The Rudolf Steiner Archive

31. The Mission of Truth

Ladies and gentlemen!

[ 1 ] If we are to speak today about the value and significance of truth for the development of the human soul, then the old question likely comes to mind for many: What is truth, anyway? Is it possible, in any general sense, to speak about what truth actually is? And if one cannot answer this question, how can one possibly determine anything about the value and significance of truth for the human soul? Nevertheless, it is by no means the case that one cannot distinguish between drawing closer to the truth and moving away from it. What Lessing sought to express in his famous saying about truth is truly and earnestly valid: If God were to hold out his right and left hands to me, and in his right hand held the pure, full truth, but in his left hand the eternal pursuit of truth, then I would say: Father, give me what you have in your left hand—the eternal pursuit of truth—for the pure, full truth is, after all, meant only for you alone.

[ 2 ] It is true that human beings can only have an eternal striving for the pure, complete truth; but it would be a mistake to fall back into the misconception that one cannot distinguish at all between what corresponds more closely to the ideal of truth and what corresponds less closely to it.

[ 3 ] Let an example—rather than theoretical discussions—come to mind, for there is, so to speak, a tangible difference between what can be called truth and that which leads one to say: “This has led people away from the truth.” It is by no means generally true that everyone can have their own perspective on truth, or that one cannot distinguish whether what anyone asserts from their own perspective comes closer to the truth or moves further away from it. Let us recall the statement of a recently deceased American multimillionaire who, among other things and in addition to his business activities—which were certainly more lucrative in terms of his millions—devoted himself to arriving at the truth through reflection on certain matters. In his aphorisms, he made a remarkable statement about the value of human beings: No human being in the world is irreplaceable; indeed, one cannot even speak of any particular value of the individual human being. If I—he said—were to lay down my work now, there would be numerous others who would pick it up right where I left off. If I were to withdraw from what I have been doing up to now, I could easily be replaced, and if I were to die—or so he put it—then the trains would run just as they did before, and dividends would be earned just as they have been. In short, nothing significant in the world will have changed as a result of one person’s passing. And then he adds—and this is important—: “This is true of every human being.”

[ 4 ] Let us compare this so-called truth—which the multimillionaire has put forward from his own perspective regarding the value and significance of human beings in the world—with a statement made at the time by the brilliant German art historian Herman Grimm, who was pursuing a similar goal. When Treitschke died, Grimm said [about his work and significance], roughly: “When a man like Treitschke has passed away, only then does one truly feel what he actually meant to all those who had dealings with him; only then does one feel a void that no one can fill.” Treitschke belonged to those people—as Grimm puts it—who, when they lay down their work, cannot find anyone to carry on that work. He really brings home to one the fact that the individual is irreplaceable in his value and significance.

[ 5 ] Don’t you think these two statements about the value and significance of a human being are quite different: one from the American millionaire, the other from the brilliant German art historian Herman Grimm? I’d like to explicitly note: Grimm did not add what the American millionaire added: “That’s how it is with every human being!” One might say—if one were to judge lightly—that these are two points of view, in the sense that the truth can take on a particular form for each person. Two points of view, one might say, on the value and significance of human beings.

[ 6 ] Well, which one is more true? If you examine these two statements a little, you’ll notice a huge difference between them. You just have to examine them based on certain characteristics that aren’t usually considered today. How does the millionaire take his stand? Solely on the basis of his own personality. He considers what would happen to the work he has done up to a certain point; he judges entirely on his own terms and claims the right to speak for himself, because he believes that the work he hands over can be taken up by someone else at any moment—and therefore it must be the same for every person. We are confronted here with a thoroughly personal perspective that looks only to itself in order to arrive at the truth regarding the question of human value and significance. And Herman Grimm—in this instance, he does not pass judgment on himself at all, but rather on another individual. He judges in such a way that he completely sets himself aside and is, so to speak, overwhelmed by something that exists as a being outside of himself. And through this, he comes to assess the situation in such a way that he does not derive a general judgment from this specific case at all, but simply accepts the situation as it is. We need only consider the difference in the two men’s points of view, and we will see what is characteristic of each case. In one case, the value and significance of the human being are judged entirely subjectively, entirely personally, entirely from one’s own sense of self; in the other case, the sense of self plays no part at all. And who, upon truly reflecting on both statements, would not feel that the judge who judges impersonally—who sets aside his own self and, as it were, allows himself to be overwhelmed by the objective—has more to say about the value and significance of a human being than the one who judges entirely subjectively and personally! This must be the natural feeling of everyone. Such a comparison shows that we must never say, “A point of view is just a point of view”; rather, there is an approaching of the truth, a genuine attainment in a certain respect on the path toward truth, when we try to fathom the truth by proceeding impersonally. Or do we not sense that, in a certain sense, it must be said of every human being—in the spirit of Herman Grimm—that they are irreplaceable? It is not only great people who are irreplaceable. Can the American millionaire’s point of view hold true when one considers how irreplaceable a mother is for many a child, for example? Can one say that something could step into this gap to replace her? Oh, one will surely sense it as soon as one adopts the viewpoint that there is a drawing nearer to the truth, even if there can only be an eternal striving toward the pure, full truth.

