The Rudolf Steiner Archive

6. The Historical Life of Humanity and Its Mysteries in the Light of Spiritual Research

[ 1 ] In the present day, when so many people have the all-too-understandable need to find some kind of direction in the face of major, world-shaking events—to gain insight into the significance of one fact or another—one often hears that history “teaches” this or that. People believe that they can judge some aspect of the present based on what they have learned about a similar event from history—as history is currently understood. Well, if one pauses to consider the possibilities that have been available to people for judging this or that aspect of the world situation—or even of their immediate lives—based on the experiences of history, then one inevitably arrives at a somewhat dubious judgment regarding what, as one might say, history “teaches.”

[ 2 ] I would like to point out just two things, for example, but this list could be expanded a hundredfold. I would like to point out that at the beginning of this global catastrophe, which had such a profound impact on the fate of humanity, there were quite a number of people—truly discerning individuals—who believed they had acquired a sense of judgment from history and who were of the opinion that these critical events might last four, or at most, six months. Such a judgment was considered fully justified on the basis of historical observation, namely the historical circumstances of humanity. And one cannot even say that those who made such a judgment had not applied all logical precautions in order to arrive at it based on a certain understanding—what is commonly called “insight.” Well, the facts themselves have thoroughly taught such people the very opposite of what they believed. It is precisely in such a case that one also sees how closely what history is meant to teach is connected to the assessment of social or other global conditions, so that one can expect that a consideration of the historical life of humanity will also shed some light on the judgment one can apply to the social and economic coexistence of human beings.

[ 3 ] But one can cite, I would say, an even more striking example of the limited validity of the statement that history “teaches” this or that. A figure, whose genius is certainly beyond doubt, took up a professorship in history at a German university more than a hundred years ago. Truly inspired by a brilliant understanding of what history offers and what can be applied from it to human life, this figure spoke words at that time that went something like this: “As history teaches us, the individual nations of Europe have, in the course of human progress, become one great family, whose individual members may still be at odds with one another, but can never tear one another apart.” — It was certainly no insignificant figure who believed he could pass such a judgment, based on his insight into the course of history, upon assuming a professorship in history. This figure was Friedrich Schiller, and he spoke these words upon assuming his professorship at the University of Jena. He spoke them on the eve of the French Revolution, which contributed so much to what might be called the tearing apart of the European peoples; and if only he could see what is happening in our own time, he would likely come to realize how little it is possible to adhere to the notion that history “teaches” this or that for our understanding of life. It seems to me that it was from such facts that Goethe must have derived the sentiment he expressed in a marvelous sentence. The sentence reads: “The best thing we have from history is the enthusiasm it arouses.” It seems as if Goethe made this statement precisely to reject the other fruits of so-called historical knowledge and to acknowledge only that which can emerge from the documents of history as enthusiasm—that is, as a certain positive state of mind.

[ 4 ] Today we want to examine what position the spiritual science presented in this lecture series should take with regard to two views: the first, that history can be the great teacher for understanding life; and the second, that the best one can gain from history is the enthusiasm it arouses. Now, precisely when considering the historical life of humanity and the conclusions that can be drawn from this consideration for the assessment of social life, it will not be uninteresting, by way of introduction, to examine what view of historical development has been arrived at in the present day outside of spiritual science. For the historical life of humanity is, after all, closely connected to what flows through every individual human soul as the current of human development, since every person is woven into the historical process. And indeed, it is particularly significant at the present time to look at this judgment of our contemporaries, for the reason that discerning observers of history believe—precisely at the present time—that the very judgment regarding how to view historical life and how to establish the discipline of history is itself in a state of crisis. I do not wish to speak in abstractions, but rather to ground my reflections in reality. To do so, one must rely on examples—which, of course, must be individual examples drawn from so many cases.

[ 5 ] I would like to refer, for example, to the judgment on the discipline of history—and how it should be redefined in the present day—as expressed by the renowned Leipzig professor Karl Lamprecht. What one can glean from Lamprecht’s grand, monumental work on German history is conveniently summarized in his lectures on “Modern Historical Science,” which Lamprecht delivered partly in St. Louis and partly in New York at the invitation of Columbia University. There he attempts to summarize his conclusions regarding how history should be taught in light of the demands of the present. It is even easier to get a sense of what this famous historian actually meant to say, since he treated a section of humanity’s historical development in a concise and exceptionally clear manner in the second of these lectures on “Modern Historical Science.” At that time, Lamprecht briefly recounted to the Americans the entire course of German development from the early Christian centuries up to the present, narrating it in the manner he believed historical science should take on in light of contemporary demands. Now, one can really only evaluate such matters exhaustively if one can compare them in some way. A parallel presents itself precisely for these lectures by Professor Lamprecht on the course of German life: a lecture that—naturally, also for Americans — Woodrow Wilson delivered on the development of North American life, allowing us to compare two minds—distant from one another both spiritually and geographically—as they direct the historian’s gaze toward the history of their own people.

[ 6 ] Please forgive me if—truly not out of politeness, but for stylistic reasons—I let Woodrow Wilson’s reflections come first. No one who knows me even a little well would accuse me of overestimating Wilson. I would also like to point out that I had already formed my judgment of Wilson in a series of lectures I gave in Helsinki long before this war, though admittedly at a time when the world already had the honor of having Wilson as President of the United States. Even then, I explained how deeply regrettable it was that, in such an important position—a position on which so much depends for the modern life of humanity—there should be, at precisely this moment, a figure whose judgment is so terribly limited. For although at that time there were still numerous enthusiastic admirers—even among us—due to the publication of Wilson’s books The New Freedom and Merely Literature—and what does not have enthusiastic admirers today!—it could be demonstrated that his own independent judgment, flowing from Wilson’s personality, is internally extremely limited. Without any influence from any political stance, without any influence from what is emerging today from world-historical events, I must state what I said before the war about this figure—who was so misunderstood at the time, even in Central Europe, that is, overrated. I must preface this so that no one will doubt the objectivity of what I still wish to say about Wilson, the observer of history.

