The Rudolf Steiner Archive

8. Human Nature, Talent, and Upbringing

[ 1 ] If we turn our attention to what has run like a kind of leitmotif through the lectures of this winter cycle so far, if we look at that essential being that lives within the human being, which we observe not merely once between birth and death, but which we presuppose as existing through repeated earthly lives, then the question of what underlies a human being’s development in a single life—in a single earthly incarnation—will appear to us as a matter of the utmost importance, especially in our present time. For the person of today certainly approaches the peculiar way in which a person’s predispositions, talents, and upbringing manifest themselves with a questioning and inquiring attitude. But since they are little inclined to turn their gaze away from what appears to us as taking shape within a single life, and to direct that gaze toward the actual architect, the actual creator within the human being, the very questions of these contemporary people will easily take on a character of incompleteness and vagueness. For if one assumes that there is something in human nature that runs through many lifetimes as the true inner animating force, only then will one be confronted with the utterly enigmatic, utterly puzzling nature of the human being. And one will want to view the questions of predispositions, of talent and upbringing, in a new light—in a completely different light than they can be viewed when one focuses solely on what the present day so often emphasizes: heredity, the characteristics inherited from ancestors. Not that spiritual science wishes to turn a blind eye to what is expressed in such inherited predispositions, as if it were disregarding the careful observations of all that the external senses and the intellect directed toward them can reveal; but spiritual science knows that all of this relates to the true essence of the human being in much the same way as external matter in physical life is taken in by the tiny germ of a living being—which determines its form from within itself— but acquires from its surroundings that which is to enable it to live out this form in external life—the substantial, the material. Thus, broadly speaking, in the way a human being lives out their life, we will have to recognize a convergence of that which enters into existence at birth and that into which the human being’s essential and individual nature is embedded and from which it draws its spiritual and soul nourishment.

[ 2 ] When, for example, as educators, we are faced with the tasks of a human soul that enters existence—a soul that, hour by hour, week by week, increasingly expresses itself through its inner capacities—when we stand before a growing human being as before a sacred mystery, that we must unravel—a mystery that has come to us from infinity so that we may give them the opportunities to unfold and develop—then a whole host of new tasks, new perspectives, and new possibilities in general will arise for everything that constitutes human relationships in life. We thus see a human being entering into existence at birth and assume that, in a certain sense, they bring the core of their being into existence through their birth. Even external science shows us—if we look not at catchphrases and theories but at facts—how this spiritual-soul core of the human being continues to work within the child even after birth, how that which appears to us as a physical organization changes and is malleably shaped under the influence of the spiritual-soul. External science, too, can show us, for example, how what we initially regard as the instrument for external activities—the brain—is still an undifferentiated, thoroughly malleable substance in human beings when they enter existence through birth, and how what the human being strives to absorb from the spiritual wealth of his surroundings then penetrates and shapes the malleable mass of our brain like an artist, molding and forming it. If we assume—which is, after all, a fact and has often been mentioned in other contexts—that a human being, if cast helplessly onto a deserted island after birth, cannot acquire the ability to speak, then we must say: The spiritual-psychic content that approaches us from birth, clothed in language, is not something that emerges from within the human being, something that merely lies dormant in his constitution, something the human being acquires, so to speak, without the influences of his spiritual -psychic environment—just as, for example, a person receives their permanent teeth around the age of seven through an inner predisposition—but rather, language is something that works upon the human being. It is truly like a sculptor who, as it were, shapes the brain. We can indeed trace this shaping of the brain externally and scientifically during the earliest stages, indeed throughout the first few years. When it is then anatomically and physiologically demonstrated that a person’s capacity for language and the memory for certain linguistic concepts are bound to this or that organ—that every word is, as it were, stored like a book in a library—we may, on the other hand, ask: What shaped the brain to do this in the first place? And we can answer: that which existed as spiritual-soul elements in the linguistic heritage of the human being’s surroundings.

[ 3 ] This shows us that, when it comes to the human being’s entire spiritual development, we must distinguish everything he experiences in his thoughts, ideas, and sensations—including his impulses of will and feelings, which, so to speak, remain purely inner experiences— must be distinguished from something else that, while also remaining an inner experience, intervenes in the outer physical organization, shapes it plastically, and transforms it into an instrument for future spiritual faculties or future spiritual-soul life. We can see this most clearly and vividly when we trace a human capacity throughout a person’s life that reveals quite different aspects, even though these different aspects have often been conflated by external psychology: when we trace our memory.

[ 4 ] When we acquire something through memory—when we memorize it—we do so through various means, one of the most important of which is repetition. We have then made it our own and can pass it on. Now, everyone is familiar with a troublesome phenomenon: forgetting. For things fade from memory, vanishing in such a way that we are no longer able to recall them at a later time. Or can’t you remember how much you had to learn by heart and recite in your youth, and how much of it you can no longer recite from memory now? But does everything we have committed to memory really fade away?