[ 7 ] Thus, especially when it comes to those things that are of such great value to the human soul, it is important to examine them from time to time in a truly intimate and profound way. And with what we have gained from the simple example of personal and impersonal judgment, we have already gained a great deal regarding the very nature of truth.

[ 8 ] In the lecture on the mission of wrath, we assumed that what constitutes the actual soul-being of the human being—that which we might call the soul-nature, in contrast to human physicality—consists of three parts: the feeling soul, which is, so to speak, the lowest of the human soul’s parts; the intellectual or emotional soul, which constitutes the second component of the human being’s inner being, and the conscious soul, which is the third component. And we have already characterized the sensitive soul as the component within the human being in which we find desires, drives, passions, and so on. We ourselves have already explored a part of this soul of sensation by pointing out the element of anger and its effect within the soul of sensation, and we have seen how the “I” is present in this soul of sensation in a dulled manner, how it is still overwhelmed there by passions, drives, instincts, and so on

[ 9 ] When we ascend to that which is a higher level of the human soul—the intellectual or emotional soul—the “I” becomes clearer within itself and more radiant; there, the “I” already becomes a self-sustaining and self-contained force within the human being. By what means, actually, does the intellectual or emotional soul emerge from the sensory soul? The human being stands facing the external world. This external world makes its impressions on the human being; through perception, it gives the human being the rich world of color and light, of sounds, of warmth and cold—in short, of everything we perceive through our senses. When we bring our soul into relation with the external world through its organs, then—in response to what we perceive out there in the world of color, in the world permeated by sound, in the world of taste and smell—desire, joy, sorrow, and pain, and so on, arise in our sensory soul in connection with these perceptions. All that which, in our sensory soul, consists of desires and impulses linked to external perception constitutes, so to speak, the lowest of the soul’s members; and within this lives, dimly and still unconscious of itself, the human “I,” this center of the human being. But within this lowest member of the soul also dwell the emotions, the passions, the impulses, and the desires. Human beings are easily carried away by them; their “I” is not yet master over anger, annoyance, or vexation; it allows itself to be carried away by pleasure and pain, by drives and desires, becomes lost in them, and is not the conductor or the active agent in relation to these drives and desires. So down there, in the surging sea of the sensations of the sensory soul, the “I” dwells, brooding dully—as we might say; but that which we call the intellectual or emotional soul cannot rise out of this surging sea of the sensory soul unless the human being delves so deeply into himself that he connects his inner life to what he has experienced in the outer world. From this outer world we receive direct impressions. We carry these impressions with us from our interaction with the external world. Then we are alone with ourselves. There we weigh one joy against another; there we brood over our pain, trying either to move beyond it or to delve even deeper into it. There we develop within ourselves what we have received in the form of impressions from the outside. What the soul builds up within in this way, it could not work through unless the “I” did something with what has been received, unless the “I” were at work within this soul. External stimuli can arise without the “I”; a person need only face the external world, and the world acts upon him. As if from a mirror, pleasure and pain, desires and impulses, and so on, arise in the sensory soul in response to the external world; but only when we turn away from this external world and gather ourselves inwardly, when we process our impulses and desires, when we form a whole within our concepts, do we say: We work our way through the “I” from the sensory soul into the intellectual soul; then we internalize within ourselves, and then we process what we have received from the outside. And what we have worked out within ourselves—that is the content of the intellectual soul, the emotional soul. And only then, when we are able to reconnect what we have built up with the external world—when we have formed a realm of inner experiences through our inner life, when we have cultivated a sum of pleasure and joy in our soul that we call “beauty,” for example—and apply all of this once again to the external world; when, through the concepts we have formed, we come to recognize something in the external world as good, beautiful, or true—then we say that we attain knowledge of the external world. There we work our way outward again toward grasping the external world, upward toward the knowing, cognizing human being: there we develop the conscious soul. This is, for the time being, the highest member of the human soul. Thus the sensory soul leads us from the outside into our inner being; thus we live within ourselves through the intellectual or emotional soul; and thus we find the way once more to grasp the world with knowledge and understanding through our conscious soul.

