Old and New Methods of Initiation
GA 210
25 February 1922, Dornach
Lecture XII
We have been speaking about the tasks facing the leaders of spiritual and cultural life, tasks arising out of the great change that took place in the transition from the fourth to the fifth post-Atlantean period. I endeavoured to describe the forces which emanated from this, such as those which were made manifest in the figure of Faust and the figure of Hamlet. When you consider the essential core of the matter, you find that spiritual leaders such as the poets who created these figures found themselves faced with the task of answering, in poetic form, the question: What will become of the human being when he has to find inner satisfaction of soul from intellectual life alone, living exclusively in abstract thoughts? For obviously the soul's mood as a whole must arise from the impression made on it because it is forced to contemplate, with the help of abstract thoughts alone, all that is most dear to it, and all that is most important for it. All the evolutionary factors we considered yesterday were what Goethe and Schiller had to draw on in their creative work.
We also saw how Goethe and Schiller felt themselves to be ensnared in these evolutionary factors. We saw how both express the feeling that truly great poetic creation cannot be accomplished without some inclination towards the real spiritual world. But the inclination towards the spiritual world which was still characteristic for western cultural development in the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth centuries was no longer possible in ensuing times. It retreated, you might say, in the face of the stark intellectual view. Yet on the other hand this intellectual view, this living in thoughts, had not yet developed sufficiently to allow access to real, genuine spiritual aspects in the thought life.
What typifies the position of Schiller and Goethe within the cultural evolution of humanity is the fact that their most important creative period falls in an age when the old spirituality has gone, but when it is not yet possible for living spirituality to burgeon out of the new intellectualism. I described a little while ago1 For instance see Rudolf Steiner The Bridge Between Universal Spirituality and the Physical Constitution of Man, Anthroposophic Press, New York 1958, lecture of 19 December 1920; and Rudolf Steiner, The Shaping of the Human Form out of Cosmic and Earthly Forces, lecture of 26 November 1920. English text available in typescript only. how that which fills the soul in an intellectual way is actually the corpse of the spiritual life lived by the soul in the world of spirit and soul before birth, or before conception. This corpse must be brought back to life. It must be placed once more within the whole living context of the cosmos. But this point had not yet been reached at that time, and what Goethe and Schiller were wrestling to achieve, particularly in their most important period, was a mood of soul which could somehow be satisfying during this period of transition, and out of which poetic creation could be achieved.
This shows most clearly and most intensively in the collaboration between Goethe and Schiller. When they met, Goethe had completed a considerable part of Faust, namely the Fragment which appeared in 1790 and some additional parts as well. Goethe held back the dungeon scene, even though it was by then already completed. The Fragment has no Prologue in Heaven, but begins with the scene ‘I've studied now Philosophy ...’ If we examine this Fragment, and also the parts which Goethe omitted, we find that here Faust stands as a solitary figure wrestling inwardly to find a satisfying mood of soul. He is dissatisfied with stark intellectualism and endeavours to achieve a union with the spiritual world. The Earth-Spirit appears, as in the version now familiar to us. Goethe was certainly striving towards the world of spirit and soul, but what is still entirely lacking, what was still quite foreign to him at that time, was the question of placing Faust within the whole wider cosmic context. There was no Prologue in Heaven. Faust was not yet involved in the battle between God and Satan. This aspect only came to the fore when Schiller encouraged Goethe to continue working on the drama.
Schiller's encouragement inspired him to change Faust's solitary position and place him within the total cosmic context. Encouraged more or less by Schiller, the Faust which reappeared in the world in 1808 had been transformed from a drama of personality, which the 1790 version still was, into a drama of the universe. In the Prologue—‘The sun makes music as of old, amid the rival spheres of heaven’—in the angels, indeed in the whole spiritual world, and in the opposition with Satan, we see a battle for the figure of Faust which takes place in the spiritual world. In 1790, Faust was concerned only with himself. We see this personality alone; he alone is the focus. But later a tableau of the universe appears before us, in which Faust is included. The powers of good and evil do battle to possess him. Goethe wrote this scene in 1797, placing Faust in a tableau of the universe, after Schiller had demanded of him that he continue work on Faust.
As shown in the ‘Dedication’, Goethe felt somehow estranged from the manner in which he had approached his Faust when he was young. We see also in Schiller what was actually going on in the souls of the most outstanding human beings. He began as a realist. I showed you yesterday how the luciferic and ahrimanic elements confront one another in Karl Moor and Franz Moor. But there is no suggestion of any appearance of the spiritual world in some archetypal figure or other; we see the luciferic and the ahrimanic element simply in the character traits of Karl Moor and Franz Moor. It is quite typical of Schiller to make his point of departure a perfectly realistic element. But when he has completed the plays of his youthful phase, when he has met Goethe, and when he takes up writing again in the nineties, we see that now he is compelled to let the spiritual world play into his poetic creations. It is one of the most interesting facts that Schiller now feels compelled to let the spiritual world play into his poetic figures.
Consider Wallenstein (Wallenstein's Camp). Wallenstein makes his decisions in accordance with his belief in the stars. He acts and forms resolves in accordance with his belief in the stars. So the cosmos plays a role in the figures Schiller creates. The Wallenstein (Wallenstein's Camp) drama is comprehensible only when we take into account that Wallenstein feels himself to be filled with the forces which emanate from the starry constellations. At the end of the eighteenth century Schiller felt compelled to return to a contemplation of the stars which was familiar in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to those who thought about such things. He felt he could not depict significant events in human life without placing this human life within the cosmos.
Or take Die Braut von Messina (Bride of Messina). He is experimenting. He tries to shape the dramatic action in accordance with the ancient idea of destiny in connection with the wisdom of the stars. It is perfectly obvious that he is trying to do this, for we, too, can experiment with this drama. Take out everything to do with the wisdom of the stars and with destiny, and you will find that in what remains you still have a magnificent drama. Schiller could have written Die Braut von Messina (Bride of Messina) without any wisdom of the stars and without any idea of destiny. Yet he included these things. This shows that in his mood of soul he felt the need to place the human being within the cosmos. This quite definitely parallels the situation which led Goethe, on once again taking up work on his Faust drama, to place Faust within the tableau of the universe.
Goethe does this pictorially. Angels appear as starry guides. The great tableau of the Prologue in Heaven presents us with a picture of the cosmos. Schiller, who was less pictorial and tended more towards abstraction, felt obliged during the same period to bring into his Wallenstein (Wallenstein's Camp) and his Braut von Messina (Bride of Messina) something which would hint at the position of the human being within the universe. He even went so far as to include the destiny concept of ancient Greek tragedy.
But look at something else too. Just at the time when he was getting to know Goethe, Schiller, in his own way, adopted the French Revolution's ideas about freedom. I mentioned yesterday that in France the revolution was political, whereas in Central Europe it was spiritual and cultural. I would like to say that this spiritual revolution took on its most intimate character in something Schiller wrote which I have quoted here in all kinds of connections: his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man (Aesthetical Essays).
Schiller asks: How can people achieve an existence which is truly worthy of human beings? Something that might have been called a philosophy of freedom was not yet possible at that time. Schiller answers the question in his own way. He says: A person who follows the course of a logical thought is unfree. Of course he is unfree, because what logic says cannot be developed freely in any way, and so he is subject to the dictates of reasoning. He is not free to say that two times two is six, or perhaps five. On the other hand he is also subject to the dictates of natural laws if his whole organism is given over to the dictates of nature.
So Schiller sees the human being occupying a position between the dictates of reason and the dictates of nature, and he calls the balance between these two conditions the aesthetic condition. The human being shifts the dictates of reason downwards a little into whatever likes and dislikes he may have, thus gaining freedom in a certain sense. And if he can also moderate his urges and instincts—the dictates of nature—raising them up to an extent to which he can rely on them not to debase him to the level of an animal, then they meet up in the middle with the dictates of reason. The dictates of reason take a step down, the dictates of nature take a step up, and they meet in the middle. By acting in accordance with what pleases or displeases him, the human being is in a condition which is subject to neither dictum; he is permitted to do what pleases him, because what pleases him is good by virtue of the fact that at the same time his sensual nature also desires what is good.
This exposition of Schiller's is naturally quite philosophical and abstract. Goethe greatly approved of the thought, but at the same time it was quite clear to him that it could not lead to a solution of the riddle of man. He is sure to have felt deeply for the exceptional spiritual stature of the exposition, for what Schiller achieved in these Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man (Aesthetical Essays) is indeed one of the best treatises of recent times. Goethe sensed the genius and power of these thoughts. But at the same time he felt that out of such thoughts nothing can come which in any way approaches the being of man. The being of man is too rich to be fathomed by thoughts such as these.
Schiller, if I may say so, felt: Here I am in the intellectual age, but intellectualism makes the human being unfree, for it imposes the dictates of reason. So he sought a way out by means of aesthetic creativity and aesthetic enjoyment. Goethe, though, had a feeling for the infinitely abundant, rich content of human nature. He could not be satisfied with Schiller's view, profound and spiritually powerful though it was. He therefore felt the need to give his own expression to the forces working together in the human being. Goethe, not only by nature, but also because of his whole attitude, was incapable of expressing these things in the form of abstract concepts. Instead, under the influence of the kind of thoughts developed by Schiller, he wrote his fairy-tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily. Here, about twenty figures appear, all of which have something to do with the forces of the human soul. They work together, not only as the dictates of reason and the dictates of nature but as twenty different impulses which, in the end, depict in the most manifold way something signifying the rich nature of the being of man. We must take note of the fact that Goethe gave up speaking about the being of man in abstract concepts altogether. He felt bound to move away from concepts.
In order to characterize the relationship of Schiller to Goethe in connection with the Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man (Aesthetical Essays) and the fairy-tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, we have to say the following: Goethe wrote the fairy-tale under the immediate influence of Schiller's letters. He wanted to answer the same questions from his point of view and out of his feelings. This can be proved. Indeed I proved it historically long ago and it was seen to make sense.2 See Rudolf Steiner, Goethe as Founder of a New Science of Aesthetics [Goethe als Vater einer neuen Ästhetik], Anthroposophical Publishing Company, London 1922; and Rudolf Steiner, Goethe's Secret Revelation and The Riddle of Faust, Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co., London 1933. So in order fully to characterize what took place between these two personalities we should have to say: In olden times when, in seeking knowledge, human beings caused beings from the spiritual world to visit them; when they still worked in their laboratories of knowledge in order to penetrate to the mysteries of the universe, and when spiritual beings came into their laboratories—just as the Earth Spirit and many another spirit visit Faust—this was very different from how things are today. In those days people felt themselves to be relatives of those spiritual beings who visited them. They knew, although they were living on the earth and had perforce to make use of the instrument of a physical body, that before birth and after death they were nevertheless beings just like those who visited them. They knew that for earthly life they had sought out an abode which separated them from the spiritual world, but that this spiritual world nevertheless visited them. They knew that they were related to this spiritual world and this gave them an awareness of their own being.
Suppose Schiller had visited Goethe in 1794 or 1795 and had said: Here are my letters on the aesthetic education of man, in which I have endeavoured, out of modern intellectualism, to give people once more the possibility of feeling themselves to be human beings; I have sought the ideas which are necessary in order to speak about the true being of man; these ideas are contained in these letters about aesthetic education. Goethe would have read the letters and on next meeting Schiller he would have been able to say: Well, my friend, this is not bad at all; you have provided human beings once more with a concept of their worth, but this is not really the way to do it; man is a spiritual being, but just as spirits retreat from light, so do they also retreat from concepts, which are nothing other than another form of ordinary daylight; you will have to go about this in a different manner; we shall have to go away from concepts and find something else.
