The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4. The Souls of Nations

[ 1 ] Tonight’s topic, too, has sprung from the impulses that our times can provide. In our present time, when so many nations are at war with one another, it seems that the inner gaze of the human being is called upon to look at the forces and essential qualities that live within the individual nations; and insofar as we can speak of these forces and essential qualities within the nations as “national souls,” that is what we shall discuss today.

[ 2 ] Nowadays, it is already difficult—in the sense of the humanities, as is intended here—to speak of the individual human soul, because, in the face of the widespread materialistic trend of our time, the real, inner, true essence of the individual soul is not easily upheld, since this essence is doubted and denied. Even further removed from the life of the individual soul, however, lies—in the eyes of naturalistic and materialistic thinking—that which is often regarded today as something that must be rejected in its true meaning because it seeks to stand on the firm ground of natural science—even further removed is what can be described by the term “national soul.” Is the “national soul,” the naturalistic way of thinking asks, anything other than the convergence of everything that manifests itself from the individual souls—that which holds a certain community of people together, but which has a real existence only within the individual human beings? Already in the first lecture I took the liberty of delivering this winter, I observed that the great events of our time—the self-sacrifice of so many souls—do indeed direct our gaze toward the national soul as something real. Whether he is more or less aware of it: he who sacrifices himself, called upon by the fate of the times, nevertheless understands his sacrifice—which he offers to the collective soul—as something real, something genuine, something that lives, something that possesses an inner essence. Even philosophers of our time—a time so averse to genuine spiritual contemplation—when they attempt to delve more deeply into the circumstances of history and the conditions of human coexistence, cannot help but encounter the idea of a collective soul; in other words, the idea of the national soul. Thus,

[ 3 ] For Wundt, the Leipzig philosopher, who is now held in such high esteem and whom one truly cannot accuse of having any inclination toward a spiritual-scientific perspective, cannot help but see something real in the spirit of community, to which he attributes an organism, indeed even a personality. Such things draw attention to the fact that anyone who engages in philosophical matters must at least approach what the humanities have to offer, and that, fundamentally speaking, the belief that spiritual life and spiritual reality are merely an appendage to external reality stems from nothing other than a lack of familiarity with the humanities. Wundt, too, sees a certain organism in what coexists within a people through language, customs, and religious views, and he even says that a certain personality comes to life within it. But external philosophy has not yet managed to arrive at a genuine spiritual-scientific perspective. For this, it is necessary to proceed from foundations such as those to which attention was drawn in yesterday’s lecture.

[ 4 ] It has been pointed out that the human soul develops through the stimulation of inner forces and the overcoming of inner struggles; through this process, the human soul prepares itself to perceive the spiritual, the spiritual world, and thereby elevates itself to an experience that must then be expressed as follows: One experiences oneself within the spiritual world as a thought of higher spiritual beings; just as our thoughts live within us, so, through soul development, one experiences oneself as a thought of higher spiritual beings. And attention has been drawn to how that which constitutes the actual spiritual-soul aspect in human beings—which, during ordinary sleep, from falling asleep to waking up, lives outside the human body—is purified and illuminated through this soul development; so that the human being truly knows himself to be within that in which he otherwise lives unconsciously from falling asleep to waking up, so that he thereby knows himself to be alive in his true spiritual being and thus in his true higher being, just as he otherwise knows himself through his physical existence in the outer world. But attention has also been drawn to why, in the dull life of sleep, a person cannot illuminate their soul with the awareness of spiritual being. We have said that from the moment of falling asleep until waking, the soul is filled with the desire to submerge itself once more into its physical body; and this desire acts as a mist, as a cloud that obscures what would otherwise be present when the soul, freed from the body during sleep, rests in the bosom of the spiritual world. For one can say: spiritual science understands how the soul must be an independent, body-free, self-aware being, and it also knows how, in the state into which the soul enters every day upon falling asleep, the soul can know nothing of this state, since its consciousness is clouded. But as the spiritual researcher thus comes to know the nature and essence of the disembodied human soul, he also comes to understand in another way what it means to re-enter the human body upon waking. And here a significant insight of spiritual science, a significant result of spiritual research, must be articulated.

[ 5 ] The spiritual researcher consciously experiences this immersion into the physical body. Just as he manages to consciously experience within himself that which is unconscious during sleep, so too does he experience the way in which the soul lives within the body once it has immersed itself in it again. And he knows: just as the soul’s consciousness is clouded during sleep, so too, when it has immersed itself in the body and lives within it, is it—one might say—more alert than it can be through its own powers. Just as its consciousness is duller in sleep than it could be through its own powers, due to the desire present within it, so too is it, during waking life, more alert, brighter, and more illuminated than it could be through its own power. Through its immersion in the body, it can participate in what it experiences within the body; but this immersion provides a more alert experience than that achieved through the power the soul brings with it.

[ 6 ] This is when the truth of the statement becomes clear to the spiritual researcher: that everything in the external world that appears to us as merely physical is permeated by the spiritual, and that, fundamentally, the spiritual lives within all physical things. And just as a person penetrates into the inner light of his soul, so he delves into his body and knows that he is not merely a body, but that he is permeated by spirit and soul; and in the soul-like quality that they perceive as they delve into their body lies that which leads a true—not merely personal, but transpersonal—spiritual life, which we do not encounter when we are alive in what we experience between falling asleep and waking up, but which we do encounter when we delve into the body. Among many other spiritual elements in our body, we encounter what can be called the national soul. This national soul imbues our body with spirit and soul. With our body, we are not given merely physical materiality; rather, with our body—which we use as our instrument between birth and death—we are also given that which animates our body, and which is not the same as our own personal soul. What unites with our own personal soul as we enter the body is precisely what constitutes the national spirit, the national soul. In a sense, every time we fall asleep, we also leave the dwelling place of the national soul to which we belong. — The spiritual researcher—as I have often pointed out—does not fear the accusation of dualism, which would contradict “monism,” when he points out that the human being is a duality, that every time we fall asleep, we split from a unity into a duality; he fears this just as little as a chemist would fear the accusation of dualism when he says of water: it consists of hydrogen and oxygen. In human beings, insofar as we regard them as external physical forms, there lives not only the individual soul that passes from life to life, incarnating again and again in repeated earthly lives; but within what moves about as physical forms, there lives something else of a spiritual nature—the true national souls, imbued with consciousness. However, the national souls are imbued with a different kind of consciousness than the individual human souls; and so that we may form a conception of how different this national soul is, let us draw attention to it in the following way.

