The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Dear attendees! If we seek knowledge through spiritual science, then that means that we feel the urge within us to look out into the spiritual world that lies behind our sensual world and in which the solution to the riddle of existence can be better achieved than in our sensual surroundings. If we allow the results of spiritual science to take effect on our soul, then they are not just abstract, theoretical insights, but they are nourishment for our soul and powers that sustain us, that reveal our destiny to us, give us hope and certainty in life and make us realize that we human beings need these spiritual-scientific results in our lives. Through everything that man sees around him and more or less recognizes in his being, he comes to the spirit that is to live into his knowledge.

We stand in relation to the world in a quite different way when we have the task, not only of penetrating the spirit through knowledge, but of drawing the living, real, active spirit out of its hiddenness and onto the surface, or at least of smoothing the way out of its hiddenness and towards its manifestation. In this way we stand in relation to the world and to life when we have before us the spirit of evolution in the developing human being — that indeterminate spirituality with which the human being enters into existence through birth and which at first presents itself to us as indistinct, as if emerging from an impenetrable darkness, in the still indeterminate features of the human face at the beginning of its becoming on earth. We have before us the human spirit, which, as if hidden in the depths, asserts itself from week to week, from month to month, from year to year, permeating the material existence that confronts us from the beginning in the growing child, and which gradually transforms this material existence into an image of itself.

As educators striving for knowledge, we are called upon to seek the spirit that rests in the depths, not only to satisfy our own soul, but precisely as educators we are called upon to translate everything that is still more or less intellectual in the process of knowledge into reality, to lead the spirit itself into life as a real developing force. From this point of view, spiritual science becomes the basis for an immediate practice of life in a completely different sense than if it were only to help us to understand the secrets of existence.

Now, from the lectures that I was privileged to give here earlier, it has already become clear – and this should serve as a prerequisite for us today, since we are dealing with a very specific topic – that, on the basis of spiritual science, we are dealing with an inner spiritual-soul core of the human being, which we now not only follow in his journey between birth and death, but we see him entering physical-sensory existence through birth from another world, a supersensible world, and crossing over again into another world when he passes through the gate of death to live through new stages of development in this other world. Yes, we do not just speak of ascribing to this spiritual-soul core of our being an existence before birth and an existence after death, but we also ascribe to it repeated earthly lives, so that we look back from our present life on many earthly lives that we have gone through before, and look forward to many earthly lives that we will have to go through in the future. In the entire life of a human being, we must therefore distinguish between the times spent in the physical body between birth and death, and the intermediate times, the times between death and a new birth, in which the spiritual-soul essence of the human being has its abode and conditions of existence in purely spiritual-soul worlds. When we look at things in this way, we are also clear about the fact that we must take a different attitude in the physical world towards the developing human being than if we were to see the spiritual-mental in its developmental phases between birth and death as influenced only by the physical-material. When we look at repeated lives on earth and the intermediate stages of human spiritual development, we see something of a sacred enigma in the person who comes into existence through birth. We see how the spiritual element forces its way into existence through the indeterminate nature of the gesture and the physiognomy, through the indeterminate nature of abilities and inclinations, and how it increasingly and more powerfully expresses itself in gestures, physiognomy, talents, movements, and increasingly makes himself master of all the external means of expression and tools of this person, so that we spiritually see in the person — even if we ultimately recognize the unity of his nature — a duality.

We first have what he has inherited in terms of the qualities of his body and soul from his parents and ancestors, in short, from the earlier generations from which he descended. But then we look at the actual spiritual-soul center of the human being, at his spiritual-soul core, which initially has nothing to do with the characteristics and facts that we encounter in our ancestors, but comes from a previous life of the human being and now only acquires the characteristics that are inherited, so to speak envelops itself in them in order to express itself in them. We must therefore distinguish between what a person brings with him from previous lives at the deepest level of his being and what he acquires from the line of inheritance. And we can only gain the right attitude towards the developing human being if we seek this interplay between the forces that pass from one life to another and the forces that are inherited directly from parents and ancestors. If we want to understand this properly, we must first familiarize ourselves with two fundamental characteristics of our soul life, which must come before our spiritual eye in full clarity if we want to grasp the whole essence of the human being.

First of all, we have the important fact that when a person appears before us as a personality in the world, all the powers that he has - the soul abilities, the temperament, the character traits, the will impulses, the affects and so on - interact to form a whole. But alongside this, we must also recognize the other important fact, namely that these fully developed abilities and powers that we encounter in the personality of another person, even when they interact, are nevertheless independent of each other in certain respects in terms of their disposition, so that one is not necessarily the condition of the other.

This becomes immediately clear to us when we look at life and see, for example, how a person has a very special kind of aptitude, perhaps being musical, but not having the slightest talent for mathematics or for practical life. Another person has no musical aptitude at all, but instead a certain aptitude for practical life or for mathematics. This means that people's abilities and aptitudes can arise quite independently of one another, but they can also interact. Now, even to the superficial observer, it is clear that everything a person possesses in the way of abilities, talents, gifts, skills or physical characteristics points to his or her parents and ancestors. And we will soon see the precise way in which a child's characteristics point to their parents and ancestors.

But through birth, something also comes into existence that has nothing to do with inheritance, something that is brought over from previous lives as the human being's actual spiritual-soul core. This essential core, which eludes direct observation, comes to us when we, as true educators, observe the becoming of the human being and see him, as it were, growing out of the indefinite darkness, like a basic coloration, like a fundamental tone of the whole developing personality. We cannot trace back to parents and ancestors alone what comes into existence in such a way that it combines, groups, and plays with a person's abilities, his predispositions, his impulses, and makes a whole out of them. While individual human traits, let us say a predisposition for this or that science or skill, can usually be traced back to these or those traits in the ancestors, we admit right from the start that the way in which these abilities, these various powers of the ancestors are mixed together in the personality, depends on something other than heredity – it depends on the spiritual and soul core of the human being.

We can say, for example, that someone inherits this or that temperament from their father and this or that ability, perhaps the gift of imagination, from their mother. And now they come to us as a person with a particular temperament and the gift of imagination, mixed together in a certain way. We can trace the individual temperament that he has and the gift for imagination back to either the father or the mother. But the way in which these gifts are mixed up, how they are grouped, we have to trace that back to the spiritual and soul core of his being. And now it is evident to us that this spiritual-soul core of our being feels magnetized to a particular pair of parents before birth, so to speak, to take on these qualities from one parent and those from the other, which it needs to get just the right mixture that corresponds to what it brings with it from previous lives. We can indicate very definite laws as to how the spiritual and psychological essence of the human being mixes the inherited traits with each other, how it takes one from the paternal side and the other from the maternal side, and how the mixing ratio is the individual act of the person entering into life.

If we are to point out very definite laws in this direction, then it is necessary to agree that such laws are to be understood in the same way as physical laws. If, for example, a physicist teaches us that a stone thrown through the air falls along a parabola, we can understand this from the corresponding physical conditions. If someone then comes and does not take into account that this general line of throw can change, say, through the friction of the air or other conditions, he could tell us: You have established a false law, because the stone does not fly in a parabola. But it is not important for the physicist to include the external, modifying circumstances in the law, but to find the law from the essential conditions. We must apply the same principle to laws that apply to the spiritual life. We must say to ourselves: the laws that arise in our minds have the same significance as the laws of physics; therefore, they could be refuted just as easily as the laws of physics, but nothing special is achieved by such a refutation.

If now very definite laws of inheritance are developed, then of course a thousand and one circumstances could arise to influence these laws, just as the trajectory of a stone in flight is influenced by the resistance of the air. But these modifying conditions of an incidental nature do not change the validity of the law. And we can only understand the happenings of the world if we can express the essence of things - both in the physical and in the spiritual realm - in laws. Our observation of the spiritual world can be just as faithful as it is to the physical world. You can observe in hundreds and thousands of cases that in the immediate descendants, very specific strengths and talents go back to the paternal line of inheritance and very specific characteristics to the maternal line, that is, that the spiritual-soul essence of the human being takes very specific strengths and talents from the maternal line and very specific characteristics from the paternal line, which then appear mixed in the children.

We can therefore divide the realm of our soul life into two clearly distinguishable parts. In our soul, we first have what we can call the realm of our interest, our attention, our sympathy for this or that. People differ in terms of what their interest, the sympathy of their soul, leads them to. One person is like this, another like that, depending on the basic color of their interest, depending on the basic character traits of their soul. The area of the soul that we have just characterized is clearly distinguished from what we can call the intellectual area, to which we also want to count imagination, which gives us the ability to imagine our environment and human life itself in images. The gift of imagination, the intellectual gift, is the other part.

If we break down the entire soul life of a person in this way, it becomes clear that, in general, the area of interest, the overall character of the personality, goes back to the paternal line of inheritance. This means that the spiritual and mental core of a person's being mainly draws from the paternal line of inheritance what constitutes temperament, affects, and passions. What concerns our intellectuality, namely the mobility of our perceptions, the possibility of bringing the external world into certain images, of visualizing it through ideas, is generally taken from the maternal line of inheritance. The way in which these two areas are mixed up by the spiritual and psychological core of the human being depends on the nature and peculiarity of our personality. But we must not only consider this very general character of inheritance; we must go deeper and more precisely into it. And here it becomes apparent that human traits are not only inherited in a general sense, but that they are transformed in the process of inheritance, that they undergo very specific changes, and essential ones at that. It has been shown – and you can find this proven in hundreds and thousands of cases – that what lives in the mother as intellectuality, as mobility of soul, as the soul's inclination to process ideas, images, concepts and the like, has more of a tendency to pass to the son than to the daughter and usually, in passing to the son, descends, as it were, by one level [into the physical realm]. Thus it happens, for example, that a certain mobility of ideas, a special ability to think up this or that, perhaps to develop it artistically in the field of poetry, is present in the soul of the mother, but it only moves in the narrowest circle of the closest acquaintances and the closest surroundings and does not have or develop the right means to apply these abilities to the outside world. So we can say that the mother does have these qualities, but she does not have the tools tied to the outer body to make full use of what is there and to allow it to have an effect on humanity.

If this is the case with the mother, then these predispositions can be found in the son's personal organ systems, developed to a certain extent and transferred into physical tools. The mother can have this or that psychological predisposition, but not the organ predisposition, that is, the correspondingly developed brain or other organ complexes, in order to actually live out what she is predisposed to to a greater extent and make it visible to the world. In the son, the mother's predisposition moves into the organ system, into the brain and into other organ complexes, so that certain abilities can bear fruit for larger circles of humanity. On the other hand, paternal qualities, which lie more in the outer personality and are rooted in the organ systems, tend to rise to the soul level in the daughters and meet us there in a soul-transformed, soul-transformed way. And so we can express it as a beautiful law of the progression of human generational life: the soul of the mother tends to live on in the personal abilities and skills of the sons, but the predispositions of the father, the whole configuration of the father's personality, ascends and lives on in the soul of the daughters, or at least tends to do so. Thus the father will continue to live in the soul of his daughters, even to the formation of his physical personality in the outer life. The soul life of the mother, who remains in the narrower circle and has little opportunity to live out her soul abilities, will live on in the organ systems of the sons, which come into activity in the outer world.

This law, which is tremendously enlightening for the understanding of life, cannot, of course, be substantiated here in a short hour with hundreds of examples. It can only be explained, as is also done in physics. And I would like to begin by explaining it through the well-known case of Goethe. Who would not know that everything that was present in Goethe as an organ predisposition, that he was able to live out through his brain and other tools of the organism, was traced back by himself to his mother's “desire to tell stories.” In the close circle of the old woman's lively mind, with all her desire to tell stories, she had everything, except for the organ predispositions. But what was living in the soul of the old woman, advice, flowed down and formed the son's organ systems. We can refer not only to Goethe's mother, but also to his father, to the old Frankfurt councilor Caspar Goethe. When we get to know him as an able, ambitious man, we are particularly impressed by his thoroughness, and sometimes also by his quiet resignation. But on the other hand, we must be clear about how all the qualities he had made it possible for him to move up a few rungs on the social ladder, but that they were not nearly enough to give him the influence and scope he sought in Frankfurt, so that in a sense he was condemned to an idle life.

Something of strength and stubbornness lies in the old Goethe's nature, also something of sobriety, but thoroughness in sobriety, even of a certain harmony of these qualities. If we consider these qualities of Goethe's father alongside the qualities of the son, we can easily understand that the two repelled each other in certain respects. They did so, as is well known. But let us imagine this quality of the father “spiritualized” - if we may coin the word - elevated into the soul, let us imagine a certain thoroughness of soul, in turn, with that timidity that the old Goethe had, that did not allow him to achieve anything, coming to life in the soul of his daughter Cornelia: We can easily find in the soul of Cornelia, Goethe's daughter, a certain softness of character, soulfully mixed with a certain stubbornness, a sharp mind mixed with a certain indulgence in feelings, the need to give herself, to nestle up to the world, and yet the inability to really give herself to anyone. The whole situation in the life of old Goethe – who strove to occupy a significant position and yet could not – can arise in the soul of the daughter in such a way that she had the need to nestle to a spouse and yet could not find satisfaction in marriage. We only need to transpose the character traits, which go as far as the organ structure of the old Goethe, into the soul, and we have the soul of Goethe's sister Cornelia. And everything that repelled Goethe, that pushed him back to his father, so to speak, that was what deeply attracted him to his sister, who complemented him so beautifully during their short life together, and whom he loved so much. Everything paternal in this “ensoulment” by his sister had such a beneficial effect on the young Goethe.

Try to look into the same things in Hebbel. Read his diaries. Try to understand from them, which are also a treasure of German literature in themselves, how Hebbel inherited the whole externality of character, that is, the kind of interest in the world, from his father, but that which led him from his earliest youth to strive to be understood points back to the soul of his mother, even if she was only a simple bricklayer's wife. In historical observation we can see everywhere that everything we encounter in the organ-facilities of men can be traced back to their mothers. Look at the mother of Alexander the Great, at the mother of the Maccabees, at the mother of the Gracchi – wherever you want – you see it everywhere. Anyone who has an instinct for really getting to the bottom of human characters will find this confirmed everywhere, just as it is with physical laws.

In spiritual science, we understand such a fact to mean that the spiritual and soul essence of the human being takes on paternal and maternal characteristics, not only mixing them but also transforming them, taking them to a deeper or higher level , that is to say, the qualities that are bound to the organ systems in the father are “soul-like” in the daughters, and the soul qualities that have not yet developed into organ systems in the mothers are transformed into organ systems in the sons. Thus, inheritance does not occur directly, but in such a way that we sometimes see it concealed, covered up, and we only have to discover how the spiritual and soul essence of the human being actually uses the qualities found in the paternal and maternal line in order to shape them plastically according to its individuality and assert them in the world.

Now it could easily be that if someone merely builds their conviction on a few observations of life or on prejudices, it would be very easy to refute individual statements of spiritual science. It must therefore be pointed out that only the full scope of a true observation of life can confirm what is given by spiritual science as a general law of the world for the spiritual life. And here we see in life how this spiritual-soul core of being envelops itself, as it were, with the inherited qualities, which it incorporates and blends. Someone might say: Yes, show us how this spiritual-soul core of being works, how it envelops itself with the inherited traits. The important thing is that we take the right path in such a demonstration. In the individual human being, whom we have before us as a self-contained personality from birth, we see abilities growing. We see a harmonious unity - of course, we do not need to be reminded of this - we see a unity in what gradually develops in this or that ability. And one cannot readily distinguish in the individual human being what and to what extent the spiritual-soul core of his being is at work and what he has acquired from outside as physically inherited tendencies.

But if you broaden the basis of your observations of life, if you look around at life, then you can see how differently people present themselves, depending on the spiritual and psychological core of their being, as it enters into existence through birth , is richer in content, more significant and deeper, or less deep and significant, whether it has a richer content from previous embodiments, through which it is called upon to achieve much for the world in the new embodiment. How will such a core of being fare?

He will have a long way to go before he works his way through all the obstacles that confront him from the outside in the line of inheritance; he will have to carve it out for longer, the external hereditary traits will not immediately fit the core of his being. This is wonderfully confirmed when we see how great minds of humanity, Newton or Humboldt or Leibniz, were actually poor students because their rich spiritual-soul core took a long time to work through, to develop that with which they enveloped themselves and what they incorporated. Therefore, someone who sees life only through prejudiced eyes may consider the greatest people to be dullards or incompetent individuals, because they may even appear stupid at first, for it takes them a long time to carve out the rich spiritual and soul essence. But how someone who does not know life judges it is not what matters; what matters is the truth. In his diaries, Hebbel made the beautiful observation about what it would be like if a teacher were to take on Plato with his students in a high school class, and the re-embodied Plato himself were among the students and could least understand what the high school teacher would present as his correct view and interpretation of Plato, so that the re-embodied Plato would constantly have to repeat it.

Thus we see the spiritual and psychological core of the human being moving into the externally inherited traits; and we see him, especially when he is rich, finding the greatest obstacles through which he has to work his way. Such people sometimes come quite late to properly integrate the externally inherited material. Child prodigies rarely have a rich spiritual-soul core and therefore have less difficulty integrating the externally inherited material. They develop quickly, but we also know that these abilities, which initially appear surprisingly, quickly fade and fade away. If we observe life on a broader basis, we see how what shows itself as a person's entire personality in one person is incorporated into the core of their being in a different way from the inherited traits in another. Yes, we can confirm and test this again with Goethe.

However, I must say something here that could perhaps be misunderstood. But anyone who, like me, has devoted themselves to Goethe intensively and lovingly for over thirty years is entitled to say such a heresy. Our understanding of Goethe and our devotion to Goethe's greatness need not be compromised if we admit to ourselves that Goethe's essential core only very slowly pushed its way into existence through the external physical obstacles. If we want to delve into what Goethe had to accomplish – if we are not afflicted with the prejudices of some Goethe researchers – we can see that his early works are by no means complete; and we can admit with regard to Goethe's first works: This is still the Goethe who is becoming, who has not yet overcome the external obstacles of his essential core; what Goethe was actually to become is still hidden. One does not question the greatness of the first part of the “Faust” work if one points out that this is still the Goethe who is becoming, that his rich essential core is still sitting in the depths and must first work its way out.

Indeed, today it is almost considered a hallmark of truly great minds that they have a certain tendency to favor the youthful works of poets in literature. One finds the tendency: Yes, we must go to the poets in their first period, there we have what gushes directly from the soul, there we have the essential that actually constitutes their greatness. And for Goethe, too, an audience has been found that says: Well, old Goethe has weakened a bit, he's no longer at the top of his game in the second part of Faust, you can't understand him; the first part of Faust, yes, that is of original power. Those who judge in this way certainly do not consider whether it is not perhaps due to themselves, whether they would not do better to endeavor to understand a work of this kind, such as the second part of Faust, which Goethe wrote at the height of his creative powers.

Goethe took a different view of this matter. He pointed to the first part of “Faust” as a youthful work in which his spiritual and intellectual essence had not yet come to the fore. Goethe left behind a few lines in which he expresses himself precisely on this matter, where he says - and he means the first part of “Faust”:

They praise Faust,
And what else
In my writings roars,
In their favor;
The old Mick and Mack,
That pleases them very much;
The pack of ragamuffins thinks,
It would no longer be!

Goethe himself was of this opinion. We see in Goethe how, for almost his entire life, the rich soul core, which we cannot deduce from hereditary traits, fights against the opposing elements of heredity and against external resistance. We can follow year after year how his rich soul core comes out harmoniously, we see how he becomes more and more mature during his Italian journey and how he becomes completely one with the qualities of his spiritual and soul core.

The [character] traits of the human being are expressed in the course of the development of his being in his shells; the abilities, on the other hand, which are mainly bound to the inner being, can indeed emerge strongly in youth. Because there is not much shell yet, the existing talent for music, for mathematics or for poetry must already show itself. But when it comes to skills for practical life, we know that these and everything else needed to cope with the external world must first be acquired in the further course of life. And only at the end comes the real [spiritual] element, mysticism, looking into the spiritual world. It is then important not only to be inflamed for spiritual facts, but to have developed the abilities and trained the organs for spiritual vision, in order to achieve harmony between the knowledge of what is shown on the outside and what the world lives through and trembles through in its innermost being.

One can be a follower of a mystic in mature youth, one can interpret him, but to achieve something in this field is only possible when we have reached middle age. So if one wants to find within oneself the possibility of harmonizing with the universal spirit of the world, one must be about forty years old, since this is not possible earlier. One must give oneself time, one must occupy oneself differently beforehand, and that with the tendency of being a follower of a spiritual world current and thereby creating harmony between one's own inner core and the organs to be developed. He who does not transgress such laws, as they could only be hinted at here, will best find his way into life and increasingly separate himself from the forces that lie in the natural line of inheritance for him, hindering him, and overcome them. On further consideration of the natural conditions of inheritance, we can see that there must be a difference between the children of young spouses and the children from a union that has existed for a longer period of time or has only been entered into at an advanced age. Because a person is in a state of ascending development until a certain point in their life, the consequences of the work that has been done by the inner core of the being become more and more apparent in the gestures, the physiognomy, and thus in the outer personality, as one matures. Around the age of twenty, some of this work has already been done, but you can see that not all of the influence of the spiritual core of being is being exercised, but that part of it is still stuck in the depths. Only gradually does the actual person fully emerge and come to the surface. Only then does he have a stronger power to transfer his inherited traits to his offspring because he has now matured so much. A spiritual-soul core that wants to live as independently as possible out of its own inner strength will therefore feel magnetically attracted to a youthful father who offers less resistance; a weaker individuality, on the other hand, will be attracted to an older father with a fully developed character. Seen from this point of view, some of life's greatest riddles are illuminated. Such relationships can, of course, be most clearly demonstrated in the typical case, although the most diverse variations often occur.

Now we will see how the individual characteristics of the soul can be independent of each other and how they are inherited, but how all the qualities are brought together to form a basic tone and processed by the spiritual-soul core. Thus, for example, arrogance can be inherited from the mother and clumsiness from the father and grouped together by the soul. Soul qualities disregard much of what the parents are able to offer and favor something else. Many a complicated theory of external science is often very illogical. For example, it is claimed that genius can be traced back to its roots in the characteristics of previous generations; what remarkable qualities were already present in the individual ancestors can be seen in the genius that emerged from this line of ancestors, as if collected and intensified in a focal point. This is used to try to demonstrate that there is no such thing as a spiritual-soul core. But it is a mistake to assume that favorable traits can only be accumulated and enhanced through the natural process of inheritance. On the contrary, if there is to be any inheritance in this respect, the circumstances are such that genius stands at the beginning, but not at the end, of a line of inheritance. In its outward personal peculiarities, genius is only colored in its penetration through the physical line of inheritance – just as someone gets wet when they fall into the water.

We can apply all that has been said in practice if we make it the basis of an educational task that confronts us and allow it to become a kind of cognitive problem of life. We have already said that we have to solve a sacred mystery in the human being who strives towards existence, and we must seek to recognize what all that is working its way up holds within itself. We must try to acquire a fine sense of tact in order to observe correctly how the spiritual and soul essence struggles to free itself from dark undercurrents; we must pay careful attention to which qualities of the developing young person relate to the father and which to the mother – in the organ systems, in the soul qualities and in their interaction under the influence of the individuality on the outer shells.

Although individuality is often called for today, all this remains mere rhetoric as long as one cannot go into details and their origin. If one does not do this and, starting from this phrase, wants to judge and state that the child to be educated must now do this or that, one will remain very theoretical. Sometimes the educator will not be equal to the individual core of being that he is to help come into existence. He does not need to be equal to the pupil, but he must be equal to the education. It is necessary to educate the human being in such a way that he can enter life independently and is able to seize everything skillfully. It is not always possible, and depends on the educator, to introduce everything to the pupil bit by bit and always in good time, based on theoretical observations and considerations; often circumstances intervene that arise from within the family itself or from outside in a hindering way. Sometimes the maturing individuality is even better served when this or that is decreed by unavoidable external circumstances, because then – even under such circumstances – the individual riddle is not solved by theoretical education, but everything that comes from the dark depths of the past, from earlier life courses, is guided into harmonious interaction with present circumstances.

In spiritual science, we can find the spiritual not only for our own satisfaction; spiritual science can also be the guide to help the spiritual, which wants to reveal itself in the growing child, to come into existence, so that it can find its way into the living interaction of people. In this way, we can, in our modest way, become saviors of people, that is, of their spiritual essence, which is behind their outer appearance. Thus, spiritual science will become more and more deeply rooted in human life with this approach because it leads to the permeation of life with practical goals. We find this in Goethe, in his steadfastness in standing on a secure, inner foundation of life, in which we perceive a spirit that never remains on what has been achieved, but which also proves to us in the future to be continually effective and creative if we allow his word to have the right effect on us:

If yesterday is clear and open to you,
If you are vigorously free today,
You can also hope for a tomorrow
That may be no less happy.

And we can hope the same for ourselves, but also for the people whose mental content and spiritual health has been entrusted to us as educators.

Dear attendees! Anthroposophy, as it is to be cultivated at the Goetheanum in Dornach, still finds the most diverse opponents today - opponents who stand on the ground of church theology with their views, even from the artistic side many opponents have shown up, especially opponents who do not always start from thoroughly objective points of departure and come from the most diverse party directions and from the most diverse areas of social life. I will not deal with all these adversaries today, my dear audience, but what I would like to do today is to deal with the misunderstandings and antagonism that anthroposophical research has encountered from the scientific community. For it is my conviction that, although it seems absolutely necessary to oppose the various other opponents, these will gradually disappear of their own accord once the debate between anthroposophy and science has been brought into the necessary forms so that present-day official science and anthroposophy can really understand each other. At the moment, the situation is such that it is precisely from the scientific side that anthroposophical research is met with the greatest misunderstandings.

But first of all, I would like to emphasize that the anthroposophical research method that I represent – for that is how I would actually like to call it – definitely wants to stand on scientific ground and that it would like to set up all its arguments in such a way that this scientific ground becomes possible, excluding any kind of dilettantism and so on. The starting point for the anthroposophical research method is such that the scientific requirements and the whole scientific attitude of modern times have been taken into account. Anthroposophy does not place itself in opposition to modern science. On the contrary, it seeks to take up what has emerged over the course of the more recent development of civilization in the way of scientific conscientiousness and exact scientific methods, especially in the field of natural science, over the last three to four hundred years, but particularly in the nineteenth century and up to the present. Although it must go beyond the results and also the field of actual natural science, as it is usually understood today, it would like to include what underlies it as scientific discipline, as scientific methods, in the inner education for the anthroposophical method. Today I will not be able to give a fundamental lecture, but will only touch on certain points, in order to then be able to draw some connecting lines to the scientifically recognized fields of today.

What is initially claimed by anthroposophy are special methods of knowledge - methods of knowledge that differ from what is generally considered to be the usual methods of knowledge today, but which nevertheless grow out of them quite organically. Today, it is generally assumed that one can only conduct scientific research if one is grounded in knowledge as it arises in ordinary life, after having undergone a normal school education and then approaching the various fields of external natural existence, including that of man, by experimenting, observing and thinking in a materialistic sense.

Anthroposophy cannot be based on this, but rather it assumes that it is possible, that just as one first develops one's mental abilities from early childhood to what today is called a normal state of mind or what is regarded as such, further cognitive abilities can be developed by taking one's soul life, if I may use the expression, freely and independently, starting from this so-called normal state of mind. And through these cognitive abilities, one is then able to gain deeper insights into the nature and human existence, into world phenomena, than is possible without such particularly developed abilities. These abilities are not developed by an arbitrary handling of the soul life, but they are developed in a very systematic way, only that one is not dealing with the training of certain external manipulations, with the application of the laws of thought recognized by ordinary logic, but with the development of the intimate soul life itself.

I can only hint at the methods used to develop such supersensible soul faculties. In my various books, especially in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds” and in the second part of my “Occult Science”, I have given detailed descriptions of how a person can proceed in order to soul-life to such abilities by means of which one can — if I may express myself trivially — see more than one can explore with ordinary intellectual thinking, with experimentation and observation.

I have already mentioned imaginative cognition as the first step towards such knowledge. This imaginative cognition does not mean that one should develop the ability to cultivate illusions or phantasms in the soul, but rather that it is a pictorial cognition, as opposed to ordinary abstract cognition, which is simply needed to explore the real secrets of existence. This pictorial knowledge is acquired, as I said, by way of long soul-searching. It depends on individual ability: one person needs a long time, another only a short time, to try to apply a meditative life to the point of enhancing one's inner soul abilities. This meditative life consists, for example, as already mentioned, and described in more detail in the books mentioned, of easily comprehensible ideas, that is, ideas that one either forms in the moment, so that one can grasp them in all their details, or that you can have them given to you by someone who is knowledgeable in such matters, that you can have such ideas present with all your strength in your ordinary consciousness, that you can, so to speak, concentrate all of your soul abilities on such easily comprehensible ideas.

What is achieved by this? Well, I would like to express what is achieved by this through a comparison. If someone uses the muscles of his arm continually, especially if he uses them in a very definite, systematic way, then he will grow in strength for these muscles. If someone applies the soul abilities in such a way that he concentrates them on a self-appointed goal, on a self-appointed inner soul content, then the soul powers as such will grow stronger, will gain strength. And by doing so, one can achieve – as I said, it takes a long time to do these exercises – one can achieve, inwardly, without paying attention to external sense impressions, a strength of soul that is otherwise only applied to the external sense impressions themselves.

The outer sense impressions are concrete, pictorial. Everyone who has a certain self-contemplation knows that he develops a greater intensity of his soul life when he lives in the outer sense impressions than when he lives in abstract ideas or in memories, when he lives in that which remains for him when he turns his perceptive abilities away from the outer sensory life and limits himself only to his soul as such, as it arises, I might say, as an echo, as an after-effect, through the lively, saturated outer sensory impressions. What is important, ladies and gentlemen, is that the inner life of the soul is so strengthened that one can have something in this inner strengthening that one can otherwise only have in the present human life between birth and death when one is given over to the strength of the external sense impressions. One arrives at a pictorial imagining, an imagining that actually differs from the usual abstract imagining – let us say, if we want to speak scientifically, from that imagining by which one visualizes natural laws on the basis of observation and experiment. One comes to develop such inner strength that one has not only the kind of thinking, the kind of inner soul life that is present, for example, in grasping the laws of nature, but also the kind of inner soul life that is present in grasping outer pictorialness. One attains an inner pictorialness of thinking. One comes to live, not merely in thoughts of an abstract kind, but in inner pictures.

In the moment when one characterizes such a developed inner vision, it is immediately asserted: Yes, anthroposophy wants to develop something that is actually known as subordinate soul abilities, as soul abilities that play over half or completely - as one now wants to take it - into the pathological. And further one says: Those who strengthen their inner vision to such an extent that they develop the ability to see inner images without taking these images from the external sense world are surrendering themselves to an ability that is the same as the hallucinatory ability, to the ability to imagine all kinds of pathological phantasms and the like. And indeed, representatives of today's science have repeatedly objected that what anthroposophy claims as its inner vision in images must be traced back to suppressed nervous forces, which then, at the appropriate moment, arise from the inner being through the intensified inner life, so that one actually has nothing other than a suppressed nervous life in these images. Those representatives of science who confuse anthroposophical vision with hallucinations, as they are called in the trivial life, have simply not thoroughly studied what anthroposophical vision really is. Firstly, one could counter such objections by pointing out that anthroposophy insists that it proceeds in exactly the same strict way as the external natural sciences with regard to what the natural sciences deal with, and that it takes recognized scientific methods as its most important preparation and that it rises only from these, so that one should not really speak of the fact that someone who stands on the true ground of anthroposophy would show signs of indulging in a vision like some random medium or some random fantasist. We will not see any medium or fantasist placing themselves firmly on the ground of scientific research and taking this as their starting point, and then wanting to let what is to become a vision emerge from these strict scientific methods. But I do not want to talk about that at all. Instead, I would like to point out that anthroposophy demands a more thorough and exact method of thinking than is usually evident or applied in such objections.

The main point here is that, above all, such objections do not yet arise from a truly thorough knowledge of the soul or psychology. Our knowledge of the soul still leaves much to be desired today. It is by no means commensurate with the exact methods of external natural science. In many respects, it is actually a chaos of ideas handed down from ancient times and extracted to the point of mere words, and all kinds of abstractions. It is not based on real observation of the life of the soul, on exact empiricism of the life of the soul. Above all, such exact psychological empiricism must ask itself the question: What is the actual state of our sensory perception? What actually works in our sensory perception?

In our overall soul life, there is imagination, feeling and will. But our soul life is not such that we can separate imagination, feeling and will from one another other than in abstraction; rather, imagination, feeling and will are involved in everything that our soul is capable of in some way. We can only say that when we are in the life of imagination, feeling and willing play a part in it. When we form an affirmative or negative judgment within the life of imagination, our soul life is oriented outwards, but the affirmation or negation is carried out by an impulse of the will. This impulse of the will plays a definite part in our life of imagination. And only he can get an exact idea of the soul life and its various expressions who is clear everywhere about what is the part of feeling in willing, or, conversely, of imagining in willing, and so on.

Now it is relatively easy to see that the will plays a role in our imaginative life. I have just drawn attention to the process of judging, and anyone who really studies judging will see how the will plays a role in imagining. But also – and this is important, dear readers – the will plays a role in our sensory perception. And here I must draw attention to something that is usually not even known in today's psychology, or at least not sufficiently characterized. Will most certainly plays a part in our sensory perception, in all our seeing, hearing and other sensory perceptions. What actually takes place in sensory perception?

In the act of perceiving, we are inwardly active in every act of the soul, even in those in which we appear to be passively confronting the outside world. In what we bring to the outer world through inner activity, that is, expose ourselves to some kind of sensory perception, the will certainly lives – albeit, I would say, diluted and filtered – but the will lives in it. And the essence of sensory perception is that this will – I could go on for hours explaining this in detail, but here I can only hint at it – that this will, which we expose from the inside out, so to speak, is repulsed by the various agents. And we shall only comprehend the nature of the stimulus, the nature of the total sensory perception, when we can visualize this play of the will from the inside out and the counter-strike of the natural agents from the outside in. become aware of how in every act of sensory perception there is a reaction of the will and how everything that remains of sensory perception in memories or other forms of perception is actually a withdrawn will impulse. And so we can distinguish, by exposing ourselves sensually, that which plays in such a way from the will, from that which, starting from the whole act and following on from it, then continues in the life of imagination.

In the life of the imagination, as I have already indicated, the will also lives, but it lives in such a way that the inner man has a much greater share in this unfolding of the will into the life of the imagination than in the unfolding of the will into the life of the senses. First of all, our will remains much more active, much more subjective, much more personal in imagining than in sensing. You see, dear Reader, everything I have described in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds” for the development of supersensible knowledge, aims to raise to full consciousness the will that plays into sensory perception and that must therefore be applied, even in the most exact natural research. And now one must organize one's inner life of imagination in such a way that in this life of imagination not the subjective arbitrary will - if I may express it in this way - lives, as it otherwise lives in imagining, but the same objective will that lives in sensory perception. Anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, as I understand it, does not aim to bring up all sorts of things from the depths of the soul in a nebulous, mystical way, in order to force a subjective will into the life of ideas. This subjective will is already present in ordinary life, but it must be released from the life of imagination precisely through the exercises for attaining higher knowledge, and the will that one carefully trains oneself to see through, and that lives precisely in sensory perception - and only in sensory perception - must discipline and permeate the life of imagination.

If I may express it in this way, something tremendous has been achieved. The entire life of the imagination has acquired the character that otherwise only sense perception has. This is something that each individual must make as his personal discovery. Man knows, he can imagine all sorts of things; the will can play a part in this by turning the judgment one way or the other. What a wealth of life there is in the imagination! But when a person uses his senses, the external world imposes the discipline of the will on him – in the way that the will can be applied to sensory perception – and then it is impossible to bring inner subjectivity into play in an arbitrary way. I would remind you that anthropological psychology has already shown how the will comes to life in sensory perception – I need only remind you of Lotze's local signs and so on. But only when one comes to bring this will, which leaps into objectivity, into the life of the imagination, does one shape the life of the imagination in such a way that it becomes imaginative cognition, that it participates in objectivity in the same way that sense perception otherwise participates in objectivity.

You see, dear ladies and gentlemen, in the face of what I have only been able to hint at in a few strokes, in the face of what is meant in the most exact sense, but which is not meant in such a way that one indulges in all kinds of fantastic ideas about the development of the soul – as is also the case with clear-headed mystics – all the objections, even those raised today by official science, are basically extremely amateurish for anyone who is familiar with the subject. For in comparison with everything that can ever flow into hallucinations, dreams, and everything that arises subjectively only from the human being's organization, in comparison with that, that is, where the person lives without objective orientation, where he is completely devoted only to his inner being, in comparison with that, an imaginative life is developed that is modeled on the outer sense life with its objectivity. In a sense, then, the objectivity of sensory perception is extended inwardly through the life of imagination. In all that is present in mediumship, in all that is somehow present in pathological clairvoyance, on the other hand, what leads to pictorialness, to hallucinatory life, is brought up from within the human being.

But that is not at all the case with those methods that are used for anthroposophical research. Here one does not proceed from the inside outwards, as basically every mysticism has done so far, but one proceeds from the outside inwards. Here one does not learn from one's inner mystical feeling, but one learns precisely from external sensory perception how to relate objectively to the world. And then you discover that by learning in this way through sensory perception, you are able to shape the life of imagination in a way that is just as concrete and just as internally saturated as you would otherwise only have with sensory perception. And when one comes to such an inwardly saturated imagination, which now, just as sensory perception, flows into something objective – that is, it is not merely subjectively oriented – only then is one in a position to ascend from a certain stage of knowledge of nature to another stage, which I will characterize in a moment.

But first of all, I would like to say that the anthroposophical spiritual science, as I understand it, has made a sincere effort to create clarity on all sides regarding the position of such imaginative knowledge. And allow me, ladies and gentlemen, to make a brief personal statement, which is not meant to be personal at all, but is entirely objective and related to to how I myself came to not only develop such anthroposophical methods, but also to truly believe in such anthroposophical methods, to see in them a right to knowledge. For do not believe, ladies and gentlemen, that anyone who takes these things seriously is uncritical, that he does not want to thoroughly examine the most thorough and exact methods of critical knowledge of the present day. As I said, allow me to make a personal remark.

I was about thirteen years old when I came across a treatise that – as was particularly prevalent in the 1770s – was primarily concerned with the exact mathematical investigation of external natural phenomena and actually only accepted as natural laws what could be calculated. This essay endeavored to expel even the last mystical concepts from the knowledge of nature. This essay viewed the force of gravitation, the force of attraction in the sense of Newton, as one such mystical concept. This essay was called “The Force of Attraction Considered as an Effect of Movement”. And the mystical concept of attraction was not to be used, in which two material bodies somehow attract each other through space, but an attempt was made to explain attraction in an extraordinarily exact mathematical way: Ponderable matter is in a world gas, and thus a certain number of impacts between, say, neighboring material bodies can be calculated. If you now compare the number of impacts coming from the inside with the number of impacts coming from the outside, you arrive at a pure, mysticism-free explanation of gravitation.

I mention this for the reason that, as I said, this treatise fell into my thirteenth year. In order to understand this treatise - you can imagine that this is not exactly easy for a thirteen-year-old boy - I had to make an effort to master differential and integral calculus at the age of thirteen, because only by doing so can one really master these ideas. And in doing so, I had the opportunity to gain a starting point for everything that followed, which is actually needed to come to terms with such ideas, which have always lived in me with an indeterminate certainty, in a critical way. You really have to get an idea of how you actually use mathematical laws or laws of phoronomy in all your sensory observation, how you actually proceed, what you bring of yourself to the outside world, and so on. In short, for me that was the starting point for exploring how far this strange inner realm of the soul, which we call mathematics, can actually govern external reality.

Heinrich Schramm, the author of this essay - I still consider it extremely important today - was thoroughly convinced that you can go anywhere with mathematics, that you simply have to assume matter, space, motion and that you can then go anywhere with mathematics. He was convinced that the most diverse properties of natural phenomena in ordinary mechanics, in thermodynamics, in optics, in the field of magnetism and electricity, that one can grasp all these different phenomena with mathematics, that one can correctly arrive at all these different phenomena if one only applies mathematics correctly. So, if you apply this mathematical research to a hypothetical material process, the magnetic application springs to mind; if you apply it to a different process, the electrical application springs to mind. In short, all natural phenomena are explained as an effect of motion. One becomes quite free of mysticism; one limits oneself to the concrete, which one can grasp in purely mathematical presentation. This struggle, one must have gone through it once, this struggle with a knowledge that proceeds mathematically in relation to the external world and now wants to grasp the sense perceptions mathematically, because the external world must be grasped somehow, no matter how mathematically one proceeds.

But now another one presented itself to me in this way. I immersed myself in what is called the probability problem in mathematics, where you try to calculate the probability that - let's say, for example - you get a certain throw with two dice, where one, two, and so on, is on top, so you calculate probabilities. This mathematical field, this probability calculation, plays a very important role in the insurance business. There, probability calculation has a very real application. From the number of deaths within a larger number of people, one calculates the probability that any given person, let's say a thirty-year-old, will still be alive at the age of sixty, and then one determines their ability to take out insurance and also their insurance premium. So here we are calculating something, and in doing so we are using calculation to place ourselves in reality in a very strange way. You can see from the fact that, in theory, anyone can calculate their lifespan in such a way that it is fully sufficient for the insurance industry that calculation places us in reality. For example, I could have decided to insure my life at the age of thirty. It would have been perfectly possible to calculate how long my probable lifespan would be and therefore how much I would have had to pay. But no one will believe that they really have to die when this probable lifespan has expired.

We have here a field in which mathematics is valid for what it wants, but where the individual life as such does not fit into the mathematical formula, where life as such is not included in the mathematical formula. In this way, in certain areas of natural science, we have an inner satisfaction of knowledge when we start from the assumption that what has been mathematically understood is adequate to what appears externally in the sense world. But precisely in those areas where probability theory plays a role, there is something where we have to say to ourselves: Mathematics is sufficient for the outer life, for what takes place in outer observation, but one can never be convinced that the inner life is mastered by it.

I would have to tell a great deal more about the intermediate links if I were now to show how, starting from such ideas, I came to the chapter in my “Philosophy of Freedom” (the first edition of which appeared in 1893) on the value of life, on the value of human life. There I was dealing, above all, with a fight against pessimism as such. At that time, this pessimism dominated the philosophical outlook of certain circles much more than was the case later. This pessimism originated in principle with Schopenhauer, but it was systematically founded by Eduard von Hartmann. Eduard von Hartmann now started from the point of view of calculation with reference to the sphere of ethical life, of socioethical life. If you look up his calculations today, they are extremely interesting. He tries to calculate how, on the one hand, everything that brings people pleasure and joy, happiness and so on in life can be positively assessed, and how, on the other hand, everything that brings people suffering, pain, misfortune and so on can be negatively assessed. And he subtracts and actually comes up with a plausible conclusion that for most people the unhappy things, the painful things predominate, that the negative positions predominate.

You can think what you like about such philosophical “trifles”; for those who want to get to the very foundations of knowledge, these are not trifles, and they must not remain so if we want to escape from the misery of today's knowledge. This became a very important problem for me, because I said to myself, a person does not feel it the way it is calculated here. That is nonsense — you can see that the moment you ask people: If you were to add up your happiness and unhappiness, you would come out with a larger number on the negative side. Would you therefore consider your life a lost one? Would you therefore consider yourself ripe for suicide, as Eduard von Hartmann suggests, that every person should actually do so if they were reasonable? For Eduard von Hartmann, the calculation says yes, but life never says yes. Why not?

Now, in my “Philosophy of Freedom” I have shown that this subtraction, which Eduard von Hartmann carried out, simply cannot be carried out. if one wants to apply an arithmetic operation at all, one must apply a completely different one. you have to use a fraction or a division: the numerator or dividend contains everything that is fortunate, pleasurable, everything that brings satisfaction, and the denominator or divisor contains everything that brings suffering, unhappiness, pain and so on. If you apply the division calculation, then you would have to have an infinite denominator if you want to get a number that means zero as a life conclusion. If you can only divide a finite number of suffering and pain through it, then you will never get a life conclusion that is zero. The human being does not commit suicide as a result of subtraction. And when I showed that here one cannot just subtract, but instead divide, or that a fractional approach must be taken, I was also able to show that for mathematics in a certain case one is obliged to start from life, that one must therefore gain access to life, gain an immediate insight into life, before making a mathematical approach.

Here I have the three points together: on the one hand, in natural science, the mathematical approach, which in probability theory can adequately describe the external facts, but which is nevertheless insufficient when it comes to reality. Then there is reality itself, as it is grasped in its real individual form, and finally there is reality itself, which is directly observed as the master of the mathematical approach. There we have the limit of what is mathematically possible, insofar as we start from mathematics itself. And when one recognizes in this way that it is necessary to go beyond the mathematical when wrestling with this problem, then, on the other hand, when one has gained that conception of which I have spoken today, one finds that one has now made this leap in reality, where one has gone beyond the abstract thinking that we encounter most purely in mathematics and entered into direct reality. And only from there did the possibility arise – one might say in an epistemological way, which Goethe himself could not yet have given – to grasp Goethean morphology in the first place and, secondly, to deepen and expand it. For now, once you have gained that imaginative conception, you begin to grasp what Goethe actually meant when he developed his primal plant, that is, an inwardly and spiritually conceived form that underlies all the various outwardly diverse plant forms. Once you have grasped this archetypal plant, he said, you can theoretically invent plants in the most diverse ways with the possibility of growth, that is, you can inwardly recreate the natural process. We have an inner soul process by which we can, anticipating the natural process, allow the most diverse plant forms to emerge from the one primal plant, to recreate them inwardly, just as nature creates the most diverse plant forms from the one typical primal plant. There Goethe has already made the transition from pure abstract thinking to what I would now like to call 'thinking in forms'. That is why Goethe arrived at a true morphology.

This thinking in forms – perhaps I may still characterize it that way. What do we actually do in geometry? There we are dealing with forms, especially in plane geometry as well as in stereometry. But actually we are trying to master the forms through numbers, because measurement can, after all, be traced back to something numerical. So we try to force the forms into the abstraction of numbers. But the mathematical, as I have just explained, is limited. We have to leave it if we want to get out into reality. And we can also find the transition from merely reducing the geometric forms to numbers to directly grasping the geometric form. Once we have taken this serious approach to an inner grasp of geometry, we can also find the transition to other forms – to those forms that Goethe meant when he spoke of the primal plant, which then develops inwardly in the most diverse ways into the most varied plant forms. Just as a triangle can have one angle greater and the other smaller, thus creating the various special triangles, so too the most diverse plant forms arise from the primal plant once its law has been grasped. I would like to say that Goethe arrived at his morphology in a subjective way and only developed it to a certain degree. But that which one develops in a systematic way, by driving the will, which otherwise only lives in sensory perception, into the life of thinking, what one develops there as imaginative thinking, that is thinking in forms.

And we come to the point where we can now survey the stage of knowledge of nature where we have natural laws that can be grasped in abstract thoughts - we can apply this thinking to the inorganic, to the inanimate world. At the moment we want to ascend into the organic world of plants, we need thinking in forms. Dearly beloved, let no one rail against this thinking in forms; let no one say that real science can only progress in a discursive way, can only advance from one thought to another, that is, according to the method that is recognized today as the logical method; let no one say that only this is true science. Yes, one may decree for a long time that this is true science – if nature does not yield to this science, if nature, for example the plant world, does not allow itself to be molded into this science, then we need a different science. If purely discursive thinking, purely abstract thinking, is not enough, then we need thinking in forms, in inner pictorialness. And this thinking in inner pictorialness makes the plant world understandable to us on the outside, and makes the unity of our entire life between birth and death understandable to us on the inside.

I have often stated in my books and lectures that in those moments when one has truly developed this imaginative thinking, it turns out that life from the time one has learned to say “I” to oneself, when the ability to remember begins, to the present moment shows itself as if unfolding in a single tableau. Just as one normally regards one's external physical body as belonging to oneself and looks at it at any given moment, so one also has one's previous life on earth in the course of time before one, as in a panorama of images. This is the first achievement of truly anthroposophical science: to survey one's inner life as a tableau right up to one's birth, so that one now really has an overview of this time organism. What is called the etheric body of man or the body of formative forces in my various books - what is that other than what is achieved through imaginative visualization? We come to survey our life between birth and the present moment, presenting itself as a unity in the immediate present, at the same time as the impulses that carry us beyond the present moment into our further life on earth. And when we have achieved this, the second step of supersensible knowledge presents itself: it is difficult even today to find a name for this step; inwardly, as a method I have called it inspired knowledge. Do not let the term bother you. It does not refer to anything handed down by tradition, but only to what I have just hinted at in my books and what I will also hint at here in principle.

I have said that imaginative visualization is achieved by placing certain easily comprehensible ideas at the center of our consciousness and that this strengthens that consciousness. Just as we, in a sense, recreate memory when we place such ideas at the center of our consciousness, we must now also develop forgetting as an act of the will in our lives. Just as we can concentrate all the powers of our soul on certain ideas, which we place in our consciousness in the way I have characterized, we must also be able to drive these ideas out of our consciousness whenever we want, through inner arbitrariness. We must therefore also reproduce forgetting just as we artificially reproduce, if I may express it this way, remembering.

If we do these exercises, we will see that such an idea, which we bring into the center of our consciousness in this way, initially attracts all kinds of other ideas – like bees, they come in from all sides, these other ideas. We must learn to exclude them; in fact, we must learn to exclude all imagining. We must learn, so to speak, after we have developed such images, to be able to make the consciousness empty without falling asleep in the process. Just try to imagine what that means! This must be practiced, because as soon as a person, with only the usual strength of consciousness, tries to empty his consciousness - especially after he has first concentrated on a particular idea - he inevitably falls asleep. But that is precisely what must be avoided: empty consciousness after imaginative ideas, that is, initially without subjective content. And at that moment, when this has been achieved, the spiritual world streams into the soul life thus prepared. At this moment one is able to see a world that is not there for external sensory perception, but which is the world that we now see not only as part of our earthly life, as in imaginative knowledge, where we see up to birth, but we see the world that contained us as beings before we descended into earthly life. There we get to know ourselves as spiritual beings in a purely spiritual world. There we get to know that within us that has created this organism that lives here in the earthly world. There we get to know through knowledge the immortal part of the human being.

And from there it is then - I just want to mention this - one step to intuitive knowledge, to also gain the insight that the earthly lives of human beings repeat themselves. But you will have gathered from what I have only been able to hint at that it is a matter of using strict systematic schooling of the inner being to prepare the consciousness, not to create any world out of the inner being, but on the contrary, to free the consciousness after prior imagination for the contemplation of the spiritual world. Just as we encounter the outer world with our outer senses, in that the will lives in these outer senses and enters into a relationship with objectivity, so, after we have completely freed our inner soul life from the physical, we prepare the soul to see the spiritual world as it sees the physical world through the senses. There we get the opportunity to see what being has built us, in that we are built out of individuality, not out of the cosmos, and how this being lived in the spiritual world as a pre-existent being before we accepted the physical body through the hereditary stream through generations. And then we learn to recognize that which, in turn, passes through the gate of death and enters the spiritual world when we discard this physical body. We learn to recognize what builds up this physical body, what undergoes a certain transformation in this physical body through birth, what is rekindled through the experiences of life and then, through death, enters the spiritual-soul world again. So we are not striving for a fantasy, not for philosophizing, not for speculating about the immortality of man, but we are striving for a real insight into what lives in us as immortal. And when we deepen our spiritual life in this way, then we are standing in a spiritual objectivity, and it cannot be said that this standing in a spiritual objectivity can in any way be compared with hallucinations arising from the mere inner life or with any subjective fantastic creations.

Now I would like to show – albeit more comparatively – how one can arrive at not only an anthropology, but also a cosmology, in this way. Time is pressing, so I can only hint at it.

How does our ordinary life between birth and death unfold? We see, my dear attendees, how we have external experiences through our sensory experiences, how these sensory experiences trigger and develop ideas, and how, after the ideas have been developed, these ideas can in turn be evoked by the powers of memory. So we see, when we survey our soul life, that in what we carry within us we have, so to speak, the images of what we have experienced in the outside world. I am seeking a particular mental image from the very depths of my soul life. This mental image brings something to my mind in the present moment that I may have experienced fifteen years ago: an objective event experienced completely subjectively. But if my entire inner soul life is healthy, if what I am imagining as a memory is in a healthy connection with the rest of my soul life and, in particular, if I am able to orient myself properly through the senses at all times , then I am also able to tell myself what the external objective experience was like fifteen years ago from what I currently have in front of me – by drawing on everything with which it is related.

Between birth and death, we initially carry the world of our experiences within us in our soul. But, esteemed attendees, we also carry other things within us. If we only look at our lives as we usually survey them in our soul life, we are only aware of what I have just mentioned. But we carry other things within us, and through what I have described to you as supersensible knowledge, we look deeper into ourselves - not through nebulous mysticism, but through exact methods related to mathematics. We carry organs within us, the organs of our inner being. They are built out of our pre-existent being; they are built out of the spiritual world.

Those who, with the help of such exact anthroposophy as I have described, not only survey their soul life, which they have gathered together between birth and the present moment, but who learn to recognize the nature of the forces that prevail in the inner organs, he comes to know the world in its development through his organs, which he spiritually understands. And it is not, my dear audience, some reminiscence of some old superstition, of some old star belief or the like, when today anthroposophy speaks of a world development, but it is based on an insight into the human being that recognizes the inner human being in such a way that the mere life of the soul is recognized as an image of the events experienced since birth that are connected with us.

In this way we experience a connection with the whole world. Just as our memories are inner images of our experiences since birth, so our whole inner being - when we learn to understand it - is an image of the whole development of the world. This is what it means to “read the Akasha Chronicle” - not all the confused ideas that are held against anthroposophy. It means that we can gain knowledge of the world from true knowledge of the human being. However, we must not simplify matters, as is often the case today, when we believe that we can grasp something that is contained in a precise process of knowledge with a few concepts that have been pinned up. Nobody today would dare to grasp or even criticize the system of mathematics with a few pinned-up concepts. On the other hand, what is acquired in a much more complicated way, but with true striving, is today casually tried to be characterized with a few concepts. He who takes care to use all inner precautions in order not to fall into subjectivity but to completely immerse himself in objectivity — that is, to first shape the consciousness so that it can immerse itself in spiritual objectivity — is, I might say, slandered in such a way that it is claimed that only suppressed nervous energy is brought up at the appropriate moment and that all kinds of hallucinations arise from this. can immerse itself in spiritual objectivity – is, I might say, slandered in that it is claimed that only suppressed nervous energy is brought up at the appropriate moment and that all kinds of hallucinatory images are developed.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, without wishing to lapse into a counter-criticism, I will merely characterize how it is currently being done, and at the end I will show you this by means of a small example. A pamphlet appeared recently in which the author seeks to show that what the anthroposophist finds can, to a certain extent, be readily admitted, for the simple reason that today's science also finds that the strangest experiences of the soul can arise from the subconscious. And so, as the author of this work believes, it is quite possible to admit to the anthroposophist that he experiences all kinds of things as they are experienced by mediums, as they are experienced when people are put under hypnosis or taught suggestions, or even when they create suggestions for themselves. In particular, what is most essential about anthroposophy is traced back to self-suggestion.

And now something very worthy is being done. It is shown how the most wonderful effects are possible from the soul, how one can develop remarkably extensive healing processes for tuberculosis, metritis, fibroids and so on from the soul life, how even tuberculous deformations of the spine can be balanced out by the soul life: Why should it not be possible to admit that an anthroposophist also draws all kinds of things from his soul life, especially when he first puts himself into self-suggestion? And now it is shown that such subjective life exists, and such subjective life, especially of autosuggestion, of self-suggestion, the anthroposoph should also be devoted. And there is, for example, the following claim:

By means of his....

- that is, by means of the spiritual and soul development as I have described it

... self-aware action, that is, self-reflection in a trance, is made possible.

Now, dear attendees, I had not spoken of trance. I had only told you that consciousness comes to clearer, brighter levels, not that it is led back into darkness and gloom as in trance!

And self-contemplation, in turn, is the prerequisite for supersensible seeing. In other words, the so-called transcendental experiences are products of methodically generated self-contemplation in a trance state under the simultaneous effect of systematic suggestion. The actual agent here is self-suggestion. Proof of this is, among other things, Rudolf Steiner's explicit assurance that “to attain higher knowledge, one must force the will into the imagination.”

So, here it is claimed that I said in a lecture in Bern on July 8 that to attain higher knowledge, one must force the will into the imagination.

Now, first of all, something that shows how curiously exactly today's scientific papers are written! For example, on the same page it is said how such suggestions can actually be carried out, how something can be suggested to someone so that an idea is taught to him, and how he then becomes completely absorbed in this idea and even creates all sorts of things out of himself as a result of this absorption in this idea. And now the author says:

These successes are mainly based on the fact that Coue once understood suggestion as an independent, will-independent (ideo-dynamic) force.

– “ideo-dynamic” is in brackets, this is very important! –

... and that he has recognized the significance of this subconscious power.

So, we are dealing with an ideodynamic force that is independent of the will. Nevertheless, this ideodynamic force, which is independent of the will, is to be utilized by me, by saying that one must drive one's will into the imagination. Now, let us take the sentence first of all as the author claims I said it in Bern: One must force one's will into the imagination.

Today I also spoke about how one must develop the will, which one first gets to know through sensory perception, into the life of the imagination. In this way one fights precisely those influences that are merely suggestive. In this way one works in precisely the opposite sense. This application of the will is precisely what destroys all suggestive possibilities of influence. What I have described takes place in the opposite direction to suggestive influence. This is actually already evident from the fact that these suggestive influences are called “ideo-dynamic impulses”, i.e. not impulses of the will, but ideo-dynamic impulses. And yet, the author has a presentiment that he is not yet able to express properly: One must indeed summon up one's willpower when one wants to introduce subjective ideas into the ideas, but this happens without the person to whom it happens, who experiences the suggestion, applying his own will.

Everywhere I have described that the person who wants to become an anthroposophical researcher applies his will, thus standing out from the possibilities of suggestion. Therefore, I could not say - I read this in this brochure and said to myself: Did I really let my tongue be paralyzed in Bern on July 8, 1920, did I really say that in order to gain higher knowledge, one must force one's will into one's ideas? For anyone can do that, for suggestion can also happen without any activity on the part of the one to whom something is being suggested.

Now I have taken the trouble to look at the shorthand notes of my Bern lecture on July 8, 1920, which I fortunately found today. And now see what I really said in Bern at the time. Everywhere I tried to show how the opposite approach to suggestion should be taken. And then I said:

We must apply ever greater and greater strength. And it is the application of this strength that matters; it matters that we drive the will, with all our might, into the life of the imagination, into the act of imagining, that we actually grow stronger in this driving of the will into the life of the imagination.

That is something else. You can only drive ideas into the images. When one speaks of driving the will into the life of the images, it means precisely not allowing the images to be influenced by suggestions, but taking control of the free life of the images and the nature of the images, which is ruled by the will. You see, it is quoted in quotation marks, and the opposite of what I really said is said in quotation marks.

But this is only one example, ladies and gentlemen, of the way in which anthroposophy is often discussed today, especially from a scientific point of view, and how it is misunderstood. This is extremely characteristic, and the whole brochure actually has this tendency. My dear audience, as for what mediumistic phenomena are, what hallucinations are, what kind of visions arise from within – I have always strictly excluded them from the field of anthroposophical life and explained that I consider all of this to be pathological, that it goes below the level of the sense life, not above it. And I have done this everywhere, in many places in detail, as what Anthroposophy wants, what Anthroposophy gives as descriptions of spiritual-soul worlds, arises from completely different foundations than what is asserted here. And now there is a strange tendency for precisely that which I reject, that which I regard as morbid, pathological, to be seen as the justified thing about anthroposophy! That is, they reverse the facts. They make people believe that I am describing something that is hallucinations or the like. Well, they do exist, he says, so we will readily admit that to the anthroposophist, he is entitled to that. But he must not talk about higher worlds, for there he enters a philosophical realm that is to be valued only as theosophical doctrine, as imagination conditioned by theosophical doctrine.

But something highly characteristic, my dear audience: the man who crystallizes out here first of all, who wants from anthroposophy - although it is the opposite of what anthroposophy really gives - says: What I concede to anthroposophy, we know today; telepathy, clairvoyance, teleplasty and so on are known. But all that belongs to the pathological field, perhaps also to the therapeutic field – the things are connected, after all. I would have to go into what I have repeatedly said in medical courses: how a pathology and a therapy can certainly be derived from anthroposophy that legitimately go beyond what today's merely materialistic view can give. But by first distorting what anthroposophy can give, and then by acknowledging this distortion, it is said: Yes, you can suggest all kinds of things to people, but you have never experienced people experiencing something like astral or mental fairy-tale lands in a trance.

But that is precisely the point! He calls it fairy-tale land because he passes it off as fantasies. That, he says, cannot be experienced by suggestion. Yet it is experienced. A strange polemic! First, what one believes one can understand is selected from the anthroposophical results, although one does not understand it at all. This is then categorized as hallucination and so on; that is accepted. But the other part is dismissed as fairyland, yet it is said that it cannot be suggested. It cannot be suggested either, but must be conquered by exact inner methods as inner knowledge. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I do not blame anyone for misunderstanding in such a grotesque way what anthroposophy can give. I do not blame this respected (and rightly so) collection of scientific, medical and other essays, published in Munich and Wiesbaden by J. F. Bergmann, for including such grotesque criticism of anthroposophy, because the whole booklet by Albert Sichler is actually well-intentioned. He wants to do justice to the matter. He cannot do so because, for the time being, there is still an abyss between what is recognized as official science today and what is needed to really make progress, because ultimately there is an inner connection in spiritual life, between our entire civilized life and the scientific life in modern times. And the bridge must be built over to ethics, to social life. This cannot be done by a science that gets stuck only in the material or at most makes hypotheses about the non-material. This can only be done by a science that truly penetrates into the spiritual, because it is in the social that the spiritual is active, and social laws can only be found by someone who also finds laws, forms, transformations of the spiritual in nature.

Now, in the short time available to me today, I have only been able to give a few points of view, my dear audience. I wanted to show you how anthroposophy strives to work in the spirit of true science, how it takes its scientific and epistemological seriousness very seriously indeed in its quest to arrive at a method modelled on mathematics. On the other hand, however, it still faces many prejudices today, even though it is actually needed by our civilization as something tremendously necessary, because it alone is capable of providing man with a real, satisfying elucidation of his own nature in terms of knowledge.

Now, dear ladies and gentlemen, as I said, I believe that the antagonisms will disappear once an objective basis is gained for creating harmony and mutual understanding between today's science and the anthroposophical research method. We must wait for that. Until this is achieved, opponents will come from all sides, from political parties or from religion, theology or other fields, who will operate on purely subjective ground. But anyone who is familiar with this anthroposophy, anyone who is serious about it, serious about everything that has its source in Dornach, will say to himself, because he knows how seriously research is conducted within this anthroposophical field, ic field, he says to himself: however great the misunderstandings may be, a balance, a harmony must ultimately be found from the seriousness of modern scientific methods and attitudes. And this is a consciousness that one can have when one is on one's own ground, that in everything one seeks in anthroposophy, one first presents the conscientious demands for examination that are otherwise applied in science today. And that is what makes one expect the external balance. If one proceeds seriously, one can be convinced that from today's science and from what anthroposophy has so far endeavored to achieve - at least for those who know both, contemporary science and anthroposophy - the balance, the harmony can certainly be found today. And this awareness gives confidence that the scientific understanding will come about. And then the other antagonisms against Anthroposophy will disappear by themselves.

There are no requests to speak.

Rudolf Steiner: My dearest attendees! It is of course only possible to consider a few guidelines in a lecture, especially one that is intended as an introductory lecture to a whole series of lectures on Anthroposophy. And so I was unable to consider one thing in particular that would have been very close to my heart: to show the bridge that leads from the cognitive side of anthroposophy to the social, practical-ethical and religious side of it. And about that - we only have time until 10 o'clock - allow me to say a few words. If we consider the scientific world view – I am not saying the natural science, but the scientific world view – as it is widely held today, especially among laypeople, but also among people who do not believe they are laypeople, but who, as members of various monist and other associations, today embrace the scientific ideas of thirty years ago as a religious confession, if one considers what has emerged as a kind of worldview that is more or less materialistic. There is no bridge from what many people today consider to be the only possible way of researching to the reality of ethical ideals and social ideals.

Today, seeing all that science gives us, we are faced with the necessity of forming ideas for a worldview, for example, about the beginning and end of the earth. I can only hint at these things as well. We have the Kant-Laplace theory of the earth's beginning from the primeval nebula, which is presented according to the laws of aerodynamics and aeromechanics. One imagines how the planetary solar system formed out of a primeval nebula, how the earth split off. The question of how living beings could have come into being is, however, continuously critically treated – whereby one will reach the limits of knowledge – and then it is treated how organic life now also sprouts from what was initially only present in the primeval nebula, how man then emerged from this and how he experiences himself today in the self-confident ego.

Now I have met people – and basically life is the greatest teacher, if you only know how to take it correctly – I have met people who took this scientific worldview seriously. I remember one person in particular who is typical of many others. The others often do not realize it, but they set up an altar of faith, an altar of knowledge. Those who take the scientific ideas seriously cannot do this; they come to such hypothetical ideas about the beginning and end of the earth, for example from thermodynamics and entropy theory, which leads to imagining how everything finally merges into a heat death. One meets only few people who have the inner courage to admit from a fully human point of view, in which situation man is placed with his inner being today, if he takes these things seriously as the only ones that apply.

Herman Grimm, for example, says – forgive the somewhat drastic saying that I am quoting – from his feeling, by realizing what is to develop on earth between the Kant-Laplacean primeval nebula and the state to which the theory of entropy is supposed to lead us: A carrion bone round which a hungry dog circles is a more appetizing piece than this world picture, which is already presented to people in schools today. And future ages will struggle to explain how a particularly pathological age once came to form such ideas about the beginning and end of the earth. It will be impossible to understand how something like this could be taken seriously.

Well, my dear audience, the science that stands before us today as natural science – as I said, anthroposophy does not in the least find fault with it – fully recognizes it in its field. Anthroposophy is based on a scientific attitude, because scientifically conscientious methodology and inner discipline, as they have developed, must be recognized as a model, only they must be further developed in the sense that I have characterized today.

But this also leads to a true knowledge of man. This knowledge of man is not as easy to gain as the one we gain today from physiological and biological views. This knowledge of man finally shows us how man is actually a being that is organized quite differently internally according to the head and the metabolic-limb system - these are the two poles of the human being. What I am now briefly hinting at, I have explained in great detail in a series of lectures. But I want to show right away how wrong it is to say, for example, that our thinking arises from processes in our brain. That would be just as if a car were to move along a road that has become soft and were to make its impressions there: you can follow the path of the impressions of the car in the road that has become soft. But consider, someone comes and says: You should explain these impressions by forces that are down there in the earth; you must explain these configurations from these underground forces! — It is the same with the methods used today to explain the brain convolutions, the nerve structure, from the forces of the organs. The nerve structure can be explained by the effects of the spiritual and soul, just as the furrows in a softened road can be explained by the car driving over them.

It is only an image. But in a perfectly exact scientific way, anthroposophy leads us to recognize how thinking and imagining is a spiritual and soul process that only has the brain as a basis. And it has the brain as a substrate because it is not based on the brain's growth processes, on organic processes, but precisely on the brain's slow dying processes. The nervous system does not actually have a life, but rather the opposite of a life, a decline in life. Space must first be made for thought. The nerve centers must die away, and a continuous dying, a constant clearing out of the material processes, must occur so that the spiritual-soul processes can take hold. This must always be compensated for by the limb metabolism system during sleep or other processes. What arises in this way, the consciousness-paralyzing processes, those processes of which physiology speaks today, do indeed abolish imagining, extinguish it. Precisely when these processes are toned down, passing over into a kind of partial dying, then imagining, thinking arises, so that we continually carry life and dying, being born and dying within us. And the moment of dying, it is only, I would like to say, the integral of the differentials that make up life, of the differentials of a continuous dying that make up human existence.

If we continue this train of thought, we come to recognize something that is virtually denied in today's accepted science, but which lies in the real continuation of this science: that the human being has real processes of decomposition and continuous processes of dying within him. The ethical ideals develop in the context of these dying processes, so that these ethical ideals are not dependent on the continuation of organic processes, but on suppressed, regressing organic processes. But this in turn leads to the following: When our Earth reaches a state, whatever its mineral-biological state, when the Earth - for my sake, let's take the hypothesis as valid, it is not quite, but in a certain sense it is - when it reaches heat death - when no other processes are possible because everything has formed according to the second law of the mechanical theory of heat as the remnants that are always there when heat is released into the environment, when heat is converted, when this state has occurred, then what has lived in man as ethical ideals has come to its greatest expression of power. And that carries earthly existence out to new planetary formation.

We discover in our moral ideals the germs for later worlds, for later worlds based on our present-day morals. This gives our ideals a real value. Contemporary philosophy is obliged to speak of mere values. But what is there for a possibility when one speaks of values that arise in man as mere ideas, but which are not the germs of future realities, what is there for another prospect than to say to oneself: We come from the Kant-Laplacean world nebula, and somehow the moral ideals emerge in our self-awareness, but these moral ideals live in us only like haze and fog. That was the personality I was talking about earlier, who accepted the modern scientific development as a law and said to himself: Man is cheated in the world. Natural scientific development has brought him this far, then the moral ideals arise as foam, dissolve again, and everything enters into the heat death, into the great cemetery, because the moral ideals are indeed experienced, but have no possibility of becoming reality.

By following the regressive processes in which moral ideals have been at work, anthroposophy shows us that these moral ideals have only an ideal existence in us, but that, as they develop in the human being, they are seeds for the future. Just as we see in the germ of the plant that will develop in the next year, so anthroposophy allows us to see in moral ideals the germs of future worlds. And we see the idealities of the past as the seeds of the present world, behind the Kant-Laplacean primeval fog. The present world is the realization, the actualization of what was once only thought, just as the present plant is the realization of last year's seed. And what is currently experienced only as moral value is the real seed of future worlds.

We are not only part of the cosmos through our natural organic processes, we are also part of the cosmos through what we experience as moral and social values within us. We are acquiring a cosmology that does not only include natural processes and laws as its agents, we are acquiring a cosmology in which our entire moral world is also a reality. Anthroposophy builds the bridge from the natural to the ethical and religious world.

This is what I wanted to mention in a brief closing word, because it was no longer possible in the lecture.

The fact that we have both boys and girls at the Waldorf school seems to serve two purposes. One is to shape the teaching according to the needs of the whole human being, since with either boys or girls alone, education always tends to become one-sided. The other is to work toward the kind of human interrelationship required especially by today’s society, in which women have either gained their place in society or are trying to obtain it. The Waldorf art of education, therefore, deals with modern social struggles. Much that would remain remote from one gender or the other can thus be developed because boys and girls are educated together.

These lectures have shown that we attach great importance to the development of children’s whole being—in spirit, soul, and body, and not just spirit and soul. This is why we engage the children in physical activity—especially activities that enable them to go into life with understanding. During the handwork lessons in the Waldorf school, you find boys and girls sitting together, all knitting and crocheting. This is absolutely natural, which is proved by the fact that the boys learn to knit and even darn socks with some pleasure. It never occurs to them that such work is inappropriate for men. We do not include such things just so the boys know how to do them, but for the sake of a general understanding of life. One of the main faults of present social conditions is that people have so little understanding of what others do. We must really stop isolating ourselves as individuals and groups and face one another with complete understanding. The main purpose of this kind of handwork is to teach practical skill in many different areas.

Though it may seem inconceivable, in my opinion no one can be a real philosopher who is unable to darn socks or mend one’s clothes when needed. How can you have any intelligent concept of grand cosmic mysteries if you cannot even care for your own footwear? Can we really hope to enter cosmic mysteries, in a truly human sense, if we are incapable of dealing with the things right next to us? I realize that this may seem improbable, but I do believe that philosophers should have some understanding of how boots and such are made; otherwise, we simply adopt abstractions. This is an extreme example, perhaps, but I wanted to show that education must include both an ascent to the highest spiritual levels and descent into physical education and treatment.

From this kind of handwork, children can be guided to an ability to do manual work with intelligence and understanding. At the right age, which is relatively early, our children make their own toys and playthings. You have probably seen some on display here. They carve toys from wood, and thus we bring an element of art into their play. To lead play gradually into the creation of artistic forms, and then to the practical work, as just described, is completely in keeping with the needs of human nature. It is absorbing to find that the children’s artistic sculptural activity turns naturally into making toys. Again, we lead from art as such into art as an aspect of industry. Children are shown how to make simple implements for use in the house, and at the same time learn to use saws, knives, and other cabinetmaking and carpentry tools. In addition to their regular lessons, both boys and girls love to be in our workshops, at work with a knife or a saw or other tools, and they are delighted when they succeed in making something useful. Thus, we stimulate all their instincts for the practical side of life. On the one hand, we develop a sense for practicality, and on the other, for the arts.

It is interesting to observe children when they learn something about the human organism—for example, the sculptural formation of skeleton or muscle formation. If they are given an artistic concept of the structure and functions of the human body, they begin to express, in a sculptural way, their ideas of the shape of some limb, not in a strict sense of imitation, but freely and creatively. Our children are allowed great freedom, even in their practical work, and they are allowed to follow their own sense of discovery. Their souls create wonderful forms once they learn to observe certain things in people or in animals with a truly artistic feeling for nature.

We teach this way, so that whatever children know, they know it with their whole being. Our culture is calculated to make us know everything with our heads. Facts rest in the head as though sitting on a couch; they rest in the head as though in bed; they are asleep, “meaning” only one thing or another. We carry them around, stored up in so many little compartments, which we otherwise prefer to leave alone. In the Waldorf school, the children do not merely “have an idea” in their heads; they feel the idea, since it flows into their whole life of feeling. Their souls live in the sense of the idea, which is not merely a concept but becomes a shaped form. The whole complex of ideas eventually becomes the human form, and finally passes into their volition. Children learn to transform what they think into action. When this happens, we do not find thoughts arising in any one part of the human being, with the will in another part nourished only by instinct. Such a person is really like a wasp. There are wasps that have a head, then a long stalk, and below this the rest of the body. Outwardly, it symbolizes not the modern human physical nature, but the nature of soul and spirit. One has a head, then a long stalk, and one’s volition is an appendage to this. From the spiritual point of view, people today present a strange appearance—the head dangles in the air not knowing what to make of its own ideas.

This can be rectified by continually helping children to permeate their faculties of knowledge with feeling and volition. Modern systems of education have known for a long time that teaching has veered into one-sided intellectualism, that the head dangles in the air, and that a beginning must be made on the other side to develop practical skill and dexterity. But this does not really unite the two elements. Such a union is impossible unless knowledge of itself goes into practical skill, which is also permeated with the quality of thinking and inner understanding of the soul and spiritual participation.

Based on these principles, we can bridge the gap to moral and religious education. I already spoke of this and need only add that everything depends on giving all teaching and gymnastics in a form that makes children experience their physical nature as a revelation of spirit pouring willingly and creatively into their bodies. Children must never feel a separation between spirit and body. The moral and religious elements thus truly come to life in their feelings. The important thing to keep in mind is that, between the change of teeth and puberty, we must never indoctrinate morality and religion into children dogmatically, but by working on their feeling and perception according to this period of life. Children must learn to delight in goodness and to loathe evil, to love goodness and hate wickedness. In history lessons, the great historical figures and the impulses of various eras can be presented so that moral and religious sympathies and antipathies develop in the children. Thus we achieve something of supreme importance.

After puberty, around fifteen or sixteen, a change takes place in the children’s inner nature, leading them from dependence on authority to their own sense of freedom and, hence, to the faculty of independent discernment and understanding. This must claim our closest attention in teaching. If we have awakened in children, before puberty, a feeling for good and evil and for what is divine or not, these feelings will arise from their own inner being afterward. Their understanding, intellect, insight, and power of discernment remain uninfluenced, and they form independent judgments out of their own being. If we begin by telling children that they should do this or not do that, it stays with them throughout their life, and they will always think that such things are right or wrong. Convention will color everything. But those who have been educated properly will not stand within convention but use their own judgment, even regarding morality and religion, and this will develop naturally if it has not been engaged prematurely.

In a Waldorf school, children of fourteen or fifteen are allowed to find their own feet in life. We treat them as equals. They develop discernment, but look back to the authority that we represented and retain the affection they had for us when we were their teachers. Their power of discernment has not been limited if we have worked on their life of feeling properly. Therefore, once children reach fourteen or fifteen, we leave their soul nature and spirit free and, in the higher classes, appeal to their power of discernment and understanding. Such freedom in life cannot be achieved if we instill morality and religion in a dogmatic, canonical fashion. We must have worked solely on the children’s powers of feeling and perception at the right age—between the change of teeth and puberty. The main thing is to enable young adults to find their place in the world with real confidence in their own powers of discernment. Thus, they will sense their real humanity, because their education has been completely human. Those who been unfortunate enough to have lost a leg or an arm are conscious of the damage. Children of fourteen or fifteen who have been educated according to modern methods begin to be aware of a sense of injury if they are not permeated with the qualities of moral judgment and religious feeling. Something seems to be missing in their being. There is no better heritage in the moral and religious sense than to raise children to regard the elements of morality and religion as an integral part of their being, so that they feel fully human because they are permeated with morality and warmed by religious feelings.

This can be achieved only when we work, at the proper age, only on the life of feeling and perception, and do not prematurely give the children intellectual concepts of religion and morality. If we do this before twelve to fourteen, we bring them up to be skeptics—men and women who later develop skepticism instead of healthy insight into the dogmas instilled in them—and not just skepticism in their thinking (the least important), but in feeling, which injures their feeling life. And, finally, there will be skepticism of volition, which brings moral error with it. The point is that our children will become skeptics if we present moral and religious ideals to them dogmatically; such ideals should come to them only through the life of feeling. Then, at the right age, they will awaken their own free religious and moral sense, which becomes part of their very being. They feel that only this can make them fully human. The real aim at Waldorf schools is to raise free human beings who can direct their own lives.

The Waldorf school is an organism complete and whole in itself. If one does not think of it this way, many of its educational principles may be misunderstood. People may think, for example, that if they visit the school two or three times and see what is done on those days, this is enough; they have seen how we teach. Of course, this is not the situation. People will see nothing of any significance in this way. What they see is like a fragment of a picture, from which they then form an opinion of the whole. Suppose you take a fragment of some great picture and show it to someone. How can you form an opinion of the whole from a fragment? The essential feature of Waldorf education is that every activity has its place in the school as a whole. People can understand a Waldorf school much better by studying the principles, its structure, and the living connection between the eighth class and the fourth class, for instance, or between the first and the tenth, instead of looking at an isolated fragment of the teaching. The organization of the school is conceived so that each activity has its place and time and fits into the whole. Individual subjects of instruction are introduced into the school from this perspective.

Here is a brief example how, in principle, eurythmy is given a place in the whole work. It is no good setting out to discover things that may then be introduced into the school activities. It is, as a rule, a wrong principle to invent things that are “good” for children—as happened too often in the Fröbel kindergarten system—and then make them an essential part of education. Nothing should be introduced artificially to the school; everything should arise from life itself. Eurythmy was introduced to the Waldorf school not because we thought that children need gymnastic exercises, and thus set out to invent something. No, indeed! Eurythmy did not arise initially as an educational component at all. It came about around 1912 as the result of certain connections of destiny, but mainly as an art, not as an educational measure. We cannot understand eurythmy as applied in education if we think of it as a “educational” eurythmy, as opposed to eurythmy as an art. Consequently, I would have thought it better to give the eurythmy performances as an art here first, since that would have shown the underlying concept. Because eurythmy is an art, it is part of life, and this part of life has been put into a form that is suitable for educational purposes. Nobody can understand the eurythmy performed by children unless they realize what it will one day become as an art—and what it already is, perhaps more than many people think.

The Waldorf school began in 1919, and, because we found that eurythmy could be applied to educating children, we introduced it at the school. But this is secondary. This connection should be realized in everything else if we would understand the Waldorf school in relation to life. Teachers should have a free, unbiased view of life and be able to educate children for life. The more intimately teachers are connected with the life around them, the better it is for the school. Narrow-minded teachers who know nothing of life except the school itself can do little to develop the full humanity of their students. It is not a matter of a special method of teaching painting, for instance; if we want them to learn to paint, the principles of teaching should be drawn from the living art of painting, not from methods that have been invented especially for the purpose of education. The element of true art must be introduced into schools, not an intellectual substitute. And eurythmy makes it possible to again infuse art into human culture.

In addresses given before eurythmy performances, I explained the sense in which eurythmy is visible speech, expressed in movement. I just want to add something here about these figures, since this will further explain the relationship between eurythmy and art. The idea for the figures originally came from Miss Maryon, but they have been made in forms that I think correct according to the principles of eurythmy. Here (showing a figure), you have a picture of the sound “s.” The figure does in a sense represent a human being, but those who think in terms of today’s conventional notions of a beautiful human form will not find much beauty in this figure. They will see nothing of what would seem beautiful in someone they met in the street. When making such figures, we may also have an eye for beauty of the human form, but the purpose is to represent the expression of eurythmy—the human being in movement. And so, in these figures, we have ignored anything that does not belong to the essence and form of movement itself, the feeling corresponding to a particular movement, and penetrating the basic character expressed by and coloring the movement. When you sing, you take into your whole organism—in a physical sense—the elements that move the soul. The movement occurs entirely within the bounds of the skin and remains invisible, flowing fully into the tone one hears.

The figure you see here (another figure) expresses music in movement. The soul’s feeling is released from the human being, becomes spatial movement, and the artistic element is expressed as movement. We see what we otherwise only hear. Thus, these figures are intended only to suggest what a human being becomes while performing eurythmy, completely apart from any natural attributes. Each movement is indicated by the shape of the carving, and the wood is painted with a fundamental color. We have written on the back of these figures the Steiner’s sketch for a eurythmy figure “s” names of the colors that correspond to the movements themselves and to the feeling inherent in the movements. The way eurythmists on a stage manipulate their veils becomes a continuation of the movement. Once eurythmists have learned to do this with skill, the veil will float freely, be withdrawn, caught up, or given a certain form at the right moment. The movement performed by the limbs is behind the feeling that is also expressed by manipulating the veil; the feeling is expressed in the floating veil. If a eurythmist has true feeling for the movement of arms or legs, the quality will naturally pass into the manipulation of the veil, and the feeling that should accompany movement in the veil will be felt.

When this movement (pointing to the figure) is being performed, the eurythmist must be able to sense that the arm is stretched out lightly in this direction, as though hovering in the air with no inner tension. In the other arm, a eurythmist must feel as though summoning all of one’s muscular force and packing it tightly into the arm. One arm (the right) is held lightly upward; the left arm is tense, and the muscles almost throb. This is how the movement is given character, and this character makes an impression on the spectators. They can feel what the eurythmist is doing.

Now, when the people look at these figures, they may ask, where is the face and where the back of the head. But this has nothing to do with eurythmy. You will occasionally find those who are enthusiastic about the pretty face of a eurythmist, but I can assure you that this is not part of eurythmy. The face on this figure, which looks like it is turned to the left, is in fact facing you, and the color is used to emphasize the fact that the eurythmist should feel “eurythmic force” diffused lightly over the right side of the head, while the left side of the head is tense, imbued with inner strength. It is as though the head becomes asymmetrical—relaxed, as if “fluffed out,” on the one side, and taut on the other.

The movements receive their true character in this way. The figures here express what should become visible in eurythmy. The same principles hold true of all artistic work. One should be able to look away from the substance, content, or prose, and enter the artistic element. A beautiful face on a eurythmist really corresponds to the prose quality. The eurythmist expresses the real beauty in eurythmy when the right side of the head is lightly diffused with eurythmic forces and the left side tense. So we can conceive that a plain face may be beautiful in the sense of eurythmy, and a beautiful face ugly.

In eurythmy, then, we have elements that are true of every art form, as all artists will agree. A great artist is not merely one who can paint a beautiful young face in a pleasing way. A true artist must be able to paint an old, wizened, wrinkled face in such a way that it becomes artistically beautiful. This must underlie all art.

I wanted to add these remarks about the eurythmy you have seen performed here. Let me just say that we introduced eurythmy into our Waldorf school because it affords such a wonderful contrast to ordinary gymnastics. As mentioned, physical exercises are carried out adequately in a Waldorf school, but regarding ordinary physical gymnastics, we elaborate them in such a way that, with every exercise, the children are first given a sense of spatial directions, which are, of course, fundamental. The children feel the directions of space, and then their arms follow it. In their gymnastics, they surrender to space. This is the only healthy basis for gymnastic exercises. Space is conditioned in all directions. To an ordinary, abstract concept of space, there are three directions, which we cannot distinguish. They are present only in geometry. In fact, however, the head is above, the legs below, and this gives us above and below. Then we have right and left. We live in this direction of space when we stretch out our arms. The point is not to find some “absolute direction.” Of course, we can turn this way or that. Then we have a forward and backward direction, front and back. All other directions of space are oriented in relation to these. If we understand space in this way, we can discover truly healthy movements for gymnastics, in which a person surrenders to the laws of space.

In eurythmy, the nature of a movement is determined by the human organism, and we can ask what the soul experiences in one movement or another. This is the principle behind the eurythmy movements for various sounds. What happens as one’s forces flow into the limbs? In ordinary gymnastic exercises, we lend ourselves to space; in eurythmy we move in a way that expresses our being, according to the laws of our organism. The essence of eurythmy is to allow the inner to be expressed outwardly as movement. The essence of gymnastics is to fill the outer with the human being, so that one unites with the outer world.

To educate the whole human being, we can thus derive gymnastics from the polar opposite of eurythmy, in which the movements arise entirely from one’s inner being. In any case, however, even when applied to education, the element of eurythmy itself must be derived from a true grasp of its artistic principles.

In my opinion, the best gymnastic teachers have learned from art. The impulses behind the gymnastics of Greek schools and the Olympic Games were derived from art. And if the consequences of what I have said are fully realized, and all schoolwork is based primarily upon the element of art, we will also apply what I have described through the example of eurythmy to other areas of life and activity. We will not try to invent something for teaching, but imbue the school with real life. And then, out of the school, life will grow within society.

I have said that a school should be an organization in which each individual feature is an integral part of the whole. The threads of all the various activities necessary to the whole life of the Waldorf school are drawn together in the frequent teachers’ meetings. Over the year, I myself am present at the majority of these meetings. They are not held merely to prepare school reports, discuss administrative details, or talk about the punishments to be used when rules are broken. These meetings are really a living “higher education,” since the college of teachers is a kind of permanent training academy. This is because the teachers’ every practical experience in school becomes part of their own education. Teachers will always find something new for themselves and for the college of teachers if they educate themselves through their teaching, gaining a profound psychological insight into the practical side of education on the one hand, and on the other insights into the children’s qualities, characters, and temperaments. All the experiences and knowledge acquired from the teaching are pooled at these meetings. Thus, in spirit and soul, the college of teachers becomes a whole, in which each member knows what the others are doing, what experience has taught them, and what progress they have made as the result of their work in the classroom with the children. In effect, the college of teachers becomes a central organ from which the whole life of practical teaching flows, helping teachers to maintain their freshness and vitality. Perhaps the best effect of all is that the meetings enable teachers to maintain their inner vitality, instead of growing old in soul and spirit. It must be the teacher’s constant aim to maintain a youthful freshness of soul and spirit, but this cannot be done unless real life flows through a central organ, just as human blood flows into and out of the heart. This is concentrated as a system of soul and spirit forces in the life that teachers work for in their meetings at the Waldorf school. Those meetings are held each week, and, as I said, sometimes I am present.

Now I want to mention something that seems trivial, but is important. As I said, we have boys and girls together in our classes. It naturally happens that, in some classes, girls are in the majority, in others the boys, and there are others in which the numbers are equal. A rationalist may visit these classes and spout all sorts of intellectual opinions, which nevertheless usually fail to hit the nail on the head regarding real life. If we teach in a class in which girls are in the majority, matters are not at all the same as in those classes where the number of boys and girls is the same, or where boys are in the majority. The classes are not given their individual character according to what the boys and girls do together—perhaps also the silly things they do together—but by intangible elements that wholly escape external, intellectual observation. Very interesting things come to light when we study this intangible life in the class. Of course, the teachers must not enter their classes and, stepping back with folded arms, “study” their students. If teachers bring enough vitality and devotion to their work, then, by simply taking the students with them in the right way in sleep, they wake up the next morning with significant discoveries about the previous day’s events at school; they become aware of this process in a fairly short time, and all that should happen in this way will come about natually.

The very center and essence of the school are the teachers’ meetings; likewise, at the periphery, the parents’ evenings at the Waldorf school are extremely important. At least once a month—or regularly, anyway—we try to arrange evenings when the children’s parents can gather and meet with the teachers, so that a link can be established with the children’s home life. We think that the parents’ understanding of their children’s education is very important. Because we do not make up programs or schedules for our teaching but take it from life itself, we cannot adopt an attitude that claims to do the right thing, based on a schedule devised by some intelligent authority. We must come to sense what is right through our living interaction with the parents who sent their children to us. The echoes of these parents’ evenings touch the teachers and give them what they need to maintain their own inner vitality.

Living beings do not live merely within their skin; nor do human beings exist only within the space of their skin. We always have a certain amount of air within us, and before we breathed in, it was outside and belonged to the atmosphere. And it is soon breathed out again. A living being belongs to the whole as a member of the universe, and our existence is unthinkable apart from it. And human beings are not isolated units in society, but integral members of it. We cannot live unless we are related to society just as intimately as our physical organism is related to the air and water that surrounds it. And, in this sense, it requires little to show how much depends on the school.

To illustrate such things, I generally try to use examples from ordinary life instead of something made up. Two days ago I entered a room here and observed a report from the Sunday school teachers. The first sentence refers to a speech at the yearly meeting of the Sunday School Union, given by a chairperson, an eminent man. He said that the Sunday schools had gradually isolated themselves from other religions in the world—that, in general, there is too little knowledge of religions. I read this on the bulletin board in the next room, and it is an important indication of what society needs for its inner vitalization today. I might as easily find the same sentiments elsewhere or in some leaflet handed out in the street. Everything tells the same story—that men and women today are not brought up with a broad view of life.

A broad view of life is essential to the Waldorf teachers, however, and they must communicate this to their students, so that education leads to broad interests in life. Everyone is so enclosed and confined today. Just consider professional training, which causes people to become almost ashamed of knowing anything beyond the pigeonhole of their own profession. We are always told to seek out experts or specialists, but the most important thing is to be bighearted. People should be able to participate with their hearts and souls in culture and society as a whole. This is what we attempt through the principles of education. First we imbue our teachers—in a Waldorf school, the first thing has been to educate the teachers—and then the students through the teachers. The students are our great hope and goal; our purpose in every measure we adopt is that our students will carry its fruits into life in the right way.

That, my dear friends, is the attitude behind the art of education I have been describing. It is based fully on this principle. Our educational measures must arise from the human being, so that children develop fully in body, soul, and spirit, and as adults find their place in life, having grown, in body, soul, and spirit, within a religious, ethical, artistic, and intellectual life that enabled them to develop the virtues best suited to a life with other human beings. Essentially, every educational ideal must be based on this principle, and I am indeed grateful to those who made it possible for me to speak here on the subject. I am sure you realized now that, although the principles of Waldorf education arose in one country, there is no question of any nationalism; rather, it is a matter of internationalism in the best sense, because it is a matter of the universal human. Our aim is to educate human beings with broad, rich interests—not men and women who belong to a particular class, nation, or profession. So I think you will agree that, although this art of education emanates from one country, it is permissible to speak of it in other lands, too.

It is an even greater pleasure to discover that, in connection with the subject of these lectures, a committee was formed to establish a school and bring Waldorf education to this country in a truly practical way. When such schools are established today, we must create model schools as patterns, and this applies to Waldorf schools. This impulse cannot be truly fruitful until its principles are recognized by the broadest possible public opinion.

I recall that, in my early youth, I once saw in the comics a joke about architectural plans. (I mentioned something of the sort yesterday.) It said that one should not go to an architect, who would make all kinds of drawings and detailed calculations and then work to assemble the materials artistically. Rather, one should go to an ordinary mason who simply lays one brick upon another. This attitude still dominates the educational world. People tend to regard an architect’s work as abstract, and they would like to see bricks laid upon bricks, with no concern about the principles behind the whole structure.

In any case, I am sincerely grateful to find such wonderful understanding and interest among you who have attended these lectures. First, let me thank Miss Beverley and her helpers; then our Waldorf teachers and other friends who have worked so hard and with such deep understanding; and also those who have added an artistic element to our conference. I am indeed grateful to all those whose interest and sincerity have brought this conference into being, which I hope will bear fruit through the new committee. As this interest spreads, we will be better able to serve the true principles of education. Your living cooperation demonstrates the fact that you have this at heart. I have given these lectures not only from the intellect, but also from a profound interest in the principles of true education.

And thus I would like to close these lectures with a parting greeting to you all.

Report in the “Mitteilungen des Zentralvorstandes der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft” No. 1/1921.

At four o'clock, Dr. Unger opens the discussion on the prerequisites, tasks and goals of an Anthroposophical Society and welcomes the numerous members of the Anthroposophical Society (about 1200) present. After a few procedural remarks that this is not a general assembly of the Anthroposophical Society, nor a founding assembly, but a gathering of the members present here, he hands over the chair to Mr. Uehli, who then gives Dr. Unger the floor as speaker.

Dr. Unger: We are in a difficult position with our movement in the midst of the decline of spiritual life, surrounded by organized opposition, behind which stand spiritual forces that we initially have to counter with only our free will to work. In order to arrive at a discussion of our main questions, some of the history of the anthroposophical movement should be presented, which is briefly outlined in my essay in the double issue of “Drei” appearing on the occasion of this congress, as it must be known to the public today. In future, no opponent must be allowed to claim ignorance of these facts. (What now follows is a reproduction of this essay, which may be read on the spot. The essay ends with the publication of the 'Draft of the Foundations of an Anthroposophical Society' written by Dr. Rudolf Steiner.) Unfortunately, there is reason to assume that even today this 'Draft of the Basic Principles' is not sufficiently known among the members of the Anthroposophical Society to fulfill its task. In the early days after the founding of the Society, it was my task to give lectures to the individual working groups that existed at the time and were forming rapidly about the tasks and goals of the Society. I had already indicated the Society's point of view in Number XIII (March 1912) of the “Mitteilungen” (Communications) for the members of the German Section of the Theosophical Society, and characterized it by the words “trust” and “responsibility”. The founding committee considered itself responsible for the spiritual current and wanted to call for people to come forward who were willing to share this responsibility. Working groups were to be formed and a kind of trust organization was to be created from trustworthy personalities, who in turn should be willing to take responsibility for what they achieve to the founding committee, just as each individual member should be willing to take their share of responsibility to the trustworthy personalities. Trust should be the prerequisite for responsibility: just as the task was entrusted to the anthroposophical movement, so should trust be expressed in people, that in their hearts the spiritual current that is to be served is at work, trust in the will and understanding of those who approached the task in order to take on the responsible task of building something that could last into the future within the increasingly collapsing world of the present.

A motto precedes the 'Draft of the Basic Principles': 'Wisdom is only in the truth'. (From Goethe's Prose Sayings.) This motto was placed in its position when the Theosophical Society fought against the truth in an organizational way, when untruthfulness, lies and defamation began to cloak themselves in the nimbus of wisdom. In a serious sense, this motto calls us to the starting points of our society. A simple overview of the content of the “Draft” shows that the prerequisites, tasks and goals of the Anthroposophical Society are set out here. It contains an obligation in that every member must know it before joining the Society. But this obligation does not lie in the external organizational structure; rather, the Society as such should mean something to its members in a human sense.

There are secret societies with which the Anthroposophical Society is often compared, albeit wrongly. But for the members of such secret societies, their society means something. Of course there are also disputes among their members, and there are also apostates, but it will certainly not happen that such people will carry anything to the outside world that could harm their society. The Society as such is respected above and beyond all differences of opinion. This is one of the prerequisites of the Anthroposophical Society, which cannot establish a connection between its members through external discipline, obedience and the like, but must achieve this connection out of a free understanding of genuine spiritual life.

The goal of “a satisfying and healthy way of life” is pursued by the Anthroposophical Society in accordance with the “Draft of the Basic Principles” “by promoting genuine and healthy research directed towards the supersensible and by cultivating its influence on the human way of life”; “true spiritual research and the attitude of mind that arises from it shall give the Society its character”; thus from the very beginning the main emphasis has been placed on the practical side of life, and what has since emerged as the effect of anthroposophy on the various areas of life is precisely part of the ‘cultivation of its influence on human conduct’. The three guiding principles, in which the character of the Society can be expressed, are based on true spiritual research. They are prerequisites or conditions for the work of the Society, which sets itself and is not intended to present an external commandment. In particular, the first guiding principle shows that brotherhood is not presented as a phrase or abstract demand, but that it can result from observing the spiritual that is common to all human souls. In order to gain influence on the way of life, the work of Dr. Steiner had to be given the widest possible distribution. It must be added here to the history of the Anthroposophical Society that the initial period after its founding had to be devoted to the inner attitude towards the goals. However, this work was abruptly cut short by the outbreak of war. An Anthroposophical Society only makes sense on an international basis. However, the way in which national matters were handled during the war did not allow for external work. In addition, of the three founders of the Society who served as the Central Board, Dr. Steiner (Miss von Sivers) resigned from her post at the beginning of 1916, so that an interim administration of the Society had to be set up. And in the following years, Mr. Bauer's state of health repeatedly led him to announce his decision to resign from the central board, so that this wish could not be ignored.

The fact that the inner work was able to continue to a certain extent is perhaps demonstrated by the fact that after the armistice was concluded, out of the necessity to make a serious effort to implement the life-promoting impulses of spiritual science in the midst of the collapse of the traditional way of life, many initiatives were taken, initially by individuals. Forms began to develop out of the anthroposophical movement that were increasingly isolated from the outside world: the threefolding movement, the artistic impulses of the Goetheanum, eurythmy, the Waldorf school, research institutes, university courses, etc. All of this worked to influence people's way of life. In the explanations of the “guiding principles”, the “draft principles” then speak of an ideal of life that can be a general human ideal of how to live. Reference is made to the exemplary nature that can flow from the living interaction of the members, but that can only be shaped if the members have the right attitude despite the “complete appreciation of the thinking and feeling of the individual”.

The draft contains much that prompts us to ask: has the Anthroposophical Society fulfilled its tasks, is it in a position to fulfill them in the future? This will be the subject of our discussion. It has become quite evident in the present time that “the human being needs to know and cultivate his own supersensible nature and that of the world around him,” as stated at the beginning of the “Draft of Fundamental Principles”. The souls of people today, especially the souls of young people, are attracted by all kinds of movements with lofty goals that are pursued in an abstract way that suits the times. Such movements seek to attract people who we know are valuable and who should work with us towards our goals. Such valuable people experience great disappointments in these movements. Why don't they come to us?

As a statistical comment, it may be said that the membership of our Society has increased from 3647 in 1914 to 8238 on August 1 of this year; a large increase in membership coincides with the time when strong opposition has become effective. Let us assume that all of the more than 8,000 members own the fundamental works of Dr. Steiner (although not all of them are subscribers to the Threefolding Journal or the “Drei”!). Most of these fundamental works have reached print runs of over 20,000, with the “Core Points of the Social Question” reaching 40,000. With print runs of 20,000, one can certainly expect a readership of 40,000, and these are truly interested readers, because Dr. Steiner's books do not appear in second-hand bookshops. This proves that spiritual science as such is effective; but the Anthroposophical Society is not effective. It must be said, without fear of contradiction, that it is a stumbling block in many quarters, especially for valuable people. Why is this so? That should be the subject of our discussion, for the cooperation of the members of our Society does not correspond to what is stated as a prerequisite in the “Draft of the Basic Principles”.

The Society as such means little in the consciousness of many of its members. One symptom of this is that hundreds of members present here have come to our congress as people interested in the lectures, but not as members of the Society as such. This is shown by the fact that hundreds came without a membership card; this is said without reproach for the individual. There is much that can be said about what happens among us that flies in the face of our principles. But it has consequences that are felt throughout the world. So, in an organization that wants to be based on freedom, giving advice is what can prove to be spiritually effective. In such a society, one must be able to give advice, and such advice should be properly appreciated. Dr. Steiner's position within society is particularly that of an advisor. Dr. Steiner often gave advice, and often the opposite of what he advised happened. But often enough, the effect is that Dr. Steiner is blamed for the opposite of what he advised. I have been able to mention only a few. But much can come from the impulses of this congress for the fulfillment of the tasks of the Anthroposophical Society, which must break away from the inheritance of the old Theosophical Society. I pointed out many things in a circular letter a year ago; the circular letter had no effect. At that time, the success of such a congress could not be assumed with certainty. Now we have ventured this undertaking. Whether it will have the desired effect as an action will depend on the members of the Anthroposophical Society. To do this, we must take a serious and honest look at the situation. What I have said should be the basis for discussion, and you will contribute the best to it.

Mr. Uehli opens the discussion on the presentation and asks for written contributions.

Rector Bartsch underscores Dr. Unger's comments about Dr. Steiner's almost superhuman work and would now like to see the relationships of the members to the only remaining member of the central Executive Council regulated. He continues: Much has come from Stuttgart, as this congress also proves, and much would be better if the members of the Anthroposophical Society had shown themselves equal to their task. A movement with such great tasks would need a daily newspaper, and if the well over 5,000 members in Germany were each to recruit two to three subscribers to the three-part newspaper by Christmas, that would be a great success.

Of course, differences of opinion will always arise, but they can be resolved in the way I have described. We can only become a cohesive society if we are based on mutual trust. We must work towards solidarity. Various prominent figures at the forefront of our movement have been moved by such thoughts and feel it necessary to express that we have confidence in the extension of the board through free election, so that such an active board has the opportunity to embody the thoughts that have flowed from anthroposophy. Mr. Graf von Polzer-Hoditz: It is one of the basic truths of our spiritual movement that everything we decide and do happens at the right time. It is part of the signature of our time that everything has been stirred up in the individual human being. Therefore, we must approach our tasks with the right attitude. On behalf of many anthroposophists in various working groups in Austria, and speaking from my experience of being involved in the movement, I would like to express our confidence that the Central Board, which now consists of only one member, will be able to act again. From our relations with our friends in Czechoslovakia, I can also speak on behalf of those anthroposophists who live in Czechoslovakia today.

Dr. Stein uses an example to show how important it is to consider not only what may bother individuals, but also how things appear to the outside world. This is not given enough thought in our circles. He continues: “From this point of view, I would like to say a few words about the opposition, which is little known by members. You can't let the opponents be dealt with by a few specialists, of whom I am one. We must also take care of the individual issues raised by our opponents, for example, against the new edition of “The Philosophy of Freedom”. We do not represent our spiritual heritage at all if we accept it authoritatively. Each individual has the duty to examine the issues that an opponent wants to cast doubt on, and then to stand up for them when they know that they themselves stand for the cause with their entire personality. We are facing an opposition that does not just want to fight us, but to destroy us. The opponents organize themselves by loving evil. If our members knew that evil is even enthusiastically loved, then the strength would also be mustered to defend what wants to flow out of the sources of anthroposophy into all of humanity.

Mr. Ch. von Morgenstierne: Many difficulties have already been pointed out, and much more could be mentioned, for example, the great danger that our movement is perceived as a sect from many sides. Many influential people are repelled by this. We can best avoid this if we try to present the matter as it is done in the two main centers in Central Europe, in Dornach and Stuttgart. This could be seen at the summer course in Dornach that has just ended and at the present congress. We want to try to follow this example in the different countries. This is also said on behalf of many Nordic friends. We want to stand by the leadership of our movement, and I would also like to express the wish that the connection between the leadership of the Society and the other countries, for example with us in the north, becomes a firm and vibrant one.

Mr. Paul Smit: A true coexistence between people, the interaction from one person to another, which is so necessary for today's world, is often prevented by ideas coming between people. But these perceptions must be overcome as such; they must die in order to be transformed into life. That is why it is so important for the Anthroposophical Society to have people who understand how to practise spiritual science by silencing their perceptions when they are in contact with another person.

Mr. Uehli: Dr. Steiner wishes to read a statement.

Dr. Steiner: In a letter addressed to Dr. Steiner and myself, Mr. Kurt Walther, who has admirably led the management of the Anthroposophical Society in recent years, has resigned his office into the hands of those from whom he received it, in view of the changed circumstances and because it might be necessary to make changes that would be beneficial for the further development of the Society. Mr. Walther has devotedly administered the office within the Central Executive Council during these years, which I resigned at the beginning of 1916 for no other reason than because I did not want to associate Dr. Steiner's name with the thousand small affairs of the Society. Mr. Walther has thus taken on many arduous duties. I would like to publicly express my gratitude to him, who has to be absent today for official reasons.

Mr. George Kaufmann: Conscious of the tasks that the Anthroposophical Society has to fulfill in the whole civilized world today, I would like to warmly welcome the impulses that arise from this assembly. As it is also written in the 'Draft of the Fundamental Principles', this is connected with the fact that a knowledge of the supersensible nature of the human being and the world outside the human being is flowing into the hearts of many people. Therefore, our work is always directed towards the ability to judge and the sense of truth. Much is being done from here and from Dornach in all fields, which is beginning to give the anthroposophical spiritual knowledge respect in the world. The Anthroposophical Society should form the spiritual center of this work. Therefore, the Society must not be a sect, but the serious representative of a deep spiritual impulse. This movement is international, and in our hearts, we who work in different countries, live Dornach and the Goetheanum as the actual center of the movement; but it must be said that what could realize the Goetheanum as the center of the spiritual movement has not yet been done. Something could go out from this assembly to all parts of the world that can realize the internationality of the movement with its spiritual center in the Goetheanum; if a new revival of society emanates from here, where the strongest work is being done, and leads to concrete solidarity, then it will be able to have an effect on the non-German countries.

Mr. J. van Leer: In his opening speech, Dr. Unger pointed out that we are openly expressing here what is on our minds. I would like to point out some of the things that are to blame for the fact that we have not realized what could and should have been realized. The Anthroposophical Society welcomes all people who want to work in our spirit, but when Dr. Steiner pointed in a certain direction, cliques easily formed. One cannot say that the artistic is the main thing, or the threefold social order, or the economic, the school, but one must also look at what has been worked on in the branches for ten to fifteen years. That is also necessary. Recently, for example, Dr. Steiner's work has been focused on science, but if we want to let all of anthroposophy flow into all human hearts, then we must not consider the other aspects as unimportant either, even if sectarianism in the branches is reprehensible. This is one of the serious mistakes in our movement: we do not have enough trust to appreciate all the work. Not everyone can do all the work, but everyone can do work in their own field. We also need people who are not scientifically educated. In our society, everything is represented. If we appreciate the work of all people, we have the basis for the proper leadership of the Anthroposophical Society. If everyone works together and places their trust in the board, then we are a cohesive body that has power in the world, and we will also be able to cope with our opponents.

Mr. Vegelahn: Why is it that spiritual science works but the Anthroposophical Society does not work? I fully agree when the confidence is expressed to the central board here. It is indeed nice when it is said that we must strive for community, but what is given as a knowledge of the supersensible world must be put into the right relationship to what can be experienced here in the physical world. The right foundation for spiritual science can be gained from the 'Philosophy of Freedom'. Dr. Unger has given figures about high print runs. The 'Philosophy of Freedom' was out of print for a long time, and one would have expected the new edition to sell quickly. However, it took quite a long time. If the anthroposophists can show that their powers of judgment have been developed, then other people will have to change their judgment of them over time. Many people come to the Society as if seeking refuge from the disappointments of life, but they must also be able to leave this refuge and return to the world. To do this, they need to have strengthened their powers of judgment through the Philosophy of Freedom.

Dr. Kolisko: It has already been pointed out from various sides how necessary it is for our Society to present a unified front to the outside world. However, it can clearly be observed that a large part of what is directed against our movement as opposition arises from the fact that such a unified approach by all members of the Society is not present, because in many cases a basis of trust is still lacking. For example, when certain things are done after careful consideration, one can be sure that one will encounter mistrust or a lack of understanding and that the actions of many members will be in opposition to this. One must remember a peculiar prejudice against the Threefolding Newspaper, which I often encountered when traveling: namely, that it is too polemical, and that this is the main obstacle to all members supporting it and ensuring its distribution. This is because people are not sufficiently interested in the opposition. It has not been realized that, after the opposition had opened the fight, one was forced to take such a tone, as for example with what we have called positive time criticism. It is the case in our society that before the emergence of the threefolding movement, there was never any possibility of forming a social judgment. One was taken by surprise by the emergence into the public. But this had always been pointed out in the anthroposophical movement. The newspaper has been made as well as it could be, and if it is not yet better, it is because there is not yet broad support.

But one could also notice that there was a certain mistrust when, say, something was undertaken from Dornach or Stuttgart. They do not have the confidence that the things that have been undertaken have emerged from a certain solidarity between groups. We will not be able to work externally if we do not try to let what is being done take effect. So many things are thwarted. For example, negotiations were held with opponents when it would have been better not to negotiate with them after taking the opposing view towards them. It is often the case that outsiders have the impression that there is no society in which things are done in such an unsolidaristic way as in the Anthroposophical Society. This comes from the extraordinarily strong individualization in our society, but we must create such a basis of trust that our actions in public are carried out out of an ever-growing understanding of the movement's overall tasks, following joint deliberation. We must be able to trust the people working in the public sphere, because we have the impression that they are acting out of common understanding. Then we can counteract the formation of cliques. Not everyone needs to be an expert in everything, but everyone can take an interest in what is going on in the anthroposophical movement. The fact that they are not properly integrated into society gives rise to a wide range of grievances. I would just like to mention the issue of Dr. Steiner's lecture cycles, which are intended only for members of the Anthroposophical Society. The Society has been unable to preserve this spiritual material. The situation is such that these cycles have been leaked to a very large extent. In many cases, publishers have been keen to get hold of them. There is a tendency in the Society not to take seriously the words that are written down in the cycles. The admission of members to the Society is also handled in a casual manner, so that people have been admitted who then, due to a certain necessity, had to be excluded again. It is clear that precisely those whom one was forced to exclude have become the worst enemies of the movement. Consider where the opponents get their ideas! From the writings of Seiling. Such people, who like Seiling become our opponents, always come from certain cliques, and what confronts us is a reflection of what is present in our own circles.

All those in society who are really active in their work – and there should be as many as possible – must have the opportunity to trust each other, so that one has the impression that things are happening under responsibility. The individual can only come to a correct judgment through intensive, real collaboration. The task we face today must be to create such a basis of trust in the Anthroposophical Society, so that collaboration takes place from the point of view of feeling that one is standing in the same thing and trusting one another.

Mr. Uehli: A motion has been made to take a break now. Before that, Dr. Unger would like to say a few words.

Dr. Unger: I support this motion and would like to see something happen that will serve to fulfill our tasks. But before that, I have to discharge the most important duty. Various speakers have been kind enough to express their trust in me for what I have done or can still do for society. I can only accept this on the condition that I am allowed to express this trust and our heartfelt thanks to those individuals who were particularly involved in the creation of our society. Above all, I would like to mention Dr. Steiner (applause), who from the very beginning did everything that could be done by human beings to bring about a movement. I have already mentioned that Dr. Steiner's works were not yet valued by people in the sense that a movement came about around the turn of the century. The credit for initiating the movement goes to Dr. Steiner. She combined within herself the knowledge and abilities needed, and especially the will to achieve. It is only thanks to her work that forces could develop within society that can now try to develop something for life based on the spiritual science given by Dr. Steiner.

Among our friends, Mr. Bauer is known precisely for always being a personal center for all living things that can work among us. His intimate experience of the spiritual world flows through invisible channels into the hearts of people. In the most sincere and profound sense, I would like to transfer to Mr. Bauer what has been expressed here in terms of approval.

I would also like to express my special thanks to Dr. Steiner for what she shared about our friend Mr. Walther. For it was precisely during the most difficult times that he had an extraordinary workload on his shoulders. Mr. Walther stepped into the breach when something needed to be done, which he took on in such a commendable way.

Since words of trust and thanks are too weak for what is in our hearts at this moment for Dr. Steiner, I would like to express it in the form of a request; because, of course, everything that I and others have said here is based on what Dr. Steiner himself has done. And since everything depends on our being able to listen to advice in the right way, I would like to ask Dr. Steiner to give us his advice on this extremely important matter, where everything can depend on what comes from here, when we meet here again.

It is decided to continue the discussion in the evening. Mr. Uehli opens the continuation at [9] p.m.

Mr. Mengen: I have given particular attention to the question of why our society is often a stumbling block, and have found that we have an individualism in which people come together, listen to a lecture and then drift apart again. It is not recognized that there is a connection between the different areas of life. A free spiritual life is just as necessary as a fraternal economic life. When people talk about fraternity today, it is a cliché. Fresh forces must be brought into economic life from the living forces that are among us. An associative economic collaboration is the necessary complement to spiritual individualism. Today it is necessary for each individual to feel responsible for everything that happens.

Mr. M. Grundig: If we want to get to the point where everyone can be responsible for everything, it is necessary that everyone not only be content to be a member of the Anthroposophical Society, but that if they want to bring something into the public sphere, they must be imbued with the idea of anthroposophy. It has been pointed out that not everyone can be in science. But anyone who is in the circles of the working class knows that it is precisely here that we have to approach the matter as scientifically as possible. In his 'Key Points of the Social Question', Dr. Steiner pointed out how strongly natural science ideas have affected the proletariat. These ideas can only be made fruitful through anthroposophy. One can, as Dr. Steiner once said, come to an appreciation of spiritual science through a healthy feeling, but especially in the face of what can arise from scientific ideas in the proletariat, one must be able to provide sufficient knowledge. And then anthroposophy must intervene in the daily life of the broad masses of the people. To do this, something must be created, such as the foundation stone for the “Waldorf School” and so on, as laid out in “The Coming Day”. In this way, the worker can also do something good for the Anthroposophical Society.

Mr. Heydenreich: As a young person who has asked for the floor, I would like to make an announcement in all modesty. We anthroposophists who emerged from the youth movement came together during the congress in a few special discussions and realized that we have special tasks in our intermediary position between the youth movement and anthroposophy. We have come to realize that it is not only our duty to bring anthroposophy to the youth movement, but also that it is our duty to place our young forces at the service of anthroposophy, so that a corresponding action can emerge from it.

Mr. Michael Bauer: I would just like to make a few brief remarks that the assembly is expecting. It concerns the new central committee. I wanted to make this announcement myself so that people can feel and know from this fact that the new members of the central committee have emerged from the continuity of our movement. The two new members were not chosen over the heads of the outgoing members of the Central Committee, but with their consent, after much deliberation. They are Ernst Uehli and Emil Leinhas. Although both are friends of Stuttgart, it should be noted that it was one of the weaknesses of the old Central Committee that its members lived in different places. There must be close and constant contact between the members of the Central Committee if healthy and fruitful work is to be done, and now that all three members of the Central Committee live in Stuttgart, this is guaranteed. I probably do not need to mention that it is precisely the best factual reasons that justify this election.

Allow me to touch on a thought that has already been widely expressed in today's speeches, particularly in Mr. Kaufmann's speech from London. There has been much talk of trust, and I would like to add that there can be no meaningful communication from person to person if there is no trust in the background of the soul. When I speak a word to any human being and he has the will to understand me, something of my soul plays into the other; and it plays, strictly speaking, on the basis of what is in the first of our guiding principles, on the basis of a common spiritual. That which connects one soul with another, by which one can communicate in words, is consciously the very basis of our society. I could go on to explain that this trust that speaks from person to person in words can intensify and blossom forth as love. I could also point out that what we feel when we listen carefully, as the heartbeat of our aspirations, is a being that may be called the good spirit – I could also say the holy spirit – of humanity. Our society is based on the good spirit of humanity, which must weave from person to person if something healthy is to come about. In recent weeks, I have often been preoccupied with Uehli's beautiful book 'A New Search for the Holy Grail'; it tells how the Knights Templar were obliged not to leave the battlefield as long as a flag was still flying. Do believe that we are in an equally hard fight as the Templars had to face many times! And we should enter the fight with the same loyalty and full consciousness. I want to point out such loyalty at this moment, when you are facing a new central committee that has been formed after the most loyal and conscientious deliberation. And I would like to add the request that you reflect on the common spiritual that is placed in the hearts of people at this moment, when a new start is being made to step into the future with all that this movement wants to bring into the world, in loyalty and in the awareness of our obligation. Then the advice we are now expecting will be fruitfully received.

Dr. Steiner: My dear friends! The occasion for our being together today is an extraordinarily important and significant one; I therefore want to meet Dr. Unger's request in any case. If this request implied that I should give advice, then that will only be possible if I too try to say something about some characteristics of our social life that seems to me to be particularly necessary today. In the Anthroposophical Society, if it is to have full legitimacy and a good inner reason for being, it is necessary to address each individual. Individualism is that which cannot be separated from the nature of such a society as the Anthroposophical Society must be, and therefore it is always difficult to say this or that in small circles if there is no possibility that what has been discussed or, for my sake, reported there will really find its way to the individual members as quickly as possible and then find a responsive heart in the individual members.

Today, however, it is possible to speak to a large number of my dear friends, and so mentioning one or other of them today can also have a very special significance. And so please allow me, even if I do not claim to do so even in outline, to go into some of the history of our anthroposophical movement, and then to come to certain current details. From the very beginning, significant obstacles have stood in the way of this Anthroposophical movement, to the extent that it should live in society. It has already been mentioned today that for certain reasons, what is being attempted within the Anthroposophical Society was first attempted within the framework of the Theosophical Society. Twenty years ago, the German Section of the Theosophical Society was formed in Berlin. During the formation of this German Section, I gave a lecture for a completely different audience that was part of a lecture cycle called “Anthroposophical Reflections on the History of Humanity”.

Even at the founding of the German Section of the Theosophical Society, the anthroposophical goal was the decisive one for me. I do not want to go into the details of the founding now, but just mention that everything that happened in this context led to a small scene, to an argument between two celebrities – at that time German celebrities of the Theosophical Society. They were so angry about everything that had happened back then that the day after the founding they made the following very harsh statement: “Yesterday we buried the Theosophical movement in Germany.” That was the prognosis that two Theosophical celebrities gave at the time to the movement that was to be inaugurated in the way described to them. What had to happen could not be done differently at that time than it was done. But it had the effect that the whole anthroposophical movement carried certain fetters. I would like to characterize these fetters, at least in a few pages. What gradually became the practice of the Theosophical Society was something that, I would say, was second nature to a large number of the members who joined together to form the German Section at that time. They simply had the idea that they could not do anything differently from the way it was done in the Theosophical Society; you will see later why I am emphasizing and mentioning these things.

But my dear friends, for me it was actually impossible at that time, despite my involvement in the German Section of the Theosophical Society, to understand anything of these practices. I will mention just one fact: at that time, a person working with the German Theosophical Society gave a lecture in which she presented an excerpt from Misses Besant's “Ancient Wisdom”. At that time I had not really concerned myself with the literature of the Theosophical Society, but in one excerpt I heard the main teachings being put forward – and with the retention of the whole style of thinking, of looking at things – that were being spread within the Theosophical movement. I found the whole thing terribly unappealing, and I actually rejected such dilettantish, lay talk out of an inner scientific conscientiousness. This led to my being compelled to write my book 'Theosophy' as a matter of course, so that there would be something to hold on to that could also stand up to science. To me, standing up to science was always something different from being recognized by conventional science.

Then I want to highlight one more thing from all these things: I went on a lecture tour in Holland. I presented what I had to say from my own point of view. It actually caused consternation among the members of the Dutch Theosophical Society, because in essence it was heretical in their opinion. This also led to the fact that these Dutch 'Theosophists were the first to turn with all their might against what was then expressed at the Munich Congress in 1907. What came close to the Theosophical Society, but was actually intended by Anthroposophy, was, my dear friends, in many respects a crowd of dreamers who took an extraordinary pleasure in their “dreams”. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not talking about any doctrine today, not about any occult facts or the like, but about human moods. Within the Theosophical Society, it was simply the custom to absorb the Theosophical attitude in the following way:

As an external person, one lived exactly the same way as one had lived before becoming a Theosophist; one was a civil servant, teacher, noblewoman or anything else in the same way. One continued to live in the same way as before, but one had, if I may say so, a new sensation, albeit of a better kind. One pleased oneself in knowing, or at least in pretending to know, something about the whole world from occult sources. Now, my dear friends, they particularly liked to say: “Yes, somewhere, in a place that is as inaccessible as possible, there live certain individuals who are called ‘masters’; they are the guides of humanity, who have been guiding the development of humanity for so long, we are all in their care, we have to serve them.” One took pleasure in these services, which were particularly enhanced by the fact that these masters lived in an inaccessible distance, so that one never knew anything about whom one served as an actor or the like. Perhaps by extinguishing the light or darkening the room and sitting down at a small table, head in hands, one imagined that one was serving the masters in such a way that one was involved in all the most important matters of the present. In particular, one liked to sit down and then send out thoughts; this sending out of thoughts was even practiced with great enthusiasm in circles, especially within theosophical circles.

With these things, I only want to hint at the moods that, out of a certain pleasure in reverie, actually substantiated what, as a kind of mystical coquetry, was one of the vital nerves of the Theosophical Society and of theosophers in general. You see, my dear friends, this kind of mood has become too entrenched within the movement that was now incumbent upon us. No one is to be reproached for this; some have worked devotedly and sacrificially out of this mood. But one cannot say that this mood has prepared well for what Dr. Unger emphasized today.

When 1919 came, the task was suddenly to throw oneself into the stream of world evolution, to show that one had grown with what one had prepared in order to work in the stream of human development. It was no longer a matter of sitting down with a dim lamp, resting one's head in one's hands and sending out thoughts, but of grasping reality with one's thinking, which had been worked through with anthroposophy and had become practical.

