The Rudolf Steiner Archive

[ 1 ] The decision to give public expression to the esoteric from my own inner experience impelled me to write for the Magazine for August 28, 1899, on the occasion of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Goethe's birth, an article on Goethe's fairy-tale of The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, under the title Goethes Geheime Offenbarung.¹ This article was, of course, only slightly esoteric. But I could not expect more of my public than I there gave. In my own mind the content of the fairy-tale lived as something wholly esoteric, and it was out of an esoteric mood that the article was written.

[ 2 ] Since the 'eighties I had been occupied with imaginations which were associated in my thought with this fairy-tale. I saw set forth in the fairy-tale Goethe's way from the observation of external nature into the interior of the human mind as he placed this before himself, not in concepts, but in pictures of the spirit. Concepts seemed to Goethe far too poor, too dead, to be capable of representing the living and working forces of the mind.

[ 3 ] Now in Schiller's letters concerning education in aesthetics, Goethe saw an endeavour to grasp this living and working by means of concepts. Schiller sought to show how the life of man is under subjection to natural necessity by reason of his corporeal aspect and to mental necessity through his reason. And he thought the soul must establish an inner equilibrium between the two. Then in this equilibrium man lives in freedom a life really worthy of humanity.

This is clever, but for the real life of the soul it is far too simple. The soul causes its forces, which are rooted in the depths, to shine into consciousness, but to disappear again in the very act of shining forth after they have influenced other forces just as fleeting. These are occurrences which even in arising also pass away; but abstract concepts can be linked only to that which continues for a longer or shorter time.

[ 4 ] All this Goethe knew through experience; he placed his picture-knowledge in a fairy-tale over against Schiller's conceptual knowledge.

[ 5 ] In experiencing this creation of Goethe's, one had entered the outer court of the esoteric.

[ 6] This was the time when I was invited by Count and Countess Brockdorff to deliver a lecture at one of their weekly gatherings. At these meetings there came together seekers from all sorts of circles. The lectures there delivered had to do with all aspects of life and knowledge. I knew nothing of all this until I was invited to deliver a lecture; nor did I know the Brockdorffs, but heard of them then for the first time. The theme proposed was an article about Nietzsche. This lecture I gave. Then I observed that among the hearers there were persons with a great interest in the spiritual world. Therefore, when I was invited to give a second lecture, I proposed the subject “Goethe's Secret Revelation,” and in this lecture I became entirely esoteric in relation to the fairy-tale. It was an important experience for me to be able to speak in words coined from the world of spirit after having been forced by circumstances throughout my Berlin period up to that time only to let the spiritual shine through my presentation.

[ 7 ] The Brockdorffs were leaders of a branch of the Theosophical Society founded by Blavatsky. What I had said in connection with Goethe's fairy-tale led to my being invited by the Brockdorffs to deliver lectures regularly before those members of the Theosophical Society who were associated with them. I explained, however, that I could speak only about that which I vitally experienced within me as spiritual knowledge.

[ 8 ] In truth, I could speak of nothing else. For very little of the literature issued by the Theosophical Society was known to me. I had known theosophists while living in Vienna, and I later became acquainted with others. These acquaintance ships led me to write in the Magazine the adverse review dealing with the theosophists in connection with the appearance of a publication of Franz Hartmann. What I knew otherwise of the literature was for the most part entirely uncongenial to me in method and approach; I could not by any possibility have linked my discussions with this literature.

[ 9 ] So I then gave the lectures in which I established a connection with the mysticism of the Middle Ages. By means of the ideas of the mystics from Master Eckhard to Jakob Böhme, I found expression for the spiritual conceptions which in reality I had determined beforehand to set forth. I published the series of lectures in the book Die Mystik im Aufgange des neuzeitlichen Geisteslebens.²

[ 10 ] At these lectures there appeared one day in the audience Marie von Sievers, who was chosen by destiny at that time to take into strong hands the German section of the Theosophical Society, founded soon after the beginning of my lecturing. Within this section I was then able to develop my anthroposophic activity before a constantly increasing audience.

[ 11 ] No one was left in uncertainty of the fact that I would bring forward in the Theosophical Society only the results of my own research through perception. For I stated this on all appropriate occasions. When, in the presence of Annie Besant, the German section of the Theosophical Society was founded in Berlin and I was chosen its General Secretary, I had to leave the foundation sessions because I had to give before a non-theosophical audience one of the lectures in which I dealt with the spiritual evolution of humanity, and to the title of which I expressly united the phrase “Eine Anthroposophie.”³ Annie Besant also knew that I was then giving out in lectures under this title what I had to say about the spiritual world.

[ 12 ] When I went to London to attend a theosophical congress, one of the leading personalities said to me that true theosophy was to be found in my book Mysticism ..., I had reason to be satisfied. For I had given only the results of my spiritual vision, and this was accepted in the Theosophical Society.

There was now no longer any reason why I should not bring forward this spiritual knowledge in my own way before the theosophical public, which was at first the only audience that entered without restriction into a knowledge of the spirit. I subscribed to no sectarian dogmatics; I remained a man who uttered what he believed he was able to utter entirely according to what he himself experienced in the spiritual world.

[ 13 ] Prior to the founding of the section belongs a series of lectures – which I gave before Die Kommenden, entitled Von Buddha zu Christus.⁴ In these discussions I sought to show what a mighty stride the mystery of Golgotha signifies in comparison with the Buddha event, and how the evolution of humanity, as it strives toward the Christ event, approaches its culmination. [ 14 ] In this circle I spoke also of the nature of the mysteries.

[ 15 ] All this was accepted by my hearers. It was not felt to be contradictory to lectures which I had given earlier. Only after the section was founded – and I then appeared to be stamped as a “theosophist” – did any objection arise. It was really not the thing itself; it was the name and the association with the Society that no one wished to have.

[ 16 ] On the other hand, my non-theosophical hearers would have been inclined to permit themselves merely to be “stimulated” by my discussions, to accept these only in a “literary” way. What lay upon my heart was to introduce into life the impulse from the spiritual world; for this there was no understanding. This understanding, however, I could gradually find among men interested theosophically.

[ 17 ] Before the Brockdorff circle, where I had spoken on Nietzsche and the on Goethe's secret revelation, I gave at this time a lecture on Goethe's Faust, from an esoteric point of view.⁵

[ 18 ] The lectures on mysticism led to an invitation during the winter from the same theosophical circle to speak there again on this subject. I then gave the series of lectures which I later collected into the volume Christianity as Mystical Fact.

[ 19 ] From the very beginning I have let it be known that the choice of the expression “as Mystical Fact” is important. For I did not wish to set forth merely the mystical bearing of Christianity. My object was to set forth the evolution from the ancient mysteries to the mystery of Golgotha in such a way that in this evolution there should be seen to be active, not merely earthly historic forces, but spiritual supramundane influences. And I wished to show that in the ancient mysteries cult-pictures were given of cosmic events, which were then fulfilled in the mystery of Golgotha as facts transferred from the cosmos to the earth of the historic plane.

[ 20 ] This was by no means taught in the Theosophical Society. In this view I was in direct opposition to the theosophical dogmatics of the time, before I was invited to work in the Theosophical Society. For this invitation followed immediately after the cycle of lectures on Christ here described.

[ 21 ] Between the two cycles of lectures that I gave before the Theosophical Society, Marie von Sievers was in Italy, at Bologna, working on behalf of the Theosophical Society in the branch established there.

[ 22 ] Thus the thing evolved up to the time of my first attendance at a theosophical congress, in London, in the year 1902. At this congress, in which Marie von Sievers also took part, it was already a foregone conclusion that a German section of the Society would be founded with myself – shortly before invited to become a member – as the general secretary.

[ 23 ] The visit to London was of great interest to me. I there became acquainted with important leaders of the Theosophical Society. I had the privilege of staying at the home of Mr. Bertram Keightley, one of these leaders. We became great friends. I became acquainted with Mr. Mead, the very diligent secretary of the Theosophical Movement. The most interesting conversations imaginable took place at the home of Mr. Keightley in regard to the forms of spiritual knowledge alive within the Theosophical Society.

[ 24 ] Especially intimate were these conversations with Bertram Keightley himself. H. P. Blavatsky seemed to live again in these conversations. Her whole personality, with its wealth of spiritual content, was described with the utmost vividness before me and Marie von Sievers by my dear host, who had been so long associated with her.

[ 25 ] I became slightly acquainted with Annie Besant and also Sinnett, author of Esoteric Buddhism. Mr. Leadbeater I did not meet, but only heard him speak from the platform. He made no special impression on me.

[ 26 ] All that was interesting in what I heard stirred me deeply, but it had no influence upon the content of my own views.

[ 27 ] The intervals left over between sessions of the congress I sought to employ in hurried visits to the natural-scientific and artistic collections of London. I dare say that many an idea concerning the evolution of nature and of man came to me from the natural-scientific and the historical collections.

[ 28 ] Thus I went through an event very important for me in this visit to London. I went away with the most manifold impressions, which stirred my mind profoundly.

[ 29 ] In the first number of the Magazine for 1899 there appears an article by me entitled Neujahrsbetractung eines Ketzers.⁶ The meaning there is a scepticism, not in reference to religious knowledge, but in reference to the orientation of culture which the time had taken on.

[ 30 ] Men were standing before the portals of a new century. The closing century had brought forth great attainments in the realm of external life and knowledge.

[ 31 ] In reference to this the thought forced itself upon me: “In spite of all this and many other attainments – for example, in the sphere of art – no one with any depth of vision can rejoice greatly over the cultural content of the time. Our highest spiritual needs strive for something which the time affords only in meagre measure.” And reflecting upon the emptiness of contemporary culture, I glanced back to the time of scholasticism in which, at least in concepts, men's minds lived with the spirit. “One need not be surprised if, in the presence of such phenomena, men with deeper intellectual needs find the proud structure of thought of the scholastics more satisfying than the ideal content of our own time. Otto Willmann has written a noteworthy book, his Geschichte des Idealismus⁷ in which he appears as the eulogist of the world-conception of past centuries. It must be admitted that the human mind craves those proud comprehensive illuminations through thought which human knowledge experienced in the philosophical systems of the scholastics ... Discouragement is a characteristic of the intellectual life at the turn of the century. It disturbs our joy in the attainments of the youngest of the ages now past.”

[ 32 ] And in contrast to those persons who insisted that it was just “true knowledge” itself which showed the impossibility of a philosophy comprising under a single conception the totality of existence, I had to say: “If matters were as they appear to the persons who give currency to such voices, then it would suffice one to measure, weigh, and compare things and phenomena and investigate them by means of the available apparatus, but never would the question be raised as to the higher meaning of things and phenomena.”

[ 33 ] This is the temper of my mind which must furnish an explanation of those facts that brought about my anthroposophic activity within the Theosophical Society. When I had entered into the culture of the time in order to find a spiritual background for the editing of the Magazine, I felt after this a great need to recover my mind in such reading as Willmann's History of Idealism. Even though there was an abyss between my perception of spirit and the form of Willmann's ideas, yet I felt that these ideas were near to the spirit.

[ 34 ] At the end of September 1900, I was able to leave the Magazine in other hands.

[ 35 ] The facts narrated above show that the purpose of imparting the content of the spiritual world had become a necessity growing out of my temper of mind before I gave up the Magazine; that it has no connection with the impossibility of continuing further with the Magazine.

[ 36 ] As into the very element suited to my mind, I entered upon an activity having its impulse in spiritual knowledge.

[ 37 ] But I still have to-day the feeling that, even apart from the hindrance here described, my endeavour to lead through natural-scientific knowledge to the world of spirit would have succeeded in finding an outlet. I look back upon what I expressed from 1897 to 1900 as upon something which at one time or another had to be uttered in opposition to the way of thinking of the time; and on the other hand I look back upon this as upon something in which I passed through my most intense spiritual test. I learned fundamentally to know where lay the forces of the time striving away from the spirit, disintegrating and destructive of culture. And from this knowledge came a great access of the force that I later needed in order to work outward from the spirit.

[ 38 ] It was still before the time of my activity within the Theosophical Society, and before I ceased to edit the Magazine, that I composed my two-volume book Conceptions of the World and of Life in the Nineteenth Century, which from the second edition on was extended to include a survey of the evolution of world-conceptions from the Greek period to the nineteenth century, and then appeared under the title Rätsel der Philosophie.⁸

[ 39 ] The external occasion for the production of this book is to be considered wholly secondary. It grew out of the fact that Cronbach, the publisher of the Magazine, planned a collection of writings which were to deal with the various realms of knowledge and life in their evolution during the nineteenth century. He wished to include in this collection an exposition of the conceptions of the world and of life, and this he entrusted to me.

[ 40 ] I had for a long time held all the substance of this book in my mind. My consideration of the world-conceptions had a personal point of departure in that of Goethe. The opposition which I had to set up between Goethe's way of thinking and that of Kant, the new philosophical beginning at the turning-point between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Fichte, Schelling, Hegel – all this was to me the beginning of an epoch in the evolution of world-conceptions. The brilliant books of Richard Wahle, which show the dissolution of all endeavour after a world-conception at the end of the nineteenth century, closed this epoch. Thus the attempt of the nineteenth century after a world-conception rounded itself into a whole which was vitally alive in my view, and I gladly seized the opportunity to set this forth.

[ 41] When I look back to this book the course of my life seems to me symptomatically expressed in it. I did not concern myself, as many suppose, with anticipating contradictions. If this were the case, I should gladly admit it. Only it was not the reality in my spiritual course. I concerned myself in anticipation to find new spheres for what was alive in my mind. And an especially stimulating discovery in the spiritual sphere occurred soon after the composition of the Conceptions of the World and of Life.

[ 42 ] Besides, I never by any means penetrated into the spiritual sphere in a mystical, emotional way, but desired always to go by way of crystal-clear concepts. Experiencing of concepts, of ideas, led me out of the ideal into the spiritual-real.

[ 43 ] The real evolution of the organic from primeval times to the present stood out before my imagination for the first time after the composition of Conceptions of the World and of Life.

[ 44 ] During the writing of this book I had before my eyes only the natural-scientific view which had been derived from the Darwinian mode of thought. But this I considered only as a succession of sensible facts present in nature. Within this succession of facts there were active for me spiritual impulses, as these hovered before Goethe in his idea of metamorphosis.

[ 45 ] Thus the natural-scientific evolutionary succession, as represented by Haeckel, never constituted for me something wherein mechanical or merely organic laws controlled, but as something wherein the spirit led the living being from the simple through the complex up to man. I saw in Darwinism a mode of thinking which is on the way to that of Goethe, but which remains behind this.

[ 46 ] All this was still thought by me in ideal content ; only later did I work through to imaginative perception. This perception first brought me the knowledge that in reality quite other beings than the most simple organisms were present in primeval times. That man as a spiritual being is older than all other living beings, and that in order to assume his present physical form he had to cease to be a member of a world-being which comprised him and the other organisms. These latter are rejected elements in human evolution; not something out of which man has come, but something which he has left behind, from which he severed himself, in order to take on his physical form as the image of one that was spiritual. Man is a microcosmic being who bore within him all the rest of the terrestrial world and who has become a microcosm by separating from all the rest – this for me was a knowledge to which I first attained in the earliest years of the new century.

[ 47 ] And so this knowledge could not be in any way an active impulse in Conceptions of the World and of Life. Indeed, I so conceived the second volume of this book that a point of departure for a deepening knowledge of the world mystery might be found in a spiritualized form of Darwinism and Haeckelism viewed in the light of Goethe's world-conception.

[ 48 ] When I prepared later the second edition of the book, there was already present in my mind a knowledge of the true evolution. All through I held fast to the point of view I had assumed in the first edition as being that which is derived from thinking without spiritual perception, yet I found it necessary to make slight changes in the form of expression. These were necessary, first because the book by undertaking a general survey of the totality of philosophy had become an entirely different composition, and secondly because this second edition appeared after my discussions of the true evolution were already before the world.

[ 49 ] In all this the form taken by my Riddles of Philosophy had not only a subjective justification, as the point of view firmly held from the time of a certain phase in my mental evolution, but also a justification entirely objective. This consists in the fact that a thought, when spiritually experienced as thought, can conceive the evolution of living beings only as this is set forth in my book; and that the further step must be made by means of spiritual perception.

[ 50 ] Thus my book represents quite objectively the pre-anthroposophic point of view into which one must submerge oneself, and which one must experience in this submersion, in order to rise to the higher point of view. This point of view, as a stage in the way of knowledge, meets those learners who seek the spiritual world, not in a mystical blurred form, but in a form intellectually clear. In setting forth that which results from this point of view there is also present something which the learner uses as a preliminary stage leading to the higher.

[ 51 ] Then for the first time I saw in Haeckel the person who placed himself courageously at the thinker's point of view in natural science, while all other researchers excluded thought and admitted only the results of sense-observation. The fact that Haeckel placed value upon creative thought in laying the foundation for reality drew me again and again to him. And so I dedicated my book to him, in spite of the fact that its content – even in that form – was not conceived in his sense. But Haeckel was not in the least a philosophical nature. His relation to philosophy was wholly that of a layman. For this very reason I considered the attack of the philosophers that was just then raging around Haeckel as quite undeserved. In opposition to them, I dedicated my book to Haeckel, as I had already written in opposition to them my essay Haeckel und seine Gegner.⁹ Haeckel, in all simplicity as regards philosophy, had employed thought as the means for setting forth biological reality; a philosophical attack was directed against him which rested upon an intellectual sphere quite foreign to him. I believe he never knew what the philosophers wished from him. This was my impression from a conversation I had with him in Leipzig after the appearance of his Riddle of the Universe, on the occasion of a presentation of Borngräber's play Giordano Bruno. He then said: “People say I deny the spirit. I wish they could see how materials shape themselves through their forces; then they would perceive ‘spirit’ in everything that happens in a retort. Everywhere there is spirit.” Haeckel, in fact, knew nothing whatever of the real Spirit. The very forces of nature were for him the “spirit,” and he could rest content with this.

[ 52 ] One must not critically attack such blindness to the spirit with philosophically dead concepts, but must see how far the age is removed from the experience of the spirit, and must seek, on the foundation which the age affords – the natural biological explanation – to strike the spiritual sparks.

[ 53 ] Such was then my opinion. On that basis I wrote my Conceptions of the World and of Life in the Nineteenth Century.

• 1. Goethe's Secret Revelation.
• 2. Mysticism at the Beginning of the Modern Spiritual Life.
• 3. “An anthroposophy.”
• 4. From Buddha to Christ.
• 5. This was the lecture which was later published, together with my discussions of Goethe's fairy-tale, by the Philosophische-Anthroposophische Verlag.
• 6. New Year Reflections of a Sceptic.
• 7. History of Idealism.
• 8. Riddles of Philosophy.
• 9. Haeckel and His Opponents.

The pictures we shall show today will enable us to give a kind of recapitulation of various things that came before our souls in former lectures. I shall draw attention today to further aspects, arising out of what we have said before. In the course of these studies, we have distinguished between the more Southern European and the Northern or Mid-European artistic streams and we have indicated characteristic aspects of these two. I do not wish to repeat what has already been set forth. Today we are able to show some further reproductions of pictures by Raphael, and I wish to say a few words about him, unfolding—if I may so describe it—a more special outcome of our ideas concerning the artistic genius of the South.

Anyone who lets Raphael's creations work upon his soul, will admit that in Raphael—with respect to certain artistic intentions—the highest ideal has been attained. When we let them work upon us and try to understand them, we ask ourselves again and again: What is it that comes to expression in his works, and how does it stand in relation to the World? Think for a moment from this aspect of the Madonna della Sedia,—how this picture is placed in a great world-perspective: It is so, indeed, in all directions. To begin with, you may consider the picture as an outcome of the Christian world-conception. So perfectly does it express this theme: The Birth of Christ Jesus in connection with the Madonna, that we must say, 'The ides, the meaning, the impulse, the world-historic significance which it is desired to express, has here been expressed by means that cannot ever be transcended.

From a certain point of view you cannot imagine a further enhancement of this theme—the Madonna with the Jesus Child—in its impression on the human soul. One of the ideas of the Christian conception of the world has come to expression here in the highest imaginable way, seen from a certain aspect.

1. Raphael. Madonna With Child.

And now let us look at the picture for a moment as though we knew nothing of the Christian world-conception. Let us consider it in the way Herman Grimm once spoke of it, simply as an expression of the deep mystery of the relation of the mother to the child. A mother with her child: Once more, the highest means of expression have been found by Raphael for one of the most mysterious themes in the whole Cosmos, as it lies before us human beings living in the Physical. Thus even if we take the pure picture of Nature—the mother and child—apart from the world-historic happenings, once more the thing is perfect in itself, the highest of its kind.

It is always so with Raphael. His themes are of universal significance, and perfectly expressed,—the means of expression proceeding from those streams and influences which we recognise as characteristic of the South. Always, however, his themes must be seen in the context of great universal meanings. We can regard them from a Christian aspect (and the above two points of view are by no means the only ones),—looking at it in a Christian way, the theme places itself at once in a great context of Nature. Again it rises free from the individually human; we seem to forget the human being that worked to create it—the human being, Raphael himself. Behind the artist stand great cosmic perspectives—world-conceptions coming to expression in him. This, indeed, is to characterise such an artist as Raphael, as the artist of an epoch that was drawing to it close: the Fourth Post Atlantean epoch. Such epochs, when they draw near their end—or when their inner essence reaches beyond the boundary of times, often bring forth their very highest.

We shall presently see how very different it is when we consider in this light, say, the personality of Albrecht Dürer. There it is altogether different. But you might also think of the Sistine Madonna, even as we have now spoken of the Madonna della Sedia. Again we should have to say: What is here placed before us interests us, above all, inasmuch as it stands out against the background of a great world-conception. Without this background of a great world-conception, the Sistine Madonna is, indeed, unthinkable.

2. Raphael. Sistine Madonna With Child

3. Raphael. Sistine Madonna With Child (detail)

Looking at some of Raphael's pictures today, let us bear in mind the aspect which has thus been characterised. For Raphael to create in this way—for his pictures to arise out of a mighty world-perspective—something of cosmic law and principle had to be working in his very soul. This is, indeed, the case. It comes to expression in the remarkable course of his life, which was already emphasized by Hermann Grimm. Raphael's work takes its course in regular cyclic periods. At the age of twenty-one he creates the Sposalize; four years later the Entombment; four years after this he completes the Frescoes of the Camera della Segnatura; four years later, once again, the Cartoons for the tapestries in the Vatican and the two Madonnas. And finally, four years after this, at the age of thirty-seven, he is working at the Transfiguration, which stands unfinished when he leaves this physical plane. In cyclic periods of four years, something of the nature of a cosmic principle works in Raphael. Truly, we here have something that proceeds from a great cosmic background. Hence Raphael's work is so strongly separated from his personality. Again and again the question comes to us: How is it that the themes—and they are world-historic themes—come to expression in his work so perfectly; so self-contained, so inwardly complete?

Down to this day, the study of Art derives—more than from any other source—from that great Art in the center of which is Raphael.

The study of Art in the exoteric life today is more or less of this kind. All its available ideas have been learned from the Art which finds its highest expression in Raphael—the Art of the Italian Renaissance. Thus in the outer life the concepts to express this Art are the most perfect, and all other Art is measured by this standard. The works of this Art are the ideal, and we have few words at our disposal, few concepts and ideas, even to speak of any other streams in Art, specifically different from this one. That is the unique thing.

And now we will let pass before our souls a number of pictures by Raphael, most of which we have not yet seen in these lectures.

4. Raphael. The Vision of Ezekiel. (Florence, Palazzo Pitti.)

4. Raphael. The Vision of Ezekiel. (detail) (Pitti. Florence.)

The ideas, the living conceptions, out of which such a picture proceeded even in Raphael's time, are naturally no longer near us today. To represent so truly this wandering of the soul in human form through the spiritual world, would no longer be attainable today for those who have not Spiritual Science. The animal nature below expressed what man has cast aside from himself, but it is still there, needless to say, even in his etheric body, and we find it there when the etheric is freed from the physical. The union of the soul with something childlike, as it is is represented by the angel figures here, is an absolutely true conception. The conception corresponds to a reality. We must consider man in his full being, such as he really is. In recent communications on the Guardian of the Threshold we had to speak of the Threefold being of Man. This threefold nature of man emerges everywhere, where reference is made to the Spiritual part of man emancipated from the Physical. We find this threefoldness in manifold forms—not symbolic, but corresponding to spiritual Realities. And so we find it here, in the full-grown Man related to the Child and the Beast.

5. Perugino. The Marriage of Maria. (Vienna, Albertina.)

Today we are able to show a study from the Sposalizo, the picture with which Raphael's great career as an artist properly begins. He did this at the age of twenty-one—at the beginning of the four-year period which dominated all his work.

6. Perugino. “Sposalizo”. (Caen.)

7. Raphael. “Sposalizo”. (Milan, Brera.)

8. Raphael. The Call of St. Peter. (London, Kensington Museum.)

9. Raphael. The Road to Calvary. (Madrid, Prado.)

10. Raphael. Sketch of the Mourning for Christ. (Louvre. Paris.)

11. Raphael. Sermon of St. Paul at Athens. (London, Kensington Museum.)

We will now show once more a reproduction of the so-called “Disputa,” with certain details.

12. Raphael. Disputa. (Vatican. Rome.)

13. Raphael. The Holy Trinity. (Perugia, San Severo.)

The Holy Trinity, as it is called.

14. Raphael. Sketch for the Disputa. (Windsor.)

15. Raphael. St. Cecilia. (Bologna.)

And now, as an example of Raphael's portraiture:—

16. Raphael. Cardinal Bihbiens. (Pitti. Florence.)

The next two are examples of his tapestries in the Vatican.

17. Raphael. The Miraculous Draught of Fishes. (Tapestry in the Vatican.)

18. Raphael. The Healing of the Lame. (Tapestry in the Vatican.)

These are the things of which Goethe said that nothing he had known till then could compare with them in greatness.

Looking back once more over the pictures by Raphael which we have seen today, I beg you observe how we may recognise in them the echoing of a mighty tradition of great Art. Even the sketches which we have shown today reveal this most especially. Raphael's work is the last, the highest, the closing act in a great tradition. There is also another point I would ask you to consider. Think of the picture of the Sermon of St. Paul and others—the “Disputa,” for example. You may take any one of those that we have seen today. In every case, having distinguished the subject of the picture, you may naturally ask yourself about the event or personality represented. But it will never be sufficient to answer: The subject is such and such; it represents this or that. In Raphael's case you will have to ask: How is the artist contriving to express—whatever the subject is—in accordance with the ideas and canons of great Art? We cannot merely ask: How would St. Paul actually have lifted up his hand to speak? With Raphael we must ask: What angle will the arm have to make with the body according to aesthetic laws of balance and proportion? And so forth ... A magic breath is poured out over it all,—a magic breath of aesthetic traditions, of harmony and balance. Look at the boy who stands here, in this picture. It is not enough to ask: What is going on in the soul of the boy? Your question must, rather, be directed to these laws of artistic harmony. See how the line of the arm, reaching out on either side, is placed into the composition. In short, you can distinguish what is purely artistic from the underlying subject-matter. Here, however, the artist's power is so magnificent that it draws the subject-matter into its own sphere. With such an artist as Raphael, we may, indeed, pronounce the word, for it is literally true:—“Artistic truth makes all the rest true,—compels all the rest into its circle.”

You cannot apply this saying, in its present meaning, to the works we shall now let pass before our souls. We will begin with one by Martin Schongauer, who died in 1488.

19. Martin Schongauer. The Road to Calvary.

Here you see the very opposite. To begin with, the artist is simply concerned to express his subject. No longer is there poured out over it the magic breath of a peculiarly aesthetic truth, the climax of a great tradition. Here the effort is, to the best of the artist's technique and ability, with the artistic means at his disposal, to bring to expression what is there in the souls of men. Here the world speaks to us directly—not through the medium of a tradition of great Art.

We will now let work upon our souls the personality of Albrecht Dürer; showing a number of pictures which we did not see in the former lectures. In Albrecht Dürer, whom we may speak of as a contemporary of Raphael, we have before us an altogether different personality. It is impossible to think of Dürer's works in the same way as of Raphael's. In Dürer's case we shall not easily forget the personality, the human being. Not that we must always necessarily imagine him; but the pictures themselves are eloquent of all that is direct and intimate and near to the human soul, springing from the soul with elemental force. Raphael paints with the ever-present background of great world-perspectives. He is only conceivable if we imagine, as it were, the Genius of Christianity itself painting in the soul of Raphael. And, again, he is only conceivable as one who stands at the close of a great epoch, during which pupils were learning from their Masters many a tradition of aesthetic law, artistic harmony,—learning that certain things should be done in certain ways, to correspond with the canons of great Art.

In Raphael's works these things are always there before us. In Dürer's work, on the other hand, we feel in the background, as it were, the aura of the life of the time in Middle Europe,—the German towns and cities. Invisibly his pictures are pervaded by all that blossomed forth in the free life of the cities, working its way towards the Reformation. Nor does he stand before us with any cosmic perspectives in the background. It is, rather, the ordinary individual man's approach to the Bible and to his fellow-men, bringing his own soul to expression. The Human element can never be separated from his works. We cannot seek in Dürer for a cosmic principle working through his soul, as we can in Raphael. But we may look for something intimate and deep; deeply connected—we cannot say so too often—with the human soul, its feelings and its seeking, its longing and striving.

20. Dürer. The Four Witches. (Etching)

21. Dürer. Hercules.

22. Dürer. Melanchthon Etching.

Here we have a portrait of Melanchthon, the theological bearer of the Reformation, as against Luther, who was the “priestly” bearer.

23. Dürer. “Rosenkranzfest.” (Prague.)

This picture is now in the “Rudolfinum” at Prague. The Pope, the Emperor and representatives of Christianity are being crowned with roses by Mary, the Jesus Child and St. Dominic. The two figures against the tree trunk will be shown in detail in the next slide.

24. Dürer. Portrait of Himself and Pirkheimer. (Detail of the above.)

Further examples of Dürer's portraiture:—

25. Dürer. Portrait of his Father. (Uffizi. Florence.)

26. Dürer. Portrait. (Prado. Madrid.)

Looking at such a portrait, the whole life of the time comes vividly before you. Truly, in this sense Dürer is an historic figure of the very first rank. No historic document tells us so well, what the people of that time were like.

We shall now show some characteristic examples of Dürer's drawings—etchings and woodcuts. To begin with, from his cycle on the Apocalypse—fifteen leaves, done in 1498.

27. Dürer. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. (1498.)

28. Dürer. The Woman Clothed with the Sun and the Seven-headed Dragon (1498.)

29. Dürer. The Adoration of the Lamb and The Hymn of the Chosen. (1497).

30. Dürer. The Battle of the Angels. (1498.)

31. Dürer. Michael and the Dragon. (1493.)

And now we will show a number of pictures from the series of etchings of the Passion—known as the “Kupferstich-Passion.”

32. Dürer. The Kerchief of St. Veronica. (Etching)

Then the motif that occurs again and again in that time:—

33. Dürer. The Man of Sorrows. (Etching)

34. Dürer. The Scourging. (Etching)

35. Dürer. The Crowning with Thorns. (Etching)

36. Dürer. Ecce Homo. (Etching)

We will next show a number of pictures from the Holzschnitt-Passion—of thirty-six small woodcuts. They are extraordinarily tender and intimate. The first is the title-page:—

37. Dürer. Christ with the Crown of Thorns. (Woodcut)

38. Dürer. Saint Veronica. (Woodcut)

39. Dürer. The Last Supper. (Woodcut)

40. Dürer. The Scourging. (Woodcut)

41. Dürer. Ecce Homo. (Woodcut)

42. Dürer. The Way to Calvary. (Woodcut)

43. Dürer. Christ on the Cross. (Woodcut)

44. Dürer. Mourning for Christ. (Woodcut)

45. Dürer. The Resurrection. (Woodcut)

46. Dürer. The Ascension. (Woodcut)

We can also show two pictures by Hans Baldung, who worked for a certain time, at any rate—in Dürer's workshop. These pictures date from the end of the 15th or beginning of the 16th century.

47. Hans Baldung. The Three Fates.

48. Hans Baldung. Ecce Homo.

49. Hans Sebald Beham. The Man of Sorrows.

I would like to make the following remarks:—The transition from the Fourth to the fifth post-Atlantean epoch and all that is connected with it, finds expression—far more than we can realise from the ordinary textbooks of History—in the whole life of the 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. We must remember that at such times, at the turning-point of one epoch and another, many things are perceptible in the life of the time, expressing the mighty transformation that is taking place. History, truly, does not take its course—though the text-books might lead one to suppose so—like a perpetual succession of causes and effects. At characteristic moments, at the turning-points of epochs, characteristic phenomena emerge, in the most varied spheres of life. Thus, at the transition from the age of the Intellectual Soul or Soul of the Higher Feelings to that of the Spiritual Soul, phenomena appear in all domains of life, revealing how men felt when the impulses of the Spiritual Soul were drawing near. The evolution of the Spiritual Soul involved the development of those relationships with the purely physical plane into which men had to enter during the fifth post-Atlantean age. To a high degree, man was about to be fettered to that physical plane. Naturally, this brought in its train all the phenomena of reaction—of opposition and revulsion at this process. Moreover, at the same time many things emerged out of the former epoch, reaching over with multitudinous ramifications into the new.

Among the many symptoms of that time we see, for instance, the intense preoccupation of man with the phenomenon of Death. In many different spheres—as we can easily convince ourselves—the thought of Death came very near to men. Death as a great mystery—the Mystery of Death—drew near to men at the very time when their Souls had to prepare to come out most of all on to the physical plane of existence.

Moreover. the things of the fourth epoch were reaching over into the Fifth. There were the excesses of the Papacy which had degenerated more and more into a pure impulse of might. There were the excesses connected with the old divisions—the riches of the higher orders, their overweening arrogance, their growing superficiality of life,—while the religious themes themselves were being made external, flat and superficial. Those human beings, on the other hand, who attained some inwardness of soul were pondering deeply on the penetration of the Spiritual world into the physical. Added to this, there was the absolute need to turn one's attention to the spiritual world; inasmuch as the seeds of decay and destruction were entering most terribly into the physical world just at that time. For in those centuries the plague was raging far and wide in Europe—truly, an awful death, Death, in the Plague, came face to face with men as a visible phenomenon in its most awful form.

In Art, too, we see this intensive study of the significance of Death. It comes before us especially in the famous Procession of Death on the cemetery wall at Pisa—one of the earliest appearances of this kind. Then we find many pictures of Death as it draws near to men under the inexorable laws of Fate—draws near to man of whatsoever rank or class. The “Dance of Death,” the “Wandering of Death through the World,” Death's entry into all human relationships—this becomes a very favorite theme. It was out of this mood and feeling that Holbein himself created his cycle on the Dance of Death, three examples of which we shall now show. In Holbein's Dance of Death the object was especially to show how Death approaches the rich man, for instance; approaches man of every social rank—from the highest in the land to the lowest. Moreover, the object was to show Death as a righteous judge. Holbein in his Dance of Death desired to show every conceivable circumstance under which Death draws near to human life.

44a. Holbein. Death and the King.

Here we see Death coming to the King, to tear him away from his royal life.

44b. Holbein. Death and the Monk.

The people of that time had great delight in pictures such as these. This was the time when the Reformation strove to put an end to all the growing worldliness and emptiness of the religious life—to the corruption of the Church and the religious orders.

45. Holbein. Death and the Rich Man.

Death draws near to the rich man, and finds him with his pile of money.

My dear friends, we have seen how the German Art came to expression in these great examples—and especially in the greatest, in Dürer,—at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century. One question cannot but interest us again and again: How is it with the origin and evolution of this special stream of Art? In order to say a little more upon this subject, we shall presently show a few pictures revealing how the several factors stood at a characteristic moment. We can make very interesting studies on the evolution of the Mid-European or German Art—and notably the Southern German Art—at the beginning of the 15th century. True, the pictures of the period, which we shall show, give only the outcome of a long line of evolution. But this outcome appears in them strongly and characteristically. When we wish to characterise a great range of phenomena, we have to sum up many things in a few words; and if we desire to be true, it is by no means easy ... It may be that the characteristic pictures we choose does not fully represent all that is here intended. But if we take things on the whole, we shall find it is confirmed, undoubtedly.

The origin of the Mediaeval Art of the German people shows itself most characteristically on the slopes of the Alps reaching out into Southern Germany, into the regions of Southern Bavaria and Swabia. And we must realise that here was a flowing together of two factors. The one represented by all that was imported from the South along the paths of evolution of the Church—and notably the Roman Church system. We must decidedly imagine (though the historic documents contain little about it) that in artistic matters, too, many an impulse came through the Church and the clerical orders. This applies especially to the districts to which I have just referred. Undoubtedly, many priests and clerics also became painters—good and bad—and they, of course, were always in close connection with the whole system of the Church, working its way upwards with its Roman, Latin impulses from the South. They carried with them all that was living there as artistic tradition. Needless to say, this great tradition reached its eminence only in men of genius, but it existed and was taught as a tradition even among lesser men. Tradition was especially at home in Italy, and thence the priests and monks absorbed and carried it with them to the North.

With all the other things which they derived from the Roman Church, they also took with them these conceptions of how the artist should work, ideas of artistic harmony and balance: Of how one ought to group the persons in a picture, and how the lines should go, and so forth. All this that we see at its loftiest eminence, say in the works of Michelangelo and, above all, Raphael, too, did not create naively, but, as I said before, out of a far-reaching artistic tradition. These artists knew how the figures should be grouped, in the composition, how the single figures should be placed, and so forth. And as I mentioned recently, they had brought the laws of perspective to a high degree of perfection.

All this was taken Northward. Monks and Priests who had enjoyed artistic training would frequently discuss such things with those who showed signs of artistic talent. But it must be said that the people whose home was in the German-speaking districts of what is now called Austria or Southern Bavaria or Swabia absorbed these rules of Art only with great reluctance. There can be no doubt about it; they confronted many of these things without real understanding. They heard that a thing must be done so, and so; but it did not truly appeal to them, it did not strike home. They had not yet developed in themselves a vision for these things. For a period, from which little has been preserved, we must assume, proceeding from these districts, works of Art carrying forward in a very clumsy fashion whatever had to do with the great artistic tradition of the Latin, Roman South. They could not enter into it; they had very little talent for it. The talents of the people of these districts lay in another direction.

I have spoken of all that was carried Northward by the Roman priesthood. This, as I said, was the one factor. The other was what I would call the elemental originality of heart and mind of the human beings themselves who in these regions showed any kind of talent for the Art of painting. They had no talent to follow the rules which were considered the highest requirements of Art in the South. To begin with, they had no eye for perspective. That a picture must somewhat express the fact that one figure is standing more in the foreground and another towards the back,—this they could only understand with great difficulty. To the people of these districts in the first half of the 15th century the spatial conception was still well nigh a closed book. Yet these very districts are in many respects the source and fountainhead of German Art. They could not work their way through to feel the laws of perspective independently and of their own accord. At most, they felt that the things must somehow be expressed by overlapping. The figure that overlaps the other is in front, the other is behind. In this way they tried to bring some measure of spatial order into their pictures, and so they began to find their way into the laws of space.

Primitive as they still are, we see in these pictures—appearing so characteristically in the first half of the 15th century—how hard it is for that stream of evolution which tries to take shape out of the elemental forces of the human heart, to discover for itself the laws of artistic creation. We will now show some examples from the above-mentioned districts. We shall see that they had no real inner relation to the tradition that has been brought to them. They absorbed it, as it were, unwillingly, with reluctance. Nor had they yet the power to obey the laws of space out of their own understanding. To begin with, I will show you an artist of the first half of the 15th century: Lucas Moser.

46. Lucas Moser. The Voyage of Mary and Lazarus. (Altar-piece at Tiefenbronn.)

46. Lucas Moser. The Voyage of Mary and Lazarus. (detail)

Here you see how difficult, how well-nigh impossible the artist finds it to escape from the flat surface. He seems quite unable to obey any kind of perspective law. He creates out of the elemental forces of heart and mind, but his figures are in the flat—he can scarcely get out of the plane. It is, however, interesting for once to see something so primitive.

Lucas Moser was one of those artists, creating within a social order wherein undoubtedly some of the laws and canons of Art, that had been introduced from the South, were living. Some element of the Southern style undoubtedly plays into his works. At the same time he tries to contribute something of what he sees for himself. And the one thing does not quite agree with the other. For one does not actually see things in accordance with the laws of Art.

Look at this Voyage of the Saints across the Sea, as it is called. Look in the foreground (although one can scarcely speak of a “foreground” here),—see the water in which the ship is floating. The waves are merely indicated by the crests, painted in lighter color. If you try to imagine a visual point from which the whole picture might be seen, you will get into difficulties at once. We must imagine it high up so as to look down on the water. But that, again, will not agree with the aspect of the figures of the saints, below.

On the other hand, you see this artist is already striving towards what afterwards emerged—as their essential greatness—in the German artists of a later time, whom we have now considered. Look at the element of naturalism—the faithful portrayal of expression in the faces of these saints. And yet they are sitting on the very edge of the boat, so that they would certainly fall overboard at the least breath of wind. In spite of this, how intimate is the artist's observation; how delicately the souls are expressed. He makes an unskillful attempt to observe the laws of Art, and tries to be realistic at the same time, and the two things do not agree ... Needless to say, the face could not be in this position, in relation to the body (see the figure of the saint, with the mitre). There are countless faults of the same kind. It is all clue to the fact that the artist is striving on the one hand towards what afterwards became the real greatness of the German Art, while on the other hand he is impressed with certain rules. For instance: That there should be a full-face figure in the middle of the picture, and others in profile to contrast with it. He has been taught certain rules in arrangements of composition. All this he tries his best to observe. But he can only do so according to the measure of his own elementary conceptions. He has not yet worked his way through to any kind of perspective or observation of the laws of space.

Observe these little hills,—and yet the picture does not really recede towards the background. You will realise the immense progress that has been made by the time of Dürer and Holbein. And yet how short was the intervening time! This alter-piece was done in the first half of the 15th century. How strongly the forces must have worked, overcoming the artistic traditions imported from the South (for these they did not want) and bringing forth a new stream out of an independent elemental impulse. They rebelled against the Southern tradition and tended to overcome it, and to find for themselves what they required. And you have seen how far they got in a comparatively short time.

We will now show another picture by the same artist.

47. Lucas Moser. Saints Asleep. (Marseilles. From the Altar of Tiefenbronn.)

Look at this creation! It shows how the artist combines a clear vision of Nature with an absolute disregard of some of the simplest natural facts. The tiled roof and the church tower—the whole ensemble is such that the artist cannot possibly have seen it anywhere. He just puts it together, having learned certain rules about the distribution of figures in space. Yet look how he brings out the single items according to his own vision. There is a decided beginning of Naturalism. He tries to be naturalistic and yet to express what he feels should be. His subject is "Sleeping Saints," but he conceives that they must appear worthy and dignified. Look at the figure of St. Cedonius (?) here, with his mitre.

48. Lucas Moser. Saints Asleep. (Detail)

49. Lucas Moser. Self Portrait. (Detail)

Once more the whole thing seems on the flat. But you will already observe the first attempt to bring out of the spatial effects by the strong shadows thrown. His relations to the laws of perspective are very strained, to say the least. But he contrives to get the effect of space by the strong shadows, and altogether by the distribution of light and dark.

This, as we saw in former lectures, is a peculiar characteristic of the German stream,—to feel the quality of space by catching the light, using the spatial virtue of the light itself. Here we do not take our start from the laws of lineal perspective—laws of perspective drawing. We extend the surface forward and backward by discovering the hidden effects of light itself.

We can see this most significantly in another artist, who already seeks for truth of Nature, but can still be characterised fundamentally in the same way as the former one. I refer to Multscher.

50. Multscher. The Nativity. (Berlin.)

Here is a representation of the Birth of Christ. Once again there is really nothing of those Laws of Space that came from the South. But you see the beginnings of the spatial working of the light itself. Space is born, as it were, out of the activity of light, and in this element the artist works with keen attention. This picture dates from 1437.

In Moser's and Multscher's works we have a true artistic impulse, born out of the very nature of the German South. Here is the element that afterwards rose to its height in Dürer, Holbein and the rest, though the latter were also influenced from Flanders and the Netherlands. The Cologne Masters, too, are rooted in these same impulses. Again and again we see how wonderfully the characteristics emerge even at the very beginning of the evolution of such an impulse. Observe in this picture the striving to express the inner quality of soul of every single person. And yet the artist's relation to certain other truths of Nature is very strained; Imagine you were in this crowd of people standing in the background. Look at the faces. Considering how near some of them are, they could not be standing side by side in that way unless their arms were chopped off, right and left; the artist pays no heed to these elementary matters of spatial distribution. One person is dovetailed into the other. The next is another picture by Multscher.

51. Multscher. Christ in Gethsemane. (Town Hall. Sterzing.)

The artist tries to find his way into the representation of landscape. Note how deeply he has felt the three figures of the apostles, left behind. Yet how little he succeeds in making any real distinction between foreground and background. He seems almost unable to follow any of the laws of space. But he tries once more to express the spatial by the effects of light. Here once again we see the element which afterwards became so great in German Art.

52. Multscher. The Entombment. (Stuttgart. Museum.)

In Lucas Moser and in Multscher we see the actual beginnings of German Art. There are others, too, but very little has been preserved; most of it is to be found in the churches. With all their primitive unskilfulness, we have here the beginning of what emerged with real greatness in the pictures of a later date, that we have seen. They paint out of a primitive feeling, while they simply cannot find their way into the traditions that come to them from the South. Their inwardness is in opposition to these laws in which they are instructed. One more picture by Multscher.

53. Multscher. The Resurrection. (Berlin.)

All that we have said of the two artists comes out very prominently in this picture. If you look for a point from which these figures with the sarcophagus (for so we might call it) are seen, you have to look high up above. We are looking down on the whole scene. And yet if you look at the trees you will see, they are seen from a frontal aspect. There is no single visual point for the picture as a whole. The trees are seen from in front; the picture as a whole, from above. There is no single point of vision according to the laws of space. Indeed, whatever of perspective you do see in the pictures would largely be eliminated were it not for the strong differentiation of the space through the effects of the light itself. In this respect, our eyes will easily deceive us. You would look in vain for line perspective in this picture. You would find mistakes everywhere. I do not mean naturally admissible mistakes, but errors which by themselves would make the picture quite impossible. We see once more the striving to get beyond the mere linear perspective by means of a spatial depth and quality which the light itself begets.

We see how these artists of Middle Europe have to feel their own way towards a totality of composition. There is another interesting point,—less evident in these pictures, but you will find it in other works by Multscher belonging to the same altar-piece. His fine feeling for light enables him to bring out the facial expression beautifully. But he is scarcely able to do the eyes with artistic truth. You can see it here to some extent, though it is less evident than on other pictures. And as for the ears—he does them just as he has been taught. Here he does not yet possess a free and independent feeling. Thus on the one hand he observes what he has been told, but without much artistic understanding. The things he does according to tradition he does badly. On the other hand, we see in him, in a primitive form, what was only afterwards able to appear more perfectly in German Art.

It is, indeed, remarkable how all these things, which we find in the German Art, emerge already in a highly perfect form in the Hamburg Master, Meister Francke, who was practically a contemporary of Moser and Multscher.

54. Meister Francke. The Man of Sorrow. (Hamburg.)

In this Ecce Homo, this Man of Sorrows, you see how high a degree of perfection the expression of the Head of Christ, which was elaborated by and by in the course of time, had already reached. Compare this Head of Christ with the one by Multscher which we saw just now. You will recognise a great advance. Likewise, in the whole forming of the figures. Of course, the peculiar quality which afterwards came out through greater skill and variety of technique in Dürer's work,—in his paintings, etchings and woodcuts,—is lacking still.

55. Meister Francke. The Resurrection. (Schwerin.)

All in all, considering the artistic developments that are potentially there in these first beginnings, and that produced Dürer and Holbein and the others, we must admit that the thread is broken. For afterwards there came a break; they turned back again to the Roman, Latin principle. And in the 19th century, artistic evolution was decidedly on a retrogressive path. There can, however, be no doubt that this fact is connected with deep and significant laws of human evolution. This stream of evolution in Art works out of the element of light and dark, and discovers—as I tried to explain in the lecture on Rembrandt—the inner connection of the world of color with the light and dark. Through the historic necessity of the time, it could not but tend towards a certain Naturalism; but it can never find its culmination in Naturalism. For in this peculiar talent to perceive the inwardness of things, the possibility to paint, to represent the spiritual Mysteries, still lies inherent. When I say “inwardness of things,” I mean not merely inwardness of soul, but the inwardness of things themselves, expressed in the spatial laws of light and darkness which also contain the mysteries of color. Goethe, as you know, tried to express this systematically in his Theory of Color. This possibility, therefore, still lies open and unrealised in evolution. The possibility to paint the spiritual Mysteries out of the inner virtues of the world of color, out of the inner essence of the light and dark. And the possibilities in this direction can be extended also to the other Arts.

But such a thing can only be brought about through the inspiration of Spiritual Science, of the anthroposophical conception of the world. In the none too distant future, the possibilities that lie inherent in the beginnings of this stream of Art must all be brought together. To create out of the inner light—out of the forming and shaping power of the light—will at the same time be to create out of the inner source of being, and that, I need not say, can only be the Spiritual. In the portrayal of the sacred History, this stream in Art could not, in the nature of the case, attain the high perfection which Raphael attained, for instance. (Nevertheless, in some respects it attained a perfection of its own—notably in the great artists whose works we have seen again today.) But the Spiritual that pervades the works of this Art is still alive. We must only find the connection of what surges through these works of Art, with the underlying laws of the spiritual life. Then will spiritual Imagination and artistic fancy join together and create a true Imaginative Art.

To some extent, as a first beginning, this has been attempted in our (Goetheanum) Building. For this is, after all, a beginning of new artistic impulses. Naturally, there is something primitive about every new beginning; but we have ventured, none the less, to strive for something new and in a grander style. The time may come when people will understand what we have been striving for in this Building. Then it will be realised why certain occult impulses that came already to expression in this art which we have seen today and in the preceding and contemporary sculpture (examples of which we have also seen) remained to this day unrealised. It will be understood why a certain break was inevitable in the evolution of this art. How remote, after all, is that which emerges in the 19th century in the art of a Kaulbach or a Cornelius from what is living in this art which we have seen today! In Kaulbach, Cornelius, Overbeck and the rest, we see a mere repeat of the Southern element. In this art, on the other hand, we see on all hands a radical rebellion and revolution against the Latin and Roman.

He who is prepared to look more closely, will find still deeper connections. Think of the four pictures by Multscher which we have shown today. They represent, if I may say so, the native Swabian tendencies in the realm of Art. Here we find a certain native talent for a flat surface with the help of light. Anyone who has a feeling for finer, more intimate relationships will perceive a similar quality in the Philosophy of Hegel—likewise a product of the Swabian talent, and in that of Schelling, of whom the same thing may be said, and in the poetry of Holderlin.

