Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, Switzerland, August 17, 1919:
The explanations
which I gave you yesterday on the path which the human intellect will take in
the future are based upon quite definite facts, which come to light through
spiritual-scientific knowledge. Let me indicate some of these facts today. You
should realize that when the human being stands before you, he is
that being described in Anthroposophy. That is to say, we first have before us
— you know this from my “THEOSOPHY” — a fourfold being: we have before us the ego, the
so-called astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body. The fact that
whenever we face a human being we always have before us these four members
implies that the ordinary way of looking at the world today does not really
enable us to know the true essence of the person who stands before us. We really
do not know it. We think that the person we see before us fills out space with
his physical body and that we see his physical body. Yet we could not see this
physical part as we generally see it with our ordinary power of vision if it
only stood before us as a physical body. We see the physical body with our
ordinary eyes, as it generally appears to us, only because it is permeated by
the etheric body, by the astral body, and by the ego. It may sound strange to you
if I tell you that our physical body is a corpse, even during the existence
between birth and death. When we see a human corpse, we really have before us
man's physical body. The corpse is the physical body which is not permeated by
the etheric body, by the astral body, and by the ego. It is abandoned by these
bodies and then reveals, as it were, its true being. You do not have a true
conception of yourself if you think that you are carrying through space what you
imagine to be your physical body. You would have a far better conception of
yourself if you were to think of yourself as a corpse, carried through space by
your ego, your astral body, and your etheric body.
At the present
time it is more and more important to gain consciousness of man's true nature.
Things were not always as they are now, at the present stage of human
development, and as they have been for some time past. What I am telling you now
cannot, of course, be ascertained with the aid of the ordinary science dealing
with the external physical world, for they are facts revealed by spiritual
science.
If we go back as
far as the 8th century B.C. — which is, as you know, the
beginning of the 4th post-Atlantean Epoch — we come, as you also know, to the
Egyptian-Chaldean epoch of the Earth's development. There, human bodies had a
different constitution from that of today. The human bodies of olden times, the
mummies which you can now see in museums, were not constituted, in their finer
essence, as human bodies are now constituted. They were filled to a far greater
extent with vegetative life, they were not so lifeless, not so corpse-like, as
the human bodies of today. These physical bodies were, so to speak, far more
similar to the plant nature, whereas the physical body of modern man — and this
is already the case from the Graeco-Latin epoch onward — has a greater
resemblance with the mineral world. If through some cosmic miracle we would now
be endowed with the bodies of the Egyptian-Chaldean peoples, we would all be
ill. They would bring us illness. We would bear, within our body, tissues which
tend toward an over-exuberant growth. Many an illness simply consists in the
fact that the human body in part goes back to conditions which were normal in
the Egyptian-Chaldean epoch. In the present time we find ulcerous growths in the
human body, which are simply due to the fact that in the one or in the other
person a piece of the body tends to become something resembling the whole body
among the Egyptian-Chaldean population.
What I told you
now essentially depends on the development of humanity. We modern people
therefore carry about with us a corpse. This was not the case with the Egyptian:
his knowledge was different from ours, his intelligence worked differently from
our intelligence.
Now consider
carefully the following question: What does the human being recognize with the
aid of that knowledge which he designates as modern science and in which he
takes so great a pride? Only lifeless things! Science constantly emphasizes that
the ordinary intelligence cannot grasp life. To be sure, some investigators
believe that if they continue experimenting, they will one day be able to
understand the alternating play of life through complicated combinations of
atoms, molecules, and their alternating forces. This will never arise. Along the
chemical-physical path, they will only be able to understand the mineral,
lifeless substance; that is to say, they will only be able to grasp that part of
living matter which is now a corpse.
But that part in
man which is intelligent and exercises cognizant forces is nevertheless the
physical body; that is, the corpse. What is really done by the corpse which we
carry about with us? It goes furthest of all along the path of
mathematical-geometrical knowledge. There, everything is transparent; but the
further away we go from the mathematical-geometrical sphere, the less
transparent things become. This is because the human corpse is, today, the true
instrument of cognition, and because a lifeless instrument can only be used to
recognize lifeless things. The etheric body, the astral body, and the ego in man
are not instruments of cognition, but they remain, as it were, standing in the
dark. If the etheric body were able to cognize in the same way in which the
physical body recognizes lifeless things, it would first of all recognize the
living essence of the vegetable world.
