The Roots of Education
GA 309
14 April 1924, Bern
Lecture Two
The Goal of Waldorf Education
You have seen that education must be based on a more intimate knowledge of the human being than is found in natural science, although it is generally assumed that all knowledge must be grounded in natural science. As we have seen, however, natural science cannot come even close to the reality of the human being, and it doesn’t help to base our knowledge on it.
The world is permeated by spirit, and true knowledge of the world must be permeated by spirit as well. Anthroposophy can give us spiritual knowledge of the world, and, with it, spiritual knowledge of the human being, and this alone leads to a true art of education. But don’t make the mistake (which is easy to do) that those who consider themselves anthroposophists want to establish “anthroposophic” schools that teach anthroposophy as a worldview in the place of other contemporary worldviews, regardless of whether such views are inspired more by intellect or feeling. It is important to understand and reiterate that this is not at all our intention. What we are examining is mainly concerned with matters of method and the practice of teaching. Men and women who adhere to anthroposophy feel—and rightly so—that the knowledge of the human being it provides can establish some truly practical principles for the way we treat children.
At the Waldorf school in Stuttgart we have been able to pursue an art of education based on anthroposophy for many years; and we have always made it clear to the rest of the world that anthroposophy as such was never taught there. Roman Catholic children receive religious instruction from a priest and Protestant children from a Protestant pastor. Only those children whose parents specifically request it receive religion lessons involving a freer religious instruction based on anthroposophy. Thus, our own anthroposophic worldview as such really has no place in the school work itself.
Moreover, I would like to point out that the true aim and object of anthroposophic education is not to establish as many anthroposophic schools as possible. Naturally, some model schools are needed, where the methods are practiced in detail. There is a need crying out in our time for such schools. Our goal, however, is to enable every teacher to bring the fruits of anthroposophy to their work, no matter where they may be teaching or the nature of the subject matter. There is no intention of using anthroposophic pedagogy to start revolutions, even silent ones, in established institutions. Our task, instead, is to point to a way of teaching that springs from our anthroposophic knowledge of humankind.
Understanding the Human Being
As you know, we need to gain a more intimate observation of human beings than is customary today. In fact, there are some areas where people are learning a very exact kind of observation, especially in regard to visual observation—for example, using a telescope to observe the stars, for surveying, and in many other realms of knowledge. It arises from a sense for exact, mathematical observation. Because of the scientific mindset that has ruled for the past three centuries, nowhere in contemporary civilization do we find the kind of intimate observation that sees the fine and delicate changes in the human soul or body organization. Consequently, people have little to say about the important changes that have occurred in the child’s whole physical organization, such as those that happen at the change of the teeth, at puberty, and again after the twentieth year. And so, transitions that have great significance in terms of education—such as the period between the change of teeth and puberty—are simply ignored.
These changes are mentioned, it is true, but only as they affect the actual physical body of the child or are expressed in the soul’s more superficial dependence on the physical body. This would require much more delicate observations. Anthroposophy begins by viewing the world as an expression of spiritual forces, which is seldom acknowledged today; it provides exercises that train a person’s soul to acquire direct insight into the spirit world. There are some whose destiny has not yet brought them to the point of seeing the spiritual facts for themselves, but anthroposophy has such power that merely beginning such exercises in itself helps people to learn a much more delicate and intimate observation of the human being. After all, you must remember that our soul and spirit is the part of us that, as we have seen, descends from a pre-earthly existence and unites with the inherited physical body. And spiritual research depends on this higher, supersensible part of us; we have supersensible eyes and ears—soul organs such as the eyes and ears of our physical body—so that we can arrive at certain perceptions independently of the body.
Cosmic and Human Cycles
Each night while asleep, a person is unconsciously in a condition that is similar to what is needed for spiritual investigation. When falling asleep, the human soul and spirit leave the physical body, and re-enter it when the person awakes. While awake, people use their eyes and ears and move their limbs, and the forces for this come from the spirit and soul aspects of the human being. Genuine knowledge of nature—which doesn’t exist yet—would also show that while awake, people’s physical actions are controlled by soul and spirit, and that sleep is only an interruption of this activity. Here again, the difference is too subtle to be perceived by modern scientific methods—upon which today’s education is based, even when directed toward the earliest years of childhood. A sleeping person is completely surrendered to the activities of the organism to which plant and mineral are also subject.
Anthroposophy or Spiritual Science, on the other hand, strive for precision and accuracy, and it would not be true, of course, to say that while asleep a person is a plant. In a human being, mineral and plant substances have been raised to the level of animal and human. The human organization is not like that of a plant, since a plant has no muscles and nerves, and the human of course has both muscles and nerves, even while asleep. The important thing, however, is very simple; the vegetative function of the plant has nothing to do with nerves and muscles, but it is different for a human being. Activity in a person is related to muscles and nerves, and thus transcends the physical; even human sleep activity is not merely vegetative. (In a certain sense this applies also to animals, but we cannot address this matter now.) Although we find the same impulses in the plant as in the sleeping human being, nevertheless something different happens in a sleeping person.
It may help us to form an idea of this process if we think of it this way: when we are awake, the soul and spirit are integrated with the human organism. The soul and spirit, in turn, have a certain similarity to the cosmos, the whole universe—but keep in mind that it is only a similarity. And careful observation of plant development will show us that in spring, when the snow has melted, we see plants spring out of the earth and unfold their being. Until now, plant growth was controlled by the Sun forces within the Earth, or the stored sunshine of the previous year.
In spring the plants are released, so to speak, by these earthly Sun forces and, as they shoot out of the soil, they are received by the outer sunlight and guided through the summer until the seeds become ripe. Plant growth is again given over to the Earth. Throughout the summer, the Sun’s forces gradually descend into the Earth to be stored there; thus, the Earth is always permeated by these accumulated sun forces. We need only remember that millions of years ago Sun forces shone on the plants, which then became coal within the Earth; thus, sunlight is in reality now being burned in our stoves. Likewise—though for a much shorter time—the Sun’s forces are preserved in the Earth from summer to summer. Throughout the winter, plants absorb the Sun’s forces found in the earth, and during summer, the Sun pours its rays upon them right from the cosmos. So there really is a rhythm in the life of plants—earthly sun-forces, cosmic sun-forces, earthly sun-forces, cosmic sun forces, and so on. Plant life swings from one to the other as a pendulum on a clock.
Now let us turn to the human being. When I fall asleep I leave behind in my body everything of a mineral and plant nature, though, as we have seen, the plant nature in the human being—in contrast to an actual plant—is organized so that spirit and soul can dwell within it. What is left behind in sleep is thus wholly surrendered to its own plant-like activity. It begins to blossom and sprout, and when we go to sleep it is really springtime within us. When we awaken, the plant forces are driven back, and it becomes autumn within us. As soul and spirit arise on awakening, autumn enters us.
Viewing things externally, it is often said that waking is like spring and sleeping like autumn. This is not true, however. Genuine spiritual insight into human nature shows us that during the first moments of sleep, spring life sprouts and blossoms in us, and when we awaken autumn sinks into us like the setting Sun. While awake, when we are using all our faculties of soul, it is winter within us. Again we see a rhythm, as in plantlife. In plant growth we distinguish between earthly activity and the Sun’s activity. In the human being, we find essentially the same activity imitating the plant; falling asleep—summer activity, awakening—winter activity, and around again to summer activity, winter activity; but here it takes place in only twenty-four hours. Human beings have condensed a yearly rhythm into a day and a night.
These rhythms are similar but not identical, because for a human being the life of the soul and spirit does not have the same duration as the life of spirit in the realm of nature. A year is only a day in the life of the spirits who pervade the cosmos and permeate the whole course of the year, just as the soul and spirit of human beings direct the course of their day.
As we consider this, we arrive at this hypothesis. (I must warn you, by the way, that what I am about to say may seem very strange to you, but I present it as a hypothesis to demonstrate more clearly what I mean. Let us suppose that a woman falls asleep, and within her is what I have described as summer activity. Let us suppose that she continues to sleep without waking up. What will happen then? The plant element within her—the element not of soul and spirit—would eventually become the rhythm of the plant realm. It would go from a daily rhythm to an annual rhythm. Of course, such a rhythm does not exist in the human being. Thus, if the physical body were to go on sleeping as described, the person would be unable to tolerate the resulting yearly rhythm and would die; if the human body were all plant activity, it would be organized differently. The physical body would separate from the soul and spirit, assume a yearly cycle, and take on purely vegetative qualities. When we view physical death, which leads to the body’s destruction, we see that by being born out of the cosmos, the human being passed from a grand cycle to a small cycle. If a human body is on its own and cannot animate the spirit and soul in itself, it is destroyed, since it cannot immediately find its place in the cosmic rhythm.
Therefore, we see that if we can develop a more delicate faculty for observation, we can gain true insight into the essence of human existence. This is why I said that those who have entered the path of spiritual knowledge, though they may not yet have attained spiritual vision for themselves, will nevertheless feel forces stirring within that lead to spiritual insight. And these are the very forces that act as messengers and mediators of all the spirits at work in the cosmos. Spirit is active in the cosmos where we find the beings who guide the life cycle of the year. This is a new realm to us, but when we observe a human being we can see the presence of soul and spirit in all human life, and here we are on familiar ground. For this reason, it is always easier to exercise a fine faculty of perception in regard to the human soul and spiritual qualities than it is to perceive spirit activity itself in the world.
When we think in ordinary life it is as if thinking, or forming mental images, continually escaped us. When we bump into something or feel something with our fingers—a piece of silk or velvet, for example—we immediately perceive that we have encountered that object, and we can feel its shape by touching its surface. Then we know that as human beings, we have connected with our environment. When we think, however, we do not seem to touch objects around us in this way. Once we have thought about something and made it our own, we can say that we have “apprehended,” or “grasped” it (begreifen). What do we mean by this? If external objects are alien to us—which is generally true for our thinking—then we do not say we have grasped them. If, for example, a piece of chalk is lying there, and I am standing here moving my hand as one does when speaking, one does not say, “I have grasped the chalk.” But if I actually take hold of the chalk with my hand, then I can say, “I have grasped it.”
In earlier times, people had a better understanding of what thinking really was, and out of such knowledge, words and expressions flowed into the language that expressed the real thing much better than our modern abstractionists realize. If we have had a mental picture of something, we say we have grasped it. This means we have come into contact with the object—we have “seized” it. Today we no longer realize that we can have intimate contact with objects in our environment through the very expressions in our thinking life. For example, there is a word in our language today that conceals its own meaning in a very hypocritical way. We say “concept” [Begriff in German, from begreifen]. I have a concept. The word conceive (to hold or gather) is contained within it [greifen, to grasp, or seize]. I have something that I have grasped, or gathered into myself. We have only the word now; the life has gone out of its meaning.
Examples such as these from everyday life demonstrate the aim and purpose of the exercises described as anthroposophic methods of research in my book How to Know Higher Worlds, and in the latter half of An Outline of Esoteric Science, and in other works. Consider the exercises in mental imagery. Certain thoughts are held in the mind so that concentration on these thoughts may strengthen the soul life. These exercises are based neither on superstition nor merely on fantasy, but on clear thinking and deliberation as exact as that used for mathematics. They lead human beings to develop a capacity for thought in a much more vital and active way than that found in the abstract thinking of people today.
Thinking and the Etheric Body
People today are truly dominated by abstraction. When they work all day with their arms and legs, they feel the need to sleep off their fatigue, because they recognize that their real being has been actively moving arms and legs. What they fail to understand, however, is that when we think, our being is just as active. People cannot see that when they think their being actively flows out and takes hold of the objects of their thinking; this is because they do not perceive the lowest supersensible member of the human being, the etheric body, living within the physical body, just as the physical body lives within the external world.
The etheric body can in fact be perceived at the moment when—by practicing the exercises I referred to—a person develops the eye of the soul and the ear of the spirit. One can then see how thinking, which is primarily an activity of the etheric body, is really a spiritual “grasping,” or spiritual touching, of the objects around us. Once we have condensed and concentrated our thoughts by means of the exercises mentioned, we experience spirit in such a way that we no longer have the abstract feeling, which is so prevalent today, that objects are far from us. We get a true sense of them that arises from practiced, concentrated thinking. Thinking too will then bring fatigue, and especially after using our powers of thought we will want to have our sleep.