[ 7 ] It is very curious, especially when compared to what Lamprecht says about the history of Central Europe, to see how Wilson views the history of his people. One finds that he identifies the most crucial point—one might say through a certain instinctive intuition—to answer the question: When did we actually become Americans, and how did we become Americans? How did this unfold historically? Here he distinguishes—not necessarily subtly, but with extraordinary precision—between all those who were once part of the Union but whom he regards not as “yet Americans” but as “New Englanders,” who are “New Englanders” in their entire mindset and spiritual disposition, and the later “true Americans.” And here he distinguishes very precisely between a prehistory of the Union and traces the Union’s historical development beginning when the eastern population moved more and more toward the American West, when the population, crammed into a narrow space in the East, spread out toward the western part of America, and when the people who undertook to spread westward developed that mindset which he calls the “frontier mentality.” And now he shows how the history of America—both externally and spiritually—actually consists of the East spreading westward, and he demonstrates with remarkable clarity how the resolution of the land question, the distribution of land, the resolution of the tariff question, and even the resolution of the slavery issue—which he attributes not to any humanitarian principles but to the necessities arising from the settlement and conquest of the West by the East—how all these issues fit into what the development of modern America demands. Now, one could say a great deal about the short lecture Wilson delivered there, but the essential point is that he so aptly shows how, arising from an external situation, the course of history has taken hold of a group of people, and what is happening to these people can essentially be understood by pointing to what these people were compelled to do under the influence of the circumstances described. There are many interesting aspects to be found in following precisely these observations by Wilson, as well as in his other contributions as a historian. Precisely in order to gain insight into various ideas related to the ‘topic of today’s lecture,’ a comparison of what Wilson says about a wide variety of historical subjects with what Europeans say is very useful. I must say that I was extraordinarily struck at various points in Wilson’s remarks when I saw that there was a remarkable agreement—remarkable to me simply because I would have preferred it were not so—exists in the wording and the underlying ideas of what Wilson says about a wide variety of subjects and what, for example, the witty and incisive German art historian Herman Grimm—who has already been mentioned here several times—has said about various aspects of the historical course of humanity.

[ 8 ] If one considers Herman Grimm as witty as I do, and Wilson as intelligent as I must, then it can be rather off-putting to read Wilson at times and think to oneself: “Strange—there’s a sentence there that could just as well have come from Grimm!” And yet, even though this is the case, even though I have tested this against the judgments that Wilson and Grimm made about the same figures—Macaulay, Gibbon, and others—and despite the often near-literal agreement between them, even though they have no apparent connection to one another, it nevertheless becomes clear that, in reality, the intellectual dispositions of these two figures are fundamentally different. It is precisely on such an occasion that one can see how, in terms of outward content, two people can say the same thing, yet from entirely different inner depths of the soul. In this case, it is particularly interesting because the nuance that the judgment takes on in one instance and the other is connected to the roots of one or the other personality in one or the other national character. It is precisely by noticing such similarities that one subsequently makes the discovery: Nevertheless, one is American and the other is German.

[ 9 ] One can already notice the difference just by looking at the outside. There is a volume of Grimm’s essays from the final years of his life that has Grimm’s portrait preprinted on the cover, as is so often the case today. Similarly, the German edition of Wilson’s lectures Nur Literatur also features a preprinted image of Wilson. So one can also compare the images. This alone reveals something quite remarkable to anyone who knows how to judge such things. If, after immersing oneself in what Grimm says—especially what he says as a historian—one looks at the image of Grimm: Every feature of the face that shines out at you speaks volumes: every sentence and every turn of phrase is intimately connected with everything this man has wrested from his soul. Then, after having first taken in what is written in the book, one looks at Wilson’s portrait: it seems as though the personality could not possibly have been present in what has been judged in the book; a certain strangeness strikes one. When one sees this, a mystery dawns regarding the way in which, in this case, two people view history, and one may ask oneself: What of this similarity? What of this fundamental difference, which is also strongly felt? Then something very curious becomes apparent. Precisely what Wilson says about American identity makes immediate sense, so that one knows it captures the course of American history as he intends to portray it. But one gradually comes to realize—and this is something that can only be revealed through psychological observation—that this personality is not as deeply intertwined with his judgment as we might imagine within Central Europe. There exists a completely different relationship between judgment and personality than what we are actually accustomed to here.

