The Rudolf Steiner Archive

3. The Mission of Truth

[ 1 ] Goethe's “Pandora” from a Humanities Perspective

[ 2 ] We were able to conclude our lecture on the mission of wrath—Prometheus bound—with Heraclitus’s saying: “It is difficult to find the limits of the soul, even if one were to walk every path; for the depths of the soul are infinite!” — We have come to know this depth within the interplay of the soul’s forces. The truth of this saying becomes particularly evident to us precisely when we build upon what served as our starting point yesterday, when we look into the very innermost being of the human being. In the “I,” so to speak, the human being is at his most spiritual, and that is where we began. The “I” is that aspect of his being which is added to those aspects he shares with the three lower kingdoms of the mineral, plant, and animal worlds.

[ 3 ] After all, he shares his physical body with minerals, plants, and animals; his etheric body only with plants and animals; and his astral body, finally, only with animals. It is through the “I” that a human being can truly be human and can continue to develop from one stage to the next. This “I” works upon the other members of the being, refining and purifying the drives, inclinations, desires, and passions of the astral body, and will lead the etheric and physical bodies to ever higher and higher levels. But precisely when one considers this “I,” it becomes apparent that this human “I”—this lofty and dignified member of the human being—is, as it were, caught between two extremes. Through the “I,” a person is meant to become, more and more, a being whose center lies within themselves. Thoughts, feelings, and impulses of will must spring from the “I.” The more a person possesses this firm and meaningful center within themselves, the more their being radiates, the more they are able to give to the world, and the more meaningful and powerful their actions and everything that emanates from them become. If a person is unable to find this center within themselves, they are at risk of losing themselves in a misguided exercise of their “I.” They would dissolve into the world and go through life without making an impact. On the other hand, they may fall into the opposite extreme. Just as a person can lose themselves on the one hand if they do not do everything to make their “I” more substantial and powerful, so too, if they are solely intent on elevating the “I” and feeding it more and more, they may fall into the other destructive extreme, which leads to selfishness that alienates them from all human community. On the other hand, then, stands selfishness—the egoism that hardens and closes in on itself, which can lead the “I” astray from the path of its development. The “I” is caught between these two forces. When we now consider the human soul, it becomes clear to us that human beings possess within themselves, first and foremost, what we have already called the feeling soul, the intellectual soul, and the conscious soul. We have now become acquainted with a quality of the soul that—perhaps surprisingly to some—serves as a kind of educator of the soul of feeling: anger. Anyone who views the lecture on the mission of anger one-sidedly will have many objections to it. However, as one delves deeper and deeper into the actual foundations of the matter, important mysteries of life will be resolved.

[ 4 ] In what sense is anger a kind of educator of the soul—specifically the feeling soul—and the precursor to love? One might ask: Does anger not lead a person to lose themselves or to be swept away into wild, immoral, and loveless actions? If one considers only the wild and unjustified outbursts of anger, one has a false view of what has been stated regarding the mission of anger. It is not by leading to unjustified outbursts that anger becomes the educator of the soul, but rather through what it does within the soul. To visualize the work of anger on the soul, let us imagine two people standing before a child in need of guidance who has done something wrong. One educator will lose his temper and be carried away into acts of punishment; the second educator is a soul who cannot lose his temper in anger, but who, in the sense we meant yesterday, is not yet in a position to truly do what is right with full composure from the “I.” What difference will there be in the actions of these two educators? A surge of anger will not only result in a punitive action inflicted upon the child, but anger is something that stirs within the soul, that works within the human soul—and it works precisely in such a way that it kills selfishness. Anger acts like a poison on the selfishness of the soul. And if we wait and see, it will become clear to us that it gradually transforms the soul’s powers and makes it capable of love. On the other hand, the person who is not ready for serenity and yet carries out the punishment out of cold calculation will, because anger does not act as a poison within him, become more and more of a cold egoist. Anger acts internally, and as such it must be regarded as a quality of the soul. Wherever anger arises, it must be viewed as a regulator of the unjustified outbursts of human selfishness. Anger must exist; otherwise, there would be no need to combat it. In overcoming anger, the soul becomes better and better. When a person seeks to assert something they consider right and becomes angry, this anger serves to diminish the forces that act selfishly. It dampens them and reduces their effectiveness. In anger, we have a quality of the soul which, precisely by being overcome—as a person frees themselves from it and rises ever higher above it—draws selflessness into the person and, through this drawing in of selflessness, makes the “I” stronger and stronger. This interplay between the “I” and anger takes place in the human feeling soul.

[ 5 ] Another interplay between the soul and other soul experiences takes place in what we call the intellectual or emotional soul. Just as the human soul has qualities it must overcome in order to rise ever higher, so too must it develop within itself powers that it may, so to speak, nurture and love, even as they rise within it. It must possess powers to which it may surrender itself, so that when these powers assert themselves, they do not weaken but rather strengthen the soul. [...] It is precisely by immersing itself so lovingly in its soul that a person will elevate the strength of that soul; it is precisely through this that a person will ascend to higher levels of the “I”; and that which is excellent—that which the soul is permitted to love within itself, that through which it educates itself not toward selfishness but toward selflessness when it loves it—that is the truth. Truth educates the intellectual or emotional soul. Just as anger is a quality of the soul that must be overcome if a person wishes to rise higher, so truth—although it is meant to be a quality of the soul—is something that a person should love from the very beginning. An inner cultivation of truth is absolutely necessary to allow the soul to rise higher and higher.

[ 6 ] What is the quality of truth that leads people farther and farther and raises them from one level to the next when they make use of the truth? Truth has, as its opposite—as that which stands in contrast to it—lies and error. Let us see how a person progresses by overcoming error and falsehood, by making truth his great ideal and striving toward it.