With their
living, plant-like body, the Egyptians perceived the plant world quite
differently from the way in which we perceive it now. Many an instinctive
knowledge concerning the plant world can be traced back to Egyptian insight, to
what became embodied with the Egyptian culture through an instinctive form of
cognition. Even certain botanical facts in the medical sphere are, in many
respects, based on the traditions of ancient Egyptian wisdom. Indeed, to the lay
judgment it may often appear amateurish to draw in Egyptian sources, when
certain truths are transmitted which do not seem to be of great value. You know
that many so-called lodges, which have not a right foundation, call themselves
“Egyptian Lodges.” This is only because in these circles there still exist
traditions of the wisdom which could be obtained through an Egyptian body.
We can say that
with the gradual transition from the Egyptian into the Graeco-Latin epoch, man's
living plant-like body died; already in ancient Greece this living, plant-like
body had more or less died, or was at least dying off slowly. Now we already
have a physical body which is dead to a high degree, and this lifeless condition
particularly applies to the human head. I already explained to you that an
initiated spiritual scientist can perceive the human head as something lifeless,
as something which is constantly dying. Humanity will grow more and more
conscious of the fact that it is the corpse which we use as an instrument of
cognition, and that this corpse can only grasp lifeless things.
The more we
advance into the future, the more intensive will be the longing to recognize
only that which is living. But the ordinary intelligence, which is bound up with
the lifeless body, cannot perceive what is alive. Many things will be needed in
order that man, who has lost the possibility to penetrate into the world in a
living way, may once more attain to this. We should bear in mind all that we have
lost.
When the human
being passed over from the Atlantean to the post-Atlantean age, he was as yet
unable to do many of the things which he does now. You see, each one of you,
from a certain time of your childhood upward, can say “I” when referring to
yourself. You pronounce this word “I” very carelessly. But in the course of
human development this word was not always uttered so carelessly. There were
older times in the evolution of humanity — though even in ancient Egypt these
olden times had to a great extent already waned — there were older times in
which the ego was designated by a name, and if this name was uttered, it dazed
people. One therefore avoided pronouncing it. If the name applicable to the ego,
which was only known to the initiates, had been pronounced in the presence of
people in the times immediately following the Atlantean catastrophe, the sound
of this name would have dazed the whole congregation; all the people would have
fallen to the ground, so strong would have been the effect of the name
applicable to the ego.
An echo of this
may still be found among the ancient Hebrews, where one spoke of the unutterable
name of God in the soul, a name which could only be pronounced by the initiates,
or shown to the congregation in eurythmic gestures. The origin of God's
unutterable name may therefore be seen in the facts explained to you just
now.
But little by
little this name was lost. And with it was lost the deep effect which radiates
from such things.
During the first
post-Atlantean epoch we have a deep influence proceeding from the ego; during
the second post-Atlantean epoch, a deep influence proceeding form the astral
body; during the third post-Atlantean epoch, a deep influence going out from the
etheric body, but one which people could bear, for, as I explained to you
yesterday, it brought them in connection with the universe, made them feel their
relationship with the universe. In the present time, we may pronounce the word
“I,” we may pronounce all manner of things, but they do not make any effect upon
us, because we now grasp the world through our lifeless body. That is to say, we
only take hold of the lifeless, mineral essence of the world. But we must again
ascend and return to the regions enabling us to grasp life. Whereas from the
Graeco-Latin epoch, beginning in the 8th century B.C., up
to the middle of the 15th century A.D., the greatest value
was attributed to an ever larger acquisition of knowledge through the lifeless
body; our intelligence now follows the path described to you yesterday. But we
must resist mere intelligence. We must add something to our intelligence.
A characteristic
which we should bear in mind is that we must now retrace the path in a right
way; in the present time, in the 5th post-Atlantean epoch, we must in a certain
way learn to know the vegetable world; during the 6th epoch we must learn to
know the animal kingdom, and only during the 7th epoch the real kingdom of man.
Thus it is one of the tasks of humanity to transcend the mere knowledge of the
mineral world and ascend to the knowledge of the vegetable world.
