The Rudolf Steiner Archive

25. Tolstoy and Carnegie

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! For a number of years now, I have had the privilege of speaking to you from this podium on topics related to spiritual science—or, as it has come to be commonly called, theosophy—and those among you who have attended several lectures over the past years will have observed that the foundation of spiritual science, as presented here, is such that one can say: Spiritual Science or Theosophy should not merely be regarded as a dreamy, idle pursuit of individuals who are detached from life, but rather it should shed deeper light on the tasks and mysteries of life.

[ 2 ] On the one hand, it is true that this spiritual-scientific worldview is intended to direct our gaze upward toward the spheres of the world’s spiritual foundations and to convey an understanding of these spiritual foundations; but on the other hand—and one need only recall that lecture on the education of the child from the standpoint of spiritual science that was given here—on the other hand, this spiritual-scientific worldview has the task of making life understandable, of providing guidelines and guiding stars for action and work in practical life, to provide orientation in the broadest sense—precisely regarding what is happening around us before our eyes and ears—and to foster a deeper understanding of it by deriving this very understanding from the deeper, specifically spiritual causes. What we are to consider today can be regarded as a contribution in this direction.

[ 3 ] What may initially confuse people—what initially plunges them into all sorts of conflict—is when their worldview, when the affairs of life, confront them through significant personalities, through their opinions and thoughts, and these personalities contradict one another so often. Some of you may already have sensed how theosophy or spiritual science, by broadening one’s perspective, actually leads to a harmonization of opinions through understanding.

[ 4 ] Today we shall focus on two contemporary figures whose work unfolds right before our eyes, whose opinions, so to speak, travel across the world from east to west and from west to east—figures who are particularly well-suited to reveal to us the profound contrasts that run through our lives. For perhaps it would be impossible to find two figures who are so diametrically opposed in all these [in] what they think and feel, in what they express as, in their opinion, the right thing to do for our needs today—on the one hand, we have Tolstoy, the much-discussed, the influential figure, a personality about whom one might perhaps say that no single label suffices to properly encompass what he actually represents in the present; it would hardly suffice to say that Tolstoy is a moralist, or to regard him as a reformer in certain areas, or to apply the term “prophet” or the like, but whoever utters this person’s name will always become aware that it touches upon the very core of human nature, that something lives within this person which seems to emerge from depths of the soul different from those that move upon the surface of existence today—and the other figure, who is to be contrasted with him, so to speak, is the American millionaire Carnegie.

[ 5 ] Why is Carnegie being compared to this particular figure today? Just as Tolstoy, from the depths of his soul, seeks a satisfying solution to life and its mysteries, so too does Carnegie, in his own way—and just as representatively—draw from the deep currents of our time to gain, through his practical—one might say “down-to-earth”—overview of life, principles of action and a direction in life. Perhaps one could—though it sounds almost trivial—say: Just as idealism and realism have always stood in opposition to one another—with these nuances expressed as radically as possible—so too do Tolstoy and Carnegie stand in opposition to one another.

[ 6 ] The great German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte once uttered this certainly profound and significant statement: “What kind of worldview one has depends on what kind of person one is”—and in doing so, he pointed out how a person’s worldview is connected, through threads that are sometimes subtle and sometimes more overt, to their unique character and temperament, and to their entire life. And if we first look at the lives, the character traits, and the peculiarities of the personalities of the two people we wish to discuss, we already see the greatest possible contrast there.

[ 7 ] The wealthy Russian aristocrat, who was, so to speak, born into a life of abundance, who—by virtue of his social position—is virtually compelled not only to become acquainted with every aspect of this life, right down to the most superficial excesses of our time, but also to live with them and savor them, we see how, sated with these aspects of life offered on the surface today, he takes refuge in the highest moral ideals—which seem to soar infinitely above life—and of which most people, even if they admire them, are convinced today that they may be beautiful, but that they can be realized only to a limited extent in life.

[ 8 ] On the other hand, we see Carnegie, born, one might say, out of poverty and misery—or at least raised out of poverty and misery—familiar with every kind of deprivation, with the necessity of performing even the menialest tasks, endowed with none of what life offered someone like Tolstoy on the surface of today’s social order, endowed with a sincere willingness to work, with a, one might say, idealistically tinged ambition to become a fully realized human being—and so he worked his way up; Carnegie works his way up through this sphere to a kind of—one might say—realistic idealism, and also to a kind of moralism that takes into account what presents itself directly to the eyes, what one can experience directly in practical life.

