The Riddle of Humanity
GA 170
7 August 1916, Dornach
Lecture VI
When one is speaking of the being of man and of mankind's relation to the cosmos, some of what has to be said may seem complicated. When it comes to the human being—you may well say—is there anything that is not included! We are confronted, however, with the fact that a human being is formed in an intricate way from the entire cosmos, and we have to come to terms with it. It is especially important that people of our time begin to come to terms with these things, as otherwise it will be too late. Today men are living in an incarnation in which it is just possible to get by without knowing much about the complicated nature of the human being; but the time is coming—a time when these souls will again incarnate—when this will not be possible. Then souls will finally have to begin to know how humanity is related to the cosmos. You could say that we are still just within a period when the responsibility for holding together the different members of which a human being is composed has not yet been turned over to mankind itself. We are still living in an epoch when these various members hold together without our having to do anything, when the easy-going fellow can come to us and say, ‘Really! This so-called anthroposophical wisdom is so complicated! But truth is simple, and anything that is not simple cannot really be true!’ Today, this speech is frequently heard. Those who are misled by Lucifer into speaking in such a fashion do not have the faintest inkling of how they befog their heads with this talk about the so-called simplicity of truth. They are unaware of how they are deceiving themselves. For the time will come when people will experience how complicated they are, a time when people will require knowledge in order to hold themselves together. But everything in the future has to be prepared, and the stream that carries a spiritual-scientific world view has the task of preparing the development of earthly culture for the age when a person will have to know how to hold together the various parts of his being.
Let us remind ourselves of the fundamental truths that have been described in some detail over these last few days—of man's essentially dual nature, and of how his external body already reveals this dual nature. The body divides into two parts which are built according to quite different principles—the head and the rest of the body. If we examine a human head as it is today, what we have is essentially the result of what became of the body in the previous incarnation. And, after we have passed through the period between death and a new birth, our present body, except for the head, will become the head of the next incarnation. Thus, the passage of a person through successive incarnations could be drawn as follows: Man has his head, and he has the rest of his body. What is now his head is essentially lost. When he once more receives a body from the earth, what is now the rest of his body appears, transformed, as the head of that next incarnation. Then this body, in turn, becomes the head of the following incarnation and he receives another body from his forebears, from the earth. The head is always lost. Naturally, we are talking about forces. Of course, the material of the rest of the body is also lost. But this material is not the essential thing-in the truest sense of the word it is maya-all the forces that reside in the body, exclusive of the head, are the essential thing. These forces are transformed into the forces of the head during our passage through the period between death and a new birth. And the forces that were bound up in our bodies during our previous incarnation really are present now in our heads. That was the basic concept whose particular details we were elaborating.
Now, in order to understand these things better and better, we want to call on the help of some other ideas that we have acquired. To begin with, we will ask: How will our present body become the head of our next incarnation? How are the forces of our present body transformed so that they can become the head of the next incarnation?
The transformation of our body into a head is hard to imagine at first. We need to ask ourselves: How is this transformation possible?
In order to answer that question we must review in our souls the things we have been saying about the part of the human soul that is concerned with knowledge and concepts. This is the part that is dependent on the head, and is concerned with truth and wisdom. Today, people usually believe that the knowledge we acquire is only there to give us pictures of the external world and to enable us to learn something about the external world. There are philosophical epistemologists who theorise endlessly about the interconnections, between concepts and ideas, and about the mysterious connection between the nature of a concept and the thing that the concept represents. All such theories are afflicted by a common error. Initially, I can only explain this error by speaking pictorially. Imagine there is a botanist, a gardener, who wants to investigate the nature of a grain of wheat. As he sets about it, he says: ‘I will investigate it chemically to see what substances it contains. I will see if its constituents include all the things man needs in his grain and flour, and such, for nourishment.’ And the botanist then proceeds to seek for the nature of the grain of wheat in its relationship to human nourishment in order to explain why the grain of wheat contains what it does. A man who believed that he was discovering something essential about the nature of a grain of wheat by investigating its suitability as human nourishment would be making a curious mistake. The grain of wheat occurs as a part of the whole wheat plant, as its fruit. A person who wants to discover why it corresponds to the nature of a grain of wheat to be as it is, must investigate die manner in which a new wheat plant can develop from it. Whether or not it contains substances for human nourishment is a secondary matter. It has nothing to do with the inner nature of a grain of wheat. A person who investigates the utility of everything and wants to turn utilitarian knowledge into the true science would investigate the grain of wheat chemically. He would discover that here nature provides something good for human nourishment. But that has nothing to do with the inner nature of a grain of wheat, or with the fact that a new wheat plant can grow from it.
To someone who approaches matters with clear ideas and in the spirit of knowledge, the philosophers of knowledge, the epistemologists, often resemble people investigating a grain of wheat by considering its value as food for human beings. For if one were to question a grain of wheat as to its original task, it would not say that it is originally here for the nourishment of mankind; rather would it say that its original task is to allow a new wheat plant to develop. When someone with clear ideas and a feeling for knowledge considers the epistemologists, he is confronted by mistakes such as the one I have just described. For building up a picture of the things around us is not the original purpose of what we call knowledge—of what lives in us as ideas, truth and wisdom. Building up a picture of the things outside us is just as inessential to knowledge as nourishing human beings is inessential to a grain of wheat. Knowledge does not exist for the purpose of making pictures of external things; it exists for another reason. Its purpose lies in the way it lives and works and weaves in man. As we pass through our existence between birth and death, we gradually accumulate wisdom. We employ it to form a picture of the external world, just as we use a grain of wheat as nourishment. But we withdraw all the wheat that we use in this way from its original purpose of establishing new plants. We similarly withdraw from its original purpose all the knowledge that we use for taking hold of the external world. That is not the original purpose of the realm of truth and ideas. Why, then, does the realm of truth exist—why, I mean, in the sense that the grain of wheat is here to bring about a new wheat plant? Our involvement with knowledge and our efforts to achieve truth exist so that we can develop certain powers. These powers we develop during the period between birth and death are the very powers that transform our organism after death. That is to say, they transform its forces into the forces of the head! This extraordinary connection is what one discovers when one looks at man's passage between birth and death on the one hand, and between death and a new birth on the other. The primary purpose of the knowledge a person acquires is the transformation of the organism, exclusive of the head, into the head of the next incarnation. But there are so many people who acquire no knowledge at all, you will say, and so remain frightfully ignorant; only a few become clever—one usually counts oneself among these latter! But there is more than a little justification for those who say—and many, quite independently of one another, have said this—that a human being acquires more wisdom in his first three or four years than ... well, at the very least, than in his three academic years. In our first three years we really do learn a great deal that can only be learned on earth with the use of our head. We acquire the knowledge necessary for speaking, for understanding what is said, and much, much more. We really do learn a great deal. And that is included in the wisdom we accumulate.