This grasp of the flat surface, but working forth from the flat surface with the help of light,—we find it not only in the primitive beginnings of this art; we find it again even in Hegel's Philosophy. Hence Hegel's Philosophy, if I may say so, makes such a ‘flat’ impression on us. It is like a great canvas, like an ideal painting of the world. It works from the surface; and in its turn, after all, it can but be the philosophic beginnings of what will now work its way—not merely into this projection of Reality on the flat—but into the full Reality itself. And this “Reality,” I need not say, can be none other than the Spiritual.

These things are interrelated in all truth. What I have lately been trying to describe to you for other realms of life, with regard to the history and civilisation of Europe, is wonderfully confirmed, in all detail, in the sphere of Art. All that we recognised in the lecture the day before yesterday—the impulses working in the different regions of Europe—you can trace it again in the life of Art. Bring before your minds again the art of the Netherlands which we have seen,—coming from thence into Western Germany. Then consider what we have studied today—as something growing absolutely and originally out of the German spirit itself. For the country of which we have spoken today, the soil on which Lucas Moser and Multscher worked, is, after all, the central region of the German Spirit. It is here that the German Spirit has evolved most originally and most truly. Here, too, Christianity was inwardly absorbed, as though by an inner kinship with the spiritual nature of the German heart and mind. The absorption of Christianity was a far more inward process in these districts; and here the original and elemental gifts of the German nature came forth in the realms of Art. They did not accept what brought Christianity to them from the South in a form already marred by Rome; they tried to recreate Christianity themselves artistically out of their inner heart and feeling.

Such a thing could not emerge in the same measure in the more Northern regions of Germany without the coming of an impulse from the South. We see the same thing once more in the fact that Hegel's philosophy received its quickening from the Southern region, and Schelling's too; while, on the other hand, the philosophy of Kant reveals itself quite evidently as a North German product. The peculiar quality of the Kantian philosophy is not unconnected with the fact that the originally Prussian districts remained Heathen for comparatively long. They were brought over to Christianity at a later period and by a rather external process—a conversion far more external than in the Southern German districts. Prussia, properly speaking, remained Heathen till a very late period.

The things we otherwise recognise in historic evolution—we can find them confirmed in the evolution of Art and in the evolution of the life of Thought. For this very reason I wanted to place Moser and Multscher before you at the close of our considerations for today.

Dear attendees, already in earlier years I was allowed to give lectures in this city on questions of world view, which are based on what I dare to call “spiritual science”. And also in this fateful time of ours, the friends of our spiritual scientific world view here in this city thought that it would be possible to talk about some things in the field of this spiritual science here. And that should be appropriate for this time as well; after all, what is called spiritual science here is about the deepest, most fateful things in human beings, about that which leads people to the bitterest disappointments of life, but also to those feelings that we see unfolding so powerfully in our time in terms of courage and willingness to make sacrifices.

Now, dear attendees, what is called spiritual science in the sense of tonight's reflections is by no means something that can find any approval or recognition in wide circles of our present time. And it must be said that precisely the person who is completely and with all his soul immersed in this spiritual-scientific world view will find it self-evident that precisely the most highly educated people in our time raise objections against what this spiritual science presents. And it will appear to them much more understandable when it is said that this spiritual science is a collection of dreams, fantasies or even worse, than when someone who is completely immersed in the thought patterns that completely immersed in the thought patterns that have emerged over the past few centuries, is immersed in a scientific training that is in line with the times, if he could immediately agree with this spiritual science at first hearing.

In particular, it is quite obvious and understandable that objections, perhaps even ridicule and scorn, will be raised against what this spiritual science has to say, especially from three sides. First of all, from those who believe that they are standing on the firm ground of a scientific worldview in the present day. They will have to say – and I say expressly – they will still have to say today that this spiritual science denies everything that the so admirable natural science has achieved for humanity in the course of the last three to four centuries in the most careful way, both theoretically and practically, in human development. And from another side, objection after objection will have to be raised against this spiritual science from the side that believes that everything possible from old superstition and old prejudices is to be listed by what this spiritual science has to bring forward.

And still a third may always arise against this spiritual science. It is the opinion that the most valuable, the most profoundly significant thing that the human soul can hold and carry in life, that the religious element could be endangered by what spiritual science has to say.

Now, esteemed attendees, I hope that even if I do not directly address the refutation of the objections from these various sides, this evening's remarks themselves will show how unfounded and based on misunderstandings what is being said against spiritual science is. Above all, what does this spiritual science want to be? It wants to be one for our time, one for the present path of development of humanity, appropriate continuation of that which the so admirable natural science has brought to humanity. Only, however, it wants to be that which natural science is for external life and external sense observation, it wants to be that for the observations, for the insights of the spiritual world. And precisely for this reason, because it wants to be the genuine, true successor of natural science in the field of spiritual science, it must, in a certain way, in order to be just as scientific as natural science is in its fields, take different paths and methods than natural science.

And to get straight to the point, I would like to discuss the relationship between what a spiritual researcher is, a researcher in the field of the spiritual worlds, in contrast to the natural scientist, who extends his sensory observations, his experiments, his thinking to that which is spread out in time and space. Particularly if spiritual science wants to be truly scientific, it must, in a sense, continue its research where natural science, where all the thinking and feeling and sensing of everyday life ends. And here we immediately come to what runs directly counter to the thinking habits of by far the largest circles of educated people in our society today.

When you are immersed in everyday life, when you let your senses roam over this everyday life, when you think, when you feel about this everyday life, then you are rightly satisfied when you think, feel, sense, imagine, and have ideas about what is out there in space and passing through time. And one recognizes, again with full justification, that one has knowledge, that one has something that can satisfy people, that one has, so to speak, images in concepts and ideas of what takes place in space and time. One remains, so to speak, with the concepts and ideas, one preserves them as that into which one has transformed the outer world.

As a spiritual researcher, one has to start at the point where one stops with one's perceptions and ideas in order to find one's way into the spiritual worlds. I would like to say: the spiritual researcher also has his laboratory and experimental methods, just like the natural scientist and the chemist. But his laboratory is situated entirely within the soul itself. His methods are not such as are used by the chemist, the physicist, the clinician, who carry out their work in space and time and whose work involves listening out for the laws of space and time. The work of the spiritual researcher involves intimate processes that take place entirely within the soul itself. While in everyday life, while in ordinary science, one stops at representations and concepts, in spiritual research one must begin with concepts, ideas and perceptions. And one must not store these perceptions, which one receives in the outer world, in the soul, but one must live intimately with what the soul develops in the life of perception and feeling, living together in a different way than one is accustomed to in the ordinary existence of the day. And since I do not want to talk in abstract terms, but really want to show what the spiritual research path is, I would like to get straight down to specifics.

A person's soul must become something quite different from what it is in everyday life if it wants to observe that which is in the spiritual world. And it can become so if it gets used to living inwardly with that which otherwise merely ... Let us assume that we place some arbitrary idea, a concept, from our own inner soul power into the center of our consciousness and now, instead of asking ourselves, as we do in everyday life, as we do in ordinary science, “What does this concept express to us?” Instead, as spiritual researchers, we try to live with the concept, the idea, the feeling, and also with the impulse of the will, to live in meditation; I mean to live for minutes or for half an hour. In doing so, it is even advantageous if we use not concepts and perceptions that depict something external for this, I would say, inner laboratory work of the soul, but if we use perceptions, ideas that are symbols that do not depict anything external.

What I mean is, take for example the idea: “In the light that permeates and governs the world, living wisdom lives.” Of course, someone might say: this idea does not depict anything real. It is purely the product of the imagination. That is not the point. The point is that we now place this idea at the center of our consciousness, that we now withdraw our attention from everything else that is around us in everyday life or that constitutes the subject of science. This means that all impressions of the senses, all representations that depict something external, memory images, emotions, must be forgotten in the moments when we place such a representation at the center of all our soul activities, as it has just been characterized. Then we gather together all the powers of our soul, which we otherwise distribute among external perceptions and external experiences; we concentrate them and fix them on this single idea. Now it does not depend on what we have in mind. That is why I said: such an idea can be better formed through the exercise of the will. It does not depend on what we imagine, but on the fact that we apply inwardly those strong forces that the soul must apply in order to concentrate everything that is in it through inner willpower in this inner work towards this one point. Doing this only once or twice has no influence at all on the human soul. But it is different when we make what has just been characterized the continued exercise of the soul. Depending on the disposition of the person, one person may have to concentrate their inner soul life on one point for only a few weeks, while another may have to do so for years, always for short periods of time. What matters is that we always repeat the same idea in the right way or also alternate it with other ideas.

Of course, I can only discuss the principles here; you can find more details in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds” and also in the second part of my “Occult Science”, where I discuss how to carry out this, I would like to say again and again, this laboratory work of the soul in detail. This is something that is easily described and of which one can also imagine that it proceeds easily in the soul; but I would like to apply the word used by Goethe to it: “Although it seems easy, yet the easy is difficult.” For the point is that the powers the soul applies in such tasks are completely untrained in ordinary life. So by distracting one's attention from all external and internal impressions and concentrating one's entire mental life through inner arbitrariness – these tasks are called “meditation” and “concentration” – an inner, intimate change takes place in the soul. This change does not occur immediately; nor can it be achieved by simply resolving: “I will now do a great deal and will then achieve what I set out to achieve.” That is not the case. Rather, the essential thing is that we do not use a concept, an idea, a feeling, or any other emotional impulse in the same way as we usually do, but that we live with them, that we give ourselves over to them completely.

Then we must wait, not for what we do with them, but for what they become as we give ourselves to them. Our inner soul is transformed as if we were spectators of what is happening within us, in that we completely identify with what we have placed at the center of our consciousness. Not much time is needed during the day. A few minutes are enough for some, half an hour for others during the day; but it must be done continuously for a long time, and again and again these otherwise hidden powers of the soul must be directed in such a way as I have just described. Then the one who devotes himself to such exercises, who really wants to become a spiritual researcher, notices that something is going on within him of which one has no concept in the outer life. Nor can one have any idea of how someone who has never heard of chemistry can imagine that hydrogen can be released from water through special chemical processes; hydrogen, which is a gas, which looks quite different from water, which burns while water extinguishes. Just as someone who has never heard of chemistry cannot have any idea of what can come out of water as hydrogen, so in ordinary life one cannot have any idea of what happens when the soul, with the expenditure of tremendous inner energy and perseverance, constantly concentrates forces that it otherwise does not apply on one point.

Then the soul gradually realizes that something is happening that does not occur in ordinary life. The soul experiences detachment from the physical body. It is one of the most harrowing experiences for the spiritual researcher to actually experience what is denied in everyday life or in external science. It cannot be said that the soul is already detached from ordinary life. No, it is connected to it. But as the spiritual researcher works in the way that has been characterized, the soul will gradually appear detached from the physical. He really experiences this detachment, before one can really say that the soul-spiritual slips out of the physical-bodily. He enters into a state in which he knows: You are no longer in the body with your thoughts and feelings, but you are outside the body. It is precisely this that must be experienced, which the most scientifically minded world view of the present denies, that there is a spiritual-soul life independent of the body.

What the spiritual researcher experiences next is surprising. At first, one feels how one lives more and more strongly and strongly within oneself in powers that one did not know before. Then there comes a moment when this inner, strong energy and power, in which one already feels, I might say, like in a kind of inner well-being, is dampened, that it is dampened down. And there comes a moment when one experiences something like darkness spreading over the consciousness that one has acquired outside of the body. One could also say: a kind of inner powerlessness, a disappearance and sinking into something that one has as an inner experience.

All that the spiritual researcher goes through is not as indifferent to the soul as the experiences that the ordinary scientist goes through. For this seizes him in his whole mind, it takes up all his attention, it pours out a wealth of initially harrowing experiences upon the soul. The experience one has when one advances in the indicated manner is something like destruction, like an enormous feeling of loneliness.

And there is something else that one experiences, which I will characterize by a comparison, but which should be more than a comparison: Suppose that the germ that develops in the plant could imagine something, could think. As the plant grows from the root to the individual leaves and to the flower, the germ prepares itself; within it are the forces that will later develop into a new plant. It can only develop by drawing its forces from the entire plant. Now, let us assume that it could empathize with the life of the plant – what would it have to feel? He would have to say to himself: As I become stronger and stronger, as I develop more and more, I do so at the expense of the plant on which I develop. I cause what is in the leaves and flowers to wither and fall off because the forces in me are growing strong. That must die. And so, too, he who advances in the manner described, through concentration, through meditation, to that which is indeed a real core, but a spiritual-soul core in the whole life of man — so he feels, really, so he feels and senses, as if he must feel this body itself, to the same extent that he develops, as withering, as melting away, in the whole universe. But anyone who wants to have real knowledge in the spiritual world must have this feeling.

Now you know that ordinary scientific philosophy speaks of the limits of knowledge, of the fact that human knowledge cannot penetrate beyond a certain point. Very many say that man cannot penetrate beyond what is given to the senses, which is grasped by the intellect, which is bound to the brain. Logical proofs are adduced to show that man cannot go beyond certain limits of knowledge. But these logical proofs are a very special matter. Something can be very well proved logically, but life, life in truth, overcomes that which is only logical proof. I will clarify what I actually want to say by means of a comparison, although this comparison is also intended to be more than just a comparison. Consider: in the days before the invention of the microscope, certain people sensed that the smallest cells and structures in plants could be discovered, but they said: the human senses are so arranged that such small cells cannot be seen. Therefore, even if they were present, they will never be seen. Such proof could be quite right. Nothing could be said against it. But life has gone beyond that: they found the microscope and discovered the small plant cells.

At some point, humanity of the present and the future will have to come to terms with the fact that evidence means nothing when it comes to knowledge. Something can be strictly proven and yet, life in truth can go beyond it. Someone may say: Here comes such a complicated spiritual researcher and talks about the fact that the human being, human knowledge, can grow into the spiritual world, while Kant and others have irrefutably proven that human knowledge has limits. The spiritual researcher does not want to touch such proofs at all. But they are no more valuable than the proof mentioned earlier. Life will go beyond it. But another question: how is it that there are philosophers at all who speak of the limits of knowledge, who say that one cannot penetrate into spiritual realms?

Now, what the spiritual researcher finds is not created by him, it is only recognized; by recognizing something, one does not change what is there. What the spiritual researcher experiences as an inner powerlessness of the soul, as an inner loneliness of the soul, is always spread out at the bottom of the soul. It lies down there in the soul, covered only by a veil of a merciful wisdom, and remains unconscious to the person. And now the philosopher comes; he works only with the consciousness that is bound to the brain. He does not know that down there in the soul there is secret fear and shyness of rising to the point where knowledge initially feels like a lonely powerlessness. He knows nothing of this, and unconsciously he shrinks back from it. He is only afraid to go further than the thinking that is bound to the brain. Now what I have described does not last - or at least it should not last beyond a certain time.

The human being must not only enter into the inner mood that I have just described, but, if he wants to become a true spiritual researcher, he must do a parallel exercise. He must do another exercise, which you will find described in detail in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds”. Wherever spiritual research methods are properly practiced, the approach just described is not the only one recommended, but the other approach is also taught.

This other path – I can best make it understandable through the following – is connected with an understanding of what the word “fate” encompasses for human life, which is infinitely significant. What does the word “fate” encompass for human life! But how do those facts approach man that are usually referred to as fate? We live in the world. That which comes to us as suffering or joy, as pain or pleasure-inducing fate, is usually understood as coincidences that happen to people. And the course of our fate between birth and death is understood as a sum of events, in the context of which one does not look further than whether one finds one thing pleasant or another unpleasant. When a person faces their destiny in ordinary life, it is as if someone who has never heard of natural science faces the facts of the external world. The sun rises; the stars rise and set; wind and weather come and go, and so on. Someone who has never heard of natural science does not seek any connection in these facts; he does not seek the laws that govern them.

But just as someone who has not heard of natural science relates to a natural scientist, so man in ordinary life relates to the spiritual scientist, as the spiritual scientist now has to understand this fate. We start from something very ordinary, from the most everyday in this our human life. Let us ask ourselves without prejudice and with an open mind what we are in relation to our self at any given moment in our lives – let us speak only of the ordinary life between birth and death for the time being. Yes, that which we call our self, it consists in what we can do, what we are capable of, what our abilities are, how strongly or weakly we face life. But where does it come from?

If we look at life in this way, we will be able to see it when we look back from a later age to an earlier one, say the twenties, we will be able to see that we were confronted by these or those events, which we call coincidences of fate. Let us consider: What came to us through these events determines what we are capable of today. If it had not come to us, we would be quite a different person. We have become who we are through our experiences. What is meant here can be described as 'easy', but here too one can say: 'But the easy is difficult'. For the spiritual researcher is first led into spiritual science by looking at the destiny, as the blacksmith does of our self with all his skill, with all his abilities, and by making this looking an inner exercise, he becomes more and more aware that he is actually nothing other than what fate has forged out of him. Look at the stream of your destiny, then you will find that you let yourself go completely; you have to follow yourself as it flows in destiny. This must become a habit of feeling, awakening in the human being, so that he now really comes out of himself in this way and that he sees himself as his creator in the flowing stream of the experience of destiny. If this is repeated again and again, then something of our experience of fate falls away.

Earlier I said that in ordinary life we look at our fate in such a way that one thing is sympathetic and the other is antipathetic. This feeling of what is sympathetic and what is antipathetic ceases, must cease, when we look at fate as the creator of ourselves. And the more we overcome this sympathy and antipathy methodically within ourselves, in the innermost laboratory of the soul, the more we come to look up to fate and say: You have created me, I have emerged from you, the more this sense of identification with fate deepens. But much more happens with this. As this sensation arises more and more, voluntarily through inner meditation - now more through meditation of sensation and feeling - we become free in this sensation and feeling, free from our physical body. And we feel how we step out again from this physicality, but now not into an annihilation, but so that we, by going out of ourselves, as into the entire outer world, into the universe, into the cosmos, merge.

But not into that which we in that sense [gap in the text], but by our destiny being willed. We merge with our self into the element of will of higher spiritual beings, weaving and living through the world. We emerge from ourselves and we have the feeling: the eye on you is embedded in your organism, so you are woven into the whole cosmos. You are willed out of the cosmos, you are an act of will out of the cosmos.

And if one wants to characterize what one feels again in a shattering way – because everything that is a spiritual scientific method is at the same time, at least in its beginnings, interwoven with shattering events – if one wants to characterize that, one could express it with the following words: What you were or thought you were, this self with all its abilities, with all that you are, you have actually lost. This has first flowed out into the world of destiny, then into the general universe, and you have to receive yourself from the whole world in a new way, to face yourself. It becomes an experience in which you say to yourself: You are no longer what you used to be. But you encounter a higher self from the whole world, you look at yourself.

This feeling is in turn linked to something subconscious in the feeling that one does not know in ordinary life, over which in turn a veil is mercifully woven, with the feeling of fear, the fear of what one is in truth, when one finds oneself as the world wants one to be. And this fear must be overcome. You cannot come to a real self-knowledge unless you first overcome the fear of the self.

So you have to go through two experiences: a kind of feeling of powerlessness and a kind of feeling of fear. While you get to know loneliness through the first experience, you find yourself through the second experience, so that what you have lost earlier by going out of the body through meditation, concentration, what has passed into a kind of sense of annihilation, now appears to you again from the other side, by seeing how you are wanted by the universe. You are reflected by the universe.

Those who, in the course of human development, have had some knowledge of such truly profound experiences of knowledge have aptly described what could be experienced there: the spiritual researcher comes close to the gateway of death by having these experiences. And indeed, what was first described as a kind of unconsciousness, leads one to the vicinity of death. Let us now look at how the outer life presents itself in ordinary existence. Growing up in childhood, it presents itself to us in that our strength is growing stronger. But when life goes downhill again, we see how destruction takes hold of our lives. And that we are heading towards death is indicated to us by destruction. And all that man knows of death in ordinary life is nothing other than that death is the destruction of what man has become through birth. And because man clings to external destruction, death appears to him as the conclusion of external life.

When we have the first experience described, we realize that we actually owe our thinking, our soul life, to the very forces that have a destructive effect on the human body; that is what is so tragically shocking in the progression of knowledge. We see that our soul life is connected not with the forces of growth but precisely with the destructive forces, with the forces that in ordinary life work from birth towards death. And so we realize that with everything that begins at birth, life is given up to these destructive forces, in which our soul life is rooted by overcoming the external physical forces of growth.

We then experience that the human being needs the moment of death, the moment when the physical body falls away, and that this moment gives consciousness for life in the spiritual world just as much as the forces of birth give consciousness for ordinary life. We notice that death is the creator of consciousness after death, that we have death as the creator of post-mortal consciousness. And we perceive the significance of death for life; we perceive how death, always prevailing in us, leads us, as spiritual researchers, to recognize that we carry a core of being within us that, as a spiritual soul, goes out of us after death. Just as the plant germ emerges from the plant and brings forth a new plant, so this spiritual-soul core of our being passes through the gate of death into a spiritual world, where it then continues to develop. And just as we ourselves have developed out of the world, so it becomes clear to us through the other, how we have wanted out of life.

And when the spiritual researcher develops what has been described in two directions and the spiritual-soul aspect frees itself from the physical-bodily aspect, then the outer, physical-sensory world sinks away. The spiritual researcher knows that he has left it behind, but he enters into a spiritual world. He now knows that he is active in this spiritual world. He knows that he is an entity in there, because he has learned to observe how this entity can detach itself from the physical body. And by observing how one wants to escape from the world, one comes to completely different contents of the world. One gets a different awareness of a world that one did not know before, which is a real spiritual world. And now it really becomes an experience that behind the sensual-physical world there is a world of spiritual beings, that the physical world is a veil behind which the spiritual beings are. So when a person has found out for himself how he is willed out of the universe, he finds the spiritual world, a world of real beings, not just of concepts and ideas, as pantheism says. Yes, man finds much more. It is precisely by developing this element of feeling, this feeling that begins with identifying with fate, that man gradually enters the world in which people find themselves when they have passed through the gate of death.

I do not want to shy away from this, esteemed attendees, because I do not want to talk in the abstract alone, but rather show something concrete, and really cite something concrete: what happens in the spiritual world, one experiences it differently than one experiences things here in the physical-sensory world. Here the entities are outside of us, we stand before them, we perceive them, we understand them through the intellect. When we step out of our body in the way described, we are seized by the entities of the spiritual world. I would like to say: as if from the front, the entities and facts in the sensual world approach us. Taking us, as it were, from behind and placing us within themselves, we become aware of what is really there in the spiritual world as entities.

I would like to give you a single example today. I would like to say from the outset that I am well aware that, especially when one goes into such individual examples, what is said again and again arises: “All this is just a crazy fantasy!” And I find it quite understandable that the thought habits of the present speak in this way. But I will say in a moment what point of view the spiritual researcher must take on this point. Some time ago - forgive me for mentioning something personal, but the chemist must also mention this to show what he has discovered in his laboratory - some time ago I was obliged to follow the spiritual course of human development historically in a certain direction. It was when I was writing the introduction to my book 'Riddles of Philosophy'. In an introductory chapter, I wanted to present the major aspects that shaped the periods of philosophy in the development of humanity. I was able to discern that important impulses were present in Western intellectual life, particularly for the first few centuries of Christian development. But if one takes the study of intellectual life seriously, one will very soon have the opportunity to realize how modest one becomes with respect to what the human sense of inquiry can achieve in the depths of the world. And here I openly confess – and precisely from the openness with which I confess it, you will be able to sense something of the truth that permeates what is to be said – I openly confess that at first I found my own sense of research blunt precisely in the face of the philosophical peculiarity of the first Christian centuries. Now a friend of our spiritual movement had died some time before; and what was in the spiritual world as the soul of this friend of ours, I was able to feel as approaching me, as I searched for these peculiarities of philosophical development in the first Christian centuries. And since I knew that personality quite well here in the physical world, it was possible to recognize what now penetrated into my own feelings and thoughts - I mean this penetrating from behind - as coming from that personality. And very soon I was able to make the acquaintance of this soul, which had more accurate insight after death into the first Christian centuries; and in my own description of the peculiarity of the character of the first Christian centuries, there flowed in that which this soul inspired. And what I myself was able to do at that time, what I characterized in my “Mysteries of Philosophy” about this period, I owe to the spiritual union with this so-called dead soul, which had just entered the spiritual world some time before.

The spiritual researcher in particular will find it quite understandable in the present day when such things, when they are expressed, only meet with ridicule and scorn. However, ridicule and scorn and contradiction about the “fantasy” has already been raised, dear attendees, when something has come up that has contradicted people's thinking habits. I can well imagine that there are those who say: What he claims is completely contrary to the five senses! There was once a time when it was reasonable for the five senses to believe that the earth stood still and that the sun moved around the earth and the stars around the earth. That was entirely in line with the five senses. Then Copernicus came and explained that in reality it is quite different. And as people have become accustomed, very slowly becoming accustomed, to accepting as truth what contradicts the so-called five senses, so mankind will also become accustomed to accepting what seems to contradict the five senses with regard to what has been indicated here about penetrating into spiritual worlds.

Then, after Copernicus, it was Giordano Bruno who had to say, after he had absorbed the Copernican world view with all his soul: the development of your senses - and in those days it really did correspond to all healthy senses - makes you see the blue firmament up there. You take it for reality, but it is not there at all. Infinite worlds are embedded in infinite space, and only the limitations of your ability make it so that the blue firmament is up there. So this firmament was explained as a limitation of the human ability to see. But in this way, there is also a temporal firmament for materialistic thinking. This is limited on one side by birth and on the other by death. Just as the blue firmament of space is not there, so is not there that temporal firmament, that boundary of life that flows between birth and death, but life extends beyond birth and death into infinity. And embedded in that infinity is what true human life is.

It was, as is well known, the great thinker, the leading thinker of modern times, Lessing, who first spoke of the fact that the whole historical course of humanity has only one meaning if one imagines that people complete their lives in repeated lives on earth; so that the whole of human life proceeds in such a way that we live between birth and death, or for that matter between conception and death, then lead a spiritual life between death and a new birth, enter into an earthly life again through a new birth, and so on until conditions arise for which this no longer applies. Likewise, we can also look back into the past at repeated earth lives. I cannot go into what preceded as conditions before the repeated earth lives began. Lessing, so people say, Lessing has indeed created great things, but when he wrote 'The Education of the Human Race', he was already decrepit. Nevertheless, this is the most significant spiritual document that Lessing has given to mankind. In it, he was the first to draw attention to the connection between the past and the future of world development. Our souls themselves have lived in past epochs and carried the fruits of these lives over into our present; and what they are now living through, they will in turn carry into later epochs, applying them in later epochs.

It is like a powerful presentiment of what is experienced as reality by those who thus free the soul from the body, who truly penetrate to the spiritual and soul essence of the being in the manner described. When you see how you are wanted out of the universe, something in this wanted, what you are now yourself, in this fate that you have prepared for yourself in previous lives. You first have to ascend, as I have described, to encounter this higher self. Then you see this higher self throughout repeated lives on earth.

This is just as much a result of real science as the results of physics, astronomy and chemistry are. These things will be no different from what Copernicus and Giordano Bruno brought to mankind. Copernicus had his opponents who fought him fiercely. Giordano Bruno had a tragic fate, he was burned. Nowadays people are no longer burned, but they are laughed at. That is what happens to those who think outside the box in today's world. Those who want to bring what is necessary for the future for spiritual areas are today decried as fantasists, as dreamers, yes, as worse.

Of course, there will be people today who are very naive and who say: Yes, what Copernicus discovered are facts, whereas what spiritual research discovers are things that have been imagined! The people who speak in this way do not know how naive they are and how Copernicus did not observe facts; it was not the case that he took a chair and sat down in space, as children are shown at school; but all of this was only the result of calculations and nothing else; it was certainly not a fact that could be observed with the senses.

The spiritual researcher must, dear attendees, look at the course of spiritual development of humanity, then he will know, in the face of all contradiction, that today numerous souls long for a deeper knowledge of what lives in us and what conquers birth and death, what our eternal essence is, and that this can be explored.

Now it could be said: Yes, then only the spiritual researcher can know that there are spiritual worlds besides the material one, and that the human being belongs to the latter. That is not correct. Just as the chemist in his laboratory brings about certain results, which are then made practically useful, so the spiritual researcher in the spiritual laboratory brings about certain results. Just as one does not need to be a chemist to use what chemistry produces, so one does not need to be a spiritual researcher oneself to recognize in its truth what spiritual science is. I emphasize the difference very expressly: In chemistry one can establish the truth through practical use; in spiritual research it is a matter of the spiritual researcher being able to investigate that which can be investigated only by spiritual research. But when it is investigated, every soul can also see what the spiritual researcher has to say. If it is unable to do so, it is only because it has blocked its own path with prejudices formed over centuries from a purely scientific point of view. When people discard these prejudices, they will be able to absorb what the spiritual researcher has to say, even if they are not spiritual researchers themselves. In a sense, and to a certain degree, everyone today can become a spiritual researcher by observing the rules you can find in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds”; although everyone today can become a spiritual researcher to the extent that he can see for himself through his inner development that every word the spiritual researcher says is true.

New truths always contradict old prejudices. It is most understandable that such new truths are initially only received with hostility. But now, when we look at what spiritual researchers are proclaiming – I could only sketch out the picture of spiritual research with a few strokes of the charcoal, so to speak; you can find everything else in books, in our literature – what does it actually bring into a person's life? I have emphasized it many times: what the spiritual researcher brings about first is knowledge. Just by looking at this room, nothing is changed, the room would be the same without my looking at it. By recognizing, the spiritual researcher does not create the spiritual essence, which comes from eternal elements. The spiritual researcher does nothing but recognize that which is in the soul, which remains only unconscious, which rumbles and weaves and exists down there. So when the spiritual researcher ascends, as described, it is the case that he must first fight his way through the feeling of loneliness and powerlessness. And the way he feels can only be compared to a single note from a sonata, which has its meaning in the whole sonata, getting lost. Just as this tone must feel, since it draws its entire meaning from the sonata, so does a person feel when they have been brought to a state of lonely powerlessness by the first exercise; they feel the eternal that is within them, but in isolation.

And through the other exercise, where the person overcomes inner fear, where he comes before himself, where the realization comes before his soul that he is going through repeated lives on earth, the sound enters the sonata again. That is what those who have sensed something of these things have called the music of the spheres. The music of the spheres is not a philosophical abstraction that people dream up as philosophers, but a reality, a truth. When you hear it – as a human soul, a sound itself in the other sounds – you do not hear the totality of the sounds, but you are a sound and experience yourself in the music of the spheres. But before you get to what spiritual reality is, what lives and weaves and flows and works, before you ascend to it, you have to distinguish between the one sensation where you feel like melting away - while becoming lonely yourself - that which is physical and physical; and on the other hand, one feels fear penetrating one, like that which wants to leave the world, the universe, showing itself, one would like to say, like striving for petrification, for fossilization. On the one hand, one feels as if the spiritual world is merging into annihilation – there are no other words to express it – flowing into the ocean of the world; on the other hand, one feels that which solidifies within oneself. This struggle is always taking place at the bottom of the soul. And what do we gain when spiritual science draws our attention to what it recognizes? We know that our everyday life, in which we think and feel and will, proceeds as we have it as our life heritage, but it could not proceed if it were not for what lies below, which would produce powerlessness and fear if it were not graciously covered by a veil and only uncovered by spiritual research. But this is how one feels about the insights of spiritual science, which remained hidden for centuries when humanity was not yet prepared, but were only accessible to a few individuals; this is how one feels about these spiritual-scientific results, which must now gradually and towards the future penetrate into the spiritual development of humanity.

As a result of these spiritual-scientific findings penetrating, it becomes clear what is at the bottom of the soul, what kind of struggle is taking place – struggles in fear and powerlessness – and how this everyday life can only be attained through a victory over subconscious powers. But this makes one feel like a human being in the world, on the foundation of a system of opposing forces, against which the human being, even if it only lives in everyday consciousness, is victorious. But this brings us strength, strength of soul, knowing that life is a victory; at the bottom of our soul, supersensible powers fight against each other in order to bring about, in the mutual play of their forces, what we are in everyday life. It is a great victory that which is most everyday for us; it is the fruit of victories, of the play of opposing forces and powers, supersensible forces and powers, which are constantly fighting at the bottom of our soul. The results of spiritual science will be able to infuse soul strength, soul firmness, and inner courage into human souls.

And so, if I have characterized the actual spiritual-scientific field according to its content and methods, then it may appear, if not outwardly rational, then at least intuitively correct, in our fateful time, when I say a few words about how these soul-strengthening forces must have a certain significance in our fateful time, when we live in a time of external struggles and opposing forces, in struggles in the outer, historical world, in such a way that we can really perceive in them an external physical image of what we have just been able to characterize, that we can say: It is being discovered, struggling in the subconscious of the soul, by spiritual science. Ordinary everyday life is built up as a life asset on powers that oppose each other. If we know that the individual human life is a victory over powers that oppose each other, then, especially in a time like today's, we gain courage and confidence that the struggles we are in can be compared to what is going on at the bottom of every human soul. And just as the fruit of the struggles in the depths of the soul appears as a victory in the most ordinary life, so we can turn our gaze to what will emerge as the effect, as the fruit, of the struggles of the powers that confront us in the outer world.

In another sense, too, spiritual science is basically only a continuation of natural science. It was Goethe who rebelled against the theory of purpose, against what one might call a causal theory. It was Goethe who emphasized that one will only come to a true science when one no longer looks at nature only for reasons of purpose, when one no longer asks: Why does the ox have horns? so that he can gore! — but that the ox gores because he has horns. Goethe said: this causal thinking is increasingly penetrating into the scientific world view. Spiritual science leads precisely to the spiritual causes. It thus continues the causal thinking even further to the causes that are inaccessible to external observation.

When the opinion is expressed, often even in a defamatory way, but also frequently in a well-intentioned way, that spiritual science is likely to expel all religious feeling, then it must be said that the spiritual researcher has a higher opinion of what religion is than someone who believes that spiritual science can somehow destroy a religion. Religion has not been destroyed by the scientific world view for anyone who can see through things. That which is religion is so strong for the one who sees through it that no science can destroy it. While, however, the scientific world view of some who feel free because they only understand a quarter or an eighth of science has alienated them from religion, people will be led back to religion through spiritual deepening, because through spiritual science they will get to know the real spiritual world and because they will learn that their souls are connected to it. This will deepen people's feelings to such an extent that even those who were already estranged from religion will return to it to an ever greater degree.

The other important thing is that, with regard to what is happening historically, what is around us, spiritual science will lead us to the effects, to that which is to be lived out. We look to the causes of what is there, not to what we are. But when we are confronted with facts in history, it is important that we understand the facts in such a way that we look at the effects above all. How, however, is today's discussion influenced by the materialistic worldview? How does it extend to the question of which nations wanted the war and which did not, and which caused this or that? Spiritual scientific observation leads, as it otherwise leads to the true causes, precisely to the effects. One looks at what must be achieved in opposing powers through the sacrifice of blood and life. We look at it as we look at the subconscious life of the soul; we see how the conscious life of the soul develops from it. We look at what surrounds us in our time, what moves us with pain but also gives us hope, and at what can arise as an effect.

And each of us must stand firmly on the ground on which fate has placed us. We are standing in Central European culture. Fate has placed us on this ground of Central European culture. Anyone who is familiar with this Central European culture, even those who have once recognized the workings and weaving of the spirit, will see that it is like the body of a spiritual soul that is active in it. I could now cite many things that appear in our time as the actual characteristic soul and spirit of Central European culture. I will give just one example, but I would like us to bear in mind that just as the hand cannot be thought of without it being thought of in connection with what the human being thinks and feels, so what European sons in the East and West, courageously accomplish in blood and sacrifice, what is fought for with blood and life, cannot be thought of differently than in the context of the entire Central European intellectual life, with what the best times of this intellectual life have produced as the blossoms of this intellectual life.

Just as what a person's soul has produced is connected with what his hands have produced, so what Goethe, Schiller, Lessing and Hegel have produced is intimately connected with what warriors in the East and West have to accomplish as Central European beings. These things are one and the same. But we recognize things by their fruits. Therefore, we want to emphasize one – I will not even say one fruit, but one side of the fruits of this Central European spiritual life, to see if it has something particularly characteristic that is not peculiar to the others, who, as in a mighty fortress, enclose this Central European spiritual life today. But for that we have to go into specifics.

It was truly a momentous event when Goethe, this representative of German, Central European intellectual life, this spirit, who in the highest moments of his creativity was virtually able to hold an intimate dialogue with the German national spirit and produce what the German spirit of the German people has whispered throughout the ages when he wrote the words with which his “Faust” begins, those words that were written down as early as the 1770s as his own confession, which he put into the mouth of Faust. Goethe looked around at everything that the world of the senses and science can give. He longed for that which lies beyond the world of the senses, which he expresses in words that have almost become trivial today, but which, when felt in all their elemental power, appear as something quite powerful in the individual human experience:

Now, alas! I have studied philosophy,
law and medicine,
and unfortunately theology as well
with great endeavor.
There I stand, poor fool,
and am no wiser than before!

This is how Faust stands, according to Goethe's feelings in the seventies of the eighteenth century.

Then came that great period in German, Central European intellectual life, which is characterized not only by great musicians, great artists in other fields, but also by great idealistic philosophers of German life. Those philosophers – Fichte, Schelling, Hegel – one need not agree with the content of their works; one need only look at how they tried to approach eternal truths to gain insight into Fichte's great and powerful saying: “What kind of philosopher you are depends on what kind of person you are.” He wanted to connect the whole person with what blossoms out of the human being as truth. Therefore, he was able to eavesdrop on the German national spirit, those deep, but also penetrating and inward words that he spoke in Germany's painful times in his “Speeches to the German Nation,” which have had such a great effect. What he lived, thought and philosophically strove for was so unified in him that when he fell ill – his wife brought home an illness from the hospital where she cared for sick warriors, which was passed on to him – when he fell ill with fever and faced death, there, in his final hours, his son was at his side. He tells us that even in the feverish dreams of this most German of philosophers, this world philosopher, he experienced at the same time – and his experience was so great – what was being experienced in Central Europe at the time, when he was already In his feverish dreams, Fichte felt he was part of the army at Blücher's crossing of the Rhine; and he was completely immersed in it, he, the philosopher, who strove throughout his life in the most sober, most detached, most crystal-clear thinking. His experience goes hand in hand with that of his people, even in their feverish dreams. This is a man of one piece.

Central European philosophers strove – one may think as one likes about the content – but one must see this striving as striving, as an expression of humanity. Then again, consider the wonderfully artistic world-building that Schelling erected, consider Hegel's magnificent logical image of the universe – how they all went through the first half of the new century, these great philosophical figures, and all that they brought into the world! And now suppose that Goethe had still been alive in 1840 and had rewritten the beginning of his Faust. The great philosophers have lived. Fichte wrote a “natural right”, Hegel wrote a “natural right”, they renewed jurisprudence, Schelling wrote about medicine, they all wanted to be theologians – they added a great deal to what was there before and about which Goethe said:

Alas, now I have studied philosophy,
jurisprudence and medicine,
and unfortunately theology as well
with great endeavor.
There I stand, poor fool,
and am no wiser than before!

Enormous things have flowed into German intellectual life through them. Can you therefore believe that if Goethe had begun his Faust in 1840, he would have begun:

Now, thank God, I have studied philosophy with Fichte,
natural law with Schelling,
and law and medicine.
So there I am, a wise man,
and wiser than ever before.

Goethe would never have written this as the beginning of “Faust”, but rather would have begun his Faust:

I now, alas! have studied philosophy,
jurisprudence and medicine,
and unfortunately also theology
with great zeal.
There I stand, I poor fool,
And all my wisdom is as much as before!

But this is the important thing, which expresses in a representative way how there is a certain striving, an eternal striving, in Central European intellectual life; and as soon as you have finished striving, you are back to striving again. This is how you stand in what you grasp as your own nationality. While one is Italian, British or French by virtue of being born into that nation, as a German or a Central European one must discover what nationality is, what the innermost essence of nationality is.

What you inherit from your fathers
you must always conquer to possess.

And as a people, Central Europe also had to conquer what - forgive me for again bringing up something personal - I would like to say: I may perhaps ascribe to myself a modest judgment of what is important for this forging of Central European nationality. I have lived half of my life, roughly from the 1960s to the 1980s, in my Austrian homeland, and the other half in Germany. I was still in that Austria where everything that happened in Germany was hated as an effect of 1866. And now one experiences this coming together, this being forged together into a great Central European, into a world cultural act, that is what it has become. And when we look at what this Central Europe, including all the other nationalities that belong to this great fortress, what it holds within itself, we must remember that it is like the soul of a human being, which conquers through its work, that it is thus related to what spiritual-scientific striving is. This must lead the soul beyond itself. But Central European striving is on this path to becoming spiritual-scientific striving. Therefore, one can imagine that what once was will emerge in the future as the flowering of the Central European essence, that it has its seeds in what Central European folklore holds and which is magnificently presented in Faust. The interweaving with the universe, the feeling of oneself in the universe, the going-through-fear that I have characterized when one wants to stand before the eternal - how beautifully did Goethe characterize it when he wrote in his later years:

Sublime Spirit, thou gavest me, gave me everything,
Why I asked. Thou didst not in vain
Turn thy face to me in fire.
Gavest me the glorious Nature for a kingdom,
Strength to feel her, to enjoy her. Not
Coldly marveling visit thou only allowest,
allow me to look into her deep chest,
as into the bosom of a friend.
You lead the line of the living
before me, and teach me my brothers
in the silent bush, in air and water.
And when the storm roars and creaks in the forest,
The giant spruce topples, crushing neighboring branches and trunks, and the hill thunders hollowly with its fall, then you lead me to the safe cave, then you show me to myself, and to my own breast, the deep, secret wonders open up.

The intimate interweaving of what man is with what is outside - where everywhere in the underlying entities are brothers, that is, soul beings, just as the human being himself is a spirit-soul being - is already contained in what Goethe and the other geniuses have poetically established. Just as the stem and leaves, the blossoms and fruits develop from the plant's germ, so too must the highest spiritual fruit of Central European culture develop from that which is germinating. Those who immerse themselves in spiritual matters can recognize, not for external reasons but for internal ones, the vitality that lives in the striving of Central European culture towards the spirit. When we look at this Central European culture and see its striving towards spiritualism – not towards idealism, but towards spiritualism – we can say to ourselves: there are reasons for us to be confident, to look at the current hard struggle from the perspective of spiritual science and say to ourselves: just as the individual human life is built on the struggle and war of opposing forces – we see war and struggle in the subconscious, on which our life assets are built – so we are in the midst of struggle and war; but the historical life assets, the cultural assets, will emerge from these struggles. And insofar as we feel at one with Central European intellectual life, we say to ourselves: the idealism, the spirituality of this Central European intellectual life will have to develop out of our time, which, as one can feel, carries something very profound in its bosom.

Indeed, our materialistic age was also built on struggle. There is a nation in the northwest – no value judgments are to be made today, only characterizations – the British, who most loudly proclaim that they want to fight for freedom, that they must fight against Central European “barbarism,” that they did not want the war. We keep hearing in Central Europe, and hear in abusive words, that Central Europe wanted the war. Perhaps one may ask: Did the British people not wage war in the past, for example in the years when the deepest peace was desired in Central Europe for the sake of blessing and salvation? From 1856 to 1900, England waged 34 wars, conquered four million square miles of land for purely material culture, which it spread across the globe, and made 57 million people new British subjects. This is a material culture, dearest attendees, which is based on struggle. In fact, it can be seen that logic does not flourish in our materialistic culture, especially in the broadest sense. There is a French philosopher – yes, I don't know whether you have to call him “fils de montagne” now; he used to be called “Bergson”; now things are changing. Bergson, who has been much overestimated, but at least attempted a philosophy of life in the face of dead materialistic philosophy – last winter he gave a speech at the Academy of Sciences in Paris in which he characterized German intellectual life something like this: If you look at Germany today, all idealism has passed, we are only confronted with mechanisms, the whole culture has become mechanical. He points to the cannons and everything that has been set up as a mechanical aid to confront the West. Perhaps one may answer with a question to characterize how thought and logic are applied today: Did Bergson expect that when Central European culture was attacked, people would stand at the Rhine border and quote Schiller and Goethe to prove that Central European culture had remained spiritual?

But sometimes people want to go even deeper, and then they say, for example: We did not want this war! The real cause of this war lies in Central Europe! The logic that one applies to this, if one really sees through it – and spiritual science also teaches a certain flexibility of mind, it makes thoughts so fluid that poor logic causes pain – if one sees through it, then the logic that is often applied today is this: one could also say that yes, much, much of the mockery and scorn and insult has been heard from the West to Central Europe. Yes, none of this would have happened if the art of printing had not been invented. The Germans invented the art of printing, so they are to blame for these slanders. And there would be no shooting, neither from the air nor on the ground, if the Germans had not invented gunpowder. The Germans have already invented gunpowder once. Not true, you can't say that the French invented gunpowder. So it is the Germans' fault that nations are facing each other with cannons!

Now, as threadbare as this logic would be, so threadbare is today's logic, which is applied to that which really develops from Central European culture: genuine life that develops into the spiritual, before which one has a secret fear, as before a higher power. But if it has been said that the present war is being waged only for material interests, then this may be correct in a limited sense. Certainly, much of what can only be achieved through this war must be achieved for trade and industry, for the material culture of Central Europe. But it is certain that, if not by our fathers, who work as industrialists and step out into the world, then at least by our sons, what as the ethos of Central Europe, which has found its expression in Faust, which emerges from Wagner, Beethoven, Fichte and Schelling, will be carried out into all the world; and that will be a new element in all the world. And just as our ordinary, everyday life is built on a victory over opposing forces, so the Central European cultural heritage will build itself up as a victory over that which must be so ardently striven for.

This is what really emerges as a strengthening power of the soul from the insights of spiritual science. Yes, opposing forces are now stirring around us in the world, just as the soul undercurrents stir within the individual human being. But just as the substance of life rises up from these soul foundations, so will the cultural heritage rise from what once had to be fought for. 34 nations - not counting smaller national differences - 34 nations are fighting with each other today; and we see how the fighting mood is spreading. But we look at what is happening by looking up at what must result as effects. And we in Central Europe, when we contemplate all this spiritually, we may say to ourselves: Just as the individual human being, in turn, has to build up his body in each individual embodiment and has to build it up again and again from seven to seven years — because after seven years the entire ingredients have changed, the body must be rebuilt several times, so must people go through struggles, so must humanity go through all the pain today in order to come to a higher life.

What Europe is now going through must stand as a warning in the higher sense. What is the body of Central Europe must be conquered anew against what is storming in from the east and the west. And it is not without reason that in the future what must arise from the great spiritual seeds that strive for inner development in Central Europe, that must develop after the soil around has been watered with the blood of our noblest, the air has been permeated with the sentiments that arise from the sacrifices that have become necessary in our time, when this air is heavy with the pain and suffering of those who, as brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, have lost their loved ones. Intuitively, I said, even if not intellectually, what I took the liberty of adding to the already lengthy lecture can be felt in connection with what has been said, because it should be shown how that which comes from spiritual science as a strengthening of the soul, really brings us together with what the eternal, death-conquering and all resistance-conquering immortal core of our being is in man, of which only a parable is the temporary dying.

And because, when we see that this treasure of life is based on victory, we can only have soul strengthening, not soul fainting as a result of spiritual science, so spiritual science brings us to what I would now like to summarize not in individual intellectual words, but in terms of feeling. The best thing that can come out of spiritual science is that it does not remain just a theory, just a body of knowledge, but that it pours out into our emotional life, that it becomes a power that strengthens our soul. For it shows us that the innermost being of man only begins where the impressions of the sense world end, where the intellect has nothing more to say. In conclusion, I would like to summarize with a few words, in an emotional and intuitive way, what can emerge from spiritual science as a feeling, as a basic mood of the soul, at any time and especially in our fateful time, which bears so much in its womb. This will conclude the lecture, with which I wanted to speak about the principles and prospects of spiritual science:

Where sense knowledge ends,
There stands the gate,
The realities of life
To the soul's being opened.
The key is created by the soul,
When it grows strong in itself
In the struggle that world powers
On their own ground
With human powers lead,
When it drives away through itself
The sleep that envelops the powers of knowledge
At the boundaries of its senses
With a spiritual night.

The following lecture was given on, and dedicated to, the anniversary of Goethe's birthday, and in connection with the lecture series, Wonders of the World, Ordeals of the Soul and Revelations of the Spirit. This lecture is not a part of the 10 lectures in the above named lecture series, and was presumably translated from shorthand reports, unrevised by the lecturer, by an unknown translator.

My dear theosophical Friends!

The composition of “Faust” was Goethe's companion from his early years, on, one may say in the truest sense of the word,—till his death. For the second part of the poem was left behind by him, sealed, as his literary testament. The composition of certain important passages of the 2nd part of Faust really belongs to the closing years of that universal genius. Anyone who has had the opportunity of following Goethe's spiritual evolution, as revealed in his life-work, will discover many a thing of the most extreme interest, particularly in reference to the fact that Goethe's ideas continually altered regarding the course of development of his poem, when he returned again and again to this labour of his life. There is an interesting memorandum extant on the conclusion of “Faust” as it was intended to be, in accordance with Goethe's views of that date—a period which we may fix at the end of the ’eighties or beginning of the ’nineties of the eighteenth century. We find here, besides a few notes on the first and second parts, a short sentence containing an indication bearing on the conclusion of the poem. This scrap of writing shows the words jotted down in pencil by Goethe, “Epilogue in Chaos on the way to Hell.” This reveals to us that it was Goethe's intention at one time not to honour his Faust by the kind of apotheosis which forms the present conclusion of the poem, brought to an end in his extreme old age; but that, in accordance with the course indicated in the Prologue in Heaven,—from Heaven, through the world, to Hell—he desired to bring Faust to a conclusion with the Epilogue in Chaos on the Way to Hell. At that time Goethe entertained thoughts which led him to believe that knowledge which overstepped certain limits could only end in chaos. We may trace a certain connection between the frame of mind which prompted these words, which I quoted as Goethe's own, with that which was said yesterday regarding the ordeals of the soul; on the one hand the losing of itself in nothingness; on the other hand the descent into the turbid inner nature of the human being and the failure, in spite of all efforts, to find the junction. Goethe's personality was indeed one which compelled him to vanquish all difficulties, step by step, and to experience all vicissitudes in his own person. It is for this reason that all his creations leave such an impression of sincerity and truthfulness on us,—sometimes indeed the effect is so powerful that we cannot immediately keep pace with him; because it is impossible for us, unprepared, to transport ourselves into the particular phase of his personality prevailing at one period or another of his life. We may note a truly great advance in Goethe between the moment at which he intended to conclude his “Faust” with an epilogue in chaos on the way to hell, and that other period in which he brings his work to a close in the spirit of the monumental words “Wer immer strebend sick bemüht, den können wir erlösen.”¹ For when Goethe, wrote the present, universally-known conclusion to his “Faust,” the premonition of which we spoke yesterday was alive within him, coupled with that inner strength which brings the assurance that, though we must pass through all ordeals of the soul, we shall-inevitably accomplish the closing of the circle described yesterday. This, my dear theosophical friends, is intended as a slight indication of the most pronounced characteristic in Goethe's life. Those among us who love a harmonious life, who cannot accommodate themselves to its contradictions, though these are the vital element in a progressive life reveals many contradictions, and that Goethe's judgment of many matters in his old age differed from that of his youth. But this was only because he was forced to conquer every truth for himself. Goethe's personality is a striking example of the necessity of the lessons of life; it shows us that it is precisely life on the physical plane which evokes direct inner experiences, and that life, with its succession of events, is needful for us, in order that we may become human beings in the true sense of the word. When we pass in review Goethe's whole life and contemplate its successive stages, we are struck by the universality of his genius, the magnificent comprehensiveness and many-sidedness of his mentality. It is most important to study Goethe precisely from this point of view, in his life-time, and also to measure by our own time the importance of that which he was by reason of the universality of his spirit, and then to ask ourselves how Goethe can above all things influence our own epoch by the universality of his genius.

