The Rudolf Steiner Archive

6. The Positive and the Negative Person

[ 1 ] When we cast a discerning gaze from one person to another, we see the greatest possible diversity in human soul life. In the course of these lectures, we have pointed out typical differences among people and their causes with regard to soul life; we have alluded to the diversity of human souls in terms of character, temperament, and other aspects of inner life, such as abilities, strengths, and so on. Human souls—and thus all human individualities—now reveal a significant diversity with regard to what will be considered in today’s lecture as the positive and the negative human being. Now, right at the beginning of this lecture, I would like to make it clear that this presentation—which is intended to be entirely in keeping with the character of the other lectures—has nothing whatsoever to do with the amateurish, yet all-too-common, interpretations that make use of these terms, “positive” and “negative” human beings. What will be said in today’s lecture, we will have to understand on its own terms, without any reference to such designations.

[ 2 ] We could now begin by looking for a kind of definition, a kind of explanation of what constitutes a positive and a negative person. If we were to formulate such a definition, we might say, for example: In the sense of a genuine and deeply penetrating study of the soul and human nature, we can describe as a “positive” person someone who is able, to a certain degree, to preserve the steadfastness and security of their inner self in the face of external impressions that assail them; so that within this inner self they possess clearly defined concepts and ideas, a certain set of likes and dislikes, and emotional impulses, in which they cannot be led astray by the impressions flowing into them from external life. Similarly, a “positive” person can be defined as someone who acts on the basis of certain drives and impulses and does not allow himself to be swayed by just any impression of the day. And we could describe as a “negative” person, we could describe someone who readily surrenders to the changing impressions of life, who is strongly moved by this or that idea that arises in him upon encountering this or that person, in this or that gathering, and through which he is easily inclined to alter what he had previously thought, felt, and sensed in a certain way, and to take something else into his soul. With regard to action, we could describe such a person as “negative”—one who is easily dissuaded from his instincts and impulses to act by all manner of suggestions from this or that person.

[ 3 ] This would give us a rough idea of what constitutes a “positive” and a “negative” person, which can serve as a sort of definition. But precisely when faced with such characteristics of human nature—which have such a profound impact on life—we can easily see that we have, in essence, gained very little from conceptual explanations and definitions, and that the pursuit of such convenient conceptual frameworks is a rather futile one. For when we descend from such an abstract conceptual definition into real life, we can say: A person with strong drives and passions—which have taken on a certain character since childhood and habitually remain the same throughout life—such a person will, so to speak, have let all manner of good and bad examples and role models pass them by and will stick to their habitual drives and passions. He may have stubbornly formed this or that idea or concept about this or that, and one might present him with all sorts of facts and the like: he will stick to his ideas, and obstacle after obstacle will pile up in the attempt to present just this or that as a fact that might convince him otherwise. Such a person would be a very positive person, but his positivity would lead him to nothing more than to go through life dull and unresponsive, seeing and hearing nothing that could enrich his life’s purpose and make it more fulfilling. Another person, one who is inclined to absorb new impressions in the most devoted way at every moment, who is ready to correct his preconceptions wherever facts arise that challenge and shake them—such a person we might see—perhaps after a relatively short time—become someone entirely different. We might see him go through one phase of his life after another, rushing from one focus of his life to another, and after some time he might appear to us as a completely transformed person compared to an earlier phase of his life. And if we compare him to someone who goes through life in a dull and uninspired manner, then we will be able to say: He has made better use of his life than the other. But based on the character traits indicated, we would have to describe him as a negative person.

[ 4 ] We might find that someone with a robust constitution, who habitually plods through life, might be tempted by the fashion of the times to take a trip through a country where one can see great artistic treasures; but he is so grounded in all the feelings he has already settled in his soul that he walks right past one work of art after another, glancing at most once in the Baedeker to see which are the most significant, and that after all this —that’s how “positive” he is—when he returns home, his soul has not been enriched at all by this aimless drifting from gallery to gallery, from beautiful landscape to beautiful landscape. He would therefore be a very “positive” person. And there might be a person who goes through roughly the same experience, but with a character such that he is deeply devoted to every single painting, losing himself with enthusiasm in each one, so that the moment he stands before it, he completely forgets himself and lives entirely in what he sees; and so it goes with the next painting, the third, and so on. Thus, with a soul devoted to every detail, he moves through the whole; but because he is so devoted to every detail, each new impression blurs the previous one, and when he returns, he is left with nothing but chaos in his soul. This would be a person who, in a certain respect, is the opposite of the first, the positive one; he would be a very negative person.