[ 10 ] Within the sensuous soul, we have encountered the element of anger, and in anger we have found one of the precursors to the development of the “I” and the soul. The person who is not yet mature enough to form a judgment within themselves about what is true, just, and good will, by becoming filled with noble anger at the sight of any lie, injustice, or evil, take a stand toward this external world. Anger will, so to speak, signal to them: “This is not in accordance with you [it is a discord, an obstacle],” and within them awakens that which is called the “I,” which opposes the external world. Wherever we are inflamed with anger over something we cannot accept, there the “I” awakens. [And [anger] develops this through a process of moving outward and upward into the intellectual and emotional soul by means of constant internalization from the developmental soul.] If, then, anger is something that human beings must overcome in order to develop, we can say of anger: It has its value in that it can be overcome; if anger has only attained its full significance for the human being once it has been transformed into love and gentleness, then we must say: The most important thing for the intellectual or emotional soul is that it presents itself to us as the element that, in the best sense, brings about the development of the two aspects of the “I” mentioned yesterday. If the human “I” is to develop in an appropriate way, it must do so in such a way that, on the one hand, it becomes ever fuller and fuller. Only by developing within themselves a rich life of imagination and ideas, a rich life of sensation, feeling, and will [and thereby strengthening their ego forces], only in this way will they be able, on the one hand, to embrace much of the world—and, on the other hand, will the ego be able to become a strong starting point for outward action. The more their individuality develops, the more—we might say—the human being is valued as a human being in the world. But we have already pointed out that this “I” is a double-edged sword; that, on the other hand, by focusing solely on becoming richer and fuller within itself, this “I” can close itself off; that precisely by wanting to live only within itself, it bars the gate to the outside world and thereby impoverishes itself. If a person is to become as independent and as strong as possible on the one hand, then he must—precisely to avoid becoming impoverished when this self closes itself off from the outside world—also cultivate the second aspect of the “I”: selflessness, the merging with the outside world.

[ 11 ] Where in human development is the element that, by its very nature, does justice to these two sides of the ego? There is nothing else that does justice to the two sides of the ego as much as the truth itself. Truth is something that, if it is to appear to us in its highest form, we can find only in the innermost depths of our “I.” Only that which we ourselves have recognized as such through our “I” can be regarded as truth for us. Thus, truth must be found for the “I” in the innermost depths of the human “I.” We can say: Through the self, truth is found for the human being. When a person understands this nature of truth, they will say: It is precisely through working for the truth that the self grows stronger in its selfhood and inner strength; for truth is attained only when the self must exert itself, because truth can be found only in the depths of the self.

[ 12 ] Hence this peculiarity of truth: that we need nothing but the workings of our own self if truth is to have any value for us. However, in the case of modern man, it is the case that hardly anything other than the simplest truths take on a form that allows the self to truly decide for itself. These are the simplest arithmetic truths. Once we have decided for ourselves that three times three is nine and not ten, this decision—made in the innermost sanctum of our “I”—is sufficient for us to know that it is true. And even if millions of people were to say, “Three times three is ten,” we would unquestionably decide that three times three is nine. This holds true for arithmetic and mathematical truths because they are clear and straightforward; because, so to speak, they present themselves to us directly in their simplicity. Therefore, when we use this simplicity to overcome what asserts itself in the sensory soul as passion—as the “I” works its way up into the intellectual soul—it must overcome the other emotions just as it overcomes anger. For it is only in this way—by casting out everything in the soul that consists of instincts, desires, drives, and passions—that what a person experiences in the soul becomes truth. Where people do not agree regarding the truth—where not everyone finds the same truths in their soul—it is precisely the drives, the desires, and the passions that, so to speak, prevent them from truly seeing the relationships of truth with transparency, brightness, and clarity. In the case of simple mathematical truths, passions have no say. If, for example, passions were to arise in the face of the transparency of mathematical truths, then surely some housewife would wish that, if she took three times three marks to the market, it would amount to ten marks; for the passions argue in favor of this, but the simplicity and transparency of mathematical truths do not allow the passions and desires to arise. In this case—and in any matter at all where we have succeeded in silencing the passions and desires—we also clearly perceive the nature of truth. In all matters where we have not yet succeeded in silencing the passions and desires, we are not yet capable of seriously determining the truth. But once we have succeeded in determining a truth, then the “I,” in its innermost being, is the judge of that truth. Thus, the “I” must feel its own strength by determining the truth and by acquiring truth for itself.

