The Arts and Their Mission
GA 276
27 May 1923, Dornach
Lecture I
[Before the lecture Steiner spoke a few words regarding his trip to Norway. See GA 259]
Today I propose to carry further certain points made in recent lectures concerning the evolution of humanity since the time of Christ.
Looking back, in survey, over the evolution of mankind, we see that the epochs described in anthroposophical spiritual science take their shape from the particular soul constitution of the human beings alive at any given time. This differs greatly from epoch to epoch. Today, however, there is little inclination to look beyond man's present day makeup. Although civilization has developed in a way describable in outer documents, in general mankind is regarded as having always had the same soul nature. This is not true. It has changed; and we know the dates at which it underwent transformations externally plain and distinguishable.
The last of these turning points has often been designated as the fifteenth century after Christ; the one preceding it occurred during the eighth pre-Christian century; and we might in this way go still further back. I have often emphasized how correct the art historian Herman Grimm is when he points out that the full historical comprehension of the people of the present age reaches back no further than the Romans, at which time the ideas now prevalent settled into men's souls. Or approximately the same ideas. They still operate, though at times in a detrimental way—for example, concepts of Roman law no longer in harmony with our society. The very manner in which contemporary man takes part in social life shows a comprehension for something reaching back to the Roman period.
If, on the other hand, we describe the external historical events of ancient Greece like modern events, we do not penetrate into the real soul-nature of the Greeks. Herman Grimm is right in saying that, as usually described, they are mere shadows. Precisely because ordinary consciousness can no longer see what lived in those souls, it is unable to understand the Greeks' social structure.
Still more removed from our soul life is that of the human beings of the Egyptian-Chaldean period prior to the eighth century before Christ; more different still that in ancient Persia, and completely different that of the ancient Indian epoch following the great Atlantean catastrophe.
When with the help of spiritual science we mark the stages in the changing constitution of the human being, it becomes clear that our way of feeling about the human being, our way of speaking of body, soul and spirit, of the ego in man, our sense of an inner connection between the human being and the earth planet, arose in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. Gradually, in the course of time, life has become so earth-bound that human beings feel estranged from the cosmos, and see the stars and their movements, even the clouds, as lying outside our earthly dwelling place; therefore of little significance.
Prior to the Graeco-Latin period, people's feelings and indeed their will-impulses were, if I may use the expression, elementary-cosmic. Man did not need a philosophy in order to feel himself a member of the whole universe, especially the visible universe. It was natural for him to feel himself not only a citizen of the earth but also a member of the cosmos, especially during the first epoch, that of ancient India. If we go back to the seventh or eighth millennium of the pre-Christian era, we find that the human being—I cannot say spoke but felt—that the human being felt quite differently than we do today about the ego, the self. To be sure, the human beings of that ancient time did not express themselves as we do, because human speech did not have the same scope as today. But we must express things in our own language, and I shall put it thus: In ancient India man did not speak of the ego in our modern way; it was not, for him, a point comprising all his soul experiences. On the contrary, when he spoke of the ego it was to him self-evident that it had little to do with earth and earth events. In experiencing himself as an ego, man did not feel that he belonged to the earth; but, rather, that he was connected with the heaven of the fixed stars. This was what gave him the sense and security of his deepest self. For it was not felt as a human ego. Man was a human being only through the fact that here on earth he was clothed by a physical body. Through this sheath-for-the-ego he became a citizen of earth. But the ego was regarded as something foreign to the earthly sphere. And if today we were to coin a name for the way the ego was experienced, we would have to say: man felt not a human but a divine ego.
He might have looked outward to the mountains, to the rocks; he might have looked at everything else on earth and said of it all: This is, this exists. Yet at the same time he would have felt the following: If there were no other existence than that of earth's plants, rivers, mountains and rocks, no human being would have an ego. For what guarantees existence to earthly things and beings could never guarantee it to the ego. They are in different categories.
To repeat: Within himself man felt not a human but divine ego: a drop from the ocean of divinity. And when he wanted to speak about his ego (I say this with the previously-made reservations) he felt it as a creation of the fixed stars; the heaven of the fixed stars was the one sphere sharing its reality. Only because the ego has a similar existence is it able to say, “I am.” If it were able to say “I am” merely according to the level of existence of stone or plant or mountain, the ego would have no right to speak so. Only its starlike nature makes it possible for the ego to say, “I am.”
Again, the human beings of this primeval epoch saw how the rivers flowed and the trees were driven by the wind. But if we regarded the human ego which dwells in the physical body and has an impulse to move about on the earth hither and thither—if we regarded this ego as the active force in movement, as wind is the active force in moving trees, or as anything else of earth is an active force, we would be wrong. The ego is not this kind of outer cause of motion.
In ancient times the teacher in the Mysteries spoke to his pupils somewhat like this: You see how the trees sway, how the river water flows, how the ocean churns. But from neither the moving trees, the flowing rivers, nor the heaving ocean could the ego learn to develop those impulses of motion which human beings display when they carry their bodies over the earth. This the ego can never learn from any moving earthly thing. This the ego can learn only because it is related to the planets, to starry motion. Only from Mars, Jupiter, Venus, and so forth, can the ego learn motion. When the ego of its own volition moves upon the earth, it achieves something made possible by its relation to the wheeling world of the stars.
Further, it would have seemed incomprehensible to a man of this ancient epoch if somebody had said: Look how thoughts arise out of your brain! Let us travel backward in time and imagine ourselves with the soul constitution we once had (for we have all passed through lives in ancient India); then confronted by the present-day soul condition, the one which makes people assume that thoughts arise out of the brain. All that modern man believes would appear as complete nonsense. For the ancient human being knew well that thoughts can never spring from brain substance; that it is the sun which calls forth thoughts, and the moon which stills them. It was to the reciprocal action of sun and moon that he ascribed his life of thoughts.
Thus in the first post-Atlantean epoch, the ancient Indian time, the divine ego was seen as belonging to the heaven of the fixed stars, to the planetary movements, to the reciprocal action of sun and moon; and what came to it from the earth as transient, the essence of the ego being cosmic-divine.
In Occult Science, an Outline I call the second epoch Ancient Persian. By then the perception of the cosmic ego had grown less vivid; it was subdued. But the people of that age had an intensive experience of the recurrent seasons. (I have recently and repeatedly lectured on the year's course.) Pictorially speaking, the modern human being has become a kind of earthworm, just living from day to day. Indeed he is not even that, for an earthworm comes out of his hole when it rains, while the human being—just lives along. He experiences nothing special; at best some abstract differences: in rain he is uncomfortable without an umbrella, he adjusts himself to snow in winter and sunshine in summer, he goes to the country, and so forth. But he does not live with the course of the year; he lives in a dreadfully superficial way; no longer puts his whole humanness into living.
In the ancient Persian epoch it was different. Man experienced the year's course with his whole being. When the winter solstice arrived he felt: Now the earth soul has united with the earth. The snow which for present-day man is nothing but frozen water was at that time experienced as the garment the earth dons in order to shut itself off from the cosmos and develop an individually-independent life within that cosmos. The human being felt: Now, indeed, the earth soul has so intimately united with the earth, man must turn his soul-nature to what lives in the earth. In other words, the snow cover became transparent for man's soul. Below it he felt the elementary beings which carry the force of plant-seeds through winter into spring.
When spring arrived in ancient Persia, man experienced how the earth breathed out its soul, how it strove to open its soul to the cosmos; and with his feelings and sensations he followed this event. The attachment to the earth developed during the winter he now began to replace with a devotion to the cosmos.
To be sure, man was no longer able to look up to the cosmos as he did during the immediately preceding epoch; no longer able to see in the cosmos all that gave existence, movement and thought to his ego. He said: What in winter unites me with the earth summons me in spring to raise myself into the cosmos. But though he no longer had so intensive a knowledge of his connection with the cosmos as formerly, he felt it as by divination. Just as the ego in the ancient Indian time experienced itself as a cosmic being, so in the ancient Persian time the astral element experienced itself as connected with the course of the year.
Thus man lived with the changing seasons. When in winter his soul perceived the snow blanket below, his mood turned serious; he withdrew into himself; searched (as we express it today) his conscience. When spring returned, he again opened himself to the cosmos with a certain gaiety. At midsummer, the time we now associate with St. John's Day, he surrendered with rapture to the cosmos, not in the clear way of the ancient Indian time, but with the joy of having escaped from the body.
Just as in winter he felt connected with the clever spirits of the earth, so in midsummer he felt connected with the gay spirits dancing and jubilating in the cosmos, and flitting around the earth. I am simply describing what was felt.
Later, during August, and more especially September, the human soul felt it must now return to earth with the forces garnered from the cosmos during its summer withdrawal. With their help it could live more humanly during the winter season.
I repeat: It is a fact that during those ancient times man experienced the year's course with his whole being; considered its spiritual side as his own human concern.
He also felt the importance of training himself, at certain points of the year, in this intensive experience of the seasons; and such training bred impulses for the seasonal festivals. Later on, man would experience them only traditionally, only outwardly. But certain aspects would linger on. For example, the festivals of the summer and winter solstices would keep traces, but merely traces, of ancient, mighty and powerful experiences.
All this is connected with a revolution in the innermost consciousness of man. For ancient India it was quite impossible to speak of a “people,” a “folk.” Today this seems paradoxical; we find it hard to imagine that the feeling for such a thing arose only gradually. To be sure, the conditions of the earth made it necessary, even in the ancient Indian epoch, for inhabitants of the same territory to have closer ties than those living apart. But the concept of a people, the feeling of belonging to a folk, did not exist during the ancient Indian epoch.
Something different prevailed. People had a very vivid feeling for the succession of generations. A boy felt himself the son of his father, the grandson of his grandfather, the great-grandson of his great-grandfather. Of course, things were not dealt with the way we have to describe them with current concepts; but the latter are still appropriate. If we look into the mode of thought of that ancient time, we discover that within a family circle great emphasis was laid on an ability to enumerate one's forebears, grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather, right down the line to very remote ancestors. A man felt himself as standing within this succession of generations.