[ 10 ] I know that what I am saying here sounds somewhat paradoxical, but it is closely connected to what I would like to discuss today regarding the nature of humanity’s historical development. If this did not sound like a superstitious expression, I would say: One comes to the conclusion that a person of Wilson’s character, when he makes such apt judgments as in this historical reflection and in other places as well, is possessed by something within his own soul and is not judging of his own accord. Using an expression that is less likely to be accused of superstition, I would like to say: With a personality such as Wilson’s, one has the impression that there is something in his soul that suggests this judgment from within the soul itself. One does not have the impression, nor the feeling, that it is entirely the product of his own individuality, his own personality; rather, one has the sense that there is something like a second personality, a second entity within the soul, which suggests this to the soul. If, on the other hand, one looks at judgments that are undoubtedly accurate—those Wilson has made specifically about the character of Americanism—where he says that even in outward appearance and demeanor one can recognize the true American by his quick, lively eyes, by his tendency to quickly embrace bold but also adventurous trains of thought, and by his relative lack of inclination to to cling to his homeland as other peoples do, that he is, rather, very fond of devising plans that can be carried out anywhere—if one takes this characterization into account, one finds that Wilson himself has described it as the character of the people who shape American history and of its most significant men: that, deep down, they possess something within themselves from which they are outwardly driven: Not the sensible, calm gaze—the other characteristics cited by Wilson could just as well be invoked—but the rapidly shifting gaze is a sign that something is tormenting the American from within, and such suggestions are effective even when the judgment is as unerring as Wilson’s.

[ 11 ] Let us compare what I have had to say with a historical perspective that is somewhat distant—both geographically and, as we shall see, emotionally—with the ideas Lamprecht puts forward regarding the course of Central European history. These are, in essence, original ideas. He attempts to clarify for himself: How, in fact, has this essence of the Central European people gradually developed over the course of the centuries, roughly from the third century to the present? Everything he says—and one can tell—has been inwardly attained and worked out. There is much with which one disagrees, especially as a scholar of the humanities; we will discuss this shortly. But it has all been earned; it all springs from his immediate personality. It would be utter nonsense to suggest that some inner power is dictating anything. It is not that easy for this individual. He must conquer each thought piece by piece—not merely one thought after another—and work through the process of overcoming these thoughts in order to arrive at a judgment. Only then does it arrive at a conception of historical development that is relatively new—new even by the standards of Ranke and Sybel—new in the sense that Lamprecht conceives of historical development as the evolution of the entire soul. Lamprecht attempts to trace what is inherent in the soul of the people—that which strives for existence—as expressions of the soul, just as a psychologist traces the psychological development of each individual human being.

[ 12 ] According to Lamprecht, by the third century the German people had developed in such a way that one can say this development reflects a symbolic orientation of the soul. Even external actions, even political developments, unfold in such a way that one can see they stem from the soul’s urge to interpret worldly phenomena symbolically, to see symbols everywhere, indeed to turn even heroes into symbols and to revere them as such—just as living, personal symbols are revered in real life. Then comes the period from the third century to the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Lamprecht calls this the “typifying” period. Here, the soul no longer yearns to see symbols or to realize the symbolic, but rather to establish archetypes. Even the people one reveres, the people one obeys—one reveres them and obeys them in such a way that they appear not as individual personalities but as archetypes of an entire tribe or an entire city. Then comes — I must outline these things briefly — from the twelfth to roughly the thirteenth century, the period in which chivalry in particular developed, which Lamprecht calls the “conventional era,” in which one no longer typifies, but rather judges and feels one’s impulses of will in accordance with the conventions governing relationships between people, between social classes, and between peoples—the era of conventionalism. Then follows—and it is significant that Lamprecht notes this, although, as we shall see in a moment, he cannot fully grasp its scope—the individualistic age, roughly at the turn of the fifteenth century, in which people truly feel themselves to be individuals within the community, and in which events are to be judged in such a way that they are derived from what constitutes the assertion of the human being as an individual. This lasts roughly until the middle of the eighteenth century. For Lamprecht, this marks the beginning of the age in which we still find ourselves today—the age of subjectivism—where human beings attempt to internalize themselves, to internalize their thoughts and emotions, where they act not merely as personalities, but act, think, and will from the depths of their personality, from the depths of the subject. Lamprecht, in turn, divides this era into two parts: the first part extends roughly until the 1870s—a period that includes the great classical era of Goethe, Schiller, and Herder—and, according to Lamprecht, our own time follows from the 1870s to the present day.

[ 13 ] It is curious, however, that Lamprecht—perhaps the most significant historian of our time—is fully aware that he must first seek an impetus to see how the course of history actually unfolds, and that—as is already evident from his German History—this preoccupied him ceaselessly: to investigate how one should actually begin to arrange what the documents, monuments, and archives provide—to link them together in a narrative and descriptive way—so that it becomes what one can call history. Thus, the most important question of history—the existential question—became pressing for Lamprecht. He told himself that one can only arrive at history at all—for he did not regard the historiography of Ranke, Sybel, and so on as history—by attempting to describe the spiritual development of a people or of all humanity. But then one must surely have the ability to observe this spiritual development and to discover certain laws within it. It is interesting, then, that a curious contradiction emerges in Lamprecht’s entire approach when viewed through the lens of contemporary modes of thought. In accordance with the habits of thought necessitated by the circumstances of the times, Lamprecht told himself that the earlier, purely individualistic approach—in which one simply took what the archives provided to characterize personalities or facts in a somewhat superficial way—could not remain. How can one bring any order to the facts at all? He concludes that one must view the psychological aspect of a person’s development in such a way as to describe it in terms of social psychology. This conclusion, he believes, stems from a necessary way of thinking in modern times: the need to take social life—the communal existence of human beings—into account. That is what he tells himself, on the one hand. But now he has no way of viewing the social aspect of the soul life—or, to put it another way, the psychological aspect of social life—in a systematic manner. So he turns to the psychologists and asks how they view individual souls today. Here they see thoughts forming communities within the individual soul, feelings arising, and impulses of the will developing. He then wishes to apply this to the way in which events in historical development affect people, how the thought of one person affects the entire tribe—in other words, how thoughts socialize externally, just as in individual psychology one thought associates with another. Thus, following the model of individual psychology, he seeks to view history from a social-psychological perspective. As I indicated, this gives rise to a very remarkable contradiction. He wants to move away from an individual view of history and toward a social-psychological one; yet he draws the very means intended to serve this purpose from the study of individual psychology. A curious contradiction that he does not even notice.

