The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Repetition in very formulations helps the listener to comprehend. The use of questions gives the audience a moment to breathe in. Logical trains of thought put the audience to sleep. Unusual formulations and word order keep the listeners attentive. Illustrations and pictures convince and are remembered.

Since today must be our last session, we will be concerned with filling out and expanding upon what has been said; so you must consider this rather like a final clearance at a rummage sale, where what has been left is finally brought out.

First, I would like most of all to say one must keep in mind that the speaker is in an essentially different position than he who gives something he has written to a reader. The speaker must be very aware that he does not have a reader before him, but rather a listener. The listener is not in a position to go back and re-read a sentence he has not understood. The reader, of course, can do this, and this must be kept in mind. This situation can be met by presenting through repetition what is considered important, even indispensable, for a grasp of the whole. Naturally, care must be taken that such repetitions are varied, that the most important things are put forth in varied formulations while, at the same time, this variety of re-phrasings does not bore the listener who has a gift for comprehension. The speaker will have to see to it that the different ways he phrases one and the same thing have, as it were, a sort of artistic character.

The artistic aspect of speaking is, in general, something that must be kept clearly in mind, the more the subject matter is concerned with logic, life-experience, and other powers of understanding. The more the speaker is appealing to the understanding through strenuous thinking, the more he must proceed artistically—through repetition, composition, and many other things which will be mentioned today. You must remember that the artistic has its own means of facilitating understanding. Take, for example, repetition, which can work in such a way that it forms a sort of facilitation for the listener. Differently phrased repetitions give the listener occasion to give up rigidly holding himself to one or another phrase and to hear what lies between them. In this way his comprehension is freed, giving him the feeling of release, and that aids understanding to an extraordinary degree.

However, not only should different means of artistically structuring the speech be applied, but also different ways of executing it. For example, take the speaker who, in seeking the right word for something, brings in a question in such a way that he actually speaks the question amidst the usual flow of statements. What does it mean to address one's listeners with a question? Questions which are listened to actually work mainly on the listener's inhalation. The listener lives during his listening in a breathing-in, breathing-out, breathing-in, breathing-out. That is not only important for speaking, it is also most important for listening. If the lecturer brings up a question the listener's exhalation can, as it were, remain unused. Listening is diverted into inhalation on hearing a question. This is not contradicted by a situation when the listener may be breathing out on hearing a question. Listening takes place not only directly but indirectly, so that a sentence which falls during an exhalation—if it is a question—is really only rightly perceived, rightly taken in, during the subsequent inhalation. In short, inhalation is essentially connected with hearing a content in question form. However, because of the fact that inhalation is engaged by a question being thrown out, the whole process of listening is internalized. What is said goes somewhat more deeply into the soul than if one listens merely to an assertion.

When a person hears a straight assertion his actual tendency is to engage neither his inhalation nor his exhalation. The assertion may sink in a little, but it doesn't actually even engage the sense organs much.

Lengthy assertions concerning logical matters are, on the whole, unfortunate within the spoken lecture. Whoever would lecture as if he were merely giving a reasoned argument has gotten hold of a great instrument—to put his listeners to sleep; for such a logical development has the disadvantage that it removes the understanding from the organ of hearing. One doesn't listen properly to logic. Furthermore, it doesn't really form the breath; it doesn't set it going in varied waves. The breath remains essentially in its most neutral state when a logical assertion is listened to, thus one goes to sleep with it. This is a wholly organic process. Logical assertions are perforce impersonal—but that takes its toll.

Thus, one who wants to develop into a speaker must take care whenever possible not to speak in logical formulae but in figures of speech, while remaining logical. To these figures of speech belongs the question. Also belonging to figures of speech is the ploy of occasionally saying the opposite of what one really wants to say. This has to be said in such a way that the listener knows he is to understand the opposite. Thus, let us say, the speaker says straight out, and even in an assertive tone: Kully is stupid. Under certain circumstances that could prove to be not a very good turn of phrase. But it could be a good formulation if someone said: I don't believe there is anyone sitting here who presumes that Kully is clever! There you have spoken a phrase that is opposite of the truth. But, naturally, you have added something so that you could formulate the opposite to the assertive statement. Thus, by proceeding in this way, and with inner feeling, the speech will be able to stand on its own two feet.

I have just said that the speech will be able to stand on its own feet. This is an image. Philistines can say that a speech has no feet. But a speech does have feet!As an example one need only recall that Goethe, in advanced age, when he had to speak while fatigued, liked to walk around the room. Speech is basically the expression of the whole man—thus it has feet! And to surprise the listener with something about which he is unfamiliar and which, if he is to grasp it, he must go counter to what he is familiar with—that is extremely important in a lecture.

Also belonging to the feeling-logic of the speech is the fact that one does not talk continually in the same tone of voice. To go on in the same tone, you know, puts the listener to sleep. Each heightening of the tone is actually a gentle nightmare; thus the listener is somewhat shaken by it. Every relative sinking of tone is really a gentle fainting, so that it is necessary for the listener to fight against it. Through modulating the tone of speech one gives occasion for the listener to participate, and that is extraordinarily important for the speaker.

But it is also especially important now and then to appeal somewhat to the ear of the listener. If he is too immersed in himself while listening, at times he won't follow certain passages. He begins to reflect within himself. It is a great misfortune for the lecturer when his listeners begin to ponder within themselves. They miss something that is being said, and when—after a time—they again begin to hear, they just can't keep up. Thus at times you must take the listener by the ear, and you do that by applying unusual syntax and sequences of phrasing. The question, of course, gives a different placing of subject and predicate than one is used to, but you ought to have on hand a variety of other ways of changing the word order. You should speak some sentences in such a way that what you have at the beginning is a verb or some other part of speech which is not usually there. Where something unusual happens, the listener again pays attention, and what is most noteworthy is that he not only pays attention to the sentence concerned but also to the one that follows. And if you have to do with listeners who are unusually docile, you will find that they will even listen to the second sentence if you interlace your word-order a bit. As a lecturer, you must pay attention to this inner lawfulness. You will learn these things best if, in your listening, you will direct your attention to how really good speakers use such things. Such techniques are what lead essentially to the pictorial quality of a speech.

In connection with the formal aspect of speaking, you could learn a great deal from the Jesuits. They are very well trained. First, they use the components of a speech well. They work not only on intensification and relaxation but, above all, on the image. I must continually refer to a striking Jesuit speech I once heard in Vienna, where I had been led by someone to the Jesuit church and where one of the most famous Jesuit Fathers was preaching. He preached on the Easter Confessional, and I will share the essential part of his sermon with you. He said: "Dear Christians! There are apostates from God who assert that the Easter Confessional was instituted by the Pope, by the Roman Pope; that it does not derive from God but rather from the Roman Pope. Dear Christians! Whoever would believe that can learn something from what I am going to say: Imagine in front of you, dear Christians, there stands a cannon. Beside the cannon there stands a cannonier. The cannonier has a match in his hand ready to light the fuse. The cannon is loaded. Behind the cannonier is the commanding officer. When the officer commands, 'Fire,' the cannonier lights the fuse. The cannon goes off. Would any of you now say that this cannonier, who obeyed the command of his superior, invented the powder? None of you, dear Christians, would say that! Look now, such a cannonier was the Roman Pope, who waited for the command from above before ordering the Easter Confessional. Thus, no one will say the Pope invented the Easter Confessional; as little as the cannonier invented the gunpowder. He only carries out the commandments from above." All the listeners were crushed, convinced!

Obviously, the man knew the situation and the state of mind of the people. But that is something that is an indispensable precondition for a good speech and has already been characterized in this study. He said something which, as an image, fell completely outside the train of thought, and yet the listeners completed the course of the argument without feeling that the man spoke subjectively. I have also called to your attention the dictum by Bismarck about politicians steering by the wind, an image he took from those with whom he was debating, but which nevertheless frees one from the strictness of the chain of thought under discussion.

These sorts of things, if they are rightly felt, are those artistic means which completely replace what a lecture does not need, namely, sheer logic. Logic is for thought, not for speaking; I mean for the form of speech, not the way of expression. Naturally, the illogical may not be in it. But a speech cannot be put together as one combines a train of thought. You will find that something may be most acute and appropriate in a debate and yet really have no lasting effect. What does have a lasting effect in a speech is an image which grabs, that is, which stands at some distance from the meaning, so that the speaker who uses the image has become free from slavish dependence on the pure thought-sense.

Such things lead to the recognition of how far a speech can be enhanced through humor. A deeply serious speech can be elevated by a humor which, so to say, has barbs. It is just as I have said: if you wish to forcibly pour will into the listeners, they get angry. The right way to apply the will is for the speech itself to develop images which are, so to speak, inner realities. The speech itself should be the reality. You can perhaps grasp what I want to say if I tell you of two debates. The second is not a pure debate, but it still can be instructive for the use of images in a speech which wishes to characterize something.

Notice that those orations that are intended to be witty often acquire a completely subjective coloring. The German Parliament had for some time, in one of its members by the name of Meyer, just such a witty debater. For example, at one time the famous—or infamous—“Lex Heinze” was advocated in this particular Parliament. I believe that the man who gave the speech for the defense was the minister; and he always spoke, as the defender and as one belonging to the Conservative Party, of “das Lex Heinze.” He always said “das Lex Heinze.” Now, no doubt, such a thing can pass. But it was in the nature of the Liberal Party, of which the joker, Representative Meyer, was a member, that it took just such matters seriously. So later on in the debate Meyer asked leave to speak and said somewhat as follows: “The Lord Minister has defended die Lex Heinze [Note 1] and has constantly said ‘das Lex Heinze.’ I didn't know what he was really talking about. I have gone all around asking what ‘das Lex’ is. No one has been able to enlighten me. I took the dictionary and looked—and found nothing. I was about to come here and ask the Minister, when it suddenly struck me to consult a Latin Grammar. There I found it, there stood the statement: 'What one cannot decline must be considered a neuter!”

To be sure, for an immediate laugh it is very good, this coarse wit. But it still has no barbs, it doesn't ignite deeply, because with such a ploy there is aroused subtly and unconsciously in the listener a pity for the afflicted one. This kind of wit is too subjective, it comes more out of a love of sarcasm than out of the thing itself.

Over against this I have always found the following to be a striking image: He who was later to become Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV was, as Crown Prince, a very witty man. His father, King Friedrich Wilhelm III, had a minister who was very special to him, whose name was von Klewiz. [Note 2] Now the Crown Prince could not bear von Klewiz. Once, at a court ball, the Crown Prince spoke to Klewiz and said: Your Excellency, I would like to put to you a riddle today:

The first is the fruit from the field
The second is something which,
when one hears it, one gets a light shock;
And the whole is a public calamity!

Von Klewiz turned red from ear to ear, bowed, and handed in his resignation after the ball. The King called him and said: What happened to you? I can't spare you, my dear Klewiz!—Yes, but, Your Royal Highness, the Crown Prince said something to me yesterday which made it impossible for me to remain in office.—But that is not possible! The dear Crown Prince would not say such a thing, that I can't believe!—Yes, but it is so, Your Majesty.—What has the Crown Prince said?—He said to me: The first is a fruit from the field; the second is something which, if one hears it, one gets something like a light shock; the whole is a public calamity! There is no doubt, Royal Highness, that the Crown Prince meant me.—Indeed, remarkable thing, dear Klewiz. But we will have the Crown Prince come and we will hear how the matter stands.

The Crown Prince was called.—Dear One, yesterday evening you are supposed to have said something very offensive to my indispensible minister, His Excellency, von Klewiz.—The Crown Prince said: Your Majesty, I am unable to remember. If it had been something serious I would surely be able to remember it.—It does seem to have been something serious, though.—Oh! Yes, yes, I remember. I said to His Excellency that I wished to put a riddle to him: The first syllable is a fruit of the field, the second syllable indicates something which, if one perceives it, one gets something like a slight shock; the whole is a public calamity. I don't think that it is a matter of my having offended His Excellency so much as that His Excellency could not solve the riddle. I recall that His Excellency simply could not solve the riddle!—The King said: Indeed, what is the riddle's solution?—Here, then: The first syllable is a fruit of the field: hay (Heu); the second syllable, where one gets a light shock, is “fear” (Schreck); the whole is: grasshopper (Heu-schreck), that is, a public calamity (or nuisance), Your Majesty.

Now why do I say that? I say it on the grounds that no one who tells such a thing, no one who moulds his phrases or figures of speech in such a form, has need of following the matter through to its end; for no person expects in telling it that he has to explain the tableau further, but rather expects each to draw for himself the pictorial idea. And it is good in a speech to occasionally work it so that something is left over for the listener. There is nothing left over when one ridicules someone; the gap is perfectly filled up.

It is a matter of heightening the vividness so that the listener can really get the feeling that he can act on something, can take it further.

***

The audience listens with the speech organs. The speaker must be fully immersed in his topic. He must have thorough knowledge of the events of the time. The movement for the threefold social order cannot be separated from Anthroposophy.

Naturally, it is necessary that one leaves the needed pauses in his speech. These pauses must be there.

Now along this line we could say an extraordinary amount about the form, about the structure, of a speech. For usually it is believed that men listen with their ears alone; but the fact that some, when they especially want to grasp something, open their mouths while listening, already speaks against this. They would not do this if they listened with their ears alone. We listen with our speech organs much more than is usually thought. We always, as it were, snap up the speech of the speaker with our speech organ; and the etheric body always speaks along with, even makes eurythmy along with, the listening—and, in fact, the movements correspond exactly to eurythmy movements. Only people don't usually know them unless they have studied eurythmy.

It is true that everything we hear from inanimate bodies is heard more from outside with the ear, but the speech of men is really heard in such a way that one heeds what beats on the ear from within. That is a fact which very few people know. Very few know what a great difference exists between hearing, say, the sound of church bells or a symphony, and listening to human speech. With human speech, it is really the innermost part of the speaking that is heard. The rest is much more merely an accompanying phenomenon than is the case with the hearing of something inanimate. Thus, I have said all that I did about one's own listening so that the speaker will actually formulate his speech as he would criticize it if he were listening to it. I mean that the formulation comes from the same power, out of the same impulse, as does the criticism if one is doing the listening.

It is of some importance that the persons who make it their task to do something directly for the threefolding of the social organism—or something similar to this—take care that what they have to say to an audience is done, in a certain way, artistically. For basically, one speaks today—I have already indicated this—to rather deaf ears, if one speaks before the usual public about the threefolding of the social organism. And, I would like to say, that in a sense one will have to be fully immersed in the topic, especially with feeling and sensitivity, if one wants to have any success at all. That is not to suggest that it is necessary to study the secrets of success—that is certainly not necessary—and to adapt oneself in trivial ways to what the listener wants to hear. That is certainly not what should be striven for. What one must strive for is a genuine knowledge of the events of the time. And, you see, such a firm grounding in the events of the time, an arousal of the really deeper interest for the events of the time, can only be evoked today by Anthroposophy. For these and other reasons, whoever wants to speak effectively about threefolding must be at least inwardly permeated with the conviction that for the world to understand threefold, it is also necessary to bring Anthroposophy to the world.

Admittedly, since the very first efforts toward the realization of the threefold social order, there have been, on the one hand, those who are apparently interested in the threefold social order but not in Anthroposophy; while on the other hand, those interested in Anthroposophy but caring little for the threefold social order. In the long run, however, such a separation is not feasible if anything of consequence is to be brought about.

This is especially true in Switzerland, some of the reasons for which having already been mentioned. The speaker must have a strong underlying conviction that a threefold social order cannot exist without Anthroposophy as its foundation. Of course, one can make use of the fact that some persons want to accept threefolding and reject Anthroposophy; but one should absolutely know—and he who knows will be able to find the right words, for he will know that without the knowledge of at least the fundamentals of Anthroposophy there can be no threefold organization.

For what are we attempting to organize in a threefold way? Imagine a country where the govern ment has complete control of the schools on the one hand and the economy on the other, so that the area of human rights falls between the two. In such a country it would be very unlikely that a threefold organization could be achieved. If the school system were made independent of the government, the election of a school monarch or school minister would probably shortly follow, transforming within the shortest time the independent cultural life into a form of government!

Such matters cannot be manipulated by formulas; they must be rooted in the whole of human life. First we must actually have an independent cultural life and participate in it before we can assign it its own sphere of activity within society. Only when that life is carried on in the spirit of Anthroposophy—as exemplified by the Waldorf school in Stuttgart—can one speak of the beginnings of an independent cultural sector. The Waldorf school has no head, no lesson plans, nor anything else of the kind; but life is there, and life dictates what is to be done.

I am entirely convinced that on this topic of the ideal independent school system any number of persons, be it three, seven, 12, 13 or 15, could get together and think up the most beautiful thoughts to formulate a program: firstly, secondly, thirdly—many points. These programs could be such that nothing more beautiful could be imagined. The people who figured out these programs need not be of superior intelligence. They could, for example, be average politicians, not even that, they could be barroom politicians. They could discover 30, 40 points, fulfilling all the highest ideals for the most perfect schools, but they wouldn't be able to do anything with it! It is superfluous to set up programs and statutes no one can work with. One can work with a group of teachers only on the basis of what one has at hand—not on the basis of statutes—doing the best one can in the most living way.

An independent cultural life must be a real life of the spirit. Today, when people speak of the spiritual life, they mean ideas; they speak only of ideas.

Consequently, since Anthroposophy exists for the purpose of calling forth in people the feeling for a genuine life of the spirit, it is indispensable when the demand arises for a threefold social organism. Accordingly, the two should go together: furtherance of Anthroposophy and furtherance of the threefold social order.

But people, especially today, are tired in mind and soul. They actually want to avoid coming to original thoughts and feelings, interested only in maintaining traditions. They want to be sheltered. They don't want to turn to Anthroposophy, because they don't want to stir their souls into activity; instead, they flock in great numbers—especially the intellectuals—to the Roman Catholic Church, where no effort is required of them. The work is on the part of the bishop or priest, who guides the soul through death. Just think how deep-rooted it is in today's humanity: parents have a son whom they love; therefore they want his life to be secure. Let him work for the government: then he is bound to be well looked after; then he doesn't have to face the battle of life by himself. He will work as long as he can, then go on to pensioned retirement—secure even beyond his working days. How grateful we should be to the government for taking such good care of our children!

Neither are people so fond of an independently striving soul. The soul is to be taken care of until death by the church, just as work is provided by the government. And just as the power of the government provides the physical man with a pension, so the church is expected to provide the soul with a pension when a man dies, is expected to provide for it after death—that is something that lies deeply in present-day man, in everyone today. Just to be polite I will add that this is true for the daughters as well as the sons, for they would rather be married to those who are thus “secure,” who are provided for in this way. Such seems to be the obsession of humanity: not to build upon oneself, but to have some mystical power somewhere upon which to build. The government, as it exists today, is an example of such a mystical power. Or is there not much obscurity in the government? I suspect much more obscurity than in even the worst mystic.

We must have a sense for these things as we commit ourselves to the tasks to which these lectures are addressed. This course was primarily confined to the formalities of the art of lecturing, but the important thing is the enthusiasm that lives in your hearts, the devotion to the necessity of that effectiveness which can emanate from the Goetheanum in Dornach. And to the degree that this inner conviction grows in you, it will become a convincing power not only for you but for others as well. For what do we need today? Not a mere doctrine; however good it could be, it could just get moldy in libraries, it could be formulated—here or there—by a "preacher in the desert," unless we see to it that the impulse for a threefold social order finds entrance, with minimal delay, to as many minds as possible. Then practical application of that impulse will follow by itself.

But we need to broaden the range of our efforts. A weekly publication such as the Goetheanum will have to be distributed as widely as possible in Switzerland. That is only one of many requirements, in view of the fact that the basic essentials of Anthroposophy must be acquired ever anew; but a weekly of this type will have to find its place on the world scene and work in widespread areas for the introduction and application of the threefold social order. The experience of the way in which the Goetheanum publication thus works will be essential to anyone attempting to assist in the realization of such an order in the social organism.

What we need above all is energy, courage, insight, and interest in world events on a broader scale! Let us not isolate ourselves from the world, not get entangled in narrow interests, but be interested in everything that goes on all over the world. That will give wings to our words and make us true coworkers in the field we have chosen.

In this light were these lectures given; and when you go out to continue your work, you can be assured that the thoughts of the lecturer will accompany you. May such cooperation strengthen the impulse that should inspire our work, if that work, especially in Switzerland, is to be carried on in the right way.

And so I wish you luck, sending you out not into darkness but into where light and open air can enter into the development of humanity—from which you will doubly benefit, as you yourselves are the ones who are to bring this light and openness into the world.

Notes:

Note 1.The proper form was apparently “die,” implying feminine gender. “Das” implies neuter gender.

Note 2.The two syllables of the name are identical in sound with Klee (clover) and Witz (joke).

In beginning this our last lecture I may truly say that there is a great deal more to be discussed, and that on the whole we have only been able in this course of lectures to deal with the very smallest part of what belongs to this rich subject. I may, however, hope that it will not be the last time we shall speak together here on similar matters, and it must suffice as a beginning, if only indications have been given on this theme, the further discussion of which would not be without its difficulties at the present time.

As a golden thread running through the last few lectures, was the idea that something is contained in the Germanic Scandinavian mythology or teaching of the gods, which in an imaginative form is wonderfully connected with everything we can extract in the shape of knowledge from the spiritual research of our own time. Now that is also one of the reasons why we may hope that the Folk-spirit, the Archangel who extends his educative and directing activity over this country, will permeate with the capacities he has developed in the course of centuries, that which may be called modern philosophy, modern spiritual research, and that from then on, this modern spiritual research will be fertilized in a popular sense.

The further we penetrate into the details of the Germanic Scandinavian mythology, the more we shall see how wonderfully the great occult truths are expressed in its pictures such as really is the case in no other mythology. Thus perhaps some of you who have read my Occult Science, or have heard other lectures which I was able to give here, will remember that once upon a time in the evolution of the earth an event occurred which we may describe as the descent of those human souls who, in primeval times, before the old Lemurian epoch, for particular reasons had ascended to the various planets of our system, and who at the end of the Lemurian and during the whole of the Atlantean epochs endeavored to unite themselves with that which the human body had little by little developed and perfected in the way of capacities, and which had been made possible by the separation of the moon from the earth. These Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury souls then descended; as one may still find to-day in the Akashic Records. In the course of the Atlantean epoch the air of Atlantis was permeated with water in the form of clouds; that was the condition when the descent of those souls could be perceived by the old clairvoyance of the Atlantean epoch. Every time new beings were born in the soft, plastic, flexible, pliable bodies of that time, when they descended so to say from spiritual heights, that was considered to be the external expression of souls descending out of the spiritual surroundings, out of the atmosphere, out of planetary life, to unite themselves with the bodies being formed upon earth.

The event of these earth-bodies being fertilized, as it were, by that which poured down from spiritual heights, is preserved in a conception implanted in the Scandinavian Germanic mythology. The consciousness of this was preserved so long that even Tacitus himself still found it among the South Germanic peoples at the time when he made the observations which he described in his Germania. No one who does not know that this event really did occur, will understand what Tacitus relates about the goddess Nerthus. The chariot of the goddess Nerthus was driven over the waters. That later on was preserved as a rite, a ceremony; formerly it was a matter of observation. This goddess represented that which can be presented to the human bodies by the human souls coming down from the planetary spheres.

That is the mysterious occurrence underlying the Nerthus myth and it has been preserved in all that has come down to us in the older Sagas and legends which indicate the development of physical man. Njordr, who is inwardly related to the goddess Nerthus, is her masculine counterpart. He represents to us the primal memory of the descent of the psychic-spiritual human beings, who had once upon a time ascended to planetary heights, and who during the Atlantean epoch, descended again to unite themselves with physical human bodies.

From my pamphlet, Occult Significance of Blood, you will see what a significant rôle the interminglings and relationships of peoples have played at certain periods. Now not only the interminglings and relationships which were expressed in the mixture of blood, but also the psychic and spiritual requirements of the Folk-spirits have played a great rôle. The vision of that descent has been preserved in the greatest purity in the Sagas which in former times developed in these Northern parts. Hence in the Sagas of the Vanen you can still find one of the very oldest recollections of it. Especially here in the North, in the Finnish traditions, was the memory kept alive of this union of the spiritual soul-nature which descended from planetary heights with that which proceeded from the earthly body itself, and which Northern tradition knows as Riesenheim (Home of Giants). That which developed out of the earthly body belonged to Riesenheim.

We understand, therefore, that the Germanic Scandinavian always felt the impulse coming from this side; that he felt within his gradually evolving soul the workings of this old divine vision, which was still ‘at home’ here in those old days when the mists of Atlantis still extended to this neighborhood. The Germanic Scandinavian felt in his soul something of the arrival of a god who was directly descended from those divine spiritual Beings, those Archangels who directed the union of the psychic-spiritual with the earthly-physical. Freyr the god, and Freya his sister, who here in the North were once upon a time specially beloved gods, were thought of and felt as having originally been those angelic Beings who had poured into the human souls all that those souls required to enable them to develop further, upon the physical plane, those old forces which they had received by means of their clairvoyant capacities. In the physical world, that world limited by the outer senses, Freyr was the one who continued all that had been formerly received in clairvoyance. He was the living continuation of the clairvoyantly received forces. He had therefore to unite himself with the physical instruments existing in the human body itself for the use of these soul-forces, which then can carry into the physical plane what had been perceived in primal clairvoyance. That is reflected in the marriage of Freyr with Gerda, the giantess; she is taken from the physical forces of earthly evolution. These pictures represent the descent of the divine-spiritual into the physical.

In this figure of Freyr is expressed in quite a wonderful way, the manner in which Freyr makes use of that which makes it possible for man to manifest on the physical plane that for which he has been educated by his preceding clairvoyant perceptions. Bluthuf (Blood Hoof) is the name of the horse placed at the disposal of Freyr, to indicate that blood is the essential thing in the development of his ‘I’. A remarkable, wonderful ship is also placed at his disposal. It can be expanded into the immeasurable and can be folded together so that it can be contained in the smallest box. Now what is this miraculous ship? If Freyr is the power which carries clairvoyant forces into the spheres which express themselves on the physical plane, then it must be something quite particularly belonging to him; it is the alternation between day-waking and night-sleeping. Just as the human soul during sleep and until the moment of waking is spread out in the macrocosm, so does the miraculous ship expand and is then folded up again into the folds of the brain; so that during the day-time it can be stowed away in the smallest of boxes—the human skull. You will find all this wonderfully expressed in the pictures of this Germanic Scandinavian mythology.

Those of you who will go more deeply into these things, will be gradually convinced that this is no fantasy; but that what has been implanted, inoculated into the thoughts and feelings of this northern people by means of these pictures, really comes from the schools of the Initiates. Thus a very great deal remained in the guiding Archangel or Folk-spirit of the North, of the old education through clairvoyant perception of that which may grow up in a soul which, in its development on the physical plane, connects itself on to a clairvoyant development.

Although outwardly it may seem different at the present day, yet the Archangel of the Germanic North has within him this tendency, and this enables him to understand modern Spiritual Science especially well and to transform it in the manner corresponding to its national character. Hence also you will see why I have said that in the Germanic North the best conditions are to be found for the comprehension of that which I could only indicate briefly in my open lecture on the Second Coming of Christ. Spiritual research at the present time shows us that after Kali Yuga had run its course, which lasted for five thousand years (from about 3100 B.C. to 1899 A.D.), new capacities begin to develop in man. These will at first appear in single individuals, in a few especially gifted ones only. It will come about, for instance, that persons will be able, through the natural evolution of their capacities, to see something of what is announced only by Anthroposophy, by spiritual research.

We are told that in future persons in whom the organs of the etheric body are developed will be found in increasing numbers, and will attain to clairvoyance, which can to-day be acquired only by training. And why will this be so? What will the etheric body possess for the perception of those few? There will be people who will receive impressions of which I should like to describe one to you. A man will do something in the external world and will then feel himself impelled to observe something. A sort of dream-picture will come before his eyes which at first he will not understand. But if he has heard something about Karma, of how everything in the world takes place in accordance with law, he will then learn to understand, little by little, that what he has seen is the karmic counterpart of his actions in the etheric world. Thus gradually the first elements of future capacities are being formed.

Those persons who receive a stimulus from Anthroposophy will, (from the middle of the twentieth century on), gradually experience a renewal of that which St. Paul saw in etheric clairvoyance as a mystery to come, the ‘Mystery of the Living Christ’. There will be a new manifestation of Christ, a manifestation which must come when human capacities so develop in the natural course, that the Christ can be seen in that world in which He always was, and in which since the Mystery of Golgotha He is to be found by Initiates. Humanity is growing into that world in order to be able to perceive from the physical plane that which could formerly only be seen from higher planes in the Mystery Schools.

The Mystery-training will nevertheless not become superfluous. It always presents things in a different way from what they are presented to the untrained soul. But that which is given in the Mystery-training will, by the transformation of the physical human body, show the Mystery of the Living Christ in a new way, as it can be seen perceptively from the physical plane, as it will be seen in the etheric, at first by a few and afterwards by more and more persons, in the course of the next three thousand years. That which St. Paul saw as the living Christ Who is to be found in the etheric world since the event of Golgotha, will be seen by an ever increasing number of people.

The manifestations of Christ will be ever higher and higher. That is the mystery of the evolution of Christ. At the time when the Mystery of Golgotha took place men were to comprehend everything from the physical plane; it was therefore necessary that they should also be able to see Christ on the physical plane, to have news of Him there, and to testify to His power on that plane. But mankind is intended to progress, it is organized for the development of higher powers, and anyone who can believe that the manifestation of Christ will be repeated in the same form which was necessary nineteen hundred years ago, knows nothing of the progress of humanity. It took place on the physical plane because at that time the forces of man were adjusted to the physical plane. But those forces will evolve, and hence, in the course of the next three thousand years, Christ will be able to speak more and more to the more highly developed human forces.

What I have just said is a truth which has for a long time been communicated to a few individuals from within the esoteric schools, a truth which to-day must be found especially in the domain of Anthroposophy, because Anthroposophy is to be the preparatory school for that which is to come. Humanity is now organized for liberty, for the personal recognition of that which is developing within it, and it might occur that those persons who will come forward as the first pioneers of the Christ-vision, will be shouted down as fools, that what they have to offer to mankind will not be listened to, and humanity might sink still further into materialism than it has already done and trample under foot that which could become the most wonderful manifestation for mankind. Everything that may happen in the future is to a certain extent subject to the will of humanity, so that men may also miss what is for their salvation. That is extremely important: Anthroposophy is a preparation for what is to be the new Christ-revelation.

Materialism may make a mistake in two different ways. One—which will probably be made by reason of the Western traditions—consists in considering as mere folly, as wild fantasy, everything that the first pioneers of the new Christ-revelation will announce in the twentieth century as the result of their own vision. Materialism has now invaded all domains. It is not only at home in the West but it has also taken hold of the East; there, however, it assumes another form. It may happen that oriental materialism may cause men to fail to recognize what is higher in a manifestation of Christ at a higher stage, and then will occur that which has so often been spoken of here, and will again and again be repeated, that materialistic thinking will transform the appearance of Christ into a materialistic view.