You can find everything I have expressed here, in the form of direct speech, in the correspondence between Goethe and Schiller. It is all there, in hints and intimations. In the process, Goethe wrote his fairytale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, which was to depict how the soul forces work in man. It is Goethe's admission that to speak about man and the being of man it is necessary to rise up to the level of pictures, images. This is the way to Imagination. Goethe was simply pointing out the path to the world of Imaginations. This fairy-tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily is so very important because it shows that out of his own struggles, and also in his Faust, Goethe felt impelled, at a most important moment, to the path towards Imaginations.
To Goethe, the statement that thinking, feeling and will work together in man would have seemed philosophical. He did not say this, but instead he depicted a place where there were three kings, one of gold, one of silver and one of iron. These images signify for him something which cannot be expressed in concepts. We see that Goethe is on the way to a life of Imagination. This brings us to one of the most profound questions with which Goethe is concerned. He himself did not care to discuss the true profundity of this question with anyone. But we can see how this question concerned him, for it appears in all sorts of places: What is the point of fathoming the being of man by using the kind of thinking to which intellectualism has led? What use would it be? This is a riddle of earthly evolution, a riddle belonging to this epoch, for in this strong form it could only have come into question in this epoch. Sometimes, in all its profundity, it makes its appearance in paradoxical words. For instance in Faust we read
The lofty might
Of Science, still
From all men deeply hidden!
Who takes no thought,
To him 'tis brought,
'Tis given unsought, unbidden!3 Faust, Part One, Witches' Kitchen. The quotation ‘See, thus it's done!’ is also from this scene.
This is extraordinarily profound, even if it is only the witch who says it: ‘The lofty might of Science, still from all men deeply hidden! Who takes no thought’—in other words to one who does not think—'tis given unsought, unbidden!’ However much we think, the lofty might of science remains hidden from us. But if we succeed in not thinking, then it is given unsought, unbidden. So we should develop the might to not think, the skill to not think, in order to achieve not science or knowledge—for this cannot of course be achieved without thinking—but in order to achieve the might of science or knowledge.
Goethe knows that this might of science works in the human being. He knows that it is at work, even in the little child who as yet does not think. What I said in my book The Spiritual Guidance of Man4 Rudolf Steiner, The Spiritual Guidance of Man, Anthroposophic Press, New York, 1983. was taken very much amiss. On the very first pages I pointed out that if the human being had to fashion all the wisdom-filled things found in the form of the human body by means of his thoughts—consciously using the might which also holds sway in science—then he would reach a ripe old age without ever discovering those delicate formative forces which work with the skill of a sculptor! The might of science is indeed needed in the early years of childhood to transform this brain from a rather formless lump into the sublime structure it has to achieve.
This is a question with which Goethe is profoundly concerned. He of course does not mean merely a dull absence of thinking. But he is quite sure that the might of science can be discovered if we do not destroy our links with it by means of our intellectual thinking. This is even the reason why he makes Mephisto take Faust to the witches’ kitchen. Commentaries on these things always distort matters. We fail to know Goethe if we do not link his purpose—in creating a scene like that in the witches’ kitchen—with what we sense to be the essence of his own being. Faust is presented with the draught of youth. In one sense he is given a perfectly realistic draught to drink. But the witch says:
See, thus it's done!
Make ten of one,
And two let be,
Make even three,
And rich thou'lt be.
Cast o'er the four!
From five and six
(The witch's tricks)
Make seven and eight,
'Tis finished straight!
And nine is one,
And ten is none.
Now imagine Goethe standing there. If you have a sense for his essential being you cannot but ask: Why is the witch made to declaim this witches’ multiplication table? Goethe did not like speaking about these things, but if he were in the right frame of mind he might reply: Well, the lofty might of science, still from all men deeply hidden! Who takes no thought, to him 'tis brought. You see, the power of thought fades when you are told, make ten of one, and two let be, make even three, and rich thou'lt be, and so on. Thinking comes to a standstill! So then you enter into a state of mind in which the lofty might of science can be given to you without any thinking.—Such things are always an aspect of Goethe's Faust and indeed of all Goethe's poetic work.
So Goethe was faced with this question, which was for him something exceptionally profound. What was it that Faust lacked, but gained through his sojourn in the witches’ kitchen? What did he not have before? If you think of Faust and how he could have been Hamlet's teacher, disgusted by philosophy and jurisprudence, medicine and theology, and turning instead to magic—if you imagine what he is like even in the Easter scene, you will have to admit that he lacks something which Goethe possessed. Goethe never got to the bottom of this. He felt he was like Faust, but he had to say to himself: Yes, all the things with which I have invested Faust are also in me, but there is something else in me as well. Is it something I am permitted to possess? What Faust does not have is imagination, but Goethe did have imagination. Faust gains imagination through the draught of youth which he receives in the witches’ kitchen. In a way Goethe answered his own question: What happens when one wants to penetrate to the universal secrets with the help of the imagination? For this was the most outstanding power possessed by Goethe himself.
In his youth he was not at all sure whether looking into the universal secrets with the help of the imagination was anything more than a step into nothingness. This is indeed the Faustian question. For stark intellectuality lives only in mirror images. But once you come to the imagination you are a step nearer to the human being's forces of growth, to the forces which fill the human being. You approach, even though only from a distance, the formative forces which, for instance, shape the brain in childhood. There is then only one more step from the ordinary imagination to the faculty of Imagination! But for Goethe this was the all-important question.
Thus Goethe takes Faust to the witches’ kitchen so that he can extricate himself from that confounded capacity of thinking—which may lead to science but does not lead to the might of science—in order that he may be allowed to live in the realm of the imagination. Thenceforward Faust develops his imagination. By means of the draught in the witches’ kitchen, Goethe wins for Faust the right to have an imagination. The rejuvenation he experiences is simply a departure from the arid forces he had as, say, a thirty-five year old professor, and a return to his youth where he takes into his soul the youthful formative forces, the forces of growth. Where the imagination flourishes, the youthful formative forces remain alive in the soul.
All this was present as a seed within Goethe, for he wrote the scene in the witches’ kitchen as early as about 1788. It was there as a seed, beginning to sprout and demanding a solution. But from Schiller he received a new impulse, for now he was urged on to the path towards the faculty of Imagination. Schiller was at first nowhere near to seekingfor the faculty of Imagination. But in Wallenstein (Wallenstein's Camp) and in Die Braut von Messina (Bride of Messina) he sought the cosmic element.5 See Rudolf Steiner, Schiller und die Gegenwart (Schiller and the Present Time), Dornach 1955, lecture in Berlin on 4 May 1905. And in Die Jungfrau von Orleans (The Maid of Orleans) he endeavoured to fathom the subconscious forces of the being of man.
The immense profundity of the struggle going on may be seen in the fragment Demetrius which Schiller left behind when he died. The dramatic power of this fragment surpasses that of everything else he wrote. In his desk there was also the draft of a play about the Knights of Malta. This, too, if he had succeeded in writing it, would probably have been truly magnificent. The whole principle of the Order of the Knights of Malta—a spiritual order of knighthood resembling that of the Templars—unfolds in their battle against Sultan Suleiman. If Schiller had succeeded in depicting this, he would have been forced to face the question: How will it be possible to bring the vision of the spiritual world down into human creative activity? For this question was indeed alive for him already.
But Schiller dies. Goethe no longer benefits from the stimulus he gave. Later, stimulated by Eckermann—who was less of a spiritual giant than Schiller, if I may put it this way—he finishes Faust, working on the second part from about 1824 until his death. Shortly before his death he has the package containing the work sealed. It is a posthumous work. We have considered this second part of Faust from many different angles, and have discovered, on the one hand, deeply significant, sublime insights into the manifold mysteries of the spiritual world. Of course we can never understand it entirely if we approach it from this one angle, and we must seek ever higher viewpoints.
But there is another angle too.6 See Rudolf Steiner Geisteswissenschaftliche Erlauterungen zu Goethes Faust, (Goethe's Faust Illumined by Spiritual Science), Dornach 1967, GA 272 and 273. Goethe felt compelled to complete this poetic work of Faust. Let us examine the development of the philosophy of Faust and go back a stage further than we have done so far. One of the stages was the figure of Cyprianus, about whom we have already spoken. Before that, in the ninth century, the legend of Theophilus was written down.7 This legend, of Greek origin, came to the West some time around the tenth century and was recounted both in prose and in verse in almost every known language. Hrosvitha, the poetess from Lower Saxony, a nun in Gandersheim, told the story in Latin verse. Theophilus is once again a kind of Faust of the eighth, or ninth century. He makes a pact with Satan and his fate very much resembles that of Faust.
Consider Theophilus, this Faust of the ninth century, and consider the legendary Faust of the sixteenth century, to whom Goethe refers. The ninth century profoundly condemns the pact with the devil. Eventually Theophilus turns to the Virgin Mary and is saved from all that would have befallen him, had his pact with Satan been fulfilled. The sixteenth century gives the Faust legend a Protestant slant. In the Theophilus legend, incipient damnation redeemed by the Virgin Mary is described. The sixteenth century protests against this. There is no positive end; the story is told in a manner suitable for Protestantism: Faust makes a pact with the devil and duly falls into his clutches.
First Lessing and then Goethe now protest in their turn. They cannot accept that a character—acting with worldly powers and in the manner of worldly powers—who gives himself over to the power of Satan, entering into a pact with him, must of necessity perish as a consequence of acting out of a thirst for knowledge. Goethe protests against this Protestant conception of the Faust legend. He wants Faust's redemption. He cannot abide by the conclusion of Part One, in which he made concessions and let Faust perish. Faust must be saved. So now Goethe leads us in sublime fashion through the experiences depicted in Part Two. We see how the strong inner being of man asserts itself: ‘In this, thy Nothing, may I find my All!’8 Faust to Mephisto in Faust Part Two, A Gloomy Gallery. We need only think of words such as these with which a strong and healthy human nature confronts the one who corrupts.
We see Faust experiencing the whole of history up to the time of ancient Greece. He must not be allowed to perish. Goethe makes every effort to arrive at pictures—pictures which, though different in form, are nevertheless taken from the Catholic cultus and Catholic symbolism. If you subtract everything that is achieved out of Goethe's own imaginative life, fuelled as it is by the great riches of the tremendously rich lifetime's experience that was his—if you subtract all this, you find yourself back with the legend of Theophilus in the ninth century. For in the end it is the Queen of Heaven9 Faust Part Two, last scene. who approaches in all her glory. If you subtract all that specifically belongs to Goethe, you come back to the Theophilus described by the saintly nun Hrosvitha—not identical, of course, but nevertheless something which has not succeeded in an independent approach to the poetic problem but still has to borrow from what has gone before.
We see how a personality as great as Goethe strives to find an entry to the spiritual world. In the fairy-tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily he is seeking for an Imagination which will make the human being comprehensible. In Faust he is also seeking for an Imagination, but he cannot achieve an independent Imagination and has to draw on help from Catholic symbolism. Thus his final tableau resembles the clumsy depiction by Hrosvitha in the ninth century—though of course in Goethe's case it is obviously executed by one of the greatest poets.
It is necessary to indicate the intricate paths followed by the spiritual and cultural history of humanity in order to arrive at an understanding of all that is at work in this spiritual history. Only then can we come to realize how the working of karma goes through human history. You need only consider hypothetically that certain things happened which did not actually happen—not in order to correct history in retrospect, but in order to come to an understanding of what is actually there. Imagine that Schiller, who died young, had remained alive. The drama about the Knights of Malta was in his desk and he was in the process of working on Demetrius. In collaboration with Goethe the highest spirituality developed in him, living in them both at once. But the thread broke. Look at the second part of Wilhelm Meister, look at Elective Affinities, and you will see what Goethe was striving for but failed to achieve. Everywhere he was striving to place the human being within a great spiritual context. He was unable to do so, for Schiller had been taken from him.