[ 9 ] We see Tolstoy, as it were, throwing down the gauntlet in the most radical way against today’s social order; we see how his criticism becomes not only harsh when he speaks of contemporary social structures, but how it seeks, so to speak, to intervene in a devastating manner in current thoughts, feelings, and impulses of the will.

[ 10 ] In Carnegie, we see how he looks out upon life as it has historically developed up to the present day, and how he initially has, so to speak, that one word for his soul that expresses everything regarding his first, most immediate relationship to life: “Yes,” he says to everything the present has brought us—a complete satisfaction with what surrounds us! He sees how the gap between rich and poor has widened, how the ways of earning a living have changed, and everywhere, without exception, his penetrating judgment prevails: It does not matter at all whether we find this good or bad, but rather that it must be this way, that we simply have to reckon with it, and yet, working his way through—this is the defining characteristic of this personality—working his way from a realistic perspective toward a kind of idealism that sets itself the great goal of establishing, within these existing conditions, guidelines for a good life—one that serves human progress in the most beautiful way—and for a social order that serves human progress and development.

[ 11 ] I would like to emphasize explicitly that our discussion is not intended to take sides with one school of thought or another; rather, we should seek to understand, from the perspective of the conditions of human development, how such opposites could have arisen. And if Theosophy has a role to play in relation to such phenomena as these two personalities present, its task is precisely to understand, from the deep foundations of existence—and particularly from spiritual development—where such phenomena originate. It cannot be my task to provide any biographical details regarding either of these personalities; I shall say only what the souls of both may reveal to us so that we may then penetrate to a deeper understanding of them.

[ 12 ] From the very beginning, Tolstoy was a man who did not have to struggle with the external hardships of life; he was, so to speak, born into wealth and abundance. It would have been easy for him—if he had possessed a superficial soul—to disappear into that wealth and abundance, just as so many thousands upon thousands of others do. But his individuality was not suited to that. What could affect such a soul was, from the very beginning—from childhood onward—always that which touched upon the deepest questions of the soul and worldview. At first, he accepts life as it presents itself to him. As a boy, he does not yet know how to think critically about what is happening around him; what later emerged in him in a monumental way as a critique of the modern way of life is still far off. As a boy, he takes for granted what is around him and what is happening.

[ 13 ] But even in the boy there is already something like a bolt of lightning striking his inner life. One of his childhood friends once came home from high school with some strange news. He said something like: “Yes, someone—maybe a teacher—had made a new discovery, namely, that there is no God.” This was something that struck like a bolt of lightning into his young soul, which—aside from all external matters—had actually taken the religious life unfolding around him for granted.

[ 14 ] The fact that something like this is possible became clear to this young mind when it was combined with another. One need only put oneself in the place of a child’s soul, and one will realize that a child’s soul could indeed believe such a thing—that such a discovery might indeed be made. And such events have entered this inner life time and time again. And we could give a lengthy account of how Tolstoy, while serving in the military and interacting with the social classes to which he belonged, came to know all the misery of contemporary life, how he grew weary, how he pondered a wide variety of thoughts, and how—after experiencing the misery of war and his own social milieu, as well as literary life in St. Petersburg—he grew weary in other parts of Europe of what life has become today. We could describe all of this—much of it is well known today—but what may interest us are the questions that arose for Tolstoy.

[ 15 ] At first, the question presses itself upon his soul with ever-increasing intensity: What, in fact, is a certain center of life in the face of all the circumstances that surround us so confusingly? Where can such a center be found? Religion gradually becomes a question for him, and this question becomes all the more significant as he has long been unable to break free from external customs. But the religious question becomes something profoundly life-changing for him. More and more clearly, he asks himself: What exactly is religion for human beings? And for a long time, he actually cannot quite grasp what that bond between the soul and some higher world—with an unknown, spiritual source—looks like, where the soul’s journey leads, and so on. Above all, the people he has come to know in his circles—particularly with regard to the religious dispositions of the soul—appear to him as if severed from this primal source, as if withered in comparison to the living fountain of life.

[ 16 ] As I said, the intention is not to take sides, but simply to portray this state of mind as clearly as possible. And there, for my sake, he sees—as a soldier in the Caucasus, during the siege of Sevastopol—the lower classes of society. He comes to know their souls; he immerses himself in such souls in an intimate way. There he discovers that there is something primal in such souls, that they are even less torn away from their primordial source, and the question arises in his mind as to whether there might not be something truer and more genuine in this naivety of existence among the lower, more subordinate strata of society than in the circles in which he was forced to live. And lo and behold, there, too, one mystery after another unfolds before him, and he cannot solve a single one. One need only read something like his unfinished novel, *Morning Hour of a Tenant Farmer*, to see how he wrestled [precisely with] the [question]: Yes, now I have seen the people who have torn themselves away from the primordial source of existence, who have withered away on the periphery; I have sought a path to religious depth from within the soul of the primitive population, but an answer to this question fails because the so-called “educated” person of today can never truly communicate with these primitive, primordial states of the soul. In short, there was no answer there either to the burning questions that existed for him.