It might occur at that time, under the influence of scientific spiritual knowledge, that persons may, it is true, speak of Christ manifesting Himself, but will at the same time believe that He will appear in a material body. The result would then be another form of materialism. It would only be a continuation of what has happened for centuries. Certain people have always profited by this false materialism, and indeed, there have always been individuals representing themselves as the re-appeared Christ. The last important case of such an one was in the seventeenth century, when a man called Sabbatai Zevi, of Smyrna, represented himself as the re-appeared Christ. He made a great stir. Pilgrimages were made to him not only by those in his immediate neighborhood, but also by people from Hungary, Poland, Germany, France, Italy, and northern Africa. All these looked upon Sabbatai as the physical incarnation of a Messiah. I should not care to relate the human tragedy connected with the personality of Sabbatai. In the seventeenth century the tragedy was certainly not so great, for man was not then so entirely in possession of his free will, although by means of his perception—which was a spiritual feeling—he could recognize what was the truth; but in the twentieth century it would be a great misfortune if, under the pressure of materialism, the teaching that Christ will manifest Himself were to be taken in a materialistic sense, as though He would return in a physical body. That would only prove that humanity has not acquired any perception or insight as regards the real progress of the human development of higher spiritual forces. False Messiahs will certainly appear, and on account of the materialism of our day they will be believed, just as was Sabbatai in the seventeenth century. It will be a trial, a severe test for those prepared by Anthroposophy to recognize where the truth lies, a test as to whether a spiritual, vital feeling really fills the spiritual theories, or whether they only contain a hidden materialism. It will be a proof as to the further development of Anthroposophy, whether by its means a sufficient number of persons will be developed enough to understand that they have to see the spirit in the spirit, that they have to look up into the etheric world for a new manifestation of Christ; or whether they will remain at a standstill on the physical plane, determined to look for a manifestation of Christ in a physical body. The Anthroposophical Movement will yet have to undergo this test. But this we may say, that nowhere has the ground been better prepared to recognize the truth on this very subject, than here, where the Germanic Scandinavian mythology developed.

In that which has come down to us as the ‘Twilight of the Gods’ there is contained a significant vision of the future, and herewith I come to a chapter the starting-point of which I have already indicated. I have told you that when a community of people have so lately left their clairvoyant past behind them, that then a clairvoyant sense is also developed in their guiding Folk-spirit, by means of which the things we now find clairvoyantly can again be understood. Now if a people experiences the new age with new human capacities, on the very ground on which bloomed the Germanic Scandinavian mythology, it ought then to understand that what was formerly the old clairvoyance must take a different form after man has gone through his development on the physical plane. Here, for a while, that which spoke out of the old clairvoyance remained silent; then the world of Odin and Thor, of Balder and Hoeder, of Freyr and Freya withdrew for a while into the background, away from human vision. But that world will return after a period when other forces have meanwhile been at work upon the human soul.

When this human soul gazes out into the new world, with the new clairvoyance which begins with etheric clairvoyance, it will see that it can no longer retain the old forms of the forces which educated the soul. If it were able to do so, all the opposing forces would come into play against that force which in olden times had to educate the powers of man up to a certain height. Odin and Thor will again be visible to the eyes of man, but that will then be because the human soul will have gone through a new development. All the forces that are opposed to Odin and Thor will appear to the human soul. Everything which has developed in the way of opposing force will be once again visible in a mighty tableau. But the human soul would not progress, it would not be able to defend itself against injurious influences if it were only to be subject to the forces seen by the old clairvoyance. Thor once upon a time gave man his ‘I’; that ‘I’ has been educated on the physical plane, has evolved out of what Loki, the Luciferic power, left behind in the astral body, viz., the Midgard Serpent. That which Thor was once able to give, and which the human soul is growing away from, is in conflict with what proceeds from the Midgard Serpent. In Scandinavian mythology that appears as Thor fighting the Midgard Serpent. They balance each other, that is to say, they slay each other. In the same way Odin wrestles with the Fenris Wolf, whereby they annihilate each other. Freyr, that which for a while developed the human soul-forces, had to be subdued by that which had been given from the earth-forces themselves to the ‘I’, which had in the meanwhile been educated on the physical plane. Freyr was overcome by the flaming sword of Surtur, who sprang from the earth.

All these details which are set forth in the ‘Twilight of the Gods’, correspond with that which is to appear to mankind in a newer etheric vision, which in reality refers to the future. The Fenris Wolf will still remain. Oh, there is a deep, deep truth concealed in this account of the Fenris Wolf remaining behind in conflict with Odin. In the near future of mankind there will be no danger so great as the tendency to remain satisfied with the old clairvoyance,—instead of developing the new by means of new forces—the danger that man might be tempted to remain satisfied with what the old astral clairvoyance of primal ages could give, namely, soul-pictures such as that of the Fenris Wolf. It would also be a severe trial for that which has to grow up in the domain of Anthroposophy, if in that, the tendency towards all sorts of confused, chaotic clairvoyance should arise, and an inclination to value the clairvoyance illuminated by reason and science less highly than the old chaotic one which does not possess this prerogative.

These remains of the old clairvoyance would wreak a fearful vengeance, by confusing the vision of men with all sorts of chaotic pictures. Such clairvoyance cannot be met by that which itself proceeded from old clairvoyant power, but only by that which during the Kali Yuga has been developed as a healthy force into a new clairvoyance. The power given by the old Archangel Odin, the old clairvoyant powers, cannot save man; something very different must come in. And what that is, is, however, known to Germanic Norse mythology,—it is well aware of its existence. It knows, that there exists the etheric form in which will embody that which we shall once again see as the etheric form of Christ. And this alone will succeed in driving out the confused clairvoyant power which would bewilder mankind, if Odin did not overcome the Fenris Wolf, which represents nothing but the backward clairvoyance. Vidar, who has kept silence all the time, will overcome the Fenris Wolf. That also is told us in the ‘Twilight of the Gods’.

Anyone who recognizes the importance of Vidar and feels him in his soul, will find that in the twentieth century the capacity can again be given to man with which to see Christ. Vidar, who belongs to us all in Northern and Central Europe, will again stand before him. He was kept secret in the Mysteries and secret Schools as a god who would receive his mission only in the future. Only indefinite statements are made even regarding his picture. This may be seen from the fact that a picture has been found in the vicinity of Cologne, of which no one knows whom it represents, but which is none other than a likeness of Vidar.

All through the Kali Yuga the powers were acquired which will make the new men capable of seeing the new manifestation of Christ. Those who are destined to point out from the signs of the times that which is to come, know that the new spiritual investigation will re-establish the power of Vidar, who will drive out of the minds of men all the remnants of the old chaotic clairvoyant power which might act in a confusing way, and who will arouse the new gradually evolving clairvoyance in the human breast, in the human soul.

Thus we see, when the wonderful figure of Vidar shines forth to us out of the ‘Twilight of the Gods’, that a hope for the future shines towards us as it were out of the Germanic Norse mythology. When we feel ourselves to be related to this figure of Vidar, of whom we are now trying to understand the deeper side, we hope that that which must be the central nerve and the vital essence of all Anthroposophy, will result from those forces which the Archangel of the Germanic Scandinavian world can contribute to the evolution of modern times. One part only of a greater whole has been accomplished for the fifth post-Atlantean civilization in the way of development of humanity and the spirit; another part has still to be accomplished. Those Northern Germanic peoples will best be able to contribute to this who feel that they have within them fresh elemental nation-forces. But this will to a certain extent be put into the souls of men. They themselves will have to make up their minds to work. One can go astray in the twentieth century because what has to be attained is to a certain extent subject to man's free will and must not be compulsory. It is therefore a question of having a proper understanding of that which is to come.

So you see, that when our Anthroposophy of to-day announces the knowledge of the Christ-Being, and when our hopes for the future are connected with that true knowledge of this Being which we look for in the substance of the European people themselves, that there is then no question of any sort of predilection or temperamental predisposition.

It has sometimes been said that one might call what we may describe as the greatest Being in the evolution of humanity, by any name one likes. (Never will one who recognizes the Christ-Being insist upon retaining the name Christ.) But if we understand the Christ-Impulse in the right way, we shall not say as follows: A Being lives in human evolution, in the humanity of the West and that of the East, and it must be such an one as to correspond to the sympathies of mankind for this or the other truth. That is not ‘occultistic’. What is ‘occultistic’ is, that the moment one recognizes that this Being must be called by the name Buddha, that should unreservedly be done, quite regardless of whether this is sympathetic to one or not; it is not a question of sympathy or antipathy, but of the truth, of the facts.

The moment the facts should teach us otherwise, we should be ready to act differently. The facts and the facts alone must be decisive for us. We shall bring neither Orientalism nor Occidentalism into that which we look upon as the real life-blood of Anthroposophy, and if we are to find in the world of Northern Germanic Archangels that which may yield a fertile seed for true Anthroposophy, that seed would not be given on this ground to one particular people or tribe, but to humanity as a whole. What is given to all mankind, and must be given, can only spring up at a certain place; but it must be given to the whole of humanity. We recognize no difference between the East and the West; we accept with great love that which we recognize as the overwhelming greatness of the primal culture of the Holy Rishis in its true form; we lovingly accept the Persian culture, and that which we know as the Egyptian-Chaldæan and the Græco-Latin cultures, and with just the same objectivity we also accept what has grown up for us from the soil of Europe. The necessity of the facts alone compels us to speak on these matters in the way we have done in these lectures.

If we accept from the whole of mankind all that each religion has contributed towards the civilizing process of mankind, and carry that into what we recognize and know to-day as the common possession of humanity, then, the more we do this, the more are we really active in the sense of the Christ-Principle. As this is capable of development, we must therefore overcome that which it had to go through during its early centuries and millennia, when the Christ-Principle was only understood in its most imperfect beginnings. We do not look into that past, nor are we guided by it. We lay no store by this tradition; the chief thing for us is, that which can be discovered and examined in the spiritual world. Hence the most important thing about the Christ-Principle to us is not what has been—however often tradition may affirm that—but what is yet to come. We do not depend so much upon historical tradition, but we endeavor to know what is to come. That is the essential thing in the Christ-Impulse, which came at the beginning of the Christian era, and we do not attach much importance to the external and historical. After Christianity has passed through its childish ailments, it will develop further. It has also gone out into foreign lands and wished to convert people to that which consisted of the several Christian dogmas of a particular age. But we have before our souls a Christianity of which we know that Christ was active in all the ages, and that we shall find Him in all places, whither-so-ever we go; that the Christ-Principle is the most anthroposophical principle there is. And if Buddhism only counts those persons as Buddhists who swear by Buddha, then Christianity will be that which swears by no prophet, because it is not under the influence of a founder of religion belonging to one particular people, but it recognizes the god of humanity.

He who is acquainted with Christianity knows that it refers to a Mystery, which at Golgotha became manifest on the physical plane. It is the vision of this Mystery which leads us in the direction I have described. We may also know that the spiritual life at that time was such, that this Mystery had then to be experienced in the way it actually was experienced by humanity. We allow no dogmas to be forced upon us, not even those of a Christian past, and if a dogma should be thrust upon us from one quarter or another, we should in accordance with the rightly understood Christ-Principle reject it. However many people may come and force a denominational acknowledgment of the historical Christ upon us, or say that what we see as the future Christ is wrong, we shall not allow ourselves to be led astray by being told that He must be like this or like that, even if it is said by those who ought to understand Who Christ is. In the same way the Christ-Being must not be limited and narrowed by Eastern traditions, nor be colored by the dogmas of Eastern dogmatism. That which is drawn from the sources of occultism will appear before mankind free and independent of every tradition and of all authority, in what it has to say about this evolution of the future.

It is wonderful to me how well people understand each other here. Friends who have journeyed here have said to me again and again in these last few days how free they feel with the people of the Scandinavian North. Many have expressed that feeling. It is a proof that we shall be able, though some may not be conscious of it, to understand each other in the deepest essence of our Anthroposophical knowledge; it is proof of how we shall understand each other, especially in that which I mentioned at the last Theosophical Congress at Budapest, and which I repeated during our own General Meeting in Berlin, when we had the great pleasure of seeing friends also from the North among us. It would be a bad thing for Anthroposophy if one who cannot yet see into the spiritual world were obliged to accept in blind faith what is being said. I beg of you now, as I did in Berlin, to accept nothing I have ever said or ever shall say, on authority or in blind faith. It is possible, even before a man has reached the stage of clairvoyance, to test what is obtained through clairvoyant observation. Whatever I have said about Zarathustra and Jesus of Nazareth, about Hermes and Moses, about Odin and Thor, about Christ Jesus Himself, I beg of you not to believe it or accept my words on authority. I beseech you to dis-accustom yourselves from the principle of authority, for that principle would be an evil one for us.

I know very well, however, that when with an unprejudiced sense for truth you begin to reflect, when you say, ‘We have been told so and so; let us search the records accessible to us, the religious and mythological documents, let us ascertain what natural science can tell us,’ that then you will perceive the correctness of what has been said. Make use of all the means you can bring to your assistance, the more the better. I am not afraid. That which comes from the sources of Rosicrucianism may be tested in every way. Test by the most materialistic criticism of the Gospels what I have said about Christ Jesus, test by means of all the sources at your disposal what I have said about history, test it as minutely as possible by all the means at your disposal on the physical plane; I am convinced that the more minutely you test it, the more you will find, that what has been said out of the sources of the Rosicrucian Mystery will be found to correspond to the truth.

I count upon the communications made from Rosicrucianism not being believed, but proved, not superficially by the superficial methods of present-day science, but ever more and more conscientiously. Take all that the most modern science with the newest methods can offer you, take everything which the historical or religious investigations have yielded; the more you test it, the more you will find confirmation from this source. You must take nothing on authority. The best Anthroposophists are those who take what is said as a stimulus in the first place, and then place it at the service of life, so as to prove it by life itself. For in life also, at every stage of it, you can test that which has been said out of the sources of Rosicrucianism. It is far from the intention underlying these lectures to set up a dogma and say: This or that is so and so, and must be believed. Test it by the healthy and mentally vigorous people whom you know, and you will yourselves find confirmed what has been said as a prophetic indication of the future manifestation of Christ. You need only open your eyes and without prejudice test it; we make no appeal to belief in authority. The test is a sort of basic attitude, which should, like a golden thread, run through the whole.

So now I should like you to lay this to heart: that it is not ‘anthroposophical to accept a statement as dogma because this or that person made it, but it is anthroposophical to let oneself be stimulated by, Spiritual Science, and to test what one receives by life itself. Then what ever might color our anthroposophical view from one quarter or another, will vanish away. Neither Eastern nor Western shades should color our views. One who speaks in the sense of Rosicrucianism knows neither Orientalism nor Occidentalism; both are equally sympathetic to him; he only states the truth according to the inner nature of the facts.

That it is which we must bear in mind, particularly at such an important moment as this, when we have indicated the Folk-spirit who rules over all the Northern lands. In these lands lives the Germanic Scandinavian mythological Spirit; and although at the present day he still lives below the surface, yet he is spread out much more widely in Europe than one might suppose. If a conflict were to arise between the peoples of the North, it could not consist in one people disputing with another about what is to be given, but in each people practicing self-knowledge and inquiring, ‘What is the best that I can give?’ Then to the common altar will flow that which leads to the common progress, to the common welfare of mankind. The sources of what we are able to contribute lie in the individuality. The Germanic Scandinavian Archangel will bring to the collective human culture of the future, just what he is most fitted for according to the capacities he has acquired, as we have sufficiently described. He is, however, specially capable of bringing about that which could not yet be given in the first half of the fifth post-Atlantean age of civilization but which may still play its part in the second, viz., the spiritual element which we pointed out as being prophetically germinal in the Slav philosophy and national sentiment. While this was in a state of preparation the first half of the fifth post-Atlantean age of civilization had to be passed through. All that could be attained then to begin with was a very sublimated spiritual perception in the form of philosophy. This must then be grasped and permeated by the forces of the people, so that it may become the common possession of mankind, and become comprehensible in all parts of our earth-life.

Let us endeavor to understand one another on this subject, and then this otherwise somewhat dangerous theme will not have borne evil fruit, if all who have assembled here from the North, South, East, West and Centre of Europe become aware that it is important for the whole of humanity that we should feel that the great peoples as well as the smaller subdivisions of peoples all have their mission, and have to contribute their part to the whole. Sometimes the smaller peoples that have been separated off, because they were to preserve either the old or the new characteristics of soul, have to contribute something most important. Thus, although we have made this dangerous question the subject of our lectures, nothing else can come of it than the basic sentiment of a community of soul among all those who are united in the sign of anthroposophical thought and feeling and of anthroposophical ideals.

Then, only if we are still guided by our sympathies and antipathies, if we have not clearly grasped the kernel of our anthroposophical world-movement, could misunderstandings arise from what has been said. But if we have grasped the spirit presiding in these lectures, then the things we have heard may also help us to make the firm resolution and hold the high ideal,—each one from his own standpoint and his own ground,—to contribute to the common goal that which lies in our own mission. This we can best do with that which originates in ourselves, with that to which we are predisposed. We can best serve mankind as a whole if we develop that, so as to embody it in the whole of humanity as a sacrifice which we bring to the progressive stream of culture. We must learn to understand this. We must learn to understand that it would be a bad thing if Anthroposophy did not contribute to the evolution of man, Angel and Archangel, but were to contribute to the overcoming of the convictions of one people by those of another. Anthroposophy is not here to assist one form of religion which rules in one part of the earth to prevail over another. If the West were ever to be conquered by the East, or vice versa, that would absolutely not be in accordance with anthroposophical sentiment. That alone is anthroposophical, that we should give of our best, that which is purely human, to the whole of humanity. And if we live entirely within ourselves, not, however, for ourselves but for all men, then that is true anthroposophical tolerance. These words I had to add to our somewhat dangerous subject.

By means of Anthroposophy—as we shall see more and more clearly—all splitting-up will cease. Therefore it is now just the right time to know the Folk-souls, because Anthroposophy is here to teach us not to place them in opposition to one another, but to call upon them to work in harmonious co-operation. The better we understand this, the better Anthroposophists we shall be. This should be the note on which, for the present, these lectures close. For finally the knowledge we gather must really work in our feelings and our thinking, and in our anthroposophical idea. The more we live up to this the better Anthroposophists we are.

I have found that many of those who have accompanied us to the North have received the best possible impression, which was expressed in the words, ‘how much they liked being here in the North.’ And if exalted forces are to be aroused in mankind in the future, if we would speak with the words of Vidar, the silent Asa, whom we shall most certainly see before us, he will then become the active friend of co-operative work, of cooperative industry, for which purpose we have all been assembled here. Let us in this sense part from one another in space, after having been together for a few days, but let us in this sense always be together in spirit. Wherever we Anthroposophists go, whether far or near, may we always find ourselves together in harmony, even when we have to discuss the special nature of the peoples inhabiting the various countries of the earth. We know that they are only individual sacrificial flames which do not separate from one another, but which will unite in the mighty sacrificial fire that must unite for the good of mankind through the anthroposophical view of life which is so dear to our hearts and is so deeply rooted within our souls.

Emil Leinhas: The draft is still incomplete. But we worked together harmoniously. (He reads the draft.)

Dr. Maier, Dr. Heyer and Dr. Peipers speak to this.

Alexander Strakosch: The question of the executive council still needs to be clarified.

Dr. Steiner: The passage about antagonism does not quite correspond to fact. From the personal reasons for the resistance against anthroposophical spiritual values, the antagonism that has arisen to me would not have been of any further significance; it would have appeared as a foolish episode. It is only through the reasons given by the various enterprises since 1919 that the attacks are used as a means to an end by an antagonism that for the most part has no interest in the attacks themselves,

used as a means to an end, in order to eliminate the anthroposophical movement.

Marie Steiner: The opponents are treated too lightly, it is immediately said that the compilation of the quotations forms the basis for attack, while the opposition does, after all, make use of mean methods.

Dr. Steiner: One is the opposition that uses defamation; the other is what the opposition does by creating a distorted image. Then the question arises as to whether, under certain circumstances, this opposition should not be attacked a little more boldly, which is only possible and necessary by using individual words.

Is it not true that the opponents are often protected by a certain official reputation, because to the outside world Dr. Jeremias, mentioned yesterday by Dr. Rittelmeyer, is the well-known orientalist of the University of Leipzig, while in fact, if Dr. Rittelmeyer's description is correct, he is a very mean person. He visited me repeatedly, discussed individual questions in a serious manner, asked to be allowed to attend the lecture in Leipzig. There was no reason not to let him attend. Afterwards he turns out to be a mean hypocrite. Such examples are actually something that one can no longer do without in characterizing opponents. One must tear this mask off people. I give this only as an example. We must be clear about what it means when someone has wormed their way in under the mask of someone who 'wants to recognize' and then comes out as a vile slanderer. If we do not manage to reveal this meanness among people who are simply protected by their official positions, if we do not succeed in doing so, then things will be difficult.

Dr. Rittelmeyer: I was present at the meeting. There he personally exposed you, Doctor. He said that he distinguished between anthroposophy itself and the person of the founder of anthroposophy. The goods train could contain goods that were good even if the locomotive was defective.

Dr. Steiner: Such a thing must be exposed to the world. That is the case today. But on the other hand, the special way of fighting must be characterized, which consists in the opponents not engaging in a discussion, but instead they accept the matter in part, like Goesch, but at the same time they act with the most vile, unobjective, purely personal slander. This is the very precise fact; in the present situation, we cannot shy away from characterizing it. It may be necessary to give individual examples. But this does not need to be given by name; perhaps it is even not good to give names, perhaps the names can be avoided and the people can simply be characterized.

You will get a characteristic of Seiling by saying: There was a person who was particularly disgusting to Dr. Steiner because of his fanatical devotion, which was reinforced by a hand kiss at every visit. But now he is being used by the opposition to compile all kinds of slander. Everyone has the opportunity to point this out at the right moment. You achieve more by such a characterization than by mentioning names, because then you can point out such people at the appropriate moment.

Jeremias is an old type who has ingratiated himself, who, for example, came to see Frau Doktor in the box at the theater in Leipzig and paid his respects there. The combination of this box visit in those days with what Dr. Rittelmeyer has told us characterizes the man as a creep. One only needs to say: One of the opponents, who was present at one of the defamatory meetings, made himself unpleasantly noticeable not quite a year ago by paying his respects to Dr. Steiner in the Leipzig theater box during a eurythmy performance in the most boorish way. He demanded it. He appeared on stage and wanted to be brought to the box. He pushed his way into the intimacy. Masks like this must be drawn with a strong characteristic.

I did not meet Leisegang personally; only those who can vouch for them personally should characterize them.

I would also like to say the following. If you listen to the discontent today, one basic tone shines through everywhere. It is unpleasant for me to say this, but one tone shines through everywhere. That is that no one has ensured that the anthroposophical is truly represented in society. I ask you to comment on the extent to which this reproach is justified. I am only reporting what is felt from the various sides. It is felt that within the Anthroposophical Society itself, the representation of anthroposophy has been neglected, that other things have taken the place of anthroposophy and that the inner life has been lost as a result. A more 'scientific', external activity has taken its place, and with it a certain externalization. People express this by saying that anthroposophy is becoming more intellectualized. We have to meet the mood of the young, which is moving towards internalization, without lapsing into enthusiasm. This is particularly felt in academic circles. They do not want this food to be served to them, as it has been served to them in the college courses; they want an internalization of the human soul life. It is a debacle that the college courses have been perceived by young people as something that is just a slightly different infusion of what they already had. They were told things that they already had at university.

The call should include the will to really pursue anthroposophy, to pursue anthroposophy from the perspective of knowledge as well as from the perspective of the soul and from the perspective of morality and religion. That should be in the call. Then, in addition to the things that have been listed – we have already discussed this – there should be something in it about the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society. The agitation in certain circles has already reached a pathological state. People give the impression of being in a pathological state of agitation. There should be something in the appeal that people can personally relate to. It should say something about a group of people who have taken the lead. These are the seven or nine people who have provisionally taken charge of the affairs of the Society until the delegates' assembly is convened. It should not be about the “Central Board” – the word itself is a red rag – it should not be about the Central Board, but about the seven or nine who have the appeal on their conscience; they should be presented as the leaders. If you talk about the central board now, it will simply lead to this or that group breaking away, to the society disintegrating as a result, and other groups forming for anthroposophy.

One can only say that people are absolutely fed up with the Stuttgart leadership, but they are of good will. The moment they see people taking something seriously in hand, they are ready to follow. The mood is a psychologically curious and characteristic one. Young people are waiting for something to happen. That is what I have to say about the content of the call.

The passage about the inner work would have to be elaborated. It should come out that there is a will to respond to what is expressed by some more naively and by others more educatedly, namely that people say: We don't learn anything about real anthroposophy; we are presented with all kinds of things that we don't want to hear. That is what is said. Some say it more naively, others more educatedly. But it comes from all circles. It is remarkable: however idealistically one speaks, it is not enough for people. If the idea is to deepen anthroposophy, the soul side must never be neglected. It is always emphasized that there is no heart or soul left in the Anthroposophical Society. That is the delicate point, that people say: You can't get through to the gentlemen in Stuttgart at all; you can't get through to them on a human level, they are too reserved, you can't get close to them. — So this is a delicate point. It belongs in this chapter, where things have to be said as they really are. You have to express how you want to improve something without making a paternoster. A way should be found in the future to ensure that the human relationships between individual anthroposophists are cultivated or at least recognized, regardless of whether they have leading or non-leading positions.

So the goal of the last few days, after going over everything that has gone before, was to finally come up with an appeal that makes sense. But no matter how much sense it makes, if the forces that should be here in this circle are not behind it, it will have no consequences. The further discussion of the appeal should not just lead to negative talk, as has been the case recently, but should have a certain content (substance). One must express what one wants to improve in the near future through the appeal, in order to correct some of the mistakes that have emerged in Stuttgart. We would like to hear something about how the Stuttgart personalities want to support the appeal. Because the fact that you agree with it is only one side of the coin. The other side is that people should not think: Now that the appeal has been printed, we will go back to the Waldorf School, become office managers at Kommender Tag and so on. Something tangible should emerge in this direction, showing that the appeal is being supported. The appeal is only valuable if people support it.

Emil Leinhas: What the appeal says must be worked out in the assembly of delegates.

Dr. Steiner: This point would have to be dealt with much more thoroughly and attentively. If this group is to have any significance in the continuation of the matter, then this point would have to be dealt with much more thoroughly. They would have to decide to pay a little more attention to such things. One would really have to pay attention to it.

You see, when you mention the name of Rudolf Meyer in Berlin, for example. This Meyer is a characteristic personality for the reason that he does not represent an aberration in the sense that things come from the head, because he wants to be a personality who wants to present everything from his own experience. What some people in Stuttgart are accused of – predominantly intellectualism – is not so much attributed to Meyer.

You just have to reduce what arises from the circle of members, mostly from a correct feeling but from a false interpretation, and ensure that a correct view of it takes hold. There is too much complacency in Meyer's work. That which comes from a real inwardness is never complacent and does not repel; that which comes from an apparent experience and appears tremendously complacent repels as a result. What people say about it is irrelevant. Reality must be grasped somehow. There must be some place where it is grasped. What is lacking is the kind of immersion in a certain, truly spiritual life that is far removed from all nebulousness. What people always call “dialectical” is just talking about things in such a way that the soul is missing from this talk. And if that does not enter into reality, if acumen, pointedness and such things overwhelm people too much, then they feel repelled.

The Stuttgart gentlemen feel that if someone does get through to one of them, they leave as if they have lost their sense of self; everything is thrown at you so rationally that you lose yourself in the process. — I would be uncomfortable if I were asked to name names. When the gentlemen from Stuttgart talk to them, the people feel as if they have been emptied of their substance and their will. Well, that is not true, it has to do with the fact that a “system” has now really been formed in Stuttgart, namely that the people here live as if in a fortress with high walls and do not know what is going on among the people who belong to the Society. They speak from within the fortress, without concern for what is going on in the Anthroposophical Society; and the people who come here feel that they are not listened to when they come with their experiences; they feel that they are not listened to at all.

Sometimes the feeling that people have has been expressed as follows: In Stuttgart, the human personalities switch off. — I was confronted with the statement that The people of Stuttgart send us gentlemen here who come with their notebooks, ask their questions, write something down, and then these notebooks are put into the archive, because all things end up in the archive; the personality does not come to us, but instead brings a notebook and then takes it to the archive; we would like to have human contact with personalities.

I only relate the things that are said. These things may be terribly distorted when expressed, but there is much more in the distortion that comes from the bad experience. This sentiment perhaps expresses an even stronger truth than is being expressed. Thought must be given to how this can be remedied. Otherwise there is really nothing left to be saved.

If the delegates' conference really does take place and such judgments are formed, then we will not get anywhere either. Likewise, it would be good if the misgivings that go out were also consciously brought up here. Dr. Rittelmeyer said that “powerful slogans” should be issued from here. Such slogans are indeed being issued. Marie Steiner: I would like to say something about this that relates to Munich. I was sorry to hear about the things that are happening around the work of the young priest Klein. Such things as 'idolization' and 'worship' can lead a young man to believe that he can lead old people. I then asked whether these things were true. The answer was the question: Why did they want to destroy the anthroposophical work in Munich? The report culminated in the sentence that only a few months ago this gentleman had received the order from a member who is here: The religious work should be supported and the branch work should be ignored. It was said that this “motto” had been issued by a prominent personality. As a result, things have happened that have led some members to believe this. In Munich there were special conditions, branch difficulties of a special kind, from which such opinions could arise. He, the reporter, stood as one of the

accusers.

Dr. Peipers: When Klein was with me, I had the impression that something could be hoped for from the religious movement in Munich.

Dr. Steiner: You seem to have said that. People have understood that the leadership in Stuttgart wants to put the Munich work to sleep and replace the anthroposophical movement with a religious revival. We will have to reveal the things that come from the “Stuttgart system” as misunderstandings. Such facts are creative! So this is a “slogan” that came from Stuttgart: the Munich branch work should be put to sleep; everyone should concentrate on the work of religious renewal. If this were said by someone who is a leading figure in the religious renewal movement, there would be no objection. But when it is said by leaders of the anthroposophical movement, such a slogan will cause the anthroposophical movement to perish.

Dr. Peipers: I refused to support it.

Marie Steiner: But what has just been said refers to your conversation with Klein. I was told that you wanted to give a large sum of money for the religious renewal, and that you think the anthroposophical work should be put on hold. But these words have had an effect.

Dr. Peipers: What people say is so easily misinterpreted.

Marie Steiner: These slogans fly on like arrows.

Emil Leinhas comments on this.

Dr. Steiner: The person who issued this slogan belongs to the “big heads” in Stuttgart, and for that reason alone this slogan would have been decisive in Munich. So the religious movement is cutting off our water. The Munich people are indignant that the anthroposophical work in Munich is being destroyed by the Stuttgart leadership.

Dr. Peipers: I have been told that the Munich people are no longer doing any work at all.

Dr. Steiner: We will explain everything as a “misunderstanding”. But that does not prevent these things, which were coined as slogans in Stuttgart, from having a destructive effect; that is to say, that the “Stuttgart system” is dissolving anthroposophical work as it reaches the periphery.

The term “bighead” is related to drawings in cartoons. People like that have been depicted in cartoons as having huge heads and small bodies. In Austria they are called “bigheads”. So misunderstandings are creative.

You can't form an opinion about these things if you don't start from the same assumptions as those presented here. Most of what has been done here must be left out; that would have to be negotiated. So far, all that has happened is that people have signed the appeal. The assembly of delegates must take place, and at that the gentlemen must not appear as they did here, sitting around the table and waiting calmly for the others to act. Everyone must express their opinion there, but the next thing—I have to leave very early tomorrow morning—is that here, in a skillful way, the youth movement, for example, must be reassured, because they are waiting for an answer. One must enter into negotiations with them on a broader basis. Today they are waiting for someone to say: something has happened here. Now the ground on which everything has taken place so far will have to expand. We will admit the youth and negotiate with them, and from tomorrow on it must be done without curtains.

Another suggestion has been made regarding negotiations with young people.

Dr. Steiner: It would be better than the leaders of the youth movement attending our meetings here. That would be an achievement. Above all, I would like to point out that within the youth movement, the word seems to have been dropped that the opposition to society should be organized. It would be very good if this organization of the opposition were actually understood. I imagined that, in addition to Dr. Palmer, Mr. von Grone and Mr. [Wolfgang] Wachsmuth could also relate to this dissatisfaction in society. I believe that people in Stuttgart could understand the dissatisfaction. Why should we only meet in phrases of harmony? If you show understanding for what people are dissatisfied with, something will have happened. Not from above, but by showing that you yourself have some of the sting of dissatisfaction, you will achieve something with young people. If the other person feels: This is someone who is content too, then he says to himself: I don't want anything to do with him. Take this as a humorous presentation of something that is meant seriously.

Jürgen von Grone speaks to this.