[ 7 ] When faced with external reality, a person confronts it in such a way that, depending on his or her overall disposition, and the full range of nuances in his inner life, either devotes himself, as it were, to the observable objects of the external world, or lives in such a way that he has little inclination to direct his gaze beyond the horizon of the external world, preferring instead to live in harmony with what lives within his own soul—what surges and ebbs there. This contrast becomes evident when we turn our gaze to Goethe and Schiller. Goethe’s thinking, which has rightly been called “concrete,” rests upon things and extends across them; it is such that Goethe lives with things and, as it were, breathes in their spirituality, like spiritual air. Schiller’s gaze was directed less toward the world of things and more toward the soul itself—toward what pulses and ebbs and flows within it. That which lives on through history as the national soul is of such a nature that the external world, which exists for the individual human soul, does not exist for this national soul. Just as things in nature are present all around us, so are we ourselves present for the national soul. Our souls, which always enter our bodies upon waking, are, as it were, the objects of observation for the national soul entering within us, just as the objects of nature are the objects of our observation. As we sink into the body, we are—one cannot quite say—beheld, but rather pulsed through by the will of the national soul’s power and activity. The national soul directs itself toward us.

[ 8 ] But now a difference may arise in that the national soul is directed more toward what enters the body than toward the individual human soul. It can, as it were—as I made clear using the example of the individual human soul in Goethe with regard to nature—be that the impulse of the national soul within us seizes the individual soul more fully, devotes itself more fully to the individual soul; or the national soul may live more within itself, as I explained using Schiller as an example, and may be more attuned to what it can experience as its own good through human physicality. Thus we see a sense of personality in the national soul, for which our souls are, as it were, what nature is to us. — Much more could be said about the national souls and their peculiarities, drawing on certain characteristics of the human soul. But one will understand: just as individual human souls are manifoldly diverse and relate to the world in manifoldly different ways—depending on whether the soul’s gaze is more or less directed inward or outward—so, too, the national souls will be able to relate in various ways to the human souls they encompass within the nations. And the way in which the national souls relate to the individual human souls determines the course of history, determines the course of what actually happens. Thus the national souls take on their nuances; thus they live invisibly within what we call human history. And I would now like to attempt—at least for a few truly real national souls—to describe what spiritual science has to say about the nature of national souls. Those in the audience who have heard the lectures intended for smaller circles will know that such a presentation is not prompted solely by the great moment of our time, but that I have always presented these things in the same way—as the result of spiritual research into national souls— — for many years before the impulses of the present time have recently directed people’s attention toward taking a closer look at what lives within nations.

[ 9 ] If we consider the souls of nations as they manifest themselves throughout history, we could go far back in the development of humanity, as this development is revealed through spiritual research. Let us go back only as far as that point in the world’s development of humanity which, in a sense, is still capable of shedding light on what will interest us most today. We can trace a particular type of national soul by going back to ancient Egyptian life, which was related to ancient Chaldean-Babylonian-Assyrian life—that life which preceded Greek and Roman life in human evolution. The spiritual researcher now speaks of actual national souls that expressed themselves in what constituted Egyptian-Chaldean-Assyrian-Babylonian life, just as the individual soul expresses itself within the human body. It is not merely a symbolic notion that these national souls possess an organism and a personality; just as a personal, self-conscious soul lives out its life within the individual human body, so too does a national soul—one that can be grasped in the supersensible realm and is truly self-conscious—live out its life in the historical events unfolding within nations, in the manner described; so that one consciously immerses oneself in these national souls when one prepares the soul for consciousness, just as was indicated yesterday.

[ 10 ] The distinctive feature of the national souls that underlay Egyptian, Babylonian-Assyrian-Chaldean life is that these souls, to a high degree—as is now present, at most, only to a limited extent in Asian and African national life — so that one can say that the national souls devoted themselves little to the individual souls of human beings. The individual soul of each person, in leading its physical life, identified itself—through a certain obliteration of individuality—with what the national soul was. The folk soul expressed itself far more fully in what the people accomplished than individual human beings were able to express themselves. And this accounts for the distinctive character of Egyptian and Chaldean-Babylonian-Assyrian culture.

[ 11 ] Spiritual science shows that the souls of peoples, because they live in the invisible realm, are related to all spirituality that permeates all materiality. As human beings have withdrawn more into their souls in recent times, nature has become for them the opposite pole—that which appears “disembodied,” that which does not reveal itself everywhere as permeated by spirit and soul. When the ancient Egyptians and the ancient Chaldeans looked at the world, they still saw, to a much greater degree than was later possible, in the course of the stars, in the movement of the celestial bodies, and also in the movements taking place in clouds and water, in the emergence of the land from the watery element—everywhere they saw the expression of the spiritual in the material. Just as a person, when looking into another’s face, sees in the movements and changes of the face the expression of the soul, so too did the Egyptians and Chaldeans—united in the manner described with the soul of their people—see in what is today called the “astrological” view of the world, a result of how the physiognomy of the inner, of the spiritual, speaks through all that is external, through all that is material. Thus the heavens, thus the entire world, were imbued with spirit; or rather, because the national soul still spoke within the human being, he saw the spiritual through all of nature’s gestures, through all of nature’s external physiognomy. This was precisely the inner progress of humanity: that, over the course of time, the Greek and Roman national souls replaced the influence of the Egyptian and Chaldean national souls. The Greek and Roman national souls differ from the Egyptian and Chaldean ones in that they are less preoccupied with themselves and devote themselves lovingly to human individuality. Thus, in Greek civilization, what can be characterized as the preservation of human individuality dawns for the first time, even when this individuality is immersed in the bosom of the national soul; and a result of this special relationship between the individual soul and the national soul is all the greatness in art, poetry, and philosophy that the Greek national soul has produced.

