288. Architecture, Sculpture and Painting of the First Goetheanum: The Dornach Building as a Home for Spiritual Science
10 Apr 1915, Basel Rudolf Steiner |
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Here we see how colors merge into the moral, into the soul-spiritual. What do we experience in red, in green, in blue? Just as the form can be experienced, so can the color. Then one is not dealing with a reproduction of the colors of what light offers as a coloration; then one crawls into the color, so to speak, and experiences the essence of the color, and by living out in the color, one creates from the essence of the color itself. |
288. Architecture, Sculpture and Painting of the First Goetheanum: The Dornach Building as a Home for Spiritual Science
10 Apr 1915, Basel Rudolf Steiner |
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Last night I tried to give some thoughts here about what a spiritual scientific worldview sets out to achieve, about the sources from which it originates, and I tried to draw attention to how this spiritual scientific worldview wants to place itself in a similar way in the spiritual cultural development of humanity, as the natural scientific worldview placed itself in the spiritual life of humanity centuries ago. Most of the honored audience is aware that here in this country, near Basel, on a hill surrounded by beautiful natural surroundings, in Dornach, a building is to be erected - work on this building has already progressed to a certain extent - that is intended to serve the spiritual-scientific world view, and which is to be, so to speak, a place where this spiritual-scientific world view can be cultivated in a right and dignified way. Now, of course, it is certainly not possible to judge anything that is unfinished. But among the many voices and judgments that have come from the outside world to those who have to do with this building, there is so much that is adventurous, so much that is completely misunderstood and inaccurate, that it might perhaps be of interest to talk here in this city, in whose vicinity this building is located, about the principle of what is intended with this building. I would like to make it clear that this evening I will not be discussing the artistic or other details of this building, but will confine myself to a general description of what characterizes this building as a setting for spiritual scientific research. Anyone who has become familiar with the spiritual scientific world view and at the same time is aware of the prevailing habits of thought and feeling in the present day will not be at all surprised when those who have not yet concerned themselves much with the spiritual scientific world view see all kinds of fantastic, dreamy, perhaps even crazy and twisted things in it. Basically, however, this will appear quite natural to anyone whose whole soul is immersed in the spiritual-scientific world view. But nor will anyone be surprised that the architectural framework of such a structure, which - and this should be stated explicitly - is undertaken as a first, weak attempt, can often appear to the outside world as something adventurous, fantastic, and strange. After all, what lives in this spiritual-scientific world-view current, with all the people who profess this world-view current, is often and quite understandably taken at face value today. To mention just one thing, really only as something symptomatic: After a lecture I was once asked whether a woman who embraces the spiritual scientific world view must wear her hair short and eccentric clothing. Surely that is not particularly appealing? Yes, I was also asked whether anyone could believe that women could somehow advance in their spiritual development by cutting their hair and wearing peculiar clothes? Such questions have really been asked, and they are actually not fundamentally different from some of the strange things that can be heard from some quarters, not only about the way the Dornach building is shaped, but also about what is to be done in this Dornach building, what mysterious things are to take place in this building in the future. I believe that an understanding of the design of this building as a house for spiritual science can best be gained by sketching out at least a few strokes of the origin of the building. Spiritual science has been practised by a number of people for years. It goes without saying that at the beginning of its development it had to be cultivated in the spaces that are currently available in the world. Now it became apparent in various cities, including one in Germany, that the premises that had been used until then were gradually becoming too small as the number of participants in the spiritual-scientific worldview grew. So they thought about how to build their own house in this city for the cultivation of the spiritual-scientific worldview. Since the spiritual-scientific worldview not only produces certain ideas of beauty and art from its sources, but can also have a fertilizing effect on artistic creativity itself, the aim was to construct a building that, in its uniqueness, would be a framework for spiritual science, so that the world of feeling corresponding to this way of thinking would be expressed in the artistic form. Another idea was connected with this. The need arose to express what spiritual science has to say about the laws and facts of the spiritual world not only through words, which in a certain way can only hint at the spiritual facts and spiritual laws hidden behind the physical, but to express it in a living presentation, one could say - if the word is taken with the necessary seriousness - to express it through a theatrical presentation. How could one arrive at this necessity for a theatrical presentation from the spiritual science itself? Well, spiritual science wants to be something that, although the human soul rises through spiritual science to the regions of spiritual life, of the invisible and the supersensible, nevertheless directly engages with life. Spiritual science does not want to be something unworldly and escapist; in the strictest sense of the word, it wants to be a servant of life, a servant of life for those souls who, for enlightenment about what they experience in life, need insight into the deep connections of existence. Take, for example, something very close at hand. People meet each other in life. We know that one soul meets another; perhaps at first the other person does not make any particular impression on the first, even though the first has the opportunity to get to know them well. In this way, you get to know hundreds and hundreds of people without being particularly impressed by any of them. But it is not like that with one soul. You feel drawn to this one soul in the first hour, perhaps even earlier, in the deepest sense. You feel something related in it; you do not ask what the relationship is; but that, of which we are not even aware, lives in the subconscious depths of the soul's life. It becomes the shaping of our further life. We are brought together with such a personality by bonds that are of deep, most important significance for our further life. Spiritual science shows that man has a soul essence that can be brought, through the development of himself, to lift itself out of the physical and can be viewed purely spiritually. Spiritual science, not through philosophical speculation but through direct, real soul experience, thus learns that an eternal being, which goes through birth and death and is linked to the physical body for the time between birth - or let us say conception - and death, is present in man. And just as we have seen that our soul essence, before it enters its physical existence through birth or conception from a spiritual world, was already present in earlier earthly lives, so too does spiritual science show that our soul essence, when it has passed through the gate of death, has gone through a life between death and a new birth, in order to then bring to expression in a new life what it has carried through the spiritual world as results, as fruits one might say, of this life, in order to shape it anew in a new life. All these things are difficult for today's way of thinking to understand, but at the same time they are things that in the not too distant future will certainly have entered into the general consciousness of mankind to such an extent that human life will no longer be imaginable without these things being taken for granted. Now, in response to what was said yesterday, I would like to say that even in ordinary life, without a person becoming a spiritual researcher, he goes out of his physical body with his soul every night from the moment he falls asleep until he wakes up and lives in a purely spiritual world. I already mentioned yesterday that dreams arise, dreams about the nature of external experiences, about the nature of what passes by during the day. Of course, these dreams are not such that they can provide enlightenment about the spiritual worlds. But if one does not approach the dream life superficially, as often happens today, but interprets it oneself with the probe of spiritual research, if one can see through the chaotic, the fantastic of dream experiences with understanding, and if one can separate from these what is only reminiscence, only memory of everyday life, then something remains at the bottom of the dream images that can be characterized as saying: there is something in dreams that has not been lived out in ordinary physical life. Let us assume that we met with some personalities one day. We can then dream of them and of what we experienced with them. What we dream can be completely different from any memories, but it does not have to be that way. These experiences that we had with individual personalities can be transformed in such a way that we say to ourselves: “You neither experienced this in being with these personalities, nor did you think this.” The whole thing has shifted, so to speak, and something different has emerged from it. And if you now investigate – I can only briefly hint at this – you realize that in this unexperienced, but in the dream pushing through, something lives out of what still keeps us away from the personalities we have come together with, but what contains the seeds of something that will be experienced with them in a later life, something that is carried through the gate of death and will bring one together again with these personalities in a later life. Now it seems fantastic what I am saying, but the one who can examine dreams in a spiritual scientific way knows that in these dreams, albeit chaotically, that which becomes fate for a person in later lives is already announced in the soul. We carry something in the depths of our minds that reaches into the distant, distant future, and what is just as decisive for our destiny in later life as the plant germ is for the formation of the flowers and leaves of the plant. And in the same way, in what we experience as fate, we can see the results of what was formed in the core of our soul in earlier earthly experiences. This is how man stands in the world. When he meets another person, there are forces at the bottom of his soul, soul forces, which he is not aware of, but in which he is alive. I would like to say that human life is interwoven, permeated and interwoven by that which determines man, which sometimes determines him to the most important and weighty actions of his life, but which does not come up so much in full day consciousness. How we place ourselves in life, how we place ourselves in the whole world, how we are determined by other people, by the whole world and its events, is based on hidden, supersensible experiences. 'If you look at modern dramatic art, it represents above all what takes place consciously in front of people. And it is quite natural that a drama appears all the more transparent the more it is composed merely of what can be directly surveyed. Those deeper forces that determine the human soul, that are connected with the soul, insofar as there is something in this soul that goes beyond birth and death, cannot be represented in ordinary drama. But the fact that life is dominated by such forces is an immediate result of spiritual science. Now spiritual science, by living out itself, not theoretically, not philosophically, but genuinely artistically, can come to a dramatic representation of life through something other than the word, so that in the play, in the way how the dramatic characters are juxtaposed and grouped, how the entire dramatic action is shaped, the deepest forces of life are expressed, which we do not talk about in ordinary life and which we often do not bring to consciousness. What determines and rules life from its depths can basically only be understood if one looks into this life with the same methods that spiritual science uses to look into what is behind external nature, into what transcends and determines the world. A deepening of human relationships, a deepening of the human soul's relationship to the world, that is what must underlie such drama, I would say, such dramatic expression of the facts of spiritual science. So, in order to, so to speak, sensualize what spiritual science has to say about human life, dramatic representations had to be presented. In the early days we had to present such dramatic performances in ordinary theaters. It is understandable that the ordinary theaters, which are really - nothing at all should be said against them - intended for quite different tasks and goals, cannot provide the right setting for what this spiritual scientific worldview wants. Thus the idea arose from these and other reasons, arising out of pure necessity, to carry out such a building project ourselves and in doing so to combine an auditorium with a space – which does not need to be called a 'stage' – a space that is suitable for allowing such performances, drawn from the spiritual-scientific point of view, to be performed in it. I am mentioning all this about the origin of our plan because all sorts of things have been said about what this building should contain. It has been thought that ghosts will only haunt the place, that ghosts will be cited there, that people will come into contact with all kinds of ghosts. No, that is not the case, but it is a matter of seriously grasping the depths of life, which are there, which people long and thirst for, and which are presented to the human soul through spiritual science, not through spooks and ghosts, but through artistic creation, artistic design with the means, which must be means of expression for that which has been hinted at as grounding life ever more deeply. It is with these means, these forms of expression, that spiritual science should speak to the audience in this building. This building in Dornach is therefore intended to be a house for cultivating spiritual science through the word and spiritual science through presentation. It goes without saying that as spiritual science advances, many other things will be connected with it, but it had to be be mentioned. Now, basically, everything that is expressed in art, if it is to be real art, is a revelation of that which works through the human soul as a world view. Otherwise, art remains a mere appendage of life, an idle addition to life. Let us try to imagine ourselves in those art epochs that were truly great epochs of artistic development. Of course, because of the limited time available to us today, we can only touch on the most characteristic aspects, but let us try to realize how, in the dawn of the Italian Renaissance, Renaissance painting, in all that it offered, was in the deepest, most characteristic sense of the word an expression of what permeated and inspired the Christian world view at that time, what was revealed in it. There we see in Leonardo da Vinci's, in Michelangelo's, in Raphael's creations, what pervaded the mind as a world view. All art that does not flow with inner necessity from a world view is only an addition to life and not art in the real sense. However, it must be clear that when we speak of a “world view,” we do not mean that it demands to flow out into art, as it were, and also not in such a way that this world view only touches our minds, as is the case with some modern philosophical or scientific world views that only affect the mind. When a worldview is built on mere philosophical or scientific concepts and ideas based on reason, there is no need to create or shape the framework, the architecture, in which the word of this worldview is expressed. But when a worldview seizes the entire human soul, when everything that vibrates in the human soul, in feelings and will impulses, is seized by this worldview, when the whole person belongs to this worldview, then this worldview is one that is not merely conceived, but brings the human being into connection with the whole world around him, then this world view is one that does not merely live in its concepts, but, by forming its relationship to the world around it, sees in all that it sees in its surroundings a continuation of its own inner in every tree, every cloud, every mountain. Everything that surrounds us externally and everything that can be spiritually assumed behind what surrounds us externally wants to be grasped in a living connection with what we experience inwardly. Through his world view, the human being wants to grow together with everything that surrounds him; he wants to grasp his surroundings, not only in abstract understanding, but he wants to grasp spiritually and soulfully with his whole mind what extends out there in space. When, therefore, the world view takes hold of the whole person, it demands to flow out and radiate into the form, into everything that surrounds us. Since we cannot pursue a worldview in the great outdoors according to the needs of today's life, since it does not provide us with the space in which we can pursue a worldview, a spiritual-scientific worldview demands that it be framed by that with which the person pursuing this worldview is truly and inwardly connected. Let us just realize that there is a core of being in every human being that is spiritual and soulful, that goes out of the human being in sleep. Let us realize that this spiritual-soul core of our being can become independent of the physical human being by recognizing, by grasping the whole world in a living, cognizing way. This core of being unites with the outer world in a completely different way than the human being who only uses the senses and his brain-bound intellect. While we are in the world of the senses, the human being stands here; the world is outside, is, as it were, spatially removed. As we advance into spiritual knowledge, we have to recognize that this spiritual knowledge is something that is much more intimately connected with the things and beings that are to be grasped by this spiritual knowledge than the sensual things are grasped by our senses. When the spiritual researcher with his soul-spiritual relates in such a way that he recognizes outside of his body – as I explained yesterday – he merges, as it were, identifies with everything in the environment. While we, when we stretch out our hand and point to something sensual, keep this sensuality outside of us, when we recognize something spiritually or soulfully, we connect with everything that fills the spiritual and soul world; we immerse ourselves in the spiritual and soul realm. Let us now bear in mind that this spiritual scientific worldview should be expressed in the artistic realm. Is it not natural then that the need arises to have such an architecture, such an artistic framework, from which the soul can imagine: if you take the next thing that surrounds you here, should it not be something that arises directly from your spiritual-soul life itself; should it not be something that you would like to experience when you want to be with your immediate surroundings? Well, it necessarily follows that a very special form, a very special spatial arrangement, emerges. When we make a physical gesture, we are satisfied when the hand or the arm takes on the form of this gesture. When we speak of the spiritual context in which the soul comes into contact with its surroundings through spiritual knowledge, the gestures come out of us, the gestures directly populate our surroundings; that which otherwise lives in our skin, in that we are physical human beings, that comes out of us in spiritual knowledge, one might say it becomes a spiritual gesture that lovingly embraces the surroundings. What this spiritual gesture wants to grasp, what it wants to touch, what it wants to see, the forms in which it wants to live, that is what the basic design must provide for a building in which spiritual science is practised. The forms, the colors, everything artistic must arise directly out of that which can be experienced with the world when it is understood spiritually. Thus, a building that is to serve the spiritual scientific world view is so directly connected to the essence of spiritual science itself in its forms, colors, and everything that is created, that spiritual science must transform itself out of its ideas and words into artistic forms. And by transforming itself in this way into artistic forms, it creates the necessary artistic framework for what must be done within the structure. Now, very specific difficulties arise here from the thought habits of our time. Spiritual science is really only in its beginning, and that which shines forth for the human being, perhaps not so very far in the future, for the one who stands in spiritual science with his whole soul, is nevertheless quite fundamentally present in what we can pursue in the present as spiritual science. Hence it is that among those who today approach spiritual science, there are many who, though not attached to outward materialistic prejudices, are still attached to other prejudices. How often must we see that just those who approach spiritual science with inner zeal of their soul, often with fanatical zeal, yes, even too fanatical zeal, with fanatical zeal that borders on untruthfulness, still cling to all kinds of concepts from mysticism and theosophy, which one would like to overcome through true spiritual science. Do we not very often hear a popular definition of mysticism today: Mysticism is that which cannot be understood, that which cannot be grasped. Mysticism is that which must remain hidden. Some people believe themselves to be infinitely profound when they utter the word “occult” every quarter of an hour, when they say, “These are occult truths!” It is precisely through the clarity made possible by spiritual science that one would like to eliminate such things. I myself have experienced (please forgive me for mentioning such examples in order to characterize them) how, twenty-seven or twenty-eight years ago, in the city where I lived at the time, various Theosophists approached me and explained what otherwise reasonable people take for an ordinary poem or a dramatic poem, or otherwise a work of art or even a painting, they have explained it by looking for this or that meaning in it, which one must first spin into it if one wants to find it in it. If they wanted to say something very significant to show that they know more than ordinary reasonable people, then they said: That is abysmally deep! That was something you could hear at every turn back then; it was thought to be a very special way of saying something. Sometimes people don't seek to penetrate the things of the world, but rather to put something into them, to mix something in; and what they don't understand, what they don't penetrate, seems particularly deep to them. We have even had to experience, for example, that Shakespeare's 's “Hamlet” drama, which everyone must take as self-explanatory, has been interpreted by Theosophists in such a way that one principle is seen in Hamlet, another principle in other characters and yet another in yet others; all sorts of things were pulled in and added. It was miserable, terrible. One could say: Yes, this Shakespeare did not just want to depict this dreamy Danish prince, but a particular principle. As if the work of art would gain something by turning a human being into an allegorical-symbolic straw man and a dramatic structure into an external skeleton of Theosophical-philosophical truths! It can happen that one seeks what is truly deeper in the symbols and allegories, while life becomes impoverished when one sees it only in symbols and allegories. The rich life becomes impoverished when one believes that one can find something deeper in the symbols. There are people who see something special in putting a pentagram on any old wall or anywhere else. They don't realize what this pentagram is, they don't understand it at all, but this pentagram, that is the number five, the pentagram is directed upwards, you can talk a lot about it, you can whisper and obscure a lot about it and obscure, and if you can say something that is not really connected with the five lines that are intertwined, then you are convinced that you have said or expressed something particularly profound. Or even if you attach the snake staff, the so-called Caduceus, somewhere, then you believe you have done something very special. Anyone who somehow puts up such abstract symbols and forms and believes that they have something to do with art is like someone who has notes in front of him and spins and theorizes all kinds of abstractions about their form, while only the person who has a natural relationship to the notes, to whom the musical concepts arise, can truly appreciate the notes, in that the sound fixed in the notes comes to life in such a way that the sound lives in the mind. Only in relation to what lives in the mind can that which is recorded with the external note symbols have any meaning. When it comes to a building that is intended to serve true spiritual science, it is only natural to have to deal with such misconceptions, which come from false mysticism, false theosophy, and all kinds of adventurous ideas. If the intention is not to express some kind of empty concepts in stone and wood, but to depict something artistic, then it is eminently necessary that nothing be given a symbolic form by a philosophical or theosophical idea or some mystical non-idea , but it is necessary that what emanates from the idea, what the mind experiences inwardly, shapes itself through the creative power of the soul into form and color, so that the art does not need an explanation, but explains itself. Art that needs an explanation is not art at all. The aim is that anyone who understands the language of this structure should not need an explanation of the structure. Of course, no one who has not learned Spanish cannot understand a Spanish poem. Those who understand the language of spiritual science do not need an explanation of the structure; for them, without a word being said, there is something self-explanatory in this structure because they have their joy, their upliftment, an inner realization of the soul forces from the direct connection with what is standing there, with what really lives in the form and in the color. One would like to say that a picture is no longer a real work of art, where one needs to write below what it actually represents. A picture is only a work of art when one has only to look at it and when all that the picture has to say follows from what one sees. If we therefore seek symbolism or allegory in the Dornach building, if we seek something that requires us to answer the question, “What does this or that mean?” after every step, then nothing will be found in the Dornach building that corresponds to this. But if we seek something in the Dornach building that provides answers to the question, “Which forms does one find beautiful who has a spiritual-scientific feeling? What forms would he who wishes to gather his spiritual strength around him like to have around him? Then the answer to these questions will be found in the Dornach building. But in a certain respect spiritual science is something that seeks to establish itself as a new element in our cultural life. It is therefore understandable that such a setting must also be something that, in a certain way, introduces something new into our artistic life. And here, at this point, I would like to emphasize that I ask you not to believe that what one might have in mind as architecture, or as an artistic expression of what spiritual science can give, has already been achieved in the Dornach building. The Dornach building is a beginning, and as a beginning it is as incomplete as any beginning can be. The limited funds that were available, despite the fact that the building took up considerable funds for certain concepts, only allowed the very first step to be taken. And even the work that was necessary from circles of friends could initially only make a very first start on what can present itself to the soul as a new style of art, as it must arise out of spiritual science itself. Therefore, I would ask you to consider this Dornach building only from the point of view of a very first, primitive beginning, with all the defects and imperfections of a beginning; to consider it only from the point of view of asserting aspects of artistic creation of forms that correspond to spiritual-scientific feeling and sensing, not to spiritual-scientific thinking, but to feeling and sensing when it is artistically intensified. What is being built today, still very imperfectly, on that beautiful hill outside, is really the primitive beginning of something that will one day be formed into a real beauty, into an adequate expression of what spiritual science has to give to human cultural development. Therefore, it must seem quite understandable when so many objections are raised from this or that side against what is being built out there, when so much is found to be imperfect and incomplete. But I would like to mention some of the, one could say, basic feelings that can guide one in the architecture of such a building. As I said, I cannot go into details today due to the limited time. I would just like to recall a saying of Michelangelo, in reference to the old master of architectural art, Vitruvius, a saying that truly reflects the idea, the essence of architecture. Michelangelo says: Only he who knows human anatomy is capable of truly grasping the inner necessity that underlies an architectural plan. It is a strange saying, but for someone who can engage with such things, it is perfectly understandable. When we survey the whole of nature, when we bring to our soul all the forces at work in nature, when we bring to our soul the formations that live in nature, then we ask ourselves: for an unbiased observer of the whole of nature and the world, where does all this world-becoming, all this world activity, point to? They point ultimately to the human form. In the human form, there is something before us of which we can say, in terms of form and in terms of the way it expresses itself, that Goethe's words apply: 'Man is placed at the summit of nature, so he regards himself as a whole nature that has to produce a summit within itself once again. To do so, he elevates himself by permeating himself with all perfections and virtues, invoking choice, order, harmony and meaning, and finally rising to the production of the work of art, which takes a prominent place alongside his other deeds and works. That that which man himself then reshapes when he, as an artist, continues nature, so to speak, will therefore gain the most diverse points of reference precisely from what has been shaped from the whole world and its secrets into the human form, the human structure with all its gestures, with all its life. Today, it is not possible to go into architectural styles or the development of architecture. Those who are truly familiar with the development of architecture know that, while it is true that the essence of artistic creation is most difficult to see in architectural art, it is also expressed in this architectural art. But because this essence of artistic creation is most difficult to see in architectural art, it shall be shown in sculpture. The same could be shown in painting, in music, in other arts. In our time, precisely because the materialistic view and attitude has taken hold of everything, there is little real insight into what the essence of artistic creation actually is, which is the emergence of art from the inner soul activity of the human being. Today, the artist is so often obliged to rely on the model, and the person who looks at something that is a work of art has the first question: Is this natural? Does it depict this or that naturally? Such judgments do not belong to real art, but to the decline of art. Real art is connected with what happens inwardly in man. When the sculptor creates a face, something of the feelings and inner soul experiences must truly live in him, which the physiognomy, which even the gesture of the face, conjures up from the depths of the soul. If it lives in the soul of the artist, then what lives in him feeling and creating can pour out into what he shapes. The forms that we reproduce architecturally are not so close to what we experience directly or what lives in our soul. But in a certain way, what can be architecturally designed does arise from what is experienced in the human soul. I have already indicated how the gesture is continued, how that which can be created in the environment emerges from the movement, from the gesture - not from the gesture that the physical hand makes, but from the gesture that the spiritual organs make when they want to grasp the immediate environment. What is experienced inwardly, to be shaped in forms and colors and in other artistic means so that one stands in everything in it, so that what one creates in space as forms and colors is a continuation of the inner being that flows out into the forms, into all curves and inclinations, into all colors that cover the walls: that is what spiritual science wants to show. Let us look at how the building should be designed from this point of view. As was explained in the description of the genesis, the challenge is to present to the audience's eyes and ears something that becomes clear to human knowledge through the results of spiritual science. Spiritual science is something that should be absorbed by the soul in a concentrated way; those who want to absorb what is presented in spiritual science must be concentrated. We are therefore dealing with a space for the audience and a space for what is to be presented from the sources of spiritual science. When a person is collected, he must close himself off from the outside world; he must, as it were, hold his powers together. This is the outer nature of the structure. What kind of space will have to be created if what is in the people who are in such a space is to express itself meaningfully, but also to continue in the surroundings? It is quite clear, not for abstract concepts but for artistic sensibilities, that a rotunda must be created and that, above all, the collection can best be presented in a dome-shaped space. The dome-shaped conclusion expresses what is really alive there, not in a symbolic or allegorical way, but rather in such a way that, as it were, an excavation is made in the room, I would say, that the space is pushed back, and the way the space is pushed back results in the architectural form. In essence, therefore, such a building, which is based on interior design, must be a building that takes its form from the fact that what happens in it vibrates and bumps into its surroundings, and that the vibrations persist. What I have only hinted at so far could be developed further. It would then become clear that two rotundas are created by the two departments - the one derived from the humanities and the other from the audience; two rotundas that are connected, however, that must belong together. This would become clear, not through abstract thought, but by feeling it out in a very artistic way. The two interconnected round structures would arise in the middle, overlapping and closed at the top by parts of spherical surfaces (Figs. 1, 3, 8, 9). It goes without saying that the exterior architecture, I would say, is of lesser importance for such a building, which is dedicated to inner contemplation and concentration. Everything that seeks to be artistically shaped in forms and colors must arise from within, must be projected from the inside out. What is formed on the outside is, so to speak, that which arises from the fact that, by repelling the waves of the world, the other waves of the world approach again, meet with what reaches out into space; and in the encounter, what is formed is, if I may use the word, the outer form, the outer decoration. But the whole must be formed out of this fundamental idea. Out of this fundamental idea, but out of the felt, sensed fundamental idea, this outer form necessarily arose. Technically, it was not at all easy to execute what you see executed there: to join spherical surfaces together in such a way that the thing can technically exist. And I may mention here that we were able to solve this problem, which has not been solved in architecture before, through the insight and efforts of a Basel engineer friend of ours. In this way we gave the outer form. In the same way, we must think about how the building itself is to be designed. If you walk around the building, you will find three gates (Figs. 3-9). These three gates are designed in such a way that you may wonder about their forms. Why are these forms exactly as they appear to us? Is there an answer to the question: Do these gates have to be designed in this way? Yes, you can get an answer, but it cannot be an abstract, philosophical one, nor can it be an unartistic one , but one could say something like this: Yes, I also know something else where something comes in from the outside into an interior, how people will enter through the gate into the interior, I know, for example, the human eye. Light enters through the eye to do its work, the weaving of light, inside the human being. And now do not ask for some abstract idea of how the eye is formed, but feel how the light necessarily evokes a very specific design of the eye. In order for light to come from the outside into the human interior, it needs the eye; in order for the light to propagate, it must come into the interior through something that is designed like the eye. Look at our gates, then you will have to give the answer: Let us assume that there are people who want to gain a certain relationship with spiritual science; these people enter this room from the outside through the gate. The fact that they enter, felt and sensed vividly, should be expressed in these forms of the gate. And again, we enter the room (Figs. 28, 29). From the way I have depicted it, you can see that there are spectators sitting in it. In the smaller room, which is also a round structure and adjoins the other (Figs. 55, 62), something is taking place that is a revelation. It is not a ghostly or spectral revelation, but a natural revelation of the results of spiritual science, only it is completely transformed from the philosophical-theoretical into the artistic. There are spectators concentrating on what is happening in the space of the performance. The spectators' attention rushes through the space. Now let us imagine that this space, completely animated by the attention of the spectators, should reveal itself within itself. The whole atmosphere, which, so to speak, must take hold of the soul when it feels: There are spectators, there are listeners, there are attentive people, people in whose souls what is happening before them is taking place, this whole atmosphere, this feeling is continued in the structure of the columns that run along the room, is continued in the peculiar sculptural forms that . There is a single axis of symmetry that runs from the entrance through the center of the room, and the shapes on the individual columns indicate that the audience's attention is directed towards the performance space, and that what emanates from the performance space in turn comes towards them (Fig. 29). If you look at what the columns are supporting, you will recognize from the forms carved out of the wood how attention really does encounter what comes towards it from the representational space, and how this is continued. It is not just depicted, it is really captured in the gestures in these wooden structures in the living life. The whole thing is designed down to the material. I have heard it said that it is a complicated idea of these Theosophists out there in Dornach that they make their wooden columns in such a way that they always use different woods for the individual columns. Such a question arises precisely from the urge to get something philosophical and theoretical as an answer, and not an artistic feeling, not something that reaches in from direct life. What can one say in answer to someone who asks: Why do you make your columns out of different types of wood? One can perhaps answer: Have you ever seen a violin with only A strings? No, there are different strings; it has to do with the design of the violin. The whole structure is built for life, for direct feeling and sensing, right down to the material. Therefore, the structure should express what lives in spiritual science completely artistically and only artistically, not abstractly meaningfully. It was, of course, necessary for the individual artistic fields to develop in very specific ways, because spiritual science, as it were, seeks to penetrate the secrets of existence in the sensory world. This means that what would otherwise be developed as art only in direct connection with sensuality is shaped in a different way. The interior of that dome – which can only be called a dome in a figurative sense, because it is not a dome at all, but only a spherical termination – this interior is painted (Figs. 29, 62). But this painting is based on something other than what usually underlies painting. Of course, the painting cannot depict what really is in the materialistic sense of the word. This painting shows the way in which a being, an object, a landscape is illuminated, what flits across the external material reality; it shows what in the next moment can no longer be there, it shows the fleeting, that for which the objects are only the cause of its being there. In a still completely different sense, our painting must have an effect. Do you remember what I said before: that the essence of artistic creation is that the artist himself is present in what is created by the artist, that the artist, by shaping the material, shapes something that lives within him, where he is inwardly present, not painting after something external, but rather shaping the external itself according to what is within him. That this can also be transferred precisely to the principle of painting may not yet be universally understood today. But there is a way of thinking about it: How would you experience it in your mind if you, I would say, saw the world through and through red? Would it affect your mind differently? That the question is justified was known to those who had a somewhat deeper connection to art at all times. Goethe, for example, remarked that if someone wanted to depict how, at the end of earthly existence, the wrath of the world would pour out over all that is sinful in humanity, this divine wrath would have to shine in a red-hot light. Here we see how colors merge into the moral, into the soul-spiritual. What do we experience in red, in green, in blue? Just as the form can be experienced, so can the color. Then one is not dealing with a reproduction of the colors of what light offers as a coloration; then one crawls into the color, so to speak, and experiences the essence of the color, and by living out in the color, one creates from the essence of the color itself. Thus, in our entire wall painting, nothing should be copied, but from the inner reason of things, insofar as they have something to do with color or with the moral, the spiritual-soul, which is expressed in color, the form should be created from the color itself. What is painted on the walls should express itself, not something else; it should speak to us through itself. And so the whole structure is formed in such a way that the walls, as it were, are not real walls. The spiritual scientist is convinced that, just as he as a physical person is surrounded by air and the rest of the physical world, he as a spiritual being is surrounded by the spiritual, with all its entities and processes, which fills and fulfills the world. While a building is otherwise designed to be thought of as complete, it must be said of our building that, however much it is a frame for the gathering audience, it is at the same time something that cancels itself out. Seen from within, this ceiling should give the impression that basically there is nothing there, but that we know that by looking up at this ceiling, this ceiling lifts itself up; it becomes a spiritual direction, into infinite spiritual expanses it is the beginning. We will basically have no walls despite the frame, but something that is permeable, that leads into distant worlds, into vast worlds. And it is the same with architecture, with sculpture, with column forms, with everything that surrounds us. It should not shut us off; it should lead us out into the expanses and distances of the spiritual world. The walls must be placed in such a way that one says: when one takes the step out, that must be the first thing, and if one pursues this further, one comes out into the expanses of the spiritual world. Walls that destroy themselves through what they are, that is what, in a certain respect, is the goal of a new art, even if, as I have indicated, it is only in its very beginning. And something else may be said. Anyone who enters our building today will be able to say: Yes, everything that is so often regarded as the actual architecturally correct, as the noblest forms of architecture, is basically no longer there here. And there is some truth to that. If we take an extreme case and look at a Greek building in its harmonious forms, built by the forces that act outside as spatial forces, brought into beautiful harmony, then we cannot say: our building is designed in the same way. The Greek building is designed in such a way that it represents the highest level of utilization of the forces of space, of pressure, or, as they are called, of gravity, which otherwise fills space. In our case, a breath of the living and weaving permeates the entire building. While we have something mathematical in Greek temple construction, something that comes from the mere interplay of forces, which is nevertheless inanimate, even if it is composed in the most beautiful harmony, in rhythm and proportion, our building is conceived in such a way that one can have the feeling that something alive is quietly passing through its lines, as something highly alive passes through the human form. Life pulses and vibrates through that which is expressed in forms. This is true; but therein lies the progress of architecture. I would need many hours to discuss the architectural principles of style; how Greek gradually leads to that which brings life into architecture. In the future, the hitherto dead architectural form will truly come to life. We can only make an imperfect very first start. But this start must be made, and something dynamic, something invigorating, something that moves must be introduced into the purely physical-mathematical forms. Here, too, we may refer to Michelangelo's saying: Only he who knows human anatomy is able to form a true conception of the inner necessity on which an architectural plan is based. But we find that when we look at the human form as it we see in the truly spiritually understood anatomy, that alongside all its movement and life, there is something that already presents itself in life as something dead, as something merely mathematical: the way in which the structure of our bone system relates to each other. The way in which we physically move the various parts of our skeletal system in relation to each other shows that something dead and mathematical is present in the life of a human being, that death is contained in it. And now it is possible to bring just as much life into the dead structure as there is death in the living human being. And that is what has been attempted with our structure. It has been lifted out of the rigidity of the merely mathematical, of merely following lines and adding forces. It has been imbued with life, with organicity, as much as there is dead matter in a living human being. The living element in the human being can only exist because the dead is mixed in with it in a certain way. Our building takes on the appearance of life because what is merely joined together dead is given the appearance of life, the appearance of the living is lent to it. And at one point, it is shown what underlies it as a basic idea of spiritual science, that this spiritual science should stir up something in the soul that brings the soul into intimate contact with life. Spiritual science should make people life-friendly and devoted to life. In spiritual science, people should find something that introduces them to life, that makes them strong and powerful for life, which is becoming ever more complicated. Therefore, our building must also have something that directly shows how to not just put something together and paint it with the means that are available to us as human beings, but something must be presented here that expresses the tendency for our building to be in close contact with the whole world so that not only we as human beings work on the building but the whole world works on it. This is attempted by transforming the earlier glass painting into a kind of glass etching (Figs. 102, 103). A special kind of artistic treatment of the windows in the Dornach building will be found. I can only hint at it. The window panes will not be treated in the way that stained glass was treated in the past. Instead, the panes of different colors will be treated in such a way that a special etching technique is used to scrape out the form from the glass, so that the corresponding figures are created by the fact that the light from outside can penetrate through the different thicknesses of the glass and the outer light, by holding the glass against it, works together with us. A glass pane like this is not a work of art in itself; it is only when it is installed and the external light passes through the glass pane that the work of art is created. Glass etching, through which sunlight penetrates directly into the interior of the room through various drawings on the glass. Here we have the whole world working together in the way that light can come in from the outside into the interior, which, during events, usually has to be illuminated with the artificial light of the modern age, with electric light. And so it must be said that such a building is not intended to to represent something particularly abstract, something quite strange, which a few good-for-nothings of life perceive as a pleasant place to stay, but rather it should be presented in such a way that it is sought out by precisely those who need a boost for their lives, so that they can get to know life in its depths. It was not allowed to put something there that has nothing to do with what today's culture is. Therefore, the most recent material was used quite consciously. In addition to the part that was made of wood, for reasons that cannot be discussed today, the most recent concrete material was used, and an attempt was made, because artistic creation must really shape out of the material, to use this concrete material in such a way as to express, materially, if I may use the paradox, the most spiritual with this most recent, most material product. Not something outlandish should be collected, but that which the time yields should be used for the ideas that are supposed to bring, precisely for the time that works through external materiality, the spiritual, the ideal, the spiritual-soul. Next to the building, you can see something else that many people today find particularly crazy (Figs. 100, 101). This is something that arose from the question: How should the whole building be heated? For certain reasons, one did not want what is in this annex to be inside the building itself, mainly for artistic reasons. Should one now build a chimney in the current way, should one put all that such a chimney requires with a boiler house in the way it is often put in the world? That was the question, and at the same time, the task of using concrete for such a construction had to be solved. Now this had to be solved: what concrete casing should be given to such a boiler house? How should what is formed in concrete be constructed? Certainly, the forms that have emerged will not be understood by very many people today. But that is how it is with everything that is built as something new. But people will learn to understand. The boiler house is only completely finished when smoke comes out of it; that belongs to the forms. And people will one day understand that the forms carved out of the concrete material really relate to what happens inside, to the whole idea of the building – artistically speaking – like the nutshell to the nut. Just as we feel that the nutshell is designed for the nut – the nutshell has to be designed for the sake of the nut, and it would be ugly if it were not designed to be a proper shell for the nut – so what is going on in the boiler house must be enveloped in such a shell, like the strange concrete building that stands next to our Dornach building. So you see that artistic considerations have played a part everywhere. They were questions of artistic feeling, questions of feeling, not questions of allegorical or symbolic meaning. I have taken up a great deal of your time and yet I have only been able to present to you, I might say, the most elementary main ideas of our Dornach building, without going into the actual fundamental artistic aspects. But perhaps it is precisely through what I have taken the liberty of discussing with you that it has become apparent how such a building must be formed, so to speak, out of the needs of modern life. And anyone who visits this building will also be able to find that this beautiful landscape, which lies around the Dornach hill, this beautiful landscape that continues on all sides, has something in the Dornach building that can be said in the same way as for many successful buildings: they really grow out of the earth, it is as if the earth were sending the power upwards for their creation. Those who allow the forms of mountains and hills, the whole of nature out there, to work on their soul, will find in the outer form of the Dornach building, to a certain extent, an architectural continuation of all of nature. Therefore, those who were able to erect this building in this beautiful country can greet with particular joy that this has become possible, that it has been shaped by the circumstances. And I believe that those for whom this building is so close to their worldview are filled with a deep sense of gratitude that it was possible to erect this building in this part of the country. It may be called a kind fate that those people who are out there in the world, one in this, the other in that profession, one in this, the other in that place in the world, may stop at certain times of the year on the beautiful Dornach hill and get there, for what they have to do in the outside world, strength of life, strengthening of life, through that collection which is to be sought in our building and which is to be expressed through the forms, through the art of building. In this context, it may perhaps be mentioned that it is perfectly understandable, indeed self-evident, that people who, through their lives, are able to be where they want, to build where they want, will build their houses near the building. It is indeed a great joy to see, from many points of view, that the building will be surrounded by a number of houses, perhaps later a larger number of houses, in which people will live who are in tune with the purpose of the building. But the main thing is not what is called this colony; the main thing is the building, which wants to be neither a church nor a temple, but precisely that which can be called an embrace of the spiritual-scientific world view. And because this building wants to be what has been described, it wants to serve people who are out there in the world, some of whom work here and others there. Our worldview cannot have much time for theosophical or mystical worldviews, or whatever you want to call them, through which people withdraw from the immediate life of the present, gathering in colonies to pursue their whims and fantasies and dreams in idleness. Spiritual science is not intended for idlers, for people who do nothing but sit together dreaming in what they call colonies. Our world view is not intended for them, but for people who want to work diligently on what is being achieved in the present for human labor, for human salvation and human progress; for these people, who are in the prime of life, for people who have something to do in life, this structure is intended. They should only be there during the times that are their life Sundays, their life holidays, when they come together to gain strength for the innermost forces of the soul for the rest of their active lives. We certainly do not want to found a colony for idlers, but we want to create something that serves life as it presents itself to people in our time, in our cultural epoch. We want to serve what is demanded of people in our cultural epoch. Of course, this is not a criticism of people who want to retire or have a summer house and recover, so that something can arise that can be called a colony surrounding the building. From certain points of view, this will have great advantages, but the basic idea requires that I express what I have just expressed. Anyone who has grasped what has been said about spiritual science in connection with the design of this house in Dornach will no longer need to be told that this spiritual-scientific worldview is not hostile or opposed to this or that religious belief, this or that way of relating to the supersensible world. On the contrary, spiritual science wants to bring to the human soul that which lives behind physical-sensory phenomena, wants to bring this to the human soul in a way that has not been possible through the achievements of human culture to date, but which is demanded by the future. Just as from a certain point in the development of humanity, the Copernican worldview, the worldview of a Galileo, a Kepler, everything that is connected with modern science, was required for the outer space, so in our time something is required for the life of the soul, something that must come in, just as the scientific worldview has come in, something that will serve life in its moral , its spiritual-soul development, just as natural science has served material life. Just as progress was indispensable and necessary there, so progress in the spiritual-soul sphere is indispensable and necessary, and in the future people will be just as unable to live without what spiritual science has to give as people today are unable to live without the achievements of natural science. Just as true scientific progress cannot in any way hinder religious elevation to the supersensible, the religious connection of the soul with the supersensible, so the spiritual scientific world view will not do this either. On the contrary, this may be particularly emphasized: While the natural-scientific world view easily leads man to what may be called a soul that does not want to concern itself with anything supersensible, that believes that a satisfactory world picture can be formed from what natural science itself provides, spiritual science shows us that man's soul is in contact with supersensible worlds. And by opening up these supersensible worlds to the human soul, it will deepen precisely the religious need. Just as our building does not want to be a temple or a church, so spiritual science does not want to be anything that replaces any religion. On the contrary, anyone who penetrates into the depths of the world in a spiritual scientific way will be led back to religious life. What the individual then does with his religious belief is his personal business; spiritual science does not concern itself with this. Spiritual science aims to found a spiritual-scientific world view; it does not alienate people from their religious beliefs; it can only lead them more intimately, more deeply, more energetically into their religious life. And if one were to really see through the very core of true spiritual science, then religious beliefs would have very little to object to against this spiritual science. Rather, they would say: “Due to many things that have arisen in the has estranged many a soul, but now a current is coming that brings people together with the supersensible worlds; this will awaken and fertilize religious life in its depths. Once people have gained an understanding for it, they will no longer see spiritual science as something that encroaches on the religious communities, but as something that must necessarily come into the world, but that comes into the world in such a way that a religious person must welcome it as something gratifying. But here too we see that there is still much remains to be done if our contemporaries are to develop a true and genuine understanding of what spiritual science wants and what it has to do in all areas of life – for example, in relation to the arts, but one could say the same in relation to social issues – in a world in which human conditions are becoming increasingly more complicated and complex as we look towards the future. And for many areas, indeed for all areas of life, it can be shown that spiritual science wants to be there to sow the seeds of renewal of life as it will be needed. This renewal of life, its inner necessity can be recognized by anyone who sees through life. The task of spiritual science is not to replace religion, nor to found another religion. The task of spiritual science is not to appear somehow polemically or critically against what has been artistically created so far. But like every genuine world view, one that takes hold not only of our abstract intellect, our ideas and concepts, but of the whole human being, must express itself artistically, so must spiritual science express itself artistically. And the first step in this direction is the building in Dornach – a primitive beginning, as I said. It will be understood that spiritual science is able to deepen religious life and to fertilize art. But spiritual science wants to be a science, albeit a science that is close to the most intimate needs of the human soul. And it wants to be such a science, a strong promoter of the life that our time needs. Therefore, for everything artistic, for everything social, for religious and many other special areas of life, we can say what Goethe said in relation to the religious feeling of man: He who possesses science and art also has religion. Those who do not possess these two, have religion. Those who truly possess spiritual science and who immerse themselves in the artistic perception that flows from spiritual science in a feeling-based way, for them it can be said, once again summarizing a feeling, this time a Goethean feeling, which is also what every stone, every piece of wood in our building should express: Those who possess science (in the sense of spiritual science) and those who possess art (especially art in the sense of spiritual science) also possess religion. This is what can be said for religion and for many other areas of life from the point of view of spiritual science. Therefore, the feelings that should flow through my reflections today may end with Goethe's words – even if this only refers to the religious current, what applies to religion also applies to the other areas of life:
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330. The Reorganization of the Social Organism: The Tasks of Schools and the Tripartite Social Organism
19 Jun 1919, Stuttgart Rudolf Steiner |
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Yes, nature makes leaps everywhere. When it transitions from a green leaf to a colorful flower, it takes a leap, and when it transitions from a colorful flower to a pistil, it takes another leap. |
330. The Reorganization of the Social Organism: The Tasks of Schools and the Tripartite Social Organism
19 Jun 1919, Stuttgart Rudolf Steiner |
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Lecture for the “Association of Younger Teachers” It gives me great satisfaction to be able to speak to teachers for a change. For although my destiny has immersed me in the most diverse professions, and although I try to understand what is happening in the various professions and classes, especially in today's times of confusion and chaos, I also feel particularly at home, I might say, with the teaching profession, to which I myself belonged for many years of my life, albeit in a private way, but therefore under not exactly easy circumstances. But perhaps that is precisely why I feel called to specialize in what is to be said now with regard to the reorganization of conditions within human development for this profession. One can say, especially when one surveys what is alive in the present day, alive with demands, alive with insights, more or less bright or dark insights, regarding what has to happen — one can say: If the teacher were not heard in what today, as the demand of the time, resounds throughout the world, the whole civilized world, then it would be the greatest conceivable loss for the reorganization of our lives. And if one could imagine that teachers would not turn their attention to working on this reorganization of human affairs, then this reorganization of human institutions would certainly produce something that would very soon be in need of improvement and that, on the other hand, could truly not in any way benefit humanity. You may assume from my following remarks that I will have many objections to today's school institutions; but I ask you not to take this as if it were somehow directed against today's teachers themselves. For I fully recognize how today's teachers – even if they do not always fully realize it in the pressures of life – suffer deeply, sometimes even groan, especially under today's school conditions. But it is precisely for this reason that it may be possible to discuss what is now called the social question most profoundly and most meaningfully in the circle of teachers. After all, the teacher is also personally and to the highest degree interested in what should happen in the present and in the near future as a result of the call for socialization of human society, even if this is less important. For one may have various objections to the party programs that are floating around in the world today, more or less radically; but from these radical or less radical socialist party programs, all kinds of programs about the so-called “socialization of the school system” are also emerging. If the school system were to be socialized in line with these socialist programs, then not only would the result be what many anxious minds today fear from a transformation of human conditions in line with party socialism, but it would most likely, even if this is not yet sufficiently understood today, result in the realization of the socialist party program for the school of the purest pedagogical madness. If this is again a somewhat radical statement, please excuse it by the fact that I am not inclined to develop anything other than a factual idea, a practical factual idea, in any direction at all, and certainly not something party-related. After this introduction, you will find it understandable that the question is raised precisely in relation to our current school system: How are the fruits of this school system manifested in practical life, in that practical life from which the call for transformation is emerging everywhere today? | If we are not just superficially theoretical, but if we are attached with heart and mind to the school system, as the most important factor in the development of humanity, then we must say the following to ourselves. We see how today, in sometimes quite a disturbing way, people who cannot see life in its real demands and possibilities draw up party programs. We see how the belief is nurtured that people want to reform or revolutionize life, when all they can do is reform or revolutionize the worst out of it. We must ask the question, after all, haven't basically the souls of all those who now frighten so many, haven't these souls gone through our schools? We look anxiously at the proletariat today, and it must even be admitted that this anxiety is not entirely unjustified, not at all unjustified. But this proletariat has gone through our schools, and we must admit, if we are not short-sighted, that our schools have educated this proletariat as well. And in what the proletariat wants, as well as in what it is mistaken about, we must recognize something of what is expressed by the saying, “You shall know them by their fruits.” This is not meant to be a superficial, agitational phrase; it is only intended to draw attention to the cultural-historical problem of today's education and teaching. We must be clear about the following. With the proletarian, a new human being has emerged in the last three to four centuries, but particularly in the nineteenth century: a human being who, in the previous centuries, did not yet exist with this physical and mental and spiritual constitution. What characterizes the proletarian of today is that, in contrast to other members of human society, he is, to a much greater extent than was previously the case, to a certain extent, suspended in the air with his entire human existence. And this must interest us particularly from the pedagogical point of view, that the proletarian in the present is the person who, with regard to his life, must say to himself: If he himself is induced, or if others induce him to give up his position, then he faces nothing. Then, to a certain extent, he no longer feels connected to what holds human society together. On the other hand, it must be said that the education provided by the school, especially in the period during which the proletariat developed in this way, was such that it could not make people into fully-fledged human beings. This was certainly not through the fault of the teaching staff, but through the fault of the school's dependence on the state and on economic powers! In the recent past, it would have been possible to deal with the growing child in the most appropriate way, based on real knowledge of the human becoming. However, as a teacher, one was sandwiched between two powers that basically did not always work in the sense of what the teacher had to consider his task with regard to the education of the human being through the school. Today, with the advent of the school as it has developed out of earlier conditions, the teacher is caught between the parental home and the state. Of course there are exceptions in all fields, and naturally a word that seeks to characterize something cannot always be applied to all individual cases, but on the whole it is true, even if it is radically expressed: Today the teacher has to take over the children from the parents , and when he has to hand them over to the State at the end of their schooldays, the State soon draws out of their souls what the teacher has tried to instil in them. The teacher today is actually stuck between these two extremes, which do not at all work in the sense of education through the school. And when he becomes fully aware of his profession, then he actually groans between these two distortions of his pupil, the distortion by the parental home and the distortion by the state. That is, as I said, a radical way of putting it. But do we not ultimately get different children from the parental home than those who have initially grown up with the parents themselves, who have grown up with the parents in such a way that they enter school with all the prejudices of their parents, that everything that the parents themselves carry in their minds and in their state of mind has rubbed off on them – from the class in which they find themselves? And on the other hand, we release children from school and let them go out into human life, and we have to send them out into the community. What that means for the present time is shown by the terrible situation of humanity in this era. Of course, we have experienced great misfortune, and we will experience many more misfortunes. But have we not seen in misfortune what we could have seen in happiness if only we had had a sufficient eye for it? Have we not seen as a fundamental characteristic of the present human being that he has not actually developed the inner strength of soul during childhood that would enable him to face life in such a way that the fate of life cannot bend his thinking, his feeling, his will? Today, more than one would imagine, we find broken characters and broken natures in all walks of life. This can be seen in the dark, gloomy thoughts and ideas that people throughout the civilized world are entertaining today about the terrible events that have befallen them. Can anyone today actually imagine how this came about? Can they still see anything at all in life? Do they still feel strong enough to really fit into life energetically? More people than you would think are actually broken human natures in our time! And we also have to ask why school could not work to create a firm hold in people for life, so that they could not be broken by life and their fate? If it had been left to schools alone for a long time to educate people in such a way that they would have to enter life through what schools had to give them, then today's conditions would be different. But that was not the case. School was able to give people something. But those people who belonged to the privileged, the leading, leading circles of people, they did not place the person in life through school, but through family, through kinship, through patronage and the like. They made sure that the young person got into this or that position in life, precisely through the connections in which they themselves stood in life. The only person for whom this does not apply is the proletarian. That is why he is the only 'modern' person for the school. The proletarian's child cannot be spoiled so much – of course by other things, but not by the parents – because the parents have no time to do so. And the child of the proletarian, when he leaves school, is not introduced into the human community by family connections, by patronage and the like, but must find his place in life by virtue of his own inner soul-life. The proletarian, the human being let loose on humanity, who can only rely on himself, is therefore in a completely different position in relation to this point than the people in the leading, guiding circles. This is what has shaped our school, given it its character; this is what needs to be considered in the present. And this is also what raises the questions from which the teaching staff in particular must take part in the great social problems of this time. The question arises in a completely new way: How should we forge the human being for life? How should we educate through school so that the human being, in the time in which he goes through school, develops those forces that are inherent in his inner being – the forces of thinking, feeling, willing, and doing – so that they are present in later life in such strength that the vicissitudes of life cannot break them? This question, along with the fundamental questions of the proletariat, is arising with unprecedented intensity. How one must educate, educate through the school, this question takes on a new face today. And that is precisely why it is necessary, above all, for the teacher to have an opinion on how the people who are to be placed in life must be developed in a scholastic way. What is actually being demanded now, but of whose form one has truly quite dark ideas in the various party programs and party opinions, and how such questions are actually viewed today, is shown precisely by such socialist school programs and school ideas that are being put forward. One need only look at a few of the main points of these socialist school ideas and programs. For example, certain socialist personalities emphasize the unified school. This should not be uniformed; it should be differentiated as much as possible, so that the individual human abilities and talents are taken into account. The socialists express this demand by saying: We demand the differentiation of the curriculum for the unified school, but we demand the unity of the “organization”. That is, the unified school should be organized in a uniform manner. The organizational structure should not take into account the individualities of human beings, but these should be introduced later – but how? It is very strange that such a school program could arise from socialist circles, for the simple reason that socialists, based on their materialistic view of history, always emphasize that the human being is entirely the product of external circumstances, that he is not at all the product of moral, legal, aesthetic, or religious views. All this, law, custom, religious and aesthetic views, even science, is called by socialism in its Marxist papacy a mere “ideological superstructure”. Reality for it is the way in which economic conditions are organized. That actually makes man, everything else evaporates in the human soul as an ideological superstructure. And now socialism draws up a school program in which it demands uniformity of organization and specialization of the curriculum. The curriculum would then provide something that is supposed to be more or less the ideological superstructure, and the organization provides the existing conditions in which the child is to be placed, through which the person is to be formed and shaped. If you demand a uniformity of organization, then you are actually demanding, according to the basic ideas of socialism, the uniformity of the whole of human nature, because the differentiation in the curriculum will not make it so that the object of this differentiation is not merely the “ideological superstructure”. From this program you can see the contradictions that abound in today's demands, and what is to become of them if we imagine that these contradictions should somehow become reality from today's demands! | But the demands of the time themselves – can we do anything against them? We cannot really do anything against the demands of the time. They are there. Humanity has at some point reached a certain level of consciousness at its present stage of development, has at some point reached a certain state of mind, which is expressed in particular in proletarian demands, which can only be the signal for a new development that takes place in a completely different way than the proletarian imagines. But a certain inner impulse has taken hold of humanity in its ongoing development, and this impulse has long been expressed in two words – in our time they have become very much a cliché and a catchphrase – democracy and socialism. These two words are emerging with ever-greater force from the depths of human development. And in our time, even though much foolishness is said about democracy and socialism, it must be said that in our time both resound with increased power from these depths of humanity. There is a demand for a greater degree of democratization of the state, and there is also a demand for a greater degree of socialization of economic life. Nothing can be done against these demands; they are certainly elementary demands of the development of humanity. But the task we face in the face of these demands is to take a reasonable position on them. What do these two demands, “democracy” and “socialism,” mean? They basically mean that much more than has been the case so far, what happens in the state and economic community is placed in the will of the individual. In a democracy, the individual wants to have a greater measure of participation in the institutions of the state, even in the very downtrodden proletarian classes, than he has had up to now. In socialization, the individual wants to have personal influence again, a far-reaching influence on economic life. One need only recall superficially what conditions were like in earlier times, and one will have to say that human society was much more cohesive. The individual was much more inclined to conform to traditions, customs, and conventions, to what was imposed on him by the authorities, by whatever authorities. It is from this sense of authority, from this sense of authority, that man wants to extricate himself through democracy and socialization. And by wanting to take these demands into account, especially on the socialist side, what is actually being demanded for the school? Socialization is also demanded for schools. It is imagined that what is to take place among adults in public and economic life, perhaps in a somewhat weakened form, should also take place to a certain extent in schools. In a program written by a socialist thinker, it is also stated that in the future the authority of the headmaster or principal is to be abolished. They also want to limit the authority of the teacher himself to a certain extent, and they speak of school communities with a certain self-administration of the students, where the teacher is to place himself in a comradely way in the school community. And by eliminating the principal's office and the directorate, the aim is to cultivate people who are particularly suited to democracy and socialism. This means that what appears to be a developmental requirement for humanity is actually being established for children, based on the conditions of the adult community. But something is being forgotten in the process. And the fact that this is being forgotten shows how poor our present-day psychology, our present-day study of the human soul actually is. For good psychologists would never think: If the bonds between adults become weaker, then the bonds between growing children should also become weaker. Good psychologists would say exactly the opposite. They would say, well, if the demand has been made that the bonds of human community should become weaker among adults, so that there may be more democracy and socialism, then all the more reason for the children to be educated in such a way that they become capable of democracy and socialism in later life. For if they are educated as children in such a way that democracy and socialism prevail among them in the organization of the school, then they will certainly be good for democracy and socialism in later life. That is what, I am convinced, good psychologists would have to say, who are sincere about socialism and democracy for the rising generation. They would have to say: So all the more reason to implant the seeds in the minds of children that cannot be driven out again by democracy and socialism in adulthood! But this leads us to the fundamental question of the methodology of schooling, to the fundamental questions of education, for in future this education will have to take on a different form from that of the past. In future it will have to be based, above all, on a deep consideration of the human being, of human nature itself. One will have to study human nature itself much more deeply than one can at present in order to be able to work as a teacher among children. Our natural science has celebrated the greatest triumphs in the last four hundred years. Those who are familiar with the methods and conscientious nature of scientific research also know what humanity owes to this scientific direction and scientific research ethos in the last four hundred years. But it is impossible, precisely when natural science fulfills its ideal, to recognize the human being with this natural science. One can never recognize the human being with natural science! For, with all the concepts that arise from the observation of nature, the human being can never recognize that in himself which, in him, rises above all nature, which is soul-spiritual in him. It is therefore understandable that in the age in which natural science has risen to its highest level, knowledge of human nature, especially in our Western civilization (the Orientals reproach us for this in sufficient strength), has declined more and more. Anyone who has acquired a knowledge of natural science in the modern sense knows how the actual human existence falls apart under one's hands, especially when one is a good natural scientist. But it is not the case that only natural science makes the human existence fall apart under one's hands; rather, what has become of the natural scientific way of thinking, of imagining, has taken possession of the whole consciousness of the time. It lives in every newspaper editorial, and it dominates the widest circles that today participate in the demands of the day in the latest sense. And that shows us a very significant dichotomy. I could give you many examples that could be proof of this. I will give just one. There is a very important natural scientist today, Oscar Hertwig, who is an excellent person in his field, biology, perhaps one of the greatest, most important biologists of the present day. He wrote a book several years ago: “The Becoming of Organisms, a Refutation of the Darwinian Theory of Chance”, a very beautiful, meaningful book from a scientific point of view. Now this unfortunate man has decided that he must write a book on social issues. And this book is pure nonsense, it is worthless. This is a characteristic phenomenon. Today, one can think in a scientifically penetrating way, one can conscientiously master scientific methods, and one can know nothing at all about everything social and legal and about that through which man rises above nature. Precisely because our pedagogical thinking has also been influenced by scientific thinking, it has lost sight of the actual process of becoming and development in the human being. However, this becoming and developing human being will be the greatest problem for future pedagogy. I am well aware that some people will say that what I am about to explain in the following sentences is self-evident. But such obviousness is all too often ignored in the present day. There is a saying – as there are many sayings that are correct when applied correctly and that are totally wrong when applied incorrectly – that is: nature does not make leaps. Yes, nature makes leaps everywhere. When it transitions from a green leaf to a colorful flower, it takes a leap, and when it transitions from a colorful flower to a pistil, it takes another leap. Nature takes nothing but leaps. It is the same in human life, if you only look at it deeply enough. We have three strictly separate life epochs for the youth of humans. The first includes childhood up to the change of teeth. This change of teeth is accompanied by a much, much more intense intervention in the human organism than current physiology in any way suspects. The whole being of the human being, as it develops from birth to the change of teeth, becomes something quite different, spiritually and mentally and to a certain extent also physically, when it has gone through the change of teeth. The second phase of life is that which extends from the change of teeth to sexual maturity. The third begins with sexual maturity and extends to the end of the second and the beginning of the third decade of life, into the twenties. A more precise study, based on the inner qualities of the human being, of the developing human being, must become the basis of a true pedagogy in future anthropology. In the first period of life, there is a certain moment of growth for the growing child that dominates everything else: the child is an imitator. The child is so predisposed that, as an imitative being, it adopts the nature of the people around it, right down to the gestures it makes, the actions it performs, and the skills it acquires. But this goes much further than one might think. What works from person to person is actually much deeper than one usually suspects. If we are a good person in the environment of a child, then our kindness, our ability to love, our goodwill goes over to the child along with our outward gestures. And especially when we begin to learn language from our environment, then there is an overflow into the growing child of what parents and the environment otherwise keep in their souls. The child adapts completely to its environment; it becomes like its environment, because the principle of imitation prevails in human nature until the time of the change of teeth. This can be observed in individual cases. Then parents come to you and say: Oh, we have experienced a great misfortune with our child, our boy has stolen from us! — You have to say, look, maybe what the child did does not mean theft at all, how old is the child? — Five years. — You ask further: How did the incident happen? Well, it opened the drawer, took out a coin – I am talking about a specific, concrete case – and even shared with other children what it had bought as a treat. You can then tell the parents: Of course you don't have to let something like that happen, but it happened out of nothing other than what the child has seen so often every day: the mother goes to the drawer, takes out a coin to buy something. The child imitates, does the same, not as a wrong, but as something that must happen as a matter of course out of the principle of imitation. Therefore, until the child changes teeth, parents need to be less concerned with trying to influence the child through all kinds of preaching and good teaching, which has no meaning at all, because during this time, teachings are actually only a sound that penetrates the child's ear. Instead, parents need to be concerned with being such that the child can imitate everything. This would be the best educational principle during this time. If we reflect a little on the present situation, we will not find it so radical to say that schools very often get children who are not very well brought up. For this principle of doing nothing, saying nothing, indeed, thinking nothing, that the child might not spoil by imitation, this principle is truly still little known. But what lies in this principle of imitation? Yes, when this principle of imitation is taken into account in the first years of childhood, when the soul forces are particularly strengthened by what can be strengthened by a properly observed principle of imitation, then something arises in the child that later — because the flowering of what has been sown often occurs quite late in life — enables it to be a truly free human being. Someone who has never had such people in their environment, to whom they can give themselves so completely that they can imitate them, that they absorb into themselves what they do, is not prepared for a democratic life and will never be able to enjoy freedom in life. This is what must be considered in the context of life. As I said, we must only be clear about the fact that the blossoms and fruits of what has been sown into human life sometimes arise much later than one might think. What is sown in the first seven years of life through a correct principle of imitation is then deeply imprinted in the soul of the child and only comes to fruition in the twenties and throughout the whole of the following life. As is generally the case in life: no one acquires the ability to bless with their hand for their later life who has not been educated in their childhood to ask with their hand. What is educated in childhood often transforms into the opposite in life, asking transforms into blessing and the like. Then the time begins, which is particularly significant for school, the time from the change of teeth to sexual maturity. This time has an underlying characteristic developmental principle in the developing human being. This is - if you really study people, you will come across