[ 5 ] Let us now consider only what a person later says: “I have forgotten it”—that is, what they can no longer recall so as to reproduce it. Is it really gone forever? It is present in a similar way to something we have already mentioned, something that is always forgotten in normal human life: how the wonderful, rich early experiences of childhood are forgotten. Up to a certain point in normal human life, we only look back. Before that point, however, we have had an infinite number of impressions. Who would not admit this if they truly observed a child’s development in the first years of life with an open mind? But it is forgotten in the sense in which we usually speak of forgetting. But is it not there at all? Does it no longer play any role in the human soul? Yes, it plays a significant role in the human soul. For the nature of those earliest childhood impressions—whether we experience joy or sadness, love or indifference, this or that external impression—determines infinitely more about the overall mood and condition of the soul in later life than is generally assumed. What we have forgotten from our earliest years—what shapes and forms our soul—is more important than is generally acknowledged. The same is true of what we learn later in life: we may forget the exact wording or the specific ideas, but it remains within us as a certain mood of the soul. For example, if a person has learned ballads at a certain age—or other poems about great heroes with very specific tasks and very specific characteristics—they may forget the ideas, the events, and so on, so that they cannot reproduce them; but what remains is what they have learned, woven into the fabric of their own character—perhaps as inner strength, as a way of facing life and allowing joy and sorrow to touch them. What we forget becomes moods, emotional values, indeed impulses of the will—that which lies more or less unconsciously within our inner life, yet which shapes and forms us. Only sometimes does it become apparent through very specific events in later life that what has been forgotten in this way is not entirely forgotten after all—that when the proper steps are taken and something related is brought before the person’s mind, is indeed reminded of something forgotten, so that one can demonstrate that only something like a veil has been drawn over it in the subconscious layers of their inner life, but that it is still present within them. Thus we can literally see how what we forget—what fades from our memory—shapes and forms our soul, and then manifests itself in our moods toward joy and sorrow, in our courage, in our bravery or cowardice, and often in our fear and anxiety toward life. What we see, as it were, sinking from the treasure trove of memory into the subconscious then becomes a creative force within our very soul. Ultimately, it is we ourselves who have shaped the things we have forgotten into who we are. For what, in concrete terms, is a human being other than the way in which he can rejoice, be brave, and so on! If we look at the human being not abstractly but in very concrete terms, we must say: He is the harmonious interweaving and interplay of his qualities, so that the human being himself is shaped by what flows down into the deeper layers of his consciousness. We see this throughout life. From everything that has been considered so far—and what is yet to be discussed—it can be seen that what sinks into deeper layers of the spirit and soul sinks even deeper when a person passes through the gate of death. For every time a person seeks to shape their outer physical organization in life through what they take in, they already find a certain organization in place in this life. This organization is of one kind or another; a person enters life with these or those predispositions. The creative forces within our soul must strive against this. Let us suppose that, through what we take in, a quality of courage could be developed within us. But if we have a constitution that is more suited to a coward than to a brave person, then we must, to a greater or lesser extent, struggle against something inherent in our constitution in this life. And when we pass through the time between death and a new birth, the essence of this human development lies in our shaping the archetype, the primordial form of our new physical body—our new physical earthly constitution. There we have none of the limitations and resistances that our organization faces in the life between birth and death; there, using what we have acquired in life, we actively build the foundation and the fundamental forces for a new physicality within broader limits than is the case between birth and death. Therefore, we may say: Whatever forgotten ideas work solely upon our soul during the life between birth and death—these ideas, when we pass through the gate of death, continue to work until the time of reincarnation on the formation of our next physical organization; they work their way into that which is connected with our new physical body; so that through birth we enter into our new existence with such predispositions that they reach into even deeper layers of our being than the forgotten ideas from the life between birth and death.