Now that you are
able to understand this upon a deeper foundation, consider who is the person
whose chief characteristic is this search for a knowledge of the plant world.
This man is Goethe. By approaching life from the basis of lifeless things and by
reaching, in opposition to the science of his days, the law of metamorphosis,
the living process of plants, Goethe appears to us as the representative of the
5th post-Atlantean age, in its first beginnings. Read Goethe's small pamphlet,
written in 1790, entitled: “An ATTEMPT to explain the metamorphosis of plants,”
and you will find in it that Goethe incessantly tried to grasp the plant in its
process of growth, not as something dead and finished, but as something in a
constant process of growth, passing from leaf to leaf. Here you may find the
beginning of the knowledge which should be sought in the 5th post-Atlantean
age.
Goetheanism
therefore strikes the fundamental note for what we should seek during the 5th
post-Atlantean epoch. Science should, as it were, wake up to the meaning of
Goethe and proceed from the study of lifeless things to that of living things.
This is what I mean when I continually emphasize that we should acquire the
capacity to abandon dead, abstract concepts and to penetrate into living,
concrete concepts. The explanations which I gave you yesterday and the day
before yesterday really constitute the path leading into these living, concrete
regions of thought.
But it will not
be possible to penetrate into such thoughts and concepts unless we take the
trouble to unite the elements which form our world conception and our views on
life. Through the special configuration of modern civilization, the different
currents of our world conception are allowed, as it were, to run inorganically
side by side. Consider how inorganic and disunited are in many cases a person's
religious and natural-scientific views! Many people have both religious and
scientific concepts, yet they do not throw a bridge from the one to the other.
Indeed, they have a certain reluctance, a certain fear in doing this. Yet we
should clearly realize that things cannot remain as they are.
During my
present visit I pointed out to you how selfishly modern people develop their
world conception. I drew attention to the fact that today people are chiefly
interested in the soul's life after death. Out of pure egoism they take an
interest in the life of the soul after death. I have also told you that it is
now necessary to take an interest in the life of the soul from birth onwards
insofar as this life is a continuation of the life before birth or conception.
Our world conception would become far less selfish than it is today if we were
to observe a child's development, the way in which it grows, as a continuation of
its pre-natal, soul-spiritual existence, with the same longing and the same
interest with which we think of the life after death.
This egoistic
character of our modern world conception depends on many other things besides.
Now I come to a point which clearly shows that modern people must become more
and more conscious of the real facts lying at the foundation of these things.
During the epoch leading up to the present time, the egoistic element chiefly
developed in man; the ego has permeated our world conception and the ego has
also permeated the human will. Let us not fall a prey to any illusion in regard
to this.
Most egoistic of
all have become religions, religious creeds. Even superficial facts can show you
that religious beliefs have become egoistic. Consider how much a modern priest
must reckon with people's egoism. The more he takes into account human egoism — the more promises he makes for the soul's life after death — the more easily he
reaches his aims. Among modern people we do not really find much interest for
any other thing, for they do not care much for that weaving spiritual life of
the soul which manifests itself so wonderfully after birth; i.e., after
conception.
One result of
this egoistic interest in the life after death is the way in which modern people
think about God in the different religions. To think of God as the highest
being does not imply anything special. In this connection it is necessary to
eliminate every delusion. What do most people imply when they speak of “God”? I
have already mentioned this before. What kind of being do they mean, when they
speak of God? It is an Angel, an Angelos — their own Angel, whom they call God!
It is nothing else, my dear friends! People still have some inkling of the fact
that a guiding spirit accompanies them in life; to this guiding spirit they look
up, and it is this Angel-being whom they call God. Though they do not speak of
it as an Angel, though they name it “God,” they nevertheless only mean their
Angel. The selfish note of religious faiths is that their idea of God does not
go beyond the Angel. As a consequence, human interests have grown narrower, a
trait which may be clearly seen today in public life.