it - the sense of authority. There is no way to develop certain powers of thinking, feeling and willing in the growing human being between the ages of six or seven and fourteen or fifteen that must be developed if you want to raise the child in these years without the sense of authority. One must go through it in these years, to look at one or more other people in such a way that one can say to oneself – even if one does not say it out loud as a child – but that one says to oneself inwardly: What this person says is the truth. You never learn to seek the truth in life if you have not first sought it in a person who was an authority for us. There is no way to develop certain abilities in human nature if we do not put the child in a position to be the absolute authority for the child through what we are as teachers and educators. In this respect, a kind of sacred sense of authority must prevail in the school. And if you believe that anything other than this sacred sense of authority will educate towards democracy and socialism, if you believe that a democratic-socialist school community will educate towards this, then you are very much on the wrong track. If we want adults to have an inner maturity, if one may say so, in relation to democratic and socialist life, then children must have learned to look up to teachers as authorities. Above all, we must create this atmosphere in the school if we want to educate in the right way for our time. Only when a person grows up between the ages of seven and fourteen in such a way that he or she, so to speak, climbs up to the other person who is his or her authority, will the fully developed human being develop. And this fully developed human being can only develop if we approach many things in a very thorough pedagogical way during this time. It must be said that, especially for this time, one thing in particular is characteristic when it comes to authority. You all know Jean Paul's saying that in our first three years we actually learn more for life from our nurse than we do later in three academic years. That was still the case in Jean Paul's time. This saying is absolutely correct, there is no objection to it. But you know that much is determined by the physiology of the child. The child does not need to be maltreated in terms of his memory. He remembers so much, retains so much in his memory, than he needs to retain at this age until the change of teeth. But with the change of teeth, it becomes necessary to take careful consideration of the child's memory. Above all, we must not overload the memory during this period, that is, we must not force something into the memory that will then fall out by itself. It is hard to believe that this is not known. This, too, is a consequence of today's poor psychology. It is hard for a person when his memory is so mistreated during this time that he has to incorporate things into his memory that then fall out by themselves. Therefore, one has to ensure that one works as much as possible through repetition and the like – repetition must form the basis for the period between the seventh and fourteenth, fifteenth year – that one lays the things that one first presented in more detail, if possible in short, summarized sentences, for the memory, so that one really has certain things within oneself, at least to a certain degree, and retains certain things from these years of life within oneself, as a Christian does the Lord's Prayer, albeit to a lesser degree, so that it comes up again and again and again, and forms part of the inner life of the soul. During this time, one must not forget to focus on the development of the soul's powers. But in this respect much is sinned, for in this time more attention is paid to the school subjects that are required by life and the state than to the growing human being himself. The situation is such that everything that is as conventional for life as reading and writing is not something that is as internally based as, for example, geometry or arithmetic. The fact that we have this language, in particular, is something that is less fundamentally connected to the outside world, and also to the generality of the world. That we have these letters of the alphabet has less to do with general world conditions than, for example, a triangle having three sides or its angle sum being 180 degrees or the like. Everything that is as conventional as reading and writing can be used primarily to develop intellectuality, which particularly forms the mind. It would be going too far if I were to now expand on this sentence of a true psychology in a broader way, but anyone who looks at life from all sides will find this sentence to be true. On the other hand, everything that is more closely related to general world conditions or that appeals to human memory, such as history or geography, is more closely related, though it may seem paradoxical, to the forces of feeling and shapes the life of feeling. And everything we teach the young child artistically shapes the life of will, and we should actually organize the individual school subjects in such a way that we have the developing human being in mind and always know: with this we shape thinking, with this we shape feeling, and with that we shape the will. It is the developing human being that matters, not a certain amount of knowledge. Once we have these principles, children will learn something that is very rarely taught today. Nowadays, children learn a great deal: geography, arithmetic, drawing, and so on. I do not want to talk about that. But they should learn in the way I have just described; however, there is little teaching about learning. But life itself is the great school of life, and you only get out of school properly if you bring with you the ability to learn from life throughout your entire life. But you can't do that if you are grafted onto knowledge during these years. You can only do that if the school is used to develop these powers of thinking, feeling and willing in the human being in his soul. Then one learns how to learn from life. If we want democracy and socialism, then we must not be so arrogant as to think that we can determine everything and already know everything. We must get beyond megalomania. One only has to be a twenty-one-year-old reasonable, mature person to be elected into all state parliaments, to speak in a way that those people who have experience in life speak. But then one must be educated to the innermost human modesty, that we are not absolutely perfect human beings for a moment, but developing human beings from birth to death. That every day of life has a certain value, and that we do not live into our thirties in vain after going through our twenties, but that every new day and every new year always brings new revelations. But this must be imparted as a real impulse for life through the things I have just mentioned. In the age of natural science, these things could not always be properly appreciated. In the age of natural science, for example, a principle has crept into schools that is extremely correct when viewed from one side, but highly questionable when viewed from the other: that is, the principle of visualization. I always feel a little horror when I enter a classroom and see the calculating machine there, with which the children are supposed to learn counting and adding “vividly”. In arithmetic, it is still possible. But if we radically extend the principle of vividness, it must be said that the principle of vividness in education is only justified if everything in the world is really vivid. But do you believe that everything in the world is really vivid? There are many things in the world that cannot be vivid, namely all emotional and volitional values, sympathy, antipathy, and so on. These cannot be made clear at all, they must pass from the teacher to the pupil precisely according to the principle of authority, through indeterminate fluids, if I may use this expression. This has a very great significance in terms of cultural history. We see how people today are intellectually over-educated, especially in our Western civilization, and how they always express everything they demand of life in intellectual principles. That which is now the most intellectual, which is entirely only intellect, is the Marxist program. That is precisely the fundamental characteristic of the Marxist program, that it only received its structure from the intellect. One really only understands what is in the Marxist program when one knows that everything in it is dictated only by the intellect, often by a very sharp intellect, by an extremely sharp, ingenious intellect – but only by the intellect. In human nature, in the human soul, the individual soul powers are interrelated. If one power is developed too strongly, the others are left behind; some powers develop more, others are left behind. If the powers of the intellect are developed too strongly, the emotions are left behind at a lower level. They may become strong, but they become elementary, they become wild. And so we see that in our time of intelligence, the most desolate emotions and the most terrible instincts arise as “historical demands”. For that is what comes from Eastern Europe, what is beginning to flood Central Europe: elementary instinctive demands, which are the opposite pole to intellectuality. One would like people to start thinking about the actual connections in this regard. For example, there are two truly bourgeois philosophers. One is more of a naturalist in the world of the nineteenth century, Avenarius, the other is Mach. One is in Zurich, where he also taught, the other in Vienna. These two people, Avenarius and Mach, had developed the scientific mentality to the highest degree. They had made this mentality into a philosophical system. Why? Because the principle of bringing only the most vivid aspects of natural science to bear on human science was everything to them. These people were really very good, good citizens, highly respectable people, I can assure you of that. And now Avenarius' philosophy and Mach's philosophy have become the state philosophy of the Bolsheviks in Russia! This connection might seem inexplicable. On the surface, one might perhaps want to justify it by saying that many Bolsheviks studied in Zurich. But that is not the point, because no philosopher likes to be associated with someone to whom he is not inwardly related. Rather, the inner connection is that what has been expressed in such purely natural-scientific thinking is so one-sided that, on the other hand, through the mysteriousness of human nature, it evokes those emotions, those elementary instincts, which are then given full expression in Bolshevism. This is no coincidence; there is an inner lawfulness behind it. And no one has more to reflect on such things than the teaching profession, because these things belong most intensely in cultural education. We simply have to ask ourselves how we should educate the child. We cannot just rely on formalistic methodology, pedagogy and didactics in our time, when everything is in turmoil; we have to draw on cultural history to build a healthy pedagogy. Therefore, we have to counter the principle of vividness with something that builds character. We have tried in our circle – one can have objections to some of it, but it is along the lines I have just indicated – we have tried to replace mere physiological gymnastics, where only limb movements in relation to physiology come into consideration, with e which is the soul-inspired art of movement for human beings. It will be seen that, just as it is an art, it is also, on the other hand, inspired gymnastics, and that it is precisely through this that it can achieve something significant for the education of the will. And so we must reshape many things in which we now firmly believe if we really want to count on an education of the human being through which the human being can grow into democracy and socialism in the right way. Otherwise, democracy and socialism will become the most terrible scourge for civilized humanity in the future. What must be taken into account most of all is that in an age when people want to participate, firstly in state life, secondly in economic life through all kinds of “councils”, where even what has been achieved by capital is to be replaced by the reason of the various works councils, transport councils, economic councils – that in this time, precisely in terms of their education, people must undergo what will enable them to practise what democracy and socialism demand. For democracy and socialism should not be a mere human demand; they should also represent a system of human duties and obligations. That is how seriously we must take things today, and we must in particular bring what lies in the demands of democracy and socialism into pedagogy and education. And if a person is to develop true insight into the needs and abilities of others, if socialization is to take place, then the human being must have developed within himself that capacity for love through the principle of imitation, through the principle of authority, which brings him to true brotherhood in life. Socialism without people inclined towards brotherhood is a wooden iron! Therefore, one may say: It would be a pity not to ask the teachers first and foremost when it comes to dealing with new developments in our social future, because only from this quarter can the wind blow that will really have a healing effect with regard to the characterized demands of the time. I can easily believe that today, and also for the transitional period, the teaching staff in particular might have serious concerns about what needs to be done to make such a school and such an education possible, as characterized here, through the efforts of the “Federation for the Threefold Social Organism”. This Federation for Threefold Order sees in the dependence of the school on the state, in the permeation of the school with the state principle, that which will make it impossible for the future to cultivate in the school what has been discussed here today. The socialists could reflect on this a little. They want to nationalize or socialize everything in a certain way. The class of people that preceded them nationalized the school. The school is completely nationalized; it is a good place to learn what nationalization is. And today, with the call for socialization, anyone who takes things seriously, anyone who is capable of seeing the big cultural and historical picture, must say: what is needed is denationalization of the school. Therefore, the “Bund für Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus” has the principle of placing the school system entirely in its own hands, of giving the school system self-government, so that not even supervision remains with the state, but what is achieved in the school through self-government should grow purely out of the needs of spiritual life itself. Much will arise from this. I will give you just one example, because it may be easier for us to communicate through an example on this broad topic. Today we distinguish between primary schools, secondary schools and universities. At the universities, education is also taught. This education is now to be given a slightly better position at the universities, but it is actually still always taught as a “minor subject”. Until now, it was like this: some philosopher was appointed to teach philosophy, and then he was also given education as a minor subject. This was usually a burden for him, he did not like doing it at all. In the future, things must be different. For in the future, everything that is spiritual life must be connected with general human life. In the future, if such an ideal as I have outlined before you today can really be fulfilled, in the future the teacher will definitely be a psychologist. He will educate the growing human being based on his in-depth knowledge of human nature, and he will know best what pedagogical truth is. Then the teacher, who otherwise teaches children, will be called to the university to teach pedagogy there. And after teaching there for a while, he will go back to school to teach children again, gain new experience, and then teach pedagogy again later. This will become a true 'Republic of Letters', as Klopstock once dreamed of. Only by taking things so thoroughly and so deeply can we make any progress at all. The present time is destined to communicate these things to the outer life. But to accomplish all this, every sphere of the spirit must be a kingdom unto itself. At most, it could give rise to the following concern: If the state, through its regulatory measures, no longer contributes to the teacher's income, then the situation of teachers will be very dire. Well, the teacher will belong to an economic corporation, just as there are other economic corporations. Besides being a teacher, he will be part of the economic body, the third limb of the threefold social organism, and will receive his income from this independent economic entity. For the threefold social organism will have an independent economic entity, just as it has an independent state entity, where the right to cultivate on a democratic basis and as it will have its own free spiritual realm. And what today goes indirectly into the teacher's bank account through taxation will then come directly from economic life. Furthermore, it is only through the independent spiritual life that the right atmosphere for school and teaching will be created. A healthy social organism also requires a correct evaluation of the various goods and achievements of life, one that comes from the whole human being. This evaluation of goods and achievements must be there. But in a healthy social organism, the view must not prevail that what the teacher actually achieves for the growing generation can be “paid for”. That is a gift that the teacher will impart from the spiritual world to humanity! This attitude must take hold in the healthy social organism, so that the teacher is the medium through which the abilities of the human being, the individual qualities of the human being, are brought up from their dark backgrounds, as they are predisposed in human nature. It is merely the megalomania of philistinism to believe that what can actually be achieved in the school must be paid for. What the economic body of the healthy threefold social organism will have to provide is only the opportunity for the teacher to live as all other people live. In the consciousness of this offering of the possibility of life and the evaluation of teaching, which will be the healthy impulse, without which there can be no democracy, one must completely separate. For that democracy which levels everything, which can no longer evaluate things, will only destroy things, and that socialism which believes it can pay for everything will also destroy life. Not only must the teacher himself be the one factor that is heard when the call for democracy and socialization can be followed, but the evaluation of the teaching profession itself must arise again from the constitution of the healthy social organism. The aim of the Federation for the Tripartite Social Order is to achieve independence in each of the three areas of life. Therefore, it wants to place what has so far been mixed into an inorganic, chaotic unity – economic life, spiritual life and state life – on its healthy three foundations: an independent spiritual life, an independent democratic state or legal life and an independent social economic life. And the human being forms the higher unity in the three. He will participate in all three areas. There is no need to fear that unity will be lost. Anyone who thinks that the idea of threefolding is about dividing the horse into three parts has a poor understanding of what it is about. We do not want to divide the horse into three parts; we just do not want it to be said that the horse is only a real horse when it stands on one leg. A healthy social organism stands on its healthy three legs. This is, firstly, an independent spiritual life, to which education and the school system belong; secondly, an independent legal life, to which the democratic state belongs; and thirdly, an independent economic life, which alone can be socialized. If you want to co-socialize legal life and even intellectual life, then you end up with nothing more than a socialism of economic life, which pushes everything into the uniformity of economic life, which is supposed to clothe and feed people, and which gradually drains everything that can only develop independently: state or legal life and intellectual life. This is a serious question, especially as a pedagogical question, as a cultural pedagogical question, which in the broadest sense is the fundamental question of our time. As far as I have been able to do so in these already long considerations, I have tried to show an understanding of what the impulse of the threefold social organism really wants and what it particularly wants for the liberation and redemption of spiritual life and of the school and education system from some of the bonds in which they are bound. It would give me great satisfaction if the aims that arise from such considerations were to a certain extent taken into account by teachers and educators. Final words after the discussion In the lively discussion that followed, it was objected that the proletarian children had been spoiled by bad role models and were not suitable for educating “new people”. Authority would be better replaced by leadership and following, as the school communities strive for. Education is determined by the personality of the teacher, regardless of the political context. Only a new teacher training program must educate the teacher to be independent; today the teacher needs the authority of the state. The state has given the teacher authority and has not disturbed him further; he is not to be dispensed with. Dr. STEINER: First of all I would ask to be allowed to deal with the individual questions that have been put to me. First of all the Chairman's question regarding the children of the proletariat. If I said, or if it can be inferred from my words, that I have described the proletarian as the “type of the new man,” then I ask you not to take this to mean that the “new man” is a kind of angel. It is a very common mistake to assume that when one speaks of the new, especially in the development of humanity, one also has the view that the new is always also the better. That is the effect of a capital error of the stereotyped parties. For them, the new was always the better. In this sense, I did not want to describe the proletarian as the “type of the better man”, but only to say that he is the type of man who has developed in the last times, in the last three to four centuries, especially in the nineteenth century. When I said that the bourgeois child is pampered by its parents, I also said that the proletarian child is pampered too – I ask you to please remember that I added this subordinate clause – but it is not pampered by parents who have no time for it. The fact of the matter is that the proletarian child today is usually a bigger rascal than the bourgeois child. One can fully agree with that. And I imagine that the honored chairman, who is a teacher of proletarian children, experiences it perhaps just as horribly as he describes it. I could think that precisely because the proletarian is the type of the new man, the proletarian child is the bigger rascal. But it is so in a different way. It is not because it imitates its parents, who are in a certain class, and thus imitates the class characteristics, but because it is educated on the street and left alone, imitates everything possible. It is generally worse off. It has outgrown humanity, to which there is simply nothing particularly good to imitate today. It has grown out of a general humanity, so that in this respect it stands in life as the proletarian stands in life later on. It has more outgrown life. The bourgeois child, on the other hand, is more placed in a certain hothouse. That is the difference. There is no question that the proletarian child imitates all sorts of things and comes to school with the success of this imitation, with things that are not very desirable. But my aim was to show how new tasks arise for the proletarian child, firstly, because it does not come from its parents with very specific class peculiarities and is then not released into life that father, mother, brother, sister, uncles, aunts and others who support it, but that it needs to rely only on what has been brought up in its soul, in the whole person. One has often repeated a saying of a man who has not exactly distinguished himself favorably in his post, the saying “Free rein to the most capable.” But things have now become a cliché. Because it is easy to say “free rein for the most capable” when you really mean only your own nephew or your sister's child. So these are things that must be taken literally, not by the letter but by the spirit. We live in such a phrase-ridden world precisely because we can take things literally so little. I ask you to bear this in mind. That, then, with regard to imitation. As for the sense of authority, it is natural that the children of the proletariat may have little to go by in this respect. But here we must strive, above all, by training our pedagogical staff, to really develop this sense of authority in the children of the proletariat. Then it was said that it does not matter whether the personality takes care of the development of thinking, feeling and will within or outside the state. I could not really understand the question, even though it came up twice. What matters is that the personality is not deprived of its strength by being crammed into state regulations. One must simply take into account what it means when what comes from the free personality of the teacher himself cannot be passed on, but only what is introduced into what he is supposed to teach through the decrees, curricula and objectives of the state; when the aim is not to educate people to become full human beings, but to train people who will then have to serve the state in the right way at this or that point in the state. Then the objection was raised – and this always comes up when this question is discussed – that educational interests and needs are not all that great in today's world, and that most parents would be happy if they didn't have to send their children to school. It has even been said that no one would send their children to school anymore. But what I said did not touch on the superficial question of whether or not to send children to school. In my book The Essentials of the Social Question, I speak of a child's right to education, and of the need for a corresponding contribution to education from the future economy, even in the future state. So, I am not talking about the fact that “compulsory schooling” is perceived as a nuisance by those parents who do not want to send their children to school, but rather to the fields, but I am talking about the fact that in a healthy social organism, the child has a right to an education. Now one could say: if this right exists, the state – why the state should have been hammered today, as one speaker said, I don't know – will still be there as the legal institution – but I only had to speak about the spiritual institution today. And here the objection could be raised that if this right to educate the child is asserted, then parents will have to send their children to school, and then, for all I care, compulsory schooling can be abandoned. But that has nothing to do with the self-sufficiency of spiritual life, nothing to do with what is done in schools, with the administration of the school system. I recently answered the question as follows: If there is no compulsion to attend school, if there is a right to education, you can even threaten to appoint a guardian for the child of those parents who do not want to send their children to school, who will represent the child's right to an education with the parents; then they will happily send their children to school. All these secondary questions can be answered if there is the goodwill to truly understand the main question: everything depends on the spiritual life being freely left to its own devices. Then the conflict that arises when the state or some other force later fails to tolerate what the teacher has planted in the children as an authority has been hinted at. But it is precisely from the realization of this conflict that the demand for the separation of the school system from the state arises. It is precisely in order to avoid the impossibility of a state later not tolerating what has been placed in the soul of the child through authority at school, that the school and education system should be placed on its own ground. If the state is not at the same time the authority for the teacher, then when later in life a person is forced to do something else, he will not think back to his teacher in such a way that the teacher is now worthless to him when the state says otherwise, but he will think back in such a way that he will feel it as a difficult fate that he cannot carry out what the authority of the teacher has planted in his soul. If you think about it in detail, you will see that the solution to this conflict has already been very successful. But precisely because this conflict weighed heavily on the soul for a long time, the demand for the spiritual independence of the school and educational system has been established from an observation of life. All similar things – and there are many similar things to the conflict that has been very successfully mentioned here – are only possible if the school system is placed in what is based on democracy, in the legal life of the state. What Mrs. B. said about authority sounded so abstract and theoretical to me that I do not believe such things can have any real significance for life, for practical life. No one could tell from what I said that I assumed that the child could form a “judgment” about the fact that the teacher is an authority. These are things that arise naturally in the atmosphere of life. Regarding the question of teachers, it will arise from all kinds of prerequisites that in the future it will be important that there is a selection process for the teaching profession and that people are not admitted to the teaching profession merely by passing exams or acquiring a certain amount of knowledge. Knowledge can, under certain circumstances, be acquired later in a few hours, it can be caught up on from the various manuals. What matters is the whole personality, the innermost gift of the teacher. Of course, I do not mean that if one has not been immersed in this knowledge before, one can easily acquire it later in a few hours. Rather, if one needs it – one must of course have been in it before – then one can easily acquire it again later, where it is needed. What is important is that a certain guarantee be created for what should determine the teacher to teach, a guarantee that through his whole personality he is so immersed in human culture that something can pass from him to the pupil, which can then work in an authoritative way. These are things that must be considered much more deeply and thoroughly than is often attempted today, when such abstract things as “leadership” and “followership” or “school community” are put forward. I would also ask you to consider the fact that I spoke of “school communities.” What matters is that we take things as they are said, and not that we first translate them into an abstract program that we have made up ourselves. Then there would be much talk about the question of the separation of church and state. Historically, it is the case that for a long time it simply could not be otherwise than that the school was in a certain way an appendage of the church. The state has done a good job in modern times of detaching the education system from the church and putting it on its own ground. But now we are once again faced with the necessity of improving the things that are attached to the school by making it dependent on the state, by placing the school on its own ground. The fact that these things can very easily be viewed one-sidedly and in an agitative way should not be underestimated today. In much of what is said about these things today, I hear something that is not entirely objective. We must be clear about one thing: we must not in any way arrive at a standardization of the human soul through any kind of future pedagogy or future school constitution. We must not consider something to be the only valid view of the soul and demand that it be taught to children. We must also be able to put ourselves in the shoes of people who think and feel differently. It is important not to be afraid of this when, for example, Catholic parents demand that their children also receive Catholic religious education. There is no need to be afraid of this if you yourself stand strong on your own ground. Just as you need not be afraid of any other world view if you have your own enthusiasm and strength for your own world view. These things should be allowed to develop in the free competition of ideas, but in no case by the law-making power of the state. Just as it is harmful when a church is made a state church by the law-making power of the state and thereby receives the favor of the state, it is equally harmful when a church is persecuted. No kind of religious belief should be persecuted or supported by the law-making power of the state. And anyone who starts with this thought and thinks it through to a sufficient extent will find that it is indeed necessary to put the spiritual life and especially the school and teaching system on its own ground. What has been said about the authority exercised by the teacher not being intended to remain for life, but for the young person to break free from it, is either a matter of course or something has been misunderstood. For it is of course quite natural that one cannot be placed under the authority of a teacher for one's entire life. This authority should work towards one being able to say: What would it be like to become a teacher? Then, through what the teacher's authority has placed in one's soul, one would be able to become an authority oneself. But one must grasp things much more thoroughly and deeply, because a teacher's authority can indeed be maintained throughout one's entire life. I have already said that what the teacher gives in education cannot really be 'paid for'. Payment means something quite different. But what education can do is to shape the mutual relationship between teacher and student in such a way that the teacher can remain an authority for a person throughout their life. And I would like to ask what could be more beautiful than to remember a teacher later on, when one has reached the age of sixty and can look back to one's youth, and then say to oneself: This teacher was an authority for me, I still feel the greatest gratitude towards him today, I have become what I am partly through him! This authority can be retained and can live on in a lifelong gratitude towards the teacher. These are the things that a psychology that is equal to today's tasks must take into account. If it has been said that the state is necessary after all, or that it can be replaced by a spiritual senate or the like, then it has already been said: Those who have not felt state coercion have simply not seen it. And you see, the fact of the matter is that it really is the case that being a teacher of the state has become second nature to many people. And when it has become their second nature, they no longer realize that their free personality does not actually teach from the sources of spiritual life, but they have become accustomed to the state, have become accustomed to continuing in teaching what the state offers them. They feel “free”. But this feeling of freedom is no proof that one is really free, especially in the mentality of present-day humanity. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that a person who is the “great world teacher” for a large number of people, Woodrow Wilson, gives such a strange definition of what he understands by freedom in his writing “On Freedom” that one could climb up on the walls. He says something like: You can call a mechanism that has no inhibition and runs as the various events cause it to; or you can call a ship that moves in the same way according to the same principle free. But this mechanical freedom is not the real one we mean: you have to feel it. Then, too, many things have been said that I have not said at all. In particular, the gentleman who defended the state spoke of all sorts of such things. I did not speak at all about the present state, but anyone who understood me correctly will know that I said: From what is being striven for by today's socialists, this and that threatens to become reality, and what must not come about would come about, so things must be arranged in a certain way. — Now, my dear audience, I really cannot go into things that are only constructed from my words and then polemicized against. But there is one thing I would like to address: An authority will also be necessary for the teacher again. I did not say anything about the authority that will be necessary for the teacher, but I did say that the teacher should be an authority for the child! Whether an authority is necessary for the teacher is a completely different question, which will be answered by the fact that ultimately life itself will take care of it. Pay attention only to life as it is, that is far too little observed today. Pay attention only to life and reality, and you will say to yourself: Yes, people are so different from each other that ultimately someone who can be an authority in the most diverse ways will still find an authority above himself. It will be taken care that someone can always find an authority above himself. Well, this does not have to lead to a supreme pinnacle. A person can be an authority simply by being superior in other respects. When I spoke of Klopstock's “Republic of Letters”, it does not mean that everyone will now do as they please. Rather, they will not simply do as they please, but out of the needs of intellectual life, in order to make it as fruitful as possible, there will again be a voluntary leaning towards those who are to be an authority in the future. A “constitution” that is not based on rigid laws, on bony, state decrees, a constitution can be conceived in the free spiritual life; only it will relate to the real, living conditions of the people who participate in this spiritual life. The “law”, however, must first be replaced on this ground by the free human relationships, which are, after all, individual and can always change from week to week, and which cannot be bound by rigid laws and immortalized in some rigid form. What is important, therefore, is that spiritual life be given the opportunity to live in the form that is possible for it out of its own strength, so that the teacher of the school is not dependent in any way on a state official, but that he in a human, objective and appropriate way, as follows from the spiritual life, by another person who is also directly involved in the spiritual life and works with him in the same spiritual life. That is what matters. We can see that even today there is a certain fear of independence in spiritual life, and that many feel comfortable under the protection of the state. But that is precisely the point: so many feel comfortable under this state protection. However, this state protection is being sought even more by those who now want to succeed. The development of the last few centuries was such that the state had power from earlier conquests and similar circumstances, and then little by little individuals wanted to get hold of this power in order to be protected by it. For a time it was the church. It preferred not only the living word, flowing from the spirit and convincing people, but also a little help from the police. Then came the schools. They preferred not the living word flowing from the spirit to reach the child, but state compulsion behind it. Then, in the end, the various economic classes and corporations also came, until we finally got that economic corporation – in Germany, of course, the industrialists and heavy industrialists in particular were keen on this – which also wanted a share of the power of the state. And then behind them were the Social Democrats, who in turn wanted to take the state for themselves. So the state power was the gathering place for everyone. What the future must strive for is that state power should not be a gathering place for everything that wants to creep under this power, but that it should be placed on democratic ground. But what matters is that on this state ground that which the mature human being has to agree with every other mature human being should be realized; there we are dealing with what the mere constitutional state is. It is remarkable that people still do not want to understand this today, although it was very close to understanding this constitutional state when someone who was once Prussia's Minister of Culture came to a correct understanding of these conditions. In Humboldt's essay “On the Limits of the Effectiveness of the State” you will find beautiful approaches to what the state should actually be. But if it is to be “democratic”, then only that which every mature person has to do with every other mature person may prevail in it. Then that which can be discerned in spiritual life must be taken out of the actual life of the state, and then the state must not include economic life, where what matters is economic experience, credit, and so on. That is to say, if anyone seriously wants democracy, then he cannot want socialism and intellectual life in the state, but must say to himself: If democracy is to be carried out, the only healthy thing to do is to place the intellectual life on the one hand and the economic cycle on the other in free territory. The fact that this is not understood – in Russia it has not been understood! has the effect that today something highly undemocratic, even anti-democratic, is being striven for in economic life: the so-called dictatorship of the proletariat. I encountered this in its most blatant form a few months ago in Basel, when after a lecture someone stood up, obviously a communist, and said: If the salvation of the future is to come about, Lenin must become world ruler! — You call for 'socialization' with these people and you don't even understand the very beginning of socialization, namely that you first have to socialize the relationships of domination; that socialization does not consist of monarchizing the relationship of domination and imperializing socialism. They think they want to socialize, but they don't even want to start with the socialization of the power relations, but instead they appoint an “economic pope” over the whole world. That is how they think. These are the contradictions that arise today. That is why one would like to have a sense that the things that come to light in the threefold social organism are based on something deeper. We did not arrive at the idea of threefolding by being able to say, out of arbitrary, abstract principles and out of habits of life: I believe or I do not believe in these things. Of course, many things have to be placed in their proper context. But the impulse for the threefold social order comes from a truly hard observation of life and from a felt seriousness about the great cultural tasks of the present time. If one honestly wants socialism and democracy, then one must not simply want what many people say when they put it together: “social democracy.” Because in that way, spiritual life is not properly taken into account. On the contrary, anyone who honestly wants democracy and socialism needs above all a truly free spiritual life, which cannot be an arbitrary spiritual life. The impulse for threefolding has arisen out of an understanding of reality and out of a sense of the seriousness of present-day conditions. In these days we in Central Europe should feel here very particularly how serious the times are. We should in this time, when we have to say to ourselves: the question is one of life or death! — we should feel that we need to rethink and relearn about many old things, and that for the future it cannot be a matter of small changes to some institutions, but of a real rethinking, re-feeling and re-learning of the whole human being. Only in this way will we understand our time and only in this way will we be able to truly move forward! |
76. The Stimulating Effect of Anthroposophy on the Individual Sciences: Social Science and Social Practice
08 Apr 1921, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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Then the labor leaders came, and they became, I might say, green with envy, because now they could be addressed from a different side than from the side of their instilled Marxism. |
76. The Stimulating Effect of Anthroposophy on the Individual Sciences: Social Science and Social Practice
08 Apr 1921, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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Allow me today to take up some of the material that I could only hint at yesterday and which will then lead us to our reflection today. Yesterday I had to take up a sentence that emerged from the worldview of the 19th century, insofar as it prevailed in Central Europe, to the sentence that the tongue draws the word, that is, the power to speak, from the teeth just as it draws in air from the environment. And I drew your attention to how the 19th-century scholar has only to add to this sentence that he can laugh at it. But I have also characterized the distance that lies between the time in which such an instinctive view as the one quoted yesterday falls, and the age in which this philistine-ironic criticism then asserted itself, the age that begins with the first third of the 15th century. That saying falls into the previous age and is, for that age, in a certain way extraordinarily characteristic, for the reasons that I gave you yesterday. But it must also be felt as characteristic in terms of its content. For I explained to you yesterday how, in order to understand the ability to speak and language in general, one must first familiarize oneself with what spiritual science has to say in the sense of what I have explained in my small writing “The Education of the Child from the Point of View of Spiritual Science”. There I have shown what significant process takes place at the change of teeth, how that which later still fulfils the human being as a rhythmic human being and a human being with limb metabolism, but which had previously fulfilled him completely, withdraws from the nerve-sense organization and therefore brings about precisely this process, which is formulated there in my writing “The Education of the Child from the Point of View of Spiritual Science” as the birth of the etheric body. I then showed you how, in a similar way, we must grasp the process that occurs around the fourteenth or fifteenth year, namely sexual maturation, and I explained how what is involved here can be expressed in the formula: birth of the astral body. But I have said that the events that occur in this way in the life of a human being at any stage of life also take place in metamorphosis at other times — but then in metamorphosis — and that what takes place externally between the human being and the external world at the time of sexual maturity must be sought internally as a process that occurs between the soul and spirit and the physical body within the human being as the process that is essentially the physiological correlate of the child learning to speak, and that we must therefore also seek the clues to a truly rational linguistics by starting from a penetrating intuitive knowledge of this process. I then said that through the establishment and development of abstract logic and abstract logical thinking, the sphere of experience in which what takes place between the spiritual-mental and the physical-corporeal , is, as it were, displaced, pushed down into the subconscious, and that precisely by leading consciousness into abstraction, Aristotle has cut off the possibility of looking towards the prenatal. For if one had had a vivid picture of the workings of the astral in sexual maturation and in speech, as one instinctively could in early antiquity, as we must now strive to achieve again, then one could also have gradually gained a visual understanding of what the connection is between the I itself and the whole physical-etheric-astral human being. That is to say, one could have advanced in this field through the knowledge of learning to speak to the knowledge of the integration of the human spiritual-soul I into its bodily-physical. And Aristotle established his dogma precisely for the reason that with every single human being born here, the soul-spiritual also comes into being. With that, he removed from the world of knowledge the concept of the pre-existing human soul. Only the concept of this pre-existing human soul provides real knowledge of the eternity of the human soul. This knowledge is not provided by any kind of philosophical speculation, but solely and exclusively by an intuitive judgment in the direction that I have just indicated. This dogma of the non-existence of pre-existence was then adopted into the church doctrine of Christianity. And it must be emphasized that the denial of pre-existence, in that it was then confirmed by councils, is not Christian in the true sense of the word, but is Aristotelian, and with the penetration of Aristotelianism into Christian doctrine, it became a Christian dogma. The moment that Christianity is able to free itself from this element of Aristotelianism, the way will also be clear for an acknowledgment of pre-existence. It must be said that this pre-existence, which was not doubted by Western Christian doctrine until Origen, disappeared from Western Christian doctrine as a result of the state decree of Justinian, who helped to have Origen condemned as a heretic. That is why the followers of this non-Christian Christian doctrine of the West are so uncomfortable when someone points out the historical facts in the first centuries of Christianity. They then conjure up all the untruths they can muster about the connections between anthroposophy and gnosis and so on. Now, I cannot go into these things in more detail here. But what I want to say is this: if one bases the spiritual and soul life in man solely on what lives for the contemplation of consciousness since birth, then one gradually comes to what makes the teaching of immortality a mere article of faith. It can be said that what was prenatal, what was pre-existent in man, comes through the process of birth into a completely unconscious state. This can only be looked at again when one rises up to imagination and inspiration. But at the other pole of the human being, it appears in his will and emotional nature. In the threefold human being, we have on the one hand the nerve-sense human being, who is connected with the imaginative human being, and on the other hand the limb-metabolic human being, who is connected with the will nature of the human being and with his emotional nature. Because the life of imagination is dampened, subdued to the point of objective observation, pre-existence is initially closed to this objective imagination in knowledge. But what is present with it lives in the sphere of the human being that emerges at the other pole. The nature of the will and the emotions comes to the fore. Initially, no knowledge can be gained from this, only mere belief. And if what is prenatal can become knowledge through the expansion of knowledge, then without this expansion of knowledge, what lives in will and emotion can become nothing more than an article of faith for the human being. Therefore, with the dawning of supersensible knowledge, there also comes the dawning of knowledge of the eternity of the human soul, even in language. It should be striking that we have a word for immortality in the more well-known languages of civilization, that is, for life in the afterlife, but that we do not have a word that would express the eternity of the human soul at the other pole of the human being, its being unborn. But modern humanity will have to reclaim this for itself in language: that the eternity of the human being can be expressed in a word like “unborn-ness” — which, of course, will become more sophisticated with increasing civilization — just as it is expressed on the one hand, on the side of death, in the word “immortality”. But then what can be said about the eternity of the human soul will no longer be a mere article of faith, but a content of knowledge. As long as one remains merely with the afterlife, the question of immortality must be a question of faith. As soon as one passes over to a real knowledge of the supersensible, the question of immortality becomes a question of real knowledge. This is a connection that must be recognized, this is a Rubicon that must be crossed by modern civilization. For what follows from this crossing will not only have a theoretical effect, but will have an effect in a completely different way. We can say: if we learn to ascend appropriately from something like the understanding of the change of teeth, the understanding of language, to what we then come to, we thereby acquire a knowledge of the immortal nature of the human soul. Those who in the 18th century thought and spoke of the tongue drawing language out of the teeth, they did not believe, as Wilhelm Scherer strangely enough assumes, that there are only dental sounds, but in their instinctive knowledge they were imbued with the fact that in order to understand language one must penetrate down into the human being, just as one must penetrate down in order to understand the change of teeth. Just as the forces arise there, so must one penetrate down to the origins of the path that, with the change of teeth, points to what appeared at a previous step in the development of man: the emergence of language. These insights were instinctive, subconscious. But anyone who brings the corresponding thing out of consciousness today will find what depth they breathe in a certain respect, and what philistinism such objections breathe, like those I discussed yesterday. But we also gain, by soaring to such insights as those about language, at the same time, I would say, access to the way to recognize immortality. Therefore, the recognition of this supersensible world is at the same time connected with the attainment of a sound judgment about that which surrounds us in life, such as language. And we cannot, without becoming inwardly dishonest, pretend to penetrate into something in our environment, such as language, if we do not at the same time admit: here there are limits that are not merely to be recognized as limits of ordinary knowledge, but which make it necessary to transcend them through a different kind of knowledge. Thus, true knowledge of the external sense world is already connected with the ascent to supersensible knowledge. In truly healthy knowledge, supersensible and sensory perception must work together, with one supporting the other. Therefore, we may believe that with the attainment of sound judgments about the supersensible, sound judgments can also be obtained in relation to what surrounds us in another sphere as human beings, with which we are connected as human beings and with which we must enter into intimate relationships: social life. In the style of my previous lectures, I have tried as much as possible to adhere to what could be called a completely scientific style. Today, as we move on to what follows from such an inner state of mind as a social science and social practice, as it must arise from spiritual science as it is meant here, we find ourselves in the midst of practice in the present day. For what is to be said in a social context cannot today be considered in the same way as what has gone before. It is necessary to take the following into account. By rising to imagination, inspiration and so on, what would otherwise be conceptual and cannot directly motivate the will is pushed into the will. Therefore, supersensible knowledge motivates the will, and there is no moral or religious ideal that is not rooted at least unconsciously in the supersensible. What is gained through imagination only from the sense world can never be socially or morally motivating because it remains ineffective for the will. Therefore, one must say that it could perhaps be conspicuous that the people who got hold of my writing on the social life of the threefold order, when they read it, found nothing in it of what they were accustomed to finding as the basic tone, for example, in my anthroposophical writings. Perhaps some people expected that when someone who professes to be an anthroposophist writes on a subject such as the one contained in my Threefolding of Man, then all kinds of familiar “anthroposophical” judgments must flow into all the details that are discussed there; one must very much mystel to all sorts of admonitions and so on. Even if such a judgment has been heard many times from the anthroposophical side, it is no different in quality from the judgments of those who wanted to find in my Theosophy, as I was writing it, a literal transcription of what was in my arguments with Haeckelianism, for example. People just cannot understand how real anthroposophy, when it passes over into the will, leads to the environment, that is, to the objective observation of every field that it undertakes, so that one does not simply need to carry the formulas that are found in one field into another. It is easy to believe that those who have been accustomed to hearing this or that word for word over long periods of time will then find it unusual and uncomfortable to hear the same thing in another language. However, the different areas of life require different languages. And the point is that when they are spoken about, they should be spoken about in the same spirit, but not that the same concepts and ideas should be expressed in the same words everywhere. And in anthroposophy it is important that it is not only taken in according to its wording, but that it is taken in according to its spirit. But then one will recognize, when it wants to be active in an eminently practical area, such as the social question: which activity is called for by the need of the time, by all the forces of decline that are coming to light in our time. Inwardly, this treatment of the social question is entirely connected with what flows from other aspects of knowledge, but not from other practical aspects, even through the more theoretical sides of anthroposophy. Therefore, I must ask you today to bear in mind that I will have to depart from the style of my previous lectures, which were kept within the bounds of objective science. For it is necessary that what must live in direct life as impulses of the will, and what must still fight for its position, be grasped in a different form, so that it approaches our souls in a different way from that which one can say: That is how it is! Please refer to what is given in my book 'The Core Points of the Social Question' about threefolding. And today I want to speak more from the point of view of great social practice. Not theoretically, but from the point of view of social practice, I want to speak of what must be done first in the broadest sense. What must be done is connected with what has been done in recent years with regard to the threefold social order, despite the fact that it has aroused such tramping disapproval from fellow students, as it did, for example, in Stuttgart the day before yesterday in such a repulsive form. Therefore, I would like to give you a characterization that is very much of our time, which is based on the content that you can read about in my book 'The Core Points of the Social Question', in my book 'In Practice: Threefolding', and which you will then find characterizing various aspects of the lectures that are still to be given here today. I just wanted to give a kind of introduction to the general tone that will be struck. But I would like to say that precisely because, in the course of more recent times, humanity, for the reasons that have already been developed, has increasingly — despite believing that it is so very practical, believing that it has to an abstraction that can never bear favorable fruit anywhere else than in the scientific consideration of the inorganic, that humanity thereby became utterly impractical. Humanity had settled into this abstraction and had gradually begun to speak out of this abstraction even about what directly surrounds us as socially concrete life. If you read through all the theoretical discussions that modern, learned economists usually precede their system, you will find how the question figures everywhere: To what extent can the scientific observer of the national economy see into what is happening around us in practical terms? And how should the political economist, in order to do justice to the scientific claim – but that means nothing other than the scientific claim that one has acquired out of habit from the scientific point of view – how should he, this political economist, act in order to meet these scientific demands? The confusion surrounding this question, and the fact that this confusion expresses a lack of contact with real social life, was something I first had to show in my book “The Key Points of the Social Question”. I had to show how, in this more recent period, hurrying on to abstraction, the leading human personalities have indeed found the way to live in the technical and social workings of the capitalist system, but how, precisely because their sense for what is human has been lost, nothing has come from these leading personalities for that which is so closely connected with man and his knowledge as the social question. For the connection between theoretical knowledge and so-called practical knowledge had been lost philosophically, too; in spite of Schopenhauer's saying, or perhaps because of the meaning of it, which was so much alive in modern humanity. In spite of the saying, “It is easy to preach morals, but difficult to found them,” word, one could not see how necessary it is to search for those foundations of life that not only preach morality, as Schopenhauer says, and thus want to provide a theoretical proof for it, but that want to establish morality through facts, by pointing to what really lives in the world of facts. In Kantian philosophy, the confusion in this area is expressed by the fact that a sharp distinction is drawn between what is theoretical reflection, what is criticized in the “Critique of Pure Reason,” and what is the content of a mere imperative and therefore of a mere belief, and what is criticized in the “Critique of Practical Reason.” No attempt should be made to bridge the gap, although, as you have heard from this platform in recent days, Goethe objected to this with his concept of “contemplative judgment,” of “intellectus archetypus,” and then tried to approach what is really practical in the justification of human action from a different angle. Schopenhauer could not find it because he regarded everything that lives in the world of ideas from the outset as something merely pictorial, as something that cannot be imbued with the content of being. He also only referred to the will, which, however, cannot be brought into consciousness for objective knowledge without higher supersensible knowledge. Thus he felt the inadequacy of the theoretical basis of practical action. Through mere theoretical reason he was incapable of pointing out the basis of practical action itself, because in the will he saw only a blind thing, never one to be penetrated by the light of knowledge. For this light can only be the supersensible. And to that Schopenhauer did not want to rise either. Then came other attempts, such as that of Herbarts. In Herbart we find the attempt to find a kind of basis in practical life for what practical action is. But the characteristic feature of Herbart is that in his practical philosophy he seeks what is basically an aesthetic judgment, that he tries to found practical philosophy as a part of aesthetics. In this way — by implicitly going beyond what he has theoretically in his consciousness — the five well-known practical ideas of perfection, goodwill, inner freedom, right and equity emerge. But man's relationship to them is one of consent, which in turn also requires the motivating force. Here, too, I can only hint at how an attempt was made, I would like to say, to break through what was given with the merely abstracting intellect, but how this attempt, because it did not want to penetrate to real spiritual science, failed in all possible respects. Therefore, I must point out that the reason why the leading personalities could not find what appeals to people lies in this development of modern historical life. And so they found the way to the machine, so they found the way into technology, so they found the way to capitalism. They did not find the way to the human being, whom they left standing beside the machine, just as the natural scientist leaves the real human being standing beside what he is investigating theoretically through his natural science. What is being lived out in natural science is rooted in a deep habit of life and expresses itself in all areas. Therefore, the first chapter of my “Key Points” could only be such that it illuminates this effect of a life-alien spiritual life in modern times. It had to be pointed out sharply to me, not by a theoretical consideration, but by the life experience described in my book, that the personalities who were the leaders in all traditions in the artistic, religious and scientific fields, in addition to what mere conception in the imagination in modern times, they created a religious content of feeling that could not arise in the class that was removed from the life of tradition and placed at the machine, which, of what emerged in this modern time, only took on the theoretical abstraction, so that in addition to the life of toil and labor, this class was also confronted with what comes from the emptiness of the soul, which can theoretically be filled with what a theoretical scientific way of thinking can provide, but which cannot live with it. Thus what was to live through my “Key Points of the Social Question”, and already in the “Call” that preceded it, was conceived in the most eminent sense in practical terms, conceived as something that must pass directly into life, that should not merely take hold of the intellects, but should take hold of the will. And it had emerged from what should take hold of the will. When it became clear to a larger number of personalities in the outside world how the terrible catastrophic events of the second decade of the 20th century would unfold, something intervened in the events - I will only hint at the direction today, as I said, you can find more details in my books -– that was the most bloodless abstraction, something born entirely out of abstract spirituality. With this abstract type of spirituality, the man who had become President of the United States of America from a scholar had emerged, Woodrow Wilson. In his Fourteen Points, he presented to the world as an impulse for practical action something that emerged only from an abstraction that was alien to life. The practical proof of this was provided by the situation – you can read about it in Maynard Keynes – in which Woodrow Wilson found himself during the negotiations in Versailles, where what lived in his theory was increasingly eroded in the face of what had been worked out in Versailles from the most outdated traditional views. Historical development itself has provided the proof of the lack of life in Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points. When they were drawn up, however, they testified that with such abstraction one can also introduce something into reality: one introduces something into it, but one introduces only error! It is not that abstractions, when they pass through human beings, cannot conjure up realities; but it is the case that they will always cause confusion or inadequacies in these realities, because they have not been taken from life. Thus the Fourteen Points were able to transport ships and armies across the sea, but these Fourteen Points could not send a vital impulse into modern civilization. I fear that what is at stake within modern civilization has still not been grasped by a sufficiently large number of people. For in the post-war period in America, Woodrow Wilson was followed by Harding – and we were recently able to read this Harding's inaugural address: the same abstract phrases, the same talk of “human brotherhood” that cannot be motivating because it lives in abstractions, the continuation of Wilson's policy under a different name. I cannot find that there is sufficient understanding in a sufficiently large number of people for the inadequacies that are perpetuated here. It is as if modern man has lost all connection with any enthusiasm for truth, for living truth, and would pass by asleep even such a lack of contact with life as was again heard in the inaugural address of the American president. At the time when the Fourteen Points first entered modern life, what was contained in these Fourteen Points in the way of alienation from life should be countered by a real practice of life, something that emanated from life, emanated at the same time from the most important components of modern public life, from real social practice, from an understanding of what pulsates through contemporary humanity as a social question. In a Stuttgart lecture a short time ago, I pointed out such things in a way that was true to life, after Lloyd George wanted to prevent the then impending outbreak of strikes and smoothed over the circumstances. After this gluing of social conditions, I said in Stuttgart: You can use such things, which, despite coming from Lloyd George, are only theoretical, to glue conditions, but you cannot direct realities, and people will see that only theory has been gluing, but that nothing has been achieved in practical life, and that this will soon become apparent. — Now you have it! Now you can see for yourself, from what has actually happened, whether in that Stuttgart lecture the knowledge of social forces was spoken of or whether it was only spoken of in theory, whereas today one not only speaks in theory but also acts in theory in public and especially in social life, where it is truly out of place. And so at that time, when, I might say, in a classical way, the political fruit of modern abstractism appeared in Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, an attempt was made to awaken understanding in those who listened to it at the time, discouraged and reluctant to act , but who were curious about it in a certain way, to try to awaken understanding for the fact that from Europe - at first only Central Europe was accessible - in the form of the threefold social order, something concrete and practical was being opposed to the impractical Fourteen Points. And one could have been convinced if one had had a sense of realities, not just of beloved theories that had then become “practical”. One could have been convinced that just as the impractical abstractions in reality have set armies and ships in motion, that which would have been spoken out of a reality, if only it had been conveyed from the right place, would also have conjured up realities. But those who had a say at the time did not want to listen. Social practice was far from their minds. They were accustomed to what had emerged in the course of modern times: to go the way to the machine, to the machinery of the social order, but not to go the way to the human being who stands at the machine, who lives as a human being within the machinery of the social order, and who, as a human being, is an active being. Since people at that time did not understand what the necessities of life demanded, it was a necessary consequence that, immediately after the bloody catastrophe of war had ended, at the instigation of friends in Stuttgart, what is contained in my “Appeal to the German People and the World of Culture” and what is contained in my “Key Points of the Social Question” came about. And in the period when the old powers had disappeared in certain areas of modern civilized life, an attempt was made to speak to the broad masses of the people, to those who had suffered most from all the conditions that I have now indicated and otherwise described again and again. The beginning was basically a good one. It was possible to reach the broad masses of the people. They gradually understood the significance of the impulse of the threefold social order. For it is nonsense to say that it is difficult to understand in itself. The difficulty in understanding it lies only in the fact that one cannot escape from old habits of thinking, that one cannot refrain from imposing one's own habitual, rigid way of thinking on something that presents itself as something quite different. That is the reason, not the difficulty of the matter itself. Therefore, there was also the possibility of finding understanding precisely within those who, out of their own needs, were striving for a relative solution to the social question, and who had already seen that they could not arrive at a satisfactory organization of social life in modern times from the old dogmatic Marxism. A spanner was put in the works by the fact that on the one hand, not the workers, but the leaders of these workers, and on the other hand, leading figures of the old bourgeoisie, reacted negatively. From all sides, one was, so to speak, left in the lurch with regard to the impulse of threefolding. At first, in the spring of 1919, those in leading positions were gripped by a terrible fear and grasped at anything that had anything to do with the social question. As a result, some found themselves in the first stirrings of threefolding, as it came to them, but they did not have the strength or the courage to persevere with it. One of the celebrated leaders of the bourgeoisie of a Central European region said to me at the time, when we were in the midst of what was to happen: Yes, in the way you understand and speak to the broad masses of the people, one could indeed have high hopes; but such a thing, you will admit to a party leader of the old parties, must not be left to two people; others are not yet not yet – I am just quoting – that would be effective in this direction; therefore, we do not rely on this whole broad movement, but we want to hold the old order, despite the fact that it may only last for another fifteen or twenty years at most, with the cannons and rifles. That was the response from one side. But let me also speak of the response from the other side, because I have to characterize practically what it is about. The working population, insofar as I was able to speak to them, tried to get involved in the threefolding movement with relative ease and with inner understanding. Then the labor leaders came, and they became, I might say, green with envy, because now they could be addressed from a different side than from the side of their instilled Marxism. And they, like the others, invented all kinds of slander and dirty tricks to prevent the workers, who are so credulous in their faith in authority in their relations with their leaders, from finding the right way to understanding. But the workers have not yet reached the point where they can find their way in the right way in their faith in authority, which has been handed down from past decades. The moment the workers realize what the lower and higher-ranking labor leaders are really after, much of the well-intentioned belief that still exists in this area will evaporate. They will realize that those at the top, of the Lenin and Trotsky, Lunach arskij, are at the head of the movement, they do not have the happiness and well-being of the masses at heart. They say to themselves and to each other: The broad masses of the people are stupid and will always be racked by passions; there is nothing to be done with them but to tyrannize them; therefore it must not be conspicuous that we also tyrannize, whether we are called Czar Nicholas or Lenin; for us, it is only a matter of those who used to sit on the curule chairs falling down and us now sitting on them; for us, it is a matter of conquering the seats of government! The moment this realization dawns on the broadest sections of society, many things will change. But then the time will also have come when social practice can really be introduced into social life. Then people will look with practical understanding at what I have said in the second and third chapters of my “Key Points of the Social Question”, which I would like to say exemplifies what can be achieved from such a spirit. Then it will be seen that nothing here has been invented out of thin air, but that everything has been gained out of a hard-won practical life experience, just as in the past, after Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points had become known, this idea of the threefold social organism first appeared. I speak as someone who spent half of his life, thirty years, in Austria, in this experimental country for social impossibilities. I speak as someone who knows well how people spoke in this Austrian experimental country in a ministry, a liberal ministry. At the height of Austrian liberalism, when the social question was already looming behind liberalism, the liberal Giskra said: In Austria we have nothing to do with the social question, because the social question stops at Bodenbach! — This was proclaimed in the parliament of liberalism in Austria by the responsible Minister of the Interior, in the last third of the 19th century. Anyone who wants to study how the impossible mixing of the three parts of the social organism worked in this Austrian parliament – I would like to say in its purest form, which I have already expressed in my “key points” by stating that the composition of parliament was based on four economic curiae – can see how things gradually developed. And anyone who wants to understand the ultimatum to Serbia must study in full everything that has happened in Austria since 1867 up to the period preceding the ultimatum to Serbia. Then he will see what the shortage of bread, the high prices and the inflationary conflicts in the months leading up to the outbreak of war looked like in Austria, and he will have the opportunity to study the social factors there to see where the essential causes lie. And there one would be led into a new way of looking at things.But what must emerge from every such consideration is that it is a matter of finding impulses for practical social life that speak from this life itself. Then we may come to the time when there will be a sufficiently large number of people who, uninfluenced by the old designations of direction, “right” and “left”, turn their attention to the factual and practical, which, because it flows from reality, may believe it has a right to have a say in the most important matters of life. And these are the social matters. Today, many people take the view that the world will be put in order if only they can continue the old impulses, and for a long time now they have been trying again to see how it can work by letting the old continue. They turn their eyes away from the fact that under this unobjective, unrealistic approach, more and more comes about that must have a demoralizing effect on the whole of modern civilization. But a possibility to move forward will not arise until people realize that, without looking to the left or right, they must look objectively at direct life. For only in this way can we develop an understanding of such practical and social ideas that can not only preach an ethical and social life, but also found it. For it is the foundation of this life that should be emphasized in the threefold social organism. Theorists have long repeated from their theoretical point of view that today we must look at what also lives in ethics in a “social” way. Since the division of labor, man has been placed entirely in the social sphere, and one must understand “from the social” what motivates man when he is to act. As long as this judgment remains bloodless, as long as it remains an abstraction, it will achieve nothing. For as an abstraction it is just as true as it is false. That it is false I have shown in my Philosophy of Freedom. The other, truly alarming aspect is that man hands himself over more and more with his freedom to the objective economic process and the like, as is even theoretically expounded in Marxism. And in that man hands himself over to the economic process or the state process or the other social institutions that we have now, naturally more and more his motivation for action becomes a social one. This can and may be understood. For modern civilization aims at people learning to live with people in a division of labor. But if the social order is to motivate appropriate social action in the individual, then it must be a social organism that is capable of motivating the will through its own inner laws. In a living social organism, one must not only preach morals, but establish social morals. In this field, morals must be established not through words and ideas, but through the realities of the situation. These realities should be stimulated by the impulse of the threefold social organism. The matter was so little understood that the abstract thinkers even mocked me because I kept using the word “impulse” instead of “idea” to suggest that there should be power in this tendency of the threefold social organism, not just talk. That should already be in the life of this work for threefolding: that there is reality in it, not just talk. Otherwise, one can also go around as an ethical traveling speaker, as there are so many of them now, trying to persuade people: Just become ethical again, just become good again, and social harmony will arise! I have always said to those who wanted to hear it, when speaking to the stove in the room: You stove, according to your nature, it is your categorical imperative to warm the room – it will not warm the room. But you don't need to preach if you put wood in and light it. You don't need to moralize in theory, mystify, aestheticize. What is needed is not just a “practical” mixture of ideas, but real impulses to stimulate social forces that are filled with ideas, if it is to be a social practice. And only when we have developed an understanding for this fact will we learn to think correctly about what threefolding actually wants. But because this reaches down into the soul and will, an enthusiasm and commitment to the truth is required for this understanding of threefolding, not just a theoretical interest in the truth and in a theoretical discussion. As long as we are unable to take truth into our will, to extract it from theory and permeate our whole being with it, there can be no beginning to a fruitful treatment of the social question and social practice. That is what it is about: that those who seek understanding for what threefolding wants to achieve may seek it with their whole being. Then enthusiasm will not come from blind instincts, but will be stimulated by light-filled knowledge. Then it will not remain blind itself, but will shine itself. When the impulses of the will do not come from instincts and drives, but from an overview of social life, then they do not remain blind and dark, but become themselves seeing and luminous. And the path of the impulse of the threefold social order depends on the will and enthusiasm for the truth becoming ever more luminous and radiant in this sense. And I would like to express the hope that what can be said here in this direction will contribute to inspiring not a blind and dark enthusiasm and will, but a light-filled, willed shaping of life. Final Word on the Fourth Evening of the Disputation In the course of the very lively disputation on the topic “Social Science and Social Practice”, a Dutch member of the Society came back to the “World School Association” (see p. 92 ff.). He called for “immediate action”, namely to proceed with the founding immediately (following a Dutch initiative that was supported by iso names). In doing so, it referred to the fact that in April 1912, members of the “German Section” of the “Theosophical Society”, at the suggestion of a member who had travelled from England, had founded a “bund” through such an “act”, from which “what is known today as the Anthroposophical Society originated”. I do not wish to detain you much longer, but would just like to make a few comments, firstly in connection with what our friend v.L. has proposed here, which is certainly quite commendable, or will be if it leads to the promised goal. I would just like to note that it would be a questionable basis if the matter were built on the same foundation as the “bund”, to which reference has been made. At that time, work was indeed carried out with a certain zeal, in the way Mr. v.L. has roughly outlined it today: people sat down in small committees, discussed all sorts of things, what should be done and so on. But then Mr. v.L. made a statement which, of course, is a small mistake at first, but which, if it were to continue to have an effect, could lead to a big mistake. It was said that the Anthroposophical Society emerged from the work that was so tirelessly carried out that night. No, that is not the case at all: nothing emerged from that night and from that founding of the society! I would like to protect the intended “restless work of this night” from this fate. There was a lot of talk back then about what needed to be done, but nothing came of it. And the mistake that could arise is based on the fact that one might think that something should now be done in the direction indicated by that “covenant”. What actually happened was that those who had been involved in our anthroposophical work, who were already very much with us, founded the Anthroposophical Society quite separately from this federation, and this then developed further, while the “federation” gradually passed from a gentle slumber into social death, let us say. So, it would be a small mistake! And this must be emphasized, so that the mistakes of that night committee are not repeated in its second edition. That is one thing. The other point I would like to make is that the aim of a world school association should be based on something really broad and should be tackled from the outset with a certain courage and a comprehensive vision. Our friend v.L. has quite rightly emphasized that what is to be advocated in relation to a free spiritual life in connection with the threefold social organism must be treated in different ways for the most diverse fields. But this must then also really so that the way it is treated is appropriate for the territories concerned. I myself will always point out that, for example, in England it will be necessary to present things in a way that is appropriate to the English civilization. | One must thoroughly understand what is imagination in the face of the great human questions of the present, and what is reality. So one must not present the matter in such a way as to create the belief that English intellectual life is freer than other intellectual lives. And you will see, if you really go through the “key points”, that less emphasis is placed on the negative aspect – the liberation of intellectual life from the state – and much less emphasis is placed on the establishment of a free intellectual life in general. And there it will always remain a good word: that it depends on the human being, that it really depends on the spiritual foundations from which the human being emerges, which spiritual foundations are created for his education. It is not so much a matter of emphasizing the negative aspect, but rather the positive. And I need only say this: if, let us say, spiritual life were formally freed from state control, and everything else remained the same, then liberation from the state would not be of much use. The point is that positive spirit, as it has been represented here this week, as it has been tried to represent it, that this free spirit be brought into intellectual life internationally. And then things will happen as they should happen. For example, the Waldorf School is not only a truly independent school, it does not even have a director, but the teaching staff is a truly representative community. It is not a matter of all measures being taken in such a way that 'nothing else' speaks except what comes from the teaching staff themselves, so that here we really have 'an independent spiritual community', but it is also a matter of the fact that in all countries there is a lack of the spiritual life that has been talked about here all week. And when one hears it emphasized somewhere that “intellectual life is free in this country” – I am not talking about Switzerland now, I am talking about England – that is another matter. And it is this positive aspect, above all, that matters. It must then be emphasized: Of course, this will only exist if one tries to actually respond to the specific circumstances in the individual countries and territories. But one must have a heart and mind for what unfree intellectual life has ultimately done in our time. Not in order to respond to what was said here yesterday, but to show the blossoms of human thinking, both intellectually and morally, that our current intellectual life brings to light, I would like to read you a sentence. I do not wish to detain you for long, and I do not wish to speak from the standpoint from which there was such virulent opposition to anthroposophy and the threefold social order here yesterday; but I would like to read out a sentence from the brochure that had to be discussed here yesterday. General von Gleich writes about me: “At the turn of the century, which also marks a turning point in the supersensible world of Anthroposophy, Mr. Steiner, then almost forty years old, was gradually led to Theosophy through Winter's lectures on mysticism.” Now you may ask who this Mr. Winter is, whom Mr. v. Gleich cites here as the person through whose lectures I was converted to Anthroposophy in Berlin. One can only put forward the following hypothesis: in the preface to those lectures that I gave in Berlin in the winter of 1901/1902, there is a sentence in which I say: the movement I want to talk about began with my lectures in the winter of 1901/1902. — From this winter, during which I gave my lectures, that Mr. 'Winter' was born, who converted me to theosophy in 1901/1902. You see, I do not want to use the expression that applies to the intellectual disposition of a person who, because of it, is now called to lead the opponents of the anthroposophical movement; I do not want to use the expression; but you will certainly be able to use it sufficiently. This is the kind of intellectual product of the spiritual life that one could pass through in the present day to the extent of becoming a major general. So one must look at the matter from a somewhat greater depth. Only then will one develop a heart and a mind for what is necessary. And just because the spiritual life must be tackled first and foremost through the school system, it is so desirable that this World School Association could be established, which would not be so difficult to establish if the will for it exists. But it must not be a smaller or larger committee, but must be established in such a way that its membership is unmanageable. Only then will it have value. It must not — I do not want to give any advice on this, because I have said enough about it — it must not, of course, impose any special sacrifices on an individual. It must be there to create the mood for what urgently needs a mood today! — That is something of what I still had to tie in with what has come to light today. Finally, I must say something that I would rather not say, but which I must say, since otherwise it would not have been touched upon this evening and it might be too late for the next few days, when the pain of departure will probably set in. I must point this out myself. The point is that it is taken for granted that everything that has been said today will be worked for. But this work only makes sense if we can maintain the Goetheanum as it stands here, and above all, if we can complete it. Now, however well things are going with “Futurum A.