The Rudolf Steiner Archive

14. The German Soul in Its Development

[ 1 ] Those among the esteemed audience who frequently attend these lectures—which I have had the privilege of delivering here in this hall for years now—know that I only very rarely interweave personal remarks into these reflections. Today, however, I would like to ask you to allow me, by way of introduction, to make such a personal—or at least seemingly personal—remark. For I would actually have to consider myself quite foolish and naive if I could believe that my remarks on precisely this topic before us today could be anything other than highly imperfect, perhaps even amateurish. What I wish to sketch out in outline form regarding the nature and development of the German national soul could be, let us say, a chapter in a science that does not yet exist—a science that might be envisioned as a lofty ideal. But what a great deal would have to come together to truly bring such a science into being! First, perhaps not just one, but a series of individuals would have to work together—individuals who possess the devoted spirit of inquiry into everything that constitutes the national character, the national nature, and national development, such as Jakob Grimm possessed, who, after all, directed his studies primarily toward the two manifestations of the national soul: myth, legend, and language. However, this same spirit would have to extend to many other expressions of the folk soul and be capable of discovering laws governing this folk soul that could be compared to some of the truly marvelous laws that the distinguished German scholar Jakob Grimm discovered regarding language, for example.

[ 2 ] Well, of course I cannot claim such scholarly expertise. However, I did have the opportunity to enjoy a long-standing friendship with a worthy successor and student of Jakob Grimm—Karl Julius Schröer, the Austrian scholar of dialects, legends, and myths, who later also became a Goethe scholar. I have already spoken about this in these lectures—except for what he, I might say, sought to explore in the true spirit of Jakob Grimm: namely, the intimate connections between the German national soul and the various national souls that prevail in Austria. I was privileged to participate for many years—and, I might add, with deep interest—in his efforts to fathom the nature and significance of the German dialects prevalent in Austria—and there are many of them—and was thus able to observe how national character, specifically German national character, manifests itself where it must intermingle with Slavic and Magyar folk traditions. It was precisely during those years of my youth that one could conduct studies on the interrelationships between national souls. When one considered what was taking place in Austria in the 1870s and 1880s, one could vividly apply what such a researcher—a student of Jakob Grimm—could bring to light about the nature of the national soul through his scholarship. And then I was able to delve deeper into what had presented itself to me in this way, again through a close friendship with the legend and mythologist Ludwig Laistner—a friend of Paul Heyse’s—who, like Schröer, has long since passed away. And so I was at least given the opportunity to learn how to immerse myself in that external science which synthesizes all that lawfully governs the folk soul and its development.

[ 3 ] Secondly, however, anyone who wished to establish a science such as the one I envision as an ideal would have to have thoroughly experienced for themselves the discipline imparted by the modern scientific way of thinking and its methods. In this regard, I may at least say that my entire youthful education was based on the natural sciences and that I enjoyed a certain training in this method for a long time.

[ 4 ] But all that which is externally discovered through a study of the folk soul in the sense of Jakob Grimm and is imbued with that spirit of truth and knowledge that stems from scientific discipline requires a third element. Anyone who holds this ideal of science before them would have to justify it by adding, as a third element to these two, that which I have sought to expound time and again over the years in these lectures as modern spiritual science. For only through the interplay of these three spiritual currents of the human soul could that truly come about which, arising from a science of the national soul, can shed light on the peculiarities of the governance and workings of a national soul. And so I would like today to speak, tentatively and in sketch form—and, for the reasons stated, naturally in an amateurish manner—about the nature and development of the German soul, the German national soul.

[ 5 ] You know that anyone who speaks of spiritual science, as it is understood here, is not speaking of the national soul in the same sense as one so often speaks of it when one is an abstract thinker or a scientist with a more or less mechanistic mindset, but that such a spiritual researcher speaks of the national soul as something that truly exists, just as the individual human being exists within the physical world. Of course, I cannot repeat in today’s lecture everything I have been expounding for years. But one need only draw from the writings often cited here the so-called evidence for how justified it is, based on spiritual scientific research, to truly speak of such higher souls—souls that have not descended to the level of physical embodiment—as is to be done here with regard to the national soul. However, if one wishes to speak of the national soul in the sense of spiritual science, one must first consider certain aspects relating to the individual human soul. For, after all, the workings of the national soul present themselves to us in such a way that the activity of individual human souls—the nature of individual human souls—so to speak, flows forth and manifests itself from what the national soul is. Now there are certain things in life—particularly in the soul life (though this soul life is, of course, intimately linked to physical life between birth and death)—that come into consideration for spiritual research in an entirely different sense than they do for what is often called natural science today, or at least for what is so frequently regarded as the scope of natural science today.

[ 6 ] First, I must direct your attention to the development of the individual human being. For the spiritual researcher, there are certain phases in human life that he must focus on in particular in order to uncover the mysteries of human development—the development of the whole, complete human being. As I said, I cannot prove the details today; I can only cite the findings of spiritual research. For a detailed explanation, I must refer you to my earlier lectures or my writings. One such phase occurs, first of all, during the years when a person, in the course of their development, undergoes the change of teeth. Certainly, much of what I am about to say may seem vague in comparison to the scientific concepts that are so firmly established today and confined within such sharply defined terms. But in many cases, spiritual science must indeed play a role that I would like to compare, for example, to the mood a painter imparts to a landscape—a landscape in which he otherwise paints houses and trees with fixed outlines. What is there of houses and trees in fixed outlines—what is, so to speak, a sharply defined drawing—only becomes, in the proper sense, I’ll just say, painterly, once everything that constitutes the picture’s atmosphere has been poured out. And this atmospheric quality truly cannot be captured in such fixed forms as that which is depicted below in houses, trees, and the like. So the seventh year or so—of course, all these figures are only approximate—the time of the change of teeth, deserves special attention. And here certain processes appear to the spiritual researcher in human development that are certainly more subtle, which, I would say, are poured out only in mood over the human soul life, but which are of great importance for understanding this soul life. For the spiritual researcher, this teething process expresses a complete shedding of what has been at work within the child as physical forces up to that point, and it is like the emergence to the surface of a being that has certainly longed to come to the surface for a long time, but which, I would say, is like a doubling of its being. And in the shedding of the first teeth and their replacement by the second set, something that is taking place throughout the entire human organism during this period is expressed in a particularly striking and prominent way at a specific point.