[ 6 ] From all this, it will be quite understandable that human beings—because they have drawn the causes for the organization of a new physicality from life and from their immediate surroundings—do in fact need those same conditions again in a certain way. The situation is different for animals, which, as we have seen from the discussions on “The Human Soul and the Animal Soul” and “The Human Spirit and the Animal Spirit,” have determined their organization through heredity. Here, the animal manifests very specific tendencies that seek to take on a concrete form, because these tendencies are not derived from the animal’s environment. Let us consider how little the animal, through upbringing or training, appropriates or takes in from the external world, and how little it therefore needs a setting located in the external world to bring forth what has been taken in as formative principles. Human beings, however, do need such a setting. That is why they enter the world awkwardly, in such a way that even there we must once again lend a final hand to the finer shaping of their organization. Hence the life and weaving of the human being’s individuality—their very essence—in the first years of their existence! That is why the human being’s mental organ—the brain—enters existence as a malleable, formable entity, and is therefore, in essence, only endowed after birth with the final, decisive pathways, lines, and directions through which the innate capacities are to be realized. From this we see how what is essential in development must be regarded as something carried over from earlier stages of existence, and that it will therefore matter less to have specific, dogmatic educational principles than to regard every single human being, every individuality, as a problem, as a sacred mystery to be solved—and that it is up to us to create the opportunities so that this mystery can be solved in the best possible way. An educational approach that cannot establish any firm principles at all—but must instead appeal to a principle akin to artistry in the educator in order to observe what emerges from the very essence of the human being—is inconvenient; it is more inconvenient than simply stating by regulation: “These or those abilities are to be expressed in such and such a way.” But we can only approach the growing human being with the right attitude if we regard them in each individual case as an individuality, as something special in and of itself. If, however, one wishes to take things entirely trivially—some people do indeed have a talent for taking everything trivially—one might say: Individuality manifests itself not only in human beings but also in every animal. Certainly it does. But no one who speaks from the foundations of spiritual science will deny this either. I have often said: when one speaks of individuality in this sense, one must go into it more precisely; one must be aware that, if one wants to take things trivially, one can also speak of the “biography” and the “individuality” of a quill pen. I knew a man who—because in his day writing nibs were still cut from goose quills—could already distinguish between his writing nibs; for since each person cut his own nib, it always developed a personal connection to him, and since the man in question had an excellent imagination, he could very well have written a biography of each individual writing nib in great detail. But when it comes to human beings, the point is not to apply the standard of triviality, but rather the standard drawn from the depths of insight.

[ 7 ] Now we can—since it is precisely through such considerations that the manner in which human beings, in shaping and forming their true essence, plastically mold their outward appearance and external organization, and live out their true essence within it, becomes apparent — in this living out, we can once again see how this occurs in the early years and how, as the human being develops, it transforms, reshapes itself, and makes use of what it can absorb from its surroundings. We find it of particular importance in the first years of a person’s life that we preserve, so to speak, their ability to intervene plastically and malleably in their physical or physical-psychic organization, and that we do not block their ability to intervene in this way. We most effectively block this possibility for a person when we cram them too early with concepts and ideas that relate only to external sensory perception and have the strictest contours, or when we pin them down to an activity that is theoretically constrained within very specific forms. There is no variability, no modification, nor any possibility of developing the mental and emotional capacities as the soul evolves from day to day, from hour to hour. Let’s suppose a father were a terribly stubborn man who has made it his principle: “My son must become just as I was! All my life I’ve made shoes this way for my customers, and that’s how my son must make his shoes too! My son must think just as I do!” — This introduces into the boy’s environment a spiritual-psychic structure that works on his spiritual-psychic organization in the same way that it worked on his father, and the boy is thereby forced into very specific molds, whereas the aim should be to explore the individuality that is emerging into existence, in order to shape the spiritual-psychic organization based on the insight gained from that exploration.

[ 8 ] Humanity’s instinct for education has, through the collective consciousness, already created a marvelous means by which a person is enabled, in the early years, to work on the changeable, modifiable, and flexible aspects of the spiritual-soul life, leaving ample room for the development of the human being. That is play. It is also the best way to engage a child: not by giving them concepts bound within fixed contours, but rather those that leave room for thought to wander here and there. Only then can one discover the course of thought that is predetermined by the child’s inner disposition. If I tell a fairy tale in a way that stimulates the child’s mental activity—so that concepts do not take on fixed contours, but rather the child allows the contours of the concepts to remain flexible—then the child works in the same way as someone who experiments and, through experimentation, seeks to discover what is right. The child works to discover how their mind must move in order to shape their organization in the best possible way, as it is internally preformed. And so it is with play. Play differs from activity shaped into fixed forms in that, to a certain degree, one can do what one wants when playing; one does not have sharply defined contours in one’s thoughts or in the movements of the organs from the outset. This, in turn, has a free, determinable effect on the human being’s spiritual-psychic organization. Play and the spiritual-psychic activity just described for the child in the early years spring from a deep awareness of what the nature and essence of the human being actually is. Anyone who wishes to become a true educator will also have the awareness, even for the later years, that in fact every single ability, so to speak, must first be studied, recognized, and defined in the developing human being. Yet there is still the possibility of observing certain broad principles. Such principles then lead us to understand how the core essence of the human being—which passes from birth to birth—utilizes, so to speak, the external aspects that lie within the hereditary line.

[ 9 ] It is therefore of the utmost interest to focus on the way in which the spiritual-soul core of the human being utilizes—in very different ways—the traits, characteristics, virtues, and so on, of the father and mother, as well as of the paternal and maternal ancestors, in order to build something new. And indeed: the paternal and maternal qualities are not utilized in the same way by the individual core of a human being’s being; rather, a very specific law underlies this process. It is precisely this law that is infinitely instructive. If we attempt to grasp it in its entirety in order to understand it, we must observe how two distinct elements assert themselves in the human soul. One is intellectuality, to which we shall now also count the ability to think in images and ideas—more quickly or more slowly, more intelligently or more foolishly. The other is the general direction of the will and feeling, the emotions, and the interest we take in our surroundings. The entire way in which we are capable of accomplishing something depends on whether we have a quick or a slow, a dull or a penetrating mind, and whether we are perceptive or not. What a person can contribute to others and how we do so depends on whether we know how to connect our interests, in the right sense, with what is happening in our surroundings. Some people have good prerequisites, but they have little interest in their fellow human beings or their environment. The fact is that a lack of interest fails to bring out one’s abilities. Therefore, it is necessary to pay just as much attention to the interest within us as to whether the agility of our intellect allows us to contribute this or that to the world around us. .

