The Rudolf Steiner Archive

9. The Rejuvenating Forces of the German National Soul

[ 1 ] In this winter series of lectures, I took the liberty of alternating lectures purely in the humanities with those inspired by the major and significant events of the present. Today’s reflections on the nature of the German national soul and its relationship to other national souls in Europe are also intended to be inspired by the sentiments evoked by our times. Tomorrow, then, a reflection of a purely spiritual-scientific nature will follow. In the introduction to today’s reflection, I will take the liberty of pointing out a few things that have already been discussed from a different perspective in one of the previous lectures, which also dealt with the nature of the national soul.

[ 2 ] When one speaks of national souls today, one often encounters misunderstandings if one adopts the perspective that is to be taken here. One often encounters the accusation that one is referring to something purely fantastical. And that is, after all, quite understandable; for our present-day worldview cannot help but see as a figment of the imagination that which—apart from other truly concrete spiritual beings—must be addressed as the national soul. It is therefore only to be expected that, since my book *Theosophy* speaks of the national soul—alongside other spiritual beings—as a real entity, this very chapter has been found particularly disconcerting. This is precisely what a worldview focused purely on the external will never admit: that alongside those entities which unfold before the senses—and which can be grasped by the intellect bound to the brain—there also exist other supersensible, invisible entities that can only be perceived through what Goethe called the “eyes of the spirit” and the “ears of the spirit”; entities that, however, possess a reality just as real as that of the entities of the mineral, animal, and plant kingdoms that surround us. And so spiritual science also speaks of the German national soul as a real, actual entity. It speaks of this entity in such a way that it is this entity that engages in the dialogue—subconscious and unconscious dialogues—with the individual human soul, as already mentioned in the previous lecture on the sustaining forces of the German spirit. It is not possible to point to the nature of the real, actual national soul without at least saying a few words about what spiritual science will gradually have to say to humanity regarding the nature of the individual human soul. This human soul is, after all, approached by current official psychology in such a way that one sees in it—I would say—a more or less chaotic but self-organizing unity in which will, feeling, and thinking interact in a jumble.

[ 3 ] But now spiritual science must already speak of this human soul in the same sense that physics, for example, speaks of color arising from light and of color nuances. Physics is aware that it can study the nature of light only by observing its effects, which appear precisely as the various color nuances of the rainbow and the spectrum. On one side we have the reddish-yellow color nuances, in the middle the greenish ones, and on the other side the violet-bluish color nuances. Just as physics today already acknowledges that the nature of light is fathomed by studying the effect of light as it passes through matter in the various color nuances, so the spiritual science of the future will certainly have to distinguish within the human soul as a whole what might be called the revelation of the human soul’s light—that this light manifests itself in the human soul in three aspects, as it were, in three distinct shades, one of which must be called the shade of the feeling soul, corresponding to the reddish-yellowish band of the rainbow or the color spectrum; thus we must speak of the intellectual or emotional soul, corresponding to the middle green shades of the rainbow; and we must likewise speak of the conscious soul, corresponding, for example, to the bluish-violet color nuances of the rainbow. This is not a matter of an arbitrary classification of the soul’s activities, but rather of something that pertains to the reality of the human soul, just as colors pertain to the reality of light. For spiritual science shows that what must be recognized on one side of the soul spectrum as the sensory soul primarily reveals those forces of the soul that flow from impulses of will and feeling and, in a certain sense, express themselves impulsively from within the human being; at the same time, however—and this is the remarkable thing—it shows that it is precisely in this instinctual aspect of the soul, in this nuance of feeling in the human soul, that what we will demonstrate tomorrow passes through births and deaths as the eternal essence of the human soul. It is primarily in this part of the human soul that the eternal core of the soul is contained.

[ 4 ] Then we have, as it were, the middle shade of the human soul—the rational soul. In this soul, one finds, in equal measure, expressions of the soul that are eternal and those directed toward the sensory-real, the transitory; instinctual impulses and those that rise above them and look toward the senses in order to spiritually comprehend the world of the senses.

[ 5 ] Third, we have the consciousness soul, which overlooks that which, at the present stage of human development, elevates the human being to self-consciousness—which makes it possible for the human being to stand in his soul in such a way that he can say: “An ‘I’ dwells within me, even within my physical body, between birth and death.” But it is at the same time that which is contained within these forces—that which, for the present stage of human development, encompasses the sensations of human soul life that are directed toward the transitory, the outer, visible reality. Just as light reveals itself in various shades of color, so does that which constitutes the unity of the human soul reveal itself in these various members of the human soul. And one can say: just as light lives in red, green, and blue, so does the human “I” live in all three aspects of human soul life.

[ 6 ] That which is to be regarded as the national soul, is, for spiritual science, a genuine supersensible entity—not merely what a more materialistic worldview perceives as a collection of characteristics inherent to a people due to climate, upbringing, or other factors. Rather, for spiritual science, the national soul is a spiritual entity that acts from the supersensible worlds into the activities of the human soul.

[ 7 ] And now, based on the way the national soul influences the work of the human soul, we can perceive the fundamental character of national soul life among various European peoples. These are matters that spiritual science has to say, so that one day it will become a science, just as the physics of color constitutes a genuine scientific discipline within the natural sciences.