[ 13 ] And again: Once we have discovered the truth about something, we may say: This truth, even though it has been discovered in the most personal way, is the most impersonal of all; for we can find this same truth in all souls. When we have found a truth, it will take the same form in the minds of millions of people who have also found it. Therefore, we will be able to communicate about the truth with the entire world around us. Thus, truth is both the most personal and the most impersonal. It leads us deepest into ourselves, because it must be decided there, and it leads us outward again, because it holds true independently of our whims. Therefore, truth is the element in the life of the soul that has the most important mission with regard to this life of the soul: on the one hand, it educates the “I” toward independence—for the “I” is the judge of truth—and on the other hand, toward selflessness, in that truth unites this “I” with everything in our surroundings where truth is to be spoken of at all. The two sides of this double-edged sword are best shaped by truth, and thus the “I” becomes strong enough to be lifted out of the surging turmoil of the sensory soul, where it still broods in a dull state; thus it becomes strong enough to be led up into the intellectual or emotional soul, and in this way it is simultaneously prepared to be led up into the conscious soul, where it once again emerges to grasp the environment, to perceive the world selflessly. With this, we have characterized truth as the most important and essential element in the development of the “I,” in the “I’s” work on the three members of the soul: the soul of feeling, the soul of understanding or the emotional soul, and the soul of consciousness. That is why truth is such a powerful educator of the “I”—because it works in both directions. We must, however, take it truly seriously. Only the one who truly strives for truth within his or her “I”—and strives solely for truth—who truly allows decisions to be made within himself or herself, within his or her world of imagination, in accordance with truth—only such a person may hope that this truth will fulfill for him or her the mission indicated here. A great English poet rightly says of the truth, alluding to its harshness and to the high demands it places on us: [To the one] who prefers something else to the truth, this goddess does not yield. Whoever places his Christianity above the truth will soon realize that he is placing his particular denomination above Christianity. But whoever places his particular denomination above Christianity will soon realize that he is placing his sect above the denomination. And whoever places his sect above the denomination will soon realize that he is placing his personal caprice even above the creed of his sect. So says the poet Coleridge. Truth reveals itself only to those who, in turn, are willing to surrender themselves completely to it. Now, however, we encounter this truth within ourselves in a twofold form. The “I” asserts its two sides—which we have characterized—quite forcefully against this truth. If we wish to characterize these two sides of the “I,” then we must place before our soul the way in which truth presents itself to the “I” from the world.

