The Rudolf Steiner Archive

[ 1 ] In June 1794, Johann Gottlieb Fichte sent the first sections of his Theory of Science ⁴⁵ to Goethe. The latter wrote back to the philosopher on June 24: “As far as I am concerned, I will owe you the greatest thanks if you finally reconcile me with the philosophers, with whom I can never do without and with whom I have never been able to unite myself.” What the poet is here seeking from Fichte is what he sought earlier from Spinoza and later from Schelling and Hegel: a philosophical world view that would be in accordance with his way of thinking. None of the philosophical directions with which he became acquainted, however, brought the poet complete satisfaction.

[ 2 ] This fact makes our task considerably more difficult. We want to draw nearer to Goethe from the philosophical side. If he himself had designated one standpoint of knowledge as his own, then we could refer to it. But this is not the case. And so the task devolves on us to recognize the philosophical core of all we have from the poet and to sketch a picture of it. We consider the right way to accomplish this task to be a direction in thinking that is gained upon the foundations of German idealistic philosophy. This philosophy sought, in fact, in its own way to satisfy the same highest human needs to which Goethe and Schiller devoted their lives. It came forth from the same contemporary stream. It therefore also stands much nearer to Goethe than do those views that to a large degree govern the sciences today. What Goethe expressed in poetic form and what he presented scientifically can be regarded as the consequence of a view that can be formed out of that philosophy. They could definitely never be the consequence of such scientific directions as our present-day ones. We are very far removed today from that way of thinking which lay in Goethe's nature.

[ 3 ] It is indeed true that we must acknowledge progress in all areas of culture. But that this progress is one into the depths of things can hardly be asserted. For the content of an epoch, however, only progress into the depths of things is decisive, after all. But our epoch might best be characterized by the statement: It rejects, as unattainable for man, any progress at all into the depths of things. We have become faint-hearted in all areas, especially in that of thinking and willing. With respect to thinking: one observes endlessly, stores up the observations, and lacks the courage to develop them into a scientific, whole view of reality. One accuses German idealistic philosophy of being unscientific, however, because it did have this courage. Today one wants only to look with one's senses, not think. One has lost all trust in thinking. One does not consider it able to penetrate into the mysteries of the world and of life; one altogether renounces any solution to the great riddle questions of existence. The only thing one considers possible is: to bring what experience tells us, into a system. But in doing so one forgets that with this view one is approaching a standpoint considered to have been overcome long ago. The rejection of all thinking and the insistence upon sense experience is, grasped more deeply, nothing more, after all, than the blind faith in revelation of the religions. The latter rests, after all, only upon the fact that the church provides finished truths that one has to believe. Thinking may struggle to penetrate into the deeper meaning of these truths; but thinking is deprived of the ability to test the truth itself, to penetrate by its own power into the depths of the world. And the science of experience, what does it ask of thinking? That it listen to what the facts say, and interpret, order, etc., what is heard. It also denies to thinking the ability to penetrate independently into the core of the world.

On the one hand, theology demands the blind subjection of thinking to the statements of the church; on the other, science demands blind subjection to the statements of sense observation. Here as there, independent thinking that penetrates into the depths counts as nothing. The science of experience forgets only one thing. Thousands and thousands of people have looked at a sense-perceptible fact and passed it by without noting anything striking about it. Then someone came along who looked at it and became aware of an important law about it. How? This can only stem from the fact that the discoverer knew how to look differently than his predecessors. He saw the fact with different eyes than his fellow men. In looking, he had a definite thought as to how one must bring the fact into relationship with other facts, what is significant for it and what is not. And so, thinking, he set the matter in order and saw more than the others. He saw with the eyes of the spirit. All scientific discoveries rest on the fact that the observer knows how to observe in a way governed by the right thought. Thinking must naturally guide observation. It cannot do so if the researcher has lost his belief in thinking, if he does not know what to make of thinking's significance. The science of experience wanders helplessly about in the world of phenomena; the sense world becomes a confusing manifoldness for it, because it does not have enough energy in thinking to penetrate into the center.

[ 4 ] One speaks today of limits to knowledge because one does not know where the goal of thinking lies. One has no clear view of what one wants to attain and doubts that one will attain it. If someone came today and pointed out clearly to us the solution to the riddle of the world, we would gain nothing from it, because we would not know what to make of this solution.

[ 5 ] And it is exactly the same with willing and acting. One cannot set oneself any definite task in life of which one would be capable. One dreams oneself into indefinite unclear ideals and then complains about the fact that one does not achieve something of which one hardly has a dim, let alone a clear, picture. Just ask one of the pessimists of our day what he actually wants and what it is he despairs of attaining. He does not know. Problematical natures are they all, incapable of meeting any situation and yet satisfied with none. Do not misunderstand me. I do not wish to extol that superficial optimism which, satisfied with the trivial enjoyments of life, demands nothing higher and therefore never suffers want. I do not wish to condemn individuals who painfully feel the deep tragedy that lies in the fact that we are dependent on conditions that have a laming effect on everything we do and that we strive in vain to change. But we should not forget that pain is the woof and happiness the warp. Think of the mother, how her joy in the well-being of her children is increased if it has been achieved by earlier cares, suffering, and effort. Every right-minded person would in fact have to refuse a happiness that some external power might offer him, because he cannot after all experience something as happiness that is just handed him as an unearned gift. If some creator or other had undertaken the creation of man with the thought in mind of bestowing happiness upon his likeness at the same time, as an inheritance, then he would have done better to leave him uncreated. The fact that what man creates is always ruthlessly destroyed again raises his stature; for he must always build and create anew; and it is in activity that our happiness lies; it lies in what we ourselves accomplish. It is the same with bestowed happiness as with revealed truth. Only this is worthy of man: that he seek truth himself, that neither experience nor revelation lead him. When that has been thoroughly recognized once and for all, then the religions based on revelation will be finished. The human being will then no longer want God to reveal Himself or bestow blessings upon him. He will want to know through his own thinking and to establish his happiness through his own strength. Whether some higher power or other guides our fate to the good or to the bad, this does not concern us at all; we ourselves must determine the path we have to travel. The loftiest idea of God is still the one which assumes that God, after His creation of the human being, withdrew completely from the world and gave man completely over to himself.

[ 6 ] Whoever acknowledges to thinking its ability to perceive beyond the grasp of the senses must necessarily acknowledge that it also has objects that lie beyond merely sense-perceptible reality. The objects of thinking, however, are ideas. Inasmuch as thinking takes possession of the idea, thinking fuses with the primal ground of world existence; what is at work outside enters into the spirit of man: he becomes one with objective reality in its highest potency. Becoming aware of the idea within reality is the true communion of man.

[ 7 ] Thinking has the same significance with respect to ideas as the eye has with respect to light, the ear to tone. It is an organ of apprehension.

[ 8 ] This view is in a position to unite two things that are regarded today as completely incompatible: the empirical method, and idealism as a scientific world view. It is believed that to accept the former means necessarily to reject the latter. This is absolutely not true. To be sure, if one considers the senses to be the only organs of apprehension for objective reality, then one must arrive at the above view. For, the senses offer us only such relationships of things as can be traced back to mechanical laws. And the mechanistic world view would thus be given as the only true form of any such world view. In this, one is making the mistake of simply overlooking the other component parts of reality which are just as objective but which cannot be traced back to mechanical laws. What is objectively given by no means coincides with what is sense-perceptibly given, as the mechanistic world conception believes. What is sense-perceptibly given is only half of the given. The other half of the given is ideas, which are also objects of experience—of a higher experience, to be sure, whose organ is thinking. Ideas are also accessible to the inductive method.

[ 9 ] Today's science of sense experience follows the altogether correct method of holding fast to the given; but it adds the inadmissible assertion that this method can provide only facts of a sense-perceptible nature. Instead of limiting itself to the question of how we arrive at our views, this science determines from the start what we can see. The only satisfactory way to grasp reality is the empirical method with idealistic results. That is idealism, but not of the kind that pursues some nebulous, dreamed-up unity of things, but rather of a kind that seeks the concrete ideal content of reality in a way that is just as much in accordance with experience as is the search of modern hyper-exact science for the factual content.

[ 10 ] By approaching Goethe with these views, we believe we are entering into his essential nature. We hold fast to idealism and develop it, not on the basis of Hegel's dialectic method, but rather upon a clarified higher empiricism.

[ 11 ] This kind of empiricism also underlies the philosophy of Eduard v. Hartmann. Eduard v. Hartmann seeks the ideal unity in nature, as this does positively yield itself to a thinking that has real content. He rejects the merely mechanistic view of nature and the hyper-Darwinism that is stuck on externals. In science, he is the founder of a concrete monism. In history and aesthetics, he seeks concrete ideas, and does all this according to empirical inductive methods.

[ 12 ] Hartmann's philosophy differs from mine only on the question of pessimism and through the metaphysical orientation of his system toward the “unconscious.” We will consider the latter point further on in the book. But with respect to pessimism, let the following be said: What Hartmann cites as grounds for pessimism—i.e., for the view that nothing in the world can fully satisfy us, that pain always outweighs pleasure—that is precisely what I would designate as the good fortune of mankind. What he brings forward is for me only proof that it is futile to strive for happiness. We must, in fact, entirely give up any such striving and seek our destiny purely in selflessly fulfilling those ideal tasks that our reason prescribes for us. What else does this mean than that we should seek our happiness only in doing, in unflagging activity?

[ 13 ] Only the active person, indeed only the selflessly active person who seeks no recompense for his activity, fulfills his destiny. It is foolish to want to be recompensed for one's activity; there is no true recompense. Here Hartmann ought to build further. He ought to show what, with such presuppositions, can be the only mainspring of all our actions. This can, when the prospect of a goal one is striving for falls away, only be the selfless devotion to the object to which one is dedicating one's activity; this can only be love. Only an action out of love can be a moral one. In science, the idea, and in our action, love, must be our guiding star. And this brings us back to Goethe. “The main thing for the active person is that he do what is right; he should not worry about whether the right occurs.” “Our whole feat consists in giving up our existence in order to exist” (Aphorisms in Prose).

[ 14 ] I have not arrived at my world view only through the study of Goethe or even of Hegelianism, for example. I took my start from the mechanistic-naturalistic conception of the world, but recognized that, with intensive thinking, one cannot remain there. Proceeding strictly according to natural-scientific methods, I found in objective idealism the only satisfying world view. My epistemology ⁴⁶ shows the way by which a kind of thinking that understands itself and is not self-contradictory arrives at this world view. I then found that this objective idealism, in its basic features, permeates the Goethean world view. Thus the elaborating of my views does, to be sure, for years now run parallel with my study of Goethe; and I have never found any conflict in principle between my basic views and the Goethean scientific activity. I consider my task fulfilled if I have been at least partially successful in, firstly, developing my standpoint in such a way that it can also become alive in other people, and secondly, bringing about the conviction that this standpoint really is the Goethean one.

• 45. Wissenschaftslehre
• 46. The Science of Knowing: Outline of an Epistemology Implicit in the Goethean World View (Grundlinien einer Erkenntnistheorie der Goetheschen Weltanschauung), also translated as A Theory of Knowledge

[ 1 ] The fourth principal stage of human development is lived on earth. This is that condition of consciousness in which man finds himself at present. But before he attained it, he, and with him the whole earth, first had to repeat successively the Saturn, Sun, and Moon stages in three smaller cycles (the so-called “rounds” of theosophical literature). Man now lives in the fourth earth cycle. He has already advanced a little past the middle of this cycle. At this stage of consciousness man no longer perceives in a dreamlike manner the images which arise in his soul through the influence of his environment only, but objects appear to him “outside in space.” On the Moon and also during the stages of repetition on earth, there arose for example, a colored image in his soul when a particular object came near him. All of consciousness consisted of such images, tones, and so forth, which flowed and ebbed in the soul. Only with the appearance of the fourth condition of consciousness does color no longer appear merely in the soul, but on an external, spatially circumscribed object; sound is no longer merely an inner reverberating of the soul, but the resounding of an object in space. In mystery science therefore, one also calls this fourth, the earthly condition of consciousness, the “objective consciousness.” It has been formed slowly gradually in the course of development in the way that the physical organs of sense slowly arose and thus made perceptible the most diverse sensory qualities in external objects. Apart from the senses which are already developed, others exist in an as yet germinal state which will become fully developed in the subsequent earth period, and which will show the world of the senses in a diversity still greater than is the case today. The gradual growth of this earth consciousness has been described in the preceding pages, and in the discussions which are to follow this description will be amplified and supplemented in essential points.

[ 2 ] The colored world, the sounding world, and so forth, which earlier man had perceived within himself, confronts him outside in space during his life on earth. But on the other hand, a new world appears within him: the world of ideas or thoughts. One cannot speak of ideas and thoughts in relation to the Moon consciousness. The latter consists solely of the images we have described. Around the middle of the development of earth—although this state of affairs was already preparing itself at a somewhat earlier time—there developed in man the capacity to form ideas and thoughts about objects. This capacity constitutes the basis for memory and for self-consciousness. Only conceptualizing man can develop a memory of that which he has perceived; and only thinking man reaches the point where he differentiates himself from his environment as an independent, self-conscious being, where he recognizes himself as an “I.” The first three stages we have described were stages of consciousness; the fourth is not only consciousness, but self-consciousness.

[ 1 ] But within the self-consciousness, the present-day life of thoughts, there is already developing a disposition toward still higher states of consciousness. Man will live through these states of consciousness on the next planets into which the earth will change after its present form. It is not absurd to say something about these future conditions of consciousness, and therewith about life on the following planets. For in the first place, the clairvoyant—for certain reasons which are to be given elsewhere—strides ahead of his fellows in his development. Thus those states of consciousness which all of mankind must attain with the advance of planetary development are already developing in him at this time. In the consciousness of the clairvoyant one finds an image of the future stages of mankind. Moreover, the three subsequent conditions of consciousness are now already present in all men in germinal states; and clairvoyant research has means for indicating what will emerge from these germinal states.

[ 3 ] When it is said that the clairvoyant is already developing in himself the states of consciousness to which in future all of mankind will advance, this must be understood with one restriction. The clairvoyant, for example, is developing a seeing in the spiritual world today which in future will appear in man in a physical way. But this future physical condition of man will be a faithful likeness of the corresponding contemporary spiritual one in the clairvoyant. The earth itself is going to develop, and therefore quite different forms from those which exist today will appear in its future physical inhabitants; but these physical forms are being prepared in the spiritual and mental ones of today. For example, what the clairvoyant today sees in the form of a cloud of light and color around the human physical body as a so-called “aura,” will later change into a physical form; and other organs of sense than those of today will give the man of the future the capacity to perceive other forms. However, already today the clairvoyant sees the spiritual models of the later material entities with his spiritual senses (thus for example, the aura). A view into the future is possible for him, although it is very difficult to give an idea of the character of this view through the language of today and for present-day human conceptions.

[ 4 ] The conceptions of the present state of consciousness are shadowy and pale in comparison with the colorful and sounding objects of the external world. Man therefore speaks of conceptions as of something which is “not real.” A “mere thought”—is contrasted with an object or a being which is “real” because it can be perceived through the senses. But conceptions and thoughts bear within themselves the potentiality of again becoming real and image-like. If man speaks of the conception “red” today without having a red object before him, then this conception is, as it were, only a shadow image of real “redness.” Later, man will reach the point where he can not only let the shadowy conception of the “red” arise in his soul, but where, when he thinks “red,” “red” will actually be before him. He will be able to create images, not merely conceptions. Thereby something will be achieved by him similar to that which already existed for the Moon consciousness. But the images will not ebb and flow in him like dreams; instead he will evoke them in full self-consciousness, as he does today's conceptions. The thought of a color will be the color itself; the conception of a sound will be the sound itself, and so forth. In the future, a world of images will flow and ebb in the soul of man through his own power, whereas during the Moon existence such a world of images filled him without his acting. In the meantime the spatial character of the objective external world will not disappear. The color which arises together with the conception of color will not be merely an image in the soul but will appear in outside space. The consequence of this will be that man will be able to perceive beings and objects of a higher kind than those of his present environment. These are objects and beings which are of a more delicate spiritual and soul nature, hence they do not clothe themselves in the objective colors which are perceptible to the present physical sense organs; however, these are objects and beings which will reveal themselves through the more delicate spiritual and mental colors and sounds which the man of the future will be able to create from his soul.

[ 5 ] Man is approaching a condition in which he will have a self-conscious image consciousness³ appropriate for such perceptions. On the one hand, the coming development of earth will raise the present life of conceptions and thoughts to an ever higher, more delicate, and more perfect condition; on the other hand, the self-conscious image consciousness will gradually develop itself during this time. The latter, however, will attain full life in man only on the next planet into which the earth will transform itself, and which is called “Jupiter” in mystery science. Then man will be able to enter into intercourse with beings which are completely hidden from his present sensory perception. It will be understood that not only does the life of perception thereby become totally different, but that actions, feelings, and all relations to the environment, are completely transformed. While today man can consciously influence only sensory beings, he will then be able to act consciously on very different forces and powers; he himself will receive what to him will be fully recognizable influences from very different realms than at present. At that stage there can no longer be any question of birth and death in the present sense. For “death” occurs only because the consciousness has to depend on an external world with which it enters into communication through the physical sense organs. When these physical sense organs fail, every relation to the environment ceases. That is to say, the man “has died.” However, when his soul is so far advanced that it does not receive the influences of the outside world through physical instruments, but receives them through the images which the soul creates out of itself, then it will have reached the point where it can regulate its intercourse with the environment independently, that is, its life will not be interrupted against its will. It has become lord over birth and death. All this will come to be with the developed self-conscious image consciousness on “Jupiter.” This state of the soul is also called the “psychic consciousness.”

[ 6 ] The next condition of consciousness to which man develops on a further planet, “Venus,” is distinguished from the previous one by the fact that the soul can now create not only images, but also objects and beings. This occurs in the self-conscious object consciousness or supra-psychic consciousness. Through the image consciousness man can perceive something of supersensible beings and objects, and he can influence them through the awakening of his image conceptions. But in order for that to take place which he desires of such a supersensible being, at his instigation, this being must use its own forces. Thus man is the ruler over images, and he can produce effects through these images. But he is not yet lord over the forces themselves. When his self-conscious object consciousness is developed, he will also be ruler over the creative forces of other worlds. He will not only perceive and influence beings, but he himself will create.