[ 8 ] I would like to explicitly note once again that what I am about to say regarding the interaction of the national soul with the individual soul elements among the various European nations has not in any way arisen or been prompted by the current events of the war or by the existing circumstances of the European nations; rather—as many in the audience here can confirm—I have been saying this for years from the perspective of spiritual science: For example, when we consider the more southern peoples—when we look at the national soul of the Italian people—we see an interaction between this national soul and the individual human beings such that what the national soul accomplishes, what it must achieve in a dialogue with the individual soul, flows directly into the feeling soul. So that one can say: To the extent that a member of the Italian people is an Italian, he or she expresses themselves out of the character of their people in such a way that the forces of their national spirit reverberate and continue to work within their feeling soul. It is with this feeling soul that the national spirit, the national soul, conducts its dialogue. Of course, it must always be emphasized that the individual soul can rise above itself and assume the universal human character in every nation. What is said here about the relationship between the national soul and nationality applies precisely to the extent that the individual is connected to the national soul in the expressions of his or her life. And everything that the Italian national soul stirs up in the individual emotional soul of the Italian is, in essence, Italian culture. Hence the aspects of Italian culture that arise directly from the passions—which can be traced from the individual national impulses all the way up to the mighty picture of the world that Dante painted. This is also why what is called Humanism was imprinted on European culture from Italy. The connection of the whole human being to the soul of feeling through what one feels, through the impulses of feeling—insofar as this comes to the fore—permeates the entire Italian culture. Spanish culture is similar and related to this.

[ 9 ] When we consider French folk culture, we must say: It is the result of a direct interaction between the folk soul and what is called the intellectual soul. Hence the distinctive feature of the French national character: it strives to bring everything into a certain system, even if it is the system of feeling and art. A certain mathematical quality is inherent in everything that belongs to this culture. One need only surrender to the flow of verse in French poetry or the progression of a French drama to sense this result of the relationship between the national soul and the intellectual soul everywhere. When viewed from a spiritual-scientific perspective, it is precisely this mathematical disposition of the French character that becomes highly understandable.

[ 10 ] And again, when considering the English national character, one must take into account the relationships that develop between the national soul and the conscious soul. That is to say, the English national character is primarily shaped in the following way: The English national character, through the soul of consciousness, is directed outward toward the struggles and contradictions of physical reality, toward that which is transitory in life. Hence the empirical character—the outward-looking character of English culture—which can be traced all the way back to Shakespeare, despite all of Shakespeare’s greatness.

[ 11 ] And when we turn to the heart of Europe—specifically to German culture—we must point to a relationship with the national soul: a relationship between the individual human being and the national soul that can be expressed directly as an interaction of the national soul—not with a single part of the soul, but directly with the self, with the “I.” Therefore, whatever the national soul is meant to inspire—whatever impulses it is meant to instill in individual Germans—flows directly into the “I.” And it can then manifest itself as the “I” struggles not merely to reveal itself in one particular aspect, but across the various aspects of soul life—alternately or in conjunction. Hence what I had to say eight days ago regarding the sustaining forces of the German spirit and the direct influence of the spiritual world upon the individual human being. Hence the struggle is not that of human passions or human emotions with anything supersensible, nor is it the struggle of reason or the intellect with the supersensible; nor is it the activity of the conscious soul, but always the direct confrontation of the individual human being with his divinity, of the individual human being with the spirits of the supersensible world. But this brings to light what is distinctive about the entire course of German development: that the individual German must continually reconnect with the highest impulses of spiritual life. We have a German development in which we see individual great figures emerge. Time and again, the individual great figure—without being able, to put it radically, to build upon what is historically given—must, as it were, start anew, because he must allow what the national soul has to offer him to shine forth in his innermost being.

[ 12 ] But there is one thing connected to this: Since the German is thus compelled to constantly reestablish a direct, elemental connection with the national spirit, this national spirit must in turn continually exert its primal power upon him, and he feels compelled time and again to reconnect with the purest sources of folk life; and he feels strengthened and refreshed when he can sense his connection to this folk life.

[ 13 ] This is what the German feels compelled to express when he seeks to contemplate his relationship to the supernatural world. This is also what constitutes the special magic of the German epic poem, *Faust*. There we see Faust living within a culture that has, so to speak, grown old; how he has allowed the individual expressions of this culture to take effect within himself, and how he now strives—in order to reach directly to the sources of all knowledge—to enter into a relationship with individual spirits, with the spirit of the Earth, and with the World Spirit. We see how he strives to achieve what one might call a rejuvenation of the entire human soul. People have even mocked—or at least spoken contemptuously of—what appears as a kind of rejuvenation scene at the beginning of the second part of *Faust*, where Faust is in a sort of sleep-like state, and the spirits of the cosmos permeate him, epoch by epoch, as the night unfolds, with what they have to give him. But anyone who knows that such things can only be depicted in imagery will not be able to succumb to such a misunderstanding. After Faust has first attempted to rejuvenate what has grown old within him through his inner life and the world of external science, a connection is established within him between the primal forces of his spiritual life and the supersensible world; and through this connection he is rejuvenated, so that he can then accomplish all that is depicted to us in the second part of *Faust*: that he can enter the great world to act within it as an active force; that he can embark on the journey to the Mothers, where he must discover the primal forces of being in that sphere of which the materialist will always say it is nothing, and of which the one who knows something of the spirit must always use Faust’s words: “In Your Nothingness I hope to find the Universe.”

