habe; die werde ich ganz gewiß geben. Das war aber ein Voraussehen der Tatsachen, und nicht ein Voraussehen des Ganges der beweglichen Kräfte. Diesen Unterschied muß man sehr festhalten. Prophetie als solche ist nicht unmöglich. Aber Prophetie desjenigen, was im einzelnen vorgeht, wenn in dieses einzelne hineinverwoben ist Wesen, welches aus sich selbst heraus handeln soll, solche Prophetie kann nur möglich sein, wenn man bloß auf diejenigen Erscheinungen sieht, die von Luzifer und Ahriman aus der Gegenwart in die Zukunft hinübergetragen werden.
Wir kommen allmählich näher der großen Frage, die uns beschäftigt in diesen Vorträgen über Freiheit und Notwendigkeit. Aber wir müssen gerade bei dieser Frage, die so tief eingreift in das ganze Weltgeschehen und in alles menschliche Geschehen, uns auch alle Schwierigkeiten vorlegen. Wir müssen zum Beispiel uns klar sein darüber, daß, indem wir überschauen dasjenige, was sich abgespielt hat und in das wir selber verwickelt sind, wir dieses als ein Notwendiges überschauen. Und im Augenblicke, wo wir alle Bedingungen kennen, überschauen wir es als ein Notwendiges. Das ist gar kein Zweifel, wir überschauen das, was geschehen ist, als ein Notwendiges. Aber wir müssen uns zugleich die Frage vorlegen: Kann man denn so, wie es sehr häufig geschieht, die Ursachen für ein Späteres immer in dem unmittelbar Vorangegangenen finden? Die Naturwissenschaft muß es in einem gewissen Sinne so machen, daß sie für das, was in der nächsten Zeit geschieht, in der unmittelbar vorangehenden Zeit die Ursache sieht. Wenn ich ein Experiment anstelle, so muß ich selbstverständlich bei dem, was später geschieht, mir klar sein, daß in dem, was vorher geschehen ist, die Ursache liegt. Aber das bedeutet durchaus nicht, daß das für das ganze Weltengeschehen gelten müsse, denn erstens könnten wir uns sehr leicht täuschen über den Zusammenhang von Ursache und Wirkung, wenn wir ihn so aufsuchen würden nach den Fäden des Späteren und Früheren. Ich möchte es durch einen Vergleich klarmachen.
Wenn wir die Wirklichkeit äußerlich mit den Sinnen durchschauen, so können wir sagen: Ganz gewiß, weil dies so ist, ist das andere so. Da kommen wir aber sehr häufig, wenn wir es ausdehnen auf das gesamte Geschehen, zu dem Irrtum, den ich eben durch einen Vergleich charakterisieren will. Wir kommen zu folgendem Irrtum. Nehmen wir der Einfachheit halber an, ein Mensch kutschiere sich selber. Wir sehen ein Pferd, hinten einen Wagen, einen Menschen darauf sitzen - ich habe das Beispiel schon öfter gebraucht -, der also fährt. Man sieht sich das an und sagt ganz. selbstverständlich: das Roß zieht, der Mann wird gezogen. Der Mann wird überall hingezogen, wohin ihn das Roß zieht. Das ist ja ganz klar. Also das Roß ist die Ursache, weshalb der Mann gezogen wird. In dem Ziehen des Rosses liegt die Ursache; daß der Mann gezogen wird, das ist die Wirkung. Na schön, aber Sie wissen ja alle, daß das nicht so ist, daß der Mann, der oben sitzt und sich kutschiert, das Roß nach seinem Willen lenkt. Obzwar das Roß ihn zieht, zieht ihn das Roß dahin, wohin er will.
So ist es sehr häufig auch, wenn man rein äußerlich nach den Geschehnissen auf dem physischen Plane urteilt. Nehmen Sie noch einmal das hypothetische Beispiel, das wir vor einigen Tagen angeführt haben: Eine Gesellschaft macht sich auf, setzt sich in eine Kutsche, der Kutscher hat die Abfahrtszeit versäumt. Sie kommen dadurch um fünf Minuten zu spät. Dadurch kommen sie gerade in der Zeit unter einem Felsenhang an, in der dieser Felshang abstürzt, und er zerschmettert die Gesellschaft. Nun kann man, wenn man die Ursache auf dem physischen Plane verfolgt, natürlich sagen: das ist geschehen, und nachher ist das geschehen und jenes geschehen -, und man wird auf diese Weise etwas herausbekommen. Aber man könnte wirklich in diesem Falle den Fehler machen, den man macht, wenn man sagt, das Roß zieht den Führer dahin, wo es will -, wenn man nicht beachtet, daß der kutschierende Mann das Roß nach seinem Willen lenkt. Man könnte diesen Fehler aus dem Grunde machen, weil das Lenkende in diesem Falle vielleicht in der geistigen Welt zu suchen sein könnte. Wenn man die Ereignisse bloß auf dem physischen Plane verfolgt, so urteilt man eben wirklich in dem Stile, wie: daß der Betreffende dahin fahren muß, wohin das Roß ihn zieht. Wenn man aber die geheimen Kräfte, die da walten in dem ganzen Ereignisse, durchschaut, dann sieht man, daß die Ereignisse hingelenkt worden sind zu dem Punkt, und daß das Zu-spät-Einsetzen des Kutschers eben zu dem ganzen Komplex der Bedingungen gehörte. Notwendig ist alles, aber nicht so notwendig, wie man glaubt, wenn man bloß die Ereignisse auf dem physischen Plane verfolgt.
Wenn man anderseits glaubt, man könne die Ursache dadurch finden, daß man immer das unmittelbar Vorangehende als Ursache nimmt, dann könnte ja folgendes passieren. Man sieht, wenn man es von außen anschaut, dieses: Zwei Menschen treffen sich. Nun geht man so zu Werke, wie man es in der Naturforschung ja richtig tun muß. Die zwei Menschen haben sich getroffen. Jetzt studiert man, wo die betreffenden zwei Menschen vorher waren in der Stunde, bevor sie sich getroffen habe, wo sie in einer weiteren Stunde vorher waren, wie sie aufgebrochen sind, um sich zu treffen. Da kann man nun verfolgen, eine gewisse Zeit hindurch, wie eins immer das andere getrieben hat, und wie die zwei Menschen zusammengeführt worden sind. - Ein anderer kümmert sich nicht um diese Dinge, sondern er hat zufällig erfahren, daß sich die beiden Menschen vor fünf Tagen zusammen besprochen haben, daß sie sich treffen werden, und er sagt: Ja, sie treffen sich, weil sie besprochen haben, daß sie sich treffen werden.