As a consequence, the sense of living in the present was little developed. To human beings of the ancient Indian time, an intimate connection with past generations (retained as a caricature in aristocracy's present-day stress on ancestry) seemed self-evident; they needed no family records. Indeed human consciousness itself, instinctively clairvoyant, made connections with a man's ancestry by remembering not merely his own personal experiences, but—almost as vividly—the experiences of his father and grandfather. Gradually these memories grew dim. But human consciousness would continue to experience them through the blood ties.
Thus in ancient times the capacity for feeling oneself within the generations played a significant role. Parallel to it there arose—though slowly—the folk concept, the sense of being part of a people. In ancient Persia it was not yet very pronounced. When a living consciousness of life within the generations, of blood relationship coursing through the centuries, had gradually faded, consciousness focused, instead, on the contemporary folk relationship.
The folk concept rose to its full significance in the third post-Atlantean or Egypto-Chaldean period. Though, during that epoch, awareness of the year's course was already somewhat deadened, there lived, right into the last millennium of the pre-Christian age, a vivid consciousness of the fact that thoughts permeate and govern the world.
In another connection I have already indicated the following: For a human being of the Egyptian period the idea that thoughts arise in us and then extend over things outside would have seemed comparable to the fancy of a man who, after drinking a glass of water, says his tongue produced the water. He is at liberty to imagine that his tongue produced the water, but in truth he draws the water from the entire water mass of the earth, which is a unity. It is only that an especially foolish person, unaware of the connection between the glassful of water and the earth's water mass, overestimates the abilities of his tongue. The people of the Egypto-Chaldean epoch made no similar mistake. They knew that thoughts do not arise in the head; that thoughts live everywhere; that what the human being draws into the vessel of his head as thought comes from the thought ocean of the world.
In that time, though man no longer experienced the visible cosmos in his divine ego, nor the course of the year in his astral nature, he did experience cosmic thoughts, the Logos, in his etheric body. If a member of the Egypto-Chaldean epoch had spoken our language, he would not, like us, have referred to man's physical body as of prime importance. To him it was the result of what lives as thought in the etheric body; was merely an image of human thought.
During that period the folk concept became more and more definite; the human being more and more an earth citizen. The connection between the starry world and his ego had, in his consciousness during this third post-Atlantean cultural period, dwindled greatly. Though astrology still calculated the connection, it was no longer seen in elemental consciousness. The course of the year, so important for the astral body, was no longer sensed in its immediacy. Yet man was still aware of a cosmic thought element.
He had arrived at the point where he sensed his relation to earthly gravity. Not exhaustively so, for he still had a vivid experience of thinking, but perceptibly.
During the Graeco-Latin period this experience of gravity developed more and more. Now the physical body became paramount. Everything has its deep significance at its proper time, and in all the manifestations of Greek culture we see this full, fresh penetration into the physical body. Especially in Greek art. For the early Greeks their bodies were something to rejoice over; the Greeks were like children with new clothes. They lived in their bodies with youthful exuberance.
In the course of the Graeco-Latin period, and particularly during Roman civilization, this fresh experience of the physical body gave way to something like that of a person in a robe of state who knows that wearing it gives him prestige. (Of course, the feeling was not expressed in words.) A Roman individual felt his physical body as a ceremonial robe bestowed by the world order.
The Greek felt tremendous joy that he had been allotted such a body and, after birth, could put it on; and it is this feeling that gives to Greek art, to Greek tragedy, to the epics of Homer, in their human element, insofar as they are connected with the outer physical appearance of man, their particular poetic fire. We have to look for the inner reasons for all psychological facts. Try to live into the joy that gushes forth from Homer's description of Hector or of Achilles. Feel what immense importance he attached to outer appearance.
With the Romans this joy subsided. Everything became settled; men began to grasp things with ordinary consciousness. It was during the fourth post-Atlantean cultural epoch that man first became an earth citizen. The conception of ego, astral body and ether body of earlier times withdrew into indefiniteness. The Greeks still had a clear sense for the truth that thought lives in things. (I have discussed this in Rätsel der Philosophie.) But the perception was gradually superseded by a belief that thought originates in man. In this fashion he grew more and more into his physical body.
Today we do not yet see that this situation began to change in the fifteenth century, at the start of the fifth post-Atlantean cultural epoch; that, since then, we have been gradually growing away from our bodies. We fancy that we feel as the Greeks felt about the human shape, but actually our feeling for it is dull. We have no more than a shadowlike sensation of the “quickfooted Achilles,” and little understanding of how this expression roused Greeks to a direct and striking perception of the hero; so striking that he stood before them in his essential nature. Indeed in all art we have gradually lost the experience of the permeation of the physical body by the soul; whereas in the last pre-Christian centuries the Greek felt how cosmic thought was disappearing and how thought could be taken hold of only by reflecting upon the human being. Presentday man is completely uncertain in regard to the nature of thought; he wavers.
A Greek of the sixth pre-Christian century would have considered it comical if somebody had asked him to solve the scientific problem of the connection of thought with the brain. He would not have seen it as a problem at all. He would have felt as we would feel if, when we picked up a watch, somebody demanded that we speculate philosophically about the connection between watch and hand. Say I investigate the flesh of my hand, then the glass and metal in my watch; then the relation between the flesh of my hand and the glass and metal in my watch; all in order to obtain philosophical insight into the reason why my hand has picked up and holds the watch. Well, if I were to proceed thus, modern consciousness would consider my gropings insane.
Just so it would have appeared insane to Greek consciousness if anyone had attempted, by reference to the nature of thought and the cerebellum, to explain the self-evident fact that man's being uses his brain to lay hold of thoughts. For the Greek this was a direct perception just as, for us, it is a direct perception that the hand takes hold of the watch; we do not consider it necessary to establish a scientific relation between watch and muscle. In the course of time problems arise according to the way things are perceived. For the Greek what we call the connection between thinking and organism was as self-evident as the connection between a watch and the hand that seizes it. He did not speculate about what was obvious. He knew instinctively how to relate his thoughts to himself.
If someone said: Well, there is only a hand; the watch ought to fall down, what really holds it? For the Greek this would have been as absurd as the question: What is it that develops thoughts in the brain? For us the latter has become a problem because we do not know that already we have liberated our thoughts, and are on our way to freeing them from ourselves. Also we do not know how to deal properly with thoughts because, being in the process of growing away from it, we no longer have a firm hold on our physical body.
I should like to use another comparison. We have not only clothes but pockets into which we can put things. This was the situation with the Greeks: their human bodies were something into which they could put thoughts, feelings, will impulses. Today we are uncertain what to do with thoughts, feelings and will impulses. It is as though, in spite of pockets, all our things fell to the ground; or as though, worried about what to do with then, we lugged them about in our hands. In other words, we are ignorant of the nature of our own organism, do not know what to do with our soul life in regard to it, contrive queer ideas with respect to psycho-parallelism, and so forth. I am saying all this to show how we have gradually become estranged from our physical bodies.
This fact is illustrated by the whole course of humanity's evolution. If we again turn our gaze to the ancient Indian time when the human being looked back through the succession of generations to a distant ancestor, we see that he felt no need to search for the gods anywhere but within the generations. Since, for the Hindu, man himself was divine, he remained within human evolution while looking for the divine in his forebears. Indeed the field of his search was precisely mankind's evolution.
There followed the time which culminated in the Egypto-Chaldean culture, when the folk concept rose to prominence and man beheld the divine in the various folk gods, in that which lived in blood relationships, not successively as before, but spatially side by side.
Then came the Greek period when man no longer felt god-imbued, when he became an earth citizen. Now for the first time there arose the necessity to seek the gods above the earth, to look up to the gods. By gazing at the stars, ancient man knew of the gods. But the Greek needed, in addition to the stars, the involvement of his personality in order to behold those gods; and this need kept increasing within mankind.
Today man must more and more develop the faculty of disregarding the physical, disregarding the physical starry sky, disregarding the physical course of the year, disregarding his sensations when confronting objects. For he can no longer behold his thoughts in matter. He must acquire the possibility of discovering the divine-spiritual as something special above and beyond the physical sense world before he can find it again within the sense world.
To emphasize this truth energetically is the task of anthroposophical spiritual science. Thus anthroposophical spiritual science grows out of the entire earthly evolution of mankind. We must always remember that Anthroposophy is not something arbitrarily created and placed as a program into mankind's evolution but, rather, something suited to our epoch, something resulting from the inner necessities of mankind's long history.
The fact that materialism holds sway over our age is, really, only a lagging behind. Man not only became an earth citizen in the Greek sense; today he is already so estranged from his earth citizenship he no longer understands how to handle his soul-spirit being in relation to his body—it is one of the needs of the age for the human being to behold spirit and soul in himself without the physical. Side by side with this deep soul-need, there exists materialism as an Ahrimanic stopping short at something natural in the age of the Greeks and Romans when one could still behold the spiritual in the physical, but not natural today.
Having remained stationary, we can no longer see the spiritual in the physical; we consider only the physical as such. This is materialism. It means that a current hostile to development has entered evolution. Mankind shuns the coining of new concepts; it prefers to continue on with the old. We must overcome this hostility toward development; must open ourselves to it. Then we shall acquire a quite natural relationship to anthroposophical growth of spirit, and pass over from antiquated needs to the truly modern need of mankind: namely, to raise ourselves to the spiritual.
In today's lecture I have tried to gain a viewpoint from which you can see how, for the present age, in the evolution of mankind, Anthroposophy constitutes a real necessity.
Erster Vortrag
Heute möchte ich anschließend an mancherlei, das ich in den letzten Zeiten vor Ihnen entwickelt habe, noch einmal eine Art von Betrachtung anstellen über die Entwickelung der Menschheit in der nachatlantischen Zeit und dabei dann auf einiges aufmerksam machen, das sich am besten gerade im Anschlusse an die vorangegangenen Betrachtungen ergeben wird.