[ 12 ] In order for this discussion to be fully understandable, I must now briefly turn my attention to the individual human soul. Spiritual science is, for one thing, unable to conceive of the human soul in such a primitive, simplistic way as external science does. For the spiritual researcher, the human soul is indeed a living unity that expresses itself through the life of the “I.” But just as light is, as it were, split into different colors by the prism—from red and yellow through green to blue and violet—so, in human beings, through their interaction with external reality—which is, as it were, the “prism” of the human soul—the unified life of the human soul is divided into three—one might say—primary manifestations. In spiritual science, these are designated as the soul of sensation, the soul of understanding or emotion, and the soul of consciousness. It is easy—child’s play, in fact—to mock such a division of the human soul, to mock it from the perspective of that science which believes it stands on the true ground of genuine scientific rigor. But just as one cannot come to an understanding of light without observing it in relation to the material of the prism and seeing it split into the entire spectrum of rainbow colors, so too can one not come to an understanding of the individual soul unless one sees the light of the soul split, in its interaction with the external world, into the individual rays of the soul’s light: into the ray of the sensory soul, into that of the intellectual or emotional soul, and into that of the conscious soul. If we look at the sensory soul, we must say: the soul develops as a sensory soul when it lives more within itself, when, as it were, its own soul forces—even while they dwell in the body—attempt to detach themselves from the external world. Just as the stronger light in the yellow-red spectrum of light split by a prism is most intense, so too does the soul live out a more intense soul life in the sensitive soul. The conscious soul, on the other hand, expresses itself just as light expresses itself where it is most weakened, where it becomes akin to darkness: in the blue-violet spectrum. Thus, the conscious soul expresses itself in experiences that are more detached from inner soul life, experiences that focus more on what the body can offer through its powers and characteristics. And between the two—between the conscious soul and the feeling soul, which actually contains within itself the life of the soul with its drives, instincts, passions, and impulses— unaffected by the conscious soul, which reigns entirely in its bond to the body—between the two lives the intellectual or emotional soul, living a life that relates to the totality of soul life much as green, situated between red and violet, relates on the one hand to red-yellow and on the other to blue-violet. Just as the physicist cannot fathom the nature of light without breaking it down into its constituent colors, so too can the researcher in spiritual science not attain an understanding of human soul life unless he breaks it down into the individual prismatic rays of the sensory soul, the intellectual or emotional soul, and the conscious soul.

[ 13 ] However, this unfolding of the soul’s life into the individual rays does not manifest in the same way everywhere, in all places. And here it must once again be pointed out that human beings do not pass from life to life in the same way all over the Earth. It has already been said here on several occasions that the souls who have appeared today have also, in their earlier lives, experienced, for example, the Egyptian-Chaldean-Babylonian period and the Greco-Roman period, and have thus had the opportunity to live through the various earlier cultures. But within the course of historical development, the human soul does not express itself in the same way everywhere. Rather, one must say: the soul’s expression depends on how the soul, when it enters the body, is able to relate to the demands placed upon it—such as those made by the national soul. A national soul such as existed, for example, in ancient Egypt or in ancient Chaldea is particularly conducive to the development of the human feeling soul; so that we actually find the most powerful expression of the feeling soul in human individuals during the ancient Egyptian and ancient Chaldean-Babylonian periods. The particular way in which these national souls persisted in themselves and prepared the body was such that they permeated the body with their essence, so that among those peoples, through the racial constitution of the body, the soul could express itself in accordance with the nuances of the feeling soul. Thus we see how the most powerful, the most intense expression of human individuality takes place in the sensuous soul under the influence of the Egyptian and Chaldean national souls.

[ 14 ] If we now trace the course of historical development up to Greek and then Roman cultural development—which are similar to one another in certain respects, even though they are opposites in other ways—we find that they allow the individual human soul to develop, in particular, what is called the intellectual or emotional soul. The life of the intellectual or emotional soul finds expression in Greek art and poetry, and in Roman legal life—as that which does not depend on individual personality, but rather has come into being through the infusion of the national soul into the Greek and Roman bodies. Thus, in historical times, we essentially have three areas of historical development, sharply distinguished from one another by the national souls: we have the work of the Egyptian and Chaldean national souls, such that the human souls who appeared anew in bodies at that time had a special opportunity to develop their feeling souls; in Greek and Roman life, the national souls were such that individual human personalities could fully develop their intellectual or emotional souls; and now we live in an era—spiritual research indicates that this era began in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries—in which human development has the opportunity to fully develop the consciousness soul in particular. The full expression of this consciousness soul is particularly fostered by the national souls of the present. But this age, which is a turbulent one, must be of special interest to us. For in general, our age has the task of developing the consciousness soul. That is to say, the national souls set themselves the task of permeating the bodies in such a way that the soul, by living within the body, has the opportunity through it to bind itself to the body, so that it uses the body as much as possible as an instrument serving the soul. Therefore, our age is the one that has been able to develop external science and external observation. Because in the age of the development of the soul of consciousness the soul is bound to the body to a much greater extent than was previously the case, the urge and inclination arose in our age to observe the external sensory reality with which the body is connected through the senses; an urge arose to establish sciences and cultural movements that are primarily aimed at the coexistence of the soul and the body. As researchers of the spirit, we recognize as a legitimate feature of the modern era the development of the conscious soul, the rise of materialism, and the looking out through the body into the world of sensory objects and sensory facts. Yet what has, so to speak, been poured out as the dominant hue over the lives of modern peoples is itself nuanced. And these nuances are represented by the lives of the individual national souls of this modern era. Here it is interesting, from the perspective of spiritual science, to present at least some of these national souls before the soul’s gaze.

[ 15 ] If we wish to choose an example, we have the national souls of the southern peoples: the Italian and Spanish national souls. As the spiritual researcher attempts to immerse himself in the essence of the Italian and Spanish national souls—these real, living entities—he is compelled to take into account a law of world evolution that is little known and little valued in conventional science. Yesterday, however, this law was already alluded to from a different perspective. It was said: when a human being has passed through the gate of death—that is, has essentially entered the supersensible world—and lives on in the higher beings, then, in relation to what he experienced in the physical body, his relationship to these overpowering beings is the same as his relationship here to his memories. They look back upon their physical embodiment, and this gives them “self-consciousness,” just as, in physical life, the immersion into the physical body upon waking in the morning gives them self-consciousness. Thus, when we ascend into the spiritual world, we see how a relationship similar to that between soul and body in the spatial world comes into being with regard to the passage of time. We are spatially connected to our physical body; for our soul, a relationship emerges that is temporal. Once we have become spiritual after passing through the gate of death, we live together with our memories. This coexistence with memories in the spiritual realm is the same as the coexistence of the physical with the soul in the physical realm. This leads us to the law of periodicity in the spiritual realm. What we ourselves experience as we ascend to the spiritual realm is a law for the spiritual worlds. Spiritual beings not only experience that rhythmic succession we undergo between sleep and wakefulness, but they also experience various states of consciousness involving inner experiences in the periodicity of time. Only then can one understand the workings of national souls if one is truly able to reflect on this law in an appropriate manner. If the spiritual researcher studies, for example, the Italian national soul—and the Spanish one is similar—then something appears to him that, through his consciousness, looks back to the ancient Egyptian-Chaldean era. Just as a human being sustains his consciousness and self-consciousness in physical existence by immersing himself in the body, and just as he maintains his self-consciousness after death by looking back on his earthly experiences, so there is an interrelationship between what emerges as the national soul in the Italian people and the Egyptian-Chaldean national spirit. The Italian national spirit looks back on its experiences as the Egyptian-Chaldean national spirit; it immerses its soul-being into the Egyptian-Chaldean national spirit, just as we immerse ourselves into the body upon waking, when we regain our self-consciousness. The law of periodicity prevails, rhythmically graded, in the sequence between what the national spirit brought about in ancient Egyptian-Chaldean life and what the national spirit is living out in Italian culture, right up to the present day. What spiritual science deduces in this way—purely on the basis of spiritual research—is confirmed—one might say—down to the smallest detail when one observes the way in which the national spirit, in which every single human soul is embedded, expresses itself.