It is well for us, then, to devote a little study to the inner character of the time in which we live,—to our present epoch and its spiritual culture. It is especially important for theosophists to consider attentively the spirit of our age. It is often said that we live in an age of specialists, in which exact science must reign supreme. How frequently do we hear the words of the great physicist Helmholtz repeated, namely, that at the present day there can be no mind comprehensive enough to embrace all the various branches of human knowledge, as they now exist. It has become absolutely proverbial that there can be no doctor universalis at the present day, and that one must be content with a general knowledge of special subjects. But when we consider that life is one and undivided, that everything in life is involved with everything else, and that life does not ask whether our souls are capable of comprehending what belongs to the common spiritual living organism of our age;—when we consider this we must conclude that it would be a disaster for our age, were it impossible to find, at least to some extent, the spirit ruling in all specialisation. And our quest will be easiest, if we endeavour to approach the subject precisely by those avenues opened up by theosophy or spiritual science. That science must be universal; it must be in a position to survey at a glance the branches of the various sciences in all the different domains of civilised life. To-day let us examine at least one aspect of our modern intellectual life, and see how it appears in the light of theosophy. As our time is limited, we will avoid those departments of science which are more or less unaffected by the passage of time, as least as to their nature and purpose, in spite of the enormous extensions which they have undergone in our day,—I mean mathematics, although even here we might point to the fact that the weighty deliberations carried on in certain branches of mathematics during the nineteenth century may be said to have opened up the supersensuous world to that science. But it must be mentioned that great and wonderful discoveries have been made in all branches of science in the course of the last few decades, which testify everywhere, when examined in the proper light, to the fact that the teachings of theosophy exactly agree with science; whereas none of the theories that have been applied to these discoveries up to the present day at all coincide with the facts which have been accumulated with so much diligence and energy for the last forty or fifty years. Taking, for example, chemistry and physics, we see how remarkable has been the tendency in the development of these branches in that period. When we were young, in the ’seventies or ’eighties or earlier, the so-called atomistic theories prevailed in chemistry and physics. These theories attributed all phenomena to particular kinds of vibration, either of ether or some other material substance. In short we might say that it was customary then to explain everything in the world, in the final instance, by the theory of vibration. Then as we approached the last decade of the nineteenth century, it was shown by the facts which gradually came to light that the theory of motion, or atomistic theory, was untenable. It may even be called a remarkable achievement (in the most limited sense of the word), that Professor Ostwald, who was chiefly noted as a chemist and natural scientist, brought forward at a congress in Lubeck, in place of the atomistic theory, the so-called theory of energy, or energetics. In a certain respect this was a progressive step; but the later discoveries in the field of chemistry and physics, down to our own times, have finally given rise to a considerable amount of scepticism and want of faith regarding all theoretical science. The idea of attributing external physical facts, such as the phenomena of light, etc., to the vibration of minute particles, or to a mere manifestation of energy, is now only entertained by unprogressive minds. This opinion is chiefly strengthened by all that has become known of late years regarding the substances which gave rise to the theory of radium; and we can already note the extraordinary circumstance that, owing to certain facts which have come to light by degrees, distinguished physicists such as Thomson and others have found themselves obliged to throw overboard all theories, first and foremost the ether hypothesis with its artistic forms of vibration, once cultivated with such extreme seriousness and assiduous application of the integral and differential calculus. The theory of motion was therefore fated to be discarded by the great physicists, who then returned to the vortices of Cartesius, a theory which may be said to be based on ancient occult traditions. But even these theories have been relinquished in their turn; a feeling of scepticism towards all theorising shows itself precisely in physics and chemistry, as a result of the conviction that all matter crumbles away, as it were, under the experiments of modern physical science. Things have gone so far that, in view of the advance of modern physical science, the theories of atomistic vibration and of energetics can no longer be upheld. All that might still have found a hearing 5, 6 or more years ago, all on which so many fond hopes were built, when we were young, when even the force of gravitation was ascribed to motion,—in the eyes of those acquainted with the real facts, all this has been demolished. But we still of course hear of extraordinary ideas on the part of the unprogressive. There is an interesting fact in this connection, which I might mention, as it is my intention to discuss certain characteristics of our own time and of Goethe. A little book has just appeared which also takes the standpoint that there is no such thing as gravitation, that is, that there is no attraction between matter and the planets.—It has always been a difficulty for science to support this so-called theory of attraction, because one must ask: How can the Sun attract the Earth, if it does not stretch anything out into space? Now within the last few days this book has appeared, in which attraction is ascribed to the effect of concussion. For instance, we represent to ourselves a body, whether planet or molecule, upon which impacts are continually being exercised from all sides by other planets or other molecular bodies, How does it happen that these bodies impinge upon one another from all sides? For of course they do impinge upon each other everywhere, one in this, another in the opposite direction, an so on.

The essential point here is that when the number of impacts exercised from outside is compared with that produced by the bodies in the space between, the result is a difference. The last-mentioned are fewer and have less force than the outer. The consequence is that through the outer impacts the two bodies, whether molecules or planets, are driven together. According to this theory the force usually called attraction is attributed to the impacts of matter. It is refreshing to find something like a new thought now-a-days; but to any one who looks more deeply into the matter this theory is nothing more than refreshing. It is refreshing for the simple reason that the same theory had already been worked out with all possible mathematical quibbles. It is contained in a book, now out of print, written when I was a little boy, by a certain Heinrich Schramm, “The Universal Vibration of Matter as the First Cause of all Phenomena.” In this book the theory is much more thoroughly dealt with. Such ideas constantly reappear when scientists leave out of consideration the evolution of the spiritual life. In this respect the most extraordinary observations may be made;—errors caused by a one-sided view are repeated over and over again. What I should like to impress upon you above all is, that in consequence of the achievements of physics and chemistry of late years, abundant proofs have been furnished that that which is called matter is merely a human conception, which melts away under experiments, and that physics and chemistry, leaving behind all motion and energy, steer directly to the point at which matter merges into the spirit at its foundation. The body of facts accumulated by physics and chemistry already demand a spiritual foundation. Geology and paleontology are in a similar case. In these sciences more comprehensive theories, based upon vast aggregations of force, prevailed till about 1860–1870. To-day we find scepticism. everywhere; and among our best geologists and palaeontologists there is an inclination to restrict their labours to the bare registration of facts, because they dare not combine them in thought. A considerable amount of courage is needed to develop a system of thought embracing the series of facts before them. People are afraid to take the step now demanded even by geology and paleontology:—from the material to the spiritual,—a step which would transcend the Kant-Laplace theory. They dare not acknowledge that their imaginary universal nebula is finally merged in the spiritual regions, the world of the hierarchies, of which all that we might call the outer, physical, or perhaps the astrophysical theory, is but the garment. The case is different when we come to those sciences which have to deal more with life and the soul. We come in the first place to biology.

Now you all know how great were the hopes built on the progress of biology, the science of life, when Darwin's great work, “The Origin of Species”, appeared. Perhaps you also know that at the natural science Congress held in Stettin in the year 1863 Ernst Haeckel, with rare courage, extended to the human being the theory apparently applied by Darwin only to the animal, and we see that the science of biology afterwards developed in a remarkable way. We find cautious spirits who confine themselves more to the registration of facts; but others are there, who push forward impetuously, constructing daring theories on the results of investigations dealing with the relationship of forms among the different creatures. Foremost of all we find Haeckel boldly constructing pedigrees, showing how, from elementary forms of life, the most complicated structures have arisen through ever-new ramifications. But side by side with these more striking tendencies,—as we might call them—there is a line of investigation which it is also important to notice. This might be called the school of the anatomist, Carl Gegenbaur. In accordance with his nature, Gegenbaur was of opinion that, in the first place, we ought not to concern ourselves with the correlation existing between different creatures. He looked upon the Darwinian theory as a guiding principle of investigation, to be used as a standard, by the aid of which certain facts relating to the forms of living creatures could be traced. Let us suppose that the train of thought of a scientist might be expressed in the following words:—“I am not prepared to say that the higher animals might not be descended from the birds or fishes, but I will start from the principle that a relationship exists between them, and, keeping this in view, will examine the gills and fins, and will see whether more and more subtle resemblances do not come to light.” And in fact it was found that, by using Darwin's method as a clue, more and more important scientific facts were discovered. Important results were also arrived at when this method of research, stimulated by the Darwinian impulse, was applied to the descent of man, by following up all the evidence of paleontology and other archaeological records relating to geology. Wherever scientists have gone to work with caution, their method has been as follows: They begin by tracing the links, laying down Darwin's theory as a guiding principle. And here we have the astounding result that the Darwinian theory, used in this way, has shown itself to be extraordinarily fertile in results of late years, and that by the discoveries to which it has led up till the present time, it has contradicted and annulled itself! So that we may observe the remarkable fact, scarcely to be found to the same extent in any other domain of science, that the Darwinian scientists disagree on all points. Thus, there are still persons (certainly the very unprogressive) who relate the human being to the anthropoid apes still extant, or at least only slightly metamorphosed. There are some, particularly among those who pursue the modern analysis of the blood and the relationship among the components of the blood, who have returned to the older forms of the Darwinian theory. Katsch, for instance, affirms that it is impossible, in view of the facts which have come to light, to relate the human being to any animal form whatever now extant. All shades of opinion prevail, from that according to which man is related to the ape as he now exists,—on to others which diverge from the latter, but, following the descent of man is not traceable to the ancestors of these of these apes to any other mammals. It is held that we must retrace our steps to animals of which we can form no representation, and that from these man is descended on the one hand, while the mammals have branched off on the other hand, so that the apes are very distantly related to the human being. What strikes us as remarkable in this is the circumstance that when these scientists employ the forms familiar to us at present, in order to call up a picture of that real, primeval man, all existing physical forms dissolve into a nebulous mass;—the result is nil. How is this? Because there is a point in the science of biology, at which the outer physical facts arrived at by sincere effort, leads to the conclusion that the ancestors of man cannot be represented as physical beings, as all attempts in this direction fail. We at last arrive at the spiritual, primal form of man, the fruit of an earlier planetary evolution,—at that spiritual, primal man spoken of in theosophy. Precisely those facts which have been revealed by the researches of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries bear incontrovertible testimony to this truth, and the disagreement among scientists is concealed solely because the students only attend the lectures of one professor, and do not compare his teachings with those of others. If they compared the opinions of the various learned authorities, they would make strange discoveries. In the books of a certain naturalist they would find a passage very distinctly underlined, to the following effect: “If any of my students now preparing for his doctor's degree should propound this theory, which is brought forward by another, I would reject him unhesitatingly.” This assertion is however no exaggeration, it is only what is said by the professor of one university of his colleague of another university. And the disagreement mentioned is one of the most conspicuous phenomena in the field of biology; while in physics and chemistry the utmost resignation prevails with regard to theories. When we come to physiology we find still more singular conditions. We find that this science everywhere leads to the most extravagant theories. We see how even the mere outside husk of physiology is everywhere influenced by all sorts of things behind or within the physical, even among thinkers who, without knowing it, are yet absolute materialists in their mode of thought. I might mention hundreds of things in this connection, such for instance as the strange theories put forward of late years by a school of thought in Vienna, the so-called Freud school;—theories dealing with the manner in which the sub-conscious life of man, as it shows itself in dreams or other phenomena of life, comes within the domain of physiology. I can merely hint at these facts, and only mention them because they show that it is necessary everywhere, even theoretically speaking, that the mass of empirical facts of the outer senses be traced to spiritual causes. At the same time we find that the moment at which general comprehension, or conception of the impression necessarily made by science as a whole at the present day, makes itself felt, a kind of resignation sets in. In philosophy also we find the same resignation. You are probably aware that under the influence of William James in America, of Schiller in England and of other scholars in the philosophic field, a strange theory has been developed, which is really the outcome of a tendency inherent in facts, to strive towards their spiritual origin; but its followers nevertheless refuse recognise that origin in the spirit. This is the so-called pragmatism, which affirms that, in considering the various phenomena of life, we must, invent theories regarding them, as if they were capable of being combined; but that everything that we think out exists as an economy of the mind, and has no inner, constitutive, real value. This theory is the final refuse of the seared minds of the present day. It denotes the most absolute unbelief in the spirit, a reliance only on fragile theories, invented for the purpose of combining facts, and a failure to believe that the living spirit first implanted in the objects the thoughts which we find in them at last. The strangest fate of all sciences in this respect is reserved to psychology. There are certain psychologists who are incapable of finding the way to a living spirit, in which the soul finds itself as if reborn in the objects. On the other hand they cannot deny that, if any harmony at all can be established between the soul and the objects, something must be transferred to the objects from the soul. What is experienced in the soul must have something to do with the objects. And in connection with this, there is a curious word in circulation in German systems of psychology,—one which really flies in the face of all philological thought—the word “to feel into” (an object) (Einfühlen). There can be no clearer example of helping oneself out of a dilemma, than the use of such a word to avoid exact thought. As if it were of any importance that we should feel something into the objects, without being able to find in the things themselves the essential, real connection between the objects and that which we see in them. This is a state of forlornness, in which psychology finds itself bereft of the spirit, and tries to help itself out of the difficulty by the use of such a word. Thus we might find many similar masterpieces brought into existence at the present day by systems of psychology which cannot be taken seriously. Other systems of psychology confine themselves to a description of the outer instruments of the soul-life,—the brain, etc.; and it has gone so far that psychologists are listened to with respect when they prove by experiment that no force or energy absorbed or taken into our system in food and drink, is lost. This is supposed to prove that the law of the conservation of energy must also hold good for psychology, and that there is no such thing as a soul-nature independent of the body, and working apart through its bodily instruments. A conclusion such as this is perfectly illogical. One who can draw such a conclusion, and who is in a position to formulate such a thought at all, must also admit that it would be reasonable to stand in front of a bank, to calculate how much money is carried in and how much is carried out, and then to reckon how much remains in the coffers; and from this to draw the conclusion that there are no employees at work in the bank. Such conclusions are really drawn, and they are even regarded as scientific in our day. Theories like these are built up on the returns of modern research. They cast a veil over the real nature of the facts. We can observe the real status of psychology in a highly interesting personality, a truly remarkable man, who wrote a work on psychology in the ’seventies of the last century, Francis Brentano. He wrote the 1st. volume of a psychology which should have filled several volumes. Whoever is willing to follow the contents of the 1st. volume with an understanding of the real standpoint of psychological facts, must reflect that, considering the nature of the premise from which Francis Brentano starts, and if it be at all possible to advance on the basis of these premisses, his arguments must lead into spiritual science or theosophy. This is the only way open; and those who will not be led to spiritual science, or even will not make a slight effort to arrive at a reasonable comprehension of the life of the soul, may be supposed to be incompetent. And here we have the interesting fact that the first volume of a psychological work intended to embrace several volumes, had no successor. He only wrote the 1st. volume; and though Brentano dealt, in smaller works, with one or another of the problem which occupied him, he never found his way to spiritual science; hence he barred the way to any further progress in psychology.

By another and still more pregnant fact we may see how even the negative, principle, so conspicuous everywhere at present, demands that the thinkers who take their stand on the wonderful facts that have come to light during the last few decades, should tend towards spiritual science. This is doubtless a difficult step for many at the present day. Some are deterred by reasons into which we need not enter now; we will merely show how, on all hands, when we try to find the true forces in modern science, when we set to work with honesty and sincerity, comprehensively and energetically, the merging of science into theosophy is a necessary consequence. Farthest of all from the union with spiritual science is history, as it is written at the present day. The historians who apparently approach it most nearly,—those who do not merely regard history as a succession of fortuitous human impulses and passions and other facts belonging to the physical plane,—are those who recognise the existence of ruling thoughts. As if abstract thought could possibly have any influence! Unless we ascribe will to those thoughts, they cannot be spiritual powers, nor can they become active. To recognise governing ideas in history, therefore, apart from entities, is devoid of all sense. Not until active life has been infused into history, not until the spiritual life-principle is conceived as pervading the soul, expending itself ever more intensely as it passes from soul to soul,—not until history is understood as it is understood in “les Grands Inities” (by Édouard Shuré) has the point been reached at which that science merges into theosophy or spiritual sciences. Thus we may boldly affirm that it is evident to any unprejudiced observer that all learning imperatively calls for the theosophical mode of thought. Thinkers who penetrate deeply into the spiritual life, who follow the path of knowledge with heart and soul, and are not content merely to weave theories, but whose very heart is bound up with true knowledge,—spirits like these, it is true, show by their lives how life is everywhere in touch with spiritual science. As an example, I may cite a man who was known to the world for years as a celebrated poet, who was for long years condemned to a sick-bed and during that time wrote down the thoughts and experiences that came to him on the path of knowledge, as a bequest to posterity;—a poet who was not of course taken seriously as a philosopher, by philosophers. I mean Robert Hamerling. But the latter, who was perhaps only justly appreciated by Vincenz Knauer (who even made him the subject of lectures) was not a theoretical philosopher, but one who entered heart and soul on the paths of wisdom, and synthesised the sciences of chemistry, physics, philosophy, physiology, biology and history of modern times, as far as these were accessible to him, fertilising his knowledge by his poetic intuition. Robert Hamerling, who was able to fructify the thoughts regarding the world, by his own gift of poetic intuition, laid down in his “Atomistics of the Will” all that he found upon the path of knowledge. His path was not like that trodden by so many to-day, who start from the mere theory of some school of thought; it led directly from life itself. In his “Atomistics of the Will,” he has written much of importance for those who take an interest in the tendency of ordinary learning and intellectuality to merge into spirituality. A passage from the “Atomistics of the Will” written in 1891, will follow here as an example of the thoughts collected by him in his solitude, on the evolutionary path of knowledge on which he had entered. “It is possible,” says Hamerling on p. 145 of Vol.II. of “Atomistics of the Will,” “ that living beings exist, whose corporeality is more tenuous than atmospheric air. At regards other heavenly bodies, at least, nothing can be urged against this supposition. Beings whose corporeality is of such extreme subtlety would be invisible to us, and would exactly correspond to those beings ordinarily called spirits, or to the etheric bodies, or souls surviving after the death of individuals ... ” He continues in the same strain. Here we have an allusion to the etheric body in the middle of a book which is the outcome of the intellectual life of the present day. Let us suppose that truth and uprightness everywhere prevailed, together with an earnest striving to know what really lives in the thought of men; let us imagine that an honest desire existed to try to understand what we already possess; that, in other words, people should write fewer books, until they have learnt the content of other books already written,—then the work done in our time would be very different; there would be continuity in it. Were this so, it would have to be admitted that, during the last few decades, spiritual life has been breaking forth, and vistas opening of spiritual aims and perspectives, wherever science has been honestly and earnestly prosecuted. For there are many examples like that of Robert Hamerling.

Thus the special branches of the various sciences unite and demand that which can alone give a comprehensive view of the world at the present day, such as I have endeavoured to sketch lately in “Occult Science”. Into that work are woven, imperceptibly, the latest results of all the sciences, side by side with spiritual research. When we consider this we must acknowledge that open doors to spirituality are everywhere to be found; but we pass them by unnoticed. Whoever is acquainted with modern science finds without exception that its facts, not its theories, require a spiritual explanation. Were it possible for ordinary science to emancipate itself from all theories—the atomic, the vibratory, energetics and all other forms of one-sidedness with which the world is continually hedged about by a few stock ideas,—if scientists could only liberate themselves from such trammels; did they allow the great mass of facts now brought to light by science to speak for themselves, all contradiction between the spiritual science which we follow here and the genuine results of modern research would cease. Here, Goethe may be our great helper—Goethe, who fulfilled all the conditions of a universal mind so magnificently. He fulfilled those conditions even outwardly; for whoever is acquainted with Goethe's correspondence knows that he exchanged letters with countless naturalists on all the most important questions in the various departments of science. From his experimenting cabinets and from his study, communications went forth to the different branches of science at all points of the compass. He corresponded with botanists, opticians, zoologists, anthropologists, geologists, mineralogists and historians, in short with scientists in every field. And though unprogressive minds certainly refused to recognise him as an authority, because his investigations were beyond their understanding, he found other thinkers by whom he was most highly appreciated, and who consulted him when it became necessary to settle any question of special interest. This is an incident of no great importance, but at the same time we can see how Goethe worked in thought and also in deed with the foremost philosophers of his day, such as Schelling and Hegel. We find that the minds of a number of philosophers were fructified by him, and that Goethe's thoughts reappeared in their work, in the same or another form. Finally we can see how in the course of his life Goethe seriously occupied himself with the study of botany, zoology, osteology in particular, also with anthropology in a wider sense; further with optics and physical science in their wider scope. Isolate scientists in the domain of biology are now showing a disposition to do justice to Goethe in a small degree. On the other hand it is quite comprehensible that physicists are perfectly sincere in their inability to understand Goethe's teachings regarding colour, from their own standpoint. These truths regarding colour can only be understood in the future,—unless the acquaintance with theosophy has meantime brought about a change,—perhaps not before the second half of the twentieth, or even the first half of the 21st. century. The physical science of the present day can only look upon Goethe's ideas regarding colour as nonsense; this however is no fault of the teaching; the fault lies in the forms of modern science. If you read my book, “Goethe's Conception of the World,” also the preface to Goethe's works on natural science, published by Kirschner, you will see what I mean. You will see that the latter contains an appreciation, of Goethe's theory of colour, which is scientific in the truest sense, and, compared with which, all modern theories relating to physical science are mere dilettantism. Thus we see how Goethe laboured in all departments of science. We can see how his endeavours to understand the laws of nature were everywhere fertilised by the poetic forces of his genius. Goethe looked upon nothing as separate from the rest; everything intermingled in his soul. There no one pursuit interferes with another. Goethe is himself a proof that it is an absurdity to believe that the active pursuit of some branch of intellectual knowledge could hamper intuition. If both impulses are only present in strength and originality, they do not interfere with one another. We can form an idea of the living cooperation of the human forces of the soul, as they are expressed in the different sciences, and in the entire personality of the human being; the necessity of life makes it possible for us to form such an idea, and we are helped by the fact that a modern intelligence exists, in whom this cooperation of the different soul-forces of the whole personality was actually living. It is for this reason that Goethe's personality is a model, to which we must look up in order to study that living cooperation of the soul-forces. As he is a man whose progress we can watch from year to year, in the deepening of his own inner life and understanding of the world, he is an example to us of the manner in which man must strive, in order to attain a greater intensity of the inner life. Not the mere contemplation of Goethe, not the repetition of his words, nor even devotion to his works should be our duty on a day which the calendar shows us to be closely connected, in a narrow sense, with Goethe's life,—but to consider the grandeur that radiates from his whole person, in the light of a model for our epoch. Especially the scientific thinker of our day might learn much from Goethe. For in respect to the comprehension of the spiritual life, scientific thought is not in a flourishing condition; but precisely from that quarter we shall inevitably live to see a great revival of Goethe, and a gradual and increasing understanding of his genius. A contemplation of Goethe's life may throw a flood of light on our advance to spirituality, on theosophy in general; it will illuminate our progress healthfully, because in Goethe everything is healthy. He is trustworthy in every particular, and, where he contradicts himself, it is not his logic that is at fault. Life itself is a contradiction, and must be so in order that it may continue to live. This is a thought which I would fain kindle in you on this birthday of Goethe's, to show how necessary it is that we should become absorbed in the things lying open to us. Goethe can give us an infinity. We can learn most from him if we forget much that has been written in the countless works extant on Goethe, for such communications are more likely to cast a veil over the real Goethe than to make us acquainted with him. But Goethe has an occult power of attraction; there is something in him which works of itself. If we yield ourselves up to Goethe we shall find that we can celebrate his birthday within ourselves, and we shall feel something of that which is ever young and fresh in Goethe, of which we might say that Goethe may rise again in a soul steeped in theosophy. Though Goethe's name is so often heard and his works so often quoted, our materialistic age has but a meagre understanding of him. There was a time when people were really fascinated, even by very serious discussions on the subject of Goethe,—not literary and historical discussions in our sense of the word, for these are not serious. When Goethe was the subject of serious talk there were always listeners who were carried away by that inner spiritual vein which is never wanting in Goethe. We may recall the time when old Karl Rosenkranz, the Hegel scholar, who was on a level with the highest culture of his day, ventured between 1830 and 1840 to announce a series of lectures on Goethe at the university of Königsberg. He wished to state frankly a philosopher's opinion of Goethe. He prepared his lectures, and left his study with the thought: “Perhaps one or two may come to hear what I have to say!”—But thought nearly died within him, when he found himself outside in the midst of a wild snowstorm, so violent that no one could be expected to venture out to a lecture that was not obligatory. He made his way to the lecture-hall and behold, nothing could be more unfavourable than the conditions under which he had to deliver his lecture. It was a hall which could not be heated, the floor was in bad repair, and the walls ran water in streams. But the name of Goethe was an attraction and there was a good audience, even on the first evening, and though at each lecture the conditions grew worse, and the hall more uncomfortable, the audience grew more and more numerous. Finally the attendance at Karl Rosenkranz' lectures was so great that the hall could scarcely contain it.

Goethe is one of those thinkers who can best stimulate us theosophically. A healthy view of Goethe would be to regard him, in the light of theosophy, as a great spirit incarnated in the body of Goethe,—a spirit whom we must first learn to understand. We must not allow him to be represented to us as a fleshly form in which there dwells a great spirit whom we are bound to take on authority. There are really safe paths leading to theosophy, it is only necessary to follow them, without shrinking from the trouble. This is why I never hesitate, even when great numbers are present at a course of lectures, to shed light, sometimes in a manner inconvenient perhaps to many, on some bye-path of spiritual knowledge, to risk a bold assertion or to make a statement difficult to understand. I should never shrink from such a step, because I know that only in this way is it possible for theosophy to make sound progress, or to take root in modern civilised life. It seems to me that we may mount to the highest spiritual regions without losing our warmth of heart; it seems to me that all those assembled here must be conscious to some degree of the truth, that the methods applied to the interpretation of theosophy here are those of the most modern intellectual life, and the strange opinion which prevails even in theosophical circles, that a réchauffé of mediaeval learning is served up here, instead of facts in agreement with modern science, is a very grave departure from the truth. As this has been pronounced by many—even among theosophists—it must be pointed out that anyone who can follow with understanding will be convinced that no mediaeval learning, but the union of objective, scientific teachings with genuine, modern spiritual aspirations, is our aim. It is not my province to judge how far this object has been attained; but it ought to be clear to everyone that nothing mediaeval in its character, nor anything merely associated with traditions, but objective knowledge, on a level with modern science, is the object of our study here. It should also be experienced as a certainty that the conditions of life which are the outcome of our theosophical studies are able to fill our hearts with enthusiasm. What seems to me of most importance is that what our hearts have gained from such a course of study and we carry away with us into the world,—what we have grasped in the breadth of the conceptions and words, is concentrated in our hearts; it lives itself out in our feelings and sensations, in our compassion and in our actions, and we are then living theosophy. As the rivers can only flow over the lands when they have been fed by the sources, so the life of theosophy can only stream out into the world, when it draws its forces from the springs of wisdom open to us to-day by those spiritual Powers whom we call the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings. And we have grasped the true meaning of the word theosophy, or spiritual science, when it speaks to us in the forms of modern, intellectual life, when, at the same time, instead of leaving, our hearts and souls cold, it warms them, so that that warmth may communicate itself to others everywhere in the world. In proportion as you carry out into the world what has been said here, not only in your thoughts, but also in your feelings, your impulses of will and your actions, these lectures will have served their purpose. This is the aim of these lectures. With this wish, my dear theosophical friends, I always welcome you from the heart when you come, and with the same wish I take leave of you on this day, at the close of our series of lectures, with the words: “Let us remain united in the theosophical, in the intellectual and spiritual sense, even though we must live in space separated one from the other and from the present time, in which we can be more closely united in space; let us take, as the most inspiring mutual greeting and farewell, the thought that we are together in spirit, even when we are dispersed in space. In this spirit I take leave of you to-day, on the occasion of our celebration of Goethe's birthday, at the close of our course of lectures. Let us think often of the object which has brought us together, and may it also bear fruit for that personal bond which may always unite one theosophist with another in love. May we be together in this sense, even after we have parted, and may we ever anew be drawn together again, that we may rise to heights of spiritual and supersensuous life.

• 1. Approximately: “He who is ever striving, toils onward, him we can deliver.”

Consider what is to be the subject of today's lecture only as an insertion into the series of lectures this winter. It is perhaps justified precisely by our fateful time, in which the two Central European empires, so closely connected with each other, must approach the great demands of historical becoming in our present and for the future. I also believe I am justified in saying something about the intellectual life of Austria, since I lived in Austria until I was almost thirty years old and had not only the opportunity but also the necessity from a wide variety of perspectives to become fully immersed in Austrian intellectual life. On the other hand, it may be said that this Austrian intellectual life is particularly, I might say, difficult for the outsider to grasp in terms of ideas, concepts, and representations, and that perhaps our time will make it increasingly necessary for the peculiarities of this Austrian intellectual life to be brought before the mind's eye of a wider circle. But because of the shortness of the time at my disposal I shall be unable to give anything but, I might say, incoherent pictures, unpretentious pictures of the Austrian intellectual life of the most diverse classes; pictures which do not claim to give a complete picture, but which are intended to form one or other idea which might seek understanding for what is going on in the intellectual life beyond the Inn and the Erz Mountains.

In 1861, a philosopher who was rarely mentioned outside his homeland and who was closely connected to Austrian intellectual life, Robert Zimmermann, took up his teaching post at the University of Vienna, which he then held until the 1890s. He not only awakened many people spiritually, guiding them through philosophy on their spiritual path, but he also influenced the souls of those who taught in Austria, as he chaired the Real- und Gymnasialschul-Prüfungskommission (examination commission for secondary modern and grammar schools). And he was effective above all because he had a kind and loving heart for all that was present in emerging personalities; that he had an understanding approach for everything that asserted itself in the spiritual life at all. When Robert Zimmermann took up his post as a philosophy lecturer at the University of Vienna in 1861, he spoke words in his inaugural academic address that provide a retrospective of the development of worldviews in Austria in the nineteenth century. They show very succinctly what made it difficult for Austrians to arrive at a self-sustaining worldview during this century.

Zimmermann says: “For centuries in this country, the oppressive spell that lay on the minds was more than the lack of original disposition capable of holding back not only an independent flourishing of philosophy but also the active connection to the endeavors of other Germans. As long as the Viennese university was largely in the hands of the religious orders, medieval scholasticism prevailed in its philosophy lecture halls. When, with the dawn of an enlightened era, it passed into secular management around the middle of the last century, the top-down system of teachers, teachings and textbooks, which was ordered from above, made the independent development of a free train of thought impossible. The philosophy of Wolff – which in the rest of Germany had been overcome by Kant – in the diluted version of Feder, with a smattering of English skepticism, became the intellectual nourishment of the young Austrians thirsting for knowledge. Those who, like the highly educated monk of St. Michael's in Vienna, longed for something higher had no choice but to secretly seek the way across the border to Wieland's hospitable sanctuary after discarding the monastic robe. This Barnabite monk, whom the world knows by his secular name of Karl Leonhard Reinhold, and the Klagenfurt native Herbert, Schiller's former housemate, are the only public witnesses to the involvement of the closed spiritual world on this side of the Inn and the Erz mountains in the powerful change that took hold of the spirits of the otherworldly Germany towards the end of the past, the philosophical century."

One can understand that a man speaks in this way who had participated in the 1848 movement out of an enthusiastic sense of freedom, and who then thought in a completely independent way about fulfilling his philosophical teaching. But one can also ask oneself: Is not this picture, which the philosopher draws almost in the middle of the nineteenth century, perhaps tinged with some pessimism, some pessimism? It is easy for an Austrian to see things in black and white when judging his own country, given the tasks that have fallen to Austria due to the historical necessities – I say expressly: the historical necessities – that the empire, composed of a diverse, multilingual mixture of peoples, had to find its tasks within this multilingual mixture of peoples. And when one asks such a question, perhaps precisely out of good Austrian consciousness, all sorts of other ideas come to mind.

For example, one can think of a German Austrian poet who is truly a child of the Austrian, even the southern Austrian mountains; a child of the Carinthian region, born high up in the Carinthian mountains and who, through an inner spiritual urge, felt compelled to descend to the educational institutions. I am referring to the extraordinarily important poet Fercher von Steinwand.

Among Fercher von Steinwand's poems, there are some very remarkable presentations. I would like to present just one example to your souls as a picture of this Austrian intellectual life, as a picture that can immediately evoke something of how the Austrian, out of his innermost, most original, most elementary intellectual urge, can be connected with certain ideas of the time. Fercher von Steinwand, who knew how to write such wonderful “German Sounds from Austria” and who was able to shape everything that moves and can move human souls from such an intimate mind, also knew how to rise with his poetry to the heights where the human spirit tries to grasp what lives and works in the innermost weaving of the world. For example, in a long poem, of which I will read only the beginning, called “Chor der Urtriebe” (Choir of Primeval Instincts).

In the boundless expanse
of our ancient mother Night,
hark! there seems to be a struggle
of the most mysterious power!
Do we hear foreboding stride?
Has longing awakened?
Has a flash of inspiration ignited?
Do dreams glide through the vastness?
How the forces of the forces intoxicate each other,
blissful exchange!
Sudden hurrying,
quiet lingering,
revelatory listening
alternates with waving
Amazed fear!
The charm of attainment
Rises, to sink,
Sinks, to hate,
White with the pale
Image of the embrace
Hatred not to grasp.
Dark ramifications
Sprouting affections
Seek for tendrils.
Heavy thoughts
Dawn and falter
Over the expanses,
Seem to guess
Or to guide.
What they prepare
Are they the seeds
Of mighty deeds,
Radiant times?
Who felt the stirred up
Creatively!
Who wandered through it,
Blissfully enjoying,
Or untangled it,
Opening up great things!
Up there it moves like a ghostly embrace,
We in warmth,
We also gain,
search and ponder,
see ourselves lifted,
highest endeavor
happily interwoven.
That blows around us,
arises in us:
“It is you, ideas! -—"

The poet sees how, as he seeks to delve into the “choir of primal urges” that are world-creative, ideas come to him. He seeks to rise up to that world that lived in the minds of the philosophers I had the honor of speaking of last week: Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. But we may ask ourselves how it was possible for that intimate bond to be woven in Fercher von Steinwand's soul, which must have connected him – and it really connected him – between the urge of his soul, which awakened in the simple peasant boy from the Carinthian mountains, and between what the greatest idealistic philosophers in the flowering of German world view development sought to strive for from their point of view. And so we ask: Where could Fercher von Steinwand find this, since, according to Robert Zimmermann's words, Schiller, Fichte, Hegel were not presented in Austria during Fercher von Steinwand's youth – he was born in 1828 – since they were forbidden fruit during his youth there? But the truth always comes out. When Fercher von Steinwand had graduated from high school and, equipped with his high school diploma, went to Graz to attend the University of Graz, he enrolled in lectures. And there was a lecture that the lecturer reading it on natural law was reading. He enrolled in natural law and could naturally hope that he would hear a lot of all kinds of concepts and ideas about the rights that man has by nature, and so on. But lo and behold! Under the unassuming title “Natural Law,” good Edlauer, the Graz university professor, the lawyer, spoke of nothing but Fichte, Schelling and Hegel for the entire semester. And so Fercher von Steinwand took his course in Fichte, Schelling and Hegel during this time, quite independently of what might have been considered forbidden, and perhaps really was forbidden, according to an external view of Austrian intellectual life. Quite independently of what was going on at the surface, a personality who was seeking a path into the spiritual worlds was therefore immersing himself in this context with the highest intellectual endeavor.

Now, when one sets out to follow such a path into the spiritual worlds through Austrian life, one must bear in mind – as I said, I do not want to justify anything, but only give pictures – that the whole nature of this Austrian spiritual life offers many, many puzzles to those – yes, I cannot say otherwise – who are looking for a solution to puzzles. But anyone who likes to observe the juxtaposition of contradictions in human souls will find much of extraordinary significance in the soul of the Austrian. It is more difficult for the Austrian German to work his way up than in other areas, for example in German, I would say, not so much in education, but in the use of education, in participating in education. It may look pedantic, but I have to say it: it is difficult for the Austrian to participate in the use of his intellectual life simply because of the language. For it is extremely difficult for the Austrian to speak in the way that, say, the Germans of the Reich speak. He will very easily be tempted to say all short vowels long and all long vowels short. He will very often find himself saying “Son” and “Sohne” instead of “Son” and “Sonne”. Where does something like that come from? It is due to the fact that Austrian intellectual life makes it necessary – it is not to be criticized, but only described – that anyone who, I might say, works their way up from the soil of the folk life into a certain sphere of education and intellect has to take a leap over an abyss – out of the language of their people and into the language of the educated world. And of course only school gives them the tools to do so. The vernacular is correct everywhere; the vernacular will say nothing other than: “Suun”, quite long, for “Sohn”, “D'Sun”, very short, for “Sonne”. But at school it becomes difficult to find one's way into the language, which, in order to handle education, must be learned. And this leap across the abyss is what gives rise to a special language of instruction. It is this school language, not some kind of dialect, that leads people everywhere to pronounce long vowels as short vowels and short vowels as long vowels. From this you can see that, if you are part of the intellectual life, you have a gulf between you and the national character everywhere. But this national character is rooted so deeply and meaningfully, not so much perhaps in the consciousness of each individual as, one might say, in each person's blood, that the power I have hinted at is experienced inwardly, and can even be experienced in a way that cuts deep into the soul. And then phenomena come to light that are particularly important for anyone who wants to consider the place of Austrian higher intellectual life in the intellectual life of Austrian nationality and the connection between the two. As the Austrian works his way up into the sphere of education, I would say that he is also lifted into a sphere, in terms of some coinage of thought, some coinage of ideas, so that there really is a gulf to the people. And then it comes about that more than is otherwise the case, something arises in the Austrian who has found his way into intellectual life, something that draws him to his nationality. It is not a home for something that one has left only a short time ago, but rather a homesickness for something from which one is separated by a gulf in certain respects, but in relation to which one cannot, for reasons of blood, create it, find one's way into it.

And now let us imagine, for example, a mind – and it can be quite typical of Austrian intellectual life – that has undergone what an Austrian scientific education could offer it. It now lives within it. In a certain way, it is separated from its own nationality by this scientific education, which it cannot achieve with ordinary homesickness, but with a much deeper sense of homesickness. Then, under certain circumstances, something like an inner experience of the soul occurs, in which this soul says to itself: I have immersed myself in something that I can look at with concepts and ideas, that from the point of view of intelligence certainly leads me here or there to understand the world and life in connection with the world; but on the other side of an abyss there is something like a folk philosophy. What is this folk philosophy like? How does it live in those who know nothing and have no desire to know anything of what I have grown accustomed to? What does it look like over there, on the other side of the abyss? — An Austrian in whom this homesickness has become so vivid, which is much deeper than it can usually occur, this homesickness for the source of nationality, from which one has grown out, such an Austrian is Joseph Misson.

Misson, who entered a religious order in his youth, absorbed the education that Robert Zimmermann pointed out, lived in this education and was also active in this education; he was a teacher at the grammar schools in Horn, Krems and Vienna. But in the midst of this application of education, the philosophy of his simple farming people of Lower Austria, from which he had grown out, arose in him, as in an inner image of the soul, through his deep love of his homeland. And this Joseph Misson in the religious habit, the grammar school teacher who had to teach Latin and Greek, immersed himself so deeply in his people, as if from memory, that this folklore revealed itself poetically in him in a living way, so that one of the most beautiful, most magnificent dialect poems in existence was created. I will just, to paint a picture for you, recite a small piece from this dialect poetry, which was only partially published in 1850 – it was then not completed – just the piece in which Joseph Misson so truly presents the philosophy of life of the Lower Austrian farmer. The poem is called: “Da Naaz,” - Ignaz - “a Lower Austrian farmer's boy, goes abroad”. So, Naaz has grown up in the Lower Austrian farmhouse, and he has now reached the point where he has to make his way into the world. He must leave his father and mother, the parental home. There he is given the teachings that now truly represent a philosophy of life. One must not take the individual principles that the father says to the boy, but one must take them in their spiritual context; how it is spoken about the way one has to behave towards luck when it comes, towards fate ; how one should behave when this or that happens to one; how one should behave when someone does one good; how one should behave towards kind people and how towards those who do one harm. And I would like to say: to someone who has undergone his philosophical studies to the extent that he has become a theologian, this peasant philosophy now makes sense. So the father says to the Naaz when the Naaz goes out:

From the first song.
Teach your children on the road.

Naaz, iazn loos, töös, wos a ta so, töös sockt ta tai Voda.
Gootsnom, wails scho soo iis! und probiast tai Glück ö da Waiden.
Muis a da sogn töös, wo a da so, töös los der aa gsackt sai.
I and my mother were dreaming and dreaming, as you know, seeing nothing else.
What we see, work and worry about,
We do it for the children, what we don't do, is not good enough! —
If we are once a little pressed for time and are short of hands, take it easy, but find us a few decent places for the children, preferably under the shade of trees, where the fish spawn. —
If your luck turns around, so live not all the days,
Stay even, in the middle of the river, don't cut the rope too short.
Luck is round and round, so roll it back again soon.
If good luck and misfortune happen, it doesn't lie in sorrows.
Don't let anything get you down, don't let it get to the clouds.
If we're down, we'll pull through, I hope so, he'll do it again!
Mocka'r and hocka'r and pfnotten and trenzen with the kimt nix außa.
Kopfhängad, grod ols won amt' Heana s Prot häden gfressa:
Töös mochts schlimmi nöd guit, gidanka'r ös Guidi no pessa!
Look at the situation we are in, think about the future!
If you give us something, don't be stingy, take this and that: it's good!
Look, my dear, we realize: a little courtesy is not too much to ask for! —
It's getting more chivalrous, foreign people, it's a saying, a word of honor.
Don't be too proud, don't be afraid of a fool.
Don't open your coat, don't let your luck run out.
There are two weeks below and one above, so give an old one. If no one chips what is also often there, give a groden. Look after your health, health is allways good for the soul. What have we, who have everything in this world, if we are not healthy? Our friends and our comrades in arms! Olli, they may know us – and fools, fools is the best!

Translation:

A lesson from my father for the journey

Ignaz, now listen, what I say to you, your father says to you.
In God's name, because it has to be so, and you should seek your fortune in the wide world,
That is why I have to tell you this, and take to heart what I say to you.
I and your mother are old and have stayed at home; you know that you can't make anything out of that.
You slave away, toil, work hard and weaken yourself with worry. You do this for the sake of your children; what wouldn't you do to keep them from going astray. If you have grown weak and sickly later in life, and hard times come, they will also jump in lovingly, but you can find this in proper, righteous children, helping to provide the things that the state and life demand so that we can have some relief.
If you should ever be lucky, don't live like a cavalier.
Stay as you were, in the golden mean of the middle road, don't stray from the right path in life.
Luck is round like a ball; it rolls away from us just as easily as it comes to us. If something doesn't work out or you experience misfortune, don't talk about it to people. Stay calm; don't let anything show on your face; don't be timid; complain about everything to God only; ask him; I tell you, he makes everything better again! Acting sad, withdrawing, making sour faces, being whiny: none of this achieves anything. |
Hanging your head as if the chickens had eaten your bread:
This does not improve anything bad, let alone make the good even better!
Keep the possessions you take with you; plan for the future a little.
If someone gives you something, accept it without being ungracious and say, “May God reward you!” —
Pay attention, Ignaz; and remember this well: no one has ever been punished for being polite! —
Don't be contrary; being away from home makes people modest; that's a saying and it's true.
Don't be tempted into gambling; don't pay too much attention to the dance floor.
Don't have your cards read; and don't seek your destiny in the dream book.
If two paths go in different directions, and one of them is new, then go the old one.
If one of them is uneven, which is often the case, then go the even one.
Guard your health; of all goods, health is the better one.
Admit it: what in the world do you really possess if you don't have your health?
-----
If you come home one day and no longer find us old people in this little room,
then we will be where your grandfather and grandmother are joyfully awaiting us,
where our benefactors will find us and our deceased relatives. Everyone will recognize us immediately – and this, Ignaz, is a very beautiful thing. Now it says:

From the second song.
How the girl leaves her father's house and gives her father's home sorrow and tears.

Vodar and Muidar said: “Good luck for all we hope for,
We wish you a long life and good health!”
“As you wish,” said Muida and wiped the tears from my eyes,
“If you want respect and honor in this world, that's how we pray."
“People set it up earlier and people later,
I and your dad, we pray, child, that no misfortune befalls you.
Go to your niece and nephew and bring them to the Moata; stop by in Piasenrait, don't stay at the Moam's, you'll find a welcome, see everything beautiful, Naaz, and say hello a lot; When you come, we will be very happy to see you, when you come home!"
The old woman cries and gives him a Guglhupf cake, a soapbox and
, in addition, a white, newly washed cloth.
Hoamlih gives him three more in a paper bag.
The Vada gives him an extra two guilders, more can't be given.
“Money, Naaz, is a piglet that won't be viable at will, Naaz."
The door opens, and Naaz looks around the room,
“Main!” says Muida, ‘that's a terrible thing to say!’
He points to the gun rack hanging just inside the door:
“Gootsnom!” Muida says, makes a cross on his forehead with a damar – and then
-----
“I'm serious, Naaz, now goodbye, take care that all is well, Naaz!
Come on, let's go to the barn, so that we know right away
Where or when or what or said that something has fallen. If you come across the Graanitz, don't take a smudge pot full of ears
Drink from a watered well, it helps for the Hungarian crown!»
Godspeed once more and once more and go out into the world with trepidation.
Hunotmal doesn't ring, they look around and beckon to their father. “Look at your sign,” cries the father of the wide world, ‘it's not valid!” “Go to the Moam,’ cries the old mother, ‘we greet you, don't forget us.’

Narration:
How Ignaz leaves his father's house and his parents see him off.

Father and mother, I bid you farewell and God bless you for all the kindness you have shown me.
I hope with all my heart that you live a long life and stay healthy.
As God wills, says the mother and wipes her eyes with the corner of her handkerchief,
If the Lord calls us from the world, we are prepared for it.
For some people it is given up earlier and for some later.
I and your father pray, Ignaz, that no misfortune befalls you.
We will walk with you for a bit and accompany you to the image of the Mother of God.
Once you are in Piasenrait, stop by at your aunt's. You will be welcomed there.
Tell her all the nice things, Ignaz, and give her our warmest regards.
If she can come, we would be very happy if she visited us.
So speaks the old mother and wraps him a crumpet, a pastry, and also a piece of white bread in a freshly washed 'cloth'. She secretly gives him three shiny new twenties, wrapped in paper. The father gives him a two-guilder piece, more he cannot give. We don't have much money, Ignaz, take what you can with good will.
Before the door opens, Ignaz looks around and takes one last look at the room.
“Oh dear,” says his mother, ‘that's a bad sign, as if you'll never see it again,’
and she dips two fingers into the holy water font hanging next to the door.
In God's name, says the mother, and makes a cross on his forehead with his thumb – and they leave. Now it's getting serious, Ignaz, now God keep you, be well, Ignaz, Let us hear from you from time to time so that we always know how you are doing or if you are sick. When you come to Graanitz, take a handful of earth beforehand,
Austrian for: border. Drink it in diluted wine, it helps against fever.
They say goodbye to you, once and again, and part sadly.
A hundred times is not enough for them to look around and wave their hands.
“Mind your ID,” the father calls from afar, ‘don't lose it.” “Go to your aunt,’ the old woman calls, ‘we send her our regards, don't forget that.’

The entire philosophy of the farming community emerges before the friar, and so vividly that one sees how intimately he has grown with it. But he is also connected to something else: to that which is so fundamentally connected to the Austrian character, to the character of the Austro-German peasantry in the Alps: to the direct, unspoilt view of nature that arises from the most direct coexistence with nature. The description of a thunderstorm is owed to what comes to life again in Joseph Misson. It vividly describes how the Naaz now travels and how he comes to a place where heath sheep graze, which a shepherd, called a Holdar there, knows how to observe closely: how they behave when a thunderstorm is coming. Now he tells himself what he sees there:

When a cloud appears in the west and it doesn't come from below, it means a thunderstorm.
“One,” he thinks, ‘is coming, the other is going, now you have to decide which way you're going.’
Get on a donkey and look – now it thunders!
Immediately again – and how it rumbles over the Beringer!
It roars and rushes powerfully into the wood, that it is completely out!
“Oh, where this breaks out, our heaven be gracious!"
Then the Holdar, takes off his hat and ‘if only,’
he looks at the Guirkan, ‘if only it doesn't scare someone!’
“Just as we are,” he says, ‘two thunderstorms are coming together.’ (This convergence of two thunderstorms is now vividly described.)
And the dog sticks its snout up in the air and sniffs the air.
He points to a swallow, which flies quietly to the barn and drinks.
Then it is quiet and sultry and the air thickens.
The birds fall asleep in the nests and the sheep bow their heads.

Reproduction:
How Ignaz gets caught in the weather and doesn't know whether to

Listen, he says to himself, sit down for a moment and think about which way you will go.
He goes to the heath and looks around – suddenly there is a clap of thunder,
followed by another, and how it rumbles over the mountains!
It creaks and hisses mightily in the wood, as if it were completely dead. Well, may the Lord have mercy on anyone this happens to, says the lad to himself, taking off his coat, saying, looking at the clouds, just hoping it doesn't start raining. It seems to me, he says, like two thunderstorms mixed together. And the dog lifts its muzzle to sniff the air, then, sensing no danger, draws its tail between its legs, goes over to the lad and lies down beside him. Now it is quiet and sultry, and the leaves tremble in the trees, the birds sleep in their nests, and the sheep put their heads together.