Wenn wir zurückblicken in der Entwickelung der Menschheit, so müssen wir sagen, die Epochen, die wir in der anthroposophischen Geisteswissenschaft annehmen, um eine Überschau zu haben über die Menschheitsentwickelung, sind durchaus aus der besonderen Seelen- und überhaupt menschlichen Beschaffenheit innerhalb dieser Epochen herausgebildet. Diese menschliche Beschaffenheit unterscheidet sich doch recht sehr in den einzelnen Epochen. Nur hat man heute wenig Geneigtheit, hinauszusehen gerade über die heutige Seelen- und Menschheitsverfassung, und man konstruiert sich die Entwickelung der Menschheit so zurück, als ob etwa in der historischen Zeit, die man nach Dokumenten verfolgt, wenn auch eine Zivilisations-Entwickelung stattgefunden hat, die man nach äußeren Dokumenten beschreibt, doch im allgemeinen die Seelenverfassung immer dieselbe gewesen wäre. In Wahrheit hat sich diese Seelenverfassung geändert, und wir kennen die Zeitpunkte, in denen sie sozusagen eine äußerlich deutlich bemerkbare Umwandelung erfahren hat.
Der letzte dieser Zeitpunkte ist oftmals genannt worden als der des 15. nachchristlichen Jahrhunderts. Der nächstvorangehende war der des 8. vorchristlichen Jahrhunderts, und so könnten wir dann weiter zurückgehen. Es ist auch oftmals in unseren Kreisen betont worden, wie richtig es eigentlich ist, wenn von einem Kunsthistoriker wie Herman Grimm darauf hingewiesen wird, daß eigentlich das volle Verständnis, das volle historische Verständnis der Menschen der Gegenwart nur bis in die Römerzeit zurückgreift. Da setzen sich in den Seelen dieselben Vorstellungen fest, annähernd wenigstens dieselben Vorstellungen, die heute noch immer, manchmal sogar in einer schlimmen Weise, geltend sind, indem sie sich fortgeerbt haben wie etwa die römischen Rechtsbegritfe, die mit unserem sozialen Leben gar nicht mehr stimmen, und so weiter. Aber immerhin, durch die ganze Art und Weise, wie der Mensch der Gegenwart sich in das allgemeine soziale Leben hineinlebt, hat er noch ein Verständnis für dasjenige, was bis ins Römertum zurückgreift. Gehen wir dagegen ins Griechentum zurück, so wird zwar auch äußerlich historisch beschrieben nach dem Muster dessen, was später ist, aber man dringt damit in das eigentliche Seelenwesen des Griechen gar nicht hinein. Und Herman Grimm hat recht, wenn er sagt: Die menschlichen Gestalten, welche gewöhnlich von der Geschichte als die Griechen geschildert werden, sind eigentlich schattenhaft, so wie sie geschildert werden. — Man sieht da mit dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein nicht mehr in dasjenige hinein, was in den Seelen gelebt hat, kann daher auch das soziale Gefüge nicht in der richtigen Weise verstehen. Noch viel verschiedener von unserem Seelenleben ist dann das Seelenleben der Menschen in der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Periode, die hinter dem 8. vorchristlichen Jahrhundert liegt, noch verschiedener in der urpersischen Epoche, wie ich sie genannt habe in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft», und ganz verschieden von dem, was wir heute vom Morgen bis zum Abend in unserem Seelenleben fühlen, ist dann das Seelenleben der urindischen Epoche, der ersten Epoche, die der großen atlantischen Katastrophe gefolgt ist.
Aber mit Hilfe der Geisteswissenschaft läßt sich herausfinden, welche Verschiedenheit in diesen Epochen in bezug auf die Gesamtverfassung des Menschen eigentlich geherrscht hat. Und da muß man sagen, so über den Menschen zu fühlen, annähernd so, wie wir das heute tun, das ist eigentlich erst aus der vierten nachatlantischen Epoche herübergekommen. Daß man so, wie es heute üblich ist, von Leib, Seele, Geist, vom Ich im Menschen redet und einen inneren Zusammenhang des Menschen mit dem Erdenplaneten fühlt, hat die Menschheit der Gegenwart aus der vierten nachatlantischen Epoche. Aber so ist das Leben erst im Laufe der Zeit geworden. Man möchte sagen, so erdgebunden ist es erst geworden, so daß der Mensch sich durchaus nur im Zusammenhange mit der Erde fühlt, sich dem Kosmos gegenüber fremd fühlt, daß er die Sterne, die Sternbewegungen, man möchte sagen schon die Wolken als etwas betrachtet, was außerhalb seines irdischen Wohnplatzes liegt und nur eine geringe Bedeutung für ihn hat. Das ganze Fühlen, ja auch die Impulse des Wollens der Menschen, die vor der griechisch-lateinischen Epoche liegen, waren, wenn ich mich des Ausdruckes bedienen darf, elementar-kosmisch. Der Mensch brauchte nicht erst eine Philosophie, um sich als ein Glied des ganzen Weltenalls zu fühlen, vor allen Dingen zunächst des sichtbaren Weltenalls. Es war dem Menschen natürlich, war für ihn eine Selbstverständlichkeit, sich nicht nur als Erdenbürger zu fühlen, sondern sich als ein Glied des ganzen Kosmos zu fühlen.
Insbesondere in der ersten, in der urindischen Epoche, also wenn wir in das siebente, achte Jahrtausend der vorchristlichen Zeit zurückgehen, finden wir, daß der Mensch ganz anderes, vielleicht kann ich nicht sagen sprach, aber fühlte von dem, was wir heute Ich nennen. Gewiß, die Menschen haben sich in der damaligen Zeit überhaupt nicht so über die Dinge ausgesprochen, weil die menschliche Sprache sich nicht in solcher Weise auf die Dinge erstreckt hat wie heute, aber wir müssen die Dinge in unsere Sprache hineinbekommen. Und so möchte ich sagen, der Angehörige der urindischen Epoche sprach nicht von dem Ich so wie wir heute, daß es gewissermaßen eine Art Punkt ist, der die Seelenerlebnisse zusammenfaßt, sondern wenn in der urindischen Zeit von dem Ich gesprochen wurde, so war es selbstverständlich, daß das Ich überhaupt mit der Erde und ihren Ereignissen wenig zu tun hat. Indem der Mensch sich als ein Ich fühlte, fühlte er sich eigentlich gar nicht als der Erde angehörig, fühlte sich als Ich im Zusammenhange zunächst mit dem Fixsternhimmel. Von dem Fix sternhimmel hatte er das Gefühl, der gibt ihm die Festigkeit seines Ich, gibt ihm das Gefühl, daß er überhaupt ein Ich hat. Und dieses Ich wurde gar nicht als ein menschliches Ich gefühlt. Mensch war der Mensch nur dadurch, daß er auf Erden mit einem physischen Leibe umkleidet wurde. Durch diesen physischen Leib, der als eine Art Schale des Ich angesehen wurde, war der Mensch Erdenbürger. Aber das Ich wurde eigentlich innerhalb des Irdischen immer als etwas Fremdes angesehen. Und wollten wir heute einen Namen prägen für die Art, wie das Ich angesehen wurde, so müßte man sagen: Der Mensch fühlte dazumal gar nicht menschliches Ich, sondern göttliches Ich.
Der Mensch hätte hinaussehen können zu allem möglichen Gestein, zu den Bergen, zu den Felsen, er hätte alles ansehen können, was sonst auf der Erde ist, wenn er von alledem gesagt hat, es ist, es existiert, so würde er aber zu gleicher Zeit in diesen alten Zeiten empfunden haben, wenn es nur dieses Sein gäbe, das es auf der Erde in Steinen, in Pflanzen, in Flüssen, in Bergen, in Felsen gibt, dann könnten wir Menschen kein Ich haben. Denn alles das, was diesen irdischen Dingen und Wesenheiten die Existenz garantiert, könnte dem Ich keine Existenz garantieren. - Der Mensch fühlte nicht ein menschliches Ich in sich, sondern ein göttliches Ich. Das göttliche Ich war ihm ein 'Iropfen aus dem Meere des Göttlichen. Aber wenn er vom Ich reden wollte - ich sage das mit den Einschränkungen, die ich gerade vorhin gemacht habe -, so fühlte er zunächst das Ich als ein Geschöpf des Fixsternhimmels. Den Fixsternhimmel empfand er als das einzige, was ein solches Sein hat. Weil das Ich ein ähnliches Sein hat wie der Fixsternhimmel, kann das Ich überhaupt von sich sagen «Ich bin». Konnte das Ich nur nach Maßgabe des Seins eines Steines oder der Pflanzenwelt oder der Berge und Felsen sagen «Ich bin», so würde das Ich kein. Recht haben zu sagen «Ich bin». Nur weil das Ich sternenhaft ist, kann es sagen «Ich bin». Weil die Existenz, welche die Sterne haben, in dem Ich lebt, kann das Ich sagen «Ich bin». Die Menschen dieser uralten Menschheitsepoche haben gesehen, da draußen fließen die Flüsse, da bewegen sich die Bäume durch den Wind. Aber wenn man von dem menschlichen Ich, das den physischen Menschenleib bewohnt und in sich den Impuls hat, ich gehe dahin, ich gehe dorthin, ich bewege mich auf der Erde - wenn man von diesem Ich als dem Aktiven in der Bewegung nur so sagen könnte, es bewegt den Körper, wie man sagen kann, der Wind bewegt die Bäume, oder wie man überhaupt von irgend etwas auf der Erde, das in Bewegung sein kann, sagt, es bewegt sich, dann würde man kein Recht haben, dem Ich einen Bewegungsimpuls zuzuschreiben.