Dr. Steiner: Now this has not been achieved in Stuttgart. Dissatisfaction that arises from the matter is sometimes very fruitful; but if this dissatisfaction is not reckoned with in terms of what people feel, but is passed over, then it has a destructive effect.

Marie Steiner: It refers to what was said in the cycle.

Dr. Steiner: Indeed, one must say that. We have had these two phases of the academic youth movement, which must be characterized as follows: First, the Hochschulbund was founded. The celebrities left the student leaders alone and did not stand behind them. The bond between the student leaders and the Stuttgart celebrities dissolved. Now the student leaders didn't know what to do, and then these kinds of student associations were formed, which Maikowski chose. Now, Maikowski is a person who is extremely easy to convince of something if you only know how to speak his language. Now any connection between this youth movement and the Stuttgart gentlemen was impossible. The young people were no longer open to anything that came from these gentlemen. Illusions arose. It is still the same today as it was when these people organized the “Pedagogical Youth Course” here. I think that the term “organization of the opposition” arose because people feel that they cannot get close to the gentlemen from Stuttgart. The older ones outside all have a very similar feeling.

The essentials should be discussed. I would characterize the situation as follows: there are many questions in Stuttgart to which one avoids giving an answer. This is one of them: if you talk to a lot of people today, they feel the need to talk about how the branch work is organized. The leading personalities, on the other hand, do not feel the need to talk about the organization of the branch work. But this must be done. It must even be included in the call, just as the communication of the anthroposophical spiritual heritage should be done. Now it could also happen that people avoid talking about these questions. The most important questions are kept quiet here at all.

Ernst Uehli: The branch leaders are always asking how the branch work should be organized.

Emil Leinhas speaks to this.

Dr. Steiner: The main question is this: How can we get the branch work to be such that it satisfies us? All we hear is: How can we talk to the gentlemen in Stuttgart? How can we approach the gentlemen in Stuttgart so that they hear from us what we would like to have? The point is that there are questions to which an answer is avoided. A positive answer should be given to this. We should talk here about what answer we give to those who say: We are purely lost members, we used to enjoy the cycles; who should we turn to so that someone knows that we are not satisfied now?

Alexander Strakosch speaks appreciatively about the earlier work of Miss Stinde and about individual branches.

Dr. Unger speaks about the difficulties that arise from the new forces. One can only explain the branch work by example; descriptions should be given.

Emil Leinhas: People want to see personalities who themselves have anthroposophy within them.

Marie Steiner: The demand that one encounters is much greater after lectures than after reporting. There is an urgent demand for Dr. Steiner's lectures.

Dr. Unger asks about the way of reading.

Marie Steiner: One must read quite simply and sympathetically, not too quickly. Rhetorical behavior should be eliminated as far as possible and one should be permeable only to the content. It does not do for someone to read the lectures quickly while in the rush of business. One would have to read the matter through four times. You need to have a sense of the punctuation. Furthermore, the content must be able to flow through you. You have to work through the lectures thoroughly and then erase the personal element. You have to be able to live with them for several hours beforehand.

Emil Leinhas talks about the question of reading or lecturing.

Marie Steiner: Above all, a certain attitude of soul must be present. One must avoid the terribly insistent intellectual emphasis, always leaving oneself out and wanting to show oneself off as little as possible.

Dr. Peipers: Both must be done: reading aloud and lecturing.

Dr. Unger: The archives must be converted into reading rooms. It is hardly possible to give a presentation if you were not present at the lecture yourself. Courses should be held at different levels.

Marie Steiner: There is so much material in the cycles that it would take several lifetimes to absorb it all. If someone wants to do special studies, the opportunity for such purposes is also given. So this possibility is also there for particularly serious specialized work. It has been shown that there has been a strong need for this. Much of what has been presented has been said to be something that could be heard elsewhere, and that is not what is needed for a special branch work.

Dr. Steiner: We have digressed from what can be fruitful in the present moment. We have digressed from what could be fruitful for this evening, for standing behind this call. The way it is done in the branches is not what is meant at the present moment. What the members are now expressing as something that leaves them unsatisfied is something quite different. What the members mean is that they have the feeling that they hear too little about anthroposophy. Whether it is read to them or presented in an anthroposophical way is not the subject of today's discussion. The question is: what can be done so that the anthroposophical can be brought before the world, and first before the branches, in the right way?

Surely, to do that, the question would have to be addressed much more thoroughly. For the dissatisfaction that prevails goes back to the history of the last four years. You must not forget what compromises have been made by the speakers who have been wildly let loose out onto the branches and onto the world. What a stir there has been when cabbage has been talked about again and again! Mr. Uehli spoke in the Elberfeld branch. The most important thing is not what he said; the most important thing is that Damnitz was terrified. He is convinced that he can only achieve something personally by reading aloud. But people have come, brought up by the bad education in Stuttgart, people have appeared who have presented their own cabbage. These are the bad habits of Stuttgart that have been introduced into the “Association for Threefolding” through the bad habit of lecturing. What a load of nonsense is presented to the audience! The dissatisfaction goes back to what was done here in Stuttgart. An absolute failure in education has come from Stuttgart. We should meet the dissatisfaction halfway. There was this course of lectures of mine before a horde was unleashed on the German audience. Look at the echo of what has been done by this horde! What has been done out there is sometimes so grotesque that it surpasses everything. Whether it was the duplication of the lectures or the speakers' lack of control over them, there was no spirit in it. There was a hideous bureaucratic operation in it, there was no inwardness in it. Horribly duplicated transcripts were sent to people in a truly bureaucratic manner. This special thing that has been introduced here, this impersonal bureaucracy, the lack of inner attitude, everything that has been introduced as special nonsense from the “Bund für Dreigliederung” (Federation for Threefolding), still has an effect, it has not yet been completely eliminated. This comes into everything, connected with the matter. There must be the will to refrain from many things that have been done and to do many things that have been neglected. Someone has to take responsibility for this; then things will improve. Similarly, it happens that, again, people who should be given the things are simply deprived of everything indiscriminately. On the other hand, someone who is merely sensationalistic gets things. A certain care should be taken here. When you hire people, it is also the case that you do not exercise care. You have to exercise care! You must not give the feeling that it is categorized, compartmentalized, but that there is a human impulse behind it. What is the use of saying that human relations must be cultivated if you then proceed in an inhumane way in the way you handle things? When you say something like that, nobody feels affected because you can't see how terrible the system is in the way it is handled. Often those who have practiced the mischief the worst are the ones who now criticize it the worst. As I said, in Elberfeld, gentlemen appeared who had been raised by the mischief that occurred in the threefolding movement. Damnitz would not have objected at all if free good lectures had been given. He himself said what he opposed. There were a few gentlemen at the Stuttgart Congress who felt called upon to give free lectures in Elberfeld-Barmen. I am convinced that they talked pure nonsense and that anthroposophy was discredited as a result. Damnitz himself might have said that he could not do it either. This system, that everyone should talk their own talk — I am not speaking against independence, but against this unwillingness to distinguish between what should be and what should not be —, it is easy to end up in speculative-dialectical discussions.

Of course, poor performance can always be undermined. But there is a great difference between a way of doing things that has emerged in recent years and a way of being human that is behind things. You can tell whether a performance is good or bad on the basis of the individual performances. I have nothing against someone giving their own lecture. On the contrary: as much as possible. I have demanded it myself: giving one's own lectures. Whether someone gives a lecture or their own lecture: within our movement, everything should serve to cultivate our cause, not to discredit it. That is what matters. Things are all relative. I can well imagine that it is handled differently in different branches. In one branch there will be someone who reads aloud; in another there will be someone who speaks on their own initiative.

Sometimes there are also strange conceptions. I know of a branch – and this also applies to the things I have just mentioned, because it leads to an overall judgment – whose leader would never have allowed himself to merely read out lectures, but instead got the material from me on things that I had not even presented myself. The personalities concerned chose the topics themselves. Now it is impossible to decide whether something like this is a lecture in its own right or not. It depends on the personality concerned whether it is more or less free or unfree.

The question of promoting the anthroposophical cause through shared attitudes: yes, this is a matter of principle. We would have to learn to distinguish certain things. Of course, you sometimes come up against things that are difficult to judge. And then, because you come up against such things, the judgment in the widest circle becomes confused. Isn't it true that sometimes it will be dreadful after all.

Enthusiasm must arise! And enthusiasm can only arise when one takes hold of something in the right way, for example, when one brings anthroposophy into the world in the appropriate way. Here one develops enthusiasm for many things that have nothing to do with the anthroposophical cause. On the other hand, it would not easily occur to someone to do the same for the things that grow on our soil, for example, eurythmy. To put eurythmy, with all that it entails, into the whole movement with enthusiasm, that is how one would work for the anthroposophical cause! While it actually detracts a little from our cause when something is arranged like a concert in our rooms next Saturday. That is something that distracts in the most eminent sense; what does it have to do with our cause?

Paul Baumann comments.

Dr. Steiner: This brings us to the point where it is a matter of having an anthroposophical attitude or not. That is why I say: we are touching on the limits here. The Stuttgart center is the starting point, where everything that is anthroposophy is being messed up. If it is at all possible, a singer is brought in to sing on our premises. In this way, we completely lose sight of the essential. Then we deserve to be treated by the world as it is when really perfidious ideas of anthroposophy arise. That is part of what it is about. I am not surprised that the whole Anthroposophical Society is being ruined from Stuttgart, that all feeling for what is actually supposed to be given with Anthroposophy has been lost.

Marie Steiner: The ladies who work here at the Eurythmy School are often asked by members what they actually do here. So, people have no idea that there is a eurythmy school here.

Dr. Steiner: If we stoop to wanting to be a dumping ground for anyone who could be anywhere else, without having anything to do with anthroposophy, then the movement loses its momentum.

Marie Steiner: There are only ladies who have come from out of town to go to the Eurythmy School here. There is not a single person from Stuttgart in this course.

The foundations are discussed.

Dr. Steiner: I would also like to see this transformed into something positive; I would like to see enthusiasm arise for carrying the anthroposophical into the world in the appropriate light. We really have no right to establish things externally and then not use them to cultivate the matter. That is what is so terrible. We have brought about the external possibility of cultivating the anthroposophical by making material sacrifices; we must also make use of this possibility. We have to come to the point where the journal 'Anthroposophie' is something completely different, where it serves the anthroposophical cause, where one does not just have the feeling that every week there is the worry that it will be full. That's part of it when I say you have to stand behind the call.

The call has now been successfully made. What difficulties! The necessary changes can be made easily; but the call has really been made. The discussion about standing behind the call is again such that in the next few weeks things could go back to the way they were before, with more or less reading aloud or speaking oneself. That is not what the people who are dissatisfied today mean. Things are going nowhere because people are not engaging with them.

Dr. Unger and Emil Leinhas speak; others make suggestions.

Dr. Steiner: I fear that if we only have lectures and eurythmy performances in the evenings, I fear that many will shirk the task of addressing the seriousness of the situation on the agenda. The lecturers will not be concerned with discussing the fate of the Anthroposophical Society. I fear that it would be something that could be excellent in itself, but that will not become what we need at the present moment. We have had brilliant such events. We have had the congresses one after the other. We have had them in Vienna, in Stuttgart, in Dornach. Yes, the things were excellent in themselves. But they did more harm than good to the anthroposophical movement because they were never utilized.

Emil Leinhas advises lectures by Dr. Steiner and reports about the institutions.

Dr. Kolisko comments on this.

Dr. Steiner: They also need to be treated. If today's discussion, from the moment we finished discussing the appeal, takes this course, it is a prime example of how this delegates' meeting must not be. It must not be like this! Couldn't the question of why this committee of 30 has become so sterile be discussed a little, when the cleverest people in Central Europe are sitting together? Perhaps it would be useful to ask why this illustrious circle has remained so barren?

Dr. Schwebsch speaks to this.

Dr. Steiner: I know that there are personalities sitting here who consider the whole thing unnecessary, that one is dealing with the question of the consolidation of the Anthroposophical Society. If these things had never been dealt with, if no effort had been made to deal with them, then you would not be sitting here today. There would be no funds to support the Waldorf School. You can be sure of that, that it was once different. The Society was founded out of life, and that is what made it possible for you to be sitting here today and to find that all this is unfruitful. If it had always been like that, if, for example, many people like you had been at the starting point of society, then you would not be able to sit there today. You are like the famous person who wants to pull himself up by his own hair. Therefore, you would already be obliged to found the matter more deeply. Why don't you say the important thing yourself, which you lack here and which would raise the matter? Life is not just for our pleasure. If it is only about comfort, then one should not hold thirty-session meetings. Why don't you make it better yourself? One can also sit here and still not be there.

Marie Steiner: One must struggle when it comes to group-spirit insights.

Toni Völker: They have not understood how to take you, Doctor, as an esoteric teacher. They have not understood how to bring the esoteric into practical life. That seems to me to be the problem.

Dr. Steiner: The things that are to be discussed here - and actually discussed in real terms - have become necessary because of what has gradually emerged in society. But what used to be found in society, that a word of mine remained in a narrower circle, that no longer exists today. And so it has become impossible to talk about the necessary things in real terms. Today it is the case that I should not really make the claim to say a word in a narrower circle, because every word is carried out into the world. In the sense of esotericism, of esoteric truths, we can speak more than we used to. Now there is more esoteric content in the public lectures than there used to be in the cycles; but in the past it was still possible, in a sense, to bring something into narrower circles that remained in those narrower circles. But today that is out of the question; today it is absolutely out of the question.

Toni Völker: If you bring the esoteric into life, then the conditions could not arise as they are now. It would depend on doing things instead of talking about them.

Dr. Steiner: The things that one would never have dreamed of, that one would not even have imagined would come out of the circles, appear in the brutal articles in the newspapers; they have been discussed for years, and Father Kully writes about them in the newspapers. There should be an inclination to reflect on why society has become like this. This decline of society is linked to the course of events as it has developed in Stuttgart over the past four years. It has led to the Anthroposophical Society being so terribly run down. Gossip prevails over seriousness. Triviality prevails over what should be in this direction, in the direction of reverence. It would have been good if the time that has now been used for trivialities had been used to address the terrible situation of the Society with a little more clarity. The Anthroposophical Society should become a reality. It has become a shadow, but this shadow is truly a very Ahrimanic product. The Anthroposophical Society is full of Ahrimanic holes.

Ernst Uehli: The Society has sinned through the threefold social order movement. There was this circle of thirty, but no real action was taken. What was discussed was not put into the realm of the will. Dr. Röschl: The specific questions are not being addressed. I always have the thought: What am I supposed to do there?

Dr. Steiner: Things would improve immediately if we did not continue to tempt each other in the moment when we clearly see things. Of course, things also have their justification. On the other hand, the course of the negotiations lies in a certain psychological state of the group. If you have listened to how the discussions have gone, you will have noticed that a large part of the speeches, the requests to speak, for weeks has amounted to someone saying, “I propose that we talk about this or that.” Such a way of proposing has only emerged in this circle. It would not happen anywhere else for someone to speak up and say, I propose that we talk about this and that. — Here in this circle it has happened all the time. Elsewhere, people start talking about what they think about something. I could show how few people have said anything about their topic. A large part of the debate also boils down to someone saying: I fully support this and that. That doesn't change the material substance of the matter. One evening consisted of one person after another saying that they fully supported this or that. Just think, if this psychological moment were considered, how the content of what is said simply proves this: one does not feel oneself as a reality. One does not feel as a reality; one allows oneself to be a mere shadow. Look back and see how often these things have happened! It is easier to ask questions than to give answers. Look at the matter from the psychological side.

I would like to say the following. Things can be discussed in all good will. You are asking for something that you should not ask for. The one who talked about the seminar knows exactly what happened since he spoke to the gentleman in question.⁵ If he brings up the matter, it could be that he has been thinking about it since he found out. He could bring the results of experience instead of the results of not thinking.

In general, in the thirties, there is a tendency to demand a lot from others but as little as possible from oneself. This cancels out so much; the calculation cancels itself out. Almost the impossible is demanded of others, and no one expects to demand the same of themselves. There is a lot in that. Therefore, I cannot fully agree when Dr. von Baravalle constantly says, “I have nothing from this circle.” Why does he never ask, “How much does the circle have from me?” This question should be raised by each individual. Because this takes its toll. This is the case here as long as the circle exists. There is so much cursing; everyone knows what damage the Thirty-Party has done; so one would assume that the damage would be stopped. Since everyone knows, everyone could have thought about it today. The cursing and not thinking about it has become such a habit, and people keep falling back into it.

Today the call has come about. It has emerged from the intellect of this illustrious body. Do you think it completely out of the question that this appeal could not have been made even after the third session? The appeal is an emanation of intellect. That it was not already accomplished three weeks ago is a lack of an outpouring of will. You would become terribly clever if we wanted to continue waiting for ten years. I do not think that the drafting of the appeal was helped all that much by yesterday's meeting. It is a matter of will. One must decide on these things. One must want something. Why can't we want something? Why is there only negativity, only rejection of the other? Why can't we commit ourselves to the other? Actually, it takes much more sophistry to recognize the other's faults as precisely as if we all had the intention of seeing the positive in the other as well. If we were to use only a quarter of it for the positive, much would come of it.

We are now clear about the fact that from now until the delegates' meeting, which must take place as soon as possible, this committee of seven will lead here [Dr. Unger, Dr. Kolisko, Emil Leinhas, Dr. Palmer, Dr. Rittelmeyer, Miss Mücke, Mr. von Grone]. I wanted this committee of seven to do such a good job that the delegates would want it to stay.⁶

I have to give an answer this evening: when should we hold the delegates' meeting? I think in two weeks. We can plan for three days. It would be good if we could use this room for the daytime meetings and the Sieglehaus hall for the evening lectures.

The members comment on this.

Dr. Steiner: It would be better to send a report on the course of the meetings to the foreigners, because the whole thing should be treated as a closed one. The call, which does not concern foreigners, should not be sent.

Mr. Leinhas: Austria, Holland and Scandinavia have considered themselves to be part of this.

Dr. Steiner: I don't know if, if it is sent to Austria, it should be sent to the leadership in Austria and left to them to distribute it in Austria. It can be sent to the leadership in Vienna, and they should distribute it with their own signature.

Emil Leinhas: The local groups have no central office in Vienna. Dr. Steiner: As far as I'm concerned, it can also be sent.

Emil Leinhas: Mr. Steffen would probably have to be sent the appeal for information.

Dr. Steiner: You can give him the appeal privately. Officially it's none of his business. Mr. Leinbas: February 25, 26, 27 or 24? Eurythmy in the evening and two lectures.

Marie Steiner: I would have to be here for the rehearsals.

Dr. Steiner: I am very concerned that the enthusiasm is waning. I am extremely concerned about it. I will have to decide to come back on Monday. Only the shell of the building is there; the matter of the 'inner life' still needs to be carefully worked out. It must be presented on Monday in a form that can still be completely corrected. It can be printed on Tuesday. The envelopes can already be ready. It can go out on Tuesday.

• 5. It is not known what is being referred to here.
• 6. This body then became the executive council of the “Anthroposophical Society in Germany”.

In the last lecture we found that moral impulses are fundamental in human nature. From the facts adduced, we tried to prove that a foundation of morality and goodness lies at the bottom of the human soul, and that really it has only been in the course of evolution, in man's passage from incarnation to incarnation, that he has diverged from the original instinctive good foundation and that thereby what is evil, wrong and immoral has come into humanity. But if this is so, we must really wonder that evil is possible, or that it ever originated, and the question as to how evil became possible in the course of evolution requires an answer. We can only obtain a satisfactory reply by examining the elementary moral instruction given to man in ancient times.

The pupils of the Mysteries whose highest ideal was gradually to penetrate to full spiritual knowledge and truths were always obliged to work from a moral foundation. In those places where they worked in the right way according to the Mysteries, the peculiarity of man's moral-nature was shown in a special way to the pupils. Briefly, we may say: The pupils of the Mysteries were shown that freewill can only be developed if a person is in a position to go wrong in one of two directions; further, that life can only run its course truly and favourably when these two lines of opposition are considered as being like the two sides of a balance, of which first one side and then the other goes up and down. True balance only exists when the crossbeam is horizontal. They were shown that it is impossible to express man's right procedure by saying: this is right and that is wrong. It is only possible to gain the true idea when the human being, standing in the centre of the balance, can be swayed each moment of his life, now to one side, now to the other, but he himself holds the correct mean between the two.

Let us take the virtues of which we have spoken: first—valour, bravery. In this respect human nature may diverge on one side to foolhardiness—that is, unbridled activity in the world and the straining of the forces at one's disposal to the utmost limit. Foolhardiness is one side; the opposite is cowardice. A person may tip the scale in either of these directions. In the Mysteries the pupils were shown that when a man degenerates into foolhardiness he loses himself and lays aside his own individuality and is crushed by the wheels of life. Life tears him in pieces if he errs in this direction, but if, on the other hand, he errs on the side of cowardice, he hardens himself and tears himself away from his connection with beings and objects. He then becomes a being shut up within himself, who, as he cannot bring his deeds into harmony with the whole, loses his connection with things. This was shown to the pupils in respect to all that a man may do. He may degenerate in such a way that he is torn in pieces, and losing his own individuality is crushed by the objective world; on the other hand, he may degenerate not merely in courage, but also in every other respect in such a way that he hardens within himself. Thus at the head of the moral code in all the Mysteries there were written the significant words: “Thou must find the mean,” so that through thy deeds thou must not lose thyself in the world, and that the world also does not lose thee.

Those are the two possible extremes into which man may fall. Either he may be lost to the world, the world lays hold on him, and crushes him, as is the case in foolhardiness; or the world may be lost to him, because he hardens himself in his egoism, as is the case in cowardice. In the Mysteries, the pupils were told that goodness cannot merely be striven for as goodness obtained once for all; rather does goodness come only through man being continually able to strike out in two directions like a pendulum and by his own inner power able to find the balance, the mean between the two.

You have in this all that will enable you to understand the freedom of the will and the significance of reason and wisdom in human action. If it were fitting for man always to observe the eternal moral principles he need only acquire these moral principles and then he could go through life on a definite line of march, as it were, but life is never like this. Freedom in life consists rather in man's being always able to err in one direction or another. But in this way the possibility of evil arises. For what is evil? It is that which originates when the human being is either lost to the world, or the world is lost to him. Goodness consists in avoiding both these extremes. In the course of evolution evil became not only a possibility but an actuality; for as man journeyed from incarnation to incarnation, by his turning now to one side and now to the other, he could not always find the balance at once, and it was necessary for the compensation to be karmically made at a future time. What man cannot attain in one life, because he does not always find the mean at once, he will attain gradually in the course of evolution in as much as man diverts his course to one side, and is then obliged, perhaps in the next life, to strike out again in the opposite direction, and thus bring about the balance. What I have just told you was a golden rule in the ancient Mysteries. We often find among the ancient philosophers echoes of the principles taught in these Mysteries. Aristotle makes a statement, when, speaking of virtue, which we cannot understand unless we know that what has just been said was an old principle in the Mysteries which had been received by Aristotle as tradition and embodied in his philosophy. He says: Virtue is a human capacity or skill guided by reason and insight, which, as regards man, holds the balance between the too-much and the too-little. Aristotle here gives a definition of virtue, the like of which no subsequent philosophy has attained. But as Aristotle had the tradition from the Mysteries, it was possible for him to give the precise truth.

That is, then, the mean, which must be found and followed if a man is really to be virtuous, if moral power is to pulsate through the world. We can now answer the question as to why morals should exist at all. For what happens when there is no morality, when evil is done, and when the too-much or the too-little takes place, when man is lost to the world by being crushed, or when the world loses him? In each of these cases something is always destroyed. Every evil or immoral act is a process of destruction, and the moment man sees that when he has done wrong he cannot do otherwise than destroy something, take something from the world, in that moment a mighty influence for good has awakened within him. It is especially the task of Spiritual Science—which is really only just beginning its work in the world—to show that all evil brings about a destructive process, that it takes away from the world something which is necessary. When in accordance with our anthroposophical standpoint, we hold this principle, then what we know about the nature of man leads us to a particular interpretation of good and evil.

We know that the sentient-soul was chiefly developed in the old Chaldean or Egyptian epoch the third post-Atlantean age. The people of the present day have but little notion what this epoch of development was like prior to that time, for in external history one can reach little further back than to the Egyptian age. We know that the intellectual, or mind-soul, developed in the fourth or Graeco-Latin age, and that now in our age we are developing the consciousness-or spiritual-soul. The spirit-self will only come into prominence in the sixth age of post-Atlantean development.

Let us now ask: How can the sentient-soul turn to one side or the other, away from what is right? The sentient-soul is that quality in man which enables him to perceive the objective world, to take it into himself, to take part in it, not to pass through the world ignorant of all the diversified objects it contains, but to go through the world in such a way that he forms a relationship with them. All this is brought about by the sentient-soul. We find one side to which man can deviate with the sentient-soul when we enquire: What makes it possible for man to enter into relationship with the objective world? It is what may be called interest in the different things, and by this word “interest” something is expressed which in a moral sense is extremely important. It is much more important that one should bear in mind the moral significance of interest, than that one should devote oneself to thousands of beautiful moral axioms which may be only paltry and hypocritical. Let it be clearly understood, that our moral impulses are in fact never better guided than when we take a proper interest in objects and beings. In our last lecture we spoke in a deeper sense of love as an impulse and in such a way that we cannot now be misunderstood if we say that the usual, oft-repeated declamation, “love, love, and again love” cannot replace the moral impulse contained in what may be described by the word ‘interest.’

Let us suppose that we have a child before us. What is the condition primary to our devotion to this child? What is the first condition to our educating the child? It is that we take an interest in it. There is something unhealthy or abnormal in the human soul if a person withdraws himself from something in which he takes an interest. It will more and more be recognised that the impulse of interest is a quite specially golden impulse in the moral sense the further we advance to the actual foundations of morality and do not stop at the mere preaching of morals. Our inner powers are also called forth as regards mankind when we extend our interests, when we are able to transpose ourselves with understanding into beings and objects.

Even sympathy is awakened in the right manner if we take an interest in a being; and if, as anthroposophists, we set ourselves the task of extending our interests more and more and of widening our mental horizon, this will promote the universal brotherhood of mankind. Progress is not gained by the mere preaching of universal love, but by the extension of our interests further and further, so that we come to interest ourselves increasingly in souls with widely different characters, racial and national peculiarities, with widely different temperaments, and holding widely differing religious and philosophical views, and approach them with understanding. Right interest, right understanding, calls forth from the soul the right moral action.

Here also we must hold the balance between two extremes. One extreme is apathy which passes everything by and occasions immense moral mischief in the world. An apathetic person only lives in himself; obstinately, insisting on his own principles, and saying: This is my standpoint. In a moral sense this insistence upon a standpoint is always bad. The essential thing is for us to have an open mind and be alive to all that surrounds us. Apathy separates us from the world, while interest unites us with it. The world loses us through our apathy: in this direction we become immoral. Thus we see that apathy and lack of interest in the world are morally evil in the highest degree.

Anthroposophy is something which makes the mind ever more active, helps us to think with greater readiness of what is spiritual and to take it into ourselves. Just as it is true that warmth comes from the fire when we light a stove so it is true that interest in humanity and the world comes when we study spiritual science. Wisdom is the fuel for interest and we may say, although this may perhaps not be evident without further explanation, that Anthroposophy arouses this interest in us when we study those more remote subjects, the teachings concerning the evolutionary stages through Saturn, Sun and Moon, and the meaning of Karma and so on. It really comes about that interest is produced as the result of anthroposophical knowledge while from materialistic knowledge comes something which in a radical manner must be described as apathy and which, if it alone were to hold sway in the world, would, of necessity, do untold harm.

See how many people go through the world and meet this or that person, but really do not get to know him, for they are quite shut up in themselves. How often do we find that two people have been friends for a long time and then suddenly there comes a rupture. This is because the friendship had a materialistic foundation and only after the lapse of time did they discover that they were mutually unsympathetic. At the present time very few people have the “hearing” ear for that which speaks from man to man; but Anthroposophy should bring about an expansion of our perceptions, so that we shall gain a “seeing” eye and an open mind for all that is human around us and so we shall not go through the world. apathetically, but with true interest.

We also avoid the other extreme by distinguishing between true and false interests, and thus observe the happy mean. Immediately to throw oneself, as it were, into the arms of each person we meet is to lose oneself passionately in the person; that is not true interest. If we do this, we lose ourselves to the world. Through apathy the world loses us; through uncontrolled passion we lose ourselves to the world. But through healthy, devoted interest we stand morally firm in the centre, in the state of balance.

In the third post-Atlantean age of civilisation, that is, in the Chaldaic-Egyptian age, there still existed in a large part of humanity on earth a certain power to hold the balance between apathy and the passionate intoxicating devotion to the world; and it is this, which in ancient times, and also by Plato and Aristotle, was called wisdom. But people looked upon this wisdom as the gift of superhuman beings, for up to that time the ancient impulses of wisdom were active. Therefore, from this point of view, especially relating to moral impulses, we may call the third post-Atlantean age, the age of instinctive wisdom. You will perceive the truth of what was said last year, though with a different intention, in the Copenhagen lectures on The Spiritual Guidance of Man and Mankind. In those lectures we showed how, in the third post-Atlantean age, mankind still stood nearer to the divine spiritual powers. And that which drew mankind closer to the divine spiritual powers, was instinctive wisdom.

Thus, it was a gift of the gods to find at that time the happy mean in action, between apathy and sensuous passionate devotion. This balance, this equilibrium was at that time still maintained through external institutions. The complete intermingling of humanity which came about in the fourth age of post-Atlantean development through the migrations of various peoples, did not yet exist. Mankind was still divided into smaller peoples and tribes. Their interests were wisely regulated by nature, and were so far active that the right moral impulses could penetrate; and on the other hand, through the existence of blood kinsmanship in the tribe, an obstacle was placed in the way of sensual passion. Even to-day one cannot fail to observe that it is easiest to show interest within blood-relationship and common descent, but in this there is not what is called sensuous passion. As people were gathered together in relatively small tracts of country in the Egypto-Chaldaic age, the wise and happy mean was easily found.

But the idea of the progressive development of humanity is that, which originally was instinctive, which was only spiritual, shall gradually disappear and that man shall become independent of the divine spiritual powers. Hence we see that even in the fourth post-Atlantean age, the Graeco-Latin age, not only the philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, but also public opinion in Greece, considered wisdom as something which must be gained as something which is no longer the gift of the gods, but after which man must strive. According to Plato, the first virtue is wisdom, and according to him, he who does not strive after wisdom is immoral.

We are now in the fifth post-Atlantean age. We are still far from the time when the wisdom instinctively implanted in humanity as a divine impulse, will be raised into consciousness. Hence in our age people are specially liable to err in both the directions we have mentioned, and it is therefore particularly necessary that the great dangers to be found at this point should be counteracted by a spiritual conception of the World, so that what man once possessed as instinctive wisdom may now become conscious wisdom. The Anthroposophical Movement is to contribute to this end.

The gods once gave wisdom to the unconscious human soul, so that it possessed this wisdom instinctively, whereas now we have first to learn the truths about the cosmos and about human evolution. The ancient customs were also fashioned after the thoughts of the gods.

We have the right view of Anthroposophy when we look upon it as the investigations of the thoughts of the gods. In former times these flowed instinctively into man, but now we have to investigate them, to make the knowledge of them our own. In this sense Anthroposophy must be sacred to us; we must be able to consider reverently that the ideas imparted to us are really something divine, and something which we human beings are allowed to think and reflect upon as the divine thoughts according to which the world has been ordered. When Anthroposophy stands in this aspect to us, we can then consider the knowledge it imparts in such a way that we understand that it has been given us so as to enable us to fulfil our mission. Mighty truths are made known to us, when we study what has been imparted concerning the evolutions of Saturn, Sun and Moon, concerning reincarnation, and the development of the various races, etc. But we only assume the right attitude towards it when we say: The thoughts we seek are the thoughts wherewith the gods have guided evolution. We think the evolution of the gods. If we understand this correctly we are overwhelmed by something that is deeply moral. This is inevitable. Then we say: In ancient times man had instinctive wisdom from the gods, who gave him the wisdom according to which they fashioned the world, and morality thus became possible. But through Anthroposophy we now acquire this wisdom consciously. Therefore we may also trust that in us it shall be transformed into moral impulses, so that we do not merely receive anthroposophical wisdom, but a moral stimulus as well.