[ 17 ] This is how it continues, and this is how he comes to see all the contrasts and contradictions in life more and more clearly—one need only look at his early artistic works: “War and Peace,” his novellas, “Anna Karenina,” and so on—and one will see how, everywhere—even though the artistic form is certainly the most significant thing at first glance—how, everywhere, these works are permeated by a longing to comprehend life in its opposites, to comprehend, above all, the contradictory nature of the human character; for that is how it presents itself to him—as contradictory. One senses how true it is what he later said—after he had already moved on to a kind of moral writing—namely: It caused me unspeakable torment, and I know that it caused many of my colleagues in literature just as much torment, to portray a character of ideal psychological makeup that corresponds to reality. — It torments him that such a contradiction can exist between what one must conceive of as an ideal—if there is to be salvation and order in the world—and what presents itself to his mind’s eye in reality. This also tormented him constantly as long as he was still active as an artist.

[ 18 ] There was something else as well. Throughout the entire period in which these inner torments were unfolding, Tolstoy was not merely an objective observer; he lived through it all, taking part in every aspect. He also experienced these things inwardly; he could feel the intimate pangs of conscience, the intimate self-reproaches that a person must face when he suddenly realizes, in a certain sense, that he was born into certain circles and must go along with everything that happens there, even though it seems contradictory to him when he judges it. Such individuals, who felt this way, were driven to the brink of suicide; one need only imagine what goes on inside such people. A person learns infinitely more from what they have the opportunity to criticize in themselves than from criticizing their surroundings.

[ 19 ] And so Tolstoy’s perspective broadened more and more, until he moved from a survey of his immediate circumstances to an overview, so to speak, of the entire history of human development; and there it became clear to him to what vast extent the great and significant—particularly religious—impulses of humanity had fallen into decline. Thus it appeared to his soul—and this is not meant as a criticism—in all its depth and emotional intensity: the great impulse given to the world by Christ Jesus; and alongside it stood the Roman world, the Roman Caesarian system, which had placed Christianity in the service of power and entirely external matters that do not serve the salvation of humanity—as the Christian impulse was meant to and could have done—but rather plunge humanity into the very confusion that presented itself to him; and so his perspective became more and more a critique of everything that exists, and it is harsh enough. Based on his historical perspective, he felt that it was precisely the contradictions among human beings that he had to perceive as the most difficult. On the one hand, the greatest wealth; on the other, the most appalling poverty, which manifested itself particularly in the atrophy of the soul, so that, in this atrophy of spiritual matters, people are unable to find, from what they experience, the path to the great spiritual treasures—especially those found in early Christianity—to which they must penetrate!

[ 20 ] Thus, the most all-encompassing problem that presented itself to him was, in particular, this contrast between the ruling, powerful upper class—with all its luxury—and the oppressed masses, who were crushed mentally, spiritually, and physically. This presented itself to him in the most comprehensive way. And he became a critic—perhaps unlike any other in such a comprehensive way—who never tires of depicting things more and more as they are, and who knows how to depict them in such a way that the mere description can at times send shivers down one’s spine.

[ 21 ] It is perhaps quite telling if we single out a characteristic aspect of his worldview that will immediately reveal to us how he approached life’s challenges. He once said that he would have liked to write a fairy tale with roughly the following plot: A woman had suffered a terrible wrong at the hands of another woman and had consequently developed the deepest antipathy toward her; she wanted to do something to her that could not really be compared to anything else in terms of malice. She went to a sorcerer and asked for advice. She stole a child from her enemy. The sorcerer told her that she could satisfy her hatred in the most intense way if she could place this child—whom she had stolen from a woman living in the poorest of circumstances and who would have languished there in need and misery—into a wealthy household. And indeed, she succeeded in placing the child in a wealthy household. The child is adopted. The child is cared for in every way in the manner of the rich—pampered, and, so to speak, has it quite good. The woman who had brought the child to the rich family is furious when she learns this; for this was not how she had imagined things would turn out for the child. She goes to the sorcerer and complains that he gave her such bad advice. He, however, tells her to just wait. The child is increasingly immersed in luxury. The woman says, “The sorcerer has deceived me.” But he replies, “Just wait and see. It is the worst thing you have ever done to your enemy.”