Etwa so würde der Lehrer in den Mysterien zu seinen Schülern in jener alten Zeit gesagt haben: Ihr könnt sehen, wie die Bäume bewegt werden, wie die Gewässer in den Flüssen fließen, wie das Meer sich bewegt. Aber weder von den Bäumen, die sich bewegen, noch von dem Wasser, das in den Flüssen sich bewegt, noch von den Wellen, die das Meer aufwirft, könnte das Ich jemals lernen, jene Bewegungsimpulse zu entwickeln, welche der Mensch entwickelt, wenn er seinen Körper in Bewegung über die Erde trägt. Das kann das Ich von einem bewegten Erdending niemals lernen. Das kann das Ich nur lernen, weil es der Bewegung der Planeten, der Sternenbewegung angehört. Nur von Mars, von Jupiter, von Venus kann das Ich sich bewegen lernen. Und wenn das Ich willkürlich sich auf Erden bewegt, so führt das Ich etwas aus, was es dadurch ist, daß es der sich bewegenden, planetarischen Sternenwelt angehört. — Weiter würde es einem Menschen dieser alten Menschheitsepoche ganz unbegreiflich erschienen sein, wenn jemand gesagt hätte: Sieh einmal, da steigen aus deinem Gehirn Gedanken heraus. - Wenn man sich heute zurückversetzt in die Seelenverfassung, die man selber gehabt hat — denn wir sind durch die Leben in der alten urindischen Epoche durchgegangen —, und man stellt sich dann der heutigen Seelenverfassung gegenüber, in der man glaubt, daß die Gedanken aus dem Gehirn herauskommen, so erscheint dem alten Menschen, der man selber war, das, was der neue Mensch glaubt, ganz unsinnig, durchaus unsinnig, denn der alte Mensch wußte, Gedanken könnten niemals aus einer Gehirnmasse herauskommen. Er wußte, daß die Sonne dasjenige ist, was die Gedanken erregt, und daß der Mond dasjenige ist, was die Gedanken wiederum beruhigt. Er schrieb der Wechselwirkung von Sonne und Mond das Leben der Gedanken in sich selber zu. So wurde das göttliche Ich in der ersten nachatlantischen Epoche, in der urindischen Zeit, als etwas, was dem Fixsternhimmel angehört, was den planetarischen Bewegungen angehört, angesehen, was der Wechselwirkung von Sonne und Mond angehört. Eigentlich betrachtete man das, was das Ich von der Erde hat, etwa so wie Ereignisse, die an dem kosmisch-göttlichen Ich vorübergingen, während das Wesen des Ich durchaus kosmisch-göttlicher Natur für diese alten Zeiten war.
Die zweite Epoche habe ich in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft» die urpersische genannt. Da war die Lebendigkeit der Anschauung des kosmischen Ich nicht mehr so wie in der urindischen. Da war gewissermaßen diese Anschauung schon abgedämpft. Aber der Mensch erlebte in dieser Zeit in intensiver Weise den Jahreslauf mit, von dem ich in den letzten Zeiten öfters hier gesprochen habe. Heute ist der Mensch eigentlich ein Regenwurm geworden, nun ja, es ist natürlich ein Bild, er ist ein Regenwurm geworden, weil er so fortlebt - nicht einmal ein Regenwurm, denn der kommt sogar aus seiner Erdenwohnung heraus, wenn es regnet, aber nicht wahr, der Mensch lebt heute so fort. Es ergibt sich nichts Besonderes für ihn als höchstens so abstrakte Unterschiede: Wir sind unangenehm berührt, wenn es regnet und wir keinen Regenschirm haben, wir richten uns nach Schnee im Winter und Sonnenschein im Sommer, gehen aufs Land und so ähnliche Dinge. - Also wir leben schon den Jahreslauf mit, aber in einer furchtbar schattenhaften Weise. Wir leben ihn nicht mehr mit unserem ganzen Menschtum mit. Mit unserem ganzen Menschtum erlebten wir den Jahreslauf in der urpersischen Epoche. Da war es so, daß der Mensch, wenn die Weihnachtszeit da war, empfand: Ja, jetzt ist die Erdenseele mit der Erde vereinigt, jetzt umkleidet sich die Erde mit der Schneedecke, die heute für die Menschen nichts anderes ist als gefrorenes Wasser. Aber dazumal war es das Kleid, mit dem sich die Erde umkleidet, um sich abzuschließen vom Kosmos, um ein individuell-selbständiges Leben im Kosmos zu entwickeln, weil die Seele der Erde sich mit der Erde innig verbunden hat während der Herbstesmonate bis in die Zeit, die wir heute als die Weihnachtszeit bezeichnen. Die Menschen fühlten auch: Ja, jetzt ist die Erdenseele mit der Erde vereint. - Der Mensch mußte mit seinem Seelenhaften selber sich hinkehren zu demjenigen, was in der Erde lebt. Der Mensch fühlte gewissermaßen die mit der Erde vereinte Erdenseele unter der Schneedecke. Seelisch durchsichtig wurde die Schneedecke für den Menschen. Er fühlte die Elementargeister unter der Schneedecke, welche die Kraft der Pflanzensamen über den Winter hinübertragen bis zum nächsten Frühling. Kam dann die Frühlingszeit, so fühlte er, wie die Erde ihre Seele gewissermaßen ausatmete, wie die Erde danach strebte, ihr Seelenhaftes dem Kosmos zu öffnen, und er ging selber mit in seinem Fühlen und Empfinden mit diesem Sich-Öffnen der Erde gegenüber dem Kosmos. Er fing an, dasjenige, was er während der Winterzeit an Anhänglichkeit, an SeelenAnhänglichkeit der Erde gegenüber entwickelt hat, zum Kosmos hinaufzuheben.
Freilich, der Mensch konnte in dieser Zeit nicht mehr bloß zu dem Kosmos hinaufschauen wie in der unmittelbar vorangehenden Epoche, wo es ihm klar war, wenn ich zum Kosmos hinaufschaue, sehe ich das, was meinem Ich Existenz und Bewegung und Gedanken gibt. Aber er sah dann ahnend zum Kosmos hinauf und sagte sich: Dasjenige, was mich im Winter mit der Erde verbindet, fordert mich auf, mich jetzt ahnend in den Kosmos zu erheben. - Er wußte nicht mehr so intensiv wie in der älteren Zeit seinen Zusammenhang mit dem Kosmos, aber er empfand ihn in einer gewissen Weise ahnend. Wie sich das Ich in den alten, urindischen Zeiten als kosmisch erlebte, so erlebte sich das Astralische im Menschen in der urpersischen Zeit als dasjenige, was mit dem Jahreslauf ging. Der Mensch lebte den Jahreslauf mit. Der Mensch wurde gewissermaßen ernst, wenn er im Winter seelisch die Schneedecke unten sah, wurde ernst gestimmt; er ging in sich. Er stellte damals das an, was wir heute Gewissenserforschen nennen würden. Er öffnete sich mit einer gewissen Froheit dem Kosmos, wenn der Frühling herankam. Er ging, ich möchte sagen in einer gewissen Entrücktheit in das Kosmische auf, nicht mehr in der klaren Weise wie in der urindischen Zeit, aber in einer gewissen Entrücktheit, indem er sich froh fühlte, entrissen dem menschlichen Leiblichen gerade in der Mitte der Sommerzeit, in der Zeit, die wir heute die Johannizeit nennen würden. Wie er sich im Winter verbunden fühlte mit den klugen Geistern der Erde, so fühlte er sich während der Hochsommerzeit verbunden mit den immerdar im Kosmos, ich möchte sagen tanzenden und jubelnden, frohen Geistern, welche die Erde umschwammen. Ich beschreibe nur, wie gefühlt wurde.
Dann wiederum fing die Menschenseele an zu fühlen, wenn es gegen unsere jetzige August-, Septemberzeit namentlich zuging, wie sie wieder zur Erde zurückkehren müsse, wie sie aber Kräfte bekommen hat, die sie während ihrer Entrücktheit in der Sommerzeit vom Kosmos hereingeholt hat, die möglich machen, mehr innerlich menschlich zu leben während der Winterzeit. Es war das tatsächlich so, daß man in jenen alten Zeiten mit dem ganzen Menschen das Leben des Jahreslaufes miterlebte, so daß man das Geistige des Jahreslaufes als seine eigene menschliche Sache empfand. Und dazumal war es, wo man es als wichtig fühlte, an gewissen Zeitpunkten des Jahreslaufes zu lernen, intensiv mit diesem Jahreslauf mitzufühlen. In dieser Zeit entstanden die Impulse zu den eigentlichen Festen. Später haben die Menschen das Festliche im Laufe des Jahres mehr oder weniger nur noch traditionell empfunden. Manches blieb wie die Sonnenwende-Feste, die nur noch Spuren von dem Miterleben des Jahreslaufes zeigen. Dieses Miterleben des Jahreslaufes war in jenen älteren Zeiten ein mächtiges, ein intensives.
Damit aber war auch eine völlige Änderung im innersten Bewußtsein des Menschen verbunden. In der urindischen Zeit wäre es den Menschen ziemlich unmöglich erschienen, wenn ihnen jemand gesprochen hätte vom Volk. Es erscheint das den Menschen heute paradox, weil sie sich nicht vorstellen können, daß auch das Fühlen innerhalb des Volkes erst aufgekommen ist. Gewiß, die Verhältnisse der Erde machten auch in der urindischen Epoche notwendig, daß die Menschen, die zusammen auf einem Territorium wohnten, engere Beziehungen hatten als weiter hin aus, aber der Volksbegriff, das Gefühl, einem Volke anzugehören, war in der urindischen Epoche nicht vorhanden. Da war etwas anderes vorhanden. Da war ein sehr lebendiges Gefühl für die Generationenfolge vorhanden. Der Sohn empfand sich als der Sohn des Vaters, als der Enkel des Großvaters, als der Urenkel des Urgroßvaters. So wurden allerdings die Dinge nicht gemacht, wie man sie heute aus unseren gangbaren Begriffen beschreiben muß, aber man kann sie so beschreiben, denn man trifft damit doch das Richtige. Wenn man hineinschauen würde in die Denkweise jener alten Zeit, so würde man finden, daß innerhalb der Familie strenge darauf gesehen wurde, daß man angeben konnte, wie weit man hinaufzählen konnte, wer der Großvater, Urgroßvater, Ururgroßvater war, wie man hinaufzählen konnte bis zu einem sehr, sehr fernen Ahnen. In der Generationenfolge fühlte man sich. Damit fühlte man sich auch viel weniger in der Gegenwart als später. Man fühlte sich innig verbunden mit der Generationenfolge. Was in einer karikaturhaften Art im Adelsprinzip zurückgeblieben ist, im Generationen-Fühlen im Adelsprinzip, im Ahnenprinzip, war in der urindischen Zeit etwas, was für jeden Menschen ein Selbstverständliches war, man brauchte da nicht Familienchroniken dazu. Deshalb war es ganz anders in jenen alten Zeiten, denn das menschliche Bewußtsein selber gab im instinktiven Hellsehen einen Zusammenhang mit der Ahnenreihe, indem man sich in einer gewissen Weise nicht nur an die eigenen persönlichen Erlebnisse erinnerte, sondern fast noch so lebendig, wie man sich an die eigenen Erlebnisse erinnerte, sich dazumal an die Erlebnisse des Vaters, des Großvaters erinnerte. Diese Erinnerungen wurden immer schattenhafter, aber das menschliche Bewußtsein hatte innerhalb der Blutsfolge der Generationen einen Zusammenhang. Also, das Fühlen in den Generationen war es dazumal namentlich, was eine bedeutende Rolle spielte. Der Volksbegriff, das Sich-Fühlen im Volke, kam parallel damit herauf, aber auch langsam. Im urpersischen Zeitalter war es noch gar nicht in starker Weise ausgeprägt, es kam erst langsam herauf im Laufe der Zeit. Als man nicht mehr das lebendige Bewußtsein hatte, in den Generationen zu leben, da füllte sich das Bewußtsein aus mit dem Volkszusammenhang, gewissermaßen mit. dem gegenwärtigen Volkszusammenhang, während in jener ältesten Zeit der Blutszusammenhang im Zeitenlaufe das Wesentliche war, worauf man sah.