[ 16 ] But time has moved on. The national spirit has not retained the characteristics it possessed in ancient Egyptian-Chaldean life. In the course of development—as has already been pointed out—the soul has become internalized; therefore, nature now appears to it as something that is no longer imbued with spirit in the same way as it was in the Egyptian-Chaldean era. What the soul was able to experience in ancient Egyptian and ancient Chaldean culture under the influence of the national soul is now experienced by the Italian national soul—as if in a revival of that same national spirit—but in an internalized form. And how could this become clearer to us than when we look upon one of the greatest creations of Italian spiritual life? Must we not surmise that such a creation—which in Egyptian culture manifests as the contemplation of the heavenly bodies out there in the world—meets us once more in Italian life, only now more internalized, more spiritual, and more deeply incorporated into human individuality? We must assume this in spiritual science; reality presents it to us in Dante’s *Divine Comedy*. What the Egyptians beheld as the spiritualization of the entire world, Dante recreates—but now in an internalized form. The ancient national soul revives, experiencing a remembrance of earlier times. In the interplay of soul entities within the Egyptian-Chaldean national spirit and the Italian national spirit, we see how the inner, supra-personal consciousness of the national soul unfolds. The Italian national soul is a revival, a kind of rhythmic repetition of the ancient Egyptian national spirit. And this revival is now once again—albeit in an internalized form—particularly conducive to the feeling soul of the individual human being, who lives within the bosom of this national soul. Just as during the Egyptian-Chaldean period the feeling soul was able to develop particularly under the auspices of the national soul, so too does the soul experience itself anew as a feeling soul—but now internalized with a new nuance of color—within the Italian national soul. And so we see the national soul at work, evoking all the powers of the feeling soul in those human individualities toward which it is directed, just as the human soul is directed toward nature. One will understand all the magnificent creations that Italy has produced, which are rooted in the human soul of feeling, if one knows how the national soul works within the Italian body. One will understand, down to the finest details, the work of Raphael and the work of Michelangelo—insofar as their work springs from the activity of the national soul—if one knows what nuance the individual human soul must assume under the influence of the national soul. Italian culture, under the influence of the national soul, is a culture of the feeling soul.

[ 17 ] Thus, every national soul culture has its own special mission; thus, it is charged with bringing to life, as it were, with special intensity and special vigor, a particular nuance of soul life. This has nothing to do with the development of the individual soul. But the national character into which the individual soul immerses itself at a certain time manifests itself in such a way that it fosters the development of a particular aspect of soul life with special intensity. |

[ 18 ] Just as—I ask that what I have to discuss be regarded purely as scientific descriptions, entirely free from feelings of sympathy or antipathy— just as the ancient Egyptian-Chaldean national soul revives and expresses in the Italian national soul what it had already expressed in the past—namely, the character of the feeling soul—so, too, ancient Greek culture finds its expression in the French national soul, nuanced by Roman culture. However, Greek culture manifests itself in such a way that the soul, which lives within the French people as an individual soul, penetrates the physical realm to a lesser extent and frees itself from the physical realm more fully than was the case during the Greek era. And just as the Greek national soul was particularly conducive to the expression of the intellectual or emotional soul, so too, with the revival of Greek culture in the French national soul, the intellectual or emotional soul is once again particularly nurtured. Now, however, the inner state of consciousness of this national soul is based on the fact that a kind of recollection takes place within the consciousness of the French national soul, looking back upon what was experienced in the Greek and Roman national souls. It is difficult, but truly of infinite importance for the true course of history, to look in this way at the inner structure and the distinctive character of what takes place in the soul’s mind and in the soul’s consciousness. The intellectual or emotional soul—that is what is particularly characteristic of the French national soul. In Greek culture, while detached from the body, it still shaped the body as external beauty—as a spiritual element that still appears to us in physical form. With its internalization in French culture, this national soul appears to us in a different form. What constitutes national character no longer translates directly into bodily form or spatial form, as in Greek sculpture, but rather finds its expression in an etherealized body that remains merely a body of thought, one that is conceived only inwardly. This, in essence, is the foundation of the entire fundamental character of the French national soul. It embraces individual human souls in such a way that they feel compelled to develop their inner powers so that these may manifest themselves powerfully in the external world. How does one project oneself powerfully into the external world? If the national spirit cannot, as was the case in Greek culture, give plastic expression to what passes from the spirit into the body, then what results is merely an image of what the human being has shaped in his imagination from what exists as spirit within the body. Consequently, the French national soul can form only an inner image of the human being; it is inclined to place the greatest value on what one imagines of oneself in the world—that is, what one conceives of as what one wishes to be in the world: what has always been called one’s “gloire,” what one carries within oneself in one’s imagination. This is the fundamental character of Frenchness, arising from its national soul. Consequently, it is essential for this French spirit to impose upon the world the image that the national soul has created in the imagination of the individual mind. Thus, the intellectual or emotional soul works through images that it forms within the individual’s own personality. We may therefore surmise that the particular greatness of what the individual soul can be under the influence of the national soul is revealed where the national soul can develop most fully within the intellectual or emotional soul. It expresses itself most fully in the creations of individual human souls, which serve as its instruments, where the soul animated by the intellect immerses itself in the phenomena of the world. The soul animated by the intellect has a tendency—a distinctive characteristic—to liberate itself and act freely. This becomes particularly evident in the realm where one acts freely with the intellect and the soul. Hence, French culture appears at its zenith where this is especially the case: on the one hand in Molière, on the other in Voltaire—in Voltaire, the dry intellect permeated by the soul; in Molière, the soul carried by the intellect. Here the national soul appears to us in its distinctive character, as we observe expressions of this national soul that correspond so directly to it that they reveal what the individual soul can develop as its own unique quality. And just as, in all this, the entire French culture is something like a reminiscence of Greek civilization—this can be sufficiently studied by anyone who delves a little into the inner development of French culture.