[ 7 ] Now the researcher of the spirit must recognize that what we encounter in human development—in the whole, complete human being—shows us that the outwardly material, the physical, is always permeated and imbued with the spiritual and soul-related, But when one considers human development in the way that is customary in science today, one approaches this development by simply tracing events in chronological order. One looks at an earlier state, a later state, yet another later one, and so on, and conceives of the later state as always emerging from the earlier one. This is how one views development. But just as it would be incorrect to view the human organism in spatial terms like a machine—where one relates only the adjacent parts to one another—one must instead view it in such a way that there are, so to speak, mysterious connections between the most distant organs, which do not adjoin one another spatially; so too, when considering the whole, complete human being, one must view what occurs in the sequence of time in such a way that things do not, so to speak, simply unfold in a linear temporal sequence, but rather that what happens to the human being often overlaps. You will soon see what I mean by this. For the researcher of the spiritual realm, it is clear that in human development up to the time of the change of teeth, the spiritual-soul aspect—let us say—presses forth from within—I cannot speak more precisely today due to time constraints—and permeates, so to speak, the physical, the material, giving it its character. What exactly is it that emerges as spiritual-soul elements during the period I have just described?

[ 8 ] To understand this, one must first distinguish between the development of boys and that of girls. Let us therefore begin by discussing the development of girls up to the time of tooth replacement. One must consider an entirely different phase of human development if, from a spiritual-scientific perspective, one wishes to understand what actually emerges from within a human being—not merely onto the face, but into the entire physiognomy of the person—what permeates and saturates the individual right up to the time of tooth replacement, what works, acts, lives, and exerts its power within them.

[ 9 ] If one wishes to discover what lies within the girl and, as it were, gives tangible form to her inner being, one must first turn one’s attention to certain peculiarities—but inner peculiarities, not to what the soul has learned through upbringing or school, but to the inner configuration, to the inner shaping of the soul. First of all, roughly from the age of twenty through twenty-eight or thirty, what one must initially take into account begins to emerge psychologically and becomes apparent to external observation. Then one must set aside what lies roughly between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty-five or thirty-six, and must again focus on what is present in the soul in question from the age of thirty-six to forty-two, forty-three, or forty-four. |

[ 10 ] If one examines people in general, one can certainly apply more general principles. If one wants to examine an individual person, then of course anyone can easily object—but the objection is valid; I simply cannot address it right now—: Well, so if one wants to understand people, one must wait until their teeth have fallen out, until they’ve reached that age. Certainly, when it comes to an individual, one must also wait if one wants to understand them. But as you know, science is not attained merely through individual observations, but by applying what is observed in one case to the general case. And now one must try to recognize how certain characteristics of the soul manifest themselves psychologically in the manner described during these years. And if one, so to speak—it is a crude term I am using here—undertakes a sort of blending of the characteristics of the early twenties with those of the second half of the thirties, up to the age of forty-two or forty-three, and forms a conception of what the psychological life is like during these years, then one comes to realize that, in a girl up until the change of teeth, this forces its way into the physical body. As the physical body takes shape, as it forms plastically, that which only later in life emerges as a configuration of the soul in the manner described is already at work and alive within it.

[ 11 ] Let us now consider the boy up to about the age of seven, until his teeth begin to change. If we wish to understand him, we must not consider two periods, but rather a single period of human soul development—namely, the period that lies roughly between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty-five. If we form a mental picture of what emerges soul-wise during this period and then consider what impels and drives the overall physiognomic formation, the lawful shaping, and the plastic development of the boy’s body, we arrive at a certain understanding of the connection between the outer, physical aspect and the soul-spiritual aspect.

[ 12 ] Then we must consider what lies within the second stage of human development. For the spiritual researcher, this second stage lasts from the change of teeth to sexual maturity—that is, until the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, or sixteenth year. During this time, we must again distinguish between the boy’s and the girl’s organism. What the girl’s organism adds here in terms of body and soul is precisely what the boy’s body incorporates during its first seven years—that is, precisely what is experienced psychologically between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty-five. And what the boy’s body then incorporates during these years is precisely what we had to say earlier that the girl’s body incorporates during the period up to the change of teeth. Thus we see that these states actually overlap; that what later emerges in the soul—that is, in the refined soul-spiritual state, in the internalized state—first acts upon the human being in a formative and enlivening way in the dull subconscious, just as he appears to us as a physical human being.

[ 13 ] And when we then consider the later stages of development, we must say that, while they are certainly not as sharply defined as the first ones, later periods should nevertheless be taken into account in a similar way for a more detailed observation of human life. But what has developed by then appears in a more inward form. What previously acted upon the organism, from the onset of sexual maturity onward, withdraws, as it were, from permeating—or, shall we say, shaping the physiognomy of the organism—and begins to develop inwardly. Anyone with even a basic aptitude for such observations can then clearly see how, from sexual maturity through the early twenties, in both the male and female organisms, the two later periods — the unified and the separate — still interact in a more individualized way; but how this distinction then, as it were, ceases, and the soul becomes more unified, so that we can no longer say: From the early twenties onward, for example, we find within the soul itself that which could be related to other periods in the same way that physical-psychic development can be characterized in the first two or three stages of life. We find the soul acting more from a unified source; we find it asserting itself as a unified whole more from a certain inner, harmonious fullness. Nevertheless, with more subtle observation, we can again make a sharp distinction—but only in such a way that it is poured out over the life of the soul like a mood—and an even more subtle mood—just as this life of the soul itself was previously poured out over the physical.

[ 14 ] We can distinguish three periods within the development of the soul. I have already hinted at them: from the beginning of one’s twenties to the end of one’s twenties; from the end of one’s twenties to the ages of thirty-five, thirty-six; from the age of thirty-six to the ages of forty-two, forty-three, and forty-four. The human soul does indeed undergo certain phases of development during this time, which can be clearly distinguished, even if, as I said, what is to be distinguished spreads over the life of the soul only as a more subtle mood. There is a spiritual-psychic aspect to the development during these years. And anyone who understands the difference between the spiritual and the soul—which has often been discussed here and to which I will return—will understand what I mean. During these years, up to the ages of forty-two, forty-three, and forty-four, we are dealing solely with inner development, one that is tinged with spiritual and soul elements. Then a more spiritual development of the inner self begins. The inner self withdraws even more than in previous years from permeating and saturating the organism; it lives even more within itself. And the possibility of distinguishing periods of time for what follows is scarcely applicable to the present stage of human development. Only when earthly evolution has progressed further will it be possible to distinguish the coming decades of human life in the same way as the earlier years. Thus we see how, in a most remarkable way, spiritual and soul forces interact in what we encounter as human beings in the physical world.

[ 15 ] To these reflections on the physical, psychological, and spiritual development of the human being, something else must be added if one wishes to view the human being as he emerges, rising up out of the collective soul of a people. We must also understand that, despite all the objections of so-called monism, the human soul is a unified whole. I have often said: if, in accordance with the views of certain people regarding the life of the soul and the body, one were to be a monist rather than a dualist, one would also have to regard water as a single entity and assert that it must by no means be regarded as a compound of hydrogen and oxygen! Of course, one can be a perfectly good monist while regarding water as composed of hydrogen and oxygen, just as one can be a perfectly good monist when one summarizes the entirety of human life as comprising what is soul-spiritual and what is physical-bodily. In this context, the human being, as he appears to us in the outer physical world, remains a “monon,” just as water is a “monon.”

