The Rudolf Steiner Archive

When the subject of theosophy or the theosophical worldview comes up, people often think: Oh, we are dealing with something that leads to remote realms of thought, something that takes us to nebulous, fantastic regions. In any case, many people have the idea that Theosophy or, as we can also say in the true sense of the word, spiritual science, that Theosophy or spiritual science is not for practical people, for people who are fully immersed in life, that it is not for them!

Now, my esteemed audience, but the one who delves deeper into what Theosophy or spiritual science has to give, and then is able to see life, our immediate existence, in the light of this spiritual science, will soon be able to notice how this Theosophy is something that leads to the right, true life practice, as it is not just some theoretical knowledge, some speculation, but something that makes people capable, able to work in life, hopeful, confident, yes, healthy, because it makes our everyday life immediately understandable to us - if we start from the right points of view - makes it transparent.

This everyday life truly offers us enough puzzles. We can only solve these puzzles if we are able to grasp what lies behind the sensual phenomena, if we are able to rise to the world of supersensible facts. The few times that I have been permitted to speak to you here in this city about Theosophical matters have already familiarized the audience with what underlies the Theosophical worldview. Therefore, only a brief reference will be made here.

The Theosophical worldview rests on two pillars, on two pillars of knowledge. The first is that it shows people that there is a supersensible, a superphysical world above our sensual, our physical world. Secondly, it familiarizes people with the fact that they can penetrate these supersensible realms themselves — if they only want to — and that they can draw their powers and abilities from within.

In this way, however, Theosophy is confronted with widespread prejudices in the present day, but even if it does not change overnight, over time more and more of these prejudices, which today affect wide circles of our present-day people, will fade.

Many people today say: To speak of supersensible worlds, of a spiritual background to existence, is unseemly in our enlightened times, in our time of great scientific achievements... In the childhood cultures of humanity, where imagination still held sway, it was said that people dreamt of supersensible facts, of supersensible phenomena behind our sensory world. But now we are at the point where science, with its tools and methods, is revealing to us the world as one would think, in its natural, lawful context and does not make it necessary to assume anything behind what can be seen and what can be grasped by the mind. Many of our contemporaries think they are quite enlightened when they deny everything that lies behind the phenomena!

This brings us to the question: in what sense does Theosophy speak of supersensible worlds? Not in the sense that these supersensible worlds lie somewhere in a cloud cuckoo land, but in a completely natural sense, in a completely logical sense, Theosophy speaks of higher worlds than the one that is accessible to our are accessible to our senses, in the same sense that a German philosopher, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, spoke of these worlds when he was at the height of his thinking: in 1809, for example, in front of his audience in Berlin. At that time he said: “I have something to tell you about worlds that lie beyond the ordinary sensual world and therefore cannot be perceived with the ordinary physical senses.” Therefore, anyone who is only willing to acknowledge a world that can be perceived by the physical senses can easily consider everything that can be said about supersensible worlds to be fantasy. But — it was not I who said this, but Fichte. Imagine going through a world of blind people as the only one who can see and telling these blind people about the world of colors and the world of light. If they want, they can also say: All that you are telling me about color and light is empty dreaming, mere fantasy...

... and we can now tie in with Johann Gottlieb Fichte's thoughts and say: Let us assume that a person born blind is led into this room of ours and that we are able to operate on him here, to give him sight. What was around him before, what you can all see with your physical eyes, light and color, was not there for him; for him, the world was only what was given to his sense of touch and the other senses. But now that he has had the operation, light and color and radiance are emerging bit by bit from the bleak darkness and gloom. They were around him, but for him they have become a world only after he had the organs for them.

Not every physically blind person can be operated on, but it is possible for everyone to awaken the abilities and powers slumbering within them – what Goethe calls “spiritual eyes” – to open them up, to opens up by itself through appropriate behavior, and he becomes aware of an awakening of a higher, more brilliant kind than that through which the blind person sees a new world entering him when he is operated on.

Who can logically deny that there are worlds around us that the senses cannot perceive? Logically, no one can! Logically, a person can only make a statement about what he sees and perceives, never about what he does not perceive. But there have always been people in the world, and there are people today, who awaken these abilities and powers slumbering within us and who know from their own experience that spiritual worlds exist around us, know of worlds that are active and whose forces have an effect in our world.

And it is of these worlds that spiritual science, theosophy, speaks – we only call it secret science because in order to gain access to it, man must first awaken the forces slumbering in him, and until he has done so all this remains hidden from him. But when he becomes a citizen of these worlds, when the spiritual lights around us dawn on him, then entities reach into this life for him that he can only now recognize, that... and in this way he attains knowledge that makes him fully able and willing to work.

This will now become clear to us when we look at our own human life from the standpoint of this supersensible knowledge, not at something remote but at the most everyday things there are for us. Then we will see how we can apply this spiritual science.

As far as I am concerned, someone can come and say: There are such twisted minds, oddballs, who call themselves Theosophists and bring all sorts of confused stuff, they may keep it to themselves, it is not for a reasonable person! Good, he may act on it!

But now there is another point of view that says: Well, since things don't look so unreasonable after all, let's try to live life and work in life as if these assumptions were correct, and if they prove themselves in life, then we can talk to them. This is a thoroughly healthy point of view, and today's question in particular will enable us to find such a kind of truth, such proof of the theosophical premise, if we try to apply what the lecture contains to life.

First, however, we must take a brief look at the human being in the theosophical or esoteric sense.

If we look at the human being from this point of view, then what the senses can see, what eyes can see and hands can grasp, appears to us as only a part, a single limb of the entire human being. In the spiritual sense, we call this part of the human being the physical body.

This physical body is shared by the human being with all the seemingly inanimate beings around him; the same substances and forces that are found outside in the inanimate minerals are also found in the physical human body. However, in this physical human body – and in fact in the body of every living being are so intricately combined and interwoven that the physical body of a living being, if it is left to the physical substances and forces alone, then it disintegrates into itself.

No matter what a merely materialistically thinking wisdom may say – the theosophist knows very well what it can say – and no matter what it may say, there is a principle embedded in the physical body of every living being that can be logically , who is able to consider these things only philosophically, perceptible for him who has developed the higher abilities, the spiritual eyes, as Goethe says. For the materialistically-minded, it is of course a nothing, one can well understand that. ...

For the person who sees through things, this etheric or life body is a fighter against the disintegration of the physical body in every moment. In all of you, this life body is a fighter that prevents physical substances and forces from following their own laws. At the moment of death, the physical body separates from the etheric body, and then the physical body follows its own substances and forces, then it is a corpse, then it decays. So we have this second link, the etheric body, in every living being, which the human being has in common with all plants and animals.

The third link is the so-called astral body... This too is a fact for the spiritual seer. But you can get a logical idea of it if you consider the following: when you look at the person standing in front of you, you have not only what you can perceive as a physical body with your physical senses, not only what as an etheric and life body constantly protects this physical body from decay... but there is something else in this space in front of you: something is in it that is much closer to many people than the physical body and the etheric body. The details of the physical body, what do many people know about that... but there is something that is infinitely close to the simplest human being, much closer than his physical body, and that is the sum of pleasure and suffering, of joy and pain, of urges, desires and passions. The sum of all sensations that rise and fall in the soul, that which we call the inner life or human inner life. And the carrier of this human inner life, in spiritual science we call this the astral body, the human being no longer shares this with plants and minerals, but only with the animal world. As long as we hold the view that this astral body, or if we want to speak in everyday terms: that drives, desires and passions, feelings and instincts and the surging and surging sensations, that these are only evoked by the physical body...

Only at that moment do we have the right to speak of it... where we see the original not in the physical and not in the etheric body, but precisely in this astral body the original...

It would take us too far today to show fully – we have a different goal today – that the physical body and the etheric body relate to this astral body as ice, for example, relates to water.

If a child comes and shows you a piece of ice and you tell him that this is water in solid form, the child may not immediately see it, and you will have to make it clear to him in some way that the ice is water in a different form.

Just as the child may not know that ice is just water in a different form, so someone who is accustomed to looking at things from a materialistic point of view does not yet know that the physical body and etheric body is only, basically speaking, let us say, condensed, condensed, crystallized out of this spiritual carrier of joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, urges, desires and passions and perceptions.

Everything that is physical is generated out of the spiritual, let us say condensed, crystallized out of the spiritual.

... You get an idea of this... if you take this as a small theoretical down payment for what spiritual science is gradually showing you comprehensively. Take the very simple two phenomena that a person experiences within himself: the feeling of shame or the feeling that arises when something near us puts people into fear and terror. Fear and terror make him pale, his blood takes on very specific movements, it changes in the body, it goes, if we may say so, from the outer surface to the center. The opposite happens with shame...

So we have an external physical process under the influence of mental agitation.

This is a small example of how one can see material effects arising from the spiritual. Imagine these effects increasing until the process of building the external physical... the material itself, is built out of the spiritual. Then you have something to which you cannot, admittedly, arrive in an instant, but which you can arrive at through patient study... to which spiritual science can lead you more and more.

But now there is one thing by which man stands out above all the visible earthly creatures around him. We come to this when we study a very simple fact of human experience, which is only usually not properly interpreted and paid attention to; you will come to it when you go through a very simple contemplation with me, which is indeed somewhat subtle.

Anyone can say “table” to the table, “clock” to the clock, and anyone can pronounce the name given to the external object in the language; but there is only one name, one little name, in the German language that not everyone can pronounce to the one that this name denotes.

This is the name that lies in the little word “I”. Only one person can pronounce “I” if this “I” is to mean what it is.

If the “I” is to mean you yourself, then no one can ever say “I” to you. You are a you to everyone else, everyone else is a you to you! If the little word “I” is to mean you yourself, then it must resound from the innermost part of the soul itself. That is why all religions and world views... that were based on spiritual science... called this short little word 'I' the unspeakable name of God... so that the power within can pronounce this name, which cannot access the soul through external senses and organs... that was called the divine power, the spark of God that is in us...

Yes, you make a god out of man, many say. ...

Anyone who makes this accusation can see from another example]... I have taken a drop of water out of the great, all-encompassing sea and I now claim that this drop is the same substance and essence as the sea, but it is not the whole sea...

In the same way, the theosophist does not make a god out of the human ego when he declares: This “I” is a drop, a spark of divine substance. ... This “I” and the sum total of powers and principles that enable a person to let this divine, this God, speak within them, we call the fourth link of human essence, that makes man the crown of earthly creation. ... This is what distinguishes him from all other beings on earth. ...

Thus, the human being stands before us as a four-part entity... Today, we will not discuss the further, higher aspects of human nature. ... This classification suffices for us today. ... When we consider these aspects of the human being and look at the human being, then in his development from birth to death, then spiritual science shows us that these individual aspects by no means develop in the same way or in the same times. ...

When we have a person before us at any age, we do not have them before us in such a way that these four elements are always present in the same way. We only understand the human being when we know that the development of the human being takes place in different ways at different ages... After all, a person's life is preceded by a prenatal life...

We know that when a person is born, they have a life behind them in their mother's womb, where their physical body was enclosed on all sides by the physical womb, where all organs have gradually developed to such an extent that when the person sees the light of day, their physical body was previously protected by an outer physical shell... which they now shed...

We speak of the external physical birth of a person when the person sheds this physical shell around him, and his physical body is exposed to the external physical elements. Before that, the rays of light could not penetrate the eyes. Had these rays of light penetrated his eyes immediately, these eyes would not have been able to develop into today's human eyes.... And so it is with all organs of the human being.... Only then can he be directly exposed to external impressions and influences when these organs, protected by this cover, have matured for such influences...

Now spiritual science also speaks of other births of man. ... When the spiritual seer now looks at man as he is born after his physical birth, he sees how the physical body is handed over to the external physical elements... but the second link of the human being is not yet handed over to the external powers, which act on the etheric body.

What we have described as the etheric body is still surrounded by an - albeit ethereal - shell... and we speak of a second birth, through which it also sheds this etheric shell. When a person is born physically, his etheric body still has an etheric mother around it, which protects him, and it protects him until the change of teeth, until the time when the person loses the so-called milk teeth and gradually gets his own teeth, around the seventh year, then the human being is born of his second link; he sheds the protective etheric cover, as with the physical birth the physical mother shell. We will soon learn the full implications of these spiritual facts.

But there is still another birth; this occurs because, even though the human being has freed his etheric body from external influences when his teeth change, for example, he is still surrounded by a protective astral mother-shell, as it were, around the third limb of his being, and this continues until sexual maturity.

With this sexual maturity, around the age of 14 to 15, this further spiritual birth is also slowly taking place, that is, the astral mother shell is being shed, and thus the astral body of the person becomes free and can be directly exposed to the astral influences... that are working around him.

Only later is there a time when, in a similar way, what we call the “ego” is born. ...

One can only understand the course of a person's life, and one can only educate a person reasonably, if one knows and applies all of this to the fullest extent. ...

Let us now first look at the ascending life. ...

This brings us to an important field of human activity, that of education and teaching. Let us consider this and see how it presents itself to us when we consider the human being in terms of his or her entire nature and being.

We know that from the time of his physical birth until he changes his teeth, the human being is enveloped in an etheric covering, which he then sheds. If we observe this, we will say to ourselves: We must keep away everything that has a direct effect on the etheric body or life body until this second birth has taken place.

For the spiritual seer, it is just as nonsensical to allow direct effects on the etheric body with its etheric mother shell before the birth of the etheric body,

as it would be for the ordinary consciousness of a person to allow direct effects on the physical body of the child before its physical birth.

The first thing that happens is that the physical body, which was previously under the protective cover, is exposed to direct external physical influences. The time from birth to the seventh year is especially the time when we have to monitor the direct influence of physical elements on the physical human being.

The detailed development of this results in many, many rules that spiritual science can provide for a healthy pedagogy. Above all, it is a matter of knowing what is happening during these developmental years until the change of teeth. Spiritual science tells us that up to this point of the change of teeth, the forms, the physical forms of the physical body, are established. ...

The forms continue to increase in size only, but the plasticity of the forms, including the finer plasticity of the form, the balance of power in which they will develop, are determined up to the seventh year. And whatever has been neglected in the development of the human being up to that point can never be made up for later; it has been neglected for the whole of life...

Because from the seventh year onwards, it becomes possible to influence the etheric body. ... The physical body is then under the influence of the etheric body, which then further regulates growth...

It follows that the physical environment must be carefully arranged in the way it is designed until the teeth change. Not only the coarse, but also the finer structural and formative conditions of the physical body are formed under the influence of this physical environment....

A rough comparison:...

If you strain any muscle, that is, expose it to what it belongs to, it becomes strong, powerful and expands... this is how it is with all the internal forms of the physical body... SO it is with our visual abilities, our vision...

The forces that are in our physical body are tools that serve the soul to perceive the physical world...

For example, it is not irrelevant what kind of color environment a person experiences in their physical environment between birth and the age of seven. Depending on the colors we choose for the child's environment, the inner formative forces will develop in opposition to this world of colors. Let us assume, for example, that we have a fidgety child, a nervous child, and in the other case an overly calm, “dead” child, who is “dead” in his behavior, his mannerisms. ... Both types, in order to develop in the appropriate way, must be placed in the right physical environment. ... Someone who only sees the world with their physical eye will probably place a fidgety child in an environment of so-called calming colors, of blue or green, while believing that a calm child should be placed in an environment of red or yellow...

Countless mistakes are made here. ... Because the exact opposite is correct. If you want to proceed in the right way, you should, if possible, place a fidgety child in a red or reddish-yellow environment and a calm child in a blue or blue-green one.

If you know how the internal structure of the organs is formed, you will be able to see this through pure logic. You stare at a red spot on a white surface and then, after staring at it for some time, you suddenly look at a different spot on the white surface, so you see the green counteraction on the empty white surface...

What does this mean? While you are looking at the red color on the outside, the inside of the body tends to develop the opposite color. If you look at the red, the body adjusts itself internally so that it forms the green, and this is important for the internal formation of the plastic organs. ...

If you have a restless, nervous child and you give him a red environment, then a countervailing force towards green, blue-green, is formed internally, and this has a calming effect on the plastic forces of the internal organs...

Here things are much deeper than an external sensory observation usually shows...

Sometimes I have been told: But that is really quite strange. When I work with any lamp that has a red shade, it makes me feel agitated; so why should it have a favorable effect on the child? - ... I have not claimed that a red glow has a favorable effect on a man of 56 years; I have only said that it stimulates the internal organs, the plastic of the internal organs of the child in a calming sense. ...

Similarly, something extraordinarily important arises when we consider children's toys from this point of view. You will have often observed that a child with a healthy mind rejects dolls with beautifully painted faces and natural hair, or at least puts them aside soon. Let's take a closer look at this doll and admit to ourselves: it is, of course, hideous...

But if you ever make a doll for your child out of an old napkin, you will have a completely different experience. The child will enjoy the so-called beautiful doll for a while. But then the child will soon throw it away and always return to the homemade napkin doll. This is a very correct, healthy instinct. ... For a power is constantly at work in the child to shape the organs plastically.

If the child now has this self-made doll in front of them, the following occurs: the child must make an effort to first turn it into a human being through inner imagination; they must first apply forces to the imperfect doll in order to create the human image. This is beneficial for them internally and shapes the internal organs in a more perfect way. These inner plastic forces are not activated when you present the child with such a “beautiful” doll; these forces remain inert, and what should be active internally, the forces of the organs to form, cannot happen. The tools in our physical body, which should be active forces, are formed when we give the child something to do that requires it to be active through its imagination. The child must imagine something that the external object does not give it, it merely stimulates.

And people have no idea how much harm they do to children if they do not give them the opportunity to develop this inner counterforce in the appropriate way. ...

Oh, the one who looks deeper into human nature also knows something else. He knows that there is a huge difference between keeping a child busy putting together figures out of individual stones and keeping him busy with a toy that gives the impression of being alive, inwardly animated. ... Something completely different happens inside... and vividly brings the body to life... when you give the child a toy that creates the illusion of life through the way it moves when the child plays with it... There used to be old picture books in which whole scenes were presented in moving pictures, whole stories, and which thereby evoked the inner sculpture. They were wonderfully suited to developing the organs in a plastic way during the time when they had to be developed. Those who look more deeply into this want to... when they often and often have to watch with a bleeding soul as everything, absolutely everything, is neglected due to instinctive materialism....

Those who can see into our time with spiritual eyes can trace materialistic thinking back and see how it has been brought about that children have been given construction kits instead of living toys, with which they build something out of individual parts. This is what creates the materialistic mind, much more than materialistic literature... Materialistic theories are the least dangerous aspect of materialism. But if, instead of observing the inner life, a child who is putting together his body, this instrument of the human being, at the time when it should be developing its forms plastically, is concerned with putting the individual parts together, then he comes to imagine that the world is made up of individual clusters of atoms. ...

So you see how spiritual science works in practice. But it goes even further. ... Right down to the instincts of eating, you can understand the course of human life and influence its shaping from the perspective of spiritual science.

Spiritual science can draw attention to the fact that something that needs to be developed in the child's soul is being held back by certain foods...

In the child's soul, the tools for healthy instincts and desires must develop. We do not have a certain desire for nothing. ... That is why they are there, so that when the instinct arises and is satisfied, life is steered in healthy directions. ... See how animals walk across the pasture and carefully choose the foods that are beneficial to them, leaving the others standing... What is the upward development into a human being? It gives man higher gifts, but it exposes him to the possibility of error, which the animal with its instinctive certainty is not exposed to. What matters is that man, with his higher gifts, nevertheless retains this security. And we can preserve this security of healthy instinct for the child if we do not stuff him full of an excess of such substances that kill such an instinct.

Overfeeding children with protein-rich food is, many people believe today, the greatest care in the care of young children. But this is not true at all. The moment the child receives too much protein, the moment it is overfed with protein, it loses its sure instincts for nourishment, while another child sometimes rejects what is harmful to it, even down to a glass of water, and desires what is good for it, what is healthy.

This is extremely important. It is an example of the practical knowledge of life that can flow from spiritual science. ... We could do a lot if we only wanted to pay attention to the principles of the matter...

We can raise the question: What is the law of the human life cycle up to this change of teeth? ... This is described in a word that resonates like a magic [word] for everything that is influenced by these years. Imitation is the magic of education in these years, when the physical body has become accessible to the immediate influence of the outside world. The child strives to emulate what it sees. Therefore, education must, above all, be based on the child's intention to imitate; it should not demand or admonish, as this is not the main thing in these years. The main thing is that the child can follow what it sees during these years, and that nothing happens that the child is not allowed to imitate. ...

However, there are a number of points to be considered. Imagine a couple... — I always tell such cases as examples that have really happened — they have a child who is very well-behaved, nothing to complain about, suddenly one day the child has stolen, as they say, from his parents' cash box. The child is so good that it did not use this money for itself, but gave it to others whom it believed needed it. ...

You can perhaps imagine that the parents would be outraged if they did not know that during this time, until the permanent teeth have come in – and these things do not abruptly follow one another – during this time, everything is characterized by imitation, the child has always seen that the parents themselves take money out... and what it sees its parents doing is right for the child; it imitates it. To apply moral concepts here, such as stealing or the like, is in no way appropriate. The child only imitates what its parents demonstrate to it. Therefore, we know that in terms of everything we want to cultivate in the child, a plastic molding must be called forth from within through imitation.

Therefore, we must build everything on imitation in the child during this first period, that is, the adults around him must not do or say anything that the child should not also do in exactly the same way. ... This is of profound significance. ...

If imitation is the magic word for education until the seventh year of a child's development, then from the time when the teeth change and the etheric or life body is freed for direct external influence ... the word 'authority' applies, and succession. What can be understood by these words must be the guiding principle of education for these years. ...

Just as children must be able to imitate what is going on around them until their teeth change... so now, in the second phase of life, there must be someone alongside them who can be called an authority.

... In detail, we can say something like this: only after sexual maturity does the time come when a person, through the powers of their mind, understands what is good or bad, clever or stupid....

We do young people an injustice if we place too much emphasis on intellectual insight and education before this time, prematurely. During this time, until sexual maturity is reached, it is necessary for a personality of some kind to stand beside the child and determine what is true or false, good or bad, beautiful or ugly. These concepts must have an authoritative effect on the child at this age, not through mental judgments but through the power of the personality.... And it is the greatest joy for a child to have such personalities in their lives during these years, to whom they can look up as natural authorities who are truly worthy of emulation. A person becomes mature enough to judge when, during these years of their life, they have been influenced by an authoritative personality whom they looked up to and followed in awe. This is a beneficial power that affects a person throughout their life. Oh, if only people could know what it means for a person's whole life when something like this happens to them, such as hearing about a much-admired personality in the family whom they have not yet seen. Timid reverence already sits in his soul, the heart pounds until he is allowed to see the personality for the first time.... These are the most beautiful, wonderful feelings in his soul for the rest of his life, the moments of celebration that ignite forces that are as important as hardly anything else for the whole life of a person until death.

Everything that one carries within the etheric body, the body that carries all growth, but also temperament, habits, and character, is decisively influenced in this way during this time between the change of teeth and sexual maturity.

And it is important, for example, that this etheric or life body is also the carrier of memory. Therefore, it is essential that conscious care is taken during this time, above all, in the development of memory. In this respect, there is

confusion has arisen. Precisely in our time, as a result of materialistic basic views, many educational efforts work towards having children do mental work as early as possible, so that they calculate and do similar things based on their own judgment. That looks quite progressive, but it is nevertheless extremely harmful for the development of the growing human being. First you have to have a store of knowledge and insights in your memory; only then can you form judgments about them. The time for judgment comes with sexual maturity. Until then, it is a time for purely memorized learning. The memory must be formed in the time until then. It is not important – as one would like to say today – that the child is already able to judge, for example, what he or she has to learn in history. It is precisely this that is so damaging, to want to evoke judgment at this time. In this time, the events must be presented to the soul in a purely factual and objective way, in large images, through an authority that is taken for granted. These events must first live in the soul of the child; only then has the time for judgment come.

And what is very important at this time is that, because the etheric body now receives the direct influence of the forces that express themselves in memory and in other spiritual faculties, we will particularly develop these forces during this time, the qualities that are anchored in the etheric body. Above all, what is anchored there is what is called the pictorial power of human vision. ... Many people today look at the world so unimaginatively and soberly because the world has not been presented to them in vital images during this time. ... Man should first get to know this world in images. If you want to give people a healthy foundation for the higher supernatural truths, then you have to teach them the corresponding images at this age. During this time, the truths must first be brought to people in images and symbols if they are to be truly grasped later on. If in later life a person is to be able to say to himself: The human soul is immortal, when the human being passes through the gate of death, then the soul rises to higher regions, only the body remains behind and decays, then this is properly prepared in this age, when one tells the child, for example, “Watch the caterpillar as it transforms into a chrysalis and thus falls into deathly rigidity, and then how the chrysalis breaks something and the butterfly rises from the breaking shell into an airy, light existence."

But it would be a mistake for teachers to use these images today. They no longer have an effect because those who use these images no longer believe in what they are supposed to express. Only when the image is a reality for them, then something in it takes effect, which naturally passes over into the soul of the child and works as a force that later awakens the right knowledge. For the spiritual scientist, the given is an image of immortality in reality, in truth. For him, it is not something that he laboriously devises with his mind, but rather, for him, life passes through a series of stages... and on the lower stage, the butterfly's emergence from the chrysalis is truly what, on the higher stage, is the soul's emergence from the dying body. If this is the case for you, then you will naturally be able to bring about an emotional understanding in the child first, in the magical touch of imagery, before you cultivate the sober judgments of the mind, which is only made possible by the correct understanding of the whole personality at a later stage.

Here we see reason in something that is often viewed as unreasonable today. I know what misunderstandings we are exposed to in this matter, but it must be said not out of a reactionary sense, but out of a sense of truth.

How clever we have become, many think today, how they look back on our forefathers, who told their children all kinds of tall tales. ... Today we must no longer tell such lies to children. Our forefathers taught their children things that are not true at all, such as the story of the stork. But, again, it must be said that, although not out of reactionary sentiment, their way of doing so was much more correct than the modern approach. For once you have seen through things, there is nothing more childish and naive you can say to a child than that nothing more is needed for a human being to come into the world than the purely physical process. ... That is fundamentally wrong from a deeper perspective. The reality is: the human being comes from a spiritual world... from a spiritual existence before birth, and the physical process is only the mediator of the spiritual person's entry into this sensual world, and what our enlightened people want to teach children today is much, much more untrue and unreal than the old stork tale. ... Everything that has been said in the image of the flying was the image of the spiritual for our ancestors. ...

The image of something flying always appears when the spiritual is to be pointed out in a fairy tale. For example, in the children's song “Fly, little bird, fly... your mother is in Pommerland”... Pommerland is not Pommern... Pommerland is Kinderland... “fly, little beetle, fly”... the same image is everywhere, and it is the basis of the stork fairy tale. ... Man from a different developmental period before the time when he should have soberly understood it in everyday life, believed in the stork fairy tale himself, because at the time the magic touch of imagery had been breathed over what is in the world around us. ...

And it is quite different when I have first had a mysterious natural process in front of me in the picture... first carried this image around with me for a long time and only then was faced with the task of understanding it intellectually. Only then did I mature and then I absorb what came later in a completely different way.

This shows us, in turn, how we must know those forces that develop at a certain age. ... And so we can specify for each age what it is in detail. ... So then, around the 14th or 15th year, the time of sexual maturity is an important stage. For it is at this time that the growing human being's astral mother-shell is cast off and the astral body, to which, for example, judgment and many other things adhere, is released to the direct influence of the outer world. Therefore, it is only during this time that the human being is mature enough to be exposed to external judgment and to acquire independent judgment. If we bring this judgment forward, we arrive at these things that force their way into today's life as formidable dark sides... where people grow into them without consideration...

Only when puberty has occurred should independent judgment be formed on the basis of what has developed in terms of imagery, of noble feelings... under the influence of authority.... otherwise we see that the youngest people, who have not even been born yet, people who should first learn to mature their judgment, are already making their appearance with their own judgment at the time when they should only be developing it....

But this is also the time when the astral body emerges with the instincts and drives for life that are inherent in it. ... These forces arise in the form that we call “youthful ideals”, “springtime hopes”, hopes for life. A dry, sober person can easily look down on what he has experienced in his youthful soul as a mere infatuation. Even if none of this materializes, even if these are hopes that are left out in the cold in life, the fact remains that they were hopes, ideals, and that is during the time when the astral body gradually emerges. What matters is not that hopes are fulfilled, that ideals are realized, but that they are there. For they are forces in the soul and as forces they are formative, they give life inwardness, they give life strength, even if they have been there as hopes that were later destroyed. Therefore, we must do everything to ensure that these spring hopes of life are developed during this time, that they are there.

Then the time gradually comes for the human being to give birth to his or her full self, which now approaches the world around in a completely free way. ...

And just as there is an ascending life, there is also a descending life in the second half. Just a few words about this: the birth and gradual development of the ego comes to an end with normal life around the age of 35. At this point, the human being is at the zenith of life. Everything that was laid down in him at birth has emerged in him by this time. But now something else begins; now begins the time when, just as before, things have been shaped out of life, just as before, the abilities have been developed, so now begins the time when they are processed and consumed in pieces, from the age of 35 onwards, when in normal life, first of all, the forces of the astral body are gradually consumed inwardly. We see all astral things gradually receding again. The person becomes sober, develops more sense of reality... he becomes what, in our times, is fashion, what one can call a Philistine.

While until then the person had more to do with himself, from the age of 35 begins the time when he acquires value for his environment. Before that, he had to use his time to mature his judgment and enter into a firm, definite relationship between his ego and the world around him. Now, what he is begins to have value for his fellow human beings. Now his judgment has weight, now people start to listen to him, now he radiates valuable things that he himself has to consume. Now he shows, even to an intimate observer, whether the ascending path was the right one. Now it becomes clear how barren and empty are the judgments of someone who has not grown under the influence of ideals in the period from 14 to 21 years...

In order to radiate, one must first have acquired the right kind of thing at the right time.

All esoteric development is subject to strict laws... those who have become teachers in this spiritual science strictly observe the rules... and today things are such that, precisely because of our culture, no one is let loose on the world by the appointed authorities before this mid-life...

The true secret teachers do not allow their students to present themselves to the world with what they are supposed to give before they are ready. Everyone's tongue is only loosened at this midpoint in life. And if personalities appear before this time, you can be sure that they are doing so without a mandate, without the authorization of the individuals behind our movement. On average, no one is let loose on people before this time... Only the nonsense of our time makes it... that in these areas... the nonsense that young people, who are far from being finished with themselves, also appear in these areas...

And then we see further how, roughly from the 1940s onwards, a new epoch is reached with the descending life, even if no such great regularity can be observed here as in the ascending life. ...

