The Younger Generation
GA 217
8 October 1922, Dornach
Lecture VI
In the ways you want to be active during your stay here, many of you are thinking above all about the question of education. Not so much, perhaps, about education in the sense of ordinary school pedagogy but because we are living in an age when many new impulses must come into the evolution of mankind. There is a tendency to think that the attitude of the older towards the younger generation must assume a different character, and thence comes the thought of education. The fundamental character of the age is considered as having to do with education.
In saying this I want to describe an impression which, I believe, may be noticed in many of you. It seems to me important that when anyone looks at his epoch, he should not only bear in mind the generation now young, entering the century in full youth, and its relation to the older generation that has, in the way I have described, carried over something from the last third of the nineteenth century, but one must also consider: What will be the attitude of this young generation towards the coming generation, to the generation which cannot, as the first, after the last third of the nineteenth century, maintain the same attitude to Nothingness that I have described? For the coming generation will not have what the present age has given to the younger generation through opposition towards their elders, namely enthusiasm—more or less indefinite, but nevertheless enthusiasm. What will further evolve will have much more the character of a longing, of an undefined yearning, than was the case among those who derived their enthusiasm from a mood of opposition against the traditional.
And here we must look still more deeply into the human soul than I have done up to now.
I have already shown that in the evolution in the West, consciousness of the pre-earthly existence of the soul has been lost. If we take the religious conceptions which are closest to the development of the human heart in the West during the past centuries, we can but say: For a long time existence before the descent into a physical earthly body has been lost to man's sight. Form an idea of how utterly different it is when one is permeated with the consciousness that something has come down from divine-spiritual worlds into the physical human body, has united itself with the physical human body. If nothing of this consciousness exists there is quite a different feeling, especially about the growing child.
The growing child, when looked at with this consciousness, reveals from its very first breath, or even before, what is being manifested by the spiritual world. Something is revealed from day to day, from week to week, from year to year. Observed in this way, the child becomes a riddle which one approaches in quite a different way from what is possible when one thinks one is confronting a being whose existence begins with birth or conception, and who, as is said nowadays, develops from this starting point, from this point of germination.
We shall understand one another still better if I call to your attention how with this there is connected the keynote of the riddle of the whole world. You know that in former days this fundamental feeling about the world-riddle was expressed in the paradigm: “Man, know thyself!” This saying, “Man, know thyself “is about the only saying which can hold its own against the objections always arising when a solution of the world-riddle is broached. Now I will say something rather paradoxical. Suppose somebody found what he might call the solution of the world-riddle. What would there remain to do after the moment when this world-riddle was solved? Man would lose all freshness of spontaneous striving; all livingness in striving would cease. It would indeed be comfortless to have to admit that the world-riddle has been solved by means of a cognitional method. All that is necessary is to look in some book or other; there the solution is given.
A great many people think thus about the solution of the world-riddle. They consider the world-riddle a system of questions that must be answered by explanations or something of the kind. One feels benumbed at the thought that a solution of the world-riddle could somewhere be given in this way, that the solution could actually be studied! It is a terrible, a horrible thought; all life is frozen by it.
But what lies in the words “Man, know thyself!” expresses something quite different. It really says: Man! look around you at the world; the world is full of riddles, full of mystery, and man's slightest movement points in the widest sense to cosmic mysteries.—Now one can indicate precisely where all these riddles are solved. There is quite a short formula for the indication. We can say: All the riddles of the world are solved in man—again in the very widest sense. Man himself, moving as a living being through the world—he is the solution of the world-riddle! Let him gaze at the sun and experience one of the cosmic mysteries. Let him look into his own being and know: Within thyself lies the solution of this cosmic mystery. “Man, know thyself and thou knowest the world I.”
But this way of expressing the formula is an intimation that no answer is final. Man is the solution of the world-riddle but to know the human being, we have what is infinite before us and so imbued with life that we never reach an end. We know that we bear the solution of the world-riddle within ourselves. But we know too that we shall never come to an end of what there is to search for in ourselves. From such a formula we only know that we are not given out of the universe abstract questions to be answered in an abstract way, but that the whole universe is a question and the human being an answer. We know that the question of the nature of the universe has resounded from times primeval until today, that the answer to these world-questions has resounded from human hearts, but that the questioning will go on resounding endlessly, that human beings must continue on into the distant future to learn to live their answer. We are not directed in a pedantic way to what might be found in a book but to the human being himself. Yet in the sentence, “Man, know thyself!” there sounds over to us from ancient times when school, church and centers of art were all united in the Mysteries, something which points to what has not been learnt from formulae, but from that book about the world which can be deciphered, but deciphered only through endless activity. And the name of this book about the world is “Man.”
If the full import of what I put before you yesterday is grasped, through such a change in the experiencing of knowledge, through the attitude we have to knowledge, the spark of life will strike into the whole nature of man. And that is what is needed.
If we picture the moral evolution of man up to the time when it became problematic, up to the first third of the fifteenth century, we find that the most diverse impulses were necessary to follow what I characterized yesterday as God-given commandments. When we imagine the driving forces prevalent among various peoples in different epochs, we find a great range of inner impulses arising like instincts, depending on particular conditions of life. One could make an interesting study of how these impulses to obey the old moral intuitions originate, how they grow out of the family, out of the racial stock, out of man's inclination towards the other sex, out of the necessity to live together in communities, out of man's pursuit of his own advantage.
But in the same way as we were obliged to call attention yesterday to how old moral intuitions have lived themselves out in historical evolution, so the impulses mentioned no longer contain an impelling force for the human being They cannot contain it if the self-acquired moral intuitions, of which I spoke yesterday, have to appear in man; if single individuals are challenged in the world-evolution of humanity, on the one hand, to find for themselves moral intuitions by dint of the labor of their own souls, and, on the other to acquire the inner strength to live according to these moral intuitions. And then it dawns upon us that the old moral impulses will increasingly take a different course.
We see emerging in the depths of the soul, although misjudged and misunderstood today by the majority of civilized humanity, two moral impulses of supreme importance. If attempts are made to interpret them, confused ideas usually result. If people want to put them into practice, they do not know as a rule what to do with them. Nonetheless they are arising: in the inner life of man the impulse of moral love, and outwardly, in the intercourse between human beings, the moral impulse of confidence.
Now the degree of strength in which moral love will be needed in the immediate future for all moral life, was not necessary in the past—not just in this form. Certainly, of former times too one could say that the words, “Joy and love are the pinions which bear man to great deeds,” are true. But if we speak truly and not in mere phrases, we must say: That joy and that love which fired human beings to do this or that were only a metamorphosis of the impulses described before. Great and pure love, working from within outwards, will have in future to give man wings to fulfil his moral intuitions. Those human beings will feel themselves weak and lacking in will, in face of moral intuitions, who do not experience the fire of love for what is moral springing from the depths of their souls, when through their moral intuitions they confront the deed to be accomplished.
There you see how in our times we have a parting of the ways! It becomes evident by contrasting the atavistic elements of the older age which play over in many ways into the present with what is living within us like the early flush of dawn. You will often have heard those fine words Kant wrote about duty: “Duty! Sublime and mighty Name, you embrace nothing that charms and require only submission”—and so forth. The sternest terms in which to characterize duty! Here the content of duty stands as a moral intuition imparted from outside, and the human being confronts this moral intuition in such a way that he has to submit to it. The moral experience when he thus submits himself is that no inner satisfaction is gained from obedience to duty; only the cold statement: “I must perform my duty” remains.
You know Schiller's answer to Kant's definition of duty:
“Gerne dien' ich den Freunden, doch tu' ich es leider mit Neigung,
Und so wurmt es mich oft, dass ich nicht tugendhaft bin.”(I serve my friend gladly, but unfortunately I do it with inclination, and so it often worries me that I am not virtuous.)
Thus Schiller retorts ironically to this categorical imperative.