The good Naaz is aware of all this, and then the poet, who has meanwhile described how the Naaz entered “a Lucka” - a rock cave, a stone cave - waits there until the worst is over. Then he hangs his boots on the other shoulder and continues on his way. But the adventure with the weather is not over yet. Naaz comes to a little stream; which has of course swelled due to the weather. Naaz sees that:

"Look, the stream is so big, now I can't go around! —
Töös owa», sockt a, «wiat toh wos sain? iozt kan ik nid umi!»
He looks like a fool, the stream is too big, now he cannot cross it.
But something like that, he says, what could it be? Now I cannot cross it!

Now, in such a way, Misson, this man who really created from the depths of the folk tradition, wanted to embody the figure of Naaz. When one takes on such a figure, one sees how deeply, deeply in the subconscious soul, I could say, Austrian nationality sits with those souls who have also worked their way up into a high sphere of education. And one sees from such an example what remains of nationality for the soul in the higher sphere of education when one looks at this Austrian nationality.

One must say: mystics, in the sense that the human soul really delves into its inner life, really tries to understand what lives and moves within man, such mystics are not really found in Austria. Mystics who deal a lot with the human ego cannot flourish there. On the other hand, to feel the mysterious forces of nature in a certain way, more than just poetically, I would say, to feel the gnomes, the goblins, the spirits of nature in their liveliness, also with a certain humor, so that at the right moment you do not feel compelled to admit the full reality, but to feel in the co-experience of nature that which lives and moves in nature as a higher spiritual being – that is Austrian again. Therefore, within the Austro-German national character, it is not easy to find mystics who could be successors of Eckhart, Johannes Tauler.

On the other hand, the remarkable peasant philosopher Conrad Deubler is a truly Austrian figure. He was born in 1814 in Goisern, in the middle of the mountains, and died there in 1884 as an innkeeper. He was and remained a true farmer; but a man who so he has grasped it vividly, has penetrated it with his peasant wisdom, with a certain, I would say, curt peasant wisdom, — Conrad Deubler, such a philosopher could flourish; a philosopher who did not get involved in lengthy justifications, but liked this doctrine, and now he took from the Austrian mind everything to make this teaching appear plausible. From a primitive, elementary, rustic understanding he brought about, I might say, a Darwinian conception adapted to the Austrian peasant, by means of which he was able to carry on a copious correspondence with the great theologian and writer David Friedrich Strauss, with Feuerbach, with Ernst Haeckel, and so on. To grasp the whole expanse of nature with the intellect is more to the taste of the Austrian soul than to mystically immerse oneself in it. Therefore, one finds individual people among Austrian farmers who know every little herb in the mountains, who are also spiritually connected to the inner workings of each little herb, who, for example, engage with philosophers such as Ennemoser and Eckartshausen, who want to give a certain deeper picture of nature in its entirety, and who also want to place the human being in this picture of nature. But within this Austrian peasantry and that which arises from this peasantry, one will not easily find a pure mystic who engages in the contemplation of the human soul, averting his gaze from the external world of the senses. For it is the direct connection with that which makes an impression on the senses that characterizes the Austrian mind in the broadest sense for anyone who sees it – the seeing of more than the sensual, but the direct seeing – the seeing that does not need to reflect, that seeing that, I might say, sometimes skips the mind and goes directly to the heart.

Therefore, it can be said that in Austrian poetry, the soul and the landscape resonate with each other directly, sometimes in a way that is so moving, as in the case of Lena; but in general, this absorption of the whole soul in what can be done directly by a person, what can be accomplished by him without it being related to immediate usefulness, - that is something that belongs to the emotional qualities of the Austrian.

I would like to say, on the one hand, on this side of the Leitha, in the Austrian mountains, in the Austrian regions, there is something that can be depicted in a picture, as I attempted with Joseph Misson. On the other side of the Leitha, you are immediately in touch with the wide-open spaces of the Hungarian steppes; but you also live with what resounds in the sensual, I would say, spiritually, which the sensual tries to exhaust spiritually as much as it can be exhausted. Anyone who has ever crossed over to Hungary and listened to a Hungarian band, with all that these people put of their souls into their simple and wonderful playing, in which pain rages demonically, the lust and the exuberance of life at the same time, understands a poem like that of the Hungarian Szäz, which refers to this direct coexistence with the sensual, but which is felt spiritually, deeply spiritually and emotionally:

Listen, oh listen to the violin's song.
How it laments and how it weeps;
So much sorrow in four strings,
So much pain and grief combined!

Like the nightingales' flutes
In the silent, shadowy forest,
How the sobs of the abandoned orphan

That is lament, that is sorrow,
Which oppresses and yet uplifts,
Which weeps for the past, yet hopefully
Lives for a beautiful future.

Listen, a curse is heard – and swords
Mix clashing into the But a little fiddle bow.

Hear, oh hear the violin sounds,
How it spurs and laughs and cries,
In four strings such feeling,
So much joy and pain combined! —

You have to look very closely to understand the relevant things, you have to look very closely at the intimate interweaving of the senses with the outside world, so that the senses, in their interweaving with the outside world within the sensual, can more easily see the spiritual than when this spiritual awakens intellectually in the mind. It can be said that when it comes to making a judgment directly from the heart, to criticizing or approving the world, the Austrian will, under certain circumstances, have a little confidence in himself. He will also, especially if he has learned something, like to move in abstract terms, he will like to give something to the culture of the head, but above all want to be rooted in the culture of the heart. But the way from the head to the heart, the way from the heart to the head, is just so long, and it is so difficult to find! Often one easily stops in the middle!

It is, in a sense, quite characteristic of what, for example, a good connoisseur of Austrian culture, a contemporary, said about an Austrian personality, the former director of the Burgtheater in Vienna, Max Burckhard: that despite all his energy, the most characteristic thing about this quintessentially Austrian man, Max Burckhard, was that he never really wanted to undergo the transition from feeling to understanding or from understanding to feeling. He wanted to keep them both separate. While Max Burckhard was director of the Vienna Burgtheater, Hermann Bahr recounts, and Wilbrandt's play 'The Master of Palmyra' was to be performed at the Burgtheater, a play that is considered by many to be particularly significant and that for many is something tremendously high-minded, Burckhard did not want to stage the play. He could not understand why something so significant was seen in it; he always rejected it. So it was that well-meaning people, that is, people who meant well by Wilbrandt and the “Master of Palmyra,” managed to at least get Burckhard to attend a lecture on the “Master of Palmyra” in a really high-level society. He knew the piece, of course, but it was not to be read to him, but all the beautiful, aesthetic passages, the treatises were to have an effect on him, which the invited real professors and asthetics had to present about the mastery of this piece. Well, Burckhard was really a very clever man who, when it came down to it, was able to dialectically stand his ground and get into the spiritual ideas. He listened to the lecture. He did not just listen to the lectures of the aesthetes and professors, who said that something had been created “from the depths of human nature that points to the highest regions of spiritual life”. He also listened to how the beautiful characteristics are to be understood according to all chapters of aesthetics. He was silent. He did not allow himself to follow these trains of thought in any way. He could understand them, of course. It would have been easy for him to refute the matter from his point of view, to get involved in it. On another occasion, he might have done so, getting involved in long-winded discussions about the matter. He remained silent, he said nothing. Then ladies, especially the lady of the house, approached him: didn't he at least want to say how he related to all the witty remarks about one of the most witty plays ever written. Was it not the duty of the Burgtheater to perform the epoch-making play? But he did not engage in a discussion. He said: “I'm not putting it on!” And why? Why? They wanted to hear from him, the witty man, how he related to all the things that had been discussed wittily for hours. He just said: “Because it's a Holler!” — “A Holler” is something that means the same in Austria as “quatsch” in Berlin. But he did not engage in a discussion. That is to be taken as characteristic. He relied on his immediate judgment of the heart, on what his mind told him, and he did not find it necessary to engage in discussions of dialectics and so on; his whole criticism was that it is a “Holler”.

And so it is interesting to see, actually, how at a time when the most wonderful and glorious discussions were being held within the rest of the German-speaking world about the significance, nature and essence of drama, discussions in which Goethe and Schiller participated in such a profound way – I am referring in particular to the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century – how in this period a discussion of aesthetics, of the meaning and essence of drama, was also ignited in Austria. But how was the discussion of drama ignited there in Austria? In a very strange way, everything that was presented there for and against this way of thinking ignited in Austria; what was discussed in such a well-known profound way within the Schiller-Goethe circle and the broader circles of the whole of German intellectual life, all of this ignited in Austria in a very peculiar way, namely through dance. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, two types of dance were the subject of a very energetic and significant discussion there. At the turn of the century, Noverre was the master of dance; and his student was then Muzzarelli. Muzzarelli represented a dance, a style of dance, in which the main thing was to make beautiful movements, artificial movements, to intertwine artificial movements through their lines, where the external spatial image of presenting oneself was taken into account. Now, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, an opponent of this 'dance form' emerged in the person of Salvatore Vigano. And for this dance form of Salvatore Vigano, whose wife in particular danced the dance form he represented in a masterly fashion, whole texts were written, which did not apply to any other dance form. Whole stories, whole narratives were clothed in the dance form, so that the situations, the gestures, the form of expression, the events, the content to be told, were expressed. And now one should just delve into the far-reaching, passion-stirring discussions that have arisen about which dance is artistically the right one.

There was the Austrian playwright Ayrenhoff, who had already grown old at the time, the author of a large number of plays, who was completely on the side of the Muzzarelli dance, who spoke out most negatively against Salvatore Vigano and against the impossibility of expressing inner feelings through dance in such an unchaste way. Ayrenhoff could not understand that they even wanted to dance entire pieces, such as 'Richard the Lionheart' or 'The Daughter of the Air'. Ayrenhoff had been educated in the appreciation of beautiful form, of the sweep of lines, and his dramas were also constructed in this way. The sweep of lines in the portrayal of characters, seeing how some situation dissolves into a joke, or the transition of a situation into a joke, that was what mattered. These extraordinary forms were what mattered. He saw this in Muzzarelli's dance as well. And he was an important poet for Austria at that time. His importance can be seen from the fact that he received extraordinary recognition from Frederick the Great, who otherwise had no interest in German literature of the time. And “The Stagecoach”, a comedy by Ayrenhoff, Frederick the Great called “the best comedy that is written at all except the comedies of Moliere”. Yes, Frederick the Great went so far as to once show himself at a parade of the field marshal lieutenant - because that was Ayrenhoff and at the same time a poet - because he, Frederick the Great, was so interested in him.

On the other side, on Viganos' side, was Heinrich Joseph von Collin, who came from Belgium; but in a sense, Belgium belonged to Austria at that time. He had written the tragedy “Regulus,” but also other plays. Collin now advocated expression in dance with great enthusiasm. And he now staged his dramas in such a way that they expressed inwardness in what was being portrayed; that it was not so much about the way situations and jokes followed one another, about the external forms, but rather that the inner nature of the human being was expressed in what happened on stage. And Robert Zimmermann, who is deeply rooted in Austrian intellectual life, has spoken very beautifully of this Heinrich Collin, showing that this Heinrich Collin, who is basically also completely forgotten in Austria, but who But who can lead us deep into the course of Austrian intellectual life, who knew nothing of Fichte, and in his dramas revived the same kind of soul-feeling that lay in Fichte's philosophical representations. To make matters worse, Heinrich Collin's brother, Matthäus von Collin, has explicitly shown how Heinrich Collin knew nothing of Fichte, how he arrived at Fichteanism, but in a poetic way, in his Austrian way, entirely out of a strange parallelism of intellectual life, in the way that I have just described.

Without reflecting on the intuition, without merging into the intuition, Fichte comes back to what I described eight days ago. He says: The outer sense world, that which man lives out in the sensual, outer existence, is the sensualized material of our duty. Now that duty confronts him in such a deeply objective way and at the same time becomes related to the divine weaving and being that permeates the world, Fichte comes to say: one must not think in such a way that external sensual happiness could be bestowed on the one who faithfully fulfills his duty, but — even if this is somewhat one-sided, in the way it is presented, the energy of a certain striving of German idealism expresses itself in it; things must not be taken dogmatically – but what Fichte says is: the one who is completely absorbed in his duty must not claim that the reward for it will somehow be found in the external world of the senses. Therefore, the truly tragic – and this was Fichte's conviction – will appear when duty does not find any reward, but rather finds misfortune in the external world.

Heinrich Collin presents the same tendency in his plays. He wants to embody in a dramatic way the human soul that is built upon itself, that can live within itself without combining the happiness of the sensual world with duty. And so a deeply ethical trait emerges, but one that is intimately connected with the direct contemplation of the world as it presents itself to the senses; one that has even emerged from an aesthetics that has been formed through dance.

This close connection with observation, this life in direct perception and also the placing of what the heart experiences in direct perception, the reluctance to seek the way from the head to the heart, must be seen as one of the characteristics that are really deeply connected with this Austrian intellectual life.

And so many things in this Austrian spiritual life appear to us in such a way that contradictions are present in it, but contradictions that, if one lets them take effect in the right way, seem understandable in people who, within Europe, are placed in difficult tasks, in the mediation of the West with the East, and, I would like to say, must feel this placing in every detail of their way of life.

One can say: Wherever we touch this Austrian intellectual life, it appears to us as follows: the innermost is directly fanned in the outer world, without the mediation of a mystical dialectic. And from this underground, a phenomenon as likeable as the Austrian philosopher Bartholomäus von Carneri can be explained – as I said, I only want to present images. He was born in Trento in 1821, the son of an Austrian civil servant; deformed from birth (he was a twin), he already went through a difficult, painful youth, and then, after he had familiarized himself with the diversity of Austrian intellectual life, he became acquainted with Darwinism. For Carneri, Darwinism is not something that he simply accepts, but rather, for him, Darwinism becomes a life riddle itself. That the world, in the sense of Darwinism, can be explained by the externally observable development, is understandable to him, despite the fact that he has immersed himself deeply in German idealism. But in a certain respect, Darwinism becomes a life riddle for Carneri, the Austrian philosopher: If Darwinism is correct, what about human morality, human ethics? And so Bartholomew of Carneri becomes, one might say, the greatest ethicist, the greatest moral teacher of Darwinism. He interprets Darwinism in such a way that he seeks within the purely natural development, how the forces of nature complicate up to man, so that he still sees a spiritualization in this complication of the forces of nature, as they configure themselves. He does not want a rift between nature and spirit, but he does not want to stop at nature. He wants to chase the spirit out of itself in the configuration of the forces of nature. At the same time, he wants to find the connection between human ethics and human moral life and the explanation of nature in terms of Darwinism. Thus, for Carneri, the necessity to create an ethic arises directly from the world that appears vivid to him through Darwinism. I would like to say that what the human heart wants and needs to set before itself must be directly connected to the secrets and mysteries of nature. And it is particularly interesting to see in Bartholomäus von Carneri how he now strives for a unified world view, for a world view that fully embraces Darwinism in the spirit of the times, in the spirit of nineteenth-century materialism, but can only embrace it if if spirituality springs and can spring everywhere in nature itself, but a spirituality that is grasped directly in feeling, that is not first brought down from some transcendental spheres, as with Fichte, but that appears to him directly during the experience of sensuality. It is remarkable how the characteristic of Austrianism appears precisely in such a personality, in a personality like Carneri, who, however, also wants to place himself uniformly in the world in a different way, who everywhere sets out to show how, on the one hand, nature reaches up to the spirit, and on the other hand, the spirit works down to nature, how a unity lives in everything. Carneri also sought to depict this unity in life. He sought to bring it into life. And so one of the personalities arises, who appeared in particular in the 1860s and 1870s in Austria as fine minds, one of the personalities who were then also politically active. Carneri was on the side of the intellectual Austrian politicians of the 1870s, Plener, Beer, Herbst, Berger and so on. But wherever he spoke – and he often spoke – his words were imbued with a lofty idealism, but precisely with an idealism rooted in Darwinism, which was aware of its roots in Darwinism: I may be an idealist because my ideals come to me directly when I immerse myself in the development of nature.

It is the same spirit, in another field, that then again held sway in Robert Hamerling. In Robert Hamerling, in whom, I might say, the Austrian German found expression in the fact that Hamerling's motto was: “Germany is my fatherland, Austria is my motherland,” which combined good Austrian-ness with good German-ness. In this Hamerling everything that can be called the interpenetration of idealism with direct feeling and with intuition found direct expression. Even in Austria, where people might have been better able to understand it, Hamerling's vividly sensual images, I would say sensually imbued images, were often condemned, for example in his “Ahasver,” also in “Aspasia” and in “King of Sion.” But they did not understand that it was precisely Hamerling's idealism, which I would call Austrian idealism, that needed the sensory image to visualize itself in, so as not to suffer from the division of the world into the sensual on the other. And so for Hamerling the spiritualized sensual, the aesthetic idealism, became the goal toward which he directed his whole feeling, his whole perception and his whole thinking as a vision of the future. And in many respects it is precisely in the case of such intellectuals as Carneri and Hamerling that the difficulties of Austrian intellectual life come to light, difficulties which consist in the fact that one is placed in a multiform surging mass of humanity and has to find one's way. Hence the phenomena that so often occur within Austrian intellectual life, where a clear view of this or that remains with mere description and does not somehow find its way into action and then peter out in a certain pessimism. Hence certain phenomena are only possible in Austrian intellectual life.

Is it not really somewhat strange that there was an Austrian in the first half of the nineteenth century who was born near Znaim, who bore the typically Austrian name Karl Postl, who also became a clergyman at his mother's request, but then, like the Barnabite monk Karl Leonhard Reinhold, also cast off the robe of the order and disappeared? He has disappeared. Then a book appears: “Austria as it Is,” from America; it describes Austrian views. That was in 1828. Then, from this same Karl Postl, who called himself not Karl Postl but Charles Sealsfield, appear, for example, descriptions of the decline of the Native Americans, from which one can see how fundamentally sound this man's direct view of nature is. No one at that time had any idea that the simple Karl Postl from Austria was hidden in this Charles Sealsfield. All the stories that otherwise appear on similar subjects – just see for yourself – are written, so to speak, from the point of view of a certain education, written in a certain way, so that you notice the theory. These Postl stories are written in such a way that the eye immediately grows into what it sees; the whole soul grows together with direct perception. He then spends his lifetime from the age of thirty to the age of sixty in the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland, where he is also buried. He returns and describes the life of Germans in America in such a vivid way that it should still have a significant effect on the soul today, if only it were read.

A specifically Austrian phenomenon is also a personality, whom not only the younger, but perhaps the older members of the audience gathered here have met, those books that are written, as is modestly stated on the title page, “for maidens”; “Weihgeschenk für Jungfrauen” it says. A story, a wonderfully vivid story, steeped in a Goethean, one might almost say, Greek spirit. On the title page it says: “Weihgeschenk für Jungfrauen” by Christian Oeser, “Letters on the Main Subjects of Aesthetics.” Published in the first half of the nineteenth century in the first edition, these books experienced many editions. Those who read them today still get something from them that can expand the heart, that can warm the soul. Christian Oeser - yes, who is Christian Oeser? This Christian Oeser is the same man who, for example, had a drama published in Pressburg in 1839 that nobody knew the author of – “Life and Deeds of Emerich Tököly” “by A. Z.”, that is, from A to Z, so that all the letters between A and Z are included. Those who understood something about dramatic characterization saw in the figure of Tököly a Hungarian Götz. It is a portrayal that can be directly compared to Goethe's “Götz von Berlichingen”, which was born out of the struggles that took place in Hungary shortly before the drama was written and that moved many, many souls and the world. The drama went out into the world, and so did several others by the same author. No one knew who it was from. That remained so. In 1869, the German Schiller Foundation took a decision to pay the then support allowance to a Mrs. Therese Schröer in Vienna. The document with which the allowance was paid stated that it had been learned that the widow of one of the most worthy German writers was not living in circumstances befitting her and his merits, and that she was therefore being paid this annual allowance. It was the widow of Tobias Gottfried Schröer, the author of many plays, who had to remain unnamed, the author also of that “Weihgeschenkes für Jungfrauen”, which is imbued with the spirit of Goethe; a quiet man who was a secondary school teacher in Preßburg, but who, as such, wrestled with the highest problems of human life, who was poor and whom no one knew. Even in his own town no one could or might know that this man was the author of these dramas.

Many similar phenomena could be cited. They show that in order to get to know Austrian intellectual life, one must not consider it in terms of what, I mean, goes as a more or less Catholic, as a more or less Protestant current through the development of the times but how one must grasp this Austrian intellectual life where it works out of the root of the people and where it can appear directly in its great significance. One must not look at Austrian intellectual life through the lens of the fact that Austria is a more Catholic country. On the one hand, this Austrian intellectual life works its way to the roots of the nation, as we have seen with Misson; on the other hand, however, it works its way up to great heights in a remarkable way. Consider, for example, the following phenomena: When the Protestant pedagogue Friedrich Dittes, who was brought from Germany during the so-called Liberal Era of Austrian development and placed at the head of the K.K. When the Protestant pedagogue, who had been brought from Germany during the so-called Liberal Era of Austrian development, looked around for important pedagogues of the immediate past, he, the Protestant pedagogue who had been brought from Germany, found the Austrian Vincenz Eduard Milde to be one of the most important pedagogues of the immediate past. In 1811, Milde published an “educational theory”. In Misson, we have come to know a mind that, clothed in the robes of a religious order, worked its way up to what I would call the management of educational life, and then worked its way back down to the roots of folklore, creating his “Naaz”: peasant philosophy! In Milde we see another priest, a good Catholic; a Catholic in whom Friedrich Dittes, the Protestant pedagogue, finds one of his most important pedagogical predecessors. Spiritual life reaches out across the differences of confession in a wonderful way. Instead of a long further description, I would like to read you just one passage from Milde's theory of education, so that you can see how, in this book, published in 1811, educational work is understood in a soul-drenched way; how, in contrast to on, who worked his way down into the people, to the highest views, the most ideal views of general human activity through pedagogy, the Catholic priest Milde works his way up, how seriously, how dignified, how tremendously deep he takes the pedagogical profession. He describes how the teacher should behave in order to gain the right relationship with the pupil; first:

"1. Through diligent study of anthropology; 2. through reading well-written biographies and truthfully portrayed educational histories; 3. through thoughtful interaction with children, through unnoticed, quiet observation of them, especially of their behavior towards other children; 4. by remembering his own youth, by reflecting on the course, the reasons, the means and obstacles his own education, on the difference between his present and former way of thinking and feeling; 5. by reflecting on the success and failure of his efforts in educating the pupil; 6. by observing the methods of other educators and the success of their way of treating the children”; - finally - ‘7. by observing the course of development of nature left to itself.’

The meaning of life should be built on a healthy anthropology, that is, the study of man. Then the teacher should constantly consult with himself, as it were, meditating, in order to always find the way to the child's soul. A truly soul-filled educational vision is also poured out on this quite remarkable work, which arose, so to speak, in the quiet of Austrian intellectual life through a man who was a clergyman in the outer life, who rose to become Archbishop of Vienna and who, in his way, truly represents that Austrian intellectual life to which one attaches such great importance and to which one must attach such great importance; that Austrian intellectual life that is directed towards the general human and basically maintains the connection with the roots of the people everywhere. Yes, I say, in 1811 a leading work on education appeared in Austria that had a great impact and was also highly praised by the Protestant pedagogue Dittes in the 1860s and 1870s. It was published again very recently by the Austrian pedagogue Franz Tomberger in a short outline. One must only consider what that means. In 1811, it had only been a short time since teachers in very, very remote areas of the Austrian lands, namely the German-Austrian lands, had a very strange position, not only in the village but also in the city. Not only did the teacher not have a school building – in many areas, shortly before this “Erziehungslehre” was published, a school building was a rarity; the students gathered around the teacher, the teacher went from house to house, sometimes he was there, sometimes in the next house; wherever there was space, he taught. But that was not the only thing. For example, paying the teacher a salary, yes, that would not have been understood; that is something that must be given freely! But the teacher only needed to teach the students in winter; in summer, the children were needed outside in the fields anyway. Well, so that he doesn't starve, he is granted the right to herd cows during the summer, to be a “Holdar”. But that did not prevent all that I have just described from happening. And that did not prevent a work on the art of education from appearing after such a relatively short time in Austrian intellectual life that it was not only exemplary but also epoch-making. One has to familiarize oneself with this juxtaposition of contradictions that arise from the difficulties of Austrian life.

But this is also why the Austrian needs what appeared in the most diverse forms in Viennese life in the course of the nineteenth century. Actually, a piece of Viennese life is also what you were able to get to know here in Berlin some time ago, although it had been quite “de-Viennified” to a certain extent, as connoisseurs generally admitted – what you were able to get to know through the performance of “Alpenkönig und Menschenfeind” by Ferdinand Raimund, with the character of Rappelkopf, and, what is also well known from the same author, “Verschwender”. I do not want to speak of a well-known matter, but rather show how Austrian intellectual life can be illustrated here and there, as it were, by the splashing of a wave that makes visible in pictures what lives in Austria. Therefore, I want to speak less about Ferdinand Raimund than about the man who replaced him in the hearts of the Viennese in the 1830s and 1840s, when Raimund had become very much a part of their lives: Nestroy. And Johann Nestroy, as a folk dramatist, is, I would say, truly an Austrian product. Indeed, one has even had to hear from some clever people of the present day that Nestroy is even characterized by his fellow countrymen as not being a real Viennese, because in the early days of his career, in particular, he only told the Viennese rough truths, not only created folk plays where honest people are always right, but where he could really, forgive the harsh expression, give the people a piece of his mind. Plays like these made up the content of his first theatrical career. He actually created a great deal; in thirteen years, he wrote around seventy such farces. But they truly contain that Austrian spirit that those who know it recognize as being truly embodied in Nestroy. It is not true that the Austrians of that time wanted to hear honest portrayals of characters from the theater, of people who recognize the simplicity of life. No, that was then and Nestroy grew out of it – what was demanded was that one could say: Now he has given them what for again, that is, he has really given them a telling-off. And with such a scolding, Nestroy, himself playing at the Vienna Karl Theater, actually entertained the Viennese so much that one can say: one sees in the spirit that lives in these Nestroy folk farces, one might say folk city farces, the Austrian spirit that needs to, in the criticism of life as well as in the jokes about life, in the humor of life, to overcome many a difficulty; who needed to let his soul feel at ease after hard work in a light way, and yet in a way that was not entirely free of sympathy and antipathy. And so Nestroy is truly a typical figure of Austrian urban popular theater around the mid-nineteenth century. He had his view of life and of the events of life expressed by a character in the following manner: “I believe the worst of everyone, even of myself, and I have seldom been mistaken!” With this view of life, he, who was personally kind and loving, and who in personal dealings actually had only kind and loving words, really created character figures that easily illustrate the view of life of the Austrians in Vienna at that time , that Austrianness that wanted to be hard at work, but that wanted to build a philosophy of life from the heart, without much dialectic, that also had to have humor, that also should not exaggerate the seriousness of life too much. There was a lot in the way of facing life. So Nestroy created a character that kept reappearing under this name or under a different name; once he called him “Schnofer!” And this Schnoferl also had an attitude towards life. For example, he once talks about how he fared in life with love: “With love, things went splendidly for me, it was all right, but with dislike, things are always bad!” This same Schnoferl, who, as I said, cannot see the funny side of life, once said about what he saw in his own heart: “The pragmatic story of my heart falls into three miserable chapters: futile musings, failed attempts and worthless triumphs.” Those are the three miserable chapters. Nestroy portrayed such characters with great acuity, so much so that an important Viennese critic once said: “In Nestroy, you could see the demonic expression that could intensify to the point of being devilish when he let his eyes play from the stage into the audience.” And so Nestroy expressed well a certain Austrian view of life in need of humor in the years before 1848, or even from the beginning of the forties.

Then came a time when one could not bear this outpouring of good and evil, this Nestroyan world beyond good and evil, of good, over-good and evil people, for a while. One wanted more honest figures, one wanted to be moved more and sworn at less. One had had enough of swearing for a while, one wanted to be moved. Nestroy didn't really like that, and so he said: Yes, in the past people still knew something about what a life story is; in modern times, if you go by those who now create life stories for the stage, if there are only three jokes in it - in Nestroy's plays there was one joke after another - there are only corpses in their blood, gravediggers and blubberers. He didn't really want to go along with that. But then again, he was able to keep up with the times. And so Nestroy found a peculiar, I would even say humanly free point of view, especially during the difficult year of 1848. He was a liberal man, he was a man who was thoroughly on the side of the progressives, who did not depend on anyone in any direction, but at the same time he found the right words for many a cry for freedom, for those who only go so far. And so he managed to maintain Austrian humor even in these difficult times. Just look at this: in a play that was written during one of Austria's most difficult times, “Freedom in Krähwinkel” – he also played in this play himself – this Austrian describes how the mayor of Krähwinkel imagines freedom. He has the constable Klaus express it: “Freedom is something terrible. The Lord Mayor always says: the ruler is the father, the subject is a little child, and freedom is a sharp knife.” And one of those who, in a Nestroyesque way, understands this a little, who also understands the people of Krähwinkel in their pursuit of freedom, characterizes them in the same way: ”No, I know the people of Krähwinkel. I know the Krähwinkler, you just have to let them run riot; once the rapture is over, we'll catch them with our hand in it, and then we'll really tweak the people's nose.” In the role that Nestroy himself played, to which he gave the name ‘Ultra’, a freedom fighter now appears who is really portrayed in such a way that humor can once again take hold of him. Nestroy spoke the following through the Ultra: “Now that the fight that had broken out has ended happily, he proclaims freedom: 'I proclaim freedom of speech, of the press and other freedoms for Crowwinkel, indifference of all classes, free speech, free elections according to previous opinion, an infinitely broad basis, which will gradually extend in length, and in order to avoid all disputes in this matter, no system at all.” Then Ultra comes – one must always imagine him as presented by Nestroy himself – to an opinion about what reaction actually is. What is reaction? “Well,” says Ultra, ‘as it was on a large scale, so we have had it here on a small scale. Reaction is a spectre, but spectres only exist for the timid: so don't be afraid of it, then there will be no reaction at all.’

But in Nestroy's personality itself there is something like a thoroughly correct placing of his own personality in life. A person like Nestroy was thoroughly a personality who was accessible to the depths of the soul. But what he created, he wanted to create from direct life and for direct life. And so Nestroy is not at all inclined to reflect on the ego. Once, he came into contact with the profound, inestimably esteemed poet Friedrich Hebbel, the great poet Hebbel. But Hebbel and Nestroy were like the north and south poles. Friedrich Hebbel, outwardly impeccable in his suit, correct in every gesture, Nestroy naughty in every gesture, with a rustic suit that he wore with particular dignity! Now Nestroy became acquainted with a play like “Judith and Holofernes”, a play in which Hebbel has actually exhausted the infinite depths of the human soul and embodied them in dramatic form so that one must say: It is truly a wonderful struggle with the existential problems of life, reaching the heights of the human spirit, but not for Nestroy, one might be tempted to say, because it cannot be readily and directly taken humorously. But he took it humorously, precisely as a taunt, saying, “No, that's nothing!” He also thought, “That's a nonstarter!” I'll do a Holofernes now, Judith and Holofernes, that must be the right thing; that's not something that Hebbel did.” But now he wanted to create a character in Holofernes who was so completely turned inward, to his human ego. Nestroy was very good at creating a character who acted entirely out of the abundance of the soul's will and wanted something. But he only wanted into this ego in a genuinely Austrian way, so to speak. Yes, not through speculation, not through dialectics, not even through dramatic dialectics! So he presents himself as a figure of Holofernes, full of ego, full of the power of personality, so strong that he wants to see who is stronger, “I” – or, as he said – “I or I!” – so that he feels doubly. So he wants to wrestle with himself, so that he sees who is stronger, I or I. That becomes Nestroy's Holofernes. But he knows how to position himself in life just right. And when he hears that people say that he denies a purely artistic principle with his plays that are directly inspired by folklore, well, he says that he will not allow such an accusation, because people should consider what it actually means to write folk plays. Anyone who writes popular plays and even wants to compare himself to Goethe is just like someone who makes a Zwetschkenkrampus and wants to act as a rival to Canova. A Zwetschkenkrampus is a figure made out of dried plums on St. Nicholas' Day to look like a clown or Santa Claus.

We also need to be thoroughly familiar with this side of Austrian identity. Because it is deeply, deeply interwoven with what the Austrian soul seeks in a certain view of life, which I would characterize in the following way: Because of the difficulties of his life, the Austrian feels the need to rest in a view of life that makes one forget the seriousness of life and yet, in turn, brings strength in the subconscious soul to be prepared for life. Nestroy is certainly deeper than those who took over from him at the end of the nineteenth century. You cannot compare Nestroy's farces with those of Berg, who certainly wrote more in the same period, but had sunk to a much lower level. But this peculiar view of life, which in turn goes back to a general human one, is part of the overall shaping of this Austrian's soul. And this view of life also shows that in Austria something comes from much deeper human sources and shapes the life of the soul than all that which is usually conceived of as ideas that draw together human development. One must not think of the Austrian as being wrapped up in this or that prejudice, but to get to know him, one must consider Austrian national character. |

I have only been able to present it to your minds in a few images today; I have not really chosen them with the aim of making the Austrian lovable, but simply to describe him as he is. I did not want to summarize anything special, but only to show individual traits, of course very individual lost traits, but which can nevertheless illustrate this or that, illustrate above all how a special note, a special tone, lives in this Austrian character, over the whole of this Austrian culture, from such figures as I have described to you today, to the Magyar Emmerich Madách, the man who created the well-known “Tragedy of Man”. Out of a life of suffering, and truly out of a life of suffering, Madách rose to create a form of human philosophy that suited him. He shows the creation of man, Adam and Eve. He shows how Adam and Eve are placed in the world by the divine creator, perceiving this world as a mystery. Now Lucifer shows them what will follow. Adam is shown how he will live again, how he will return in Egyptian times, how he will live as an Egyptian, as a pharaoh; how Eve will be his slave. The Egyptian culture with all that it can trigger in the soul of the re-embodied Adam is presented by the poet. And further, we are led into the Roman period; Adam is reborn in the time of the Roman Empire. In the time of Christianity, in turn, in the time of the Franco-English culture, in the time of the German culture; at the end of the earth time, he is placed in an embodiment. The whole of human life is led past him.

As one can see, there are many paths that lead up from the depths of joy and suffering that can arise in the Austrian soul, up to the peaks of human world and life views. And it is a special note that one must say: It is precisely through the contemplation of this special note, this special 'tone in Austrian folklore that it already corresponds to an inner necessity that, for example, the German-Austrians were separated for a time from the general German intellectual life. It was precisely through this separation that they developed their innermost selves properly, that they emphasized what was truly their own in the right way. But such a separation does not destroy what connects the peoples. And what we see today, this interaction of the two Central European empires into a great overall concept of Central Europe, into an overall being of Central Europe, is firmly anchored in both the inhabitants of the one and the inhabitants of the other empire, if one looks straight into the depths of the soul. This can be seen in the depths of the national character, for example, where the will of Austria is realized, and again in the heights of Austrian achievement. When, as it seemed, a deep rift had opened up in 1866 between the hearts of the great German Empire and the hearts of the best Austrians, there was not a mood at the height of humanity after that year 1866 that cried out for revenge. There was not a mood that was later in other places, after a people had been defeated, where it was said that one must always and again and again bring the thought of revenge to life in one's soul. No, but an 'Address was delivered to the throne immediately after 1866 in Austria, which contained the words; 'It is not the secret thought of retaliation that guides our steps; a nobler satisfaction is granted to us if we succeed more and more in transforming disfavor and enmity into respect and affection through what we achieve and what we create.

These words also express the bond between the Austrian and German hearts that has been so beautifully realized today. That bond, which is expressed so beautifully in a poem by von Hamerling that truly springs from the Austrian soul: Germany is my fatherland, but in Austria I feel my motherland. I feel a sense of belonging to my mother country. This sense of belonging was so vividly experienced that it can be expressed in a few words that originated in Austria. These are strange words, perhaps not in a completely satisfactory form, but they are words that may be read aloud, especially in our time. I will say afterwards in which period these words were written. In a poem entitled “Austria and Germany” it says:

Let Russia and England prudently confer,
Perhaps not even unhappily find it,
If we here engage in a little battle,
If they try to take away our just rights!

You, German brothers, will not advise here –
The enemy's attack will only unite us
And among us every ambition will fade
Before the: One people in word and deed.

And if one among us has failed,
If discord has existed anywhere in German hearts,
There is only one thing that now inspires us:

What we have in common, our joys and our sorrows!
So let us also have in common:
A German war, if not a German peace!

They could be words written in our time. But they were written in April 1859 by the son of that Tobias Gottfried Schröer I mentioned, by Karl Julius Schröer, who worked in Vienna, having come from Zisleithania, in Austria. He worked in a way that can be said to have been suitable for, on the one hand, connecting the soul with what lives and weaves in the people and, on the other hand, carrying the souls up to the heights of spiritual life – Karl Julius Schröer, who first developed a beneficial activity as director of the Viennese Protestant schools and then as professor of German literature at the Technical University. I myself feel — please excuse this personal remark — deeply connected with this activity, because Karl Julius Schröer was once my dear teacher. This Karl Julius Schröer, on the one hand, he carried his popular research into the really deep foundations of folklore. First of all, he had Christmas plays printed that were performed among the farmers during the Christmas season but that had emerged from the people themselves. Then he was a dialect researcher, a researcher who studied the peculiarities of the Austrian dialect in the Gottschee region in Carniola, among the Germans of Spiš in Slovakia, among the so-called Heanz in western Hungary, who also researched the dialect of Lower Austria and everywhere pointed out the close connection between all Austrian intellectual life and its roots in the folk tradition; and who, on the other hand, carried the soul up to the heights of Goethe's world view through research into Faust, and in this sense again had a beneficial effect on his students. In 1859 this man expressed Austria's unity with Germany in this way. I have quoted his words to show how the Austrian national character leads to that beautiful and glorious ideal towards which we must strive today and which must develop out of the great demands and devoted deeds of our time: a Central Europe in which everything that has long been working together in our hearts will finally be united. And especially by considering the special tone that prevails in Austrian nationality and Austrian intellectual life, one can say that what should be achieved there in separation will be able to combine with the wider Germanic character in a more intimate way for the benefit and blessing of Central European development. And so we see, I would say, even if we look with an understanding of the essence of nationality at what is developing out of blood and suffering and pain in our time as a future ideal for Central Europe, we see that something is developing that must be created by the devoted and courageous deeds of arms, but which is firmly rooted, so firmly rooted that the guarantee of its durability can be seen in the hearts and souls of those who are drawing closer together and have joined forces for common action.

In conclusion, let me say: what is now coming together historically is not only coming together through external necessity, it is coming together through the inner bonds of the souls, the hearts of the peoples of Central Europe.

Spiritual scientific findings concerning the natural world and the human being as part of this world

For the spiritual scientist, familiarity with current and recent work in other sciences is most important. If there is anything which right away establishes the need for an anthroposophically orientated spiritual science, it is above all the relationship which this science must have to natural science.

Among the attacks against the particular science of the spirit of which I am speaking those directed against my own relationship to natural science are always of special interest to me. It is easy to understand that opposition has to arise from the natural science side against an approach which, whilst it is firmly grounded in natural science, must in almost every respect go beyond that science. It is, however, strange, and certainly of some significance for the whole position held by the science of the spirit, that I myself have been repeatedly accused in recent times of not objecting to current research findings in the natural sciences but basing myself wholly on natural science. This objection is raised by people who see themselves as representing a ‘spiritual scientific’ approach. And I think I am entitled to say that with the scientific approach presented in these lectures, one finds oneself caught, as it were, between opposition coming from the natural scientific side and opposition coming from various rather vague, mystical spiritual sides that are almost equally vociferous.

I must say, however, that for the science of the spirit which I am representing in these lectures one does not just have to confess that it is indeed a matter of necessity that one bases oneself on natural science, but also that natural science, the way it is and has to be at the present time, has achieved things that provide stimulus and support in every respect. For this we not only are but indeed must be grateful. People who are working in the science of the spirit eminently need to come to an understanding with people who are working in natural science, for in a certain respect the science of the spirit needs to have the most recent findings made in natural science as a foundation if it is not to be amateurish, vague and unclear.

This may seem strange to people who have already got to know something of this anthroposophically orientated science of the spirit. But then I may well have to say quite a few things today that may seem strange from various points of view. I would therefore ask your forgiveness, especially tonight, if I consider it necessary above all to present spiritual research findings, and my only purpose in presenting such results will be to arouse interest. To furnish proof for every detail of what I am going to say tonight would require a course taking a whole week.

We need to consider the essence of recent developments in natural science if we want to establish the right kind of relationship to it, especially as spiritual scientists. Natural science does not, in fact, owe its character to what scientists themselves say are its great virtues, but to entirely different conditions and facts. The particular character which the natural scientific way of thinking has assumed over the last four centuries, and especially in the 19th century and up to the present time, is due to the fact that quite specific tendencies and gifts have arisen in the search for knowledge in the course of human evolution.

The origins of the natural scientific way of thinking are often presented like this: Well, for thousands of years in the past people looked at things in the wrong way, especially where science is concerned, and now—perhaps I won’t use the commonly quoted phrase ‘seeing how much wiser we are today’⁵³—but let me just draw your attention to how many good, honest and upright followers of the natural scientific way of thinking do believe that humanity has now been able to arrive at the ‘truth’, at the ‘right view’ where some things are concerned, and that in earlier times people had been entirely ‘on the wrong track’.

Yet if we give some consideration to the essential nature of scientific development, we can see that it was not really the case that a sudden miracle happened in the 16th century, with people arriving at the one and only truth, but that from that century onwards quite specific gifts, tendencies and approaches to investigation arose. These tendencies, these human needs, this predilection, as I might call it, made people on the one hand focus attention on the natural world and on the other hand give their knowledge of that world the character which we must so greatly admire today, especially if we base ourselves on the science of the spirit.

One of the truly outstanding gifts to arise was the ability to observe tangible physical objects very accurately. Another tendency went hand in hand with this predilection and gift, and this was to give tangible, physical things preferential and indeed exclusive value, thinking that anything which went beyond this must inevitably take human beings into spheres that were somehow forbidden, spheres of vague fantasies, or, in short, into an abyss in their search for knowledge.

This is particularly evident if we consider the efforts made to make the human being himself an object of scientific study. These efforts went in the direction of applying the forces and laws that apply in the natural world outside the human being to the human being himself, that is, to see him purely as part of the natural world, the kind of creature that has shown itself to the scientific eye in more recent times. The triumphant progress of natural science extends not only to the natural, physical aspect of the human being but also to efforts somehow to study the human psyche, using scientific methods, and indeed to bring this, too, as close as possible to something governed by the laws of nature. And I would say we can see pride and satisfaction when a modern psychologist discovers that an irrefutable law of nature can also be applied, he thinks, to the inner life of man. I am speaking of rather extreme situations that go in this direction because I really want to make my point.

Someone who still takes the point of view that the human psyche is an entity in itself will of course also think that this human psyche, complete in itself, can come to expression through the power of will impulses—we’ll consider freedom or the lack of it the day after tomorrow—using the organism. The idea that the psyche is the primal source of energy, as it were, for the movement and actions of the organism lives strongly in some minds even today.

People who think that they should think in purely natural scientific terms say to themselves, on the other hand: In the 19th century natural science arrived at one of its most significant laws, the law of the constancy or conservation of energy. This says that energies are converted in such a way that nothing new can arise in the system of energies, and nothing can in any way intervene in this system unless it is already part of it. If, it is said, the soul were able to set the organism in motion, it would need to develop the necessary energy. This would then have to be added to the energies the organism already has from food intake and other ways of relating to the world around it. The soul would have to be a source of energy, as it were; energy would have to come out of nothing, so to say, but the law of conservation of energy only permits energies the human organism takes in with food and the like to be converted to energy. A movement or the development of body heat thus cannot be anything but the conversion of food energies and other forms of energy that have been taken in from outside. Conflict thus arises with this law of the conservation of energy, which has played such a significant role in scientific developments during the 19th century, when one comes up against the idea that the soul can be the source and origin of some form of energy.

People were really pleased to have experimental proof that a ‘reservoir of energy’ capable of intervening in the process of energy conversion did exist in the soul. The experiments the well-known biologist Rubner⁵⁴ did in this field with animals, and the continuation of them with human beings by Atwater⁵⁵ are regarded with some satisfaction by psychologists to this day, I would say. Rubner showed that the heat energies and the kinetic energies animals produce are, according to the measurements made, nothing but the converted energies of food they have taken in, with nothing coming from a psyche. Atwater extended these experiments to human beings, selecting subjects who we might think should be able to do even better—people doing mental work, physical work, at rest, or developing inner energies. He was able to show that up to a certain percentage—always important in experiments—nothing that comes from inside the human organism derives from a reservoir of energies in the soul, and that the energies available had been converted from energies the human organism had to take in first. Psychologists like Ebbinghaus⁵⁶ also stated, with some satisfaction, that there was no question of any form of psychology being in conflict with the law of conservation of energy.

Hundreds of other examples could be added, from many different points of view. They would show you how significant and characteristic the triumphant progress of the natural scientific way of thinking has become, even in our culture in general. It is thus easy to see why this triumphant progress, as we may call it, is still relatively recent and does not want to be held back at any point by something else, like the science of the spirit, for instance, and why it still has all kinds of tendencies—speak ‘prejudices’ perhaps—with regard to this that are extraordinarily difficult to deal with. If the necessity did not arise of its own accord from natural science itself for the science of the spirit to develop from it in its own way—as the child must of necessity grow to be an adult—it would probably still be a very, very long time before the science of the spirit would find anyone in the world of science prepared even just to listen when it comes up in one place or another.

No I have to make some critical comments my starting point today. One does, of course, always have to consider individual aspects, for I do not want to talk in abstract terms. Quite generally, I do not want to give general characteristics today but rather start with specific instances and use these to make my point.

If we review the character and the way of thinking and forming ideas which the natural sciences have assumed in more recent times, we have to say that this is above all ruled by the idea that the things we learn from nature must somehow come from somewhere that is separate from the human being. I’ll not go into a philosophical discussion of this; but there is a borderline issue we must consider briefly. Not that I would consider it to be of quite specific significance for natural scientists today, nor do many natural scientists enter into discussion of this issue; no, the reason is that their desire for knowledge is going in that direction, unconsciously so, in a way, and can only be judged if we consider it with regard to its movement in this direction, or to this goal.

Let me take up an idea which no doubt originated in philosophy but lurks in many people’s minds, and that is the idea of ‘things in themselves’. The philosophical question in the Kantian or some other sense will of course be of little interest to natural scientists. But the whole direction, the whole endeavour in natural scientific thinking shows a tendency to go towards this ‘things in themselves’ idea. Irrespective of whether one is basing oneself on the earlier atomic theory, or on or modern theory of ions, of electrons, whether one takes one standpoint or another in biology, people will of course say from the very beginning that they merely wanted to know the ‘laws of phenomena’, leaving the ‘things in themselves’ to the philosophers, but the way in which the phenomena are approached, how they are in fact investigated, is based on the premise that there is some ‘thing in itself behind the phenomena and that if one were able to go more deeply into the region made accessible by means of microscopy, let us say, or other scientific methods, one would come closer and closer to such a ‘thing in itself’.

This notion gives natural scientific thinking its direction, at least at an unconscious level, for if you assume a world of atoms, for instance, or assume that ether waves lie behind the tapestry of colours and nuances of light that surrounds us, you are of course thinking that these ether waves belong to a sphere of the ‘thing in itself,’ as it were. Eduard von Hartmann, the philosopher of the unconscious mind who wanted to found a natural philosophy, actually made it a challenge, saying that the world of atoms and the like, or of forces behind the things we perceive through the senses, must be accepted by scientists as something on a par with the ‘thing in itself.’

For a scientist working in anthroposophically orientated spiritual science this search for a ‘thing in itself’ behind phenomena, this whole trend—I am now not speaking of philosophical hypotheses but of this trend in natural science—is analogous to an attempt to see what is behind a mirror when one sees various images in it. It is as if one were walking round to the back of the mirror to see where the images have their origin. That origin does not lie behind the mirror, however. It is in front of the mirror, where we are standing. We are in the region where the images have their origin,⁵⁷ and we would fall into the most incredible delusion to think we should reach into the back, behind the mirror, to find something that would be the source of the images. It may sound grotesque and be unexpected, but the ideas and concepts of natural science are based on the illusion that one has to reach behind the mirror. The ‘thing in itself’ is behind the mirror if one thus deludes oneself. But in reality it is not there.

Why is that so? It is so because as human beings we are not merely in an outer material world behind which there is a ‘thing in itself’, but right in the midst of everything on which this world is founded. It is just that not all of it comes to our conscious awareness. We are right in the midst of it! And analysing the phenomena of the natural world outside will not show us the origins, just as you cannot perceive the true nature of a person, get to know this mirror image as a physical human being, by analysing the mirror image of that person. Analysing the phenomena does not give insight into their essential nature. Instead we must intensively, if I may put it like this, go beyond the level at which our conscious mind works in everyday life. And this is done by the methods I have characterized in my first lecture here.

Our ordinary, everyday waking consciousness serves merely to develop the conceptual tools we need to put the phenomena in some order and system, establishing the laws’. To go beyond this, the conscious mind must first be transformed, developing powers that lie dormant in it. Then the imaginative, inspired and intuitive perception which I have tried to characterize as perceptive vision, perception in images, must arise from the depths of that conscious mind—nothing nebulous, of course, but in the strictly scientific sense.

We would never be able to learn something about the nature, the physical nature, of the human being by looking at a mirror image unless we also had self-awareness. We must therefore strongly feel ourselves to be physical human beings, we have to get a feeling for ourselves and know that it is I myself who is standing in front of that mirror. In the same way we cannot arrive at the essential nature of natural phenomena unless our inner life, which is right in the midst of those phenomena, grows so strong that it gains the ability to perceive things in a way that is different from ordinary waking consciousness. With regard to this perceptive awareness, perception in images, and so on, I would refer you to my last-but-one book.⁵⁸ I would just say that, in principle, it is not a matter of a new organ in physical terms, but of developing a real ability to perceive purely in the soul realm, developing non-physical organs that add something new to everything the soul perceives in the world around it when in its usual waking conscious state. This is just like the newly opened eyes of someone born blind who has had an operation and now sees the world of colour of which he had only heard people tell before.

The task therefore is not to develop some kind of material hypotheses or draw conclusions concerning a ‘thing in itself and get at something that lies ‘behind the phenomena’, but to strengthen our inner faculties so that we are able to see the essence in front of the mirror. It will, of course, be a long time before such perceptive awareness will be taken seriously by greater numbers of scientists, despite the fact that I have characterized neither a miracle nor anything that is not accessible to human beings. It is something everyone can find from their own resources, though it has to be said that present-day habits of thinking, inwardly responding to things and gaining insight are an obstacle when it comes to awakening such perceptive awareness.