The presence of materialistic ideas is not the worst product of this age of materialism in which we live; educators must also consider another aspect. As educators, we may feel somewhat indifferent to the amount of fatigue caused by people’s activities; eventually, people return to their senses, and things even out. But the worst thing for an educator is to watch a child go through years of schooling and receive for the soul only nourishment that bears the stamp of natural science—that is, of material things. Of course, this does not apply only to school science classes; all education today, even in the lowest grades, is based on scientific thinking. This is absorbed by children, it grows up with them, and it penetrates the whole physical organization so that in later years it appears as insomnia.
What is the cause of the sleeplessness of our materialistic time? It is due to the fact that if we think only in a materialistic way, the activity of thought—this “grasping” or “handling” of our environment through thought—does not allow the corresponding organs of the etheric body to become tired since it has become too abstract. Here, only the physical body becomes tired; we fall asleep—the physical body falls asleep—but the etheric becomes nervous and restless and cannot sleep. It draws the soul and spirit back into it, and this condition will necessarily develop gradually into an epidemic of insomnia. This is already happening today. Only by considering such matters can we understand what this materialistic time signifies. It is bad enough that people think materialistic, theoretical thoughts; but in itself this is not really that serious. It is even worse that we experience the effects of materialism in our moral life and in our economic life. And the worst thing is that through materialism, all of childhood is ruined to the point that people can no longer come to terms with moral or spiritual impulses at all.
These things must be known by everyone who recognizes the need to transform our teaching and education. The transitions we have mentioned, such as those that occur at the change of teeth and at puberty, can be understood only through intimate observation of the human being. We must learn to see how a person is inwardly active, so that people experience their etheric just as they feel their physical body; they must recognize that when they think about any object, they are really doing in the etheric what is otherwise done in the physical human body. If I want to know what an object is like, I feel it, I contact it, and thus gain a knowledge of its surface. This also applies to my etheric body. I “feel” etherically and supersensibly the object I want to “grasp,” what I wish to conceptualize. The etheric body is just as active as the physical body, and correct knowledge of human development can come only from this knowledge and consciousness of the etheric body’s activity.
The Child’s Imitative Nature
If we can activate our thinking in this way and, with this inwardly active thinking, watch a very young child, we see how every action performed in that child’s environment and every look that expresses some moral impulse (for the moral quality of a look contains something that passes into the child as an imponderable force) flows right into the child and continues to work in the breathing and the circulation of the blood. The clearest and most concrete statement we can come to regarding a child is this: “A child is an imitative being through and through.” The way a child breathes or digests in the more delicate and intimate processes of breathing or digesting reflects the actions of those around the child.
Children are completely surrendered to their environment. In adults the only parallel to such devotion is found in religion as expressed through the human soul and spirit. Religion is expressed in spiritual surrender to the universe. The religious life unfolds properly when, with our own spirit, we go beyond ourselves and surrender to a spiritual worldview—we should flow out into a divine worldview. Adult religious life depends on emancipating soul and spirit from the physical body, when a person’s soul and spirit are given up to the divine spirit of the world. Children give up their whole being to the environment. In adults, the activities of breathing, digestion, and circulation are within them, cut off from the external world. In children, however, all such activities are still surrendered to their environment, and they are therefore religious by nature. This is the essential feature of a child’s life between birth and the change of teeth; the whole being is permeated with a natural religious element, so to speak, and even the physical body maintains a religious mood.
But children are not surrounded only by beneficial forces that inspire religious devotion in later life. There are also spiritual forces that are harmful, which come from people around children and from other spiritual forces in the world. In this way, this natural religious element in a child’s physical body may also be exposed to evil in the environment—children can encounter evil forces. And when I say that even a small child’s physical body has a religious quality, I do not mean that children cannot be little demons! Many children are little demons, because they have been open to evil spiritual forces around them.
Our task is to overcome and drive out such forces by applying methods appropriate to our time. As long as a child is an imitative religious being, admonitions do no good. Words can be listened to only when the soul is emancipated to some extent, when its attention can be self-directed. Disapproving words cannot help us deal with a small child. But what we ourselves do in the presence of the child does help, because when a child sees this it flows right in and becomes sense perception. Our actions, however, must contain a moral quality.
If, for example, a man who is color-blind looks at a colored surface, he may see only gray. An adult looks at another person’s actions also in this way, seeing only the speed and flow of the gestures. We see the physical qualities but no longer see the moral qualities of the person’s actions. A child, on the other hand, sees the moral element, even if only unconsciously, and we must make sure that while in the presence of children, we not only never act in a way that should not be imitated, but never think thoughts that should not enter their souls. Such education of the thoughts is most important for the first seven years of life, and we must not allow ourselves to think any impure, ugly, or angry thoughts when in the company of little children. You may say, “But I can think what I like without altering my outer actions in the least; so the child sees nothing and cannot be influenced by what cannot be seen.” Here it is interesting to consider those very peculiar and rather stupid shows given at one time, with so-called thinking horses—horses that could count, and other animals performing tricks demonstrating “intelligence.” These things were interesting, though not in the way that most people believed.
I once saw the Elberfeld horses. (I want to speak only of my own observation). I saw the horse belonging to Mr. von Osten, and I could see how he gave answers to his master. Von Osten gave him arithmatic problems to do—not very complicated, it is true, but difficult enough for a horse. The horse had to add and subtract and would give the correct answers by stamping his hoof. Now you can look at this either from the perspective of a modern scientist—for example, the professor who wrote a whole fat book on the horse—or you can view it from an anthroposophic standpoint. The professor began by repudiating all non-professional opinions on the matter. (Please do not think that I intend to say anything against natural science, because I am well aware of its value.) In the end, the professor concluded that the horse was able to perceive very delicate movements made by the man—a slight twitch of an eyelid, the most delicate vibrations of certain muscles, and so on. From this, the horse eventually learned what answers corresponded to certain vibrations, and could give the required number of stamps with his hoof. This hypothesis is very clever and intelligent. He then arrives at the inevitable question of whether these things have actually been observed. He asks this question himself, since people are indeed learning to be very conscientious in their research. He answers it, however, by saying that the human senses are not organized in such a way that they perceive such fine delicate movements and vibrations, but a horse can see them. In fact, all he proves is that a horse can see more in a person than a professor can.
But for me, there was something else important—the horse could give the correct answers only when Mr. von Osten stood beside him and spoke. While he talked he kept taking lumps of sugar and placing them in the horse’s mouth. The horse was permeated by a taste of sweetness all the time. This is the important thing; the horse felt suffused with sweetness. In such a condition, even a horse can experience things that would otherwise not be possible. In fact, I would put it this way: Mr. von Osten himself constantly lived in the “sweetened horse,” the etheric horse that had permeated the physical horse. His thoughts were alive and diffused there, just as they were in his own body; his thoughts lived on in the horse. It was not because a horse has a finer perception than a professor, but because it is not yet as highly organized and thus more susceptible to external influences while its physical body continually absorbs the sweetness.
Indeed, there are such influences that pass from person to person, aroused by things almost—if not wholly—imperceptible to contemporary human beings. Such things occur in the interactions between humankind and animals, and they also occur very much when the soul and spirit are not yet free of the body—that is, during early childhood. Small children can actually perceive the morality behind every look and gesture of those around them, even though this may be no longer possible for those who are older. It is therefore of the greatest importance that we never allow ourselves to think ugly thoughts around children; not only does this live on in their souls, but works right down into the physical body.
There is no question that much is being accomplished these days in many medical or other dissertations, and they reflect the current state of scientific knowledge. But a time will come when there will be something very new in this area. Let me give you a specific example to demonstrate what I mean. A time will come when a person may write a doctoral thesis showing that a disease, perhaps during the forty-eighth year of a person’s life, can be traced back to certain evil thoughts in the environment of that person as a child of four or five. This way of thinking can bring us to a genuine understanding of human beings and the capacity for seeing the totality of human life.
We thus have to learn gradually that it is not so much a question of inventing from our own abstract thoughts all kinds of things for little children to do, such as using rods and so on. Children do not spontaneously do things like that. Their own soul forces must be aroused, and then they will imitate what the adults do. A little girl plays with a doll because she sees her mother nursing the baby. Whatever we see in adults is present in children as their tendency to imitate. This tendency must be considered in educating children up to the seventh year.
We must bear in mind, however, that what we educate is subject to change in the child’s organism; in children everything is done in a more living and animated way than in adults, because children are still a unity of body, soul, and spirit. In adults, the body has been freed from the soul and spirit, and the soul and spirit from the body. Body, soul, and spirit exist side by side as individual entities; in the child they are still firmly united. This unity even penetrates the thinking.
We can see these things very clearly through an example. A small child is often given a so-called “beautiful” doll—a painted creature with glass eyes, made to look exactly like a human being. These little horrors are made to open and shut their eyes and do all sorts of other things. These are then presented to children as “beautiful” dolls. Even from an artistic perspective they are hideous; but I will not enlarge on that now. But consider what really happens to a child who is presented with a doll of this kind, a doll that can open its eyes and so on. At first the child will love it because it is a novelty, but that does not last.
Now, compare that with what happens to a child if I just take a piece of rag and make a doll out of that. Tie it together for a head, make two dots for eyes, and perhaps a big nose, and there you have it. Give that to a child and the rest of that doll will be filled out by the child through imagination in soul and spirit, which are so closely connected with the body. Then, every time that child plays with the doll, there is an inner awakening that remains inwardly active and alive. By making such experiments yourself, you will see what a difference there is between giving a child playthings that leave as much as possible to the power of imagination and giving finished toys that leave nothing for the child’s own inner activity. Handwork for small children should only indicate, leaving much for the child’s own imagination to do. Working in set forms that can easily be left as they are does not awaken any inner activity in the child, because the imagination cannot get past what is open to the senses.
Physical and Psychical Effects
This shows us what kind of teachers and educators we should be if we really want to approach children in the right way. We need an art of teaching based on a knowledge of human beings—knowledge of the child. This art of education will arise when we find a doctor’s thesis that works with a case of diabetes at the age of forty by tracing it back to the harmful effects of the wrong kind of play in the third or fourth year. People will see then what we mean by saying that the human being consists of body, soul, and spirit, and that in the child, body, soul, and spirit are still a unity. The spirit and soul later become freed of the body, and a trinity is formed. In the adult, body, soul, and spirit are pushed apart, as it were, and only the body retains what was absorbed by the individual during early development as the seed of later life.
Now this is the strange thing: when an experience affects the soul, its consequences are soon visible, even when the experience was unconscious; physical consequences, however, take seven or eight times longer to manifest. If you educate a child of three or four so that you present what will influence the soul’s life, then the effect of this will appear in the eighth year; and people are usually careful to avoid doing anything with a child of four or five that may affect the soul life in an unhealthy way during the eighth or ninth year. Effects on the physical body take much longer to manifest, because the physical body must free itself of the soul and spirit. Therefore, something that influences the soul life at four or five may come to fruition in the physical body when that person is seven or eight times as old—for example, in the thirty-fifth year. Thus, a person may develop an illness during the late thirties or early forties caused by ill influences that affected that soul while at play as a child of three or four.
If you wish to understand the whole human being, you must also realize that the freeing of the body from soul and spirit in the adult, as opposed to a child’s unity of body, soul, and spirit, is not merely abstract theory, but a matter of very specific knowledge, for we are speaking of very different calendars. The time that the body requires to work something out is increasingly lengthened compared to the time needed by the soul. The physical body works more slowly, and harmful influences manifest much later there than in the soul.
Thus, we often see that when we transgress against a little child in the very early years, many things turn out wrong in the teenager’s soul-life. This can be corrected, however. It is not very difficult to find ways of helping even seemingly unmanageable children during their teens. They may even become very good and respectable, if somewhat boring, citizens later on. This is not very serious. But the body develops more and more slowly as life goes on, and in the end, long after all the soul difficulties of early youth have been overcome, the physical effects will gradually emerge, and in later life the person will have to contend with arthritis or some other illness.