Now into what sort of moral impulses will the wisdom acquired through Anthroposophy be transformed? We must here touch upon a point whose development the anthroposophist can foresee, the profound moral significance and moral weight of which he even ought to foresee, a point of development which is far removed from what is customary at the present time, which is what Plato called the “ideal of wisdom.” He named it with a word which was in common use when man still possessed the ancient wisdom, and it would be well to replace this by the word truth, for as we have now become more individual, we have withdrawn ourselves from the divine, and must therefore strive back to it. We must learn to feel the full weight and meaning of the word ‘truth,’ and this in a moral sense will be a result of an anthroposophical world conception and conviction. Anthroposophists must understand how important it is to be filled with the moral element of truth in an age when materialism has advanced so far that one may indeed still speak of truth, but when the general life and understanding is far removed from perceiving what is right in this direction. Nor can this be otherwise at the present time; as owing to a certain quality acquired by modern life, truth is something which must, to a great extent, be lacking in the understanding of the day, I ask what does a man feel to-day when in the newspapers or some other printed matter he finds

certain information, and afterwards it transpires that it is simply untrue? I seriously ask you to ponder over this. One cannot say that it happens in every case, but one must assert that it probably happens in every fourth case. Untruthfulness has everywhere become a quality of the age; it is impossible to describe truth as a characteristic of our times.

For instance, take a man whom you know to have written or said something false, and place the facts before him. As a rule, you will find that he does not fear such a thing to be wrong. He will immediately make the excuse: “But I said it in good faith.” Anthroposophists must not consider it moral when a person says it is merely incorrect what he has said in good faith. People will learn to understand more and more, that they must first ascertain that what they assert really happened. No man should make a statement, or impart anything to another until he has exhausted every means to ascertain the truth of his assertions; and it is only when he recognises this obligation that he can perceive truth as moral impulse. And then when someone has either written or said something that is incorrect, he will no longer say: “I thought it was so, said it in good faith,” for he will learn that it is his duty to express not merely what he thinks is right, but it is also his duty to say only what is true, and correct. To this end, a radical change must gradually come about in our cultural life. The speed of travel, the lust of sensation on the part of man, everything that comes with a materialistic age, is opposed to truth. In the sphere of morality, Anthroposophy will be an educator of humanity to the duty of truth.

My business today is not to say how far truth has been already realised in the Anthroposophical Society, but to show that what I have said must be a principle, a lofty anthroposophical ideal. The moral evolution within the movement will have enough to do if the moral ideal of truth is thought, felt and perceived in all directions, for this ideal must be what produces the virtue of the sentient-soul of man in the right way.

The second part of the soul of which we have to speak in Anthroposophy is what we usually call the mind-soul, or intellectual-soul Gemütsseele. You know that it developed especially in the fourth post-Atlantean, or Graeco-Latin age. The virtue which is the particular emblem for this part of the soul is bravery, valour and courage; we have already dwelt on this many times, and also on the fact that foolhardiness and cowardice are its extremes. Courage, bravery, valour is the mean between foolhardiness and cowardice. The German word gemüt expresses in the sound of the word that it is related to this. The word gemüt indicates the mid-part of the human soul, the part that is mutvoll, full of mut, courage, strength and force.

This was the second, the middle virtue of Plato and Aristotle. It is that virtue which in the fourth post-Atlantean age still existed in man as a divine gift, while wisdom was really only instinctive in the third. Instinctive valour and bravery existed as a gift of the gods (you may gather this from the first lecture) among the people who, in the fourth age, met the expansion of Christianity to the north. They showed that among them valour was still a gift of the gods. Among the Chaldeans wisdom, the wise penetration into the secrets of the starry world, existed as a divine gift, as something inspired. Among the people of the fourth post-Atlantean age, there existed valour and bravery, especially among the Greeks and Romans, but it existed also among the peoples whose work it became to spread Christianity. This instinctive valour was lost later than instinctive wisdom.

If we look round us now in the fifth post-Atlantean age, we see that, as regards valour and bravery, we are in the same position in respect of the Greeks as the Greeks were to the Chaldeans and Egyptians in regard to wisdom. We look back to what was a divine gift in the age immediately preceding ours, and in a certain way we can strive for it again. However, the two previous lectures have shown us, that in connection with this effort a certain transformation must take place. We have seen the transformation in Francis of Assisi of that divine gift which manifested itself as bravery and valour. We saw that the transformation came about as the result of an inner moral force which in our last lecture we found to be the force of the Christ-impulse; the transformation of valour and bravery into true love. But this true love must be guided by another virtue, by the interest in the being to whom we turn our love. In his Timon of Athens Shakespeare shows how love, or warmth of heart, causes harm, when it is passionately manifested; when it appears merely as a quality of human nature without being guided by wisdom and truth. A man is described who gave freely of his possessions, who squandered his living in all directions. Liberality is a virtue, but Shakespeare also shows us that nothing but parasites are produced by what is squandered.

Just as ancient valour and bravery were guided from the Mysteries by the European Brahmins—those wise leaders who kept themselves hidden in the background—so also in human nature this virtue must accord with and be guided by interest. Interest, which connects us with the external world in the right way, must lead and guide us when, with our love, we turn to the world. Fundamentally this may be seen from the characteristic and striking example of Francis of Assisi. The sympathy he expressed was not obtrusive or offensive. Those who overwhelm others with their sympathy are by no means always actuated by the right moral impulses. And how many there are who will not receive anything that is given out of pity. But to approach another with, understanding is not offensive. Under some circumstances a person must needs refuse to be sympathised with; but the attempt to understand his nature is something to which no reasonable person can object. Hence also the attitude of another person cannot be blamed or condemned if his actions are determined by this principle.

It is understanding which can guide us with respect to this second virtue: Love. It is that which, through the Christ-impulse, has become the special virtue of the mind-soul or intellectual-soul; it is the virtue which may be described as human love accompanied by human understanding. Sympathy in grief and joy is the virtue which in the future must produce the most beautiful and glorious fruits in human social life, and, in one who rightly understands the Christ-impulse, this sympathy and this love will originate quite naturally, it will develop into feeling. It is precisely through the anthroposophical understanding of the Christ-impulse that it will become feeling.

Through the Mystery of Golgotha Christ descended into earthly evolution; His impulses, His activities are here now, they are everywhere. Why did He descend to this earth? In order that through what He has to give to the world, evolution may go forward in the right way. Now that the Christ-impulse is in the world, if through what is immoral, if through lack of interest in our fellow-men, we destroy something, then we take away a portion of the world into which the Christ-impulse has flowed. Thus because the Christ-impulse is now here, we directly destroy something of it. But if we give to the world what can be given to it through virtue, which is creative, we build. We build through self-surrender. It is not without reason that it has often been said, that Christ was first crucified on Golgotha, but that He is crucified again and again through the deeds, of man. Since Christ has entered into the Earth development through the deed upon Golgotha, we, by our immoral deeds, by our unkindness and lack of interest, add to the sorrow and pain inflicted upon Him. Therefore it has been said, again and again: Christ is crucified anew as long as immorality, unkindness and lack of interest exist. Since the Christ-impulse has permeated the world, it is this which is made to suffer.

Just as it is true that through evil, which is destructive, we withdraw something from the Christ-impulse and continue the crucifixion upon Golgotha, it is also true that when we act out of love, in all cases where we use love, we add to the Christ-impulse, we help to bring it to life. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me” (Matthew 25, 40), this is the most significant statement of love and this statement must become the most profound moral impulse if it is once anthroposophically understood. We do this when with understanding we confront our fellow-men and offer them something in our actions, our virtue, our conduct towards them which is conditioned by our understanding of their nature. Our attitude towards our fellow-men is our attitude towards the Christ-impulse itself.

It is a powerful moral impulse, something which is a real foundation for morals, when we feel: ‘The Mystery of Golgotha was accomplished for all men, and an impulse has thence spread abroad throughout the whole world. When you are dealing with your fellow-men, try to understand them in their special, characteristics of race, colour, nationality, religious faith, philosophy, etc. If you meet them and do this or that to them, you do it to Christ. Whatever you do to men, in the present condition of the earth's evolution, you do to Christ.’ This statement: “What ye have done to one of My brothers, ye have done unto Me,” will at the same time become a mighty moral impulse to the man who understands the fundamental significance of the Mystery of Golgotha. So that we may say: Whereas the gods of pre-Christian times gave instinctive wisdom to man, instinctive valour and bravery, so now love streams down from the symbol of the cross, the love which is based upon the mutual interest of man in man.

Thereby the Christ-impulse will work powerfully in the world. On the day when it comes about that the Brahmin not only loves and understands the Brahmin, the Pariah the Pariah, the Jew the Jew, and the Christian the Christian; but when the Jew is able to understand the Christian, the Pariah the Brahmin, the American the Asiatic, as man, and put himself in his place, then one will know how deeply it is felt in a Christian way when we say: “All men must feel themselves to be brothers, no matter what their religious creed may be.” We ought to consider what otherwise binds us as being of little value. Father, mother, brother, sister, even one's own life one ought to value less than that which speaks from one human soul to the other. He who, in this sense does not regard as base all that impairs the connection with the Christ-impulse cannot be Christ's disciple. The Christ-impulse balances and compensates human differences. Christ's disciple is one who regards mere human distinctions as being of little account, and clings to the impulse of love streaming forth from the Mystery of Golgotha, which in this respect we perceive as a renewal of what was given to mankind as original virtue.

We have now but to consider what may be spoken of as the virtue of the Consciousness- or Spiritual- Soul. When we consider the fourth post-Atlantean age, we find that Temperance or Moderation was still instinctive. Plato and Aristotle called it the chief virtue of the Spiritual-Soul. Again they comprehended it as a state of balance, as the mean of what exists in the Spiritual-soul. The Spiritual-Soul consists in man's becoming conscious of the external world through his bodily nature. The sense body is primarily the instrument of the Spiritual-Soul, and it is also the sense body through which man arrives at self-consciousness.

Therefore the sense-body of man must be preserved. If it were not preserved for the mission of the earth, then that mission could not be fulfilled. But here also there is a limit. If a man only used all the forces he possessed in order to enjoy himself, he would shut himself up in himself, and the world would lose him. The man who merely enjoys himself, who uses all his forces merely to give himself pleasure, cuts himself off from the world—so thought Plato and Aristotle—the world loses him. And he, who denies himself everything renders himself weaker and weaker, and is finally laid hold of by the external world-process, and is crushed by the outer world. For he who goes beyond the forces appropriate to him as man, he who goes to excess is laid hold of by the world-process and is lost in it.

Thus what man has developed, for the building up of the Spiritual-soul can be dissolved, so that he comes into the position of losing the world. Temperance, or Moderation, is the virtue which enables man to avoid these extremes. Temperance implies neither asceticism nor gluttony, but the happy mean between these two; and this is the virtue of the Spiritual-Soul. Regarding this virtue we have not yet progressed beyond the instinctive standpoint. A little reflection will teach you that, on the whole, people are very much given to sampling the two extremes. They swing to and fro between them. Leaving out of account the few who at the present day endeavour to gain clear views on this subject, you will find that the majority of people live very much after a particular pattern. In Central Europe this is often described by saying: There are people in Berlin who eat and drink to excess the entire winter, and then in summer they go to Carlsbad in order to remove the ill-effects produced by months of intemperance, thus going from one extreme to the other. Here you have the tipping of the scale, first to one side and then to the other. This is only a radical case. It is very evident that though the foregoing is extreme, and not universal to any great extent, still the oscillation between enjoyment and deprivation exists everywhere. People themselves ensure that there is excess on one side, and then they get the physicians to prescribe a so-called lowering system of cure, that is, the other extreme, in order that the ill effects may be repaired.

From this, it will be seen that in this respect people are still in an instinctive condition, that there is still an instinctive feeling, which is a kind of divine gift, not to go too far in one direction or another. But just as the other instinctive qualities of man were lost, these, too, will be lost with the transition from the fifth to the sixth post-Atlantean age. This quality which is still possessed as a natural tendency will be lost; and now you will be able to judge how much the anthroposophical world conception and conviction will have to contribute in order gradually to develop consciousness in this field.

At the present time there are very few, even developed anthroposophists, who see clearly that Anthroposophy provides the means to gain the right consciousness in this field also. When Anthroposophy is able to bring more weight to bear in this direction, then will appear what I can only describe in the following way: people will gradually long more and more for great spiritual truths. Although Anthroposophy is still scorned to-day, it will not always be so. It will spread, and overcome all its external opponents, and everything else still opposing it, and anthroposophists will not be satisfied by merely preaching universal love. It will be understood that one cannot acquire Anthroposophy in one day, any more than a person can take sufficient nourishment in one day to last the whole of his life. Anthroposophy has to be acquired to an ever increasing extent. It will come to pass that in the Anthroposophical Movement it will not be so often stated that these are our principles, and if we have these principles then we are anthroposophists; for the feeling and experience of standing in a community of the living element in anthroposophy will extend more and more.

Moreover, let us consider what happens by people mentally working upon the particular thoughts, the particular feelings and impulses which come from anthroposophical wisdom. We all know that anthroposophists can never have a materialistic view of the world, they have exactly the opposite, But he who says the following is a materialistic thinker: “When one thinks, a movement of the molecules or atoms of the brain takes place, and it is because of this movement that one has thought. Thought proceeds from the brain somewhat like a thin smoke, or it is something like the flame from a candle.” Such, is the materialistic view. The anthroposophical view is the opposite. In the latter it is the thought, the experience in the soul which sets the brain and nervous system in motion. The way in which our brain moves depends upon what thoughts we think. This is exactly the opposite of what is said by the materialist. If you wish to know how the brain of a person is constituted, you must inquire into what thoughts he has, for just as the printed characters of a book are nothing else than the consequence of thoughts, so the movements of the brain are nothing else than the consequence of thoughts.

Must we not then say that the brain will be differently affected when it is filled with anthroposophical thoughts than it will be in a society which plays cards? Different processes are at work in your minds when you follow anthroposophical thoughts from when you are in a company of card players, or see the pictures in a movie theatre. In the human organism nothing is isolated or stands alone. Everything is connected; one part acts and reacts on another. Thoughts act upon the brain and nervous system, and the latter is connected with the whole organism, and although many people may not yet be aware of it, when the hereditary characteristics still hidden in the body are conquered, the following will come about. The thoughts will be communicated from the brain to the stomach, and the result will be that things that are pleasant to people's taste to-day will no longer taste good to those who have received anthroposophica1 thoughts. The thoughts which anthroposophists have received are divine thoughts. They act upon the whole organism in such a manner that it will prefer to taste what is good for it. Man will smell and perceive as unsympathetic what does not suit him—a pecu1iar perspective, one which may perhaps be called materialistic, but is exactly the reverse.

This kind of appetite will come as a consequence of anthroposophical work; you will like one thing and prefer it at meals, dislike another and not wish to eat it. You may judge for yourselves when you notice that perhaps you now have an aversion to things, which before your anthroposophical days you did not possess. This will become more and more general when man works selflessly at his higher development, so that the world may receive what is right from him. One must not, however, play fast-and-lose with the words “selflessness” and “egoism.” These words may very easily be misused. It is not altogether selfless when someone says: “I shall only be active in the world and for the world; what does it matter about my own spiritual development? I shall only work, not strive egoistically!” It is not egoism when a person undergoes a higher development, because he thus fits himself more fully to bear an active part in the furtherance of the world development. If a person neglects his own further deve1opment, he renders himself useless to the world, he withdraws his force from it. We must do the right thing in this respect as well, in order to develop in ourselves what the Deity had in view for us.

Thus, through Anthroposophy a human race, or rather, a nucleus of humanity will be developed, which perceives temperance as a guiding ideal not merely instinctively, but which has a conscious sympathy for what makes man in_a worthy way into a useful part of the divine world-order, and a conscious disinclination for all that mars man as a part in the universal order.

Thus we see that also in that which is produced in man himself, there are moral impulses, and we find what we may call life-wisdom or practica1 wisdom as transformed temperance. The ideal of practical wisdom which is to be taken into consideration for the next, the sixth post-Atlantean age, will be the ideal virtue which Plato calls “justice.” That is: the harmonious accord of these virtues. As in humanity the virtues have altered to some extent, so what was looked upon as justice in pre-Christian times has also changed. A single virtue such as this, which harmonises the others did not exist at that time. The harmony of the virtues stood before the mental vision of humanity as an ideal of the most distant future. We have seen that the moral impulse of bravery has been changed to love. We have also seen that wisdom has become truth. To begin with, truth is a virtue which places man in a just and worthy manner in external life. But if we wish to arrive at truthfulness regarding spiritual things, how then can we arrange it in relation to those things? We acquire truthfulness, we gain the virtue of the Sentient-Soul through a right and appropriate interest, through right understanding. Now what is this interest with regard to the spiritual world? If we wish to bring the physical world and especially man before us, we must open ourselves towards him, we must have a seeing eye for his nature. How do we obtain this seeing-eye with reference to the spiritual world? We gain it by developing a particular kind of feeling, that which appeared at a time when the old instinctive wisdom had sunk into the depths of the soul's life. This type of feeling was often described by the Greeks in the words: “All philosophical thought begins with wonder.” Something essentially moral is said when we say that our relationship to the supersensible world begins with wonder. The savage, uncultivated human being, is but little affected by the great phenomena of the world. It is through mental development that man comes to find riddles in the phenomena of everyday life, and to perceive that there is something spiritual at the back of them. It is wonder that directs our souls up to the spiritual sphere in order that we may penetrate to the knowledge of that world; and we can only arrive at this knowledge when our soul is attracted by the phenomena which it is possible to investigate. It is this attraction which give rise to wonder, astonishment and faith. It is always wonder and amazement which direct us to what is supersensible, and at the same time, it is what one usually describes as faith. Faith, wonder and amazement are the three forces of the soul which lead us beyond the ordinary world.

When we contemplate man with wonder and amazement, we try to understand him; by understanding his nature we attain to the virtue of brotherhood, and we shall best realise this by approaching the human being with reverence. We shall then see that reverence is something with which we must approach every human being and if we have this attitude, we shall become more and more truthful. Truth will become something by which we shall be bound by duty. Once we have an inkling of it, the supersensible world becomes something towards which we incline, and through knowledge we shall attain to the supersensible wisdom which has already sunk into the subconscious depths of the soul. Only after supersensible wisdom had disappeared do we find the statement that “philosophy begins with wonder and amazement.” This statement will make it clear that wonder only appeared in evolution in the age when the Christ-impulse had come into the world.

It has already been stated that the second virtue is love. Let us now consider what we have described as instinctive temperance for the present time, and as practical wisdom of life for the future. Man confronts himself in these virtues. Through the deeds he performs in the world, he acts in such a way that he guards himself, as it were; it is therefore necessary for him to gain an objective standard of value.

We now see something appear which develops more and more, and which I have often spoken of in other connections, something which first appeared in the fourth post-Atlantean age, namely the Greek. It can be shown that in the old Greek dramas, for instance in Aeschylus, the Furies play a role which in Euripides is transformed into conscience. From this we see that in ancient times what we call conscience did not exist at all. Conscience is something that exists as a standard for our own actions when we go too far in our demands, when we seek our own advantage too much. It acts as a standard placed between our sympathies and antipathies.

With this we attain to something which is more objective, which, compared with the virtues of truth, love and practical wisdom, acts in a much more objective, or outward manner. Love here stands in the middle, and acts as something which has to fill and regulate all life, also all social life. In the same way it acts as the regulator of all that man has developed as inner impulse. But that which he has developed as truth will manifest itself as the belief in supersensible knowledge. Life-wisdom, that which originates in ourselves, we must feel as a divine spiritual regulator which, like conscience, leads securely along the true middle course. If we had time it would be very easy to answer the various objections which might be raised at this point. But we shall only consider one, for example, the objection to the assertion that conscience and wonder are qualities which have only gradually developed in humanity, whereas they are really eternal. But this they are not. He who says that they are eternal qualities in human nature only shows that he does not know the conditions attached to them.

As time goes on it will be found more and more that in ancient times man had not as yet descended so far to the physical plane, but was still more closely connected with divine impulses, and that he was in a condition which he will again consciously strive to reach when
he is ruled more by truth, love and the art of life in regard to the physical plane, and when in regard to spiritual knowledge he is actuated by faith in the supersensible world. It is not necessarily the case that faith will directly lead into that world, but it will at length be transformed into supersensible knowledge. Conscience is that which will enter as a regulator in the Consciousness- or Spiritual-Soul. Faith, love, conscience; these three forces will become the three stars of the moral forces which shall enter into human souls particularly through Anthroposophy. The moral perspective of the future can only be disclosed to those who think of these three virtues being ever more increased Anthroposophy will place moral life in the light of these virtues, and they will be the constructive forces of the future.

Before closing our observations, there is one point which must be considered. I shall only touch upon the subject, for it would be impossible to analyse without giving many lectures. The Christ-impulse entered human evolution through the Mystery of Golgotha. We know that at that time a human organism consisting of physical, etheric, and astral bodies received the Ego-impulse or “I” from above, as the Christ-impulse. It was this Christ-impulse which was received by the earth and which flowed into earthly evolution. It was now in it as the ego of Christ. We know further that the physical body, etheric body and astral body remained with Jesus of Nazareth; the Christ-impulse was within as the ego. At Golgotha, Jesus of Nazareth separated from the Christ-impulse, which then flowed into the earth development. The evolution of this impulse signifies the evolution of the earth itself.

Earnestly consider certain things which are very often repeated in order that they may be more easily understood. As we have often heard, the world is maya or illusion, but man must gradually penetrate to the truth, the reality of this external world. The earth evolution fundamentally consists in the fact that all the external things which have been formed in the first half of the earth's development are dissolved in the second half, in which we now are, so that all that we see externally, physically, shall separate from human development just as the physical body of a human being falls away. One might ask: What will then be left? And the answer is: The forces which are embodied in man as real forces through the process of the development of humanity on the earth. And the most real impulse in this development is that which has come into earth evolution through the Christ-impulse. But this Christ-impulse at first finds nothing with which it can clothe itself. Therefore it has to obtain a covering through the further development of the earth; and when this is concluded, the fully developed Christ shall be the final man—as Adam was the first—around whom humanity in its multiplicity has grouped itself.

In the words: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me,” is contained a significant hint for us. What has been done for Christ? The actions performed in accordance with the Christ-impulse under the influence of conscience, under the influence of faith and according to knowledge, are developed out on the earth-life up to the present time, and as, through his actions and his moral attitude a person gives something to his brethren, he gives at the same time to Christ. This should be taken as a precept: All the forces we develop, all acts of faith and trust, all acts performed as the result of wonder, are—because we give it at the same time to the Christ-Ego—something which closes like a covering round the Christ and may be compared with the astral body of man.

We form the astral body for the Christ-Ego-impulse by all the moral activities of wonder, trust, reverence and faith, in short, all that paves the way to supersensible knowledge. Through all these activities we foster love. This is quite in accordance with the statement we quoted: “What ye have done to one, of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.”

We form the etheric body for Christ through our deeds of love, and through our actions in the world which we do through the impulses of conscience we form for the Christ-impulse that which corresponds to the physical body of man. When the earth has one day reached its goal, when man understands the right moral impulses through which all that is good is done, then shall be perfected that which came as an Ego or “I” into human development through the Mystery of Golgotha as the Christ-impulse. It shall then be enveloped by an astral body which is formed through faith, through all the deeds of wonder and amazement on the part of man. It shall be enveloped by something which is like an etheric body which is formed through deeds of love; and by something which envelops it like a physical body, formed through the deeds of conscience.

Thus the future evolution of humanity shall be accomplished through the co-operation of the moral impulses of man with the Christ-impulse. We see humanity in perspective before us, like a great organic structure. When people understand how to member their actions into this great organism, and through their own deeds form their impulses around it like a covering, they shall then lay the foundations, in the course of earthly evolution, for a great community, which can be permeated and pervaded through and through by the Christ-impulse.

Thus we see that morals need not be preached, but they can indeed be founded by showing facts that have really happened and do still happen, confirming what is felt by persons with special mental endowments. It should make a noteworthy impression upon us if we bear in mind how, at the time when Goethe lost his friend, Duke Charles Augustus, he wrote many things in a long letter at Weimar, and then on the same day—it was in the year 1828, just three-and-a-half years before his own death, and almost at the end of his life—he wrote a very remarkable sentence in his diary: “The whole reasonable world may be considered as a great immortal individual which uninterruptedly brings about what is necessary and thereby makes itself master even over chance.” How could such a thought become more concrete than by our imagining this individual active among us, and by thinking of ourselves as, being united with him in his work? Through the Mystery of Golgotha the greatest Individual entered into human development, and, when people intentionally direct their lives in the way we have just described, they shall build up a covering round the Christ-impulse, so that around this Being there shall be formed something which is like a covering around a kernel.

Much more could be said about virtue from the standpoint of Anthroposophy. In particular long and important considerations could be entered into concerning truth and its connection with karma, for through Anthroposophy the idea of karma will have to enter into human evolution more and more. Man will also have to learn gradually so to consider and order his life that his virtues correspond with karma. Through the idea of karma man must also learn to recognise that he may not disown his former deeds by his later ones. A certain feeling of responsibility in life, a readiness to take upon ourselves the results of what we have done, has yet to show itself as a result of human evolution. How far removed man still is from this ideal we see when we consider him more c1osely. That man develops by the acts he has committed is a well-known fact. When the consequences of an action seem to have come to an end, then what could only be done if the first act had not taken place, can still be done. The fact that a person feels responsible for what he has done, the fact that he consciously accepts the idea of karma, is something which might also be a subject for study. But you will still find much for yourselves by following the lines suggested in these three lectures; you will find how fruitful these ideas can be if you work them out further. As man will live for the remainder of the earth development in repeated incarnations, it is his task to rectify all the mistakes made respecting the virtues described, by inclining to one side or the other, to change them by shaping them of his own free will, so that the balance, the mean, may come and thus the goal be gradually attained which has been described as the formation of the coverings for the Christ-impulse.

Thus we see before us not merely an abstract ideal of universal brotherhood, which indeed may also receive a strong impulse if we lay Anthroposophy at the foundation, but we see that there is something real in our earthly evolution, we see that there is in it an Impulse which came into the world through the Mystery of Golgotha. And we also feel ourselves under the necessity so to work upon the Sentient-Soul, the Intellectual-Soul and the Spiritual-Soul, that this ideal Being shall be actualised, and that we shall be united with Him as with a great immortal Individual. The thought that the only possibility of further evolution, the power to fulfil the earth mission, lies in man's forming one whole with this great Individual, is realised in the second moral principle: What you do as if it were born from you alone, pushes you away and separates you from the great Individual, you thereby destroy something; but what you do to build up this great immortal Individual in the way above described, that you do towards the further development, the progressive life of the whole organism of the world.

We only require to place these two thoughts before us in order to see that their effect is not only to preach morals, but to give them a basis. For the thought: “Through your actions you are destroying what you ought to build up,” is terrible and fearful, keeping down all opposing desires. But the thought: “You are building up this immortal Individual; you are making yourself into a member of this immortal Individual,” fires one to good deeds, to strong moral impulses. In this way morals are not only preached, but we are led to thoughts which themselves may be moral impulses, to thoughts which are able to found morals.

The more the truth is cultivated, the more rapidly will the anthroposophical world conception and feeling develop ethics such as these. And it has been my task to express this in these lectures. Naturally, many things have only been lightly touched upon, but you will develop further in your own minds many ideas which have been broached. In this way we shall be drawn more closely together all over the earth. When we meet together—as we have done on this occasion as anthroposophists of Northern and Central Europe—to consider these subjects, and when we allow the thoughts roused in us at gatherings such as this to echo and re-echo through us, we shall in this way best make it true that Anthroposophy is to provide the foundation—even at the present time—for real spiritual life. And when we have to part again we know that it is in our anthroposophical thoughts that we are most at one, and this knowledge is at the same time a moral stimulus. To know that we are united by the same ideals with people who, as a rule, are widely separated from one another in space, but with whom we may meet on special occasions, is a stronger moral stimulus than being always together.

That we should think in this way of our gathering, that we should thus understand our studies together, fills my soul, especially at the close of these lectures, as something by which I should like to express my farewell greeting to you, and concerning which I am convinced that, when it is understood in the true light, the anthroposophical life which is developing will also be spiritually well founded. With this thought and these feelings let us close our studies today.

In the last lecture we found that moral impulses are fundamental in human nature. From the facts adduced, we tried to prove that a foundation of morality and goodness lies at the bottom of the human soul, and that really it has only been in the course of evolution, in man's passage from incarnation to incarnation, that he has diverged from the original instinctive good foundation and that thereby what is evil, wrong and unmoral has come into humanity. But if this is so, we must really wonder that evil is possible, or that it ever originated, and the question as to how evil became possible in the course of evolution requires an answer. We can only obtain a satisfactory reply by examining the elementary moral instruction given to man in ancient times.

The pupils of the Mysteries whose highest ideal was gradually to penetrate to full spiritual knowledge and truths were always obliged to work from a moral foundation. In those places where they worked in the right way according to the Mysteries, the peculiarity of man's moral-nature was shown in a special way to the pupils. Briefly, we may say: The pupils of the Mysteries were shown that freewill can only be developed if a person is in a position to go wrong in one of two directions; further, that life can only run its course truly and favourably when these two lines of opposition are considered as being like the two sides of a balance, of which first one side and then the other goes up and down. True balance only exists when the crossbeam is horizontal. They were shown that it is impossible to express man's right procedure by saying: this is right and that is wrong. It is only possible to gain the true idea when the human being, standing in the centre of the balance, can be swayed each moment of his life, now to one side, now to the other, but he himself holds the correct mean between the two.

Let us take the virtues of which we have spoken: first—valour, bravery. In this respect human nature may diverge on one side to foolhardiness—that is, unbridled activity in the world and the straining of the forces at one's disposal to the utmost limit. Foolhardiness is one side; the opposite is cowardice. A person may turn the scale in either of these directions. In the Mysteries the pupils were shown that when a man degenerates into foolhardiness he loses himself and lays aside his own individuality and is crushed by the wheels of life. Life tears him in pieces if he errs in this direction, but if, on the other hand, he errs on the side of cowardice, he hardens himself and tears himself away from his connection with beings and objects. He then becomes a being shut up within himself, who, as he cannot bring his deeds into harmony with the whole, loses his connection with things. This was shown to the pupils in respect to all that a man may do. He may degenerate in such a way that he is torn in pieces, and losing his own individuality is crushed by the objective world; on the other hand, he may degenerate not merely in courage, but also in every other respect in such a way that he hardens within himself. Thus at the head of the moral code in all the Mysteries there were written the significant words: “Thou must find the mean,” so that through thy deeds thou must not lose thyself in the world, and that the world also does not lose thee.

Those are the two possible extremes into which man may fall. Either he may be lost to the world, the world lays hold on him, and crushes him, as is the case in foolhardiness; or the world may be lost to him, because he hardens himself in his egoism, as is the case in cowardice. In the Mysteries, the pupils were told that goodness cannot merely be striven for as goodness obtained once for all; rather does goodness come only through man being continually able to strike out in two directions like a pendulum and by his own inner power able to find the balance, the mean between the two.

You have in this all that will enable you to understand the freedom of the will and the significance of reason and wisdom in human action. If it were fitting for man to observe eternal moral principles he need only acquire these moral principles and then he could go through life on a definite line of march, as it were, but life is never like this. Freedom in life consists rather in man's being always able to err in one direction or another. But in this way the possibility of evil arises. For what is evil? It is that which originates when the human being is either lost to the world, or the world is lost to him. Goodness consists in avoiding both these extremes.. In the course of evolution evil became not only a possibility but an actuality; for as man journeyed from incarnation to incarnation, by his turning now to one side and now to the other, he could not always find the balance at once, and it was necessary for the compensation to be karmically made at a future time. What man cannot attain in one life, because he does not always find the mean at once, he will attain gradually in the course of evolution in as much as man diverts his course to one side, and is then obliged, perhaps in the next life, to strike out again in the opposite direction, and thus bring about the balance.