People are actually not so different as regards the wisdom they acquire. In it surge and weave the forces that will transform our organism into a head during the passage from death to a new birth. The picture that we take into ourselves through ideas and knowledge is by its nature quite a complicated one. And it is only in dreams such as those of the Polish poet I cited yesterday that people are given a glimpse of what surges and weaves in among our fully-conscious ideas. But it is there, surging and weaving in us, in order that it can be led over after death to become the power that actually transforms our organism. With the exception of what we use to take hold of the external world, all that we acquire through knowledge accumulates and becomes the power that will transform our organism. In a certain sense, what we use for normal understanding of the external world is lost to our development, it is withdrawn from our development. All the grains of wheat we use for nourishment are withdrawn from the plant's whole, ongoing process of development—and these are much more numerous than the grains that are strewn back over the earth. And this is how things are during our present phase of development. We connect ourselves with external things: we also withdraw very much more from the ongoing stream of human development than we retain. Think back to earlier times when human knowledge was obtained through atavistic clairvoyance. Men's attention was not so dissipated by the external world. The knowledge of such ancient peoples as the old Egyptians and Chaldeans was obtained through atavistic clairvoyance. It depended very little on external development. In this respect, our age is the opposite of that one. Today, much is taken in from what is outside, and, inwardly, very little is added to development. The Greek culture occupies a wonderful middle position, and this is not solely due to their special talents. These they certainly had, but with these alone nothing could have been accomplished. The relatively small patch of earth inhabited by the Greeks and their relatively slight knowledge of the rest of the world, also contributed to the unity of their whole culture. They knew of little else beyond what lay in the direction of Asia Minor and Asia. They knew little about Africa, and nothing at all about America or most of Europe. The fact that Plato still possessed knowledge of morality, of sophrosyne and of dikaiosyne, is in many respects thanks to the fact that the external scope of Greek knowledge was so small. For that reason it was still possible to retain many of the spiritual forces of wisdom for developing the inner life. Nevertheless, the Greeks used less of these forces than the ancient Egyptians or Chaldeans had used, not to mention the ancient Persians and Indians. In our day, when the whole earth has gradually been explored and has become accessible, men seek to acquire as much external knowledge as they possibly can. How that has increased! If that were as intensive as it is extensive, then men would have infinitesimally little to take with them for the transformation of the physical body into the head of the next incarnation. They would have much, much less than a peasant has, particularly in the case of the most educated people. But, thanks be to God, most people have travelled without looking at very much. They have followed their Baedeker or other travel books closely. But, in spite of the great extent of their travels, they have not acquainted themselves with very much, so they have not withdrawn everything. Otherwise, those who rush about everywhere in search of sensations and who want everything they learn to come from outside themselves would be in danger. They would be in danger of arriving in the world in their next incarnation with a head formed from a body that had undergone very little transformation. It would have an animal-like appearance, for that would be the fate of someone who had not accumulated many formative forces.
Now, imaginative comparisons can be expanded. We have said that everything we use externally to develop knowledge and to learn about the external world is separated from its own true inner being—just as the grain of wheat that is used for food is separated from the inner nature of wheat. We can go on to ask: What are the further similarities between external knowledge, or what becomes outer knowledge, and the grain of wheat that is used as food? There are similarities, but they have to be elicited.
Let us once more consider the curious fact that a great number of grains of wheat are used as food for human beings instead of for the generation of new wheat plants! So we can say that the grains of wheat are removed from the direct line of their own ongoing development. Otherwise, a new wheat plant is generated from the grain, and this bears further grains of wheat, and so on. But countless grains are split away from this procession; they are transferred into an entirely different realm, that of human nourishment, and this has nothing to do with the ongoing stream.
Here nature gives you an opportunity to build a concept that must be carefully heeded if you want to achieve a realistic view of the world.
Our external science has gradually brought us to the terrible pass where everything has to be explained by cause and effect, so that a later event must always be explained as following from what came before. There is nothing more foolish than this undifferentiated picture of the world in which all effects can be traced back to a cause and every cause leads on to its effects. There are effects which have no causal connection to anything that preceded them. How could a grain of wheat contain the causes for its being used as human nourishment? Only in the context of a simple-minded teleology such as the one that was taken for granted in some quarters in the eighteenth century. According to this point of view, the presence of cork-like substances in nature was explained as the work of mysterious spirits who put them there so that they could be used to produce champagne corks! But on the contrary, the grains of wheat really do pass over into another sphere.
It is similar when we go about acquiring knowledge of external nature and of outer things. This transfers the things to another sphere. We human beings are able to extract a substantial portion of what is in us, in the form of matters concerned with truth, for the purpose of enabling the body of our present incarnation to be transformed into the head of the next incarnation. We can extract much for the sake of present knowledge, but we must take care that this knowledge is put to a different use. In a certain sense, the grains of wheat are ennobled by being used as human nourishment, so they receive a recompense for being separated from their own original nature. Something similar should come about in the case of external human knowledge, which is developed in a way that runs totally contrary to the nature of ideas and truth. In his heart, man should make a gift to the gods of all the truths acquired in the form of pictures of the external world. Man should always say to himself: When you obtain knowledge, you remove it from the progressive stream. Be clear that the acquisition of knowledge must be in the service of the gods. There is other knowledge, knowledge untouched by any awareness of the holy service that knowledge renders to developing humanity. Such knowledge is taken away from the external world, but it is not given to the gods, who would be nourished by what they thus would receive. The knowledge that is not gathered in this spirit, but is taken, instead, without thanks, is like grains of wheat that fall to earth and rot. In other words, it serves no goal at all—neither its own nor that of becoming nourishment for human beings.
Here we arrive at a point where you will feel how important it is that our spiritual-scientific efforts lead to some very definite practical results. For in our hearts we should cultivate a fundamental mood when we receive spiritual-science. It must not become a thing we merely learn, or just a thing to be known. Therefore, we must unite knowing with the feeling that knowledge should be in the service of the gods, and that it is a fundamental sin against the divine meaning of evolution to profane knowledge by removing it from that for which the gods intended it.
I said that acquiring much external knowledge has only become possible in more recent times. For the ancient Egyptians, most knowing was an inward matter; external knowledge was comprised of only the most immediate things. During the Greco-Roman epoch it became possible for men to acquire more and more external knowledge. That is not very long ago. But at the same time there arose the possibility of discovering the path by which knowing becomes a holy service, for at this time the Christ brought his message to the Earth.
Here you have another relationship, which history makes clear to us. At the very moment in human development when knowing becomes predominantly a knowledge of the external world, the Christ appears from out of the spiritual world. And so does it becomes possible for a person who experiences the guidance of Christ to transform knowing into a holy service—by connecting it with the Christ. Today, mankind has not yet developed much feeling for knowledge as a divine service. But as mankind comes more and more to understand how Christ has brought the life of the gods into earthly life, it will also learn how to put knowledge at the service of the gods.
Thus we can live with everything of which our head is the outer sign. We can establish there a little plot that prepares for the transformation of our body into a head. As for the rest of knowledge, if we use it with the proper feeling, as I have just characterised it, the higher spiritual beings will receive nourishment from the concepts we use. In this way we strive for a knowing that serves the gods, in order that wheat may also be grown for the nourishment of mankind. This is already happening, but mankind still has to learn the measure of this mood. Through our feeling, knowledge will acquire the measure of the mood I have been describing. It is very, very important for the healthy development of humanity that such feelings be developed.
In the ancient Mysteries and Mystery schools it was simply taken for granted that those who acquired knowledge would treat it with holy regard. Indeed, that was one of the main reasons why not everyone was admitted to the mysteries. Those who were admitted had to provide a guarantee that they would regard the knowledge as holy and would treat it as a service to the gods. The attitude was also engendered by atavistic feelings. Today, it is necessary for mankind to achieve this attitude once more. Humanity has passed through an age when it developed in accordance with materialism-and we know there are good reasons for this. Now, it needs to heal itself of materialism, and this will only happen when mankind is reunited with the feeling of holy service that was once a part of knowing. But in the future this will have to be brought about consciously. And that will only be possible if spiritual science spreads to more and more of humanity. Knowledge should not be like the seed that rots on the ground. Everything that is used for external convenience and arranging things mechanically is like the seed that rots. What is not placed in the service of the gods is lost. It is neither used to help us in our next incarnation, nor is it used to nourish the gods. Something really happens when the seed rots; this is a real process. When knowledge is wasted without being incorporated into the service of the gods and without becoming part of a divine process, a real process takes place. It would take us too far today if I were to speak about what the rotten grain of wheat signifies, but it is senseless for it to rot. Nothing can come of it—it simply dies. But Ahriman is able to do something with knowledge that is not acquired in the context of the service of the gods. This knowledge is taken over into the service of Ahriman and establishes his power. His servants introduce it into the world process and thereby create more obstacles for the world process than rightfully ought to be there or would otherwise have to be there. For, after all, Ahriman is the god of hindrance.