-G.” and however well things are going with “Kommenden Tag”, they will not be any economic support for this Goetheanum for a long time to come. Certainly not. And the greatest concern that weighs on me today, despite all my other concerns, is this: that in the not too distant future we may find ourselves with no economic support for this Goetheanum. Therefore, it is necessary above all to emphasize that each of us should work towards this, that each of us who can contribute something towards this, that this building can find its completion, may do so! That is what is needed above all: that we are put in a position by the friends of our cause to be able to maintain this Goetheanum, to be able to finish this Goetheanum above all. And that, as I said, is my great concern. I must say so here. Because ultimately, what would it help if we could do as much propaganda as we want and we might have to close the Goetheanum in three months from now? This is also one of the social concerns that, in my opinion, are connected with the general social life of the present day. And I had to emphasize this concern because the facts on which it is based should not really be forgotten: this makes it possible to strengthen the movement that emanates from this Goetheanum. We can see the intellectual foundations on which those who are now taking up their posts against us are fighting. That will be a beginning. We must be vigilant, very vigilant, because these people are clever. They know how to organize themselves. What happened in Stuttgart is a beginning, it is intended as a beginning. And only then will we be able to stand up to them if we spark such idealism – I would like to say it again this time – that does not say: Oh, ideals are so terribly high, they are so exalted, and my pocket is something so small that I do not reach into it when it comes to exalted ideals. – It must be said: Only idealism is true that also digs into its pockets for the ideals! Closing Remarks at a Student Assembly At the suggestion of German students, a meeting was held on the afternoon of 9 April 1921 to discuss how anthroposophical work could be established at universities. Dr. Steiner spoke at the end. Dr. S. has, however, pointed out the three most important issues at stake here: whether to organize or not, as desired. But above all, I would like to emphasize one thing: if you are involved in a movement like ours, it is necessary to learn from the past and to lead further stages of the movement in such a way that certain earlier mistakes are avoided. What it will depend on in the first place is this: that anthroposophy, to the extent that it can already be accepted by the student body in terms of understanding and to the extent that it is at all possible through the available forces or opportunities, that anthroposophy in its various branches be spread among the student body as positive spiritual content. Our experience has basically shown that something real can only be achieved if one can really build on the basis of the positive. Yesterday I had the opportunity to point out that years ago an attempt was made to establish a kind of world federation for spiritual science, and that nothing came of this world federation, which actually only wanted to proceed according to the rules of formal external organization. It ended, so to speak, in what the Germans call “das Hornberger Schießen” – a shooting match in Hornberg. But because a sense of cohesion and collaboration were needed at the time, the existing adherents of anthroposophy had to be brought together in the “Anthroposophical Society”. These were now more or less all people who had simply been involved with anthroposophy. It is only with such an organization, where there is already something in it, that one can then do something. Of course it will be especially necessary for the student body not only to work in the sense of spreading the given anthroposophical problems in the narrower sense, but also to work out general problems and the like in the sense that Dr. S. just meant. Of course, at first it will not be so necessary to work towards dissertations with such things. It has often, really quite often, happened recently that I have been asked by younger students along the following lines: Yes, we actually want to combine anthroposophy with our particular science. How can one approach this in such a way that one works towards one's goal in the right way after the doctorate, after the state examination? What should one do? How should one set up one's work? — I have always given the following advice: Try to get through the official studies as quickly as possible, to get through them as quickly as possible – and I am always very happy to help with any advice – then choose any scientific topic that seems to emerge from the course of your studies, as a dissertation or state examination or the like. Whichever topic you choose, one of them is of course diametrically opposed to the other approaches in anthroposophical terms, there can be no doubt about that. Each is diametrically opposed. But now I advise you to write your dissertation in such a way that you first write down what the professor can censor, what he will understand; and take a second notebook, and write down everything that comes to you in the course of your studies and that you believe should actually be worked in from anthroposophy. You then keep that for yourself. Then you make your two sheets, that's how long a dissertation must be. You submit these. And try to finish them. Then you can really help anthroposophy with what you have acquired in addition to this one in the second issue, bit by bit. Because you actually only really notice what significant problems — special and specialist problems — arise when you are faced with the necessity of really working scientifically on a certain topic and the like. But there is a danger of, I would say, unclear cooperation with the professorship. And submitting dissertations to the professors that are written “in the anthroposophical sense” – these usually do not suit professors – I do not consider this to be a good idea because it actually slows us down at the pace that the anthroposophical movement should be taking. We need as many academically trained co-workers as possible. If there is anything we lack in the anthroposophical movement today, it is a sufficient number of academically trained co-workers. I do not mean the externality of needing, say, people with degrees. That is not what I mean. But first of all, we need people who have learned to work scientifically from within. This inner scientific work is best learned in one's own work. Secondly, however, we need staff who come from the student body as soon as possible, and who are no longer held back by considerations for their later specialized studies. (You see, it is not at all wonderful that it is as difficult as it is in Switzerland, for example.) As a student, you naturally have the opportunity to join such a group in the first few semesters, if you are free-minded enough to do so. Then come the last semesters. You are busy with other things, and it becomes more difficult. And so the threads that you have pulled are constantly being torn away. This has just been emphasized. So I would like to say, especially for scientific collaboration: the topics must be processed twice during such a transition period: one that the professor understands, and the other that is saved for later. Of course, I am not saying that very special opportunities that arise are not seized, and that these opportunities, which arise, are not vigilantly observed by the student body in the most eminent sense and also really exploited in the sense and service of the movement: On the one hand, I hope, and on the other hand, I fear almost silently, that our dear friend, Professor Römer in Leipzig, will now be inundated with a huge number of anthroposophical dissertations! But I think that would also be one of the things he would probably prefer. And such a document of student trust would show that he is not one of the professors just mentioned. That would come from the foundation. Now, however, we need an expansion of what has already been discussed here in Dornach, namely a kind of collaboration after all. You will work out among yourselves later how best to do this technically. It would be good if, with the help of the Waldorf teachers, who would be joined by other personalities from our ranks – Professor Römer, Dr. Unger and others – a certain exchange could take place, especially regarding the choice of topics for dissertations or scientific papers, without in any way compromising the free initiative of the individual. It can only be in the form of advice. It is precisely for this scientific work that a closer union should be sought – it doesn't have to be an organization, but an exchange of ideas – between you. The economic aspect is, of course, a very, very important one. It is a fact that the university system in particular, but actually more or less the entire higher education system, will suffer greatly from our economic difficulties. Now it is a matter of really seeing clearly that it is only possible to help if it is possible to advance such institutions, as it is for example for Germany the “Kommende Tag”, as it is here the “Futurum”. So that a reorganization of the economic situation of the student body can also emanate from these organizations. I can assure you that all the things we are tackling in this direction are actually calculated on rapid growth. We do not have time to take our time; instead, we actually have to make rapid progress with such economic organizations. And here I must say that the members of the student body, perhaps with very few exceptions, can help us above all by spreading understanding for such things. It has indeed already happened in relation to other things that a student could achieve something for this or that with his father, or could achieve something with his relatives. Not everyone has only destitute friends. And then there really is something that works like an avalanche. Just think about how powerfully something like an avalanche works, based on experience: when you start somewhere, it continues. Something like this continues to have an effect when you act out of the positive: try to study these brochures that have been published by “Kommender Tag” and “Futurum”, and try to create understanding for something like this. It is this understanding that the oldest people in particular find extremely difficult to work their way up to. I have seen how older people, I would say, have chewed on the desire to understand what “Tomorrow” or “Futurum” want, how they have repeatedly fallen back on their old economic prejudices, like a cat on its paws, with which they have rushed into economic decline, and how they cannot find their way out. I believe that there really is a bright understanding among our fellow students that could also have some effect on the older generations. We cannot make any progress in any other way. Because I can tell you: when we have come so far in relation to these economic institutions that we can effectively do something, that we first of all have enough funds to do something on a large scale – because only then does it help – and on the other hand can overcome the resistance of the proletariat, which is particularly hostile to an economic improvement in the situation of students, then it must indeed be the first concern of our economic organizations to work economically in relation to the student body. The 'battle problems'! Yes, you see, that's the problem: the Anthroposophical Society, even if it wasn't called that before, has existed since the beginning of the century, and it has always actually only worked positively, at least as far as I myself am concerned. It let the opponents rant and do all sorts of things. But naturally then the opponents come with certain objections. They say, there it has been said, there that has been said, yes that, that has not even been refuted. It is already so that one finds understanding for it that actually the one who asserts something has the burden of proof, not the one to whom it is attributed. And we could really experience it again and again, that strange views emerged precisely among academics, I now mean lecturers, professors, pastors and those who had emerged from the ranks of academics. Just think, that from, I would like to say, for the outside world honorable - but I say it only between quotation marks: “honorable” - professors, things are put forward against Anthroposoph , and so on, that if one follows these proofs with reasons, it is a mockery, a bloody mockery of all possible methods of asserting something in science. Therefore, with someone like Professor Fuchs, I simply had to say: It is impossible that this person is anything other than a quite impossible anatomist! Am I supposed to believe that he examines things conscientiously when, after everything that has been presented, he examines my baptismal certificate in the way he has examined it? You have to draw conclusions about the way one area is treated from the way another is treated. Such things simply show – through the fact that people step forward and show their particular habits – the symptoms of how science is done today. Even the things that are presented at universities and technical colleges today are basically no better founded than the things that are asserted in this way; it is just that the generally loosened habits in scientific life are revealed in this way. And that is what is needed: to take the fight to a higher level, so to speak. And there it is not necessary, as my fellow student wished, for example, which I understand very well, to play as a “fighting organization.” That is not necessary. Rather, only one thing: to avoid what has occurred so frequently in the Anthroposophical Society. In the Anthroposophical Society, this always came to the fore, as incredible as it is – not in everyone, of course, but very often: one was obliged to defend oneself against a wild accusation, and then to use harsh words, for example, we say in the case when a Mr. v. Gleich invents the term “Winter” for a lecturer by reading that I myself have given winter lectures, then invents a personality “Winter” and introduces it into the fight in a very nasty way. Yes, you see, I don't think that in this case one would say too harsh words if one spoke of Trottelisis! Because here, even if it occurs with a general, one is dealing with a genuine Trottelisis in its purest form. And in the Anthroposophical Society it was usually the case that it was not the person who was at fault who acted like Mr. von Gleich, but the person who defended himself. Until today! We have learned a few times that it was said: You must not become aggressive in this way. In the eyes of many people, becoming aggressive means defending oneself in this way. It is necessary that you, without emphasizing that you are a fighting organization or the like, still follow things with a watchful eye and reject them. You have to act positively in this regard; and then the others have to stand behind you, behind the one who is forced to defend himself. It is not a matter of our becoming fighting cocks ourselves; but it is a matter of the others standing behind him when it becomes necessary to defend himself. And it is a matter of really following the symptoms of the world-descriptive, scientific, religious, and so on, in this respect in our time, taking an interest in them. Take this single phenomenon: I was obliged to characterize philosophical, or whatever you want to call it, scribblings by Count Keyserling in the appropriate way, because in his incredible superficiality he mixed in the madness that I started from Haeckel's views. This is not only an objective untruth, but in this case a subjective untruth, that is, a lie, because one must demand that anyone who makes such an assertion should search for the sources; and he could have seen that the chapter I wrote in the earliest years of my writing career is in my arguments with Haeckel, in the introduction to Goethe's scientific writings. You can all read it very well. Now Count Keyserling has had a small pamphlet published by his publisher: “The Way to Perfection”. I will not characterize this writing further, but I recommend that one or two of you buy this writing and pass it around; because if everyone wanted to buy it, it would be a waste of money; but I still recommend that you read it so that you get an idea of what, so to speak, goes against all wisdom in this writing “The Way to Perfection” by Keyserling. There is the following sentence, which he put together, more or less as I remember it: Yes, if I said something incorrect, that Dr. Steiner started from Haeckel, then Dr. Steiner could simply have corrected that; he could have set me right, because I have - and now I ask you to pay close attention to this sentence - because I have no time for a special Steiner source research. So now, you see, we have already brought scientific morality to such a pass that someone who founds a “school of wisdom” considers it justified to send things out into the world that he admittedly has no time to research, that he has therefore not researched! Here one catches a seemingly noble thinker - because Count Keyserling always cited omnipotence in his writing - that is what is so impressive about Count Keyserling, that he always cites omnipotence. All present-day writing has reached a point where it is most mired and ragged. And despite the omnipotence, there is a complete moral decline of views here. And so people have to be told: Of course, nobody expects you to do Steiner source research either; but then, if you don't do any Steiner source research, if you don't have time, then – with regard to all these things about which you should know something: Shut up! You see, it is necessary that we have no illusions, that we simply discard every conventional principle of authority and the like, that we face ourselves freely, really and truly examining what is present in our time. Then we will be able to notice quite a lot of it today. I would certainly advise you to take a look at some of the sentences that the great Germanist Roethe in Berlin occasionally and repeatedly coins, purely in terms of form – I will completely disregard the view, which can certainly be respected. Then you will find it instructive. We do not need to be a fighting organization. But we must be ready and alert to take action when the things that are leading us so horribly into decline actually materialize. Do we need to be an organization of anthroposophical students to do that? We simply need to be alert, decent, and scientifically conscientious people, then we can always take a stand against such harm from our most absolute private point of view. And if we are also organized for positive work, then the number of those who are organized for it can stand behind us and support us. We need the latter. But it would not be very clever of us to present ourselves as a fighting organization. On the other hand, it is important that we really work seriously on improving our current conditions. And to do that, we first have to take note of the terrible damage that is coming to light in one field or another – and which really cannot be overlooked, because it involves enormous sums of money – and have the courage to take a stand against it in whatever way we can. You have already done something if you can do just that: simply set the record straight for a small number of your fellow students with regard to such things, even if it happens only in the smallest of circles. Yesterday, I said to one of our members here with regard to the World School Association: I think it is particularly valuable, especially with regard to such things, to start by talking to one or two or three others, that is, to very small groups, even if there are only two of them; and, to put it quite radically, if someone cannot find anyone else, then at least say it to yourself! So these things are quite tangible in terms of what the individual is able to do. Some will be able to do much more, as has actually already happened with a doctor who was a member and whose fellow students proved to be very enthusiastic. The point is not to make enemies by appearing as fighting cocks in a wild form, but also not to shy away from the fight when others start it. That's it: we must always let the other start; and then the necessary help must stand behind us, which does not allow the tactic to arise, because it has arisen: that we would have started. If they start from the other side, then one is forced to defend oneself; and then you can always read that the anthroposophical side has used this or that in the fight as an attack and so on. They always turn the tables. That is the method of the opponents. We must not let that happen. As for the World School Association, I would just like to say this: in my opinion, it would be best if the World School Association could be established independently of each other in Entente and neutral countries, but also in the German-speaking area of Central Europe. If it could happen at the same time, so that things could develop independently of each other, so to speak, it would be best. Of course, a certain amount of vigilance is required to see what happens. I believe that Switzerland, in particular, should mediate here. It would be good if we could do it right now. I can assure you: things are on a knife edge – and if the same possibilities for war existed today as existed in 1914, then we would have had war again long ago. Things are on a knife edge in terms of sentiment and so on. And we won't get something like this Weltschulverein (World School Association) off the ground if, for example, it is founded in Germany now, and then the others, for example, if only for a week, had to follow suit. It would simply not come about, it would be impractical to do so. On the other hand, we must not allow any possibility of our in the least denying our position on these matters. This School of Spiritual Science is called the Goetheanum. We gave it this name during the World War, here and now. The other nations, insofar as they have participated in anthroposophy, have adopted the name and accepted it. We have never denied that we have reasons to call the School of Spiritual Science 'Goetheanum', and it would therefore not be good if in Germany things were allowed to appear as some kind of imitation from the other side. So it would be a matter of proceeding in this regard — forgive the harsh word — a little less clumsily, of doing it a little more skillfully in the larger world cultural sense! Switzerland would now have to work with full understanding here. So it would actually have to be taken up simultaneously by Central Europe, by the Entente and by the neutral countries. For the time being, I don't know whether it will take off in just one or two places. This morning I received the news that the committee, which was convened yesterday and which wanted to work so hard, went to bed a few minutes after yesterday's meeting left the hall; it was postponed until tonight. Whether they will meet tonight, we will wait and see. We have already had very strange experiences; and based on this knowledge, that we have already had the most diverse experiences, I have taken the liberty of speaking to you here about the fact that in the further course of the movement, the experiences made should be taken into account. On the other hand, I am convinced that if the necessary strong impulse and proper enthusiasm can be found among our fellow students, especially for what I myself and other friends of mine have mentioned in the course of this lecture: enthusiasm for the truth – then things will work out. I would like to say one more thing: I recently read an article from a feature page and I can assure you that what recently took place in Stuttgart is not the slightest bit an end, but only a beginning, and I can assure you that things will get much, much worse. I have often said this to our friends here – a very, very long time ago – and I recently read a piece from a feature page in which it says: “There are enough intellectual sparks that flash like lightning after the wooden mousetrap, there are plenty of sparks of intellectual fire, and it will take no little cleverness on Steiner's part to reconcile people and prevent a real spark of fire one day bringing the Dornach glory to an inglorious end. I really do think that whatever must occur as a reaction against such action, which will grow ever stronger and stronger, will have to be better shaped and, above all, more energetically carried out. And I believe that you, my dear fellow students, need to let all your youthful enthusiasm flow in this direction, in what we have often mentioned here during this course: enthusiasm for the truth. Youthful enthusiasm for the truth has always been a very good impulse in the further development of humanity. May it be so in the near future through you in a matter that you recognize as good. |
64. From a Fateful Time: The World View of German Idealism
22 Apr 1915, Berlin Rudolf Steiner |
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And just as light is present in both the red-yellow and the green-blue-violet, so the I is present in the sentient soul, in the mind or emotional soul and also in the consciousness soul, , but is therefore also a continuous back-and-forth striving, sometimes striving for the sentient soul, as with Jakob Böhme, sometimes more inclined towards the intellectual soul, as with Leibniz. |
64. From a Fateful Time: The World View of German Idealism
22 Apr 1915, Berlin Rudolf Steiner |
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I would like to take the liberty of outlining tomorrow a world view from the perspective of spiritual science. Today, as an introduction, so to speak, I would like to precede it with a description of the world view of German idealism. It is possible to speak of such a world view of German idealism if one attempts to extract from the innermost being of the German national soul, so to speak, what has been attempted by this national soul in the greatest period — in terms of intellectual life — to get closer to the riddles and secrets of the world. If we consider the impulses and forces assimilated by the national soul in those days as still active in the second half of the nineteenth century and continuing into our own time, when the world picture of German idealism has receded in the face of other endeavors, where it has lived hidden, as it were, as an urging force in the development of the national spirit, then one can also speak of such an effective world view in the present. However, we must bear in mind that, due to many things that have arisen in our intellectual life and have become dominant for the generality of this intellectual life, this – I would say – most “original German” intellectual construct of German idealism has receded. But especially in these days we may express our hopes that this world picture of German idealism will again come to the surface and incorporate its strength into the general process of human development. In my lectures this winter, but also earlier, I have often mentioned a name that was borne by one of the most German minds of the second half of the nineteenth century; I have mentioned the name Herman Grimm, the great art historian. And it may be said that what I have ventured to suggest here about Herman Grimm can, especially when one considers what Herman Grimm achieved as an art historian, as an art observer and in other ways through his entire literary work, be proof that it is born directly out of German feeling, out of German thinking, in short, out of the innermost impulses of the German national soul. When Herman Grimm tried to lift up his soul to that which presented itself to him—more from his feelings than from philosophical reflection—as the world view of the Goethean worldview, he had to place this world view alongside the other which in modern times has found the widest dissemination and the widest interest; that world view, of which its adherents, its believers, repeatedly claim that it is based on the genuine and correct assumptions of science. This world-picture, which in a certain sense now holds sway in the minds of many, Herman Grimm, moved by his intuitive perceptions, desired to set beside the other, which presented itself to his imaginative fancy as the world-picture on which all Goethe's work and activity was based. I have already mentioned the conclusion which Herman Grimm arrived at when he made this attempt. He said: “Long ago, in his” — Goethe's — “youth, the great Laplace-Kantian fantasy of the origin and the former destruction of the globe had taken hold.” Herman Grimm wanted to suggest the idea that if Goethe had wanted to profess this Laplace-Kantian world view, he would have had plenty of opportunities to do so because it had already taken hold in his youth. And now Herman Grimm continues: "From the rotating nebula – which children already learn about at school – the central drop of gas forms, which later becomes the Earth, and, as a solidifying sphere, goes through all phases, including the episode of habitation by the human race, over inconceivable periods of time , and finally to plunge back into the sun as burnt-out slag: a long process, but one that is completely comprehensible to today's audience, and one that no longer requires any external intervention to come about, except for the effort of some external force to keep the sun at the same temperature." Herman Grimm alludes to the world view that is so widespread today: that once upon a time there was nothing but extraordinarily thin matter, that this thin matter clumped together, began to rotate, to move in circles, that from this the world building gradually formed, the planets split, that then on the earth – the one of the planets split off from the central gas drop – in the course of time the mineral, the vegetable and the animal kingdom developed from the gas, and that then the whole course of evolution took on that form which presents itself to us as human 'history'. But then, later on, there would come a time when all living things would have to wither and dry up, when everything would fall back into the sun, and with it all life would sink back into inanimate matter. Many people believe that this world view is the only one that can be achieved on the solid ground of natural science. And, as I have already indicated, it is easy to make this world view comprehensible. Herman Grimm says of it: children already learn it at school. You just have to carefully slide a cut-out card through a drop of oil floating in a liquid, stick a needle through it from above and turn the needle to set the whole thing in motion; then smaller drops separate from the larger oil ball and move around the larger one. And so, there you have, quite “evidently,” the origin of a small world system, and from that you draw the conclusion that the origin of the great world system must have occurred in just the same way. However, I have always pointed out how obvious it is, even to a child, that the world could not have come into being any other way; but in this experiment, people usually forget one thing – and one should maintain perfection when demonstrating something. For it is usually not taken into account that the “Mr. Teacher” or the “Mr. Professor” is standing there, turning the needle and setting the whole thing in rotation, and one must not forget oneself in an experiment that one does. Therefore, if one wanted to accept the experiment cited as proof, one would have to place a giant Mr. Teacher or Mr. Professor into outer space. Herman Grimm continues: “No more fruitless prospect for the future can be imagined than the one that is supposed to be imposed on us today as a scientific necessity in this expectation. A carrion bone that would make a hungry dog go around would be a refreshingly appetizing piece compared to this excrement of creation, as which our earth would eventually fall back to the sun, and it is the curiosity with which our generation absorbs and believes such things, a sign of a sick imagination, which scholars of future epochs will one day expend a great deal of ingenuity to explain as a historical phenomenon of the times. Goethe never allowed such bleakness in.So said Herman Grimm. In contrast to this, it may be pointed out that the entire period of German Weltanschauungsidealismus in its striving for a Weltanschauungsbilde was basically a protest against the fact that the culture of the time incorporated precisely this world view with the most fruitless perspective; and it may be further pointed out how it actually came about that such a world view could take hold. But to do this, it is necessary to point out a little of the way in which, so to speak, popular thinking, the world-view thinking of the present day, has come about. And since it can be noted again and again how little account is taken of all the circumstances that are drawn upon in these arguments, I would like to point out that what I have to say in this regard is really not only of this war and is not said merely because we are living in these fateful times; rather, as many of the listeners here present know, it has been said and advocated again and again, not only in Germany but also outside of Germany. I would like to emphasize this in particular because it could very easily be thought that these discussions lack objectivity precisely because, in our fateful times, they draw attention to what can help to guide the German soul to what is rooted in the deepest depths of the German national spirit. If we want to grasp the development of our newer world view, we have to go back – to not go further back – at least to the point in time when, under the impression of powerful external discoveries about the world building of space and also about the world building of time, humanity began to work on the renewal of the world view as well, as it must present itself to the human mind. In this context, it must be pointed out time and again how the work of Copernicus and what was achieved by minds such as Kepler, Giordano Bruno and Galileo in the wake of this work, basically provided the first impetus for the world view under the influence of which present-day education still stands. Today, I would like to focus on the extent to which Europe's individual nations and peoples have worked towards this world view, which now surrounds us in the consciousness of most thinking people; and how, on the other hand, the world view of German idealism has been incorporated into what Europe's peoples have contributed to the common world view. The spirit that can appear to us as particularly characteristic in the — I would like to say — reshaping of the world view of modern times is that of Giordano Bruno, who was burned in 1600. By pointing to Giordano Bruno, we must point out the contribution that Italian culture, Italian thinking, and Italian striving for a world view has made to general world culture. In earlier lectures I pointed out that the life and striving of the human soul can be seen in three forms of expression by a true spiritual science: as sentient soul, as mind or emotional soul, and as consciousness soul. and that in this surge of inner experience, which comes about under the influence of the forces of the sentient soul, the forces of the mind or emotional soul and the forces of the consciousness soul, the actual self of the human being acts as the all-uniting element. I have also said that today one can certainly scoff at this classification as an arbitrary one, but that in the future spiritual science will make it clear that the division of the human soul into a part of feeling, a part of understanding and a part of consciousness is just as 'scientific' as the division undertaken by physics in order to divide light into seven colors or — we could also say — into three color groups: into the yellowish-reddish part, into the greenish part and into the blue-violet part. Just as one will study the colors of light in this threefold division, not out of arbitrariness but out of an inner nature of the thing, if one wants to come to a result at all, so the human soul in its wholeness must be studied in the three “color nuances” . The reason why the same mental operation that is accepted in physics is regarded as mere speculation in spiritual science is that today we are not accustomed to approaching the soul in the same way that we approach the nature of light in physics. I have also pointed out that the essential thing about the national impulses, in so far as they take hold of the human soul, consists, for example, in the case of the Italian people, in the fact that the impulses which play from the Italian folk soul into the soul of the individual Italian ripen the soul of feeling in the latter , but not in the sense that he is considered as an individual, but as a member of his people; so that a person who strives for a world view within Italian culture will do so as a person pulsating with the power that works through his sentient soul. And if we look at Campanella, at Vanini, and at other spirits in the newer age of Italian culture, we see that it was Giordano Bruno who most vividly expressed this aspect. Bruno, in the dawn of modern times, seizes with the powers, which we say are the powers of the sentient soul, that which Copernicus has brought up as a spatial world view? Let us take the medieval world view. Man could see no further than the sky, which was bounded by the vault of heaven, in which the stars were set. Then there were the spheres of the individual planets, with the spheres of the sun and moon. Such a world view corresponded to the senses. But it was only compatible with the view of the world of space that preceded Copernicanism. As Copernicanism — I might say — descended into the infinite capacity for enthusiasm of the soul of Giordano Bruno, who with all the depths of his sensibility recognized the world, this view arose in him: What was called the vault of heaven up there is not up there at all; it is not a real boundary, but only a boundary up to which the human view of space comes. The world extends into infinity! And embedded in infinity are innumerable worlds, and dominating these innumerable worlds is the world soul, which, for Giordano Bruno, permeates this perceived universe in the same way that the individual human soul permeates the individual human elements that make up our organism. One needs only to read a page of any of Giordano Bruno's writings to realize that the enthusiasm kindled in his soul by Copernicanism led him to direct his hymns – for that is what his writings on revelation are – to the infinite world building permeated by the soul of the world. And so will others who, like him, have been inspired in their quest by his folk culture. Thus we see how in Giordano Bruno we are confronted with a world picture which everywhere sees not only the material and spatial in the world, but sees everything material and spatial at the same time spiritualized, ensouled; how the individual human soul is for him only an image of the entire world organism, which is permeated by the world soul just as our individual organism is permeated by our soul. This world view of Giordano Bruno stands before us — I would like to say — formed from the same basis of feeling as the older world view of Dante; only that Dante's world view took up in its poetic creation what had also been handed down from earlier times and led into the infinite, but into the infinite supersensible. I have already pointed out how Giordano Bruno can teach us lessons that are so necessary to learn in the face of the newer spiritual science. For, in the first place, this newer spiritual science is always objected to on the ground that it asserts something that contradicts the “five senses” of man. Now, nothing contradicted the five senses of man more than the world-picture of Copernicus, which made on Giordano Bruno the impression just characterized; nevertheless, the world-picture of Copernicus has entered, if gradually, into the thought-habits of mankind. But other things have also become part of people's thinking. Just as Giordano Bruno called out to his contemporaries: “You imagine space as being limited by the blue vault of heaven; but this blue vault of heaven does not exist, because it is only the limit of your perception,” so the newer spiritual science must speak in the face of what the older world view sees in birth and death as the limitation of the world view. For what appears in birth and death as the limits of the temporal is just as little really there outside of human perception as the blue vault of heaven is really there for the spatial perception outside of human perception. It is only assumed as the boundary of the spatial because the human spatial view only extends as far as the blue vault of heaven. And because in relation to the temporal, human perception only extends to birth and death, birth and death are assumed to be the limits of the temporal; and today, with spiritual science, we stand at the same point in relation to birth and death as Giordano Bruno did in his time. I would like to say: in order to effectively impress what emerged as his world view on the culture of the time, the stirrings arising from the sentient soul that Giordano Bruno gave to this world view were needed. It is as if what he has to say about the world does not in the least engage his intellect, does not in any way trouble his reason – one has only to read a page of his work to find confirmation of this – but as if everything emerges for him from the most direct intuition, that is how Giordano Bruno speaks. Thus, at the end of the Middle Ages, the Copernican world picture was accepted, which was bound to be accepted because it was so deeply significant for human progress. And so we can say: the “nuance of feeling” of the soul's life is clearly pronounced in the world picture of Giordano Bruno and also in that of those who, with him, received their most significant impulses from the Italian soul. For that is the significant thing that has come from this side to the present day: that all philosophizing, all the gathering of thoughts into a world-view, has flowed out of this most direct life of feeling. What warms the worldview with inner strength comes from this source. Therefore, we may say: insofar as the individual Italian places himself in his nationality, the enthusiastic soul speaks out of him when he wants to work out a worldview. If we now turn to another current – one of those currents that then led to the modern world view: to the French current, we also find an excellent spirit at the starting point of the newer world view current; but if we look closely, we see him facing the origin of the world view under completely different conditions than Giordano Bruno: Descartes (Cartesius). He is also a spirit who, like Giordano Bruno, belongs to the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but he starts from completely different premises. Let us take a look at these premises as they present themselves in this outstanding mind. What is it that he starts from, in contrast to Giordano Bruno? In Giordano Bruno, we see how he is seized by an ever-increasing enthusiasm for what gives him the foundations of the modern world view. With Descartes, we see the opposite: we see how he starts from doubt, how he realizes that everything that arises from the external world or from within the soul as knowledge, as insight, as experience, can be doubted as to whether it is a reality, whether it is justified, whether it has more justification than a passing dream image. Descartes comes to doubt everything; but he seeks knowledge, to know with inner powers. First of all, he looks for the characteristics that knowledge must have in order for the soul to accept it; and for him, clarity and distinctness are these characteristics. What can present itself most clearly and distinctly to the soul bears the mark of certainty. I would like to say: in the sea of doubt in which he initially finds himself, he realizes that he must seek something that presents itself to him with clarity and distinctness, with transparency; for only that can count as a certainty for him. So it is not the original enthusiasm that drives him, but the striving for clarity, for distinctness and transparency. From this it then follows that he says to himself: And even if I doubt everything, even if everything I could perceive in the external and internal world were only a dream image: I cannot doubt that – whether it be a dream or not, I am thinking this; and if everything that takes place in the sea of experiences and that I can doubt is not, and this is established with clarity above everything: I think – then I am too! And from this clarity and distinctness, the thought arises in him: everything that presents itself to the soul as clearly and distinctly as this model of clarity and distinctness has legitimacy; one may think about the world as one must survey it: I think, therefore I am. And now let us see from this starting-point with Descartes and his followers how a world-picture comes into being that thirsts for clarity and distinctness. This clarity and distinctness was prefigured in Descartes' soul in that he was a great mathematician, and above all a special thinker on the basis of geometry. He demands mathematical clarity for everything that should belong to this world-picture. He and his successors then went on to say: About the world of space and about everything that moves in space, one can gain clarity and distinctness, one can form an image that is inwardly as clear and distinct as only mathematics itself is clear and distinct. But I would like to say that the soul-life actually escaped this world-picture. Not that Descartes denied the soul, but by taking certainty: I think, therefore I am —, he did not take it in such a way that one would get the impression that he delved into the soul as he delved into the external world of space, into what happens externally. What happens externally in space gives him the opportunity to survey the details, and also to survey the context of the details; but the interior remains more or less obscure. He said to himself: “Certain ideas that arise in the soul are clear and distinct; these are ‘innate’ ideas; by arising clearly and distinctly, they structure and organize the soul internally. But a connection between the inner-spiritual and the outer-spatial did not arise for him; they stood side by side like two worlds. Therefore, he could not — like Giordano Bruno, who thought of everything as inspired by the world soul and of this world soul pouring its spiritual impulses into everything — come to think of the soul in everything spatial as well. He said to himself: When I look at an animal, a spatial structure presents itself to me; I can look at it like another spatial structure; but it does not show anything other than spatial structures; therefore it appears like a moving automaton. He did not find in animals that which moves the animal. He found it only in himself. Therefore, he ascribed a soul only to human beings, not to animals. He called animals “living machines” — and with that we have the beginning of a mechanical world view. They were not so bold – neither Descartes nor his disciples – to deny what was present from the old religious tradition, this inner soul, but they sought to consider it as belonging only to humans; and in animals, they considered it as presenting its creations to the soul in the way that mathematical creations present themselves to the soul. Do we not see clearly and distinctly the working of the intellectual or mind soul, the middle soul, in the striving for clarity and distinctness, which has increasingly become the characteristic of all work on a worldview in France? Until recently, this remained the basic feature of the current that worked from this perspective on the construction of a general world view. One might say that everything in a worldview that is mathematically transparent, that can be expressed in mathematically clear thoughts, that can be presented in such a way that one thing mathematically follows from another, came from this worldview – up to the world view created by Auguste Comte, where everything – from the simplest phenomena of nature to human social coexistence – is to be presented as in a large, powerful painting, with one sentence always following another in mathematics. It would be interesting to show how this nuance of the mind or soul, this systematizing soul, permeates this entire culture, how it forms the innermost nerve of this culture. And if we now turn to a third current that also had an enormous influence on our intellectual culture, on our intellectual world view of the second half of the last century, if we turn to British culture, we find Bacon, Baco von Verulam, as the dominant spirit, in whose footsteps all of England's other leading spirits still follow. And how does he assert what he has to say? He said to himself: Mankind has lived for too long on mere ideals, has busied itself for too long with mere ideals and mere words, and it should now turn its attention to external things, to the things themselves, that is, to those things that present themselves to external observation ; one could only arrive at a true picture of the world by directing one's eyes and other senses to what is taking place in the external world, and only allowing “thoughts” to be valid insofar as they bring what is happening outside into a context. Bacon became the philosopher of experience, of the world view of experience, the world view that serves to summarize what is happening externally. Hence we see how, in the course of this school of thought, an outstanding mind such as Locke denies the possibility that the soul can gain any knowledge from itself; all it can do is to stand and observe the course of the world; then what it can observe will be written on the soul's blank slate. In this sense, the soul itself is a blank slate, a tabula rasa; not as with Descartes, innate ideas arise that are connected with the essence of the soul. Locke crosses out all innate ideas. For him, the world view arises only from the fact that the human soul focuses on its surroundings, that it analyzes, synthesizes and reflects on what is going on outside. This current extends right up to more recent times. People like John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer and others are influenced by an impulse such as that just mentioned. One would like to say: with such a world view, everything that the soul could achieve by developing inwardly and bringing up what it does not yet have when it is placed in the world in a natural way, is rejected, so that it must stop at everything that presents itself externally and apply all the soul's strength to summarizing what presents itself from the outside. When I first tried to find a concept, an idea for this kind of English philosophy, especially for John Stuart Mill, about fifteen years ago – this is presented in my “World and Life Views in the Nineteenth Century” – I struggled to find a suitable expression to characterize John Stuart Mill's world struggled to find a fitting expression to characterize John Stuart Mill's world view; and even then I had to characterize this world view in such a way that I said: This point of view is that of the 'spectator of the world', it is not the point of view of a soul that works inwardly on itself with the belief that it can advance in the knowledge of the inner connections of things through this inner work. John Stuart Mill also takes this standpoint as a spectator, for Mill was also one of the followers of Locke and Bacon, and he faces the world in such a way that he stands before what is presented to the senses externally and what can be joined together in thoughts, just as thoughts are joined and dissolved in everyday life. Now we see how, in yet another way, Giordano Bruno, Descartes and Bacon in the way they are characterized work on the creation of a world view, in German, Central European intellectual culture on the emergence of a world view; we see how, in solitude, a profound German mind seeks to gain a world view from the depths of the national soul. It is easy to misunderstand this thinker, who strives for the highest possible insights for a human being, and to ridicule him; but when we speak of German intellectual life, we must draw attention to this one man: Jakob Böhme, who lived at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century. It is certainly easy to misjudge this simple shoemaker from Görlitz, for he did not speak as did Copernicus or Giordano Bruno, who drafted a world picture out of his elementary intuitive perception; nor did he speak out of a striving for clarity and distinctness, as we find in Descartes, and he spoke even less like Bacon, who wanted to summarize what presents itself outwardly to the senses. Rather, he spoke in such a way that when he delved into his soul or was with nature, something was there that had not been there before; he spoke of how an inward path is traversed that leads to the innermost secrets of existence. He spoke of what ignited within him when, as a shepherd boy, he once looked into a hole in the ground at the top of a mountain and saw a metal vessel full of gold in the recess. He said that this experience ignited something within him, and he wanted to say: A spark has been kindled in my soul, which has been ignited by the spirit that is weaving in the world; I felt connected to the spirit living in the world. And he goes on to tell us how he pursued this experience in his soul and also lived in a state of soul alienated from everyday life for seven days, how he had gone through a “paradise and realm of joy,” how he did not feel connected to reality through his senses, nor to what the senses presented through his mind, but how he felt connected through his soul to what invisibly and supersensibly reigns in things. But when he told this to his master, with whom he was then apprenticed, the latter told him to get out of there, because he could not use any young house prophets! And many still speak like this master today; in this respect, people have not become more understanding. But if we delve into Jakob Böhme, we see how he wants to tie his soul to what pulses through the soul spiritually and emotionally. While Giordano Bruno directed his soul outwards, in order to see the 'soul of the world' everywhere, which he assumed, it is the case with Jakob Böhme that he only wants to form and shape his soul inwardly, that he does not want to look at the soul of the world outwardly, but rather immerses himself in it, so that he participates in the life of this soul of the world. Participates, I said. This is the starting point for world views that arise from a dark urge, for Jakob Böhme works without external scholarship, only from his soul. It is the beginning of the striving of a soul that draws its impulses from the impulses of the German national soul: this immersion in what is otherwise only observed or what is presented in clarity and distinctness. Jakob Böhme would not have understood what Cartesius strove for; for him it was not a matter of clarity and distinctness, but of allowing the soul to live the life of the great world soul. And if he could do that, then it did not matter to him whether it was clear and distinct, because “it is simply experienced!” And this “it is experienced” has remained like an impact, like a ferment within the striving of the German national spirit. Those spirits whom I mentioned in my lecture of eight days ago are the continuers of that first germ which was in Jakob Böhme; one can still see in them how they only want to strive clearly for what was already in Jakob Böhme's striving, which can be expressed by saying that he wanted to experience the secrets of the world — not just look at them! Now, however, we must look at a second starting point for the more recent striving for a worldview if we want to recognize all the forces that are inherent in this newer striving for a worldview. This other starting point is often more admired today by people who are striving for a worldview than the starting point of Jacob Boehme; it is the one that is also found in a German mind, and again in an eminently cosmopolitan mind, namely in Leibniz. His world view is similar to that of Giordano Bruno, but expressed in a German world view nuance. If we want to characterize the Italian world view, we have to say: it is born out of the sentient soul. In the same sense, the French world view is born out of the mind or mind soul; especially when studying Cartesius, one notices this to a very special degree. The British world view is born entirely out of the consciousness soul, out of that consciousness soul which, especially in the stage of observation, is able to focus on what is external and what the mind can bring to consciousness from it. The German view of the world emerges from the I itself, from the most intimate inner workings of the soul. And just as light is present in both the red-yellow and the green-blue-violet, so the I is present in the sentient soul, in the mind or emotional soul and also in the consciousness soul, , but is therefore also a continuous back-and-forth striving, sometimes striving for the sentient soul, as with Jakob Böhme, sometimes more inclined towards the intellectual soul, as with Leibniz. What Jakob Böhme strives for inwardly as a way of living in the soul of the world, Leibniz strives for through the intellect, but not, as is the case with Descartes, not as a mathematical mind, but as a soul that has a clear awareness that man in his essence is a part of the whole world. And so Leibniz said to himself: What I am as a soul, a conceiving being, is basically everywhere, underlying the whole world. What we see in space is not a mere spatial construction, but the reality is that everything that is reality outside is of the same kind as that which is within me; only my soul comes to an alert consciousness, as it were. In the beings outside, which are not human, there are also such basic components as are present in humans. Leibniz calls them “monads.” What is “really” in them is consciousness. Only the monads of the mineral and plant kingdoms have something like a sleeping consciousness; then they become more and more aware and aware, to finally come to self-awareness in the human kingdom. For Leibniz, the world is composed entirely of monads, and if you do not see the world as monads, it is because you see it indistinctly – as it is with a swarm of mosquitoes, which, seen from a distance, appears indistinct and looks like a cloud, but as soon as you get closer, it dissolves into the individual mosquitoes. So, for example, the table in front of me consists of monads, but these monads are seen pushed together like the individual midges in a swarm. Thus, for Leibniz, the entire world consists of individual monads, and just as the individual monads are mirrored in the whole world, so they are a microcosm in the macrocosm. One must imagine that the entire world is mirrored in every single monad, and a harmony implanted by the original monad spreads throughout the whole. If one wants to characterize the salient feature of this Leibnizian world view, one must say: the salient feature is its abstractness, its thoughtfulness; and this abstract-thoughtfulness is indeed immediately apparent when one looks at it more closely. For what would be the use of it if, as Leibniz does with regard to the individual monads, one were to dwell only on a clock and say: the individual link, the individual cogwheel would be effective with the whole clock, would thus be a “little clock,” and all the effects of the clock would find expression in it? Certainly, anyone who has knowledge of the composition of the clock can say how its individual parts are connected. But what would it matter if one were to say that the real characteristic of the clock is its harmony? One encompasses it with an abstract concept. Today, however, people are usually glad when they can put an abstract concept for something; but one cannot grasp a clock through the mere concept of harmony. In this we can feel the contrast between a rational, abstract world view, as offered to us by Leibniz, and an ever-increasing immersion in the workings and weaving of the world spirit, as first presented to us by Jakob Böhme, albeit more in the form of a hunch. In a similar way to Descartes, who sought the possibility of mathematically subordinating thoughts to the world view, Spinoza also strove for a world view that is comprehensible like a mathematical system; but at the same time, he wanted to shape it in such a way that, as one ascends from concept to concept, an ever higher and higher experience of the human soul results. He characteristically calls his mathematical world picture 'ethics' because, as he strings concept to concept, each successive one leads the soul ever deeper into the secrets of existence, until the soul, by becoming ever more absorbed in the concepts that lead from mathematics to mathematics, can feel at one with the unified substance of the world, with the unified spirit of the universe. It is an inward progression, a self-development in Spinoza. Therefore Spinoza stands alone in his striving for a world view. He has the impact that he was able to get from Descartes; but he has brought it into his world view in a deeper way through what he himself was able to get. All the elements that have now been mentioned have influenced, in a certain way, what the world view of the nineteenth century has now become. But one can say: the blossoming and development of what was called “German Idealism” here eight days ago was a protest — which only never came to full effectiveness — against the fact that the world view developed into what Herman Grimm said: “A carrion bone that a hungry dog would avoid would be a refreshing, appetizing piece compared to this excrement of creation.” And it was always the case with the most outstanding minds, who stood with their natures within the development of the German people, that they endeavored to take up all the impulses that necessarily entered into the spiritual development of humanity in the construction of their world view, but to shape this world view in such a way that the striving for a worldview is not merely looking, not merely “watching”, but inner experience. Thus we see that in the characteristic spirit of German striving — in Goethe — the individual members, the various parts of the currents of world-view, are absorbed. In Goethe's 'Faust', which in this respect is a reflection of his own striving, we can see how his Faust develops out of the details of external observation, how he wants to arrive at an overall feeling for what permeates and animates the world. This is truly the spirit of Giordano Bruno. In this, and in the other, how later Goethe did not rest until he could fully immerse himself in Italian art, we see everywhere something of that nuance of feeling of the soul that seeks to expand one's own self into the world's self. And this already flows through the first parts that Goethe wrote down of his Faust. On the other hand, we can see how the second world-view current, which in Descartes took the form of the pursuit of clarity and distinctness, has taken on a characteristically materialistic expression in Europe. Goethe was already aware of this as a young man when he was in Strasbourg, in Holbach's “Systeme de la nature”. I have already indicated how Descartes, in his world view, presents animals as animated automatons that are not ensouled. From what this Cartesian world view and, later, the British world view, which spread to the continent through Voltaire and fully embraced the aforementioned rejection of what the soul can inwardly achieve in inward striving, in order to accept only that which can be space can be systematized: from this arose the world view that Goethe opposed in Holbach's “Systeme de la nature,” which knows only the moving atoms that group themselves into molecules, and through whose agglomerations everything that can be seen in the world is said to arise. That world picture, which seeks to resolve everything into the effect of moving atoms and molecules, has clarity, the greatest clarity, and distinctness, a clarity, a distinctness that cannot be increased in such a world picture. But everything of a spiritual-soul nature must fall away from such a world picture. There is no room in it for anything of a spiritual-soul nature. Goethe was already confronted with such a world view in his youth. He rejected it by saying: “Matter should be from eternity, and should have been in motion from eternity, and should now, by this motion, produce the infinite phenomena of existence, right and left and on all sides, as a matter of course. We would have been satisfied with all this if the author had really built the world before our eyes out of his moving matter. But he knew as little about nature as we do; for, having put up a few general concepts, he immediately leaves them behind in order to transform that which appears higher than nature, or as a higher nature in nature, into material, heavy, and indeed moving, but directionless and shapeless nature, and thereby believes he has gained a great deal.Goethe finds this world view “cold and barren”. And now we see how Goethe, summarizing everything that is in his soul, wants to combine clarity and distinctness with direct experience, in a way that was not present in Descartes. This is the characteristic that enters into the German world view during Goethe's time. How do we see the striving for clarity and distinctness in Descartes? In such a way that what one looks at, what one thinks about, must show itself clearly and distinctly. It must show itself clearly and distinctly to the observer. Goethe is clear about the fact that one does not gain any knowledge at all by merely seeing things clearly and distinctly placed before one; but he is clear about it, even if he does not want to stop at the mere inkling of Jakob Böhme: If one wants to gain a real world view that corresponds to reality, one must immerse oneself in things, to witness the forming of the crystal by placing oneself in the position of the forces that form the crystal; and in the same way, one must enter into the plant, witness the forces that make the plant a plant, and immerse oneself in all beings. Goethe does not want an abstract world view, cobbled together out of monads and harmonies, but a world view that is experienced. But not, as with Jakob Böhme, only intuitively, but by immersing oneself in all the things of the world, and through this immersion, the human being undergoes the path by which he or she approaches more and more the innermost sources of existence. That is why the world view that presented itself to him in Spinoza's work was able to have such an effect on Goethe. Spinoza never had the impulse to immerse his soul in the real external world. He sought to string together the impressions of the world in front of him, one after the other, but in such a way that the soul would undergo something in the process. Not that Goethe was ever a devout follower of Spinoza's world view; only those who know nothing about Goethe can say that. Rather, it is the case that Goethe felt the way he wanted to find his way into a world view with Spinoza, found it with him. The only difference is that what Spinoza strove for in an abstract way, Goethe wanted to seek in a concrete way. Just as Spinoza moves from concept to concept, Goethe wanted to move from plant to plant in order to experience what the plant experiences. Goethe called the soul's attainment by immersing itself in the plant world the “Utrpflanze”; and what the soul experienced by immersing itself in the animal world in the same way, he called the “Urtier”. Thus for Goethe the striving for a world-picture became a participation, but not a dark one as in Jakob Böhme; but the experience itself was to proceed in clarity and distinctness. This is witnessed to by Goethe's little essay on the “Metamorphosis of Plants”, in which he describes how the plant develops from root to leaf and to flower, with constant transformations taking place. But we must always bear in mind that Goethe sought to achieve his goal by immersing himself in the essence of things. While Cartesius, in his world view, threw everything of a spiritual nature out of the essence, for example out of animals, and turned them into living automatons, Goethe allowed his own soul to flow into plants, into animals, into the whole world, in order to connect with it in his soul and to recognize it clearly. Clarity and distinctness of experience is what entered the world-view striving of German idealism in Goethe's time. What Cartesius makes an external characteristic of knowledge, which he presents and behaves as a spectator, Goethe connects with the inner experience. And what is wrested with dark, elemental power from the soul of Jakob Böhme and expressed in his words, is also present in Goethe; but in that it shows itself in him, we find it in clarity and distinctness. Now, however, we see in Goethe what the three great minds also strove for, which were cited as characteristic of German idealism. Let us look at Fichte. Eight days ago, we characterized how he strives to gain a world view by seeking certainty entirely from the impulses of the innermost part of man, the I. And if we want to see through Fichte completely, what then dominates in his world view? We might put it this way: what dominates in his world view is everything that a person can develop within themselves, without directing any kind of gaze to the outside world, by gaining self-awareness. This is a welling up and flowing up from the innermost depths of the soul. I have often characterized it here: every external thing can be named by everyone in the same way as the name expresses it; but we can only name the I in such a way, if it is to express our being, by letting it resound within ourselves. Fichte did not express this; but it underlies his entire world view as an impulse, and he starts from the assumption that the I is only there when it places itself in the world. A volitional decision, then, is what Fichte seeks as the center of the development of his worldview. And he asserts of the ego — and this already characterizes Fichte's worldview — that it can find out of itself what the mission of itself is. For Fichte, this is the moral worldview. And the national world exists only to engage in moral activity. Thus, for Fichte, everything is permeated by the divine within man. Everything else is only appearance, is only created so that the moral world order can be active. The will, which is grasped in the consciousness of self, in the point of self-awareness, and radiates from the consciousness of self, is grasped as part of the soul of the world. The way in which Fichte presents this shows us that, in a sense, he starts from full self-consciousness. Just as the light appears in every single color nuance – to return to this comparison – he starts from the self that appears in all three soul members; but he lets it prevail in such a way that it works through the consciousness soul. And in this respect, I would say that in Fichte we have the thinker who is the antipode, the opposite pole, of the British spirit. While the British spirit essentially brings to bear that which can prevail in the soul impulses in the consciousness soul, Fichte radiates everything that lives in the I into the consciousness soul. Hence the British spirit in Spencer's more recent work has come to expect the blessing of the world above all from the establishment of such an outer order, whereby the whole outer world is so arranged that the greatest possible benefit for outer human needs arises. What industrialization can offer humanity stands as an ideal in Spencer's world view; and to him, every link in a social order that is incompatible with the industrialization of society appears to be a curse, because the industrialization of society, of the state, brings eternal peace, according to Spencer, and works to eradicate everything that endangers peace. Thus the ultimate principle of utility has been incorporated into the world view. With Fichte, we see that he is no less a practical mind. We have been able to emphasize how he directly influenced the development of his time, for example through his “Speeches to the German Nation,” how he stirred hearts, how he awakened enthusiasm, how his entire work is aimed at , but to take hold of what is not from the point of view of the external world of the highest benefit to mankind, but what is to be placed as the deepest ideals of the soul in the moral world order. So we see how Fichte works out of the nuance of the consciousness soul and, as it were, brings about the counter-image of the British spirit. A spirit that places at the center of his world view what the soul can experience within itself, but which, through the way in which he processes this, is infinitely close to the French spirit, is Flegel. Hegel is one of the most German thinkers because he accomplishes from the opposite side what is peculiar to the French mind. Clarity and distinctness, systematic order in the spectator's point of view, in the point of view that is gained when one only confronts the world: that is what has emerged from Cartesius to Bergson as the characteristic of the French world view. Hegel wants to have the world picture as an experience; but he can only absorb from this world picture that which is as clear and distinct as a mathematical concept. That is why Hegel's world picture seems as clear as a mathematical concept. That is why one has the “cold feeling” towards it, as I have explained. But it is not a system of mathematical concepts that has been picked up, but it is conceived in such a way that it touches the soul in its deepest innermost being. And by touching the soul in its deepest innermost being, it finds itself elevated above all that is unclear and indistinct in the external view. But what remains for it, after all that is vague and indistinct has fallen away from it, is the clarity of the full being — to the point of the Gnostic and philosophical concept. What characterizes Hegel's world picture is this: even if it contains only external abstractions, these abstractions are experienced, directly experienced. That makes a great deal, to be sure. First of all, it makes it unthinkable for someone to become a “true Hegelian.” Basically, one cannot become a true Hegelian; it is an impossibility. Because thinking, continuing these external abstractions, really has no appeal for anyone else, and one always has the feeling that once someone has done this, that is enough in the world. What matters is the endeavor to see how the human soul can be experienced if one only experiences concepts, if one only feels as inner direct experience that which is a clear but also completely abstract concept. The pursuit of such a world view is what is admirable about Hegel; looking at him as he pursues it is what matters. Particularly when one is absorbed in a work such as his Phenomenology of Spirit (though admittedly very few people will be able to immerse themselves in it), one has a web of nothing but abstractions, of the most terrible abstractions; but it has life, it has soul. It is a characteristic sign that the German mind has once gone so far in its experience of a world picture that it said to itself: I find no clarity and distinctness anywhere; I will see what happens when I let one concept arise from the other. While Fichte allows the divine essence of the world to merge into “God as moral world order,” for Hegel God is the “world thinker”; and the individual soul can immerse itself through the most abstract logic by reflecting on the divine thoughts. That is certainly the tremendously sobering and cold thing about Hegel's philosophy, that if you get involved with it, you must get the thought: the divine order of the world was only concerned with “thinking,” and in order to represent thinking, everything else was represented. A moral worldview warms us; a moral worldview also, so to speak, places us in everyday life. Thinking only allows us to “behold” the world, and in this respect, beholding is also an experience with Hegel. And because it is the experience that is important in forming the world view of German idealism, we see how it is made fruitful by Hegel in such a way that he does not lose himself in the most external abstractions, but adheres to the thoughts that the divine order of the world allows the human race to experience by letting it go through history. The human soul is, as it were, directed to go through history in order thereby to take part in the course of the divine world-order. This “taking part” in the world, which I indicated in a much more universal sense in Goethe, is what we encounter in Hegel in relation to history. The way in which the thoughts run in relation to history, so they contribute to a world-picture of history. But in this experience of the logic of the world, history becomes for him what it must become: a twofold one. The whole ancient history up to the appearance of Christ on earth is the one part; and the appearance of Christ is a mighty impact, is the most powerful impact on earth-history, in order to bring something completely new into human evolution, which was not previously connected with the earth, and which now guides earthly evolution. The Christ-idea connects in the characterized way with the historical world picture, which the German evolution has brought forth. For Hegel, the whole of history is a progression conceived by the divine world government, so that it presents itself as an education of humanity to freedom. And the greatest educator, but one who divides the entire progress of earthly evolution into two parts, is the Christ-Being, which has come into earthly evolution from without — also in Hegel's sense. And the characteristic feature is this: with the clarity and distinctness that Cartesius demands, but with which all experience is also connected in Hegel, the soul can live itself into the whole course of history; there it immerses itself in the stage in which in which the event of Golgotha took place, and experiences in microcosm what the whole development of the earth has gone through, in that the Christ has incorporated Himself into the development of the earth. Thus Hegel anchors his world picture in the soul of the intellect, and thereby becomes the opposite pole to Descartes' world view, just as Fichte is the opposite pole to the British world view. The case is different when we come to the third of the thinkers mentioned, Schelling. One could say of him that his outer thinking already expresses how he can be brought into a relationship with the southern world view, the Italian one. I have already mentioned how he seeks to shape what underlies all natural and historical becoming out of a heightened imagination. In this regard, Schelling's outward appearance is physiognomically significant: his eyes, which sparkled throughout his life, bore witness to inner fire; the powerful forehead, his sardonic laughter and the inner fire made him a spirit similar to Giordano Bruno. Whereas in Fichte we have the point where the German mind tends towards the same nuance of soul as the British mind, but in complete contrast to it, and wants to grasp world events from within—whereas the German mind produces in Hegel something that is still opposed to the French mind , but which is more similar to it, the German spirit produces something in Schelling that is completely similar to Giordano Bruno, because Schelling works in just the same way as Giordano Bruno according to the nuances of the soul. It is only that Schelling builds his world view in a slightly different way than Giordano Bruno in all of nature and history. And while in Fichte the world-spirit pervading the world is the moral order of the world, while in Hegel we see this world-spirit as the clear and distinct logical thinker of the world, in Schelling — similarly to Giordano Bruno — we have before us the highest artist, art itself, the artist who creates everything in the world according to artistic principles. But if we compare Schelling's unique quest with Giordano Bruno's, we see again the difference between the work of the Italian national soul, which comes from the soul of feeling, and the work of the German national soul, which comes from the ego. In Giordano Bruno, everything is, as it were, of a piece, everything bears a common character. I would like to say: Giordano's world view is as clear as a shot. In Schelling, we see how he starts from the world view of his youth, how he laboriously searches to feel some of it, how one can experience a spark of world life in nature. And he arrives at the view that whatever lives in my spirit as feeling also lives in matter; matter is enchanted feeling, I must release it from the enchantment, must disenchant it; the experiencing of everything that is in nature is an experiencing of feeling. While Giordano Bruno attempts to gain his world-picture as if in a single bound, Schelling sets out on a journey. And I might say that from year to year we can follow how he seeks to penetrate deeper and deeper into the secrets of the existence of the world. He is passing through the path of evolution. He had to go through it in such a way that in his youth he was still understood in the way the inwardness of the I had opened up to him; later, when he still wanted to show the I in the moral world, he was no longer understood, and in the end he was laughed at and ridiculed. The world view of German idealism is above all a path into the deeper foundations of world existence. If I may use an image, I would say: the British world view is like a person who is in a house and looks out of a window. What he sees there, he takes as the description of the world; and so he takes what he sees through the tools of the house as the world itself. German idealism is pointed in the direction of seeking to experience the world-spirit together with it. If we follow the path, however, we see how he, also living in a house, grasps himself inwardly. In Schelling, Hegel, Fichte, we see that German idealism seeks to make itself at home in the house; it sees meaningful images everywhere in the house, and the “images” already express the external entities; and because it wants to decipher the images, it seeks a world picture. Fichte seeks it in the moral soul: a world picture, sketched in the house, not created through the windows. Hegel explains the pictures in the house that represent nature and humanity. Schelling, in turn, deciphers another part, or rather, Schelling makes “house music,” and in it he sees an imprint of what is going on outside. Hegel sees what has been painted about what is outside. All these minds have a world picture ; but they have created a home in order to decipher what is in the house. What they have not come to, however, is, I might say, the door of the house – that they might go out, so that when they had come through the gate they might fuse the image with reality, might experience it directly. It is true that Goethe took this path – through the gate. But he also went through all the difficulties of this path. He showed us how we must struggle endlessly to find an expression for what we experience when we really set out on the path of experience. Thus he went through the experience with its struggles and difficulties, which such an experience must go through, just as one who seeks development must go through life. We see how Goethe defined a certain stage of his life in Faust of 1797, which he characteristically calls a “barbaric composition” and of which he is convinced that something completely new must come in at a new stage of his life. That is one of the characteristics of the German view of the world: it can never be “finished”. That superficial judgment, which finds the great only “great” when it is “flawless,” is not a judgment suited to the hero of human endeavor. Anyone who might entertain the opinion that we can have a work of art in the Faust that is just as perfect as that given us by Dante in his Divine Comedy would be mistaken. In Dante's work, everything is magnificently complete, as if cast from a single mold; in Goethe's, the individual parts are written piece by piece, one after the other, with each one left lying around for years, then taken up again, and so on. It really is, as he himself says, a “barbaric composition.” Goethe's Faust is certainly incomplete as a work of art, for the reason that it could not become a unified composition from a single mold, because it always went along with life. But the point is not that we say: Faust of 1797 is a barbaric composition, a “Tragelaph”, as Goethe put it, but that we take Goethe's point of view and try to understand how it can be a barbaric composition; only in this way do we escape blindness, while one can only speak of recognition with the abstract word. Thus Goethe goes the way through the gate, knowing that one can go out through the gate, and differs from the philosophers in that he tries to get ahead. But at the same time he knows: whatever man can imagine of himself, whatever picture he can make of himself, it cannot be what Fichte presents in his philosophy, nor what Schelling or Hegel present; otherwise one arrives at nothing but abstractions, at an abstract moral world order and the like. What then is it in the Goethean sense that man can only gain as an idea of himself? It is Homunculus, as he presents him in the second part of Faust, the little man Homunculus, an artificial product of what man can know of himself. This must now first be submerged into living nature. And how that which man bears of himself must merge with living nature, that Goethe presents in turn. In the lowest becoming you must begin, Homunculus is told. Thus Goethe presents the process of development in its entire becoming. For example, when he speaks of the passage through the plant stage, where he uses the words: “It grunet so.” He admonishes the homunculus to immerse himself in the entire process of development; he even admonishes him: “Do not strive for higher places” - it must be “places”, not “orders”, as it because Goethe spoke in an unclear Frankfurt dialect, the transcriber wrote a “d” instead of a “t”; and the Goethe commentators have thought a lot about how the homunculus should come to all kinds of medals. And then it is further explained how, by becoming part of the world, he can come to appear as Helen; for what appears in Helen is the human reproduction of what passes through the secrets of the world. Thus, in Goethe we see the setting out for a world picture. The German spirit is aware: I must go out through the gate to what is present in living nature; then, in the continuous development of my soul, a world picture will come about. This world picture, however, demands what it means to experience the world. Patience for this was not yet present in the second half of the nineteenth century. Therefore, the striving for a world view, as it was inaugurated by Goethe, is being held back. So it could come about that in the second half of the nineteenth century — characteristically in Karl Vogt, Büchner and Moleschott, who are referred to as the “materialists,” Haeckel himself could be mentioned in this context — that which the British world view has brought has been resurrected. One can say that the British world view was absorbed by the German spirit in the second half of the nineteenth century. It is Haeckel's tragedy that he must now turn against the British world view, even though it has entered into the German striving through the characterized development. But in this respect, too, the German conception of the world differs from the British one: the British conception is satisfied with the pursuit of ideas that merely synthesize the external sense world, and it allows “faith” in some spiritual world to coexist with the external conception of the world in which it believes, as a “scientific” conception of the world. Thus, for Darwin, faith can arise as he expressed it in his main scientific work, saying: “Thus we have traced the life of organisms back to a few to whom – as he puts it – the Creator has breathed life!” Yes, the remarkable thing happened that the German translator even left this sentence out at first! For the German mind everything must be capable of furnishing the basis for a Weltanschhauung; for the British mind this demand need not be satisfied, because it does not have the consistency to build up its Weltbild to such an extent that everything becomes material for its Weltanschhauung. It can afford a “double entry”: the scientific world provides it with the building blocks for what it considers to be scientifically correct; for the rest, there is faith. For the German mind, no double-entry bookkeeping is good enough. That is why German idealism was overwhelmed by English empiricism. That is why we see strange phenomena in the German pursuit of a world view. I will cite only Du Bois-Reymond: in him lives the admiration for the Descartes-Laplacean spirit, which thinks the world as a great mathematician might have put it together from atoms and forces. But: Ignorabimus! We can never know anything about the soul and spirit. Cartesius and Giordano Bruno did not need to go so far as this. But Du Bois-Reymond goes so far as to say: “[...] that where supernaturalism begins, science ends.” Descartes does not say this, but Du Bois-Reymond does, where we find the German spirit overwhelmed by Descartes. And so one can show further how the Italian spirit, that of Giordano Bruno, has flowed into numerous endeavors of the German striving for a world view. Thus today we already find many who show how the plant has a “soul” and how everything is ensouled. We need only think of Raoul France. But we could also mention many of his contemporaries, even Fechner himself, who says that everything has a soul: a revival of the spirit of Giordano Bruno. But something is missing. What is missing is precisely what lived in Giordano Bruno. That is why I have often been able to point out: when someone like Raoul France comes and says: there are plants – when certain animals come near them, they attract them, lure them; once the animal has crept into them, they close up a gap and suck it dry... don't we see a soul life in the plant? We have to say: if you read the same thing in Giordano Bruno, you would fully understand it because it is imbued with the impulse of the sentient soul. But when it occurs, as it has done through the clarity and distinctness of German idealism, then what I have often stated applies: there is something that, by the very nature of its being, attracts small animals, absorbs them – very much like the Venus flytrap – and then even kills them. It is the mousetrap. And just as one can explain the ensoulment of plants in the sense of Giordano Bruno, so one can also want to explain the ensoulment of a mousetrap. The fact that certain ideological impulses poured into the worldview of German idealism, which is the protest against all externalization of the worldview, means that something has taken place that can be said of: German idealism has retreated for a while into German souls and minds. And today we see it only as an ideal of struggle, of inner discipline; we see it as transformed into outer action, again filling souls with hope and confidence and with strength. But we must realize that this power is the same power that once sought an inward world-view through an inward struggle on the road to the world-picture of idealism. And this world-picture of German idealism is in reality that which the German spirit must seek as lying on its own predetermined road. And our fateful time contains many, many admonitions, but undoubtedly also the admonition that the German spirit must struggle to bring forth again that which is in its deepest depths, so that it may be an obvious part of all its striving, of all its work. I do not believe that this could lead to a lesser understanding of the peculiarities of other nations, that the German spirit will become aware that it must become the bearer of the world view of inwardly experienced idealism. On the contrary: the more the German brings to the world that which lives in his soul as his deepest being, the more he will be valued in the world. We shall be all the more understood if we bear in mind the words of Goethe: “The German runs no greater danger than that of rising with and by his neighbors; perhaps no nation is better suited to develop out of itself, because it has been to its great advantage that the outside world took notice of it so late.” And indeed, it has taken so little notice to this day that it was possible to make such judgments about the German character as were heard. This is what German idealism calls to us as a warning in our fateful time: may the self-confidence of the German national soul awaken in our souls! This German idealism had to produce a moral, logical, artistic world view in the house, since it already reigned, I might say, in the house; it had the gift of recognizing the world – in paintings in the house. And it must find the way through the gate into the surrounding area. And he must recognize what this path looks like, in contrast to others, which leads not only to looking at the surroundings through the windows, as is the case with the British world view, but to reaching these surroundings through the gate, to lovingly reach everything in the world by becoming one with it. If German idealism practised itself by contemplating the world pictures of the microcosm, the human body, it will also find the gate out of the body to the path already indicated by Goethe, and which leads to seeking the world view experienced with things instead of the merely conceived, devised, inwardly fought world view. is contained in the first ominous lines of Jakob Böhme, which in Goethe's work have taken on clear contours and shine forth as an ideal for the future, and which does not remain limited to the ideas suggested by Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, who were looking at the paintings in the house, but which can also find its way through the gate to connect the living human soul with the living soul of the world. |