What I have just told you was a golden rule in the ancient Mysteries. We often find among the ancient philosophers echoes of the principles taught in these Mysteries. Aristotle makes a statement, when, speaking of virtue, which we cannot understand unless we know that what has just been said was an old principle in the Mysteries which had been received by Aristotle as tradition and embodied in his philosophy. He says: Virtue is a human capacity or skill guided by reason and insight, which, as regards man, holds the balance between the too much and the too-little. Aristotle here gives a definition of virtue, such as no subsequent philosophy has attained. But as Aristotle had little tradition from the Mysteries, it was possible for him to give the precise truth.

That is, then, the mean, which must be found and followed if a man is really to be virtuous, if moral power is to pulsate through the world. We can now answer the question as to why morals should exist at all. For what happens when there is no morality, when evil is done, and when the too-much or the too-little takes place, when man is lost to the world by being crushed, or when the world loses him? In each of these cases something is always destroyed. Every evil or unmoral act is a process of destruction, and the moment man sees that when he has done wrong he cannot do otherwise than destroy something, take something from the world, in that moment a mighty influence for good has awakened within him. It is especially the task of Spiritual Science—which is really only just beginning its work in the world—to show that all evil brings about a destructive process, that it takes away from the world something which is necessary. When in accordance with our anthroposophical standpoint, we hold this principle, then what we know about the nature of man leads us to a particular interpretation of good and evil.

We know that the sentient-soul was chiefly developed in the old Chaldean or Egyptian epoch the third post-Atlantean age. The people of the present day have but little notion what this epoch of development was like at that time, for in external history one can reach little further back than to the Egyptian age. We know that the intellectual, or mind-soul, developed in the fourth or Graeco-Latin age, and that now in our age we are developing the consciousness-or spiritual-soul. The spirit-self will only come into prominence in the sixth age of post-Atlantean development.

Let us now ask: How can the sentient-soul turn to one side or the other, away from what is right? The sentient-soul is that quality in man which enables him to perceive the objective world, to take it into himself, to take part in it, not to pass through the world ignorant of all the diversified objects it contains, but to go through the world in such a way that he forms a relationship with them. All this is brought about by the sentient-soul. We find one side to which man can deviate with the sentient-soul when we enquire: What makes it possible for man to enter into relationship with the objective world? It is what may be called interest in the different things, and by this word “interest” something is expressed which in a moral sense is extremely important. It is much more important that one should bear in mind the moral significance of interest, than that one should devote oneself to thousands of beautiful moral axioms which may be only paltry and hypocritical. Let it be clearly understood, that our moral impulses are in fact never better guided than when we take a proper interest in objects and beings. In our last lecture we spoke in a deeper sense of love as an impulse and in such a way that we cannot now be misunderstood if we say that the usual, oft-repeated declamation, “love, love, and again love” cannot replace the moral impulse contained in what may be described by the word interest.

Let us suppose that we have a child before us. What is the condition primary to our devotion to this child? What is the first condition to our educating the child? It is that we take an interest in it. There is something unhealthy or abnormal in the human soul if a person withdraws himself from something in which he takes an interest. It will more and more be recognised that the impulse of interest is a quite specially golden impulse in the moral sense the further we advance to the actual foundations of morality and do not stop at the mere preaching of morals. Our inner powers are also called forth as regards mankind when we extend our interests, when we are able to transpose ourselves with understanding into beings and objects.

Even sympathy is awakened in the right manner if we take an interest in a being; and if, as anthroposophists, we set ourselves the task of extending our interests more and more and of widening our mental horizon, this will promote the universal brotherhood of mankind. Progress is not gained by the mere preaching of universal love, but by the extension of our interests further and further, so that we come to interest ourselves increasingly in souls with widely different characters, racial and national peculiarities, with widely different temperaments, and holding widely differing religious and philosophical views, and approach them with understanding. Right interest, right understanding, calls forth from the soul the right moral action.

Here also we must hold the balance between two extremes. One extreme is apathy which passes everything by and occasions immense moral mischief in the world. An apathetic person only lives in himself; obstinately, insisting on his own principles, and saying: This is my standpoint. In a moral sense this insistence upon a standpoint is always bad. The essential thing is for us to have an open mind for all that surrounds us. Apathy separates us from the world, while interest unites us with it. The world loses us through our apathy: in this direction we become unmoral. Thus we see that apathy and lack of interest in the world are morally evil in the highest degree.

Anthroposophy is something which makes the mind ever more active, helps us to think with greater readiness of what is spiritual and to take it into ourselves. Just as it is true that warmth comes from the fire when we light a stove so it is true that interest in humanity and the world comes when we study spiritual science. Wisdom is the fuel for interest and we may say, although this may perhaps not be evident without further explanation, that Anthroposophy arouses this interest in us when we study those more remote subjects, the teachings concerning the evolutionary stages through Saturn, Sun and Moon, and the meaning of Karma and so on. It really comes about that interest is produced as the result of anthroposophical knowledge while from materialistic knowledge comes something which in a radical manner must be described as apathy and which, if it alone were to hold sway in the world, would, of necessity, do untold harm.

See how many people go through the world and meet this or that person, but really do not get to know him, for they are quite shut up in themselves. How often do we find that two people have been friends for a long time and then suddenly there comes a rupture. This is because the friendship had a materialistic foundation and only after the lapse of time did they discover that they were mutually unsympathetic. At the present time very few people have the “hearing” ear for that which speaks from man to man; but Anthroposophy should bring about an expansion of our perceptions, so that we shall gain a “seeing” eye and an open mind for all that is human around us and so we shall not go through the world. apathetically, but with true interest.

We also avoid the other extreme by distinguishing between true and false interests, and thus observe the happy mean. Immediately to throw oneself, as it were, into the arms of each person we meet is to lose oneself passionately in the person; that is not true interest. If we do this, we lose ourselves to the world. Through apathy the world loses us; through uncontrolled passion we lose ourselves to the world. But through healthy, devoted interest we stand morally firm in the centre, in the state of balance.

In the third post-Atlantean age of civilisation, that is, in the Chaldaic-Egyptian age, there still existed in a large part of humanity on earth a certain power to hold the balance between apathy and the passionate intoxicating devotion to the world; and it is this, which in ancient times, and also by Plato and Aristotle, was called wisdom. But people looked upon this wisdom as the gift of superhuman beings, for up to that time the ancient impulses of wisdom were active. Therefore, from this point of view, especially relating to moral impulses, we may call the third post-Atlantean age, the age of instinctive wisdom. You will perceive the truth of what was said last year, though with a different intention, in the Copenhagen lectures on The Spiritual Guidance of Man and Mankind. In those lectures we showed how, in the third post-Atlantean age, mankind still stood nearer to the divine spiritual powers. And that which drew mankind closer to the divine spiritual powers, was instinctive wisdom.

Thus, it was a gift of the gods to find at that time the happy mean in action, between apathy and sensuous passionate devotion. This balance, this equilibrium was at that time still maintained through external institutions. The complete intermingling of humanity which came about in the fourth age of post-Atlantean development through the migrations of various peoples, did not yet exist. Mankind was still divided into smaller peoples and tribes. Their interests were wisely regulated by nature, and were so far active that the right moral impulses could penetrate; and on the other hand, through the existence of blood kinsmanship in the tribe, an obstacle was placed in the way of passion. Even to-day one cannot fail to observe that it is easiest to show interest within blood-relationship and common descent, but in this there is not what is called sensuous passion. As people were gathered together in relatively small tracts of country in the Egypto-Chaldaic age, the wise and happy mean was easily found.

But the idea of the progressive development of humanity is that that, which originally was instinctive, which was only spiritual, shall gradually disappear and that man shall become independent of the divine spiritual powers. Hence we see that even in the fourth post-Atlantean age, the Graeco-Latin age, not only the philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, but also public opinion in Greece, considered wisdom as something which must be gained as something which is no longer the gift of the gods, but after which man must strive. According to Plato, the first virtue is wisdom, and according to him, he who does not strive after wisdom is unmoral.

We are now in the fifth post-Atlantean age. We are still far from the time when the wisdom instinctively implanted in humanity as a divine impulse, will be raised into consciousness. Hence in our age people are specially liable to err in both the directions we have mentioned, and it is therefore particularly necessary that the great dangers to be found at this point should be counteracted by a spiritual conception of the World, so that what man once possessed as instinctive wisdom may now become conscious wisdom. The Anthroposophical Movement is to contribute to this end.

The gods once gave wisdom to the unconscious human soul, so that it possessed this wisdom instinctively, whereas now we have first to learn the truths about the cosmos and about human evolution. The ancient customs were also fashioned after the thoughts of the gods.

We have the right view of Anthroposophy when we look upon it as the investigations of the thoughts of the gods. In former times these flowed instinctively into man, but now we have to investigate them, to make the knowledge of them our own. In this sense Anthroposophy must be sacred to us; we must be able to consider reverently that the ideas imparted to us are really something divine, and something which we human beings are allowed to think and reflect upon as the divine thoughts according to which the world has been ordered. When Anthroposophy stands in this aspect to us, we can then consider the knowledge it imparts in such a way that we understand that it has been given us so as to enable us to fulfil our mission. Mighty truths are made known to us, when we study what has been imparted concerning the evolutions of Saturn, Sun and Moon, concerning reincarnation, and the development of the various races, etc. But we only assume the right attitude towards it when we say: The thoughts we seek are the thoughts wherewith the gods have guided evolution. We think the evolution of the gods. If we understand this correctly we are overwhelmed by something that is deeply moral. This is inevitable. Then we say: In ancient times man had instinctive wisdom from the gods, who gave him the wisdom according to which they fashioned the world, and morality thus became possible. But through Anthroposophy we now acquire this wisdom consciously. Therefore we may also trust that in us it shall be transformed into moral impulses, so that we do not merely receive anthroposophical wisdom, but a moral stimulus as well.

Now into what sort of moral impulses will the wisdom acquired through Anthroposophy be transformed? We must here touch upon a point whose development the anthroposophist can foresee, the profound moral significance and moral weight of which he even ought to foresee, a point of development which is far removed from what is customary at the present time, which is what Plato called the “ideal of wisdom.” He named it with a word which was in common use when man still possessed the ancient wisdom, and it would be well to replace this by the word veracity, for as we have now become more individual, we have withdrawn ourselves from the divine, and must therefore strive back to it. We must learn to feel the full weight and meaning of the word ‘veracity’, and this in a moral sense will be a result of an anthroposophical world conception and conviction. Anthroposophists must understand how important it is to be filled with the moral element of truth in an age when materialism has advanced so far that one may indeed still speak of truth, but when the general life and understanding is far removed from perceiving what is right in this direction. Nor can this be otherwise at the present time; as owing to a certain quality acquired by modern life, truth is something which must, to a great extent, be lacking in the understanding of the day, I ask what does a man feel to-day when in the newspapers or some other printed matter he finds certain information, and afterwards it transpires that it is simply untrue? I seriously ask you to ponder over this. One cannot say that it happens in every case, but one must assert that it probably happens in every fourth case. Untruthfulness has everywhere become a quality of the age; it is impossible to describe truth as a characteristic of our times.

For instance, take a man whom you know to have written or said something false, and place the facts before him. As a rule, you will find that he does not fear such a thing to be wrong. He will immediately make the excuse: “But I said it in good faith.” Anthroposophists must not consider it moral when a person says it is merely incorrect what he has said in good faith. People will learn to understand more and more, that they must first ascertain that what they assert really happened. No man should make a statement, or impart anything to another until he has exhausted every means to ascertain the truth of his assertions; and it is only when he recognises this obligation that he can perceive veracity as moral impulse. And then when someone has either written or said something that is incorrect, he will no longer say: “I thought it was so, said it in good faith,” for he will learn that it is his duty to express not merely what he thinks is right, but it is also his duty to say only what is true, and correct. To this end, a radical change must gradually come about in our cultural life. The speed of travel, the lust of sensation on the part of man, everything that comes with a materialistic age, is opposed to truth. In the sphere of morality, Anthroposophy will be an educator of humanity to the duty of truth.

My business today is not to say how far truth has been already realised in the Anthroposophical Society, but to show that what I have said must be a principle, a lofty anthroposophical ideal. The moral evolution within the movement will have enough to do if the moral ideal of truth is thought, felt and perceived in all directions, for this ideal must be what produces the virtue of the sentient-soul of man in the right way.

The second part of the soul of which we have to speak in Anthroposophy is what we usually call the mind-soul, or intellectual-soul (German—Gemütsseele). You know that it developed especially in the fourth post-Atlantean, or Graeco-Latin age. The virtue which is the particular emblem for this part of the soul is bravery, valour and courage; we have already dwelt on this many times, and also on the fact that foolhardiness and cowardice are its extremes. Courage, bravery, valour is the mean between foolhardiness and cowardice. The German word “gemüt” expresses in the sound of the word that it is related to this. The word “gemüt” indicates the mid-part of the human soul, the part that is “mutvoll,” full of “mut,” courage, strength and force.

This was the second, the middle virtue of Plato and Aristotle. It is that virtue which in the fourth post-Atlantean age still existed in man as a divine gift, while wisdom was really only instinctive in the third. Instinctive valour and bravery existed as a gift of the gods (you may gather this from the first lecture) among the people who, in the fourth age, met the expansion of Christianity to the north. They showed that among them valour was still a gift of the gods. Among the Chaldeans wisdom, the wise penetration into the secrets of the starry world, existed as a divine gift, as something inspired. Among the people of the fourth post-Atlantean age, there existed valour and bravery, especially among the Greeks and Romans, but it existed also among the peoples whose work it became to spread Christianity. This instinctive valour was lost later than instinctive wisdom.

If we look round us now in the fifth post-Atlantean age, we see that, as regards valour and bravery, we are in the same position in respect of the Greeks as the Greeks were to the Chaldeans and Egyptians in regard to wisdom. We look back to what was a divine gift in the age immediately preceding ours, and in a certain way we can strive for it again. However, the two previous lectures have shown us, that in connection with this effort a certain transformation must take place. We have seen the transformation in Francis of Assisi of that divine gift which manifested itself as bravery and valour. We saw that the transformation came about as the result of an inner moral force which in our last lecture we found to be the force of the Christ-impulse; the transformation of valour and bravery into true love. But this true love must be guided by another virtue, by the interest in the being to whom we turn our love. In his Timon of Athens Shakespeare shows how love, or warmth of heart, causes harm, when it is passionately manifested; when it appears merely as a quality of human nature without being guided by wisdom and truth. A man is described who gave freely of his possessions, who squandered his living in all directions. Liberality is a virtue, but Shakespeare also shows us that nothing but parasites are produced by what is squandered.

Just as ancient valour and bravery were guided from the Mysteries by the European Brahmins—those wise leaders who kept themselves hidden in the background—so also in human nature this virtue must accord with and be guided by interest. Interest, which connects us with the external world in the right way, must lead and guide us when, with our love, we turn to the world. Fundamentally this may be seen from the characteristic and striking example of Francis of Assisi. The sympathy he expressed was not obtrusive or offensive. Those who overwhelm others with their sympathy are by no means always actuated by the right moral impulses. And how many there are who will not receive anything that is given out of pity. But to approach another with, understanding is not offensive. Under some circumstances a person must needs refuse to be sympathised with; but the attempt to understand his nature is something to which no reasonable person can object. Hence also the attitude of another person cannot be blamed or condemned if his actions are determined by this principle.

It is understanding which can guide us with respect to this second virtue: Love. It is that which, through the Christ-impulse, has become the special virtue of the mind-soul or intellectual-soul; it is the virtue which may be described as human love accompanied by human understanding. Sympathy in grief and joy is the virtue which in the future must produce the most beautiful and glorious fruits in human social life, and, in one who rightly understands the Christ-impulse, this sympathy and this love will originate quite naturally, it will develop into feeling. It is precisely through the anthroposophical understanding of the Christ-impulse that it will become feeling.

Through the Mystery of Golgotha Christ descended into earthly evolution; His impulses, His activities are here now, they are everywhere. Why did He descend to this earth? In order that through what He has to give to the world, evolution may go forward in the right way. Now that the Christ-impulse is in the world, if through what is unmoral, if through lack of interest in our fellow-men, we destroy something, then we take away a portion of the world into which the Christ-impulse has flowed. Thus because the Christ-impulse is now here, we directly destroy something of it. But if we give to the world what can be given to it through virtue, which is creative, we build. We build through self-surrender. It is not without reason that it has often been said, that Christ was first crucified on Golgotha, but that He is crucified again and again through the deeds, of man. Since Christ has entered into the Earth development through the deed upon Golgotha, we, by our unmoral deeds, by our unkindness and lack of interest, add to the sorrow and pain inflicted upon Him. Therefore it has been said, again and again: Christ is crucified anew as long as unmorality, unkindness and lack of interest exist. Since the Christ-impulse has permeated the world, it is this which is made to suffer.

Just as it is true that through evil, which is destructive, we withdraw something from the Christ-impulse and continue the crucifixion upon Golgotha, it is also true that when we act out of love, in all cases where we use love, we add to the Christ-impulse, we help to bring it to life. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me” (Matthew 25, 40), this is the most significant statement of love and this statement must become the most profound moral impulse if it is once anthroposophically understood. We do this when with understanding we confront our fellow-men and offer them something in our actions, our virtue, our conduct towards them which is conditioned by our understanding of their nature. Our attitude towards our fellow-men is our attitude towards the Christ-impulse itself.

It is a powerful moral impulse, something which is a real foundation for morals, when we feel: “The Mystery of Golgotha was accomplished for all men, and an impulse has thence spread abroad throughout the whole world. When you are dealing with your fellow-men, try to understand them in their special, characteristics of race, colour, nationality, religious faith, philosophy, etc. If you meet them and do this or that to them, you do it to Christ. Whatever you do to men, in the present condition of the earth's evolution, you do to Christ.” This statement: “What ye have done to one of My brothers, ye have done unto Me,” will at the same time become a mighty moral impulse to the man who understands the fundamental significance of the Mystery of Golgotha. So that we may say: Whereas the gods of pre-Christian times gave instinctive wisdom to man, instinctive valour and bravery, so love streams down from the symbol of the cross, the love which is based upon the mutual interest of man in man.

Thereby the Christ-impulse will work powerfully in the world. On the day when it comes about that the Brahmin not only loves and understands the Brahmin, the Pariah the Pariah, the Jew the Jew, and the Christian the Christian; but when the Jew is able to understand the Christian, the Pariah the Brahmin, the American the Asiatic, as man, and put himself in his place, then one will know how deeply it is felt in a Christian way when we say: “All men must feel themselves to be brothers, no matter what their religious creed may be.” We ought to consider what otherwise binds us as being of little value. Father, mother, brother, sister, even one's own life one ought to esteem less than that which speaks from one human soul to the other. He who, in this sense does not regard as base all that impairs the connection with the Christ-impulse cannot be Christ's disciple. The Christ-impulse balances and compensates human differences. Christ's disciple is one who regards mere human distinctions as being of little account, and clings to the impulse of love streaming forth from the Mystery of Golgotha, which in this respect we perceive as a renewal of what was given to mankind as original virtue.

We have now but to consider what may be spoken of as the virtue of the Consciousness- or Spiritual- Soul. When we consider the fourth post-Atlantean age, we find that Temperance or Moderation was still instinctive. Plato and Aristotle called it the chief virtue of the Spiritual-Soul. Again they comprehended it as a state of balance, as the mean of what exists in the Spiritual-soul. The Spiritual-Soul consists in man's becoming conscious of the external world through his bodily nature. The sense body is primarily the instrument of the Spiritual-Soul, and it is also the sense body through which man arrives at self-consciousness.

Therefore the sense-body of man must be preserved. If it were not preserved for the mission of the earth, then that mission could not be fulfilled. But here also there is a limit. If a man only used all the forces he possessed in order to enjoy himself, he would shut himself up in himself, and the world would lose him. The man who merely enjoys himself, who uses all his forces merely to give himself pleasure, cuts himself off from the world—so thought Plato and Aristotle—the world loses him. And he, who denies himself everything renders himself weaker and weaker, and is finally laid hold of by the external world-process, and is crushed by the outer world. For he who goes beyond the forces appropriate to him as man, he who goes to excess is laid hold of by the world-process and is lost in it.

Thus what man has developed for the building up of the Spiritual-soul can be dissolved, so that he comes into the position of losing the world. Temperance or Moderation is the virtue which enables man to avoid these extremes. Temperance implies neither asceticism nor gluttony, but the happy mean between these two; and this is the virtue of the Spiritual-Soul. Regarding this virtue we have not yet progressed beyond the instinctive standpoint. A little reflection will teach you that, on the whole, people are very much given to sampling the two extremes. They swing to and fro between them. Leaving out of account the few who at the present day endeavour to gain clear views on this subject, you will find that the majority of people live very much after a particular pattern. In Central Europe this is often described by saying: There are people in Berlin who eat and drink to excess the entire winter, and then in summer they go to Carlsbad in order to remove the ill-effects produced by months of intemperance, thus going from one extreme to the other. Here you have the weighing of the scale, first to one side and then to the other. This is only a radical case. It is very evident that though the foregoing is extreme, and not universal to any great extent, still the oscillation between enjoyment and deprivation exists everywhere. People themselves ensure that there is excess on one side, and then they get the physicians to prescribe a so-called lowering system of cure, that is, the other extreme, in order that the ill effects may be repaired.

From this, it will be seen that in this respect people are still in an instinctive condition, that there is still an instinctive feeling, which is a kind of divine gift, not to go too far in one direction or another. But just as the other instinctive qualities of man were lost, these, too, will be lost with the transition from the fifth to the sixth post-Atlantean age. This quality which is still possessed as a natural tendency will be lost; and now you will be able to judge how much the anthroposophical world conception and conviction will have to contribute in order gradually to develop consciousness in this field.

At the present time there are very few, even developed anthroposophists, who see clearly that Anthroposophy provides the means to gain the right consciousness in this field also. When Anthroposophy is able to bring more weight to bear in this direction, then will appear what I can only describe in the following way; people will gradually long more and more for great spiritual truths. Although Anthroposophy is still scorned to-day, it will not always be so. It will spread, and overcome all its external opponents, and everything else still opposing it, and anthroposophists will not be satisfied by merely preaching universal love. It will be understood that one cannot acquire Anthroposophy in one day, any more than a person can take sufficient nourishment in one day to last the whole of his life. Anthroposophy has to be acquired to an ever increasing extent. It will come to pass that in the Anthroposophical Movement it will not be so often stated that these are our principles, and if we have these principles then we are anthroposophists; for the feeling and experience of standing in a community of the living element in anthroposophy will extend more and more.

Moreover, let us consider what happens by people mentally working upon the particular thoughts, the particular feelings and impulses which come from anthroposophical wisdom. We all know that anthroposophists can never have a materialistic view of the world, they have exactly the opposite, But he who says the following is a materialistic thinker: “When one thinks, a movement of the molecules or atoms of the brain takes place, and it is because of this movement that one has thought. Thought proceeds from the brain somewhat like a thin smoke, or it is something like the flame from a candle.” Such, is the materialistic view. The anthroposophical view is the opposite. In the latter it is the thought, the experience in the soul which sets the brain and nervous system in motion. The way in which our brain moves depends upon what thoughts we think. This is exactly the opposite of what is said by the materialist. If you wish to know how the brain of a person is constituted, you must inquire into what thoughts he has, for just as the printed characters of a book are nothing else than the consequence of thoughts, so the movements of the brain are nothing else than the consequence of thoughts.

Must we not then say that the brain will be differently affected when it is filled with anthroposophical thoughts than it will be in a society which plays cards? Different processes are at work in your minds when you follow anthroposophical thoughts from when you are in a company of card players, or see the pictures in a movie theatre. In the human organism nothing is isolated or stands alone. Everything is connected; one part acts and reacts on another. Thoughts act upon the brain and nervous system, and the latter is connected with the whole organism, and although many people may not yet be aware of it, when the hereditary characteristics still hidden in the body are conquered, the following will come about. The thoughts will be communicated from the brain to the stomach, and the result will be that things that are pleasant to people's taste to-day will no longer taste good to those who have received anthroposophical thoughts. The thoughts which anthroposophists have received are divine thoughts. They act upon the whole organism in such a manner that it will prefer to taste what is good for it. Man will smell and perceive as unsympathetic what does not suit him—a peculiar perspective, one which may perhaps be called materialistic, but is exactly the reverse.

This kind of appetite will come as a consequence of anthroposophical work; you will like one thing and prefer it at meals, dislike another and not wish to eat it. You may judge for yourselves when you notice that perhaps you now have an aversion to things, which before your anthroposophical days you did not possess. This will become more and more general when man works selflessly at his higher development, so that the world may receive what is right from him. One must not, however, play fast-and-lose with the words “selflessness” and “egoism.” These words may very easily be misused. It is not altogether selfless when someone says: “I shall only be active in the world and for the world; what does it matter about my own spiritual development? I shall only work, not strive egoistically!” It is not egoism when a person undergoes a higher development, because he thus fits himself more fully to bear an active part in the furtherance of the world development. If a person neglects his own further development, he renders himself useless to the world, he withdraws his force from it. We must do the right thing in this respect as well, in order to develop in ourselves what the Deity had in view for us.

Thus, through Anthroposophy a human race, or rather, a nucleus of humanity will be developed, which perceives temperance as a guiding ideal not merely instinctively, but which has a conscious sympathy for what makes man in a worthy way into a useful part of the divine world-order, and a conscious disinclination for all that mars man as a part in the universal order.

Thus we see that also in that which is produced in man himself, there are moral impulses, and we find what we may call life-wisdom or practical wisdom as transformed temperance. The ideal of practical wisdom which is to be taken into consideration for the next, the sixth post-Atlantean age, will be the ideal virtue which Plato calls “justice.” That is: the harmonious accord of these virtues. As in humanity the virtues have altered to some extent, so what was looked upon as justice in pre-Christian times has also changed. A single virtue such as this, which harmonises the others did not exist at that time. The harmony of the virtues stood before the mental vision of humanity as an ideal of the most distant future. We have seen that the moral impulse of bravery has been changed to love. We have also seen that wisdom has become truth. To begin with, truth is a virtue which places man in a just and worthy manner in external life. But if we wish to arrive at truthfulness regarding spiritual things, how then can we arrange it in relation to those things? We acquire truthfulness, we gain the virtue of the Sentient-Soul through a right and appropriate interest, through right understanding. Now what is this interest with regard to the spiritual world? If we wish to bring the physical world and especially man before us, we must open ourselves towards him, we must have a seeing eye for his nature. How do we obtain this seeing-eye with reference to the spiritual world? We gain it by developing a particular kind of feeling, that which appeared at a time when the old instinctive wisdom had sunk into the depths of the soul's life. This type of feeling was often described by the Greeks in the words: “All philosophical thought begins with wonder.” Something essentially moral is said when we say that our relationship to the super-sensible world begins with wonder. The savage, uncultivated human being, is but little affected by the great phenomena of the world. It is through mental development that man comes to find riddles in the phenomena of everyday life, and to perceive that there is something spiritual at the back of them. It is wonder that directs our souls up to the spiritual sphere in order that we may penetrate to the knowledge of that world; and we can only arrive at this knowledge when our soul is attracted by the phenomena which it is possible to investigate. It is this attraction which give rise to wonder, astonishment and faith. It is always wonder and amazement which direct us to what is super-sensible, and at the same time, it is what one usually describes as faith. Faith, wonder and amazement are the three forces of the soul which lead us beyond the ordinary world.

When we contemplate man with wonder and amazement, we try to understand him; by understanding his nature we attain to the virtue of brotherhood, and we shall best realise this by approaching the human being with reverence. We shall then see that reverence becomes something with which we must approach every human being and if we have this attitude, we shall become more and more truthful. Truth will become something by which we shall be bound by duty. Once we have an inkling of it, the super-sensible world becomes something towards which we incline, and through knowledge we shall attain to the super-sensible wisdom which has already sunk into the subconscious depths of the soul. Only after super-sensible wisdom had disappeared do we find the statement that “philosophy begins with wonder and amazement.” This statement will make it clear that wonder only appeared in evolution in the age when the Christ-impulse had come into the world.

It has already been stated that the second virtue is love. Let us now consider what we have described as instinctive temperance for the present time, and as practical wisdom of life for the future. Man confronts himself in these virtues. Through the deeds he performs in the world, he acts in such a way that he guards himself, as it were; it is therefore necessary for him to gain an objective standard of value.

We now see something appear which develops more and more, and which I have often spoken of in other connections, something which first appeared in the fourth post-Atlantean age, namely the Greek. It can be shown that in the old Greek dramas, for instance in Aeschylus, the Furies play a role which in Euripides is transformed into conscience. From this we see that in earlier times what we call conscience did not exist at all. Conscience is something that exists as a standard for our own actions when we go too far in our demands, when we seek our own advantage too-much. It acts as a standard placed between our sympathies and antipathies.

With this we attain to something which is more objective, which, compared with the virtues of truth, love and practical wisdom, acts in a much more objective, or outward manner. Love here stands in the middle, and acts as something which has to fill and regulate all life, also all social life. In the same way it acts as the regulator of all that man has developed as inner impulse. But that which he has developed as truth will manifest itself as the belief in super-sensible knowledge. Life-wisdom, that which originates in ourselves, we must feel as a divine spiritual regulator which, like conscience, leads securely along the true middle course. If we had time it would be very easy to answer the various objections which might be raised at this point. But we shall only consider one, for example, the objection to the assertion that conscience and wonder are qualities which have only gradually developed in humanity, whereas they are really eternal. But this they are not. He who says that they are eternal qualities in human nature only shows that he does not know the conditions attached to them.

As time goes on it will be found more and more that in ancient times man had not as yet descended so far to the physical plane, but was still more closely connected with divine impulses, and that he was in a condition which he will again consciously strive to reach when he is ruled more by truth, love and the art of life in regard to the physical plane, and when in regard to spiritual knowledge he is actuated by faith in the super-sensible world. It is not necessarily the case that faith will directly lead into that world, but it will at length be transformed into super-sensible knowledge. Conscience is that which will enter as a regulator in the Consciousness- or Spiritual-Soul. Faith, love, conscience; these three forces will become the three stars of the moral forces which shall enter into human souls particularly through Anthroposophy. The moral perspective of the future can only be disclosed to those who think of these three virtues being ever more increased Anthroposophy will place moral life in the light of these virtues, and they will be the constructive forces of the future.

Before closing our observations, there is one point which must be considered. I shall only touch upon the subject, for it would be impossible to analyse without giving many lectures. The Christ-impulse entered human evolution through the Mystery of Golgotha. We know that at that time a human organism consisting of physical, etheric, and astral bodies received the Ego-impulse or “I” from above, as the Christ-impulse. It was this Christ-impulse which was received by the earth and which flowed into earthly evolution. It was now in it as the ego of Christ. We know further that the physical body, etheric body and astral body remained with Jesus of Nazareth; the Christ-impulse was within as the ego. At Golgotha, Jesus of Nazareth separated from the Christ-impulse, which then flowed into the earth development. The evolution of this impulse signifies the evolution of the earth itself.

Earnestly consider certain things which are very often repeated in order that they may be more easily understood. As we have often heard, the world is maya or illusion, but man must gradually penetrate to the truth, the reality of this external world. The earth evolution fundamentally consists in the fact that all the external things which have been formed in the first half of the earth's development are dissolved in the second half, in which we now are, so that all that we see externally, physically, shall separate from human development just as the physical body of a human being falls away. One might ask: What will then be left? And the answer is: The forces which are embodied in man as real forces through the process of the development of humanity on the earth. And the most real impulse in this development is that which has come into earth evolution through the Christ-impulse. But this Christ-impulse at first finds nothing with which it can clothe itself. Therefore it has to obtain a covering through the further development of the earth; and when this is concluded, the fully developed Christ shall be the final man—as Adam was the first—around whom humanity in its multiplicity has grouped itself.