Sehen Sie, voll bedeutsam wurde der Volksbegriff erst in der dritten nachatlantischen Periode, in der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Periode. Aber in der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Epoche war schon wiederum dieses Bewußtsein vom Jahreslauf etwas abgelähmt. Dagegen war allerdings in dieser Epoche bis in das letzte Jahrtausend der vorchristlichen Zeit hinein ein lebendiges Bewußtsein davon vorhanden, daß die Welt von Gedanken regiert wird, daß Gedanken überall in der Welt leben. Ich habe schon in einem anderen Zusammenhange angedeutet, die Anschauung, die wir heute haben, daß Gedanken in uns entstehen und über die Dinge draußen sich erstrecken, wäre einem Menschen der damaligen Zeit ungefähr so vorgekommen, wie wenn heute einer ein Glas Wasser trinkt und sagt, meine Zunge bringt das Wasser hervor. Es kann sich ja einer einbilden, seine Zunge bringe das Wasser hervor, in Wahrheit schöpft er das Wasser aus der ganzen Wassermenge der Erde, die ein Einheitliches ist. Aber es könnte einer glauben, wenn er besonders einfältig wäre, wenn er zum Beispiel nicht diesen Zusammenhang seiner Wassermenge im Glase mit der Wassermenge der ganzen Erde sehen würde, das Wasser entstünde auf seiner Zunge. Dasselbe würden die Angehörigen der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Epoche eingewendet haben, wenn ihnen irgend jemand gesagt hätte, Gedanken entstehen im Kopfe. Sie wußten, überall in der Welt leben Gedanken. Dasjenige, was aus dem Gedankenmeere der Welt der Mensch in dieses Gefäß seines Kopfes schöpft, ist herausgeschöpft aus dem Gedankenmeere der Welt. In dieser Zeitepoche erlebte man nicht mehr mit das Sichtbare des Kosmos im göttlichen Ich, oder den Jahreslauf im astralischen Menschen, aber man erlebte mit die Weltgedanken, den Logos, im ätherischen Leibe. Vom physischen Leibe des Menschen hätte ein Angehöriger der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Epoche, wenn er sich unserer Ausdrücke bedient hätte, gar nicht so gesprochen, wie wir sprechen. Wir reden von diesem physischen Leib wie von etwas, was die Hauptsache beim Menschen ist. Der Angehörige der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Epoche hat den Leib so empfunden, daß er in ihm nur das Ergebnis desjenigen gesehen hat, was im ätherischen Leibe gedankenhaft lebt. Ein Bild des Menschengedankens war für den Angehörigen dieser Epoche der physische Leib des Menschen. Er hat ihm nicht jene Wichtigkeit beigemessen, die wir ihm heute beimessen. Während dieser Zeit bildete sich dann immer mehr. und mehr zu einer Bestimmtheit gerade der Volksbegriff aus. Und so können wir sagen: Der Mensch wurde immer mehr und mehr Erdenbürger. Sein Zusammenhang mit der Sternenwelt und seinem Ich war ihm in der dritten nachatlantischen Kulturperiode schon ziemlich abhanden gekommen. Man errechnete noch in der Astrologie diesen Zusammenhang, aber man schaute ihn nicht mehr im elementaren Bewußtsein. Der Jahreslauf, der für den astralischen Leib wichtig ist, wurde nicht mehr in seiner Unmittelbarkeit empfunden. Aber immerhin, das Gedankliche des Kosmos fühlte man noch. Der Mensch war sozusagen schon mehr dazu gekommen, das Erdenschwere als sein Wesen zu empfinden. Nur empfand er den Gedanken als etwas so Lebendiges, daß er noch nicht dieses Wesen erschöpft glaubte in dem Erdenschweren.
Das fand erst Geltung in der griechisch-lateinischen Kulturepoche und bildete sich immer mehr und mehr während dieser Kulturepoche aus. Da wurde dem Menschen erst der physische Leib das Wichtige. Es hat natürlich alles in seiner Zeit seine tiefe Berechtigung, und wir sehen gerade an der griechischen Kultur dieses volle, frische Sich-Hineinleben in den physischen Leib an allen einzelnen Ergebnissen der griechischen Kultur. Ich möchte sagen, insbesondere der griechischen Kunst sieht man dieses Sich-Hineinleben in den physischen Leib an. Wirklich, für die Griechen der älteren Zeit namentlich war dieser physische Leib etwas, was sie empfanden so wie ein Kind, wenn es Freude hat über neue Kleider, weil das Hineinfühlen in den physischen Leib jugendfrisch war — man lebte sich hinein. Als die griechisch-lateinische Epoche dann weiterging, und als namentlich das Römertum ausgebildet war, fühlte man nicht mehr das Frische des Sich-Hineinlebens in den physischen Leib, man fühlte schon mehr den physischen Leib, nun, wie soll ich sagen, wie einer, der ein Staatskleid hat und weiß, daß er durch die Staatsuniform etwas bedeutet. So ungefähr war das Gefühl, das natürlich nicht mit Worten so ausgesprochen wurde, das aber im ganzen Fühlen und Empfinden lag. Der Römer empfand seinen physischen Leib als das ihm von der Weltenordnung zugedachte Staatskleid. Der Grieche hatte die ungeheure Freude, daß er nun, nachdem er geboren worden ist, sich mit etwas anziehen kann, daß ihm zuerteilt war solch ein physischer Leib. Das gab auch der griechischen Kunst, der Tragödie, gab den Dichtungen Homers jenen eigentümlichen Schwung in der Schilderung und in der Darstellung des Menschlichen, sofern dieses Menschliche auch mit der äußeren physischen Erscheinung des Menschen zusammenhängt. Man muß für alle psychologischen Tatsachen die inneren Gründe aufsuchen. Versuchen Sie nur einmal, sich hineinzuversetzen in die Art der Freude, die bei Homer von der Schilderung des Hektor, des Achill und so weiter ausströmt, wie da das Äußere geschildert wird, wie der große Wert gelegt wird auf die Schilderung des Äußeren. Im Römertum hat sich das gesetzt. Das Romanische ist überhaupt etwas, wo alles gewissermaßen gesetzt wird, wo dasjenige anfängt, was wir noch mit unserem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein verstehen können. Denn in dieser vierten nachatlantischen Kulturepoche wird der Mensch erst eigentlich Erdenbürger. Und in ein Unbestimmtes zieht sich dasjenige zurück, was früher die Anschauung über Ich, astralischen Leib, Ätherleib war. Die Griechen haben noch ein lebendiges Gefühl, daß der Gedanke in den Dingen lebt. Ich habe das in meinen «Rätseln der Philosophie» dargestellt. Dann wird das allmählich überwunden. Man kommt zu dem Glauben, daß der Gedanke nur im Menschen entstehe. Und immer mehr und mehr wächst der Mensch in dieser Art in seinen physischen Leib hinein.
In der Gegenwart hat man nun noch kein rechtes Gefühl davon, wie eigentlich sich das in der fünften nachatlantischen Kulturepoche, die seit dem 15. Jahrhundert erst da ist, geändert hat. Wir wachsen aus unserem physischen Leibe wieder heraus, nur merken wir es noch nicht. Wir phantasieren noch, könnte man sagen, von dem, was ein Grieche bei der menschlichen Gestalt gefühlt hat. Aber unser Gefühl ist sehr dumpf. Wenn wir schattenhaft den schnellfüßigen Achilleus empfinden, so ist dieses Gefühl dumpf. Daß das überhaupt für den Griechen etwas war, was ihm eine unmittelbare, ich möchte sagen schlaghafte Anschauung von dem Achilleus gab, daß Achilleus in seinem Wesenhaften vor ihm stand, fühlen wir viel zu schattenhaft. Und wir sind in bezug auf alle Kunst aus dem Durchdringen des physischen Leibes mit menschlicher Seele herausgewachsen. Während der Grieche in den letzten Jahrhunderten der vorchristlichen Zeit fühlte, wie ihm der kosmische Gedanke entschwand, wie der Gedanke nur mehr erfaßt werden konnte, wenn man auf den Menschen zurückreflektierte, ist heute dem Gedanken gegenüber vollständige Unsicherheit bei den Menschen vorhanden. Sehen Sie, einem Griechen etwa des 6. Jahrhunderts der vorchristlichen Zeit wäre es furchtbar komisch vorgekommen, wenn man ihm zugemutet hätte, die wissenschaftliche Frage zu lösen, wie der Gedanke mit dem Gehirn zusammenhängt. Er hätte gar nicht empfunden, daß es eine solche Frage geben kann, denn was eigentlich in diesem Satze liegt, wäre ihm als etwas ganz Selbstverständliches erschienen. Etwa so hätte er gesagt wie wir, wenn wir sagen würden: Ich nehme die Uhr in die Hand. Da soll ich jetzt anfangen, philosophisch nachzuspekulieren, welche Beziehung zwischen der Uhr und meiner Hand ist. Ich untersuche das Fleisch in meiner Hand, ich untersuche das Glas und das Metall in meiner Uhr. Da untersuche ich die Beziehungen zwischen dem Fleisch in meiner Hand und dem Glas und dem Metall in meiner Uhr, um daraus eine philosophische Einsicht zu bekommen, warum meine Hand die Uhr ergriffen hat und hält. - Ja, wenn ich das machen würde, nicht wahr, es wäre irrsinnig für das heutige Bewußtsein. So irrsinnig wäre es dem alten griechischen Bewußtsein erschienen, das Selbstverständliche, daß die menschliche Wesenheit durch das Gehirn Gedanken ergreift, aus dem Wesen der Gedanken oder aus dem Wesen des Gehirnes erklären zu wollen, denn man hat das in der unmittelbaren Anschauung, wie man es in der Anschauung hat, daß die Hand die Uhr nimmt, und man hält es doch nicht für notwendig, das Metall der Uhr mit dem Muskelfleisch irgendwie in eine wissenschaftliche Beziehung zu setzen. Die Probleme ergeben sich im Laufe der Zeit je nach der Art und Weise, wie man die Dinge anschaut. Es war für den Griechen selbstverständlich, was wir heute den Zusammenhang zwischen Denken und Organismus nennen, so selbstverständlich wie der Zusammenhang mit der Uhr und der Hand, wenn ich die Uhr ergreife. Er spekulierte nicht darüber nach, es war für ihn selbstverständlich. Er wußte, wie er die Gedanken mit seinem Menschen zusammenzubringen hat. Das wußte er, instinktiv wußte er das.
Wenn ich nun fragen würde, ja, da ist doch nur eine Hand, und die Uhr müßte eigentlich herunterfallen, warum hält sich denn diese Uhr? - so wäre das für den Griechen noch dieselbe Frage gewesen, wie wenn wir heute fragen: Was entwickelt die Gedanken in dem Gehirn? Das ist für uns eine Frage geworden, weil wir gar nicht mehr wissen, wie wir den Gedanken schon losgelöst haben. Wir sind auf dem Wege, die Gedanken wieder vom Menschen loszulösen, und wir wissen nicht, was wir mit den Gedanken anfangen sollen, weil wir den physischen Leib nicht mehr haben; wir sind schon wieder auf dem Wege, aus ihm herauszuwachsen. Ich möchte noch einen anderen Vergleich gebrauchen. Man hat nicht nur Kleider, sondern auch Taschen darinnen, man kann etwas hineinstekken. Ja, so war es bei den Griechen. Der menschliche Leib war etwas, was Gedanken, Gefühle, Willensimpulse gewissermaßen in sich hineinstecken konnte. Heute wissen wir nicht, was wir mit den Gedanken, Gefühlen und Willensimpulsen am Menschen anfangen sollen. Es ist so, wie wenn wir Taschen hätten in unseren Kleidern, und alle Sachen herunterfallen würden, oder wenn wir ängstlich würden, was wir mit ihnen anfangen sollen, sie gewissermaßen immer nur in der Hand schleppen wollten, weil wir uns nicht bewußt sind, daß wir Taschen haben. So sind wir uns nicht der Natur unseres Organismus bewußt, wissen nicht, was wir mit dem Seelenleben gegenüber dem Organismus anfangen sollen, denken die kuriosesten Ideen aus in bezug auf psychophysischen Parallelismus und so weiter. Das wäre aber für ein griechisches Bewußtsein so, wie wenn ein Mensch, der nicht sieht, daß er Taschen hat, gar nicht darauf kommt, in diese Taschen etwas hineinzustecken, daß sie dazu da sind. Ich will aber das alles nur aus dem Grunde sagen, um anzudeuten, wie wir nach und nach wiederum fremd werden unserem physischen Leibe.
Das ist nun auch im Gange der Menschheitsentwickelung begründet. Wenn wir noch einmal zurückblicken zu der urindischen Zeit, wie der Mensch hinaufsah in der Generationenreihe bis zu einem fernen Ahnen - ja, er hatte nicht das Bedürfnis, die Götter woanders zu suchen als in dieser Generationenreihe. Er blieb, weil ihm der Mensch selber ein Göttliches war, ganz stehen in der menschlichen Entwickelung, suchte in der Vorfahrenschaft das Göttliche. Es war die Menschheitsentwickelung das Feld, wo er das Göttliche suchte.
Dann kam die Zeit, die ihre Hochblüte hatte in der ägyptischchaldäischen Kultur, wo der Volksbegriff besonders hoch gekommen war. Da sah man das Göttliche in den einzelnen Volksgöttern, in dem, was nun räumlich nebeneinander der Blutsverwandtschaft gemäß lebte.
Dann kam die Griechenzeit, wo der Mensch sich gewissermaßen entgöttert fühlte, wo er Erdenbürger geworden war. Da kam erst die Notwendigkeit, die Götter über der Erde zu suchen, hinaufzuschauen zu den Göttern. Der alte Mensch wußte von den Göttern, indem er zu den Sternen sah. Der Grieche schon brauchte zu den Sternen hinzu noch etwas aus Eigenem, um zu den Göttern zu schauen. Dieses Bedürfnis aber wird nun immer größer innerhalb der Menschheit. Die Menschheit muß immer mehr und mehr die Fähigkeit entwickeln, abzusehen vom Physischen, abzusehen vom physischen Sternenhimmel, abzusehen vom physischen Jahreslaufe, abzusehen von dem, was der Mensch empfindet, indem er den Gegenständen gegenübersteht — heute, wo er nicht mehr die Gedanken bei den Gegenständen schauen kann. Der Mensch muß die Möglichkeit erwerben, das Göttlich-Geistige als ein Besonderes über und außer dem Sinnlich-Physischen erst zu entdecken, damit er es wiederum in dem Sinnlich-Physischen finden kann.
Das energisch geltend zu machen, ist gerade die Aufgabe der anthroposophischen Geisteswissenschaft. Und in dieser Art wächst anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft aus der ganzen Menschheitsentwickelung auf der Erde heraus. Wir haben immer darauf zu sehen, daß Anthroposophie nicht etwas ist, was durch irgendeine Willkür herbeigeholt wird und als ein Programm in die Menschheitsentwickelung hineingestellt wird, sondern etwas ist, was sich aus den inneren Notwendigkeiten der Menschheitsentwickelung für unsere Zeitepoche ergibt. Es ist im Grunde genommen nur ein Zurückbleiben, daß in unserer Zeit der Materialismus sich geltend machen kann. Dem wirklichen Zeitbedürfnisse entspricht es, gerade weil der Mensch nicht nur Erdenbürger geworden ist, wie er es in der Griechenzeit war, sondern sogar schon wiederum dem Erdenbürgertum entfremdet ist, also nicht mehr weiß, was er mit seinem Seelisch-Geistigen dem Leibe gegenüber anfangen soll, daß sich für den Menschen die Notwendigkeit ergibt, das Geistig-Seelische in sich zu schauen ohne das Physische. Indem neben diesem wirklich in den Tiefen der Seele heute lebenden Bedürfnisse der Materialismus da ist, ist er ein ahrimanisches Stehenbleiben bei . dem, was im Griechischen, auch im Römischen noch das Naturgemäße für den Menschen war. Da konnte man hinschauen auf das Physische, denn man sah im Physischen noch das Geistige. Indem man stehengeblieben ist, sieht man heute im Physischen nicht mehr das Geistige, sondern nimmt das Physische nur als solches hin. Da wird Materialismus daraus. Es ist überhaupt in die Menschheitsentwickelung ein Zug hereingekommen, der, wenn ich so sagen darf, fortentwickelungsfeindlich ist. Die Menschheit scheut sich heute noch, neue Begriffe zu prägen, sie möchte nur die alten Begriffe fortentwickeln. Über diese Fortentwickelungsfeindlichkeit müssen wir hinauskommen. Wenn wir fortentwickelungsfreundlich werden, werden wir auch ein ganz natürliches Verhältnis zu so etwas gewinnen, wie es die anthroposophische Geistesentwickelung ist, die eben von einem antiquierten Bedürfnisse zu dem heute wahrhaft gegenwärtigen Bedürfnisse der Menschheit, nämlich sich zum Geistigen zu erheben, geht.
So wollte ich auch heute wiederum einen Gesichtspunkt gewinnen, von dem aus Sie ersehen können, wie Anthroposophie durchaus sich als eine Notwendigkeit in der Entwickelung der Menschheit für unsere gegenwärtige Zeit ergibt.
First Lecture
Today, following on from some of the ideas I have developed before you recently, I would like to offer another kind of reflection on the development of humanity in the post-Atlantean period, drawing your attention to a few points that will best emerge in connection with the preceding reflections.
When we look back at the development of humanity, we must say that the epochs we accept in anthroposophical spiritual science in order to have an overview of human development are entirely based on the particular soul and general human constitution within these epochs. This human constitution differs greatly in the individual epochs. However, today there is little inclination to look beyond the present constitution of the soul and humanity, and the development of humanity is constructed as if, in the historical period that can be traced from documents, even though a development of civilization took place that can be described from external documents, the constitution of the soul had generally remained the same. In truth, this state of mind has changed, and we know the points in time when it underwent a clearly noticeable transformation, so to speak.
The last of these points in time has often been referred to as the 15th century AD. The next preceding one was the 8th century BC, and so we could go back further. It has also often been emphasized in our circles how correct it is when an art historian such as Herman Grimm points out that the full understanding, the full historical understanding of people of the present day, actually only goes back to Roman times. The same ideas, or at least similar ideas, take root in people's minds, ideas that are still valid today, sometimes even in a negative way, having been passed down through the generations, such as Roman legal concepts that no longer correspond to our social life, and so on. But at least, through the whole way in which people today live themselves into general social life, they still have an understanding of what goes back to Roman times. If, on the other hand, we go back to Greek times, then although this is also described externally in historical terms according to the pattern of what came later, we do not penetrate into the actual soul nature of the Greeks. And Herman Grimm is right when he says: The human figures that are usually described by history as the Greeks are actually shadowy, as they are described. — With ordinary consciousness, one can no longer see into what lived in the souls, and therefore cannot understand the social structure in the right way. Even more different from our soul life is the soul life of the people in the Egyptian-Chaldean period, which lies behind the 8th century BC, and even more different in the ancient Persian epoch, as I have called it in my “Secret Science,” and quite different from what we feel in our soul life from morning to night today is the soul life of the ancient Indian epoch, the first epoch that followed the great Atlantean catastrophe.
But with the help of spiritual science, it is possible to find out what differences actually prevailed in these epochs with regard to the overall constitution of the human being. And here we must say that feeling about human beings in a way that is similar to how we do today actually only came about in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. The way we talk today about the body, soul, spirit, and ego in human beings, and feel an inner connection between human beings and the Earth, is something that present-day humanity has inherited from the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. But life has only become this way over time. One might say that it has only become so earthbound that human beings feel themselves to be connected only to the earth, feel themselves to be strangers to the cosmos, and regard the stars, the movements of the stars, and even the clouds as something that lies outside their earthly dwelling place and has only minor significance for them. The whole feeling, even the impulses of human will, that existed before the Greco-Latin epoch were, if I may use the expression, elemental-cosmic. Human beings did not need philosophy to feel themselves to be part of the whole universe, especially the visible universe. It was natural for them, a matter of course, to feel themselves to be not only citizens of the earth, but also part of the whole cosmos.
Especially in the first, the ancient Indian epoch, that is, when we go back to the seventh or eighth millennium BC, we find that humans felt, if I may not say spoke, quite differently about what we today call the self. Certainly, people at that time did not express themselves in this way at all, because human language did not extend to things in the same way as it does today, but we have to get things into our language. And so I would like to say that the people of the ancient Indian epoch did not speak of the I as we do today, as a kind of point that summarizes the experiences of the soul, but when the I was spoken of in ancient Indian times, it was self-evident that the I had little to do with the earth and its events. By feeling themselves to be an I, human beings did not actually feel that they belonged to the earth, but felt themselves to be connected first and foremost with the fixed starry sky. They had the feeling that the fixed starry sky gave them the solidity of their I, gave them the feeling that they had an I at all. And this I was not felt to be a human I at all. Human beings were only human because they were clothed with a physical body on earth. Through this physical body, which was regarded as a kind of shell for the I, human beings were citizens of the earth. But the I was actually always regarded as something foreign within the earthly realm. And if we wanted to coin a name today for the way the ego was viewed, we would have to say: Man at that time did not feel a human ego at all, but a divine ego.
Man could have looked out at all kinds of rocks, at the mountains, at the cliffs, he could have looked at everything else on earth, and said of all these things it is, it exists, but at the same time, in those ancient times, they would have felt that if only this existence existed, which exists on earth in stones, in plants, in rivers, in mountains, in rocks, then we humans could not have an ego. For everything that guarantees the existence of these earthly things and beings could not guarantee the existence of the ego. Humans did not feel a human self within themselves, but a divine self. The divine self was for them a drop from the sea of the divine. But when they wanted to speak of the self—and I say this with the reservations I just mentioned—they first felt the self as a creature of the fixed starry sky. They perceived the fixed starry sky as the only thing that has such a being. Because the ego has a similar being to the fixed starry sky, the ego can say of itself, “I am.” If the ego could only say “I am” in accordance with the being of a stone or the plant world or the mountains and rocks, then the ego would not have the right to say “I am.” Only because the I is star-like can it say “I am.” Because the existence that the stars have lives in the I, the I can say “I am.” The people of this ancient epoch of humanity saw rivers flowing outside and trees moving in the wind. But if one could say of the human I that inhabits the physical human body and has within itself the impulse, I go there, I am going there, I am moving on the earth" — if one could say of this I as the active force in the movement that it moves the body, just as one can say that the wind moves the trees, or as one says of anything on earth that can be in motion that it moves, then one would have no right to attribute a movement impulse to the I.
This is roughly how the teacher in the mysteries would have said to his students in those ancient times: You can see how the trees are moved, how the waters flow in the rivers, how the sea moves. But neither from the trees that move, nor from the water that moves in the rivers, nor from the waves that the sea throws up, could the I ever learn to develop those impulses of movement which human beings develop when they carry their bodies in motion across the earth. The I can never learn this from a moving earthly thing. The I can only learn this because it belongs to the movement of the planets, the movement of the stars. Only from Mars, from Jupiter, from Venus can the I learn to move. And when the I moves arbitrarily on earth, the I carries out something that it is by virtue of belonging to the moving, planetary world of stars. — Furthermore, it would have seemed completely incomprehensible to a person of this ancient epoch of humanity if someone had said: Look, thoughts are rising out of your brain. — If we transport ourselves back to the state of mind we ourselves had — for we have gone through the lives of the ancient Indian epoch — and then compare it with today's state of mind, in which we believe that thoughts come out of the brain, then what the new human being believes seems completely nonsensical, utterly nonsensical, to the old human being that we ourselves were, because the old human being knew that thoughts could never come out of a mass of brain matter. They knew that the sun is what excites thoughts and that the moon is what calms them. They attributed the life of thoughts within themselves to the interaction of the sun and moon. Thus, in the first post-Atlantean epoch, in the ancient Indian period, the divine I was regarded as something that belongs to the fixed starry sky, that belongs to the planetary movements, that belongs to the interaction of the sun and moon. In fact, what the ego has from the earth was regarded as something like events passing by the cosmic-divine ego, while the nature of the ego was entirely cosmic-divine in these ancient times.
In my “Secret Science,” I have called the second epoch the ancient Persian epoch. There, the liveliness of the view of the cosmic self was no longer as it had been in the ancient Indian epoch. In a sense, this view had already been dampened. But during this time, human beings experienced the cycle of the year in an intense way, which I have often spoken about here in recent times. Today, human beings have actually become earthworms. Well, it is a metaphor, of course, but they have become earthworms because they live on like that — not even earthworms, because earthworms come out of their earthen dwellings when it rains, but human beings today live on like that. Nothing special happens for them, except perhaps abstract differences: we are inconvenienced when it rains and we don't have an umbrella, we adjust to snow in winter and sunshine in summer, go to the countryside and so on. So we do experience the cycle of the year, but in a terribly shadowy way. We no longer live it with our whole humanity. We experienced the cycle of the year with our whole humanity in the ancient Persian era. At that time, when Christmas came, people felt: Yes, now the soul of the earth is united with the earth, now the earth is covered with a blanket of snow, which today is nothing more than frozen water for people. But in those days it was the garment with which the earth covered itself in order to close itself off from the cosmos and develop an individual, independent life within the cosmos, because the soul of the earth was intimately connected with the earth during the autumn months until the time we now call the Christmas season. People also felt: Yes, now the soul of the earth is united with the earth. Humans had to turn themselves, with their soul nature, toward that which lives in the earth. Humans felt, in a sense, the soul of the earth united with the earth beneath the blanket of snow. The blanket of snow became spiritually transparent to humans. They felt the elemental spirits beneath the blanket of snow, which carried the power of the plant seeds through the winter until the next spring. When spring came, they felt how the earth breathed out its soul, so to speak, how the earth strove to open its soul to the cosmos, and they themselves went along with this opening of the earth to the cosmos in their feelings and sensations. He began to lift up to the cosmos what he had developed during the winter in terms of attachment, of soul attachment to the earth.
Of course, during this time, humans could no longer simply look up at the cosmos as they had in the immediately preceding epoch, when it was clear to them that when they looked up at the cosmos, they saw what gave their ego existence, movement, and thought. But then he looked up at the cosmos with a sense of foreboding and said to himself: That which connects me to the earth in winter now calls me to rise up into the cosmos with a sense of foreboding. He no longer knew his connection with the cosmos as intensely as in earlier times, but he sensed it in a certain way. Just as the ego experienced itself as cosmic in ancient Indian times, so the astral in man experienced itself in ancient Persian times as that which went with the course of the year. Man lived with the course of the year. Human beings became serious, in a sense, when they saw the blanket of snow below them in winter; they became serious in their mood; they turned inward. At that time, they did what we would today call soul-searching. They opened themselves to the cosmos with a certain joy when spring approached. They entered into the cosmic realm, I would say, in a certain rapture, no longer in the clear manner of ancient Indian times, but in a certain rapture, feeling joyful, torn away from the human physical body, especially in the middle of summer, in the time we would today call St. John's Day. Just as he felt connected in winter with the wise spirits of the earth, so during midsummer he felt connected with the spirits that were always dancing and rejoicing in the cosmos, I would say, swimming around the earth. I am only describing how it was felt.
Then again, when it was approaching our present August and September, the human soul began to feel how it had to return to earth, but how it had gained forces during its rapture in the summertime from the cosmos, which made it possible to live more inwardly human during the wintertime. It was indeed the case in those ancient times that people experienced the life of the annual cycle with their whole being, so that they felt the spiritual aspect of the annual cycle as their own human experience. And it was then that people felt it was important to learn to empathize intensively with this annual cycle at certain times of the year. It was during this period that the impulses for the actual festivals arose. Later, people more or less only felt the festive nature of the year in a traditional way. Some things remained, such as the solstice festivals, which now only show traces of the experience of the cycle of the year. In those older times, this experience of the cycle of the year was powerful and intense.
But this was also associated with a complete change in the innermost consciousness of human beings. In ancient Indian times, it would have seemed quite impossible to people if someone had spoken to them about the people. This seems paradoxical to people today because they cannot imagine that feeling within the people also only arose later. Certainly, the conditions on earth in the early Indian era also made it necessary for people living together in one territory to have closer relationships than those further away, but the concept of a people, the feeling of belonging to a people, did not exist in the early Indian era. Something else existed. There was a very lively feeling for the succession of generations. The son felt himself to be the son of his father, the grandson of his grandfather, the great-grandson of his great-grandfather. Things were not done in the way we would describe them today using our current concepts, but we can describe them in this way because it is accurate. If one were to look into the mindset of those ancient times, one would find that within the family, strict attention was paid to being able to state how far back one could count, who the grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather was, how one could count back to a very, very distant ancestor. People felt themselves to be part of a succession of generations. This meant that they felt much less connected to the present than later generations. They felt deeply connected to the succession of generations. What has remained in a caricatured form in the principle of nobility, in the feeling of succession of generations in the principle of nobility, in the principle of ancestry, was something that was self-evident for every human being in ancient Indian times; there was no need for family chronicles. That is why it was completely different in those ancient times, because human consciousness itself, in its instinctive clairvoyance, provided a connection with the ancestral line, in that one not only remembered one's own personal experiences in a certain way, but also remembered the experiences of one's father and grandfather almost as vividly as one remembered one's own experiences. These memories became increasingly vague, but human consciousness had a connection within the bloodline of the generations. So, it was the feeling in the generations that played a significant role at that time. The concept of the people, the feeling of belonging to the people, arose in parallel with this, but also slowly. In the ancient Persian era, it was not yet strongly pronounced; it only slowly emerged over time. When people no longer had the living consciousness of living in generations, their consciousness filled up with the connection to the people, so to speak. the present connection with the people, whereas in those earliest times the connection of blood was the essential thing to which people looked in the course of time.
You see, the concept of the people only became fully significant in the third post-Atlantean period, the Egyptian-Chaldean period. But in the Egyptian-Chaldean epoch, this awareness of the cycle of the year was already somewhat weakened. On the other hand, however, in this epoch, up until the last millennium of the pre-Christian era, there was a lively awareness that the world is ruled by thoughts, that thoughts live everywhere in the world. I have already indicated in another context that the view we have today, that thoughts arise within us and extend over things outside, would have seemed to a person of that time to be roughly equivalent to someone today drinking a glass of water and saying that their tongue produces the water. One can imagine that one's tongue produces the water, but in reality one draws the water from the entire amount of water on earth, which is a unified whole. But if one were particularly simple-minded, for example, if one did not see the connection between the amount of water in one's glass and the amount of water on the entire earth, one might believe that the water arose on one's tongue. The same would have been objected to by the people of the Egyptian-Chaldean epoch if anyone had told them that thoughts arise in the head. They knew that thoughts live everywhere in the world. What man draws from the sea of thoughts of the world into this vessel of his head is drawn from the sea of thoughts of the world. In that era, people no longer experienced the visible cosmos in the divine I, or the cycle of the year in the astral human being, but they experienced the world thoughts, the Logos, in the etheric body. A member of the Egyptian-Chaldean epoch would not have spoken of the physical body of the human being in the same way we do, if he had used our expressions. We speak of this physical body as if it were the most important thing in the human being. The people of the Egyptian-Chaldean epoch perceived the body as merely the result of what lives as thought in the etheric body. For the people of this epoch, the physical body of the human being was an image of human thought. They did not attach the same importance to it that we attach to it today. During this time, the concept of the people became more and more defined. And so we can say that human beings became more and more citizens of the earth. By the third post-Atlantean cultural period, they had already lost sight of their connection to the starry world and their ego. This connection was still calculated in astrology, but it was no longer seen in elementary consciousness. The cycle of the year, which is important for the astral body, was no longer felt in its immediacy. But at least the intellectual aspect of the cosmos was still felt. Human beings had, so to speak, already come to feel the heaviness of the earth as their essence. Only they felt the idea as something so alive that they did not yet believe this essence to be exhausted in the heaviness of the earth.
This only came to prominence in the Greco-Latin cultural epoch and developed more and more during this cultural epoch. It was then that the physical body first became important to human beings. Of course, everything has its deep justification in its own time, and we see this full, fresh immersion in the physical body in all the individual achievements of Greek culture. I would say that this immersion in the physical body is particularly evident in Greek art. Indeed, for the Greeks of earlier times in particular, this physical body was something they felt in the same way as a child feels joy at new clothes, because their empathy with the physical body was youthful and fresh — they lived themselves into it. As the Greco-Roman era progressed, and especially when Roman culture had developed, people no longer felt the freshness of living into the physical body; they felt the physical body more, well, how shall I put it, like someone who has a state dress and knows that he means something because of his state uniform. That was roughly the feeling, which of course was not expressed in words, but which lay in the whole feeling and sensation. The Roman felt his physical body to be the state dress intended for him by the world order. The Greeks had the immense joy that now, after being born, they could clothe themselves with something that had been assigned to them, such a physical body. This also gave Greek art, tragedy, and Homer's poems that peculiar verve in the description and representation of the human, insofar as this human aspect is also connected with the external physical appearance of human beings. One must seek the inner reasons for all psychological facts. Just try to imagine the kind of joy that emanates from Homer's depiction of Hector, Achilles, and so on, how the external is described, how great importance is attached to the depiction of the external. This became established in Roman culture. Roman culture is something where everything is, in a sense, established, where that which we can still understand with our ordinary consciousness begins. For in this fourth post-Atlantean cultural epoch, human beings actually become citizens of the earth. And that which was formerly the view of the ego, the astral body, and the etheric body retreats into the indefinite. The Greeks still have a vivid sense that thought lives in things. I have described this in my “Riddles of Philosophy.” Then this is gradually overcome. People come to believe that thought arises only in human beings. And more and more, human beings grow into their physical bodies in this way.
At present, we do not yet have a proper sense of how this has actually changed in the fifth post-Atlantean cultural epoch, which has only been in existence since the 15th century. We are growing out of our physical body again, but we do not yet notice it. We still fantasize, one might say, about what a Greek felt about the human form. But our feeling is very dull. When we perceive the swift-footed Achilles as a shadow, this feeling is dull. We feel far too vaguely that this was something that gave the Greeks an immediate, I would say striking, view of Achilles, that Achilles stood before them in his essential being. And we have outgrown all art in terms of the penetration of the physical body with the human soul. While the Greeks in the last centuries of the pre-Christian era felt how the cosmic idea was slipping away from them, how the idea could only be grasped by reflecting back on human beings, today there is complete uncertainty among people with regard to the idea. You see, it would have seemed terribly strange to a Greek of, say, the 6th century BC if he had been expected to solve the scientific question of how thought is connected with the brain. He would not have felt that such a question could exist, because what this sentence actually implies would have seemed to him to be something completely self-evident. He would have said something like what we would say if we said: I take the watch in my hand. Now I am supposed to start philosophically speculating about the relationship between the watch and my hand. I examine the flesh in my hand, I examine the glass and metal in my watch. I examine the relationships between the flesh in my hand and the glass and metal in my watch in order to gain a philosophical insight into why my hand has grasped and is holding the watch. Yes, if I were to do that, wouldn't it be insane for today's consciousness? It would have seemed just as insane to the ancient Greek consciousness to want to explain the self-evident fact that the human being grasps thoughts through the brain from the nature of thoughts or from the nature of the brain, because one has this in one's immediate perception, just as one has the perception that the hand takes the watch, and yet one does not consider it necessary to somehow establish a scientific relationship between the metal of the watch and the muscle tissue. Problems arise over time depending on the way one looks at things. For the Greeks, what we today call the connection between thought and organism was as self-evident as the connection between the watch and the hand when I pick up the watch. They did not speculate about it; it was self-evident to them. They knew how to bring their thoughts into harmony with their human nature. They knew this instinctively.
If I were to ask, yes, there is only one hand, and the watch should actually fall down, why does this watch stay up? – that would have been the same question for the Greeks as when we ask today: What develops thoughts in the brain? This has become a question for us because we no longer know how we have already detached thoughts. We are on the way to detaching thoughts from human beings again, and we do not know what to do with thoughts because we no longer have the physical body; we are already on the way to outgrowing it again. I would like to use another comparison. One not only has clothes, but also pockets in them, into which one can put things. Yes, that was the case with the Greeks. The human body was something into which thoughts, feelings, and impulses of the will could, in a sense, be put. Today we do not know what to do with thoughts, feelings, and impulses of the will in human beings. It is as if we had pockets in our clothes and everything fell out, or as if we became anxious about what to do with them and wanted to carry them around in our hands because we are not aware that we have pockets. So we are not aware of the nature of our organism, do not know what to do with our soul life in relation to our organism, and come up with the most curious ideas about psychophysical parallelism and so on. But for a Greek consciousness, that would be like a person who does not see that he has pockets and does not even think of putting anything in them, that they are there for that purpose. But I only want to say all this to indicate how we gradually become strangers to our physical body again.
This is also rooted in the course of human development. If we look back once more to the time of ancient India, when people looked up the line of generations to a distant ancestor, they had no need to seek the gods anywhere other than in this line of generations. Because human beings themselves were divine to them, they remained completely within the realm of human development, seeking the divine in their ancestors. Human development was the field in which they sought the divine.
Then came the era that reached its zenith in Egyptian-Chaldean culture, where the concept of the people had become particularly important. There, the divine was seen in the individual folk gods, in what now lived spatially side by side according to blood relationship.
Then came the Greek era, when human beings felt, in a sense, deified, when they had become citizens of the earth. Only then did the need arise to seek the gods above the earth, to look up to the gods. Ancient man knew about the gods by looking at the stars. The Greeks needed something more than the stars to look up to the gods. But this need is now becoming ever greater within humanity. Humanity must increasingly develop the ability to look beyond the physical, beyond the physical starry sky, beyond the physical course of the year, beyond what humans feel when they encounter objects — today, when they can no longer see thoughts in objects. Human beings must acquire the ability to discover the divine-spiritual as something special above and beyond the sensory-physical, so that they can find it again in the sensory-physical.
To assert this energetically is precisely the task of anthroposophical spiritual science. And in this way, anthroposophical spiritual science grows out of the whole development of humanity on earth. We must always bear in mind that anthroposophy is not something that is brought about arbitrarily and inserted into human development as a program, but rather something that arises from the inner necessities of human development in our epoch. It is basically only a remnant that materialism can assert itself in our time. It corresponds to the real needs of the time, precisely because human beings have not only become citizens of the earth, as they were in Greek times, but have even become alienated from earth citizenship again, so that they no longer know what to do with their soul and spirit in relation to their body, and it becomes necessary for human beings to look within themselves at the spiritual and soul aspects without the physical. Materialism, which exists alongside this need that truly lives in the depths of the soul today, is an Ahrimanic clinging to what was still natural for humans in Greek and Roman times. Then it was possible to look at the physical, because the spiritual was still visible in the physical. Because we have remained stuck, we no longer see the spiritual in the physical, but accept the physical only as such. This results in materialism. A tendency has entered human development which, if I may say so, is hostile to further development. Humanity today still shies away from coining new concepts; it only wants to develop the old concepts further. We must overcome this hostility to further development. If we become friendly to further development, we will also gain a completely natural relationship to something such as anthroposophical spiritual development, which moves from an antiquated need to the truly present need of humanity today, namely to rise to the spiritual.
So today I wanted to gain a perspective from which you can see how anthroposophy is indeed a necessity in the development of humanity for our present time.