What are the
questions which people ask today? Do they inquire after the general destinies of
humanity? Oh, in a certain sense it is very painful today to speak to people of
general human destinies! People also have no idea how many changes have taken
place in this connection, even in a comparatively short space of time. You see,
today we may tell people that the war which has been waged on Earth during the
past four or five years will be followed by the mightiest spiritual battle ever
waged, a battle which will spread over the whole world, which never existed
before in this form, a battle which is a consequence of the fact that the
Occident designates as a maya or as an ideology what the Orient designates as
reality, and that the Orient designates the ideology of the Occident as a
reality. Today we may draw attention to this important, weighty fact, yet people
do not even realize that if this same thing had been said only a hundred years
ago, it would have stirred the souls so much that they would have had no
peace!
The most
striking fact of all is this change in humanity, this indifference in regard to
the great destinies of human existence. Today nothing penetrates into the human
souls, but rebounds, as it were. The most encompassing, the most important and
intensive facts are now taken as sensational facts. They do not shake the human
souls enough. This is only dependent on the fact that the constantly increasing,
intelligent egoism restricts human interests.
People may now
have democracies or parliaments — they may come together in parliaments, but the
destinies of humanity do not breathe through these parliaments, for the men who
are elected into parliament are not filled with the breath of mankind's
destinies. They are filled with the breath of egoistic interests. Each person
has his own egoistic interest. External schematic similarities in these
interests, often due to a common profession, induce people to form groups. And
if these groups are sufficiently large, they become majorities. In that case it
is not human destinies which pass through parliament, or through these
representative groups of people, but only human egoism, multiplied by so and so
many persons.
Even religious
faiths have been transferred to the sphere of egoism, because the human souls
are only filled by interests which appeal to their egoism. Religious faiths will
pass through the renewal which they need when human interests have grown wider,
when they have acquired a form which transcends the purely personal destiny and
ascends to the destiny of mankind as such, when people will once more be
stirred, deeply stirred, on hearing that in the West there is a civilization
which differs from that of the East, and that in the Center there is a
civilization differing from that of the two poles of East and West; a religious
renewal will come when human souls will be stirred to hear that in the West the
great goals of humanity are sought (if they are sought at all!) by turning to
mediumistic people, who in a trance condition are, as it were, consciously
brought into a sub-earthly connection with the spiritual worlds so that they
reveal, mediumistically, something about the great historical aims.
In Europe, one
could so frequently explain, though people will not believe it, that there
really exist societies in Anglo-American countries where people with mediumistic
faculties are brought into a kind of trance, in order to discover from them, by
cleverly formulated questions, something about the great destiny-goals of
humanity.
People also do
not believe that the Orientals, too, obtain information concerning the great
destiny aims of humanity, not mediumistically, but mystically. This is almost
palpably evident today, for one can everywhere buy Rabindranath Tagore's
beautiful speeches, revealing on a large scale how an Oriental thinks about the
goals of humanity. People read his poems as if they were the feuilletons of
some cheap writer, for today they do not distinguish cheap writers from men
endowed with great spirituality such as Rabindranath Tagore. They do not realize
that today the most varied racial substances live, as it were, side by side. I
already explained to you, in many lectures, the standpoints which should be
applied to Central Europe, but these explanations were not taken as they should
have been taken.
With these
words, my dear friends, I only wish to prove that it is possible to grow
conscious of something which transcends egoistic human destinies, something
which is connected with the destiny of whole groups of man, so that
differentiations can be made throughout the world. If we raise our soul's eye
with understanding to these destinies of mankind in the whole world, if we take
a deep interest in this element transcending the personal destinies, we attune
our soul for the comprehension of something higher and more real than the Angel:
namely, the Archangel. Thoughts revealing the true nature of the Archangel
cannot come to us if we only move in spheres pertaining to purely egoistic,
personal human interests. If preachers only move in the regions of human egoism,
their sermons may be full of words dealing with the Divine, yet they will only
preach of the Angel. The fact that they give it another name constitutes an
untruth, and does not change it. Only if we begin to take an interest in human
destiny extending over wide spaces do we attune our soul for the comprehension
of the Archangel.