Now that the astral body has been consumed, the time comes when the human being also begins to consume his etheric body, which he built up in the period from the change of teeth to sexual maturity. This is then depleted again around the fiftieth year... You can see this in certain signs that occur at this age.

Try to look at life in its truth, and you will see how, in this period, the memory is just what cannot receive new impressions, new forces. On the other hand, just what was in this etheric body, that comes out just now, that which this etheric body has taken in, that occurs in the sharpest, strongest memory at this age. ... Observe life from this point of view and you will experience time and again how people of this age come back again and again and have a good memory of what was incorporated into them at those ages. See the sense of well-being that old people experience at this time when they can tell their memories of their youth over and over again... and consider what good you can do them by enabling them to tell such stories...

And then, in the last stage of life, see how little by little the physical body is consumed too... see how the bones become more and more calcified, how they become more physical. The cartilages ossify... this last stage of life also consumes the physical body...

Once the ascending life is properly regulated, another thing will show up, which is often ignored today.

From the age of 35 onwards, a person radiates such judgments, which are decisive and have value for his environment... Then he comes to not only radiate judgments for his environment, but also to the fact that what he radiates as authority may also be considered authoritative for his environment...

First the judgments become decisive, then in the penultimate epoch of life the life radiations themselves become decisive and a value for the environment... and last of all... man gains such judgment, such inner fullness, that what he then gives of himself has something mature not only for his time, but for all times.

Those who see into things therefore also see in a completely different way... why certain people speak of this time in a very special way... With Dante, for example, you can see this in the very first lines of his “Divina Commedia”. There you can see how he says: “In the midst of life I saw all this...”

And so you can look at all the great minds in this way... And if you look at a person like Goethe... you have to take into account the difference between what he created when he was in ascending development and what he created after the middle of his life. That by which he has become for humanity what he is to it, that falls after the middle of life...

But if we look at the second half of life, we see that nothing external is developed for the temporal human being, for the outer limbs, physical body, etheric and astral body. This is consumed. But the moment the outer shell begins to disintegrate, that is when enrichment and the development of the essential begins. The forces of the inner being, the forces of the actual self, become ever more powerful and powerful in that which lives in these shells, for which the outer being begins the descending development. In the second half of life, the eternal, the lasting, the immortal in man develops, and when death occurs, we see how the outer shell falls away and how, even though it may have seemed for a while as if the inner life has receded, then we see how what the person has... how, at death, as a birth for the spiritual, the eternal, how that emerges at death as what he has developed valuably within himself, in his inwardness.

Death is physical death, but spiritually for the spiritual world it is a new birth and... this is prepared in the second half of life. At this time, when the outer layers gradually die off, the human being shapes what remains, what is eternal about him.

The great poet sensed that when the outer layers die away, the inner form, the spiritual form, that which is lasting and eternal, develops within. Great minds have always sensed and said what a wisdom that deeply penetrates the spiritual effects must confirm in every detail...

What Schiller said cannot be presented to you as blind faith, but as fully valid knowledge.

Today, only brief, cursory allusions could be given... about the course of human life... If we allow ourselves to be completely permeated by this practice of life, which can arise from spiritual science, then we will experience that life is shaped in such a way that we become hopeful, able to live and work through it, because we understand correctly in every moment:

Only the body lends those powers
That weave the dark destiny,
But free from every temporal violence,
The companion of blessed natures
Walks above in the corridors of light
Divine among gods the form.

Question and Answer

Question: What are the right ideals for young people?

Rudolf Steiner: In this respect, we must learn to place the principle of freedom above all else in relation to the developing human being. It is easy to believe that these or those ideals are the right ones at first. But we must not create stereotyped ideals for ourselves. The developing human being is a mystery that the educator has to solve, and he learns just as much from the mysterious human being who is gradually emerging from his or her shells and allows himself to be guided by this human being to the ideals that are right for him or her. So we learn to respect the freely developing individuality when we know that the spirit is realizing itself...

The question can only be solved by education in life in each individual case...

However, there are certain basic ideals that are appropriate almost everywhere... above all, there is a beautiful ideal: a human being who is as complete as possible in every single detail, whom we can justifiably depict from history. ... when we create figures of world history and let our own powers be ignited by the great figures... but when we then come up with practical life, we can also ignite these ideals with practical life... what is important is to keep alive the sense of the transformation of the world, to maintain the sense that the world can change. ...

On the real meaning of ideals: Fichte, “On the purpose of the scholar”.

We will talk here about those forms of illness and their manifestations that are connected with our soul life and can only be properly understood in the light of spiritual science. Many disease phenomena depend on an unhealthy soul life.

(Example of a gentleman and a lady whom Dr. Steiner once met on the train. They lacked nothing but the strong will to be healthy.

Instead of castles and monasteries, you meet sanatoriums today. Description of a visit to such a sanatorium: The patients are often not really sick at all, but there was a seriously ill person there, namely the doctor in charge, who was suffering from a severe nervous disease.

It is often very important not to believe in certain symptoms of illnesses, even if they are present as such.

The etheric body and the physical body are products of the astral body. There are still some final after-effects of how the spiritual manifests itself in the physical body. We know the fact that our mouths water when certain feelings come over us. This proves the great influence of feelings on physical processes, especially on

It is similar when we turn pale with fear or blush with shame. Feelings are mental processes, but they have a direct effect on blood circulation.

Mere intellectual, sober ideas are often the seeds of many other ideas. Formative images, accompanied by feelings, must arise in our soul life if the body is to function in a healthy way. A merely rational, sober world view can have a very corrupting effect on the physical body. That is why it is so very important to have a correct world view. Then one also experiences the bliss of finding and inventing.

A large part of today's disease dispositions is based on an incorrect world view that has developed among the last generations. In earlier times, people still knew how important it is, even for physical well-being, when a person arouses appropriate feelings within himself. The tragedies of the ancient Greeks, for example, still had this healing power. Even the catharsis in the old, healthy aesthetics had, one might say, a medicinal purpose. There is a profound effect of the spirit on all that is alive. Even comedy, with the image of Auguste Clown falling from one foolishness into another, can have a healing effect in relation to this foolishness. Certain performances have a strangely suggestive effect on people.

If, in the face of such a wide diversity of phenomena, the necessary knowledge and insight into these things is lacking, a terrible discord is often caused by the abundance of impressions and by what the human being can inwardly process from them. Many people cannot cope with such a diversity of phenomena. But this is the cause of all hysterical phenomena.

Our time cannot stand still with its questions. Those who live only in empty abstractions never stop questioning because they are unable to fill these empty specters with content. The nonsensical drive for causality is also a basis for the development of hypochondria, which can have a profound effect on the body.

Hysteria is based on an inwardness that is too small and too weak in the face of an overwhelming external world with an immense diversity.

People who are unable to bring themselves into a harmoniously ordered relationship with the world are increasingly pushed back onto their own selves, and this failure to connect with the world gives rise to the phenomenon called hypochondria. It is essential that people should be able to arrive at a great and comprehensive understanding of the world, which ultimately only spiritual science can give them in this scope. Only then do we rediscover ideas, feelings and perceptions within us that have the right effect on our organism and result in the recovery of the body.

All those states of anxiety then disappear because they only arise from erroneous ideas about our environment. Ultimately, good health can only be brought about by a worldview that understands how to integrate the human being harmoniously into the course of the world.

Think of the mystical coordination of microcosm and macrocosm. Finally, a quote from Goethe's “Secrets”:

From the force that binds all beings,
Freed the man who overcomes himself.

It is commonly believed that there are so many diseases, but only one health. This is nonsense, however, because in reality there are as many types of health as there are people. Health is something entirely individual and ultimately different for each person. However, we only have a very general idea of what it is to be healthy, and anything that does not match this image is considered an illness. We should endeavor to enable the patient to lead the best and most comfortable life possible despite the abnormality of the disease, as if he did not have this abnormality at all. But we should not want to reduce him to the general template that we have somehow created and now want to impose on everything.

Of course, some people need a certain abnormality. This does not mean that we should now let the diseases take their course. If we want to take the concept of “health” seriously, we have to consider a different concept of development in all its depth and meaning.

Animals in their natural environment never overeat themselves, but this often happens when they are adopted into civilization. In this care, they contract a variety of diseases. Animals also develop certain diseases as soon as they are captured, while they did not suffer from them in the wild. Certain mental illnesses are virtually a consequence of the culture of a particular stage.

Physically and chemically, the animal body is an impossible mixture. The life body is therefore a necessary link for its sustenance. The astral body contains the causes of what happens in the physical and etheric bodies. The astral body in an animal has no such wide-ranging potential for individual development as it does in a human being. It is a tightly closed circle of animal instincts, desires and passions. The animal fits perfectly into its circumstances, and that with its physical, etheric and astral bodies. The captive animal can only be taught different habits with regard to the physical and etheric bodies, but it is not possible to influence its astral body. This is why the animal cannot integrate itself into new circumstances in a healthy way, because this would have to start from the astral body.

In the case of human beings, too, far-reaching changes have to start with the astral body. If we want to remain healthy when transitioning from simpler to more complicated circumstances, we first have to adapt to those new circumstances from the inside out, from the I and the astral body. This adaptation is a work of the I on the astral body, and only it brings health to the etheric body and the physical body.

Man is absolutely designed for this development right into his physical body. Not every phenomenon means the same in all kingdoms of nature, as the materialistic way of thinking believes. This is the case, for example, with the softening of the bones, rickets. Man is in a state of progressive development with all his parts and members. The body has developed from very different, earlier forms to its present shape. The I and the astral body will continue to transform the human organism. In his bone system, the human being must still have the possibility of softening, so that he can also develop there. In the human being, on the one hand, there are tendencies towards softening and, on the other hand, towards hardening, so that he does not have to remain in a stationary state. The inner human being, his I and the astral body, properly guided by the I, must direct such transformations. Rickets is a premature remodeling of the bones because it is not properly guided by the ego.

Spiritual science must intervene in the area of disease predispositions, correcting medicine here and steering it in the right direction. Each person has their own specific place in existence and must accordingly remodel their organs in their own individual way for their personal health.

Paracelsus taught profound truths in this regard and was far ahead of his time. He believed that health is an entirely individual matter and cannot be considered and corrected in any stereotypical way when a disturbance occurs.

What criteria does the self use to maintain health? This cannot be studied empirically. The important thing is to recognize the right criteria for health in the sense of inner harmony, contentment, the joy of being, and an untroubled and undisturbed zest for life. This feeling of contentment is worth much more than all the external anointing and tanning from the sun. Wherever you find joy in flowers, trees and sunshine, wherever your zest for life is heightened and your love of life is strengthened, you will stay healthy or be able to restore balance to your disturbed health. A healthy soul also creates a healthy body. On the contrary, external concoctions and procedures can rob a person of their health. So, it is primarily a matter of keeping the soul healthy. “Mens sana in corpore sano!"

This saying can only be understood correctly with this in mind. A healthy body also indicates a healthy soul. On the other hand, a healthier soul can never be created by external transformation of the body.

But how does this attitude go together with the teaching of asceticism, as it is, for example, accused of theosophy? Theosophy is misunderstood if it is thought to preach mortification. The theosophist does not mortify himself; on the contrary, he would mortify himself if he had to take part in all the social hustle and bustle, for example, sitting down to dinner or going to a music hall. In the light of correctly understood Theosophy, it is nonsense to say that something or other is prescribed for man, that he must live in such and such a way. Theosophy has no dogmas in this sense, and no agitation for vegetarianism. Meanwhile, individual Theosophers come to refrain from eating meat through their feelings and intuitions.

For others, however, eating meat is still a necessity. It is also possible to develop the view that eating meat is no longer desirable in an even higher sense. A doctor who was not a theosophist answered the question of why he did not eat meat by saying that he was simply disgusted by the idea of eating cat or horse meat, just as most people would be. For those who advance in spiritual development, the desire for certain things no longer arises by itself. Their instinct for certain foods has simply changed. Those who still cling to the Tingeltangel must be left there, and those who have no desire for it should not go there. It is the sublimation of instincts and desires that keeps the physical organs healthy and makes them healthy.

Thus the spiritual-scientific world view wants to give people the ability to direct their astral body in such a way that it comes into harmony with the law of advancing humanity. One does not just occasionally stop in recognition, but also in the experience of one's life.

The ego of many people often follows the will-o'-the-wisps and thus generates selfishness, the spirit of lies and error, thus generating erring temperaments and passions. If the ego is not in harmony with the order of the world, it will stray restlessly and follow all the will-o'-the-wisps that appear. It is important to familiarize oneself with the erring temperaments and character traits. Few people today can be completely honest and truthful. But this shortcoming causes illness and infirmity. Some people can no longer be helped in some respects because they are caught up in overly complicated relationships with communities, so that they are unable to break away from them. Often, in a community where sick people live alongside healthy ones, the actual causes of illness lie with the healthy and not with the sick. And the more receptive natures absorb these illnesses, which are basically the fault of the strong natures. Keeping oneself healthy is therefore a duty towards all fellow human beings. Some people carry an illness from their neighbor without having caused it themselves.

By keeping ourselves healthy, we have the opportunity to align ourselves with the great laws of the world and thus make our own and other people's illnesses disappear. However, this requires people to work together properly. Only in this way is it possible to guarantee general health.

Short-sightedness, for example, is due to the fact that in our current education system, the eye has to remain passive for too long, always receiving impressions only from the outside, but not being prompted by the soul to look and observe in the open air, where there are near and far objects. This adaptation must be brought about by the soul. Where this does not happen, the eye loses its ability to adapt.

A world view that allows everything to be dictated from the outside is extremely unhealthy, whereas one that drives and creates from within is a truly healthy world view. The constant absorption of impressions from the outside has the same effect as what we have described as myopia in the eye.

One must form one's world view in an open-minded love. Today's books are often written in such a way that the truths are smeared into people's mouths, so to speak. However, those books that require long study and reflection to grasp their content are the truly good books in the theosophical sense. They are designed to stimulate inner productivity.

In the classroom, you can dissect plants with children, but when you are out in nature with young people, you should bring them closer to the whole of living nature. In this context, analyzing and destroying would be inappropriate. Love, in whatever form it appears, has a healing effect on people because it produces noble feelings and gives something out of itself. It is also healthy to produce in art and science or in similar behavior. Anything that encourages people to work independently is healthy. Theosophy aims to ennoble and harmonize people's inner emotional life by showing them the developments in the outside world and pointing out the harmony that prevails in it. This makes our mind productive and creates health in soul and body. A worldview such as this makes people capable of creating counterweights within themselves against all external influences, thus arming themselves against hypochondria and hysteria. Where this fixed point is developed within, the person is then stabilized for every external situation. They can then also give themselves over to pleasure without being harmed by it. It becomes an expression of their deep and true health.

When Theosophy is introduced into life in this way, it proves itself in our lives, and thus its validity is also proved, without objections having to be logically refuted.

Nowhere in life is there a greater need for a spiritual understanding of existence than in the face of a growing child, for anyone who has an open mind. For even if it is of infinite importance for all life and being to see through the world of the senses to the spiritual foundations of existence, it appears to be something quite special to help the still hidden spirit to its full free existence in relation to the growing child, regardless of the relationship we have with him. The child stands before us, enveloped in the material existence of his future. We know that this future is to be brought out of the material, we know that out of the material the spirit is to unfold, we are faced with the task of nurturing and caring for the spirit within the outer appearance of the senses. And if material knowledge can lead us into error with regard to our world view, we know that we will actually stray from our path when it comes to our duty to save humanity if we have no sense of the hidden spirit of the growing child. Spiritual science enables us to free the spirit from material shells.

Earlier I was allowed to speak about education, today we should be more concerned with what the child is. We should be concerned with what the child's relationship is to his future, to a full, human existence. For from such knowledge we will learn how to properly support the growing child.

It is an important question: how should we relate to the child in the past if we want to find the right path for future development?

In today's world, which is steeped in material ideas, heredity and descent play a major role. If we have an intuitive sense of how the child's qualities are passed on, first to the parents and then to the ancestors, we understand how scientific thinking about heredity has blossomed magnificently. But spiritual science will show that we cannot get by with this in relation to the important relationship between man, woman and child. Those who have the task of educating the child see how the talents and abilities, what we summarize as individual, prove to be a new mystery. Those who take their task seriously feel like a new puzzle solver in the face of each individual child's individuality.

Heredity and individuality are part of our subject. Heredity is something that has grown out of contemporary scientific ideas. These are based much less on comprehensive observation of human life than on the nature of plants and animals. Not a single word of criticism is to be said against the positive achievements of scientific research in this field. Much remains to be done in this area. But research is insufficient with regard to the human being. If one observes the individual characteristics of the human being, and first of all the purely physical ones, inherited like those of animals, one falls into abstractions. One arrives at poor concepts for the human being, whereas one arrives at extremely fruitful concepts for the animalistic. We must bear in mind the tremendous difference between humans and animals, that the concepts gained in the lower realms are not sufficient for human life. In the case of humans, we have four elements of their being and so on. The human soul and what flows from the I is independent of the two elements of physical and etheric body. If we consider that in the plant kingdom we are only dealing with the physical and etheric bodies, and in the animal kingdom with these and the astral body, that the astral body is completely devoted to the physical body, while in humans the astral body is influenced by the ego, then we will understand that we cannot transfer the concepts from the other kingdoms to humans.

There is a very simple train of thought to make this clear. The great difference between humans and animals, if we disregard everything occult, appears to us through purely logical consideration. In the case of animals, our interest is equally divided between grandfather, father, son and grandson, and what mainly interests us is the generic. Our interest in the individuality is far below our interest in the species. The species aspect far outweighs the individual. That is why animals have no biography. Only humans have a biography because, in the case of humans, the sentence applies that, in certain respects, they are their own species. Just as we are strongly interested in the species in the case of animals, we must be just as interested in the individual in the case of humans. Some dog owners will say that humans differ from animals only in degrees, and that anyone who observes an animal could also write a biography of their dog. Of course, there are transfers from one to the other. You can also write the biography of a steel spring. But in the true sense, only humans have one, and even the most insignificant ones.

Something else is connected with the fact of the biography. We see how the animal is born and has reached perfection shortly after birth, how it performs certain actions because these actions are related to heredity. Because humans are individuals, we see that we are justified in bringing out the very individuality in each person through education, which corresponds to the development of the animal, which passes through the species.

This leads us to the spiritual-scientific fact that the animal has only three bodies and the human being has the fourth in addition. When we see that movements and impulses, joy and pain, emanate from the animal body, we say that the astral body is connected to the lower bodies and receives their peculiarities through inheritance. This is shown by the similarity of the physiognomy and the individual limbs. The etheric body is the shaper of the images of the physical body. Both receive their structure through their descent.

Because the human being is an individuality, and thus has an underlying ego, the impulses of the ego express themselves in the astral body. When the astral body has inner impulses, there are things in the human being that cannot be understood if one assumes mere inheritance. Objections can easily be raised from the point of view of observation (the Bach and Bernoulli families).

Such things appear as if human inheritance existed, but in a more spiritualized, higher form than in plants and animals. One goes further and shows that in such a case the significant genius can be traced backwards. The genius is a summation of the qualities of his ancestors. — A strange conclusion, because this last genius is not inherited. From one logic, one should not be particularly surprised that a descendant, even if he is a genius, shows certain characteristics of his ancestors; but it is actually only a matter of having a correct understanding of this inheritance. With a plant, one will not be particularly surprised if it turns out differently in different soils.

But no one doubts that it was not the soil that made the plant, but the seed that was planted in the soil. So there is no need to be surprised when you come back wet from the water. To want to prove inheritance by the fact that genius appears at the end of a generation is proof that it does not continue to be inherited. People do not notice the illogicality.

We only see what we want to see. For the educator who stands before the developing child, there is no need for proof that something very individual is released from within, in addition to the inherited traits. When we see this individuality being released, we have to ask ourselves: where does this individuality come from? Materialism has a superstitious chapter on this in its findings. Here, materialism goes against all its assumptions. It would not have been a miracle if 300 years ago it had been said that the individual comes out of nothing, out of the sum of the ancestral line. 300 years ago, people believed that fish could form out of mud. Then an Italian naturalist said: “The living cannot arise from the seemingly dead.” Today, all of natural science shares Haeckel's belief that ‘the living can only arise from the living.’ But when Redi expressed this, it was considered heresy, and he only narrowly escaped the fate of Giordano Bruno.

Today it is no longer fashionable to burn such heretics; they are seen as backward people. Materialism does not burn, it uses other inquisitorial means. For spiritual science, the following applies: spiritual can only arise from spiritual. No combination of physical causes can explain the individual without appealing to a miracle. The materialist is superstitious when it comes to the spiritual. Spiritual science is firmly grounded in the fact that spiritual arises from spiritual. We trace individuality back to spiritual.

Here we are confronted with the comprehensive law that spiritual science presents us with. What appears to us as a species in the lower ranks appears to us in relation to humans as repeated lives on earth. What a person acquires in this life is the basis for their development in the following lives. Thus we see true individuality permeating many earthly lives as a spiritual unity. If we put the whole human individual together, we find that the physical and etheric bodies lie in the line of inheritance, but that the I and the astral body can be traced back to earlier earth lives and the spiritual. If we bring this before our spiritual eyes, it can give us a satisfactory explanation for the fact that the human being standing before us as a child appears to us as a combination of inheritance and embodiments.

How do we explain such phenomena of inheritance? We have to admit that the child was there long before the physical characteristics that can be inherited could be thought of. Just as there is attraction and repulsion in the physical life, there is this force between the sheaths given by man and woman.

A child is not drawn to every pair of parents, but to where it fits. Much finer characteristics than the face are inherited, but these are precisely what attract the individual. Man has not only the outer but also the inner physiognomy. The child must be driven by the bond of attraction to that embodiment which the outer instruments give to his talents. The incarnating human individuality chooses its parents. The organ of mathematical thinking is not the brain, but the three semicircular canals in the ear, which are perpendicular to each other in the three directions of space and which, when injured, impair the sense of orientation. Painting is based on the very specific structure of the eye.

There is no contradiction between heredity and re-embodiment. Men and women only inherit the physical. The child is born into a pair of parents, as it is born out of them. We see the plant absorbing the characteristic features of the soil. The child springs forth from the soil of its descent and displays everything that is in the father and mother. We also see the individual germinal, which is only sunk into this soil as a true individuality, which is a closed entity, going through various incarnations. We remember Schopenhauer: by man and woman seeking each other, the offspring are already at work.

He often had penetrating flashes of inspiration that are extremely apt, but which are only fully understood when illuminated by spiritual science. The will of the developing life already lies in the individuality of love between man and woman, and in the looks with which the lovers meet, lies the child striving into existence. But spiritual science only illuminates it in the right way. What do we see in the individuality, in the I and the astral body? What is it that plays a part in the love between man and woman, that constitutes the feeling of pleasure in each individual case? The reflex, the mirror image of the individuality that wants to enter into life. The descending individuality announces itself in feeling. The feeling of love is given to the child's individuality by father and mother.

Such things cannot be proved, but they are true for those who feel and see through to the truth. There is no proof for the law of reincarnation, it must be an experience of the inner life. In the feelings between man and woman we see the descending individuality flooding in. The child foreshadows the man and the woman. Love and desire are only emanations of the astral. The physical and etheric bodies of man and woman compose the child. The child stimulates the astral body between man and woman, and the result is the play of love sensations.

Now some may say: How can you come to terms with the actual mother and father feeling? They arise again in their child. The love that exists between parents and children appears in a higher splendor. From the child's side it played before conception. The child was drawn to its still spiritualized love, which played before the first atom of the physical came into being. The child loves the parents it seeks out, and its love casts a shadow into the act of love. Love appears to us even more refined, spiritualized.

When we look at things this way, the inheritance system becomes much more understandable. If there is feminine in the man and masculine in the woman, then we will understand that the qualities of the daughters come from the father and those of the sons from the mother. People who have a particularly strong soul often get it from their mother. We have four characteristics, from which a great combination of characteristics arises. We will not say such strange things: we need not be surprised that women now have these or those characteristics. These people always forget that women also had a father. It puts a spiritual and physical aspect in a completely different light. There must be an important consequence when we take this awareness into life. We will not only look at physical inheritance, but at individuality, which must be sacred to us, something we must redeem from its shells. Such an outlook will transform itself into a completely different and higher respect and appreciation of the enigmatic individuality, which is to be unravelled. We will not only learn to respect the freedom of adults, but also of children's individuality. Spiritual science leads us to feelings, sensations and practical creativity in the face of life's tasks. Spiritual science sees the creative spirit behind the physical, sees matter as the effect of past spirituality.

Spiritual science sees the spirit, which is still veiled, shaping itself into the future as its helper. Our knowledge leads us into the spiritual creation of the past. This leads us to an appreciation of the evolving entities. Only by respecting the freedom of the developing human being can we ensure human progress into the future. With many a sentence, Goethe captured the great circumstances that are repeated in everyday life. We look back into the past and see the creative spirit. The great yesterday of the world becomes apparent to us through knowledge, and in this way we attain respect and appreciation for the spirit that first wants to become.

If yesterday is clear and open to you,
you will be strong in today,
so you can hope for tomorrow,
which will be no less happy.

Theosophy or spiritual science approaches man primarily by giving him messages about a transcendent world, certain knowledge of what has existed in the invisible world since primeval times, since the first beginnings of being, hidden behind our world of the senses.

At first, Theosophy seems to be just a theory, like many others. But if we immerse ourselves in it, even if only for a short time, it is no longer just a theory; it becomes an act, a reality for those who deal with it, it becomes truth, wisdom and wealth through life.

It becomes all this not only because it brings great ideals of the future development of man before the soul, but also because it is possible right from the beginning, before the great ideals have been realized, to mean something for the soul, to give our whole life a turn.

A great, all-encompassing ideal that Theosophy develops before man is that everyone is able to develop the powers and abilities that lie dormant in them, so that - even if only in the distant future - it will be possible for them to see into the spiritual world that Theosophy speaks of, just as they look into our sensual world today. Yes, the moment will come, perhaps in the distant future, when the spiritual world will no longer be something hidden, unknown, mysterious to man, but will shine and radiate before his soul's gaze like the world of color and light for someone who was blind from birth and suddenly sees after an operation.

This awakening to spiritual life, the inclusion of the spiritual world in the field of human experience, that lofty ideal of which Theosophy speaks, gives man hope, indeed certainty, that he will achieve it one day. There is already something in it that is of great wealth for the human soul, something that gives man strength and certainty for his whole life. For many, however, for most people, it is still a distant ideal.

Nevertheless, regardless of this distant ideal, Theosophy can offer people something else, even if they feel far from this ideal.

The great truths about the supersensible worlds, which are offered to humanity by advanced individuals to whom these worlds are already open today, are different from other theories in that they show man the way to understand everyday phenomena and experiences in our lives. These are messages that explain the most important manifestations of life and give us the solution to the darkest secrets of nature and man.

To acquire such knowledge is to gain strength for life. For not understanding what is mysterious in human life means restlessness, weakness, inability to live; on the other hand, every understanding of the essence and purpose of life gives man strength, confidence and hope that will not leave him even in the most difficult moments, when he needs them most.

This eminently practical significance of Theosophy appears most clearly to us when we turn to the question that today's lecture is specifically about, namely the mystery of man and woman and their connection with the child. Indeed, this is a vital topic because we cannot take a step in our lives without encountering this question.

It is true that modern science, which is worthy of all admiration, provides a large number of answers to this question. However, this science, based on the observation of what the physical eye sees, what the physical apparatus shows and what reason combines into a logical whole, relies only on external observation and the conclusions derived from it – science inevitably fails precisely where we encounter such questions and mysteries of daily life.

It is enough to look at contemporary literature: we find here that today's literature, which knows nothing of spiritual science, takes a twofold view of such an important problem as today's.

On the one hand, we see a materialistic view flashing through some of these remarks, expressing a wide range of assumptions about the nature of man and woman. On the other hand, however, we see a whole series of serious and thinking people who are not at all satisfied with the vague assumptions, who sense a deeper nature of the contradiction between man and woman; these people find nothing but a one-sided and chaotic view in modern science and literature; but they are not yet able to penetrate to spiritual science and there to the right enlightenment of this mystery. Let us take a look at some of the views on this subject. How confused human knowledge is precisely here!

The writer Rosa Mayreder, who dealt with this question but did not yet penetrate into spiritual science, has collected some opinions that are common today in all cultural countries, especially about women.

An overview of these different opinions casts a sharp light on the utter confusion of the present day. Let's look at how the writer compares different views. The book by the aforementioned author, “On the Problem of Women”, also deserves to be read for other reasons, because it leads to theosophy, as it were, and to the gate of theosophy, although she herself has not yet entered it. Here we can see how a great naturalist, who is often mentioned, tries to grasp and summarize the nature of women in that he ascribes tenderness to them. Another scientist – his name is not important – summarizes all of a woman's qualities in the concept of devotion. Elsewhere, we see again the human being who has grown out of the present day, who hopes to express the essence of a woman best with the word 'temperance in the face of anger'.

So one person comes up with the idea of tenderness, another just as sincerely and honestly with the concept of devotion, and yet another, based on his observations, with the term “anger-bearing”. Another judgment, again based on a man who often dealt with psychopathology, calls woman “embodied conservatism”. A conservative element in social life, that is what woman is supposed to be. We don't have to go far to find the opposite view: “The real revolutionary element lies in the nature of woman”.

We have a whole range of such views. Their enormous diversity, indeed their contradictions, are proof of how little people understand these things if they stick to superficial observation.

A profound philosophical thinker, on the other hand, tries to divide humanity into, on the one hand, analytically thinking people who analyze, break down, classify and penetrate into the details of everything they see, and, on the other hand, people who, in turn, understand the whole universe synthetically – and then calls the woman an analytical being and man a synthetic being; but immediately we come across the statement of another philosopher who explains that woman is always ready for synthesis, but only man is supposedly capable of the strict analytical knowledge that leads to science.

All these thinkers, whose views have been cited here, simply stopped at superficial, superficial observation; hence the confusion and contradictions in these various statements.

Nevertheless, it can be said that there is something in the way this question is approached that drives modern science along the path that it must follow in the course of time to the recognition of spiritual life, to the recognition of that which lies beyond the visible world of modern science.

In a particularly remarkable way, the young, unhappy doctor Dr. Otto Weininger summarized his views in his book “Sex and Character”, a book that shows on one hand how modern materialistic science is driven by inner necessity to higher knowledge, but on the other hand how this science is not able to find a final solution to this question because of its prejudices and the nature of its methods.

Weininger builds on the ground of serious and exact science, on the methods of modern research, that there is a kind of polarity in the male and female sex, a kind of ideal male and female type, but that we never encounter it in practice, because in fact one always finds in the individual, both in the man a hidden female and in the woman a hidden male part. Weininger, however, puts this whole thing on a materialistic basis. He almost gives the impression that a part of male substance is mixed into the female organic substance and vice versa.