[ 14 ] But we also see in Faust how the rejuvenating forces of spiritual life work within him precisely because he is portrayed as a German spirit. These rejuvenating forces work within him in such a way that, when he finally goes blind, everything that could be called his connection to the physical-sensory world dies away. And as darkness closes in around him, a bright light shines within him. This means: He has come to possess the forces that Goethe truly drew from the essence of the German national soul, and which are awakened within him in such a way that, within the outwardly aged culture, he has sensed the rejuvenating power of true German life. These rejuvenating forces work in the soul—as their effect is perceived in the context of the German people—in such a way that the human being, as we were also able to illustrate when we spoke of medieval mysticism, directly perceives within himself what his soul thinks, feels, and does as the thoughts, feelings, and will of the divine-spiritual beings themselves, and feels connected to the spiritual world itself, which works within him as a rejuvenating force that prevents his culture from growing old; a force that always gives him hope that, even if some branch of culture has, so to speak, become spiritually barren, the rejuvenating forces can bring forth a new seed. This direct communion between the national spirit and the individual human soul is what, in turn, distinguishes the soul of the Central European from that of the Eastern European.

[ 15 ] In a curious way, Russian Slavic culture presents itself to the science of the spirit. The Russian perceives his national spirit as something reigning above him, so that this national spirit does not—as is the case with the Italian, for example—act directly upon the feeling soul, or—as with the French—upon the intellectual soul, or—as with the British—upon the conscious soul, nor does it penetrate into the “I”; but rather the national soul hovers above the individual as a spiritual entity, looked up to as one would a cloud, while below the individuals act with their own soul forces, into which the national soul does not penetrate. That is why we see among these Eastern peoples that the individual soul forces—which have not yet been grasped at this stage of development—interact in such an anarchic jumble. Because the national soul does not bring about their inner harmony, these three soul forces interact in a seemingly anarchic jumble; they cannot find a way to exist in harmony with one another. This is the peculiarity that strikes the Western European as strange when he turns his attention specifically to the spiritual culture of the East. This lack of unity within the national soul, in contrast to the unity between the national soul and the individual human soul, is what distinguishes the German people from the Russian people. And this distinction becomes apparent precisely when we direct our spiritual attention to the actual forces of the German national soul.

[ 16 ] How does German cultural development fit into the overall development of the world? After the Germanic peoples had their clashes with the Romans and the southern peoples, German culture brought forth individuals who were directly gripped by the power of the human in their very being here in the world. We see, to mention just one figure, Siegfried before us; we see the other figures of the Nibelungen before us. They carry the forces through which they are called to act in the world directly within their souls, and they feel what they possess there in their souls as that which guides, governs, and sustains the world as a whole. That which has been preserved in the vernacular and in the spiritual life from this animated relationship between the national soul and the individual soul—as it already confronts us at the dawn of Central European culture—that which has been preserved there, we can recognize as characteristic in a similar way to how the relationship to the spiritual world confronts us in a deeper sense within mysticism. The mystic perceives what pulses through him as that which also pulses through the entire cosmos. He feels himself within what he calls the divine, the spiritual. One need only compare what pulses through Siegfried or the other figures—who are echoes of the oldest coexistence of the German national soul with the individual soul—with the figure that has endured with great popularity within Russian folk life: the figure of Ilya Muromets. There we see how, as a human being, he senses the divine-spiritual in the distance, how he looks up to it, how it is something to him that is not immediately present in his soul—something for which, at most, he can sacrifice himself and give his life as a warrior. The courage and strength in the nature of Siegfried; the humility and immediate self-sacrifice in the nature of Muromets.

[ 17 ] And we can say: What we encounter in the early period of Germany’s flourishing is like something that then seems to vanish amid the turmoil of later times, succumbing to foreign influences. And then, in a marvelous way, from the twelfth century onward—and especially from the thirteenth—we see a renewed effort of the German spirit shining forth through the very rejuvenating forces of the German national soul.

[ 18 ] Let us consider figures such as Walther von der Vogelweide and Wolfram von Eschenbach. We see how, admittedly, characters and poetic themes are drawn from the West, but how what is taken from the West serves merely as a framework, and how a direct connection with the most elemental forces of the supersensible world—for example, in the case of Wolfram von Eschenbach—inspires him to make his *Parzifal* the one who, through the powers of his own soul, undergoes his journey through the worlds to the Grail; by seeking in the outer world, he aims with every step to expand his spiritual powers and, to the same extent, to bring a spiritualization into his soul. A deepening, and at the same time a rejuvenation, of the German spirit confronts us directly in this era to which Wolfram von Eschenbach belongs.

[ 19 ] And then we see, once again, how foreign influences gradually make themselves felt; how, as it were, the German spirit grows old. But we see, shining through all this aging, the rejuvenating forces of the German national soul. And we then see these rejuvenating forces of the German national soul emerge in a remarkable way after Germany was turned into a cultural wasteland by the enemies surrounding it during the Thirty Years’ War; we see these forces flare up, see the national forces working their way to the surface, undergoing a complete rejuvenation. Where do these rejuvenating forces come from? Here one must point to Lessing, who in his works—in what constitutes his spiritual testament—pointed to the immortal, the eternal in human nature—in that very testament, however, which the truly wise refuse to believe in. But at the end of his “testament,” he also drew attention to how he sought a kind of knowledge that was not the knowledge of scholars—those who consider themselves at the pinnacle of education—but rather the knowledge of the simplest, most elementary forces of the people in primeval times. Lessing refers to a rejuvenation, a refreshing of knowledge, when he asks: Must every single human being necessarily traverse the path by which the human race attains its perfection within one and the same lifetime? Why could not every single human being have existed more than once in this world? Is this hypothesis ridiculous simply because it is the oldest? Because the human mind, before it was scattered and weakened by the sophistry of the school, immediately fell upon it?