65. From Central European Intellectual Life: Body, Soul and Spirit in Their Development through Birth and Death and Their Place in the Universe
15 Apr 1916, Berlin Rudolf Steiner |
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He wanted to gain a comprehensive view of the plant being, for example, by trying to show that What we see as a colored petal is, from a certain point of view, essentially the same as the green leaf of the plant, only a metamorphosed, transformed leaf. And the fine organs that we find in the blossom, which we recognize as stamens, and so on, are in turn transformed petals, right up to the fruit. |
65. From Central European Intellectual Life: Body, Soul and Spirit in Their Development through Birth and Death and Their Place in the Universe
15 Apr 1916, Berlin Rudolf Steiner |
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Allow me today to make a few suggestions, perhaps in a somewhat aphoristic form, about the interrelationship between body, soul and spirit in humans and then, based on this, to make a few comments about the relationship of humans to birth and death and to the universe in general. It goes without saying that all of this can only be hinted at. But those of the honored audience who have heard some or all of this year's winter lectures will find much of what can only be presented in aphorisms today more or less substantiated in the previous reflections, which, after all, dealt in detail with important questions of the life of the mind and soul. Especially during this winter and last winter, I often allowed myself to make the observation that spiritual science, as it is intended in the considerations presented in these lectures, is not something that wants to enter the spiritual cultural development of humanity today as if by the arbitrariness of an individual, but that it is deeply rooted in the spiritual life as it has gradually developed over time to our days. So that one can say: Especially when one looks through the nineteenth century, in many places there is a kind of approach to such a spiritual science. But due to very understandable circumstances, it has been brought about that in the course of the nineteenth century, and especially in the second half of the nineteenth century, the extraordinarily successful and, in its successes, by the spiritual science absolutely not to be doubted by spiritual science, has occupied the minds, and that as a result the beginnings of an actual spiritual-scientific world view have been more subdued than might otherwise have been the case. In particular, it seems to me that Goethe's world view contains the most significant first steps towards a spiritual science and that basically, if Goethe's world view is really penetrated, one cannot doubt that in this Goethean view of the world there really is something like a germ from which spiritual science can develop. Certainly, in the course of the nineteenth century, people believed that they understood Goethe very deeply. They also honestly tried. But what is present in him as the most significant seeds of a spiritual-scientific view of the world can only be gained if one not only tries to turn one's soul's gaze directly to what Goethe himself , but when one tries to put oneself completely into the way he thought, how he looked at things, when one, so to speak, not only wants to be his observer, but his successor. It is well known, and I have also pointed this out several times in these lectures, how Goethe raised himself to a meaningful view of nature, let us say first in his observation of the metamorphosis of plants. What did he want to achieve with this metamorphosis of plants? Well, he wanted to show, first of all, that the plant being that expresses itself in roots, leaves, petals and fruit consists of individual members, but in such a way that these individual members arise from each other, are transformations of each other. He wanted to gain a comprehensive view of the plant being, for example, by trying to show that What we see as a colored petal is, from a certain point of view, essentially the same as the green leaf of the plant, only a metamorphosed, transformed leaf. And the fine organs that we find in the blossom, which we recognize as stamens, and so on, are in turn transformed petals, right up to the fruit. For Goethe, everything in the plant comes into being through the leaf transforming itself backwards and forwards, as it were. For him, the whole plant becomes a leaf, but a leaf that takes on different forms. In this way, spiritual contemplation in Goethe's sense, I would like to say, the intense focus on the individual part of the plant, rises to a whole of the plant, but to a whole that is spiritual, and that he now calls the type of the plant. It is remarkable that during his journey in Italy, Goethe believed that he was able to awaken more and more thoroughly in his mind what cannot be perceived with the outer senses in the plant, but what lives in the plant sensually - Goethe calls it a sensual-supersensible form - and what is expressed in different forms as a leaf, as a flower petal, as a stamen and so on. He also calls this type, which is sensual and supersensory, the idea of the plant. And I have already spoken here in earlier times about what was said after a botanical lecture given by the Jena professor Batsch, between Schiller and Goethe, who had both listened to the lecture. Schiller had found that it was all very nice and good, but that it did not form a whole, that it all crumbled away into mere details, that there was no overview. Goethe took a sheet of paper and sketched an ideal plant in front of Schiller's eyes, a plant that cannot be found anywhere in the physical world, but which he believed he could grasp as a sensual and supersensual form and that lives in every plant, so that every plant is only a particular manifestation of this, as he said, primal plant. So Goethe drew something that can never be found here or there with the naked eye. Schiller, who was not yet completely at home with such things at the beginning of the 1790s, could not find his way at all in what Goethe wanted with this primal plant. He said, “Yes, that's an idea, it's not a view; you can't see it anywhere!” Goethe became annoyed at this objection and said, “If what I have drawn here is an idea, then I perceive my ideas with my eyes!” Now, that was certainly a somewhat extreme way of expressing it, a slight exaggeration. But Goethe felt that he had not merely recorded an abstract idea, but something that arose in his soul with such inner necessity as arises for the eye in the individual plant life when the eye focuses on the individual plant. This life, with the sensual and the supersensual, as he called it, was a reality for Goethe; it was a reality for him. Now Goethe pursued such observations with zeal and real effort. Those who have studied Goethe's endeavors know that he made all possible observations with real scientific effort, together with the Jena professors, especially with Loder. Goethe pursued the endeavors with zeal in order to arrive at something that could justify a similar approach for the whole realm of living beings. And it is well known – one need only read Goethe's scientific writings – how he then tried to find out for the human and animal forms as well how the various organs are basically only transformations of a basic form of the organ. And as I said, you can read about it in Goethe's scientific writings, how he, as it were, through a flash of inspiration, but one that was prepared for by his careful anatomical studies, found a happily burst animal skull on his second Italian journey and how the bones of the head, in their shell-like form, are only transformed and how their original form is that which we find superimposed on each other in the spine as vertebrae. One such vertebra, of which there are 30 to 33 stacked on top of each other, is transformed in a corresponding way, so to speak, puffed up by its inner driving forces – forgive the trivial expression – and internally shaped to match certain parts of the cranium, so that for Goethe the cranium is a transformed vertebra. I am well aware of how this Goethean way of looking at things has been transformed by modern views. That is not what matters now, but the way of thinking, not the details. Now, one can assume that perhaps at the very moment when it dawned on him that the cranial bones are transformed vertebral bones, something is at work and driving in the vertebral bone, which, while remaining hidden in the vertebral bone, remained hidden in the vertebra, rises up, —- the idea occurred to him that the entire human brain is also transformed nervous substance, a transformed nerve link, just as such nerve links are now organized in the spinal cord. This means that not only the outer covering of the spinal cord and the skull present themselves as transformation forms of each other, but that the brain shows itself at a higher level as a transformation of what is found inside the spinal cord bone column as nerve organs, ganglia, if you will call them, superimposed on each other. This thought suggested itself at the time when Goethe had formulated the other thought with what he considered absolute certainty. But he did not elaborate on this thought, so that it cannot be found in his writings for the time being. Perhaps I may mention that I have been intensively involved with Goethe's scientific studies for more than thirty years now and that it was clear to me from the beginning that the last thought must have been added to the first one by Goethe. But of course it would be something special if one could prove that Goethe really conceived this thought in connection with the first one. And when I was allowed to work in the Goethe and Schiller Archive in Weimar from 1890 to 1897, it was natural for me to pursue such things. And already in the early 1890s, in about 1891, I was able to open a notebook that Goethe kept during the same period in which he made his discovery about the whirling nature of the skull bones. And in this notebook, written in Goethe's distinctive pencil letters, we find the following entry: “The brain itself is only a large main ganglion. The organization of the brain is repeated in every ganglion, so that each ganglion can be seen as a small subordinate brain.” Thus the brain, the whole brain, is only that which we find in every link of the nervous system, at a different stage of development! Today I would like to draw your attention not so much to this fact as such, but to how Goethe's mind must have been predisposed in order to recognize such things and to assert such connections in what surrounds us sensually and physically in the animal, plant and human organization. What was Goethe actually striving for? Well, we saw it. He strove to find a sense-supersensible to what mere sensory observation can give, something that can only be grasped in the spirit, but which is just as much a reality as what can be seen with the eyes. So that Goethe came to the extreme saying: “Then I see my idea with my eyes!” Of course, he could only mean the eyes of the soul, because you cannot see ideas with your outer eyes. In order to show how what Goethe thought about external connections contains the germ of what spiritual science has to say today, I now have to take a leap, so to speak. But this leap will appear natural to anyone who tries to gradually penetrate the spirit of Goethe's way of looking at things. If one wants to make progress in this way of looking at things, which Goethe, out of what I would call his instinctive genius, initially applied to the outer form of life, it is necessary for the human soul to undergo those inner developments that I have been talking about for years and particularly again this winter. As I mentioned last time, mentioned last time, you will find a brief indication of it in a few pages in the essay I wrote for the recently published journal 'Das Reich', which summarizes some of the material that you will find described in detail in my books 'Occult Science', 'Theosophy' or 'How to Know Higher Worlds'. I would like to say: that which makes the soul capable of looking at the world through the instrument of the physical organism must be elevated through special soul exercises, which I cannot describe again today, but which I have often described here. Through these inner exercises, through these inner soul-searchings, the soul must be enabled to see the soul-spiritual as such, to perceive it as such. To make that which appears more instinctively in Goethe the subject of conscious observation is the ascent from one spiritual science to another. Now I have described — and as I said, you can read about it in the writings and essays mentioned — how the soul, through certain inner soul activities that it undertakes with itself, really brings about experiences that are of a completely different nature than the experiences one has in ordinary life through the instrument of the body; how the soul, by giving itself inner impulses that it would otherwise not give itself in outer life, can truly detach an inner element from the physical, just as - to repeat what was said the day before yesterday - oxygen is detached from hydrogen in the well-known chemical experiment. Through such soul exercises, the soul comes to experience itself purely in the soul element, to contemplate the soul aspect separate from the bodily. Since one cannot prove everything again and again, I would just like to point out that today I will present this only as the result of previous lectures, but that I have said a great deal about this detachment of the soul from the body. When the human being comes to perceive the soul and spiritual as such, detached from the physical, the physical becomes something different and the soul-spiritual also something different. Just as there is no longer water, but oxygen and hydrogen, when you decompose the water in a chemical experiment, so the physical becomes another, the spiritual becomes another, of course only before the inner contemplation. But then, when the soul is fertilized by such real, now inner spirit-soul contemplations, then one gradually comes to look at the outer world quite differently than before. For this outer world is, after all, permeated by the spiritual everywhere. And then, I would say, the whole of Goethe's theory of metamorphosis becomes much more intense, much more saturated. He who, through the instrument of the outer body, first looks only at the outer sense world and its course, sees only that which is expressed in material existence. He can sense that the spirit reveals itself through material existence. But the spirit itself, how it rules and weaves in the material, can only be seen when the soul forces I spoke of in the earlier lectures are developed. But then the organs that one sees with physical eyes in humans and other living beings also appear in a completely different light. And then what is contained in Goethe's natural science is greatly expanded. Then, only by a straightforward continuation of what is contained in Goethe's ideas, one learns to recognize how the whole human head comes to us as the expression of what the human being actually is in the world from within. This whole human head appears to us as a complicated transformation product of something else. We know – this can be best understood by looking at the skeleton – that the human being visibly consists of two parts: the head and the rest of the organism, which is connected to the head in the skeleton only by small connecting links. So that we can really divide the human being into the head part and the rest of the physical organism when we look at it purely from an external, bodily point of view. And now, if, as I said, one fertilizes one's views through inner vision, one comes to the conclusion that the whole head is a complex transformation of the rest of the organism. On another level of development, the rest of the organism is, in a corresponding way, something similar to the head, just as the vertebra of the spinal column is something similar to the skull. The entire human head is transformed from the rest of the human organism. And one clearly gets the idea that this human head is, so to speak, like the rest of the organism, which has furthered the formative forces within it. The rest of the organism has remained at a certain stage; the laws of formation are held at a certain stage. In the head they have been further developed, further processed into form, further poured out into sculpture, I would say. The whole human head – the rest of the human being transformed, taken externally, bodily! I would have to speak at length if I were to go into the details in this regard. But if one were to be able to hold an anatomical-physiological course here for weeks and go into the individual organs found in the head and in the other human organism, one would be able to prove in the strictest scientific sense, down to the last detail, how the basic idea, which I can only hint at now, can be absolutely proven. But now, in order to approach, as it were, an understanding of the whole, complete human being, one must consider the whole significance of what has been recognized, the whole, complete significance. In the human being as he stands before us, we have, in fact, two things before us: we have his head before us at a very different stage of development and formation than the rest of the organism, and we have the rest of the organism before us, of which we can say: In it lie formative forces that are only fixed at an earlier stage; if they were developed, they could become the head. Likewise, we can say: if the head had not fully developed its formative forces today, but had left them at an earlier stage, it would not have become the head, but would have presented itself in an external form as the rest of the organism. We gain further insight into these conditions when we now consider the soul of man. And this soul of man can only be considered if one really rises from ordinary human knowledge to what I meant earlier and can only hint at today, with higher knowledge, with inner, supersensible vision. As you know, there is also a so-called psychology, a science of the soul. And especially in our time, this science of the soul wants to arise through exactly the same approach that is used in external natural science. People who still had something of the earlier approach to the soul in them and yet wanted to take full account of the entirely justified demands of modern natural science, tried to understand the soul life of the human being as it unfolds. Franz Brentano is a truly significant psychologist who still had something of an older science of the soul, which now seems to have been overcome, in him and wanted to take full account of modern science. However, in his “Psychology”, which was published in 1874, he could not rise to anything other than to classify what lives in the soul. This soul life is usually divided into thinking, feeling and willing. Brentano divides it somewhat differently. Franz Brentano is just such an observer of the soul who cannot rise to spiritual insight, but who wants to apply the way of looking at things, which one otherwise has only for external nature, for sensory perception, to the life of the soul. He only comes to a classification. Even in outer nature, Goethe does not seek to arrive at a mere classification, at what is called a system, but he seeks to arrive at a metamorphosis, he tries to present the transformation, and thereby, as it were, to follow that which lives supernaturally in its various transformations of form and to have an overall unity in the whole. Brentano, the psychologist, also breaks down the life of the soul and again cannot cope with the individual phenomena of the soul. It must truly be said that it is a hard nut to crack when one looks at the psychology of the present day, as it has developed in the nineteenth century in particular, with the eye of a psychologist of the soul who is trained in the way I have often described here. There you find this inability to get anywhere other than mere classifications: thinking, feeling and willing. That which Goethe wants to have illuminated through all material, that which lives, this transformation and transmutation, this life, now not in an immobile contemplation that places thing beside thing and divides, but in a mobile, in a living, this life in such a contemplation must be applied in particular to the life of the soul if one really wants to grasp the life of the soul. You cannot just look at thinking, feeling and willing. That is quite impossible, one can only come to the division into thinking, feeling and willing. But when one examines soul life with the sharpened gaze of spiritual research for thinking, feeling and willing, then one finds in it a much more intense kind of metamorphosis, transformation than in what shines through the outer form of living nature. One grasps, so to speak, the transformation itself. Can we recognize the essence of a thought if we grasp it only as a thought? No, we cannot! This is shown by spiritual insight. The thought transforms itself in the soul itself into feeling, and feeling in turn into will. And one must be able to grasp the metamorphosis of thinking, feeling and willing in one's inner mobility, then one grasps the soul. This can only be done by separating the soul from the physical body. And then one notices in direct inner experience what happens when we have a thought and compare it with a feeling, and compare feelings again with the will. We come to look inwardly at every thought that arises from the transformation of feeling. Every thought is a transformed feeling, and if we want to look at it inwardly, we must always perceive in the thought the incomplete, but half-dying of feeling. The life of thought is a dead emotional life. In thought lives, I might say, the rest of the emotional life. The life of feeling is transformed, but in such a way that the life of feeling passes, as it were, from a living state, of which one can be inwardly aware, into a more dead state. When you say it like that, it sounds abstract. But when you experience it inwardly through soul-vision, when you really experience everything that makes your feelings turn into thoughts, for example when you have felt something vividly in the present and later you visualize this feeling only through a memory and then follows the path of how the feeling became a thought, then one experiences something so intensely inwardly, as one experiences, for example, 'when one sees a family member pass from life to death with an original, healthy family feeling. In the inner life of the soul, this very soul life, if one wants to recognize it, is permeated with intense inner liveliness, with intense inner participation. And no one should believe that the ascent from the external observation of nature to what is called the observation of the soul life is only something abstract or only that which is often addressed as confused mysticism, which mostly consists only of building a world view out of a dark feeling; but true soul science arises from the inner experience of the metamorphosis of soul facts, But thought, too, can be awakened again into feeling, and it can transform itself into will. When, as has been indicated here several times, one watches how a thought seizes us as an ideal and then throbs through us, permeating the soul with enthusiasm until it becomes will, then one experiences, I might say, a birth, when one has raised the experience in question to the level of soul observation. This inner soul experience is what results from the exercises described, for example, in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds”. But through this, as you can see, an inner soul life is opened up that lies behind the ordinary soul life. The ordinary soul life proceeds in thinking, feeling and willing separately. But this soul life, which I have just described, lies behind the thinking, feeling and willing that is usually turned towards the outer sense world. It is not something that the spiritual researcher creates; it is something that he experiences only within the ordinary thinking, feeling and willing, something that he merely comes upon. He creates it no more than someone who comes in from outside and sees the table here now creates the table, although he creates its image by entering and looking at the table. In the same way, the spiritual researcher creates an image of the soul life that lies behind the ordinary soul life; but this soul life is present in every human soul. It lies, if one may say so, below the threshold of ordinary consciousness, which is turned towards the outer world or towards sensory perception in general. I would like to say that there are also approaches to finding this soul life. Such approaches are to be found precisely in the development of thought in the nineteenth century. Because there is a yearning in all human beings for knowledge of the soul, such approaches have even gripped people in the broadest circles. We have one of these approaches in the concept, which Eduard von Hartmann did not exactly develop but did work with, in the concept of unconscious soul life. He did, after all, derive all conscious mental life from unconscious mental life. But the situation is somewhat skewed when it comes to Hartmann's unconscious, because it is only characterized in negative terms. If one says: What underlies the conscious is an unconscious, then one is saying no more than: everything that is outside of this table is a non-table, is a table. Now, if I describe everything that sits and stands here as non-table, as untable, I have not yet said anything special. It cannot be described in any other way than negatively if one stops at the level of conscious mental life with the realization. And that is what Eduard von Hartmann wants. One must inwardly fertilize the soul life, as has often been described here, and this ordinary soul life must descend to the other, so that the subconscious, unconscious soul life is grasped by an expanded consciousness, by a consciousness different from the ordinary consciousness that is turned towards the world of the senses. You see, a soul life is grasped through spiritual insight. This soul life, which is grasped and appears directly in spiritual insight, what is it if not that which works inwardly in man and of which one must imagine that the outer body is somehow its expression, its revelation? But just as we have our ordinary conscious soul life, so its advantage lies precisely in the fact that this conscious soul life does not directly affect the body. Just imagine if the conscious soul life did affect the body - yes, it is really not an exaggeration when I present the following. Let us assume that we see the hand of a stranger and want to grasp its form. If this form did not appear to us as a mere idea, but permeated us, becoming truly alive within us, then our hand would have to metamorphose and become like the other person's hand. We would have to be able to absorb it completely, to make alive within us that which we can only visualize in abstract terms. And if we were to stand face to face with a whole, full human being who made such a strong impression on us that the impression was not just present in an abstract idea, we ourselves would have to take on the form of that person. Thus that which functions as ordinary conscious soul-life would not fulfill its task in the world at all if it were not so completely separated from our bodily life that it does not interfere with the bodily life and allow it to develop independently. But we need only go back in human development to see at least a hint of what we can call – as I pointed out the day before yesterday – the shaping from within of the forms of the human organism. When we look at people, especially in their very earliest childhood, we see how what is within them is vividly shaped into what they later develop. We see how the spiritual enters into the bodily form. Of course, there are many objections to the assertion that I am now making. However, as I said, it is not possible to cover all the bases in a single lecture. These objections can be easily overcome if one can only talk about them in detail. So we see a vivid manifestation of what is inside a person, in the person's youth, in childhood, and in pathological conditions. We see how the soul and spirit intervene vividly in physical development. The ordinary soul life — one might say, thank God — cannot intervene in physical development; it would not fulfill its task. But read this excellent chapter in Schleich's new book: “On the Switching Mechanism of Thoughts”, this beautiful, I would say epoch-making chapter: “Hysteria - a Metaphysical Problem”, then you will see how it is referred to how, in fact, the soul-spiritual, what is grasped in thoughts, affects the plastic formation of the body in pathological states. We are healthy precisely because it is not so in the normal state. I will cite only the most primitive example from this book. The examples have always been known to anyone who deals with such things; but through the way in which they are introduced in this book, something epoch-making has indeed happened. The one example: a doctor enters a lady's room, in which a fan is humming. She says – she is hysterical, it is a pathological condition with which he is dealing –: There is a big bee! At first, the doctor wants to disabuse her of the idea that it is a big bee; after all, it is only a fan. Then she says: If it were to sting me! At first the doctor also wants to make it clear to her that that would not be so bad either. But at that moment the eye swells up into a lump the size of a chicken's egg. This is how we see the effect of the mere thought. And as I said, thank God our ordinary thoughts are not such thoughts. And that is precisely why they are the right thoughts for ordinary life, that they cannot. They do not take this plasticizing form, they do not go down into the organism. For that, pathological conditions must arise; but then we see how thought can take hold of material life. Schleich quite rightly calls this an 'incarnation of thought'. But one must not think that one can remain within the ordinary life of the soul when speaking of such things. The ordinary thoughts that a person has are there for the purpose of understanding the world and as a basis for action. If a person is in good health, these thoughts certainly do not intervene in the ordinary life of the soul in a plasticizing way. But in a normal way, if you look at it spiritually, you find that what forms the human being, from childhood on, what shapes the forms, is now based on the same principle in a healthy way, just as the spiritual and soul life, which is still unconscious and remains unconscious as such, remains plastically formative. And it is precisely in this that man's further experience consists, namely, that what first enters the organism, what first takes hold of the organism, later separates itself from the organism, exists spiritually and soulfully on its own, and is experienced precisely as spiritual and soul-like. This is what the further development of man as an individuality consists of. I have presented certain trains of thought to you; but these trains of thought are not really invented, not logically combined in any way, but they are lifted out of the soul's vision. And as I said, it is not a game of analogies, but it arises from the observation of the soul from the developed soul-spiritual knowledge that the same thing that can later intervene as a plastic principle in pathological conditions intervenes in the normal way in childhood life. The thoughts that I have thus suggested lead further, not by logical spinning, but by continuing the soul-spiritual view of the world. From the contemplation of bodily life, the thought was suggested: the human body, apart from the head, contains the same formative forces as the head, only at a less advanced stage; the head contains the same formative forces as the rest of the body, but at a far more advanced stage. These thoughts combine with each other in the inner vision. This more intimate acquaintance with the life of nature is attained by becoming acquainted with the spiritual and soul life in nature as well. In the higher vision, one must still clarify the following through the more intimate acquaintance with the subconscious spiritual life, as I have just described it. And one can do this through this more intimate acquaintance. Certain thoughts, I might say, only surmised by philosophers, become inwardly completely clear through the kind of knowledge meant here. Again and again, philosophers chew over and over - I do not mean this in a disparaging way - to gain some kind of concept of substance, of matter. In his Ignorabimus speech, D'Bois-Reymond presented in such a brilliant way all that can prove that what matter actually is, or, as he says, where matter haunts in space, cannot be grasped through knowledge. —- Matter basically always remains something unrecognized for ordinary knowledge; it remains outside of ordinary knowledge. Through spiritual knowledge one really comes to realize that matter itself cannot be perceived and that matter cannot enter into our inner being, just as little as the brass of a signet, which I imprint in the sealing wax, can enter into the substance of the sealing wax, although everything that is to enter, let us say the name Müller, passes from the signet to the sealing wax. What is externally material cannot be brought into the interior. But that which is to be brought in comes in in a similar way to the name Miller coming into the sealing wax. That which is in us cannot penetrate outwards to where matter is in space. Ordinary knowledge cannot grasp matter. Matter is simply imperceptible. I would have to talk at great length again if I wanted to explain in detail — which can be done — that matter cannot possibly be perceived as such. Matter can only ever be hypothetically added to the perceptions. What is the actual basis for this? It is based on the fact that we do not perceive anything material at all. If only matter were spread out and we ourselves consisted of matter in the ordinary sense, we would be unable to perceive anything. Matter is not perceptible! How does matter become perceptible? Matter becomes perceptible because, in addition to matter (you don't have to force this 'in addition to'), there is still ether, etheric essence, in the world around us. When I speak of etheric essence, I must of course refer to what I have often said here, that the concept of ether as it is meant here does not correspond to any concept of ether as postulated by physics, although it can of course overlap with it in many ways. But finally, what kind of ether concept does modern physics have? This modern physics, which is actually on a wonderful path with those who research with all the tools of modern natural science, who make every effort to develop and increasingly develop the scientific way of thinking and attitude? From individual physicists, who must be taken very seriously indeed, in a completely different sense than the amateurish talk of a monistic worldview, we already have the sentence: If you want to have any idea at all about ether, then you can only do so by not imagining any material properties in the ether; ether must be imagined in such a way that all material properties are kept away from it. And now we are experiencing the marvelous fact that two opposing views of things are colliding. In the midst of these turbulent times, we are experiencing the clash of two worldviews with regard to the external, physical world, a fact of unspeakably great significance for anyone who is able to judge such a thing in its full gravity. We are now also experiencing the fact that what physicists have never really tackled in the right way, namely gravity, is being investigated. And there we experience it – I can only hint at these things in a purely historical way – that on the one hand the more materialistic view asserts itself and, as it were, tries to gain insight into the ether from ideas about the material, that is, from purely material properties. And on the other hand, we have a wonderful method of investigating gravity, which, as has already been said, seeks to strip away the material and dematerialize the natural in order to understand gravity. In short, if we want to understand the direction in which real science is heading today, we cannot rely in any trivial way on the talk of the so-called monistic world view, but we have to go into this true and serious scientific endeavor, which is permeated by truly impressive methodological discipline which, in attempting to go from matter up to the ether, strives more and more to achieve what I just meant by individual physicists even saying: the ether can only be imagined if it is no longer imagined with material properties. In spiritual science, the ether now reveals itself through inner vision and through inner knowledge, just as one otherwise comes to know the external, the sensual existence. This is only possible through the first stage of spiritual vision. You can read about it in my book 'How to Know Higher Worlds'. There, as the first step in spiritual insight, I use the term, please do not misunderstand me, imaginative knowledge. But that is just a term. What is meant is the kind of knowledge — I have often presented this in the last lectures here as well — in which the human being does not simply accept the perceptions, but has to build the perceptions himself. Just as one builds up externally what one also has in reality when one notes it down, so imaginative knowledge will inwardly express what one experiences spiritually. But through this knowledge one does indeed arrive at a conception of ether that cannot be conveyed by external material representations. And then one arrives at the fact that ether is spread out in the world and forms the possibility that things, figuratively speaking, turn their surface towards us so that they can be perceived, and that ether is within us, meeting the outer ether. Ether from within, ether from without meet, and in this way that which flows towards us ethereally from things, that which ethereally rises from us in the organism, is encompassed. This encompasses itself inwardly, and only through this does that which we call perception arise. What makes it so difficult to understand sensory perception is precisely the lack of knowledge of the facts just described. Take the human eye! This human eye gives images of our surroundings precisely because the material processes from outside continue within the eye, so to speak. What happens in our inner eye is, without our consciousness being present, only a continuation of the laws of light that exist outside in the world. And when the outer ether continues into our eye and is grasped by the inner ether, this is how this perception of light arises. What I am about to say is a direct continuation of what is written in Goethe's beautiful and significant chapter on physical colors and their perception. Thus we ascend from external matter to the ether, and in so doing we come closer to what lives within us. For that is the other thing now. Matter rises to the ether; we have ether within us; the inner ether enters into interaction with the outer ether. That is the one process. And now let us look at it from the other side. We have seen that when we have our soul life, the conscious soul life, which in a healthy state must not interfere with matter but which nevertheless contains the possibility of formative forces, this conscious soul life leads us down into a subconscious soul life. And this subconscious soul life has, I would say, a completely different power than the conscious soul life. The conscious soul life is the abstract soul life, the soul life that does not hurt us. I would like to give just one example of this: in the conscious soul life we can say a lie calmly, it does not hurt us. But if the lie arises in the subconscious, it hurts; that is, it has the power to develop into reality. It is only in our subconscious mental life that we have a mental life that is capable of forming itself, a mental life that is no longer separate from matter, but can now intervene in matter, although initially it can only intervene in the matter that is available to it. This subconscious mental life can now in turn intervene in what is in us as ether. And in that which is behind matter as ether, and in that which is below our consciousness as subconscious soul life, there arises an interaction that lies below our consciousness and above matter. This takes place in our subconscious. If you follow this train of thought, you can now easily explain the morbid states of mind as well. There is not enough time to go into them. I have often used the term subconscious here, which may even rightly appear dreadful at first to some people, and which really challenges one to make bad or good jokes about it. But the term should not be important. If we take a comprehensive view of the whole human being, he consists, of course, of matter, just as the other external things consist of matter, of the etheric being that he has within and that enters into relationship with the external ether, and of the subconscious soul life, which can now intervene in the ether in a formative way. And that which arises in the interaction between the subconscious soul life, which we discover in the spirit-sight, into which we dive in the spirit-sight, and the weaving, surging ether, that is precisely the imagination, the first step of spiritual vision. And then, when through knowledge a person has struggled through to that which is not consciously experienced in him, but which is still inner life, then he also experiences how this inner life proves to be related to that which now lives in the external, but is not matter, cannot be imagined as material at all - even according to today's physics - how this becomes one in him. We can grasp even more closely what I have often characterized in these lectures as the inner human being in the human being. The conscious soul life goes down to a subconscious soul life, and this subconscious soul life is now more powerful than this conscious one and organizes itself together with the etheric life. In this way we actually have that which is present in the human soul life. And when a person awakens this soul life within himself through the exercises described in the repeatedly mentioned books and essays, only then does he really perceive what can be called the spiritual world, just as he perceives the outer sensual world with his physical organism. In the thorough organization of his etheric body lies the possibility of perceiving and knowing a spiritual world, and of knowing that he himself comes from this spiritual world. And now the thought broadens and is combined with the other thought, which was gained from Goethe's world view. For once one has grasped the inner human being, one can now begin to ask oneself: Yes, what about these two parts of the human nature, the head and the rest of the body, which are at different levels of development? Here we come to the fact that what can be imagined spiritually and soul-wise must be brought into quite different relationships with the head than with the rest of the organism. When one grasps the spiritual man in clairvoyance – but not in the way it is meant in spiritualism or in trivial superstition, but really in the sense that is always characterized here – the spiritual man who underlies the outer man, also the man who has ordinary consciousness — for that is nothing directly soul-like, but only something that lies below it — if one can grasp this person, one sees this inner person in a completely different connection with the main part of the person and with what the rest of the person's body is. And what we find is this: When we examine the head, we find in the head a plastic formation, a shaping, such that the soul-spiritual has flowed completely into the form, the soul-spiritual is completely shaped in the form and has even shaped itself in this form in such a way that it still retains some of its formative powers. And these retained formative forces are those that we can then develop as our thoughts. But what is developed in our thoughts only abstractly out of the head lies in the form in which it can only be achieved subconsciously, at the basis of the formation of our head. And in a completely different way, the spiritual-soul substance underlies the rest of the human organism. These formative forces do not penetrate so deeply into the rest of the human organism; there they retain a certain independence; there the soul-spiritual lives much more strongly alongside the physical body. If I may speak figuratively, imaginatively and figuratively – please allow me this tautology – I would therefore like to say: When the seer has the human head before him, he has a spiritual-soul form, but in addition, only extremely sparsely, a spiritual form. If he has the other human organism before him, he has the bodily form, but the spiritual is richly developed, only it has not yet become as organized in the material as it is in the head. In the head the spiritual has flowed into matter much more than in the rest of the organism. The human head is much more material than the rest of the organism. The rest of the organism is such that the spiritual has not yet flowed very much into the material and still has greater independence. Now the spiritual insight of which I have spoken comes to a real understanding of the essential meaning of what I have just expressed. What forces of development are there in the human head that have reached a point that lies much, much further ahead in development than what can be observed in the rest of the organism? If one learns to look at what underlies the head, one learns to transfer the spiritual vision to the human head, then one oneself comes to experience soulfully what has been processed in the human head. When one experiences inwardly in soul what formative forces are at work in the human head — today I can only hint at these things in aphorisms — then one finds that what is processed there expands directly into a spiritual world, that one must really think of the formative forces as coming from the spiritual world, even if this passes through the human hereditary currents. Here again we have a beautiful point of contact between modern natural science and spiritual science. There are such points of contact everywhere. Today there are natural scientists who, through their natural research, also admit that such cosmic formative forces are at work in what builds up in the human being while he is developing in the mother's body. So we have something in the human head that is formed from the cosmos. In the human head there is an immediate imprint of the cosmos when one looks at the soul. If we now ascend further to the spiritual, to the way I have described it to you, we come back further. We gain the following knowledge of the head: at birth, actually soon after conception, this human head is so constituted that its formative forces pass entirely into the material, leaving only a little of the soul behind, living out their full potential in the material. But these formative forces lead back to a time before conception. They lead up into the spiritual world, so that what arises from the cosmos in the formation of the head, the human being has essentially experienced in the spiritual world before he was conceived or born. And when we go from the soul to the spiritual, we will then, within this spirit, recognize in the formation of the head what comes from an earlier life on earth. It is precisely by observing the human head in a spiritual-scientific context that one passes directly from the present earth life into the earlier earth life. And this is supplemented by the other thought, when one now observes what is present in the rest of the organism, apart from the head. In this remaining organism, the soul-spiritual life is still separate, the whole human life, as it is led from birth to death in dealing with the outside world, in relation to other people, to the things of this world, to nature and all the spiritual conditions in which we live, to all social conditions; this is expressed in what is spiritual about us, in the rest of the organism, summarized in the human heart. This is not just a picture, but a real spiritual-physiological fact. But because this human organism has taken on its fixed form at birth, it can initially only remain spiritual-soul-like. However, it is present as formative forces, it remains present as formative forces, and it goes through death as formative forces. If we follow what is in the human organism, apart from the head, then we find that the spiritual view points us to what lies after death. And if we look at the human being spiritually, we find that this is transformed into the next earthly life. And further: Concrete observation teaches us that the head, as it is now shaping itself with its inner formative powers, is the result of our physical life in a previous earthly existence, apart from the head. Our head has truly been transformed from an earlier life on earth, and our present organism, apart from the head, with all its experiences, retains the formative forces in a spiritual-soul way, and when it departs with death, it gives them to the spiritual world, and they develop so that they can participate in the formation of our head in the next life on earth. And we arrive at the great, significant law: in what our head is inwardly formed — mind you, inwardly formed — we have the result of the formation of what the rest of the organism, apart from the head, was predisposed to in a previous life on earth; and in what struggles and forces in the rest of our organism, we have what goes into the formation of the head in the next life on earth. Once this knowledge is acquired, it will be possible to draw a strict scientific distinction between what lies within the line of inheritance and what does not lie within the line of inheritance. In this field, natural science still has, I might say, very significant doors to open if it wants to meet what spiritual science has to say about the spiritual and soul life. I would like to draw attention to just one point. Of course, natural science today rightly attributes certain characteristics that we have to the principle of inheritance; we have them from our father and mother, grandfather, grandmother and so on. But we should not think that the natural scientist is saying something when he comes and says: Yes, the spiritual scientist attributes inner formative forces to earlier earthly lives; we learn all this from inheritance! The spiritual researcher does not deny that which can be scientifically explained from heredity, which may lie in the physical line of reproduction, as the spiritual researcher is generally on the ground of natural science. But, as I said, natural science must first open up certain doors and follow certain guidelines. Just think about the following: as I pointed out the day before yesterday, a person reaches sexual maturity at a certain age and is then able to produce offspring. At that point, he has all the abilities within him to pass on to the next generation what he has in the way of physical-bodily formative forces. He must have it in himself. No new abilities can arise later. What a person acquires later in the way of abilities, which he in turn partially incorporates, as he previously incorporated the ability to reproduce, does not pass into the reproductive current, but these abilities work and have an effect in the person in such a way that they form the germ for that which goes through the gate of death, between death and new birth through the spiritual world and in a next life on earth, it is embodied anew in the way I have described. There is then a transition, and one can say - as grotesque as it may still sound today - the formation of the head, but, as I said, the head is formed from within. The formation of the head contains forces that we must seek as the spiritual and soul element accompanying the body, which exists independently of the head, in an earlier life on earth. But what we now have in addition to our head, before the spiritual and soul has completely poured into the physical, that prepares the configuration and shape of the head in a next earthly life. This is certainly still a paradoxical assertion today, and yet, it is how a comprehensive doctrine of metamorphosis for the whole person is built, a doctrine of metamorphosis that encompasses spirit, soul and body and shows how the reality within the human being goes through birth and death and how this reality in the human being is related to the universe. What is it that directly belongs to our earthly life? What directly belongs to our earthly life as an individual human being living between birth and death? Our head! What we usually find to be the most spiritual on the outside is most closely related to the earth. What is less related to the earth also passes into other than earthly worlds in the time between death and a new birth. And when, after the person has passed through the gateway of death, the spiritual has gained the strength to transform itself into the formation of the head, then it has attained its goal. As you can see, spiritual science speaks in a very concrete way about what belongs to the eternal part of man. And in a very concrete way it can indicate how the human being is embedded in the whole universe. It can point out how that which is in the human head is so occupied by the forces of the earth that the whole spiritual and soul life has poured itself into the head, and how that which exists outside the head is only preparing to be joined to it in the next life on earth. We see how one earthly life follows another, in order to link up to eternity like chain links. When man – not now in an external, abstract description, but inwardly – grasps what can be experienced as the inner man, when the subconscious, the ethereal takes hold and the inner man becomes active, then the soul is seized and it can be understood beyond birth and death in connection with the universe. And when man has awakened this in himself, then a spiritual world also becomes visible before this inner man, a concrete spiritual world, as before the physical eyes, which develop out of transformed matter, the physical world becomes visible. The spiritual and soul worlds present themselves in a definite, concrete way. And just as we become acquainted with concrete physical things and beings through our bodily organization in the physical world around us, so we become acquainted with a spiritual world in concrete individual forms through the higher man, through the man who lives spiritually and soulfully in man. But the spiritual-soul in man must be grasped in a living way, otherwise it remains a mere inkling that can only be found in a conceptual construction. One can only come to the spirit, to the soul, by descending from the ordinary consciousness to the subconscious and really developing a new consciousness for the subconscious and thereby forming a higher human being in the human being with what otherwise pervades matter as ether. This is possible through experience, through real inner experience on the paths described in my book “How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds”. If one does not attain this spiritual level, then one remains within that which of the soul-spiritual asserts itself in the physical organism. One basically remains in that which is present in man between birth and death, and then one comes to that unclear mysticism, which unfortunately is confused by many with true, but now brightly clear mysticism, which is attained in the way I have just described, through the experience of the inner concrete spiritual-soul man. And because confused, hazy mysticism is confused with that which becomes bright and clear within, that is why spiritual scientific striving is still so often misunderstood today. The nebulous inner self, felt only through the detour of the body, does not really expand into a cosmic self, but becomes blurred in a general sense of the world. It is difficult to express this. That unclear, blurred mysticism is only what the soul can experience with the help of the bodily instrument. The soul must first be released from the body, then the soul-spiritual is truly experienced. And the spiritual must be seen, but not with the same powers of cognition with which the conceptual-legal, natural-legal in the sensual world is seen; because that is seen with the help of the bodily instrument, that does not even go through the gate of death with us. Natural laws are only meaningful between birth and death – not for nature itself, but for us. But when a person awakens the inner man and the spiritual world is around him, then he beholds a concrete spiritual world in which spiritual beings are as physical beings are in the physical world. And then it does not come to what otherwise a yes also quite commendable, but just limited metaphysics comes: in all possible ways one comes from a mere inkling of the spirit, which one veils with concepts, to pantheism, this foggy construct that sees an All-spirit everywhere, just as if one did not want to see individual plants and animals everywhere, but an All-nature. Whether one sees will everywhere, as Schopenhauer did, or finds a panpsychism by philosophical means, all these “pane” come about only because the soul-spiritual works only with the tool of the human head. And basically, mere philosophical idealism, which I have repeatedly tried to describe truly in all its magnitude this winter, could not lead to anything other than a conceptual understanding of the world; for the real spiritual world is only attained in the way I have indicated. But precisely when one works out this concrete view — and today I could only work it out aphoristically — what I have said can really be fully reconciled with the scientific world view, and does not offend any religious feeling. You will soon be able to read about this in my little work 'The Task of Spiritual Science', which will be published in the next few weeks. All that I have described so far only enables man to understand the world around him in all its phenomena. The spiritual world is present in the outer world in its effects, but these effects can only be fully understood when one grasps the spiritual foundations of these effects. Only when we have grasped the soul-forming forces that underlie the world, the spiritual forces of action, can we gain insight into what the world actually is. Goethe first wanted to see the weaving and surging of the spirit, which had remained unconscious to him, in the reflection of the external material, and he could only perceive this in the living material through his metamorphosis. If the way of thinking that Goethe had is extended to body, soul and spirit, a true science of body, soul and spirit will really appear. Then such a science will also be possible, as I indicated the day before yesterday for understanding the individual national souls and for the historical development of humanity in general as it unfolds on earth. One can say: there has always been a longing to achieve such a spiritual science. Today we call it anthroposophy, that is, I will try to justify this name for you. Anthroposophy because anthropology looks at the human being as one would if one only used the external organs of the human being. Anthroposophy arises when one lets the inner, awakened human being focus on what it means to be human. In earlier lectures I quoted a saying of Troxler from 1835, from which it can be seen how such an anthroposophy has been longed for. For in the time when Goethe's world view was more or less unconsciously at work in the better souls everywhere, there was already a longing and hope for such an anthroposophy. And as proof of this, let me quote a saying that Immanuel Hermann Fichte — whom I also mentioned in one of the last lectures — made in 1860; it should prove to you that what is being sought here today as spiritual science is something longed for and hoped for in the spiritual movement of the nineteenth century, even if it was somewhat subdued for the reason given. Immanuel Hermann Fichte, the son of the great philosopher, says in his “Anthropology” at the end, 1860: “But anthropology already ends in the result, justified from the most diverse sides, that man, according to the true nature of his being, as in the very source of his consciousness, belongs to a supersensible world. In contrast, sense consciousness and the phenomenal world arising from its vantage point, with the entire human sensory life, have no other significance than to be the place in which the supersensible life of the spirit is carried out, in that the spirit, through its own act of free consciousness, introduces the otherworldly spiritual content of the ideas into the world of the senses... This thorough grasp of the human being now elevates “anthropology in its final result to ‘anthroposophy’.” Anthroposophy, as it is meant here, is truly nothing arbitrarily invented, but something longed for and hoped for by the best minds of the nineteenth century. And I am convinced that it is based on a real penetration into the spirit of Goethe's world view. When, a few years ago, the question arose as to the name of the society within which this spiritual research, which is meant here, would be cultivated, I would have liked to have named this society the “Goethe Society” if the name had not already been given to another Goethe Society. It was named the Anthroposophical Society; but for good reasons, because you see: what appears today as spiritual science is long awaited and long hoped for, and it is that which today, I might say, is brought to the surface from subconscious depths of the soul, only the fulfillment of those hopes that were truly not present in the worst minds. And such hopes were present in yet another way, in a remarkable way and, I might say, arising from the Goethean worldview, in a spirit that lived so completely with his soul in the Goethean worldview – in Herman Grimm. Here, something wonderful comes to light. Herman Grimm is, after all, a historian, especially an art historian. He tried, really out of Goethe's spirit — I am not saying now how he was able to grasp it, but how he was able to assimilate it and spiritualize it — to present the developmental process of historical phenomena in the sense of such a Goethean world view. What is he coming to? At one point in an essay he wrote about Macauley, Herman Grimm tried to understand how one can understand historical development and the place of the individual human being in history. He tried to form a concept about it: What is the place of the human being in the development of history? He still shrank back, because when he wrote the essay – it was at the beginning of the seventies – the time was not yet ripe to describe spiritual science in such a way as one can describe it today – even if it is still often regarded as fantasy or something worse. He does not attempt to ascend to spiritual science, but to form a thought, which he says he initially wants to just let be a fantasy, a thought through which he can imagine: how does the individual human being initially stand in the universe from an historical point of view? Grimm then utters the following words: “It is conceivable that the spirit of a human being, released from the bonds of the body, might hover above the earth like a mere mirror of what is happening.” — He formally apologizes at the time because no spiritual science could be present: “I am not stating an article of faith here, it is just a fantasy. Let us assume that for some people immortality takes this form” — we have it, the fantasy, immortality takes this form for spiritual science! — ”that they float above the earth, unhampered by what previously blinded them, and reveal to them all the destinies of the earth and of man before the birth of the planet...” Herman Grimm had to imagine life in the spiritual world between death and a new birth at least hypothetically, in order to really imagine and think about the way in which man is embedded in history. And so he said: Now, how can we understand the individual human being? - “Now, suddenly, let us dream on” - one must dream, of course, but the dream becomes truth! “If this spirit, which so freely surveyed things, were forced to join the body of a mortal man again.” That is to say, in order to be able to imagine history and man's place in history, Herman Grimm necessarily had to think of repeated lives on earth. Only in this way could he imagine history. This is how deeper spirits looked at history and the historical becoming and the inner standing of man. But as I said, such things flowed, I would say, under the prevailing stream of the more materialistic development of the world view in modern times and will probably be carried to the surface by our time, because our time already senses that the spirit and the soul must be recognized again. Indeed, this is felt most acutely when one tries to understand the historical development of humanity. And today it is obvious to seek to understand the historical development of humanity because we are at such a significant stage of this historical development. When one looks at such a view of history, for which Herman Grimm had to imagine repeated lives on earth, and then looks at another historical conception, one becomes very aware of how far mere adherence to the material can go, especially when one wants to understand historical development. In this context, I have a spirit in mind, of whom I will present a few sentences to you at the end, because he is, of course, quite far removed from any understanding of the spiritual, of the soul. And yet a certain mind wants to explain historical development, for example why religions arose in different forms, why there was initially polytheism, then monotheism arose, and within monotheism Christianity arose, and within Christianity Protestantism arose again. Yes, that there is something spiritual and soulful at work inside, of course he cannot rise to that. But from what can be observed externally, albeit only in a rough way, when one looks at the outside world, including the outside world of history, only through the instruments of the body, he now tries to make clear how the history of religions has developed. He says – the words are not particularly important to the idea presented, but I will read them in the introduction: “As long as consolidation progresses, the organism that will prevail will be the living one that functions best at the given moment, and this tendency is just as evident in abstract thought as in trade and war.” So if you want to understand how a later state arises from an earlier one, then, in his opinion, you can see how the later state became more favorable than the earlier one. And he applies this to religions: “The development of religions provides the most striking proof of this principle. Monotheism is cheaper than polytheism.” That is to say, people gradually strove to get more for less in the spiritual realm. So they advance from polytheism to monotheism, which is cheaper! It does not need such a widespread cult as polytheism! So: “Monotheism is cheaper than polytheism.” Consequently, the two great monotheistic religions were able to survive in Cairo and Constantinople, the two commercial centers of the first Middle Ages, while the Roman cult perished, along with the Greek and Egyptian and the various Persian religions. So we have the later monotheistic religions because they are cheaper! They have only one God, so they need a simpler cult, are cheaper! Then he continues: “In the same sense, Protestantism is cheaper than Catholicism.” If you only look at the exterior, you cannot deny it, the Protestant church does not have as much decoration, has not developed as much worship, is cheaper. “That is why Holland and England – I am not saying this! – adopted Protestantism when they snatched trade with the Orient from Italy and Spain.” Because the Dutch and the English wanted to have it cheaper, they adopted Protestantism! “Atheism, finally, is cheaper than any religion, and it is a fact that all modern commercial centers tend towards skepticism, that the modern state itself seeks to reduce the costs of worship to a minimum.” Here we have cost as a principle of the progress of religions! However, this is again an example of the approach that I took the day before yesterday: that one can see how, from the different cultures, the endeavor is either to think more spiritually and psychologically about the course of human development, or more in terms of what can only be achieved through external observation. The author is Brooks Adams, an American, and Roosevelt wrote the preface to this book! I will add nothing more to these thoughts, they show, as it were, the asymptote to which a purely external world view must lead. Of course, what is grasped as spiritual-soul will often appear to a purely external view of the world like mere dreaming. Dreaming — yes, people today would even forgive one for dreaming from a materialistic point of view. I am convinced that if someone, in a dream, could invent a machine that he then constructs in external reality, people would believe in this dream. All that is needed is the power to recognize in its reality that which is found only within the soul and spirit. That this spiritual power belongs to the developmental and educational principles of the world-view development that has found expression in German spiritual life is precisely what I have tried to explain in the various lectures during this difficult time of trial. And when one has gained an insight into what spiritual science will and must be for the future of humanity, and sees how, ever since there has been a German development, the educational principles of this German development have been, shall we say, dreaming towards this spiritual science, then that also gives a firmness and certainty to stand still within the spiritual life of one's own nation and to have no need to vilify other spiritual lives and to utter such words of hatred as we heard only the day before yesterday, in order to gain inner strength, so to speak, inner justification in rejecting what is alien. German spiritual life can gain inner justification and inner strength by considering what lies within itself. And so, at the conclusion of this lecture, let me express, as something that can take root in the soul as a feeling, the comparison of what spiritual science wills with what often lives as germs precisely in German cultural life. The way in which the soul and spirit are anchored in German cultural life gives us the inner certainty that Germanness cannot be overcome, because it is destined for greatness in the evolution of the world and of humanity, according to what it contains as germs within itself. We can say today: England possesses one quarter of the total dry land area, Russia one seventh, France one thirteenth, the German element barely one thirtieth of the land! Thus, those who expand over a quarter, plus a seventh, plus a thirteenth of the dry land, are opposed to those who have barely spread over a thirtieth of the dry land. And so those who have spread out over this one-thirtieth and who today consciously stand on this one-thirtieth in relation to what stands on a quarter, plus three-sevenths, plus three-tenths must imbue themselves with what can be experienced from the grasp of the innermost being. There is no doubt that inner necessities can be experienced: those who stand on a thirteenth plus a seventh plus a quarter in relation to those who stand only on a thirtieth, they must not overcome the latter, as they often say today in their fanatical ideal of hatred. For that which lives on this one thirtieth seems, by its inner nature and essence, to be destined for that which, within the earthly context, can still be called a long, long time and, for the human imagination, a temporal eternity. This German essence carries within itself the certainty of its continued existence. And from this certainty emerges what can be summarized in a few words: they will not overcome it, because if the world is to have meaning, they must not overcome it! |
33. Biographies and Biographical Sketches: Poetry of the Present — An Overview
Rudolf Steiner |
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And it is certainly no less poetic to give words to man's deepest thoughts than to his inclination towards women or his joy in the green forest and birdsong. To the eulogists of so-called "unintentional creativity", who are quick with their doctrinaire objections when they sense something like a thought in poetry, it should be borne in mind that man's most precious asset, freedom, does not arise in the dullness of the unconscious, but on the bright heights of developed consciousness. |
33. Biographies and Biographical Sketches: Poetry of the Present — An Overview
Rudolf Steiner |
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I[ 1 ] The life of an age finds its most intimate expression in poetry. What the spirit of an epoch has to say to the heart of the individual is expressed in his songs. No art speaks such an intimate language as lyrical poetry. Through it we become aware of how intimately interwoven the human soul is with the greatest and the smallest processes of the universe. The mighty genius who walks on the heights of humanity becomes the friend of the simplest mind through his song. How man is drawn to man is revealed with perfect clarity in poetry. For we feel that we have no less claim to the spiritual gifts of our fellow men than to their lyrical creations. What the spirit achieves in other fields seems to belong to all mankind from the outset, and they believe they have a right to share in its enjoyment. The song is a voluntary gift whose communication springs from the selfless need not to possess the secrets of the soul for oneself alone. This basic trait of lyrical art may explain why it is the most beautiful means of reconciliation between the most diverse attitudes of people. The religious mind and the atheistic free spirit will meet sympathetically when the latter sings of his God and the latter sings of freedom. And poetry is also the field in which today the bearers of old, mature artistic ideals and the spirits of a nascent, nascent world view communicate most easily. [ 2 ] The German sense of art in the second third of our century presents itself as an after-effect of the classical and romantic intellectual currents. The relationship that Goethe, Herder, Schiller and their successors had with nature and art was regarded as exemplary. They set high standards for themselves, but first asked their predecessors whether these standards were the right ones. This way of thinking continues to this day. Gradually, it became second nature to the creative spirits. They were under its spell without being aware of it. [ 3 ] One such spirit is Theodor Storm. A naive view of nature, a simple, healthy sense are combined with a highly developed feeling for artistic form. Storm owes this feeling to the fact that his youth began soon after Goethe's death. The intellectual atmosphere of his age instilled in him a sense for perfect art forms as if it were innate. Storm poured the atmospheric Iyrian views into these forms, which his sense of nature and his deep feelings brought him. [ 4 ] The classical sense of art bore different fruit from that of the North German Storm in two Swiss poets, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer and Gottfried Keller. Natures like Meyer can only flourish in times that were preceded by cultural peaks. They have inherited the need for the highest goals in life and at the same time an artistic seriousness that is not easily satisfied by their own achievements. Meyer wants to experience everything he experiences with dignity. His ideals are so distant that he is in constant fear of never reaching them. He wants to constantly indulge in festive feelings that others only allow themselves at certain times. What he has achieved always falls short of what he desires, so that an incessant alternation of longing and renunciation pervades his soul. He sees pathetic symbols in natural phenomena. He passes by the obvious relationships between things; instead he searches for rare, hidden connections between beings and phenomena. He becomes aware of the strongest contrasts everywhere, because his whole perception strives for the great line. [ 5 ] Gottfried Keller is an essentially different personality. For him, the attainable is the standard he applies to everything. His whole outlook on life has something bourgeois and unaffected about it. A sound, simple mind and free, receptive senses alone determine his existence. He does not love his homeland out of an ethical instinct, but because he feels most comfortable in his homeland. He strongly emphasizes all the good things about his homeland and benevolently overlooks the unpleasant. He enjoys things as they are and never worries about whether something could be different. His description of nature reflects things as they are; he is not interested in symbols and parables such as those created by Conrad Ferdinand Meyer. It is not in his nature to spiritualize feelings and sensations. For him, love always has a sensual trait. But this sensuality is a chaste, coarse and healthy one. He does not love the soul alone, he also loves the mouth; but his love remains childishly naïve. [ 6 ] The southern German poet Johann Georg Fischer is of a similar nature. He is extremely content with life and its pleasures. He loves his existence so much and knows how to derive so much bliss from it that he only desires the hereafter if it is as beautiful and good as this life. He always feels his healthy strength and is never in doubt that it will lead him safely through life. He also knows how to find something pleasant in the shadows of life. His description of nature is not as simple as Keller's; it has something meaningful and pictorial about it. When he sings of female beauty, we admire the purity of soul that lies in his tones. [ 7 ] In stark contrast to these southern German poetic natures is the austere beauty of Theodor Fontane's poetry. Meyer, Keller and Fischer never hold back how they feel about things. Fontane meaningfully juxtaposes the impressions that arouse his feelings. He conceals what is going on inside him and leaves us alone with our hearts. He is a brittle person who likes to hide his own ego. Our soul trembles at his descriptions; he never tells us that his soul trembles too. The images his imagination creates have something monumental about them. The seriousness, the majesty of life speak to us from his poems. He sings of significant situations, strong contrasts, proud human characters. [ 8 ] The poetry of Paul Heyse is post-classical in the truest sense of the word. He has everything from his predecessors: the purest sense of form, the ennobled view, the cheerful artistic spirit directed towards the eternal harmony of existence. Everywhere he dissolves the seriousness of life into the serenity of art. It is his conviction that art should lead man beyond the burdens and oppressiveness of reality. Without doubt, such a view is that of a true artist. But there is a huge difference between a person who has fought his way through the hardships of life, through the dissonances of existence, to the view of harmony that underlies the world, and one who simply accepts this view as tradition. The artist's serenity is only uplifting in the highest sense if it has its roots in the seriousness of life. Goethe, at the time of his perfection, looked at the world with the blissful calm of a sage, having acquired this calm in fierce battles; Heyse jumped unprepared into the field of balanced beauty. He is an epigone through and through. He has a sure eye for the genuine beauties of nature; but his eye has been trained to Goethe's way of looking at things. Heyse knows how to follow the most marvelous paths and make the most wonderful observations; but one always has the feeling that he is following paths blazed by others, and that he is rediscovering what someone else has already found. [ 9 ] The lyrical poems of Martin Greif are born out of a tender soul, in which the finest impulses of nature and the human soul tremble nobly. He is not moved by the whole of an impression, but only by the soulfulness of it. A pious, devout spirit passes over to us from Greif's creations. Greif brings to life the quiet, modest melodies that rest in things as if enchanted. When we give ourselves over to his poetry, it is as if all the loud, demanding sounds of the world fall silent and a quiet music of the spheres enters our ears. The pious calm of the soul that Goethe loved so much has found a singer in Martin Greif. [ 10 ] The Viennese Jakob Julius David is a poet whose entire oeuvre is like a single cry for this blessed peace, combined with the painful feeling that the gates to it are closed to him. His imagination paints gloomy pictures that speak vividly of the bitter suffering of a proud soul. The passionate desire, the ardent longing is abruptly replaced by wistful renunciation. As a strong nature, David cannot unlearn desire. A note of displeasure runs through all his poems, which abruptly stands out from the beauty of form that is characteristic of them. He is the representative of those contemporary poets who may have modeled their art on the great role models, but who are not at the same time able to wrestle their way through to the harmonious world view of these role models. David knows that disharmony is not the deepest meaning of life, but harmony does not reveal itself to him. That is why he cannot sing of joy and pleasure, but at best of oblivion and resignation. He is not able to lift anyone up from their suffering, but only to comfort them and exhort them to surrender. [ 11 ] We see another Viennese poet in a steadily ascending development: Ferdinand von Saar. He is not a distinct personality who shows himself direction and goal out of inner strength. He found himself relatively late in life. By appropriating the unfamiliar, through wise self-education, he reached the point where genius sets in. In the "Nachklänge", which appeared recently, noble artistry and wise contemplation of the world emerge in equal measure. Pictures of noble beauty convey a profound view of nature and people. But nowhere do they bear the stamp of the inspiration of a brilliant imagination; they have gradually matured in a life that has tirelessly striven towards perfection. It is not rapturous enthusiasm that compels Saar's creations, but serious reverence. Saar is one of those artists who have the strongest effect on us when they do not reveal to us the individuality of their own heart, but when they make themselves the spokesperson for what moves all of humanity. [ 12 ] The same is probably true of another contemporary poet, even if he is as far removed from Saar as possible in many respects: Emil Prinz von Schoenaich-Carolath. Schoenaich-Carolath must be conceded a certain degree of originality; but there is no doubt that he could only reach the artistic heights to which he attained in an epoch in which aesthetic education had reached such a level as in his own. Spirits such as his are only possible within the late culture of a people that had allowed great things to develop from it shortly before. They give back in a refined form what they have received. Schoenaich-Carolath has tones for all human feelings, for all processes of nature. His vision penetrates deep behind the phenomena. He has battles to fight in life, but one notices that during the struggle he never doubts his ultimate victory. If one has called him a Byronic nature, one should not have overlooked the fact that his Byronic restlessness is mixed with a happy confidence. [ 13 ] In the truest sense of the word, Ernst von Wildenbruch is an afterbloom of classical German art. When he speaks to us, we always hear a great predecessor speaking along with him. It is fair to say that he learned to write poetry, certainly learned it very well. He is more a chosen one than a called one. And that can be said of many today. For this time it can only be applied to Alberta von Puttkammer. She is able, perhaps with just a little too many words, to paint moods of nature with unspeakable beauty. Life seems to her like a blissful elegy. Existence has thorns for her too; but she never lets us forget that the thorns are in rose gardens. II[ 14 ] A young generation of poets came onto the scene in Germany at the beginning of the 1980s. It included spirits who were as different as possible in terms of outlook on life and talent. However, they were united in the conviction that a revolution in artistic feeling and creativity was necessary. The rebellion against the prevailing taste of the time, in which Julius Wolff and Rudolf Baumbach were regarded as serious artists, was justified. The principle: "Life is serious, art is cheerful" had been distorted into a caricature in shallow minds. Virtuoso poetic 'dalliance' was no longer distinguished from the noble, beautiful form born from the depths of the soul. The time was struggling for a new world view that wanted to reckon with the great scientific results of the nineteenth century and for a social design that would give those left behind in the struggle for happiness their rightful place. The leading poets knew nothing of such upheavals. This realization brought forth the words of anger in the brothers Heinrich and Julius Hart, with which they declared war on contemporary taste in their "Kritische Waffengänge" in 1882. The poets who came together in 1884 to form the collection "Moderne Dichtercharaktere" were inspired by the same sentiment. And this initial rush was followed by the founding of journals and the publication of almanacs, in which disgust at outdated ideas found just as strong an expression as the boldest hopes for the future. Such sentiments gave rise to the recognition that for the past decade and a half has been increasingly accorded to a poet who, unlike many others, does not deliberately follow modern paths, but who naively embraces the circle of emotions that excite contemporary man with a vivid imagination: Detlev von Liliencron. He is a man full of life, who walks through life as a carefree enjoyer and is able to describe all its charms with vivid power. He is capable of all tones, from the most exuberant exuberance to the most fervent adoration of sublime works of nature. He is able to sing hymns of joy to frivolity and carelessness like a child of the world, and he can become pious like a priest when the heath spreads out its silent beauty before him. Liliencron is not a poet who looks at life from one point of view. You will search in vain for a unified world view that could be expressed in clear ideas. At every moment, he is completely absorbed in the impressions to which he has given himself. He does not worry or think about what lies beyond the things of the world. Instead, like a true bon vivant, he savors everything that lies within things. And he always finds the characteristic tone and the most perfect form to express the wealth of perceptions that impose themselves on his senses, which thirst for the whole breadth of reality. He has no need to distinguish between the valuable and the insignificant in this reality, for he is able to draw from the sight of an "old, discarded, torn, half-rotten, abandoned boot" a sentiment whose expression is worthy of a mood that the poet arouses in us. Liliencron draws natural scenes and experiences with rough, masculine lines; he juxtaposes sharp, telling contrasts of color. The strength of his personality is particularly evident in his song lyrics. No intimacy of feeling, no bitter pain is capable of alienating his secure sense of self from himself even for a moment. [ 15 ] Under Liliencron's influence stands Otto Julius Bierbaum. However, he lacks a secure sense of self; he is a soft, dependent nature that always loses itself in the impressions of the outside world. Nowhere in his work is there any sign of a world view, of a conception that penetrates into the depths of beings. But while Liliencron's sharply defined personality physiognomy compensates for the same lack, Bierbaum's creations are devoid of higher interest. His amiable powers of observation know how to see little meaning in things. His mind is not burdened with the slightest urge for knowledge; what he copies from nature with a careless glance, he depicts in graceful, but sometimes rather uncharacteristic colors. He succeeds in creating charming images of nature; he is able to depict the small impulses of the heart in a magnificent way. Where he aims higher, he becomes unnatural. The big words, the powerful tones to which he often stoops, sound hollow because they have nothing shocking or exciting to communicate. Bierbaum appears like a walker who would like to play a hiker. When he pretends to be boldly and exuberantly pilgrimaging through life, it can't be particularly interesting because he avoids the abysses and dangers. [ 16 ] Another poet dependent on Liliencron, Gustav Falke, arouses almost opposite feelings. He seeks out life in its mysterious depths, where it raises doubts and poses riddles. He is characterized by a highly developed artistic conscience. In his imagination, the events of the world are transformed into beautiful images. He searches in a serious way for harmony between desires and duties. He strives for the pleasures of existence; but he only wants them if his own merit wins them for him. Victory after a hard struggle is to his liking; he cannot particularly appreciate an easier one. Many an anxious question to fate springs from his serious spirit; a firm belief that man can be content if he adapts himself to the conditions of life leads him out of doubts and puzzles. There is something heavy in Falke's poetry; but this is