[ 14 ] And here’s another point: When one really delves into the work of one of the most modern historians—when he so vividly describes how one of the cultural eras I’ve listed for you, in line with his perspective, transitions into the next; when he describes how people’s emotions erupt into explosions during such transitions, how thoughts intertwine and separate, how they rush headlong, how new emotions take shape, and how impulses of will take effect—then one gets the feeling: This man can’t see the trees for the forest. For I don’t believe in the proverb that says someone can’t see the forest for the trees. I’d like to know how anyone could possibly be inside the forest, with the trees right before them through their clear perception, and still want to see the forest! One must first step far back to see the forest. One has the strange feeling that Lamprecht cannot precisely work out the distinctions and nuances between the individual historical eras—the symbolic, the typological, and so on; in short, one comes to the conclusion that he is a researcher who has struggled through intense inner conflicts to arrive at a conception of the historical development of humanity, but who, within the spiritual life of the present—within what the present has to offer in terms of observations about spiritual life—could not find the means to even pose the question: What, in fact, is this historical development of humanity? Is what can be gleaned from documents and archives already history, or are we perhaps seeking something entirely different through all of this?

[ 15 ] This is where one must begin if one wishes to view historical life and its mysteries in the light of spiritual science. One must ask oneself the question: Is there even a general consensus in public consciousness about what the object of history actually is? Do we even know what we actually intend to evaluate when we approach history? To answer these questions based on observation, I must now draw upon certain aspects of spiritual science that build upon points I have elaborated on here in earlier lectures.

[ 16 ] When one considers the inner life of the individual human soul, it is, after all, situated within the alternation between waking and sleeping. We have attempted to bring the significance of waking and sleeping to the soul’s attention in earlier reflections. However, what appears as alternating states between sleeping and waking is usually viewed in a one-sided manner, such that it is said that a person spends two-thirds or even more of their life awake and one-third asleep. Yet things are not so simple when viewed from the perspective of spiritual science. The only thing that is clear is that the state of sleep continues into waking life; in a certain sense, from the moment we wake up until we fall asleep, we are only partially awake. In reality, we are consciously awake only to the perceptions of the external world and to the mental images we form from these perceptions. But one need only compare—which modern psychology generally fails to do—the way in which feelings are experienced apart from perceptions and mental images. Anyone who gradually learns to observe the way feelings arise in the human soul—I will return to this topic in the next lecture on “The Revelations of the Unconscious” and will now say only a few fundamental things—learns to compare what emotional life is, what affect is, and what the life of passion is, with dream life. The dream life, which surges up from the life of sleep, presents images to the soul without these dream images being permeated by logic or by certain moral impulses that we possess only in waking life. Now, dream images certainly differ from feelings, from the ebbing and flowing passions and affects; but there is something in which both are alike with regard to their relationship to the soul: this is the degree of consciousness in which we are absorbed in the weaving, undulating dream images. We have the same degree of consciousness when we are absorbed in our feelings, except that our feelings are accompanied by ideas. The moment we form an idea about a dream image we have had, the light of that idea falls upon the dream; then the dream becomes fully conscious, and then we also correctly place it within human life. We do this constantly with our emotional life. We classify our feelings within life through the ideas that run parallel to them, but these feelings are experienced in and of themselves with no greater intensity and in no different relationship to the life of the soul than dreams are, so that we can say: The life of dreams continues into our waking daytime consciousness and, in a dreamlike way, becomes our emotional world. It is easy to see, however, that the deep, dreamless life of sleep also continues into our waking life—specifically as our impulses of will. In ordinary waking consciousness, we are aware of these impulses of will only insofar as they are accompanied by ideas. We do indeed imagine our actions; we imagine what we are supposed to do; but how that which flows out of us as volitional impulses, as action—how it develops from the mental image, how it passes from the mental image into the volitional impulse—remains as unconscious to us in our most alert ordinary waking consciousness as our life remains unconscious to us in the deepest sleep. It is only because we can imagine our volitional impulses that we accompany these dormant impulses with our waking life. Thus, the life of sleep continues unceasingly into our waking daily life.

[ 17 ] Even if our feelings, our emotions, and our passions are merely dreamed up by us, our emotional life is nonetheless connected to an objective spiritual-psychic realm just as much as it is to our own spiritual-psychic realm—to the contents of our imagination and perception. It is only that the connections between the contents of our feelings and will and the objective spiritual realm lie in the subconscious. We are unaware of this connection we have with the spiritual-psychic realm, and the only thing that emerges from the sea in which we are so deeply immersed is what we experience through our ideas and perceptions. If one learns, by awakening the powers slumbering in the soul, to look into the spiritual world, then one knows: the world into which our feelings plunge—precisely with that part of our soul that remains unconscious to ordinary consciousness—this world cannot indeed be perceived by ordinary consciousness, but it can be perceived by the awakened, contemplative consciousness, perceived in that the soul, through the strengthened, thinking will or the power of thought imbued with impulses of the will, can form images from its contact with this spiritual world, and within this contact there arises what is called imaginative cognition. This imaginative cognition is the first stage of supersensible perception, through which one enters the true spiritual world. If I were to give you an external comparison, I would have to say that this imaginative cognition is a fully conscious gaze into a spiritual reality, so that the imaginations are not figments of the imagination but rather a representation of spiritual reality, even though their weaving does not appear any more concrete to the soul than dream images, except that one knows the dream images have no reality, whereas what is present in the imagination points to an objective spiritual reality outside of us. One learns to recognize what the human emotional world is connected to—something that ordinary consciousness can only dream of—and one learns to recognize this in its reality through the imaginative contemplation of the world. One further learns to recognize, in the same way, that in which the impulses of the will are embedded through the second stage of higher consciousness—inspired consciousness—and thereby learns to recognize the spiritual world, insofar as the human impulses of the will, which otherwise remain subconscious, are likewise embedded in an objective spiritual reality.