[ 20 ] There you have this deliberate immersion in the folk tradition in order to arrive at the highest wisdom. Anyone who considers his connection to German development can only say: One can see an influx of the rejuvenating forces of the German national soul into Lessing.

[ 21 ] And once again we see in Herder and Goethe how they—one supported by the other—delve into German folk songs and German antiquity, and how, inspired by the rejuvenating forces of the German national spirit, they achieve an elevation of the poetic and intellectual faculties within them. And we see how Goethe created his *Faust* out of what arose from the very heart of the people—the figure of Faust, whom he initially knew only through puppet theater, that is, through what lived within the people. Goethe and Herder experienced a rejuvenation of their own lives through their immersion in the impulses of the folk soul. It was Lessing who also placed the Faust problem within its historical context, who pointed out that what was fundamentally present in the drama of his time—characters such as those that lived among the people in old plays—must be brought back to the stage. And he provided a scene based on an old folk tradition, one rooted in communication with the spiritual world.

[ 22 ] And let us picture the Romantic movement, which, through its immersion in German folklore and mysticism, sought a connection with the spirit; we see, for example, how in Novalis there is a profound penetration into the sphere of the spiritual world.

[ 23 ] When one considers all these circumstances, many things become understandable—things that have certainly already been emphasized, things that have been accepted as insights gained through observation, but things whose full context has not yet been grasped. The extraordinarily insightful Karl Hillebrand has beautifully contrasted Western national characters with those of Central Europe. What he has to say in his excellent treatise on the Western worldview finds complete confirmation—but also deeper insight—through what spiritual science has to say. Hillebrand emphasizes, after all, that the Italians brought European culture, the Spaniards mathematical thinking, and the English empiricism. And now he reflects: What, in fact, is it that the German spirit has to contribute to the general spiritual process of humanity? And in his answer, he truly arrives at an excellent, precise characterization of what the German spirit has to offer humanity: “The German spirit is, in essence, the first to have discovered the idea of the organism.” For those who think exclusively in British terms, the organism does not exist. The essence is viewed from the outside, but the immediate organic life and interplay do not present themselves to the eye. The Western rationalist seeks to understand what reality is through historical ideas; but to immerse oneself in reality so that life within it is grasped—Hillebrand, too, knows that this is a distinctive trait of the German spirit. And so it is precisely through spiritual science that the misunderstandings regarding German culture that prevail among the European nations will become increasingly apparent.

[ 24 ] One really must say: It is understandable how the German spirit, in its struggle for an inner, elemental, and immediate connection with the soul of the people, can be so incredibly difficult to understand. That which characterizes it—which is also part of its very essence—and that which exists within its essence is, for it, something organically connected to the spirit, something it must experience directly in the objective connection with its soul—something that is so difficult to grasp, for example, for the spirit that, in its soul life, perceives the national soul only through the conscious soul. Herman Grimm, who was so thoroughly and beautifully attuned to the fabric of the German national soul, has a fine remark about the—in a certain sense—excellent biography of Goethe written by the Englishman Lewes: When one reads the biography, then—if, as a German, one feels Goethe’s essence as if experiencing it firsthand—one must say: Yes, this Mr. Lewes, who writes about a man born in Frankfurt in August 1749, who experienced a youth so reminiscent of Goethe’s own; a man to whom Goethe’s life events are attributed, to whom Goethe’s works are ascribed, who died in March 1832—yet in whom one cannot discern what the German observer feels and strives to demonstrate precisely in his Goethe.

[ 25 ] And after all, it is quite understandable that precisely the most intimate aspect of the German worldview—the grasping of the organic and living—should seem implausible to the Western people. And so it came to pass that, in a grotesque misunderstanding, the French philosopher Bergson was able to give a lecture around Christmas time in which he argued that the German spirit lacked precisely the ability to grasp the organic and living in the present, and that the entire German spirit had become a mechanism.

[ 26 ] One gets the feeling that this French philosopher, Bergson—who certainly possesses certain depths of character, which he owes precisely to German idealism (Schelling) and which he then reflects in his own way, albeit without delving deeply into the German spirit—one may find it strange that this philosopher views the German spirit as mechanistic, because he believes that the old idealistic way of life has vanished. He judges the German people based on the fact that German cannons now stand against his own people. This is just as if Bergson had expected the French to be met—instead of by rifles and cannons—by Germans reciting poems by Goethe or Schiller to them. Since they do not do so, people—including philosophers—perceive nothing of the German spirit, but see only the German mechanism that stands against them in the form of rifles and cannons.

[ 27 ] But in many other respects as well, it is precisely that which is most intimate to the German spirit that is difficult to understand for those who are unwilling to engage with the innermost, most intimate characteristic of how the national spirit and the individual interact in German intellectual life. Because this seems to me to be quite characteristic, I would like to share three sentences that have, so to speak, sprung from the deepest, most intimate characteristics of German development; these sentences are formulated as if the German were seeking to express in them the essence of his soul, just as he has discerned it from his national spirit.

[ 28 ] The first sentence: “In the mind lives the little spark in which the world soul reveals itself in the human soul.” This sentence was spoken by Eckhart, the German mystic. One may well say that it truly expresses the essence of the interplay between the national soul and the individual soul. Now let us try to translate this sentence into any Western European language in such a way that it is truly translated. We will not be able to do so, because the national spirit of another language does not provide what the translation of this sentence would be—a translation that so accurately expresses the content of the sentence in the spirit of German mysticism.