only a consequence of his conception, which searches for the weighty qualities of things. [ 17 ] Through serious artistic endeavor, Otto Ernst has worked his way up from a sentimental patheticist to a poet worthy of respect. Although his expression lacks immediacy and independence and his sensibility lacks moderation, there is much in his collections and among his poems published in magazines that reveals a true poetic personality. Especially where he remains in the modest circle of domestic happiness, of everyday events, Otto Ernst succeeds in creating atmospheric creations of a coherent art form. He becomes highly attractive when he lets his humor prevail, which has nothing worldly, but rather something philistine and mischievous, but which hits the nail on the head for those who are able to take the things in question seriously enough. One often has the feeling that Otto Ernst would accomplish far more if he naively abandoned himself to his original feelings and ideas and did not almost always do violence to them through the strict view he has of the tasks of art; he destroys many a charming feeling, many a meaningful image through an added, clever comparison, through a doctrinaire twist, through a philosophical observation that is supposed to say a lot but is usually only trivial. [ 18 ] Poets of less distinctive character are Arthur von Wallpach, Wilhelm von Scholz and Hugo Salus. Wallpach's feeling for nature and his trust in life are reminiscent of Liliencron. Enchanting mood painting, sometimes in briskly applied, sometimes in intimately graded tones, is characteristic of him. Wilhelm von Scholz is one of those poets in whom every feeling, every idea is distorted when it is to be transformed by the imagination into an image. The word always strives to transcend that which the emotion encompasses. If it has a beautiful image in mind, it spoils it by emphasizing the content twice. His imagination is not content to say what is necessary; it overwhelms us with all the accidental ideas that come to it apart from what is necessary. Hugo Salus sometimes expresses the simple in too strange a way. Anyone who knows how to draw as much pleasure from nature as he does is surprised when he illustrates this pleasure with ideas that are often quite far-fetched. Salus does not focus his eye directly on things, as it were, but seeks out an altered reflection of them. [ 19 ] The lyrical poems of Otto Erich Hartleben are born of a pure sense of beauty and highly developed taste. His style is characterized by a rare plastic power. Transparent clarity and perfect vividness is a basic trait of his imagination. This is the case despite the fact that his imagination is only slightly fertilized by images taken from external nature. It almost exclusively shapes the inner experiences of his own personality. This poet, who as a novelist and dramatist seeks out the contradictions of reality as objectively as possible and mercilessly reveals the humor inherent in the processes of life, holds a dialogue with his soul in his poetry, making intimate confessions to himself. One has the feeling that these are the most important, the most meaningful moments of his soul's life in which he expresses himself as a lyricist. He is then completely alone with himself and with little that is dear to him in the world. His most beautiful poems were written at turning points in his life, at moments when decisive events were taking place in his heart. And they speak of their creator's sense of calm, simple beauty, style and artistic harmony. Otto Erich Hartleben is more of a contemplative than an active nature. There is nothing impetuous in his nature. He is less a creative than a creative spirit. He prefers to let the content come to him, and then he takes pleasure in shaping it; that is where his productivity unfolds. He lacks Liliencron's verve, but he possesses the quiet grandeur that Goethe claims in his "Winckelmann" is the hallmark of true beauty. In the midst of the Sturm und Drang of the present, Otto Erich Hartleben, the lyricist, can be described as one of those who approach classical artistic ideals. His entire personality is attuned to an aesthetic-artistic view of the world. He only understands the problems of life to the extent that mature taste is called upon to decide them. Philosophy only exists for him insofar as he has a personal relationship to its questions. He can strike soft, intimate tones, but only those that are compatible with a proud, self-assured nature. All pathos is as alien to him as possible. [ 20 ] Ferdinand Avenarius knows how to harmonize a certain classical-academic form and conception with modern sensibilities. His poetry has grown up on the foundation of theoretical ideas. His feelings do not emerge directly, but allow the ideas of reason to shine through everywhere. He has created a poem "Live!" in which he does not communicate his feelings, but an objective personality communicates his own. This kind of objective poetry will never be cultivated by a completely original spirit. It requires artistic conviction to serve as a support for the artistic imagination. III[ 21 ] What we so sorely lack in many of our most important contemporary poets, the prospect of a great, free world view, we encounter in the most beautiful sense in Ludwig Jacobowski. With his recently published collection "Leuchtende Tage", he has placed himself at the forefront of contemporary poets. In this book, the entire scope of human spiritual life is laid out before us as if in a mirror. The sublimity and perfection of the world as a whole, the relationship of the soul to the world, human nature in its most diverse forms, the sufferings and joys of love, the pains and bliss of the cognitive instinct, the mysterious paths of fate, social conditions and their repercussions on the human mind: all these elements of the great organism of life find their poetic expression in this book. Every single thing that this poet encounters, he grasps with receptive senses and with fertile imagination; but again and again he also finds access to the essence of the world that lies behind the flow of individual phenomena. The title of his book "Shining Days" seems to us like a symbol of his whole way of thinking. Like "eternal stars", the "shining days" of life console him for all the suffering and hardship with which the path to our life's goal is covered. Jacobowski formed this sunny world view out of hard struggles. It gives his creations a liberating undertone. His feelings are driven by the highest interests of life with a warmth and intimacy that are personal and immediate in the most beautiful sense. Just as the philosopher's reason distracts him from the individual experience and points him to those bright regions where the transience of everyday life is only a parable for the eternal powers of nature, so his immediate feelings push this poet in the same direction. He is an inventor of the world, just as the philosopher is a thinker of the world. He sees things with childlike, lively senses in their full, fresh tones of color; and he shapes them in the sense of harmony, without the contemplation of which the more deeply inclined person cannot live. Whoever possesses such poetic power, the highest wisdom works like the most loving naivety. The three most monumental forms of the life of the soul are revealed by Jacobowski in their innermost relationship: the childlike, the artistic and the philosophical. Weiler unites these three forms in himself in an original way and succeeds in striking poetic sparks from life everywhere. Unlike so many contemporary poets, he does not need to search for shells in order to extract precious pearls from them; the seed he reaches out for is enough for him. Jacobowski is far removed from anything artificial or elaborate. He uses the closest, simplest, clearest means. Just as the folk song always finds the simplest expression for the deepest emotional content, so does this poet. He has a feeling for the broad, simple lines of the world's context. He is understood by the naive mind, and he has the same effect on the philosopher who struggles with the eternal riddles of existence. Whether he speaks to us of the experiences of his own soul or describes the fate of a person who is transplanted from the country to the big city to be crushed by life, it will affect us to the same extent. In Jacobowski's nature, there is tenderness alongside substance. He has a firm trust in the direction of his soul. He spurns all the buzzwords of the time, all the favorite ideas of individual currents of the present. What flows from the strength of his personality is the only thing that determines him. In him, we encounter none of the abstruse oddities of those who today turn away from the healthy hustle and bustle of the world and search for all kinds of aesthetic and philosophical-mystical quirks in lonely corners of existence; he can hear the noise of the day because he feels the security within himself to find his way. [ 22 ] A lyricist whose greatest power lies in the design, in the plastic rounding of the image, is Carl Busse. Within the framework of this image there is rarely anything significant in terms of content, but usually a meaningful mood. This poet is characterized by a fine sense of style for the appearance of form. He knows how to let the basic feeling of a poem come to life in the turns of language, in the harmony of expression. He is not concerned with the deepening of a feeling, but with its vivid, colorful imprint. When Busse paints us a mood, we will not miss a color tone that makes it a rounded whole, nor will we be easily disturbed by a foreign tone. The effervescence of emotion, the urge of passion never appears directly in his work, but is always subdued by artistic moderation. When he speaks of nature, he keeps himself in the middle between the naïve and the pathetic; when he communicates his own emotions to us, they do not come at us in a storm, but in measured steps. Buss's similes and symbols are not meaningful, but concise; his ideas move freely and swiftly from thing to thing; but the poet always knows how to firmly delimit the perimeter within which they are allowed to unfold. Thus Busse's poetry will satisfy those in particular who value external form above all else in poetry; the deeper natures who seek the great, the meaningful content, will not receive any strong impressions from his creations. [ 23 ] In a most amiable manner, Martin Boelitz finds the expression for the most intimate moods of nature. Transient phenomena, which demand a careful eye if their fleeting, delicate beauty is to be captured, are his domain. His images of nature do not become vivid, but meaningful parables. And he clothes abstract ideas in a sensual garment, so that we may not be able to grasp them, but we believe we can feel them. Thus he lets "all wishes stand still" and "dream the day away"; thus he personifies "longing" and "loneliness". He sings less about the soul that lies in things than about the soul that spreads like a delicate fragrance between things and above them in an ethereal way. When he speaks of himself, he does so in a tone of spirited, serious cheerfulness. His view of life is a cheerful one; but it does not spring from deep thinking, but from a naïve carelessness. He does not overcome the difficulties of life; he takes his paths where there are none. It is not in the possession of strength that he feels happy, but in dreaming of such strength. [ 24 ] Paul Remer draws on two sources: subtle thinking and a symbolically effective imagination. He is always based on a sentence, a thought; but he knows how to weave it into a symbolic process in such a way that we forget the mystery and are led to believe that he has extracted the symbolic from the process. Whether he depicts the experiences of the human soul symbolically in this way, whether he speaks of natural phenomena or of human actions: he is equally attractive. As he says in a poem about a blind woman: she listens to "the secret confidences of things", so he does it himself. He does not tell us what effects things have on each other, but what their souls have to say to each other. Remer does not describe the bright colors or the loud sounds of nature, but rather the deeper meaning of the colors and sounds. [ 25 ] The poetry of Kurt Geuckes has sharp, characteristic lines. He does not offer us a unique, individual world of feeling. Thousands felt and feel like him. He is animated by an idealism that is universally human. But he possesses a rare poetic power to express this idealism. Strictly closed, artistic forms do not express an original, but a solid world view. The poet's fiery imagination depicts the darker sides of life in deep, poignant images. However, hope always spreads above the suffering and pain, appearing in a form that can only emerge from the conviction of a true idealist. He also reaches for the symbol when he wants to depict the meaningful in nature, and the symbols always have something masculine about them. But he is also no stranger to the mystical mood, and he always finds a healthy pathos to express it. His mind is turned towards the beautiful and great in the world, for the sake of which he gladly endures the small, ugly and depressing. [ 26 ] A noble sense of nature and a soul in need of freedom speak from the poems of Fritz Lienhard. But these two traits of his personality are not very pleasing due to the one-sidedness with which they appear. The poet repeats in a rather monotonous way the healthy nature of simple, rural conditions and the depravity of the big city. The magnificent Wasgau forest and the "Venusberg" of Berlin: his love and his hate are enclosed in these two images. His enthusiasm for the fresh country also corresponds to a naive technique that works with the simplest of means. [ 27 ] Whoever wants to calculate the driving forces of cultural development in recent decades will undoubtedly have to put a high figure on the proportion of women in public life. But perhaps in no other field is this share as clear as in poetry. For while in other fields women appear as fighters and wrestlers, here they are givers and communicators. Otherwise she tells us what she wants to be; here she expresses what she is. This has given us great insights into the female soul. Because the woman felt compelled to shape her inner life artistically, she herself has first become clearly aware of it. Books such as Gabriele Reuter's "Aus guter Familie", Helene Böhlau's "Halbtier" or Rosa Mayreder's "Idole" appear to men like insights into a new world. [ 28 ] It is understandable that the most intimate art, poetry, also reveals to us the deepest secrets of a woman's heart. The most striking characteristic of modern women's poetry is its frankness about the nature of women. The present age, which has made unreserved truth a requirement of genuine art, has also opened women's mouths. What she once carefully guarded as the sanctuary of the heart, she now entrusts to art. She has gained faith, confidence in her own being, and while the important women of earlier times unconsciously pursued the ideals and goals of men when they wanted to form a view of life, today's women are building one of their own accord. [ 29 ] The poetic creations of Ricarda Huch show us how clear and inwardly stable such a view of life can be. She has conquered a high, free point of view from which she surveys the phenomena of the world. Although she is not able to see this world in the sun's glare from her height, but only to resign herself to the nothingness of existence, she nevertheless finds in this resignation the inner freedom that an independently inclined person needs in order to find their way in life. Even if she finds the ship of life hurtling towards death, towards annihilation, she draws satisfaction from the awareness that she is allowed to set her sights firmly on the goal. It is not surprising that the female Faustian nature does not know how to create satisfaction for her striving in the first rush, since the male nature has hardly progressed beyond doubtfulness despite thousands of years of struggle. How could a female Nietzsche today elevate the life-affirming "Überweib" to an ideal, since we have experienced Schopenhauer's enthusiasm for nirvana in this century and Novalis' view that death is the true, higher purpose of life? [ 30 ] The lyrical creations of Anna Ritter are not born out of the great questions of existence, not out of deep doubts and torments, but also out of a genuinely feminine feeling. Something graceful and musical is poured over her poetry. Nowhere does she struggle with form, but she sometimes achieves a perfection in this direction that must silence any critical doubts. Her talent for rhythm and the euphony of language seems so natural that the originality of many a praised nature poet looks like stiltedness in comparison. Love appears in the light that only the true, open-hearted woman can lend it. Sensuality speaks tenderly and chastely from Anna Ritter's songs; feminine desire expresses itself warmly and intimately. The poetry of the mother appears in graceful magic; the life of nature does not emerge powerfully, but all the more sweetly from this poet's soul. Her genuinely feminine disposition comes to the fore in the "Storm Songs". It is not the great male storm that rages in them, but the mysteriousness of the female soul. They are storms that are not overcome by the eternal, but by a happy, spirited optimism of life. [ 31 ] Marie Stona is gifted with a clear awareness of the nature of women and their relationship to men. The contrast of the sexes and the effect of this contrast on the nature of the feeling of love: these are the ideas that tremble through her soul. Does the man give as much to the woman as she gives to him, that is an anxious question for her. And must not woman give man more than he can return, if she is to increase his strength and not destroy it? How can woman preserve her pride, her self-confidence, and yet sacrifice her self on the altar of love? These are the eternal cultural questions of woman that this poet explores and which she seeks to shape from a mind that is as rich as it is deep. [ 32 ] The poems of Thekla Lingen express the moods to which the woman of the present day succumbs, who, because of a highly developed sense of freedom and personality, finds the social position offered to her by traditional views uncomfortable. They contain none of the thoughts and tendencies that come to light in modern women's issues. Thekla Lingen only expresses what she thinks and feels individually. But it is precisely this individuality that appears as the elementary content of the cultural struggle of women, which only comes to light in an intellectual way in the emancipation efforts. IV[ 33 ] Modern intellectual culture does not make it easy for people with a deep soul to find their way in life. The natural science reformed by Charles Darwin has brought us a new world view. It has shown us that living beings in nature, from the simplest forms up to the most perfect forms, have developed according to eternal, iron laws, and that man has no higher, purer origin than his animal fellow creatures. Furthermore, our intellect cannot close itself to this conviction. But our heart, our emotional life, cannot follow the intellect quickly enough. We still have within us the feeling that thousands of years of education have implanted in the human race: that this natural kingdom, this earthly world, which according to the new view has brought forth from its mother's womb like all other creatures, including man, has a lower existence than what we call "ideal", "divine". We would like to feel like children of a higher world order. It is a burning question of our spiritual development to follow the truth recognized by reason with our hearts. We can only return to peace when we no longer find the natural contemptible, but are able to revere it as the source of all being and becoming. Few of our contemporaries feel this as deeply as Friedrich Nietzsche did. For him, the confrontation with the modern and scientific world view became a matter of the heart that shook his entire emotional life. He began by studying the ancient Greeks and Richard Wagner's philosophical world of thought. And in Schopenhauer he found an "educator". This man of fine mind felt the suffering at the bottom of every human soul to a special degree. And he believed that the ancient Greeks up to Socrates, with their drives and instincts not yet faded by intellectual culture, were particularly afflicted with this suffering. In his view, art had only served them to create an illusion of life within which they could forget the pain that raged within them. Wagner's art, with its high, idealistic impetus, seemed to him to be the means to similarly lead us moderns beyond the deepest suffering of life. For the basic mood of every true human being is tragic. And only the artistic imagination can make the world bearable. Nietzsche had found the tragic human being described in Schopenhauer's philosophy. It corresponded to what he had gained from his studies of the world view in the "tragic age of the Greeks". He approached modern natural science with such attitudes. And it made a great demand on him. It teaches that nature has created the sequence of stages of living beings through development. It has placed man at the pinnacle of development. Should this development stop with man? No, man must continue to develop. He has gone from animal to man without his intervention; he must become superhuman through his intervention. This requires strength, the fresh, unbroken power of instincts and drives. And now Nietzsche became an admirer of everything strong, everything powerful that leads man beyond himself to the superman. He could no longer reach for artistic illusion to deceive himself about life; he wanted to implant as much health, as much strength into life itself as was necessary to achieve a superhuman goal. All idealism, he now believed, sucks this strength out of man, for it leads him away from nature and presents him with an unreal world. Nietzsche now makes war on all idealism. He worships healthy nature. He had tried to absorb the conviction of natural science into his mind. But he absorbed it into a weak, sick organism. His own personality was no carrier, no nursery for the superman. And so, although he could present it to mankind as an ideal, he could speak of it in enthusiastic tones, but he felt the glaring contrast when he compared himself with this ideal. The dream of the superman is his philosophy; his real life of the soul, with its deep dissatisfaction with the inadequacy of his own existence in the face of all superhumanity, generated the moods from which his Iyrian creations sprang. With Nietzsche there is not only a dichotomy between intellect and mind; no, the rift runs right through the life of the mind itself. Everything great comes from strength: that was his confession. A confession that not only his reason recognized, but to which he clung with all his feelings. And the strong man seemed to him like the opposite of himself. The unspeakable pain that overcame him when he looked at himself in relation to his world of ideas, he expressed it in his poems. A soul divided within itself is expressed in them. You have to feel the deep tragedy of Nietzsche's soul if you want to let his poems have an effect on you. One then understands the gloom in them, which cannot come from the joy of life for which he found such beautiful words as a philosopher. Because Nietzsche made the modern world view of natural science his personal cause, he also personally experienced nameless suffering under its influence. He, the thinker of the affirmation of life, who exultantly proclaims that we do not live our lives only once, that all things experience an "eternal return": he became the lyricist of the dying life. He saw the sun setting on his own existence, he saw the weak organism rushing towards a terrible end, and he had to preach the joy of life from within this organism. For him, life meant enduring suffering. And even if existence returns countless times, it can bring him nothing but a never-ending repetition of the same torments. [ 34 ] The career of Hermann Conradi as a poet began promisingly. A youthful poetry is all he created in the short span of time he was granted to live. It looks like the dawn before a day that is as rich in stormy, exciting events as it is in sublime and beautiful ones. Two things weigh heavily on the bottom of his soul, which thirsts for all pleasures and knowledge. One is the realization of the painful fate of all mankind, whose gaze wanders out to the most distant stars and which would like to embrace the whole world with its life, and yet is condemned to see its existence bound to a small star, to a speck of dust in the universe. The other is the feeling that his own self is too weak to make his own possession of the little that is allotted to man in his limited existence. Man must lag far behind what his mind's eye sees as a distant goal; but I cannot even reach the near goals of mankind: this idea speaks from his poetry. It stirs up feelings in his mind that correspond to the eternal longing of all mankind, and also those that give deeper expression to his personal destiny. These feelings storm through his soul with demonic force. The urge to reach the heights of existence creates in Conradi a boundless desire; but this boundlessness never occurs without a serious longing for harmony of thought and will. The poet's world of thought strives towards the regions of the "great understanding of the world". But again and again he feels himself transported back to banal, worthless life and has to give in to dull resignation. Meagre symbols of the future paint themselves in the soul when it is seized by an ardent urge for satisfaction in the present. Such a change of moods is only possible in a spirit in which the high side of human nature dwells, and yet which also courageously admits to itself that it is not free from the low side of this nature. Conradi had a boundless sincerity towards the instincts in his personality that drew him down from the noble and beautiful. He wanted to bring his own self with all its sins up from the abysses of his inner self. The greatness that lies in the confession of his own misguided feelings and emotions is characteristic of him. Neither the memory of the past nor hope for the future can satisfy him. The former evokes an agonizing feeling of lost innocence and lust for life, the latter becomes a dreamlike nebulous image that dissolves into nothing when he tries to grasp it. And Conradii knows how to speak of all these feelings in his soul in bold and at the same time beautiful poetic forms. He has an extraordinary command of expression. He combines the power of feeling with true artistry. He has an extensive imagination that knows how to fetch ideas from everywhere in order to portray an inner life that wants to traverse all the spaces of the world. [ 35 ] Richard Dehmel's poetry has its origins in a similar school of thought. He too wants to encompass the whole wide world with his feelings. He wants to penetrate the secrets that rest in the depths of beings like enchanted creatures, and at the same time he longs for the pleasures that are bestowed upon us by the things of everyday life. He is actually a philosophical nature, a thinker who refuses to walk the paths of reason, of the ideal world, because he hopes to pick better fruit in the field of poetry, of the sensual, figurative life of the imagination. And the fruits he finds there are indeed often exquisite ones, even though one notices that they were gathered by someone who would have found others more suited to his nature even easier. He could have the thought in its purest, most transparent form, but he does not want it. He strives for contemplation, for the image. That is why his poetry appears like a symbolic philosophy. It is not the images that reveal to him the essence, the harmony of things, but his thinking that reveals them to him. And then the images spring up around the thought, like the substances in the formation of a crystal in a liquid. But we can seldom stop at these images, at these views, for they are not there for their own sake, but for the sake of the thought. As images, they have something vague about them. We are happy when we see through the image to the thought. Dehmel appears at his most outstanding when he expresses his ideas directly in the meaningful manner of expression that is characteristic of him, and does not first struggle for visualizations. Where he presents ideas in their pure, thought-like form, they appear large and weighty. He also succeeds at times in expressing his ideas in splendid symbols, but only when he puts together in the simplest form a few characteristic ideas of the senses; as soon as he reaches for a richer abundance of such ideas, the strangeness of his imagination, the unpictorial nature of his intuition leaps to the eye. But what reconciles us with him even then is the great seriousness of his will, the depth of his emotional world and the proud height of his points of view. His paths always lead to interesting, captivating destinations. One is happy to follow him even if one is already convinced at the beginning of the journey that it is a wrong path. Dehmel the man always shows himself to be greater than the poet. His grand gestures may often be distracting, indeed they can sometimes seem like posturing, but there can never be any doubt that there is a powerful feeling behind the loud tone. [ 36 ] A pithy nature is Michael Georg Conrad. The wholesome and folksy lives in his work. He combines strength with naivety. He succeeds in the simple song in a perfect way. He can speak to the heart in a powerful way. A noble enthusiasm for the truly sublime and beautiful can be heard in his creations. His real significance, however, lies in the field of the novel and in the powerful impulses he was able to give to German intellectual life when it was in danger of becoming bogged down in traditional forms. The future historian of our literature, who will not only look at phenomena according to their completed manifestation, but who will also trace the causes at work, must give Conrad a wide berth. [ 37 ] A poet whose sensations swirl around the world like an uncertain factor is Ludwig Scharf. He knows how to strike warm, touching notes; one must respect the impulses of his wandering soul; but one cannot escape the feeling that he himself is at ease in the labyrinths, that he likes to wander in the labyrinth and does not want the saving thread to lead him out. Scharf is an eccentric of the emotional life. He feels lonely; but his creations lack what could justify his loneliness: the greatness of a personality founded in himself. [ 38 ] Christian Morgenstern strives for the high points of view, from which all small peculiarities of things disappear and only the meaningful features are visible. His imagination seeks meaningful images, expressive content and saturated tones. Where the world speaks of its dignity, where man feels his self elevated by uplifting sensations: that is where this imagination likes to dwell. Morgenstern searches for the sharp, impressive characterization of feeling. You rarely find simplicity in his work; he needs resounding words to say what he wants. [ 39 ] The poetic physiognomies of Franz Evers', Hans Benzmanns and Max Bruns' are less pronounced. Franz Evers still lacks his own content and form. It is clear from many of his creations that he strives for the depths of existence and for a proud, self-confident freedom of personality. Yet everything remains nebulous and unclear. But he feels himself to be a seeker and a struggler, and he carries within him the conviction that the riddles of the world can only be solved by those who approach them with holy devotion. Max Bruns is still stuck in the imitation of foreign forms. That is why his sensuous poems, which bear witness to a beautiful feeling for nature, cannot make a significant impression for the time being, but they arouse the best hopes in many quarters. Hans Benzmann is not an independent individuality, but a pleaser who likes to surround the simple with all kinds of colorful decoration, and who seeks the poetic not in the straightforward, the simple, but in the cumbersome. He succeeds in creating many a beautiful image, but he is almost never able to express himself without the superfluous and trivial. V[ 40 ] John Henry Mackay is called the "first singer of anarchy" with the publication of his poems "Tempest" in 1888. In the book in which, in 1891, he described the cultural currents of our time with a clear view and from a deep knowledge, he emphasized in "The Anarchists" that he was proud of this name. This lyrical collection is one of the most independent books ever written. The Anarchist view of life, much maligned but little known, has found in Mackay a poet whose powerful feeling is fully equal to its great ideas. "In no field of social life" - he himself says in the "Anarchists" - "is there today a more hopeless confusion, a more naive superficiality, a more dangerous ignorance than in that of anarchism. The very utterance of the word is like the waving of a red scarf - most people rush at it in blind rage, without allowing themselves time for calm examination and reflection." The view of the true anarchist is that one man cannot rule over the actions of another, but that only a state of social life is fruitful in which each individual sets for himself the aim and direction of his actions. Everyone usually believes he knows what is equally pious for all people. Forms of community life - our states - are thought to be justified, which seek their task in supervising and guiding the ways of men. Religion, state, laws, duty, justice and so on are concepts that have arisen under the influence of the view that one should determine the goals of the other. Concern for one's "neighbor" extends to everything; only one thing remains completely unconsidered, namely, that if one person prescribes the ways to another's happiness, he deprives the latter of the possibility of providing for his own happiness. It is this one thing that anarchism regards as its goal. Nothing should be binding on the individual but what he imposes on himself as an obligation. It is sad that the name of the noblest of world views is misused to designate the conduct of the most learned disciples of violent domination, those fellows who believe they are realizing social ideals when they cultivate the so-called "propaganda of action". The follower of this school of thought stands on exactly the same ground as those who try to make their fellow human beings understand what they have to do by means of inquisition, the cannon and the penitentiary. The true anarchist fights against the "propaganda of action" for the same reason that he fights against communal orders based on violent intervention in the circle of the individual. The free, anarchist mode of imagination lives as a personal need in Mackay's emotional life. This need emanates as a mood from his lyrical creations. Mackay's noble feeling is rooted in the basic feeling that the personality has a great responsibility towards itself. Humble, devoted natures search for a deity, for an ideal that they can worship, adore. They cannot give themselves their value and therefore want to receive it from outside. Proud natures only recognize in themselves what they have made of themselves. Self-esteem is a fundamental trait of noble natures. They only want to contribute to the general value of the world by increasing their value as individuals. They are therefore sensitive to any foreign interference in their lives. Their own ego wants to be a world unto itself so that it can develop unhindered. Only from this sanctification of one's own person can the appreciation of another's self emerge. He who claims complete freedom for himself cannot even think of interfering in the world of another. One may therefore assert that this anarchism is the way of thinking that necessarily flows from the nature of the noble soul. He who appreciates the world must, if he understands himself, also appreciate that part of existence in which he directly intervenes in the world, his own self. Mackay is a noble, self-assured nature. And anyone who descends into the abysses of his own soul with such seriousness as he does awakens passions and desires in him of which the unfree have no idea. From the solitary point of view of the free soul, man's view of the world expands. "There the soul rises from brooding dreams to wander the paths of the world as the chosen one." When the gaze penetrates deep within, it also has the gift of wandering over the infinite spaces, and the human being enters the mood that Mackay expresses in his poem "Weltgang der Seele" ("The Soul's World Walk") in the words that the soul's "trembling wings were waved by courage for flight in the eternal spaces". [ 41 ] How deeply Mackay is able to feel with every human personality is demonstrated by his poignant poem "Helene". The love of a man for a fallen girl is portrayed here by a poet whose feeling and imagination have given him the warmth of expression that can only have its origin in the perfect freedom of the soul. If one pursues the human ego into such abysses, then one also gains the certainty of finding it on the heights. [ 42 ] Mackay has been called a tendentious poet. Those who do so show that they neither judge the nature of tendency poetry correctly nor know the relationship of the poet Mackay to the world view he represents. His ideals of freedom form the basic mood of his soul in such a way that they appear as an individual expression of his inner self, just as the sounds of love or the glorification of the beauties of nature do for others. And it is certainly no less poetic to give words to man's deepest thoughts than to his inclination towards women or his joy in the green forest and birdsong. To the eulogists of so-called "unintentional creativity", who are quick with their doctrinaire objections when they sense something like a thought in poetry, it should be borne in mind that man's most precious asset, freedom, does not arise in the dullness of the unconscious, but on the bright heights of developed consciousness. [ 43 ] About fifteen years ago, Karl Henckell turned the great question of contemporary life, the social question, into the basic motif of his poetry out of the stormy fire of an idealistic soul. He wanted to counter the poems of the 1970s, which comfortably proclaimed inherited ideas in new ways, with a "morning wake-up call of the victorious and liberating future". A hopeful idealism shines out of the gloomy feelings that compassion for the longings, aspirations and struggles of his time formed in Henckell. He did not want to serve the mendacious "old beauty", but the new truth, which creates an image of the suffering of the struggling contemporary human being. Plasticity of expression and harmony of tone cannot be the character of this poetry, which oscillates between indignation at the social experiences of the present and vague expectations of the future. The exaggerated hyperbole takes the place of the calmly beautiful metaphor. A stinging glow sprays from the verses, not soothing warmth. Freedom in all its forms becomes the idol to which the poet pays homage. He incorporates science, which allows the spiritual to emerge from the material, into his way of imagining so that it can free him from the bonds of religious bondage, the mythological way of looking at things. But the idea of freedom can also become a tyranny. If it shapes sharply defined life goals, it kills the truly independent life of nature. A heart that constantly cries out for freedom can perhaps mean nothing other than new shackles instead of the old ones. It is a higher development in Henckell's individuality that he also wanted to free himself from freedom again. He found the way to the inner freedom that says: "Let schools and parties teach and shout, you can only flourish as an artist and free yourself alone." The "Tambour", who wanted to serve the free spirit with a loud drumbeat, has transformed himself into the violinist who has found beauty and sings of it. And thus Henckell has also been granted the happiness that can be enjoyed by natures that are strong enough to create a purpose in life from within that meets the stormy desire, the longed-for ideals. It is not the trivial happiness that nourishes a fleeting existence from the superficial pleasures of life; it is the harsh happiness that rises like a proud castle above the steep rock of painful experiences, the happiness that Goethe meant when he had Tasso say: "And when man falls silent in his agony, a god gave me to say what I suffer." Bruno Wille called his Iyrian collection, published in 1897, "Einsiedelkunst aus der Kiefernheide". With this title, he made a significant reference to the basic character of his personality. He sought what his soul thirsted for in people: happiness and perfection. But he could not find them there. That is why he returned to where he had come from, to the hermitage of his soul, and chose nature as his companion, which keeps the loyalty that people talk so much about but do not know how to keep to one another. What he has striven for in vain in alliance with men is granted to him through the friendship of nature. It is not an innate trait of Wille's mind that drove him to hermitage. His soul would not have called out to him from the outset like Nietzsche's: "Flee into your solitude! You live too close to the small and wretched. Flee from their invisible revenge! Against you they are nothing but revenge." Although a rich inner life and a developed sense of nature were always present in Wille and he had developed a certain self-sufficiency in himself, he threw himself into the hustle and bustle of social community life. What in Nietzsche stems from the hypersensitivity of the organism, from its peculiarity of smelling the many impurities in the souls of people, as it were, was brought about in Wille through rich experience within the hustle and bustle of the "flies of the market". This experience gave rise to a desire that appears in Nietzsche like a prejudice: "Worthy know the forest and the rock to be silent with you. Resemble again the tree you love, the broad-headed one: silent and listening, it hangs over the sea." And Bruno Wille not only knows how to be silent with the forest and the rock, but also how to hold an intimate conversation with them. He knows how to loosen nature's tongue. The silent plants, the mystical blowing of the wind, they reveal to him the intimate secrets of nature, and the distant stars entrust him with great revelations. His gaze rises to the red Mars, whose surface is covered not by naïve popular belief but by serious science with its legendary inhabitants, to spy out where the poor, imperfect children of the earth can find redemption from the old woe. The longing of his soul sucks in the sublime sounds of eternal nature in order to live together with the universe, to weave his own self into the infinite soul of the world. "Endless hosts of worlds shall you, the soul, travel..." And this own self is not the empty, insubstantial self of the enthusiast who seeks outside what he cannot find within himself; it is the full self that longs for a fulfillment that brings him just such riches as it holds within itself. The poor self gives itself away because it is needy; the rich self pours out its abundance into its surroundings. A poetic pantheism speaks to us from Wille's poetry. What Goethe desires and expresses in "Künstlers Abendlied": "How I long for you, nature, to feel you faithful and dear!.... You will cheer up all my powers in my mind, and extend this narrow existence to eternity", that lives as the keynote in Wille's poetry. [ 44 ] In Julius Hart's soul too, as in Bruno Wilde's, the individual spirit marries with the All-Spirit. But this All-Spirit is not the natural spirit resting blissfully in itself; it is a world spirit ravaged by all the storms of human passion. Its feelings float back and forth between drunken enjoyment, proud joy in eternal becoming and dull renunciation. Birth and death, which nature only shows in its outer shell, which revolves around the deep, eternal, never dying life: we encounter them again and again in Hart's poetry. In this poet we find a sense of nature that does not bring up the noble harmony of the gods from the depths of things, but instead sees its own soul moods embodied in the processes of the outside world. What is going on in his heart is proclaimed to him by nature in large-scale symbolism. And the rhythms with which he sings of this symbolism are captivating. The primordial in the human being, the great, gigantic destiny that does not act from the outside, but which from the abysses of the soul drives individuality demoniacally onwards through good and evil, through truth and error, through joys and pains: Hart finds words for this that resound fully and weigh heavily on our souls. Understandably, such a poet also had to find tones for the feeling that comes from the region of the soul that is most developed in modern man, the social one. This social feeling has awakened feelings in his own heart, as they appear in his poem "On the Journey to Berlin", which provides a reflex image of the unsparing, great world events of the present from a strong, deeply excitable soul. There is a philosophical streak in Hart's personality. It lends his poems seriousness and depth. And this trait is thoroughly Iyrical. Even where he could be philosophical, Hart becomes lyrical. This can be seen in his book "The New God", in which he sets out his world view. What he has in mind as such is not laid out in thought, but sounds out of a lyrical mood. [ 45 ] Clara Müller has earned the right to be counted among the social poets with her collection "Mit roten Kressen". The appealing thing about these poems is that the social imagination and thinking is thoroughly personal. The poet's own suffering and renunciations have opened her eyes to those of others. And how rich her life was in instructive experiences is also beautifully attested to by the poetry, which appears in form with noble simplicity. [ 46 ] Gustav Renner and Paul Bornstein may be mentioned when speaking of the personalities on whom one places hopes for the future. The simple, natural tones of the former and the pathos of the latter, which seems to be truthful. The simple, natural tones of the former and the warmth of the latter, which seems like truth, certainly arouse such hopes. [ 47 ] In his first poems, we encounter more maturity in Emanuel von Bodman. His style evokes an impression reminiscent of Rembrandt's paintings. He loves to juxtapose significant perceptions that form sharp contrasts, so that together they have great expressive power. The epigrammatic brevity that is characteristic of him is heightened in its effect by such juxtapositions. VI[ 48 ] "In a truly beautiful work of art the content should do nothing, but the form everything; for through the form alone the whole of man is acted upon, while through the content only individual forces are acted upon. The content, however sublime and far-reaching it may be, therefore always has a restrictive effect on the spirit, and true aesthetic freedom can only be expected from the form. This, then, is the real secret of the master's art, that he extinguishes the material through the form; and the more imposing, presumptuous, seductive the material is in itself, the more arbitrarily it pushes itself forward with its effect, or the more the viewer is inclined to engage directly with the material, the more triumphant is the art that forces it back and asserts its dominion over it." With these words, Schiller described an artistic goal in his letters "On the Aesthetic Education of Man", as envisioned by the poet Stefan George. The sensation, the feeling, the image that tremble in the artist's soul must first be shaped and formed if they are to have artistic value. Every fiber of these primal elements of the soul's life must have been seized by the creative power and made into something other than its natural state. For this only excites man, it is no concern of the artist. He is not concerned with the individual colors, the individual sounds, the individual ideas, but with the way in which they are put together in the work that we enjoy aesthetically. Schiller evidently saw an ideal in this cult of form, but felt that it could easily fall into loneliness, and therefore added that the more imposing and powerful the content, the material, and the more powerful the form that has to cope with it, the more valuable the form is. The more captivating what one has to say is, the greater the skill required to say it in a way that is pleasing as such. In poetry, the artist has to deal with his own soul; his feelings, his emotions are the material. The art will not lie in the fact that these sentiments and feelings have greatness, but that greatness appears in how these emotions of the soul are expressed. Whoever remains within Schiller's mode of conception will, however, have to admit that the more significant the content that is expressed, the more highly the mode of expression, however artful it may be, is to be valued. In poetry, it is the artist's own soul that provides this 'content, the personality. The greater the personality we see through the lyrical work of art, the more valuable it will appear to us. Robert Zimmermann, who as an aesthete radically carried out the view that it is form alone that arouses artistic pleasure, said in order to make this clear: one and the same thing, for example a statue, is a stone to the naturalist, especially the mineralogist, and a demigod to the aesthete. The former is merely concerned with the material, the latter with what has been artistically made from the material. With regard to poetry, one would have to say in the sense of this view: the emotions of the soul of another may be attractive or repulsive to man, they may cause his participation or his antipathy; to the aesthete they can only be harmonious or inharmonious, rhythmic or unrhythmic. [ 49 ] Stefan George now lives entirely in the element of artistic expression, of form. When the vibrations of his soul emerge, they should no longer cling to anything that merely interests the human being; they should be completely absorbed in the artistic element of form. The world only gains value for this personality insofar as it is rhythmically moving, harmoniously shaped, insofar as it is beautiful. And if others see beauty in the fact that the eternal, the elemental forces of existence appear to us in the transient, Stefan George denies the eternal entities any value if they are not beautiful. His three collections of poems: "Hymns, Pilgrimages, Algabal" - "Books of Pastoral and Prize Poems, of Sagas and Songs of the Hanging Gardens" - the "Year of the Soul", they are the world as rhythm and harmony. The world is my rhythm and my harmony, and what does not flow into this golden realm, I leave behind in the chaos of the worthless: that is George's basic mood. [ 50 ] One might call this mood drunk with beauty. And Hugo von Hofmannsthal is also drunk with beauty. But if one can say of Stefan George: he forces beauty to come to him, then one must say of Hofmannsthal: this beauty forces him to himself. Like a bee, he flies through the world; and there he stops, where there is the honey of the spirit, the beauty, to collect. And just as honey is not the blossom and fruit itself, but only the juice from it, so Hofmannsthal's art is not a revelation of the eternal secrets of the world, but only a part of this whole. One gladly accepts this part and enjoys it in solitary hours, just as the bee feeds on the collected honey in winter. The Viennese poet's art is as sweet as honey. But the power that gigantically creates the things of the world and animates them is missing in this art. It is not stormed by the power and passion of the elements; it blows in it and weaves a harmony of the spheres that resounds at the bottom of the world's soul. And it must become quite still and silent around us, the storm of world events must cease, the wild will must die for a moment if we want to hear the quiet music of this poet. The strange similes of this lyric poet, his peculiar paraphrases and word combinations only impose themselves on the mind that seeks exquisite beauty. Those who seek the eternal forces of nature in their characteristic manifestations will pass these beauties by. For they are like the revelations of the eternal in the luxury of nature. And yet, even in Hofmannsthal's oddities, one senses the necessity of world phenomena. One will not be able to fend off the accusation of a philistine mode of imagination if one rejects this luxurious art; but it must be conceded that few human creations are such seducers of philistinism as the poems of Hugo von Hofmannsthal. [ 51 ] The mood of devotion, standing in adoration before the eternal riddles of nature, resounds to us from the lyrical poems of Johannes Schlaf. So great, so lofty, so mysterious are the riddles before him that he can only look at them with half-open eyes because he is afraid to allow the fullness of existence to penetrate him. The anticipation pours into his soul enough of the blissful delight of the glories of the world; he wants to avoid full vision, the brightness of perception. He, too, resorts to rare imaginings in order to clothe the imagined in words; but not as a spirit drunk with beauty, but because of his passionate devotion to the truth, whose majesty he does not want to bring too close to the sober senses through the garb of everyday life. This poet, who is one of the prophets of radical naturalism in the field of drama: as a lyric poet, he has made himself a singer of the eternal essences that are hidden deep within things. [ 52 ] Arno Holz took a different path of development. He turned away from the beautiful, naturalistic poetry to which he was devoted at the beginning of his career. The naturalistic doctrine has gained the upper hand over naturalness. For it is natural that feeling in art rises above direct experience. The style that gives a higher form to perceptions: it springs from a natural longing. From that which feels most satisfied when man finds means of art which stand without precedent in life, which are the soul's own free creation and yet revelations of the eternal elemental forces. Goethe describes this satisfaction by characterizing the impression of music. "The dignity of art is perhaps most eminent in music, because it has no substance that needs to be accounted for. It is entirely form and content and elevates and ennobles everything it expresses." For every inner experience, when it emerges from the depths of the soul, should, in Holz's opinion, bring its own individual form into the world; and only this form, born simultaneously with the content, should be the natural one. Holz does not want to accept the path from the experience to the completed artistic form. It is not, as Schiller says, in the conquest of the material by the form that the true artistic secret of the master lies; rather, the master is the one who is able to eavesdrop on the form lying within the material. In this way, Holz has turned from the inspiring singer, who was moved when he expressed the fate of misery, the longing for a better future, into the careful recorder of immediate impressions, which only give satisfaction to the aesthetic feeling when they are accidentally artistic. However, they very often are, because the poetic spirit lives in wood despite its theory, which is hostile to poetic art in the higher sense. [ 53 ] The poems of Cäsar Flaischlen are effective due to the deep, cozy personality that expresses itself in them. He is a personality who is not able to take life lightly. He has to fight against the passionate strivings of the soul. It thirsts for satisfaction. Pride wants to conquer it, which keeps it away from its goals. But in the end, it is not unlimited power that she trusts, but a bit of modesty that sets herself manly goals when she sees that the distant ones are unattainable. For Flaischlen would rather be a full man within the narrower circle than half a man within the wider one. To be whole in accordance with his own soul fund, inwardly harmonious and based on himself: that is the basic character of his personality. The things of the world pass before his eyes with dignified simplicity, and his verses and his particularly charming poems in prose flow just as simply, often all too unpretentiously. [ 54 ] Richard Schaukal has a gift for observation that focuses on the expressive in the world. Things and events are stylized for his gaze. He transforms the sublime into the sublime, and the beautiful into the simply beautiful. For his eye, the slender expands completely into a straight line; the transitions from one thing to another cease, and contrast abruptly replaces contrast. But all this in such a way that we have the impression that in his art things clarify themselves through sharp contours and contrasts; they make their indeterminacy disappear and emphasize their characteristic features. A colorful language is on a par with this way of looking at things. He is able to say meaningfully what he has seen meaningfully. He is at the beginning of his artistic career. It seems to be a meaningful beginning. [ 55 ] The imagination of Rainer Maria Rilke is wonderfully sensitive to the intimate relationships of natural beings and human experiences. And he has an accuracy of expression that is able to present all the subtle relationships between the things that the poet discovers to us with full, rich tones. This is not the accuracy of the great characterizer, this is that of the nature-loving wanderer who loves the things he encounters on his wanderings and to whom they tell many of their quiet secrets because they too love him and have gained his trust. [ 56 ] Hans Bethge has sonorous colors of expression and a great capacity for impressing the solemn tones of the outside world. However, neither evokes the feeling that it comes from the poet's very own soul, but appears as an expression of what is felt. This impression is heightened by the coquetry with which this poetry approaches us. It is likely, however, that this strangeness in the poet's personality is only a precursor to his own beautiful achievements, the forerunners of which can be heard in his current creations. |
292. The History of Art I: Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael
01 Nov 1916, Dornach Tr. Unknown Rudolf Steiner |
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Raphael: Madonna in Green. (Vienna.) Raphael: Madonna of the Goldfinch. |
292. The History of Art I: Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael
01 Nov 1916, Dornach Tr. Unknown Rudolf Steiner |
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In our last lecture we showed the period of Art which finally merged into that of the great masters of the Renaissance. We ended by revealing the connecting threads in the artistic world of feeling, which finally led up to what was so wondrously united in Leonardo, in Michangelo and in Raphael. Yet at the same time, in these three masters we must also see the starting point of the new age, in an artistic sense. It is the dawn of the 5th post-Atlantean age, which is heralded in the realm of Art. All three were living, at the beginning of the 5th post-Atlantean age. Leonardo was born in 1452, Michelangelo in 1475 and Raphael in 1483; Leonardo dies in 1519, Raphael in 1520, and Michelangelo in 1564. Here we find ourselves at the starting point of the new age. At the same time, something is contained in these artists which we must undoubtedly regard as a culmination of the spiritual stream of preceding ages, inasmuch as they poured their impulses into the realm of Art. It is true, my dear friends, that in our time people have little understanding for what is important in this respect, for in our time—I do not say this as mere criticism—art has been far too much expelled from the spiritual life as a whole. It is even considered a failing of the historian or critic, if he seeks once more to give Art its place in the spiritual life as a whole. People say that our attention is thus diverted unduly from the artistic or aesthetic impulses as such, attaching an excessive value to the content, to the subject-matter, and yet, this need not be the case at all. Indeed, it is only in our own time that this distinction has acquired so much importance. It had no such direct significance in former epochs—epochs when the artistic understanding was more developed in the ordinary common sense of the people. We must not forget how much has been done to extirpate a true artistic understanding by all the atrocities which have been placed before the human mind of men in recent times, by way of pictorial representation and the like. True understanding for the manner of representation has been lost. European humanity, in a certain sense, no longer cares how a given subject-matter is presented to it. In wide circles, artistic understanding has to a large extent been lost. Speaking of former epochs, and especially of the epoch to which we are now referring, we may truly say artists such as Raphael, Michelango and Leonardo were by no means one-sidedly artistic, but carried in their souls the whole of the spiritual life of their time and created out of this. In saying this, I do not mean that they borrowed their subject-matter from the spiritual life of their time. I mean far more than this. Into the specifically artistic quality of their creation, in form and colouring, there flowed the specific quality of the world-conception of that time. In our time, a world-conception is a collection of ideas which can, of course, be represented in sculpture or in painting and it is frequently embodied, needless to say, in forms and colours and the like which to the true artistic sense will nevertheless be an atrocity. In this respect, unfortunately, we must repeatedly utter warnings, even within our anthroposophical stream of evolution. The feeling for what is truly artistic is not always prevalent among us. I still remember with a shudder how at the beginning of the theosophical movement in Germany a man once came to me in Berlin, bringing with him reproductions of a picture he had painted. The subject was: Buddha under the Bodhi Tree. It is true there sat a huddled figure under a tree, but the man—if you will pardon me the apt expression—understood as little of Art as an ox, having eaten grass throughout the week, understands of Sunday. He simply thought, here is the subject; let us paint it, and it will represent a work of Art. Of course, it represented something. Namely, he who imagined the scene to himself—“Buddha under the Bodhi Tree”—could see it so, no doubt. But there was absolutely no reason why such a thing should ever have been painted. It is a very different thing when we say of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael, that they bore within them the whole way of feeling which permeated the Italian civilisation of their time. For this civilisation entered livingly into the artistic quality of their work, into their whole manner of presentation; nor can we fully understand these artists if we have no feeling for the civilisation in the midst of which they lived. Today, indeed, people believe the most extraordinary things. They will believe, for instance, that a man can build a Gothic church even if he has not the remotest notion of High Mass. Of course, he cannot do so in reality. Or they believe that one can paint the Trinity even if one has no feeling for what is intended to be living in it. In this way, Art is expelled from its living connection with the spiritual life as a whole. At the same time, on the other hand, people fail to understand the artistic element as such, imagining that with aesthetic views and feelings which happen to be prevalent today they can set to work and ciriticise Raphael or Michelangelo or Leonardo, whose whole way of feeling was quite different. It was only natural (though I should need many hours to say in full what should be said on this point), it was only natural for them to be living in the whole way of feeling of their time. We cannot understand their creative work unless we understand the character which Christianity had assumed at the time when these artists blossomed forth. You need only remember that at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century Italian Christianity witnessed the rise even among the Popes, of men who truly cannot be said to have satisfied even the most rudimentary demands of morality, nor need one be in any way a pietist to say so. And, of course, the whole army of priests were of like character. The idea that a specific moral impulse must be living in what goes by the name of “Christian” had been lost sight of, comparatively speaking. And when in later times it emerged again—in pietist and moralising forms, by no means identical with what I described the other day when speaking of St. Francis,—it was imbued with quite a different feeling of Christianity than inspired those who lived, for instance, under an Alexander VI, a Julius II or a Leo X. If, on the other hand, we consider the Christian traditions, the concepts and ideas (and when I say ideas I include “Imaginations”) connected with the Mystery of Golgotha, we find them still living in the souls with an intensity of which the man of today has little notion. Human souls lived in the ideas connected with the Mystery of Golgotha, as in a world that was their very own, and they saw Nature herself in the midst of this same world. We need but call to mind: In that time, even for the most educated, this Earth, of which the Western half was still unknown (or was only just begining to be known and was not fully really reckoned with),—this Earth was the centre of the whole Universe. Going down beneath the surface of the Earth, one found a subterranean kingdom; going but a little way above, a super-earthly. We might almost say, it was as though a man only need lift his arm, to grasp with his hand the feet of the heavenly beings. Heaven still penetrated down into the earthly element. Such was the conception—a harmony, an interplay of the spiritual above and the Earth beneath it, with the world of the senses which contained mankind. Even their view of Nature was in this spirit. Those, however, among whom we find the three great masters of the Renaissance were striving forth from yonder age. And the one who harbours within him, as in a seed, all that came forth since then—nay, much that is still destined to come forth,—that one is Leonardo. The soul of Leonardo was equally inclined to the feelings of the former time and of the latter. His soul had most decidedly a Janus head. By his education, by the habits of his life, by all that he had seen, he lived with his feelings still in the olden time. Yet he had a mighty impulse to that conception of the world which only came forth in the succeeding centuries. He had an impulse, not so much towards its width as to its depth. From various indications in my other lectures, you know that the Greeks—and even the men of later times during the 4th Post-Atlantean age—knew life quite differently than we do,—that is to say, out of a different source of knowledge. The sculptor, for example, knew the human figure from within—from a perception of the forces that were at work within himself, the forces which we today describe in Anthroposophy as the etheric. Out of this inner feeling of the human figure the Greek artist created. In course of time this faculty was lost. Another faculty now had to appear: the power to take hold of things with outward vision. Man felt impelled to feel and understand external Nature. I showed you last time, how Francis of Assisi was among the first who sought to perceive Nature through a deep life of feeling. Now Leonardo was the first who endeavoured in a wider sense to add to this feeling of Nature, a conscious understanding of Nature. Because it was no longer given to him, as to the men of former ages, to trace from within outward the forces that are at work in man, he tried to know these things by contemplation from without. He tried to know by outward vision what could no longer be made known by inward feeling. An understanding of Nature as against a feeling for Nature: this is what distinguishes Leonardo da Vinci from Francis of Assisi, and this determines the whole constitution of his spirit. He was all out to understand. And though we need not take it word for word—for the sources, as a rule, relate only the current legends—nevertheless, the legends themselves were founded upon fact, and there is truth in it when we are told how Leonardo took especial pains to study characteristic faces, so that by dint of outward contemplation the working of the formative forces of the human organism might become his own inner experience. Often he would follow a character about for days and days, so that the human being might become as if transparent to him, revealing how the inner being works into the outer form. Yes, there is truth in this,—and that he invited peasants to his house and set before them tasty dishes or told them stories, so that their faces assumed every possible expression of laughter and contortion and he could study them. All this is founded upon fact. And when he had to paint a Medusa he brought all manner of toads and reptiles into his studio, to study the characteristic animal faces. These are legendary anecdotes; and yet they truly indicate how Leonardo had to seek, to discover the mysterious creation of Nature's forces. For Leonardo was truly a man who sought to understand Nature. He tried in an even wider sense to understand the forces of Nature as they play their part in human life. He was no mere artist in the narrower sense of the word; the artist in him grew out of the whole man, standing in the very midst of the turning-point of time. The church of San Giovanni in Florence had sunk a little, owing to a subsidence of the soil. He wished to raise it again—a task that could easily be carried out today; but in that time such a thing was considered absolutely hopeless. He wanted to have it raised bodily, as it stood. Nowadays, as has justly been observed, it would only be a question of the cost; in his time it was an idea of genius, for no one beside Leonardo thought such a thing was possible. He also thought of constructing machines whereby men would be able to fly through the air; and of irrigating great areas of swamp. He was an engineer, a mechanic, a musician, a cultured man in social intercourse, a scientist according to his time. He constructed apparatus so unheard-of in that age that no one else could make anything of them. What poured into his artist's hand was working, therefore, from a many-sided understanding of the world. Of Leonardo we can truly say, he bore his whole Age within him, even as it came to expression in the profound external changes which were then enacted in Italy. Leonardo's whole life—his artistic life included—bears the stamp of this his fundamental character. In spite of the fact that he grew out of the Italian environment, he was not altogether at home there. True, he was a Florentine, but he spent only his youth in Florence, and then went on to Milan, having been summoned thither by the Duke Ludovico Sforza—sommoned by no means (as we might naively imagine) as the great artist whom we recognise in him today, but as a kind of court entertainer. From the skull of a horse, Leonardo constructed an instrument of music, from which he enticed various notes, and was thus able with great humour to entertain the ducal house. We need not say that he was intended as a kind of “fool,” but as an entertainer to amuse the Court, most certainly. The works of Art which he produced in Milan, to which we shall presently refer, were certainly created out of the very deepest impulse of his own being. But he had not been summoned to the Court of the Sforza's for this purpose; and though he entered well into all the life at Milan, we find him afterwards, on his return to Florence, working at a battle-picture, intended to glorify a victory over Milan. Then we see him end his life at the French Court. The one dominating impulse in Leonardo is to see and feel what interests the human being of his time; the political events, complicated as they were, more or less swept past him. He only skimmed off them, as it were, the uppermost and human layer. Indeed, in many respects he rather gives us the impression of an adventurer, albeit one endowed with colossal genius. He bears his whole Age within him; and out of this feeling of his Age as a whole, his creations arise. We shall present them not in chronological but in a freely chosen order, for in Leonardo the main point is to see how he creates out of a single impulse, and for this reason the chronological sequence is less important. An altogether different nature, though possessing the characteristics of the Renaissance in common with him, was Michelangelo. If we can say of Leonardo that he bore the whole forces of his time within him (and for this very reason often came into disharmony with it and remained misunderstood, just because he understood it in its depths, in the forces that only found their way to the surface during later centuries), of Michelangelo, on the other hand, we may say: he bore within him, above all, the Florence of his time. What was the Florence of his time? It was, in a sense, a true concentration of the existing order of the world. This Florence he bore within him. Unlike Leonardo, he did not stand remote from political affairs. The complicated political events around him—and the whole world-order of that time played into these politics—entered again and again into the soul of Michelangelo. And when again and again he went to Rome, he bore his Florence with him, and painting and sculpting a Florentine element into the Roman setting. Leonardo bore a universal feeling into the works he created; Michelangelo carried a Florentine feeling into Rome. As an artist he achieved a kind of spiritual conquest over Rome, making Florence arise again in Rome. Thus Michelangelo entered intensely into all that was taking place through the political conditions in Florence during his long life. We see this in the succession of his life-periods. As a young man, when his career was only just beginning, he witnessed the reign of the great Medici, whose favourite he was, and by whose favour he was enabled to partake in all that the Florence of that time could offer to a man's spiritual life. Whatever of ancient Art and artistry was then available, Michelangelo studied it under the protectorate of the Medici; and it was here that he produced his earliest work. Indeed, he loved his protector, and grew together in his own soul with the soul-nature of the Medici. But presently he had to realise that the sons of his patron were of quite a different kind. He who had done so much for Florence—out of an ambitious disposition, it is true, yet cultivating largesse and freedom—died in 1492; and his sons proved themselves more or less common tyrants. Michelangelo had to experience this change in comparatively early youth. Whereas at the beginning of his career the mercantile spirit of the Medici had allowed free play to Art, he must now witness this mercantile spirit itself masquerading as a political spirit, and striving towards tyranny. Yes, he witnessed on a small scale the rise in Florence of what was afterwards to take hold of all the world. It was a terrible experience for him, and yet not unconnected with the whole surrounding world of the new Age. It was now that he first went to Rome, and we may say: In Rome he mourns the loss of what he has experienced as the true greatness of Florence. We can even recognise how the plastic quality of his work is connected with this great change in his feelings: Into the very line we notice what the political changes in Florence had brought about in his soul. Any one who has a deeper feeling for such things will see in the Pieta in the Vatican a work which in the last resort is born out of the mourning soul of Michelangelo—Michelangelo mourning for the city of his fathers. Then, when better times returned and he went back to Florence, he stood once more under a new impression. He felt uplifted in his soul,—Freedom had entered into Florence once again. He poured out this new feeling into the indescribably great figure of his David. It is not the traditional David of the Bible. It is the protest of free Florence against the encroaching principle of “great powers,” of mighty States. Its colossal character is connected with this very feeling. Again, when he was summoned by Pope Julius to decorate the Sistine Chapel, now in a far fuller sense than before, he bore his Florence with him into Rome. What was it that he bore with him? It was a whole world-conception, of which we can say that it shows the rise of the new age, just as truly as we can say, on the other hand, that in the works of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, representing the creation of the World and the great process of Biblical history, we have the twilight of an ancient world-conception. Thus Michelangelo carries with him a whole world to Rome,—carries with him something that could never have arisen at that time in Rome itself, but that could only arise in Florence: the idea of one mighty cosmic process with all the Prophetic gifts and Sibylline faculties of man. You will find further explanations on these things in earlier lectures. These inner connections could only be felt and realised in Florence. What Michelangelo experienced through all the spiritual life that had reached its height in the Florence of that time, cannot, in truth, be felt today, unless we transplant ourselves through Spiritual Science into former epochs. Hence the usual histories of Art contain so many absurdities at this point. A man can only create as Michelangelo created if he believes in these things and lives in their midst. It is easy for a man to say that he will paint the world's creation. Many a modern artist would credit himself, no doubt, with this ability,—but one who has true feeling will not be able to assent. No one can paint the evolution of the world who does not live in it, like Michelangelo, with all his being. But when he returned once more to Florence, he was already driven, after all, by the new stream, which—to put it bluntly—replaces the sacramental by the commercial character. True, he was destined still to create the most wonderful works, in the Medici Chapel. But in the background of this undertaking was an element which could not but inspire him with melancholy feelings. The purpose was the glorification of the Medici. It was they who mattered,—who in the meantime had become powerful, albeit less in Florence than in the rest of Italy. Then once more the political changes drove him back. The betrayal of the Malatestas, their penetration into Florence, drove him back again to Rome. And now he painted, as it were, into the Last Judgment, the protest of a Florentine, the great protest of humanity, of the human individual against all that would oppose it. Hence the real human greatness of his Last Judgment, the greatness which it undoubtedly breathed forth, as it proceeded from his hand. For now, also, parts of it have been completely spoiled. But he still had to undergo experiences which entered very, very deep into all the impulses of feeling in his soul. How many events had he not experienced, how much did they not signify for the development of his picture of the world: For the things I have indicated were of great importance to him. They may be taken abstractly today, but in the soul of Michelangelo they worked without a doubt as very deep soul-impulses. But we must add that I have mentioned the fact that he witnessed, too, the great change which came over Florence through the appearance of Savonarola. This was a protest within the life of the Church against what was characteristic of that time in Christianity. So free an Art as was developed in Leonardo and in many others like him could only unfold in this way inasmuch as the ideas of Christianity were lifted out of their context and taken by themselves. I mean the ideas connected with the Mystery of Golgotha—the conception of the Trinity, of the Last Supper, of the connection between the earthly and the spiritual realms, and so forth. All these conceptions, lifted right out of the moral element, assumed a free imaginative character which the artist dealt with at his pleasure, treating it like any worldly subject, with the only difference that it contained, of course, the sacred figures. These things had been objectified, loosed from the moral element; and thus the Christian thought, loosed from the moral element, slid over by and by into a purely artistic sphere. All this took place quite as a matter of course, and the gradual elimination of the moral element was a natural concomitant of the whole process. Savonarola represents the great protest against this elimination of the moral element. Savonarola appears; it is the protest of the moral life against an Art that was free of morals,—I do not say, void of morals, but free. Indeed, we must study Savonarola's will if we would understand in Michelangelo himself what was due to Savonarola's influence. But this was not all. You must imagine Michelangelo as a man who in his inmost heart and mind could never think in any other than a Christian way. He not only felt as a Christian; he conceived the order of the World in mighty pictures, in the Christian sense. Imagine him placed in the midst of that time, when the Christian conceptions had, as it were, become objectified and could thus slide so easily into the realms of Art. Such was the world in which he lived. But he experienced withal the Northern protest of the Reformation, which spread with comparative speed, even to Italy; and he also witnessed the great and revolutionary change which was accomplished from the Catholic side as a counter-Reformation, against the Reformation. He experienced the Rome of his time,—a time whose moral level may not have been high, but in which there were free and independent spirits, none the less, who were decidedly agreed to give a new form to Catholicism. They did not want to go so far as Savonarola, nor did they want it to assume the form which afterwards came forth in the Reformation. They wanted to change and recreate Catholicism by continuous progress and development. Then the Reformation burst in like another edition, so to speak, of the Savonarola protest. Rome was seized with anxiety and fear, and they parted from what had pulsated through their former life. Michelangelo among others had built his hopes on such ideas as were concentrated, for example, in Vittoria Colonna, hoping to permeate with high ethical principles what had reached so great a height in Art. With a Catholicism morally recreated and renewed, they hoped to permeate the world once more. Now, however, there arose the great Roman powers, the strong Catholic ideas, the Jesuitical principle, and Paul IV became the Pope. What Michelangelo was now to witness must have been terrible for him, for he saw the seeds of an absolute break with what had still been known to him as Christianity. It was the beginning of Jesuitical Christianity. And so he entered on the twilight of his life. Michelangelo, as I said, had carried Florence into Rome. With Raphael once again it was different. Of Raphael we may say, he carried Urbino—East-Central Italy to Rome. Here we come to that strange magic atmosphere whose presence we feel when we contemplate the minor artists of that region whence Raphael grew forth. Consider the creations of these artists—the sweet and tender faces, the characteristic postures of the feet, the attitude of the figures. We might describe it thus: Here there arose artistically somewhat later what had arisen earlier in a moralising and ascetic sphere in Francis of Assisi. It enters here into artistic feeling and creation, and leaves a strangely magic atmosphere—this tenderness in contemplating man and Nature. In Raphael it is a native quality, and he continues to express it through his life. This is the feeling which he carries into Rome; it flows from his creations into our hearts and minds if we transplant ourselves into the character they once possessed, for as pictures they have to a great extent been spoilt. What Raphael thus bears within his soul, having evolved in the lonely country of Urbino, stnads, as it were, alone within the time; and yet taking its start from Raphael, it spread far and wide into the civilisation of mankind. It is as though Raphael with this element were carried everywhere upon the waves of time, and wheresoever he goes he makes it felt—this truly artistic expression of the Christian feeling. This element is everywhere poured out over the influence of Raphael. Summing up, therefore, we may say: Leonardo lives in the midst of a large and universal understanding. He strikes us, stings us, as it were, into awakeness with his keen World-understanding. Michelangelo lives in the policical understanding of his time; this becomes the dominant impulse of his feeling. Raphael, on the other hand, remaining more or less untouched by all these things, is borne, as it were, upon the waves of time, and bears into the evolution of the ages a well-nigh inexpressible quality of Christian Art. This, then, distinguishes and at once unites the three great masters of the Renaissance; they represent three elements of the Renaissance feeling, as it appears to us historically. Let us now give ourselves up to the impressions of Leonardo's works. We will first show some of his drawings, which reveal how he creates his forms out of that keen understanding of Nature which I sought to characterise just now. Thereafter, not quite in the historic order, we shall show those of his pictures which have the character of portraits. Only then will we go on to his chief creation, the “Last Supper,” Finally, we shall return and show him once more at his real starting-point. The first picture is a well-known Self-portrait. This, then, is one of Leonardo's portraits. There follows the other one, still better known. Here we have a picture from an early period of his development, showing how Leonardo grew out of the School of Verrocchio. Tradition has it that the finely elaborated landscape round this figure here was painted by Leonardo in the School of Verrocchio, and that Verrocchio, seeing what Leonardo could achieve, laid down his brush and would paint no more. Here, again, you see how Leonardo drew—how he tried, even to the point of caricature, to extract the characteristic features by dint of studious contemplation, as I described just now. We need not imagine that he stood alone in things like this; they had, indeed, been done by others in his time. Leonardo only stands out through his extraordinary genius, but it was altogether a quest of the time—this search for the strong characteristic features, as against what had come forth in earlier times from higher vision and had grown a mere tradition. It was characteristic of that time to seek for what appears directly to external vision, and thus bring out with emphasis whatever in the outward features of a being is most significant of individual character. Far more important than the subject-matter, the point was to study and portray with precision the positions of the bones and so forth. This is the portrayal of a thunderstorm. The two pictures we now show are not attributed to him with certainty, nor are some others which we shall see presently, but they bear the character of Leonardo and are therefore not without connection. In this famous picture we see the other aspect of Leonardo, where we might say he seeks to attain the very opposite pole from what was illustrated in the former sketches. There he tried to discover and bring out with emphasis the individual and characteristic in all details. People will often not believe that an artist who can create such a work as the Mona Lisa has any need of going in the other direction to the point of caricature. I have, however, often drawn attention to this fact. Think of the inherently natural impulse whereby our friend the Poet, Christian Morgenstern, went from his sublime, serene creations to the humorous poems with which we are familiar, where he seeks the very extremes of caricature. There is this inner connection in the artist's soul. If he desires to create a work so inwardly complete, harmonious, serene as this, he often has to seek the faculties he needs for such creation by emphasising characteristic individual features even to the point of caricature. These pictures, which, as I said, are not in historic order, represent Leonardo in the quality of an artist seeking for inner clarity, completeness and perfection. Here is the Dionysos figure, the God Dionysos. You will find indications on these matters in various other lectures. The painting is based on proven designs and sketches of Leonardo da Vinci. However, it is believed that it was carried out by an unknown student from the workshop of Leonardo and between 1683 and 1693 it was modified and painted to represent Bacchus. We now come to the Last Supper—which he created, it is true, at an earlier time, and worked upon during a long period. We have often spoken of it. We know what an essential progress in the artistic power of expression is visible in this picture as against the earlier pictures of the Last Supper by Ghirlandajo and others. Observe the life in this picture; see how strongly the individual characters come out in spite of the powerful unity of composition. This is the new thing in Leonardo. The adaptation of the strong individual characters to the composition as a whole is truly wonderful. At the same time each of the four groups of disciples becomes a triad complete and self-contained; and, again, each of these triads is marvellously placed into the whole. The colour and lighting are inexpressibly beautiful. I spoke once before of the part of the colouring in this composition. Here we look deep into the mysterious creative powers of Leonardo. If we try to feel the colours of the picture as a whole, we feel they are distributed in such a way as to supplement one another,—not actually as complementary colours, but in a similar way,—so much so that when we look at the whole picture at once, we have pure light—the colours together are pure light. Such is the colouring in this picture. We now come to the details of the picture. This is generally considered to be an earlier attempt at the Head of Christ. These reproductions are familiar. This is Morghan's engraving, from which we gain a more accurate conception of the composition than from the present picture at Milan, which is so largely ruined. You are, of course, familiar with the fate of this picture, of which we have so often spoken. This is a very recent engraving,—a reproduction which reveals the most minute study. It is frequently admired and yet, perhaps, for one who loves the original as a work of art, it leads too far afield into a sphere of minute and detailed drawing. Still we may recognise in this an independent artistic achievement of considerable beauty. Here we have a fragment of the battle picture projected by Leonardo, which I mentioned a short while ago. We will now go on to Michelangelo. Considering Leonardo once again, you will see there is something in him which comes out especially when, instead of taking the chronological order, which is in any case a little uncertain, we take his work in groups, as we have done just now. Then we see clearly what different streams are living in him. The one, which comes out especially in his Last Supper, aims at a peculiar quality of composition combined with an intense delineation of character. It stands apart and alongside of that other tendency in which he does not seek this kind of composition. This other _stream we find expressed in the pictures in the Louvre, and at St, Petersburg and London, which we showed before the Last Supper. It might have come forth at any time; one feels it is almost by chance that the pictures of this kind do not exist from every period in his