[ 16 ] I cannot go back today to some of the things I have often discussed here. You can read about them in my books *The Secret Science* or *How Does One Gain Insight into the Higher Worlds?*. Those who do not have the time for that can learn about these things very briefly, in just a few pages, in the short essay I wrote for the magazine *Das Reich*, which is just about to be published. One must take into account a fact that cannot be discovered through ordinary powers of cognition, but rather through those powers of cognition that are developed in the manner I have often described here. For it must be acknowledged that there is a certain independence of the spiritual-soul life—an independence that can indeed be observed and experienced in inner living and knowing. It must be acknowledged that human beings are capable, through the development of certain soul faculties, of separating the spiritual-soul aspect from the physical-bodily aspect in the same way that a chemist separates hydrogen from oxygen when decomposing water, and that through this immersion in the spiritual-soul life, one can recognize that human beings, through this spiritual-soul life—or, let us say, within this spiritual-soul life—can enter into connections other than merely those that exist with the physical-bodily realm. Just as hydrogen can be separated from oxygen and then combine with other chemical elements to form other compounds, so too does that which is separated as the spiritual-soul aspect in supersensible knowledge—precisely for the sake of knowledge—enter into other connections when the physical-bodily aspect ceases with death; connections with a purely spiritual world. It surrounds human beings, as has often been explained here, just as the physical-sensory world surrounds them, and it can only be denied by those who suffer from a similar state of mind as someone who has never heard of or knows anything about air and denies that air exists—simply because it cannot be seen—claiming that there is nothing in space. Human beings, with their spiritual and soul aspects, belong to a spiritual world—a real spiritual world.

[ 17 ] Another insight from spiritual science is that we must view the two alternating states of waking and sleeping in such a way that the soul-spiritual aspect truly—in a certain sense, though this is more figurative—leaves the physical-bodily aspect during sleep. Our language is, after all, designed only for physical contexts. We have, so to speak, no words to express this. We must use words that express the concept more or less figuratively. Thus, the spiritual-soul aspect leaves the physical-bodily aspect during sleep. So we can also say figuratively that this spiritual-soul aspect is outside the physical-bodily aspect during sleep. And when a person wakes up again, the spiritual-soul aspect returns to the physical-bodily aspect. For those who have experienced the things that have often been described here, this is a process that can truly be lived through. It is not something simply imagined, but a process that can be experienced. And what leaves the physical body is not only that which is encompassed by our ordinary physical consciousness—that consciousness which is, after all, bound to the body in the physical world — as I explained just a few weeks ago in lectures I gave here — but it is also a deeper aspect of the soul, a soul aspect connected to the conscious soul, a subconscious soul aspect far more powerful than the conscious soul, a soul aspect that can influence the physical body far more than the conscious soul can. I may be able to elaborate further on this the day after tomorrow.

[ 18 ] Now, however, we must imagine that this spiritual-soul aspect, together with the subconscious spiritual-soul aspect, is not merely active in the unconscious state from falling asleep to waking up, but that it also permeates the organism from waking up to falling asleep. But only a part of it, as I have indicated, finds expression in conscious spiritual life. Another part acts in a spiritual-soul aspect, working from below throughout the entire development of the human physical organism. What we do in sleep, we continue to do from waking until falling asleep. However, just as weaker light is obscured by stronger light, what takes place in our body on a soul level as the subconscious is drowned out by our stronger daytime consciousness.

[ 19 ] If we wish to study processes such as those I described earlier—the influence of a later lifetime on an earlier one, say, the soul states from the age of twenty-eight to thirty-five in the boy’s body up to the age of seven— then we must conceive of this influence of the later soul life on the earlier physical body in the same way that spiritual-soul forces always work subconsciously within us, always acting subconsciously throughout our entire lives. Down there, spiritual-soul processes are taking place—truly spiritual-soul processes, not merely subtle physical ones. Down there in the human organism, in what occurs without the consciousness that accompanies the human organism with its knowledge and understanding being aware of it—in these underlying parts of the human organism, there a part of the spiritual-soul life lives, a member of the spiritual-soul life, during waking “daytime life,” in relationship to the spiritual of the surroundings just as our lungs live in relationship to the air—in relationship to the spiritual of the surroundings, only not the spatial surroundings. But as I said, I cannot go into these finer concepts. There truly develops a life of a spiritual-soul nature between a spiritual world and the entire human being, which is just as real, just as tangible, as the interaction between the air and the lungs.

[ 20 ] And underlying everything that unfolds throughout human life are the influences of what we call the national soul, the national spirit, and the like. Just as, during the period of individual human development up to the time of tooth replacement in girls and boys, that which later expresses itself psychologically in the manner described is at work, so too does a spiritual-psychological force—one that is higher than the human spiritual-psychological realm, or at least superordinate to it—operate throughout our entire lives. This influences us from within, working together with our own subconscious, which is drawn out during sleep. And there is a continuous interaction between the national soul and that which is individual within us in the manner described, just as there is a continuous interaction between the human lungs and the air. Not in language as such, not in what initially manifests itself as a people’s art, poetry, or myths—all of these are the effects of a supersensible, or one might also say, subsensible realm—but at a much “deeper level,” the mysterious interactions take place that exist between the human being in relation to a certain inner essence, which I have just characterized in its nature, and what we call the national soul.

[ 21 ] Now, as you know, it is not my style—unlike, for example, Gustav Theodor Fechner or similar figures, whom I hold in high esteem, by the way—to engage in anthropomorphism or seek anthropomorphic analogies; rather, I try to look the facts squarely in the face, though I am referring to the facts in the physical world as well as to those in the spiritual world that manifest in the physical world only through their effects. The first step is to consider how the peculiarity, the character, and the essence of a national soul can influence human beings in the first place, and what this national soul actually consists of. Those who draw facile analogies and take an anthropomorphic approach take the individual human being—the boy, his development through adolescence, and so on—and then view a people as developing from certain youthful beginnings to a certain state of maturity. As I said, that is not my task.

[ 22 ] If we now consider, from the perspective of spiritual science—that is, prepared by what I have often referred to here as the spiritual scientific method—what influences the whole human being in the manner described, and in what we might initially suspect the national soul to be found, then we discover quite significant differences in character among the individual national souls. Now, of course, precisely when speaking of the national soul, it must be firmly kept in mind—and I repeat this not by accident—that we are dealing with spiritual-scientific concepts that are flexible, malleable, I would say, a color-like effect—whereas we have fixed contours in everything that exists in the physical world—so that, of course, objections can very easily be raised against what I am about to say. But if we had a few days instead of an hour or an hour and a half, we could certainly come to an understanding here regarding all these objections. Of course, this is by no means a matter of criticizing any national soul, or of portraying any national soul as if it had a different value than another national soul; rather, it is a matter of objective characterization. The fact that I am about to say certain things about the individual national souls does not mean that one or the other is thereby assigned greater or lesser value; rather, it is viewed objectively.