This will give you a glimpse of how far the significance of what lives in us in the form of ideas and truth extends. The next two lectures will be concerned with beauty and morality so that we can then bring all three things together. That will furnish us with another opportunity to deepen our understanding of the human being.
Sechster Vortrag
Es mag manchem kompliziert vorkommen, was gesagt werden muß, wenn man immer wieder auf die menschliche Wesenheit und ihren Zusammenhang mit dem Weltenall zu sprechen kommt. Was ist da alles an dem Menschen! — könnte mancher sagen. Allein die Tatsache, daß der Mensch in einer komplizierten Weise aus dem Weltenall heraus gebildet ist, liegt nun einmal vor, und man muß sich damit abfinden. Man muß insbesondere in der gegenwärtigen Zeit sich mit dieser Tatsache abfinden aus dem Grunde, weil es sonst - es muß das schon gesagt werden — zu spät werden könnte. Die Menschen leben gegenwärtig in Inkarnationen, in denen es gerade noch geht, nicht viel zu wissen von der komplizierten Menschennatur; aber es werden Zeiten kommen — die Menschenseelen werden in diesen Zeiten wieder inkarniert sein -, da wird es nicht gehen. Da werden die Seelen beginnen müssen, endlich zu wissen, wie der Mensch zusammenhängt mit dem Weltenall. Man kann sagen, gegenwärtig durchschreiten wir gerade noch jenes Zeitalter, in dem es dem Menschen noch nicht selbst überlassen ist, die verschiedenen Glieder seiner Natur, die wir gestern von einem gewissen Gesichtspunkte aus aufzeichnen konnten, zusammenzuhalten, wir leben in einer Zeitepoche, in der diese verschiedenen Glieder noch zusammengehalten werden ohne unser Zutun, wo der Bequemling kommen kann und sagen: Ach, wie kompliziert ist diese anthroposophische Weisheit; Wahrheit aber ist einfach, und was nicht einfach ist, das ist nicht die wirkliche Wahrheit! - Heute kann man diesen Ausspruch noch vielfach hören. Diejenigen, die diesen Ausspruch unter der luziferischen Verführung tun, haben keine Ahnung davon, wie sie sich gerade mit solchem Ausspruch von der sogenannten Einfachheit der Wahrheit benebeln, wie sie sich damit etwas vormachen. Denn es werden eben Zeiten kommen, in denen der Mensch sich durch Erfahrung recht kompliziert finden wird, und in denen er sich nur aus der Erkenntnis heraus wird zusammenhalten können. AlleZukunft aber muß vorbereitet werden, und vorbereiten die Erdenkultur-Entwickelung für jenes Zeitalter, in dem der Mensch wird wissen müssen, wie er sich zusammenzuhalten hat aus seinen verschiedenen Teilen, das ist die Aufgabe der geisteswissenschaftlichen Weltanschauungsströmung. Erinnern wir uns nun an diese Grundwahrheit, die wir in diesen Tagen im einzelnen etwas weiter ausgeführt haben, daß der Mensch im wesentlichen eine Doppelnatur genannt werden kann, und daß schon sein Äußeres zeigt, daß er eine Doppelnatur ist, indem der Kopf, das Haupt des Menschen, man möchte sagen, von einem ganz anderen Gesichtspunkte aus gebaut ist als der übrige Organismus. Wenn wir das Haupt eines Menschen betrachten, wie er es heute hat, so ist es im wesentlichen das Ergebnis dessen, was aus dem Leibe der vorhergehenden Inkarnation geworden ist. Und aus unserem jetzigen Leibe, mit Ausschluß des Hauptes, wird, wenn wir durchgegangen sein werden durch den Zeitraum zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt, unser Haupt der nächsten Inkarnation. So daß wir also schematisch den Fortgang des Menschen durch die Inkarnationen so zeichnen könnten: Der Mensch hat sein Haupt, er hat seinen übrigen Leib. Dasjenige, was jetzt sein Haupt ist, verliert er im wesentlichen; was sein übriger Leib ist, das wird in der nächsten Inkarnation umgewandelt erscheinen als sein Haupt, und seinen Leib wird er wiederum von der Erde bekommen. Dieser Leib wird dann wieder Haupt in der nächsten Inkarnation, und seinen Leib bekommt er dann wiederum von den Vorfahren, von der Erde, Das Haupt geht immer verloren. Natürlich handelt es sich dabei um die Kräfte. Die Materie des übrigen Leibes geht selbstverständlich auch verloren. Aber nicht um diese äußere Materie handelt es sich — die ist eigentlich im wirklichsten Sinne eine Maja -, sondern um all die Kräfte, die in dem Leib mit Ausschluß des Kopfes sitzen; die werden umgewandelt während unseres Durchgangs durch die Zeit zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt in die Kräfte des Hauptes. Und jetzt haben wir wahrhaft in unserem Haupte diejenigen Kräfte, die in unserer vorhergehenden Inkarnation an unseren Leib gebunden waren. Das war die Grundvorstellung, die wir im einzelnen mehr ausgearbeitet haben.
Nun wollen wir andere Vorstellungen, die wir gewonnen haben, zu Hilfe nehmen, um diese Dinge immer besser und besser zu verstehen, Wodurch, fragen wir uns zunächst, wird denn eigentlich unser Leib von jetzt, werden die Kräfte unseres Leibes von jetzt umgewandelt, so daß er ein Kopf werden kann in der nächsten Inkarnation? Das ist ja schon immerhin etwas, was zunächst schwer zu denken ist, daß unser Leib umgewandelt werde in einen Kopf. Was macht diese Umwandlung möglich? — so müssen wir fragen.