Real, experiential knowledge of the human being is of the greatest importance. Truly concrete knowledge of the human being, with the power of seeing right into the person, is the only possible basis for a true art of education—an art of education whereby persons may find their place in life and, subject to the laws of their own destinies, fully develop all their powers. Education should never work against a person’s destiny, but should help people achieve the fullest possible development of their own predispositions. Often today, people’s education lags far behind the talents and tendencies that destiny implanted in them. We must keep pace with these forces to the extent that the human beings in our care can attain all that their destinies will allow—the fullest clarity of thought, the most loving deepening of feeling, and the greatest possible energy and capacity of will.
This can be done only through an art of education and teaching based on a real knowledge of the human being. We will speak more of this in the next lectures.
Zweiter Vortrag
Sie werden gesehen haben, daß es sich bei der Grundlegung einer pädagogischen Kunst um eine Menschenerkenntnis handelt, die intimer an den Menschen herandringen kann als diejenige Menschenerkenntnis, die heute anerkannt wird dadurch, daß man jegliches Erkennen naturwissenschaftlich begründen will. Da aber, wie wir gesehen haben, Naturwissenschaft überhaupt nicht in Wirklichkeit an den Menschen und sein Wesen herandringen kann, so kann eben aus einer naturwissenschaftlichen Gesinnung keine wirkliche Menschenerkenntnis kommen. Anthroposophie will wirkliche Menschenerkenntnis neben einer solchen Welterkenntnis liefern, die geistdurchdrungen ist, weil die Welt selbst geistdurchdrungen ist. Dadurch möchte Anthroposophie auch begründen können eine wirkliche Pädagogik. Man soll aber nun ja nicht glauben - dieser Irrtum kann leicht entstehen -, daß irgend bei denjenigen Persönlichkeiten, die sich zu Anthroposophie bekennen, der Drang besteht, anthroposophische Schulen zu begründen, Schulen, in denen Anthroposophie als Weltanschauung, wie es nun heute einmal ist, an die Stelle anderer, verstandesmäßiger, herzmäßiger Weltanschauungen gesetzt werden soll. Das ist zunächst gar nicht die Absicht, und es ist wichtig, daß man berücksichtige, daß das gar nicht die Absicht ist. Die Pädagogik, von der hier gesprochen wird, will in sich aufnehmen aus Anthroposophie lediglich die methodischen und didaktischen Elemente im Erziehen und Unterrichten. Und nur weil die berechtigte Ansicht bestehen kann bei denjenigen, die in Anthroposophie wirklich eindringen, daß diese imstande ist, aus ihrer Menschenerkenntnis heraus auch die entsprechenden wirklich praktischen Regeln zur Menschenbehandlung zu finden, deshalb darf auch angenommen werden, daß in die Handhabung, in die Methode, in das Wie des Lehrens und Erziehens durch die Anthroposophie dasjenige hineinkommt, was überhaupt notwendig ist.
Ich möchte nun wie als eine Anmerkung erwähnen, daß wir ja in Stuttgart, wo wir in der Lage sind, seit Jahren im Sinne der anthroposophischen Pädagogik in der Waldorfschule zu wirken, auch nach außen hin ganz klar erkennen ließen, daß es nicht darauf ankommt, Anthroposophie als solche in die Schule hineinzutragen. Wir haben einfach den Religionsunterricht als solchen übergeben für katholische Kinder dem katholischen Priester, für evangelische Kinder dem evangelischen Pfarrer, und nur für diejenigen Kinder, deren Eltern wünschen, daß sie eine freie Religionslehre bekommen, für die werden freie Religionslehren aus der Anthroposophie heraus gegeben; so daß das Weltanschauungsmäßige in der Waldorfschule eigentlich nicht berührt wird.
Ferner ist das noch zu beachten, daß zunächst auch nicht gedacht werden soll, daß irgend die Begründung von Schulen im weitesten Umfange ein Ziel und Ideal sein muß desjenigen, was mit anthroposophischer Pädagogik erzielt wird. Gewiß, will man rein in anthroposophischer Methodik unterrichten, braucht man Musterschulen. Solche Musterschulen sind schon dringend notwendig. Aber da die anthroposophische pädagogische Kunst zunächst ein Methodisch-Didaktisches sein soll, also das Wie des Unterrichts betont, so handelt es sich darum, daß sie überallhin, in jede Art von Schule, in jede Art des Unterrichts durch den einzelnen Lehrer gebracht werden kann. Es handelt sich nicht darum, durch anthroposophische Pädagogik an den Anstalten Revolutionen oder dergleichen hervorzurufen, auch nicht im leisesten Sinne, sondern darum, aus anthroposophischer Pädagogik und Menschenerkenntnis zunächst Richtlinien zu finden, wie unterrichtet und erzogen werden soll.
Nun haben Sie gesehen, daß es sich dabei handelt um ein intimeres Betrachten und Beobachten des Menschen, als es nun schon einmal heute üblich ist. Man lernt heute auf gewissen Gebieten recht exakt beobachten, und was nach dieser Richtung geleistet wird in sogenannter Näherungsbeobachtung, sagen wir zum Beispiel bei Beobachtung der Sterne durch das Teleskop, oder sagen wir auf dem Felde der Meßkunst - es könnte für viele Dinge angeführt werden -, das ist etwas, was hervorgeht aus dem Gefühl, intim im mathematischen Sinne zu beobachten. Aber intim zu beobachten in dem Sinne, daß sich dadurch enthüllen feine Übergänge im Seelischen des Menschen oder auch feine Übergänge der menschlichen Organisation, das haben wir gerade aus jener naturwissenschaftlichen Gesinnung, die sich in den letzten drei bis vier Jahrhunderten herausgebildet hat, heute im allgemeinen Zivilisationsleben doch nicht. Und deshalb werden auch die für das Erziehen so wichtigen Übergänge, wie sie vorliegen beim Zahnwechsel, bei der Geschlechtsreife und selbst noch nach dem 20. Jahr, nicht beobachtet.
Gewiß, man redet von diesen Übergängen, aber man redet nur von dem, was sich in grobem Sinne im physischen Leib abspielt, und was im Seelischen zum Ausdruck kommt durch eine grobe Abhängigkeit der Seele vom physischen Leib. Aber man weiß wenig zu sagen, wie das Kind vor dem Zahnwechsel in seiner ganzen leiblich-körperlichen Organisation verschieden ist von dem, wie es sich darlebt in der zweiten Epoche, zwischen dem Zahnwechsel und der Geschlechtsreife. Zu diesen Dingen gehört eben eine feinere Beobachtungsmethode. Und da Anthroposophie ausgeht auf Beobachtung des Geistigen in der Welt, wie es sich überall ausspricht in der Welt, und wie es die meisten Menschen nicht anerkennen wollen, so hat sie die Kraft in sich, daß auch solche Persönlichkeiten, bei denen es durch ihr Schicksal noch nicht dahin kommen kann, daß sie nun gleich den Blick in die geistige Welt hinein bekommen, nun doch, wenn sie beginnen, jene inneren Seelenübungen zu machen, welche nach und nach darauf hinauslaufen, einen wirklichen Einblick in die geistige Welt zu haben, eben durch den Anfang dieser Seelenübungen dazu kommen, eine feinere Menschenbeobachtung zu entwickeln. Denn bedenken Sie, alles Forschen in der geistigen Welt beruht darauf, daß man in dem Geistig-Seelischen des Menschen, in dem Übersinnlichen, in demjenigen, von dem ich gestern gesagt habe, daß es aus vorirdischem Dasein heruntersteigt und sich mit dem vererbten physischen Körper verbindet, daß man in diesem Übersinnlichen übersinnliche Organformen, Augen und Ohren der Seele entwickelt hat, wie der Körper Augen und Ohren hat, so daß man unabhängig vom Körper wahrnehmen kann.
Der Mensch ist jede Nacht im Schlaf unbewußt in dem Zustand, in dem man sein muß, wenn man geistig forscht. In dem Augenblicke, wo man einschläft, geht man mit seinem Geistig-Seelischen aus dem physischen Leibe heraus. In dem Augenblicke, wo wir aufwachen, gehen wir mit dem Geistig-Seelischen in den physischen Leib wiederum hinein. Wir sehen beim wachenden Menschen, wie er sich seiner Augen und Ohren bedient, wie er seine Glieder in Regsamkeit versetzt. Sowohl das Sich-Bedienen der Sinnesorgane wie das In-RegsamkeitVersetzen der Glieder geht aus von dem Geistig-Seelischen. Auch eine wahre Naturerkenntnis, wie wir sie heute noch nicht haben, lehrt, daß die physischen Äußerungen während des Wachens gehandhabt werden von dem Geistig-Seelischen, und daß nur eine Unterbrechung dieser Tätigkeit des Geistig-Seelischen vorliegt vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen. Auch dieser Unterschied zwischen dem Schlafen und dem Wachen ist noch zu fein für das an den naturwissenschaftlichen Methoden heranerzogene heutige Denken, das wir heute schon mit der kindlichen Erziehung aufnehmen. Denn im Schlaf ist der Mensch ganz und gar denjenigen Tätigkeiten seiner Organisation hingegeben, denen Mineral und Pflanze hingegeben sind.
Man darf aber nicht sagen — gerade in der Geisteswissenschaft, in der Anthroposophie muß exakt und genau gesprochen werden -, der Mensch sei schlafend eine Pflanze; das ist er natürlich nicht. Er ist es seiner Organisation nach nicht. Er ist in seiner Organisation so, daß die mineralischen und pflanzlichen Substanzen herauforganisiert sind bis zum Tierisch-Menschlichen. Die Pflanze hat keine Muskeln, hat keine Nerven. Nerven und Muskeln sind natürlich auch während des Schlafes im Menschen. Und das Bedeutsame für den Menschen - in gewisser Beziehung auch für die Tiere, aber darum kann es sich jetzt nicht handeln - ist, daß die rein vegetative Tätigkeit, die sonst in der Pflanze nichts mit Muskeln und Nerven zu tun hat, daß die jetzt mit Muskeln und Nerven über das Substantielle kommt, so daß auch die Schlaftätigkeit des Menschen nicht eine bloße Pflanzentätigkeit ist. Aber der Impuls ist derselbe wie der, der in der Pflanze ist.
Daher geschieht auch während des Schlafes im Menschen etwas anderes als in der Pflanze. Aber um sich eine Vorstellung von dem zu machen, was da eigentlich vorgeht, muß man das Folgende sagen: Während des Wachens ist dem menschlichen Organismus das Geistig-Seelische eingegliedert. Dieses Geistig-Seelische zeigt, wenn man es beobachtet, zwar eine gewisse Ähnlichkeit mit dem ganzen Universum, dem ganzen Kosmos, aber eben nur eine Ähnlichkeit, so daß, wenn wir das Pflanzenwachstum beobachten, sich das Folgende herausstellt: Wir sehen im Frühling, wenn der Schnee zurückgegangen ist, von der Erde heraussprießen und sprossen die Pflanzen, sehen sie ihr Wesen entfalten. Wir sehen gewissermaßen das Pflanzenwachstum, das angewiesen war bis dahin auf die Kräfte, die sich seit dem vorjährigen Sonnendasein als Sonnenschein in der Erde angesammelt haben. Aus diesen in der Erde angesammelten Sonnenkräften — man kann es so sagen — werden die Pflanzenwesen im Frühjahr entlassen und vom äußeren Sonnenschein in Empfang genommen, durchgeführt durch die Sommerzeit, bis der Same herangereift ist. Dann geht im wesentlichen das Wachstum wieder über auf die Erde. Während des Sommers kommt dasjenige, was sonst Kraft der Sonne ist, in die Erde hinein, sammelt sich dort. In der Erde hat man fortwährend die angesammelte Sonnenkraft. Man braucht nur daran zu erinnern, daß man eigentlich jetzt die Kraft der Sonne, die einmal vor Jahrmillionen die zu Steinkohlen gewordenen Pflanzen beschienen hat, in den heutigen Ofen heizt. Kürzere Zeit bewahrt wird die Sonnenkraft in jedem Jahr in der Erde. So saugt die Pflanze während der Zeit bis zum Frühling hin noch Sonnenkraft von der Erde, wo sie bewahrt worden ist. Während des Sommers bekommt sie die Sonnenkraft direkt aus dem Kosmos. Dadurch tritt Rhythmus ein. Man kann sagen, der Rhythmus verläuft so für das Pflanzenleben: Erden-Sonnenkraft, kosmische Sonnenkraft; ErdenSonnenkraft, kosmische Sonnenkraft und so weiter. Wie der Pendelschlag der Uhr wechselt die Pflanze mit kosmischen und irdischen Sonnenkräften.