[ 14 ] We look out into the world. The phenomena of the world present themselves to our senses—that is, to our sensory soul. Anyone who wishes to form concepts, ideas, and perceptions about the world, yet refuses to believe that this world is structured according to concepts, ideas, and perceptions, might as well admit right away that one can draw water from a glass that contains no water. As absurd as it would be to claim this, so deeply ingrained in us is the belief that one could draw from a world in which there are no ideas or concepts that which we then have in our soul: ideas and concepts of the world. A world that were not built upon ideas, that were not steeped in wisdom, could never evoke in the human soul a reflection that, as an inner experience, represents concepts and ideas of this world. For what would our concepts and ideas be—through which the laws of the world are to be experienced within us—and what would all science be, if the world were not built upon ideas? All science would be mere fantasy and daydreaming; for science is a sum of ideas and concepts. If there were no ideas and concepts—in other words, if there were no wisdom in the world, if the world were not interwoven and permeated by wisdom—then our wisdom would be folly; for it would be pure fantasy, pure error. We would imagine in our minds an image of the world that is constructed entirely at random. It only makes sense to form a picture of the world with the help of concepts and ideas if one assumes that these concepts and ideas exist in the world and that the things themselves, which present themselves to our senses, spring forth and grow out of the wisdom of the world—out of the wisdom that flows and streams through the world. So we say to ourselves: Behind this world, which we take in through our senses, which we feel and desire through the soul of sensation—behind this world lies wisdom. And we seek to draw closer to this wisdom by working our way up within our own soul toward that which our intellectual soul recognizes inwardly as truth. Wisdom is present in the world; wisdom emerges within our own soul as we ascend to the intellectual and conscious souls. But when we stand before this wisdom in the world, we must say: Oh, this wisdom—it is built into the world, integrated into it. We humans, so to speak, stand before this world as retrospective observers and explore the wisdom implanted within it. [A large part of our striving to attain knowledge consists in appropriating what pulses through and is lived out by the world as wisdom.] When we allow the wisdom that flows through the world to shine forth within us as truth, we are truly the ones who come after. And even when we consider the development of humanity, [it shows us how human beings, with all their activities and endeavors, with their inventions, lag behind the already established facts of the environment and its wisdom]. Thus we can say: A closer look at human development very quickly reveals how humanity, with its truth, stands, so to speak, behind the wisdom of the world. Let us survey the historical development of humanity. In school textbooks, one can read how people gradually came to produce, from certain substances, what we call paper. Through human wisdom, people have learned to make paper. Just as human beings make their paper from certain substances, so is the paper of a wasp nest made—for the wasp nest consists of paper; the wasp nest demonstrates the art of preparing paper, an art that has existed as wisdom out in nature for countless centuries and which human beings have subsequently discovered in the course of their historical development. In this sense, humanity is truly the “reflector” of what has already been conceived in the world around us. A large part of our striving to attain knowledge consists in reflecting upon the wisdom of the world, in assimilating within ourselves what the world pulses through and lives out as wisdom. By relating to the world in such a way that we allow its wisdom to shine forth within us, we feel, in the innermost essence of our “I,” that we are growing stronger, that we are confronting the world with the substance that exists externally as spiritual substance. We grow stronger as the wisdom of the world shines forth anew as truth within our “I.” This truth, which is conceived in accordance with the wisdom of the world, corresponds so perfectly to one aspect of our “I”—namely, the aspect we might call the selfless aspect. For everything we think about the world in this way exists independently of our “I”; it has long been there, long before we could think of it. In grasping the wisdom of the world, we experience something that lies beyond our “I.” We pour our “I,” so to speak, out into the world: we are wholly the world; we are wholly devoted to the world, wholly selfless, as we allow the wisdom of the world to come alive within us. In this way, we make ourselves selfless—by being wholly devoted, objectively devoted to the wisdom of the world, which is meant to shine forth within us as the light of truth. This is one aspect of the truth.

[ 15 ] The other side of the truth becomes apparent when we consider human labor. When we place before our soul everything we bring to life—from the smallest to the greatest—in the realm of human ideas, whether it is an everyday idea or the idea of an inventor who, for example, invents a machine, we are looking at the resounding, productive, and creative work of humankind. First we have the idea; then we have what is the outward expression of that idea or the consequence of the idea. We see what arises within us—what has not yet been conceived in the world—spring forth from our “I.” We see our innermost self emerge in our everyday activities, in the activities we can describe as the realization of the great ideas of inventors. First we have the thought; we do not merely reflect on the thought; the sensory phenomenon is not there first—the thought is there first—and through our own action, the sensory phenomenon comes to meet us; there we are the pioneers of thought, and there we are the ones who, based on what we have conceived, step creatively into the world ourselves; there we feel our “I” growing stronger on the other side; there we feel how the essence of our “I” has flowed outward; we feel that which we can call our selfhood; through which we become able to see realized that which the “I” first experiences outside within the sphere of our existence. There we feel that aspect of the “I” where we do not merge into something that exists without the “I,” but on the contrary, there we feel our inner activity, our selfhood. [Our “I” is present in our actions and our works just as it was initially at work in our thoughts.] As a forethinker, the “I” truly cultivates its selfhood; as a reflector, the “I” truly cultivates its selflessness. And in these two components of our entire inner life, the truth within our actions and striving in the world meets us as a truth reflected upon and as a truth thought out beforehand.