In other cases, too, we find in Weininger, alongside ideas that lead to true knowledge, a wide range of completely false ideas and conclusions. In general, this book shows a wondrous mixture of deep ideas and, again, the most extreme prejudices against the nature of women. This can be seen best in the conclusions, where Weininger comes to the final view that a woman has neither freedom nor individuality nor intellect nor reason.

These different views about women, full of contradictions, are able to evoke a sympathetic response in the human heart, in the sense that one recognizes the need to look not only at the observation of life through the external senses , but also on the inner, spiritual events; only if we see man and woman not only as they appear to our eyes, but if we delve into the inner being of man, can we recognize the true nature, origin and laws of the two sexes of man.

Other lectures have shown that we can become aware of the invisible parts of the human being on the basis of the great problems of waking and sleeping, life and death.

It was shown how the whole world accessible to our senses, which extends around us during the daytime while we are awake, and all of our waking consciousness sinks into an indeterminate darkness in the evening as we fall asleep; and that then, in the morning when we wake up, everything that was spread out before our consciousness the previous evening emerges again from the darkness of the unconscious. It is a common phenomenon, and yet – perhaps for that very reason – this principle has not been sufficiently investigated, although it is one of the deepest, most enigmatic questions of life, one that, when seriously confronted with it, can lead a person to a deep realization.

According to the experiences of those who have developed higher abilities, it can be observed that, in the evening, when falling asleep, a person leaves part of their being in bed, while the other part leaves the physical body and then lives with it during the time of sleep in the other, transcendent world.

But why can't the person, with that part that is drawn out of the physical body at night, perceive the phenomena of this higher, transcendental world with full consciousness?

Because it is only possible to perceive where there are sensory organs. Only the world for which there are senses can be perceived. In this soul-spiritual part of the human being, which emerges from the physical body during sleep, no organs have yet developed in the ordinary person today.

For this reason, from the moment of falling asleep until waking up, man is [deaf and] blind to everything that happens in this higher world, in which he would live if he were not relegated today to the purely sensual world, in which alone he has a developed perceptual apparatus and to which his soul-spiritual part always returns in the morning when he is reintegrated into his physical body.

We can go further and point out another circumstance that leads us to a real observation of spiritual science. In what lies on the bed during sleep, we can observe two things; the one part, the physical body, can be perceived through the sense of touch in the sleeping person; it consists of the same forces as a stone, and is therefore of a mineral nature.

This physical body would disintegrate into its own forces and substances if it were not permeated by a principle that saturates it with life force, the so-called life body or etheric body.

Everything that is alive must constantly conquer life. The stone is sustained by its mineral forces; only from outside can the disturbing forces come that destroy it. But the living body only persists if it is maintained by the power of life; left to itself, it decomposes under the influence of mineral forces into the individual substances of which it is composed, and becomes a corpse.

Between birth and death, the physical body of man is intertwined with the etheric body. At death, however, this etheric body emerges with the astral body, leaving the physical body dead. This is the difference between sleep and death. In sleep, the physical and etheric bodies remain together, but at death, the etheric body also withdraws with the astral body and the higher principles of the human being, while the physical body, left to itself, becomes a corpse. What interests us most about this matter today is that at night, when a person is in the spiritual world, they are almost purely spiritual, or, to put it another way, a soul-spiritual being that consists of the astral body and the human “I”.

The organs that a person uses during the day when they are awake, when they are in their physical shell, are in the physical and etheric body for the purpose of contact with the outside world. Thus, we only understand the essence of a person correctly if we observe their changing states during the day and night.

The human being is in a similar situation with regard to gender. The conditions that we summarize under the concept of man and woman are only found in the part of the human being that remains on the bed at night as a physical and etheric body. That which withdraws from them during sleep – the astral body and the human being's “I” – and returns to them in the morning, has no gender. What flows out of the body at night is the human being elevated beyond gender.

So when the human being leaves the body, they leave the entire realm of gender; then in the morning, when they awaken, they return and enter gender again.

Only the physical and etheric bodies appear to be sexual to us and show us this in a wonderful way.

Theosophy gives us this special knowledge, wonderful and incredible, but true! Only on the outside is a person a member of the sex that can be observed through the senses. But if we observe the supersensible part of what remains on the bed during sleep, namely the life body or etheric body, this body shows us something surprising compared to the physical body. The etheric body is actually endowed with the opposite sex as the physical body; the etheric body of a man is of the female sex and the etheric body of a woman is of the male sex.

Here is the key to the mystery of sex! The human being consists of a physical, etheric and astral body and the I (ego); the ego and the astral body are trans-sexual and therefore do not participate in the sexual, except that they surround themselves with the etheric and physical body.

Of the physical and etheric body, we see with the ordinary senses alone the physical body; but if we turn our attention inwards to the supersensible side, the etheric body, we find the opposite sex. When a person observes life from the perspective of the sexes, when a man or a woman experiences life and tries to understand it from that point of view, but spiritual science then provides him with such insights as the opposite natures of the sexes of the physical and etheric bodies, then the scales fall from the eyes of man; only then does it become clear to him when he looks at life as a man, that although external nature stimulates him to male deeds, he harmonizes these male qualities, balances them with other, almost female qualities. Likewise, women show us a whole range of male traits. We then find that there is nothing that we could ascribe to only the man or only the woman, whether as a virtue or a defect, that is tied only to one sex.

If we look at Weininger's opinion from this point of view, we see a certain similarity, but it is certainly not material things in men and women of the opposite sex, but this has its seat in the etheric body.

Why are those people who rely on external impressions so wrong in their opinions about women and men? Precisely because they judge spiritual life by external signs of gender and forget that there is something feminine in every man and something masculine in every woman and therefore there is always something of the opposite sex in each sex that complements it.

In all the above characterizations of woman, where the concept of “tenderness”, “fidelity”, “poisonousness”, “conservatism” or “the revolutionary element in man” was attributed to woman, we see everywhere that only what was found from the outer senses was judged.

Let us look deeper! Theosophy sheds light on these things, teaching us to understand the sphere in which masculinity and femininity meet. There, where man is elevated above material life, as for example in sleep, there is no gender in its meaning. But it would be wrong to judge that the contradiction that arises in both sexes has only a meaning for the physical world. On the contrary, we must become fully and earnestly aware of the nature of the physical world, according to Goethe's saying: “Everything transitory is only a parable”: everything physical is only a parable of the spiritual!

When we reflect on this sexual difference, we shall understand the true nature of it. We know this difference only in the physical world, as the polarity between man and woman. However, the difference is only the expression of a much deeper antagonism in the spiritual world. Two manifestations go hand in hand with life, two extremes that we commonly call life and death.

In outer life, the picture of this contradiction can be beautifully observed in the growing tree. On the surface, we see the bark that has imprisoned the inner life, which has stepped back from the surface. Inside, however, we see abundant life, streams of sap rising from the trunk to all the branches, strengthening them and nourishing the leaves, flowers and fruits. Inside, a tree is full of life, but it is covered by a solid shell. And yet this tree needs to be trapped in the solid bark, for how could a tree that was deprived of the bark that seemingly imprisons its life survive the winter, survive storms and tempests? A tree whose trunk is wounded, whose bark is stripped, dies.

Similarly, all of life is permeated by the opposition between life and form.

What is inside the tree wants to grow and flourish, but it is held back by the fact that it is enclosed in the form, which constantly opposes life as something oppressive and life-threatening; life itself would overflow and rush if it were not for death. Only form, which restrains and binds, creates the harmony and balance that life, progressing rapidly, strives for. The bark of a tree is precisely the image of that which limits, restrains, and kills.

Death and life, as the two opposites, intervene in all of life, in all events. We find life everywhere – and the form that life simultaneously retains and holds back, so that it does not rush, but also does not immediately disappear.

We can observe this phenomenon in artistic creation: in the beautiful products of Greek sculpture, where the knowing artist shows us the hidden secrets of the spiritual world in the image of the statue.

This is particularly evident in two works of Greek sculpture: the Head of Zeus, which shows us in a typical way how Zeus was viewed (original in the National Museum in Rome), and that of Juno (the so-called Juno Ludovisi). Two wonderful works of human creativity; anyone who looks at them, not thoughtlessly but more deeply, will notice the broad and flat forehead of Juno, which then suddenly falls back, and in contrast to it the narrow forehead of Zeus, rounded at the sides, whose arch slowly recedes at the temples.

If you look at the entire face of Zeus and Juno, and if you compare them, you will find that the face of Zeus awakens in you a feeling that if there were life in this statue, would change its entire expression in a short time, transform itself; in this face, an enormous life force develops, strong and abundant, which would be able to reshape the whole face within a short time.

It is different with Juno. The soul that resides in this being, captured by the artist in the expression of this statue, has embodied itself entirely in the form, becoming a beautiful and complete form. Here we feel the calm after creation, and we cannot imagine this face any differently; on the contrary, we feel that if this face lived before us for all eternity, it would not change its expression. In Zeus, only a moment of what is happening in this soul is captured in the face, while in Juno we feel the calm of the soul, which has fully achieved its expression in the finished, completed form.

Here we see the complete contrast again: the life that would have brought death with it if it had been left to itself, because it would constantly have wiped out one form after another, it would not have tolerated a moment of consolidation in the form; this life on the one hand, on the other hand, the encapsulation of life, the crystallization, the preservation of the same in the frame, in the form.

As soon as you ascend from the physical world into the spiritual world, the difference between the sexes disappears, but we find there the contrast between the flowing, swirling life and that power that wants to hold back, crystallize the rushing life. And the manifestation of these two opposites of the spiritual world and their correspondence in physical life is precisely masculinity and femininity.

However, it should be noted here that the male and female cannot be determined by the external characteristics by which gender is determined in ordinary life, since part of the feminine is also contained in man, and vice versa.

The male pole is a manifestation of that which rushes forward and would soon develop too quickly; the manifestation of that abundant life which, left to itself, would not cease for a moment. By contrast, the female manifestation is that force in nature which holds back life, forcing it to pause, thus enabling its manifestation by allowing form to arise. Thus masculinity and femininity work together in nature, complementing each other.

The woman – the principle of form, the man – the principle of life.

If we can also bring what has been said here into our feelings, if it is not just a lifeless presentation of the dry intellect, then we will also understand the task of the sexes in nature and thus find the way to mutual understanding and to the understanding of the two sexes in human life.

This is precisely the great advantage of Theosophy: it provides practical solutions to the great questions of the human mind, and it points the way to a deeper understanding of these questions.

In a similar way, we also arrive at a solution to the relationship between man, woman and child...

It will not be difficult for us to understand the child's relationship to man and woman if we remember that even in sleep, what emerges from the physical principle as a spiritual part of the human being is sexless.

If we compare death to sleep, we come to understand the nature of the child.

What happens at death? — The etheric and astral bodies and the ego emerge from the physical body, which is handed over to the forces of the physical world.

The I is connected to the etheric body only for a short time, a few days at most; then the etheric body, especially that part of it that is the carrier of gender, is also separated, and a second, ethereal corpse is formed.

However, what is not sexual in the ethereal body continues with the other principles as an independent principle.

When the human being then enters into a new existence, the human germ descends from the supersensible worlds and leans down again in order to be reborn through man and woman.

Three are necessary if man is to enter physical life again: man and woman in the physical world and the human germ that leans towards them, which spent some time in the purely spiritual world, matured there and prepared for a new incarnation for a long time.

How does a person enter physical life?

Much thought has been given to what we in ordinary life call the love between man and woman. What a master of life one would have to be to fully understand the meaning of this word, which contains so many secrets! From the highest bliss to the most miserable humiliation, from the highest exaltation to the most terrible destruction of all life, all this is contained in the word 'love'.

All the profound thinkers who have reflected on love and its essence agree that there is something very intimate and delicate about it that lies beyond direct observation; in Schopenhauer we come across the direct statement that every action, every ignition of love between man and woman, has a special, individual character, so that a married couple can be together for many years, and yet every act of love, every conjugal approach is something special, new, individual.

Schopenhauer is right. What does this act of love mean, what happens in the love between man and woman? It is not only what lives in the “physical life” between the male and female individuals that plays a role, but something third also comes into play. There is always a human being in the higher world who enters into physical incarnation, and for this purpose love flares up between the two beings.

What we call love between hearts and hearts, this glowing feeling that connects two souls, is a reflection of that spiritual glowing cloud of love with which the ego, descending to birth, surrounds two beings, is this call to the man and the woman who can make it possible for this human being to enter into physical life.

The love itself that brings the sexes together does not come only from them, it is a shadow, a projection of a being that wants to embody itself.

This is how one must look at the individuality, the peculiarity of each act of love, because in each such union a human individuality wants to emerge through those whom it has chosen as its parents and educators.

In this way of looking at things, we learn to distinguish between what is individual and what is inherited. Since the father and mother are involved in reproduction, the male and female of the father and mother – their physical and etheric bodies – interbreed in various ways. However, what the human ego, which wants to embody itself, brings with it from the higher worlds and from its previous lives, appears to us as an individual aspect.

So you have to distinguish between what is individual and what is inherited from father and mother. We see this well in families where there are many children: What they have inherited from their father and mother appears in all children, but above all, we can observe something special and individual in each child, something that the spirit itself has brought with it, which is not in the father or mother, but which was already there in the human being before birth.

Then we can also correctly assess what has really been inherited from the nature of a parent and in what a wonderful way it happens. We learn why daughters so often take after their fathers and sons after their mothers, and why when reading biographies of great men we also study the characteristics and nature of their parents. On the other hand, we learn how that which is original in man plunges into the inherited shell and partially merges with it.

Nevertheless, we see how today's materialistic science repeatedly points out how often characteristics of parents and even spiritual qualities are inherited. We are often reminded how genius inherits its characteristics from parents and family. Here, too, only inherited characteristics are mentioned. A person's talent, it is said, the whole soul of a person consists of what has been accumulated over several generations. The highest peak, it is said, always comes at the end, because then we have a kind of accumulation. — That is a peculiar logic! A logically correct argument would have to lead here to the gates of spiritual science. This is where genius should begin. The fact that genius often stands at the end of many generations is unmistakable proof that this is not mere inheritance. That genius appears tinged with inheritance is no more surprising than that, to use a rather trivial comparison, if someone has fallen into water, they come out wet. But there is something that has accumulated over generations, but these are only the outer qualities, those shells that develop from generation to generation. These things must be considered in the right way, then the internally coherent, closed individuality presents itself to us, which finds its first expression in the feeling of love between the future parents as a foreshadowed shadow and is embodied in complete diversity and difference from what will be inherited.

Many people are afraid when they hear these teachings that the feeling of love for the children and parents could suffer in this way, could grow cold. But that is not right. On the contrary, this spiritual connection between parents and children would be further strengthened and intensified. Why should certain parents have this child in particular? Because it is this child that wants to go to these parents and be born with and from them.

Hence the individuality in the feelings of love, this dawn of love that precedes the birth of a child: love even precedes, even before birth the child loves the parents, even before sexual intercourse and conception by the mother, expressing to the parents that it wants to be born.

From this, we also see the necessity of the parents' love for their children, which is actually only the repayment of the love that the child already had for the parents before birth.

And so it is with many concepts that we encounter in everyday life and on which Theosophy, when we delve deeper into it, sheds an [ever] brighter light.

Here we see a wonderful harmony of this trinity in father, mother and child, which is the basis of life everywhere in nature and in humans. Here we encounter it in an extremely vivid and understandable form.

Man is the ever-flowing life, woman is the symbol of the form that receives and encloses this life and allows it to crystallize in beauty; these two principles then unite within each other, man and woman unite in love, to enable the descent of the spiritual being from the sexually neutral worlds to the form of the physical world, and thus to open with all their love this gate between the higher world, the spiritual world and the world of matter.

If, as already mentioned, such concepts do not remain dry abstractions for us, but we transform them into powerful impressions and feelings and then go out into life enriched by them, then we see how Theosophy explains and solves all the riddles and mysteries of life that we encounter at every turn.

Thus we also come to an understanding of numerous phenomena of social life, to the solution of the contradictions between conservatism and progress; we see how, on the one hand, the forces of life work, hurrying forward, and on the other hand, the forces of form, maintaining and preserving.

On deeper study, we learn that even progress can be harmful if it does not give to the second pole of life what belongs to it, if it does not do justice to the form that life cultivates and strengthens through resistance.

If we approach life from the standpoint of spiritual science, we find that life will not burden us, but will fill us with understanding and reverence, making us free and ; correctly understood, Theosophy shows us guidelines that we can take up, opens up the depths of life to us and, as a worldview, shows us ways to transform our views and ideas into certainty, strength and hope. Then we will not lose ourselves in difficult moments, nor drown in our grief in dark moments, if we were once privileged to look deeper into the foundations of life and the world.

But for such an acceptance of the theosophical teaching, no other proofs are needed than those which life itself gives us step by step. Those who saturate themselves with these teachings and then approach all questions of life understand that Theosophy is not only a theory, but also practical wisdom for life and ultimately a precious wealth of life of inestimable value.

Dear attendees! It is often said that there is a deep truth to the statement that the greatest mystery of all is man himself. Although this saying is often uttered, in its depth, in its full meaning, it is not understood. Rather, the full mysteriousness of man is felt and sensed deeply enough only in the rarest of cases. In truth, not only does man face himself as a significant, difficult-to-solve riddle when he looks beyond the most superficial things in life, but also every fellow human being faces us, in a certain, and very deep way, as a riddle in turn. And what should interest us today in particular is that when we talk about the human puzzle, we cannot hope to have solved this human puzzle with a single answer; but if we proceed not theoretically but in accordance with life, we must say: in this human puzzle there are basically as many individual puzzles as there are people in the world.

Within certain limits, each person can be seen as a separate puzzle within the greater puzzle of the human race. And what we are to deal with today is intimately connected with this view of the human being: that peculiar coloring of the human being, that fundamental tone of human individuality, which we encounter in one person in this way, in another differently, and which we describe with the word: the human temperament.

Everything that can enlighten us about the diversity of human nature is encompassed by this word, and we may hope that if we are able to shed some light on the mystery of human temperaments, we may also gain a handle to solve the human puzzle a little in its most diverse forms. Of course, when we approach this human puzzle not in a general, theoretical way, but in a lively, individual way, we must not succumb to the great illusion that an external knowledge of the human being, a mere sensual-physical knowledge of the human being, will somehow lead us to solve the human riddle in its most diverse forms. temperament; if we approach this human puzzle individually and full of life, then we must not succumb to the great illusion that an external knowledge of the human being, a mere sensual-physical knowledge of the human being, could somehow lead us further.

For spiritual scientific or, let us say, theosophical consideration, as we have often been able to mention here, the human being is a very diversely composed being, and we only understand him if we not only look at the outside of himself, at what eyes see and hands touch, what the outer senses can perceive, what the human, brain-bound mind can dissect, but we can only hope to fully understand man little by little if we also consider the supersensible aspects of human nature. And since it has often been said which are the members of human nature, they need only be mentioned briefly today, insofar as we need to do so in order to then enter into the consideration of human temperaments.

That which eyes see, hands grasp, and the physical organs can perceive in a person is, after all, only the outermost link of the human being for spiritual scientific observation, the link of the human being that it shares with the entire seemingly lifeless mineral nature around it. Beyond that, we have the next link of the human being, a link that cannot be perceived by the outer senses, which already belongs to the supersensible, invisible links of human nature. And while we call that which man has in common with inanimate nature the physical body, we call this supersensible first the etheric or life body. We find it in every living being, in plants, which it permeates and organizes just as much as it does in human beings, and in animals. In spiritual science, we do not speak of this etheric or life body in the same way that materialists speak of life, as if life were just something that emerges as an effect from the physical body and the interaction of the forces and substances of the physical body. No, for spiritual science this etheric body is not only something independent, something that the consciousness of the human being, which can see behind the world of the senses with clairvoyance, really sees as reality, just as the physical eyes see the physical body, but this etheric body is actually that which underlies the physical body as the first, as the actual creator. The physical body is not the cause but the consequence of the finer, the etheric or life body. Just as – this image has also been used here often – just as for someone who looks into a container in which there is water, ice can condense out of this water into lumps, so the spiritual is around us, and the physical is the condensation of the spiritual. Thus, within the human etheric body, the physical body, with all its substances and powers, is a condensation of the etheric body. And so it is with all living beings.

A third link in the human being, which he has in common only with animals, is the so-called astral body, the carrier of lust and suffering, joy and pain, desires, urges and passions, ideas and thoughts. The astral body is the carrier of all that surges up and down within the human soul. Just as the physical body is a densification of the etheric body, so the astral body is a densification of the astral body. The objection raised by the materialist is a very cheap one: Can you imagine that somewhere in the world there are passions, thoughts, feelings, desires and suffering flying around freely? Must they not be bound to a physical body? Of course, if someone has a vessel of water in front of them and only begins to see when the water has condensed into ice, then they may deny the water. So the materialist is quite right when he says that only the physical exists for him; but the one who recognizes the higher organs of the human being, which Goethe describes as spiritual eyes, must also recognize that our world is truly only filled with tangible and visible content, but with entities, with processes that only exist in passions and drives and desires that weave through each other and that can condense into the etheric and the physical. In short, we distinguish the third limb in the human being, the so-called astral body, the bearer of lust and suffering, joy and pain, desires and thoughts.

And as a fourth link, we have always recognized in the human being that which encompasses the name of the human being, which can only sound from within if it is to denote what it is applied to; as a fourth link, we denote the bearer of the human ego, of human self-awareness. The I can only name itself; only from within can it give itself the name “I”; the name “I” cannot possibly reach your ears from the outside if it is to mean you.

This is only a rough sketch of how we think of the human being as a four-fold creature. All these aspects interact in the most diverse ways. The I has an effect on the physical, etheric and astral bodies, the astral body on the I, the physical and etheric bodies, and so on, and so on. These four members of human nature are in a perpetual interaction. It is important that, in addition to this interaction, which can always be observed by clairvoyant consciousness during waking, we also consider the changes that can occur in the context of these four members, first of all those changes that take place every day in the alternation of the waking day consciousness and the sleeping consciousness.

When a person falls asleep, his physical and etheric bodies remain in bed. The astral body and the ego leave. In the morning, the ego and the astral body plunge back into the etheric and physical bodies and make use of the organs through which the environment can be seen as physical. The human being also exists at night, even if unconsciousness spreads around him. He just cannot see anything because, in his current state of development, he does not have spiritual ears and eyes in his astral body. He has to use the physical organs, and he can only do that if he submerges into the physical body. That is the change that a person goes through day after day. Human nature undergoes yet another change, the change that is characterized by the meaningful words that basically already encompass a large part of the human mystery: birth and death – or life and death.

Today, once again, we must briefly call ourselves to mind what happens to a person when they pass through the mysterious portal of death. It is not like when a person falls asleep. In death, the physical body remains as a corpse, and the I, the astral body and the etheric body separate from this corpse. What does not occur between birth and death, that the etheric body leaves the physical body, happens in death. We can see from this that throughout life, and indeed both during waking and sleeping states, the etheric body is a fighter against the disintegration of the physical body. Where the etheric body does not fight against disintegration, the physical body follows its own substances and forces and disintegrates, decays. This is the nature of the physical body, which it unfolds as a corpse. That it does not reveal them during life, that it does not follow the chemical-physical forces as it does in death, is due to the etheric body, which is a loyal defender against the disintegration of the physical body between birth and death. And when a person has passed through death, then, having discarded his physical body, he can live on in the spiritual world with the fruits that he has harvested in the life between birth and death, which he has harvested through his experiences. The etheric body, which withdraws from the physical body, contains a true image of all experiences between birth and death, and it is something like an essence, like an extract of the etheric body, which we take with us into the following life after death, into the life in the spirit. We take something like an extract of our etheric body with us, which usually also detaches from us as a second corpse after a few days, and this extract remains with us for all eternity. It contains something like a brief excerpt from the last life; we take this with us into the future life.

Now, however, we still have a task after death. We have to undergo a kind of probationary period, a period of getting out of the habit. You can best imagine this time if you start from a simple consideration, if you say to yourself: the astral body of man is the carrier of pleasure and suffering, of instincts, desires, all pleasures. The physical body is not the carrier of these; it only provides the instruments for enjoyment. The enjoyment itself lies in the astral body. But you take the astral body with you after death. Immediately after death, it is exactly as it was in life. Let us assume that a person was a gourmet. After death, he still has his astral body; it always longs for tasty morsels. But there is no possibility of satisfying this craving. It can only be satisfied if you have a palate. The physical body is discarded, so the astral body craves the pleasures of life after death. It is the same with everything that can only be satisfied by physical tools. All of this must be weaned off within a certain period of time.

This period of disaccustoming, during which man learns to have no more desire for anything that can only be satisfied by the physical organs, is usually called the time of desires, Kamaloka. For when man has gone through this period of disaccustoming, when he no longer desires anything that can only be satisfied by the physical senses, then he discards the third corpse. First he has discarded the physical body, then the etheric body, which dissolves a few days after physical death, and then he discards the unusable part of the astral body. And then man is that purely spiritual being who undergoes a time of purely spiritual life.

The transition from the period of weaning from physical passions makes itself felt in that man first has, as the innermost part of his experience, something that can be described as a feeling of bliss. Now begins the time when he works towards a new existence, when he begins to apply what he has learned in previous lives, what he has received as fruit, and to gradually develop it into a spiritual archetype, of which the next life can become an image. Creation is always connected with a feeling of bliss. And that creation in which we gradually form the archetype for a next existence, that is supreme bliss. I will not even talk about the bliss associated with every spiritual production, but there is bliss when only - forgive the comparison - the hen participates in the production of the new chicken. There is a bliss that permeates a being in all creation. It is therefore also a bliss that a person experiences when he is free from all the limitations of the physical world, when he brings everything together spiritually, which, when it is spiritually developed, leads to a new existence on this earth.

When the human being has fully developed his spiritual core, which takes a long time, then the descent into the physical world begins again, and then it is the case that the human being surrounds himself with three new bodies. Depending on the person's qualities, the substances from the astral world attach themselves, forming his new astral body. We can compare this formation with, say, when we have spread metal filings on a thin plate and pass a magnet underneath; these metal filings then arrange themselves into all kinds of shapes, in which they then shine. In the same way, the astral substance arranges itself around a spiritual core during the descent.

Then the person is led to a pair of parents and, through the connection of this spiritual core of the being, which has incorporated its astral cover, with what takes place between the parents, the further human covers around this core of the person's being are formed. In the interaction of what descends with the parents, a new etheric body and a new physical body are formed around the descending, so that every time we see a person enter into an existence, we have to say to ourselves: This human being receives from two sides what he actually is for this earthly existence. The inner being descends from spiritual heights. Because the human being is spiritual and astral, he descends from higher worlds. Through that which is inherited from generation to generation, from ancestors to descendants, what we see as the outer shell is formed around the human being, but also much of what belongs to the etheric body, to the fighter against the disintegration of the physical body.

And now, having realized that the human being is formed from two sides, let us ask ourselves what would happen if one or the other extreme were to prevail. Let us assume that a person brings with him only a few qualities from the spiritual heights, then his astral body would also have a little richer content, and what is structured around the person as an etheric and physical shell would have an overwhelming effect. That is to say, a person who brings only poor content with him would be in all his ancestors, a repetition, so to speak, within the line of inheritance. The richer the content that a person brings down, the more that which goes from the ancestors to the grandson, that which lies in the line of inheritance in general similarities, the more it is driven into the individual being changed. People who descend into poverty from a spiritual point of view are, so to speak, overwhelmed by the external, which closes around them through race, tribe, family and class. They have the character traits of their people, their family. People who descend with a rich content, with a significant inner development of strength, emerge as sharply defined individuals. They also absorb what passes from ancestors to descendants, but the similarity recedes in the face of the individual traits that are a consequence of the spiritual development of the individuality. We can see this when we look at “primitive” people, or especially when we turn our spiritual gaze back to the primeval times of the earth. The people of a nation resemble one another. Why do they resemble one another? Because the people who incarnated in such primeval times have experienced few past stages of existence, have learned little in earlier stages, and therefore bring little with them from the spiritual. With more developed peoples we have more developed stages; there we find people who have many, many lives behind them, who have absorbed rich, rich fruits from earlier lives and therefore bring down into the spiritual what they have carried up as fruits through many lives, and shape an individual existence for themselves. But every human being in our present period of humanity must, so to speak, make this compromise; he must descend and encase himself in a physical shell, which he must take from the line of inheritance. This duality is present in every human being and forms a whole. On the one hand, the human being is similar to what flows down through the ancestors; on the other hand, he is a being of his own.

Of course, materialistic thinking objects to such things in particular. For example, it is said: Oh, what are you talking about the descending human being; it's all inherited! We can also find the qualities of the greatest genius in our ancestors. There are people who take Goethe or Leibniz or this or that person and research them up to the earliest ancestors, and then find the characteristics that emerge in genius scattered among the ancestors, one characteristic in this person and one in that. And so these people tell us: You can see that genius is based solely on inheritance. Genius is very rarely found at the beginning of a generation, but usually at the end of it, so it has inherited its characteristics from its ancestors. – What a strange logic this is! For anyone who considers this logic will find that it says the opposite of what it claims. This logic wants to prove that genius inherits its characteristics. It would prove it if it could be shown that Here is a genius, the son has inherited his qualities, the grandson again and so on. But that is not the case. That is precisely what is denied. The genius is infertile. It is rare that one can simply inherit genius. If the genius is at the end of a line of succession, this does not mean that this individuality flows down in its entirety in the line. Of course, the physical and etheric bodies, which are the instruments of the human essence, come from the line of inheritance, and it is not surprising that they show the characteristics that can be read together here or there. That is just as clever as telling someone who has fallen into water and been pulled out: This one is wet. That is self-evident. So it is with the characteristics that one inherits. The logic that is usually applied to somehow refute the well-established fact that a person flows together from the two lines, one of which goes from generation to generation and is called race, people, tribe, family, but the other lies within the spiritual world, where a person progresses from life to life and, in long periods between death and a new birth, prepares for that new birth in a purely spiritual world, is wrong. These two lines merge.

How is the agreement created between what comes from the spiritual world and what lies within the line of inheritance and is determined by words like people, family? How is a balance created? This balance can only be created by the fact that the qualities that distinguish people in that they belong to a race, a tribe, a family, that these are countered by others that are similar to them and combine with those that come from below. If we were only the automata that reproduce in the line of inheritance, we would say: This is how we are. We look up the line of ancestors and find the qualities that are in our physical and etheric bodies in our ancestors. We find not only the shape of the nose and forehead, hair color and physiognomy in our ancestors, but also inner qualities, which come close to what can be described by the word “moral”, are inherited. There are concepts, for example about sensations and feelings, that are native to this family or that race or that tribe. How do they reproduce? If reproduction only took place from physical body to physical body, then people would only be similar in relation to this. The fact that they also agree in such qualities, which are character traits of a tribe, stems from the fact that an etheric body belongs to that which also continues through the generations. And just as the physical body reacts from below up onto the etheric body, which properties of the physical body from below up imprint on the etheric body after it is formed, these become the racial peculiarities. Originally, the physical body came into being as if through a kind of condensation of the etheric body. But once it is there, it absorbs impressions from the outside world. These in turn have an effect on the etheric body, and to the extent that they have an effect, they are transmitted within the line of inheritance. Thus, the etheric body of each person is endowed with very specific, typical, stereotyped, even racial characteristics, due to the fact that the latter is, so to speak, a descendant of some ancestor.