Hier haben Sie die Möglichkeit, zu sehen, daß die Ursache durchaus nicht da zu finden sein muß, wo das unmittelbar Vorhergehende ist, und daß, wenn wir das Suchen nach dem Faden der Ursache abreißen vor dem entsprechenden richtigen Gliede, wir überhaupt nicht zu dem entsprechenden rechten Gliede kommen; denn wir können ja die Kette der Ursachen nur immer bis zu einem gewissen Gliede hin verfolgen. Auch in der Natur können wir das nur bis zu einem gewissen Gliede hin. Besonders bei Erscheinungen, in welche die Menschen hineinverflochten sind, können wir das nur bis zu einem gewissen Gliede hin. Wenn wir das aber tun, und dann so vorgehen, daß wir immer das Vorhergehende und wieder das Vorhergehende suchen und glauben, wir werden die Ursache erkennen, dann geben wir uns natürlich einem Irrtum, einer Täuschung hin.
Sie müssen das nur durchdringen mit dem, was Sie bisher aus der Geisteswissenschaft schon haben gewinnen können. Nehmen Sie an, ein Mensch vollzieht irgendeine Handlung auf dem physischen Plane. Also wir sehen ihn diese Handlung vollziehen. Wer nun seine Betrachtungen nur beschränken will auf den physischen Plan, der wird sehen, wie der betreffende Mensch sich vorher verhalten hat. Wenn er dann weitergeht, wird er sehen, wie er erzogen worden ist. Er wird vielleicht auch noch, wie das jetzt Mode ist, die Vererbung ins Auge fassen und so weiter. Aber nehmen wir an, in die Handlung, die sich hier auf dem physischen Plane vollzogen hat, sei eingeflossen etwas, was nur zu finden ist in dem Leben, das der Betreffende in dem Leben zwischen dem letzten Tod und der neuen Geburt durchgemacht hat. Dann bedeutet das, daß wir die Linie der Ursachen eben bei der Geburt abreißen und zu dem gehen, wo etwas Ähnliches vorliegt wie in dem Vergleiche der Verabredung. Denn es kann dasjenige, was ich jetzt ausführe, vorbestimmt sein vor Jahrhunderten in dem Leben, das zwischen dem letzten Tode und der jetzigen Geburt abgelaufen ist. Und dasjenige, was da durchlebt worden ist, das fließt ein in das, was ich jetzt tue und unternehme.
So ist eben die Notwendigkeit, daß wir in gewisser Weise, ohne in die geistigen Welten einzudringen, für die menschlichen Handlungen überhaupt nicht - also überhaupt nicht hier auf dem physischen Plane - die Ursächlichkeit finden können, daß da ein Aufsuchen der Ursachen unter Umständen überhaupt eine ganz verfehlte Sache sein kann, ein Aufsuchen der Ursachen in demselben Sinne, wie man es für die äußeren Naturereignisse tut.
Dennoch, wenn man genauer hinschaut auf die Art und Weise, wie das menschliche Handeln hineinverwoben ist in das Weltengeschehen, dann wird man dennoch zu einer gewissen befriedigenden Anschauung kommen können auch über dasjenige, was man Freiheit nennt, gegenüber dem, daß man sich sagen muß: Notwendigkeit liegt vor. Aber was man Aufsuchen der Ursachen nennt, das ist zunächst vielleicht überhaupt dadurch beschränkt, daß man auf dem physischen Plane gar nicht vordringen kann bis zu demjenigen Gebiet, wo die Verursachung liegt.
Aber nun kommt etwas anderes, was in Betracht zu ziehen ist. Freiheit, Notwendigkeit sind einmal zwei Begriffe, die außerordentlich schwer zu fassen und noch schwerer miteinander zu vereinigen sind. Nicht umsonst ist es, daß die philosophischen Bestrebungen zum großen Teil gerade bei der Freiheits- und Notwendigkeitsfrage gescheitert sind. Es ist dies zum großen Teil aus dem Grunde her gekommen, weil sich die Menschen die Schwierigkeiten der Fragen nicht vor Augen gerückt haben. Deshalb bemühe ich mich so sehr, in diesen Vorträgen gerade die Schwierigkeiten dieser Fragen Ihnen vor Augen zu rücken.
Wenn wir hinsehen auf das menschliche Geschehen, können wir zunächst den Faden der Notwendigkeit überall sehen. Denn auch das wäre ein Vorurteil, wenn man jede einzelne menschliche Handlung als ein Produkt der Freiheit hinstellen wollte. Ich will es wiederum mit einem hypothetischen Beispiel klarmachen. Nehmen wir einmal an, jemand wüchse heran. Dadurch, daß er heranwächst in einer bestimmten Art und Weise, kann man nachweisen, daß alle Bedingungen seines Erlebens sich eben so gestaltet haben, nun, sagen wir, daß er ein Briefträger geworden ist, ein Landbriefträger, der jeden Morgen mit der Post aufs Land hinausgehen und die Briefe abgeben muß. Dann geht er wieder zurück. Am nächsten Morgen geht er wieder hinaus. Ich glaube, Sie werden alle zugeben, daß man eine gewisse Notwendigkeit finden kann in diesen Vorgängen. Wenn man alles dasjenige studiert, was sich zugetragen hat in der Kindheit des betreffenden Menschen, wenn man alle die Ereignisse, die auf sein Leben gewirkt haben, zusammenzieht, so wird man gewiß sehen, wie sich das alles zusammengruppiert hat, um ihn zum Landbriefträger zu machen, und wie dann gerade dadurch, daß die eine Stelle frei war, er mit Notwendigkeit in diese hineingeschoben worden ist. Und dann hört die Freiheit wohl schon auf, denn er kann ja selbstverständlich die Adressen der Briefe, die er bekommt, nicht umändern. Da ist ja durch eine äußere Notwendigkeit gegeben, welche Haustür er auf-, und welche er wieder zumacht. Also da sehen wir schon recht viel Notwendigkeit in dem, was er zu vollbringen hat.