Und wenn wir nun den Menschen anschauen: er schläft ein; er läßt zunächst dasjenige, was nur mineralisch und dasjenige, was pflanzlich ist, in seinem Körper, der aber im Gegensatz zur Pflanze für das Geistig-Seelische organisiert ist. Wenn der Mensch einschläft, dann sprießt und sproßt das vegetative Leben, sich selber überlassen, auf; und es wird tatsächlich im Beginne des Schlafens im Menschen Frühling. Aber diese vegetative Kraft wird wiederum zurückgetrieben im Erwachen. Es wird im Erwachen im Menschen Herbst innerlich in der vegetativen Tätigkeit. Gerade beim Aufgehen des Geistig-Seelischen im Erwachen wird es Herbst. In diesen Dingen sieht man die Ähnlichkeit oftmals - natürlich wenn man in äußeren Analogien denkt -— so, daß man meint, daß es mit dem Erwachen Frühling wird, beim Einschlafen Herbst. So ist es nicht. Für wirkliche geistige Einsicht in den Menschen sieht man gerade sprießendes, sprossendes Frühlingsleben im ersten Schlaf aufkommen. Ganz Herbst, untergehendes Leben, wie untergehende Sonne nimmt sich aus dasjenige, was während des Wachens über ihn kommt. Während der Mensch wacht, während jede seiner Seelentätigkeiten in ihm wirkt, ist es für die vegetative Tätigkeit in seinem Inneren Winter. Da sehen wir wiederum einen Rhythmus wie im Pflanzenwachstum auftreten. Im Pflanzenwachstum unterscheiden wir Erdentätigkeit, Sonnentätigkeit. Im Menschen dieselbe Tätigkeit im Grunde genommen, der Pflanzentätigkeit nachgebildet: Einschlafen = Sommertätigkeit; Aufwachen = Wintertätigkeit; wiederum Sommertätigkeit, Wintertätigkeit und so weiter, aber im Kreislauf von 24 Stunden. Dasjenige, was draußen im Kosmos im Jahr abläuft, hat der Mensch zusammengezogen in den Kreislauf von 24 Stunden. Das ist eine Ähnlichkeit, aber es ist keine Gleichheit. Und das wird im Menschen dadurch bewirkt, daß an ihm noch tätig ist sein GeistigSeelisches, das anders ist im Naturdasein draußen, wo es ganz andere Lebensdauer hat. Da ist ein Jahr gleich einem Tag in der Lebensdauer jener Geistwesen, die den Kosmos durchdringen und den Jahreskreislauf durchdringen, so, wie die Geistseele im Menschen den Tageskreislauf bewirkt.
Wenn wir das bedenken, so werden wir auch einsehen, was ich jetzt als rein hypothetisch annehmen möchte. Ich sage das vorher, weil ich Sie davor bewahren möchte, zu erschrecken, weil es phantastisch erscheint, aber das doch verständlich machen kann, was eigentlich gemeint ist. Nehmen wir an, ein Mensch schläft ein; da tritt das ein, was als Sommertätigkeit charakterisiert worden ist. Er setzt den Schlaf fort, er schläft ein und wacht nicht auf, er schläft immerfort. Dann würde dasjenige, was im Menschen das Vegetative ist, was nicht das Geistig-Seelische ist, wenn es so fortgehen würde, wie es jetzt im Schlafe ist, das würde den wirklichen Kreislauf nehmen, den das Pflanzenleben nimmt: den Jahreskreislauf. Der ist natürlich nicht da, ist nicht veranlagt im Menschen. Daher würde der Mensch, wenn er so im Einschlafen herausgeht aus dem physischen Leib und wenn dieser physische Leib so fortschlafen würde, ihn nicht erhalten können: es träte der Tod ein; der Leib würde in anderer Weise von der Natur in Anspruch genommen werden, wenn nur vegetative Tätigkeit in ihm wäre. Wäre nur vegetative Tätigkeit in ihm, so müßte der Menschenkörper abfallen von Geist und Seele, er würde einfach den Jahreskreislauf annehmen und vegetativ werden. Man schaut hin auf den physischen Tod, der zur Zerstörung des Organismus führt, und man sagt: Das, was beim Menschen geschehen ist beim Herausgeborenwerden aus dem Weltenall, das ist ein Übergang vom großen Kreislauf in den kleinen Kreislauf. Wenn er sich selbst überlassen ist, wenn er nicht das Geistig-Seelische in sich regsam machen kann, muß er, da er sich nicht unmittelbar in den kosmischen Kreislauf eingliedern kann, der Zerstörung anheim fallen.
Und so sieht man, wie der Mensch dadurch, daß er zu einer intimeren Beobachtung kommt, in das eigentlich Wesenhafte des Daseins, namentlich des menschlichen Daseins hineinschauen kann.
Ich sagte deshalb jenen Persönlichkeiten, die auch noch nicht so weit sind, daß sie unmittelbar das Geistige sehen: Wenn sie den Weg angetreten haben, um das geistige Schauen zu erreichen, kann sich schon innerlich ein feineres Impulsieren der Kräfte zeigen, die sie dann dazu bringen, das Geistige jener Kräfte zu schauen, die uns Leiter und Vermittler sind aller im Weltenall wirkender Geister. Da ist Geist vorhanden, da sind die Wesenheiten, die den Jahreskreislauf lenken und daher ein anderes Lebensalter haben als der Mensch. Da müssen wir in eine ganz andere Welt eintreten. Wir treten aber in eine uns ganz bekannte Welt ein, wenn wir den Menschen beobachten, und im Menschenleben beobachten, wie da auch durchaus Geistig-Seelisches vorhanden ist. Daher kommen wir früher dazu, jene intime Tätigkeit auszuüben, die notwendig ist, um den Menschen zu beobachten seinen geistig-seelischen Qualitäten nach, als dazu, das geistige Wirken in der Welt selber zu beobachten.
Wenn wir im gewöhnlichen Leben denken — man möchte sagen, dieses Denken, dieses Vorstellen entflieht einem ja fortwährend. Man spürt, wenn man irgendwie an etwas anstößt, man spürt, wenn man den Finger über Samt oder Seide führt, die Konfiguration des Gegenstandes an der Oberfläche. Man weiß, daß man da in menschliche Berührung gekommen ist mit der Umgebung. Aber wenn der Mensch denkt, spürt er nicht, wie er durch das Denken in Berührung kommt mit den umliegenden Gegenständen. Aber er sagt, wenn er an etwas gedacht hat und es sein geistiges Eigentum geworden ist, in der deutschen Sprache, er habe es «begriffen». Was ist das? Wenn ich so fremd bleibe den Dingen, wie man es gewöhnlich beim Denken hat, sagt man nicht: Ich habe es begriffen. - Wenn die Kreide hier liegt und ich bleibe hier stehen und bewege so meine Hand, wie das sonst beim Reden geschieht, da sagt man nicht: Ich habe die Kreide begriffen. - Aber wenn man so die Kreide wirklich mit der Hand anfaßt, kann man sagen: Ich habe die Kreide begriffen. - Weil in früheren Zeiten die Menschen noch gewußt haben, um was es sich handelt beim Denken, deshalb ist in die Sprache eingeflossen, was die Sache mehr ausdrückt, als heute in unserem Geistesleben die Abstraktlinge gewahr werden. Wir sagen, wenn wir eine Vorstellung aufgenommen haben, wir haben eine Sache begriffen. Damit ist gemeint, daß man in Berührung gekommen ist mit der Sache, daß man die Sache erfaßt hat. Sogar «erfaßt» sagt man. Heute weiß das der Mensch nicht mehr, daß der Mensch in innige Berührung kommen kann — auch wenn er nur in geistiger Äußerung lebt — mit den Dingen, die in seiner Umgebung liegen. So haben wir zum Beispiel heute ein Wort, welches ganz merkwürdig heuchlerisch sich ausnimmt in unserer Sprache. Es ist, wie wenn geheuchelt würde; man sagt «Begriff»; ich habe einen «Begriff». Da liegt das Wort «greifen» drin! Ich habe etwas, was ich angegriffen habe. Nur das Wort haben wir, aber das Leben nicht mehr in demjenigen, was uns das Wort andeutet.
Das sind solche Dinge, die aus dem äußeren Leben schon darauf hindeuten können, wozu solche Übungen führen, wie Sie sie geschildert finden als anthroposophische Forschungsmethoden in meinem Buche «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» oder im zweiten Teil der «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß» und anderen Büchern. Wir werden da hingewiesen auf solche Übungen, die man macht, zum Beispiel Vorstellungsübungen. Man läßt Vorstellungen in ganz bestimmter Art in die Seele hinein, damit das Seelenleben erstarkt in der Konzentration der Vorstellungen. Dadurch, daß die Seele solche Übungen macht, kommt der Mensch, ganz ohne Aberglaube, ohne Phantasterei, bei einer exakten Besonnenheit, wie man sie sonst nur in der Mathematik anwendet, dazu, seine Denkfähigkeit so auszubilden, daß sie eine viel regere Fähigkeit ist, als es unter den heutigen Abstraktlingen der Fall ist. Wenn die heutigen Abstraktlinge viel mit Händen und Beinen gearbeitet haben am Tage, wollen sie sich ausschlafen, weil das ja als nötig von ihnen empfunden wird; da weiß man, daß er sich regt, daß es der eigene Mensch ist, der die Arme und Beine so regt. Wenn man denkt, weiß man nicht, daß es der eigene Mensch ist, der sich regt. Man sieht nicht, was sich ausstreckt, was die Dinge angreift. Warum nicht? Weil man schon das erste übersinnliche Glied der menschlichen Natur nicht sieht: den Ätherleib, der in unserem physischen Leib so drinnen ist, wie der physische Leib in der äußeren Welt drinnen ist. In dem Augenblicke, wo man anfängt, dadurch, daß man solche Übungen macht, ein seelisches Auge, ein geistiges Ohr zu erhalten, in demselben Augenblick fängt man an, dieses erste Glied des Menschen, den Ätherleib, wirklich zu sehen. In diesem Augenblicke weiß man, daß das Denken, das vorzugsweise ausgeführt wird von diesem ätherischen Leibe, ein Begreifen ist, ein Befühlen, aber ein geistiges Begreifen, ein geistiges Befühlen der Dinge. Aber das Geistige fühlt man so an, wenn man die Gedanken gewissermaßen verdichtet hat durch solche Übungen, daß man nicht jenes abstrakte Gefühl hat des Fernstehens der Dinge, wie es im gewöhnlichen Leben der Fall ist, sondern ein wirkliches Gefühl, das sich herausbildet durch das geübte, verdichtete Denken. Dann wird man aber schon auch vom Denken müde. Dann will man sich dem Denken gegenüber erst recht ausschlafen.