Um uns diese Frage zu beantworten, müssen wir einmal unseren Seelenblick werfen auf das, was wir über das Vorstellungsmäßige, Erkenntnismäßige in der menschlichen Seele, das nun an das Haupt gebunden ist, über das Wahrheitsmäßige, Weisheitsmäßige gesagt haben. Gewöhnlich glaubt der heutige Mensch, das, was wir in der Erkenntnis erwerben, sei nur dazu da, um uns Bilder von der Außenwelt zu machen, um von der Außenwelt etwas wissen zu lernen. Es gibt philosophische Erkenntnistheoretiker, die immer und immer wieder theoretisieren, wie eigentlich Begriffe oder Vorstellungen zusammenhängen, welche geheimnisvolle Beziehung besteht zwischen der Natur des Begriffs und der Sache, die durch den Begriff abgebildet wird. Solche Theorien kranken alle an einem gemeinsamen Fehler. Ich kann Ihnen diesen Fehler zunächst nur klarmachen, indem ich mich bildhaft ausdrücke. Denken Sie sich einmal, ein Botaniker, ein Gärtner, wollte die Natur des Weizenkorns untersuchen, und er würde das so anstellen, daß er sagt: Ich nehme die Chemie zu Hilfe und untersuche das Weizenkorn,inwiefern es die Bestandteile enthält, die der Mensch braucht, um sich durch Weizenkorn, Weizenmehl oder dergleichen zu nähren. Und in dieser Beziehung, die das Weizenkorn zur menschlichen Ernährung hat, würde der Botaniker das Wesen des Weizenkorns suchen, das heißt die Gründe, warum es aus gewissen Bestandteilen besteht. In einem recht kuriosen Irrtum wäre ein solcher Mensch, der glaubte, dadurch über die Wesenheit des Weizenkorns etwas zu erfahren, daß er untersucht, inwieferne es ein gutes Nahrungsmittel für den Menschen ist. Das Weizenkorn entsteht innerhalb der ganzen Weizenpflanze als die Frucht der Weizenpflanze, und nur derjenige kann erfahren, warum das Weizenkorn seiner Wesenheit nach ist, wie es ist, der es daraufhin untersucht, inwiefern aus dem Weizenkorn wiederum eine neue Weizenpflanze sich herausentwickelt. Und es ist eine vollständige Nebenströmung, die hinzukommt zum Wesen des Weizenkorns, daß es die Bestandteile für die menschliche Ernährung enthält; das hat mit der inneren Natur des Weizenkorns gar nichts zu tun. Wer alles nur nach seiner Utilität betrachtet und die Utilitätserkenntnisse zu der eigentlichsten Wissenschaft machen möchte, der wird eben das Weizenkorn chemisch untersuchen und finden: da entsteht etwas in der Natur, das zur menschlichen Nahrung dienen kann. — Das hat aber gar nichts zu tun mit dem Innenwesen des Weizenkorns, daß der Mensch sich davon nährt. Mit dem Innenwesen hat es, wie gesagt, zu tun, daß aus dem Weizenkorn eine neue Weizenpflanze entstehen kann.
Für den, der die Dinge mit der Erkenntnis, mit dem Vorstellungsmäßigen durchschaut, für den nehmen sich die verschiedenen philosophischen Erkenntnistheoretiker ebenso aus wie die Leute, die das Weizenkorn untersuchen nach seiner Fähigkeit, den Menschen zu ernähren. Denn wenn man das Weizenkorn nach seiner ursprünglichen Aufgabe fragen würde, wozu es da ist, so würde es nicht antworten: um den Menschen zu ernähren, sondern um eine neue Weizenpflanze entstehen zu lassen. Die das Erkenntnismäßige, das Vorstellungsmäßige durchschauen, die erblicken einen solchen Fehler, wie ich ihn jetzt charakterisiert habe, bei den philosophischen Erkenntnistheoretikern. Denn das, was wir das Erkenntnismäßige nennen, was als Vorstellung, als Wahrheit, als Weisheit in uns lebt, das ist ursprünglich gar nicht dazu da, die Dinge draußen abzubilden. Dieses Abbilden der Dinge draußen, das ist ebenso ein Nebenstrom, wie es ein Nebenstrom ist für die Weizenkörner, den Menschen zu ernähren. Die Erkenntnis ist gar nicht dazu da, um Abbilder nur zu schaffen von den äußeren Dingen, sondern sie ist zu etwas anderem da. Sie ist dazu da, daß sie im Menschen in einer gewissen Weise wirkt und webt und lebt. Indem wir hier in dem Dasein zwischen Geburt und Tod leben, häufen wir uns nach und nach Weisheit an, und wir verwenden die Weisheit zu gleicher Zeit so, daß sie Abbild sein kann für die äußere Welt, so wie wir das Weizenkorn anwenden als Nahrungsmittel. Aber das Weizenkorn, das wir als Nahrungsmittel anwenden, entziehen wir seiner ihm innewohnenden Bestimmung, eine neue Pflanze zu bilden. So entziehen wir der eigentlichen Aufgabe der Weisheit alles das, was wir verwenden, um die äußere Welt zu erfassen. Denn das Vorstellungsmäßige, das Wahrheitsgemäße ist zunächst gar nicht dazu bestimmt. Wozu ist dieses Wahrheitsgemäße bestimmt — ich meine in dem Sinne, wie das Weizenkorn bestimmt ist, eine neue Weizenpflanze herbeizuführen? Bestimmt ist nämlich unsere erkenntnismäßige Betätigung, unser wahrheitsmäßiges Arbeiten dazu, Kräfte in uns zu entwickeln zwischen Geburt und Tod, welche umwandeln unseren Organismus nach dem Tode, das heißt seine Kraftgestalt, in die Kraftgestalt des Kopfes! Das ist der merkwürdige Zusammenhang, den man entdeckt, wenn man den Durchgang des Menschen einerseits zwischen Geburt und Tod, andererseits zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt ins Auge faßt. Was der Mensch an Erkenntnissen erwirbt, dient zunächst dazu, daß umgestaltet werden kann sein Organismus außer dem Kopf in einen Kopf, der dann der Kopf der nächsten Inkarnation ist. Sie werden sagen: Es gibt doch so viele Menschen, die erwerben sich gar keine Erkenntnisse, und die bleiben so furchtbar dumm; nur wenige werden gescheit — zu denen man sich gewöhnlich selbst rechnet. — Aber es haben schon diejenigen ein bißchen recht, die da gesagt haben — und es haben es mehrere Menschen gesagt, unabhängig voneinander —, daß der Mensch in seinen drei, vier ersten Lebensjahren mehr lernt, mehr an Weisheit aufnimmt, als - jedenfalls in den drei akademischen Jahren. In den drei ersten Lebensjahren lernen wir wirklich recht viel, was wir nur durch unser Haupt auf der Erde lernen können. Wir erwerben uns diejenigen Kenntnisse, die notwendig sind, um zu sprechen, das Gesprochene zu verstehen, und vieles, vieles andere. Wir lernen wirklich da sehr viel. Und das gehört zu dem, was man Weisheitsinhalt zu nennen hat.