Aber nehmen wir nun an, ein anderer Mensch, vielleicht ein jüngerer, jünger von mir angenommen aus dem Grunde, daß ich jetzt ausführen kann, was ich jetzt auszuführen habe, ohne daß Sie diesem jüngeren Menschen gleich die bittersten Vorwürfe machen über sein Gebaren. Also ein anderer, jüngerer Mensch, der noch so jung ist, daß er nicht deshalb, weil er das tut, gleich ein Faulenzer ist, der faßt die Idee, jeden Morgen mitzugehen und den Landbriefträger auf seinen Wegen zu begleiten. Das führt er auch aus. Er steht ordentlich auf jeden Morgen, schließt sich dem Landbriefträger an, macht alle einzelnen Handlungen mit und geht dann wiederum zurück, macht das eine gewisse Zeit hindurch. Es ist gar kein Zweifel, daß wir bei dem letzteren nicht in demselben Sinne von Notwendigkeit sprechen können wie bei dem ersteren. Denn alles dasjenige, was durch den ersten Menschen geschieht, muß notwendigerweise geschehen. Nichts, was durch den letzteren Menschen geschieht, müßte eigentlich geschehen. Er könnte jeden Tag wegbleiben, könnte man sagen, und es würde genau das Gleiche geschehen in einem gewissen objektiven Zusammenhange drinnen. Es ist Ja ganz klar, nicht wahr? So daß wir sagen können: Der erste tut alles aus Notwendigkeit, der letztere tut alles aus Freiheit. Das kann man ganz gut sagen, und dennoch, in einem gewissen Sinne tun sie beide dasselbe. Ja, man könnte sich sogar die folgende Vorstellung bilden. Man könnte sagen, dieser zweite Mensch sieht einmal einen Morgen herankommen, an dem er nicht aufstehen will. Er könnte es ja unterlassen, aber er tut es nun doch, weil er’s einmal gewohnt ist. Er tut, was er aus Freiheit tut, mit einer gewissen Notwendigkeit. Wir sehen Freiheit und Notwendigkeit förmlich zusammenfließen.
Wenn man studiert die Art und Weise, wie jener zweite Mensch in uns wohnt, von dem ich Ihnen im öffentlichen Vortrage gesprochen habe, wie das eigentliche Seelische in uns wohnt, das in seiner Qualität durch die Pforte des Todes gehen wird, so ist es im Grunde nicht viel anders, als daß man dieses eigentlich Seelische, das in uns wohnt, vergleichen könnte mit einem Begleiter des äußeren Menschen, der durch die physische Welt geht. Es ist zwar für einen gewöhnlichen materialistischen Monisten etwas ganz Greuliches, wenn man das sagt. Aber solch ein materialistischer Monist, der steht ja doch, wie wir wissen, auf dem Standpunkte, daß er sagt: Ihr seid ganz greuliche Dualisten, wenn ihr glaubt, das Wasser bestehe aus Wasserstoff und Sauerstoff. Man muß alles einheitlich haben. Es ist doch Unsinn, zu sagen, das Monon «Wasser», das bestehe aus Wasserstoff und Sauerstoff! - Nun ja, von diesem Monismus muß man sich nur nicht täuschen lassen. Um was es sich handelt, das ist, daß nun wirklich von zwei Seiten her zueinanderkommt, was wir im Leben sind, und daß wahrhaftig das, was da von zwei Seiten her kommt, zu vergleichen ist mit der Art und Weise, wie Wasserstoff und Sauerstoff im Wasser drinnen sind. Denn was unser äußeres Physisches ist, das strömt in der Vererbungslinie weiter, und strömt nicht bloß mit den physischen Eigenschaften in der Vererbungslinie weiter, sondern es strömt auch mit dem weiter, wie wir sozial hineingestellt sind in die Vererbungslinie. Wir haben ja nicht bloß eine bestimmte Gestalt, Nase, Haarfarbe und so weiter dadurch, daß unser Vater und unsere Mutter diese bestimmte Gestalt hatten, sondern wir sind vorherbestimmt durch die Lebenslage unserer Vorfahren in bezug auf äußere soziale Stellung und so weiter. Also was zum physischen Plane gehört, nicht bloß das Aussehen unseres physischen Leibes, unsere Muskelstärke und dergleichen, sondern alles das, wie wir hineingestellt sind, alles, was zum physischen Plane gehört -, alles das strömt weiter in der Vererbungslinie, strömt von einer Generation zur anderen Generation.
Dazu kommt wirklich nun von einer zweiten Seite her dasjenige, was als unser individuelles Wesen aus der geistigen Welt herkommt und was zunächst nichts zu tun hat mit all den Kräften, die in der Vererbungsströmung und in der Generationenfolge sind, was aus der geistigen Welt herkommt und was Ursachen, die vor Jahrhunderten in uns veranlagt sein können, geistig vereinigt mit den Ursachen, die in der Vererbungs- und Generationen-Strömung liegen. Zwei Wesen kommen zueinander. Und in der Tat ist es so, daß wir die Sache nur richtig beurteilen, wenn wir dieses zweite Wesen, das aus der geistigen Welt herkommt und sich mit dem Physischen vereinigt, wirklich wie eine Art Begleiter des ersten ansehen. Deshalb habe ich das Beispiel gewählt von dem Begleiter, der alles mitmacht. So ist es auch, daß unsere eigentliche Seele die äußeren Ereignisse in einem gewissen Sinne mitmacht.
Der zweite Mensch, der den Landbriefträger begleitet hat, der hat das alles freiwillig getan. Es ist nicht zu leugnen, daß er es freiwillig getan hat. Man könnte ja Ursachen suchen, aber die Ursachen liegen gegenüber der Notwendigkeit, in die der erste Briefträger versetzt ist, auf dem Gebiete der Freiheit. Er hat das alles freiwillig getan. Aber sehen Sie, eines folgt aus dieser Freiheit, ich möchte sagen mit Notwendigkeit. Sie werden nicht leugnen: wenn der zweite Mensch, der den ersten begleitet hat, das durch eine gewisse Zeit hindurch getan hat, so wird er zweifellos ein guter Briefträger geworden sein. Er wird das gut machen können, was der getan hat, den er begleitet hat. Und er wird es sogar besser machen können, weil er gewisse Fehler vermeiden wird. Aber wenn der erste die Fehler nicht gemacht hätte, dann würde er nicht auf diese Fehler gekommen sein. Man kann sich überhaupt gar nicht den Fall denken, daß es nützlich sein sollte für den zweiten, nun nachzudenken über die Fehler des ersten. Wenn man lebendig denkt, so wird man das als eine ganz unnütze Grübelei ansehen, wenn der zweite über die Fehler des ersten nachdenkt und sich damit beschäftigt. Gerade wenn er nicht über die Fehler nachdenkt, sondern lebendig alles mitmacht und nur die ganzen Vorgänge betrachtet, so wird es lebendig in ihn übergehen, und er wird von selber diese Fehler nicht machen.
So ist es aber mit demjenigen, was in uns steckt und uns begleitet. Wenn das sich aufschwingen kann zu der Anschauung, daß notwendig ist, was wir getan haben, daß wir es begleitet haben, und daß wir nunmehr in die Zukunft hinein unser Seelisches tragen, indem es gelernt hat, dann schauen wir die Sache in der richtigen Weise an. Aber gelernt muß es haben in wirklich lebendiger Weise. Man wird sogar innerhalb der Inkarnation das, was hier gemeint ist, richtig feststellen können. Man wird vergleichen können, ich will sagen, drei Menschen. Der erste Mensch, der handelt darauflos. Es kommt ihm in einem gewissen Zeitpunkte seines Lebens der Drang, sich selbst zu erkennen. Da blickt er nun auf dasjenige, was er immer gut gemacht hat. Er ergötzt sich an dem, was er gut gemacht hat. Nun versucht er, die Sache, die er gut gemacht hat immer weiter zu machen. Er wird ja in einer gewissen Weise recht gute Sachen machen, nicht wahr?