[ 18 ] Once one has seen through these things, and the question of the true subject of the historical process arises in one’s mind, what is significant is that one then comes to understand what historical becoming actually is. This is not experienced in the same way as the process of becoming that occurs from person to person, which is experienced in everyday life when we ourselves come into personal contact with an object. No, this historical becoming is something else entirely; it contains just as much of the unknown as what a person experiences as a feeling or an impulse of the will. Just as a person actually dreams away their emotional world, so do they dream away what is the true current of historical becoming. This insight is the shattering result of that observation which turns away from the human being toward historical becoming, and it shows that we cannot use these concepts—which govern our outer, conscious life—to grasp historical life in any way. For what one experiences in everyday consciousness as an individual is experienced while awake. But in this entire waking daily life, what history is does not exist at all. History is not experienced by people while awake; history is dreamed. The great dream of the course of human development—that is history—and history never enters ordinary consciousness. One may possess ordinary consciousness in a very acute way; one may be the most eminent natural scientist precisely because of an intellect suited to arranging things according to cause and effect; one may have the mental disposition that particularly enables one to perceive and characterize external nature correctly in terms of its laws. If one learns to recognize what the flow of historical becoming truly is, one says to oneself: With all the intellectual faculties that are suited to comprehending external nature—indeed, that are precisely fruitful for comprehending external nature—one cannot use them to look into historical becoming. This is not experienced in ordinary consciousness as nature is, but only at the level of consciousness that is also characteristic of ‘dreams.’ One of the most significant insights in the study of history will be the realization that one must first find the object of historical inquiry—that the flow of historical development does not exist in the same way as nature does, and that therefore even that which appears to exist like nature, namely the facts recorded in the archives and contained in the documents—which are usually already referred to as history—are not yet history at all; that history in reality lies beyond them; that these facts merely protrude from historical becoming, rather than constituting this historical becoming themselves.

[ 19 ] Herman Grimm once told me, when I was discussing historical questions with him at length in Weimar, that one could really only understand the historical life of human beings by tracing the evolving collective imagination of a people. One might say that Herman Grimm was close to making a discovery, but he simply did not want to make the transition to the humanities, and so it seemed to him that the only fruitful approach was not to consider external events alone and arrange them in the way a natural scientist arranges external events according to the laws of causality, but rather to view them in such a way that, through them, he could truly perceive the ever-evolving, ever-flowing imagination of humanity. It was an imperfect expression of what he could have recognized: that historical becoming does not take place in what the imagination experiences, but lies much deeper—deep in the subconscious realms where dreams are woven. It merely surges upward. Just as the depths of the sea surge upward in the waves that rise, so it surges upward in individual events. When we apply our ordinary intellect—our ordinary external understanding, which serves us so well in the observation of nature and in external, practical, individual life—to historical development, then, strangely enough, we actually encounter only those forces within historical development that bring about decline and downward development. Herman Grimm once asked himself why the historian Gibbon, in describing the first centuries of Christianity, depicts only the decline of the Roman Empire—not the growth, nor the rise of Christianity. Grimm made a valid observation here, but he did not identify the reason behind it. The reason is that Gibbon, although profound, applies to his historical analysis only the same kind of reasoning that is otherwise used in the study of nature. Thus, he could really only observe the decline, not that which sprouts and grows, not that which is rising; for that which is rising can only be dreamed of. Just as what can still be studied in a living human being—as a physical body—even after death, so that a person can turn their gaze to the dead body and observe in it what was once integrated into life, in exactly the same way, one cannot do this with the course of history, because the corpse is not separated from the living, but the two are intertwined; because what is rising, growing, and sprouting is vitally connected to that which is in decline, in the process of dying. Therefore, with ordinary understanding, one can only contemplate the dead in the historical process of becoming. If one actually applies to the study of history what one previously believed must also be applied in historical analysis—that which is so fruitful in the natural sciences—one finds only those forces in historical development that lead to death, decline, and ruin. What, then, is needed if one wishes to recognize in the course of history that which is growing and flourishing—that which propels humanity forward?

[ 20 ] In earlier times, when people had a different state of mind, they actually looked more deeply into this matter, but in the old way. People did not tell history; they told myths and legends. These myths and legends, which were meant to reflect humanity’s historical dreams, were truer history than so-called pragmatic history, which applies the same kind of reasoning to historical events as it does to nature. But we cannot turn back the clock in human development and invent myths and legends about historical events. But there is something else we can do. We can resolve to bring to the surface that which, for ordinary consciousness, remains only as dreams lying dormant in the subconscious, by applying imaginative insight to historical development. Through historical development, humanity and science will come to realize that they cannot even reach the object of their observation unless they are willing to turn to spiritual scientific observation. What is at work in history remains below the level of consciousness if one does not raise the “dream” into consciousness. But then one must raise the dream into spiritual consciousness, into supersensible consciousness, which does not merely think in concrete terms—as one does when dealing with nature or ordinary practical life—but which is capable of imagining the spiritual. Only imaginative cognition will create history.