[ 10 ] As for the entire nature of interest—with which we can also associate the way in which human desires take shape, the way in which one’s entire life is conducted, the way in which a person develops skillfully or clumsily—in short, the entire nature of mental life, which is connected to our interaction with the external world, to our greater or lesser interest in it, and to our skill in dealing with it — for this, a person derives the most important elements from the father’s genetic inheritance, so that interests—and what these interests endow us with that enables us to skillfully use our organs and our entire being—are, as a rule, inherited from the father. The soul thus takes the corresponding elements from the father so that it can develop those qualities within itself. What, on the other hand, constitutes intellectual agility—with which imaginative activity, pictorial visualization, and inventiveness are also connected—is inherited by our individuality, which comes into being at birth, from the mother’s characteristics. You can already find this extraordinarily interesting topic hinted at in a certain way in Schopenhauer; he had an inkling of it, but was not in a position to point out the deeper aspects involved.

[ 11 ] On the other hand, however, we may say something else. What lives within the father as the way he relates to things—what interests and desires he has toward them, how he demands, wishes, or desires—whether he is a person who bravely intervenes in life’s circumstances or who timidly withdraws, whether he is pedantic or magnanimous—in other words, the qualities connected with the impulses of the will—we find, in a certain sense, borrowed from the father. In contrast, everything pertaining to the soul’s agility and intellectuality is passed down from the mother. — Now, however, an interesting difference becomes apparent, one that can only be observed by considering the full scope of life. Then you will also find evidence of it everywhere. Namely, with regard to gender, a tremendous difference becomes evident. One might say: For a son, the relationship to father and mother is, in essence, wonderfully described in Goethe’s words: “From my father I have my stature, the serious conduct of life”—that is, everything related to a person’s interaction with the external world—“from my mother, my cheerful nature, the delight in storytelling”—that is, the entire manner of spiritual life. But if we now turn our attention to the daughter, it becomes apparent in a most remarkable way that the paternal qualities manifest in her in such a way that they are elevated one level from the nature of volitional impulses—from the nature that expresses itself more in interaction with the surroundings—into the realm of the soul. Therefore, one can observe in a father—though this naturally applies only under similar circumstances—who boldly takes on everything, who has a keen interest in this or that, and who thereby lives out a certain seriousness in his interactions with his surroundings, find these qualities adopted by the daughter’s individuality in such a way that they are elevated into the soul—that there is a daughter with a serious inner life, with her father’s character traits transformed into the soul, which makes more fluid what may be sluggish in the father, so that the most important qualities, which appear to us more externally in the father, are revealed in a more internalized form in the daughter.

[ 12 ] Therefore, we can say: The father’s character traits live on in the daughter’s soul; the mother’s spiritual qualities, the liveliness of the mind, as well as talents and abilities that can be cultivated, live on in the son. Goethe’s mother, the elderly Mrs. Rat, was a woman who could spin tales, whose imagination functioned in the most wonderful way. In her son, this was taken down a notch, becoming disposition and organization, so that Goethe had the ability to give to humanity what lived within his mother. Thus we see how the maternal qualities are brought down a level in the sons, so that they become organ-like abilities, while the paternal qualities are raised a level by the daughters, so that they appear to us as internalized and spiritualized qualities. Perhaps nothing illustrates this more clearly than the beautiful contrast between Goethe and his sister Cornelia, who was, in every respect, just like the old councilor—an internalized, spiritualized, quiet, and serious nature—and who, therefore, could be for the poet even in his boyhood what he needed: an exceptionally good companion. Keep this in mind and consider how, according to his own account, Goethe was unable to establish a favorable relationship with his father. This was because the fatherly qualities were externalized in the old Councilor. What Goethe needed were precisely these qualities, but he could not understand them as they existed in his father. There they were genuine. Having become part of her soul, they lived on in his sister, which is why she was able to be such a good companion to him.