All this is an expression of the way in which the recent spiritual and cultural evolution of mankind is striving for a certain goal, the goal of seeking the human being in his relationship with the spiritual world. But there are hindrances on every side. Perhaps something like Goethe's Faust can be comprehended in all its greatness only when we see what it does not contain, when we see the course on which the whole spiritual evolution of mankind was set. We cannot arrive at an understanding of the spiritual grandeur present in human evolution by merely giving all sorts of explanations, and exclaiming: What an incomparably great masterpiece! We can only reach such an understanding by contemplating the striving of the whole human spirit towards a particular goal of evolution. We are forcefully confronted with this when we consider these things. And then, in the nineteenth century, the thread breaks entirely! The nineteenth century, so splendid in the realm of natural science, sleeps as far as the realm of the spirit is concerned. The most that can be achieved is that the highest wisdom of natural science leads to fault-finding with a creation such as Faust.
Goethe needs Schiller, in order to place Faust—whom he first depicted as a personality—within the context of an all-embracing universal tableau. We can sense what Goethe might have made out of the philosophy of Faust if he had not lost Schiller so soon. Yet those who think about these things come along and say that Faust is an unfortunate work in which Goethe missed the point entirely. Had he done the thing properly, Faust would have married Gretchen and made an honest woman of her, and then gone on to invent the electro-static machine and the air-pump. Then mankind would have been presented with the proper Faust!
A great aesthete, Friedrich Theodor Vischer,10Friedrich Theodor Vischer (1807-1887), philosopher and aesthete. In 1862 he wrote a satire Faust. Der Traglidie dritter Teil (The Tragedy of Faust, Part Three). said: Faust Part Two is rubbish. So he drafted a plan of what it ought to have been. The result was a kind of improved Eugen Richter out of the nineteenth century, a man of party politics, only a bit more crude than were party men in the nineteenth century. It was not an unimportant person but a very important person—for Friedrich Theodor Vischer was such a one—who stated: The second part of Faust is a piecemeal, fragmented construction of Goethe's old age!
Any connection with a striving for the spirit was lost. The world slept where spirituality was concerned. But out of this very situation the people of today must find their tasks with regard to a new path to the spiritual world. It is of course not possible for us to refer back to:
The lofty might
Of Science, still
From all men deeply hidden! Who takes no thought,
To him 'tis brought,
'Tis given unsought, unbidden!
We cannot simply decide to stop thinking, for thinking is a power which came with the fifth post-Atlantean period, and it is a power which must be practised. But it must be developed in a direction which was actually begun by Goethe in his fairy-tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily. It must be practised in such a way that it leads to Imagination. We must understand that the power of the intellect chases away the spirit, but if the power of the intellect itself can be developed to become the faculty of Imagination, then we can approach the spirit once more. This is what we can learn by considering in a living way what has taken place in the field we have been discussing.
Das Ringen Goethes und Schillers in der Zeit des über die alte Geistigkeit siegenden Intellektualismus
[ 1 ] Von den Aufgaben habe ich Ihnen sprechen wollen, welche den Führern des geistigen Lebens gestellt waren aus dem Umschwung heraus, der sich vom vierten zum fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraum herüber vollzogen hat. Und ich versuchte anschaulich zu machen, welche Kräfte da ausgegangen sind und sich gezeigt haben in der FaustGestalt, in der Hamlet-Gestalt. Wenn man auf das Wesentliche den Blick wendet, so sieht man, daß solche geistige Führer wie die Dichter der genannten Gestalten sich vor die Aufgabe gestellt sahen, dichterisch die Frage zu beantworten: Was wird aus dem Menschen, wenn er seine innere Seelenbefriedigung suchen muß aus dem bloßen intellektualistischen Leben heraus, aus dem Leben in abstrakten Gedanken? - Denn selbstverständlich, von diesem besonderen Eindruck, der auf die Seele dadurch hervorgerufen wird, daß sie genötigt ist, mit Hilfe von abstrakten Gedanken auf das hinzuschauen, was ihr das Teuerste, das Bedeutsamste ist, was ihr Sinn und Ziel ihres eigenen Daseins zeigt, von einer solchen Stellung zum Gedankenleben kommt eben die ganze Seelenverfassung. Aus all den Entwickelungsmomenten heraus, die wir gestern skizzenhaft uns vor die Seele gestellt haben, mußten ja im Grunde genommen Goethe und Schiller schaffen.
[ 2 ] Und wir haben auch schon gesehen, wie Goethe und Schiller sich hineinverstrickt sahen in die Entwickelungsmomente, auf die wir da deuten konnten. Wir haben gesehen, wie bei beiden durchaus zum Ausdrucke kommt, daß sie eigentlich fühlen: In der großen, in der wirklichen Dichtung läßt sich nicht auskommen ohne eine gewisse Hinneigung zu der eigentlichen geistigen Welt. Aber jene alte Hinneigung zur geistigen Welt, die noch im 11., 12., 13. Jahrhundert für die abendländische geistige Entwickelung charakteristisch war, die war im Grunde genommen nicht mehr möglich für den Menschen der darauffolgenden Zeit. Sie zog sich zurück, könnte man sagen, vor der bloßen intellektualistischen Betrachtung. Auf der andern Seite aber war diese intellektualistische Betrachtung, dieses Leben in Gedanken, noch nicht so weit, daß etwa im Gedankenleben selbst das reale, das wirkliche Geistige hätte erreicht werden können.
[ 3 ] Das ist nun eigentlich das Charakteristische der Stellung Schillers und Goethes in der Geistesentwickelung der Menschheit, daß ihr Auftreten, ihre wichtigste Wirksamkeit in eine Zeit fällt, in welcher die alte Geistigkeit dahingegangen war und aus dem neuen Intellektualismus noch nicht die lebendige Geistigkeit hervorsprießen konnte. Wir haben ja vor einiger Zeit hier gesehen, wie das, was die Seele als Intellektualismus erfüllt, eigentlich der Leichnam jenes geistigen Lebens ist, welches die Seele in der geistig-seelischen Welt vor ihrer Geburt beziehungsweise vor der Konzeption durchmacht. Dieser Leichnam muß selbstverständlich wiederum belebt werden. Er muß wiederum hineingestellt werden in das ganze Leben des Kosmos. Aber dazu war man eben in jener Zeit noch nicht gekommen, und das Ringen Goethes und Schillers gerade in ihrer allerbedeutsamsten Zeitepoche besteht darin, nun doch in diesem Übergangszeitalter eine irgendwie befriedigende Seelenverfassung zu erringen, die auch dichterisch produktiv sein konnte.
[ 4 ] Am klarsten, am intensivsten tritt das gerade hervor in dem Zusammenarbeiten zwischen Goethe und Schiller. Als die beiden bekannt wurden, hatte Goethe einen größeren Teil seiner «Faust»-Dichtung fertig, was 1790 als Fragment des «Faust» erschienen war und einiges andere darüber hinaus. Wenn man dieses Fragment, das 1790 erschienen war, und auch das, was dazumal von Goethe aus irgendwelchen Gründen zurückgehalten wurde, prüft - es ist ja zum Beispiel die Kerkerszene zurückgehalten worden, trotzdem sie damals schon fertig war, und das Fragment beginnt unmittelbar, ohne irgendwelchen «Prolog im Himmel» mit der Szene: «Habe nun, ach, Philosophie, Juristerei ... durchaus studiert», wenn man das prüft, so muß man sagen, in diesem Fragment steht Faust allein da, aus seinem Inneren heraus ringend nach einer befriedigenden Seelenverfassung. Er sieht sich unbefriedigt vom bloßen Intellektualismus, strebt hin nach einem Zusammenkommen mit der geistigen Welt. Der Erdgeist in der bekannten Fassung, wie wir sie jetzt haben, tritt auf. Wir haben durchaus schon ein Hinstreben Goethes nach der geistig-seelischen Welt, aber was da zum Beispiel vollständig fehlt, was Goethe dazumal im Grunde genommen fern lag, das war das Hineinstellen des Faust in den ganzen kosmischen Zusammenhang. Der «Prolog im Himmel» war nicht da. Also, Faust war noch nicht hineingestellt in jenen Kampf des Gottes mit dem Satan. Das kam erst dazu, als Goethe die Anregung von Schiller bekam, seinen «Faust» fortzusetzen.
[ 5 ] Unter dieser Anregung suchte er jetzt Faust nicht mehr allein zu lassen, sondern ihn in den ganzen kosmischen Zusammenhang hineinzustellen. Und so gestaltete er dann seinen «Faust», mehr oder weniger angeregt durch Schiller, so daß wir sagen können: Da Faust zum zweiten Male dann 1808 vor die Welt tritt, sehen wir aus dem Persönlichkeitsdrama, das doch der «Faust» 1790 noch war, ein Weltendrama entstehen. Wir sehen in der Prologszene: «Die Sonne tönt nach alter Weise in Brudersphären Wettgesang» — im Auftreten der Engel, im Auftreten der ganzen geistigen Welt, in dem Gegensatze des Satans — einen Kampf, der sich in jener Welt abspielt um die Gestalt des Faust. Vorher, 1790, war Faust mit sich selbst beschäftigt. Wir sehen auf seine Person hin. Er ist einzig und allein der Mittelpunkt. Später tritt ein ganzes Weltentableau vor uns auf, in das Faust hineingestellt ist. Um ihn kämpfen gute und böse Mächte. Goethe hat 1797 diese Szene geschrieben, durch die Faust in ein Weltentableau hineingestellt wird, nachdem Schiller von ihm geradezu die Fortsetzung des «Faust» gefordert hatte.
[ 6 ] Goethe fühlte sich in einem gewissen Sinne, wie ja die «Zueignung» zeigt, schon entfremdet der Art und Weise, wie er sich in jungen Jahren zu seinem «Faust» gestellt hatte. Was da eigentlich in den Seelen hervorragendster Menschen geschehen ist, sehen wir zum Beispiel an Schiller. Schiller hat eigentlich realistisch begonnen. Ich habe Ihnen gestern gesagt, wie das luziferische und das ahrimanische Element in Franz Moor und Karl Moor einander gegenübertreten. Aber dabei ist gar nicht die Rede von einem Hereinragen der geistigen Welten in irgendeiner ureigenen Gestalt, sondern wir können nur in den Charaktereigentümlichkeiten des Franz Moor und Karl Moor das Luziferische und das Ahrimanische verfolgen. Es ist Schiller durchaus eigen, daß er von einem gewissen realistischen Elemente ausgeht. Aber als er in dieser Art seine Jugenddramen vollendet hatte, und als er dann mit Goethe bekannt wird, da sehen wir, wie er, als er in den neunziger Jahren wiederum zur Dichtung zurückkehrt, sich genötigt findet, die geistige Welt in seine dichterische Gestaltung hereinspielen zu lassen. Und es gehört wiederum zu den interessantesten Tatsachen, wie Schiller sich nun genötigt fühlt, die geistige Welt hereinspielen zu lassen in seine dichterischen Gestalten.
[ 7 ] Betrachten Sie den «Wallenstein». Wallenstein richtet sich in seinen Entschlüssen nach seinem Sternenglauben. Wallenstein unternimmt seine Handlungen, bildet sich seine Absichten im Sinne seines Sternenglaubens. Es spielt also der Kosmos in Schillers Gestaltendichtungen durchaus herein. Das ganze Wallenstein-Drama kann man eigentlich nur verstehen, wenn man ins Auge faßt, wie Wallenstein sich durchdrungen fühlt von denjenigen Kräften, die von den Sternkonstellationen ausgehen. Man kann geradezu sagen: Schiller fühlte sich am Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts gedrungen, zu jener Sternenanschauung zurückzukehren, die im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert für die Menschen, die überhaupt über solche Dinge nachdachten, die gewöhnliche war. Also Schiller glaubte das Menschenleben in hervorragenden Erscheinungen nicht darstellen zu können, ohne dieses Menschenleben in den Kosmos hineinzustellen.