[ 7 ] This is the course of the development of consciousness: at first it begins dimly; one perceives nothing of other objects and beings, but only the inner experiences (images) of one's own soul; then perception is developed. At last the perceptive consciousness is transformed into a creative one. Before the condition of earth goes over into the life of Jupiter—after the fourth earthly cycle—there are three more smaller cycles to be passed through. These serve for the further perfection of the consciousness of earth in a manner to be described in the following essays, when the development of the smaller cycles and of their subdivisions will be described for all seven planets. When, after a period of rest (Pralaya), earth has changed into Jupiter, and when man has arrived on the latter planet, then the four preceding conditions—Saturn, Sun, Moon, and earth condition—must again be repeated during four smaller cycles; and only during the fifth cycle of Jupiter does man attain the stage which has been described above as the real Jupiter consciousness. In a corresponding manner does the “Venus consciousness” appear during the sixth cycle of Venus.

[ 8 ] A fact which will play a certain role in the following essays will be briefly indicated here. This concerns the speed with which the development on the different planets takes place. For this is not the same on all the planets. Life proceeds with the greatest speed on Saturn, the rapidity then decreases on the Sun, becomes still less on the Moon and reaches its slowest phase on the earth. On the latter it becomes slower and slower, to the point at which self-consciousness develops. Then the speed increases again. Therefore, today man has already passed the time of the greatest slowness of his development. Life has begun to accelerate again. On Jupiter the speed of the Moon, on Venus that of the Sun will again be attained. [ 9 ] The last planet which can still be counted among the series of earthly transformations, and hence follows Venus, is called “Vulcan” by mystery science. On this planet the provisional goal of the development of mankind is attained. The condition of consciousness into which man enters there is called “piety” or spiritual consciousness. Man will attain it in the seventh cycle of Vulcan after a repetition of the six preceding stages. Not much can be publicly communicated about the life on this planet. In mystery science one speaks of it in such a way that it is said, “No soul which, with its thinking is still tied to a physical body, should reflect about Vulcan and its life.” That is, only the mystery students of the higher order, who may leave their physical body and can acquire supersensible knowledge outside of it, can learn something about Vulcan.

[ 10 ] The seven stages of consciousness are thus expressed in the course of the development of mankind in seven planetary developments. At each stage, the consciousness must now pass through seven subordinate conditions. These are realized in the smaller cycles already mentioned. (In theosophical writings these seven cycles are called “rounds.”) These subordinate states are called “conditions of life” by the mystery science of the Occident, in contrast with the super-ordinated “conditions of consciousness.” Or, one says that each condition of consciousness moves through seven “realms.” According to this calculation, one must distinguish seven times seven in the whole development of mankind, that is, forty-nine small cycles or “realms” (according to common theosophical usage, “rounds”). And again, each small cycle has to pass through seven yet smaller ones, which are called “conditions of form” (in theosophical language, “globes”). For the full cycle of humanity this amounts to seven times forty-nine or three hundred and forty-three different “conditions of form.”

[ 11 ] The following discussions which deal with this development, will show that a survey of the whole is not as complicated as might at first appear at the mention of the number three hundred and forty-three. It will become apparent how man can only truly understand himself when he knows his own development.

• 3. The combination, “self-conscious image consciousness,” may appear odd, but it probably best expresses the state of affairs. If one wished, one could also say, “image self-consciousness.”

A landscape which seeks to express the world of souls by its characteristic peculiarities.

Enter Lucifer and Ahriman. Johannes is seen at the right of the stage in deep meditation. What follows is experienced by him in meditation.

Lucifer:
O man, know thou thyself; O man, feel me.
From spirit guidance, thou hast freed thyself,
And into earth's free realms thou hast escaped.
Midst earth's confusion thou didst seek to prove
Thine own existence; and to find thyself
Was thy reward, and was thy destiny.
Me didst thou find: for spirits willed
To cast a veil before the eyes of sense;
Which veil I rent in twain. Those spirits willed
To follow out their will alone in thee;
But I gave thee self-will and foiled their aim.
O man, know thou thyself; O man, feel me.

Ahriman:
O man, know me; O man, feel thou thyself.
Thou hast escaped from darkened spirit-realms
And thou hast found again the earth's pure light,
So now from my sure ground drink strength and truth.
I make earth hard and fast. The spirits willed
To snatch away from thee the charm of sense;
Which charm I weave for thee in light condensed.
I lead thee unto true reality.
O man, know me; O man, feel thou thyself.

Lucifer:
Time was not when thou didst not live through me.
I followed thee throughout the course of life,
And was permitted to bestow on thee
Strong personal traits and joy in thine own self.

Ahriman:
Time was not when thou didst not me behold.
Thy mortal eyes saw me in all earth's growth;
I was permitted to shine forth for thee
In beauty proud and revelation's bliss.
(Exit with Lucifer.)

Johannes (to himself in meditation):
This is the sign as Benedictus told.
Before the world of souls stand these two powers:
The one, as Tempter, lives within the soul;
The other doth obscure the sight of man
When he directeth it to outward things.
The one took on the woman's form e'en now,
To bring the soul's illusions 'neath my gaze;
The other may be found in everything.

(Enter the Spirit of the Elements with Capesius and Strader, whom he has brought to the earth's surface from the earth's depths. They are conceived as souls looking out upon the earth's surface. The Spirit of the Elements is aged and stands erect upon a sphere. Capesius and Strader are in astral garb; the former, though the older man of the two in years, here appears the younger. He wears blue robes of various shades, Strader wears brown and yellow.)

Spirit:
So have ye reached the spot ye longed to find.
It proved indeed a heavy care to me,
To grant your wish. Spirits and elements
Did rage in mad wild storm when their domain
I had to enter with your essences.
Your minds opposed the ruling of my powers.

Capesius:
Mysterious Being, who art thou, who hast
Brought me to this fair realm through spirit-spheres?

Spirit:
The soul of man may only look on me,
Whene'er the service which I render him
Hath been achieved. Yet he obeys my powers
Through all the moving sequences of time.

Capesius:
It matters little to me to enquire
What spirit led me hither to this place.
I feel life's powers revive in this new land,
Whose light doth seem to widen mine own breast
In my pulse-beat I feel the whole world's might;
And premonitions of exalted deeds
Thrill in my heart. I will translate in words
The revelation of this beauteous realm,
That hath refreshed me in such wondrous wise;
And souls of men shall bloom, as choicest flowers
If I can pour into their life on earth
The inspiration flowing from these founts.
(Lightning and thunder from the depths and heights.)

Strader:
Why quake the depths, and why resound the heights
When hope's young dreams surge upward in the soul?
(Lightning and thunder.)

Spirit:
To human dreamers words of hope like these
Sound proud indeed; but in the depths of earth
The vain illusions of mistaken thought
Awake such thunderous echoes evermore.
Ye mortals hear them only at those times
When ye draw nigh to my domain. Ye think
To build exalted temples unto Truth,
And yet your work's effects do but unchain
Storm-spirits in primeval. depths of earth.
Nay more, the spirits must destroy whole worlds,
That deeds ye do in realms where time hath sway
May not cause devastation and cold death
Through all the ages of eternity.

Strader:
So these eternal ages must regard
As empty fantasy what seems the truth
To man's best observation and research.
(Lightning and thunder.)

Spirit:
An empty fantasy, so long as sense
Doth only search in realms to spirit strange.

Strader:
Thou may'st well call a dreamer that friend's soul
Which in the joy of youth its goal doth set
With such a noble strength and high desire;
But in mine aged heart thy words fall dead
Despite their summoned aid of thunderous storms.
I tore myself from cloistered quietude
To proud achievement in my search for truth.
In life's storm-centres many a year I stood,
And men had confidence in me, and what
I taught them through my deep strong sense for truth.
(Lightning and thunder.)

Spirit:
'Tis fitting for thee to confess that none
Can tell whence stream the fountains of our thought,
Nor where the fundaments of Being lie.

Strader:
Oh this same speech, which in youth's hopeful days
So oft with chill persistence pierced my soul
When thought-foundations quaked, which once seemed firm
(Lightning and thunder.)

Spirit:
If thou dost fail to gain the victory
O'er me with those blunt weapons of thy thought
Thou art a fleeting phantom, nothing more,
Formed by thine own deluded imagery.

Strader:
So soon again such gruesome speech from thee!
This too I heard before in mine own soul,
When once a seeress threateningly did wish
To wreck the firm foundations of my thought
And make me feel the sharp dread sting of doubt.
But that is past, and I defy thy might,
Thou aged rogue, so cunningly concealed
Beneath a mask devised by thine own self
To counterfeit the form of nature's lord.
Reason will overthrow thee, otherwise
Than thou dost think, when once she is enthroned
Upon the proud heights of the mind of man.
As mistress will she reign assuredly
Not as some handmaiden in nature's realm.
(Lightning and thunder.)

Spirit:
The world is ordered so, that every act
Requires a like reaction: unto you
I gave the self; ye owe me my reward.

Capesius:
I will myself create from mine own soul
The spirit counterpart of things of sense.
And when at length all nature stands transformed,
Idealized through man's creative work,
Her mirrored form shall be reward enough;
And then if thou dost feel thyself akin
To that great mother of all worlds, and spring'st
From depths where world-creating forces reign,
Then let my will, which lives in head and breast,
Inspiring me to aim at highest goals,
Be thy reward for deeds commanded.
Thy help hath raised me from dull sentiment
To thought's proud heights ... Let this be thy reward!
(Lightning and thunder.)

Spirit:
Ye well can see, how little your bold words
Bear weight in my domain: they do but loose
The storm, and rouse the elements to wrath,
As adversaries of the ordered world.

Capesius:
Take then thine own reward where't may be found.
The impulse that doth drive the souls of men
To seek true spirit-heights within themselves
Set their own measure, their own order make.
Creation were not possible for man
If others wished to claim what he had made.
The song that trills from out the linnet's throat
Sufficeth for itself; and so doth man
Find his reward, when in his fashioning work
He doth experience creative joy.
(Lightning and thunder.)

Spirit:
It is not meet to grudge me my reward.
If ye yourselves cannot repay the debt
Then tell the woman, who endowed your souls
With power, that she must pay instead of you.
(Exit.)

Capesius:
He hath departed. Whither turn we now?
To find our way aright in these new worlds
Must be, it seems, the first care of our minds.

Strader:
To follow confidently the best way,
That we can find, with sure but cautious tread,
Methinks should lead us straightway to the goal.

Capesius:
Rather should we be silent as to goal.
That we shall find if we courageously
Obey the impulse of our inner self,
Which speaks thus to me: ‘Let Truth be thy guide;
May it unfold strong powers within thyself
And mould them with the noblest fashioning
In all that thou shalt do; then must thy steps
Attain their destined goal, nor go astray.’

Strader:
Yet from the outset it were best our steps
Should not lack consciousness of their true goal,
If we would be of service unto men
And give them happiness. He, who would serve
Himself alone, doth follow his own heart;
But he, who wills to serve his neighbour best,
Must surely know his life's necessities.

(The Other Maria, also in soul form, emerges from the rocks, covered with precious stones.)

But see I What wondrous being's this? It seems
As though the rock itself did give it birth.
From what world-depths do such strange forms arise?

The Other Maria:
I wrest my way through solid rock, and fain
Would clothe in human speech its very will;
I sense earth's essence and with human brains
I fain would think the thoughts of Earth herself.
I breathe pure air of life, and I transmute
Beings of air into the feeling flow
That surging swells within the breast of man.

Strader:
Then thou canst not assist us in our quest.
For far aloft from men's endeavour stands
All that must abide in nature's realm.

Capesius:
Lady, I like thy words, and I would fain
Translate thy form of speech into mine own.

The Other Maria:
Most strange doth seem to me your proud discourse.
For, when ye speak yourselves, unto mine ear
Your words do sound incomprehensible.
But if I let them echo in my heart
And issue in new form, they spread abroad
O'er all that lives in mine environment
And solve for me its hidden mystery.

Capesius:
If this, thy speech, be true, then change for us
Into thy speech, that nature may respond,
The question of the true worth of man's life.
For we ourselves lack power to question thus
Great mother nature that we may be heard.

The Other Maria:
In me ye only see an humble maid
Of that high spirit-being, which doth dwell
In that domain whence ye have just now come.
There hath been given me this field of work
That here in lowliness I may show forth
Her mirrored image unto mortal sense.

Capesius:
So then we have just fled from that domain
Wherein our longing could have been assuaged?

The Other Maria:
And if ye do not find again the way,
Your efforts shall be fruitless evermore.

Capesius:
Then tell which way will lead us back again.

The Other Maria:
There are two ways. If my power doth attain
To its full height all creatures of my realm
Shall glow in beauty's most resplendent dress.
From rocks and water, glittering light shall stream,
And colours in their richest fulness flash
On all around, whilst life in merry mood
Shall fill the air with joyous harmony.
And if your souls do then but steep themselves
In mine own being's purest ecstasy
On spirit pinions shall ye wing your way
Unto primeval origins of worlds.

Strader:
That is no way for us; for in our speech
We name such talk mere fancy, and we fain
Would seek firm ground, not fly to cloud-capped heights.

The Other Maria:
Then if ye wish to tread the other path
Ye must-forthwith renounce your spirit's pride.
Ye must forget what reason doth command,
And let the touch of nature conquer you.
In your men's breasts let your child-soul have sway,
Artless and undisturbed by thought's dim shades.
So will ye surely reach Life's fountain-head,
Although unconscious of the way ye go.
(Exit.)

Capesius:
Thus are we thrown back on ourselves alone,
And have but learned that it behoveth us
To work and wait in patience for the fruit
That future days shall ripen from our work.

Johannes (speaking, as it were, from his meditation. Here and in the following scene he sits aside and takes no part in the action):
So do I find within the soul's domain
Those men who are already known to me:
First he who told us of Felicia's tales,
Though here I saw him in his youthful prime;
And also he who in his younger days
Had chosen for his life monastic rule,
As some old man did he appear: with them
There stood the Spirit of the Elements.

The same. The First Preceptor; Joseph Keane then the Grand Master with Simon; later the First and the Second Master of Ceremonies. Joseph Keane is there first; the Preceptor approaches him.

First Preceptor:
Thou didst send word thou wouldst have speech with me.
What is the news that thou art come to bring?

Keane:
Most weighty matters both to thee and me.
Thou knowest the master miner Thomas here,
Who renders service to thee?

First Preceptor:
Well I know
The worthy man; we prize him for his skill,
And his subordinates hold him in love.

Keane:
And dost thou know my child, Cecilia, too?

First Preceptor (moved):
It hath so chanced that I have seen the maid
When I have met thee with thy family.

Keane:
It happened that soon after Thomas came
He paid us frequent visits in our home.
They grew more frequent; it was evident
That to Cecilia his whole heart went out.
We did not marvel that this should be so.
But, knowing the girl's nature, it was long
Ere we could think that she returned his love.
Her life was well nigh one continuous prayer,
And almost all society she shunned.
Yet ever doth it now appear more clear
That to this stranger she hath giv'n her heart.
And as things are, we feel ourselves compelled
Not to oppose the wishes of our child;
Thomas she loves, and she would marry him.

First Preceptor (with faltering movements):
Why runs this marriage counter to thy will?

Keane:
My lord, there is no need for me to tell
Of my devotion to the brotherhood.
My heart would have to bear a heavy load
If my child's love, in its entirety,
Were cast upon the side of those who say
That you and I alike are heretics.
The monk who now o'er yonder abbey rules
Close by our home, and who doth ever seek
To thwart the mission of the brotherhood,
Hath won dominion o'er our daughter's soul.
As long as she is still beneath my roof
So long shall I too not abandon hope
That she may yet again retrace the path
Which leads from spirit-darkness unto light.
But I shall have to give her up for lost
When she shall have become the wife of one
Who, like herself, looks for salvation's light
According to the precepts of that monk.
His Reverence hath had complete success
In foisting such opinions as he holds
On Thomas, who receives them in full faith.
A thrill of terror would run over me
To hear the curses pour from Thomas' lips
Whene'er our speech should touch the brotherhood.

First Preceptor:
Our enemies are many if one more
Is added it cannot affect us much.
Thy words have not yet made it clear to me
What my concern is with this tale of love.

Keane:
My lord, thou seest this packet in mine hand.
Its contents warrant me to come to thee.
My wife and I alone have read the lines;
None else in these parts knows a word of them.
Now must they be made known to thee as well—
The maid who passeth for our flesh and blood
Is not the offspring of my wife and me.
We undertook the training of the child
When her own mother died. What I have still
To say will make it seem unnecessary,
To tell at length how all this came to pass.
For long we knew not who her father was;
The girl to-day knows not her parentage;
Father and mother she beholds in us.
And such a state of things might have gone on
Since we do love her as our very own.
But some years later than her mother's death
The papers that I hold were brought to us;
They make it plain who our child's father is
I cannot tell if he is known to thee.

(The Preceptor loses control over himself.)

But now I know—am sure ...
... that thou art he.
There is no need for me to tell thee more.
But since it is thy child who is concerned
I beg thee to extend to me thine aid.
United our endeavours may succeed
To save her from the darkness that impends.

First Preceptor:
Dear Keane. Thou hast been ever true to me,
And I would fain still further count on thee.
Neither within nor yet without these walls
Must any in this country ever know
The truth of my relation to this girl.

Keane:
My word thereon. I mean no harm to thee;
I only beg that thou wilt lent thine aid.

First Preceptor:
Thou dost perceive that at the present time
I cannot talk with thee at greater length
I pray thee come to-morrow.

Keane:
I will come.

(Exit.)

First Preceptor:
How cruelly my fate fulfils itself.
I left my wife and child in misery,
Since they seemed hindrances upon the path
Along which vanity did beckon me.
It led me on to join this brotherhood.
In words of solemn import I then vowed
My service to the cause of human love
Albeit I was laden with the guilt
Arising from the opposite of love.
The brotherhood's clear vision, as applied
To acts of men, is manifest in me.
It welcomed me a brother in its ranks
And forthwith laid on me its rules severe.
To self-examination Was I led
And knowledge of myself, which otherwise
In other walks of life I had not found.
And then when, under Fate's decree, my son
Came and dwelt near me, I was fain to think
That mighty Powers were merciful to me
In showing how to expiate my sin.
I knew long since that this Keane's foster-child
Was none else than the daughter whom I left.