You see, over against the so-called categorical imperative, as it comes down from former times out of old moral impulses, there stands the summons to mankind, out of the depths of his soul, evermore to unfold love for what is to become action and deed. For however often in future there may resound: “Submit to duty, to what brings you nothing that will please”—it will be of no avail. Just as little as a man of sixty can behave like a baby can we live at a later age in a way suitable to an earlier epoch. Perhaps that would please people better. But that is of no account. The important thing is what is necessary and possible for the evolution of humanity. We can simply not discuss whether what Kant, as a descendant of very ancient times, has said should be carried on into the future. It cannot be carried on, because humanity has developed beyond it, developed in such a way that action out of love must give mankind the impulse for the future.
On the one hand we are led to the conception of ethical individualism, on the other, to the necessity of knowing that this ethical individualism must be borne on the love arising from perception of the deed to be accomplished. Thus it is, from man's subjective viewpoint.
From the aspect of the social life, the matter presents itself differently. There are people today in whom there no longer echoes the voice of progressive evolution; because they accept all kinds of outside opinions they say: “Yes, but if you try to found morality on the individual, you will upset the social life.” But such a statement is meaningless. It is just as sensible as if someone were to say: if in Stuttgart it rains a certain number of times in three months, Nature will ruin some particular crop on the land.—If one is conscious of a certain responsibility towards knowledge one cannot imagine anything more empty. As humanity is developing in the direction of individualism, there is no sense in saying that ethical individualism upsets the community. It is rather a question of seeking those forces by which man's evolution can progress; this is necessary if man is to develop ethical individualism, which holds the community together and fills it with real life.
Such a force is confidence—confidence between one human being and another. Just as in our inner being we must call upon love for an ethical future, so we must call upon confidence in relation to men's intercourse with each other. We must meet the human being so that we feel him to be a world-riddle, a walking world-riddle. Then we shall learn in the presence of every human being to unfold feelings which draw forth confidence from the depths of our soul. Confidence in an absolutely real sense, individual, unique confidence, is hardest to wring from the human soul. But without a system of education, a cultural pedagogics, which is directed towards confidence, civilization can progress no further. In future mankind will have to realize this necessity to build up confidence in social life; they will also have to experience the tragedy when this confidence cannot develop in the proper way in the human soul.
Oh my dear friends, what men have ever felt in the depths of their souls when they have been disappointed by a human being on whom they had relied, all such feelings will in future be as nothing compared with the tragedy when, with an infinitely deepened feeling of trust, human beings will tragically experience disillusionment in their fellow men. It will be the bitterest thing, not because men have never been disappointed, but because the feeling of confidence and disillusionment will be infinitely deepened in future; because one will build to such a degree in the soul upon the joy of confidence and the pain of the inevitable mistrust. Ethical impulses will penetrate to depths of the soul where they spring directly from the confidence between man and man.
Just as love will fire the human hand, the human arm, so that from within it draws the strength to do a deed, so from without there will flow the mood of confidence in order that the deed may find its way from the one human being to the other. The morality of the future will have to be grounded on the free moral love arising from the depths of the human soul; future social action will have to be steeped in confidence. For if one individuality is to meet another in a moral way, above all an atmosphere of confidence will be necessary.
So we anticipate an ethics, a conception of morality that will speak little of the ethical intuitions of old but will emphasize how a human being must develop from childhood so that there may be awakened in him the power of moral love. Much will have to be given in the pedagogics of the future to the growing generation by teachers and educators through what educates effectively without words. In education and teaching there will have to be imparted much of that knowledge which is not an abstract indication of how man consists of this or that, but which leads us over to the other human being in such a way that we can have the proper confidence in him.
Knowledge of man, but not a knowledge that makes us cold towards our fellow-men but which fills us with confidence—this must become the very fibre of future education. For we have to give weight again, but in a new way, to what once was taken seriously but is so no longer in the age of intellectualism.
If you go back to Greece, you will find that the doctor in his medical art, for example, felt extraordinarily akin to the priest, and priests felt themselves akin to the doctor. Such an attitude can be seen dimly, confusedly in the personality of Paracelsus who has been, and still is, so little understood. Today we relegate to the sphere of religion the abstract instruction which leads away from real life. For in religious instruction we are told what man is without his body, and so on—in a way that is singularly foreign to life. Over against this stands the opposite pole in civilization, where everything brought forth by our own time is kept far from the realm of religion.
Who today sees any trace of a religious act in healing, for instance, an act in which permeation by the spirit plays a part? Paracelsus still had a feeling for this. For him, the religious life was such that it entered into the science of healing. It was a branch of the religious life. This was so in olden times. The human being was a totality: what he had to perform in the service of mankind was permeated by religious impulses. In quite another way, for we must strive to gain moral intuitions that are not God-given but born by our own efforts,—life must again be permeated by a religious quality. But first and foremost it must be made evident in the sphere of education. Confidence between one human being and another—the great demand of the future—must permeate social life.
If we ask ourselves—What is the most essential quality to be a moral human being in the future?—We can only answer: “You must have confidence in the human being.” But when a child comes into the world, that is to say, when the human being comes out of pre-earthly existence and unites with his physical body in order to use it as an instrument on earth between birth and death—when the human being confronts us as a child and reveals his soul to us, what must we bring to him in the way of confidence? Just as surely as the child, from its first movement on earth, is a human being, yet the confidence we bring him is different from the confidence we bring to an adult. When we meet the child as teacher or as a member of the older generation, this confidence is transformed in a certain respect. The child comes into earthly existence from a pre-earthly world of soul and spirit. We observe, revealing itself in a wonderful way from day to day permeating the physical out of the world of soul and spirit, what may be called in the modern sense of the word—the divine.
We need again the divine which leads the human being out of pre-earthly into the present, as through his bodily nature he is led onwards in earthly existence. When we speak of confidence between men in the moral sphere, and apply it to education, we must specialize and say:—“We confront the child who has been sent down to us by the divine-spiritual Powers—and for whom we should be the solvers of all riddles—we confront the child with confidence in God.” Yes, in face of the child, confidence in man becomes confidence in God. And a future will have to come in the evolution of humanity in which what weaves even in a more neutralized form from man to man, will assume a religious coloring in relation to the child or to young people generally who have to be guided into life.
There we see how through actual life, morality is transformed back into religiousness, into a religiousness that expresses itself directly in everyday life. In olden times all moral life was a special part of the religious life, for in the commandments of religion moral commandments were given at the same time.
Humanity has passed through the epoch of abstraction; now, however, we must again enter the epoch of the concrete. We must feel once again how the moral becomes the religious. And in future the moral deeds of education and instruction will have to shape themselves in a modern sense into what is religious. For pedagogy, my dear friends, is not merely a technical art. Pedagogics is essentially a special chapter in the moral sphere of man. Only he who finds education within the realm of morality, within the sphere of ethics, discovers it in the right way. What I have described here as a specifically religious shade of morality, receives its right coloring if we say:—“The riddle of life stands before us as an enigma. The solution of the riddle lies in Man.”—And there indeed it does lie. But anyone who teaches has to work unceasingly, in a living way, at the solution of this riddle. When we learn to feel how in education we are working unceasingly at the solution of the world-riddle, we take our place in the world quite differently from what would have been the case had we sought for solutions merely by means of head knowledge.
In regard to the feeling about Education with which you may have come here, the important thing is to carry away with you into the world this special aspect of pedagogics. This feeling will enable you to stand in the world and not only lead you to asking:—How profound is the tragedy of the young who had to follow the old?—You will also ask, looking into the future: “What living forces must I release in myself to look rightly upon those who are coming after me?” For they in turn will look back to those who were once there. A youth movement in whatever form, if it considers life in a fully responsible way, must have a Janus head; it must not only look at the demands the young make on the old, but also be able to look at the still undefined demands raging around us with tremendous power—demands which the coming youth will make upon us.
Not only opposition against the old, but a creative looking forward, is the right guiding thought for a true youth movement. Opposition may, to begin with, have acted as a stimulus to enthusiasm. The power of deed will only be bestowed by the will to create, the will to do creative work within the present evolution of humanity.