Ein anderer, der ist mehr hypochondrisch veranlagt, der sieht mehr auf seine Fehler. Wenn er dann überhaupt hinauskommt über die Hypochondrie, über seine Fehler, wenn er sich erheben kann darüber, so wird er dahin kommen, diese Fehler zu vermeiden. Aber er wird nicht erreichen, was nun ein Dritter erreichen könnte, der sich sagt: Dasjenige, was geschehen ist, war notwendig, aber es ist zu gleicher Zeit die Grundlage eines Lernens. Aber eines Lernens durch Betrachtung, nicht durch eine müßige Kritik, sondern durch Betrachtung. - Er wird jetzt in lebendiger Weise nicht fortsetzen das, was schon geschehen ist, die Vergangenheit in die Zukunft einfach hinübertragen, sondern dasjenige, was der Begleiter war, das wird er gestärkt, gekräftigt, gestählt haben, und er wird es lebendig hinübertragen in die Zukunft. Er wird nicht das wiederholen, was sein Gutes war, und nicht das vermeiden, was sein Schlechtes war, sondern wird durch das Gute und durch das Schlechte, indem er es sich einverleibt hat und indem er es einfach da stehen läßt, so wie es dasteht, es gestärkt und gekräftigt und gestählt haben.
Das wird die allerbeste Kräftigung eben des Seelischen: stehenlassen dasjenige, was da geschehen ist, und es in lebendiger Weise hinübertragen in die Zukunft. Sonst kehrt man immer wiederum in luziferisch-ahrimanischer Weise zu dem Vergangenen zurück. Fortschritt in der Entwickelung ist nur möglich, wenn man das Notwendige in der richtigen Weise anfaßt. Warum? Gibt es denn auf diesem Gebiete hier ein Richtiges? Auch darüber will ich Ihnen zum Schluß jetzt etwas wie einen Vergleich geben, den ich Sie bitte, bis zum nächsten Dienstag ein wenig in Ihrer Seele zu tragen. Wir werden dann, auf diesem Vergleiche fußend, etwas weiter bauen können in unserer Frage.
Denken Sie einmal, Sie wollen einen äußeren Gegenstand sehen. Sie können ihn sehen, diesen äußeren Gegenstand, aber Sie können ihn unmöglich sehen, wenn Sie zwischen diesen Gegenstand und sich einen Spiegel setzen. Aber Sie sehen dann Ihr eigenes Auge. Wollen Sie den Gegenstand sehen, so müssen Sie verzichten, Ihr eigenes Auge zu sehen, und wollen Sie Ihr eigenes Auge sehen, müssen Sie verzichten, den Gegenstand zu sehen. - Nun ist durch eine merkwürdige Verkettung von Wesenheiten in der Welt dies so mit Bezug auf das menschliche Handeln und mit Bezug auf die menschliche Erkenntnis: alles dasjenige, was wir erkennen, erkennen wir in einer gewissen Weise durch einen Spiegel. Erkennen bedeutet immer, daß wir eigentlich in einer gewissen Weise durch eine Spiegelung erkennen.
Wenn wir nun die vergangenen Handlungen, die wir vollzogen haben, anschauen wollen, so schauen wir sie eigentlich immer soan, daß wir im Grunde einen Spiegel zwischen den Handlungen überhaupt und uns selber haben. Wenn wir aber handeln wollen, wenn wir zwischen uns und unserem Handeln, überhaupt zwischen uns und der Welt ein unmittelbares Verhältnis haben wollen, dann dürfen wir uns keinen Spiegel hinhalten. Dann müssen wir absehen von dem Hinblicken auf dasjenige, was uns uns selber im Spiegel zeigt. So ist es mit Bezug auf unsere verflossenen Handlungen. In dem Augenblicke, wo wir sie anschauen, stellen wir uns einen Spiegel vor sie hin, und dann können wir sie ja ganz gewiß erkennen. Wir können nun diesen Spiegel stehenlassen und sie furchtbar genau erkennen. Das wird sicher für gewisse Zwecke sehr gut sein. Aber wenn wir nicht imstande sind, den Spiegel auch wegzutun, so wird uns die ganze Erkenntnis nichts helfen, denn in dem Augenblick, wo wir den Spiegel wegtun, da sehen wir unser Eigenes nicht mehr; erst dann kann es sich aber uns einverleiben, da kann es erst eins mit uns werden.
Und so müssen wir es halten mit der Selbstschau. Wir müssen uns klar darüber sein, daß, solange wir zurückschauen, diese Rückschau nur sein kann die Veranlassung dazu, nun das Erschaute lebendig in uns aufzunehmen. Aber dabei dürfen wir es nicht immer anschauen, denn sonst steht der Spiegel immer da. Mit unserer Selbstschau ist es ganz ähnlich wie mit einer Spiegelschau. Wir kommen nur dadurch weiter im Leben, daß wir dasjenige, was wir durch Selbstschau kennenlernen, auch in unser Wollen aufnehmen.
Wollen Sie bitte diesen Vergleich einmal in Ihre Seelen aufnehmen, diesen Vergleich, der also darinnen liegt, daß man das eigene Auge nur sieht, wenn man verzichtet auf das Sehen eines anderen, und daß, wenn man ein anderes sehen will, man auf das Sehen des eigenen Auges verzichten muß. Wollen Sie diesen Vergleich in sich aufnehmen. Auf Grundlage dieses Vergleiches wollen wir dann von rechter Selbstschau und von unrechter Selbstschau am nächsten Dienstag sprechen und dann der Lösung unserer Fragen immer näher und näher kommen. Es ist bei dieser, ich möchte sagen, schwierigsten Menschheitsfrage, bei der Frage nach Freiheit und Notwendigkeit und der Verkettung der Handlungen der Menschen und des Weltengeschehens, schon notwendig, daß man sich alle Schwierigkeiten vorhält. Und derjenige, der glaubt, in bezug auf diese Frage zu einer Lösung kommen zu können, bevor er alle Schwierigkeiten durchschaut hat, der irrt sich eben eigentlich doch.
Third Lecture
What I have to offer today as a continuation of last week's reflections, I will first attempt to clarify by means of a hypothetical case. Some things, especially those related to the deepest mysteries of human existence, can best be removed from abstract consideration and brought closer to reality by using examples. Of course, what I will present as an example is hypothetical and applies to all possible situations in life. So let us first take a hypothetical example.