Die heutige materialistische Zeit zieht nicht bloß materialistische Gesinnung als Folge des Materialismus heran: das wäre im Grunde genommen nicht das allerschlimmste. Die Erziehung soll auf das andere hinschauen. Dem Erzieher kann es nicht ganz, aber doch bis zu einem gewissen Grade gleichgültig sein, ob eine Mensch müde oder nicht müde wird bei seiner Tätigkeit. Das gleicht sich schon wieder aus, wenn die Menschen wieder etwas vernünftig werden. Das schlimmste ist, wenn wir es sehen bei einem Menschen, der von Kindheit auf durch das Volksschulzeitalter nur diejenige geistig-seelische Nahrung aufgenommen hat, die geprägt worden ist von der Naturwissenschaft, das heißt von materiellen Dingen. Und das geht natürlich nicht bloß diejenigen Menschen an, die irgend etwas von Naturwissenschaft lernen, sondern das Naturwissenschaftliche steckt heute drin vom ersten Volksschuljahr an durch die ganze Erziehung. Es steckt überall drinnen, und da wird es aufgenommen von dem Kinde, wächst heran mit dem Kinde, wirkt in seiner physischen Organisation so, daß wir später diejenigen Krankheitszustände kennenlernen, wo die Menschen nicht schlafen können. Die gewisse Schlaflosigkeit in unserem materialistischen Zeitalter, woher rührt sie? Sie rührt daher, daß die Gedankentätigkeit, diese Gedankengriffe, dieses Gedankenfühlen der Umgebung, wenn wir bloß materialistisch denken, nicht müde werden läßt die entsprechenden Organe des Ätherleibes. Nur unser physischer Leib allein wird müde; so schlafen wir ein, nachdem wir nur materialistisch gedacht haben während des Wachens: der physische Leib kann einschlafen, der Ätherleib kann nicht einschlafen, der fängt an zu zappeln, innerlich unruhig zu werden, schlaflos zu werden. Er zieht das Geistig-Seelische herein, und es tritt jener Zustand ein, der nach und nach eine Epidemie werden muß. Er ist es heute schon fast im materialistischen Zeitalter. Erst wenn wir auf dieses hinschauen, kommen wir auf die Bedeutung des materialistischen Zeitalters. Daß die Menschen theoretisch materialistisch denken, das ist schlimm, aber nicht gar so arg; daß die Menschen im moralisch-wirtschaftlichen Handeln zu den Konsequenzen des Materiialismus kommen, ist schon schlimmer; daß die Menschen aber durch den Materialismus ihre ganze Kindheit zuschanden richten und dann überhaupt nicht mehr herankommen können an moralisch-geistige Impulse, das ist das Schlimmste.
Und das ist dasjenige, was gewußt werden muß von dem, der heute hineinschauen will in die Notwendigkeit einer Umwandlung des Erziehens und Lehrens. Denn solche Übergänge, wie sie stattfinden beim Zahnwechsel, bei der Geschlechtsreife, können nur durchschaut werden, wenn wir intim die Menschen beobachten: wie da der Mensch innerlich regsam wird, so daß der Mensch sich fühlt — wie sonst im physischen Körper - im Ätherleibe; und weiß, daß, wenn er über einen Gegenstand nachdenkt, er eigentlich im ätherischen Leibe dasjenige immerfort ausführt, was sonst im physischen Leibe vom Menschen ausgeführt wird, wenn er eine Sache befühlt. Wenn ich wissen will, wie eine Sache ist, befühle ich sie, setze ich mich mit ihr in Verbindung, bekomme dadurch eine Kenntnis von ihrer Oberfläche. Wenn ich dann darüber nachdenke, mache ich dasselbe im Ätherleibe. Dasjenige, was ich begreifen will, wovon ich mir einen Begriff machen will, befühle ich ätherisch-übersinnlich. Der Ätherleib ist in so regsamer Tätigkeit wie sonst der physische Leib. Und aus diesem Wissen, diesem Bewußtsein von der Tätigkeit des Ätherleibes gehen die richtigen Erkenntnisse über den Menschen und namentlich über die menschliche Entwickelung erst aus.
Wenn man mit einem so innerlich regsam gemachten Denken das ganz kleine Kind verfolgt, dann schaut man, wie wirklich jede Regung in der Umgebung in das Kind hinein fortströmt, wie jeder irgendein Moralisches ausdrückende Blick -— denn in dem Moralischen, in dem Moralisiertsein des Blickes liegt dasjenige, was auf das Kind als imponderable Kraft übergeht - in dem Kinde weiterwirkt bis in die Atmung und die Blutzirkulation hinein. Man schaut ein ganz Bewußtes, ein ungeheuer Konkretes, wenn man übergehen kann zu dem Ausspruch: Das Kind ist durch und durch ein nachahmendes Wesen für seine Umgebung. - Wie das Kind atmet im feineren Verlauf, wie das Kind verdaut im feineren Verlauf, ist ein Reflex desjenigen, wie sich die Menschen seiner Umgebung verhalten. Das Kind ist ganz hingegeben an seine Umgebung. Während das Kind ganz hingegeben ist an seine Umgebung, so können wir sagen, daß wir im späteren, erwachsenen Zustand dieses Hingegebensein des Menschen an die Umgebung nur kennen in seiner geistig-seelischen Offenbarung im religiösen Leben. Da sind wir geistig an die Umgebung hingegeben. Das religiöse Leben entwickelt sich richtig, wenn wir mit dem Geistigen aus uns herausgehen und uns an eine geistige Weltordnung hingeben können, gewissermaßen überfließen können in eine göttliche Weltordnung. Für den erwachsenen Menschen ist dieses religiöse Gefühl dadurch vorhanden, daß sein Geistig-Seelisches emanzipiert ist vom Leiblichen, daß also das Geistig-Seelische sich hingibt an das Geistig-Göttliche der Welt. Beim Kind ist der ganze Mensch hingegeben. Blutkreislauf, Verdauung, Atmungstätigkeit, die beim erwachsenen Menschen innerlich leben, von der äußeren Welt abgeschnürt, sind hingegeben an die Umgebung. Und so lebt in den Naturäußerungen des Kindes ein naturhaftes Religiöses. Das ist das Wesentliche, was man einsehen muß für alle Erziehung bis zum Zahnwechsel, daß eigentlich ein naturhaft Religiöses in dem Kinde lebt, daß der Körper selber in religiöser Stimmung ist.
Aber weil in der Umgebung des Kindes nicht nur Gutes lebt, an das der Mensch sich hingeben kann, wenn er erwachsen ist und nun die eigene Seele an das Göttliche hingibt, weil in der Umgebung nicht nur gutes, sondern auch böses Geistiges ist, böses Geistiges, das von Menschen ausgeht und das von anderen geistigen Gewalten in der Welt ausgeht, so kann dieses naturhaft Religiöse im kindlichen Körper auch an das Böse hingegeben sein. Böses kann heraufstoßen. Wenn ich gesagt habe, daß im Kinde schon körperlich eine Stimmung von naturhaft Religiösem ist, brauchen wir das nicht als Widerspruch aufzufassen, daß manche Kinder furchtbar dämonisch sind. Sie sind es deshalb, weil sie an das böse Geistige hingegeben sind, das wir heraustreiben müssen, das wir besiegen müssen dadurch, daß wir die geeigneten Methoden anwenden müssen, solange sie angewendet werden können. Solange das Kind ein nachahmend religiöses Wesen ist, hilft es durchaus nicht, wenn ich das Kind ermahne. Zum Achtgeben auf Worte gehört schon, daß die Seele in gewisser Weise emanzipiert ist. Da muß schon das Seelische auf sie aufpassen. Beim Kinde helfen Worte nicht. Es hilft aber alles das, was wir dem Kinde so vormachen, daß das Kind es sieht, daß es in ihm als eine Wahrnehmung fortfließt. Nur muß auch das Moralische in dem drinnen liegen, was wir dem Kinde vormachen. Man wird es schon bemerken: geradeso wie, sagen wir, der Farbenblinde sich irgendwo eine Farbenfläche anschaut und alles so grau in grau sieht, nicht die Farben sieht, so schaut der Erwachsene die Gesten der Menschen, ihre Blicke, ihre Mienen, die Schnelligkeit oder Langsamkeit ihrer Bewegungen, das Eckige ihrer Bewegungen. Er schaut das Physische, aber er nimmt nicht mehr das Moralische darin wahr. Das Kind schaut das Moralische, wenn auch auf unterbewußte Art. Deshalb müssen wir uns klar sein darüber, daß wir in der Umgebung des Kindes nicht bloß aus dem Sichtbaren heraushalten müssen alles dasjenige, was das Kind nicht nachahmen soll, sondern daß wir aus dem Unsichtbaren heraushalten müssen auch alle Gedanken in der Nähe des Kindes, welche nicht in die kindliche Seele hineinkommen sollen. Und diese Gedankenerziehung, die ist sogar für das kindliche Alter bis zum Zahnwechsel hin das Allerwichtigste: wenn wir uns auch nicht gestatten, unreine, häßliche, zornwütige Gedanken zu haben in der Nähe des Kindes. Denn Sie werden zwar sagen: Ich kann ja hier denken, was ich will, da ändere ich mich äußerlich nicht; da sieht das Kind nichts, es kann also auch nicht beeinflußt werden. - Sehen Sie, in dieser Beziehung, muß ich sagen, liegt eigentlich dasjenige, was man in interessanter Weise wahrnehmen konnte bei den wirklich recht laienhaft dilettantisch angestellten Versuchen mit den denkenden Pferden, den rechnenden Pferden oder mit anderen Intelligenz äußernden Tieren. Solche Dinge waren schon interessant, nur nicht nach der Richtung, nach der es die Welt genommen hat.
Sehen Sie, die Elberfelder Pferde habe ich selber zum Beispiel nicht gesehen. Ich möchte immer nur über dasjenige reden, was meiner eigenen Beobachtung unterliegt, wie zum Beispiel das Pferd des Herrn von Osten; ich konnte sehen, wie es seinem Herrn Antworten gab. Er stellte ihm Rechnungsaufgaben; es waren nicht besonders komplizierte Aufgaben, aber für ein Pferd doch. Ich konnte sehen, wie es addiert und subtrahiert hat und mit seinem Fuß aufstoßend das richtige Rechnungsresultat angegeben hat. Über diese Vorgänge konnte ein naturwissenschaftlich gebildeter Mensch der Gegenwart nachdenken wie etwa jener Privatdozent, der ein dickes Buch geschrieben hat über das Pferd, oder man konnte nachdenken auf anthroposophische Art. Was war der Sinn des Buches, das der Privatdozent geschrieben hat? Alles, was die Laien geglaubt haben, hat er ausgeschaltet. Sie dürfen nicht glauben, daß ich das geringste gegen die Naturwissenschaft sprechen will. Ich weiß sie genau zu schätzen. Der Privatdozent sagt zum Schlusse: Da liegt zugrunde, daß das Pferd feine Bewegungen, ein feines Zwinkern in den Augen oder ein sonstiges feines Vibrieren von Muskeln wahrgenommen hat an dem Herrn von Osten und allmählich gelernt hat, wie die vibrierende Bewegung im Augenmuskel ist, wenn das Rechnungsresultat so oder so ist; dann folgte das Aufstoßen mit dem Fuße. Er hat da eine sehr geistreiche, geistvolle Hypothese aufgestellt. Er kommt dann doch zu der Frage, die man stellen muß: Hat man diese Dinge etwa selber gesehen, ist das ein Beobachtungsresultat? — Gewiß, er stellt sich diese Frage; man lernt sehr verantwortungsvoll forschen. Er beantwortet sie dadurch, daß er sagt: Dazu sind unsere Sinne nicht organisiert, um diese feinen äußeren Bewegungen wahrzunehmen; das Pferd aber kann dieses. - Damit wird nur konstatiert, daß ein Pferd am Menschen mehr sehen kann als ein Privatdozent.
Aber mir war etwas anderes wichtig: das Pferd hat seine Rechnungsresultate nur dann erzielt, wenn Herr von Osten danebenstand und mit dem Pferde sprach. Während er sprach, nahm er so ein kleines Zuckerstückchen, steckte es dem Pferde ins Maul. Das Pferd hatte fortwährend einen süßen Geschmack, der es ganz durchdrang. Das ist das Wesentliche. Es fühlte sich innerlich in der Süßigkeit angeregt; da wird man auch als Pferd fähig, durch diese Verinnerlichung dasjenige zu erleben, was man sonst nicht erlebt. Eigentlich möchte ich sagen: In dem Süßigkeitspferd, das da als ätherisches Pferd durchzogen hat das physische Pferd, da lebte fortwährend Herr von Osten, darinnen lebten seine Gedanken wie sonst im eigenen Leibe und breiteten sich aus. Im Pferde lebten sie fort nicht dadurch, daß das Pferd feiner beobachten kann als ein Privatdozent, sondern weil es noch nicht so hoch organisiert ist und daher den fremden Einfluß aufnimmt, während der Körper fortwährend Süßigkeit aufnimmt.