The spiritual core of the human being, in which he descends into the physical world, must adapt to what is available to him in this physical world as a cover. This must offer something that is related to the properties of the etheric body. In other words, the descending ego must now be able to imprint such properties into the etheric body that the etheric body, through these properties imprinted on it from above, from the astral body, can form a compromise between what comes from below and what comes from above. When a person enters a new existence, certain qualities flow together in the etheric body, which is connected to the physical body below and other qualities flow through it from above, which are imprinted on it by the descending astral body.

The properties that are imprinted on the etheric body by the descending astral body establish the human temperament. This is where temperament is located. The human being brings this temperament with them. They do not yet have it when they only have the astral body; they have it because this astral body, as it descends, has to connect with the etheric body, which has certain characteristics of the race, of the people. Since it develops certain qualities, so to speak, that correspond to the lower nature, but are also appropriate to the original, core characteristics of the human being, temperament is something that is both individual and that, so to speak, casts its tone over the general characteristics that the human being shares with race, tribe, and family. If we only inherited the peculiarities of race, tribe, and family, we would be average figures; if we came from above with our core nature and now had to drive into it, so to speak, then little would fit. What we bring with us, what we may have developed thousands of years ago, would not match well with what we find. What can adapt as an individual to the stereotyped general from below is temperament.

Thus, through his temperament, the human being escapes from being a completely individual being. For through his temperament, the human being moderates his full obstinacy as an individual being, dulling it. But at the same time, he removes the stereotyped nature. Therefore, we also see that people's temperaments arise from the mixing of basically a few basic temperaments.

You all know these four basic colors of temperament, which are referred to as melancholic, phlegmatic, sanguine, choleric. Actually, there are not only these four, but seven shades of temperament. Only the choleric temperament is basically separate. The sanguine, phlegmatic and melancholic temperaments all have an active and a passive side, so they occur in two ways. This gives seven colors, just as seven colors can be distinguished in the rainbow, seven tones in the musical scale. The eighth is just a repetition of the prime. But that should concern us less. We should realize that we can never ascribe any one of these temperaments to any one person, but that each person is a mixture of all these temperaments; only the predominant one of the four makes him appear melancholic or phlegmatic or sanguine, and depending on that, we describe him as such or such. The melancholic contains the others, only they recede in comparison to the melancholic basic mood. You could easily prove this by looking at someone like Napoleon, for example; he certainly had a choleric temperament. Think about how phlegmatic he was in very specific things that didn't interest him. He could be very phlegmatic in certain fields. A person has one prominent characteristic, but is composed of the four, or rather seven, basic colors of temperament.

Now the question arises: when is a person primarily a melancholic, a phlegmatic, a sanguine, a choleric? It has already been said in the introduction that all aspects of human nature interact with each other. Thus, all higher aspects of human nature interact with the physical body. If the human being had no ego, no individually constituted ego, then his blood and the whole blood circulation would not be as they are. The blood circulation is the expression of the ego. The ego is purely spiritual, but the effect of this spiritual, this ego, is the blood in its whole circulation. How the blood circulates in us is the expression of our ego. The expression of the astral body is the nervous system – at least one expression. The expression of the etheric body is the glandular system. Only that entity can have a glandular system that is permeated by an etheric body; for the etheric body permeates the physical body with the glandular system, which is necessary for all life, for nourishment and reproduction. Only a being that has an astral body can think and feel, because an astral body permeates the physical body with a nervous system. And only a being that is an ego can have a blood circulation, because that is the physical expression of the ego. Thus, every limb that we count among the higher limbs has an effect on the physical body. But conversely, the physical body has an effect back again.

We have seen that the temperaments have their particular expression in the etheric body. Through this balance, which takes place between what is imprinted in the etheric body from above when a person descends and what comes into the etheric body from below in the form of certain qualities, the temperament arises. If, in a particular incarnation, a person has a physical body that makes a stronger impression on the etheric body than the astral body and the ego, then what is called the melancholic temperament develops in that person. Due to the nature of the descending astral body, because it does not, so to speak, fully master the laws of the physical body, this physical body, with all its heaviness, has an effect on the ether body, and this is how the melancholic temperament arises. In particular, in the case of a person, it must be that part of the physical body that is the physical instrument of thought, of the spiritual life in general, which, in the case of the melancholic temperament, has a retroactive effect on the etheric body, on the person's entire life circumstances. Therefore, the person who, through his astral body and ego, cannot, so to speak, master the physical brain, that which is otherwise the physical instrument for thoughts, will be under the control of his thoughts. The physical body forces the etheric body to do this, so that the person is not master of his thoughts, but is ruled by them.

This is the cause of the melancholic person's tendency to brood. They drag themselves along behind their masses of thoughts and feelings, which keep coming back, because the physical body has the predominant influence on the ether body. And wherever the physical body has a predominant, that is, too great an influence on the human being, wherever his life proves to be such that he cannot be fully controlled by the higher limbs, the consequences of this are evident, even when they become pathological. It is only the consequence of the fact that the higher members of human nature cannot exercise their full dominion over the physical body when, for example, epileptic seizures or nervous headaches occur. As soon as the melancholic character tends towards the pathological, such things can occur.

That is why in Greece, where they still had clairvoyant feelings, they called a person a melancholic when the densest part had the most predominant influence. The physical body is what humans have in common with mineral beings, which are grouped together under the concept of the earth. The ancient Greeks still knew what is no longer known today, namely that the human physical body is formed by its various fluids. These were not merely seen as something physical, nor were they merely examined in the chemical retort. Rather, it was known that they underlie everything spiritual. therefore designated this temperament, in which the physical body exercises the predominant influence, as black — melas —, as the melancholic temperament, because one saw the secretion of juices in man, which causes the tenacity of the physical body, whereby the latter withdraws from the normal influences of the higher limbs and thus makes man a dark, introspective being. For through his higher members, man belongs to a much greater totality. Through his etheric and astral bodies and his I, he would feel himself as belonging to the great whole, the great cosmic I, the Godhead. That which is the human being's spiritual being is precisely what makes him personal, in that he is enclosed in the skin of his physical body. This is why the melancholic person finds it so difficult to detach from their physical existence, because this physical aspect exerts the predominant influence.

If the etheric body is not strongly influenced by either the physical body or the astral body and I, if the impulses of the family, the peculiarities of the race, are not strongly pronounced, if there is no strong effect on the etheric body from above and below, if it remains neutral, so to speak, then the phlegmatic temperament arises. The phlegm is the balanced part of the etheric body. In this case, neither the physical nor the astral body and the I have a particularly strong effect. In this case, the person has the balanced phlegm of the forces of his ether body surging through him. You can see this in the physical form of the body, which you can see projected outwards. You can see how, in the phlegmatic person, the etheric body receives no strong influences from above or below, and so what is surplus in life settles in the fat. You can see in every detail the consequences of what we must see in the spiritual; the physical is in every detail an expression of the spiritual. We can only understand the physical if we grasp the spiritual.

When the distribution of the faculties is such that the astral body has a predominant effect on the etheric body, making its impressions particularly strong, and suppressing what comes up from the physical body, then what we call the sanguine temperament arises. Here the astral body is active; the surging feelings and sensations are lively and animated. The person is open to all impressions from the outside world. We will soon hear that it is the ego that contains the images that arise in the astral body and have their physical instrument in the nervous system, and that the blood, the expression of the ego that contains them, is physical. In fact, the blood and nervous systems work together in a very strange way. Imagine that the blood weakens. What happens? Fantastic images, hallucinations, fantasies that do not correspond to reality appear. The right inhibitions for these hallucinative and imaginative powers are formed physically by the blood and spiritually by the ego. There is nothing pathological about the sanguine person, but he is therefore open to all impressions from the outside world because the actual ego does not yet appear strong enough. What appears strong is the astral body and the nervous system. That is why the sanguine person is open to all impressions; that is why the sanguine person is mobile because his astral body is mobile. Look at the sanguine gait of the sanguine child, how it bounces, how it is interested in this and that. If it were not the case that the child is alternately interested in this and that, then the impressions would have to be regulated by the ego and the blood.

This is the case with the choleric person. When the I and its blood are active, predominantly active, and have an effect on the etheric body, then this establishes the choleric temperament, which goes too far in the other direction, which does not rush from image to image, but instead develops forces that contain the change. These forces are there with him.

Thus we see how we learn to understand the different shades of temperament, which are caused by the impact of what comes from above and below. If the influence of the physical body on the etheric body predominates, the result is the melancholic temperament; if the etheric body is neutral, the phlegmatic temperament. If the astral body is particularly active internally, we have the sanguine temperament, and if it is the ego that is primarily given the right of mastery in the human individuality, then the choleric temperament is the result.

Once you have grasped these things in the spiritual, you will also find them distinctly manifested in the physical. Imagine choleric people, people in whom the I is strongly developed. They contain the astral body. And now this is the original creator of the physical body. The astral body has the need, the longing, to make the physical body as slender as possible, to develop it as diversely as possible. In the case of choleric people, the ego works against this, thus curbing growth. Now look around you at choleric people, and you will see the repressed growth of the physical body. I would like to draw your attention to the picture of a spruce that was a choleric person; it had precisely this expression in the physical body; and I only need to mention Napoleon and the expression of the small, stocky figure. Here, too, the restrained growth has been expressed.

In particular, the characteristics of temperament are revealed precisely in what the person can give through his or her individuality, can give in contrast to what generally characterizes him or her. You can see how the human being flows together from these two currents. The human being has firmly established forms in himself; that which is permanent, rigid in facial expression, is inherited. What is mobile becomes an expression of the individual, which comes down from the spiritual. It is into this mobile element that temperament is laid. The facial features can be an expression of rigidity, of what has been inherited; the gaze comes from the person's individuality. The gaze is the expression of temperament: the piercing gaze of the choleric, the restless gaze of the sanguine, the restrained gaze of the melancholic, and the dull gaze of the phlegmatic. As for me, take a look at the shape of the feet. Those who are connoisseurs would be able to say that this breed has this foot shape, another that. But it is different when it comes to walking. In that, we have an individual expression. At most, the basic forms of the gait show the racial character, but otherwise the individual comes into it. Therefore, the gait is something like the mediation between the individual and the general. You can see the sanguine person's bouncing gait, the choleric person's firm gait, the melancholy person's heavy step, which is caused by the heavy physical body with its predominant influence on the etheric body, and you can see the phlegmatic person's casual gait. In all the characteristics where the individual plays a role, what is semi-individual is revealed because it has to balance with what is generally racial in man; temperament plays a role here.

If we now understand this secret of temperament and how it works, then on the one hand we will say to ourselves: Oh, it is precisely in such subtle peculiarities of the human being that we see how we can only understand the human being if we understand not only the physical body but the whole being. And on the other hand, it also shows us how necessary it is to know all this when we work on a person by promoting their development. We know from other lectures that the physical body develops until the age of seven, the etheric body from then until the age of fourteen, and then the astral body and the I. The individual parts are interlinked. We see, therefore, that we can only grasp the right thing if we listen to the peculiar nature of the chemical composition — so to speak — of the temperaments, to hear something of the unique imprint of the developing human being. Only in this way can we, as educators or counselors, cultivate human nature if we understand this unique, almost chemical composition that presents itself to us through the four temperaments. Truly, just as every human being is composed of four elements - the physical, etheric, astral body and the I - so the influences of these four mix and show themselves to us in all possible nuances, which can be traced back to these four or seven temperaments. And now we see - because such a multiple mixture can be - how each individual person can be an enigma, and how only if we grasp the person in a lively way can we understand him. If we perceive each person as an enigma, then we are truly facing him for the first time.

Temperament is not something theoretical, but something that works from person to person. We will not only want to unravel the human being with our minds, but we will accept the whole person and let him perceive us as a riddle. Then we will approach the human being with full respect and love when we perceive his or her individual nature in such a way that he or she ultimately appears to us as a riddle that we marvel at and admire, but that we grasp in our perception, in the way we approach each individual through our respect and love, through our appreciation. Oh, there are also other riddles than just those that are solved with the mind. People are all riddles, and they are not solved merely with the mind, but the way we appreciate, honor and respect them, how we approach them with our feelings and how we act for them, that is also a way of solving riddles, and we will develop this way when we learn to feel how the individual mixes with the general through its intermediate thing, the temperament. Indeed, we see two currents flowing together in the human being when he enters this earthly existence. And we see at the same time that these currents must work together in order to bring forth fruit through this life, to take it with him for a subsequent life, to live out in a new embodiment. There is change and there is eternity in man. The eternal core ascends from spirit world to spirit world; but that which is changing is not unnecessarily experienced. In the balance between temperament and racial character, we create the fruits out of our etheric body, which we take with us through our entire subsequent life.

And so it is absolutely true for this area, too, that freedom exists alongside necessity, that we enter into life through the confluence of the two currents and are shaped by necessary laws, but that nothing is destroyed that we ourselves shape within our individuality and the general.

Freedom and necessity are equally beautiful, one as much as the other, expressed in Goethe's word - if only we fully understand it - which is meant to tell us how the law passes through human nature; when we see how the temperaments interact in their chemical mixture, then we find, especially in this mystery of the human temperament, the truth of what the Symbolum Goethe so beautifully says and with which we want to conclude:

Just as on the day you were born,
The sun greeted the planets,
You immediately thrived and thrived
According to the law by which you came into being.
That is how you must be, you cannot escape it!
So said the Sibyls, so said the prophets,
And no time and no power dismembered

In the past I have spoken here on a variety of subjects concerning spiritual life. It may be permissible today, therefore, for me to touch upon a more prosaic theme from the standpoint of spiritual science. Problems of nutrition undoubtedly offer a more mundane subject than many we have heard here. It will be seen, however, that particularly in our age spiritual science has something to say even concerning questions that directly affect everyday life.

On the one hand, spiritual science stands accused, by those who know it only from the outside, of aspiring too loftily to spiritual realms, thus losing the firm ground under its feet. On the other hand, the opposite can perhaps also be heard again from those who have become acquainted with spiritual science or anthroposophy through only a single lecture or brochure. This consists in the statement that anthroposophists are entirely too concerned with, and talk too much about, questions of what they should eat and drink. In some respects these critics might well be called idealists in that they believe they view the common aspects of life from a certain exalted level. They raise this objection particularly by taking a stand that can be expressed in the following way. “What man eats and drinks is unimportant. It does not matter what food one takes, rather must one rise above the material dimension by the strength of one's spirit.” Even a well-intentioned idealist might level this objection against anthroposophists.

Well, at a time when these questions are being widely discussed from other angles, it might be interesting to hear what spiritual science has to say about them.

It was a German philosopher, Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach, to whom the phrase, “A man is what he eats,” is attributed. Many thinkers of consequence have agreed with Feuerbach that what man produces is basically the result of foods ingested by him and his actions are influenced by the food absorbed in a purely materialistic way through his digestion. With so much discussion of eating going on, somebody might get it into his head to believe that man is indeed physically nothing more than what he eats. Now, we shall have several things to say on this point.

We must understand each other precisely as to the purpose of today's lecture and the intention behind it. We are not agitating in favor of particular tendencies, nor are we trying to be reformative. The spiritual scientist is obliged to state the truth of things. His attitude must never be agitatorial, and he must be confident that when a person has perceived the truth of what he says, he will then proceed to do the right thing. What I have to say, therefore, does not recommend one course as opposed to another, and he who assumes that it does will misunderstand it completely. Merely the facts will be stated, and you will have understood me correctly if you realize that I am not speaking for or against anything.

Bearing this in mind, we can raise the question from the standpoint of spiritual science as to whether the statement, “A man is what he eats,” does not have a certain justification after all. We must continually bear in mind that the body of man is the tool of the spirit. In discussing the various functions the body has to perform, we see that man utilizes it as a physical instrument. An instrument is useless if it is not adjusted correctly so that it functions in an orderly manner, however, and similarly our bodies are of no use to our higher organism if they do not function properly. Our freedom can be handicapped and intentions impeded.

When we as spiritual scientists consider our organism, we can ask ourselves if we do not make our bodies unfit for the execution of the intentions, aspirations and impulses of our lives if we become bound by and dependent upon our bodies through an unsuitable diet. Is it not possible to mold the body in such fashion that it turns into a progressively more suitable instrument for the impulses of our spiritual life? Will we lose our freedom and become dependent upon our bodies if we ignore what is the right nourishment for us? What must we eat so that we are not merely the product of what we eat?

By asking such questions, we come to look at the problem of nutrition from another perspective. You all know, and I only need allude to this generally familiar fact, that speaking purely materialistically, people continuously use up the substances that their organisms store and they therefore must take care to replenish them with further nourishment. Men must concern themselves with replenishment. What, then, could be more obvious than to examine those substances that are necessary for the human organism, that is, to find out what substances build up the animalistic organism, and then simply see to it that the organism is given them. This approach, however, remains an extremely materialistic one. We must rather ask ourselves what the essential task of a man's food is and in what way it is actually utilized in his organism.

I must stress that what I say about man is applicable only to him, since spiritual science does not consider man to be so closely connected with the animals as does natural science. Otherwise, one could simply state that the human organism is composed of proteins, fats, carbohydrates and mineral substances, and consequently search for the best method to satisfy man's nutritional needs of them. But spiritual science holds to the principle that every material occurrence, everything that takes place in the physical sense world, is only the external aspect of spiritual processes. Indeed, even the nutritional processes cannot be purely physical, but as material processes they are really the external aspects and expressions of spiritual processes. Similarly, man is a unity even though the composition of his physical body appears to be a conglomeration of chemical events.

Our attention has frequently been focused on how the ascent from the purely physical to the spiritual realm can be made. We have often heard that the physical body is sustained by the etheric body. This is the architect of the physical body, which must not be viewed as if only chemical processes took place in it. We will be wrong if, by observing only the chemical processes, we simply ask in a materialistic fashion what happens to the chemical substances. Beyond the etheric body, we must remember, is the astral body. Through it are expressed the instinctive feelings and in certain respects the various aspects of the soul. When we behold man from the standpoint of spiritual science, we find that his etheric body as well as his physical body are inter-penetrated by his astral body. We must not see only one side but also perceive the astral body beyond the physical. Added to these is the ego, the fourth member of the human being. We have the total man before us only when we see in him this fourfold being. Only with the total fourfold man before us can we do justice to the scope of the problem of nutrition. Only then can answers be given to the question of how these four members of man's organism react to the influences of various diets.

Now, you all know that men eat food derived from the vegetable, animal and mineral kingdoms, and with it they sustain their bodies. Let me emphasizes again for the sake of those who are more narrowly inclined toward the care of the inner life that I am not speaking to mystics nor to anthroposophists who are striving to develop themselves spiritually in particular, but to all men. Men take their sustenance from the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms. We must realize that plants represent the direct antithesis of men, and the animals represent the mean between the two. The external physical expression of this contrast is to be found in the breathing process. It is a familiar fact that men inhale oxygen, assimilate it and subsequently combine it with carbon that is finally exhaled as carbon dioxide, while in plants, which absorb carbon to sustain themselves, the reverse is true. In a sense, plants also breathe but their breathing process has a completely different significance for them. Hence, we can say that in a spiritual respect plant and man stand opposite each other.

We can become even more aware of this relationship by bearing in mind the influence of light on plants. The effect of deprivation of light on plant life is well-known. The same light that maintains life in plants makes it possible for us to perceive the light-filled world of our surroundings. Light is also the element that maintains life in plants. This is physical light but it is also something more. Just as there is a spiritual counterpart to everything physical, so there is spiritual light in the physical light that rays down on us. Each time a man rejoices over the brilliance of physical light he can say to himself, “Just as when I see another person and it dawns on me that in this man there lives a spiritual counterpart, so also I can imagine that in light there lives a spiritual counterpart.” Indeed, the spiritual light that permeates the physical sunlight is of the same kind and being as the invisible light that dwells within the human astral body. A portion of the spiritual light that permeates the cosmic realm lives within the astral body. It is, however, physically invisible and in this it can be seen that it is the opposite or complement of physical light.

The invisible light lives within us and fulfills a definite task. We might say that since they are opposites, it is to physical light what negative magnetism is to positive magnetism. We perceive it in its external expression when we realize the relationships existing between physical body, etheric body and astral body, which, in turn, is permeated by the ego. It has often been explained that throughout life the etheric body fights against the deterioration of the physical body. Men as well as animals also possess an astral body and hence the inner light. Now, the function of this inner light is the opposite of that of external light. When external light shines on a plant, the plant builds up its living organism by producing proteins, carbohydrates, etc. Conversely, the task of inner light is to break down, and this process of disintegration is part of the activity of the astral body. There is indeed a continuous dissolution and destruction of the proteins and other substances that we consume so that these substances are utilized in a sense to direct counter-effects against what external light has built up. Without this activity of inner dissolution a man could not be an ego being, and it is only by virtue of his ego nature that he can have inner experiences. So, while the etheric body is concerned with the preservation of the physical body, the astral body takes care that the food a man consumes is constantly built up and again destroyed.

Without this process of disintegration within the physical body, the astral body, in which the ego is incorporated, could not live a full life within the material world. As we have seen, there is an alternating process obtaining between men and plants, that is, exhalation of carbon dioxide in men and absorption of carbon dioxide by plants; exhalation of oxygen by plants and inhalation of oxygen by men. These processes reach such extremes only between men and plants. Animals do not have individual egos as is the case with men, but they have collective group egos. Thus, the animals of a species have one common group ego that governs them from without. The significant difference between men and animals is found in the fact that the disintegration processes within animals are directed by an entity external to them, whereas the same processes in men are conducted by their individual inner egos. Moreover, a man's individual ego can gradually become master over what takes place within him.

Let us consider how the ego can gradually take a central position within the bodily functions. Let us examine what the astral body does when it dissolves the substances assimilated by men. In regard to nourishment an entirely different viewpoint must be stressed. The body permeated by the ego performs an action in disintegrating substances, and through this action something is created inwardly. The inner activity of consciousness particularly comes about through the astral body's processes of dissolution. Actions, activities are called forth by the process of destruction. First, inner warmth is produced and second, something that is less noticeable than inner body heat the physical expression of inner light. Just as the internal warmth that permeates the blood is the result of the dissolution of proteins, so the activity of the nervous system is the expression of this inner light. In regard to its inner activity the nervous system is also a result of the disintegration process not the nerves themselves but the activity of the nerves, the actions within the nerves, that which makes possible imagination and calls forth thinking. It is this activity that can be called the physical expression of the invisible light and that is brought about through the degeneration and dissolution of substances.

Basically, as has been said, inner body heat is generated by the disintegration of protein. Inner light is produced within the organism as a result of protein. Inner light is produced within the organism as a result of processes involving fats, carbohydrates, starches and glucose that are also utilized in the production of warmth and inner movement. In all this is contained the expression of the activity originating from the astral body. Men do not nourish themselves properly simply by ingesting the correct quantity of food, but rather when these inner processes can be carried out in the right way. The inner life is founded on them. Men are beings continually occupied inwardly with movement and liveliness and their inner life consists of these. If this inner life is not produced in the right way, it cannot react properly and a man then becomes ill.

The right kind of inner flexibility offers the foundation for the right solution of the nutritional problem. This statement points to the fact that all internal processes that men must execute must be carried on in the opposite direction from the processes of plants. A man must begin his processes where the plant processes leave off. A specific example will clarify what this means. When a man eats vegetarian food, it demands a great deal of his organism. Plant food does not combine much fat. The human organism, which is able to produce fats, is thus required to produce fat from something that in itself contains no fat. In other words, when a man eats vegetarian food, he must produce an activity within himself and make an inner effort to bring about the production of fats. He is spared this task when he eats ready-made animal fats. The materialists would probably say that it is advantageous for a man to store up as much fat as possible without having to make too much of an effort. Yet, speaking from the spiritual viewpoint, the unfolding of this inner activity signifies the unfolding of the actual inner life. When a man is forced to produce the forces that make it possible for him to produce fat on his own, then, through his inner flexibility, the ego and the astral body become master of the physical and etheric bodies. When a man eats fat, he resultingly is spared the task of producing fat himself. Yet, if he takes the opportunity to unfold his own inner activity through producing his own fat, he is made free and thus becomes lord over his body. Otherwise, as a spiritual being he remains a mere spectator. Everything that takes place in him in such wise that he remains a passive spectator becomes a heavy weight in him and hinders his urge to let the astral body come to full life. Thus, the astral body's inner flexibility comes up against an internal obstacle if it is denied the opportunity to produce its own fat.

The essential question now to be asked is what internal activities are aroused by what substances. Here we shall try to throw light on the relationships of vegetable and meat substances in human diets, and thereby to gain some idea of the manner in which animal and vegetable foods react in the human organism.

For a man to eat animal protein is not the same as for him to eat plant protein. Up to a certain point the inner processes of the animal are quite similar to those of the human organism, since the animal also possesses an astral body. Even though the animal astral body causes the dissolution of the synthesized substances of its physical body the human organism carries the processes a bit beyond the limits reached by that of the animals.

In reflecting upon the animals around us and by looking spiritually into their ways and characteristics, we shall, by comparing men with the multitudes of animals, find distributed among the animals the various and manifold characteristics of men. In spite of the fact that one can point out great human differences between the various peoples, one must still conclude that each individual man represents a species. Men appear to be the spiritual consolidation of all that can be observed distributed in the various animals forms. If one were to picture all the individual characteristics of the various animal species as being mutually complementary, one would arrive at the essence of what is contained in appropriate moderation in each individual man. Each individual animal one-sidedly contains within itself something of the forces that are harmonized within men, and its whole organism is constructed accordingly. Everything down to the most minute structure of substances is so organized in the animal kingdom that it is like a tableau of human characteristics spread out before one.

If a man is to find the physical expression of the characteristics of his astral body, he must strive to utilize all its forces. He must become master of his own inner processes and activate his astral body in such wise that the plant processes will be continued inwardly. In the food we consume from the animal kingdom, we not only take into ourselves the physical meat and fat of the animal but also the product of its astral body contained in these substances. When, through a vegetarian diet, we enlist the virginal forces of our astral body, we call forth our whole inner activity. In a meat diet part of this inner activity is forestalled.

We can now proceed to consider the relationships of these two types of diet from a purely spiritual basis.

If a man desires to gain an increasing mastery over the inner processes of his body, it is important that he become correspondingly active in the external world. It is important for him to unfold certain external qualities such as stamina, courage and even aggressiveness. To be able to do [so], however, it is possible that a man may not yet find himself strong enough to entrust everything to his astral body and may have to fall back upon the support of a meat diet.

It can be said that man owes everything that liberates him internally to the substances derived from plants. Faculties, however, that enable him to be actively engaged in earthly life, need not necessarily grow out of the virginal nature of his astral body. These qualities can also be derived from a meat diet. This fact that men are to become progressively freer while at the same time needing qualities that they can acquire with the help of impulses found spread out in the animal kingdom, has induced them to resort to nourishment in animal food. If the eating habits of the people of those militant nations that have striven to develop qualities enabling them to unfold their physical forces are investigated, it will generally be found that they eat meat. Naturally, there are exceptions. On the other hand, a preference for an exclusively vegetarian diet will be found to prevail among people who have developed an introverted and contemplative existence. These two aspects of the problem should be kept in mind. A person, of course, can adopt either diet as a panacea if he wishes to propagandize rather than to act out of knowledge. Nevertheless, it is not without reason that a mixed diet has become acceptable to many people. To some extent it had to happen. We must admit, however, that even though a vegetarian diet might indeed be the correct one for some people purely for reasons of health, the health of others might be ruined by it.

I am speaking here of human nature in general, of course, but men must be considered as individuals if they are to find the right path to satisfy their needs with a vegetable or meat diet. Today, an extreme diet of meat naturally brings its corresponding results. If by eating meat a person is relieved of too large a portion of his inner activities, then activities will develop inwardly that would otherwise be expressed externally. His soul will become more externally oriented, more susceptible to, and bound up with, the external world. When a person takes his nourishment from the realm of plants, however, he becomes more independent and more inclined to develop inwardly. He will become master over his whole being. The more he is inclined to vegetarianism, the more he accepts a vegetarian diet, the more he will be able also to let his inner forces predominate. Thus, the more apt he will be to develop a sense for wider horizons and he will no longer restrict himself to a narrow life. The person who is fundamentally a meat eater, however, limits himself to more narrow vistas and directs himself more rigidly toward one- sidedness.

Naturally, it is the task of men today to concern themselves with both aspects so as not to become impractical. A man also can be so completely unprejudiced as to have no judgment at all. Still, it is a fact that everything that limits men and leads them to specialization is derived from a diet of meat. A man owes to a vegetarian diet the impulses that lift him above the narrow circles of existence. An extreme diet of meat is definitely connected with a man's increasing dogmatism and his inability to see beyond the confines into which he was born. In contrast, if men would show more interest in the food coming from the realm of plants, they would discover that they are able more easily to lift themselves out of their narrow circles. The person who abandons the task of fat formation by eating meat will notice that the activity thus forestalled erects a sort of wall around his astral body. Even if one is not clairvoyant but judges these matters only with common sense, he can tell from the look in a person's eyes whether or not he produces his own fat. It can be seen in the eyes of a person whether or not his astral body is obliged to call forth the forces necessary to produce its own fat.

Now it can be seen how two opposing conditions of character are created when a person takes his nourishment from either the plants or animals. We find that we indeed penetrate into the world through our organism and must again rise above it by means of the right kind of food. A time will come when a vegetarian diet will be valued much more highly than is the case today. Then thinking will be so flexible that men will be willing to investigate such matters knowing that what they believe today to be foolishness could, viewed from another standpoint, also have its merits. They will realize then that their whole physical and spiritual horizon can be widened through a vegetarian diet, thus counteracting the rigor of specialization within them. Particularly in certain areas of science would perspectives be widened if vegetarian diets should become prevalent.

Let me mention a few more examples to demonstrate that men are indeed what they eat and drink.

Consider, for example, alcohol, which is obtained from plants. It would take too long to explain the spiritual scientific reason showing that alcohol produces physically and in an external way out of the plant, just what a man should develop physically within himself through his ego being centered within him. It is a fact inwardly perceived through spiritual science that when a person drinks alcohol, it takes over the specific activity that otherwise belongs wholly to the person's ego. A person who drinks much alcohol needs less food and his body will require less nourishment than is normally required in the process of combustion.