Let's imagine a school, perhaps a school with three classes, three teachers and a headmaster. Let's assume that these three teachers have very different characters and temperaments. Let's imagine it's the beginning of a new school year. The principal is discussing the coming school year with his teachers. First, there is a teacher from one class. After the principal asks him how he plans to organize himself and how he thinks he can best move forward in the coming school year, he says: Well, during the vacation, I carefully wrote down what I thought the students didn't quite get right in my instructions and in my overall school management last year, in other words, what I didn't do well. And I have now drawn up a new plan for the coming year, a plan that contains everything that I am convinced was done well last year, that has sunk into the minds and heads of the students. I have arranged all the tasks that I will set during the course of the year in such a way that my entire plan for the coming year contains what worked best in the past year, what can therefore be assumed to have proven itself in the past year. When the headmaster asked him a few more questions, he was able to immediately present a plan he had drawn up for the distribution of the curriculum. He was also able to list the school assignments he would be giving during the year and the homework he would be assigning. He said he had carefully selected all the topics for schoolwork and homework based on his experience from the previous year. The headmaster said: “Well, I am very satisfied. You are undoubtedly a diligent teacher, and I believe you will achieve excellent results with your class.”
The second teacher said something similar: ”I have gone through all the work I did with my students last year and I have seen everything I missed. I have now drawn up a new plan so that I will avoid all the mistakes that were made.” And he was also able to show the principal a detailed plan: topics for all school and homework assignments that he wanted to give the students during the course of the year, based, as he said, on the experiences of the previous year and the mistakes he had made. The principal said: “The one I spoke to before tried to write down everything excellent that he had achieved and then write down his workload. You have tried to avoid all mistakes. You can do it either way. I am confident that you will achieve something excellent with your class. I am quite satisfied that I have teachers at my school who, looking back on what they have achieved, know how to behave appropriately thanks to their wise self-awareness. Recognizing strengths is something that must make a very good impression on a principal.
Now it was the third teacher's turn. The third teacher said: “I also spent a lot of time during the holidays thinking about what happened in my class last year. I tried to study the characters of the students and reviewed what happened with each of them. “Well,” said the headmaster, ‘then you will have seen what mistakes you made and what you did well, and you will be able to draw up a kind of program for the coming year.’ The teacher replied, ”No. I'm sure I made mistakes. I'm sure I did some things well. But I only studied the characters of the students and what happened.” I didn't think particularly about whether I made any special mistakes or whether this or that was particularly good. I didn't do that. I thought to myself: Yes, the way it happened, it had to happen that way. And so I just studied what I believe had to happen out of a kind of necessity. The students were of a certain disposition. I studied carefully what kind of people they were. I was also a certain type of person, and our two types of personalities resulted in what could have come out. Yes, that's all I can say, said the third teacher. Well, said the principal, it seems as if you are a rather self-satisfied man. Have you also drawn up a program, have you worked out the topics that you will give your students as schoolwork and homework during the course of the year? “No,” replied the teacher, “I haven't done that.” “Well, how do you intend to do it in your class?” “I'll see what student material I have this year,” said the teacher. And I think I'll be able to judge that better than last year because I always studied last year's students during my vacation. But I can't know what they'll be like this year; that will only become clear over time. “Yes, won't you work out topics for schoolwork and homework?” ‘Yes, but I'll do that when I see how talented or untalented the students are. I'll try to adapt accordingly.’ ”Well, said the principal, then we can sail nicely into the unknown. It's hard to agree to that.”
But there was nothing else to do. The headmaster had to go along with it. And so the next year began. The headmaster inspected the school frequently. He saw how well the first two teachers were doing. With the third, he always found that things weren't quite right. There was no certainty, he said, you never really knew what would happen next month. Well, the year went by. And finally, the classification came. From the classification, the principal believed that the first two teachers had had a very favorable effect. Of course, some of their students had failed, while others had passed, but everything had gone well. The third teacher's results were no worse after the classification. But over the course of the year, the opinion had spread that he was very lenient. While the other teachers were strict, he was very lenient, often turning a blind eye, and the headmaster was convinced that the last teacher's class actually performed the worst.
Then the next year came. The holidays were over. The next school year began, and the first two teachers expressed similar opinions, while the third again expressed similar opinions to those of the previous year. Once again, a similar situation arose. The school inspector also visited more often. He naturally noticed what the headmaster had, in a sense, already prepared him for: that the first two teachers were very good, but the other was a very mediocre teacher. Yes, there was nothing else to be done. I hardly need to say that after a few years the two good teachers were awarded medals and the headmaster was recommended for a higher class medal. But that is beside the point, isn't it?
After some time, the following happened: the headmaster left the school and another headmaster arrived at the beginning of the school year. He discussed with the three teachers how they would proceed in the next school year and so on. The first teacher again expressed himself in a similar manner to how I have already described, as did the second and the third. The headmaster said: Yes, yes, there is certainly a certain difference in the way they are treated. However, I believe that the first two gentlemen should follow the third teacher's example a little. “What?” said the first two gentlemen, “The former principal always said that we should follow him!” “Yes,” said the new principal, “that's not what I mean; it seems to me that the first two gentlemen should follow the third.” “But they couldn't really follow him, because they couldn't see how it was possible to predict in any reasonable way what would happen in the next year if they stumbled blindly into it like the last teacher had done. They simply couldn't imagine it.”
The former director had meanwhile become a school inspector himself, naturally thanks to his insight into the smooth running of the school. He was now extremely astonished at the views his successor was expressing to him, especially in the school he knew so well. How could that be? And he said: Yes, the third teacher never told me anything other than: I have to see what the students are like first, then I can make a program from week to week—you can't foresee anything! It's impossible not to foresee something. The headmaster replied, “Yes, but you see, I also asked my teachers how they make a difference in terms of foresight. The first two gentlemen always told me: I know exactly what schoolwork I will give on February 25 next year, I can say exactly what will happen, and I know exactly what I will cover at Easter. The other teacher said to me: 'I don't know exactly how I'll do it at Easter, I don't know what schoolwork I'll give in February, I'll decide based on the students' progress. And he also said that he could foresee in a certain way that things would turn out well. I actually agree with him, said the new principal. You can only see afterwards that what you set out to do was good, that by studying the students' characters from the previous year, you acquire greater abilities to get to know the new students' characters. I see that this achieves more. “Yes, but you can't know anything in advance! Everything remains uncertain. Where is the predetermination for the whole school year?” said the previous director, “you can't foresee anything.” But you have to be able to foresee something if you want to organize anything sensibly. “Yes,” said the new director, “you can foresee that things will go well if you connect yourself, as it were, with the genius that prevails in the student material and have a certain trust in the genius that works in this student material. And if you trust that genius, if you praise it, as it were, and say you will stick to it, then you won't be able to predict what the school assignment will be in February, but you will be able to predict that it will be the right one. “Yes, but you can't foresee anything definite, everything remains uncertain,” said the school inspector. ‘Then the headmaster said: ’You see, Mr. School Inspector, I once did something that people call spiritual science. I remember from that that beings who are far superior to humans are supposed to have done the same in much more important matters: for example, at the beginning of the Bible it says, 'And God made light,' and only after he had made light does it say, 'And then he saw that it was good.' Yes, the inspector couldn't say anything more to that.”