The brotherhood is near its overthrow,
Each brother resolute to meet his death,
Convinced that those high purposes will live
For which he makes his life the sacrifice.
But I, alas, have felt for many days
I was not worthy of this glorious end.
My purpose ever ripened to make known
My case unto the master, and to crave
Permission to forsake the brotherhood.
I had in mind thenceforward to devote
My days unto my children, and so far
As in this earth-life yet is possible,
To offer penance. But I clearly see,
That 'twas not filial longing brought my son
To this same spot to seek his father out,
Although his good heart made him thus believe.
But he was led by forces in the blood
Which drew him to his sister. Other ties,
Blood-born, were loosened by a father's guilt,
Or else yon monk had never had the power
To rob me so entirely of my son.
Indeed the robbery is so complete,
That with the brother will the sister too
From my paternal longings be estranged.
And so nought else remains for me but this,
To take immediate measures to ensure
That they shall know the truth about themselves,
And then with resignation to await
The penance laid upon me by those powers
Who keep the reckoning of our misdeeds.

(Exit.)

(After an interval the Grand Master and Simon enter.)

Grand Master:
Henceforward, Simon, in the castle walls
Thou must abide, for since that lying tale
Was published that thou art a sorcerer,
Peril awaits thine every step outside.

Simon:
My heart is sore indeed to find that men
Assail in ignorance a proffered aid
Whose only object is to do them good.

Grand Master:
Those who, by grace of lofty spirit-powers,
Can turn their gaze upon the souls of men,
Will see the enemies therein arrayed
Which fight against the nature of the soul.
The battle which our mortal foes prepare
Is but the emblem of that greater strife
Waged in the heart incessantly by powers
Which are at enmity amongst themselves.

Simon:
My lord, in very truth these words of thine
Arouse an echo in my deepest soul.
Indeed my nature is not prone to dreams;
Yet when I walk alone through wood and field
A picture often riseth in my soul
Which with my will I can no more control
Than any object which mine eye beholds.
A human form appears in front of me
Which fain would grasp my hand in fellowship.
Such suffering on his features is expressed
As never yet I saw in any face.
The greatness and the beauty of this man
Seize firmly hold of all my powers of soul;
I fain would sink to earth and humbly bow
Before this messenger from other worlds.
Next moment like a raging flame, there comes
The wildest anger searing through my heart;
Nor can I gain the mastery o'er the power
That fans the opposition of my soul,
And I am forced to thrust aside the hand
Which is so lovingly held out to me.
So soon as to my senses I return
The radiant form hath vanished from my sight.
And thereupon, when I recall in thought
That which my spirit hath so often seen,
Before my soul this thought presents itself
Which moves me to the bottom of my heart.
I feel myself attracted by thy lore,
In which a Spirit-being is revealed
Descending from the Kingdom of the Sun,
To take a human form upon Himself,
In order to disclose Himself to men.
I cannot keep the glowing beauty out
That pours upon me from thy noble lore,
And yet my soul will not assent thereto.
The primal form of our humanity
In thy great Spirit-being I admit;
But still my individual self rebels
When I would turn to him in faith and love.
So must I ever wage an inward war
The archetype of every outer strife.
In sore distress, I seek in vain a clue
To solve the riddle of my life and fate:
How comes it that I understand so well
And yet that I in no wise can believe
The things thy noble teachings do reveal?
I follow thine example faithfully,
Yet find myself opposed at every point
To this example's goal and origin.
And when I must thus recognize myself,
A flood of doubt o'erwhelms my falt'ring faith
That in this life I may yet find myself.
Nay, worse than this, the dread doth haunt me oft
That this bewilderment of doubt may run
Through all the lives that I shall live on earth.

Grand Master:
The picture, which thou sawest, my good friend,
Before my spirit stood out strong and clear
Whilst thou didst paint it in those vivid words;
And as thou didst speak further, then it grew
In breadth before mine eyes until I saw
How cosmic aims are linked to human fate.

(Exeunt.)

First Master of Ceremonies:
Dear brother, I must openly confess
That our Grand Master's clemency exceeds
My comprehension, when I needs must see
What bitter wrong our foes inflict on us.
Although they will not study what we teach
They scruple not to paint us in men's eyes
As heretics and messengers from hell.

Second Master of Ceremonies:
His clemency from our own teaching flows.
Can we proclaim life's highest aim to be
To understand the soul of every man,
And then misunderstand our foes ourselves?
There are amongst them many men indeed
Who follow in the footsteps of the Christ.
Yet even from the souls of such as these
The essence of our teachings must be veiled,
Though they should hear them with the outer ear.
Remember, brother, how reluctantly,
And with what inner conflict, thou vast led
To grant admission to the spirit-voice.
We know, from what the master path revealed,
That future men will see in Spirit-light
The lofty Being of the Sun, who trod This
Earth once only in a human frame.
This revelation we with joy believe
And gladly follow where our leaders tread.
Yet but a short time since these weighty words
Were said by him whom we acclaim as Head:
‘Your souls must ripen slowly, if indeed
With eyes prophetic ye would see to-day
That which the men of later days shall see;
And ye must not imagine,’ said our chief,
‘That after passing one initial test
Ye can have sight of things that are to be.
When ye shall have attained to certainty
That all mankind must needs be born again,
Ye then will have to meet the second test
Which sets your personal illusions free
To dim the radiance of the Spirit-light.’
This solemn warning, too, the master gave:
‘Ofttimes reflect, in meditation's hour,
How psychic monsters, of illusion born,
Beset the path of those who seek the light.
Who falls their victim may see even there
Human existence where the Spirit seeks
To be revealed to Spirit-light alone.
If ye would worthily prepare yourselves
To recognize, by help of inner sight,
The Light of Wisdom streaming from the Christ,
Over yourselves ye must keep watch and ward
Lest personal illusion blind you then
When your souls think that it is furthest off.’
With this injunction clearly held in view
We soon shall rid us of the vain belief
That in these times we can transmit these truths,
Whose beauty we confess within our souls,
In easy manner to posterity.
Rather must we take comfort from the fact,
That we to-day can meet so many souls
In whom the seed, although they know it not,
Already path been sown for future lives.
This seed can only manifest itself
In man, by opposition to those Powers
With which it later will ally itself.
In all this hatred which pursues us now
I do but see the seed of future love.

First Master of Ceremonies:
Certain it is that highest truth's intent
Can only in such manner be disclosed;
Yet hard it seems in this our present age
To shape our lives to follow out its aim.

Second Master of Ceremonies:
Here too I follow out our master's words:
‘It is not granted unto all mankind
To live Earth's future stages in advance.
But individuals there must ever be
Who can foresee what later days will bring,
And who devote their feeling to those Powers
Which loose all being from its present ties
To guard it safe for all Eternity.’

The curtain falls, while the two Masters of Ceremonies are still in the hall

In which the Attempt is made to form a Conception of the Guardian of the Threshold

[ 1 ] When the soul has attained the faculty of making observations whilst remaining outside the physical body, certain difficulties may arise with regard to its emotional life. It may find itself compelled to take up quite a different position towards itself from that to which it was formerly accustomed. The soul was accustomed to regard the physical world as outside itself, while it considered all inner experience as its own particular possession. To supersensible surroundings, however, it cannot take up the same position as to the outer world. As soon as the soul perceives the supersensible world around it, it must merge with it to a certain extent: it cannot consider itself as separate from these surroundings as it does from the outer world. Through this fact all that can be designated as our own inner world in relation to the supersensible surroundings assumes a certain character which is not easily reconcilable with the idea of inward privacy. We can no longer say, “I think, ” “ I feel, ” or “I have my thoughts and fashion them as I like.” But we must say instead, “ Something thinks in me, something makes emotions flash forth in me, something forms thoughts and compels them to come forward in an absolutely definite way and make their presence felt in my consciousness.”

[ 2 ] Now this feeling may contain something exceedingly depressing when the manner in which the supersensible experience presents itself is such as to convey the certainty that we are actually experiencing a reality and are not losing ourselves in imaginary fancies or illusions. Such as it is it may indicate that the supersensible surrounding world wants to feel, and to think for itself, but that it is hindered in the realisation of its intention. At the same time we get a feeling that that which here wants to enter the soul is the true reality and the only one that can give an explanation of all we have hitherto experienced as real. This feeling also gives the impression that the supersensible reality shows itself as something which in value infinitely transcends the reality hitherto known to the soul. This feeling is therefore depressing, because it makes us feel that we are actually forced to will the next step which has to be taken. It lies in the very nature of that which we have become through our own inner experience to take this step. If we do not take it we must feel this to be a denial of our own being, or even self-annihilation. And yet we may also have the feeling that we cannot take it, or if we attempt it as far as we can, it must remain imperfect

[ 3 ] All this develops into the idea: Such as the soul now is, a task lies before it, which it cannot master, because such as it now is, it is rejected by its supersensible surroundings, for the supersensible world does not wish to have it within its realm. And so the soul arrives at a feeling of being in contradiction to the supersensible world; and has to say to itself: “I am not such as to make it possible for me to mingle with that world, and yet only there can I learn the true reality and my relation to it; for I have separated myself from the recognition of Truth.” This feeling means an experience which will make more and more clear and decisive the exact value of our own soul. We feel ourselves and our whole life to be steeped in an error. And yet this error is distinct from other errors. The others are thought; but this is a living experience. An error that is only thought may be removed when the wrong thought is replaced by the right one. But the error that has been experienced has become part of the life of our soul itself; we ourselves are the error, we cannot simply correct it, for, think as we will, it is there, it is part of reality, and that, too, our own reality. Such an experience is a crushing one for the “self.” We feel our inmost being painfully rejected by all that we desire. This pain, which is felt at a certain stage in the pilgrimage of the soul, is far beyond anything which can be felt as pain in the physical world. And therefore it may surpass everything which we have hitherto become able to master in the life of our soul. It may have the effect of stunning us. The soul stands before the anxious question: Whence shall I gather strength to carry the burden laid upon me? And the soul must find that strength within its own life. It consists in something that may be characterised as inner courage, inner fearlessness.

[ 4 ] In order now to be able to proceed further in the pilgrimage of the soul, we must have developed so far that the strength which enables us to bear our experiences will well up from within us and produce this inner courage and inner fearlessness in a degree never required for life in the physical body. Such strength is only produced by true self-knowledge. In fact it is only at this stage of development that we realise how little we have hitherto really known of ourselves. We have surrendered ourselves to our inner experiences without observing them as one observes a part of the outer world. Through the steps that have led to the faculty of extra-physical experience, however, we obtain a special means of self-knowledge. We learn in a certain sense to contemplate ourselves from a standpoint which can only be found when we are outside the physical body. And the depressing feeling mentioned before is itself the very beginning of true self-knowledge. To realise oneself as being in error in one's relations to the outer world is a sign that one is realising the true nature of one's own soul.

[ 5 ] It is in the nature of the human soul to feel such enlightenment regarding itself as painful. It is only when we feel this pain that we learn how strong is the natural desire to feel ourselves, just as we are - to be human beings of importance and value. It may seem an ugly fact that this is so; but we have to face this ugliness of our own self without prejudice. We did not notice it before, just because we never consciously penetrated deeply enough into our own being. Only when we do so do we perceive how dearly we love that in ourselves which must be felt as ugly. The power of self-love shows itself in all its enormity. And at the same time we see how little inclination we have to lay aside this self-love. Even when it is only a question of those qualities of the soul which are concerned with our ordinary life and relations to other people, the difficulties turn out to be quite great enough. We learn, for instance, by means of true self-knowledge, that though we have hitherto believed that we felt kindly towards some one, nevertheless we are cherishing in the depths of our soul secret envy or hatred or some such feeling towards that person. We realise that these feelings, which have not as yet risen to the surface, will some day certainly crave for expression. And we see how very superficial it would be to say to ourselves: “Now that you have learned how it stands with you, root out your envy or hatred.” For we discover that armed merely with such a thought we shall certainly feel exceedingly weak, when some day the craving to show our envy or to satisfy our hatred breaks forth as if with elemental power. Such special kinds of self-knowledge manifest themselves in different people according to the special constitution of their souls. They appear when experience outside the body begins, for then our self-knowledge becomes a true one, and is no longer troubled by any desire to find ourselves modeled in some such way as we should like to be.

[ 6 ] Such special self-knowledge is painful and depressing to the soul, but if we want to attain to the faculty of experience outside the body, it cannot be avoided, for it is necessarily called forth by the special position which we must take up with regard to our own soul. For the very strongest powers of the soul are required, even if it is only a question of an ordinary human being obtaining self-knowledge in a general way. We are observing ourselves from a standpoint outside our previous inner life.

We have to say to ourselves: “I have contemplated and judged the things and occurrences of the world according to my human nature. I must now try to imagine that I cannot contemplate and judge them in that way. But then I should not be what I am. I should have no inner experiences. I should be a mere nothing.” And not only a man in the midst of ordinary everyday life, who only very rarely even thinks about the world or life, would have to address himself in this way. Any man of science, or any philosopher, would have to do so. For even philosophy is only observation and judgment of the world according to individual qualities and conditions of the human soul-life. Now such a judgment cannot mingle with supersensible surroundings. It is rejected by them. And therewith everything we have been up to that moment is rejected. We look back upon our whole soul, upon our ego itself, as upon something which has to be laid aside, when we want to enter the supersensible world. The soul, however, cannot but consider this ego as its real being until it enters the supersensible worlds. The soul must consider it as the true human being, and must say to itself: “Through this my ego I have to form ideas of the world. I must not lose this ego of mine if I do not want to give myself up as a being altogether.' There is in the soul the strongest inclination to guard the ego at all points in order not to lose one's foothold absolutely. What the soul thus feels of necessity to be right in ordinary life, it must no longer feel when it enters supersensible surroundings. It has there to cross a threshold, where it must leave behind not only this or that precious possession, but that very being which it has hitherto believed itself to be. The soul must be able to say to itself: “That which until now has seemed to me to be my surest truth, I must now, on the other side of the threshold of the supersensible world, be able to consider as my deepest error.”

[ 7 ] Before such a demand the soul may well recoil. The feeling may be so strong that the necessary steps would seem a surrender of its own being, and an acknowledgment of its own nothingness, so that it admits more or less completely on the threshold its own powerlessness to fulfil the demands put before it. This acknowledgment may take all possible forms. It may appear merely as an instinct and seem to the pupil who thinks and acts upon it as something quite different from what it really is. He may, for instance, feel a great dislike to all supersensible truths. He may consider them as day dreams, or imaginary fancies. He does so only because in those depths of his soul of which he is ignorant he has a secret fear of these truths. He feels that he can only live with that which is admitted by his senses and his intellectual judgment. He therefore avoids arriving at the threshold of the supersensible world, and he veils the fact of his avoidance of it by saying: “ That which is supposed to lie behind that threshold is not tenable by reason or by science.” The fact is simply that he loves reason and science such as he knows them, because they are bound up with his ego. This is a very, frequent form of self-love and cannot as such be brought into the supersensible world.

[ 8 ] It may also happen that there is not only this instinctive halt before the threshold. The pupil may consciously proceed to the threshold and then turn back, because he fears that which lies before him. He will then not easily be able to blot out from the ordinary life of his soul the effect of thus approaching it. The effect will be that weakness will spread over the whole of his soul's life.

[ 9 ] What ought to take place is this, that the pupil on entering the supersensible world should make himself able to renounce that which in ordinary life he considers as the deepest truth and to adapt himself to a different way of feeling and judging things. But at the same time he must keep in mind that when he again confronts the physical world, he must make use of the ways of feeling, and judging that are suitable for this physical world. He must not only learn to live in two different worlds, but also to live in each in quite a different way, and he must not allow his sound judgment, which he needs for ordinary life in the world of reason and of the senses, to be encroached upon by the fact that he is obliged to make use of another kind of discernment while in another world.

[ 10 ] To take up such a position is difficult for human nature, and the capacity for doing so is only acquired through continued energetic and patient strengthening of our soul-life. Any one who goes through the experiences of the threshold realises that it is a boon to the ordinary life of the soul not to be led so far. The feelings that awaken are such that one cannot but think that this boon proceeds from some powerful entity, who protects man from the danger of undergoing the dread of self-annihilation at the threshold. Behind the outer world of ordinary life there is another. Before the threshold of this world a stern guardian is standing, who prevents man from knowing what the laws of the supersensible world are. For all doubts and all uncertainty concerning that world are, after all, easier to bear than the sight of that which one must leave behind when we want to cross the threshold.

[ 11 ] The pupil remains protected against the experience described, as long as he does not step forward to the very threshold. The fact that he receives descriptions of such experiences from those who have trodden or crossed this threshold does not change the fact of his being protected. On the contrary, such communications may be of good service to him when he approaches the threshold. In this case as in many others, a thing is done better if one has an idea of it beforehand. But as regards the self-knowledge which must be gained by a traveler in the supersensible world nothing is changed by such preliminary knowledge. It is therefore not in harmony with the facts, when many clairvoyants, or those acquainted with the nature of clairvoyance, assert that these things should not be mentioned at all to people who are not on the point of resolving to enter into the supersensible world. We are now living in a time when people must become more and more acquainted with the nature of the supersensible world, if the life of their soul is to become equal to the demands of ordinary life upon it. The spread of supersensible knowledge, including the knowledge of the guardian of the threshold, is one of the tasks of the moment and of the immediate future.

Dear attendees! The question of the Christ is arousing interest in the widest circles today. In our so enlightened age, this question is about to become one of the most significant. If one looks at the character of our entire culture, this interest is understandable. The figure of Christ was one that gave the deepest impulse to Western culture for many centuries. In the present time, in certain considerations, this figure seems to be disappearing, to be falling out of hands. Before the gaze of historical research, the figure of Christ is, as it were, dissolving. In contrast to this, there is the tendency to seek only a deeper understanding of the essence of Jesus of Nazareth. But this figure is even doubted in its historical existence. “Did Jesus live?” is a question often asked today. Such a question deeply affects all minds. As with all historical phenomena, one may ask whether the Christ Jesus was a historical being. But the Gospels are not documents like others, [like ordinary historical documents]. From the point of view of present-day historical research, there is a certain justification for the belief that the figure of Christ must be simply shattered in those who seek a historical basis. This is one reason why [in the past] the impulse had such a profound effect on people and why [today] such great interest must be shown in this research: precisely because of [people's] fear of losing a well-founded belief in the figure of Christ.

Now, from the spiritual scientific point of view, something, even if only a sketch, is to be said about this problem that has just been characterized. [But what this spiritual science has to say is that from it arises the well-founded hope that The Christ, who was irretrievably taken away from people outwardly, can be given back to them again.] The figure of Christ, as it emerges from spiritual science, is something that goes against the general convictions and judgments, it is downright repugnant to them. What is to be said this evening will not only meet with opposition, but it will also be taken as a flight of fancy, as a fantasy. It is not possible to gather everything on this question in the context of a single lecture, but by communicating what spiritual science has found, one or two things may come out afterwards. Actually, the question only becomes clear when we look back over the centuries at the different conceptions that people have had of the Christ.

It must be admitted: the Christ conception of the first centuries has something strange for present-day people; [this was already the case then, and to gain an understanding later on [in the course of time] is becoming more and more impossible. So the present point of view has developed: with regard to Christ, spiritual science comes to a similar conclusion as the Gnostic science of the first centuries. The Gnostics are often called sects, but they rose to the highest heights of human thought and feeling, which today's people cannot have much interest in. The followers of Gnosticism were far from adopting monistic views – a noble word for “materialistic”. The Gnostic does not find the original human being in the animal kingdom, but [for him] he is still a spiritual being; this being has not externally assumed a carnal body in the animal kingdom, but as a spiritual human being has brought himself more and more into alignment with the laws of the physical body. Incorporation has brought man to the situation in which he now is.

[And so the Gnostics asked:] How do we find the [original] human being? Each one [in] himself? On the one hand, we find what we have also become in terms of our soul life; on the other, we find a striving, a belief in a higher human nature. This enables the human being to unleash certain powers within himself so that he can uplift himself. He discovers [his] higher nature. Thus a sum of forces is hidden in the higher human nature. This is the view of the Gnostics: man is destined for a life in higher spheres; his life on earth is lower, lies below what he could be in spirit. Man's [physical] life does not correspond to his higher nature; but it is not lost; it is only important for physical progress [on earth]. The higher self has been preserved in the spiritual world. Eventually, this superhuman being was able to descend and work in human nature; at a certain point in time, a primeval human being, so to speak, was able to descend and work in human nature, who had been preserved in the spiritual world until then. This being is what Gnosticism conceived of as the Christ. He contains within himself the impulse to the highest that man can achieve. This moment [of descent] coincides, symbolically speaking, with the baptism of John.

[From the point of view of Gnosticism] people are sometimes more and sometimes less advanced. Gnosticism revered Jesus of Nazareth as the highest, most outstanding person in the development of the earth. We can characterize what happened to him at the age of thirty without shocking people: A person grows up, shows this or that development, until a certain point in life when a break occurs, something completely new enters the soul life, for which there seems to be no preparation at all. Some present this as something impossible, but there are upheavals, radical breaks in human life. Imagine such an upheaval - taken to the highest degree. Even if this turnaround is made on the smallest scale, the person feels like a new being, which he was not before. (The Gnostics assume such a turnaround when they speak of what occurred in Jesus of Nazareth at the age of thirty.)

The original man has found his way into the soul of Jesus of Nazareth. He was like an outer vessel; in the sense of the Gnostics, he is seen as the bearer of Christ. Thus, one cannot say that the Christ is identical with Jesus of Nazareth. But there was no new developmental epoch in the life of Jesus of Nazareth: that which had always been there in the heights of heaven, which had been preserved from the beginning, descended to earth and lived in the body of Jesus for three years. This is the infinite spiritual depth of the thought: the development of humanity has ascended to the Most High with God, has been saturated with the power of the Most High. A small circle of Gnostics could grasp the great significance of what had been given back to humanity.

We cannot go through all the individual stages of the Christ-ideas, but we can name a few, for example, in the case of the deep thinkers of the Middle Ages. They had the most intense faith, but it was not possible for them to elevate it to Gnostic ideas. It was impossible to think about Christian Gnosticism in the Middle Ages. Such thinking would have appeared to be fantasy. In the Middle Ages, the view was limited to what lies below the sphere of the Gnostics. They drew from Aristotle, [from the world of thought created by him] four hundred years before Christ; Aristotle was then the “tone-setter”. Spiritual flight was attributed to [the realm of] faith. Aristotle said: Everything that underlies the realms of nature is spiritual; only he did not accept the reincarnation of the human soul. He was interested in what can be recognized according to law, he was only interested in a unified God. [According to his view] the human soul separates from the unified divine substance with every birth. But after death, the soul does not return to the divine, but remains in the spiritual world as an individual human being. For Aristotle, the entire transcendental world is purely cognitive. Man looks back on his life on earth [after his death] and then finds his reward or his torment, eternal punishment and reward. This is related to the science of Aristotle – Franz Brentano, [a great connoisseur of Aristotle, has commented on it at length in his works]. The medieval scholars did point to a knowledge of the spiritual world, but for them [the cognitive approach to the spiritual] was excluded – that is the realm of gnosis, which is attained through knowledge.

[And so one can ask:] What is missing from the faith of medieval man? Well, what he lacks is the awareness, the conscious realization that man has also fallen intellectually. From this unconscious, spiritual science wants to raise him; this is then a new Christ consciousness, apart from all mythological and legendary aspects. The penetration of the ruling spirit into Jesus of Nazareth was only faith, but not knowledge. Thus humanity came to no longer be able to imagine what it means when the Christ takes possession of Jesus; it is nonsense for the materialistic thinking of the new age that from spiritual heights [the Christ presence as] something real descended to men. Only Jesus of Nazareth remains as an excellent human being.

Now, contradictions arose with ease when one sought clarification in the four documents [the gospels] and found differences. It is really child's play to show that they [in many ways] do not agree. [And one wonders:] Didn't they notice that earlier? It is easy to ascribe any folly to our ancestors, [as if] they had never read the Gospels. Thus Jesus of Nazareth became more and more blurred, [for many in modern times] he is only an exceptionally good person. That is flattering for the modern person; for him, Jesus of Nazareth is a person like all the others, only a little higher: like Plato, Socrates. Thus Jesus became the “simple man of Nazareth.” The simpler, the more general [his image became], the more people liked it, the more they believed that it corresponded to the historical truth. That is called “impartial research.” Only what is recognized as objective is objective. The greatest theologians believed that one should approach the subject without prejudice, assuming nothing to be true, but [what do they do?] They go and simply cross out [what is not apparent to them in the gospels]. Hence the question arises: “Did Jesus live?” No other result was possible [with such a way of thinking]. Outwardly, historically, the existence of Jesus cannot be proven. [Professor] Drews cum suis is absolutely right in the way he presents it. [He is consistent in his thinking]. Anything else would be like struggling for something that cannot be proven.

Spiritual science places itself in the context of culture; [it uses certain methods to gain insights into the spiritual course of human development], as discussed in the book “Christianity as Mystical Fact”. This title was not chosen at random: it is not Christian mysticism that is meant, but rather that the Christ impulse is to be understood as the driving force of that which is found in external, physical reality. The most important impulse in the development of the earth is the Christ impulse; it is the center of gravity of this entire historical development. Spiritual science ties in again with what Gnosis wanted, but it does so from its own resources, quite independently. In pre-Christian times, the human soul functioned quite differently than it does today. It is a bad habit not to want to recognize that the human soul was different. [...] In the past, dream-like clairvoyance was a third state between sleeping and waking. Man knew then that there are spiritual beings, just as he knows today that there are plants and animals. The old legends and myths are images of what man has seen. The myths are transposed old clairvoyant experiences. But this clairvoyance had to be lost, because it was a prelude to the development of the ego in human evolution, to the development of the full ego of man in the physical world, of man's self-built existence.

This is the course of human development: from dim clairvoyance, it is to come to clear, conscious clairvoyance, firmly grounded in the future. In ancient times, there was no knowledge of the reasons for existence that was acquired other than through clairvoyance. [Although] Deussen [claims the opposite, it must be said] that only since the Greek period did [intellectual] knowledge of the external world emerge, actually only with Thales; Thales was the first. What comes from atavistic clairvoyance is not [philosophy]. In ancient times, the places where man rose above the ordinary state were the mystery schools, [from today's perspective, something between a university and a church. In these mystery sites, people could gain initiation]. The initiates recognized: the spirit reveals itself only in the ego, not in the powers of the soul; the ego is the center of the soul's being. But at first the spirit revealed itself only as God, who lived in all the people, as with the ancient Hebrews. Man's deepest being is directly divine; body and soul are only indirectly so. Through certain practices and exercises, the soul life can become independent of the body. The divine lives in the ordinary human being as he is in life; it reveals itself from the core of his being, the I. There were various initiation instructions, essentially four. The mysteries become an historical fact in the mystery of Golgotha - that was the Christ impulse! The Christ is the universal spirit; his life took place on the physical plane before all humanity, and is not lived out in a small way - as insignificant, before individuals, before the apostles and others - but representatively before all humanity. Thus there was a replacement of the old mysteries by the One. In the I, in the innermost being of the soul, lies the highest power of humanity. So we can rise again from the Fall.

The time since the I has been dependent on itself was preceded by the Christ impulse by only six hundred years. From this point on, man is completely placed in the world, which is perceived only through the outer senses. In natural development, we are dealing with leaps everywhere, and this also applies to the development of humanity. Thus, every time is a time of transition and our time is very special.

Some old forms are fading away, both moral and intellectual. Man is placed at the pinnacle of his own personality. Until today it was a time of preparation, [you could take it to heart or not]; but now increased powers must play in human nature. Souls are experiencing an increase of their powers. The last time this happened was in Greek times, six hundred years before Christ; then [this impulse] entered into human development [as the beginning of independent thinking]. Today we are at a similar point in time as six hundred years before Christ. But then the human soul was guided outwards into the physical world, now its only support is the ego; and in this ego of man the Christ consciousness must be established. It is a kind of repetition, but now inwards, internalized.

The center of the world is in this I. With our internalization, the highest impulses that can live in a person at all will arise - [it is] a spiritual return of the Christ within; [soul powers are developed] that can grasp the Christ in a new form; [can be experienced] by spiritual perception, not in the physical world. [This experience is not identical with the experience of the inner, mystical Christ, that is, with something that was already there.] Spiritual science shows us the inner, mystical Christ and the historical Christ. Anyone who only wants to believe in the inner, mystical Christ, not in the historical Christ, is mistaken. One also needs the historical Christ, because there would be no inner, mystical Christ without the historical Christ. The Christ-feeling in us depends on the spiritual sun as the eye depends on the light: it depends on the historical Christ. Without the latter there is no possibility of the inner Christ – it is the historical Christ who created the organ for the Christ-experience in the hearts of men.

If we use a word for the predecessor of our Earth, we say: the predecessor of our Earth is called “Moon”, “Luna”. When one says “moon”, one must be aware that something quite different is meant than our present moon and also than those planets that astronomy can discover at all. For these planets are all seen through the organs that man has in his present state of consciousness. Now man sees all those bodies that have entered the mineral kingdom and have become visible.

When the occultist speaks of the mineral kingdom, he is not only speaking of stones, but of a very specific way of understanding that the human consciousness has today. The materialist claims that there is no such thing as life force, but that it is only a combination of molecules and so on. The occultist distinguishes a machine in which its parts are moved in a simple way from the organism that is animated in a complicated way. But man is now so organized that he can only perceive the mineral, the inanimate, which is why it is said in occultism today: “Man himself lives in the mineral kingdom.”

When you study the ear, you find that it is a complicated physical apparatus. Inside it is a keyboard, the organ of Corti. Certain vibrations excite a certain fiber in the organ of Corti, like the string on a piano.

The sum of all these complicated physical devices is the physical human body. When you now have a person in front of you, you do not just have the physical body in front of you, you also have the feelings of the person in front of you, only you do not see these feelings, but they change the physical body. You are never just dealing with the physical body, but, and this must be kept in mind, it is only in the physical body that consciousness has awakened. And this must be stated explicitly: consciousness must still awaken in the other bodies. Consciousness is only now being realized on the physical plane.

The second step is that consciousness will also be realized in the plant kingdom. And then it follows that it will be realized in the animal kingdom. Now man has only brought it to a mineral recognition of the world. But then he will also have brought it to a life-filled, plant-like recognition of the world, and then to an animal-like [recognition]. In the end, we will then bring it to human recognition.

Now man recognizes only the mineral kingdom. He cannot yet recognize instincts, desire and suffering in the animal, nor the growth force in the plant. Let us imagine the following: Imagine everything material in the plant is gone; then you could no longer perceive it, that is, you only recognize it in mineral terms. In the future, however, man will see through the essence of plants. But this seeing through is simultaneously linked with what these plants can create with. Now man can only build things out of mechanical-mineral forces; he works on the mineral structure of the earth. It is the “temple of the world” that man is now building out of the mineral substance.

Let us now do the following together: we will imagine a distant point in the past when no human hand had yet touched the earth, when the earth emerged from the hands of the gods, that is, before anything was made by man. This is the period when man had not yet touched any of the forces of the mineral kingdom.

Of course, back then everything was quite different than it is today. If we look now, so much on earth is shaped by human hands, by human forces. And now, after we have sufficiently imagined this [distant point in the past], let us imagine a certain final state of the earth. Think of it this way: everything that has been handed over to man has now been thoroughly worked through by him. In the beginning, the devas gave the things a form, but in the end, everything will be transformed by the hands of man. If we think this through, then the creative mineral power of the hands of the devas gradually shifts more and more into the hands of man. In the old tradition, there were three aspects to this transformation. These aspects were called: wisdom, beauty and virtue. The temple that will be built on earth by human beings will be built out of wisdom, beauty and virtue. When this temple built by human beings is erected, younger beings will look up to what human beings have created, just as we now look up to the mineral world created by the devas.

So let us always remember: the buildings and the machines are not built in vain. What we today dig out of the earth as a crystal, the devas once built in the same way that we now build a cathedral. If we go back to the past, we see how, in the distant past, the whole mineral kingdom emerged from a chaotic mass.

So it will also be in the distant future; there remains of today's cathedral, even of today's state, a seed state that will sprout again later. We must hold on to this, because in this way we have the transition through one form of life into the transformation. What we will perceive later is the transformation of the mineral kingdom. This transformation of the mineral kingdom is a skill that is now being gradually developed. In later stages of development, human beings also learn to transform the plant kingdom, which is a higher level of skill.

In the future, in a certain way, just as he builds churches today, man will be able to shape and build in the plant kingdom. These are aspects, perspectives that lead us into a real human future.

Man will have developed even further in an even more distant future, when he will not only shape growing but also conscious beings, that is, when he will also shape in the animal kingdom.

And when, in the end, man will be able to bring himself into being, then he will consciously carry out on a higher level what he only carries out today in the most sensual, in the mineral kingdom.

The seed from which man will become creative, without sensuality, is the word we speak today. Man began his present state of consciousness with his first breath. Man's state of consciousness will be complete when he can communicate the same substance that he gives to thought today through sound. Now he can only communicate his thoughts to the air, the innermost being of the soul. But when he has ascended to the consciousness of images, then he can already communicate the image to the air. In this later stage of development, the word will be present imagination. By incorporating these images into the word, he will then create the word imbued with the image. If we can incorporate not only the [thought content] of an object, such as a clock, but if we can incorporate imagination into a word, then the image will come to life. What we create today as a clock will be a plant. And if man then learns to incorporate the highest, he will permeate the image with life itself, with animal life. The development will continue and finally man will reproduce himself at an even higher level. At the end of earthly formation, the whole air will be permeated by the power of the words themselves. Thus man must grow until he is able to fully express himself in his environment. The initiate today already anticipates this state.

Of course, even in year one, the Earth cannot yet produce the human bodies that it will be capable of producing at the end of evolution. At the end of Earth evolution, the bodies are ready to express what is called the Logos. The missionary who had already expressed this in a body as we see it today was the Christ Jesus. What the final goal of our human-earthly development spiritually represents was presented by the spirit in the Christ Jesus at the beginning of our post-Christian development.

We ask: How was the human spirit, which lives in us today through breathing, there before? The earth is the reincarnation of a previous planet. This previous earth incarnation was “Luna”, the “moon”. The peculiar thing about the moon's existence is that at that time our present mineral kingdom did not yet exist. The moon itself, as it was then, did not consist of mineral rocks, hardened minerals. It was like a large living mass of plants, its whole being still between the mineral and plant kingdoms. We have to imagine that this plant sphere was like the wood of the trees in its densest parts. The rocks of the moon were also like that. What one walked on was not mineral soil. It could be compared to a peat bog, with a bit of coal at the bottom. Creatures grew out of this moon globe that were half animal and half plant, and a third kingdom existed that stood between the present-day animal and human kingdoms. These creatures that were there on the moon were precisely those that had such an awareness as dream consciousness. The matter of which these beings consisted can be imagined by visualizing the structure of today's nerve mass, the structure of the brain and also that of the crabs. Through the condensation of this matter, what is enclosed in humans today has been created: the brain, the spinal cord, the nerves. Everything that could live on the moon lived freely [with its environment], gelatinous. But on Earth, this had to be protected by a shell. The highest beings from the moon that came to Earth surrounded themselves with a bony armor: crabs, turtles, beetles, etc. In the case of humans, too, this [gelatinous] substance was surrounded by a bony armor. All of this was extracted from the macrocosm by the bony armor. When that was sufficiently prepared, the higher consciousness entered, and the descent of the Manasaputras took place.

Even higher beings can be characterized by me in the following way: that man was fertilized with his ego, that comes from the fact that he was able to breathe in the air around him. What did the beings on the moon breathe? The further we go back in the development of the earth, the higher and higher the temperature becomes. In Atlantis everything was still filled with fog, in Lemuria everything is still filled with hot, fiery vapors. So it is, as we go further back, always warmer and warmer.

Warmth appears as that to which we are increasingly being led back. When air changes into its earlier state, we call it “warmth” or “fire”; this is what dissolves air so that it is no longer air. Therefore, we distinguish between the solid or the earth, the liquid or the water, the warmth or the fire as we go back. Man today on earth breathes air, the gaseous. The Lemurian people were the beings who breathed fire, that is why we call those beings 'fire spirits'. Just as we have to call people today 'air spirits'. That is why it is also said in occult writings that people were first taught by fire spirits.

When man became human on earth, the air could become his life. Life on earth will consist of the fact that it will increasingly take place that man undergoes a descending development, that he exhales carbonic acid. The plant world balances this out again today. But it is certain, with regard to today's bodies, which necessarily have to absorb oxygen, that the carbonic acid will increase to such an extent that man will perish as a physical being. It is part of the process of development that the physical is destroyed by its own forces. When this state is reached, the earth will become 'astral'. There will be an eclipse, a pralaya, before the physical earth becomes astral. Before our Earth became physical, a similar process took place: the moon's atmosphere contained nitrogen, as we do [carbon], which played the same role on the moon as [carbon] does on Earth today. The predominance of nitrogen then marked the beginning of the pralaya, the eclipse of the moon at that time.

What remained is what reminds us of the last processes on the moon; on Earth, these are the nitrogen compounds, the cyanic compounds. That is why these compounds are so destructive on Earth. They are remnants and therefore dangerous because they were the norm only on the moon. One of the most severe poisons is cyan, the combination of carbon with nitrogen. On the moon, this meant approximately the same as what the combination of carbon with oxygen means on Earth today. Everything that was there in one epoch must be utilized in a subsequent epoch. The physical body of man was formed by the animal-men of the moon, the spirit of man from the fire-spirits that lived on the moon. That is why man is a twofold being. What was incarnated in the fire on the moon is incarnated in the air on earth.

Where is the means of embodiment for the spirit that was once fiery matter? In the past, there was no warm blood. We can ask ourselves: what created the blood and thus the life of the passions? This was created by the same fire-air that the beings on the moon breathed; this fire-air of the moon is today in the blood of warm-blooded beings. The human spirit of today, the air spirit, has clothed itself with a sensual body. That which came over from the moon in those early days is today the brain, spinal cord, etc. But the organ that has absorbed the fire will be transformed in the future into a [cognitive organ].

This can only show us how deeply we have to delve into the transformation of matter in order to understand such a metamorphosis at all, as it occurred during the transition from the Earth's predecessor, the Moon, to the Earth itself. If we go further back, we would recognize that the being that was embodied in light was physicality. And if we go back even further, we would recognize that the being was embodied in clay, and was therefore physicality. But the human spirit was still completely unconscious. Man once emerged from clay. Then he progressed through the embodiment of light. It is only at this fourth stage that man becomes conscious. At first, the direction of the clay is given to him, then the word, the logos. Thus, his innermost being speaks out of himself and becomes his new creator. His original nature comes into existence in the “I”. The conscious appearance of the “I” is the Christ principle.

If a being lives only in sound, it is in the first elemental realm; if it lives in light, it is in the second elemental realm. If it lives in fire, it is in the third elemental realm, and if it lives in air, it is in the mineral realm.

If we were to ascend to the first elemental formation, we would enter a realm of flowing clay. Then, as we descended, we would come to a realm permeated with flowing light images; and then to a realm with flowing light images permeated with fire; then we would come to a realm where forms are formed, the present mineral kingdom.

It has been more than 100 years since Schiller made the momentous statement: “Science and philosophy will continue to go their separate ways for a long time, only to come together in harmony in a distant time.

Have we come closer to the period of reconciliation in some respects? As a philosopher, Schiller came to the confession and observation that spiritual life is behind the physical.

What we call theosophy today brings us a different kind of knowledge of the spiritual world. Science, too, has experienced a lot in a century. That knowledge of the spiritual world shines into what is important to us, it speaks to our feelings and emotions. It might now seem that we are far from an understanding between science and philosophy. Those who only half understand a theosophical lecture or read about it often think that theosophy is empty chatter, a fantasy, and the theosophist who is under the influence and hypnosis of the scientific creed finds this justified. For many, theosophy is a temporary folly.

Today I want to give you a picture of the real situation today between natural science and spiritual science. I will sketch out the picture of natural scientific views and show you, firstly, the contradiction and how Theosophy stands in relation to it. Secondly, we will see how human life stands in relation to it.

What is the basis of this world? First, let us see what the mind can make of it. If we look around, we are surrounded by the world of sound, the world of colors, the world of smells, tastes and feelings. All of this assails our senses. Now, in the course of the nineteenth century, a certain scientific creed has emerged. In our educational institutions, the image is no longer emphasized so strongly, but through books and many other channels, it has become so widespread that it is generally assumed to be true. This raises the question of what lies behind these perceptions. From a seemingly fully developed scientific premise, it is assumed that all this diversity actually exists only in our sensory perception.

Many emphasize that, for example, color only exists in us, while outside there is only vibrating, moving matter. Color arises from ether vibrations. If we close our eyes, there is no red, only colorless moving matter. If we continue in this direction and assume that all beings lose their eyes, there would no longer be any red, only colorless, vibrating ether matter.

This has been imagined not only in relation to color, but to all sensory perceptions. At that time, for example, it was said: If you dip your hands into a kettle of hot substance and feel warmth, this perception is only contained in your feeling; in the kettle is only moving matter. If there were no eye, the world would be dark and colorless, only moving matter. If you take away all beings, what remains is moving matter. — You also said: Behind the diversity of our perceptions, the world is filled with colliding particles of matter; they give color and warmth.

In their time, there were some consistent scholars who are not held in particularly high regard today, but who had the courage to think these ideas through consistently and draw conclusions. Büchner, [Vogt], Moleschott: what did the image of the world reveal to them? It follows that man also consists of nothing more than moving atoms and molecules.

What happens then? Here you are, there is the world, and there arises the whole world that you imagine. It is impossible for this to remain mere theory. For these thinkers, it did not remain theory. They said: If man is nothing but swirling matter, then death is a falling apart, and all existence that is supposed to continue is a delusion. They regarded all talk about immortality as playing with words, and thought it should be consigned to the past.

Helmholtz, a cautious thinker, regards all sensory perceptions as signs of objective existence.

It was now found that these substances, which surround matter, can be broken down, and 70 different substances were distinguished. They said to themselves: All matter in space is divided into the smallest parts, into granular matter. They imagined that water is formed in this way: oxygen and hydrogen face each other in the smallest parts, and when they march through each other, they embrace and are water.

So what is eternal after all? Eternal is only the atom of a simple element. Science makes the atom its fetish, its idol. Everything else is a rising and falling of matter. Everything disappears in death, the world is haze and fog, behind it lies the eternal atom.

Now let us consider the second question and see how human life relates to it. When the question arose: Where did man come from, where did he come from? – it was found: Man originated from lower, imperfect creatures. It was said that speech, thought, and moral sense are only a development of what the animal also has. The animal has a voice and shows memory; the dog shows an echo of religious feelings in the loyalty with which it worships its master; these are echoes of the feelings of man towards his God.

Let us, instead, replace these with the two images of the theosophical world view. For them, color, warmth, properties, are real existence. We can experience color, sound, smell, taste, feeling; and when we find them, like color, hardness and so on, in a thing, we recognize a material body. For the theosophist today, these sensory perceptions are something that can be experienced and learned. The one who sees spiritually sees the active spirit.

Just as ice is related to water, so is matter related to spirit in spiritual research. Theosophy sees, roughly speaking, condensed spirit in all matter. Sound, color, even movement is condensed spirit. What we see behind it, we know because we experience it ourselves. If we search within ourselves, we feel spirit; we see the active spirit in things, the spirit of whose substance we ourselves consist.

What does spiritual science have to say against the atomistic worldview? We ask: What is the atom? We cannot regard as reality that which is not colored, that which does not taste, for these are not qualities of the atom. The atom has no color, no, for this is caused by the movement of matter. The atom would be a figment of the imagination if it were presented as reality.

What is the attitude of natural science towards this atomistic world view? Du Bois-Reymond expressed himself in a lecture to the effect that I am briefly hinting at here, that the genuine, true natural scientist traces everything he perceives in the world back to moving matter. He said something at the time that is important for spiritual science today. He repeated Leibniz, who said: Imagine that the human brain is so large that you could put yourself inside it. If the soul has the perception that I see red, I smell the scent of roses, I hear the sound of an organ, then one could examine how certain parts of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen move. The movement in the brain could also be seen, but the sensation of “I see red” cannot be understood. Du Bois-Reymond says: A bridge will never be built, it is never possible to see how the atoms move. He concluded his observation as follows: Let us now consider a sleeping person. For him, the experience of “I see red” has sunk into an unconscious darkness. The natural scientist can explain what is lying in the bed, but when “I see red” arises in the morning, we cannot build a bridge to this sensation. “Ignorabimus” — we will never recognize. The natural scientist can never build a bridge to the spiritual.

Here is another view. I will tie in with a natural science meeting. In his speech ‘Overcoming Materialism’, the chemist Ostwald showed that the assumption of a material behind the phenomenon makes no sense. What lies behind it is forces, energy. When you receive a blow, you are first interested in the force of the blow. Thus a sum of force took the place of a sum of atoms. We see from this how a doubt arose in the mind of a natural scientist. Then a natural scientist came up with the idea that man descended from apes, from imperfect living beings.

What does spiritual science have to say in place of this view? What is man in his sleep to spiritual research? It would be nonsense to think that the sum total of experiences disappears in the evening only to reappear the next morning. What is the carrier of “I see red” is not united with the sleeping person. In the theosophical view of the world, we recognize four real parts of the human being: physical body, etheric body, astral body and the “I”. The physical and etheric bodies are, roughly speaking, a condensed astral body. The astral body is nothing more than a tumult of pain, joy, suffering, and inner experiences. Material processes are the effects of spiritual processes.

In response to this, it has been said: You don't imagine that pain and suffering resonate freely in space? This “great foolishness” is true.

What is the material effect of the spiritual? I will mention two processes: the feeling of shame and the feeling of fear and terror. These are mental processes. The blood is distributed differently in the organism.

There is a materialistic world view: pragmatism – a combination of cause and effect – which says: a person does not cry because he is sad, but he is sad because he cries.

They know that the emotional process of feeling fear causes material effects. What today appears to be only a kind of residue was present to a much greater extent in the past.

What is the sleeping human being for spiritual science? Physical and etheric body. The astral body with the ego is elevated. In the future, when we have developed astral qualities, we will know more during sleep than during the day. What does the astral body have to do at night? It is busy removing the accumulated fatigue. The materialist will also say: Don't you know that science knows the reasons for fatigue? The answer to this is a [parable]: a person gives another a good slap in the face. A third person says: I know very well that anger is the reason. The other person says: You fantasist, you are talking about emotional events, I only saw him raise his hand and strike.

Man started out as spirit. Let me give you an image of the development: Imagine many lumps of water. Suppose a part inside formed into ice lumps; in some the ice lump would fall out, in others it would be retained. In the latter case, the ice lump can become larger and larger. Now some of these would let a larger ice lump fall out. Those that fell out remained on their step, those that remained inside continued to develop until each had created its own image in the water. That is the image of man.

The astral man forms a tiny physical body for himself. Some of them fell out. Today these are the most imperfect creatures. In others, in whom the development continued, where more was forced in, the fish emerged; then other animals followed until the development of man. He left the stages of his continuous development behind in the animals. They are degenerated developments of man.

Perfection consists in his expressing in an external material image that which he previously had only internally.

What does science say about its own image of the origin from the ape? Some naturalists have come to the conclusion that, no, when we look at the ape, we can no longer justify the assumption that the ape is the ancestor of man. We cannot find the intermediate form. We can only follow the mammal downwards, man is in the ascent. Thus, natural science is on the right path. It can only not yet imagine that what forms man is of a spiritual nature; but we see it in the direction of seeking man's origin in the spiritual.

But a new discovery has brought about a revolution in natural science: radium. What does this discovery hold for us? The fact that there are substances that have very different effects, effects on photographic plates, among other things. These effects are produced by gas emissions and electrical air. It loses this property after some time and then regains it. It is the uranium salt.

I mention here what natural science has learned about transformation. It has been forced to the following: It used to proclaim: the atom is eternal, indestructible. Now it has learned: this atom decays, becomes fragmented.

And the matter went further. The English scholar Ramsay shows how diverted substance passes over into quite different substance, into the metal helium. Here one would like to say: There the dreams of the old alchemists have been fulfilled. But if one substance passes over into another, what has become of the eternal?

In his lecture on the philosophy of life, Balfour, the English minister, declared that the atom is electricity flowing in space.

Others have said: When chlorine and copper combine, something else happens. When they march together, heat is released and flows out. The strange thing is that this heat must be the same when chlorine and copper separate. We imagine this as sacks that are puffed up with warmth. If you release them and then give them warmth again, they will puff up again. Atoms are shells, their interior is warmth. They themselves are nothing but condensed warmth. Today, science calls matter condensed electricity. It is on the way to recognizing matter as condensed spirit.

Thus we have seen in two areas, firstly, a transparent and clear picture of the world, and secondly, that the facts of natural science point to the spiritual.

The doctrine of the atomic world is based on fantasy. Theosophy is a dissolution of all fantasy. The facts themselves will shine in and show how the atom is being split. Natural science is on its way up to spiritual science. We see how Theosophy shines in, and what our eyes see becomes explainable up to our physical existence.

We stand at the threshold of a new era. In those days, natural science was earthbound; today, through the latest research, it is being pushed up to the spiritual.

Natural science and philosophy must be reconciled. It will come to the true salvation and progress of the human race.

Every sound we speak, every word brings forth vibrations in our environment, vibrations that spread in waves in all directions. These vibrations propagate through the air, but also through the denser bodies. Through our organ of hearing, these vibrations of the air and also of the denser bodies, for example the vibrating string of an instrument, are fed to our brain and interpreted there by the consciousness; that is, the sound vibrations are converted there into consciousness vibrations. If we could now make the vibrations, which are produced by our words, visible, they would produce visible changes in the matter around us. If we would let a certain word sound continuously, and if we could give form to this word in the matter around us, then our environment would finally form the formation of this word. Our surroundings would then have become the expression of the word emanating from us.

When we thus communicate ourselves to our surroundings through sound, we set everything around us into a certain vibration, into a movement, into a rhythm. One hears our words only by the fact that we let them sound, but also let them fade away again. We create a rhythm through our words and then let it fade away again. At first our environment is without this rhythm produced by us through the sound. Then it is put into rhythm by the sound. Then the rhythmic waves flood off again, and everything goes back to a state of immobility. If we would let a word sound continuously, the oscillations would always remain the same; one would follow the other without a cessation of the movement. If these vibrations were to follow one another without interruption, one would not be able to distinguish one vibration from the next, and this continuous following and passing over of vibrations would be equal to complete rest. So we can think of such a degree of movement, of rhythm, which is equal to rest. It is then a uniform, uninterrupted rhythm.

If we were able to transfer the rhythm of a word to our whole environment, this environment of ours would at last become the expression of that word; we would set the matter around us in such motion by our word and keep it in a certain tension by the continuously sounding word, which at last would also be visibly expressed.

So also in the beginning, that is, at the beginning of our earth's development, the divine Creator's Word resounded and set the earth in a certain rhythm, and by the continuance of this rhythm the movements of matter became condensation; matter was kept in a certain tension by the sound of the Word. However, this divine creator word sounded not only in the beginning. It sounds incessantly. If it would sound only one second no more, then the world would be changed immediately into a chaos. Everything around us is the expression of this divine word of creation that resounds through the world. Everything visible is the outwardly perceptible vibrational limit of the divine word; it is the rhythm of life pushed to the surface that we behold in the sense world around us, and the forms of the sense world are the thoughts of God expressed in this divine word of creation.

The world is in a constant rhythm brought forth by the divine Creator Word. The Divine is all that is there; the Word is the movement that enters into the Divine Eternal; all that enters into appearance is the thought of the Divine flowing out through the Word from within the Godhead. Thus, out of the divine Being, out of the rest, which is at the same time unceasing, undifferentiated movement, life comes forth through the Word and puts everything into the unceasing differentiated movement and thereby shapes the thought of God in what was previously undifferentiated. Thus the Divine is everywhere at the same time eternal rest, according to being; then eternal life, which is like eternal change, for eternal life means eternal change, eternal springing up, growing forth, and last of all eternal consciousness; a constant expression of the God-thought that has become is the world.

All that we perceive externally in the world is the consciousness transformed into external being by the divine life. Man also develops one day to the point that he can send his consciousness outward through the Word and transform it into an external creation. For this he must first be able to send out the clear thought from within himself. Then he must be able to imbue this thought with a life. Then he must be able to imprint this living, rhythmic thought permanently on the environment, to bring it to embodiment. Then he himself has become a creator in a higher sense, then he is godlike. When he sends out clear thoughts into the world, he works by the power of the divine spirit; when he produces living thoughts, he works by the power of the Son; when he sends out formative, living thoughts, he works by the power of the Father.

Everything that comes to manifestation in the world is God-thought, the Spirit of God; that it can be expressed is conditioned by divine Being, the Father; who expresses it is divine Life, the Son.

So the world lives through the life of the Son and brings to expression, to revelation the spirit, the consciousness, the thought of the divine Father-power. In this divine Father-power the future worlds all slumber; in the divine consciousness they are already eternally there; the consciousness rests eternally in the divine Being; Father and Spirit are one. Through life the consciousness emerges and becomes in the divine being the revelation, the world of forms. The being encloses the world - the consciousness rests in it -; the life brings the consciousness in the being to the appearance. Father and Spirit are one; but the Son expresses the Spirit and thereby establishes the Trinity. The Son is the life of the Father, which expresses the Spirit.

We are first met by the expressed Spirit in the formed reality; then we find the life which expresses the Spirit; then the life leads us up to the fountainhead of being, the Father. That is why Christ could say, "No one comes to the Father except through me." He is the world life that leads to the Father. By our thinking we can become one with the Spirit; by our living we become one with the Son; by our willing we become one with the Father, having united ourselves with the Spirit and the Son.

As long as we immerse ourselves in the world only with the thought, we come to understand the Spirit; but when we place our life in the rhythm of the world, we become one with the Son, the Word; we help to keep the thought alive. As soon as we unite our whole will with the divine will, we become partakers of the power of the Father, from which everything comes forth.

We behold in the environment the creator thought that has become. That we do not see the becoming itself, the life, that we do not really hear the world-word sounding, that comes from the fact that we have developed only the senses which can take up the becoming, the embodied thought. Now we cannot recognize life with our physical senses, because our physical senses are the expression of our desire for the world that has become, for the existence of the senses. We have infused all our powers into this sense life and are initially absorbed in it. We are completely immersed with all our powers into the sense existence. That is why we miss everything that stands behind it, the real life of the world; that is why we only see what is, but not what will become, [we see] what has become and not what is becoming. And we do not hear the word of life itself, but see only the external expression of this word in the material sense world around us. Just as the whole world with its forces has turned itself outward to the objective existence, to the external world of appearance; just as the objective creation has emerged from the living Word, just as if the bottom of the sea had lifted itself out of the depths and risen above the surface of the water, so also man has lifted all his forces of the soul out of this reason of the soul and directed them outward in the sense organs, which bring to his consciousness the world that has risen out of the sea of life.

With the emporium of the Word of Life, man is able to see the world that has risen out of the sea of life. With the rising of the sense world out of the sea of the soul world, of the world life, there also rose up in man the ability to receive the sense world, to live in it. Man also went through the world process in his development. The life that stands behind what has become, the sea of worlds out of which what has become rises, is now recognized by man only outwardly in the eternal change of things. The eternal change of the world of appearances is that which proclaims to man that behind it flows a living, never ceasing power, which eternally generates itself anew. On the waves of the world life the appearances flow. Seemingly at rest, the outer world of appearances is nevertheless just the eternally changing. Just as our thoughts detach themselves in unceasing succession, so outside in the world the forms that have become detach themselves. The life behind it is eternal. Thus the world that has become floods up and down in the eternal life, like the waves of the air flood up and down through the sounding of the tone. The Creator Word sustains all things in eternal becoming.

If man had remained only in the process of eternal becoming, he would never have become an embodied thought of God. He also had to pass for a time through the world in which there is not only eternal life without change, but in which there is becoming and passing away, living and dying. Now if he had rested constantly in the eternal life, life itself would never have become his own consciousness. He had to learn to recognize what had become externally, he had to recognize himself as a special being, a being that had become, in contrast to the indiscriminate life. He had to win once for a time the mainland emerging from the sea of the world, in order to incorporate from there himself consciously as a special, individual being of the environment. He had to make a part of the divine consciousness his own in such a way that he himself could believe for a time that his consciousness, his life, his existence was separate from all the rest; he even had to be alienated from God for a time, so that he could find him again self-consciously afterwards. If the world life had not brought the world thought to the outer expression, then man could never have become a thinking, self-conscious being himself. He would have lived in the world-thought, but he would never have grasped the world-thought for himself. Now he cuts out, as it were, a piece of the world-thought for himself with every thought that he thinks in the sense of the world-thought. He thus consciously appropriates the world thought. He could only do this by descending into the world of the senses, by emerging as an individual being from the totality of life. Only through this he could himself become partaker of the divine consciousness.

At every incarnation he goes through this process of becoming. He appears first as an individual being, as a special, physical being. Then in this physical body the life works and comes to expression in it. Then the thought, the spirit, connects with it, and man awakens to self-consciousness. The cosmic career repeats itself with every embodiment of man. The descent into physical existence, into the body world - from the spirit world, consciousness and the soul world, life - happens in the same sequence as the cosmic descent of the world and of man into condensation. This descent repeats itself before every birth in the higher worlds, in secret. Spirit and soul were there first; only then the physical body was formed. The ascent happens in every single life also like in the cosmic life. First the formation of the physical, in the world of the senses, happens; then the formation of the sensation, in the world of the soul, then the formation of the thinking, in the world of the spirit.

When man has learned all that he should learn in the world of the senses, namely, when he has learned to read out the thoughts of God from the world of appearances and has united himself with the pure thought of God, with the spirit of God, then he can fertilize his soul with it and awaken to life in the soul the powers slumbering therein. Then the life force itself begins to blossom there, and he begins to realize, through the soul's own life forces, the life of the world, the life and being of the Word. He then lives in a world that transcends the world of the senses. And new organs open up to him and become for him the key to life itself.

He then hears the word, because he himself can consciously resonate in his inner being with the world-word. Then he hears the world word in everything that has become. He then recognizes everything that has become as a vibrational expression of the world-word. He then recognizes the sense world as floating on the ocean of world life. Consciously he then incorporates himself into this world-life.

The world-light has become manifest in the world of appearance. As visible light the world wisdom has appeared before us. The light shone into the darkness of the twilight dream life of mankind, so that they could see the thoughts of God appear before them in objective forms. But the darkness did not understand the light. The people did not read out of the world of appearance the thought of God, which became clearly visible before our eyes through the light. That is why they could not yet rise to the consciousness of the world life, to the recognition of the word. First we have to understand the light, the God-thought that became objective; then we can understand the word, the living God-thought. The Word was there first, but we comprehend it later. What was there from the beginning is recognized only at the end. Thus closes the circle of human development, which emerges from the divine through the Word and re-enters the divine through conscious becoming one with the Word.

We should recognize the divinity in what has become. We should live in it through union with life itself. It is this life that connects us to the primordial power of being, from the beginning. Through this life we flow back into the primordial power of being and then consciously flow forth as a part of it. Then our consciousness also becomes creative consciousness. Then, just as we now live consciously and producing in the physical, we will live consciously and producing in the spirit, and through our word we will bring our consciousness to form. A new cosmos will then emerge from us.

Uhland and Goethe

[ 1 ] On September 3, 1786, Goethe set off on his Italian journey from Karlsbad. It brought him a rebirth of his intellectual life. Italy satisfied his thirst for knowledge and his artistic needs. He stood in awe before the works of art that gave him a deep insight into the imaginative life of the Greeks. He describes the feeling that these works of art awakened in his soul in his "Italian Journey". "At every moment" he felt called upon to contemplate them in order to "develop from the human form the circle of divine formation, which is perfectly complete, and in which no main character is missing as little as the transitions and mediations." He has "a conjecture that the Greeks proceeded according to the very laws by which nature proceeds, and which he is on the track of". He expresses how he perceives this realization as a spiritual rebirth with the words: "I have seen much and thought even more: the world opens up more and more; even everything that I have known for a long time only becomes my own. What an early knowing and late practicing creature is man!" - His feelings towards the creations of ancient art rise to the level of religious fervor: "These high works of art, as the highest works of nature, were produced by human beings according to true and natural laws. Everything arbitrary and imaginary collapses: there is necessity, there is God."

[ 2 ] Since Goethe had immersed himself in such an ideal of art, he saw everything in a new light. For him, this ideal becomes the yardstick for judging every phenomenon. One can observe this even in small things. When he was in Girgenti on April 26, 1787, he described his impressions with the words: "In the wide space between the walls and the sea, there are still the remains of a small temple, preserved as a Christian chapel. Here, too, half-columns are beautifully connected to the ashlar pieces of the wall, and both are worked into each other, most pleasing to the eye. You can feel exactly where the Doric order has reached its perfect measure."

[ 3 ] As chance would have it, on the same day that Goethe expressed his conviction of the high significance of ancient art by linking such words to a subordinate phenomenon, a man was born who summarized his almost opposite creed in the sentence:

Not in cold marble stones,
Not in temples, dull and dead,
In the fresh oak groves,
Weaves and rustles the German God.

Uhland's boyhood

[ 4 ] This man is Ludwig Uhland, who was born in Tübingen on April 26, 1787. When he concluded his poem "Freie Kunst" on May 24, 1812 with the above words, he was certainly not thinking of saying anything against Goethe's view of the world. Nor should they be cited in the sense of presenting a contrast between Goethe and Uhland. But they are indicative of Uhland's whole character. His path in life had to be different from Goethe's. Just as Goethe's whole inner being came to life before the "high works of art" of the ancients, so did Uhland's when he immersed himself in the depths of the German folk soul. Faced with this popular soul, he could have exclaimed: "There is necessity, there is God." He has this feeling when, wandering through the forest, he admires the native nature:

No better pleasure at this time,
Than to penetrate the forest,
Where thrush sings and hawk cries,
o deer and roe deer leap.

[ 5 ] He has the same feeling when he writes about Walther von der Vogelweide, reflecting on the art of German antiquity: "Among the old German singers, he deserves the name of the patriotic one. No one has, like him, recognized and felt the peculiarity of his people, how bitterly we hear him complain and reproach, with proud enthusiasm he sings elsewhere the praise of the German land, above all others, many of which he has wandered through: You shall speak: willekommen!"

[ 6 ] Uhland's ancestry and youthful development were highly conducive to the development of his folkloristic tendencies. His father's family was an old Württemberg family, rooted with all its attitudes and customs in the part of the country to which it belonged. His grandfather was an ornament to the University of Tübingen as a professor of theology, and his father worked as a secretary at this university. Her gentle, imaginative mother came from Eßlingen. These were favorable circumstances in which the quiet, introverted, outwardly awkward, even clumsy, but inwardly cheerful and enthusiastic for everything great and beautiful boy grew up. He was able to spend a lot of time in his grandfather's library and satisfy his thirst for knowledge in various fields. He enjoyed immersing himself in descriptions of important personalities and stories of great world-historical events as much as in descriptions of nature. Serious poems in which the life of the soul of deep people was expressed, such as those of Ossian and Hölty, made a great impression on him early on. This early Ernst Ludwig Uhland was far removed from all cowardice. If his high forehead indicated his sensible disposition, his beautiful blue eyes and cheerful disposition betrayed the deepest joy of life and the interest he could take in the smallest pleasures of existence. He was always there for all the fun games, jumping, climbing and skating. Not only could he spend hours sitting in a corner, engrossed in a book, but he could also wander through the woods and fields and devote himself entirely to the beauties of natural life. All learning was easy for him with such a disposition. Uhland's ability to master the external means of poetry became apparent early on. The occasional poems that he addressed to parents or relatives at parties show how easy verse and stanza form became for him.

Study and inclination. Uhland and Romanticism

[ 7 ] The outward course of study was forced upon Uhland by circumstances. He was only fourteen years old when his father was promised a family scholarship for his son if he studied law. Without having any inclination for this course of study, he took it up. The way he spent his apprenticeship is characteristic of his entire character. He literally split into two personalities. One personality was devoted to his poetic inclinations, his imaginative, cozy world view, his immersion in the history, legends and poetry of the Middle Ages; the other to the conscientious study of law. On the one hand, the Tübingen student lives in a stimulating devotion to everything that his "heart's desire" draws him towards, on the other hand, he appropriates the subjects of his professional studies so perfectly that he can conclude them with a doctoral thesis that has met with the approval of the most competent scholars. -

[ 8 ] The first poems that Uhland incorporated into his works date from 1804. The two ballads "The Dying Heroes" and "The Blind King" reveal a basic trait of his personality. Here he already lives in an imaginary world taken from Germanic prehistory. His love for this world has borne the most beautiful fruit for him. The sources of genuine folklore, the essence of the folk soul, were opened up to him through this love. As a poet and as a scholar, he drew the best strength from this love. And it was almost innate in him. He could say of himself that it was not only through study that German prehistory opened up to him, but that he sensed it when he gazed at the high cathedrals of the old cities. Scholarship only gave him clear, distinct ideas about what he had felt from his youth. - His immersion in the German Middle Ages was one of the characteristics of the literary movement known as Romanticism at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Ludwig Tieck, de la Motte Fouqúe, Clemens Brentano, Achim von Arnim and others were all promoters of this movement. They sought in piety and depth of mind a cure for the damage that the dry and often shallow "Enlightenment" of the eighteenth century had done to the spirit. As certain as it is that the pursuit of enlightenment, the recourse to one's own understanding and reason in matters of religion and outlook on life had a beneficial effect on the one hand, it is also certain that the critical stance towards all religious tradition and all old traditions brought about a certain sobriety on the other. The Romantics felt this. That is why they wanted to help the extreme, overly one-sided and understanding spirit of the times by delving into the prehistoric life of the soul. The view of art, which saw its ideal in the ancient Greek world and which had reached its zenith in Goethe and Schiller, also appeared to them to be a danger if it forgot its own people above the foreign antiquity. They therefore endeavored to revive interest in genuine German folklore.

[ 9 ] Such a current of the times must have found an echo in Uhland's heart. He must have felt happy during his university years to live in a circle of friends who shared his inclinations in this direction. Those who live in a pronounced world view easily see only the dark side of an opposing one. And so it was that Uhland and his childhood friends in Tübingen fought in their own way against the excesses of the Enlightenment and old-fashioned views that seemed to them to contradict German folklore. They expressed their resentment against this in a "Sonntagsblatt", which they could only publish by hand. Everything they had to say against the art movement, which was represented in the Stuttgart "Morgenblatt für gebildete Stände", they put down on paper. An essay in the Sonntagsblatt "Über das Romantische" (On Romanticism) provides clarity about Uhland's attitude. Certain traits of his soul, which can already be found here, remained with him throughout his life. "The infinite surrounds man, the mystery of the Godhead and the world. What he himself was, is and will be is veiled from him. These mysteries are sweet and terrible." He did not want to speak about the mysteries of existence with sober reason; he wanted to leave the primal reasons for existence as mysteries to which feeling can indulge in vague intuition, of which only the sensing imagination should form an idea in free images, not sharply outlined ideas through reason. He preferred to seek poetry in the unfathomable depths of the popular soul rather than in the high artistic laws of the Greeks. "Romanticism is not merely a fantastic delusion of the Middle Ages; it is high, eternal poetry that depicts in images what words can scarcely or never express, it is a book full of strange magical images that keep us in contact with the dark world of spirits." To express the secrets of the world through anything other than images of the imagination seemed to him like profaning these secrets. This is the attitude of the twenty-year-old Uhland. He retained it throughout his life. It is also clearly contained in the letter he sent to Justinus Kerner on June 29, 1829. June 1829, when the latter had presented him with his book on the "Seerin von Prevorst": "If you will allow me to express the impression that our last conversations left on me, it is this: what is yours in these works, what emerges pure and unclouded from your observation and view of nature, I am assured of the most beautiful benefit for all those who are aware that one will never penetrate the wonderful depths of human nature and worldly life without the living imagination..."

Circle of Friends

[ 10 ] The times that Uhland spent with his university friends were times that he himself described as "beautiful, joyful". Justinus Kerner, the rapturous Swabian poet, Karl Mayer, Heinrich Köstlin, a physician, Georg Jäger, a naturalist, and Karl Roser, Uhland's later brother-in-law, were all part of the circle. In 1808, Karl August Varnhagen von Ense, who was personally close to a number of Romantics and lived entirely according to their views, joined the circle. Uhland's poetry during this period bears the hallmark of the Romantic spirit in many respects. He sings of figures and circumstances from the world of medieval legends and history; he immerses himself in the emotional worlds of these prehistoric times and reproduces them characteristically. Even in the poems that do not refer to the Middle Ages, a romantic tone prevails as the basic mood. This tone sometimes takes on a rapturous, sentimental character. It is expressed, for example, in the song "Des Dichters Abendgang". The poet indulges in the delights of the sunset on a walk and then carries the impression of it home with him:

But when around the sanctuary,
The dark clouds roll down,
Then it is done, you turn back,
blessed by the miraculous.
In silent emotion you will go,
You carry the blessing of the song within you;
The light that you saw there,
Shines mildly around you on dark paths.

[ 11 ] Moods of a similarly romantic spirit are expressed in the songs: "An den Tod", "Der König auf dem Turme", "Maiklage", "Lied eines Armen", "Wunder", "Mein Gesang", "Lauf der Welt", "Hohe Liebe", and others from Uhland's student days. And the same romantic imagination prevails in the romances and ballads that Uhland wrote at the time: "Der Sänger", "Das Schloß am Meere", "Vom treuen Walter", "Der Pilger", "Die Lieder der Vorzeit" and others.

[ 12 ] And yet: for all the romantic mood in Uhland's character and for all the sympathy he had for the Romantic movement, there is a contrast between him and Romanticism proper. This grew out of a kind of contradictory spirit. Its main proponents wanted to oppose artistic poetry, as represented by Schiller, and the Enlightenment with something that was deeply rooted in popular life and the mind. Through study and scholarship, they came to the times in which, in their opinion, the spirit of the people and natural piety of the heart prevailed. In Uhland's case, the folkloristic and depth of feeling was present from the outset as a fundamental trait of his nature. If one therefore finds in many Romantics, for example in de la Motte Fouque and Clemens Brentano, that their striving for the Middle Ages, for the original folklore, has something sought after about it, that it often even appears only like an outer mask of their nature, then these traits are something quite natural in Uhland. He had never distanced himself in his thinking and feeling from the simplicity of the folk spirit; therefore he never needed to seek it. He felt comfortable and at home in the Middle Ages because the best aspects of it coincided with his inclinations and feelings. With such inclinations, it must have been quite an experience for him when Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano published "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" (1805) in Heidelberg, in which they collected the most beautiful flowers of folk poetry.

Journey to Paris. Diary

[ 13 ] In 1810, the poet had completed his studies, his state and doctoral examinations were behind him. He could think about looking around the world and searching for the nourishment for his spirit that he craved. Paris had to attract him. There were the manuscript treasures of old folk and heroic poetry, which could give him the deepest insight into the connections between the life and work of the past. The journey to the French capital and his stay there had a lasting effect on his entire life. He left Tübingen on May 6, i8io and arrived back home on February 14 of the following year. From i810 to 1820, Uhland kept a detailed diary, which was published by J. Hartmann. These notes are invaluable for understanding his personality, especially those relating to the Paris trip. Silent as Uhland generally is, he also proves to be in this diary. Feelings and thoughts are only sparsely interspersed between the purely factual details that are recorded. These are all the more significant. They give us a deep insight into his soul. He traveled via Karlsruhe, Heidelberg, Frankfurt, Mainz, Koblenz, Trier, Luxembourg, Metz, Verdun and Chalons. He writes: "My stay in Karlsruhe, which lasted from Monday to Sunday (May 7 to 3), will always be a precious memory for me." There he met the poet of the "Alemannic poems", Johann Peter Hebel. This genuinely folksy personality attracted Uhland immensely. He later wrote about his stay in Karlsruhe when he was in Koblenz: "Evening memories of Karlsruhe with tears." A diary entry that refers to the Rhine trip shows how Uhland liked to pursue mysterious connections in life and build his contemplative imagination on them: "Old view of Bacharach. The jolly, unknown journeyman with the post horn, which he blew badly, but whose notes were transfigured in the echo. The traveler from Breslau who suddenly emerged with his flute. Singing and music on the ship. Strange coincidence with my song: the little ship." Three months earlier, he had written the poem "Das Schifflein" ("The Little Ship"), in which he had described the experience, which now really came before his eyes, from his imagination. The diary shows us in many places that Uhland also pursued such things in later life, which cast a mysterious spell on the imagination, although they seem to defy rational contemplation. On April 3, 1813, for example, he wrote down a dream he had had. A girl was tempted by a reckless lover to enter the attic of a house and have herself played on a piano which, according to an old legend, must never be played because the player and the person who hears the notes will immediately age and die. Uhland sees himself in the company of his beloved. He feels the age within him; and the scene ends terribly. Uhland writes: "One could explain this dream as follows: the piano is the sin that lurks hidden somewhere in even the most pious home, waiting to be appealed to. The girl's lover is the devil, he knows how to handle the sin so that at first it sounds quite innocuous, ordinary. The sound becomes sweeter and sweeter, more and more enticing, holds fast with magical power, then it becomes terrible, and in wild storms the once pious and peaceful house perishes." Particularly characteristic in this respect, however, is a note from March i, 1810. "Night's idea for a ballad: the legend that those close to death believe they hear music could be used in such a way that a sick girl thought she heard a spiritual, supernatural serenade outside her window, as it were." This idea stuck so firmly in his mind that he expressed it on October 4 in Paris in a poem entitled "Serenade". This poem describes a dying girl who does not hear "earthly music", but who believes that "angels are calling me with music". Compare this with what Uhland wrote down on 8 June 1828 with reference to a dream, and you will recognize how such traits reveal something lasting in his character: "Among the surprising phenomena of a future world will also be that, just as we will have heavenly thoughts and feelings, so also for the expression of these a new organ will open up to us, a heavenly language will break out of the earthly one. The splendor and pomp of the present language cannot give us an idea of this, nor can the calm and (animated) silence of the language of the older German poets, just as in my song heaven wants to open up in the silence of Sunday morning, just as only when it is completely silent can the sounds of the aeolian harp or the harmonica be heard." At the same time, this shows how Uhland's whole way of imagining things had to lead him to the "silence and language of the older German poets", with whom he felt so closely related.

[ 14 ] In Paris, Uhland found what he was looking for. He immersed himself in old French and Spanish literature. The substantial essay "Das altfranzösische Epos", which appeared in the journal "Die Musen" in 1812, was the first result of these studies. He conceived the idea of a poem: "The King of France's Book of Fairy Tales", which, however, was never realized. He meets the poet Chamisso and spends pleasant days with him. He also meets Varnhagen again. A note dated November 17, 1981 shows what Uhland was pursuing with his studies in Paris: "Certain conception of the tendency of my collection of old French poetry: mainly saga, heroic saga, national saga, living voice, with the artistic, the bourgeois, etc." He is persistent in copying manuscripts. It is hard to say what fruit Uhland would have gained from his stay in Paris if it had not been curtailed from the outside. He needed the permission of the King of Württemberg to stay abroad. Unfortunately, his father had to inform him in December that royal permission for a further stay would not be granted. However, the poet not only became acquainted with the treasures of the Paris library, but also with the other treasures and beauties of the great cosmopolitan city. From his notes and letters we can see how he made it a point to study life and art, and how his view broadened. - What Paris meant to him is clear from the gloomy mood that initially afflicted him after his return. The prospect that he would now have to take up some kind of legal position added to this mood. One bright spot, however, was his acquaintance with Gustav Schwab, the poet of popular romances and songs and splendid writings on virtue, who was studying in Tübingen at the time. He became a loyal, devoted friend to Uhland. The level to which Uhland had worked his way up to in his poetic work is shown by his creations: "Roland's Shield Bearer", "St. George's Knight" and the magnificent "The White Stag", along with many others from this period. However, he had already achieved the high perfection of form that we encounter here earlier, as can be seen from one of his most popular ballads: "Es zogen drei Bursche wohl über den Rhein", which was written in 1809. On the other hand, the poems written after the Paris period clearly show how his imagination had been enriched by his immersion in the past. He is now not only capable of vividly depicting foreign material, but also of creating a complete harmony of content and manner of presentation in all external aspects of verse and rhythm.

Uhland as a civil servant

[ 15 ] After his return from Paris, Uhland had to look for a job. He had the opportunity to familiarize himself a little with the practical side of the profession by being entrusted with a number of defence cases in criminal matters and also the conduct of civil proceedings in the years i8i1 and 1812. The experience he gained from this did not exactly make the profession of a lawyer seem desirable to him. He was therefore satisfied when he was offered the opportunity to join the Ministry of Justice as an unsalaried secretary, but with the certain assurance that he would receive a salary before the end of the year. He took up his post in Stuttgart on December 22. - The life he now entered had many downsides for him. His official duties brought with them many difficulties. He had the task of dealing with the lectures that the minister gave to the king about the courts. The independent and straightforward manner in which Uhland drafted these lectures caused the minister some concern. After all, he was primarily concerned with creating as favorable an impression as possible with his reports. In addition, Uhland found it very difficult to connect with other people. It so happened that he was not accepted as a member of a circle of friends that met every Monday and Friday evening in a pub under the name "Schatten-Gesellschaft" until September 1813, although he had already attended one of the evenings on December 18, a few days after his arrival. Köstlin, Roser and others belonged to this circle. The strenuous work in the office and the unattractive life meant that Uhland did not feel very encouraged to be creative at the beginning of his stay in Stuttgart. How he nevertheless found his way inwardly and how his personality developed can be seen from statements such as the one in a letter to Mayer dated January 20, 1813: "Of course, I have not yet written any poetry, but in this outward isolation from it, poetry is becoming clearer and more alive to me inwardly, as is often the case with more distant friends."

[ 16 ] External events could only excite Uhland's poetic power to a limited extent. He was able to devote himself completely to them as a character, as a man of action. This is shown by his later self-sacrificing activity as a politician. Poetry was awakened in him, where it bore the most beautiful fruit, by an inner spiritual impulse. That is why the great struggle for freedom, in which his heart was fully involved, inspired him to write only a few songs. However, they show how his personality was interwoven with his people's striving for freedom. The "Lied eines deutschen Sängers", "Vorwärts", "Die Siegesbotschaft" and "An mein Vaterland" are songs with which he joined the chorus of freedom singers. - The salary that Uhland had been promised was not forthcoming for a long time. He grew tired of waiting and was otherwise not very satisfied with his position. For these reasons, he left the service of the state in May 1814. He now set up as a lawyer in Stuttgart. Although this profession also gave him little satisfaction, he felt happier with the external independence he now enjoyed. The source of his poetry also flowed more abundantly again. In 1814, he wrote the "Metzelsuppenlied" and the ballads "Graf Eberstein", "Schwäbische Kunde" and "Des Sängers Fluch".

Edition of the "Gedichtes" and the "Vaterländische Gedichte"

[ 17 ] In the fall of 1815, Uhland was able to publish the collection of his poems. Cotta, who had turned down an initial offer from the publisher in 1809 due to the "circumstances of the time", now agreed to take over the work. If this publication enabled the poet Uhland to become known in wider circles, it would soon provide an opportunity to do so with regard to his personal strength of character and soul. From now on, he actively intervened in the political affairs of his homeland. - In 1805, significant constitutional changes had been introduced in Württemberg. In the course of the turmoil caused by Napoleon in Germany, Duke Friedrich II had succeeded in making Württemberg an independent state and in 1806 he was granted the title of king. During this time, the state had also achieved significant territorial expansion. At the same time, however, the regent deprived the state of its old constitution, which was based on medieval institutions. Even though much of this constitution no longer corresponded to the new times, the Swabian people clung tenaciously to their inherited rights; at least they did not want to have new laws unilaterally imposed on them by the government. An antagonism developed between the king and the people, which lasted through the years of turmoil until the Congress of Vienna in 1815. After the negotiations of this congress, the people hoped for a reorganization of their political conditions in a liberal sense. As early as 1815, the king presented a draft constitution to a convened assembly. However, it met with the approval of neither the nobility nor the people. The latter demanded that completely new conditions should not be created arbitrarily, but that the old conditions should be transformed into new ones by negotiation, with full recognition of the rights of the estates that had been abolished in 1805. A second draft constitution presented by the king in 1816 also failed due to popular resistance. In that year the king died; his efforts to create new conditions in the country, disregarding the old rights, were initially continued by his successor, Wilhelm II. - Uhland's political convictions coincided with those of the people. Just as he clung with reverence to the products of the Middle Ages in intellectual life, so in public life the traditional institutions had something so deeply justified for him that his innermost feelings were outraged when they were arbitrarily and unilaterally shaken. He took the view that no one was authorized to give the people a new right, but that the owners of the "old, good law" must retain it until they themselves create innovations on the basis of it. It was in this sense that he expressed himself in 1816 in the poem: "The old, good right"; he wanted this "right", the "well-deserved fame of centuries proven, which everyone loves and honors from the heart like his Christianity". As in this poem, he expressed his conviction in a number of other poems. They were published from i815 to 1817 in small brochures as "Vaterländische Gedichte". They had a strong effect on his fellow countrymen. People appreciated this man, who was free-minded and democratic at heart, and increasingly revered him as one of the best guardians of Württemberg's national rights. As a result, people longed for the time when he would have reached the necessary age to become a member of the state parliament. Until then, namely until his thirtieth year, he could only work as a writer for the rights and freedom of his country.

"Duke Ernst". Dramatic attempts
"Ludwig the Bavarian". Dramatic plans

[ 18 ] Even before this time, the world also got to know Uhland as a playwright. In 1817, he completed his tragedy "Herzog Ernst", which he had begun in September of the previous year. It deals with the fate of the Swabian Duke Ernst, who repeatedly took up arms against his stepfather, Emperor Conrad II of Franconia (1024-1039), and who met his death in 1030 with his friend Werner of Kyburg while defending his supposed rights against the emperor. Uhland poured all his enthusiasm for the German Middle Ages and his Swabian homeland into this drama. Even if the dramatic liveliness of the work is rightly missed, the warmth of the portrayal and its lyrical power have always been admired. It was performed for the first time in May 1819 at the Stuttgart Court Theater and was a great success. - Uhland developed the greatest dramatic power in the first act, which presents a picture of harrowing entanglements. Gisela, the Emperor's wife, who has given him her sons Ernst and Hermann from her first marriage, asks her husband to release her son Ernst, who has been imprisoned on Gibichenstein for two years, on the day of his coronation as Roman king, where everyone is allowed to beg for favors. Her son had rebelled through youthful exuberance and because he believed he had a right to the Burgundian kingship, because the emperor had claimed this land for the empire. Gisela pleads for a pardon for the sorely tried man, who had a "semblance of right" for himself and whose young heart could easily be outraged. The Emperor is willing to grant the request if Ernst submits and relinquishes Burgundy. The scene in which Ernest appears, gaunt, pale and aged, is poignant. He is to be enfeoffed with Swabia if he renounces Burgundy and hands over his loyal friend Werner, who has always stood by him. He agrees to the first condition; he does not want to become a traitor to Werner under any circumstances. Like Ernst, the Emperor does not abandon the position he has once taken. Ernst and Werner remain loyal to each other. The imperial ban and the church ban hit them both. They are once again at the mercy of misfortune. Everything else now develops with iron consistency until Ernst and Werner's downfall, even if the dramatic life no longer rises to the heights reached in the first act.

[ 19 ] "Herzog Ernst" was not Uhland's first dramatic work, although it was the first that he completed. If you follow his dramatic drafts, you can see how persistently he worked on his perfection in this field of poetry and how he always made new approaches in this direction. One can therefore describe "Herzog Ernst" as the rich fruit of years of striving. At the time of his university studies, he tried his hand at a free adaptation of Seneca's play "Thyestes", which has been preserved. (Cf. Adalbert von Keller, Uhland als Dramatiker, p. r5 ff.) - The plan for an Achilles tragedy dates from the year i805. What Uhland wrote about it to Leo Freiherr von Seckendorf on March 6, 1807, shows how deeply he wanted to delve into the mysteries of life and fate with this drama: "About two years ago I began to draft a tragedy, Achilleus Tod. It was intended to portray the idea that even if fate prevents us from carrying out our decisions, if we have only fully and firmly grasped them within ourselves, they are nevertheless complete. What remains a fragment in reality can be a great whole in the idea. The idea remains untouched by fate. Various reasons, but especially my preference for the romantic, which the Greek ground was not up to, kept me from realizing it." It is a pity that nothing of the draft has survived, for one could gain insight from it into the way in which Uhland's Romantic spirit felt alien to the Greek cultural element. - After less significant dramatic attempts, Uhland became interested in the story of Francesca of Rimini in 1807. He was reading Dante's "Divine Comedy" at the time and thus became familiar with the material. The tragedy he wanted to work out from it occupied him for several years. He abandoned the plan in 1810 for a reason that we learn more about in a letter to Karl Mayer dated February 6, 18io: "I lack the leisure, inner peace and vitality to do anything bigger, for example Franceska; I can only do everything in fragments." The plan and individual scenes have survived (see Keller, Uhland als Dramatiker, p. 91 fl.) - Uhland received the inspiration for a drama "König Eginhard" from an old folk book. As an excerpt book shows, he made excerpts from this folk book in 1809. Justinus Kerner was also attracted to the Eginhard saga. He adapted it into a Chinese shadow play, which was published in Karlsruhe in 1811. The book from which Uhland took the legend is called: "Riesengeschichte oder kurzweilige und nützliche Historie von König Eginhard aus Böhmen, wie er des Kaisers Otto Tochter aus dem Kloster bringen lassen, usw. Item, how the great giants attacked the same kingdom etc. All described in a very useful and instructive way by Leopold Richtern, a native of Lambach in Upper Austria." Part of the Eginhard drama is the dramatic fairy tale "Schildeis", which Uhland published in 1812. - Uhland also attempted to write jocular plays during his student days. "The Uninhabited Island" and "The Bear" are two such plays. The latter is a farce set in Spain, which Uhland wrote together with Justinus Kerner in 1809. The year 1809 also saw the composition of a short comedy, "Die Serenade", which is also set in Spain. On ar. January i810, Uhland informs Kerner in a letter that he is working on a drama entitled "Tamlan and Jannet". It was to be a fairy tale dramatized from a Scottish ballad. A hint in the letter also reveals why this plan did not come to fruition. Uhland writes: "I have worked out the first act and another scene for Tamlan. It is to be three acts. You will receive a few scenes from it. Junker David is a changeling abandoned by the elves instead of the stolen Tamlan. As soon as Tamlan returns, he disappears. The discords dissolve into harmony, Absalon finds the desired music." Uhland drew inspiration for the two poems "Harald" and "Die Elfen" from this material. -

[ 20 ] It is understandable that Uhland had doubts about his dramatic talent after the failure of so many dramatic attempts. We learn of such doubts from a letter to J. Kerner dated 2i. January 1810: "With my inner restlessness, with my other, so varied occupations, nothing greater, more elaborate has been possible for me so far. And my talent for drama?" These words come after the mention of a tragedy sketch, "Benno", which Uhland wrote down in two days at the end of December 1809 (see Keller, Uhland als Dramatiker, p. 289 ff.) - Uhland wanted to deliver a truly romantic drama with his "Eifersüchtiger König" (Jealous King), the idea for which he communicated to his friend Kerner on 2i. January i810: "At last I have sketched a Scottish ballad (in Herder's folk songs) "The Jealous King" into a drama, albeit a slight one at first. The idea is to dissolve the hero and his story into poetry, into legend, precisely into the underlying ballad. Squire Waters leaves his father's house and goes to court; a minstrel joins him as the song that echoes the knightly life of action. Waters pleases the queen. The jealous king throws him into prison and has him executed; the flourishing life has come to an end. The minstrel leaves the court, the song goes out into the country. Water's parents and siblings sit at home by the fireside at night. They have a craving for scary fairy tales. The lost Minstrel enters and sings the ballad of Waters' death. The Queen's love for Waters is to be treated in such a way that she favors her dearest lady-in-waiting's inclination towards Waters, as it were in order to love him directly." Unfortunately, nothing has survived of the execution of this plan, which is rooted entirely in Uhland's romantic sensibility. - In 1814 and 1815, Uhland completed the short drama "Normännischer Brauch". He received the inspiration for it from old French poetry. The basic idea is given by the "Normännischer Brauch", that hospitality is rewarded. - A fragment: "Charlemagne in Jerusalem" was probably written in 1814. A letter from Uhland to J. Kerner dated March 28 reveals that the poet was working on a dramatic adaptation of the Hohenstaufen prince Konradin at the time. The diary shows that in July 1818 he read "Hahn's Reichsgeschichte über Otto von Wittelsbach und Konradin" in order to gain material for his drama. On July 14, he even wrote: "More vivid conception of Konradin". Nevertheless, only one scene was realized. He must have finally convinced himself that the material was not suitable for dramatic adaptation. This can be seen from a letter written on September 30, 1854 to Chief Justice Hein in Ulm, in which he states: "Because I myself, like many others, have once tried my hand at a Konradin, I know from experience that this historical subject seems to be more suitable for drama than it really is." - After so many futile attempts in the field of dramatic art, it must have filled Uhland with deep satisfaction when he wrote the last scene of his "Herzog Ernst" on July 14, 1817. On November 7, 1816, he had complained in a letter to Varnhagen von Ense: "Two poems occupy me, a narrative in stanzas, Fortunat und seine Söhne, on which, however, I have not completed more than two songs in two years, and a 'Trauerspiel', Herzog Ernst von Schwaben, which I cannot begin to complete unless I can hope to work it off in one piece. But my situation still won't allow me to do that." - The legend of the "Weiber von Weinsberg" preoccupied Uhland in 1816 and he wanted to work it into a dramatic farce, but this also remained a fragment. His planned Nibe-Jungen drama, the draft of which dates back to 1817, was also never realized. On the other hand, he was able to send the completed manuscript of the historical play "Ludwig der Bayer" to Munich on May 24, 1818. King Max Joseph had offered a prize for a drama based on Bavarian history, and Uhland had entered his work in the competition. The poet spoke about this drama in a letter to his parents on May 25th: "I have faithfully adhered to history in this and have faithfully used the documents still available. Also, since a play from Bavarian history was expressly requested, there are undoubtedly historians on the commission who are well qualified to judge it." Uhland wanted to express a "symbol of German tribal unity" in the play. It depicts the battle between Duke Ludwig of Bavaria and Frederick the Fair of Austria in 1322. The poet has portrayed a magnificent picture of German loyalty and strength of character in the personality of Frederick, who is captured and released by Louis for the purpose of working for peace in his homeland and who, true to his promise, voluntarily returns to captivity when he fails to mediate. The drama did not receive the prize. But that Uhland himself was satisfied by it is clear from the fact that he devoted himself to new dramatic plans after its completion. One of these is a short play: "Welf", of which only the beginning was written down in 1818, another: "Der arme Heinrich", of which only a small part was also written down in 1818. In 1819, the poet was occupied with "Otto von Wittelsbach" and "Bernardo del Carpio", for which he took the material from Spanish history. He wanted to deal with the heroic deeds of one of the most popular personalities in Spain. He only produced a prose sketch of "Otto von Wittelsbach", a draft of "Bernardo" and two fragments in verse. The last dramatic plan that occupied Uhland was in 1820, when he wanted to deal with the story of Johannes Parricida. From a suggestion he made to Gustav Schwab, we learn that Uhland wanted to put much of his own fate into this play. He said: "It was with him as it was with me. He was unlucky in everything." Nothing is known of an execution of this idea. It was the last to inspire Uhland to create in the dramatic field. The muse of this art never visited the poet again.