Let us now pass
over to something else. Let us try to develop a feeling of the successive
impulses in the evolution of humanity, indicated in recent lectures. Consider
the fact that a great number of our leading men are given a classical education
during the years in which the human soul can still be shaped and molded; they
are taught in schools which are not the product of modern civilization, but of a
past culture, of the Graeco-Latin epoch. You see, if the Greeks and Romans had
done the same thing which we are doing now, they would have established
Egyptian-Chaldean schools. But they avoided this. They took their subject of
instruction from life itself. We take it from the preceding epoch and train the
human beings accordingly. This has a great significance in human life, but we
have not recognized it. Had we recognized the importance of this fact, the
feminist movement would have struck a different note, voicing the following
truth; Men who are to learn how to use their intellectual powers are now being
trained in antiquated schools. This hardens their brain. Women fortunately were
not admitted to these schools (the “gymnasiums” of the Continent). Let us
therefore develop our intellectual powers more originally; let us show how they
can unfold in the present time, if they are not dulled in youthful years by a
Graeco-Latin schooling.
But the feminist
movement did not strike this note. On the contrary, it often advanced the
following claim: Men have crept under the Graeco-Latin schooling, let us women
also creep into it. Let us also have a gymnasium training.
You can
therefore see, my dear friends, how the understanding of the things which were
really needed did not exist. We should know that in the present time we are not
being educated in keeping with modern requirements, but in accordance with
standards pertaining to the Graeco-Latin culture. Consequently this Graeco-Latin
culture fills modern life. We should be aware of this. We should feel the
Graeco-Latin ingredients of culture in the leading personalities of our days, in
the so-called intelligentsia, among the intellectuals; this is one stratum which
exists in the present time. Our whole spiritual culture is permeated by it. We
do not read any newspaper which does not contain traces of Graeco-Latin culture,
for we write in a Graeco-Latin style, even though we write in our own
language.
As already
explained to you, our juridical views are steeped in Roman thought — which is
again something obsolete and antiquated. Roman life fills modern law. Sometimes
the old native law comes into conflict with Roman law, but it cannot assert
itself. This, too, should be felt: that what we call justice or injustice in
public life is steeped in the impulses of a past epoch.
In the economic
sphere alone we really live in the present. It is a significant fact that we
only live in the present in the economic sphere. Some things will therefore have
to be modified. Let me say in parenthesis that many women collect modern
concepts only in regard to cooking; i.e., in domestic economy, so that there
they are truly modern; but everything else is antiquated; it is something which
we graft into the present. I do not say that this is a specially desirable thing
— in any case, the other thing is not at all desirable: namely, that in the
present time even the souls of women turn back to antiquated cultures.
When we survey
our cultural environment, we do not find in it only that which is active in
space, but also the impulses which come from very remote times. And if we
acquire a feeling for such things, we discover not only the influence of the
past, but also that of the future. In fact, it is our task to introduce into the
present these impulses of the future. For, my dear friends, if a kind of rebel
against the past would not live in each one of us, opposing the Greek character
of our culture and the Roman character of modern legislation, if the future were
not to shed its light into these spheres, our fate would be a sorry one.
In regard to
modern culture, we should therefore consider, in addition to space, also time:
that which penetrates into the present, into the history of our times, from a
remote past and from the future. As modern people we should realize that in the
same way in which America, England, Asia, China, and India exist in the present
time, so the past and the present exist in the human soul and send their
influences into it, insofar as we are Europeans, for past and present represent
the two poles of East and West. We thus have within us ancient Greece and
ancient Rome and the future. And if we take the trouble to envisage this fact,
if we realize that past and future, or things to come, live in our soul, we are
filled by a new feeling, which can transcend egoism in human destiny; it is a
feeling which differs from that of a mere spatial contemplation of life.
Only if we
develop this mood in our soul will we acquire the possibility to develop
thoughts concerning the sphere of the Spirits of Time, or the Archai. That is to
say, we come to the third Divine element in the hierarchic order. It is good to
envisage these three Hierarchies in thoughts and concepts, with the aid of the
means just explained. For the Spirits of Form, which come after the Archai, are
far more difficult to understand. But for modern people it suffices to make the
attempt to transcend egoism and to penetrate into the unegoistic sphere; they
should repeat this attempt again and again and occupy their minds with the
things just characterized!
This should
particularly be the case with teachers. Let me emphasize this. What I explained
to you just now should be borne in mind particularly in the training of
teachers. Teachers should not have the right to educate and train children
unless they acquire a concept of that egoism which only reaches up to the
nearest Divinity; i.e., the Angel, and unless they acquire a concept of the
unegoistic powers which determine destiny and which exist spatially side by side
here on Earth; i.e., the Archangels. And they should also acquire a concept of
the influences of past and future in modern culture — the Roman character of
law, the Greek spiritual substance — and of the undefined rebel of the future in
man, who can rescue him.
At the present
time, however, people are not much inclined to penetrate into such things. A
short time ago I emphasized again and again in my lectures that one of the
social tasks of the present time is to extract our educational substance for the
years which young people now pass in schools, from the present, to do the same
thing which the ancient Greeks also did: to extract our educational substance
from the present.
At the same
place where I repeatedly spoke of this matter as one of the most important
social problems, there appeared a short time after my lectures — I do not wish
to construct a causal connection; this is indifferent, but it is symptomatic! —
a large number of advertisements in all the local newspapers making propaganda
for the local “gymnasium.” I gave lectures in which I characterized, as I have
now done, the classical gymnasium education and at the same time advertisements
appeared in praise of a gymnasium education, stating all that the youth of
Germany owes to its gymnasiums for the “strengthening of national consciousness,”
of “national strength”, etc., etc. And this, a few weeks before the Peace of
Versailles! These advertisements were signed by the local school celebrities,
etc. What one has to say today from a truly objective foundation of human
evolution always rebounds, flies back again. People reject it — it does not
touch the depths of their souls.
This explains
the difficulty of acting in regard to the social question. For the superficial
attitude with which people approach the social question will never be of any
use. The social question is a deeply significant one; it is a problem which
cannot be solved unless one is willing to look into the depths of man's being
and of the universe. This very fact should be able to show us how necessary it
is to set up certain truths contained in the threefold structure of the social
organism.
But we must
acquire an organ capable of grasping what our present time really needs. It will
be difficult to acquire this organ in the spiritual sphere, for the spiritual
substance in education, which has gradually been assimilated by the ruling body,
the state, drew out of the human being every active force, every true striving,
thus transforming him into a “resigned” member within the structure of the
state. I have already spoken to you here, I think, of the question: How does the
great majority of the people really live? (Exceptions are, of course, always
borne in mind). Up to the sixth year of his life a human being is allowed to
live unhampered, for he is still too grubby for the state! The state would not
like to take over the tasks entailed by the care of young children; the state
therefore leaves the human being in the care of powers outside its own sphere.
But then it lays claim on the human being, the state then trains him so that he
may fit into the state economy, into the stereotyped model; he ceases to be a
real human being and becomes something which bears the imprint of the state. In
that case he can be “of use” to the state. He strives after this, for it is
inculcated into him; in that case, the state does not only look after him while
he is working, but also when he ceases to work, by according him a pension until
he dies. To many people a position entailing the right of a pension is a great
“ideal”! And the religions speak of a kind of pension for the time after death!
The soul obtains a pension; without any effort on its own part it obtains
eternal life through the church itself. The church sees to this! It is
uncomfortable to hear that salvation can only be attained by a free spiritual
striving, independently of the state, and that the state should limit itself to
the juridical sphere. The right of having a pension will NOT exist in a
juridical state! This alone is for many people one reason ... for rejecting it!
One can see this again and again.
And in regard to
the most intimate life of the spirit, we must say that religious life will, to
be sure, require a world conception valid for the future; it must demand from
man that he should work for his immortality, that he should be active in his
soul, so that he may take up the divine impulse, the Christ Impulse, through his
own activity.
During my life I have
received innumerable letters from church people stating that Anthroposophy is a
fine thing, but that it contradicts the “simple, plain Christian faith” of the
soul's salvation through Christ, of eternal life attained through Christ,
without having to do anything for it. “Faith in the salvation through Christ” is
something which they cannot abandon. When people write or say such things, they
think that they are especially pious. But they are simply selfish, thoroughly
selfish and egoistic, for they do not wish to make any effort in their soul,
they wish to leave everything to God, who will carry their soul safely through
the portal of death and pension it off.