It calls forth forces that otherwise would be called forth by the ego's inner penetration. Thus, a person can externalize the activity of his ego by infusing his body with alcohol. Consequently, alcohol imitates and copies the activity of the ego, and you can understand why it is that people turn to it. To the extent, however, that a man replaces his inner self with such a substitute, to that extent does he become its slave. If otherwise qualified, a man will be better able to unfold the best forces of his ego when he abstains from alcohol altogether. By drinking alcohol an inner hindrance is created behind which something takes place that actually should and would be accomplished through the activity of the ego itself if the hindrance had not been produced.

Some foods have a specific effect of their own on the organism. Coffee is an example. The effect of coffee becomes manifest through its influence on the astral body. Through caffeine and the after-effects of coffee, our nervous systems automatically perform functions that we otherwise would have to produce through inner strength. It should not be claimed, however, that it is beneficial under all circumstances for a man always to act independently out of his astral body. Men are beings who are not dependent on themselves alone. Rather are they placed within the whole of life.

Coffee is also a product of the plant kingdom that externally has raised the specific plant process up a stage. Consequently, coffee can take over a certain task of man. Trained insight perceives that everything in the activity of our nerves that has to do with logical consistency and drawing conclusions is strengthened by coffee. Thus, we can let coffee take over in making logical connections and in sticking to one thought, but this, of course, is in exchange for a weakening of our specific inner forces. What I mean can be seen in the tendency of gossips at a coffee break to cling to a subject until it is completely exhausted. This is not only a joke. It also demonstrates the effects of coffee.

Tea works in a totally different and opposite way. When large quantities are drunk, thoughts become scattered and light. It might be said that the chief effect of tea is to let witty and brilliant thoughts, thoughts that have a certain individual lightness, flash forth. So we can say, coffee helps those, such as literary people, who need to connect thoughts in skilled and refined ways. This is the positive aspect of the matter. The negative aspect can be observed in coffee table gossip. Tea, which tears thoughts asunder, is the opposite. This is why tea is not without justification a popular drink of diplomats.

It might be of interest to cite as a last example a food that plays an important part in life, that is, milk. Milk is completely different from meat in that it expresses in the weakest possible form the animalistic process brought forth by the astral body of the animal. Milk is only partly an animal product and the animal or human astral forces do not participate in its production. For this reason milk is one of the most perfect foods. It is suitable for people who want to abstain completely from meat but who do not yet possess sufficient strength to work entirely out of the inner forces of the astral body. Even from a purely external standpoint it can be seen that milk contains everything a man requires for his organism. Although this applies only in a restricted sense, it has little to do with the individual characteristics of a man.

Weak as well as strong organisms can gain support from milk. If a person were to live exclusively on milk for a time, then not only would his regular forces be awakened but it would also go beyond this. He would receive from it an influx of forces giving him additional strength. A surplus of forces would be acquired that could be developed into healing forces. In order to possess a force, it must first be acquired, and in milk we see one means of developing certain forces in ourselves. Those who are moved by the earnestness of life to develop certain psychic healing forces, can train themselves to attain them. Naturally, we must remember that what is suitable for one, is not suitable for all. This is a matter for the individual. One person is able to do it, another not. A man can if he wishes build up his organism in a wise manner. He can contribute toward the unfolding of free, independent inner forces. So through spiritual science we come back to the saying of Feuerbach mentioned at the beginning, “Man is what he eats!”

Man can nourish himself in such fashion that he undermines his invisible independence. In so doing he makes himself an expression of what he eats. Yet he ought to nourish himself in such a manner that he becomes less the slave of his nutritional habits. Here spiritual science can direct him.

The wrong food can easily transform us into what we eat, but by permeating ourselves with knowledge of the spiritual life, we can strive to become free and independent. Then the food we eat will not hinder us from achieving the full potential of what we, as men, ought to be.

Dear attendees, It is a frequently repeated and justified view that the greatest mystery of man here within our physical life is man himself. And we may say that a large part of our scientific activity, our reflection and other human musings are devoted to solving this human mystery, to discerning a little of what the essence of human nature consists of.

Natural science and, as we have already seen in these lectures, spiritual science, too, approach the solution of this great mystery from different sides. But usually, when we speak of this human puzzle, we have in mind the human being in general, the human being without distinction in relation to this or that individuality. But there is another human puzzle; we can say there are many, many other human puzzles. For, apart from the fact that man in general is a great mystery to man, does not every single individual human being we meet appear to us to be a mystery in turn? How difficult it is to get a clear idea of the different sides of the people we meet, and how much depends on it in life to get a clear idea of the people we come into contact with!

Now we can only gradually approach the solution of the very individual human riddle, of which each person presents us with a particular one, because there is a great gap between what is called human nature in general and what we encounter in each individual person. And in this gap we also see some things that entire groups of people have in common. These similarities include those characteristics of human nature that we are considering today, which are usually referred to as a person's temperament. It is true that each person has their own temperament, but we can still distinguish certain groups of temperaments.

We speak of four human temperaments: sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, and melancholic. And even if the classification is not entirely correct insofar as we apply it to the individual, we still want to divide people into four groups according to their temperaments in general. The fact that a person's temperament, on the one hand, manifests itself as something individual, as something that makes people different, and, on the other hand, unites them into groups, proves to us that temperament must be something that, on the one hand, has something to do with the innermost core of a person's being and, on the other hand, must be connected to general human nature. A person's temperament is something that points in two directions. And so it will be necessary, if we want to get behind the secret, to ask ourselves on the one hand: To what extent does temperament point to what lies in general human nature? - and then again: How does it point to the human core of being, to the actual inner being of the human being?

When we ask the question, it is natural that spiritual science seems to be called upon to provide insight. For spiritual science must lead us to the innermost core of a person's being. In so far as a person encounters us on earth, he appears to us as being placed in a generality and again as an independent entity. There are two lines that meet when a person enters into earthly existence. And here we are in the middle of the spiritual scientific consideration of human nature. We see the descendant of his father and mother, his previous ancestors and further and further; the human being is embedded in what can be called the line of inheritance, and you know that far into the core of his being, the human being carries qualities in himself that we must certainly derive from heredity. Goethe also said of himself:

From my father I have the stature,
the serious conduct of life,
from my mother the cheerful nature
and the desire to tell stories.

We see how this great connoisseur of human nature, Goethe, has to refer to a person's moral qualities when he wants to point out inherited traits. This is what our own nature consists of. This is the other current in which human beings are placed, of which today's culture is not very aware. Spiritual science shows us what flows together with what is given to us in the line of inheritance; it leads us to the great fact of so-called re-embodiment — reincarnation — and of karma. It shows us how the innermost core of a person's being connects with something that is given by the line of inheritance. For the spiritual scientist, this core of being is enveloped in outer shells by what comes from the line of inheritance. And just as we have to go back to our father and mother for the qualities of a person that belong to their appearance, so if we want to grasp a person's innermost being, we have to go back to something completely different, to a previous life of that person.

Every person, when they enter physical life, has a series of lives behind them. And this has nothing to do with what lies in the line of inheritance. We would have to go back more than centuries if we wanted to examine what their previous life was when they passed through the gateway of death. After passing through, they live in other forms of existence in the spiritual world. And when the time comes again to live a life in the physical world, he seeks out his parents. And every person brings with them certain qualities from their previous life. To a certain extent, people bring with them certain qualities, their destinies. After they have performed this or that act, they bring about the counter-effect and thus feel surrounded by new life. Thus, from previous embodiments, he brings with him an inner core of being and envelops it with what is given to him by inheritance.

This one should be mentioned because it is important, since in fact our present time has little inclination to recognize this inner core of being, to regard the idea of re-embodiment as something other than a fantastic thought. It must slowly become part of human culture, similar to the teaching of the great scholar Redi, who, contrary to the then prevailing theory that fish arise from river mud, proved that living things can only arise from living things. And today, in a similar way, it is said that what is in a person all arises through inheritance.

The spiritual scientist can also point to this fact, and it has been pointed out. For example, in families of musicians, a talent for music is inherited, and so on, all of which is supposed to support the line of inheritance. It is also said, pointing to genius, that rarely does genius show itself at the beginning of a generation, but only at the end. In the case of the peculiar abilities of genius, one goes back, picks out here and there, finds this quality in one and that in another, and so on, and then shows how they finally converge in the genius who has emerged at the end of the generation. What is it supposed to prove? But nothing other than that the essence of man can live according to the instrument of the body. It is no more ingenious than when someone wants to draw our particular attention to the fact that when a person falls into water, he gets wet. This is only natural, that he takes it from the element into which he is placed. What is to be adduced as proof could much more easily be adduced as proof that genius is not inherited. For if genius were inherited, it would have to show itself at the beginning of the generation, and then it would be possible to prove that genius is inherited, but not at the end of the generation.

Thus, in the person who appears before us in the world, we see the confluence of two currents. On the one hand, we see what he receives from his family; on the other hand, we see what develops from the innermost being of the human being: a number of talents, qualities, inner abilities and outer destiny. These two currents flow together; every human being is composed of these two currents. Thus we find that, on the one hand, man must adapt to his innermost being and, on the other hand, to what he brings with him from his family line. We see how man bears the physiognomy of his ancestors to a high degree; we could, so to speak, compose man from the result of his ancestral line.

Since the human core of being has nothing to do with what is inherited, but must adapt only to what is most suitable for it, we will also realize that it is necessary for what may have lived for centuries in a completely different world and is transferred again into another world, that there must be a certain mediation; that the essence of man must have something related to it, that there must be an intermediate link, a bond between one's own individual human being and the general into which he is born through family and race. That which transmits on the one hand all the inner qualities that he brings with him from his previous incarnation and that which the line of inheritance brings him falls under the concept of temperament. It now stands between the inherited qualities and what he has taken up in his inner core of being. It is as if, when this core of being descends, it is surrounded by a spiritual nuance of what awaits it down there, so that the more the core of being adapts to the human being's shell, the more the human being's core of being is colored by what he is born into and by a quality that he brings with him.

Thus, when we look at the complete human being, we can say: This complete human being consists of the physical, etheric, and astral bodies and the I. What is initially the physical body, what the human being carries in such a way that it is visible to the senses, carries the signs of heredity clearly at first, from the outside. What lives in the etheric body of the human being, in that fighter against the decay of the physical body, is also what lies in the line of inheritance. Then we come to the astral body, which is much more bound to the essence of the human being in its properties. And if we go to the innermost core of the human being, to the actual I, we find what goes from embodiment to embodiment, appears as an inner mediator that radiates its essential qualities outwards. The fact that they have to connect means that they adapt when the person enters the physical world.

Through this interaction of the astral body and the ego, of the physical and etheric bodies, through this interweaving of the two currents, temperaments arise in human nature. They must therefore be something that depends on the individuality of the person, on that which is incorporated into the general line of inheritance. If man were not able to shape his inner being in this way, then every descendant would have to be only the result of his ancestors. And what is shaped into it, what makes it individual, that is the power of temperament; this is where the secret of temperaments lies.

Now, in all human nature, all the individual elements of being interact with each other again; they are in a reciprocal relationship. When the core of our being has colored the physical and etheric bodies, then what has been created through this coloring will have an effect on every other limb, so that it depends on how the person with his or her characteristics comes to us, whether the core of our being has a stronger effect on the physical body or whether the physical body has a stronger effect. Depending on the person, they can influence one of the four limbs, and the effect on the other limbs creates the temperament. When the human core of being embarks on re-embodiment, it is capable, through this peculiarity, of incorporating a certain excess of activity into one or other of its essential limbs. In this way, he can incorporate a certain excess of strength into his ego, or, having gone through certain experiences in his earlier life, he can influence his other limbs with it.

When the human ego has become so strong through its destinies that its powers are excellently dominant in the fourfold human nature, then the choleric temperament arises. If he succumbs to the influence of the astral body, then the sanguine temperament arises. If the etheric body has an excessive influence on the other limbs, then the phlegmatic nature arises. If the physical body has such an influence on the other limbs that the core of the being was unable to overcome certain hardships in the physical body, then the melancholic nature prevails.

Thus we have a large part of the physical body as the direct expression of the physical life principle of the human being. We can see the glandular system as the physical expression of the etheric body; the nervous system, and specifically that which is active there, we can see as the physical expression of the astral body, and the pulsating power of the blood is the expression of the actual I. Therefore, that which characterizes the I becomes active as the predominant quality. The choleric temperament will show itself as active in a strongly pulsating blood; in this way, the element of force in the human being comes to expression through the fact that it has a particular influence on his blood. In a person like this, in whom the I is active spiritually and the blood is active physically, we see the innermost strength maintaining the organization firmly and strongly. And as he encounters the outer world, so his power of the I will want to assert itself. That is the consequence of this I.

If the astral body predominates in a person, then the physical expression will lie in the functions of the nervous system, and what the astral body accomplishes is life in thoughts, in images, so that a person, if endowed with the sanguine temperament, will have the disposition to live in the images of his mental life. We must be clear about the relationship between the astral body and the ego. If only the sanguine temperament were present, a chaos of images would rise and fall. It is the forces of the ego that prevent the images from being mixed up in a fantastic way. And in the physical, it is the blood that essentially, so to speak, delimits the activity of the nervous system.

It would take us too far afield to show you all the details of how the nervous system and blood relate to each other and how the blood is the restrainer of this imaginative life. If a person's blood becomes too thin, with anemia, then fantastic images arise, including illusions and hallucinations, if the blood is not the restrainer of the nervous system. If the astral body has a certain excess of activity, then human life takes on such a form that the person cannot hold on to an idea, and the consequence of this is that such a person can be inflamed by everything that comes his way in the outer world, but that the rein is not applied to do it inwardly continuously; the interest that has been kindled quickly fades away. We see the sanguine person hurrying from one performance to the next, how he shows a flighty mind.

If a person has a predominant etheric body and the expression of this etheric body, the system that makes up the comfort and discomfort in the person, then the person will be led to want to remain comfortably in his or her inner self. The more comfortable a person feels within, the more he will create harmony between the inner and outer self. When this is the case, when it is even taken care of in abundance, then a person's entire striving is directed towards the inner self, we are dealing with the phlegmatic type.

And if a person has an especially active physical system, it is a sign that the inner man is powerless against his physical system. Thus the physical system, which is hardened, fails when it is in excess. Man cannot make that which he should make flexible; he feels inner obstacles. They become apparent in that man must turn his strength to these inner hindrances. What one cannot overcome is what causes suffering and pain; they cause man to be unable to look impartially at the world around him. This sense of dependence is a source of inner sorrow. Certain thoughts and ideas begin to become permanent; he begins to become brooding and melancholy.

And if we understand temperament through the prism of a healthy nature, many things in life will become clear to us; but it will also become possible for us to apply these principles in a practical way, which we would otherwise not be able to do. Let us turn our attention to many of the things that directly confront us in life! Take, for example, the choleric person, who has a strong, firm center within. This I is the bridler. Those images are images of consciousness. The physical body is shaped according to its etheric body, the etheric body according to its astral body. It would shape the human being in the most diverse ways, so to speak; by the fact that the growth of the I is counteracted in its blood forces, balance is maintained between an abundance and diversity of growth. But if the I has a surplus, it can hold back growth. As a rule, choleric people show themselves to be like this, that they appear to have restrained growth. You can find examples in life, for example, in the intellectual history of the philosopher Fichte. In his outward appearance, he was what one may call a person of restrained growth; there were forces in him that were held back by the surplus of the I. Take a look at the choleric person! This is a typical example of the restrained growth of the choleric person. Here you can see how the power of the I, originating from the spirit, works so that the innermost being of the person manifests itself in the outer form. Look at the physiognomy of the choleric person! Take the phlegmatic person in contrast. How blurred his features are! You can hardly say that the shape of his forehead is adapted to the choleric person!

There is one organ in particular where the astral body or the ego has a formative effect: the eye, and in particular the firm, secure position of the choleric person's eye. In the choleric person you will find a black, coal-black eye, because by a certain law, the choleric person draws exactly that to the inside, because he does not leave the possibility to the astral body to color that which is colored in another person. Also observe the person in his entire behavior. The one who is well-versed can almost tell from a distance whether a person is a choleric. The firm step, so to speak, announces the choleric. The whole person is an expression of this innermost nature, which reveals itself to us in such a way.

Take the sanguine type! The sanguine temperament is particularly evident in childhood. See how the pictorial quality manifests itself! And in the same way, the sanguine child has a certain inner potential to change his physiognomy, while the traits of the choleric person are sharply defined. A blue eye is very often the expression of a sanguine temperament.

And now let us move on! When we approach the phlegmatic type, we can tell from his shaky gait that he has little control over the forms of his inner life. This can be seen in the whole person. The melancholic soon reveals himself to you through his bowed head and downcast eyes. It shows that something is being restricted.

All this can only be hinted at here; but it will make human life much, much more understandable if we can thus observe the spirit within the forms, how the exterior of a person can become an expression of his inner being. Do we not see how everything great in life can be brought about precisely through the one-sidedness of temperaments, how these can degenerate into one-sidedness; does the child not worry us because we see that the choleric can degenerate into malice, the sanguine into flightiness, the melancholic into gloom, etc.? Is not knowledge and assessment of temperament of particular value to the educator, especially in the matter of education and self-education?

We must not be tempted to underestimate the value of temperament because it is a one-sided quality. We must be clear that temperament leads to one-sidedness, that the most radical thing about the melancholic temperament is madness, about the phlegmatic temperament, imbecility; about the sanguine temperament, insanity; and about the choleric temperament, all those outbursts of pathological human nature that go as far as raving madness and so on. Temperament brings about much beautiful diversity because opposites attract; however, the idolization of the one-sidedness of temperament very easily causes harm between birth and death. It is important for the educator to be able to say: What do you do, for example, with a sanguine child? One must try to learn from the knowledge of the whole essence of the sanguine temperament how to behave. If we are to speak of the education of the child in relation to other aspects, then it is also necessary to speak individually of temperament in the education of the child.

We have a child of sanguine temperament before us, who could easily degenerate into flight mania, lack of interest in important things, and on the other hand quickly become interested in other things; this can lead to the most terrible one-sidedness and one can recognize the danger by looking into the depths of human nature; then one will say to oneself: By trying to teach this child some opposite quality right away, you do not change these qualities. You have to be considerate of these things, which are rooted in the innermost nature of the human being, so that you can only bend them. In the case of a sanguine temperament that has become one-sided, one must build on his sanguine temperament. If you want to behave correctly towards this child, then you have to pay attention, because no matter how sanguine the child is, you can still find something that this child is interested in. And what you find that the child is particularly interested in must be considered. And for the child, something that he does not pass by with flightiness, you have to try to present it to him as a special fact, so that his temperament extends to what is not indifferent to him; you have to try to present what is a hobby for him in a special light, he has to learn to apply his sanguine nature. You can work by connecting with the one thing that can always be found, the child's own strengths. It will not be able to take a lasting interest in anything through punishment and persuasion. But when interest is kindled in him, love for a person, then a miracle happens through this love for the person. This can cure a one-sided temperament in the child. The child must develop personal attachment; you have to make yourself lovable to the child. That is the task when dealing with a sanguine child. It is up to the person educating the child to help the sanguine child learn to love the personality.

Let us assume that the person should be horrified that the choleric temperament is expressed in a one-sided way in their child. However, the same recipe cannot be used as for the sanguine child, because the choleric person will not easily develop love for the personality of the person. A different approach is needed to connect with him on a human level. You have to be truly estimable, honorable in the highest sense of the word for the choleric child. You have to strive to never let the choleric child realize that he cannot get any information or advice on what he should do. You have to make sure that you hold the firm reins of authority in your hands and never expose yourself to the point of not knowing what to do. Then it is necessary, when the choleric child threatens to degenerate into one-sidedness, to bring him into education, especially the things that are difficult to overcome, by drawing his attention to the difficulties of life by bringing in things that are as difficult as possible for the child to overcome. Obstacles must be created so that the choleric temperament is not driven back, but allowed to express itself, by confronting the child with certain difficulties that he has to overcome.

With a phlegmatic child, we will have a difficult time if education has given us the task of interacting with the child in the appropriate way. It is difficult to gain influence over the phlegmatic person, but there is a way to create a detour. There is nothing that can be said to a phlegmatic child; you have to bring this child into contact with children of the same age. Just as the sanguine child needs to be attached to one personality, so the phlegmatic child needs to have friendship and contact with as many children of the same age as possible. This is the only way to awaken the power that lies dormant in him. You will not be able to interest the phlegmatic child in an object from school or home, but you can reach him indirectly through the other souls of the same age.

It is also very difficult to treat the melancholic child. What can we do? And what if we feel horror at the threatening one-sidedness of the melancholic temperament of the child, since we cannot graft in what the child does not have? We have to expect that it has the strength to cling to inhibitions and to resist. If we want to steer this peculiarity of its temperament in the right direction, we have to divert this strength from the inner to the outer. It is particularly important for the educator of a melancholic child to place emphasis on how one deals with the child, to show him that there is suffering in the world. The melancholic child is capable of feeling pain; if you want to amuse him, then drive him back into his own narrowness. Distract the child by showing him that there is suffering! The melancholic is happiest when he can grow up at the side of someone who, through difficult experiences, has a lot to say, because soul works with soul in the happiest way. In general, it is good not to try to heal the young melancholic by bringing entertaining company into his environment, but to let him experience justified pain.

So we may say: the sanguine person is best off when he grows up in a firm hand, when a person from outside can show him sides of character that allow him to develop personal love; love for a person is best for the sanguine person. Not just love, but respect and appreciation for what a person can achieve, that is best for the choleric person.

A melancholic can count themselves lucky if they can grow up under the wing of someone who has a difficult fate. The appropriate distance, which is created by the new way of looking at things, by the compassion that arises with authority, in the empathy for the justified painful fate, is what the melancholic needs. They grow up well if they can indulge less in attachment to a person, less in respect and appreciation of a person's achievements, and more in compassion for suffering and justified painful fates.

The phlegmatic person is the easiest to get along with if we can teach them to take an interest in the interests of others, if they can be inspired by the interests of others.

The sanguine person should be able to develop love and affection.

The choleric person should be able to develop appreciation and respect for the achievements of the person.

The melancholic should be able to develop a compassionate heart for the fate of others.

And the phlegmatic should be shown the interests of others as a role model.

And when it comes to taking our self-education into our own hands, they can also be particularly useful. We realize with our mind that our sanguinity is playing all kinds of tricks on us, that we are in danger of degenerating into an unstable way of life, rushing from object to object. This can be counteracted if we only take the right approach. No matter how often a person speaks to his conscience, hold on to something for once, his sanguine temperament will play evil tricks on him over and over again. He can only count on one strength that he has. There must be other forces behind the intellect. Can a sanguine person count on anything other than his sanguine temperament? And even in self-education, it is necessary to try to do what the intellect could do indirectly. You have to try not to be interested in certain things that you are interested in. You try to artificially put yourself in such a situation, to bring as much as possible that does not interest you into your path. Then you will realize, if you do it long enough, that this temperament develops the strength to change.

If you realize that melancholy can drive you to one-sidedness, you have to try to create justified external obstacles and want to see through these justified external obstacles in their entirety, so that you deflect what you have in terms of pain and capacity for pain onto external objects. The mind can do that.

In the same way, the choleric person can cure themselves in a special way if we look at it from a spiritual scientific point of view. When he notices that his raging inner self wants to express itself, he must try to find things that require little energy to overcome; he must try to bring about easily surmountable external facts and must always try to express his energy in the strongest way possible in insignificant events and facts. If he seeks out such insignificant things that offer him no resistance, then he will in turn bring his one-sided choleric temperament in the right direction.

The phlegmatic person would do well to imagine that he must be interested in something, that he must seek out objects that have a right to it, that man does not care about them. He should seek out activities in which phlegm is justified, in which he can live out his phlegm. In this way he overcomes his phlegm, even if it threatens to degenerate into one-sidedness.

Those who are realists believe, for example, that it is best for a melancholic to be provided with what one has to provide in the opposite way. But anyone who really thinks realistically appeals to what is already within him.

Thus you see that it is precisely spiritual science that does not draw us away from real and actual life, but will shine forth for us at every turn to the truths and can also give us guidance in life to take account of the real everywhere. For those who believe that they can cling to the outer appearance of things are the fantasists. We must seek deeper causes if we want to enter into this reality, and we will acquire an understanding of the manifoldness of life if we engage in such considerations. Our practical sense will become more and more individualized if we are not obliged to apply a general recipe – you should not drive out levity with severity – but to see: what qualities are there in man that need to be kindled? And we must go to the individuality.

And there we can also let spiritual science work from our innermost core of being, make spiritual science the greatest impulse of life. As long as it remains only theory, it is worth nothing. It is to be applied in the life of man. The way to do this is possible, but it is a long one. It is illuminated when it leads to reality. Then our views change and we notice it, insights change. It is prejudice when man believes that knowledge must remain abstract; but when it enters into the spiritual, then it permeates our whole life's work, then our whole life is permeated by it, then we face life in such a way that we have knowledge for the individuality, which goes right into feeling and sensation and is expressed in them, which has great respect and esteem. It is easy to recognize templates. And it is easy to want to control life according to templates, but it cannot be treated as a template. Then only knowledge is enough, then it transforms into a feeling that one must have towards the individuality of the human being, towards the individuality in all of life. Then, so to speak, our conscientious spiritual knowledge will flow into our feeling in such a way that we can judge the riddle that confronts us in every single person to the right extent.

But this is the right foundation that can provide the true, the fruitful, the genuine love of humanity. This is the foundation on which we become aware of what we have to seek as the innermost core of being in each individual person. And when we are imbued with this spiritual knowledge, our social life will be regulated from person to person in such a way that each individual, by approaching every other person with appreciation and respect and by penetrating the mystery of the human being, will learn to find and regulate their behavior towards other people. Only those who live in abstractions from the outset can speak of sober concepts, but those who strive for genuine knowledge will find it and will find the way to the other person; they will find the solution to the riddle of the other person in their own behavior, in their own conduct. In this way we solve the individual puzzle of how we relate to others. We can only find the essence of the other person with a view of life that comes from the spirit. Spiritual science should be a way of life, a spiritual factor in life, all practice, all life, and not a gray theory.

Answering questions [excerpts]

Question: There are also people in whom no temperament comes to the fore. What prevails in such a person?

Answer: That is correct. There are people in whom, so to speak, a particular shade of temperament does not emerge to any great extent. However, the keen observer will be able to find out that a temperament is present in a certain respect. We must realize that when such a theme is developed, not everything can be said in any detail. If one wanted to explain certain phenomena that occur in life, I would also have to explain the individual complicated temperaments to you, and show how certain characteristics of one of his limbs stand out in every person, so they have a prominent temperament. But it is also possible that another aspect of the human being can have an effect on other aspects of the person. Thus, anyone studying the temperament of Napoleon could find that he must have been very phlegmatic in relation to certain things, so that we have to say: nuances of the four temperaments will be found in every person, and what stands out is precisely what comes from a particular surplus.

When it is said of the astral body that it functions in excess – this is not the same as saying that it functions in such a way that it exercises an absolute domination over the others – it means that it functions in this person more than its normal level of functioning. It is possible that the astral body is working in excess, that it cannot find its way into the right harmony, and the same applies to the physical body. Then the surpluses can neutralize each other, and something like an absolute lack of temperament can occur. This is based on the fact that things that are present from one side or the other balance each other out. With a good power of observation of the soul, one will always be able to observe a prominent temperament in a person.

Question: Which temperament does a gray eye indicate?

Answer: I have to appeal to your good nature a little. It cannot be discussed here in such detail; it would take many hours. I can only answer without being able to tell you the derivation. Therefore, I would like to say: when asking about the correspondence of a gray eye to temperament, you have to take into account that the gray eye usually has a certain nuance according to one color or another. There is a gray-greenish, a gray-brownish, and a gray-bluish eye. As a rule, gray-bluish eyes may indicate a melancholic temperament, and gray-greenish eyes may indicate a phlegmatic temperament. However, this should not be stereotyped.

It is an oft-repeated and a justifiable opinion, with regard to all the realms of human spiritual life, that man's greatest riddle here in our physical life is man himself. And we may truly say that a large part of our scientific activity, of our reflection, and of much besides in man's life of thought, is applied to the solving of this human riddle, to discerning a little wherein the essence of human nature consists. Natural science and spiritual science try to solve from different sides this great riddle comprised in the word Man. In the main, all the more profound natural scientific research seeks to attain its final goal by bringing together all the processes of nature, and so forth, in order to comprehend the external laws. And all spiritual science seeks the sources of existence for the sake of comprehending, of fathoming, man's being and destiny. If then, on the one hand, it is unquestioned that in general man's greatest riddle is man himself, we may say that in relation to life this expression may have a still deeper significance, in that it is necessary on the other hand to emphasize what each of us feels upon meeting another person: namely, that fundamentally each single person is in turn an enigma for others and for himself because of his special nature and being. Ordinarily, when we speak of this human enigma, we have in mind man in general, man without distinction regarding this or that individuality; and certainly many problems appear for us when we wish to understand human nature in general. But today we have not to do with the general riddles of existence, but rather with that enigma, not less significant for life, which each person we meet presents to us. For how endlessly varied are human beings in their deepest individual essence!

When we survey human life we shall have to be especially attentive to this riddle which each person presents, for our entire social life, our relation of man to man, must depend more upon how in individual cases we are able to approach with our feeling, with our sensibility, rather than merely with our intelligence, that individual human enigma which stands before us so often each day, with which we have to deal so often. How difficult it is regarding the people we meet to come to a clear knowledge of the various sides of their nature, and how much depends in life upon our coming to such clear knowledge regarding those people with whom we come in touch. We can of course only approach quite gradually the solution of the whole riddle of the human individual, of which each person presents a special phase, for there is a great gap between what is called human nature in general and that which confronts us in each human individual.

Spiritual science, or as we call it more recently, Anthroposophy, will have a special task precisely regarding this individual enigma—man. Not only must it give us information about what man is in general, but it must be, as you know, a knowledge which flows directly into our daily life, into all our sensibilities and feelings. Since our feelings and sensibilities are unfolded in the most beautiful way in our attitude toward our fellow men, the fruit of spiritual science, of spiritual scientific knowledge, will be revealed the most beautifully in the view we take of our fellow men because of this knowledge.

When in life a person stands before us, we must always, in the sense of this spiritual science, or Anthroposophy, take into consideration that what we perceive outwardly of the person is only one part, only one member, of the human being. To be sure, an outer material view of man regards as the whole man what this outer perception and the intellect connected with it are able to give us. Spiritual science shows us, however, that the human being is something very, very complicated. And often, when one goes more deeply into this complexity of human nature, the individual is then also seen in the right light. Spiritual science has the task of showing us what the innermost kernel of the human being is; what we can see with the eyes and grasp with the hands is only the outer expression, the outer shell. And we may hope to come to an understanding of the external also if we are able to penetrate into the spiritual inner part.