In the words: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me,” is contained a significant hint for us. What has been done for Christ? The actions performed in accordance with the Christ-impulse under the influence of conscience, under the influence of faith and according to knowledge, are developed out on the earth-life up to the present time, and as, through his actions and his moral attitude a person gives something to his brethren, he gives at the same time to Christ. This should be taken as a precept: All the forces we develop, all acts of faith and trust, all acts performed as the result of wonder, are—because we give it at the same time to the Christ-Ego—something which closes like a covering round the Christ and may be compared with the astral body of man.

We form the astral body for the Christ-Ego-impulse by all the moral activities of wonder, trust, reverence and faith, in short, all that paves the way to super-sensible knowledge. Through all these activities we foster love. This is quite in accordance with the statement we quoted: “What ye have done to one, of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.”

We form the etheric body for Christ through our deeds of love, and through our actions in the world which we do through the impulses of conscience we form for the Christ-impulse that which corresponds to the physical body of man. When the earth has one day reached its goal, when man understands the right moral impulses through which all that is good is done, then shall be present that which came as an Ego or “I” into human development through the Mystery of Golgotha as the Christ-impulse shall then be enveloped by an astral body which is formed through faith, through all the deeds of wonder and amazement on the part of man. It shall be enveloped by something which is like an etheric body which is formed through deeds of love; and by something which envelops it like a physical body, formed through the deeds of conscience.

Thus the future evolution of humanity shall be accomplished through the co-operation of the moral impulses of man with the Christ-impulse. We see humanity in perspective before us, like a great organic structure. When people understand how to member their actions into this great organism, and through their own deeds form their impulses around it like a covering, they shall then lay the foundations, in the course of earthly evolution, for a great community, which can be permeated and made Christian through and through by the Christ-impulse.

Thus we see that morals need not be preached, but they can indeed be founded by showing facts that have really happened and do still happen, confirming what is felt by persons with special mental endowments. It should make a noteworthy impression upon us if we bear in mind how, at the time when he lost his friend, Duke Charles Augustus, Goethe wrote many things in a long letter at Weimar, and then on the same day—it was in the year 1828, three-and-a-half years before his own death, and almost at the end of his life—he wrote a very remarkable sentence in his diary: “The whole reasonable world may be considered as a great immortal individual which uninterruptedly brings about what is necessary and thereby makes itself master even over chance.” How could such a thought become more concrete than by our imagining this Individual active among us, and by thinking of ourselves as, being united with him in his work? Through the Mystery of Golgotha the greatest Individual entered into human development, and, when people intentionally direct their lives in the way we have just described, they will range themselves round the Christ-impulse, so that around this Being there shall be formed something which is like a covering around a kernel.

Much more could be said about virtue from the standpoint of Anthroposophy. In particular long and important considerations could be entered into concerning truth and its connection with karma, for through Anthroposophy the idea of karma will have to enter into human evolution more and more. Man will also have to learn gradually so to consider and order his life that his virtues correspond with karma. Through the idea of karma man must also learn to recognise that he may not disown his former deeds by his later ones. A certain feeling of responsibility in life, a readiness to take upon ourselves the results of what we have done, has yet to show itself as a result of human evolution. How far removed man still is from this ideal we see when we consider him more closely. That man develops by the acts he has committed is a well-known fact. When the consequences of an action seem to have come to an end, then what could only be done if the first act had not taken place, can still be done. The fact that a person feels responsible for what he has done, the fact that he consciously accepts the idea of karma, is something which might also be a subject for study. But you will still find much for yourselves by following the lines suggested in these three lectures; you will find how fruitful these ideas can be if you work them out further. As man will live for the remainder of the earth development in repeated incarnations, it is his task to rectify all the mistakes made respecting the virtues described, by inclining to one side or the other, to change them by shaping them of his own free will, so that the balance, the mean, may come and thus the goal be gradually attained which has been described as the formation of the coverings for the Christ-impulse.

Thus we see before us not merely an abstract ideal of universal brotherhood, which indeed may also receive a strong impulse if we lay Anthroposophy at the foundation, but we see that there is something real in our earthly evolution, we see that there is in it an Impulse which came into the world through the Mystery of Golgotha. And we also feel ourselves under the necessity so to work upon the Sentient-Soul, the Intellectual-Soul and the Spiritual-Soul, that this ideal Being shall be actualised, and that we shall be united with Him as with a great immortal Individual. The thought that the only possibility of further evolution, the power to fulfil the earth mission, lies in man's forming one whole with this great Individual, is realised in the second moral principle: What you do as if it were born from you alone, pushes you away and separates you from the great Individual, you thereby destroy something; but what you do to build up this great immortal Individual in the way above described, that you do towards the further development, the progressive life of the whole organism of the world.

We only require to place these two thoughts before us in order to see that their effect is not only to preach morals, but to give them a basis. For the thought: “Through your actions you are destroying what you ought to build up,” is terrible and fearful, keeping down all opposing desires. But the thought: “You are building up this immortal Individual; you are making yourself into a member of this immortal Individual,” fires one to good deeds, to strong moral impulses. In this way morals are not only preached, but we are led to thoughts which themselves may be moral impulses, to thoughts which are able to found morals.

The more the truth is cultivated, the more rapidly will the anthroposophical world conception and feeling develop ethics such as these. And it has been my task to express this in these lectures. Naturally, many things have only been lightly touched upon, but you will develop further in your own minds many ideas which have been broached. In this way we shall be drawn more closely together all over the earth. When we meet together—as we have done on this occasion as anthroposophists of Northern and Central Europe—to consider these subjects, and when we allow the thoughts roused in us at gatherings such as this to echo and re-echo through us, we shall in this way best make it true that Anthroposophy is to provide the foundation—even at the present time—for real spiritual life. And when we have to part again we know that it is in our anthroposophical thoughts that we are most at one, and this knowledge is at the same time a moral stimulus. To know that we are united by the same ideals with people who, as a rule, are widely separated from one another in space, but with whom we may meet on special occasions, is a stronger moral stimulus than being always together.

That we should think in this way of our gathering, that we should thus understand our studies together, fills my soul, especially at the close of these lectures, as something by which I should like to express my farewell greeting to you, and concerning which I am convinced that, when it is understood in the true light, the anthroposophical life which is developing will also be spiritually well founded. With this thought and these feelings let us close our studies today.

What we are about to consider now is completely outside the scope of anthroposophical considerations. It is only indirectly related to it, and is intended to be a purely philosophical consideration. The direct connection is that it is often claimed that anthroposophical spiritual science cannot stand up in the forum of science, that it appears like pure dilettantism that a serious philosopher should not engage with. It will now be shown that it is not anthroposophy that is amateurish, but philosophy.

At present, philosophy is a wholly unsuitable instrument for elevating oneself to anthroposophy. Let us first orient ourselves in philosophy. Let us see how philosophy has developed historically. Then we want to subject the hereditary evil to a certain consideration. We want to show how philosophy today suffers from the fact that at a certain time all philosophical thinking became entangled in a spider's web, and is therefore incapable of gaining a broader perspective in relation to reality.

We must face the fact that all the history of philosophy begins with Thales. In more recent times, attempts have been made to extend philosophy backwards, that is, to go beyond Greek philosophy. People speak of Indian and Egyptian philosophy. Those who do not construct an arbitrary concept of philosophy say that an important period did indeed begin with Thales. If we ask what it is that intervenes in human evolution, what was not there before, we must say: it is conceptual thinking. It was not present before. This is characteristically different from everything that was there earlier. In the past, only what the seer had seen was said. In Plato, the gift of prophecy still predominates. The first conceptual thinker, whose system is no longer based on the old gift of prophecy, is Aristotle. In him we have the purely intellectual system. Everything else was preparation. The gift of living and thinking in pure concepts begins to find its most outstanding expression in Aristotle. It is no mere coincidence that Aristotle is called the “father of logic”. To the seer, logic is revealed at the same time as seeing. But to form concepts, one needed not only his logic, but also the fact that in the following period the revelations of Christianity were re-shaped into thought formations with Aristotelian logic.

This Aristotelian thinking spread both to the Arab cultural area in Asia, to Spain and to Western Europe, as well as to the south of Europe, where Christianity was influenced by Aristotelian thinking. Anyone observing the 7th to 9th centuries can see that Christian teachers, like anti-Christian elements, expressed their teachings in Aristotelian form, and this remained so until the 13th century.

We will see in a moment what the focus of Aristotelian thought is. In the middle of the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas spread the so-called Thomistic philosophy; it is based on Christian revelation and Aristotelian logic. The Christian teachings were not taught in a strictly adhered form of thought, but it was intended to show that these teachings could also be defended in Aristotelian forms of thought, against the Arabs and their students, such as Averroes, who also thought in these forms of thought. They wanted to show how one could use the correctly understood Aristotle not for Arab teachings, but for Christianity. They wanted to refute the objections of the Arab thinkers; hence the zealous study of Thomas Aquinas. At that time, Aristotle dominated all of science, including, for example, medicine.

Now we have to characterize what the earlier scholasticism had of Aristotle. The thinking at that time was quite different from today's. If you compare it with what was done at that time, you have to say: in terms of content, life was poor then. The tremendous inventions were only made later. The essential thing about that time is the strictly trained thinking. Today people laugh at the strict definitions of scholasticism. But when you compare it to today's arbitrary understanding of all concepts, then you first feel the benefit of that view that there must be an understanding of the concepts. It takes a long time to define the concepts, but then you are working on solid ground.

In order to be able to orient ourselves further, we have to go into a few of Aristotle's concepts. He was a good interpreter for Christianity, even from the point of view of anthroposophy. A few concepts should show how sharply Aristotle thought. Aristotle distinguishes knowledge according to sense and intellect. The senses perceive this rose, this person, this stone. Then the intellect enters. It breaks down into an understanding of matter and form. All things contain matter and form. These two concepts take us a long way. Aristotle sees matter and form in every single natural thing that the senses perceive: consider a wolf. It eats nothing but lambs; then it consists of the same matter as the lambs, but a wolf will never become a lamb. What makes the two different is the form. We have the form of the lamb and the wolf. He identifies the underlying form with the genus lamb and the genus wolf. Aristotle makes a clear distinction between the genus and the generic concept. When we are confronted with a flock of lambs, we form the generic concept. What our concept determines in its form is an objective thing outside us, just as if we were to imagine the prototypes of the forms spreading invisibly throughout the world, spurting out the individual genera into which the indifferent matter is poured. Everything around us is based on the generic; for Aristotle, the material is indifferent.¹

With the scholastics, Albertus Magnus, we find what underlies the external entities. The earlier scholastic distinguishes universals before things, in things and after things. Albertus Magnus says about this: the universals before the thing are the thoughts of the divine entities. There we have the genus. These thoughts have flowed into the things. When man encounters things, he forms the universals according to the thing, which is the conceptual form. In this whole description of the development of thinking, there is only talk of sensible things. He identifies the outer sense with the “sense”. Everything else that is there is a concept to him. The generic concept is not identical to the genus. The whole thing is because people had lost the ancient gift of seeing, so that a philosophy could arise.

An old sage would not have understood at all how to make distinctions in this way, because he would have said: With the gift of prophecy, one can perceive the genus. It was only when the gift of prophecy dried up that the actual science emerged. It was only when man was left to his own devices that the necessity arose to develop a thinking art. Scholasticism arose under the influence of this important principle. In ancient times, the spiritual worlds were still accessible to man. Now the scholastics could refer all the more to Aristotle, because he spoke of the gift of prophecy: Ancient reports tell us that the stars are gods, but the human intellect can no longer make anything out of them. But we have no reason to doubt it.

Scholasticism replaced what was seen with revelation. It placed what was to be taught in the once inspired word. At first, humanity must become accustomed to developing the theory of thought in relation to external things. Where would it end if it were to roam into all possible supersensible things? We want to deny ourselves that; we want to educate ourselves in the things that are around us. So says Thomas Aquinas. When objects come to us, they are given to us for the senses. Then we are compelled to form concepts of them. Behind the things, divine powers rest, which we do not dare approach. We want to educate ourselves from thing to thing. Then, by strictly adhering to the sensual, we finally come to the highest concepts. So we adhered to two things: to the revealed teaching material, which is given in the scriptures, to which thinking does not approach. It has been taken over by the seers. Furthermore, they adhered to what was being worked out in the sensory reality. With this, we only just reach the Bible and Revelation. For a time, the higher world is withdrawn from human thought. But there is no final renunciation of the supersensible worlds. When man has conquered the sensual world, he can get a presentiment of the supersensible worlds. Man can free himself from the physical body and have revelation directly. But first the intellect must be trained. When the human being forms concepts about external things, these concepts depend on the human organization in form, but not in content. In scholastic epistemology, it is never considered that something unrecognized may remain. The objective enters into knowledge; only the form in which concepts are formed depends on the organization of the human mind.

This earlier scholasticism is called realism. It believed in the reality of content. Scholasticism then became nominalistic. People have lost touch with the objective external world. They said: the mind forms concepts; they are not real. The concepts became mere names; they were only abstractions. What is to be achieved with the concept is lost. Therefore, the nominalists had to say to themselves: Sensual reality is spreading before us. We summarize it as our minds will. Nothing real corresponds to our concepts. One must guard the actual revelation against human thinking and renounce all understanding. This view reached its climax in Zuther's saying that human reason is powerless, the deaf, blind, foolish fool who should not presume to approach the teaching material.

This is an important turning point. Luther condemns Aristotle. From this point on, the suggestion that gave birth to Kantianism goes. Kant was a Wolffian until the end of the sixties, like almost all philosophers at the time. Wolff taught: Reason is able to make something out about the supernatural worlds. He distinguishes between rational and empirical science. It is possible to gain a certain amount of human knowledge. The a posteriori knowledge has only relative validity.

[Gaps and deficiencies in the transcript. For a description of Wolff's philosophy, see the lecture of March 14, 1908 in this volume.]

At first, Kant also followed in Wolff's footsteps. Hume disturbed him. Hume developed skepticism. He said that no wall should be built between a priori and a posteriori knowledge. All knowledge is knowledge of habit; there is no rational knowledge. Kant awoke from his dogmatic slumber. But he could not completely go along with it. He said: Hume is right; we gain everything from experience. Only mathematics is an exception; what it says has absolute validity. He therefore advocates two things. First, there are absolutely certain judgments a priori. Second, all knowledge must be gained from experience. But experience is governed by our judgments. We ourselves give laws to experience. Man confronts the world with his organization of thought. All experience is governed by our form of knowledge. Thus Kant linked Hume with Wolff.

Now man is ensnared in this philosophical web. Fichte, Schelling and Hegel are exceptions. Individual natural scientists also follow this path. Helmholtz says: What man has before him is spun out of his organization. What we perceive of the thing is not even an image, but only a sign. The eye makes only perceptions on the surface. Man is completely ensnared in his subjectivity. The thing in itself remains unknown. – It had to be so. Nominalism has lost the spiritual behind the surface. The human interior has been enervated. The inner working becomes purely formal. If man wants to penetrate behind reality, his inner being gives him no answer. The whole of 19th-century philosophical thinking does not find its way out of this. Hartmann, for example, does not go beyond the idea. A simple comparison can clarify this. A seal contains the name Müller. Nothing, not even the smallest material thing, can come from the brass of the seal into the sealing wax. Consequently, nothing objective can come from the seal; the name Müller must form itself out of the sealing wax. The thinker is the sealing wax. Nothing passes from the object to the thinker. And yet the name Müller is in the sealing-wax. Thus we take the content out of the objective world, and yet it is the true content that we take out. If one takes only the material, it is true: nothing passes from the seal to the stamp and vice versa. But as soon as one sees the spirit, the higher principle, which can embrace the objective and the subjective, then the spirit passes in and out into the subjective and the objective. The spirit carries everything over from objectivity into subjectivity. The ego is objective and subjective in itself. Fichte showed that. -²

The entire epistemology of the 19th century resembles a dog chasing its own tail. You end up with: I have created everything. The world is my imagination. Everything has spurted out of my inner being. I also have the right to kill everything.

Kant uses very convoluted terms. Kant says: I have destroyed knowledge to make room for faith. He has limited knowledge and established a practical faith because everything is spun out of the subjective.

Kantianism is the last result of nominalism. Today the time for it has expired. Man must train his thinking again in reality in order to form real concepts; then we can recognize the supersensible truths again. The scholastic attitude is time-bound, the spiritual had to be withdrawn from thinking for a time. Now the revealed teaching material must again become teaching material to be examined. We must again examine everything with reason. It is a light with which one can penetrate everywhere. One can investigate, understand, grasp everything. Reason is the lowest form of clairvoyance, but it is a seeing, hearing, and intelligent power. Thus we extricate ourselves from the net. Philosophy must free itself from this net and allow itself to be fertilized by logic to achieve true thinking.

• 1. See note
• 2. The rest of the lecture was only recorded by the transcriber in fragmentary notes, as the following sentences show.

Today I may begin with an experience of my own. Once I had the opportunity to visit a man in the afternoon, around two o'clock. He was lying on a daybed and at first he seemed so absorbed in his own thoughts that he didn't notice that I and another person had entered. He continues to reflect and seems to pay no attention to those around him. One can get the impression – and I ask you to put every word on the scale – that one is standing before a person who has been intensively occupied with difficult questions and problems all morning, then had lunch and is now using this time to let his soul go over what he has been working on. One can get the impression of this personality, who is covered up to his chest by a blanket, as an extremely fresh person, whose mental freshness is also expressed in the fresh color of his face. One can get the impression of a very rare human forehead, which is actually a combination of a beautiful artist's forehead and a thinker's forehead, the impression of a personality who reflects completely freshly on the great problems of humanity. This personality, who could have impressed the person who saw her in this way, had already been insane for more than three years when she offered this picture. Such moments as the one described alternated with terrible ones, but we want to hold on to this moment.

The personality was Friedrich Nietzsche, whom I had not seen before and could not see again afterward. You can appreciate that such a vision is in itself something profoundly significant from a spiritual-scientific point of view. Because the description actually contradicts the true facts, I said: One could have received this impression. One must bear in mind a peculiar phenomenon: that a contradiction arises between the inner and the outer. At that time Nietzsche no longer knew anything of his work. He did not know that he had written his writings, did not know his surroundings and much more. And yet he looked so fresh, as if imbued with a deep thought, lying on the bed, and one could have carried within oneself a strange sensation, which those who have been dealing with spiritual problems for some time will understand better, namely the sensation: How is it that this soul still hovers around this body?

A deep examination of Nietzsche's personality and his mental work can, to a certain extent, provide an answer to this question. Indeed, in Nietzsche we have a very peculiar personality before us. It will hardly be possible for anyone who somehow takes the position: either I accept or I reject – who cannot selflessly engage with what this personality was in itself. It may be that anthroposophists in particular take umbrage with my writing 'Friedrich Nietzsche, a fighter against his time'. For it is in the nature of our time that it says: Well, anyone who talks about Nietzsche like that must also be a Nietzschean. But I can say: If I had not succeeded in making this fact: to delve into a personality without considering my own experiences, then I would not speak of it today as I can and may speak of it.

There is a point of view of independent objectivity. It is as if one were the mouthpiece of the other being. In the case of Friedrich Nietzsche, this kind of consideration is also necessary for its own sake. It would probably make a strange impression on Nietzsche's personality if he could perceive today within the brain what Nietzsche's followers and opponents write. Both would then touch him in a most peculiar way. He would have a loathing for all his deeds. His words would stand before his soul: “What is the fate of all believers...; only when you have all denied me will I return to you.” And now, after we have presented the feeling that we could have received at Nietzsche's sickbed, we want to try to get an idea of Nietzsche as it appears through himself and through modern intellectual life.

Nietzsche stood at this time quite apart from many other minds. We may grasp the character of his soul best by saying that much of what was concept, representation, idea, conviction for other people became for him sensation, feeling, innermost experience. Let us call up before our minds the images of modern intellectual life over the last fifty to sixty years, which also passed before him. The materialism of the 1950s, which had adherents in almost all civilized countries, said: Nothing is real but matter and its motion. That matter takes on the form we see it in is caused by motion. In the brain, motion causes thought. We remember the time when it was said that language was a development of animal sounds. We also remember that experience and sensation were thought of as higher instincts. We remember that it was not the worst minds that formulated such thoughts. The most worthy and consistent even found a certain satisfaction in them. There was not one who would have thought: I do not see with satisfaction the rule of matter. Most said: I find the highest bliss in the thought that everything should dissolve. - Many could get intoxicated by that. We consider the fact that in this world view a system also came about, and that it reached its highest flowering through it.

And then we paint a different picture, the picture of the soul concept of such a person, who directs his gaze to the great ideals of humanity, who directs his gaze back to Buddha, Hermes, Pythagoras, Plato, who could be uplifted by the figure of Christ Jesus, the bearer of human spiritual deeds, the bearer of all that elevates the human heart. We paint for ourselves the picture of a man who could feel all this. And we realize that this man said to himself: Ah, all the Buddhas, Hermes, Pythagoras, Plato, they all only dreamed of lofty spiritual ideals, of something that could uplift them.

I am not telling you something that I have invented. I am describing the soul of many people in the 1960s. These thoughts were present in people who were overwhelmed by materialism and who considered ideals to be a mere fantasy. And a deep tragedy settled upon the souls of such people. Friedrich Nietzsche lived in such a time as a student and young professor. He educated himself in such a time. He was not related to any of the other spirits. His type was quite different from that of his contemporaries. One can understand him in spiritual scientific terms. If one takes into account that the human being consists of several bodies, then one can know that even the young Nietzsche was exceptional in the way his ether body and physical body were put together. Nietzsche had a much weaker connection between his etheric body and his physical body, so that what this personality experienced inwardly in his soul was experienced in a much more spiritual way, much more independently of the physical body, than is the case with other people.

Now it was first the student Nietzsche who was led into the world of the Greeks. For him, there were now two currents in his soul life. One we call something innate, lying in his karma. This was a deeply religious trait, that was a mood of his being, a trait that must worship something, look up to something. Religious feeling was there; and through the peculiar way in which this etheric body was connected to the physical body, what was a condition for this was present in him: an enormous receptivity for what could be read and heard between the lines of the books and between the words of the teachers, what could be felt and sensed. Thus he formed a picture of the ancient Greek world that completely filled his soul, a unique picture that lived more in feeling than in clear imagination. If we want to visualize it as it was experienced by the young Nietzsche, we have to consider him and his time.

Nietzsche had a loose connection with the materialism of his time. He could understand it, but this materialism was something that hardly touched him. Since his etheric body was only slightly connected to the physical body, the materialistic time touched him only as a floating figure is touched by the hem of the dress barely touching the ground. Only one thing was present in him as a dark feeling, the feeling of the deep dissatisfaction of such a world view. The feeling that a person who has such a world view faces the bleakness, the emptiness of life; that was what touched his soul like a faint hint. Above that arose what lived in his soul as an attitude toward Greek culture. We understand this when we learn to comprehend what lived in his soul. This image was not one in which sharp words could be chosen. We will try to present it as it can reveal itself to us through spiritual science.

The spiritual scientist looks into an ancient human development, of which history no longer knows anything. Only clairvoyance can illuminate these times, when wisdom was very different from later times, when people who were ripe for it were initiated into the mysteries and through the initiates were brought to an understanding of human development. If we want to get an idea of the lower mysteries, we have to imagine a special process. This initiation or teaching did not take place as it does today. Learning consisted of something quite different. Let us assume that the thought, which man today expresses so dryly, that spiritual beings descended into the material, but that the material ascended and developed until it became the present human being, that this thought, which is so sober, was presented in an important image at that time. One could literally see the descent of the spirit and the ascent of the material. This took place literally; and what the student saw there was wisdom to him; it was science to him, but not expressed in concepts, but tangible in intuition. There was something else as well. The picture the student saw was such that he sat before it with great, pious feelings. He received wisdom and religion at the same time. Besides, the whole picture was beautiful. It was true, genuine art. The student was surrounded by art, wisdom and religion combined into one.

It is rooted in the course of human development that what was united was separated: art, science and religion. For there could have been no progress in human development if people had kept all this united. In order for each to be perfected in the individual, what had previously been united had to be separated: science, art and religion, in order to be able to flow together at a higher level of perfection later on. What now presents itself in sharp contours, think of it as shrouded in a veil so that one merges into the other. And think that in Greek cultural life an echo of the ancient development of humanity is being lived out and only a dark inkling, a feeling of it, remains in Greek cultural life.

So you have the feeling that this was alive in young Nietzsche; that was the fundamental sound of his soul. The dullness of sensual existence is suffering; to endure it, art, science and religion are given to us. To spread salvation over this suffering is the basic mood of his soul. The image of Greek art increasingly came into his field of vision. Art became a great means for him to endure life in the sensual. And so he grew up. He was in this frame of mind when he graduated from high school. As is often the case with such natures, he was able to acquire with great ease what others can only acquire with difficulty. It was easy for Nietzsche to acquire the external tools of the philologist and thus bring order into his basic mood. Then came the time when he perfected himself more and more. Now we see how gradually an inkling of the ancient spiritual connection of the various currents of humanity dawns on him. He sensed this connection as an indefinite darkness. He sensed a higher power that ruled in the individual personalities. When he immersed himself in the real Greek way of thinking, in the thoughts of Thales, Anaxagoras and Heraclitus, a remarkable idea formed in him that distinguishes him so much from others. He himself once said: When I immerse myself in Greek philosophy, I cannot do it like others, like others do it; that is only a means for me. Now he is developing what distinguishes him so much from other thinkers. We can best make this clear to ourselves by means of an example. Let us take Thales. An ordinary scholar takes up the teachings of Thales, but for him Thales is more or less a historical example. He studies the spirit of the time in him. For Nietzsche, all the thoughts of this philosopher are only an approach, only a way to the soul of Thales himself; Thales stands before him in the flesh, vividly. He forms a friendship with him, he can associate with him, he has a purely personal relationship of friendship with him. Every figure becomes real for Nietzsche, is truly related to him. Look at what he wrote, look at that essay: “Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks,” 1872/73, and you will find it there. He is there to make friends through philosophy with those he describes. But when you enter into such intimate relationships, it means something completely different for the heart and soul than our dry science. Just think how dull a learned history is! It can only be a learned hypothesis.

Love, suffering and pain, the whole range of the soul's emotions, can only be experienced by ordinary people in relation to the people who surround us in everyday life. Everything from the deepest pain to the highest bliss, the whole gamut of feelings, could be experienced by Nietzsche in relation to the souls that arose for him from the gray depths of the mind. The beings to whom he felt drawn lived in completely different realms than his daily environment. What ordinary people feel in everyday life takes place in Nietzsche in relation to his friends, who have arisen for him out of the spiritual world. Thus, a spiritual world was available to him in which he felt suffering, joy and love. He was always somewhat floating above reality, the world of the senses. This is the great difference that distinguishes him from the other people of his time.

And now let us see how this life was shaped! Above all, we see his great ease of comprehension. He had not yet completed his doctorate when the University of Basel asked his teacher Ritschl, the great philologist, whether he could recommend a student for a professorship. He recommended Nietzsche, and when, in view of Nietzsche's youth, it was asked whether he was really suitable, Ritschl wrote: “Nietzsche will be able to do anything he wants.” So the young scholar became a professor in Basel. He was appointed doctor when he was already a professor, and without an exam, because the gentlemen before whom he was to take the exam said: “But, colleague, we can't examine you.” These things go their easy course, floating above reality, quite understandably.

Then a twofold event happens for him. He gets to know the soul content of a person who has already died and of a living person. He gets to know a soul in Schopenhauer, which he cannot contemplate like a human being whose philosophical system he looks at and admires, and whose teachings he would swear by, but he has a feeling towards him as if he would like to say to him, “Father!” And he gets to know Richard Wagner, who had remarkable experiences of the soul that touched on what Nietzsche felt when contemplating Greek culture. We need only sketch out a few lines to describe Richard Wagner. We need only recall that Richard Wagner said: There must have been a time when all the arts were united. He himself felt the great ideal of humanity to bring the arts together again as an artist, to unite them and to cast a religious, consecrating mood over them. Now we think of how something in Nietzsche came to life that conjured up in his soul that original state of humanity when the arts were still united. We think of his words: “If you want to describe the true human being, you must take into account that something higher lives in every human being. If you want to describe true humanity, you must go to the figures that reach beyond sensuality.” He was always a little suspended over the reality of the sensual world. In his search for that higher, for the figures that reach beyond sensuality, he was led to the “superman,” to the spirit-filled superman. Thus he created his pure, serene, mythical figures.

In this sense, he was led to the higher language, to music, to the language of the orchestra, which could become the expression of the soul. Let us recall what lived in Richard Wagner's soul: Shakespearean and Beethovenian figures stood before him. In Shakespeare, he saw acting figures. He saw figures whose actions take place when they have felt soul, when they have had feelings of pain and suffering and feelings of supreme bliss. In Shakespeare's dramas, according to Richard Wagner, the result of the soul experiences of the characters appears. This is a drama that seeks solely to externalize the inner life. And in Shakespeare, one can sense the experiences of the soul of the characters. Alongside this, the image of Beethoven the symphonist appeared to him. In the symphony, Wagner saw the reproduction of what lives in the soul, in the whole gamut of feelings between suffering and bliss. In the symphony, the soul's feelings are given full rein, but do not become action, do not enter the room. Once, in the conclusion of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, this inner experience in Beethoven's music seemed to him to want to externalize itself with all its might. Wagner wants to step in at this point. He wants to continue Beethoven in a certain sense. He wants to bring about a synthesis, a unification between Shakespeare's and Beethoven's art. Something of that primeval human culture was alive in Wagner. What lived in him as an impulse must have appeared to Nietzsche as the realization of his most significant dreams.

Nietzsche had a different relationship with Schopenhauer. He read Schopenhauer with fervor. As with every school, he also had reservations about Schopenhauer. All the more was the feeling in him to call him “father.” He had a deep relationship with him. Schopenhauer was not as heavy for him as Richard Wagner. He feels the purifying, ennobling influence of Schopenhauer. Thus we see the genesis of his work “Schopenhauer as Educator.” All this arose from the feeling of saying “father” to him. One cannot imagine a picture that could create a more vivid bond between the living and the dead.

But there was something in Nietzsche's question that Schopenhauer did not answer. The question of cultural connections always came to his mind. He had intuitively grasped the original state of humanity, in which great individual spirits, the initiates, taught and led men in the mysteries. Thus he arrived at the concept of the “superman,” who, he believed, must necessarily arise out of the history of natural evolution. That is his concept of the superman, as the sentence shows: “By raising itself to the great human being, nature fulfills its highest goal, the great personality.” Thus, for him, nature and man are linked together. And now everything he experiences becomes something other than theory. It becomes a very personal emotional experience. It becomes something in which his pain, his joy, his desire for action glows. What he says is less important than that what he says points to what was glowing in his heart. And from the fading away of what he experiences in his soul, his first significant work emerges: 'The Birth of Tragedy'. There he almost falls on how Greek culture developed from ancient Greece, from the state of the united arts. And one may say: here something of the deep truth is touched upon. He knows nothing of that primeval culture which one gets to know through spiritual science. He only senses it. He believes that the first beginnings of art would have played themselves out in grotesque, paradoxical forms; that human beings would have indulged in wild, grotesque figures. And he describes it as if it had taken place in an instinctive state, whereas the art of the mysteries was the highest expression of the spiritual. As man stood in the mysteries, Nietzsche felt as if man had made himself a work of art, as if he had imitated the rhythm of the stars, the world event in dance, as if he had wanted to express the law of the world. But Nietzsche considered all this to be instinctive feeling. He did not know that the laws of the world were given to people in the purest and most noble symbolic forms by initiates in the mysteries. That is why all this has such a wild expression in Nietzsche. But it is an inkling of the actual.