[ 8 ] . Und weiter, nehmen Sie eine solche Dichtung wie «Die Braut von Messina». Schiller macht ein Experiment. Er versucht, den alten Schicksalsgedanken in Verbindung mit der Sternenweisheit in die dramatische Handlung hineinzugestalten. Und hier bei dieser «Braut von Messina» ist es ganz besonders auffällig, daß Schiller sich gedrängt fühlt, das zu tun, denn bei der «Braut von Messina» können Sie nämlich wiederum ein gewisses Experiment machen. Werfen Sie einmal den ganzen Sternenglauben und das ganze Schicksal heraus und nehmen Sie das, was dann noch bleibt, dann haben Sie immer noch eigentlich ein großartiges Drama gerade in der «Braut von Messina». So daß also Schiller schon in der «Braut von Messina» ein Drama hätte gestalten können ohne Sternenglauben und ohne die Schicksalsidee — und er hat dann den Sternenglauben und die Schicksalsidee hineingenommen. Das bedeutet, daß er in seiner Seelenverfassung die Notwendigkeit fühlte, den Menschen in den Kosmos hineinzustellen. Es ist gewiß, daß hier ein absoluter Parallelismus da ist zu dem, was Goethe dahin geführt hat in der Fortsetzung seines «Faust», diesen Faust in das ganze Weltentableau hineinzustellen.
[ 9 ] Goethe tut das bildhaft; bei ihm treten die Engel als Sternführer auf. Wir sehen den Kosmos bildhaft vor uns in dem großen Tableau «Prolog im Himmel». Schiller, der mehr zur Abstraktion neigte, der mehr unbildlich war, fühlte sich genötigt, in derselben Zeit in seinen «Wallenstein», in seine «Braut von Messina» das Hineingestelltsein des Menschen in den Kosmos hineinzugeheimnissen, und zwar so weit, daß sogar der Schicksalsgedanke der alten griechischen Tragödie wiederum auftrat. Aber sehen Sie sich noch etwas anderes an. Schiller nahm gerade in der Zeit seines Bekanntwerdens mit Goethe in seiner Art die Freiheitsgedanken der Französischen Revolution auf. Wir haben schon gestern anzuführen gehabt, daß sich die Revolution in Frankreich als politische Revolution abspielte, innerhalb Mitteleuropas dagegen als geistige Revolution. Und man möchte sagen: Den intimsten Charakter nahm diese geistige Revolution an in einer Schrift Schillers, die ich in verschiedenen Zusammenhängen auch hier schon erwähnt habe: In den Briefen «Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen».
[ 10 ] Da sehen wir, wie Schiller frägt: Wie kommt der Mensch zu einem wirklich menschenwürdigen Dasein? - Etwas, das man eine Freiheitsphilosophie nennen kann, war dazumal noch nicht möglich. Schiller beantwortet sich die Frage in seiner Art. Er sagte sich: Wenn der Mensch nur seinen logischen Gedanken folgt, dann ist er unfrei. Selbstverständlich ist er unfrei, denn man kann nicht das, was die Logik sagt, nach irgendeiner Freiheit gestalten, da unterliegt der Mensch der Vernunftnotwendigkeit. Also gerade da, wo er zunächst für sein Erdenleben am geistigsten wird, ist er ja nicht frei, da unterliegt er der Vernunftnotwendigkeit. Er ist nicht frei, zu sagen: Zwei mal zwei ist sechs oder fünf. Dagegen unterliegt der Mensch der Naturnotwendigkeit, wenn er mit seinem ganzen Organismus eben an die Naturnotwendigkeit hingegeben ist.
[ 11 ] So sieht Schiller den Menschen hineingestellt zwischen die Vernunftnotwendigkeit und die Naturnotwendigkeit, und er sieht einen Ausgleich zwischen beiden Zuständen in dem, was er den ästhetischen Zustand nennt. Da rückt der Mensch gewissermaßen die Vernunftnotwendigkeit herunter in das, was ihm gefällt und mißfällt, worin er also in einem gewissen Sinne frei ist. Und wenn er seine Triebe, seine Instinkte, die Naturnotwendigkeiten also, so weit modelt, daß er sich ihnen überlassen kann, daß sie ihn nicht zum Tiere erniedrigen, daß er sie wieder heraufgehoben hat, dann begegnen sie sich eben in der Mitte. Die. Vernunftnotwendigkeit steigt um eine Stufe herunter, die Naturnotwendigkeit um eine Stufe herauf, sie begegnen sich in der Mitte. Und der Mensch, indem er sich nach dem richtet, was ihm gefällt und mißfällt, ist in einem Zustande, wo er weder der einen noch der andern Notwendigkeit unterliegt, wo er dasjenige vollziehen darf, was ihm gefällt, weil ihm eben das Gute gefällt, weil er zu gleicher Zeit mit seinen Sinnen das Gute begehrt.
[ 12 ] Das ist natürlich eine ganz philosophisch-abstrakte Darstellung, die Schiller gegeben hat. Goethe gefiel der Gedanke außerordentlich, aber ihm war wiederum klar: So kommt man dem Menschenrätsel natürlich nicht bei. Goethe wird ganz gewiß das außerordentlich Geistvolle tief empfunden haben, denn es gehört zu den besten Abhandlungen der neueren Zeit, was Schiller in diesen Briefen «Über die ästhetische Erziehung» geleistet hat. Goethe hat dieses Großartige, dieses Gewaltige des Gedankens gefühlt. Aber er hat zu gleicher Zeit gefühlt: Aus solchen Gedanken heraus kann man überhaupt nichts gestalten, was dem Menschenwesen irgendwie beikommt. Das Menschenwesen ist zu reich, um ihm mit solchen Gedanken beizukommen.
[ 13 ] Schiller hat, wenn ich so sagen darf, gefühlt: Ich stehe im intellektualistischen Zeitalter. Gerade durch den Intellektualismus wird der Mensch unfrei, denn das ist Vernunftnotwendigkeit. - Er sucht also eigentlich in dem ästhetischen Schaffen, in dem ästhetischen Genießen den Ausweg. Goethe hatte ein Gefühl für das unendlich Reiche, Inhaltsvolle der menschlichen Natur. Er konnte sich nicht zufriedengeben mit der allerdings geistvollen, tiefen Auffassung von Schiller. Daher fühlte er sich genötigt, in seiner Art auszudrücken, was da im Menschen eigentlich für Kräfte zusammenspielen. Nicht nur seiner Natur nach, sondern seiner ganzen Auffassung nach hat Goethe das nicht in der Form von abstrakten Begriffen geben können, sondern er schrieb dann unter dem Einflusse der Schillerschen Gedanken dieser Art sein «Märchen von der grünen Schlange und der schönen Lilie», wo wir eine ganze Menge, etwa zwanzig Gestalten, auftauchen sehen, die alle irgend etwas mit Seelenkräften zu tun haben und die nun zusammenwirken, nicht nur als Vernunftnotwendigkeit und Naturnotwendigkeit, sondern die als zwanzig verschiedene Impulse zusammenwirken, um endlich in der mannigfaltigsten Weise dasjenige zu gestalten, was die reiche Natur des Menschen bedeutet.
[ 14 ] Da kommt vor allen Dingen auch das in Betracht, daß Goethe es eben aufgab, überhaupt in abstrakten Begriffen über die Menschenwesenheit zu sprechen. Goethe fühlte sich gedrängt, von den Begriffen wegzugehen. Wenn man das Verhältnis Schillers zu Goethe charakterisieren will mit Bezug auf die Ästhetischen Briefe und auf das Märchen von der grünen Schlange und der schönen Lilie, muß man eigentlich das Folgende sagen: Goethe hat ja direkt unter dem Einfluß von Schillers Ästhetischen Briefen dieses Märchen geschrieben. Also er wollte dieselben Fragen von seinem Gesichtspunkte, von seiner Empfindung aus beantworten. Das kann man nachweisen. Das habe ich längst historisch auch nachgewiesen, und das leuchtete auch ein. Und will man nun vollständig das, was da sich abspielte zwischen den beiden Persönlichkeiten, darstellen, so müßte man sagen: In alten Zeiten, als die Menschen, wenn sie erkennen wollten, sich noch von den Wesenheiten der geistigen Welt besuchen ließen, als sie noch in ihren Erkenntniswerkstätten - verzeihen Sie, wenn ich den spießbürgerlichen Ausdruck gebrauche - arbeiteten, um hinter die Geheimnisse der Welt zukommen, da war es anders als heute, da konnte sich der Mensch als ein Verwandter dieser geistigen Wesenheiten fühlen, die ihn besuchten. In diese Erkenntniswerkstätten herein drangen die geistigen Wesenheiten, die Faust wiederum sucht. Der Erdgeist und allerlei andere geistige Wesenheiten kommen ja zu Faust herein. Da wußte er: Ich lebe jetzt allerdings auf der Erde, muß mich des Instrumentes eines physischen Leibes bedienen, aber vor der Geburt und nach dem Tode bin ich ein solches Wesen, wie diejenigen sind, die mich da besuchen. - Also er wußte, er hat zwar einen Aufenthaltsort gesucht für das Erdenleben, das ihn von der geistigen Welt trennt, aber diese geistige Welt besucht ihn. Er wußte sich dieser geistigen Welt dennoch verwandt. Das gab dem Menschen ein Bewußtsein seines eigenen Wesens.
[ 15 ] Nehmen wir einmal an, Schiller wäre etwa in den Jahren 1794, 1795 zu Goethe gekommen und hätte gesagt: Sehen Sie, ich habe nun die Briefe «Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen» geschrieben; ich habe versucht, aus dem modernen Intellektualismus heraus dem Menschen wiederum die Möglichkeit zu geben, sich als Mensch zu fühlen. Ich habe die Ideen gesucht, die man haben muß, um von der wirklichen menschlichen Wesenheit zu sprechen. Diese Ideen sind in den Briefen über die ästhetische Erziehung enthalten. - Goethe würde das gelesen haben, würde dann das nächstemal, wenn er Schiller wieder getroffen hätte, haben sagen können: «Ja, lieber Freund, das ist sehr schön, was Sie da gemacht haben. Sie haben dem Menschen wiederum einen Begriff von seiner Würde vor Augen gehalten; aber so geht es doch nicht. Der Mensch ist doch ein geistiges Wesen, und die Geister ziehen sich, wie vor dem Licht, so auch vor den Begriffen, die ja nichts anderes sind als eine andere Form des gewöhnlichen Tageslichtes, zurück. Also da muß anders verfahren werden. Man muß von den Begriffen wieder zu etwas anderem gehen.»
[ 16 ] Das, was ich so in eine konkrete Sprache übersetze, das können Sie verfolgen in Goethes und Schillers Briefwechsel. Es steht alles da, wenn es auch nur in einzelnen Andeutungen dasteht. Und Goethe schrieb darüber sein «Märchen von der grünen Schlange und der schönen Lilie», das nun darstellen sollte, wie die seelischen Kräfte im Menschen eben wirken. Damit har Goethe das Bekenntnis abgelegt: Man muß, wenn man über den Menschen und seine Wesenheit sprechen will, zu Bildern aufsteigen. - Das aber ist der Weg zur Imagination. Goethe hat also einfach damit hingewiesen auf den Weg zu der imaginativen Welt. Und deshalb ist dieses «Märchen von der grünen Schlange und der schönen Lilie» so außerordentlich wichtig, weil es zeigt, daß Goethe aus seinem Ringen heraus, wie er es auch in seinen «Faust» gelegt hat, gerade in einem wichtigsten Momente sich auf den Weg zu den Imaginationen hin gedrängt fühlte.