[ 23 ] When one delves into the essence of the Italian national soul from a spiritual-scientific perspective, one finds that such a national soul does not function, as I have indicated, in the same way as it does in the life of the individual human being—that is, with a later period imprinting its characteristics onto an earlier one; rather, such a national soul influences the entire life of the human being from certain depths of the spiritual being. Of course, this need not be the case. A person can leave one people and be accepted into another. But the effects are nevertheless present, even if they are modified as a result. The national soul is there, and what I have to describe is, in a sense, an encounter with the national soul. Anyone who remains within their own people throughout their entire life experiences precisely this effect throughout their entire life. Those who move from one nation to another will first experience the influence of one national soul, and later that of the other. That is not the point here. It would be interesting to hint at the individual effects of shifting from one national soul to another, but there is no time for that. Throughout the entire course of human life, therefore, what comes from the national soul can have the same effect as what comes from the stages of life used to have on the individual life during the specified periods. And when one considers the Italian national soul—when one considers its distinctive characteristics as it takes hold of people, imprinting upon the soul, upon the whole person, the mood it has to offer— then, quite remarkably, one finds that a certain strong kinship exists between the forces of this Italian national soul and the individual forces that a person develops precisely from the beginning of their twenties up to the ages of twenty-seven, twenty-eight, and twenty-nine. So one can study the true inner essence of the Italian national soul by studying the affinity—I would say, the elective affinity—that exists between this national soul and what lives in the human soul between the ages of twenty, twenty-one, and up to twenty-seven, twenty-eight. One must, however, also take into account—though only in such a way that this second element is merely hinted at—that which plays itself out in the soul from the age of thirty-five to forty-two, forty-three, and forty-four. But the stronger element of the Italian national soul is that which is related to the first twenty years. It is merely tinged by what, as I have indicated, unfolds in the later years. When the power of the Italian national soul seizes the individual—the person who immerses himself in it and allows the mood of the national soul to imprint itself on his soul— it seizes him in the way that the years between the ages of twenty and twenty-seven or twenty-eight can be seized most strongly and most intensely in a soul-spiritual sense.

[ 24 ] You see, the human being is quite a complex thing, and one must consider many, many factors together if one truly wishes to study the human being. But you will surely recognize from what has been suggested that everything that can be regarded as Italian folklore is imbued with a mood that springs from a national soul which is related, in the manner described, to human individuality. Something that is intimately related to what lives in the soul from about the age of twenty to twenty-eight imprints itself upon the Italian national soul within human beings.

[ 25 ] If we consider the French national character, it instills in people, in much the same way, something that is roughly related to the inner life between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty-five. If we consider the British national soul, it imprints something on people—that is, it pours a mood over the entire human being from childhood onward—something that then interacts with other moods, something akin to the human soul in its development between the ages of thirty-five, thirty-sixth and the forty-second, forty-third, and forty-fourth years—but tempered by what is present in the soul from the beginning of one’s twenties.

[ 26 ] Thus, one can study the peculiarities of the national soul only by examining, as it were, its elective affinity with what one finds to be the deeper characteristics of the individual human soul. To look into this and see what forces are at work within it—that is the task. Of course, the human being as an individual today transcends the national. But when one considers that which makes the Italian an Italian, one sees, as it were, the interplay of the national soul with the individual soul— I would say, not as in an induced experiment, but in an observed one—when one grasps the interplay of the national soul with the individual soul during the period spanning the ages of twenty, twenty-one, twenty-seven, and twenty-eight.

[ 27 ] You might think that things like what I’m saying now are somehow made up. They are no more made up than, let’s say, on a completely different level, Jakob Grimm’s laws of sound, the laws of sound shift, are made up. Isn’t it true that it also seems made up when one says: Words that are related, that are in the process of development, have a “t,” for example, in Greek, and the same word, as it develops up to the Germanic stage, has a “th” or a “z” in the same position; and when it has developed up to Modern High German, it has a “d.” These laws of sound shift show how, in the succession of time, regularity prevails wherever the spiritual comes into play. If one simply develops them as Jakob Grimm presented them, they naturally appear abstract; but they must be substantiated and demonstrated in all the relevant cases, drawing on the full breadth of experience. And so today I can only characterize, in a sense, these fundamental laws that I have hinted at. But anyone who wishes to focus solely on what external experience offers to a mind such as I have described—someone who, just like Jakob Grimm, can investigate folk culture using the methods of the external sciences—will see these laws confirmed everywhere. There is simply no time today to go into what would indeed be very interesting—to show how these general laws are verified in all manifestations of the soul, and how these manifestations of the human soul and a person’s behavior in the physical world—insofar as they belong to a particular national soul—‘can only be explained by looking behind the specific configuration of their behavior in this way.’

[ 28 ] Let us take another look at the Russian national soul. Here we find the peculiar fact that the distinctive nature of the national soul—its character—proves to be akin to a kind of mixture of what takes place within the individual human organism from sexual maturity to the early twenties; and this is overlaid by what takes place from the ages of forty-two and forty-three through to the ages of forty-nine and fifty. If you imagine these two soul characteristics intertwining—that is, what acts within the organism, so to speak, from sexual maturity through the early twenties, still permeating it, but which also acts in the soul—and if you imagine this overshadowed and permeated by what acts at such a later stage, then you obtain, so to speak, —let me use this crude term for such a subtle matter—a kind of arithmetic mean that reveals the very characteristics of the Russian national soul. For the Russian national soul acts through forces similar to those just described in the human organism.

[ 29 ] And other collective souls have a very similar effect. For example, we can consider a collective soul that has truly exerted a profound influence, extending from southern Europe throughout all of Europe. Everyone can imagine for themselves how this collective soul has worked. I am referring to the collective soul of Christianity. Just as one can speak of a national soul, so too can one speak of the collective soul of Christianity. This, too, is what, I would say, radiates from Christianity, exerts its power, and has permeated human beings in a formative, character-shaping way over a long, long time—and will continue to permeate them. Yet this, too, is subject to development. But here, too, we are dealing with a kind of influence that must be composed in a similar way; we are even dealing with a force—and this explains why it moves people so deeply—that is drawn together from what lives in the human being between the change of teeth and sexual maturity, mingled in turn with what lives there from the forty-second and forty-third years up to the forty-ninth and fiftieth years. Of course, the forces that permeate the entire human being must be much stronger than even the national character, which shapes him, so to speak, religiously. Anyone who considers the power with which religions have shaped human beings will not find what I am saying incomprehensible.