But how does Nietzsche view later tragedy? He said that it was all an expression and fruit of a later time; that man had already fallen out of touch with the divine; that he no longer imitated the laws of the world in his dance; he only imitated it in pictures. He saw in it a serene image of the original, but not the original itself. Thus, already in Sophocles we have an Apollonian art that expressed the original in the static image. [Gaps in the transcript.] And through Richard Wagner, Nietzsche was led back into the old Dionysian element. You see how the conclusion of his writing “The Birth of Tragedy” is a mixture of longing, presentiment, and confusion.

But now, more and more, he was confronted with external reality. He became acquainted with what modern culture had put in the place of the old. What he had been unable to recognize in the first period of his life, what modern materialism had produced, he now became acquainted with. And from the mood that I described, that many of the noblest minds found almost a blessing in materialism, he now got to know something in his way. Now all ideals passed from his view. He once said that all these old ideals were 'put on ice' for him. Now they appeared to him as a legitimate evil, arising from human weakness. The writing of “Human, All Too Human” began.

Now comes the second period of his life. He experienced the materialistic world view in such a way that, in his own way, he had to immerse himself in it. It was his fate that he had to lock up everything he wanted to think in his soul. And just from this world view, from Darwinism, something like a release dawned on him, which in turn led him out of materialism. He looked at the development of humanity in a Darwinian way. He said to himself: Man has developed out of animality. But he also drew the consequences of this view. He had to draw them because he wanted to see clearly in relation to materialism. Because he had to live with it. So he came to the conclusion: If I look at the animal forms, I see in them the remains of an earlier culture. If I look at man, I must say that he contains as a possibility the state of perfection of the future. I may call the ape a bridge between man and animal. So what is man? A bridge between the animal and the superhuman. Thus the superhuman slumbers in man. Nietzsche felt, could not help feeling, what it means to live in such a way that what can become appears. That was the lyrical mood of his “Zarathustra”, in the Song of the Superhuman, the song that describes the future. Feeling bound him to this thought; feeling was what filled him.

And now we see how another thought is linked to this. All lyrical moods resonate in “Zarathustra”. But Nietzsche had no such points of reference as we have in Theosophy. That did not exist for him. The idea of reincarnation did not enter his field of vision, the idea that the “superman” lives in man as a higher divine self in the human body. We see the “superman” recurring, so that we see the consoling ascending line of development, not the repetition of the same. Nietzsche knew nothing of this. Yet there is a mysterious connection between what he said and our spiritual-scientific view. For Nietzsche, the idea of the eternal return of the same was now linked to the idea of the superman. The idea presented itself in a strange way and revealed itself to him in such a way that all things had already existed countless times. This thought was Nietzsche's true, very own thought. How you all think and feel, you have thought and felt countless times, and so you will think and feel countless times. This thought now combined with that of the superman. He had to feel his way into both thoughts.

Now imagine Nietzsche's organism, think of the loosening of the etheric body, which was always ready to separate from the physical body. Imagine a man who takes the thoughts he forms terribly seriously, and imagine his mood: as I am, as I feel, so will I be and feel forever. And now consider how he felt the loosening of his etheric body. He felt it in such a way that for a hundred days of the year he had the most terrible headaches. Then you can understand how this came to life in his soul: this was there countless times, it will return countless times. On the one hand, we feel comforted by the thought of the superhuman, on the other hand, we feel desolate at the thought of the eternal return of the same. And we understand moods like this: “Happy the man who still has a home!” We feel much of what is connected with the feeling of home. We feel something of the idiosyncrasy of Friedrich Nietzsche that is connected with the fate of the world view of the 19th century. He had to feel the feeling of homelessness. It is a testimony to how the world views of their time live in a deeply feeling soul, and how longing arises in it for a spiritual home.

Thus we see how it is only through Theosophy that it becomes possible to arrive at a synthesis of wisdom, art and religion, which are to be reunited into a great culture through spiritual science. Imagine the idea of the eternal return of the same developed further, so that it means reincarnation, only in this way does the thought acquire its true content, and you are filled with the hope that the union of wisdom, art and religion will arise anew. It is not the return of the same, but a constant perfecting.

We may say that a great question appears to us in Nietzsche's life, the question: How is it possible for a truly deep soul to live in the materialistic world view? In Nietzsche's soul, we have before us a soul that was unable to find the answers to the anxious questions of our culture. It lacked what we find through the anthroposophical worldview. And let us imagine another soul that has the opportunity to find these answers through anthroposophy, which gives us answers to the questions that the deepest souls must feel. Nietzsche posed these questions, but could not answer them. Longing filled him, and this longing destroyed him. He is proof that the great problems posed by the spirit must be answered by anthroposophy. The answer to longing is the remedy for Nietzsche's cry. And this remedy lies in anthroposophy. Longing was the power of Nietzsche's soul, which remained so alive that it maintained the exterior of this personality as an imprint of inner aliveness. It was as if, beyond the death of the spirit, the soul wanted to remain with the body in order to catch something of the answers that Nietzsche could not reach, that he longed for and that ultimately destroyed him. From Nietzsche's soul we can feel the necessity of anthroposophy. Let us imagine him as the great questioner, as the questioner of the questions of humanity, the answers to which determine the necessity of an anthroposophical spiritual science. ON THE MISSION OF SAVONAROLA Berlin, October 27, 1908

The word 'mission' is perhaps not quite the right one to use when considering this unique phenomenon at the end of the 15th century. And there is perhaps something else associated with the personality of Savonarola that suggests to us that it would be much more important than defining the mission of Savonarola. This other thing would be for those of us who belong to the anthroposophical worldview and world movement to familiarize ourselves with the essence of Savonarola, because there are many lessons to be learned from his activities and character. In a figure like Savonarola, we can see at the dawn of the modern era the point to which the development of Christianity had come by the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century. And we can see precisely what kind of activity is not effective. We can see what kind of activity is needed to further human development.

It might also be necessary to show how certain one-sided currents are precisely unsuitable for strengthening and introducing Christianity. We will not take long, but just a few detailed strokes to visualize the effectiveness of Savonarola. And beside him will stand out another figure, that of a very different Dominican friar, a friar who painted the monastery from which Savonarola's earnest words had been silenced with wonderful, delicate paintings: Fra Angelico da Fiesole. He is there at the dawn of this new era, as if to show that Christianity at that time expressed itself in two forms. One could carry within oneself the whole wonderful vision of the Christian figures and events, as they live in the hearts of men. One could also, in a simple way, without worrying about what was going on outwardly, without worrying about what the Church was doing, what the popes were doing, just paint what one experienced as Christianity within oneself. And that is then proof of what Christianity could become in a soul at that time. That is one way, but the other way is – and this is the way of Savonarola – to live Christianity in that period of time. If you were a person like Savonarola, with a certain amount of certainty, a strong will and a certain clarity of mind, you could do what he did: believe at a relatively young age that you could live a truly Christian life within an order like that, where the true rules of the order were to be followed. If you also had what Savonarola had, the deepest moral convictions, you also looked at what was going on in the world. You could compare Christianity with what was going on in Rome, with the truly worldly life of the Pope, the Cardinals, or how it was expressed in the magnificent creations of Michelangelo! One could observe how in all Catholic churches masses were read in the strictest worship, and how people felt that they could not live without this worship. But one could also see that those who were under the gown and stole and chasuble indulged in a liberality in their civil life that what is striven for today as liberality is child's play by comparison. One could see that what is wanted today from a certain side and what is striven for as a tendency is realized up to the highest steps of the altar.

And one could combine an ardent belief in the higher worlds with an absolutely democratic sense: the rule of God and no human ruler! That was one of Savonarola's heartfelt desires. One could admire the Medicis for all they had done in Italy, for all they had brought Italy, but one could also, as Savonarola did, regard the great Medici, Lorenzo de' Medici, as a tyrant.

You could be Lorenzo de' Medici and think about having a quarrelsome Dominican preach as you wished. Lorenzo de' Medici was a man of noble thoughts. He could grasp various things, for one must look at things from two sides. He had invited Savonarola to Florence, and from the very beginning Savonarola went against the grain of Lorenzo as his patron. And when Savonarola became prior of the monastery, he did not even comply with the custom of paying a visit of thanks to Lorenzo. When this was pointed out to him, and also that Lorenzo had summoned him to Florence after all, he said: “Do you believe that it was Lorenzo de' Medici who summoned Savonarola to Florence? No, it was God who summoned Savonarola to this monastery in Florence!”

But Lorenzo, as a nobleman, donated many things to the monastery, and one could believe that one could tame Savonarola somewhat by giving to the monastery. But he gave away all these gifts and declared that the Dominicans were there to keep the vow of poverty and not to collect riches.

Who were Savonarola's enemies, really? All those who had established the configuration, the domination on the physical plane. Nothing deterred Savonarola. He went straight ahead. He said: There is a Christianity. In its true form, it is unknown to people. The church has distorted it. It must disappear, and in its place must arise new organizations, in which will be shown how the true Christian spirit can shape the outer reality. He preached these sentences over and over again. At first he preached with great difficulty, for at first he could only force the words out with an effort. But he became an orator, whose following grew larger and larger, whose oratorical talents increased more and more.

The ruling powers were initially liberal; they did not want to do anything against him. An Augustinian friar was sent to deliver a speech that would sweep away Savonarola's power. And one day an Augustinian friar spoke on the subject: “It does not behoove us to know the day and hour when the divine creator intervenes in the world!” The Augustinian monk spoke with flaming words, and one would like to say, knowing the currents that have flooded through Christian life: the whole confession of Dominicanism stood against Augustinianism. And Savonarola prepared for battle and spoke on the same theme: “It behooves us well to know that things are not as they are. It behoves us to change them and then to know when the day and hour will come!” The people of Florence cheered him as they had cheered the Augustinian monk. He was considered dangerous not only in Florence, but also in Rome and throughout Italy. After tremendous torture and falsified records, he was sentenced to death by fire.

That was Savonarola, who lived at the same time as the other Dominican monk, who painted a Christianity that hardly existed in the physical world. And if we recall a word spoken by a remarkable man, what it means for Savonarola: Jacob Burckhardt, the famous historian of the Renaissance, formed the opinion that at that time the development of life in Italy had reached such a point that one was on the verge of secularizing the church, that is, of making the church a worldly organization, we see that Savonarola represented the eternal conscience of Christianity.

Why was it that Savonarola, who stood up for Christianity with such fire, remained ineffective after all? Because he is an historical figure. This was the reason: that at this dawn of the New Era and at this dusk of the Church, when Savonarola represented the conscience of Christianity, something had to be brought forward against the external institutions of Christianity. The test has been passed that even a figure like Savonarola was not needed to restore Christianity. Those striving in spiritual science should learn from this that something else is needed, something objective, something that makes it possible to tap the deep sources of esoteric Christianity. Such an instrument can only be Anthroposophy. The figure of Savonarola is like a distant sign shining in the future, indicating that anthroposophists should teach not by the means by which one could believe in those days to rediscover Christianity, but by the means of anthroposophical spiritual science. As an anthroposophist, one can learn a great deal from this figure.

The relationship between anthroposophy and philosophy has already been discussed, albeit only briefly. Today we want to talk about fairly elementary aspects of so-called formal logic. Despite the elementary nature of our deliberations today, it may not be without use to delve into a philosophical chapter between our forays into higher worlds. It is not meant that such a lecture could directly offer anything for penetrating into the higher worlds. A logical consideration can do this no more than formal logic can enrich experience in the sensory realm. For example, someone who has never seen a whale cannot be convinced that they exist. He must make the observation himself. But it is precisely the knowledge of borderline areas that will be useful to anthroposophy, just as logic was useful to scholastics. The philosophers of the Middle Ages, who today are somewhat contemptuously grouped together under the name of scholastics, did not regard logic as an end in itself either; it did not serve to learn anything substantial. The subject-matter of teaching was either the observation of the senses or revelation, which is obtained through divine grace. But although, in the opinion of the scholastics, logic was quite powerless to enrich experience, they nevertheless regarded it as an important instrument of defense. So it should be an instrument of defense for us as well.

A distinction is made between material and formal logic. Logic as such cannot grasp anything material or substantial as its object. Concepts such as time, number, and God give a content that does not arise through logical conclusions. On the other hand, the form of thinking is the task of logic; it brings order to thoughts, it teaches how we must connect concepts that lead to correct conclusions. It is fair to say that logic was more highly valued in the past than it is today. In grammar schools, philosophy, logic and psychology used to be taught together. The aim of the teaching was to lead young people to disciplined, orderly thinking; propaedeutics means preparation. Today, however, people are trying to eliminate this kind of preparation and incorporate it into the study of silence because logic is no longer sufficiently respected. Thinking, they say, is innate in man; so why teach thinking in a special subject? But it is precisely in our time that it is very necessary to reflect on ourselves and to devote more attention to formal logic.

Aristotle is considered the founder of formal logic. And what Aristotle has done for logic has always been recognized, even by Kant, who says that formal logic has not progressed much since Aristotle. More recent thinkers have sought to add to it. We do not want to examine today whether or not such additions were necessary and justified. We just have to recognize the scope of logic here.

Anthroposophists are often reproached for not being logical. This is very often because the person making the reproach does not know what logical thinking is and what the laws of logical thinking are. Logic is the science of the correct, harmonious connection of our concepts. It comprises the laws by which we must regulate our thoughts in order to have within us a mirror reflecting the right relationships of reality.

We must first realize what a concept is. The fact that people are so little aware of what a concept is is due to the lack of study of logic on the part of the learned. When we encounter an object, the first thing that happens is sensation. We notice a color, a taste or a smell, and this fact, which takes place between man and object, we must first consider as characterized by sensation. What is in the statement: something is warm, cold and so on, is a sensation. But we actually do not have this pure sensation in ordinary life. When we look at a red rose, we not only perceive the red color; when we interact with objects, we always perceive a group of sensations at once. We call the combination of sensations “red, scent, extension, form” a “rose.” We do not actually perceive individual sensations, only groups of sensations. Such a group can be called a “perception”.

In formal logic, one must clearly distinguish between perception and sensation. Perception and sensation are two entirely different things. Perception is the first thing we encounter; it must first be dissected in order to have a sensation. However, that which gives us a mental image is not the only thing. The rose, for example, makes an impression on us: red, scent, shape, expanse. When we turn away from the rose, we retain something in our soul, such as a faded remnant of the red, the scent, the expanse, and so on. This faded remnant is the idea. One should not confuse perception and idea. The idea of a thing is where the thing is no longer present. The idea is already a memory image of the perception.

But we still have not come to the concept. We get the idea by exposing ourselves to the impressions of the outside world. We then retain the idea as an image. Most people do not get beyond the idea in the course of their lives, they do not penetrate to the actual concept. What a concept is and how it relates to the idea is best shown by an example from mathematics. Take the circle. If we take a boat out to sea, until we finally see nothing but the sea and the sky, we can perceive the horizon as a circle when it is very calm. If we then close our eyes, we retain the idea of the circle from this perception as a memory image. To arrive at the concept of the circle, we have to take a different path. We must not seek an external cause for the idea, but we construct in our minds all the points of a surface that are equidistant from a certain fixed point; if we repeat this countless times and connect these points with a line in our minds, the image of a circle is built up in our minds. We can also illustrate this mental image with chalk on the blackboard. If we now visualize this image of the circle, which has been created not by external impressions but by internal construction, and compare it with the image of the sea surface and the horizon that presented itself to our external perception, we can find that the internally constructed circle corresponds exactly to the image of external perception.

If people really think logically, in the strict logical sense, they do something other than perceive externally and then visualize what they have perceived; this is only an idea. In logical thinking, however, every thought must be constructed inwardly, it must be created similarly to what I have just explained using the example of the circle. Only then does man approach external reality with this inner mental image and find harmony between the inner picture and external reality. The representation is connected with external perception, the concept has been created by inner construction. Men who really thought logically have always constructed inwardly in this way. Thus Kepler, when he formulated his laws, constructed them inwardly, and then found them in harmony with external reality.

The concept is therefore nothing other than a mental image; it has its genesis, its origin in thought. An external illustration is only a crutch, an aid to make the concept clear. The concept is not gained through external perception; it initially lives only in pure inwardness.

In its thinking, our present-day intellectual culture has not yet gone beyond mere imagining, except in mathematics. For the spiritual researcher, it is sometimes grotesque to see how little people have progressed beyond mere imagining. Most people believe that the concept comes from the imagination and is only paler, less substantial than the latter. They believe, for example, that they can arrive at the concept of a horse by successively seeing large, small, brown, white and black horses appear in their perception; and now I take - so people continue - from the perception of these different horses, what is common to all horses and omit what is separate, and so I gain the concept of the horse. But one only gets an abstract idea, and one never arrives at the concept of the horse in the strict sense of the word. Nor does one arrive at a concept of the triangle by taking all kinds of triangles, taking what is common to them and omitting what separates them. One only arrives at a concept of the triangle by inwardly constructing the figure of three intersecting lines. With this inwardly constructed concept we approach the outer triangle and find it harmonizing with the inwardly constructed image.

Only in relation to mathematical things can people in today's culture rise to the concept. For example, one proves by inner construction that the sum of the angles in the triangle is equal to one hundred and eighty degrees. But if someone starts to construct concepts of other things inwardly, a large proportion of our philosophers do not recognize it at all. Goethe created the concepts of the “primordial plant” and the “primordial animal” by inward construction; not only was the different left out, the same was retained - as stated earlier in the example of the horse. The primordial plant and the primordial animal are such inward mental constructions. But how few recognize this today. Only when one can build up the concept of the horse, the plant, the triangle, and so on, through inner construction, and when this coincides with outer perception, only then does one arrive at the concept of a thing. Most people today hardly know what is meant when one speaks of conceptual thinking.

Let us not take mathematical concepts, and let us not take Goethe's Organik, where he created concepts in a truly magnificent way, but let us take the concept of virtue. One can indeed have a pale general idea of virtue. But if you want to arrive at a concept of virtue, then you have to construct it inwardly, and you have to take the concept of individuality to help you. You have to construct the concept of virtue as you construct the concept of a circle. It takes some effort to do this, and various elements have to be brought together, but it is just as possible as constructing mathematical concepts. Moral philosophers have always tried to give a sensuality-free concept of virtue. Some time ago, there was a philosopher who could not imagine a sensuality-free concept of virtue and thought those who claimed such a thing were fantasists. He explained that when he thinks of virtue, he imagines virtue as a beautiful woman. Thus, he still introduced sensuality into the non-sensual concept. And because he could not imagine a sensuality-free concept of virtue, he also denied this to others.

If you delve into Herbart's ethics, you will find that for him, “goodwill” and “freedom”, these ethical concepts, are not formed by taking what is common and omitting what is separate. Instead, he says, for example, that goodwill encompasses the relationship between one's own will impulses and the imagined will impulses of another person. He thus gives a pure definition. In this way, one could construct the whole of morality through pure concepts, as in mathematics, and as Goethe attempted with his organic system. The general idea of virtue must not be confused with the concept of virtue. People arrive at the concept only gradually, through an inner process.

By setting the concept of the concept before us, we distance ourselves from all arbitrariness of imagining. To do this, we must first consider the pure course of imagining and the pure course of conceptualizing. I need not say that when a person imagines a triangle, he can only imagine this or that triangle. We must now take into account the way in which mere perceptions are connected and the way in which pure concepts are connected. What governs our perceptual life? When we have the perception of a rose, the perception of a person who has given us a rose can arise quite spontaneously. This may be followed by the perception of a blue dress that the person in question was wearing, and so on. Such connections are called: association of perceptions. But this is only one way in which people link ideas together. It occurs most purely where the human being completely abandons himself to the life of ideas. But it is also possible to string ideas together according to other laws. This can be shown by an example: a boy sits in the forest under tall trees. A person comes along and admires the good-quality timber. “Good morning, carpenter,” says the bright boy. Another comes along and admires the bark. “Good morning, tanner,” says the bright lad. A third passes by and marvels at the magnificent growth of the trees. “Good morning, painter,” says the boy. So here three people see the same thing – the trees – and each of these three people has different ideas, but these are different for the carpenter, the tanner and the painter. They are different combinations of ideas, not mere associations. This is because, according to his inner element, his soul structure, man connects this or that external idea with another, not only externally surrendering himself to the ideas. Here man allows the power that rises from his inner being to work. This is called: apperception is at work in him. Apperception and association are the forces that link mere ideas through external or subjective inner motives. Both apperception and association work in the mere life of ideas. It is quite different in the life of concepts. Where would people end up if they only relied on the subject's apperception and random association in the life of concepts? Here, people have to follow very specific laws that are independent of the association of ideas and the apperception of the subject. If we look at the mere external connection, we do not find the inner belonging of the concepts. There is an inner belonging of the concepts, and we find the lawfulness for this in formal logic.

First of all, we now have to look at the connection between two concepts. We connect the concept of the horse and that of running when we say: The horse is running. - We call such a connection of concepts a “judgment.” The point now is that the connection of concepts is carried out in such a way that only correct judgments can arise. Here we have, first of all, only a connection of two concepts, quite independently of association and apperception. When we connect two ideas through their content, we form a judgment. An association is not a judgment, because, for example, you could also connect bull and horse with each other through an association. But the connection of ideas can also happen in more complicated ways. We can add judgment to judgment and thus come to a “conclusion.” A famous old example of this is the following: All men are mortal. Caius is a man. Therefore, Caius is mortal. - Two judgments are correct in these sentences, so the third one “Caius is mortal” that follows from them is also correct. A judgment is the combination of two terms, a subject with the predicate. If two judgments are combined and a third follows from them, that is an inference. We can now develop a general scheme for this: If “Caius” is the subject \(S\) and “mortal” the predicate \(P\), then in the judgment “Caius is mortal” we have the connection of the subject \(S\) with the predicate \(P: S = P\). According to this scheme, we can form thousands of judgments. But to come to a conclusion, we still need a middle term \(M\), in our example “human”, “all humans”. So we can set up the scheme for a conclusion:

\(M = P\) All humans are mortal
\(S = M\) Caius is a human
\(S = P\) Therefore Caius is mortal.

If this conclusion is to be correct, the concepts must be connected in exactly this way; nothing must be transposed. If, for example, we form the sequence of judgments: The portrait resembles a person – The portrait is a work of art – we must not conclude: Therefore the work of art resembles a person. This latter conclusion would be false. But what is the error here? We have the schema:

\(M = P\) The portrait resembles a person
\(M = S\) The portrait is a work of art
But \(S\) is not equal to \(P\):
The work of art does not resemble a person.

We have turned the universally valid schema upside down here. It depends, then, on the form of the schema, on the manner of linking, to know: the first figure of conclusion is correct, the second is false. It is immaterial how the linking of concepts otherwise proceeds in our thoughts; it must be like the first formula in order to be correct.

We shall now see how one comes to know a certain legitimate connection in order to be able to find a number of such figures. Correct thinking proceeds according to quite definite such figures of inference; otherwise it is just wrong thinking. But things are not always as easy as in this example. Merely from the fact that the conclusions are wrong, one could often find out today, from even the most learned books, that what has been said cannot be true. Thus there are inner laws of thinking like the laws of mathematics; one could say an arithmetic of thinking. Now you can imagine the ideal of correct thinking: all concepts must be formed according to the laws of formal logic. However, formal logic has certain limits. These limits must be applied to the human mind. This would lead to correct insights and recognize the nature of fallacies. By all rules of logic, it would conform to the laws of logic if we said:

All Cretans are liars \(M = P\)
This one is a Cretan \(S = M\)
Therefore he is a liar, therefore \(S = P\)

Now the ancient logicians had already noticed that this is true for all cases, except for the case in which a Cretan himself says it. In this case, the conclusion is certainly false. For if a Cretan says, “All Cretans lie, therefore I am a liar,” it would not be true that Cretans are liars, and so he would be telling the truth; and so on.

It is similar with all fallacies, for example with the so-called crocodile conclusion: An Egyptian woman saw how her child playing by the Nile was seized by a crocodile. At the mother's request, the crocodile promises to return the child if the mother guesses what it will do now. The mother now utters: You will not give me back my child. - The crocodile replies: You may have spoken the truth or a lie, but I do not have to give the child back. Because if your speech is true, you will not get it back according to your own saying. But if it is false, then I do not return it according to our agreement. - The mother: I may have spoken the truth or spoken falsely, but you must give me back my child. Because if my speech is true, then you must give it to me according to our agreement; but if it is false, then the opposite must be true. You will give me back my child. The same applies to the conclusion that affected a teacher and a student. The teacher has taught the pupil the art of jurisprudence. The pupil is to pay the last half of the fee only after he has won his first case. After the teaching is completed, the pupil delays the beginning of the practice of law and therefore also the payment. Finally, the teacher sues him, saying to him: “Foolish youth! In any case, you must now pay. For if I win the lawsuit, you must pay according to the judgment; if you win, you must pay according to the contract, for you have won your first lawsuit. But the student: Wise teacher! Under no circumstances do I have to pay. For if the judges rule in my favor, I have nothing to pay according to the judgment; but if they rule against me, I pay nothing according to our contract.

There are countless such fallacies, which are formally quite correct. The problem is that logic can be applied to everything except itself. The moment we refer back to the subject itself, formal logic breaks down. This is a reflection of something else: when we move from the three bodies of man to the ego, everything changes. The self is the setting for logic, which, however, may only be applied to other things, not to itself. No experience can ever be made through logic, but logic can only be used to bring order to experiences.

Of course, it is not possible to cover this topic of logic as fully as one would wish in the time available. If you wanted to cover the subject exhaustively, you would have to hold a kind of course. Therefore, please take what is said here only as a few sketchy suggestions. I do not intend to proceed systematically either, but only to present some of the elementary logical truths to you, so that you may have something that you can perhaps make use of right now.

We have formed a concept of the concept itself, have heard what a judgment is and how a conclusion arises, namely through the connection of judgments. It has been said that there are certain inner laws of the technique of thinking that determine how to connect judgments if one wants to reach correct conclusions. We have given the original form of the conclusion in the first form of the conclusion using the example: All men are mortal. Caius is a man. Therefore Caius is mortal. In the major premise, “All men are mortal,” we have the first judgment; and in the minor premise, “Caius is a man,” we have a second judgment. The point now is to let a new judgment follow from the connection of these two judgments, through inner conformity to law: “Therefore Caius is mortal.” We call this last judgment the conclusion. We see what this concluding sentence is based on: we have two sentences that are given, that must be present; we know what they state. The point now is to omit the middle term from these two given sentences. The subject term of the antecedent was: “all men”, the predicate term “mortal”. In the consequent we had the subject term “Caius” and the predicate term “man”. In the final sentence, the two terms that were present in both sentences are omitted, namely the term “human”. The fact that we can form the final sentence depends on how this middle term “human” is included in the upper and lower sentences. Our scheme was: \(M = P\); \(S = M\); \(S = P\).

The fact that we are allowed to construct the conclusion in this way depends on the distribution of the concepts in the antecedents. If it were different, we would not be able to conclude as we did in the example given above: Photography resembles man (antecedent); photography is a mechanical product (subordinate clause). If we were to omit the middle term, which is contained in both sentences, then no valid conclusion could be formed here. This is because in both sentences the middle term is connected to the predicate in the same way as the subject. The middle term must be at the beginning in one case and at the end in the other; only then can we form a valid conclusion. Logic is a formal art of forming concepts. It is already evident in the arrangement of the concepts how one can arrive at valid conclusions. We must acquire as laws the way in which the concepts must be combined. We could also say that formal logic comprises the doctrine of concepts, judgments, and conclusions.

Now we will deal with judgments in a few remarks. Certain laws can be established about judgments. The laws of inference will only be understood once the tenets about the concepts and judgments have been established. So today we will first deal with the laws of judgments and concepts.

If we start with the law of concepts themselves, we can compare a concept such as “lion” with the concept of “mammal”. Both are concepts that we can form. They differ in the following ways. Think about what all falls under the concept of “mammal”. It is a large group of individual objects, for example, monkeys, lions, marsupials, and so on; that is much more than we summarize under the term “lion”, which gives us only a small part of the “mammal” concept. Thus, all concepts differ from each other in that some concepts cover a great deal and some only a small area. Here we say: The concepts differ in their scope; but they also differ in other respects. To define the concept of “lion”, many characteristics are needed, many features such as head, color, paws, teeth, and so on. All these things that are listed to get to the concept of “lion” are called the content of the concept. The concept of “mammal” has considerably fewer characteristics than the concept of “lion”. If you were to subsume animals with a certain hair color under the concept, that would no longer be correct. When you form the concept of “mammal”, you have to have as few characteristics as possible, a small content, for example, only the characteristic that it gives birth to live young and that it suckles them. Thus, in “mammal” we have a concept with little content and great scope, and in “lion” the opposite. There are therefore concepts with great scope and little content, and concepts with little scope and great content. The greater the scope of a concept, the smaller its content; the greater the content, the smaller the scope. Thus, concepts differ in content and scope.

Let us now consider judgments in a similar way. When you pronounce the judgment: All men are mortal, you have a different judgment than: The crocodile is not a mammal. The difference between the two is that in the first case something is affirmed, the concepts are brought together in such a way that they are compatible. In the second case, the concepts do not agree; they exclude each other; here we have a negative judgment. Thus, we distinguish between affirmative and negative judgment. There are still other differences with respect to judgment. All men are mortal - the judgment is such that something quite different is given with it than with: Some flowers are red. In the first case, the statement of the property applies to the entire scope of the subject concept; in the second case, other characteristics can be added. The latter judgment is called a particular judgment, in contrast to the first, a general judgment as opposed to a universal judgment. So we have affirmative and negative, universal and particular judgments. Other distinguishing features can also be found in judgments. For example, a judgment can be made in such a way that it is along the lines of “All men are mortal,” or a judgment can be pronounced in such a way as “When the sun shines, it is light.” The first judgment unites the subject and predicate concepts unconditionally, whereas the second unites the subject and predicate concepts not unconditionally, but only conditionally. It only states that the predicate term is there when the subject term is also there, nothing else. The first - All men are mortal - is an absolute or unconditional judgment, the second - When the sun shines, it is light - is a hypothetical judgment. So there are absolute or unconditional judgments and hypothetical or conditional judgments. Many more such characteristics of judgments could be cited; but the point is to show that some of the knowledge depends on these differences. One must master the technique of concepts in order to be able to draw correct conclusions.

If, for example, you take our conclusion after the first conclusion figure: All men are mortal. Caius is a man. Therefore Caius is mortal – we have a general judgment in the major premise and a singular judgment in the subordinate premise, because it is applied to only one individual, to Caius. This is a subform of the particular judgment. This arrangement of the judgments is permissible; it leads to a correct conclusion. But let us try a different arrangement. Take, for example, the proposition: Some women have red dresses – this is a particular judgment. And now let us say: Mrs. NN is a woman. – Now I must not conclude: Therefore Mrs. NN has a red dress. – I must not do that because it is impermissible to conclude according to this figure of speech when the antecedent contains a particular judgment. Only when the antecedent is a universal judgment is this figure of speech correct. Thus certain laws can be established here again. We could now also cite other properties of judgments. We have said that a judgment can be affirmative or negative. Let us take a negative judgment: The crocodile is not a mammal. This animal is a crocodile. Here we may conclude: Therefore this animal is not a mammal. The subordinate clause may thus be affirmative as well as negative.

So there is a certain technique of thinking, a law of thinking, which is formal, that is, quite independent of content. If we observe this formal technique, we think correctly, but otherwise we think incorrectly. We have to follow this technique of thinking, this law of thinking, in order to come to the right conclusions.

We now have a famous classification into analytical and synthetic judgments, which was originally proposed by Kant. Today, people who do a little philosophy can very often come across this classification. What is the difference in the Kantian sense? An analytic judgment is one in which the concept of the predicate is already contained in the concept of the subject. In a synthetic judgment, on the other hand, the concept of the subject does not necessarily contain the concept of the predicate. For example, the sentence “the body is extended” is an analytic judgment, because one cannot think of a body without also thinking of its extension. “Extended” is only one characteristic of the concept “body”. A synthetic judgment, however, is one in which the concept of the predicate is not yet contained in the concept of the subject. Subject and predicate are brought together by an external cause. For example: “The body is heavy” is, according to Kant, a synthetic judgment. For he believes that the concept of heaviness is connected with the concept of the body only through external reasons, through the law of attraction. In the synthetic judgment, therefore, the concepts are more loosely connected.