[ 19 ] If we consider the French poets in this regard as a reflection of the French national character, we find everywhere that the national character—not the individual Frenchman—looks back to Greek civilization. This looking back to Greek culture is expressed in what the individual French person does, writes, and thinks. Thus, they look back, always asking: What did the Greeks do to create a true drama? What did Aristotle say about how a true drama must be structured? This gives rise to discussions about the unity of drama in place and time. This even had an influence on Lessing. The aim is to create drama in such a way that it corresponds to the ideal of Greek drama. — And one might say: what spiritual research truly perceives is revealed down to the finest nuances. The Greek spoke of the Greek—that is, when he spoke of himself—in such a way that he quite consciously presented himself as the representative of humanity. All others were “barbarians” to the Greeks. This had a special justification for the Greeks, because they possessed, in the ideal sense, the permeation of the spirit in the outer form. But this now revives in the collective memory of the French national soul. There it resurfaces; but because it is a “memory,” and not every memory is justified—for many memories resurface that no longer have their full justification—it now seems out of place. Even in the derogatory term “barbarians,” which is now on everyone’s lips around the world, we see the resurgence of Hellenism in the French national soul.

[ 20 ] Just as the French national soul particularly favors the cultivation of the intellectual or emotional soul, so it is the British national soul that has been entrusted in recent times with the special task of cultivating the conscious soul as such. The development of the conscious soul enters human evolution as something that is not a repetition. The Italian national spirit repeats, in a different way, the experiences of the Egyptian-Chaldean national spirit; the French national spirit likewise repeats the Greco-Roman one. The British national spirit, on the other hand, enters modern development as something young, as something new, and it is the most acute expression of the modern era, insofar as this era reveals how the soul must also pass through that stage where it becomes intimately interwoven with bodily life. The British national spirit is such that it most strongly favors union with the body; therefore, it also favors that which is mediated through the body and that which, in particular, can enter the soul through the body. And connected to this mission of nurturing the conscious soul is the mission of materialism, which was bound to enter human development at some point. One might say that the British national spirit has been entrusted with the task of giving particular expression to materialism. The individual human soul is more or less independent of this, but it is a characteristic of the national soul. We will return to the peculiarity of the British national soul in a moment; but in order to shed light on what belongs to the tasks of national souls, we must take a look at the national soul that prevails in Central Europe, which is called the German national soul. — It may be useful to emphasize: what I am saying now is not something I am saying only now, when it might have arisen under the influence of the war, but rather, what I am about to say is something I have always said.

[ 21 ] The German national soul, the German national spirit, is particularly suited not to emphasize the sentient soul, the intellectual or emotional soul, or the conscious soul in their individual nuances; rather, the German national soul is particularly suited to express what one might call the unity of the soul, which lives within all three members of the soul. I truly do not say this to praise any particular people; rather, I say it without sympathy or antipathy, with complete objectivity, because this is what spiritual scientific research reveals—just as the experiment with the prism reveals when light manifests itself as red or green. It is an objective fact: just as the Italian national soul favors the feeling soul, the French national soul favors the intellectual or emotional soul, and the British national soul favors the consciousness soul, so does the German national soul favor the human “I,” that is, that which lives out its existence as the individual soul core of the human being in his earthly life, which unites with and lovingly immerses itself in the body upon waking, and which detaches itself again from bodily life upon falling asleep; which seeks to be a friend and nurturer of that which confronts us in the outer world, but which also seeks to be a friend and nurturer of that which rises to the spirit. That is why I was able to say in the first lecture: The German national soul is that which most fully enables the individual, the individual soul, to immerse itself in all the depths of the “I,” where one can seek what moves human hearts, what causes them pain, or what leads them to bliss. Connected to this is how easily this German national soul can be misunderstood; this is connected to what is actually understandable: that in the present day, everywhere, such a misunderstanding is directed toward what this German national soul actually is—a soul that does not, like the British national soul, express itself fully in the outer body, nor does it immediately devote itself to the mission of materialism, because that cannot possibly correspond to its nature; but which, on the one hand, engages just as fully in the contemplation of the external material world—from which it does not withdraw—as it, on the other hand, devotes itself to the contemplation of the spirit in order to draw from those depths from which Meister Eckhart, Jacob Böhme, Goethe, and Fichte drew—what can be drawn from the spiritual world as if in dialogue with it, when one turns away from the external world and is alone with oneself. Therefore, it can be said: Even though the individual souls embedded in the national souls of other peoples, when they turn away from that national soul, can immerse themselves in what the Spirit is, the German Spirit, by virtue of its national soul alone, is always capable of being raised into the spiritual realms. The souls of other peoples must first grow out of their national soul if they wish to rise to a dialogue with the spiritual world; the national soul itself, however, contains the tones of the Spirit and speaks of the Spirit as it addresses the individual souls of the Central European population. And because national souls express themselves in characteristic manifestations—because they confront us where they permeate human beings, choosing people as instruments to bring forth something characteristic—we can study the essence of the national soul in particular through these manifestations. As we follow the development of the national soul, what appears to us as confirmations are those characteristic symptoms through which the forces of the national souls manifest themselves. And one can certainly study the characteristic features of the national souls when one considers the individual national souls at their highest level.

[ 22 ] There can hardly be any doubt that, for the British national spirit, Shakespeare’s unique work, *Hamlet*, stands as a characteristic expression, as one of its greatest manifestations; and that, for the German national spirit, Goethe’s *Faust* stands as the result of a German’s most intimate dialogue with the German national spirit. What a characteristic difference between Shakespeare’s *Hamlet* and Goethe’s *Faust*! Certainly, I need not speak of the greatness of Shakespeare and Shakespeare’s *Hamlet*; that is acknowledged from the outset, and no one would likely hold Shakespeare’s *Hamlet* in higher esteem than I myself. But regarding the emergence of *Hamlet* from the British national spirit, I would like to say the following.

[ 23 ] How does Hamlet appear to us?