Now the matter went on like this for a while. Not true, there are few directors like the one I have hypothetically assumed, I would say hypothetically in the second degree, because even in hypothesis it is already hypothetical to assume such a director. So the director was soon sent away, and another one, who was somewhat more like the inspector, was sent in, and things went on until one day it came to the point where the completely “disorderly” man was chased away from the school with ridicule and shame, and another one, who was cut from the same cloth as the first two, was sent in. At first, there was no other way to do it, because all the registers and conduct lists—I think that's what they're called—showed the great progress made by the first two teachers and how the third one had basically only produced poor results, for the simple reason that he had been lenient; otherwise, everyone would have failed. There was simply nothing to be done with someone like the third teacher.
Many years passed. By chance, a very strange thing happened. The headmaster, who had been sent away, had tried to get to the bottom of the matter: what had happened to the two teachers who had always taken a close look at themselves, noting down the subjects with which they had had less success and then choosing those with which they had been successful, and what the second teacher had achieved and what the third had achieved. They even looked into what the students in question were able to achieve with other teachers. They found that the students of the third teacher made much poorer progress than the students of the first two teachers when they were transferred to other teachers. But the principal didn't stop there. He dug a little deeper and followed the people who had come out of these teachers' classrooms into their lives. He found that those who had come out of the first two teachers' classrooms had certainly become honorable people, with exceptions of course, that they hadn't achieved anything special, but they had become quite nice people. But among the students that the third teacher had taught, there were some who had become very important people who had achieved much more than the students of the other teachers.
He was able to demonstrate this in one case. But it did not make a particular impression on the world, because people said: You can't always follow the entire lives of those who leave school. That's not possible! And it doesn't really matter anyway. That's what people thought.
Why am I telling you all this? You see, there is a serious difference between the first two teachers and the third teacher. The first two teachers spent the holidays agonizing over how they had worked in the past year. The third teacher did not agonize over it, but felt that things had to happen the way they did. When the principal, the first principal, kept saying to him, “Well, then you can't possibly know how to avoid mistakes next year, or how you can achieve what you did well last year if you don't study,” he didn't say anything at first because he didn't really feel like explaining it to the principal. But afterwards he thought to himself: Well, even if I really know what mistakes were made in the collaboration between me and my students, I have different students this year, and nothing follows from the mistakes made last year. I have to reckon with the new student material.
In short, the first two teachers were completely stuck in the past, while the last teacher adapted to the present. One could also say that the first teachers always reckoned with the past, while the last teacher reckoned with the immediate present and did not brood over the past, saying to himself: That is how it had to be, that is how it had to happen under the given conditions.
The point is that if one looks at things so superficially, based on external judgments, one can indeed be mistaken about what is really happening in the world. One is mistaken because, if one does as the first teachers did, one judges the present according to the dead things of the past, according to what must remain in the past. The third teacher took what was alive from the past and brought it out by simply studying the characters and, through studying the characters, made himself more perfect, so that he was concerned above all with advancing himself by looking back on the past. Then he said to himself: If I can advance myself in this way, what I have to do in the future will be achieved with the greater abilities I have acquired in this way.
The first two teachers, who had a certain superstition about the past, said to themselves: Mistakes that have been made in the past must be avoided in the future, and advantages that have been demonstrated in the past must be applied in the future. But they did this in a dead sense. They did it in such a way that they did not want to increase their abilities, but only wanted to decide through external observation. They did not want to work on themselves in a living way, but believed that they could gain something for the future from observation alone, from what observation revealed.
From a spiritual scientific point of view, we must say that the first teacher who carefully examines the advantages he has asserted in the past and now wants to incorporate these advantages into his work in the future is acting in an Ahrimanic sense. That is Ahrimanic action. One clings to the past and, out of personal egoism, looks with satisfaction at everything one has done well and takes credit for it. The word is not badly chosen, because one really does look at what one has done well and wants to develop it further. One takes credit for having done this or that so well and now being able to use it further.
The second teacher had a character that was more dominated by Luciferic forces. He brooded over the mistakes he had made and said to himself: Well, I must avoid these mistakes. He did not say to himself: What happened was necessary, it had to happen that way—instead, he said: I made mistakes. There is always something selfish about wanting to have been better than one really was when one says that one has made mistakes that should have been avoided and that one must now avoid them. But one clings to the past, just as Lucifer does, who spiritually carries the past into the present. That is Luciferic thinking.
The third teacher was, I would say, inspired by the forces of naturally progressive divine beings, whose true divine principle is already expressed at the beginning of the Bible in that the Elohim first create and then see that what they have created is good; but now they do not look at it in a selfish way, as if they themselves were excellent beings because they had made what they had created good, but that it was good, they take this up in order to continue creating. They incorporate this into their development. They live in the living and weave in this living.
What matters is that we realize how we ourselves, as living beings, are placed in a world of living beings. When we understand this, we will not become critics of the gods, for example, the Elohim. For those who would place their wisdom above the wisdom of the gods could say: Well, if these gods want to be gods, did they not foresee that light would be good? These gods are not even prophets to me! If I were a god, I would of course only create light if I knew beforehand what light is like and if I did not have to see afterwards that light is good.
But that is human wisdom placed above divine wisdom. In a certain sense, the third teacher also foresaw what was to come, but he foresaw it in a living sense, in that he devoted himself, I would say, to the genius of action, to the genius of development, saying to himself: By incorporating what I have gained through the study of characters in the previous year, by not dwelling on the mistakes I made, simply because I was the way I was, and by studying carefully without criticizing what stood in my way as my own past, I have increased my ability and also gained a more capable view of what is now my new student material. And he realized that the first two teachers only looked at the students' work through the lens of what they had done in the previous year, which they could never judge correctly. So he was able to say: Yes, I am quite sure that in four weeks I will give the students the right homework assignment, and I can trust my prediction that I will give the right homework assignment.
The others were better prophets. They could say: I will give the school assignment that I have written down; I will certainly give it. But that was a foreseeing of facts, not a foreseeing of the course of the moving forces. This difference must be firmly grasped. Prophecy as such is not impossible. But prophecy of what happens in detail, when interwoven into this detail is a being that is supposed to act out of itself, such prophecy can only be possible if one looks only at those phenomena that are carried over from the present into the future by Lucifer and Ahriman.