I would now like to give you some of the results of this perceptive awareness specifically relating to the sphere we may call ‘nature’. It will, of course, be necessary to speak of some things where it will not be easy to communicate with people who are firmly wedded to natural science. But perhaps this may be an occasion where it is permissible to speak of something personal. What I am offering here are not ideas that have come into my head, nor anything I have thought up. These are the results of years of investigations done in full accord with the more recent natural scientific developments; some of the things I am going to say—I would not have been able to formulate them like this even a short time ago.

My aim is above all to refer to things that are very real, going into detail. The theory of evolution, or ‘descent’, has had a considerable influence on scientific thinking in recent times. And it has to be said that anyone who is not an amateur in this field will know what fruit—leaving aside the shadow sides—this theory has borne for modern thinking, the whole modern way of looking at the world. Of course, if we really want to appreciate the nature of this theory we must ignore all the amateurish philosophical views into which so many scientific findings have unfortunately developed in recent times. ‘Monistic’ and other movements often arise because people know little of the form science has recently taken in the field in question. It is often grotesque to see how such efforts limp and lag behind scientific advances that can in no way be said to be in agreement with such things.

Yet when we speak of the theory of evolution, we also think of its early days, of all the great, idealistic hopes which Ernst Haeckel⁵⁹ had for it in the 1860s and 1870s—I do not wish to either overestimate nor underestimate him—and which he passed on to his students. I am not so much going to refer to the radical conclusions Ernst Haeckel arrived at in his day, though his scientific achievements are tremendous and often also positive. What I would like to mention is that even cautious investigators who have entered into the field—among them Naegeli⁶⁰ and Gegenbaur⁶¹—not only became aware of the fruitful nature of this theory but also demonstrated this with reference to their involvement in recent developments in the sciences. I could give a long list of names. But something strange can also be noted if we consider the relatively brief history of the theory of evolution.

Great indeed were the hopes Haeckel and his followers had for the development of Darwinian principles in natural science.⁶² Consider the role which catchwords like ‘theory of natural selection’ and ‘survival of the fittest’ have played. Some people had such hopes for a view of the world where they might say that some vague powers full of wisdom intervening in world evolution had now been overcome. People would have to realize that powers that were like powers of pure chance meet others arising from sheer natural necessity in the developmental stages of one organism or another, resulting in selection, with the fit surviving whilst the unfit do not, and the fit thus might be said to get more and more perfect compared to the unfit that has dropped away; one should not, however, think in terms of any kind of teleological principle of purpose. To this day there are people⁶³ who think they are representing modern views in saying that even if everything Darwin has presented in his theory of evolution were to disappear from this world, the progress made in disregarding ‘higher powers’, as Eduard von Hartman calls them, intervening in the purely inorganic laws of the realm of nature to let organic life arise⁶⁴—this progress cannot be undone.

Seen from a particular point of view, the thinking which has developed there, the thoughts that have come to human beings to liberate them from certain prejudices to which they used to be attached, are of particular value. But we have seen a strange thing. When Darwinism evolved, eliminating all the higher powers that were said to intervene in the evolution of organic life, Eduard von Hartmann’s book on the philosophy of the unconscious appeared in the late 1860s,⁶⁵ that is, when Darwinism was in full flower. I am not defending Hartmann, but this is simply a fact. Eduard von Hartmann was against a theory of pure chance. He said something quite different—powers giving direction, powers of a higher nature—must intervene in the lifeless, dead functions of purely inorganic natural laws if there was to be organic evolution. Selection cannot create anything new; anything new that did arise would have to arise from inner impulses; selection could only be made of things that already existed, removing anything unfit, but it did not have magical powers that would enable it gradually to let something perfect develop from something imperfect. Eduard von Hartman produced some brilliant thoughts in his refutation of Darwinism, which raised such hopes at the time, a theory of evolution in purely mechanical terms. People did not take the philosopher of the unconscious seriously because he was a philosopher and not a naturalist. They said: ‘Well, he’s an amateur and does not understand the principles of natural science; anything he has to say can be of no real value in the development of science.’ Remarks like this were used to reject the things Eduard von Hartmann had to say.

Refutations addressed to this ‘amateurish, dilettante philosopher’ were published. One, was about the unconscious from the point of view of physiology and the theory of descent, was by an anonymous author.⁶⁶ It was a brilliant refutation of Eduard von Hartmann from the point of view of Darwinism as it then was. Oskar Schmidt,⁶⁷ Darwin’s biographer, Haeckel himself, and others took a very sympathetic view of this refutation by an unknown, saying that it was excellent—this is more or less how we can sum up their views—that someone whom one could see, with every page read, to be firmly founded in the true scientific approach, was dealing with an amateur such as Eduard von Hartmann. This anonymous author—one dyed-in-the-wool Darwinist wrote—should just make himself known to us and we’ll regard him to be one of us! Someone else, also firmly grounded in mechanical Darwinist theory, said: ‘He has said everything I myself could say against Eduard von Hartmann’s amateurism.’ The man did say this. In short, the Darwinists made a lot of propaganda for this publication, which was soon sold out. A second edition had to be printed. This time the author gave his name—Eduard von Hartmann! From then on silence reigned among those who had previously praised the publication, and little further reference was made to it.

What follows may seem strange but I think it is all the more remarkable. One of Ernst Haeckels’ most important followers, someone who as a student lived wholly in the then current theories of evolution that arose in connection with Darwin’s name, was Oscar Hertwig.⁶⁸ Last year, in 1916—just consider how little time has passed since Darwinian theories were in full flower—Oscar Hertwig published a book that is truly exemplary as a scientific work. The subject is how organisms evolve—a refutation of Darwin’s theory of random chance. Eduard von Hartmann is one of the people Oscar Hertwig says should be taken note of when speaking of different powers being active in the realm of organisms from those active in the inorganic world.

It certainly is strange to see that within a relatively short time someone came from among the best people who had been developing the old theory of evolution of the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s who actually refuted one of the fundamental principles of that theory. This should give some pause for thought to people who make up their own—‘monistic’—philosophies by just putting together amateurish ideas.

I now need to go into some definite issues relating not so much to the more recent theories of evolution but to theory of evolution as such. This may show you the position that has to be taken in anthroposophically orientated spiritual science. The theory of evolution is based on considering the facts and drawing the conclusion that something perfect, ‘perfect’ as we know it today, or, perhaps better, something with a more differentiated organization, has gradually evolved from something that was less perfect, less differentiated in its organization. To prove this, scientists refer not only to geology and palaeontology but also to embryology, the theory of individual development. Oscar Hertwig’s new book is exemplary in so far as it offers a theory of individual development, though he does it by making comparisons with animal embryology. All theory of evolution must begin with the development of the individual; Haeckel established his biogenetic law to show that the embryological development of an individual shows the evolutional history of the species, so that the embryonic development of higher animals goes through the morphological and physiological functions, at a particular level, of the simpler animal forms that existed earlier.⁶⁹

Strange though it may seem, however, a theory of individual development where one seeks to apply its laws to the evolution of organisms in general will not provide the answer to a very simple question. I feel I must in fact apologize for speaking of something as commonplace as this; the matter has been discussed many times, but, as we shall see, it concerns an important principle. The question is, very simply: What came first in evolution, the chicken or the egg? The chicken comes from the egg, but—the egg can only come from a chicken.

The issue is of little importance today, when any facts you investigate take you into vagueness whichever direction you take. But it does have significance if we want to form an idea of the way in which individual development relates to world evolution. For in that case it proves necessary to consider that there must have been conditions in which the ovum, that is, the basis of individual development today, was able to evolve on its own, without descent from any kind of entities that had already reached some level of perfection. As I said, I can only refer to this briefly, but anyone who considers the issue in more detail will soon find that, though commonplace, the matter is of major importance.

If one is conscientious and honest in tackling this question, the concepts natural science has developed for embryology will not prove adequate. Somehow or other one finds oneself at what I have called the ‘frontier posts of knowledge’ in my first lecture, ‘points’ where one has to develop the higher powers of awareness in images. We might even say that such questions can provide significant stimuli for the development of inner powers that may otherwise well have continued to lie dormant in us for a long time. If we pursue the matter not using the approach where one seeks to reach behind the mirror but one where we consider the cause for the phenomena to be in front of the mirror, we find, as we progress to awareness in images, that even today it would be a serious error to say that the egg develops in the chicken through the chicken or merely because the chicken is inseminated. That is how it looks on the surface, in the mirror image, we might say. But if we develop awareness in images and are able to see what is truly there, we come to realize that the egg does indeed develop and mature under the influence of powers that come not only from the cock and the hen.

A scientific view based only on what is sense-perceptible and tangible cannot lead to any view other than that the interaction between cock and hen and the processes that occur in the hen’s body lead to the development of an egg. But if you then want to arrive at views on such a matter you will arrive at rather mystical concepts—mystical in a negative sense, the kind of concepts many people work with, even Hertwig—an example being the concept of a ‘germ, rudiment or potential’.⁷⁰

Speaking of such a ‘rudiment’, you can explain anything in the world by saying: Well, now it is there, previously it was not there, and the first thing to be there was, of course, the ‘rudiment’. This is about as clever as speaking of a ‘disposition’ with regard to certain diseases which only develop in some people under the same conditions and not in others. So you see, one can always push things further back in this way. Unless you try and somehow get a clear picture you will merely arrive at a term that has no real meaning and lacks clarity. ‘Rudiment’, ‘disposition’—those are the wrong kind of mystical terms that will only gain meaning if we are able to consider the reality that can be perceived in the spirit.

A mind with vision also sees all kinds of other things. Just as a blind person is able to see colours when he’s had an operation, so a mind with vision sees all kinds of other things. And in the present case these other things it is able to see make it clear to us that although today it is still an egg which develops in the hen, it arises from powers that are not in the hen but are brought to bear in the hen out of the universe. The hen’s body which surrounds the egg really only provides the native soil. The powers that configure the egg come from the cosmos; they come in from outside. Fertilization—I cannot go into the details today but they can be exactly determined—simply means that a possibility is created for the powers from the cosmos that are active in this site, giving them a reference point, as it were.

The egg which develops in the hen’s body has been developed out of the cosmos and is an image of the cosmos. If you find this inconceivable and cannot think of analogies in other fields, just think what it would be like if you wanted to ascribe the direction in which a magnetic needle is pointing purely to forces inherent in the needle. We do not do this; we ascribe it to a terrestrial effect, that is, forces that have to do with the whole earth. Forces from the environment influence the magnetic needle. Here, in the inorganic field, discoveries can be made purely on the basis of sensory perception. It will need a science made more productive by the science of the spirit to show that powers influence the egg that must be looked for not only in the ancestry but out there in the whole cosmos. Many different results, which will also prove of practical value, will be obtained once it is taken into account that essentially the knowledge we have in outer natural science, however sensual and factual, is merely an abstraction, something people rely on because they do not know of the more effective powers.

A mind with vision sees powers that go beyond individual nature influencing every insemination and embryonic development. These could be described in detail. In my small publication Human Life in the Light of Anthroposophy⁷¹ I refer to this method of research in another field; today I want to refer specifically to this particular field.

I truly do not feel contempt for empirical scientists, as they are now called, but admire them greatly. The results gained with the empirical approach have yielded a much richer store of human insights, I would say hundreds if not thousands of times as many human insights than the rudimentary concepts one is able to use in natural science today. When an embryologist produces facts, especially if he has been using a microscope, which has been developed to an admirable level today, a spiritual scientist following his work will say to himself: Everything the embryologist is establishing as fact may be external, sensual and factual, but when he describes how the male germ unites with the female germ, and so on, how parts of cell nuclei are repositioned so that one thing or another develops—these descriptions are extraordinarily interesting and significant—someone taking the point of view of anthroposophically orientated spiritual science sees the footsteps in all this of a comprehensive spiritual influence that simply comes to expression in the changes which are apparent to the senses. If one wanted to consider the things seen under the microscope, with all kinds of staining methods applied, to be something that stood entirely alone, something one merely had to describe to know the processes of germ cell and embryonic development, one would be like someone who goes along a road where someone else has left his footsteps and believes that those footsteps were made by inner forces in the soil and not that another person had made them. The explanation for these footprints would be quite wrong if I were to say that there are all kinds of forces down there which push the forms up from below. Instead I have to assume that someone went that way, stepping on the soil. In the same way I must consider the spiritual principle if I want to come to the real facts. The spiritual leaves its final traces, and what we see under the microscope, using staining methods, comes into existence—please forgive the expression—as if by processes of elimination.

But when a mind with vision takes hold of the matter, we also come to something else. We come to compare this process, which arose on the basis of pure empiricism, purely external experience of the facts through the senses, with something that we can only get to know of through investigations made by a mind with vision.

In the first lecture I gave an outline of what happens in human beings when they use their thinking to process sensory perceptions further, when they develop ideas. A real process occurs in the psyche, but materialistic thinkers do not consider it to be real; they limit their investigations to nerve functions. Yet once perception in images has awakened we can follow this process, which has inner reality. We cannot do so if our minds are limited to the kind of abstractions produced in modern psychology and indeed in logic—that ideas ‘connect’, are ‘reproduced’, and so on. But if we are able to develop a psychology of the kind I outlined here in my first lecture and turn the mind’s eye to this inner aspect of the way in which ideas develop and part of our feeling, this will give us something that belongs together with the discoveries our embryologist made in his field and in progressive cell development altogether. We then see in a way that is like comparing an original and its copy in a very factual way—on the one hand the inner process of forming ideas and the feeling process in the soul, and on the other hand the processes of insemination, division of the nucleus and so on, and actual cell division. We then see that the two have to do with one another—I want to put this as carefully as possible—have to do with one another in that the one represents in material form, as it were, what the other is in the sphere of soul and spirit.

Something else will also arise if we truly concentrate on this process in soul and spirit. We realize that it can only be the way it is in the human soul and spirit today, for the whole of our natural environment, with the human being within it, provides the physical body as a basis for it. If someone is truly able to see this in the spirit, the faculties that enable him truly to see the essential nature of something that belongs to the sphere of soul and spirit, will expand. We thus realize that under present-day conditions the organ which develops for forming ideas and feeling can only do so, in the way it happens today, on the condition that the whole takes place in the presence of a living human body. In its inner nature, however, the process shows itself to be one that moves back in time. Time becomes something real. It moves back in time. And you actually come to realize that what happens in us today when we think, and do part of our feeling, is indeed something which in the far, far distant past, when no such earthly environment existed, was able to develop on its own, without the human body.

This is the way—time is short, so I can only refer briefly, as it were, to the starting points for a road that goes far and wide—in which elements from the sphere of soul and spirit are related in a real way to the things that happen before our eyes in the sense-perceptible world. We then gain a very different understanding of the connection that altogether exists between sense-perceptible physical nature outside and the elements of soul and spirit that flow and billow through the world. If we then develop the things of which I have only been able to present the most elementary first beginnings, taking—if we proceed with the science of the spirit—not the external scientific approach of geology or palaeontology or Laplace’s theory but the approach based on genuine inner experience in spirit and soul, we come to states of the world that go a long way back, when it was not possible to do external, physical things, like embryonic development from a physical cell, as we know it today, but when the things that could be real at that time were in a form that belonged to spirit and soul. You look back to an element of spirit and soul that was a precursor of what happens today in the physical world perceptible to the senses.

The element of spirit and soul has withdrawn into the cosmic sphere today, as it were. It acts by the roundabout route via the living body and in a hen, let us say, if we go back to our earlier example, it causes the egg to have the density of matter which it did not need to have in the dim, distant past. However, in that dim, distant past the element of spirit and soul was able to use these powers—which one gets to know, with no need to speculate or set up hypotheses; we get to know them if we observe the inner laws of ideation and thinking from the inside—without there having to be the environment of the hen’s body, to create not a mystical ‘rudiment’ or ‘potential’, but a first thing. Later, when conditions changed, this needed to be protected by the ‘environ-body’ of the hen as it is today.

Someone working with the science of the spirit is thus on the one hand taking full account of natural science. On the other hand he has to go beyond it, beyond the things that are considered scientific today, not with speculation but with truly developed powers of insight through vision. These must replace theories and hypotheses—which are merely the outcome of speculation, thoughts that have been added—with things truly learned in the realm of the spirit. If one has advanced along this route, truly in such a way that nowhere are sins committed against facts that have been established in natural science, then the modern theory of evolution in particular will be seen in the right light.

I have to say paradoxical things at every step today, but I want to stimulate your thinking. I am exposing myself to the danger that people may hold me up to ridicule; but I want to stimulate your thinking. I merely want to say that this science of the spirit we call anthroposophy exists; it may not be accepted as yet, but it is able to offer research findings which, we believe, can be spoken of with the same scientific justification as the findings discussed in natural science that are based on sensory perceptions made with the help of microscopes and telescopes. It has to be said, not from presumption but because it is the way things are, that working with the spiritual scientific approach represented in these lectures one does not have it as easy, in many respects, as in working with natural science. So we can understand it if someone says: ‘The things he is saying are really difficult to understand.’ Comprehension will, of course, be easier if we only take note of purely factual elements, things that are immediately apparent; it is in the nature of the thing that understanding is difficult with the kind of issues I can only present briefly here. But with regard to practice, too, things are not so easy in anthroposophy. This is particularly apparent if we consider the human being as part of the natural world from its point of view, that is, not merely in theory.

As I said, I do not undervalue the theory of evolution. In fact, I believe it to be one of the most significant achievements in intellectual history. Attacks have come from people who did not understand these things particularly because in my book The Riddles of Philosophy and in other publications I made a strong case for justifying the theory of evolution. Just look in the second volume of my Riddles of Philosophy to see if I ever speak from a point of view that does not do justice to this theory of evolution. But things are not as easy in anthroposophy as they are in purely—as it is called today—empirical science. For if we consider the human being we have to say: ‘The idea that the human being, as he is in his physical form, has simply evolved from animal forms which in turn developed from lower animal forms, and so on, this idea is utterly amateurish if compared to the view taken in the science of the spirit.

If we want to consider the human being as part of the natural world from the spiritual scientific point of view, we must first of all differentiate this human being—this may seem strange, but that is how it is. Taking Goethe’s theory of metamorphosis further in a scientific way—anyone who has read my books will know that I have made special efforts in this field—one has to differentiate the human being. We cannot simply take him as a whole but have to establish a particular premise, which must, however, be a fully substantiated premise. It is this. We take the head on its own, realizing that the human being we have before us today can only be known and understood if we take the head on its own, with the rest as a kind of appendage organism—this just as an aid to understanding for the moment. The head on its own, therefore; we have to look for the descent, the origins, of this head as such. This human head—this is not entirely accurate, for the head does continue on into the trunk (this changes the situation; but after all it is only possible to speak in approximate terms about these matters). This human head, then, is indeed something with a morphology that has been transformed from other forms that lie immensely far back. We may say, therefore, that in so far as the human being has a head, he is descended from long way back. For the details I would refer you to my Occult Science and other writings. One actually finds that the entity which has gone through the transformations to make the present-day form of the human head possible must be sought much further back in time than the origins of all the animals and plants we have today. Considering the human being with regard to the head, we must therefore go back into a much earlier time.

The appended organism, as we may call it, has been added to the head—roughly speaking, for appendages existed even in early times. The head was the premise for its development. The principle which evolved, ultimately to become the human head principle, had the opportunity also to develop the remaining human organization which is close to the present-day animal body. The time when this organization evolved was also the time when general evolution had advanced so far that animals could develop.

This brings us to a strange theory of descent, though it is strange only compared to the ideas people have today. We have to say that in so far as human beings have a head they are descended from ancestors that went through a gradual transformation. In far distant times they undoubtedly had a different form from the one human beings have today, but it is really only the human head which is descended from them. It was during the time when general conditions for evolution made it possible to evolve creatures of the kind we have in the animal world today that the human being added to his human nature the elements that lie in his animal nature.

Again you have an early approach—for here, too, I can only give the elementary first beginnings—to a theory of evolution that arises if we do not believe the human head to have merely grown out of the rest of the organism, as it were, but rather that this human head is really the original part of the human being to develop, with the remaining organism added to it. It is because such an organism was added at a late stage in evolution that humanity entered into a line of evolution that may indeed be considered together with the line of evolution that was the descent of animal forms.

The discoveries made in the theory of evolution to this day provide genuine insights in this field. If one knows them really thoroughly, if one carefully—much more carefully than people are in the habit of doing in natural science today—considers also the work done in palaeontology, embryology, all the knowledge gained in the study of muscles, the investigations that can provide information on the way the human skull is built, then one is able to say to oneself: It is exactly the things not known from theory—meaning the theory modern natural scientists like Oscar Hertwig have refuted—but empirically, things that are there for us to see, which we only have to take up, letting the light that can be gained through the science of the spirit shine through them—all this offers tremendously far-reaching prospects. The modern theory of evolution has certainly served a good purpose and has not been just an aberration but on the contrary one of the most fruitful developments we have seen. In time to come it will really come into its own and prove immensely fruitful because it will cast its light incredibly far into the secrets of the universe.

If I might add something about the way I feel about the way the science of the spirit goes beyond pure and factual natural science, it is this: This theory of evolution from the second half of the 19th century is indeed the seed from which great, significant insights will come; the seed from which something will come that does not yet exist in general human awareness. And it is this which will in fact provide the best stimulus to develop a genuine philosophy, which takes its orientation from anthroposophy. This philosophy actually shows that the academic work which we think is final and conclusive and needs only be added to the facts perceived through the senses in order to explain them, that this academic approach—which we also find in a work as excellent as that by Oscar Hertwig and the works of others—does not provide real answers to our questions but only enables us to put our questions in the right way. Once they have been put in the right way they must then be answered. And the outside world will again and again provide answers if we know how to ask the right questions. If they are the right questions, the outside world will answer with the insight we gain through higher vision.

However, if I speak of a modified theory of descent, saying that we have to think of the human being the other way round, as it were, looking for his origin in the principle on which the head is based and having to make the head our starting point if we wish to understand the human being, whereas the matter is usually considered the other way round—when I say this, we must at the same time base ourselves on a genuine and true idea of the present-day human being. This brings me to another finding made in anthroposophical research relating to nature as a basis for the human being.

When people speak today of the way the soul relates to the human body, they really consider only the nervous system as the bodily ‘tool’, as it is put, though it is not a ‘tool’—we’ll be speaking about this the day after tomorrow—looking for it in the living body as a counterpart to the psyche. If you look at books on psychology today, with the first chapters always giving a kind of physiological preliminary to psychology itself, you will find that reference is really always only made to the nervous system as the ‘organ of the soul’.

Members of the audience who have heard me on a number of previous occasions will know that I’ll only rarely speak of personal things. But perhaps it is necessary this time, for I can only characterize the subject in outline. What I have to say on this is the outcome of investigations that have truly been going on for more than 30 years, taking account of everything that is relevant from physiology and related fields. Anyone with real knowledge of the findings modern physiologists and biologists have made in this field will find that they prove in every respect what I am going to tell you. To see the nervous system as something that is simply parallel to the psyche is to take a very biased view. No one has shown more clearly how biased it is than a scientist I hold in particularly high regard as one of the most outstanding psychologists, Theodor Ziehen.⁷² He, too, speaks mainly of the nervous system in discussing some of the relationships between soul and body, soul and the nature-related basis of the human being, and therefore comes to treat the emotional life—which properly considered is just as real as the life of thinking or ideas—as an appendage to the life of ideas. Theodor Ziehen does not really manage to consider the emotional life in his psychology. It is the same with other people. They will then speak of the ‘emotional overtones of ideas’; the ideas, which have their bodily counter image in the nervous system, are ‘emotive’, they say, and one need not think of a separate bodily counterpart to the emotions.

Read the psychology of Theodor Ziehen or other books—I could give you a whole list of truly excellent works in this field. You will find that when these authors come to speak of the will, they actually have no possibility whatsoever truly to speak of the will, which is a wholly real sphere in our inner life. The will simply slips from Theodor Ziehen’s grasp as he writes about physiological and psychological things; the will is simply disputed away; it does not exist for the author; in a way it exists merely as a play of ideas. Because of the existing bias, therefore, violence is done to something we quite clearly know from experience, just as serious violence is also done to other things in such investigations.

Yet if we really consider everything that has so far been achieved in physiology, this exemplary science—though much is still open to question and questionable—if we consider all the things that merely are not seen in the right light, we come to see—I can only refer to this briefly—that the whole human organism is counterpart to the whole human soul. In my latest book, Riddles of the Soul, which is due to appear shortly, or perhaps it is out already, I discussed questions concerning the limits of ordinary science and of anthroposophy, and this includes the issue which we are considering here, though again it is only presenting results. There is nothing to be said against the notion that the life of ideas has its bodily counterpart in the first place in the nervous system, though we have to see the whole situation very differently from the way it is seen in modern science; I am going to talk about this the day after tomorrow. When we want to look for a bodily counterpart to the life of ideas, we have to look to the nervous system for this.

Not so when it comes to the emotional life! I almost hesitate to put something so far-reaching in such brief words, something I have found in investigations taking not years but decades. When we speak of the emotional life, it is not possible to look for a connection between it and the life of the nerves the way we look for a connection between the life of ideas and that of the nerves. There is a connection, but it is indirect. The emotional life—this seems almost unbelievable if one takes the biased view commonly taken in modern science—has a direct connection with what we may call the breathing rhythm in all its ramifications, and this is a connection similar in nature to that between the life of ideas and the nervous system. In the nervous system one has to go into the finest ramifications; and the same applies to the rhythmical movements that originate in the breathing rhythm and then branch and divide everywhere, also influencing the brain. Comte’s ideas on the mechanics of the human body are very interesting in this respect.⁷³ The bodily counterpart of the emotional life must be sought in this rhythmical play of movements in the human being, all of them really dependent on the breathing rhythm, in rhythmical movements that also encompass the blood rhythm.

I know, ladies and gentlemen, that it must seem as if countless objections could be raised against what I have just been saying. All of them can be refuted, however. Let me draw your attention to just one of them—briefly. It would be easy to say, for instance: Well yes, the aesthetic effect of music depends on our feelings; but these feelings are aroused by sensory perception of the sounds, that is, a sensory perception of something outside, and the effect of this does of course continue on in the nervous system; so you can see—as the objection might be—that you are in error in saying that something which in its aesthetic effect is definitely dependent on our emotional life is connected with our breathing rhythm, when in fact the music is perceived by the senses and we gain this perception via the ear and the auditory nerve! This objection is illusory, for the real process is much more complex. Such things can indeed only be reached by the kind of vision that takes its orientation from the powers gained in an awareness that has vision. It is like this: In the brain, the breathing rhythm meets with the processes that occur in the nervous system. And the emotions we experience with music arise from this interaction, this encounter between the part of the breathing rhythm that extends into the life of the nerves and the structure of the nerves. The latter reacts to the breathing rhythm and this creates the feelings we have on hearing music. It is therefore possible to explain the feelings that are experienced properly if we consider the breathing rhythm, and the life of breathing altogether, to be the bodily counterpart to the life of feeling, just as we have to consider the nervous system to be the bodily counterpart to the life of ideas.

And now we come to the will impulses, to the things we do. If we examine everything people have been saying about the physiology, using the possibilities given when we are able to have awareness in vision, we find that everything which the soul experiences as our will expressed in doing has its bodily counterpart in metabolic processes. Life in the body is essentially made up of metabolic processes, breathing rhythms, and processes in the nerves; there are just two exceptions, which I’ll refer to later.

The subject gets difficult merely because a nerve must, of course, also be shown to be such that the life of nutrition or of metabolism extends into it. However, it is not the nutrition nor the metabolism in the nerve which is the bodily counterpart of the life of ideas but something entirely different. I wrote about this in my book Riddles of the Soul: in so far as the nerve depends on metabolism it merely acts as a mediator of the will process.⁷⁴ The fact that one system—metabolic system, rhythmical breathing process, nervous system—extends right into another, so that the systems are not side by side in space but change on into the other or extend into each other, makes it particularly difficult to study these things. Essentially, however, it is like this: In the nerve, the basis of the life of ideas is not the fact that it is touched by rhythm, nor the fact that it is provided with food, but yet another, very different inner activity. In the finest ramifications of the breathing rhythm it is this breathing rhythm itself which forms the basis for the life of feeling, and everything specified as metabolism in the organism, down to its subtlest ramifications, is the bodily counter image of will processes.

We have now related the whole of the soul to the whole of the human body. From the point of view of anthroposophical spiritual science, which I represent, I believe—believing this in no other way than the way one normally believes things in truly strictly scientific terms—that today we need only the facts known in physiology to substantiate fully what I have just been saying. I am convinced that the empirical sciences can be progressively developed further along these lines of orientation and will then prove immensely fruitful in all directions in life. Significant new ideas can be given in medicine, psychiatry and all possible kinds of fields if we take the whole of the human soul together with the whole of the human body in this way.

The zone of the senses, as I would call it, and the life of movement drop out of the context of the human organism in two directions. Modern science is on thin ice particularly when it comes to the theory of the senses on the one hand and the theory of movement on the other. Scientists working in psychology as well as in physiology understand very little, I would say, of these two opposite poles in human nature. This is because here human beings no longer belong wholly to themselves but partly to the outside world, with the soul living out into the outside world both in the zone of the senses, in the sphere of sensory life, and in the sphere of movement life. When human beings move, their movement involves a state of balance or dynamics that integrates the individual into the sphere or moving play of forces in the outside world. And when human beings go beyond living purely in their nerves and enter into life in the zone of the senses, that is, when their souls experience themselves right into their actual sense organs, it happens that the individual actually goes beyond his own sphere. The senses are bays where outside world extends into our lives, and we shall only have a sensible theory of the senses if we take this into account. It is something that cannot be gained by following the approaches taken in natural science today.

It has not been my intention to discuss general principles or offer general characterizations, especially in describing the relationship between anthroposophy and natural science and the human being’s foundations in the natural world. Although it can be risky to do so, I have taken individual real findings and areas where results were obtained, in order to characterize how anthroposophy should be seen in relation to established natural science. We can see that prejudices and partiality will have to be overcome in the world of science before anthroposophy can be understood. Today, sensuality—I am speaking of views taken of sensual and factual things, not sensuality in the moral sense—is even more powerful than it was at the time when the whole world raised the objection to the views of Copernicus that they went against the evidence of their senses and refused to accept them. Copernicus went against the evidence of the senses, feeling compelled to establish something for the outside world perceived through the senses which the outer evidence of the senses cannot give us. In the science of the spirit we are compelled to go beyond the evidence of the senses in yet another respect. This is sure to meet with resistance many times over. In a lecture like this, one can only point the way here and there. I would ask you, however, to take this into account. It is only too easy to criticize such pointers from a fixed and established point of view. The indications I have given can of course be criticized to the nth degree; I myself would be perfectly able to raise all the objections that can be raised. On the other hand, however, you will be able to see that providing people do not want to prevent this, the truths that live in natural science can develop further so that the more profound secrets of the world may be unveiled in far-reaching revelations.

The day after tomorrow I will be speaking of the fruitfulness and significance of this for the whole of human life in its widest sense. My subject will be the practical application of this in the sphere of morality, of social and also religious life, political life, the theory of free will and other practical applications.

I had to risk getting misunderstood because I referred to individual and real findings. Many things today militate against human beings being able to rise to the regions of genuine and actual, true life in the spirit. Today people think that to be an enlightened person one has to say about the most profound question in our hearts, which is the question of immortality—this is something else I’ll be speaking about the day after tomorrow—that this cannot be judged because man’s ability to gain scientific insight does not go that far.

Fritz Mauthner, a man with a brilliant mind, has been writing about human capacities for insight in his German dictionary of philosophy. It is a stimulating work to read, for you feel you have entered a sphere where your mind goes round and round in circles without ever getting anywhere; if you think you have a quarter of a result, it is refuted and you are taken forward again, continuing to go round in circles. Mauthner, whose great merit it is to have shown how inadequate ‘accomplished knowledge’ proves to be wherever you look, even thinks that talking of the spirit was a crafty invention made by Hegel, saying more or less that Hegel infected philosophy with the concept of the spirit which we have today, and that the earlier concept of spirit was taken purely from that of the Holy Spirit.⁷⁵ He finds that the situation with many who imagine themselves to be critical and particularly enlightened minds and indeed to be ‘spirits/minds’ [the German for ‘mind’ and ‘spirit’ is the same word Geist, tr.]—perhaps they won’t put it like that themselves, for ‘spirit’ is something they do not accept; let us say therefore to be human beings who are at the pinnacle of knowledge and insight—Mauthner says that with many of them the situation is this: People want to use their rational minds and common sense to gain insight; but ‘the rational mind is a silver axe without a handle, and common sense is a golden handle without an axe’, and people somehow want to use these two imperfect things to penetrate the essential nature of the world!

People of that kind like to refer to Goethe’s comprehensive concept of nature. Fritz Mauthner also quotes Goethe, suggesting that Goethe, too, considered the human being to be wholly part of nature. Yet even in the essay on nature, which Fritz Mauthner quotes, you find that Goethe said things like this about nature: ‘It has been thinking and is always reflective’, speaking not of the human being, of course, but of nature. The kind of nature Goethe thought of—yes, that one could accept! It is something different from the nature which generally is the subject of natural science today. If we then also consider what Goethe said to Schiller: ‘If my natural laws are supposed to be ideas then I see my ideas before my own eyes’,⁷⁶ we can find naturalism acceptable in that spirit, for it’s a naturalism that definitely does not exclude the science of the spirit but includes it. I believe that if what Goethe intended for the grand design of his theory of metamorphosis, which he developed to a high degree, but only in its elements, is taken further, developed and taken beyond into the realm of the spirit, it will be a real basis for a true science of the spirit with an anthroposophical orientation.

I know that what I have said today about the origins of man and the relationship between the human soul and body is in harmony with the Goethean approach, though the Goethean approach has been taken forward into our time and made scientific.

When people who seem to be enlightened in their criticism and refuse to accept any kind of genuine spiritual insight think they can refer to Goethe, one does have to say to them: Consider Goethe’s approach at its deepest level. What you think you find in him, and also have in you, is described in the words Goethe directed to another scientist, a man of considerable merit, who had written:

Into inner nature
No mind that has been created can ever enter,...
Happy is he to whom
She shows but her outermost shell.⁷⁷

Goethe responded:

I have heard this repeated for 60 years,
I curse it, though only in secret; ...
Nature has neither kernel nor shell,
She is everything at one and the same time;
Examine yourself most of all
If you be kernel or shell!⁷⁸

If the human being develops his kernel or core in this Goethean spirit, he will also penetrate—even if it takes infinitely long, serious and honest investigative labour—to the core, the essence of nature. For this does come to expression in the human being. Seen rightly, it is this and nothing else which is reflected in the human being. Spirit is nothing else but nature’s flower and fruit. In a certain respect nature is the root of the spirit.

That is indeed a truly Goethean approach! The science of the spirit will have to develop it scientifically.

Questions and answers

Following the lecture given in Zurich on 12 November 1917

Question. If conscious awareness correlates with death, what is the situation with animals, which also die, though one has to assume that conscious awareness is in all circumstances different from the way it is in humans?

When I am going to talk about practical aspects the day after tomorrow, I also intend—though again and again I hesitate to do so—to give brief consideration to various questions relating to a concept that is widely used today, the concept of the ‘unconscious’. This does of course also play a major role in psychoanalysis, a method that is well known here in Zurich. Important and indeed crucial questions arise in this field, and the day after tomorrow we will see, or least lightly touch on, how the attempts made in psychoanalysis to answer these crucial questions relate to the questions themselves. Today I will merely take up the idea of the unconscious, doing so with reference to your question. Eduard von Hartmann made the ‘unconscious mind’ a philosophical term. He stated the basis of existence to be firstly the natural world, secondly the conscious mind, which, however, must always be grounded in nature, and the unconscious mind, which is wholly non-physical but, of course, unconscious.

The position is, however, that in the science of the spirit one does not know what to do with the idea of the ‘unconscious’ as such. ‘Unconscious mind’ is about the same in spiritual science as ‘headless human being’ in the natural realm. It is certainly possible to think of ‘mind’ in abstract terms as being without conscious awareness, just as we can think away the head. We can make a drawing of a headless organism.

There are actually people who suffer from hysterical partial blindness, that is, their blindness is not organic but hysterical, who suffer from the defect that when they walk in the street they see only the bodies of people and never see anyone’s head. There are such people with this specific form of hysterical illness. They see only the body and no head, that is, nothing but headless people. You see, for some people, and they are exceptional, the evidence of their eyes would be that one might think human reality to be such that people had no heads. But of course that is not the reality. Thus the ‘unconscious mind’ is not real and can never be real. We’ll talk about what follows from this the day after tomorrow.

We now come to the question you asked. Animals as such certainly do not have human minds, but they do have conscious awareness. Earlier on today I had occasion to say that things are not as easy, as a rule, in the science of the spirit as they are in today’s established science, where things are considered more in terms of concepts rather than reality. Even when it comes to thinking, we have to proceed in a different way in the science of the spirit than one is generally used to today. Thus we read in our physics books that solids are impenetrable, meaning that if you have a solid at a point in space, no other body can be in that space. In the science of the spirit we cannot accept this definition as it stands but have to say, from this different point of view: A solid body or a life form which occupies a space to such effect that no other body or life form can occupy that space at the same time, is in fact impenetrable. Something given as a definition, if you like, simply changes into a postulate or something similar for the spiritual scientist.

It has to be clearly understood that animals may not have human minds but they do have conscious awareness. The point is that with our usual habit of thinking today we think that death equals death. People die, animals die, and plants, too, are allowed to die. The matter is not as simple as that when it comes to the science of the spirit. The fact that the concept is the same may not mean that the reality is also the same. Seen from an inner point of view, in its reality, human death is something very different from the death of animals. This is how we look at things in real terms! And to speak of the death of plants carries about as much meaning in the science of the spirit as if we were to speak of the death of a clock, which also ‘dies on us’ at some point; I think you’ll agree that it can die on us. This would have to come to an end, therefore. That is not the concept of death. The concept of death includes many things that make human death into something very different.

We need to consider the following. Essentially the conscious awareness of animals is such that the things which human beings send into the zone of the senses, which I mentioned earlier today, and there experience separately, are not experienced separately in the zone of the senses by animals. The things animals experience in the zone of the senses are of the same kind as the things they have as their life of ideas. That strict separation between sensory perception and idea which we can make for the human being, cannot justifiably be made for animals. This can be seen directly if the mind has developed vision; on the other hand you can also see it in the anatomy and physiology. Let me just remind you that the animal eye, for example, is inwardly organized in a completely different way than the human eye. In humans, certain elements of the eye are taken back into the internal organization, more into the organization of the nerves; in animals they extend into the eye. You will find a pecten, or marsupium, falciform process, in some animals, physical anatomical structures that may be said to show how the vital principle enters into the zone of the senses in animals. In humans this vital principle withdraws. Human beings thus experience the presence of their soul in such a way in the zone of the senses—please take careful account of this—that they experience something very different here than animals do. This experience which humans have in the zone of the senses, which develops further into image-based, inspired and intuitive awareness and then again continues on in the life of ideas and of memory—this experience in the zone of the senses gives the human mind a very different colouring, if I may put it like this, than is found in the conscious awareness of animals.

It is altogether necessary to revise many concepts. If you ask someone today which ideas are the most spiritual, being least connected with the physical body as a basis, I think very many people will agree when you say that the most philosophical ideas are the most spiritual! You see, from the point of view of spiritual science it is the philosophical ideas that are most abstract, and mathematical ideas, too, which are more than any other bound to the physical body. If there were only philosophical ideas we could be absolute materialists; these ideas are really purely physical and only have significance between birth and death. Something which people generally consider to be most spiritual is solidly founded in the physical world and in the physical body.

What matters, however, is that humans, being endowed with souls, are involved in the life of the senses in such a way that here, where the outside natural world extends into them rather like a bay, because vitality has withdrawn, they are already experiencing death all the time. In so far as this zone of the senses is inwardly reflected, the result, the conscious result of this zone, penetrates the inner life with what I have called ‘atomistic’ death.

What I mean is this. The death phenomenon is blended into life in the zone of the senses in human beings, and this makes it justifiable to speak of death in conjunction with conscious awareness in their case. In animals we have to connect the gradual fading of reproductive powers with what exists as conscious awareness. Death comes for the animal when the reproductive powers have gone; in humans, the fact that the death phenomenon comes in later has been an additional gain which does not exist for any animal. Here the human being has quite a different basis.

What I would really like to stress is that we only gain the right insight into the situation between birth and death if we connect the specific nature of human conscious awareness, which has to do with that special experience in the zone of the senses, with the much more vital experience which animals have in the zone of the senses. Animal awareness does not have that added element, if I may put it like that, which is forever bringing about death in the human conscious mind.

Question. It is possible to say something from the point of view of spiritual science about the concept of entropy in modern physics?

Concerning the modern concept of entropy one has to say first of all that anything covered by this concept is above all merely abstracted from the view taken in inorganic natural science. If we define the term by saying that the final state of present evolution will come because more and more heat remains when mechanical energy is converted to heat energy, so that ultimately the state of the world can only be a state of heat, this is an abstraction taken wholly from the laws of the inorganic world. There can be no objection to this in itself from the point of view of spiritual science. People who follow the entropy idea know that in postulating this end state one also assumes there to have been an initial state; both logically and scientifically it is necessary to assume an initial state if one then lets everything drift towards such a heat death.

From the point of view of spiritual science, the situation looks like this. Again I am immediately considering something real. In the first place, the observations made in the science of the spirit do not connect at all with an idea which is widely accepted in speculations on inorganic nature, and that is the idea of the dissipation of energies, with people always thinking that the dissipation of energies may go on to infinity. Speaking of energies in terms of modern science, I thus always think of something that goes out into infinity. On the basis of experience gained in the science of the spirit, we cannot do anything with this idea, for from the point of view of this science, and considering their morphogeny, all energies prove to be elastic. This means that when they spread out, they do not dissipate into infinity but only as far as a certain limit from which they then return into themselves. This may, however, take such a long time that it has no immediate relevance for the earth period that lies directly ahead. In the science of the spirit one does indeed have to realize that the concept of dissipation into infinity is nebulous and that any form of energy that spreads does not dissipate into infinity but returns to itself. Applying this concept in the field of entropy, we have a final state which is the polar opposite, so that the dissipating energies may come back to themselves again, as it were. This, then, is one point.

The other is the following. If you look at my Occult Science you’ll find that this state, which I refer to by the technical term ‘Saturn state’ is indeed shown to be entirely a state of heat. This on the basis of a system of spiritual observation which is a more developed form of what I have today been presenting in its elementary form. I go back and by spiritual scientific methods arrive at an initial state—which is not constructed but seen. The whole of evolution which follows arises from this heat state. When people arrive at an end state that is a heat state with their idea of entropy, this is an end state which I have to take as an initial state. The consequence is that there must then be a new beginning, starting from this. So there is no ‘beginning and end’, for beginning and end are merely a link in a sequence of evolution. The end state, when reached, would thus be merely the starting point for continuing evolution.

Question. Wouldn't it be possible that you could let the human being evolve as a simple organism in such a way that he does not arise first as a head principle, with an appendage added later? Modern scientists also work with very long time spans and an infinitely long period of evolution, and I think that with this it would be just as possible to have the human being arise as a uniform organism.

When one is dealing with such matters in a general way it will of course always be possible to say the kind of thing which the gentleman has just said. I would stress that today my aim has been to present positive and real findings made in anthroposophically orientated spiritual science, that is, to give individual examples of positive findings. One of them is indeed that if we do not want to consider the human being as solely part of the natural world, in a theoretical way—and this is what today’s lecture was about—he cannot be understood if we use the approach that is generally accepted today. The human being is of course also seen as a ‘uniform entity’ if one sees him as a head principle with appendage—I did say I was presenting this only in approximate terms. What matters is where we look for the starting point for human evolution and not if we treat the human being as a ‘uniform entity’, that is, what we look for further back in time. If we go further back in time in looking for the principle which today appears in metamorphosed form as the head, this makes the human being as an entity in the natural world different from the way he is when we use the theory of evolution to place him in world evolution in the way it is done with today’s banal Darwinism, a banal theory of descent.

It is not a matter of long time spans. Present-day hypotheses make these, too, hypothetical. Time can only have significance in an explanation if we are, as it were, configuring the before and after out of a real situation, and not simply postulating an evolutional sequence and bringing in time as something external. People presenting the theory of descent actually say that time is available to an unlimited degree. The question is, however, if anything that is available to us for such a thought actually also plays the same role in real terms when we consider the human being in absolutely real terms.

Reality organizes itself in such a way that the element I have called an appendage—the term is, of course, approximate—proves to be more recent in the process of evolution, with the head organism the earlier one. Time configures itself out of this. The lineage of the head organism goes back to far earlier times than something which is younger. It truly is a matter of having to make sure that our thinking must be wholly real in the field of spiritual science. Today I would emphasize once again that we cannot advance in the science of the spirit in any other way but by being able to relate to reality in a completely different way than is done in what is called empirical science today, a science which I would not underestimate. No one will be able to accuse me of underestimating it if they read my books. But one has to relate to reality in a very different and very real way.

Answering a question the last time I was here, I said that our ideas must be much more real. We'll also come back to this need for thinking in real terms when I speak about practical human issues and matters concerning the human psyche the day after tomorrow. Thinking in real terms means that with every idea we consider we are aware how far this idea relates to reality. You see, in abstract terms a rose I have before me is a real thing; and we may take it to be real. For a thinker whose concepts are fully connected with reality the concept of the rose can exist in no other way but that he is aware that in itself this rose is something abstract; in real terms it can only exist on a rose bush, and this in turn only in connection with the whole earth, and so on. A spiritual investigator will thus not present something as an isolated idea when in reality it is connected with something else but can be artificially taken out of this context. In pursuing his ideas, a spiritual investigator will thus always be aware of the degree to which the inner, substantial nature of ideas takes him into the real world. Here is another example, a paradox: you put a cell nucleus under the microscope to study it. You are studying it in isolation from everything that goes with it. A spiritual investigator will be fully aware of this; he knows that there is a difference if I look at a cell nucleus or a small animal under the microscope. I see the animal in its wholeness. Looking at a cell nucleus, however, I am not seeing something that is as real as that small animal, which does not grow larger and is thus a whole.

Having thus inwardly always the reality-character of the life of ideas in mind—that is one of the first preconditions for conscious awareness in vision. I made this clear in my book The Riddle of Man, published two years ago. This needs to be taken into account with such a question. I therefore said that the 19th century scientific theory of evolution has considerable merits to this day. But the issue is not dealt with in sufficiently real terms. If we want to study human evolution, it is not without significance where we start with this in the human being. It is not a valid objection, for instance, to say: ‘Here I have a life form; in its present form this life form has special climbing feet.’ There are life forms which in their present form—please forgive me for comparing a small creature with the human being, but we are in the field of science, and so it does not matter—so there are tiny creatures, lice—please forgive the rudeness—that develop special climbing feet. These feet are a product of later evolution. The original creature did not have them. They arose from adaptation to later conditions. It is important to realize that the original creature, living in different conditions, did not have such feet. This species of louse developed special climbing feet under later conditions. Many examples could be given. It is important, therefore, to see the real situation. Forgive me if I now move on to the human being. It is important to realize that the original form has the potential which in direct descent, in direct continuance, leads to the head organ, and that everything else is something acquired later. That is the real situation. And if we do not consider the human being in this way, we cannot understand him in the context of the whole evolution of nature.

Of course I can only refer to these things briefly. As I said, I’d have to give a long course if I were to give you all the details. Anthroposophy is still evolving today, and please do not consider it silly of me to say that it does not yet feel right to present anthroposophy in fully established courses. It needs to be done in form of suggestions made in individual lectures, and all one can do is refer to one thing or another. Because of this we have this imperfection which is the only possible thing in speaking like this. The things I have said, however, no more go against the view that the human being evolves as a uniform entity, than the evolution of lice that do not yet have feet to climb with into lice that do have them speaks against this being the evolution of a uniform entity. It is thus a matter of characterizing the evolutionary process, the special aspect of it. This is what matters in the present case.

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• 53. Goethe, J. W. (see note 49), Faust I, Faust’s servitor Wagner in ‘Night’. Tr. P. Wayne. Penguin Classics.
• 54. Rubner, Max (1854–1932). Die Gesetze des Energieverbrauchs beider Ernährung, Vienna 1902.
• 55. Atwater, W.O. ‘Neue Versuche über Stoff- und Kraftwechsel im menschlichen Koerper’ in Ergebnisse der Physiologie Bd 3.1904. S. 497-622.
• 56. Ebbinghaus Hermann (1850–1909), German experimental psychologist. Abriss der Psychologie, 2. Aufl. Leipzig 1909, I. Kapitel ‘Allgemeine Anschauungen’.
• 57. Eckermann reported Goethe’s views on the natural scientific thinking to which the lecture refers as follows. ‘But it is not usually enough for people to see the archetypal phenomenon; they think it must go further than this and are like children who, having looked in a mirror, immediately turn it round to see what is on the other side.’ Johann Peter Eckermann, Gespräche mit Goethe in den letzten Jahren seines Lebens, zweiter Teil, Gespräch vom 18. 2. 1829.
• 58. Steiner R. The Riddle of Man (note 3).
• 59. Haeckel, Ernst Heinrich Philipp August (1834–1919), German naturalist [Tr.]
• 60. Naegeli, Karl Wilhelm von (1817–1891), Swiss botanist. Mechanisch-physiologische Theorie der Abstammungslehre 1884.
• 61. Gegenbaur, Karl (1826–1903), German comparative anatomist. His chief work, Comparative Anatomy, was translated into English in 1878 [Tr.].
• 62. Haeckel in The Natural History of Creation (1868).
• 63. In the preface to Das Werden der Organismen (Jena 1916), Oscar Hertwig wrote: ‘For we would agree with Huxley that if Darwin’s hypothesis were to disappear, the theory of evolution would remain where it is. It is a lasting achievement of our century based on facts, and certainly one of its greatest.'
• 64. In System der Philosophie im Grundriss (Bad Sachsa 1907), Bd. II, Grundriss der Naturphilosophie, S. 172 & 208.
• 65. 1. Aufl. Berlin 1869.
• 66. Das Unbewusste vom Standpunkt der Physiologie und Deszendenz- Theorie (Berlin 1872). The second edition, this time bearing von Hartmann’s name, was published in 1877.
• 67. Schmidt criticized Eduard von Hartmann in his Die naturwissenschaftlichen Grundlagen der Philosophie des Unbewussten (Leipzig 1877), but praised the anonymous publication, saying that it had ‘fully confirmed the conviction of everyone who had not sworn an oath in favour of the unconscious that Darwinism is in the right.’
• 68. In Das Werden der Organismen (see note 63), Hertwig gave a long quote by E. von Hartmann.
• 69. ‘Ontogenesis, or the development of an individual, is a fast, short recapitulation of the phylogenesis, or evolution, of the species.’ Anthropogenie, 4. Aufl. Leipzig 1891, Bd I S. 64 (Evolution of Man 1874).
• 70. Concept used by Oscar Hertwig e.g. in Die Elemente der Entwicklungslehre des Menschen und der Wirbeltiere (Jena 1910), 4. Aufl. 4. Kapitel ‘Entwicklungsphysiologische Experimente’.
• 71. Human Life in the Light of Anthroposophy (from GA 35). Tr. S. M. K. Gandell. New York: Anthroposophic Press 1938.
• 72. Ziehen, Theodor (1862–1950). Leitfaden der physiologischen Psychologie 15 lectures, Jena 1891, S. 146. In the 9 lecture: ‘On the other hand (compared to the “older psychology” and Kant), our discussions so far have shown that feelings of inclination and disinclination simply do not exist in such an independent form but merely occur as characteristics of inner feelings and ideas, as emotional colouring.’
• 73. Comte, Auguste (1798–1857), French philosopher and social theorist. Cours de philosophie positive, 6 vols, Paris 1830-42, esp. the 40th-45th lectures.
• 74. See Von Seelenrätseln (note 1), Seite 156 f.
• 75. Literally: ‘And when Hegel had the arrogance to say that he had found the ultimate of all conceptual thought, presenting it in his head or in his system, when Hegel had infected the language of philosophy with the concept “spirit”, “nature” came to be the opposite of “spirit” ... When there is no longer contrast to nature in the human being, the mind and spirit no longer needs to “move itself’ with such effort to liberate the human being from nature. The spirit, of which no one ever knew what it was, a pale shadow of the Holy Spirit, of the decorative member of the Trinity, the spirit with which Hegel had made a final, for the time being, major attempt to drive nature out of the human being and the human being in his turn out of nature.’ Wörterbuch der Philosophie, 2. Bd., München 1910, S. 141 & 147 (Artikel ‘Natur’).
• 76. In conversation with Schiller in July 1794. Goethe wrote about this in an essay entitled ‘Glücklichs Ereignis’ in Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften (scientific writings, see note 10).
• 77. From Albrecht von Haller’s didactic poem ‘Die Falschheit menschlicher Tugenden’ (1730), verse 289 f.
• 78. In response to von Haller’s didactic poem, title ‘ Allerdings. Dem Physiker’(1820).