[ 30 ] And let us contrast all of this—not, mind you, to pass value judgments, but merely to highlight certain peculiarities—with the fundamental character of the German soul, the German national soul. Precisely what I have to say about the German national soul can be wonderfully substantiated, not merely by the views that Germans have—and can have—regarding what lives and stirs within their souls, what lives in the soul and emanates from it, but — when, in calm, objectively expressive times such as our own, one listens to other peoples — but also from the expressions of other peoples, specifically from the impressions gained through unbiased observation of other peoples. This German national soul truly has something highly peculiar about it; indeed, I would say it is, in a sense, uncomfortable to have to say this as a German—but it does have something highly peculiar about it. No value judgments are to be made, but one must proceed objectively when examining its fundamental character, one finds that it permeates and interweaves itself with the human being, giving him a certain emotional quality, so that the forces present in this national soul are akin to everything that is spiritual in the human being from the early twenties through the early forties—up to the ages of forty-two, forty-three, and forty-five. That is what is remarkable about the German national soul. If this should make other nations feel uncomfortable, they need only take comfort in the fact that what is, so to speak, spread out over three stages of life in human beings acts with a weaker force—is, so to speak, diluted—while what pertains to other national organisms acts with a stronger force, penetrating human beings more deeply. I would like to say that just as, in relation to what I said earlier, these things can become clear in a marvelous way through individual examples, so too can certain phenomena make clear the facts about the German national soul that have just been hinted at. Anyone who, as I said, does not directly observe the national soul itself in language, but rather an effect of the national soul, will not be surprised that a marvelous genius is at work in language. It is precisely the genius that is the national soul that is at work. And how often is language wiser than we are! How often do we only discover later what is brilliantly expressed in language. Of course, one can characterize such things only if one is aware that, as they say, these things can actually be expressed in one language only in this way; in another language, they would have to be expressed differently. But what I am saying now can be expressed in German. That which, for example, is expressed in two terms is wonderfully ingeniously structured: We do not say “father’s language” and “fatherland” in everyday speech. We say “mother tongue” and “fatherland.” And for the scholar of the humanities, this expresses in the fullest sense the entire way in which the native landscape is passed on to the human being through paternal inheritance and in turn works its way into his unconscious; and how that which lives in language flows over the human being from the maternal side through the forces of inheritance. But much, much more could be cited. Regarding what I have just described as a distinctive feature of the German national soul, I repeatedly encountered an experience—one that I was perhaps better able to grasp than many others, since I spent a large part of my life, nearly three decades, in Austria. I was able to observe—in later years, in close harmony with the dialect research of my highly esteemed teacher and friend Schröer—how the German national soul develops when it penetrates into the realms of other national souls, into the Czech national soul, into Eastern and Western Hungary, where Germans—known by the lovely name “Heanzen”—live as far north as Wiesenburg County. Then we come to the regions below the Carpathians, where the Spiš Germans live; then we come to Transylvania, where the Transylvanian Saxons live; then to the Banat, where the Swabians live. All these ethnic groups are, little by little—and no value judgments or criticism should be made here—being completely absorbed by the Magyar element. Here one can observe a curious peculiarity. One may well point it out: how easily the German, in particular, loses his nationality, gradually shedding it, when he blends into other nationalities in this way. This is connected to that peculiarity of the German national soul I just spoke of. It takes hold of a person—I would say—in a lighter, more subtle way through the forces at work in a person’s individual development between the ages of twenty and forty-five. But by making them more emotionally unstable, it enables them to shed their national identity more easily, to denationalize themselves, and to assimilate into other nations. They are not so strongly, so deeply imbued with this German essence that springs from the national soul.

[ 31 ] Another fact adds to this. I can, of course, only hint at these things. If one were to examine in detail—for example, based on Schröer’s remarks on grammar and his dictionaries of Austrian-German dialects—what I have just said, one could indeed substantiate the statement I have just made just as one would any statement in the natural sciences. Another characteristic that follows from this fact of the German soul is that the German soul needs a heartfelt connection to what is native and familiar, and a shared life with what is native and familiar, in order to feel, again and again, the freshness of these native and familiar elements. The German is not capable of immersing himself in a foreign culture with a strong inner force that leaves him unchanged, as, for example, the Englishman does. If he wishes to keep his own culture truly alive within himself, he needs a direct connection with the entire aura, with the entire atmosphere of that culture. Consequently, something develops within this aura, this atmosphere of folk culture, that is so difficult for those on the outside to understand—something that is so hard to grasp for the more rigidly structured national souls, which immediately seek to force everything into their categories and thereby distort it; whereas in the labile, delicate balance in which everything floats within the German national soul, everything demands to be directly experienced and lived in a living connection with the national soul itself. This is so beautifully illustrated in certain statements made by Herman Grimm, that truly authentic German spirit whom I have mentioned here many times. More than many others, he has come to realize—not in this distinctly spiritual-scientific form, as I am now expounding it, but through an inner feeling—how the German soul needs this immediate, ever-present enrichment of the mind, and how it can flourish only there. He expresses very beautifully how that which the German shapes and creates can, in fact, only be fully understood by the German soul itself—characterized in the manner just indicated—and how that which is to be grasped from this soul by a foreign culture is, for precisely the reason indicated, distorted and and caricatured, because the subtleties cannot be grasped—subtleties that arise from the fact that the German essence unfolds across the peculiarities of the human soul from the age of twenty to forty-five, as I have indicated, Thus, Herman Grimm speaks very beautiful, wonderful words—even if they may not please some non-Germans, they are marvelous—not only beautiful, but also wonderfully accurate words:

[ 32 ] “A German who writes the history of France, Italy, Russia, or Turkey: no one finds anything inappropriate or contradictory in that”; — Herman Grimm believes that because this German soul is flexible and adaptable due to this breadth, it knows how to find its way into these other national souls — “but a Russian, a Turk, a Frenchman, an Italian who wanted to write about German history! And if the book were to impress a few unsuspecting readers because it was written in a foreign language, it would simply need to be translated. A Russian has written about Mozart and, buoyed by the success of his work, also about Beethoven. ‘Is that Mozart, is that Beethoven?’ asks Herman Grimm. — ‘Music, after all, seems to have no homeland. These two people”—Mozart, Beethoven—“are two composers, one of whom wrote Mozart’s works”—according to what the Russian states—“and the other Beethoven’s, but they themselves”—he means the people the Russian is describing—“have nothing in common with the book and its judgments.”

[ 33 ] This alludes to this direct coexistence, to this direct interconnection. And Herman Grimm puts it particularly beautifully in the continuation of the passage just cited:

[ 34 ] “Is this the Goethe about whom Lewes has written two volumes? I would have thought we knew him differently. Mr. Lewes’s Goethe is a fine English gentleman who happened to be born in Frankfurt in 1749 and to whom Goethe’s fate has been ascribed—as far as it has been received from first-, second-, third-, and fifth-hand sources—and who is also said to have written Goethe’s works. The book is a diligent piece of work, but it contains little of the German Goethe. The English are Germanic like us, but they are not Germans, and what Goethe meant to us, we alone can feel.”