[ 17 ] Goethe wäre es philosophisch erschienen, wenn man gesagt hätte: Im Menschen wirken zusammen Denken, Fühlen und Wollen. — So hat er nicht gesagt, sondern er stellte dar, wie an einem gewissen Orte die drei Könige vorhanden sind, der goldene, der silberne und der eherne König. In diesen Bildern liegt für ihn etwas, was sich in Begriffen nicht ausdrücken läßt. Wir sehen also Goethe auf dem Wege zum imaginativen Leben hin. Und hier berühren wir eine der allerallertiefsten Fragen, die Goethe eigentlich beschäftigten. Es ist bei Goethe so, daß er über die eigentliche Tiefe der Frage wohl überhaupt zu niemandem gerne sprach. Aber man kann erkennen, wie ihn diese Frage beschäftigte. An den mannigfaltigsten Stellen kommt es heraus, wie ihn die Frage beschäftigte: Was hat der Mensch eigentlich davon, wenn er von seinem Denken aus hinter sein eigenes Wesen kommen will, von jenem Denken, zu dem eben der Intellektualismus gekommen ist? Was hat der Mensch davon? Manchmal tritt die ganze Schwere dieses Erdenrätsels, das ja natürlich ein Epochenrätsel ist denn es konnte dieses Rätsel in der starken Form eben nur in dieser Epoche hervortreten -, in paradoxen Worten auf. So zum Beispiel lesen Sie im «Faust»:
Die hohe Kraft
Der Wissenschaft
Der ganzen Welt verborgen!
Und wer nicht denkt,
Dem wird sie geschenkt,
Er hat sie ohne Sorgen.
[ 18 ] Es ist ein außerordentlich tiefes Wort, wenn es auch die Hexe sagt: Die hohe Kraft der Wissenschaft — der ganzen Welt verborgen! Wer nicht denkt - also dem, der nicht denkt -, dem wird sie geschenkt! Man kann also eigentlich noch so viel denken, so bleibt einem die hohe Kraft der Wissenschaft verborgen. Wenn man es dazu bringt, nicht zu denken, da wird sie einem geschenkt: man hat sie ohne Sorgen. Man müßte also eigentlich die Kraft entwickeln, nicht zu denken, in irgendeiner kunstvollen Weise nicht zu denken, um - nicht etwa zu der Wissenschaft zu kommen, zu der kann man ja natürlich nicht ohne Denken kommen -, aber um zu der Kraft der Wissenschaft zu kommen.
[ 19 ] Goethe weiß, daß diese Kraft der Wissenschaft in dem Menschen wirkt. Er weiß, sie wirkt schon in dem kleinen Kinde, das noch nicht denkt. Man hat es mir ja besonders übelgenommen, daß ich in meinem Buche «Die geistige Führung des Menschen und der Menschheit» gleich auf den ersten Seiten darauf aufmerksam gemacht habe, daß, wenn der Mensch durch seine Gedanken all die geistvollen Dinge in der Gestaltung des menschlichen Leibes ausführen müßte durch die Kraft, die auch in der Wissenschaft waltet, bewußt ausführen wollte -, daß er dann schon recht alt werden könnte und doch nicht zu jenen feinen plastisch-künstlerischen Gestaltungskräften kommen würde! So ist ja die Kraft der Wissenschaft schon notwendig, um dieses Gehirn in den ersten kindlichen Jahren von einem ziemlich formlosen Klumpen zu jener grandiosen Gestaltung zu bringen, in die es eben gebracht werden muß.
[ 20 ] Es ist ein Problem, das Goethe tief beschäftigt. Natürlich, ein bloßes stumpfes Nichtdenken meint er nicht, aber er ist sich klar darüber: Wenn man sich durch das intellektualistische Denken nicht den Zusammenhang mit der Kraft der Wissenschaft stört, dann muß man zu ihr kommen. - Eigentlich läßt er den Faust von Mephisto aus diesem Grunde in die Hexenküche führen. Über diese Dinge wird nur immer kommentarisch über die Ecke herüber geredet, verrenkt geredet. Man kennt Goethe schlecht, wenn man das, was er selbst in einer solchen Szene wie in der Hexenküche will, nicht mit einem gewissen Empfinden des Goetheschen Wesens verstehen will. Faust wird der Verjüngungstrank gereicht. Gewiß, das ist durchaus in realistischem Sinne aufzufassen, daß er einen solchen Verjüngungstrank bekommt, aber wenn man sich Goethe danebenstehend denkt und die Hexe sagt:
Du mußt verstehn!
Aus Eins mach Zehn,
Und Zwei laß gehn,
Und Drei mach gleich,
So bist du reich.
Verlier die Vier!
Aus Fünf und Sechs
So sagt die Hex
Mach Sieben und Acht,
So ist’s vollbracht:
Und Neun ist Eins.
Und Zehn ist keins.
[ 21 ] Und wenn man Goethe, so wie er war, empfinden kann, so muß man eben sagen: Es hätte nun einer kommen können und fragen: «Warum lassen Sie denn da das Hexen-Einmaleins sagen?» - Dann würde Goethe vielleicht gesagt haben, wenn er dazu aufgelegt gewesen wäre, denn er sprach über diese Dinge nicht gerne: «Ja, die hohe Kraft der Wissenschaft, der ganzen Welt verborgen! Und wer nicht denkt, dem wird sie geschenkt». Nun, das Denken wird einem vergehen, wenn einem gesagt wird: «Aus Eins mach Zehn, und Zwei laß gehn, und Drei mach gleich, so bist du reich» - und so weiter. Da hört das Denken auf! Da kommt man schon in einen solchen Zustand hinein, daß man die hohe Kraft der Wissenschaft ohne das Denken geschenkt bekommen kann. — Diese Dinge spielen natürlich immer in den Goetheschen «Faust» und in die Goethesche Dichtung hinein.
[ 22 ] Also Goethe stand vor diesem Problem, das für ihn etwas außerordentlich Tiefes war. Denn, was hat der Faust eigentlich nicht, und was bekommt er durch die Hexenküche? Was hat er vorher nicht? Wenn Sie sich diesen Faust denken, wie er etwa der Lehrer des Hamlet gewesen sein kann, der sich angewidert fühlt von Philosophie, Juristerei, Medizin und Theologie, der zu der Magie greift - wenn Sie ihn sich vorstellen, wie er dann auch in der Osterszene vor uns steht, dann müssen Sie sich sagen: Eines fehlt jedenfalls diesem Faust, eines, was Goethe hatte. Goethe kam nie zurecht damit; er fühlte sich als Faust, aber er mußte sich sagen: Ja, das alles ist in mir, was ich da in diesen Faust hineingelegt habe, aber ich habe noch etwas anderes in mir. Darf ich denn das haben? - Der Faust hat nämlich keine Phantasie, und Goethe hatte Phantasie. Die Phantasie bekommt nämlich Faust erst durch die Hexenküche, durch den Verjüngungstrank. Goethe hat sich gewissermaßen die Frage beantwortet: Wie ist es, wenn man mit Phantasie in die Weltengeheimnisse eindringen will? — Denn das war die hervorragendste Kraft, die Goethe selber hatte.
[ 23 ] Nun war er sich in seiner Jugend durchaus nicht klar, ob man da nicht ganz ins Leere tappt, wenn man mit der Phantasie in Weltengeheimnisse hinein will. Das ist schon die Faust-Frage. Denn die ganz trockene Intellektualität, die lebt nur in Spiegelbildern. Sobald man zur Phantasie kommt, so ist man schon um eine Stufe näher den Wachstumskräften des Menschen, den Kräften, die einen durchziehen. Da kommt man schon, wenn auch nur von der Ferne, in die plastischen Kräfte hinein, die zum Beispiel auch das Gehirn in der Kindheit plastisch machen. Da ist ja nur noch eine Stufe von der Phantasie zur Imagination! Aber das war gerade für Goethe die Hauptfrage.
[ 24 ] Nun läßt er den Faust in die Hexenküche eintreten, damit er das verflixte Denken ablegt, das zwar zur Wissenschaft, aber nicht zur Kraft der Wissenschaft führt, damit er gewissermaßen leben darf im Reiche der Phantasie. Und von da ab entwickelt Faust eben die Kraft der Phantasie auch. Goethe erwirbt gewissermaßen für den Faust das Recht zur Phantasie durch den 'Irank in der Hexenküche. Und die Verjüngung besteht ja in nichts anderem, als daß Faust nicht bei den trockenen Kräften bleibt, die er als etwa, sagen wir, fünfunddreißigjähriger Professor hatte, sondern daß er zurückkehrt zu seiner Jugend und die jugendlichen Gestaltungskräfte, die Wachstumskräfte heraufnimmt in die Seele. Denn wo Phantasie vorhanden ist, da leben eben die jugendlichen Gestaltungskräfte in dem Seelischen fort.
[ 25 ] Das alles war in Goethe veranlagt, denn die Hexenküche hat Goethe schon etwa 1788 geschrieben. Das war also in ihm veranlagt, es brodelte in ihm, das verlangte nach Lösung. Aber durch Schiller bekam er einen neuen Impuls. Er wurde hingedrängt auf den Weg nach der Imagination hin. Schiller selbst lag es zunächst noch fern, nach der Imagination hin zu gehen. Aber Schiller suchte dann im «Wallenstein» und in der «Braut von Messina» das Kosmische. Er versuchte, hinter die unterbewußten Kräfte des menschlichen Wesens zu kommen in der «Jungfrau von Orleans».
[ 26 ] Die ganze Tiefe des Ringens, die da waltete, sieht man ein, wenn man sich sagt: Man nehme einmal das «Demetrius»-Fragment, von dem Schiller ja mit dem Tode hinweggegangen ist. Dieses «Demetrius»-Fragment übersteigt an dramatischer Kraft alles, was Schiller sonst geschrieben hat. Schiller hatte im Pulte noch den Entwurf zu den «Maltesern». Dieses Malteserdrama, wenn es Schiller hätte gestalten können, wäre wahrscheinlich auch etwas ganz Großartiges geworden. Der Kampf der Malteserritter, dieses geistlichen Ritterordens ähnlich dem Templerorden, gegen den Sultan Soliman — dabei entfaltet sich das ganze Prinzip des Malteserordens. Es ist zweifellos, wenn Schiller das einmal ausgeführt hätte, wäre er vor die Frage gedrängt worden: Wie kann man wiederum dazu kommen, die Anschauung der geistigen Welt hereinzubringen in das menschliche Schaffen? Denn die Frage stand ja schon ganz lebendig vor ihm da.
[ 27 ] Und Schiller stirbt hinweg. Goethe hat die Anregung nicht weiter. Später, angeregt durch Eckermann - der ja weniger geistvoll als Schiller war, um das so auszudrücken -, vollendete er seinen «Faust»; den zweiten Teil, etwa vom Jahre 1824 an, bis zum 'Tode. Kurz vor dem Tode siegelt er ihn ja ein. Es ist ein nachgelassenes Werk. Wir haben in der verschiedensten Weise diesen zweiten Teil des «Faust» betrachtet. Tief bedeutsame, grandiose Einblicke in mannigfaltige Geheimnisse der geistigen Welt, das ist die eine Seite. Man kann natürlich nach dieser Seite hin nicht genug tun, man muß versuchen, ihn von den höchsten Standpunkten aus zu verstehen. Aber es kommt noch etwas anderes in Betracht. Goethe fühlte sich gedrungen, diese Faust-Dichtung zu Ende zu führen. Betrachten wir einmal die Entwickelung der Faust-Figur. Wir könnten noch eine Phase weiter zurückgehen. In der Cyprianus-Gestalt habe ich Ihnen eine solche Phase vorgeführt, und im 9. Jahrhundert entsteht die Bearbeitung der Theophilus-Sage. Theophilus ist durchaus eine Art Faust des 8., 9. Jahrhunderts. Er geht einen Pakt, einen Vertrag ein mit dem Satan, und es ergeht ihm ganz ähnlich wie dem Faust.