[ 22 ] The child continued to develop. It becomes conscious and feels an inner conflict with its external circumstances. It says to itself: Everything I long for must be in an unknown world; but I cannot find it. I know that, because of the way I have been raised, I have become too weak to make the decision to take any sensible path toward the depths of existence. All of this becomes the worst inner torment for the developing human being.

[ 23 ] Tolstoy surely knew what such spiritual experiences are like; he wanted to show how this man, through all this inner turmoil, had been driven to the very brink of suicide. You can see, symptomatically, from such a case how Tolstoy thinks. Much more than from definitions, we can infer from Tolstoy’s views on social order how he thought about social order. This is how one of the two personalities we are discussing today viewed the world.

[ 24 ] Now let’s consider the opposite: Carnegie. He is the son of a master weaver. His father had some work as long as the large factories did not yet exist. Carnegie’s childhood coincided precisely with the rise of large-scale industry in this region. His father no longer received any orders. He was forced to emigrate from Scotland to America. He could barely earn enough to make ends meet. As a schoolboy, he had to work in a factory. He recounts this himself, and one senses the underlying tone of such a narrative when one has first immersed oneself in the inner experiences we have just explored in Tolstoy. He describes firsthand what a momentous event it was when he received his first paycheck of one dollar and 20 cents for his work. He later became one of the wealthiest figures of our time, one of those who, as we shall soon see, actually had to find ways to put their millions to use; but he is entitled to say—and this is telling—that no subsequent income, no matter how large—and a great deal of money has passed through his hands—has given me as much joy as that first dollar.

[ 25 ] And so it continues. He works in this way for a long time and helps support his family. There is something within him like a hidden force that drives him to become what, in the circles in which he now moves, is called a “self-made man.” It satisfies him that, as a twelve-year-old boy, he had the feeling: Now you’re becoming a man, because—as he feels—you’re a man when you can earn a living. That was the thought in his heart. Later, he moves to another factory, is assigned to the office, and eventually becomes a telegraph messenger, earning more.

[ 26 ] He recounts: A telegraph messenger in America was required to know all the addresses by heart. I was worried I’d lose my job. — He quickly memorized all the names on an entire street. So he was once again a “made man.” Now, before the office opens, he sneaks into the office with other messengers. They practice telegraphing. His highest aspiration is to become a telegraph operator himself. He actually finds a job as one. Now his greatest joy is finding a patron from whom he can borrow a book every Saturday. He eagerly awaits such a book.

[ 27 ] Now events unfold that are significant for him. A high-ranking railroad official, who has played a major role, sets him the task of making a name for himself by purchasing shares in a certain company. With great effort, he scrapes together the $500 needed; he has been contributing to the family’s livelihood in the most arduous way for some time. It is largely thanks to his mother’s tireless efforts that he is able to raise the 500 dollars needed to purchase ten shares. And now—one must once again sense what this means emotionally—now comes the day when, for the first time, he receives the small dividend corresponding to his shares. It dawns on him like a mystery, like the solution to a riddle, something he could not have understood before: that money can make money. The concept of capital becomes clear to him. This was now as important to him as any idealistic problem is to any thinker. Before, he knew only the possibility that one receives wages in exchange for work. That capital can generate money—that now dawned on him.

[ 28 ] And now it is interesting to see the intensity that such experiences can take on in a soul like this. He continues to make progress. The right solution occurs to him at just the right moment. When the problem with the sleeper car arises, he is ready to get involved. And so it continues, step by step, until he finally learned to take advantage of the situation in the right way. When the transition was made from wooden bridges to iron ones, he threw himself into this trend, grew richer and richer, and finally became the “steel king,” who must seek ways—and now he possesses a practical sense of morality—to act in accordance with his practical sense of morality regarding his wealth.

[ 29 ] For him, as already mentioned, none of what Tolstoy felt exists: no criticism of life, but rather an acceptance of life as a matter of course. What seemed so contradictory to Tolstoy, Carnegie envisions as follows: If we look back at earlier stages of human development, we see how rulers in primitive societies did not differ significantly in their way of life from those living around them. There is no luxury, no wealth in the modern sense—but neither is there any of the things that wealth brings; there is no contrast between rich and poor. In primitive societies, however, as development progressed, this contrast had to emerge, and the contrasts became increasingly pronounced. It is good, he says, that palaces stand next to huts; for there is much within them that ought to be there, and we must understand their necessity.