[ 5 ] We could find examples of positive and negative people in a wide variety of ways. We could describe as a negative person someone who has learned so much that his judgment has become uncertain in the face of every fact; that he does not know what is true and what is false, and becomes a skeptic toward life and knowledge. He would be a negative person. — Another person might have the same number of impressions; but he goes through life in such a way that he processes these impressions and knows how to integrate the wealth of his experiences into the wealth of wisdom he has accumulated. He would be a positive person in the best sense of the word.

[ 6 ] A child can be positive to the point of tyranny toward adults by relying entirely on the nature ingrained within them and seeking to reject everything that contradicts it. Thus, by refusing to be influenced by anything, a child can be very positive. And a person who has experienced much in life, who has gone through various errors and disappointments, can—despite having experienced so much—be fully swayed by every impression; such a person can be easily uplifted and easily crushed; despite great life experience, this person can be a negative individual in relation to a child. In short, only when we allow life in all its diversity to affect us—not through concepts—and when concepts serve merely as a kind of ladder upon which to hang the facts and events of life, only when we regard concepts in such a way that they help us to organize and order the phenomena and facts of life—only then can we come to terms with such fundamental distinctions as being a positive or negative person in relation to life. For in addressing this peculiarity of the human soul, we are indeed touching upon something of the utmost importance. The matter would essentially be simple if one did not have to conceive of the human being in the most vivid way—we have, after all, often emphasized this in its full scope in these lectures—standing vividly within what we call “development.”

[ 7 ] We see the human soul rushing from one stage of development to the next. And when we speak in the true sense of spiritual science, what takes place in the life of the individual human being between birth and death does not appear to us as proceeding in a uniform manner; for we know that this life between birth and death is merely a repetition of previous lives—and the starting point for subsequent lives. And when we thus consider the entirety of human life across its various incarnations, it can easily become clear to us that if, for any given person, development proceeds more slowly in a particular life between birth and death—so that they persist throughout their entire life in the same character traits and the same conceptual content— they will have all the more ground to make up in another life, a development that leads them to other stages of human spiritual life. The consideration of the individual life alone remains, in every respect, highly inadequate.

[ 8 ] If we consider the soul itself, as it has been presented to us in the previous lectures, we may ask: How do we reconcile our understanding of this soul and its life with the insights we have now gained regarding the positive and negative aspects of human nature?

[ 9 ] In previous lectures, we have shown that human mental life is by no means a chaotic ebb and flow of ideas, sensations, and concepts, as it might appear at first glance, but rather that we must distinguish three aspects of this mental entity:

[ 10 ] First, what we must describe as the lowest level of the human soul, which we have called the “sensory soul.” We find this sensory soul first in its—one might say—most primordial form when we consider human beings at a relatively low stage of development; human beings who are still entirely devoted to the passions, drives, desires, and longings for existence that lie within them, and who therefore simply follow every rising desire, every rising longing. What we have referred to as the “I”—the actual, self-conscious core of the human soul—lies, so to speak, for such people, who live primarily in the soul of feeling, as in a surging sea of passions, drives, desires, sympathies, and antipathies, and will behave like a slave in the face of every storm of the human soul. Such a person will follow his inclinations, not by mastering them, but by allowing himself to be mastered by them. He will yield to his vague inner longing. The “I” will hardly stand out from the surging tide of drives, desires, and inclinations. As the soul develops further, it becomes increasingly clear how the “I” emerges with a strong sense of centrality.

[ 11 ] We know that a higher component of the soul—which is present in every human being—assumes dominance over the sensory soul as a person undergoes development. We have called this second component of the soul the “intellectual soul” or “emotional soul.” When a person begins not to simply follow every inclination and every impulse, then whatever is within them begins to emerge—that which can take precedence when the person starts to control their inclinations and desires from the “I,” when what can transform these impressions into a coherent inner life becomes interwoven with the changing impressions of life. Thus, this second aspect of the human soul—the intellectual soul—when it prevails, reveals the human being in a deeper state.

[ 12 ] We then pointed to the highest level of the human soul, the “conscious soul,” where the “I” emerges in all its strength. Here, the human inner life turns outward once more, and ideas and concepts are now not merely there to master the passions; rather, at this stage, the entire inner life of the soul is directed by the “I,” so that it becomes a knowing mirror of the external world. When a person rises to an understanding of the external world, the conscious soul assumes supremacy in their soul life. We find these three soul components in every human being; it is just that one or the other is predominant in each case.