[ 29 ] The second sentence: “The German does not wish to remain in a state of fixed existence; he always wants to become.” The German, then, regards his national identity as something he views as an ideal to be striven for. Fichte says: One is Italian, one is French, but one becomes German by actively and intensely feeling one’s Germanness within oneself; just as Faust feels that which he “always strives for.” “The German is becoming; he does not wish to remain in a state of completed being.” Let us try again to translate this so that it conveys this intimate meaning. We will see that it cannot be done.

[ 30 ] The third proposition; it is a proposition through which Hegel was able to express what appears to him as the connection between the supersensible and the individual human soul. Hegel says that in the transition from being to non-being, from non-being to being, lies the living becoming, in which Fichte, too, grasped the essence of the human being in the “I.” Not in rigid Being, but in that which is constantly creating itself, which always contains Nothingness within itself, and which always passes creatively from Being into Nothingness. Thus, this third proposition is an eminently German proposition: “Being and Nothingness unite into a higher unity in becoming.” Try to translate this proposition into a Western European language—you will not be able to.

[ 31 ] What constitutes the German essence in the sense implied here is, after all, particularly difficult for Eastern Europeans—for Russians—to understand. And it must be right to focus precisely on the essence of the Russian people in our present time. For it is precisely what we hear in the endless invectives coming from all sides—including from the East—that reveals the most utter lack of understanding of the German essence. Thus, for decades now, the Eastern European mindset has been conditioned to erect a barrier, a chasm, between itself and the Central European mindset.

[ 32 ] Certainly, in Western Europe, people are striving to encapsulate within strict logic precisely what the German seeks through manifold paths—including many twists and turns—because he must always remain in living unity with the supersensible if he is, in the truest sense of the word, a German. But this logic is, after all, a strange logic. And it confronts us particularly now, when—based on such strange logic—it is said time and again, despite everything that has happened: “Who wanted the war?”—and then the finger is pointed at the “strange,” as if the Central European population had wanted this war. These logical arguments stand on the same logical level as, say, the statement: “You Germans are to blame for the fact that the current wars can be waged at all, because you invented gunpowder.” The arguments that resound from the immediate events of the present are roughly the same. One could even blame us for the fact that we are subjected to this “war of the press,” since the Germans also invented the art of printing. Had that not happened in Central Europe, the insults and abuse from the West would not be directed at us now.

[ 33 ] There are various aspects that must be highlighted regarding the movements which, when viewed in their entirety, comprise everything that comes to us from the East like a spiritual atmosphere. There we see how, after the first half of the previous century, something emerged in Russia that is called Slavophilism. If one considers this Slavophilism as it has now developed, one can discern roughly three perspectives within contemporary Pan-Slavism. The first, which emerged in a radical form, is the Slavophilist view that Western culture is decadent, ripe for decline, and that Russian culture must save European culture. That is the first point. The second is that individualism prevails in the West. This is not entirely incorrect, if understood properly, for one can call that coexistence of the individual soul with the national soul a form of individualism; the individual seeks to experience the divine-spiritual directly through his own soul forces. However, Slavophilism regards this individualism as something harmful.

[ 34 ] And a third point is cited: that Western Europeans and Central Europeans express their religious feelings out of the enthusiasm of their souls, not out of a mere, humble surrender to a spiritual reality that hovers like a cloud over the people and the individual. That is why, for example, Dostoevsky said something like this: “We Russians must form the synthesis; that is, we must synthesize, we must create the confluence of all European cultures. For just as we speak all languages and understand all civilizations, so too do we understand everything that has influenced all cultures, and we can reproduce it in complete freedom.” We also understand human life in such a way that a person stands before his God as one who bows in humility before what he recognizes as the God hovering above the individual. Therefore, we do not allow ourselves to be confined by a legal system; that contradicts what the individual directly experiences in his childlike humility. Third, Dostoevsky cites the Orthodox religion, of which he says it has never appeared as a contentious church like that of Western Europe.

[ 35 ] What lies at the heart of these three tenets of Slavophilism is, in essence, precisely what has inspired many—at least among the great minds of the East—what fills their souls and what has subsequently become popular, what has been passed down from leading figures to the people, and what has a tremendous impact. We can distinguish various phases within this Slavophilism. There is, for example, Khomyakov. He still approaches the matter from a position of intellectual understanding. The thoroughly noble Orest Miller, a man deeply rooted in Russian folklore, turns away from the dark sides of Slavophilism and embraces what Khomyakov also emphasized: that the Russian ideal is not yet alive in every single Russian. Thus we read in the writings of this Slavophile: “Our fatherland is branded by the yoke of servitude, godless flattery and sycophancy, repulsive falsehood, soulless and shameful apathy, black lawlessness in the courts, and infamies of every kind.” Or: “We will be the democrats among the other peoples of Europe and the heralds of humanitarian principles that promote the free and independent development of every nation.”

[ 36 ] Orest Miller, who is well known in Russian folklore, was also enthusiastic about this popular ideal. However, as Khomyakov increasingly shifted from seeking God above to deifying the Russian people, Orest Miller did dare to raise some objections. The result was that he was dismissed. But we see how what has been smoldering in the East for a long time is now haunting the West as well and taking shape entirely out of the Russian character.