[ 30 ] Yet he notices how, in primitive conditions, there is a personal, human relationship between master and servant; how everything becomes impersonal in our circumstances; how the employer faces the employee without knowing him, without, for example, being aware of the servant’s spiritual needs; how hatred and so on are bound to arise as a result; but we must accept it this way—that’s just how it is. So, an absolute “yes” to all of external life!

[ 31 ] And if we consider how he is, in his own way, a thoroughly practical, down-to-earth, yet astute thinker; how he surveys this life; how, precisely because he is on the inside, he understands all the various interconnections of capital; and how, as a result, he is able to offer many sound insights—when one sees all this, one must say: This man, too, has tried to gain insight into life, and there is a certain complacency in him toward Tolstoy; and his practical morality—I use the word deliberately—poses the question to him: How must our lives be shaped if what has developed as a necessity is to have any meaning? Then he says: Well, yes, old circumstances have brought about a situation where wealth is inherited from ancestors to descendants. Is that still possible in our circumstances, where capital multiplies in such an eminently necessary way? He asks himself this question earnestly. He contemplates life with penetrating insight and says: No, that won’t work, and as he weighs all things, he arrives at a unique perspective. He comes to the following conclusion; he tells himself that this entire life of the rich man only acquires meaning if the wealthy owner regards himself as the steward of wealth for the rest of humanity, if the owner of wealth says to himself: “I am not only to acquire wealth, not only to possess it and perhaps bequeath it to my family members, but I am to take what I have acquired—since I have used my intellect and other faculties to amass it, since I have poured my diligence into it—I am to use that very diligence once again to administer this wealth for the benefit of humanity.”

[ 32 ] Thus, it actually becomes an ideal for him that a person—while certainly conforming to the circumstances of the times—should acquire as much wealth as possible, but should not leave any wealth behind; rather, he should use it for the good of humanity. He then arrives at a statement that is characteristic of this worldview; the statement reads: “To die rich is to die disgraced!” Thus, the ideal he sets for himself is that one may indeed become rich in order to gain, through that wealth, the opportunity to work for the benefit of humanity; yet he envisions that, upon death, one must have completed the work of placing that wealth at the service of humanity. He says: “It is honorable to die leaving nothing behind.” Of course, this “nothing” is not to be taken literally; daughters, for example, should inherit enough to live on, but speaking radically, he says: Becoming rich is a necessity; dying rich is dishonorable. For him, an honest man is one who, so to speak, brings his life to a close and does not leave what he has amassed through his own efforts to some uncertainty.

[ 33 ] And now we must sense the contrast between two such opposing personalities as Tolstoy and Carnegie. Carnegie himself senses this contrast and expresses it: “Oh, Count Tolstoy wants to lead us back to Christ again, but in a way that is no longer compatible with our lives.” Instead of trying to lead us back to Christ, one should rather show what Christ would advise people today, under today’s circumstances. In his statement, “Whoever dies rich is dishonored,” he finds the true expression of Christian thought and makes it clear that he believes that if Christ were to speak audibly to people today, Christ would agree with him and not with Tolstoy.

[ 34 ] At the same time, however, we see that this man, Carnegie, is truly a noble soul—and not, as is the case with many, someone who simply accepts circumstances without giving them any thought. After all, he didn’t just say what I have now presented as his main characteristic; he sought out the most diverse ways to use his wealth and so on. Isn’t it true that it seems marvelous at first when life presents us with such contrasts—when, in the same era, two personalities emerge who, based on what one might call an objective view of the world, arrive at such different perspectives? Finding one’s bearings in this can be quite difficult for a person, and it is by no means to be criticized from the outset if, for example, someone were to say today: “Oh, my whole soul is drawn to where Tolstoy preaches his great ideals; how sublime this figure appears. But I must also consider that life imposes practical demands, and if a person is not an abstract dreamer or idealist, but truly engages with the line of thought offered by someone like Carnegie with a realistic mindset, then one must say: This is entirely justified.” But this shows me—as it does to anyone who allows the practical demands of life to take their toll—that it is impossible to truly live up to those ideals or to truly believe in the fulfillment of the great ideals. And so, for such a person, a new conflict may arise, just as it did for Tolstoy.