Es gibt solche Wirkungen von Mensch zu Mensch, die hervorgerufen werden durch Dinge, für die man sonst nur schwer oder unempfänglich ist. Sie treten namentlich auf im Verkehr zwischen Mensch und Tier; aber sie können im hohen Grad vorhanden sein, wenn das GeistigSeelische noch nicht emanzipiert ist vom Körperlichen, wie das beim Kinde der Fall ist, so daß das Kind wirklich in Geste und Blick das Moralische in der Umgebung wahrnimmt, wenn auch der Erwachsene das nicht mehr beobachten kann. Daher dürfen wir uns nicht häßliche Gedanken in der Umgebung des Kindes gestatten; die leben nicht nur im Seelischen des Kindes fort, sondern die leben in der physischen Organisation des Kindes fort.
Gewiß, dasjenige, was heute zum Beispiel geleistet wird in mancher medizinischen oder sonstigen Dissertation, wie sie abgeliefert wird nach dem heutigen Stande der wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnis, ist sehr interessant. Aber es wird die Zeit kommen, wo noch ganz anderes kommen wird, wo zum Beispiel — lassen Sie mich das so anschaulich schildern, es wird vielleicht gerade dadurch einleuchtend -, sagen wir, in Doktorschriften, die gemacht werden, um den Doktorgrad zu erlangen, das Thema behandelt wird: Ein Krankheitsfall im 48. Jahr mit diesen oder jenen Symptomen führt zurück auf häßliche Gedanken von einer bestimmten Art, die im 4. oder 5. Lebensjahr an das Kind herangetreten sind. Mit solchen Einsichten wird man in Wirklichkeit an den Menschen herankommen, und dadurch wird man dann das ganze menschliche Leben überschauen.
So handelt es sich darum, daß wir allmählich lernen, nicht nur Dinge an das Kind heranzubringen, die wir nach unserem abstrakten Verstande als Stäbchenlegen und allerlei solche Arbeiten ausdenken, daß das Kind es machen könne: das Kind tut es nicht von sich aus. Es muß seine eigene Seelenkraft erregt werden; dann ahmt es die Dinge nach, die es bei den Erwachsenen sieht. Es spielt mit der Puppe, weil es die Mutter das Kind pflegen sieht. Im Kinde lebt ganz und gar dasjenige, was bei den Erwachsenen ist, als Tendenz zur Nachahmung. Dieser Tendenz muß Rechnung getragen werden bei der Erziehung des Kindes bis zum Zahnwechsel. Nur ist all das, was da heranerzogen werden soll, einer Veränderung unterworfen im kindlichen Organismus, der alles lebendiger macht, beseelter macht, als es beim erwachsenen Menschen durchgeführt wird, weil das Kind noch eine Einheit ist von Leib, Seele und Geist. Beim erwachsenen Menschen ist der Körper emanzipiert vom Seelisch-Geistigen; das Seelisch-Geistige ist emanzipiert vom Körperlichen. Körper, Seele und Geist stehen vereinzelt da. Nur beim Kinde ist eine strenge Einheit im Körperlich-SeelischGeistigen. Bis in das Denken hinein ist diese Einheit da. Dies kann man leicht bemerken, wenn man dem Kinde zum Beispiel, bevor es den Zahnwechsel durchgemacht hat, eine recht schöne Puppe gibt, die wunderbar bemalt ist, menschenähnlich ist, sogar gläserne Augen hat. Es gibt solche Puppen: wenn man sie niederlegt, verdrehen sie die Augen und schlafen; wenn man sie aufhebt, schaut das Ding. Viele andere Vorrichtungen gibt es da, wodurch solch kleine Ungetüme entstehen, die man dem Kinde in die Hand gibt als «schöne Puppen». Ja, scheußlich sind diese Dinge schon vom künstlerischen Gesichtspunkt aus, aber darauf möchte ich nicht eingehen. Aber betrachten Sie einmal den Unterschied, der mit dem Kinde selber vorgeht, wenn Sie dem Kinde eine schöne Puppe geben, die sogar die Augen verdrehen kann. Zuerst wird es natürlich Freude haben, weil das Ding eine Sensation ist; aber nach und nach vergeht dies. Vergleichen Sie das, was mit dem Kinde vorgeht, wenn Sie einfach ein Wischtuch nehmen, oben einen Kopf daraus formen, indem Sie es zusammenziehen, zwei Punkte machen als Augen, vielleicht auch noch eine große Nase. Da hat das Kind Gelegenheit, in seiner Phantasie, in seinem Seelisch-Geistigen, das mit dem Körperlichen verbunden ist, das andere dazu zu phantasieren. Da lebt das Kind jedesmal, wenn es die Puppe vorstellen soll, innerlich auf, da bleibt es lebendig. Macht man diese Versuche, so wird man sehen, wie es etwas ganz anderes bedeutet, der Phantasie, der Seelentätigkeit beim kindlichen Spiel möglichst viel zu überlassen, oder das Spielzeug so zu formen, daß es nichts mehr für die innere Regsamkeit übrig läßt. Daher ist es von allergrößtem Nutzen für das Kind, wenn wir die Kinderhandarbeiten so einrichten, daß sie möglichst nur andeutend sind, wenn noch viel der Phantasietätigkeit übrigbleibt. Fertig gestaltete Tätigkeit, die so bleiben kann, wie sie ist, ist nicht anregend, weil die Phantasie nicht hinausgehen kann über das, was sinnlich vorliegt.
Das wirft Licht auf die Art und Weise, wie wir gerade als Lehrende, als Erziehende sein müssen, wenn wir in richtiger Weise an das Kind herankommen wollen. Wir brauchen da eine Pädagogik, die auf Menschenerkenntnis, auf Erkenntnis des Kindes beruht. Und wiederum, eine wirkliche Pädagogik, die auf Menschenerkenntnis beruht, wird in demjenigen Zeitalter vorhanden sein, wo man zum Beispiel erleben wird Doktorarbeiten von der Art: Ein Fall von Diabetes bei einem Vierzigjährigen zurückgeführt auf die Schädlichkeit des kindlichen Spieles im 3., 4. Lebensjahr. Dann wird man sehen, was es heißt: der ganze Mensch besteht aus Körper, Seele und Geist, und beim Kinde ist Körper, Seele und Geist noch eine Einheit. Geist und Seele werden später vom Körper frei, dann sind sie ein Dreifaches. Dann sind sozusagen im erwachsenen Menschen Geist, Seele und Leib auseinandergeschoben, und nur der Leib behält dasjenige, was in ihm während der Zeit der kindlichen Entwickelung eingezogen ist als Keim für das spätere Leben. Nun ist das Eigentümliche: In der Seele erleben wir Folgen, die eben in das Unterbewußte hineingezogen sind, bald; physisch im Körper erleben wir es sieben- bis achtmal später. Wenn Sie das Kind seelenhaft erziehen, das Seelenhafte im 4., 5. Lebensjahr so geltend machen, daß das Kind es aufgenommen hat und sein Seelenleben unter dem Einflusse steht, so kommt dieses zum Beispiel im 8. Lebensjahr zum Vorschein. Die Leute sehen noch darauf, daß man im 4., 5. Lebensjahr das nicht beibringt, was es nicht gesund macht im 8., 9. Lebensjahr. Die Seelenwirkung zeigt sich im 8., im 7. Lebensjahr. Die körperliche Wirkung zeigt sich — weil sich der Körper emanzipiert — langsamer, zeigt sich sieben- bis achtmal später. Für die seelische Entwickelung zeigen sich die Früchte eines Einflusses aus dem 5. Lebensjahr im 8. Lebensjahr; im Körper zeigen sie sich nach 35 Jahren, nach einer Zeit, die siebenmal größer ist. 5 mal 7 ist 35. So daß Krankheitserscheinungen, die auftreten infolge einer falschen, durch Spielen bewirkten seelischen Einwirkung im 3., 4. Lebensjahr, im Beginne der Vierziger- oder Ende der Dreifigerjahre auftreten.
Derjenige, der den ganzen Menschen kennenlernen will, muß auch das wissen, daß diese Emanzipation des Seelisch-Geistigen, die beim Erwachsenen eintritt gegenüber dem Vereintsein beim Kinde, nicht etwas Abstraktes ist, sondern sehr konkret ist, indem sich sogar der Zeitverlauf verschieben kann. Immer mehr und mehr wird die Zeit, die der Körper mehr braucht als die Seele, um etwas auszubilden. Der Körper bleibt zurück, und Schädlichkeiten des Körpers treten viel später ein als Schädlichkeiten der Seele. So ist es wiederum bei manchen Verfehlungen im kindlichen Lebensalter, wo man sehen kann, wie in den Flegeljahren im Seelischen gar manches Schlimme ist; aber es gleicht sich aus. Denn man hat da verhältnismäßig leichte Mittel, um selbst Leute noch zurechtzubringen, die in den Flegeljahren, wie man es nennt, recht ausgelassen sind; die werden manchmal noch ganz brave Philister. Das ist nicht etwas so Schlimmes. Aber der Körper entwickelt sich allmählich immer langsamer und immer langsamer; und wenn man längst das, was in den Flegeljahren im Seelisch-Geistigen aufgetreten ist, überwunden hat, hat man als Ergebnis der Flegeljahre noch am Ende des Lebens zu kämpfen mit Podagra als physischer Wirkung, die in langsamer Weise sich ergibt.
Konkrete Menschenerkenntnis ist schon etwas, was eine große Bedeutung hat im menschlichen Leben. Diese konkrete Menschenerkenntnis, die wirklich in den Menschen hineinschauen läßt, ist allein imstande, Voraussetzungen zu liefern für eine wahre Erziehungskunst, die den Menschen hineinstellt in das Leben so, daß — nach seinem Schicksal selbstverständlich bei dem einen mehr, bei dem anderen weniger alles werden kann, was im Menschen veranlagt ist. Nicht darum kann es sich handeln, daß wir mit der pädagogischen Kunst gegen das Schicksal handeln; aber man muß erreichen, was im Schicksal veranlagt ist. Heute bleibt man vielfach mit der Erziehung hinter dem zurück, was im Schicksal veranlagt ist. Wir müssen der Schicksalsveranlagung soweit nachkommen, daß der Mensch im Denken die ihm für das Leben höchste mögliche Klarheit, im Fühlen die nach seinem Schicksal für ihn denkbar höchste liebevolle Vertiefung, und im Wollen die nach seinem Schicksal höchste mögliche Energie und Tüchtigkeit erringe.
Das kann nur eine auf wirklicher Menschenerkenntnis aufgebaute Pädagogik und Didaktik. Von ihr wollen wir dann in den nächsten Vorträgen weiter sprechen.
Second Lecture
You will have seen that the foundation of an educational art is a knowledge of human nature that can approach human beings more intimately than the knowledge of human nature that is recognized today, which seeks to base all knowledge on natural science. But since, as we have seen, natural science cannot really approach human beings and their nature at all, no real knowledge of human beings can come from a natural scientific attitude. Anthroposophy seeks to provide real knowledge of human beings alongside a knowledge of the world that is imbued with spirit, because the world itself is imbued with spirit. In this way, anthroposophy also seeks to establish a real pedagogy. However, one should not believe – and this is an error that can easily arise – that those who profess anthroposophy have any urge to establish anthroposophical schools, schools in which anthroposophy as a worldview, as it is today, is to be substituted for other, intellectual, heart-based worldviews. That is not the intention at all, and it is important to bear in mind that it is not the intention at all. The pedagogy referred to here seeks to incorporate from anthroposophy only the methodological and didactic elements in education and teaching. And just because those who really delve into anthroposophy may rightly believe that it is capable of finding the appropriate practical rules for treating people based on its knowledge of human nature, it can also be assumed that what is necessary in general is incorporated into the handling, the method, the how of teaching and education through anthroposophy.
I would now like to mention as a side note that in Stuttgart, where we have been able to work for years in the Waldorf School in the spirit of anthroposophical education, we have also made it very clear to the outside world that it is not a matter of bringing anthroposophy as such into the school. We have simply handed over religious instruction as such to the Catholic priest for Catholic children and to the Protestant pastor for Protestant children, and only for those children whose parents wish them to receive free religious instruction are free religious lessons given based on anthroposophy; so that the worldview is not actually touched upon in the Waldorf school.