[ 16 ] Now let us ask ourselves: Is there a mediation between these two sides? Just as life approaches human beings, so too do the two sides of their “I”—while still distinguishing the components of truth—make themselves known. Truth is indeed the great educator of both sides, but through the way the “I” appropriates this truth, it itself introduces division. Is there anything in the world where the two sides of truth confront us? [But if there are such truths that existed beforehand, before the “I,” and the “I” grasps them independently of the external world and then actualizes them in the world as well, then this is a truth that we can recognize as embodying both selfhood and selflessness.] If there are such truths that, on the one hand, can be conceived prior to all sensory reality and yet come to fruition—not in machines or daily tasks—but rather if we conceive the truth independently of the external world and then see it realized in this external world; if the truth that presents itself to us as preconceived can at the same time reveal itself as formed entirely according to the pattern of the truth conceived afterward: Such a truth would be one that particularly cultivates both sides of the self. Do such truths exist? It is precisely such truths that Theosophy, or spiritual science, seeks to give to modern humanity.

[ 17 ] Let us try to clarify this with an example. It has already been mentioned that it is the task of theosophy to establish the principle: “The soul-spiritual arises only from the soul-spiritual,” just as Redi first established the principle for another field: “That which is living arises only from that which is living.” We have seen that this principle arises from what we call the knowledge of the human being’s repeated earthly lives. The way in which spiritual science recognizes that the innermost core of the human being reincarnates is not arrived at through logical conclusions, but is a direct insight of clairvoyant consciousness. Just as a person endowed with physical eyes sees color and light, so does the person who has developed the inner, hidden powers of the human soul perceive that core of the human being—which we may call immortal—that lives within the human being and reveals itself to clairvoyant consciousness, coming from previous incarnations and moving on to future ones. Thus, through supersensible knowledge, we are given what we here express in concepts regarding the reincarnation of the human essence. So the spiritual researcher comes and says: Through my research, I have established that human beings undergo reincarnations; he describes reincarnation; he expresses it in concepts, just as modern natural science expresses sensory perception and intellectual achievements in concepts. With these concepts, he presents his findings to people. Such knowledge cannot be attained through external perception; it must be attained through supersensible perception, through the development of those faculties called the spiritual eyes and spiritual ears. But once it has been found in this way, it can be expressed in concepts, in thoughts, in forms—what we call the forms of truth. Thus, we are faced with a truth that expresses itself as something that cannot be gained through external perception. We have something that has been conceived prior to external perception. Just as the thought, the idea of a machine, lives in the inventor’s mind without him seeing it externally, so too does the thought of reincarnation—as a result of research into the spiritual world—live in the mind of the spiritual researcher; but then the finding is presented to the world, and then we can turn our gaze to the external world and say: We see how [for example, the child], from the very first day of a human life, [gradually] develops from indefinite, blurred facial features into definite forms, [into a distinct physiognomy], which slumbers in a dark background of existence. There we see the definite forms taking shape. And we say to ourselves: According to what the spiritual researcher tells us, we can easily understand this. What has come over from earlier incarnations is the core of the human being—[which lives anew in the child and comes from a previous life]—and this core works out what was indeterminate into definite forms. We observe the entire development unfolding before us and say: When we look at life and examine it, then life itself, in its manifestations, shows us the truth of what the spiritual researcher says; and only prejudice can cloud a person’s vision to such an extent that they would fail to find confirmation in the outer, sensory appearance of what the spiritual researcher brings down as preconceived ideas from the higher worlds. Thus, the spiritual researcher brings down his truths from the higher worlds; he holds them up against external perception, and what we encounter in the external world provides us with proof of the truths from the higher worlds by enabling us to understand the external world. We penetrate beneath the surface of things with what we present to them as truths. Thus, the preconceived ideas correspond to the external world just as the inventor’s idea corresponds to the finished machine. Thus, what is otherwise separate is united in the truths presented by Theosophy. Here, so to speak, we have nothing behind us. Theosophical truth is not discovered like an inventor’s idea—created, in a certain sense, out of nothing—but is discovered through observation in the spiritual world. Yet it can be applied to the external, sensory world. This theosophical truth is at once a preconceived idea and, at the same time, a reflection on what has been observed. Therefore, it affects the human soul in a completely different way than any other truths we encounter. [By embracing this truth, a person unleashes their true self.]