[ 13 ] If you now follow me through history, you will see how every step confirms what has been said, and how, wherever there are indications, one could provide historical confirmation of such a matter. The most beautiful confirmation in this regard comes from the mother of the Maccabees, who, with heroic grandeur, sent her sons to their deaths for what she believed and what their fathers believed, with these great and beautiful words: “I have given you your physical bodies; but He who created the world and humankind has given you what I could not give you, and He will ensure that you receive it again if you lose it for the sake of your faith!” How often in history is the very maternal element held up to us: from the mother of Alexander and the mother of the Gracchi right up to our own time, when we see certain qualities manifesting in a person—qualities that enable that person to influence their surroundings, and that they possess the strengths, talents, and even the physical and spiritual constitution necessary for doing so. We could open the history of significant men anywhere—wherever we wished—and everywhere we would find the maternal qualities expressed in such a way that they have descended one step further, that they have become abilities embedded in life. Let us take the example of Bürger’s mother and his father, from whom he had also inherited his strength of will. He actually had little in common with his father; his father was glad when he did not have to concern himself with the little boy’s development; his mother, however, had a wonderfully agile mind; it was she who possessed the correct expression, both grammatically and stylistically. This, in turn, was necessary for the poet; he inherited these qualities from his mother, and they emerged precisely because he belonged to the next generation. Or let us consider Hebbel and his relationship with his father. Anyone who knows the poet Hebbel more closely will already sense, in all the austere peculiarity and obstinacy of his interests, an echo of his paternal heritage. The old master mason Hebbel had indeed bequeathed much to his son in this regard. But the son and the mother understood one another, and it was the mother who protected her son from becoming a master mason in his hometown instead of later giving his dramas to humanity. It is touching to read how Hebbel himself recounts in his wonderful diaries what bound him to his mother.

[ 14 ] These examples could be multiplied ad infinitum. However, we must by no means—simply because we believe we observe in life that something different occurs here or there—conclude from this that the laws are false. That would be just as if someone were to say: Physicists prove the law of falling bodies to us; I will now prove to them, by setting up all sorts of devices, that the law can be circumvented!” — But laws are not meant for us to take every circumstance into account; rather, we must keep our focus on what is at issue. This is how we must proceed in the natural sciences, and this is how we must proceed in the humanities. It is just that the humanities have not yet advanced far enough to proceed in the same way. If one takes this into account, one will find the aforementioned law confirmed everywhere in the paternal and maternal genetic material. However, when looking at the human being as a whole, one must realize that what we call the human soul—and which manifests itself in the entire physical and soul organization of the human being—is by no means a simple matter. One can, of course, once again give in to the urge toward triviality and say: Why do you anthroposophists have this peculiar fixation on distinguishing three soul components—and indeed many components—within human nature? You speak of a feeling soul, an intellectual soul, and a conscious soul. It would surely be much simpler to speak of the soul as a unified entity in which thinking, feeling, and willing take place. — It is certainly simpler, more convenient—and also trivial. But this is also something that cannot truly advance the scientific study of human beings. For the division of the human soul into a soul of sensation—that is, the part that first comes into contact with the environment and receives perceptions and sensations from the outside, in which desires and instincts also develop— and which must then be distinguished from the part in which what has been received is already, in a certain sense, processed. We activate our sensory soul by facing the external world, receiving impressions of color and sound from it, but also allowing what we, as normal human beings, do not initially have under our control to emerge: our drives, desires, and passions. But when we withdraw and process within ourselves what we have taken in through perceptions and so on, so that what has been stimulated in us by the external world is transformed into feelings, then we live in the second part of the soul, the intellectual or emotional soul. And to the extent that we direct and guide our thoughts rather than being led by the nose, we live in the soul of consciousness.

[ 15 ] In *The Secret Science* or in “Theosophy,” you will see that the three soul components have many more connections—of a different kind—to what exists in the external world, not because we take pleasure in this classification, but because what we call the feeling soul is related to the cosmos in a completely different way than what we call the conscious soul.

[ 16 ] It is the consciousness soul that isolates the human being, causing him to perceive himself as an inwardly self-contained being. What we call the intellectual soul connects him to his surroundings and to the entire cosmos; through this, he becomes a being who appears like an essence, like a convergence of the whole world. Through the consciousness soul, the human being lives within himself, isolating himself. The most essential aspect experienced in the consciousness soul is that which we develop last among our human faculties: the capacity for logical thinking, which enables us to form opinions, thoughts, and so on. This resides in the consciousness soul. With regard to these qualities, the individual core of a human being—which enters into existence through birth—is, in fact, most predisposed to isolation. This innermost core of being emerges last in a human being. While its outer shell—its physical organization—emerges earliest, its actual individuality emerges last. But just as human beings are now—they were different in the past and will be different in the future—they do in fact develop their opinions, concepts, and ideas in the most isolated part of their being. These therefore have the least influence on the entire structure and formation of their overall personality and emerge as a predisposition only once the overall personality has been firmly established and vividly formed.