Furthermore, it should be noted that, initially, the establishment of schools in the broadest sense should not be considered a goal or ideal of what is achieved with anthroposophical education. Certainly, if one wants to teach purely according to anthroposophical methodology, model schools are needed. Such model schools are already urgently needed. But since anthroposophical pedagogy is primarily a methodological and didactic art, emphasizing the how of teaching, it is important that it can be brought into every type of school and every type of teaching by the individual teacher. It is not a question of using anthroposophical education to bring about revolutions or anything of the sort in educational institutions, not even in the slightest sense, but rather of first finding guidelines for how to teach and educate based on anthroposophical education and knowledge of human nature.
Now you have seen that this involves a more intimate observation and contemplation of human beings than is customary today. Today, we learn to observe quite precisely in certain areas, and what is achieved in this direction in so-called approximate observation, for example, when observing the stars through a telescope, or in the field of measurement technology — there are many examples that could be cited — is something that arises from the feeling of observing intimately in the mathematical sense. But intimate observation in the sense that it reveals subtle transitions in the human soul or subtle transitions in the human organism is something that we do not have in general civilized life today, precisely because of the scientific attitude that has developed over the last three to four centuries. And that is why the transitions that are so important for education, such as those that occur during tooth replacement, sexual maturity, and even after the age of 20, are not observed.
Certainly, people talk about these transitions, but they only talk about what happens in a rough sense in the physical body and what is expressed in the soul through a rough dependence of the soul on the physical body. But little is said about how the child before the change of teeth differs in its entire physical organization from how it lives in the second epoch, between the change of teeth and sexual maturity. These things require a more refined method of observation. And since anthroposophy is based on observation of the spiritual in the world, as it expresses itself everywhere in the world, and as most people do not want to acknowledge, it has the power within it that even those personalities who, due to their fate, cannot yet gain insight into the spiritual world, can nevertheless, when they begin to do those inner soul exercises which gradually lead to a real insight into the spiritual world, develop a more refined observation of human beings through the very beginning of these soul exercises. For consider that all research in the spiritual world is based on the fact that in the spiritual-soul realm of the human being, in the supersensible, in that which I said yesterday descends from pre-earthly existence and connects with the inherited physical body, that in this supersensible realm one has developed supersensible organ forms, eyes and ears of the soul, just as the body has eyes and ears, so that one can perceive independently of the body.
Every night when we sleep, we are unconsciously in the state we need to be in for spiritual research. The moment we fall asleep, we leave our physical body with our spiritual-soul. The moment we wake up, we re-enter the physical body with our spiritual-soul. We see how the waking human being uses his eyes and ears, how he sets his limbs in motion. Both the use of the sense organs and the setting of the limbs in motion originate from the spiritual-soul. A true knowledge of nature, which we do not yet have today, also teaches us that physical expressions during waking life are controlled by the spiritual-soul, and that there is only an interruption of this activity of the spiritual-soul between falling asleep and waking up. This difference between sleeping and waking is still too subtle for today's scientific thinking, which we already absorb in childhood education. For in sleep, human beings are completely devoted to the activities of their organization, to which minerals and plants are devoted.
However, one must not say — especially in spiritual science, in anthroposophy, where one must speak precisely and accurately — that the human being is a plant when asleep; of course, he is not. He is not so in terms of his organization. His organization is such that the mineral and plant substances are organized up to the animal-human level. Plants have no muscles, no nerves. Nerves and muscles are naturally also present in humans during sleep. And what is significant for human beings — and in a certain sense also for animals, but that is not the issue here — is that the purely vegetative activity, which otherwise has nothing to do with muscles and nerves in plants, now comes into play with muscles and nerves in a substantial way, so that human sleep activity is not merely a plant activity. But the impulse is the same as that which is in plants.
Therefore, something different happens in humans during sleep than in plants. But in order to get an idea of what is actually going on, the following must be said: During waking hours, the spiritual-soul aspect is integrated into the human organism. When observed, this spiritual-soul aspect shows a certain similarity to the entire universe, the entire cosmos, but only a similarity, so that when we observe plant growth, the following becomes apparent: In spring, when the snow has receded, we see plants sprouting and growing out of the earth, we see their essence unfolding. We see, as it were, the growth of plants, which until then had been dependent on the forces that had accumulated in the earth as sunshine since the previous year's sun existence. From these solar forces accumulated in the earth — one might say — the plant beings are released in spring and received by the outer sunshine, carried through the summer until the seed has ripened. Then, essentially, growth returns to the earth. During the summer, what is otherwise the power of the sun enters the earth and accumulates there. The accumulated solar power is constantly present in the earth. One need only remember that the power of the sun that once shone on the plants that turned into coal millions of years ago is now used to heat today's furnaces. The sun's energy is stored in the earth for a shorter period of time each year. So, during the period leading up to spring, the plant still draws sun energy from the earth, where it has been stored. During the summer, it receives sun energy directly from the cosmos. This creates rhythm. One could say that the rhythm of plant life proceeds as follows: Earth's solar energy, cosmic solar energy; Earth's solar energy, cosmic solar energy, and so on. Like the pendulum of a clock, the plant alternates between cosmic and earthly solar energies.
And if we now look at the human being: he falls asleep; leaving behind what is purely mineral and what is plant-like in their body, which, unlike the plant, is organized for the spiritual-soul. When humans fall asleep, vegetative life sprouts and blossoms, left to its own devices; and indeed, at the beginning of sleep, spring arrives in humans. But this vegetative power is driven back again upon awakening. Upon awakening, autumn comes to the human being's inner vegetative activity. It is precisely when the spiritual-soul life awakens that autumn comes. In these things, one often sees the similarity — naturally, if one thinks in terms of external analogies — in such a way that one thinks that spring comes with awakening and autumn with falling asleep. This is not the case. For true spiritual insight into the human being, one sees sprouting, budding spring life arising in the first sleep. What comes over him during waking hours appears as complete autumn, declining life, like the setting sun. While the human being is awake, while all his soul activities are at work within him, it is winter for the vegetative activity within him. Here again we see a rhythm similar to that in plant growth. In plant growth we distinguish between earth activity and sun activity. In human beings, the same activity is basically modelled on plant activity: falling asleep = summer activity; waking up = winter activity; then summer activity again, winter activity and so on, but in a 24-hour cycle. What takes place outside in the cosmos over the course of a year is condensed by the human being into a 24-hour cycle. This is a similarity, but it is not an identity. And this is brought about in the human being by the fact that his spiritual-soul activity is still active in him, which is different in the natural world outside, where it has a completely different lifespan. There, a year is equal to a day in the lifespan of those spiritual beings who permeate the cosmos and permeate the annual cycle, just as the spirit-soul in human beings causes the daily cycle.
If we consider this, we will also understand what I would now like to assume as purely hypothetical. I say this in advance because I want to prevent you from being alarmed, as it seems fantastic, but it can make it understandable what is actually meant. Let us assume that a person falls asleep; then what has been characterized as summer activity occurs. They continue to sleep, they fall asleep and do not wake up, they sleep continuously. Then what is vegetative in the human being, what is not spiritual-soul, if it were to continue as it is now in sleep, would take the real cycle that plant life takes: the annual cycle. Of course, this is not there, it is not predisposed in the human being. Therefore, if the human being were to leave the physical body in this way when falling asleep, and if this physical body were to continue sleeping in this way, it would not be able to sustain him: death would occur; the body would be claimed by nature in a different way if only vegetative activity were present in it. If only vegetative activity were present in it, the human body would have to fall away from spirit and soul; it would simply take on the annual cycle and become vegetative. We look at physical death, which leads to the destruction of the organism, and we say: what happened to human beings when they were born out of the universe is a transition from the great cycle to the small cycle. If he is left to himself, if he cannot activate the spiritual-soul within himself, he must fall prey to destruction, since he cannot immediately integrate himself into the cosmic cycle.
And so we see how, by coming to a more intimate observation, human beings can look into the very essence of existence, namely human existence.
I therefore said to those personalities who are not yet ready to see the spiritual directly: Once they have embarked on the path to achieving spiritual vision, a more subtle impulse of forces may already manifest itself within them, which will then lead them to see the spiritual nature of those forces that are our guides and mediators of all the spirits working in the universe. Spirit is present there, there are the beings who guide the cycle of the year and therefore have a different lifespan than humans. There we must enter a completely different world. But we enter a world that is very familiar to us when we observe human beings and observe in human life how spiritual and soul qualities are also present there. Therefore, we come earlier to exercise that intimate activity that is necessary to observe human beings according to their spiritual and soul qualities than to observe the spiritual activity in the world itself.
When we think in everyday life — one might say that this thinking, this imagining, constantly escapes us. When we bump into something, we feel it; when we run our finger over velvet or silk, we feel the configuration of the object on the surface. We know that we have come into human contact with our surroundings. But when a person thinks, they do not feel how they come into contact with the surrounding objects through thinking. But they say, when they have thought of something and it has become their intellectual property, in the German language, that they have “grasped” it. What is that? If I remain as alien to things as one usually is when thinking, one does not say: I have grasped it. If the chalk is lying here and I stand here and move my hand as I usually do when speaking, one does not say: I have grasped the chalk. But if one actually touches the chalk with one's hand, one can say: I have grasped the chalk. - Because in earlier times people still knew what thinking was all about, language has incorporated what expresses the matter more than the abstractions in our intellectual life today. When we have taken in an idea, we say we have grasped a thing. This means that we have come into contact with the thing, that we have grasped it. We even say “grasped.” Today, people no longer know that they can come into intimate contact—even if they live only in spiritual expression—with the things that surround them. For example, we have a word today that seems very strangely hypocritical in our language. It is as if one were being hypocritical; one says “concept”; I have a “concept.” The word “grasp” is contained in it! I have something that I have grasped. We only have the word, but no longer the life in what the word suggests to us.
These are the kinds of things that can already indicate from external life what such exercises lead to, as you will find described as anthroposophical research methods in my book “How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds” or in the second part of “An Outline of Esoteric Science” and other books. We are referred there to exercises that one does, for example, exercises in imagination. One allows images to enter the soul in a very specific way, so that the soul life is strengthened in the concentration of the images. By doing such exercises, the soul, without any superstition or fantasy, but with a precise prudence that is otherwise only used in mathematics, develops its thinking ability to such an extent that it is much more active than is the case among today's abstract thinkers. When today's abstract thinkers have worked hard with their hands and legs during the day, they want to sleep, because they feel this is necessary; then they know that they are active, that it is their own human being who is moving their arms and legs. When they think, they do not know that it is their own human being who is active. One does not see what is reaching out, what is touching things. Why not? Because one does not see the first supersensible member of human nature: the etheric body, which is inside our physical body just as the physical body is inside the outer world. The moment you begin to develop a spiritual eye and a spiritual ear through such exercises, you begin to truly see this first member of the human being, the etheric body. At that moment, one knows that thinking, which is carried out primarily by this etheric body, is a comprehension, a feeling, but a spiritual comprehension, a spiritual feeling of things. But one feels the spiritual in such a way, when one has condensed one's thoughts through such exercises, that one does not have that abstract feeling of being distant from things, as is the case in ordinary life, but a real feeling that develops through practiced, condensed thinking. But then one also becomes tired of thinking. Then one wants to sleep off thinking all the more.
Today's materialistic age does not merely promote a materialistic attitude as a consequence of materialism: that would not be the worst thing, basically. Education should look at the other side. The educator cannot be completely indifferent, but to a certain extent, to whether a person becomes tired or not in their activity. This will balance itself out again when people become more reasonable. The worst thing is when we see it in a person who, from childhood through elementary school, has only absorbed intellectual and spiritual nourishment that has been shaped by science, that is, by material things. And of course, this does not only apply to those who learn something about science, but science is present today from the first year of elementary school throughout the entire education system. It is everywhere, and it is absorbed by the child, grows up with the child, and affects the child's physical organization in such a way that we later encounter those states of illness where people cannot sleep. Where does this certain insomnia in our materialistic age come from? It comes from the fact that the activity of thought, these grasping thoughts, this feeling of thoughts in our surroundings, when we think only materialistically, does not allow the corresponding organs of the etheric body to become tired. Only our physical body becomes tired; so we fall asleep after thinking only materialistically while awake: the physical body can fall asleep, but the etheric body cannot; it begins to fidget, to become restless inside, to become sleepless. It draws in the spiritual-soul aspect, and a state arises that is bound to gradually become an epidemic. It is already almost that today in the materialistic age. Only when we look at this do we come to understand the significance of the materialistic age. That people think theoretically in materialistic terms is bad, but not so bad; that people come to the consequences of materialism in their moral and economic actions is worse; but that people ruin their entire childhood through materialism and then can no longer access moral and spiritual impulses at all is the worst thing of all.