life. That which comes to expression in these pictures is in no way reminiscent of the peculiar composition in the Last Supper, but aims at a serene composition while seeking to express individual character to a moderate extent. We now come to Michelangelo. To begin with, his portrait of himself. Here we have Michelangelo before he reached his independence, working in Florence, perhaps under the influence of Signorelli and others, still, in fact, a pupil. And now we think of Michelangelo moving to Rome for the first time, under all the influences which I described just now. Look at this picture and then at the following one; compare the feeling in the two. Look at this work. Undoubtedly it is created under the feeling of his coming to Rome. A more or less tragic element, a certain sublime pessimism pervades it. Let us return once more to the former one, and you will see the two creations are very similar in their artistic character. They express the same shade of feeling in Michelangelo. We now return once more to the Pieta. People who feel the story more than the artistic quality as such have often said that the Madonna, for the situation in which she is here portrayed, is far too young. This arose out of a belief which was still absolutely natural in that time and lived in the soul of Michelangelo himself:—the belief that owing to her virgin nature the Madonna never assumed the features of old age. Here you have the work of which we spoke before. The figure strikes us most of all by its colossal quality, not in the external sense, but a quality mysteriously hidden in its whole artistic treatment. We now come to the Sistine Chapel. To begin with, we have the Creation of the World,—the first stage, which we might describe as the creation of Light out of the darkness of night. This picture bears witness to a tradition still living at that time as regards the creation of the World. It was that Jehovah created, in a sense, as the successor of an earlier Creator, whom He overcame, or transcended, and who now departed. The harmony of the net World-creation with the old which it transcended is clearly shown in this picture. Truly, we may say, such ideas as are expressed in this picture have vanished absolutely; they are no longer present. This, then, is the creation of that which went before mankind. Here we find the creation of man. There follows the creation of Eve. We now move more and more away from the theme of World-creation into the theme of History—the further evolution of the human race. This is the fall into sin. We come to the Sibyls, of whom I have spoken in a former lecture. They represent the one supersensible element in the evolution of man, which is contrasted with the other, the prophetic quality. We shall see the latter presently in the series of the Prophets. Here we have the Sibylline element. In my cycle of lectures given at Leipzig, on “Christ and the Spiritual World,” you will find the fuller description of its relation to the prophetic. That Michelangelo included these things at all, in his series of pictures, proves how closely he connected the earthly life with the supersensible—the spiritual. See now the succession of the Sibyls; observe how a real individual life is poured out into each one: in every detail, each one brings to expression a quite specific visionary character of her own. Observe the position of the hand. It is no mere chance. Observe the look in her eyes, coming forth out of an elemental life; you will divine many things which we cannot express in words, for that would make the thing too abstract,—but they lie hidden in the artistic treatment. And now we come to the Prophets. These are examples of his scenes from the Old Testament. Here we come to his later period in Florence: to the Medicis and the Chapel at which he had to work for the Medicis under conditions that I described before. I have spoken of these tombs of Juliano and Lorenzo in a lecture which I believe has also been printed. This is the second tomb, with the figures of Morning and Evening. Once again we accompany Michelangelo to Rome, where he creates, once more by comman of the Pope, the Last Judgment—the altar-piece for the Sistine Chapel. The greatness of this piece lies in the characterisation, the universal significance of the characters. Consider in this picture all that is destined, as it were, for Heaven, all that is destined for Hell, and Christ in the centre, as the cosmic Judge. You will see how Michelangelo sought to harmonise this cosmic scene. Majestically as it was conceived, with an individual and human feeling. Hermann Grimm drew the head of Christ from the immediate vicinity, and it proved to be very similar to the head of the Apollo of Belvedere. We will now show some of the details. and another detail, the group above the boat: And now, though in time it belongs to a somewhat earlier period, we give what Michelangelo created for the monument of Pope Julius; for, in fact, this was never finished, and Michelangelo was working at it in the very latest period of his life and finished portions of it. It is significant that Pope Julius II, whose character undoubtedly contained a certain greatness, called for this monument to be erected to his efforts. It was to have included a whole series of figures, perhaps thirty in number. It was never completed, but there remained this, the greatest figure in connection with it—Michelangelo's famous figure of Moses, of which we have often spoken,—and the two figures now following: This was completed in the very latest period of his life. It is hard to say exhaustively how it arose. One thing is certain: the group expresses an idea which Michelangelo carried with him throughout his life. Whether there was another group which has somehow been lost, in which he treated this scene at a very early stage in his career, or whether it was the same block at which he worked again, remodelling it at the end of his life, it is hard to say. But we see it here as his last work. Not only is it the one which he completed when he was a very old man; it corresponds to an artistic idea which he carried throughout his long life, and is connected far more deeply than one imagines with the fundamental feeling of his soul. True, he could not have created it thus at every phase of his life. It would always have turned out a little differently; it would always have reproduced the basic mood of his soul in a somewhat different way. But the deep and pure Christian feeling that lives in Michelangelo comes to expression especially in this particular relationship of Christ to the Mother, in this scene of the entombment. Again and again the idea of the Mystery of Golgotha arises in the soul of Michelangelo in this way:—He feels that with the Mystery of Golgotha a deed of Heavenly Love took place, of an intensity that will hover for ever before the eyes of man as a sublime ideal, but that can never be attained by man even in the remotest degree, and must therefore inspire with a tragic mood him who beholds these World-events. And now imagine, with this idea living in his soul, Michelangelo saw Rome becoming Jesuitical. With this idea in his soul, he underwent all the feelings of which I spoke; and whatever he saw in the world, he measured in relation to this standard. Truly, he underwent much in his long life. While he was creating his earliest artistic works in Florence, the Pope in Rome was Alexander VI, the Borgia. Then he was summoned to Rome, and painted the Creation of the World for Pope Julius. We see the dominion of the Gorgias in Rome replaced by Pope Julius, and then by the Medici, Leo X. In this connection we must realise that Pope Julius II, although he worked with poison, murder, slander, etc., was none the less in earnest about Christian Art. Pope Julius, who replaced the political Borgia princes, strove for the Papal See in order to make it great through spiritual life. Although he was a man of war, nevertheless, in his inmost soul, even as a fighter, he only thought of himself as in the service of spiritual Rome. Of Julius II we must not fail to realise that he was a man of spiritual aims, thoroughly in earnest with all that lay in his impulse to re-erect the Church of St. Peter, and, indeed, with all that he achieved for Art. He was selflessly in earnest about these things. It may sot strange to say this of a man who in carrying out his plans made use of poison, murder and the like. Yet such was the custom of the time in the circles with whose help he realised his plans. His highest ideal, none the less, was that which he desired to bring into the world through the great artists. For a spirit like Michelangelo it is, indeed, profoundly tragical to feel how a perfect good can never find its realisation in the world, but must always be realised one-sidedly. Yet, this was not all, for he lived to witness the transition to the commercial Popes, if we may call them so—those of the house of Medici, who were, in truth, far more concerned with their own ambitions, and were fundamentally different in spirit from Julius II and even from the Borgias. Certainly, these were no better men. We must, however, judge all these things in relation to the time itself. It is easy nowadays to feel Pope Alexander VI, or his son Caesar Borgia, or Julius II, as human atrocities; for today it is permitted to write of them quite independently and freely, whereas many a later phenomenon cannot yet be characterised with equal freedom: But we must also realise:—The sublime works achieved at that time are not without causal relationship with the characters of all these Popes,—indeed, many things would certainly not have come to pass if Savonarola or Luther had occupied the Papal See. And now we come to Raphael. Here is the picture of which I spoke last time. We will bring it before our souls once more. On the left we have the same subject treated by Perugino, and on the right by Raphael. It is the Sposalizio or Marriage of the Virgin. Here you can see how Raphael grew out of the School of his teacher, Perugino, and you can recognise the great advance. At the same time, we see in the picture on the left all that is characteristic of this School on the level from which Raphael began. See the characteristic faces, their healthily—as we today call it—sentimental expression. See the peculiar postures of the feet. A certain characterisation is attempted; yet it is all enclosed in a certain aura of which I spoke before,—which appears again in Raphael, transfigured, as it were, raised into a new form and power of composition. You recognise here the growth of this power of composition, too. But if you compare the details, you will find that in Raphael it is grasped more clearly and yet at the same time it is more gentle, it is not so hard. This whole picture is to be conceived of as a world of dream. It is generally known as the “Dream of a Knight.” We will now let work upon us a number of Raphael's pictures of the Madonna and of the sacred legend. These—especially the Madonnas—are the works of Raphael which first carried him out into the world. In all these pictures you still have the old, characteristic postures and attitudes which Raphael took with him from his home country. These are the Madonnas which bear witness to the further development of Raphael. Ile follow him now into the time when he went to Rome. It is not known historically exactly when that was. Probability is that he did not simply go there in a given year,—1500 is generally assumed—but that he had been to Rome more than once and gone back again to Florence, and that from 1500 onward he worked in Rome continuously. Now, therefore, we follow him to Rome and come to those pictures which he painted there for Pope Julius. This picture is well-known to you all, and we, too, have spoken of it in former lectures. Many preparatory sketches of it exist. In the form in which you see it here, it was done to the order of the Pope,—the Pope who craved, as I said just now, to make Rome spiritually great. We must, however, hold fast to one point, which is revealed by the fact that some elements of the motif of this picture appear at a very early stage, even in Perugia, representing this idea, this scene, or, rather, the motif of it. Thus the idea was already living at that early stage, and was able to take shape in this remarkable corner of East-Central Italy. We must conceive the motif of the picture as living in the very time itself. Below are the human beings—theologians, for the most part. These theologians are well aware that everything which human reason can discover is related to what St. Thomas Aquinas called the “Praeambula Fidei,” and must be permeated by what comes down from Spiritual Worlds as real inspiration, wherein are mingled the attainments of the great Christian and pre-Christian figures of history, and by means of which alone the secret of the Trinity is to be understood. This mystery, we must conceive, bursts down into the midst of the disputations of the theologians below. We may conceive that this picture is painted out of the will to unite the Christian life quite fundamentally with Rome—to make Rome once more the center of Christianity by rebuilding the derelict Church of St. Peter, according to the desires of Pope Julius. Under the influence of the Pope, wishing to achieve a new greatness of Christianity centered in Rome, such ideas are brought together with the fundamental concept; the secret of the Trinity. This fact explains what I may call, perhaps, the outer trimmings of the picture. (Even in the architectural elements which it contains, we see designs which re-occur in St. Peter's.) It is as though this picture were to proclaim: Now once again the secret of the Trinity shall be taught to the whole world by Rome. There are many preliminary sketches showing not only that Raphael only by and by achieved the final composition, but that this whole way of thinking about the inspiration, the Idea of the Trinity had been living in him for a long time. It was certainly not the case that the Pope said: “Paint me such and such a picture.” He rather said, “Tell me of the idea that has been living in you for so long,” and thus together, so to speak, they arrived at the conception which we now see on the wall of the Segnatura. Now we come to the picture which, as you know, is commonly named the School of Athens, chiefly because the two central figures are supposed to be Plato and Aristotle. The one thing certain is that they are not. I will not dwell on other views that have been put forward. I have spoken of this picture, too, on previous occasions. But they are certainly not Plato and Aristotle. True, we may recognise in these figures many an ancient philosopher, but that is not the point of the picture. The real point is, that in contrast to what is called “Inspiration” Raphael also wished to portray what man receives through his intelligence when he directs it to the supersensible and applies it to investigate the causes of things. The various attitudes which man can then assume are expressed in the several figures. No doubt Raphael introduced the traditional figures of ancient philosophers, as, indeed, he always tried to make use of this or that tradition. But that is not his real point; the point was to contrast the supersensible Inspiration, the descent of the super-sensible as an inspiration to man, on the one hand; and on the other hand the attainment of a knowledge of the world of causes through the intelligence of man directed to the Supersensible. In this sense, the two central figures are to be understood as follows: On the one hand we have a man still in the younger years of life, a man with less experience of life, who speaks more as a man who looks around him on the Earth, there to perceive the causes of things. Beside him is the old, old. man who has assimilated very much in life, and knows how to apply what he has seen on Earth to heavenly things. And then there are the other figures who, partly by meditation, partly by arithmetical, geometrical or other exercises, or by the study and interpretation of the Gospels and the sacred writings, seek to discover the causes of things by applying their human intellect. I have already spoken of these things and I believe that Lecture, too, has been made accessible. I think if we take the contrast of the two pictures in this way, we shall not be misled into nonsensical speculations as to whether this one is Pythagoras or the other Plato or Aristotle—which speculations are at all events beside the mark and inartistic. Much ingenuity has been applied in deciphering the several figures: Nothing could be more superfluous in relation to these pictures. Rather should we study to observe the wonderful varieties expressed in the search for all that is attainable by the intelligence of man. You may also compare the two pictures. In this present picture the whole thing is placed in an architectural setting, whereas in the other, the “Disputa,” the wide World is the setting. It is the difference between Inspiration whose house is the great universal edifice and the quest of the human intelligence which, as you see it here, goes on in an enclosed and human space. We come to what is attainable in the human sphere, without the latter being influenced out of the supersensible. This is like a commentary to the Disputa—the knowledge of the Divine Mysteries represented in a more allegorical figure, and leading on to the Disputa. Here we have a picture taken from the whole complex which Raphael did for Pope Julius II in order to inspire the idea that Christianity must gain the victory and all that resists it must be overcome. This is only another aspect of the same idea. Also belonging to the same group. Raphael's Sibyls. If you remember those of Michelangelo, you will observe the immense difference. In the Sibyls of Raphael—I beg you to see it for yourselves—human figures are portrayed, to represent beings standing within the cosmos,—Beings into whom the whole cosmos is working. They themselves are dreaming, as it were, within the cosmos as a very part of it and have not fully come to consciousness. The various supersensible Beings, angelic figures between them, bring them the secrets of the worlds. Thus they are dreamy Beings, living within the universal nexus. Michelangelo, on the other hand, portrays the human and individual in all that his Sibyls are dreaming, or evolving out of their dream-consciousness. Michelangelo has to create out of the individual, nay, we may even say, the personal character of each one. These Sibyls of Raphael, on the other hand, live and move and have their being over and above the individual. Even inasmuch as they are individual, they live and move in a cosmic life. In this room we have the picture of the Transfiguration. (No picture of room available) Here is the picture itself. It is even possible that Raphael himself did not complete it, but left it unfinished at his death. Christ is soaring heavenward. To those who say that Raphael in his latest period painted visionary pictures, we need only reply by pointing to this figure (the figure of the boy). It is portrayed in a perfectly real, Occultly realistic sense, how the figure makes it possible for the scene to become visible to the others. Through what I would call the mediumistic nature of the unconsciousness of madness, this figure influences the others, enabling them to behold such a thing as this. Here we have the figure of the Christ. And now, my dear friends, think of all that Raphael had painted. All that has passed before you was contained between his twenty-first and his thirty-seventh year, in which he died. In his twenty-first year he painted the first picture which we showed—the Marriage of the Virgin—contrasting it with Perugino's painting. Hermann Grimm worked out in a beautiful way something that bears eloquent witness to Raphael's free and independent evolution, proving even outwardly to some extent what I just said before. Raphael, although he was carried on the waves of time, and learnt, of course, very much from the world, nevertheless took with him into Rome the peculiar nature of that Middle-Eastern part of Italy. In spite of his youth, he created out of his own inmost nature and progressed undisturbed, with perfect regularity in his evolution. Hermann Grimm pointed out that we come to the chief culminating points in Raphael's creative work if, starting from his twenty-first year, we go forward in successive periods of four years. From his twenty-first year we have his Sposalizio; four years later the Entombment, which we have not shown today—an exceedingly characteristic picture, which, especially when we take into account the related sketches and everything connected with it, expresses a certain climax in the work of Raphael. And then, once more, four years later, we have a climax of creative work in the Camera della Segnatura in the Vatican. Progressing thus by stages of four years, we see how Raphael undergoes his evolution. He stands there in the world with absolute individuality, obeying an impulse connected only with his incarnation, which impulse he steadily unfolds and places into the world something that takes its course with perfect regularity, like the evolution of mankind. And now consider these three figures all together,—standing out as a summit in the life of Art, in the evolution of mankind. It lies in the deep tragedy of human evolution that this supreme attainment is connected with a succession of Popes—Alexander VI, Borgia, Julius II, Leo X,—men who occupy the first position as regards their artistic aims and who were called upon to play their part in human evolution as rulers in high places. And yet they were of such a character as to take with them into these high places the worst extremes which even that age could nroduce by way of murder, misrepresentation, cruelty and poison. And yet, undoubtedly—down to the Medici, who always retained their mercantile spirit,—they were sincere and in earnest where Art was concerned. Julius II was an extraordinary man, inclined to every kind of cruelty, never scrupling to use misrepresentation and even poison as though it were, in a world-historic sense, the best of homely remedies. Yet it was rightly said of this man that he never made a promise that he did not keep. And to the artists, above all, he kept his promise to a high degree; nor did he ever bind or fetter them, so long as they were able to render him the services which he desired, in the work which he intended. Consider, alongside of this succession of Popes, the great men who created these works—the three great characters who have passed before our souls today. Think how in the one, in Leonardo, there lived much that has not yet been developed further, even today. Think how there lived in Michelangelo the whole great tragedy of his own time, and of his fatherland, both in the narrower and in the wider sense. Think how there lived in Raphael the power to transcend his Age. For while he was most intensely receptive to all the world around that carried him as on the waves of time, nevertheless, he was a self-contained nature. Consider, moreover, how neither Leonardo nor Michelangelo could carry into their time that which could work upon it fully. Michelangelo wrestled to bring forth, to express out of the human individuality itself all that was contained in his time; and yet, after all, he never created anything which the age was fully able to receive. Still less could Leonardo do so, for Leonardo bore within his soul far greater things than his Age could realise. And as to Raphael—he unfolded a human nature which remained for ever young. He was predestined, as it were, by providential guidance to evolve such youthfulness with an intensity which could never grow old. For, in effect, the time itself, into which all that came forth from his inner impulses was born, first had to grow young. Only now there comes the time when men will begin to understand less and less of Raphael. For the time has grown older than that which Raphael could give to it. In conclusion, we will show a few of Raphael's portraits. These, then, are the two Popes who were his patrons. We have come to the end of our pictures. In the near future, following on the tree great masters of the Renaissance, we shall speak of Holbein, Durer, and the other masters—the parallel phenomena of these developments in Southern Europe. Today I wanted especially to bring before our souls these three masters of the Renaissance. I have tried to describe a little of what was living in them, and of their stimulus if, starting from any point of their work, you dwell on the historic factors which influenced and entered into them. You will perceive the necessary tragedy of human history, which has to live itself out in one-sidedness. We can learn much for our judgment of all historic things, if we study how the world-historic process played into that Florentine Age whose greatness is identified with Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo. Today especially I fancy no one will regret the time he spends in dwelling on a historic moment like the year 1505, when Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael were at the same time in Florence—Raphael still as a younger man, learning from the others; and the other two vying with one another, painting battle-pieces, glorifying the deeds that belonged to political history. Especially at the present moment, anyone who has vision for the facts of history in all its domains, and sees the significance of outward political events for the spiritual life, will profit greatly by the study of that time. Consider what was working then:—how the artistic life sought and found its place in the midst of the outer events, and how through these artistic and external events of the time, the greatest impulses of human evolution found their way. See how intimately there were interwoven human brutality and high-mindedness, human tyranny and striving towards freedom. If you let these things work upon you from whatever aspect, you will not regret the loss of time, for you will learn a great deal even for your judgment of this present moment. Above all, you will have cause to rid yourself of the belief that the greatest words necessarily signify that the greatest ideas are behind them, or that those who in our days are speaking most of freedom have any understanding at all of what freedom is. In other directions, too, much can be gained for the sharpening of our judgment in this present time, by studying the events which took place in Florence at the beginning of the 16th century, while under the immediate impression of Savonarola who had just been put to death. We see that Florence in the midst of Italy, at a time when Christianity had assumed a form whereby it slid over on the one hand into the realm of Art, while on the other hand the moral feelings of mankind made vigorous protest against it, was a form fundamentally different from that of Jesuitism which found its way into the political and religious stream immediately afterwards, and played so great a part in the politics of the succeeding centuries down to our day. Of course, it is not proper at this moment to say any more about these things. Perhaps, however, some of you will guess for yourselves, if you dwell upon the chapter of human evolution whose artistic expression we have today let work upon our |
93. The Temple Legend: The Royal Art in a New Form
02 Jan 1906, Berlin Tr. John M. Wood Rudolf Steiner |
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They are the same as the three Kings in Goethe's fairy story of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily8 —the Gold King, the Silver King and the Brass King. This is connected with Freemasonry being called ‘the Royal Art.’ |
93. The Temple Legend: The Royal Art in a New Form
02 Jan 1906, Berlin Tr. John M. Wood Rudolf Steiner |
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May I speak to you today about something which is subject to many misunderstandings and about which many extraordinary errors are spread abroad. Most of you know that I have already spoken1 on the same subject on the occasion of our General Meeting this year, and that, at that time, following an ancient occult practice, I spoke separately to men and to women. For specific reasons which could probably become still clearer from the lecture itself, I have departed today from this ancient custom, and, indeed, because the very thing that motivated me both then and now to discuss this matter is connected with the [prospect] that sooner or later—hopefully sooner—this ancient custom will be abandoned altogether. I said: many misunderstandings have circulated about the subject. I need only mention one fact out of my own life to show you that it really is not exactly easy today to get beyond what are bluntly the bizarre and superstitious notions in existence about it. On the other hand, I need only say how easily, how unbelievably, one can put one's foot in it, when dealing with these extraordinary facts. May I simply recall an incident in my life. Perhaps you will scarcely credit it, and yet it is true. It is now some seventeen or eighteen years ago2 that I was in company with university professors, and some particularly gifted poets. Among the professors, there were also some theologians, from the theological faculty of the university in question. They were Catholics. Now, in this company, the following was said, not without foundation, and in all seriousness, that one of these theologians, a very erudite man, would not go out at night any more, because he believed that the Freemasons would be on the loose. The man in question represented a major department; but he did not tell the story, a colleague did. He went on to relate that while he was in Rome, a number of monks of a particular order—there would have been eleven, twelve or thirteen of them—had vouched on oath for the [truth of the] following event. In Paris an eminent bishop had preached a sermon in which he had spoken of the terrible danger to the world of the Order of Freemasons. After the sermon a man came to him in the sacristy and said that he was a Freemason and could give the bishop a chance to witness a meeting of the Lodge. The bishop assented, saying to himself: I will, however, take some holy relics with me, so that I am protected.—Then a meeting place was arranged. The man in question led the bishop into the Lodge, where a hiding place was pointed out to him, from which he could observe all that took place. He placed himself in position, held the Holy Relics in front of him and waited for whatever would befall. What he then saw, was related in the following way. I emphasise that some of those in the company thought it all rather doubtful at the time. The Lodge was then opened. (It bore in reality the name ‘Satan's Lodge’—though it had quite a different name in the outside world.) Then a remarkable figure appeared. By ancient custom—how he knew this custom, he did not relate—the figure did not walk. (It is indeed well known that spirits do not walk, but glide, so many believe.) This remarkable figure opened the session. The bishop would on no account divulge what happened next—it became too terrible—but he called upon the whole power of the relics and there was a rumbling like thunder through all the rows [of seats], the call resounding: We are betrayed!—and the one who had opened the session disappeared. Briefly, a brilliant victory of episcopal powers over what was to be done, one supposes. This was discussed as a completely serious matter3 [in the company]. You can see from that, that there arc people today, perhaps gentlemen more erudite than many others, well-known people, who nevertheless take the view that this sort of thing can happen in Freemasonry. Now what happened was4 that in the mid-eighties a French book appeared, which represented the secrets of the Freemasons in a most gruesome way, making them certainly more gruesome than secret. This book particularly revealed how the Freemasons celebrated Black Mass. This book was a ploy by a French journalist called Leo Taxil. He stirred up a lot of dust by bringing in a Miss Vaughan as a witness. The result of all this was that the Church found the Freemasons and their nocturnal intrigues so dangerous that they felt it necessary to found a world society against Freemasonry. A kind of council was held in Trent; although it was not a real council, it was dubbed ‘The Second Council of Trent. It was attended by many bishops and hundreds of priests; a cardinal presided. [The Congress became a major coup for Taxil.] But afterwards rebuttals were published, after which Mr Taxil revealed that the entire contents of his books, including the people mentioned in them, were his own invention. You see, there are plenty of opportunities for incurring censure over such things. This was one of the worst cases of a body with a world-wide reputation doing so. From it you have to draw at least one conclusion; that hardly anything is really known about the Freemasons. For if something was known about them it would be easy to become informed, and then such rubbish could not gain currency. Indeed, this or that opinion about Freemasonry predominates in large sections of the public. Today, to be sure, it is not all that difficult to form an opinion, as there is already a tolerably abundant literature, written partly by those who have studied many documents, but in part also containing things which the Freemasons would say had been brought into the open by turncoats. Anyone who concerns himself to any extent with this literature will draw some sort of conclusion from what it deals with. However, one can rule out coming to a correct conclusion from it, since it is still pre-eminently true what Lessing, who was himself a Freemason, said.5 When he was accepted, the Worshipful Master asked him: ‘Now you see, don't you, that you have not been initiated into anything particularly subversive or anti-religious?’ To which Lessing replied: ‘Yes, I must admit that I haven't learnt any such thing. I would in fact have been glad to do so, for then, at least, I would have learned something.’ That is the statement of a man who was able to consider the matter with the right understanding, and who admitted that he had learned precisely nothing from what took place there. You can at least draw the conclusion from that, that those who are not Freemasons know nothing [about it], since even those who are Freemasons know nothing of any importance. They generally get the impression that they have gained nothing in particular from it. And yet it would be quite wrong to make such an inference. Now there is still another opinion, which has little to do with real Freemasonry. In a text appearing in 1875,6 the author claims that Adam became the first Freemason. One can hardly go further back than the first man in searching for the founder of an association. Others claim that Freemasonry is an old Egyptian art; in short, that it is what has always been known as the ‘Royal Art,’ and this is indeed placed by some back in primeval times. Finally, many rites—for thus the symbolic ways and manners of the Freemasons are designated—bear Egyptian names, and so from these names you may infer that something deriving from ancient Egyptian culture is involved. At least the opinion is widely held, both in and out of Freemasonry, that it is something very ancient. Now Freemasonry is something which can indeed provide people with scope for reflection. The name itself connects with two perceptions differing totally from each other. Some claim—and they are no very great party within Freemasonry—that all Freemasonry originated in the work done by masons, in the craft of erecting buildings; while the other opinion considers this to be a childish and naive conception and claims that Freemasonry was in reality always an art to do with the soul; and that the symbols taken from the work of masons—such as, for example, apron, hammer, trowel, chisel, compass, rule, square, plumb-line, spirit-level, etc.—are to be seen as symbolic of soul development. Thus, by the expression ‘Masonry’ is to be understood nothing else than the building of the inner person, the work on the perfection of self. If you talk with a Freemason today, you can then experience him telling you that it is a childish and naive outlook that believes that Freemasonry has ever had anything to do with the work that masons do. On the contrary, it has never concerned itself with anything else than these things: the building of the Wonder Temple, which is the theatre of the human soul, the work on the human soul itself, which has to be perfected, and the art which one must apply to all this. Now all this is expressed in these symbols, so as not to expose it to profane eyes. Looked at from our contemporary standpoint, both of these views are wholly and utterly wrong, and are so for the following reasons. As regards the first opinion, present day man—in talking about the Freemasons having derived from the work of building—no longer conceives himself to be as significant as he properly should; as for the second opinion, that the symbols are only there to serve as metaphors for the work on the soul, this opinion—even though it is regarded by most Freemasons as something quite irrefutable—is, when properly conceived, a nonsense. It is much more correct to link Freemasonry with the work of building, not, indeed, as architecture or construction are thought of today, but in a fundamentally deeper sense. Today there are broadly two trends in Freemasonry. The one is represented by far the larger number of those calling themselves masons today. And this majority trend claims now that all masonry is comprised in what it terms the so-called Symbolic or Craft Masonry. Its principal outward characteristic is that it is divided into three degrees, the apprentice, journeyman and master degrees; as for the inward characteristics, we will have something to say presently. Apart from these Craft Masons, there are still quite a number of masons who maintain that Craft Masonry is only a product of the decline of the great universal masonic idea. [They consider] it would be a falling away from this great masonic idea, if it is claimed that masonry comprises only these three Symbolic or Craft degrees; whereas in fact the essence, the fundamental meaning of Freemasonry lies in the so-called Higher Degrees, which are best preserved in the so-called Scottish or Accepted Rite, which, in a particular respect, still conserves [a relic of] what is called the Egyptian, the Misraim or the Memphis Rite.7 Thus we have two tendencies confronting each other: the Craft Masonry, and the Higher Degree masonry. The Craft- Masons claim that the Higher Degrees are nothing but a frippery based in human vanity, that takes pleasure in having something special, something spiritually aristocratic, with its ascent from degree to degree, and its pride in the possession of the eighteenth or twentieth or still higher degree. Now you have already become acquainted with quite a bundle of things likely to lead to misunderstandings. The Higher Degree Freemasonry traces itself back to the old Mysteries, to the procedures which to the extent possible we have described and will describe, in our theosophy; procedures which have been in existence since primordial times and still exist today, and which have preserved the higher super-sensible knowledge for mankind. This super-sensible knowledge, accessible to men, would be transmitted [by] those who could attain entry to these Mystery centres; for certain super-sensible powers were developed in them, enabling them to see into the super-sensible world. These primordial Mysteries—they have become something else nowadays, and we do not want to speak of that now—contained the original seed for all later spiritual culture. For what was enacted in these primordial mysteries was not what constitutes human culture today. If you wish to understand present-day culture and immerse yourself in it, you will find that it divides into three realms—the realm of wisdom, the realm of beauty and the realm of strength. The whole extent of spiritual culture is in fact contained in these three words. Therefore they are known as the three pillars of human culture. They are the same as the three Kings in Goethe's fairy story of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily8 —the Gold King, the Silver King and the Brass King. This is connected with Freemasonry being called ‘the Royal Art.’ Today these three realms are separated from each other. Wisdom is essentially contained in what we call science; beauty is essentially embodied in what we call art; and what, in Freemasonry terms, is known as Strength is contained in the regulated and organised living together of humanity in the State. The Freemason subsumes all this in the relation of the will to these three principles, wisdom, beauty and strength. What they [these three principles] were to give to humanity was in primeval times bestowed on the candidate for initiation by the revelation of the Mystery secrets. We arc now looking back to a time when religion, science and art had not yet become separated, but when they were still combined. In fact, to anyone who can see supersensibly, astrally, these three principles are not for him separate; wisdom, beauty and the domain of the will impulses are for him one unity—On the higher realms of vision there is no abstract science; only a science which exists in pictures, in that which has only a shadowy existence in the [external] world, and finds a shadowy expression in the imagination. What can [now] be read in books, in this or that record of the Creation [about the origin of the world and of humanity I, was not described; instead it was brought before the eyes of the pupil in living pictures, in magnificent harmonious colour. And what the pupil would perceive as wisdom was art and beauty at the same time, was something which stirred his feelings to greater heights than we experience in front of an exquisite work of art. The yearning for truth and beauty, wisdom and art, and the religious impulse as well, [all] developed themselves simultaneously. The artist's eye looked at what was enacted [in the Mysteries]9 and he who sought piety found the object of his religious ardour in these high events that were enacted before his eyes. Religion, art and science were one. Then came the time when this unity split itself up into three cultural provinces; the time when the intellect went its own way. Science arose at the same time when the Mysteries which I have just described lost their importance. You know that Western philosophy and science, science proper, began with Thales. That is the time when it first developed out of the former fullness of the life of the Mysteries. Then also began what in the Western sense is conceived of as art; for Greek dramatic art developed itself out of the Mysteries. Whereas in India, up to the time of the Egyptian cult,10 one was concerned with the suffering and death of gods, with the great Greek tragedian-poets, such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, etc., we are dealing with individual human beings, who are images of the great Godhead. Through these human beings, the pupils of the Mysteries reconstructed the suffering, struggling and needy Godhead, thus displaying God to the human audience through their human imagery. Whoever wants to understand what Aristotle meant by purification, catharsis,11 must interpret the concept by means of the astral, by means of the secrets of the Mysteries. The expressions which he employs for tragedy [by way of explaining it] are a dim reflection of what the pupils learnt in the Mystery [schools]. Remember how Lessing investigated the soul forces of fear and compassion that are to be aroused through tragedy. That has furnished the material for many a great and learned discussion since the days of Lessing. [For the Mystery pupil] these emotions would be aroused in reality, when God was portrayed to him in his passage through the world. The passions present [deep] in the human soul were thereby straightforwardly stirred up and drawn out, just as one induces a fever and brings it to its culmination. This led to purification so as to be able to proceed to rebirth. All this appeared in shadow images in the ancient Greek tragedies. Just as with science, so has art, too, developed out of these ancient Mysteries. It is to these ancient Mysteries that the Higher Degree Freemasons trace back their origin. In their higher degrees they have nothing else than an imitation of the higher degrees of the Mysteries, into which the Mystery candidate was gradually initiated. Now we can also understand why the Craft Freemasons insist so much that there should be no more such higher degrees. Actually, the higher degrees have more or less lost their meaning in Freemasonry in recent centuries. What has taken place in culture during recent centuries has been largely uninfluenced from this quarter. But there was a time when the great cultural impulses issued precisely from what Freemasonry should be. in order to understand this, we must look a little deeper into an age to which I have often referred already here, but now wish to mention in a masonic context, that is, the twelfth century of our European cultural development. At that time occultism, appearing under a variety of names, played a much greater role in the contemporary culture than anyone could ever imagine today. But all these different names are no longer relevant today, and I will indeed explain why. By an example from Freemasonry itself, I will show you why these names contribute nothing essential to understanding the matter. What I am now about to relate, anyone can experience if they become an apprentice Freemason; and, since these things are known, at least by name, I am able to speak about them. A customary practice is what is known as ‘tyling.’ When the Lodge is opened and the Worshipful Master has taken his seat and the Outer Guard is at his post, the first question of the Worshipful Master is: Has the Lodge been tyled? The number of Freemasons who understand what this expression means are probably very few. Since the matter is simple, I can indeed give you an explanation of the term. At the time of which I am speaking, to be a Freemason meant to stand in vehement opposition to everything that commanded outward, official power. Therefore it was necessary to conduct the affairs of the Freemasons, with exceptionally great caution. Precisely for this reason, it was at that time necessary for Freemasonry to appear under various names which sounded harmless. Among other names they called each other ‘Brethren of the Craft’ and so on. Today Freemasonry has accomplished a large part of what it then set out to do. Today it is itself officially a power in the world. If you ask me what Freemasonry is really about, I must answer with abstract words; it consists in this, that its members aim to anticipate in thought by several centuries the events that are to occur in the world; and to perfect the high ideals of humanity in a fully conscious way, so that these ideals are not just abstract ideas. Today, when a Freemason talks about ideals and one asks him what he means by the highest ideals, he will say that the highest ideals are wisdom, beauty and strength; which, however, on further consideration, is usually nothing but a form of words. If at that time—or now indeed—the discussion about these ideals is with someone who actually understands something about this, then the discussion will be about something quite specific—about something so specific that it relates to the course of events in the coming centuries, in the same way as the thoughts of an architect building a factory relate to the factory when finished. At that time [in the twelfth century] it was dangerous to know [in advance] what was to happen later. Hence it was necessary to make use of harmless sounding words, as a cover. And that is also where the expression originated, ‘Is the Lodge tyled?’, which means, in effect, ‘Are only those present who know the meaning of the things which have to be implanted in the future development of mankind by Freemasonry?’ For each had to reflect that they must never let themselves be recognised as Freemasons when they appeared in public. This precautionary rule, then essential, has been maintained until our time. Whether many Freemasons know what is meant thereby, is questionable. Most think it is some sort of verbal formality, or they interpret more or less astutely. I could give you countless more such examples that would show you how outer circumstances have led to the adoption of practical rules for which people now try to discover some deep symbolic explanation. But now for the very heart of what was attempted in the twelfth century. That is expressed in the deeply significant Saga of the Holy Grail,12 of that enchanted vessel which is said to have come from the distant East, and to have the power to rejuvenate people, to bring the dead back to life, and so on. Now what is the Holy Grail—in Freemasonry terms—and what is it that lies at the bottom of the whole saga? We shall best be able to understand what it is all about if we call to mind a symbol of certain Freemasonry associations, a symbol misunderstood today in the coarsest way imaginable. It is a symbol taken from sexual life. It is absolutely true that precisely one of the deepest secrets of Freemasonry has a symbol taken from sexual life; and that many people who try to explain such symbols today are only following their own sordid fantasies when they understand these symbols in an impure sense. It is very likely that the interpretation of these sexual symbols will play no small role in times to come, that it is precisely this which will then reveal the parlous state into which the great ancient secrets of Freemasonry have fallen today; and on the other hand, how necessary it is in the present time for the pure, noble and profound basis of the Freemasonry, symbols to be kept sacred and unblemished. Those of you who heard my recent lecture13 at the General Meeting will know that the true original significance of these symbols is connected with the reason for not allowing women to become Freemasons until a short while ago, and the reason for addressing men and women separately on these matters until [just] recently. On the other hand you also know that these symbols are linked—and I particularly stress this—with the two great streams running through the whole world, and rising to the highest spiritual realm; which streams we also encounter as the law of polarity in the forces of male and female.14 Within that culture which we now have to consider, the priestly principle is expressed in masonic terminology as the female principle in the spiritual realm—in that spiritual realm which is most closely related to cultural evolution. The rule of the priests is expressed by the female [principle]. On the other hand, the male principle is everything which is opposed to this priestly rule; however, in such a way that this opponent has to be considered as the holiest, the noblest, the greatest and the most spiritual [principle] in the world, no less. There are thus two streams with which we have to deal: a female and a male stream. The Freemasons see Abel as representing the female current, Cain, the male. Here we come to the fundamental concept of Freemasonry, which to be sure is old, very old. Freemasonry developed in ancient times as the opponent of the priestly culture. We must now, however, make clear, in the right way, what is to be understood by priestly culture. What is involved here has nothing to do with Petty opposition to churches or creeds. Priestliness can show itself in the most completely secular [people]; even what manifests itself today as science, that holds sway in many cultural groups, is nothing else than what is known in Freemasonry terms as the priestly element, though [there are?] other [such groups?] which are profoundly masonic. We must conceive such things, then, in their entire profundity, if we want to appraise them correctly. May I explain by an example how what manifests as science can often be what is denoted in Freemasonry as the priestly element. Who today among doctors would not scoff if told about the healing properties of the spring at Lourdes? On the other hand, what doctor would not accept as a matter of course that it is wholly reasonable for certain people to go to Wiesbaden or Karlsbad? I know I am saying something fearfully heretical, but then I represent neither the priesthood nor even medicine; however a time is already coming when an unbiased judgment will be pronounced on both. Were there an effective medicine today, faith in the power of healing would be among the things a doctor would prescribe. One patient would be sent to Karlsbad and another to Lourdes, but both for the same reason. Whether you call it great piety on the one hand, or blatant superstition on the other, in the last analysis it is the same thing. Understood in this way, we can characterise what underlies the priestly principle as refraining from investigating fundamentals, as accepting things as they present themselves from whatever aspect of the world, as being satisfied with what is thus given. The symbol of that for which man does nothing, the proper symbol for what is, in the truest sense of the word, donated to man, that symbol is taken from sexual life. The human being is [indeed] productive there, but what manifests itself in this productive force has nothing to do with human art, with human science or with human ability; from it is excluded everything which causes itself to be expressed in the three pillars of the ‘Royal Art.’ So when some present these sexual symbols to humanity, they want to say: In this symbol, human nature expresses itself, not as man has made it, but as it has been given by the gods. This finds its expression in Abel, the hunter and herdsman, who offers the sacrificial animal, the sacrificial lamb, thereby offering what he himself has done nothing to produce, which came into existence independently of him. What did Cain, on the other hand, offer? He sacrificed what he had obtained by his own labour, what he had won from the fruits of the earth by tilling the soil. What he sacrificed needed human skill, knowledge and wisdom: that which demands comprehension of what one has done, which is based in a spiritual sense on the freedom of man to decide things for himself. That has to be paid for with guilt, by killing, first of all, the living things which had been,given by Nature or by Divine Powers, just as Cain killed Abel. Through guilt lies the path to freedom. Everything which is born into the world—upon which man can, at best, act only in a secondary way—everything given to man by Divine Powers, everything which is there without him needing to work at it incessantly; all this is given to us first of all in the Kingdoms of Nature over which we have no control—in those Kingdoms (the Plant, Animal and Human Kingdoms) whose forces are isolated from any human contribution, because in these Kingdoms it is physical reproduction that is involved. All the reproductory forces in these Kingdoms are given to us by Nature. Inasmuch as we take what is living for our use—because we make the world our dwelling place, which developed itself out of what is living—we thereby offer the sacrifice given to us, just as Abel offered the sacrifice given to him. The symbol for these three Kingdoms is the Cross. The lower beam symbolises the Plant Kingdom, the middle or cross beam, the Animal Kingdom, and the upper beam, the Human Kingdom. The plant has its roots buried in the earth and directs upwards, in the blossom, those parts which, in man, are directed downwards. It is the reproductive organs of the plant that appear in the blossom. The downward-turned part, the root, is the plant's head, buried in the earth. The animal is the plant turned half way and carries its backbone horizontally, in relation to the earth. Man is the plant turned completely round, so that the lower part is directed upwards. This view lies at the basis of all the mysteries of the Cross. And when theosophy shows us how man has to pass, In the course of his evolution, through the various Kingdoms of Nature, through the Plant, Animal and Human Kingdoms, then that is the same thing expressed by Plato in the beautiful words, ‘The World Soul is nailed to the Cross of the World Body.’15 The human soul is a spark struck from the World Soul, and the human being, as physical human being, is plant, animal and physical man at the same time. Inasmuch as the World Soul has divided itself up into the individual sparks of human souls, it is, as it were, nailed to the World Cross, nailed to what is expressed in the three Kingdoms, the Animal, Plant and Human Kingdoms. Powers which man has not mastered are at work in these Kingdoms. If he wants to control them, then he must create a new Kingdom of his very own, which is not expressed in the Cross. When talking about this subject I am often asked: Where is the Mineral Kingdom in all this? The mineral kingdom is not symbolised in the Cross; because it is that Kingdom which man can already express himself in clear and blinding clarity, where he has learnt to apply the techniques of weighing and calculating, of geometry and arithmetic; in short, everything pertaining to inorganic nature, to the inorganic Mineral Kingdom. If you contemplate a temple, you know that man has erected it with ruler, compasses, square, plumb-line and spirit level, and finally with the thinking that inorganic nature has transmitted to the architect in geometry and mechanics. And as you continue your contemplation of the whole temple, you will find it to be an inanimate object born out of human freedom and brainwork. You cannot say that, however, if you subject a plant or an animal to human observation. So you see that what man has mastered, what he is able to master, is, up to now, the realm of the inanimate. And everything which the human being has converted to harmony and order out of the inanimate world is the symbol of his Royal Art on earth. What he has implanted into the Mineral Kingdom with his Royal Art started as an outflow, an incarnation of Divine wisdom. Go back to the time of the ancient Chaldeans and Egyptians, when it was not only the intellect that was used in building, but when heightened perceptions permeated everything; the controlling of inorganic nature was then seen as the ‘Royal Art,’ which is why the control of nature was denoted as ‘Free masonry.’ At first this may seem to be fantasy, but it is more than that. Picture to yourselves that instant, that point in time in our earth's development, when no one had yet applied his hand to the shaping of inorganic Nature, when the whole planet was presented to man just as it came from Nature! And what happened then? Look back to the construction of the Egyptian pyramids, in which stone was fitted to stone through human agency. Nature's creation was given a new shape as a result of human thought. Human wisdom has thus transformed the earth. That was perceived as the proper mission of free constructing man on earth. Using a wide variety of tools, guided by human wisdom, human powers have brought about in the mineral world a transformation that has unfolded between primordial times and the present day, when human powers can influence far distances without mechanical means. And that is the first pillar, the pillar of wisdom. Somewhat later we see the second pillar established, the pillar of beauty, of art. Art is likewise a means of pouring the human spirit into lifeless matter, and again the result is an ensoulment (conquest)16 of the inanimate to be found in Nature. Try for a moment to picture in your mind how the wisdom in art gradually overcomes and masters lifeless Nature, and you will see how what is there without man's participation is reshaped piece by piece by man himself. Visualise—as a fantasy, if you must—the effect of the whole earth having been transformed by the hand of man, the effect of the whole earth becoming a work of art, full of wisdom and radiating beauty, built by man's hand, conceived by man's wisdom! It may seem fantastic but it is more than that. For it is humanity's mission on earth, to transform the planet artistically. You find this expressed in the second pillar, the pillar of beauty. To which you can add, as the third pillar, the reshaping of the human race in national and state life, and you have the propagation of the human spirit in the world; you have this right here in the realm of what is lifeless. Hence the medieval people of the twelfth century reflected, in looking back to the ancient wisdom, that the wisdom of times past was preserved in marble monuments, while contemporary wisdom is to be found in the human heart. For it is manifested through the artist, becoming a work of art through the labour of his hands. What he feels he impresses into matter that is unformed, he chisels out of the dead stone; while the inner soul of man does not of course live in this dead stone, it does manifest itself there. All art is dedicated to this purpose; there is always this mastering of unliving, inorganic nature, regardless of whether it is a sculptor chiseling marble or a painter arranging colour, light and shade. And even the statesman gives structure to Nature [?]17 ... always,—apart from when plant, animal, or human forces come into it—you are dealing with man's own spirit. Thus, the medieval thinker of the twelfth century looked back at the occult wisdom of the ancient Chaldeans, at Greek art and beauty, and at the strength in the concept of the state in the Roman Empire. These are the three great pillars of world history—wisdom, beauty and strength. Goethe portrayed them in his ‘Fairy Story’ as the Three Kings—occult wisdom in the Gold King, beauty as in Greece in the Silver King, and, in the Brass King, strength as it found its world historical expression in the Roman concept of the State, and as then adopted in the organisation of the Christian Church. And the Middle Ages; with its chaos18 resulting from the impact of the migrating nations, and with its mixed styles, is expressed in the misshapen Mixed King made of gold, silver and brass; what was kept separate in the various ancient cultures, is mixed together in him. Later, the separate forces must once more develop themselves out of this chaos, to a higher level. All those who, in the Middle Ages, took the Holy Grail as their symbol, set themselves the task of using human powers to bring these separate forces to a higher stage [of development]. The Holy Grail was to have been something essentially new, even though it is closely related in its own symbolism to the symbols of a very ancient mystical tradition. What then is the Holy Grail? For those who understand this legend correctly, it signifies—as can even be proved by literary means19—the following: Till now, man has only mastered the inanimate in Nature -the transformation of the living forces, the transformation of what sprouts and grows in the plants, and of what manifests itself in animal [and human] reproduction that is beyond his power. Man has to leave these mysterious powers of Nature untouched. There he cannot encroach. What results from these forces cannot be fully comprehended by him. An artist can certainly create a strangely beautiful Zeus, but he cannot fully comprehend this Zeus; in the future, man will reach a level where he can do that as well. Just as it is so, that man has achieved control over Inanimate nature, has mastered gravity with spirit level and plumb-line, and the directional forces of Nature with the aid of geometry and mechanics; so it is the case that in future man will himself control what he only receives as a gift from Nature or the Divine powers—namely, the living. When in the past Abel sacrificed what he had been given by Divine hand, he was thus sacrificing, in the realm of the living, only what he had received from nature. Cain, by contrast, had offered something which he had himself won from the earth by his own labour, as the fruits of effort.20 Hence, at this time [in the Middle Ages], a radically new impulse was introduced into Freemasonry. And this impulse is that denoted by the symbol of the Holy Grail, the power of self-sacrifice. I have often said, harmony in human relationships is not brought about by preaching it, but by creating it. Once the necessary forces have been awakened in human nature, there is no more unbrotherliness. [The concepts of] majority and minority are meaningless in what the masonic symbols express; in it there can be no contention, for it is only a matter of ‘can’ or ‘cannot.’ No majority can decide whether one should use a plumb-line or a spirit level; the facts must decide that. In that all men are brothers, there they find themselves to be one. On that there can be no contention, if everyone treads the path of objectivity, the path which entails the acquisition of higher powers. Thus, the bond [of the Freemasons] is without doubt a bond of brotherhood which in the broadest sense depends on what men have in common in inanimate Nature. However, not every power is still available there. Some things which were once there have disappeared again, because in the cycle of Nature in which we now find ourselves, and which we call earth, it is material perception which is to the fore, while intuitive perception has been lost. May I indicate just one case; in architecture, the ability to design a really acoustic building has been completely lost. Yet, in the past, this art was understood. Whoever puts a building together by outward [concepts] alone, will never create an acoustic; but anyone who thinks intuitively, with his thoughts rooted in higher realms will be enabled to accomplish an acoustic building. Those who know that also know that, in the future, those forces of outward nature over which we have no control at present must be conquered, just as man has already conquered gravity, light and electricity in inanimate nature. Although our age is not yet so advanced as to be able to control outwardly living Nature, although that cultural epoch has not yet come in which living and life-giving forces come to be mastered, nevertheless, there is already the preparatory school for this, which was founded by the movement called the Lodge of the Holy Grail. The time will however come—and it will be quite a specific point in time—when humanity, deviating from its present tendency, will see that deep inward soul forces cannot be decided by majority resolutions; that no vote can settle questions involving the limitless realm of love, involving what one feels or senses. That force which is common to all mankind, which expresses itself in the intellectual as an all-embracing unity about which there can be no conflict, is called Manas. And when men have progressed so far that they are not only at one in their intellect, but also in their perceptions and feelings, and are in harmony in their inmost souls, so far that they find themselves in what is noble and good, so far that they lovingly join together in the objective, in what they have in common, in the same way that they agree that two times two makes four and three times three equals nine; then the time will have arrived when men will be able to control the living as well. Unanimity—objective unanimity in perception and feeling—with all humanity really embracing in love: such is the pre-condition for gaining control over the living. Those who founded the movement of the Holy Grail in the twelfth century said that this control over living [nature] was at one time available, available to the gods who created the Cosmos and descended [to earth] in order to give mankind the germ of the capacity for the same divine forces that they already possessed themselves; so that man is now on the way to becoming a god, having something in his inner being which strives upwards towards where the gods once stood. Today, the understanding, the intellect, is the predominant force; in the future it will be love [Buddhi], and in a still more distant future, man will attain the stage of Atma. This joint force (communal force)21 which gives man power over what is symbolised by the cross, is expressed as far as the gods' use of the force is concerned—by a symbol, namely by a triangle with its apex pointing downwards. And when it is a matter of this force expressing itself in man's nature, as it germinally strives upwards towards the Divine force, then it is symbolised by a triangle with its apex pointing upwards. The gods have lifted themselves out from man's nature and have withdrawn from him; but they have left the triangle behind with him, which will develop further within him. This triangle is also the symbol of the Holy Grail.† The medieval occultist expressed the symbol of the Grail—the symbol for awakening perfection in the living—in the form of a triangle. That does not need a communal church, entwining itself around the planet in a rigid organisation, though this can well give something to the individual soul; but if all souls are to strike the same note, then the power of the Holy Grail must be awakened in each individual. Whoever wants to awaken the power of the Grail in himself will gain nothing by asking the powers of the official church whether they can perhaps tell him something; rather, he should awaken this power in himself, and should not question all that much. Man starts from dullness [of mind] and progresses through doubt to strength. This pilgrimage of the soul is expressed in the person of Parsifal, who seeks the Holy Grail. This is one of the manifold deeper meanings of the figure of Parsifal. Does it further my knowledge if a corporate body, be they ever so great, proclaims mathematical truth through their official spokesmen? If I want to learn mathematics, I must occupy myself with it, and gain an understanding of it .or myself. And of what use is it if a corporate body possesses the power of the Cross?22 If I want to make use of the power of the Cross, the control of what is living, then I must achieve this myself. No one else can tell it to me, or communicate it through words; at best they can show it to me in the symbol, give me the shining symbol of the Grail, but it cannot be told in an intellectual formula. The first accomplishment of this medieval occultism would have been, consequently, what appeared in so many different movements in Europe: the striving for individuality in religion, the escape from the rigid uniformity of the organised church. You can barely grasp to what extent this tendency underlies Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival.23 What manifested itself for the first time in the Reformation was already inherent in the symbol of the Holy Grail. Whoever has a feeling for the great meaning of what can confront us in this symbolism, will understand its great and deep cultural value. The great things of the world are not born in noise and tumult, but in intimacy and stillness. Mankind is not brought forward in its development by the thunder of cannons, but through the strength of what is born in the intimacy of such secret brotherhoods, through the strength of what is expressed in such world-embracing symbols, which inspire mankind. Since that time, through innumerable channels, the hearts of men have received as an inflow, what was conceived by those who were initiated into the mysteries of the Holy Grail in the middle of the twelfth century; who had to hide themselves from the world under pseudonyms, but who were really the leaven preparing the culture of the last four hundred years, The guardians of great secrets, of those forces which continually influence human developments live in the occult brotherhoods. I can only hint at what is really involved, because the matter itself goes very deeply into the occult realm. For those who really gain access to such mysteries, one practical result is a clearer perspective of world happenings [in the future]. Slowly but surely the organic, the living forces intervene in the present-day cycle of humanity's development. There will come a time—however fantastic this might seem to contemporary people—when man will no longer paint only pictures, will no longer make only lifeless sculptures, but will be in a position to breathe life into what he now merely paints, merely forms with colours or with a chisel. However, what will appear less fantastic is the fact that today the first dawn is already beginning, for the use of these living forces in the affairs of social life- that is the real secret surrounding the Grail. The last event brought about in the social sphere by the old Freemasonry was the French Revolution, in which the basic idea of the old Freemasonry came into the open in the social sphere with the ideas of equality, liberty and fraternity as its corollaries. Whoever knows this also knows that the ideas which emanated from the Grail were propagated through innumerable channels, and constituted the really active force in the French Revolution. What is today called socialism exists only as an abortive and impossible experiment, as a final, I may say desperate, struggle in a receding wave of humanity's [development]. It cannot bring about any really positive result. What it sets out to achieve, can only be achieved through living activity; the pillar of strength is not enough. Socialism can no longer be controlled with inanimate forces. The ideas of the French Revolution—liberty, equality, fraternity were the last ideas to flow out of the inanimate. Everything that still runs on that track is fruitless and doomed to die. For the great evil existing in the world today, the dreadful misery that expresses itself with such frightful force, that is called the social question, can no longer be controlled by the inanimate. A Royal Art is needed for that; and it is this Royal Art which was inaugurated in the symbol of the Holy Grail. Through this Royal Art, man must acquire control of something similar to the force which sprouts in the plant, the same force that the occultist uses when he accelerates the growth of a plant in front of him. In a similar way, a part of this force must be used for social salvation. This power, which is described by those who know something of the Rosicrucian mysteries—as for example did Bulwer Lytton in his futuristic novel Vril24 is at present still in an elementary, germinal, stage. In the Freemasonry of the future, it will be the real content of the higher degrees. The Royal Art will in the future be a social art. Again, I have to tell you something which will seem fantastic to the uninitiated, on account, I may say, of the comprehensive, all-embracing range of the idea. What man prints as a form deriving from his soul on the matter of this earth Round is eternal, it will not pass away. Even though the matter thus given form outwardly decays, what the Royal Art has given form to, in pyramids, temples and churches, is imperishable. What the human spirit has given shape to, in matter, will remain present in the world as a continuing force. That is completely clear to those who are initiated in such matters. Cologne's Gothic cathedral will, for example, pass away; but it is of far reaching significance that the atoms were once in this form. This form itself is the imperishable thing that will henceforth participate in the ongoing evolutionary process of humanity, just as the living force that is in the plant participates in the evolution of Nature! The painter, who paints a picture today, who prints dead matter with his soul's blood, is also creating something which will sooner or later be disposed in thousands of atoms. What has imperishable and continuing value, what is eternal, is that he has created, that something from his soul has flowed into matter. States and all other human communities come and go before our eyes. But what men have formed out of their souls, as such communities, constitute humanly-conceived ideas of eternal value, with an eternally enduring significance. And when this human race once again appears on the earth in a new form, then it will see the fruits of these elements of eternal value. Today, whoever turns his gaze upwards to the starry heavens sees a wonderful harmony. This harmony has evolved, it was not always there. When we build a cathedral we place stone upon stone, when we paint a picture we place colour next to colour, when we organise a community we make law upon law; in exactly the same way, creative beings once worked upon what confronts us today as the cosmos. Neither moon nor sun would shine, no animal, no plant, would reproduce itself, unless everything we face in the cosmos had been worked upon by beings, unless there were such beings who worked as we work today on the remodelling of the cosmos. Just as we work on the cosmos today through wisdom, beauty and strength, so too did beings who do not belong to our present human Kingdom once work on the cosmos. Any harmony is always the outcome of the disharmony of an earlier time. Just as stones were given form for a Greek temple, just as they abounded in other forms, in a perplexing variety of forms, out of which they became a coordinated structure, just as the profusion of colours on the palette is meaningfully arrayed in a picture, so, in just the same way, all matter was in other chaotic relationships before the creating spirit transformed it into this cosmos. The same thing is recapitulating itself at a new level, and only he who sees the whole can work on the details correctly and clearly. Everything which has had real significance for humanity's progress in the world has been brought about with care and judgment and through initiation into the great laws of the world plan. What the day produces is ephemeral. What is created in the day through knowledge of the eternal laws is, however, imperishable. To create in the day through knowledge of the eternal laws is the same thing as Freemasonry. Thus you see that what confronts us in art, science and religion, beyond what is given by the gods and expressed in the symbol of the Cross, is in fact brought about by Freemasonry, from which everything that has been properly built in the world derives. Freemasonry is thus intimately involved in everything that human hand has shaped in the world, with everything that culture has created out of raw, inanimate matter. Go back to the great things the cultural epochs have produced; consider, for example, the poems of Homer. What is contained in them? What the initiates have taught mankind in great world-embracing ideas. The great artists did not invent their topics, but rather gave form to what embraces all humanity. Is a Michaelangelo conceivable without the power of Christian concepts? Try in the same way to trace back to its origin whatever has achieved a really incisive cultural meaning, and you will in every case be led back to what has come from initiation [in the Mysteries]. Everything must in the end undergo a schooling. The last four hundred years were in fact a schooling for humanity—the school of godlessness, in which there was purely human experimentation, a return to chaos if seen from a particular point of view. Everyone is experimenting today, without being aware of the connection with higher worlds—apart from those who have once more sought and found that connection with spiritual realms. Nearly everyone lives entirely for himself today, without perceiving anything of the real and all-penetrating common design. That of course is the cause of the dreadful dissatisfaction everywhere. What we need is a renewal of the Grail Chivalry in a modern form. Anyone who can approach this will thereby come to know the real forces which today are still lying hidden in the course of human evolution. Today so many people take up the old symbols without understanding them; what is thus made out of the sexual symbols in an uncomprehending way comes nowhere near to a correct understanding of masonic concepts. Such understanding is to be sought in precisely those things which redeem mere natural forces; in penetrating and mastering what is living in the same way that the geometrician penetrates and masters the inanimate with his rule, compasses, spirit level and so forth; and in working upon the living in the same way those who build a temple put the unliving stones together. That is the great masonic concept of the future. There is a very ancient symbol in Freemasonry, the so-called Tau: This Tau sign plays a major role in Freemasonry. It is basically nothing else than a Cross from which the upper arm has been taken away. The Mineral Kingdom is excluded in order to obtain the Cross at all—man already controls that. If one lets the Plant Kingdom come into play [in Aktion treten] then one obtains the Cross directed upwards:25 What unfolds itself from the earth, from the soul, as power over the earth, is the symbol of future Freemasonry. Whoever heard my last lecture about Freemasonry26 will remember my telling you about the Freemasonry legend of Hiram-Abiff, and how at a particular point he makes use of the Tau sign, when the Queen of Sheba wanted him to call together once more the workers engaged in building the Temple. Now the people working together in social partnership would never appear at Solomon's command; but at the signal of the Tau—which Hiram-Abiff raised aloft—they all appeared from all sides. The Tau sign symbolises a totally new power, based on freedom, and consisting in the awakening of a new natural force. May I be allowed to resume at the remark with which I ended last time,27 when I told you where such great control over inanimate Nature leads. Without much fantasy, one can show what is. involved by an example. Wireless telegraphy works across a distance from the transmitting station to the receiving station. The apparatus can be set to work at will, it is effective over great distances, and one can make oneself understood by it. A similar force to that by which wireless telegraphy works will be at man's disposal in a future age, without even any apparatus; this will make it possible to cause great devastation over long distances, without anyone being able to discover where the disturbance originated. Then, when the high point of this development has been reached, it will eventually come to the point where it falls back on itself. What is expressed by the Tau is a driving force which can only be set in motion by the power of selfless love. It will be possible to use this power to drive machines, which will, however, cease to function if egoistical people make use of them. It is perhaps known to you that Keely invented a motor28 which would only go if he himself were present. He was not deceiving people about this; for he had in him that driving force originating in the soul, which can set machines in motion. A driving force which can only be moral, that is the idea of the future; a most important force, with which culture must be inoculated, if it is not to fall back on itself. The mechanical and the moral must interpenetrate each other, because the mechanical is nothing without the moral. Today we stand hard on this frontier. In the future machines will be driven not only by water and steam, but by spiritual force, by spiritual morality. This power is symbolised by the Tau sign and was indeed poetically symbolised by the image of the Holy Grail.29 Man is no longer merely dependent on what Nature will freely give him to use; he can shape and transform Nature, he has become the master craftsman of the inanimate. In the same way he will become the master craftsman of what is living. As something that must be conquered, the old sexual symbol stands at the turning point for Freemasonry. You could compare the old sexual symbol of the Freemasons with the new symbolism for future Freemasonry by the analogy of placing a rock struck from a cliff face and covered with rough grass next to a beautifully worked statue by a sculptor. Those who have been to some extent initiated into the Royal Art have been aware of this. Goethe, for instance, has expressed this marvelously in the Homunculus episode in the Second Part of Faust. There are still many mysteries30 in that work, which remain to be revealed. All this indicates that humanity faces a new epoch in the development of the occult Royal Art. Those who officially represent Freemasonry today know the least about what this future Freemasonry will be. They are the least aware that something quite new will replace the old symbols they have so often misinterpreted, and that this will have an entirely new significance. Just as it is true that everything of real importance in the past stems from the Royal Art, so it is also true that everything of real importance in the future will derive from the cultivation of the same source. Certainly, every schoolboy today can demonstrate the theorem of Pythagoras; only Pythagoras could discover it, because he was a master in the Royal Art. It will be the same in the Royal Art of the future. Thus you see that the masonic Art stands at a turning point in its development, and has the closest links with the work of the Lodge of the Grail, with what can appear as salvation in the dreadful conflicts all around us. These conflicts are only beginning. Humanity is unaware that it is dancing on a volcano. But it is so. The revolutions beginning on our earth make a new phase of the Royal Art necessary. Those people who do not drift thoughtlessly through life, will know what they have to do; that they have to participate in our earth's evolution. Therefore, from a certain point of view, this very ancient Royal Art must be represented in a new form to stand alongside of what is so ancient, in which there lies an inexhaustible force. Those who can grasp the new masonic ideas will strike new sparks from Freemasonry's ancient symbols. Then it will also become plain that contention between Craft and Higher Degree Freemasonry is meaningless set against the endeavours of real Freemasonry. For this it is necessary to answer the question—and that brings us back to our starting point—‘What was the Royal Art up till now?’ The Royal Art was the soul of our culture. And this culture of ours has two basic ingredients. On the one hand, it is built up by those forces in the human soul which concern themselves with the inanimate; and on the other hand, by the forces of those people who make it their principal task to control the inanimate simply bv means of the forces summoned up by their organism; and they are the men, hence the Royal Art has hitherto been a male art. Women were therefore excluded and could not take part in it. The tasks carried on in the Lodges were set apart, kept separate—the details do not matter—from everything related to the family or to the reproduction of the purely natural basis of the human race. In Freemasonry, a double life was led; the great ideas which came to expression in the Lodges were not to be mixed up with anything connected with the family. The work in the Lodges, being related to the inmost life of the soul, ran parallel to nurturing the social life of the family. The one current lay in conflict with the other. The women were excluded from Freemasonry. This ceased the instant that Freemasonry stopped looking backwards and turned its gaze forward. For it was precisely what flowed in from outside[?] which was seen as the female current; the Freemasons considered what came from Nature as something priestly. And hitherto Freemasonry had regarded that as hostile. Man is by his nature the representative of the force that works on the inanimate, whereas the woman is seen as the representative of the living creative force that continually -develops the human race from the basis in Nature. This antithesis must be resolved. What has to be achieved in the future can only be brought about by overcoming everything in the world that relies upon .he old symbols, that are expressed precisely in what is sexual. The Freemasonry that is obsolete today has these symbols, but is also aware of the fact that we must overcome them. However, these sexual [symbols] must be kept in existence outside in the institutions that relate to what is natural and only in this division can the matter be resolved. Neither the architect nor the artist nor the statesman have anything to do—in their way of thinking, I ask you -o ponder that—with the basis of sexuality in Nature. They all labour to control inanimate forces with reason, with the intellect. That is expressed in the masonic symbols. Overcoming this basis in Nature in the far future, gaining control of the forces of life—as in the far-off times of the Lemurian race, man started to gain control of inanimate forces—that will be expressed in new symbols. Then the natural basis will have been conquered not only in the sphere of the inanimate, but also in the sphere of the animate. When we reflect on this, then the old sexual symbols appear to us as precisely what has to be overcome, in the broadest sense; and then we discover what in the future must be the creative and truly effective principle, in the concept of uniting both male and female spiritual forces. The outward manifestation of this progress in Freemasonry is therefore the admission of the female sex. There is a meaningful custom in Freemasonry which relates to this matter. Everyone inducted into the Lodge is given two pairs of gloves. He puts one pair on himself; the other pair is to, be put on the lady of his choice. By this is signified that the pair should only touch each other with gloves on, so that sensual impulses should have nothing to do with what applies to Freemasonry. This thought is also expressed in another symbol; the apron is the symbol for the overcoming of sexuality, which is covered by the apron. Those who do not know about this profound masonic idea will be unable to have any inkling of what the apron really means. One cannot bring the apron into line with Freemasonry in the narrow sense. We thus have the conquest of the natural by the free creative spirit on the one hand, but the separation by means of the gloves, on the other. However, we could even take the gloves off in the end, once what is lower has been conquered by applying the immediate free spiritual forces of both sexes. Then only will what manifests itself today in sexuality be finally overcome. When human creation is free, completely free, when man and woman work together on the great structure of humanity, the gloves will no longer be distributed, for man and woman will be freely able to stretch out their hands to each other, because then spirit will be speaking to spirit, not sensuality to sensuality. That is the great idea of the future. If anyone today wants to enter the ancient Freemasonry, then he will only be at the high point of masonic thinking about the future shape of mankind if he works in this spirit, and if he understands what the times demand of us, regardless of what the Order was in antiquity. If it becomes possible to discover an understanding of what is called the secret of the Royal Art, then the future will undoubtedly bring us the rebirth of the old good and splendid Freemasonry, however decadent it is today. One of the ways in which occultism will permeate humanity will be through Freemasonry reborn. The very best things reveal themselves precisely through the faults of their own virtues. And although we can only look upon Freemasonry today as a caricature of the great Royal Art, we must nevertheless not lose heart in our endeavour to awaken its slumbering forces again, a task which is incumbent on us31 and which runs in a parallel direction to the theosophical movement. So long as we do not dabble in the question which weighs upon us, but really grapple with it out of the depths of our understanding of world events, make ourselves understand what is manifesting itself in the souls of the sexes, in the battle of the sexes, then we will see that it is out of these forces that the formative powers of the future must flow. All today's chatter is nothing. These questions cannot be answered, unless the answer is drawn out of the depths. What exists in the world today as the social question or the question of woman, is nothing, unless it is understood out of the depths of world forces, and brought into harmony with them. Just as it is true that the great deeds of the past had their origin in Freemasonry, so is it also true that the great practical deeds of the future will be gained from the depths of future masonic ideas.