[ 24 ] We have said that it is the mission of the British national spirit to introduce the consciousness soul—which is bound to the outer physical body—into the outer historical development. Recently, I published *The Riddles of Philosophy* as the second edition of my *Worldviews and Life-Views in the Nineteenth Century*. The latter was first published fourteen or fifteen years ago; it has now been substantially expanded to cover the entire spectrum of Western philosophy. At that time, when the book was first published, as I was presenting English philosophy, I tried to find a characteristic expression—a word that would particularly characterize English philosophy—and it occurred to me then that a characteristic expression for English philosophy is that it is a “spectator philosophy.” One becomes a spectator—as is elaborated particularly in John Stuart Mill—by sinking one’s soul into the body and allowing the world to unfold from within the body. Compare this with Fichte’s philosophy: it is not a spectator philosophy; it is a “philosophy of life,” something that does not merely observe life but becomes one with it. This is the colossal difference between German and English philosophy; and the entire influence of the British national soul is such that it turns people into spectators, because it favors, particularly in the development of the conscious soul, the act of observing. By having particularly developed the conscious soul, the individual stands outside of phenomena; he observes them, just as one can observe phenomena through the body. — Shakespeare is particularly great in this respect, in that he—standing as far removed from life as the objective observer does—faces the phenomena of life in this way and depicts life in such a way that we see: he depicts it as a spectator and describes what he experiences with an objective gaze from the outside. A “spectator’s worldview,” arising from the national soul! It is true: when the individual human spirit—this spirit of the soul of consciousness—approaches the human inner life with this particular characteristic, which it derives from the national soul, then it sees the outer world as it unfolds. It cannot penetrate the inner life! It must be particularly characteristic that he cannot reach the inner world. He excels in depicting where external life unfolds, and Shakespeare is truly magnificent in this regard. But when it comes to looking into the inner world through external physiognomy, what emerges is the perspective of the observer. There we see how—portrayed with artistic grandeur, springing from the British national spirit—this spectator’s perspective stands in relation to the inner world just as the doubter stands before the spirit, just as the skeptic stands. Therefore, it is no disparagement of Shakespeare to say that the spirit appears as something ghostly. There we see how the spiritual appears in the external world: ghostlike. Note how the spirit of Hamlet’s father appears: he does not actually appear as a spirit, but as a ghost. The believer in ghosts is, after all, essentially a spiritual materialist; he wants to see the spirit just as the materialist does, who demands that the spirit must somehow appear before him in a form of ethereal matter. Thus, in *Hamlet*, we see the spirit of Hamlet’s father appear in such a ghostly manner. This is expressed in the confusion surrounding the spirit’s appearance. But just as the materialistic mind can rise only as far as the ghost, so the entire doctrine of spirits becomes a source of confusion for it. Hence we see that, whereas previously everyone had seen the spirit—for example, in conversation with his mother—Hamlet alone sees the spirit. At one moment the spirit is an objective phenomenon; at another, it is merely a subjective ghost. And now this observer looks upon what is supposed to be inner, — Hamlet is, after all, meant to be a character who looks toward what is happening in the outer world — and we now hear from Hamlet that great classical monologue in which the question is posed to the spirit world: To be or not to be? What follows after death? First waking, then sleeping, images, dreams; then doubt again: no traveler has yet returned from that realm into which we enter upon death—all very much in the manner in which the materialistic mind proceeds when it seeks to delve into the spiritual world—yet cannot. That is why all those who, whether idealistic or of any other disposition, are reluctant to truly engage with the spirit, feel an inner kinship with the nature of Hamlet. Herman Grimm therefore once said—quite rightly, in the eyes of many—that when people delve too deeply into questions about their own spiritual condition, they feel as if they are standing on the edge of an abyss and sense that, like Hamlet, they would have to plunge into it. — Thus speaks the one who, like Shakespeare, is inspired by the soul of the people, yet whose own soul has grown so far beyond it that he seeks to portray the spiritual nature of that soul; he responds from within the national soul by presenting the character of Hamlet to us in such a way that the bridge to the spiritual world is, after all, severed, and that the abyss between Hamlet and the spiritual world is filled with uncertainty upon uncertainty. Even where the British national soul speaks to us with a high degree of artistic perfection—unmatched in its own kind—it reveals its mission: to observe the external world and to stop short before the abyss of the supernatural.

[ 25 ] And we turn to a single example to illustrate the distinctive depth of the German national soul, which is particularly conducive to the life of the “I,” the unity of the soul—we turn to Goethe’s *Faust*. Does the soul there feel as though it were on the brink of the abyss into which it must plunge? No! For there Faust steps toward us, for whom there is no doubt whatsoever about the spiritual world, but who, looking out from all the sensory and historical reality he has experienced, stands spiritually — eye to eye — faces the Spirit, to whom the Spirit appears, and for whom there is absolutely no doubt that the human being who immerses himself in the enigmatic questions of existence cannot perish, but must find union with the Spirit across the abyss. And now let us compare all of Hamlet’s wavering, his standing on the precipice—as expressed in the great “To Be or Not to Be” soliloquy—with the question posed to the spirit world, “Sleep, dream?”—let us compare it with what Faust arrives at in the first part of the poem, where he stands face to face with the Spirit:

Sublime Spirit, you gave me, gave me everything,
That I asked for. You did not in vain
Turn your face toward me in the fire.

[ 26 ] and then:

Then you lead me to the safe cave, show
me to myself, and within my own breast
secret, profound wonders unfold.

[ 27 ] That is union with the Spirit! In such union, in such contemplation of the Spirit, the question—whether sleeping or dreaming?—has no place; rather, what emerges in the second part of the poem is Faust’s complete, spirit-filled penetration into the spiritual world, and the certainty to be gained that the human spirit, when it passes through the gate of death, unites with the spiritual world. There is no uncertain question of “to be or not to be”; there is the certainty that the soul, even in this world here, is already a citizen of the spiritual world, and that when it passes through the gate of death, it stands soul-to-soul before the sublime Spirit, who—if we immerse ourselves sufficiently in Him during our lives—gives us everything we ask of Him. Nor, however, is there any ghostly conception of the spirit world, for in the scene in the witches’ kitchen we see how the phenomenon of ghosts is treated with humor and the necessary irony. The spirit who confronts Faust—Mephistopheles—is not ghostly, but conceived in such a way that he cannot be portrayed otherwise than by giving him a human form. How absurd it would be if the spirit, like Hamlet’s father, were visible only to one person, or could be seen only once and then not again! This stems from the fact that in *Faust* we stand on solid ground.

[ 28 ] Characters such as Faust draw their life from the spirit of the people, from the soul of the people. In Goethe’s *Faust*, humanity sees only a reflection of what actually happened. But in Goethe’s creation of Faust, the entire national soul was at work; it created itself in the book, creating not only something that lived within Goethe, but something that is alive in the spiritual realm. And Goethe’s Faust is merely a reflection of a creature of the German national soul that soars in the spiritual realm and is only just beginning its work—a fact of which Goethe was well aware. For us, Faust is that which we know to be a reflection of an inexhaustible force and essence that lives on toward the future. And just as Goethe created Faust as a seed, so too does the German national soul harbor a force—a seed-force—that continues to work and must continue to do so, just as Faust appears to us as one who must always strive, for whom all striving is only a beginning.