Sechster Vortrag
[ 1 ] Sehr viele von Ihnen denken bei ihrem hiesigen Aufenthalt und bei aller Betätigung, die sie innerhalb dieses hiesigen Aufenthaltes jetzt entfalten wollen, vor allen Dingen an das Pädagogische; wohl nicht so sehr an das Schulpädagogische, wie man es gewöhnlich auffaßt, sondern an diePädagogik, die sich ergibt, wenn man bedenkt, daß in unserer Zeit mancher neue Einschlag in die Entwickelung der Menschheit hineinkommen muß, daß alles Verhalten der älteren Generation gegenüber der jüngeren einen anderen Charakter annehmen muß, worüber man sich Vorstellungen bilden, Empfindungen entwickeln will. Man faßt gewissermaßen den Grundcharakter des Zeitalters als etwas Pädagogisches auf.
[ 2 ] Ich will damit nur einen Eindruck schildern, der, wie ich glaube, sich bei vielen von Ihnen bemerken läßt. Man darf ja, wenn man überhaupt in einer solchen Art auf sein Zeitalter hinsieht, nicht nur die Beziehung ins Auge fassen zwischen der Generation, die in voller Jugendlichkeit in das Jahrhundert hereingetreten ist, und der älteren Generation, die noch etwas herübergetragen hat von dem letzten Drittel des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, wie ich das in diesen Tagen charakterisiert habe, sondern man muß sich namentlich die Frage stellen: Wie wird man sich selber verhalten zu der Generation, die nachkommt und die ebenso wie die erste nach dem letzten Drittel des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts nicht mehr so stehen kann zu dem Nichts, das sich da ergeben hat, wie die früheren Generationen es noch konnten? Die kommende Generation wird nicht einmal dasjenige in sich haben, was die Gegenwart der jüngsten Generation, aus einer gewissen Oppositionsstellung gegen das Ältere, gegeben hat: die Begeisterung, allerdings nach einem mehr oder weniger Unbestimmten, aber doch wenigstens eine Begeisterung. Was sich weiter in der Menschheit entwickelt, wird viel mehr den Charakter eines Verlangens, einer Sehnsucht von unbestimmter Art haben, als das der Fall war bei jenen, die sich aus einer gewissen Oppositionsstellung gegenüber dem Herkömmlichen heraus Begeisterung holen konnten.
[ 3 ] Und da wird es notwendig, noch tiefer als ich das schon getan habe, in die Menschenseele hineinzuschauen. Ich habe es ja schon etwas angedeutet, daß in der neuzeitlichen Entwickelung der Menschheit im Abendlande das Bewußtsein vom vorirdischen Seelendasein verlorengegangen ist. Wenn wir gerade diejenigen Vorstellungen nehmen, welche als religiöse der menschlichen Herzensentwickelung am nächsten stehen und die abgelaufenen Jahrhunderte der abendländischen Entwickelung ins Auge fassen, so müssen wir sagen: seit langem ist der Menschheit der Hinblick auf das Leben vor dem Herunterstieg in einen physischen Erdenleib verlorengegangen. Sie müssen sich für einen Augenblick eine Empfindung davon bilden, wie ungeheuer anders es ist, wenn man von dem Bewußtsein durchdrungen ist: mit dem Menschen ist etwas heruntergestiegen aus göttlich-geistigen Welten in den physischen Menschenleib hinein, hat sich mit dem physischen Menschenleib verbunden. Wenn man ein solches Bewußtsein ganz und gar nicht hat, so gibt das, vor allem dem heranwachsenden Kinde gegenüber, eine ganz verschiedene Empfindung.
[ 4 ] Hat man ein Bewußtsein davon, so enthüllt uns das heranwachsende Kind vom ersten Lebensatemzuge an oder sogar noch früher etwas, was sich aus der geistigen Welt heraus offenbart. Da enthüllt sich etwas von Tag zu Tag, von Woche zu Woche, von Jahr zu Jahr. Das Kind, so angeschaut, wird zu einem Rätsel, dem sich der Mensch in einer ganz anderen Weise erschließt, als wenn er vermeint, nur der Entwickelung eines Wesens gegenüberzustehen, das mit der Geburt oder mit der Konzeption seinen Anfang genommen hat und das sich, wie man heute sagt, von diesem Ausgangspunkte, von diesem Keimausgangspunkte aus entwickelt.
[ 5 ] Vielleicht verstehen wir uns noch besser, wenn ich Sie darauf aufmerksam mache, daß mit alledem die Grundempfindung zusammenhängt, die man dem Weltenrätsel gegenüber überhaupt hat. Sie wissen ja, daß in einer älteren Zeit diese Grundempfindung gegenüber dem Weltenrätsel mit dem paradigmatischen Wort ausgedrückt worden ist: «Mensch, erkenne dich selbst.» Es ist dieses Wort «Mensch, erkenne dich selbst» so ziemlich das einzige, welches auf das eigentliche Welträtsel in einer Art hindeutet, die gegenüber Einwänden standhält, die sich ergeben, wenn von einer Lösung des Weltenrätsels gesprochen wird. Ich will mich einmal in dieser Beziehung etwas paradox ausdrücken. Nehmen wir an, irgend jemand hätte etwas gefunden, was er eine Lösung des Weltenrätsels nennen kann. Was soll dann eigentlich die Menschheit von dem Zeitpunkte der Entwickelung an machen, wo dieses Welträtsel gelöst wäre? Sie würde alle Frische des Strebens verlieren, alle Lebendigkeit des Strebens würde ja aufhören! Es wäre eigentlich etwas außerordentlich Trostloses, sich sagen zu müssen, das Welträtsel sei erkenntnisgemäß gelöst, man brauche nur in dem einen oder anderen Buche nachzuschauen, da sei die Lösung gegeben.
[ 6 ] Man kann eigentlich gar nicht einmal sagen, daß es nicht viele Menschen gäbe, die so über die Lösung des Weltenrätsels denken. Sie meinen, das Welträtsel sei eine Frage oder ein System von Fragen, das man mit Erklärungen oder Charakteristiken oder dergleichen beantworten müsse. Fühlen Sie aber das Ertötende einer solchen Anschauung! Man fühlt sich ja wirklich wie erstarrt bei dem Gedanken, da oder dort könnte es in diesem Sinne eine Lösung des Welträtsels geben, man könnte die Lösung des Welträtsels studieren. Das ist ein ganz furchtbarer, ein entsetzlicher Gedanke, demgegenüber alles Leben erfriert.
[ 7 ] Aber was in dem Worte «Mensch, erkenne dich selbst» steckt, besagt etwas ganz anderes. Es besagt: Man sehe hin auf die Welt! Die Welt ist voller Rätsel, voller Geheimnisse, und jede geringste Regung im Menschen ist ein Hinweis auf die Geheimnisse des Kosmos im weitesten Sinne. - Man kann nun in aller Bestimmtheit darauf hinweisen, wo alle diese Rätsel gelöst sind, und für diesen Hinweis gibt es allerdings eine ganz kurze Formel. Man kann nämlich sagen: Alle Rätsel der Welt sind im Menschen gelöst — wieder im weitesten Umfange. Der Mensch selber, so wie er lebendig in der Welt herumläuft, ist die Lösung des Weltenrätsels! Man schaue in die Sonne und empfinde eines der Weltgeheimnisse. Man schaue in sich und wisse: die Lösung dieses Weltgeheimnisses liegt in dir selber. «Mensch, erkenne dich selber, und du erkennst die Welt.»
[ 8 ] Indem man aber die Formel so ausspricht, deutet man sogleich darauf hin, daß die Antwort nirgends abgeschlossen ist. Der Mensch ist zwar die Lösung des Weltenrätsels; aber um den Menschen selber kennenzulernen, hat man wieder ein Unendliches in voller Lebendigkeit vor sich, und da wird man nie fertig. Wir wissen, wir tragen die Lösung des Weltenrätsels in uns. Aber wir wissen auch, daß wir mit dem, was wir in uns suchen können, niemals fertig werden. Wir wissen aus einer solchen Formulierung nur, daß uns nicht irgendwelche abstrakte Fragen aus dem Weltall gegeben werden, die dann ebenso abstrakt beantwortet werden, sondern wir wissen, daß das ganze Weltall eine Frage und der Mensch eine Antwort ist, daß ertönt hat das Fragewesen des Weltalls von Urzeiten bis zur Gegenwart, daß ertönt hat aus Menschenherzen die Antwort dieser Weltenfragen, daß aber das Fragen weitertönen wird bis in unendlich ferne Zeiten hinein und daß die Menschen wieder lernen müssen, Antworten zu leben bis in eine unendlich ferne Zukunft hinein. Wir werden nicht in pedantisch breiter Weise auf etwas gewiesen, was in einem Buche stehen könnte, sondern wir werden auf den Menschen selber gewiesen. In dem Satz aber: «Mensch, erkenne dich selbst» tönt uns aus den alten Zeiten, in denen Schule, Kirche und Kunststätte in den Mysterien vereinigt waren, etwas herüber, das uns hinweist auf etwas, wo man nicht aus Formulierungen gelernt hat, sondern aus jenem zwar zu entziffernden, aber nur in unendlicher Tätigkeit zu entziffernden Buch über die Welt. Und dieses Buch über die Welt heißt «Mensch»!