Much nonsense has been made of the concepts of analytical and synthetic judgments in recent philosophy. It always seemed to me that the most enlightening thing was the story that is said to have happened to an examinee at a German university. He came to a friend on the evening before the exam and asked him to quickly teach him a few more logic terms. But the friend realized the futility of such an undertaking and advised him to leave as he was and take his chances. The next day, the examinee was asked: Do you know what an analytical judgment is? The sad answer was: No. To which the professor replied: That's a very good answer, because I can't say either. And what is a synthetic judgment? The student, growing bolder, answered again: “I don't know.” The professor said, very pleased: “You have grasped the spirit of the matter. I congratulate you, you will get a good grade!” In a certain respect, the matter seems to me to be indeed shedding light. For the difference between the two types of judgment is indeed a floating one: it depends on what one has thought with the concept. For example, one person adds the concept of extension to the body; on the other hand, the person who adds the concept of gravity brings more to the concept from the outset than the other person. The point now is for us to recognize what is really real in the combination of concepts into judgments, or rather what the secret goal of all judgment is. Judgment is in fact purely formal at first.

But there is something connected with judging that will become clearest to you if you compare the following two judgments with each other. Let us assume – not that we are going to leave the physical plane – we have the judgment: The lion is yellow. When you form this judgment, it can be correct. But let us assume that someone imagines some concept out of his head, an animal half lion, a quarter whale and a quarter camel. He could quite well imagine it together; he calls it, let us say, “Taxu”. He could now form the judgment: This animal is beautiful. - This judgment is valid in a formal respect just as the judgment: The lion is yellow. - How do I distinguish valid judgment from invalid judgment? - Now we come to a chapter in which we have to find the criterion for the ability to form a judgment at all. You can change the judgment: “The lion is yellow” at any time, namely by saying, “A yellow lion” or “The yellow lion is”. - But we cannot say, “A beautiful taxu is”. This leads to a criterion for the validity of a judgment: one must be able to include the predicate concept in the subject concept and make an existential judgment out of it. The transformation of a formal judgment into an existential judgment by adding the predicate to the subject thus forms the criterion for validity. In the first case, [empirical] necessity unites the concept “yellow” with “lion”; in the second case, it is assumed when forming the concept that the subject has been taken from an existential judgment, whereas in fact it only arose from a formal judgment.

This is a criterion for the validity of every judgment. The formal correctness of a judgment depends only on the correct connection of the concepts, but the validity of a judgment depends on the existential judgment. A formal judgment is transformed into an existential judgment by adding the predicate to the subject; one enriches the subject. And that is precisely the goal of judging and also of concluding: the formation of such concepts that have validity. Form the judgment: A yellow lion is - then you have thought not only in terms of formal correctness, but also in terms of validity. Now you see that formal logic does indeed offer us the possibility of filling ourselves with correct concepts, so to speak, but that the formation of valid judgments is what we must have in mind; and valid judgments cannot be gained from mere formal logic. The existential judgment in our example – The yellow lion is – was gained from external sense observation. Formal logic gives us the possibility of arriving at correct concepts; with its help we can create quite fruitful concepts. But for the validity of judgments, logic will have to be fertilized by content-related aspects. People usually do not really realize what logic is at all. But if one has learned to grasp the concept correctly, independently of content, it is extremely important.

The validity and the formality of a judgment are two different things. Because people do not really understand the connection between these things, they spin out very grand theories, which some people regard as irrevocable, but which would collapse of their own accord if people were to realize the difference between “formal correctness” and “validity”. You know that there is a modern school of psychology that strictly denies the freedom of the human will. Every human action, it says, is strictly determined by previous events. There are certain methods of proving this, and these play a fateful role today in statistics, for example. For example, someone is investigating how many people in France die by suicide. That's easy, you don't even have to think about it; you just note the numbers over a period of about five years, then you examine it for another five years and so on. Then the person finds that there is a certain difference between these numbers. Now he takes larger numbers, compares twenty to twenty years and finds that here the suicide numbers are almost the same; of course not the same, because the circumstances change, - say, they increase in a certain proportion. A numerical law can be found according to which one can predict how many suicides will occur within a certain period, how many people will die by suicide in a certain period of time. Now there are people who say: if you can calculate in advance how many people would commit suicide, how can one still speak of human freedom? It is the same with estimating future crimes. According to an immutable causality - so they say - so many people would have to become criminals. It is not to be said here that the law is not valid. In a way, it is perfectly applicable in practice to certain cases. But the moment the law is applied, the worst misunderstanding will result, the essence of things or the human being will be investigated and fathomed.

Let us think of insurance companies that work with probability calculations. They arrive at very specific formulas by deducing from experience that a certain number of every hundred married twenty-year-olds will lose the other spouse to death over the course of thirty years. They check the percentage rate within a certain period of time and use it to determine the insurance premiums. It is quite practical to apply such laws in the insurance business; they are true, these laws; but they do not go to something deeper. The matter becomes strange when we take the laws more deeply! Let us imagine that someone is presented with the material of such an insurance company and finds: There is still a spouse alive who should have died by now; but this person is healthy and, according to his inner being, it does not even occur to him to die yet. Nevertheless, the insurance company still has a right to its money, because the formal laws apply very well in the world, but one cannot see into the inner being of a person through such laws. And so it is with all the laws of nature, which are only gained through the collection of external observations. One only gains a concept of the external course of events, but cannot draw conclusions about the inner essence of a thing or a person, for example, whether it is healthy or sick. In the same way, you can never gain a concept of the essence of light by observing its phenomena. You have to keep this in mind, otherwise you will come to results such as those of Exner in his last rectorate speech in Vienna.

External facts are not indicative of the inner essence of a thing. There is still a great deal of confusion in the thinking of humanity in this regard. It cannot be claimed that one can learn to think through logic; that is just as impossible as becoming a musician through the study of harmony. But logic is necessary for correct thinking, just as the study of harmony is necessary for composing for the right musician. One must know how judgments and conclusions are formed. But we must always remain in the same region if we want to make formally correct judgments. For example, the conclusion is: All men are mortal. I am a man. Therefore I am mortal - apparently no fallacy, because here we fall back on the subject. However, the laws of logic only apply if you stay on the same level. The conclusion “Therefore I am mortal” refers only to the body. However, our ego belongs to another level; it is not mortal. The conclusion: “Therefore the ego is mortal” is therefore false. Such formal errors are frequently found in the work of today's scholars.

Today we will have a brief interlude in our lectures. We will not be talking about an anthroposophical topic, but about a purely philosophical subject. As a result, this evening will have to bear the essential character of being boring. But it is perhaps good for anthroposophists to immerse themselves in such boring topics from time to time, to let them get to them – for the reason that they have to hear over and over again that the sciences, especially philosophical science cannot deal with anthroposophy because only dilettantes occupy themselves with it, people who have no desire to devote themselves to serious, rigorous research and serious, rigorous thinking. Dilettantism, amateurism, that is what is repeatedly reproached by learned philosophers of anthroposophy. Now the lecture that I gave in Stuttgart and which will be available in print here next Wednesday will be able to show you from a certain point of view how philosophy itself will first be able to find the way, the bridge to anthroposophy, when it first finds its deepening within itself. This lecture will show you that the philosophers who speak of the dilettantism of anthroposophists simply cannot build a bridge from their supposed scientific approach to anthroposophy, which they so despise, because they do not have philosophy itself, because, so to speak, they indulge in the worst dilettantism in their own field.

There is indeed a certain plight in the field of philosophy. In our present-day intellectual life, we have a fruitful, extraordinarily significant natural science. We also have to show purely scientific progress in other areas of intellectual life, in that positive science has succeeded in constructing exact instruments that can be used in various fields, measuring spaces and revealing the smallest particles. Through this and various other means at its disposal, it has succeeded in advancing external research to a point that will be greatly increased in the future by the expansion of methods. But the fact remains that this external research is confronted with a philosophical ignorance, especially on the part of those who are researchers, so that although it is possible, with the help of today's tools, to achieve great and powerful results in the external field of facts, it is not possible for those to whom are the ones who are supposed to make these discoveries, it is not possible for them to draw conclusions from these external results for the knowledge of the mind, simply because those entrusted with the external mission of the sciences are not at all at a significant level of education in terms of philosophical thinking. It is one thing to work in a laboratory or a cabinet with tools and an external method in research, and it is quite another to have educated and trained one's thinking in such a way that one can draw valid conclusions from what one can actually research, conclusions that are then able to shed light on the origins of existence.

There were times when there was less philosophical reflection and when people who were called to it had trained their thinking in a very particular way, and when external research was not as advanced as it is today. Today the opposite is the case. There is an admirable external research of facts, but an inability to think and to work through concepts philosophically in the broadest sense. Yes, we are actually dealing not only with such an inability on the part of those who are supposed to work in research, but also with a certain contempt for philosophical thinking. Today, the botanist, the physicist, the chemist do not find it necessary to worry about the most elementary foundations of thought technology. When they approach their work in the laboratory or in the cabinet, it is as if one could say: Yes, the method works by itself. Those who are a little familiar with these things know how the method works by itself, and that basically it is not such a world-shattering event when someone makes a discovery of facts that may be deeply incisive, because the method has been working for a long time. When the empirical researcher comes across what is important, a physicist or chemist comes along and wants to report something about the actual reasons underlying what he is researching, then he starts thinking and the result is that something “beautiful” comes out, because he is not trained in thinking at all. And through this untrained, this inwardly neglected thinking, which clings to the scholar as well as to the layman, we have arrived at a state where certain dogmas are authoritatively bandied about, and the layman accepts them as something absolutely certain. Whereas the original cause that these dogmas have come into being at all lies only in this neglected thinking. Certain conclusions are drawn in an incredible way.

We will take as an example such a conclusion, which has a certain historical significance. When a bell rings, people say to themselves: I hear a sound; I will investigate to see what the external, objective cause of it is. And now they find, and in this case through exact experiment, through something that can be established externally through facts, that when a sound comes from an object, then the object is in a certain way inwardly shaken, that when a bell sounds, its metal is in vibration. It can be demonstrated by exact experiment that when the bell vibrates, it also sets the air in certain vibrations, which propagate and strike my eardrum. And as a consequence of these vibrations – so the initial conclusion, quite plausible! – the tones arise. I know that a string vibrates when I have one; I can prove this in the world of facts by placing little paper tabs on the string, which come off when the string is bowed. Likewise, it can be demonstrated that the string in turn sets the air in vibration, the air that then strikes my ear and causes the sound. For sound, this is something that belongs to the world of facts, and it is not difficult to follow when it is explained. One need only put the facts together and draw conclusions from them, and then what has been said will emerge. But now the matter goes further, and there is a tremendous hitch. People say: Yes, with the ear we perceive sound, with the eye we perceive light and colors. Now it seems to them that because sound appears, so to speak, as an effect of something external, color as such must also be the effect of something external. Fine! The exterior of the color can be imagined similarly, as something that vibrates, like the air in the case of sound. And just as, let's say, a certain pitch corresponds to a certain number of vibrations, so one could say that something will also move at a certain frequency, which causes this or that color. Why should there not be something outside that vibrates, and not something that transmits these vibrations to my eye and causes the impression of light here? Of course, you cannot see or perceive through any instrument what vibrates in this case. With sound it is possible. It can be determined that something vibrates; with color it cannot be perceived. But the matter seems so obvious that it does not occur to anyone to doubt that something must also vibrate when we have a light impression, just as something vibrates when we have sound impressions. And since one cannot perceive what vibrates, one simply invents it. They say: Air is a dense substance that vibrates when sound is produced; the vibrations of light are in the “ether”. This fills the whole of space. When the sun sends us light, they say, it is because the sun's matter vibrates, and these vibrations propagate through the ether, striking the eye and creating the impression of light.

It is also very quickly forgotten that this ether was invented in a purely fantastic way, that it was speculated into existence. This has taken place historically. It is presented with great certainty. It is spoken of with absolute certainty that such an ether expands and vibrates, so much so that the public opinion is formed: Yes, this has been established by science! How often will you find this judgment today: Science has established that there is such an ether, the vibrations of which cause the light sensations in our eye. You can even read in very nice books that everything is based on such vibrations. This goes so far that the origins of human thought are sought in such vibrations of the ether: A thought is the effect of the ether on the soul. What underlies it are vibrations in the brain, vibrating ether, and so on. And so, for many people, what they have thought up, speculated on, presents itself as the real thing in the world, which cannot be doubted at all. Yet it is based on nothing more than the characterized error in reasoning. You must not confuse what is called ether here with what we call ether. We speak of something supersensible; but physics speaks of the ether as something that exists in space like another body, to which properties are attributed like those of the sensual bodies. One has the right to speak of something as a real fact only if one has established it, if it really exists outside, if one can experience it. One must not invent facts.

The ether of the modern scientist is imaginary, and that is what matters.

It is therefore an enormous fantasy at the basis of our physics, an arbitrary fiction of mysterious secrets.

Therefore, at the basis of our physics there is an enormous fantasy, an arbitrary fiction of mysterious ether vibrations, atomic and molecular vibrations, all of which cannot be assumed to be possible because nothing other than what can actually be perceived can be regarded as actual. Can any of these ether vibrations be perceived as physics assumes them to be? We would only have an epistemological justification for assuming them if we could establish them by the same means by which we perceive other things. We have no other means of establishing things than sensory perception. Can it be light or color that vibrates in the ether? Impossible, because it is supposed to produce color and light first. Can it be perceived by other senses? Impossible; it is something that is supposed to produce all perceptions, but at the same time it cannot possibly be perceived by the concept that one has put into it. It is something that looks very much like a knife that has no handle and no blade, something where, so to speak, the front part of the concept automatically consumes the back part. But now something very strange is achieved, and you can see in it a proof of how justified – however bold the expression may sound – the expression 'neglected' is in relation to philosophical thinking. People completely forget to take into account the simplest necessities of thought.

Thus, by spinning out such theories, certain people come to say that everything that appears to us is nothing more than something based on vibrating matter, vibrating ether, motion. If you would examine everything in the world, you would find that where there is color and so on, there is nothing but vibrating matter. When, for example, a light effect propagates, something does not pass from one part of space to another, nothing flows from the sun to us. In the circles concerned, one imagines: Between us and the sun is the ether, the molecules of the sun are dancing; because they dance, they make the neighboring ether particles dance; now the neighboring ones also dance; because they dance, the next ones dance in turn, and so it continues down to our eye, and when it dances in, our eye perceives light and color. So, it is said, nothing flows down; what dances remains above, it only stimulates to dance again. Only the dance propagates itself. There is nothing in the light that would flow down. - It is as if a long line of people were standing there, one of whom gives the next one a blow, which the latter in turn passes on to the third and the fourth. The first does not go away, nor does the second; the blow is passed on. This is how the dance of atoms is said to propagate. In a diligently and eruditely written brochure, which one has to acknowledge insofar as it is at the cutting edge of science, someone has achieved something nice. He wrote: It is the basis of all phenomena that nothing moves into another part of space; only the movements propagate. So if a person walks forward, it is a false idea to think that he carries his materiality over into another part of space. He takes a step, moves; the movement is generated again, and again with the next step, and so on. That is quite consistent. But now such a scholar is advised, when he takes a few steps and has to recreate himself in the next part of space because none of his body comes across, that he just doesn't forget to recreate himself, otherwise he could disappear into nothingness. Here you have an example of how things lead to consequences! People just don't draw the consequences. What happens in public is that people say to themselves: Well, a book has been published, someone has set out these theories, he has learned a lot, and that's where he concocted these things, and that's for sure! - That there could be something completely different in it, people don't think of that.

So it is a matter of the fact that the matter is really not so bad with the dilettantism of anthroposophy. It is true that those who stand on the ground of intellectual erudition can only regard anthroposophy as dilettantism; but the point is that on their own ground people have spun themselves into concepts that are their thinking habits. One can be lenient when someone is led by their thought habits to have to create themselves over and over again; but nevertheless, it must be emphasized that on this side there is no justification for speaking from their theoretical point of view down to the dilettant antism of anthroposophy, which, if it fulfills its ideal, would certainly not make such mistakes as not to try to draw the consequences from the premises and to examine whether they are absurd. From anthroposophy you can draw conclusions everywhere. The conclusions are applicable to life, while they are not there, cannot be applied to life, only apply to the study!

These are the kinds of things that should draw your attention to the errors in reasoning, which are not so easy to see for those who are not familiar with them. Today, the sense of authority is much too strong in the interaction between scholars and the public in all circles; but the sense of authority has few good foundations today. One should be able to rely on it. Not everyone is able to follow the history of science in order to be able to get from there the things that teach them about the scope of purely external research and of research into ideas. Thus it is perfectly justified to ascribe great significance to Helmholtz merely because of his invention of the ophthalmoscope. But if you follow this discovery historically, if you can follow what has already been there and how it only needed to be discovered, you will see that the methods have worked here. Today, basically, one can be a very small thinker and achieve great, powerful things if the relevant means and methods are available. This does not criticize all the work in this field, but what has been said applies.

Now I would like to give you the reasons, from a certain point of view, why all this could have happened. There are an enormous number of these reasons; but it will suffice if we keep one or two in mind. If we look back in the history of intellectual life, we find that what we call thinking technique, conceptual technique, originated in Greek intellectual life, and had its first classical representative in Aristotle. He achieved something for humanity, for scholarly humanity, that was undoubtedly extremely necessary for this scholarly humanity, but which has fallen into disrepute: purely formal logic. There is much public discussion about whether philosophical propaedeutics should be thrown out of grammar schools. It is considered superfluous, that it could be done on the side in German, but that it is not needed as a special discipline. Even to this consequence, the snobbish looking down on something like the technique of thinking has already led. This technique of thinking has been so firmly established by Aristotle that it has been able to make little progress. It does not need it. What has been taught in more recent times has only been taught because the actual concept of logic has even been lost.

Now, in order for you to see what is meant by this, I would like to give you an understanding of formal logic. Logic is the study of concepts, judgments, and conclusions. First, we need to understand a little bit about how concepts relate to judgments and conclusions. Man first of all acquires knowledge on the physical plane through perception. The first thing is sensation, but sensation as such would be, for example, an impression, a single color impression. But objects do not appear to us as such single impressions, but as combined impressions, so that we always have before us not mere single sensations, but combined ones, and these are the perceptions. When you have an object before you that you perceive, you can turn away from the object your organs of perception and it remains as an image within you. When this remains, you will be able to distinguish it very well from the object itself. You can look at this hammer, it is perceptible to you. If you turn around, an afterimage remains. We call this the representation.

It is extremely important to distinguish between perception and representation. Things would go very well if it were not for the fact that so little thinking technique is available that these things are made extremely complicated from the outset. For example, the sentence that is supported by many epistemologies today - that we have nothing but our representations - is based on error. Because one says: you do not perceive the thing in itself. Most people believe that behind what they perceive are the dancing molecules. What they perceive is only the impression on their own soul. Of course, because otherwise the soul is denied, it is strange that they first speak of the impressions on the soul and then explain the soul as something that in turn consists only of dancing atoms.

When you tackle things like this, you get the image of the brave Munchausen, who holds himself up in the air by his own hair. No distinction is made between perception and imagination. If one were to distinguish, one would no longer be tempted to commit this epistemological thoughtlessness, which lies in saying: “The world is my imagination” – apart from the fact that it is already an epistemological thoughtlessness to attempt to compare perception with imagination and then address perception as imagination. I would like someone to touch a piece of glowing iron and then to state that he is burning himself. Now he should compare the idea with the perception and then say whether it burns as much as this one. So the things are such that you only have to grasp them logically; then it becomes clear what they are. We must therefore distinguish between perception, in which we have an object in front of us, and the idea, in which this is not the case.

In the world of ideas, we distinguish again between idea in the narrower sense and concept. You can get an idea of the concept of a concept from the mathematical concept. Imagine drawing a circle on a piece of paper. This is not a circle in the mathematical sense. When you look at what you have drawn, you can form the idea of a circle, but not the concept. You have to imagine a point and then many points around it, all equidistant from the one center. Then you have the concept of a circle. With this mental construction, it is correct; what is drawn, what consists of many small chalk mountains, does not match at all. One chalk mountain is further away from the center than the other.

So when you talk about concept and idea, you have to make the distinction that the idea is gained from external objects, but that the concept arises through internal mental construction. However, you can read in countless psychology books today that the concept arises only from the fact that we abstract from this or that, what confronts us in the outside world. We believe that in the external world we only encounter white, black, brown, yellow horses and from this we are supposed to form the concept of the horse. This is how logic describes it: we omit what is different; first the white, black and so on color, then what is otherwise different and again different and finally something blurry remains; this is called the concept of “horse”. We have abstracted. This, it is thought, is how concepts are formed.

Those who describe the matter in this way forget that the actual nature of the concept for today's humanity can only be truly grasped in the mathematical concept, because this shows first what is constructed internally and then found in the external world. The concept of a circle cannot be formed by going through various circles, green, blue, large and small, and then omitting everything that is not common, and then forming an abstraction. The concept is formed from the inside out. One must form the thought-construction. Today, people are just not ready to form the concept of the horse in this way. Goethe endeavored to form such inner constructions for higher regions of natural existence as well. It is significant that he seeks to ascend from representation to concept. Anyone who understands the matter knows that one does not arrive at the concept of the horse by leaving out the differences and keeping what remains. The concept is not formed in this way, but rather through internal construction, like the concept of a circle, only not so simply. What I mentioned in yesterday's lecture about the wolf that eats lambs all its life and yet does not become a lamb, occurs here. If you have the concept of the wolf in this way, you have what Aristotle calls the form of the wolf. The matter of the wolf is not important. Even if it eats nothing but lambs, it will not become a lamb. If one looks only at the matter, one would have to say that if it consumes nothing but lambs, it should actually become a lamb. It does not become a lamb because what matters is how it organizes the matter, and that is what lives in it as the “form” and what one can construct in the pure concept.

When we connect concepts or ideas, judgments arise. If we connect the idea “horse” with the idea “black” to “the horse is black,” we have a judgment. The connection of concepts thus forms judgments. Now it is a matter of the fact that this formation of judgments is absolutely connected with the formal concept technique that can be learned and that teaches how to connect valid concepts with each other, thus forming judgments. The study of this is a chapter of formal logic. We shall see how what I have discussed is something that belongs to formal logic. Now formal logic is that which discusses the inner activity of thinking according to its laws, so to speak the natural history of thinking, which provides us with the possibility of drawing valid judgments, valid conclusions.

When we come to the formation of judgments here, we must again find that more recent thinking has fallen into a kind of mousetrap. For at the door of more recent thinking stands Kant, and he is one of the greatest authorities. Right at the beginning of Kant's works, we find judgments in contrast to Aristotle. Today we want to point out how errors in reasoning are made. Right at the beginning of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, we find the discussion of analytical and synthetic judgments. What are analytical judgments supposed to be? They are supposed to be where one concept is strung on to another in such a way that the predicate concept is already contained in the subject concept and one only has to extract it. Kant says: If I think the concept of the body and say that the body is extended, then this is an analytical judgment; for no one can think the concept of the body without thinking the body extended. He only separates the concept of the predicate from the subject. Thus, an analytical judgment is one that is formed by taking the concept of the predicate out of the subject concept. A synthetic judgment, on the other hand, is a judgment in which the concept of the predicate is not yet so wrapped up in the concept of the subject that one can simply unwrap it. When someone thinks the concept of the body, they do not think the concept of heaviness along with it. So when the concept of heaviness is added to that of the body, one has a synthetic judgment. This is a judgment that not only provides explanations but would also enrich our world of thought.

Now, however, you will be able to see that this difference between analytical and synthetic judgments is not a logical one at all. For whether someone already thinks the predicate concept when the subject concept arises depends on how far he has progressed. For example, if someone imagines the body in such a way that it is not heavy, then the concept “heavy” is foreign to him in relation to the body; but anyone who, through his mental and other work, has already brought himself to think of heaviness in connection with the body, also needs only to unwrap this concept from his concept of “body”. So this is a purely subjective difference.

We must proceed thoroughly with all these matters. We must seek out the sources of error with precision. It seems to me that the one who grasps as purely subjective that which can be isolated from a concept, and that he will not really find a boundary between analytical and synthetic judgments and that he could be at a loss to give a definition of it. It depends on something quite different. What is it that it depends on? We shall come to that later! It seems to me, in fact, to be quite significant what happened when, during an examination, the two judgments were mentioned. There was a doctor who was to be examined in logic as a subsidiary subject. He was well versed in his subject, but knew nothing at all about logic. Before the exam, he told a friend that he should tell him a few things about logic. But the friend, who took this a little more seriously, said: If you don't know anything yet, it's better to rely on your luck. Now he came to the exam. As I said, everything went very well in the main subjects; he was well-versed in those. But he knew nothing about logic. The professor asked him: So tell me, what is a synthetic judgment? He had no answer and was now very embarrassed. Yes, Mr. Candidate, don't you know what that is? the professor asked. No! was the answer. An excellent answer! cried the examiner. You see, people have been trying to figure out what a synthetic judgment is for so long that they still don't know what it is. You couldn't have given a better answer. And can you tell me, Mr. Candidate, what an analytical judgment is? The candidate had now become more impertinent and answered confidently: No! Oh, I see you have penetrated to the heart of the matter, the professor continued. People have been searching for what an analytical judgment is for so long and haven't come up with it. You don't know that. An excellent answer! The fact has really happened; it always seemed to me, though it cannot necessarily be taken as such, as a very good characteristic of what distinguishes both judgments. In fact, nothing distinguishes them; one flows into the other.

Now we must still realize how it is possible to speak of valid judgments at all, what such a judgment is. This is a very important matter.

A judgment is initially nothing more than the connection of ideas or concepts. “The rose is red” is a judgment. Whether a judgment is valid because it is correct is a different matter. We must realize that just because a judgment is correct does not necessarily make it a valid judgment. To be a valid judgment, it is not enough just to connect a subject with a predicate. Let us look at an example! “This rose is red” is a correct judgment. Whether it is also valid is not certain; for we can also form other correct judgments, which are not necessarily valid. According to formal logic, there is no reason to object to the correctness of a judgment; it could be quite correct, but it could still lack validity. For example, someone could imagine a creature that is half horse, a quarter whale, and a quarter camel. We will now call this animal “taxu.” Now it is undoubtedly true that this animal would be ugly. The judgment, “The taxu is ugly,” is therefore correct and can be pronounced in this way according to all the rules of correctness; for the taxu, half horse, quarter whale and quarter camel, is ugly, that is beyond doubt, and just as the judgment “This rose is red” is correct, so is this. Now, one should never express a correct judgment as valid. Something else is necessary for that: you must be able to transform the correct judgment. You must only regard the correct judgment as valid when you can say, “This red rose is,” when you can take the predicate back into the subject, when you can transform the correct judgment into an existential judgment. In this case, you have a valid judgment. “This red rose is.” There is no other way than to be able to include the concept of the predicate in the concept of the subject. Then the judgment is valid. ‘The taxus is ugly’ cannot be made into a valid judgment. You cannot say, ‘An ugly taxus is.’ This is shown by the test by which you can find out whether a judgment can be made at all; it shows you how the test must be done. The test must be made by seeing whether one is able to transform the judgment into an existential judgment.

Here you can see something very important that one must know: that the mere combination of concepts into a logically correct judgment is not yet something that can now be regarded as decisive for the real world. Something else must be added. We must not overlook the fact that something else is required for the validity of the concept and judgment. Something else also comes into question for the validity of our conclusions.

A conclusion is the connection of judgments. The simplest conclusion is: All men are mortal. Caius is a man - therefore: Caius is mortal. The subclause is: Caius is a human being. The conclusion is: Caius is mortal. This conclusion is formed according to the first figure of conclusion, in which the subject and predicate are connected by a middle term. The middle term here is “human being,” the predicate term is “mortal,” and the subject term is “Caius.” You connect them with the same middle term. Then you come to the conclusion: Caius is mortal. This conclusion is built on the basis of very definite laws. You must not change these. As soon as you change something, you come to a train of thought that is no longer possible. Nobody could find a correct final sentence if they were to change this. That would not work. Because it does not work that way, you can see for yourself that thinking is based on laws. If you were to say: The portrait is an image of the person, photography is an image of the person, you would not be allowed to form the final sentence from this: Photography is a portrait. It is impossible to draw a correct final sentence if you arrange the concepts differently than according to the specific laws.

Thus you see that we have, so to speak, a real formal movement of concepts, of judgments, that thinking is based on very specific laws. But one never comes close to reality through this pure movement of concepts. In judgment, we have seen how one must first transform the right into the valid. In the conclusion, we want to convince ourselves in another form that it is impossible to approach reality through the formal conclusion. For a conclusion can be correct according to all formal laws and yet not valid, that is, it cannot approach reality. The following example will show you the simplicity of the fallacy: “All Cretans are liars,” says a Cretan. Suppose this Cretan says it. Then you can proceed according to quite logical conclusions and yet arrive at an impossibility. If the Cretan says this, then if you apply the premise to him, he must have lied, then it cannot be true. Why do you end up with an impossibility? Because you apply the conclusion to yourself, because you let the object coincide with purely formal conclusions, and you must not do that. Where you apply the formality of thought to itself, the pure formality of thought is destroyed. That doesn't work.

You can see from another example that the correctness of thought goes on strike when you apply thought to itself, that is, when you apply what you have thought up to yourself: An old law teacher took on a student. It was agreed that the student would pay him a certain fee, a portion of which would be paid immediately and the rest when he had won his first case. That was the agreement. The student did not pay the second part. Now the law teacher says to him: “You will pay me the fee under all circumstances.” But the student claims: “I will not pay it under any circumstances.” And he wants to do this by taking the teacher to court for the fee. The teacher says: Then you will pay me all the more; because either the judges will order you to pay – well, then you have to pay – or the judges will rule that you do not have to pay, then you have won the case and therefore pay again. – The student replies: I will not pay under any circumstances; because if I win the case, then the judges grant me the right not to pay, and if I lose, then I have lost my first case and we agreed that if this were the case, I would not have to pay. - Nothing has come of a completely correct formal connection because it goes back to the subject itself. Formal logic always breaks down here. Correctness has nothing to do with validity.

The mistake of not realizing that one must distinguish between correctness and validity was made by the great Kant, and that was when he wanted to refute the so-called ontological proof of the existence of God. This proof went something like this: If one imagines the most perfect being, it would lack a property for its perfection if one did not ascribe existence to it. Thus, one cannot imagine the most perfect being without existence. Consequently, it is. Kant says: That does not apply, because the fact that existence is added to a thing does not add any more property to it. - And then he says: A hundred possible dollars, dollars conceived in thought, have not a penny more or less than a hundred real ones. But the real ones differ considerably from the imagined ones, namely through being! - So he concludes: One can never infer existence from a concept that has only been grasped in thought. Because - so he argues - however many imagined thalers one puts into the wallet, they will never become actual. So one must not proceed with the concept of God by trying to extract the concept of being from thinking. But in transferring the purely logical-formal from the one to the other, one forgets that one should distinguish between, that dollars are something that can only be perceived externally, and that God is something that can be perceived internally, and that in the concept of God we must disregard this quality of being perceived externally. If people agreed to pay each other with imaginary dollars, they would not need to distinguish between real and imaginary dollars. If, then, in thinking a sensory thing could be ascribed its being, then the judgment would also apply to this sensory thing. But one must realize that a correct judgment does not necessarily need to be a valid one, that something must be added.

So we have today passed by some of the fields of philosophy, which does no harm. It gave us a sense that the authority of today's scientists is somewhat unfounded and that there is no need to be afraid when anthroposophy is presented as dilettantism. For what these authorities themselves are capable of saying when they begin to move from facts to something that could lead through a conclusion to a reference to the spiritual world is really quite threadbare. And so today I wanted to show you first how vulnerable this thinking is, and then to give you an idea that there really is a science of thinking. Of course, this could only be done in sketchy form. We can go into it in more depth later, but you have to be prepared for the fact that it will be somewhat boring.