Durch dieses, was der Mensch als seine Weisheit erwirbt, und worin die Menschen eigentlich gar nicht so sehr verschieden sind, wallt und webt eben als Kraft dasjenige, was unseren Organismus umwandelt in einen Kopf beim Durchgang durch die Zeit zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt. Es ist im Grunde ein recht kompliziertes Gebilde, was wir da in uns aufnehmen mit unserem Vorstellungsmäßigen, mit unserem Erkenntnismäßigen. Und dem Menschen wird nur zuweilen in solchen Träumen, wie ich es Ihnen gestern am Schlusse von einem polnischen Dichter angeführt habe, leise etwas gezeigt von dem, was wallt und webt gewissermaßen zwischen den Vorstellungen, derer wir uns vollständig bewußt werden. Aber das, was da wallt und webt, das wirkt eben in uns, um nach dem Tode in Aktualität überzutreten und unseren Organismus umzuwandeln. Es sammelt sich alles, was durch Erkenntnis gewonnen wird, an, um unseren Organismus umzuwandeln, mit Ausnahme dessen, was wir verwenden, um die äußere Welt aufzufassen. Was wir verwenden, um im gewöhnlichen Sinne die äußere Welt aufzufassen, das geht in einer gewissen Weise verloren für unsere Entwickelung, das entziehen wir unserer Entwickelung. Geradeso, wie wir dem totalen Fortentwickelungsprozeß des Weizens alle die Weizenkörner entziehen — es sind viel mehr als diejenigen, die wieder in die Erde gestreut werden -, die wir als Nahrungsmittel verwenden, so entziehen wir uns tatsächlich auch recht viel mehr, namentlich in der gegenwärtigen Entwickelungsperiode der Menschheit, als wir behalten, indem wir Äußeres uns aneignen. Denken wir zurück an ältere Zeiten, in denen die Menschen noch mehr durch innere hellseherische Wissenschaft das wußten, was sie eben wußten. Die gaben sich nicht so aus nach der äußeren Welt. Solch eine Bevölkerung wie die alte ägyptische, die alte chaldäische, hat das, was sie gewußt hat, durch atavistisches Hellsehen gewußt, und wenig nur durch die äußere Entwickelung. Heute leben wir in einer Zeit, die gewissermaßen in dieser Beziehung entgegengesetzt ist. Heute wird viel von außen herein aufgenommen und wenig vom Innern der Entwickelung hinzugefügt. Die Griechen hielten jene wunderschöne Mitte einer gewissen Kulturentwickelung, die nicht allein dadurch bedingt war, daß diese Griechen so besonders veranlagt waren. Das waren sie ja gewiß, aber damit allein ist es nicht getan. Sie verdanken diese Geschlossenheit ihrer ganzen Kultur auch dem Umstande, daß die Erdenfläche, die das griechische Volk einnahm, eine verhältnismäßig kleine war, auch in bezug auf die Kenntnisse der übrigen Erde. Was wußten die Griechen viel von anderem als von Kleinasien, nach Asien hin, was wußten sie viel von Afrika, von Amerika schon gar nichts; von einem großen Teil von Europa wußten sie auch nichts. Daß Plato noch ein Wissen haben konnte von der Moralität, von der Sophrosyne, der Dikaiosyne, das ist vielfach dem Umstande zu verdanken, daß der Schauplatz, den die griechische Erkenntnis äußerlich umspannte, ein kleiner war. Daher war es noch möglich, viele von den Weisheits-Geisteskräften für die innere Entwickelung zu behalten. Aber sie verwendeten schon weniger für die innere Entwickelung als etwa die alten Ägypter oder Chaldäer, oder gar die alten Perser oder die alten Inder. In unserer Zeit, wo nach und nach die ganze Erde erforscht und zugänglich geworden ist, da suchen die Menschen möglichst viel an äußeren Erkenntnissen zu erwerben. Wie hat das zugenommen! Wenn es so intensiv wäre, wie es extensiv ist, dann würden die Menschen unendlich wenig, und gerade die Gebildetsten viel, viel weniger als irgendein Bauer mitnehmen, um den physischen Leib umzuwandeln in den physischen Kopf der nächsten Inkarnation. Aber Gott sei Dank, die meisten sind ja so gereist, daß sie nicht viel angeschaut haben, sondern daß sie fein nach dem Baedeker oder anderen Reisebüchern gegangen sind, und trotz des großen Umkreises doch nicht viel kennengelernt haben; so entziehen sie sich doch nicht alles. Sonst würde gerade bei denen, die überall nach Sensationen haschen, die nur alles, was sie wissen, von außen wissen wollen, die Gefahr vorliegen, daß sie in der nächsten Inkarnation mit einem Kopf zur Welt kämen, der recht wenig umgestalteter übriger Leib sein wird, das heißt, der sehr tierisch aussehen würde; denn das würde das Schicksal sein, wenn wenig Bildekräfte angesammelt würden.
Aber nun, Vergleiche, die aus der Imagination genommen sind, können auch ausgedehnt werden. Wir können uns fragen: Wenn es sich so verhält, daß das, was wir nach außen hin zur Erkenntnis, zur Erwerbung des äußeren Wissens verwenden, seiner eigentlichen inneren Wesenheit entzogen wird — wie das Weizenkorn, das zum Nahrungsmittel gemacht wird, der inneren Natur des Weizenkorns —, welche Ähnlichkeit besteht denn nun in bezug auf das, was äußerliches Wissen ist, äußeres Wissen wird, und der Tatsache, daß Weizenkörner auch als Nahrungsmittel verwendet werden? Es besteht eine innere Ähnlichkeit, die aber herbeigeführt werden muß.
Wenden wir noch einmal den Blick hin auf diese eigentümliche Tatsache, daß eine große Anzahl von Weizenkörnern nicht wieder zur Hervorbringung von Weizenpflanzen verwendet wird, sondern als menschliches Nahrungsmittel hingegeben wird! Dann können wir sagen: Es wird da das Weizenkorn entzogen seiner geradlinig fortschreitenden Entwickelung. Nicht wahr, wir haben ein Weizenkorn, das bringt ein Korn hervor, von dem kommt wiederum ein Korn und so weiter. Aber da splittern sich zahlreiche Weizenkörner ab; die gehen eigentlich in einen ganz anderen Bereich über, in den Bereich der Menschennahrungsmittel, der gar nichts zu tun hat mit der fortlaufenden Strömung.
Da haben Sie an der Natur die Möglichkeit, einen Begriff zu bilden von etwas, das sehr, sehr berücksichtigt werden muß, wenn man wirkliche Weltanschauung erwerben will. Unsere äußere Wissenschaft hat es nach und nach zu dem Schrecklichen gebracht, daß man alles so erklären will, daß sich immer das Folgende als ein Ergebnis des Früheren herausstellen soll, Wirkung immer auf Ursache. Es gibt nichts Törichteres als dieses Uniformieren der Welt in der Vorstellung, als ob immer aus der Wirkung auf die Ursache, und von der Ursache auf die Wirkung gegangen werden soll. Es entstehen spätere Wirkungen, die gar keinen direkten ursächlichen Zusammenhang mit einer vorhergehenden Ursache haben; denn wie sollte denn im Weizenkorn die Ursache liegen, daß es menschliches Nahrungsmittel werden wird? Höchstens nach der billigen Teleologie, die im achtzehnten Jahrhundert zum Teil noch gang und gäbe war, wonach man das Vorhandensein gewisser korkartiger Stoffe in der Natur damit erklärt hat, daß geheimnisvolle Geister diese Dinge geschaffen haben, damit man Champagnerpfropfen machen könnte. Nein, es geht wirklich da die Weizenfrucht über in eine andere Sphäre.
Und so ist es auch, wenn wir Erkenntnisse der äußeren Natur, der äußeren Dinge erwerben. Die Dinge gehen da in eine andere Sphäre über. Und ich bitte Sie, diese Wahrheit recht, recht tief zu nehmen. Wir Menschen können uns eine ganz große Summe dessen entziehen, was wahrheitsgemäß in uns ist, was wir verwenden müssen, um übergehen zu lassen unseren Leib der gegenwärtigen Inkarnation in den Kopf der nächsten Inkarnation. Wir können uns viel entziehen, um gegenwärtige Kenntnisse zu erwerben, aber wir müssen beachten, daß diese Kenntnisse zu etwas anderem da sein müssen. Wie die Weizenkörner gewissermaßen geadelt werden dadurch, daß sie zur menschlichen Nahrung verwendet werden - es wird ihnen da etwas Angemessenes gegeben dafür, daß sie ihrer ursprünglichen Wesenheit entzogen werden -, so muß es auch mit der menschlichen äußeren Erkenntnis sein, die ganz wider die Natur des Vorstellungsmäßigen, des Wahrheitsmäßigen entwickelt wird. Alles das, was der Mensch als Wahrheit erwirbt, die in Bildern der Außenwelt besteht, das soll er in seiner Gemütsempfindung den Göttern übergeben. Er soll das Bewußtsein immer in sich tragen: Erwirbst du Erkenntnisse, die du dem fortlaufenden Strom entziehst, so sei dir klar, daß Erkenntnis-Erwerben ein Götterdienst sein muß. Was an Erkenntnis erworben wird, ohne daß wir uns bewußt sind, daß das ein heiliger Dienst in der Entwickelung der Menschheit ist, ohne daß wir das, was wir uns aneignen von der Außenwelt, den höheren Geistern übergeben, die sich davon nähren, die das in sich aufnehmen - was wir an solcher Erkenntnis erwerben, die wir nicht mit dieser Empfindung begleiten, die wir einfach gedankenlos erwerben, das ist wie Weizenkörner, die in die Erde fallen und verfaulen, das heißt, die keine Ziele erreichen, nicht die ihren und nicht die anderen, die zur menschlichen Nahrung dienen.
Hier sehen Sie einen Punkt, wo Sie fühlen müssen, wie notwendig es ist, daß ein ganz bestimmtes praktisches Resultat aus unseren geisteswissenschaftlichen Bestrebungen hervorgeht, daß wir nicht nur etwas lernend aufnehmen, nicht nur etwas zum Wissen machen, sondern daß durch die Aufnahme des Geisteswissenschaftlichen eine Gesamtempfindung in unsere Seele gelegt wird. Wir verbinden mit dem Begriff des Wissens die Empfindung, daß das Wissen ein göttlicher Dienst sein soll, und daß es im Grunde eine Versündigung ist gegen den göttlichen Sinn der Evolution, wenn man das Wissen profaniert, wenn man das Wissen herabzieht von seiner göttlichen Bestimmung.
Ich sagte: Eigentlich ist erst in der neueren Zeit die Möglichkeit eingetreten, viel äußeres Wissen zu erwerben. Bei den Ägyptern ist noch fast alles inneres Wissen gewesen, wenig äußeres Wissen; die nächsten Dinge nur bildeten das äußere Wissen. Während der griechisch-lateinischen Kulturepoche entstand für den Menschen die Möglichkeit, immer mehr und mehr äußeres Wissen zu erwerben. Das ist gar nicht so lange her. Da entstand aber auch die Möglichkeit, den Weg zu finden, das Wissen zum göttlichen Dienste umzuwandeln, indem der Christus mit seiner Verkündigung auf die Erde kam.
Hier haben Sie wiederum einen Zusammenhang, der das Geschichtliche uns klarmacht. In dem Augenblick der Menschheitsentwickelung, in dem das Wissen vorzugsweise Wissen von der Außenwelt wird, in demselben Augenblick erscheint der Christus als hervorgehend aus der geistigen Welt, um die Möglichkeit herbeizuführen, daß der Mensch in seiner Empfindung der göttlichen Führung des Christus, aus dem Wissen, indem er es hinordnet zu dem Christus, einen Götterdienst macht. Wenn auch die Menschheit heute noch nicht sehr weit ist in der Entwickelung dieser Empfindung, aus dem Wissen einen Götterdienst zu machen, in dem Maße, wie die Menschheit mehr und mehr verstehen wird, wie Christus das Erdenleben vergottet, wird sie auch lernen, aus dem Wissen einen Götterdienst zu machen.
So leben wir durch alles das, wofür unser Haupt das äußere Zeichen ist, so, daß wir gewissermaßen einen kleinen Grundstock verwenden, um unseren Leib zum Haupte umzuwandeln. Und das andere, wenn wir es mit dem richtigen Gefühle begleiten, wie ich es eben charakterisiert habe, verwenden wir dazu, daß höhere geistige Wesenheiten eine bestimmte Nahrung durch unsere gefaßten Begriffe empfangen. Wir suchen ein Wissen zu erwerben für die Götter, so wie der Weizen auch für die Nahrung der Menschen wächst. Es ist schon so; aber diese Bestimmung muß ihm erst angemessen werden. So muß unserem Wissen durch unser Fühlen erst die Bestimmung, von der eben gesprochen worden ist, angemessen werden. Viel, viel wird davon abhängen, wenn die Entwickelung der Menschheit gesunden soll, daß solche Empfindungen, solche Gefühle entfaltet werden können.
In den alten Mysterien und Mysterienschulen war es noch wie eine Selbstverständlichkeit, daß derjenige, der das Wissen erlangen durfte, dieses Wissen auch heilig gehalten hat. Denn das war ja doch mit einer der Hauptgründe, warum man nicht jeden zugelassen hat in die Mysterien. Die, welche in die Mysterien zugelassen werden sollten, mußten Garantie dafür bieten, daß sie das Wissen wirklich heilig halten, es als einen Götterdienst auffassen. Das war auch durch ein atavistisches Hellfühlen noch vorhanden. Jetzt muß es sich die Menschheit wieder erwerben. Die Menschheit hat durchgemacht eine Zeit — wir wissen, daß das begründet ist -, in der sie sich nach dem Materialismus hin entwickelt hat. Sie muß aus diesem Materialismus heraus wieder gesunden, und sie wird nur gesunden, wenn mit dem Wissen wiederum solche Gefühle eines heiligen Dienstes verbunden werden, wie sie einstmals verbunden wurden. Aber aus der Bewußtheit heraus muß das in der Zukunft geschehen. Und das wird nur geschehen können, wenn die Geisteswissenschaft sich immer weiter in der Menschheit verbreitet. Das Wissen sollte nicht dem Samenkorn gleichen, das in der Erde verfault. Was nur in den Dienst der äußeren Nützlichkeit, der äußeren mechanischen Einrichtung gestellt wird, das alles gleicht dem Samenkorn, das verfault. Was nicht gestellt wird in den göttlichen Dienst, es geht verloren. Es wird weder verwendet, um uns in der nächsten Inkarnation zu helfen, noch wird es verwendet zur Nahrung höherer geistiger Wesenheiten. Verfaulen des Samenkorns ist ein realer Prozeß; es geschieht ja etwas. Verschwendung des Wissens, ohne daß man daraus einen göttlichen Prozeß, einen Götterdienst macht, ist schon auch ein realer Prozeß. Es würde heute zu weit führen, wollte ich Ihnen ausführen, was ein Verfaulen des Weizenkorns bedeutet, aber ein wertloses Verfaulen, weil es nicht aufgehen kann, weil es zugrunde gehen muß. Das Wissen aber, das nicht in den göttlichen Dienst gestellt wird, das wird von Ahriman ergriffen, das geht in Ahrimans Dienst über und bildet Ahrimans Macht, der es durch seine geistigen Diener dem Weltenprozesse einfügt und dadurch dem Weltenprozesse mehr Hindernisse einfügt — denn Ahriman ist ja zugleich der Gott der Hindernisse —, als gerechterweise da sein dürfen, da sein müssen.
So bekommen Sie eine Ansicht von der ganzen Bedeutung dessen, was vorstellungsmäßig, wahrheitsgemäß in uns lebt. Ich werde nun in den nächsten zwei Vorträgen Ausführungen über das Schöne und über die Moralität machen, um dann die drei Dinge zusammenzufassen, um dadurch wiederum eine Möglichkeit zu erwecken, die menschliche Wesenheit noch tiefer zu erfassen.
Sixth Lecture
It may seem complicated to some what must be said when one repeatedly comes to speak about the human being and its connection with the universe. What is it all about, this human being? — some might say. But the fact that human beings are formed in a complicated way out of the universe is simply there, and we have to accept it. We have to accept this fact, especially in the present time, because otherwise — it must be said — it could be too late. Human beings currently live in incarnations in which it is still possible to know little about the complex nature of the human being; but times will come — human souls will be incarnated again in these times — when this will no longer be possible. Then souls will have to begin to finally know how the human being is connected to the universe. One can say that we are currently passing through an age in which it is not yet up to human beings themselves to hold together the various members of their nature, which we were able to describe yesterday from a certain point of view. We are living in an epoch in which these various members are still held together without our intervention, where the complacent can come along and say: Oh, how complicated this anthroposophical wisdom is; but truth is simple, and what is not simple is not the real truth! Today, one can still hear this statement many times. Those who make this statement under Luciferic seduction have no idea how they are clouding themselves with such a statement about the so-called simplicity of truth, how they are deceiving themselves with it. For there will come times when human beings will find themselves quite complicated through experience, and when they will only be able to hold themselves together through knowledge. But all the future must be prepared, and it is the task of the spiritual scientific worldview to prepare the development of the Earth's culture for that age in which human beings will have to know how to hold themselves together from their various parts. Let us now remember this fundamental truth, which we have elaborated in some detail in recent days, that human beings can essentially be called dual in nature, and that their outward appearance already shows that they are dual in nature, in that the head, the upper part of the human being, is, one might say, constructed from a completely different point of view than the rest of the organism. When we look at the head of a human being as it is today, it is essentially the result of what has become of the body of the previous incarnation. And from our present body, excluding the head, our head of the next incarnation will emerge when we have passed through the period between death and new birth. Thus, we could schematically draw the progress of the human being through the incarnations as follows: The human being has his head, he has the rest of his body. What is now his head he essentially loses; what is the rest of his body will appear transformed in the next incarnation as his head, and he will receive his body again from the earth. This body will then become the head again in the next incarnation, and he will receive his body again from his ancestors, from the earth. The head is always lost. Of course, this refers to the forces. The matter of the rest of the body is also lost, of course. But it is not this outer matter that is important—in the truest sense, it is actually a maya—but all the forces that reside in the body with the exception of the head; these are transformed during our passage through the time between death and new birth into the forces of the head. And now we truly have in our head those forces that were bound to our body in our previous incarnation. That was the basic idea, which we have elaborated in more detail.
Now let us take other ideas that we have gained to help us understand these things better and better. We ask ourselves first of all, how is it that our body of the present, the forces of our body of the present, are transformed so that it can become a head in the next incarnation? This is something that is difficult to conceive at first, that our body should be transformed into a head. What makes this transformation possible? — we must ask.
To answer this question, we must first turn our soul's gaze to what we have said about the conceptual and cognitive aspects of the human soul, which are now bound to the head, about truth and wisdom. Usually, people today believe that what we acquire through knowledge is only there to enable us to form images of the external world, to learn something about the external world. There are philosophical epistemologists who theorize over and over again about how concepts or ideas are actually connected, what mysterious relationship exists between the nature of the concept and the thing that is represented by the concept. Such theories all suffer from a common flaw. I can only explain this flaw to you by using a metaphor. Imagine that a botanist, a gardener, wanted to investigate the nature of the grain of wheat, and he would go about it by saying: I will use chemistry to investigate the grain of wheat to determine the extent to which it contains the components that humans need to nourish themselves through wheat grain, wheat flour, or the like. And in this relationship that the wheat grain has to human nutrition, the botanist would seek the essence of the wheat grain, that is, the reasons why it consists of certain components. Such a person would be quite mistaken in believing that he could learn something about the essence of the wheat grain by investigating the extent to which it is a good food for humans. The grain of wheat arises within the whole wheat plant as the fruit of the wheat plant, and only those who investigate how a new wheat plant develops from the grain of wheat can learn why the grain of wheat is what it is in its essence. And it is a completely secondary factor that wheat grains contain the components necessary for human nutrition; this has nothing to do with the inner nature of wheat grains. Anyone who looks at everything only in terms of its usefulness and wants to make the knowledge of usefulness into the most genuine science will examine the grain of wheat chemically and find that something arises in nature that can serve as human food. But this has nothing to do with the inner nature of the grain of wheat that man feeds on it. As I said, it has to do with the inner nature of the wheat grain that a new wheat plant can develop from it.
For those who see things with insight, with imagination, the various philosophical epistemologists are just like people who examine the wheat grain for its ability to feed humans. For if one were to ask the grain of wheat about its original purpose, what it is there for, it would not answer: to feed people, but to give rise to a new wheat plant. Those who see through the cognitive, the conceptual, see the same mistake that I have just described in philosophical epistemologists. For what we call the cognitive, what lives in us as concept, as truth, as wisdom, is not originally intended to represent things outside ourselves. This representation of things outside is just as much a side stream as it is a side stream for wheat grains to feed humans. Knowledge is not there just to create images of external things, but it is there for something else. It is there to work and weave and live in humans in a certain way. By living here in existence between birth and death, we gradually accumulate wisdom, and at the same time we use wisdom in such a way that it can be a reflection of the external world, just as we use the grain of wheat as food. But the grain of wheat that we use as food is deprived of its inherent purpose of forming a new plant. In the same way, we deprive wisdom of its actual task by using it to grasp the external world. For the conceptual, the true, is not intended for this purpose in the first place. What is the purpose of this truth—I mean in the same sense as the wheat grain is intended to produce a new wheat plant? Our cognitive activity, our truthful work, is destined to develop forces within us between birth and death which transform our organism after death, that is, its form of energy, into the form of energy of the head! This is the remarkable connection that one discovers when one considers the passage of human beings between birth and death on the one hand, and between death and a new birth on the other. What human beings acquire in terms of knowledge serves first of all to transform their organism, except for the head, into a head that is then the head of the next incarnation. You will say: There are so many people who acquire no knowledge at all and remain terribly stupid; only a few become intelligent — among whom we usually count ourselves. But those who have said — and several people have said this independently of one another — that human beings learn more in their first three or four years of life, absorb more wisdom, than in the three years of academic education, are not entirely wrong. In the first three years of life, we really do learn a great deal that we can only learn through our heads on earth. We acquire the knowledge necessary to speak, to understand what is spoken, and much, much more. We really learn a great deal during this time. And this belongs to what we call wisdom.
Through what human beings acquire as their wisdom, and in which human beings are actually not so different, there surges and weaves as a force that transforms our organism into a head as it passes through the time between death and a new birth. It is basically a very complicated structure that we take in with our imagination and our knowledge. And only occasionally, in dreams such as I mentioned to you yesterday at the end of a Polish poet, is something quietly revealed to human beings of what surges and weaves, as it were, between the ideas of which we are fully conscious. But what surges and weaves there works within us to pass into actuality after death and transform our organism. Everything that is gained through knowledge accumulates to transform our organism, with the exception of what we use to perceive the external world. What we use to perceive the external world in the ordinary sense is lost in a certain sense for our development; we withdraw it from our development. Just as we withdraw all the wheat grains from the total process of wheat development — there are many more than those that are scattered back into the earth — which we use as food, so we actually withdraw much more, especially in the present period of human development, than we retain by appropriating the external world. Let us think back to earlier times, when people knew even more through inner clairvoyant knowledge. They did not concern themselves so much with the outer world. A population such as the ancient Egyptians or the ancient Chaldeans knew what they knew through atavistic clairvoyance and only a little through outer development. Today we live in a time that is, in a sense, the opposite in this respect. Today, much is taken in from outside and little is added from within development. The Greeks held that beautiful middle ground of a certain cultural development, which was not solely due to the fact that these Greeks were so particularly gifted. They certainly were, but that alone is not enough. They also owe the unity of their entire culture to the fact that the area of land occupied by the Greek people was relatively small, even in relation to the knowledge of the rest of the world. What did the Greeks know about anything other than Asia Minor, about Asia, what did they know about Africa, about America they knew nothing at all; they also knew nothing about a large part of Europe. The fact that Plato was still able to have knowledge of morality, of sophrosyne and dikaiosyne, is largely due to the fact that the arena in which Greek knowledge was outwardly expressed was small. Therefore, it was still possible to retain many of the intellectual powers of wisdom for inner development. But they used less of these forces for inner development than, for example, the ancient Egyptians or Chaldeans, or even the ancient Persians or Indians. In our time, when little by little the whole earth has been explored and made accessible, people seek to acquire as much external knowledge as possible. How this has increased! If it were as intensive as it is extensive, then people would take infinitely little, and even the most educated would take much, much less than any farmer, to transform the physical body into the physical head of the next incarnation. But thank God, most people have traveled in such a way that they have not seen much, but have followed the Baedeker or other travel guides, and despite their wide travels have not learned much; thus they do not deprive themselves of everything. Otherwise, precisely those who are constantly seeking sensations, who want to know everything from outside, would be in danger of coming into the next incarnation with a head that would be very little transformed from the rest of the body, that is, it would look very animalistic; for that would be their fate if few formative forces had been accumulated.