[ 13 ] The previous lectures have shown us that the soul can go even further in its development. Even in ordinary life, the soul must go further if a person is to become a human being in the true sense of the word. A person who could derive the impetus for their actions solely from the external demands of life—who would be driven only by sympathy and antipathy—would lack the aspiration to express pure human nature within themselves. Only those who rise above the ordinary demands instilled in them by sympathy and antipathy to embrace moral ideals and ideas—only they seek to embody pure human nature. Moral ideas and ethical concepts must arise within human nature from what we call the spiritual world; for through our moral demands and ethical concepts, we enrich the life of the soul with new elements. For it is only through this that a human being has a “history”—that he can bring into life something that draws from the unknown, dark depths of his inner being and imprints it upon external life. Likewise, we would never attain true knowledge of the mysteries of the world if we could not, as it were, thread our external experiences onto the ideas that we cannot see in the external world, but which we bring from our spirit to the external world—and through which we can only explain and comprehend the external world in its true form. In this way, human beings already bring a spiritual element into their inner being, enriching the soul with those elements that it could never gain from mere external life.

[ 14 ] As we described in the lecture “What Is Mysticism?”, a person can ascend to a higher spiritual life by voluntarily shutting themselves off from the impressions and stimuli of the external world for a while, emptying their soul, and then surrendering to whatever may flare up within their soul—which, in the words of Master Eckhart, — is merely illuminated as a tiny spark by the changing experiences of the day, but which can flare up when a person surrenders to it in inner contemplation. Such a mystic ascends to a life beyond ordinary spiritual life; he delves into the mysteries of the world by bringing to revelation within himself those mysteries that have been placed in his soul by these very mysteries of the world. And in a subsequent lecture we saw: When a person awaits the future with resignation, when he relates to the past in such a way that he feels something greater dwelling within him than what has already taken shape in him during his present existence, then he is disposed to worship that which is greater and transcends him. We have seen that in prayer, a person grows beyond themselves inwardly, that they rise to something they cannot see externally, but which transcends their ordinary life. And finally, we have seen that through the actual training in spiritual science, which reaches the three stages of imagination, inspiration, and intuition, a person grows into a world that is as unknown to the ordinary person as the world of light and colors is unknown to the blind eye. — Thus we have seen a growth of the soul that goes beyond the normal, and we thereby gain insight into the development of the human soul through the most diverse stages.

[ 15 ] When we consider human beings between birth and death, we might say: The people around us are at very different stages of development. When a person enters into existence, they show us that they have the predisposition for this or that stage; and we see that a certain measure has been assigned to them, within which they can guide their soul to a certain degree, so that they may then take what they have attained with them when they pass through the gate of death and carry it forward into a new life. Thus, we can find people at the most diverse stages according to their characters. When we then observe these people as they progress from stage to stage, the two concepts of the positive and negative human being do not merely present themselves to us in such a way that we say, “One is positive, the other is negative”; rather, they present themselves to us in such a way that we find them within a single person across successive stages of development. We see a person who, at the beginning of their development, has strongly prominent, headstrong impulses in their feeling soul, who presents themselves to us with certain drives, desires, and passions, while their sense of self is still relatively obscure and barely felt. Such a person is, at first, entirely positive. He goes through life as a positive person. If he were to remain a positive person in this form, he would make no progress at all. In the course of his development, a person must evolve from a positive person—who, with regard to certain qualities, is at a lower stage of development—into a negative one; for what a person is to take in during his development must be able to reach him. Anyone who is not willing, so to speak, to prepare themselves—by suppressing certain positive qualities inherent in their feeling soul—so that new impressions, which they do not yet possess in their soul, can flow into them and unite with their soul, thereby becoming part of the soul’s content; a person who is thus unable to rise above a certain degree of positivity—which nature has bestowed upon them without their intervention—to a certain degree of negativity in order to absorb new impressions, would be unable to make further progress.

[ 16 ] This clearly expresses the necessity that, in the course of their development, human beings must indeed overcome positive qualities—must, so to speak, negate themselves—in order to be able to absorb new spiritual content. But in doing so, we touch upon something that is essential to spiritual life and that, in a certain sense, can also pose a danger. We are touching upon an aspect of our soul life that so clearly illustrates how only an intimate understanding of the soul can guide us safely through life. For it may become apparent that a person cannot make any progress at all if they shy away from certain dangers of the soul life. And certain dangers are always present in a negative spiritual life; for a person with a negative spiritual life is at the mercy of external impressions. The negative person is precisely one into whom impressions flow, who becomes one with external impressions, uniting with them. But this already implies that the negative person can absorb not only good external impressions, but also bad and dangerous ones. What becomes apparent to us when observing a person with negative soul characteristics is, in particular, the following:

[ 17 ] Anyone who has a negative trait deep within their soul will, when encountering other people, easily be swept away by all sorts of things—things that have nothing to do, for example, with reason and judgment—into absorbing whatever emanates from the other person—not only what they say, but also what they do—and into imitating their examples and actions; they can easily become like other people. This puts such a negative person in a position where, while they can easily yield to good influences, they also face the danger that any possible negative external influence may take root in their soul to such an extent that they identify with it, and that it becomes a part of their inner life. If we rise from the normal course of life to what the connoisseur of spiritual life knows—namely, what spiritual facts and spiritual beings are at work in our surroundings—then it must be said that a person with negative soul qualities is indeed particularly susceptible to those intangible, indefinable impressions that reveal little of themselves in external life, and is easily influenced by them. An example: It is entirely in keeping with the facts of life that a person becomes a completely different being when in a larger group than when alone; to the closer observer, this person becomes, in terms of their entire inner life, a different person in a community—and especially in an active community—than when alone. When a person is alone, they follow their own impulses; even a weak ego will then seek the reasons for its actions within itself. In a community, however, there is always a kind of “collective soul”; this is where drives, desires, judgments, and so on converge. A positive person will not easily surrender to what converges there; but a negative person will always be easily influenced by what has just been described as the collective soul. That is why we can time and again observe that what a dialect poet expressed in a few words rings true: It may be a rough generalization, but when it comes to life, there is a grain of truth in it when Rosegger says:

One is a person
Two are people
More than that, they’re animals.

[ 18 ] This is something one can observe everywhere: Often, a person is truly wiser when alone than when in a group, where he is almost entirely at the mercy of the prevailing mood. That is why we can so easily see that someone enters a gathering with quite vague feelings and impulses; then a speaker takes the stage and passionately advocates for something that, at first, may have seemed quite distant to that particular listener; the speaker himself may not convince him as strongly as the general enthusiasm of the rest of the audience. He, too, is swept up in it and leaves convinced.

[ 19 ] This suggestive aspect of mass sentiment plays an immense role in life. But it can also make clear to us where the dangers lie in relation to what we call a negative state of mind. This is also the basis for the danger inherent in all forms of sectarianism. What one often could not easily bring an individual to do—even if one tried to convince him of this or that—is relatively easy when one has a kind of sect. There is always a collective mood present; souls influence one another. And it is especially the so-called negative personalities who are at the mercy of what constitutes collective mood or sectarian atmosphere. This poses immense dangers for the negative soul.

[ 20 ] We can go even further. In previous lectures, we have described how the soul can ascend through its development into higher regions of spiritual life. And in my work *An Outline of Esoteric Science*, you will find an explanation of what the soul must do to transcend a certain stage in its development and ascend to higher realms. To do this, the soul must always suppress something; it must first suppress something positive and open itself to new impressions; it must, as it were, artificially put itself into a negative state of mind. Without this artificial shift into a new state of mind, it is simply not possible. We have, after all, often emphasized what the spiritual researcher must do if he wishes to ascend to higher levels of existence. What occurs in a person’s ordinary life when falling asleep—that the soul becomes emptied of external stimuli—this sinking into sleep must be brought about by the spiritual researcher voluntarily and consciously. He must consciously put himself into a state in which all external impressions of the day cease, so that the soul becomes completely empty. Then the soul must be able to surrender to the impressions that, at first—when the person is just beginning their exercises—are entirely new; that is, they must make themselves as receptive as possible. And everything we call “inner contemplation” or “inner absorption” in the mystical life and in the knowledge of the higher worlds essentially gives rise to receptive states of mind. There is simply no way around this. When a person suppresses the stimuli of the external world and consciously creates a state in which they are completely absorbed within themselves and allow nothing to enter of what has hitherto filled them as a positive human being, then they are in a negative, self-contemplative state.

[ 21 ] Yes, something similar occurs even when a person employs the somewhat more convenient external means—which, while they cannot bring about a higher life, do provide a certain degree of support to those who wish to ascend to the higher worlds—such as when they transition from what otherwise promotes the positive instincts in humans in an animalistic way to a special diet, for example, a vegetarian or similar diet. It is not by becoming a vegetarian or by abstaining from this or that food that one can elevate oneself into the higher worlds; that would indeed be too easy, if a person could “eat their way” into the higher world; for what leads up to the higher worlds is the work on one’s own soul. This work, however, is made easier when we relieve the physical body of the debilitating influences that certain types of nutrition can have on a person. Anyone who wishes to lead a higher, spiritual life will discover how their strength grows when they follow a specific diet. But if one omits certain foods that provide the positive, robust grounding, this omission also leads one into a state of negativity. Anyone grounded in true, genuine spiritual science—not charlatanism—will never deny what, according to the facts, must be connected to a genuine spiritual life—including through external things associated with that spiritual life. This puts a person, in a certain sense, at risk of becoming susceptible to negative spiritual influences as well. Just as, when we educate ourselves in spiritual research and empty ourselves of the impressions of the day, we become receptive to the spiritual facts and beings that are always present in our surroundings—specifically, to the good spiritual powers and forces that we only learn to perceive once the organ for this is open—so too do we become receptive to the evil spiritual powers and forces; for they are connected to this process. Just as we also hear discordant tones when we want to hear harmonious ones. If we wish to enter the spiritual world, we must also be aware that we may have spiritual experiences on the negative side. If we were devoted solely to the negative side of the spiritual world, danger upon danger could threaten our spiritual life.

[ 22 ] If we set aside for the moment the spiritual world and spiritual development itself and focus on the realm of ordinary life, we can already ask: How does something that initially has a negative effect on a person—for example, a vegetarian diet—affect them? — If a person becomes a vegetarian simply out of a stubborn, agitative obstinacy, without forming a proper judgment, or out of principle, without changing anything in their inner life or behavior, then this transition to a vegetarian diet may, under certain circumstances, make them quite weak in the face of various influences in life, and they may even experience a decline, particularly in certain physical capacities. But if someone is to transition to a life of initiative, if they are to set new life goals for themselves—goals that arise not from external circumstances but from a rich, inwardly developed inner life—if they are to bring new meaning into their life, then it can be of immense benefit for them to adopt a new way of life in terms of diet as well and to remove the obstacles that may arise from their old diet.

[ 23 ] Things exert their influence in very different ways; but this becomes apparent only to those who observe life intimately. Because these things are known to the true spiritual researcher, he emphasizes so strongly what has already been emphasized here many times: that the true spiritual researcher will not give anyone the means to rise into the higher worlds, without at the same time drawing their attention to the fact that one must not merely develop the negative qualities of the soul—which are necessary for receiving new impressions—nor merely cultivate contemplation and inward absorption, but must simultaneously provide the life that is to ascend to a new level with a powerful content that sustains and fills it. Anyone who is given the means to develop the power to look into the spiritual world would, due to the negativity associated with this, also be placed in a position to be exposed to all manner of evil spiritual forces. But if, in someone who wishes to penetrate the spiritual world, one also finds the good will to familiarize themselves—through the teachings of spiritual researchers—with what exists in the higher worlds, then such a person will not for a single moment be merely given over to negativity; rather, they will possess something that can fill the soul on a higher level with positive content. This is why it is so often emphasized that one should not only seek higher levels of the soul but also, in parallel, carefully study what can be communicated through spiritual science. For this reason, spiritual science specifically takes into account that when a person is to experience new worlds, they will necessarily encounter negativity.

[ 24 ] But what we must bring about when we consciously develop the soul is something we encounter in various people out there in the world, because the soul does not undergo development only in this present life; rather, it has already undergone development in past lives and enters this life at a certain stage. Just as we rush from stage to stage in this present life—and, if we wish to reach a positive stage, must develop negative soul qualities in between—so too may we have reached such a conclusion the last time we passed through the gate of death and entered the next life with predominantly negative or positive qualities. Whatever is inclined to allow us to enter life with positive qualities will leave us as we are and will be a stumbling block to higher development; for the predispositions to positive qualities we are given give rise to a sharply defined soul character. The predisposition toward a negative soul disposition does indeed give us the opportunity to incorporate much into our soul life between birth and death; but it also exposes us to all the vicissitudes of life, and above all to the changing impressions we receive from other people. Therefore, we can see particularly clearly how, when a person with a negative soul disposition interacts with others, the qualities of those other people rub off on them. Thus, when a negative person comes into close contact with a friend or someone with whom they otherwise share an affinity, they can truly experience how they become more and more like the other person. People with negative traits in marriage or friendship will even adopt the other person’s handwriting. Anyone who views life in this way will see how the handwriting of one spouse with a negative state of mind becomes increasingly similar to that of the other.

[ 25 ] Thus, as negative human beings, we are at the mercy of the shifting influences of others, particularly those we are close to. As a result, as negative souls, we are even, in a certain sense, exposed to the danger of losing our sense of self, so that our own inner life, our own “I,” can be extinguished. This is the danger facing the negative human being.

[ 26 ] The danger for the positive person is that he does not readily absorb impressions from other people, that the qualities of others do not easily penetrate his soul, that he passes by all other people, is unable to connect with them, and cannot find friendships or affinities in life. The danger for the positive person is that he may remain hardened and desolate in regard to his soul. But in other aspects of life as well, it becomes evident how positive and negative qualities are at work in the soul. And it truly leads us deep into life when we view people from this perspective of the positive and negative person—even when a person stands face-to-face with nature. Anyone who is truly capable of observing life intimately will even be able to distinguish between positive and negative effects in nature’s influence on human beings. What, then, primarily influences one person from another? What, then, primarily influences a person when they receive external impressions?

[ 27 ] There is one thing that, in a certain way, always makes the soul more positive. For modern people at their current stage of development—regardless of what stage of life they have reached—it is judgment, rational consideration, and gaining clarity about any situation or circumstance in life. This always has a positive effect in a certain way. In contrast, the loss of sound, self-assured judgment is always something that has a negative effect on the soul, sending impressions into the soul without it being able to defend itself against them through positive qualities. Yes, we can even see that human qualities, when they descend into the sphere of the unconscious, have a stronger effect on other people than when they emanate from the sphere of sound judgment, from the sphere of sound, self-assured judgment. Unfortunately, one has to experience this time and again in life—and especially within a spiritual scientific movement: When messages from the spiritual world are conveyed that are thoroughly clothed in a tightly structured logic, messages that take on precisely the same forms of judgment that are otherwise recognized in life, then people even go out of their way to avoid such messages; unfortunately, people simply will not tolerate it when messages from the spiritual worlds are conveyed in a rational manner, neatly tracing the facts according to cause and effect. But when these messages are presented in such a way that one can, in a certain sense, refrain from judgment—that is, overlook the need for judgment—then people are easily won over to messages from the spiritual world. There are even people who are extremely suspicious of those who convey messages from the spiritual world with sound reason, yet are very credulous toward those who, in a mediumistic state—as if inspired by an unconscious power—put such messages out into the world. These people, who do not know what they are saying—who say more than they themselves know—actually find more believers than those who know exactly what they are saying. It is often said: How can anyone speak about the spirit world unless they are at least in a semi-unconscious state, so that one can see they are possessed by a foreign power! — This is often cited as a reason against the communication of facts from the spiritual world that are conveyed consciously. Consequently, consulting mediums is far more popular than what is offered to people from the spiritual world in the forms and justifications of sound reason.

[ 28 ] But when that which comes from the spiritual world is plunged into a realm where consciousness is excluded, there is always the danger that it will affect the negative qualities of the soul; for the negative qualities always come into play when something approaches a person for dark, subconscious reasons. If we examine life more closely, we can see time and again that the less intelligent person, through his positive qualities, has a stronger influence even on the wiser person, so that the latter very easily succumbs to what is brought to light from some dark depths by a mind that is not as sound as his own. Thus we can understand how, in life, more refined natures with a finely developed reason are at the mercy of people with a robust imagination who assert everything based on their instincts and inclinations. One would understand life thoroughly if one were to go even further. One would then also see how the curious fact presents itself that a person may be confronted by someone who not only occasionally denies his sound reason but who is, in regard to his reason, afflicted and asserts this or that from an afflicted consciousness. As long as this pathological condition goes unnoticed, more sensitive souls are extremely vulnerable to such people, who assert things based on a pathological state of mind. All these things are part of true wisdom about life; and we can only properly grasp them if we realize that a person who, on the one hand, possesses positive psychological traits need not be accessible to sound reason at all, whereas, on the other hand, a person with negative traits is susceptible to things beyond their control, into which reason cannot penetrate at all. These factors must certainly be taken into account for a more refined understanding of the soul.

[ 29 ] But even if we do not consider impressions of people, but rather focus on those impressions that enter the soul from a person’s wider environment, we can gain important and meaningful insights if we proceed from the perspective of the positive and the negative human being. Let us imagine, for example, that a researcher is working in a very specific field, and let us assume that he is a highly productive researcher who processes many individual facts of the external world in a purely factual manner. In this way, he contributes to the well-being of humanity. But now he connects these facts according to the preconceptions of his soul—based on everything he has gained from his upbringing and his previous life—through a specific theory and worldview that may represent nothing more than a completely one-sided interpretation of the facts. This person will certainly find in the concepts and ideas he has derived from the facts—provided he has arrived at them through his own thinking—something that can have a healing effect on his soul; for it is precisely because he has worked out this worldview for himself that it fills his soul with a positive spirit. But let us suppose that there now come adherents and followers who do not develop their ideas from the facts themselves, but rather hear or read about them; who do not have those feelings that the researcher in question has cultivated in the laboratory and study: among a whole host of followers, all of this can correspond to negative traits of the soul. We can view the same creed as something that positively shapes the soul in the case of a school principal who devotes himself to a one-sided approach; yet in the case of a whole host of followers who merely parrot what the other has used to fill his own soul, that same creed may well correspond to negative traits and have an unhealthy effect, making them increasingly weaker and more negative.

[ 30 ] This is something that must strike us throughout the entire history of human spiritual life. Even today, we can see how people with a thoroughly materialistic-mechanistic worldview—one they have diligently constructed for themselves from the facts—can be thoroughly fresh, delightful, and positive individuals who strike us as charming personalities. Among their followers, however—who essentially hold the same ideas in their minds but have not arrived at them on their own—these ideas manifest in accordance with an unhealthy, negative, and debilitating state of mind. Therefore, we can note the fact that there is a difference between acquiring a worldview for oneself and merely accepting it: in the former case, it corresponds to positive qualities of the soul; in the latter, to negative ones. These things intersect everywhere in life.

[ 31 ] Thus, we can see how our relationship to the world can affect us both positively and negatively. For example, a purely theoretical view of nature—indeed, anything we cannot see—can have a negative effect on us. But in order to reach a certain level, we must also incorporate the negative into ourselves. There must also be theoretical knowledge of nature. However, we must not therefore close our minds to the insight that theoretical knowledge of nature—the systematization of animals, plants, minerals, and what follows from this as natural laws in concepts and ideas—affects our soul in such a way that we are devoted to it with our negative character. In contrast, everything we can characterize as taking in nature in its entirety and grandeur, with a living sense of feeling, affects our soul in such a way that it evokes a positive state of mind; for example, the delight in a flowering plant, which we do not dissect but allow to affect us in its beauty, or the surrender to the dawn, which we do not examine astronomically but contemplate in its resplendent glory. For in everything we take in from any worldview, we are not fully present with our soul; we allow others to dictate it to us. But we are fully present with our whole soul when we are capable of being enchanted or repelled by natural phenomena. What is true in nature does not concern our ego; but what can enchant or repel us must concern our ego; for depending on the state of our ego, we pass by nature either enchanted or repelled.

[ 32 ] Thus we can say: Actively immersing ourselves in nature cultivates a positive state of mind within us; theorizing about nature cultivates a negative state of mind. But this, in turn, ties in with what was said earlier: that the person who first analyzes a series of natural phenomena has a much more positive effect than the one who simply absorbs and learns the insights of others. This should be taken into account in all true pedagogy. And connected to this is the fact that wherever there has been an awareness of the things that have now been described, care has been taken to ensure that human beings never cultivate only negative qualities in the soul. Why did Plato inscribe the words on the gate of his philosophical temple: “Let no one enter here who is not versed in geometry!” — This was done because geometry and mathematics belong to those activities of the human soul that, in truth, cannot be accepted merely on the basis of authority. Geometry is something that one must truly penetrate with one’s inner soul, something one must work out for oneself, and something that can only ever be attained through a positive activity of the soul. If this were taken into account today, a large portion of the worldview systems currently circulating in the world would not exist at all. For whoever knows how to actively work out a conceptual system such as geometry has respect for the inner activity of the human being. Anyone who, for example, reads Haeckel’s *The Riddle of the World* and has no idea how to develop such a system of concepts for themselves will easily be able to produce a new worldview. All they need to do is alter the concepts slightly; yet in doing so, they are working out of a purely negative state of mind.

[ 33 ] Thus, for a human being, there is something in spiritual science or anthroposophy that is absolutely cultivating and positive. When people are shown this or that achievement of the present day using methods popular today—for example, through photographs or other demonstrations—or when they can see this or that animal or natural phenomenon in photographs, they are completely passive in their reception, and their soul’s disposition is negative; they do not need to develop any positive qualities at all, nor do they need to think at all. For example, one can show people the various phases of a glacier sliding down a mountain and other such things. This is proof of how much people today love negative qualities. It is not that simple for anthroposophy. At most, it can present its concepts symbolically through photographs. For the things that lead up into the spiritual world, there is no other gateway than the human soul life. Anyone who truly wishes to delve fruitfully into spiritual science must therefore accept that nothing will be demonstratively presented to them regarding the most important matters. They must rely on their own soul to work actively, so that they must draw the most positive dispositions from within their own soul. For this very reason, however, spiritual science is eminently suited to cultivating the positive qualities of the human soul. Herein also lies the healthiness of such a worldview, which makes no other claim than to awaken the forces lying within the human soul. By appealing to that which is self-active within every soul, anthroposophy brings forth what lies hidden within the soul itself, so that it may permeate all the fluids and forces of the body—and which has a healing effect on the whole human being in the fullest sense. And since anthroposophy appeals to nothing other than sound reason—which cannot be evoked by mass suggestion but only through the understanding of the individual—and since it renounces everything that can be evoked by mass suggestion, it relies precisely on the most positive qualities of the human soul.