[ 21 ] Anyone who can sense what lies at the heart of spiritual science, and who then engages with the inner struggle of a soul such as Lamprecht’s, will find that a path is being sought toward a goal. But where is this goal? Why does Lamprecht draw on everything in an attempt to discover history in the first place, yet end up doing nothing more than applying the conventional psychology of the individual, even though he believes one must apply social psychology—the psychology of society? But what a person experiences in society and through society—what they experience as a social being, what becomes the course of their history—he merely dreams of. That, too, does not fit into individual psychology. Here one must apply that new psychology which only the science of the spirit can provide. In Lamprecht you will find the demand; in the science of the spirit you will find the answer to the great riddle of historical becoming itself, which history has now presented to humanity. But what kind of historical perspective will emerge from all this?

[ 22 ] You see, Lamprecht cannot escape the rational, scientific view of the sequence of events. He considers what took place up to the third, up to the eleventh century, and so on, one after another, even if he does so with great insight. But it does not occur to him to assess the events in such a way that he truly grasps what lies beneath them—what is experienced by human beings only as a dream.

[ 23 ] Evidence of this is easy to find; I could cite a hundred examples, taken directly from Lamprecht’s historical analysis. I will mention just one, in which Lamprecht turns his attention to the modern era. Among other things, he asks: What are the most significant cultural phenomena of this modern era? Let us bear in mind that Lamprecht delivered this lecture—in which this question is posed—in 1904! He asks: “What are the most significant cultural-historical moments that stand out today as achievements of humanity?” He thus seeks to cite the most significant and characteristic expressions of the soul from the beginning of the twentieth century onward. What does he cite? The answer is very interesting, especially for someone who attaches so much importance to the spiritual realm. First, he cites the efforts to bring about a life of selflessness—an altruistic life for humanity—including various societies for ethical culture that originated particularly in England and America and later spread to Europe as well; and second, he cites the peace movement as particularly outstanding. This is what a recognized contemporary historian says! He goes so far as to present the altruistic movement and the peace movement as particularly characteristic of the beginning of the twentieth century! Can such a view of history—no matter how much the soul in question may struggle—be on the right path? Around the same time, I gave a lecture here—and there are still people in this hall today who heard that lecture—on similar ideas, and I explained that the very least characteristic ideas for the beginning of the twentieth century are precisely these two movements: the movements for ethical culture and, in particular, the peace movement. I summarized my lecture at the time by saying: It is precisely characteristic that the era in which the peace movement makes itself heard most loudly will be the very same era in which humanity’s greatest wars will take place. How uncharacteristic this is! But, isn’t it true that one statement was made by a famous historian, the other by a crazy, twisted proponent of anthroposophy, and it goes without saying nowadays whose words people listen to.

[ 24 ] The point is to recognize, through this connection between the human soul and that spirituality—which exists only in dreams—that flows as a historical current, how one must use the facts at hand—what has hitherto been called history—so that they point us everywhere toward the deeper currents of human development, which are only dreamed of by ordinary consciousness. This is possible only if one replaces Lamprecht’s and all other approaches to history with what I would like to call the symptomatic approach to history—if one imbues oneself with the awareness that everything one can learn through archives, documents, monuments—in short, through ordinary conscious understanding— must be used in such a way that one evaluates and appreciates it by relating it to that of which it is a symptom, that of which it is an expression. Great men of history, their appearances, and their deeds are not considered for their own sake when one wishes to describe the historical development of humanity, but only as symptoms. One is aware that if one can place the correct symptom in an imaginative context with what lies beneath it as a spiritual current of development, then one is describing history correctly. Symptom-based history will look quite different from history that proceeds by merely listing the facts and attempting to use individual psychology to explain and analyze those facts, as Lamprecht does. Symptom-history will consist in becoming aware of the attitude Goethe held—that one can actually approach a spiritual being only from all sides, can come to know it only through its symptoms—when one realizes that what one has hitherto regarded as history actually lies only on the surface and, like the content of a dream, inserts itself quite strangely into life.

[ 25 ] Observe the content of your dreams, and you will see that you often dream of something completely different from what is directly related to the most significant events of your daily life. Nevertheless, it is somehow connected to your life as a reminiscence, though in a very hidden way, and it is connected—we will discuss this in eight days—to deeper forces of human life. There is a reason why this or that particular thing active in the unconscious emerges symptomatically: we do not dream about anything significant that appears significant to us externally in waking life, but perhaps precisely something that seems insignificant to us externally. Symptomatic historical research will be compelled to regard events that, to the external mind, largely dominate the situation as insignificant for the true course of events, and to regard small, seemingly insignificant events as profoundly significant symptoms. Only in this way will one be able to penetrate from the external to the internal in historical life. One cannot, in such an external manner—no matter how much one believes oneself to be scientific in doing so—translate the individual inner life of human beings into historical development.