[ 18 ] By immersing themselves in the wisdom of the world, human beings detach themselves from their true selves; their “I” becomes, so to speak, one that flows out more and more; it grows impoverished in inner strength. By thinking ahead in their daily activities, by insisting that what has been thought out be translated into external reality, human beings seek to impose their “I” on the external world; they seek to see more and more in their surroundings what their self desires; they seek to impose their self on their surroundings. In doing so, he is completely immersed in selfhood; in doing so, he has created an interest in making this “I” as strong as possible, entirely apart from the environment. Thus, we can see two possibilities for the development of the “I.” One is that the “I” becomes entirely contemplative, wholly devoted to the external world, increasingly selflessly devoted to the external world, without growing stronger in its own power. The other is where the “I” is not merely filled with ideas from the external world, but is to be filled with will. In the first case, the “I” can wither away in the face of will. We can observe that people who absorb objective truth in the most conscientious way are weak in will. On the other hand, we can observe that those who seek solely to impose their will on their surroundings become closed off to what is happening in the external world—to what should arouse their interest in the world’s wisdom-filled content. Thus we see, so to speak, the thinking “I” developed in those who evolve in the first way, and the willing “I” in those who evolve in the second way. But we can achieve a harmonious interplay between the thinking “I” and the willing “I” if we allow the truths of spiritual science to take effect within us. Then these two beneficent forces will awaken within the “I”; on the one hand, the “I” will allow all the content of the world—from which it itself was born—to flow into itself, enriching itself inwardly through what is poured out into the entire world as its spiritual content; on the other hand, it will gather itself together within itself in order to become strong. As a result, the “I” will not be impoverished on either side, but will become strong and healthy in both respects. And this is the healing power of theosophical truth: that, on the one hand, it is attained in the same way as reflective truth, and that, on the other hand, it works like preconceived truth. Therefore, it is healing because, on the one hand, it pours into us all the beauty of the world, and on the other hand, it makes our “I” so flourishing and fruitful, since it enables that which grows within the “I” to find its reflection in external phenomena. Through theosophical truth we bring our “I” to such a high degree of development because it is the truth that is at once both preconceived and reflected upon. This is the healing power of theosophical truth. Whereas in a person who were merely a reflective thinker, one who sought only to comprehend the wisdom of the world, we would see that, under certain circumstances, they can increasingly paralyze their own willpower and are therefore permeated by inner weakness, becoming inwardly ill from the lack of such strength; on the other hand, we would see that those who seek only to realize their own will become inwardly impoverished because they have no connection with the world. In contrast, we see harmony reigning in every direction in the case of the theosophist. The thought becomes more concrete as it is imbued with the confidence of its realization. In short, by permeating itself with theosophical truth, the “I” becomes a conduit for wisdom. There the will is enlightened and, on the other hand, becomes the true center by holding the preconceived truth against the truth reflected upon in relation to the world. Humanity will gradually come to realize that the will—which may seem so dry and sober to those who merely wish to translate it into external reality—is stirred into living feelings because it encounters, within our “I,” the wisdom of the world; and, in turn, that this wisdom—which can seem so dry to us when we merely contemplate the world in thought—can appear to us as something individual when it meets the living will within the “I.” Wisdom and will must meet within the “I.” This is the healing, life-affirming aspect of the truth that we produce not only an intellectual soul—or a sentient soul—but also a sentient-infused intellectual soul and an intellectual-infused sentient soul in the higher soul members, in the intellectual soul; that, by the very nature of the “I,” these two ways of approaching the truth exist.

[ 19 ] No one has felt this more deeply—especially in recent times—than the man we have often spoken of here, the man who stood as close as possible to spiritual science, the man who created the greatest poetic works: Goethe. And to illustrate what has been said, let us consider today a work from Goethe’s later, more mature period. Oh, Goethe knew clearly and unambiguously that the way in which a person confronts the truth depends on how he has developed himself within his own self. That truth is merely something objectively compelling was never Goethe’s view; rather, his fundamental conviction—which is little understood today—was that the more receptivity a person offers to the truth, the more it enlightens him. