The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Yesterday I endeavored to show how the material to be presented here regarding Goethe's most intimate opinions and views on the development of the human soul is not arbitrarily worked into his works, and in particular into the material with which we are particularly concerned, his fairy tale of the green snake and the Beautiful Lily, but I have tried to show how the whole basis on which to build, the explanation of this fairy tale and Goethe's more intimate worldview, can be gained from a historical consideration of Goethe's life, from a historical tracing of the most important impulses of Goethe's ideas. I may say that an attempt has been made to establish the foundations for what is to be given today in a more freely developed form on the subject. If we allow the fairy tale we spoke about yesterday to arise before our soul, it appears to be completely immersed in mystery. And one would like to say that either one must assume that Goethe wanted to put a lot of mystery into this fairy tale, as he put a lot of mystery into the second part of his “Faust,” according to his own sayings, or that we could regard this fairy tale — which is quite impossible — as a mere play of the imagination. If the latter were not already excluded by Goethe's whole way of thinking, one would have to say that such an assumption is particularly prohibited by the fact that Goethe placed this fairy tale at the end of his story “Conversations of German Emigrants”. For it is basically the same idea that we found characteristic of Goethe's entire life yesterday, and which also lives in these “Conversations of German Emigrants,” which were written in the last decade of the eighteenth century. And from what immediately precedes the “fairy tale,” we can once again discern the theme of this fairy tale.

We are presented with the conversations of people who have been forced to emigrate due to events in their French homeland, who look back in the most diverse ways on what they have experienced in terms of sadness. We see how the entire story comes to a head to show what people who are, in a sense, uprooted from their circumstances and surroundings can go through in the solitude of their souls; what people in such a situation can gain by reflecting on their emotional experiences, by self-observation. We need only highlight a few examples to show how Goethe brings everything to a head, how a soul that becomes a fighter within itself, that often asks itself through various prompts: What kind of guilt have I accumulated, how have I hindered the soul's development? How such a soul tries to find out about itself. First we meet an Italian singer who is to reveal her fate to us in this story because her destiny can serve to illustrate a human soul that, in a certain respect, must remain on the surface of world observation. A human soul that, although it attentively follows what is going on around it because it is forced to by its circumstances, is not yet mature enough to distinguish between what, in a sense, may be called an accident and the spiritual necessity of things. It does not yet know how the phenomena of life must be connected so that we can assume the presence of spirit and spiritual laws in our environment. This Italian singer behaved in such a way towards a man that he became seriously ill as a result of her repulsive behavior, and that he is actually dying because of her behavior. So she is summoned to his deathbed. She refuses to come to his deathbed. He must die without having seen her. Now, in the time following his death, many things happen that give a soul, which would have to be characterized in the same way as that of the Italian singer, something to think about; so much to think about that she does not really know what to make of what is going on, which could still be seen as connected with my whole behavior, with the whole way in which I behaved towards the dead man in relation to his fate. After death, something very strange happens. She hears all kinds of noises in her rooms, the furniture dances, and she is even slapped in the face by an unknown, invisible hand, so that she is really frightened by the strangeness and horror of these events. Is the dead person somehow there, wanting to assert himself because of the way I behaved towards him?

A cupboard's top breaks open, and it is strangely revealed that at the very moment that cupboard's top broke open in this room, a cupboard in France, made by the same carpenter, burst into flames in its rooms. Mind you, my friends, it would never occur to me to try to explain these things in the light of a spiritual worldview, nor to suggest that Goethe wanted to express that there was something in such events that could give cause, for all I care, to assume all sorts of hidden spirits or the rumbling of the dead.

Goethe merely wanted to show that there are certain souls that are so little enlightened that they do not know what to do with such strange events, that are not enlightened enough not to say: these things are nothing; but they are also not superstitious enough to say: the dead man is certainly stirring, but rather those who, because they are not developed, can only have an indefinite feeling about such things. We see how the soul fares in the external world, depending on its stage of development, which Goethe already demonstrates by steering the stories in “The Sorrows of German Emigrants” in the direction of “fairytales”. He shows us how a person is put in the position of having to heal a lady of her sensuality, her passion. He suggests the path of having her fast, of guiding her through asceticism, so to speak, in order to dampen the ardent passion in this way. This is another indication of what a soul can go through in order to experience development. Continue – and now notice how Goethe does indeed lead the matter upwards in stages. First, he shows a soul that is really digging around in the vague in the Italian singer; he shows an already more real thing in the lady that I just mentioned: It is indeed the case that many people come to a purification of their passions, to an upward development of their soul through fasting. Here we are moving from the indefinite into the definite, into reality, and this is fully the case when we ascend into the reality of human soul development in the physical world, as we see in the third story related by Goethe. He shows how a person is initially somewhat unscrupulous, and thus stands at a subordinate level of soul development, to the point where he says: What belongs to my father also belongs to me. The practical result of this is that he commits theft at his father's checkout. He grows, so to speak, precisely through this act. His soul ascends, and he becomes, precisely by doing this wrong deed, a kind of moral center for all the humanity that then groups around him. Thus, already in his stories, which lead up to the “fairy tale,” Goethe shows us how he wants to depict soul development, the soul's ascent from certain subordinate stages to higher stages of knowledge and world view.

Now, as we saw yesterday, we are dealing with soul forces that are represented by the figures, the beings of the “fairytale”, and with the play of soul forces, which is to gradually purify itself into harmony, even into a symphony of soul forces, as the soul rises higher in the deeds performed by the figures and persons of the “fairytale”. In what happens in the 'Märchens', we are dealing with will-o'-the-wisps that want to be ferried across from the other side of the river to this side by the ferryman. They are initially filled with gold, but the ferryman does not want their gold as a reward because the river would be thrown into wild turmoil if gold pieces were to fall into it. Rather, he must demand fruits of the earth: three onions, three artichokes, and three cabbages. The will-o'-the-wisps have the ability to shake gold around them, and we have seen how they encounter the snake, which they call their aunt from the horizontal line, while they themselves are beings from the vertical line. By sprinkling gold, they give the snake something that becomes fruitful and beneficial within it, because the snake, by connecting the pieces of gold with its own substance, becomes inwardly radiant. That which it could not see before and which has something to do with the secrets of soul development, that it can illuminate that within itself.

When I tried for more than twenty years to gain access to this fairy tale in every possible way, it was above all a liberating thought in the confusion of questions that arise from the “fairy tale” when it became clear that above all I had to pursue the gold. Gold plays a role of the most diverse kind in this fairy tale. First in the will-o'-the-wisp. The will-o'-the-wisp scatter it around; there it shows itself in a certain way as something that we may address as not beneficial in certain respects. In the snake, the gold becomes beneficial. Then again in the golden king, who is made entirely of gold, then we find it again on the walls of the hut where the old man with the lamp lives, and there the will-o'-the-wisp lick it down and make themselves thicker and more substantial by licking the gold down from the walls. So the gold comes up several times, and one time we are pointed to the fact that this gold has something to do with the power of the human soul, by being pointed to the temple, which is first below and then above ground, that the golden king represents the bringer of wisdom. It is something that we do not need to interpret or explain, but where we can say: Here Goethe himself says: the golden king refers to the giver, the bringer of wisdom. So the gold must have something to do with wisdom. It is the gold, by filling the being of the golden king, that makes him a wise being, that leads him to bestow the gift of knowledge

Know the Highest!

— this is transferred from the golden king to the youth, and the youth is thereby quickened. Gold is therefore something that the Giver of Wisdom is able to instill in man. The will-o'-the-wisps, if they represent a soul-power, must represent the soul-power that is able to receive wisdom, for they have the gold within them, the soul-power that can also cast wisdom aside. We learn how this wisdom can be stored by the fact that on the walls of this symbol of wisdom, gold, was stored for a long, long time before the will-o'-the-wisps licked it. We cannot help but say, since we know how well founded it is to see soul forces in the individual forms, that the will-o'-the wisp represent the abstract intelligence, the pure power of the intellect, which is capable of acquiring a certain amount of wisdom through what is usually called external science, what is called speculation, external experience. And now we also understand why gold, wisdom, plays such a role in the pure intellect of the will-o'-the-wisps: the person who absorbs what knowledge, science and wisdom is with the pure intellect absorbs it above all in order to have something personal with it, in order to be able to use it personally. We can look into Goethe's soul and recognize the way he related to something when we become aware of how he often congratulated himself, so to speak, for never having been in a position to officially represent as a teacher the science to which he so devotedly dedicated his time , that he was only able to give the world some of his wisdom when he was inwardly impelled to do so, was not called upon to cast wisdom aside as one casts aside clothing when one is destined to become a teacher or an abstract bearer of wisdom.

In this way, Goethe presents human wisdom in the Irrlichtern that has developed one-sided intelligence and power of reason, and it is a peculiarity that – however much it may be denied – abstract knowledge, mere intelligence, especially when it increasingly moves into wisdom – and abstract intelligence can absorb vast amounts of wisdom – that this leads to vanity, to wanting to be able to deal with concepts everywhere. We are speaking entirely in Goethe's spirit when we realize why we still contrive such wise thoughts and think so cleverly: abstract concepts and ideas that are not drawn from the depths, from the richness of life, are unsuitable for ultimately leading us into true communion with the eternal riddles of existence. Where we need something that goes straight to our hearts from the eternal riddles of existence, we need something other than abstract ideas and concepts, as products of mere intelligence. When we stand before the boundary that separates the two realms, the realm of the sensually physical world, into which we feel transported, and the realm of spirituality, the realm of the supersensible, when we feel ourselves at this boundary, we are we are repelled by all abstract concepts and ideas. Indeed, these abstract concepts and ideas are not even capable of making comprehensible to us what is closest to us, for they alienate us from what is closest to us. How far removed the abstract thing is from grasping even the most everyday things that surround it; so it is incapable of giving in its concepts and ideas to that stream to which we are drawn when we want to cross over into the supersensible world. For concepts and ideas are not good for that. If you want to get to the very source of life, then it rears up and does not let us get close. Therefore, the river has no use for the gold that the will-o'-the-wisps are able to give, and we are told that none of them have ever confessed or served time. They are from the vertical line, while the old crone is from the horizontal line. This indicates how man removes himself from the ground through abstract concepts and ideas and cannot reach the ground of everyday life, which he is supposed to understand. We see how plastic these abstract figures of the will-o'-the-wisp are. But are ideas and concepts, are philosophical explanations under all circumstances that which separates us from the true source of existence? No, they are not, if man has the capacity to live in such a way that he combines his own life forces with things. Not to go out into the realm of abstract concepts and ideas, but to move correctly within things, to become a spirit, as Faust became one when he said:

Exalted Spirit, thou gavest me, gave me everything,
why I asked. Thou didst not in vain
turn thy face to me in fire.
Gavest me the glorious nature for a kingdom,
the power to feel and enjoy it. Not
You only allow coldly amazed visitors, granting me to look into their deep chests as into the bosom of a friend. You lead the line of the living before me, and teach me my brothers in the silent bush, in air and water.

Where man truly enters into an inner communion with the beings of nature, where he does not sever himself with all the powers of his soul from the beings of nature, there the same concepts that alienate him from the world when they become abstract serve him to penetrate ever deeper and deeper into existence. We must not, so to speak, turn things around and say: because abstract concepts and ideas alienate the abstract being from the true essence of things, concepts and ideas are worthless in general. No, on the contrary, where they fall into the soul power that rises, lives in and with things in a certain community, in such a soul power they are full of light at the same time. Therefore, gold, which in a certain sense is without blessing in the will-o'-the-wisps, becomes such a blessing, the light in the snake that lives in the clefts and has the horizontal line, clings to the earth. If man clings to the earth, if he loves all things, if he immerses himself in things, if he, to use the much-maligned word, “mystically” immerses himself in things, then clear ideas serve to guide him through things. Therefore, you can also see – I don't know how many of you have had such an experience, but it can be had – that sometimes scholastically presented philosophies seem cold and sober, but that the same ideas, when they come to us from simple primitive people who live outside as herb gatherers, root gatherers or the like – and who are usually very interested in the secrets of existence – to what lofty ideas such people, mystically united with nature, sometimes come. We shall see how, in the case of primitive people who are in communion with nature, ideas become luminous that are worthless, sober, frosty in the case of abstract people. Thus we are led away from the will-o'-the wisp that abstract intelligence presents to us, to that soul power that is deeply rooted in us and that has the mystical urge to plunge into things, as it were. This is vividly and vividly depicted to us, as the snake moves through the crevices: Man, in fact, even if he does not enlighten himself with concepts, does not live in abstract ideas, comes close to the heart of things, like the snake to an underground temple, where, because it cannot shine, it first perceives only through touching certain forms that it only later examines in the light. Man, when he has only an appreciation of the mysterious workings of the forces of nature, comes to the heart of nature and can experience something of what lives in the things around us. We experience this with the snake, which shows us how it is a representative of those soul forces in man that can live without ideas under certain circumstances, only then not illuminated by the light of knowledge, but which nevertheless lovingly delve into things and come to a certain understanding of the riddles of the world. When the balance is restored by the fact that ideas and concepts are absorbed into these mystical powers of our soul, then the time comes when a person who is lovingly inclined towards things also finds that which he previously only sensed from the sources of existence; that he can also illuminate it through his own inner light. Yes, he is only led deeper into it.

You may recall a significant saying of Goethe's, where he says:

If the eye were not solar,
How could we behold the light?
If the power of God does not live in us,
How can we be enraptured by the divine?

Where Goethe immediately points out how we must respond to the eye of the light, which is intended to illuminate the secrets of nature, if it is to shine back again, reflecting the secrets of nature within it, as it were. Therefore, we must absorb the preparation for knowledge within us, as the snake absorbs gold, then we penetrate into what otherwise remains dark, as man, when he inwardly preserves the sense, the open heart, for the spiritual, sees the insights more clearly, how he can only then also see the spiritual in his environment.

And so the snake enters the underground temple. Here Goethe indicates to us in a wonderful way that there are subterranean places for the life of the human soul. One can only characterize such things as Goethe presents here if one enters somewhat more intimately into the strange workings of the human soul in its development. It can then be felt how our soul, before it is able to explain the things of the world outside and to prove the divine life and weaving of the spirit in all things, has to be inwardly certain that there is such a divine source, that there is a supersensible behind all that is sensible. She can experience the certainty of this supersensory within herself and yet be unable to see this supersensory shining throughout the universe. Oh, it is a lofty goal to behold the spirit in its form, as it is the creative source of all that surrounds us in the great world, as all that surrounds us in the great world wells up from the spirit. To do this, man must first develop the highest powers of the soul within himself.

The supersensible, which sleeps hidden in the normal human consciousness as a higher self, must first be evoked by man in order to ascend to the higher level of his spirit's development. One can sense that something like this exists. But then one also comes to another realization: if one has any sense of reality, of true existence, one must say to oneself: I can only reach my ultimate goal if I see how everything lives and is permeated by the spirit, how spirit is in all things. But I myself, as I stand in the world with my sensual body, so I am, as it were, crystallized out, born out of the spirit — out of which I am born, without my being involved, which I can ultimately achieve again through the highest knowledge. In a mysterious way, unconscious to myself, I have come from this land of the supersensible, into which I want to penetrate again through my knowledge. There we have the other shore, of which the “fairytale” speaks, the land beyond the river, where the beautiful lily dwells, which represents the highest world and life view, which represents the soul power to which man can develop. From there comes the mysterious being, the ferryman, who brings the will-o'-the-wisps over from the other side. Through real powers, man is transported into this world, where he stands as if surrounded by darkness – hence the mysterious words spoken by the ferryman, who brings us from the transcendental world to the land on this side of the river, who may only bring the beings across, but no one over. In no way can man return to where he came from except through birth. Other paths must be taken.

Then the will-o'-the-wisps ask how they can enter the realm of the beautiful lily, that is, how a single soul power can merge into the harmony of soul powers in such a way that it ascends to the highest. The snake then suggests two means: One is that which can be given by itself, when it allows itself to be transported by the Serpent at midday, when the sun is at its highest point. The will-o'-the-wisps say: 'That is a time when we do not like to travel. Yes, why? It is simply quite beyond the grasp of the Abstract-Lover, who wants to live only in abstract ideas and concepts, who wants to achieve everything only through combinations and conclusions, to make the transition as represented by the snake, through mystical devotion to things, through seeking mystical communion with things. This mystical communion cannot always be attained either. I recall that a great mystic of the Alexandrian school confessed in his old age that he had only experienced that great moment a few times in his life, when the soul feels ripe to delve so deeply that the spirit of the infinite awakens and that mystical moment occurs in which the God in the breast is experienced by the human being himself. These are moments at noon, when the sun of life is at its highest, when something like this can be experienced, and for those who always want to be ready with their abstract ideas, they say: anyone who ever has real thoughts must reach the highest level, for them such midday hours of life, which must be seen as a grace of earthly life, are no time to travel. For such abstract thinkers, there must always be a moment to solve the riddles of the world. Then the snake points out another way they can get across, namely through the shadow of the giant, that strange being that can do nothing for itself, cannot carry the slightest weight, not even a bundle of rice on its shoulder. At dusk, when half-light spreads, when the giant lets the shadow fall over the river that separates the sensual from the supersensual, then people can also cross over. What kind of a strange being is this giant? If we want to understand this giant, we must bear in mind that Goethe was well aware of those powers of the soul that lie, so to speak, below the threshold of consciousness. In the case of normal people, these powers only emerge during dreams. However, if we speak in a spiritual scientific sense, they belong to the subordinate clairvoyant powers that not attained through the development of the soul, but which occur particularly in primitive souls in the form of presentiments, second sight, and all that is connected with a soul that has not yet progressed very far, from which a certain uncontrollable and uncontrolled clairvoyance wells up.

Through such clairvoyant powers, there is no denying that a person can get some ideas about the supernatural world, and many people today still prefer to come to the supernatural world through such ideas or through spiritualistic images than through development, through the real upliftment of the soul into the land of the supernatural. What belongs to the realm of the subconscious, to the realm of the soul, that is not illuminated by what one can call clear mind, what one can call the light of insight, what one can call self-control, what is also like dream-like knowledge in life, is represented to us in this giant. In fact, one cannot truly recognize anything through this subconscious, because it is very weak compared to real knowledge, something that cannot be controlled anywhere, something that cannot be relied upon, so to speak.

If you wanted to personify this subconscious, you couldn't do better than a human being who is unable to carry the slightest weight. Through such subconscious knowledge, man — if he wants to develop it alone — is not able to recognize in a controlled way the slightest thing that stands on a sure basis, that has weight for our world view. But the shadow of this subconscious plays a great role in the whole of cultural life. Oh, that shows through everything — and only one word needs to be spoken to [characterize] the shadow, which for many human souls actually leads satisfactorily into the realm of the supersensible: the word 'superstition'. If countless people did not have superstition, which is the shadow of the subconscious, which prefers to operate not in the light of clear ideas but in the twilight, they would have no idea of the supersensible world, and for countless people today superstition is still the shadow of the subconscious, which leads them in the twilight hours of the soul life into the realm of the supersensible. One need not even enumerate the various manifestations of superstition in the history of civilization; one need only consider how people come to Theosophy, to spiritual science, which seeks to convey something to us from the supersensible world, something that only those people can comprehend who are willing to make great efforts to lift their soul higher. We want to ascend to the higher beings. But many make themselves comfortable, they want the spirits to descend to us instead of us rising to them. They are happy when a medium is found somewhere who, from the realm of the subconscious, testifies to the existence of the supersensible world. Not only inferior minds pay homage to what flourishes so abundantly as “spiritualism,” but even scholars who do not want to admit that the soul can be raised to the heights of the spirit through its own development. It is not said that the things that happen are not true, but distinguishing between truth and error is extremely difficult, and only for the initiated is it possible to exercise scientific control.

Goethe wants to point out this shadow of the subconscious, this whole vast realm that eludes wise self-knowledge and self-control, this power of the soul. But he does not point it out like a polemicist – Goethe was never a polemicist – he is aware that every power of the soul, at its level, even if it has to be suppressed at another level, has its importance, so he does not say: Beware of the giant, but he even finds it useful here to have the snake give the advice to the erring ones that they should have themselves translated by the giant's shadow at dusk. Strangely enough, this advice is repeated today when scholars do not want to bite into theosophy. Then well-meaning people come and say: let a spiritualist session convince you of a supersensible world, then you will be introduced to it in a plausible way. But superstition plays a great role in attracting attention, in directing the human mind to the supersensible world, and it must be clearly understood that Goethe, who wanted to present the entire field of soul forces as in a symphonic harmony, really believed, as this superstition, when it does not degenerate into wild superstition, has its good reason in the soul forces, which do not all come with sober, clear concepts, but first say to themselves: We can penetrate deeply, deeply into the secrets of things - but we would rather first hold it with intuitions of their secrets. First sense these secrets, do not immediately find our way into sharp contours! This intuitive restraint in relation to things is very important, since it should play a part in the entire life and weaving of our soul development.

Goethe wanted to show that what was expressed so clearly in outer nature was expressed in a higher way in the forces of the soul. I do not want to point out how Goethe, if he had not written a poem, a drama, a Wilhelm Meister, a Werther, would have been a shining personality for all time through his scientific discoveries. That in addition to his better-known scientific discoveries, he found a certain law that was not thought up or speculated by him, but which we will see is deeply rooted in the things themselves, like a leitmotif in all of nature's work, and which could be called the law of balance, in all external natural things as well. That nature has a certain measure of development for every being, can alter it on one side or the other, and can allow multiplicity and diversity to emerge from it. Look at the giraffe! Nature has used a certain measure of forces for the giraffe's activity, using more strength for the development of the front body, the neck, which is why the hindquarters are stunted! Look at the mole! Here nature devotes all its forces to the body, which is why the little feet remain stunted. Goethe showed how one can understand the difference in form between a dromedary and a lion and how different organs result from applying uniform measures in one direction one time and in the other direction another time. We see how a typical structure expresses itself in its diversity: in one case, the lower jaw develops teeth; in another, the lower jaw remains toothless and horns develop. When Goethe enunciated this law, it was naturally thought to be the saying of a poet who understood nothing of natural science, who was a layman, a dilettante. But in 1830, in the French Chamber, during his dispute with Cuvier, a French naturalist drew attention to this law under the name “balancement des organes”. The future will have much to say about this “balancement des organes” because it leads deep into the formal properties of the various entities. Goethe also applied this law to spiritual life. He recognized that there is also such a thing in the soul that expresses the individual at a higher level in the individual soul forces, so that he says: There are human beings who develop the special quality that is represented by the will-o'-the-wisps. They represent will-o'-the-wisps in life itself, false prophets who can do no other than communicate what they have learned to others and pour out their gold. Other people who can place a mystical light in nature, like the snakes that submerge themselves in nature. In short, Goethe wanted to show how, in general, normal life in the outer world, souls present themselves in such a way that they develop one-sided powers. How man can reach the higher level of knowledge by inwardly representing the type of the human soul, a balance, a right interaction of all soul forces, linked to the most sober soul force, the sense of foreboding. Not as superstition does, which loses itself in foreboding and lets the power of intelligence be enslaved by the foreboding of the nature of things.

On the one hand, Goethe shows how man can become one-sided, but he also shows how, if he wants to attain higher knowledge, he must strive towards that summit, which is symbolized by the beautiful lily, the inner harmonious balance and the interaction of the individual soul forces.

Now we know that the serpent, having received, so to speak, the inner radiance within, comes into the subterranean temple. Now it can distinguish between those spiritual worlds that approach man, that must inspire man, that can give strength, and those that the human soul must properly have within it if it is to ascend to a higher existence. There are certain powers in the human soul that it must have if it is to ascend to a higher level. But if a person wants to attain this higher level without having found the right path at the right time through the inspiration of these world powers, if he wants to grasp the highest that can be achieved in knowledge and world view prematurely, then this world view is something that can kill, confuse and paralyze him in his soul. Therefore, the youth who wants to unite with the lily before he is ripe, he will first be paralyzed, yes, killed. That is, Goethe has vividly expressed what he once expressed in a short saying:

Everything that frees our minds without giving us mastery over ourselves is corrupting.

There is a high level of human development through which the human soul can grow together with the fruits of all knowledge. It stands before us like a distant prospect. Our striving must be directed towards maturing, towards shaping ourselves in such a way that we are in the right mood, in the right inner state, and do not receive the highest in an immature way. So the youth is killed first and is to be led first through the endowment of soul powers, represented by the kings. Before he can connect with the beautiful lily, the snake leads him to the three kings. Meaningful conversations surround these kings like secrets. The golden king is the supersensible power that can be kindled in our soul, which gives the right wisdom so that the power of wisdom harmonizes with the other soul forces. The silver king represents piety. And for Goethe, piety means something quite different than in the ordinary sense.

Those who know Goethe also know that for him, the cult of beauty and art were intimately connected with religious feeling; therefore, beauty is what always makes him feel pious, so that for him the king of wisdom is represented by gold. The king who is endowed with the soul power that generates religion through beauty is the silver one. But that which is to permeate our impulses of will, that which wants to penetrate us in the ordered life of the soul as the power of the will, is represented by the brazen king.

Our soul forces must be under our complete control, so that we can distinguish them, so that we see the world in the right way, full of wisdom, and our feelings do not play tricks on us. That the life of feeling is not overcome by the life of wisdom and the life of wisdom in its turn by the life of the will and vice versa, but that the three soul powers arise separately, specified in the higher soul life. As for the fourth king, it may be said that every human being has wisdom, piety and willpower within him, but that they are mixed together in a chaotic way, like gold, silver and ore. Then a higher age of development begins for the soul when this chaotic mixing of soul powers ceases, and man is not even pushed by an impulse of will, at one time his feelings run away with him, at another time he is led by wisdom alone. No, when the non-chaotic, as it happens through the fourth king, is mixed, when man clearly separates within himself the realm of soul power, that of wisdom, that of the feeling of beauty, that of the religious mood, that that is imbued with the good will to do good, so that he rules over this realm and is not driven by it, then he will come to that point in time when one can say: It is time, I must undertake something else. A soul that is led unprepared before the realm of wisdom, beauty and power would hardly see anything of these things.

The man with the lamp represents a soul force that, in a certain sense, prepares people for wisdom, beauty and strength. It is the peculiarity of this lamp that it can only shine where there is already another light. What kind of light comes from the lamp of the old man? The same light, the light of religious world view, which must precede the actual wisdom knowledge, radiates from our hearts, even if we have not yet penetrated into things. It is a light that can only shine where other light is already present. Religions can only produce faith where they arise through this or that preparation, or where they are adapted to what people feel under the climate, certain cultural epochs and so on. There, therefore, the serpent, which wants to penetrate through mere inner mystical soul power to wisdom, piety, power, must encounter the kings, the soul forces, with the light of faith, which leads the soul to higher knowledge, which prepares the soul. Thus Goethe shows how the right time must approach. How it must first be guided by the light of faith and how it can then, when the soul has prepared itself, guided by the light of faith, ascend to an age where it has experienced many things. How it can come to the direct grasp of the soul power in its separateness as well as in its harmonious interaction. It is shown how man can prepare himself here on the physical plane on this side of the river. How on the other side, if man connects himself prematurely with the heights of human emotional life, he suffers damage in his soul, so to speak, perishes.

And now the strange figure of the old man's wife with the lamp. This woman, who is described to us as all too human, who is chosen by the will-o'-the-wisps to pay with fruits of the earth — she represents primitive human nature, which cannot rise to knowledge, but when connected to the man with the lamp, with the light, she can believe. What is the light of faith capable of? It can transform stones into gold, wood into silver, dead animals into precious stones. This is all characterized by the fact that the lamp-black pug that has eaten the gold that the will-o'-the-wisps have shaken off is transformed into precious stones by the old man's lamp. This shows the power of faith, this completely wonderful power of faith, this advancement of higher knowledge. Or how it is able to show us all things in such a way that they really present their divine aspects in a certain way. That they show what is in them even before they have reached the supersensible in them through knowledge. The dead stones show: what is endowed with wisdom is transformed into gold by the light of this lamp. This means that faith is able to already sense in things what wisdom later recognizes in full light, and how all things are not as they appear to us in the sensory world, but that they have a deeper side. This is symbolically indicated by how the light of faith in the old man's lamp transforms all things. Man, if he remains in his healthy nature, cannot attain to science, to knowledge, then he actually has something in him that is much more connected with the mysterious forces that stand at the border of the supersensible. Compared to the person who has come to abstract science and easily becomes a doubter and skeptic. How he loses his footing, becomes insecure, nervous about all knowledge. How secure some original primitive nature is, as represented by this old woman, who is so in touch with nature, who can give what the will-o'-the-wisps cannot give. Such people have an original feeling through which they are aware of the connections with the infinite, the divine, which lives and weaves in all nature as the supernatural. That is why, when learned people with their doubts come to some original people, there comes that compassionate smile that says: No matter how clever you are, no matter how much you know about nature with your learning, we know what you do not know; certain knowledge brings us together with that from which we ourselves originate. The woman can pay, which the will-o'-the-wisps cannot.

The human being must attain not only emotional certainty. He is connected with a supersensible realm, as is represented by the rule of the temple with the kings, where there is not only an inner, mystical sense of security, but the human being must ascend so that he is truly introduced to the realm of the supersensible, sees the spiritual life and activity. The temple must be transported from the underground into the overground. The temple of knowledge itself must rise above the boundary line, above the river between the supersensible and the sensual world. And it is conceivable that a soul which has worked on itself in this way, has gone up the stages of development, has those holy midday moments of life in a certain way in hand, can pass through them into the spiritual and over into the sensual world. That it can draw attention to how the Divine-Spiritual reigns when an event of external nature is shown and can point again to the pure Divine-Spiritual that is in the supersensible realm, so that it is achieved that not only exquisite, particularly favored spirits can cross the river. This is to be achieved through spiritual science in modern culture. Goethe is a prophet of theosophy in his “Fairy Tale,” in that he shows that not only the favored mystical natures, who have innate mysticism, have midday moments of life when they can cross over the river and find the realm of the supersensible in the bright sunshine of life, but that there is a soul development that everyone can undergo. Every soul, naturally, even though it is laborious and full of renunciation, can all wander over and across, from and to the transcendental realm, when what the mystery of faith is has occurred.

“How many secrets do you know?” – “Three,” replied the old man. “Which is the most important?” asked the silver king. “The revealed,” replied the old man.

This saying [of the revealed secret] often occurs in Goethe because Goethe, like all true mystics, was of the opinion that there is nothing spiritual that does not experience itself externally, materially, somehow, that one can find connections between the material and the spiritual everywhere. It is only a matter of finding the right point, the right place in the universe where the spiritual expresses itself externally, physiognomically. The secret, apparently! Not so much how to seek the spiritual in a roundabout way, but to connect with things, like the snake. And one also finds a way into the spiritual through communion with the material world. The revealed secret is the one that can be found everywhere and to which only a certain maturity of the soul belongs. The three secrets are none other than how wisdom, beauty and piety and virtue should live in us, not separately. Characteristically, a fourth is necessary, which the old man cannot know. But he can know that it is time to say it! What does the snake whisper in the old man's ear? That she is willing to sacrifice herself, that she is willing to sacrifice her own body, just to build a bridge over the river out of what arises from her.

The great secret of the sacrifice of the lower soul forces, which should only be the path to the higher self: I want to sacrifice all that which is connected with the lower entities of nature, which I have sought, obedient to the laws of the world. Those who do not have this dying and becoming remain only a gloomy guest on the dark earth.

First, man must go through all that leads him to the events and facts of nature, in order to then offer up what he has gained and experienced with his lower self as a sensual being, and ascend.

Jakob Böhme expressed this mystery beautifully:

He who does not die before he dies
will perish when he dies.

He who enters the supersensible world through the gate of death without having killed the lower powers of the soul, without having died to the lower self before passing through the physical gate of death, would not prepare himself in this embodiment to see the true spiritual being before death!

The soul saves itself from ruin in the lower self when it becomes like the snake, which does not merely remain in the clefts, but sacrifices itself. This means that there is a power of the soul in us that can connect with all nature beings. This power must first be sacrificed, however, for the sake of higher knowledge, so that what must first be sacrificed is all that is lower egoism, all that base selfishness, in order to attain higher freedom. Thus that which first led us into the realm of this world itself becomes the path to the beyond. We ascend into the supersensible world only over that which we have sacrificed ourselves. The will-o'-the-wisps are only able to unlock the gate. They have the keys. Science has the keys, as Mephistopheles has the keys to the realm of the mothers; he can unlock, but not lead into, the real secrets. We can recognize the value of the sciences, appreciate the intelligent and abstract in human life, for it leads us to the gate. But then the higher soul forces must begin if we want to be admitted into the temple. Thus we see how these will-o'-the-wisp actually play out their role to the end, and how Goethe, in the development of his fairy tale poetry, captures the meaning of the soul forces down to the last details. The “fairytale” is such that with this kind of explanation, every word, every sentence is proof that a deeper meaning is being introduced into the fairy tale. Through the effect of the lamp, the old man's house is lined with gold. What remains of religion, of the different religions? Tradition!

Let us try to imagine the whole thing in concrete terms in our cultural process. Let us go to our libraries and search in the historical works on this and that religion. How much of the gold is stored there, how much is illuminated by the light of the lamp, how the abstractions come in, licking up the gold, gleaning the history of religions from the books and making new ones out of old books. Even where wisdom becomes history, stored up in libraries, the will-o'-the-wisps can nourish themselves on it; they even walk around full of erudition with what comes first from these sources. It agrees less with the pug, the natural creature, the unlearned one, who dies from this wisdom and must first be revived. First, through the light of the lamp, he is transformed into precious stones and can be transformed from precious stone through contact with the lily. The lily can enliven everything that has gone through death, that has undergone this – what does not have this dying and becoming – a bright guest must have become this on this earth. He who wishes to endure the touch of the lily must have passed through the death of the lower self.

Thus the young man only becomes ready to come into contact with the beautiful lily after he has been killed. He can only enter the Temple of Wisdom after the snake has sacrificed itself. When all this has happened, the young man can then be led to the temple. When the sacrifice has been made, the soul is led upwards from its subterranean existence to the realization that everything is permeated and interwoven by the spirit. Then the temple is led from below upwards, and the human being is endowed with that which the individual soul powers can give him. Wisdom gives him that which is expressed in the sentence of the golden king:

Recognize the Highest.

The symbol is the oak wreath. The silver king gives him the sceptre and says:

Feed the sheep

as a sign of his endowment with the power of piety. The king of brass hands him the sword and shield and tells him:

Keep your sword at your left side, and your right hand free.

Right-hand virtue is not aggressive in its approach, but it stands strong and firm on its feet, and when it is a matter of human dignity and human destiny, it is ready to defend these and to work in the world in human love and beneficial human action. Now the young man unites with the beautiful lily. The individual powers of the soul are illuminated by true love. But the soul can only feel this when it has risen above ordinary love, when it is absorbed in love for the spiritual. Wisdom, beauty, piety, virtue, they develop and promote the soul's development. Love not only has to grow, it invigorates, shapes and harmonizes everything. It lifts the soul up a step. There we then see how the human being, when he ascends, when he finds himself in that temple where he can experience knowledge, how he comes to see, but now in holy awe, how the small temple in the large temple sees the highest, the secret of secrets, the human being himself, how he passes over as a spiritual being from the spiritual world to the hut of the , where man is placed as a small world, as a small temple in the larger temple, showing so beautifully when the soul moves up to the steps of higher knowledge, then he attains the secrets of the world through wisdom, piety, and virtue. What Goethe so beautifully felt as the Spinozian love of God, the development of the highest powers of the soul, comes to the riddles, the secrets of the world, but as the highest of the secrets, which we only see again as a small temple in the great, the secret of man himself and his connection with the divine being. The giant comes last, also groping around, and then becomes the hour hand of time. Our knowledge becomes spiritual, it dissipates when we ascend in our soul life, and what is external materialism is the consciousness of those laws that work mechanically. The giant basically stands for the subconscious, for everything that comes from the forces of the soul that also work in the subconscious. This may only remain in one when we look up at what is the utmost for our inwardness, how the times follow one another, what the outer rhythm of time is. This has its ultimate justification, and mere mechanical knowledge has a justification there. One would like to say: Goethe may have had in mind when he came up with this idea of the giant, who finally becomes the hour hand of the world, what superstition has been done with the art of numbers, the various structures in space, what is only a superstitious shadow of a greater knowledge that has remained from the old days of the old worldviews. But one thing remains as justified: to use what has been recognized to form a kind of chronometer for the processes that surround people.

Thus, in a certain respect, we find everything that Goethe felt was necessary for the development of the soul's powers translated into vivid images. If you want to ascend to the highest, then you must develop the soul's powers in such a way that it can only be expressed symbolically in rich, meaningful images. Then you will come close to what Goethe wanted to say when you try to gain an insight into these images from the whole of Goethe's world view. But you must be aware that what is contained in the fairy tale is infinitely richer than I have said, and that all of this is actually only a suggestion of the kind in which Goethe's fairy tale should be sought and felt. But perhaps it is possible to get a sense of the inner wealth and greatness from which Goethe created with such immeasurable productive power. How right he is when he says that the true, the beautiful, the truly artistic can only be an expression of the general truth that permeates the world and that people can recognize. And this was also what lived in Goethe as a conviction, what led him from step to step in restless pursuit; this is what draws us to Goethe, so to speak. Goethe is one of those minds that work like only the very greatest.

You read a work by Goethe once in your life. You think you have understood it. After five years you read it again and realize: I didn't understand it then, but only now. Then again after five years, and you realize how much you have discovered that you couldn't see before because you weren't mature enough. Only now, after you have experienced so much yourself, only now can you understand the work. Five years later you read it again, and then perhaps you are so happy that you say to yourself: At the time you did not understand it; you must, you can wait until you become more mature and more mature, to be completely satisfied as you grow into it more and more. This feeling is only experienced by the most exquisite minds in the development of humanity. In such people we see the leaders of human culture. One gets an inkling of the infinity of the soul's content by being able to penetrate ever deeper into it. Then one counts him among those spirits about whom, summarizing today's reflection, we can say:

Like stars shining
in the sky of eternal being
are the spirits sent by God.
May all human souls in the realm of becoming on earth
succeed in seeing their flames of light!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

External facts are not indicative of the inner essence of a thing. There is still a great deal of confusion in the thinking of humanity in this regard. It cannot be claimed that one can learn to think through logic; that is just as impossible as becoming a musician through the study of harmony. But logic is necessary for correct thinking, just as the study of harmony is necessary for composing for the right musician. One must know how judgments and conclusions are formed. But we must always remain in the same region if we want to make formally correct judgments. For example, the conclusion: All men are mortal. I am a man. Therefore I am mortal - is apparently not a fallacy, because here we are referring back to the subject. However, the laws of logic only apply if we remain on the same level. The conclusion “Therefore I am mortal” refers only to the body. However, our I belongs to another level; it is not mortal. The conclusion: “Therefore the I is mortal” is therefore wrong. Such formal errors are often found in the works of today's scholars. ABOUT PHILOSOPHY AND FORMAL LOGIC Munich, November 8, 1908

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now we still have to realize how we can speak of valid judgments at all, what such a thing is. This is a very important matter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In my presence today, I intend to speak to you about things that can help the seeking human mind to understand the events of the present a little more deeply. These things should not be discussed in an external way, but rather, some should be pointed out that can help man, so to speak, in a spiritual expansion of understanding of our present time. This intention, which I have had for a long time for this visit to Stuttgart, we also want to carry out. We still have the lecture next Sunday.

In view of the many things that, I would say, like waves of our time — I say this with full deliberation — play into our movement from the outside, it seems necessary to me, however, to begin today with a kind of introduction to present some principles that may be suitable to dispel some misunderstandings which can arise all too easily in our time, which hates the depth of thought and feeling, about anthroposophy, which on the other hand can be suitable for gaining a correct relationship within ourselves to what anthroposophy can be for us.

Let us try to pose the question as follows: What are we seeking when we choose the path into the anthroposophical movement? — In this way, we seek to gain the opportunity to find a relationship to the spiritual world that corresponds to the needs for this spiritual world that arise in us from the forces and living conditions of the present. No one comes to us who cannot gain access to the spiritual world by more direct routes than those we have at our disposal. No one comes to us who cannot gain access to the spiritual world by the routes that have been fully recognized for centuries and that are only as direct as people have forgotten to reflect on the justification for what has become part of the general necessities of life. On the other hand, there is much discussion about the justification for something that must, as it were, first appear in the world. We cannot often enough bear in mind what, out of the spirit of our time, anthroposophy should be and wants to be, and bring it into connection with what is in us that can push towards anthroposophy, that wants to bring us to anthroposophy.

You see, my dear friends, Anthroposophy would not be there if it were only for the one or other person who finds it appealing to agitate for such ideas, as they live in Anthroposophy, now, we use the unofficial expression. Anthroposophy arises entirely from the realization that there are searching souls in our time who can only find what they are seeking through the path of Anthroposophy. Anthroposophy is not pursued because someone wants it, but because souls long for it. The fact that some may deny this does not count against it, for much that is subconscious and unconscious lives in the soul and, when interpreted correctly, represents nothing other than the longing for Anthroposophy. Above all, if we single out one thing from this anthroposophy, it is the longing to recognize the greatest impulse of earthly development, the Christ impulse, in a way that is appropriate to the needs of the present, to find the path to the Christ impulse in the way that the heart must long for if it really wants to understand itself within the living conditions of the present. Now such general, abstract sentences, as I have just uttered, are certainly plausible to someone who has been grounded in anthroposophy for years. But what it is about is this: to really permeate one's soul with the spirit of these words in such a way that they do not remain merely abstract, merely theoretical in us, but that they become the content of our whole life, above all the content of our way of thinking.

I have already given an example here that is particularly characteristic: I once gave a lecture in a town in southern Germany on the subject of 'Bible and Wisdom', in which I tried to explain how a positive Christian, especially if he understands himself correctly, can find his way to anthroposophy. I described how anthroposophy, through its presuppositions, can penetrate more deeply into the great and inexhaustible secrets of the original book of humanity, the Bible. After the lecture, two Catholic priests who had attended the lecture approached me. And from what they said, it was clear that they could not really object to anything in particular from their Christian doctrine, as they understood it, as they knew it as theologians - perhaps not so much as priests bound by any obligations as theologians. So they went off on a side track and said: Yes, you see, there is nothing special to be said from our point of view against what you have just said today, except this: When we speak, we speak in such a way that everyone can understand what we are saying. They also speak of Christianity, but only for those who have reached a certain level of education or have specially prepared themselves for this kind of thing. “I replied: Yes, you see, Reverend, what you or I think about the question of what should be said to all people is not the point, because that leads the whole topic down the path of personal opinion. It is not particularly remarkable that everyone believes that what they do is universally valid for all people. Why should one be surprised at that; otherwise they would not do it! But what you or I think is right is not the point. Our way of doing research on the spirit begins with rising above personal opinion and facing reality, true reality. In our case, this reality is very close. It lies simply in the answer to the question: Do all the people for whom you believe you speak – you do believe you speak for all people, don't you? – still come to church with you? The question answers a fact – the question of whether you think you speak for all people. That it should apply to all people is only your opinion; the other corresponds only to a fact. Tell me whether all people go to church! — They could not answer me except that a number of people do not go to church. That

185 refutes you, I said, because then you are not speaking for those who do not go to church. And among them are numerous people to whom I have to speak, and who also have the right to find the way to Christ in the present.

This means not judging according to what one personally considers to be true or false, but subordinating one's judgment to the demands and tasks of reality. It is, however, much more comfortable to theorize about what is right or wrong than to study reality in detail, constantly listening attentively to what reality demands of us. Anthroposophy does not want to be something other than an answer to questions that it does not ask itself, but that the hearts and souls ask in the present, when they understand each other properly. And I am aware that the questions that are asked in my writings, which are already very numerous, are not asked by me. The answers are given by me in many cases, but the questions are not asked by me. The questions are posed by what the culture of the time brings forth, by what, for example, natural science in the culture of the time brings forth, by what anyone who is interested in the demands of the time must ask, and who, above all, is serious about the most important needs of the souls of the present.

If we call these conditions to mind, then it becomes clear that a basic intention, a basic view, a basic tendency and a basic attitude prevail throughout the anthroposophical literature. If one goes through all these writings, not with the benevolent attitude that we may have gained within our circle, but with the critical eye that one can gain from the present-day culture, then one will find one thing as the core of all this anthroposophical literature. That is, that everything aims to bring the human soul that which this human soul must long for above all in the present: independence, the power of judgment from one's own inner being. I have often had to resist the urge to write popularly from this or that side. I have always resisted this urge for the simple reason that the point of anthroposophical literature is not to give people articles of faith that they can accept at will in a lightly veiled form, but rather to call on them to use their own powers of judgment and search their own souls. Anyone who wants to can see that this is the case throughout all of this anthroposophical literature.

Nowhere is the aim to evoke blind faith. Of course, there are things told that cannot be verified without further ado, but they are told as facts of the spiritual world that anyone can accept as messages and to which they can apply their critical standard, to ever greater and greater extent, if they wish. And we have seen that in recent times friends who have sympathetically examined the matter have managed to approach even the most subtle things to a high degree with the probe of an unprejudiced criticism. What is contained in the anthroposophical literature referred to here need never shrink from this unprejudiced criticism. This unprejudiced criticism will pass it; it will pass it all the better, the more unprejudiced this criticism is: Never will anyone hear anything different from me when it comes to this question than this: Test, test, test, but do not stop at testing, but seek to test by trying to get deeper and deeper into things with the means of present thinking. Because this is the aim, the writings of this literature can make people independent.

Now, however, one experiences many things when one surveys the way in which anthroposophy is received. I met people again and again who listened to one or the other lecture, read one or the other small writing, and then no longer showed themselves. That is their right, of course, and no one should be reproached for it. And when they were asked by an acquaintance why they no longer appeared - in all friendship, of course, not as if they were being reproached - they replied: “Yes, if we go into the matter in more detail, we fear being convinced.” This is certainly a significant word, but it also points to significant facts. What is being attempted is precisely this: to break away from the hereditary evil of our time, from the positing of personal opinions, from the positing of personal thecri, and to direct souls to that which the spirituality of the world itself says, if we find the possibility to surrender ourselves to this spirituality of the world with all our soul and to speak of the methods, to speak of the means by which the soul can attain to listening to the spirituality of the world itself.

A world view that emerges in this way from the deepest needs of the time, but which so thoroughly contradicts what people of the present believe, will only slowly and gradually find its way into the souls of men. Human souls cling to what is familiar; human souls prefer to hear their own water-clear thinking from the pulpit and to be able to say of what they hear: “I have thought that for a long time.” The anthroposophical teachings that are emerging in the present are certainly not truths that have been “thought for a long time”. But in the eyes of many people this is precisely the main mistake, that they cannot say to themselves: “I have thought that for a long time” — and that they do not want to say to themselves: “If I dig deep enough within myself, I will not express a personal opinion, but something that is connected with the developmental factors of humanity.” — We will come back to such developmental factors of humanity many times during my stay in Stuttgart this time. So it is understandable that many obstacles and hindrances arise when people try to approach anthroposophy, to approach spiritual science.

My book “How to Know Higher Worlds” is widely read over time, not only within those who belong to the various circles of the Anthroposophical Society, but it is also widely read outside the Society at the present time. When reading this book in particular, an experience can be made again and again that is extraordinarily characteristic. Someone reads the book “How to Know Higher Worlds” and writes me a letter about it. And of course, I am always pleased when someone writes me an intelligent letter about any book or about anything else, but especially about the book “How to Know Higher Worlds”. But the usual thing is that the letter that is written is the clearest proof, the clearest proof that the person concerned has not understood the book at all and has translated the most important things of the book into the most materialistic attitude of the present. Because what people usually go for when they come across this book is the following. But let us send something in advance: a whole host of doubts can arise in the mind of someone reading the book “How to Know Higher Worlds”, and there are already many people who can testify that I am always ready to discuss these doubts with people, and so I certainly do not want what I am saying now to appear as if it should deter anyone from writing the letter I just mentioned. No one should be deterred from writing this letter, but the letter is very often written with people getting stuck on one particular thing, where the thing immediately turns into materialism for them. Much is said in the book 'How to Know Higher Worlds', which, when properly observed, leads people to find their own way into the spiritual world, from within themselves, from their soul. This book is designed to make people as independent as possible, not to impose anything on them in any subjective way, but only to remove the obstacles so that they can find the truth themselves. The best way to begin to take in this book would be to appropriate its content in inner deed. But then people get stuck on the sentence: The one who has attained the necessary maturity will find his spiritual teacher if only he searches for him correctly. — So, there we have it! I write a letter to the one who wrote the book, and he becomes my spiritual teacher; that's the simplest thing! There we have the materialistic explanation. The fact that this passage could be the most sacred incentive for a person seeking independence to continue searching in order to find the path, which might consist of something completely different than writing a letter to someone: You, give me instructions - that is very uncomfortable for many readers of the book. They do not search enough in the book. And so this book, How to Know Higher Worlds, is one of the most widely read books in the German-speaking world today, and has been translated into many foreign languages, despite the fact that it is one of the most misunderstood books. And yet it is child's play to understand if you just let it sink in without prejudice. And don't translate it into materialistic comfort.

To some extent, people today are looking for what they are accustomed to seeking in other areas. How deeply ingrained it has become in people today not to help themselves, that is, not to learn what can help them in one situation or another, but to be helped and not to worry about the principles by which they are helped. Why should we trouble ourselves today about the best way to live in terms of our health? We let ourselves be prescribed for by someone who is there for that purpose, and then we do not need to check the principles according to which he prescribes; we hand over our fate to the one who is set up as an authority. Why should we not be particularly inclined to surrender our destiny to someone else when we are on the spiritual path, the most important human path? But what if the very work that inspires us to do so is dedicated above all to making the human soul independent!

It may be said that scientific research in particular has reached a certain level today, and that this level of scientific research would be accessible to those who are called upon today to represent the natural sciences if most of them did not simply become absorbed in their subject and did not go beyond the boundaries of their subject. If only, I might say, a dozen of the official representatives — and only these are listened to today — would make an honest effort to examine with the most profound honesty what is contained in my 'Occult Science: An Outline of the Fundamental Principles of the Science of Man and Nature', ' and in my 'Theosophy', they would find everything confirmed from the side that can be characterized by saying: Look at life, whether life does not confirm what can be experienced through spiritual science, what is sought here from the spiritual world! — Anyone who really masters natural science today comes to the verification of what anthroposophically oriented spiritual science gives. This is absolutely a truth. But we are faced with the peculiar fact that precisely those who could undertake such an examination are absolutely not concerned about it, have not been concerned about it until now — I am ignoring those who, in our circles, have received the stimulus for it — that no one has set themselves the task of really testing the spiritual-scientific results of anthroposophy against the, fully understood, natural-scientific research of the present! The spiritual-scientific research really has no need to fear this test; it will pass it. It should only be employed, it will be passed. But admittedly, in a time when one is not even inclined to go into the most primitive truths, this test will perhaps take a long time.

The urge not only to be logical, but to be realistic, that is, to form one's judgment not only according to abstract logic, but by immersing oneself in reality, this urge is possessed by few in our present time. Many strive to be logical, but only after going behind logic a certain way is it possible to see the scope of logic itself; otherwise one does not even realize what confusion one can create with such very consistent judgments. You see, it is logical to be always consistent with one's own judgment or consistent with someone else's judgment, but it can lead to rather strange collisions. Charles V, the Austrian, and the French king Francis I came to the same conclusion. They were, so to speak, in complete agreement with regard to a certain idea that they wanted to realize. Francis said: “My dear brother wants exactly the same as I do. We both want exactly the same thing. — They both wanted to conquer Milan! Yes, you see, you notice it — namely when you say the postscript. But that such judgments are swarming around and dominate precisely contemporary thinking, to the detriment of this present, few in the present have the inclination to even think of it.

It is remarkable how – forgive the philistine image – enlightened minds today sometimes approach judgment by going at it from the wrong end, as if someone were to put a horse's bridle on by the tail instead of by the head. But such a bridling is immediately accepted if the person concerned is officially authorized. Anyone with a sense for the living in thinking, feeling and willing could have suffered real torments for many years from the way much thinking is done in the present. I still remember hearing my first lecture in Vienna on elliptic function theory – forgive the word, but it depends on the mind of the person what I want to express, and not on whether one or the other understands what I am using now. So I heard lectures by Professor Leo Königsberger, who was already famous at the time. He was so famous that after being appointed a professor he could write to the government right away to request to be appointed a court councillor, not just a professor. So when I attended his first lecture, he came to the question: What about numbers? People assume positive and negative numbers. Positive numbers correspond to the money I have, negative numbers to the money I don't have, the money I owe. But there are other numbers. Now mathematicians use a line with an O in the middle to denote positive and negative numbers: plus 1, plus 2; minus 1, minus 2. And then the famous Gauss added a new line of numbers so that you can fill the plane with different types of numbers. I don't want to talk about the justification of this number level, but Leo Königsberger began his lecture on elliptic functions by saying, “It could now be that someone would say today that one could just as well take numbers perpendicular to this plane.” When I, as a very young badger of sixteen or seventeen, learned about the story of the plane of numbers, I immediately raised an objection: I said that then one could also think of space as being filled with numbers. The teacher kindly reassured me by saying, “Well, just wait until the next few centuries!” — which, of course, made a great impression on me, the young badger. Now I heard Leo Königsberger in Vienna address the same question. He said, “Let's assume there are these three types of numbers, not just the numbers that lie in the plane of the two lines, but the numbers that lie in the third dimension. We hypothetically assume that such numbers exist, and I would multiply such a number by another number. Now I will show you that when you multiply them, the product can sometimes be zero. But since that can never be the case, there can be no such number. Well, you see, having to listen to this is torture. I don't want to talk about whether the whole story is right or not, but if you accept one thing and don't accept the other, and claim that because the product is zero, there can be no such number, then having to listen to this is torture, because of course the correct thing is that if you have two numbers that equal zero, you have to assume that zero can be created by multiplication, not the opposite; that is the most obvious thing. But whether these judgments live in mathematics, whether these judgments live in political notes, for example in Mr. Wilson's notes, they always lead back to the same forms of thought. But if these forms of judgment live in those judgments that want to be effective for the fate of humanity, then an error in judgment means something quite different from an error in a merely limited scientific speculation, as it is in many respects the teaching of Leo Königsberger.

It must be emphasized, as it is characteristic of our time, that people do not want to adapt their judgment to reality. They do not want to live in reality because they do not want to in the simplest things. They want to assume that the simplest things are what they want, not what reality dictates. It is of the greatest importance that we should learn to think differently in many respects, in order to escape from much of the mischief of the present time. We must learn not merely to think differently, but to think differently. If people with their old habits of thinking could really grasp anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, then they would be able to familiarize themselves more quickly with spiritual scientific truths. But these should not be grasped with the old habits of thinking, but rather with the new thinking, and people find that extremely difficult.

Now, these are some of the reasons why it is so difficult at present to get through with anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, simply because it has to confront the very, very nearest prejudices. But precisely because this is the case, spiritual science is not really fought against, because, it must be admitted, the fight against spiritual science is on very shaky ground. Go and look for those scientific discussions that seriously and thoroughly try to deal with spiritual science as it stands; go and look for treatises or the like of this caliber! Anyone who has ever looked into it will see how little there is in this direction. But perhaps it is not convenient to proceed in this way. You see, a few years ago a student told me that he was preparing to do his doctorate in philosophy at a very well-known university: he wanted to write a dissertation that had been recommended to him by a famous professor. This dissertation was to be about the great Russian thinker Solowjow. At that time, not much more had been printed by Solowjow than a few things that had been published by Nina Hoffmann; much more came out later. I asked the student: Why does the professor advise you to write your dissertation about this Solowjow? “Yes,” said the student, ‘the professor knows nothing about this philosopher and would like to learn something.’ ‘So that's the best way: you let the student write a doctoral thesis on Solovyov, if the student knows Russian; then you learn something about him.’ So the doctoral thesis on Solovyov was written. But a great many doctoral theses are written out of the same sentiment. In many cases, this is a maxim for how topics for doctoral theses are given. But in this way a certain scientific attitude is cultivated, one might say bred. The professor in question could only have really got to know Solowjow if he had intended not only to be a professor of philosophy but also to get to know contemporary philosophy through one of its most outstanding representatives. He would have had to try to study Solowjow himself as best he could, even though only a small part of Solowjow's work has been translated and he does not know Russian himself. It is an uncomfortable path, but it can be said that for many people who want to come to their own conclusions about spiritual science, the path to getting to know spiritual science is much more uncomfortable today. Because there is still a difference between a professor having a dissertation written about Soloviev or about spiritual science. With Soloviev it is still more or less possible to form an opinion by the time the dissertation is finished, because the student is well trained to give this opinion in the sense in which philosophy is taught. But what should a modern professor do with a dissertation about spiritual science, for example? He would be completely at a loss. And even more uncomfortable, of course, is the way of not getting to know the subject indirectly through a dissertation, but rather by studying the subject itself exhaustively in some way.

But all these things are no obstacle for the honest seeker of truth in the present day; he may be longing for spiritual science. Many of you know this, my dear friends. But for most people in today's world, it is an obstacle to recognize this spiritual science, to do anything other than to drill this spiritual science to the ground. They do not approach it, and since it does not come from them, it must be drilled to the ground. You cannot do that in a matter-of-fact way; today, the facts already show that. For those who have tried to approach spiritual science have not, as a rule, become opponents; they have certainly not become blind followers, but they have not become opponents either. There are those too. But a large part of our contemporaries simply have a personal interest in extinguishing this spiritual science, in making it impossible in the present. If they try to do this through honest literary debate, using whatever arguments they have against it, whatever arguments someone else has, then of course there is nothing to be said against it. But that is just what they do not want, it is too inconvenient. It is much more convenient to play the whole thing over into the personal sphere, not to talk about what is said in spiritual science, but to talk about all kinds of other things. And that, you see, is precisely what is being attempted in our immediate present today and will be attempted more and more in the near future, and to which I would like to draw your attention. Because this will lead to a situation in which numerous dissatisfied people, who become dissatisfied for personal reasons within our society, can easily be turned into tools for those who want to eliminate anthroposophy from the world, but do not strive for it in an honest way – they would not achieve their goal by honest means either – they do not strive for scientific discussion, but avoid the honest path, and instead seek to attach some kind of scandal to the spiritual science movement and to personalize everything.

Since my time for talking about factual matters has expired, so that no one can say that I am taking up your time for matters related to the Society and its interests instead of dealing with the factual questions, I may add the following now: There are more and more people who are suitable to be used by those who are characterized in this way, and if one is honest about anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, one has an obligation to point out these things more precisely.

There is a person – many years ago his name first appeared before our eyes – who comes from a small town. One day Dr. Steiner received a letter, as they so often occur: “I feel unhappy in my situation, I would like to improve my situation”. And one of the letters that had this tone asked for advice on how the person concerned should act: whether he would do better to marry into a house or a business, or whether he should seek his way in the world in some other way. Yes, you have to tell the truth, unembellished, if you want to get to the bottom of things, and if you do not want to be blind to what will happen in the near future. Now it was made clear to the man that we cannot deal with the question of whether he should marry into a family or not, but since he did not let up, we willingly provided him with some information that was suitable to meet his need for spiritual instruction, which he claimed to have. By devoting himself to such spiritual things as he imagined them to be, he very soon came to the conclusion that it would be beneath a great mind like his to take care of a business in a small town. He longed for larger circles. He had apparently saved some money and came to Berlin. He found that

"It is quite nice to pursue the humanities alone, but he also felt a special artistic talent in himself, and he now demanded that society promote this. It's nice to help people, isn't it. The samples that the person in question gave of his art spoke against any talent, but some people learn so much even without talent that it sometimes meets strict requirements. And so it came about that the person in question was recommended to various members who could create this or that for him, that he should be supported. But it always turned out that the matter failed precisely because the person in question wanted to practice an art but not learn anything, because he thought he could do more than all the teachers who wanted to take care of him. And the consequence was that, because he ran away from every teacher, in the end nothing could be done at all. One had indulgence after indulgence, but nothing special could be done, nothing pleased the person concerned. For, of course, in his eyes this was again such a blatant case of how the world misunderstands the nascent genius! That no one else could honestly share this view, yes, my dear friends, it was truly not our fault. That is the main thing, all other things are secondary. And so it was with this person as it is with many. They first seek advancement within our society, and when this advancement is not granted to them according to their mind, they become opponents. And then they come forward with all kinds of things. Of course, they never talk about what is behind things. They come up with all kinds of things that are best refuted by first explaining the reasons. Of course, in this case it was pure offended vanity and incompetence. And everything else that was added as a fuss was the most foolish invention, the most foolish fantasy. But today, of course, you find the journals that take up these things. Because the person I mean is called Erich Bamler. And if you really get to the bottom of things in such undertakings, then you don't need to take on such an essay, which mostly doesn't mean anything, because all the individual things don't express what they say, but

41n0 they arise from quite different things. And it is actually foolish to seriously want to refute the non-essential. Because that is not what is important, but what lies behind it.

Let us take another case: a man who is not exactly lacking in vanity found himself years ago, after first objecting to anthroposophy in general, in this anthroposophy. I was the very last person to have sought out this personality. He presented himself. It turned out that there were many things that did not exactly mean that this personality was striving for completely impersonal goals in our society. That cannot be demanded, of course, so it cannot be criticized if sometimes personal goals are also accommodated to some extent. Sometimes such personal aims are accommodated because in this way many people can be led to what is right after all. And so it happened that at first the person concerned was quite satisfied with us. He wrote a pamphlet, in fact. I even condescended to write an epilogue to it, and the pamphlet was also taken up by our publishing house. He was on good terms with us; we were people who could be talked to. Then the person in question had another work printed, and after this work had had various fates, which are now of no concern to us, he offered it to the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House again. However, it was impossible to include this work in the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House. On the first pages of this writing, it says that I had only hinted at certain things about the Christ problem, and that the gentleman in question would like to elaborate on them. I am not saying this out of hurt vanity, although in this case I am being accused of it; but the sentence in which it is attributed to me is a blatant untruth, because the matter mentioned did not take place. Without taking into account the fact that I might have had reason not to go further, things are then elaborated in a way that may remind one of another story that took place, of which this story is at least a miniature version. I will have to come back to this other story as well, and I will do so briefly in a moment. In this writing by the gentleman in question, all kinds of things that I had only said in lectures were simply stated. Dr. Steiner was quite right to take umbrage at this and rejected the manuscript for publication. And because his manuscript was rejected, the man became an opponent. Now, of course, if you are writing an article for a journal, you cannot say: The Anthroposophical Society is fundamentally bad because the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House rejected my manuscript. That won't do! But that would have been the truth! So, despite the fact that the person concerned has been informed about the matter countless times, the fairy tale about contradictions is invented. The person concerned knows very well what the situation is regarding these contradictions, but he writes newspaper articles about them! What these newspaper articles say is of no significance, because the person concerned did not become an opponent because of this matter. He could have known about this long before he joined. He became an opponent for the stated reason. Some doubt whether one can so easily make the hypothesis: What is afterwards is also causally conditioned by what went before; but it remains conspicuous, nevertheless, that the antagonism of Mr. Max Seiling followed immediately upon the rejection of his writing by our publishing house. Of course it is easy to deny such a thing, to object to it in all sorts of ways, but it is not a matter of what one or the other objects to, but of what the facts are.

It is indeed reminiscent of a somewhat more ingenious case; this is only a miniature version of it. The more ingenious case is that of a gentleman who had been to America but is a good European. He was summoned here to Germany by a long-standing member and listened to all kinds of lectures. He tried hard to get the lectures that had been given years ago by demanding them from this person or that. After he had faithfully packed up everything he had copied, he went back to America. He said there that he had been here, that he had familiarized himself with my teaching, but that he could not be satisfied with my teaching, but had to go much deeper, so one would find in his work many things that are not yet to be found in my books. For when he had exhausted everything that could be found with me, he was called to a master who dwells somewhere in the Transylvanian Alps; he then told him many things that he is now incorporating into his book. But now everything that he incorporated into his book was what he had overheard here in the lectures and copied down! And then the book was called: “Rosicrucian Worldview”. It was published in America and caused a great stir: the book, that was a combination of what he had heard from me here, and what the master was supposed to have told him in the Transylvanian Alps. People did not need to check what I had said, nor could they, because it had been said in part in our internal lectures. But not only did this appear as a book written in English and American, but a German bookshop was also found that translated the book and published it as “Weltanschauung der Rosenkreuzer” (The Rosicrucians' World View). The editor was Dr. Vollrath.

These are just a few examples of how it is done, my dear friends! These things may well be pointed out. Attention must be paid to them, because they show the means by which, on the one hand, we make use of what is growing on our soil and, on the other, how we fight it. It may well be said that perhaps never before have worse means been used to fight against anything than are now being used to fight against us, especially against anthroposophically oriented spiritual science! You will therefore understand that we have been forced, as it were, to resort to the only means of averting the disaster, although it may not bring about any improvement if everyone joins forces to cause the greatest possible difficulties for the personalities associated with the matter. But one thing must be considered: too much has been said about this matter, but always actually for deaf ears. Therefore, there is no other choice than to submit to a certain iron necessity in order to serve the matter, to which we must all be devoted, in an appropriate way. This iron necessity simply arises. Suppose spiritual science were to appear as literature, were there as literature. It would then be quite impossible – in theory it is possible, but in view of the concrete facts it would be quite impossible – for all these things to attach themselves to spiritual science, as they have done and will continue to do in the most terrible and unworthy manner. What we have to distinguish from the spiritual science movement, which wants to be a pure knowledge movement, a world view movement of the present day, is the Anthroposophical Society. The idea of the Anthroposophical Society is a good one, but in practice, as I see it, it is developing in many ways, not as I see it, but as the facts teach us, in many ways, so that every day we are confronted with things that show, and this is no exaggeration, how within this Anthroposophical Society, cliques develop with a certain ease, especially personal interests for and against, in the most extensive way. It is difficult to separate personal interests from purely factual ones in the context of a society. But think that precisely through the social activities, the floodgates are opened to those people who do not want to confront spiritual science through honest discussion, but who want to bring down spiritual science by the detour of personal defamation, through personal slander. Because one can say this: they want to bring down spiritual science.

Years ago, I decided to accommodate the wishes of various members for personal meetings, to the youngest and oldest members in the broadest way. Only in recent years, when things were already so close, did I sometimes have to deviate sporadically from the old practice; but only sporadically, in exceptional cases. Despite the fact that it has been emphasized time and again that what is available in the literature and what is said here in the lectures contains plenty of material that the individual needs for his or her own development, so that personal consultations could only relate to an expression from person to person to person, it will happen time and again that the most outrageous lies — excuse the expression — are told within the Society in connection with the personal contact of members with me, and outsiders then seek ways to all kinds of defamation and slander. By this I mean that all too often within the Society people are quite inclined to use a nice-sounding little word for their own deep satisfaction when they have one. How good it does some people, for example, when they can say: I have become an esoteric disciple. — And how good it does some people when they can say: Yes, you know, that is something very mysterious, I am not allowed to tell you that; I am not allowed to tell you anything about it. — Putting oneself in the limelight, giving oneself a certain prestige, that is what is behind many an expression that is used and which is then often misused by outsiders in a quite malicious way. All these things, which are now being used with malicious intent, could never have happened if what was being put in a false light were not in line with legitimate desires and perhaps an equally legitimate accommodation of these desires, but which, in view of what the outside world is making of it, cannot be maintained, however difficult it may be for me, my dear friends. Of course, everyone can maintain friendly relations in society, but the iron necessity compels me to stop giving private audiences. I am particularly sorry for this because some will say: Why should the innocent suffer with the guilty? But if you are in a society, that is of course the karma of the society, and the matter cannot be done differently. All those private conversations that were sought out, in view of those malicious slanders, must simply stop. |

Don't think that I am any less sorry for that than you are, but I know that, just as everything I have said about such things was spoken in vain, my speaking today would also be spoken in vain if measures were not taken that simply force people to realize the seriousness of the matter.

It is easy to fabricate slanderous stories about what is said in private conversations with individual members, if these slanderous stories reach the point where, for example, it is said here or there that this or that member has been hypnotized. Now, my dear friends, in the face of these things I shall have to take a different line altogether, from which you will see — and I am really speaking out of a simple sense of duty towards our movement — that I am now and in this matter, in the very bitterest seriousness, for the sake of the sanctity of spiritual science. If a movement like this is based simply on the principle of not encroaching on anyone's sphere of freedom, and if this is strictly observed, if everything that encroaches on a person's sphere of freedom is strictly rejected, and if one then proceeds with these very things, then it is necessary that one day everything that is to grow on our soil will grow in the full light of day. When things grow in full public view, then the ground will be cut from under the slanderers. But there will be no other method in the future. Therefore, I will strive, as far as it depends on me, to ensure that in the future anthroposophically oriented spiritual science will increasingly take place in the full light of the public. It does not have to shy away from the public. And today I declare explicitly: With regard to the private conversations that have taken place with members for years, I release everyone from the promise not to speak about the content of the conversation. Everyone can share, as much as they themselves find appropriate, what has ever occurred in a private conversation with a member. Nothing will be found that should be kept from the light of day. Then one will no longer be able to pussyfoot around with things that are on the following ground. I will give you an example of how these things can be used against the most blatant ignorance and the will to be most blatantly ignorant.

Not only Erich Bamler, but also others who are fighting just as “honestly” as he is, have put forward and basically believe that among all sorts of esoteric principles this one would also have been given to them: “Look at everything around you in the light of necessity, as if it were necessary, as a given necessary fate.” It is comforting for a time, as long as one believes oneself to be supported within society, when one has been given such a rule to say: “I am an esoteric disciple, for I meditate continually: ‘See everything around you in the light of necessity’.” But why has this rule been given to those people, why has this rule been advised to them? For the simple reason that they needed it according to the state of their soul! It was a piece of advice that did not encroach on their freedom at all, but a piece of advice whose scope and esotericism you may judge if I point out the following to you: Schopenhauer says in his essay on the freedom of the will, towards the end of his essay, concerning our attitude towards the course of the world and fate: “Everything that happens, from the greatest to the smallest, happens necessarily”; and he speaks of the calming effect of the realization of the inevitable and necessary. So people have been advised to do nothing other than what Schopenhauer himself considers a proven way of overcoming certain forms of depression.

Now, when speculating on the most blatant ignorance and on the will to the most blatant ignorance, people can, of course, be told all kinds of beautiful fairy tales: that one has turned green and blue, especially in the legs, by following such principles. And for those who want to make something esoteric out of thin air, these things can, of course, be used as slander. But precisely when we know that the things that are being done in anthroposophically oriented spiritual science are actually required by necessary needs, then we will be able to understand that such a measure as the one mentioned above must one day be taken, simply for the reason that it must be seen that the things at issue are meant seriously. Do not complain to me, who feels it just as hard as you do; complain to those whom I have clearly pointed out to you, and who make it impossible for such a measure to be avoided. Today it is very difficult for me, for reasons of principle, to have to refuse private conversations, which numerous members desire. Of course I also know that this will in turn be used against me, but I cannot act according to personal reasons, but according to what is necessary for our movement. That means that I must submit to the principle of taking what is said seriously, for whatever reason it may be taken as a pretext for calumny or slander by those who do not honestly want to refute spiritual science but who want to do away with it in some other way.

Examine much of what has occurred; you will find that the causes always come from society. It is very rare for society to be attacked; the point of attack is usually me or my immediate surroundings. Examine the things. But by attacking me, it is the case that they want to attack spiritual science in me. Because one way or another, it is of no importance to them whether a foolish esoteric piece of advice is given here or there; there are enough of those in the world. But what people do care about is that spiritual science in the anthroposophical orientation is a cultural factor of our time, that it wants to have a say. People do care about that. They do not care about esoteric Winkel esoterics, but they do care about someone who, according to his destiny, cannot remain an esoteric Winkel esoteric. You would not want to meet an esoteric Winkel esoteric if he sat in front of fifty people in Berlin and gave them advice. The attacks only began when the number of books exceeded a certain number. It would be a sin against the spirit of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science to let it perish when it might be possible to prevent it by having to do without certain things, perhaps only for a while, because the morality of people today turns out the way it has now turned out.

We have often seen how things are misrepresented; but how it is done in the case of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, how things are invented that are not there at all and something quite different from what has taken place is told, that is one of the greatest rarities, even in the history of mankind.

All this is not said to, as they say in Austria, grumble or gripe, or to some extent to rant, but it is said because the symptoms are now appearing daily that the intention is to put an end to our spiritual movement in the way indicated, and because the tendency must arise to see the snowball at the top, and not just the avalanche when it has reached the bottom. Just a few hours before I came here, among other things, a letter was read to me in which it was once again related that two people had come together; I will not mention any names, so such a case can simply be cited as an example. The one is accused of hypnotizing the other, of even sitting behind the other and meditating into the other's neck so that all kinds of harmful things arise in the soul of the person concerned. And then the matter is pursued further. It is only one case, the last one, no, not the last one, there was another one after that, but it is the one that I read about three hours ago. Today it is a harmless matter, but in a few years it may no longer be so: that one person is supposed to have sat behind another in order to meditate all kinds of harmful things into the neck of the other person and thereby exert influence. There is no doubt that the person concerned is as harmless as possible in this matter. But today, my dear friends, this plays between two members; in a few years it will be made into a “Steiner case”, which in turn provides a very nice case for such “studies”. Perhaps it will happen more quickly and will not take a few years.

So, please understand that I am truly faced with an extremely difficult dilemma if I have to resort to saying, on the one hand, that an attempt must be made to make spiritual science fully public. Nobody will be left wanting as a result, nobody will somehow not find what they need to find because everything is in the public domain. But all the gossip: that is something mysteriously mystical, you must not say that and so on – that should no longer be able to give rise to all kinds of slander. No matter how friendly our dealings may be, they must not be any other than those between friends for the time being, because private conversations must stop as a matter of principle for the time being. Perhaps this will force our dear members, however inconvenient it may be, to pay a little more attention to things and take care of the matters that have been neglected so far.

As I said, please forgive me for bringing up these matters here today; I only did so after the actual lecture was already over, but I had to bring them up because they are related to the vital issues of the Anthroposophical Society and the anthroposophical movement. This, and not any lack of friendliness, is why I very much regret not being able to hold the private conversations with our dear members, which I have always been happy to do, in the near future. Then it will not be possible, really not possible in the concrete, to create what the malicious enemies are so keen to seek. — Because, my dear friends, you could of course make an objection, and everyone does it of their own accord in an understandable way, namely by saying: But he could talk to me. This has been said by each of those who are now launching their attacks in the most abusive manner; and some of those who are now the tools of their protectors were brought into society by very, very respected members of society. In some respects, it must change, but it can only change through the members.

My dear Friends,

I would like today to centre our study around a scene from a play of Hamerling's that can serve to illustrate many things that I have been explaining. A course of lectures on a subject of this kind is necessarily all too short, and I can in any case do no more than make a few suggestions in the hope that these may stimulate you in your work. None the less, although our time is short, I propose to use the present hour to throw light by practical example upon the importance of what I have said about developing, in preparation for speaking on the stage, a feeling for word and a feeling for sound, in contradistinction to the feeling for sense and idea. today, therefore, we will take this practical demonstration as a basis for our study; and it is my intention to speak the parts in such a way as will enable you to glean at least an elementary understanding of how a reading rehearsal should go, if it is to prepare the ground for the actual performance of the play on the stage. Thus, having in the first part of our course given our attention to the forming of the speech, we shall now be considering all that has to do with production as such, with the right forming of the stage-picture.

It goes without saying that before any such rehearsal, the explanations I have been giving of what is required for an artistic way of speaking must have already taken root in the unconscious, and be present there as artistic instinct. Where mention is made of these matters at all in rehearsal, it will be presumed that in those who are to take part, the feeling for sound and the feeling for word have, by long practice, become a complete matter of habit. It will, in fact, be of quite other matters that one will have to speak there, alluding only as need arises to the fundamental principles of speech formation; for of these the actor should bring with him an intimate knowledge, no less surely than a pianist who is preparing himself—or, maybe, a pupil—for a concert brings with him the faculty he has acquired for piano-playing.

The scene I propose to take is the opening scene of a drama of Robert Hamerling, entitled Danton and Robespierre, a play that is concerned, as the title tells us, with the French Revolution. I have chosen it because I think the moods that come into consideration for this scene—and I need not remind you how important it is for the moods to find clear expression in the performance—are such as can easily be conveyed to the minds and hearts of people in general. For they are unmistakable and sharply distinguishable in their colouring. The scene is moreover also valuable for us, in that the moods give opportunity for transforming, by stage technique, even the most prosaic content into an artistic formation of sound and word.

We are here transported into an important moment in the history of the French Revolution, when the mood of the public was undergoing a change. That stage in the revolution is just being reached when the popularity of Danton is beginning gradually to give way before the popularity of Robespierre. A great number of people are on the point of transferring their loyalty and devotion from the one to the other.

Let us first of all see that we understand the true nature of the people's loyalty to Danton. Some were loyal to him out of a sincere and faithful devotion, in others their loyalty was prompted rather by their own political aspirations; but all might be said to regard him with what I may almost call a savage admiration. Consequently, we find permeating the scene something of the sound- and word-feeling—I am speaking here from the point of view of stage technique—that results from the working together of a (wonder and admiration for Danton) and o (a certain rude affection for the man). The scene is pervaded by an a-o (ah-oh) mood, in the sense in which I have explained this to you in the earlier lectures. Tune your feeling to the sounds a-o, and you will have the mood that prevails at the beginning of the scene.

Loyalty to Robespierre was of quite another kind. At first it only reached men's hearts in a fitful, spasmodic way. The lean and lanky man, looking so like a schoolmaster, whose words cut like knives, did not easily inspire admiration in his fellowmen; he had to seize on every opportunity to win it. In fact, the first stage of Robespierre's popularity was marked by a kind of wariness and caution. In the case of individuals as well as of the masses, it was out of a certain defensive attitude that admiration for Robespierre was born. Translated into feeling for sound, it is a sounding together of e (ay in ‘say’) and a. So that in the people's feeling for Robespierre we have the mood that you can hear in e-a.

In this scene, therefore, which evinces throughout a delicate instinctive feeling on Hamerling's part for sound and word, we have to find the transition in the whole speaking of the parts from a-o to e-a. And we shall be able to do so if we look into the scene carefully. That is indeed the reason I have chosen it, because of all we can learn from it.

Hamerling built up the scene with an instinctive discernment for what is required in dramatic art. I shall draw attention, as we go along, to features that would require to be noted in the reading rehearsals. My remarks will naturally be rather sketchy; in actual rehearsals, the various points would need to be further elucidated. For we have here a scene that can provide us with an excellent lesson in the very things we are concerned with in these lectures.

Note how we are introduced, first of all, to a countryman who had been in Paris fifteen years before and never once since. The man has been deaf during the last six years, and on this account it has easily come about that he has as good as slept through whatever echoes of the big events penetrated into the provinces; he has heard nothing of all that went on. He was treated for his deafness by the village barber who was also something of a surgeon, as was still usual in those days, but with no particular success; and he was advised to go to Paris. One can certainly have one's doubts as to whether even in Paris the cure would be such an easy matter! However, here he is again in Paris, cured of his deafness and bearing his part in the change-over of moods that I have described—but all the time as one who has only just become able after six years to hear what is being said around him. You will find at once the basic tone for this man's speaking if you give yourself up to an a feeling that is tinged with o. Let us see what this will mean. For throughout the first part of the scene, the countryman will be the chief figure. The whole attention of the audience will be centred upon him. It might even be said that the other characters are present only in order to give colour and variation to the main interest that attaches throughout to this man. Actually, the success of the play as a whole will depend to a great extent upon how the part of the countryman is played in this first scene.

We know of course that a signifies wonder and admiration. The mood is a little modified in this character of the countryman, but the actor will do the part well if he takes pains to speak, as much as he can, with his mouth open. (I shall be dealing with gesture and mime in the later lectures; today I will confine my remarks to the speaking.) This will allow the a mood, which is the prevailing mood of the scene, to pass almost imperceptibly into o, which is what the part requires.

From the very outset, we sense also that a change of mood is imminent; we are moving towards the transition from the a-o to the e-a mood. This is portrayed for us with wonderful artistic skill. You can feel here with what a delicate touch Hamerling works; and that is what I want you to notice before all else—the artistic achievement, quite apart from the prose content of the scene. The countryman is put there on purpose that we may be still hearing the echo of the mood connected with Danton, while at the same time having our expectation aroused for the gradual transition to the mood that is connected with Robespierre, the mood that we can clearly detect in the second part of the scene where the conversation of the various characters goes clanging back and forth like sounding brass.

So much for a rough sketch of the mood in which you will have to experience this scene if you want to take part in it and form your speaking in the right way.

The scene is laid in an open space in front of Notre-Dame.

DER LANDMANN. Wenn ich nur erfahren könnte, warum sie den steinernen Bildern überall rote Mützen aufsetzen... Ich finde mich nicht mehr zurecht in diesem verwünschten Paris, obgleich ich vor fünfzehn Jahren einmal dagewesen.

(Zwei Bürger treten auf.)

ERSTER BURGER. Auf dem Stadthause wimmelt's bereits wie in einem Ameisenhaufen.—

ZWEITER BURGER. Mein Nachbar, der Barbier Rabaud, hat soeben die Göttin der Vernunft frisiert.

---

COUNTRYMAN. If only I could find out why the statues everywhere have red caps on their heads.... I no longer know my way about in this accursed Paris although I was once here fifteen years ago.

(Enter two citizens.)

FIRST CITIZEN. The Town Hall's already swarming like an ant-heap?

SECOND CITIZEN. My neighbour, the barber Rabaud, has just been dressing the hair of the Goddess of Reason.

These citizens are fellows of quite another stamp than our countryman. They are Parisians, who exhibit to the full the mood that was then uppermost in Paris; and they give a new colouring to the countryman's words that have set the motif at the beginning of the scene. We are to think of the first citizen as having a kind of i (ee) mood, and the second a rather quieter and more serious ii (French ü in ‘du’) mood. You will remember how I explained these in the earlier lectures.

‘ZWEITER BÜRGER: Mein Nachbar, der Barbier Rabaud, hat soeben die Göttin der Vernunft frisiert.’

Yes, you are right! The audience will laugh at these words; but they must be spoken with all the seriousness of one who is taking a responsible part in a revolution. And that is a seriousness of an altogether different stamp from the seriousness with which we are accustomed to approach everyday affairs.

You have to picture the countryman saying those first words of his alone, to himself. Then the citizens come an the scene. They stand at a little distance from him, and now he goes up to them.

DER LANDMANN. (sich nähernd) Auf ein Wort, ihr Herren—

ERSTER BÜRGER. ‘Ihr Herren?’—Da seht die ländliche Unschuld!—Es gibt keine Herren mehr, Bauerntölpel!

DER LANDMANN. Um Vergebung, wie komm' ich von hier in die Königstrasse?

ERSTER BÜRGER. Es gibt keine Könige mehr. Die Strasse heisst jetzt Sansculottenstrasse.

LANDMANN. Finde mich nicht mehr zurecht hier in Paris, obgleich ich vor fünfzehn Jahren dagewesen. Alle Plätze, alle Strassen anders.—Heut' Morgen komm' ich an einer Kirche vorüber, denke: trittst ein, hörst eine Messe. Da seh' ich ein Gedräng' von Leuten, und auf der Kanzel steht ein Mann, der predigt. Komme gerade recht zum Worte Gottes, denk' ich und hör' andächtig zu. Da merk' ich aber, dass der Mann auf der Kanzel entsetzlich fluchte, obgleich ich ihn nicht recht verstand. War so ein schneidiges, gelbes, dünnes Männchen, meinte jeden Augenblick, es werde ihm der Schaum vor den Mund treten. Als er aufhörte zu reden, da fingen die Leute wüst zu schreien an und taten wie besessen und klatschten gar mit den Händen, dass mir die Ohren gellten.—Ich schlug ein Kreuz und ging.

ZWEITER BÜRGER. (lachend) Armer Tropf, du bist unter die Frommen der Jacobinerkirche geraten.—

LANDMANN. Darauf kam ich in eine andere Kirche.
Da sah ich einen Heiland auf dem Kreuz:
dem war ein grosser Schnurrbart
angestrichen, und eine rote Mütze aufgesetzt,
und drunter stand geschrieben: ‘Jesus Christ
von Nazareth, der erste Sansculotte’.
Weiss denn die Obrigkeit von solchem Unfug nichts?

ZWEITER BÜRGER. Mensch, hör' einmal, wie kommt's, dass du so wenig Wind hast vom neuesten Weltlauf? Sitzt ihr Bauern auf den Ohren?

LANDMANN. Ich bin sechs volle Jahre taub gewesen. Vorige Woche—

ZWEITER BÜRGER. Dekade sagt man jetzt—DekadeLANDMANN. Ei, wie? Dekade muss ich sagen? Also vorige Dekade—doch nein, es war noch Ende April—

ZWEITER BÜRGER. Floreal, du verwünschter Kerl, Floreal—

LANDMANN. Floreal? Potztausend! Ihr habt eine verwunderliche Art zu reden in Paris!—Nun also im Floreal sagte ich zu unserem Dorfbader: ‘Herr’, sagte ich, `ihr versteht den Teufel von der Sache; ich gehe nach Paris und lasse mich dort heilen!’ Gesagt, getan. Ich ging, als ich das Reisegeld beisammen hatte, und verwichenen Sonntag—

ERSTER BÜRGER. Es gibt keinen Sonntag mehr.

LANDMANN. Was? keinen Sonntag?

---

COUNTRYMAN. (approaching) A word, gentlemen—

FIRST CITIZEN. ‘Gentlemen?’ Hark to his innocence! There aren't any gentlemen nowadays, you country bumpkin!

COUNTRYMAN. Beg pardon, how do I get to King Street?

FIRST CITIZEN. There aren't any more kings. The street's called Sansculotte Street now.

COUNTRYMAN. Oh, I'm properly astray in your Paris although I was here fifteen years ago. All the squares, all the streets, different.—This morning I came to a church and thought to myself: let's go in and hear Mass. Inside I find a crowd of folk and a man in the pulpit preaching. Just in time to hear God's word, think I, and listen all devout. But then I notice that the man in the pulpit is using terrible language, though I didn't understand him well. He was such a sharp-spoken, yellow, lean little bit of a man; it seemed every moment as if he was going to foam at the mouth. As soon as he stopped talking the people began to cry out wildly, behaved as if possessed, and clapped their hands enough to break my ear-drums.—I crossed myself and came out.

SECOND CITIZEN. (laughing) Poor simpleton, you landed up among the pious worshippers at the Jacobins' Church.—

COUNTRYMAN. Thereupon came I to another Church
And there I saw a Saviour on the Cross:
A great moustache was daubed upon His face,
A red cap had been set upon His head,
While underneath was written ‘Jesus Christ
Of Nazareth, the first of sansculottes’.
Do those who rule know nothing of such shame?

SECOND CITIZEN. Listen, you man. How comes it that you know so little of what's going on now in the world? Do you peasants stop up your ears?

COUNTRYMAN. I've been deaf over six years. Last week—

SECOND CITIZEN. We say decade now—decade

COUNTRYMAN. Eh? Decade have I got to say? Well, last decade–but no, it was still April—the end of April—

SECOND CITIZEN. Floreal, confound you, Floreal

COUNTRYMAN. Floreal? Zounds! You have an odd way of talking in Paris !—So in Floreal I said to our village barber, Sir,' say I,’ you don't understand a damned thing about it. I'm going to Paris to be cured.' No sooner said than done. Directly I'd got together the journey money, I started; and last Sunday—

FIRST CITIZEN. There's no Sunday any more.

COUNTRYMAN. What? No Sunday?

The name of the month is not after all a matter that touches him very nearly; that he can accept. Now he is called upon to grasp the further fact that there are no longer any Sundays!

ERSTER BÜRGER. Quintidi, guter Freund, wenn Euch Euer Leben lieb ist—

LANDMANN. Nun meinetwegen! Am Crainte de Dieu also kam ich hier in Paris an, und heute, Gott sei Dank—

ZWEITER BÜRGER. Gott sei Dank? Mensch, du nennst da ein bankrottes Haus! Die Firma Gott und Sohn mit der Prokuraführung des heiligen Geistes hat falliert—

LANDMANN. Was? auch keinen Gott? da soll ja doch—

ZWEITER BÜRGER. Räsoniere nicht, Mensch, und schweig, und lass' deine Füsse, so geschwind sie können, dich wieder nach deinem Dorfe zurücktragen. Du könntest Unglück haben auf dem Pflaster von Paris. Du könntest hier deinen Kopf verlieren, unversehens, wie einen Knopf von deinen Hosen. Mach' dich auf die Beine, Mensch—du bist verdächtig—

LANDMANN. Wieso verdächtig? Was nennt ihr denn verdächtig?

ZWEITER BURGER.Verdächtig? Sieh', das ist zum Beispiel einer,
der Lilien in seinem Garten pflanzt—
auch einer, dessen Bruder oder Vetter
ins Ausland ging mit einem Emigranten
als Kammerdiener—oder einer, der
im Traum das Wörtlein König flüstert—oder
der bleich wird, wenn sie seinen Nebenmenschen
an die Laterne hängen—

Mach', dass du fortkommst, sonst lassen sie dich den Karpfensprung machen auf dem Grèveplatz—

LANDMANN. Ich verstehe euch nicht.

ZWEITER BURGER. Ich will sagen, sie werden dich durchs rote Fenster gucken lassen—

LANDMANN. Ich verstehe euch noch immer nicht.

ZWEITER BÜRGER. Dummkopf! sie werden dich (macht eine bezeichnende Geberde) mit dem grossen Nationalrasiermesser rasieren! Verstehst du's noch nicht ?—Du wirst das grosse Los in der Lotterie der heiligen Guillotine gewinnen! Verstehst du's jetzt?

LANDMANN. Hol' mich der Geier, wenn ich diese Heilige jemals im Kalender gelesen habe.

ERSTER BÜRGER.
Das ist eine wunderliche Heilige.—
So eine Art von Eisenjungfrau, scharf
verseh'n mit Schneidezähnen—Denke dir
zwei Galgenhölzer und ein blankes Beil
Querbalkengleich von oben—nun, du legst
den Kopf auf einen Block—das Beil fällt nieder,
ein wenig von der Seite—so—und sichelt
den Kopf im Hui so glatt und reinlich dir
herunter, dass es eine Lust zu sehn. Der Kopf
merkt gar nicht, dass er keinen Rumpf mehr hat,
und niest deshalb auch manchmal unbefangen,
als wäre nichts geschehn, noch in dem Sack,
in welchen ihn der Knecht des Büttels wirft—
als hätt' er etwa nur’ne starke Prise
geschnupft.—Guillotinieren heisst man das:
's ist’ne schöne, sanfte Todesart.

LANDMANN. Guillotiniert man viel?<

ERSTER BÜRGER. So ein Schock täglich; auch mehr, wenn schönes Wetter ist.

---

FIRST CITIZEN Quintidi, friend, if you value your life—

COUNTRYMAN. Oh, well, it's all the same to me! So in the fear of God I came here to Pans, and today, thank God—

SECOND CITIZEN ‘Thank God?’ Why, man, that firm's gone bankrupt! The house of God and Son, with its junior partner the Holy Ghost, has failed—

COUNTRYMAN. What? No God either? But then—

SECOND CITIZEN. No arguing, man. Shut up, and let your feet carry you back to your village as quick as they can. You might come to harm in the streets of Paris. You might lose your head unexpectedly like a button off your breeches. Make off, man, you're a suspicious character—

COUNTRYMAN. What d'you mean, suspicious? What d'you call suspicious?

SECOND CITIZEN.
Suspicious? Hark, this man, for instance, is:
The one who lilies in his garden plants—
And also one whose brother or whose cousin Follows some emigrant as serving-man
To foreign parts—or then again a man
Who whispers in his dreams the small word ‘King', Or turns a chalky white to see them hang
One of his fellows to the lamp-post?

Make haste and be off, otherwise you will come to a sorry end on the Place de Grève?

COUNTRYMAN. I don't understand you.

SECOND CITIZEN. I'm wanting to tell you that they'll make you look through the’ red window'—

COUNTRYMAN. I still don't understand.

SECOND CITIZEN. Blockhead! They'll do this (makes a descriptive gesture), they'll shave you with the great national razor! Don't you understand yet ?—You'll win the big prize in the lottery of Saint Guillotine. Now do you understand?

COUNTRYMAN. The devil take me if I've ever seen that saint in the Calendar.

FIRST CITIZEN.
This is a very funny kind of saint,
This maiden made of iron and well provided
With finely sharpened teeth that bite. Just think,
Two gallows posts and then a shining axe
In cross-beam fashion from above—you lay
Your head upon a block, the axe comes down
A little from one side, like this, and mows
Your head inside your hat so smoothly down,
So neatly off—a pleasure 'tis to see!
Your head marks not that it has lost its trunk
And therefore sometimes sneezes, quite unmoved,
Just as if nought was wrong, e'en in the sack
As if it had, p'raps, taken a good pinch
Of snuff—it's guillotining that the people call it.
It is a fine and easy way o' dying.

COUNTRYMAN. Do they do much guillotining?

FIRST CITIZEN. Quite a lot, every day, and more when the weather's fine.

And now a sansculotte makes his appearance. When you come to look carefully at this sansculotte, you will find you can best enter into his part by combining the a mood with the i mood. For he has undoubtedly wonder and astonishment, and these have fired him with enthusiasm; but he has at the same time, as it were in the background, the pleasure and enjoyment that his own self-consciousness affords him.

(Ein Schwarm von zerlumpten Männern und Weibern kommt gezogen, voran ein Sansculotte, der ein Beinkleid auf einer Pike trägt.)

Wüstes Geschrei: Ça ira! Ça ira!

DER SANSCULOTTE. (zu dem LANDMANN und den beiden BÜRGERN) Angeschlossen, Patrioten! angeschlossen und eingestimmt! Ça ira! Zu Ehren der Hose da, die wir eben einem Aristokraten abgezogen, weil er auf keine andere Weise ein Sansculotte werden wollte. Ça ira!

WEIBER. (den LANDMANN umringend) Komm auf ein Tänzchen, Bäuerlein! Komm, wir tanzen die Carmagnole!

SANSCULOTTE. (zum LANDMANN, ihm ins Ohr schreiend) Ça ira gesungen, du Schelm, Ça ira!

LANDMANN. (ängstlich) Verzeiht, ich bin gar nicht musikalisch!

SANSCULOTTE. Höre, Kerl! wenn du nicht dümmer bist als die Rinder in deinem Stall, so musst du Ça ira brüllen können, so gut als einer—

LANDMANN. Verzeiht, ihr Herren—

SANSCULOTTE. ‘Ihr Herren!’ Habt ihr's gehört? An die Laterne mit dem Schuft!

---

(A swarm of ragged men and women come straggling along, led by a sansculotte holding aloft a pair of breeches on his pike.)

Wild shouting of the song ‘Ça ira, Ça ira!’

SANSCULOTTE. (to the COUNTRYMAN and the two CITIZENS)
All united and all of one mind, patriots! All united and all of one mind! Ça ira! Do honour to the breeches here that we've taken off an aristocrat, because he wouldn't be a sansculotte anyhow else! Ça ira!

WOMEN. (surrounding the COUNTRYMAN) Come and dance, peasant! Come along with you, we're dancing the carmagnole!

The sansculotte has noticed that the countryman does not hear very well.

SANSCULOTTE. (to the COUNTRYMAN, shouting in his ear)
Ça ira's being sung, you knave. Ça ira!

COUNTRYMAN. (anxiously) Excuse me, I'm not a bit musical!

SANSCULOTTE. Listen, fellow! If you're not more stupid than your own oxen you must be able to roar out Ça ira as well as a—

COUNTRYMAN. Excuse me, gentlemen?

SANSCULOTTE. ‘Gentlemen!’ Did you hear that? To the lamp-post with the blackguard!

In those days anyone who dared in Paris address a man as ‘gentleman’ was hung up on the nearest lamp-post.

ERSTER BURGER. Lasst ihn laufen; er ist volle sechs Jahre taub gewesen and erst heute wieder geheilt worden.

SANSCULOTTE. Dann hätte das erste, was er hörte, sein sollen, dass es keine Herren mehr gibt. Nicht einmal der Mainzer Nachtwächter singt mehr: ‘Lobet Gott den Herrn!’ sondern: ‘Lobet Gott den Bürger!’—Schlingel! kein Franzose benennt jetzt mehr den anderen Herr, sondern—

LANDMANN. Ich begreife, man sagt jetzt Kerl, Tropf, Schlingel, Schelm, und so dergleichen—

SANSCULOTTE. Was?

LANDMANN. Ihr tituliert mich so—

SANSCULOTTE. Dummkopf! das ist was anderes. Bürger sind jetzt alle Franzosen, hörst du! nicht mehr, noch weniger!

LANDMANN. So sind wir's draussen auch in der Provinz, so gut als ihr, und können ein Wort mit drein reden?

SANSCULOTTE. ‘Dreinreden?’ Hört ihr, Leute ? Der Kerl ist ein Föderalist! Ein verlaufener Girondistenknecht! er faselt von Autonomie der Provinz!

---

FIRST CITIZEN. Let him be; he's been deaf for six years and only just cured today.

SANSCULOTTE. Then the first thing he ought to have heard is that there are no more gentlemen. Not even the night watch at Mainz calls out any more ‘Praise God, gentlemen!’ but ‘Praise God, citizens!’—You clown, no Frenchman calls another ‘gentleman’ any longer, but—

COUNTRYMAN. I know. Now you say fellow, booby, clown, scoundrel, and things like that—

SANSCULOTTE. What?

COUNTRYMAN. That's what you call me—

SANSCULOTTE. Blockhead! That's a different matter. All we French now are just citizens, d'you hear that? Neither more nor less!

COUNTRYMAN. And are we in our province just as good as you, and can we put in our say?

SANSCULOTTE. ‘Put in our say?’ D'you hear that, folk? The fellow is a federalist, a runaway Girondist! He's drivelling about the autonomy of the provinces!

The day of the Girondists is past and over. The sansculotte imagines that the countryman is thinking of the autonomy that was enjoyed by the provinces when they were in power.

WEIBER. Hängt ihn, hängt ihn! er ist ein Föderalist! (Man will ihn ergreifen.)

LANDMANN. (ängstlich schreiend) Scharwache! Polizei! Zu Hilfe!—Mörder! Räuber! Diebe! Zu Hilfe! (Einige lachen.)

WEIBER. Er nennt Sansculotten Räuber und Mörder! An die Laterne!

ALLGEMEINES GESCHREI. An die Laterne! (Man ergreift ihn.)

DER SANSCULOTTE. (dazwischen tretend) Einen Augenblick, Bürger! Keine blinde Wut!—Wenn man Septembermann gewesen, wie ich, so weiss man, wie das rechte Verfahren in solchen Dingen ist.—Höre, Schlingel!

LANDMANN. Was hab' ich denn verbrochen?

SANSCULOTTE. (würdevoll) Mit dieser Frage verteidigt sich kein französischer Bürger und Patriot. Ob Föderalist oder nicht, ich will dir beweisen, dass du zehnmal gehängt zu werden verdienst, auch wenn du der republikanischen Freiheit nie ein Haar gekrümmt haben solltest. Ich frage dich bloss: Was hast du getan für die Freiheit? Wie hast du dich kompromittiert für die Freiheit? Was hast du getan, um gehängt zu werden, wenn eine Reaktion.einträte und die Gemässigten ans Ruder kämen?

LANDMANN. Ich? O—wartet nur, ich besinne mich ja seht, es fällt mir etwas ein.—Ich fand einmal im Wald einen halbverhungerten Mann unter einem Haufen dürrer Streu versteckt—der machte mir solch jämmerlich flehende Zeichen (denn hören konnt' ich nur wenig von wegen der Taubheit) dass ich ihn mit nach Hause nahm, ihn labte und in aller Stille beherbergte. Als er abzog, vergass er in der Dachstube etliche zerknitterte Papiere, aus welchen ich ersah, dass es ein gar wichtiger Mann gewesen sein musste, einer von denen, die jetzt hier in Paris regieren—so einer aus eurem—wie heisst's doch gleich? hab' heute davon gehört—aus eurem Nationalkonvent.—Sah auch aus den Papieren, wie er hiess. Er hiess Bri—ha, es fällt mir schon ein, Brissot.?

(Grosse Sensation im Volke, dann wildes Geschrei: Verräter! Verräter! Schurke!)

SANSCULOTTE. Still!—(Zum LANDMANN) Unglückseliger! du hast das Haupt der dem Henker verfallenen Girondisten und Föderalisten, der Gemässigten, der heimlichen Volksverräter bei dir beherbergt!—Mensch, deine Sache ist eine verlorene. Dir ist nicht mehr zu helfen! Hängt ihn!

VOLK. An die Laterne!

ERSTER BÜRGER. Ach, lasst ihn doch! Ihr seht ja, dass er ein Dummkopf ist, und sechs Jahre lang ist er taub gewesen.

EINIGE STIMMEN. Was? der Gewürzkrämer verteidigt ihn? Auch ein Verräter!

ERSTER BÜRGER. Bin ich nicht ein guter Patriot? Hab' ich nicht kürzlich bei der grossen Hungersnot meinen Zuckervorrat pfundweise ans Volk verteilt, ohne Entgeld?

EIN FISCHWEIB. Du betrogst uns mit dem Gewicht! Als ich mein Pfund zu Hause nachwog, da fehlte dran ein halbes Lot!

WEIBER. Hängt sie alle beide!

EINER AUS DEM VOLKE. Hier vor dem Bücherladen des wackeren Patrioten Momoro!

(Man zerrt den Bauer gegen den Laternenpfahl, der vor Momoros Laden steht.)

MOMORO. (tritt aus der Tür, sein Käppchen, das er auf dem kahlen Kopfe trägt, lüftend) Guten Morgen, Sansculotten! Was belieben die freien Männer und edlen Bürger zu treiben hier vor meiner Tür?

---

WOMEN. Hang 'im, hang 'im! He's a federalist! (They make as if to setze him.)

COUNTRYMAN. (shouting in alarm) Watchman! Police! Help! Murder! Robbers! Thieves! Help! (Some laughter.)

WOMEN. He's calling sansculottes robbers and murderers! To the lamp-post!

GENERAL CRY. To the lamp-post! (He is seized.)

SANSCULOTTE. (stepping between them) One minute, citizens! No blind rage!—When one's been a September man, like me, one knows the right way to act in these matters.—Listen, Clown!

COUNTRYMAN. What have I done wrong?

SANSCULOTTE. (with dignity) No citizen and patriot of France stands up for his rights by asking that question. Whether you're federalist or not, prove to you that you deserve ten times over to be hanged, even if you've done nothing to hurt republican freedom. I simply ask what you've done for freedom? Have you euer compromised yourself for freedom? What have you done to risk hanging if reaction sets in and the moderates come to power?

COUNTRYMAN. I? Oh—Wait a bit, I'm calling to mind—yes, it's just coming back to me. Once in a wood I found a half-starved man under a heap of dry straw—he made such pitiful, beseeching signs to me, for I couldn't hear much on account of my deafness, that I took him home and gave him something to eat and kept him in hiding. When he went off he forgot some scraps of paper in the attic; from these I saw that he must have been a very important man, one of those who rule now here in Paris, one of those belonging to your—what d'you call it, I've heard the name today—to your National Convention—even saw from the papers what he called himself. His name was Bri—yes, it comes back to me, Brissot—

(Great Sensation among the people, then a wild shout: Traitor, traitor, villain!)

SANSCULOTTE. Silence!—(To the COUNTRYMAN) Wretched man! You sheltered the chief of the Girondists and federalists who have fallen to the hangman, chief of the moderates, of the secret betrayers of the people!—Man, it's all up with you. Nothing can help you now! Take him and hang him!

PEOPLE. To the lamp-post!

FIRST CITIZEN. Oh, leave him alone. See what a blockhead he is, and he's been deaf for six years—

VOICES IN THE CROWD. What? The grocer sticks up for him? He's a traitor too!

FIRST CITIZEN. I'm not a good patriot, then? Didn't I, a short time ago, during the great famine, divide up all my sugar and give it to the people by the pound, and that gratis ?

FISHWIFE. You didn't give us fair weight! When I got home it was live grammes short!

WOMEN. Hang both of them!

A VOICE FROM THE CROWD. Here, in front of the bookshop of the honest patriot Momoro!

(The peasant is dragged towards the lamp-post in front of Momoro's shop.)

MOMORO. (comes out of the door, raising the Linie cap that covers his bald head) Good morrow, Sansculottes! What does it please our free men and noble citizens to do here in front of my door?

Momoro is a citizen too, and moreover, as we shall see, a man of some importance who stands with the whole force of his personality right in the immediate moment of the revolution. He is, however, at the same time, beginning to feel that the ground under his feet is getting a bit shaky.

Fresh people now come forward and prepare the way for a new mood, the mood that I characterised as reminiscent of sounding brass. We are, in fact, at the moment when loyalty to Danton is passing away, in favour of loyalty to Robespierre. We must accordingly watch for die transition from the a—o mood to the e—a mood. Loyalty to Robespierre is quietly stealing in, and that fact must find expression in the whole mood of the scene from now on.

EINER AUS DEM VOLK. Guten Morgen, Bürger Momoro. Wir hängen einen Föderalisten, einen Girondistenknecht—

MOMORO. Gerade hier vor eines Patrioten Tür? Lasst das bleiben, ehrenwerte Bürger der Republik! Wozu haben wir denn das Revolutionstribunal, das ja ohnedies im ganzen wenig zu wünschen und zu hängen übrig lässt? Und überhaupt, tut mir den Gefallen, hängt keinen, bevor er die neuesten Broschüren gelesen hat, die in meinem Buchladen soeben erschienen. Wenn ihr einen solchen Menschen tötet, so verfault der Kerl unnütz unter der Erde und labt höchstens die Würmer. Wenn ihr ihm aber Zeit lasst, die neuesten Broschüren zu lesen, so könnt ihr den widerhaarigsten Aristokraten in einen feuerspeienden Patrioten verwandeln, der hingeht und sich mit Freudentränen in den Augen jeden Augenblick für die Republik totschlagen lässt. Ich frage: was ist besser?—Da seht einmal (er weist einen Pack Flugblätter und Broschüren vor): ‘Neueste Trauerrede auf den Tod des göttlichen Marat’—‘Laternenpfahl und Guillotine; fliegende Blätter für Freiheit, Gleichheit und allgemeine Menschenliebe’—‘Neuer und unfehlbarer Plan, royalistische Städte binnen drei Tagen mit Nelkenöl in die Luft zu sprengen’—

ONE OF THE PEOPLE. Good morrow, Citizen Momoro. We're hanging a federalist, a Girondist?

---

MOMORO. What? Just here at the door of a patriot? Wait a bit, honourable citizens of the Republic. What is the Revolutionary Tribunal for, which on the whole leaves us very little to wish for and very few people to hang? At least do me the favour not to hang anyone till he has read the latest pamphlet that has just appeared in my shop. When you kill a man of this sort the fellow rots uselessly in the ground and at best feeds the worms. But when you give him time to read the latest pamphlet, you may change the most cross-grained aristocrat into a fire-spitting patriot who goes off ready to die at any moment for the Republic. I ask you, which is the better? Just look (he points to a pile of broadsheets and pamphlets): ‘Latest Funeral Oration on the Death of the Godlike Marat’—‘Lamp-post and Guillotine'; leaflets on liberty, equality and universal human love.’ New and infallible Plan to blow up Royalist Towns with Oil of Cloves’?

Momoro talks the most naturally of them all, and helps to lead over to the new phase of the revolution. He is, at the moment, in high esteem, and this must be apparent to the audience.

VOLK. Hoch Momoro, der Patriot!

MOMORO. Es lebe die Republik!—Alles für wenige Sous!(Viele drängen sich herbei, die Blätter zu kaufen.)

SANSCULOTTE. Du verkaufst deine Scharteken zu teuer, Bürger Momoro!

MOMORO. Keinen Sou verdien' ich dran. Ihr kennt mich!

IN ZEITUNGSAUSRUFER. Der ‘Vater Duchêsne’! Der ‘Vater Duchêsne' von heute! Zwei Sous das Blatt!—Er ist verzweifelt wild heute, der Vater Duchêsne!—Kauft das Journal des gefeierten Patrioten Hebert!—in 30 000 Exemplaren verbreitet! Er ist verzweifelt wild heute, der Vater Duchêsne!—

MOMORO. (nachspottend) ‘Er ist verzweifelt wild heute der Vater Duchêsne!’ So ruft er alle Tage. 30 000 Exemplare? Allen Respekt vor dem Bürger Hebert, aber ich habe mir sagen lassen, dass ganze Stösse seines Journals gratis in die Gasthöfe wandern—für die ‘Bedürfnisse’ der Reisenden! hahaha! für die ‘Bedürfnisse’ der Reisenden!—Das Gediegenste, was aus den Federn der Patrioten fliesst, findet man doch immer noch bei Momoro. In meinem Hinterstübchen haben schon unter dem Königtum die radikalsten Männer Klub gehalten und halten da noch Klub heutigen Tages.—

ZEITUNGSAUSRUFER. (spottend) Ja, Graukopf, sie halten Klub bei deinem jungen Weibchen.

MOMORO. Tropf! sie bringen ihr den neuen republikanischen Kalender bei, der den Weibern so schwer in den Kopf will. Und mehr! noch mehr! 0, die Patrioten wissen den alten Momoro zu schätzen, und um ihn zu ehren, haben sie, müsst ihr wissen, keine andere als eben sein Weibchen zur Göttin der Vernunft erkoren. Schon am frühen Morgen ist sie heut' abgeholt worden auf das Stadthaus, damit man für das Fest sie würdig herausputze. Nun ihr werdet sehen! Auf diesem selben Platze wird sie prangen.

ZEITUNGSAUSRUFER. Und dir werden zur Feier des Tages die Hörner vergoldet?

VOLK. Es lebe Momoro und sein Weibchen!

MOMORO. (zu einem Manne, der ein Plakat an die Mauer klebt) Mensch, du klebst ja dein Plakat hier über ein anderes.

DER MANN. Ach, das alte ist ein gemässigtes; das da aber ist von der Kommune.—

VOLK. (das sich indes immer zahlreicher gesammelt) Von der Kommune? lasst doch sehen!

EINER AUS DEM VOLKE. (lesend) ‘Hebert und Chaumette laden das souveräne Volk zum heutigen Feste der Vernunft, das denkwürdig bleiben wird für alle Zeiten!’—

VOLK. Hoch Hebert! Hoch Chaumette! Hoch die Republik! Ça ira! (Die Weiber tanzen)

EIN STELZFUSS. (im Gedränge) Heissa! springt und brüllt, wie ihr wollt, aber tretet einem verdienten Krieger der Republik sein hölzernes Bein nicht weg!

---

PEOPLE. Cheers for Momoro the patriot!

MOMORO. Long live the Republic! Any one of these for a few sous!

(Many of the crowd press round him to buy the leaflets.)

SANSCULOTTE. You sell your trash too dear, Citizen Momoro!

MOMORO. Why, I don't make a sou on them. You know me!

NEWSPAPER-VENDOR. ‘Father Duchêsne’! ‘Father Duchêsne’ ! today's ‘Father Duchêsne’! He's desperately savage today is Father Duchêsne! Buy the paper of the good old patriot Hebert! 30,000 copies given out! He's desperately savage today is Father Duchêsne!—

MOMORO. (ridiculing him) ‘He's desperately savage today is Father Duchêsne.’ That's what he calls out all day. 30,000 copies? With all due respect to Citizen Hebert I venture to say that whole stacks of his paper find their way into the inns gratis—‘For the requirements of travellers’ ! Ha! Ha! Ha! ‘For the requirements of travellers’!—What is of value from the pens of the patriots is still always to be found at Momoro's. In my room behind the shop, even under the King, all the most radical men used to meet, still meet today?

NEWSPAPER-VENDOR. (mockingly) Yes, old fellow, the club meets where your young wife is.

MOMORO. Booby! They explain to her the recent Republican Calendar which takes so long to get into the head of a woman! What's more, what's more—Oh, the patriots know how to appreciate old Momoro, and how to do him honour; you must know they have chosen no one else but his little wife to be the Goddess of Reason. today, quite early, she was taken to the Town Hall to be all properly decked out for the festival. You'll see. She'll be on show in this very square.

NEWSPAPER-VENDOR. And will your horns be gilded for the occasion?

PEOPLE. Long live Momoro and his little wife!

MOMORO. (to a man sticking a placard on the wall) Hi, you, you're sticking that on top of another—

THE MAN. Oh, that old thing is one of those moderates, but this, here, comes from the Commune—

PEOPLE. (gathering round in their numbers) From the Commune, let's see!

ONE OF THE PEOPLE. (reading aloud) ‘Hebert and Chaumette invite the sovereign people today to the Festival of Reason which will remain in memory for all time!’

PEOPLE. Cheers for Hebert! Cheers for Chaumette! Cheers for the Republic! Ça ira! (The women dance.)

MAN WITH WOODEN LEG. (among the crowd) Hurray! Jump and shout as much as you like but don't stamp off the wooden leg of a deserving soldier of the Republic!

For at this point, in order to show how the mood is changing, moving all the time in the direction of the note that has been sounded by Robespierre, a new speaker steps forward from among the crowd, who is under a certain disability—a man with a wooden leg. The crowd, we shall find, is gradually working its way free of the completely different mood that has hitherto prevailed and beginning to enter into the mood that is connected with Robespierre. The i (ee) mood that belongs to him, begins to be heard.

SANSCULOTTE. (auf ihn zugehend) Was seh' ich? Battiste, du wieder in Paris? Verflucht—dein Bein

STELZFUSS. Hainbuchenes Kernholz—

SANSCULOTTE. Brav gefochten für die Republik? Nicht Tod noch Teufel gefürchtet ? Nie in Gefangenschaft geraten?

STELZFUSS. Bin ein einziges Mal von feindlichen Reitern allein überfallen worden, and da waren ihrer bloss vier—

SANSCULOTTE. Viele Strapazen ausgestanden?

STELZFUSS. Donnerwetter! Ihr habt es leicht, hier im warmen Paris als Ohnehosen herumzulaufen: aber im Feld kampieren und auf Vorposten stehen, ohne Schuh', in einer Kälte, bei welcher die Kinder im Mutterleibe erfrieren, so dass wir Schiesspulver in den Branntwein tun mussten, um uns den Magen zu erwärmen? Dann wieder tagelang fechten in der Sonnenglut—

SANSCULOTTE. Ach, was schadet das dem Krieger im Eifer des Gefechts?

STELZFUSS. Natürlich, wenn dir eine Kanonenkugel den Kopf wegreisst, so stirbst du nicht am Sonnenstich—

EINER AUS DEM VOLKE. Bist du nicht der, den sie als jungen Burschen den kleinen Barbier nannten—Gehilfe beim Barbier Flatte in der Strasse Pompadour?

STELZFUSS.
Der bin ich und habe mein Handwerk nicht verlernt—
Zu Lille, wenn eine Bombe niederflog
und vor mir platzte, griff ich eine Scherbe
vom Boden auf, gebrauchte sie als Schüssel
mit Seif' und Wasser und rasierte dann
so zwanzig Kameraden auf dem Fleck.
Ei, das gefiel euch wohl hier in Paris,
wenn die Armee mit den geschwungenen Fahnen
wegwedelte von Frankreichs Leib des Auslands
Schmeissfliegenschwarm, der zahllos ihn umschwirrt—
Wenn ihr vernahmt, dass wir so Sieg auf Sieg
erfochten, dachtet ihr da hinterm Ofen
wohl auch daran, wie oft wir barfuss liefen
und nichts zu beissen hatten als Patronen,
und oft nicht einmal die?

SANSCULOTTE. Was? lassen nicht die Weiber von Paris ihre Männer zerrissen laufen, um Zelttücher und Uniformen für euch zu nähen? Behelfen wir uns nicht statt der klingenden Münze mit lumpigen wertlosen Assignaten? Was? Wir nicht an euch gedacht? Und sind wir etwa müssig gewesen, indess ihr im Felde standet? In den Septembertagen hättest du hier sein sollen?

STELZFUSS. Kann mir's denken—erinnere mich noch recht gut, wie du vor drei Jahren einmal bei einem Volksfeste dem Pferde des Generals Lafayette, ohne dass es der General merkte, den Schweif an einen Laternenpfahl bandest, weil die Stute damit immer dir und anderen, die hinter dir standen, ins Gesicht flunkerte?

SANSCULOTTE. Possen! Aber in den Septembertagen...

STELZFUSS. Ist es denn wahr, dass ihr in diesen Septembertagen zuletzt auch die sämtlichen seltenen Tiere in der Menagerie von Versailles habt über die Klinge springen lassen?

SANSCULOTTE. Was? Die sämtlichen seltenen Tiere? Nein, nur die Löwen und Adler, weil das die Könige der Tiere sind, und dann was die sogenannten Wappentiere sind, wie sie die Aristokraten in ihren Wappen hatten?

STELZFUSS. Teufelskerle! Wie kam euch denn das so auf einmal?

SANSCULOTTE. Weiss nicht. Auf einmal, sagst du? Gar nicht auf einmal Es kam so nach und nach, wie der Appetit mit dem Essen?

STELZFUSS. Was sagten denn die Gemässigten?

SANSCULOTTE. Kein Wort. Hinter den Sansculotten stand die Kommune, und diese selber deckte der breite Rücken Dantons, der sich damals eben zum erstenmal aufgerichtet hatte als ein brüllender Leu. Gegen den waren die anderen nur ein Rudel bissiger Hunde. Jetzt ist er träg geworden und überhaupt, wie alles grosse Getier, nicht so beständig munter und beisslustig wie die kleineren Kläffer—

EINER AUS DEM VOLK. Ah, diesem Simson haben's auch die Weiber angetan?

SANSCULOTTE.
Ja, ja, doch sag ich euch,
steht der noch einmal auf, so lang er ist,
stösst er die Decke durch und reisst die Säulen
im Tempel um, grad' wie der Simson auch—

EIN ANDERER. Ach was, der steht nicht wieder auf. Den hat der andre unter’sich gebracht. Und dieser andre ist schlau?

STELZFUSS. Wer?

SANSCULOTTE. Ei wer? Hast du von Robespierre im Lager nicht gehört?

STELZFUSS. Robespierre? Robespierre? Ist das das kleine steife Männchen, das man spottweise das’ Talglicht von Arras’ nennt, weil er von Arras kam und gern glänzen wollte, aber nicht heller flackerte als eine Talgkerze? Sie lachten ihn immer aus, wenn er in der Nationalversammlung sprechen wollte.

SANSCULOTTE. Das war damals. Der führt jetzt im Nationalkonvent, im Wohlfahrtsausschuss, im Jacobinerklub das grosse Wort.

STELZFUSS. Ich sah ihn einmal—nur von fern. Trägt er nicht Brillen?

SANSCULOTTE. Nein.

STELZFUSS. Es kam mir doch so vor.

SANSCULOTTE. Er hat ein gelbes Gesicht und bläulich- gräuliche Ränder um die Augen—die wirst du in deiner Einfalt aus der Entfernung für Brillen gehalten haben?

STELZFUSS. Bleich im Gesicht?

SANSCULOTTE.
Gelb—grau—nein, eigentlich—wie soll ich sagen?
Graugrün, wenn man's genau nimmt—tiefe Augen
und widerhaar'ge Braun—ein schlichtes Männchen;
nichts gegen Danton! Aber wenn vor dir
hier Danton steht, der mächtige Koloss,
und dort das schneid'ge Männchen Robespierre
sprichst du mit dem frei von der Leber weg
wie mit dem jovialsten Kameraden,
und vor dem andern stockt die Rede dir
im Schlund—nicht grad' als ob er dich so dreist
ansäh', im Gegenteil, sieht eher etwas schüchtern
und unbehilflich aus vor vielem Volk—
doch geh' nur einmal auf die Galerie
des Nationalkonvents, sobald er spricht:
da kennst du ihn nicht mehr. Wenn festen Schritts
er steigt zur Rednerbühne, wird's so still,
dass du die Mäuschen pfeifen hören kannst
in ihren Löchern. Steht er anfangs dann
aufrecht und ruhig droben wie ein Pfahl
und spricht gelassen, denkst du: nun, er spricht nur eben
wie ein Schulmeister, oder wie ein Pfaff
spricht auf der Kanzel—plötzlich aber wirft
er ein paar Worte hin mit einer Stimme,
so kalt und scharf wie Stahl—in einem Ton,
dass dir ein Schauer über'n Rücken läuft-
Und fängt dann gar der Winkel seines Mundes
zu zucken an, und ruft er bittersüss
in seiner scharfen, schneidigen Manier:
‘Du armes Volk!’ und’ Tugendhaftes Volk!’
da packt dich was im Herzen wie ein Krampf:
du legst die Hand ans Messer, wenn du eins
verbirgst an deiner Brust, und möchtest gern
dich vor ihm niederwerfen und ihn fragen,
wen du zuerst von den verfluchten Feinden
der Republik damit durchstossen sollst—
Zuweilen aber schweigt er wochenlang
und lässt die anderen reden. Es geschehe
viel Dinge noch, von welchen man nicht weiss,
ob sie ihm lieb sind oder leid. Zuweilen
laviert er bloss und wartet auf den Wind.

Eben in letzter Zeit ist er wieder sehr schweigsam geworden?

---

SANSCULOTTE. (going up to him) What? You, Battiste, back in Paris? Damn it all—your leg—

WOODEN LEG. The prime cut of a hornbeams

SANSCULOTTE. Well fought for the Republic? No fear of death or the devil and never taken prisoner?

WOODEN LEG. Only once, fallen upon by enemy cavalry and then they were four to?

SANSCULOTTE. Stood up to plenty of hardship?

WOODEN LEG. By Jupiter! You've an easy time here in warm Paris, running around as sansculottes; but to camp out in the fields and to be on outpost duty without shoes in a cold that's enough to freeze a baby in its mother's womb, so that we had to put gunpowder in our brandy to warm up our stomachs? Then the whole day long to fight in the blaze of the sun?

SANSCULOTTE. Oh! What does that matter to anyone in the heat of the battle?

WOODEN LEG. Naturally if a cannonball takes off your head you can't be said to die of sunstroke—

ONE OF THE PEOPLE. Are you the one they used to call the little barber when you were a bit of a thing—used to help Barber Hatte in Pompadour Street?

WOODEN LEG. That's me, and I've never forgotten my trade—
Once when a bomb came down at Lille and burst
In front of me I seized a fragment up
From off the ground and used it as a dish,
And then with soap and water, on the spot,
Gave a good shave to twenty of our lads.
Ha, this pleased you all right well in Paris here
When our brave army with its colours flying
Swept from our France the dirty foreign flies
Which in a countless swarm did buzz around.
When you did hear of all the victories
That we were gaining, from beside your stoves
Had you a thought how often with bare feet
We went about and nothing had to eat
But cartridges—not even those at times?

SANSCULOTTE. What? Don't the wives of Paris let their men go in rags while they stitch at tent-cloths and uniforms for you? Don't we have to put up with dirty, worthless paper in place of ringing coins? What? We don't think about you? And are we idle when you're fighting? You should have been here in the September days—

WOODEN LEG. I can imagine—I remember quite well how three years ago on a people's holiday, without the General noticing it, you bound the tail of Lafayette's mare to the lamp-post because it cavorted about in your very faces?

SANSCULOTTE. Buffoonery! But in those September days...

WOODEN LEG. Is it true then that in those September days you put to death the whole collection of rare animals in the menagerie at Versailles?

SANSCULOTTE. What? The whole menagerie? No, only the lions and eagles because they are the kings among the animals; besides they're what are in the so-called coats-of-arms that aristocrats used to bear.

WOODEN LEG. You devils! How did that suddenly come into your heads?

SANSCULOTTE. I don't know. Suddenly, did you say? It wasn't a bit sudden. It came gradually—like appetite comes with eating—

WOODEN LEG. What said the moderates?

SANSCULOTTE. Not a word. The Commune is behind the sansculottes, and that's protected by Danton's broad back, and just at that time he was beginning to roar like a lion. Compared with him the others were only a pack of biting dogs. He's become lazy nowadays and like all the great beasts not always so full of vigour and lust for using his teeth as the small curs are—

ONE OF THE PEOPLE. Ah! This Samson too has been bewitched by the women!

SANSCULOTTE. Yes, yes, but I would have you know
When upright he does stand he is so tall
He'd push the ceiling through, break down the pillars,
Just as did once your Samson in the temple—

ANOTHER. Oh well! He no longer stands at his full height. He's under the other now, and this other is crafty—

WOODEN LEG. Who?

SANSCULOTTE. Who Haven't you heard of Robespierre in your camp ?

WOODEN LEG. Robespierre? Robespierre? Is that the stiff little man they call in fun the ‘tallow candle of Arras' because he came from Arras and wanted to shine but gave no more light than a flickering tallow candle? They laughed him out of court when he wanted to speak in the National Assembly.

SANSCULOTTE. That was in those days. He leads now in the debates in the National Convention or in the Committee of Public Safety—in the Jacobin Club too.

WOODEN LEG. I saw him once—only from a distance. Doesn't he wear spectacles?

SANSCULOTTE. No.

WOODEN LEG. It looked as if he did.

SANSCULOTTE. He has a yellow face and a blue-grey rim round his eyes, which you in your ignorance may at a distance have taken for spectacles—

WOODEN LEG. Pasty-faced?

SANSCULOTTE. Yellow—grey—no indeed, what shall I say?
Grey-green, to be exact, with deep-set eyes
And stubborn brow—a simple, little
man, Nothing compared with Danton! But if here
That great Colossus Danton were to stand
And there the little sharp-edged Robespierre,
With Danton one could speak out at one's ease
As with the friendliest among one's mates,
But with the other all your talk would be
Stuck in your throat; not that he's arrogant,
Quite on the contrary for he seems shy
And at a loss before a lot of folk—
But hear him at the National Convention!
You will not know him; when with a firm step
He goes up to the rostrum, all's so still
That you can hear the piping of the mice
Inside their holes. He to begin with stands
Upright and cool above us like a pillar
And speaks so calm, you think: well, now he talks
Just like a schoolmaster, or like a priest
Talks in a pulpit—then, quite suddenly
He hurls out a few words, but with a voice
As cold and sharp as steel, and in a tone
That sends a shudder running down your back;
And then the corner of his mouth begins
To twitch and he cries' out, so bittersweet,
In that sharp way so full of energy,
‘O you poor folk’ and ‘O you virtuous folk!’
And something seizes on your heart like cramp,
And if you have a knife concealed about you
You grasp it firmly, with the strong desire
To throw yourself before him and to ask
Which, to begin with, of the cursed foes
Of the Republic you should plunge it in.
But sometimes he is silent weeks on end
Letting the others speak. Many things occur
Of which one does not know whether they please
Or do not please him. Then too there are times
When he just tacks and waits upon the wind.
He's been quite silent recently again—

Note the skilful way in which the personality of Robespierre is introduced. The sansculotte abandons his role as sansculotte, and suddenly shows himself as a marvellous portrayer of character. If this moment in the scene is rendered with the colouring that it has been my intention to give to it in my reading, then in this speech that the sansculotte addresses to the people around him, the audience will eel the swing-over of loyalty of which we have spoken. The critical moment of transition has come; and as we go on, I shall indicate here and there some of the points that it would be important for a producer to have in mind The second mood is now upon us, it overwhelms the scene as though with a confused and deafening noise; I compared it, you will remember, to the clash of sounding brass.

EIN SCHREIBER DER KOMMUNE. (erscheint mit Handlangern, die Bretter und Handwerksgeräte mit sich tragen) Platz da! Platz, Sansculotten! Das Gerüst für die Göttin der Vernunft und für die Redner wird aufgeschlagen! Der Festzug wird in kurzer Zeit da sein.

---

CLERK TO THE COMMUNE. (appears with workmen carrying planks and tools) Make way there; make way, sansculottes. The stand is to be put up for the Goddess of Reason and the orators. The procession will shortly be here.

Here we have the ö (French eu in ‘feu’) mood. It has to be spoken forward; we must let the speaking strike on to the front part of the palate.

VOLK. Ça ira! Es lebe die Göttin der Vernunft!

SCHREIBER. (zu den Handlangern) Hierher, ihr Leute! in der Mitte des Platzes! Notre-Dame gerade gegenüber! (Die Handlanger machen sich an die Arbeit.)

---

PEOPLE. Ça ira. Long live the Goddess of Reason!

CLERK. (to his men) Here, you people! In the middle of the square! Over there by Notre Dame! (The men set to work.)

From now on, the women speak more in the ei (as in ‘height’) mood. With the entry of Robespierre into the conversation, the revolutionary impulses begin to be imbued with a sort of coy and affectionate enthusiasm—e a.

EIN WEIB. Seht nur, dass es nicht wieder so geht, wie im vorigen Jahre bei dem grossen Feste, wo sich ein paar Kerle unter den Brettergrund des Gerüstes versteckten—vermutlich um die Männer und Frauen, die darauf standen, in die Luft zu sprengen, bis man sie entdeckte, hervorzog und totschlug—

DER SCHREIBER. (schäkernd) Ach, das waren bloss ein paar Verehrer eures Geschlechts, die durch die Ritzen herauf- blinzelten... Was läge daran, wenn man heute der Vernunft ein wenig nach den Waden guckte? Sein Augenmerk auf die Vernunft und all ihr Detail zu richten, ist ja fortan Bürgerpflicht!

WEIBER. (ihn umringend) Du Schelm!—Werden sie bald da sein?

SCHREIBER. Sogleich.

WEIBER. Heissa, gleich werden sie da sein! Es lebe Hebert und Chaumette! Es lebe die Kommune! Es lebe der Konvent! Es lebe Danton! Es lebe Robespierre!

A WOMAN. Look to it that what happened last year at the great fête doesn't happen again, when a few fellows hid underneath the platform—as it was thought, to blow up the men and women on it—till they were discovered and pulled out and killed—

---

CLERK. (waggishly) Aha! They were simply one or two worshippers of your fair sex squinting through the crevices. ... What of it if today, too, someone has a peep at the Goddess of Reason's legs? To make Reason in all her details his aim, is henceforth one of the obligations of a citizen!

WOMEN. (pressing round him) You rogue! Will they soon be here?

CLERK. They're just coming.

WOMEN. Hurray! They're just coming! Long live Hebert and Chaumette! Long live the Commune! Long live the Convention! Long live Danton! Long live Robespierre!

(Translated by V. E. W.)

I wanted to show you by practical example how a scene like this should be treated. I have laid on the colouring a little more strongly than would be necessary in a performance, because I wanted you to have a particularly clear picture of how the different moods come severally to expression in the treatment of sound. We saw, for example, that the countryman has to be spoken throughout with the mouth open, for he is to reveal the a mood; a slight intoning of a should even be audible in every sound he utters. Similarly, you will find the clerk has to speak so that something of an i enters into each one of his sounds. His voice is always in front of that i-boundary in the mouth, of which I was speaking the other day, and is continually striking the front part of the palate. It is by paying careful attention to details like this, that we can gradually learn to give form and style to our speaking on the stage.

My dear Friends,

today we will take first a reading from Goethe that will illustrate for you many of the things of which we have been speaking in the previous lectures. You will have seen from the readings you listened to a few days ago—taken first from the earlier, and then for comparison from the later Iphigenie—what sort of an ideal for drama was living in Goethe at the beginning of his work as a playwright. He brought this form of drama to a kind of perfection in Götz von Berlichingen, also in some of the scenes in Faust, Part I. Goethe was working here essentially out of a feeling for prose—not yet out of an artistic forming of speech.

The first Iphigenie, which may be described as the German Tasso, proclaims itself at once, in contradistinction to the Roman, as a striking example of well-formed prose, although a prose that has, under the influence of the poetic content, been allowed to run into rhythm.

It was on his visit to Italy that Goethe began to interest himself in the artistic forming of speech. Contemplation of Italian art awakened in him a perception of how man's formative powers work, how they shape and mould a material artistically. With the whole strength of his soul, Goethe set himself to work his way through to what he now saw to be art in its purity. And this led him to feel that wherever possible he must re-mould his earlier work, he must form it anew, letting its form arise now from the language, from the formative qualities of speech.

Goethe accomplished this in an eminent manner with the material he had at hand in his earlier Tasso and Tasso. And in Tasso he succeeded even in letting the speech shape the whole drama throughout. This was an achievement of remarkable originality. There is perhaps no other work of its kind where the conscious endeavour has been made to develop a drama entirely within the formative activity of speech itself.

Now, it will of course be evident from what I was saying yesterday that speech formation alone is not enough; drama must have in addition mime and gesture. The intellect of the spectator—for that too should undergo artistic development as he watches the play—needs to see the gesturing as well as to hear the words. This was not sufficiently clear to Goethe at the time when he was working at his Roman Tasso and Tasso; he had not yet realised the importance of mime and gesture as an integral part of drama. Hence it is that we have in Tasso so striking an example of a drama where it is all a matter of speech, where everything follows from the forming of the speech.

But now put yourself in the position of having to produce Goethe's Tasso. As you begin to develop your picture of the stage, scene by scene, you will find that many different possibilities are open to you for your stage settings. It will certainly not be easy to introduce modifications into the form of the speech, for speech has here been brought to a certain artistic perfection; but your picture of the stage you will find you can plan in the most varied ways. There is, however, a passage in Tasso where, as producer, you will come up against an insuperable difficulty. It is in the scene where Tasso makes himself intolerable to the Princess, acting in such a way as to give a most unfortunate turn to the whole drama. Here the producer is helpless. There is, in fact, no way out. Call on all the artistic means at your disposal, and see whether as producer you can make a success of this passage. You will not be able to do it. That such moments occur in plays must be known and recognised, if the art of the stage is to be cultivated in the right manner. You will of course finally manage to devise some way of meeting the situation, but you will not be able to give artistic form to your pis alle.

This instance from Tasso can serve to show that in his work as dramatist Goethe did not altogether find the way from the forming of speech to the development of full drama that lives and weaves on the stage. That, one must admit, is an important fact; and the importance of it can be clearly seen in the further development of Goethe's work. For what do we find?

In his Tasso and Tasso, Goethe may be said to live in the speech, to live in it as a supreme and perfect artist. In the sphere of speech, these two plays are unsurpassed. Goethe himself knew well of course that drama could not stop here, that it must develop further. While still in Italy, he composed also many scenes for his Faust. These, however, did not take on a Roman character. The ‘Witches' Kitchen’, for example, was composed in Italy, and is thoroughly northern, thoroughly Gothic in the old sense. Goethe knew that for these scenes he must wrest himself free of the Italian influence that surrounded him, must forget all about it and be a complete northerner. This comes out also in the letters he was writing at the time. What had been possible with Tasso and with Tasso was not possible with the material he was dealing with in Faust.

And now we can follow the development a step further. Goethe began to write Die natürliche Tochter. In this play he shows that he wants to come right out on to the stage. He is not going to continue working in speech alone, he means to concern himself with the whole picture presented to the audience. He planned here a trilogy, but it was never completed; we have no more than the first part. As a matter of fact, only fragments, mere torsos, remain to us of all the plays that Goethe began after this time. Even Pandora—a work that was grandly conceived, as can be seen from the rough sketch the author made of the whole—was never completed. Faust alone was finished, but finished in such a way that only in the speech was the poet happy and successful; for the rest, he drew on tradition. The last grand scene is derived from the traditional imaginative conceptions of Roman Catholicism. Goethe did not find in himself the sources for that scene.

Inherent of course in all this lies Goethe's profound honesty; Faust alone he finishes, and that, as can plainly be seen, out of a certain inability! The other plays he leaves unfinished, because he knew he could not complete them without entirely re-forming them. A dishonest artist would have finished them. Naturally, it is easy enough to polish off plenty of plays if one has no inclination or ability to delve down to the very deeps and make contact with the Archai of all creating. Oh yes, one can then complete many things to one's own satisfaction!

A number of different people have set out to complete Schiller's Demetrius, for example, but not one among them all has left us an artistic creation; no single ending proposed can be said to develop the play artistically. And it is art that we must really begin again to care about and expect to find. We must get to know art in its foundations, we must develop again a genuine artistic sensitiveness. For a long time this has been lacking. Traditions have survived, they have been handed down; but sensitiveness to true art—that is what our civilisation needs. The art of the stage has unique opportunity for helping this sensitiveness to develop: it can turn to good account the living relationship that subsists between stage and spectator. Unless we seize on this opportunity, we shall not get any farther.

In order to show you—or I should rather say, remind you, for I assume you are all of you familiar with the play—in order to remind you how far the forming of the speech dominated Goethe's dramatic work in the period of its highest attainment, we will ask you now to listen to the first scene from his Torquato Tasso. Frau Dr. Steiner will recite it for us.

(Frau Dr. Steiner): Let me first recall to you the setting of the scene. It takes place in a garden ornamented with columns carrying the busts of epic poets. In the foreground are Virgil on the right and Ariosto on the left.

(PRINZESSIN, LEONORE)

PRINZESSIN

Du siehst mich lächelnd an, Eleonore,
Und siehst dich selber an und lächelst wieder.
Was hast du? Lass es eine Freundin wissen!
Du scheinst bedenklich, doch du scheinst vergnügt.

LEONORE

Ja, meine Fürstin, mit Vergnügen seh' ich
Uns beide hier so ländlich ausgeschmückt.
Wir scheinen recht beglückte Schäferinnen,
Und sind auch wie die Glücklichen beschäftigt.
Wir winden Kränze. Dieser, bunt von Blumen,
Schwillt immer mehr und mehr in meiner Hand;
Du hast mit höherm Sinn und grösserm Herzen
Den zarten, schlanken Lorbeer dir gewählt.

PRINZESSIN

Die Zweige, die ich in Gedanken flocht,
Sie haben gleich ein würdig Haupt gefunden:
Ich setze sie Virgilen dankbar auf.
(Sie kränzt die Herme Virgils.)

LEONORE

So drück' ich meinen vollen frohen Kranz
Dem Meister Ludwig auf die hohe Stirne—
(Sie kränzt Ariostens Herme.)
Er, dessen Scherze nie verblühen, habe
Gleich von dem neuen Frühling seinen Teil.

PRINZESSIN

Mein Bruder ist gefällig, dass er uns
In diesen Tagen schon aufs Land gebracht:
Wir können unser sein und stundenlang
Uns in die goldne Zeit derDichter träumen.
Ich liebe Belriguardo, denn ich habe
Hier manchen Tag der Jugend froh durchlebt,
Und dieses neue Grün und diese Sonne
Bringt das Gefühl mir jener Zeit zurück.

LEONORE

Ja, es umgibt uns eine neue Welt!
Der Schatten dieser immer grünen Bäume
Wird schon erfreulich. Schon erquickt uns wieder
Das Rauschen dieser Brunnen. Schwankend wiegen
Im Morgenwinde sich die jungen Zweige.
Die Blumen von den Beeten schauen uns
Mit ihren Kinderaugen freundlich an.
Der Gärtner deckt getrost das Winterhaus
Schon der Zitronen und Orangen ab.
Der blaue Himmel ruhet über uns,
Und an dem Horizonte löst der Schnee
Der fernen Berge sich in leisen Duft.

PRINZESSIN

Es wäre mir der Frühling sehr willkommen,
Wenn er nicht meine Freundin mir entführte.

LEONORE

Erinnere mich in diesen holden Stunden,
O Fürstin, nicht, wie bald ich scheiden soll.

PRINZESSIN

Was du verlassen magst, das findest du
In jener grossen Stadt gedoppelt wieder.

LEONORE

Es ruft die Pflicht, es ruft die Liebe mich
Zu dem Gemahl, der mich so lang entbehrt.
Ich bring' ihm seinen Sohn, der dieses Jahr
So schnell gewachsen, schnell sich ausgebildet,
Und teile seine väterliche Freude.
Gross ist Florenz und herrlich, doch der Wert
Von allen seinen aufgehäuften Schätzen
Reicht an Ferraras Edelsteine nicht.
Das Volk hat jene Stadt zur Stadt gemacht,
Ferrara ward durch seine Fürsten gross.

PRINZESSIN

Mehr durch die guten Menschen, die sich hier
Durch Zufall trafen und zum Glück verbanden.

LEONORE

Sehr leicht zerstreut der Zufall, was er sammelt.
Ein edler Mensch zieht edle Menschen an
Und weiss sie festzuhalten, wie ihr tut.
Um deinen Bruder und um dich verbinden
Gemüter sich, die euer würdig sind,
Und ihr seid eurer grossen Väter wert.
Hier zündete sich froh das schöne Licht
Der Wissenschaft, des freien Denkens an,
Als noch die Barbarei mit schwerer Dämmrung
Die Welt umher verbarg. Mir klang als Kind
Der Name Herkules von Este schon,
Schon Hippolyt von Este voll ins Ohr.
Ferrara ward mit Rom und mit Florenz
Von meinem Vater viel gepriesen! Oft
Hab' ich mich hingesehnt; nun bin ich da.
Hier ward Petrarch bewirtet, hier gepflegt,
Und Ariost fand seine Muster hier.
Italien nennt keinen grossen Namen,
Den dieses Haus nicht seinen Gast genannt.
Und es ist vorteilhaft, den Genius
Bewirten: gibst du ihm ein Gastgeschenk,
So lässt er dir ein schöneres zurück.
Die Stätte, die ein guter Mensch betrat,
Ist eingeweiht; nach hundert Jahren klingt
Sein Wort und seine Tat dem Enkel wieder.

PRINZESSIN

Dem Enkel, wenn er lebhaft fühlt wie du.
Gar oft beneid' ich dich um dieses Glück.

LEONORE

Das du, wie wenig andre, still und rein
Geniessest. Drängt mich doch das volle Herz,
Sogleich zu sagen, was ich lebhaft fühle;
Du fühlst es besser, fühlst es tief und—schweigst.
Dich blendet nicht der Schein des Augenblicks.
Der Witz besticht dich nicht, die Schmeichelei
Schmiegt sich vergebens künstlich an dein Ohr:
Fest bleibt dein Sinn und richtig dein Geschmack,
Dein Urteil grad, stets ist dein Anteil gross
Am Grossen, das du wie dich selbst erkennst.

PRINZESSIN

Du solltest dieser höchsten Schmeichelei
Nicht das Gewand vertrauter Freundschaft leihen.

LEONORE

Die Freundschaft ist gerecht, sie kann allein
Den ganzen Umfang deines Werts erkennen.
Und lass mich der Gelegenheit, dem Glück
Auch ihren Teil an deiner Bildung geben;
Du hast sie doch, und bist's am Ende doch,
Und dich mit deiner Schwester ehrt die Welt
Vor allen grossen Frauen eurer Zeit.

PRINZESSIN

Mich kann das, Leonore, wenig rühren,
Wenn ich bedenke, wie man wenig ist,
Und was man ist, das blieb man andern schuldig.
Die Kenntnis alter Sprachen und des Besten,
Was uns die Vorwelt liess, dank' ich der Mutter;
Doch war an Wissenschaft, an rechtem Sinn
Ihr keine beider Töchter jemals gleich,
Und soll sich eine ja mit ihr vergleichen,
So hat Lucretia gewiss das Recht.
Auch, kann ich dir versichern, hab' ich nie
Als Rang und als Besitz betrachtet, was
Mir die Natur, was mir das Glück verlieh.
Ich freue mich, wenn kluge Männer sprechen,
Dass ich verstehen kann, wie sie es meinen.
Es sei ein Urteil über einen Mann
Der alten Zeit und seiner Taten Wert;
Es sei von einer Wissenschaft die Rede,
Die, durch Erfahrung weiter ausgebreitet,
Dem Menschen nutzt, indem sie ihn erhebt;
Wohin sich das Gespräch der Edlen lenkt,
Ich folge gern, denn mir wird leicht, zu folgen.
Ich höre gern dem Streit der Klugen zu,
Wenn um die Kräfte, die des Menschen Brust
So freundlich und so fürchterlich bewegen,
Mit Grazie die Rednerlippe spielt;
Gern, wenn die fürstliche Begier des Ruhms,
Des ausgebreiteten Besitzes, Stoff
Dem Denker wird, und wenn die feine Klugheit,
Von einem klugen Manne zart entwickelt,
Statt uns zu hintergehen, uns belehrt.

LEONORE

Und dann, nach dieser ernsten Unterhaltung,
Ruht unser Ohr und unser innrer Sinn
Gar freundlich auf des Dichters Reimen aus,
Der uns die letzten lieblichsten Gefühle
Mit holden Tönen in die Seele flösst.
Dein hoher Geist umfasst ein weites Reich,
Ich halte mich am liebsten auf der Insel
Der Poesie in Lorbeerhainen auf.

PRINZESSIN

In diesem schönen Lande hat man mir
Versichern wollen, wächst vor andern Bäumen
Die Myrte gern. Und wenn der Musen gleich
Gar viele sind, so sucht man unter ihnen
Sich seltner eine Freundin und Gespielin,
Als man dem Dichter gern begegnen mag,
Der uns zu meiden, ja, zu fliehen scheint,
Etwas zu suchen scheint, das wir nicht kennen
Und er vielleicht am Ende selbst nicht kennt.
Da wär' es denn ganz artig, wenn er uns
Zur guten Stunde träfe, schnell entzückt
Uns für den Schatz erkennte, den er lang'
Vergebens in der weiten Welt gesucht.

LEONORE

Ich muss mir deinen Scherz gefallen lassen,
Er trifft mich zwar, doch trifft er mich nicht tief.
Ich ehre jeden Mann und sein Verdienst,
Und ich bin gegen Tasso nur gerecht.
Sein Auge weilt auf dieser Erde kaum;
Sein Ohr vernimmt den Einklang der Natur;
Was die Geschichte reicht, das Leben gibt,
Sein Busen nimmt es gleich und willig auf:
Das weit Zerstreute sammelt sein Gemüt,
Und sein Gefühl belebt das Unbelebte.
Oft adelt er, was uns gemein erschien,
Und das Geschätzte wird vor ihm zu nichts.
In diesem eignen Zauberkreise wandelt
Der wunderbare Mann und zieht uns an,
Mit ihm zu wandeln, teil an ihm zu nehmen:
Er scheint sich uns zu nahn, und bleibt uns fern;
Er scheint uns anzusehn, und Geister mögen
An unsrer Stelle seltsam ihm erscheinen.

PRINZESSIN

Du hast den Dichter fein und zart geschildert,

Der in den Reichen süsser Träume schwebt.
Allein mir scheint auch ihn das Wirkliche
Gewaltsam anzuziehn und festzuhalten.
Die schönen Lieder, die an unsern Bäumen
Wir hin und wieder angeheftet finden,
Die, goldnen Aepfeln gleich, ein neu Hesperien
Uns duftend bilden, erkennst du sie nicht alle
Für holde Früchte einer wahren Liebe?

LEONORE

Ich freue mich der schönen Blätter auch.
Mit mannigfalt'gem Geist verherrlicht er
Ein einzig Bild in allen seinen Reimen.
Bald hebt er es in lichter Glorie
Zum Sternenhimmel auf, beugt sich verehrend
Wie Engel über Wolken vor dem Bilde;
Dann schleicht er ihm durch stille Fluren nach,
Und jede Blume windet er zum Kranz.
Entfernt sich die Verehrte, heiligt er
Den Pfad, den leis ihr schöner Fuss betrat.
Versteckt im Busche, gleich der Nachtigall,
Füllt er aus einem liebekranken Busen
Mit seiner Klagen Wohllaut Hain und Luft;
Sein reizend Leid, die sel'ge Schwermut lockt
Ein jedes Ohr, und jedes Herz muss nach—

PRINZESSIN

Und wenn er seinen Gegenstand benennt,
So gibt er ihm den Namen Leonore.

LEONORE

Es ist dein Name, wie es meiner ist.
Ich nähm' es übel, wenn's ein andrer wäre.
Mich freut es, dass er sein Gefühl für dich
In diesem Doppelsinn verbergen kann.
Ich bin zufrieden, dass er meiner auch
Bei dieses Namens holdem Klang gedenkt.
Hier ist die Frage nicht von einer Liebe,
Die sich des Gegenstands bemeistern will,
Ausschliessend ihn besitzen, eifersüchtig
Den Anblick jedem andern wehren möchte.
Wenn er in seliger Betrachtung sich
Mit deinem Wert beschäftigt, mag er-auch
An meinem leichtem Wesen sich erfreun.
Uns liebt er nicht—verzeih, dass ich es sage!—
Aus allen Sphären trägt er, was er liebt,
Auf einen Namen nieder, den wir führen,
Und sein Gefühl teilt er uns mit; wir scheinen
Den Mann zu lieben, und wir lieben nur
Mit ihm das Höchste, was wir lieben können.

PRINZESSIN

Du hast dich sehr in diese Wissenschaft
Vertieft, Eleonore, sagst mir Dinge,
Die mir beinahe nur das Ohr berühren
Und in die Seele kaum noch übergehn.

LEONORE

Du, Schülerin des Plato! nicht begreifen,
Was dir ein Neuling vorzuschwatzen wagt?
Es müsste sein, dass ich zu sehr mich irrte;
Doch irr' ich auch nicht ganz, ich weiss es wohl.
Die Liebe zeigt in dieser holden Schule
Sich nicht, wie sonst, als ein verwöhntes Kind:
Es ist der Jüngling, der mit Psychen sich
Vermählte, der im Rat der Götter Sitz
Und Stimme hat. Er tobt nicht frevelhaft
Von einer Brust zur andern hin und her;
Er heftet sich an Schönheit und Gestalt
Nicht gleich mit süssem Irrtum fest, und büsset
Nicht schnellen Rausch mit Ekel und Verdruss.

PRINZESSIN

Da kommt mein Bruder! Lass uns nicht verraten,
Wohin sich wieder das Gespräch gelenkt:
Wir würden seinen Scherz zu tragen haben,
Wie unsre Kleidung seinen Spott erfuhr.

---

TORQUATO TASSO
by Goethe
Act I. Scene 1.

(PRINCESS and LEONORA, habited as shepherdesses.)

PRINCESS

Smiling thou dost survey me, Leonora,
And with a smile thou dost survey thyself.
What is it? Let a friend partake thy thought!
Thou seemest pensive, yet thou seemest pleased.

LEONORA

Yes, I am pleased, my princess, to behold
Us twain in rural fashion thus attir'd.
Two happy shepherd-maidens we appear,
And like the happy we are both employed.
Garlands we wreathe, this one, so gay with flowers,
Beneath my hand in varied beauty grows;<
Thou hast with higher taste and larger heart
The slender pliant laurel made thy choice.

PRINCESS

The laurel wreath, which aimlessly I twin'd,
Hath found at once a not unworthy head;
I place it gratefully on Virgil's brow.
(She crowns the bust of Virgil.)

LEONORA

With my full joyous wreath the lofty brow
Of Master Ludovico, thus I crown—
(She crowns the bust of Ariosto.)
Let him whose sportive sallies never fade,
Receive his tribute from the early spring.

PRINCESS

My brother is most kind, to bring us here
In this sweet season to our rural haunts;
Here, by the hour, in freedom unrestrain'd,
We may dream back the poet's golden age.
I love this Belriguardo; in my youth
Full many a joyous day I linger'd here,
And this bright sunshine, and this verdant green,
Bring back the feelings of that bygone time.

LEONORA

Yes, a new world surrounds us! Grateful now
The cooling shelter of these evergreens.
The tuneful murmur of this gurgling spring
Once more revives us. In the morning wind
The tender branches waver to and fro.
The flowers look upwards from their lowly beds,
And smile upon us with their childlike eyes.
The gardener, fearless grown, removes the roof
That screened his citron and his orange-trees;
The azure dome of heaven above us rests;
And, in the far horizon, from the hills
The snow in balmy vapour melts away.

PRINCESS

Most welcome were to me the genial spring,
Did it not lead my friend away from me.

LEONORA

My princess, in these sweet and tranquil hours,
Remind me not how soon I must depart.

PRINCESS

Yon mighty city will restore to thee,
In double measure, what thou leavest here.

LEONORA

The voice of duty, and the voice of love,
Both call me to my lord, forsaken long,
I bring to him his son, who rapidly
Hath grown in stature, and matured in mind,
Since last they met—I share his father's joy.
Florence is great and noble, but the worth
Of all her treasur'd riches doth not reach
The prouder jewels that Ferrara boasts.
That city to her people owes her power;
Ferrara grew to greatness through her princes.

PRINCESS

More through the noble men whom chance led here,
And who in sweet communion here remain'd.

LEONORA

Chance doth again disperse what chance collects.
A noble nature can alone attract
The noble, and retain them as ye do.
Around thy brother, and around thyself,
Assemble spirits worthy of you both,
And ye are worthy of your noble sires.
Here the fair light of science and free thought
Was kindled first, while o'er the darkened world
Still hung barbarian gloom. E'en when a child,
The names resounded loudly in mine ear,
Of Hercules and Hippolyte of Este.
My father oft with Florence and with Rome
Extoll'd Ferrara! Oft in youthful dream
Hither I fondly turn'd, now am I here.
Here was Petrarca kindly entertain'd,
And Ariosto found his models here.
Italia boasts no great, no mighty name,
This princely mansion hath not call'd its guest.
In fostering genius we enrich ourselves;
Dost thou present her with a friendly gift,
One far more beautiful she leaves with thee.
The ground is hallow'd where the good man treads;
When centuries have roll'd his sons shall hear
The deathless echo of his words and deeds.

PRINCESS

Yes, if those sons have feelings quick as thine;
This happiness full oft I envy thee.

LEONORA

Which purely and serenely thou, my friend,
As few beside thee, dost thyself enjoy.
When my full heart impels me to express
Promptly and freely what I keenly feel,
Thou feel'st the while more deeply, and—art silent.
Delusive splendour doth not dazzle thee,
Nor wit beguile; and flattery strives in vain
With fawning artifice to win thine ear;
Firm is thy temper, and correct thy taste,
Thy judgment just, and, truly great thyself,
With greatness thou dost ever sympathise.

PRINCESS

Thou shouldst not to this highest flattery
The garment of confiding friendship lend.

LEONORA

Friendship is just; she only estimates
The full extent and measure of thy worth.
Let me ascribe to opportunity,
To fortune too, her portion in thy culture,
Still in the end thou hast it, it is thine,
And all extol thy sister and thyself
Before the noblest women of the age.

PRINCESS

That can but little move me, Leonora,
When I reflect how poor at best we are,
To others more indebted than ourselves.
My knowledge of the ancient languages,
And of the treasures by the past bequeath'd,
I owe my mother, who, in varied lore
And mental power, her daughters far excell'd.
Might either claim comparison with her,
'Tis undeniably Lucretia's right.
Besides, what nature and what chance bestow'd
As property or rank I ne'er esteem'd.
'Tis pleasure to me when the wise converse,
That I their scope and meaning comprehend;
Whether they judge a man of bygone times
And weigh his actions, or of science treat,
Which, when extended and applied to life,
At once exalts and benefits mankind.
Where'er the converse of such men may lead,
I follow gladly, for with ease I follow.
Well pleas'd the strife of argument I hear,
When, round the powers that sway the human breast,
Waking alternately delight and fear,
With grace the lip of eloquence doth play:
And listen gladly when the princely thirst
Of fame, of wide dominion, forms the theme,
When of an able man, the thought profound,
Develop'd skilfully with subtle tact,
Doth not perplex and dazzle, but instruct.

LEONORA

And then, this grave and serious converse o'er,
Our ear and inner mind with tranquil joy
Upon the poet's tuneful verse repose,
Who through the medium of harmonious sounds
Infuses sweet emotions in the soul.
Thy lofty spirit grasps a wide domain;
Content am I to linger in the isle
Of poesy, her laurel groves among.

PRINCESS

In this fair land, I'm told, the myrtle blooms
In richer beauty than all other trees;
Here, too, the Muses wander, yet we seek
A friend and playmate’mong their tuneful choir
Less often than we seek to meet the bard,
Who seems to shun us, nay, appears to flee,
In quest of something that we know not of,
And which perchance is to himself unknown.
How charming were it, if in happy hour
Encountering us, he should with ecstasy
In our fair selves the treasure recognise,
Which in the world he long had sought in vain!

LEONORA

To your light raillery I must submit,
So light its touch it passeth harmless by.
I honour all men after their desert,
And am in truth toward Tasso only just.
His eye scarce lingers on this earthly scene,
To Nature's harmony his ear is tuned.
What history offers, and what life presents,
His bosom promptly and with joy receives,
The widely scatter'd is by him combined,
And his quick feeling animates the dead.
Oft he ennobles what we count for naught;
What others treasure is by him despis'd.
Thus moving in his own enchanted sphere,
The wondrous man doth still allure us on
To wander with him and partake his joy;
Though seeming to approach us, he remains
Remote as ever, and perchance his eye,
Resting on us, sees spirits in our place.

PRINCESS

Thou hast with taste and truth portray'd the bard
Who hovers in the shadowy realm of dreams.
And yet reality, it seems to me,
Hath also power to lure him and enchain.
In the sweet sonnets, scattered here and there,
With which we sometimes find our trees adorn'd,
Creating like the golden fruit of old
A new Hesperia, perceiv'st thou
not The gentle tokens of a genuine love?

LEONORA

In these fair leaves I also take delight.
With all his rich diversity of thought
He glorifies one form in all his strains.
Now he exalts her to the starry heavens
In radiant glory, and before that form
Bows down, like angels in the realms above.
Then stealing after her through silent fields,
He garlands in his wreath each beauteous flower;
And should the form he worships disappear,
Hallows the path her gentle foot hath trod.
Thus like the nightingale, conceal'd in shade,
From his love-laden breast he fills the air
And neighbouring thickets with melodious plaints.
His blissful sadness and his tuneful grief
Charm every ear, enrapture every heart—

PRINCESS

And Leonora is the favour'd name
Selected for the object of his strains.

LEONORA

Thy name it is, my princess, as’tis mine.
It would displease me were it otherwise.
Now I rejoice that under this disguise
He can conceal his sentiment for thee,
And am no less contented with the thought
That this sweet name should also picture me.
Here is no question of an ardent love,
Seeking possession, and with jealous care
Screening its object from another's gaze.
While he enraptur'd contemplates thy worth
He in my lighter nature may rejoice.
He loves not us—forgive me what I say—
His lov'd ideal from the spheres he brings,
And doth invest it with the name we bear;
His feeling we participate; we seem
To love the man, yet only love in him
The highest object that can claim our love.

PRINCESS

In this deep science thou art deeply vers'd,
My Leonora, and thy words in truth
Play on my ear, yet scarcely reach my soul.

LEONORA

Thou Plato's pupil! and not comprehend
What a mere novice dares to prattle to thee?
It must be then that I have widely err'd;
Yet well I know I do not wholly err.
For love doth in this graceful school appear
No longer as the spoilt and wayward child;
He is the youth whom Psyche hath espous'd;
Who sits in council with the assembled gods.
He hath relinquish'd passion's fickle sway,
He clings no longer with delusion sweet
To outward form and beauty, to atone
For brief excitement by disgust and hate.

PRINCESS

Here comes my brother! let us not betray
Whither our converse hath conducted us;
Else we shall have his raillery to bear,
As in our dress he found a theme for jest.
(From the translation by Anna Swanwick.)

(Dr. Steiner): One fact has been entirely forgotten in the drama of recent years. When I tell you what it is, you will not very easily believe me; but I have been present at scarcely a single performance in recent years where the fact that we hear with our ears has not been forgotten. It seems such a simple obvious fact; and yet, from the point of view of art, it has been quite overlooked. The drama of our time has been working on the peculiar assumption that we hear- with our eyes ! It is accordingly considered necessary that whenever an actor is listening to another actor, he shall look straight towards him. In real life, it is certainly customary to turn to the person who is speaking, and it is perhaps justified there as a mark of politeness. Politeness is undoubtedly a praiseworthy virtue, it may even in certain circumstances be reckoned as one of the virtues that go to make up the moral code; and I am far from wanting to imply that there is no need for an actor to be polite; on the contrary! The actor on the stage, however, owes politeness first of all to the audience. (I do not mean some individual there; I shall have important things to say about the audience in the later lectures.) The only politeness that is due from the actor is in his relation to the audience, but in that he must not fail. It must never once be allowed to happen, for instance, that the audience see before them an actor speaking from the back of the stage, and four or five or more others standing in the foreground, turning their backs on the auditorium. That the stage should ever present such a picture is due to the intrusion there in recent years of the dilettantism that wants merely to imitate life. Blunders of this kind will disappear altogether as soon as we begin to take account again of style.

And where a true feeling for style is present, what difference will it make? We shall find we are perfectly able to arrange our positions on the stage so that only on the rarest occasion does an actor need to turn his back to the audience—only, that is, where a particular situation in the play absolutely requires it. As a matter of fact, nothing should ever happen on the stage for which there is not a compelling motive inherent in the play itself.

Take the case of smoking. In what I said yesterday I did not at all mean to convey the impression that I am against the smoking of cigarettes on the stage. But can there be any genuine motive behind it, when a number of persons, obviously merely to fill up dead moments with a bit of mime, are continually lighting cigarettes and smoking them in between their words, or even—as I have often seen—trying to cover their ignorance of rightly formed speech by standing there talking, holding cigarettes in their mouths as they speak? Yes, that does happen. All manner of detestable tricks of this sort have been finding their way on to the stage.

If, however, a boy of seventeen or eighteen years old comes on the stage and lights a cigarette, then there may well be a perfectly definite motive behind the action: we are to understand that the young fellow is anxious to pose as grown-up. He wants us to see that he is quite a man. In that case, the lighting of the cigarette has behind it a conscious motive that originates in the play itself, and I would thoroughly commend it—as I certainly do when in the plays of today I see boys and girls of seventeen or eighteen (the age of the part, of course, not of the actor) lighting their cigarettes. There, it is right and good; the action must, however, always be prompted directly by the situation in the play.

Do you see what is implied here—what demand we are making on behalf of art? We are asking that everything done on the stage shall be directly consequent on the inner texture of the play as an artistic creation. If our work is to have form and style, we must be able to see how every single detail in the acting springs straight from the fundamental intentions of the play. I have mentioned the matter of cigarettes merely as an example.

Suppose it happens in a play that one person is giving a command, and one, two or three others are receiving it. There you have a clear situation to be staged. As to the manner and bearing of the one who is giving the command, I need only refer you to what I said the other day, when we went through the several gestures for the variously spoken word—the incisive, hard, gentle, etc. What we have now to consider is the behaviour, in dumb show, of those who are receiving a command. Naturally, what they would find easiest would be to stand with their backs to the audience, for then there would be no need for them to act at all. But there is no occasion for them to take up such a position; in fact, it mustn't be done, it would be quite inartistic.

There are two things the audience must be able to see in one who is receiving a command. First, it must be evident that he is listening while the command is being given. And this, even when instead of facing the speaker he faces them, the audience will have no difficulty in seeing. If an actor who is receiving a command should ever turn his back to the audience, then we would have necessarily to conclude that he had some very particular reason for doing so. Imagine the speaker standing behind him, on his right; then the listener can still quite properly face the audience. He will be listening with his right ear and the audience will be able to see that he is doing so, by the way he turns just a little in that direction. No situation can possibly occur in a play where a listener is not perfectly well able to face the audience. And then, if the actor has his mime under proper control, the audience can see also in his countenance the impression that the command is making upon him. For that has to be seen too; it is the second of the two things that must be clearly visible to the spectator. The listener will therefore present to the audience a three-quarter profile more or less, his head inclined a little in the direction of the voice and slightly forwards. And if he has gone through beforehand the other exercises that I described yesterday, then as he assumes this position and enters into the feeling of it, his facial muscles will instinctively be set working in such a manner that the audience will see expressed in his countenance the nature of the command he is receiving. And if, in addition, he shows a tendency to move his arms and hands—not outwards, but more in the way of drawing them towards him—the gesture will be complete, will be exactly as it should be.

And now, my dear friends, you will probably be wanting to say: But if I were to arrange the stage with three or four actors all listening in the way you describe, it would look stereotyped, it would look as if it were according to some set plan.

Raphael would not have said so ! He would no doubt have introduced slight modifications into the gesture of the second listener, or of the third and so on, but the essential spirit and character of the gesture he would have maintained in them all. Raphael was not of course a producer; but he would, as onlooker, as critic, have demanded that gesture. He would, as I said, have modified it a little here and there, but the very similarity of gesture in the listeners would have impressed Raphael as aesthetically right. And should it ever be a case of some individual actor wanting his own way, then no question but that the stage picture as a whole must always receive the first consideration.

What I have been describing has reference to the receiving of a command. We can, however, also consider how it will be with mere listening. One actor is speaking and others are listening. The gesturing here will naturally be not unlike what we have found to belong to the receiving of a command. The speaker's gesture will of course again be from among those I indicated in connection with the different categories that I named for the word : incisive, gentle, etc.; the precise gesture of the listener will have to be carefully determined in the following way.

Let us suppose the content of what he has to say requires the speaker to speak quite slowly, so that his speaking falls into the category we named: slow, deliberate. We know then what his gesture will be. But what kind of a gesture will the listener have to make? The listener will have to adopt the gesture of a speaker who utters quick, decided words. Why is this?

When someone speaks in a quick, incisive tone of voice, he tends involuntarily to make sharply defined gestures; you will remember how we designated them as ‘pointing’ gestures. The narrator, who is speaking slowly, will not make these pointing gestures; he will make the movements with the fingers that I showed at the end of yesterday's lecture. The listener, however, will—silently, to himself– accentuate, as he listens, the important words. He will thus be in • the condition for incisive speaking—speaking, as it were, inaudibly, within; and he will accordingly be right in making the pointing gestures. Then you will have a perfect harmony of gesture: the one making those finger movements that belong to the telling, the other making the’ pointing’ finger movements that rightly accompany the listening. These are suggestions that you can study and work out in detail for yourselves.

Take another case. Again we have an actor relating something; but this time the content has the effect of making him speak his words out abruptly, as though they were cut short. This kind of speaking will always mean that the speaker particularly wants to drive home what he is telling; otherwise he would not tell it in that manner When the dramatist lets us see that a great deal depends on getting some information across to the listener, then the narrator will have to speak in this way, cutting his words short, and he will at the same time make the corresponding ‘flinging away’ gesture with his fingers—this gesture that you will remember I showed you before. The listener, on the other hand, will be true to his part and show the right response if he listens with all his ears—comes, that is, inwardly into the mood of a speaker who gives his words their full tone and value. Suppose someone wants to make sure of my taking in what he is telling me. Then I must stand before him in the manner of a full-toned speaker; for since I have to feel in full measure what he is saying, I must make the gesture that we saw to be right for the word that is spoken in full measure. These are ways to establish a right relationship between speaker and listener.

It must only not be forgotten that what I have now been recommending should never be noticeable on the stage; it should have been so thoroughly worked with that it has passed over entirely into an instinctive sensitiveness for what is true in art. If ever a movement gives the appearance of being studied or artificial, that movement is immediately false. For in art, everything is false unless it is the artistic itself that the spectator has before him—the artistic itself as style.

Consider in this connection what a difference there will be in their whole manner of speaking between some character in a drama who wants to convince, and one who wants to persuade. This difference must be brought out on the stage.

Situations occur where we want to persuade another person, we want to talk him round. One can have this desire in a good or in a bad sense—or somewhere between the two. You have a classic and grand instance of persuasion in the famous saying of Wallenstein: ‘Max, bleibe bei mir! ’ (Max, stay with me!).¹ There you have, not the will to convince, as will be evident from the context, but the will to persuade.

Now, you could not imagine Wallenstein standing in front of Max Piccolomini, wringing his hands and saying: ‘Max, bleibe bei mir!’ But you can, and indeed you must, imagine him clapping Max on the shoulder, or showing at least an inclination to do so. That is the gesture that belongs properly to the words. Where, on the other hand, it is a question of trying to carry conviction by reasoning, the speaker must make some gesture upon his own person. He will have to clasp his hands, for example, or touch himself somewhere with his hands. He feels a need to discover within himself the power of conviction—as it were, to track it down. If, however, the speaker wants to persuade, he should make the gesture of touching the other person—or at least let it begin, making a movement, that is, which, if carried further, would be a complete gesture of touching.

Note carefully also the fine distinctions we have to make for different kinds of persuasion. We may, for example, be using persuasion with the intention of giving comfort. Much will then depend on our powers of persuasion in the good sense of the word, for the one who needs comfort has not time to be convinced; what he wants, as a rule, is to be persuaded, not to be convinced by reason. We shall find, however, it makes a great difference whether we are in this way using persuasion to bring comfort, or are, for instance, wanting something from the other person.

If we want to bring comfort, then we make this gesture of touching; it will work naturally and harmoniously, whether we only begin it, or carry it to completion. It need really only be begun. We can take the other's hand, or lay the palm of our hand on his forearm. The audience will then instinctively receive the right impression.

This gesture will, however, not be right if you are wanting something for yourself, as in the famous example I quoted just now, not even if your wish be inspired by the very best intentions. ‘Max, bleibe bei mir !’ The actor who says these words will not lay his hand on Max's arm; he will have to place his hand on Max's shoulder or on his head, or anyway make a gesture of beginning to do so. Things like this will have to be grasped in all their exact detail, if we are ever to have again a genuine art of production that concerns itself with the whole practical work of the stage.

And now let us go a little farther; for there are many more details of gesture and posture that require to be studied. We need, for example, to develop an artistic perception for the following. When a person is standing in front of you, you may be seeing him in profile, in part profile, or in full face; and there is a meaning for each of these three ways of being seen. Anyone who is an attentive observer of life will know how people sometimes place themselves instinctively so that others are seeing them in one or other of these ways. In real life a kind of affectation lies behind it, but in art it is done for artistic reasons. I once knew a professor (he was a German) who never lectured without presenting himself in profile to his audience—and not only before ladies, to whom he frequently gave lectures, but before his own men students too; and he knew very well what it meant.

Standing in profile always calls up instinctively in the onlooker a sense of being in the presence of intellectual superiority. You cannot look at a person in profile without being impressed with his intellectual superiority—or inferiority, as the case may be; for in real life inferiority also occurs. The front-face view can never, for unprejudiced observation, tell us whether the person is clever or stupid. Looking him full in the face, we can remark whether he is a good or a bad man, whether he is kindly disposed or selfish; but if we want to observe whether he is clever or dull, we must see him in profile. And since one who makes use of profile is sure to be a person who believes himself to be clever, we shall know he is wanting in this way to show us his cleverness.

The actor should also make here an additional gesture; he should at the same time hold his head back a little. Then the audience will be bound to feel that he is impressing his hearers with his intellectual superiority. If therefore you want the acting to be artistic, you must arrange that an actor who is to speak a passage wherein he has to appear superior to the one he is addressing shall turn his complete profile to the audience, holding his head back a little as he speaks. We must, you know, once and for all rid the stage of dilettantism. We must create again the possibility for students to learn the preliminaries for the art of the stage, just as painters have to learn how to use colour. For unless one has learned and studied these things, one is not an actor, one is not acting artistically, but at best merely performing à la Reinhardt or Bassermann!

But now, suppose you stand before the audience in part profile. That will express, not intellectual superiority but intellectual participation in what the other is saying, especially if at the same time the head be inclined forward a little, so. A listener can in this way show to the audience that he is following the speaker with his understanding. It may, however, be that you want rather more the listener's feelings to be apparent to the audience. In this case, whilst the other is speaking, the listener must as far as possible allow the audience to see him full face.

The situation on the stage can really come alive when the speaking is accompanied by these postures in the listener. Where the speaking is intended to make an impression on his intellect, you will choose for the listener the profile position; where it is rather his heart that is to be touched, you will let him stand full face to the audience. When details of this nature begin to be clearly envisaged and understood, then the art of the stage will be able to emerge from dilettantism and once again acquire content. We shall be able to see from the way an actor stands or walks, whether it is more with the intellect or with the feelings of the heart that he is participating in the situation.

Passing on now to consider the will, we find that for the expression of will there has always to be movement, and here you will have to pay particular regard to what I said about form in movement. The expression of will or resolve calls forth in another an answering impulse of will. We know how this happens in life. Someone gives expression to his will in a certain direction. We listen to him. We can fall in with his will, or we can ourselves ‘will’ to hinder it. There you have the two extreme situations, and there are naturally many intermediate possibilities.

A will that gives in to the will of the other must always be accompanied with a movement from left to right, either of the whole person or of the arms. Try it out for yourselves on the stage. Let one actor say something that has will in it, and another be standing there and making this gesture—that goes from left to right. You will feel at once that there is agreement on the part of the listener; the gesture expresses that he too wills the same thing Let him, however, make a right-to-left movement, and he is obviously on the defensive and may even be considering how he can put hindrances in the other's way. Still greater emphasis can be given to this’ will to oppose’ if the movement is made expressly with the head—naturally, the rest of the body also sharing in it.

These are among the things that will have to be taught in a school for production that sets out to be comprehensive and take the whole art of the stage for its province. You will remember I told you yesterday—it may have seemed as though I were making rather paradoxical statements—I told you that in practising running one learns instinctively the walking that is required for the stage, and that leaping helps to modify the walking in the right way, making it now quicker, now slower, and that wrestling develops hand and arm movements, and so on. How is all this to be put into practice?

The first thing the school will have to do is to arrange for the students to practise Running, Leaping, Wrestling, something in the nature of Discus-throwing, something like Spear-throwing; for that will help them to come easily and readily into all the bodily movements that are needed on the stage. Then we shall at any rate be saved from a feeling one has sometimes nowadays about an actor as soon as ever he comes on: that fellow, we feel, has no proper control of his body. How often we have the impression that all those people who are dancing and hopping about up there on the stage have not their bodies under control! They would have quite a different relation to their bodies if, right at the beginning of their training, they had practised these exercises.

The next thing will be to draw forth from each exercise the particular ability it can develop for the stage. Let the students practise running for a quarter to half an hour, and then for half to three-quarters of an hour stage-walking; and the same with leaping and wrestling. For they must be able to unite the two : the exercise, and the skill in movement that the exercise helps them to acquire. And in order that, when they come to the last exercise, they may really succeed in drawing forth from their body the forming of the word, the four preceding exercises should be practised in the following way.

For the practice of walking, and of modified walking, for the practice also of arm and hand movement and of play of countenance, you should have a reciter who does the speaking, while the student makes, in silence, the corresponding gesture or facial expression. And as far as these first four steps in the training are concerned, the same method should be continued even later on for one who is wanting presently to appear on the stage. He should practise his gestures, to begin with, without yet saying a word, while the speaker of the company does the speaking. This will give him the opportunity to make himself entirely familiar with the gestures in dumb play. When the students come to the fifth exercise, they can begin to speak; they can accompany the gesture with the speaking—which up to now they have been practising only separately, without gesture, in recitative. These two, gesture and the forming of the word, have then to be consciously combined, consciously fitted into one another. Only so will our acting have the necessary artistic style.

The men of ancient India had a theory of the origin of man which, while it resembled our modern one, bespoke more feeling for the spiritual. For they too looked upon a certain species of ape as akin to man; but they were more consistent than we in their adherence to the mistaken theory. These apes, they said, can speak; they only don't want to—partly out of obstinacy and partly because they are a little bashful about it. If they are in any way human, if they are on the way to becoming man, then it follows that they must be able to speak. That was the conclusion, the perfectly correct conclusion of the ancient Indians. And I am always reminded of it when I meet with lack of temperament in the very people who need it. For I know well that these people have temperament; they are only unwilling to show it. I mean that quite seriously; the people of today are far more temperamental than they seem. We think it improper to show temperament; but it is by no means always so, and especially not in the case of little children. And yet how annoyed we often are when children begin to show temperament! But there too, you know, we shall have to learn to be more understanding!

When we have a school of dramatic art, planned in the way I have indicated, we shall not need to have any misgivings about arranging for the students to practise leaping and wrestling and discus-throwing. If only the teacher has temperament, and does not go about with a long face, but is a person gifted with some humour, then that of itself will help to evoke in the students the necessary temperament. They will soon stop being shy of exhibiting it. We have the means at our disposal for evoking temperament, we only don't use them. And for art, in so far as its practice is concerned, temperament is an essential factor. My dear friends, we must know this; we must know how intrinsically temperament belongs to art.

To write books on mysticism may not require temperament. If the books please, well and good; the readers do not the the author. But in those arts where the human being presents himself in person, there has to be temperament; there has to be also enhanced temperament—that is to say, humour. And therewith the moment is reached where it can all begin to be esoteric. And that is what we are minded to achieve in these lectures—that our study shall take us right into the esoteric aspect of the whole matter.

• 1. Schiller's Wallenstein, Act III, Scene 18.
• 2. Heinrich Laube (1806–1884). In an article written in 1898, Rudolf Steiner referred to Laube as this master of all producers.' He worked mainly in Vienna.

Once upon a time a Society was founded with a programme announcing as its central aim: “The abolition of egoism”. All its members had to pledge themselves to cultivate selflessness and freedom from egoism in any form. This Society had elected a President, as all societies do, and the thing now, was to gain support for its fundamental principle in the world at large.

It was emphatically laid down over and over again and in the most diverse ways that no member at any time or place (and especially within the Society) should cherish the slightest egoistic wish or give utterance to any kind of selfish desire.

Now this was certainly a Society with an uncommonly praiseworthy programme and an exalted human goal. But one could not immediately say that the members were seeking to exemplify in themselves the primary point in their programme, for they scarcely allowed themselves to become acquainted with unselfish human wishes. The following scene was often enacted within the Society. A member would say: “Yes, I would like this and that. But if I were to put it to the Chairman, I would be advancing an egoistic wish, and that would never do.” Another member would reply: “Quite simple—I'll go on your behalf. I shall be acting as your representative, and in putting forward your wish I shall be doing something entirely selfless. But listen—there is something I would like. Naturally, it is something quite egoistic, so according to our programme I can't propose it.” The first member would then say: “If you are to be so unselfish on my account, I will do something for you. I will go to the Chairman on your behalf and ask him for what you want.” And so it turned out. One of the two went first to the Chairman and then, two hours later, the other member went. Both had put forward quite unselfish wishes.

“Once upon a time”, I said—of course this Society has never existed. But anyone who looks round him in daily life will perhaps agree that a little of this Society is always present everywhere. At all events, my intention was only to indicate how “egoism” is one of those words which most readily become catch-words unless they are used in a direct connection with whatever they designate; otherwise they appear in disguise and deceive us into passing casually over them.

Today we will take this catch-word, egoism, and its opposite, altruism or selflessness. We shall not treat them as catch-words, but will try to penetrate a little way into the nature of egoism. When we examine these things from the standpoint of Spiritual Science, we are not so much concerned with whatever sympathy or antipathy may be evoked by this or that human characteristic, or how it may be assessed in accordance with some prevailing judgment—these are not important points. What matters much more, is to show how the relevant characteristic originates in the human soul, and within what limits it is valid; and if it must be fought against, to determine how far it can be combated through human nature or through other existent beings.

In its literal sense, egoism is the characteristic which impels a man to give first place to his own advantage and the enhancement of his own personality, while its opposite, altruism, aims at placing human faculties at the service of others, indeed, of the whole world.

A simple consideration will show us how precarious our position is if we think only of the word egoism, and fail to enter into the thing itself. Suppose that someone proves himself to be a great benefactor in one way or another. It could well be that he is a benefactor only out of egoism, perhaps out of quite petty forms of egoism, perhaps out of vanity and the like. On the other hand, if a man is dubbed an egoist without more ado, this is by no means the last word on his character. For if a man seeks only to satisfy himself but otherwise has noble qualities, so that he sees the service of others as the best way forward for himself, we might perhaps be well pleased with such an “egoist”. This may sound like a mere play on words, but is more than that, for in fact this playing on words permeates our entire life and shows itself in all realms of existence.

For everything we find in man we can find something analogous in the rest of the world. Schiller has a verse which indicates how in the realms of Nature something symbolical of an outstanding human quality can be found:

Seek you the highest, the greatest?
The plant can teach it to you.
What the plant does without willing it,
Go you and do by willing it.⁴²

Schiller here brings before us the being of the plant and urges man to develop in his own character something as noble as the plant is on its own level. And the great German mystic, Angelus Silesius, says much the same:

Not asking why or wherefore blooms the rose
Cares not for herself or whether men behold her.⁴³

Here again we are called to look at the plant world. The plant draws in whatever it needs for growth; it asks no why or wherefore; it flowers because it flowers and cares not whom it may concern. And yet, it is by drawing its life-forces and everything it needs for itself from its environment that the plant acquires whatever worth it can have for its environment and finally for men. Indeed, it attains the highest degree of usefulness that can be imagined for a created being, if it belongs to those realms of the plant world which can be of service to higher beings. And it will now be an idle triviality to repeat here a familiar saying, although it has been quoted so often:

When herself the rose adorns,
She adorns the garden.⁴⁴

When the rose is as beautiful as it can be, the garden is adorned. We can connect this with the word, egoism, and say: When the rose strives quite egoistically to be as beautiful as she can, and to grace herself with the finest possible form, then through her the garden becomes as beautiful as possible. Can we take this result from a lower level of existence and apply it in some way to man? We have no need to do this, for it has been done already by many others, and by Goethe best of all.

When Goethe wishes to express what man is in the most authentic sense, and how he manifests most truly his worth and the entire content of his existence, he says: “When a man's healthy nature works as a whole, when he feels himself to be living in the world as in a great and beautiful and worthy whole, when this harmony brings him a pure, free joy, then the universe, if it could come to be aware of its own self, would cry out in exultation at having reached its goal and would marvel at the height which its own being and becoming had attained.”

This passage is from Goethe's splendid book on Winckelmann,⁴⁵ and elsewhere in the same book he says: “Placed upon the summit of Nature, man sees himself as another complete nature, with the task of achieving another summit in himself. To this end he heightens his powers, imbuing himself with all perfections and virtues, invoking choice, order, harmony and meaning, and finally rising to the creation of a work of art.”

Goethe's whole mood shows that he is referring here to the artist only as a specialised example and that he really means: Placed upon the summit of Nature, man gathers together everything that the world can express in him and finally displays to the world its own image, mirrored from within himself; and Nature would rejoice if she could perceive in the human soul this reflected image of herself.

What else does this mean than that everything which surrounds us in the world, as Nature and as spirit, concentrates itself in man, rises to a summit, and becomes in individual men, in the individual human Ego, as beautiful, true and perfect as it can? Hence, man will best fulfil his existence if he draws in as much as possible from the outer world and makes his own everything that can blossom and bear fruit in himself.

This view of things implies that man can never do enough to combine in himself whatever the surrounding world offers, in order to manifest through himself a kind of supreme achievement of Nature. Anyone who wishes to call that “egoism” may do so. Then one could say: The human ego is there to be an organ for elements in Nature which would otherwise remain forever hidden and which can come to expression only through being concentrated in the spirit of man. But although it is natural for man to gather these elements from the natural world into himself, it also lies in his nature to bring error and confusion into the general law which leads the lower realms in outer existence towards the highest levels. This is bound up with what we call human freedom. Man could never enjoy a free existence if he were not capable of misusing in a one-sided way certain forces within him—forces which can lead to the heights and can also pervert existence and perhaps even make a caricature of it. A simple comparison will make this clear. Let us go back to the plant.

It does not generally occur to us to speak of egoism in connection with the plant. It was only in order to bring out clearly the law of egoism that we said: What comes to expression in the plants could be called egoism. Normally, we do not speak of egoism in their case. If we consider the plant world in a spiritual and not a materialistic sense, we can see that the plant is in a certain sense proof against egoism. On the one hand, the conditions of its life require it to make itself as beautiful as it can, without asking who will benefit from its beauty.

But when the plant has risen to the highest expression of its individual being, it is on the verge of having to give all this up. The plant world has a peculiar characteristic. Goethe puts this finely in his Prose Sayings: “The law of vegetable growth reaches its highest manifestation in the blossom and of this, in him, the rose is the summit. ... The fruit can never be beautiful, for then the vegetable law retreats and becomes again merely a law.”⁴⁶ Thus it was clear to Goethe that the plant gives expression to its own law most vividly when it flowers. At this moment, however, it must be prepared to yield up its beauty to the process of fructification, for it is now called upon to sacrifice its highest self on behalf of its successor in the form of the seed-bud. There is something great in this act of self-sacrifice by the plant at the moment when it is rising to the point of imprinting its Ego, as it were, on its appearance. So on this lower level, we see how in Nature egoism progresses to a certain stage, and how it then destroys and surrenders itself in order that something new may emerge. The highest manifestation of the plant, its individuality—as we may call it—which achieves its summit of beauty in the flower, begins to fade directly the new plant-seed is produced.

Now let us ask: Does anything similar occur on the human level? Yes, if we consider Nature and spiritual life in terms of the spirit, we find that something quite similar does occur in man. For man is not intended merely to reproduce his kind and to carry on the human species; he is called upon to transcend the species and to exist as an individual. We shall come to know the true form and nature of egoism in man only if we look at his being in the light of previous lectures.

In Spiritual Science, we do not regard man as consisting only of a physical body, which he has in common with the mineral kingdom. We speak of higher members of his being: the etheric body which he has in common with all living things, and the astral body, or consciousness body, the bearer of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, which he has in common with the animal kingdom. And we say, that within these three members lives the true kernel of his being, the Ego. We must regard the Ego as the bearer of egoism both when the latter is justified and when it is unjustified. Man's development depends entirely on the work accomplished by the Ego in transforming the other three members of his being. At first, on a primitive level, his Ego is the slave of these other members; he follows all the urges, desires and passions that come from his astral body. But the further his development goes, the more will he be doing to purify his astral body, so that he transforms it into something which is ruled by his higher nature, by his Ego, and his Ego becomes increasingly the ruler and purifier of the other members of his being.

As you have heard in previous lectures, man is now in the midst of this development. In so far as he transforms his astral body, he creates what we call Spirit-self, or, in the terminology of oriental philosophy, Manas. In the future it will be possible for him to transform by degrees his etheric body, and so to create what we call Life-spirit, or Buddhi. And when finally he masters the processes in his physical body, the transformed part of it will be what we call Atman, or Spirit-man. So we look towards a future condition in which man will rule consciously, from out of his Ego, over all his activities.

These future faculties have been in preparation for a very long time. The Ego has already worked, unconsciously or subconsciously, on the three other members of man's being. In the far distant past the Ego transformed a part of the astral body, also called the sentient body, into the Sentient Soul; a part of the etheric body into the Intellectual Soul, and a part of the physical body into the Consciousness Soul. Today we shall be concerned especially with the relationship of the sentient body to the Sentient Soul.

When we observe a human being from the time of his birth and see how his faculties gradually emerge—as though from the hidden depths of his bodily nature, we can say: Here the Sentient Soul is working its way out into the light of day. The Sentient Soul, as we have seen, is fashioned by the Ego out of the sentient body, and the sentient body is built up from the young child's entire environment. We can understand this if we recall Goethe's saying: “The eye is formed by light for light.”⁴⁷ If we consider any sense-organ whereby man becomes conscious of the external physical world, we must set against Schopenhauer's one-sided statement,⁴⁸ that we could not see the light if we had no eyes, the equally valid statement that if there were no light, there would be no eyes. Through endless ages, as Goethe says, the all-pervading light worked on the human organism so as to fashion the sense-organ which is now able to look on the light. We can discern in the world around us the forces which have produced in man the faculties which enable us to become conscious of it. Thus the entire sentient body, the whole fabric whereby we enter into a relationship with the outer world, has been woven from its living forces. We have no share in this achievement. The astral body is a product, a flowering, of the surrounding world. Within the astral body the Sentient Soul emerges, formed by the work of the Ego from the substance of the sentient body. So the Ego lives in the sentient body and draws from it the substance of the Sentient Soul.

Now the Ego can work in a twofold way. First, it can develop in the Sentient Soul those faculties which are in harmony with the faculties and characteristics of the sentient body. An example from the field of education will make this clear. It is precisely from the field of education that we can draw the most beautiful and practical examples of what Spiritual Science is.

The sentient body is built up from a child's environment. Hence all those concerned with bringing up and educating a child have an influence on the sentient body, from the very beginning of its physical existence. They can help the sentient body to acquire the soul-qualities that are in harmony with its characteristics, as indicated by the Ego; but they can also pass on things which contradict these characteristics. If a child is brought up and educated in such a way that he can feel a living interest in everything that meets his eyes, if he can rightly rejoice in colours and forms, if musical tones give him happiness, if he can gradually bring about harmony between the impressions that come to him from outside and the feelings of joy and pleasure, of sympathetic interest in life, that arise in the Sentient Soul—then the child's inner response will be in consonance with a true picture of existence; then the inner life of his soul will harmonise with outer existence. Then, secondly, we can say that a human being does not live only within himself, capable only of fashioning a Sentient Soul in his sentient body; he can go out beyond himself. Nor is he capable only of seeing and hearing; he can pour himself out into the surrounding world and live in whatever his sentient body transmits to him. Then we have not only harmony between sentient body and Sentient-Soul; we have harmony also between the outer world and the experiences of the Sentient Soul. Then man is truly a kind of mirror of the universe; a kind of microcosm which—as Goethe said—enjoys the feeling of living in the wide expanse of a great and beautiful world.

We can take another example. If a child were to grow up on a desert island, far from any human society, some of its faculties would not develop. It would be deprived of speech, of thinking power, and of all those noble qualities which can light up only through living together with other human beings, for these are qualities which belong to man's inner being, to his soul.

Now man can develop in such a way that he goes out from himself, with his attributes, and creates harmony between himself and the world around him. Or he can let his endowments harden and dry up within himself. This happens if he fails to respond to the colours, tones and so on that he receives from the outer world, and so is unable to give them back enriched with his own interest and pleasure. A man becomes inwardly hardened if he keeps to himself whatever he acquires from associating with other people, instead of making it contribute to human intercourse. If he secludes himself, choosing to live entirely within himself, a disharmony arises between him and his environment. A cleft opens between his Sentient Soul and his sentient body. If, after enjoying the advantages of human progress, he fails to place at the service of mankind the benefits that can flourish only in a social milieu, a gap arises between himself and his surroundings, whether it be the outer world, to which he can no longer respond, or his human environment, to which he owes his finest interests. The result is that he becomes inwardly dried up, for he cannot be advanced or enlivened by anything that comes to him from outside if it is torn from its roots, and this is what happens if he fails to allow his soul-life to flow out into the world around him. And if he continually reinforces his seclusion from the outer world, the effect is that his soul-life tends to wither and die away. This is precisely the bad side of egoism, and we must now characterise it in greater detail.

When egoism takes this form, so that man is not continually nourished and vitalised by the outer world, he is heading for his own extinction. That is the check generally imposed on egoism, and thereby the true nature of egoism is made clear. For whereas man, by absorbing the forces of the surrounding world, enables the world to attain a summit in himself, he then has to do consciously what the plant does unconsciously. At the very moment when the plant is in course of imprinting its inner being on its visible form, the power behind the plant leads its egoistic principle over into a new plant. But man, as a self-conscious being and an Ego-bearer, is required to bring about by his own efforts this development in himself. At a certain stage he must be prepared to surrender whatever he has received from outside and to give birth, within his own Ego, to a higher Ego; and this higher Ego will not become hardened, but will enter into a harmonious relationship with the entire world.

The knowledge that a one-sided egoism destroys itself can be verified by ordinary observation of life. One needs only to look at people who are unable to take any active interest in the great and beautiful ordering of nature from which the human organism draws its form and substance. How painful it is for anyone who understands these things to see how some people pass indifferently by the world to which they owe their eyes and ears; how they cut themselves off from the world in which their existence is rooted and wish only to be left alone with their inward brooding. Then we see how this perverted way of living brings its own penalty. Anyone who follows it goes through life in a state of chronic boredom; he pursues one desire after another, not realising that he is seeking satisfaction in vague phantoms, when he should be giving himself out to the world from which his own existence has come about. Anyone who goes through life saying: People are a burden, I have no use for them, they disturb my life, I am too good for this world—anyone who talks like that should merely reflect that he is repudiating the origin of his existence. If he had grown up on a desert island, far from the human society that he regards as not good enough for him, he would have remained dumb and would never have developed the faculties he now has. All that he finds so great and praiseworthy in himself would be absent, were it not for the people he has no use for. He should realise that he has separated himself from his environment by his own willful choice, and that in fact he owes to his environment the very faculties which now repudiate it.

If a man pursues this course, he not only kills the interest he might have taken in nature and human life, his own life-force declines and he condemns himself to a desolate, dissatisfied existence. All those people who indulge in world-weariness because they find nothing anywhere to interest them, should for once ask themselves: What is my egoism doing to me? Here a cosmic law is indicated. Wherever egoism takes a perverted form, it has a desolating effect on living. That is the good thing about egoism: if it is carried to an extreme, it destroys the egoist.

If now we take the great law that we have gained from studying egoism and apply it to the various faculties of the human soul, we can ask, for example: How does egoism affect the Consciousness Soul, through which man acquires knowledge of the world around him? In other words, when can a piece of knowledge prove fruitful? It will be truly fruitful only if it brings a man into harmony with the rest of the world. This means that the only concepts and ideas that can invigorate the human soul are those drawn from the life of the great outer world, and then only if we are in harmony with the outer world. That is why all ways of knowledge which seek, above all, to reach the great truths of existence, step by step, are so health-giving for the soul, and also, therefore, for the physical body. On the other hand, anything that leads us away from a living connection with the world, as solitary inward brooding does, or anything that brings us into discord with the world, will have a hardening effect.

Here is an appropriate occasion to refer once more to the widely misunderstood saying, “Know thyself!”, which has a meaning valid for all epochs. Only when a man realises that he belongs to the whole world, that his Self is not confined within his skin but is spread out over the whole world, over sun and stars, over all earthly creatures, and that this Self has only created an expression of itself within his skin—only if he recognises that he is interwoven with the entire world—only then can he make proper use of the saying, “Know thyself”. For self knowledge is then world-knowledge. A man who fails to realise this is like a finger which imagined it could achieve an individual existence apart from the rest of the organism. Cut it off, and in three weeks it will quite certainly no longer be a finger. The finger has no illusions about that; only man supposes that he could do without any connections with the world. World-knowledge is self-knowledge and self-knowledge is world-knowledge. Any sort of inward brooding is merely a sign that we cannot get away from ourselves. Very great harm is therefore done when in certain theosophical circles today it is said: A solution of the riddle of existence will not be found in the world outside, or in phenomena permeated by the spirit, but in your own self. “Look for God in your own breast”—that is the injunction often heard. “You need not exert yourself to seek for revelations of the cosmic Spirit out there in the universe. You have only to look within yourself; you will find it all there.” This kind of instruction does the student very bad service. It makes him proud and egoistic with regard to knowledge. The result is that certain theosophical directives, instead of training a person in selflessness, instead of freeing him from himself and bringing him into relation with the great riddles of existence, have a hardening effect on him. One can appeal to man's pride and vanity by telling him: “You need learn nothing from the world; you will find it all in yourself.” We appeal to truth when we show that to be in harmony with the great world can enable a man to become greater in himself and therefore greater in the world.

This applies also to human feeling and to the entire content of the Intellectual Soul, which gains in strength when a man knows how to achieve harmony between himself and the outer world. Strength and power are not acquired by sitting down and brooding all day long over such questions as—“What shall I think now? What shall I do? What's that pain I feel coming on again?”—but by opening the heart to everything great and beautiful in our surroundings, and by showing interest and understanding for everything that warms the hearts of others, as well as for their wants and privations. In this way we strengthen the life-forces in the realm of feeling within us; we overcome narrow minded egoism and we enhance and enrich our Ego by bringing the true form of egoism into harmony with our environment.

This comes out very clearly when we consider the human will and the Consciousness Soul itself. A man who exerts his will only for himself and his own advantage will always feel inwardly dissatisfied. Only when he can see his resolves reflected in the outer world and his will-impulses realised in action—only then can he say that he has brought his willing into harmony with outer events. And here we learn that our inner strength and power are not developed by anything we will for ourselves, but by whatever we will for the outer world and for other people. Our willing becomes reality and its reflection shines back to us. As our eyes are formed by light, so is our strength of soul developed by our actions and activities.

Thus we see how man, as a self-conscious being, is able through a right comprehension of his “I”, his Ego, to arrive at harmony between himself and the world around him, until he grows out of himself and accomplishes the birth of what we may call a higher man. In this way he brings forth something in himself, even as a plant on a lower level brings forth out of itself a new being at the moment when it is in danger of becoming hardened in its own existence. That is how we must understand egoism. The human Ego, having been fructified by the surrounding world, brings forth on the heights of existence a new Ego, and will then be ripe to flow out into actions which would otherwise give expression only to worthless demands and useless moral postulates. For only through world-knowledge can the will be fired to act on the world in return. Whatever points may be set out in the programmes of societies, however many societies may have “universal human love” at the head of their programmes, these moral injunctions will have no practical effect.

All the ordinary preaching of human love is as though a stove were standing in a cold room and someone says to it: “Dear stove, your moral duty as a stove is to warm the room”. You could go on like that for hours or days—the stove would not be moved to make the room warm. Similarly, men will not be moved by sermons to practise human love, even if you were to preach to them for centuries that men ought to love one another. But bring the human Ego into connection with the content of the whole world, let people participate in the radiance of flowers and in all the beauties of Nature, and you will soon see that this participation is a foundation for the higher participation that can arise between human being and human being.

By gaining knowledge of human beings and human nature, man learns to meet the faults and good qualities of others with understanding. Wisdom of this kind, derived from approaching the world with living insight, passes over into the blood, into action and will. And what we call human love is born from it. Just as babbling to the stove is useless, when what we need to do is simply to bring wood and start a fire, so should we bring to human beings the fuel that will kindle, warm and illuminate their souls; and the fuel required is knowledge of the world, so that understanding of human nature and harmonious consonance between the human Ego and the outer world are brought about. Then we shall in fact be kindling human love—a love that can flow from heart to heart and draw human beings together, teaching them that actions performed only for ourselves have a deadly, desolating effect upon us, while actions that have a helpful influence on the lives of others are reflected back to enhance our own strength. Through a right understanding of egoism, accordingly, our Ego is enriched and enabled to develop, if, as far as possible, we realise our own Self in the service of another, and strive to cultivate not only personal feeling, but fellow feeling, as far as we can. That is how the nature of Egoism is seen by Spiritual Science.

The subject we have touched on today has deeply interested all the thinkers who have pondered seriously on human existence. The nature of egoism was bound to concern outstanding men during the 18th century, a time when man as an individual had broken free from certain ties with his social environment. One of these outstanding men was Goethe. And he has given us a work, Wilhelm Meister's Years of Apprenticeship and its sequel Wilhelm Meister's Year's of Travel, which we can take as an example, as if drawn from the world, of his thoughts on the nature of egoism.

Just as Faust occupied Goethe throughout his life, so did Wilhelm Meister. As early as the seventeen-sixties, Goethe felt that he had the task of depicting, in the peculiar life of Wilhelm Meister, a kind of mirror-image of his own life, and it was in his old age, when he was nearing his death, that he completed the Years of Travel. It would take us too far to go into the details of Wilhelm Meister, but perhaps you will allow me to outline the problem of egoism as we meet it here in Goethe.

A thoroughgoing, refined egoist, one might say, is portrayed here. Wilhelm Meister was born into the merchant class, but he is enough of an egoist to abandon this calling, in spite of the claims of duty. What, then, does he really want? We are shown how he wants to develop his own Self to the highest degree and with the utmost freedom. He has a dim presentiment of becoming some kind of perfected man. Thus Goethe leads Wilhelm Meister through the most varied experiences, so as to show how life works upon this individuality in order to raise it to a higher level. Of course, Goethe is well aware that Wilhelm Meister is driven around by all sorts of circumstances and reaches no definite goal. Hence at one point he calls him a “poor wretch”.⁴⁹ But at the same time he knows that although a man may have to work his way through folly and errors, he is led by certain forces to a certain goal, or at least along a certain path. It was Goethe's opinion, which never left him, that human life is never completely at the mercy of chance, but is subject, like all things, to laws—indeed, spiritual laws. Therefore Goethe says that the whole human race can be regarded as a great individual, striving upwards and making itself the master of chance.⁵⁰

Goethe's intention, accordingly, is to show Wilhelm Meister as intent always on heightening, enriching and perfecting his Ego. At the same time, he leads Wilhelm Meister into a way of life which is, strictly speaking, at one remove from actuality. The whole character of the 18th century can help us to understand why Wilhelm Meister is led away from pursuing a career in the world of real events and brought into the theatre, where he mingles with people who present an appearance, a picture, of life. Art itself is, in a certain sense, an image of life. It is not part of immediate reality but raises itself above this reality. Goethe knew very well that the artist, standing alone with his art, is in danger of losing the firm ground of reality from under his feet. It has been well said that the Muse may accompany a man but cannot lead him through life.

To begin with, Wilhelm Meister gives himself over entirely to the forces that belong to art, and especially the art of the theatre, with its beautiful illusions. If we follow the course of his life, we find that he is habitually torn to and fro between dissatisfaction and joy, and these swings of feeling are evident already during his time in the theatre. At last he experiences a kind of model performance of Hamlet, and this gives him a certain satisfaction within the limits of the theatrical world. His Ego is enhanced.

Two episodes are particularly important for understanding this first part of the story, the Years of Apprenticeship, and they show clearly that Goethe had the nature of egoism at the back of his mind. The first episode concerns little Mignon, who is found by Wilhelm Meister in somewhat dubious company and accompanies him as a wonderful attendant for a while.

Some very significant remarks about Mignon were made to Chancellor von Müller⁵¹ by Goethe in his old age. He referred to Madame von Stael's comment that all the part about Mignon was an episode which did not really belong to the story. Goethe agreed that anyone interested only in the external narrative might say that the Mignon episode could be left out. But it would be quite wrong to suppose, Goethe continued, that the part about Mignon was only an episode; in fact, the whole of Wilhelm Meister had been written on account of this remarkable figure.

Goethe was apt to express himself somewhat radically in conversation and to say things that are not to be taken literally. But if we go more deeply into the matter, we can come to see why he spoke in this way to Chancellor von Müller. In the figure of Mignon—this is not a personal name but means simply “the darling”—we are shown a human being who lives just long enough for the germ of anything that can properly be called egoism to develop in her. The whole psychology of Mignon is most remarkable. In her own naive way she expresses everything that could be called participation in the whole world. She never gives any sign of acting from selfish motives. Things that other people do out of self-interest are done by her quite naturally. She is naive in the sense that egoism has not yet awoken in her. Directly Wilhelm Meister embarks on an episode in his life which breaks his bond of union with Mignon, she fades away and dies, just as a plant withers when it has reached a certain stage in its existence. She is not yet a fully human person, not yet an “Ego”; she represents a childlike naiveté in relation to everything in the world around her. She dies as a plant dies, and one could indeed apply to her the lines:

Not asking why or wherefore blooms the rose,
Cares not for herself or whether men behold her.

One might say that two apparently identical actions are different when they are performed by different persons! What other people do out of egoism Mignon does naturally, and directly that there could be a question of an egoistic impulse arising in her soul, she dies. That is the enchantment of her character: we have before us a human being without ego-hood who slips through our fingers at the first stirring of egoism within her. And since Goethe was specially interested in egoism in Wilhelm Meister, it is quite conceivable that he should have said in effect at the time: What you are looking for in Wilhelm Meister, you will find in his counterpart, Mignon. The impulse that shows itself in the little creature, and dies with her at the moment of its appearance, is the same impulse that plagues Wilhelm Meister with so many difficulties when he tries to develop his Ego, and on account of which he has to go through a complete education in the school of life.

We then find woven into the story of Wilhelm Meister the apparently unconnected part called Confessions of a Beautiful Soul. It is known that these confessions are taken almost word for word from a diary kept by Goethe's friend, Susanne von Klettenberg. They show, one might say, the nature of egoism at its highest point. This beautiful soul, Susanne von Klettenberg, rose indeed to high levels, but these confessions bring out the danger of egoism, the reverse side of the enrichment of the Ego, for it is her own development that Susanne von Klettenberg describes.

First, she relates how, like other people, she delighted in the world around her. Then, one day, something awakens in her soul and tells her: “Living within you is something that will bring you nearer to the God within you.” These inward experiences have the effect of estranging her from the outer world; she no longer feels any interest in it. But she finds continual joy and blessedness and inward happiness in her experience of communion with what she inwardly calls her “God”. She withdraws entirely into her inner life. Yet this beautiful soul cannot escape from the feeling that her chosen way of life is nothing else than a refined form of egoism.

The dawning of this type of spiritual element in the soul, where it estranges a person from the outer world, shuts him off from his environment and makes him cold and heartless towards it, may bring him some satisfaction and a certain happiness, but in the long run it does him no good. By alienating him from the world around him it has a desolating effect on his soul. But this beautiful soul is also an energetic, striving soul, and she goes on from stage to stage.

She is not able to sever herself entirely from the impressions that come from the outer world and can lead to harmony with it. So she is forever seeking the mysteries that underlie the symbols of the various religions, hoping to see reflected there the divinity that had arisen in her soul. But whatever she can experience in these outer forms is not enough for her; she is resolved to go further. Finally, she is led to a remarkable stage in her life. One day she says to herself: Everything human on our earth was not too mean for God to descend and incarnate himself in a man. And at that moment she feels that the outer world is not debased by being only an expression of the spiritual rather than the spiritual itself, or because it represents a decadence of the spiritual; for now she feels that the outer world is permeated by the spirit and that man has no right to detach himself from his environment.

Then another experience comes to her and she says to herself: It was a true event that is said to have taken place in Palestine at the beginning of our era. She enters into this and experiences in herself the whole life of Christ Jesus up to His crucifixion and death. She experiences the divine in herself in such a way that—as she clearly describes—everything which appears to the physical senses as external image recedes and becomes purely spiritual experience; the invisible becomes visible and the inaudible, audible. Now she feels herself united not with an abstract divinity, but with a divine presence belonging to the earthly world. But she has again withdrawn in a certain sense and cannot find her way back into ordinary life. Then something comes to her which enables her to see in every natural object, in every detail and circumstance of daily life, the imprint of the spiritual; and she regards this as a kind of highest stage. And it is characteristic of Goethe that it was for him a kind of confession to be able to communicate the Confessions of a Beautiful Soul.

What was it that Goethe wished to indicate here as an important point in Wilhelm Meister's education? Wilhelm Meister was to read the manuscript and be led by it to a higher stage. He was to be shown that a man cannot do enough to develop in himself an active life of soul; he cannot go far and high enough in what may be called intercourse with the spiritual world; but also that to shut himself off from the outer world cannot lead to a satisfying existence, and that he can understand the great world around him only when his own enriched inner being flows out to meet it.

Thus Goethe wishes to show that a man can take the surrounding world just as it is; he will then see it as ordinary and trivial and will remain bound to the commonplace. But then he will perhaps say to himself: All that is commonplace: the spiritual can be found only by looking within oneself. And we can indeed find the spiritual there, on a very high level. But we are then all the more in duty bound, for our own sake, to return to the outer world; and now we find that the commonplace has a spiritual dimension. The same world stands before a trivially minded man and a man who has found the spirit within himself. The former accepts the ordinary trivial world of present-day Monism; the latter, having first enriched his spiritual faculties and developed the appropriate organs in himself, is aware of the spiritual behind everything perceived by the senses. Thus, for Goethe, inner development is an indirect way of gaining knowledge of the world. This is evident, above all, in the soul characterised as Wilhelm Meister. He is helped to progress by the influences that work on him from the hidden side of life.

Towards the end of the Years of Apprenticeship we are shown that behind Wilhelm Meister there is something like an occult society, which guides a human being while remaining invisible to him. Some critics have complained that this kind of thing belongs to the 18th century and can have no interest for people today. For Goethe, however, something quite different was involved. He wished to show that Wilhelm Meister's Ego really had to find its way through the various labyrinths of life, and that a certain spiritual guidance of mankind does exist. The “Society of the Tower”, by which Wilhelm Meister is guided, was meant to be only the outer garment of spiritual powers and forces by which a man is led, even though the course of his life may lie through “folly and confusion”; and by these invisible powers Wilhelm Meister was guided.

In our time, such things are dismissed with a condescending smile. But in our time, also, the Philistines have acquired the sole right to pass judgment on personalities such as Goethe. Anyone who knows the world will concede that no-one can find more in a man than he has in himself. And anyone could say it in relation to Goethe. But that is just what the Philistine does not say; he believes he has found in Goethe everything there is to find. For he possesses the entire range of wisdom and can survey it from his vantage-point! Naturally, he makes Goethe into a Philistine, but that is not Goethe's fault.

Wilhelm Meister's life is continued in the Years of Travel. Both Philistines and non-Philistines have been moved to protest at the lack of composition and the inartistic character of this sequel. Yes, indeed, Goethe served up something rather dreadful here. In his prime, out of his life-experience, he had wanted to show a person finding their way through the labyrinths of life, had wanted to present a mirror-image of himself in a certain sense; and he has told us how this was composed. He had taken great pains over the first part of the Years of Travel, but printing began before the later part was finished, and the printer set the type faster than Goethe could write. Goethe then had somehow to sketch out the rest. In earlier years he had written various tales and stories, for example the story of the “Holy Family”, the story of the “Nutbrown Maiden”, the “Tale of the New Melusine”, and others. All these are included in the Years of Travel volume, although never intended for it. Goethe inserted these stories at various points and made quick transitions between them. Obviously, anything like orderly composition was ruled out; but still the work did not go fast enough.

Goethe had various other writings left over from earlier years, and these he now gave to his secretary, Eckermann, saying: “Slip in somewhere whatever can be slipped in!” So Eckermann patched in these remnants, and naturally the separate items are often very loosely connected. Hence it can well be said that this is an entirely formless work, and anyone is at liberty to judge it in this way from an artistic standpoint. But, after all, not a line of it was written by Eckermann. It is all by Goethe, and throughout he was giving expression to experiences of his own, with the figure of Wilhelm Meister constantly before him. Thus he was able to bring in events from his own life which had set their mark on his soul. And since Wilhelm Meister is a reflected image of himself, the various episodes meander through the story even as they had meandered through his own life, and the picture we gain from them is by no means irrelevant.

It has been said that the narrative lacks tension and is repeatedly interrupted by sagely discourses. Some people criticise the book from the ground up without having read it. They are, of course, right from their own point of view, but it is not the only one. We can learn an immense amount from these Years of Travel if we can muster the interest and the goodwill to raise ourselves to the level of the experiences from which Goethe learnt so much. And that is something. Must every piece of writing be skillfully composed if it can be of service to us in some other way? Is a lack of formal design so fatal? Perhaps the wealth of wisdom in Wilhelm Meister is fatal for those who know everything and have nothing more to learn.

It is precisely in this second part of Wilhelm Meister that we find described in a wonderful way how the Ego can rise to ever higher levels and become the peak of existence. We are shown in a particularly beautiful way how Wilhelm Meister takes his son Felix to a remarkable educational establishment. This, too, has been condemned by the Philistines. They have not stopped to think that Goethe had no intention of presenting this establishment as though it existed somewhere or other in the real world. He wished to give a kind of symbolic survey of the nature of education in his “pedagogical province”.

People who visit this establishment are surprised to see how the life of the soul is given expression in certain gestures. In one gesture the hands are folded on the breast and the eyes turned upwards. In another, the hands are clasped behind the back while the pupils stand side by side. Especially significant is the gesture which gives an impression of the soul bowing towards the earth. If questions are asked about the meaning of all this, one is told that the boys are taught to kindle in their souls the “three venerations”, whereby the soul's development can be carried to ever higher levels. The three venerations are presented as the most important of all educational principles. First, a man must learn to look up with veneration to what is above him. Then he must learn to venerate what lies beneath him, so that he may realise how he himself has grown up from it. Then he must learn to venerate what stands beside him as equality between man and man, for only thus can he learn to venerate his own Ego in the right way. By these means he will be brought into harmony with the world around him and egoism cannot go astray.

We are then shown how the most important religions are to carry their influences into the human soul. The folk or ethnic religions should take the form of gods or spirits standing above man. The philosophical religions, as they could be called, are to inculcate veneration for our equals. And the teaching that leads us down into existence and enables us to look with proper veneration on death, sorrow and the hindrances in the world—this teaching, though it can easily be despised, leads to a right understanding of the Christian religion. For it is emphasised that the Christian religion shows how God came down into a physical body, took on himself all the misery of life and went through everything human. Veneration for what is below us should especially promote a right understanding of the Christian religion.

Thus the development of the human being is set before us with precision. Goethe describes how Wilhelm Meister is led to a kind of temple, where deeply significant pictures of the three religions are brought before the souls of the pupils from their earliest youth, and we are shown how everything in this utopian school is intended to produce a harmonious whole. But the school gives expression even more to the wise principle that from his earliest years a human being should grow up in such a way that, on the one hand, he finds harmony with his environment, while, on the other, he finds it possible to lead his Ego to ever-greater heights.

This principle is applied to all details. For example, a boy's age is not indicated by the clothes he wears. He is offered a varied range of garments and has to choose those he prefers. In this way the individual characteristics of the pupils are brought out. Moreover, since a kind of esprit de corps is always apt to develop, with the result that a weaker boy will imitate a stronger by choosing the same outfit, to the detriment of his own individuality, the rule is that garments are exchanged for others at frequent intervals. In brief, Goethe wished to show how the growing boy should be educated, even down to his gestures and clothes, in a way that will lead him to a life in harmony with the world around him, while promoting his inner freedom as an individual.

It has been said that all this is a fantasy and that nothing like it has ever existed. But Goethe meant to imply only that the plan could be realised somewhere at some time; the thoughts in question would flow out into the “all and everywhere” and would find an embodiment when and where they could. Those who think this impossible might be advised to read Fichte;⁵² he set a high ideal before his students, but he knew what he was doing, and to those who called themselves realists while knowing little about reality, he said: We know as well as you do: and perhaps better, that ideals cannot be realised immediately in ordinary life, but ideals must be there, in order to act as regulators in life and to be transmuted into living. That must be emphasised ever and again. And of those who reject all ideals, Fichte said that in the reckoning of Providence they were left out; but may a good God—he added—grant them rain and sunshine at the right times, a good digestion and, where possible, good thoughts! This saying could be turned against those who assert that the educational establishment in Goethe's Wilhelm Meister could never exist in reality. It could exist, both in its principles and in its details, if there were people ready to give effect to such principles in a setting of everyday life.

A second episode in the Years of Travel introduces a remarkable personality, Makarie, who exemplifies in the highest degree a union of the individual Ego with the great Self of the world. Goethe shows us here a personality who is inwardly awakened and has developed the spirit in herself to such an extent that she lives in the spirit that permeates the world. The liberation of her inner powers gives her the knowledge that an expert astronomer acquires from calculating the courses of the stars. The highest spiritual-scientific researches are indicated by Goethe when he describes how through spiritual science the soul can enter into the life of the universe, and how self-knowledge can become world-knowledge and world-knowledge, self-knowledge. Thus in a series of pictures we are shown how the human self must pursue its development. Rightly understood, Wilhelm Meister is from beginning to end an example of how the development of man is related to the nature of egoism.

If we find in a writer an exposition of a problem so important for Spiritual Science, this is for us a further proof—already apparent in our considerations of Faust, the Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, and Pandora⁵³—that in Goethe we have a genius who is at one with our Spiritual Science in its true sense. Goethe himself speaks in this sense when he says, in effect: We can grasp the nature of egoism only if we know that the wisdom of the cosmos had to lead man out of spiritual existence to the point where he could fall into the temptations of egoism. If this possibility had not been open to him, he could not have become the flower of all that surrounds him in the outer world. But if he succumbs to the temptations of egoism, he incurs a sentence of death on himself. The wisdom of the cosmos has ensured that everything good in the world can be overturned and appear in man as freedom, but directly he misuses his freedom and overturns himself, a measure of self-correction comes in.

Here again we have a chapter which shows us how everything bad and sinful in human nature, if we consider it from a higher standpoint, can be transmuted into good—into a pledge of man's eternal, ever ascending progress. And so, if we are not afraid to descend into the depths of pain and evil, all the teachings of spiritual science will lead us eventually to the heights, and will confirm the beautiful words which resound to us from the wisdom and poetry of ancient Greece:

Man is the shadow of a dream, but when
The sun-ray, Heaven-sent,
Shines in upon him, then
His day is bright,
And all his life transfused with sheer delight.⁵⁴

• 42. From the poem “Das Höchste”, 1795.
• 43. From the “Cherubinischen Wandersmann” by Angelus Silesius (1624–1677), Book 1, Verse 289.
• 44. End of the poem “Welt und Ich” by Friedrich Rückert (1788–1866).
• 45. See note 5.
• 46. “Sprüche in Prosa”, vol. V, p.495 of Goethes Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften
• 47. See “Entwurf einer Farbenlehre”, vol. III, p.88 of Goethes Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften
• 48. Rudolf Steiner is here presumably referring to the sentence from Schopenhauer's introduction to his treatise “On Vision and Colours”: “That the colours which ... appear to clothe the objects are really only in the eye”.
• 49. In the conversation with Chancellor von Müller of 22nd January 1821.
• 50. “Spruche in Prosa”, vol. V, p.482 of Goethes Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften
• 51. In the conversation of 29th May, 1814.
• 52. Johann Gottlieb Fichte, 1762–1814. “Vorbericht” to Einige Vorlesungen über die Bestimmung des Gelehrten.
• 53. Rudolf Steiner is here referring to the lectures on 22nd and 24th October 1908: “Goethe's Secret Revelation, Exoteric and Esoteric” and on 11th and 12th March 1909: “The Riddles in Goethe's Faust, Exoteric and Esoteric”.
• 54. Cf. Pindar (522–C.448 B.C.) Pythian Odes, 8th Ode, 5th Epode.

You hear repeatedly if one talks about anthroposophy that it originates from the fantastic inspirations of single personalities. Many people at least judge that way who fancy themselves as capable. However, one has to say from the start that this anthroposophic spiritual knowledge wants to cover a research field that contains the most important interests of the human life generally. Hence, isolated attempts were done repeatedly at all times to cultivate this field. But one must say that these were mostly only light flashes in our time which were cast on this field by this or that outstanding personality who contemplated the human spiritual life. These light flashes with which one always has the sensation that they come from quite different origins of the human being than the knowledge that refers to the outside sense perception.

Unsurprisingly, an unaware cognitive instinct makes the human beings illuminate this field by such light flashes repeatedly, because on this field there are the most important soul riddles which the human being has to face over and over again with his feeling, thinking and willing. The human being has to feel: if he does not take a position to these questions, it has an effect on his soul that you can compare with a kind of bodily illness. The soul life becomes banal; it feels exposed to all kinds of “addictions”—I would like to say—if the doubts, the uncertainties emerge concerning these questions. However, in our times the human beings were less eager to satisfy their desire for knowledge, which arises from such impulses, with spiritual food. Who did not know the fashion of those who could afford it to visit the most different sanitariums where, actually, for many people nothing was extinguished but that desire for knowledge of which one liked, actually, to be unaware in the usual life. What the human beings searched in sanitariums and similar institutions, were, strictly speaking, only suggestions with which they did not want to be present, so to speak, with their souls and which should meet those mysterious desires about which I have just spoken and which one does not want to satisfy spiritually.

A picture repeatedly emerges to me if I have to contemplate such questions. When I was—to visit somebody—in a sanitarium just at a time when the different guests were passing and when I found out for myself after the conversation and the sight of single patients that that who mostly needed recovery of his nervous system was the doctor in charge. The others needed much less recovery of their nervous systems than the doctor in charge needed.

On this field, single persons who dealt more intensely with questions of the spiritual life have cast single light flashes that arose to them from the depths of their souls. Besides, one thing always became known that would run like a red thread also today through the considerations of this evening. The fact that in the human being, as he walks on earth today, another human being sleeps and rests who is not perceived due to the conditions of the usual life because he sleeps quieter in the usual human being than dream images exist in him which emerge and disappear.

However, one thing always struck just spirited persons when they found out for themselves how this second human being rests in the usual human being: they could not conceive this sleeping human being without bringing him together with death in any way. More or less instinctively, the one or the other personality recognised that just as the phenomena of the outer sense perceptible physical life are associated with the laws of existence, of growth, of birth and so on, this second human being sleeping in the first is associated intimately with death, with fading. You notice that it is a great, important moment for persons of knowledge if they have to think the higher human being in the usual human being associated with the forces of death.

Such a personality is the philosopher and psychologist Karl Fortlage (1806-1881). I want to take an important statement as starting point that he did in a course of eight psychological lectures in 1869. In these lectures, you can find the following, quite important place:

 “If we call ourselves living beings and attribute a quality to ourselves which we have in common with animals and plants, we inevitably understand by the living state something that never leaves us and always continues in sleep and in the wake state in us. This is the vegetative life of nourishing our organism, an unaware life, a sleeping life; it is outbalanced in the breaks of waking by the life of consumption. The brain makes an exception here because this life of nourishing, this sleeping life, is outbalanced in the breaks of the waking by the life of consumption. In these breaks the brain is exposed to prevailing consumption and gets consequently into a state which would bring about the absolute weakening of the body or death, if it extended to the other organs.”

After Fortlage has come to this strange statement, he continues this consideration with the following, profound words: “Consciousness is a little and partial death, death is a big and complete consciousness, an awakening of the whole being in its innermost depths.”

You realise that such a light flash, emerging from the depths of the soul, illuminates the coherence of death and consciousness what accompanies us during our wake life always and makes up, actually, the human being. Fortlage gets to an idea of the relationship of death and consciousness, realising that that which seizes all human beings at once at the moment of death works in microcosm if we unfold our consciousness during the wake life. Every conscious act is in microcosm the same as death is on a large scale. So that—as to Fortlage—the real death if it occurs is the emergence of an enclosing consciousness, which puts the human being into a supersensible world, while he is put into the physical world if his soul needs the physical body between birth and death.

Fortlage wrote many volumes on psychology. However, such light flashes appear only now and again in his writings. The remaining contents of his writings even deal with that which one finds so normally today in psychology: the association and course of mental pictures, the emergence of desires and so on, briefly, with all those questions on which one ventures solely in psychology and which are far away from that what, actually, interests the whole human being in psychology, which are far away from the main questions of freedom and immortality.

The considerations of this evening deal with the question of immortality while in some weeks here I hold a talk about freedom from the same viewpoint.

Even if Fortlage is concerned with the subordinate questions in his vast psychological research, and in such a way that this kind of activity cannot lead to the highest questions, at least, such light flashes are found with him. However, one reproved him for it. Eduard von Hartmann reproved Fortlage sharply that he would have left the path of science introducing such a coherence into the strict science as that of consciousness and death.

Well, one may say, not only Fortlage but also many personalities produced in single light flashes something of knowledge that refers to this characterised second human being sleeping in the sense-perceptible human being. However, these were isolated light flashes.

Anthroposophy has the task now to systemise, to make methodical that what has come up instinctively in single light flashes like manifestations of higher knowledge from the depths of the human soul, so that that which originates from it can place itself as a fully valid science beside the modern natural sciences. However, it is necessary that that who wants to form an opinion about anthroposophy casts off some prejudices that easily result from certain advantages of modern science.

I had to say, the human being whom spiritual science considers is something sleeping in the normally waking human being. From it, however, it is explicable that everything that refers to this second human being is generally drowned as it were at first in our consciousness by the sensory experience and the needs of our personal life. If in this usual life now and again such light flashes appear, they disappear faster than a dream does. No miracle, hence, that most people once say to themselves after the absolutely entitled judgement of our time: indeed, what emerges there from the soul and will manifest of this low sounding sleeping human being, this does—if it appears with those who call themselves spiritual researchers—the impression of something dreamish, fantastic. Our time does not want to get involved with such phantasms. It has rapidly finished its judgement: nonsense, this is something that has arisen from the imagination of single ones.

However, something else could be right. How would it be if it were right that one could get such weak images as they exist in dream of that what lives in the human being beyond birth and death what is the everlasting of the human nature compared with the transient? If this held true, one would have to renounce either any knowledge of the everlasting in the human being if one did not want to recourse to images of imagination or dream life, or one would have to bring the logical discipline into this world that usually seems to be fantastic, the sense of methodical research that one applies to the sense-perceptible world. One has to raise the images with certain soul forces, so that they do not only scurry like dreams, but also become as distinct and impressive as the images of the usual consciousness are.

Is anyone able to do this? Today it is difficult to bring home to a human being that one is able to do it even in scientific sense because today one regards natural sciences as the only science that has a strictly reasonable methodology. If one distinguishes other sciences, one accepts them, actually, only as far as they are founded methodically after the pattern of natural sciences. One has to say for certain fields: what natural sciences have brought up in modern times as mental pictures, showed that it must be that way if they want to control the area which is assigned to them. However, one must also say that one cannot approach the everlasting life of the human being with these mental pictures.

These images cannot be appropriate to the same extent to solve the riddles of nature and the riddles of the human soul. To the latter one has to add something else. Which means must be applied to make the soul so strong that it can bring up the mental pictures which rest sleeping below in our consciousness and can apply the strict discipline and methodology of thinking to them, about which I have spoken in particular in my book How Does One Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds?. As in former talks, I want again to emphasise some viewpoints of these writings. One gets no idea of the approach of the spiritual researcher what he has to do, actually, to behold into the spiritual world with his soul if one does not realise what one can experience as a whole human being with the suitable desire for knowledge at certain limiting points of knowledge to which just the modern natural sciences lead.

Modern natural sciences give that who dedicates himself to them not only explanations, which nobody admires more than the spiritual researcher does, of the outer physical course, of various things which have an impact on the practical life, but natural sciences give that who dedicates himself from certain viewpoints an inner education of the soul life. More than one was able in former stadia of scientific cognition, today one is prepared to spiritual research cognitively, actually, just by natural sciences. One should not be restricted by that what natural sciences have to say about the outside world in their own field.

One should rather be able to soar an inner discipline of the soul life by the way one does research in nature. The mental pictures that natural sciences deliver can explain the outer nature only; after their contents, they have nothing to say about the spiritual life. But while one applies them devotedly, they educate that human being by the way who is able to take care of that what goes forward in him, of certain inner living conditions which bring along him to receive a concept, an inner experience of that soul life beyond the body.

I know very well that this concept—living with his soul beyond the body—is for many people the summit of nonsense today. However, this never minds. Everybody can convince himself that the inner experience gives him the certain insight of the life beyond the body if he goes through such soul exercises as I have indicated them in my writings or as I want to pronounce them, in principle, here.

One can experience especially important things if one just arrives at that boundary area of cognitive life to which natural sciences lead so often. You know, many people speak of the big boundary questions of cognition. One speaks of the fact that the human soul comes to a border if it wants to know about whether the world is infinite or limited spatially or temporally, if the soul wants to know whether it is subject to an irresistible constraint in all its actions or whether it is free.

Indeed, these are the highest boundary questions. Du Bois-Reymond put such boundary questions in his famous speech about the limits of the knowledge of nature, about the seven world riddles. You can experience the deepest impression if you feel out of the pain of a person longing for knowledge how such a person stands at such a boundary place.

I could bring in many examples. Such an example is contained in the writings of the famous aesthetician and philosopher Friedrich Theodor Vischer (1807-1887). If one reads his writings, one has often to stop with that what he experiences at such boundary places of cognition. He wrote a nice treatise on a book that the philosopher Johannes Volkelt (1846-1930) had written about the dream fantasies.

In this treatise that reproached Vischer that he had mixed with the spiritists, Vischer states such a place where he shows what he had experienced at the boundary places of cognition. He said, it is most certain that the human soul cannot be in the body; however, it is also most certain that it is not beyond the body. Here we have such a boundary question, which is paradoxical, because it has an entire contradiction in itself, as those are which one meets just always then when one delves devotedly in strict natural sciences, in life generally. The soul cannot be in the body; however, it can also not be beyond the body!—Why does one get to such contradiction?

At such border places where such contradictions appear, the scientific cognition is not at all helpful and it is most annoying if one believes that it helps something. Then, however, most people are soon ready with their judgement. They simply say in such a case, well, up to here just the human knowledge reaches; we are not able to get further.—However, it is not that way. Because Vischer had the prejudice, he experienced the contradiction only. However, he did not experience what one can do to get further with his soul at such border places. Here the usual cognition must stop and a particular experience of the soul has to begin. Here you must be able to forget as it were what the images of the usual life are because they lead you just to this border place only. You must be able to experience this here. Here you must be able to struggle with that what faces you if you let yourself in for such a contradiction. One should experience such contradictions with the whole soul. Then something new faces the soul like from spiritual depths that it cannot experience without this experience of such contradictions.

One has formed mental pictures of how, for example, lower animals that still have no senses develop senses in contact with the outside world. An inner life existed; it is confronted with the outer world, adapts itself to the outer world, and experiences the impulses of the outer world. While before the life pulsates in the organism and then everywhere stumbles against the sensory outside, it develops, we say, a sense of touch. First, it is a kind of internal tunnelling, then bumping against the borders of the externally spatial. Nevertheless, the being learns in the contact with the outside world to adapt itself; it forms a kind of picture of the outside world by the sense of touch; by the collisions with the border, this sense of touch develops.

One can compare to this image of that what develops the outer senses in the lower organisms what the soul experiences if it gets to such border places of cognition. There the soul really experiences in such a way, as if you bump against anything in the darkness that you have outside at first. Then that differentiates itself, which you experience there in such contradictory mental pictures that one forms at boundary places of knowledge. As the sense of touch arises as a physical sense from the undifferentiated cells, a spiritual existence arises from the mental, while the soul bumps against the border of the spiritual world. You really bump against the spiritual world. However, you also adapt yourself to it. You experience the significant that you have the soul first as it were as an undeveloped soul organism, which the outside spiritual world faces, then however, this soul develops spiritual senses of touch and spiritual eyes, spiritual ears in the further process to perceive that with which it is confronted at first.

I gladly believe that today those people who feel the urge to experience something of the spiritual world would prefer if one could teach the ability of perceiving the spiritual world while one imposes them mystically or as the case may be. Some people believe this. Nevertheless, it is not that way. What opens the spiritual world to us is inner soul work. This inner soul work really leads to that which I have indicated. The human being who changes his soul into an organised soul knows that his soul gets free from the body, when pushing against the spiritual and perceives the spirit. Getting free from the body is a result of inner perception. Since also that which I have explained just now appears repeatedly with persons of knowledge.

It is strange, how the course develops which I have described spiritual-scientifically with those who have worked through the longings for knowledge.

Let me bring in an example of Vischer once again, the example of a quotation by him by which he shows how he felt placed repeatedly at those boundary places of cognition where one cannot help perceiving contradictions, but contradictions that cannot be solved while you solve them logically, but while you settle down into them and develop your spiritual organs.

In particular, the following contradiction appeared to Vischer over and over again: the brain should be the organ of the soul, should produce mental pictures as it were; but if one becomes engrossed in the being of the mental pictures, one cannot regard them as cerebral products. This is such a boundary place of cognition; Vischer says referring to it:

“No mind, where no nerve centre, where no brain, the opponents say.”—Vischer himself does not say it—“No nerve centre, no brain, we say if it were not prepared from below on countless levels. It is simple to jibe at a spirit rumbling about in granite and lime—it is not more difficult than if we ask mockingly how the proteins in the brain soar ideas. The human knowledge cannot measure the level differences. It will remain a secret how it appears and happens that nature behind which the spirit still must slumber is such perfect counterblow of the spirit that we get bumps from it. It is a diremption of such apparent totality that with Hegel's alterity and exasperation, as witty as the formula may be, nothing is said; the asperity of the imaginary partition is simply covered. One finds the right recognition of the cutting edge and the thrust of this counterblow with Fichte, but no explanation of it.”

This portrayal is very strange. Friedrich Theodor Vischer feels facing a limit of knowledge; he describes his experience. How has he to describe it?

He gets to the expression: “we get bumps from it.” He gets to the expression: “cutting edge and thrust of the counterblow.”—One sees the soul that wants to differentiate to develop internal spiritual organs by which it can experience the supersensible outside world, in which it lives.

For a long time in the history of humanity, it was an obstacle to soar spiritual organs in the right way because one believed only the human thinking that takes the sense impressions as starting point could solve certain questions, just the questions of God, freedom and immortality.

Well, thinking is important, because strictly speaking a big part of those exercises that one must do to attain spiritual organs consists of a higher development of thinking than the thinking is which one uses in natural sciences. However, if you only abandon yourself to the usual thinking, that originates from the usual human being not from that second human being sleeping in you. This thinking does not lead into the spiritual world; this thinking can only realise that it is in the spiritual world. However, no unbiased person concedes that thoughts are something that lives in the sensory world; however, these thoughts contain nothing but impressions of the sensory world if they are taken from the usual human nature. People with deeper inner life have always felt like in flashes of inspiration where to the human thinking leads if it is left to itself, emancipated from the outer sense perception.

You can find—if you have experience of the spiritual-scientific literature—such light flashes with numerous personalities which sometimes are, however, darkness flashes. With them, one has to stop and observe to which cliffs the human cognitive life leads if this life is sincere and honest to itself and does not fool itself with all kinds of prejudices, and does not apply all kinds of methods taken from other, verified fields to the soul life itself. Again an example of many:

A man who really struggled with knowledge problems and riddles is Gideon Spicker (1840-1912) who taught philosophy at the University of Münster until few years. Gideon Spicker took the education for the spiritual as starting point. The deepest knowledge questions arose to him from theology. Some years ago, he wrote two nice booklets: From the Cloister to the Academic Lectureship. Destinies of a Former Capuchin (1908) and In the Turning Point of the Christian World Period. A Philosophical Confession of a Former Capuchin (1910); in the one he describes his life, in the other his knowledge desire.

At a place, one has to pause particularly where this former Capuchin, who then became a professor, expresses himself about the experience that he had with thinking that he had emancipated from the sensory experience. However, he did not have the courage to go into spiritual science; he did not develop the power of thoughts so far that it wakes the spiritual organs, so that he faced a spiritual world, felt with his soul being in the realm of the supersensible. Because he was at such a border place where he experienced something with the thinking, he expressed himself as follows:

“To which philosophy one confesses, whether to a dogmatic or skeptical, to an empiric or transcendental, a critical or eclectic one: all without exception take an unproven and unprovable proposition as starting point, namely the necessity of thinking. No investigation gets to this necessity, as deeply as it may prospect one day. It must be absolutely accepted and can be founded by nothing”—he means the necessity of thinking—“every attempt to prove its correctness always requires it. Beneath it a bottomless abyss yawns, a nightmarish darkness illuminated by no beam of light. We do not know, where from it comes, neither where to it leads. Whether a merciful God or a bad demon put it in the reason, both are uncertain.”

However, no human being speaks this way who has learnt a little bit only, has maybe learnt very much, and puts up all kinds of philosophy from the learnt concepts. Thus a human being speaks who has worked through what the knowledge researcher can go through if he submerges with his soul forces only deeply enough into that undergrounds of inner experience into which one can submerge where one is confronted with the cliffs, the partitions which one only penetrates if the spiritual organs really awake if they become consciousness.

In my life, I became acquainted with a number of such persons like Gideon Spicker, and I have tried to reflect such characters in the picture of Strader in my mystery dramas. However, I had to experience with it that just those who are often called followers of anthroposophy misunderstood me to the greatest extent. While the persons whom these dramas show are taken out of the real, comprehensive life, from that life that should just show the necessity and the validity of spiritual science from the other areas of modern existence, weird persons believed, I would write such roles that are tailor-made for those who should represent them, whereas I was just a far cry from this.

I could show with a comparison what such a person experiences who does not get to the knowledge of spirit but to the insight of the necessity of thinking. Someone who gets to the knowledge of spirit knows that if one not only wants to consider the thinking but experiences it, he does not experience, indeed, that beyond the thinking that Gideon Spicker describes, the bottomless abyss, the nightmarish darkness illuminated by no beam of light, but he experiences the spiritual world beyond this thinking that bears the sense-perceptible reality. He experiences with his soul in this supersensible area. He also experiences that there is no uncertainty whether a merciful God or a bad demon has been put in the reason, but he experiences and observes the spiritual that penetrates the reason, as the sense perceptible world penetrates the sensory observation.

However, one must say that the thinking—if it is left to itself if it is only thought, and is not experienced—that such a development of the soul life can be compared—you forgive for the somewhat odd comparison—with a hungry organism. If one believes to be able to recognise something of the highest questions by mere thinking—God, freedom, immortality—, then one resembles a person who does not want to still his hunger with food from the outside, but lets the hunger develop. As little as you can develop a hungry organism, so that it balances out its needs in itself, just as little you can attain any spiritual content of the soul and any solution of the questions of God, freedom, immortality if you abandon yourself only to the thinking. As you starve on and on unless you eat, you cannot attain the spiritual development if you think only on and on.

The older philosophical metaphysics wanted this. As hard as it is, it is true: this outdated metaphysics that is something new, however, to some people is nothing but a science that suffers from mental malnutrition.

However, it is not enough that you gain this knowledge only to understand the inner experience correctly. As you have to understand that mere thinking leads to mental malnutrition if this thinking does not brace itself up for inner experience, you have also to understand that much knowledge of the outer sense-perceptible reality and its processing by the intellect, by methodical research do not lead to any knowledge of the soul.

You will convince yourselves if you take common textbooks of psychology that one normally starts speaking about the nervous system. What one says, otherwise, about the human organism is borrowed from physiology, from natural sciences.

Now I have to stress repeatedly not to be misunderstood that spiritual science is a far cry from misjudging what natural sciences have reached concerning the secrets of the nervous life, the secrets of the human organism. I do not want to discount its value. Nevertheless, the value is in another area than in that of the soul knowledge. You may abandon yourself to the mere thinking, then you starve; but abandoning yourself to the outer observation for the knowledge of the soul life only resembles the supply of all kinds of stuff that is indigestible. If you fill your stomachs with stones or the like, the human organism cannot make anything from this indigestible stuff.

Thus you cannot suppose, if you take the scientific results simply in such a way as they are and do not process them mentally, that you receive any enlightenment of the spiritual world, of the life of the soul in the supersensible realm. In our times, people abandoned themselves to the most different mental pictures that should explain how actually the soul relates to the body. Not only that there the oddest fairy tales are bustling about in that what one often calls science. One wants to eradicate fairy tales and superstition from the outer life, in science they often flourish, one only notes it in science just as little as one noted it in the outer life of former times. That fairy tale also belongs to it that the nerves are telegraph wires to the soul that pass on the outer sensory impressions, then again other nerves are there which direct the will impulses to the periphery. About this fairy tale, one would not like to talk at all, because what is meant with this comparison is far away from reality and arises only from an unnoticed scientific superstition.

However, I would like to emphasise two mental pictures that are also widespread today with those who contemplate the relationship of the body and the soul.

Some people believe that they have to regard the body or the nervous system as a kind of tool of the soul, as if the soul is a being that uses the body like a tool. The others who cannot realise how a mental-spiritual being should find a working point to work on something material like the body got even to the weird mental picture of the mental-bodily parallelism. There the processes of the body should proceed for themselves. Without the soul working on the body like a cause or the body reacting on the soul, the soul life should proceed in parallel with the bodily processes. One current always accompanies the other, but the one does not work on the other. Wundt (Wilhelm W., 1832-1920), Ebbinghaus (Herman E., 1850-1909), Paulsen (Friedrich, 1846-1908) and many others dedicate themselves to this weird parallelism theory.

All these theories suffer from the fact that they do not realise what the coherence of the soul with the body is based on. This coherence can be expressed neither by the fact that one says, the body is the tool of the soul, nor that one says, the soul processes proceed in parallel with the bodily phenomena.

However, I am able to bring only forward that what I can say that encompasses a wide field as a result and observation of anthroposophy. Everybody can find the other reasons in my various writings. Nevertheless, I would like to show the essentials briefly today.

If one wants to express the relationship of soul and body correctly, one has to say, as far as one considers the human being, everything bodily of the human being turns out to be for a real observation neither as tool nor as a process running alongside but as a creation of the soul in microcosm and on a large scale.

It is nothing bodily at the human being that is no creation of the soul. However, one has to cast off some prejudices and to take up new concepts from spiritual science if one wants to envisage this far-reaching idea that everything bodily is a creation of the soul.

Already in microcosm, this is in such a way if we form any mental picture if a feeling emerges in us. Yes, only because one has not learnt to observe spiritually and bodily, one believes that there something exterior works on a finished body; the exterior effect spreads to the finished body through the eye or ear, then the effect continues inwardly. Have an unbiased look at the suitable theories. You will find everywhere that they are not at all based on real observations but on prejudices. Since what really goes forward if we perceive if we hear anything, is already carried out, actually, for the most part when we become aware of it, and is strictly speaking always a developmental process in the body. A beam of light hits us and causes something. It is in the same world in which our body is. In our body, something goes forward. What goes forward in it is of the same kind, only in microcosm, as it is if on a large-scale forces form our organism on a large scale. As the forces of growth and other forces form our organism, something is formed in us if a beam of light hits us if a tone hits us and so on. That which is formed there as something subtle in us is reflected in the soul that is not in the body but always in the supersensible realm. We become aware of the reflection. The process, however, which must take place there for the wake consciousness must be a destructive process, a little death.

We cannot completely convince ourselves of the consciousness, of the soul being with the help of the usual consciousness processes, and with bodily-spiritual observation. Nevertheless, if we come on what also accompanies our usual awake life, on the forming of memories, we come already nearer to that which I have just said. Someone who is able to observe what goes forward in the human being knows: what makes a mental picture aware to us does not lead straight away to memories. No, something has always to run alongside, another process has to take place. If you have sense for observation, look at a pupil who studies hard ever so much; what he must perform as auxiliary exercises, so that that which he takes up also goes over into his memory. For a subconscious accompanying process must proceed always. That which we know does not remain to us, but that which goes alongside the consciousness in the subconsciousness. However, that which happens there in our organism by this side flow of the consciousness is still very similar to the growth processes of childhood.

The origin of mental pictures is a growth process in microcosm. Usually we grow like with tremendous power in proportion to the small growth process that takes place in us, unnoticed in the usual life if memory forms. Under the surface of the current of the conscious mental pictures, events happen which carry the memories; and this is very like the growth processes. Do you ask why one can well train the memory just in your youth? Because you still have fresh growth forces in yourselves, because they have not yet withered. However, I can always give such single proofs only; you can prove what I have said with many single observations.

Our usual imagining, feeling and willing intervenes already in such a way that it is reflected not only and makes aware what happens; but in such a way as concerning the memory an undercurrent is there for our conscious life, there is also an upper current. As one does not note the undercurrent—one notes it at most if the pupil studies hard and does movements and knocks its head to support this undercurrent—, one does not note the upper current all the more. However, this upper current belongs above all to that second human being who sleeps there in the usual human being, while we think, feel, and will in our usual life.

Just as the current of memory proceeds beneath the consciousness, something purely mental proceeds above the consciousness, something that does not intervene at all anyhow in the body. Because this conscious soul life has such hyper-experience, I would like to say, the forces of growth are not sufficient for this conscious soul life, for the entire soul life at all. The forces that lead the human being to birth are not sufficient. These forces could only evoke that in the human being that we perceive with the sleeping organism.

At the moment when the consciousness intervenes with its upper currents in the organism, those forces which also destroy this organism finally at death must intervene in the organism. These forces are destructive forces, so that the forces of growth must balance out them in sleep. Only then, one understands the supersensible life of the soul if one knows how far the purely organic reaches subsensibly.

I do not like speaking about personal experiences; what I tell, however, is associated substantially with that which I generally have to bring forward. I confess that I intensely pursued the problems about which I speak today and in my writings since for more than thirty years on all ways that may arise. These ways have to lead the soul into the area of spiritual life and in the coherence of this spiritual-mental life with the bodily life. I have found that—if you go about your work scientifically in the sense of our time honestly and sincerely—you really can obtain many fertile things, while you discipline yourself scientifically. On this way then you just find those questions for whose solution the usual natural sciences do not suffice. Yes, just from scientific thinking one gets other observation results about what is in natural sciences, actually.

The question of the nature of the nervous system was one of the biggest ones to me for decades, which the scientific psychologists, the psychological scientists regard as the organ of the soul who imagine that in the nerves an inner activity takes place, which is similar to other organ activities. Well, such activities also proceed in the nerves, but they do just not serve the forming of mental pictures, of feelings and will impulses. They serve the nutrition of the nerves, the production of the nervous substance if it has been consumed. They just do not serve the soul life; however, they must be there, so that the soul life can take place. I use a comparison that I have used here already once.

If you consider the nervous system as something that must be there for the soul life, you just have something, as if you say, the ground must be there, so that I do not fall into the depth if I want to go. However, if I go and the ground is soft, I leave behind tracks. Then someone will completely err who checks the ground and searches the forces in it, which my footprints have produced from inside. As little as these forces produce tracks from inside, any inner forces of the brain and nervous system produce the tracks that originate from imagining, feeling, and willing. There the mental works which prevails in the supersensible area.

Before one does not realise this and experiences it as real observation, one can generally come to no understanding of the true nature of the soul. That which is on the bottom of the soul life in the nervous life is not the organic processes of the nervous system—they lead to another direction—, this is that which I would like to specify now. I have brought in the preceding personal remark, so that you realise that I do not frivolously pronounce something such substantial that it is hard gained what I say about the nervous life: while organic forces go into the nervous ramifications, the human being goes over from life to death. In the nervous ramifications, the human being dies perpetually, if he uses these nervous ramifications for thinking, feeling, or willing.

The organic life does not continue as the growth conditions do, but it dies away, while ramifying in the nerves. While it dies away, it prepares the ground for the spiritual development, for the purely supersensible mental. As I remove the air with a pump from a container, produce vacuum, and then the air completely flows again into the container by itself, in the same way mental life flows in the dead part of the nervous system perpetually if the organism sends the partial death into it.

Hence, the partial death is the basis of consciousness. If one recognises that the human being does not need to pour his organic forces into his body to make this body the place of the soul, but that the human being needs to kill his organic experience to withdraw this organic life constantly from the places to which the nerves give the opportunity, you notice how the supersensible soul life can develop in the sensory body, however, after it has created this sensory body first. Since the same soul, which thinks, feels and wills in the time from conception to death, exists also before. The spiritual world is not anywhere in a cloud-cuckoo-land, it is there where the sense-perceptible world is also; it penetrates it. Where sensory effects are, they originate from supersensible, spiritual effects. This same soul lives in the supersensible world that has formed the body and has changed it into the apparatus reflecting the processes to it of which you can become aware. Before it came to conception, it lived in the supersensible world, and in this life on earth, it is connected with the supersensible world. This soul exists already since centuries, before it enters the sense-perceptible existence at conception. As in the life between birth and death this soul has created the body as its image and unfolds its life with this image of the body, the life of the soul unfolds the forces that develop the forces of heredity from the supersensible world.

It is correct that that which we pass on originates in the successive generations. However, our soul works already on them. We insert the forces in our ancestors by the effects of our soul that we receive then as inherited. Thus, we develop our whole organism from the spiritual world as we form something with the memory in microcosm; and only the base, the opportunity of it is given by the sensory heredity. The body is completely a creation of the mental-spiritual. As well as the single experience between birth and death is based on a creation of the spiritual, the entire human body is also based on the spiritual-mental. However, there are incorporated not only the forces of growth in this developmental current but also the forces that appear finally in the total sum as death which is only the outside of immortality.

Since while the mental-spiritual puts the body in the world, is reflected with it, it experiences its own life in the supersensible area. However, at the same time it destroys the body because the upper current mentioned just now develops. As every consciousness is based on a partial death, the complete death is nothing but the withdrawal of the soul from the body that is the beginning of a different experience of the soul. We know: as we develop memories between birth and death, we developed the inner human being in the supersensible current who goes through births and deaths who is everlasting.

What I have indicated as soul experience is not anything that the spiritual researcher produces, it is the characterised second human being whom one only oversleeps, otherwise, but is always in the human being. Spiritual research is nothing but making people aware of that what is perpetual and eternal in the human being, so that he can go through death. If you are able to move with your mental in the spiritual in the intimated way as you move with your senses in the physical-sensory, then you know that you live as a human being also in a spiritual world as one lives with the senses in a physical world. As one distinguishes the mineral, plant and animal realms in the physical world, one distinguishes realms in the spiritual world, which are full of beings that become more and more spiritual the higher you ascend to which the human being belongs with his soul, as he belongs with his body to the physical realms. Briefly, the soul consciously enters in the spiritual world.

I would like to call this worldview Goetheanism after its origins, as well as I would call the building in Dornach Goetheanum that is dedicated to this worldview. Since not on some daydreams but on the healthy condition on which the Goethean worldview is based that is also based what I mean as anthroposophy. Goethe differed in his view of the physical things just by such conditions from that what originated later as natural sciences. However, Goethe developed such scientific concepts that these concepts may sit heavily in the soul's stomach like stones, but can be transformed, so that you reach the mental realm with these scientific concepts. Goethe himself did not yet found spiritual science; he did not get around to doing this. Nevertheless, he developed his theory of metamorphosis so that you only need to develop the internal experience from the principles further, then you also attain knowledge of the mental-spiritual experience.

Whereto does the common psychology, actually, come? A very significant philosopher of the present, Franz Brentano (1838-1917), who died recently, had a rich knowledge life behind himself. He was a fighter in this area; last, he found asylum during this war in Zurich. He attempted to cope with thinking, feeling, and willing his whole life through, beside his other profound researches in the psychological field. These three concepts play a particular role in psychology. Franz Brentano did not advance further than to a classification, did not advance where one can grasp the mental itself only as something living. If one clusters imagining, feeling, willing so simply mechanically, one has three classes. To grasp the mental as something living, one has to grasp the mental, now, however, the spiritual-mental, in such a way as Goethe tried to grasp the outer physical things with his theory of metamorphosis, as Goethe imagined the green leaves of the stalk transformed into the petals, even into the fruit organs. As he attempted to explain all organs by a transformation into each other, one must not only leave thinking, feeling, and willing side by side, but also gain the living transition of them.

There I can bring in the research results again which matured in myself for a long time. Our will is not only put so externally beside the feeling and the imagining, but the feeling has simply originated as a metamorphosis of the will in such a way as the petal forms from the stalk leaf; and imagining develops from feeling. At the end the anthroposophist gets to the result that the will is basically a young being which if it becomes older changes into feeling, and if it becomes even older into thinking, into mental pictures. In the imagining the same is always mysteriously contained which is also inside feeling and willing. However, we do not experience how mental pictures arise from feeling.

However, if the soul has developed its spiritual organs, it experiences a mysterious feeling in all its mental pictures, but not a feeling which is bound to our body, but which leads us on the detour of the mental picture into the vastnesses of the spiritual world. You experience—if you are not led by the feeling into your bodily, but are led into the vastnesses of the spiritual world—that supersensible in which we are between death and a new birth. Then you experience the supersensible world with higher knowledge than the usual mental pictures are, with spiritual-mental knowledge.

However, most people would like to experience this supersensible world after the methods of the sensory world. They are not contented to experience it only in pictures, in Imaginations. They would like to experience it with the senses. However, as the body has to die to become pure spirit, one has to cast off the sensory knowledge that combines with the material. Knowledge has to become Imagination, so that in the Imaginative experience which is as subtle as imagination, but not so arbitrary, the sensory-material is cast off, and a picture of that reality is already attained between birth and death that the human being experiences after death.

Hence, nobody can hope to recognise the supersensible who would like to hear voices or to get other material effects like the spiritists do, while because of a weird self-deception these want to tackle, actually, the supersensible and put something sense-perceptible to themselves. With that subtle spiritual experience, which must happen if one wants to experience the imperishable human being, just many people are not content today. Only this supersensible experience can lead us to the real knowledge of the soul being in the supersensible field that leads us to a true view of the relationship of the body to the soul and that of the soul to the body.

As the feeling changes into imagining, the willing does it too. As one can find a feeling mysteriously in every mental picture, one also discovers a will impulse, which does not lead us to the movements of the limbs, to sensory actions, but leads us from imagining into the supersensible world.

If one discovers the young soul being of willing in the old-grown soul being of imagining, one discovers in this willing which is experienced purely spiritually those forces which work from the preceding life on earth on this life on earth. Then the repeated lives on earth and the intermediate lives in the purely supersensible world become real observation; then the human being gets to the real supersensible knowledge.

One could think that the supersensible knowledge is there only to satisfy the human need of knowledge. Let me quite briefly, at the end, only indicate with few words that this does not hold true. One could believe that only the human need of knowledge is satisfied, but this has its deep practical significance. Indeed, one is concerned with progress in the evolution of humanity. The Copernican worldview, the modern natural sciences came only, after humanity had gone through other levels before. Thus, the anthroposophical spiritual science only originates if the urge to recognise the supersensible is strong enough in the human beings. Many people who know that there is a supersensible world still believe that today the human beings are not ripe to develop those free cognitive forces to wake the sleeping human being. The opposite is the case! Today the human being thirsts for supersensible knowledge. He numbs himself only as I have said at the beginning of this talk.

This cannot go on this way for other reasons, too. One can recognise nature without ascending to laws that make the soul life explicable. You can even say that you can recognise nature the better, the more you keep away from any mental-spiritual while developing physical laws. The physical laws will be the more suited for their field, the less one confuses them with laws that refer only to the mental-spiritual. One has already to say this. However, as soon as it concerns the complete understanding of human life, so that our understanding can intervene in the development of this human life, as soon as it concerns the social and political living together, as soon as it concerns generally finding a right relation from human being to human being, something else is necessary. Then the thoughts that are formed only after the pattern of natural sciences are not sufficient.

Unfortunately, humanity has got used very much to thinking life after such thought forms after which one imagines natural processes. Thus people also have instinctively familiarised themselves with the social life, with the political living together in such a way and also to form it as the spirit forms which only is just used to thinking physical laws. More and more this has developed that way during the last four centuries. As it is correct if natural sciences exclude the spirit from their field, it is insufficient for the human living together, for everything that is connected with society, with sociology to develop thought forms that originate only from natural sciences. One does not become ready with how the human beings have to live together all over the world if one wants to develop this living together after political, after social ideals that are produced after the pattern of scientific principles.

One example of many: when this tragic war broke out, one could hear from many sides, just from the people who called themselves experts of the laws of human living together: this war can last no longer than at most four to five months.—In full seriousness, these persons said this from their scientifically developed thinking, which also exists with that who is not a physical scientist. Just the greatest experts spoke this way. How sadly has reality disproved these mental pictures! Nobody who figures spiritual-scientifically out the world can dedicate himself to such mistakes because he knows which difference exists between escapist mental pictures and realistic ones.

What fulfils our souls as spiritual science brings us together with reality; it puts us into the full reality. A social science, which really copes with this living together of human beings around the whole world which should not bring in instincts, impulses to the human beings which discharge as the today's dreadful, catastrophic events discharge—such a social science can arise only from the conditions which spiritual science gives. Since it deals not with a part of life but with the whole life; hence, it only can generate mental pictures and concepts that cope with reality.

If people do not force themselves to build up their social thinking based on spiritual science, humanity will not come out of the calamities that discharge today so frightfully. I can appreciate what goes out from the people who one calls pacifists or similarly. However, such things cannot be decided by mere orders, cannot be decided by the fact that one decrees: this and that must be.

One can absolutely agree with that which must be. However, if one only produces the orders, only the laws of the usual thinking, it is in such a way, as if one says to a stove: dear stove, it is your duty to heat the room; hence, heat the room.—It will not heat the room, without putting wood into it and making a fire.

Just as little all the usual ideas of peacekeeping et cetera are sufficient. It concerns that one not only says, human beings, love each other, but that one puts heating material into the human souls. However, these are concepts that arise from the living conception of spiritual life.

Since the soul does not only belong to the material, it belongs to the spiritual life. One does often not understand even today, what it means that this human soul belongs to the supersensible area. One usually thinks that one is with the laws which one develops today already in the supersensible area. One does not do this.

Just in the fields of serious science one often starts realising already that it is also significant to check for human experience not only that which scientific prejudice has sketched out in the last decades but also that there other concepts, other ideas are necessary.

Did we not experience the strange play in the last time that one of the most loyal disciples of Haeckel, Oscar Hertwig (1849-1922), the famous physiologist, wrote a book in which he says farewell to the whole outwardness of Darwin's theory which wants to explain the evolution only with a sum of contingencies, of coincidences, which does not want that forces intervene in this evolution that one cannot recognise with mere outer observation. Thus, one experienced the strange case that Oscar Hertwig wrote a significant book in the last time: The Origin of Organisms — a Refutation of Darwin's Theory of Chance (1916). In this book in which serious science itself attempts to come out from the only material, to ascend to the spiritual, Oscar Hertwig closes his explanations with the following considerations:

“The interpretation of Darwin's theory which is so ambiguous with its indefiniteness also permitted a versatile use in other fields of the economic, social, and political life. From it everybody could get desired answers, like from a Delphi oracle, concerning its practical applications on social, political, hygienic, medical, and other fields and refers as affirmation of his assertions to the Darwinian biology with its immutable physical principles. However, if now these putative principles are no real ones”—Oscar Hertwig believes to have proved that—, “should there not be social dangers with its versatile practical application on other fields? Nevertheless, do not believe that the human society can use phrases like the relentless struggle for existence, the selection of the fittest, the natural perfection etc. transferring them to the most different fields without being deeper influenced in the whole direction of its ideation. One could easily prove this assertion with many phenomena of modern times. Just therefore the decision of truth and error of Darwinism is beyond the scope of biological science.”

There you recognise how a naturalist realises: what the human beings think and what of their thoughts changes over into their impulses, that prepares and develops what then in the outer reality comes into being; the spiritual is also the creator of the material in the social field.

If the material appears in such figure as today, one has to search other reasons in the spiritual than someone searches them who goes forward with his concepts of the social only after the pattern of natural sciences. Spiritual science that is based on occultism will work different on the social life; it will not speak only of a relentless struggle for existence, but it will figure out what positions itself as something spiritual in that which appears in nature only as struggle for existence. It considers not only the existence after the outside, but after that which the spirit has poured into it; it will not only judge the course of evolution by its functionality but also by that which has been put as something ethical in the course of purposefulness. It will not only speak of perfection by natural selection but of the creative spirit that flows into the developmental current and creates the natural selection as well as the soul creates its body. It will search the bases of the social laws above all in the supersensible.

There we can already realise that spiritual science is not something that satisfies mere knowledge, but something that is intimately associated with the practical need, with the whole course of life. The future will demand those bases of thinking just for the practical life that can originate only from spiritual science.

Why are the human beings reluctant even today to accept spiritual science? Just from that which I have said now one can get an answer. We were mainly concerned this evening how spiritual science pursues the riddle of immortality. However, death separates us from immortality. We have realised that just in the course of life we have to recognise the perpetual intervention of death. In ancient times, one always said, someone who enters into the spiritual world must experience death symbolically.

It is maybe a radical diction, but it is true. Between our world of the senses and the intellect that analyzes the sensory observations and the world of immortality is no world of growth but of death. One has to envisage death; one has to look at the destructive forces that counteract the forces that just natural sciences regard as the forces of growth.

This produces something similar in the area of knowledge, as it is the fear of death in the outer life. One can already speak of the fact that people do not have the courage to penetrate that area through which one must go if one wants to enter into the supersensible. The human beings shrink from it. They do not know it. They deceive themselves with all kinds of theories and prejudices of limits of knowledge, with any only material significance of life. They rather deceive themselves than that they pass that gate courageously through which one can come only from the sensory to the extrasensory world. However, the gate is that by which one must recognise the nature of death. Since it is true: the human being will find adequate harmony of his soul only if he can absorb the secrets of immortality.

Nevertheless, to the fruit of knowledge that can be enjoyed as immortality one gets only if one ploughs over the ground of death. However, one must not be afraid of it. As the human being overcomes the deadly fear of knowledge in the area of cognition, a science of the immortal, of the supersensible will originate. Tomorrow I speak about the fact that this science of the supersensible disturbs nobody's religious confession. I hope that I do not engage your attention tomorrow as long as today; but I was not able to shorten this basic talk.

When once our construction, dedicated to spiritual science, is finished in Dornach, it contains a sculptural group at an important place. This group primarily presents three figures. In the middle of this group a figure stands as, I would like to say, the representative of the highest human which could develop on earth. Hence, one can also feel this figure of the highest human in the earth development as Christ, Who lived in the body of Jesus of Nazareth for three years within the earth development. It is the particular task to form this Christ figure in such a way that one can see, on one side, the concerning being living in a human earthly body, however, this earthly body being spiritualised in every look, in everything that is in it by Christ Who entered from cosmic, from spiritual heights in the thirtieth year of his life in this earthly body.

Then two other figures are to be found, one on the left side, the other on the right side of the Christ figure, if I am allowed to call this figure the Christ figure. This Christ figure stands there like before a rock which towers up in particular on the left side of Christ, so that its peak is above the head of the Christ figure. On top of the rock is another figure, a winged figure; but the wings are broken, and this figure falls, because it has broken wings, into the chasm. What has to be worked out artistically in particular is the way how this Christ figure raises the left arm. Because the Christ figure raises his left arm, it happens that this falling being breaks the wings. But this must not look in such a way, as if possibly Christ broke the wings of this being, but the whole must be artistically arranged so that, while Christ raises the arm, already lies in the whole movement of the hand that he has an infinite compassion, actually, also with this being. However, this being does not endure what flows up through the arm and hand and what is still visible because the fingers of the stretched hand hollowed the rock, as it were. What this being feels in itself, because it comes near to the Christ being, I would like to dress in the words: I cannot bear anything pure like that shining on me.

It is that which lives in this being and lives so substantially in this being that its wings are broken and it falls consequently into the chasm. This is one especially significant artistic task. You notice what could be missed if Christ stood there plastically and such a force were simply emitted by raising the hand, so that He breaks the wings of this being so that it falls into the chasm. Then it would be Christ who would shine on this being like with hatred and make it fall. However, this must not be shown that way, but the being should make itself fall. Since this being who is shown falling down with broken wings is Lucifer.

On the other side, toward the right side of the Christ figure where the rock has a projection the rock will be hollowed out there. In this hollow is also a winged figure. This figure turns to the rock cavity on top with his arm-like organs. You have to imagine: on the right the rock cavity and in this cavity the winged figure which has, however, quite differently formed wings than the figure on top of the rock. This figure has more aquiline wings, the figure in the cave bat-like wings. The latter figure locks itself up in the cave, you see it in chains, and you see it working there on the ground hollowing out the earth.

The Christ figure in the middle turns his right hand downwards. Whereas it turns its left hand upwards, it turns the right hand downwards. It will be a significant artistic task again not to show this in such a way, as if Christ wanted to put this figure which is Ahriman in chains, but that Christ Himself has an infinite compassion for Ahriman. However, Ahriman cannot endure this; he writhes in pains by that which the hand of Christ emits. This causes that the veins of gold, which are at the bottom in the cave, wind like strings around Ahriman's body and tie it up. Just as that which happens with Lucifer happens by himself, it also happens with Ahriman. Then we will attempt to paint the same motive above the sculptural group, but the view of the painting must be completely different from that of the sculpture. So that we have this group of three figures: Christ, Lucifer, and Ahriman as a sculpture group at the bottom and above them the same motive painted.

We put this relationship of Christ, Lucifer, and Ahriman in our Dornach building because spiritual science shows us in a certain way really that concerning the understanding of the Christ Impulse the next task is that, finally, the human being learns to know which relationship exists in the world between these three powers Christ, Lucifer, and Ahriman. Since, indeed, up to now one often talks about Christianity and the Christ Impulse, but that which has entered the world by the Christ Impulse, actually, as a result of Christ's Death and Resurrection, this has not yet become completely clear to the human beings. One speaks probably of the fact that there is Lucifer that there is Ahriman, but while one speaks of Lucifer and Ahriman, one speaks very often in such a way, as if one had to flee them, as if one had to say almost always: I want to know nothing, nothing at all about Lucifer and Ahriman.

If the divine-spiritual powers, which are found in the way, as I have described it in the public lecture yesterday, also wanted to know nothing about Lucifer and Ahriman, the world would just not be able to exist. You do not position yourselves in the correct relationship saying: Lucifer, I avoid him! Ahriman, I avoid him! You rather have to look at that which the human being has to strive for as a result of the Christ Impulse like the equilibrium position of a pendulum. The pendulum is in the middle in balance; however, it must swing to and fro. That is similar also in the earth development of the human being. The human being must tend on one side to the luciferic principle, on the other side to the ahrimanic principle, but he must learn and stand firmly on that which Paul said: “not I, but Christ in me.”

We have to understand Christ in his effectiveness absolutely as a reality. That is we must be clear to us that this really happened which flowed by Christ's Death and Resurrection in our earth development. How well or how badly people understood this up to now, it does not depend on it, but on the fact that it was there that it has worked in the human earth development. One could say a lot that people have not yet understood of the Christ Impulse. And spiritual science will contribute a little piece to the understanding of that what flowed in from spiritual heights by the Mystery of Golgotha as the Christ Impulse onto the earth development. To realise Christ's working, we want to make clear to us, as this has also happened at other places, two moments of the earth development of humankind, two moments which became important in the whole western development.

You know from history, what an important moment it was, when Constantine, the son of Constantius Chlorus, defeated Maxentius, and Christianity was introduced by Constantine externally in the western development. Constantine had to go into that important battle against Maxentius through which Constantine then made Christianity the state religion in his western empire. The whole map of Europe would have become different if in those days this battle had not taken place against Maxentius. But strategic art, that of what people were capable with their intellects in those days, did not decide this battle really, but something else.

Maxentius made read up in the so-called Sibylline Books, the prophetic books of Rome, and got the advice to lead his army out of the walls of Rome, whereas they would have been saved well within the walls. So he positioned his troops in the free field against the army of Constantine. However, Constantine had a dream before the battle which indicated to him: if you go in the sign of the Mystery of Golgotha against Maxentius, you arrive at a big goal.—And carrying the sign of the Mystery of Golgotha, the cross, Constantine went to the battle with an army about three quarters smaller than that of Maxentius. Filled with enthusiasm by the power which came from the Mystery of Golgotha, Constantine won that important battle through which Christianity was introduced externally in Europe. If we remember what people understood of the Christ Impulse with their intellects in those days, we find an endless theological quarrelling.

People quarrelled whether Christ is identical from eternity with the Father and the like more. One must say: it does not depend on that which people knew about the Christ Impulse in those days, but on the fact that it was there, the Christ Impulse, that it induced the necessary events by Constantine, by a dream of Constantine. It depends on the reality of Christ, on the real power of Christ. In our spiritual science, we only begin understanding the Christ Impulse.

Another moment was that when in the fight between France and England Europe was formed in such a way that one can say: if France had not been victorious against England in those days, all the circumstances would have become different. But how had this happened?—The Christ Impulse has just worked in the subconscious of the soul up to now, when it has to become more aware. We see then in the western spiritual development the Christ Impulse seeking for those conditions in the human souls through which it can be effective with individual human beings. Legends have preserved the way how the Christ Impulse in the western spiritual development can make itself noticeable. These legends point partly back to old pagan times, when everywhere understanding of Christianity was prepared just in paganism.

If the soul does not strive for initiation consciously in the way I have described in How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?, but gets it as it were in natural way, as it was filled with the Christ Impulse by a natural initiation. The most convenient time in which this Christ Impulse is able to inspire the soul is the time of the Christmas Eve up to the Epiphany day, the time from the 25th December to the 6th January. We can understand that if we get the following clear in our mind: for the esoteric knowledge it is unambiguously evident that our earth is not only that of which the geologists talk. That is only like the skeleton of the human being. But our earth also has its own spirituality. And Christ has just entered the earth aura. This earth sleeps and wakes as we sleep and are awake in twenty-four hours. We have to realise the fact that the earth sleeps during the summertime and is awake in the wintertime. The spirit of the earth is the most awake in these twelve or thirteen nights from Christmas to Epiphany. In olden times, in which—as you know from the various representations in my lectures—the human beings had a dreamlike clairvoyance and experienced the spiritual principle of the world that way. The most convenient time was the summertime. It is quite natural that somebody who wants to rise in a more dreamlike clairvoyance to the spiritual has it easier during the sleeping time of the earth, in the summertime. Hence, it was the St. John's-tide which was the most convenient in olden times to raise the strength of the soul to the spiritual. The new, more conscious way has replaced the old way in which the spiritual was working into the earth; now it is the best time when the earth is awake.

Hence, the legends tell us that especially gifted human beings, human beings who are particularly suitable because of their karma, get a special condition of consciousness at the Yuletide which is only externally similar to sleep but inspires it internally, so that the human being was raised to the world we call the spirit-land. There is a very nice legend, the Norwegian legend of Olaf Åsteson about whom is told to us that he goes to the church at the Christmas Eve, falls into a sleep-like state and wakes up at the sixth January and can tell what he experienced in this state similar to sleep. This Norwegian legend actually explains to us that Olaf Åsteson experienced something that one feels at first like the soul-world, then something that one feels like the spirit-land, only just everything in pictures, in Imaginations.

This time was the most convenient in those epochs in which the human beings were not yet so advanced as in our time. Today, the times are over in which the Christ Impulse can flow into the souls like by a natural initiation. Today, the human beings have to ascend to initiation as consciously as it is described in How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds? We live in a time in which natural initiations become rarer and rarer and completely disappear, finally, so that we do not have to count any more on them. But, basically, one can call a physical initiation that through which the Christ Impulse worked on the soul of the simple farmer girl, the Maid of Orleans, who brought about the victory of the French over the English. This victory reshaped the European map wondrously. The human reason could not perform that, but that which guided the Maid of Orleans in those days and outstripped all the skill of the military leaders, by which Europe got a new figure. It was the Christ Impulse, which worked on the unconscious of a single personality, but worked so that then from this personality spread out what was efficient in history.

We would have to notice if anything similar could have taken place as a natural initiation with the Maid of Orleans if the soul of the Maid of Orleans had been inspired in the nights from the 25th December to the 6th January. In the course of life it seems that such a matter cannot be verified that the Maid of Orleans also was once during twelve or thirteen days from the 25th December to the 6th January in a sleep-like state in which the Christ Impulse would have worked on her, so that she would be able to work as a human being only like the cover of the Christ Impulse on the battlefields of France. Nevertheless, it was that way. For there is a time which—if the karma of the concerning individuality makes it possible—can be filled with such a sleep-like state. This is the time of the last days in which the human being still lives in the body of the mother, before he sees the physical earth light. The human being lives there in a dreamlike state similar to sleep. He has not yet seen anything by the senses that takes place externally in the world. If a human being were particularly suitable by his karma to take up the Christ Impulse during these last days in which he lives in the body of the mother, these days would also be days of the natural initiation. Then such a human being would open his eyes for the first time already strengthened by the Christ Impulse lying in him after the initiation, that means in this case, after his birth. And such a human being would have to be born on the 6th January. The Maid of Orleans was born on the 6th January. This is the secret of the Maid of Orleans that she was born on the 6th January that she spent the time from Christmas up to the Epiphany day in that peculiar state similar to sleep in the body of the mother and got a natural initiation. Consider the deep connections which are behind the external development which one normally calls history. What is shown externally in history with the help of documents is as a rule even the most insignificant. The simple date which is registered in our calendar that the Maid of Orleans was sent into the world on the 6th January is of authoritative historical significance. The forces work from the supersensible realm on the sensory realm that way. We have to read this occult writing which shows us the forces working from the supersensible realm on the sensory realm. So the Christ Impulse flowed into the Maid of Orleans like by a natural initiation, already before her physical birth.

I want to explain these matters to arouse a feeling in you that forces and connections unknown to the external view are effective behind that what one normally calls history. However, the Christ Impulse guides history, of the European humankind in particular, since the Mystery of Golgotha. In the East, in Asia a world view remained of which one can say: it has not yet approached the Christ Impulse in its feelings. Indeed, the European was enticed to call the Indian views particularly deep. But this is the typical of Hinduism—generally of the whole Asian religious feeling—that it stands with all its feelings before the Christ Impulse, but has preserved the state which was there in the religious feeling of the earthly humankind before the Christ Impulse. Lagging behind in the development always means taking up something luciferic. Hence, the Asian religious development carries a luciferic element in itself. If we look over at the Asian religious development, we must notice: indeed, we can see a lot in it that humankind had already once that it had to leave, however. But we have partly to purify that all in the western culture from the luciferic element, to raise it partly in such a way that the Christ-principle can flow into it.

If we go from Asia to Europe, we find in the east of Europe, in the Russian culture, the orthodox Christianity spread out which has stopped on a former level of the Christian development which did not want to go along which wanted to keep something luciferic. Briefly, we look at the East, we have what, I would like to say, the wise guidance of the world left behind in the whole development of humankind as the luciferic element.

Let us look at the West, particularly at the American civilisation, and then we have another characteristic. The typical of this American civilisation is that everything is searched for in the external. A lot of significant things are thereby produced indeed; but everything is searched for in the outside. Take an example. If we see in Europe, in particular in Central Europe, that a human being who did not have any opportunity in his life at first to turn his soul to Christ and the powers of the spiritual world and suddenly changes his life because of something, then interests us what has taken place in his soul. It does not interest us that he experienced a jump in his development, we find this everywhere.

Since most inaccurate is the saying which the external science has stamped: nature does not make jumps.¹—From the green plant leaf to the red petal is a big jump; from the petal to the chalices is again a big jump. It is an absolutely wrong saying, and the truth of the development is based just on the fact that everywhere jumps are made. The fact that a human being if he has lived for a while so externally is able to tend suddenly to spirituality induced by anything, in that we are not interested in particular. But the internal power which achieves such a conversion to spirituality interests us. We want to look into the soul of such a human being; we want to know what brought him to such a conversion. We are interested in the soul.

How does the American make it?—He makes something very peculiar. In America, one could often observe such conversions. Now, the American lets such people write letters who experienced a conversion. Then he puts all these letters together on a small heap and says: I received letters from two hundred people, more or less. Fourteen percent of those who experienced such a conversion wrote that they were suddenly attacked by fear of death or hell; five percent because of altruistic motives; seventeen percent because of striving for moral ideals; fifteen percent experienced pangs of conscience; ten percent because they observed teachings given to them; thirteen percent because they have seen that others were converted—by imitation; nineteen percent because they were forced, while they were thrashed at the suitable age, and so on. One selects the most extreme souls, sorts them and receives a result which is based on “sure data.” That is registered then in the books which one spreads as “psychology” among people. All the other documents are uncertain to these people, are only based on subjectivity, they say. There you have an example that something innermost is made superficial. That holds true in many respects in America. In the time which demands a particular spiritual deepening the most superficial spiritualism is rampant in America. One wants to have everything as something sensory.

Spiritual life is grasped materialistically that way. We could still give many such examples which would show you that the civilisation of the West is seized by Ahriman. This is the other deflection of the pendulum. If we look at the East, we have the luciferic element, if we look at the West, we have the ahrimanic element. The infinitely important task we have in Central Europe between West and East is to find the balance. Hence, we would like to put the biggest of the spiritual demands of our time in our Dornach building as a sculptural group: to find the balance between the relation to Lucifer and the relation to Ahriman. Then one will only recognise what the Christ Impulse wanted from the earth development if one puts outside Christ not so simply, but if one knows correctly that Christ is that power which shows us the relation to Lucifer and Ahriman exemplarily.

That the relation of the human being and Christ to Lucifer and Ahriman is not yet recognised clearly, this may become illustrative to you by the following. Also the greatest, which contains the greatest in one respect, is not always free of that which must still be there as an one-sidedness in time. Indeed, one cannot appreciate that picture enough which Michelangelo painted in the Sistine Chapel in Rome, The Last Judgement, this miraculous picture. Christ triumphing, directing the good human beings to one side, the bad human beings to the other. Let us look at this Christ. He does not have the features which we would like to give the Christ figure that should stand in our Dornach construction. It must become evident that Christ raises the hand in compassion, even though Lucifer is there above. Lucifer should not be brought down by the power of Christ, but he falls down because he cannot endure what shines from Christ in his nearness. Christ raises his eye and folds the forehead while raising the folded forehead to Lucifer.

Ahriman is overcome not by the hatred of Christ, but he feels that he cannot endure what flows out from Christ. However, Christ stands in the midst as somebody who introduces the Parzival element in the modern age. He has to get the others to overcome themselves not by His power, but by His existence, so that they overcome themselves and not he overcomes them. With Michelangelo, we still see Christ sending the good human beings to heaven and the bad ones to hell by His power. This is not the right Christ in future, but this is a Christ who is still very luciferic. That does not reduce our esteem of that picture. The whole significance of this picture is recognised, but one has to admit that Michelangelo could not yet paint Christ because the world development was not yet so far. It must clearly be seen that one has not only to turn the sense to Christ, but that one has to turn the sense to the threefold being: Christ, Lucifer, and Ahriman. I can only indicate that. Only in future, spiritual science finds out everything that lies in this secret: Christ in relation to Lucifer and Ahriman.

But now consider the following: if we look at the East, we look at luciferic powers even in the near East. In the West, we look at ahrimanic powers. In spiritual science, we have to get into the habit of considering the matters not with sympathy and antipathy and also the peoples and folk-souls not with sympathy and antipathy, but in such a way as they are in their characteristics. What one calls the national characteristic of a human being who stands in his people, depends—above all—on that which is effective in the physical and etheric bodies. When we live from falling asleep to waking up with our soul and mind as an astral body and ego, we live beyond the normal national element. We live only from waking up to falling asleep in our nationality when we are in our physical body. That is why the nationality is also something the human being overcomes gradually during his stay in kamaloka. The human being there strives for the generally human, while he overcomes the nationality in kamaloka to live then in the generally human for the longest time between death and new birth. It belongs to the qualities which are taken off in kamaloka, also that which makes us a national human being.

The single nationalities are very different from each other in this regard. Compare a French human being and a Russian human being. The French human being has the characteristic that he seizes that particularly which the folk-soul brings in his physical and etheric bodies during his life between birth and death that he lives particularly in it. This expresses itself in the fact that the Frenchman—not as an individual human being but as a Frenchman—has an idea of that which is a Frenchman; the fact that he puts ahead that above all which is, actually, a Frenchman. But these ideas which the French, also all the other neo-Latin peoples, have of their nationality cause that the ideas of their nationality are deeply stamped into their etheric bodies. When the Frenchman goes through the gate of death, he already detaches the etheric body after some days; then this etheric body is a clearly defined figure which exists in the etheric world for a long time. The etheric body cannot dissolve because the ideas of his nationality are deeply stamped on it; these ideas hold together the etheric body. That is why we see the field of death filled with clearly defined etheric bodies if we look westwards.

Look at the East now, at the Russian human being. It is the peculiarity of this Russian human being that he has such an etheric body in himself that it dissolves relatively quickly when the soul goes through the gate of death. This is the difference between the West and the East. The etheric bodies, which the West-European human beings take off after death, have the peculiarity that they want to be clearly defined. What the French calls “gloire” stamps itself to his etheric body firmly as national gloire, so that he is condemned to turn his spiritual view to this etheric body, to himself for long, long times after death. The Russian human being, however, looks at himself only a little after death. That is why the West-European human being is exposed to the ahrimanic influence; the materialisation of the etheric body is again exposed to the ahrimanic principle. The dissolution of the etheric body, the quick merging of the etheric body is accompanied by a feeling of lust, and this is just the peculiar, an instinctive feeling of lust in the national. How is this expressed in the East?

Central Europe does not understand that, as it also does not feel in that. If one pursues Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy or others who were setting the tone who talk always about the “Russian human being,” this is a feeling of lust in the national which cannot define itself. Even with Solovyov, we find that something sultry is living in his philosophy that is not compatible with the clearness and cleanness the Central European human being searches for. What is effective in Europe as a spiritual power is connected with all that. In Central Europe another, a middle state exists, namely something that one could explain even further than it was possible in the public lecture yesterday. I said: something exists in Central Europe that is an inner striving nature. Goethe would have written his Faust in exactly the same way in the forties of the last century: strive again and again.—But this striving is innermost nature. In Central Europe, the mystics appeared who did not only want to recognise the divine-spiritual, but wanted to experience it with their own souls. The mystics wanted to internally experience the Christ event. If one takes Solovyov, one thinks that he goes out above all from that: Christ died once historically for humankind. This is quite right, but Solovyov sees the spiritual life like a cloud outside himself, who sees that as it were everything already has happened, while the Central European human being demands that everybody experiences Christ in himself time and again. Master Eckhart would have possibly replied the following even to somebody like Solovyov. If Solovyov emphasised repeatedly that Christ must go through death, so that the human being can be a human being, Master Eckhart would say: you look at Christ as one looks at something external. It does not matter that we always look at the historical events only, but we ourselves have to experience Christ inside, we have to discover something inside that goes through such states like Christ, at least spiritually, so that Christ is experienced spiritually.

It seems tricky and fantastic indeed if anybody says to the modern humankind: the whole development, even the folk-soul worked in Central Europe, so that this connection of the ego with the Christ principle is expressed in the language: I-CH (= I) = Jesus Christ. I-CH which is composed in such a way that it means “I.” While one pronounces I (ich) in Central Europe, one pronounces the name of Christ. So near one wants to feel the ego with Christ, so intimately connected with it. One knows this intimate living together with the spiritual world, as it must be striven for in Central Europe in any spiritual field, neither in the West nor in the East. Hence, something must happen in the twentieth century, so that the Christ-principle can spread out gradually over the whole European continent in suitable way. I emphasised it often in various lecture cycles that in November 1879 that spiritual being whom we call the archangel Michael ascended to a special level of development. Michael became, so to speak, the leading spirit. Now this leading spirit prepares the event which I indicated in the first of my mystery dramas as the appearance of the etheric Christ over the earth, the event which must take place in the twentieth century. Then it will happen that single souls at first, then more and more souls know: Christ is there in reality, Christ walks again on earth, but in an etheric figure, not in a physical figure.

This must be prepared. If in the course of this twentieth century the spiritual eyes of certain souls were opened clairvoyantly—and this will happen—for the life of the etheric world, they would be disturbed by those etheric bodies which spread out from Western Europe. They would behold them first, and one would see the figure of Christ wrongly. Hence, Michael must fight a battle in Europe. He has to contribute something that these West-European clearly defined etheric bodies are dissolved in the etheric world. For that he has to take those etheric bodies which enjoy dissolving, the etheric bodies in the East, and must fight with them against the West. This causes that since 1879 a violent struggle prepares itself in the astral world between the Russian and the West-European etheric bodies, and this struggle is raging in the whole astral world. It is actually a violent struggle in the astral world, led by Michael, between Russia and France. This forms the basis of the battle in the astral world, raging in Europe.

As we are often stupefied by the fact that something that takes place here in the physical world is the opposite of that in the spiritual,² managed by Ahriman's seduction, which is based mainly on the ahrimanic element, namely on twenty billions which France gave Russia, is the physical expression of a battle that is raging between French and Russian souls, of a battle in which Central Europe is put with its striving for meeting the Christ in its innermost soul element. And Europe is enslaved by karma that one has to experience just in Central Europe tragically what the East with the West and the West with the East has to fight out. The matters which externally the German element has to fight out with the French element are to be understood only in such a way that the German is just in the middle between the East and the West and serves as an anvil for both sides. Since that which is pushed together by both sides in Germany is negotiated by these both sides in truth. This is the spiritual truth which is completely different from the external events in the physical world. Imagine how different the spiritual truth is from the external events in the physical world. Indeed, everything like that sounds absurd to the modern human beings, but it is the truth. This truth must stupefy us.

But another matter is also exceptionally significant. Indeed, it counters everything that history can show us that England, after it was always an ally of Turkey against Russia, must fight now suddenly with Russia against Turkey. One can understand this gainsay if one does the following occult observation. While here below on the physical plane England is an ally of Russia and fights against the Turkish element, the following presents to the occult observation. If one observes this struggle clairvoyantly and looks as it were from below up at the physical plane and then at the astral plane, it becomes apparent: in the North, Russia seems to be allied with England, and in the South-East Turkey seems to be allied with England. This is due to the fact that the alliance between England and Russia has significance only on the physical plane, but there is no reflection in the spiritual world, because it is completely based on material interests. From below one sees England and Russia united only on the physical plane in the North. In the South-East, one sees through the physical plane to the astral plane where the English are allies of the Turks and are fighting against Russia. On one side, England fights together with Russia on the physical plane, and on the other side Russia is combated by England. We have to look at the external events this way, in so far as they manifest themselves as external history. Since that which lies behind is something completely different.

A time will come in which the human beings talk about the present events quite differently than it happens now. One must say that the whole war literature has something rather unpleasant. Something pleasant is also said, but also a lot of unpleasant things. Above all one matter is unpleasant. It is always said: today one cannot yet speak about the question: who is responsible for the war? Et cetera.—People console themselves passing over the matters. They say: in future one finds out of the documents in the archives, who was responsible for the war.—Concerning the external events the matter, however, is not hard to be found at all if one judges without passion. Chamberlain³ is right in his “war articles” even if he is mistaken in the details, when he says that one can know the most certain just about this war. This is right that no doubt exists about that, only one has to put the right question. A question can only be answered unambiguously, for example, if it is put correctly. It is the question: who could have prevented this war?

The always returning question: who is responsible for this war? And still many other questions, are not just right. Who could have prevented the war?—No other answer can be given than: the Russian government could have prevented the war.—One will only be able to find the right definition of the impulses which work in detail. Of course, the war, intended by the East since decades, could not have come unless a certain relation had existed between England, Russia, and France, so that one can ascribe the bigger guilt also—if one wants—to England. But all these matters do not take into consideration which causes are behind that showing the whole world war as a necessity. It is naive to think that the war could have failed to come. Now the people talk, as if this war did not need to come. It is the result of the European karma.

I wanted to indicate something by the spiritual contrasts between the East and the West. It does not depend on the fact that we ask, so to speak, for the outer causes in particular, because they are not important. We must only know that this war is a historical necessity. The single causes are not important there.

But all the heterogeneous effects to which we will have to position ourselves correctly are important. One effect can appear to us as particularly important. It is a great, typical phenomenon that such a war produces many unused etheric bodies. Because this is the biggest war which humankind has waged in its conscious historical development, this characteristic also exists to a very high degree. Unused etheric bodies are produced. The etheric body can supply the human being for long, until the human being is seventy, eighty, or ninety years old. However, during the war human beings are sacrificed in the prime of life. When the human being goes through the gate of death, he takes off the etheric body, as you know, after a short time; but the etheric body of somebody who was killed in action is taken off in such a way that it could still have supplied this human life in a physical body for long, for decades.

In physics one accepts that energy does not get lost. However, that also applies to spirituality. The forces of these etheric bodies, which early go to the etheric world, remain available. Think now that countless unused etheric bodies of those are there who go as young human beings through the gate of death. Nevertheless, it is something particular with these etheric bodies. I would like to explain this at an example which is obvious to our movement and to lead then to the etheric bodies of the warriors gone through death which are contained in the etheric world in the next future.

In this autumn, we experienced the death of the little son of an anthroposophical family which is employed in the area of our Dornach construction. This boy, Theodor Faiss, was seven years old. His father once lived in Stuttgart, and then he came as a gardener to Dornach in the area of the construction and lived there with his family. He himself was soon called up to the army after outbreak of the war and was in a military hospital at the time of the accident. The little, seven-year-old Theodor was a real sunny child, a wonderful, dear boy. Now one day the following happened. We had just a lecture as I give them in Dornach after the construction work. After the lecture somebody came and reported that the little Theodor Faiss has not come back to his mother since the late afternoon. It was ten o'clock in the evening, and one could imagine nothing but that a big tragedy has happened. A removal van had arrived in this afternoon and had gone a way near the so-called canteen where it had to turn round. This carriage had reached a place in those days, in which, one is allowed to state this, no such a big carriage has gone for many decades before, generally maybe no removal van has ever gone and just as little after. Now the little Theodor, before this van had turned round, had been in the canteen. He had been detained there a little bit, otherwise he would have gone sooner with the provisions he had got in the canteen for the dinner. Then he went the way home—it is only a short distance—so that he was just at that place where the van toppled over and fell on him, the little Theodor. Nobody had noticed it, even the coachman did not. He had only got his horses to safety when the carriage toppled over, and did not know that the child was under it. When the absence of the child was reported to us, we had to try to lift the carriage. The friends got tools, and the mobilised Swiss soldiers helped us. Of course, the child was already dead since possibly a half past five o'clock in the afternoon. The removal van had crushed it straight away, it died of suffocation.

There we have such a case to which one can apply what I often tried to make clear using a comparison that one confuses cause and effect. Imagine that we see a person going along a riverbank. The person falls into the river. One runs to him and finds a stone where the person fell into the river and thinks that the person tripped, then fell in the river and died this way. One says that the person has died because he fell into the river. But if one dissects him, one maybe finds that he experienced a heart attack and fell consequently dead into the water. He did not die because he fell into the water, but he fell into the water because he died. You find such mistakes of cause and effect in the judgement of life very frequently and in the usual science even more.

The karma of the little Theodor had run off in a certain way, so that one can really say: he ordered the carriage to that place. I mention this case which is externally exceptionally tragic, because we deal with the etheric body of a child which could have supplied through the life of this child still for decades. This etheric body is passed over with its unused forces to the spiritual world, the etheric world. Where is he? What does he do?—Somebody who is obliged to work on the Dornach construction since that time with artistic intentions, generally to have thoughts in the area of the construction knows if he beholds clairvoyantly at the same time: this whole etheric body and its forces is increased in the aura of the Dornach construction. We have to distinguish: the individuality is somewhere else, it goes its own way, but the etheric body is expelled after some days and exists now in the construction. Never will I hesitate before saying that among the forces which one needs to Intuition the forces of this etheric body are, sacrificed to the construction. Behind life the connections are often completely different than anybody only suspects it. This etheric body has become protecting powers of the construction. Something great is in such a connection.

Consider now, what a big sum of strength goes up to the spiritual world in the unused etheric bodies of those who go now through the gate of death as a result of the military events.

The matters are connected differently than the human beings can imagine. The world karma takes place differently. Spiritual science must be there just to replace fantastic ideas with spiritually true ideas. We can imagine hardly—to mention only one example—something more fantastic or untrue from the spiritual point of view than something that took place in the last decades. A special “peace society”⁴ was founded to put the law at the place of the war, as one said, “the International Law.”—In no time of humankind such dreadful wars were waged as since the “peace society” exists. In the last decades, this peace movement had a monarch among its particular protectors who waged the bloodiest and cruelest wars which ever were waged in world history. So that the installation of the peace movement from the part of the czar must really appear as the biggest comedy which was played in world history, the biggest comedy and at the same time the most hideous comedy. One has to call that luciferic seduction. This can well be investigated in details. One can say, it stupefies the soul if one sees—one may look at the matters as one wants—in the beginning when these war impulses entered Europe, Central Europe, where one assembled like in the Berlin Reichstag, people talking almost about nothing. One has only spoken a little, but the matters have spoken. A lot has been spoken in the West like in the East. But one has the most stupefying impression in a certain way of that what has been spoken in the St. Petersburg Duma by the different parties. In the various way the representatives of the Duma have really brought forward nothing else than the empty phrases with the biggest fire of enthusiasm. It was stupefying. This is a luciferic seduction. However, everything shows us that the fire, which burns during this war, is a warning fire, and that the human beings have to pay attention.

Everything that happens now points to the fact that at least some souls must say to themselves: it cannot go on that way as it has gone in the world, spirituality must flow into the human development. Materialism has found its karma in this most dreadful war of all the wars. In certain respect this war is the karma of materialism. The more the human souls see this, the more they will get beyond arguing, whether this one or that one is responsible for the war, and say to themselves: this war was sent to us in world history that it is an admonisher that we should turn to a spiritual understanding of the whole human life.

Materialism makes not only the souls of the human beings materialistically minded; it also corrupts the logic and makes the feeling dull. Within Central Europe, one still has to see something that is connected with that which I have said: that one has to deal most intimately with the further development of the Christ Impulse just in Central Europe. But that belongs to it that one has to start understanding the spirits who have already laid the germs. Only one example: Goethe wrote a theory of colours. The physicists look at it as something, about which they say compassionately smiling: what has the poet understood of the colours? He was just a dilettante.—Since the eighties of the nineteenth century I try to help the Goethean theory of colours on the road to success against modern physics. This cannot be understood. Why can it not be understood? Because the materialistic principle, which came from the British folk-soul, penetrated Central Europe. Newton whom Goethe had to combat won the victory over that which issued from Goethe's spirit. Goethe also founded a theory of evolution in which is shown by grasping spiritual laws how the beings advance from the most imperfect condition to the most perfect. This was too hard to understand. When Darwin brought his theory of evolution, the people accepted it, because they could understand it easier. Darwin was victorious over Goethe. The materialistic thinker who was inspired by the British folk-soul was victorious over Goethe who got everything from the most intimate dialog with the German folk-soul.

Ernst Haeckel has experienced something tragic. He lived mentally through his whole life on that which Huxley and Darwin have given to him. The materialism of Ernst Haeckel is basically a very English product. When the war broke out, Haeckel was outraged about what happened from the British islands. He was one of the first to send back the English medals, certificates and honourings. What must be sent back, however, are not the certificates, medals and honourings, but the English coloured Darwinism and the English coloured physics. One has to call that in mind, so that one sees what can be striven for in the Central European area as an intimate being together with the laws of the world.

One can corrupt the childish soul mostly if one already pours out in it that which develops then in only materialistic colouring. The centuries have worked towards it. Among the Britons over there, Ahriman inspired a great author, so that this author wrote a work which was completely intended to influence the soul materialistically from the childish age on in such a way that one does not notice it, because one does not consider it preparing materialism. This is Robinson Crusoe. The whole way, as Robinson is described, is so clever that these ideas of Robinson Crusoe if they are taken up prepare the mind in such a way that it can later think only materialistically. Humankind is not yet cured of inventors of such Robinsons; they always existed and exist even today. I could give many examples.

I talk about these matters not to say anything against the peoples of the West who have to be as they are, but to show how in Central Europe the human beings have to find the connection with the big, only germ-like values of the future development. The role of Austria is also significant in particular. In the last decades, one could see some spirits striving for high ideals like Hamerling⁵ in poetry, like Carneri⁶ who wanted to deepen Darwinism concerning moral, and like Bruckner⁷ and other artists in all kinds of fields. It matters such a self-reflection of the people

Now we look at the unused etheric bodies which exist there. These etheric bodies were taken off by human beings who learnt during a big event to sacrifice themselves for something that there is no longer for them, not as anything sensory at least: for the people. If somebody talks today as a spiritual scientist about the fact that there a folk-soul is as an archangel et cetera, then they laugh at him. What one calls folk-soul in materialism is only the summary of the qualities which the human beings of a people have. What the materialist calls people is only the sum of the human beings who live together and look similar in an area. We speak about a people in such a way that we know: the folk-soul exists as a real being of the archangel's rank. Even if anybody who sacrifices himself who goes through death for his people has no clear idea of a real folk-soul on the field of the events, nevertheless, he confirms by the way he goes through death that he believes in a further effectiveness after this death that he believes that there is more than that which the eyes see in the people: its connection and its keeping together with the supersensible realm.

Everybody who goes through death, whether he knows it more or less, goes through this death, confirming that there is a supersensible world; this is stamped to his etheric body. So that in future except those who will live on the physical earth when peace has taken place again, the unused etheric bodies will live for ever sending these tones to the music of the spheres: there is more in the world than that which can be seen only with physical eyes. Spiritual truth sounds into the music of the spheres by that which the dead leave behind in their etheric bodies, apart from that which they take with their individualities which they carry through the life between death and new birth.

However, one has to listen to that which will live and sound from these etheric bodies. For these etheric bodies were taken off by human beings who, confirming the truth of the spiritual world, went through death. The biggest sin of humankind will be if it does not listen to that which the dead call to it by their warning etheric bodies. How much is the view to the spiritual world enlivened if one has to imagine that the fathers and mothers, the sisters and brothers, sons and daughters, who lose dear relatives and friends, must say to themselves: what was there sacrificed, lives for the whole humankind, admonishing that which has to come.

If one relied on the events of the physical world, one could not have a lot of hope for the prosperous progress of the spiritual movement which should be cultivated in our spiritual-scientific world view. When recently a good, loyal co-worker died, in the thirtieth year of his life, there was in my words, which I directed to this soul after he has gone through the gate of death, the entreaty that he would like to co-operate as faithfully and courageously on our spiritual-scientific field as he co-operated here faithfully and devotedly, using everything that he knew. He co-operated diligently here on the physical plane, this co-worker. I gave him this as a message for his life between death and new birth that he may co-operate after death as he done it before death, because we count on these dead, the so-called dead, as on the living.

Our spiritual-scientific world view must be vivid, so that the abyss is overcome between the so-called dead and the living that we feel the dead among us like living human beings. We want not only theory, but life. That is why we also point to the fact that a living bond exists between those who live on earth when peace is again, and those who went through the gate of death. The human beings will be able to learn from the dead, will have to learn how these dead help in the big spiritual progress which must seize the earth.

Sometimes one recognises in life that the human logic does not suffice. I would like to give you an example, not for personal reasons, but to characterise the way people position themselves to our movement. Some years ago, one could read an article about our spiritual science in a South German very serious magazine written by a famous philosopher of the present. Spiritual science was treated there in such a way that it could make a certain impression on the people because the article was written by a great philosopher. The editor of the magazine prided himself in particular that he could publish an article on spiritual science by such a famous man. Of course, everything was shown badly and erroneously; a totally askew picture of spiritual science was given. What did the editor need, however, to see what a judgment about our movement he had delivered, actually, in his monthly magazine?

Then the war came. That man who had written the article wrote some letters to the editor. These letters contain the most repellent things one can generally say about the Central European culture. He ranted and sneered terribly about this Central European culture. The editor printed these letters as an example of how brainlessly one can think about this culture. Now he says: this person writes, nevertheless, as only a person can write who should be in the lunatic asylum.—The fact is that such a thing was necessary for a good editor to see that the man should be in the lunatic asylum who wrote this article about spiritual science some years ago and wreaked much havoc outwardly. If the man had to be in the lunatic asylum, he should already be there at that time. But at that time he wrote an article about spiritual science.

Such matters happen in the world. Quite different supports have to come to get a judgment than those the human being has today. However, the spiritual scientist stands firmly on the ground that shows clearly that truth finds its way. But spiritual science must have an effect on the development of humankind, so that the necessary matters take place. Like in that time, when the emperor Constantine had to complete his task, the Christ Impulse had to work from the spiritual world on the subconscious, like with the Maid of Orleans the Christ Impulse had to work, so that happened what had to happen, the Christ Impulse has to go on working, only now more in the consciousness. There must be souls in future who know: up there in the spiritual world are those who sacrificed themselves with their individualities and request us to follow them and believe in the effectiveness of spirituality they got through death. But also the forces of the unused etheric bodies call into the future what one only needs to understand to take up it in our own souls. On earth, however, must be the souls who hear this. Souls must be there who prepare themselves by the right and living understanding of our spiritual science. Our spiritual science has to create souls here on earth that are able to have premonitions of what the etheric bodies of the dead up there speak in future. The souls who know: there up are the forces which can admonish the human beings who had to be left to their own resources on earth. If here below souls aware of spirit direct their senses to the hidden tones of the spiritual world, the right fruits will originate from all the blood that flowed, from all the sacrifices that were accomplished, from all the grief that had to be endured and must still be endured. Looking at the hope which may be expressed that a lot of souls may be found by spiritual science who can hear these voices which sound from the spiritual world in particular as a result of this war, I would like to speak, to sum up, the last words of this consideration, words which should express only as a feeling what I would like to stimulate in your souls:

From the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of the battles,
From the grief of the bereaved,
From the nation's sacrifices
Will grow up the fruits of spirit
If souls aware of spirit turn
Their senses to the spirit-land.

With such emotions in the heart we always want to penetrate ourselves with the sense of the rose cross, so that this rose cross is considered rightly by us as the slogan of our working and weaving and feeling. Not the black cross only. Somebody who tears the roses from the black cross would only have the black cross, would be enslaved by Ahriman. The black cross is the life striving for the bare matter. And anybody who tears the cross from the roses and prefers only to have the roses does not find the right. Since the roses, separated from the cross, would raise us to life, but this life would strive egoistically for spirituality and not reveal something spiritual in the material. Not only the cross, not only the roses, but the roses on the cross, the cross bearing the roses, both in harmonious interaction: this is our right symbol.

• 1. Carl Linné in his Philosophia Botanica, Stockholm 1751
• 2. agreement by the French president Faure and Czar Nicholas II in 1897
• 3. Houston Stewart Chamberlain: New War Essays, Munich, 1915
• 4. peace conferences in the Hague from 1899 to 1907, convened on the initiative of Czar Nicholas II
• 5. Robert Hamerling (1830–1889), cf. The Riddle of the Human Being and Autobiography, Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works volumes 20 and 28
• 6. Bartholomäus von Carneri (1821–1909), cf. Methodical Foundations of Anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works volume 30.2.29
• 7. Anton Bruckner (1824–1896), Austrian composer

This lecture is also known as The Creation of a Michael Festival and Cosmic Word and Individual Man. It is the 5th of 7 lectures in a lecture series that is entitled, The Human Soul in its Connection with Godly-Spiritual Individualities.

My dear Friends, what I should like to bring to you now will have to be said—as has everything that I have had to say recently about Anthroposophy—with a certain undertone called forth by the painful event which befell our work and our Society on last New Year's Eve: the Goetheanum in Dornach, for the time being, is no more; it was consumed by flames in the night before the New Year. And all who witnessed the destruction in this one night of the work of ten long years, accomplished by so many of our friends, and performed by them with complete devotion—all who have loved this Goetheanum very much, just because of this work, and because of what the Goetheanum was to us, will of necessity be weighed down by the thought that we no longer have this particular outer sign of Anthroposophical activity. For, even if some other building for our work shall arise on the same site—which should by all means occur—owing to the trying circumstances of the present time it can, of course, never be the old Goetheanum. Therefore, behind all that I have had to say since those days there actually stands in the background the fearful glow of the flames, which in such a heart-rending way interrupted the development of all our work. Since this outer sign has vanished, we must dedicate ourselves all the more to laying hold of the inner forces and inner realities of the Anthroposophical Movement and of what is connected with it for the entire evolution of humanity. Let me begin then with a sort of consideration of the nature of the human being. I have presented very much of this kind here in your midst, and I should like now to consider again one phase from a certain point of view.

I should like to start with a consideration of the human being entering the world, of the human being who has descended from the pre-earthly existence and is, as it were, taking his first steps here in the life on earth. We know, of course, that at the time of this entrance into the earth-life, a condition governs the soul which has a certain similarity to the ever-recurring condition of man's sleep-life. As the ordinary consciousness has no remembrance, upon awaking, of that which the soul-spiritual part of man has experienced between going to sleep and waking up (with the exception of the varicolored multiplicity of dreams, which actually float away, as we know, when we sink into sleep or when we wake, and which for the ordinary consciousness do not result from deep sleep)—as, then, the ordinary consciousness has no remembrance of this condition, so for the entire earth life this same consciousness remembers only back to a certain point of time in childhood. With one person this point of time is somewhat earlier, with another later. What occurs in the earthly life prior to this is really as much concealed from the ordinary consciousness as are the events of the sleep state. Of course, it is true that the child is not actually sleeping; it lives in a sort of dreamy, indefinite inner activity; but from the point of view of the whole later life, this condition is at least not very much removed from dream-filled sleep.

There are three activities, however, which set in at this time, three things. which the child is learning. There is what we ordinarily sum up in the expression learning to walk, then what is connected with learning to speak, and what for the child is connected with learning to think. Now, in the expression “learning to walk”, for the sake of our own convenience we actually characterize something which is extraordinarily complex in an exceedingly brief way. We need only to recall how the child is at first utterly unadapted to life, how it gradually gains the ability to accommodate its own position of balance to the space in which it is to move during the entire life. It is not merely “learning to walk” which we observe in the child, but a seeking for the state of equilibrium in the earthly life. Connected with learning to walk is all use of the limbs. And for anyone who is able to observe such a matter in the right way, the most remarkable and most important of life's riddles actually find expression in this activity of learning to walk; a whole universe comes to expression in the manner in which the child progresses from creeping to the upright position, to the placing of the little feet, but also in addition to holding the head upright and to the use of arms and legs. And then anyone who has a more intimate insight into how one child steps more on the heel, and another is more inclined to step on the toes, will perhaps have an inkling of what I shall now have to tell you with regard to the three activities mentioned and their relation to the spiritual world. Only, I should like first to characterize these three activities as to their outer aspects.

On the basis of this effort to attain equilibrium—or, if I may express myself now somewhat more learnedly, perhaps also somewhat more pompously, this search for a dynamic of life—on the basis of this effort, learning to speak is then developed. For, anyone who is able to observe knows quite well that the normal development of the child proceeds in such a way that learning to speak is developed on the basis of learning to walk and to grasp. With regard to learning to talk it will be noticed at the very first how the firm or gentle tread of the child is expressed in the act of talking, in the accenting of the syllables, in the force of the speech. And it will be noticed further how the modulation of the words, how the forming of the words, has a certain parallel with the way the child learns to bend the fingers or to keep them straight, whether it is skillful or unskillful. But anyone who can then observe the entire inner nature of the human organization will be able to know—what even the present-day teaching of evolution concedes—that “right-handed” people not only have the speech-center in the left third convolution of the forehead, in the so-called Broca convolution, which represents in a quite simple physiological way the characteristic relation between speech and the ability to grasp, the entire ability to handle the arm and the hand, if I may make use of the pleonasm; but we know also how closely the movement of the vocal cords, the whole adjustment of the speech organism, takes on exactly the same character which the movements of walking and grasping assume. But in the normal development of the child, speech which, as you know, is developed in imitation of the environment, cannot develop at all unless the foundation is first laid in the quest of the state of equilibrium in life.

With regard to thinking: Even the more delicate organs of the brain, upon which thinking depends, are developed in turn from the speech organization. No one should suppose that in the normal development of the child thinking could be evolved before speech. Anyone who is able to observe the process will find that with the child speech is not at first an expression of “thinking”—not at all! It would be ridiculous to believe that. But, with the child, speech is an expression of feeling, of sensation, of the soul-life. Hence you will see that at first it is interjections, everything connected with feelings, which the child expresses by means of speech. And when the child says “Mama” or “Papa”, it expresses feelings toward Mama or Papa, not any sort of concept or thought. Thinking is first developed from speech. It is true that among human beings many a thing is disarranged, so that someone says, “This child learned to speak before it walked.” But that is not the normal development, and in the rearing of a child one should by all means see to it that the normal course of development is actually observed: walking—speaking—thinking.

However, the real character of these activities of the child is truly perceived only when we observe the other side of human life: that is to say, if we observe how in later life these activities are related to each other in sleep; for they arise out of sleep, as I have indicated, or at least out of the dreamlike sleep of the child. But what do these activities signify during the later earth life?

In general, it is not possible for the scientific life of the present day to enter into these things. It actually knows only the exterior of the human being; it knows nothing of the inner relationships of the human being with the Cosmic Being, in so far as the Cosmic Being is spiritual. In every realm human civilization, if I may use the expression—or let us say human culture—has been developed to a certain materialism, or naturalism. Do not think that I wish here to upbraid materialism: if materialism had not come into human civilization, human beings would not have become free. Materialism is therefore a necessary epoch in the evolution of humanity. But today we must be very clear as to the way we have to go now—as well as in the future. And we must be clear about this in every realm. In order that what I now have to say may be better illustrated, I should like to make it clear to you by means of an example.

You all know and can learn from my books that earth humanity, before it passed through those cultural epochs which are only partly similar to the present one—the ancient Indian, the ancient Persian, the Egypto-Chaldean, the Greco-Latin, and then our own—passed through the so-called Atlantean catastrophe. And during this Atlantean catastrophe the humanity which is now the European, Asiatic, and American civilized humanity lived chiefly on a continent where there is now sea—namely, the Atlantic Ocean. At that time this area was occupied mostly by land, and for a very long time, humanity had been developing upon this Atlantean continent. You can read in my books and cycles what humanity passed through during those epochs. I will not speak of other human experiences during the ancient Atlantean time, but only of musical experiences.

The entire musical experience of the ancient Atlantean would necessarily appear very curious, even grotesque, to a man of the present time, if he could hear it—which, of course, he cannot do. For what the ancient Atlanteans were in quest of in music was, for example, the chords of the seventh.

These chords of the seventh had the peculiarity of affecting the souls of these ancient people—in whose bodies we were all ensheathed, for in repeated earth lives we passed through that time also—in such a way that they were immediately transported out of their bodies when they lived in their music, this music which took into special consideration the chords of the seventh.

They knew no other frame of mind in music than a state of rapture, of enthusiasm, a state in which they were permeated by the God; and, when their extraordinarily simple instruments sounded—instruments intended only for accompaniment to singing—then such an Atlantean immediately felt himself to be actually weaving and living in the outer spiritual world.

Then came the Atlantean catastrophe. Among all post-Atlanteans there was next developed a preference for a sequence of fifths. You probably know that for a long time thereafter fifths played a most comprehensive role in musical development; for example, in ancient Greece, fifths played a quite extensive role. And this preference for a sequence of fifths had the peculiarity of affecting people in such a way that, when they experienced music, they now no longer felt drawn out of their bodies, to be sure, but they felt themselves to be soul and spirit within their bodies. During the musical experience they completely forgot physical experience; they felt that they were inside their skin, so to speak, but their skin was entirely filled with soul and spirit. That was the effect of the music, and very few people will believe that almost up to the tenth and eleventh Christian century the natural music was as I have described it. For not until then did the aptitude for thirds appear, the aptitude for the major and the minor third, and everything of the nature of major and minor. That came relatively late. But with this late development there was evolved at the same time the inner experience of music. Man now remained within himself in musical experience. Just as the rest of the culture at this time tended downward from the spiritual to the material, so in the musical sphere the tendency was downward, from the experience of the spiritual into which he passed in ancient times when he experienced music at all, to the experience of music within himself—no longer as far outward as to the skin, but entirely within himself. In this way there first appeared also at that time the major and minor moods, which are actually possible only when music is inwardly experienced.

Thus, it can be seen how in every domain man has descended from the spiritual into the material, but also into himself. Therefore, we should not always merely say, in a narrow-minded fashion, that the material is something of minor value, and we must escape from it. The human being would not have become truly human at all, if he had not descended and laid hold upon the material life. Precisely because he apprehended the spiritual in the material, did the human being become a self-conscious, independent Ego-Being. And today, with the help of Anthroposophical spiritual science, we must again find the way back into the spiritual world—in all realms we must find the way. This is the reason it is so painful that the artistic endeavor, made by means of the Goetheanum at Dornach, has been obliterated as is now the case. The way into the spiritual world must be sought in every realm.

Let us next consider one activity which the child learns—namely, speech—with regard to the entire evolution of the human being. It must really be said that what the child learns there is something magnificent. Jean Paul, the German poet, has said that in the first three years of life—that is, the years in which the essential things we learn are to walk, to speak and to think—the human being learns much more than in the three academic years. Meanwhile the “three” academic years have become many, but a man still learns no more in those three years than he learns as a child in the first three years of life.—Let us now consider speech. In speaking there is first the outer physical-physiological factor: that is, the larynx and the rest of our speech organs are set in motion. They move the air, which becomes the medium of tone. Here we have, in a way, the physical-physiological part. But in what we say there is soul also. And the soul permeates and gleams through all that we utter in the sounds. In as far as speech is something physical, man's physical body and his etheric body have a share in it. As a matter f course, these are silent from the time of going to sleep until the time of wakening. That is, the normal human being does not speak between going to sleep and waking; but in as much as the soul and the ego have a share in speech, they—the astral body and ego—take with them the soul power of speech, when they pass out of the physical and etheric bodies at the time of going to sleep—and they actually take with them everything of a soul nature which the person has put into his speech during the whole day. We are really different beings each evening, for we have been busy talking all day long—one more, another less, many all too much, many also too little—but, no matter, we have been occupied with talking throughout the day, and we have put our souls into what we have said. And what we have put into our speech, that we take with us into sleep, and it remains our being between sleeping and waking.

Now it may be that in our present materialistic age the human being no longer has any notion that idealism or spirituality may be expressed in the speech. People today usually have the idea that speech is intended to express only the external, the tangibly-objective. The feeling that ideals may be expressed in the speech has almost entirely disappeared. For this reason, it is also true that people today generally find so “unintelligible” what is said to them about “spirit”. For what do people say to themselves when spirit is mentioned? They admit that “words” are being used, but of these words people know only that they indicate what can be grasped or seen. The idea that words may also signify something else, something supersensible, invisible, people no longer like at all. That may be one way in which people regard speech; but the other may, of course, be that people shall find the way again to idealism even in words, even in language, knowing that a soul-spiritual experience may sound through each word, as it were.

What a person who lives entirely in the materialism of the language, so to speak, carries over in sleep into the spiritual world brings him, strangely enough, into a difficult relation with the world of the Archangels, the Archangeloi, into which he should enter each night between going to sleep and waking; while the one who preserves for himself the idealism of speech, and who knows how the genius of the language lives in it, comes into the necessary relation to the Hierarchy of the Archangeloi, especially to that Archangel to whom he himself belongs in the world between sleeping and waking. Indeed, this is expressed even in outer world phenomena. Why do people today seek so frantically for an outer relation to the national languages? Why did this frightful misfortune come upon Europe, which Woodrow Wilson has considered good fortune?—but he was a curious illusionist.—Why then did this great misfortune come upon Europe, that freedom is bound up with the convulsive desire to make use of the national languages, even of the smallest nations? Because in reality the people are frantically seeking externally a relationship which they no longer have in spirit: for in going to sleep they no longer have the natural relation to the language—and also, therefore, not to the Hierarchy of the Archangeloi! And humanity will have to find the way back again to the permeation of all that pertains to language with idealism, if they do not wish to lose the way into the spiritual world.

How does humanity today regard what takes place for the individual human being between going to sleep and waking? People do not take account of this sleep condition at all. If we recollect our past life, we seem to have before us a complete life picture. That is not the case; the time spent in sleep has regularly dropped out; the whole picture is continuously interrupted. We always connect the morning with the previous evening, but between them is the night. And what has occurred during sleep in the night constitutes outwardly, in the first place, at least a third of the human life (at all events, among “respectable” people it is so); and, secondly, it is much more important for the inner man than the outer activity during the whole day. To be sure, the outer activity is more important for external civilization; but our inner development during life is brought about by our coming into relation with the spiritual world in the right way while we sleep during the night.

And the same is true regarding what forms the basis of the other activities; that is to say, if the human being in his actions—that is, what he does throughout the entire realm of the movements which he first learns upon entrance into the earth life—if he puts idealism into the whole realm of his actions, that is, if his life contains idealism in its realization, then the human being finds again the right relation with the Hierarchy of the Archai. And if the thoughts contain idealism, if they are not materialistic, the human being finds during sleep the relation with the Hierarchy of the Angels. This is what we discover if, with the help of Anthroposophical spiritual science, we inquire into the relation to the sleep state of these three activities acquired during childhood.

But this relation may be revealed in a much more comprehensive degree, if we observe the entire life of the human being in the cosmos. You are acquainted with the description in my book Theosophy. When the human being passes through the gate of death, he first experiences for some days the condition which consists in the dissipation of the thoughts, of the concepts. We may express it by saying that the etheric body expands into the distances of the cosmos, the human being “loses” his etheric body. But that is the same as if I say that man's concepts and thoughts are dissipated. But what does that actually mean: that the concepts and thoughts are dissipated? It really means very much. It means, namely, that our entire waking life departs from us. Our entire waking life departs from us in the course of two or three days, and nothing at all would be left of our life, if we did not then live through that of which we remain unconscious during the earth life; that is, if we did not then begin to live through in full consciousness what we have experienced during our sleep life. This sleep life is spiritually infinitely richer, more intense, than the waking life. Whether the sleep be short or long, the sleep-life is each time a reversed repetition of the day life, but with a spiritual impulse: What you have accomplished as actions during the day brings you at night into a relation to the Archai, to the Primal Powers; what you have said in the daytime brings you at night into a relation to the Archangeloi, the Archangels; and your thinking brings you in the same way into a relation to your Angel-being, to the Angeloi.

And what man experiences during sleep is independent of time. It is unnecessary to say: “Very well, but the following is possible: At night I go to sleep; something makes a noise; something awakens me; in this case I certainly cannot complete my going back over the day in retrospect.” Even so it is completed, because the time relations are entirely different; that can be experienced in a moment which otherwise might continue for hours if the sleep were undisturbed. During sleep the time relations are quite different from those of the day. Therefore, it can be stated positively, and must so be stated, that each time a person sleeps he once again experiences in retrospect what he has lived through here in the physical world since the last waking, but this time in spiritual manner and substance. And when the waking life of concepts is dissipated into the cosmos, a few days after death, then the human being lives through the very experiences which he had during the third of life spent in sleep. I have, therefore, always had to describe how man requires a third of his earth-life in order then to live through what he has experienced during the nights of his life. Naturally, it is essentially like the day life, but it is experienced in a different way. And at that time, as the second condition after death, he lives through this retrogression, when he actually experiences once again, in a third of the time, the entire life back to birth. Then when he has again arrived at his birth, he enters into that condition which I have already described to you here in another connection; that is, he enters into that condition in which every conception of the world is essentially altered for him.

You see, here on earth we are in a definite place; the world is around us. We know ourselves very little, indeed, with the ordinary consciousness. The world we observe with the outer senses; that we know. Perhaps, you will say that the anatomists know the inner part of the human being very well. Not at all; they know only the outer aspect of the inner being. The real inner part is something entirely different.—If you call to mind today something which you experienced ten years ago, then you have in the memory something which is in your soul, do you not? It is condensed, a brief remembrance of, perhaps, a very, very extended experience. But it is merely a soul picture of something which you have passed through in the earth life. But now enter into yourself—not now into your memories, but into your physical organism, that is, the apparently physical organism—and observe the wonderful construction of your brain, of your lungs, and so forth. Within you there, rolled up as it were, are—not the experiences of this earth life, but rolled together there is the whole cosmos, the entire universe. Man is really a small universe, a microcosmos. In his organs the whole universe is rolled together. But the human being does not know this with the ordinary consciousness. When he is on earth, he has the memory of his experiences. He does not know that he himself in his physical nature is, as it were, the embodied memory of the whole cosmos.—When, therefore, the backward journey through the life, which I have just indicated, has been completed, then, between death and a new birth, we enter into a cosmic life, where we are not, as now, surrounded by the world with its mountains, clouds, stars, seas, and so on, but where our environment consists of the riddles of the inner human being, where everything concerning the mysteries of the inner human being of which we are deprived in the earth life, now constitutes our environment. Here on the earth, as you know, we live within our skin, and we know about the stars, clouds, mountains, rocks, animals, and plants. Between death and a new birth we know about the human being. All the mysteries of the human being are our environment. And do not suppose that it is a less interesting environment than that of the earth! To be sure, the starry heavens are magnificent, the mountains and the seas are grand; but what the inner being of man contains in a single small vessel is grander and mightier than our earth environment, when between death and a new birth we are surrounded by it in its majestic greatness. The human being is the world between death and a new birth, and he must be the world, because we prepare the next earth life. Together with the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies, we must help to prepare the future earth man. As we here are occupied with our outer culture and civilization, as here on earth we make boots or coats, use the telephone, do people's hair, give lectures, do something artistic, or whatever belongs to our present civilization, so, between death and a new birth, together with the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies, we prepare what the human being is, and what we ourselves shall again be in the physical body in the next earth life.

That is the goal of spiritual culture, and it is grander, infinitely grander and more magnificent than the goal of earthly civilization. Not without reason have the ancients called the physical human body a “Temple of the Gods”, because together with the Gods, with the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies, this human physical body is formed between death and a new birth. That is what we do, that is where we are with our ego—among the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies, working on humanity, together with the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies. We move about, as it were, among the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies; we are spirits among spirits.

What we do there we can, of course, do only according to what we have accomplished here in the earth life; and that also is revealed to us in a certain sense in the relation of sleep to waking. Just think how chaotic the dream is! I do not undervalue the wonderfully varied multiplicity and the grandeur of the dream; but we must nevertheless recognize that the dream, compared with the earth life, in whose images it is clothed, is chaotic. You need only to recall that dream which I have mentioned before as an illustration (Volkelt told this dream, according to a report from Württemberg, but we know of such, do we not?). A city lady visited her sister, who was the wife of a country parson, and she dreamed that she went with her sister to church to hear a sermon; but everything was quite peculiar; for, after the Gospel was read and the pastor went up to the pulpit, he did not begin to preach, but instead of raising his arms, he lifted wings, and finally began to .crow like a cock! Or recall another dream in which a lady said she had just dreamed of considering what good thing she should cook for her husband, and nothing at all occurred to her until finally the thought came to her that she still had an old pickled grandmother upstairs in the attic, but she would be very tough yet.—You see a dream can be as chaotic as that—strangely chaotic. But just what does it mean that the dream acts so chaotically? What does it really mean?

While we sleep, we are, with our ego and astral body, outside of our physical and etheric bodies. And during that time we experience again in reverse order—especially with regard to the moral significance—all that we have done, have said and have thought during the day. We live through that in reverse order. We are preparing for ourselves our karma for the next earth life, and this appears in pictures already in the time between going to sleep and waking. But these pictures are still very bungling; for when, upon waking, we are again about to enter into the physical body, the picture does not yet fit in properly: that is, we are not able to conceive things in conformity with the macrocosm; instead we conceive something entirely different, perhaps a “pickled grandmother”. That is because, with regard to what we have already formed in our sleep, we do not understand the adaptation to the human physical body. This adaptation to the human physical body is exceedingly difficult; and we acquire it in that working together, which I have described, with the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies between death and a new birth. There the soul-spiritual self must first readjust what otherwise in the dream so often enters so awkwardly, when the sleep consciousness is again fully overcome, and the person without his own cooperation has plunged again into his old physical body. This soul-spiritual self, between death and a new birth, must penetrate all the mysteries of the physical body, in order that the body may be built up in the right way. For the body is really not formed by the parents and grandparents alone. To believe that is one of the perfect follies of science. (We are justified in making such a statement!) For how does science approximately set forth this human development? Well, it says that as the basis of material substance we have molecules, which are built up in a complicated way from atoms. The albumen molecule, which is contained in the embryo-cell, is the most complicated of all, and because it is so complicated (naturally no scientist can describe it, but he points to its exceeding complexity) because it is so complicated, a human being can originate from it. That is the simplest sort of explanation of the human being! It is simply asserted that the entire human being is already contained in the molecule; it is merely a very complicated molecule.—The truth is, however, that the albumen molecule must completely revert to chaos, must become dust of disorganized matter, if a human being is to originate from it. We have in the outer world organized matter in crystals, in plants, and so on: if anything is to originate, even a plant, or an animal, then the matter must first completely return to dust. And only when it no longer has a definite form does the entire cosmos work upon the tiny bit of stuff, making in it an image of itself. How is it, then, with the human being? Between death and a new birth, we form this human image, with all its mysteries, into which we weave our karma, and we send this image down before us into the body of the mother. So we have first formed the spirit germ—only, this is very large in comparison with the physical germ—and this descends into the matter which has become chaotic. That is the truth—not what the present-day physiology dreams.

In this time of which I have been speaking, the Ego lives as a soul-spiritual being among soul-spiritual Divine Beings, actively occupied with learning to know completely the inner human being as such for the next earth life. Of that which is then spiritually experienced in tremendous majesty and grandeur, an image marvelously appears in the child in the individual actions in attaining equilibrium. It is very interesting to see how the Primal Powers, or Archai, work over from the life between death and a new birth into the whole effort of the child to attain balance or, as we trivially say, to learn to walk. Anyone who can see in everything earthly an image of the spiritual can see in all the practice in walking, in the use of the hands, and so on, an image of those soul-spiritual deeds which we performed between death and a new birth in seeking spiritual equilibrium as an ego among higher egos.

And, when we have completed those conditions in which we are a spirit among spirits, in which we prepare what is to be manifested in our earth life in the body, in the members, through which we again become a human being of such and such a nature, and experience our karma—when we have passed through these conditions yonder in the world between death and a new birth, then a condition appears in the pre-earthly life in which we can no longer distinguish the individual spiritual Beings with whom we have worked for so long, but in which there is only a general perception of the spirit. We know then, to be sure, that we live in a spiritual world; but, because we are now already approaching the earth life, the impression which the spiritual world makes upon us becomes one of greater uniformity, and is no longer a perception of the particular, individual spiritual Beings.

I can express myself by means of a trivial comparison, in order that we may be able to understand one another, but please be very clear about this, namely, that in doing so I refer, nevertheless, to something very exalted. If a little cloud appears somewhere in the distance, you say that it is a little cloud; but when you approach it, you become aware that it is a swarm of gnats. Then you are distinguishing the separate individuals. Well, in the spiritual world between death and a new birth, it is reversed: there you distinguish at first the single individualities of the spiritual Beings; then the impression becomes a general one. What I mean is that the manifestation of the spiritual replaces experience of the spiritual.

Indeed, this condition, which separates us, as it were, from the spiritual world, because we are already seeking the way down to earth again—this condition is reflected now in the inner something within us which forms the basis of human speech. Suppose we speak. It begins with the larynx (that is not exact, but approximate), and the other organs of speech are set in motion. But behind this there lies that which is essential. What is essential lies in the heart, behind the larynx; it lies in the breathing process and everything connected with it. Just as learning to walk, seeking equilibrium, is an earthly image of our movements in the spiritual world, so that which underlies speech is likewise an earthly image of the condition of manifestation in which we perceive the divine-spiritual Beings only as a blurred mass. So the child experiences again when it learns to walk a condition which it has gone through between death and a new birth.

And when we have sent down the spiritual germ of our physical body, when through conception it has gradually become united with the body of the mother, then we are still above. At the end of the time before earthly embodiment, we draw together our etheric body out of all the regions of the universe. And that action, which takes place in the supersensible world in attracting the etheric body, finds expression in the child's learning to think.

Now you have the three successive conditions: experience in the spiritual world in learning to walk; manifestation of the spiritual world in learning to speak. (For this reason, that which as Cosmic Word underlies speech we call the Cosmic Logos, the inner Word. It is the manifestation of the universal Logos, in which the spiritual expresses itself, as do the gnats in the swarm of gnats; it underlies speech.) And then what we do in the forming of our etheric body, which actually thinks in us—we think the whole night through, only we are not present with our ego and astral body—that is the last part which we gather together for ourselves before we descend to earth, and that activity is what extends over into the thinking. Thus, in learning to walk, to speak, and to think, the baby organizes into the physical body what it brings down from the pre-earthly existence.

This is what leads to real spiritual knowledge and also at the same time to the artistic and the religious comprehension of the world; namely, that we are able to relate each single occurrence in the physical sense existence to the spiritual world. Those people who would always like to speak of the divine-spiritual only “in general” I have often likened to a man who should go out into a meadow, and to whom should be pointed out daisies, dandelions, wild chicory, whereupon he would say: “All that does not interest me; they are all just flowers!” That is easy, to say they are all just flowers. But something in the flower-being is differentiated there. And so it is also in the spiritual world. Naturally, it is easy to say that something spiritual underlies everything of a sense-physical nature. But the point is that we should know more and more what spiritual something lies at the foundation of the various sense-physical phenomena; for only in this way can we from the spirit actually lay hold again upon the sense-physical course of life.

By means of this principle, for example, our Waldorf School pedagogy becomes a unique pedagogy, which actually considers the human being. This will appear even more clearly when once this pedagogy shall be developed for the child's first years. As there it would be adapted to learning to walk, to speak, and to think, and the further evolution of these faculties, so we now naturally adapt the method to the years following the sixth and seventh, in such a way that we consider questions such as these: What embodies itself in the child at this moment? What comes to expression in the child's life, with each week, with each month, of that which existed before birth? Thus the pedagogy is really developed from the spirit.

That is one of the impulses of which we must rediscover many, if humanity does not wish to remain in the downward course, but intends to begin to ascend. We must find the way again into the spiritual world; but we shall be able to do this only when we learn quite consciously to find ways and means to act and to speak from the spirit.

In the time immediately following the Atlantean catastrophe, human beings lived from the spirit—that is, each individual—because each could be told on the basis of the point of time at which he was born, what his karma was. At that time astrology did not signify that dilettantism which it often represents today, but it signified livingly experiencing the deeds of the stars with them. And as a result of this living experience, it was revealed from the Mystery Temple to each individual human being how he had to live. Astrology had a vital significance for the individual human experience. Then came the time, about the 6th, 5th and 4th pre-Christian centuries, in which people no longer experienced the mysteries of the starry heavens, but in which they experienced the course of the year. What do I mean by it when I say that human beings experienced the “course of the year”? It means that they knew from direct perception that the earth is not the coarse clod which present day geology contemplates. Upon such an earth as geology represents, plants could never grow, to say nothing of the appearance of animals and human beings. There could be none of these, because the earth of the geologists is a rock; and something will grow directly on a rock only if the entire cosmos works upon it, only if it is united with the whole universe. What man must learn again today was known even in ancient times, namely, that the earth is an organism and has a soul.

It is true that this earth-soul also has its special destiny. Suppose it is winter here with us, Christmas time, the time of the winter solstice—that is the time when the earth soul is fully united with the earth. For, when the cover of snow is over the earth, when, as it were, a mantle of cold surrounds the earth, then the earth-soul is united with the earth, rests within it. It is also true then that the earth-soul, resting within the earth, sustains the life of a multitude of elemental spirits. When today a naturalistic view believes that the seeds which I plant in the earth in the autumn merely lie there until the following spring, that is not true; the seeds must be protected throughout the winter by the elemental spirits of the earth. This is all connected with the fact that during the winter time the earth-soul is united with the earth-body.

Now let us take the opposite season, that is, midsummer, St. John's season. Exactly as the human being inhales the air and exhales it, so that at one time it is within him and at another time outside of him, so the earth breathes in her soul—that is during the winter; and at the height of summer, St. John's season, the earth-soul is entirely breathed out, sent out into the far reaches of the cosmos. At that time the earth-body is, as it were, “empty” of the earth-soul. The earth in her soul lives with the events of the cosmos, the course of the stars, and so on. Therefore, in ancient times there were the winter-mysteries, in which man experienced the union of the earth-soul with the earth; and then there were the summer-mysteries, in which man was able to perceive the mysteries of the universe, from the experience which the earth-soul shared with the stars, for it was granted to the human souls of initiates to follow the earth-soul out into the cosmic spaces.

That people had a consciousness of these things you can learn even from the fragments of ancient tradition which are still extant.—It is now a long while ago, but I often sat—right here in Berlin—with an astronomer, who was very famous here, and who started a fearful agitation about the Easter Festival, saying that it was very disturbing when the Easter Festival, let us say for example, did not fall each year at least on the first Sunday in April, and it was awful that it should be on the first Sunday after the spring full moon. Naturally, it helped not at all to give reasons against his argument, for the fact which lay at the root of the matter was the fear that a dreadful confusion was caused in the debit and credit columns of the ledger, if Easter falls at a different time each year! This movement had already assumed rather large dimensions. (I once mentioned the fact here that on the first page of the ledger there usually stand the words, “With God”, but generally what is in these books is not exactly “with God”.) In those times when the Easter Festival was established according to the course of stars—when the first Sunday after the spring full moon was dedicated to the sun,—in those times a consciousness still existed that in the winter season the earth-soul is in the earth; that at St. John's season the earth-soul is wholly outside in cosmic spaces, and in the spring it is on the way to cosmic spaces. Therefore, the spring festival, the Easter Festival, cannot be established only with reference to the earth, on a definite day, but must be regulated according to the constellations of the stars. There is a deep wisdom in this, which comes from the times when, as a result of the ancient instinctive clairvoyance, human beings were still able to perceive the spiritual reality in the course of the year. We must attain to this again, and we can attain to it again in a certain sense if we lay hold upon the tasks of the present in connection with just such explanations as we have carried on together here.

I have already often said here that, of the spiritual Beings with whom man is united each night, in the way I have told you—for instance, through speech with the Archangels—certain Beings are the ruling spiritual powers throughout a certain period of time. In the last third of the 19th century the Michael-time began, that time in which the Spirit who in the records is usually designated Michael, became the determinative Spirit in the affairs of human civilization. These things are repeated in cycles. In ancient times men knew something of all these spiritual processes. The ancient Hebrew age spoke of Jahve, but it spoke always of the “countenance of Jahve”, and by the countenance was meant the Archangels who actually mediated between Jahve and the earth. And when the Jews expected the Messiah on earth, they knew that it was the time of Michael; that Michael was the agent of Christ's activity on earth. They misunderstood, however, the deeper significance of that fact. Now, since the '70's of the 19th century, the time has come again for the earth when the Michael Power is the ruling spiritual power in the world, and the time has come when we must understand how to bring spirituality into our actions, to arrange our life from the spirit. That means to “serve Michael”—not to order our life merely from the material point of view, but to be conscious that he who has the overcoming of the low Ahrimanic Powers as his mission—that is, Michael—must become our Genius, so to speak, for the evolution of civilization. How can he become that?

Well, he can become our guiding spirit if we call to mind how we can again make connections with the course of the year in the spiritual sense. There is actually great wisdom in the entire cosmic course in the fact that we may unite with the spring festival the festival of the resurrection of Christ Jesus. The historical connection—I have often explained it—is a completely right one: The only possibility is for the spring festival—that is, the Easter Festival—to occur on a different day each year, precisely because it is viewed from the other world. Only we upon the earth have the narrow-minded conception that “time” runs along evenly, that one hour is always as long as another. We determine time by means of our earthly expedient, mathematics; whereas, for the actual spiritual world, the cosmic hour is something living. There one cosmic hour is not equal to another but is longer or shorter. Therefore, it is always possible to err if we establish from the earthly point of view something which should be fixed according to the heavens. The Easter Festival has been established rightly in accordance with the heavens.

What kind of a festival is it? It is that festival which is intended to remind us, and which once reminded humanity with the greatest vividness, that a God descended to earth, took up his abode in the man, Jesus of Nazareth, in order that, at the time when human beings were approaching the development of the ego, they would be able in a suitable manner to find the way back through death into the spiritual life. I have often explained this here. The Easter Festival is, therefore, that festival in which man sees in the Mystery of Golgotha death and immortality following it. We look upon this spring festival in the right sense when we say to ourselves: Christ has affirmed the immortality of man in that He Himself has conquered death; but we human beings only rightly understand the immortality of Christ Jesus if we appropriate this understanding during the earth life; that is, if in our souls we vitalize our relation to the Mystery of Golgotha, and if we are able to free ourselves from that materialistic concept which would dissociate from the Mystery of Golgotha all spiritual significance. Today people no longer wish to acknowledge “Christ” at all, but merely “the humble man of Nazareth, Jesus.” A man would feel embarrassed, as it were, in the presence of his own scientific instincts, if he were to grant that the Mystery of Golgotha involves a spiritual mystery in the middle of earth existence—namely, the death and resurrection of the God.

When we experience that fact spiritually, we prepare ourselves to have spiritual experience of other things also. This is the reason it is so important for the human being of the present time to attain the possibility of experiencing, at the outset, the Mystery of Golgotha as something purely spiritual. Then he will experience other spiritual facts, and he will find the approach, the way, to the spiritual worlds through the Mystery of Golgotha. But then, beginning with the Mystery of Golgotha, the human being must understand the Resurrection while he still lives; and, if he feelingly understands the Resurrection while he lives, he will thereby be enabled to pass through death in the right way. In other words, Death and Resurrection in the Mystery of Golgotha should teach the human being to reverse the condition; that is, during life to experience Resurrection within the soul, in order that, after this inner soul resurrection, he may pass through death in the right way. That experience is the opposite of the Easter experience. At the Easter season we should be able to immerse ourselves in the Death and Resurrection of the Christ. As human beings, however, we need also to be able to immerse ourselves in what is for us resurrection of the soul, in order that the resurrected soul of man may pass rightly through death. As we in the spring acquire the true Easter mood when we see how the plants then germinate and sprout, how nature is resurrected, how nature overcomes the death of winter, so we shall be able, when we have experienced summer in the right way, to acquire a feeling of certainty that the soul has then ascended into cosmic spaces. We are then approaching the autumn, September is coming, the autumnal equinox; the leaves which in the spring became budding and green, now become brownish, yellowish, and drop off; the trees stand there already partly denuded, nature is dying. But we understand this slowly dying nature if we look deeply into the process of decay, into the approach of the snowy covering of the earth and say to ourselves: There the earth-soul is returning again to the earth, and it will be entirely within the earth when the winter solstice shall have come.

It is possible to feel this autumn-time with the same intensity as the spring-time. And if we feel in spring, at Easter-time, the Death and Resurrection of the God, then we shall be able to feel in the autumn the resurrection and death of the human soul; that is, the experience of resurrection during the earth-life in order to pass through death in the right way. Then, however, we must understand also what it signifies for us, for our present time, that the earth-soul is breathed out into the cosmic spaces during St. John's season, in the summer, is there united with the stars, and comes back again. He who has insight into the mystery of this succession of the seasons in the course of the year knows that the Michael-force, which in former centuries did not come down to earth, now comes down through the nature forces! So that we are able to meet the autumn with its falling leaves, when we perceive the Michael-force coming down from the clouds to the earth. Indeed, the name “Michael” is to be found in the calendars on this date, and Michaelmas is a festival day among the peasants; but we shall feel the present time spiritually, in such a way that earthly human events are for us closely connected with the events of nature, only when we again become capable of understanding the year's progression to such an extent that we shall be able to establish in the course of the year the annual festivals, as people of old established them from their ancient dream-like clairvoyance. The ancients understood the year, and on the basis of the mysteries which I have been able only to indicate today, they established Christmas, Easter and the St. John's Festival. At Christmas people give one another gifts, and do some other things also; but I have often explained, when I have given Christmas and Easter lectures here, how little remains with humanity today of these ancient institutions, how everything has become traditional and external. If we shall come to understand again the festivals, which today we merely celebrate but do not understand, then, from the spiritual knowledge of the course of the year, we shall also have the power to establish a festival which will have true significance only for the humanity of the present time: that will be the Michael Festival at the end of September, when autumn approaches, the leaves become withered, the trees become bare, nature moves toward decay—just as it moves toward the sprouting of the Easter season. We shall have the power to establish such a festival, if in decaying nature we perceive how then the earth-soul unites itself with the earth, and how the earth-soul brings Michael with it from the clouds! If we have the force to create from the spirit such a festival as shall again bring into our social life a community of interest, then we shall have done it from the spirit; for then we shall have originated something among us of which the spirit is the source. It would be more important than all the rest of social reflection and the like—which, in the present confused conditions, can only lead to something if the spirit is in them—if, to begin with, a number of intelligent persons were to unite in order to establish again upon earth something from the cosmos: that is, to originate something like a Festival of Michael, which would be worthy of the Easter Festival, but as an autumn festival would be the counterpart of the Easter Festival! If people were able to decide upon something the motive for which lies only in the spiritual world, but which in such a festival would again bring among men a feeling of common interest, something which would be created in the immediate present, out of the full, joyous human heart, that would result in something which would socially unite people again.

For in ancient times the festivals made strong bonds between human beings. Just consider what, has been done, and what has been said and thought on behalf of the festivals and at the festivals for the whole civilization!

That is what has been gradually interwoven into the physical world through the fixing of festivals directly out of the spirit. If people of today could decide in a worthy manner to establish a Michael Festival at the end of September, it would be a deed of the greatest significance. For this purpose, people would have to have courage, not merely to dispute about outer social organizations and the like, but to do something which will unite the earth with the heavens, which will again connect physical conditions with spiritual conditions. Then, because by this means the spirit would again be brought into earthly affairs, something would actually happen among men which would be a mighty impulse for the extension of our civilization and of our whole life. There is naturally no time to set forth in detail all that this would mean for scientific, religious and artistic experience, but such a new festival, created from the spirit, in grand style, would affect these realms just as did the ancient festivals. And how much more important would be such a creation from the spiritual world, than all that is developed today in social tirades. For what would be the significance of such a creation? Oh, it signifies much for the deep observation of the human soul, if I see what a man intends, or if I understand his words rightly. If we today are able to learn from observation how the whole cosmic course operates when autumn approaches, if we can unriddle, can decipher, the entire physiognomy of the universe, and out of our knowledge can act creatively, then we shall disclose not only the willing of human beings in the creation of such a festival, but we shall disclose the willing of Spiritual Beings, of Gods!

The object of my remarks today on Spiritual Science, or Anthroposophy, is no more intended to be what is ordinarily meant by the word “propaganda,” than it was the object of my lecture delivered in this same place in January of the present year. Then as now, it was my desire to answer certain questions which must arise in this particular locality where the Dornach building, devoted to the service of this Spiritual Science, stands directly before our eyes.

Outsiders whose attention is drawn to the anthroposophical movement might quite properly inquire whether there is any reason, in the spiritual life of the present day, why such a movement is necessary. And it is easy to understand why such outsiders come to a negative conclusion at the outset. They may believe that a few people, with little to do in their daily lives, gather together in order to occupy themselves with all sorts of things which are of no use in real life, and which are no concern of those who are obliged to spend their time in hard work for the service of mankind. Yet this opinion can only be held by whose who have failed to acquaint themselves thoroughly with the conditions of human progress in the course of the last three or four centuries, and especially during the nineteenth century right up to our present day. Just cast an eye over all the changes which have taken place in human life during this period in comparison with the requirements of earlier times. New discoveries have been made relating to the operation of natural forces, and these discoveries have brought about a fundamental change in human existence and in the conditions of daily life. How different is the environment in which we find ourselves placed today when compared to that of a not very distant past! If we envisage human life today, from infancy to old age, we obtain a very different picture from the one presented by that vanished era. Such a survey would show us the life environment in which the individual finds himself, and how the work, for which preparation has been made during childhood and youth, has to be carried out. It would show further the individual awaking to the need of knowing something about the meaning and essential significance of life. He cannot be content with what he sees through his senses or what he must acquire by his own handiwork. In the course of life, attention is drawn to the voice of the in-dwelling soul, and the individual is led to ask: what sense has this soul life within the outer physical world? A perfectly justifiable answer can be made, viz: that the world really satisfies all human queries which may arise. Besides outer experiences, in connection with daily tasks and daily life, it brings to the individual the element of religious life. In this way the eternal meaning is disclosed of what occurs in the human being's physical surroundings, and thus the door which seems to close upon physical life is transformed for him into the portal to the everlasting and immortal life of the soul.

This answer is perfectly correct, generally speaking. Accordingly it seems quite reasonable to ask why something further should be required which will, in the form of Spiritual Science or Anthroposophy, force its way between outer life in the physical world and religious revelation, religious annunciations concerning the eternal being of man.

Yet anyone who is satisfied with the general terms of this quite correct opinion concerning contemporary human life, fails to take into account that recent centuries, and more especially our modern era, have given a particular form to this life which compels us today to regard all questions affecting life in a way which must extend beyond the limits of generalities. Just consider the education and schooling of today, how after passing through them we adopt viewpoints and receive impressions which are quite different from those of earlier times, inasmuch as they are based upon the great advances made during the recent centuries and the immediate present. It is of the essence of the historical progress of mankind that conditions of life should change completely during definite periods of time, and that not until after such change has reached a certain stage does the human being attain the ability to adjust individual soul life to the change. Consequently it is not until the present time that the human soul is beset with questions which are the outcome of changes in the conditions of human life which have taken place during the past three or four centuries. Only today are those questions taking on tangible form. Prime evidence of this fact is to be found in the belief held by many individuals during the 19th century and which has been unveiled and shown to be erroneous only in our own age.

Spiritual Science certainly does not underestimate the great progress made by natural science; it tenders it complete and admiring recognition; but doubts its claims. Only a little while ago it was possible to hold the belief that natural science would be able to solve the great riddles of human existence by the means at its disposal. But anyone possessed of intensified powers of soul, and familiarizing himself with the more recent accomplishments in the way of scientific achievement, becomes increasingly aware that, so far as the ultimate problems of human existence are concerned, science is not bringing us answers but on the contrary a perpetual series of new questions. Human life is enriched by the possibility of asking such questions today; in the domain of natural science they remain just questions. People who lived during the 19th century, even the men of learning, took far too little account of this. They believed they were obtaining answers to certain riddles, whereas in reality it was necessary to put the questions in a new way. Such questions have now been instilled into us, so to speak. They are present in the soul as soon as the individual has to face the facts of life, and they demand an answer.

Now the individuals who unite to form the Anthroposophical Society are in a certain sense those who are conscious of the riddles presented by life in the natural course of events, riddles not arbitrarily presented but which are, of necessity, presented by the life in which the human being finds himself enmeshed at the present time. These questions become especially evident in connection with modern science, yet do not exclusively concern those who occupy themselves seriously with science, but they affect everyone who takes an all-round interest in modern life. If it were impossible to obtain answers to these questions, certain consequences must inevitably ensue in human existence which would permit a sad light to be cast on the future. Anyone today speaking about these consequences may appear to be a visionary. But he will only seem so to those who allow themselves to be dazzled by the greatness of human progress, and who do not comprehend that this progress must be followed by progress in another realm, if the preparation of certain events below the surface, is to be prevented.

We might of course imagine that we could make ourselves insensitive to the riddle-questions referred to, turn a deaf ear to them and avoid asking them. But if we did so we would paralyze certain of our spiritual energies which require the very conditions presented by modern times for their development. Human soul life would then reach a condition comparable to that of having hands and feet but without being able to use them because they are fettered. Powers which we possess but cannot utilize have a very paralyzing effect on us. And the continual spread of this feeling of partial paralysis of certain soul forces would gradually bring about a state of indifference, nay even apathy toward religious emotion. Nor would it stop there. A state of indifference toward the concerns of the soul is only tolerable as long as human interest is strongly attracted by the other factor which obscures the concerns of the soul. But this interest also ceases after a while. It might persist in the case of individuals who were being directly impressed by the astonishing achievements of science; but it would be extinguished eventually. And then, save in the case of those directly impressed, apathy regarding external life would follow upon indifference to the concerns of the soul and be its further consequence. Joy in life and joy in work would be clouded. Life would be felt a burden.

The precursors of indifference to religious life were plainly perceptible during the 19th century. I will not cite as an illustration anything taken from the contributions made by the numerous scholars who believed themselves capable of answering spiritual questions from the standpoint of science. I am going to speak about a simple son of the soil caught in the toils of this belief. The man I refer to was a peasant who lived a martyr's existence in the upper Austrian Alps during the 19th century. Konrad Deubler was his name. Deubler was enthralled by the successful achievements of science during the 19th century. During his youth he devoted himself for awhile to the spiritual ideas advanced by Zschokke. But acquaintance with Darwinism as well as with the writings of Haeckel, Buechner and others weaned him away. He allowed himself to be captivated by the materialism of Darwin, to be completely carried away by the teachings of Haeckel, and finally came to believe that it was pure folly to imagine that any other sources save scientific ones could be relied upon for information concerning any sort of spiritual world. He believed that the world was fashioned from purely material substance and energy. For Deubler as an individual we can well feel admiration. He became a veritable martyr to his convictions, for he spent much time in prison on account of them between 1850 and 1860, an era when such things were still possible. Deubler was certainly a man whose views were not the product of any superficial attitude, but one who in consequence of being completely led astray by the currents of his century came to reject all spiritual sources of knowledge. True, he enjoyed life up to the hour of his death; but this was due to his living during the age in which it was still possible to be dazzled by the splendor of purely scientific achievements. Only those who lived later, could manifest in their souls the results of such ideas as he conceived them. In Deubler we have a famous example of a certain type of soul, characteristic of our modern age. Many such examples might be cited. They would go to prove that many people of today believe that natural science could give a comprehensive explanation of the meaning of the world. It will not be possible to arrest the advance of scientific knowledge, nor do we wish to hold it back, for its life consists in the conquests needed by modern man, in all the useful things which he must introduce into his existence. But if the human mind is directed one-sidedly toward natural science, contact with spiritual life, and with the individual, in-dwelling soul, is lost. People like Deubler did not see through the whole process, did not see how science gives birth to new questions for the living soul, but not to new answers. His mental attitude would have to be adopted more generally, if in addition to natural science, a fully qualified Spiritual Science were to come into being.

There are those therefore who have become united within the Anthroposophical Society, inspired by the belief that in modern Spiritual Science, or Anthroposophy, a bond should be created between life, as it has advanced, in the light of natural science, and the life of religion. If the meaning of natural science is correctly fathomed it may be said that such science leads to a picture of the world in which the essential being of man finds no place. In making this statement I am not just voicing my personal opinion, but expressing something which unprejudiced observation of scientific research can discern very clearly, and concerning which, deception is only possible in an age which accords scientific achievements the admiration, which is their just due, is yet unable to recognize their limitations. Individual investigators have long been aware of the existence of certain limitations. So the address made by du Bois-Reymond at Leipsic about 1870 has become famous. It closed with “Ignorabimus”: — No matter how closely nature's secrets are explored by the scientific method, it is never possible to discover what it is that inhabits the human soul in the form of consciousness; nay more, we cannot even find a way of comprehending what underlies matter. Natural science is incapable of understanding matter and consciousness, the two poles so to speak of human life. It may be said that natural science has in a sense driven human beings, so far as they are spiritual entities, out of the cosmos upon which it is working. This becomes apparent on investigating the ideas concerning the evolution of the earth planet, which have grown up on scientific soil.

I am quite aware that these ideas have undergone considerable change up to the present day, and that many people might label the points to which I am referring as out of date. But that is not the subject under consideration. The things which are being said today in this connection are a result of the same spirit which produced the already antiquated concept of Kant-Laplace, about which I am going to speak. According to that concept the earth and the whole solar system were fashioned out of a sort of primeval nebula, which contained nothing but forces belonging to a misty form. The rotation of this nebula is supposed gradually to have fashioned the planetary system and within this system the earth, so that through the continuous evolution of the forces originally contained in this nebula, all the things upon the earth which we admire, came into being, man included. This view is considered highly illuminating, and it is taught to our school children. People delude themselves into finding it illuminating, for one has only to perform a simple experiment for the children in order to believe that the process has been entirely elucidated. And visual elucidation is much admired by many who desire to find an adequate concept of the world in natural science. It is only necessary to take a drop of some substance that floats on water, pass a tiny strip of cardboard through the equatorial plane of this substance and stick a pin in the cardboard perpendicular to the equatorial plane. This floating drop on the surface of some water is then revolved by means of a pin. And behold! tiny particles do actually sever themselves from the main body! A cosmic system in miniature comes into being. How is it possible not to be able to say that here you have the entire process of the world's creation in miniature? The children think they understand; the experiment seems so illuminating. Yet there is one factor which always escapes notice in the experiment. And while it is sometimes a good thing to forget oneself in the world, it is not a good thing to do so in conducting a scientific experiment.

For observe, the drop would not throw off particles from itself, were the class teacher not standing there, revolving the pin. But since everything necessary to accomplish the result must be taken into account, the one presenting this experiment to an audience should give them to understand that a great professor or teacher, a giant professor, ought to be located in the universe outside, who has passed a gigantic pin through the nebula and is now causing the whole mass to rotate. And furthermore: what has come into being out of the drop? Nothing whatever, save that which was already there in the undivided state. Empiricism often leads us astray in our search for knowledge.

It is true that people possessed of really healthy impressions about the universe, decline to accept such an appeal to the eye, all scientific authority notwithstanding. I will give you an example, the same one which is mentioned in my latest book “The Riddle of the Human Being.” Herman Grimm, the great authority on art, set forth his conviction that Goethe at no time in his life would have committed himself to such a purely superficial explanation of cosmic evolution. This is what Herman Grimm says: “The great fantasy of Laplace and Kant concerning the origin and eventual fate of the earth ball had established itself firmly even at the time when Goethe was a youth. As a product of the rotating cosmic nebula — even the school children are now being taught this — the central gaseous sphere is formed which eventually becomes the earth, and as a densifying globe it passes through all the stages of evolution, becoming the habitation of the human race during inconceivably long periods of time, only to fall back headlong into the sun at last, a burnt out heap of slag. It is a lengthy process, but one quite intelligible to the public, since it demands no further external intervention than efforts on the part of some outside force to maintain the sun's heat at a constant temperature. No more barren perspective of the future can be imagined than this, which we are being forcibly urged to accept as a scientific necessity. A carrion bone, avoided even by a hungry dog, would be an invigorating and appetizing morsel compared to this final excrement of creation, the final form in which our earth would eventually be returned to its home in the “sun.” The avidity with which our generation swallows such things, and pretends to believe them, is a symptom of diseased fancy, an historical phenomenon of our time to explain which the scholars of future eras will some day have to expend much acumen. Goethe never opened his door to hopeless speculations of this kind . . .”

The feeling thus expressed by Herman Grimm, in an age when it was not yet possible to speak of Spiritual Science, or Anthroposophy, as we can now, deserves our careful attention. For it points to the presence of a human feeling which urgently demands a solution of the great problems of the universe quite different from the one offered in good faith by natural science, as the result of its remarkable achievements and here I should like to repeat that Spiritual Science has no hostility toward natural science. The real course, however, of scientific evolution of recent date, shows that this evolution can raise profound questions into consciousness, but that the answer to these questions must come from a different quarter. And it is these answers which Spiritual Science or Anthroposophy desires to give. Yet of course it must appeal to faculties of cognition which are quite different from faculties which are recognized today. I spoke about the evolution of these super-sensible faculties of knowledge in the previous lecture which I was privileged to give here. That lecture has been printed in pamphlet form bearing the title “The Mission of Spiritual Science and its Building at Dornach.” I shall not repeat what I said in that lecture, but shall merely draw attention to the fact that in addition to the ordinary soul forces possessed by the human being, which he also employs in the conduct of his scientific studies, others can be developed, and that these other powers have the same relationship to the ordinary powers of cognition, by way of comparison, that the musical ear has to the perception which is focused merely upon the vibrating strings of musical instruments. In the external world the point of view which disregards the ear will describe a symphony in terms of string vibrations, etc. But the musical ear receives a very different message from these vibrations. A spiritual researcher is a man who has developed, as it were, perceptive ability concerning the world. This ability is related to the natural scientific concept in much the same way that the musical ear is related to the concept which only concerns itself with the vibrating processes of space. The spiritual researcher uses faculties through which the spiritual world is manifested just as the symphony manifests itself through the phenomenon of vibrations. And I must emphasize the fact that by no means everyone desiring to make Spiritual Science or Anthroposophy fruitful for his soul need become a spiritual researcher himself. The relationship between the Spiritual Science researcher and the human being who carries on no research himself, but depends on the results of spiritual research of others, is different from the relationship between the natural science researcher and the human being who accepts the results of natural science. The relationship is a different one and will be here figuratively presented. The spiritual researcher himself prepares, so to say, only the means which communicate the knowledge of the spiritual world. Because he has developed certain faculties, the spiritual researcher is in the position to form such means by which everyone who is sufficiently unprejudiced to employ this instrument properly, can penetrate into the spiritual world. The only requisite is a correct concept of the nature of this means. While on the one hand anyone who constructs the apparatus required for an external chemical or clinical experiment has to assemble external things by means of which some secrets of nature may be revealed, on the other hand the spiritual researcher constructs a purely psycho-spiritual apparatus. This apparatus consists of certain ideas and combinations of ideas which, when correctly employed, unlock the door to the spiritual world.

For this reason the literature of Spiritual Science has to be conceived differently from other literature. Scientific literature imparts certain results with which we acquaint ourselves. The literature of Spiritual Science is not of this type. It can become an instrument in the soul of each human being. After thoroughly steeping ourselves in the ideas which are indicated there we have more than a mere dead result about which information has been gained. What we have before us is something uniting human beings, by virtue of their inherent life, with the spiritual world for which we are seeking. Anyone who reads a book attentively, written through Spiritual Science, will observe — provided the book is read with the right sort of attention — that the living ideas contained in it can become a means in the individual soul life of bringing this same soul life into a kind of synchronous vibration with spiritual existence. Henceforth such a person will conceive things spiritually which up to that time had been conceived by means of the senses alone, and of the intellect bound fast to the senses. Though this fact is little recognized, and the literature of Spiritual Science is regarded just like other writings, the reason is simply and solely the fact, that we are only now witnessing the commencement of spiritual-scientific evolution. When this evolution has progressed, it will be increasingly recognized that we possess something in the content of a book written according to the true principles of Spiritual Science, not at all like the content of other books, but we possess something resembling an instrument which does not merely impart results of knowledge, but we can secure by means of it such results by an activity of our own. But it must be clearly understood that the instrument of Spiritual Science is composed of soul and spirit only, and that it consists of certain ideas and concepts which have a quite definite life of their own, distinguishable from all other ordinary concepts and ideas by not being pictures, as is the case with ordinary thought and conceptual life, but living realities. Emphasis too must be laid on the point that even at the stage Spiritual Science has reached today everyone who earnestly strives can become, up to a certain point, a spiritual researcher himself. Yet this is not essential in order, as set forth above, to make the knowledge derived from Spiritual Science fruitful for the soul.

And for the very reason that Spiritual Science or Anthroposophy is still only at the beginning of its development, it is intelligible, nay self-evident, that the results obtained by the developed faculties of the spiritual researcher should encounter doubt and mistrust, perhaps even laughter and derision. But this doubt and derision will tend to disappear by degrees in the course of time, as soon as the needs awaken to which attention has already been called, and which at present slumber in the majority of human beings. So general recognition will be accorded to Spiritual Science also, just as it has been accorded to various other things which have taken place in humanity during its evolution.

The first thing apparent to a spiritual researcher is that the human being, as he appears to the senses, and to the intellect guided by those senses, and also as far as he can be examined by natural science employing external methods, represents merely one part, one member of the entire human entity; and that within this entire human nature, in addition to the man of the senses, the physical external man, there exists a super-physical man, active and alive within the man of the senses and alone capable of preventing the sense man from becoming a decaying corpse at any moment. For the spiritual researcher discovers that even as we behold color by means of the physical eye we can perceive — to adopt an expression of Goethe's — by means of the “spiritual eye,” within this physical man, what is called the “Etheric Body.” (The term “Etheric Body” is in itself of no special importance, so I beg you not to take this expression amiss; I could have used another just as well.) Within the physical human body lies the super-sensible etheric body not perceptible to physical eyes but visible to the spiritual eye only. People may scoff at the idea of the addition, by a spiritual researcher, of an etheric man to the physical man. Nevertheless, just as the physical human being consists of the matter and energy, together with their activities, which are present in his physical earthly environment, so does he also consist of spiritual forces which he possesses in common with a surrounding spiritual world. We shall begin by considering the forces of the so-called etheric body. This body consists of certain forces that may be termed super-sensible. And it is possible to discover these forces in our environment just as distinctly as the physical forces within us can be discovered by natural science within our earthly surroundings. But of course the spiritual element of our environment must be perceived by the “spiritual eye.”

Let us begin by speaking of an event which establishes a certain connection which actually exists between the processes in the world surrounding us and the forces constituting the etheric body within us. Ordinary human observation can note, during the course of the year, how plants shoot up in the spring time, become increasingly clothed in green, later on developing colored blossoms and finally fruit. Then we see them wither and pass away We are aware of active growth during the summer succeeded by rest and repose during the winter Thus the succession of the seasons of the year appears to outer sense observation. But for this sensible observation, what is represented here, is related to the spirit, just as the vibrating strings are related to the expanding tone volumes. The “spiritual eye” adds a kind of spiritual hearing and spiritual sight to this alternation between activity and repose; and the spiritual researcher compares it with the effect of vibrating strings upon a musical ear. And during the time when we see the plants physically shoot up out of the earth and become perceptible to the physical eye, the spiritual researcher beholds an extra-terrestrial being — whose approach to the earth from without is proportionate to the amount of plant growth. However paradoxical it may sound to the modern ear, it is an actual fact that this “spiritual eye” really beholds a stream of rich life entering the earth from the outside with every spring, which does not flow in during the winter. And while with our physical sight we see only physical plants growing out of the soil, spiritual sight beholds spiritual beings, etheric beings, growing downward, so to speak, out of the entire cosmic environment of the earth. And in the same proportion that the physical plants attain fullness of growth, we see, so to speak, just as many living spiritual beings disappear out of the etheric environment of the earth, as descend into the plant life growing up out of the ground. And it is not until the fruit begins to develop, and the flowers to fade, and autumn to draw near, that we see what has united itself with the earth, and has disappeared within the plant world, in a certain sense, returning to the regions of space surrounding the earth. So the inflow and the outflow of a super-sensible element into the being of the earth is spiritually visible from spring until autumn. You might describe it as super-sensible living plants growing out of the etheric realm and disappearing within the physical plants.

Winter presents a different spiritual scene. Anyone who is only aware of winter because of seeing the snow and feeling the cold does not know that the earth, as earth, is quite different during the winter from what it is in summer. For the earth enjoys a much more intense and active spiritual life of its own during the winter than during summer. And if these relations become a living experience we begin to share this alternation of etheric life during winter and summer. We experience a spiritual phenomenon comparable in a certain sense with the alternations in human experience brought about during the period of going to sleep and waking. (These short explanations do not allow me to show that the experiences I have described are not contradicted by the motions, proper to the earth globe. Anyone who begins to study Spiritual Science seriously will soon recognize the lack of significance in objections such as this: yes, but the earth revolves, you know, etc.)

In this way we learn to recognize that certain beings are not connected with the earth during the winter, but are to be found only in the cosmic environment of the earth, and that these beings descend to earth during the spring time, unite themselves with plant life, and enjoy a kind of repose by uniting themselves with earth life. But the repose which these beings find within the earth, stimulates earth life itself by reason of spirit having united itself with the earth, and during the winter the earth itself, as a being, has something resembling a memory of this summer contact with beings from extra-terrestrial space. Things otherwise unimaginable are revealed to spiritual perception by our natural environment. It is like suddenly receiving the gift of hearing, with sounds pouring in volume from vibrating strings, sounds which we could not hear previously on account of our deafness.

We become acquainted with etheric life. This etheric life shows that certain beings belonging to the earth's environment, but linked to other heavenly bodies, link themselves with the earth during the summer and withdraw again during the winter. This life causes the earth as a being (not that celestial object which geology, or the other natural sciences, regard as a dead body), to go to sleep during the summer, but to awaken in the winter, to live again in the memories of the spiritual visitations of the previous summer. Just the contrary of what we should like to think, as it were, about earth life, is correct — using in the process all sorts of analogies. Such analogies would lead us to believe that the earth awakens in the spring and goes to sleep in the autumn, but Spiritual Science brings us the knowledge that the warm and sultry summer is the earth's sleeping season, and that cold weather which wraps the earth in snow is the season when the earth is awake. (Anyone who achieves a right comprehension of such an experience as this will be unaffected by the superficial objection, that the comparison made with musical hearing, shows Spiritual Science to be merely a subjective phenomenon like taste in art. For the results which occur in the earth's organism as a consequence of what was seen taking place during summer prove the process to be an objective one.)

I wish to state emphatically that Spiritual Science gives voice to none of the anthropomorphic ideas uttered by some 19th century philosophers (Fechner, for instance), but does give imaginative descriptions of real spiritual perceptions, which for the most part are very different from anthropomorphic ideas. That fact alone should enable certain opponents of Spiritual Science to see how indefensible it is to confuse it with philosophy of an anthropomorphic type. By permeating ourselves with the knowledge which flows from such observations we learn to understand how human life moulds itself. For of all the riddles confronting us in the outer world, human life itself is the greatest. I can, in the course of a brief lecture, give only a mere sketch of some small part of what Spiritual Science or Anthroposophy has to say concerning the enigma of human life. But I shall indicate how spiritual sight observes a continuous rhythm in human life. Spiritual sight beholds in the period of childhood the first member of this rhythm. (For the present, we omit the time between conception and birth, interesting to observe on its own account.) The period of childhood from birth to the coming of the second teeth, that is, to the sixth or seventh year, is a period of special interest for spiritual methods of research.

During this first period, the amount of development in the human being is incalculable, hence teachers gifted with insight have declared that human beings learn from mother or nurse during the first years of life more than they can learn from everyone else during the rest of their lives, even if they were to circumnavigate the globe. All else aside, within this period the faculties of erect posture, of speech, of thought and memory, and finally the work of those inner forces which reach a kind of termination in the production of the second teeth are developed. Now all these processes of development present themselves to the spiritual researcher in a way that indicates that they were brought about by earthly forces. Of course he is obliged to add what is beheld by the “spiritual eye” in the evolution of the earth to what sense perception beholds in earth life. But that which takes place in us up to the age of about seven is comprehensible as a product of a complex of forces to be found within the earth domain. (It is hardly necessary to state that in saying this it is not meant to imply that Spiritual Science has already discovered all the secrets connected with this particular period of human development, but rather that no bounds be set to the amount of research which matters such as this may require in earthly life.)

From the change of teeth onward begins a second section of human life lasting until about the fourteenth year, when we become physically mature. Concerning this section of human life Spiritual Science knows that the processes which reveal themselves in the physical body are no longer to be explained by what is active upon the earth itself, but by extra-terrestrial forces, similar in kind to those which have been described in connection with plant life during the course of the year. This particular spirit life (etheric life) which characterizes the plant world is active during the second human life period, but its activity is of such a nature that the process which occurs in plant development in a single year, in reciprocal relationship with the extra-terrestrial forces, is accomplished by the human being during his earth life in about seven years. (All of this is not being said with a sidelong mystical glance at the number seven, but merely as a result of a spiritual observation.)

It must be specially remarked that the forces active during the second period of human life are only similar in kind to those coming from outside the earth to activate plant growth. In the case of the plant the extra- terrestrial forces actually work on the plants from within. These same forces are active within the human organism yet without an actual spatial entrance being effected from outside the earth. Accordingly, the etheric energy which operates to unfold and wither the plant world in the course of a year, lives in the human organism in the form of an enclosed etheric body. The evolutionary processes during the second life period from the seventh to the fourteenth year of the general life rhythm, take place under the influence of these forces. By reason of the human being containing the forces needed for these evolutionary processes within himself, he appears no longer as a purely earthly being, but a copy of something extra- terrestrial, although this particular extra-terrestrial element is present in the world of sense. It is the special evolutionary task of the earth forces to develop what comes to expression in the human brain.

Strange as this may sound when compared with the ideas in vogue today, the brain is chiefly a product of the earth. This shows itself externally through the evolution of the brain, coming to an end, to a large degree, at about the seventh year, naturally, not in regard to the development consisting of reception of concepts and ideas, but in regard to the brain's inner formation and structure, in the solidifying of its parts, etc., etc.

Something must now be added to what took part in the development of the human body up to the seventh year, something not contained within the earthly realm, but originating in the extra-terrestrial regions, and which causes the impulses, among other things, which the human being develops from the seventh to the fourteenth years in the rest of the body, apart from the head and brain, to force their way up into the development of the head and face as well. When we are seven years old, we give birth, as it were, to a super-terrestrial etheric man within, who works inwardly, alive and free. Just as man's physical body comes into physical existence at birth, so now does an etheric, a super-terrestrial body come into existence. The result is, that what is expressed in the features becomes more clearly defined. The etheric body furthermore influences the breathing and circulatory systems in a more individual manner. However, as a result of the earthly forces no longer being the only ones at work, and because the etheric body takes hold of the physical organization and forges an extra-terrestrial element into union with the human nature, an inner life makes its first appearance which continues to accompany us throughout the remainder of our lives as the bodily expression of our temperament and emotions. Spiritual research perceives this etheric body which human nature possesses in common with the plants, but this by no means exhausts the possibility of further discovery. When spiritual research is directed toward the animal world it finds there another super-sensible element, one not found in the extra- terrestrial environment, as is the case with the super-sensible element of the plant world. A spiritual reality is to be encountered there which is to be found neither within the earthly region nor within that super-terrestrial region which still reveals itself through the senses. It is a super-sensible element present in the human being from birth, and indeed from conception, but its activity in the bodily organization only commences about the fourteenth year. This super-sensible element is not active, as is the case with the etheric element, in the space which surrounds human beings upon earth. Just now I pointed out how Spiritual Science enables us to have knowledge of the earth, so that we may be aware how, during the winter, it retains its summer experiences connected with super-terrestrial forces, in the form of memory. When this perception of a spiritual element in the earth is followed up further, it will become evident that the earth body, upon which we now live, is just as much the offspring of a preceding planetary being, as a child is the son of his father. While the son resembles the father, the earth body comes forth like the offspring of another planetary being to whom it bears but little resemblance. We learn to observe this planetary being by observing the earth during the winter when it awakens to a certain extent and develops a kind of memory. For the spiritual element which reveals itself within the earth at that time still retains a memory picture of the conditions passed through by the particular heavenly body which later became our earth.

Such things sound paradoxical today; many people find them absurd or even foolish. But then all the things, which science has eventually acclaimed as self evident, were considered ridiculous at the outset. In the heavenly body out of which the earth subsequently took form, that which is now the mineral kingdom was not to be found. The road is a long one over which spiritual research has to travel in order to gain the knowledge that the earth evolved from a planetary predecessor on which there was no mineral kingdom. That element which is active extra-terrestrially today as a etheric element, and which unites with the body of the earth only in summer, was not so widely separated from the planetary ancestor of the earth as it is at present from the body of the earth. This ancestor, previous to the development of the mineral kingdom, was a living being itself. It was a living being in its entirety. When the “spiritual eye” beholds how our present earth evolved from a living body which preceded it, it gains the faculty of perceiving the super-sensible element acting in both man and animal; this element which is discoverable neither in earthly space nor yet at the present time in super-terrestrial space, is active already in the animal, yet it is active in the human being in a higher way. The human organism is the bearer of this super-sensible element from the commencement of its life, and is formed to be its bearer. However, about the fourteenth year, and thence onward, this super-sensible element manifests a particular and independent activity in the bodily processes not present up to that time. Observation of this activity by means of the “spiritual eye” offers one of the ways (we shall here leave others out of consideration) of recognizing a third member of human nature, the astral or soul body. Please bear in mind that the name in itself is of no importance; any other could replace it. It will not at first be easy for those unaccustomed to deal with ideas of this kind to discriminate between the astral body as it exists before and after the fourteenth year of human life. This and similar difficulties can only be overcome by a fairly long familiarity with spiritual research.

From about the age of twenty-one a further super-sensible member lays hold upon the organism of the human body in a particular fashion. It is the member which is the actual bearer of the Ego, i.e. the human Self. This human member elevates him above the animal level. The question now arises, in relation to this especial member of our being, what does Spiritual Science mean by declaring that the ego does not display independent activity until the fourth stage of life, since it is evident that we must be indebted to this member for the characteristics which elevate us even in childhood above the animal, e.g. upright posture, ability to speak etc.? The solution of this apparent contradiction is found when a knowledge has been gained of the special super-sensible nature of the human ego. It happens that the human being is organized in such a way, on the one hand, that the independent governing activity of the ego within the bodily organization does not develop until the fourth life stage. But on the other hand, the ego carries on its evolution throughout a series of incarnations. If the ego possessed only such forces as it could develop during one earth life, it would have to wait until the fourth stage of bodily life made the unfolding of the ego forces possible. But it enters this earthly life after having spent several complex lives in other bodies. And the forces which make it capable of repeated incarnations on earth, empower it to act upon certain parts of the bodily organization in such a way that the abilities, of which I have spoken, develop earlier than the fourth life stage. The same circumstance accounts for the astral body being brought into activity in the physical body by the ego earlier than was destined by the being of the essential astral body itself. Just through the fact that the spiritual researcher focuses his attention upon the difference in the activity of the ego in the human organism, prior to the advent of the fourth life period, and after it, he knows that the earth man passes through repeated earth lives, between which lie long periods of time in a purely spiritual existence, between death and new birth.

I have now described to you some of the things contained in the cosmic conception of Anthroposophy. Of course this description has been a very sketchy one, for I should have to talk for many hours in order to make any kind of approximately adequate statement concerning the path of research leading to the utterance of such thoughts as have been here expressed. Yet it may be that what has been stated will suffice to convey the idea that such statements are based upon careful, conscientious research, which presumes the employment of especially developed modes of cognition, and which in no way represent the arbitrary dominance of any fantastic speculations or philosophy. This sort of research adds the element of spirit — which surrounds us just as definitely as the physical outer world surrounds our physical being — to the of knowledge which natural science has been able to collect concerning the bodily part of man.

In this world, which becomes manifest through spiritual research, we encounter, to begin with, beings that grow downward etherically toward the earth just as plants grow upward, physically out of the earth. We have in these ether plants the earliest forerunners, so to speak, of spiritual beings and spiritual forces into which we grow even as through our senses we grow into the world of sense. But in the act of learning to know the spiritual world, the world out of which human astral life and the human ego originate, we learn to know a spiritual world within our environment, containing real spiritual beings. To this world our souls belong, just as our bodies belong to the physical world, the world inhabited by mankind. Once again I wish to emphasize that it must not be believed that spiritual investigation is actuated by any arbitrary human purpose in seeking for a relationship with the dead. This subject was touched upon by me in my previous lecture. If we are to draw near to any dead individual, the impulse for it must originate in the dead personality itself. In such a case it will of course be possible for a manifestation to come within the field of our “spiritual eye,” prompted by the will of the dead individual, just as we can receive other kinds of knowledge from the spiritual world. Yet everything coming out of this domain belongs to a type of research upon which the spiritual researcher will only embark with awe and reverence. But that which we can learn from the spiritual world by means of the deliberate development of our own faculties is something that concerns ourselves, and contains answers desired by the individuals who feel, in the manner described in this lecture, the need of spiritual help, a need which is entirely natural for the epoch of human evolution in which we live today.

As this evolutionary epoch has led of necessity to the discoveries of modern science it will lead of necessity to Spiritual Science as well. More and more persons will discover that Spiritual Science, contrary to widespread contemporary scepticism on this point, does not impair in the faintest degree human religious feelings or religious life. On the contrary, it will form the bond of union between those of us who grow up during the scientific era, and the secrets that can be imparted to us by religious revelation. Genuine Spiritual Science does not contradict natural science in anyway, nor can it estrange anybody from the life of religion.

Natural science has led in the course of recent time to a recognition of the fact that science itself is a great problem, to which something must be added if it is really to become intelligible to human beings. I should prefer not to base what I am now saying about natural science, which already today points beyond its legitimate boundaries when it contemplates the riddle of human existence, upon my personal opinion of this science. Spiritual research leads one away from personal views as they are generally understood, inasmuch as it continually tends to avoid expressions based upon subjective considerations, and to allow facts as they develop to speak for themselves. Therefore I should like here to speak about a point which the historical growth of natural science itself brings out in its latest phase. I should like to point to something which will serve as an interesting elucidation of the latest development of natural science.

The great expectations based upon Darwinism, the hopes coming from the results of spectro-analysis, and also the progress made in chemistry and biology, were especially developed in the middle of the 19th century. And then at the close of the sixties of that century Eduard von Hartmann wrote his “Philosophy of the Unconscious.” It was not even a spiritual researcher who expressed himself in this book, but a man was calling attention — primarily by hypotheses and occasionally even by means of quite illogical hypotheses — to a fact which Spiritual Science alone will actually achieve for humanity. Eduard von Hartmann thus points to a spiritual reality behind the physical world, and he calls it — though the term is open to objection — the “Unconscious.” He anticipates philosophically a thing that Spiritual Science can actually demonstrate. Because he postulated spirit as a philosophic necessity, he was unable — despite the amazing proportions already assumed by materialistic Darwinism and natural science as a whole during the sixties — to agree with the view held by so many natural scientists, viz. that present knowledge concerning the physical forces of chemistry and the biological externally perceptible forces made a perception of spiritually active forces appear unscientific. So he endeavored to show how the knowledge acclaimed by Darwinism everywhere points to spiritual forces at work in the activities and development of living beings.

How did certain scientists receive the views presented by Eduard von Hartmann? In much the same fashion that certain people today receive the statements set forth by Spiritual Science, particularly people who have so accustomed themselves to the views held by natural science concerning the universe that they regard everything which does not accord with their own ideas as a grotesque caricature. With the appearance of Eduard von Hartmann on the scene, there were those who believed themselves to be in sole possession of a science, which was true and genuine, who expressed themselves approximately thus: — Eduard von Hartmann is nothing but an amateur; he knows nothing concerning the central facts of scientific achievement; there is no need to be disturbed by such a layman's utterance as the “Philosophy of the Unconscious.” Many were the rejoinders which appeared, and all of them represented Hartmann as being an amateur. They were all designed to show that he simply did not understand the things that natural science had to say.

Among the many rejoinders one was written by a man who at first did not give his name. It was a thoughtful article, written in a genuinely scientific spirit from the standpoint of those scientists who had decisively rejected Hartmann. This criticism of Hartmann's scientific folly seemed to be one that annihilated him. Eminent scientists thereupon delivered themselves approximately as follows: — What a pity that this unknown author has not told us his name, for he has the mind of a true scientist who knows the essential requisites of scientific research. Let him announce his name and we will welcome him into our ranks. This verdict of the scientists was largely influential in exhausting the first edition of the article very rapidly. A second edition was soon required, and this time the previously unknown author announced his name. This author was Eduard von Hartmann. That was a proper lesson given to all those who, like Hartmann's scientific opponents, criticize unfamiliar matters in such an unfriendly spirit. Just as Eduard von Hartmann at that time showed that he could write as scientifically as the scientists themselves, so could the spiritual investigator of today without much effort, present all the arguments very generally used by those who denounce him as a visionary and quite unfamiliar with scientific thought. I am relating this story here not for the sake of saying something which will hit any particular critics of mine, but to draw attention to the sort of controversial arguments championed by the world which holds itself to be truly scientific when it is examining facts which are strange to it.

But this does not exhaust the matter. One of the most distinguished of Haeckel's pupils — Haeckel being the man who represented the materialistic trend of Darwinism most radically — Oskar Hertwig, who has written a whole series of books about biology, presents in his most recent and highly important work: “The Genesis of Organisms, a Rebuttal of the Darwinian Theory of Chance,” an exposition of the utter scientific impotence of materialistically colored Darwinism, when confronted with the problems of life. Proof is adduced in this book from the standpoint of the scientist himself, that the hopes entertained by Haeckel and others, that Darwinism would solve the problems of life, were unfounded. (Here I should like to state emphatically that I cherish the same high respect today for Haeckel's magnificent scientific achievements within the cosmic scheme, proper to natural science, as I did years ago. I still believe and always have believed that a correct appreciation of Haeckel's achievements is the best means of transcending a certain one-sidedness in his views. It is entirely intelligible that he could not attain to this insight himself.) Oskar Hertwig often quotes Eduard von Hartmann in the book mentioned above, and even draws attention to judgments of Hartmann, which completely annihilate the former Darwinistic opponents of this philosopher.

Facts such as these serve to show the manner in which the scientific “Weltanschauung” concerning the cosmos has taken shape; its foremost representatives today announce quite distinctly how totally erroneous the recent views of science have been.

That is a fact that will be recognized with increasing frequency. And along with the recognition of this fact will come an insight not alone into past utterances of Eduard von Hartmann and other speculative philosophers which transcend the scope of natural science, but into the additions which Spiritual Science can make to what natural science has achieved. There is no limit to the amount of additional material which could be brought forward in support of the views going to show that genuine scientific thought is in complete accord with Spiritual Science. Even as there is no contradiction between natural science and Spiritual Science, so is there no justification for saying that Spiritual Science contradicts the life of religion. In this connection I brought out points of importance in the first lecture I gave here. It is my conviction that no one (who has seriously weighed the mental attitude expressed by me in that lecture) can raise any objections to Spiritual Science from a religious point of view. Today I shall enter into some details to show that no one rooted in the scientific life of a particular religious faith can raise any objections to Spiritual Science, as long as an attitude of good will is maintained by that person. I am going to show how someone who has embraced the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, a Christian philosopher absolutely recognized as such by the Catholic Church, can think about Spiritual Science as here defined. And the things I venture to say in this regard are also applicable to the relations between any Protestant line of thought and Spiritual Science.

Thomas Aquinas' philosophy distinguishes between two kinds of knowledge: - first, facts unconditionally deriving from divine revelation and accepted because this, revelation is man's warrant for their truth. Such truths, in the teaching of Thomas Aquinas, are the Trinity; the doctrine that the earth's existence had a beginning in time; the doctrine of the fall and the redemption; the doctrine of the incarnation of Christ in Jesus of Nazareth and the doctrine of the sacraments. Thomas Aquinas is of the opinion that no human being who comprehends the nature of human powers of perception would endeavor to discover the above named truths by means of knowledge developed within himself.

Besides these truths of pure faith, Thomas Aquinas admits others which can be attained by man's own powers of perception. Such truths he denominates “Praeambula Fidei.” These include all truths dependent upon the existence of a divine spiritual element in the world. The existence therefore of a divine spiritual element which is the creator, ruler, upholder and judge of the world is not merely a truth to be accepted on faith, but a fact of knowledge which human powers can acquire. To the realm of Praeambula Fidei belong furthermore all things relating to the spiritual nature of human existence, as well as those leading to a correct discrimination between good and evil, and finally the kinds of knowledge which form the basis for ethics, natural science, aesthetics and anthropology.

It is entirely possible for us to accept the point of view of Thomas Aquinas, and to admit that on the one hand, Spiritual Science does not affect the character of these truths of pure faith, and that on the other, all the statements presented by Spiritual Science come under the head of Praeambula Fidei, as soon as we understand this concept in the correct sense of the Thomistic philosophy. For Spiritual Science there are fields of knowledge, even in domains lying very close to the human being, which must be treated exactly as the truths of pure faith are treated in a higher domain. In ordinary life we have to accept facts which are communicated to us which, by the very nature of the communication, cannot fall within our experience, viz. information concerning what befell us between the earliest point of time which we remember and the time of our birth. If the researcher develops spiritual powers of cognition, he is able to look back upon the period prior to this point of time; but prior to the point where memory begins, the “spiritual eye” does not behold events in the forms of the sense world, but it does perceive what has occurred in the spiritual realm, while the corresponding events are occurring in the physical world. Events perceptible by the senses, can as such, when they cannot enter consciousness through personal experience, be accepted by spiritual research only through the ordinary channels of communication. For instance no healthy minded spiritual researcher will believe it possible to do without communications from fellow human beings, and to substitute spiritual vision for the things that can be learned by ordinary means. Thus there are for Spiritual Science already knowable facts in the realm of everyday life, which can only be acquired by being communicated. In a higher domain the truths of pure faith recognized by Thomas Aquinas are those relating to events inaccessible to the grasp of human knowledge when it is compelled to rely on its own powers alone, because they lie in a domain which is withdrawn from ordinary existence and which, like the events occurring in physical existence during the years directly after birth, does not fall within the field of spiritual vision. Even as those physical occurrences can be received only through human communication, so can the events corresponding to the truths of pure faith be received only through communication (revelation) from the spiritual domain. Although Spiritual Science uses such terms as trinity and incarnation in the domain of spiritual perception, this fact has nothing to do with the application of these terms in relation to the domain to which Thomas Aquinas refers. Moreover everyone acquainted with Augustine knows that such a mode of thinking cannot be called non-Christian.

Thomas Aquinas' views regarding the Praeambula Fidei are likewise compatible with Spiritual Science. For everything accessible to unassisted human powers of perception must be admitted to belong to the Praeambula Fidei. For instance, he includes the spiritual nature of the human soul in that domain. Now when Spiritual Science, by extending the boundaries of knowledge, increases the information concerning the soul beyond the limits within which mere intellect confines it, it expands only the compass of a form of knowledge coming under the head of Praeambula Fidei; it does not go outside that domain. It thus wins its way to truths which support the truths of faith more actively than do the truths obtainable by mere intellect. Thomas Aquinas is of the opinion that the Praeambula Fidei can never find a way into the domain of the truths of faith, but that the former can defend and support the latter. What Thomas Aquinas desired of the Praeambula Fidei will be done still more intensively through their extension by means of Spiritual Science than through the mere intellect.

These observations of mine concerning the Thomistic system are made with the sole object of demonstrating that even the strictest adherent of this particular branch of philosophical thought can find the conclusions of Spiritual Science compatible with it. Of course I have no intention of proving that everybody who accepts the conclusions of Spiritual Science must become a disciple of Thomas Aquinas. Spiritual Science does not disturb the religious confession of anyone. The fact that one individual leans to one type of religious faith and another to a different one has nothing to do with what they know, or think they know, about the spiritual world, but is due to other conditions of life. The better these facts are really comprehended the more will opposition to Spiritual Science cease.

But all of us who have already worked their way through to the recognition of spiritual research will feel some degree of consolation in face of the antagonism which confronts us because of our knowledge of what has occurred in other things to which we become more easily accustomed in the external world, because they are in harmony with the principle of utility. You are aware that the railroads were incorporated into external civilization during the 19th century. A board of directors, whose membership included several recognized authorities, had to decide whether or not a railroad should be built in a certain locality. The story has often been told. According to reports, their decision was to the effect that no railroads should be built, because the people who would travel on them would of necessity incur injury to their health. And if in spite of this there should be people willing to take such a risk, and railroads should be built for their convenience, high board fences should at least be built to the right and left of the roads, to prevent damage to the health of the people past whom the train would have to go. I am not relating things of this kind in order to make fun of people whose one-sidedness could lead them into such an error as this. For it is quite possible to be a distinguished individual and still make such a mistake. Anyone who finds that work done by him is arousing opposition should not instantly accuse his opponent of folly or malice. I am telling you about actual cases of opposition encountered in various instances, because in considering such cases the right kind of feeling and attitude is aroused in anyone confronted by opposition of this kind.

It would not be easy today, no matter how wide a range the enquiry covered, to find a person who is not delighted by a performance of the Seventh Symphony of Beethoven. When this art-work was given for the first time the following opinion was expressed not by an individual without importance, but by Weber, the famous composer of “Der Freischütz”: — “The extravagances of this man of genius have at last reached the non plus ultra; Beethoven is now fit for a lunatic asylum.” And Abbé Stadler, who heard this Seventh Symphony at that time, commented as follows: — “The E is repeated interminably; the poor chap is too lacking in talent to have any ideas.”

It is quite true that those who observe no decrease in the amount of human folly will find special satisfaction in calling attention to phenomena of this kind in the evolution of mankind. And it is obvious that such phenomena do not prove anything, when dealing with a particular case of opposition. But they are not adduced here for the purpose of proving anything. Their intent is rather to stimulate people to examine rather closely what appears strange to them, before condemning it. In such a connection it is allowable to refer to a greater event. And I should like to do so, though obviously without any absurd intention of comparing the work of Spiritual Science, even distantly, with the greatest event which has taken place in human evolution. Let us cast a glance upon the development of the Roman Empire at the beginning of our Christian Era, and observe the rise of Christianity from that time on. How far removed was this Christianity at that time in Rome from any of the subjects considered worthy of an educated person's attention. And let us turn our gaze aside from this Roman life and look at what was unfolding literally underground, in the catacombs; let us look at the Christian life beginning to burst into flower in those caverns. Then let us direct our eyes to what was visible at this place some centuries later. Christianity had ascended from the caverns, it was being clutched eagerly in circles where previously it had been despised and rejected. The sight of such phenomena may serve to strengthen the confidence of any individual who deems it a duty to enlist in the service of a truth which has to struggle and strive for victory in the teeth of opposition. — No one in whom anthroposophical truth has taken permanent root will be surprised to find that it awakens hostility. But it will also appear to be that individual's bounden duty never to desist, in the face of such hostility, from presenting what Anthroposophy strives to be in the spiritual life of the human being.