[ 17 ] Here we see how human endowment develops in a specific sequence. First, we see what arises in the least isolated, separate element of the human being—the sensory or instinctive soul. Yet this element also possesses the greatest power to influence the entire human organism. Therefore, we can see that we are least able to reach a child through opinions, theories, and ideas when this sensory soul is most intensely striving to shape the child from within. We can only reach the child when we allow the feeling soul to take effect—as described in my work *The Education of the Child from the Perspective of Spiritual Science*—whereupon, especially in the first years of life, we must ensure that theories and doctrines are not developed, but rather that the child is encouraged to imitate, and that we model for the child what it is to live out. This is of infinite importance, because this impulse to imitate is one of the very first innate tendencies that can be influenced. Admonitions and teachings have the least effect during this period. The child imitates what it sees, because it develops in the way it must, in accordance with its relationship to the outside world. We lay the first foundation for the child’s entire personality when, during the first seven years, we model for the child what it is permitted to imitate, when we discern how we must behave in the child’s presence. This is, admittedly, a highly unusual educational principle for many. Most people will ask how the child is supposed to behave, and here is where spiritual science comes in with its demands: people should learn from the child how to behave in the child’s presence—right down to their words, attitudes, and thoughts! For the child is far more receptive in its soul than is commonly believed, and above all, more receptive than the adult. There are, after all, people with a certain sensitivity who immediately sense, for example, when someone enters a room who spoils the good atmosphere. This is true to an immense degree in the case of children, even though it is rarely taken into account today. And what matters far less is what one does in specific situations than what kind of person one strives to be, what thoughts and ideas one nurtures. It is not enough to keep certain things from the children and allow oneself thoughts that should not be directed toward them; rather, our thoughts must be lived out in such a way that we feel: this may live on in the child and should live on. — That’s uncomfortable, but it’s true! Then, once the child has begun losing their baby teeth, what we might call “building upon”—not what the person does, but what the person holds within as a personality—building upon authority comes into play. This is the most important thing: that in the first years of life, the child can embody what we say, do, and think, and that in the second epoch, the child senses within us a person on whom they can rely, so that they can say: “What that person does is good!” — Not that from the ages of seven to fourteen or sixteen we admonish the child, based on a principle, to develop a moral theory, showing them: “This must be done; that must be avoided”—but rather, we give the child the greatest treasure when it can have the feeling, with regard to the intellectual or emotional soul: What the person next to me does is good; I must refrain from doing what he does! — This is of infinite importance.

[ 18 ] It is only upon reaching the age of fourteen or sixteen that a person begins to be able to rely on the most isolated part of their being—the conscious soul—that is, on what takes shape within the conscious soul: their opinions, concepts, and ideas. But these must first have a firm foundation, and that foundation must be created. If we do not create it by providing the opportunity through education—as the individuality reveals it to us—and if we thereby do not clear the way for development, then the human being is seized by another element: the rigidity of his physical nature. Then they become alienated from themselves; then it is not their individuality—which passes from life to life—that intervenes, but rather they become slaves to their physical-soul organization, which subjugates the human being from the outside in. This is evident in the fact that they are not masters of their spiritual-soul aspect, but are entirely dependent on their physical-soul organization, exhibiting rigid characteristics that are unchangeable. A person, on the other hand, in whom we have taken care to allow his inner qualities to emerge as much as possible, retains a certain flexibility throughout his entire life and is still able to adapt to new situations even in later life. In the other person, however, the physical-soul organization becomes externalized, takes on rigid forms, and the person retains them throughout his entire life. We live in an era where human individuality is little valued and where, consequently, there is little opportunity to convince oneself that individuality remains flexible and active in later life and is capable of adapting to new situations and truths. This brings us to a topic where we can see how some people simply have to face life as it comes.

[ 19 ] Once people have gained insight into a worldview, how many of them strive so hard to convince others of it as well? They believe it is a very common endeavor when they say: Since I see it so clearly, I should actually be able to bring everyone to this conviction! But that is naivety. Our opinions do not depend at all on whether something is logically proven to us. That is possible in only the rarest of cases. For a person’s opinions and convictions are formed from entirely different depths of the soul—from the nature of their will, their temperament, and their emotions, so that a person may well understand your logical arguments and grasp your astute conclusions, yet fail to internalize them afterward for the simple reason that what a person believes and professes does not flow from their logic and understanding, but arises from their entire personality—that is, from those aspects where the will and the emotions take root. Our thoughts, however, are the part of us that emerges last of all our faculties, once the physical organization has long since been completed. This is the most isolated realm. It is there that we find the least access to other people; we can achieve more if we engage them in the deeper aspects: in the soul, in the will. There, we can still influence the organization. But if a person has grown up in a very materialistic environment—say, one where only matter is recognized—then, during the course of their upbringing, a sum of emotional and volitional impulses forms that plastically shapes their physicality and also their brain. Later, they may acquire quite good logical thinking, but this no longer influences the plasticity of their brain. Logical thoughts are the most powerful force in the human soul. Therefore, it is particularly important that we find a connection to other people in the soul as well, not merely through logic. If someone has already developed their brain in a certain way, then that brain—which, having become physical, merely reflects the old ideas over and over again—no longer reshapes logic. Therefore, for worldviews such as spiritual science—which are built on the purest, sharpest logic—one cannot hope to influence others by simply going from one person to another in an attempt to convince them. If someone who understands the impulse of spiritual science were to believe that they could convince people through persuasion or logic—if, for example, they were to believe that the spiritual scientist succumbs to this illusion—they would be very much mistaken! For in our age there are a great many such people who, by virtue of their entire personality, their nature of will and temperament, do not seek what the spiritual world and spiritual research are. From the great mass of those living around us, those who have an inclination toward spiritual science will emerge; they will turn toward what they dimly sense, what they already possess in their souls. Only a selection, a sifting, can take place with regard to a worldview built upon what pure logic and human consciousness can encompass. Therefore, the spiritual scientist approaches people and knows how to distinguish: Here is someone to whom you could preach for years, yet he will not be able to grasp your ideas. You must first bring this to his consciousness; you can speak to his soul, but he himself cannot reflect on it using his entire soul apparatus, his brain. The other person is constituted in such a way that he has the capacity to respond to what spiritual science reveals in its logically structured manner, and he therefore also finds his way into what, in essence, already lives within his soul.

[ 20 ] This is the way in which we must engage with the great cultural tasks of the present or the future. Only when we recognize how the whole personality of the human being relates to what the human being is gradually able to take in—in the course of his development and education—of new truths, of such things that must now truly unite with his personality—only when we have once again realized how, fundamentally, the soul-spiritual aspect of the sculptor, the sculptor, and the artist is to the physical-soul aspect—then we will also place greater value on fostering the development of the spiritual-soul aspect in human beings in such a way that they—especially during the years when they are receptive to education—can powerfully take it into their own hands with regard to how they can influence the physical-soul aspect. We must be clear that many mistakes can be made in this regard. After all, we see from our descriptions how human preferences and so on contribute far more to the formation of views than pure logic. Pure logic alone could only be allowed to speak once desires and instincts have fallen completely silent. Before that, we must be aware that if we believe we have developed a person’s aptitudes one-sidedly in a particular area, then what we have neglected will come to light in a remarkable way.

[ 21 ] Let us suppose we educate a person in such a way that we bring out only their abstract aptitudes, as is often done in school. In that case, pure concepts and abstract ideas cannot permeate the whole of their emotional and feeling life. This aspect then remains undeveloped and uncultivated, and later manifests itself in all sorts of trivial ways of living. Two distinct aspects of character often become apparent later in life. Even among people of high standing—if they have not been able to develop within themselves what lies in the depths of their personality—preferences, inclinations, and sympathies that run deeper assert themselves in other ways. What examinee has not experienced—even when facing an examiner who is as intelligent as can be and capable of grasping much within his field of expertise—how this one-sidedness is expressed in the examiner’s preference for hearing answers exactly as he wants them? And woe to the examinee who does not know how to put into words what he is supposed to say in the exact way the examiner wants to hear it!

[ 22 ] In a book on the psychology of the soul by Moriz Benedikt, some valid points are made regarding the flaws in human education in this regard. There is also this true story: Once, two examinees were tested by two examiners, and a mishap occurred in which one examinee gave answers to Examiner A as if Examiner B had asked the questions. Had he been allowed to give those answers to Examiner B, he would have passed the exam with flying colors. The other candidate was in the opposite situation. As a result, both failed!

[ 23 ] This can show us how well what is indisputable can be clothed in logical forms. But as soon as we are unable to integrate our concepts into the development of thought during education, there is no suitable field from which to shape the human being. How, then, should we relate to human beings? We must relate to them in such a way that, during the period when human beings are best formed through a vivid, concrete process—and when abstract concepts and ideas are least effective—we present them with as few abstract concepts and ideas as possible, but rather with ideas that are as vivid and concrete as possible. That is why I have emphasized so strongly that the pictorial, the concrete—which deviates as little as possible from what has form, shape, or outline—must be incorporated into our concepts. For what is taken in as an image, a form, or a figural image of the imagination possesses great power to influence our physical constitution. You can already see that the visual elements we encounter in form do indeed influence our physical constitution from the fact that it helps very little to tell a patient in a particular situation: “You should do this; you should not do that.” — That helps very little. But if you set up a device resembling an electrifying machine so that the patient can form this image in their mind, place two handles in their hands, and do not actually pass any current through them—if they simply have the image before them, then they feel the current, and then it helps! However, wherever it is so eloquently proclaimed that the imagination plays a major role, we must be clear that this does not refer to just any kind of imagination, but only to the visual kind.

[ 24 ] We live in an age in which it has gradually become customary to disregard the principle of spiritual science—namely, that a person only becomes capable, between the ages of fourteen or sixteen and twenty-one or twenty-two, form concepts and ideas—and that one absorbs concepts during this period that are only to be developed later—is given very little credence; rather, today a person is already considered mature enough, even before reaching this age, to write newspaper articles that are printed and then accepted by the public. It is therefore difficult to keep abstract concepts at bay until that specific age has been reached and to present people with vivid, concrete imagery. For vivid imagery has the power to influence the physical and psychological constitution.

[ 25 ] What I am about to say can always be confirmed; it’s just that people don’t always pay attention to it. Moriz Benedikt, for example, laments the fact that many high school students are often so clumsy later in life. Where does this come from? Because the entire educational system is so abstract, pays so little attention to the concrete, and adheres only to abstract concepts—even when teaching languages. In contrast, we can feel vivid imagery—which speaks to us because the objects themselves appear to us in images—right down to the tips of our fingers. One might say: If you want to visualize an object, you must move in such a way that, by tracing a circle or an ellipse with your hand, you feel a fusion with the object in images. It is not merely the imitation of manual dexterity, but the process of feeling and learning to love things that shows us how vivid, concrete visualization stirs our limbs, making them supple and agile. After all, we can find many people today who, if a button comes off, cannot sew a new one back on. That is a great disadvantage. The important thing is that we can engage with the outside world using everything we have. Of course, we cannot learn everything. But we can learn how the spiritual-soul aspect flows down from the spiritual into the physical-soul aspect and makes our limbs supple. And no one whom we have taught in youth to sense what lies outside themselves will be a clumsy person later in life. For what lies just below the threshold of our consciousness can have the most profound effect on our constitution. This also applies to language. One learns a language best at a time when one is not yet able to understand its grammar, for then one learns with that part of the soul that belongs to the deeper layers.

[ 26 ] This is how humanity has developed—and this is how each individual must develop. I have already pointed out elsewhere how Laurenz Müllner, in a speech as rector, drew attention to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome—how magnificently it stands, how the laws of space are incorporated into the mechanics of the dome’s construction, so that one sees the mechanics of space expressed in the most wondrous way. But he also pointed out that the laws Michelangelo expressed in that structure were later discovered by Galileo through his soaring intellect, and it was through this that the science of mechanics was first given to us. I also drew attention to the fact that the anniversary of Michelangelo’s death almost coincides with Galileo’s birthday, so that the abstract laws of mechanics—which live in the human consciousness—emerged later than what Michelangelo built into space from the deeper members of the soul. Just as the higher soul elements develop on the basis of the lower ones, just as we must develop our limbs on the basis of our predispositions in order to then look back on them and gain an understanding of them, so it is also in the individual life. In the individual life, too, the human being must be surrounded by human society; must immerse themselves in what envelops them like an atmosphere—in the spiritual and soul aspects of our surroundings. Then what the human being brings into existence is shaped and formed. But the human being does not merely bring in what is bestowed upon them through their hereditary line; rather, this is determined in the most manifold ways by a third factor—the eternal individuality of the human being. This individuality of the human being requires the inherited qualities; it must appropriate and develop them. This also stands higher than what enters into existence with our individuality. We enter into existence at birth: a creative, productive spirituality appropriates the malleable substance from our hereditary lineage even before we are able to form concepts. Only later is the conscious soul added. Thus we perceive an individual aspect within human nature that plastically shapes abilities and talents. When we become educators, it is our task to ensure that what we regard as a spiritual mystery must be solved anew in every human being.

[ 27 ] All of this points to a certain mood. When Goethe found Schiller’s skull during the excavation of Schiller’s remains and saw how distinctly the features were formed—how human individuality had shaped it—when he realized that Schiller’s fluid spirit had to take shape within this form in order for him to become what he became—could Goethe express this in words:

What more can a person gain in life,
Than for God-Nature to reveal itself to him,
How it transforms the solid into spirit,
How it preserves what the spirit has created!

[ 28 ] One must understand such a statement by Goethe in the context of the situation. Anyone who takes it without considering what, as a product of the spirit, is expressed in its fixed form misunderstands it. Nor does anyone understand it who does not know how deeply Goethe insight into the eternal weaving of an individuality that passes from birth to birth, incarnating anew time and again, and is the true architect of the human being. How we have received from the spirit the organs that are, in turn, organs of the spirit—this can, in essence, be explained simply through a childlike comparison: The clock shows us the time, but we could not use it if the human spirit had not first shaped it. — We need our brain to think in the physical world, but we could not use it for thinking if the world spirit had not shaped it. And we would not have developed it with such individuality if our own individuality had not poured itself—as a creation of the spirit—into our brain, which was formed in this way from the essence of the human species. Thus we gain a deeper understanding of what we were able to express today, and what Goethe meant when he pointed to that aspect of the human being which, in the essence of humanity, determines all its talents and abilities—as if the stars themselves were conceived as some aspect of the world, and as if that which manifests within the human being as something eternal passes through the gate of death solely to advance toward new forms of development. In short, we may summarize what we have considered today in the spirit of Goethe’s thoughts, which he expresses in the “Orphic Primordial Words”:

Just as on the day you were born into this world,
The sun stood in greeting to the planets,
And so you flourished immediately and ever onward
According to the law by which you came into being.
This is how you must be; you cannot escape it,
As the Sibyls and prophets have long foretold;
And no time, no power can fragment
A formed shape that develops while alive!