[ 9 ] Erfaßt man den Reichtum dessen, was ich gestern auseinanderzusetzen versuchte, dann findet man eben, daß durch eine solche Wendung der Erkenntnisempfindung, durch die Art, wie man sich zur Erkenntnis verhält, der Funke des Lebens selber in alles erkennende Wesen des Menschen hineinschlägt. Und das ist es, was man braucht.
[ 10 ] Wenn man sich die sittliche Entwickelung der Menschheit bis zu dem Zeitpunkte, wo sie problematisch geworden war, also bis zum ersten Drittel des fünfzehnten Jahrhunderts, vor die Seele stellt, so findet man, daß die mannigfaltigsten Antriebe in dem Menschen notwendig waren, um dasjenige zu befolgen, was ich gestern als gottgegebene Gebote charakterisiert habe. Wenn wir diese Antriebe, die bei den verschiedensten Völkerschaften in den verschiedensten Zeitaltern herrschend waren, vor unsere Seele stellen, finden wir eine große Reihe von inneren Impulsen, die sich alle dadurch ausdrücken, daß sie aus gewissen Lebensvoraussetzungen heraus wie Instinkte orientiert waren. Wir können die interessantesten Studien darüber machen, wie aus der Familie, aus dem Stamm, aus der Geschlechtsneigung, aus der Notwendigkeit, in äußeren Verbänden zusammenzuleben, aus der Verfolgung des Eigennutzes und so weiter die Impulse entstehen, die alten sittlichen Intuitionen zu befolgen.
[ 11 ] Aber ebenso, wie die alten sittlichen Intuitionen sich in der geschichtlichen Entwickelung abgelebt haben, worauf wir gestern aufmerksam machen mußten, so haben alle diese Impulse auch für den einzelnen Menschen nicht mehr die impulsive Kraft, die sie einstmals hatten. Sie werden namentlich keine Kraft mehr haben, wenn diese selbsterarbeiteten sittlichen Intuitionen, von denen ich gestern gesprochen habe, nun wirklich im Menschen auftreten, wenn in der Weltentwickelung wirklich die einzelnen Individuen gewissermaßen aufgerufen werden, auf der einen Seite die moralischen Intuitionen in eigener Seelenarbeit selber zu finden, und auf der anderen Seite die innere Kraft, die Impulse zu erwecken, um diesen moralischen Intuitionen nachzuleben. Und da kommt man darauf, daß sich die alten sittlichen Impulse immer mehr und mehr verwandeln werden nach einer gewissen Richtung hin.
[ 12 ] Wir sehen heute, nur verkannt und mißverstanden von dem größten Teil der zivilisierten Menschheit, zwei der allerwichtigsten sittlichen Impulse heraufziehen. Sie ziehen herauf in den Untergründen des Seelischen. Will man sie interpretieren, so kommt man gewöhnlich auf die verkehrtesten Ideen. Will man sie praktisch machen, so weiß man gewöhnlich nicht viel mit ihnen anzufangen; aber sie ziehen herauf. Es sind, in bezug auf das Innere des Menschen: der Impuls der sittlichen Liebe, und in bezug auf den Verkehr unter den Menschen: der sittliche Impuls des Vertrauens von Mensch zu Mensch.
[ 13 ] So, wie sittliche Liebe schon in der allernächsten Zukunft für alles sittliche Leben notwendig sein wird, war sie weder in der Stärke noch in der Art in der Vergangenheit notwendig. Gewiß, auch für die älteren Zeiten galt der Spruch: «Lust und Liebe sind die Fittiche zu großen Taten.» Aber wenn man wahr sein will und nicht phrasenhaft, so muß man sagen: Jene Lust und Liebe, die die Menschen befeuert haben, um dieses oder jenes zu tun, waren nur eine Metamorphose jener anderen Impulse, auf die ich vorhin hingewiesen habe. In Zukunft wird die reine große Liebe von innen heraus den Menschen beflügeln müssen zu dem, was Ausführung seiner sittlichen Intuitionen wird sein müssen; und diejenigen Menschen werden sich schwach und willenlos fühlen gegenüber den sittlichen Intuitionen, die nicht aus den Tiefen ihrer Seele heraus das Feuer der Liebe für das Sittliche entzünden, wenn ihnen durch ihre moralische Intuition die Tat, die geschehen soll, vor Augen steht.
[ 14 ] Sehen Sie, wie sich da die Zeiten spalten. Das sieht man am besten aus einer Gegenüberstellung dessen, was, ich möchte sagen, als das Atavistische der alten Zeit so vielfach in die Gegenwart herüberspielt, und was auf der anderen Seite wie ein erstes Morgenrot erst in uns lebt. Sie haben ja oftmals gehört von jenem schönen Wort, das Kant über die Pflicht niedergeschrieben hat: «Pflicht! Du erhabener großer Name, der du nichts Beliebtes, was Einschmeichelung bei sich führt, in dir fassest, sondern Unterwerfung verlangst», und so weiter. Es war das Stärkste, was man an Charakteristik der Pflicht geben kann, an Charakteristik derjenigen Impulse, die eben hervorgehen aus dem, was ich vorhergehend geschildert habe. Da steht der Inhalt der Pflicht als eine von außen gegebene moralische Intuition da, und da steht auf der anderen Seite der Mensch dieser moralischen Intuition so gegenüber, daß er sich ihr zu unterwerfen hat. Sittlich wird es empfunden, wenn der Mensch so sich unterwirft, daß von einem inneren Wohlgefallen an der Befolgung der Pflicht nichts zu merken ist, sondern lediglich das Eisige da ist: Ich muß der Pflicht folgen.
[ 15] Sie wissen ja, daß Schiller schon diesem Kantschen Worte von der Pflicht entgegengesetzt hat: «Gerne dien’ ich den Freunden, doch tu’ ich es leider mit Neigung, und so wurmt es mir oft, daß ich nicht tugendhaft bin.» So hat Schiller in ironischer Weise auf diesen kategorischen Imperativ geantwortet.
[ 16 ] Sehen Sie, diesem sogenannten kategorischen Imperativ, wie er aus alten Zeiten, aus alten sittlichen Impulsen herüberkommt, steht gegenüber die Forderung an die Menschheit, aus den Tiefen der Seele heraus gerade die Liebe zu dem, was Handlung, was Tat werden soll, mehr und mehr zu entfalten. Denn in der Zukunft würde der Menschheit noch so oft entgegentönen können: Unterwirf dich der Pflicht, demjenigen, was gar keineEinschmeichelung bei sich führt — es würde nicht helfen! Geradesowenig, wie man im Alter von sechzig Jahren Säuglingsallüren entwickeln kann, ebensowenig kann man in einem späteren Momente der Menschheitsentwickelung so leben, wie es einem früheren Zeitalter der Menschheit angemessen war. Es mag ja sein, daß einem das besser gefällt. Aber darauf kommt es nicht an, sondern es kommt auf dasjenige an, was innerhalb der Entwickelung der Menschheit nötig und möglich ist. Man hat einfach nicht die Möglichkeit, darüber zu diskutieren, ob man das, was Kant als Epigone ältester Zeiten mit diesem Satz gesagt hat, in die Zukunft herübertragen soll. Man kann es nicht herübertragen, weil die Menschheit sich darüber hinwegentwickelt hat und sich so entwickelt, daß das Handeln aus Liebe den Impuls abgeben muß für die Menschheit der Zukunft.