[ 26 ] Of course, I cannot provide a comprehensive historical analysis here to show how this symptomatic approach captures the essence of humanity’s development, but I can at least hint at a few examples. I said in an earlier lecture: When the spiritual researcher learns to look into the spiritual world and its development, he notices that results do not usually come as one might expect. As a rule, they come differently than one might expect based on the judgment gained from the external sensory world. I would like to give an example of this:

[ 27 ] One might expect historical events to unfold in such a way that they could be compared to the stages of an individual’s life—childhood, youth, maturity, and old age—as they follow one another. Indeed, some observers of history have succumbed to this illusion. These are analogical considerations that can be quite ingenious, but they have nothing to do with reality as revealed by spiritual science. Rather, something quite different becomes apparent. The result I have to share with you here has truly been arrived at with the same seriousness with which any other scientific result is arrived at; yet I can only present it as a finding. It is paradoxical at first glance, but what spiritual science discovers is just as paradoxical for humanity today as the Copernican worldview was for humanity at that time. Lamprecht seeks to identify periods of historical development, initially for the German people. I have already indicated: it is thanks to a correct impression that he identifies a transition from one age to another at the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It is also very significant that he calls precisely that which begins with the fifteenth century the “individualistic age.” Humanities research also reveals a significant turning point around the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. But when one looks into the flow of historical development from a humanities perspective, it becomes clear that one must go further back and, for the time being, set aside the boundaries drawn by the development of nations and tribes. One must take the general historical development of humanity into account. There, the events across the centuries come together—namely, from this fifteenth century A.D. back to the seventh and eighth centuries B.C. This era, stretching from the seventh century before the Mystery of Golgotha to about the fifteenth century afterward, has a character all its own. This character changes more than present-day humanity realizes, for internal reasons, around the fifteenth century. Lamprecht recognizes this, but he does not grasp the full significance of this fact. Others have already pointed out from a wide variety of perspectives that the significant upheaval—which around this time made itself felt almost across the entire Earth, but especially across Europe. It is indeed very noteworthy that Konrad Burdach, arguably the most significant Germanist of our time, has pointed this out in some very fine essays. Based on his research in literary history—which, while purely literary in nature, is nonetheless highly far-sighted—Burdach sees how, out of the spiritual development of humanity, something entirely new has entered the spiritual configuration, the entire range of human action, will, and activity, if one considers it correctly.

[ 28 ] We had thus established a period of historical development, spanning from the eighth century B.C. to the fifteenth century A.D. We ourselves are living within the period that follows. From the perspective of spiritual science, it is possible to go back even further. And here something very curious comes to light. If we consider the impulses that have governed human beings in their historical existence since the fifteenth century, they are different from those that governed human beings in the preceding period. But one cannot say that the impulses of the preceding period relate to those of the subsequent period in much the same way as one period of life relates to the next in an individual’s life. That is not the case. Rather, a peculiar phenomenon arises: In our age, historical forces act specifically upon that aspect of individual human nature which develops up to the age of twenty. This is the secret of our present development: that through historical circumstances, we are particularly endowed with those forces that belong to our individual lives in our twenties. In the preceding era, spanning from the eighth century B.C. to the fifteenth century A.D., the historical life of humanity intervened in individual life in such a way that it particularly affected the thirties. One can also describe the matter differently. One can say: We who have been living in this period since the fifteenth century are psychologically organized in such a way that we develop from childhood through our twenties, and that we then carry what we have developed in our twenties into our future lives—so that the human being, in a sense, feels inwardly that his or her period of development is completed in the twenties. One need only mention very external factors to substantiate this. The idea that someone today would still be willing to study seriously in their thirties—in an age when even the youngest people are already writing editorials in the newspapers—is something one would hardly dare to claim. But one will very easily find people saying: Goethe’s Iphigenia, and the classics in general—those are read in youth, but not in later life. One could cite other symptoms as well. But if one looks back to the preceding period, one finds that what for us is a life of constant growth and renewal lasted only until the end of one’s twenties, extending into one’s thirties. As paradoxical as it may still sound to people today, it is so, and one day this will be recognized as an established historical fact. The Greeks and Romans developed differently than modern humans do, and history unfolded differently back then precisely because people remained capable of development for longer. Spiritual science shows that, going even further back, we arrive at times when people remained capable of development well into their later years, well into their forties. Thus, one can say that there are three successive periods in the historical life of humanity: one dating back to before the eighth century B.C., in which we find people who felt young well into their forties; then comes the period that, from a certain point of view, characterizes the entire Greek and Roman culture precisely by the fact that people remained capable of development and stayed young well into their thirties; and finally, the period in which they remained capable of development well into their twenties. If one thinks this through, one sees that the course of humanity’s historical development cannot be compared to the course of an individual’s life. In an individual’s life, one grows older and older; humanity as a whole, however, develops in the opposite direction; it grows younger and younger—that is, it remains increasingly younger—carrying less and less of its youth into later stages of individual life. Therefore, when one truly contemplates culture from within, it makes an increasingly younger and younger impression across successive historical epochs; that is to say, human beings carry what they achieve in youth further and further into old age. One might have believed—if one had proceeded from prejudices—that in the period before the eighth century B.C., humanity was younger, then grew older, and that now, having otherwise made such magnificent progress in the view of some people, we have become much more mature and much older. First, we must answer the question of what maturity and old age mean in the course of human development—not in the life of an individual. But this process of human evolution can only be viewed in the way I have just indicated. You see, something quite different from what is usually imagined as the inner laws of cultural development will emerge when one truly considers historical development in a symptomatic way.