[ 37 ] Here we see how Soloviev—perhaps the most outstanding Russian—takes up this theme in his own way, but idealizes it—one might say spiritualizes it, elevates it to the spiritual realm—as he builds upon Slavophilism. But not in the way a German, for example, might say: If the force that lives in the national soul is to take effect, it must seize the individual human being; it must work through the soul forces of the “I”; the individual human being must be the one who embodies what the national soul has to say to the world. Thus Soloviev does not stand in relation to the forces of the national soul, but rather he stands in such a way that he also points upward to that cloud-like spiritual formation which stands above the individual at a spiritual height, in a spiritual distance. And then he tells himself: This divine-spiritual force will act upon the national soul. This divine-spiritual force has set out to carry out a certain mission through the Russian people. And it does not matter at all what the Russian people are like. Whatever the case may be, what is to happen will happen through a miracle. Sinful or not sinful, depraved or not depraved, foolish or wise—none of that can contribute to it; rather, whatever is at work there acts through a cosmic miracle, simply through human beings, whatever they may be. These are Solovyov’s own words:

[ 38 ] “Thus, the force that will give the history of humanity a new, perfect content can only be a revelation of that higher, divine world; but the people in whom that force will reveal itself must become the mediator between the human race and the superhuman reality, the free, self-conscious instrument of the latter.”

[ 39 ] The human race—by which he means his own people—is to become the instrument of the divine miracle that will take place, without the collective soul of the people allowing its powers to flow into the individual souls for the purpose of what the Russian people are carrying out in the development of humanity.

[ 40 ] When we see that one of the most significant and greatest visionary minds is far removed from precisely what constitutes the essence of the German character, then we understand that a man like Boris Chicherin, who died in 1904, could achieve little when he sought to stand on the unique foundation of German thought, when he sought to build upon Hegel. In his major work *Science and Religion*, Boris Chicherin seeks above all to develop the idea that the human soul, through the ideas and thoughts it can develop within itself, gradually finds its way upward to a point where the great divine order can then be mystically grasped. He attempts to apply this idea to jurisprudence and political science. But he fell out of favor and was dismissed as mayor of Moscow after Alexander III ascended to the throne, when he delivered a speech that was entirely imbued with the conviction that what a person can grasp in their soul can indeed be incorporated into the Russian essence.

[ 41 ] More and more we are seeing how Slavophilism is taking hold of precisely that which even those who were able to see through it a little had to admit: This is no longer about some ideal or some abstract concept, but about something entirely different. It is a matter of asserting not some supernatural force, not some ideal, but simply the immediate physical powers of a race. And I believe it is wise for a Western European not to choose as a key witness someone who is a Western European, but rather someone who could have known. And someone who could have known—as we shall see in a moment—says of Slavophilism, after it had passed through the minds of Katkov, Aksakov, and others: “Slavophilism had become a fairground commodity, filling all the filthy streets, squares, and back alleys of Russian life with wild, bestial clamor.”

[ 42 ] But the man who said this—and who also uttered another telling remark about what Slavophilism had gradually become—he certainly knew what he was talking about! The other remark he made, directed at Danilevsky, was: “The Russian writer lacks the strength to rise above the bleak present; he is content with the task of synthesizing the contradictions prevailing among humanity into a coherent system and deriving from this system a few practical postulates for his own segment of humanity, to which he himself belongs.”

[ 43 ] All of this, however, can be seen as a consequence of what has been said: that the individual soul forces act chaotically and disharmoniously at the very moment when the divine life hovering above the individual is not grasped—is not grasped within the soul of the individual itself. And this is particularly emphasized by this knowledgeable spirit in these words. And who is this knowledgeable spirit? It is the very one about whom a well-known Russian says the following:

[ 44 ] “Anyone who had ever had the opportunity, even once in their life, to meet Soloviev could never forget this extraordinary man, who bore no resemblance to ordinary mortals. Anyone who looked at him—and especially into his large, inscrutable eyes—was deeply moved: from those eyes radiated a wondrous blend of helplessness and strength, physical bewilderment and spiritual depth. He was so nearsighted that he could not see what everyone else saw. He squinted and furrowed his thick eyebrows to make out objects in his immediate vicinity. But when he directed his gaze into the distance, he seemed to pierce through the outer shell of things perceptible to the senses and see something beyond the earthly realm—something hidden from everyone else. From his eyes shone the rays of the soul, gazing straight into the heart. This was the expression of a man who was, in and of himself, indifferent to the outward appearance of reality and who lived in direct communion with another world.”

[ 45 ] The man about whom the Russian prince Trzbeizkos says these words spoke, as I have cited, in turn about Slavophilism—from which he himself also drew his inspiration, even if he did idealize it; for it is Solovyov himself who speaks thus about Slavophilism. This is the important point: that we hear from an authoritative source a characterization of what has been brewing in the East and what is now coming toward us from the East.

[ 46 ] But, you see, even at the highest levels of Soloviev’s thought, there is still something of the anarchic nature of the Eastern man’s spiritual powers. For while Soloviev, as early as 1880, expressed himself in his “Critique of Abstract Principles” as I have cited, he came to realize by the end of the 1880s just how far that which is reality—that which surrounds him as reality—is removed from what he had dreamed of. This is when he begins to demand that politics become moral. Soloviev says the following in “Morality and Politics”: “We must not delude ourselves: the politics of selfish interest, which brings hatred in its wake in international and social relations, transforms into the politics of anthropophagy (he means cannibalism), which ultimately destroys all morality, even in private and family life. For man is a rational being and cannot remain for long in the monstrous dichotomy between the principles of private and political action. We are told of our special nobility and mission, yet let us remember that the resulting and mutually exclusive claims must ultimately, in the name of cultural nobility, provoke a life-and-death struggle and the right to use force.”