[ 35 ] And now let us try—I would say, from the perspective of the psychology of the soul—to delve a little deeper into these two personalities. Tolstoy seems to be striving for what he considers a complete defense of the original Christian doctrine; he attempts to criticize in the harshest terms everything that Christianity has become and that has arisen here and there, and he seeks to uncover the great impulses of Christianity. Tolstoy presents these impulses of Christianity in a relatively simple way. He says: If a person understands these impulses, it becomes clear that he possesses within himself a spark of an eternal divine power that illuminates the world. And the second thing that becomes clear to him is that in this spark he holds the essence of his own immortality, and that, once he has this understanding, he can do nothing other than seek a deeper human being within the ordinary earthly human being. And when he follows this feeling, when he realizes that he must seek a deeper human being within himself, then he cannot help but overcome what lies in his lower nature; and thus he becomes a strict advocate of the other nature—the development of the higher human being within himself, the human being who lives in the spirit of Christ. How would a person—I do not mean Carnegie himself, but someone who considers what might follow from Carnegie’s outlook on life—how would such a person be able to relate to Tolstoy’s stance toward Christ? He would say: Oh, it is great and mighty to live oneself into Christ, to let Christ come alive within oneself. But one must say to him: Under the prevailing external conditions, this cannot be put into practice. How should state affairs be organized if one were to live up to this strict demand of Christ?

[ 36 ] Even though the question was not posed in this way by others, Tolstoy gives the answer as definitively as possible. He says: What such a view leads to in the external order—for the state, for external historical events—I do not know; that is beyond my knowledge; but that one must live in accordance with this Christian faith—that is a certainty to me. — And so, for Tolstoy, the words “The Kingdom of God is within you!” (Luke 17:21) develop into a profound, significant perspective on the kind of certainty a person can have regarding the highest things. The idea of an inner certainty takes full shape within him, and so he seeks to find this cornerstone in the soul—the one that makes it possible for the soul to become absolutely certain about certain things, about this or that—so that this soul says to itself: No matter how strange it may seem what will come to pass if one merely sets aside the external worldview [gap], because this inner certainty is the only one, it must be fulfilled. What may follow eludes my observations, but it must be good, because under certain circumstances it must spring from the eternal, good source of all things.

[ 37 ] Perhaps in no other contemporary figure is the reliance on an inner certainty and the firm belief—that, regardless of what may happen externally, good must result from this reliance—so strong; perhaps in no other contemporary figure is this belief as intense as it is in Tolstoy. That is probably why no other figure has committed himself with such a personal, individual stake, with such inner truth, to precisely this worldview.

[ 38 ] And here we have another opportunity to illustrate the state of mind of both of them. Carnegie reflects: How should people treat one another? How should the rich treat the poor? And then a thought crosses his mind: It is not always good to give something to someone who begs of you; for the concern is that you might be making the beggar lazy—says Carnegie—and perhaps you are not doing any good by doing so. One should take a good look at the people one supports. In fact, only those who have a willingness to work should be supported. And Carnegie carries this out as a comprehensive system. He says he understands very well that the man who gives something merely to get rid of the beggar causes more harm than the miser who gives nothing at all.

[ 39 ] We do not wish to judge such things; we wish to characterize them. But let us consider Tolstoy in a similar situation: He meets a man who becomes his friend. This friend does not, to be sure, develop a worldview, but he does develop feelings within himself. Tolstoy observes a peculiar behavior in him—many people today cannot believe such things; yet they are true. The friend is robbed. The thieves steal sacks from him; they leave one behind. What does the friend do? He does not pursue the thieves, but instead carries the one sack after them and says: “They certainly would not have stolen if they had not needed the things.” And Tolstoy sees this friend in other circumstances—and he becomes his admirer; he understands this perfectly well. There you have the view, so to speak, of people regarded as parasites on the one hand and on the other. Worldviews intervene in life in this way, and the symptoms on the surface can characterize the state of mind.

[ 40 ] But now we must say: Tolstoy becomes a harsh critic of life not only in relation to all that we have mentioned; but because he has grasped the fundamental source of human certainty, he is also led to a remarkable point in his spiritual development, and that is where Tolstoy truly begins to appear to us in all his greatness—to those who can appreciate such greatness. One thing flows from this view of certainty—one that one cannot admire enough—and that is Tolstoy’s stance on the value of science, of contemporary science; and from this flows a certain worldview regarding life and other important problems and questions. Because he strove so hard to look into the innermost depths of the human being, he was able to see through all the futility in the methods of our worldly sciences. Certainly, it is easy to understand what these sciences accomplish and to follow the paths they take, but what these sciences—to put it entirely in Tolstoy’s terms—can never do is answer the question: How do these various external, chemical and physical processes fit into life? What is life?

[ 41 ] And now we come to what must actually be meant here. Tolstoy adopts a peculiar approach to exploring a profound, scientific problem—the problem of life. Please, ladies and gentlemen, look around at every aspect of our Western science where life is discussed, and compare it with just one of the analogies Tolstoy uses in relation to this mystery of life. He says: People who, in the spirit of modern science, seek to explore the mystery of life strike me as people who want to understand the unique nature of trees and go about it this way: They stand right in the midst of the trees, yet instead of looking at them, they take a telescope and aim it at distant mountain slopes where, as they have heard, there are supposed to be trees whose essence and nature they wish to investigate. That, Tolstoy says, is how people strike me—people who carry their soul, the very source of their life, within themselves; who need only look within themselves to fathom the mystery of life; but—well, what do they do? They fashion instruments, devise methods, and attempt to dissect what surrounds them—and in doing so, they see even less of what life truly is. Through such a comparison, a thinker like Tolstoy—an eminent thinker—shows us that, with regard to this question, he understands what really matters. Anyone who delves into this aspect of Tolstoy’s worldview knows that what is written in his book *On Life* regarding the exploration and evaluation of life is worth more than entire libraries of Western Europe written from the standpoint of modern science on the problem of life. And then one also learns to appreciate the value of having spiritual experiences like Tolstoy’s, and the significance of thinking about certainty the way he did. One then learns to admire how things that, when one adheres—so to speak—to the scientific method of our time, require one to wade through long, convoluted trains of thought and write entire books, are accomplished by Tolstoy in just five lines. The value of a book such as this one on Tolstoy’s life cannot be overestimated. Today’s scientists may regard it as mere literary journalism; yet anyone who is able to adapt their habits of thought to the spirit of these explorations will find a solution to the problem of life unlike any other.

[ 42 ] And so we see, as this reflection makes increasingly clear, how Tolstoy’s mind becomes something that concentrates more and more within itself—something that, with just a few strokes, knows how to conjure up and resolve major problems not with whole sentences, but with powerful, radiant words, in contrast to the lengthy scientific and philosophical debates that are otherwise customary. Here, then, Tolstoy appears before us in the very depths of his soul, and only when we come to know him from this perspective can we gain insight into the profound spiritual reasons that allow such personalities as Tolstoy, on the one hand, and Carnegie, on the other—the latter of whom seems very plausible to us and whom we regard as an important figure—to emerge. We will understand the spiritual underpinnings that lead, on the one hand, to Tolstoy and, on the other, to Carnegie, if we now characterize, even just a little, from the standpoint of spiritual science, how this spiritual development proceeds and finds expression in certain personalities.

[ 43 ] The spiritual researcher sees something entirely different from the ordinary in the course of human history. Just as spiritual science sees the human being standing before us as a multi-faceted being—seeing in the physical body only one aspect, merely the effect of higher spiritual members, and behind it the etheric body, the astral body, and the “I”—so, too, does it see in what confronts us in the social order and in human life—what appears to us outwardly as a people, a tribe, or a family—the physical body, the physical body of the people, tribe, or family, as a manifestation of a spiritual reality lying behind it. When modern science speaks of the national spirit or the spirit of the age, these are words that do not mean much. What does the person who speaks of the German, French, or English national spirit actually mean? In reality, for today’s thinker, it is usually nothing more than the sum of so many people; they constitute the real, and the national spirit is a complete abstraction—that which one forms in the mind when seeking to define the concept from the many details. We have no conception that this—which appears to us externally as so many people—is, just as the human body is the expression of an etheric body, an astral body, and an “I,” also truly the expression of something spiritual. People today have lost what they once possessed; it is no longer easy to make clear how this spiritual realm operates behind the physical world.

[ 44 ] An old friend of mine, a staunch Aristotelian, tried to explain to his audience how the spiritual can be objectified in sensory phenomena using a simple example. Vincenz Knauer—for it was he—attempted to make clear that the spirit reigns in form by saying: Let us consider a wolf that, for the sake of argument, spends its entire life eating nothing but lambs; it then consists entirely of lamb matter; but it has not thereby become a lamb. It is not the matter that matters, but rather that there is something within the wolf that stands behind it as the spiritual, that is the essential, that structures and builds up the matter. This is something very real, something one must know; otherwise, all study of the external world remains confined to the insubstantial. No matter how much you investigate the sensory world, if you do not penetrate to the spiritual, you will not reach the essential.

[ 45 ] The same is true, however, of terms such as “national spirit” and “zeitgeist.” For the spiritual researcher, a group of people is not merely what can be observed in the physical world; something spiritual lives behind it. And so, for the spiritual researcher, a spiritual reality—a truly spiritual reality, not a mere, insubstantial abstraction—exists, for example, in Christian development. Alongside Christians, there is a spirit of Christianity that is a substantial reality. Such a spirit works in a very peculiar way; it works in a way that we can now understand very briefly through a parable. Imagine, for instance, that a farmer has brought in some kind of harvest and is now dividing it up. He sells a portion, sets aside another portion to be consumed, and keeps one portion back; this is to form the next sowing. It then reappears as something new. It would be disastrous if nothing were kept back; what lies within would wither away. This is meant to be an analogy that leads us to a real law governing human development. Development proceeds so rapidly that certain impulses are given at a specific point in time; these must take root and spread. If, at a certain point in time, a spiritual impulse such as Christianity were given, it would take root in the outer world and assume this or that form, but just as the outer parts of a tree merge into the bark, so would the form wither and die off. These outer forms are destined to gradually wither away, and no matter how fruitful the impulse may be—as it takes root in the outer world, this outer form must become something that withers away. Now, just as the farmer sets aside a portion of the harvest, so too must something of these spiritual impulses remain behind—flowing as it were through subterranean channels—and then reemerge with its original strength to fertilize the development of humanity. Then we encounter personalities in whom such an impulse—perhaps spanning centuries—is embodied. Such personalities appear to us in sharp contrast to their surroundings; indeed, they must stand in contrast, for the surroundings are what is withering away. Such personalities are often inclined to disregard their surroundings entirely. From a spiritual perspective, Tolstoy is such a personality in whom the Christian impulse has shone forth for our time. And things happen with great force in the world so that they may achieve far-reaching effects. When we trace them back to their source, they appear radical; for they must radiate. And we will no longer be surprised—once we understand this law—that such personalities appear to us in this one-sided way, nor, on the other hand, will we be surprised by personalities who can possess nothing within themselves of these central currents, yet are entirely caught up in the peripheral effects of the world. Carnegie is such a personality. He can survey the broader context and devise the best way to navigate it. Carnegie does not see what pulsates through humanity as the spiritual. Tolstoy, because he seeks inner certainty so intensely—and can seek the Kingdom of God within—because he embodies what has been flowing beneath the surface as a real current, can, in a certain sense, have no heart and no sense for what is dying out around him. And so we see such opposites that cannot come together. We have an outer, material realm, and the observer who matters to us does not see the spiritual force that reigns within it; we have the spiritual force that bursts forth powerfully from within a personality, and we cannot grasp how this can take root in the outer world. Humanity would increasingly find itself faced with such contradictions if another spiritual current were not also to emerge—a spiritual current capable of looking just as much at the underlying spiritual causes as at what these spiritual causes become in external reality. And if we approach Theosophy from this perspective, it leads us into the deepest depths of spiritual life; it seeks this not merely in powerful impulses that cannot be structured into ideas and facts, but seeks to understand this spiritual life in its concreteness. Thus, it can see how the spiritual flows into reality; it is able to bridge the gap between the most spiritual and the most material, and in this way can bring these perspectives together in a higher balance. — We will see another example of this coming together tomorrow.

[ 46 ] Today we want to highlight such contrasts in two individuals and learn to understand them from the perspective of spiritual life. Thus, Theosophy appears called upon not merely to preach tolerance in an outward sense, but to find that inner tolerance which, on the one hand, looks with admiration into a soul that, from the very center of life, provides in a grand way the impulse that must seem improbable, impossible, and radical today, because it condenses into a single point what must be spread out over an entire expanse in the future—a future that will look entirely different.

[ 47 ] Theosophy can recognize this; it can also view reality with an objective eye and do justice to a figure such as Carnegie. Life is not a monotonous phenomenon; life is a multifaceted phenomenon, and it can develop its richness only when all opposites are given their due. But it would be unfortunate if these opposites did not find their harmonious balance. Human nature will urge us to crystallize one contrast or another—and so it must be—but in order for people not to lose themselves in human life, there must also always be a central worldview that, in a certain way, can empathize with all contrasts and thereby gain an understanding of what appears to be so contradictory.

[ 48 ] If Theosophy is to work in the sense that it harmonizes souls in their opposites, then it will truly be able to establish what external harmony in the world is meant to be. Outward harmony can only be a reflection of the inner harmony of the soul. If Theosophy achieves this—and that is its true goal with regard to cultural life—then it will find the proof it seeks. It does not want theoretical proofs or speculation; it wants to present what it has to say, to introduce it into life, and then to see how life becomes harmonious and blissful as what it has to say takes root in life as guiding principles. When Theosophy can see in life how what it infuses is reflected back to it, and how this causes life to appear inwardly harmonious despite its contradictions, then it sees in this the validation of its principles—its true proofs.