[ 28 ] Nehmen wir diesen 'Theophilus, diesen Faust des 9. Jahrhunderts, und nehmen wir den sagenhaften Faust des 16. Jahrhunderts, an den Goethe doch angeknüpft hat. Das 9. Jahrhundert verdammt tief den Pakt mit dem Teufel. Theophilus wendet sich zuletzt an die Jungfrau Maria und wird erlöst von allem, dem er verfallen wäre, wenn der Vertrag mit dem Satan in Erfüllung gegangen wäre. Das 16. Jahrhundert macht die Faust-Sage «protestantisch», das heißt, es wird nicht in positiver Weise dargestellt wie in der Theophilus-Sage, wo die Anlage zur Verdammung da ist, aber die Erlösung durch die Jungfrau Maria dazukommt - es wird protestiert. Es wird in der Weise, wie es dem Protestantismus entspricht, die Faust-Sage dargestellt. Faust schließt seinen Pakt mit dem Teufel und verfällt ihm auch.
[ 29 ] Lessing schon und Goethe machen wiederum dagegen Protest. Das kann nicht so sein, daß der Mensch, der eben mit den weltlichen Mächten und innerhalb der Wirkungsweise der weltlichen Mächte sich in die Hand der Satansgestalt begibt und auf dessen Pakt eingeht, daß ein solcher Mensch, weil er aus Wissensdrang handelt, durchaus zugrunde gehen müsse. Goethe protestiert gegen diese Auffassung, gegen diese protestantische Auffassung der Faust-Sage. Er will Faust retten. Während er im ersten Teil dieSache noch so dargestellt hat, daß er eigentlich die Konzession an den Untergang des Faust gemacht hat — denn im ersten Teil geht ja Faust zugrunde -, kann aber Goethe dabei nicht stehenbleiben: Faust muß gerettet werden. Nun führt uns Goethe in grandioser Weise durch die Erlebnisse, die im zweiten Teil des «Faust» geschildert sind. Wir sehen die innere kraftvolle Wesenheit des Menschen sich geltend machen: «In deinem Nichts hoff’ ich das Allzu finden!» Man braucht sich nur an solche Worte zu erinnern, die eine gesunde, kraftvolle Menschennatur dem Verderber entgegenstellt.
[ 30 ] Wir sehen, wie Faust die ganze Geschichte, bis zum Griechentum, durchmacht. Faust darf nicht zugrunde gehen. Und Goethe macht alle Anstrengungen, zu Bildern zu kommen, zu Bildern, die zwar in anderer Form gestaltet sind, aber die er doch aus dem katholischen Kultus, aus der katholischen Symbolik nimmt. Und wenn Sie das, was speziell goethisch-imaginativ ist, zu dem er sich durch ein ganzes, so reiches Menschenleben, wie es eben das Goethe-Leben war, hinaufgearbeitet hat, wenn Sie das wegnehmen, dann sind Sie wieder bei der Theophilus-Sage, dann sind Sie wieder zurückgekehrt zu dem 9. Jahrhundert. Denn es ist zuletzt die «Flimmelskönigin, die sich im Glanze naht». Und wenn man das spezifisch Goethesche wegnimmit, hat man wiederum den Theophilus der seligen Nonne Hrosvitha vor sich, natürlich nicht genau dasselbe, aber doch etwas, das eben noch nicht zu einer selbständigen Gestaltung des dichterischen Problems gelangt ist, sondern das noch Anleihen machen muß bei dem Früheren.
[ 31 ] Sie sehen also, wie bei einer so großen Persönlichkeit wie Goethe alles Streben darauf gerichtet ist, wiederum einen Zugang zur geistigen Welt zu finden. Im «Märchen von der grünen Schlange und der schönen Lilie» sucht er die Imagination, die den Menschen begreiflich machen soll. In seinem «Faust» sucht er auch zur Imagination zu kommen, aber er kann nicht zur selbständigen Imagination kommen, er muß noch die katholische Symbolik zu Hilfe nehmen. So daß sogar sein Schlußtableau noch eine Ähnlichkeit mit der ungeschickten Darstellung der Hrosvitha aus dem 9. Jahrhundert verrät, nur natürlich ausgeführt von einem der größten Dichter.
[ 32 ] Man muß schon auf diese verschlungenen Wege hinweisen, welche die geistige Geschichte der Menschheit gegangen ist, um zu einem Begriff davon zu kommen, was alles in dieser Geistesgeschichte wirkt. Denn dann erst geht einem auf, wie, ich möchte sagen durch die Menschheitsgeschichte hindurch Karma wirkt. Man braucht sich nur einmal hypothetisch vor Augen zu stellen, daß die Dinge, die nicht geschehen sind, geschehen wären —- nicht um rückwärts die Geschichte zu korrigieren, sondern um sich das, was eben da ist, begreiflich zu machen. Stellen Sie sich zum Beispiel vor, Schiller, der bei seinem Tode noch ein junger Mann war, hätte weitergelebt. Die «Malteser» hatte er im Pulte; den «Demetrius» arbeitete er eben aus. Im Zusammenhang mit Goethe entwickelte sich gerade die höchste Geistigkeit in ihm, die erst bei beiden zusammen lebt. Es riß der Faden. Was Goethe anstrebte, was er nicht vermochte, sieht man, wenn man den zweiten Teil des «Wilhelm Meister», wenn man die «Wahlverwandtschaften» nimmt. Goethe strebte überall danach, den Menschen einzugliedern in einen großen geistigen Zusammenhang. Allein konnte er es nicht mehr. Schiller war ihm genommen.
[ 33 ] Es drückt sich in diesem Ganzen eben aus, wie die neuere Geistesentwickelung der Menschheit nach einem gewissen Ziele hingeht, nach dem Ziele, den Menschen in seiner Verwandtschaft mit der geistigen Welt zu suchen, wie aber überall Hemmnisse da sind. Und so wird Ihnen vielleicht so etwas wie der Goethesche «Faust» in seiner ganzen Größe erst dadurch anschaulich, daß man sieht, was er nicht hat, daß man sieht, auf welchem Wege die ganze Geistesentwickelung der Menschheit war. Ja, man kommt natürlich nicht dadurch zur Erkenntnis dessen, was an geistiger Größe in der Menschheitsentwickelung vorhanden ist, daß man bloß sagt: «Ein unvergleichlich großes Werk!» — daß man dann alle möglichen Erklärungen gibt, sondern nur dadurch kommt man dazu, daß man eben dieses Ringen des ganzen Menschengeistes nach einem gewissen Entwickelungsziele hin ins Auge zu fassen vermag. Das kann einem bei diesen Dingen ganz besonders stark entgegentreten. Und dann, im 19. Jahrhundert, da reißt der Faden gänzlich ab! Das 19. Jahrhundert - auf naturwissenschaftlichem Gebiete so großartig- schläft ja auf geistigem Gebiete. Es kommt höchstens dazu, daß dann aus höchster naturwissenschaftlicher Weisheit etwas ausgesetzt wird an einer Schöpfung, wie es der «Faust» ist.
[ 34 ] Goethe braucht Schiller, um Faust, den er zuerst als Persönlichkeit gestaltet hat, hineinzustellen in ein großes umfassendes Weltentableau. Man kann fühlen, was Goethe vielleicht noch aus dieser FaustFigur gemacht hätte, wenn er Schiller nicht so früh verloren hätte. Dann kommen diejenigen, die über die Dinge nachdenken und sagen: «Faust» ist ein mißliches Werk, Goethe hat eigentlich die ganze Sache verfehlt. Hätte er die Sache richtig gemacht, so hätte Faust Gretchen geheiratet, sie ehrlich gemacht, hätte die Elektrisiermaschine und die Luftpumpe erfunden; dann wäre der richtige Faust vor die Menschheit hingestellt worden!
[ 35 ] Ein großer Ästhetiker, Friedrich Theodor Vischer, sagte: «Dieser zweite Teil des «Faust, der ist ja nichts.» Er entwirft einen Plan, wie er hätte sein sollen: so eine Art besserer Eugen Richter aus dem 19. Jahrhundert ist da herausgekommen, so ein Parteimann, der nur etwas massiver ist, als dann im 19. Jahrhundert die Parteimänner gewirkt haben. Nicht von einem unbedeutenden Menschen, sondern von einem sehr bedeutenden Menschen - denn ein solcher war Friedrich Theodor Vischer - rührt ja das Wort her: «Der zweite 'Teil des «Faust ist ein zusammengeschustertes, zusammengeleimtes Machwerk des Alters!»
[ 36 ] Es war überhaupt der Zusammenhang mit dem Streben nach der Geistigkeit verloren. Man schlief in bezug auf die Geistigkeit. Aber gerade aus all diesen Verhältnissen heraus muß der Mensch der Gegenwart die Aufgaben finden bezüglich eines neuen Weges zur geistigen Welt. Wir können uns natürlich nicht etwa darauf berufen:
Die hohe Kraft
Der Wissenschaft,
Der ganzen Welt verborgen!
Und wer nicht denkt,
Dem wird sie geschenkt.
Er hat sie ohne Sorgen.
[ 37 ] Wir können nicht beschließen, aufzuhören zu denken, denn das Denken ist einmal eine Kraft, die heraufgekommen ist mit dem fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraum, und diese Kraft muß geübt werden. Aber sie muß eben entwickelt werden nach derjenigen Seite hin, die im Grunde genommen bei Goethe schon mit dem «Märchen von der grünen Schlange und der schönen Lilie» begonnen war. Sie muß geübt werden nach der Imagination hin. Man muß sich klar sein darüber: die Verstandeskraft verscheucht den Geist; aber wenn man den Verstand selber entwickelt zur Imagination hin, so kommt man wiederum an den Geist heran. Das ist es, was erkannt werden kann aus einer lebendigen Betrachtung desjenigen, was sich eben auf dem Gebiete, das wir hier berührt haben, abgespielt hat.
[ 38 ] Morgen wollen wir dann die Betrachtungen fortsetzen.
The struggle of Goethe and Schiller in the age of intellectualism triumphing over the old spirituality
[ 1 ] I wanted to talk to you about the tasks that were set for the leaders of spiritual life as a result of the upheaval that took place between the fourth and fifth post-Atlantean epochs. And I tried to illustrate the forces that emerged and manifested themselves in the characters of Faust and Hamlet. If we focus on the essential, we see that spiritual leaders such as the poets who created these characters were faced with the task of answering the question poetically: What becomes of human beings when they must seek inner satisfaction in a purely intellectual life, in a life of abstract thoughts? For it is obvious that the particular impression made on the soul by being forced to look, with the help of abstract thoughts, at what is most precious to it, the most significant thing that shows them the meaning and purpose of their own existence, from such a position toward intellectual life comes the entire state of mind. From all the moments of development that we sketched out yesterday, Goethe and Schiller had to create, in essence.
[ 2 ] And we have already seen how Goethe and Schiller saw themselves entangled in the moments of development to which we could point. We have seen how both of them express the feeling that, in great, real poetry, one cannot do without a certain inclination toward the actual spiritual world. But that old inclination toward the spiritual world, which was still characteristic of Western spiritual development in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries, was basically no longer possible for the people of the following period. It withdrew, one might say, from mere intellectual contemplation. On the other hand, however, this intellectualistic contemplation, this life in thoughts, was not yet so far advanced that the real, the actual spiritual could be attained in the life of thought itself.