[ 34 ] We have thus compiled, without embellishment, what shows us how human beings stand between the two currents of life: the positive and the negative. Human beings cannot develop toward higher levels except by leaving a lower positive level, placing themselves in a negative state of mind, absorbing new content within that state, and asserting themselves in such a way that they can once again become positively effective at a higher level. Anyone who knows how to observe nature correctly understands how the wisdom of the world works to guide human beings from the positive to the negative and from the negative back to a new positive.

[ 35 ] It is interesting to examine a particular detail from this perspective—for example, Aristotle’s famous definition of the tragic. A tragedy, he says, presents us with a self-contained plot in such a way that it evokes fear and pity in the audience, but in such a way that fear and pity undergo a catharsis, a purification. The person who enters life with all the usual selfishness is, at first, very positive in his selfishness; he withdraws into himself; he hardens his heart. One initially becomes, in a certain sense, very negative when one empathizes with other people’s suffering and feels their joy as one’s own. In a certain sense, one becomes negative by stepping outside one’s own self and developing compassion and empathy. And one also becomes negative by immersing oneself in what reigns over a person like an indeterminate fate; by immersing oneself in what may come to pass tomorrow as a result of the actions of a person with whom we sympathize. Or who is not familiar with that tremor of anxiety we feel toward a person rushing toward some task, so that perhaps tomorrow a misfortune we foresee might befall them, while, driven by their impulses, they cannot help but carry out this action? We fear what might happen. But this places us in a negative state of mind; for fear is a negative state of mind. But we would become indifferent to life if we could no longer fear for what lies ahead in an uncertain future. Thus, we become negative through empathy and fear. However, so that we may become positive, tragedy presents us with the image of a hero whose actions are meant to evoke our sympathy, and whose fate initially confronts us in such a way that our fear is aroused; but at the same time, through the complete self-contained nature of the plot, the image of the hero is presented to us in such a way that fear and pity are purified, transforming from negative qualities into the harmonious satisfaction we derive from the work of art, and in turn rising to the positive.

[ 36 ] Thus, the ancient Greek philosopher’s definition of the work of art shows us how art is an element in life that addresses a necessary negative state of mind in order to transform it into something positive. Artistic expression elevates us to a higher level in all its domains, where we must first become negative in order to emerge from an undeveloped inner life. In beauty, we must first contemplate that which is meant to stand in opposition to us, for otherwise we would not be able to rise above our present level. But then, once we have been elevated to a higher spiritual level through art, that other aspect of life, too, becomes thoroughly imbued with the radiance of a higher spiritual state.

[ 37 ] Thus we see how, not only in the life of the individual but also in the collective life of humanity, the positive and the negative alternate, how this constantly contributes to the elevation of the individual from incarnation to incarnation, but also to the life of all humanity. If we had the time, we could easily demonstrate how there have been positive ages and epochs; we could describe entire ages as positive historical eras of humanity, others as negative, and so on. The idea of the positive and the negative shines into every sphere of soul life—and thus into human life in general. It does not manifest in such a way that one person is positive and another negative; rather, it concerns every human being. Everyone must pass through positive and negative states at the various stages of existence. Only when we view the matter in this way does it become a truth of life for us and, thereby, the foundation for a way of living. Therefore, in this reflection, a saying that we placed at the beginning and end of one of these lectures is confirmed for us—the words of the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who was called “the Obscure One” because he was able to look so deeply into human life: “You will never find the soul’s limits, even if you were to travel every road; so vast are its horizons!”

[ 38 ] Now someone might come along and say: Then all research into the soul is in vain! For if the soul is so vast that its limits cannot be found anywhere, then no research can fathom it, and one might despair of ever understanding it! But only a negative person would say that. A positive person would add: Thank God that this life of the soul is so vast that no knowledge can encompass it; for this makes it possible for us to transcend everything we currently encompass with our knowledge tomorrow and thus soar to higher levels! Let us rejoice that the life of the soul defies our knowledge at every moment. We need an unlimited spiritual life; for the perspective into the infinite gives us the hope that we can transcend the positive at every moment, that the spiritual life can rush from stage to stage. It is precisely the boundlessness and unknowability of the life of the soul that therefore gives us the most significant perspective for our hope and confidence in the future. Because we can never find the limits of the soul itself, the soul is capable of transcending those limits and ascending to ever higher and higher levels.