We are gradually approaching the great question that concerns us in these lectures on freedom and necessity. But precisely with this question, which so deeply affects the whole of world events and all human events, we must also confront all the difficulties. We must be clear, for example, that when we look at what has happened and in which we ourselves are involved, we see it as necessary. And at the moment when we know all the conditions, we see it as necessary. There is no doubt that we see what has happened as necessary. But at the same time, we must ask ourselves the question: Can we always find the causes for something that happens later in what has just happened before, as is very often the case? In a certain sense, natural science must do this, seeing the cause for what happens in the immediate future in the immediate past. When I conduct an experiment, I must of course be clear that what happens later has its cause in what happened before. But that does not mean that this must apply to the whole of world events, because, first of all, we could very easily be mistaken about the connection between cause and effect if we were to seek it in this way, following the threads of what came later and what came earlier. I would like to clarify this with a comparison.
When we perceive reality externally with our senses, we can say: Certainly, because this is so, that is so. But when we extend this to the whole of events, we very often come to the error that I want to characterize by means of a comparison. We come to the following error. For the sake of simplicity, let us assume that a person is driving himself. We see a horse, a carriage behind it, a person sitting on it—I have used this example many times before—who is driving. We look at this and say quite naturally: the horse is pulling, the man is being pulled. The man is being pulled wherever the horse pulls him. That is quite clear. So the horse is the cause of the man being pulled. The cause lies in the pulling of the horse; the effect is that the man is pulled. All right, but you all know that this is not the case, that the man sitting on top and driving himself directs the horse according to his will. Although the horse pulls him, it pulls him where he wants to go.
This is very often the case when one judges events on the physical plane purely from an external point of view. Take again the hypothetical example we gave a few days ago: A group of people set out, get into a carriage, and the coachman has missed the departure time. As a result, they are five minutes late. As a result, they arrive at a rocky slope just as it collapses, crushing the group. Now, if one traces the cause on the physical plane, one can of course say: this happened, and then that happened, and then the other thing happened—and in this way one will arrive at some conclusion. But in this case, one could really make the mistake of saying that the horse pulls the driver where it wants to go, if one does not take into account that the coachman steers the horse according to his will. One could make this mistake because, in this case, the steering force might perhaps be to be found in the spiritual world. If one follows the events merely on the physical plane, one really judges in the style of saying that the person concerned must go where the horse pulls him. But if one sees through the secret forces at work in the whole event, one sees that the events have been directed to that point, and that the driver's late arrival was part of the whole complex of conditions. Everything is necessary, but not as necessary as one believes when one merely follows the events on the physical plane.
On the other hand, if one believes that one can find the cause by always taking the immediate antecedent as the cause, then the following could happen. Looking at it from the outside, one sees this: Two people meet. Now one proceeds as one must in natural science. The two people have met. Now one studies where the two people in question were in the hour before they met, where they were in the hour before that, how they set out to meet each other. You can now follow, over a certain period of time, how one always drove the other and how the two people were brought together. Someone else does not concern himself with these things, but he happens to have learned that the two people talked together five days ago and that they were going to meet, and he says: Yes, they are meeting because they agreed to meet.
Here you have the opportunity to see that the cause does not necessarily have to be found where the immediate antecedent is, and that if we break off the search for the thread of the cause before the corresponding correct link, we will not arrive at the corresponding correct link at all; for we can only trace the chain of causes up to a certain link. In nature, too, we can only do this up to a certain link. Especially in phenomena in which human beings are interwoven, we can only do this up to a certain link. But if we do this, and then proceed in such a way that we always seek the preceding and again the preceding and believe that we will recognize the cause, then we naturally give ourselves over to error, to deception.
You only need to penetrate this with what you have already been able to gain from spiritual science. Suppose a person performs some action on the physical plane. So we see him performing this action. Now, if we want to limit our observations to the physical plane, we will see how the person in question behaved beforehand. If they then go further, they will see how he was brought up. They may also, as is now fashionable, consider heredity and so on. But let us assume that something has flowed into the action that has taken place here on the physical plane that can only be found in the life that the person concerned has gone through between their last death and their new birth. Then that means that we break off the line of causes at birth and go to where there is something similar to the comparison of the agreement. For what I am now explaining may have been predetermined centuries ago in the life that took place between the last death and the present birth. And what has been experienced there flows into what I am now doing and undertaking.
Thus, it is precisely the necessity that we cannot, in a certain sense, without penetrating into the spiritual worlds, find the causality for human actions at all—that is, not at all here on the physical plane—that a search for causes may, under certain circumstances, be a completely misguided endeavor, a search for causes in the same sense as one searches for them in external natural events.
Nevertheless, if one looks more closely at the way in which human actions are woven into world events, one will still be able to arrive at a certain satisfactory view of what is called freedom, as opposed to the view that one must say: Necessity exists. But what we call searching for causes is perhaps limited in the first place by the fact that on the physical plane we cannot penetrate to the realm where causation lies.
But now something else comes into consideration. Freedom and necessity are two concepts that are extremely difficult to grasp and even more difficult to reconcile with each other. It is not for nothing that philosophical endeavors have largely failed in the question of freedom and necessity. This is largely because people have not brought the difficulties of the questions to the fore. That is why I am trying so hard in these lectures to bring the difficulties of these questions to your attention.
When we look at human events, we can initially see the thread of necessity everywhere. For it would also be a prejudice to regard every single human action as a product of freedom. Let me clarify this with a hypothetical example. Let us assume that someone grows up. Because they grow up in a certain way, it can be proven that all the conditions of their experience have been shaped in such a way that, let us say, they have become a postman, a rural postman who has to go out every morning with the mail and deliver the letters. Then he goes back. The next morning he goes out again. I think you will all admit that one can find a certain necessity in these events. If you study everything that happened in the childhood of the person in question, if you bring together all the events that have had an impact on his life, you will certainly see how everything has come together to make him a rural postman, and how, precisely because that position was vacant, he was necessarily pushed into it. And then freedom ceases, because he cannot, of course, change the addresses of the letters he receives. There is an external necessity that determines which front door he opens and which he closes. So we already see a great deal of necessity in what he has to do.
But let us now assume that another person, perhaps a younger one, younger than me, for the reason that I can now explain what I have to explain without you immediately making the most bitter reproaches to this younger person for his behavior. So another, younger person, who is still so young that he is not immediately considered lazy for doing this, comes up with the idea of going along every morning and accompanying the rural postman on his rounds. He does this. He gets up early every morning, joins the rural postman, does everything he does, and then goes back home. He does this for a certain period of time. There is no doubt that we cannot speak of necessity in the same sense in the latter case as in the former. For everything that happens through the first person must necessarily happen. Nothing that happens through the latter person actually has to happen. He could stay away every day, one might say, and exactly the same thing would happen in a certain objective context. It is quite clear, is it not? So that we can say: the former does everything out of necessity, the latter does everything out of freedom. One can say that quite well, and yet, in a certain sense, they both do the same thing. Yes, one could even form the following idea. One could say that this second man sees a morning approaching when he does not want to get up. He could refrain from doing so, but he does it anyway because he is used to it. He does what he does out of freedom, with a certain necessity. We see freedom and necessity literally flowing together.