[ 47 ] So says Solovyov himself, who must gradually turn his gaze away from reality in order to be able to live in peace—one might say, in peace of mind—with what he has dreamed of as an ideal, spiritual form of Slavophilism: “For me, the Russian people are not merely an ethnographic entity with their innate characteristics and material interests, but a people who feel that the cause of God hovers above these characteristics and interests; a people who are prepared to sacrifice themselves for this cause; a theocratic people by vocation and duty.”

[ 48 ] But Solovyov also recognizes that what he dreams of, what he envisions, has not yet become a duty—or even a conscious awareness—among his people. And one can use his very words when seeking to answer the question he raises: why Europe cannot love what is actually happening in the East. Soloviev himself poses the question: Why does Europe not love us? And he provides the answer. It is at the same time the answer to much of what, in our immediate present, comes to us from the East like a spiritual aura. He poses this question: Why does Europe not love us? And he answers it in 1888: “Europe looks upon us with loathing, for it does not see what is decisive in Russia’s power and mission, but rather in its sin.” So says Solovyov. But truly harsh experiences had indeed weighed heavily on this soul, enabling it to arrive at such a conviction. It had been particularly hard for him when he was forced to see what Slavophilism had gradually become—a movement he himself had to admit had turned into fairground merchandise. And ultimately, he finds it only logical that Slavophilism had to come to this in the end, because the Russian people—without considering what they themselves first wanted to make of themselves—are supposed to directly bless Europe with what they are. Solovyov finds it logical that Yarosh, a professor at Moscow University, praised Ivan the Terrible as “the perfect model of the characteristics of a Russian person in general and of an Orthodox Christian and a tsar in particular.” This was said not in jest but in all seriousness, and Solovyov finds it logical. For, he argues, if one considers what the Slavophiles actually have in mind when they speak of the Russian man, then this is essentially epitomized in Ivan the Terrible. Nothing else could have emerged as the ultimate consequence, Soloviev maintains. But now he asks himself: How does Slavophilism give rise to such peculiar manifestations? Soloviev envisioned the Slavophiles gradually declaring: “The West is rotten; we have no use for it; new, young life must flow from the East past the West, and this new, young life is to be found among us.” Soloviev saw all of this. But in a certain sense, he is thoroughly a genuine Russian—so much so that one might say he had a certain sympathy for those who at least had the courage to embrace this ultimate conclusion. Of Katkov he said: “He had the courage to strip rational religion of all its idealistic trappings and to present the Russian people themselves as the object of religious veneration—not, however, within the framework of their supposed virtues, but in the name of their actual power, of which the state is the expression as the living word or the embodiment of the deified people.”

[ 49 ] That is what Soloviev says. But he asks himself: Well, where does the Russian—who is, after all, full of humility—actually get all of this from? That was the question for Soloviev. He wanted to investigate where in the Russian soul lies what is demonstrated by those who cast the inflammatory ideas of Slavophilism like a firebrand into the people. And lo and behold, he found a curious answer. For he examined the works of Danilevsky, the successor to Katkov and Aksakov. And he found that what these people hurl—and have hurled—as fiery torches against the West was, in its conceptual framework and overall logic, initially borrowed from the French Jesuit-educated Joseph de Maistre. Soloviev was able to demonstrate that the entire intellectual character of the Slavophiles is borrowed from a Western European spirit; that Western European spirit which, at the beginning of the 19th century, established the doctrine: Human beings cannot enter the spiritual realm through what is within themselves, but solely through authority—and he means papal authority. Only what it decrees can lead people into the spiritual world. If you wish to learn about de Maistre, you need only read the beautifully written article that the run-of-the-mill Georg Brandes penned in his *Spiritual Currents of the Nineteenth Century*—that same Brandes who, admittedly, is less of a cultivator of spiritual culture, one who does not love to to plant anything, but who knows how to cut off the blossoms everywhere and assemble bouquets of fantasy that may then seem very witty to people. But if one wants to arrive at a conception from these bouquets, one can easily find everything one needs in Brandes.

[ 50 ] Soloviev had thus made a strange discovery, one that was, however, enlightening to him. That which is to be used to invade and conquer Europe from the East originates from—as Soloviev puts it—a Jesuit protégé; that is, from his ideas, which have found their way into the thinking of the Slavophiles. And so Soloviev has no choice but to conclude with these telling words: “A tiny morsel from the West’s intellectual banquet proved sufficient to nourish our national and political consciousness for half a century, and a single one of the countless twigs from the Western European tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not only proudly set against the entire tree from which it had been plucked, but even set against it as the Russian tree of life, which was to grow and encompass the whole world.”

[ 51 ] That was, indeed, a remarkable discovery. But Soloviev continued to investigate the matter. And eventually he discovered a curious book by Bergeret: *Principes de politique*. And he found that this reactionary spirit of Bergeret, with his modes of thought, also resurfaces among the Russian Slavophiles. And finally, he discovered a German book written in 1857 by a “peculiar oddball,” Heinrich Rückert. I do not believe there is a single person in this hall who knows anything about this book. Nor do I believe that anyone in Berlin at present—except perhaps scholars in this specialized field—knows anything about it. The book is titled: *Textbook of World History in Organic Development*. But Soloviev says: The Russian patriots also drew from this book. Now he had the full picture. Now he understood the forces that had converged there to take effect, to be deployed against the West. Now he knew what had tempted and seduced even such refined minds as Orest Miller and others. And Soloviev spoke these words:

[ 52 ] “Our patriots condemn various views simply because they are Masonic. In this case, their own view of Russia and patriotism is doubly reprehensible—from both our perspective and theirs—because it is foreign, un-Russian, and slavish, transplanted from foreign soil.”