[ 35 ] Given the described characteristic of the German national soul, what provides an understanding of the essence of the German national soul must be sought in this ready openness—which, however, need not at all be associated with a certain weakness, as one might so easily suppose. And it is precisely this that might emerge from the words of an impartial observer of the German soul. Take, for example, an impartial observer—I almost hesitate to read these words aloud, because, as I said, it is uncomfortable for a German to hear such words spoken about the Germans. The poem is titled “To Germany.” One might say that this poem is imbued both with the diversity—this precarious balance—of the German national soul and with the strength that flows precisely from this balance. The poet says:

No nation is greater than you;
Once, when the whole earth was a place of terror,
Among the mighty nations, none was more just than you.
You have Friedrich Rotbart, and alongside him, Friedrich Schiller.
The Emperor—the spirit fears this summit, this lightning.
Against Caesar you have Hermann, against Peter, Martin
Your breath is music—[Luther.
You have more heroes than the summit of Mount Athos.
Your glorious deeds are everywhere; be proud, you Germans!

[ 36 ] Well, perhaps it’s permissible to read this aloud for that very reason—since the poem is by Victor Hugo and was written in 1871! It is part of a poem he titled “Choice Between Two Nations.” The first part is “To Germany,” and I just read it aloud. The second part is “To France,” and it goes: “Oh, my mother!” I would like to say: This symbolizes the difficulty one has in grasping precisely what is rooted in the soul of one’s own people.

[ 37 ] I tried to suggest to you how the facts certainly support what I have stated. But of course I can only point out, in a very sketchy way, specific details that indicate the direction in which one can look for empirical evidence.

[ 38 ] Now we have this German national soul in its development. We already encounter it in such a way that it can be depicted so wonderfully vividly and magnificently in the first century A.D. by Tacitus, which, for earlier centuries, points back to the Germanic national soul from which the German national soul grew. We then see it in its development through the Middle Ages up to its more recent flowering, where it was immersed in the poetry of Goethe, Schiller, and Herder, and is immersed in the great musical development of modern German intellectual life. But Christianity—another communal soul entity—intervenes and permeates this national soul. It is precisely when one examines the course of events in detail that one can see how these major perspectives I have outlined are confirmed in the particulars, wherever the national soul expresses itself. For example, we might ask: If the essence that works unconsciously within a person up to sexual maturity is truly so gripped by a communal consciousness such as Christianity, what seeks to take root there? We need only consider words—foreign words—that the German language has adopted through Christianity. Such loanwords have entered the German essence that refer to what must be grasped in sensory perception—albeit with a supersensory character—for which one already needs a deeper soul life capable of imprinting itself in the way I have characterized it. For example, the word “nature” entered the German spirit through Christianity and into Central Europe. Of course, anyone who understands the word “nature” only in the sense we use it today has no idea how it was understood back then. But in the dialects, it still lives on in its old meaning. And there we see how this word “nature,” which entered Central Europe with Christianity, continues to develop alongside the folk culture. Through this single word “nature” and other words from older versions that have found their way in this manner, one can demonstrate how the forces alluded to—which flow from Christianity into human individuality—are at work in such words.

[ 39 ] Let us consider a period in which the influx of another national soul into the German national soul was more pronounced—say, the thirteenth century. Because the German national soul is spread out over the entire span of human soul development—from the twentieth to the thirty-fifth or thirty-sixth year and even later—and because it is thus spread across all of this, it is precisely able to absorb external influences through all the characteristics I have mentioned. We will see shortly just how distinctive these influences are. We have seen here how Christianity flowed into it. We could demonstrate these peculiar words—which flowed in as foreign words during the time when the French national soul had attained particular strength, as in the thirteenth century—through words and changes in word forms. Entirely different words enter the language—words that touch the innermost depths of the soul, words that can only be grasped by the subconscious and undergo their own development; foreign words—indeed, today we no longer even realize they are foreign words; they will therefore escape the fate of being eradicated as foreign words. Words such as “price” and “clear” entered the language in the thirteenth century. Before the thirteenth century, the word “klar” did not exist; “Preis,” “to praise something,” “to have a price,” entered the language at that time. These are words connected to the nature of the soul. Here, what we have recognized in the French national soul is having an effect on the German national soul.

[ 40 ] In many ways, one could trace in detail how the German national soul is now, in turn, undergoing development as a result of the influence of a foreign national soul. But just as we must trace the interplay of states in an individual human being—including their sequence over time—as I indicated in the first part of my lecture, so too, if the development of the German national soul is to be understood in the fullest sense, the workings of this German national soul must be understood. And I can briefly characterize this for you in the following way. As I said, we find the German national soul even in very ancient times. You know that I do not care for vague, mystical, and especially not materialistic-mystical concepts, but in this case you will forgive me for using the term: This German national soul acts like a powerful alchemist, bringing about what has been unfolding among the Germans in the heart of Europe since ancient times, stretching far back into pre-Christian centuries. It has been at work there in such a way that its earlier activity has a continuous connection with its later activity—at a time when there could not yet have been any question of the French, Spanish, or Italian national character, or indeed the British national character, existing in its present form. It has continued to work through the centuries and is still at work today. As we have often said in these lectures: It carries within itself the seeds for a long future influence. It is precisely when one recognizes it that one can see this in it. And it can work through such long periods, through so many transformations, precisely because it contains within itself forces as widespread as those present in the human soul from the early twenties through the forties. But, as we have seen, it was already at work in ancient times. But how does it work there? Well, we see how this mighty alchemist, the German national soul, makes its presence felt, bringing about the conditions described by Tacitus, and how, later on, the times come when that which bursts forth from this national soul launches an onslaught against the southern, western essence—the Roman essence.

[ 41 ] Now we see something most peculiar. Certain elements that were originally connected to the German national soul are pushing their way into the Balkan Peninsula, into Spain, into what is now France, and—as the Anglo-Saxons—across to what are now the British Isles. That which was connected to the German national soul through blood is being released into the surrounding area, into the periphery. And the surrounding peripheral cultures arise because other national souls, in turn, act like supersensible alchemists—so that, for example, the Romance essence is alchemically blended, even down to the language, with that which is ancient -Gallic essence, but into which has flowed what was connected to the Germanic blood through the character of the Germanic national soul—that which was drawn into the Franks and into the Frankish Empire. This is what is present in France from the Germanic national soul itself, what lives within it, what has been blended with the other element by the alchemist of the French national soul. The same is true of the Italian element; the same is true of the British element. The Anglo-Saxon element, in a state that still bears witness to a relatively early development—an earlier stage of development of the German national soul—penetrated into the Celtic essence. It encountered the Romanic essence. From this arose, as it were, what the alchemist of the British national soul had to do in order to bring about what I have characterized as the interrelationships between these individual Western national souls and the individual human beings, who derive their soul-mood character from the individual national souls. So that when we look into this sphere, we find truly ancient Germanic soul elements present everywhere within it. It is there. And what has come into being in the way I have described has arisen precisely through this—just as substances in chemistry are obtained through a certain interaction of other substances—because elements of the national soul have been blended together in this way. But in the heart of Europe, what has remained is that which has undergone continuous development, which has always stayed in line with and in the current of that broad character I have described.