[ 29 ] To highlight the distinctive characteristics of the German national spirit, let me mention one more peculiarity of it. I said: when we consider the French national spirit, we see how it is a reminiscence of ancient Greece. This reminiscence is something that could be seen, as it were, on every aspect of French culture, but which operates below the threshold of consciousness—it does not penetrate into consciousness. The French national spirit shapes the individual soul as it must under the influence of this echo; but this does not enter into consciousness. If it acts upon the individual human soul in such a way that the “I” bears the character of the “I,” then—since one can only summarize the sentient soul, the intellectual or emotional soul, and the soul of consciousness—what unfolds as the harmony of the individual soul elements must enter into consciousness, whereas the nature of memory is such that it binds the national spirit to earlier cultural epochs. We see how, in a manner quite different from that of French culture, and in a very remarkable way, Greek culture enters into the German national spirit. If Hellenism is to enter the German national spirit at a particularly characteristic point, and if this entry is to influence the individual, then what can take place only subconsciously in French culture—and manifests there only as an artistic discourse—must occur consciously; in the German spirit—which is a mirror of what is truly profoundly historical—it must enter the consciousness of the person who is inspired, in particular, by the national soul. And now observe how, in the second part of *Faust*, in the union of Faust and Helena, the union with Greek culture occurs on the physical plane—in consciousness! This is not merely an entry into the intellectual or emotional soul; it is an entry into the “I.” Faust, with his entire humanity, is set in contrast to Greek culture. He consciously celebrates the harmony with an earlier age. — Of course, I can only offer a few hints. But the entire story is illuminated when we consider in this way the workings of the national souls, which thus permeate and ripple through human history in their interplay.

[ 30 ] If we were to compare the German and British national souls once more, we could cite various phenomena that would illustrate the “I”-character of the German national soul on the one hand and the “consciousness-soul” character of the British national soul on the other. This has even had a significant impact on many of the peculiarities of recent cultural development. It has been one of my own tasks to show how, in Goethe, a theory of evolution is born from the depths of the human soul, and how he attempted to depict the entire sequence of organisms—from the simplest to the most perfect—as they emerge from the depths of the “I.” The way Goethe presents this—how a true natural science emerges from Goethe’s soul—springs just as much from what one might call “Goethe’s dialogue with the German national soul” as another theory springs from a dialogue with the British national soul. Because Goethe descends so deeply into the essence of things to bring forth a theory of evolution from the human soul, Goethe’s form of the theory of evolution—born out of the culture of the “I”—remains so incomprehensible to many; it could not spread so quickly. Then, in the nineteenth century, the British national spirit grasped the theory of evolution, and it presented what Goethe had drawn from the depths of the “I”—now emerging from the soul of consciousness—as the external “struggle for existence” in Darwinism. What Goethe presented as an inner process of development, Darwinism presents as an external one; and because we now live in the age of materialism, the entire civilized world has been less inclined to accept Goethe’s theory of evolution—drawn from the depths of “I-culture”—and has instead preferred the form that Darwin brought forth from the British national spirit. — In one particular respect, we still find ourselves today in the midst of this rejection of the “I-culture,” namely with regard to that which is still railed against today by all who consider themselves experts in this field. For Goethe also created a “theory of colors” that can be understood only by those who can grasp it from the perspective of the human “I.” Humanity, however, has rejected Goethe’s theory of colors—which springs from the depths of “I-culture”—and has adopted Newton’s more materialistic theory of colors, inspired by the British national spirit and rooted in the conscious soul. Yet the time will come when people will come to recognize that there is much in Goethe that humanity will still have to accept. And just as an aside, allow me to say: Individual people may indeed have succeeded in returning orders and decorations; but true dignity will be restored only when not only orders and decorations, but also the materialistic form of the theory of evolution and the materialistic form of the theory of colors—both rooted in the British national soul—are sent back.

[ 31 ] The person whose national soul is so inspired that his inspiration is like a dialogue between the national soul and the human “I” itself lives in such a way that, at the most important moments of his life, he is conscious of working toward a purpose and of affirming that purpose in his outer life. Thus Goethe affirmed a content that dawned upon him intuitively in his soul by establishing his theory of development. But whoever looks out upon the world not from the depths of the “I,” but from the “soul of consciousness”—externally—sees in the external course of events only the struggle for existence. Each person projects their inner nature onto the external world. Everyone can now imagine what current events might mean for those who may be inspired by the German national spirit, and for those inspired by the British national spirit. The latter national spirit speaks of the struggle for existence. And while the German national spirit inspires one to see the opponent as the “enemy,” whom one faces as an equal, as in a duel, from the standpoint of that national spirit—which also draws its inspiration for the struggle for existence from science—one views the struggle in the external realm in this way as well: everything becomes a “competitive struggle.”

[ 32 ] Now, in my first lecture, I already attempted—at least in a few words—to point out what we might encounter in the Russian national soul. There is no time today to go into this national character in greater detail; nevertheless, its most remarkable feature should be emphasized. What is peculiar about it—and what immediately catches the eye—is that, fundamentally speaking, it is the least suited to what it is now doing: to external struggle, to external war. There is a characteristic book, *The Advance of the Mob*, by Merezhkovsky, whom I have already mentioned here. At the end of this book, he speaks of the impression he gained from Hagia Sophia, the magnificent church in Constantinople. In the description of this impression, however, lies the mood that the Russian national soul must possess when it understands itself; and Mereschkowski concludes by saying that, when he surrendered himself completely to the impression of this Hagia Sophia mosque, he was moved to pray, that he was tempted to pray for his people:,/p>

[ 33 ] “Hagia Sophia—bright, sorrowful, and bathed in the amber-clear light of the ultimate mystery—lifted my fallen, terrified soul. I looked up at the vault, which resembles the dome of heaven, and thought: there it stands, created by human hands—it, humanity’s approach to the Triune God on earth. This approach has existed, and—more than that—will one day come to pass. How could those who believe in the Son not come to the Father, who is the world? How could those who love the world—which the Father also loved so much that He gave His Son for it—not come to the Son? For they lay down their lives for Him and for their friends; they have the Son because they have love, though they do not know His name.

[ 34 ] And I felt compelled to pray for them all, to pray in this—at present—pagan, yet unique temple of the future, that my people might be granted that true, victorious strength: the conscious faith in the Triune God.»