[ 3 ] This is actually the characteristic feature of Schiller's and Goethe's position in the spiritual development of humanity, that their appearance, their most important activity, falls into a time when the old spirituality had passed away and the new intellectualism had not yet given rise to a living spirituality. We saw here some time ago how what fills the soul as intellectualism is actually the corpse of that spiritual life which the soul undergoes in the spiritual-soul world before its birth or before conception. This corpse must, of course, be revived. It must be placed back into the whole life of the cosmos. But at that time, this had not yet been achieved, and the struggle of Goethe and Schiller, especially in their most significant period, consisted in achieving a somehow satisfactory state of mind in this transitional age, one that could also be poetically productive.
[ 4 ] This is most clearly and intensely evident in the collaboration between Goethe and Schiller. When the two became known, Goethe had completed a large part of his “Faust” poem, which had been published in 1790 as a fragment of “Faust,” along with some other works. If one examines this fragment, which was published in 1790, and also what Goethe withheld at the time for whatever reason – for example, the dungeon scene was withheld even though it was already finished at the time, and the fragment begins immediately, without any “prologue in heaven,” with the scene: “Now, alas, I have thoroughly studied philosophy, jurisprudence...” If you examine this, you have to say that in this fragment Faust stands alone, struggling from within himself for a satisfactory state of mind. He finds himself dissatisfied with mere intellectualism and strives for a union with the spiritual world. The Earth Spirit appears in the familiar version we have now. We already see Goethe's striving for the spiritual world, but what is completely missing, for example, and what was fundamentally foreign to Goethe at the time, was placing Faust in the whole cosmic context. The “Prologue in Heaven” was not there. So Faust had not yet been placed in that struggle between God and Satan. That only came about when Goethe received Schiller's suggestion to continue his “Faust.”
[ 5 ] Under this influence, he now sought no longer to leave Faust alone, but to place him in the whole cosmic context. And so he then shaped his “Faust,” more or less inspired by Schiller, so that we can say: When Faust then appears before the world for the second time in 1808, we see a world drama emerging from the personality drama that “Faust” still was in 1790. We see in the prologue scene: “The sun sounds in the old way in brotherly spheres in a song of competition” — in the appearance of the angels, in the appearance of the entire spiritual world, in the contrast with Satan — a battle that takes place in that world for the figure of Faust. Before, in 1790, Faust was preoccupied with himself. We focus on his person. He is the sole center of attention. Later, an entire tableau of the world appears before us, with Faust placed in the middle. Good and evil forces fight around him. Goethe wrote this scene in 1797, placing Faust in a tableau of the world after Schiller had demanded that he continue “Faust.”
[ 6 ] Goethe felt, in a certain sense, as the “Dedication” shows, already alienated from the way he had approached his “Faust” in his younger years. We can see what actually happened in the souls of the most outstanding people in Schiller, for example. Schiller actually began realistically. Yesterday I told you how the Luciferic and Ahrimanic elements confront each other in Franz Moor and Karl Moor. But this does not mean that the spiritual worlds intrude in any original form; rather, we can only trace the Luciferic and Ahrimanic elements in the character traits of Franz Moor and Karl Moor. It is entirely characteristic of Schiller that he starts from a certain realistic element. But when he had completed his youth dramas in this style and then became acquainted with Goethe, we see how, when he returned to poetry in the 1890s, he felt compelled to let the spiritual world play a part in his poetic creation. And it is one of the most interesting facts that Schiller now feels compelled to let the spiritual world play a role in his poetic characters.
[ 7 ] Consider “Wallenstein.” Wallenstein bases his decisions on his belief in the stars. Wallenstein undertakes his actions and forms his intentions in accordance with his belief in the stars. The cosmos therefore plays a significant role in Schiller's creative writings. The entire Wallenstein drama can only really be understood if one considers how Wallenstein feels permeated by the forces emanating from the constellations. One could even say that at the end of the 18th century, Schiller felt compelled to return to the view of the stars that was common in the 16th and 17th centuries for people who thought about such things at all. Schiller believed that human life could not be represented in outstanding phenomena without placing it in the cosmos.
[ 8 ] . And further, take a poem such as “The Bride of Messina.” Schiller conducts an experiment. He attempts to incorporate the old idea of fate in connection with the wisdom of the stars into the dramatic plot. And here in “The Bride of Messina” it is particularly striking that Schiller feels compelled to do this, because in “The Bride of Messina” you can again conduct a certain experiment. Throw out all belief in the stars and all fate, and take what remains, and you still have a magnificent drama, especially in “The Bride of Messina.” So Schiller could have created a drama in “The Bride of Messina” without belief in the stars and without the idea of fate—and he then included belief in the stars and the idea of fate. This means that in his state of mind he felt the need to place human beings in the cosmos. There is certainly an absolute parallel here with what Goethe did in the continuation of his Faust, placing Faust in the whole tableau of the world.
[ 9 ] Goethe does this pictorially; in his work, angels appear as star guides. We see the cosmos pictorially before us in the great tableau “Prologue in Heaven.” Schiller, who was more inclined toward abstraction, who was more non-figurative, felt compelled at the same time to mystify the placement of man in the cosmos in his “Wallenstein” and “The Bride of Messina,” to such an extent that even the idea of fate from ancient Greek tragedy reappeared. But look at something else. It was precisely at the time when he became acquainted with Goethe that Schiller took up the ideas of freedom of the French Revolution in his own way. We already mentioned yesterday that the revolution in France took place as a political revolution, whereas in Central Europe it took place as an intellectual revolution. And one might say that this intellectual revolution took on its most intimate character in a work by Schiller that I have already mentioned here in various contexts: In the letters “On the Aesthetic Education of Man.”
[ 10 ] Here we see how Schiller asks: How does man achieve a truly humane existence? Something that could be called a philosophy of freedom was not yet possible at that time. Schiller answers the question in his own way. He said to himself: If man only follows his logical thoughts, then he is not free. Of course he is not free, because one cannot shape what logic says according to any kind of freedom, since man is subject to the necessity of reason. So precisely where he initially becomes most spiritual for his earthly life, he is not free, because he is subject to the necessity of reason. He is not free to say: Two times two is six or five. On the other hand, man is subject to the necessity of nature when he is devoted to the necessity of nature with his entire organism.
[ 11 ] Schiller thus sees humans caught between the necessity of reason and the necessity of nature, and he sees a balance between these two states in what he calls the aesthetic state. In this way, humans reduce rational necessity to what they like and dislike, in which they are, in a certain sense, free. And when they model their drives, their instincts, i.e., natural necessity, to such an extent that he can surrender himself to them, that they do not degrade him to an animal, that he has raised them up again, then they meet in the middle. The necessity of reason descends one step, the necessity of nature ascends one step, and they meet in the middle. And man, by acting according to what he likes and dislikes, is in a state where he is subject to neither necessity, where he may do what he likes because he likes what is good, because he desires what is good with his senses at the same time.
[ 12 ] This is, of course, a completely philosophical and abstract representation given by Schiller. Goethe liked the idea very much, but he was also clear that this is not the way to solve the riddle of man. Goethe certainly felt the extraordinary profundity of Schiller's work in these letters “On Aesthetic Education,” which are among the best treatises of modern times. Goethe felt the grandeur and power of this idea. But at the same time, he felt that such thoughts could not be used to create anything that would in any way suit human nature. Human nature is too rich to be dealt with by such thoughts.
[ 13 ] Schiller felt, if I may say so, that he was living in an intellectual age. It is precisely intellectualism that makes man unfree, for it is a necessity of reason. He therefore actually seeks a way out in aesthetic creation, in aesthetic enjoyment. Goethe had a feeling for the infinite richness and depth of human nature. He could not be satisfied with Schiller's admittedly spirited and profound view. He therefore felt compelled to express in his own way the forces that actually interact within human beings. Not only by nature, but also according to his entire conception, Goethe was unable to express this in the form of abstract concepts, but under the influence of Schiller's thoughts of this kind, he wrote his “Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily,” in which we see a whole host of about twenty characters appear, all of whom have something to do with soul forces and who now interact, not only as a necessity of reason and nature, but as twenty different impulses working together to finally shape in the most diverse ways what the rich nature of human beings means.
[ 14 ] Above all, it should also be considered that Goethe gave up trying to speak about human nature in abstract terms. Goethe felt compelled to move away from concepts. If one wants to characterize Schiller's relationship to Goethe with reference to the Aesthetic Letters and the fairy tale of the green snake and the beautiful lily, one must actually say the following: Goethe wrote this fairy tale directly under the influence of Schiller's Aesthetic Letters. So he wanted to answer the same questions from his own point of view, from his own feelings. This can be proven. I proved this historically long ago, and it also made sense. And if one now wants to fully describe what took place between the two personalities, one would have to say: In ancient times, when people still wanted to gain knowledge and allowed themselves to be visited by beings from the spiritual world, when they still worked in their workshops of knowledge – forgive me for using this bourgeois expression – in order to discover the secrets of the world, things were different than they are today. People could feel themselves to be related to the spiritual beings who visited them. The spiritual beings that Faust seeks again entered these workshops of knowledge. The earth spirit and all kinds of other spiritual beings come to Faust. Then he knew: I now live on earth, I must use the instrument of a physical body, but before birth and after death I am a being like those who visit me. So he knew he had sought a place of residence for his earthly life, which separates him from the spiritual world, but that this spiritual world visits him. He nevertheless knew himself to be related to this spiritual world. This gave man an awareness of his own being.
[ 15 ] Let us assume that Schiller came to Goethe in 1794 or 1795 and said: Look, I have now written the letters “On the Aesthetic Education of Man”; I have tried, based on modern intellectualism, to give people back the opportunity to feel like human beings. I have sought the ideas that are necessary in order to speak of the true nature of human beings. These ideas are contained in the letters on aesthetic education." Goethe would have read this and, the next time he met Schiller, would have been able to say: "Yes, my dear friend, what you have done is very beautiful. You have once again presented man with a concept of his dignity; but it does not work that way. Man is a spiritual being, and spirits recoil from concepts, just as they recoil from light, for concepts are nothing more than another form of ordinary daylight. So we must proceed differently. We must move from concepts to something else."
[ 16 ] What I am translating into concrete language can be traced in Goethe's and Schiller's correspondence. It is all there, even if only in individual hints. And Goethe wrote his “Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily” about this, which was intended to illustrate how the soul forces work in human beings. With this, Goethe made a confession: if one wants to speak about human beings and their essence, one must rise to images. But that is the path to imagination. Goethe thus simply pointed to the path to the imaginative world. And that is why this “Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily” is so extraordinarily important, because it shows that Goethe, out of his struggle, as he also expressed in his “Faust,” felt compelled to set out on the path to imagination at a most important moment.
[ 17 ] Goethe would have considered it philosophical to say that thinking, feeling, and willing work together in human beings. He did not say this, but instead described how the three kings—the golden, silver, and bronze kings—exist in a certain place. For him, these images contain something that cannot be expressed in concepts. We thus see Goethe on the path to an imaginative life. And here we touch on one of the deepest questions that actually preoccupied Goethe. Goethe was someone who did not like to talk to anyone about the real depth of the question. But we can see how it preoccupied him. It comes out in the most diverse places: what does man actually gain if he wants to use his thinking to get behind his own being, that thinking to which intellectualism has come? What does man gain from this? Sometimes the whole weight of this earthly riddle, which is of course an epochal riddle, since it could only emerge in its powerful form in this epoch, appears in paradoxical words. For example, in Faust, you read:
The high power
Of science
is hidden from the whole world!
And those who do not think,
are given it,
they have it without worry.
[ 18 ] It is an extraordinarily profound statement, even if it is uttered by a witch: The high power of science — hidden from the whole world! Those who do not think — that is, those who do not think — are given it! So no matter how much you think, the high power of science remains hidden from you. If you manage not to think, it is given to you: you have it without worry. One would therefore have to develop the power not to think, in some artful way, not to think, in order to attain not science, which of course cannot be attained without thinking, but the power of science.