If one studies the way in which that second person dwells within us, of whom I spoke to you in the public lecture, the way in which the actual soul dwells within us, which in its quality will pass through the gate of death, it is basically not much different from comparing this actual soul that dwells within us to a companion of the outer human being who passes through the physical world. For an ordinary materialistic monist, it is something quite horrible to say this. But such a materialistic monist stands, as we know, on the standpoint of saying: You are terrible dualists if you believe that water consists of hydrogen and oxygen. Everything must be uniform. It is nonsense to say that the monon “water” consists of hydrogen and oxygen! Well, one must not allow oneself to be deceived by this monism. What is at stake here is that what we are in life really comes together from two sides, and that what comes from these two sides can truly be compared to the way hydrogen and oxygen are present in water. For what is our outer physical being flows on in the line of inheritance, and it does not flow on merely with the physical characteristics in the line of inheritance, but it also flows on with the way we are socially placed in the line of inheritance. We do not merely have a certain shape, nose, hair color, and so on because our father and mother had this particular shape, but we are predetermined by the life situation of our ancestors in terms of their external social position and so on. So what belongs to the physical plane, not just the appearance of our physical body, our muscle strength and the like, but everything that we are placed in, everything that belongs to the physical plane — all of that flows on in the hereditary line, flows from one generation to another.
To this is now added, from a second source, that that comes from the spiritual world as our individual being and which initially has nothing to do with all the forces that are in the stream of heredity and in the succession of generations, that comes from the spiritual world and which unites causes that may have been predisposed in us centuries ago with the causes that lie in the stream of heredity and generations. Two beings come together. And in fact, we can only judge the matter correctly if we really regard this second being, which comes from the spiritual world and unites with the physical, as a kind of companion to the first. That is why I chose the example of the companion who participates in everything. It is also true that our actual soul participates in external events in a certain sense.
The second man who accompanied the country postman did all this voluntarily. There is no denying that he did it voluntarily. One could look for causes, but the causes lie in the realm of freedom, as opposed to the necessity in which the first postman finds himself. He did all this voluntarily. But you see, one thing follows from this freedom, I would say with necessity. You will not deny that if the second man who accompanied the first had done so for a certain period of time, he would undoubtedly have become a good postman. He would be able to do well what the one he accompanied did. And he would even be able to do it better, because he would avoid certain mistakes. But if the first had not made the mistakes, he would not have come across them. It is impossible to imagine that it would be useful for the second to think about the mistakes of the first. If you think clearly, you will see that it is completely pointless for the second person to think about the mistakes of the first and dwell on them. It is precisely when he does not think about the mistakes, but actively participates in everything and simply observes the whole process, that it will become part of him, and he will not make these mistakes himself.
But this is how it is with what is within us and accompanies us. When this can rise to the realization that what we have done is necessary, that we have accompanied it, and that we now carry our soul into the future by having learned it, then we see things in the right way. But it must have been learned in a truly living way. One will even be able to determine correctly what is meant here within incarnation. One will be able to compare, let us say, three people. The first person acts impulsively. At a certain point in his life, he feels the urge to know himself. He then looks at what he has always done well. He delights in what he has done well. Now he tries to continue doing the things he has done well. In a certain sense, he will do quite good things, won't he?
Another person, who is more hypochondriacally inclined, sees more of his mistakes. If he can overcome his hypochondria and his mistakes, if he can rise above them, he will learn to avoid these mistakes. But he will not achieve what a third person could achieve, who says to himself: What happened was necessary, but at the same time it is the basis for learning. But learning through reflection, not through idle criticism, but through reflection. He will not now continue in a lively way what has already happened, simply carrying the past over into the future, but what has been his companion, he will have strengthened, fortified, steeled, and he will carry it over into the future in a lively way. He will not repeat what was good, nor avoid what was bad, but through the good and the bad, by incorporating it into himself and simply leaving it there as it is, he will have strengthened, fortified, and steeled it.
This is the very best strengthening of the soul: to leave what has happened as it is and carry it over into the future in a living way. Otherwise, one always returns to the past in a Luciferic-Ahrimanic way. Progress in development is only possible if one approaches what is necessary in the right way. Why? Is there a right way in this area? I would like to conclude by giving you a comparison, which I ask you to carry in your soul until next Tuesday. Based on this comparison, we will then be able to build further on our question.
Think for a moment that you want to see an external object. You can see this external object, but you cannot possibly see it if you place a mirror between yourself and the object. Instead, you see your own eye. If you want to see the object, you must refrain from seeing your own eye, and if you want to see your own eye, you must refrain from seeing the object. Now, through a strange chain of entities in the world, this is true with regard to human action and human knowledge: everything we know, we know in a certain way through a mirror. Knowing always means that we actually know in a certain way through a reflection.
When we want to look at the past actions we have performed, we actually always look at them in such a way that we basically have a mirror between the actions themselves and ourselves. But when we want to act, when we want to have a direct relationship between ourselves and our actions, between ourselves and the world in general, then we must not hold up a mirror. Then we must refrain from looking at what the mirror shows us of ourselves. This is how it is with our past actions. The moment we look at them, we place a mirror in front of them, and then we can certainly recognize them. We can now leave this mirror standing and recognize them with terrible accuracy. This will certainly be very good for certain purposes. But if we are unable to put the mirror away, all this knowledge will be of no use to us, because the moment we put the mirror away, we no longer see our own selves; only then can it become part of us, only then can it become one with us.
And so we must proceed with self-contemplation. We must be clear that as long as we look back, this looking back can only be the impetus to now take what we have seen into ourselves in a living way. But in doing so, we must not always look at it, for otherwise the mirror will always be there. Our self-contemplation is very similar to looking in a mirror. We only progress in life by incorporating into our will what we learn through self-observation.
Please take this comparison into your souls, this comparison which lies in the fact that you can only see your own eye if you refrain from seeing another, and that if you want to see another, you must refrain from seeing your own eye. Take this comparison into your hearts. On the basis of this comparison, we will then speak next Tuesday about right self-contemplation and wrong self-contemplation, and thus come closer and closer to the solution of our questions. In this, I would say, most difficult question of humanity, the question of freedom and necessity and the chain of human actions and world events, it is necessary to consider all the difficulties. And anyone who believes that they can arrive at a solution to this question before they have seen through all the difficulties is actually mistaken.