[ 42 ] That is the difference between the people of Central Europe and the peoples surrounding them. That is the difference that must be taken into account if one wishes to understand how this German national soul subsequently developed. How deeply it still felt connected to everything around it! How has it, in a certain sense, reclaimed what had first flowed out of Central Europe! How Italian art flows back—and one need not be a racial fanatic to describe this—from Italian culture; how the spirit of Dante flows back into the very essence of the German national soul! How the French spirit flows back, how the British spirit flows back! It has flowed right up to the present day, in a way that I have often hinted at here. Thus we see that this distinctive quality lies in the development of the German soul. It remains in Central Europe, creates an environment for itself, and interacts with that environment. Through this, I would say, it enriches that which, due to its widespread nature, is visible only in individual nuances.

[ 43 ] This is the sole reason why those motifs that lie within the national character of the surrounding region could be renewed and perfected within the German national soul. We can barely discern in the surrounding region what comes to light in the German Siegfried. And how do we see that what surged into German culture from the power of the national soul—seizing everything as the national soul at a certain time—found expression in the Siegfried saga? Then this soul recovers, taking a breath in—in contrast to the outbreath in Siegfried—only to make a new outbreath in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a new beginning, and to bring forth from within itself the character opposed to Siegfried: the character of Parzival. And one need only contrast these two characters, which truly arose from the innermost essence and fabric of the German national soul, one need only place these two polar opposites side by side—Siegfried and Parzival—and one will perceive the breadth of the German national soul and the potential for development expressed in the path this evolution has taken from Siegfried, whose long-lost song was rediscovered and written down at the time when Wolfram von Eschenbach composed his *Parzival*. Indeed, this German national soul undergoes over a long period of time what it can undergo only over a long period of time because of its breadth. This is where the significance of its development is expressed. Herein lies what we can still recognize today as infinitely broad possibilities in the development of the German national soul, if we view this German national soul in the right way. But whatever it takes hold of, it takes hold of with a certain strength precisely because it grasps it comprehensively, because it grasps it with the harmony of all its soul forces.

[ 44 ] One could easily accuse me of raising issues here that are merely on the surface of life. That is not the case, and I do not intend to do so. What I have described as the character of the German national soul is something that one encounters—albeit not in the abstract way I had to describe it today—as a genuine, intuitive recognition. It is alive everywhere, in one form or another, wherever the German soul lives, and everywhere the German soul relates to other souls in the way that had to be characterized today. But the German soul also relates in this way to what flows into it as Christianity, embracing this Christianity with its whole being and giving birth to it anew from within. When one characterizes something like this, one does not merely remain on the surface—the cultivated surface of the German national soul—but rather expresses precisely what is the fundamental character of the entire German soul.

[ 45 ] I could cite many examples. I will mention just one that shows how a person—a Catholic priest deeply rooted in the German national spirit—instinctively lives out an awareness of what I have today indicated through intellectual insight. In 1850, Xavier Schmid wrote in a modest little book in which he sought to advocate for a shared, profound understanding of a German-inspired Christianity: “Just as Israel was chosen to bring forth Christ in the flesh, so the German people are chosen to give birth to him in the spirit. Just as, for that remarkable people, political liberation was conditioned by inner liberation, so too will the greatness of the German people depend essentially on whether it fulfills its spiritual mission.” How characteristic, then, is this understanding of Christianity in the spirit of that simply educated priest, Xavier Schmid! What I have described is already very much alive in the deepest recesses of the national psyche, even if, of course, one would have to use different words than those I have used here today to show how what has been described here lives on in the simplest of minds.

[ 46 ] And just as the breadth of the German national character is connected to the spiritual realm, one can—if one has an eye for it—also study this in the outward aspects that present themselves in life. Just one more example. I have before me two essays, one by a German, the other by someone else. Jakob Grimm, who grasped with such deep love what lived within the German national character, had an inkling of the breadth and scope I have described today. To him, Jakob Grimm, it was clear—precisely because of his love for the German people—that there must, of course, also be dark sides. That is why Jakob Grimm wrote an essay on German pedantry, in which he even goes so far as to say: the Germans would have invented pedantry if it had not already existed in the world. But this, too, is characteristic of the breadth of the German character. Jakob Grimm’s essay on German pedantry, particularly in language, is very interesting. Yet the German does indeed possess this peculiarity of grasping everything from the breadth of his inner life.

[ 47 ] We hear words about German freedom from a German, Professor Troeltsch. I certainly do not wish to adopt his point of view, but I am, after all, characterizing the distinctive traits of the German people’s spirit. With truly German thoroughness, but also with German acumen, he sets about demonstrating how the concept of freedom takes on different shades depending on the Italian, English, and French national characters. He conscientiously examines how the idea of freedom is conceived among these peoples. And then he attempts to characterize that idea of freedom held by the German people—the very idea of freedom about which Herman Grimm himself once said, more beautifully than Troeltsch but in almost similar words: “It was reserved for the German people to recognize, in the idea of freedom, the character of the human being that unites the full development of human individuality and personality with harmonious cooperation within the whole.” ” When such people characterize freedom in such a way that the human being acts in freedom, what is always meant is that what can flow from his soul as freedom becomes integrated into spiritual life. And especially before the middle of the last century, no German could have spoken of freedom without characterizing this freedom from the very depths of spiritual life. It was only after the English influences in the second half of the nineteenth century that Germans, too, more or less strayed from this. But they are gradually returning to this understanding. And the essay mentioned above continues: “If one were to coin a formula for German unity, one might say: organized national unity based on the individual’s dutiful yet critical devotion to the whole, supplemented and corrected by the independence and individuality of free spiritual education.” — At any rate, this is one idea of freedom—perhaps pedantic, but forged from the abundance of intellectual insight—an answer born of the spirit to the question: What is freedom?

[ 48 ] I would like to read you an answer from the other book to the question: “What is freedom?” For when considering the national soul, it is not merely a matter of looking at the content. Certainly, someone might say: “Yes, the person from whom I am now reading considers something entirely different from the other.” But that is not what matters when one considers the national souls. After all, national souls are unconsciously swept along by the current in which they drift. And the fact that one person has this effect, another that effect; one uses these concepts, another those concepts; one has these images, another those images—even if both are correct—is not the point when one wishes to characterize national souls in this unconscious process.