[ 1 ] We have presented Nietzsche's opinion about supermen as they stand before us in his last writings; Zarathustra (1883-1884), Jenseits von Gut und Böse, Beyond Good and Evil (1886), Genealogie der Moral, Genealogy of Morals. (1887), Der Fall Wagner, The Case of Wagner (1888), Götzendämmerung, The Twilight of Idols (1889). In the incomplete work, Der Wille zur Macht, The Will to Power, the first part of which appeared as Antichrist in the eighth volume of the Complete Works, these opinions have been given their most significant philosophical expression. From the text of the appendix to the above-mentioned volume, this becomes quite clear. The work is called 1. The Antichrist, attempt at a criticism of Christendom. 2. The Free Spirit, criticism of philosophy as a nihilistic movement. 3. The Immoralist, criticism of the most ominous type of ignorance: morality.

[ 2 ] At the very beginning of his writing career, Nietzsche did not express his thoughts in their most characteristic form. At first he stood under the influence of German idealism, in the manner in which it was represented by Schopenhauer and Richard Wagner. This expresses itself in his first writings as Schopenhauer and Wagner formulas, but the one who can see through these formulations into the kernel of Nietzsche's thoughts, finds in these writings the same purposes and goals which come to expression in his later works.

[ 3 ] One cannot speak of Nietzsche's development without being reminded of that freest thinker who was brought forth by mankind of the new age, namely, Max Stirner. It is a sad truth that this thinker, who fulfills in the most complete sense what Nietzsche requires of the superman, is known and respected by only a few. Already in the forties of the nineteenth century, he expressed Nietzsche's world conception. Of course he did not do this in such comfortable heart tones as did Nietzsche, but even more in crystal clear thoughts, beside which Nietzsche's aphorisms often appear like mere stammering.

[ 4 ] What path might Nietzsche not have taken if, instead of Schopenhauer, his teacher had been Max Stirner! In Nietzsche's writing no influence of Stirner whatsoever is to be found. By his own effort, Nietzsche had to work his way out of German idealism to a Stirner-like world conceptIon.

[ 5 ] Like Nietzsche, Stirner is of the opinion that the motivating forces of human life can be looked for only in the; single, real personality. He rejects all powers that wish; to form and determine the individual personality from outside. He traces the course of world history and discovers the fundamental error of mankind to be that it does not place before itself the care and culture of the individual personality, but other impersonal goals and purposes instead. He sees the true liberation of mankind in that men refuse to grant to all such goals a higher reality, but merely use these goals as a means of their self-cultivation. The free human being determines his own purposes; he possesses his ideals; he does not allow himself to be possessed by them. The human being who does not rule over his ideals as a free personality, stands under the same influence as the insane person who suffers from fixed ideas. It is all the same for Stirner if a human being imagines himself to be “Emperor of China” or if “a comfortable bourgeois imagines it is his destiny to be a good Christian, a faithful Protestant, a loyal citizen, a virtuous human being, and so on. That is all one and the same ‘fixed idea.’ The one who has never attempted and dared not to be a good Christian, a faithful Protestant, or a virtuous human being, and so on, is caught and held captive in orthodoxy, virtuousness, etc.”

[ 6 ] One need read only a few sentences from Stirner's book, Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, The Individual and his very Own, to see how his conception is related to that of Nietzsche. I shall quote a few passages from this book which are specially indicative of Stirner's way of thinking:

[ 7 ] “Pre-Christian and Christian times follow opposite goals. The former wish to idealize the real, the latter to realize the ideal. The former looks for the ‘Holy Spirit,’ the latter for the ‘transfigured body.’ For this reason, the former comes to insensitivity toward the real, with contempt for the world; the latter ends with the rejection of ideals, with ‘contempt for the spirit.’

[ 8 ] “As the stream of sanctification or purification penetrates through the old world (the washings, etc.), so the actual incorporation penetrates into the Christian; the God throws Himself into this world, becomes flesh and redeems it, that is, He fills it with Himself; but since He is ‘the idea’ or ‘the spirit,’ therefore in the end one (for example, Hegel) carries the idea into everything of this world and proves ‘that the idea, that intellect, is within all things.’ Him whom the heathen Stoics represented as ‘the wise one,’ compares with the ‘human being’ in today's culture, and each of them is a bodiless being. The unreal ‘wise one,’ this bodiless ‘holy one,’ of the stories becomes a real person, an embodied holy one, in the God who has become flesh; the unreal ‘human being,’ the bodiless I, becomes reality in the embodied I, in me.

[ 9 ] “That the individual himself is a world history and possesses in the rest of world history his essential self, transcends the usual Christian thought. To the Christian, world history is made more important because it is the history of Christ or of ‘man;’ for the egotist, only his own history has value because he wishes to develop himself, not the idea of mankind; he does not wish to develop the divine plan, the intentions of divine providence, freedom, and so on. He does not regard himself as an instrument of the idea or as a vessel of God; he acknowledges no profession, does not claim to be here for the further development of mankind, and to add his little mite, but he lives his life in indifference to this, oblivious of how well or how ill mankind itself is faring. If it would not lead to the misunderstanding that a condition of nature was to be praised, one could recall Lenaus' Drei Zigeuner, Three Gypsies:—‘What am I in the world to realize ideas?’—To bring about the realization of the idea, ‘State,’ by doing my bit for citizenship, or by marriage, as husband and father, to bring into existence the idea of family? What matters such a profession to me? I live according to a profession as little as the flower grows and perfumes the air according to a profession.

[ 10 ] “The ideal of ‘the human being’ is realized when the Christian concept is reversed in the sentence: ‘I, this unique one, am the human being.’ The conceptual question, ‘What is man?’ has then transposed itself into the personal one, ‘Who is man?’ By ‘what,’ one seeks for the concept in order to realize it; with ‘who,’ it is no longer a question at all, but the answer is immediately present within the questioner: the question answers itself.

[ 11 ] “About God one says, ‘Names do not name You.’ That also is valid for the ‘me:’ no concept expresses the ‘me;’ nothing one gives as my being exhausts me; they are only names. Likewise, one says about God that He is perfect and has no obligation to strive for perfection. This also is valid for me alone.

[ 12 ] “I am the possessor of my own power, and I am this when I know myself to be the unique one. Within this unique one the possessor of self returns again into his creative nothingness, out of which he was born. Each higher being above me, be it God or be it man, weakens the feeling of my uniqueness, and only fades before the sun of the consciousness: If I base my affairs upon myself, upon the individual, then they stand upon the temporal, upon the mortal creator who devours himself, and, I may say: [ 13 ] ‘I have based my affairs upon nothing.’”

[ 14 ] This person dependent only upon himself, this possessor of creativity out of himself alone, is Nietzsche's superman.

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[ 5 ] These Stirner thoughts would have been the suitable vessel into which Nietzsche could have poured his rich life of feeling; instead, he looked to Schopenhauer's world of concepts for the ladder upon which he could climb to his own world of thought.

[ 6 ] Our entire world knowledge stems from two roots, according to Schopenhauer's opinion. It comes out of the life of reflection, and out of the awareness of will, namely, that which appears in us as doer. The “thing in itself” lies on the other side of the world of our reflections. For the reflection is only the effect which the “thing in itself” exercises upon my organ of knowledge. I know only the impressions which the things make upon me, not the things themselves. And these impressions only form my reflections. I know no sun and no earth, but only an eye which sees a sun, and a hand which touches the earth. Man knows only that, “The world which surrounds him is only there as reflection, that is, absolutely in relation to something else: the reflected, which is he himself.” (Schopenhauer, Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, World as Will and Reflection, ¶ 1.) However, the human being does not merely reflect the world, but is also active within it; he becomes conscious of his own will, and he learns that what he feels within himself as will can be perceived from outside as movement of his body; that is, the human being becomes aware of his own acts twice: from within as reflection, and from outside as will. Schopenhauer concludes from this that it is the will itself which appears in the perceived body motion as reflection. And he asserts further that not only is the reflection of one's own body and movements based upon will, but that this is also the case behind all other reflections. The whole world then, in Schopenhauer's opinion, according to its very essence, is will, and appears to our intellect as reflection. This will, Schopenhauer asserts, is uniform in all things. Only our intellect causes us to perceive a multitude of differentiated things.

[ 17 ] According to this point of view, the human being is connected with the uniform world being through this will. Inasmuch as man acts, the uniform, primordial will works within him. Man exists as a unique and special personality only in his own life of reflection; in essence he is identical with the uniform groundwork of the world.

[ 18 ] If we assume that as he came to know Schopenhauer's philosophy, the thought of the superman already existed unconsciously, instinctively in Nietzsche, then this teaching of the will could only affect him sympathetically. In the human will Nietzsche found an element which allowed man to take part directly in the creation of the world-content. As the one who wills, man is not merely a Spectator standing outside the world-content, who makes for himself pictures of reality, but he himself is a creator. Within him reigns that divine power above which there is no other.

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[ 19 ] Out of these viewpoints within Nietzsche the ideas of the Apollonian and of the Dionysian world conceptions form themselves. He turns these two upon the Greek life of an, letting them develop according to two roots, namely, out of an art of representation and out of an art of willing. When the reflecting human being idealizes his world of reflection and embodies his idealized reflections in works of art, then the Apollonian art arises. He lends the shine of the eternal to the individual objects of reflection, through the fact that he imbues them with beauty. But he remains standing within the world of reflection. The Dionysian artist tries not only to express beauty in his works of art, but he even imitates the creative working of the world will. In his own movements he tries to image the world spirit. He makes himself into a visible embodiment of the will. He himself becomes a work of art. “In singing and dancing, man expresses himself as a member of a higher community; he has forgotten the art of walking and speaking, and is about to fly, to dance up into the air. Out of his gestures this enchantment speaks.” Geburt der Tragödie, Birth of Tragedy, ¶ 1.) In this condition man forgets himself, he no longer feels himself as an individuum; he lets the universal world will reign within him In this way Nietzsche interprets the festivals which were given by the servants of Dionysus in honor of the latter. In the Dionysian servant Nietzsche sees the archetpictures of the Dionysian artist. Now he imagines that the oldest dramatic art of the Greeks came into existence for the reason that a higher union of the Dionysian with the Apollonian had taken place. In this way he explains the origin of the first Greek tragedy. He assumes that the tragedy arose out of the tragic chorus. The Dionysian human being becomes the spectator, the observer of a picture which represents himself. The chorus is the self-reflection of a Dionysically aroused human being, that is, the Dionysian human being sees his Dionysian stimulation reflected through an Apollonian work of art. The presentation of the Dionysian in the Apollonian picture is the primitive tragedy. The assumption of such a tragedy is that in its creator a living consciousness of the connection of man with the primordial powers of the world is present. Such a consciousness expresses itself in the myths. The mythological must be the object of the oldest tragedies. When, in the development of a people the moment arrives that the destructive intellect extinguishes the living feeling for myths, the death of the tragic is the necessary consequence.

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[ 20 ] In the development of Greek culture, according to Nietzsche, this moment began with Socrates. Socrates was an enemy of all instinctive life which was bound up with powers of nature. He allowed only that to be valid which the intellect could prove in its thinking, that which was teachable. Through this, war was declared upon the myth, and Euripides, described by Nietzsche as the pupil of Socrates, destroyed tragedy because his creating sprang no longer out of the Dionysian instinct, as did that of Aeschylus, but out of a critical intellect. Instead of the imitation of the movements of the world spirit's will, in Euripides is found the intellectual knitting together of individual events within the tragic action.

I do not ask for the historical justification of these ideas of Nietzsche. Because of them he was sharply attacked by a classical philologist. Nietzsche's description of Greek culture can be compared to the picture a man gives of a landscape which he observes from the summit of a mountain; it is a philological presentation of a description which a traveler could give who visits each single little spot. From the top of the mountain many a thing is distorted, according to the laws of optics.

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[ 21 ] What comes into consideration here is the question: What task does Nietzsche place before himself in his Geburt der Tragödie, Birth of Tragedy? Nietzsche is of the, opinion that the older Greeks well knew the sufferings of existence. “There is the old story that for a long time King Midas had chased the wise Silenus, the companion of Dionysus, without being able to catch him. When the latter had finally fallen into his hands, the king asked, ‘What is the very best and the most excellent for the human being?’ Then, rigid and immovable, the demon remained, silent, until, forced by the king he finally broke out into shrill laughter with these words: ‘Miserable temporal creature! Child of accident and misery! Why do you force In to tell you what is most profitable for you not to hear? The very best for you is entirely unattainable, namely, not to be born, not to exist, to be nothing. But the second best is for you to die soon.’” (Geburt der Tragödie, Birth of Tragedy, ¶ 3.) In this saying Nietzsche finds a fundamental feeling of the Greeks expressed. He considers it a superficiality when one presents the Greeks as a continually merry, childishly playful people. Out of the tragic feeling of the Greeks had to arise the impulse to create something whereby existence became bearable. They looked for justification of existence, and found this within the world of the Gods and in their art. Only through the counter image of the Olympic Gods and art could raw reality become bearable for the Greeks. The fundamental question in the Geburt der Tragödie, Birth of Tragedy, and for Nietzsche himself is, To what extent does Greek art foster life, and to what extent does it maintain life? Nietzsche's fundamental instinct in regard to art as a life-fostering power, already makes itself known in this first work.

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[ 22 ] Still another fundamental instinct of Nietzsche's is to be observed in this work. It is his aversion toward the merely logical spirit, whose personality stands completely under the domination of his intellect. From this aversion stems Nietzsche's opinion that the Socratic spirit was the destroyer of Greek culture. Logic for Nietzsche is merely a form in which a person expresses himself. If no further modes of expression are added to this form, then the personality appears as a cripple, as an organism in which the necessary organs are atrophied. Because in Kant's writings Nietzsche could discover only the pondering intellect, he called Kant a “mis-grown concept cripple.” Only when logic is the means of expression of deeper fundamental instincts of a personality does Nietzsche grant it validity. Logic must be the outflow for the super-logical in a personality. Nietzsche always rejected the Socratic intellect. We read in the Götzendämmerung, Twilight of Idols, “With Socrates the Greek taste reverses in the direction of dialectic; what is it that really happens? Above all, an aristocratic taste is overthrown; the common people get the upper hand with dialectic. Before Socrates, the dialectic manners were rejected in good society; they were considered bad manners, they merely posed.” (Problem of Socrates, ¶ 5.) If powerful fundamental instincts do not uphold a position, then the intellect which has to ‘prove’ sets in, and tries to support the matter by legal artifices.

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[ 23 ] Nietzsche believed that in Richard Wagner he recognized a restorer of the Dionysian spirit. Out of this belief he wrote the fourth of his Unzeitgemässen Betrachtungen, Untimely Observations, Richard Wagner in Bayreuth, 1875. During this time he was still a strong believer in the interpretation of the Dionysian spirit which he had constructed for himself with the aid of Schopenhauer's philosophy. He still believed that reality was solely human reflection, and that beyond the world of reflection was the essence of things in the form of primordial will. And the creative Dionysian spirit had not yet become for him the human being creating out of himself, but was the human being forgetting himself and arising out of primordial willing. For him, Wagner's music-dramas were pictures of the ruling primordial will, created by one of those Dionysian spirits abandoned to this same primordial will.

[ 24 ] And since Schopenhauer saw in music an immediate image of the will, Nietzsche also believed that he should see in music the best means of expression for a Dionysian creative spirit. To Nietzsche, the language of civilized people appears sick. It can no longer be the simple expression of feelings, because words must gradually be used more and more to express the increasing intellectual conditioning of the human being. But, because of this, the meaning of words has become abstract, has become poor. They can no longer express what the Dionysian spirit feels, who creates out of this primordial will. The Dionysian spirit, therefore, is no longer able to express himself in the dramatic element in words. He must call upon other means of expression to help, above all, upon music, but also upon other arts. The Dionysian spirit becomes a dithyrambic dramatist. This concept “is so all encompassing that it includes at the; same time, the dramatist, the poet, the musician” ... “Regardless how one may imagine the development of the archetypal dramatist, in his maturity and completeness he is a figure without any hindrances whatsoever and without any gaps; he is the really free artist, who can do nothing but think in all the arts at the same time, the mediator and conciliator between apparently separate spheres, the reconstructor of a unity and totality of artistic possibilities which cannot be at all conjectured or inferred, but can be shown only through the deed.” (Richard Wagner in Bayreuth, ¶ 7) Nietzsche revered Richard Wagner as a Dionysian spirit, and Richard Wagner can only be described as a Dionysian spirit as Nietzsche represented the latter in the above mentioned work. His instincts are turned toward the beyond; he wants to let the voice of the beyond ring forth in his music. I have already indicated that later Nietzsche found and could recognize those of his instincts which by their own nature were directed toward this world. He had originally misunderstood Wagner's art because he had misunderstood himself, because he had allowed his instincts to be tyrannized by Schopenhauer's philosophy. This subordination of his own instincts to a foreign spirit power appeared to him later like a sickness. He discovered that he had not listened to his instincts, and had allowed himself to be led astray by an opinion which was not in accord with his, that he had allowed an art to work upon these instincts which could only be to their disadvantage, and which finally had to make them ill.

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[ 25 ] Nietzsche himself described the influence which Schopenhauer's philosophy, which was antagonistic to his basic impulses, had made upon him. He described it when he still believed in this philosophy, in his third Unzeitgemässen Betrachtung, Schopenhauer als Erzieher, Untimely Observations, Schopenhauer as Educator (1874) at a time when Nietzsche was looking for a teacher. The right teacher can only be one who works upon the pupil in such a way that the inmost kernel of the pupil's being develops out of the personality. Every human being is influenced by the cultural media of the time in which he lives. He takes into himself what the time has to offer in educational material. But the question is, how can he find himself in the midst of all that is pressing in upon him from outside; how can he spin out of himself what he, and only he, and nobody else can be. “The human being who does not wish to belong to the masses needs only to stop being comfortable with himself; he should follow his voice of conscience which calls to him, Be yourself! That is not innately you, that which you are now doing, now intending, now desiring! Thus speaks the human being to himself, who one day discovers that he has always been satisfied to take educational material into himself from outside.” (opus cit, ¶ 1) Through the study of Schopenhauer's philosophy, Nietzsche found himself nevertheless, even if not yet in his most essential selfhood. Nietzsche strove unconsciously to express himself simply and honestly, according to his own basic impulses. Around him he found only people who expressed themselves in the educational formulas of their time, who hid their essential being behind these formulas. But in Schopenhauer Nietzsche discovered a human being who had the courage to make his personal feelings regarding the world into the content of his philosophy: “the hearty well being of the speaker” surrounded Nietzsche at the first reading of Schopenhauer's sentences. “Here is an harmonious, strengthening air; this is what we feel; here is a certain inimitable unreservedness and naturalness, as in those people who feel at home with themselves, and indeed are masters of a very rich home, in contrast to those writers who admire themselves most when they have been intellectual and whose writing thereby receives something restless and contrary to nature.” “Schopenhauer speaks with himself, or, if one absolutely must imagine a listener, then one should imagine a son whom the father instructs. It is a hearty, rough, good-natured expressing of one's mind to a listener who listens with love.” (Schopenhauer ¶ 2) What attracted Nietzsche to Schopenhauer was that he heard a human being speak who expressed his innermost instincts.

[ 26 ] Nietzsche saw in Schopenhauer a strong personality who was not transformed through philosophy into a mere intellectual, but a personality who made use of logic merely to express the super-logic, the instinctive in himself. “His yearning for a stronger nature, for a healthier and simpler mankind, was a yearning for himself, and as soon as he had conquered his time within himself, then with astonished eyes, he had to see the genius within himself.” (Schopenhauer ¶ 3.) Already in those days the striving after the idea of the superman who searches for himself as the meaning of his own existence was working in Nietzsche's mind, and such a searcher he found in Schopenhauer. In such human beings he saw the purpose, indeed, the only purpose of, world existence; nature appeared to him to have reached a goal when she brought forth such a human being. Here “Nature, who never leaps, has made her only jump, and indeed a jump of joy, for she feels herself for the first time) at the goal, where she comprehends that she must abandon having goals.” (Schopenhauer ¶ 5) In this sentence lies the kernel of the conception of the superman. When he wrote this sentence Nietzsche wanted exactly the same thing that he later wanted from his Zarathustra, but he still lacked the power to express this desire in his own language. Already at the time when he wrote his Schopenhauer book, he saw in his conception of the superman, the fundamental idea of culture.

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[ 27 ] In the development of the personal instincts of the single human being, Nietzsche sees the goal of all human development. What works contrary to this development appears to him as the fundamental sin against mankind. But there is something within the human being which rebels in a quite natural way against his free development. The human being does not allow himself to be led only by his impulses, which are always active within him at every single moment, but also by all that he has collected in his memory. The human being remembers his own experiences. He tries to create for himself a consciousness of the experiences of his nation, his tribe, yes, of all mankind through the course of history. Man is an historical being. The animals live unhistorically: they follow impulses which are active within them at one single moment. Man lets himself be determined through his past. When he wants to undertake something he asks himself, What have I or someone else already experienced with a similar undertaking? Through the recollection of an experience the stimulus for an action can be completely killed. From the observation of this fact, the question arises for Nietzsche: To what extent does the human being's memory capacity benefit his life, and to what extent does it work to his disadvantage? The recollection which tries to encompass things which the human being himself has not experienced, lives within him as an historical sense, as study of the past. Nietzsche asks, To what extent does the historical sense foster life? He tries to give the answer to this question in his second Unzeitgemässen Betrachtung, Von Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben, Untimely Observations, On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life (1873). The occasion for this writing was Nietzsche's perception that the historical sense among his contemporaries, especially among the scholars, had become an outstanding characteristic. To probe deeply into the past: this type of study Nietzsche found praised everywhere. Only through knowledge of the past was man to gain the capacity to differentiate between what is possible and what is impossible for him; this confession of faith drummed itself into his ears. Only the one who knows how a nation has developed can estimate what is advantageous for its future; this cry Nietzsche heard. Yes, even the philosophers wished to think up nothing new, but would rather study the thoughts of their ancestors. This historical sense worked paralysingly upon the creativity of the present. In the one who, with every impulse that stirs within him, has to determine first to what end a similar impulse has led in the past, the forces are lamed before they have become active. “Imagine the extreme example of a human being who simply does not possess the power to forget, who is condemned to see a coming into being everywhere; such a man no longer would believe in his own being, he would no longer believe in himself; he would see everything diffusing in moving fragments, and would lose himself in this stream of becoming. ... Forgetting is a part of all actions, just as not only light, but also darkness is a part of all organic life. A human being who would wish to feel only historically through and through, would be similar to the human being who is forced to do without sleep, or the animal who is compelled to live only by chewing the cud, over and over again.” (History, ¶ 1) Nietzsche is of the opinion that the human being can stand only as much history as is in accordance with his creative forces. The strong personality carries out his intention in spite of the fact that he remembers the experiences of the past; yes, perhaps just because of the recollection of these experiences, he would experience a strengthening of his forces. But the forces of the weak person are erased by this historical sense. To determine the extent, and through that the boundary “where the past must be forgotten if it is not to become the grave-digger of the present, one would have to know exactly the extent of the plastic forces of a human being, of a nation, of a culture; I mean, that power to grow out of oneself in a unique way, to transform and to incorporate the past and the foreign.” (History ¶ 1.)

[ 28 ] Nietzsche is of the opinion that the historical should be cultivated only to the extent that it is necessary for the health of an individual, of a nation, or of a culture. What is important to him is “to learn more about making history of life.” (History, ¶ 1) He attributes to the human being the right to cultivate history in a way that produces, if possible, a fostering of the impulses of a certain moment, of the present. From this point of view he is an opponent of the other attitude toward history which seeks its salvation only in “historical objectivity,” which wants only to see and relate what happened in the past “factually,” which seeks only for the “pure, inconsequential” knowledge, or more clearly, “the truth from which nothing develops.” (History, ¶ 6) Such an observation can come only from a weak personality, whose feelings do not move with the ebb and flow when it sees the stream of happenings pass by it. Such a personality ”has become a re-echoing passivism, which through its resounding, reacts upon other similar passiva, until finally the entire air of an age is filled with a confused mass of whirring, delicate, related after-tones.” (History, ¶ 6) But that such a weak personality could re-experience the forces which had been active in the human being of the past, Nietzsche does not believe: “Yet it seems to me that in a certain way one hears only the overtones of each original and historical chief tone; the sturdiness and might of the original is no longer distinguishable from the spherically thin and pointed sound of the strings. While the original tone arouses us to deeds, tribulations, terrors, the latter lulls us to sleep and makes us weak enjoyers; it is as if one had arranged an heroic symphony for two flutes, and had intended it for the use of dreaming opium smokers.” (History, ¶ 6) Only he can truly understand the past who is able to live powerfully in the present, who has strong instincts through which he can discern and understand the instincts of the ancestors. He pays less attention to the factual than to what can be deduced from the facts. “It would be to imagine a writing of history which contained not the least drop of ordinary empirical truth, and yet could make the highest demands upon the predicate of objectivity.” (History, ¶ 6) He would be the master of such historical writing who had searched everywhere among the historical personages and events for what lies hidden behind the merely factual. But to accomplish this he must lead a strong individual life, because one can observe instincts and impulses directly only within one's own person. “Only out of the strongest power of the present may you interpret the past; only when you apply the strongest exertion of your most noble traits of character will you divine what is worthy to be known and to be preserved from the past, and what is great. Like through like! Otherwise you draw what is passed down to yourselves.” “The experienced and thoughtful writes all history. The one who has not experienced something greater and higher than others also will not know how to interpret something great and high out of the past.” (History, ¶ 6)

[ 29 ] In regard to the growing importance of the historic sense in the present, Nietzsche judges, “That the human being learn above all to live and to use history only in the service of the life which has been experienced.” (History, ¶ 10) He wants above all things a “teaching of health for life,” and history should be cultivated only to the extent that it fosters such a teaching of health.

[ 30 ] What is life-fostering in such an observation of history? This is the question Nietzsche asks in his History, and with this question he stands already at the place which he described in the above-mentioned sentence from Jenseits von Gut und Böse, Beyond Good and Evil, page 9.

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[ 31 ] The soul mood of the bourgeois Philistine works especially strongly against the sound development of the basic personality. A Philistine is the opposite of a human being, who finds his satisfactions in the free expression of his native capacities. The Philistine will grant validity to this expression only to the extent that it adapts to a certain average of human ability. As long as the Philistine remains within his boundaries, no objection is to be made against him. The one who wants to remain an average human being will have to settle this with himself. Among his contemporaries Nietzsche found those who wanted to make their narrow-minded soul mood the normal soul mood of all men; who regarded their narrow-mindedness as the only true humanity. Among these he counted David Friedrich Strauss, the aesthete, Friedrich Theodore Vischer, and others. He thinks Vischer, in a lecture which the latter held in memory of Holderlin, set aside this Philistine faith without conquering it. He sees this in these words: “He, (Holderlin) was one of those unarmed souls, he was the Werther of Greece, hopelessly in love; it was a life full of softness and yearning, but also strength and content was in his willing, and greatness, fullness, and life in his style, which reminds one here and there of Aeschylus. However, his spirit had too little hardness: it lacked humor as a weapon; he could not tolerate it that one was not a barbarian if one was a Philistine.” (David Strauss, ¶ 2) The Philistine will not exactly discount the right to existence of the outstanding human beings, but he means that they will die because of reality, if they do not know how to come to terms with the adaptations which the average human being has made regarding his requirements. These adaptations are once and for all the only thing which is real, which is sensible, and into these the great human being must also fit himself. Out of this narrow-minded mood has David Strauss written his book, Der alte und der neue Glaube, The Old and the New Faith. Against this book, or rather, against the mood which comes to expression in this book, is directed the first of Nietzsche's Unzeitgemässen Betrachtungen, David Strauss, der Bekenner und Schriftsteller, Untimely Observations: David Strauss, the Adherer and Writer (1873). The impression of the newer natural scientific achievements upon the Philistine is of such a nature that he says, “The Christian point of view of an immortal heavenly life, along with all the other comforts of the Christian religion, has collapsed irretrievably.” (David Strauss, ¶ 4) He will arrange his life on earth comfortably, according to the ideas of natural science; that is so comfortably that it answers the purposes of the Philistine. Now the Philistine shows that one can be happy and satisfied despite the fact that one knows that no higher spirit reigns over the stars, but that only the bleak, insensate forces of nature rule over all world events. “During these last years we have taken active part in the great national war and the setting up of the German State, and we find ourselves elated in our inmost being by this unexpected, majestic turn of events concerning our heavily-tried nation. We further the understanding of these matters by historical studies which nowadays, through a series of attractive and popular historical books, is made simple for the layman as well; in addition, we try to broaden our knowledge of natural science, for which also there is no lack of generally understandable material; and finally, we discover in the writings of our great poets, in the performances of the works of our great musicians, a stimulation for spirit and soul, for fantasy and humor, which leaves nothing to be desired. Thus we live, thus we travel, full of joy.” (Strauss, Der alte und neue Glaube, The Old and New Faith, ¶. 88)

[ 32 ] The gospel of the most trivial enjoyment of life speaks, from these words. Everything that goes beyond the trivial, the Philistine calls unsound. About the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven, Strauss says that this work is only popular with those for whom “the baroque stands as the talented, the formless as the noble” (Der alte und neue Glaube, The Old and New Faith, ¶ 109); about Schopenhauer, the Messiah of Philistinism knows enough to announce that for such an “unsound and unprofitable” philosophy as Schopenhauer's, one should waste no proofs, but quips and sallies alone are suitable. (David Strauss, ¶ 6) By sound, the Philistine means only what accords with the average education.

[ 33 ] As the moral, archetypal commandment, Strauss presents this sentence: “All moral action is a self-determining of the individual according to the idea of species.” (Der alte und neue Glaube, The Old and New Faith, ¶ 74) Nietzsche replies to this, “Translated into the explicit and comprehensible, it means only: Live as a human being and not as a monkey or a seal. This command, unfortunately, is completely useless and powerless, because in the concept, human being, the most manifold concepts are united beneath the same yoke; for example, the Patagonian and Magister Strauss; and because no one would dare to say with equal right, Live as a Patagonian, and, Live as Magister Strauss!” (David Strauss, ¶ 7)

[ 34 ] It is an ideal, indeed, an ideal of the most lamentable kind, which Strauss wishes to set before men. And Nietzsche protests against it; he protests because in him a lively instinct cries out, Do not live like Magister Strauss, but live as is proper for you.

40.

[ 35 ] Only in the writing, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, Human, All Too-Human, (1878), does Nietzsche appear to be free from the influence of Schopenhauer's way of thinking. He has given up looking for supernatural causes for natural events; he seeks natural proofs for understanding. Now he regards all human life as a kind of natural happening; in the human being he sees the highest product of nature. One lives “finally among human beings, and with one's self as in nature, without praise, without reproach, ambition, enjoying one's self in many things, as in a play, before which until now one had been full of fear. One would be free of the emphasis, and would no longer feel the goading of thoughts that one was not only nature or was more than nature ... rather must a human being, from whom the usual fetters of life have fallen away to such an extent that he continues to live on, only to know ever more how to renounce much, Yes, almost everything upon which other human beings place value, without envy and discontent; for him, that most desirable condition, that free, fearless floating above human beings, customs, laws and the usual evaluation of matter, must suffice.” Menschlices Alizumenschliches, Human, All Too Human, ¶ 34. Nietzsche has already given up all faith in ideals; he sees in human action only consequences of natural causes, and in the recognition of these causes he finds his satisfaction. He discovers that one receives an erroneous idea of things when one sees in them merely what is illuminated by the light of idealistic knowledge. What lies in the shadow of things would escape one, Nietzsche now wants to learn to know not only the bright but also the shadow side of things. Out of this striving comes the work, Der Wanderer und sein Schatten, The Wanderer and his Shadow (1879). In this work he wishes to grasp the manifestations of life from all sides. In the best sense of the word, he has become a “philosopher of reality,”

[ 36 ] In his Morgenröte, Dawn (1881), he describes the moral process in the evolution of mankind as a natural event. Already in this writing he shows that there is no super-earthly moral world order, no eternal law of good and evil, and that all morality has originated from the natural drives and instincts ruling within the human being. No the way is cleared for Nietzsche's original journey. When no superhuman power can lay a binding obligation upon man, he is justified in giving his own creativity free reign. This knowledge is the motif of Fröhliche Wissenschaft, Joyful Wisdom (1882). No longer are fetters placed upon Nietzsche's “free” knowledge. He feels destined to create new values, having discovered the origin of the old, and having found that they are but human, not divine values. He now dares to throwaway what goes against his instinct, and to substitute other things which are in accord with his impulses: “We, the new, the nameless, the incomprehensible, we firstlings of a yet untried future, we require for a new purpose a new means, namely a new health, a stronger, sharper, tougher, bolder, more audacious health than any previous states of health. The one whose soul bursts to experience the whole range of hitherto recognized values and wishes, and whose soul thirsts to sail around all shores of this ideal ‘Mediterranean,’ wants to know from his most personal adventures how it feels to be a conqueror and discoverer of ideals ... he requires one thing above all, health ... And now, after having been long on the way, we Argonauts of the ideal, more courageous perhaps than prudent, it will seem to us as recompense for it all that we have before us a still undiscovered land ... After such outlooks and with such a craving in our conscience and consciousness, how can we allow ourselves to be satisfied with the man of the present day?” (Fröhliche Wissenschaft, Joyful Wisdom, ¶ 382)

41.

[ 37 ] Out of the mood characterized in the sentences cited above, arose Nietzsche's picture of the superman. It is the Counter-picture of the man of the present day; it is, above all, the counter-picture of Christ. In Christianity, the opposition to the cultivation of the strong life has become religion. (Antichrist, ¶ 5) The founder of this religion teaches that before God that is despicable which has value in the eyes of man. In the “Kingdom of God” Christ will find everything fulfilled which on earth appeared to be incomplete. Christianity is the religion which removes all care of earthly life from man; it is the religion of the weak, who would gladly have the commandment set before them, “Struggle not against evil, and suffer all tribulation,” because they are not strong enough to withstand it. Christ has no understanding for the aristocratic personality, which wants to create its own power out of its own reality. He believes that the capacity for seeing the human realm would spoil the power of seeing the Kingdom of God. In addition, the more advanced Christians who no longer believe that they will resurrect at the end of time in their actual physical body in order to be either received into Paradise or thrown into Hell, these Christians dream about “divine providence,” about a “supersensible” order of things. They also believe that man must raise himself above his merely terrestrial goals, and adapt himself to an ideal realm. They think that life has a purely spiritual background, and that it is only because of this that it has value. Christianity will not cultivate the instincts for health, for beauty, for growth, for symmetry, for perseverance, for accumulation of forces, but hatred against the intellect, against pride, courage, aristocracy, against self-confidence, against the freedom of the spirit, against the pleasures of the sense world, against the joys and brightness of reality, in which the human being lives. (Antichrist, ¶ 21) Christianity describes the natural as downright “trash.” In the Christian God, a Being of the other world, that is, a nothingness, is deified; the will to be nothing is declared to be holy. (Antichrist, ¶ 18) For this reason, Nietzsche fights against Christianity in the first book of Unwertung aller Werte, Transvaluation of all Values. And in the second and third books he wanted to attack the philosophy and morality of the weak, who only feel themselves comfortable in the role of dependents. The species of human being whom Nietzsche wishes to see trained because he does not despise this life, but embraces this life with love and elevates it in order to believe that it should be lived only once, is “ardent for eternity,” (Zarathustra, Third Part, The Seven Seals) and would like to have this life lived infinite times. Nietzsche lets his Zarathustra be “the teacher of the eternal return.”

“Behold, we know ... that all things eternally return, and ourselves with them, and that we have already existed times without number, and all things with us.” (Zarathustra, Third Part, The Convalescent)

[ 38 ] At present it seems impossible for me to have a definite opinion about what idea Nietzsche connected with the words “eternal return.” It will be possible to say something more specific only when Nietzsche's notes for the incomplete parts of his Willens zur Macht, Will to Power, have been published in the second part of the complete edition of his works.

By Edouard Schuré

Many of even the most cultivated men of our time have a very mistaken idea of what is a true mystic and only true occultist. They know these two forms of human mentality only by their imperfect or degenerate types, of which recent times have afforded but too many examples. To the intellectual man of the day, the mystic is a, kind of fool and visionary who takes his fancies for facts; the occultist is a dreamer or a charlatan who abuses public credulity in order to boast of an imaginary science and of pretended powers. Be it remarked, to begin with, that this definition of mysticism, though deserved by, some, would be as unjust as erroneous if one sought to apply it to such personalities as Joachim del Fiore of the thirteenth century, Jacob Boehme of the sixteenth, or St. Martin, who is called “the unknown philosopher,” of the eighteenth century. No less unjust and false would be the current definition of the occultist if one saw in it the slightest connection with such earnest seekers as Paracelsus, Mesmer, or Fabre d'Olivet in the past, as William Crookes, de Rochat, or Camille Flammarion in the present. Think what we may of these bold investigators, it is undeniable that they have opened out regions unknown to science, and furnished the mind with new ideas.

No, these fanciful definitions can at most satisfy that scientific dilettantism which hides its feebleness under a supercilious mask to screen its indolence, or the worldly scepticism which ridicules all that threatens to upset its indifference. But enough of these superficial opinions. Let us study history, the sacred and profane books of all nations, and the last results of experimental science; let us subject all these facts to impartial criticism, inferring similar effects from identical causes, and we shall be forced to give quite another definition of the mystic and the occultist.

The true mystic is a man who enters into full possession of his inner life, and who, having become cognisant of his sub-consciousness, finds in it, through concentrated meditation and steady discipline, new faculties and enlightenment. These new faculties and this enlightenment instruct him as to the innermost nature of his soul and his relations with that impalpable element which underlies all, with that eternal and supreme reality which religion calls God, and poetry the Divine. The occultist, akin to the mystic, but differing from him as a younger from an elder brother, is a man endowed with intuition and with synthesis, who seeks-to penetrate the hidden depths and foundations of Nature by the methods of science and philosophy: that is to say, by observation and reason, methods invariable in principle., but modified in application by being adapted to the descending kingdoms of Spirit or the ascending kingdoms of Nature, according to the vast hierarchy of beings and the alchemy of the creative Word.

The mystic, then, is one who seeks for truth, and the divine directly within himself, by a gradual detachment and a veritable birth of his higher soul. If he attains it after prolonged effort, he plunges into his own glowing centre. Then he immerses himself, and identifies himself with that ocean of life which is the primordial Force.

The occultist, on the other hand, discovers, studies, and contemplates this same Divine outpouring given forth in diverse portions, endowed with force, and multiplied to infinity in Nature and in Humanity. According to the profound saying of Paracelsus: he sees in all beings the letters of an alphabet, which, united in man, form the complete and conscious Word of life. The detailed analyses that he makes of them, the syntheses that he constructs with them; are to him as so many images and forecastings of this central Divine, of this Sun of Beauty, of Truth and of Life, which he sees not, but which is reflected and bursts upon his vision in countless mirrors.

The weapons of the mystic are concentration and inner vision; the weapons of the occultist are intuition and synthesis. Each corresponds to the other; they complete and presuppose each other.

These two human types are blended in the Adept, in the higher Initiate. No doubt one or the other, and often both, are met with in the sounders of great religions and the loftiest philosophies. No doubt also they are to be found again, in a less, but still very remarkable degree, among a certain number of personages who have played a great part in history as reformers, thinkers, poets, artists, statesmen.

Why, then, should these two types of mind, which represent the highest human faculties, and ere formerly the object of universal veneration, usually appear to us now as merely deformed and travestied? Why have they become obliterated? Why should they have fallen into such discredit?

That is the result of a profound cause existing in an inevitable necessity of human evolution.

During the last two thousand years, but especially since the sixteenth century, humanity has achieved a tremendous work, namely, the conquest of the globe and the constitution of experimental science, in what concerns the material and visible world.

That this gigantic and Herculean task should be successfully accomplished, it was necessary that there should be a temporary eclipse of man's transcendental faculties, so that his whole power of observation might be concentrated on the outer world. These faculties, however, have never been extinct or even inactive. They lay dormant in the mass of men; they remained active in the elect, far from the gaze of the vulgar.

Now, they are showing themselves openly under new forms. Before long they will assume a leading and directing importance in human destinies. I would add that at no period of history, whether among the nations of the ancient Aryan cycle, or in the Semitic civilizations of Asia and Africa—whether in the Graeco-Latin world, or in the middle ages and in modern times, have these royal faculties, for which positivism would substitute its dreary nomenclature, ever ceased to operate at the beginning and in the background of all great human creations and of all fruitful work. For how can we imagine a thinker, a poet, an inventor, a hero, a master of science or of art, a genius of any kind, without a mighty ray of those two master-faculties, which make the mystic and the occultist—the inner vision and the sovereign intuition?

Rudolf Steiner is both a mystic and an occultist. These two natures appear in him in perfect harmony. One could not say which of the two predominates over the other. In intermingling and blending, they have become one homogeneous force. Hence a special development in which outward events play but a secondary part.

Dr. Steiner was born in Upper Austria in 1861. His earliest years were passed in a little town situated on the Leytha, on the borders of Styria, the Carpathians, and Hungary. From childhood his character was serious and concentrated. This was followed by a youth inwardly illuminated by the most marvellous intuitions, a young manhood encountering terrible trials, and a ripe age crowned by a mission which he had dimly foreseen from his earliest years, but which was only gradually formulated in the struggle for truth and life. This youth, passed in a mountainous and secluded region, was happy in its way, thanks to the exceptional faculties that he discovered in himself. He was employed in a Catholic church as a choir boy. The poetry of the worship, the profundity of the symbolism, had a mysterious attraction for him; but, as he possessed the innate gift of seeing souls, one thing terrified him. This was the secret unbelief of the priests, entirely engrossed in the ritual and the material part of the service. There was another peculiarity: no one, either then or later, allowed himself to talk of any gross superstition in his presence, or to utter any blasphemy, as if those calm and penetrating eyes compelled the speaker to serious thought. In this child, almost always silent, there grew up a quiet and inflexible will, to master things through understanding. That was easier for him than for others, for he possessed from the first that self-mastery, so rare even in the adult, which gives the mastery over others. To this firm will was added a warm, deep, and almost painful sympathy; a kind of pitiful tenderness to all beings and even to inanimate nature. It seemed to him that all souls had in them something divine. But in what a stony crust is hidden the shining gold! In what hard rock, in what dark gloom lay dormant the precious essence? Vaguely as yet did this idea stir within him—he was to develop it later—that the divine soul is present in all men, but in a latent, state. It is a sleeping captive that has to be awakened from enchantment.

To the sight of this young thinker, human souls became transparent, with their troubles, their desires, their paroxysms of hatred or of love. And it t was probably owing to the terrible things he saw, that he spoke so little. And yet, what delights, unknown to the world, sprang from this involuntary clairvoyance! Among the remarkable inner revelations of this youth, I will instance only one which was extremely characteristic.

The vast plains of Hungary, the wild Carpathian forests, the old churches of those mountains in which the monstrance glows brightly as a sun in the darkness of the sanctuary, were not there for nothing, but they were helpful to meditation and contemplation.

At fifteen years of age, Steiner became acquainted with an herbalist at that time staying in his country. The remarkable thins about this man was that he knew not only the species, families, and life of plants in their minutest details, but also their secret virtues. One would have said that he had spent his life in conversing with the unconscious and fluid soul of herbs and flowers. He had the gift of seeing the vital principle of plants, their etheric body, and what occultism calls the elementals of the vegetable world. He talked of it as of a quite ordinary and natural thing. The calm and coolly scientific tone of his conversation did but still further excites the curiosity and admiration of the youth. Later on, Steiner knew that this strange man was a messenger from the Master, whom as yet he knew not, but who was to be his real initiator, and who was already watching over him from afar.

What the curious, double-sighted botanist told him, young Steiner found to be in accordance: with the logic of things. That did but confirm an inner feeling of long standing, and which more and more forced itself on his mind as the fundamental Law, and as the basis of the Great All. That is to say: the two-fold current which constitutes the very movement of the world, and which might be called the flux and reflex of the universal life.

We are all witnesses and are conscious of the outward current of evolution, which urges onward all beings of heaven and of earth—stars, plants, animals, and humanity—and causes them to move forward towards an infinite future, without our perceiving the initial force which impels them and makes them go on without pause or rest. But there is in the universe an inverse current, which interposes itself and perpetually breaks in on the other. It is that of involution, by which the principles, forces, entities, and souls which come from the invisible world and the kingdom of the Eternal infiltrate and ceaselessly intermingle with the visible reality. No evolution of matter would be comprehensible without this occult and astral current, which is the great propeller of life, with its hierarchy of powers. Thus the Spirit, which contains the future in germ, involves itself in matter; thus matter, which receives the Spirit, evolves towards the future. While, then, we are moving on blindly towards the unknown future, this future is approaching us consciously, infusing itself in the current of the world and man who elaborate it. Such is the two-fold movement of time, the out-breathing and the in-breathing of the soul of the world, which comes from the Eternal and returns thither.

From the age of eighteen, young Steiner possessed the spontaneous consciousness of this two-fold current—a consciousness which is the condition of all spiritual vision. This vital axiom was forced upon him by a direct and involuntary seeing of things. Thenceforth he had the unmistakable sensation of occult powers which were working behind and through him for his guidance. He gave heed to this force and obeyed its admonitions, for he felt in profound accordance with it.

This kind of perception, however, formed a separate category in his intellectual life. This class of truths seemed to him something so profound, so mysterious, and so sacred, that he never imagined it possible to express it in words. He fed his soul, thereon, as from a divine fountain, but to have scattered a drop of it beyond would have seemed to him a profanation.

Beside this inner and contemplative life, his rational and philosophic mind was powerfully developing. From sixteen to seventeen years of age, Rudolf Steiner plunged deeply into the study of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling. When he came to Vienna some years after, he became an ardent admirer of Hegel, whose transcendental idealism borders on occultism; but speculative philosophy did not satisfy him. His positive mind demanded the solid basis of the sciences of observation. So he deeply studied mathematics, chemistry, mineralogy, botany, and zoology. “These studies,” he said, “afford a surer basis for the construction of a spiritual system of the universe than history and literature. The latter, wanting inexact methods, would then throw no side-lights on the vast domain of German science.” Inquiring into everything, enamoured of high art, and an enthusiast for poetry, Steiner nevertheless did not neglect literary studies. As a guide therein he found an excellent professor in the person of Julius Schröer, a distinguished scholar of the school of the brothers Grimm, who strove to develop in his pupils the art of oratory and of composition. To this distinguished man the young student owed his great and refined literary culture. “In the desert of prevailing materialism,” says Steiner, “his house was to me an oasis of idealism.”

But this was not yet the Master whom he sought. Amidst these varied studies and deep meditations, he could as yet discern the building of the universe but in a fragmentary way; his inborn intuition prevented any doubt of the divine origin of things and of a spiritual Beyond. A distinctive mark of this extraordinary man was that he never knew any of those crises of doubt and despair which usually accompany the transition to a definite conviction the life of mystics and of thinkers. Nevertheless, he felt that the central light which illumines and penetrates the whole was still lacking in him. He had reached young manhood, with its terrible problems. What was he going to do with his life? The sphinx of: destiny was facing him. How should he solve its problem?

It was at the age of nineteen that the aspirant to the mysteries met with his aide—the Master—so long anticipated.

It is an undoubted fact, admitted by occult tradition and confirmed by experience, that those who seek the higher truth from an impersonal motive find a master to initiate them at the right moment: that is to say, when they are ripe for its reception. “Knock, and it shall be opened to you,” said Jesus. That is true with regard to everything, but above all with regard to truth. Only, the desire must be ardent as a flame, in a soul pure as crystal.

The Master of Rudolf Steiner was one of those men of power who live, unknown to the world, under cover of some civil state, to carry out a mission unsuspected by any but their fellows in the Brotherhood of self-sacrificing Masters. They take no ostensible part in human events. To remain unknown is the condition of their power, but their action is only the more efficacious. For they inspire, prepare, and direct those who will act in the sight of all. In the present instance the Master had no difficulty in completing the first and spontaneous initiation of his disciple. He had only, so to speak, to point out to him, his own nature, to arm him with his needful weapons. Clearly did he show him the connection between the official and the secret sciences; between the religious and the spiritual forces which are now contending for the guidance of humanity; the antiquity of the occult tradition which holds the hidden threads of history, which mingles them, separates, and re-unites them in the course of ages.