[ 53 ] That, however, was an important revelation. And after this revelation, Soloviev did not find many friends among those who had previously been his friends on many occasions. But then again, Soloviev really was a strange man. After his initial period as a Slavophile, following the assassination of Alexander II, he advised his successor in a fiery speech to prove himself truly Russian. Soloviev saw this “true Russianness” in the fact that Alexander II must, of course, pardon the murderers of his predecessor; this, he argued, was the primary expression of the idea of the sublime. And people “acted in a Russian manner” in response to this speech. Namely, they drove Solovyov away; they drove him out of his position. He had already had the foresight to see that much of what he had envisioned in his idealism turned out, in reality, to be different from what he had dreamed.

[ 54 ] Well, when one considers such an impeccable key witness as this great philosopher, one can indeed see how, little by little over the course of decades, a movement bordering on megalomania emerged in the East, which ultimately had to lead to arson.

[ 55 ] I have chosen this approach—to invoke Solovyov as someone who characterizes the Russian essence and the Russian national soul in contrast to the German national soul—because we are accused, particularly by Russia, of being unable to understand the Russian essence. — Well, I think we can help ourselves by not characterizing it ourselves, but rather by having it characterized by someone who lived so deeply immersed in it that he was intertwined with it to the point of Slavophilism—albeit an ideal Slavophilism; that we appeal to such a person, to whom we are indeed permitted to appeal.

[ 56 ] And if one now adds this to the various things that have been said about the relationship of the Germans and Central Europeans to their surroundings, then much of what has happened becomes understandable—understandable in light of its intellectual underpinnings. Much of what is said about Germany in our times amounts to nonsense and futility.

[ 57 ] What the German must feel as his essence must strike one as particularly close to home in this day and age; it strikes close to home simply because such a perspective can give rise to what has also been expressed from other points of view: the great hope for the future of German endeavor and the German essence; this German essence, which—even when one considers its relationship to the German national soul—reveals itself as striving toward the spiritual deepening of the entire cultural development of humanity.

[ 58 ] May those who speak so lightly from abroad about the German character observe in detail the inner struggle of those souls who are truly gripped by the German national spirit. Then they would not, as I pointed out last time, see something like the way Romain Rolland portrays his “Schultze,” but they would see something else; for in many places something else can be seen, as I have shown with just a few examples.

[ 59 ] In this very lecture, I wanted to point out how German idealism is itself still a seed, and how—precisely because the German national soul is connected to individual souls—it must develop into a blossom, into fruit, into a complete grasp of the spiritual world, which is apprehended in its true, concrete vitality.

[ 60 ] I have in mind a figure, a man who died in 1867 while serving as principal of a high school in Bromberg. He represents a different kind of spirit characteristic of German intellectual life than this “Schultze” in Romain Rolland’s work. He is Johann Heinrich Deinhardt. His treatises, however, are written from the perspective of German thought. We find a curious passage in them. His essays were edited by his friend Schmidt, including an essay on the immortality of the soul, which was written in a simple style to his friend, who was also his editor at the time. In it, he seeks to show how he has come to realize that human beings, even while they dwell here in life, are working to create an immortal body; that everything they accomplish serves to organize an immortal body that passes through the gate of death. — Thus we see this simple schoolteacher on the path of spiritual science.

[ 61 ] And so many, many more examples could be cited. In such moments, the interplay between the German national soul and what the individual strives for is realized. In such matters, it becomes evident how this German national soul provides individual souls with the impulses to work toward the very first sources of knowledge and to connect the individual’s inner life to the eternal in the life of the soul. But we will speak further about this tomorrow.

[ 62 ] Today, however, I would like to summarize what I had to say about the fundamental forces inherent in the German spirit, which manifest themselves precisely in this ever-renewed connection to the very first sources of human knowledge and human experience; I would like to conclude my reflections on the German national soul in relation to other national souls with the words spoken by a little-known Austrian poet who, out of a truly German spirit—one might say, out of a dialogue with the German national soul—published his *German Sounds from Austria* in 1881. In these “German Sounds from Austria” by Fercher von Steinwand, we find a poem that so aptly shows how deeply the individual German can feel at home in that which lives and weaves, ever rejuvenating the German essence—the German national soul. This appears before us as if in a vision. It is as if all those who are interested were to come to Mount Kyffhäuser to witness, as guests, the Mystery of Kyffhäuser—the mystery of Emperor Barbarossa, who rests there and who holds the power of the German essence hidden within, like a mystery. And one of the guests who come there is, for Fercher von Steinwand, the German spirit: that spirit, as mentioned, which Fercher von Steinwand—the poet of *German Sounds from Austria*—also perceives as the spirit that constantly rejuvenates the soul of each individual, because it always allows to shine forth that which speaks from the world of the stars, from suns and moons; the spirit that speaks to the heart in the most intimate sense, because it speaks of the vastness of the universe; this German spirit, this rejuvenating German spirit—the German poet from Austria, Fercher von Steinwand, gives it voice through words, in which I would like to summarize what I have attempted to convey today in my reflections on the German spirit, precisely through comparison with the spirits of other European peoples:

What springs from the mysteries of this earth,
What finds hearts, what masters spirits,
What flows eternally from the stars, speaking
And reveals an infallible God,
What seems to have been lost from time and the world
And yet surges around us in a thousand streams:
This is innately and powerfully inherent in the German spirit,
And he has consciously sworn to proclaim it clearly!