In the great gap between what we may call human nature in general and what confronts us in each individual, we see nevertheless many homogeneous characteristics in whole human groups. To these belong those human qualities which today form the subject of our consideration, and which we usually call the temperament. We need only utter the word ‘temperament’ to see that there are as many riddles as men. Within the basic types, the basic colorings, we have such a multiplicity and variety among individuals that we can indeed say that the real enigma, of existence is expressed in the peculiar basic disposition of the human being which we call temperament. And when the riddles intervene directly in practical life, the basic coloring of the human being plays a role. When a person stands before us, we feel that we are confronted by something of this basic disposition. Therefore it is to be hoped that spiritual science is able to give also the necessary information about the nature of the temperaments. For though we must admit that the temperaments spring from within, they nevertheless express themselves in the whole external appearance of the individual. By means of an external observation of nature, however, the riddle of man is not to be solved; we can approach the characteristic coloring of the human being only when we learn what spiritual science has to say about him.

It is of course true that each person confronts us with his own temperament, but we can still distinguish certain groups of temperaments. We speak chiefly of four types, as you know: the sanguine, the choleric, the phlegmatic, and the melancholic temperament. And even though this classification is not entirely correct in so far as we apply it to individuals—in individuals the temperaments are mixed in the most diverse way, so we can only say that one temperament or another predominates in certain traits—still we shall in general classify people in four groups according to their temperaments.

The fact that the temperament is revealed on the one side as something which inclines toward the individual, which makes people different, and on the other side joins them again to groups, proves to us that the temperament must on the one side have something to do with the innermost essence of the human being, and on the other must belong to universal human nature. Man's temperament, then, is something which points in two directions; and therefore it will be necessary, if we wish to solve the mystery, to ask on the one hand: In how far does the temperament point to what belongs to universal human nature? and then again on the other: How does it point to the essential kernel, to the actual inner being of the individual?

If we put the question, it is natural that spiritual science seems called upon to give enlightenment, for spiritual science must lead us to the innermost essential kernel of the human being. As he confronts us on earth, he appears to be placed in a universality, and again on the other side he appears as an independent entity. In the light of spiritual science man stands within two life streams which meet when he enters earth existence. And here we are at the focal point of the consideration of human nature according to the methods of spiritual science. We learn that we have in the human being, first of all, that which places him in his line of heredity. The one stream leads us from the individual man back to his parents, grandparents, and further ancestors. He shows the characteristics inherited from father, mother, grandparents, and all preceding ancestors farther and farther back. And these attributes he transmits again to his descendants. That which flows down from ancestors to the individual man we designate in life and in science as inherited attributes and characteristics. A man is placed in this way within what we may call the line of heredity; and it is known that an individual bears within him, even in the very kernel of his being, qualities which we must certainly trace back to heredity. Very much about an individual is explicable if we know his ancestry, so to speak. How deeply true are the words uttered with regard to his own personality by Goethe, who had such a deep knowledge of the soul:

My father gave my build to me,
Toward life my solemn bearing,
From mother comes my gayety
And my delight in yarning.

Here we see how this great knower of human nature has to point even to moral qualities when he wishes to refer to inherited characteristics. Everything we find as transmitted from ancestors to descendants interprets for us the individual person in a certain respect, but only in a certain respect; for what he has inherited from his ancestors gives us only one side of the human being. Of course the present-day materialistic conception would like to seek in the line of ancestry for everything under the sun, would like even to trace back a man's spiritual being (his spiritual qualities) to ancestry; and it never wearies of declaring that even a man's qualities of genius are explicable if we find signs, indications, of such characteristics in this or that ancestor. Those who hold such a view would like to compile the human personality, so to speak, from what is found scattered among the ancestors. Anyone who penetrates more deeply into human nature will of course be struck by the fact that beside these inherited attributes, in each man something confronts us which we cannot characterize otherwise than by saying: That is his very own; we cannot say, as a result of close observation, that it is transmitted from this or that ancestor. Spiritual science comes in here and tells us what it has to say about it. Today we are able to present only sketchily what is involved in these questions, to indicate only sketchily the findings of spiritual science.

Spiritual science tells us: Certainly it is true that the human being is placed in the stream which we may call the stream of heredity, the stream of inherited attributes. Besides that, however, something else appears in an individual, namely, the innermost spiritual kernel of his being. In this are united what the individual brings with him from the spiritual world and what the father and mother, the ancestors, are able to give to him. With that which flows down in the stream of the generations is united something else which has its origin, not in the immediate ancestors, the parents, and not in the grandparents, but which comes from quite other realms, something which passes from one existence to another. On the one side we may say: A man has this or that from his ancestors. But if we watch an individual develop from childhood on, we see how from the center of his nature something evolves which is the fruit of foregoing lives, something he never can have inherited from his ancestors.

What we see in the individual, when we penetrate to the depths of his soul, we can only explain to ourselves when we know a great comprehensive law, which is really only the consequence of many natural laws. It is the law of repeated earth lives, so greatly tabooed at the present time. This law of re-embodiment, the succession of earth lives, is only a specific case of a general cosmic law.

It will not appear so paradoxical to us when we think the matter over. Let us observe a lifeless mineral, a rock crystal. It has a regular form. If it is destroyed, nothing of its form remains which could pass over to other rock crystals. The new rock crystal receives nothing of its form. Now if we rise from the world of minerals to the world of plants, it becomes clear to us that a plant cannot originate according to the same law as a rock crystal. A plant can originate only when it is derived from the parent plant. Here the form is maintained and passes over to the other entity. If we rise to the animal world, we find that a development of species takes place. We see that the 19th century considered this discovery of the development of the species as among its greatest results. Not only does one form proceed from another, but each animal in the body of the mother repeats the earlier forms, the lower evolutionary phases of his ancestors. Among the animals we have a rising gradation of species. Among human beings, however, we have not only a gradation of species, a development of kinds, but we have a development of the individual. What a man acquires in the course of his life through education, through experience, is just as little lost as the animal's succession of ancestors.

A time will come when a man's essential core is traced back to a previous existence. It will be recognized that the human being is a fruit of an earlier existence. This law will have a peculiar destiny in the world, a destiny similar to that of another law. The opposition against which this teaching has to assert itself will be overcome, just as the opinion of the scientists of earlier centuries was overcome: that the living can originate from the lifeless. Even into the 17th century the learned and the unlearned had no doubt whatever that from ordinary lifeless things not only lower animals could be evolved, but that earthworms, even fish, could originate from ordinary river slime. The first who declared energetically that the living can originate only from the living was the great Italian natural scientist, Francesco Redi (1627 to 1697), who showed that the living derives only from the living. That is a law which is only the forerunner of another: namely, that the soul-spiritual derives from the soul-spiritual. On account of this teaching he was attacked, and only with difficulty escaped the fate of Giordano Bruno. Today burning is no longer the custom; but anyone who appears with a new truth today, for instance, anyone who wishes to trace back the soul-spiritual element to the soul-spiritual, would not be burned, to be sure, but would be looked upon as a fool. A time will come when it will be considered nonsense to think that a man lives only once, that there is not something permanent which unites itself with his inherited characteristics.

Spiritual science shows how that which is our own nature unites with what is given to us by heredity. That is the other stream into which the individual is placed, the stream with which the present civilization does not wish to have anything to do. Spiritual science leads us to the great facts of so-called re-embodiment, of reincarnation, and of karma. It shows us that we have to take into consideration the innermost essential kernel of man as that which descends from the spiritual world and unites with something which is given by the line of heredity, unites with what it is possible for the father and mother to give to the individual. For the spiritual scientist that which originates from the line of heredity envelops this essential kernel with outer sheaths. And as we must go back to father and mother and other ancestors for what we see in the physical man as form and stature, and so forth, for the characteristics which belong to his outer being, so we must go back to something entirely different, to an earlier life, if we wish to comprehend a man's innermost being; perhaps far, far back, beyond all hereditary transmission, we may have to seek the human being's spiritual kernel which has existed for thousands of years, and which during these thousands of years has entered again and again into existence, again and again has led an earth-life, and now in the present existence has united itself again to what it is possible for father and mother to give. Every single human being, when he enters into physical life, has a succession of lives behind him. And this has nothing to do with what belongs to the line of heredity. We should have to go back more than centuries if we wished to investigate what was his former life when he passed through the gate of death. After he has passed through the gate of death he lives in other forms of existence in the spiritual world. And when again the time comes to experience a life in the physical world, he seeks his parents. Thus we must go back to the spirit of man and his earlier incarnations, if we wish to explain what in him confronts us now as the soul-spiritual part. We must go back to his earlier incarnations, to what he acquired in course of them. We have to consider how he lived at that time, what he brought with him, as the causes of what the individual possesses today in the new life as tendencies, dispositions, abilities for this or that. For each person brings with him from his former life certain qualities of his life. Certain qualities and his destiny he brings with him to a certain degree. According as he has performed this or that deed, he calls forth the reaction, and feels himself thus to be surrounded by the new life. So he brings with him from earlier incarnations the inner kernel of his being and envelops it with what is given him by heredity.

Certainly this one thing should be mentioned, because it is important, since actually our present time has little inclination to recognize this inner kernel of being, or to look upon the idea of reincarnation as anything but a fantastic thought. It is considered today to be poor logic, and we shall hear materialistic thinkers objecting over and over again that what is in man arises entirely through heredity. Just look at the ancestors, he says, and you will discover that this or that trait, this or that peculiarity, existed in some ancestor, that all the individual traits and qualities can be explained by tracing them in the ancestors. The spiritual scientist can also point to that fact, and he has done so. For example, in a musical family musical talent is inherited, etc. That is all supposed to support the theory of heredity. Indeed, the law is expressed point blank, that seldom does genius appear at the beginning of a generation; genius stands at the end of a line of heredity. And that is supposed to be a proof that genius is inherited. Here one proceeds from the standpoint that some person has a definite characteristic—he is a genius. Someone traces back the peculiar abilities of the genius, seeks in the past among his ancestors, finds in some ancestor signs of a similar characteristic, picks out something here and there, finds this quality in one, that in another, and then shows how they finally flowed together in the genius who appeared at the end of the generation; and he infers from it that genius is transmitted. For anyone whose thinking is direct and logical that could at best prove the opposite. If finding qualities of genius among the ancestors proves anything, what does it prove? Surely nothing else than that man's essential being is able to express itself in life according to the instrument of the body. It proves nothing more than that a man comes out wet if he falls into the water. Really it is no more intelligent than if some one wishes to call our special attention to the fact that if a man falls into the water he gets wet. It is only natural that he takes up something of the element into which he is placed. Surely it is quite self-evident that the qualities of the ancestors would be carried by that which has flowed down through the line of heredity, and has finally been given through father and mother to the particular human being who has descended from the spiritual world. The individual clothes himself in the sheaths which are given to him by his ancestors. What is intended to be presented as proof of heredity could much better be looked upon as proof that it is not heredity. For if genius were inherited, it would have to appear at the beginning of the generations and not stand at the end of a line of heredity. If anyone were to show that a genius has sons and grandchildren to whom the qualities of genius are transmitted, then he would be able to prove that genius is inherited; but that is just not the case. It is limping logic which wishes to trace back man's spiritual qualities to the succession of ancestors. We must trace back spiritual qualities to that which a man has brought with him from his earlier incarnations.

If now we consider the one stream, that which lives in the line of heredity, we find that there the individual is drawn into a stream of existence through which he gets certain qualities: We have before us some one possessing the qualities of his family, his people, his race. The various children of the same parents have characteristics conditioned in this way. If we consider the true individual nature of a human being, we must say that the soul-spiritual essential kernel is born into the family, the people, the race; it envelops itself with what is given by the ancestors, but it brings with it purely individual characteristics. So we must ask ourselves: How is harmony established between a human essence which perhaps has acquired centuries earlier this or that quality and the outer covering with which it is now to envelop itself, and which bears the characteristics of family, people, race, and so forth? Is it possible for harmony to exist here? Is it not something in the highest sense individual which is thus brought into earth life, and is not the inherited part at variance with it? Thus the great question arises: How can that which has its origin in quite other worlds, which must seek father and mother for itself, unite with the physical body? How can it clothe itself with the physical attributes through which the human being is placed within the line of heredity?

We see then in a person confronting us the flowing together of two streams; of these two streams each human being is composed. In him we see on the one side what comes to him from his family, and on the other what has developed from the individual's innermost being; namely, a number of predispositions, characteristics, inner capacities and outer destiny. An agreement must be effected. We find that a man must adapt himself to this union, in accordance with his innermost being on the one side, and on the other in accordance with that which is brought to him from the line of heredity. We see how a man bears to a great degree the physiognomy of his ancestors; we could put him together, so to speak, from the sum of his various ancestors. Since at first the inner essential kernel has nothing to do with what is inherited, but must merely adapt itself to what is most suitable to it, we shall see that it is necessary for a certain mediation to exist for that which has lived perhaps for centuries in an entirely different world and is again transplanted into another world; the spirit being of man must have something here below to which it is related; there must be a bond, a connecting link, between the special individual human being and humanity in general, into which he is born through family, people, race.

Between these two, namely what we bring with us from our earlier life and what our family, ancestors and race imprint upon us, there is a mediation, something which bears more general characteristics, but at the same time is capable of being individualized. That which occupies this position between the line of heredity and the line which represents our individuality is expressed by the word TEMPERAMENT. In that which confronts us in the temperament of a person we have something in a certain way like a physiognomy of his innermost individuality. We understand thus how the individuality colors, by means of the qualities of temperament, the attributes inherited in the succession of generations. Temperament stands right in the middle between what we bring with us as individuals and what originates from the line of heredity. When the two streams unite, the one stream colors the other. They color each other reciprocally. Just as blue and yellow, let us say, unite in green, so do the two streams in man unite in what we call temperament. That which mediates between all inner characteristics which he brings with him from his earlier incarnation, on the one side, and on the other what the line of heredity brings to him, comes under the concept temperament. It now takes its place between the inherited characteristics and what he has absorbed into his inner essential being. It is as if upon its descent to earth this kernel of being were to envelop itself with a spiritual nuance of that which awaits it here below, so that in proportion as this kernel of being is able best to adapt itself to this covering for the human being, the kernel of being colors itself according to that into which it is born and to a quality which it brings with it. Here shine forth the soul qualities of man and his natural inherited attributes. Between the two is the temperament—between that by which a man is connected with his ancestors and that which he brings with him from his earlier incarnations. The temperament balances the eternal with the transitory.

This balancing occurs through the fact that what we have learned to call the members of human nature come into relation with one another in a quite definite way. We understand this in detail, however, only when we place before our mind's eye the complete human nature in the sense of spiritual science. Only from spiritual science is the mystery of the human temperament to be discovered.

This human being as he confronts us in life, formed by the flowing together of these two streams, we know as a four-membered being. So we shall be able to say when we consider the entire individual: This complete human being consists of the physical body, the etheric body or body of formative forces, the astral body, and the ego.

In that part of man perceptible to the outer senses, which is all that materialistic thought is willing to recognize, we have first, according to spiritual science, only a single member of the human being, the physical body, which man has in common with the mineral world. That part which is subject to physical laws, which man has in common with all environing outer nature, the sum of chemical and physical laws, we designate in spiritual science as the physical body.

Beyond this, however, we recognize higher super-sensible members of human nature which are as actual and essential as the outer physical body. As first super-sensible member, man has the etheric body, which becomes part of his organism and remains united with the physical body throughout the entire life; only at death does a separation of the two take place. Even this first super-sensible member of human nature—in spiritual science called the etheric or life body; we might also call it the glandular body—is no more visible to our outer eyes than are colors to those born blind. But it exists, actually and perceptibly exists, for that which Goethe calls the eyes of the spirit, and it is even more real than the outer physical body, for it is the builder, the moulder, of the physical body. During the entire time between birth and death this etheric or life body continuously combats the disintegration of the physical body. Any kind of mineral product of nature—a crystal, for example—is so constituted that it is permanently held together by its own forces, by the forces of its own substance. That is not the case with the physical body of a living being; here the physical forces work in such a way that they destroy the form of life, as we are able to observe after death, when the physical forces destroy the life-form. That this destruction does not occur during life, that the physical body does not conform to the physical and chemical forces and laws, is due to the fact that the etheric or life-body is ceaselessly combating these forces.

The third member of the human being we recognize in the bearer of all pleasure and suffering, joy and pain, instincts, impulses, passions, desires, and all that surges to and fro as sensations and ideas, even all concepts of what we designate as moral ideals, and so on. That we call the astral body. Do not take exception to this expression. We could also call it the “nerve-body.” Spiritual science sees in it something real, and knows indeed that this body of impulses and desires is not an effect of the physical body, but the cause of this body. It knows that the soul-spiritual part has built up for itself the physical body.

Thus we already have three members of the human being, and as man's highest member we recognize that by means of which he towers above all other beings, by means of which he is the crown of earth's creation: namely, the bearer of the human ego, which gives him in such a mysterious, but also in such a manifest way, the power of self-consciousness.

Man has the physical body in common with his entire visible environment, the etheric body in common with the plants and animals, the astral body with the animals. The fourth member, however, the ego, he has for himself alone; and by means of it he towers above the other visible creatures. We recognize this fourth member as the ego-bearer, as that in human nature by means of which man is able to say “I” to himself, to come to independence.

Now what we see physically, and what the intellect which is bound to the physical senses can know, is only an expression of these four members of the human being. Thus, the expression of the ego, of the actual ego-bearer, is the blood in its circulation. This “quite special fluid” is the expression of the ego. The physical sense expression of the astral body in man is, for example, among other things, the nervous system. The expression of the etheric body, or a part of this expression, is the glandular system; and the physical body expresses itself in the sense organs.

These four members confront us in the human being. So we shall be able to say, when we observe the complete human being, that he consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body, and ego. That which is primarily physical body, which the human being carries in such a way that it is visible to physical eyes, clearly bears, first of all, when viewed from without, the marks of heredity. Also those characteristics which live in man's etheric body, in that fighter against the disintegration of the physical body, are in the line of heredity. Then we come to his astral body, which in its characteristics is much more closely bound to the essential kernel of the human being. If we turn to this innermost kernel, to the actual ego, we find what passes from incarnation to incarnation, and appears as an inner mediator, which rays forth its essential qualities.

Now in the whole human nature all the separate members work into each other; they act reciprocally. Because two streams flow together in man when he enters the physical world, there arises a varied mixture of man's four members, and one, so to speak, gets the mastery over the others, and impresses its color upon them. Now according as one or another of these members comes especially into prominence, the individual confronts us with this or that temperament. The particular coloring of human nature, what we call the actual shade of the temperament, depends upon whether the forces, the different means of power, of one member or of another predominate, have a preponderance over the others. Man's eternal being, that which goes from incarnation to incarnation, so expresses itself in each new embodiment that it calls forth a certain reciprocal action among the four members of human nature: ego, astral body, etheric body and physical body; and from the interaction of these four members arises the nuance of human nature which we characterize as temperament.

When the essential being has tinged the physical and etheric bodies, that which arises because of the coloring thus given will act upon each of the other members; so that the way an individual appears to us with his characteristics depends upon whether the inner kernel acts more strongly upon the physical body, or whether the physical body acts more strongly upon it. According to his nature the human being is able to influence one of the four members, and through the reaction upon the other members the temperament originates. The human essential kernel, when it comes into re-embodiment, is able through this peculiarity to introduce into one or another of its members a certain surplus of activity. Thus it can give to the ego a certain surplus strength; or again, the individual can influence his other members because of having had certain experiences in his former life.

When the ego of the individual has become so strong through its destiny that its forces are noticeably dominant in the fourfold human nature, and it dominates the other members, then the choleric temperament results. If the person is especially subject to the influence of the forces of the astral body, then we attribute to him a sanguine temperament. If the etheric or life-body acts excessively upon the other members, and especially impresses its nature upon the person, the phlegmatic temperament arises. And when the physical body with its laws is especially predominant in the human nature, so that the spiritual essence of being is not able to overcome a certain hardness in the physical body, then we have to do with a melancholic temperament. Just as the eternal and the transitory intermingle, so does the relation of the members to one another appear.

I have already told you how the four members express themselves outwardly in the physical body. Thus, a large part of the physical body is the direct expression of the physical life principle of man. The physical body as such comes to expression only in the physical body; hence it is the physical body which gives the keynote in a melancholic.

We must regard the glandular system as the physical expression of the etheric body. The etheric body expresses itself physically in the glandular system. Hence in a phlegmatic person the glandular system gives the keynote in the physical body.

The nervous system and, of course, what occurs through it we must regard as the physical expression of the astral body. The astral body finds its physical expression in the nervous system; therefore in a sanguine person the nervous system gives the keynote to the physical body.

The blood in its circulation, the force of the pulsation of the blood, is the expression of the actual ego. The ego expresses itself in the circulation of the blood, in the predominating activity of the blood; it shows itself especially in the fiery vehement blood. One must try to penetrate more subtly into the connection which exists between the ego and the other members of the human being. Suppose, for example, that the ego exerts a peculiar force in the life of sensations, ideas, and the nervous system; suppose that in the case of a certain person everything arises from his ego, everything that he feels he feels strongly, because his ego is strong—we call that the choleric temperament. That which has received its character from the ego will make itself felt as the predominating quality. Hence, in a choleric the blood system is predominant.

The choleric temperament will show itself as active in a strongly pulsating blood; in this the element of force in the individual makes its appearance, in the fact that he has a special influence upon his blood. In such a person, in whom spiritually the ego, physically the blood, is particularly active, we see the innermost force vigorously keeping the organization fit. And as he thus confronts the outer world, the force of his ego will wish to make itself felt. That is the effect of this ego. By reason of this, the choleric appears as one who wishes to assert his ego in all circumstances. All the aggressiveness of the choleric, everything connected with his strong will-nature, may be ascribed to the circulation of the blood.

When the astral body predominates in an individual, the physical expression will lie in the functions of the nervous system, that instrument of the rising and falling waves of sensation; and that which the astral body accomplishes is the life of thoughts, of images, so that the person who is gifted with the sanguine temperament will have the predisposition to live in the surging sensations and feelings and in the images of his life of ideas.

We must understand clearly the relation of the astral body to the ego. The astral body functions between the nervous system and the blood system. So it is perfectly clear what this relation is. If only the sanguine temperament were present, if only the nervous system were active, being quite especially prominent as the expression of the astral body, then the person would have a life of shifting images and ideas; in this way a chaos of images would come and go. He would be given over to all the restless flux from sensation to sensation, from image to image, from idea to idea. Something of that sort appears if the astral body predominates, that is, in a sanguine person, who in a certain sense is given over to the tide of sensations, images, etc., since in him the astral body and the nervous system predominate. It is the forces of the ego which prevent the images from darting about in a fantastic way. Only because these images are controlled by the ego does harmony and order enter in. Were man not to check them with his ego, they would surge up and down without any evidence of control by the individual.

In the physical body it is the blood which principally limits, so to speak, the activity of the nervous system. Man's blood circulation, the blood flowing in man, is that which lays fetters, so to speak, upon what has its expression in the nervous system; it is the restrainer of the surging feelings and sensations; it is the tamer of the nerve-life. It would lead too far if I were to show you in all its details how the nervous system and the blood are related, and how the blood is the restrainer of this life of ideas. What occurs if the tamer is not present, if a man is deficient in red blood, is anemic? Well, even if we do not go into the more minute psychological details, from the simple fact that when a person's blood becomes too thin, that is, has a deficiency of red corpuscles, he is easily given over to the unrestrained surging back and forth of all kinds of fantastic images, even to illusion and hallucination—you can still conclude from this simple fact that the blood is the restrainer of the nerve-system. A balance must exist between the ego and the astral body—or speaking physiologically, between the blood and the nervous system—so that one may not become a slave of his nervous system, that is, to the surging life of sensation and feeling.

If now the astral body has a certain excess of activity, if there is a predominance of the astral body and its expression, the nerve-system, which the blood restrains to be sure, but is not completely able to bring to a condition of absolute balance, then that peculiar condition arises in which human life easily arouses the individual's interest in a subject, but he soon drops it and quickly passes to another one; such a person cannot hold himself to an idea, and in consequence his interest can be immediately kindled in everything which meets him in the outer world, but the restraint is not applied to make it inwardly enduring; the interest which has been kindled quickly evaporates. In this quick kindling of interest and quick passing from one subject to another we see the expression of the predominating astral element, the sanguine temperament. The sanguine person cannot linger with an impression, he cannot hold fast to an image, cannot fix his attention upon one subject. He hurries from one life impression to another, from perception to perception, from idea to idea; he shows a fickle disposition. That can be especially observed with sanguine children, and in this case it may cause one anxiety. Interest is easily aroused, a picture begins easily to have an effect, quickly makes an impression, but the impression soon vanishes again.

When there is a strong predominance in an individual of the etheric or life-body—that which inwardly regulates the processes of man's life and growth—and the expression of this etheric body—that system which brings about the feeling of inner well-being or of discomfort—then such a person will be tempted to wish just to remain in this feeling of inner comfort. The etheric body is a body which leads a sort of inner life, while the astral body expresses itself in outer interests, and the ego is the bearer of our activity and will, directed outward. If then this etheric body, which acts as life-body, and maintains the separate functions in equilibrium, an equilibrium which expresses itself in the feeling of life's general comfort—when this self-sustained inner life, which chiefly causes the sense of inner comfort, predominates, then it may occur that an individual lives chiefly in this feeling of inner comfort, that he has such a feeling of well-being, when everything in his organism is in order, that he feels little urgency to direct his inner being toward the outer world, is little inclined to develop a strong will. The more inwardly comfortable he feels, the more harmony will he create between the inner and outer. When this is the case, when it is even carried to excess, we have to do with a phlegmatic person.

In a melancholic we have seen that the physical body, that is, the densest member of the human being, rules the others. A man must be master of his physical body, as he must be master of a machine if he wishes to use it. But when this densest part rules, the person always feels that he is not master of it, that he cannot manage it. For the physical body is the instrument which he should rule completely through his higher members. But now this physical body has dominion and sets up opposition to the others. In this case the person is not able to use his instrument perfectly, so that the other principles experience repression because of it, and disharmony exists between the physical body and the other members. This is the way the hardened physical system appears when it is in excess. The person is not able to bring about flexibility where it should exist. The inner man has no power over his physical system; he feels inner obstacles. They show themselves through the fact that the person is compelled to direct his strength upon these inner obstacles. What cannot be overcome is what causes sorrow and pain; and these make it impossible for the individual to look out upon his contemporary world in an unprejudiced way. This constraint becomes a source of inner grief, which is felt as pain and listlessness, as a sad mood. It is very easy to feel that life is filled with pain and sorrow. Certain thoughts and ideas begin to be enduring; the person becomes gloomy, melancholic. There is a constant arising of pain. This mood is caused by nothing else than that the physical body sets up opposition to the inner ease of the etheric body, to the mobility of the astral body, and to the ego's certainty of its goal.

And if we thus comprehend the nature of the temperaments through sound knowledge, many a thing in life will become clear to us; but it will also become possible to handle in a practical way what we otherwise could not do. Look at much which directly confronts us in life! What we see there as the mixture of the four members of human nature meets us clearly and significantly in the outer picture. We need only observe how the temperament comes to expression externally.

Let us, for instance, take the choleric person, who has a strong firm center in his inner being. If the ego predominates, the person will assert himself against all outer oppositions; he wants to be in evidence. This ego is the restrainer. Those pictures are consciousness-pictures. The physical body is formed according to its etheric body, the etheric body according to its astral body. This astral body would fashion man, so to speak, in the most varied way. But because growth is opposed by the ego in its blood forces, the balance is maintained between abundance and variety of growth. So when there is a surplus of ego, growth can be retarded. It positively retards the growth of the other members; it does not allow the astral body and the etheric body their full rights. In the choleric temperament you are able to recognize clearly in the outer growth, in all that confronts us outwardly, the expression of what is inwardly active, the actual deep inner force-nature of the man, of the complete ego. Choleric persons appear as a rule as if growth had been retarded. You can find in life example after example; for instance, from spiritual history the philosopher, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the German choleric. Even in external appearance he is recognizable as such, since in his outer form he gave the impression of being retarded in growth. Thereby he reveals clearly that the other members of his being have been held back by the excess of ego. Not the astral body with its forming capacity is the predominant member, but the ego rules, the restrainer, the limiter of the formative forces. Hence we see as a rule in those who are preeminently men of strong will, where the ego restrains the free formative force of the astral body, a small compact figure. Take another classical example of the choleric: Napoleon, the “little General,” who remained so small because the ego held back the other members of his being. There you have the type of the retarded growth of the choleric. There you can see how this force of the ego works out of the spirit, so that the innermost being is manifest in the outer form. Observe the physiognomy of the choleric! Take in comparison the phlegmatic person! How indefinite are his features; how little reason you have to say that such a form of forehead is suited to the choleric. In one organ it is shown especially clearly whether the astral body or the ego works formatively, that is in the eye, in the steady, assured aspect of the eye of the choleric. As a rule we see how this strongly-kindled inner light, which turns everything luminously inward, sometimes is expressed in a black, a coal-black eye, because, according to a certain law, the choleric does not permit the astral body to color that very thing which his ego-force draws inward, that which is colored in another person. Observe such an individual in his whole bearing. One who is experienced can almost tell from the rear view whether a certain person is a choleric. The firm walk proclaims the choleric, so to speak. Even in the step we see the expression of strong ego-force. In the choleric child we already notice the firm tread; when he walks on the ground, he not only sets his foot on it, but he treads as if he wanted to go a little bit farther, into the ground.

The complete human individual is a copy of this innermost being, which declares itself to us in such a way. But naturally, it is not a question of my maintaining that the choleric person is short and the sanguine tall. We may compare the form of a person only with his own growth. It depends upon the relation of the growth to the entire form.

Notice the sanguine person! Observe what a strange glance even the sanguine child has; it quickly lights upon something, but just as quickly turns to something else; it is a merry glance; an inner joy and gaiety shine in it; in it is expressed what comes from the depths of the human nature, from the mobile astral body, which predominates in the sanguine person. In its mobile inner life this astral body will work upon the members; and it will also make the person's external appearance as flexible as possible. Indeed, we are able to recognize the entire outer physiognomy, the permanent form and also the gestures, as the expression of the mobile, volatile, fluidic astral body. The astral body has the tendency to fashion, to form. The inner reveals itself outwardly; hence the sanguine person is slender and supple. Even in the slender form, the bony structure; we see the inner mobility of the astral body in the whole person. It comes to expression for example in the slim muscles. It is also to be seen in his external expression. Even one who is not clairvoyant can recognize from the rear whether a person is of sanguine or choleric temperament; and to be able to do this one need not be a spiritual scientist. In a sanguine person we have an elastic and springing walk. In the hopping, dancing walk of the sanguine child we see the expression of the mobile astral body. The sanguine temperament manifests itself especially strongly in childhood. See how the formative tendency is expressed there; and even more delicate attributes are to be found in the outer form. If in the choleric person we have sharply-cut facial features, in the sanguine they are mobile, expressive, changeable. And likewise there appears in the sanguine child a certain inner possibility to alter his countenance. Even to the color of the eyes we could confirm the expression of the sanguine person. The inwardness of the ego-nature, the self-sufficient inwardness of the choleric, meets us in his black eye. Look at the sanguine person in whom the ego-nature is not so deep-rooted, in whom the astral body pours forth all its mobility—there the blue eye is predominant. These blue eyes are closely connected with the individual's invisible inner light, the light of the astral body.