Swiftly he made him clear the successive stages of inner discipline, in order to attain conscious and intelligent clairvoyance. In a few months the disciple learned from oral teaching the depth and incomparable splendour of the esoteric synthesis. Rudolf Steiner had already sketched for himself his intellectual mission: “To re-unite Science and Religion. To bring back God into Science, and Nature into Religion. Thus to re-fertilize both Art and Life.” But how to set about this vast and daring undertaking? How conquer, or rather, how tame and transform the great enemy, the materialistic science of the day, which is like a terrible dragon covered with its carapace and couched on its huge treasure? How master this dragon of modern science and yoke it to the car of spiritual truth? And, above all, how conquer the bull of public opinion?

Rudolf Steiner's Master was not in the least like himself. He had not that extreme and feminine sensibility which, though not excluding energy, makes every contact an emotion and instantly turns the suffering of others into a personal pain. He was masculine in spirit, a born ruler of men, looking only at the species, and for whom individuals hardly existed. He spared not himself, and he did not spare others. His will was like a ball which, once shot from the cannon's mouth, goes straight to its mark, sweeping off everything in its way. To the anxious questioning of his disciple he replied in substance:

“If thou wouldst fight the enemy, begin by understanding him. Thou wilt conquer the dragon only by penetrating his skin. As to the bull, thou must seize him by the horns. It is in the extremity of distress that thou wilt find thy weapons and thy brothers in the fight. I have shown thee who thou art, now go—and be thyself!”

Rudolf Steiner knew the language of the Masters well enough to understand the rough path that he was thus commanded to tread; but he also understood that this was the only way to attain the end. He obeyed, and set forth.

* * *

From 1880 the life of Rudolf Steiner becomes divided into three quite distinct periods: from twenty to thirty years of age (1881–1891), the Viennese period, a time of study and of preparation; from thirty to forty (1891–1901), the Weimar period, a time of struggle and combat; from forty to forty-six (1901–1907), the Berlin period, a time of action and of organization, in which his thought crystallised into a living work.

I pass rapidly over the Vienna period, in which Steiner took the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. He afterwards wrote a series of scientific articles on zoology, geology, and the theory of colours, in which theosophical ideas appear in an idealist clothing. While acting as tutor in several families, with the same conscientious devotion that he gave to everything, he conducted as chief editor a weekly Viennese paper, the Deutsche Wochenschrift. His friendship with the Austrian poetess, Marie Eugénie delle Grazie, cast, as it were, into this period of heavy work a warm ray of sunshine, with a smile of grace and poetry.

In 1890 Steiner was summoned to collaborate in the archives of Goethe and Schiller at Weimar, to superintend the re-editing of Goethe's scientific works. Shortly after, he published two important works, Truth and Science and The Philosophy of Liberty. “The occult powers that guided me,” he says, “forced me to introduce spiritualistic ideas imperceptibly into the current literature of the time.” But in these various tasks he was but studying his ground while trying his strength. So distant was the goal that he did not dream of being able to reach it as yet. To travel round the world in a sailing vessel, to cross the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Indian Ocean, in order to return to a European port, would have seemed easier to him. While awaiting the, events that would allow him to equip his ship and to launch it on the open sea, he came into touch with two illustrious personalities who helped to determine his intellectual position in the contemporary world.

These two persons were the celebrated philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, and the no less famous naturalist, Ernst Haeckel.

Rudolf Steiner had just written an impartial treatise on the author of Zarathustra. In consequence of this, Nietzsche’s sister begged the sympathetic critic to come and see her at Naumburg, where her unhappy brother was slowly dying. Madame Foerster took the visitor to the door of the apartment where Nietzsche was lying on a couch in a comatose condition, inert, stupefied. To Steiner there was something very significant in this melancholy sight. In it he saw the final act in the tragedy of the would be superman.

Nietzsche, the author of Beyond Good and Evil, had not, like the realists of Bismarckian imperialism, renounced idealism, for he was naturally intuitive; but in his individualistic pride he sought to cut off the spiritual world from the universe, and the divine from human consciousness. Instead of placing the superman, of whom he had a poetic vision, in the spiritual kingdom, which is his true sphere, he strove to force him into the material world, which alone was real in his eyes. Hence, in that splendid intellect arose a chaos of ideas and a wild struggle which finally brought on softening of the brain. To explain this particular case, it is needless to bring in atavism or the theory of degeneracy. The frenzied combat of ideas and of contradictory sentiments, of which this brain was the battlefield, was enough. Steiner had done justice to all the genius that marked the innovating ideas of Nietzsche, but this victim of pride, self-destroyed by negation, was to him none the less a tragic instance of the ruin of a mighty intellect which madly destroys itself in breaking away from spiritual intelligence.

Madame Foerster did her utmost to enrol Dr. Steiner under her brother's flag. For this she used all her skill, making repeated offers to the young publicist to become editor and commentator of Nietzsche's works. Steiner withstood her insistence as best he could, and ended by taking himself off altogether, for which Madame Foerster never forgave him. She did not know that Rudolf Steiner bore within him the consciousness of a work no less great and more valuable than that of her brother.

Nietzsche had been merely an interesting episode in the life of the esoteric thinker on the threshold of his battlefield. His meeting with the celebrated naturalist, Ernst Haeckel, on the contrary, marks a most important phase in the development of his thought. Was not the successor of Darwin apparently the most formidable adversary of the spiritualism of this young initiate, of that philosophy which to him was the very essence of his being and the breath of his thought? Indeed, since the broken link between man and animal has been re-joined, since man can no longer believe in a special and supernatural origin, he has begun altogether to doubt his divine origin and destiny. He no longer sees himself as anything but one phenomenon among so many phenomena, a passing form amidst so many forms, a frail and chance link in a blind evolution. Steiner, then, is right in saying: “The mentality deduced from natural sciences is the greatest power of modern tines.” On the other hand, he knew that this system merely reproduces a succession of external forms among living beings, and not the inner and acting forces of life. He knew it from personal initiation, and a deeper and vaster view of the universe. So also he could exclaim with more assurance than most of our timid spiritualists and startled theologians: “Is the human soul then to rise on the wings of enthusiasm to the summits of the True, the Beautiful, and the Good, only to be swept away into nothingness, like a bubble of the brain?” Yes, Haeckel was the Adversary. It was materialism in arms, the dragon with all his scales, his claws, and his teeth.

Steiner's desire to understand this man and to do him justice as to all that was great in him, to fathom his theory so far as it was logical and plausible, was only the more intense. In this fact one sees all the loyalty and all the greatness of his comprehensive mind.

Tie materialistic conclusions of Haeckel could have no influence on his own ideas which came to him from a different science; but he had a presentiment that in the indisputable discoveries of the naturalist he should find the surest basis of an evolutionary spiritualism and a rational theosophy.

He began, then, to study eagerly the History of Natural Creation. In it Haeckel gives a fascinating picture of the evolution of species, from the amoeba to man. In it he shows the successive growth of organs, and the physiological process by which living beings have raised themselves to organisms more and more complex and more and more perfect. But in this stupendous transformation, which implies millions and millions of years, he never explains the initial force of this universal ascent, nor the series of special impulses which cause beings to rise step by step. To these primordial questions, Haeckel has never been able to reply except by admitting spontaneous regeneration, [A speech delivered in Paris, 28th August 1878. See also Haeckel's History of Natural Creation, 13th lecture.] which is tantamount to a miracle as great as the creation of man by God from a, clod of earth. To a theosophist like Steiner, on the other hand, the cosmic force which elaborates the world comprises in its spheres, fitted one into another, the myriads of souls which crystallise and incarnate ceaselessly in all beings. He, who saw the underside of creation, could but recognise and admire the extent of the all-round gaze with which Haeckel surveyed his above. It was in vain that the naturalist would deny the divine Author of the universal scheme: he proved it in spite of himself, in so well describing His work. As to the theosophist, he greeted, in the surging of species and in the breath which urges them onward—Man in the making, the very thought of God, the visible expression of the planetary Word. [This is how Dr. Steiner himself describes the famous German naturalist: “Haeckel's personality is captivating. It is the most complete contrast to the tone of his writings. If Haeckel had but made a slight study of the philosophy of which he speaks, not even as a dilettante, but like a child, he would have drawn the most lofty spiritual conclusions from his phylogenetic studies. Haeckel's doctrine is grand, but Haeckel himself is the worst of commentators on his doctrine. It is not by showing our contemporaries the weak points in Haeckel's doctrine that we can promote intellectual progress, but by pointing out to them the grandeur of is phylogenetic thought.” Steiner has developed these ideas in two works: Welt und Lebensanschauungen im 19ten Jahrhundert (Theories of the Universe, and of Life in the Nineteenth Century), and Haeckel und seine Gegner (Haeckel and his Opponents).]

While thus pursuing his studies, Rudolf Steiner recalled the saying of his Master: “To conquer the dragon, his skin must be penetrated.” While stealing within the carapace of present-day materialism, he had seized his weapons. Henceforth he was ready for the combat. He needed but a field of action to give battle, and a powerful aid to uphold him therein. He was to find his field in the Theosophical Society and his aid in a remarkable woman.

In 1897 Rudolf Steiner went to Berlin to conduct a literary magazine and to give lectures there.

On his arrival, he found there a branch of the Theosophical Society. The German branch of this Society was always noted for its great independence, which is natural in a country of transcendental philosophy and of fastidious criticism. It had already made a considerable contribution to occult literature through the interesting periodical, The Sphinx, conducted by Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden, and Dr. Carl du Prel's book—Philosophie der Mystik. But, the leaders having retired, it was almost over with the group. Great discussions and petty wranglings divided the theosophists beyond the Rhine. Should Rudolf Steiner enter the Theosophical Society? This question forced itself urgently upon him, and it was of the utmost gravity, both for himself and for his cause.

Through his first Master; through the brotherhood with which he was associated, and by his own innermost nature, Steiner belongs to another school of occultism, I mean to the esoteric Christianity of the West, and most especially to the Rosicrucian initiation.

After mature consideration he resolved to join the Theosophical Society of which he became a member in 1902. He did not, however, enter it as a pupil of the Eastern tradition, but as an initiate of Rosicrucian esotericism who gladly recognised the profound depth of the Hindu Wisdom and offered it a brotherly hand to make a magnetic link between the two. He understood that the two traditions were not meant to contend with each other, but to act in concert, with complete independence, and thus to work for the common good of civilisation. The Hindu tradition, in fact, contains the greatest treasure of occult science as regards cosmogony and the prehistoric periods of humanity, while the tradition of Christian and Western esotericism looks from its immeasurable height upon the far-off future and the final destinies of our race. For the past contains and prepares the future, as the future issues from the past and completes it.

Rudolf Steiner was assisted in his work by a powerful recruit and one of inestimable value in the propagandist work that he was about to undertake.

Mlle. Marie von Sivers, a Russian by birth, and of an unusually varied cosmopolitan education (she writes and speaks Russian, French, German, and English equally well), had herself also reached Theosophy by other roads, after long seeking for the truth which illumines all because it illumines the very depths of our own being. The extreme refinement of her aristocratic nature, at once modest and proud, her great and delicate sensitiveness, the extent and balance of her intelligence, her artistic and mental endowments, all made her wonderfully fitted for the part of an agent and an apostle. The Oriental-theosophy had attracted and delighted her without altogether convincing her. The lectures of Dr. Steiner gave her the light which convinces by casting its beams on all sides, as from a transplendent centre. Independent and free, she, like many Russians in good society, sought for some ideal work to which she could devote all her energies. She had found it. Dr. Steiner having been appointed General Secretary of the German Section of the Theosophical Society, Mlle. Marie von Sivers became his assistant. From that time, in spreading the work throughout Germany and the adjacent countries, she displayed a real genius for organisation, maintained with unwearied activity.

As for Rudolf Steiner, he had already given ample proof of his profound thought and his eloquence. He knew himself, and he was master of himself. But such faith, such devotion must have increased his energy a hundredfold, and given wings to his words. His writings on esoteric questions followed one another in rapid succession. [Die Mystik, im Aufgange des neuzeitlichen Geisteslebens (1901); Das Christentum als mystische Tatsache (1902); Theosophie (1904). He is now preparing an important book, which will no doubt be his chief work, and which is to be called Geheimwissenschaft (Occult Science).]

He delivered lectures in Berlin, Leipzig, Cassel, Munich, Stuttgart, Vienna, Budapest, etc. All his books are of a high standard. He is equally skilled in the deduction of ideas in philosophical order, and in rigorous analysis of scientific facts. And when he so chooses, he can give a poetical form to his thought, in original and striking imagery. But his whole self is shown only by his presence and his speech, private or public. The characteristic of his eloquence is a singular force, always gentle in expression, resulting undoubtedly from perfect serenity of soul combined with wonderful clearness of mind. Added to this at times is an inner and mysterious vibration which makes itself felt by the listener from the very first words. Never a word that could shock or jar. From argument to argument, from analogy to analogy, he leads you on from the known to the unknown. Whether following up the comparative development of the earth and of man, according to occult tradition, through the Lemurian, Atlantean, Asiatic, and European periods; whether explaining the physiological and psychic constitution of man as he now is; whether enumerating the stages of Rosicrucian initiation, or commenting on the Gospel of St. John and the Apocalypse, or applying his root-ideas to mythology, history, and literature, that which dominates and guides his discourse is ever this power of synthesis, which co-ordinates facts under one ruling idea and gathers them together in one harmonious vision. And it is ever this inward and contagious fervour, this secret music of the soul, which is, as it were, a subtle melody in harmony with the Universal Soul.

Such, at least, is what I felt on first meeting him and listening to him two years ago. I could not better describe this indefinable feeling than by recalling the saying of a poet-friend to whom I was showing the portrait of the German theosophist. Standing before those deep, and clear-seeing eyes, before that countenance, hollowed by inward struggles, moulded by a lofty spirit which has proved its balance on the heights and its calm in the depths, my friend exclaimed: “Behold a master of himself and of life!”

[ 1 ] If one observes how, up to the present time, the philosophical world conceptions take form, one can see undercurrents in the search and endeavor of the various thinkers, of which they themselves are not aware but by which they are instinctively moved. In these currents there are forces at work that give direction and often specific form to the ideas expressed by these thinkers. Although they do not want to focus their attention on the forces directly, what they have to say often appears as if driven by hidden forces, which they are unwilling to acknowledge and from which they recoil. Forces of this kind live in the thought worlds of Dilthey, Eucken and Cohen. They are led by cognitive powers by which they are unconsciously dominated but that do not find a conscious development within their thought structures.

[ 2 ] Security and certainty of knowledge is being sought in many philosophical systems, and Kant's ideas are more or less taken as its point of departure. The outlook of natural science determines, consciously or unconsciously, the process of thought formation. But it is dimly felt by many that the source of knowledge of the external world must be sought in the self-conscious soul. Almost all of these thinkers are dominated by the question: How can the self-conscious soul be led to regard its inner experiences as a true manifestation of reality? The ordinary world of sense perception has become “illusion” because the self-conscious ego has, in the course of philosophical development, found itself more and more isolated with its subjective experiences. It has arrived at the point where it regards even sense perception merely as inner experience that is powerless to assure being and permanence for them in the world of reality. It is felt how much depends on finding a point of support within the self-conscious ego. But the search stimulated by this feeling only leads to conceptions that do not provide the means of submerging with the ego into a world that provides satisfactory support for existence.

[ 3 ] To explain this fact, one must look at the attitude toward the reality of the external world taken by a soul that has detached itself from that reality in the course of its philosophical development. This soul feels itself surrounded by a world of which it first becomes aware through the senses. But then it also becomes conscious of its own activity, of its own inner creative experience. The soul feels, as an irrefutable truth, that no light, no color can be revealed without the eye's sensitivity for light and color. Thus, it becomes aware of something creative in this activity of the eye. But if the eye produces the color by its spontaneous creation, as it must be assumed in such a philosophy, the question arises: Where do I find something that exists in itself, that does not owe its existence to my own creative power? If even the manifestations of the senses are nothing but results of the activity of the soul, must this not be true to even a higher degree with our thinking, through which we strive for conceptions of a true reality? Is this thinking not condemned to produce pictures that spring from the character of the soul life but can never provide a sure approach to the sources of existence? Questions of this kind emerge everywhere in the development of modern philosophy.

[ 4 ] It will be impossible to find the way out of the confusion resulting from these questions as long as the belief is maintained that the world revealed by the senses constitutes a complete, finished and self-dependent reality that must be investigated in order to know its inner nature. The human soul can arrive at its insights only through a spontaneous inner creativity. This conviction has been described in a previous chapter of this book, “The World as Illusion,” and in connection with the presentation of Hamerling's thoughts. Having reached this conviction, it is difficult to overcome a certain impasse of knowledge as long as one thinks that the world of the senses contains the real basis of its existence within itself and that one therefore has to copy with the inner activity of the soul what lies outside.

[ 5 ] This impasse will be overcome only by accepting the fact that, by its very nature, sense perception does not present a finished self-contained reality, but an unfinished, incomplete reality, or a half-reality, as it were.

As soon as one presupposes that a full reality is gained through perceptions of the sensory world, one is forever prevented from finding the answer to the question: What has the creative mind to add to this reality in the act of cognition? By necessity one shall have to sustain the Kantian option: Man must consider his knowledge to be the inner product of his own mind; he cannot regard it as a process that is capable of revealing a true reality. If reality lies outside the soul, then the soul cannot produce anything that corresponds to this reality, and the result is merely a product of the soul's own organization.

[ 6 ] The situation is entirely changed as soon as it is realized that the human soul does not deviate from reality in its creative effort for knowledge, but that prior to any cognitive activity the soul conjures up a world that is not real. Man is so placed in the world that by the nature of his being he changes things from what they really are. Hamerling is partly right when he says:

Certain stimuli produce the odor within our organ of smell. The rose, therefore, has no fragrance if nobody smells it. . . . If this, dear reader, does not seem plausible to you, if your mind stirs like a shy horse when it is confronted with this fact, do not bother to read another line; leave this book and all others that deal with philosophical things unread, for you lack the ability that is necessary for this purpose, that is, to apprehend a fact without bias and to adhere to it in your thoughts. (Compare pages of this volume.)

How the sensory world appears when man is confronted with it, depends without a doubt on the nature of the soul. Does it not follow then that this appearance of the world is a product of man's soul? An unbiased observation shows, however, that the unreal character of the external sense world is caused by the fact that when man is directly confronted by things of the world, he suppresses something that really belongs to them. If he unfolds a creative inner life that lifts from the depths of his soul the forces that lie dormant in them, he adds something to the part perceived by the senses and thereby turns a half-reality to its entirety. It is due to the nature of the soul that, at its first contact with things, it extinguishes something that belongs to them. For this reason, things appear to the senses not as they are in reality but as they are modified by the soul. Their delusive character (or their mere appearance) is caused by the fact that the soul has deprived them of something that really belongs to them.

Inasmuch as man does not merely observe things, he adds something to them in the process of knowledge that reveals their full reality. The mind does not add anything to things in the process of cognition that would have to be considered as an unreal element, but prior to the process of knowledge it has deprived these things of something that belongs to their true reality. It will be the task of philosophy to realize that the world accessible to man is an “illusion” before it is approached in the process of cognition. This process, however, leads the way toward a full understanding of reality. The knowledge that man creates during the process of cognition seems to be an inner manifestation of the soul only because he must, before the act of cognition, reject what comes from the nature of things. He cannot see at first the real nature of things when he encounters them in mere observation. In the process of knowledge he unveils what was first concealed. If he regards as a reality what he had at first perceived, he will now realize that he has added the results of his cognitive activity to reality. As soon as he recognizes that what was apparently produced by himself has to be sought in the things themselves, that he merely failed to see it previously, he will then find that the process of knowing is a real process by which the soul progressively unites with world reality. Through it, it expands its inner isolated experience to the experience of the world.

[ 7 ] In a short work, Truth and Science, published in 1892, the author of the present book made a first attempt to prove philosophically what has been briefly described. Perspectives are indicated in this book that are necessary to the philosophy of the present age if it is to overcome the obstacles it has encountered in its modern development. A philosophical point of view is outlined in this essay in the following words:

The initial form in which reality confronts the ego is not its true manifestation but the final form, which the ego fashions out of it, is. The first form is altogether without significance for the objective world; it is of importance only as a basis for the processes of cognition. Therefore, it is not the form of the world that is presented by theory that must be considered subjective but the one the ego encounters initially as in mere perception.

A further exposition of this point of view is given in the author's later philosophical work, Philosophy of Freedom (1894) (translated also with the title, Philosophy of Spiritual Activity). There an attempt is made to give the philosophical foundations for a conception that was outlined in Truth and Science.

It is not due to the objects that they are given to us at first without their corresponding concept, but to our mental organization. Our whole being functions in such a way that from every real thing the relevant elements come to us from two sources, from perceiving and from thinking. The way I am organized for apprehending the things has nothing to do with the nature of the things themselves. The gap between perceiving and thinking exists only from the moment that I, as a spectator, confront the things.

And later on it is stated:

The percept is that part of reality that is given objectively; the concept the part that is given subjectively, through intuition. Our mental organization tears the reality apart into these two factors. The one factor presents itself to perception, the other to intuition. Only the union of the two, that is, the percept fitting systematically into the universe, constitutes the full reality. If we take mere percepts by themselves we have no reality but rather disconnected chaos. If we take by itself the law and order connecting the percepts then we have nothing but abstract concepts. Reality is not contained in the abstract concept. It is, however, contained in thoughtful observation, which does not one-sidedly consider either concept or percept alone, but rather the union of the two.

[ 8 ] In accepting this point of view we shall be able to think of mental life and of reality as united in the self-conscious ego. This is the conception toward which philosophical development has tended since the Greek era and that has shown its first distinctly recognizable traces in the world conception of Goethe. The awareness arises that this self-conscious ego does not experience itself as isolated and divorced from the objective world, but its detachment from this world is experienced merely as an illusion of its consciousness. This isolation can be overcome if man gains the insight that at a certain stage of his development he must give a provisional form to his ego in order to suppress from his consciousness the forces that unite him with the world. If these forces exerted their influences in his consciousness without interruption, he would never have developed a strong, independent self-consciousness. He would be incapable of experiencing himself as a self-conscious ego. The development of self-consciousness, therefore, actually depends on the fact that the mind is given the opportunity to perceive the world without that part of reality that is extinguished by the self-conscious ego prior to an act of cognition.

The world forces belonging to this part of reality withdraw into obscurity in order to allow the self-conscious ego to shine forth in full power. The ego must realize that it owes its self-knowledge to a fact that spreads a veil over the knowledge of the world. It follows that everything that stimulates the soul to a vigorous, energetic experience of the ego, conceals at the same time the deeper foundations in which this ego has its roots. All knowledge acquired by the ordinary consciousness tends to strengthen the self-conscious ego. Man feels himself as a self-conscious ego through the fact that he perceives an external world with his senses, that he experiences himself as being outside this external world and that, at a certain stage of scientific investigation, he feels himself in relation to this external world in such a way that it appears to him as “illusion.” Were it not so, the self-conscious ego would not emerge. If, therefore, in the act of knowledge one attempts merely to copy what is observed before knowledge begins, one does not arrive at a true experience of full reality, but only at an image of a “half reality.”

[ 9 ] Once this is admitted to be the situation, one can no longer look for the answer of the riddles of philosophy within the experiences of the soul that appear on the level of ordinary consciousness. It is the function of this consciousness to strengthen the self-conscious ego. To achieve this it must cast a veil over the connection of the ego with the objective world, and it therefore cannot show how the soul is connected with the true world. This explains why a method of knowledge that applies the means of the natural scientific or similar modes of conception must always arrive at a point where its efforts break down. This failing of many modern thinkers has previously been pointed out in this book, for, in the final analysis, all scientific endeavor employs the same mode of thinking that serves to detach the self-conscious ego from the true reality. The strength and greatness of modern science, especially of natural science, is based on the unrestrained application of this method.

[ 10 ] Several philosophers such as Dilthey, Eucken and others, direct philosophical investigation toward the self-observation of the soul. But what they observe are those experiences of the soul that form the basis for the self-conscious ego. Thus, they do not penetrate to the sources in which the experiences of the soul originate. These sources cannot be found where the soul first observes itself on the level of ordinary consciousness. If the soul is to reach these sources, it must go beyond this ordinary consciousness. It must experience something in itself that ordinary consciousness cannot give to it. To ordinary thinking, such an experience appears at first like sheer nonsense. The soul is to experience itself knowingly in an element without carrying its consciousness into that element. One is to transcend consciousness and yet be conscious! But in spite of all this, we shall either continue to get nowhere, or we shall have to open new aspects that will reveal the above mentioned “absurdity” to be only apparently so since it really indicates the direction in which we must look for help to solve the riddles of philosophy.

[ 11 ] One will have to recognize that the path into the “inner region of the soul” must be entirely different from the one that is taken by many philosophies of modern times. [ 12 ] As long as soul experiences are taken the way they present themselves to ordinary consciousness, one will not reach down into the depths of the soul. One will be left merely with what these depths release. Such is the case with Eucken's world conception. It is necessary to penetrate below the surface of the soul. This is, however, not possible by means of the ordinary experiences. The strength of these rests precisely in the fact that they remain in the realm of the ordinary consciousness. The means to penetrate deeper into the soul can be found if one directs one's attention to something that is, to be sure, also at work in the ordinary consciousness, but does not enter it while it is active.

[ 13 ] While man thinks, his consciousness is focused on his thoughts. He wants to conceive something by means of these thoughts; he wants to think correctly in the ordinary sense. He can, however, also direct his attention to something else. He can concentrate his attention on the activity of thinking as such. He can, for instance, place into the center of his consciousness a thought that refers to nothing external, a thought that is conceived like a symbol that has no connection to something external. It is now possible to hold onto such a thought for a certain length of time. One can be entirely absorbed by the concentration on this thought. The important thing with this exercise is not that one lives in thoughts but that one experiences the activity of thinking. In this way, the soul breaks away from an activity in which it is engaged in ordinary thinking.

If such an inner exercise is continued long enough, it will become gradually apparent to the soul that it has now become involved in experiences that will separate it from all those processes of thinking and ideation that are bound to the physical organs. A similar result can be obtained from the activities of feeling and willing and even for sensation, the perception of external things. One can only be successful with this approach if one is not afraid to admit to oneself that self-knowledge cannot be gained by mere introspection, but by concentrating on the inner life that can be revealed only through these exercises. Through continued practice of the soul, that is, by holding the attention on the inner activity of thinking, feeling and willing, it is possible for these “experiences” to become “condensed.” In this state of “condensation” they reveal their inner nature, which cannot be perceived in the ordinary consciousness. [ 14 ] It is through such exercises that one discovers how our soul forces must be so “attenuated” or weakened in producing our ordinary form of consciousness, that they become imperceptible in this state of “attenuation.” The soul exercises referred to consist in the unlimited increase of faculties that are also known to the ordinary consciousness but never reach such a state of concentration. The faculties are those of attention and of loving surrender to the content of the soul's experience. To attain the indicated aim, these abilities must be increased to such a degree that they function as entirely new soul forces.

[ 15 ] If one proceeds in this manner, one arrives at a real inner experience that by its very nature is independent of bodily conditions. This is a life of the spirit that must not be confused with what Dilthey and Eucken call the spiritual world. For what they call the spiritual world is, after all, experienced by man when he depends on his physical organs. The spiritual life that is here referred to does not exist for a soul that is bound to the body.

One of the first experiences that follows the attainment of this new spiritual life is a true insight into the nature of the ordinary mental life. This is actually not produced by the body but proceeds outside the body. When I see a color, when I hear a sound, I experience the color and the sound not as a result of my body, but I am connected with the color, with the sound, as a self-conscious ego, outside my body. My body has the task to function in a way that can be compared with the action of a mirror. If, in my ordinary consciousness, I only have a mental connection with a color, I cannot perceive it because of the nature of this consciousness, just as I cannot see my own face when I look out into space. But if I look into a mirror, I perceive this face as part of a body. Unless I stand in front of the mirror, I am the body and experience myself as such. Standing in front of the mirror, I perceive my body as a reflection. It is like this also with our sense perceptions, although we must, of course, be aware of the insufficiency of the analogy. I live with a color outside my body; through the activity of my body, that is, my eye and my nervous system, this color is transformed for me into a conscious perception. The human body is not the producer of perceptions and of mental life in general, but a mirroring device of psychic and spiritual processes that take place outside the body.

[ 16 ] Such a view places the theory of knowledge on a promising basis. In a lecture called, The Psychological Foundations and Epistemological Position of Spiritual Science, delivered before the Philosophical Congress in Bologna on April 18, 1911, the author of this book gave the following account of a view that was then forming in his mind.

On the basis of epistemology one can reach a conception of the ego only if one does not think of it as being inside the bodily organization and as receiving impression “from outside.” One should conceive this “ego” as having its being within the general order (Gesetzmässigkeit) of the things themselves, and regard the organization of the body merely as a sort of mirror through which the organic processes of the body reflect back to the ego what this ego perceives outside the physical body as it lives and weaves within the true essence of the world.

[ 17 ] During sleep the mirror-like relation between body and soul is interrupted; the “ego” lives only in the sphere of the spirit. For the ordinary consciousness, however, mental life does not exist as long as the body does not reflect the experiences. Sleep, therefore, is an unconscious process. The exercises mentioned above and other similar ones establish a consciousness that differs from the ordinary consciousness. In this way, the faculty is developed not merely to have purely spiritual experiences, but to strengthen these experiences to such a degree that they become spiritually perceptible without the aid of the body, and that they become reflected within themselves. It is only in an experience of this kind that the soul can obtain true self-knowledge and become consciously aware of its own being. Real experiences that do not belong to the sense world, but to one in which the soul weaves and has its being, now rise in the manner in which memory brings back experiences of the past. It is quite natural that the followers of many modern philosophies will believe that the world that thus rises up belongs in the realms of error, illusion, hallucination, autosuggestion, etc. To this objection one can only answer that a serious spiritual endeavor, working in the indicated way, will discipline the mind to a point where it will clearly differentiate illusion from spiritual reality, just as a healthy mind can distinguish a product of fantasy from a concrete perception. It will be futile to seek theoretical proofs for this spiritual world, but such proofs also do not exist for the reality of the world of perceptions. In both cases, actual experience is the only true judge.

[ 18 ] What keeps many men from undertaking the step that, according to this view, can alone solve the riddles of philosophy, is the fear that they might be led thereby into a realm of unclear mysticism. Unless one has from the beginning an inclination toward unclear mysticism, one will, in following the described path, gain access to a world of spiritual experience that is as crystal clear as the structures of mathematical ideas. If one is, however, inclined to seek the spiritual in the “dark unknown,” in the “inexplicable,” one will get nowhere, either as an adherent or as an opponent of the views described here.

[ 19 ] One can easily understand why these views will be rejected by personalities who consider the methods used by natural science for obtaining knowledge of the sense world as the only true ones. But whoever overcomes such one-sidedness will be able to realize that the genuinely scientific way of thinking constitutes the real basis for the method that is here described. The ideas that have been shown in this book to be those of the modern scientific method, present the best subject matter for mental exercises in which the soul can immerse itself, and on which it can concentrate in order to free itself from its bondage to the body. Whoever uses these natural scientific ideas in the manner that has been outlined above, will find that the thoughts that first seem to be meant to depict only natural processes will really set the soul free from the body. Therefore, the spiritual science that is here referred to must be seen as a continuation of the scientific way of thinking provided it is inwardly experienced in the right way.

[ 20 ] The true nature of the human soul can be experienced directly if one seeks it in the characterized way. In the Greek era the development of the philosophical outlook led to the birth of thought. Later development led through the experience of thought to the experience of the self-conscious ego. Goethe strove for experiences of the self-conscious ego, which, although actively produced by the human soul, at the same time place this soul in the realm of a reality that is inaccessible to the senses. Goethe stands on this ground when he strives for an idea of the plant that cannot be perceived by the senses but that contains the supersensible nature of all plants, making it possible, with the aid of this idea, to invent new plants that would have their own life.

Hegel regarded the experience of thought as a “standing in the true essence of the world;” for him the world of thoughts became the inner essence of the world. An unbiased observation of philosophical development shows that thought experience was, to be sure, the element through which the self-conscious ego was to be placed on its own foundation. But it shows also that it is necessary to go beyond a life in mere thoughts in order to arrive at a form of inner experience that leads beyond the ordinary consciousness. For Hegel's thought experience still takes place within the field of this ordinary consciousness.

[ 21 ] In this way, a view of a reality is opened up for the soul that is inaccessible to the senses. What is experienced in the soul through the penetration into this reality, appears as the true entity of the soul. How is it related to the external world that is experienced by means of the body? The soul that has been thus freed from its body feels itself to be weaving in an element of soul and spirit. It knows that also in its ordinary life it is outside that body, which merely acts like a mirror in making its experiences perceptible. Through this experience the soul's spiritual experience is heightened to a point where the reality of a new element is revealed to the soul.

To Dilthey and Eucken the spiritual world is the sum total of the cultural experiences of humanity. If this world is seen as the only accessible spiritual world, one does not stand on a ground firm enough to be comparable to the method of natural science. For the conception of natural science, the world is so ordered that the physical human being in his individual existence appears as a unit toward which all other natural processes and beings point. The cultural world is what is created by this human being. That world, however, is not an individual entity of a higher nature than the individuality of the human being.

The spiritual science that the author of this book has in mind points to a form of experience that the soul can have independent from the body, and in this experience an individual entity is revealed. It emerges like a higher human nature for whom the physical man is like a tool. The being that feels itself as set free, through spiritual experience, from the physical body, is a spiritual human entity that is as much at home in a spiritual world as the physical body in the physical world. As the soul thus experiences its spiritual nature, it is also aware of the fact that it stands in a certain relation to the body. The body appears, on the one hand, as a cast of the spiritual entity; it can be compared to the shell of a snail that is like a counter-picture of the shape of the snail. On the other hand, the spirit-soul entity appears in the body like the sum total of the forces in the plant, which, after it has grown into leaf and blossom, contract into the seed in order to prepare a new plant. One cannot experience the inner spiritual man without knowing that he contains something that will develop into a new physical man. This new human being, while living within the physical organism, has collected forces through experience that could not unfold as long as they were encased in that organism. This body has, to be sure, enabled the soul to have experiences in connection with the external world that make the inner spiritual man different from what he was before he began life in the physical body. But this body is, as it were, too rigidly organized for being transformed by the inner spiritual man according to the pattern of the new experiences. Thus there remains hidden in the human shell a spiritual being that contains the disposition of a new man.

[ 22 ] Thoughts such as these can only be briefly indicated here. They point to a spiritual science that is essentially constructed after the model of natural science. In elaborating this spiritual science one will have to proceed more or less like the botanist when he observes a plant, the formation of its root, the growth of its stem and its leaves, and its development into blossom and fruit. In the fruit he discovers the seed of the new plant-life. As he follows the development of a plant he looks for its origin in the seed formed by the previous plant. The investigator of spiritual science will trace the process in which a human life, apart from its external manifestation, develops also an inner being. He will find that external experiences die off like the leaves and the flowers of a plant. Within the inner being, however, he will discover a spiritual kernel, which conceals within itself the potentiality of a new life. In the infant entering life through birth he will see the return of a soul that left the world previously through the gate of death. He will learn to observe that what is handed down by heredity to the individual man from his ancestors is merely the material that is worked upon by the spiritual man in order to bring into physical existence what has been prepared seedlike in a preceding life.

[ 23 ] Seen from the viewpoint of this world conception, many facts of psychology will appear in a new light. A great number of examples could be mentioned here; it will suffice to point out only one. One can observe how the human soul is transformed by experiences that represent, in a certain sense, repetitions of earlier experiences. If somebody has read an important book in his twentieth year and reads it again in his fortieth, he experiences it as if he were a different person. If he asks without bias for the reason for this fact, he will find that what he learned from his reading twenty years previous has continued to live in -him and has become a part of his nature. He has within him the forces that live in the book, and he finds them again when he rereads the book at the age of forty. The same holds true with our life experiences. They become part of man himself. They live in his “ego.” But it is also apparent that within the limits of one life this inner strengthening of the higher man must remain in the realm of his spirit and soul nature. Yet one can also find that this higher human being strives to become strong enough to find expression in his physical nature. The rigidity of the body prevents this from happening within a single life span. But in the central core of man there lives the potential predisposition that, together with the fruits of one life, will form a new human life in the same way that the seed of a new plant lives in the plant.

[ 24 ] Moreover, it must be realized that following the entry of the soul into an independent spirit world the results of this world are raised into consciousness in the same way that the past rises into memory. But these realities are seen as extending beyond the span of an individual life. The content of my present consciousness represents the results of my earlier physical experiences; so, too, a soul that has gone through the indicated exercises faces the whole of its physical experience and the particular configuration of its body as originating from the spirit-soul nature, whose existence preceded that of the body. This existence appears as a life in a purely spiritual world in which the soul lived before it could develop the germinal capacities of a preceding life into a new one. Only by closing one's mind to the obvious possibility that the faculties of the human soul are capable of development can one refuse to recognize the truthfulness of a person's testimony that shows that as a result of inner work one can really know of a spiritual world beyond the realm of ordinary consciousness. This knowledge leads to a spiritual apprehension of a world through which it becomes evident that the true being of the soul lies behind ordinary experiences. It also becomes clear that this soul being survives death just as the plant seed survives the decay of the plant. The insight is gained that the human soul goes through repeated lives on earth and that in between these earthly lives it leads a purely spiritual existence.

[ 25 ] This point of view brings reality to the assumption of a spiritual world. The human souls themselves carry into a later cultural epoch what they acquired in a former. One can readily observe how the inner dispositions of the soul develop if one refrains from arbitrarily ascribing this development merely to the laws of physical heredity. In the spiritual world of which Eucken and Dilthey speak the later phases of development always follow from the immediately preceding ones. Into this sequence of events are placed human souls who bring with them the results of their preceding lives in the form of their inner soul disposition. They must, however, acquire in a process of learning what developed in the earthly world of culture and civilization while they were in a purely spiritual state of existence.

[ 26 ] A historical account cannot do full justice to the thoughts exposed here. I would refer anyone who seeks more information to my writings on spiritual science. These writings attempted to give, in a general manner, the world conception that is outlined in the present book. Even so, I believe that it is possible to recognize from it that this world conception rests on a serious philosophical foundation. On this basis it strives to gain access to a world that opens up to sense-free observation acquired by inner work.

[ 27 ] One of the teachers of this world conception is the history of philosophy itself. It shows that the course of philosophical thought tends toward a conception that cannot be acquired in a state of ordinary consciousness. The accounts of many representative thinkers show how they attempt in various ways to comprehend the self-conscious ego with the help of the ordinary consciousness. A theoretical exposition of why the means of this ordinary consciousness must lead to unsatisfactory results does not belong to a historical account. But the historical facts show distinctly that the ordinary consciousness, however we may look at it, cannot solve the questions it nevertheless must raise. This final chapter was written to show why the ordinary consciousness and the usual scientific mind lack the means to solve such questions. This chapter was meant to describe what the characterized world conceptions were unconsciously striving for. From one certain point of view this last chapter no longer belongs to the history of philosophy, but from another point of view, its justification is quite clear. The message of this book is that a world conception based on spiritual science is virtually demanded by the development of modern philosophy as an answer to the questions it raises.

To become aware of this one must consider specific instances of this philosophical development. Franz Brentano in his Psychology points out how philosophy was deflected from the treatment of the deeper riddles of the soul (compare page of this volume). He writes, “Apparent as the necessity for a restriction of the field of investigation is in this direction, it is perhaps no more than only apparent.” David Hume was most emphatically opposed to the metaphysicists who maintained that they had found within themselves a carrier for all psychic conditions. He says:

For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I can never catch myself at any time without a perception and never can observe anything but perceptions. When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep, so long am I insensible of myself and may truly be said not to exist. (Treatise of Human Nature, Part IV, Sect. 6.)

Hume only knows the kind of psychological observation that would approach the soul without any inner effort. An observation of this kind simply cannot penetrate to the nature of the soul. Brentano takes up Hume's statement and says, “This same man, Hume, nevertheless, observes that all proofs for the immortality of the soul possess the same power of persuasion as the opposing traditional views.” But here we must add that only faith, and not knowledge, can support Hume's view that the soul contains nothing more than what he finds there. For how could any continuity be guaranteed for what Hume finds as the content of the soul? Brentano continues by saying:

Although it is obvious that a denial of a soul substance eliminates the possibility to speak of an immortality in the proper sense of the word, it is still not true that the question of immortality loses all meaning if a supporting substance for psychic activity is denied.

This becomes immediately evident if one considers that, with or without supporting substance, one cannot deny that our psychic life here on earth has a certain continuity. If one rejects the idea of a soul substance, one has the right to assume that this continuity does not depend on a supporting substance. The question as to whether our psychic life would continue after the destruction of our body will be no less meaningful for such a thinker than it is for others. It is really quite inconsistent if thinkers of this school reject the essential question of immortality as meaningless also in this important sense on the basis of the above-mentioned reason. It should then, however, be referred to as the immortality of life rather than that of the soul. (Brentano, Psychology from the Empirical Standpoint, Bk. I, Chap. 1.)

This opinion of Brentano's, however, is without support if the world conception outlined above is rejected. For where can we find grounds for the survival of psychic phenomena after the dissolution of the body if we want to restrict ourselves to the ordinary consciousness? This consciousness can only last as long as its reflector, the physical body, exists. What may survive the loss of the body cannot be designated as substance; it must be another form of consciousness. But this other consciousness can be discovered only through the inner activity that frees the soul from the body. This shows us that the soul can experience consciousness even without the mediation of the body. Through such activity and with the help of supersensible perception, the soul will experience the condition of the complete loss of the body. It finds that it had been the body, itself, that obscured that higher consciousness. While the soul is incarnated, the body has such a strong effect on the soul that this other consciousness cannot become active. This becomes a matter of direct experience when the soul exercises indicated in this chapter are successfully carried out. The soul must then consciously suppress the forces that originate in the body and extinguish the body-free consciousness. This extinction can no longer take place after the dissolution of the body. It is the other consciousness, therefore, that passes through successive lives and through the purely spiritual existence between death and birth. From this point of view, there is reference to a nebulous soul substance. In terms that are comparable to ideas of natural science, the soul is shown how it continues its existence because in one life the seed of the next is prepared, as the seed is prepared in the plant. The present life is shown as the reason for a future life, and the true essence of what continues when death dissolves the body is brought to light.

[ 28 ] Spiritual science as described here nowhere contradicts the methods of modern natural science. But science has to admit that with its methods one cannot gain insight into the realm of the spiritual. As soon as the existence of a consciousness other than the ordinary one is recognized, one will find that by it one is led to conceptions concerning the spiritual world that will give to it a cohesion similar to that that natural science gives to the physical world.

[ 29 ] It will be of importance to eliminate the impression that this spiritual science has borrowed its insights from any older form of religion. One is easily misled to this view because the conception of reincarnation, for instance, is a tenet of certain creeds. For the modern investigator of spiritual science, there can be no borrowing from such creeds. He finds that the devotion to the exercises described above will lead to a consciousness that enters the spiritual world. As a result of this consciousness he learns that the soul has its standing in the spiritual world in the way previously described.

A study of the history of philosophy, beginning with the awakening of thought in Greek civilization, indicates the way that leads to the conviction that the true being of the soul can be found below the surface of ordinary experience. Thinking has proved to be the educator of the soul by leading it to the point at which it is alone with itself. This experience of solitude strengthens the soul whereby it is able to delve not only into its own being but also to reach into the deeper realities of the world. The spiritual science described in this chapter does not attempt to lead behind the world of the senses by using the means of ordinary consciousness, such as reflection and theorizing. It recognizes that the spiritual world must remain concealed from that consciousness and that the soul must, through its own inner transformation, rise into the supersensible world before it can become conscious of it.

[ 30 ] In this way, the insight is also gained that the origin of moral impulses lies in the world that the soul perceives when it is free of the body. From there also the driving forces originate that do not stem from the physical nature of man but are meant to determine his actions independent from this nature.

[ 31 ] When one becomes acquainted with the fact that the “ego” with its spiritual world lives outside the body and that it, therefore, carries the experiences of the external world to the physical body, one will find one's way to a truly spiritual understanding of the riddle of human destiny. A man's inner life is deeply connected with his experiences of destiny. Just consider the state of a man at the age of thirty. The real content of his inner being would be entirely different if he had lived a different kind of life in his preceding years. His “ego” is inconceivable without the experiences of these years. Even if they have struck him serious blows of fate, he has become what he is through them. They belong to the forces that are active in his “ego.” They do not merely strike him from outside. As man lives in his soul and spirit with color that is perceptible only by means of its mirror-effect of the body, so he lives in union with his destiny. With color he is united in his soul life, but he can only perceive it when the body reflects it. Similarly, he becomes one with the effect of a stroke of destiny that results from a previous earth life, but he experiences this blow only inasmuch as the soul plunges unconsciously into events that spring from these causes. In his ordinary consciousness man does not know that his will is bound up with his destiny. In his newly acquired body-free consciousness he finds that he would be deprived of all initiative if that part of his soul that lives in the spiritual world had not willed its entire fate, down to the smallest details. We see that the riddles of human destiny cannot be solved merely by theorizing about them, but only by learning to understand how the soul grows together with its fate in an experience that proceeds beyond the ordinary consciousness. Thus, one will gradually realize that the causes for this or that stroke of destiny in the present life must be sought in a previous one. To the ordinary consciousness our fate does not appear in its true form. It takes its course as a result of previous earthly lives, which are hidden from ordinary consciousness. To realize one's deep connection with the events of former lives means at the same time that one becomes reconciled with one's destiny.

[ 32 ] For a fuller coverage of the philosophical riddles like these, the author must refer to his other works on spiritual science. We can only mention the more important results of this science but not the specific ways and means by which it can become convincing.

[ 33 ] Philosophy leads by its own paths to the insight that it must pass from a study of the world to an experience of it, because mere reflection cannot bring a satisfactory solution to all the riddles of life. This method of cognition is comparable to the seed of a plant. The seed can work in a twofold way when it becomes ripe. It can be used as human food or as seed for a new plant. If it is examined with respect to its usefulness, it must be looked at in a way different from the observation that follows the cycle of reproducing a new plant.

Similarly, man's spiritual experiences can choose either of two roads. On the one hand, it serves the contemplation of the external world. Examined from this point of view, one will be inclined to develop a world conception that asks above all things: How does our knowledge penetrate to the nature of things? What knowledge can we derive from a study of the nature of things? To ask these questions is like investigating the nutritional value of the seed. But it is also possible to focus attention on the experiences of the soul that are not diverted by outside impressions, but lead the soul from one level of being on to another. These experiences are seen as an implanted driving force in which one recognizes a higher man who uses this life to prepare for the next. One arrives at the insight that this is the fundamental impulse of all human soul experience and that knowledge is related to it as the use of the seed of the plant for food is comparable to the development of the grain into a new plant. If we fail to understand this fact, we shall live under the illusion that we could discover the nature of knowledge by merely observing the soul's experiences. This procedure is as erroneous as it is to make only a chemical analysis of the seed with respect to its food value and to pretend that this represents its real essence. Spiritual science, as it is meant here, tries to avoid this error by revealing the inner nature of the soul's experience and by showing that it can also serve the process of knowledge, although its true nature does not consist in this contemplative knowledge.

[ 34 ] The “body-free soul consciousness” here described must not be confused with those enhanced mental conditions that are not acquired by means of the characterized exercises but result from states of lower consciousness such as unclear clairvoyance, hypnotism, etc. In these conditions no body-free consciousness can be attained but only an abnormal connection between body and soul that differs from that of the ordinary life. Real spiritual science can be gained only when the soul finds, in the course of its own disciplined meditative work, the transition from the ordinary consciousness to one with which it awakens in and becomes directly aware of the spiritual world. This inner work consists in a heightening, not a lowering of the ordinary consciousness.

[ 35 ] Through such inner work the human soul can actually attain what philosophy aims for. The latter should not be underestimated because it has not attained its objective on the paths that are usually followed by it. Far more important than the philosophical results are the forces of the soul that can be developed in the course of philosophical work. These forces must eventually lead to the point where it becomes possible to recognize a “body-free soul experience.” Philosophers will then recognize that the “world riddles” must not merely be considered scientifically but need to be experienced by the human soul. But the soul must first attain to the condition in which such an experience is possible.

[ 36 ] This brings up an obvious question. Should ordinary knowledge and scientific knowledge deny its own nature and recognize as a world conception only what is offered from a realm lying outside its own domain? As it is, the experiences of the characterized consciousness are convincing at once also to this ordinary consciousness as long as the latter does not insist upon locking itself up within its own walls. The supersensible truths can be found only by a soul that enters into the supersensible. Once they are found, however, they can be fully understood by the ordinary consciousness. For they are in complete and necessary agreement with the knowledge that can be gained for the world of the senses.

[ 37 ] It cannot be denied that, in the course of the history of philosophy, viewpoints have repeatedly been advanced that are similar to those described in this final chapter. But in former ages these tendencies appeared only like byways of the philosophical inquiry. Its first task was to work its way through everything that could be regarded as a continuation of the awakening thought experience of the Greeks. It then could point the way toward supersensible consciousness on the strength of its own initiative and in awareness of what it can and what it cannot attain. In former times this consciousness was accepted, as it were, without philosophical justification. It was not demanded by philosophy itself. But modern philosophy demands it in response to what it has achieved already without the assistance of this consciousness. Without this help it has succeeded in leading the spiritual investigation into directions that will, if rightly developed, lead to the recognition of supersensible consciousness. That is why this final chapter did not start by describing the way in which the soul speaks of the supersensible when it stands within its realm. Quite to the contrary, an attempt was made to outline philosophically the tendencies resulting from the modern world conceptions, and it was shown how a pursuit of these innate tendencies leads the soul to the recognition of its own supersensible nature.