[ 7 ] He should strive for a higher truth, just as he must regard anger as an enemy that he must increasingly eliminate. Truth should become something he loves and connects with the innermost part of his soul in order to reach ever higher and higher levels. Nevertheless, distinguished poets and thinkers have rightly observed that the full possession of truth is not meant to be attainable by human beings. Lessing, for example, says that pure truth is not for human beings, but only the eternal striving for truth. Lessing points out that truth is a distant goddess whom human beings can only approach, but who, in essence, can never be reached. It is in the unfolding of the nature of truth—in the soul’s awakening to a higher striving for truth—that lies what enables the soul to ascend ever further and further. Since there is an eternal striving for truth, and since the word “truth” signifies and is something so multifaceted, one can reasonably speak only of humans striving to grasp the truth and to develop a true sense of truth. One will therefore not speak of a single, all-encompassing truth.

[ 8 ] In this lecture, we will now examine the concept of truth in its proper sense; and it will become clear to us that, through the development of a sense of truth, a person is filled from within with a driving force that leads him toward selflessness.

[ 9 ] Human beings strive for truth. Wherever people have attempted to form views about things based on what already exists, one can find in the most diverse areas of life that they often express themselves in diametrically opposed ways. When one considers what one person regards as truth and what another regards as truth in contrast, one might believe that the quest for truth leads people to the most diametrically opposed views and opinions. However, if one observes impartially, one will be able to find the guiding principles that show us how it actually comes to be that people arrive at such different opinions, even though they are seeking the truth.

[ 10 ] Let an example illustrate this. The well-known American multimillionaire Harriman died recently. He is one of the few millionaires who concern themselves with universal human ideas. Aphorisms found after his death contain a remarkable statement by this seeker of truth. He says: No one in this world is irreplaceable, and when anyone leaves this world, they can be replaced by another in their place. When I lay down my work, another person will come along to take it up. The trains will run just as they did before, dividends will be distributed just as they were, and so it is, essentially, with every person. — Thus, this man arrived at a universally valid truth: No one is irreplaceable!

[ 11 ] Let us contrast this statement with that of another man who made an extraordinary impact here in Berlin for a long time through his various lectures on the lives of Michelangelo, Raphael, and Goethe—a statement by the art historian Herman Grimm. When Treitschke died, Herman Grimm made a statement along the following lines in one of his essays: “Now Treitschke has also passed away, and it is precisely now that we realize what he has accomplished.” No one can take his place and continue his work in the way this man carried it out. One has the feeling that, within the sphere in which Treitschke taught, everything is proceeding differently.” — It is interesting to note that Herman Grimm does not add the words: “and so it is with all people.”

[ 12 ] Here we have two people—the American multimillionaire and Herman Grimm—who arrive at exactly opposite conclusions based on their observations. Why is that? If we carefully compare the two perspectives, we find a common thread. Consider that Harriman proceeds from the assumption that “if I set my work aside, someone else will continue it”; that he cannot detach himself from himself at all. The other person does not bring himself into the picture at all; he does not speak of himself at all, nor does he ask what opinions and truths might be gleaned from him. He is absorbed in his consideration of the other. Anyone with a feel for this will undoubtedly discover which of the two spoke the truth. One need only ask oneself this question: Who, after all, continued Goethe’s work when he set it aside? Anyone with a sense for this will know that Harriman’s reflection suffers from the fact that he has not been able to detach himself from himself. From this alone, you can draw the conclusion that it is downright harmful to the truth when one seeks it but cannot detach oneself from oneself. It serves the truth precisely when one is able to detach oneself from oneself.

[ 13 ] Can truth simply be what a view of things provides? — A view is a kind of mental reflection of the external world. Just because we think something, because we establish this or that in our consideration of it, does that mean it must be an accurate picture?

[ 14 ] Suppose one takes a camera to photograph a remarkable tree. One stands in a corner and takes a picture of the tree with the camera. If we show this single picture in a different place, does it convey a true image of the tree? It shows the tree from one angle; it does not convey the truth about the tree. No one will be able to picture the tree based on the photograph if they see only that one image. How could one learn more about the truth of the tree if one has not seen it? If one were to photograph it from four sides, one would have walked around the tree, and by comparing the images, one would eventually obtain something that provides a true picture of the tree. The resulting mental image of the tree has been made independent of one’s own vantage point. Let us apply this analogy to human beings. What is achieved here through external processes is accomplished by a person who, in their observation of things, detaches themselves from their own perspective. To set oneself aside when observing things—this is what a person achieves through their own personality. When a person becomes aware that, when forming an opinion or viewing this or that in a certain way, they must first and foremost recognize that all opinions formed depend on their own point of view, their own characteristics, and their own individuality; if one becomes aware of this and tries to subtract all of that from what one wishes to call truth—then one carries out what the photographer did in our comparison. The first requirement for a true sense of truth is to detach oneself from one’s own self; to take into account what depends on one’s own point of view.

[ 15 ] If the American multimillionaire had been able to detach himself from himself, he would have known that there is a difference between him and other people. We have seen, in an example drawn from everyday life, how—when a person cannot detach themselves from their own perspective, when they do not become aware of what they bring to bear on things through their standpoint or point of departure—a limited opinion, but not the truth, necessarily arises. This is also evident on a larger scale. Anyone who looks a little more closely at the true spiritual development of human beings and compares all that is presented as truth will find, upon deeper reflection, that when people express a truth, they must first detach themselves from their own individuality. One will come to understand that the most diverse views on truth emerge because people have not become aware of the limitations they themselves have imposed on their perceptions through their own point of view. — If I gave you an obvious example earlier, let us now turn to a more distant example to lead us to a deeper understanding. If one wishes to gain insight into beauty, one turns to aesthetics—that is, to what the forms of beauty teach us. What is beautiful confronts us in the external world. How, then, do we come to know what is true about beauty? Here, too, we must be clear that we must also detach ourselves from what we have limited in beauty through our own individuality and our own peculiarities. Take, for example, a 19th-century aesthetician—the German aesthetician Solger; he wanted to explore the essence of beauty in its truth. Beauty confronts us in the external physical world. Even Solger could not deny this. But he was a man who held a one-sided theosophical view; and that is why he also produced a one-sided theosophical aesthetics. Consequently, the only thing that could interest him in a beautiful image was what shone through from it—the spirituality that, for him, was the only reality. A beautiful work is beautiful to him only to the extent that the spiritual appears in it. Solger was a one-sided theosophist who sought to explain sensory phenomena through the supersensible, but in doing so forgot that the sensually real also has a right to exist, because he could not free himself from his prejudice and immediately sought to ascend to the spiritual realm through a misunderstood theosophy.

[ 16 ] Another aesthetician, Robert Zimmermann, set out to establish precisely the opposite view. One could say that Solger sought to establish a misunderstood theosophical aesthetics; likewise, one could justly say that Zimmermann established a misunderstood antitheosophical perspective in his aesthetics. He had a sense only for what emerged in terms of symmetry and antisymmetry, harmony and disharmony. He had no sense of moving back from the beautiful to that which appears within the beautiful. Thus, his aesthetics also became one-sided, similar to Solger’s aesthetics. Any pursuit of truth can suffer because people fail to consider that, in order to pursue truth, they must detach themselves from themselves. People can detach themselves from themselves only gradually. But this is the defining characteristic of truth: that it demands, in the strictest sense, that one completely set aside one’s self and forget everything if one wishes to advance through it. It therefore possesses a quality that distinguishes it from everything else, namely, that one can be entirely within oneself, can live in one’s “I,” in one’s pursuit of truth, and yet gain something within one’s “I”—if one undergoes this life within the “I”—that, fundamentally speaking, has nothing to do with the egoistic “I.”

[ 17 ] If, in his striving in the world, a person has something he wants to assert, it is his selfishness. When a person wants to do something they consider right, seeks to impose it on someone else, and in the process becomes inflamed with anger, that is an expression of selfishness. This expression of selfishness must be subdued if they are to rise to the truth. Truth, then, is something we experience in our innermost being. And yet, even though we experience it within ourselves, through it we become increasingly detached from our ego. For this to happen, however, it is necessary that nothing other than the love of truth itself truly interfere with the pursuit of truth. If passions, instincts, and desires—from which the sensory soul must first be purified and cleansed before the intellectual soul can strive for truth—interfere, then the human being cannot detach from the self; for these cause his ego to adopt a particular point of view. Therefore, truth will reveal itself only to those who, in their search for it, strive to overcome the passions, desires, and instincts within themselves and do not allow them to influence their judgment. Love may be the only passion that need not be cast aside in the search for truth. Truth is a lofty goal. This is evident from the fact that, in the form just described, it reveals itself to people today only within a limited external sphere.

[ 18 ] It is only in the fields of mathematics, arithmetic, and counting that humanity in general has achieved this goal today, because this is the area where humans have reined in their passions, instincts, and desires and do not allow them to influence their thinking. Why do all people agree that three times three equals nine and not ten? Because when they make this determination, they have brought their passions, instincts, and desires to a standstill. In this simple matter—mathematics—humanity has already managed to silence passions, instincts, and desires. If it had not managed to do so, many a housewife would be quite happy to be able to exchange nine groschen for a mark. That is where passions would have a say. It is precisely necessary for any search for truth that we silence our instincts and desires. People would reach unity regarding the highest truths if they were as far along with these highest truths as they already are with this truth in the field of mathematics. But these truths are something we grasp in the innermost depths of our souls, and by grasping them in this way, we possess them. Even if a hundred or even a thousand or more people contradict us, we still possess them and know that three times three equals nine, because we have grasped them in our innermost being. If the hundred and thousand people who hold a different opinion were to become independent of themselves, they would arrive at the same truth. What, then, is the path to mutual understanding and human unity? We understand one another in the realm of arithmetic and counting because we have achieved what is required here; to the same extent that we find the truth, peace, concord, and harmony reign among people.

[ 19 ] The essential point is that we seek to grasp truth as something that reveals itself to us only in our deepest selves; and that truth is something that brings people together time and again, because it shines out from the innermost depths of the soul toward every human being.

[ 20 ] Thus, truth is the guide that leads people to unity and mutual understanding. Thus, it is also the precursor of justice and love—a precursor that we should actively nurture—while we must overcome the other harbinger, whom we learned about yesterday, if it is to lead us beyond selfishness. This is the mission of truth: that we may love and embrace it more and more, and that we should nurture it within ourselves. As we surrender to truth within our self, the self itself grows ever stronger, and it is precisely through this that we break free from the self: the more anger we develop within the self, the weaker we make it; and the more truth we develop within the self, the stronger we make the self. Truth is a stern goddess, which is why she also demands that she be placed at the center of a love that is hers alone within our self. The moment one fails to detach from oneself and sets something else against her—placing something else above her—she takes immediate revenge. The English poet Coleridge made a statement that may be indicative of how a person must relate to the truth. He says: “Whoever loves Christianity more than the truth will soon see that he loves his Christian sect more than Christianity, and he will see that he loves himself more than his sect.”

[ 21 ] There is truly an immense amount of meaning in this statement; above all, it implies that a pursuit directed against the truth leads precisely to egoism—to a self-centeredness that oppresses people. Truth—it can be the only love that detaches the self from itself. And the moment one prefers something else to it, one will find, to the same degree, that one is succumbing to selfishness. This is what one must expect when one values something else more highly than the truth. This is the stern seriousness, but also the greatness and significance, of truth’s mission in the education of the human soul. Truth is not beholden to anyone, and only those who surrender to it can find it. We can see this in the fact that the moment a person loves not for the sake of truth but for their own sake—because they cling to their own opinions—that person acts in that moment as an antisocial being who ceaselessly strives to break away from the human community. Let us consider those who do not strive to love the truth for the sake of truth, who have made a certain set of views their own truth: they love nothing but the possession of their own soul. These people will be the most intolerant. Those who love the truth for the sake of their own views and opinions are the ones who refuse to tolerate another person pursuing the truth by a completely different path. This is what gives rise to conflicts in life. They are the ones who throw obstacles in the path of anyone who has different inclinations than they do and therefore arrives at different opinions than they do.

[ 22 ] If an honest pursuit of truth leads to a general understanding of humanity, then the opposite—the love of truth for the sake of one’s own personality—leads to the destruction of freedom and to intolerance toward the personalities of others. Truth arises in what we call the intellectual or emotional soul of the human being.

[ 23 ] Only a thinking being can seek truth and acquire it through its own work. As human beings acquire truth through their thinking, they must become increasingly aware that this divides the entire realm of truth into two parts. There are two forms of truth. That which is gained by looking at something that presents itself to us in the external world, by looking at the surrounding nature, and by exploring it piece by piece in order to come to know its truths, laws, and wisdom. So when we let our gaze wander over the world, over the scope of our experiences, we arrive at that truth which can be called “the truth of reflection.” We saw yesterday that all of nature is permeated by wisdom, that wisdom lives in all things. Within the plant lives that which we later grasp as the idea of the plant. Wisdom lives in the plant, and we take possession of this wisdom. This is how human beings face the world, and they can assume that the world sprang from wisdom, and that through their thinking they rediscover that which participates in the production, in the creation of the world. This is the truth they gain through reflection.

[ 24 ] There are, however, other truths. These cannot be attained by mere reflection; rather, they can only be gained by going beyond what is given in external life. In everyday life, we can already see that when a person makes a tool or an instrument, they must devise laws that cannot be derived through mere reflection. For example, a person could not make a clock simply by reflecting on the world; for nowhere in the world have the laws been arranged in such a way that a clock already exists in external nature. This is the second kind of truth that we can gain by thinking ahead to what does not arise from external experience or external observation. There are, therefore, two kinds of truth, and these are two strictly distinct realms of truth. We must distinguish between truths that arise for us through reflection on external observation and those that arise through thinking ahead.

[ 25 ] How, then, are the latter true? Someone who conceives of a clock could provide us with proof for a long time that he has thought correctly. We will not place true trust in him until he can show that the clock truly represents in the world what he had conceived. What we conceive in our minds must come to fruition; it must be able to take root in reality; what we have conceived must be able to confront us in the reality outside. But the truths of spiritual science or anthroposophy are of this same nature. They are truths that cannot initially be observed in external experiences.

[ 26 ] No external experience of nature can confirm what has already been emphasized many times regarding the eternal essence of the human being. It is impossible to arrive at the truth—that the human “I” appears again and again in new incarnations—through external observation alone. Anyone who wishes to arrive at this truth must rise above external experience. They must be able to grasp within their soul a truth that is not initially present in external experience, yet this truth must also be realized in external life. Such a truth cannot be proven in the same way as the first kind of truth, which we have called “reflected truth.” It can only be proven by demonstrating its application in life. Yet there is no other proof for it than its reflection in life. Whoever looks into life and observes it with the realization that the soul returns again and again, and observes what takes place between birth and death—what the soul experiences there time and again—and then considers what satisfaction this idea can provide and what strength it can give in life, and traces its fruitfulness in life—and also traces it in another sense, by asking oneself, for example: “How can I develop the strength of a child’s soul if I assume that a soul is working its way out that has always been there?”—then this truth and idea shine forth at them in external reality; they prove fruitful to them. All other proofs are incorrect. Solely the verification of such preconceived truths in life is to be regarded as proof of their correctness. Preconceived truths that cannot be derived from observation cannot be proven in the same way as truths derived from reflection. They can only prove themselves in reality and prove fruitful. There is a vast difference between the proof of the first and second kinds of truth. The second is actually one grasped in the mind, which is to prove itself in external observation, in life.

[ 27 ] How, then, will these two realms of truth affect the human soul from an educational perspective? There is a great difference between a person simply devoting themselves to truths they have thought through themselves and one who devotes themselves solely to preconceived truths. Let us consider what a person gains from truths they have thought through themselves. We are right to say: When we immerse ourselves in the wisdom of nature and have formed within ourselves a mirror-like and truthful image of nature, then we possess within ourselves the very same thing from which nature sprang and through which it acts; we possess within our concept of nature’s truth that which acts creatively in nature. But there is a tremendous difference. While the wisdom in nature is creative, while full reality springs forth from it, our truth is merely a mirror image—a conceptualized and inactive one, something that has become powerless through our thinking about nature. Thus, we can create a broad-minded and expansive image of the world’s truth: the creative, the productive, is removed from this image of truth. Consequently, this image of truth also has, at first, a desolating and emptying effect on the development of our “I.” The creative power of the “I” becomes paralyzed and, so to speak, dies out; the self does not grow strong and can no longer stand up to the world if it seeks only truths derived from thought. Nothing contributes more to isolation, to desolation, to withdrawal into one’s ego, and to hostility toward the world than the mere act of reflecting on the world. A person can become a cold egoist if they merely seek to explore what lies out there in the world. What does he actually want this truth for? Does he intend to use this truth for the gods?

[ 28 ] If he seeks only to explore this intellectualized truth, he is seeking something for himself, and he is on the path to becoming, through the truth, a cold egoist and misanthrope as his life progresses. He goes out and becomes a hermit or otherwise isolates himself from humanity; for he wants what exists in the world to serve his truth. You can find every form of one-sided hermitism and every form of misanthropy if you follow this path. The soul will become increasingly barren in terms of a sense of community; it will grow ever poorer, even though the truth should make it richer. If a person explores only this kind of truth, they cease to be human in the sense of community. They become an eccentric or a one-sided person, regardless of whether they go out into the world or shut themselves away; in both cases, the soul will harden. Therefore, you will see that the more a person turns to mere thinking, the more barren the soul becomes in that thinking. Let us try to imagine how the soul becomes barren through mere thinking. Let us consider nature outside: there we have a multitude of plants before us. They are formed from the living wisdom of the world. There is productive power within them, and this wisdom has caused them to spring forth from within themselves. Now comes the artist. He confronts, with his soul, what the image of nature presents to him. He does not merely reflect; rather, he allows that creative, productive power to work within him. He produces a work of art; but within it there is not merely a reflection, but productive power. Now, however, comes someone who tries to get behind the thoughts of the image. He reflects on the image. Reality is further filtered, but at the same time it is impoverished. Try to take the process further. Once the soul has, in this way, distilled a thought from observation, the process is complete, and the soul is done with it. All that remains is to reflect on the thought itself. This leads one into the realm of the ridiculous. The process that has begun withers away on its own.