Thus many attributes could be pointed out which reveal the temperament in the external appearance. Through the four-membered human nature we learn to understand clearly this soul riddle of the temperaments. And indeed, a knowledge of the four temperaments, springing from a profound perception of human nature, has been handed down to us from ancient times. If we thus understand human nature, and know that the external is only the expression of the spiritual, then we learn to understand man in his relation even to the externalities, to understand him in his whole process of becoming; and we learn to recognize what we must do concerning ourself and the child with regard to temperament. In education especially notice must be taken of the kind of temperament that tends to develop in the child. For life's wisdom, as for pedagogy, an actual living knowledge of the nature of the temperaments is indispensable, and both would profit infinitely from it.

And now let us go further. Again we see how the phlegmatic temperament also is brought to expression in the outer form. In this temperament there predominates the activity of the etheric body, which has its physical expression in the glandular system and its soul expression in a feeling of ease, in inner balance. If in such a person everything is not only normally in order within, but if, beyond this normality, these inner formative forces of ease are especially active, then their products are added to the human body; it becomes corpulent, it expands. In the largeness of the body, in the development of the fatty parts, we see that which the inner formative forces of the etheric body are especially working on. The inner sense of ease of the phlegmatic person meets us in all that. And who would not recognize in this lack of reciprocal action between the inner and the outer the cause of the ofttimes slovenly, dragging gait of the phlegmatic person, whose step will often not adapt itself to the ground; he does not step properly, so to speak; does not put himself in relation to things. That he has little control over the forms of his inner being you can observe in the whole man. The phlegmatic temperament confronts one in the immobile, indifferent countenance, even in the peculiarly dull, colorless appearance of the eye. While the eye of the choleric is fiery and sparkling, we can recognize in that of the phlegmatic the expression of the etheric body, focused only upon inner ease.

The melancholic is one who cannot completely attain mastery over the physical instrument, one to whom the physical instrument offers resistance, one who cannot cope with the use of this instrument. Look at the melancholic, how he generally has a drooping head, has not the force in himself to stiffen his neck. The bowed head shows that the inner forces which adjust the head perpendicularly are never able to unfold freely. The glance is downward, the eye sad, unlike the black gleam of the choleric eye. We see in the peculiar appearance of the eye that the physical instrument makes difficulties for him. The walk, to be sure, is measured, firm, but not like the walk of the choleric, the firm tread of the choleric; it has a certain kind of dragging firmness.

All this can be only indicated here; but the life of the human being will be much, much more understandable to us if we work in this way, if we see the spirit activating the forms in such a way that the external part of the individual can become an expression of his inner being. So you see how significantly spiritual science can contribute to the solution of this riddle; but only if you face the whole reality, to which the spiritual also belongs, and do not stop merely with the physical reality, can this knowledge be practically applied in life. Therefore only from spiritual science can this knowledge flow in such a way as to benefit the whole of humanity as well as the individual.

Now if we know all that, we can also learn to apply it. Particularly it must be of interest to learn how we can handle the temperaments pedagogically in childhood. For in education the kind of temperament must be very carefully observed; with children it is especially important to be able to guide and direct the developing temperament. But later also it is still important, for anyone in self-education. For the person who wishes to train himself it is invaluable that he observe what is expressed in his temperament.

I have pointed out to you here the fundamental types, but naturally in life they do not often appear thus pure. Each person has only the fundamental tone of a temperament, besides which he has something of the others. Napoleon, for example, had in him much of the phlegmatic temperament, although he was a choleric. If we would govern life practically, it is important to be able to allow that which expresses itself physically to work upon our soul.

How important this is we can see best of all if we consider that the temperaments can degenerate, that what may appear to us as one-sidedness can also degenerate. What would the world be without the temperaments—if people had only one temperament? The most tiresome place you could imagine! The world would be dreary without the temperaments, not only in the physical, but also in the higher sense. All variety, beauty, and all the richness of life are possible only through the temperaments. Do we not see how everything great in life can be brought about just through the one-sidedness of the temperaments, but also how these can degenerate in their one-sidedness? Are we not troubled about the child because we see that the choleric temperament can degenerate to malice, the sanguine to fickleness, the melancholic to gloom, etc.?

In the question of education in particular, and also in self-education, will not the knowledge and estimation of the temperaments be of essential value to the educator? We must not be misled into depreciating the value of the temperament because it is a one-sided characteristic. In education the important thing is not to equalize the temperaments, to level them, but to bring them into the right track. We must clearly understand that the temperament leads to one-sidedness, that the most radical phase of the melancholic temperament is madness; of the phlegmatic, imbecility; of the sanguine, insanity; of the choleric, all those explosions of diseased human nature which result in frenzy, and so forth. Much beautiful variety results from the temperaments, because opposites attract each other; nevertheless, the deification of the one-sidedness of temperament very easily causes harm between birth and death. In each temperament there exists a small and a great danger of degeneracy. With the choleric person there is the danger that in youth his ego will be determined by his irascibility, by his lack of self-control. That is the small danger. The great danger is the folly which wishes to pursue, from the impulse of his ego, some kind of individual goal. In the sanguine temperament the small danger is that the person will lapse into fickleness. The great danger is that the rising and falling tide of sensations may result in insanity. The small danger for the phlegmatic is lack of interest in the outer world; the great danger is stupidity or idiocy. The small danger in the melancholic is gloominess, the possibility that he may not be able to extricate himself from what rises up within him. The great danger is madness.

When we contemplate all that, we shall see that a tremendously significant task in practical life lies in the directing and guiding of the temperaments. It is important for the educator to be able to say to himself: What will you do, for example, in the case of a sanguine child? Here one must try to learn from the knowledge of the entire nature of the sanguine temperament how to proceed. If other points of view must be considered concerning the education of the child, it is also necessary that temperament, as a subject in itself, be taken into account. But in order to guide the temperaments the principle to be observed is that we must always reckon with what is there and not with what is not there.

We have a child of sanguine temperament before us, which could easily degenerate into fickleness, lack of interest in important things, and, instead, become quickly interested in other things. The sanguine child is the quickly comprehending, but also the quickly forgetting child, whose interest it is difficult to hold upon anything whatever, just because interest in one subject is quickly lost and passes over to another. This can grow into the most frightful one-sidedness, and it is possible to notice the danger if we look into the depths of human nature. In the case of such a child a material-minded person will immediately come forward with a prescription and say: If you have a sanguine child to bring up, you must bring it into reciprocal activity with other children. But a person who thinks realistically in the right sense says: If you begin with the sanguine child by working upon forces which it does not at all possess, you will accomplish nothing with it. You could exert your powers ever so seriously to develop the other members of human nature, but these simply do not predominate in this child. If a child has a sanguine temperament, we cannot help him along in development by trying to beat interests into him; we cannot pound in something different from what his sanguine temperament is. We should not ask, What does the child lack? What are we to beat into him? But we should ask, What as a rule does a sanguine child possess? And that is what we must reckon with. Then we shall say to ourselves: We do not alter these characteristics by trying to induce any sort of opposite quality in this child. With regard to these things which are rooted in the innermost nature of man we must take into consideration that we can only bend them. Thus we shall not be building upon what the child does not possess, but upon what he does possess. We shall build exactly upon that sanguine nature, upon that mobility of the astral body, and not try to beat into him what belongs to another member of human nature. With a sanguine child who has become one-sided we must just appeal to his sanguine temperament.

If we wish to have the right relation with this child, we must take special notice of something. For from the first it becomes evident to the expert that if the child is ever so sanguine, there is still something or other in which he is interested, that there is one interest, one genuine interest for each sanguine child. It will generally be easy to arouse interest in this or that subject, but it will quickly be lost again. There is one interest, however, which can be enduring even for the sanguine child. Experience shows this; only it must be discovered. And that which is found to hold a special interest must be kept in mind. And whatever it is that the child does not pass by with fickle interest we must try to bring before him as a special fact, so that his temperament extends to something which is not a matter of indifference to him. Whatever he delights in, we must try to place in a special light; the child must learn to use his sanguineness. We can work in such a way that we begin first of all with the one thing that can always be found, with the forces which the child has. He will not be able to become lastingly interested in anything through punishment and remonstrance. For things, subjects, events, he will not easily show anything but a passing, changeable interest; but for one personality, especially suited to a sanguine child—experience will show this—there will be a permanent, continuous interest, even though the child is ever so fickle. If only we are the right personality, or if we are able to bring him into association with the right personality, the interest will appear. It is only necessary to search in the right way. Only by the indirect way of love for one personality, is it possible for interest to appear in the sanguine child. But if that interest, love for one person, is kindled in him, then through this love straightway a miracle happens. This love can cure a child's one-sided temperament. More than any other temperament, the sanguine child needs love for one personality. Everything must be done to awaken love in such a child. Love is the magic word. All education of the sanguine child must take this indirect path of attachment to a certain personality. Therefore parents and teachers must heed the fact that an enduring interest in things cannot be awakened by drumming it into the sanguine child, but they must see to it that this interest is won by the roundabout way of attachment to a personality. The child must develop this personal attachment; one must make himself lovable to the child; that is one's duty to the sanguine child. It is the responsibility of the teacher that such a child shall learn to love the personality.

We can still further build up the education upon the child's sanguine nature itself. The sanguine nature reveals itself, you know, in the inability to find any interest which is lasting. We must observe what is there. We must see that all kinds of things are brought into the environment of the child in which he has shown more than the ordinary interest. We should keep the sanguine child busy at regular intervals with such subjects as warrant a passing interest, concerning which he is permitted to be sanguine, so to speak, subjects not worthy of sustained interest. These things must be permitted to affect the sanguine nature, permitted to work upon the child; then they must be removed so that he will desire them again, and they may again be given to him. We must cause these things to work upon the child as the objects of the ordinary world work upon the temperament. In other words, it is important to seek out for a sanguine child those objects toward which he is permitted to be sanguine.

If we thus appeal to what exists rather than to something which does not exist, we shall see—and practical experience will prove it—that as matter of fact the sanguine force, if it becomes one-sided, actually permits itself to be captured by serious subjects. That is attained as by an indirect path. It is good if the temperament is developed in the right way during childhood, but often the adult himself has to take his education in hand later in life. As long, indeed, as the temperaments are held in normal bounds, they represent that which makes life beautiful, varied, and great. How dull would life be if all people were alike with regard to temperament. But in order to equalize a one-sidedness of temperament, a man must often take his self-education in hand in later life. Here again one should not insist upon pounding into oneself, as it were, a lasting interest in any sort of thing; but he must say to himself: According to my nature I am sanguine; I will now seek subjects in life which my interest may pass over quickly, in which it is right that the interest should not be lasting, and I will just occupy myself with that in which I may with complete justification lose interest in the very next moment.

Let us suppose that a parent should fear that in his child the choleric temperament would express itself in a one-sided way. The same treatment cannot be prescribed as for the sanguine child; the choleric will not be able easily to acquire love for a personality. He must be reached through something else in the influence of person upon person. But in the case of the choleric child also there is an indirect way by which the development may always be guided. What will guide the education here with certainty is: Respect and esteem for an authority. For the choleric child one must be thoroughly worthy of esteem and respect in the highest sense of the word. Here it is not a question of making oneself loved through the personal qualities, as with the sanguine child, but the important thing is that the choleric child shall always have the belief that the teacher understands the matter in hand. The latter must show that he is well informed about the things that take place in the child's environment; he must not show a weak point. He must endeavor never to let the choleric child notice that he might be unable to give information or advice concerning what is to be done. The teacher must see to it that he holds the firm reins of authority in his hands, and never betray the fact that he is perhaps at his wits' end. The child must always keep the belief that the teacher knows. Otherwise he has lost the game. If love for the personality is the magic word for the sanguine child, then respect and esteem for the worth of a person is the magic word for the choleric.

If we have a choleric child to train we must see to it before everything else that this child shall unfold, bring to development, his strong inner forces. It is necessary to acquaint him with what may present difficulties in the outer life. For the choleric child who threatens to degenerate into one-sidedness, it is especially necessary to introduce into the education that which is difficult to overcome, so as to call attention to the difficulties of life by producing serious obstacles for the child. Especially must such things be put in his way as will present opposition to him. Oppositions, difficulties, must be placed in the path of the choleric child. The effort must be put forth not to make life altogether easy for him. Hindrances must be created so that the choleric temperament is not repressed, but is obliged to come to expression through the very fact that certain difficulties are presented which the child must overcome. The teacher must not beat out, educate out, so to speak, a child's choleric temperament, but he must put before him just those things upon which he must use his strength, things in connection with which the choleric temperament is justified. The choleric child must of inner necessity learn to battle with the objective world. The teacher will therefore seek to arrange the environment in such a way that this choleric temperament can work itself out in overcoming obstacles; and it will be especially good if these obstacles pertain to little things, to trifles; if the child is made to do something on which he must expend tremendous strength, so that the choleric temperament is strongly expressed, but actually the facts are victorious, the strength employed is frittered away. In this way the child gains respect for the power of facts which oppose what is expressed in the choleric temperament.

Here again there is another indirect way in which the choleric temperament can be trained. Here it is necessary first of all to awaken reverence, the feeling of awe, to approach the child in such a way as actually to arouse such respect, by showing him that we can overcome difficulties which he himself cannot yet overcome; reverence, esteem, particularly for what the teacher can accomplish, for his ability to overcome objective difficulties. That is the proper means: Respect for the ability of the teacher is the way by which the choleric child in particular may be reached in education.

It is also very difficult to manage the melancholic child. What must we do if we fear the threatened one-sidedness of the melancholic temperament of the child, since we cannot cram in what he does not possess? We must reckon with the fact that it is just repressions and resistance that he has power within himself to cling to. If we wish to turn this peculiarity of his temperament in the right direction, we must divert this force from subjective to objective activity. Here it is of very special importance that we do not build upon the possibility, let us say, of being able to talk him out of his grief and pain, or otherwise educate them out of him; for the child has the tendency to this excessive reserve because the physical instrument presents hindrances. We must particularly build upon what is there, we must cultivate what exists. With the melancholic child it will be especially necessary for the teacher to attach great importance to showing him that there is suffering in the world. If we wish to approach this child as a teacher, we must find here also the point of contact. The melancholic child is capable of suffering, of moroseness; these qualities exist in him and we cannot flog them out, but we can divert them.

For this temperament too there is one important point: Above all we must show the melancholic child how people can suffer. We must cause him to experience justifiable pain and suffering in external life, in order that he may come to know that there are things concerning which he can experience pain. That is the important thing. If you try to entertain him, you drive him back into his own corner. Whatever you do, you must not think you have to entertain such a child, to try to cheer him up. You should not divert him; in that way you harden the gloominess, the inner pain. If you take him where he can find pleasure, he will only become more and more shut up within himself. It is always good if you try to cure the young melancholic, not by giving him gay companionship, but by causing him to experience justifiable pain. Divert his attention from himself by showing him that sorrow exists. He must see that there are things in life which cause suffering. Although it must not be carried too far, the important point is to arouse pain in connection with external things in order to divert him.

The melancholic child is not easy to guide; but here again there is a magic means. As with the sanguine child the magic word is love for a personality, with the choleric, esteem and respect for the worth of the teacher, so with the melancholic child the important thing is for the teachers to be personalities who in some way have been tried by life, who act and speak from a life of trial. The child must feel that the teacher has really experienced suffering. Bring to his attention in all the manifold occurrences of life the trials of your own destiny. Most fortunate is the melancholic child who can grow up beside a person who has much to give because of his own hard experiences; in such a case soul works upon soul in the most fortunate way. If therefore at the side of the melancholic child there stands a person who, in contrast to the child's merely subjective, sorrowful tendencies, knows how to tell in a legitimate way of pain and suffering that the outer world has brought him, then such a child is aroused by this shared experience, this sympathy with justified pain. A person who can show in the tone and feeling of his narration that he has been tried by destiny, is a blessing to such a melancholic child.

Even in arranging the melancholic child's environment, so to speak, we should not leave his predispositions unconsidered. Hence, it is even advantageous if—strange as it may sound—we build up for the child actual hindrances, obstructions, so that he can experience legitimate suffering and pain with regard to certain things. It is the best education for such a child if the existing tendency to subjective suffering and grief can be diverted by being directed to outer hindrances and obstructions. Then the child, the soul of the child, will gradually take a different direction.

In self-education also we can again use this method: we must always allow the existing tendencies, the forces present in us, to work themselves out, and not artificially repress them. If the choleric temperament, for example, expresses itself so strongly in us that it is a hindrance, we must permit this existing inner force to work itself out by seeking those things upon which we can in a certain sense shatter our force, dissipate our forces, preferably upon insignificant, unimportant things. If on the other hand we are melancholic, we shall do well to seek out justifiable pain and suffering in external life, in order that we may have opportunity to work out our melancholy in the external world; then we shall set ourselves right.

Let us pass on to the phlegmatic temperament. With the phlegmatic child it will be very difficult for us if his education presents us with the task of conducting ourselves in an appropriate way toward him. It is difficult to gain any influence over a phlegmatic person. But there is one way in which an indirect approach may be made. Here again it would be wrong, very wrong indeed, if we insisted upon shaking up a person so inwardly at ease, if we thought we could pound in some kind of interests then and there. Again we must take account of what he has.

There is something in each case which will hold the attention of the phlegmatic person, especially the phlegmatic child. If only through wise education we build up around him what he needs, we shall be able to accomplish much. It is necessary for the phlegmatic child to have much association with other children. If it is good for the others also to have playmates, it is especially so for the phlegmatic. He must have playmates with the most varied interests. There is nothing to appeal to in the phlegmatic child. He will not interest himself easily in objects and events. One must therefore bring this child into association with children of like age. He can be trained through the sharing of the interests—as many as possible—of other personalities. If he is indifferent to his environment, his interest can be kindled by the effect upon him of the interests of his playmates. Only by means of that peculiar suggestive effect, only through the interests of others, is it possible to arouse his interest. An awakening of the interest of the phlegmatic child will result through the incidental experiencing of the interest of others, the sharing of the interests of his playmates, just as sympathy, sharing of the experience of another human destiny, is effective for the melancholic. Once more: To be stimulated by the interest of others is the correct means of education for the phlegmatic. As the sanguine child must have attachment for one personality, so must the phlegmatic child have friendship, association with as many children as possible of his own age. That is the only way the slumbering force in him can be aroused. Things as such do not affect the phlegmatic. With a subject connected with the tasks of school and home you will not be able to interest the little phlegmatic; but indirectly, by way of the interests of other souls of similar age you can bring it about. If things are reflected in this way in others, these interests are reflected in the soul of the phlegmatic child.

Then also we should particularly see to it that we surround him with things and cause events to occur near him concerning which apathy is appropriate. One must direct the apathy to the right objects, those toward which one may rightly be phlegmatic. In this way quite wonderful things can sometimes be accomplished in the young child. But also one's self-education may be taken in hand in the same way in later life, if it is noticed that apathy tends to express itself in a one-sided way; that is, by trying to observe people and their interests. One thing more can also be done, so long as we are still in a position to employ intelligence and reason at all: we can seek out the very subjects and events which are of the greatest indifference to us, toward which it is justifiable for us to be phlegmatic.

We have now seen again how, in the methods of education based upon spiritual science, we build upon what one has and not upon what is lacking.

So we may say that it is best for the sanguine child if he may grow up guided by a firm hand, if some one can show him externally aspects of character through which he is able to develop personal love. Love for a personality is the best remedy for the sanguine child. Not merely love, but respect and esteem for what a personality can accomplish is the best for the choleric child. A melancholic child may be considered fortunate if he can grow up beside some one who has a bitter destiny. In the corresponding contrast produced by the new insight, by the sympathy which arises for the person of authority, and in the sharing of the justifiably painful destiny,—in this consists what the melancholic needs. They develop well if they can indulge less in attachment to a personality, less in respect and esteem for the accomplishment of a personality, but can reach out in sympathy with suffering and justifiably painful destinies. The phlegmatic is reached best if we produce in him an inclination towards the interests of other personalities, if he can be stirred by the interests of others.

The sanguine should be able to develop love and attachment for one personality.

The choleric should be able to develop esteem and respect for the accomplishments of the personality.

The melancholic should be able to develop a heartfelt sympathy with another's destiny.

The phlegmatic child should be led to the sharing of the interests of others.

Thus do we see in these principles of education how spiritual science goes right into the practical questions of life; and when we come to speak about the intimate aspects of life, spiritual science shows just in these very things how it works in practice, shows here its eminently practical side. Infinitely much could we possess of the art of living, if we would adopt this realistic knowledge of spiritual science. When it is a case of mastering life, we must listen for life's secrets, and these lie behind the sense perceptible. Only real spiritual science can explain such a thing as the human temperaments, and so thoroughly fathom them that we are able to make this spiritual science serve as a benefit and actual blessing of life, whether in youth or in age.

We can also take self-education in hand here; for when it is a question of self-education, the temperaments can be particularly useful to us. We become aware with our intellect that our sanguineness is playing us all kinds of tricks, and threatens to degenerate to an unstable way of life; we hurry from subject to subject. This condition can be countered if only we go about it in the right way. The sanguine person will not, however, reach his goal by saying to himself: You have a sanguine temperament and you must break yourself of it. The intellect applied directly is often a hindrance in this realm. On the other hand, used indirectly it can accomplish much. Here the intellect is the weakest soul-force of all. In presence of the stronger soul-forces, such as the temperaments, the intellect can do very little; it can work only indirectly. If some one exhorts himself ever so often: “For once now hold fast to one thing”—then the sanguine temperament will again and again play him bad tricks. He can reckon only with a force which he has. Behind the intellect there must be other forces. Can a sanguine person count upon anything at all but his sanguine temperament? And in self-education too it is necessary to try to do also what the intellect can do directly. A man must reckon with his sanguineness; self-exhortations are fruitless. The important thing is to show sanguineness in the right place. One must try to have no interest in certain things in which he is interested. We can with the intellect provide experiences for which the brief interest of the sanguine person is justified. Let him try to place himself artificially in such situations; to put in his way as much as possible what is of no interest to him. If then we bring about such situations in ever such small matters, concerning which a brief interest is warranted, it will call forth what is necessary. Then it will be noticed, if only one works at it long enough, that this temperament develops the force to change itself.

The choleric can likewise cure himself in a particular way, if we consider the matter from the point of view of spiritual science. For the choleric temperament it is good to choose such subjects, to bring about through the intellect such conditions as are not changed if we rage, conditions in which we reduce ourselves ad absurdum by our raging. When the choleric notices that his fuming inner being wishes to express itself, he must try to find as many things as possible which require little force to be overcome; he must try to bring about easily superable outer facts, and must always try to bring his force to expression in the strongest way upon insignificant events and facts. If he thus seeks out insignificant things which offer him no resistance, then he will bring his one-sided choleric temperament again into the right course.

If it is noticed that melancholia is producing one-sidedness, one must try directly to create for himself legitimate outer obstacles, and then will to examine these legitimate outer obstacles in their entire aspect, so that what one possesses of pain and the capacity for suffering is diverted to outer objects. The intellect can accomplish this. Thus the melancholic temperament must not pass by the pain and suffering of life, but must actually seek them, must experience sympathy, in order that his pain may be diverted to the right objects and events.

If we are phlegmatic, have no interests, then it is good for us to occupy ourselves as much as possible with quite uninteresting things, to surround ourselves with many sources of ennui, so that we are thoroughly bored. Then we shall completely cure ourselves of our apathy, completely break ourselves of it. The phlegmatic person therefore does well to decide with his intellect that he must take interest in a certain thing, that he must search for things which are really only worthy to be ignored. He must seek occupations in which apathy is justified, in which he can work out his apathy. In this way he conquers it, even when it threatens to degenerate into one-sidedness.

Thus we reckon with what is there and not with what is lacking. Those however who call themselves realists believe, for example, that the best thing for a melancholic is to produce conditions that are opposed to his temperament. But anyone who actually thinks realistically will appeal to what is already in him.

So you see spiritual science does not divert us from reality and from actual life; but it will illuminate every step of the way to the truth; and it can also guide us everywhere in life to take reality into consideration. For those people are deluded who think they can stick to external sense appearance. We must go deeper if we wish to enter into this reality; and we shall acquire an understanding for the variety of life if we engage in such considerations.

Our sense for the practical will become more and more individual if we are not impelled to apply a general prescription: namely, you must not drive out fickleness with seriousness, but see what kind of characteristics the person has which are to be stimulated. If then man is life's greatest riddle, and if we have hope that this riddle will be solved for us, we must turn to this spiritual science, which alone can solve it for us. Not only is man in general a riddle to us, but each single person who confronts us in life, each new individuality, presents a new riddle, which of course we cannot fathom by considering it with the intellect. We must penetrate to the individuality. And here too we can allow spiritual science to work out of the innermost center of our being; we can make spiritual science the greatest impulse of life. So long as it remains only theory, it is worthless. It must be applied in the life of the human being. The way to this goal is possible, but it is long. It becomes illuminated for us if it leads to reality. Then we become aware that our views are transformed. Knowledge is transformed. It is prejudice to believe that knowledge must remain abstract; on the contrary, when it enters the spiritual realm it permeates our whole life's work; our entire life becomes permeated by it. Then we face life in such a way that we have discernment for the individuality, which enters even into feeling and sensation and expresses itself in these, and which possesses great reverence and esteem. Patterns are easy to recognize; and to wish to govern life according to patterns is easy; but life does not permit itself to be treated as a pattern. Only insight will suffice, insight which is transformed into a feeling one must have toward the individuality of man, toward the individuality in the whole of life. Then will our conscientious spiritual knowledge flow into our feeling, so to speak, in such a way that we shall be able to estimate correctly the riddle which confronts us in each separate human being.

How do we solve the riddle which each individual presents to us? We solve it by approaching each person in such a way that harmony results between him and us. If we thus permeate ourselves with life's wisdom, we shall be able to solve the fundamental riddle of life which is the individual man. It is not solved by setting up abstract ideas and concepts. The general human riddle can be solved in pictures; this individual riddle, however, is not to be solved by this setting up of abstract ideas and concepts; but rather must we approach each individual person in such a way that we bring to him direct understanding.

That is possible, however, only when we know what lies in the depths of the soul. Spiritual science is something which slowly and gradually pours itself into our entire soul so that it renders the soul receptive not only to the large relations but also to the finer details. In spiritual science it is a fact that, when one soul approaches another, and this other requires love, love is given. If it requires something else, that will be given. Thus by means of such true life wisdom we create social foundations, and that means at each moment to solve a riddle. Anthroposophy works not by means of preaching, exhortation, harping on morals, but by creating a social basis on which one man is able to understand another.

Spiritual science is thus the sub-soil of life, and love is the blossom and fruit of such a life, stimulated by spiritual science. Therefore spiritual science may claim that it is establishing something which will provide a base for the most beautiful goal of the mission of man: genuine, true, human love. In our sympathy, in our love, in the manner in which we approach the individual human being, in our conduct, we should learn the art of living through spiritual science. If we would permit life and love to stream into feeling and sensibility, human life would be a beautiful expression of the fruit of this spiritual science.

We learn to know the individual human being in every respect when we perceive him in the light of spiritual science. We learn to perceive even the child in this way; we learn little by little to respect, to value, in the child the peculiarity, the enigmatic quality of the individuality, and we learn also how we must treat this individual in life, because spiritual science gives to us, so to speak, not merely general, theoretical directions, but it guides us in our relation to the individual in the solving of the riddles which are there to be solved: namely, to love him as we must love him if we not merely fathom him with the mind, but let him work upon us completely, let our spiritual scientific insight give wings to our feelings, our love. That is the only proper soil which can yield true, fruitful, genuine human love; and this is the basis from which we discover what we have to seek as the innermost essential kernel in each individual. And if we permeate ourselves thus with spiritual knowledge, our social life will be regulated in such a way that each single person, when he approaches any other in esteem and respect and understanding of the riddle “man,” will learn how to find and to regulate his relation to the individual. Only one who lives in abstractions as a matter of course can speak from prosaic concepts, but he who strives for genuine knowledge will find it, and will find the way to other people; he will find the solution of the riddle of the other person in his own attitude, in his own conduct.

Thus we solve the individual riddle according as we relate ourselves to others. We find the essential being of another only with a view of life which comes from the spirit. Spiritual science must be a life-practice, a spiritual life-factor, entirely practical, entirely living, and not vague theory.

This is knowledge which can work into all the fibers of man's being, which can rule each single act in life. Thus only does spiritual science become the true art of living—and that could be particularly shown in the consideration of those intimate peculiarities of man, the temperaments. Thus the finest relation is engendered between man and man when we look a person in the face and understand not only how to fathom the riddle, but how to love, that is, to let love flow from individuality to individuality. Spiritual science needs no theoretical proofs; life brings the proofs. Spiritual science knows that something can be said “for” and “against” everything, but the true proofs are those which life brings; and only step by step can life show the truth of what we think when we consider the human being in the light of spiritual-scientific knowledge; for this truth exists as a harmonious, life-inspired insight which penetrates into the deepest mysteries of life.

When the words “health issues” are spoken, many of our contemporaries may reflect on how our views, our opinions of everyday life, of life in general, of all its blessings and woe; when the words “health issues” are spoken, however, it is particularly a feeling that may be evoked here that slumbers more or less consciously or unconsciously in every human soul: that man rightly regards health as a precious possession in this physical life.

Not only those who are completely absorbed in this physical life, with all their thoughts and interests, regard health as a precious thing, but also those who focus their minds on the highest ideals of humanity, who focus their minds on the spiritual, must also recognize what a precious thing health is, and even if he says to himself: Above all, this health is valuable to me because it enables me to fulfill my tasks in the world when I have it, because it prevents me from fulfilling these duties, these tasks in life when it is in any way damaged.

What the word “health” encompasses is directly or indirectly related to our highest destiny, to our human goals. Therefore, it may well depress some who reflect on how health and illness are always viewed differently in a certain way, depending on how human views and opinions change; and those who are attentive observers of life in its depths may well have seen many changes in this regard, especially in recent decades.