1. Methodology

[ 1 ] We have established what the relationship is between the world of ideas—attained by scientific thinking—and directly given experience. We have learned to know the beginning and end of a process: experience devoid of ideas and idea filled apprehension of reality. Between the two, however, there lies human activity. The human being must actively allow the end to go forth from the beginning. The way in which he does this is the method. It is of course the case, now, that our apprehension of that relationship between the beginning and end of knowledge will also require its own characteristic method. Where must we begin in developing this method? Scientific thinking must prove itself, step by step, to represent an overcoming of that dark form of reality which we have designated as the directly given, and to represent a lifting up of the directly given into the bright clarity of the idea. The method must therefore consist in our answering the question, with respect to each thing: What part does it have in the unified world of ideas; what place does it occupy in the ideal picture that I make for myself of the world? When I have understood this, when I have recognized how a thing connects itself with my ideas, then my need for knowledge is satisfied. There is only one thing that is not satisfying to my need for knowledge: when a thing confronts me that does not want to connect anywhere with the view I hold of things. The ideal discomfort must be overcome that stems from the fact that there is something or other of which I must say to myself: I see that it is there; when I approach it, it faces me like a question mark; but I find nowhere, within the harmony of my thoughts, the point at that I can incorporate it; the questions I must ask upon seeing it remain unanswered, no matter how I twist and turn my system of thoughts. From this we can see what we need when we look at anything. When I approach it, it faces me as a single thing. Within me the thought-world presses toward that spot where the concept of the thing lies. I do not rest until that which confronted me at first as an individual thing appears as a part of my thought-world. Thus the individual thing as such dissolves and appears in a larger context. Now it is illuminated by the other thought-masses; now it is a serving member; and it is completely clear to me what it signifies within the greater harmony. This is what takes place in us when we approach an object of experience and contemplate it. All progress in science depends upon our becoming aware of the point at which some phenomenon or other can be incorporated into the harmony of the thought-world. Do not misunderstand me. This does not mean that every phenomenon must be explainable by concepts we already have, that our world of ideas is closed, nor that every new experience must coincide with some concept or other that we already possess. That pressing of the thought-world within us toward a concept can also go to a spot that has not yet been thought by anyone at all. And the ideal progress of the history of science rests precisely on the fact that thinking drives new configurations of ideas to the surface. Every such thought-configuration is connected by a thousand threads with all other possible thoughts—with this concept in this way, and with another in that. And the scientific method consists in the fact that we show the concept of a certain phenomenon in its relationship with the rest of the world of ideas. We call this process the deriving (demonstrating) of the concept. All scientific thinking, however, consists only in our finding the existing transitions from concept to concept, consists in our letting one concept go forth from another. The movement of our thinking back and forth from concept to concept: this is scientific method. One will say that this is the old story of the correspondence between the conceptual world and the world of experience. If we are to believe that the going back and forth from concept to concept leads to a picture of reality, then we would have to presuppose that the world outside ourselves (the transsubjective) would correspond to our conceptual world. But that is only a mistaken apprehension of the relationship between individual entity and concept. When I confront an entity from the world of experience, I absolutely do not know at all what it is. Only when I have overcome it, when its concept has lighted up for me, do I then know what I have before me. But this does not mean to say that this individual entity and the concept are two different things. No, they are the same; and what confronts me in this particular entity is nothing other than the concept. The reason I see that entity as a separate piece detached from the rest of reality is, in fact, that I do not yet know it in its true nature, that it does not yet confront me as what it is. This gives us the means of further characterizing our scientific method. Every individual entity of reality represents a definite content within our thought-system. Every such entity is founded in the wholeness of the world of ideas and can be comprehended only in connection with it. Thus each thing must necessarily call upon a twofold thought activity. First the thought corresponding to the thing has to be determined in clear contours, and after this all the threads must be determined that lead from this thought to the whole thought-world. Clarity in the details and depth in the whole are the two most significant demands of reality. The former is the intellect's concern, the latter is reason's. The intellect (Verstand) creates thought-configurations for the individual things of reality. It fulfills its task best the more exactly it delimits these configurations, the sharper the contours are that it draws. Reason (Vernunft) then has to incorporate these configurations into the harmony of the whole world of ideas. This of course presupposes the following: Within the content of the thought-configurations that the intellect creates, that unity already exists, living one and the same life; only, the intellect keeps everything artificially separated. Reason then, without blurring the clarity, merely eliminates the separation again. The intellect distances us from reality; reason brings us back to it again. Graphically this can be represented in the following way:

[ 2 ] In this diagram everything is connected; the same principle lives in all the parts. The intellect causes the separation of the individual configurations—because they do indeed confront us in the given as individual elements⁵²—and reason recognizes the unity.⁵³ [ 3 ] If we have the following two perceptions: 1. the sun shining down and 2. a warm stone, the intellect keeps both things apart, because they confront us as two; it holds onto one as the cause and onto the other as the effect; then reason supervenes, tears down the wall between them, and recognizes the unity in the duality. All the concepts that the intellect creates—cause and effect, substance and attribute, body and soul, idea and reality, God and world, etc.—are there only in order to keep unified reality separated artificially into parts; and reason, without blurring the content thus created, without mystically obscuring the clarity of the intellect, has then to seek out the inner unity in the multiplicity. Reason thereby comes back to that from which the intellect had distanced itself: to the unified reality. If one wants an exact nomenclature, one can call the formations of the intellect “concepts” and the creations of reason “ideas.” And one sees that the path of science is to lift oneself through the concept to the idea. And here is the place where the subjective and the objective element of our knowing differentiates itself for us in the clearest way. It is plain to see that the separation has only a subjective existence, that it is only created by our intellect. It cannot hinder me from dividing one and the same objective unity into thought-configurations that are different from those of a fellow human being; this does not hinder my reason, in its connecting activity, from attaining the same objective unity again from which we both, in fact, have taken our start. Let us represent symbolically a unified configuration of reality (figure 1). I divide it intellectually thus (figure 2); another person divides it differently (figure 3). We bring it together in accordance with reason and obtain the same configuration.

[ 4 ] This makes it explainable to us how people can have such different concepts, such different views of reality, in spite of the fact that reality can, after all, only be one. The difference lies in the difference between our intellectual worlds. This sheds light for us upon the development of the different scientific standpoints. We understand where the many philosophical standpoints originate, and do not need to bestow the palm of truth exclusively upon one of them. We also know which standpoint we ourselves have to take with respect to the multiplicity of human views. We will not ask exclusively: What is true, what is false? We will always investigate how the intellectual world of a thinker goes forth from the world harmony; we will seek to understand and not to judge negatively and regard at once as error that which does not correspond with our own view. Another source of differentiation between our scientific standpoints is added to this one through the fact that every individual person has a different field of experience. Each person is indeed confronted, as it were, by one section of the whole of reality. His intellect works upon this and is his mediator on the way to the idea. But even though we all do therefore perceive the same idea, still we always do this from different places. Therefore, only the end result to which we come can be the same; our paths, however, can be different. It absolutely does not matter at all whether the individual judgments and concepts of which our knowing consists correspond to each other or not; the only thing that matters is that they ultimately lead us to the point that we are swimming in the main channel of the idea. And all human beings must ultimately meet each other in this channel if energetic thinking leads them out of and beyond their own particular standpoints. It can indeed be possible that a limited experience or an unproductive spirit leads us to a one-sided, incomplete view; but even the smallest amount of what we experience must ultimately lead us to the idea; for we do not lift ourselves to the idea through a lesser or greater experience, but rather through our abilities as a human personality alone. A limited experience can only result in the fact that we express the idea in a one-sided way, that we have limited means at our command for bringing to expression the light that shines in us; a limited experience, however, cannot hinder us altogether from allowing that light to shine within us. Whether our scientific or even our general world view is also complete or not is an altogether different question; as is that about the spiritual depth of our views. If one now returns to Goethe, one will recognize that many of his statements, when compared with what we have presented in this chapter, simply follow from it. We consider this to be the only correct relationship between an author and his interpreter. When Goethe says: “If I know my relationship to myself and to the outer world, then I call it truth. And in this way each person can have his own truth, and it is after all always the same one” (Aphorisms in Prose), this can be understood only if we take into account what we have developed here.

2. Dogmatic and Immanent Methods

[ 5 ] A scientific judgment comes about through the fact that we either join two concepts together or join a perception to a concept. The judgment that there is no effect without a cause belongs to the first kind; the judgment that a tulip is a plant belongs to the second kind. Daily life also recognizes judgments where one perception is joined to another, for example when we say that a rose is red. When we make a judgment, we do so for one reason or another. Now, there can be two different views about this reason. One view assumes that the factual (objective) reasons for our judgment being true lie beyond what is given us in the concepts or perceptions that enter into the judgment. According to this view, the reason a judgment is true does not coincide with the subjective reasons out of which we make this judgment. Our logical reasons, according to this view, have nothing to do with the objective reasons. It may be that this view proposes some way or other of arriving at the objective reasons for our insight; the means that our knowing thinking has are not adequate for this. For my knowing, the objective entity that determines my conclusion lies in a world unknown to me: my conclusion. along with its formal reasons (freedom from contradictions, being supported by various axioms, etc.), lies only within my world. A science based on this view is a dogmatic one. Both the theologizing philosophy that bases itself on a belief in revelation, and the modern science of experience are dogmatic sciences of this kind; for there is not only a dogma of revelation; there is also a dogma of experience. The dogma of revelation conveys truths to man about things that are totally removed from his field of vision. He does not know the world concerning which the ready-made assertions are prescribed for his belief. He cannot get at the grounds for these assertions. He can therefore never gain any insight as to why they are true. He can gain no knowledge, only faith. On the other hand, however, the assertions of the science of experience are also merely dogmas; it believes that one should stick merely to pure experience and only observe, describe, and systematically order its transformations, without lifting oneself to the determining factors that are not yet given within mere direct experience. In this case also we do not in fact gain the truth through insight into the matter, but rather it is forced upon us from outside. I see what is happening and what is there; and register it; why it is this way lies in the object. I see only the results, not the reason. The dogma of revelation once ruled science; today it is the dogma of experience that does so. It was once considered presumptuous to reflect upon the preconditions of revealed truths; today it is considered impossible to know anything other than what the facts express. As to why they are as they are and not something different, this is considered to be unexperiencable and therefore inaccessible.

[ 6 ] Our considerations have shown that it is nonsensical to assume any reason for a judgment being true other than our reason for recognizing it as true. When we have pressed forward to the point where the being of something occurs to us as idea, we then behold in the idea something totally complete in itself, something self-supported and self-sustaining; it demands no further explanation from outside at all, so we can stop there. We see in the idea—if only we have the capacity for this—that it has everything which constitutes it within itself, that with it we have everything we could ask. The entire ground of existence has merged with the idea, has poured itself into it, unreservedly, in such a way that we have nowhere else to seek it except in the idea. In the idea we do not have a picture of what we are seeking in addition to the things; we have what we are seeking itself. When the parts of our world of ideas flow together in our judgments then it is the content of these parts itself that brings this about, not reasons lying outside them. The substantial and not merely the formal reasons for our conclusions are directly present within our thinking.

[ 7 ] That view is thereby rejected which assumes an absolute reality—outside the ideal realm—by which all things, including thinking, are carried. For that world view, the foundation for what exists cannot be found at all within what is accessible to us. This foundation is not innate (eingeboren) to the world lying before us; it is present outside this world, an entity unto itself, existing alongside this world. One can call that view realism. It appears in two forms. It either assumes a multiplicity of real beings underlying the world (Leibniz, Herbart), or a uniform real (Schopenhauer). Such an existent real can never be recognized as identical with the idea; it is already presupposed to be essentially different from the idea. Someone who becomes aware of the clear sense of the question as to the essential being of phenomena cannot be an adherent of this realism. What does it mean then to ask about the essential being of the world? It means nothing more than that, when I approach a thing, a voice makes itself heard in me that tells me that the thing is ultimately something quite else in addition to what I perceive with my senses. What it is in addition is already working in me, presses in me toward manifestation, while I am seeing the thing outside me. Only because the world of ideas working in me presses me to explain, out of it, the world around me, do I demand any such explanation. For a being in whom no ideas are pressing up, the urge is not there to explain the things any further; he is fully satisfied with the sense-perceptible phenomenon. The demand for an explanation of the world stems from the need that thinking has to unite the content accessible to thinking with manifest reality, to permeate everything conceptually, to make what we see, hear, etc., into something that we understand. Whoever takes into consideration the full implications of these statements cannot possibly be an adherent of the realism characterized above. To want to explain the world by something real that is not idea is such a self-contradiction that one absolutely cannot grasp how it could possibly find any adherents at all. To explain what is perceptibly real to us by something or other that does not take part in thinking at all, that, in fact, is supposed to be basically different from any- thing of a thought nature, for this we have neither the need nor any possible starting point. First of all: Where would the need originate to explain the world by something that never intrudes upon us, that conceals itself from us? And let us assume that it did approach us; then the question arises again: In what form and where? It cannot of course be in thinking. And even in outer or inner perception again? What meaning could it have to explain the sense world by a qualitative equivalent? There is only one other possibility: to assume that we had an ability to reach this most real being that lies outside thought in another way than through thinking and perception. Whoever makes this assumption has fallen into mysticism. We do not have to deal with mysticism, however; for we are concerned only with the relationship between thinking and existence, between idea and reality. A mystic must write an epistemology for mysticism. The standpoint of the later Schelling—according to which we develop only the what (das Was) of the world content with the help of our reason, but cannot reach the that (das Dass)⁵⁴—seems to us to be the greatest nonsense. Because for us the that is the presupposition of the what, and we would not know how we are supposed to arrive at the what of a thing whose that has not already been surely established beforehand. The that, after all, is already inherent in the content of my reason when I grasp its what. This assumption of Schelling—that we can have a positive world content, without any conviction that it exists, and that we must first gain the that through higher experience—seems to us so incomprehensible to any thinking that understands itself, that we must assume that Schelling himself, in his later period, no longer understood the standpoint of his youth, which made such a powerful impression upon Goethe.

[ 8 ] It will not do to assume higher forms of existence than those belonging to the world of ideas. Only because the human being is often not able to comprehend that the existence (Sein) of the idea is something far higher and fuller than that of perceptual reality, does he still seek a further reality. He regards ideal existence as something chimerical, as something needing to be imbued with some real element, and is not satisfied with it. He cannot, in fact, grasp the idea in its positive nature; he has it only as something abstract; he has no inkling of its fullness, of its inner perfection and genuineness. But we must demand of our education that it work its way up to that high standpoint where even an existence that cannot be seen with the eyes, nor grasped with the hands, but that must be apprehended by reason, is regarded as real. We have therefore actually founded an idealism that is realism at the same time. Our train of thought is: Thinking presses toward explanation of reality out of the idea. It conceals this urge in the question: What is the real being of reality? Only at the end of a scientific process do we ask about the content of this real being itself; we do not go about it as realism does, which presupposes something real in order then to trace reality back to it. We differ from realism in having full consciousness of the fact that only in the idea do we have a means of explaining the world. Even realism has only this means but does not realize it. It derives the world from ideas, but believes it derives it from some other reality. Leibniz' world of monads is nothing other than a world of ideas; but Leibniz believes that in it he possesses a higher reality than the ideal one. All the realists make the same mistake: they think up beings, without becoming aware that they are not getting outside of the idea. We have rejected this realism, because it deceives itself about the actual ideal nature of its world foundation; but we also have to reject that false idealism which believes that because we do not get outside of the idea, we also do not get outside of our consciousness, and that all the mental pictures given us and the whole world are only subjective illusion, only a dream that our consciousness dreams (Fichte). These idealists also do not comprehend that although we do not get outside of the idea, we do nevertheless have in the idea something objective, something that has its basis in itself and not in the subject. They do not consider the fact that even though we do not get outside of the unity of thinking, we do enter with the thinking of our reason into the midst of full objectivity. The realists do not comprehend that what is objective is idea, and the idealists do not comprehend that the idea is objective.

[ 9 ] We still have to occupy ourselves with the empiricists of the sense-perceptible, who regard any explaining of the real by the idea as inadmissible philosophical deduction and who demand that we stick to what is graspable by the senses. Against this standpoint we can only say, simply, that its demand can, after all, only be a methodological one. To say that we should stick to what is given only means, after all, that we should acquire for ourselves what confronts us. This standpoint is the least able to determine anything about the what of the given; for, this what must in fact come, for this standpoint, from the given itself. It is totally incomprehensible to us how, along with the demand for pure experience, someone can demand at the same time that we not go outside the sense world, seeing that in fact the idea can just as well fulfill the demand that it be given. The positivistic principle of experience must leave the question entirely open as to what is given, and unites itself quite well then with the results of idealistic research. But then this demand coincides with ours as well. And we do unite in our view all standpoints, insofar as they are valid ones. Our standpoint is idealism, because it sees in the idea the ground of the world; it is realism because it addresses the idea as the real; and it is positivism or empiricism because it wants to arrive at the content of the idea, not through a priori constructions, but rather as something given. We have an empirical method that penetrates into the real and that is ultimately satisfied by the results of idealistic research. We do not recognize as valid any inferring, from something given and known to us, of an underlying, non-given, determinative element. We reject any inference in which any part of the inference is not given. Inferring is only a going from given elements over to other equally given elements. In an inference we join a to b by means of c; but all these must be given. When Volkelt says that our thinking moves us to presuppose something in addition to the given and to transcend the given, then we say: Within our thinking, something is already moving us that we want to add to the directly given. We must therefore reject all metaphysics. Metaphysics wants, in fact, to explain the given by something non-given, inferred (Wolff, Herbart). We see in inferences only a formal activity that does not lead to anything new, but only brings about transitions between elements actually present.

3. The System of Science

[ 10 ] What form does a fully developed science (Wissenschaft) have in the light of the Goethean way of thinking? Above all we must hold fast to the fact that the total content of science is a given one; given partly as the sense world from outside, partly as the world of ideas from within. All our scientific activity will therefore consist in overcoming the form in which this total content of the given confronts us, and in making it over into a form that satisfies us. This is necessary because the inner unity of the given remains hidden in its first form of manifestation, in which only the outer surface appears to us. Now the methodological activity that establishes a relationship between these two forms turns out to vary according to the realm of phenomena with which we are working. The first realm is one in which we have a manifoldness of elements given to sense perception. These interact with each other. This interaction becomes clear to us when we immerse ourselves into the matter through ideas. Then one or another element appears as more or less determined by the others, in one way or another. The existential conditions of one become comprehensible to us through those of the others. We trace one phenomenon back to the others. We trace the phenomenon of a warm stone, as effect, back to the warming rays of the sun, as cause. We have explained what we perceive about one thing, when we trace it back to some other perceptible thing. We see in what way the ideal law arises in this realm. It encompasses the things of the sense world, stands over them. It determines the lawful way of working of one thing by letting it be conditional upon another. Our task here is to bring together the series of phenomena in such a way that one necessarily goes forth out of the others, that they all constitute one whole and are lawful through and through. The realm that is to be explained in this way is inorganic nature. Now the individual phenomena of experience by no means confront us in such a way that what is closest in space and time is also the closest according to its inner nature. We must first pass from what is closest in space and time over into what is conceptually closest. For a certain phenomenon we must seek the phenomena that are directly connected to it in accordance with their nature. Our goal must be to bring together a series of facts that complement each other, that carry and mutually support each other. We achieve thereby a group of sense-perceptible, interacting elements of reality; and the phenomenon that unfolds before us follows directly out of the pertinent factors in a transparent, clear way. Following Goethe's example, we call such a phenomenon an “archetypal phenomenon” (Urphänomen) or a basic fact. This archetypal phenomenon is identical with the objective natural law. The bringing together discussed here can either occur merely in thoughts—as when I think about the three determining factors that come into consideration when a stone is thrown horizontally: 1. the force of the throw, 2. the force of gravity, and 3. the air's resistance and then derive the path of the flying stone from these factors; or, on the other hand, I can actually bring the individual factors together and then await the phenomenon that follows from their interaction. This is what we do in an experiment. Whereas a phenomenon of the outer world is unclear to us because we know only what has been determined (the phenomenon) and not what is determining, the phenomenon that an experiment presents is clear, because we ourselves have brought together the determining factors. This is the path of research of nature: It takes its start from experience, in order to see what is real; advances to observation, in order to see why it is real; and then intensifies into the experiment, in order to see what can be real.

[ 11 ] Unfortunately, precisely that essay of Goethe's seems to have been lost that could best have supported these views. It is a continuation of the essay, The Experiment as Mediator between Subject and Object.⁵⁵ Starting from the latter, let us try to reconstruct the possible content of the lost essay from the only source available to us, the correspondence between Goethe and Schiller. The essay on The Experiment came out of those studies of Goethe that he undertook in order to show the validity of his work in optics. It was then put aside until the poet took up these studies again in 1798 with new energy and, with Schiller, submitted the basic principles of the natural-scientific method to a thorough and scientifically serious investigation. On January 10, 1798 (see Goethe's correspondence with Schiller) he then sent the essay on The Experiment to Schiller for his consideration and on January 13 informed his friend that he wanted, in a new essay, to develop further the views expressed there. And he did undertake this work; on January 17 already he sent a little essay to Schiller that contained a characterization of the methods of natural science. This is not to be found among his works. It would indisputably have been the one to provide the best points of reference for an appreciation of Goethe's basic views on the natural-scientific method. We can, however, know what thoughts were expressed there from Schiller's detailed letter of January 19, 1798; along with this, the fact comes into consideration that we find many confirmations and supplementations to the indications in Schiller's letter in Goethe's Aphorisms in Prose.⁵⁶

[ 12 ] Goethe distinguishes three methods of natural-scientific research. These rest upon three different conceptions of phenomena. The first method is ordinary empiricism, which does not go beyond the empirical phenomenon, beyond the immediate facts. It remains with individual phenomena. If ordinary empiricism wants to be consistent, it must limit its entire activity to exactly describing in every detail each phenomenon that meets it, i.e., to recording the empirical facts. Science, for it, would merely be the sum total of all these individual descriptions of recorded facts. Compared to ordinary empiricism rationalism then represents the next higher level, it deals with the scientific phenomenon. This view no longer limits itself to the mere describing of phenomena, but rather seeks to explain these by discovering causes, by setting up hypotheses, etc. It is the level at which the intellect infers from the phenomena their causes and inter-relationships. Goethe declares both these methods to be one-sided. Ordinary empiricism is raw non-science, because it never gets beyond the mere grasping of incidentals; rationalism, on the other hand, interprets into the phenomenal world causes and interrelationships that are not in it. The former cannot lift itself out of the abundance of phenomena up to free thinking; the latter loses this abundance as the sure ground under its feet and falls prey to the arbitrariness of imagination and of subjective inspiration. Goethe censures in the sharpest way the passion people have for immediately attaching to the phenomena deductions arrived at subjectively, as, for example, in Aphorisms in Prose: “It is bad business—but one that happens to many an observer—where a person immediately connects a deduction to a perception and considers them both as equally valid,” and: “Theories are usually the overly hasty conclusions of an impatient intellect that would like to be rid of the phenomenon and therefore sets in its place pictures, concepts, indeed often only words. One senses, one even sees, in fact, that it is only an expedient; but have not passion and a partisan spirit always loved expedients? And rightly so, since they need them so much.” Goethe particularly criticizes the misuse to which the concept of causality has given rise. Rationalism, in its unbridled fantasy, seeks causality where, if you are looking for facts, it is not to be found. In Aphorisms in Prose he says: “The most innate, most necessary concept, that of cause and effect, when applied, gives rise to innumerable and ever-recurring errors.” Rationalism is particularly led by its passion for simple relationships to think of phenomena as parts of a chain attached to one another by cause and effect and stretching out merely lengthwise; whereas the truth is, in fact, that one or another phenomenon that, in time, is causally determined by an earlier one, still depends also upon many other effects at the same time. In this case only the length and not the breadth of nature is taken into account. Both paths, ordinary empiricism and rationalism, are for Goethe certainly transitional stages to the highest scientific method, but, in fact, only transitional stages that must be surmounted. And this occurs with rational empiricism, which concerns itself with the pure phenomenon that is identical to the objective natural laws. The ordinary empirical element—direct experience—offers us only individual things, something incoherent, an aggregate of phenomena. That means it offers us all this not as the final conclusion of scientific consideration, but rather, in fact, as a first experience. Our scientific needs, however, seek only what is interrelated, comprehend the individual thing only as a part in a relationship. Thus, seemingly, our need to comprehend and the facts of nature diverge from each other. In our spirit there is only relatedness, in nature only separateness; our spirit strives for the species, nature creates only individuals. The solution to this contradiction is provided by the reflection that the connecting power of the human spirit, on the one hand, is without content, and therefore, by and through itself alone, cannot know anything positive; on the other hand, the separateness of the objects of nature does not lie in their essential being itself, but rather in their spatial manifestation; in fact, when we penetrate into the essential being of the individual, of the particular, this being itself directs us to the species. Because the objects of nature are separated in their outer manifestation, our spirit's power to draw together is needed in order to show their inner unity. Because the unity of the intellect by itself is empty, the intellect must fill this unity with the objects of nature. Thus at this third level phenomenon and spiritual power come to meet each other and merge into one, and only then can the human spirit be fully satisfied.

[ 13 ] A further realm of investigation is that in which the individual thing, in its form of existence, does not appear as the result of something else existing beside it; we therefore also do not comprehend it by seeking help from something else of the same kind. Here, a series of sense-perceptible phenomenological elements appears to us as the direct formation of a unified principle, and we must press forward to this principle if we want to comprehend the individual phenomenon. In this realm, we cannot explain the phenomenon by anything working in from outside; we must derive it from within outward. What earlier was a determining factor is now merely an inducing factor. In the first realm I have comprehended everything when I have succeeded in regarding it as the result of something else, in tracing it back to an outer determining factor; here I am compelled to ask the question differently. When I know the outer influence, I still have not gained any information as to whether the phenomenon then occurs in this, and only in this, way. I must derive this from the central principle of that thing upon which the outer influence took place. I cannot say that this outer influence has this effect; but only that, to this particular outer influence, the inner working principle responds in this particular way. What occurs is the result of an inner lawfulness. I must therefore know this inner lawfulness. I must investigate what it is that is taking shape from within outward. This self-shaping principle, which in this realm underlies every phenomenon, which I must seek in every one, is the typus. We are in the realm of organic nature. What the archetypal phenomenon is in inorganic nature, the typus is in organic nature. The typus is a general picture of the organism: the idea of the organism; the animalness in the animal. We had to bring the main points here again of what we already stated about the typus in an earlier chapter, because of the context. In the ethical and historical sciences we then have to do with the idea in a narrower sense. Ethics and history are sciences of ideas. Their reality is ideas. It is the task of each science to work on the given until it brings the given to the archetypal phenomenon, to the typus, and to the leading ideas in history. “If ... the physicist can arrive at knowledge of what we have called an archetypal phenomenon, then he is secure and the philosopher along with him; he is so because he has convinced himself that he has arrived at the limits of his science, that he finds himself upon the empirical heights, from which he can look back upon experience in all its levels, and can at least look forward into the realm of theory if not enter it. The philosopher is secure, for he receives from the physicist's hand something final that becomes for him now something from which to start” (Sketch of a colour Theory).⁵⁷—This is in fact where the philosopher enters and begins his work. He grasps the archetypal phenomena and brings them into a satisfying ideal relationship. We see what it is, in the sense of the Goethean world view, that is to take the place of metaphysics: the observing (in accordance with ideas), ordering, and deriving of archetypal phenomena. Goethe speaks repeatedly in this sense about the relationship between empirical science and philosophy—with special clarity in his letters to Hegel. In his Annals he speaks repeatedly about a schema of science. If this were to be found, we would see from it how he himself conceived the interrelationships of the individual archetypal phenomena to be, how he put them together into a necessary chain. We can also gain a picture of it when we consider the table of all possible kinds of workings that he gives in the fourth section of the first volume of On Natural Science.⁵⁸

Chance
Mechanical
Physical
Chemical
Organic
Psychic
Ethical
Religious
Of a Genius

[ 14 ] It is according to this ascending sequence that one would have to guide oneself in ordering the archetypal phenomena.

4. Limits to Knowledge and the Forming of Hypotheses

[ 15 ] One speaks a great deal today about limits to our knowing. Man's ability to explain what exists, it is said, reaches only to a certain point, and there he must stop. We believe we can rectify the situation with respect to this question if we ask the question correctly. For, it is, indeed, so often only a matter of putting the question correctly. When this is done, a whole host of errors is dispelled. When we reflect that the object that we feel the need within us to explain must be given, then it is clear that the given itself cannot set a limit for us. For, in order to lay any claim at all to being explained and comprehended, it must confront us within given reality. Something that does not appear upon the horizon of the given does not need to be explained. Any limits could therefore lie only in the fact that, in the face of a given reality, we lacked all means of explaining it. But our need for explanation comes precisely from the fact that what we want to consider a given thing to be—that by which we want to explain it—forces itself onto the horizon of what is given us in thought. Far from being unknown to us, the explanatory essential being of an object is itself the very thing which, by manifesting within our spirit, makes the explanation necessary. What is to be explained and that by which it is to be explained are both present. It is only a matter of joining them. Explaining something is not the seeking of an unknown, but only a coming to terms about the reciprocal connection between two knowns. It should never occur to us to explain a given by something of which we have no knowledge. Now something does come into consideration here that gives a semblance of justification to the theory of a limit to knowledge. It could be that we do in fact have an inkling of something real that is there, but that nevertheless is beyond our perception. We can perceive some traces, some effects or other of a thing, and then make the assumption that this thing does exist. And here one can perhaps speak of a limit to our knowing. What we have presupposed to be inaccessible in this case, however, is not something by which to explain anything in principle; it is something perceivable even though it is not perceived. What hinders me from perceiving it is not any limit to knowledge in principle, but only chance outer factors. These can very well be surmounted. What I merely have inklings of today can be experienced tomorrow. But with a principle that is not so; with it, there are no outer hindrances, which after all lie mostly only in place and time; the principle is given to me inwardly. Something else does not give me an inkling of a principle when I myself do not see the principle.

[ 16 ] Theory about the forming of hypotheses is connected with this. A hypothesis is an assumption that we make and whose truth we cannot ascertain directly but only in its effects. We see a series of phenomena. It is explainable to us only when we found it upon something that we do not perceive directly. May such an assumption be extended to include a principle? Clearly not. For, something of an inner nature that I assume without becoming aware of it is a total contradiction. A hypothesis can only assume something, indeed, that I do not perceive, but that I would perceive at once if I cleared away the outer hindrances. A hypothesis can indeed not presuppose something perceived, but must assume something perceivable. Thus, every hypothesis is in the situation that its content can be directly confirmed only by a future experience. Only hypotheses that can cease to be hypotheses have any justification. Hypotheses about central scientific principles have no value. Something that is not explained by a positively given principle known to us is not capable of explanation at all and also does not need it.

5. Ethical and Historical Sciences

[ 7 ] The answering of the question, What is knowing, has illuminated for us the place of the human being in the cosmos. The view we have developed in answering this question cannot fail to shed light also upon the value and significance of human action. We must in fact attach a greater or lesser significance to what we perform in the world, according to whether we attribute a higher or lower significance to our calling as human beings.

[ 8 ] The first task to which we must now address ourselves will be to investigate the character of human activity. How does what we must regard as the effect of human action relate to other effects within the world process? Let us look at two things: a product of nature and a creation of human activity, a crystal form and a wheel, perhaps. In both cases the object before us appears as the result of laws expressible in concepts. Their difference lies only in the fact that we must regard the crystal as the direct product of the natural lawfulness that determines it, whereas with the wheel the human being intervenes between the concept and the object. What we think of in the natural product as underlying the real, this we introduce into reality by our action. In knowing, we experience what the ideal determining factors of our sense experience are; we bring the world of ideas, which already lies within reality, to manifestation; we therefore complete the world process in the sense that we call into appearance the producer who eternally brings forth his products. but who, without our thinking, would remain eternally hidden within them. In human actions, however, we supplement this process through the fact that we translate the world of ideas, insofar as it is not yet reality, into such reality. Now we have recognized the idea as that which underlies all reality as the determining element, as the intention of nature. Our knowing leads us to the point of finding the tendency of the world process, the intention of the creation, out of all the indications contained in the nature surrounding us. If we have achieved this, then our action is given the task of working along independently in the realizing of that intention. And thus our action appears to us as the direct continuation of that kind of activity that nature also fulfills. It appears to us as directly flowing from the world foundation. But what a difference there is, in fact, between this and that other (nature) activity! The nature product by no means has within itself the ideal lawfulness by which it appears governed. It needs to be confronted by something higher, by human thinking; there then appears to this thinking that by which the nature product is governed. This is different in the case of human action. Here the idea dwells directly within the acting object; and if a higher being confronted it, this being could not find in the object's activity anything other than what this object itself had put into its action. For, a perfect human action is the result of our intentions and only that. If we look at a nature product that affects another, then the matter is like this: we see an effect; this effect is determined by laws grasped in concepts. But if we want to comprehend the effect, then it is not enough for us to compare it with some law or other; we must have a second perceptible thing—which, to be sure, must also be dissolvable entirely into concepts. When we see an impression in the ground we then look for the object that made it. This leads to the concept of a kind of effect where the cause of a phenomenon also appears in the form of an outer perception, i.e., to the concept of force. A force can confront us only where the idea first appears in an object of perception and only in this form acts upon another object. The opposite of this is when this intermediary is not there, when the idea approaches the sense world directly. There the idea itself appears as causative. And here is where we speak of will. Will, therefore, is the idea itself apprehended as force. It is totally inadmissible to speak of an independent will. When a person accomplishes something or other, one cannot say that will is added to the mental picture. If one does speak in that way, then one has not grasped the concepts clearly, for, what is the human personality if one disregards the world of ideas that fills it? It is, in fact, an active existence. Whoever grasps the human personality differently—as dead, inactive nature product—puts it at the level of a stone in the road. This active existence, however, is an abstraction; it is nothing real. One cannot grasp it; it is without content. If one wants to grasp it, if one wants a content for it, then one arrives, in fact, at the world of ideas that is engaged in doing. Eduard von Hartmann makes this abstraction into a second world-constituting principle beside the idea. It is, however, nothing other than the idea itself, only in one form of manifestation. Will without idea would be nothing. The same cannot be said of the idea, for activity is one of its elements, whereas the idea is the self-sustaining being.

[ 19 ] So much for the characterization of human action. Let us proceed to a further essential distinguishing feature of it that necessarily results from what has already been said. The explaining of a process in nature is a going back to its determining factors: a seeking out of the producer in addition to the product that is given. When I perceive an effect and then seek its cause, these two perceptions do not by any means satisfy my need for explanation. I must go back to the laws by which this cause brings forth this effect. It is different with human action. Here the lawfulness that determines a phenomenon itself enters into action; that which makes a product itself appears upon the scene of activity. We have to do with a manifesting existence at which we can remain, for which we do not need to ask about deeper-lying determining factors. We have comprehended a work of art when we know the idea embodied in it; we do not need to ask about any further lawful relationship between idea (cause) and creation (effect). We comprehend the actions of a statesman when we know his intentions (ideas); we do not need to go any further beyond what comes to appearance. This is therefore what distinguishes the processes of nature from the actions of human beings: with nature processes the law is to be regarded as the determining background for what comes into manifest existence, whereas with human actions the existence is itself the law and manifests as determined by nothing other than itself. Thus every process of nature breaks down into something determining and something determined, and the latter follows necessarily from the former, whereas human action determines only itself. This, however, is action out of inner freedom (Freiheit). When the intentions of nature, which stand behind its manifestations and determine them, enter into the human being, they themselves become manifestation; but now they are, as it were, free from any attachment behind them (rückenfrei). If all nature processes are only manifestations of the idea, then human doing is the idea itself in action.

[ 20 ] Since our epistemology has arrived at the conclusion that the content of our consciousness is not merely a means of making a copy of the world ground. but rather that this world ground itself, in its most primal state comes to light within our thinking, we can do nothing other than to recognize directly in human action also the undetermined action of that primal ground. We recognize no world director outside ourselves who sets goals and directions for our actions. The world director has given up his power, has given everything over to man, abolishing his own separate existence, and set man the task: Work on. The human being finds himself in the world, sees nature, and within it, the indication of something deeper, a determining element, an intention. His thinking enables him to know this intention. It becomes his spiritual possession. He has penetrated the world; he comes forth, acting, to carry on those intentions. Therefore, the philosophy presented here is the true philosophy of inner freedom (Freiheitsphilosophie). In the realm of human actions it acknowledges neither natural necessity nor the influence of some creator or world director outside the world. In either case, the human being would be unfree. If natural necessity worked in him in the same way as in other entities, then he would perform his actions out of compulsion, then it would also be necessary in his case to go back to determining factors that underlie manifest existence, and then inner freedom is out of the question. It is of course not impossible that there are innumerable human functions that can only be seen in this light; but these do not come into consideration here. The human being, insofar as he is a being of nature, is also to be understood according to the laws that apply to nature's working. But neither as a knowing nor as a truly ethical being can he, in his behavior, be understood according to merely natural laws. There, in fact, he steps outside the sphere of natural realities. And it is with respect to this, his existence's highest potency, which is more an ideal than reality, that what we have established here holds good. Man's path in life consists in his developing himself from a being of nature into a being such as we have learned to know here; he should make himself free of all laws of nature and become his own law giver.

[ 21 ] But we must also reject the influence of any director—outside the world—of human destiny. Also where such a director is assumed, there can be no question of true inner freedom. There he determines the direction of human action and man has to carry out what this director sets him to do. He experiences the impulse to his actions not as an ideal that he sets himself, but rather as the commandment of that director; again his actions are not undetermined, but rather determined. The human being would not then, in fact, feel himself to be free of any attachment from behind him, but would feel dependent, like a mere intermediary for the intentions of a higher power.

[ 22 ] We have seen that dogmatism consists in seeking the basis for the truth of anything in something beyond, and inaccessible to, our consciousness (transsubjective), in contrast to our view that declares a judgment to be true only because the reason for doing so lies in the concepts that are present in our consciousness and that flow into the judgment. Someone who conceives of a world ground outside of our world of ideas thinks that our ideal reason for recognizing something as true is a different reason than that as to why it is objectively true. Thus truth is apprehended as dogma. And in the realm of ethics a commandment is what a dogma is in science. When the human being seeks the impulse for his action in commandments, he acts then according to laws whose basis is independent of him; he conceives of a norm that is prescribed for his action from outside. He acts out of duty. To speak of duty makes sense only when looked at this way. We must feel the impulse from outside and acknowledge the necessity of responding to it; then we act out of duty. Our epistemology cannot accept this kind of action as valid where the human being appears in his full ethical development. We know that the world of ideas is unending perfection itself; we know that with it the impulses of our action lie within us; and we must therefore only acknowledge an action as ethical in which the deed flows only out of the idea, lying within us, of the deed. From this point of view, man performs an action only because its reality is a need for him. He acts because an inner (his own) urge, not an outer power, drives him. The object of his action, as soon as he makes himself a concept of it, fills him in such a way that he strives to realize it. The only impulse for our action should also lie in the need to realize an idea, in the urge to carry out an intention. Everything that urges us to a deed should live its life in the idea. Then we do not act out of duty; we do not act under the influence of a drive; we act out of love for the object to which our action is to be directed. The object, when we picture it, calls forth in us the urge to act in a way appropriate to it. Only such action is a free one. For if, in addition to the interest we take in the object, there had yet to be a second motivation from another quarter, then we would not want this object for its own sake; we would want something else and would perform that, which we do not want we would carry out an action against our will. That would be the case, for example, in action out of egoism. There we take no interest in the action itself; it is not a need for us; we do need the benefits, however, that it brings us. But then we also feel right away as compulsion the fact that we must perform the action for this reason only. The action itself is not a need for us; for we would leave it undone if no benefits followed from it. An action, however, that we do not perform for its own sake is an unfree one. Egoism acts unfreely. Every person acts unfreely, in fact, who performs an action out of a motivation that does not follow from the objective content of the action itself. To carry out an action for its own sake means to act out of love. Only someone who is guided by love in doing, by devotion to objectivity, acts truly freely. Whoever is incapable of this selfless devotion will never be able to regard his activity as a free one.

[ 23 ] If man's action is to be nothing other than the realization of his own content of ideas, then naturally such a content must lie within him. His spirit must work productively. For, what is supposed to fill him with the urge to accomplish something if not an idea working its way up in his spirit? This idea will prove to be all the more fruitful the more it arises in his spirit in definite outlines and with a clear content. For only that, in fact, can move us with full force to realize something, which is completely definite in its entire “what.” An ideal that is only dimly pictured to oneself, that is left in an indefinite state, is unsuitable as an impulse to action. What is there about it to fire us with enthusiasm if its content does not lie clear and open to the day? The impulses for our action must therefore always arise in the form of individual intentions. Everything fruitful that the human being accomplishes owes its existence to such individual impulses. General moral laws, ethical norms, etc., that are supposed to be valid for all human beings prove to be entirely worthless. When Kant regards as ethically valid only that which is suitable as a law for all human beings, then one can say in response to this that all positive action would cease, that everything great would disappear from the world, if each person did only what was suitable for everyone. No, it is not such vague, general ethical norms but rather the most individual ideals that should guide our actions. Everything is not equally worthy of being done by everyone, but rather this is worthy of him, that of her, according to whether one of them feels called to do a thing. J. Kreyenbühl has spoken about this in apt words is his essay Ethical Freedom in Kant's View⁵⁹: “If freedom is, in fact, to be my freedom, if a moral deed is to be my deed, if the good and right is to be realized through me, through the action of this particular individual personality, then I cannot possibly be satisfied by a general law that disregards all individuality and all the peculiarities of the concurrent circumstances of the action, and that commands me to examine every action as to whether its underlying motive corresponds to the abstract norm of general human nature and as to whether, in the way it lives and works in me, it could become a generally valid maxim.” ... “An adaptation of this kind to what is generally usual and customary would render impossible any individual freedom, any progress beyond the ordinary and humdrum, any significant, outstanding ethical achievement.”

[ 24 ] These considerations shed light upon the questions a general ethics has to answer. One often treats this last, in fact, as though it were a sum total of norms according to which human action ought to direct itself. From this point of view, one compares ethics to natural science and in general to the science of what exists. Whereas science is to communicate to us the laws of that which exists, of what is, ethics supposedly has to teach us the laws of what ought to exist. Ethics is supposedly a codex of all the ideals of man, a detailed answer to the question: What is good? Such a science, however, is impossible. There can be no general answer to this question. Ethical action is, in fact, a product of what manifests within the individual; it is always present as an individual case, never in a general way. There are no general laws as to what one ought or ought not to do. But do not regard the individual legal statutes of the different peoples as such general laws. They are also nothing more than the outgrowth of individual intentions. What one or another personality has experienced as a moral motive has communicated itself to a whole people, has become the “code of this people.” A general natural code that should apply to all people for all time is nonsense. Views as to what is right and wrong and concepts of morality come and go with the different peoples, indeed even with individuals. The individuality is always the decisive factor. It is therefore inadmissible to speak of an ethics in the above sense. But there are other questions to be answered in this science, questions that have in part been touched upon briefly in these discussions. Let me mention only: establishing the difference between human action and nature's working, the question as to the nature of the will and of inner freedom, etc. All these individual tasks can be summed up in one: To what extent is man an ethical being? But this aims at nothing other than knowledge of the moral nature of man. The question asked is not: What ought man to do? but rather: What is it that he is doing, in its inner nature? And thereby that partition falls which divides all science into two spheres: into a study of what exists and into one of what ought to exist. Ethics is just as much a study of what exists as all the other sciences. In this respect, a unified impulse runs through all the sciences in that they take their start from something given and proceed to its determining factors. But there can be no science of human action itself; for, it is undetermined, productive, creative. Jurisprudence is not a science, but only a collection of notes on the customs and codes characteristic of an individual people.

[ 25 ] Now the human being does not belong only to himself; he belongs, as a part, to two higher totalities. First of all, he is part of a people with which he is united by common customs, by a common cultural life, by language, and by a common view. But then he is also a citizen of history, an individual member in the great historical process of human development. Through his belonging to these two wholes, his free action seems to be restricted. What he does, does not seem to flow only from his own individual ego; he appears determined by what he has in common with his people; his individuality seems to be abolished by the character of his people. Am I still free then if one can find my actions explainable not only out of my own nature but to a considerable extent also out of the nature of my people? Do I not act, therefore, the way I do because nature has made me a member of this particular community of people? And it is no different with the second whole to which I belong. History assigns me the place of my working. I am dependent upon the cultural epoch into which I am born; I am a child of my age. But if one apprehends the human being at the same time as a knowing and as an acting entity, then this contradiction resolves itself. Through his capacity for knowledge, man penetrates into the particular character of his people; it becomes clear to him whither his fellow citizens are steering. He overcomes that by which he appears determined in this way and takes it up into himself as a picture that he has fully known; it becomes individual within him and takes on entirely the personal character that working from inner freedom has. The situation is the same with respect to the historical development within which the human being appears. He lifts himself to a knowledge of the leading ideas, of the moral forces holding sway there; and then they no longer work upon him as determining factors, but rather become individual driving powers within him. The human being must in fact work his way upward so that he is no longer led, but rather leads himself. He must not allow himself to be carried along blindly by the character of his people, but rather must lift himself to a knowledge of this character so that he acts consciously in accordance with his people. He must not allow himself to be carried by the progress of culture, but must rather make the ideas of his time into his own. In order for him to do so it is necessary above all that he understand his time. Then, in inner freedom, he will fulfill its tasks; then he will set to at the right place with his own work. Here the humanities⁶⁰ (history, cultural and literary history, etc.) must enter as intermediaries. In the humanities the human being has to do with his own accomplishments, with the creations of culture, of literature, with art, etc. Something spiritual is grasped by the human spirit. And the purpose of the humanities should not be any- thing other than that man recognize where chance has placed him; he should recognize what has already been accomplished, what falls to him to do. Through the humanities he must find the right point at which to participate with his personality in the happenings of the world. The human being must know the spiritual world and determine his part in it according to this knowledge.

[ 26 ] In the preface to the first volume of his Pictures from the German Past,⁶¹ Gustav Freytag says: “All the great creations of the power of a people, inherited religion, custom, law, state configurations, are for us no longer the results of individual men; they are the organic creations of a lofty life that in every age comes to manifestation only through the individual, and in every age draws together into itself the spiritual content of the individual into a mighty whole ... Thus, without saying anything mystical, one might well speak of a folk-soul ... But the life of a people no longer works consciously, like the will forces of a man. Man represents what is free and intelligent in history; the power of a people works ceaselessly, with the dark compulsion of a primal force.” If Freytag had investigated this life of a people, he would have found, indeed, that it breaks down into the working of a sum of single individuals who overcome that dark compulsion and lift what is unconscious up into consciousness; and he would have seen how that which he addresses as folk-soul, as dark compulsion, goes forth from the individual will impulses, from the free action of the human being.

[ 27 ] But something else comes into consideration with respect to the working of the human being within his people. Every personality represents a spiritual potency, a sum of powers which seek to work according to the possibilities. Every person must therefore find the place where his working can incorporate itself in the most suitable way into the organism of his people. It must not be left to chance whether he finds this place. The constitution of a state has no other purpose than to take care that everyone find his appropriate sphere of work. The state is the form in which the organism of a people expresses itself.

[ 28 ] Sociology and political science have to investigate the way the individual personality can come to play a part appropriate to it within a state. The constitution must go forth from the innermost being of a people. The character of a people, expressed in individual statements, is the best constitution for a state. A statesman cannot impose a constitution upon a people. The leader of a state must investigate the deep characteristics of his people and, through a constitution, give the tendencies slumbering in the people a direction corresponding to them. It can happen that the majority of a people wants to steer onto paths that go against its own nature. Goethe believes that in this case the statesman must let himself be guided by the people's own nature and not by the momentary demands of the majority; that he must in this case advocate the character of his people against the actual people (Aphorisms in Prose).

[ 29 ] We must still add a word here about the method of history. History must always bear in mind that the causes of historical events are to be sought in the individual intentions, plans, etc., of the human being. All tracing back of historical facts to plans that underlie history is an error. It is always only a question of which goals one or another personality has set himself, which ways they have taken, and so on. History is absolutely to be based on human nature. Its willing, its tendencies are to be fathomed.

[ 30 ] By statements of Goethe we can now substantiate again what has been said here about the science of ethics. The following statement is to be understood only out of the relationship in which we have seen the human being to stand with respect to historical development: “The world of reason is to be regarded as a great immortal individual, which ceaselessly brings about the necessary and thereby makes itself master, in fact, of chance happening.”⁶²—A reference to a positive, individual substratum of action lies in the words: “Undetermined activity, of whatever kind, leads to bankruptcy in the end.” “The least of men can be complete if he moves within the limits of his abilities and skills.”—The necessity for man of lifting himself up to the leading ideas of his people and of his age is expressed like this: “Each person must ask himself, after all, with which organ he can and will in any case work into his age.” and: “One must know where one is standing and where the others want to go.” Our view of duty is recognizable again in the words: “Duty: where one loves what one commands oneself to do.”

[ 31 ] We have based man, as a knowing and acting being, entirely upon himself. We have described his world of ideas as coinciding with the world ground and have recognized that everything he does is to be regarded as flowing only from his own individuality. We seek the core of existence within man himself. No one reveals a dogmatic truth to him; no one drives him in his actions. He is sufficient unto himself. He must be everything through himself, nothing through another being. He must draw forth everything from himself. Even the sources of his happiness. We have already recognized, in fact, that there can be no question of any power directing man, determining the direction and content of his existence, damning him to being unfree. If happiness is to come to a person therefore, this can come about only through himself. Just as little as an outer power prescribes norms for our action, will such a power bestow upon things the ability to awaken in us a feeling of satisfaction if we do not do it ourselves. Pleasure and pain are there for man only when he himself first confers upon objects the power to call up these feelings in him. A creator who determines from outside what should cause us pleasure or pain, would simply be leading us around like a child.

[ 32 ] All optimism and pessimism are thereby refuted. Optimism assumes that the world is perfect, that it must be a source of the greatest satisfaction for man. But if this is to be the case, man would first have to develop within himself those needs through which to arrive at this satisfaction. He would have to gain from the objects what it is he demands. Pessimism believes that the world is constituted in such a way that it leaves man eternally dissatisfied, that he can never be happy. What a pitiful creature man would be if nature offered him satisfaction from outside! All lamentations about an existence that does not satisfy us, about this hard world, must disappear before the thought that no power in the world could satisfy us if we ourselves did not first lend it that magical power by which it uplifts and gladdens us. Satisfaction must come to us out of what we make of things, out of our own creations. Only that is worthy of free beings.

• 52. This separation is indicated by the solid lines.
• 53. This is represented by the dotted lines.
• 54. Meaning: that it exists—Ed.
• 55. Der Versuch als Vermittler von Subjekt und Objekt
• 56. Later footnote of the author: “In my introduction to the thirty-fourth volume, I said that the essay appears, unfortunately, to have been lost that could serve as the best support to Goethe's views on experience, experiment, and scientific knowledge. It has not been lost, however, and has come to light in the above form in the Goethe archives. It bears the date January 15, 1798, and was sent to Schiller on the seventeenth. It represents a continuation of the essay The Experiment as Mediator between Subject and Object. I took the train of thought of his essay from the correspondence between Goethe and Schiller and presented it in the above-mentioned introduction in exactly the same way in which it is now found to be in the newly discovered essay. With respect to content nothing is added by this essay to what I expressed there; on the other hand, however, the view I had won from Goethe's other work; about his method and way of knowing was confirmed in every respect.
• 57. Entwurf einer Farbenlehre
• 58. Zur Naturwissenschaft
• 59. Die ethische Freiheit bei Kant (Philosophische Monatshefte). Published by Mercury Press as Spiritual Activity in Kant.
• 60. Geisteswissenschaften, literally: “spiritual sciences”—Ed.
• 61. Bilder aus der deutschen Vergangenheit
• 62. All quotations in this paragraph are from Aphorisms in Prose.