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5. Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom: The Superman
Tr. Margaret Ingram de Ris Rudolf Steiner |
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No living beings are found here. Only a kind of ugly green snake comes here in order to die. The “most ugly human being” has found this valley. He does not wish to be seen by anyone because of his ugliness. |
5. Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom: The Superman
Tr. Margaret Ingram de Ris Rudolf Steiner |
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10.[ 1 ] All striving of mankind, as of every living thing, exists for the satisfying, in the very best way, of impulses and instincts implanted by nature. When human beings strive toward morality, justice, knowledge and art, this is done because morality, justice, and so forth, are means by which these human instincts can develop themselves according to their nature. The instincts would atrophy without these means. Now it is a peculiarity of the human being that he forgets this connection between his life needs and his natural impulses, and regards these means for a natural, powerful life as something with unconditional intrinsic value. Man then says that morality, justice, knowledge, and so on, must be attained for their own sakes. They do not have an intrinsic value in that they serve life, but rather that life first receives value when it strives toward these ideal possessions. Man does not exist to live according to his instincts, like an animal, but that he may ennoble his instincts by placing them at the service of higher purposes. In this way man comes to the point where he worships as ideals what he had first created for the satisfaction of his impulses, ideals which first give his life true inspiration. He demands subjugation to ideals which he values more highly than himself. He frees himself from the mother ground of reality and wishes to give his existence a higher meaning and purpose. He invents an unnatural origin for his ideals. He calls them “God's will,” the “eternal, moral laws.” He wishes to strive after “truth for truth's sake,” “virtue for virtue's sake.” He considers himself a good human being only when he has supposedly succeeded in controlling his egotism, that is, his natural instincts, and in following one ideal goal selflessly. For such an idealist, that man is considered ignoble and “evil” who has not attained such self control. [ 2 ] Now all ideals originally stem from natural instincts. Also what Christ considers as virtue, which God has revealed to Him, man has originally discovered as satisfying some instinct or other. The natural origin is forgotten, and the divine imagined and superimposed. A similar situation exists in relation to those virtues which the philosophers and preachers of morality set up. [ 3 ] If mankind had only sound instincts and would determine their ideals according to them, then this theoretical error about the origin of these ideals would not be harmful. The idealists, of course, would have false opinions about the origin of their goals, but in themselves these goals would be sound, and life would have to flourish. But there are unsound instincts which are not directed toward strengthening and fostering life, but rather toward weakening and stunting it. These take control of the so-called theoretical confusion and make it into the practical life purpose. They mislead man into saying, A perfect man is not the one who wants to serve himself and his life, but the one who devotes himself to the realization of an ideal. Under the influence of these instincts, the human being does not merely remain at the point where he erroneously ascribes an unnatural or supernatural origin to his ideals, but he actually makes such ideals part of himself, or takes over from others those which do not serve the necessities of life. He no longer strives to bring to light the forces lying within his own personality, but he lives according to a pattern which has been forced upon him. Whether he takes this goal from a religion or whether he himself determines it on the basis of certain assumptions not lying within his own nature, is of no importance. The philosopher who has in mind a universal purpose for mankind, and from this purpose directs his moral ideals, lays just as many fetters upon human nature as the originator of a religion who says to mankind, This is the goal which God has set for you, and this you must follow. It is also of no importance whether man intends to become an image of God or whether he invents an ideal of the “perfect human being,” and resembles this as much as possible. Only the single human being, and only the impulses and instincts of this single human being are real. Only when he directs his attention to the needs of his own person, can man experience what is good for his life. The single human being does not become “perfect” when he denies himself and resembles a model, but when he brings to reality that within him which strives toward realization. Human activity does not first acquire meaning because it serves an impersonal, external purpose; it has its meaning in itself. [ 4 ] The anti-idealist of course will also see in unsound human activity an instinctive expression of man's primeval instincts. He knows that only out of instinct can the human being accomplish even what is contrary to instinct. But he will of course attack that which is against instinct, just as the doctor attacks a sickness, although the doctor knows that the sickness has arisen out of certain natural causes. Therefore, we may not accuse the anti-idealist by saying, you assert that everything toward which man strives, therefore all ideals as well, have originated naturally; and yet you attack idealism. Indeed, ideals arise just as naturally as sickness, but the healthy human being fights idealism just as he fights sickness. The idealist, however, regards ideals as something which must be cherished and protected. [ 5 ] According to Nietzsche's opinion, the belief that man will become perfect only when he serves “higher” goals is something that must be overcome. Man must recollect and know that he has created ideals only to serve himself. To live according to nature is healthier than to chase after ideals which supposedly do not originate out of reality. The human being who does not serve impersonal goals, but who looks for the purpose and meaning of his existence in himself, who makes his own such virtues as serve the unfoldment of his own power, and the perfection of his own might—Nietzsche values this human being more highly than the selfless idealist. [ 6 ] This it is what he propounds through his Zarathustra. The sovereign individuum which knows that it can live only out of its own nature and which sees its personal goal in a life configuration which fits its own being: for Nietzsche this is the superman, in contrast to the human being who believes that life has been given to him as a gift to serve a purpose lying outside of himself. [ 7 ] Zarathustra teaches the superman, that is, the human being who understands how to live according to nature. He teaches those human beings who regard their virtues as their own creations; he tells them to despise those who value their virtues higher than themselves. [ 8 ] Zarathustra has gone into the loneliness to free himself from humility according to which men bow down before their virtues. He reappears among mankind only when he has learned to despise those virtues which fetter life and do not wish to serve life. He moves lightly like a dancer, for he follows only himself and his will, and disregards the lines which are indicated by the virtues. No longer does the belief rest heavily upon him that it is wrong to follow only himself. Now Zarathustra no longer sleeps in order to dream about ideals; he is a watcher who faces reality in freedom. For him the human being who has lost himself and lies in the dust before his own creations, is like a polluted stream. For him the superman is an ocean which takes this stream into itself without becoming impure. For the superman has found himself; he recognizes himself as the master and creator of his virtues. Zarathustra has experienced grandeur in that all those virtues which are placed above the human being have become repugnant to him. [ 9 ] “What is the greatest which you can experience? It is the hour of great contempt, the hour in which your happiness becomes repugnance, and likewise your intellect and your virtue.” 11.[ 10 ] The wisdom of Zarathustra is not in accord with the thinking of the “modern cultured person.” The latter would like to make all human beings equal. If all strive after only one goal, they say, then there is contentment and happiness upon earth. They require that man should restrain his special, personal wishes, and serve only the whole, the universal happiness. Peace and tranquility will then reign upon earth. If everyone has the same needs, then no one disturbs the orbits of others. The individual should not regard himself and his individual goals, but everyone should live according to their once-determined pattern. All individual living should vanish, and all become part of a universal world order. [ 11 ] “No shepherd and one flock! Everyone desires the same, everyone is equal; he who feels otherwise goes voluntarily into the madhouse. [ 12 ] “‘Formerly all the world was insane,’ say the best of them, and blink. [ 13 ] “People are clever and know all that has happened, so there is no end to their mocking. People still quarrel, but are soon reconciled; otherwise it disturbs the digestion.” [ 14 ] Zarathustra had been a lone-dweller too long to pay homage to such wisdom. He had heard the peculiar tones which sound from within the personality when man stands apart from the noise of the market place where one person merely repeats the words of another. And he would like to shout into the ears of human beings: Listen to the voices which sound forth in each individual among you. For only those voices are in accord with nature which tell; each one of what he alone is capable. An enemy of life, of the rich full life, is the one who allows these voices to resound unheard, and who listens to the common cry of mankind. Zarathustra will not speak to the friends of the equality of all mankind. They can only misunderstand him. For they would believe that his superman is that ideal model which all of them should resemble. But Zarathustra wishes to make no prescriptions of what men should be; he will refer each one only to himself, and will say to him, Depend upon yourself, follow only yourself, put yourself above virtue, wisdom, and knowledge. Zarathustra speaks to those who wish to find themselves, not to a multitude who search for a common goal; his words are intended for those companions who, like him, go their own way. They alone understand him because they know that he does not wish to say, Look, there is the superman, become like him, but, Behold, I have searched for myself; I am as I teach you to be; go likewise and search for your own self; then you have the superman. [ 15 ] “To the one who dwells alone will I sing my song and to the twain-dweller; and unto him who still has ears for the unheard, his heart will I burden with my happiness.” 12.[ 16 ] Two animals, the serpent, the wisest, and the eagle, the proudest, accompany Zarathustra. They are the symbols of his instincts. Zarathustra values wisdom because it teaches the human being to find the hidden paths to reality; it teaches him to know what he needs for life. And Zarathustra also loves pride because pride arouses self-estimation in the human being, through which he comes to regard himself as the meaning and purpose of his existence. Pride does not place his wisdom, his virtue, above his own self, in favor of “higher, more sacred” goals. Still, rather than lose pride Zarathustra would lose wisdom. For wisdom which is not accompanied by pride does not regard itself as the work of man. The one who lacks pride and self-esteem, believes his wisdom has come to him as a gift from heaven. Such a one says, Man is a fool, and he has only as much wisdom as the heavens wish to grant him. [ 17 ] “And should my wisdom abandon me—Oh, it loves to fly away—may my pride then still fly with my foolishness” 13.[ 18 ] The human spirit must pass through three metamorphoses until he finds himself. This is Zarathustra's teaching. At first the spirit is reverent. He calls that virtue which weighs him down. He lowers himself in order to raise his virtue. He says, All wisdom comes from God, and I must follow God's paths. God imposes the most difficult upon me to test my power, whether it proves itself to be strong and patient in its endurance. Only the one who is patient is strong. I will obey, says the spirit at this level, and will carry out the commandments of the world-spirit, without asking the meaning of these commandments. The spirit feels the pressure which a higher power exerts upon it. The spirit does not take its own paths, but the paths of him he serves. The time arrives when the spirit becomes aware that no God speaks to him. Then he wishes to be free, and to become master of his own world. He searches after a thread of direction for his destiny. He no longer asks the world spirit how he should arrange his own life. Rather, he strives after a firm command, after a sacred “you shall.” He looks for a yardstick by which he can measure the worth of things. He searches for a sign of differentiation between good and evil. There must be a rule for my life which is not dependent on me, on my own will: so speaks the spirit at this level. To this rule will I submit myself. I am free, the spirit means to say, but only free to obey such a rule. [ 9 ] At this level, the spirit conquers. It becomes like the child at play, who does not ask, How shall I do this or that, but who merely carries out his own will, who follows only his own self. “The spirit now demands his own will; he who is lost in the world has now won his own world.” [ 20 ] “I named for you three metamorphoses of the spirit: How the spirit became a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last, a child. Thus spake Zarathustra.” 14.[ 21 ] What do the wise desire who place virtue above man? asks Zarathustra. They say, Only he who has done his duty, he who has followed the sacred “thou shalt,” can have peace of soul. Man shall be virtuous so that he may dream of fulfilled duty, about fulfilled ideals, and feel no pangs of conscience. The virtuous say that a man with pangs of conscience resembles one who is asleep and whose rest is disturbed by bad dreams. [ 22 ] “Few know it, but one must have all virtues to sleep well. Do I bear false witness, do I commit adultery? [ 23 ] “Do I lust after my neighbor's wife? All this is incompatible with good sleep. [ 24 ] “Peace with God and with thy neighbor: this is what good sleep needs. And peace also with thy neighbor's devil! Otherwise it will haunt you at night.” [ 25 ] The virtuous person does not do what his impulse tells him, but what produces his peace of soul. He lives so that he may peacefully dream about life. It is even more pleasant for him when his sleep, which he calls peace of soul is disturbed by no dreams. This means that it is most pleasant for the virtuous person when from some source or other he receives rules for his actions, and for the rest, he can enjoy his peace. “His wisdom is called, Wake, in order to sleep well. And indeed, if life had no meaning, and I should have to choose nonsense, to me this would be the most worthy nonsense to choose,” says Zarathustra. [ 26 ] For Zarathustra also there was a time when he believed that a spirit dwelling outside of the world, a God, had created the world. Zarathustra imagined him to be an unsatisfied, suffering God. To create satisfaction for himself, to free himself from his suffering, God created the world; Zarathustra thought this, once upon a time. But he learned to understand that this is an illusion which he himself had created. “O you brothers, this God whom I created, was the work of a man and illusion of man, like all gods!” Zarathustra has learned to use his senses and to observe the world. And he becomes satisfied with the world; no longer do his thoughts sweep into the world beyond. Formerly he was blind, and could not see the world. For this reason he looked for salvation outside of the world. But Zarathustra has learned to see and to recognize that the world has meaning in itself. [ 27 ] “My ego taught me a new pride, which I teach mankind: not to hide the head in the sand of celestial things, but to carry it freely, a terrestrial head, which carries meaning for the earth.” 15.[ 8 ] The idealists have split man into body and soul, have divided all existence into idea and reality. And they have made the soul, the spirit, the idea, into something especially valuable in order that they may despise the reality, the body all the more. But Zarathustra says, There is but one reality, but one body, and the soul is only something in the body, the ideal is only something in reality. Body and soul of man are a unity; body and spirit spring from one root. The spirit is there only because a body is there, which has strength to develop the spirit in itself. As the plant unfolds the blossom from itself, so the body unfolds the spirit from itself. [ 29 ] “Behind your thinking and your feeling, my brother stands a mighty master, an unknown wise one: he is called self. He lives within your body, he is your body.” [ 30 ] The one with a sense for reality searches for the spirit, for the soul, in and about the real. He looks for intellect in the real; only he who considers reality as lacking in spirituality, as merely “natural,” as “coarse”—he gives the spirit, the soul a special existence. He makes reality merely the dwelling place of the spirit. But such a one also lacks the sense for the perception of the spirit itself. Only because he does not see the spirit in the reality does he search for it elsewhere. [ 31 ] “There is more intelligence in your body than in your best wisdom.” [ 32 ] “The body is one great intelligence, a plurality with one meaning, a war and a peace, a herd and a shepherd. [ 33 ] “An instrument of your body is also your small intelligence, my brother, which you call spirit, a small instrument and a toy of your great intelligence.” [ 34 ] He is a fool who would tear the blossom from the plant and believe the broken blossom will still develop into fruit. He is also a fool who would separate the spirit from nature and believe such a separated spirit can still create. [ 35 ] Human beings with sick instincts have undertaken the separation of spirit and body. A sick instinct can only say, My kingdom is not of this world. The kingdom of a sound instinct is only this world. 16.[ 36 ] But what ideals have they not created, these despisers of reality! If we look them in the eye, these ideals of the ascetics, who say, Turn your gaze away from this world, and look toward the other world, what then is the meaning of these ascetic ideals? With this question, and the suppositions with which he answers them, Nietzsche has let us look into the very depths of his heart, left unsatisfied by the more modern Western culture. (Genealogie der Moral, Section 3) [ 37 ] When an artist like Richard Wagner, for example, becomes a follower of the ascetic ideal during his last period of creativity, this does not have too much significance. The artist places his entire life above his creations. He looks down from above upon his realities. He creates realities which are not his reality. “A Homer would not have created an Achilles, nor Goethe a Faust, if Homer had been an Achilles, or if Goethe had been a Faust.” (Genealogy, 3rd Section, ¶ 4). Now when such an artist once begins to take his own existence seriously, wishes to change himself and his personal opinion into reality, it is no wonder when something very unreal arises. Richard Wagner completely reversed his knowledge about his art when he became familiar with Schopenhauer's philosophy. Previously, he considered music as a means of expression which required something to which it gives expression—the drama. In his Opera and Drama, written in 1851, he says that the greatest error into which one can fall with regard to the opera is, “That a means of expression (the music) is made the purpose, but the purpose of expression (the drama) is made the means.” [ 38 ] He professed another opinion after he had come to know Schopenhauer's teaching about music. Schopenhauer is of the opinion that through music, the essence of the thing itself speaks to us. The eternal Will, which lives in all things, becomes embodied in all other arts only through images, through the ideas; music is no mere picture of the will: the will reveals itself in it directly. What appears to us in all our reflections only as image, the eternal ground of all existence, the will, Schopenhauer believed he heard directly in the sound of music. A message from the other world is brought to Schopenhauer by music. This point of view affected Richard Wagner. Thus he lets music no longer be a means of expression of real human passions as they are embodied in drama, but as a “sort of mouthpiece for the intrinsic essence of things, a telephone from the other world.” Richard Wagner now no longer believed in expressing reality in tones; “henceforth he talked not only music, this ventriloquist of God, but he talked metaphysics: no wonder that one day he talked ascetic ideals.” (Genealogy, 3rd Section, ¶ 5). [ 39 ] If Richard Wagner had merely changed his opinion about the significance of music, then Nietzsche would have had no reason to approach him. At most Nietzsche could then say, Besides his art works Wagner has also created all sorts of wrong theories about art. But that during the last period of his creativity Wagner embodied in his an works the Schopenhauer belief in the world beyond, that he utilized his music to glorify the flight from reality, this was distasteful to Nietzsche. [ 40 ] The Case of Wagner means nothing when it is a question of the significance of the glorification of the world beyond at the expense of this world, when it is a question of the significance of ascetic ideals. Artists do not stand on their own feet. As Richard Wagner is dependent upon Schopenhauer, so “at all times were the artists valets to a morality, a philosophy or a religion.” [ 41 ] It is quite different when the philosophers represent a contempt of reality, of ascetic ideals. They do this out of a deep instinct. [ 42 ] Schopenhauer betrayed this instinct through the description which he gives of the creating and enjoying of a work of art. “That the work of art makes the understanding of ideas, in which the aesthetic enjoyment consists, so much easier, depends not merely upon the fact that through emphasis of the material and discarding of the immaterial, art represents the things more clearly and more characteristically, but it depends much more upon the fact that the complete silence of the will, necessary for the objective understanding of the nature of things, is achieved with most certainty through the fact that the object looked upon does not lie at all within the realm of things which are capable of a relationship to will.” (Additions to the third book of Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, The World as Will and Reflection, Chapter 30) “When an outer circumstance or an inner soul mood lifts us suddenly out of the endless stream of willing, then knowledge takes away the slavish service of the will when attention is no longer directed to the motive of willing, but comprehends the things free from their relationship to will, that is, without interest, without subjectivity, considers them purely objectively, completely surrendered to them insofar as they are mere representations, not insofar as they are motives; then is begun the painless state which Epicurus praised as the highest good and as the state of the gods. Then, during that moment, we are freed from the contemptible pressure of the will; we celebrate the sabbath of the will's hard labor, the wheel of Ixion stands still.” Ibid. ¶ 38) [ 43 ] This is a description of a type of aesthetic enjoyment which appears only with philosophers. Nietzsche contrasts this with another description “which a real spectator and artist has made—Stendhal,” who calls the beautiful une promesse de bonheur. Schopenhauer would like to exclude all will interest, all real life, when it is a question of the observation of a work of art, and would enjoy it only with the spirit; Stendhal sees in the work of art a promise of happiness, therefore, an indication for life, and sees the value of art in this connection of art with life. [ 44 ] Kant demanded that a beautiful work of art should please without interest: that is, that the work of art lift us out of the reality of life and give us purely spiritual enjoyment. [ 45 ] What does the philosopher look for in artistic enjoyment? Escape from reality. The philosopher wants to be transferred into an atmosphere foreign to reality, through works of art. Thereby he betrays his basic instinct. The philosopher feels most satisfied during those moments when he can be freed from reality. His attitude toward aesthetic enjoyment proves that he does not love this reality. [ 46 ] In their theories the philosophers do not tell us what the spectator whose interests are turned toward life, demands of a work of art, but only what is of interest to themselves. And for the philosopher the turning away from life is very useful. He does not wish to have his hidden thought paths crossed by reality. Thinking flourishes better when the philosopher turns away from life. Then it is no wonder when this philosophical basic instinct becomes a mood almost hostile to life. We find that such a soul mood is cultivated by the majority of philosophers. And a very close connection exists between the fact that the philosopher develops and elaborates his own antipathy toward life into a teaching, and the fact that all men acknowledge such a teaching. Schopenhauer did this. He found that the noise of the world disturbed his thought work. He felt that one could meditate about reality better when one escaped from this reality. At the same time, he forgot that all thinking about reality has value only when it springs from this reality. He did not observe that the withdrawing of the philosopher from reality can occur only when the philosophical thoughts which have arisen out of this separation from life can be of higher service to life. When the philosopher wishes to force the basic instinct, which is only of value to him as a philosopher, upon the whole of mankind, then he becomes an enemy to life. [ 47 ] The philosopher who does not regard the flight from the world as a means of creating thoughts friendly to the world, but as a purpose, as a goal in itself, can only create worthless things. The true philosopher flees from reality on the one hand, only that he may penetrate deeper into it on the other. But it is conceivable that this basic instinct can easily mislead the philosopher into considering the flight from the world as such to be valuable. Then the philosopher becomes a representative of world negation. He teaches a turning away from life, the ascetic ideal. He finds that “A certain asceticism, a hard and joyous renunciation of the best will, belongs to the favorable conditions of highest spirituality, as well as to their most natural consequences. So from the beginning it is not surprising if the ascetic ideal is never treated, particularly by the philosophers, without some objections.” (Genealogy, Part III, ¶ 9) 17.[ 48 ] The ascetic ideals of the priests have another origin. What develops in the philosopher as the luxuriant grow of an impulse he considers justified, forms the basic ideal of the working and creating of the priest. The priest sees error in the surrender of the human being to real life; he demands that one respect this life less in face of another life, which is directed by higher than merely natural forces. The priest denies that real life has meaning in itself, and he challenges the idea that this meaning is given to it through an inoculation of a higher will. He sees life in the temporal as imperfect, and he places opposite to it an eternal, perfect life. The priest teaches a turning away from the temporal and entering into the eternal, the unchangeable. As especially significant of the way of thinking of the priest, I would like to quote a few sentences from the famous book, Die Deutsche Theologie, German Theology, which stems from the fourteenth century, and about which Luther says that from no other book, with the exception of the Bible, and the writings of St. Augustine, has he learned more about what God, Christ, and man are, than from this. Schopenhauer also finds that the spirit of Christianity is expressed more perfectly and more powerfully in this book than elsewhere. After the writer, who is unknown to us, has explained that all things of the world are imperfect and incomplete, in contrast to the perfect, “which in itself and in its essence comprehended all things and decided all things, and without which, and outside of which no true being exists, and in which all things have their being,” he continues that man can penetrate into this being only if he has lost all “creaturedom, creationdom, egodom, selfdom, and everything similar,” nullifying them in himself. What has flowed out of the perfect, and what the human being recognizes as his real world, is described in the following way: “That is no true being, and has no being other than in the perfect, but it is an accident or a radiance, and an illusion which is no being, or has no being other than in the fire from which the radiance streams, or in the sun, or in the light. The book says, as do belief, and truth, sin is nothing but that the creature turns away from the unchangeable good and turns toward the changeable, that is, that it turns away from the perfect to the incomplete and imperfect, and most of all to itself. Now note, If this creature takes on something good as existence, life, knowledge, understanding, possession, in short, all those things which one calls good, and thinks that they are good, or that it itself is good or that good belongs to it, or stems from it, just as often as this happens, so often does it turn itself away. In what way did the devil do anything different—or what was his fall and turning away—than that he thought he was something, and that that something was his, and also that something belonged to him? This acceptance, and his ‘I’ and his ‘me,’ his ‘to me,’ and his ‘mine’—all this was his turning away and his fall. Thus it is still ... For all that one considers good or would call good, belongs to no one, except to the eternal, true Good, who is God alone, and he who takes possession of it does wrong, and is against God.” (Chapters 1, 2, 4, of German Theology, 3rd edition) [ 49 ] These sentences express the attitude of every priest. They express the particular character of the priesthood. And this character is exactly the opposite of that which Nietzsche describes as the more valuable, more worthy of life. The more highly valued type of man wants to be everything that he is, through himself alone; he wants all that he considers good and calls good to belong to no one but himself. [ 50 ] But this mediocre attitude is no exception. It is one of “the most widespread, oldest facts that exist. Read from a distant star, perhaps, the writing of our earth existence would lead to the conclusion that the earth is the really ascetic star, a corner of dissatisfied, proud, disagreeable creatures who cannot free themselves from a deep dissatisfaction with themselves, with the earth, and with all life.” (Genealogy, Part III, ¶ 11) For this reason, the ascetic priest is a necessity, since the majority of human beings suffer from an “obstruction and fatigue” of life-forces because they suffer from reality. The ascetic priest is the comforter and physician of those who suffer from life. He comforts them by saying to them, This life from which you are suffering is not the real life; for those who suffer from this life, the true life is much more easily attainable than for the healthy, who depend upon this life and surrender themselves to it. Through such expressions the priest breeds contempt for, and betrayal of the real life. He finally brings forth the state of mind which says that to obtain the true life, the real life must be denied. In the spreading of this mood, the ascetic priest seeks his strength. Through the training of this soul mood, he eliminates a great danger which threatens the healthy, the strong, the ego-conscious, from the unhappy, the suppressed, the broken-down. The latter hate the healthy and the happy in body and soul, who take their strength from nature. This hatred, which must express itself, is that the weak wage a continuous war of annihilation against the strong. This the priest tries to suppress. Therefore, he represents the strong as those who lead a life which is worthless and unworthy of human beings, and, on the other hand, asserts that true life is obtainable only by those who were hurt by the earth life. “The ascetic priest must be accepted by us as the predestined saviour, shepherd, and champion of the sick herd; in this way we understand his tremendous historic mission for the first time. The domination over the sufferers is his kingdom. His instinct directs him toward it. In this he finds his own special art, his mastery, his form of happiness.” (Genealogy, Part III, ¶ 15) It is no wonder that such a way of thinking finally leads to the fact that its followers not only despise life, but work directly toward its destruction. If it is said to man that only the sufferer, the weak, can really attain a higher life, then in the end the suffering, the weakness will be sought. To bring pain to oneself, to kill the will within oneself completely, will become the goal of life. The victims of this soul-mood are the saints. “Complete chastity and denial of all pleasure are for him who strives toward real holiness; throwing away of all possessions, desertion of every dwelling, of all dependents, deep, complete loneliness, spent in profound, silent reflection, with voluntary penitence and frightful, slow self-torture, to the complete mortification of the will, which finally dies voluntarily by hunger, or by walking toward crocodiles, by throwing oneself from sacred mountain heights in the Himalayas, by being buried alive, or by throwing oneself under the wheels of the Juggernaut driven among the statues of the idols, accompanied by the song, jubilation and dance of the Bajadere,” these are the ultimate fruits of the ascetic state of mind. (Schopenhauer, Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, World as Will and Representation, ¶ 68). [ 51 ] This way of thinking has arisen out of the suffering of life, and it directs its weapons against life. When the healthy person, filled with joy of life, is infected by it, then it destroys the sound, strong instincts within him. Nietzsche's work towers above this in that in face of this teaching he brings out the value of another point of view for the healthy, for those of well-being. May the malformed, the ruined, find their salvation in the teaching of the ascetic priests; Nietzsche will gather the healthy about him, and will give them advice which will please them more than all ideals which are inimical to life. 18.[ 52 ] The ascetic ideal is implanted in the guardians of modern science also. Of course, this science boasts that it has thrown all old beliefs overboard, and that it holds fast only to reality. It will consider nothing valid which cannot be counted, calculated, weighed, seen or grasped. That through this “one degrades existence to a slavish exercise in arithmetic and a game for mathematicians,” is of indifference to the modern scholar. (Fröhliche Wissenschaft, Joyful Science, ¶ 373). Such a scholar does not ascribe to himself the right to interpret the happenings of the world, which pass before his senses and his intellect, so that he can control them with his thinking. He says, Truth must be independent of my art of interpretation, and it is not up to me to create truth; instead, I must allow the world to dictate truth to me through world phenomena. [ 53 ] The point to which this modern science finally comes when it contains within itself all arranging of world phenomena, has been expressed by Richard Wahle, a follower of this science, in a book which has just appeared: Das Ganze der Philosophie und ihr Ende, The Totality of Philosophy and its End. “What can the spirit who peers into this world-house and turns over the questions about the nature and goal of happenings, find as an answer at last? It has happened that as he stood so apparently in opposition to the world surrounding him, he became disentangled, and in a flight from all events, merged with all events. He no longer ‘knew’ the world. He said, I am not sure that those who know exist; perhaps there are simply events. They occur, of course, in such a way that the concept of a knowing could develop prematurely and without justification, and ‘concepts’ have sprouted up to bring light into these events, but they are will-o-the-wisps, souls of the desires for knowing, pitiful postulates of an empty form of knowledge, saying nothing in their evidence. Unknown factors must hold sway in the transitions. Darkness was spread over their nature. Events are the veil of the nature of truth.” [ 54 ] That the human personality, out of its own capacities can instill meaning into the happenings of reality, and can supplement the unknown factors which rule in the transitions of events: modern scholars do not think at all about this. They do not want to interpret the flight from appearances by ideals which stem from their own personality. They want merely to observe and describe the appearances, but not interpret them. They want to remain with the factual, and will not allow the creative fantasy to make a dismembered picture of reality. [ 55 ] When an imaginative natural scientist, for example, Ernst Haeckel, out of the results of individual observations, formulates a total picture of the evolution of organic life on earth, then these fanatics of factuality throw themselves upon him, and accuse him of transgression against truth. The pictures which he sketched about life in nature, they cannot see with their eyes or touch with their hands. They prefer the impersonal judgment to that which is colored by the spirit of the personality. They would prefer to exclude the personality completely from their observations. [ 56] It is the ascetic ideal which controls the fanatics of factuality. They would like a truth beyond the personal individual judgment. What the human being can “imagine into” things, does not concern these fanatics. “Truth” to them is something absolutely perfect—a God; man should discover it, should surrender to it, but should not create it. At present, the natural scientists and the historians are enthused by the same spirit of ascetic ideals. Everywhere they enumerate in order to describe facts, and nothing more. All arranging of facts is forbidden. All personal judgment is to be suppressed. [ 57 ] Atheists are also found among these modern scholars. But these atheists are freer spirits than their contemporaries who believe in God. The existence of God cannot be proven by means of modern science. Indeed, one of the brilliant minds of modern science, DuBois-Reymond, expressed himself thus about the acceptance of a “world-soul:” before the natural scientist decides upon such an acceptance he demands “That somewhere in the world, there be shown to him, bedded in nerve ganglia and nourished with warm, arterial blood under the correct pressure, a bundle of cell ganglia and nerve fibers, depending in size on the spiritual capacity of the soul.” (Grenzen des Naturerkennens, Limits of Natural Science, page 44). Modern science rejects the belief in God because this belief cannot exist beside their belief in “objective truth.” This “objective truth,” however, is nothing but a new God who has been victorious over the old one. “Unqualified, honest atheism (and we breathe only its air; we, the most intellectual human being of this age) does not stand in opposition to that (ascetic) ideal to the extent that it appears to; rather, it is one of its final phases of evolution, one of its ultimate forms, one of its logical consequences. It is the awe-inspiring catastrophe of a two thousand year training in truth, which finally forbids itself the lie of the belief in God.” (Genealogy, Part III, ¶ 27). Christ seeks truth in God because He considers God the source of all truth. The modern atheist rejects the belief in God because his god, his ideal of truth, forbids him this belief. In God the modern spirit sees a human creation; in “truth” he sees something which has come into being by itself without any human interference. The really “free spirit” goes still further. He asks, “What is the meaning of all will for truth?” Why truth? For all truth arises in that man ponders over the appearance of the world, and formulates thoughts about things. Man himself is the creator of truth. The “free spirit” arrives at the awareness of his own creation of truth. He no longer regards truth as something to which he subordinates himself; he looks upon it as his own creation. 19.[ 58 ] People endowed with weak, malformed instincts of perception do not dare to attach meaning to world appearances out of the concept-forming power of their personality. They wish the “laws of nature” to stand before their senses as actual facts. A subjective world-picture, formed by the instrumentality of the human mind, appears worthless to them. But the mere observation of world events presents us with only a disconnected, not a detailed world picture. To the mere observer of things, no object, no event, appears more important, more significant than another. When we have considered it, the rudimentary organ of an organism which perhaps appears to have no significance for the evolution of life, stands there with exactly the same demand upon our attention as does the most noble part of the organism, so long as we look merely at the actual facts. Cause and effect are appearances following upon each other, which merge into each other without being separated by anything, so long as we merely observe them. Only when with our thinking, we begin to separate the appearances which have merged into each other, and relate them to each other intellectually, does a regular connection become visible. Thinking alone explains one appearance as cause and another as effect. We see a raindrop fall upon the earth and produce a groove. A being which is unable to think will not see cause and effect here, but only a sequence of appearances. A thinking being isolates the appearances, relates the isolated facts, and labels the one factor as cause, the other as effect. Through observation the intellect is stimulated to produce thoughts and to fuse these thoughts with the observed facts into a meaningful world-picture. Man does this because he wishes to control the sum of his observations with his thoughts. A thought-vacuum before him presses upon him like an unknown power. He opposes this power and conquers it by making it conceivable. All counting, weighing and calculating of appearances also comes about for the same reason. It is the will to power which lives itself out in this impulse for knowledge. (I have represented a process of knowledge in detail in my two writings, Wahrheit und Wissenschaft, Truth and Science, and Die Philosophie der Freiheit, The Philosophy of Freedom.) [ 59 ] The dull, weak intellect does not want to admit to himself that it is he himself who interprets the appearances as expression of his striving toward power. He considers his interpretation also as an actual fact. And he asks, How does a man come to find such an actual fact in reality? He asks, for example, How is it that the intellect can recognize cause and effect in two appearances, one following upon the other? All theorists of knowledge, from Locke, Hume, Kant, down to the present time, have occupied themselves with this question. The subtleties which they have applied to this examination, have remained unfruitful. The explanation is given in the striving of the human intellect toward power. The question is not at all, Are judgments, thoughts about appearances, possible? but, Does the human intellect need such judgments? He needs them, hence he uses them, not because they are possible. It depends upon this: “To understand that for the sake of the preservation of creatures like ourselves such judgments must be believed to be true, though naturally they still may be false judgments!” (Jenseits von Gut und Böse, Beyond Good and Evil, ¶ 11) “And fundamentally we are inclined to assert that the most erroneous judgments are the most indispensable for us; that man could not live without belief in logical fiction, without measuring reality by the purely invented world of the unconditional, likening one's self to one's self, without a constant falsification of the world through number; that renunciation of false judgments would be a renunciation of life, a negation of life.” (Ibid, ¶ 4). Whoever regards this saying as a paradox, should remind himself how fruitful is the use of geometry in relation to reality, although nowhere in the world are really geometric, regular lines, planes, etc., to be found. [ 60 ] When the dull, weak intellect understands that all judgments about things stem from within him, are all produced by him, and are fused with the observations, then he does not have the courage to use these judgments unreservedly. He says, judgments of this kind cannot transmit knowledge of the “true essence” of things to us. Therefore, this “true essence” remains excluded from our knowledge. [ 61 ] The weak intellect tries in still another way to prove that no security can be attained through human knowledge. He says, The human being sees, hears, touches things and events. Thereby he perceives impressions of his sense organs. When he perceives a color, a sound, then he can only say, My eye, my ear are determined in a certain way to perceive color and tone. Man perceives nothing outside of himself except a determination, a modification of his own organs. In perceiving, his eyes, his ears, etc., become stimulated to feel in a certain way; they are placed in a certain condition. The human being perceives this condition of his own organs as colors, tones, odors, etc. In all perceiving, the human being perceives only his own conditions. What he calls the outer world is composed only of his own conditions; therefore, in a real sense it is his work. He does not know the things which cause him to spin the outer world out of himself; he only knows the effects upon his organs. In this light, the world appears like a dream which is dreamed by the human being, and is occasioned by something unknown. [ 62 ] When this thought is brought to its consequential conclusion, it brings with it the following afterthought. Man knows only his own organs, insofar as he perceives them; they are parts of his world of perception. And man becomes conscious of his own self only to the extent that he spins pictures of the world out of himself. He perceives dream pictures, and in the midst of these dream pictures, an “I,” by which these dream pictures pass; every dream picture appears to be an accompaniment of this “I.” One can also say that each dream picture appears in the midst of the dream world, always in relation to this “I.” This “I” clings to these dream pictures as determination, as characteristic: Consequently, as a determination of dream pictures, it is a dream-like being itself. J. G. Fichte sums up this point of view in these words: “What develops through this knowing, and out of this knowing, is but a knowing. But all knowing is merely reflection, and something is always demanded of it which conforms to the picture. This demand cannot be satisfied by knowledge; and a system of knowledge is necessarily a system of mere pictures, without any reality, without significance, and without purpose.” For Fichte, “all reality” is a wonderful “dream without a life, which is being dreamed about, without a spirit who dreams.” It is a dream “which is connected with itself in a dream.” (Bestimmung des Menschen, Mission of Man, 2nd Book) [ 63 ] What meaning has this whole chain of thoughts? A weak intellect, which does not dare to give meaning to the world out of himself, looks for this meaning in the world of observations. Of course, he cannot find it there because mere observation is void of thoughts. [ 64 ] A strong, productive intellect uses his world of concepts to interpret the observations. The weak, unproductive intellect declares himself to be too powerless to do this, and says, I can find no sense in the appearances of the world; they are mere pictures which pass by me. The meaning of existence, therefore, must be looked for outside, beyond the world of appearances. Because of this, the world of appearances, that is, the human reality, is explained as a dream, an illusion, a Nothing, and “the true being” of appearances is searched for in a “thing in itself,” for which no observation, no knowledge is sufficient, that is, about which the knower can form no idea. Therefore, for the knower, this “true being” is a completely empty thought, the thought about a Nothing. For those philosophers who speak about the “thing in itself,” a dream is a world of appearances. But this Nothing they regard as the “true being” of the world of appearances. The whole philosophical movement which speaks about the “thing in itself,” and which, in more modern times, leans mainly upon Kant, is the belief in this Nothing; it is philosophical nihilism. 20.[ 65 ] When the strong spirit looks for the cause of a human action and achievement, he will always find it in the will power of the individual personality. But the human being with a weak, timid intellect will not admit this. He doesn't feel himself sufficiently strong to make himself master and guide of his own actions. He interprets the impulses which guide him as the commandments of another power. He does not say, I act as I want to act, but he says, I act according to a law which I must obey. He does not wish to command himself; he wishes to obey. At one level of their development, human beings see their impulses to action as commandments of God; at another level, they believe that they are aware of a voice inside them, which commands them. In the latter case they do not dare to say, It is I myself who command; they assert, In me a higher will expresses itself. One person is of the opinion that it is his conscience which speaks to him in each individual case, and tells him how he should act, while another asserts that a categorical imperative commands him. Let us hear what J. G. Fichte says: “Something simply will happen because something just must happen; conscience now demands of me that it happen, and simply for this reason I am here; I am to realize it, and for that I have intellect. I am to achieve it, and for that I have strength.” (Ibid, Third Book) I mention J. G. Fichte's sayings with great pleasure because he maintained with iron consequence his opinion of the “weak and malformed.” He maintained it to the very end. One can only realize where this opinion finally leads when one looks for it where it was thought through to the end; one cannot depend upon those who are incomplete thinkers, who think each thought only to the middle. [ 66 ] The fount of knowledge is not sought in individual personalities by those who think in the above mentioned way, but beyond personality in a “will in itself.” Just this “will in itself” shall speak to the individual as “God's voice,” as the “voice of conscience,” as categorical imperative, and so on. This is to be the universal leader of human actions, and the fount of all morality, and is also to determine the purpose of moral actions. “I say that it is the commandment to action itself which gives me a purpose through itself. It is the same in me which urges me to think that I should act in such a way, urges me to believe that out of these actions something will result; it opens the view to another world.” “As I live in obedience, at the same time I live in the reflection of its purposes; I live in the better world which it promises me.” (Ibid, Third Book) He who thinks thus, will not set a goal for himself; he will allow himself to be led to a goal by the higher will which he obeys. He will free himself from his own will, and will make himself into an instrument for “higher” purposes in words which express the highest; achievements of obedience and humility known to him. Fichte described the abandonment to this “eternal Will in itself.” “Lofty, living Will, which no name names and no concept encompasses, may I raise my soul to you, for you and I are not separated. Your voice sounds within me; mine resounds in you; and all my thoughts, when they are true and good, are thought within you. In you, the incomprehensible, I become comprehensible to myself, and the world becomes perfectly comprehensible to me. All problems of my existence are solved, and the most complete harmony arises within my spirit” ... “I veil my countenance before you. I lay my hand upon my mouth. As you yourself are, and as you appear to yourself, I can never understand, as certainly as I never could become you. After I have lived a thousand thousand spirit lives, I shall comprehend you as little as I do now in this hut upon earth.” (Ibid, Third Book) [ 67 ] Where this will is finally to lead man, the individual cannot know. Therefore the one who believes in this will confesses that he knows nothing about the final purposes of his actions. For such a believer in a higher will, the goals which the individual sets for himself, are not “true goals.” Therefore, in place of the positive individual goals created by the individuum, he places a final purpose for the whole of mankind, the thought content of which, however, is a Nothing. Such a believer is a moral nihilist. He is caught in the worst kind of ignorance imaginable. Nietzsche wanted to deal with this type of ignorance in a special section of his incompleted work, Der Wille zur Macht, The Will to Power. [ 68 ] We find the praise of moral nihilism again in Fichte's Bestimmung des Menschen, Destiny of Man (Third Book): “I shall not attempt what is denied me by the very Being of Limitations, and I shall not attempt what would avail me nothing. What you yourself are, I do not care to know. But your relationships and your connections with me, the Specific, and toward everything Specific, lie open before my eyes; may I become what I must become, and all this surrounds me in more brilliant clarity than the consciousness of my own existence. You create within me the knowledge of my duty, of my destiny, in the order of intelligent beings; how, I know not, nor do I need to know. You know, and you recognize what I think and what I will; how you can know it, through what act you achieve this consciousness, I understand nothing. Yes, I know very well that the concept of an act and of a special act of consciousness is valid only for me, but not for you, Infinite Being. You govern because you will that my free obedience has consequences to all eternity; the act of your willing I do not understand, and only know that it is not similar to mine. Your act and your will itself is a deed. But the way you work is exactly opposite to that way which I alone am able to understand. You live and you are because you know, will, and effectuate, ever present in the limited intellect, but you are not as I conceive a being to be through eternities.” [ 69 ] Nietzsche places opposite to moral nihilism those goals which the creating individual will places before itself. Zarathustra calls to the teachers of the gospel of submission: [ 70 ] “These teachers of the gospel of submission. Everywhere where there is smallness and sickness and dirt, there they creep like lice, and only my disgust prevents me from crushing them under foot. “Attend! This is my gospel for their ears: I am Zarathustra, the godless, who asks, Who is more godless than I, that I may rejoice in his teaching? “I am Zarathustra, the godless; where do I find my equal? All those are my equals who determine their will out of themselves, and who push all submission away from themselves.” 21.[ 71 ] The strong personality which creates goals is disdainful of the execution of them. The weak personality, on the other hand, carries out only what the Divine Will, the “voice of conscience” or the “categorical imperative” says Yes to. That which is in accordance with this Yes, the weak person describes as good, that which is contrary to this Yes, it describes as evil. The strong personality cannot acknowledge this “good and evil,” for he does not acknowledge that power from which the weak person allows his “good and evil” to be determined. What the strong person wills is for him good; he carries it through in spite of all opposing powers. What disturbs him in this execution, he tries to overcome. He does not believe that an “Eternal Will” guides the decisions of all individual wills toward a great harmony, but he believes that all human development comes out of the will-impasses of the individual personalities, and that an eternal war is waged between the expressions of individual wills, in which the stronger will always conquers the weaker. [ 72 ] The strong personality who lays down his own laws and sets his own goals, is described by the weaker and less courageous as evil, as sinful. He arouses fear, for he breaks through traditional ways; he calls that worthless which the weak person is accustomed to call valuable, and he invents the new, the previously unknown, which he describes as valuable. “Each individual action, each individual way of thinking causes shuddering; it is almost impossible to estimate exactly what those more uncommon, more select, more criminal spirits must have suffered in the course of history so that they were always regarded as bad, as dangerous, yes, even so that they themselves considered themselves in this light. Under the domination of custom, all originality of every kind has evoked a bad conscience. Up to this very time the heaven of the most admirable has become more darkened than it would have had to be.” (Morgenröte, Dawn, p. 9) The truly free spirit makes original decisions immediately; the unfree spirit decides in accordance with his background. “Morality is nothing more (specifically, nothing more!) than obedience to customs of whatever nature these may be; but customs are the traditional way of acting and evaluating.” (Ibid, p. 9). It is this tradition which is interpreted by the moralists as “eternal will,” as “categorical imperative.” But every tradition is the result of natural impulses, of lives of individuals, of entire tribes, nations, and so on. It is also the product of natural causes, for example, the condition of the weather in specific localities. The free spirit explains that he does not feel himself bound by such tradition. He has his individual drives and impulses, and feels that these are not less justified than those of others. He transforms these impulses into action as a cloud sends rain to the earth's surface when causes for this exist. The free spirit takes his stand opposite to what tradition considers to be good and evil. He creates his own good and evil for himself. [ 73 ] “When I came to men, I found them sitting there on an old presumption: they all assumed that they had long known what was good and evil for man. “All debating about virtue seemed to them an old, worn-out affair, and he who wanted to sleep well, still spoke about good and evil before going to sleep. “This sleepiness I disturbed by my teaching; what is good and what is evil, nobody knows; then let it be the creator. “But that is he who creates man's goal and who gives meaning to the earth and to the future. It is he who first brings it about that there is something good and evil.” (Zarathustra, 3rd Part, From the Old and New Tablets) [ 74 ] Besides this, when the free spirit acts according to tradition, he does this because he adopts the traditional motives, and because he does not consider it necessary in certain cases to put something new in place of the traditional. 22.[ 75 ] The strong person seeks his life's task in working out his creative self. This self-seeking differentiates him from the weak person who, in the selfless surrender to that which he calls “good,” sees morality. The weak preach selflessness as the highest virtue, but their selflessness is only the consequence of their lack of creative power. If they had any creative self they would then have wished to manifest it. The strong person loves war because he needs war to manifest his creation in opposition to those powers hogstile to him. [ 76 ] “Your enemy you shall seek, your war you shall wage, and as for your thoughts, if they succumb, then shall your very uprightness nevertheless attain triumph over their collapse! [ 77 ] “You shall love peace as a means to a new war, and a short peace more than a long one. [ 78 ] “I do not challenge you to work, but to fight. I do not challenge you to peace, but to victory. Your work be your struggle! Your peace be a victory! [ 79 ] “You say that the good circumstance may even sanctify war, but I say to you, it is the ‘good’ war which sanctifies every circumstance. [ 80 ] “War and courage have accomplished more great things than love for one's neighbor. Until now, not your sympathy but your courage has saved the unfortunate.” (Zarathustra, 1st Part, About War and People of War) [ 81 ] The creative person acts without mercy and without regard for those who oppose. He has no cognizance of the virtue of those who suffer, namely, of sympathy. Out of his own power come his impulses to creativity, not out of his feelings for another's suffering. That power may conquer, for this he fights, not that suffering and weakness may be cared for. Schopenhauer has described the whole world as a hospital, and asked that the actions springing out of sympathy for suffering be considered as the highest virtue. Thereby he has expressed the morality of Christendom in another form than the latter itself has done. He who creates, though, does not feel himself destined to render these nursing services. The efficient ones, the healthy, cannot exist for the sake of the weak, the sick. Sympathy weakens power, courage, and bravery. [ 82 ] Sympathy seeks to maintain just what the strong wishes to overcome, that is, the weakness, the suffering. The victory of the strong over the weak is the meaning of all human as well as of all natural development. “Life in its essence is a usurping, a wounding, an overcoming of the strange, of all that is misfit and weak. Life is the suppressing, the hardening and forcing through of one's own forms, the embodying, and, in the least and mildest, the erupting in boils.” (Jenseits van Gut und Böse, Beyond Good and Evil, ¶ 259). [ 83 ] “And do you not wish to be a dealer of destiny and unmerciful? How else can you be mine or conquer with me?” “And if your hardness will not strike as lightning and cleave and cut, how then can you ever create with me? “For the creators are hard, and it must seem to you a blessing to press your hand upon the millennia as if upon wax. “A blessing to inscribe upon the will of millennia as if upon bronze, harder than bronze, more precious than bronze. Entirely hard is the most precious alone. “This new tablet, O my brothers, I raise above you, thou shalt become hard.” (Zarathustra, 3rd Part, From the Old and New Tablets) [ 84 ] The free spirit makes no demands upon sympathy. He would have to ask the one who would pity him, Do you consider me as weak, that I cannot bear my suffering by myself? For him, each expression of sympathy is humiliating. Nietzsche shows this aversion of the strong person toward sympathy in the fourth part of Zarathustra. In his wanderings Zarathustra arrives in a valley which is called “Snake Death.” No living beings are found here. Only a kind of ugly green snake comes here in order to die. The “most ugly human being” has found this valley. He does not wish to be seen by anyone because of his ugliness. In this valley he sees no one besides God, but even His countenance he cannot bear. The consciousness that God's gaze has penetrated into all these regions becomes a burden for him. For this reason he has killed God, that is, he has killed the belief in God within himself. He has become an atheist because of his ugliness. When Zarathustra sees this human being, he is overcome by what he believed he had destroyed within himself forever: that is, sympathy for the most frightful ugliness. This becomes a temptation for Zarathustra, but very soon he rejects the feeling of sympathy and again becomes hard. The most ugly man says to him, “Your hardness honors my ugliness. I am too rich in ugliness to be able to bear the sympathy of any human being. Sympathy humiliates.” [ 85 ] He who requires sympathy cannot stand alone, and the free spirit wishes to stand completely on his own. 23.[ 86 ] The weak are not content with pointing to the natural will to power as the cause of human actions. They do not merely seek for natural connections in human development, but they seek for the relationship of human action to what they call the “will in itself,” the eternal, moral world order. They accuse the one who acts contrary to this world order. And they also are not satisfied to evaluate an action according to its natural consequences, but they claim that a guilty action also draws with it moral consequences, i.e., punishment. They consider themselves guilty if their actions are not in accord with the moral world order; they turn away in horror from the fount of evil in themselves, and they call this feeling bad conscience. The strong personality, on the other hand, does not consider all these concepts valid. He is concerned only with the natural consequences of actions. He asks, Of what value for life is my way of acting? Is it in accord with what I have willed? The strong cannot grieve when an action goes wrong, when the result does not accord with his intentions. But he does not blame himself. For he does not measure his way of acting by supernatural yardsticks. He knows that he has acted thus in accord with his natural impulses, and at most he can regret that these are not better. It is the same with his judgment regarding the actions of others. A moral evaluation of actions he does not grant. He is an amoralist. [ 87 ] What tradition considers to be evil the amoralist looks upon as the outstreaming of human instincts, in fact, as good. He does not consider punishment as morally necessary but merely as a means of eradicating instincts of certain human beings which are harmful to others. According to the opinion of the amoralist, society does not punish for this reason but because it has “moral right” to expiate the guilt, and because it proves itself stronger than the individual who has instincts which are antagonistic to the whole. The power of society stands against the power of the individual. This is the natural connection between an “evil” action of the individual and the justification of society, leading to the punishment of the individual. It is the will to power, namely, the acting of these instincts present in the majority of human beings, which expresses itself in the administration of justice in society. Thus, each punishment is the victory of a majority over an individual. Should the individual be victorious over society, then his action must be considered good, and that of others, evil. The arbitrary right expresses only what society recognizes as the best basis of their will to power. 24.[ 88 ] Because Nietzsche sees in human action only an outstreaming of instincts, and these latter differ according to different people, it seems necessary to him that their actions also be different. For this reason, Nietzsche is a decided opponent of the democratic premise, equal rights and equal duties for all. Human beings are dissimilar; for this reason their rights and duties also must be dissimilar. The natural course of world history will always point out strong and weak, creative and uncreative human beings. And the strong will always be destined to determine the goals of the weak. Yes, still more: the strong will make use of the weak as the means toward a certain goal, that is, to serve as slaves. Nietzsche naturally does not speak about the “moral” right of the strong to keep slaves. “Moral” rights he does not acknowledge. He is simply of the opinion that the overcoming of the weak by the strong, which he considers as the principle of all life, must necessarily lead toward slavery. [ 89 ] It is also natural that those overcome will rebel against the overcomer. When this rebellion cannot express itself through a deed it will at least express itself in feeling, and the expression of this feeling is revenge, which dwells steadily in the hearts of those who in some way or other have been overcome by those more fortunately endowed. Nietzsche regards the modern social democratic movement as a streaming forth of this revenge. For him, the victory of this movement would be a raising of the deformed, poorly endowed to the disadvantage of those better equipped. Nietzsche strove for exactly the opposite: the cultivation of the strong, self-dominant personality. And he hates the urge to equalize everything and to allow the sovereign individuality to disappear in the ocean of universal mediocrity. [ 90 ] Not that each shall have the same and enjoy the same, says Nietzsche, but each should have and enjoy what he can attain by his own personal effort. 25.[ 91 ] What the human being is worth depends only upon the value of his instincts. By nothing else can the value of the human being be determined. One speaks about the worth of work, or the value of work, or that work shall ennoble the human being. But in itself work has absolutely no value. Only through the fact that it serves man does it gain a value. Only insofar as work presents itself as a natural consequence of human inclinations, is it worthy of the human being. He who makes himself the servant of work, lowers himself. Only the human being who is unable to determine his own worth for himself, tries to measure this worth by the greatness of his work, of his achievement. It is characteristic of the democratic bourgeoisie of modern times that in the evaluation of the human being they let themselves be guided by his work. Even Goethe is not free from this attitude. He lets his Faust find the full satisfaction in the consciousness of work well done. 26.[ 92 ] Art also has value, according to Nietzsche's opinion, only when it serves the life of the individual human being. And in this Nietzsche is a representative of the opinion of the strong personality, and rejects everything that the weak instincts express about art. All German aesthetes represent the point of view of the weak instincts. Art should represent the “infinite” in the “finite,” the “eternal” in the “temporal,” and the “idea” in the “reality.” For Schelling, as an example, all sensual beauty is but a reflection of that infinite beauty which we can never perceive with our senses. The work of art is never there for the sake of itself, nor is beautiful through what it is, but only because it reflects the idea of the beautiful. The sense picture is only a means of expression, only the form for a supersensible content, and Hegel calls the beautiful, “the sense filled appearance of the Idea.” Similar thoughts also can be found among other German aesthetes. For Nietzsche, art is a life-fostering element, and only when this is the case, has it justification. The one who cannot bear life as he directly perceives it, transforms it according to his requirements, and thereby creates a work of art. And what does the one who enjoys it demand from the work of art? He demands heightening of his joy of life, the strengthening of his life forces, satisfaction of his requirements, which reality does not do for him. But in the work of art, when his senses are directed toward the real, he will not see any reflection of the divine or of the superearthy. Let us hear how Nietzsche describes the impression Bizet's Carmen made upon him: “I become a better man when Bizet speaks to me. Also a better musician, a better listener. Is it at all possible to listen still better? I continue to bury my ears beneath this music; I hear its wellsprings. It seems to me that I experience its development, its evolving. I tremble in face of dangers which accompany any daring adventure. I am delighted with happy fortunes for which Bizet is not responsible. And, strange, fundamentally I do not think about it, nor do I even know how much I ponder about it. For, meanwhile, entirely different thoughts run through my head. Has one noticed that music frees the spirit, gives wings to the thoughts, that one becomes more of a philosopher, the more one becomes a musician, that the grey heavens of abstraction are lighted by flashes of lightning, that the light is strong enough for all the tracery of things, the large problems near enough for grasping, and the world is seen as from a mountain? I have just defined philosophical pathos. And, inadvertently, answers fall into my lap, a small hail of ice and wisdom, of solved problems. Where am I? Bizet makes me fruitful. All good makes me fruitful. I have no other gratitude, I also have no other measure for that which is good.” (Case of Wagner, ¶ 1.) Since Richard Wagner's music did not make such an impression upon him, Nietzsche rejected it: “My objections to Wagner's music are physiological objections. ... As a fact, my petit fait vrai is that I no longer breathe easily when this music first begins to work upon me; that soon my foot becomes angry with it and revolts: it desires to beat, dance, march. It demands first of all from the music the pleasures which lie in good walking, striding dancing. But doesn't my stomach also protest? My heart? My circulation? Do not my intestines also grieve? Do I not become unknowingly hoarse? And so I ask myself, ‘What does my entire body really want from this music?’ I believe that it seeks levitation. It is as if all animal functions become accelerated through these light, bold, abandoned, self-sure rhythms; as if the brazen, leaden life would lose its weight through the golden tender flow of oily melodies. My melancholy heaviness could rest in the hide and seek and in the abysses of perfection; but for that I need music.” (Nietzsche contra Wagner) [ 93 ] At the beginning of his literary career Nietzsche deceived himself about what his instincts demanded from art, and thus at that time he was a disciple of Wagner. He had allowed himself to be lead astray into idealism through the study of Schopenhauer's philosophy. He believed in idealism for a certain time, and conjured up before himself artistic needs, ideal needs. Only in the further course of his life did he notice that all idealism was exactly contrary to his impulses. Now he became more honest with himself. He expressed only what he himself felt. And this could only lead to the complete rejection of Wagner's music, which as a mark of Wagner's last working aim, assumed an ever more ascetic character, as mentioned above. [ 94 ] The aesthetes who demand that art make the ideal tangible, that it materialize the divine, in this field present an opinion similar to the philosophical nihilist in the field of knowledge and morality. In the objects of art they search for a beyond which, before the sense of reality, dissolves itself into a nothingness. There is also an aesthetic nihilism. [ 95 ] This stands in contrast to the aestheticism of the strong personality, which sees in art a reflection of reality, a higher reality, which man would rather enjoy than the commonplace. 27. [ 96 ] Nietzsche places two types of human beings opposite each other: the weak and the strong. The first type looks for knowledge as an objective fact, which should stream from the outer world into his spirit. He allows himself to have his good and evil dictated by an “eternal world will” or a “categorical imperative.” He identifies each action as sin which is not determined by this world will, but only by the creative self-will, a sin which must entail a moral punishment. The weak would like to prescribe equal rights for all human beings, and to determine the worth of the human being according to an outer yardstick. He would finally see in art a reflection of the divine, a message from the beyond. The strong, on the contrary, sees in all knowledge an expression of the will to power. Through knowledge he attempts to make all things conceivable, and, as a consequence, to make them subject to himself. He knows that he himself is the creator of truth, and that no one but himself can create his good and his evil. He regards the actions of human beings as the consequences of natural impulses, and lets them count as natural events which are never regarded as sins and do not warrant a moral judgment. He looks for the value of a man in the efficiency of the latter's instincts. A human being with instincts of health, spirit, beauty, perseverance, nobility he values higher than one with instincts of weakness, ugliness or slavery. He values a work of art according to the degree to which it enhances his forces. [ 97 ] Nietzsche understands this latter type of man to be his superman. Until now, such supermen could come about only through the coalescing of accidental conditions. To make their development into the conscious goal of mankind is the intention of Zarathustra. Until now, one saw the goal of human development in various ideas. Here Nietzsche considers a change of perception to be necessary. “The more valuable type has been described often enough, but as a happy fortune, as an exception, never as consciously willed. Moreover, he specifically is most feared; until now he was almost the most terrible one; and out of the terror the reverse type was willed, bred, achieved: the domestic animal, the herd animal, the sick animal man—the Christ.” (Antichrist, ¶ 3.) [ 98 ] Zarathustra's wisdom is to teach about the superman, toward which that other type was only a transition. [ 99 ] Nietzsche calls this wisdom, Dionysian. It is wisdom which is not given to man from without; it is a self-created wisdom. The Dionysian wise one does not search; he creates. He does not stand as a spectator outside of the world he wishes to know; he becomes one with his knowledge. He does not search after a God; what he can still imagine to himself as divine is only himself as the creator of his own world. When this condition extends to all forces of the human organism, the result is the Dionysian human being, who cannot misunderstand a suggestion; he overlooks no sign of emotions; he has the highest level of understanding and divining instinct, just he possesses the art of communication in the highest degree. He enters into everything, into every emotion; he transforms himself continually. In contrast to the Dionysian wise one, stands the mere observer, who believes himself to be always outside his objects of knowledge, as an objective suffering spectator. The Apollonian stands opposite to the Dionysian human being. The Apollonian is he who, “above all, keeps the eye very active so that it receives the power of vision.” Visions, pictures of things which stand beyond the reality of mankind: the Apollonian spirit strives for these, and not for that wisdom created by himself. 28.[ 100 ] The Apollonian wisdom has the character of earnestness. It feels the domination of the Beyond, which it only pictures, as a heavy weight, as an opposing power. The, Apollonian wisdom is serious for it believes itself to be in possession of a message from the Beyond, even if this is only transmitted through pictures and visions. The Apollonian spirit wanders about, heavily laden with his knowledge, for he carries a burden which stems from another world. And he takes on the expression of dignity because, confronted with the annunciation of the infinite, all laughter must be stilled. [ 101 ] But this laughing is characteristic of the Dionysian spirit. The latter knows that all he calls wisdom is only his own wisdom, invented by him to make his life; easier. This one thing alone shall be his wisdom: namely, a means which permits him to say Yes to life. To the Dionysian human being, the spirit of heaviness is repellent, because it does not lighten life, but oppresses it. The self-created wisdom is a merry wisdom, for he who creates his own burden, creates one which he can also carry easily. With this self-created wisdom, the Dionysian spirit moves lightly through the world like a dancer. [ 102 ] “But that I am good to wisdom, and often too good, is because she reminds me so very much of life itself. [ 103 ] She has the eye of life, her laughter and even her golden fishing rod; how can I help it that the two are so alike? [ 104 ] Into your eye I gazed recently, O Life: gold I saw flickering in your eyes of night! My heart stood still before such joy.[ 105 ] A golden boat I saw flickering on the waters of night, a sinking, drinking, ever-winking, golden, rocking boat! [ 106 ] “Upon my foot, so wild to dance, you cast a glance, a laughing questioning, a melting, rocking glance. [ 107 ] Twice only you shook your castanet with tiny hands. Thereupon, my foot rocked with urge to dance. [ 108 ] “My heels arched themselves, my toes listened to understand you. Indeed, the dancer carries his ear—in his toes!” (Zarathustra – 2nd and 3rd Parts. “The Dance Song.”) 29.[ 109 ] Since the Dionysian spirit draws out of himself all impulses for his actions and obeys no external power, he is a free spirit. A free spirit follows only his own nature. Now of course in Nietzsche's works one speaks about instincts as the impulses of the free spirit. I believe that here under one name Nietzsche has collected a whole range of impulses requiring a consideration which goes more into individual differentiations. Nietzsche calls instincts those impulses for nourishment and self preservation present in animals, as well as the highest impulses of human nature, for example, the urge toward knowledge, the impulse to act according to moral standards, the drive to refresh oneself through works of art, and so on. Now, of course, all these impulses are forms of expression of one and the same fundamental force, but they do represent different levels in the development of this power. The moral instincts, for example, are a special level of instinct. Even if it is only admitted that they are but higher forms of sensory instinct, nevertheless they do appear in a special form within man's existence. This shows itself in that it is possible for man to carry out actions which cannot be led back to sensory instincts directly, but only to those impulses which can be defined as higher forms of instinct. The human being himself creates impulses for his own actions, which are not to be derived from his own sensory impulses, but only from conscious thinking. He puts individual purposes before himself, but he puts these before himself consciously, and there is a great difference whether he follows an instinct which arose unconsciously and only afterward was taken into consciousness, or whether he follows a thought which he produced from the very beginning with full consciousness. When I eat because my impulse for nourishment drives me to it, this is something essentially different from my solving a mathematical problem. But the conceptual grasp of world phenomena presents a special form of general perceptability. It differentiates itself from mere sensory perception. For the human being, the higher forms of development of the life of instinct are just as natural as the lower. If both of them are not in harmony, then he is condemned to unfreedom. The case may be that a weak personality, with entirely healthy sense instincts, has but weak spiritual instincts. Then of course he will develop his own individuality in regard to the life of senses, but he will draw the thought impulses of his actions from tradition. Disharmony can develop between both worlds of impulses. The sense impulses press toward a living out of one's own personality; the spiritual impulses are fettered to outer authority. The spiritual life of such a personality will be tyrannized by the sensuous, the sensuous life by the spiritual instincts. This is because both powers do not belong together, and have not grown out of a single state of being. Therefore, to the really free personality belongs not only a soundly developed individualized life of sense impulses, but also the capacity to create for himself the thought impulses for life. Only that man is entirely free who can produce thoughts out of himself which can lead to action, and in my book, Die Philosophie der Freiheit, The Philosophy of Freedom, I have called the capacity to produce pure thought motives for action, “moral fantasy.” Only the one who has this moral fantasy is really free, because the human being must act in accordance with conscious motives. And when he cannot produce the latter out of himself, then he must let himself be given them by outer authority or by tradition, which speaks to him in the form of the voice of conscience. A man who abandons himself merely to sensual instincts, acts like an animal; a human being who places his sensuous instincts under another's thoughts, acts unfreely; only the human being who creates for himself his own moral goals, acts in freedom. Moral fantasy is lacking in Nietzsche's teaching. The one who carries Nietzsche's thoughts to their conclusion must necessarily come to this insight. But in any case, it is an absolute necessity that this insight be added to Nietzsche's world conception. Otherwise one could always object to his conception thus: Indeed the Dionysian man is no slave to tradition or to the “will beyond,” but he is a slave of his own instincts. [ 110 ] Nietzsche looked toward the original, essential personality of the human being. He tried to separate this essential personality from the cloak of the impersonal in which it had been veiled by a world conception hostile to reality. But he did not come to the point where he differentiated the levels of life within the personality itself. Therefore he underestimated the significance of consciousness for the human personality. “Consciousness is the last and most recent development of the organic, and consequently the least prepared and the weakest. Out of consciousness come innumerable errors, which bring it about that an animal, a human being, disintegrates earlier than otherwise would be necessary—collapses ‘over his destiny,’ as Homer says. If the preserved union of instincts were not so overwhelmingly powerful, if, on the whole it did not serve as a regulator, mankind would go to pieces because of their confused judgment, spinning fantasies with open eyes through their superficiality and gullibility. In short, just because of their consciousness, mankind must be destroyed,” says Nietzsche (Fröhliche Wissenschaft, Joyful Science, ¶ 11.) [ 111 ] Indeed, this is entirely admitted, but it does not affect the truth that the human being is free only insofar as he can create within his consciousness thought motives for his actions. [ 112 ] But the contemplation of thought motives leads still further. It is a fact based upon experience, that these thought motives which the human being produces out of himself, nevertheless manifest an overall consistency to a certain degree in single individuals. Also, when the individual human being creates thoughts in complete freedom out of himself, these correspond in a certain way with the thoughts of other human beings. For this reason, the free person is justified in assuming that harmony in human society enters of its own accord when society consists of sovereign individualities. With this opinion he can confront the defender of unfreedom, who believes that the actions of a majority of human beings only accord with each other when they are guided by an external power toward a common goal. For this reason the free spirit is most certainly not a disciple of that opinion which would allow the animal instincts to reign in complete freedom, and hence would do away with all law and order. Moreover, he demands complete freedom for those who do not merely wish to follow their animal instincts, but who are able to create their own moral impulses, their own good and evil. [ 113 ] Only he who has not penetrated Nietzsche so far as to be able to form the ultimate conclusions of his world conception, granted that Nietzsche himself has not formed them, can see in him a human being who, “with a certain stylized pleasure, has found the courage to unveil what perhaps lurked hidden in some of the most secret depths of the souls of flagrant criminal types.” (Ludwig Stein, Friedrich Nietzsches Weltanschauung und ihre Gefahren, Friedrich Nietzsche's World Conception and its Dangers, p. 5.) Still today the average education of a German professor has not reached the point of being able to differentiate between the greatness of a personality and his small errors. Otherwise, one could not observe that such a professor's criticism is directed toward just these small errors. I believe that true education accepts the greatness of a personality and corrects small errors, or brings incomplete thoughts to conclusion. |
13. An Outline of Occult Science: Sleep and Death
Tr. Henry B. Monges, Maud B. Monges, Lisa D. Monges Rudolf Steiner |
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Thus a red stone appears greenish in the spirit land and a green stone, reddish. The other characteristics also appear In their complementary forms. Just as stones, earth masses, and so forth, make up the solid land—the continental regions—of the physical world, so the structures described above compose “the solid land” of the spirit world. |
13. An Outline of Occult Science: Sleep and Death
Tr. Henry B. Monges, Maud B. Monges, Lisa D. Monges Rudolf Steiner |