In principle, this attitude had always been in preparation, but as far as I was concerned, I perhaps encountered the most vehement opposition – even if it was not expressed – from those followers who, in a certain respect, rightly considered themselves the most loyal followers. For there was always a certain tendency towards nebulous mysticism, which had to be fought against in the most terrible way, especially among those who were most well-meaning and well-intentioned. It is the after-effects of this tendency towards nebulous mysticism that is causing us such great difficulties within the Anthroposophical Society today. Because, my dear friends, we do not want to live in abstractions; we want to see reality as it is everywhere, and it must be said that this mood of dreaming is what becomes the most dangerous seducer of untruthfulness and volatility in relation to real life. No one is more exposed to taking real life lightly than the one who blurs his soul in nebulous mysticism. But that, in turn, is what makes it so difficult for anthroposophists to look at things realistically with a healthy mind. If anthroposophy were taken as it is given, if sometimes, by flowing into the other soul, a completely different soul content did not flow out of it, then the ability to take things of external reality quickly, with presence of mind and simply, would flow out of this very anthroposophy, and from the simple one would then also find the basis for confronting the organized opposition, which is much more than you think.

Let me also say a few words about this, because if the Anthroposophical Society wants to continue to exist, it is necessary to be very clear about these things. It has been pointed out today that a large proportion of the opponents copy the judgments they release from a book by Max Seiling, who once behaved as one of the most loyal confessors of the anthroposophical view. He was cajoled in the most diverse cliques, and again out of a certain nebulous mysticism, he was given a great deal of importance in certain cliques. Now, this man has written a book. Why did he write this book? One can disregard all the filth that can be found in this book. But this is to be envisaged with a healthy sense of reality: this man, who at first threw himself with all his might at - forgive the trivial expression - our Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House, was allowed to publish a small booklet, for which I because this booklet was basically quite useful, I even wrote an afterword; but then this man wanted to have a book published by the same publishing house, half of which consisted of plagiarism from my lectures and half of his foolish spiritualist ramblings. This wish had to be rejected, and out of annoyance at this and out of his character, which simply lies when it hates, all kinds of lies were sent out into the world by Max Seiling. That is the reality, and any other judgment about it is nonsense; anyone with a clear mind sees through things.

I will give you another example, which may not be so easy to see through; but if one were to see that within the Anthroposophical Society there really is what has often been expressed today by the word “trust”, then one would only need to say something characteristically significant to illuminate a case on the basis of this trust. This would take hold within the Anthroposophical Society, a truthful judgment would be established. And that is what we need above all. I would like to mention the Goesch case as a small example. Goesch was also someone who, in every way, first of all threw himself at it, if I may use the trivial expression again. One day, Dr. Goesch's wife came to me with her children and introduced me to one of the children, of whom she seriously claimed that this child – I don't know how many days, but a sufficiently large number of days, as the woman believed, always knew in advance when – it was during the war – when the French would attack the Germans in some battle.

Well, my dear friends, you see, all that was needed was to set up a telephone line between the Goesch house in Dornach and the large headquarters, and then, according to the promptings of this little child, it would have been possible to communicate to the large headquarters in Germany every time the French would attack the Germans again. The fact that I was told something like that led me to say a few words about the somewhat inadequate education, and I had to point out in particular the man who was to blame for some of the failings in the education. From the next day onwards, Dr. Goesch was the opponent he has become. My dear friends, things are not that simple. But one must not look for something other than this simplicity, and to achieve this simplicity one must first acquire the ability to judge; this is acquired through healthy anthroposophy, not through that which still remains from the old practices of the Theosophical Society.

My first advice is to ensure that the remnants, not of Theosophy, but of the theosophical-social feeling, may finally be expelled from our Society.

Now, this also means that certain things that happen must be taken with the necessary weight. In my book 'Von Seelenrätseln' (Mysteries of the Soul), I pointed out the whole corruption of Max Dessoir. If what is said in my book about Dessoir's character had been taken seriously – I am not talking, of course, about the powerless anthroposophists, but about those who had the obligation to take such things seriously – then it would be clear that This is not about defending anthroposophy, but about the character of a university lecturer, and my book shows that a person contaminated by such scientific immorality must never be allowed to remain a university lecturer for a moment. This is not really relevant here, but I still had to learn that, after the fact, I was told that our side had personally negotiated with that individual Max Dessoir, so it was considered important to somehow make this man more inclined towards our anthroposophical movement than he is.

And a man like Traub has been sufficiently characterized by the reference to the sentence that he, invoked as an authority, wrote in an important Württemberg newspaper: “In my ‘Theosophy’ I claim that in the devachan, spirits move like tables and chairs here in physical space!” My dear friends! Anyone who is capable of writing such things without thinking must be judged as a pest in the position he holds. And when one is constantly confronted with such things as the sentence: “Yes, the threefold order should deal with positive things, it should not deal with these things in a polemical way so much.” – then, my dear friends, it must be said: This is a complete misunderstanding of what reality demands of us. It is necessary that the truth be told in all its unvarnishedness, and I could multiply a hundredfold what I have given only in examples.

But if such an attitude, which is thoroughly compatible with what brotherhood and universal love are, if such an attitude were to penetrate our ranks, then we would be better off. But we are still very far from this attitude, because one cannot rise to find the way from a false judgment to a true judgment. The false judgment is: “Be loving towards such a Traub, who, as a weak human being, can make a mistake, perhaps out of the best of knowledge and belief!”

My dear friends, I call that a misjudgment. I call it a correct judgment: “Be loving towards all those who are corrupted by such a university educator!” That is what it is about, not throwing one's love in the wrong place, but understanding where to let it flow. Anyone who wants to be benevolent towards the corrupters of youth out of nebulous sentimentality lacks true human love. But this must be developed within humanity, although the first may be more comfortable.

Today, a question has also been touched upon that is indeed important for the existence of the Anthroposophical Society, namely the “cycle question”. In fact, every single member has undertaken to ensure that the cycles remain within the Society. For me personally, it was less important that these cycles should not be read outside the Society than that the form in which these cycles had to be printed, because I did not have time to correct the typesetting, should remain known only to those who are aware of the circumstances. Nevertheless, it has turned out that it is even possible that Count Keyserling can continually boast that he has read the cycles, the man who, when confronted with the objective untruths he has told about me, simply has the frivolous excuse: he has no time to do research on Steiner. - In other words, this Count Keyserling has no time to inquire about the truth, so he spreads untruth. The Cycles have been delivered to people with such an attitude; and if I wanted to go over to the other side, I could cite many other things. So it has come about that today, torn out of the cycles by the enemies everywhere, sentences can be quoted. Actually, I would have to say today: Now that this has happened through the membership, the cycles can be sold anywhere, because it would be better to hand over the cycles to the public than to hand them over to those who misuse them. No one should be criticized in a derogatory way, because what has happened has happened because of all the continuation of what I have referred to as nebulous sentimentality, nebulous mystification and the like.

But such grounds have led to something else, and it is really important to speak out in this regard. Today, too, it has often been said, and it has sounded to me like a shrill discordant note, that changes have occurred in our society, that in the past there was somehow a way of dealing with things by which even the non-scientifically educated could approach society as collaborators, and that it has now become fashionable to proceed scientifically. Now, my dear friends, in forming such judgments, they spread. They are false judgments. Compare the way I presented the beginning of the Anthroposophical Society with the way I present it today; compare how I spoke to the public then and how I speak to the public now, and you will find nothing that could seriously be called a change of direction in the Anthroposophical Society. It is a different matter that individual things have been added that the times have demanded. I would even say the opposite. Anyone who takes some of the public lectures from the beginning of the century will find a more scientific tone from me from a certain point of view than he can find today; but if one were to sense correctly from the depths of the soul in this regard , then one would not come to say, as no one has said today, but as has been said many times: “Now the scientists rule, now the scientists are in favor, now is the scientific era!” No, a healthy sense of reality would lead one to say: Well, it is quite good that people have finally come to the anthroposophical movement who are able to defend anthroposophy against all scientific criticism. In any case, people would be pleased about the active work of our scientists. But from there, my dear friends, it is only one step to a healthy judgment, which is extremely important in terms of cultural history. And for that I would like to present you with a small piece of evidence. In issue no. 48 of “Zukunft” you will find an open letter written by a man who is not particularly well-liked by me, but he is a university teacher among university teachers, and he apostrophizes the entirety of German university teachers in the following manner:

I must go public, because today the filthiest lout believes he can rub up against me where Harnack rubbed up against me.

In an open letter, an attempt is made to show that Harnack, Rubner, Eduard Meyer, the celebrities, simply lied about the scholar in question.

Even blackmailers have taken up the matter and pointed out to me that the slightest public scandal would be highly inconvenient for someone who has been denounced by his peers; therefore, I should rather pay. To stand alone in a world of such mentality and to know that only the law is on one's side is not exactly pleasant. That is why I asked Herm Harden to publish this cry for help. I am looking for that one righteous person (not even the ten for whose sake Sodom and Gomorrah were spared) who will restore German science to its Christian roots.

This is how university teachers talk to each other today.

If only one determined person belonging to the university were to insist on an investigation of this dark matter, then it would have to and would come. I expect especially the honest ones among my enemies to support my demand for objective clarification. They must be convinced that it will show that I have defamed Mr. Eduard Meyer. And since slanderers do not belong at a university, my enemies would then have achieved by fair means what they have so far vainly striven for by foul ones: to deprive me of my associate professorship at the University of Berlin. But if this one honest man cannot be found, then no university teacher should be surprised if our previously respected status is tarnished even more than Sodom and Gomorrah.

My dear friends! I do not want to pass judgment on who is right or wrong here; that would be far from my mind. But I am drawing your attention to the tone in which people speak to one another today, even among intellectual leaders. Is it not time to rejoice that on anthroposophical soil a number of scholars have come together who have what it takes to lead humanity out of what is not me, but one who belongs to the people, worse than a Sodom and Gomorrah calls? I believe that this joy could be greater than the characteristic that we have now entered the era of science. What we really need to do is to take things straight and simply and look for the most important and meaningful, never closing our eyes to what is.

And if the anthroposophical movement had to broaden its circles, so to speak, how did that happen? Please study the history of this movement and you will see that it was usually not out of an urge for further work. My dear friends! I have — I think — five or six uncorrected new editions of my books, and I have had them for months. There is truly no urge, and never has been, to keep on being busy. What looks like a change has come about under the pressure of the times, under the demands that have arisen. The Federation for Threefolding, Waldorf Schools, Kommender Tag magazine – none of this came out of anthroposophical initiative. Study history and you will see how it really lies. But this is something that every single anthroposophist should know.

And that is the second piece of advice I would like to give: that institutions take root in our society that are designed to foster not only ideal trust, which is to be valued in the highest degree, among our members, but also to enable a living exchange that is never and nowhere interrupted.

How often have I had to hear it in recent times: Yes, anthroposophy, that's very beautiful, threefold social order very beautiful, but you can't agree with what those people in Stuttgart are doing. And a certain opposition to Stuttgart is something you come across everywhere.

My dear friends! Among those prominent figures who are directing affairs here from Stuttgart, there are many who, if they could act according to personal sympathies and antipathies, would gladly lay down this burden. If one really takes into account all the things I have tried to point out, one must also come to some conclusion about how the circumstances, how the whole course of events in our anthroposophical movement, have brought those personalities into the leading positions who now hold them. Then we will criticize these leading personalities less for personal reasons and more for everything else. Then we will have active trust and then we will also make it possible for these personalities not to always have to deal with personal differences among the membership and to lose time with it , but then these personalities will be able to make the necessary arrangements to ensure that, with the help of the branches, everything that can be observed at the center as being important for the movement is passed on to each individual member.

My dear friends! It is like trying to open an open door when you point out that the branch work should be appreciated. Branch work has never been underestimated, and least of all by those who have found their way into the Society as scientists. This branch work should be organized in such a way that less judgment is heard: “Yes, we don't hear anything from headquarters.” You can also do something to make sure you hear something, and I have often found that the response “We're not hearing anything” is based on the fact that you're not listening. For example, it shouldn't have happened that Dr. Unger was able to say that he circulated a letter last year and that nothing of significance came of it. This, my dear friends, is what brings us to the central issue: it is necessary for each individual member to regard the Society as their very own concern, not just as a framework for individual cliques that then stick together very closely, but as something in which anthroposophy can live as a reality. If each person regards the society as their own business, then interests in the whole of this society will arise from it. And this interest, the most vital interest in the whole of this society, is what we need if we want to realize what should be realized through the anthroposophical movement. The situation at the Goetheanum in Dornach, at the Waldorf School, at the Kommende Tag, Futurum and so on would be quite different if this interest were present; because living deeds would flow from this interest. But as it is – I am pleased that I can now also mention something that is outside the borders of the Reich, which here is actually only of theoretical interest – but as it is, I had to experience it. Because of what I call the inner opposition, which, contrary to my intentions, is actually very strong, , that last fall in Dornach I pointed out in the sharpest terms the necessity for founding a World School Society and that during my lecture tour in Holland this winter I repeatedly pointed out the necessity for this World School Society.

My dear friends! This world school association has failed, despite my conviction that it was up to us to be able to finish building the Goetheanum in peace. So it is necessary, I would say from month to month, to face the heavy concern that we will not be able to finish building the Goetheanum at all because the funds are gradually drying up. As I said, I do not need to tell you that the countries of Central Europe cannot do anything for the construction of the Goetheanum at present. But it is an example of how little respect is shown for what is, so to speak, thrown into the Anthroposophical Society as a necessity. I would not say it has failed if I believed it was impossible to do this or that, if I had not seen that the words were not understood in the sense in which I had to understand them, that the seriousness and the earnestness needed for such a matter are not taking hold in people's hearts.

And that is the third piece of advice I would like to give: that we acquire the ability to take things seriously enough, not with the superficiality that exists in the world today.

We need this within the Anthroposophical Society, and if we translate what I have taken more out of the historical development into the practical, then today it would be a matter of each and every one of the dear friends who are here trying to do what is possible for them, where they are, so that the future central board society, with such trust that it makes it possible, at the moment when one disagrees with this or that, to also say to oneself, it does not depend on the individual case, it depends on having the necessary total trust in the people who are in their place, even if one cannot see in the individual case what has led them to one or the other. And again, this central board will have to co-opt a number of personalities who are out in the world, working either like the branch leaders or in some other way on the anthroposophical movement and on related matters.

This central board will have to choose these personalities from the available options and will have to do so as quickly as possible if the Anthroposophical Society is to continue to make sense.

This is an organization that cannot be made mechanically. It is an organization that must be done with heart and soul, whether it concerns spiritual matters or scientific ones. We will make progress in everything if we want to bring life into the Society in this way. This life will ignite many other things and extinguish many damages that have occurred because, in recent times, very little has been seen of such life. Then, when such a living organism emerges from society, those personal discrepancies will cease, which today rise up like terrible waves from society and actually disfigure everything, everything, impair all work, because in the face of the great interest in the great cause of society, all these pettinesses in one's own heart will be able to disappear. That is what we must work towards.

I would like to say that the first thing we would take from today's meeting would be unconditional trust in the central committee and the conviction that if this central committee now forms its extended trust committee, the right trust can also be placed in this extended committee. It will be hard work for the Central Board to bring this extended board into being in accordance with the wishes of the members, which cannot be expressed in a vote but must be expressed in quite a different way. But it must be done; and when it is done, my dear friends, the details will have been followed in accordance with the advice that I could have given right at the start in a few words if I had wanted to spare my voice today. I could have said: “The ‘Draft of the Principles of an Anthroposophical Society’ has been printed at the beginning of the Anthroposophical Society, which has now been reprinted in the ‘Three’. And I could have summarized my advice in the words: ‘Realize these principles, because everything is contained in these principles’. And if these principles are realized, then everything will be all right in the Anthroposophical Society and with everything connected with it.

But one must understand these principles in their totality; if one understands them in their totality, then one also knows how to develop a feeling for what is approaching this anthroposophical movement. A representative of the youth movement has spoken here! There are a whole number of student representatives here, my dear friends! The fact that members of such movements or such bodies have come to our Anthroposophical Society is something we must regard as epoch-making in the history of our Anthroposophical Movement. We must feel the need to do everything that can rightly be expected of the Anthroposophical Society from such quarters. The student movement that has emerged within our Anthroposophical Society bears a great deal of the hope for the success of our Society. And how did this student movement come about? Well, it comes from something that I have already mentioned from other points of view: it comes from the fact that young scholars, scientifically minded people, have found their way into our Society. It is because of this “fashion”, this alleged “change of course” in our society, that we have a guarantee for a fruitful future of our movement through the entry of the student body.

My dear friends! We must have an open, free eye for everything that occurs in our society. You cannot give advice in the form of telling someone to do this or that. The only advice that can be given is addressed to the heart and mind of each individual member. Such advice must not shy away from saying something that could be taken by some as unloving criticism. No, if you really care about someone, then out of love you must tell them the truth. And today it is necessary to express the truth in all areas in the most concise words possible. We must see what kind of contrast this truth must be given in order to provide our anthroposophical movement with the momentum it needs.

My dear friends! We must speak of certain necessary educational measures; if we are true anthroposophists, we regard what should be made general through the Waldorf School as something that must necessarily be brought to life for the benefit of our cultural and civilizational development in the present day, for there are remarkable principles precisely in relation to the present. When I mention such principles, you will say, “That is rare.” No, this attitude is very widespread, even if it is not expressed in such drastic words everywhere. The educational principles of an opponent who has recently made himself very badly known, and who, among other things, has also campaigned against the Waldorf School and its educational system, have come to light. And I would like to share with you one of his educational principles, which is: “Children are actually hardly more intelligent than dogs, so you have to educate them similarly.” We are already speaking into the strange perceptions and attitudes of the present, and we must not shrink from developing all the strength that is necessary to be able to work into what is being treated in this way from many sides in the present.

A clear understanding of the present, an interest in the present, and an open eye for what is must, like the recovery of humanity in general, also lead to the recovery of the Anthroposophical Society. Then a time will come when perhaps the possibility will arise to no longer have to negotiate such things as the scattering of the cycles and the like. But if the attitude that I sincerely desire and that I have characterized by speaking today the words that may be displeasing to some takes hold, then perhaps it will be avoided having to sell the cycles in any way, because there is no difference in attitude within the walls and outside of them with regard to this point. So I had to tell you, my dear friends, my advice, actually characterizing; but it cannot be any different within the Anthroposophical Society. It rests on the individuality of each individual, so one can only speak to each individual. And this society will only flourish if the heart and soul and spirit of each individual strive to unfold in full health.

We shall the better understand the real nature of the events of today and especially of the immediate future if, from a spiritual angle, we see them as the continuation of the events which took place during the early years of Christianity. This may seem paradoxical today. It is difficult to bring home to the majority of people how certain forces which at that time had been implanted in, and had made a deep impact upon the evolution of the Earth and Man, are still operative today, because, in the present climate of contemporary thought they fail to perceive the deeper impulses, the deep underlying forces that are at work in contemporary events. They prefer to approach everything from a purely superficial standpoint. These deeper spiritual forces are not accessible to mankind today because people are not prepared to investigate them. Anyone who wishes to penetrate a little beneath the surface events of our time will find, in many a published document and in the vicissitudes of fortune that befall those who are unaware of the motives that determine their actions, impulses that are often a continuation, a resurgence of certain impulses that were manifested especially in the early centuries of the Christian era. It is not even possible to characterize the outstanding examples of the resurgence of ancient impulses in our present age because people cannot endure their characterization. But those who study the first Christian centuries in Europe from a certain standpoint will be able to detect the forces that are emerging once again and are actively at work. I have therefore attempted to draw your attention to certain phenomena connected with the expansion of Christianity in the first centuries A.D., because, through the appropriate use of the ideas derived from them, much that is taking place today will immediately become clear to you.

I propose to add further information based upon our recent investigations which we can discuss in detail later. Let us first look at this new material so that our later enquiry may bear fruit.

I have often spoken to you of the remarkable fact that the early Roman emperors acquired Initiation by constraint and this explains many of their actions. Consequently they gained knowledge of certain facts connected with the great impulses of cosmic events, but they exploited this knowledge derived from the Mysteries to their own advantage.

It is most important to realize that the intervention of the Christ Impulse into the historical life of mankind was not merely an event on the physical plane which we can apprehend through a study of the historical facts, but was a genuinely spiritual event. I have already pointed out that the Gospel report that Christ was known to the devils has deeper implications than is usually recognized. We are told that Christ performed acts of healing which are described in the Gospels as the casting out of evil spirits. And we are constantly reminded that the devils knew who Christ was. On the other hand Christ Himself rebuked the devils and “suffered them not to speak for they knew He was the Christ.” (Mark I, 34; Luke IV, 41). The appearance of Christ therefore was not only a matter for the judgement of men. It is possible that at first people did not have the slightest inkling of what the coming of Christ presaged. But the devils—beings belonging to a super-sensible world—recognized Him. The super-sensible world therefore knew of His advent. The more informed leaders of the early Christians were firmly convinced that the coming of Christianity was not merely an event on the terrestrial plane but something that was related to the spiritual world, something which evoked a radical change in the spiritual world. Without a shadow of doubt the leading spirits of early Christianity were firmly persuaded of this.

Now it is a remarkable phenomenon that the Roman emperors, because of their forced initiation which gave insight into the spiritual world, had a presentiment of the far-reaching importance of the Christ Impulse. There were some emperors. however, who despite their irregular initiation, understood little of these secrets; but there were others who understood so much that they were able to divine something of the power and effectiveness of the Christ Mystery. And it was these more talented, the more perspicacious emperors who began to pursue a definite policy towards Christianity which was then gaining ground. Indeed the first emperor to adopt this policy was Tiberius who succeeded Augustus, though the objection might be raised that Christianity was not as yet widely diffused. This objection, however, is not valid for, when he learned of Christ's birth in Palestine, Tiberius—who had received a partial initiation into the ancient Mysteries—realized its significance. Let us consider for a moment that policy towards Christianity which began under Tiberius and was pursued by all the initiated emperors. Tiberius announced his intention to admit Christ to the Roman pantheon.

The Roman empire pursued a deliberate policy towards the worship of the gods. In essence it was as follows: when the Romans conquered a people they received the gods of the newly conquered people into their Olympus. They declared that these gods were also deserving of veneration and they were added to the Roman pantheon. The object of this policy therefore was to appropriate not only the material or temporal goods, but also the spiritual forces of the conquered peoples. The initiated Caesars saw in the gods something more than the mere external images; they had a deeper understanding than the people. They knew that the visible image of the gods concealed real spiritual powers pertaining to the different Hierarchies. Their policy was perfectly consistent and comprehensible, for the authoritarian principle of Rome was consciously reinforced by the power which was believed to derive from the assimilation of other gods. And, as a rule, the worship of other gods was accepted not only in an outward and exoteric way, but the Mystery-teachings of other peoples were also taken over by the Roman Mystery-centres and merged with the Mystery-cult of the ancient Roman empire. And since, at that time, it was generally held that it was neither right nor possible to govern without the support of the spiritual powers symbolized by the gods, this practice was taken for granted.

The aim of Tiberius therefore was to integrate the power of Christ, as he conceived it, with the impulses proceeding from the other deities recognized by him and his peoples. The Roman Senate thwarted his intention and nothing came of it. None the less the initiated emperors, Hadrian among them, made repeated efforts to achieve this goal, but constantly met with opposition from the dignitaries who could make their influence felt. And when we examine the objections raised against this policy of the initiated emperors we can form a good idea of what happened at this decisive turning-point in human evolution.

We witness here a remarkable coincidence. On countless occasions Roman writers, influential personalities and large sections of the Roman populace accused the Christians of profaning what others held to be sacred, and vice versa. In other words, the Romans repeatedly emphasized that the Christians were radically different in thought and feeling from the Romans and other peoples—for the other peoples together with their gods had been assimilated by the Romans. Thus everyone looked upon the Christians as people with a different make-up, people with different feelings and responses. Now this view could be dismissed as a calumny; suchlike accusations are always ready to hand, of course, when one takes a superficial view of history. But we cannot regard this view as a calumny when we realize that many of the opinions of earlier times and many of the contemporary opinions concerning the Mystery of Golgotha have passed over verbatim into Christian teaching. To put it more clearly, the Christians expressed their sentiments in words that could be found amongst many of their contemporaries. One of these was Philo of Alexandria (note 1), a contemporary of Christ, who probably had first-hand knowledge of what was later found in the Christian writings. Philo makes the following remarkable statement: “According to traditional teachings I must hate that which others love” (he is referring to the Romans) “and love that which others hate.” If you bear this statement in mind and turn to the Gospel of St. Matthew, you will find countless passages which echo this statement of Philo. And so we can say that Christianity has developed, as it were, out of a spiritual aura which required people to say, “we love what others hate”. This means—and this saying was quoted in the early Christian communities and served as one of the fundamental principles of Christian teachings—that Christians themselves openly acknowledged what others reproached them with. It was not therefore a calumny; it accorded with the Roman view: “the Christians love what we hate and hate what we love”. And the Christians, for their part, said exactly the same of the Romans.

It is clear therefore that something wholly different from anything that had been known before now entered human evolution—otherwise it would not have had so great an impact. Of course, if we wish to understand this whole situation we must realize that the new impulse had come from the spiritual worlds. Many who were contemporaries of the Mystery of Golgotha, such as Philo, caught fleeting glimpses of it which they described each after his own fashion. And so many of the passages from the Gospels which are interpreted expediently today, as in the case of Barres, whom I mentioned at the conclusion of my last lecture, will be seen in their true light when we cease to interpret them to suit our convenience, but when our interpretation is determined by the whole spirit of the age. There are strange interpretations in Barres; indeed Biblical exegesis assumes very strange forms nowadays. Much that Philo says agrees closely with the Gospels and I would like to quote a passage which shows that because he was not inspired to the same extent as were the Evangelists later, his style was rather different from theirs. As a talented writer in the popular sense he made less heavy demands upon the reader than the Evangelists. In one notable passage Philo gave expression to something that was occupying the hearts and minds of the men of his time. He says: “Do not concern yourselves with the genealogical records or the documents of despots, take no thought for the things of the body; do not attribute to the citizen civic rights or civil liberties, which you deny to those of humble origin or who have been purchased as slaves in the market, but give heed only to the ancestry of the soul!” If the Gospels are read with understanding one cannot fail to recognize that something of this attitude of mind, albeit raised to a higher level, pervades the Gospels and why therefore an opportunist like Barres can write the passage I quoted to you in my last lecture. We should do well to bear his words in mind and I propose therefore to read them to you once again.

“It is a waste of time to look for the after-life. Perhaps it does not even exist. No matter how we approach the question we are never vouchsafed an answer. Let us leave all occultism to adepts and charlatans. Mysticism of every kind is totally irrational. Let us submit to the authority of the Church because, with the traditional teaching and practical experience of centuries she prescribes the code of ethics in which nations and children must be instructed. And finally we must submit because, far from exposing us to the dangers of mysticism, she actively protects us against them, silences the voices of the mystery teachings, expounds the Gospels and tailors the liberal anarchy of the Saviour to the needs of modern society.”

In the passage which I quoted from Philo we can see, since it is echoed again and again in the New Testament, what lies behind this whole movement. Philo's reference to the ancestry of the soul carries profound implications; he implies something that is opposed to the leading ideas of the Roman empire. For the Roman empire recognized only physical inheritance in its various forms, and the whole social order was founded on this principle. And suddenly the cry was raised: “Take no thought for the ancestry of the body but give heed only to the ancestry of the soul!” One could hardly imagine a more radical breach with the fundamental principles of the Roman empire, a greater contrast. And this contrast was raised to a higher level by the advent of Christ Jesus—indeed the world had been waiting for this moment—and was vigorously opposed to the existing world order of that time.

The Roman emperors would have been only too pleased to receive Christ into their pantheon as a new god amongst the other gods though He struck at the very roots of their society, for the Christ God who embodies a far deeper reality would thereby have become one of their own gods. But the initiated emperors soon realized that the advent of the Christ would be fraught with difficulties for them. When initiation of the emperors, as was the case in Rome after Augustus had been made obligatory by imperial decree, the forces of initiation exercised a powerful influence in the external world. They influenced the policies of the emperors and were operative in the measures and impulses which shaped society. The aims and intentions of the initiated emperors were more clearly defined, more uncompromising than those of the ordinary initiate. Suppose, for example, that one of the emperors who had received initiation had said: “Now John the Baptist baptized with water. Through this baptism by water the etheric body was loosened” (the initiated emperors were of course aware of this) “and the candidates for baptism thereby gained insight into the inner structure of the spiritual world.” They were aware that a decisive turning-point in the history of the world had now been reached. This was known to those whose etheric bodies had been loosened through total immersion. Let us now suppose that one of these emperors had said: “I accept the challenge”—such things were not unknown in the Mysteries “I am prepared to do battle against that which has entered the world at this decisive moment in history!”—One must realize how autocratic, self-willed, these emperors were. But they never dreamt for a moment that they might be powerless against the will of the gods; they were determined—and it was for this purpose they had themselves initiated—to try issue with the spiritual world-impulses and to stem the tide of world-evolution. Such things had already happened before; and they are happening before our eyes today, only people are unaware of it.

Here is a historical incident that confirms the hypothesis I have suggested above. In the age of Constantine, Licinius ruled over the Eastern part of the empire. He took it upon himself to challenge the gods. He decided to celebrate a cult act, for these ritual performances symbolized the struggle against the spiritual powers. The ceremony was intended to demonstrate publicly that he had undertaken to challenge the gods. In other words, he wished to ridicule baptism in the eyes of his fellow men (for it was baptism that had made known to the world that the turning-point in world-history had come), and so challenge Christianity and blunt the force of the Christian impulse. To this end a festival was organized at Heliopolis. It was arranged that an actor, Gelasius, should be dressed in the white robes of a priest and be immersed in water. It was to be presented as a spectacle, as a burlesque of Christian baptism. Gelasius, clothed in white, was immersed in the water and was taken out again. He was then exposed to the assembled populace as an object of ridicule. And what happened? Gelasius turned to the people and said: “I have now become a Christian and I will remain a Christian with all the strength at my command.” Licinius had received his answer from the spiritual world. Baptism was no longer an object of ridicule; the effects of baptism were demonstrated for all the world to see. He (Licinius) recognized that the critical moment in world history had arrived. This inititated Emperor had taken it upon himself to challenge the gods and had received his answer.

It is hardly possible for us today to form an idea of the significance of this answer. It was seen by all, even by the heathen, as a complete vindication of baptism, a valid answer, an answer that had to be reckoned with. And those who at that time were initiated into the secrets of world events received a momentary illumination from another source and were granted insight into the meaning and import of Christianity. Widely different customs which had an occult meaning had survived from ancient times. Under the Antonines, for example, the Sibyls delivered their oracles. People consulted them and took their instructions from them. One important oracle of the time of the Antonines predicted that Rome was doomed to destruction, that ancient Rome would not survive! Now oracular utterances, though often ambiguous and open to various interpretations, can be correctly interpreted. This particular oracle gave out this strange prophecy: “Rome will perish and the place where the city once stood will become the haunt of foxes and wolves.” This was a sign that had to be reckoned with. People naturally looked for a deeper meaning but they felt that the turning-point of world history had arrived. The might of Rome would be extinguished. Foxes and wolves would lord it amongst the ruins and take over in her place. Oracles of course often speak ambiguously, but occasionally, even in those times, the aura of initiation was transmitted through an ordinary, uninitiated sage, so that he frequently uttered remarkable prophecies which could only be construed as referring to the turning-point of world evolution.

In my last lecture I spoke of Nero and told you what this initiate emperor really thought. He wished to set the whole world on fire so that he might witness its destruction in person. If Rome as the centre of the world power was to be destroyed, at least he wished to determine for himself the manner of its destruction. Seneca once warned him in a remarkable statement which can be understood only if we are aware that the Roman emperors who were in possession of the principle of initiation believed themselves to be endowed with divine authority which the Christians refused to honour. Seneca, who knew no other way of bringing his message home to the tyrant, said to Nero: “You have absolute power, you have unlimited authority, you can even order the death of those whom you think may contribute in some way to the world order that will follow the downfall of Rome. But there is one thing a despot cannot do, he cannot compass the death of his successor.” These words had profound implications. Seneca was referring of course not to the potential successor if the occasion should arise, but to the actual successor. Seneca wished to indicate that death set a limit to the Emperor's power. The belief that Rome was doomed had an important influence, especially upon imperial circles.

The Christians reacted differently from the Romans to this tradition. We are here faced with a paradoxical situation. The Christians, for their part, championed the idea that Rome would not perish, that her dominion would endure to the end, which always implied the end of an era. It was the Christians, therefore, who upheld the view that the dominion of Rome would endure, that it would outlive the time of the foxes and wolves. Not that the Christians would have denied—if I may risk an oracular statement—that Rome would become the habitat of wolves and foxes They agreed that it was possible, but they maintained, on the other hand, that her power would endure.

We must bear in mind these different attitudes or opinions. Many of them in fact have proved to be correct. For example, the mother of Alexander Severus who was a pupil of Origen—although suspected of heresy, he was none the less regarded as a kind of Church Father—had managed to set up a kind of pantheon for her private use. In her private sanctuary she revered equally Abraham, Christ, Orpheus and Apollonius of Tyana and she considered the worship of these four deities was indispensable for her salvation. As a devoted pupil of Origen she found that this practice was in no way contrary to his teaching.

When we consider these different shades of opinion which I have tried to outline briefly, we find that they reflect the atmosphere of the first three centuries of our era. And during this period we find repeated attempts by initiated emperors to come to terms with Christianity and to incorporate Christianity into their religious system. Despite the recorded persecutions of the Christians this was the Imperial policy up to the fourth century.

Now in the fourth century a remarkable personality appeared on the scene in the shape of the Emperor Constantine (note 2), a contemporary of Licinius. He was an outstanding personality both politically and spiritually. I have indicated on other occasions how spiritual forces were at work in the personality of Constantine and to some extent guided him in the difficult administration of the Western empire. Today I should like to consider him from another standpoint.

His spiritual make-up was such that he was unable to find a right relationship to the principles of ancient initiation. In contrast to his predecessors and contemporaries he shrank from coercing the hierophants into granting him initiation into the ancient Mysteries. The Sibylline oracles and the prophecies of Rome's impending downfall weighed heavily upon his soul. He was also aware of the Christian teaching that Rome would endure to the end of time. He was well informed on these matters. But he shrank from initiation into the Mysteries; he shrank from carrying the war against the Christians into the realm of the Mysteries. This has significant implications.

What history tells of Constantine is extremely interesting and shows how he tried to find a modus vivendi with Christianity by other means, how he set himself up as the protector of Christianity and introduced Christianity, as he understood it, into the Roman empire. But he could not incorporate his form of Christianity into the old principle of initiation. He was faced with an insurmountable difficulty because the Christians themselves and their leaders were vigorously opposed to this. They felt, and many even realized, that the mission of Christianity was to unveil the ancient Mystery teachings which until then had been kept secret in the Mystery temples. It was their desire that the truths hidden in the Mysteries should be proclaimed to the whole world and should not be restricted to the temples. Fundamentally, the aim of these initiated emperors was to deny Christianity to the people and to restore it again to the Mystery temples. In that event, they believed, people would be initiated into Christianity in the same way as they had been initiated into the secrets of the ancient pagan Mysteries. It was difficult for Constantine to achieve his goal in face of the objectives pursued by the Christians. The Christians saw in the turning-point of world history an event of a spiritual, non-temporal order. And their claim that the Roman empire would endure must be understood as an expression of a wholly spiritual impulse. And this is clearly reflected in the secret teachings of the early Christians. In maintaining that the Roman empire would endure they sought to anticipate what actually came to pass. I pointed out recently that the deeper impulse of the Roman empire has not ceased, that it still lives on, not only in jurisprudence, but in other domains also, which, to those who do not probe more deeply, appear to be a new innovation. But in fact we are simply witnessing a prolongation, an extension of the driving forces behind Imperial Rome. Although the old Roman empire is no more, its spirit still lives on and bites deeply into our civilization.

Certain people maintain that we are haunted today and will always be haunted by the ghost of the old Roman empire. And this is accepted as a truism by the educated, even today, and is unlikely to change. The Christians wished to draw attention to this. But at the same time they contended that Christianity will always contain an element that is antagonistic to the Roman empire, for the spiritual impulse in Christianity will always be at odds with the materialism of Rome. And this contention of the Christians was prophetic.

You will now understand more clearly why the Senators and the Roman Emperors were alarmed, for they naturally associated the decline that was prophesied with the external empire which they saw slowly crumble under the impact of Christianity. And the emperor Constantine shared this view. Although not himself initiated, he was aware that a primordial wisdom had once existed in ancient times when man possessed atavistic clairvoyance. This wisdom had been transmitted to later ages, had been preserved by the priesthood, but had gradually become corrupted. In Rome too, Constantine said to himself: our social order embodies something that is associated with the institutions of this primordial wisdom, but we have simply buried it beneath the social order of a materialistic and secular empire. This was expressed in a pregnant symbol that is an “Imagination”, and not only an “Imagination”, but also an historical cult act, for these “Imaginations” often took the form of cult acts. People knew that in earlier times wisdom was not an arbitrary invention of man but was a revelation from the spiritual worlds. They knew that in primordial times priests had preserved this wisdom, not in Rome, of course, but across the sea in Ilion, in Troy where they originally dwelt. And this is expressed in the legend of the palladium, the so-called image of Pallas Athene which fell from Heaven in Troy, was preserved in a sanctuary, was then transferred to Rome and buried under a porphyry pillar. In all that was connected with this symbolical cult act people felt that they were able to trace back their civilization to the ancient wisdom which they had received from the spiritual world, but that they could not reach the heights which this wisdom had known in ancient Troy.

Such were the feelings Constantine harboured; and he also felt that even if he were to be initiated into the later Mysteries, they would be of little help to him; they would not lead him to the palladium, to the ancient primordial wisdom. He therefore decided to challenge the cosmic powers after his own fashion in order to save the Roman empire from destruction. He realized that this must be achieved in accordance with certain cosmic impulses and that it would have to take place in accordance with certain cult acts which were publicly enacted for all the world to see. He decided therefore to transfer the capital from Rome to the site of ancient Troy, to have the palladium dug up and taken back to Troy. The plan miscarried. Instead of establishing a new Rome on the site of Troy, he decided to found a new city, Constantinople, transfer the power to her and thus save declining Rome for future ages. By these means Constantine hoped to stem the tide of world evolution. He was prepared for Rome to become the habitat of foxes and wolves as the Sibylline oracle had foretold, but at the same time he wished to transfer the hidden impulses of Rome to a new site and so restore them to their original source. Constantine therefore embarked upon the ambitious plan to found Constantinople, and the work was completed in A.D. 326. He intended that the foundation of the city should coincide with this turning-point in world history. He therefore chose to lay the foundation stone at the moment when the Sun stood in the sign of the Archer and the Crab ruled the hour. He followed closely the indications of the cosmic signs. He wished to make Constantinople famous and to transfer to her the enduring impulse of eternal Rome. He therefore had the porphyry pillar (which was later destroyed by storms) transported to Constantinople. He ordered the palladium to be dug up and to be placed beneath the pillar. He also treasured among his possessions some relics of the Cross and a few nails that had originally secured the Cross. The relics of the Cross were made into a kind of frame to hold a much prized statue of Apollo and the nails into a nimbus with which he was crowned. This statue was set up on the porphyry pillar and an inscription was engraved on it which read somewhat as follows: That which sheds its beneficent influence here shall, like the Sun, endure for all time and proclaim the fame of its founder Constantine to all eternity! These things must of course be taken more or less imaginatively, but with this qualification, that they refer at all times to actual historical events.

This whole story has passed over into legend and, transmuted, lives on in the following legend: the palladium which is a symbol for a particular centre of primordial wisdom had been deposited originally in the secret Mystery Centres of the priest-initiates of Troy. It came to light for the first time when it was transported by circuitous routes from Troy to Rome. It saw the light of day a second time when it was transferred from Rome to Constantinople on the orders of Constantine. And those who believe the legend say that it will see the light of day a third time when it is transported from Constantinople to a Slavonic city. This legend is still vitally alive and survives in many things and under manifold forms. Today many things which appear in their purely physical aspects conceal a deeper layer of meaning.

Constantine therefore actively strove to prevent the downfall of the Roman empire in spite of his firm belief in the prophecy of the Sibylline oracle. He wanted to save Rome from herself.

In what I have told you I want you to recognize that in the historical personality of Constantine psychic impulses were at work which had significant and far-reaching effects. And bear in mind also what the earlier Christians and their leaders maintained: “The Roman empire will endure and the Christ Impulse we have received will also be realized and will ever be present amongst us.” Here we see two parallel phenomena of importance which have a significant bearing upon the different currents which have influenced the cultural development of the West. In particular you will be able to form an idea of the attitude towards the Roman empire in the early Christian centuries and in the age of Constantine, and of the sharply conflicting opinions on the way in which the future was envisaged. And you will perhaps find criteria which will enable you to see many of the later events in their true light. And we can only see many of these later events in proper perspective if we answer the following question: How far does the later development of Christianity up to now accord with its original intention and what must be done to bring it into closer rapport with that intention?

It remains for me to speak of a still more important moment in evolution in connection with the expansion of Christianity, the moment when an initiated Emperor called Julian the Apostate came face to face with this emergent Christianity. From the results of our historical enquiry we shall then be in a position to discuss in this context the further question: How can we prepare our souls to draw near to the Christ whose presence will be experienced in the etheric world in the present century? What steps must we take, especially in our present age, to draw near to Him?

In my next lecture I should like to discuss the trend of events under Julian the Apostate and to indicate the relation of our present age to the Etheric Christ in so far as it is permissible to touch upon this question today.

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NOTES BY TRANSLATOR

Note 1. Philo of Alexandria or Philo Judaeus (circa 30 B.C.–A.D. 40) was an important representative of Hellenistic Judaism. He believed that the Pentateuch had divine authority. In his “Allegories of the Sacred Law”, a commentary on Genesis, he regarded the characters in Genesis as allegories of states of soul. He is considered to be the first religious philosopher (cf. H. A. Wolfson, Philo. (2 vols.) 1947).

Note 2. Constantine was firmly convinced of his divine mission to rule over the world and to establish the orthodox teaching of the Church. He prided himself on having settled the Donatist conflict and the Arian heresy. On his initiative the Council of Nicaea was compelled to introduce the doctrine of the “filioque” which split the Church for a century and a half.

Some friends who were present at my lectures in Munich on the relationship between spiritual science and art were of the opinion that I should also speak about the thoughts expressed there here in Vienna. And in complying with this wish, I would ask you to accept what I am going to say this evening entirely as meant to be unpretentious and as consisting only of aphoristic remarks about many things that could be said about the relationship between what might be called modern seership, as it is striven for by anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, and artistic creation and the nature of artistic enjoyment.

First of all, there is a certain prejudice against such a consideration as the one to be presented here, and prejudices are not always unfounded. There is a certain well-founded prejudice that is based on the insight that artistic creation, artistic enjoyment, artistic feeling actually have nothing to do with any view of art, with any knowledge of art. And very many people who are involved in the artistic process are of the opinion that they actually do harm to the element of the artistic creation and the artistic enjoyment if they associate thoughts, concepts, and ideas with what one experiences as an artist. I believe, however, that this prejudice is well-founded with regard to everything that can be called abstract, conventionally scientific aesthetics. I think that this science is rightly shunned by the artistic view, because truly artistic feeling is actually desolate, impaired by anything that somehow leads to a conventionally scientific view.

On the other hand, however, we live in an age in which, out of a certain necessity in world history, much of what previously worked unconsciously in man must become conscious. Just as we are no longer able to view the social and societal relationships between people in the light of myth, as was the case in earlier times, but are simply forced by the course of human development to seek our refuge in a real understanding of what is pulsating in the historical process, if we want to recognize what social structure, social togetherness and so on is among human beings, it is also necessary that much of what has rightly been sought in a more or less conscious or unconscious way in the instinctive workings of the human imagination and the like, be raised into consciousness. It would be raised up even if we did not want it. But if it were raised up in a way that was contrary to the progress of creation, the result would be what should be avoided: impairment of the intuitive-artistic, which impairment must be excluded precisely by the living-artistic.

I am not speaking as an esthete, nor as an artist, but as a representative of spiritual scientific research, as a representative of a world view that is imbued with the conviction that, as human development progresses, we will increasingly be able to penetrate into the real spiritual world that underlies our sensory world. I am not speaking of some metaphysical speculation, I am not speaking of some philosophy, but of what I would call supersensible experience. I do not believe that it will take long before it is recognized that all mere philosophical speculation and all logical or scientific endeavor is inadequate to penetrate into the spiritual realm. I believe that we are on the threshold of an epoch that will recognize as a matter of course that there are forces slumbering in the human soul and that these slumbering forces can be drawn out of this soul in a very systematic way. I have described how these slumbering powers in the human soul can be awakened in my various books, in 'How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds', 'Soul Mysteries' and 'The Riddle of Man'. So I understand spiritual knowledge to mean something that is basically not yet there, something that is only taken into account by a few people today, something that is not based on the continuation of already existing knowledge, be it mysticism or natural science, but on the acquisition of a special kind of human knowledge, which is based on the fact that man, through the methodical awakening of certain slumbering soul powers, brings about a state of consciousness that relates to ordinary waking life as this waking life relates to sleeping or dreaming life. Today, we are basically only familiar with these two opposing human states of consciousness: the dull, chaotic consciousness of sleep, which is only seemingly completely empty, only subdued, and the daytime consciousness from waking up to falling asleep. We can relate the mere images of dream life, when the will nature of the human being falls asleep, to the external physical reality, which relates him to the things of the environment. Likewise, as humanity continues to develop, it will come to effect an awakening from this waking consciousness to what I call the seeing consciousness, where one does not have external objects and processes before one, but a real spiritual world that underlies our own.

Philosophers want to open it up; you cannot open it up, only experience it. Just as little as you can experience your physical environment in dream life, you cannot experience the spiritual environment in waking consciousness: not through mysticism, not through abstract philosophy, but by bringing yourself into a different state of mind, by moving from dream life into ordinary waking consciousness.

Thus we speak of a spiritual world from which the spiritual and soul-life emerges just as the physical and bodily life emerges from the sense world. Such spiritual research is, of course, completely misunderstood in its peculiarity today. People are such that they judge what arises among them according to the ideas they already have, some even according to the words they already have. They want to tie in with something already known. As far as the results of the seeing consciousness are concerned, this is not the case, because it is not what is already known. The seeing consciousness, one could, if the word were not misunderstood, call it the visionary, the clairvoyant consciousness, whereby I do not understand anything superstitious. What comes from the visionary is judged by what people already know. Everything of a dubious nature, such as visionary life, hallucinations, mediumship and so on, has been brought close. What I mean here has absolutely nothing to do with any of this. All that I have listed last are the products of the sick soul life, that soul life which is more deeply embedded in the physical body and which brings images from the physical body to the soul. What I call the seeing consciousness takes the opposite path. The hallucinatory consciousness goes below the ordinary state of mind into the physical, while the seeing consciousness goes above the ordinary state of mind, lives and breathes only in the spiritual-mental realm, making the soul completely free from bodily life. In our ordinary consciousness, only pure thinking is free from bodily life, which many philosophers therefore deny because they do not believe that man can unfold an activity that is free from the body. That is the starting point: a seeing consciousness can be trained that develops upwards into the spiritual world, where there is nothing physical around us. This seeing consciousness now feels completely unrelated to any medium or visionary, but it does feel very much related to a real, genuine artistic understanding of the world. That is what I hope and long for, that a bridge could be built between real, genuine seership and artistic experience, whether in creation or in artistic enjoyment, in an unpedantic, artistic way between these two human perspectives.

It is indeed an experience for those who live in a visionary way that the source, the real source from which the artist creates, is exactly the same as that from which the seer, the observer of the spiritual worlds, draws his experiences. The only difference is the way in which the seer attempts to gain his experiences and to express these experiences in concepts and thoughts, and the way in which the artist creates. This is a considerable difference, and one which we may perhaps discuss today. But the source from which the artist and the seer draw is, in reality, one and the same.

Before I go into this question of principle, I would like to make a few preliminary remarks that may seem trivial to some, but which claim nothing less than to show that an artistic world view is not something that is arbitrarily added to life. For someone who strives for a certain totality, for a certain wholeness of life, artistic world view appears as something that belongs to life just as much as knowledge and the external banal hustle and bustle. A dignified existence is inconceivable without the permeation of our cultural life with artistic feeling.

It is important to truly recognize that wherever we go and stand, there is a latent urge within us to perceive the world aesthetically, artistically. I would like to give a few examples of this. However, we often do not become aware of the artistic experience that accompanies our life, our existence between the lines. It lives quite below the threshold of consciousness. If I have to visit someone and I enter their room and the room has red walls, red wallpaper, and they then come and talk to me about the silliest things, or perhaps don't talk at all, behave very boringly, then I feel that there is a falsehood. It remains entirely in feeling; it does not become thought, but I feel that there is untruth. However strange, however paradoxical it may appear, if someone papers his room in red, he disappoints me if he does not bring me something meaningful in thoughts in the red room in which he receives me. This does not need to be true, of course, it does not need to happen, but it does accompany our soul life. We have this feeling deep in our souls. If we enter a room with blue walls and someone spouts words at us, not letting us get a word in edgewise and considering himself the only person of importance, we feel it is at odds with the blue or violet walls of his room. The external prosaic truth need not correspond to this, but there is a special aesthetic truth that is as I have stated it. If I am invited to dinner somewhere, or let's not say snowed in, but politely invited to dinner, and I see that the place setting is red, painted red, I have the feeling that these are gourmets who eat to eat, enjoy eating. If I find a blue place setting, I have the feeling that they don't eat to eat, but that they want to tell each other something while eating, and leave the telling to the telling that otherwise accompanies social gatherings. These are real feelings that always live in the subconscious. If I meet a lady in a blue dress on the street and she shoots at me and behaves aggressively instead of reservedly, I find that contradictory to the blue dress, but I would find it natural if I met a lady in a red dress like that. Of course, I would also find it natural if a lady with snail hair was snappish. There is something that lives in the soul as a fundamental tone. I do not mean to say anything other than that an aesthetic feeling is there, even if we do not bring it to mind, which we cannot exclude: our mood depends on it; we are in a good or bad mood. We know what a good or bad mood is, but only those who engage more closely with things can become aware of the reasons for it. In this lies what might be called the necessity to pass from natural aesthetic feeling to life in art. Art simply accommodates natural life, just as the other ways of looking at people do.

The seer who has developed these powers, of which I have spoken, has a special way of experiencing art, and I believe that, even if not artistically, then at least in terms of the evaluation and perception of art, something can be gained from the special experience of seership in relation to art. The seer, who awakens his soul in such a way that he can have a spiritual world around him, is always able to turn his soul life away, to distract it from all that is merely external, sensual reality. If I have before me – I speak in the third person, not individually – a piece of external physical object or process, I am always able, in the space where the object is, to exclude perception for myself, so that I see nothing of the physical in that space. That is the real abstraction that is possible for seership. It can only be done with natural objects, not with what is truly artistically created. And I consider that to be something significant. When confronted with a work of art, the seer is not able to completely exclude the object, the artistic process, just as he can exclude an external process. What is truly artistic creation, imbued with spirit, remains spiritually before the consciousness of the seer.

This is the first thing that can testify to us that truly artistic creation and visionary beholding come from the same source. But there is much more that is very significant in this direction. You see, the seer, when he applies the means that develop his soul, comes to a very different way of conceiving as well as willing. If we use ordinary expressions, we can of course say that both the conceiving and the willing become inward, but this 'inward' is actually not correct, because one is still outside, spreading one's whole view over a real spiritual world. A different conceiving and a different willing occurs in seership.

The visualization does not proceed in abstract thoughts. Abstract thoughts are something that is suitable for the physical world, for registering it in its phenomena, for finding natural laws, and so on. The seer does not think in such thoughts, he does not think in abstractions, he thinks in thoughts that are actually weaving images. This is still somewhat difficult to understand in the present, because it is not yet fully known what is meant by an activity that is actually a thinking, but which does not think abstract thoughts and follows things, living in the forms and configurations of things. This imagining can be compared to the formation of surfaces and curves, as the mathematician does. But it comes to life inwardly, as Goethe attempted in his theory of metamorphosis in its elementary state. Today, the inward, visual imagination can become much more alive. This visual imagination is extraordinarily akin to the basis of certain areas of creative art, namely sculpture and architecture.

The strange thing is that in relation to this new thinking, this new imagining that the seer acquires, he feels most akin to the forms that the truly artistic architect develops and the forms that the sculptor must base his work on. There is really something like architectural visualization, or visualization in sculptural forms, that is capable of following things in the visionary grasp of the world in such a way that one learns to understand them in their spiritual inwardness, and also learns to transcend them, to rise purely into the spiritual world. With abstract thoughts one can learn nothing about the inner nature of things. The seer feels akin to the architect and the sculptor in his new thinking. He must think the world in the way of spiritualizing that unconsciously or subconsciously underlies the work of the sculptor and the architect. This prompts one to inquire as to the source of this. The question arises: What is it that the seer actually uses? He uses certain hidden senses, senses that are present in ordinary life but that only resonate softly and are not fully expressed in ordinary life. For example, we have a sense that could be called the sense of balance. We live in it, but we are only aware of it to a limited extent, not fully consciously. When we take a step, for example, or stretch out or bend our hand, all these actions that bring us into some kind of relationship with space are connected with a perception that does not quite reach our consciousness, as it does with seeing and hearing, except that these senses are much louder and more clearly audible. But this sense of balance and the related sense of movement are only subtly present because they are not just meant for our inner life, but convey our place in the cosmos. How I stand in the cosmos, whether I am walking towards the sun or away from it and feel that I am drawing closer and closer to the light, and at the distance the light feels dimmed in some way, this feeling of being inside the whole of the world is something that cannot be described in any other way than to say: man in his movement is constructed as a microcosm out of the macrocosm and experiences as a microcosm his being placed in the macrocosm through such a sense.

When a sculpture is created, it is nothing more than perceptions of a usually hidden meaning being translated into the design of external surfaces and the like. What we as human beings always carry with us in our feeling for the world is unconsciously expressed in architecture and sculpture. However strange this observation may at first seem, anyone who is truly able to explore psychically the relationship between individual architectural forms, what lives in the sculptor's imagination as he shapes his surfaces, knows that what I have just hinted at plays a mysterious part in this creative work. The seer does nothing other than to bring this sense of placing oneself in the world to full consciousness. He develops it in the same way that the architect, the sculptor, is artistically prompted by what he feels in his body to shape as forms in the external material. From this point of view, one sees certain things; I could not only talk for many hours in this regard, I could talk for days. Anyone who acquires a feeling for sculpture knows that mere imitation is not truly sculptural. Those who try to answer the question “What is actually in the sculptural?” perceptively, not abstractly, cannot say that a surface is only significant to them because it imitates a surface in the human body and the like that exists in external nature. That is not it. What is experienced in the sculptural is the intrinsic life of the surface. Anyone who has discovered the difference between a surface that is curved only once and one that is curved again knows that no surface that is curved only once can somehow have sculptural life within itself. Only a surface that is curved within its curvature can express life as a surface. This inner expression – not symbolic, but artistic – is what is at issue here, not imitation, not adhering to the model, this is what constitutes the secret of the two-dimensional itself.

This touches on a question that is indeed as unresolved as possible in the present day. Not only do we see many people today enjoying art, which is quite right, but we also see many people judging art almost professionally. Now, I believe that, precisely on the basis of the premises underlying today's considerations, I really do not have to express a critical judgment, but simply express what comes more and more to mind: I do not believe that anyone who has never kneaded clay, who is only a critic, can ever get an idea of what is actually essential to sculpture. I do believe that everyone can enjoy art, but I don't believe that anyone can judge art who has not made those attempts that have shown him what artistic forms can be realized within the material. Because very different things are realized in reality by the material than mere imitation of the model and the like. Mere imitation of the model is thus artistically no more valuable than the imitation of the nightingale's song through the use of certain tones. Real art begins where nothing is imitated anymore, but where something new and creative is created. In architecture – not in music, but very much so in sculpture – we draw on the model. But something that is somehow imitative in relation to the model is not art. Art begins where imitation can no longer be spoken of. And what works and weaves as an independent spiritual reality, unconsciously by the artist, consciously by the seer, is what is common to the seer's perception of the world and the artist's creation, except that it is also expressed spiritually by the seer, and by the artist, because he cannot express it, but only has it unconsciously in his hands, in his imagination, to which “material can be incorporated.

The seer feels a completely different affinity with the poetic and the musical arts. It is particularly interesting in the case of music how the seer experiences his experiences in a different way when he enters the realm of art with his seership. I must make a comment about what I call seeing: I do not mean all the time, but only in the moments when one puts oneself in this state. Therefore, it does not apply that the seer experiences the musical in other times than when he wants, as it is now described. At other times, he experiences music as any other person does. He can compare what he experiences musically and what he experiences when he sees the musical work of art. When it comes to musical works of art, it is important that the seer is clear about experiencing music in such a way that it is entirely spiritual, and in such a way that the concrete spiritual feels a direct connection to the musical. I have said before that the seer develops a new power of imagination, he visualizes in such a way that he feels at home in architectural and sculptural creation. — In that the seer not only grasps things imaginatively, but also develops feeling and pictorial powers, but in such a way that they enter into a union, one cannot speak of a separation of feeling and willing; one must speak of a feeling will and a willing feeling, of an experience of the soul that connects these two, which usually go hand in hand in ordinary consciousness, to form the totality of feeling will. Sometimes this sentient volition is more nuanced towards volition, at other times more towards feeling. When the seer, in the elevated spiritual state of soul, places himself in the realm of music, he experiences everything that occurs in his soul with the nuance of feeling in the truly musical, in the genuine musical. He experiences it in such a way that he does not separate the objective tone and the subjective tone experience from one another, but that these are one in the visionary experience, that the soul flows as the tones flow into one another, only that everything is spiritualized. He experiences his soul poured out into the musical element; he knows that what he experiences through the newly formed feeling volition is woven into the tone substance by the musician from the same source. It is particularly interesting to investigate the origin of the fact that the creative musician brings up from the unconscious the spiritual that the seer beholds and lays it into his material. In the realm of music, there is a revelation of what underlies it.

In all unconscious phenomena that occur in the life of the soul, the miracle structure of our organism plays a role in a completely different way. It is becoming more and more apparent that our organism should not be regarded in the way that it is by the ordinary biologist and physiologist, but that it must be regarded as an image of a spiritual model. What the human being carries within him is the image of a spiritual model. The human being enters into existence through birth or through conception, and he applies the laws of heredity that are his, as well as that which descends from a spiritual world and behaves in relation to the physical in such a way that the physical is truly an image of the spiritual. How this comes about, I cannot explain today. The fact exists that in our organism such a working takes place, which proceeds according to spiritual-pictorial laws. With music, this is particularly remarkable. We believe that when we enjoy music, the ear is involved and perhaps the nervous system of our brain, but only in a very external way. Physiology is only just beginning in this field and will only reach a certain level when artistic ideas are incorporated into this physiological and biological area. There is something completely different at the root of it than the mere hearing process or what takes place in the nervous system of our brain. What underlies the sense of music can be described as follows: every time we breathe out, the brain, the head space, the inner space of the head, is caused by breathing to let its brain water descend through the spinal cord sac into the diaphragm region; a descent is caused. The inhalation corresponds to the reverse process: the brain water is driven against the brain. There is a continuous rhythmic up and down movement of the cerebral fluid. If this were not the case, the brain would not lose as much of its weight as is necessary to prevent it from crushing the underlying blood vessels; if it did not lose so much of its weight, it would crush our blood vessels. This cerebral fluid moves up and down in the arachnoid space, in expansions that are elastic and less elastic, so that when it rises and falls, the cerebral fluid flows over the less elastic expansions, over some that expand more or less. This gives a very wondrous way of working within a rhythm. The whole human organism, apart from the head and limbs, expresses itself in this inner rhythm. What flows in through the ear as sound, what lives in us as a sound image, becomes music when it encounters the inner music that is played by the fact that the whole organism is a strange musical instrument, as I have just described.

If I were to describe everything to you, I would have to describe a wonderful inner human music, which is not heard but is experienced inwardly. What is experienced musically is basically nothing more than the response of an inner singing of the human organism. This human organism is, precisely in relation to what I have just described, the image of the macrocosm: that we carry within us, in the most concrete laws, more strictly than natural laws, this lyre of Apollo, on which the cosmos plays within us. Our organism is not what biology alone recognizes, but it is the most wonderful musical instrument.

One can cite very rough things to show how man is built according to strange cosmic laws. To cite the most trivial thing: we take eighteen breaths on average in one minute. Let's calculate how many that is in a twenty-four hour day: that's 25,920 breaths; that's how many breaths in a whole day. Let's calculate a human day. We can calculate a person's day, although many people grow older, to be between seventy and seventy-one years: a person's day. Try to calculate how much that is for a single twenty-four-hour day! 25,920 – that's how many breaths you take in one day! The world breathes us out and breathes us in as we are born and as we die. It takes just as many breaths during a human day as we do during a twenty-four-hour day.

Take the Platonic solar year. The sun rises in a certain sign of the zodiac. The vernal point moves on. In ancient times, the sun rose in the sign of Taurus, then in Aries, now in Pisces. Modern astronomy schematizes. This vernal point apparently goes around the whole sky – but apparently, but that is not important – and of course, after a significant number of years, it arrives at the same point again: after 25,920 years. The Platonic solar year is 25,920 years long! Take a human day of 71 years: it has 25,920 individual days; take a single human day of 24 hours: it has 25,920 breaths in the experience. You see, we are integrated into the rhythm of the world. I believe — and one could engage in many reflections on this point — that there is no more abstract religious concept that could evoke such fervor as the awareness that one's own outer physical organism is so embedded in the macrocosm, in the cosmic structure. The seer attempts to penetrate this embeddedness in a spiritual way. It lives itself out in our inner music: What comes out of the organism, what strikes up into the soul — the soul's resonance, resonating with the cosmos — is the unconscious element of artistic creation. The whole world resonates when we truly create artistically.

There you have the common source between being an artist and being a seer: unconsciously in the artist, by incorporating the laws of the world into the material; consciously in the seer, by attempting to behold the purely spiritual through the seeing consciousness.

By studying these things in this way, one learns to recognize what causes the artist to unconsciously incorporate what is entrusted to the material. Just as inner music lives in our respiratory system, which then becomes outer music in art, so too does poetry live there. In this respect, today's physiology is still very far behind. Because if you want to understand it, it is not the sensory physiology or the nervous physiology of the brain that needs to be studied, but the border area where the brain and nervous system converge. It is precisely at this border, in the physiological area where, if a person is predisposed to it – you always have to be predisposed to the artistic – that the source of poetic creation lies. And the seer finds the poetic creation most particularly when he enters into the realm of his inner experience, where the feeling-will inclines more toward the side of the will. Otherwise, the will expresses itself in the entire physical body; in that which is the imagination, the will lives where the brain and nerves and sense organs meet: that is where the poetic images are generated. When this is detached from the physical, it is the feeling will through which the seer enters into the realms from which the poet draws from the same source. Therefore, through this feeling, willing sense of the seer, when he appropriates the state of mind in order to enjoy the poetic with his state of mind, he feels in a peculiar position vis-à-vis the poetic. He must see what the poet creates. This leads to the fact that at the moment when the poet presents one thing or another, not drawing from reality but presenting something that is actually merely imagined, composed, unreal, inartistic, at that moment the seer sees in a creative way what is presented. A person who is not a seer does not feel so strongly when the playwright presents an unreal figure. The seer, for example, cannot feel about Thekla from “Wallenstein” other than as if she were made of papier-mâché, so that when he looks at her, he sees her knees buckling. And this with a great poet! Every deviation from reality, every failure to depict reality, is felt in such a way that the seer must recreate in plastic form precisely what the poet creates, and he withdraws his thinking from the plastic. The seer submerges himself in an inner plastic in relation to the poet. The peculiar thing about this is that in the poetic, the seeing consciousness creates sculpture, which is why the seer sees caricatures in what is often truly much praised. But the satirist cannot but see in many a dramatic performance, in which it is not even noticed that the figures are only puppets stuffed with tow, such puppets marching across the stage, or they arise before him when he reads the drama. Therefore, the seer can endure torments through what is brought about by fashion folly or otherwise, because he sees what is created formlessly in mere poetry.

Christian Morgensiern, who aspired to seership, made a beautiful statement. It can be found in the last volume of his posthumous works, in the “Stufen”. There he says, wanting to characterize his own soul, that he feels close to the architectural, the sculptural. This is the feeling: When one aspires towards the visionary, inwardly the poetic aspect is transformed into the plastic. When one looks at it this way, one can never believe that the visionary, with its inner mobility and its response to spiritual entities, can have a scorching and paralyzing effect on the artist, but only as a good friend, a good patron. They cannot disturb each other. Only things that flow together can disturb each other. But the seer can never allow his seership to disturb his artistry; he can permeate it with his seership. They are completely separate from each other; flowing from the same source, they can never disturb each other in life. This is no longer sufficiently felt.

The seer has a very difficult time making himself understood to people. He has to use language. But language has something very peculiar about it. It only appears to be a unity; in reality it is a tripartite thing. One experiences it namely on three levels. First, as we have it, in the way we communicate from person to person in everyday life, in the way we live our philistine lives and say the words that have to flow from person to person in order to shape that philistine life. Anyone who has a vivid sense of language, who experiences language through the eyes of a seer, cannot help but feel that the use of language as just described is a debasing of it. Perhaps one will say: Man is grumbling about life. He merely recognizes that not everything can be perfect, and thus refrains from creating perfection in a sphere where imperfection must necessarily prevail. In the outer physical life it is absolutely necessary that there should be imperfections: trees must also wither, not only grow. There must always be imperfection in life for perfection to arise. Language is pressed down from its original level, is pushed to a subordinate level. And the way we use language in life, we could only become a schoolmaster, then we would only turn a withered, dried-up, philistine state into a straw-like being, but otherwise we would achieve nothing. Words cannot have the values that they have by themselves, because language, as the property of a people, lives on its own level and, on its own level, is an artificial construct, not a prosaic one. It is not there to facilitate communication in everyday life; as an expression of the national spirit, it is an artificial construct. We belittle it, but we have to, by pressing that which is actually an artistic creation down into the prose of life. It only comes into its own in the poetic creations of a people when the spirit of language truly reigns. That is the second way in which language lives.

The third way is only experienced in the realm of seeing. One is in a strange position: for if one wants to express what is seen, one does not have the words of the language. They are not there in reality. Just as one learns to speak in any language and uses the words to express what one wants, one cannot express what one has as a seer's vision. The words are not shaped for it. Therefore, the seer has the need to express some things quite differently. He is always struggling with language to be able to say what he wants to say. He has to choose the way to put some thing into a sentence that approximately expresses what he wants to say; he has to say a second sentence that says something similar. He must count on the goodwill of his listeners so that one sentence illuminates the other. If this goodwill is lacking, then people want to criticize various contradictions. The one who really has something to express must work in contradictions, and one contradiction must illuminate the other, since the truth lies in the middle. By putting oneself in this position, one arrives at something in terms of language that already expresses the relationship between the artistic and the visionary in this field. The seer must count on goodwill to seek to penetrate more into how he says the thing than what he says. He strives to say much more in the way he says the thing than in what he says. He gradually succeeds in transporting himself back to the spirit of language creativity that prevailed before any language came into being, to re-immersing himself in the sounds, in the genius of the sounds, to submerging himself in it with his mind. He sees how a vowel is enclosed, how a vowel soon flows into this or that language. In order to transport himself back into the language-creative state of his people, the seer is compelled to express himself more through the how than through the what. In this way, one can distinguish in language the stages that stand side by side, artistically and seerically. Because they are experienced separately, they cannot disturb each other; on the other hand, they can support each other because, when they live side by side, they illuminate each other. The time may come when hostility towards the visionary on the part of the artistic side will no longer be tolerated, nor the opposite on the visionary side. For unfortunately all that is false scholasticism tends too much towards a supersensible philistinism. To clothe everything that is not seen with the external senses in visionary seeing is hostile to artistry. But what is really grasped by the seeing consciousness of the spiritual world is already the same as what lives unconsciously in artistic creation and in aesthetic perception. It is commonly believed that the clairvoyance referred to here is something quite alien to man; it is present in human life, only in an area where it goes unnoticed.

There is a great difference in the way we face a plant, a mineral, an animal or another human being. External things affect me through what they are with the help of my sense organs. When one person faces another, the senses work quite differently. In our time, people are quite averse to grasping the spiritual. People say that some fields have overcome materialism – yes, people talk about that today. They can find such arguments, but they say: When I stand opposite a person, I see the shape of his nose, and from such a shaped nose I conclude that he is a human being. An analogy. There is no such thing in reality. He who can perceive the world seerically knows where conclusions lie; these conclusions to the analogous do not exist. The soul of man is perceived directly; his external sensuality is such that it is annulled. This is very important to bear in mind when considering another art, because it makes clear to us the juxtaposition of seership and artistic skill.

When we stand face to face with a person, we look at him, and we do not know that what appears of him appears in such a way that it cancels itself out, that he makes himself spiritually transparent. Every time I stand face to face with a person, I see him clairvoyantly. The seer has a very special problem where the person stands opposite him: this is the mysterious incarnate. The seer sees the incarnate parts of a person not in a static way, but rather in an oscillating movement. When he is standing opposite a person, he sees a state in which what appears on the person fades, and then again, where the person, when warmed, becomes redder than he is. The physical form oscillates between these extremes, so that it appears to the seer as if the human form changes, reddens with shame and pales with fear, as if it were constantly establishing its normal state between feelings of fear and shame, just as the pendulum has its point of rest between swinging up and down. The complexion as it appears to us in the external world is only an intermediate state. The seen complexion is connected with something that remains unconscious to the human being: it makes possible the first unconscious glimpse behind the scenes. The way the human complexion is seen by the seer, so that he sees in it something soul-like in the sense-perceptible — the seer beholds in the complexion something sense-supersensuous — so everything that is out there in color and form is gradually transformed in such a way that one sees it spiritually. He beholds it in such a way that he perceives something inward in all that is otherwise colored, the impression of form. You will find the most elementary of this in Goethe's sensual-moral part of the “Theory of Colors”. The whole theory of colors becomes an experience, but in such a way that the seer experiences the spiritual in it. He also experiences the rest of the spiritual world in such a way that he has the same experiences that he otherwise has of colors. In my “Theosophy” you will find that the soul is seen in the form of a kind of aura. It is described in colors. Coarse people who do not go into the matter in greater depth, but write books themselves, believe that the seer describes the aura by saying that there really is a mist in front of him. What the seer has before him is a spiritual experience. When he says the aura is blue, he is saying that he has a soul-spiritual experience that is as if he were seeing blue. He describes everything he experiences in the spiritual world and what is analogous to what can be experienced in the sensual world in terms of colors.

This gives an indication of the way the seer experiences painting. It is a different experience from that of any other art. In the presence of every other art, one has the feeling that one is immersed in the artistic element itself. One has the element, goes to a limit, where the seership ends. If the seer were to continue, he would have to put this color here and that color there; if he were to continue, he would have to tint what he experiences entirely in colors. If he experiences painting, it comes to meet him from the other side. The painter, by painting what is formed out of light and dark, brings his artistic work exactly to the point where painting meets seeing, where the seeing begins. And that is exactly where the seeing begins, where, if one wanted to continue it outwardly, one begins to paint. When one has a concrete seer-like vision, one knows: one should paint this color with the brush, and next to it the other. Then one begins to grasp the secret of color, to understand what is written in my mystery drama “The Portal of Initiation”, that the form of color is a work, that actually drawing lines is an artistic lie. There is no line. The sea does not border on the sky with a line; where the colors border on one another, there is the boundary. I can help myself with a line, but it is only the consequence of the interaction of colors. The secrets of color are revealed to you. You learn that you perform an inner movement, that movement lives in what you paint. You know: you cannot do it any other way than by treating the blue in a certain way. You live with color its inwardness. That is the special thing about painting, that the visionary and the artistic, the creative, touch each other.

If one understands what is at stake in this field, then one will see that what is meant by the visionary can be very much in harmony with artistic creation, that they can stimulate and inspire each other. However, it will become more and more apparent that those who have never held a paintbrush and know nothing of what can be done should not judge from abstract principles. Criticism from outside art, critical criticism, will perhaps have to retreat when friendship between artistry and vision arises. But precisely what is meant here by modern spiritual science is something quite different from what was formerly called aesthetics and is so called today. Artists have told me that such people are called “aesthetic grunters of delight”. Aesthetic bliss is not what is meant here; it is a life in the same element in which the artist also lives, only that the seer experiences in the pure spiritual what the artist forms. I would like to say that this also seems to me to be one of the many things that help humanity. I believe that the times when it was thought that the elementary and original would be affected by what is explored through the spirit will come to an end.

Christian Morgenstern said: “Anyone today who still believes that they should not grasp that which lives in the world as spiritual in clear ideas, but only wants to reach it in a dark, mystical contemplation, is like an illiterate who, with the reading book under his pillow, wants to sleep away his entire life in illiteracy. We are living in a time when much of what is subconscious must be raised into consciousness. The art of seeing will only then have found its true home when it rises above all philosophy and feels akin to the art of creating. I believe that in this field, too, there is something that is connected with the significant questions of human development. More and more will be understood of the fact that the sense world is based on a supersensible one. What can be recognized by supersensible vision cannot be an arbitrary addition to life, but what is true is what Goethe said from his experience of life: “He to whom nature begins to reveal her secret feels an irresistible longing for her most worthy interpreter, art.” — Anyone who wants to understand how art is part of life as a whole, of its overall development, anyone who truly understands art in its essence, and feels it while understanding, must admit to themselves that this is aided by the gift of sight, that the gift of sight will be something that, in the future, will stand hand in hand with the artist, providing new inspiration and support.

I would like to devote in these considerations which will be continued next Friday, the possible all inclusive image on the one side of the link humanity has to the entire universe, to the cosmos, as well as the physical aspect to the spiritual cosmos, and on the other hand to show how we can gradually, through spiritual scientific studies arrive at an actual bridge between what can be called the order of nature and the moral world order. Today I want to offer a kind of Intermezzo which will show how, with reference to humanity itself, the spiritual must be linked to physicality, if it is to come to an all embracing examination including human evolution. That which prohibits the creation of a bridge between the physical and the spiritual also prevents, for the traditional world view in its various forms, reaching a total conception of what is working within human evolution. We can approach spiritual science in such a manner that it isn't an abstract theory, only a sum of imaginations which should solve the question of the immortality, the question of repeated earthly lives in an abstract form. We can't accept spiritual science in this way. It would be a misunderstanding to take it this way. We must imagine spiritual science as penetrating our lives and take what is given in the area of spiritual science in its specific abstract, theoretical form, and apply it quite concretely in our lives. From this I would like to give you an example which has certainly come from true spiritual scientific studies which one can not only refer to but which is verifiable in life itself.

The precursor is this: a spiritual researcher presents certain interrelationships. He expresses these interrelationships. He applies them to life. The course of every person's life can be externally observed. An impartial examination of life is then verified which the spiritual researcher offers from his observations. Something like this must be somewhat retained with such an example of spiritual scientific examination, which I'm presenting as reference to you today.

An historic angle on examination methods has actually strongly influenced what we call the natural scientific way of thinking today. Historical examinations have gradually been capitulated by scientific studies and it is believed that the historical progression of humanity as such should be discovered by the effects reverting back to the causes and then finding an interrelationship between historical causality and causes reflected in events of nature. When single historic examiners turn radical in this regard, the tendency, at least gradually, will direct history in a similar examination method as is applied to science.

In particular, when one observes the unfolding of everyday life and includes individuals in this unfolding from one generation to the next, one gradually arrives at considering things, I might say, merely from outside, as threads of scientific necessity. Even though for many it is somewhat depressing today, yet necessary as part of their appearance, we need to refer to physically inherited features. We are continuously considering how a person has more of this, or less of that, outer or inner physical or soul traits simply inherited from his forbearers and thus we create personal history daily. We extend our history with it. We look at it to a certain extent, as if we live within the present generation, and how this branches off from the foregoing, this again from what was before it and so on. We become accustomed to considering historic development by actually looking at the events of generations.

Let's take a region, say Central Europe. Let's examine it by considering the characteristics of the central European people in the last decades. Then go further back to previous decades and try where possible to get a feel for what we usually do with sensory examination, let's say regarding the characteristics of today's Germans, the characteristics of today's French and take these back to the Germans of the 18th century, the French to the 18th century and so on. We see to a certain extent a straight stream of mankind's development and we are content. The scientist would say the need for causality is satisfied when one finds spiritual-soul qualities in a particular human trait of the present day which can be traced back to spiritual-soul qualities of earlier generations of the same nation, the same race and so on, when therefore a specific causal relationship in the straight line of the course of time can be established.

How can the world view of those who in the course of time during the three to fourth century and even longer have developed and even remain religious, spiritual, yet, as soon as they are let free to abstractions, feel the soul-spiritual life tightly bound to the physical, how can such a method of examination rise above the pure progression of the generation line, the evolution of generations? Here we have to become serious regarding anthroposophic wisdom. From this viewpoint we need to not merely look back at people or the number of people in the present, insofar this person or these people directly have inherited characteristics from their forebears, but we need to be practical and clear that in every one of these people there is a soul-spiritual element which had lived for a long time in the soul-spiritual world before it came in to a particular physical body. When we have a person present in front of us, we need to say to ourselves: we look lovingly at him, he actually displays inherited qualities from previous generations. We also observe him soul-spiritually. He has a soul which has absolutely nothing directly to do with previous generations, which also have not had much to do with generations even further back, who in a much earlier time than now had been on the earth, and who, during an entire row of generations, developed in such a way that he didn't stand directly in relation to the earth's evolution, who, during the course of generations, had been in the soul-spiritual world. It is one-sided to consider mankind only according to inherited characteristics of generations. It is finally also only an illusion to consider mankind or historical origins this way. It is argued that one would understand these things, but in fact they are not understood at all in reality. There is theorizing about this and that, what mankind is doing at present, how they live there, the affect of this or that inherited quality. Yet if we could be sufficiently impartial we would in innumerable situations, yes, everywhere, say: what a person takes on from generation to generation of further developing physical qualities, is not by any means clear in one or other area, whether with individuals or with some kind of nation, or race type of relationship. If one wants to come to the reality, if one doesn't allow the continuation of abstraction, when one is also a materialist—which is after all only an abstraction, even a materialistic abstraction—then one must consider how someone living in the present had taken what had been in his bloodline, and be clear about the forces within his soul, which had lived for a long time in the spiritual world before his reincarnation into this body.

During recent years I have made indications regarding these things. I have made indications what, particularly in our time, before the disastrous events of the European peoples being intermixed, what the soul carried within itself from the first Christian decades. The world is however complicated and by giving such details, one only actually find a part. Such details must be taken further in order to gradually reach a total view. This may not at all be understood as when something previously stated in all truthfulness, even applied to several people, should now be corrected; so to add to this, the following must be said.

Relatively speaking it is not the greatest number of the central European population who carry souls who had lived in the first Christian decades, in the manner we imagine the common history of the first Christian decades to have been. Things are far more complicated. What appears through spiritual scientific research sometimes seem paradoxical; yet this is the way it is, and so things which appear for the spiritual scientific researcher only through real observation, which must be reached through real super sensible experience, will be piling error upon error when mere speculation is used, when one is given over to philosophising or speculating. The resulting experience is revealed in a different way and this is just that which the spiritual researcher finds so intensive: that he or she is actually surprised by the outcome. He expects nothing throughout, that this or that will be the result, but is surprised by the results.

To represent such results I would like your souls to glance back to those peoples who were in America during the time Europeans started their American conquest and continued ever more. You know it was a people which from a civilized European view was regarded as wild. One such a wild population in America, the Indians, was wild in comparison to the civilization designated as living in the last centuries in the European world, and yet there lived in them in relation to other soul forces which excludes the intellect, something the so-called civilized people would wish to have returned to them. Above all, the Indian population had an inherent regard for the spiritual forces of the world which actually, at closer inspection, presented something impressive. This population venerated a Great Spirit. This was already becoming decadent during the times of the conquests, but this decadent revelation pointed back to the veneration of a Great Spirit, which flowed and wove through everything and had its lower forces within separate elemental spirits.

Within this, let me say, religious pantheistic image lived this American people. Above all we must emphasize: this American folk had not participated in the outer sense in what the European population had participated in during the course of the so-called Christian development. What European Christianity brought had not been shared by the American Indians. The entire soul constitution of this folk developed intensive pantheistic feelings and based their behaviour on these impulses. In addition what developed in these souls was their ability to spend a relatively short time between death and a new birth. They needed no great period of time but it was intensive, unbelievably simple, elementary what these souls lived through in processing the spiritual world. So not only the souls of the Indian population, as they lived in the time of the conquest of the West—in this case nearly all—but also later souls, have already essentially returned into the western European population.

By studying—in reverse—the course of generations from the present time into the Middle Ages, we could discover physically inherited features. Taking this as the total reality, we lull ourselves into illusions. It is an abstract observation to say that the present western peoples of Europe are very far away from Central Europe and continuing to Eastern Europe and further, can only be examined so that we may say: these nations received their features from previous generations, and so on. This is actually not only the case, because these bodies carrying the ancestral blood have drawn western souls into them like the majority of the people; souls therefore, which through their inner development had not experienced the Christ impulse but in essence carried a kind of pantheistic impulse. Already in the first weeks of their upbringing spent in their environment—because even outer culture, outer civilization propagates in a straight line from generation to generation, but excluding inner soul impulses—these people outwardly adopt Christianity and then from outside they are moulded which we today often encounter as singular and unique. By our impartial observation these people may be seen, if our glance is penetrated thoroughly into its spiritual-intellectual-characteristic aspect, as if something is pulsing within them, something which had been conveyed by their soul from the past.

I said that things revealed through spiritual scientific research are often paradoxes. These things can't be solved by speculation. They have to come about through presented experiences and are often found in established literary methods. Whoever verifies this outwardly will find that light is shed on the outer world, based on knowledge like this.

We will now refer to people who lived during the time of migration in Europe; who emigrated from Europe. These souls were similar to those who had spread Christianity from the south to the north, they were souls who grew into the externalised Christianizing impulse. These souls who accepted Christianity like those living in Europe during the first century—and were quite different to those living with Christianity today—didn't incarnate again into the Central European population. These souls certainly needed longer to return after death into a new birth than did the American Indian souls; it involved souls who had gone through their physical existence earlier than those others who we considered as the last Indian souls, actually the Indian souls during the time of conquest. What the destiny of these earlier Indian souls was, we will not explore now. However, these souls who incarnated in the first Christian century in Europe and who were present in the cultural spread of Christianity from the south to the north, these incarnated now more towards Asia. What I am now describing reveals, particularly clear in these times, how the dreadful catastrophe of the second decade of the twentieth century is so closely stitched into it. In our study of the present earth civilisation now appears something extraordinarily meaningful, for we notice that these souls have incarnated into the Japanese population; that the kind of Christianising a soul had undergone through Europe's Christianizing, who now hear no sound of Christianity from infancy, who only through the subconscious carry a certain nuance of Asian decadence as a result of the then Christianising impulse which they still carry within them, now turn against the present Europe. It is essentially a result of the total decadence of declining oriental wisdom—which at one time was so great, as I have depicted for you—in harmony with the first primitive Christian impulses, how they originated when Christianity in Europe spread from the south to the north under the barbaric populations. This is how it was essentially in the major part of the population. Certainly it complicated things as a result, that this population was thus originated—the souls of the American ancient population like the Central European population both moving eastwards—intermixing into many unique bodies now occupied by souls who had lived during the first Christian centuries more towards the south. These are now right within the populations which originated in this way as I have described to you.

Then we have, when we study the present civilisation, a large number of souls who already in the first centuries AD lived before the founding of Christianity in Asia, in the near East, or in general over the entire Asia. This was not the time of great blossoming of the oriental culture of nature, but it was the time when ideas and concepts were being created which would help understand the Mystery of Golgotha. I'm talking about souls who stood far from the Mystery of Golgotha but who had a particular culture of wisdom which could not be transplanted into the West, and from which the Mystery of Golgotha could be understood as coming out of Hellenism, out of the Roman culture.

We must always differentiate between the Mystery of Golgotha, according to facts, and the various interpretations which have been brought about in the course of centuries. These facts can be interpreted in a different way in every age, and it would be nonsense to identify some or other teaching of the Mystery of Golgotha with the actual facts of this Mystery. I can explain this with a comparison. Imagine we have a very ingenious person. We also have a child, and next, a mediocre person, balancing everything out, somewhat middle class, even an average person, and thirdly a person with a disposition of brilliance. All three are presented with the same thing: the actual reality of the ingenious individual. The child will have some or other explanation of the genius' actions. The philistine who wants to balance everything out, will also have an explanation, and the person with a disposition of having ingenious qualities will have another explanation. All three are confronted with the same reality but their explanations are completely different and one is not justified to identify either the one or the other as the actual reality. In the same way one may not identify the teachings of the first Christians with the reality of Christianity. These teachings of the first Christian centuries came out of the Orient. One actually learnt what the teachings of oriental wisdom were and they were used to illuminate the Mystery of Golgotha. It is naturally terribly tyrannical when progressive churches take this teaching as the only valid interpretation of the Mystery of Golgotha, because it is nothing other than an interpretation according to the preconditions of a certain age. Other times could interpret the Mystery of Golgotha differently. We must explain it spiritual scientifically to justify the demands of the present time.

Therefore, what lived in the Christ teaching impulse in the first centuries, we find—but not applied to Christianity, rather more or less disregarding the Mystery of Golgotha—in the more contemporary intellectual people but less in the majority of people, the teaching studied in the Far East. Those souls who lived just before and also during the time of the Mystery of Golgotha and who were actual oriental souls, experienced a long stretch of time between their death and rebirth while the oriental culture, even in its decadent form, presented extraordinary images to these souls.

These souls appeared in the people who became the American nation, as a conquered people, while Europeans flooded America. The entire American culture with its materialistic aspect, essentially originated out of this appearance of souls who were essentially oriental souls during the time which I have just characterized for you, and who now penetrated bodies with the experience that this embodiment was strange, allowing themselves to be sucked into this embodiment which they did not understand, but took as primitively materialistic and appeared strange because they had basically lived in strong abstractions in their previous earthly life. They could not enter into themselves in their present incarnation but carried over from their previous life what had then been experienced as outer nature observation in an attitude of secluded, often sectarian religiosity. This exists in the denial of matter with Mrs Eddy, with the Scientologists and so on. Everything which appears in the outer world can verify these things, if we consider them with enough impartiality.

By adding what anthroposophic spiritual science offers to what outer anthropological methods of examination supply, we may obtain an image of reality. However we should be serious with what anthroposophic spiritual science can offer. We should not be satisfied with the mere theory of repeated earthly lives. We should observe reality, the outer reality, practically, in relation to this knowledge and then this knowledge can gradually carry its fruits into a practical social life.

We must consistently realize that those who cling to a viewpoint which only considers outer laws of nature, who direct people towards only considering the merely anthropological, only observing what is physically inherited from one generation to the next, that they will always face more and more riddles. Illusions can be entered into for a long time, regarding such riddles. We can believe in some understanding in the course of humanity but we only enter into such illusions while theory, crammed in from earliest youth, is taken as the basis, until we can gradually only observe what comes visibly to the eye, what expresses itself as physically inherited results. However it will probably eventually happen that someone says: yes, but there are facts after all which cannot be ignored, and which are inexplicable in the context of mere anthropological causality. We need to take into consideration that in some or other generation of some or other nation are souls at present who have come from somewhere else than from the great-great-great grandfathers of this nation. To the nation's egoism that might not sound very good but without it this egotism will dwindle when humanity goes through a similar development in future. It has been pointed out already that the largest part of the European population certainly had been propagated through their ancestral blood, but carry Indian souls amongst then, and that these souls lived here in Europe—a largest part of the same in the time of the Attilas—and who had embraced Christianity, which we now meet over in Asia. Even in some educated souls we can see this through unprejudiced examination. Certainly, so correct, so pedantically abstract as we are used to considering things today, they cannot be considered when we search for the reality as it is meant here. However, when we don't build our concepts as abstractly as we are used to, but if we want to come to the reality, then we must go out from such points of view which are mentioned here. Various things will be discovered which appear paradoxical but which actually clarifies reality.

It is for example curious, partly in the coquettish statements of Rabindranath Tagore to observe this strange flavour. One might say here is the possibility to grasp with spiritual hands the Christian descended soul and the oriental descended body. This provides an orientalising coquetry. That which appeared specifically as something well-meaning dribbling into the soul of Rabindranath Tagore, comes from having once sailed into a Christian soul but who did not become a Christian, while living in an outer, non-Christian civilization.

The Greek saying “Know Thyself” is not only directed at single people and above all not merely destined for trivial self contemplation but it is also directed at mankind. However, humanity finds this observation uncomfortable as a rule. Still, we won't make progress in our civilization, but go progressively backwards if we don't become serious about the Apollonian words “Know Thyself”. It is certainly something uncomfortable—such people as Kurt Leese, to whom I've referred in open lectures in Basel, found it “annoying” and “provocative” if one can't merely get to know a person according to what his nose looks like, what his mouth looks like, or how his eyes appear, but that one gets to know him by what his soul looks like. Will we practically accomplish an entry into a spiritual world view if we utter empty abstractions about repeated earthly lives and the repeated earthly lives expressed as destiny, and shrink back from the practical application in life when we can't learn any more about people than if they are blond or dark, have this or that form of eyebrow, this or that form of a nose? If we want to be serious about broadening our spiritual world view then everything indicating “Knowledge of Humanity” must be permeated by spiritual impulses, then we need not shrink from the discomfort in our soul qualities as well as those of others by really getting to know them. Then we need even so, as we did with the nose, look at the soul qualities and as a result the progress of humanity from the present into the future will be touched, for we don't merely look at the outer form of the nose but that soul-to-soul relationships develop between people, focussing on soul knowledge. What is called the social question is something more profound than is imagined by many. This social question can basically not be considered from afar if a study of mankind needs to be continued, which I stated yesterday at the end of my lecture, where the human being is completely missing and there is only arguments about private property and its cultivation, and of economizing machines. Since the decline, humanity has forgotten instinctive soul knowledge and today the social life is experienced by looking actually at one another externally. This drives the wildest instincts to the surface. Humanity would decline into the most savage instincts if the soul spiritual did not breathe through our human life directly. Added to this it is necessary to take note that besides the outer historic causality, the reality of earthly humanity being there throughout and right up to the present, and actually what follows is not merely their physicality brought forward, but that it also applies to the soul, which had lived in some or other soul-spiritual entity in this or that earlier time on the earth. This results in there being qualities in the reincarnated soul and in physical features which are truly expressed in the reality of the human civilization in the present time.

The previous reaction against a spiritual world view doesn't only apply to the mechanical materialistic way of thinking along scientific and theoretical lines but go much deeper. They justify themselves today also by directing their world view in a way which avoids everything soul-spiritual and only focuses on the physical-anthropological results of generations. A map of Europe will develop purely according to the blood relationships of peoples, purely according the chauvinistic, folk egotistic impulses. That is the practical social reaction against the soul spiritual world view coming in. One could say: By Europe accepting the rhetoric of Wilson based on the autonomy of blood related peoples it is declared: we want to know nothing about soul-spiritual impulses.—It is an opposition against the inclusion of the soul-spiritual.

This is not criticism but simply a description of the evidence because what makes itself valid is actually the social practice, the kind of racial opposition against the validity of the self in the soul-spiritual. This soul-spiritual however, by apprehending the fundamental attitude of people, also grips practical life. This is an urgent necessity which can't be seized quickly enough by people of the present day: those who start to understand something about the practical meaning of anthroposophically orientated spiritual science through transforming ideas of this spiritual science into vigorous business impulses for people, must make every effort, wherever possible, to work against that which is purely anthropological. We notice today how the world through anthropology—in the widest sense of anthropology—rattles into a decline. It must be shielded from this decline through Anthroposophy.

These are actually the two streams in the evolution of humanity, which must fight a hard battle between them. On the one side is the purely anthropological which goes through political measures even in its most diverse forms, and on the other, the Anthroposophical, which is still being frowned upon today. We see everywhere how contemporary people gradually need to develop themselves towards strong inner initiatives through which they can feel called into making a choice to the one or the other side. This choice is not to merely, I might say, be secluded in a little theory chamber, in a little world-view chamber, it needs to find its application throughout our world view in practice. In particular it is taken amiss that whoever can really not remain steady as an anthroposophical world view supporter to a certain degree, but who see the meaning of the spiritual specifically in the spirit as controlling matter, learning to dive into matter, everyday life is also seen from this same point of view. A real awakening of humanity—I have often said this—is necessary, such an awakening that humanity will develop inner courage to come to a decision. That is needed in humanity today.

In this regard real depressing impulses are to be found at the basis of so-called civilized humanity today. We have ample opportunity in the present time to notice how everything is still rejected when people are demanded to make some or other decision within themselves. We need not decline into some kind of convention when drawn into everyday life, but need to draw into everyday life that which will become the future signature of development directly before us, in order to examine it from a higher perspective.

Haven't we actually yet again seen an event which basically really elucidates the sleeping character of the present-day soul? I have not felt embarrassed for having referred for many years to the love of abstraction which has made the largest part of humanity into Wilsonians, and I have characterised what that really means at present. Now, we have lately experienced, also even with smaller populations, what to a certain extent belongs to civilization, that a decision should have been made. It is presented in many ways as problematic in character but which was needed by this nation to wake up to some extent. We have experienced, I might say, how through a real paradox this personality would be eliminated and the nation had decided to call for a nobody, a person regarded as a nothing to be their leader.

These things certainly affect the most everyday aspects, but this is it, something which is so close that one fails to grasp them as symptoms, that one disregards them with a cold heart and do not see what kind of symptoms of decline exist in humanity and how necessary it is to call up the forces which will enable humanity to wake up their souls. It has already been necessary for educated people today to research current events and take part in them with greater liveliness to what happens within them.

A person is not regarded as great by indifferently passing by these events which are so deeply symptomatic, but by allowing these events to show them what really works from within. How often have I pointed out how the ahrimanic powers currently course through humanity? This influence of ahrimanic powers through humanity can outwardly be seen when one is unprejudiced. But how can one penetrate to the truth when historical events which could verify outer truth, is indifferently and sleepily passed by and taken note of in this manner people are used to do today? Spiritual science will certainly not want to go according to convention; spiritual science must bear the reality of life within it. Today the world must be seen by how strong ahrimanic powers rise up in opposition to everything which is emphasized by the spirit. It is needed in these days—which of course include years—to decide if the Father was right, who abolished the Spirit in 869 during the Ecumenical Council, if it should remain like this or if the Spirit should again be included in the evolution of humanity. This however will not be enlivened again through mere theoretical observations but through it becoming a practice in life.

[ 1 ] If the thought of the teleological structure of nature was to be reformed in the sense of a naturalistic world conception, the purpose-adjusted formation of the organic world had to be explained in the same fashion as the physicist or the chemist explains the lifeless processes. When a magnet attracts iron shavings, no physicist will assume that there is a force at work in the magnet that aims toward the purpose of the attraction. When hydrogen and oxygen form water as a compound, the chemist does not interpret this process as if something in both substances had been actively striving toward the purpose of forming water. An explanation of living beings that is guided by a similar naturalistic mode of thinking must conclude that organisms become purpose-adjusted without anything in nature planning this purpose-conformity. This conformity comes to pass without being anywhere intended. Such an explanation was given by Charles Darwin. He took the point of view that there is nothing in nature that plans the design. Nature is never in a position to consider whether its products are adequate to a purpose or not. It produces without choosing between what is adequate to a purpose and what is not.

[ 2 ] What is the meaning of this distinction anyhow? When is a thing in conformity with a purpose? Is it not when it is so arranged that the external circumstances correspond to its needs, to its life conditions? A thing is inadequate to purpose when this is not the case. What will happen if, while a complete absence of plan in nature characterizes the situation, formations of all degrees of purpose-conformity, from the most to the least adequately adapted form, come into existence? Every being will attempt to adapt its existence to the given circumstances. A being well-adjusted to life will do so without much difficulty; one less adequately endowed will succeed only to a lesser degree. The fact must be added to this that nature is not a parsimonious housekeeper in regard to the production of living beings. The number of germs is prodigious. The abundant production of germs is backed up by inadequate means for the support of life. The effect of this will be that those beings that are better adapted to the acquisition of food will more easily succeed in their development. A well-adapted organic being will prevail in the strife for existence over a less adequately adjusted one. The latter must perish in this competition. The fit, that is to say, the one adapted to the purpose of life, survives; the unfit, that is, the one not so adapted, does not. This is the “struggle for life.” Thus, the forms adequate to the purpose of life are preserved even if nature itself produces, without choice, the inadequate side by side with the adequate. Through a law, then, that is as objective and as devoid of any wise purpose as any mathematical or mechanical law of nature can be, the course of nature's evolution receives a tendency toward a purpose-conformity that is not originally inherent in it.

[ 3 ] Darwin was led to this thought through the work of the social economist Malthus entitled Essay on the Principle of Population (1798). In this essay the view is advanced that there is a perpetual competition going on in human society because the population grows at a much faster pace than the supply of food. This law that Malthus had stated as valid for the history of mankind, was generalized by Darwin into a comprehensive law of the whole world of life.

[ 4 ] Darwin now set out to show how this struggle for existence becomes the creator of the various forms of living beings and that thereby the old principle of Linnaeus was overthrown, that “we have to count as many species in the animals and vegetable kingdoms as had been principally created.” The doubt against this principle was clearly formed in Darwin's mind when, in the years 1831–36, he was on a journey to South America and Australia. He tells how this doubt took shape in him.

When I visited the Galapagos Archipelago during my journey on H.M.S. Beagle, at a distance of about 500 miles from the shores of South America, I saw myself surrounded by strange species of birds, reptiles and snakes, which exist nowhere else in the world. Almost all of them bore the unmistakable stamp of the American continent. In the song of the mocking-thrush, in the sharp scream of the vultures, in the large candlestick-like opuntias I noticed distinctly the vicinity of America; and yet these islands were separated from the continent by many miles and were very different in their geological constitution and their climate. Even more surprising was the fact that most of the inhabitants of each of the individual islands of the small archipelago were specifically different although closely related. I often asked myself how these strange animals and men had come into being. The simplest way seemed to be that the inhabitants of the various islands were descended from one another and had undergone modifications in the course of their descent, and that all inhabitants of the archipelago were descendants of those of the nearest continent, namely, America, where the colonization naturally would have its origin. But it was for a long time an unexplainable problem to me how the necessary modification could have been obtained.

The answer to this question is contained in the naturalistic conception of the evolution of the living organism. As the physicist subjects a substance to different conditions in order to study its properties, so Darwin, after his return, observed the phenomena that resulted in living beings under different circumstances. He made experiments in breeding pigeons, chickens, dogs, rabbits and plants. Through these experiments it was shown that the living forms continuously change in the course of their propagation. Under certain circumstances some living organisms change so much after a few generations that in comparing the newly bred forms with their ancestors, one could speak of two completely different species, each of which follows its own design of organization. Such a variability of forms is used by the breeder in order to develop organisms through cultivation that answer certain demands. A breeder can produce a species of sheep with an especially fine wool if he allows only those specimens of his flock to be propagated that have the finest wool. The quality of the wool is then improved in the course of the generations. After some time, a species of sheep is obtained which, in the formation of its wool, has progressed far beyond its ancestors. The same is true with other qualities of living organisms. Two conclusions can be drawn from this fact. The first is that nature has the tendency to change living beings; the second, that a quality that has begun to change in a certain direction increases in that direction, if in the process of propagation of organic beings those specimens that do not have this quality are excluded. The organic forms then assume other qualities in the course of time, and continue in the direction of their change once this process has begun. They change and transmit the changed qualities to their descendants.

[ 5 ] The natural conclusion from this observation is that change and hereditary transmission are two driving principles in the evolution of organic beings. If it is to be assumed that in the natural course of events in the world, formations that are adapted to life come into being side by side with those not adapted as well as others, it must also be supposed that the struggle for life takes place in the most diversified forms. This struggle effects, without a plan, what the breeder does with the aid of a preconceived plan. As the breeder excludes the specimen from the process of propagation that would introduce undesired qualities into the development, so the struggle for life eliminates the unfit. Only the fit survive in evolution. The tendency for perpetual perfection enters thus into the evolutionary process like a mechanical law. After Darwin had seen this and after he had thereby laid a firm foundation to a naturalistic world conception, he could write the enthusiastic words at the end of his work, The Origin of Species, which introduced a new epoch of thought:

Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.

At the same time one can see from this sentence that Darwin does not derive his conception from any anti-religious sentiment but merely from the conclusions that for him follow from distinctly significant facts. It was not hostility against the needs of religious experience that persuaded him to a rational view of nature, for he tells us distinctly in his book how this newly acquired world of ideas appeals to his heart.

Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed in matter by the Creator that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual. When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the linear descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled. . . . Hence, we may look with some confidence to a secure future of great length. And as natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress toward perfection.

[ 6 ] Darwin showed in great detail how the organisms grow and spread, how, in the course of their development, they transmit their properties once they are acquired, how new organs are produced and change through use or through lack of use, how in this way the organic beings are adjusted to their conditions of existence and how finally through the struggle for life a natural selection takes place by means of which an ever increasing variety of more and more perfect forms come into being.

[ 7 ] In this way an explanation of teleologically adjusted beings seems to be found that requires no other method for organic nature than that which is used in inorganic nature. As long as it was impossible to offer an explanation of this kind it had to be admitted, if one wanted to be consistent, that everywhere in nature where a purpose-adjusted being came into existence, the intervention of an extraneous power had to be assumed. In every such case one had to admit a miracle.

[ 8 ] Those who for decades before the appearance of Darwin's work had endeavored to find a naturalistic world and life conception now felt most vividly that a new direction of thought had been given. This feeling is expressed by David Friedrich Strauss in his book, The Old and the New Faith (1872).

One sees this is the way it must go; this is where the new banner is waving sprightly in the wind. It is a real joy in the sense of the loftiest joys of intellectual advance. We philosophers and critical theologians talked and talked to discredit the idea of a miracle. Our decree had no effect whatever, because we did not know how to demonstrate this idea as a superfluous one, because we did not know how to avoid it for we did not know of any energy of nature with which we could replace it where it seemed to be most necessary to be assumed. Darwin has demonstrated this energy of nature, this procedure of nature; he has opened the door through which a fortunate posterity will throw out the miracle once and for all times. Everyone who knows how much depends on miracles will praise him for that deed as one of the greatest benefactors of the human race.

[ 9 ] Through Darwin's idea of fitness it is possible to think the concept of evolution really in the form of a natural law. The old doctrine of involution, which assumes that everything that comes into existence has been there in a hidden form before (compare pages in Part 1 Chapter IX), had been deprived of its last hope with this step. In the process of evolution as conceived by Darwin, the more perfect form is in no way contained in the less perfect one, for the perfection of a higher being comes into existence through processes that have nothing whatsoever to do with the ancestors of this being. Let us assume that a certain evolutionary series has arrived at the marsupials. The form of the marsupials contains nothing at all of a higher, more perfect form. It contains only the ability to change at random in the course of its propagation. Certain circumstances then come to pass that are independent of any “inner” latent tendency of development of the form of the marsupials but that are such that of all possible variations (mutations) the pro-simians survive. The forms of the marsupials contained that of the pro-simians no more than the direction of a rolling billiard ball contains the path it will take after it has been deflected from its original course by a second billiard ball.

[ 10 ] Those accustomed to an idealistic mode of thinking had no easy time in comprehending this reformed conception of evolution. Friedrich Theodor Vischer, a man of extraordinary acumen and subtlety of spirit who had come from Hegel's school, writes as late as 1874 in an essay:

Evolution is an unfolding from a germ that proceeds from attempt to attempt until the picture that the germ contained latently as a possibility has become real. But once this is accomplished it stops and holds on to the form that is found, keeping it as a permanent one. Every concept as such would lose its firm outline if we were to consider the types that have existed on our planet for so many thousands of years as forever variable and above all if we were so to consider our own human type. We should then be unable any longer to trust our thoughts, the laws conceived by our thinking, our feelings, the pictures of our imagination, all of which are nothing but the clarifying imitations of forms of nature as it is known to us. Everything becomes questionable.

[ 11 ] In another passage in the same essay he says:

I still find it a little hard, for instance, to believe that we should owe our eye to the process of seeing, our ear to that of hearing. The extraordinary weight that is given to the process of natural selection is something I am not quite satisfied with.

[ 12 ] If Vischer had been asked whether or not he imagined that hydrogen and oxygen contained within themselves in a latent form a picture of water to make it possible for the latter to develop from the former, he would undoubtedly have answered, “No, neither in oxygen nor in hydrogen is there anything contained of the water that is formed; the conditions for the formation of this substance are given only when hydrogen and oxygen are combined under certain circumstances.” Is the situation then necessarily different when, through the two factors of the marsupials and the external conditions, the pro-simians came into being? Why should the pro-simians be contained as a possibility, as a scheme, in the marsupials in order to be capable of being developed from them? What comes into being through evolution is generated as a new formation without having been in existence in any previous form.

[ 13 ] Thoughtful naturalists felt the weight of the new teleological doctrine no less than Strauss. Hermann Helmholtz belongs, without doubt, among those who, in the eighteen-fifties and sixties, could be considered as representatives of such thoughtful naturalists. He stresses the fact that the wonderful purpose-conformity in the structure of living organisms, which becomes increasingly apparent as science progresses, challenges the comparison of all life processes to human actions. For human actions are the only series of phenomena that have a character that is similar to the organic ones. The fitness of the arrangements in the world of organisms does, according to our judgment, in most cases indeed far surpass what human intelligence is capable of creating. It therefore cannot surprise us that it has occurred to people to seek the origin of the structure and function of the world of living beings in an intelligence far superior to that of man. Helmholtz says:

Before Darwin one could admit two kinds of explanations for the fact of organic purpose adjustment, both of which depended on an interference of a free intelligence in the course of natural phenomena. One either considered, according to the vitalistic theory, the life-processes as perpetually guided by a life-soul; or one saw in each species an act of a supernatural intelligence through which it was supposed to have been generated. . . . Darwin's theory contains an essentially new creative thought. It shows that a purpose-adjustment of the form in the organisms can come to pass also without interference of an intelligence through the random effect of a natural law. This is the law of the transmission of individual peculiarities from the parents to the descendants, a law that was long known and recognized but was merely in need of a definite demarcation.

[ 14 ] Helmholtz now is of the opinion that such a demarcation is given by the principle of natural selection in the struggle for existence. A scientist who, like Helmholtz, belongs to the most cautious naturalists of that time, J. Henle, said in a lecture, “If the experiences of artificial breeding were to be applied to the hypothesis of Oken and Lamarck, it would have to be shown how nature proceeds in order to supply the mechanism through which the experimental breeder obtains his result. This is the task Darwin set for himself and that he pursued with admirable industry and acumen.”

[ 15 ] The materialists were the ones who felt the greatest enthusiasm of all from Darwin's accomplishment. They had long been convinced that sooner or later a man like him would have to come along who would throw a philosophical light on the vast field of accumulated facts that was so much in need of a leading thought. In their opinion, the world conception for which they had fought could not fail after Darwin's discovery. Darwin approached his task as a naturalist. At first he moved within the limits reserved to the natural scientist. That his thoughts were capable of throwing a light on the fundamental problems of world conception, on the question of man's relation to nature, was merely touched upon in his book:

[ 16 ] In the future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be securely based on the foundation . . ., of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Much light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.

For the materialists, this question of the origin of man became, in the words of Buechner, a matter of most intimate concern. In lectures he gave in Offenbach during the winter of 1866–67, he says:

Must the theory of transformation also be applied to our own race? Must it be extended to man, to us? Shall we have to submit to an application of the same principles or rules that have caused the life of all other organisms for the explanation of our own genesis and origin? Or are we—the lords of creation—an exception?

[ 17 ] Natural science clearly taught that man could not be an exception. On the basis of exact anatomical investigations the English physiologist, T. H. Huxley, wrote in his book, Man's Place in Nature (1863):

The critical comparison of all organs and their modification in the series of the monkeys leads us to one and the same result, that the anatomical differences that separate man from the gorilla and the chimpanzee are not as great as the differences that separate the anthropoid apes from the lower species of monkeys.

Could there still be a doubt in the face of such facts that natural evolution had also produced man—the same evolution that had caused the series of organic beings as far as the monkey through growth, propagation, inheritance, transmutation of forms and the struggle for life?

[ 18 ] During the course of the century this fundamental view penetrated more and more into the mainstream of natural science. Goethe, to be sure, had in his own way been convinced of this, and because of this conviction he had most energetically set out to correct the opinion of his contemporaries, which held that man lacked an intermaxillary bone in his upper jaw. All animals were supposed to have this bone; only man, so one thought, did not have it. In its absence one saw the proof that man was anatomically different from the animals, that the plan of his structure was to be thought along different lines. The naturalistic mode of Goethe's thinking inspired him to undertake elaborate anatomical studies to abolish this error. When he had achieved this goal he wrote in a letter to Herder, convinced that he had made a most important contribution to the knowledge of nature; “I compared the skulls of men and animals and I found the trail, and behold, there it is. Now I ask you not to tell, for it must be treated as a secret. But I want you to enjoy it with me, for it is like the finishing stone in the structure of man; now it is complete and nothing is lacking. Just see how it is!”

[ 19 ] Under the influence of such conceptions the great question of philosophy of man's relation to himself and to the external world led to the task of showing by the method of natural science what actual process had led to the formation of man in the course of evolution. Thereby the viewpoint from which one attempted to explain the phenomena of nature changed. As long as one saw in every organism including man the realization of a purposeful design of structure, one had to consider this purpose also in the explanation of organic beings. One had to consider that in the embryo the later organism is potentially indicated. When this view was extended to the whole universe, it meant that an explanation of nature fulfilled its task best if it showed how the later stages of evolution with man as the climax are prepared in the earlier stages.

[ 20 ] The modern idea of evolution rejected all attempts of science to recognize the potential later phases in the earlier stages. Accordingly, the later phase was in no way contained in the earlier one. Instead, what was gradually developed was the tendency to search in the later phases for traces of the earlier ones. This principle represented one of the laws of inheritance. One can actually speak of a reversal of the tendency of explanation. This reversal became important for ontogenesis, that is, for the formation of the ideas concerning the evolution of the individual being from the egg to maturity. Instead of showing the predisposition of the later organs in the embryo, one set out to compare the various stages that an organism goes through in the course of its individual evolution from the egg to maturity with those of other forms of organisms. Lorenz Oken was already moving in this direction. In the fourth volume of his General History of Nature for All Classes of Readers he wrote:

Years ago, through my physiological investigations, I arrived at the view that the developmental stages of the chicken in the egg have much similarity with different classes of animals. In the beginning it shows only the organs of infusoria, thereupon gradually assuming those of the polyps, jellyfish, shellfish, snails and so forth. Conversely, then, I also had to consider the classes of animals as evolutionary stages that proceeded parallel to the developmental stages of the chicken. This view of nature challenged me to the most minute observation of those organs that are added as new forms to every higher class of animal, as well as of the ones that are developed one after the other during the developmental process. It is, of course, not easy to establish a complete parallelism with such a difficult object as a chick egg because its development is so incompletely known. But to prove that the parallelism actually exists is indeed not difficult. It is most distinctly shown in the transformation of the insects, which is nothing more than the development of the young going on before our eyes outside the egg, and actually in so slow a tempo that we can observe and investigate every embryonic stage at our leisure.

Oken compares the stages of transformation of the insects with the other animals and finds that the caterpillars have a great similarity with worms, and the cocoons with crustaceous animals. From such similarities this ingenious thinker draws the conclusion that “there is, therefore, no doubt that we are here confronted with a conspicuous similarity that justifies the idea that the evolutionary history in the egg is nothing but a repetition of the history of the creation of the animal classes.” It came as a natural gift to this brilliant man to apprehend a great idea for which he did not even need the evidence of supporting facts. But it also lies in the nature of such subtle ideas that they have no great effect on those who work in the field of science. Oken appears like a comet on the firmament of German philosophy. His thought supplies a flood of light. From a rich treasure of ideas he suggests leading concepts for the most divergent facts. His method of formulating factual connections, however, was somewhat forced. He was too much preoccupied with the point he wanted to make. This attitude also prevailed in his treatment of the law of the repetition of certain animal forms in the ontogeny of others mentioned above.

[ 21 ] In contrast to Oken, Karl Ernst von Baer kept to the facts as firmly as possible when he spoke, in his History of the Evolution of Animals (1828), of the observations that had led Oken to his idea:

The embryos of the mammals, birds, lizards and snakes, and probably also those of the turtles, in their earlier stages are extraordinarily similar to one another in their whole formation as well as in their individual parts. These embryos are so similar in fact that they can often only be distinguished by their sizes. I have in my possession two little embryos in alcohol that I forgot to label, and now I cannot possibly determine to what class they belong. They could be lizards, little birds or young mammals, so similar is the head and trunk formation of these animals. The extremities are still completely absent in these embryos and, even if they were there, at the first stages of their development they would not tell us anything because the feet of lizards and mammals, the wings and feet of birds, as well as the hands and feet of men, all develop from the same original form.

Such facts of embryological development excited the greatest interest of those thinkers who tended toward Darwinism. Darwin had proven the possibility of change in organic forms and, through transformation, the species now in existence might possibly be descended from a few original forms, or perhaps only one. Now it was shown that in their first phases of development the various living organisms are so similar to each other that they can scarcely be distinguished from one another, if at all. These two ideas, the facts of comparative embryology and the idea of descent, were organically combined in 1864 by Fritz Müller (1821–97) in his thoughtful essay, Facts and Arguments for Darwin. Müller is one of those high-minded personalities who needs a naturalistic world conception because they cannot breathe spiritually without it. Also, in regard to his own action, he would feel satisfaction only when he could feel that his motivation was as necessary as a force of nature. In 1852 Müller settled in Brazil. For twelve years he was a teacher at the gymnasium in Desterro on the island of Santa Catharina, not far from the coast of Brazil. In 1867 he had to give up this position. The man of the new world conception had to give way to the reaction that, under the influence of the Jesuits, took hold of his school. Ernst Haeckel has described the life and activity of Fritz Müller in the Jenaische Zeitschrift fur Naturwissenschaft (Vol. XXXI N.F. XXIV 1897).

Darwin called Müller the “prince of observers,” and the small but significant booklet, Facts and Arguments for Darwin, is the result of a wealth of observations. It deals with a particular group of organic forms, the crustaceans, which are radically different from one another in their maturity but are perfectly similar at the time when they leave the egg. If one presupposes, in the sense of Darwin's theory of descent, that all crustacean forms have developed from one original type, and if one accepts the similarity in the early stages as an inherited element of the form of their common ancestor, one has thereby combined the ideas of Darwin with those of Oken pertaining to the repetition of the history of the creation of the animal species in the evolution of the individual animal form. This combination was accomplished by Fritz Müller. He thereby brought the earlier forms of an animal class into a certain law-determined connection with the later ones, which, through transformation, have formed out of them. The fact that at an earlier stage the ancestral form of a being now living has had a particular form caused its descendants at a later time to have another particular form. By studying the stages of the development of an organism one becomes acquainted with its ancestors whose nature has caused the characteristics of the embryonic forms. Phylogenesis and ontogenesis are, in Fritz Müller's book, connected as cause and effect. With this step a new element had entered the Darwinian trend of ideas. This fact retains its significance even though Müller's investigations of the crustaceans were modified by the later research of Arnold Lang.

[ 22 ] Only four years had passed since the appearance of Darwin's Origin of the Species when Müller's book was published as its defense and confirmation. Müller had shown how, with one special class of animals, one should work in the spirit of the new ideas. Then, in 1866, seven years after the Origin of the Species, a book appeared that completely absorbed this new spirit. Using the ideas of Darwinism on a high level of scientific discussion, it threw a great deal of light on the problems of the interconnection of all life phenomena. This book was Ernst Haeckel's General Morphology of Organisms. Every page reflected his attempt to arrive at a comprehensive synopsis of the totality of the phenomena of nature with the help of new thoughts. Inspired by Darwinism, Haeckel was in search of a world conception.

[ 23 ] Haeckel did his best in two ways to attempt a new world conception. First, he continually contributed to the accumulation of facts that throw light on the connection of the entities and energies of nature. Second, with unbending consistency he derived from these facts the ideas that were to satisfy the human need for explanation. He held the unshakable conviction that from these facts and ideas man can arrive at a fully satisfactory world explanation. Like Goethe, Haeckel was convinced in his own way that nature proceeds in its work “according to eternal, necessary and thereby divine laws, so that not even the deity could change it.” Because this was clear to him, he worshipped his deity in these eternal and necessary laws of nature and in the substances in which they worked. As the harmony of the natural laws, which are with necessity interconnected, satisfies reason, according to his view, so it also offers to the feeling heart, or to the soul that is ethically or religiously attuned, whatever it may thirst for. In the stone that falls to the ground attracted by gravity there is a manifestation of the same divine order that is expressed in the blossom of a plant and in the human spirit that created the drama of Wilhelm Tell.

[ 24 ] How erroneous is the belief that the feeling for the wonderful beauty of nature is destroyed by the penetration of reason into laws of nature is vividly demonstrated in the work of Ernst Haeckel. A rational explanation of nature had been declared to be incapable of satisfying the needs of the soul. Wherever man is disturbed in his inner life through knowledge of nature, it is not the fault of knowledge but of man himself. His sentiments are developed in a wrong direction. As we follow a naturalist like Haeckel without prejudice on his path as an observer of nature, we feel our hearts beat faster. The anatomical analysis, the microscopic investigation does not detract from natural beauty but reveals a great deal more of it. There is no doubt that there is an antagonism between reason and imagination, between reflection and intuition, in our time. The brilliant essayist, Ellen Key, is without doubt right in considering this antagonism as one of the most important phenomena of our time (compare Ellen Key, Essays, S. Fischer Verlag, Berlin, 1899). Whoever, like Ernst Haeckel, digs deep into the treasure mine of facts, boldly emerges with the thoughts resulting from these facts and climbs to the heights of human knowledge, can see in the explanation of nature only an act of reconciliation between the two contesting forces of reflection and intuition that “alternate in forcing each other into submission” (Ellen Key). Almost simultaneously with the publication of the book in which Haeckel presented with unflinching intellectual honesty his world conception derived from natural science, that is, with the appearance of his Riddles of the Universe in 1899, he began a serial publication called Artforms of Nature. In it he gives pictures of the inexhaustible wealth of wonderful formations that nature produces and that surpass “by far all artistic forms created by man” in beauty and in variety. The same man who introduces our mind to the law-determined order of nature leads our imagination to the beauty of nature.

[ 25 ] The need to bring the great problems of world conception into direct contact with scientific, specialized research led Haeckel to one of the facts concerning which Goethe said that they represent the significant points at which nature yields the fundamental ideas for its explanation of its own accord, meeting us halfway in our search. This was realized by Haeckel as he investigated how Oken's thesis, which Fritz Müller had applied to the crustaceans, could be fruitfully applied to the whole animal kingdom. In all animals except the Protista, which are one-celled organisms, a cup- or jug-shaped body, the gastrula, develops from the zygote with which the organism begins its ontogenesis. This gastrula is an animal form that is to be found in the first stages of development of all animals from the sponges to man. It consists merely of skin, mouth and stomach. There is a low class of zoophytes that possess only these organs during their lives and therefore resemble gastrulae. This fact is interpreted by Haeckel from the point of view of the theory of descent. The gastrula form is an inherited form that the animal owes to the form of its common ancestor. There had been, probably millions of years before, a species of animals, the gastrae, that was built in a way similar to that of the lower zoophytes still living today—the sponges, polyps, etc. From this animal species all the various forms living today, from the polyps, sponges, etc., to man, repeat this original form in the course of their ontogenies.

[ 26 ] In this way an idea of gigantic scope had been obtained. The path leading from the simple to the complicated, to the perfect form in the world of organisms, was thereby indicated in its tentative outline. A simple animal form develops under certain circumstances. One or several individuals of this form change to another form according to the conditions of life to which they are exposed. What has come into existence through this transmutation is again transmitted to descendants. There are then two different forms, the old one that has retained the form of the first stage, and a new one. Both of these forms can develop in different directions and into different degrees of perfection. After long periods of time an abundant wealth of species comes into existence through the transmission of the earlier form and through new formations by means of the process of adaptation to the conditions of life.

[ 27 ] In this manner Haeckel connects today's processes in the world of organisms with the events of primeval times. If we want to explain some organ of an animal of the present age, we look back to the ancestors that had developed this organ under the circumstances in which they lived. What has come into existence through natural causes in earlier times has been handed down to our time through the process of heredity. Through the history of the species the evolution of the individual receives its explanation. The phylogenesis, therefore, contains the causes for the ontogenesis. Haeckel expresses this fact in his fundamental law of biogenetics: “The short ontogenesis or development of the individual is a rapid and brief repetition, an abbreviated recapitulation of the long process of phylogenesis, the development of the species.”

[ 28 ] Through this law every attempt at explanation through special purposes, all teleology in the old sense, has been eliminated. One no longer looks for the purpose of an organ; one looks for the causes through which it has developed. A given form does not point to a goal toward which it strives, but toward the origin from which it sprang. The method of explanation for the organic phenomena has become the same as that for the inorganic. Water is not considered the aim of oxygen, nor is man considered the purpose of creation. Scientific research is directed toward the origin of, and the actual cause for, living beings. The dualistic mode of conception, which declares that the organic and the inorganic has to be explained according to two different principles, gives way to a monistic mode of conception, to a monism that has only one uniform mode of explanation for the whole of nature.

[ 29 ] Haeckel characteristically points out that through his discovery the method has been found through which every dualism in the above-mentioned sense must be overcome.

Phylogenesis is the mechanical cause of ontogenesis. With this statement our basically monistic conception of organic evolution is clearly characterized, and on the truth of this principle depends primarily the truth of the gastraea theory. . . . Every naturalist, who in the field of biogenesis is not satisfied with a mere admiration of strange phenomena but strives for an understanding of their significance, will, in the future, either have to side with or against this principle. It marks at the same time the complete break that separates the older teleological and dualistic morphology from the new mechanical and monistic one. If the physiological functions of inheritance and adaptation have been proven to be the only causes of the process of organic formation, then every kind of teleology, of dualistic and metaphysical mode of conception has thereby been eliminated from the field of biogenesis; the sharp contrast between the leading principles is clearly marked. Either a direct and causal connection between ontogeny and phylogeny exists or it does not. There is no third possibility! Either epigenesis and descent, or pre-formation and creation! (Compare alsoin Part 1 Chapter IX of this book.)

After Haeckel had absorbed Darwin's view of the origin of man he defended forcefully the conclusion that must be drawn from it. It was impossible for him just to hint hesitatingly, like Darwin, at this “problem of all problems.” Anatomically and physiologically man is not distinguishable from the higher animals. Therefore, the same origin must be attributed to him as to them. Haeckel boldly defended this opinion and the consequences that followed from it for the conception of the world. There was no doubt for him that in the future the highest manifestations of man's life, the activities of his spirit, were to be considered under the same viewpoint as the function of the simplest living organism. The observation of the lowest animals, the protozoa, infusoria, rhizopods, taught him that these organisms had a soul. In their motions, in the indications of the sensations they show, he recognized manifestations of life that only had to be increased and perfected in order to develop into man's complicated actions of reason and will.

[ 30 ] Beginning with the gastraea, which lived millions of years ago, what steps does nature take to arrive at man? This was the comprehensive question as stated by Haeckel. He supplied the answer in his Anthropogenesis, which appeared in 1874. In its first part, this book deals with the history of the individual (ontogenesis), in the second part, with that of the species (phylogenesis). He showed point by point how the latter contains the causes of the former. Man's position in nature had thereby been determined according to the principles of the theory of descent. To works like Haeckel's Anthropogenesis, the statement that the great anatomist, Karl Gegenbaur, made in his Comparative Anatomy (1870) can be justly applied. He wrote that in exchange for the method of investigation Darwin gave to science with his theory he received in return clarity and firmness of purpose. In Haeckel's view, the method of Darwinism had also supplied science with the theory of the origin of man.

[ 31 ] What actually was accomplished by this step can be appreciated in its full measure only if one looks at the opposition with which Haeckel's comprehensive application of the principles of Darwinism was received by the followers of idealistic world conceptions. It is not even necessary to quote those who, blindly believing in the traditional opinion, turned against the “monkey theory,” or those who believed that all finer, higher morality would be endangered if men were no longer convinced that they had a “purer, higher origin.” Other thinkers, although quite open-minded with regard to new truths, found it difficult to accept this new truth. They asked themselves the question, [ 32 ] “Do we not deny our own rational thinking if we no longer look for its origin in a general world reason over us, but in the animal kingdom below?” Mentalities of this sort eagerly attacked the points where Haeckel's view seemed to be without support of the facts. They had powerful allies in a number of natural scientists who, through a strange bias, used their factual knowledge to emphasize the points where actual experience was still insufficient to prove the conclusions drawn by Haeckel. The typical, and at the same time the most impressive, representative of this viewpoint of the naturalists was Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902). The opposition of Virchow and Haeckel can be characterized as follows. Haeckel puts his trust in the inner consistency of nature, concerning which Goethe is of the opinion that it is sufficient to make up for man's inconsistency. Haeckel, therefore, argues that if a principle of nature has been verified for certain cases, and if we still lack the experience to show its validity in other cases, we have no reason to hold the progress of our knowledge back. What experience denies us today, it may yield tomorrow. Virchow is of the opposite opinion. He wants to yield as little ground as possible to a comprehensive principle. He seems to believe that life for such a principle cannot be made hard enough. The antagonism between these two spirits was brought to a sharp point at the Fiftieth Congress of German naturalists and doctors in 1877. Haeckel read a paper there on the topic, The Theory of Evolution of Today in Its Relation to Science in General.

[ 33 ] In 1894 Virchow felt that he had to state his view in the following way. “Through speculation one has arrived at the monkey theory; one could just as well have ended up with an elephant theory or a sheep theory.” What Virchow demanded was incontestable proof of this theory. As soon as something turned up that fitted as a link in the chain of the argumentation, Virchow attempted to invalidate it with all means at his disposal.

[ 34 ] Such a link in the chain of proof was presented with the bone remnants that Eugen Dubois had found in Java in 1894. They consisted of a skull and thigh bone and several teeth. Concerning this find, an interesting discussion arose at the Congress of Zoologists at Leyden. Of twelve zoologists, three were of the opinion that these bones came from a monkey and three thought they came from a human being; six, however, believed they presented a transitional form between man and monkey. Dubois shows in a convincing manner in what relation the being whose bone remnants were under discussion stood to the present monkey, on the one hand, and to man of today, on the other. The theory of evolution of natural science must claim such intermediary forms. They fill the holes that exist between numerous forms of organisms. Every new intermediary form constitutes a new proof for the kinship of all living organisms. Virchow objected to the view that these bone remnants came from such an intermediary form. At first, he declared that it was the skull of a monkey and the thigh bone of a man. Expert paleontologists, however, firmly pronounced, according to the careful report, on the finding, that the remnants belonged together. Virchow attempted to support his view that the thigh bone could be only that of a human being with the statement that a certain growth in the bone proved that it must have had a disease that could only have been healed through careful human attention. The paleontologist, Marsch, [e.Ed: perhaps American paleontologist, Othniel Charles Marsh (1831–1899)] however, maintained that similar bone extuberances occurred in wild animals as well. A further statement of Virchow's, that the deep incision between the upper rim of the eye socket and the lower skull cover of the alleged intermediary form proved it to be the skull of a monkey was then contradicted by the naturalist Nehring, who claimed that the same formation was found in a human skull from Santos, Brazil. Virchow's objections came from the same turn of mind that also caused him to consider the famous skulls of Neanderthal, Spy, etc., as pathological formations, while Haeckel's followers regarded them as intermediary forms between monkey and man.

[ 35 ] Haeckel did not allow any objections to deprive him of his confidence in his mode of conception. He continued his scientific work without swerving from the viewpoints at which he had arrived, and through popular presentations of his conception of nature, he influenced the public consciousness. In his book, Systematic Phylogenesis, Outline of a Natural System of Organisms on the Basis of the History of Species (1894–96), he attempted to demonstrate the natural kinship of organisms in a strictly scientific method. In his Natural History of Creation, which, from 1868–1908, appeared in eleven editions, he gave a popular explanation of his views. In 1899, in his popular studies on monistic philosophy entitled, The Riddles of the Universe, he gave a survey of his ideas in natural philosophy by demonstrating without reserve the many applications of his basic thoughts. Between all these works he published studies on the most diverse specialized researches, always paying attention at the same time to the philosophical principles and the scientific knowledge of details.

[ 36 ] The light that shines out from the monistic world conception is, according to Haeckel's conviction, to “disperse the heavy clouds of ignorance and superstition that have heretofore spread an impenetrable darkness over the most important one of all problems of human knowledge, that is, the problem concerning man's origin, his true nature and his position in nature.” This is what he said in a speech given August 26, 1898 at the Fourth International Congress of Zoologists in Cambridge, On Our Present Knowledge Concerning the Origin of Man. In what respect his world conception forms a bond between religion and science, Haeckel has shown in an impressive way in his book, Monism as a Bond between Religion and Science, Credo of a Naturalist, which appeared in 1892.

[ 37 ] If one compares Haeckel with Hegel, one can see distinctly the difference in the tendencies of world conception in the two halves of the nineteenth century. Hegel lives completely in the idea and accepts only as much as he needs from the world of facts for the illustration of his idealistic world picture. Haeckel is rooted with every fiber of his being in the world of facts, and he derives from this world only those ideas toward which these facts necessarily tend. Hegel always attempts to show that all beings tend to reach their climax of evolution in the human spirit; Haeckel continuously endeavors to prove that the most complicated human activities point back to the simplest origins of existence. Hegel explains nature from the spirit; Haeckel derives the spirit from nature. We can, therefore, speak of a reversal of the thought direction in the course of the century. Within German intellectual life, Strauss, Feuerbach and others began this process of reversal. In their materialism the new direction found a provisional extreme expression, and in Haeckel's thought world it found a strictly methodical-scientific one. For this is the significant thing in Haeckel, that all his activity as a research worker is permeated by a philosophical spirit. He does not at all work toward results that for some philosophical motivation or other are considered to be the aim of his world conception or of his philosophical thinking. What is philosophical about him is his method. For him, science itself has the character of a world conception. His very way of looking at things predestines him to be a monist. He looks upon spirit and nature with equal love. For this reason he could find spirit in the simplest organism. He goes even further than that. He looks for the traces of spirit in the inorganic particles of matter:

Every atom possesses an inherent quantity of energy and in this sense is animate. Without assuming a soul for the atom, the simplest and most general phenomena of chemistry are unexplainable. Pleasure and displeasure, desire and aversion, attraction and repulsion must be a common property of all material atoms. For the motion of the atoms, which must take place in the formation and dissolution of every chemical compound can only be explained if we assume that they have sensation and will. On this assumption the generally accepted chemical doctrine of affinity is really based.

As he traces spirit down to the atom so he follows the purely material mechanism of events up to the most lofty accomplishments of the spirit:

The spirit and soul of man are also nothing else but energies that are inseparably bound to the material substratum of our bodies. As the motion of our flesh is bound to the form elements of our muscles, so our mind's power of thinking is bound to the form elements of our brains. Our spiritual energies are simply functions of these physical organs just as every energy is a function of a material body.

[ 38 ] One must not confuse this mode of conception with one that dreams souls in a hazy mystical fashion into the entities of nature and then assumes that they are more or less similar to that of man. Haeckel is a strict opponent of a world conception that projects qualities and activities of man into the external world. He has repeatedly expressed his condemnation of the humanization of nature, of anthropomorphism, with a clarity that cannot be misunderstood. If he attributes animation to inorganic matter, or to the simplest organisms, he means by that nothing more than the sum of energy manifestations that we observe in them. He holds strictly to the facts. Sensation and will are for him no mystical soul energies but are nothing more than what we observe as attraction and repulsion. He does not mean to say that attraction and repulsion are really sensation and will. What he means is that attraction and repulsion are on the lowest stage what sensation and will are on a higher one. For evolution is for him not merely an unwrapping of the higher stages of the spiritual out of the lower forms in which they are already contained in a hidden fashion, but a real ascent to new formations, an intensification of attraction and repulsion into sensation and will (compare prior comments in this Chapter).

This fundamental view of Haeckel agrees in a certain way with that of Goethe. He states in this connection that he had arrived at the fulfillment of his view of nature with his insight into the “two great springs of all nature,” namely, polarity and intensification (Polarität und Steigerung), polarity “belonging to matter insofar as we think of it materially, intensification insofar as we think of it spiritually. The former is engaged in the everlasting process of attraction and repulsion, the latter in a continual intensification. As matter can never be and act without spirit, however, nor spirit without matter, so matter can also be intensified and the spirit will never be without attraction and repulsion.”

[ 39 ] A thinker who believes in such a world conception is satisfied to explain by other such things and processes, the things and processes that are actually in the world. The idealistic world conceptions need, for the derivation of a thing or process, entities that cannot be found within the realm of the factual. Haeckel derives the form of the gastrula that occurs in the course of animal evolution from an organism that he assumes really existed at some time. An idealist would look for ideal forces under the influence of which the developing germ becomes the gastrula. Haeckel's monism draws everything he needs for the explanation of the real world from the same real world. He looks around in the world of the real in order to recognize in which way the things and processes explain one another. His theories do not have the purpose for him, as do those of the idealist, to find a higher element in addition to the factual elements, but they merely serve to make the connection of the facts understandable. Fichte, the idealist, asked the question of man's destination. He meant by that something that cannot be completely presented in the form of the real, the factual; something that reason has to produce as an addition to the factually given existence, an element that is to make the real existence of man translucent by showing it in a higher light. Haeckel, the monistic contemplator of the world, asks for the origin of man, and he means by that the factual origin, the lower organism out of which man had developed through actual processes.

[ 40 ] It is characteristic that Haeckel argues for the animation of the lower organisms. An idealist would have resorted to rational conclusions. He would present necessities of thought. Haeckel refers to what he has seen.

Every naturalist, who, like me, has observed for many years the life activities of the one-celled protozoa, is positively convinced that they, too, possess a soul. This cellular soul consists also of a sum of sensations, perceptions and will activities; sensation, thinking and will of our human souls differ from those of the cellular soul only in degree.

The idealist attributes spirit to matter because he cannot accept the thought that spirit can develop from mere matter. He believes that one would have to deny the spirit if one does not assume it to exist before its appearance in forms of existence without organs, without brains. For the monist, such thoughts are not possible. He does not speak of an existence that is not manifested externally as such. He does not attribute two kinds of properties to things: those that are real and manifested in them and those that in a hidden way are latent in them only to be revealed at a higher stage of development. For him, there is what he observes, nothing else, and if the object of observation continues its evolution and reaches a higher stage in the course of its development, then these later forms are there only in the moment when they become visible.

[ 41 ] How easily Haeckel's monism can be misunderstood in this direction is shown by the objections that were made by the brilliant thinker, Bartholomaeus von Carneri (1821–1909), who made lasting contributions for the construction of an ethics of this world conception. In his book, Sensations and Consciousness, Doubts Concerning Monism (1893), he remarks that the principle, “No spirit without matter, but also no matter without spirit,” would justify our extending this question to the plant and even to the next rock we may stumble against, and to attribute spirit also to them. Without doubt such a conclusion would lead to a confusion of distinctions. It should not be overlooked that consciousness arises only through the cell activity in the cerebrum. “The conviction that there is no spirit without matter, that is to say, that all spiritual activity is bound to a material activity, the former terminating with the latter, is based on experience, while there is no experience for the statement that there is always spirit connected with matter.” Somebody who would want to attribute animation to matter that does not show any trace of spirit would be like one who attributed the function to indicate time not to the mechanism of a watch but to the metal out of which it is made.

[ 42 ] Properly understood, Haeckel's view is not touched by Carneri's criticism. It is safe from this criticism because Haeckel holds himself strictly within the bounds of observation. In his Riddles of the Universe, he says, “I, myself, have never defended the theory of atom-consciousness. I have, on the contrary, expressly emphasized that I think the elementary psychic activities of sensation and will, which are attributed to the atoms, as unconscious.” What Haeckel wants is only that one should not allow a break in the explanation of natural phenomena. He insists that one should trace back the complicated mechanism by which spirit appears in the brain, to the simple process of attraction and repulsion of matter.

Haeckel considers the discovery of the organs of thought by Paul Flechsig to be one of the most important accomplishments of modern times. Flechsig had pointed out that in the gray matter of the brain there are to be found the four seats of the central sense organs, or four “inner spheres of sensation,” the spheres of touch, smell, sight and hearing. “Between the sense centers lie thought centers, the ‘real organs of mental life.’ They are the highest organs of psychic activity that produce thought and consciousness. . . . These four thought centers, distinguished from the intermediate sense centers by a peculiar and highly elaborate nerve structure, are the true organs of thought, the only organs of our consciousness. Recently, Flechsig has proved that man has some especially complicated structures in some of these organs that cannot be found in the other mammals and that explain the superiority of human consciousness.” (Riddles of the Universe, Chapt. X.)

[ 43 ] Passages like these show clearly enough that Haeckel does not intend to assume, like the idealistic philosophers, the spirit as implicitly contained in the lower stages of material existence in order to be able to find it again on the higher stages. What he wanted to do was to follow the simplest phenomena to the most complicated ones in his observation, in order to show how the activity of matter, which in the most primitive form is manifested in attraction and repulsion, is intensified in the higher mental operations.

[ 44 ] Haeckel does not look for a general spiritual principle for lack of adequate general laws explaining the phenomena of nature and mind. So far as his need is concerned, his general law is indeed perfectly sufficient. The law that is manifested in the mental activities seems to him to be of the same kind as the one that is apparent in the attraction and repulsion of material particles. If he calls atoms animated, this has not the same meaning that it would have if a believer in an idealistic world conception did so. The latter would proceed from the spirit. He would take the conceptions derived from the contemplation of the spirit down into the simplest functions of the atoms when he thinks of them as animated. He would explain thereby the natural phenomena from entities that he had first projected into them. Haeckel proceeds from the contemplation of the simplest phenomena of nature and follows them up to the highest spiritual activities. This means that he explains the spiritual phenomena from laws that he has observed in the simplest natural phenomena.

[ 45 ] Haeckel's world picture can take shape in a mind whose observation extends exclusively to natural processes and natural entities. A mind of this kind will want to understand the connection within the realm of these events and beings. His ideal would be to see what the processes and beings themselves reveal with respect to their development and interaction, and to reject rigorously everything that might be added in order to obtain an explanation of these processes and activities. For such an ideal one is to approach all nature as one would, for instance, proceed in explaining the mechanism of a watch. It is quite unnecessary to know anything about the watchmaker, about his skill and about his thoughts, if one gains an insight into the mechanical actions of its parts. In obtaining this insight one has, within certain limits, done everything that is admissible for the explanation of the operation of the watch. One ought to be clear about the fact that the watch itself cannot be explained if another method of explanation is admitted, as, for instance, if somebody thought of some special spiritual forces that move the hour and minute hands according to the course of the sun. Every suggestion of a special life force, or of a power that works toward a “purpose” within the organisms, appears to Haeckel as an invented force that is added to the natural processes. He is unwilling to think about the natural processes in any other way than by what they themselves disclose to observation. His thought structure is to be derived directly from nature.

In observing the evolution of world conception, this thought structure strikes us, as it were, as the counter-gift from the side of natural science to the Hegelian world conception, which accepts in its thought picture nothing from nature but wants everything to originate from the soul. If Hegel's world conception said that the self-conscious ego finds itself in the experience of pure thought, Haeckel's view of nature could reply that the thought experience is a result of the nature processes, is, indeed, their highest product. If the Hegelian world conception would not be satisfied with such a reply, Haeckel's naturalistic view could demand to be shown some inner thought experience that does not appear as if it were a mirror reflection of events outside thought life. In answer to this demand, a philosophy would have to show how thought can come to life in the soul and can really produce a world that is not merely the intellectual shadow of the external world. A thought that is merely thought, merely the product of thinking, cannot be used as an effective objection to Haeckel's view. In the comparison mentioned above, he would maintain that the watch contains nothing in itself that allows a conclusion as to the personality, etc., of the watchmaker. Haeckel's naturalistic view tends to show that, as long as one is merely confronted with nature, one cannot make any statement concerning nature except what it records. In this respect this naturalistic conception is significant as it appears in the course of the development of world conception. It proves that philosophy must create a field for itself that lies in the realm of spontaneous creativity of thought life beyond the thoughts that are gained from nature.

Philosophy must take the step beyond Hegel that was pointed out in a previous chapter. It cannot consist of a method that moves in the same field with natural science. Haeckel himself probably felt not the slightest need to pay any attention to such a step of philosophy. His world conception does bring thoughts to life in the soul, but only insofar as their life has been stimulated by the observation of natural processes. The world picture that thought can create when it comes to life in the soul without this stimulus represents the kind of higher world conception that would adequately complement Haeckel's picture of nature. One has to go beyond the facts that are directly contained in the watch if one wants to know, for instance, something about the form of the watchmaker's face. But, for this reason, one has no right to demand that Haeckel's naturalistic view itself should not speak as Haeckel does when he states what positive facts he has observed concerning natural processes and natural beings.

For many years it has been my duty to give lectures upon Spiritual Science, or Anthroposophy.

Those present at the lectures cannot but acknowledge that the foundation of Spiritual Science as presented is not a dreamy, idle pursuit for the few who have withdrawn from the common paths of life; it illumines the deepest problems and mysteries of existence.

Spiritual Science will lead the mind towards spiritual origins. It is destined to give out to man-kind knowledge of the spiritual worlds. At the same time its mission is to make life intelligible, to be a guiding star in work and action, giving us a broader and deeper understanding of what happens in our environment, through a comprehension of the underlying spiritual causes.

The confusion that exists in the average mind and the consequent spirit of dissension, are due to the endless contradictions found in the opinions of famous authorities regarding the problems of human life. Many people have, however, already felt how Anthroposophy widens the vision, and therefore leads to a wise adjustment of opinions.

Two famous modern contemporaries, whose influences are far-reaching, will be brought before us to-day; individualities well suited to present to us the vital contrasts existing in our time. It would be difficult to find two personalities in greater contrast in their thought and feeling and in their standard of right and wrong. On the one hand is the famous, the influential Tolstoy—so strong a personality that no appellation seems adequate to describe his significance for his day and generation. It is difficult to describe him as moralist, prophet, or reformer. But it is evident that in speaking of him something deeply rooted in the innermost depths of human nature is touched; that in his personality something lives which rises from the depths of the human soul—something that cannot be felt in those whose work is merely superficial. The other personality, in so marked a contrast to Tolstoy, is the American millionaire, Carnegie. Why should Carnegie be mentioned in connection with Tolstoy? Just as Tolstoy, out of the depths of his soul, strives to solve the problems of life satisfactorily, even so Carnegie, in his own way, endeavours with a practical and intelligent outlook upon life, to reach guiding principles.

Perhaps it might be said that just as Idealism and Realism are diametrically opposed, so are Tolstoy and Carnegie in relation to each other. As Fichte says, “Your opinion of life depends upon the kind of man you are,” and a man’s point of view is always connected b, finer or coarser threads with his peculiar character and temperament. Between these two personalities we find the greatest possible contrast. There is the wealthy Russian aristocrat, born in the lap of luxury, who through his social position was not only bound to know the external aspect of that life, but obliged to live with and to taste it. He is satiated with the modern way of thinking, which offers only the superficial. He looks up and beyond at the great outspread wings of moral ideals which the majority of mankind, even though admiring and willingly admitting as beautiful, still believe unattainable.

On the other hand we have Carnegie, who was born in simple surroundings, knowing necessity and sacrifice, not equipped with the advantages enjoyed by Tolstoy, but with a will to work with the endless, one may say, ideally-coloured ambition of becoming a man in the broadest sense of the word. Through this attitude towards life Carnegie evolves a kind of realistic idealism, a moral standpoint which reckons from what is seen with physical eyes of the turmoil of experiences in practical life.

Tolstoy, in his radical way, throws down the gauntlet to the modern order of things. His criticism becomes hard as it endeavours to combat modern thought, feeling, and selfish impulses. Carnegie sees life as it has developed historically. The word his soul uses to express his connection with life is “Satisfaction”—satisfaction with the existing order of things. He sees how the differences between rich and poor have arisen and how the differentiation of service has come into being. And everywhere this is his penetrating judgment: It is immaterial whether we find good or evil. Both exist, must exist. They are there and must be reckoned with. Let us work it out. From a realistic conception of things as they are, let us work out an idealism that aims at the great goal of pointing out the right way, within existing conditions, towards such an order of things as will further human progress and development.

This lecture does not “take sides” with either of these lives; but the conditions of their development must be understood in order to explain the contrasts: and if Spiritual Science has any task in regard to these men it must be that of understanding and explaining how these differences are evolved from the underlying principles of existence. It cannot be my task to offer biographical information. Only that will be said which will so illumine the souls of both men that we can enter into a deeper understanding of their personalities.

Tolstoy was from the first a man who did not have to fight for the material necessities of life, but was born in the midst of over-abundant wealth, and could easily have vanished like the many thousands who live within the realm of luxury. For this, however, he possessed too strong an individuality. From childhood only that which touched upon the deepest questions of the soul, and of life, seemed to influence him, though as a boy he did not regard critically the happenings around him but accepted them all as a matter of course. How different his attitude was later in life, when he became a censor of his surroundings.

A long account could be given of how Tolstoy became acquainted with the dark and miserable side of modern social life, especially during his period of army service; how, having learned the misery of war, and the superficiality of the social and literary life of St. Petersburg, he became disgusted with the ethics of the ruling classes. All this is well known. But what interests us more are the great questions which shone out before Tolstoy. Forcing itself more and more into his being, was the question, “What is the centre of life amidst all these conflicting conditions surrounding us? Where is the middle ground to be found?” Religion became for him the great and vital question. He could not at first tear himself from the conventional forms, and though religious considerations grew in importance as he asked himself, over and over again, “What is religion? What does it signify to humanity?” he could not recognize the connecting link between the soul and an unknown spiritual source. It seemed to him that all he had learned of true religion from the men of his own class, had been torn away from its source and had hardened and withered away.

At this time he became interested in the lower classes. As a soldier in the Caucasus he learned to know their inner life and found in them something of the primeval, that had not been torn away from the first cause. His eyes opened to the fact that in the naive existence of these lower, inferior people of the soil, truth and reality must abide more than in the artificialities of the class to which he belonged.

Problem after problem confronted him, none of which he could solve. “Yes; now I have seen those who have departed from the truth, and have become hardened in the periphery. And I have sought a way to religious depths through the souls of primitive people: But the answer to my question founders on the fact that the so-called educated can never be understood nor be in harmony with this primitive state of the soul.” No answer could be found to the burning question. So on and on until the contrasts and contradictions in life become plain. By reading his War and Peace, and Anna Karenina it can be seen how everywhere, even though the artistic form is paramount, the longing to understand life in its contrasts, and most of all the contradictions of the human character, permeate these works.

In later life, after he had become the great moral writer, he said: “The endeavour to portray a character ideally and soulfully created, yet in harmony with reality, has cost me untold misery, and I know that many of my contemporaries have had the same experience.”

It troubled him that such contradictions exist between that which one recognizes as the ideal and that which actually appears; for order and peace should reign in the world. This disturbed him as long as he was artistically active.

Tolstoy was not simply the objective onlooker all this time. He had been in the midst of life. He had experienced all these things, and could feel the intimate pricks of conscience, the inner reproaches that come to all who suddenly realize themselves to have been born into a certain class, and consequently under an obligation to conform to existing customs. It seemed inconsistent to criticize them. Such personalities are often driven to the verge of suicide by the turmoil in their minds.

Infinitely more can be learnt by introspection than by criticism of externalities. As from within outwards the horizon of Tolstoy broadened, until from the keen observation of his nearest surroundings he reached the broad plain where he overlooked the whole evolution of mankind, he saw to how wide and universal an extent the great and pure religious impulses of humanity had degenerated.

Then in all its depth, and in all its strength, the great impulse which was given to the world through Jesus Christ appeared to Tolstoy. But at its side also appeared the great Roman world of the Caesars which made Christianity subservient to power, representing only the outward form which had failed to save humanity and had become a mystery to men. And so his criticisms and his opinions became harsh and warped—and they are surely harsh enough.

It was most difficult for him to understand the contradictions in humanity. On the one side tremendous wealth; on the other dire poverty which resulted in the deplorable stunting of the soul’s life, so that humanity, through restriction of spiritual opportunities, could not find its way to spiritual wisdom specially to that which can be found in the original Christian teaching to which it must eventually penetrate.

Thus this comprehensive problem confronted him, this contrast between the luxury of the ruling classes and the spiritual and mental oppression of the masses. Experience of this problem ripened into a conviction, and he developed into a critic more penetrating perhaps than any before him—a critic who does not tire of describing things as they are, and of doing so in such a way as to impress us with their horror. It is natural to judge his attitude towards life from the trend of his contemplations. He said he would have liked to write a fairy tale with the following contents:

“One woman, having had a very bad encounter with another woman, disliked her intensely and wished to do her the most atrocious wrong. Accordingly she consulted a sorcerer, and acting upon his advice stole a child from her enemy. The sorcerer assured her that if she could take the child, who was born in great poverty, and place it in a home of wealth she could thus fully accomplish her revenge. This she was successful in doing. The child was adopted. It was taken care of according to the manner of the rich—spoiled and pampered. The woman had not expected this development, and was very angry. She went back to the seer to complain that he had given her wrong advice, and had betrayed her. ‘Wait,’ he said, ‘you have done the worst one could do to an enemy. When this child develops further and his conscience is awakened to an inner contrast with the outer world, he will know that all he longs for must be in another world: but he will not be able to find it. He will say, “The manner in which I have been brought up has robbed me of the ambition and determination to seek and follow the way which leads to the underlying causes of existence.”’

This results in intense suffering for the developing man. Tolstoy understands the soul torture of such an experience, and appreciates the temptation to suicide created by this inward unrest and uncertainty. This illustration reveals his attitude toward the social order of things.

Now to consider Carnegie, who was the child of a master-weaver. So long as the big factories did not exist the father was able to find work. In the midst of this prosperity Carnegie spent his infancy. Then through the growth of the large factory his father found himself out of work, and was obliged to emigrate from Scotland to America. Only through the most strenuous efforts was he able to provide the absolute necessities of life. The boy was obliged to work in a factory, and as he relates his experiences we recognize in the description the same groundwork, the same depths, that are to be found in the soul experiences of Tolstoy. Carnegie describes what an event it was, his first-earned dollar. He has since become one of the richest men of the day, one who is actually obliged to seek ways and means of using his millions; and he is wont to say, with characteristic frankness: “None of my income has ever given me such a keen satisfaction as those first dollars.”

He worked in the same way for some time to support his family; but something lived within him like a hidden power, shaping his life so that he became a “self-made” man. This brought him supreme satisfaction. Even as a boy of twelve he felt himself fast becoming a man, for he who can earn his own living is a man. This was the thought of his soul. Then he went on to another factory, where he was employed in the office, and later became telegraph boy and earned more. He tells us: “A telegraph boy was obliged to memorise all addresses. I was afraid of losing my position, so I learned every name on the streets.” So once more his position was self-made. Then he stole into the office before hours, with other messenger boys, to practice telegraphy.

There his highest ideal was to become an operator, and he soon achieved it. Then his happiness was increased by finding a friend who lent him a book every Saturday. How eagerly he looked for each new book! Soon followed events of vital importance to him. A high official advised him to take shares in a certain company and thus advance his prospects. By sacrifice and thrift he accumulated the necessary five hundred dollars. Previous to this time had had used all his energy to support those dependent upon him, and he found it possible to make this investment largely through the economies of his mother.

This purchase of ten shares of stock was an event of the greatest importance, for upon the receipt of the first dividends it seemed to come to him, as the solution of a problem, that money makes money. The meaning of capital became clear to him, and this understanding meant the same to him as the working out of any difficult problem to a deep thinker. Before this time money had seemed only the compensation for hard work. Here it is most interesting to observe the result of such an experience upon such a character. From that time he was alert to every opportunity for making money. With the invention of the sleeping-coach Carnegie immediately became interested in it. Thus step by step he seemed to learn to understand and profit by the signs of the times.

The old custom of building bridges of wood was abandoned in favour of iron and steel construction. Of the opportunity offered by this change Carnegie took advantage, becoming richer and richer, until he was known as the “Steel King.” Then moral obligation faced him, and with it the questions, “What is my duty? How shall I distribute this wealth so that it may best fulfil its mission?”

That which Tolstoy experienced does not exist for Carnegie—there is no criticism of life, but instead an acceptance of life’s conditions as they are. What appeared to Tolstoy as utterly in-consistent, Carnegie regarded as natural. Looking back far into ancient times, we find princes living in the most primitive conditions, differing very little from their subjects in their mode of life. No luxury, no poverty, in our acceptance of those terms. Therefore we feel they did not know the things wealth brings, and there was no difference between rich and poor. From this primitive life everything has developed. Stronger and stronger become the contrasts. “It is well,” Carnegie says, “that beside the hut stands the palace, for there is much they should hold in common.”

We must understand his limitations. What struck him forcibly was the personal, brotherly feeling between master and servant under earlier conditions. Our relations have now become impersonal. The employer stands face to face with the employee without recognizing him, without knowing any of his needs. In this way hatred develops. But as it is so, it must be accepted. Carnegie’s view is an absolute endorsement of our outward daily life.

Penetrating more deeply we see that Carnegie is a keen, sharp, practical thinker of his kind, and that he stands in the centre of industrial life knowing all the different channels into which capital flows: therefore he has developed a wise and a sound judgment. It cannot be denied that this man has endeavoured to solve the problem of right living, and there is something in him which persuades us that he experiences a satisfaction with life impossible to Tolstoy.

His practical morality brings up this question: “How must this life be shaped so that that which has arisen of necessity shall have meaning and sense? Old conditions have brought about the custom of inherited wealth. Is this still possible under our present conditions, when capital of necessity produces capital?” he asks himself sharply. He studies life with keen interest and says, “No; it cannot go on in this way.” After considering all sides carefully, he comes to the peculiar and characteristic conclusion that when the rich man regards himself as the distributor of accumulated wealth, for the benefit of humanity, then and then only has his life any significance. He says to himself: “I must not only earn money, not only support my family and relatives, but in so far as I have used my mental powers and forces to bring it together, pouring into my work all my capabilities, this must be turned to the benefit of mankind.” This then is his code, that man, while adapting his powers to the conditions of this age, should earn as much money as possible, but not leave any; he should use it all for the improvement of humanity.

Therefore, “to die rich, dishonours,” is characteristic of Carnegie’s view of life. He says it is honourable at one’s death to leave nothing. Naturally this is not meant pedantically, because the daughter must inherit enough to live upon; but, radically expressed, “to become rich is fate, but to die rich is dishonour.” An honourable man to Carnegie is the one who “makes an end,” completes a life, leaving no uncertainty concerning that which his ability has brought together.

We must recognise the difference between these two characters—Tolstoy and Carnegie. The latter himself feels it and has commented on it in this manner: “Count Tolstoy wishes to carry us back again to Christ; but it is in a way that does not fit in with our present manner of living. Instead of leading us back to Christ, he should demonstrate what Christ would advise man to do under present conditions.’ In the sentence before quoted, “To die rich, dishonours,” Carnegie finds the true stamp of Christian thought. And it is evident that he believes Christ would say that he, not Tolstoy, is right.

We see in all this that Carnegie is a noble man, with a progressive, not an indolent, nature, unlike the many who, with little thought, accept things as they find them. He has sought, in many ways, to solve the problem of the distribution of wealth.

Is it not wonderful that life presents such marked contrasts as those afforded by these two strong personalities who, with the same objective point, pursue such very different courses? To understand this is truly most difficult for some minds. It is not at all marvellous that, on hearing Tolstoy preaching his lofty ideals, some will feel, “Oh, my soul responds to that!” and will sense the uplifting influence. It must be remembered, however, that life has a practical side, and he who is not an abstract dreamer, but in a truly realistic and earnest spirit tries to follow Carnegie’s train of thought, must admit that he is right too.

This shows, too, how impossible it is for the man who gives himself up to the practical side of life to acknowledge the greatest ideal, or to believe in its fulfilment.

Tolstoy succeeds in making what he believes is an absolute defence of the original Christian religion. He criticizes all that has appeared from time to time in the guise of Christianity; he has hoped to find the great impulse, or foundation, of real Christianity. In the simplest way he puts before us this impulse as it appears to him. And when a man understands this impulse, it is clear that he has within himself a spark of the Infinite, the eternal world-illuminating spirit of God. Another conviction is that in this spark is the germ of man’s immortality, and that with this understanding he cannot fail to seek for the higher and deeper nature throughout the whole of humanity. From this comprehension he knows that within himself is the real man, who cannot fail to overcome all that is base and unworthy within his nature. He devotes himself to the cultivation of the spiritual or higher self which lives eternally, the Christ.

How would a man, I will not say Carnegie, but one who considers things from his point of view, regard the philosophy of Tolstoy’s Christianity? He would say: “Oh, it is grand, magnificent, to live in Christ. The Christ within is one’s Self; but under our present conditions such a thing is impossible. How could civic affairs be conducted in accordance with these strict Christian requirements?”

Although the question is not put before the other side in a corresponding way, Tolstoy gives as definite an answer as possible, saying, “What will happen to the outward order of things pertaining to state and historical events is beyond my knowledge; but I am positive that humanity must live in accordance with the true Christian doctrine.” So, for him, the words, “The kingdom of God is within you,” expand into a deep, significant certainty that man may reach the heights, that he may know the Holy of Holies. This certainty, that the soul can know the truth about this or that, is to him a fact. We see in no other character of our time such a strong faith in the inner man, and such a firm belief that through this faith the outward results must eventually be good. For this reason scarcely any one else has professed such a view of the world with such personal, individual sympathy and such conviction as Tolstoy.

Carnegie reasons: “What relations must men sustain one to another?” And: ‘It is not good to give to beggars promiscuously, because it is apt to foster laziness. It is necessary to know the exact needs of those whom one helps. Really, one should help only those who are willing to work.” This is the basis of his philanthropy. He says he knows very well that the man who gives simply to rid himself of the beggar causes more havoc than the miser who gives nothing. We shall not judge in this matter; we are only characterizing.

On the other hand, let us consider Tolstoy. He meets a friend. This man has a great affection for his fellow men, and Tolstoy sees in him a wonderful new birth. Some one robs this friend; sacks of things are stolen, but one sack is left behind. What does the friend do? He does not prosecute the robbers, but carries them the remaining sack, saying, “You certainly would not have taken them had you not needed them.” This Tolstoy understands perfectly, and he be-comes his friend’s admirer. So much for the different ways of looking upon the parasites of society. These men are human brothers. The differences of opinion are the results of the different attitudes of soul. It must be admitted that Tolstoy is not only a hard critic, but having grasped the source of human certainty he has reached a remarkable point in the development of his soul. Herein begins what is foremost in his greatness, shining out for all who can appreciate it.

One result of his strong convictions, that calls forth admiration, is his attitude towards the value of science to the present generation. Because of his ability to look into the souls of men he could see through the vain endeavours and methods of our worldly sciences. Certainly it is easy to understand the teachings of physical and material sciences, and to follow and to realize all that they demonstrate. But what so-called science cannot do is to answer the questions: “How are these different physical and chemical processes united to life?” and “What is life?” So we face the deep scientific problem, the problem of life, and attempt to understand and to solve it.

It is significant to note Tolstoy’s remarks on the attitude of our western science in regard to the riddle of life. “People, who in the name of modern science endeavour to solve this riddle, seem to me like men trying to recognize the different species and habits of trees in this manner. Standing in the midst of the trees they do not even look at them, but taking a glass they gaze at a distant hill, upon which they agree should grow the kind of tree they are endeavouring to understand. So appear to me those who, instead of seeking in their own souls the solution of this problem of life, make instruments, create methods, and try to analyze that which exists in nature around them; more than ever they fail to see what life is.”

Through this comparison Tolstoy reveals what he understands and feels upon these questions. A careful study of his point of view shows that what he has written on the problem of life is of more value than whole libraries of western Europe which treat it from the modern scientific standpoint.

It is good to realize the value of such soul-experiences as Tolstoy’s, and his experience of the certitude of the Spirit is of great importance. We can admire Tolstoy’s way of solving in five lines that which our modern scientific methods fail to solve with long, complicated processes of thought, in whole books. Tolstoy shows great concentration in this power of expressing these great solutions in a few magical strokes, and making great problems intelligible in a few words rather than in the prolix, so-called scientific, philosophical treatises of many modern writers.

Tolstoy stands unique in the depth of his soul-character, and only when this is realised can we comprehend the spiritual reasons for the coming of such a man as he on one side, and on the other such a man as Carnegie—for the latter in his way is as important for his generation. To understand more fully the spiritual sources which lead on the one hand to Tolstoy and on the other to Carnegie, we should regard them from the standpoint of Spiritual Science.

The spiritual discoverer sees in the progress of humanity something quite different from that seen by the ordinary man. As the Spiritual Scientist sees in the man standing before him a being of four parts—sees in the physical body the instrument of higher spiritual forces, and behind this the etheric body, the astral body, and the I, or ego—so he sees behind what appears as social order in human life as folk or race or family, the spiritual reality. To-day the “spirit of the people” or the “spirit of the times” has no real meaning. What does he think who speaks of an English, German, French or American “spirit of the people”? Truly, as a rule, only the sum-ming up of so many human beings. To the average mind they are the reality, but the spirit of the people is an abstraction.

There is little realisation that that which appears outwardly as so many human beings is the expression of a spiritual reality, exactly as the human body is the expression of an etheric body, an astral body, and the ego. Humanity has lost what it once possessed—the faculty of being able to see such realities. An old friend of mine, a good apostle of Aristotle, tried to make clear to his class how the spirit can be made manifest in the sense-perceptible. By a simple example Knauer—for it was he—made it clear how spirit exists in matter by saying: “Look at a wolf. He eats, we will say, during his whole life nothing but lambs, and then consists of lamb’s material. However, he does not become a lamb. It is not the nature of the food that is significant, but the fact that in the wolf is living something spiritual which builds and holds together its material form. This is the Real—something which must be recognized or else all study of the outer world is vain.

Examine as man may the outward, material world, if he does not probe to the spiritual he does not come to the source of all life. So it is with the terms “spirit of the people” or “spirit of the times.” For the spiritual discoverer, in the development of Christianity there lives the spiritual reality, not simply an abstract condition. For the spiritual discoverer the sum of humanity is not only that which can be observed in the physical world; behind this lives something spiritual. And for him there is a spirituality, not a bare, unsubstantial abstraction, in the development of Christianity. Beside the Christ is the spirit of Christianity, which is real. This spiritual reality works in a wonderful and subtle way, well illustrated by the following. A peasant once lived who divided his crop. One part he used, and the other he saved as seed, which bore a new crop. This is an illustration which leads us to a law ruling human development; and which proceeds in this way. At certain times are born great impulses which must be sown broadcast. A spiritual impulse, as that of Christianity, given at a certain time, then finds its way to the outer world, taking on this or that form; but perhaps as the outer part of a tree dries up and forms the bark, so the form becomes dry and dies away. These outer forms are bound to die out. And be the impulse ever so strong and fruitful, as surely as it penetrates into the outer world it must disappear like the seed that was used.

Now just as the peasant held something back, so must some part of the spiritual impulse remain, as if flowing along underground channels. Suddenly with primal force this reappears, bringing a fresh impetus to the development of mankind. It is then that a personality appears in whom the impulse, which has been ripening for centuries, is manifested. Such individualities always appear in direct contrast to their surroundings. They must be in great contrast because the surrounding world has become hardened. They are usually inclined to disregard their environment entirely. Seen from a spiritual standpoint, Tolstoy is such a personality; one in whom the Christian impulse is manifest.

These things happen in a forceful way, to break through the shell, and exert a far-reaching influence. Their origin appears wholly radical, and their effects illuminate the world. Such is the law which gives us such seemingly one-sided personalities as Tolstoy. On the other hand, we must expect the contrasting personalities who are not connected with the central stream but wholly absorbed within the peripheral working of the world. Such a person is Carnegie.

Carnegie can look out and over the circle, can think out the best way for humanity; but he does not see that which as spirit pulsates through human life. Tolstoy does, because he seeks so earnestly the inner certainty, the Kingdom of God, in the individual soul. He can do so because in him is personified that true stream which is below the surface bearing itself onwards and unconnected with such material things as may be inherited.

We have physical manifestations but the onlooker does not realize the spiritual within them. We have the spiritual that springs with great strength out of the innermost being of a person, but the onlooker does not understand how this can make itself felt in the world. More and more will humanity find these contrasts and, if another spiritual stream did not appear to reflect again the deep, underlying, spiritual sources making them manifest in the material world, we could not follow Anthroposophy. Anthroposophy or Spiritual Science leads us into the very depths of spiritual life. It not only traces spiritual life in those powerful impulses which do not unite with deed and fact, it also seeks for it in the concrete, and therefore understands how the spiritual flows into the material. It thus bridges the apparent chasm between the spiritual and material, finding in this way the point of view which brings contrasts into harmony.

Today we wish to learn to understand, from a spiritual point of view, two contrasting personal-ities. Spiritual Science is not only called upon to preach outward tolerance, but also to find that inner light which can penetrate with admiration into the soul of one demonstrating the great Im-pulse that emanates from the spiritual consciousness. This to-day seems improbable if not im-possible and on the whole radical, because it crowds into so small a space that which in the future will be spread far and wide, and which will then present a very different aspect. This Anthroposophy can realize. It can look also with objective eyes upon the present, and the personality of Carnegie, and appreciate him. Life is not a one-sided affair. Life is many sided, and can be appreciated in all its richness only when the great contrasts are fully understood. Bad indeed it would be if the various colours and tones could not be seen as parts of an artistic whole.

Human evolution demands the crystalization of one or the other of these opposites, and so it must be; but with this hope, that mankind may not be lost in the midst of life. There must be a central religion, or Welt-Anschauung, which must solve the many complex problems which now appear so full of contradictions. When Anthroposophy works with this aim in view it will evolve full harmony. Outward harmony can only be the reflection of the inner or soul harmony. And when Anthroposophy shall have accomplished this aim, her true place in modern culture, she will have found that which she is seeking to establish. Anthroposophy desires no theoretical proofs, no speculation; her aim is to prove and demonstrate the truth of her statements in life itself. When she will see the light which she has shed upon life reflected back to her in inner harmony in spite of all contradictions, then she will realize the establishment of her fundamental principles.

{This follows immediately after the lecture.}

TOLSTOY AND THE FUTURE

In Rudolf Steiner’s lectures on the Apocalypse of John, given at Nuremberg in June 1908, he spoke in Lecture 7 of the sixth post-Atlantean epoch, which follows our own, and took Tolstoy as an example of a man in whom the culture of the future age can already be seen.

These lectures, which are intended to be objective, are far, far removed from any party spirit. But you may compare objectively what is attained as science and philosophy in the European West with what appeared in the East, let us say in Tolstoy. One does not need to be a follower of Tolstoy, but one thing is true; in a book such as Tolstoy’s On Life you may read one page, if you understand how to read it, and compare it with whole libraries in Western Europe. And you may then say the following: In Western Europe one makes spiritual culture with the intellect; one chisels out certain details and puts them together to form something that is supposed to make the world comprehensible, and the achievements of Western Europe civilization in this respect will never be surpassed. But if you understand such a book as Tolstoy’s On Life, you will often find condensed into ten lines what in these Western European libraries it takes thirty volumes to say. Tolstoy says something with elemental force, and in a few lines of his there is the same amount of energy as is assembled in thirty such volumes. Here one must be able to judge what comes forth from the depths of the spirit, what has a spiritual foundation and what has not. Just as over-ripe cultures contain something that is drying up and withering, so do rising cultures contain within them fresh life and new energy. Tolstoy is a premature flower of such a culture, one that came far too soon to be fully developed. Hence he has all the faults of an untimely birth. His grotesque and unfounded presentations of many Western European things, all that he brings forward in the way of foolish judgment, show that great personalities have the faults of their virtues and that great cleverness has the folly of its wisdom.

[ 1 ] In our lecture today I should like to remind you how easy it is to misunderstand the real nature of the Mystery of Golgotha because we fail to recognize how difficult it is to achieve a deeper insight into that Mystery with our present mode of cognition. We may readily believe, for example, that through mystical contemplation, by turning inwards to seek the divine within, we shall find the Christ. The majority of those who have followed the path of mysticism have not found the Christ. We shall not find the Christ if we maintain, as many Theosophists maintain, that we must first become aware of the divine within and we shall then experience the Christ. That is not so. What, at most, under these circumstances may suggest the presence of an inner light, can never, if rightly understood, be called the Christ, but might be called a Universal Divine Being. And because we are not accustomed to differentiate today, even theoretically, many mystics believe that they can find the Christ through what is usually called mysticism, through a mysticism that is relatively uncontrolled. This is a delusion. And it is important to bear this in mind, just as it is important to note that the philosophies of the late nineteenth century down to our own times have developed, as subsidiary branches of philosophy, philosophies of religion which imagine that they are in a position to speak of the Christ. In effect, they portray—and can only portray—what may be called a Universal Divine Being, but not the Christ. The philosopher Lotze, for example, who attempted to probe deeply into this question speaks of such a Universal Being, but he would never dream of calling this Divine Being the Christ. Neither the mystical path nor the path followed by such philosophers can lead to an understanding of the true nature of the Mystery of Golgotha. In order to arrive at a fuller understanding of this Mystery I propose to call attention to certain characteristics of the conceptions attaching to it. Let us regard these conceptions in the first place purely as expressions of opinion.

[ 2 ] It pertains to the essence of the Mystery of Golgotha, if it is to answer to the historical evolution of mankind, that Christ, by His death on the Cross, has thereby established a relationship with the whole cosmic order. If we deny the universality of Christ we are no longer in touch with Him. We may, in that event, speak of some kind of Universal Divine Being, but we cannot speak of the Christ.

[ 3 ] There are many problems to be elucidated in connection with the Mystery of Golgotha and I propose to refer to some of them today. If we are to understand this Mystery aright we must come to terms with the problem: what did Christ Jesus mean by faith or trust? We have a far too theoretic, a far too abstract conception of faith today. Consider for a moment man's usual conception of faith ¹ when he speaks of the antithesis between faith and knowledge. Knowledge is that which can be demonstrated or proved; faith is that which is not susceptible of proof, and yet is held to be true. It is a question of the particular way in which we know or understand something. It is only when we speak of knowledge as faith or belief that we think of it as something which is not susceptible of final proof.

[ 4 ] Compare this idea of faith with the conception which Christ Jesus preached. Let me refer you to this passage in the Gospels: “If ye have faith and doubt not ... but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.” (Matt. XXI, 21) How great is the contrast between this conception of faith, paradoxically yet radically expressed in the words of Christ, and the present-day conception which in reality sees in faith simply a substitute for knowledge. A little reflection will show what is the essence of Christ's conception of faith. Faith must be an active force, a force that accomplishes something. Its purpose is not simply to evoke an idea or to awaken knowledge. He who possesses faith shall be able to move mountains. If you refer to the Gospels you will find that wherever the words “faith” or “trust” appear, they are associated with the idea of action, that one is to be granted a power through which something can be effected or accomplished, something that is productive of positive results. And this is extremely important.

[ 5 ] I should like to draw your attention today to another important question. The Gospels often speak of the mysteries of the Kingdom of God or the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven. In what sense do they speak of mysteries? It is somewhat difficult to grasp this idea. Those who have made a careful study of the Gospels from the occult standpoint are increasingly of the opinion that every sentence in the Gospels is immutable, every detail is of the greatest moment. All criticism is reduced to silence as one penetrates ever more deeply into the Gospels from the standpoint of Spiritual Science. Now before speaking of the mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven I must draw your attention to something that is highly characteristic.

[ 6 ] In my earlier lectures on the Gospels I referred to that important passage which deals with the healing, or, one might call it, the raising of the twelve-year-old daughter of Jairus. Since we can speak openly here, I am able to refer to the deeper medical knowledge of an occult nature which is disclosed to those who study this miracle of healing from the standpoint of Spiritual Science. Christ went into the ruler's house and took Jairus’ daughter who was thought to be dead by the hand in order to heal her (Matt. IX, 22-25; Mark V, 22; Luke VII, 41). Now I must remind you that we can never arrive at an understanding of such matters if we do not relate the passage in question to the earlier and later passages. People are only too ready to detach certain passages from their context and study them in isolation, whereas they are interdependent. You will recall that as Jesus was summoned to the daughter of Jairus, a woman who was diseased with an issue of blood for twelve years came behind Him and touched the hem of His garment and was healed. Christ felt that “virtue” had gone out of Him. He turned round and said: “Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole.” We can understand these words only if we grasp in the right way the idea of faith referred to above: “Thy faith (or trust) hath made thee whole.” Now this passage in the Gospels has deep implications. The woman had suffered from an issue of blood for twelve years. Jairus’ daughter was twelve years old. She was sexually retarded and was unable to develop the maturity of the woman who had suffered from hemorrhage for twelve years. When Christ healed the woman He felt that “virtue” or power had issued from Him. When He entered the ruler's house He took the girl by the hand and transferred this power to her and so enabled her to reach sexual maturity. Without this power she must have wasted away. And thus she was restored to life. This shows that the real living Being of Christ was not confined to His person, but was reflected in His whole environment, that Christ was able to transfer powers from one person to another by virtue of His selfless regard for others. He was able to surrender the self in active service for others and this is reflected in the power which He felt arise in Him when the woman who had great faith touched the hem of His garment.

[ 7 ] This mystery is related to the observation He frequently made to His disciples: “Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God; but unto them that are without all these things are done in parables.” (Mark IV, 11) Let us assume that the mystery of which I have just spoken—I do not mean simply the theoretic description I have given of it, but the power that was necessary before this transference could be effected—had been imparted to the Scribes and Pharisees. What would have happened if they had been able to transfer powers from one person to another? They would not always have transferred them wisely. It is evident from the Gospels that Christ did not expect the Pharisees, still less the Sadducees, to act responsibly. When transferring this force from one person to another they would have abused it, for such was their mentality, and would have caused untold harm. This mystery therefore had to remain a secret of the Initiates.

[ 8 ] There are three significant factors to be considered in connection with the Mystery of Golgotha. I could mention many others. I will say more about this in my next lecture but for the moment I will confine myself to the essentials.

[ 9 ] We must have a clear idea of what is meant by the expression: the Mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven. This has a quite precise meaning, as I was able to show in the example I quoted. Now when John the Baptist was about to baptize Jesus in the Jordan. he said: “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” Here is the idea I want you to grasp. What did John the Baptist do? We are told—and this is clear from the context—that he baptized with water, as he himself said because the Kingdom of Heaven was nigh. He baptized with water for the remission of sins, saying “There cometh one mightier than I ... I have indeed baptized you with water, he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost” (Mark I, 7 and 5). What is the difference between the baptism of John and the baptism with the Holy Ghost?

[ 10 ] We cannot understand what is meant by the baptism with water, nor what it alludes to—I have often described the manner in which the ceremony was performed—unless we summon to our aid the teachings of Spiritual Science. For many years I have been at great pains to elucidate this mystery by means of spiritual investigation.

It suddenly dawned on me that the way in which John the Baptist is presented to us in the Gospels carries most important implications. What was the significance of baptism with water? Externally, of course, John the Baptist baptized with the waters of Jordan. We know that the candidates for baptism suffered total immersion. During the immersion they experienced a kind of loosening of the etheric body, which bestowed on them a temporary clairvoyance. This is the real significance of the baptism by John and of similar baptisms. But when John spoke of baptism with water he was referring not only to this form of baptism, but more especially to the passage in the Old Testament which says: “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” What was the purpose of the baptism with water in Jordan? It was intended that through the loosening of their etheric bodies and the experiences they underwent the candidates for baptism should feel themselves transposed into the condition of consciousness of the time before the “Fall”. Everything that had occurred since the Fall was to be erased from their consciousness. They were to be restored to their pre-lapsarian state in order that they might experience the condition of man before the Fall. They were made aware that through the Fall man had entered upon a wrong path and that to continue on this path would be to court disaster. He had to return to his original state of innocence, to cleanse his soul of the evil which this aberration had brought.

[ 11 ] Many people at that time felt an urge to return to the age of innocence—history is far from accurate on this question—to forgo their errant ways, to start life afresh as it had been before the Fall; to refuse participation in the changes and developments of the social order and national life which had taken place since the Fall up to the time of the Roman Empire or the time of Herod the Tetrarch when John the Baptist preached in the wilderness. Those who felt that they must break with the past withdrew from the world and became anchorites. John the Baptist is a case in point. We are told that his meat was locusts ² and wild honey and his raiment was of camel hair (Matt. III, 4). He is depicted as the typical desert father, the typical anchorite.

[ 12 ] Compare this with a widespread movement of the time which reflected in various ways what was indicated in the Gospel of St. John. People declared that one must renounce the world and follow the life of the spirit. An echo of this desire to “withdraw from the world” is still to be found in Gnosis and in monachism. Now why did this powerful impulse of the Baptist which was a comparatively recent development become so widespread? The answer is found in the words: “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

[ 13 ] At this point we must recall what was said in the last lecture about the soul—that since the Fall it had progressively deteriorated, was less and less fitted to perform its function as intermediary between the spirit and the body. This continuous decline could persist for a certain period of Earth evolution but ultimately had to be arrested. This moment will arrive when Divine evolution takes over Earth evolution. Men such as John the Baptist had a prophetic intimation of this moment. The time is now at hand, he felt, when souls can no longer be saved, when souls must perish without some special dispensation. He realized that either the souls of men would have to withdraw from life as it had been since the Fall, the cause of their corruption—and in that event Earth evolution would have been in vain—or something else must supervene. And this realization found expression in the following words: “He that cometh after me shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.” John felt that only by withdrawing from the world could man be saved from the consequences of the Fall. Christ wished to save mankind in another way: he wished them to remain in the world and yet find salvation. He had no wish that mankind should return to the time before the Fall, but that they should experience the further stages of Earth evolution and yet participate in the Kingdom of Heaven.

[ 14 ] A further question calls for an answer: What was Christ's real intention? His purpose breathes through every page of the Gospels and we must seek to feel and experience it with all the earnestness at our command. Despite apparent contradictions in the Gospels each contains a core of facts and truths which were announced or proclaimed by Christ Jesus; but the core of each Gospel has its own particular atmosphere. I must remind you of what I said in reference to Richard Rothe, namely, that we must change our whole approach to the reading of the Gospels. We must read them in the spirit that breathes through them, become responsive to the atmosphere that pervades them. People who read the Gospels today invest them with their own preconceived picture of a generalized human ideal. The age of “enlightenment” envisaged Christ Jesus as an enlightened man. Protestant groups or sects have created an image of Jesus which depicts Him as a typical representative of nineteenth-century Protestantism. Ernst Haeckel even managed to depict Jesus as a thorough-going monist of his own brand. Now these are attitudes which mankind must learn to outgrow. It is important that we should really respond to the contents of the Gospels in the atmosphere and setting of their own time.

[ 15 ] Let us take first of all the Gospel of St. Matthew and ask ourselves: what is the purpose of this Gospel? It is so fatally easy to be misled by all kinds of things which we readily accept in the Gospels, but which we interpret falsely. We find, for example, the statement that “not one jot or tittle of the law shall be changed”. In spite of this statement, perhaps even because of it, the fact remains that the Gospel of St. Matthew was written to discredit traditional Judaism. It is a polemic against Judaism, a challenge to traditional Judaism, and the author declares that it was the will of Christ that it should be suppressed.

[ 16 ] Now the Gospel of St. Mark, on the other hand, was written for the Romans. It was directed against the Roman Empire, the “kingdom of the world”. It was an attack upon the legal ordinances of the Empire and its social order. The Jews realized full well what they meant, or rather what they felt, when they said: We must kill Him, otherwise our people will follow Him and then the Romans will come and seize our land and our kingdom. The Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark were directed therefore against Judaism and Romanism respectively. They were broadsides directed not against the real essence of Judaism or Romanism, but against their outward forms as “kingdoms of the world”, in contradistinction to the “Kingdom of Heaven”. The special characteristics of these two Gospels are not taken today with the seriousness they deserve. A few years before the War, the Czar, who has now been deposed, wrote in his own hand on one of his edicts the following words: “Intellectual giants, giants of action will appear one day—of this I am firmly convinced—and bring salvation to Russia and provide for her greatest good.” Had these giants of thought and action in whom the Czar had implicit confidence, materialized, you can well imagine that he would promptly have imprisoned them in the Peter and Paul Fortress, or have exiled them to Siberia. So much for the reliance we can place upon words today. With such an attitude we cannot fathom the inner meaning of the Gospels.

[ 17 ] Let us now turn to the third Gospel, the Gospel of St. Luke. Its real meaning becomes apparent if we study the passage where Jesus went into the synagogue: “And there was delivered to him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book he found the place where it was written: [ 18 ] The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.” (Luke IV, 17-18.)

[ 19 ] Jesus then explained the deep inner meaning of these words, contrasting their spirit with the spirit which He found in the world around Him. He wished to contrast the Kingdom of Heaven with the kingdom of the world and characterized this difference in these words when He addressed the assembled Jews in the synagogue: [ 20 ] “Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. Verily I say unto you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; but unto none of these was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.” (Luke IV, 23-27.)

[ 21 ] None of the Jews was healed by Elias or Eliseus, but only the Gentiles. This was the interpretation Jesus gave to His words in order to distinguish between the Kingdom of Heaven and the kingdom of the world. What was the result?— [ 22 ] “And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. But he, passing through the midst of them, went his way.” (Luke IV, 28-30.)

[ 23 ] Here is the essential difference between the Luke Gospel and the other Gospels. Here the Jews are not condemned as in Matthew, nor the Romans as in Mark, but this Gospel condemns the passions and emotions of mankind as reflected in those who were associated with Christ Jesus. We must therefore give heed to that powerful and significant impulse behind the words of Christ Jesus, an impulse that was not of this world, but which proceeded from the Kingdom of Heaven.

[ 24 ] The John Gospel aims to go much further. In this Gospel it is not simply a small nation such as the Jews which is condemned, nor a great nation such as the Romans, nor even the whole of mankind with the negative characteristics it has developed since the Fall, but this Gospel is directed against those spirits behind the physical world in so far as they have turned aside from the true path. The Gospel of St. John can only be rightly understood when we realize that, as the Gospel of St. Matthew is concerned with the Jews, the Gospel of St. Mark with the Romans and the Gospel of St. Luke with all those who had succumbed to the Fall, so the Gospel of St. John is concerned with the spirits of men and those spirits bordering on humanity who fell along with man, whilst Christ Jesus is concerned with the spiritual world itself. It is very easy for our materialistic epoch to say that whoever holds these views is a fanatic. We must be prepared to put up with this criticism. Nevertheless what I have said is the truth; and we are the more convinced of this, the more closely we look into these things.

[ 25 ] This powerful impulse which found fourfold expression in the Gospels shows that Christ was destined to introduce into the world something that had not existed before. The world disapproves and has always disapproved of change, but a new impulse must be given from time to time. It is amply demonstrated in the Gospels that we can only understand the message of these Gospels aright if we see it in the context of the entire Cosmos, as an expression of cosmic events. This is best illustrated—I refer you to the Mark Gospel, the shortest and most pregnant of the Gospels—if we turn to this Gospel for an answer to the question: who were the first to recognize that Christ Jesus had given to the world that sublime impulse which I have described above? Who first recognized this? One might be tempted to answer: John the Baptist. But he divined it rather, and this is clearly seen in the description of the meeting between Christ Jesus and John in the fourth Gospel. Who, then, were the first to recognize Him? None other than those that were possessed with devils whom Christ had healed. They were the first to cry out, saying, “Thou art the Son of God”—or “Thou art the Holy One of God. And Christ suffered not the devils to speak because they knew Him.” Spiritual beings therefore were the first to recognize Him, and we are here shown the connection between the word of Christ and the spiritual world. Out of their super-sensible knowledge the demons revealed Christ's contribution to the world long before mankind had the slightest inkling of it. They knew it because He was able to cast them out.

[ 26 ] Let us now relate the concrete case described above (the raising of Jairus’ daughter) to the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven to which Christ owed His powers of healing. If we employ the usual technique of modern historical research in order to explore the source of the special supernatural power through which Christ worked, we shall never find an answer, for times have changed much more than people imagine. Today they assume that three or four thousand years ago men were to all appearances much the same as they are now, that though they have become far cleverer, they have changed very little on the whole. Such people then count back in time until they arrive at millions of years. As I mentioned recently in a public lecture, they count the millions of years ahead until they reach the end of time. They have calculated to a nicety the nature of individual substances millions of years hence: milk will be solid and luminous—I wonder how this milk will be obtained, but we will not go into that now—albumen will be used to decorate the walls so that it will be possible to read the newspaper in its phosphorescent light. Dewar put forward this idea a few years ago in a lecture before the Royal Institute when he discussed the end of the world as envisaged by physicists. At the time I made use of the following comparison in referring to these calculations. I said that if someone were to observe the changes that occur in the human stomach and heart over a period of two or three years, were then to multiply the figure arrived at and calculate the changes that would occur in two hundred years and what the body would look like in two hundred years’ time, then this would be comparable to the calculations of the physicists. Such calculations maybe ingenious, but in two hundred years the person will long have been dead. The same applies to the Earth. Those confident calculations on the part of physicists as to what will happen millions of years hence may be mathematically correct, but physically the inhabitants of the Earth will have perished long before this time. To estimate the geological conditions of the Earth millions of years ago on the same principle is comparable to deducing from the condition of a child's stomach at the age of seven what its condition had been seventy-five years before. People simply fail to realize how confused their thinking is, for man as a physical entity did not exist in that primordial time to which geologists look back. Because strong measures are necessary to combat the many errors of our time which have the weight of authority behind them, one must not be afraid on occasions to react strongly against such methods. One retorts to such people: you calculate from the organic changes in the human organism today what it will be like two hundred years hence. But in two hundred years, of course, the human organism will have ceased to exist. One can also reply that from the results of purely occult investigations—I am aware of course that modern science will regard this as nonsense, but it is none the less true—man as he is today cannot possibly exist six thousand years hence, any more than it is possible for a man who is now twenty years old to be alive in two hundred years time. We can discover through occult investigation that in the sixth millennium women as they are constituted today will become sterile and that an entirely different reproductive process will exist by that time. I realize that this will sound the purest nonsense to those who think along the lines of modern science; nevertheless the fact is undeniable. In our present materialistic age people have very confused ideas about history and historical evolution. Therefore we no longer understand even subtle indications transmitted by external history of differences in the constitution of the human soul which have taken place in relatively recent times.

[ 27 ] There is a very fine passage in the writings of the Church Father Tertullian ^t1 at the turn of the second century, that touches upon this problem. He writes that he himself had seen the pulpits of the Apostles from which their successors had read aloud the epistles that were still in the Apostles’ handwriting. Whilst these epistles were being read, Tertullian tells us, the assembly of the faithful seemed to hear once again the living voices of the Apostles and when they examined the epistles, the features of the Apostles seemed to rise up before them. For those who investigate these matters clairvoyantly, these are not empty words. As they sat before the pulpit the faithful felt that they detected in the timbre of the voices of the Apostles’ successors the voices of the Apostles themselves and that from the handwriting of the Apostles they were able to picture the actual features of the Apostles. Thus, at the beginning of the third century, people were still able to evoke a living image of the Apostles and, metaphorically speaking, to hear their voices. And Clement I who occupied the Papal See from A.D. 92 to 101 also knew personally those pupils of the Apostles who had seen Christ Jesus. At this time, therefore, a continuous tradition was already in existence. And in this passage from Tertullian we catch an echo of something that can be investigated clairvoyantly. Those pupils of the Apostles who listened to the Apostles could detect from the tone and modulation of their voice the manner in which Christ Jesus spoke. This is something of great importance. We must bear in mind this tone of voice, this peculiar timbre characteristic of Christ's speech if we are to understand why those who heard Him spoke of the magic power that lay in His words. When He spoke, something akin to an elemental force gripped His listeners. His words possessed an elemental power that had never been known before. How is one to account for this?

[ 28 ] I have already referred to Saint-Martin. He was one of those who still recognized the evocative or magical power of the words—(the Freemasons of the nineteenth century of course no longer had any understanding of this)—of that language which was once upon a time common to all mankind before it was split into separate languages and which was closely related to the “inner word”. Christ, of course, had to express Himself externally in the language of His day; the inner word which He felt within His soul however, differed from the spoken word of ordinary speech; it was imbued with the power which words have lost, with the power that the universal language once possessed before it was split into separate languages. Unless we are able to form some conception of this power which is independent of these separate languages and which is found in those whose words are fully inspired, we cannot understand the power that dwelt in Christ, nor the significance of what is meant when we speak of Christ as the incarnated “Word” through which He worked and by which He performed His acts of healing and cast out evil spirits. The loss of the “Word” was inevitable, for it was in accordance with human evolution after the Mystery of Golgotha. We must endeavour to recover the “Word” that has been lost. But meanwhile we have reached a stage of evolution which holds little prospect that our efforts will be rewarded.

[ 29 ] I would like to remind you of an important fact that is evident in all the Gospels, namely, that Christ Jesus never committed anything to writing. Indeed scholars have disputed amongst themselves whether He could write at all. Those who claim that He could write can only quote the passage from the story of the woman taken in adultery: “And again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.” (John VIII, 6.) But apart from this one instance there is no evidence that Christ could write. The fact remains that in contrast to other founders of religion, He never recorded His teachings in writing. This is not fortuitous but is inwardly connected with the full and inexhaustible power of the word.

[ 30 ] The fact that Christ confined His message to the spoken word and left no record in writing applies only in His case, but such limitation would be totally unacceptable to our epoch. If Christ had written down His words and translated them into the current language of the day, Ahrimanic forces would have entered into them, for all set forms are Ahrimanic. The written word has a different effect from that of the spoken word when a group of pupils is gathered together and is entirely dependent upon the power of the spirit. One must not imagine that the author of the John Gospel sat beside Christ when He was speaking and recorded His words in shorthand like our stenographers who are recording this lecture. That this did not occur is of immense significance. We only realize the full significance of this when we learn from the Akashic Chronicle what really lies behind Christ's condemnation of the Scribes, of those who derived their knowledge from documents. He objected to the Scribes because their knowledge was derived from documents, because their souls were not directly in touch with the source from which the living word flowed. And this led, in Christ's opinion, to the debasement of the living word.

[ 31 ] But we miss the significance of this if we think of memory at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha as that “psychic sieve” which passes for memory today. Those who heard the words of Christ cherished them faithfully in their hearts and knew them verbatim. For the power of memory was totally different at that time; so too was the constitution of the soul. It was essentially a period when, in a brief space of time, great changes had taken place. We completely overlook the fact that the history of the East was written in such a way that men saw it either in terms of the present or at best in terms of borrowings from Greek history. The course of Greek history was very similar to that of the Jews, but oriental history followed a different course, because in the East the soul was differently constituted. Hence people have no idea of the great changes that have taken place in a short space of time, that the abnormally retentive memory was rapidly lost in the age of declining atavistic clairvoyance, so that of necessity men had to record the words of Christ in writing. In consequence, the words of Christ suffered the same fate that Christ Jesus suffered at the hands of the Scribes whom He opposed. And I leave it to your imagination to picture what would happen if some disciple, even remotely resembling Christ Jesus, were to speak today with the same impulse with which Christ spoke. Would those who call themselves Christians today act in any way differently from the high priests at that time? I leave you to judge.

[ 32 ] Bearing these assumptions in mind, let us now look more closely into the mystery of the incarnation of the Christ in Jesus. Let me remind you of what I said earlier, that we must retrace our steps along the path we have followed since the time of the Eighth Ecumenical Council and rediscover the tripartite division of man into body, soul and spirit. Unless we recognize this we cannot understand the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 33 ] First let us consider the physical body. We only know the body as an object in the external world. We can observe it only from without. We owe our perception of the external world to the body. And it is with the body that science—or what is commonly called science—is concerned.

[ 34 ] Let us now turn to the soul. I tried to indicate the nature of the soul when I referred you to Aristotle. In speaking of the soul we must realize that Aristotle's ideas were not far removed from the truth, for the psychic life, that which pertains to the inner life, originates more or less with each individual. Aristotle, however, lived in an age when he could no longer fully comprehend the soul's relationship to the Cosmos. He declared that with the birth of a human being a new soul is created. He was an advocate of “creationism”, but accepted that after death the soul continues to survive in some undefined way. He did not enter into further details because in his day knowledge of the soul had already become somewhat nebulous. The manner in which the soul lives after death is in fact bound up with what is called, more or less symbolically, “original sin”—or whatever we prefer to call it, the terminology is not of the slightest importance—for “original sin” has undoubtedly modified the whole life of the soul. Consequently, at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha the souls of men were in danger of such wholesale corruption that they could not find their way back to the Kingdom of Heaven. They were chained to earthly existence, to the destiny of the Earth. This psychic life therefore follows its own separate path which will be described in further detail later.

[ 35 ] The third member of man's being is the spirit. The physical or corporeal is expressed in the line of descent from father to son. The son becomes a father and this son in his turn becomes a father and so on through the generations. In this way inherited characteristics are transmitted from one generation to another. The psychic life as such is created with the birth of the individual and persists after death. Its destiny is determined by the extent to which the soul can remain in touch with the Kingdom of Heaven. The spirit persists through repeated incarnations on Earth and everything depends upon the kind of bodies it can find in the course of its successive lives on Earth. On the one hand there is the line of descent on the physical plane, in which the spirit participates; but the line of descent is permeated with physically inherited characteristics. What potentialities the spirit finds in the course of its successive incarnations depends upon whether mankind has progressed or deteriorated. Out of the spirit one cannot create bodies to order; one can only select those which are relatively best suited to the spirit that is about to incarnate; one cannot tailor them to measure.

[ 36 ] I tried to express this in my book Theosophy, in which I described the three paths leading to the spirit—the paths of body, soul and spirit. This is something that must be clearly understood. For if we follow to its conclusion the path of sense-perception alone, if we recognize only the physical or corporeal, then we arrive at the idea of a Universal God, an idea that was known only to the philosophers and mystics whom I mentioned at the beginning of this lecture. If, however, we wish to study the soul, then we must needs follow the path that leads to that Being whom we call the Christ who is not to be found in nature, although He is related to nature. He must be found in history as an historical being. If we follow the path of self-observation, this leads to the spirit and to the repeated incarnations of the spirit.

[ 37 ] Study of the cosmos and nature leads to a knowledge of the Universal Being to whom we owe our incarnation: Ex Deo Nascimur.

[ 38 ] The study of true history, if pursued in sufficient depth, leads to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, to the knowledge which is necessary if we wish to know the destiny of the soul: In Christo Morimur.

[ 39 ] Inward contemplation, experience of the spirit, leads to the knowledge of the fundamental nature of the spirit in repeated lives on Earth and, when united with the spiritual element in which it dwells, leads to the intuitive perception of the Holy Ghost: Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus.

[ 40 ] Not only does the trichotomy of body, soul and spirit lie at the root of an understanding of man, but a trichotomy determines the path we must follow if we really wish to arrive at an understanding of the universe. Our epoch which is so chaotic in thought does not easily grasp such ideas and for the most part is indifferent to them. As you know, there are atheists, those who deny the existence of God; there are also deniers of Jesus; and there are materialists, deniers of the spirit. To be an atheist is possible only for those who are wholly insensitive to the phenomena of external nature. For if the physical forces in us are not blunted, we are continually aware of the presence of God. Atheism is really sickness of the soul, a disease of the human personality. To deny Christ is not a sickness; we must make every effort to find Him in the unfolding of human evolution. If we do not find Him we are lost to the power that redeems the soul from death. This is a misfortune of the soul. Atheism is a sickness of the soul, of the human personality. To deny Christ is a misfortune of the human soul. Note the difference. To deny the Spirit is to be guilty of self-deception.

[ 41 ] It is important to meditate upon these three conceptions. Sickness of the soul, misfortune of the soul, deception of the soul, i.e. self-deception—these are the three significant aberrations of the human soul.

[ 42 ] It is necessary to be aware of all this if we are to develop an understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha, for we must learn to recognize the relationship of Christ to the human soul. We must carefully follow the destiny of the soul itself in the course of terrestrial evolution. We must also bear in mind the reaction upon the human spirit of the impulse that Christ transmits to the human soul.

[ 43 ] To conclude my lecture today I can perhaps best offer you a few suggestions in order to prepare the ground for what is to follow, so that we can all meditate upon them and so arrive at a deeper understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 44 ] Today man approaches nature in the light of the education he has received. Nature proceeds in obedience to natural laws. We think of the birth, maturity and death of the Earth in terms of natural laws. Everything is seen from the standpoint of natural laws. In addition to the laws of nature there is the moral law. We feel—and especially the Kantians, for example—that we are subject to the categorical imperative, that we are an integral part of the moral world order. But think how anaemic has become the idea today that this moral world order has, like nature, its own objective reality. After all, even Haeckel, even Arrhenius and others, for all their materialism, were convinced that the Earth was moving towards a new glacial epoch or towards entropy. But they also believed that the little “idols” they called atoms are dissociated and cannot be destroyed—hence the conservation of matter! This accords more or less with the modern scientific outlook. But these ideas about matter ignore the following problem: if, one fine day, the Earth becomes glaciated or reaches total entropy, what becomes of the moral world order? It has no place in Earth conditions of this nature! Once the human species has died out, what becomes of the moral order? In other words, the moral ideas which man feels to be an integral part of himself, the source of his moral values and the goal of his conscience, appear to be a necessity; but if we are really honest, moral ideas are unrelated to the natural order, to that which natural science regards as fundamental realities. Moral ideas have become emasculated. They are powerful enough to determine men's actions and the dictates of conscience; they are not strong enough, however, to give the impression that what one imagines to be a moral idea today is a concrete, vital force in the world. Something more is needed to realize this. Who is it that can awaken our moral conceptions to vigorous and active life? It is the Christ! This is one aspect of the Christ Being.

[ 45 ] Though all that lives in stone, plant, animal and the human body, all that lives in the elements of warmth and air, may perish (as science foretells), though all human bodies will taste of death at the end of time—for according to natural science all our moral values must ultimately become—one cannot say dust and ashes, for that would be going too far—yet, according to Christian belief there lives in the Christ Being a power that lays hold of our moral conceptions and creates out of them a new world: “Heaven and Earth may pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” This is the power that will carry over to Jupiter the moral element developed on the Earth.

[ 46 ] Now picture the Earth as an organism, like a plant, the moral law as the seed which is formed within the organism, and the Christ force as the impulse which stimulates the seed to grow into the future Earth, into Jupiter. We then have a totally new conception of the Gospels from the standpoint of Spiritual Science.

[ 47 ] But how can this be? How can that which belongs solely to the realm of thought according to the materialist, which is only an idea or theory towards which one feels a moral obligation—how can that be transformed into real force such as the one which burns in coal or which causes the bullet to fly through the air? How can such ideas which are so tenuous possess solid reality? To achieve this transformation a new impulse is needed and these moral ideas must be inbued with the impulse. What impulse is this? You will recall that we said earlier that faith must not be merely a substitute for knowledge: it must be an active agent that effects something. It must make our moral ideas a reality, lift them to a new plane and create a new world out of them. It is important that our articles of faith are not simply a form of unverified knowledge, a blind faith, but that our faith has the power to transform the seed “morality” into a cosmic reality. It was the mission of the Mystery of Golgotha to imbue Earth evolution with this power. This power had to be implanted in the souls of the disciples. At the same time they were reminded of the loss suffered by those who possessed only the written records. It is the power of faith which is of paramount importance. And if we do not understand what we owe to Christ when one so often hears the words “faith” or “belief”, then neither do we understand what entered Earth evolution at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 48 ] You will now realize that the Mystery of Golgotha has cosmic significance. That which belongs to the natural order is subject to the laws of nature. And just as at a certain stage of its evolution a plant bears seed, so too at a certain point of time the Mystery of Golgotha will bring a new impulse in preparation for the new Jupiter evolution in which the future incarnation of man can participate.

[ 49 ] From our study of the unique nature of the Christ Being I have indicated the relation of this Being to the whole Cosmos and how, at a definite point in time, Earth evolution was imbued with a new vitalizing force, which is revealed from time to time with impressive effect, but only to those who can apprehend such manifestations intuitively. The author of the Mark Gospel, for example, was a case in point. When Christ was led away after the betrayal by Judas and the author of that Gospel had a clairvoyant vision of the scene, he saw, among the multitude that had forsaken Him, a certain young man clad only in a linen cloth. The linen cloth is torn from him, but he wrests himself free and flees from them naked (Mark XIV, 51). This was the same young man who, according to the Mark Gospel was sitting clothed in a long white garment on the right of the sepulchre and announced: Christ is risen. This is the account given in the Gospel of St. Mark as the result of Imaginative cognition. Here is portrayed the encounter between the former body of Christ-Jesus and the “seed” of a new world order as seen by Imaginative cognition.

[ 50 ] Try to feel this in connection with what I said recently—and on this note I propose to conclude my lecture today—namely, that the human body, in virtue of its original constitution, was destined for immortality. Compare this with the fact that the animal is mortal by virtue of its organization, whilst this does not apply to man. He is mortal because of the corruption of his soul and this stain will be washed away by Christ. If you reflect upon this you will understand that the physical body must be transformed by the living force that streams into Earth evolution through the Mystery of Golgotha. When Earth evolution comes to an end the power which has been lost through the “Fall” and which brought death to the body will be restored through the power of Christ, and the body of man will be seen in its true physical form. If we recognize the trichotomy of body, soul and spirit, then the “ressurrection of the body takes on meaning also, otherwise it cannot be understood. The modern rationalist will no doubt regard this as a most reactionary idea, but he who derives his knowledge of reincarnation from the wellspring of truth is also aware of the real significance of the resurrection of the body at the end of time. And when Paul rightly said: “If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain” (Cor. I.XV. 14), we know from the investigations of Spiritual Science that he bore witness to the truth. If this dictum of Paul be true, then it is equally true to say: if earthly evolution does not lead to the conservation of the corporeal form which man can perfect in the course of evolution, if the human form were to perish, if man could not rise again through the power of Christ, then the Mystery of Golgotha would have been in vain and vain also the faith that it inspired. This is the necessary complement of the words of Paul.

• 1. St. Anselm's remark is interesting in this context: “Credo ut intelligam” (I believe in order that I may understand).
• 2. Compare with Deeper Secrets of Human History in which Steiner explains this bible verse as a mischaracterization of locust as referring to the insect rather than the locust (carob) bean. —RS Archive
• t1. Tertullian (A.D. 150–c. 220). Son of a Roman centurion, he was a convert to the African Church. His writings are doctrinal, apologetic and practical. In A.D. 202 he joined the Montanist sect which practised prophesying, a form of extempore preaching which was connected with ecstasy and trance. Tertullian wrote six books on ecstasy which are lost. His “Rule of Faith” was substantially the Apostles’ Creed. He believed that the Twelve Apostles had founded Apostolic Churches. All teaching which agrees with these Churches must be accepted as the truth since it is received from Christ. He believed that the soul derives from God, is immortal, corporeal, is endowed with free will, thinks and wills. The body is its necessary counterpart and swill rise again, but does not return to Earth. Though we are all infected with original sin, there is no total corruption. Tertullian was a voluminous writer, a bitter polemicist and inclined to fanaticism. To him we owe the famous sayings: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church”, “Christ is truth, not custom”, “Credo quia absurdum, certum est quia impossible”. He was the first of the three great Church Fathers of the African Church; the others were Cyprian and Augustine.