[ 29 ] I would like to emphasize just one more thing in closing. If one understands how to look beyond the symptoms, one can also gain insight into the entire nature of human beings during these two successive periods. There one sees that in the period beginning with the eighth century B.C. and ending with the fifteenth century A.D., the structure of the human soul was quite different from that of the present period. When one examines the human soul from a spiritual-scientific perspective, it is not as straightforward as in trivial soul research. One must then recognize that there are three entirely different aspects of the soul within the total soul, and therefore one distinguishes three soul elements in the human being. I call the first the feeling soul. Anchored within it are the drives and passions, but it also connects the human being sensually with external nature; next, we must distinguish the intellectual and emotional soul; and third, the conscious soul—the soul in which true self-consciousness is anchored. As ever-changing forces intervene in the human soul within the flow of historical development—which I have described as humanity’s ongoing process of becoming ever younger—the following becomes apparent: During the period stretching from the eighth century B.C. to the fifteenth century A.D., when European culture was particularly shaped by the influence of Greek and Roman civilization, the intellectual and emotional soul, in particular, were the dominant soul components at work. Consequently, everything that human beings accomplish during this time—whether in the course of historical development or in their external, social, and economic lives—appears to us as if their intellect and emotional soul were acting instinctively, as if they were engaging the external world directly with both body and spirit in equal measure. During this period, human beings maintain a balance between body and spirit, and the spirit itself acts instinctively. This changes with the great turning point around the fifteenth century. That is when self-consciousness, emotional awareness, and the inner perception of the human personality emerge. The conscious soul becomes particularly strong at this point; human beings no longer rely on instinctive reason, but must reflect on everything. This is when individuality begins to take shape. When encountering another person, the individual no longer feels instinctively that “you must behave toward him in such and such a way.” Instead, they reflect; they turn to the inner core of their personality. So that we can say: The entire historical structure across the Earth since the fifteenth century will be characterized by the fact that, since that time, the soul of consciousness has been at work, whereas previously the more instinctive soul of understanding or the soul of feeling had been at work. One cannot properly understand Roman law—or anything that comes from antiquity—without taking into account this distinction between the instinctive intellect, the instinctive, impulsive emotions, and that which acts in a more intellectual, reflective manner in more recent times.

[ 30 ] It becomes apparent that what Lamprecht seeks up to the fifteenth century is precisely—I would say—the preparation taking place in the very nature of the German soul for what is to develop into the conscious soul. When a different era has arrived, people will truly recognize—not as a chauvinistic statement, but as an objective insight—that what that period, which I have defined as ending with the eighth century B.C., developed from within itself was prepared, as it were, in a natural womb within the German national soul. It carried into the coming period what had flowed up from the south, for it was precisely this soul that was predisposed to carry forward the stream of historical development from the intellectual or emotional soul into the conscious soul and its various nuances.

[ 31 ] Once we learn to recognize what is actually at work here, it becomes clear right down to the finest details. Then we can ask ourselves again: What, for example, is it that Wilson describes in his historical analysis as the very essence of Americanism? This is another nuance of the soul of consciousness. The Western nuance is experienced here in Central Europe in its primordial phenomenon, in its primordial characteristic. Here, one truly experiences the struggling “I” of the human being, which relates quite consciously to the soul of consciousness and seeks, with all the forces of the personality, to penetrate that which seeks to enter life here in full consciousness. This appears in a different nuance—where the human soul is, as it were, obsessed with itself—in American culture. It is sometimes unpleasant to look into the truth. But it is precisely the catastrophic events of our time that will necessitate a certain objectivity—necessitate that we also hear, in unvarnished truth, what characterizes human beings themselves, and not merely natural phenomena or indifferent facts. The light that spiritual science can shed on the historical development of humanity shines even into the character of the historian Wilson.

[ 32 ] Of course, I could only touch on a few points today. I could only demonstrate, in principle, the direction that historical scholarship must take if it is enriched by the humanities in the same sense that I attempted to show eight days ago with regard to the natural sciences. Only then, when history is viewed in this way, will one gain insight into how human beings are actually connected to the stream of historical becoming that stirs within them—a stream they otherwise only dream of. Then, however, it will become apparent that what is revealed in an imaginative way through the symptomatic observation of history is intrinsically related to what human beings are as historical beings. Then one will realize how it is not the intellect, nor ordinary consciousness, but rather the subconscious—the dreamlike emotional life itself—that is linked to historical becoming. Imagination will reveal what does not operate in the intellect or in everyday consciousness, but rather in the human soul and in the impulses of the will, as people stand within the stream of historical development. Then something other than the belief that history can teach this or that will emerge. If history could teach in the way it is usually imagined—and as we have had to show today is erroneous in so many cases—then one would have to be able to find a connection between history and this ordinary intellect. But that connection is not there. The connection lies with what works in the depths of the soul, in the subconscious. So while human beings cannot learn from history for the sake of their ordinary intellect, from true history—as it is increasingly shaped by the spiritual insight within history itself—the historical impulses will take root in human sensibility and feeling. He will not be able to say in an external way that history teaches this or that; but when he is confronted with a fact, when he is called upon to act or to feel correctly in response to a fact within social life, then his feeling, his sensibility, will guide him correctly. Then it will not be his intellect, but his entire soul that will be instructed by such a view of history.

[ 33 ] Let me briefly summarize this line of thought. This is what Goethe felt when, drawing on his great intuition, he rejected the common view that one can learn from history through reason. He sensed that history, when recognized in its truth, works its way into the soul and into the feelings; that it has an effect when enthusiasm arises in the right way, when antipathies or sympathies arise for what should or should not be done in a social situation. In short, Goethe spoke from a correct intuition of what spiritual science must bring to the surface: the best we can gain from history is the enthusiasm it arouses. Indeed, not intellectual judgment, but enthusiasm—that is what we can experience as the fruit of history when we are able to observe and recognize what is truly historical becoming.