[ 29 ] The situation is different in the realm of creative thinking. Here, human beings are in a different position, since they themselves are productive. Here, they bring their thoughts to life; here, they act in the image of creative nature itself. In such a case, a person goes beyond mere observation; they do not merely think, but allow something to rise within the soul that mere observation cannot provide. All spiritual-scientific truths are of a nature that requires the soul to be productively disposed. Here, the soul must be the one who thinks ahead. Merely thinking about these truths is detrimental and leads to deception regarding the truths of spiritual science. The truths that have been thought through in advance, however, are different. Human beings can only pre-conceive the truth within a limited realm. They can, so to speak, be nothing more than amateurs in the face of the world’s creative wisdom. There exists an infinite multitude of things about which we have our reflected truths, and only a very limited realm allows us to possess pre-conceived truths. Thus, with the second kind of truth, the scope narrows, but the productive forces increase; the soul becomes fresher and broader and broader. It itself becomes ever more divine within itself as it reflects within itself what is essential in the creative, divine activity in the world. Thus, the two truths—the preconceived and the reflected—stand in opposition to one another in the world. Consequently, the truth derived from reflection—which is based on the mere examination of what is given, on the exploration of what has been experienced—will always lead into the abstract; in the process, the soul will become increasingly arid and will be unable to find nourishment. But the truth that is not derived from external experience is creative; and through its power, it assigns humanity a place in the universe where it participates in what is emerging into the future.

[ 30 ] The past, in the true sense of the word, can only be something that has been reflected upon. What is thought ahead is something that serves as a starting point for growing into the future. In this way, a person becomes a citizen, a creator of the future. He extends the power of his “I” from the present moment into the future by making not only what has been reflected upon, but also what has been thought ahead, his own within the truths. This is the liberating power of truths thought ahead. Those who are, so to speak, actively engaged in the pursuit of truth will soon discover how mere reflection impoverishes them; and they will understand how the mere thinker becomes increasingly barren and abstract, filling his mind with barren conceptual webs and bloodless abstractions. This can lead the mind to doubt whether it can participate in the shaping of the world. How cast out and condemned to the mere enjoyment of truth a person can feel when he is merely a thinker of truth. But that which is preconceived truth—and which confronts us as such in life—fills the soul and warms it, filling it with new strength at every stage of life. It is a source of bliss for a person when they are able to grasp such preconceived truths, so that they can then face the phenomena of life and say to themselves: “Now I not only understand what is there, but what is there now becomes explicable because I already knew something about it beforehand.”

[ 31 ] Now we can also approach human beings with the truths of spiritual science. People remain incomprehensible to us if we know only the truths we have thought through. If, on the other hand, we possess the truths of spiritual science, people will become increasingly understandable to us, and we will also be able to find ever greater interest in the world and become ever more deeply connected to it. We will feel joy and satisfaction in seeing the confirmation of these preconceived truths manifest in reality. This is what is so blissful and fulfilling about the truths of spiritual science: that they must first be grasped before they can be realized in life, and that through this, the human being becomes ever richer and richer. When we work with truths that have been thought through and cultivate an abstract world of ideas within ourselves, we distance ourselves from the world; when we approach the world with truths that have been preconceived, we become ever richer and more satisfied. Through this, we gradually experience a complete interweaving with the phenomena, with which we become one. We become increasingly detached from our self, whereas, on the other hand, we become refined egoists through the truths we have merely thought through. In order to discover the existence and validity of the truths we have already conceived, we must first possess them, and for this it is necessary that we step outside ourselves and enter into life to seek their application in every sphere of life. Thus, it is especially these preconceived truths that detach us from ourselves and fill us to a high degree with what the sense of truth must contain within itself.

[ 32 ] Everyone who has been a true seeker of truth has felt such things. This conviction about truth lay deep within Goethe’s soul when he uttered the magnificent, grandiose, and far-reaching statement: “Only what is fruitful is true!”

[ 33 ] But Goethe was also deeply aware that human beings must be deeply rooted in truth if understanding with others is to be possible at all. Nothing alienates people more and drives them further apart than when they turn away from the pursuit of truth and a sense of truth. Goethe also said: “A false doctrine cannot be refuted, for it is based on the conviction that what is false is true!” Of course, someone might immediately object that one can refute what is false by presenting logical arguments. That is not what Goethe means; he is simply convinced that a false view cannot be refuted by logical conclusions, and believes that the practical and fruitful application of truth in life must be the sole guiding principle for people in their pursuit of truth. It is precisely because Goethe was so deeply intertwined with the truth in his soul that he was able to sketch out the beautiful drama of truth that he began to write down in 1807 in his *Pandora*. “Pandora” is a fragment and, as such, a product of his rich creative output. It is the ripest and sweetest fruit. When one allows it to take effect, one must admit: it has remained a fragment, but it is so magnificent and powerful in every line that one could say it is art in its purest and greatest form. Try immersing yourself in this work and letting the dialogue sink in, and notice how differently the characters who possess passion and a driving nature speak compared to those who have a more reserved nature.

[ 34 ] “Pandora” shows us how Goethe was capable of making a run at the greatest of tasks—only to falter in the end. While the task was indeed too great to be brought to completion, it is enough for us to glimpse how deeply Goethe had penetrated the problems of the soul’s education. Before his soul lay everything the soul must overcome in order to ascend; before his soul lay everything we learned yesterday about anger, everything we learned about the chained Prometheus, and also what we have said today about the other educator of the human soul—the sense of truth.

[ 35 ] Just how closely related these two things are in their effect on the human soul can also be seen from the facial expressions they evoke in people. Try to imagine a person who becomes angry, and a person upon whom the truth takes effect—a person whom the truth permeates like an inner light. You will see how the angry person furrows his brow. Why do they do this? Such a brow furrows because an excess of force is at work within, like a poison, which must suppress an excess of egoism that seeks to destroy whatever exists alongside it, whatever exists apart from the self. In the clenched fist of the angry person, one sees the angry self, closed off within itself and unwilling to engage with the outside world. Compare this with the physiognomic expression of one who finds the truth. When someone beholds the light of truth, he also furrows his brow, but this furrowing of the brow is something through which the self expands. Here, the furrows seek, in devoted love, to embrace the whole world in order to absorb it. The eyes of one who seeks to eavesdrop on the world’s secrets can also shine. Shining, they seek to encompass and embrace all that exists in the world beyond us. The person breaks free from themselves, and the hand of one filled with the light of truth does not clench but reaches out; and in that outstretched hand lies the absorption of the world’s essence. Thus the entire difference between truth and anger is revealed physiognomically. While anger, on the one hand, leads a person to withdraw into themselves, the pursuit of truth, on the other hand, leads a person to open up and grow into the external world; and the more a person rises from reflected truths to preconceived ones, the more they grow into the external world. That is why, in his *Pandora*, Goethe juxtaposes characters who can serve as representatives of what is at work in the soul. They are meant, as it were, to symbolically bring the soul’s individual qualities and abilities into play.

[ 36 ] When you open *Pandora*, you immediately see something most peculiar right at the beginning. Even in the description of the first scene, you may notice something that is of the utmost significance. Here, on Prometheus’s side, we see a scene filled with tools that humans have made themselves. Human labor has been at work everywhere; yet everything is, in a certain sense, crude and impractical. This is contrasted with the scene of Epimetheus, the other Titan. His setting is such that everything is, in a certain respect, perfected; for we see less of what man produces as a creator, but rather everything is a composition of what nature has already produced. Everything has emerged from reflection. Here we have a composition and shaping, a symmetrical arrangement of what exists in nature. The scene of Prometheus is asymmetrical and crude; the phenomena and forms of nature in Epimetheus’s scene are well-formed and symmetrical. This scene of Epimetheus concludes with a view of a wondrous landscape. Why is all of this arranged this way? We need only consider the two figures: Prometheus, the forward-thinker, and Epimetheus, the reflective one. Goethe contrasted these two forces at work in the soul through the two Titan brothers. On the one hand, we have in Prometheus that which, in human beings, is primarily governed by the star of foresight; here, man is limited to unrefined powers, yet he is productive. He cannot yet shape his creations as perfectly as nature shapes hers. He cannot yet form them in harmony, but everything he creates springs from his own powers and tools. Yet he also lacks the sense to look out upon a grand natural landscape.

[ 37 ] On the other hand, in the work of Epimetheus, the Thinker, we see what he has created—what has been handed down to him from antiquity—arranged symmetrically. But because he is a thinker, we also see a beautiful landscape spread out in the background, offering the viewer a unique pleasure.

[ 38 ] Then Epimetheus appears before us, revealing his peculiar nature and telling us how he is there to let the past take its course and to reflect on what has already happened and what meets the eye. And in his speech, he shows us what kind of unsatisfied state of mind this sometimes evokes in the soul. He perceives hardly any difference between day and night. We can say briefly: Epimetheus demonstrates to us reflection taken to its utmost extreme. But then Prometheus steps toward us, torch in hand, still emerging from the night. In his retinue we see blacksmiths, putting their hands to what human beings themselves produce, and he himself tells us something very remarkable, which—if we understand Goethe correctly—we will not misunderstand. The blacksmiths extol the activity that leads to something productive. They extol the fact that humanity must also destroy many things in the process. They extol fire in a one-sided way. The person who is a well-rounded thinker will not praise one aspect at the expense of another. He will take in the whole picture. Prometheus, however, says at once:

The active man's pleasure lies in partisanship.

[ 39 ] He specifically praises the fact that, in order to be active, one must be limited. In nature, what is right will prove itself by the fact that what is wrong destroys itself. But press forward with what you can do—that is what Prometheus impresses upon the smiths. He is the doer who emerges from the night with a torch to show how his pre-conceived truth emerges from the depths of his soul. For him, it is not the case, as with Epimetheus, that he cannot distinguish between day and night in a dreamlike manner and perceives everything in the world as a dream. For his soul has been at work, and in its own dark night it first grasped the thoughts that now emerge from it. But these are no dreams; rather, they are that for which the soul has given its blood. Through this, it carries itself into the world and breaks free from itself. At the same time, however, it also runs the risk of losing itself. Prometheus himself does not yet need to lose himself, but when something one-sided comes into being in the world, it manifests in his lineage. Prometheus’s son, Phileros, is already inclined to love what has been created and to desire to enjoy it, while his father, Prometheus, is still fully immersed in the creative power of life. In Phileros, the power of foresight is developed in a one-sided way. He rushes headlong into life, not knowing where he can find satisfaction for his lust for pleasure. What Prometheus possesses within himself as the fertilizing power of creation cannot be passed on to this son; and therefore he must also appear incomprehensible to Epimetheus, who, drawing on a wealth of life experience, seeks to guide him in his headlong rush through life.

[ 40 ] We are also shown in a magnificent way how that which mere reflection can offer actually works. It ties in with the myth that when Zeus had Prometheus chained to the rock, he gave Pandora—the one endowed with every gift—to humankind.

Most beautiful and most gifted, she moved majestically
Toward the astonished one, her lovely gaze searching,
To see if I, like her stern brother, would turn her away.
But my heart was already too powerfully stirred,
and I received the lovely bride with a mind intoxicated.
Then, drawn by a mysterious dowry, I drew near
to the earthen vessel of sublime beauty.
It stood sealed — — —

[ 41 ] Prometheus had warned his brother Epimetheus not to accept this gift from the gods. But his brother accepts it anyway. This gift is opened because Epimetheus is of a different nature than his brother, and all human torments spill out; only one thing remains inside—hope remains inside. What is Pandora? What are we to feel toward this woman endowed with every gift? Truly, a mystery of the human soul is hidden within her. What remains in the world for the reflective person is the lifeless product, the abstract reflection of the mechanical thoughts forged by Hephaestus. This wisdom is powerless in the face of the all-creating wisdom that causes the world to spring forth from itself.

[ 42 ] What can this abstract reflection offer human beings? We have seen how this truth can be barren, how it desolates the human soul, and we understand that all human torments—everything that has a desolating effect on the human soul—spill out of Pandora’s box. In Pandora, we see the truth that is powerless to create—the truth that is merely conceptualized. It represents for us the mere mechanical image of thought; a truth that is conceptualized and forms a mechanism of thought within the living, creative reality of the world. Only one thing remains for the mere thinker. While the visionary thinker connects his “I” with the future, detaches himself from himself, and lives into the future, the thinker is left with only this one thing in relation to the future: the hope that things will happen. Since he does not himself participate as a visionary thinker in the work of shaping the future, all that remains for him is hope. Goethe captures the essence of the myth profoundly by having two children emerge from the marriage of Epimetheus and Pandora in his drama *Pandora*. One child is Hope (Elpore), the other is Epimeleia, the Caring One, the one who preserves what already exists. Indeed, human beings have two children in their souls, two offspring of the dead, abstract, mechanically conceived truth. It is barren and has no effect on the future, because it is merely a truth conceived through thought and can only reflect on what already exists, but cannot act creatively. Such people can only hope that what is true will come to pass. Goethe portrays this fact in a truly magnificent and realistic way in his Elpore, by showing how, when a person asks whether this or that will happen, she always gives only one answer: Yes, yes. If a Promethean person were to step before the world and speak of the future, he would say: I hope for nothing, but I want to shape the future with my own powers. — But if a person is merely a thinker, he directs his thoughts toward what has happened, and at the same time he hopes for the future; for to the question, “Will this or that happen?” Elpore always says, “Yes, yes!” We hear her answer this constantly. This characterizes one daughter of the contemplative soul in an excellent way. This outlines her in her barrenness. The other daughter of this soul force is the one who must pay attention to and care for what already exists. She arranges all that has been created in symmetry and cannot add anything that springs from her own powers to what already exists through the living, creative wisdom. This wisdom, which remains static and contemplative, gives rise to Epimeleia, in that what already exists is simply to be protected from destruction. But since everything that does not continue to develop must inevitably move ever closer to destruction, we see how this concern grows ever greater; and how, through the mere contemplative element, it is not the fruitful but the destructive itself that enters the world. Goethe characterizes this wonderfully by having Phileros fall in love with Epimeleia. We see him, consumed by jealousy, pursuing Epimeleia, who finds protection from him among the Titan brothers.

[ 43 ] At the same time, we see strife and discord arise as a consequence. Thus, Epimeleia confronts us by announcing that it is precisely what she loves that seeks to take her life. Every subsequent word in Goethe’s work reveals how deeply he has penetrated the innermost mysteries of the soul—both in forethought and reflection. We see how Goethe has, in the most marvelous way, contrasted the forethought of the blacksmiths with that which remains in nature, embodied in the shepherds. The shepherds take what nature offers of its own accord, what is already there. The blacksmiths, however, reshape nature. That is why Prometheus says of the shepherds: “They seek peace, but they will not find satisfaction in their souls”:

[ 44 ] Depart peacefully! You will not find peace.

[ 45 ] For everything that seeks merely to preserve what already exists leads only into the barrenness of nature.

[ 46 ] In this way, Goethe presents us with the truth of forethought and afterthought through the figures of Prometheus and Epimetheus and all the characters associated with them. They represent those spiritual forces that can arise from an overly strong, one-sided inclination toward one or the other form of the human quest for truth. And since only calamity has been brought about by what acts one-sidedly in the human soul—since we have seen how calamity is caused when a person is merely a forethinker or an afterthinker—we finally see emerging that which alone can bring salvation: namely, the cooperation of the two Titan brothers. The drama continues when a fire breaks out on Epimetheus’s property. Prometheus, who is willing to tear down what has been built if it no longer serves his purpose, advises his brother to hurry and try, through what he is, to put a stop to the destruction. But in Epimetheus, any sense of destruction has died. He thinks of Pandora’s form and is completely lost in thought. The conversation between Prometheus and Epimetheus about Pandora herself is also interesting. Epimetheus raves about Pandora.

Prometheus:

The lofty figure emerges from ancient darkness before me as well;
Not even Hephaestus himself can succeed in creating her a second time.

Epimetheus:

Do you, too, speak of such a fanciful myth?
She descends from a divine, ancient lineage of power:
Uranione, equal to the gods and sister of Zeus.

Prometheus:

Yet Hephaestus, after careful consideration, adorned her richly,
First weaving a golden headband with his skillful hand,
Working the finest wires, knitting them in myriad ways.

[ 47 ] We also see how the mechanical, merely abstractly recreated element is reflected in every line of *Prometheus*. Then Eos, the dawn, appears before us. She appears before the sun. She heralds this light, yet already possesses it within herself. She is not merely that which creates out of the deep darkness of the night, but the transition to something that has overcome the night. Prometheus appears with the torch because he emerges from the night. His artificial light is meant to symbolize how he creates out of the night. Epimetheus may admire what the light of the sun provides, but he perceives it all only as a dream. He is the purely contemplative soul. Just as it might escape the attention of Prometheus’s purely creative soul, so it is in what Prometheus speaks in the light of day. He also said that his people are called not merely to see the sun and the light, but to illuminate. Now Eos, the dawn, “Aurora,” steps forward. She calls upon humanity to do what is right everywhere and to be active. Phileros is to connect with the forces that enable him to save himself, after he has already sought death. Alongside the blacksmiths, who perform limited work in foresight, and alongside the shepherds, who take what is already there, the fishermen step forward, providing the element of water. And now we see how Eos offers advice:

Youthful blush, daily bloom,
I bring it today more beautiful than ever
From the unexplored depths
Of the Oceanus.
More swiftly today
My sleep is shaken more swiftly today, you who dwell in the sea’s
rock-fringed bay,
Solemn fishermen! Fresh from your beds!
Take your tools in hand.

Quickly cast out your nets,
Encircling the familiar tide:
The certainty of a fine catch
I call out to you encouragingly.
Swim, swimmers! Dive, divers!
Keep watch, lookouts, on the rocks!
Let the shore teem like the waves,
Teem quickly with activity!

[ 48 ] Now, in a wondrous way, we are introduced to the son of Prometheus as he saves himself on the waves and surges, uniting the power within himself with the power of the waves. Thus, in Phileros’ rescue, the creative power within him unites with the creative power that springs forth in nature. The active, creative element of his nature enters into a fruitful union with the creative, sprouting element of nature. In this way, the element of Prometheus is reconciled with the element of Epimetheus.

[ 49 ] Goethe thus presents as a promising solution the idea that what is thoughtfully derived from nature derives its productive energy from the element of foresight. The latter derives its true power from a faithful reception of what “the gods above bestow.”

... Note:
What is to be desired, you down below feel it;
What is to be given, they up above know it.
You Titans begin in grandeur; but guiding
Toward the eternally good, the eternally beautiful,
Is the work of the gods; let them have their way!

[ 50 ] Prometheus and Epimetheus must unite within the human soul; then what must be for the salvation of both—and for the salvation of humanity—will emerge. The entire drama was intended to show how, through a comprehensive grasp of the truth, it is not the individual but the entire human race that is satisfied. Goethe wanted to present to humanity precisely what the true essence of truth is, to show how truth is not meant for the individual self, but how it is meant to unite and satisfy the entire human race, and how love and peace come among people through truth. Then the hope within our soul is also transformed—a hope that at first merely says “yes” to everything but cannot bring it to fruition. The poem should therefore conclude with the transformed Elpore—Elpore thraseia—appearing before us, declaring that she is no longer the soothsayer but has entered the human soul, so that humanity not only has hope for the future but also has the strength to participate and bring to fruition what it is capable of creating within itself through its own productive power! Belief in what truth makes of the soul: that alone is the full, the whole truth that reconciles Prometheus and Epimetheus.

[ 51 ] Of course, these sketchy hints could reveal only a small fraction of what can actually be gleaned from the poem. Only those who approach the poem with a spiritual-scientific mindset will discover the profound wisdom that this fragment has drawn from Goethe’s soul. They may be filled with a satisfying, redeeming power that can have a revitalizing effect on them.

[ 52 ] However, the following should not go unmentioned, as it, too, has much to teach us. In his “Pandora,” Goethe offers a remarkably beautiful expression; he says that the divine wisdom of the world, which flows down upon us, must work in conjunction with that which we ourselves can attain through our Promethean power, through our own foresight. He calls “the Word” that which tells us what wisdom is and flows toward us in the world. But that which lives in the soul and must unite with the Word, with the reflection of Epimetheus—that is the deed of Prometheus. Thus we see that from the union of the Logos, or Word, with the deed springs forth the ideal that Goethe sought to present to us in his “Pandora” as the result of his rich life experiences. Toward the end of the poem, Prometheus utters the remarkable statement: “The true celebration of the genuine man is the deed!” This is the truth that remains hidden from the contemplative element of the soul.

[ 53 ] If we allow the entire body of his poetry to sink in, we can gain an insight into the great heroic longing for development felt by people like Goethe, and into that great humility that does not believe one must remain at a single level, that does not believe that, once something has been achieved, one need not go beyond it. Goethe was a student of life his entire life and therefore always acknowledged that, once one has gained a new experience, one must overcome what one previously held to be true. Even as a young man, while working on his first drafts of *Faust* and occasionally translating passages from the Bible, Goethe felt that the words “In the beginning was the Word!” should be phrased differently. He would translate it as: “In the beginning was the deed!” That was the young Goethe of that time, who also wrote a fragment on Prometheus back then. There we see the purely active, the purely Promethean human being—the young Goethe—who believed that the mere development of strength, without being enriched by worldly wisdom, could lead to progress. The mature Goethe, with all his life experiences, realized that it would be wrong to underestimate the Word, and that the Word must be united with action. In fact, Goethe also rewrote his *Faust* during the time he was writing his *Pandora*. Thus, we must understand Goethe in the context of his maturation process; but we can do so only if we grasp what truth is in all its forms.

[ 54 ] It will always be good for a person to strive to understand how truth can only be grasped gradually. Therefore, it is also quite good for a person—as a more comprehensive, honest, and genuine seeker of truth—to admit to himself, after he has found this or that truth and is now called upon to introduce his discovered truth into life in a powerful, overwhelming way: there are no grounds for insisting on this truth once it has been found. There is no reason to ever remain fixed on a single insight; rather, what such insight—as we have found it through today’s and yesterday’s reflections—leads us to is this: although a person must stand firm on the ground of the truth they have attained and must stand up for the truth, they must at times withdraw into their inner self, just as Goethe did. When a person withdraws into his or her inner self in this way, all the forces that arise from the awareness of the truth he or she has attained will once again provide him or her with the proper balance and lead him or her back to the standpoint that he or she should actually occupy. From this heightened awareness of truth, we should turn inward again and again and say with Goethe: Much of what we once investigated as truth is such that today it is nothing but a dream and a dreamlike memory, and what we already think today is something that cannot possibly stand up to deeper scrutiny. Thus Goethe repeatedly told himself the words he spoke regarding his own honest search for truth, and so every person should say to themselves in their solitary hours:

Completely and utterly
I am a poor little thing.
My dreams aren't real,
And my thoughts go nowhere.

[ 55 ] If we can feel this, we will be able to live up to our high ideals and to the truth.