[ 49 ] “What is freedom?” says the other. “The image that comes to mind is a large, powerful machine. If I assemble the parts so clumsily and awkwardly that, when one part wants to move, it is hindered by the others, then the entire machine warps and comes to a standstill. The freedom of the individual parts”—mind you: the freedom of the machine’s parts!—“would consist in the best possible fit and arrangement of all of them.” - He says all this to characterize human freedom! “If the large piston of a machine is to run completely freely, it must be precisely adapted to the other parts of the machine. Then it is free...” — So, to understand how a person becomes free, one examines the machine! -“...then it is free, not because it is isolated and left to itself, but because it has been carefully and skillfully integrated into the rest of the great structure. What is freedom? We say of a locomotive that it runs freely. What do we mean by that? We mean that the individual components are assembled and fitted together in such a way that friction is reduced to a minimum. We say of a ship that cuts easily through the waves: ‘How freely it sails!’—meaning that it is perfectly adapted to the strength of the wind. Turn it against the wind, and it will stall and sway; all the planks and the entire hull will tremble, and immediately it is bound.” — Now he shows that this applies to human nature just as it does to a machine, a steamship, and so on: “It becomes free only when one lets it drift again and has restored the wise adaptation to the forces to which it must obey.”

[ 50 ] One might say that such things reveal how the national spirit permeates human individualities—sometimes in the way I read to you about the German, and other times in the way I read to you about a very significant American, Woodrow Wilson. He is, after all, certainly a very significant American. The point is to see how a person is moved by the national spirit. One can indeed clearly perceive the difference when one delves into those depths of the human being where the national spirit unconsciously influences the individual human being, just as I have characterized it.

[ 51 ] I would have much more to say if I were to fully characterize the German soul in its development along the lines I have indicated. But I think that, at least in outline, the main points have been set forth, and they certainly testify that there is something in this German national character that, by its very nature, is predisposed to influence other things. It has, in fact, exerted such an influence. We have seen how what remained at the center—what was concentrated there—has been released into the periphery, just as blood is released into the periphery. It has continually released—I would say, continually exhaled and inhaled again—that which constitutes the relationships with the other national souls in the surrounding area.

[ 52 ] In the direction I have indicated lies a science that, once it comes into being, will make understandable what exists between peoples. Only then will there be a real possibility that peoples will consciously understand one another fully. At the same time, we see just how great the gap is between what one might envision as an ideal of international understanding and what we actually encounter, especially in these difficult times. I did not wish to weigh or judge. But ultimately, things judge themselves in a certain way.

[ 53 ] I do not know—and I say this, of course, in a very modest way—whether, in a similar manner, observations are being made on the periphery of Europe that strive for such objectivity regarding the relationships between the Italian national character and the German national character, or between the French national character and the German national character, or between the British national character and the German national character, as we have done here today. But perhaps this is also a distinctive trait of the German national spirit. In any case, it is inherent in the German national spirit that, as it seems to me, Germans can understand others better than others can understand them—even though others need not necessarily understand them as poorly as is currently the case in this fateful era of ours.

[ 54 ] Does it not actually feel like a coming to terms with the reality of what we are living through when we now measure such a reflection on the national soul against everything we hear today about the nature of German identity? Our time is indeed ripe for bringing these things together. As you have seen in the case of Victor Hugo, there were times when the German spirit could be viewed in the way it is understood today—albeit not in these exact terms. Indeed, such a sentiment has been felt time and again. And there were indeed quite, quite many—until quite recently, and there are certainly still some now—but quite many until quite recently who also made their voices heard about how wrong it is to treat German culture the way it has been treated, for example, by the British. Here I can refer to words that were printed on August 2, 1914. The following words were printed: “England’s war against Germany in the interests of Serbia and Russia is a sin against civilization.” On August 2, 1914, these words appeared in The Times in London, and they were signed by C. G. Brown, University of Cambridge; Burkitt, University of Cambridge; Carpenter, University of Oxford; Ramsay, formerly of the University of Aberdeen; Selbie, University of Oxford; J. J. Thomson, University of Cambridge. And appended to these words is the following: We cannot know for certain, but it may turn out—or so it roughly states—that through various agreements our country could become embroiled in this war. We do not wish to hope for this, but if it were to happen, we would naturally—out of patriotic duty—yes, it says something like: — keep our mouths shut. — Well, these things are, of course, not limited to England. — But we do not wish to hope — as the Englishmen in question went on to write — that this could happen to a people so closely related to us and who have so much in common with us.

[ 55 ] That was the feeling of what, as it turns out, must not be spoken of later. Well, of course there are some things that cannot be said here either—that goes without saying. And from this perspective, no particular blame can be placed on the gentlemen whose names were read aloud. But perhaps what matters less is what may or may not be said, and more what is said when certain others are unable to speak. And in that regard, I would like to say: I do not believe that a weekly newspaper within the German-speaking world could be found that would write or publish similar words about another nation in these difficult times as were written on July 10, 1915, in an English weekly, the *John Bull*, one of the most widely circulated weeklies in England—words written where others must remain silent. Don’t say: “The *John Bull* is just a satirical paper!” I say: I cannot believe that it is possible for even the most—the very, very most—derogatory paper to write about another nation in a manner similar to what is written there to characterize the German character. I will read just a few sentences aloud: “The German is the eyesore of Europe, and the purpose of the present war is to wipe him off the face of the earth.... Just as he was in the beginning, so he is now and will remain forever—evil, brutal, bloodthirsty, cruel, mean, and calculating. He is a lecher, sleazy, shifty, and thick-skinned. He mumbles his language in guttural sounds. He drinks, is miserly, rapacious, and obsequious. This is the beast we must fight... He lives in dwellings that, in terms of health, are on a par with a pigsty.” And now, out of this mood, the weekly rises to a kind of—I would say—prayer: “No matter how or from what angle you view history, you will always find the German to be a beast!... Never again will God grant you, English people, this opportunity. Your mission is to free Europe from this unclean animal, this beast. As long as this beast is not destroyed, the progress of humanity will be delayed. England is slowly but surely approaching the final milestone of its destiny, and once we have passed it—and when the hour comes when we seek to enter the gates of heaven—the Huns must not be the reason we are sent back. The gates of heaven would be slammed shut in our faces, for the heavenly realms are reserved only for those who have vanquished the devil. The Germans are the festering sores of human society. And these times of war are the X-rays that reveal their true character. This festering sore must be cut out, and the British bayonet is the instrument for this operation, which must be performed on the beast once our poison gases have chloroformed it.”

[ 56 ] I do not know whether it would really be possible, within the scope of the German national spirit, to find similar words expressing a similar idea. I believe that it is precisely what can be recognized as the character of the German national spirit that will protect the Germans from this.

[ 57 ] In closing, however, I would like to say in just a few sentences: May the German people retain, for a long, long time, the character of their souls that prevents them from succumbing to such grotesque madness. It is certainly madness, but this madness has a method. For it is this madness that is developing, while the others mentioned must remain silent. These people characterize what they must actually undertake against the Germans, what they are fighting for—not only on the battlefield, where the fight is waged with physical weapons, but also on the spiritual battlefield. Let’s take a look at this. We consider it madness, albeit methodical madness. Yet the others call it: “The struggle of civilization against barbarism!” — “The struggle of the spirit against matter!” — I need say no more on this, however, and can leave it to your own thoughts to decide what you wish to make of it.

[ 58 ] The day after tomorrow, I will speak about the human soul and its journeys through birth and death during its development, as well as its connection to the universe.