Marriage
Uhland as a representative of the people
Walther von der Vogelweide

[ 21 ] The above words about the plan for "Johannes Parricida" show how deeply upset Uhland's soul was at the failure of many a life plan. But just at the time when this disgruntlement seems to have taken hold of the poet's soul most strongly, a happy turnaround occurs in his life. On January 16, 1820, he became engaged to Emilie Vischer, the sister-in-law of his friend Karl Roser. The marriage took place on May 29 of the same year. This marked the beginning of a forty-two-year marriage that made Uhland happy in every respect. One need only read the magnificent work: "Ludwig Uhland's Leben. Compiled from his estate and from his own memory by his widow" to get an idea of the rarest union of souls based on intimate mutual understanding.

[ 22 ] If you want to judge Uhland's character, you need only familiarize yourself with his behaviour on the wedding day. The wedding ceremony was at three o'clock. The bridegroom spent the morning in the Ständehaus, where he also returned after the ceremony. The dutiful man did not want to allow himself a day off, which he would have had to take away from his work as a member of parliament. By this time, the poet was already fully involved in political life. In 1819, he was elected as a deputy from Eßlingen to the Assembly of the Estates, which had been convened to discuss the creation of a constitution. He was also appointed to the commission that had to work on the address of thanks to the king. This address is in fact essentially a work by Uhland. It bears the stamp of his character. It was written in a masculine manner, emphasizing freedom and justice, but sparing all prejudices of those in power. Uhland was a member of the deputation that had to present it. To celebrate the signing of the constitution on September 24, the "Herzog Ernst" was performed in Stuttgart on October 29. Uhland wrote a prologue to it, in which he characterized his relationship to political affairs in a striking and lively manner. In the performance, he brought the events of the present into a meaningful relationship with the facts of his drama. He characterized the time in which his hero lived: "This is the curse of the unhappy land, where freedom and law lie prostrate, that the best and the noblest must consume themselves in fruitless harm ..." "How different, if law and order, freedom and justice had risen up from stormy times and planted themselves firmly!" ... Uhland was also elected to the first state parliament, which convened in January 1820, as a representative of his home town of Tübingen. He held this office for six years with the conscientiousness that characterizes the course of his wedding day.

[ 23 ] In addition to his political work, Uhland devoted himself to the study of German prehistory. During these years, his interest was focused on the great medieval poet Walther von der Vogelweide. He felt a deep affinity with Walther's nature. Like Uhland himself, Walther was also a poetic and political personality. From the German conditions of his time, the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, he characterized the great singer. But Uhland himself was too pithy a character not to know and to see through everywhere how only a personality of a decidedly individual nature could be affected by the circumstances of the time in the way that Walther was. He knew what belonged to the times and also what belonged to man's own soul. And he took a deep look into the soul of his hero. He portrayed his character with a vividness that is difficult to achieve, how he suffered and what he wanted. How Walther cries out in poetry the cries of pain caused by his time, how he finds solace and healing in his art: Uhland has drawn this with delicate but decisive lines. These are soft outlines through which the image of the personality in Uhland's work presents itself to our souls, but they are outlines that reveal in every point the master of biographical art, who knows exactly how to find the boundary where overly sharp lines distort the character sketch into an arbitrary, if not caricature. And the figure of Walther in Uhland's drawing also becomes a symbol of the German nation. As peculiar as the soul of the individual personality is painted, everywhere we see the threads through which it is connected to the essence of the German national soul. - Uhland was only able to portray Walther von der Vogelweide because his studies were not limited to his narrow circle. He showed the same interest in the whole of German prehistory. During this time, he also worked on a "Representation of the Poetry of the Middle Ages". However, only the section on "Minnegesang" was completed, which was added to his collection "Schriften zur Geschichte und Dichtung" after Uhland's death. The work on "Walther von der Vogelweide" appeared in 1822. How little Uhland pursued these studies as a mere scholar is shown by his behavior on his travels, especially his honeymoon, which he was able to embark on after completing his work for the state parliament on July 8, 1820. The couple traveled throughout Switzerland. Everywhere we find Uhland eagerly endeavoring to get to know the customs, ideas and views of the people, everywhere he pursued the imagination of the country folk in their poetry and legends. What he hears from the mouths of the people themselves enlivens his eager studies, which he undertakes wherever he finds suitable material for his purpose in libraries. - Uhland's research was held in the highest esteem by his learned contemporaries. The explorer of German folklore, Joseph von Laßberg, visited him in 1820 and became his ardent admirer. This was important for Uhland, as Laßberg was in contact with the most important German classical scholars of the time and was also able to arrange written or personal contact with them for Uhland.

Politics and research. University professor

[ 24 ] In addition to the strictest understanding of his duties, Uhland was also characterized by wise moderation in all his actions. This makes his personality appear harmonious in the best sense of the word. Once he had taken on something, he gave himself to it with his whole soul. He put all his energy into it. But he never wanted one side of his profession to be compromised by the other. He lived in his research and at the same time achieved the most extraordinary things as a politician from 1819 to the end of 1826. In the latter year, however, he felt that the politician in him should not be allowed to push back the researcher any further. For this reason, he did not want to be re-elected to parliament in the following years. He wrote to his father in 1825: "It is my considered decision not to accept election this time. By enduring the seven troubled years, I believe I have fulfilled my civic duty in this respect.

[ 25 ] I cannot be expected to exclude myself from any other profession and purpose for another six years, apart from the fact that I would otherwise lack the desire and love that is required above all for such a sphere of activity." He did not allow himself to be re-elected for the time being. All the more reason for his desire to teach to grow ever greater and greater as a result of his research. For a long time, all his hopes in this direction remained unfulfilled. In 1829, the Württemberg government finally decided to appoint Uhland as an extraordinary professor of German language and literature in his home town at the suggestion of the academic senate of Tübingen University. He was now able to move to the latter. His lectures were among the most stimulating imaginable. All who heard them were full of praise and enthusiasm. Uhland was not a brilliant orator; he read his well-thought-out explanations, which were based on the most thorough research, from the manuscripts. Despite this unpretentious manner, he had the most profound effect. He presented his audience with the history of German poetry in the Middle Ages, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as well as the history of legend and myth among the Germanic and Romance peoples. Particularly useful for his students were the "exercises in oral and written presentation" that he set up. Each participant in these could practise reciting speeches he had written himself or declaiming poems under Uhland's careful guidance, or could submit essays which were subjected to detailed criticism by the teacher. - Uhland's lectures were published after his death in his collected

[ 26 ] writings. They offer a complete picture of his academic work. Strangely enough, he did not deliver his inaugural lecture until the third year of his teaching career, on November 22, 1832. It can also be found in his writings. It deals with the saga of Duke Ernst, whom he was able to depict as clearly and vividly as a scholar at the time as he had previously portrayed him dramatically as a poet.

Death of the parents

[ 27 ] The joy that Uhland's parents felt when their son returned to them was great. But this joy was short-lived. In the spring of 1831, the mother fell ill and died on June 1 of the same year. Shortly afterwards, on August 29, the father followed. The warm relationship between the son and his parents is expressed in the poem "Nachruf" (Obituary), which he sent to their graves. It contained the simple but deeply painful lines: "They let the pious funeral song fade away, fade away; in my breast a gentle sound from you never dies away." And rarely has anyone expressed their grief in such haunting words as those in the obituary: "The death knell sounded so sad to me otherwise, so anxious; since you were rung by it, it has been the sound of home to me."

New political activity. Dismissal from the teaching profession.
"On the myth"

[ 28 ] It was not granted to Uhland for long to remain in a profession that would have met his innermost needs like no other. The people, whose advocate he had been in such a devoted manner for years, demanded his strength anew when the election for the Assembly of Estates to be convened the following year took place in 1832. He was elected deputy for the provincial capital and could not reconcile it with his conscience to deny himself the demands of his country. The French July Revolution had also deeply stirred emotions in Germany. For a man who, like Uhland, was prepared to give his life for justice and freedom at any time, important political tasks were once again at hand. He was one of the personalities in the Chamber who resolutely opposed the dangerous measure by which the government was to be granted special powers to maintain order. Since, in the opinion of Uhland and his friends, the way in which these powers were to be granted infringed on the rights of the people, they voted against them. The result was a dissolution of the chamber and new elections. Uhland was once again appointed to represent the people. The government soon found his work uncomfortable. They wanted to get rid of the deputy by saying that he was indispensable at the university and therefore could not be given leave to fulfill his duties as a deputy. Although he was truly devoted to his teaching position, there was no doubt in his mind that in such a case he would have to let his inclination take a back seat to his duties to the country and therefore take his leave as a professor. He was "very gladly" granted his resignation in May. He now devoted himself with all his strength to the office of representative of the people. A number of important bills were introduced at his suggestion. He only retired from this office again in 1838.

[ 29 ] His dismissal from his teaching post did not interrupt the pursuit of his research work. He was able to present his studies on the "Myth of Thor" to the world as early as 1836. In the following years he wanted to treat the "Myth of Odin" in the same way, but he left the manuscript lying around. It was only published after his death. Both works are as perceptive as they are soulful. Uhland pointed to the peculiarities of the creative popular imagination, which expresses a meaningful view of nature and a religiously deepened spiritual life in the form of myth. These works were complemented by the collection of German folk songs, which occupied him well into his forties. In 1844 and 1845 he was able to publish a large number of collected folk songs. He wrote a treatise explaining the essence of the folk song, which was only published from his estate.

The magic of Uhland's poetry

[ 30 ] In the period from 1816 to 1834, Uhland wrote very few poems. Unless there was a strong inner compulsion, he renounced all poetic activity. He is one of those personalities who are true to themselves in the strictest sense of the word. He probably never forced himself to write a poem. And since the muse only spoke to him at certain times, there are large gaps between the epochs of his poetic production. The year 1834 was another fruitful period. Magnificent ballads and romances belong to this period. "Die Geisterkelter", "Das Glück von Edenhall", "Das Singental", "Die versunkene Krone", "Die Glockenhöhle", "Das versunkene Kloster" were written at this time. He also wrote the songs: "Abendwolken", "Die Lerchen", "Dichtersegen", "Maientau", "Wein und Brot", "Sonnenwende", "Die Malve", "Reisen".

[ 31 ] The unique character of Uhland's poetry appears in these poems in a serene manner. The cozy tone of the songs, the meaningful vividness, the expression of a pure, loving feeling for nature appear in an outer form that has increased to the highest artistry. The ballads are imbued with the high ethical core of the poet's personality. It is part of the essence of Uhland's ballad and romance poetry that one always feels his heart beating, his soul rejoicing and suffering, when he tells facts in his simple, true way. Therein lies the magic of Uhland's poetry. He also puts his innermost feelings into his narrative poems; he always says what he feels about things and people. But by expressing his innermost feelings, he also knows how to let his personality recede behind the depiction. His creations reveal the complete unpretentiousness of a highly sensible man who is allowed to live his life to the full because his manner always appears modest and natural to the highest degree. When he talks about things, it seems as if the things alone speak. He feels so much with the nature and the heart of his fellow man that one always follows his sentiments, even when he speaks entirely from his personal point of view. It cannot be denied that the expression of the poet's feelings impairs the dramatic vividness of the narrative; but Uhland expresses himself in such a simple, truthful, thoroughly natural way that one does not feel the expression of his personality to be lacking in his ballads and romances. - And his feeling for nature is just as simple and great as his feeling for human destinies and actions. His eye looks at the creations of the world with serious joie de vivre. Only rarely does he strike a note of exuberance or exuberant cheerfulness. His outlook on life is always directed towards seeing the majesty and harmony in things. The moods of the times of day and seasons, the graceful and terrifying aspects of natural works and processes elicit the same vivid images and sounds that penetrate the soul. There is rarely anything sentimental in his feelings, although they are always characterized by softness and gentleness. Even in the poems in which he expresses his feeling for nature, the visual and emotional content flow into one another in an unforced manner.

Elected to the National Assembly. The year of the revolution.
The last years of his life. Letter to Alexander von Humboldt

[ 32 ] The satisfaction that the poet derived from his political activities diminished. And he may well have felt a sense of redemption when he made the firm decision not to accept another election as a deputy in 1838. He now lived a quiet, secluded life in his home town, completely devoted to his research. In 1836 he had bought his own house with a garden, from which he was granted a charming view of the wonderful Neckar valley. A number of trips to Austria, southern and northern Germany brought variety to his undemanding scholarly life. In 1846, he met Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, the great German linguists and legend researchers, in person in Frankfurt am Main. -- Then came the turmoil of the revolutionary year 1848, and Uhland was one of the first to tremble with hope for a new era of freedom and national happiness. His fatherland was also gripped by the desire for freedom. Uhland's friend and fellow politician, Paul Pfitzer, with whom he had fought through many a storm in the Diet, was a member of the liberal ministry that was appointed. As a result, Uhland was asked to join the committee that was to prepare a new federal constitution in Frankfurt. Soon afterwards, he was elected to the German National Assembly from the districts of Tübingen and Rottenburg. Because he did not want to be both a representative of the people and a representative of the government, he resigned from the committee and devoted himself entirely to the negotiations of the People's Assembly. He belonged to the liberal center party. For a man like Uhland, who was able to see the situation more clearly than others, cherished expectations soon gave way to bitter disappointment. It did not take him long to realize that the various proposals made for the unification of Germany on a liberal basis had little chance of being realized. These proposals were a mixed bag: Prussian hereditary emperor, directorate, elective emperor, republican constitution. Uhland could draw little courage to intervene in the negotiations from all that was being said at the time. He was not a personality who indulged in hopeless radicalism. In addition to a resolute sense of independence and a noble enthusiasm for freedom, he also had the determined will to strive only for what was possible in the circumstances. Within the realm of the possible, however, he always advocated what was most in keeping with his sense of freedom. Thus, on June 29, 1848, he did not vote for Archduke Johann, but for Baron von Gagern for the office of Reichsverweser. Only rarely did he feel compelled to appear as an orator. When he did, he spoke weighty words. His entire feeling and thinking is expressed in the words he uttered on January 22, 1849 in the course of a speech against a hereditary emperor: "No head will shine over Germany that is not anointed with a drop of democratic ole." Following the King of Prussia's rejection of the German imperial dignity, those members of the parliament who were attached to this idea resigned. The rest of the representatives moved to Stuttgart. Uhland persevered in the rump parliament, despite his opposition to its relocation to Stuttgart. He felt it was his duty to remain among the men who wanted to continue fighting for their ideals. The situation in Stuttgart was the most difficult imaginable right from the start. The majority of the rump parliament was in favor of electing a regency of five people to lead the empire. Uhland was the leader of the opponents of this decision. He had only five like-minded people. He expected nothing from such a form of government. In the following days, the Württemberg government tried to prevent the meetings of the people's representatives by military force because they had decided to raise five million as a levy for the formation of a people's army. Uhland and his friends nevertheless wanted to go to the meeting on June 18. The military prevented them from doing so. They had to give way. So Uhland was one of those who fought the parliamentary battle to the last in those memorable days, and who could say to themselves that they had only given way to violence. - Only once more was Uhland called to the political scene, for a very short time. In 1850, he had to take part in the State Court, which had to pass judgment on the government's actions during the revolutionary period. Here, too, he once again stood up for the rights of the people in vain by advocating the condemnation of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Baron von Wächter, who had not submitted important political decisions to the Estates in accordance with the constitution.

[ 33 ] From then on, Uhland lived only for his scientific and literary work. He devoted himself to his research into the history of legends and began collecting folk songs. He also entered a new field. He wanted to work through the legends of his own homeland. He only managed to carry out a small part of this plan.

[ 34 ] Until the last days of his life, Uhland retained the full vigor that was always characteristic of him. His domestic happiness was always unclouded; he took great pleasure in bringing up two foster sons. One was Wilhelm Steudel, whom he took into his home as a fifteen-year-old boy. The father of the prematurely orphaned child was Uhland's friend, Dean Steudel in Tübingen. In 1848, the son of Uhland's sister, who had already died in 1836, lost his father. Uhland also devoted himself to the upbringing of this boy. - The poet was deeply saddened by the death of his old faithful friend Justinus Kerner in February 1862. It is not unlikely that a cold at the funeral was the cause of his fatal illness. He was unable to recover and died on November 13, 1862. The funeral services held in many places proved that Uhland's work had gradually come to be fully appreciated. The poet was loved in the widest circles of the people, the scholar of legends and myths was held in high esteem by his peers, the politician with his genuinely masculine sense of independence was revered as a role model. In the last period of his life, he proved this sense in a rare way. In December 1853, he was made a Knight of the Order pour le m£rite. He rejected the dignity with the significant words: "I would be in irreconcilable contradiction with literary and political principles, which I do not flaunt but have never denied, if I were to accept the honorary position that has been conferred on me and which is also associated with an elevation in rank. This contradiction would be all the more cutting as, after the shipwreck of national hopes, on whose planks I have floated, it would not suit me well to be adorned with decorations, while those with whom I have gone together in many and important things, because they went on in the last disruption, are doomed to the loss of homeland, freedom and civil honor, even to the death sentence." He addressed these proud words to Alexander von Humboldt, who informed him of the award. Humboldt did everything in his power to persuade the poet to accept. He remained unbending. He also rejected the order for science and art intended for him by the Bavarian king.