[ 19 ] Goethe knows that this power of science is at work in human beings. He knows that it is already at work in the small child who does not yet think. People took particular offense at the fact that in my book “The Spiritual Guidance of Man and Humanity,” I pointed out right on the first pages that if human beings had to carry out all the spiritual things in the formation of the human body through their thoughts, through the power that also prevails in science, wanted to carry them out consciously, he would grow very old and still not attain those fine plastic and artistic powers of creation! Thus, the power of science is already necessary to bring this brain in the first years of childhood from a fairly formless lump to that magnificent structure into which it must be brought.
[ 20 ] This is a problem that deeply preoccupies Goethe. Of course, he does not mean mere dull non-thinking, but he is clear about this: if one does not disturb the connection with the power of science through intellectualistic thinking, then one must come to it. - In fact, he has Mephisto lead Faust into the witches' kitchen for this reason. These things are always discussed in a commentary, in a contorted way. One does not know Goethe well if one does not want to understand what he himself wants in a scene such as the witches' kitchen with a certain sense of Goethe's nature. Faust is given the rejuvenation potion. Certainly, it is to be understood in a realistic sense that he receives such a rejuvenation potion, but if one imagines Goethe standing next to him and the witch saying:
You must understand!
Make one into ten,
And let two go,
And make three equal,
Then you will be rich.
Lose the four!
From five and six
So says the witch
Make seven and eight,
Then it is done:
And nine is one.
And ten is none.
[ 21 ] And if you can understand Goethe as he was, you have to say: Someone could have come along and asked, “Why are you reciting the witch's multiplication table?” Goethe might have replied, if he had been in the mood, because he did not like to talk about such things: “Yes, the great power of science, hidden from the whole world! And those who do not think are given it as a gift.” Well, thinking disappears when you are told: “Make one into ten, and let two go, and make three equal, and you will be rich” — and so on. That is where thinking stops! You get into such a state that you can be given the great power of science without thinking. — These things naturally always play a role in Goethe's “Faust” and in Goethe's poetry.
[ 22 ] So Goethe was faced with this problem, which was something extraordinarily profound for him. For what does Faust actually lack, and what does he gain through the witch's kitchen? What does he not have before? If you think of this Faust as he might have been Hamlet's teacher, disgusted by philosophy, law, medicine, and theology, who turns to magic—if you imagine him standing before us in the Easter scene, then you must say to yourself: One thing is definitely missing from this Faust, one thing that Goethe had. Goethe never came to terms with it; he felt like Faust, but he had to say to himself: Yes, everything I have put into this Faust is in me, but I have something else in me. Am I allowed to have that? For Faust has no imagination, and Goethe had imagination. Faust only acquires imagination through the witch's kitchen, through the rejuvenation potion. Goethe answered the question for himself, in a sense: What is it like to want to penetrate the secrets of the world with imagination? — For that was the most outstanding power that Goethe himself possessed.
[ 23 ] Now, in his youth, he was not at all clear whether one was not groping in the dark when one wanted to penetrate the secrets of the world with imagination. That is already the Faust question. For completely dry intellectuality lives only in mirror images. As soon as you enter the realm of imagination, you are already one step closer to the forces of human growth, the forces that run through you. You enter, albeit only from a distance, into the plastic forces that, for example, also make the brain plastic in childhood. There is only one step left from imagination to imagination! But that was precisely the main question for Goethe.
[ 24 ] Now he lets Faust enter the witches' kitchen so that he can abandon his damned thinking, which leads to science but not to the power of science, so that he can, in a sense, live in the realm of fantasy. And from then on, Faust develops the power of imagination. Goethe acquires, so to speak, the right to imagination for Faust through the 'Irank in the witch's kitchen. And the rejuvenation consists of nothing other than Faust not remaining with the dry powers he had as, say, a thirty-five-year-old professor, but returning to his youth and taking up the youthful creative powers, the powers of growth, in his soul. For where imagination is present, the youthful creative powers live on in the soul.
[ 25 ] All this was inherent in Goethe, for he had already written the Witches' Kitchen around 1788. So it was inherent in him, it was bubbling within him, it demanded a solution. But Schiller gave him a new impulse. He was pushed toward the path of imagination. Schiller himself was initially still far from pursuing imagination. But Schiller then sought the cosmic in Wallenstein and The Bride of Messina. He attempted to get behind the subconscious forces of the human being in The Maid of Orleans.
[ 26 ] The full depth of the struggle that was going on there can be seen when one considers the fragment of “Demetrius,” which Schiller left unfinished at his death. This fragment of Demetrius surpasses everything else Schiller ever wrote in terms of dramatic power. Schiller still had the draft for The Maltese in his desk. If Schiller had been able to write this drama about the Maltese, it would probably have been something truly magnificent. The battle of the Knights of Malta, a spiritual order of knights similar to the Knights Templar, against Sultan Suleiman—this unfolds the entire principle of the Order of Malta. There is no doubt that if Schiller had ever carried this out, he would have been forced to ask himself: How can one bring the view of the spiritual world into human creation? For the question was already very much alive in his mind.
[ 27 ] And Schiller died. Goethe did not pursue the idea further. Later, inspired by Eckermann – who was less spiritual than Schiller, to put it that way – he completed his Faust; the second part, from around 1824 until his death. Shortly before his death, he sealed it. It is a posthumous work. We have considered this second part of Faust in many different ways. On the one hand, it offers profoundly significant, grandiose insights into the manifold mysteries of the spiritual world. Of course, one cannot do enough in this regard; one must try to understand it from the highest possible standpoint. But there is something else to consider. Goethe felt compelled to finish this Faust poem. Let us consider the development of the Faust figure. We could go back even further. I have shown you such a phase in the figure of Cyprianus, and in the 9th century the adaptation of the Theophilus legend arises. Theophilus is definitely a kind of Faust of the 8th and 9th centuries. He enters into a pact, a contract with Satan, and his fate is very similar to that of Faust.
[ 28 ] Let us take this ‘Theophilus’, this Faust of the 9th century, and let us take the legendary Faust of the 16th century, to whom Goethe was so attached. The 9th century condemns the pact with the devil in the strongest terms. Theophilus ultimately turns to the Virgin Mary and is redeemed from everything he would have fallen into if the contract with Satan had been fulfilled. The 16th century makes the Faust legend “Protestant,” that is, it is not portrayed in a positive light as in the Theophilus legend, where the predisposition to damnation is there, but redemption through the Virgin Mary is added—there is protest. The Faust legend is portrayed in a manner consistent with Protestantism. Faust makes his pact with the devil and falls into his clutches.
[ 29 ] Lessing already did so, and Goethe in turn protests against this. It cannot be that a person who, through worldly powers and within the sphere of influence of worldly powers, places himself in the hands of Satan and enters into a pact with him, that such a person, because he acts out of a thirst for knowledge, must inevitably perish. Goethe protests against this view, against this Protestant interpretation of the Faust legend. He wants to save Faust. While in the first part he still presented the matter in such a way that he actually conceded Faust's downfall — for in the first part Faust does indeed perish — Goethe cannot leave it at that: Faust must be saved. Goethe now leads us in a magnificent way through the experiences described in the second part of Faust. We see the powerful inner essence of man asserting itself: “In your nothingness I hope to find the whole!” One need only remember such words, which a healthy, powerful human nature opposes to the corrupter.
[ 30 ] We see how Faust goes through the whole story, right back to Greek times. Faust must not be destroyed. And Goethe makes every effort to come up with images, images that are shaped in a different form, but which he nevertheless takes from Catholic worship and Catholic symbolism. And if you take away what is specifically Goethean and imaginative, what he worked up through a whole, rich human life such as Goethe's, then you are back with the Theophilus legend, then you have returned to the 9th century. For in the end it is the “queen of nonsense who approaches in splendor.” And if you take away what is specifically Goethean, you are once again faced with the Theophilus of the blessed nun Hrosvitha, not exactly the same thing, of course, but something that has not yet achieved an independent formulation of the poetic problem, but must still borrow from what came before.
[ 31 ] You can see, then, how in a personality as great as Goethe's, all his efforts are directed toward finding access to the spiritual world. In “The Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily,” he seeks the imagination that will make it comprehensible to human beings. In his “Faust,” he also seeks to arrive at imagination, but he cannot arrive at independent imagination; he must still resort to Catholic symbolism. So that even his final tableau still betrays a similarity to the clumsy depiction of Hrosvitha from the 9th century, only naturally executed by one of the greatest poets.
[ 32 ] One must point out these convoluted paths that the spiritual history of humanity has taken in order to gain an understanding of what is at work in this spiritual history. Only then does one realize how, I would say, karma works throughout human history. One need only imagine hypothetically that things that did not happen would have happened—not in order to correct history backwards, but to make what is there comprehensible. Imagine, for example, that Schiller, who was still a young man when he died, had lived on. He had “The Maltese” in his desk; he was working on “Demetrius.” In connection with Goethe, the highest spirituality developed in him, which only comes to life when the two are together. The thread was broken. What Goethe aspired to, what he was unable to achieve, can be seen in the second part of “Wilhelm Meister” and in “Elective Affinities.” Goethe strove everywhere to integrate people into a great spiritual context. But he could no longer do it alone. Schiller had been taken from him.
[ 33 ] This whole situation expresses how the newer spiritual development of humanity is moving toward a certain goal, the goal of seeking man in his relationship to the spiritual world, but how there are obstacles everywhere. And so perhaps something like Goethe's Faust in all its greatness only becomes clear to you when you see what it lacks, when you see the path that the entire spiritual development of humanity has taken. Yes, of course, one does not come to the realization of what spiritual greatness exists in human development by merely saying, “An incomparably great work!” — and then giving all kinds of explanations. Only by being able to grasp this struggle of the entire human spirit toward a certain goal of development can one come to this realization. This can be particularly striking in these matters. And then, in the 19th century, the thread breaks completely! The 19th century — so magnificent in the field of natural science — is asleep in the spiritual realm. At best, the highest scientific wisdom exposes something in a creation such as Faust.
[ 34 ] Goethe needed Schiller to place Faust, whom he had first created as a personality, in a large, comprehensive world tableau. One can sense what Goethe might have made of this Faust figure if he had not lost Schiller so early. Then come those who think about things and say: Faust is a misguided work, Goethe actually missed the point entirely. If he had done it right, Faust would have married Gretchen, made her honest, invented the electric machine and the air pump; then the real Faust would have been presented to humanity!
[ 35 ] A great aesthete, Friedrich Theodor Vischer, said: “This second part of Faust is nothing.” He draws up a plan of how it should have been: the result is a kind of better Eugen Richter from the 19th century, a party man who is only slightly more massive than the party men of the 19th century. The words do not come from an insignificant person, but from a very significant person—for Friedrich Theodor Vischer was such a person: “The second part of Faust is a cobbled-together, glued-together piece of old age!”
[ 36 ] The connection with the pursuit of spirituality had been lost altogether. People were asleep when it came to spirituality. But it is precisely out of all these circumstances that the people of the present must find the tasks for a new path to the spiritual world. Of course, we cannot simply invoke:
The great power
He has it without worry.
Of science,
Hidden from the whole world!
And those who do not think,
To him it is given.
[ 37 ] We cannot decide to stop thinking, because thinking is a power that arose with the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, and this power must be exercised. But it must be developed in the direction that was basically already begun by Goethe with his “Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily.” It must be practiced in the direction of imagination. One must be clear about this: the power of the intellect drives away the spirit; but when one develops the intellect itself in the direction of imagination, one comes back to the spirit. This is what can be recognized from a lively observation of what has just taken place in the area we have touched upon here.
[ 38 ] Tomorrow we will continue our reflections.