[ 35 ] Just as we view the German national spirit, as embodied in its representative, Faust, as one that is in the midst of becoming, so we perceive the Russian national soul as something that is still awaiting what is to come. The entire mood there can only be one of looking toward the future, of not yet having found it in the present. But then, when this Russian national soul becomes aware of what lives within it, and of what still lies dormant in the depths of its nature and can yet be brought to the surface, then it will know that it fulfills its mission through inner development; that, fundamentally speaking, it fulfills its mission best when it achieves its greatest conquest within, by bringing forth what lies in its depths, and which will indeed one day be of great value to human culture. One cannot simply call it barbaric, but rather a national soul that will only later become what it must become, and which is now still in a childlike stage. I know how imperfect this characterization of the Russian national soul is, because, due to time constraints, I could describe it only in a few words. But it must be said: precisely when the Russian national soul expresses outwardly what it is now—when it does not express that mood of expectation—which Merezhkovsky describes as the mood of prayer that rests in the depths of the national soul—then it becomes nothing more than a hindrance to the development of spiritual culture and human culture in general. When it turns outward, it appears as though it were doing the opposite of what actually befits it.

[ 36 ] Hence the feeling we may have when we look toward the West: as terrible as the current events may be—they necessarily arose from the impulses of these Western national souls. In contrast, when it comes to the Russian national soul, we have the feeling that it is entirely inappropriate for this people—this national soul—to turn against the Western national souls, which must actually be their teachers if they are to understand themselves correctly. It is only because so little has been understood in recent years about what is at stake here that certain things coming from that side have been overestimated.

[ 37 ] One could go much further in characterizing the national souls. For example, one could say: the human soul, which perceives itself in the “I,” is intimately connected to the three soul components—the soul of feeling, the soul of understanding or intellect, and the soul of consciousness; at times the individual soul rebels against the influences of the three soul components, and at other times the three soul components rebel against it. Just as the individual soul reveals to us the relationships between the three soul components and the human “I,” so too do the expressions and relationships of the individual European souls to the collective European soul reveal themselves to us. External events are merely projections of what can also be found within the human soul in the form of struggles between the soul’s parts and the “I.” But this “I” immerses itself in the individual soul parts, enters into a relationship with them, and here, too, we could find confirmation through external facts of what spiritual science reveals to us through inner exploration.

[ 38 ] The “I” is drawn toward the sensuous soul in such a way that it longs for enrichment, for being imbued with the experiences of the sensuous soul. Thus, from the heart of Europe, we see the German national soul immersing itself in the Italian sensuous soul. We can trace this throughout history; if we go back to Dürer and other artists, we see how they immersed themselves in the Italian national soul. Furthermore, we can observe how Goethe is not truly happy until his longing for Italy has been fulfilled. On the one hand, this is the interaction of the “I” with the soul of feeling; on the other hand, it is the interaction of the German national soul with the Italian national spirit. If we continue to trace history, we find that the individual “I” must also grapple with the soul of understanding or the soul of emotion. Indeed, we see how, well into modern times, the German national soul engages in a dialogue with the French national soul; let us see how Leibniz, the most German of philosophers, still wrote his works in French, and how the founder of Prussia’s greatness, Frederick the Great, lived almost exclusively within French culture. This can show us how the German spirit is truly inclined to be international, to express itself fully in every individual nationality. And since this is its fundamental character—to express itself in everything—we also see it engaging with the British national spirit by having, to this day, not adopted Goethe’s theory of development but Darwin’s, and likewise not Goethe’s theory of colors but Newton’s. From this, one can see how deeply the German national spirit is connected to the British. If, on the other hand, British voices today are particularly enraged by the German character, this cannot—in essence, from the depths of the German national soul—be reciprocated with the same hatred that the British national spirit directs toward the German national soul; it hates out of sheer materialism. The German national soul will not be able to remain at this level; it will have to grapple with materialism. At present, it will grapple with materialism through external military force in the struggles that have been imposed upon it, and in the future it will grapple with it through the liberation of the spiritual and the intellectual within the epoch of materialism. Thus, looking from the perspective of external historical events, we gaze upon what is revealing itself from the heart of Europe.

[ 39 ] I do not believe it is unnecessary to delve so deeply into the fundamental nature of the national souls. For it seems to me that from this illumination of the national souls, light can also shine forth that brings clarity to what we are facing today in the great events of destiny. At every turn, one can perceive the current events as a necessity arising from the interrelationships of the national souls, if one delves deeply into these national souls; and understanding these events is, after all, the proper way to engage with them. And if it is true—and it certainly is true! —that the events we are experiencing out there in the West and the East are such that we must say of them: because they are so immense, they must usher in a new epoch—whatever emerges from the current events will be a new phase of the human spirit, for only a new phase of the human spirit can be won through such immense sacrifices—; as true as that is, so too must we believe that much of what has been achieved thus far with small sacrifices will have to be achieved in the future with greater sacrifices. For the sacrifices of spiritual science, to which I alluded yesterday in connection with the development of the human soul, are truly greater than all the sacrifices devoted to external experiments and external observations. We must bear in mind that the experience of another science, won through great sacrifices, must follow what is being so gloriously—yet also so painfully—initiated today. And if, in yesterday’s lecture, I was permitted to draw attention to how the forces from the unspent bodies that are now being sacrificed will unite with the beings of the spiritual world and send their powers down into the world where history is unfolding here, then today this image—which, however, corresponds to reality—may perhaps be supplemented by saying: Yes, we are living in a time in which many must bring about the very beginning of a new worldly existence of the human spirit and its development out of blood and death, out of dangers and suffering; but those who are thus called upon to act will know in the future that their sacrifices have been offered in the true sense only when they can look down upon a humanity that knows how to live through the era that has dawned in a worthy manner. If it is the national spirit that demands blood and death from our present, then it will be the national spirit that, in the new era thus ushered in, will demand a new form of life. It will demand this of those among us—and this will be felt by future humanity—who must detach their young soul forces from their bodies to inspire the new humanity. But those who preserve their lives and health will have to realize that the child of human spiritual life, born of wounds, blood, and death, needs nurturers who know how to receive the inspiration of the national soul in the right way. And no one will understand the German national soul who does not understand its language. This language will not be the language of outer material life; this language will be the language of the spirit. May the spirit of the age, born of blood, wounds, and death, therefore find a humanity that, through the strong and vigorous unfolding of human spiritual power, proves itself worthy to be the true nurturer of this new life of the age—so hard-won, so hard-fought!