And this is what must be known by those who today want to look into the necessity of a transformation of education and teaching. For such transitions as those that take place during tooth replacement and sexual maturity can only be understood if we observe people closely: how they become inwardly active, so that they feel themselves — as otherwise in the physical body — in the etheric body; and knows that when they think about an object, they are actually carrying out in their etheric body what is otherwise carried out in the physical body when they feel something. If I want to know what something is like, I feel it, I connect with it, and thereby gain knowledge of its surface. When I then think about it, I do the same thing in the etheric body. I feel etherically and supersensibly what I want to understand, what I want to form a concept of. The etheric body is as active as the physical body usually is. And it is from this knowledge, this awareness of the activity of the etheric body, that true insights into human beings and, in particular, into human development arise.
If one observes a very young child with such an inwardly active mind, one sees how every movement in the environment flows into the child, how every glance expressing some moral quality — for it is in the moral, in the moralizing of the glance, that lies what passes over to the child as an imponderable force — continues to work in the child, even into its breathing and blood circulation. One sees something very conscious, something tremendously concrete, when one can move on to the statement: The child is through and through an imitative being for its environment. How the child breathes in the finer sense, how the child digests in the finer sense, is a reflection of how the people in its environment behave. The child is completely devoted to its environment. While the child is completely devoted to its environment, we can say that in later adulthood, we only know this devotion of the human being to the environment in its spiritual and soulful revelation in religious life. There we are spiritually devoted to the environment. Religious life develops properly when we can go out of ourselves with our spirit and devote ourselves to a spiritual world order, so to speak, overflowing into a divine world order. For the adult human being, this religious feeling is present because his spiritual-soul is emancipated from the physical, so that the spiritual-soul devotes itself to the spiritual-divine of the world. In children, the whole person is devoted. Blood circulation, digestion, and respiration, which in adults live internally, cut off from the outside world, are devoted to the environment. And so a natural religiosity lives in the child's expressions of nature. This is the essential thing to understand for all education up to the change of teeth, that a natural religiosity actually lives in the child, that the body itself is in a religious mood.
But because the child's environment is not only filled with good things to which the human being can devote himself when he is an adult and now devotes his own soul to the divine, because the environment contains not only good but also evil spirits, evil spirits that emanate from human beings and from other spiritual forces in the world, this natural religiousness in the child's body can also be devoted to evil. Evil can rise up. When I say that there is already a natural religious mood in the child's body, we need not take this as a contradiction to the fact that some children are terribly demonic. They are so because they are devoted to the evil spirits that we must drive out, that we must defeat by applying the appropriate methods as long as they can be applied. As long as the child is an imitative religious being, it does not help at all if I admonish the child. Paying attention to words requires that the soul be emancipated in a certain way. The soul must take care of it. Words do not help with children. But everything we show the child in such a way that the child sees it, that it flows into the child as a perception, helps. Only the moral aspect must also be contained in what we show the child. You will notice that just as, say, a color-blind person looks at a colored surface somewhere and sees everything as gray, not seeing the colors, so the adult looks at people's gestures, their glances, their expressions, the speed or slowness of their movements, the angularity of their movements. He sees the physical, but he no longer perceives the moral in it. Children see the moral aspect, albeit in a subconscious way. That is why we must be clear that in the child's environment we must not only keep out of sight everything that the child should not imitate, but we must also keep out of sight all thoughts in the child's vicinity that should not enter the child's soul. And this education of the mind is the most important thing for children up to the age of tooth replacement: we must not allow ourselves to have impure, ugly, angry thoughts in the child's presence. For you will say: I can think what I want here, I am not changing outwardly; the child sees nothing, so it cannot be influenced. You see, in this regard, I must say that what was interesting to observe in the truly amateurish and dilettantish experiments with thinking horses, calculating horses, or other animals exhibiting intelligence. Such things were interesting, but not in the direction the world has taken.
You see, I have not seen the Elberfeld horses myself, for example. I only want to talk about what I have observed myself, such as Mr. von Osten's horse; I could see how it gave its master answers. He set it arithmetic problems; they were not particularly complicated problems, but they were for a horse. I could see how it added and subtracted and, kicking its foot, gave the correct answer. A person educated in the natural sciences today could reflect on these processes, such as the private lecturer who wrote a thick book about horses, or one could reflect on them in an anthroposophical way. What was the point of the book written by the private lecturer? He ruled out everything that lay people believed. You must not think that I want to speak against science in the slightest. I appreciate it very much. The private lecturer concludes: The basis for this is that the horse perceived subtle movements, a subtle twinkle in the eyes or some other subtle vibration of the muscles in Mr. von Osten, and gradually learned what the vibrating movement in the eye muscle is like when the calculation result is this or that; then the kicking with the foot followed. He has put forward a very clever, witty hypothesis. He then comes to the question that must be asked: Did he see these things himself, is this the result of observation? — Certainly, he asks himself this question; one learns to research very responsibly. He answers it by saying: Our senses are not organized to perceive these subtle external movements, but the horse can. This merely states that a horse can see more in humans than a private lecturer.
But something else was important to me: the horse only achieved its calculation results when Mr. von Osten stood next to it and spoke to it. While he was talking, he took a small piece of sugar and put it in the horse's mouth. The horse had a constant sweet taste that permeated its entire being. That is the essential point. It felt stimulated internally by the sweetness; as a horse, one also becomes capable of experiencing through this internalization what one would not otherwise experience. Actually, I would like to say: in the sweet horse, which permeated the physical horse as an ethereal horse, Mr. von Osten lived continuously, his thoughts lived there as they would in his own body and spread out. They lived on in the horse, not because the horse can observe more finely than a private lecturer, but because it is not yet so highly organized and therefore absorbs the foreign influence, while the body continuously absorbs sweetness.
There are such effects from person to person that are caused by things for which one is otherwise difficult or unreceptive. They occur particularly in the interaction between humans and animals, but they can also be present to a high degree when the spiritual-soul is not yet emancipated from the physical, as is the case with children, so that children really perceive the moral in their surroundings in gestures and glances, even if adults can no longer observe this. Therefore, we must not allow ourselves to have ugly thoughts in the child's environment; these thoughts not only live on in the child's soul, but also in the child's physical organization.
Certainly, what is being achieved today, for example, in some medical or other dissertations, as delivered according to the current state of scientific knowledge, is very interesting. But the time will come when something completely different will emerge, when, for example — let me describe it vividly, so that it may become clear — let's say that doctoral theses written to obtain a doctorate will deal with the topic: A case of illness in the 48th year with these or those symptoms can be traced back to ugly thoughts of a certain kind that approached the child in the 4th or 5th year of life. With such insights, one will actually be able to approach human beings, and through this one will then be able to survey the whole of human life.
So it is a matter of gradually learning not only to bring things to the child that we, according to our abstract understanding, think up as stick laying and all kinds of such work that the child can do: the child does not do it on its own. Its own soul power must be stimulated; then it imitates the things it sees adults doing. It plays with dolls because it sees its mother caring for her child. What is present in adults lives entirely in the child as a tendency to imitate. This tendency must be taken into account in the education of the child until it loses its baby teeth. However, everything that is to be brought up is subject to change in the child's organism, which makes everything more alive, more animated than it is in adults, because the child is still a unity of body, soul, and spirit. In adults, the body is emancipated from the soul and spirit; the soul and spirit are emancipated from the body. Body, soul, and spirit stand alone. Only in children is there a strict unity between the physical, soul, and spirit. This unity extends even into their thinking. This can be easily observed, for example, when you give a child, before they have gone through the change of teeth, a beautiful doll that is wonderfully painted, human-like, and even has glass eyes. There are dolls like this: when you lay them down, they roll their eyes and sleep; when you pick them up, they look at you. There are many other devices that create such little monsters, which are given to children as “beautiful dolls.” Yes, these things are hideous from an artistic point of view, but I don't want to go into that. But consider the difference that happens to the child itself when you give it a beautiful doll that can even roll its eyes. At first, of course, it will be delighted because the thing is a sensation; but gradually this feeling will fade. Compare what happens to the child when you simply take a dishcloth, form a head at the top by pulling it together, make two dots for eyes, and perhaps even a large nose. This gives the child the opportunity to use its imagination, its soul and spirit, which are connected to the physical, to fantasize about the other. Every time the child is asked to imagine the doll, it comes alive inside, it remains alive. If you try this, you will see how it makes a big difference to leave as much as possible to the imagination and the soul's activity in children's play, or to shape the toy in such a way that it leaves nothing left for inner activity. It is therefore of the greatest benefit to the child if we arrange children's handicrafts in such a way that they are as suggestive as possible, leaving plenty of room for the imagination. Ready-made activities that can remain as they are are not stimulating because the imagination cannot go beyond what is sensually present.
This sheds light on the way we, as teachers and educators, need to be if we want to approach the child in the right way. We need a pedagogy based on knowledge of human beings, on knowledge of the child. And again, a true pedagogy based on knowledge of human beings will be available in an age when, for example, we will see doctoral theses of the kind: A case of diabetes in a forty-year-old traced back to the harmfulness of child's play in the third and fourth years of life. Then we will see what it means that the whole human being consists of body, soul, and spirit, and that in children, body, soul, and spirit are still a unity. Spirit and soul later become free from the body, and then they are a triad. Then, in the adult human being, spirit, soul, and body are, so to speak, pushed apart, and only the body retains what has been absorbed during childhood development as a seed for later life. Now, the peculiar thing is this: in the soul, we experience consequences that have just been drawn into the subconscious soon; physically in the body, we experience them seven to eight times later. If you educate the child spiritually, if you emphasize the spiritual in the fourth or fifth year of life in such a way that the child has absorbed it and its soul life is under its influence, then this will come to the fore in the eighth year of life, for example. People still make sure that they do not teach children in their fourth and fifth years what will not make them healthy in their eighth and ninth years. The effect on the soul becomes apparent in the eighth and seventh years. The physical effect becomes apparent more slowly — because the body emancipates itself — seven to eight times later. For spiritual development, the fruits of an influence from the age of 5 become apparent at the age of 8; in the body, they become apparent after 35 years, after a period of time that is seven times longer. Five times seven is 35. So that symptoms of illness that arise as a result of a false spiritual influence caused by play in the third or fourth year of life appear at the beginning of the forties or the end of the thirties.
Anyone who wants to get to know the whole person must also know that this emancipation of the soul and spirit, which occurs in adults as opposed to the unity found in children, is not something abstract, but very concrete, in that even the passage of time can shift. More and more, the time that the body needs to develop something exceeds the time needed by the soul. The body lags behind, and damage to the body occurs much later than damage to the soul. This is also the case with some misdeeds in childhood, where one can see how many bad things happen in the soul during the awkward years; but it balances itself out. For there are relatively easy means of reforming even people who are quite boisterous during what are called the awkward years; they sometimes become quite respectable philistines. That is not such a bad thing. But the body gradually develops more and more slowly, and even when one has long since overcome what occurred in the soul and spirit during the awkward years, one still has to struggle with gout at the end of life as a physical effect that slowly develops as a result of the awkward years.
Concrete knowledge of human nature is something that is of great importance in human life. This concrete knowledge of human nature, which allows us to truly see into the human being, is alone capable of providing the prerequisites for a true art of education that places the human being in life in such a way that — depending on his or her destiny, of course, more in some cases and less in others — everything that is predisposed in the human being can become reality. It cannot be a question of using the art of education to act against destiny; but we must achieve what is predisposed in destiny. Today, education often falls short of what is predisposed in destiny. We must fulfill the predisposition of destiny to such an extent that the human being achieves the highest possible clarity of thought for life, the highest possible loving depth of feeling according to his destiny, and the highest possible energy and efficiency of will according to his destiny.
This can only be achieved through a pedagogy and didactics based on a true understanding of human nature. We will continue to discuss this in the next lectures.