But what underlies all striving in relation to health and illness, in relation to the healing of the human being, is in turn only that which we must call the science of life, the knowledge of life. What transformations have taken place in relation to the knowledge of life in these last decades, much greater ones than one would usually assume! It could tell the observer of life a great deal if he observed the way in which currents arise from the scientific foundation, from the scientific knowledge of the world, and lead to this or that view health, if he compares these currents and this foundation [with that] of 20, 30, 40 years ago, how it was then and how it presents itself to us today.

What has often been emphasized here in relation to many other areas, namely that our age has taken a significant step towards materialism, can be observed particularly in the area to which our present consideration is devoted.

Those who are able to look back on the scientific knowledge that underlies today's discussion, as it was formed 20, 30, 40 years ago, may come across a venerable personality when they happen to encounter this phenomenon. I myself once encountered this honorable personality, and I may well refer to the character of this personality because it seems symptomatic to me of what has changed over the past few decades.

Those who were lucky enough to study in Vienna quite a long time ago were able to get to know the scientific basis of our current field of study at the medical faculty in Vienna. They got to know the then famous and widely significant anatomist Hyrtl, the man who provided the basis for hundreds and hundreds of young doctors at the time, the basis that every doctor needs, the anatomical foundations... When he stood before his audience and built up the human being from the components of the human organism, which seemingly can only be expressed in the driest of terms for scientific observation, when he built the human being out of anatomical parts, then, listening to him, you had the feeling that behind this description, this explanation of the structure of the human organism, something else was still alive, something lived from a deep understanding of the spiritual, which builds the wonderful structure of the human organism... there was just something... something... there was something in Hyrtl's presentation that can only be expressed as follows: just as the creative power of nature itself, as the spirit of nature, allows the individual structures to sprout and grow into the entire structure of the human organism, so this human organism was anatomically built up before the audience.

Those of you who have often attended these lectures here know that spiritual science tells us that what we call the outer physical body, what the eyes see, what the hands touch and what the ears and the lower senses of the human being can perceive, that this is only part of the human being, only the outer sensual part, that everything that external science can only deal with this outer limb. They also know that the first higher limb in human nature, which truly and really lives for those who can observe human beings with higher abilities, is what we call the etheric or life body in spiritual science: the mysterious master builder who is there and builds up this human organism.

This etheric or life body is something that cannot be seen by the physical eye, but what the open “spiritual eye” of the seer can see as a fact just as much as the external sensual facts can be seen by the physical eye.

One would like to say: Hyrtl stood there as a chaste scientist, as a chaste physician; he said nothing about this etheric or life body, but how he spoke of it,

how the one developed from the other, it was as if that principle of the life body lived in his words; and that was enough, it had an enormous stimulating effect, he influenced his listeners so that something of the mysterious depths of the whole of human nature was awakened in them, that something of that striving was kindled in them, which wants to take hold of man ever more deeply and which does not remain on the surface...

Soon afterwards, one could see that these times were passing, in which this scientific foundation was considered in this way...

Let me make this clear from the outset: it was not just because Hyrtl was a particularly great genius, but because he had grown out of a time that, if not precisely cognizant of the spiritual world, at least had a feeling for it. Anyone who observes life knows that today everything is pieced together, that such a representation no longer exists in broad circles of science... therefore, we must emphasize all the more that it is precisely spiritual science that goes back to the whole, to the spiritual-living behind the sensual, that it has the task of fertilizing and illuminating that which can be offered in the external, sensory realm for the horizons that interest us today, for it is in the external, sensory realm that our admirable science has achieved the most extraordinary things... for there is no lack of individual research, no lack of methods by which one can gain insight into the individual external facts of natural existence and its interrelationships...

But what spiritual science will have to bring to this individual research... that is the overarching spirit of the matter...

Now, the very same Hyrtl made a remarkable statement, a statement that may be our guiding principle today and from which we can start today. It may sound strange to many today, and yet it was made by a brilliant anatomist and physician:

Only a physician can recognize illnesses, but anyone who knows what help is can heal them.

A seemingly rather strange saying; now, let us see how spiritual science can relate to this...

Above all, we must be clear about one thing, because of the brevity that must characterize today's lecture – its subject could take up 20 to 40 lectures without exhausting everything – with this brevity, it is necessary that what is said is understood in such a way that one recognizes the attitude from which it is said. This attitude is basically the same as that on which all spiritual science is based; it can be briefly characterized by saying that spiritual science does not have the vocation of proving one or the other party line right, it has to stand on a higher vantage point and, precisely because it looks into the depths of existence, of life, has to gain a point of view that can have a unifying effect... Those who look around at life know that the shades of opinion that fight each other on the... are not usually so that one can say that one is absolutely right and the other wrong...

As a rule, one must say: Those who fight with slogans, who carry a flag, have gained their views and opinions in very specific areas of life; these areas of life have, so to speak, had a suggestive effect on them, and they actually only say what can be naturally gained as a one-sided view of life from their area of life...

But theosophy is not supposed to agitate for this or that direction, not even in the area that interests us today, in the area of illness and health and healing... Perhaps the humanities scholar in particular might feel tempted to advocate for one or the other... because in how many party divisions do we see today the very area in which the human heart would perhaps most like to sense unity.

Theosophy has the task of saying what is, how things are in life... and then the theosophist has the confidence that man, when he knows through his knowledge what is, will then come to realize through himself what he should. The point of view has not yet become theosophical, which appears and says: I also want to persuade that this or that should be done, and not...

Theosophy or spiritual science should never have anything to do with “should” or demands. It should objectively tell what is and have confidence in the human being that if he knows what is, he will find the guiding principle for his “should” in his own soul...

Now, who could deny that the most diverse, the most varied, the seemingly most opposing party lines confront us precisely in the area of health issues... and with what conviction and sharpness is fought for one's own conviction and with what bitterness is the other conviction fought against! And it should also be mentioned at the outset that Theosophy in particular never wants to do anything against the sciences, against the true scientific work. To put it bluntly: spiritual science or Theosophy must not go along with dilettantism in this field; it would prefer to work in harmony with those who at least have the opportunity to be experts in this field...

Of course, it is impossible to list all the shades of parties in this field here, but even if that is not possible, at least some of them should be roughly characterized. First of all, there is the allopathic healing method, the one that is so heavily opposed by so-called natural healing and what is called homeopathy... Much more could be said, but we have to draw in broad strokes... Not so much should be said for the time being about what the concepts of spiritual science could achieve, but rather what is said, so to speak, in a popular or scientific way as a characteristic of the individual shades of the parties. There we hear that the medical healing method is based on the fact that there are illnesses, damage to health, and that there are specific remedies from certain realms of nature that counteract certain damage that we call illnesses in a certain way . For each disease, this or that remedy is indicated, and science works in a careful and conscientious manner to find the specific remedies for this or that form of disease through experience in the sensory realm...

Naturally, we cannot go into detail here; as I said, we should only point out the characteristic features. But now we hear from many others, who take the same so-called natural healing approach, that everything the so-called allopathic healing approach says is fundamentally based on error... Because it takes too little account of the deeper causes of the disease; it looks at the way the disease manifests itself, but one must go deeper, assume that the causes lie deeper, that where a form of disease occurs, there are deeper disturbances in the organism that can only be remedied by intervening in this organism in the way that nature itself would intervene if it were to direct and guide the organism in a completely normal way.

We hear that, above all, it is not so much a matter of combating the individual diseases, but of investigating those activities in the organism, those functions that have been undermined and as a result of which the disease occurs, and which in turn are to be put back on the right track through appropriate measures, and now various healing methods are indicated, various physical and other remedies...

Above all, the specific remedy is opposed here, which, as experience has shown, is there to combat this or that disease. With bitterness, one side fights against the other.

Now, regardless of how one or the other or I myself think about it, let us briefly characterize how, for example, the homeopathic healing method thinks in turn in its main features; it says: In what we initially encounter in the disease, we do not have what appears to be the primary damage, what appears to be the primary unhealthiness, but we have before us in the phenomena that present themselves to us a kind of force that is called upon in the organism to fight the actual damage that lies deeper. Thus, in what presents itself to us as the symptom of the disease, we have something that the organism brings into the field in order to bring out the actual, deeper damage. We must therefore pay attention to what causes the very symptoms that appear in the disease. We must investigate which remedy we can find in the natural kingdom that causes exactly the same symptoms in a healthy person as we see in the sick person. We then support what nature has initiated...

What appears to us as illness has been initiated by nature, and we should help it by applying the means that cause the same symptoms in a healthy person, in order to support the fight against the actual damage.

One would like to say that with all these party shades, as far as the theories are concerned, on what is given as a logical basis, one would like to say that one can go along a long, long way everywhere and one soon recognizes , after a little insight into the matter, how little the objections of the respective opponents actually apply. And we can actually say that in all these fields, the supporters put forward weighty arguments in favor of their convictions. Or is it not true when today scientific medicine points out, by means of easily compiled statistics, the great successes, especially in external health care, and the improvement in the health situation in cities under the influence of precisely this medical healing method... and how then it is pointed out how much good has been done in this very respect by the research of many a specific remedy in recent decades... Great successes can be pointed out; those who would compare the health conditions in cities about a century ago with today's would be unjust if they did not recognize what medical science has achieved here. On the other hand, however, we hear, and we certainly have to admit it, that even if these conditions have improved, on the other hand it cannot be denied that certain types of disease, heart disease, nervous disorders and the like are increasing at an alarming rate... and that must also be admitted...

And should not the layman sometimes use this or that word, saying that, even if it is correct in a certain respect, that many conditions have improved, many worrying social consequences are emerging...

One need only think, for example, of the fact that in the case of a disease that was only discovered in the last few decades, namely tetanus, attention is drawn to a germ that is rightly said to be carried by people who remain healthy and others then become ill from it...

... Where would it end...

It is, for example, quite possible and a fact that entire schools have been infected with this or that communicable disease and it has been found that teachers who remained healthy were the carriers of the germs; they themselves were not infected by it. What tyranny would result if one were to build dogmatic legislation on such cases?

... How does that grow, what one could call the fear of illness, the fear of the mysterious sources of illness, through a way of thinking that can be very easily based on such attempts that cannot be doubted at all...

You really have to be a party man if you want to fight this or that with certain buzzwords...

Some of the watchwords of natural healing, for example, are as if all specific remedies had to be eradicated, as if one could only go back to the basics of the disease through physical or other methods, and support the functions... one hears the same watchword over and over again: poison; all specific remedies are poisons, but a poison could never be anything useful under any circumstances. And you can see how the word “poison” can have an enormous suggestive effect on entire gatherings. You only have to let these suggestions work and thereby create convictions that are extraordinarily effective. But anyone who knows what poison really is knows that those who use such buzzwords are the ones who are least accountable for what poison is. What is poison? The phenomena, the facts of nature, especially those in human life, are so tremendously complicated that answering this question is not so easy. What is poison in nature?

Belladonna, for example, is a poison for humans; the rabbit can eat it quite well.

Hemlock... Socrates had to drink from the hemlock cup to carry out his death sentence, but for the goat, hemlock is not a poison at all.

Hydrogen sulfide is certainly very toxic to the organism in certain respects; but there are small organisms, so-called sulfur bacteria, a type of split algae, that live almost exclusively on this substance: they build their organism in a very strange way from the sulfur... and if you deprive them of the hydrogen sulfide, they die. This fact provides an example of how the material can be incorporated into the phenomena of life...

So the keyword “poison” should not be the only one that tells us what we are actually fighting...

We will only make progress if we try to approach the whole consideration more and more from the perspective of spiritual science...

What is the actual difference between medical healing methods and naturopathy... in principle? We see a big difference that the spiritual scientist can characterize quite accurately from his point of view without taking sides for one or the other direction...

For those who know the facts, it is simply nonsense to say that there are no specific remedies for this or that disease. But what is healing with such remedies based on?

The fact that there is damage in the disease and the remedy combats this damage, that this can happen, is not disputed. To dispute the positive, that which is gained from experience, is narrow-minded and would not be spiritual science. But what are we dealing with in the human being when we heal by combating some kind of health disorder with external means? We are dealing with the physical human body, the external aspect of human nature. Since the human being has this physical human body, there is no doubt that it can also be treated with such an external remedy.

Natural healing has a certain idea that there is something mysterious and supernatural behind the physical human body, that what makes up the physical body is governed by the etheric or life body... The doctor does not need to believe it, but he does take the view that there is something that lives and moves behind the physical apparatus. The naturopath has an inkling of this etheric or life body and tries, so to speak, not to give so much to what can only be externally determined by physical means, but goes back to what lies behind the physical, what can be determined. This is very important, but the pressure of the materialistic way of thinking is far too strong for him to be able to move towards real spiritual knowledge of human nature. It would be horrifying if anyone who claimed to be a scientist were to speak of the visible having its basis in the invisible, the sensual in the supersensible.

Therefore, one can at most suspect that there is such a thing, but one cannot speak of it as a reality. If one speaks of it and has gained conviction from spiritual science, if one has recognized the inner reasons that lead to this supersensible link of human nature, then one cannot stop there, then one also proceeds to other links of human nature... then one enters with purest spiritual science into the secrets of the invisible, but which is nevertheless very real and real for that reason.

Then you go further and learn that in this physical human body there is not only an ether or life body that distinguishes humans from everything that surrounds us as seemingly inanimate... This ether or life body is a constant fighter against the physical body following its physical substances and chemical forces during life. Because when this life body withdraws from the physical body, then the physical body of the person follows the physical substances and forces, but then it is a corpse. During life, however, the etheric or life body is a constant fighter against the decay of the physical body...

Thus, in the etheric body, we have the creator, the builder of the physical body of man or any living being, who stands behind this physical body.

Then we proceed to what we call the astral body. This is the carrier of lust and suffering, joy and pain, of all the surging feelings and ideas, of everything that is instinct, desire and passion, that is, the instincts. But beyond that, we then also come to a fourth link, the carrier of the actual self-awareness, the carrier of the ego.

These four members make up the whole human being, and if we want to consider the whole human being, we must consider that the higher, the supersensible members are the actual creators of the lower, the more sensual members. Everything that happens in the lower members arises from what happens in the upper members...

Therefore, one should not only proceed to the idea of an etheric or life body, but one must consider that deeper causes, much deeper causes must lie precisely in the astral body and in the soul-spiritual of the human being, if one wants to come to an understanding of illness and health. Here the causes of the illnesses are not so easy to find. This vehicle of pleasure and suffering, instinct, desire and passions, expresses that which is within it in the etheric body and in the physical body. If something unhealthy lives in the astral body, consisting of wrong passions, drives and instincts, then this must have an effect on the etheric body and the physical body:

But, someone might say, let us look at a person; what contradictions can prevail between their healthy perceptions and healthy urges and the illnesses they nevertheless have! In this case, we must fully embrace spiritual science and be clear that what we call the innermost essence of man, the actual individuality of man, is something that is only just enveloped by the physical shell, and that it takes completely different paths in its development than this physical shell. When we look at the core of a person, we say: this person consists of two currents...

The person who comes to us in life, let us look at him. He is first a result of heredity, a result of what comes from father, mother and the ancestors before them...

But in all that continues through the generations, in all that lives something completely different, something that now has to do with the astral body and I. And when we meet a person, we see not only what we have inherited from previous generations, but also what has descended from the spiritual world as the spiritual core of our being. We look at what is called re-embodiment or reincarnation, at the innermost core of our being, which carries over from life to life. This unites with what lies in the line of inheritance, permeating and energizing what is inherited from father and mother. And even if we do not see today how the instincts and drives of individuality affect the physical body in a way that makes us ill or healthy, we would see this if we looked at what the person has been in his or her previous life.

If we recognize this, we can learn to see the passions and instincts and desires in the present life that originate from what we brought with us from these previous lives and that act as causes of illness in this present life, even if they were not acquired in this life.

And this is where the knowledge of the essence of the human being begins, as a proper basis for assessing the healing method.

Can we somehow see how the astral body indicates what it has to say in relation to what makes the physical body healthy or sick?

For example, someone has to raise a child... according to the child's nature, this or that is good, one has the stereotyped view. Instead of strict individualization, also with regard to health, one has the opinion: there are many illnesses, but only one health. But in truth, there are as many healths as there are people. Every person has their own health, their own conditions of being healthy. But with stereotyped concepts, you can ruin everything possible with the child. For example, the child does not want to eat this or that food. This is, of course, naughtiness, one thinks. But it would be much more correct to say: This is proof that sympathy and antipathy is nothing more than the astral body feeling: I must have this if I am to work in the right way on my physical body, and what the child rejects, it cannot use.

What the child's palate rejects or craves expresses what is healthy for it. It is therefore right to observe carefully what the child demands, what it is keen on. When does the astral body perceive something as pleasure, especially in childhood? When what it enjoys has in itself, as it were, the potential to be incorporated into the organism in a beneficial way. Only when something is already corrupted in the order of healthy human nature, then enjoyment is no longer a true guide... That what is healthy for him, he also likes, and what makes him sick, he does not like, that is the only measure of health, that there is an appropriate sense for everything we take into our organism. So it is a matter of making the consciousness of what is good for us as alive as possible within us, of making our astral body, the carrier of pleasure and desire, lively for what is healthy for our organism...

There are now means to achieve a great deal in this regard... Human nature differs from person to person because a different individuality permeates and energizes the exterior.

A case that occurred: there was a person who, from early childhood, had a terrible aversion to all meat; he could not smell meat, so to speak. He could not smell it, so he did not eat it. At first he was in a tolerant environment. But there were aunts and uncles who thought that not eating meat was completely perverse... And so the good man allowed himself to be persuaded to at least start with a little broth, then move on to veal and so on... But he also came to mutton... and he soon ended up with

severe encephalitis because it was absolutely impossible for this person's body to do what was necessary to digest meat using the powers within it. He was so constituted that he knew very well what was healthy for him from an early age...

But if the same food, which was the only right food for this person, were given to another, the latter could suffer the greatest harm from it...

All people must be considered as individuals. And there are countless people who, if they want to continue living as they are living, can no longer possibly become vegetarians without further ado.

It has been said that human nature is not capable of doing the work necessary to convert what we take in from plants into what the human organism needs. With plant-based nutrition, a kind of work must be done internally by the human being that he is unable to muster. The work that has to be done there is partly taken off his hands by the fact that he takes his nourishment from the animal kingdom, where some of this work has already been done and he now has less work to do. However, this does not apply to everyone, only to many people. For many, it would be unhealthy if they could not apply the strong forces of digestion and processing that are necessary to digest plant food...

To understand this, one has to embrace the radical difference between the plant and human kingdoms... the animal kingdom lies in the middle.

It is a contrast between humans and plants... we can characterize this contrast first by saying that something that is purely present in physical nature...

A human being breathes, he inhales the oxygen in the air and exhales carbon dioxide. The plant absorbs the carbon dioxide, breaks down the compound, takes the carbon it contains and uses it to build its organism out of inanimate, purely physical carbon and releases the oxygen again. This is the interaction between humans and plants. This expresses a spiritual interaction in an external parable. Behind the plant stands its spiritual, behind the human being his spiritual. You know that a plant cannot flourish when it is deprived of light. Look at it, how it withers away. That which the plant builds up from inanimate substances, it builds up under the influence of light... Light! How much we owe to it... we take from it as much as we need...

But we must not only see, also in the light, not only pay attention to the physical. In that which is physical in the light, there is also a spiritual element. Behind physical light there is also a spiritual element. This spiritual element, which flows towards us from the sun to the earth in the rays of light, is the same as that which lives in our astral body, that inner light that works and creates in us — in the spiritual light, the spiritual aura. They are nothing other than the spirit of the physical body, the invisible light that works in us as the astral body. And that is what is at work in us! Outside, the physical light of the sun is at work on the plants. And that is the peculiar relationship between the physical light outside, which works on the plants, causing them to grow and flourish... and the spiritual light that is in us as our astral body. That is the relationship, that they are opposed to each other...

That which builds up the plants is removed, decomposed, destroyed by the process that the spiritual light ignites in us. And our life in the physical body as a spiritual being could not exist if we did not, so to speak, set up processes of destruction in everything we take in. We remove what the plants have built up. We continue in the opposite way to what the plants have begun... Thus we are spiritually opposed to the plant. And what is given to us as food from the plant kingdom, that we in truth destroy...

Our thinking is in its physical expression a process of destruction. What we take in must be worn away again, must be shattered again. This is how we maintain an inner life...

What is given to us from the plant kingdom as food is given to us in a virgin state. What is given to us from the animal kingdom is not given to us in such a virgin state... Because the animal stands in between the plant and the human, the animal fulfills that which the human has to fulfill to a certain extent... ... already accomplishes to a certain extent what man would otherwise have to accomplish within himself... and man can only begin his own activity where that which he has received is located. He only gets what the animal has already made out of it...

Let us look at man; he is truly a microcosm, a summary of everything that is going on outside...

His nutritional process is what the expansive plant kingdom elevates and transforms so that this human body can become an instrument of consciousness. In this respect, it is a totality. For the spiritual scientist, the animal is nothing more than a one-sided development of human characteristics. Each animal, each animal species represents certain characteristics for the spiritual scientist, developed in a particular way...

All these characteristics, combined in harmony – the one diminished by the other, the one balanced by the other – give us the human being...

The animal performs the natural process to a certain one-sidedness... We acquire this one-sidedness when we take the no longer virgin food from the animal kingdom...

Now let's assume that we are really organized in such a way that we can muster the necessary strength to process plant food. We have this strong reservoir of strength within us, which is only used when we take plant food. What happens if we don't do it, if we don't carry out this transformation from the vegetable to the human level? Then the unused forces seek other outlets in our organism.

The French abbé I told you about had precisely such forces within him. They are there and they have to work, and if they cannot find a healthy outlet, they will eventually throw themselves at another field of activity. The abbé then died from the effects of the large forces that arose in this improper way.

Let us take, on the other hand, a different person, such as a bank manager, who knows nothing but his profession. If we were to expect him to eat a vegetarian diet, he would not be able to do so. He will not be able to sustain it. He cannot process the plant substances to the point where they can serve him for the functioning of his organism; he must let some of the work be done for him.

We can therefore also see an important difference and contrast between the way plant food and animal food affect people. What does a person who wants to digest plant food have to develop in themselves? What do they do when they eat plant food? They have to muster certain forces that work from below, from the plant. These are forces that are more at the center of his being than those he needs to process animal food. These are forces within him that no one can do for him. By accomplishing this internally, he also has an inner source of independence and strength. His inner life becomes more active and intense as a result. What he consumes from the plant kingdom does indeed make his inner life more active. However, this requires a more comprehensive spiritual life, one that is directed towards contemplation, towards an understanding of the great interrelationships of life... If a person then takes his nourishment from the animal kingdom, then this is only right if he does not have these independent powers. For the nourishment that a person takes from the animal kingdom, he will use inner powers that make him less independent, since he has some of the work done for him...

In spiritual terms, what comes from the animal kingdom stimulates what makes man strong and vigorous without his intervention.

For those who cannot draw strength and energy for life from within themselves, a plant-based diet will be of no use; they will only be weakened by it. They need to have their strength and powers given to them, so to speak, prepared by animal food.

From such contexts, we can easily understand how it comes about that peoples who live on a plant-based diet lead a life more devoted to contemplation... while those who eat animal products show more warlike qualities.

Thus, what must be considered a health issue and a nutritional issue at the same time is definitely linked to the individuality of the person, to what the person can muster internally. And we see in the person whether the person does not partly acquire strong powers of independence in his inner being through a plant-based diet...

Through plant nutrition, we see him acquiring all the forces he needs to become, so to speak, a comprehensive human being, to become a human being who can see the big picture of life. Through what he acquires from animal nutrition, we see him being led to the specialties...

Thus we see from the interaction... through what... the great questions of existence for all details of life are regulated... There we see, so to speak, man's inner nature expressing itself in such a way that there are strong forces within him... or that he must have these strong forces given to him... We see, so to speak, the astral body at work in him... and how this work must be if the balance in the human organism is to be restored...

And once we have understood this, we will no longer doubt that much, much depends on how we are able to act on the astral body... but not only on this, but also how we can act physically on the physical body and ethereally on the ethereal body...

A materialistic view will only want to have an effect on the physical... Let us take the case of a sick person. The materialistically thinking person will look at these symptoms of illness and he will count on this: in this or that area, there is this or that air, there are these or those conditions, which, like one physical on another physical, affect the sick organism...

Those who are grounded in spiritual science will know that in many cases this is a very erroneous conclusion. They will know that it must work more radically and thoroughly if the human being is placed where his inner experiences can be stimulated in the appropriate way, where he can be truly happy, can become truly harmonious within himself. In particular, with certain forms of illness, namely nervous disorders, it will be most important that we work directly on the astral body and through that which can stimulate strong forces in the astral body...

Thus, if someone develops those strong forces within themselves that are developed through plant nutrition, it can be a good remedy for even severe damage to the organism. What works internally, when the inner forces that... must process the virgin plant food, can eliminate serious damage.

You can see from a person whether he also takes the trouble to convert the plant nutrients, in which there is little fat, into fat through his own inner powers, or whether he prefers to have it taken from him by enjoying animal fat... to develop those strong powers within him that make him independent... in other words, whether the person is not too lazy to contribute a little to his own fattening... this looks out of the eye whether it happens or not...

The one who does not overfeed himself with animal fat will also find within himself the possibility of developing the strong forces within him, and these are more and more inclined towards the spiritual...

And now there is a great, comprehensive law... that says: Everything that a person enjoys and looks at only as sensuality, that affects the withering, dying forces within him... and everything that he looks at as spiritual, that affects the invigorating, healing powers of a person... And vice versa, anyone who wants to help themselves in this direction can do so by eating enough plant-based food in addition to meat, and this can help in terms of awakening interest in the supernatural world...

Anyone who is willing to do something to prepare his own fat from low-fat plant foods will be able to become much more spiritual than someone who gets all his fat from animals...

A grotesque confirmation arises from the following incident. There is a so-called nudist culture in Berlin. Someone went there initially out of purely artistic interest, wanted to see what it was like and let the audience and what was presented there take effect on them. Then this person quickly ran away. It was a strange audience, almost all old men...

Where one actually assumes that the sensual has an effect on the sensual, there is an attraction to what is dying in life. And those who merely seek the sensual as sensual will be able to see that the dying parts of their being are particularly affected... whereas the spiritual interest... will particularly affect the germinating, growing parts of the human being.

Spiritual research begins to give people something that is certainly not as comfortable as just describing something... and also not as comfortable as listening to a lecture where images are projected onto a screen. You don't need to do much inwardly.

Spiritual science speaks of the supernatural, and that cannot be taken in as comfortably. It appeals to something in human nature, to which he must work, to which he must put the most active forces within him into cooperation... This spiritual science thus goes directly to the spiritual... to the paths of the soul... It is not there for the eyes... And no one claims that the concepts and ideas of spiritual science are real in the sense that they are tangible. In this sense, they are not supposed to be true. But what is hardly known today in wide circles, these so-called unreal ideas, what are they? These are precisely the healthy, the strong ideas, which, if they only work sufficiently in human nature, are at the same time the strong, the vigorous and effective ideas that make us healthy right into the etheric body.

When spiritual science guides us... it evokes ideas in us that have a healing effect from within in the most eminent sense... organic substance in such a way that it has already left its origins, so to speak, and cannot be repaired by itself again... The higher we ascend in the hierarchy of organisms...

Where internal forces are to be developed for recovery, the strongest force is that which flows out of the spirit of the human being, which is directed towards rejuvenation and growth, and the one who appeals to these forces also has a good foundation in the sense of health... the strong forces within are unleashed up to the higher realms of the health issue... Hardly a beginning has been made though...

We understand little more than a physical effect on the person... Here spiritual science is called upon to address the issue of health in such a way that remedies are found and are available that do not just work on the physical level but directly on the spiritual, that is, on the astral; and that work to restore physical health indirectly through the astral. Here indeed Theosophy has a great task. It will be able to solve it, because it can penetrate deeply into the life that surrounds us daily, into the life of the healthy and the sick person.

And here it is truly to be welcomed with great satisfaction that a good start has been made on the basis of the theosophical research, in that Dr. Peipers in Munich is applying a kind of color therapy that is thoroughly based on the theosophical view, on spiritual science... the secrets of color, its deeper spiritual foundations, have been divined.

Here one does not think of the physical effects... not the light works in these things, the color must first become an idea, must first shine and light up in the astral body... as a color idea, via the detour of the astral body, they work out into the periphery... Even if this can initially only be used for certain forms of illness, a start has been made...

And this theosophical current will, in these and many other things, by penetrating into the depths of things, still create many things of which today's materialistic mind has no dreams. Whatever one may say... the truth, the truth of the spiritual, will prevail. So... few points of view that are connected with this subject. It will have been shown to you how, on the one hand, spiritual science can never be one-sided...

Let us assume that someone has a migraine. What does he take? Migränin, for example. That is nothing! Or some other remedy is prescribed for him. But perhaps he does not have time to do everything that is prescribed for him... It is quite possible for a person to be so strong that he can bear it well if his physical organism is treated physically in certain areas.

But the problem can only be solved on an individual basis. Through a deeper knowledge of human nature, we will come to realize that there is a basis in spiritual science itself for evoking healthy urges and healthy instincts... that spiritual life is what...

Behind all matter lies spirit... and that which shows itself as content... in matter is only an expression of spiritual processes... The same applies to food: it should taste good, because the fact that it tastes good is an expression of the fact that it fits into the organism in a healthy and harmonious way.

In this way, spiritual science will enable you to stimulate feelings and instincts in a healthy way, and the result will be that those who study the spiritual wisdom will become healthy...

Just as the animals graze outside in the meadow and find the right thing in their instincts... so will spirituality and spiritual science, on a higher level, once again implant in man that which shows him, in full consciousness, what serves him, what is healthy for him... so that spiritual science itself is a great healing agent, a great healing agent... because it brings him the right knowledge for what is individually necessary for him in one case or another.

Recognizing illness in its relationship to the human being as a whole will help to bring about knowledge in this field too, and so Hyrtl, who... something very beautiful when he said from his experience:... Only the doctor can recognize illnesses... and he meant: The other is more difficult, he meant: You can't always help if you can recognize illnesses, only the one who knows what helps can heal... Only the one who is able to look deeply, very deeply into the foundations of human nature, can know what helps.

Answering questions [excerpts]

Question: [Not reported.]

Answer: It is important to distinguish between the irregularities that have arisen from external damage and against which he has at most the means to correct through the inner powers within the person, and between internal diseases... an external damage, a broken leg for example... But it is the same if, for example, any harm is done inside the stomach by unsuitable food.... just as little as with a broken leg can such external damage be treated from the astral body... It is nevertheless important that more is said about recovery from within the person than about forms of illness... more about the ways to recovery than about diseases.

Question: [Not handed down.]

Answer: [...] Feuerbach said: Man is what he eats. This is true if he uses the means to get higher by the nature of his food ... He should eat so that he is not what he eats.