[ 17 ] So also gewinnen wir auf der einen Seite die Anschauung eines ethischen Individualismus, auf der andern Seite aber die Notwendigkeit, diesen ethischen Individualismus getragen zu wissen von der Liebe, die sich ergibt aus der Anschauung der zu realisierenden Tat. Das ist nach dem Subjektiven des Menschen hin gesehen.
[ 18 ] Nach dem äußeren Verkehr, dem sozialen Leben hin gesehen stellt sich die Sache so dar: Da kommen heute Leute, in denen rumort etwas jetzt allerdings nicht mehr durch eine fortlaufende Entwickelung der Menschheit, sondern durch allerlei äußerlich aufgenommene Meinungen — und die sagen: Ja, wenn man die Sittlichkeit auf die Individualität des Menschen begründen will, zerstört man das soziale Leben. Eine solche Behauptung hat aber gar keinen Inhalt; sie ist etwa ebenso gescheit, als wenn einer sagen wollte: Wenn es in Stuttgart im Laufe von drei Monaten so und so oft regnet, so zerstört die Natur diese oder jene Dinge auf dem Felde.- Man kann nichts Inhaltloseres sagen, wenn man sich einer gewissen Erkenntnisverantwortlichkeit bewußt ist. In Anbetracht der Tatsache, daß die Menschheit sich nach der Richtung des Individualismus hin entwickelt, hat es gar keinen Sinn zu sagen, mit dem ethischen Individualismus zerstöre man die Gesellschaft. Es handelt sich vielmehr darum, jene Kräfte aufzusuchen, mit denen die weitere Entwickelung der Menschheit vor sich gehen kann, weil dies notwendig ist für die Entwickelung des Menschen im Sinne des ethischen Individualismus, unter dem die Gesellschaft zusammengehalten und erst recht belebt werden kann.
[ 19 ] Eine solche Kraft ist das Vertrauen, das Vertrauen von Mensch zu Mensch. Gerade so, wie wir appellieren müssen für die ethische Zukunft, wenn wir in unser eigenes Innere hineinsehen, an die Liebe, so müssen wir appellieren, wenn wir auf den Verkehr der Menschen untereinander sehen, an das Vertrauen. Wir müssen dem Menschen so begegnen, daß wir ihn als das Weltenrätsel selber empfinden, als das wandelnde Weltenrätsel. Dann werden wir schon vor jedem Menschen die Gefühle entwickeln lernen, die aus den allertiefsten Untergründen unserer Seele heraus das Vertrauen holen. Vertrauen in ganz konkretem Sinn, individuell, einzelgestaltet, ist das Schwerste, was aus der Menschenseele sich herausringt. Aber ohne eine Pädagogik, eine Kulturpädagogik, die auf Vertrauen hin orientiert ist, kommt die Zivilisation der Menschheit nicht weiter. Die Menschheit wird gegen die Zukunft hin auf der einen Seite die Notwendigkeit empfinden müssen, alles soziale Leben auf das Vertrauen aufzubauen, aber sich auf der anderen Seite auch bekannt machen müssen mit jener Tragik, die darinnen liegt, wenn in der Menschenseele gerade das Vertrauen nicht in der entsprechenden Weise Platz greifen kann.
[ 20 ] O meine lieben Freunde, was Menschen jemals auf dem Grunde ihrer Seele gefühlt haben, wenn sie enttäuscht worden sind von einem Menschen, auf den sie viel gebaut haben, alles das, was an solchen Gefühlen jemals im Laufe der Menschheitsentwickelung entfaltet worden ist, wird in Zukunft an Tragik noch überboten werden, wenn die Menschen, nachdem gerade das Vertrauensgefühl unendlich vertieft worden ist, in tragischer Weise Enttäuschungen an Menschen erleben werden. Das wird in der Zukunft das Bitterste im Leben werden, wenn man von Menschen wird enttäuscht werden. Es wird das Bitterste werden, nicht weil nicht auch bisher schon Menschen von Menschen enttäuscht worden sind, sondern weil in Zukunft die Empfindung der Menschen für Vertrauen und Enttäuschung sich in einer unermeßlichen Weise vertiefen wird, weil die Menschen unendlich viel bauen werden auf das, was in der Seele bewirkt wird aus dem Glück des Vertrauens auf der einen Seite und aus dem Schmerz des notwendigen Mißtrauens auf der anderen Seite. Ethische Impulse werden eben bis zu jenen Untergründen der Seele vordringen, wo sie unmittelbar aufsprießen aus dem Vertrauen von Mensch zu Mensch.
[ 21 ] So wie die Liebe die menschliche Hand, den menschlichen Arm befeuern wird, damit er aus dem Inneren heraus die Kraft zur Tat hat, so wird von außen die Atmosphäre des Vertrauens in uns strömen müssen, damit die’Tat den Weg von einem Menschen zum andern hin finde. Urständen wird müssen die Sittlichkeit der Zukunft in der aus den tiefsten Tiefen der Menschenseele frei gewordenen sittlichen Liebe, und das soziale Handeln der Zukunft wird eingetaucht sein müssen in das Vertrauen. Denn wenn menschliche Individualität der menschlichen Individualität in Sittlichkeit wird begegnen sollen, so wird vor allen Dingen notwendig sein diese Atmosphäre des Vertrauens.
[ 22 ] So blicken wir auf eine Ethik, auf eine Moralanschauung der Zukunft, die wenig reden wird von demjenigen, was man immer als ethische Intuitionen alter Art charakterisiert hat, die aber stark reden wird davon, wie ein Mensch sich entwickeln muß von der Kindheit an, damit geweckt werde in ihm die Kraft der sittlichen Liebe. Und viel wird in der Zukunftspädagogik von Lehrenden und Erziehenden an die aufwachsende Generation überliefert werden müssen durch dasjenige, was in unausgesprochener Weise erzieherisch wirkt. Viel wird sich in Erziehung und Unterricht offenbaren müssen von jener Menschenerkenntnis, die nicht abstrakt aufzählt: Der Mensch besteht aus dem und dem, ist so und so -, sondern die in den anderen Menschen so hinüberführt, daß man zu ihm das richtige Vertrauen gewinnen kann.
[ 23 ] Menschenkenntnis, aber nicht Menschenkenntnis, die uns den Mitmenschen gegenüber kalt macht, sondern die uns vertrauensvoll macht, muß der Grundnerv auch der Zukunftspädagogik werden. Denn es wird notwendig sein, auf eine neue Art ernst zu machen mit demjenigen, womit es einmal in der Menschheitsentwickelung ernst war, was aber nicht mehr ernst genommen wird im Zeitalter des Intellektualismus.
[ 24 ] Selbst wenn Sie nur bis Griechenland zurückgehen, so werden Sie finden, daß zum Beispiel der Arzt sich in seiner ärztlichen Kunst außerordentlich verwandt fühlte mit dem Menschen, der einen priesterlichen Beruf ausübte, und die Priester fühlten sich in gewisser Weise verwandt mit dem Arzte. Etwas von solcher Gesinnung schimmert noch durch, wenn auch in etwas chaotischer Art, in der Persönlichkeit des Paracelsus, den man so wenig verstanden hat und heute noch so wenig versteht. Heute weist man der Sphäre des Religiösen jene abstrakte Unterweisung der Menschheit zu, in der eigentlich nur Anweisungen erteilt werden, die aus dem realen Leben herausführen; denn in der religiösen Unterweisung spricht man zu den Menschen über das, was der Mensch ist, wenn er keinen Leib hat und dergleichen, in einer ungemein lebensfremden Weise. Demgegenüber steht der andere Zivilisationspol, indem alles andere, was diese Zivilisation hervorbringt, möglichst weit von dem Religiösen abgerückt wird.
[ 25 ] Wer sieht denn zum Beispiel heute noch im Kurieren, im Heilen eine religiöse Handlung, eine Handlung, bei der das Durchdrungensein mit Geistigkeit eine Rolle spielt? Paracelsus hat das noch gespürt. Für ihn setzte sich das Religiöse noch bis in die Heilwissenschaft hinein fort. Ein Zweig des Religiösen war für ihn die Heilwissenschaft. Das war in alten Zeiten so. Da war der Mensch noch ein Ganzes, weil dasjenige, was er im Dienste der Menschheit zu tun hatte, von religiösen Impulsen durchdrungen war. Wir müssen - allerdings auf eine andere Art: durch selbsterarbeitete, nicht gottgegebene moralische Intuitionen - wiederum dazu kommen, daß alles Leben von diesem religiösen Zug durchdrungen wird. Das aber wird zu allererst auf dem Gebiete der Erziehung und des Unterrichts sichtbar sein müssen. Vertrauen von Mensch zu Mensch — das ist die große Zukunftsforderung — muß das soziale Leben durchziehen.
[ 26 ] Wenn wir uns fragen: Was benötigst du am meisten, wenn du in Zukunft ein sittlicher Mensch sein willst? so können wir nur die Antwort geben: Menschenvertrauen mußt du haben. - Wenn nun das Kind in die Welt hereintritt, das heißt, wenn der Mensch aus dem vorirdischen Dasein kommt und mit seinem physischen Leib sich vereint, um diesen auf der Erde zwischen Geburt und Tod als Werkzeug zu gebrauchen, wenn der Mensch, uns so deutlich sein Seelisches offenbarend, als Kind uns entgegentritt, wie ist dann das, was wir ihm entgegenbringen müssen als Menschenvertrauen? So gewiß auf der einen Seite das Kind schon bei der ersten Regung auf Erden ein Mensch ist, so gewiß ist das, was wir ihm als Menschenvertrauen entgegenbringen, doch noch etwas anderes als dasjenige, was wir etwa gleichaltrigen Menschen entgegenbringen. Wenn wir ihm als Erzieher oder als Angehöriger der älteren Generation entgegentreten, so verwandelt sich das Menschenvertrauen in einer gewissen Weise. Das Kind tritt ins irdische Dasein aus einem seelisch-geistigen vorirdischen Dasein. Aber das, worauf wir hinschauen, was sich auf eine befriedigende Art von Tag zu Tag aus der Welt des Seelisch-Geistigen in der Durchdringung des Physischen offenbart, ist doch das Walten dessen — wenn wir den Ausdruck im richtigen modernen Sinne gebrauchen -, was wir das Göttliche nennen können.
[ 27 ] Wir brauchen wieder das Göttliche, durch das der Mensch aus dem vorirdischen Dasein hineingeführt worden ist in die Gegenwart, wie er im irdischen Dasein durch seine irdische Leiblichkeit weitergeführt wird. Indem wir in der Sphäre des Sittlichen sprechen von Menschenvertrauen, müssen wir es, sobald wir von demjenigen Sittlichen sprechen, das Erziehung und Unterricht darstellen, spezialisieren und sagen: dem Kinde, das uns die göttlich-geistigen Kräfte heruntergeschickt haben, dem wir als diejenigen gegenüberstehen, die die Rätsellöser sein sollen, stehen wir gegenüber mit Gottvertrauen. Ja, dem Kinde gegenüber verwandelt sich das Menschenvertrauen sogar in Gottvertrauen. Und in der zukünftigen Entwickelung der Menschheit wird dasjenige, was, ich möchte sagen, auf eine mehr neutralisierte Art von Mensch zu Mensch wirkt, von selbst eine religiöse Nuance annehmen, wenn es sich auf das Kind oder überhaupt auf die jüngeren Menschen bezieht, die erst noch in ihrer Entwickelung in die Welt hereingeleitet werden sollen. Da sehen wir, wie unmittelbar im irdischen Dasein die Sittlichkeit zurückverwandelt wird in eine Religiosität, die sich im gewöhnlichen Leben auslebt. Wir können mit Recht davon sprechen, daß in alten Zeiten alles sittliche Leben nur ein Spezialfall des religiösen Lebens ist, da eigentlich in den religiösen Geboten zu gleicher Zeit die sittlichen Gebote mit gegeben waren.
[ 28 ] Mit solchen Dingen ist die Menschheit durch das Zeitalter der Abstraktion hindurchgegangen. Jetzt muß sie aber wieder eintreten in das Zeitalter der Konkretheit. Jetzt muß sie wieder in einem bestimmten Punkte spüren, wie das Sittliche zum Religiösen wird. Und zu einem Religiösen in einem modernen Sinne werden in Zukunft sich diejenigen sittlichen Taten gestalten müssen, die die unterrichtenden und erzieherischen sittlichen Taten sind. Denn die Pädagogik, meine lieben Freunde, ist nicht eine bloß technische Kunst. Die Pädagogik ist im wesentlichen auch ein Spezialkapitel des sittlichen Handelns des Menschen. Nur derjenige, welcher innerhalb der Sittlichkeit, innerhalb der Ethik die Pädagogik findet, findet sie auf die rechte Weise.
[ 29 ] Was ich hier als eine besondere religiöse Nuance der Sittlichkeit schilderte, bekommt im Grunde genommen die richtige Färbung dadurch, daß man sich sagt: In rätselvoller Art stellt sich das Leben vor uns hin. Die Lösung des Rätsels finden wir, wenn wir die Antwort im Wesen des Menschen suchen. — Da liegt sie auch. Aber der Erzieher ist vor die Notwendigkeit gestellt, an der Lösung dieses Rätsels in lebensvoller Art fortwährend zu arbeiten. Wenn man so empfinden lernt, wie man im Erziehen und Unterrichten fortwährend an der Lösung des Welträtsels arbeitet, dann stellt man sich ganz anders in die Welt herein, als wenn man bloß in seinem Kopfe allerlei Lösungen des Welträtsels sucht.
[ 30 ] Um was es sich bei jener Empfindung von Pädagogik, mit der Sie vielleicht hierher gekommen sind, handelt, das ist, daß Sie diesen besonderen Charakter der Pädagogik als Empfindung mit hinwegtragen in die Welt. Diese Empfindung wird Sie so in die Welt hineinstellen können, daß Sie nicht nur auf die eine Seite schauen und fragen werden: Welche Tragik hat sich für die Jugend ergeben, die sich an die Alten anschließen mußte? — Sondern Sie werden auch, in die Zukunft blickend, fragen: Welche lebendigen Kräfte muß ich in mir aufschließen, damit ich richtig auf diejenigen hinsehen kann, die nachkommen? — Denn die werden wieder zurücksehen auf diejenigen, die schon da waren. Alles, was in irgendeiner Form Jugendbewegung ist, wenn es mit voller Verantwortlichkeit hineinsieht in das Leben, muß einen Januskopf haben, muß nicht nur hinschauen können auf die Forderungen, die man gegenüber den Älteren hat, sondern muß auch hinschauen können auf die noch unbestimmten Forderungen, die mit Riesengewalt an uns heranstürmen, welche die kommende Jugend an uns stellen wird. Nicht nur Opposition gegen die Alten machen, sondern auch schöpferisch nach vorne blicken: das ist das richtige Geleitwort für wahre Jugendbewegung. Die Opposition mag zunächst ein Antrieb zur Begeisterung gewesen sein. Wirkenskraft wird nur geben der Wille zum Schaffen, zum schöpferischen Gestalten innerhalb der jetzigen Menschheitsentwickelung.
Sixth Lecture
[ 1 ] Many of you, during your stay here and in all the activities you now wish to pursue during your stay, are thinking above all about education; not so much in terms of school education as it is usually understood, but rather in terms of the pedagogy that arises when one considers that in our time many new influences must enter into the development of humanity, that all behavior of the older generation toward the younger must take on a different character, about which one wants to form ideas and develop feelings. One understands, as it were, the fundamental character of the age as something pedagogical.
[ 2 ] I only want to describe an impression that I believe many of you will notice. When looking at one's own age in this way, one must not only consider the relationship between the generation that entered the century in the prime of youth and the older generation that still carried something over from the last third of the nineteenth century, as I have characterized it in recent days, but one must also ask oneself the question: How will we behave toward the generation that is coming after us and which, like the first generation after the last third of the nineteenth century, can no longer stand by the nothingness that has come about, as earlier generations were still able to do? The coming generation will not even have what the youngest generation has, out of a certain opposition to the older generation: enthusiasm, albeit for something more or less undefined, but at least enthusiasm. What will continue to develop in humanity will have much more the character of a desire, a longing of an undefined kind, than was the case with those who were able to derive enthusiasm from a certain opposition to the traditional.
[ 3 ] And here it becomes necessary to look even deeper into the human soul than I have already done. I have already hinted that in the modern development of humanity in the West, the consciousness of the pre-earthly soul existence has been lost. If we take the ideas that are closest to the religious development of the human heart and consider the past centuries of Western development, we must say that humanity has long since lost sight of life before its descent into a physical earthly body. You must try for a moment to imagine how enormously different it is when one is imbued with the consciousness that something descended with human beings from divine-spiritual worlds into the physical human body and connected itself with the physical human body. If you have no such awareness at all, this gives you a completely different feeling, especially towards a growing child.
[ 4 ] If one is conscious of this, the growing child reveals to us from its first breath, or even earlier, something that manifests itself from the spiritual world. Something is revealed day by day, week by week, year by year. Viewed in this way, the child becomes a mystery that humans discover in a completely different way than when they believe they are merely observing the development of a being that began with birth or conception and that, as we say today, develops from this starting point, from this germ.
[ 5 ] Perhaps we will understand each other better if I point out that all of this is connected with the basic feeling that one has toward the mystery of the world in general. You know that in earlier times this fundamental feeling toward the mystery of the world was expressed by the paradigmatic words: “Man, know thyself.” This phrase, “Man, know thyself,” is pretty much the only one that points to the actual mystery of the world in a way that stands up to objections that arise when people talk about solving the mystery of the world. Let me express myself somewhat paradoxically in this regard. Let us assume that someone has found something that he can call a solution to the mystery of the world. What would humanity actually do from the point in its development when this world mystery had been solved? It would lose all the freshness of its striving; all the vitality of its striving would cease! It would actually be extremely disheartening to have to say that the world mystery had been solved in terms of knowledge, that one only needed to look in one book or another to find the solution.
[ 6 ] One cannot even say that there are not many people who think this way about the solution to the world puzzle. They believe that the world puzzle is a question or a system of questions that must be answered with explanations or characteristics or the like. But feel the deadening effect of such a view! One really feels paralyzed by the thought that there could be a solution to the world puzzle in this sense, that one could study the solution to the world puzzle. It is a terrible, appalling thought, in the face of which all life freezes.
[ 7 ] But what is contained in the words “Man, know thyself” means something completely different. It means: Look at the world! The world is full of riddles, full of mysteries, and every slightest movement in human beings is an indication of the mysteries of the cosmos in the broadest sense. - One can now point out with certainty where all these mysteries are solved, and there is a very short formula for this. One can say: All the mysteries of the world are solved in man — again in the broadest sense. Man himself, as he walks around alive in the world, is the solution to the mystery of the world! Look at the sun and feel one of the secrets of the world. Look within yourself and know that the solution to this secret of the world lies within you. “Man, know thyself, and thou shalt know the world.”
[ 8 ] But by expressing the formula in this way, one immediately indicates that the answer is nowhere complete. Man is indeed the solution to the riddle of the world; but in order to get to know man himself, one again has an infinite entity in full vitality before one, and there one will never finish. We know that we carry the solution to the riddle of the world within us. But we also know that we will never be finished with what we can find within ourselves. All we know from such a formulation is that we are not given abstract questions from the universe, which are then answered just as abstractly, but we know that the entire universe is a question and man is an answer, that the question of the universe has resounded from time immemorial to the present, that the answer to these questions of the world has resounded from human hearts, but that the questions will continue to resound into infinitely distant times and that human beings must learn again to live the answers into an infinitely distant future. We are not pointed in a pedantically broad way to something that could be written in a book, but we are pointed to human beings themselves. But in the sentence, “Man, know thyself,” something echoes to us from ancient times, when schools, churches, and places of art were united in mystery, something that points us to something where one did not learn from formulations, but from that book about the world that can be deciphered, but only through infinite activity. And this book about the world is called “human being”!
[ 9 ] If one grasps the richness of what I tried to explain yesterday, one finds that through such a shift in the perception of knowledge, through the way one relates to knowledge, the spark of life itself strikes into every knowing being of man. And that is what is needed.
[ 10 ] If we consider the moral development of humanity up to the point where it became problematic, that is, up to the first third of the fifteenth century, we find that the most diverse impulses were necessary in human beings in order to obey what I characterized yesterday as God-given commandments. If we consider these impulses, which prevailed among the most diverse peoples in the most diverse ages, we find a large series of inner impulses, all of which are expressed in that they were oriented like instincts out of certain preconditions of life. We can make the most interesting studies of how the impulses to follow the old moral intuitions arise from the family, from the tribe, from sexual inclination, from the necessity of living together in external associations, from the pursuit of self-interest, and so on.
[ 11 ] But just as the old moral intuitions have died out in the course of historical development, as we had to point out yesterday, so all these impulses no longer have the impulsive power they once had for the individual human being. They will have no power at all when these self-developed moral intuitions, of which I spoke yesterday, actually appear in human beings, when in the development of the world the individual human beings are, as it were, called upon to find the moral intuitions themselves in their own soul work, and to awaken the inner power to live according to these moral intuitions. And this leads us to the conclusion that the old moral impulses will increasingly transform themselves in a certain direction.
[ 12 ] Today we see two of the most important moral impulses emerging, but they are unrecognized and misunderstood by the majority of civilized humanity. They are emerging from the depths of the soul. If one tries to interpret them, one usually comes up with the most mistaken ideas. If one wants to put them into practice, one usually does not know what to do with them; but they are emerging nonetheless. In relation to the inner life of human beings, these are the impulse of moral love, and in relation to human interaction, the moral impulse of trust between human beings.
[ 13 ] Just as moral love will be necessary for all moral life in the very near future, it was not necessary in the past, either in strength or in kind. Certainly, even in ancient times, the saying was true: “Pleasure and love are the wings of great deeds.” But if we want to be truthful and not phraseological, we must say that the pleasure and love that fired people to do this or that were only a metamorphosis of those other impulses I mentioned earlier. In the future, pure, great love will have to inspire people from within to do what must be done to fulfill their moral intuitions; and those people who do not feel the fire of love for morality burning deep within their souls will feel weak and powerless in the face of moral intuitions when their moral intuition shows them the action that must be taken.
[ 14 ] See how the times are divided. This can best be seen in a comparison of what I would call the atavistic elements of the old days that so often spill over into the present, and what, on the other hand, is only just beginning to dawn within us. You have often heard that beautiful phrase that Kant wrote about duty: “Duty! You sublime, great name, which contains nothing pleasant, nothing that flatters, but demands submission,” and so on. It was the strongest characterization of duty that could be given, of those impulses that arise from what I have just described. On the one hand, there is the content of duty as an externally given moral intuition, and on the other hand, there is the human being who is confronted with this moral intuition in such a way that he must submit to it. It is perceived as moral when the human being submits in such a way that there is no inner pleasure in obeying duty, but only the icy feeling: I must obey duty.
[ 15] You know that Schiller already countered Kant's words about duty with: “I gladly serve my friends, but unfortunately I do so with inclination, and so it often troubles me that I am not virtuous.” This was Schiller's ironic response to this categorical imperative.
[ 16 ] You see, this so-called categorical imperative, as it comes down to us from ancient times, from ancient moral impulses, is opposed by the demand on humanity to develop more and more, from the depths of its soul, precisely that love for what should become action, what should become deed. For in the future, humanity could repeat as often as it likes: Submit to duty, to that which does not flatter you in the least — it would not help! Just as one cannot develop infantile habits at the age of sixty, so one cannot live at a later stage of human development in a way that was appropriate to an earlier age of humanity. It may well be that one prefers this. But that is not the point. What matters is what is necessary and possible within the development of humanity. One simply does not have the opportunity to discuss whether what Kant said as an epigone of ancient times should be carried over into the future. It cannot be carried over because humanity has evolved beyond it and is developing in such a way that actions motivated by love must provide the impetus for the humanity of the future.
[ 17 ] Thus, on the one hand, we gain the view of ethical individualism, but on the other hand, we gain the necessity of knowing that this ethical individualism is supported by the love that arises from the view of the action to be realized. This is seen from the subjective point of view of human beings.
[ 18 ] From the point of view of external relations, of social life, the situation is as follows: today there are people in whom something is stirring, no longer through the continuous development of humanity, but through all kinds of opinions taken up from outside — and they say: Yes, if you want to base morality on the individuality of human beings, you destroy social life. But such an assertion has no content whatsoever; it is about as clever as saying that if it rains so and so often in Stuttgart over the course of three months, nature will destroy this or that thing in the fields. One cannot say anything more meaningless if one is aware of a certain responsibility for knowledge. In view of the fact that humanity is developing in the direction of individualism, it makes no sense at all to say that ethical individualism destroys society. Rather, it is a matter of seeking out those forces with which the further development of humanity can proceed, because this is necessary for the development of the human being in the sense of ethical individualism, under which society can be held together and, indeed, enlivened.
[ 19 ] One such force is trust, trust between human beings. Just as we must appeal to love when we look into our own hearts for the ethical future, so must we appeal to trust when we look at human interaction. We must treat people in such a way that we perceive them as the mystery of the world itself, as the walking mystery of the world. Then we will learn to develop feelings toward every person that draw trust from the deepest recesses of our souls. Trust in a very concrete sense, individual and unique, is the hardest thing to wrest from the human soul. But without a pedagogy, a cultural pedagogy oriented toward trust, the civilization of humanity will not progress. On the one hand, humanity will have to recognize the necessity of building all social life on trust, but on the other hand, it will also have to familiarize itself with the tragedy that lies within when trust cannot take root in the human soul in the appropriate way.
[ 20 ] O my dear friends, what people have ever felt in the depths of their souls when they have been disappointed by someone on whom they have built much, Everything that has ever been developed in the course of human evolution in terms of such feelings will be surpassed in tragedy in the future when people, after their sense of trust has been infinitely deepened, experience tragic disappointments in other people. This will become the most bitter thing in life in the future, when people are disappointed by other people. It will be the most bitter thing, not because people have not been disappointed by other people before, but because in the future people's feelings of trust and disappointment will deepen immeasurably, because people will build infinitely on what is brought about in the soul by the happiness of trust on the one hand and the pain of necessary mistrust on the other. Ethical impulses will penetrate to those depths of the soul where they spring directly from the trust between people.
[ 21 ] Just as love will fire the human hand and arm so that they have the power to act from within, so the atmosphere of trust will have to flow into us from outside so that action can find its way from one person to another. The morality of the future will have to arise from the moral love that has been freed from the deepest depths of the human soul, and the social actions of the future will have to be immersed in trust. For if human individuality is to encounter human individuality in morality, this atmosphere of trust will be necessary above all else.
[ 22 ] Thus we look to an ethics, to a moral view of the future, which will say little about what has always been characterized as ethical intuitions of the old kind, but which will speak strongly about how a human being must develop from childhood onwards so that the power of moral love may be awakened in him. And in the pedagogy of the future, teachers and educators will have to pass on much to the younger generation through what has an unspoken educational effect. Much will have to be revealed in education and teaching from that knowledge of human beings which does not list abstractly: Man consists of this and that, is this and that, but which leads us to other human beings in such a way that we can gain the right trust in them.
[ 23 ] Knowledge of human nature, but not knowledge that makes us cold toward our fellow human beings, but rather knowledge that makes us trusting, must become the fundamental nerve center of future education. For it will be necessary to take seriously in a new way that which was once serious in human development but is no longer taken seriously in the age of intellectualism.
[ 24 ] Even if you go back only as far as Greece, you will find that, for example, the physician felt an extraordinary kinship in his medical art with the person who exercised a priestly profession, and the priests felt in a certain way related to the physician. Something of this attitude still shines through, albeit in a somewhat chaotic manner, in the personality of Paracelsus, who was so little understood and is still so little understood today. Today, we assign to the sphere of religion that abstract instruction of humanity in which, in fact, only instructions are given that lead away from real life; for in religious instruction, we speak to people about what man is when he has no body and the like, in a manner that is extremely alien to life. Opposed to this stands the other pole of civilization, in which everything else that this civilization produces is moved as far away from religion as possible.
[ 25 ] Who today still sees in healing, for example, a religious act, an act in which spiritual penetration plays a role? Paracelsus still sensed this. For him, religion continued into the healing arts. For him, the healing arts were a branch of religion. That was the case in ancient times. Back then, human beings were still whole because what they had to do in the service of humanity was imbued with religious impulses. We must—albeit in a different way: through moral intuitions developed by ourselves, not given by God—once again come to the point where all life is permeated by this religious impulse. But this will first have to become visible in the field of education and teaching. Trust between people—that is the great challenge of the future—must permeate social life.
[ 26 ] If we ask ourselves: What do you need most if you want to be a moral person in the future? we can only answer: You must have trust in people. When a child enters the world, that is, when a human being comes from pre-earthly existence and unites with its physical body in order to use it as a tool on earth between birth and death, when a human being, revealing its soul so clearly to us, comes toward us as a child, what is it that we must offer it as trust in humanity? As certain as it is that the child is already a human being from its first stirrings on earth, it is equally certain that what we offer him as human trust is something different from what we offer to people of the same age. When we approach him as an educator or as a member of the older generation, human trust is transformed in a certain way. The child enters earthly existence from a pre-earthly soul-spiritual existence. But what we see, what reveals itself in a satisfying way from day to day from the world of the soul-spiritual in the permeation of the physical, is the working of what we can call the divine, if we use the term in the correct modern sense.
[ 27 ] We need once again the divine through which human beings were led from pre-earthly existence into the present, just as they are carried forward in earthly existence through their earthly physicality. When we speak of human trust in the sphere of morality, we must, as soon as we speak of the morality that constitutes education and instruction, specialize and say: we face the child, to whom the divine-spiritual forces have sent us down, whom we face as those who are to be the solvers of riddles, with trust in God. Yes, in relation to the child, human trust is even transformed into trust in God. And in the future development of humanity, what I would call the more neutralized way of relating from person to person will automatically take on a religious nuance when it refers to children or younger people in general, who are still in the process of being introduced into the world. Here we see how directly morality is transformed back into religiosity in earthly existence, which is lived out in ordinary life. We can rightly say that in ancient times all moral life was only a special case of religious life, since the moral commandments were actually given at the same time as the religious commandments.
[ 28 ] Humanity has passed through the age of abstraction with such things. Now, however, it must re-enter the age of concreteness. Now it must once again feel, at a certain point, how the moral becomes religious. And in the future, those moral acts that are instructive and educational will have to become religious in the modern sense. For pedagogy, my dear friends, is not merely a technical art. Pedagogy is essentially also a special chapter of moral action in human beings. Only those who find pedagogy within morality, within ethics, find it in the right way.
[ 29 ] What I have described here as a special religious nuance of morality is basically given its proper coloration by saying that life presents itself to us in an enigmatic way. We find the solution to the enigma when we seek the answer in the nature of man. — There it is. But the educator is faced with the necessity of working continuously on the solution to this mystery in a life-affirming way. When one learns to feel that one is constantly working on the solution to the mystery of the world through education and teaching, one enters the world in a completely different way than when one merely seeks all kinds of solutions to the mystery of the world in one's head.
[ 30 ] What you may have come here with in terms of your perception of education is that you carry this special character of education with you into the world as a feeling. This feeling will enable you to enter the world in such a way that you will not just look at one side and ask: What tragedy has befallen the young people who have had to follow in the footsteps of their elders? Instead, looking to the future, you will also ask: What living forces must I unlock within myself so that I can look properly at those who come after me? For they will look back at those who were already there. Any youth movement, if it looks at life with full responsibility, must have a Janus face; it must not only be able to look at the demands we make of our elders, but also at the as yet undefined demands that are rushing toward us with tremendous force, demands that the youth of the future will make of us. Not just opposing the old, but also looking ahead creatively: that is the right motto for a true youth movement. Opposition may have been an initial driving force for enthusiasm. But the only thing that will have any real impact is the will to create, to shape things creatively within the current stage of human development.