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[ 1 ] It is not possible to penetrate into the nature of waking consciousness without observing the state through which the human being passes during sleep, and it is impossible to solve the riddle of life without considering death. For a human being in whom there is no feeling for the significance of supersensible knowledge, doubts may arise in regard to such knowledge because of the way in which it carries on its considerations regarding sleep and death. Supersensible knowledge is able to understand the motives that give rise to such a distrust. For it is quite comprehensible when someone says that man is here for an active, purposeful life and his accomplishments are based upon his devotion to it; furthermore, that the occupation with states such as sleep and death can only result from an inclination to idle dreaming and can only lead to empty imaginings. The rejection of what is thus held to be “fantastic” may readily be looked upon as the expression of a healthy soul, and an inclination toward “idle dreaming” of this kind as something unhealthy, characteristic of persons lacking in vital energy and the joy of life, and who are incapable of “real accomplishment.” It is wrong to declare forthwith that such an opinion is false, for it contains a certain kernel of truth. It is a quarter-truth that must be supplemented by the other three-quarters belonging to it, and a person who sees the one-quarter very well, but who has no conception of the other three-quarters, will only be made distrustful by our combating the true one-quarter. It must, in fact, be acknowledged without question that a consideration of what lies concealed in sleep and death is unhealthy if it leads to a weakening, to an estrangement from real life, and we must admit that much that has called itself occult science in the world from time immemorial, and is practiced also today under that name, bears a character unhealthy and hostile to life. But this unsound element does not spring from true supersensible knowledge. On the contrary, the real fact is the following. Just as man cannot always be awake, he also cannot, in regard to the real conditions of life in its widest sense, get along without what the supersensible is able to offer. Life continues during sleep, and the forces that are active and creative during the waking state receive their strength and renewal from what is given to them by sleep. Thus it is with what can be observed in the manifest world. The domain of the world is greater than the field of this observation, and what is known about the visible universe must be supplemented and fructified by what can be known about the invisible. A human being who does not continually draw strength for his weakened forces from sleep must of necessity destroy his life. Likewise, a world concept that is not fructified by a knowledge of the hidden world must lead to desolation. It is similar with death. Living beings succumb to death in order that new life may arise. It is precisely the knowledge of the supersensible that can shed clear light upon the beautiful words of Goethe: “Nature has invented death that she might have abundant life.” Just as there could be no life in the ordinary sense of the word without death, so can there be no true knowledge of the visible world without insight into the supersensible. All knowledge of what is visible must plunge again and again into the invisible in order to evolve. Thus it is evident that the science of the supersensible alone makes the life of revealed knowledge possible. It never weakens life when it appears in its true form. When, having been left to itself, life becomes weak and sickly, supersensible knowledge strengthens it and makes it, ever and again, fresh and healthy. [ 2 ] When man sinks into sleep, there is a change in the relationship of his members. That part of the sleeping man that lies in bed contains the physical and ether bodies, but not the astral body and not the ego. Because the ether body remains united with the physical body in sleep, the life-activities continue; for, the moment the physical body were left to itself, it would have to crumble to dust. What, however, is extinguished in sleep includes the mental images, pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow, the capacity to express a conscious will, and similar facts of existence. The astral body is the bearer of all this. An unbiased point of view can naturally never entertain the thought that in sleep the astral body is destroyed along with all pleasure and pain and the world of ideas and will. It simply exists in an other state. In order that the human ego and astral body not only be filled with joy and sorrow and all the other facts of existence mentioned above, but also have a conscious perception of them, it is necessary that the astral body be united with the physical and ether bodies. In the waking state, all three are united; in the sleeping state, the astral body withdraws from the physical and ether bodies. It assumes a different kind of existence from the one that falls to its lot during its union with the physical and ether bodies. It is the task of supersensible knowledge to consider this other kind of existence in the astral body. Observed from the standpoint of the outer world, the astral body disappears in sleep; supersensible perception must follow its life until it again takes possession of the physical and ether bodies on awakening. Just as in all cases where it is a matter of knowledge of the hidden things and events of the world, so supersensible observation is necessary for the discovery of the facts of the sleeping state in their particular form. If, however, what can be discovered by means of supersensible observation has once been uttered, it is comprehensible to truly unbiased thinking, for the processes of the hidden world reveal themselves in their effects in the manifest world. If it is seen how the revelations of supersensible perception make the sensory processes comprehensible, such a corroboration by means of life itself is the proof that can be required for such things. Anyone not desiring to employ the means for acquiring supersensible perception, indicated later on in this book, can have the following experience. He may at first accept the evidence of supersensible perception and then apply it to the manifest facts of his experience. He may, in this way, find that life has thereby become clear and comprehensible, and the more exact and thorough his observations of ordinary life are, the more readily will he come to this conviction. [ 3 ] Although the astral body, during sleep, experiences no mental pictures and also no pleasure and pain, it does not remain inactive. On the contrary, it is just in the sleep state that a lively activity is incumbent upon it. It is an activity into which it must again and again enter in rhythmical succession, if it has been for a time active in connection with the physical and ether bodies. Just as the pendulum of a clock, after having swung to the left and returned again to the center, must swing to the right because of the momentum gathered in its left swing, so the astral body and the ego living within it, after having been active for a time in the physical and ether bodies must, as a result of this, unfold a subsequent activity, body-free, in a surrounding world of soul and spirit. For the ordinary conditions of human life, unconsciousness occurs during this body-free condition of the astral body and ego because it presents the antithesis of the state of consciousness developed in the waking state through union with the physical and ether bodies, just as the swing of the pendulum to the right is the antithesis of the swing to the left. The necessity of entering into this state of unconsciousness is experienced by the soul-spirit nature of man as fatigue. But this fatigue is the expression of the fact that the astral body and ego, during sleep, prepare themselves to transform, during the following waking state, what has arisen in the physical and ether bodies through purely organic formative activity when freed from the presence of the spirit and soul elements. This unconscious formative activity and what takes place in the human being during and by means of consciousness are antitheses that must alternate in rhythmic succession.—The physical body can retain the form and stature suitable for man only by means of the human ether body, which in turn receives its proper forces from the astral body. The ether body is the builder, the architect, of the physical body, but it can only build in the right way if it receives the impulse for this purpose from the astral body. In the astral body reside the prototypes according to which the ether body gives form to the physical body. During the waking state, the astral body is not filled with these prototypes of the physical body, or at least only to a certain degree, for, during the waking state, the soul puts its own images in the place of these prototypes. When man directs the senses toward his environment he forms, by means of perception, thought images that are likenesses of the world about him. These likenesses are at first disturbances for the images that stimulate the ether body to maintain the physical body. Were the human being able, through his own activity, to bring to his astral body the images that are required to give the right impulse to the ether body, then there would be no such disturbance. This very disturbance, however, plays an important role in human existence. It expresses itself in the fact that the prototypes for the ether body do not act to the full extent of their power during waking life. The astral body carries on its waking activity within the physical body. In sleep, it works upon the physical body from without.c3 [ 4 ] Just as the physical body, for example, needs the outer world, which is of like nature to itself, to supply it with the means of subsistence, something similar is also the case with the astral body. Just imagine a physical human body removed from its surrounding world. It would have to perish. This demonstrates that without the whole physical environment it is not possible for the physical body to exist. In fact, the entire earth must be as it is, if human physical bodies are to exist upon it. The whole human body is, in reality, only a part of the earth; indeed, in a wider sense, a part of the whole physical universe. In this respect its relationship is similar, for example, to that of a finger to the entire human body. If the finger is severed from the hand, it can no longer continue to be a finger; it withers. This would also happen to the human body were it removed from the organism of which it is a member, from the life conditions offered it by the earth. If we were to lift it a sufficient number of miles above the earth's surface, it would perish just as the finger perishes that has been severed from the hand. If less consideration has been given to this fact in respect of the physical body and the earth than in respect of the finger and the body, it is simply because the finger cannot stroll about on the body in the way that the human being walks about on the earth, and because in the former case the dependence is more obvious. [ 5 ] Just as the physical body belongs to the physical world in which it is embedded, so does the astral body belong to its own world; during waking life, however, it is torn out of this world of its own. What happens there may be illustrated by an analogy. Imagine a vessel filled with water. A drop within this whole mass of water is not something isolated. Let us, however, take a little sponge and with it absorb a drop from the whole. Something similar occurs with the human astral body on awaking. During sleep it is in a world like itself; in a certain sense it constitutes something that belongs to this world. On awaking, the physical and ether bodies suck it up; they fill themselves with it. They contain the organs through which the astral body perceives the outer world. But in order that it may acquire this perception, it must separate itself from its own world. From this world it can only receive the prototypes that it needs for the ether body.—Just as the physical body receives its food, for example, from its environment, so during the sleep state the astral body receives the images from the world about it. It lives there actually in the universe, separated from the physical and ether bodies, in the same universe out of which the entire human being is born. The source of the images through which the human being receives his form lies in this universe. During sleep he is harmoniously inserted into it, and during the waking state he lifts himself out of this all-encompassing harmony in order to gain external perception. In sleep, his astral body returns to this cosmic harmony and on awaking again brings back to his bodies sufficient strength from it to enable him to dispense with his dwelling within the cosmic harmony for a certain length of time. The astral body, during sleep, returns to its home and on awaking brings back with it renewed forces into life. These forces that the astral body brings with it on awaking find outer expression in the refreshment that healthy sleep affords. Further descriptions of occult science will show that this home of the astral body is more encompassing than that which belongs to the physical body of the physical environment in the narrower sense. Whereas the human being is physically a part of the earth, his astral body belongs to worlds in which still other cosmic bodies besides our earth are embedded. Therefore he enters, during sleep, into a world to which other worlds than the earth belong, a fact that will only become clear from later descriptions. [ 6 ] It ought to be superfluous to call attention to a misunderstanding that can easily arise in regard to these facts, but to do so is not out of place in our age in which certain materialistic modes of thought are prevalent. Those who hold such thoughts can naturally say that it is only scientific to investigate the physical conditions of such a thing as sleep. They maintain that although scholars are not yet in agreement concerning the physical causes of sleep, yet one fact is certain: that definite physical processes must be assumed as lying at the foundation of this phenomenon. Oh! if people would only acknowledge the fact that supersensible knowledge in no way contradicts this assertion! It agrees with everything that is said from this point of view just as one agrees that in the physical erection of a house one brick must be laid upon another, and when it is finished, its form and cohesion can be explained by purely mechanical laws. In order that the house may be built at all, however, the thought of the builder is necessary. This thought is not to be discovered when merely the physical laws are investigated.—Thus, just as the thoughts of the builder of the house lie behind the physical laws that make the house comprehensible, so behind what physical science presents in an absolutely correct way lies the spiritual content of which supersensible knowledge speaks. It is true, this comparison is often presented when it is a matter of justification of a spiritual background of the world and it may be considered trivial. But in these things the point is not whether there is a familiarity with certain concepts, but rather whether they are properly evaluated in arguing the question. Opposing theories can have so great an effect on the power of judgment that the possibility of arriving at a proper evaluation is entirely excluded. [ 7 ] Dreaming is an intermediate state between waking and sleeping. What dream experiences offer to thoughtful consideration is a multi-colored interweaving of a picture world that conceals within it certain rules and laws. This world of dreams seems to display an ebb and flow, often in confused succession. In his dream life, the human being is freed from the law of waking consciousness that fetters him to sense-perception and to the rules governing his power of reason. Yet dreams have certain mysterious laws that are fascinating and alluring to man's prescience, and that are the deeper reason why the beautiful play of fantasy underlying artistic feeling is readily likened to “dreaming.” It is only necessary to call to mind certain characteristic dreams to find this corroborated. Someone dreams, for example, that he drives away a dog that is rushing upon him. He awakens and finds himself in the act of unconsciously throwing off a part of the bedclothes that had pressed upon an unaccustomed part of his body and had, therefore, become burdensome. What does dreaming here make out of the sense-perceptible process? What the senses would perceive in the waking state, the life of sleep allows to remain in complete unconsciousness. It retains, however, something essential, namely the fact that the sleeping person wishes to ward off something. Around this fact sleep weaves a pictorial process. The images, as such, are echoes of waking-day life. The manner in which they are borrowed from it has something arbitrary about it. Every person has the feeling that under the same external provocation, the dream could conjure up different pictures in his soul, but they express symbolically the feeling that the person has something he wishes to ward off. Dreams create symbols; they are symbol-makers. Inner processes, too, can transform themselves into such dream symbols. A person dreams that a fire is crackling near him; in his dream he sees the flames. He awakens and finds that he has been too heavily covered and has become too warm. The feeling of too much warmth is symbolically expressed in the dream picture. Quite dramatic experiences can be enacted in dream. For example, a person dreams that he is standing at an abyss. He sees a child running toward it. In his dream he experiences all the agony of the thought: Oh! if the child would only take heed, would only pay attention and not fall into the abyss! He sees it falling and hears the dull thud of its body below. He awakens and becomes aware that an object hanging on the wall of his room had become loosened and, in falling, has made a dull sound. Dream life expresses this simple occurrence in an event that is enacted in exciting pictures.—For the present we do not need to enter into a consideration of why, in the last example, the moment of the dull thud of the falling object should spread out into a series of events that seem to extend over a certain period of time. We need only keep in mind how the dream transforms into a picture what sense-perception would offer were we awake. [ 8 ] We see that as soon as the senses cease their activity, something creative asserts itself in man. This is the same creative element that is also present in completely dreamless sleep and there presents the soul state that appears as the antithesis of the soul's waking state. If this dreamless sleep is to take place, the astral body must be withdrawn from the ether and physical bodies. During the dream state, it is separated from the physical body in so far as it no longer has any connection with this body's sense organs, but it still retains a certain connection with the ether body. That the processes of the astral body can be perceived in pictures is due to this connection with the ether body. The moment this connection ceases, the pictures sink down into the darkness of unconsciousness, and we have dreamless sleep. The arbitrary and often absurd character of dream pictures rests upon the fact that the astral body, because of its separation from the sense organs of the physical body, cannot relate its pictures to the proper objects and events of the external environment. This fact becomes especially clear if we consider a dream in which the ego is, as it were, split up; when, for example, a person dreams that, as a pupil, he cannot answer a question put to him by his teacher, while directly afterwards the teacher, himself, answers the question. Because the dreamer cannot make use of the organs of perception of his physical body he is unable to relate the two occurrences to himself, as the same individual. Thus, in order to recognize himself as an enduring ego, he must be equipped with the external organs of perception. Only if a person had acquired the capacity of becoming conscious of his ego otherwise than through these organs of perception, would the enduring ego become perceptible to him outside his physical body. Supersensible consciousness must acquire these capacities, and the means of accomplishing this will be considered later on in this book. [ 9 ] Even death occurs only because there is a change in the relationship of the members of man's being. What supersensible perception has to say about death can also be observed in its effects in the outer world, and by unbiased reason the communications of supersensible knowledge can be verified on this point also through observation of external life. The expression of the invisible within the visible is, however, less obvious in these facts. It is more difficult fully to feel the importance of what, in the events of external life, corroborates the communications of supersensible knowledge in this realm. Even more than in the case of many things already mentioned in this book it would be quite natural here to declare that these communications are simply figments of the imagination, if no heed is paid to the knowledge of how a clear indication of the supersensible is contained in the sensory. [ 10 ] In passing over into sleep, the astral body only severs its connection with the ether and physical bodies, the latter remaining bound together; in death, the physical body, however, is severed from the ether body. The physical body is left to its own forces and must, for that reason, disintegrate as a corpse. When death occurs, the ether body enters into a state that it never experienced during the time between birth and death, except under rare conditions that will be spoken of later. It is now united with its astral body, without the presence of the physical body, for the ether body and astral body do not separate immediately after death. For a time they remain together by means of a force whose existence is easily to be understood. If it did not exist, the ether body could not sever itself from the physical body, for it is bound to it. This is seen in sleep when the astral body is unable to tear these two members of the human organism apart. This force begins its activity at death. It severs the ether body from the physical, with the result that the ether body is now united with the astral body. Supersensible observation shows that after death this union varies in different people. Its duration is measured by days. For the present this duration is only mentioned by way of information.—Later the astral body separates from its ether body also and continues on its way bereft of it. During the union of the two bodies man is in a condition that enables him to perceive the experiences of his astral body. As long as the physical body is present, the work of refreshing the worn out organs must begin from the moment the astral body is severed from it. With the severance of the physical body this work ceases. The force that is employed for this work when the human being sleeps remains after death and can now be used to make the astral body's own processes perceptible. An observation that clings to the externals of life may say that these are statements that are clear to those endowed with supersensible perception, but there is no possibility of anyone else ascertaining the truth about them. This is not a fact. What supersensible perception observes in this realm, removed from ordinary perception, can be comprehended by ordinary thought power after it has once been discovered. This thought power must consider in the right way the relationships of life that are present in the manifested world. Thinking, feeling, and willing stand in such a relationship to each other and to the experiences of man in the outer world, that they remain incomprehensible if the manner of their revealed activity is not considered as the expression of an unrevealed activity. This manifest activity becomes clear to the judgment only when it can be looked upon, in its course within physical human life, as the result of what supersensible knowledge establishes for the non-physical. In regard to this activity we are, without supersensible knowledge, much like a man in a dark room without light. Just as the physical objects around us are perceived only in the light, so will what takes place through the soul-life of man be explicable only by means of supersensible knowledge. During the union of the human being with his physical body, the outer world enters his consciousness in images; after casting off this body, what the astral body experiences when it is not bound to the outer world by means of physical sense organs becomes perceptible. It has at first no new experiences. Union with the ether body prevents it from experiencing anything new. What it does possess, however, is a memory of the past life. The still present ether body allows this memory to appear as a comprehensive, living picture. This is the first experience of the human being after death. He perceives the life between birth and death in a series of pictures spread out before him. During physical life, memory exists only during the waking state when man is united with his physical body. Memory is present only to the extent allowed by this body. Nothing is lost to the soul that makes an impression upon it during life. Were the physical body a perfect instrument for this, it would be possible at every moment of life to conjure up before the soul the whole of life's past. This hindrance disappears at death. As long as the human being retains the ether body, a certain perfection of memory exists, and it disappears to the degree that the ether body loses the form it had during its sojourn in the physical body, when it resembled the physical body. This is also the reason why the astral body after a time separates from the ether body. It can remain united with the latter only as long as the ether form, which corresponds to the physical body, endures. During life between birth and death, a separation of the ether body from the physical body takes place only in exceptional cases, and then only for a short time. If, for example, a person presses heavily upon one of his limbs, a part of the ether body may separate from the physical. When this occurs we may say that the limb has “gone to sleep.” The peculiar feeling one has at that time comes from the severance of the ether body. (Naturally, here also a materialistic mode of thought may deny the existence of the invisible within the visible and say that all this simply comes from the physical disturbance caused by the pressure.) In such a case, supersensible perception is able to observe how the corresponding part of the ether body passes out of the physical. If a person experiences an unusual shock, or something of the kind, a separation of the ether body from a large part of the physical body may result for a short time. This happens if a person for one reason or another sees himself suddenly near death; if, for example, he is on the verge of drowning, or if, on a mountaineering trip, he is in danger of a precipitous fall. What is told by people who have experienced such things comes very near the truth and may be corroborated by supersensible observation. They state that in such moments their entire life passed before the soul in a great memory-picture. Of the many examples that could be cited here, only one will be referred to because it originates with a person to whose mode of thinking all that has been said here about these experiences must appear as idle fancy. For anyone who takes a few steps in supersensible observation, it is always useful to become acquainted with the statements of those who consider this science as something fantastic. Such statements cannot be so lightly attributed to the prejudice of the observer of the supersensible. (Spiritual scientists may well learn a great deal from those who consider their endeavors nonsense, and they need not be disconcerted if there is no reciprocal “affection” in this respect on the part of the critics. To be sure, for supersensible perception itself there is no need of verification of its results through such experiences. It does not desire to prove anything by these references, but to elucidate its findings.) The eminent criminologist and well known researcher in many other fields of natural science, Moritz Benedict, relates a personal experience in his memoirs. Once, when he was near being drowned while bathing, he saw in memory his whole life before him as though in a single picture.—If others describe differently the pictures experienced under similar circumstances, even in a way that lets them appear to have little to do with the events of their past, this does not contradict what has been said. For the pictures that occur in the quite unusual condition of the separation of the ether body from the physical are often not readily explicable in regard to their relation to life. Proper consideration will always recognize this relationship. Neither is it an objection if someone, for example, once came near drowning and did not have the experience described. It must be remembered that this can only occur when the ether body is actually separated from the physical and at the same time remains united with the astral body. If through the shock a loosening of the ether and astral bodies also takes place, then the experience does not occur, because there exists complete unconsciousness, as in dreamless sleep. [ 11 ] In the period immediately following death the experiences of the past appear summarized in a memory-picture. After the separation of the ether body and the astral body, the latter is left to itself in its further journey. It is not difficult to see that, within the astral body, everything remains that it has made its own through its own activity during its sojourn in the physical body. To a certain degree, the ego has developed spirit self, life spirit, and spirit man. As far as they are developed, they receive their existence, not from what exists as organs in the bodies, but from the ego. The ego is the very member that needs no external organs for self-perception; it also needs none in order to remain in possession of what it has united with itself. The objection can be made, “Why, then, is there no perception in sleep of this spirit self, life spirit, and spirit man, which have been developed?” There is none, because the ego is fettered to the physical body between birth and death. Even though in sleep the ego, united with the astral body, is outside the physical body, it remains, nevertheless, in close union with the latter, for the activity of the astral body is directed toward this physical body. Thus the ego with its perception is relegated to the external sense world and cannot therefore receive the revelations of the spirit in its direct form. Only at death does the ego receive these revelations because, at death, the ego is freed from its connection with the physical and ether bodies. Another world can flash up for the soul the moment it is withdrawn from the physical world that chains the soul's activity to itself during life. There are reasons why even at this moment all connections between man and the external sense world do not cease. Certain desires remain that maintain this connection. These are desires that the human being creates because he is conscious of his ego, the fourth member of his being. Those desires and wishes arising out of the nature of the three lower bodies can only be active within the external world, and when these bodies are laid aside the desires cease. Hunger is caused by the external body; it is silenced as soon as this outer body is no longer united with the ego. If the ego possessed no other desires than those arising from its own spiritual nature, it could at death draw complete satisfaction from the spiritual world into which it is translated. But life has given it still other desires. It has enkindled in the ego a longing for enjoyments that can only be satisfied through physical organs, although the desires do not have their origin in these organs themselves. Not only do the three bodies demand their satisfaction through the physical world, but the ego itself finds enjoyments within this world for which the spiritual world offers no means of satisfaction. For the ego there are two kinds of desires in life: the desires that have their source in the bodies, and therefore must be satisfied within these bodies, ceasing with the disintegration of these bodies, and the desires that have their source in the spiritual nature of the ego. As long as the ego is within the bodies, these desires also are satisfied by means of bodily organs, for in the manifestations of the bodily organs the hidden spirit is at work, and in all that the senses perceive they receive at the same time something spiritual. This spiritual element exists also after death, although in another form. All spiritual desires of the ego within the sense world exist also when the senses are no longer present. If a third kind of desire were not added to these two, death would signify merely a transition from desires that can be satisfied by means of the senses to those that find their realization in the revelation of the spiritual world. This third type of desire is produced by the ego during Its life in the sense world because it finds pleasure in this world also in so far as there is no spirit manifest in it.—The basest enjoyments can be a manifestation of the spirit. The gratification that the hungry being experiences in taking food is a manifestation of spirit because through the eating of food something is brought about without which, in a certain sense, the spirit could not evolve. The ego can, however, transcend the enjoyment that this fact of necessity offers. It may long for good tasting food, quite apart from the service rendered the spirit by eating. The same is true of other things in the sense world. Desires are created thereby that would never have come into being in the sense world had the human ego not been incorporated in it. But neither do these desires spring from the spiritual nature of the ego. The ego must have sense enjoyments as long as it lives in the body, also in so far as it is spiritual; for the spirit manifests in the sense world and the ego enjoys nothing but spirit when, in this world, it surrenders itself to that medium through which the light of the spirit radiates. It will continue to enjoy this light even when the sense world is no longer the medium through which the rays of the spirit pass. In the spirit world, however, there is no gratification for desires in which the spirit has not already manifested itself in the sense world. When death takes place, the possibility for the gratification of these desires is cut off. The enjoyment of appetizing food can come only through the physical organs that are used for taking in food: the palate, tongue, and so forth. After throwing off the physical body man no longer possesses these organs. But if the ego still has a longing for these pleasures, this longing must remain ungratified. In so far as this enjoyment is in accord with the spirit, it exists only as long as the physical organs are present. If it has been produced by the ego, without serving the spirit, it continues after death as desire, which thirsts in vain for satisfaction. We can only form an idea of what now takes place in the human being if we think of a person suffering from burning thirst in a region in which water is nowhere to be found. This, then, is the state of the ego, in so far as it harbors, after death, the unextinguished desires for the pleasures of the outer world and has no organs with which to satisfy them. Naturally, we must imagine the burning thirst that serves as an analogy for the conditions of the ego after death to be increased immeasurably, and imagine it spread out over all the other still existing desires for which all possibility of satisfaction is lacking. The next task of the ego consists in freeing itself from this bond of attraction to the outer world. In this respect the ego has to bring about a purification and emancipation within itself. All desires that have been created by it within the body and that have no inherent rights within the spiritual world must be rooted out.—Just as an object takes fire and is consumed, so is the world of desires, described above, consumed and destroyed after death. This affords us a glimpse into the world that supersensible knowledge designates as the “consuming fire of the spirit.” All desires of a sensual nature, in which the sensual is not an expression of the spirit, are seized upon by this “fire.” The ideas that supersensible knowledge must give in regard to these processes might be found to be hopeless and awful. It might appear terrifying that a hope, for whose realization sense organs are necessary, must change into hopelessness after death; that a desire, which only the physical world can satisfy, must turn into consuming deprivation. Such a point of view is possible only as long as one does not consider the fact that all wishes and desires, which after death are seized by the “consuming fire,” in a higher sense represent not beneficial but destroying forces in life. By means of such destructive forces, the ego tightens the bond with the sense world more strongly than is necessary in order to absorb from this very sense world what is beneficial to it. This sense world is a manifestation of the spirit hidden behind it. The ego would never be able to enjoy the spirit in the form in which it is able to manifest through bodily senses alone, did it not want to use these senses for the enjoyment of the spiritual within the sense world. Yet the ego deprives itself of the true spiritual reality in the world to the degree that it desires the sense world without the spirit. If the enjoyment of the senses, as an expression of the spirit, signifies an elevation and development of the ego, then an enjoyment that is not an expression of the spirit signifies the impoverishing, the desolation of the ego. If a desire of this kind is satisfied in the sense world, its desolating effect upon the ego nevertheless remains. Before death, however, this destructive effect upon the ego is not apparent. Therefore the satisfaction of such desires can produce similar desires during life, and man is not at all aware that he is enveloping himself, through himself, in a “consuming fire.” After death, what has surrounded him in life becomes visible, and by becoming visible it appears in its healing, beneficial consequences. A person who loves another is certainly not attracted only to that in him which can be experienced through the physical organs. But only of what can thus be experienced may it be said that it is withdrawn from perception at death; just that part of the loved one then becomes visible for the perception of which the physical organs were only the means. Moreover, the only thing that then hinders that part from becoming completely visible is the presence of the desire that can only be satisfied through physical organs. If this desire were not extirpated, the conscious perception of the beloved person could not arise after death. Considered in this way, the picture of frightfulness and despair that might arise in the human being concerning the events after death, as depicted by supersensible knowledge, must change into one of deep satisfaction and consolation. [ 12 ] The first experiences after death are different in still another respect from those during life. During the time of purification man, as it were, lives his life in reverse order. He passes again through all that he has experienced in life since his birth. He begins with the events that immediately preceded death and experiences everything in reverse order back to childhood. During this process, everything that has not arisen out of the spiritual nature of the ego during life passes spiritually before his eyes, only he experiences all this now inversely. For example, a person who died in his sixtieth year and who in his fortieth year had done someone a bodily or soul injury in an outburst of anger will experience this event again when, in passing through his life's journey in reverse order after death, he reaches the place of his fortieth year. He now experiences, not the satisfaction he had in life from his attack upon the other person, however, but the pain he gave him. From what has been said above, it is at the same time also possible to see that only that part of such an event can be experienced painfully after death that has arisen from passions of the ego having their source only in the outer physical world. In reality, the ego not only damages the other person through the gratification of such a passion, but itself as well; only the damage to itself is not apparent to it during life. After death this whole, damaging world of passion becomes perceptible to the ego, and the ego then feels itself drawn to every being and every thing that has enkindled such a passion, in order that this passion may again be destroyed in the “consuming fire” in the same way it was created. Only when man in his backward journey has reached the point of his birth have all the passions of this kind passed through the fire of purification, and, from then on, nothing hinders him from a complete surrender to the spiritual world. He enters upon a new stage of existence. Just as, at death, he threw off the physical body, then, soon after, the ether body, so now that part of the astral body falls away that can live only in the consciousness of the outer physical world. For supersensible perception there are, thus, three corpses: the physical, the etheric, and the astral corpse. The point of time when the latter is thrown off by man is at the end of the period of purification, which lasts about a third of the time that passed between birth and death. The reason why this is so can only become clear later on, when we shall consider the course of human life from the standpoint of occult science. For supersensible observation, astral corpses are constantly present in the environment of man, which have been discarded by human beings who are passing over from the state of purification into a higher existence, just as for physical perception there are physical corpses in the world in which men dwell. [ 13 ] After purification an entirely new state of consciousness begins for the ego. While before death the outer perceptions had to flow toward the ego in order that the light of consciousness might fall upon them, now, as it were, a world flows from within of which it acquires consciousness. The ego lives in this world also between birth and death. There, however, this world is clothed in the manifestations of the senses, and only there where the ego, taking no heed of all sense-perceptions, perceives itself in its innermost sanctuary is what otherwise appears veiled by the sense world revealed in its real form. Just as before death the self-perception of the ego takes place in its inner being, so after death and after purification the world of spirit in its plenitude is revealed from within. This revelation, in fact, takes place immediately after the stripping off of the ether body. But, like a darkening cloud, the world of desires, which are still turned toward the outer world, spreads out before it. It is as though dark demoniacal shadows, arising out of the passions “consuming themselves in fire,” intermingled with a blissful world of spiritual experience. Indeed, these passions are now not mere shadows, but actual entities. This becomes at once apparent when the physical organs are removed from the ego and it, therefore, can perceive what is of a spiritual nature. These creatures appear like distortions and caricatures of what the human being previously knew through sense-perception. Supersensible perception says about the world of the purifying fire that it is inhabited by beings whose appearance for the spiritual eye can be horrible and painful, whose pleasure seems to be destruction and whose passion is bent upon a spiritual evil, in comparison with which the evil of the sense world appears insignificant. The passions indicated, which human beings bring into this world, appear to these creatures as food by means of which their power receives constant strengthening. The picture thus drawn of a world imperceptible to the senses can appear less incredible if one for a moment observes a part of the animal world with unprejudiced eyes. For the spiritual gaze, what is a cruel, prowling wolf? What manifests itself in what the senses perceive in it? Nothing but a soul that lives in passions and acts through them. One can call the external form of the wolf an embodiment of these passions, and even if a person had no organs with which to perceive this form, he would still have to acknowledge the existence of the being in question, if its passions showed invisibly in their effects; that is, if a power, invisible to the eye, were prowling around by means of which everything could happen that occurs through the visible wolf. To be sure, the beings of the purifying fire do not exist for sensory, but for supersensible consciousness only; their effects, however, are clearly manifest: they consist in the destruction of the ego when it gives them nourishment. These effects become clearly visible when a well-founded pleasure increases to lack of moderation and excess, for what is perceptible to the senses would also attract the ego only in so far as the pleasure is founded in its own nature. The animal is impelled to desire only by means of that in the outer world for which its three bodies are craving. Man possesses nobler pleasures because a fourth member, the ego, is added to the three bodily members. But if the ego seeks for a gratification that serves to destroy its own nature, not to maintain and further it, then such craving can be neither the effect of its three bodies, nor that of its own nature. It can only be the effect of beings who, in their true form, remain hidden from the senses, beings who can set to work on the higher nature of the ego and arouse in it passions that have no relationship to sense existence, but can only be satisfied through it. Beings exist who are nourished by desires and passions that are worse than any animal passions, because they do not have their being in the sense world, but seize upon the spiritual and drag it down into the realm of the senses. For that reason the forms of such beings are, for supersensible perception, more hideous and gruesome than the forms of the wildest animals, in which only passions are embodied that originate in the sense world. The destructive forces of these beings exceed immeasurably all destructive fury existing in the visible animal world. Supersensible knowledge must, in this way, enlarge the human horizon to include a world of beings that, in a certain respect, stand lower than the visible world of destructive animals. [ 14 ] When man, after death, has passed through this world, he finds himself confronted by a world that contains the spirit, producing a longing within him that finds its satisfaction only in the spirit. Now too, however, he distinguishes between what belongs to his ego and what forms the environment of this ego, that is, its spiritual outer world. Only, what he experiences of this environment streams toward him in the way the perception of his own ego streams toward him during his sojourn in the body. While in the life between birth and death his environment speaks to him through his bodily organs, after all bodies have been laid aside the language of the new environment penetrates directly into the “innermost sanctuary” of his ego. The entire environment of the human being is filled with beings of like nature with his ego, for only an ego has access to another ego. Just as minerals, plants, and animals surround him in the sense world and compose that world, so after death he is surrounded by a world that is composed of beings of a spiritual nature.—Yet he brings with him into this world something that does not belong to his environment there, namely, what the ego has experienced within the sense world. Immediately after death, and as long as the ether body was still united with the ego, the sum of these experiences appeared in the form of a comprehensive memory picture. The ether body itself is then, to be sure, cast off, but something from this memory picture remains as an imperishable possession of the ego. What has thus been retained appears as an extract, an essence made from all the experiences that the human being has passed through between birth and death. This is life's spiritual yield, its fruit. This yield contains everything of a spiritual character that has been revealed through the senses. Without life in the sense world, however, it could not have come into existence. After death the ego feels this spiritual fruit of the sense world as its own inner world with which it enters a world composed of beings who manifest themselves as only his ego can manifest itself in its innermost depths. Just as the plant seed, which is an extract of the entire plant, develops only when it is inserted into another world—the earth, so what the ego brings with it out of the sense world unfolds like a seed upon which the spiritual environment acts that has now received it. If the science of the supersensible is to describe what occurs in this “land of the spirits,” It can indeed only do so by portraying it in pictures. Still, these pictures appear as absolute reality to supersensible consciousness when it investigates the corresponding occurrences imperceptible to the physical eye. What is to be described here may be illustrated by means of comparisons with the sense world, for although it is wholly of a spiritual nature, it has, in a certain respect, a similarity to the sense world. For example, just as in the world of the senses a color appears when an object impresses the eye, in the “land of the spirits,” when a spiritual being acts upon the ego, an experience is produced similar to one made by a color. But this experience is produced in the way in which, in the life between birth and death, only the perception of the ego can be produced in the soul's inner being. It is not as though the light struck the human inner being from without, but as though another being were acting directly upon the ego, causing it to portray this activity in a colored picture. Thus all beings of the spiritual environment of the ego express themselves in a world of radiating colors. Since their origin is of a different kind, these color experiences of the spirit world are, naturally, of a character somewhat different from the experiences of physical color. The same thing can be said of other impressions that the human being receives from the sense world. The impressions that resemble most those of the sense world are the tones of the spiritual world, and the more the human being becomes familiar with this world, the more will it become for him an inwardly pulsating life that may be likened to tones and their harmonies in sensory reality. These tones, however, are not experienced as something reaching an organ from outside, but as a force streaming through the ego out into the world. The human being feels the tone as he feels his own speaking or singing in the sense world, but he knows that in the spiritual world these tones streaming out from him are at the same time manifestations of other beings poured out into the world through him. A still higher manifestation takes place in the land of spirit beings when the tone becomes “spiritual speech.” Then not only the pulsing life of another spirit being streams through the ego, but a being of this kind imparts its own inner nature to this ego. Without that separation which all companionship must experience in the physical world, two beings live in each other when the ego is thus permeated by “spiritual speech.” The companionship of the ego with other spirit beings after death is really of this kind. Three realms of the land of spirits appear before supersensible consciousness that may be compared with three regions of the physical sense world. The first region is the “solid land” of the spiritual world, the second, the “region of oceans and rivers,” the third, the “atmospheric region.”—What assumes physical form on earth so that it may be perceived by means of physical organs is perceived in its spiritual nature in the first realm of the land of spirit beings. For example, the force that gives the crystal its form may be perceived there, but what thus appears is the antithesis of the form it assumes in the sense world. The space, which in the physical world is filled with the stone mass, appears to spiritual vision as a kind of cavity. Around this cavity, however, the force is visible that gives form to the stone. The color the stone possesses in the physical world is experienced in the spiritual world as the complementary color. Thus a red stone appears greenish in the spirit land and a green stone, reddish. The other characteristics also appear In their complementary forms. Just as stones, earth masses, and so forth, make up the solid land—the continental regions—of the physical world, so the structures described above compose “the solid land” of the spirit world.—Everything that is life within the sense world is the oceanic region in the spirit world. Life to the physical eye is manifest in its effects in plants, animals, and men. Life to spiritual vision is a flowing entity that permeates the land of spirits like seas and rivers. A still better analogy is that of the circulation of the blood in the body, for whereas oceans and rivers appear irregularly distributed within the physical world, there is a certain regularity, like that of the circulation of the blood, in the distribution of this streaming life of the land of spirit beings. This flowing life is heard simultaneously as a spiritual entoning.—The third realm of the spirit land is its “atmosphere.” What appears in the sense world as sensation exists in the spiritual realm as an all-pervading presence like the earth's air. Here we must imagine a sea of flowing feeling. Sorrow and pain, joy and delight flow through this realm like wind or a raging tempest in the atmosphere of the sense world. Imagine a battle raging upon earth. Not only human forms confront each other there, forms that can be seen with the physical eyes, but feelings stand forth opposing feelings, passions opposing passions. The battlefield is filled with pain as well as with human forms. Everything that is experienced there of the nature of passion, pain, joy of conquest, is present not alone in its effects perceptible to the senses, but the spiritual sense becomes conscious of it as atmospheric processes in the land of spirits. Such an event in the spirit is like a thunder storm in the physical world, and the perception of these events may be likened to the hearing of words in the physical world. Therefore it is said that just as the air surrounds and permeates the earth beings, so do “wafting spiritual words” enclose the beings and processes of the spirit land. [ 15 ] There are still other perceptions possible in this spiritual world. What may be compared to warmth and light of the physical world is also present. What permeates everything in the spirit land, like warmth permeating earthly things, is the thought world itself, only here, thoughts must be imagined as living, independent entities. What is apprehended as thoughts in the physical world is like the shadow of what exists in the land of spirits as thought beings. If we imagine thought, as it exists in human beings, withdrawn from man and endowed as an active entity with its own inner life, then we have a feeble illustration of what permeates the fourth region of the spirit land. What man perceives as thoughts in his physical world between birth and death is only the manifestation of the thought world as it is able to express itself through the instrumentality of the bodies. But all such thoughts entertained by human beings, which signify an enrichment of the physical world, have their origin in this region. One need not think here merely of the ideas of the great inventors, of the geniuses. It can be seen how every person has sudden ideas that he does not owe merely to the outer world, but with which he transforms this outer world itself. Feelings and passions whose causes lie in the outer world have to be placed in the third region of the spirit land. But everything that can so live in the human soul as to make him a creator, causing him to transform and fructify his surroundings, is perceptible in its primeval, essential form in the fourth sphere of the spiritual world.—What exists in the fifth region may be compared with physical light. It is wisdom revealing itself in its innermost form. Beings belonging to this region shed wisdom upon their environment, just as the sun sheds light upon physical beings. What is illuminated by this wisdom appears in its true significance and meaning for the spiritual world, just as a physical object displays its color when it is shone upon by the light.—There exist still higher regions of the land of the spirits, descriptions of which will be found in a later part of this work. After death, the ego is immersed in this world, together with the harvest that it brings with it from its life in the sense world. This harvest is still united with that part of the astral body that has not been thrown off at the end of the period of purification. Only that part falls away which after death was inclined with its desires and longings toward physical life. The immersion of the ego in the spiritual world, together with what it has acquired in the sense world, may be compared with the insertion of a seed into the ripening earth. Just as this seed draws substances and forces from its environment in order to develop into a new plant, so, too, unfolding and growth is the very essence of the ego being embedded in the world of spirit.—Within what an organ perceives lies hidden the force by means of which the organ itself is created. The eye perceives the light, but without the light there would be no eye. Beings that pass their lives in darkness develop no organs of sight. In this manner the whole bodily organism of the human being is created out of the hidden forces lying within what is perceived with these bodily members. The physical body is built up by the forces of the physical world, the ether body by those of the life world, and the astral body is formed out of the astral world. When the ego is now transplanted into the spirit land, it encounters those forces that remain hidden to physical perception. In the first region of the spirit land the spiritual beings are perceptible who always surround the human being and who have also fashioned his physical body. Thus in the physical world, man perceives nothing but the manifestations of those spiritual forces that have also formed his own physical body. After death, he is himself in the midst of these formative forces that now appear to him in their own, previously concealed, form. Likewise, in the second region he is in the midst of the forces composing his ether body. In the third region, forces stream toward him out of which his astral body has been organized. The higher regions of the spirit land also now impart to him what composes his form in his life between birth and death. [ 16 ] These beings of the spirit world now co-operate with what man has brought with him as fruit from the former life and what now becomes a seed. By means of this cooperation man is built up anew as a spiritual being. In sleep the physical and ether bodies continue their existence; the astral body and ego are, to be sure, outside of these two bodies, but still united with them. Whatever influences the astral body and the ego receive in this state from the spiritual world can only serve to restore the forces exhausted during the waking period. When the physical and ether bodies have been laid aside, however, and when, after the period of purification, those parts of the astral body that are still connected with the physical world through their desires are also laid aside, all that streams toward the ego from the spirit world now becomes not only a perfector, but a recreator. After a certain length of time, which will be discussed in later parts of this work, an astral body has formed itself around the ego; the former can again dwell in ether and physical bodies befitting the human being between birth and death. He can again pass through birth and appear in a new earth existence into which the fruit of the previous life has been incorporated. Up to the time of re-forming a new astral body, man is a witness of his own re-creation. Since the powers of the spirit land do not reveal themselves to him by means of outer organs, but from within, like his own ego in self-consciousness, he is able to perceive this revelation as long as his mind is not yet directed to an outwardly perceptible world. The moment, however, the astral body is newly formed, his attention turns outward. The astral body once more requires an external ether and physical body. It therefore turns away from the revelations of the inner world. For this reason an intermediate state now begins, during which man sinks into unconsciousness. Consciousness can only reappear in the physical world when the necessary organs for physical perception have been formed. During this period in which consciousness, illuminated by inner perception, ceases, the new ether body begins to attach itself to the astral body and the human being can then again enter into a physical body. Only an ego that has of itself produced life spirit and spirit man, the hidden, creative forces in the ether and physical bodies, would be able to take part consciously in the attachment of these two members. As long as man is not developed to this point, beings who are further advanced than he in their evolution must direct the attachment of these members. The astral body is led by such beings to certain parents, so that he may be endowed with the proper ether and physical bodies.—Before the attachment of the ether body is completed, something extraordinarily significant occurs for the human being who is re-entering physical existence. He has, in his previous life, created destructive forces that became evident when he experienced his life in reverse order after death. Let us take again the example suggested above. A person had caused someone pain in an outburst of anger in the fortieth year of his previous life. After death, he met this pain of the other person in the form of a force destructive to the development of his own ego. So it is with all such occurrences of his previous life. On re-entering physical life, these hindrances to evolution confront the ego anew. Just as at death a kind of memory picture of the past life arose before the human ego, now a pre-vision of the coming life presents itself. Again he sees a tableau, which this time displays all the hindrances he must remove if his evolution is to make further progress. What he thus sees becomes the starting point of forces that he must carry with him into a new life. The picture of the pain that he has caused another person becomes the force impelling the ego, on re-entering life, to make reparation for this pain. Thus the previous life has a determining effect upon the new life. The actions of this new life are in a certain way caused by those of the previous life. This orderly connection between a former and a later existence must be considered as the law of destiny. It has become the custom to designate this law by the name karma, a term borrowed from oriental wisdom. [ 17 ] The fashioning of a new corporeal organization is not the only activity that is required of the human being between death and a new birth. While this building up is taking place, man lives outside the physical world. But during this time the earth proceeds in its evolution. Within relatively short periods of time the earth changes its countenance. How did those regions, which at present are occupied by Germany, appear a few millennia ago? When man reappears in a new life, the earth as a rule presents quite a different appearance from the one it had in his previous life. While he was absent from the earth all sorts of changes have occurred. Hidden forces also are at work in this transformation of the face of the earth. Their activities proceed from the same world in which man dwells after death, and he himself must co-operate in this transformation of the earth. He can do so only under the guidance of higher beings, as long as he has not acquired, through the development of life spirit and spirit man, a clear consciousness concerning the relationship between the spirit and its expression in the physical. But he helps to transform the earthly conditions. It can be said that human beings, during the period between death and a new birth, transform the earth in such a way that its conditions harmonize with their own development. If we observe a particular spot on the earth at a definite point of time and observe it again after a long span, finding it in a fully changed condition, the forces that have wrought this change are the forces of the human dead. In this way men have a relationship with the earth also during the period between death and a new birth. Supersensible consciousness sees in all physical existence the manifestation of a hidden spirituality. For physical observation, it is the light of the sun, climatic changes, and similar phenomena that bring about the transformation of the earth. For supersensible observation, the forces of the human dead are active in the rays of light that fall upon the plants from the sun. By observing supersensibly one becomes aware of how human souls hover above the plants, how they change the surface of the earth, and so forth. The attention of the human being is not only turned upon himself and upon the preparation for his own new earth life; indeed, he is called upon to work spiritually upon the outer world, just as he is called upon to work physically in the life between birth and death. [ 18 ] Not only from the land of spirit beings does human life affect the conditions of the physical world, however, but, vice versa, all activity in physical existence has its effects in the spiritual world. An example will illustrate what happens in this respect. A bond of love exists between mother and child. This love arises out of an attraction between the two that has its roots in the forces of the sense world. But it changes in the course of time; a spiritual bond is formed more and more out of the sensory, and this spiritual link is fashioned not merely for the physical world, but also for the land of spirits. This is also true for other relationships. What has been spun in the physical world through spiritual beings remains in the spiritual world. Friends who have become closely united in life belong together also in the land of spirits and, after laying aside their bodies, they are in much more intimate communion than in physical life. For as spirits they exist for each other through the manifestation of their inner nature in the same way that the higher spiritual beings manifest their existence to one another through their inner nature, as we have described above, and a tie that has been woven between two people brings them together again in a new life. Therefore, in the truest sense of the word, we must speak of people finding each other again after death. [ 19 ] What has once taken place with a person, during the period from birth to death and then from death to a re-birth, repeats itself. Man returns to earth again and again when the fruit that he has acquired in one physical life has reached maturity in the land of the spirits. Yet, we must not think here of repetition without beginning and end, for the human being passed, at some time, from other forms of existence into those that take place in the manner described, and he will in the future pass on to others. A picture of these transitional stages will be presented when, subsequently, the evolution of the cosmos—in relation to man—is described from the standpoint of supersensible consciousness. [ 20 ] The processes that occur between death and a new birth are, naturally, still more concealed for outer sensory observation than the spiritual element that underlies manifest existence between birth and death. This sensory observation can see the effects of this part of the concealed world only where they enter into physical existence. The question for sensory observation is, whether the human being who passes through birth into life brings with him something of the processes described by supersensible cognition as taking place between a previous death and birth. if someone finds a snail shell in which no trace of an animal is to be seen, he will nevertheless acknowledge that this snail shell has come into existence through the activity of some animal and will not believe that it has been constructed in its form purely by means of physical forces. Likewise, a person who observes a living human being and finds something that cannot have its origin in this life, can admit with reason that it originates in what the science of the supersensible described, if thereby a clarifying light is thrown upon what is otherwise inexplicable. Thus intelligent sensory observation would be able to find that the invisible causes are comprehensible through their visible effects, and to anyone who observes this physical life entirely without prejudice, the above will appear—with every new observation—more and more convincing. It is only a question of finding the right standpoint for observing the effects in outer life. For example, where are the effects of what supersensible cognition describes as processes of the time of purification? How do the effects of the experiences that man undergoes manifest themselves after this time of purification in the purely spiritual realm, according to the evidence of spiritual research? [ 21 ] Problems enough force themselves into every earnest and deep consideration of life in this field. We see one person born in need and misery, equipped with only meager ability, and he appears to be predestined to a pitiable existence because of the conditions prevailing at his birth. Another will, from the first moment of his life, be cherished and cared for by solicitous hands and hearts; brilliant capacities unfold in him, he is cut out for a fruitful, satisfactory existence. Two contrasting points of view can be asserted in respect of such problems. The one adheres to what the senses perceive and what the intellect, bound to the senses, can grasp. This point of view sees no problem in the fact that one person is born to good fortune, the other to misfortune. Although such a point of view may not wish to use the word “chance,” still those who hold it are not ready to assume an interrelated web of laws that causes such diversities, and with respect to aptitudes and talents, this way of thinking adheres to what is said to be “inherited” from parents, grandparents, and other ancestors. It will refuse to seek the causes in spiritual events that man himself has experienced before his birth, and through which he has formed his capacities and talents, quite apart from the hereditary descent from his ancestors.—Another point of view will not feel satisfied with such an interpretation. It will hold that even in the outer world nothing occurs at a definite place or in definite surroundings without the necessity of presupposing a reason for the cause of it. Although in many instances these causes have not yet been investigated, yet they exist. An Alpine flower does not grow in the lowlands; there is something in its nature that unites it with the Alpine regions. Likewise, there must be something in a human being that causes him to be born in a definite environment. This is not to be explained by causes that lie merely in the physical world. To a serious thinker this must appear as though a blow dealt another should be explained not by the feelings of the aggressor, but rather by the physical mechanism of his hand.—Those who have this point of view must also be dissatisfied with all explanations of aptitude and talents as mere inheritance. Yet it may be said in this connection that obviously certain aptitudes continue to be inherited in families. During two and a half centuries musical aptitudes were inherited by the members of the Bach family. Eight mathematicians, some of whom in their childhood were destined for quite different professions, have appeared in the Bernoulli family. The “inherited” talents have always impelled them to take up the family profession. Furthermore, it can be shown through exact investigation of the line of ancestry of an individual that, in one way or another, the talents of this individual have appeared in the ancestors and that they present only a summation of inherited tendencies. The one having the second point of view mentioned will certainly not disregard such facts, but they cannot mean the same thing to him as to the other who rests his explanations solely upon the processes of the sense world. The former will point out that it is just as impossible for the inherited traits to sum themselves up into an entire personality as it is for the metal parts of a clock to form themselves into a clock. If the objection is made that the united activity of the parents can bring about the combination of traits and that this, as it were, takes the place of the clock-maker, he will reply, “Just look with impartiality at the completely new element in every child's personality; this cannot come from the parents for the simple reason that it does not exist in them.” c4 [ 22 ] Unclear thinking can cause great confusion in this realm. The worst is if those having the first point of view previously stated look on those having the second as opponents of what is based upon “sure facts.” But these latter may not even think of denying the truth or the value of these facts. They also see quite clearly, for example, that a definite spiritual predisposition, even a spiritual direction, is “inherited” in a family, and that certain capacities summarized and combined in one descendant result in a remarkable personality. They are ready to admit that the most illustrious name seldom stands at the beginning, but at the end of a blood relationship. But those holding this view should not be blamed if they are forced to draw conclusions from these findings quite different from those of the persons who merely hold to the facts of the senses. The latter may be countered by saying that the human being certainly displays the attributes of his ancestors, for the soul-spirit element, which enters into physical existence through birth, takes its physical form from what heredity gives it. But by this, nothing else is said than that a being bears the qualities of the medium in which it is immersed. The following is certainly a strange and trivial comparison, but the unprejudiced mind will not deny its justification when it is said that the fact that a human being appears clothed in the traits of his forebears gives no more evidence of the origin of his personal characteristics than the fact that he is wet because he fell into the water gives evidence of his inner nature. It can be said further that if the most illustrious name stands at the end of a blood relationship covering many generations, it shows that the bearer of this name needed this blood relationship in order to form the body required for the development of his entire personality. It is, however, no proof whatsoever of the “inheritance” of the personal element itself; in fact, for a healthy logic, this fact proves just the opposite. If indeed the personal gifts were inherited, they would have to stand at the beginning of this series of generations and be transmitted to the descendants. But the appearance of a great endowment at the end of a human series proves that it is not inherited. [ 23 ] It is not to be denied that those who speak of spiritual causation in life often add to the confusion. They often speak too much in general, indefinite terms. When it is declared that the inherited attributes are summed up into the personality of a human being, this can certainly be compared with the statement that the metal parts of a clock have assembled themselves. But it must also be admitted that many statements about the spiritual world are similar to the declaration that the metal parts of a clock cannot assemble themselves so that the hands move forward; therefore something spiritual must be present that takes care of the forward movement of the hands. In respect of such an assertion, he builds on a firmer foundation who says, “Oh, I shall not trouble about such ‘mystical beings’ who advance the hands of the clock; I am trying to learn to understand the mechanical relationships that bring about this forward movement of the hands.” For it is not a question of merely knowing that behind such a mechanism as the clock, for example, there stands something spiritual—the clock-maker—but it is of significance only to learn to know the thoughts in the mind of the clock-maker that have preceded the construction of the clock. These thoughts can be found again in the mechanism. [ 24 ] All mere dreaming and imagining about the supersensible brings only confusion for they are incapable of satisfying the opponents. The latter are right when they say that such general references to supersensible beings are not an aid to the understanding of the facts. These opponents, it is true, may say the same thing about the definite indications of spiritual science. In this case, however, it can be shown how the effects of hidden spiritual causes appear in outer life. The following can be maintained: Suppose that what spiritual research has established by means of observation is true, namely, that man after death has passed through a period of purification and that he has experienced psychically during that time how a definite act, which has been performed in a previous life, is a hindrance to further evolution. While he was experiencing this, the impulse developed in him to rectify the consequences of this act. He brings this impulse with him into a new life, and it then forms the trait of character that places him in a position where this rectification is possible. Consider the totality of such impulses, and you have a reason for the destined environment in which a person is born.—The same may apply to another supposition. Again assume that what spiritual science says is true, namely, that the fruits of a past life are incorporated in the spiritual human seed, and that the land of the spirits in which this seed exists between death and rebirth is the realm in which these fruits ripen in order to appear again in a new life changed into talents and capacities, and to form the personality in such a way that it appears as the effect of what has been gained in a former life.—Anyone who makes these assumptions and, with them, observes life without prejudice will see that through them all facts of the sense world can be acknowledged in their full significance and truth, while at the same time everything becomes comprehensible that must remain forever incomprehensible to the one who, while relying only on physical facts, directs his attitude of mind toward the spiritual world. Above all, every illogical assumption will disappear, for instance the one mentioned above, that because the most important name stands at the end of a blood relationship series, the bearer of that name must have inherited his talents. Life becomes logically comprehensible by means of the supersensible facts communicated by spiritual science. [ 25 ] The conscientious truth-seeker who, without personal experiences in the supersensible world, wishes to find his way within the facts will, however, still be able to raise an important objection. For it can be asserted that it is inadmissible to assume the existence of any fact whatever simply for the reason that something that otherwise is inexplicable can thereby be explained. Such an objection is surely wholly without meaning for the one who knows the corresponding facts from supersensible experience. In the subsequent chapters of this work, the path will be indicated that can be traveled for the purpose of becoming acquainted, not only with other spiritual facts to be described here, but also with the law of spiritual causation as an individual experience. However, the above objection can, indeed, have significance for the person who is not willing to tread this path, but what can be said in refutation of this objection is also valuable for the one who has decided to take this path. For a person who accepts this in the right way has made the best initial step that can be taken on the path.—It is absolutely true that we should not accept something, the existence of which we do not otherwise know, simply because something, which otherwise remains incomprehensible, can be explained by it. In the case of the spiritual facts mentioned, however, the matter is quite different. If they are accepted, this has not only the intellectual consequence that life becomes comprehensible through them, but by the admission of these assumptions into our thoughts something else is experienced. Imagine the following case. Something happens to a person that arouses in him a feeling of distress. He can take this in two different ways. He can experience distress over the occurrence and yield himself to its disturbing aspects, even perhaps sink into grief. He can, however, take it in another way. He can say, “In reality, I have in a past life developed in myself the force that has confronted me with this event; I have, in fact, brought this thing upon myself,” and he can arouse in himself all the feelings that can result from such a thought. Naturally, the thought must be experienced with the utmost sincerity and all possible force if it is to have such a result for the life of feeling and sensation. Whoever achieves this will have an experience that can best be illustrated by a comparison. Let us suppose that two men get hold of a stick of sealing wax. One makes intellectual observations concerning its “inner nature.” These observations may be very clever; if there is nothing to show this “Inner nature,” one might easily reply that this is pure fantasy. The other, however, rubs the sealing wax with a cloth and then shows that it attracts small particles. There is a tremendous difference between the thoughts that have passed through the head of the first man, arousing his observations, and those of the second man. The thoughts of the first have no actual results; those of the second, however, have aroused a force, that is, something actual, from its concealment.—This is also the case with the thoughts of the human being who imagines that, through a former life, he has implanted into himself the power to encounter an event. This mere thought arouses in him a real force by means of which he can meet the event quite differently from the way he would have met it had he not entertained this thought. The inherent necessity of this event, which otherwise he might have considered merely due to chance, dawns upon him, and he will at once understand that he has had the right thought, for it had the force to disclose to him the facts. If a person repeats such inner processes, they become the means of an inner supply of strength and thus they prove their truth through their fruitfulness, and this truth becomes manifest gradually and powerfully. These processes have a healthy effect in regard to spirit, soul, and body; indeed, in every respect they act beneficially upon life. Man becomes aware that in this way he enters in the right manner into the relationships of life, whereas he is on the wrong path when he considers only the one life between birth and death. His soul becomes stronger because of this knowledge.—Such purely inner proof of spiritual causation can only be produced by each person himself in his own intimate soul life, but everyone can have such proof. Anyone who has not produced this proof cannot, of course, judge its power. Anyone who has produced it can no longer have any doubt about it. It is not surprising that this is so, for it is only natural that what is so intimately connected with man's innermost nature, his personality, can also be satisfactorily proved only by means of the most intimate experience.—The objection cannot be made, however, that each person must deal personally with such matters since they have to do with an inner experience of this kind, and that they cannot be the concern of spiritual science. It is true that each person must have the experience himself, just as each person must himself understand the proof of a mathematical problem. The means by which the experience can be attained, however, holds good for everyone, just as the method of proving a mathematical problem holds good for everyone. [ 26 ] It should not be denied that—aside from supersensible observations, of course—the proof by means of the forceproducing power of the corresponding thoughts just referred to, is the only one that holds its own if viewed with impartial logic. All other considerations are certainly important, but they all will possess something that offers a point of attack. To be sure, anyone who has acquired a sufficiently unprejudiced point of view will find something in the possibility and actuality of the education of man that has logically effective power of proof for the fact that a spiritual being is struggling for existence within the bodily sheath. He will compare the animal with the human being and say to himself that in the former, its normal characteristics and capacities appear at birth as something definite, which shows clearly how it is predestined by heredity and how it will develop in the outer world. See how the tiny chick from birth carries out vital functions in a definite way. In the human being, however, something enters into relationship with his inner life, through education, that can exist without any connection whatsoever with heredity, and he can make the effects of such outer influences his own. Anyone who teaches knows that forces from the inner being must come to meet such influences. If this is not the case, then all schooling, all education is meaningless. For the unprejudiced educator, there exists a clear-cut boundary between inherited characteristics and those inner human forces that shine through these characteristics originating in former earth lives. True, it is impossible to adduce “weighty” proofs for these things in the same way that certain physical facts may be demonstrated by means of the scales. But then, these things are the intimacies of life, and for the person who has a sense for such things, these impalpable evidences are likewise conclusive, even more conclusive than the obvious reality. That animals can be trained, that is, that they acquire qualities and faculties through education, offers no objection for the one who is able to see the essential thing. Aside from the fact that everywhere in the world transitions are to be found, the results of animal training do not fuse in like manner with the animal's personal nature, as is the case with human beings. It is even emphasized that the abilities the domestic animal acquires through training during its life with man, are inheritable, that is, that they have their effects in the species, not in the individual. Darwin describes how dogs fetch and carry without having learned to do so or having seen it done. Who would assert a similar thing in regard to human education? [ 27 ] There are thinkers who through their observation pass beyond the opinion that the human being is constructed from without purely through the forces of heredity. They rise to the idea that a spiritual being, an individuality, precedes physical existence and forms it. Many of them do not find it possible to comprehend that there are repeated earth lives, and that in the intervening existence between lives the fruits of the previous ones act cooperatively as formative forces. Let us mention one out of the list of such thinkers. Immanuel Hermann Fichte, son of the great Fichte, in his work Anthropology2 cites his observations that bring him to the following comprehensive conclusion:
And we read further:
These thoughts only go so far as to permit a spiritual being to enter the physical corporeality of man. Since, however, this spiritual being's formative forces are not derived from the causes of a former life, each time that a personality comes into existence a spiritual being of this kind would have to emerge out of a divine primal fount. Assuming this to be true, there would be no possibility of explaining the relationship that exists between the aptitudes struggling forth out of the human inner being and what approaches this inner being in the course of life from the outer earthly environment. The human inner being, which in every individual would have to spring from a divine primal source, would have to stand as a complete stranger before what confronts it in earth life. Only then will this not be the case—and so it is indeed—if this human inner nature had already been united with the external world—in other words, if it is not living in this world for the first time. The unbiased educator can clearly make the observation, “I bring something to my pupil from the results of earth life that is indeed foreign to his merely inherited characteristics, yet is something that makes him feel as if he had already been connected with the work in which these results of earth life have their source.” Only repeated earth lives, in connection with the facts in the spiritual realm between these earth lives as presented by spiritual research, can give a satisfactory explanation of the life of present day humanity, considered from every point of view.—The expression, “present day” humanity, was intentionally used here, for spiritual research finds that there was a time when the cycle of earth lives began, and that at that time conditions different from those of the present existed for the spiritual being of man as it entered into the corporeal sheath. In the following chapters we shall go back to this primeval state of the human being. When it will have to be shown, from the results of spiritual science, how this human being has attained his present form in relation to the evolution of the earth, we shall then be able to point out still more exactly how the spiritual essential core of man penetrates into the physical body from supersensible worlds, and how the spiritual law of causation—“human destiny”—is developed.
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