Matters will not
be so comfortable in the world conception which will in future create the
religious substance. We will have to grasp that the divine essence within us
must be developed within the soul. It will then no longer be possible to submit
passively to churches who promise to carry the human souls safely through death
... one objectionable custom at least has now ceased; namely, to do this in
exchange FOR MONEY — but secretly this still plays a certain role, even in regard
to the attainment of eternal life. This transition to a stage of inner activity,
so that we look up to a world to which we belong, is an urgent requirement, yet
it does not attract mankind greatly.
In order to
acquire a feeling for the requirements in this sphere, we must envisage the
facts explained today — the metamorphosis of humanity since the times of ancient
Egypt, where even the body had a more plant-like character. But if it were now
to fall back into this plant-like condition, it would grow ill — ulcerous
growths, etc. would appear — and then the fact that we really carry a corpse
about with us, which is the true instrument of cognition. These truths enable us
to gain a feeling for the requirements of humanity, showing us how to progress
in the right direction, how progress can now be made in regard to the social
question. We should no longer be content to regard an important matter such as
the social question in as simple a way as possible.
You see, this is
the extraordinary difficulty of the present time, and you should bear in mind
the fact that modern people like to hear explanations on the most important
facts of life in a few abstract sentences. When a book like the “Fundamental
Points of the Social Question” contains more than a few abstract sentences, when
such a book contains the results of an observation of life itself, then people
say that they cannot understand it, and that it seems confused to them. But it
is the misfortune of the present time that people do not like to penetrate into
the very things into which they should penetrate. For abstract sentences, which
are quite transparent, only deal with lifeless things; but the social sphere is
a living sphere. Here we must apply elastic conceptions, elastic sentences,
elastic forms. It is therefore necessary, as I frequently explained to you, to
consider not only the transformation of single things, but we must also learn to
think differently in regard to the innermost structure of our thoughts and
reflections.
On taking leave
from you again for a couple of weeks, my dear friends, I wished to speak of
these things, for now we must feel that we are standing under the sign of
cooperation in our anthroposophical or social movement. I would like you to be
filled more and more with the understanding that if anything is to be attained
in the social sphere, the spiritual science of Anthroposophy must flow into
human souls. Let me recommend one thing to you, although I repeated it again and
again — it really is essential that the anthroposophical truths which we are
able to gain for ourselves should be recognized as the true rule of conduct for
our activities and for our striving in the present time; we should have the
courage and the will to push through with anthroposophical truths. The worst
thing of all is that modern people lack the courage to push through with
something which is really needed. They allow the best forces of their will to be
broken; they are not willing to carry them through, although this is so sorely
needed.
You see, my dear
friends, learn to stand courageously by the fact that the people who take an
interest in the representative edifice of our spiritual efforts, in the
Goetheanum, are well accepted by you; be glad for each person who shows but a
grain of understanding, and go toward him, but do not set store in the fact
that people bring bad will, or what is more frequent today, lack of
understanding toward Anthroposophy — limit yourselves to reject this in a
corresponding way. The essential thing is the courage to push through with these
things. Let us consider ourselves as that small group of men and women whose destiny it is
to know and to communicate to the world the very things which it needs most of
all. Let the people mock at us, let them say that it is conceit to think this;
it is nevertheless true. To say to ourselves that “it is nevertheless true,” to
say this earnestly, so that our whole soul is filled by it, calls for an inner
courage which we must have. Let this courage fill our soul with anthroposophical
substance. This will enable us to do what must be done by each one in the place
where he is standing. This is what I wish to tell you today.
We can really
say that we are welcoming each day which brings us nearer to the goal (which now
encounters the greatest obstacles) of working in the world through our building [the Goetheanum].
For this building is, after all, the only thing which takes into account, even in
its architectural forms, the great destinies of humanity. And it is good that
people already begin to take notice of the Goetheanum. But another thing is
needed for a progressive activity in regard to the social question; namely, that
through a means such as the Goetheanum, with its forms which are stronger than
any other architectonic forms of the present, an influence should be exercised
on the spiritual improvement of the human forces; people should once more become
accessible to truths which must be known, so that they may rise up not only to
the sphere of the Angel world, but also to the sphere of the Archangel world, and
to that of the Time Spirit.
Source: http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA/GA0296/19190817p01.html
Thank you, Bradford Riley!
Thank you, Bradford Riley!
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