But now, comparisons taken from the imagination can also be extended. We can ask ourselves: If it is the case that what we use outwardly for knowledge, for the acquisition of external knowledge, is deprived of its actual inner essence — like the grain of wheat that is made into food, the inner nature of the grain of wheat — what similarity is there between what is external knowledge, becomes external knowledge, and the fact that wheat grains are also used as food? There is an inner similarity, but it must be brought out.
Let us turn our attention once more to this peculiar fact that a large number of wheat grains are not used to produce wheat plants, but are given as human food! Then we can say: the wheat grain is deprived of its straightforward development. Isn't it true that we have a grain of wheat that produces a grain, which in turn produces another grain, and so on? But numerous grains of wheat split off; they actually pass into a completely different realm, the realm of human food, which has nothing to do with the ongoing flow.
Here, in nature, you have the opportunity to form a concept of something that must be taken into account very, very carefully if you want to acquire a true worldview. Our external science has gradually brought us to the terrible point where we want to explain everything in such a way that what follows must always be the result of what went before, effect always following cause. There is nothing more foolish than this uniformity of the world in our imagination, as if we must always proceed from effect to cause, and from cause to effect. Later effects arise that have no direct causal connection with a previous cause; for how could the cause lie in the grain of wheat that it will become human food? At most, according to the cheap teleology that was still common in the eighteenth century, according to which the existence of certain cork-like substances in nature was explained by mysterious spirits who created these things so that champagne corks could be made. No, the wheat fruit really passes into another sphere.
And so it is when we acquire knowledge of external nature, of external things. Things pass into another sphere. And I ask you to take this truth very, very deeply. We humans can deprive ourselves of a great deal of what is truly within us, what we must use to allow our body of the present incarnation to pass into the head of the next incarnation. We can deprive ourselves of much in order to acquire present knowledge, but we must bear in mind that this knowledge must be there for something else. Just as wheat grains are ennobled, so to speak, by being used for human nourishment—they are given something appropriate in return for being removed from their original essence—so must it be with human external knowledge, which is developed completely contrary to the nature of the imaginative and the true. Everything that man acquires as truth, which consists in images of the outer world, he should surrender to the gods in his feelings. He should always bear this awareness within himself: if you acquire knowledge that you draw from the continuous stream, then be clear that the acquisition of knowledge must be a service to the gods. Whatever knowledge is acquired without our being aware that it is a sacred service in the development of humanity, without our surrendering to the higher spirits what we acquire from the external world, which nourish themselves on it, which take it into themselves—whatever knowledge we acquire that we do not accompany with this feeling, which we simply acquire thoughtlessly, is like grains of wheat that fall into the earth and rot, that is, they achieve no goals, neither their own nor those of others, which serve as human nourishment.
Here you see a point where you must feel how necessary it is that a very specific practical result emerge from our spiritual scientific endeavors, that we do not just absorb something by learning, do not just turn something into knowledge, but that through the absorption of spiritual science, a total feeling is placed in our soul. We associate with the concept of knowledge the feeling that knowledge should be a divine service, and that it is fundamentally a sin against the divine meaning of evolution to profane knowledge, to drag knowledge down from its divine destiny.
I said: Actually, it is only in recent times that the possibility of acquiring a great deal of external knowledge has arisen. With the Egyptians, almost all knowledge was still internal, with little external knowledge; only the next things formed the external knowledge. During the Greco-Latin cultural epoch, people gained the opportunity to acquire more and more external knowledge. That was not so long ago. But then the opportunity also arose to find the way to transform knowledge into divine service when Christ came to earth with his proclamation.
Here again you have a connection that makes history clear to us. At the moment in human development when knowledge becomes primarily knowledge of the external world, at that very moment Christ appears as emerging from the spiritual world in order to bring about the possibility that human beings, in their perception of Christ's divine guidance, may turn their knowledge into divine service by directing it toward Christ. Even if humanity today is not yet very far in the development of this feeling of turning knowledge into worship, as humanity comes to understand more and more how Christ deifies earthly life, it will also learn to turn knowledge into worship.
Thus we live through everything of which our head is the outward sign, in such a way that we use, as it were, a small foundation to transform our body into a head. And the rest, when we accompany it with the right feeling, as I have just characterized it, we use to enable higher spiritual beings to receive a certain nourishment through our grasped concepts. We seek to acquire knowledge for the gods, just as wheat grows for the nourishment of human beings. This is indeed so, but this purpose must first become appropriate to it. Thus, through our feelings, our knowledge must first become appropriate to the purpose just mentioned. Much, much will depend on whether such feelings can be developed if the development of humanity is to be healthy.
In the ancient mysteries and mystery schools, it was still taken for granted that those who were allowed to acquire knowledge also held this knowledge sacred. For that was one of the main reasons why not everyone was admitted to the mysteries. Those who were to be admitted to the mysteries had to guarantee that they would truly hold the knowledge sacred, that they would regard it as a service to the gods. This was still present through an atavistic clairvoyance. Now humanity must acquire it again. Humanity has gone through a period — we know that this is justified — in which it has developed toward materialism. It must recover from this materialism, and it will only recover if the knowledge is once again connected with feelings of sacred service, as it was in the past. But in the future, this must happen out of consciousness. And this will only be possible if spiritual science continues to spread throughout humanity. Knowledge should not be like a seed that rots in the ground. Everything that is placed in the service of external usefulness, of external mechanical devices, is like a seed that rots. What is not placed in the service of God is lost. It is neither used to help us in our next incarnation, nor is it used as nourishment for higher spiritual beings. The rotting of the seed is a real process; something is happening. The waste of knowledge without making it a divine process, a service to the gods, is also a real process. It would take us too far today to explain what the rotting of a grain of wheat means, but it is worthless rotting because it cannot sprout, because it must perish. But knowledge that is not placed in the service of God is seized by Ahriman, passes into Ahriman's service, and forms Ahriman's power, which he inserts into the world process through his spiritual servants, thereby introducing more obstacles into the world process than are justly allowed to be there, than must be there.
This gives you an idea of the whole meaning of what lives in us in a true, imaginative way. In the next two lectures, I will now discuss beauty and morality, and then summarize the three things in order to awaken a possibility of understanding the human being even more deeply.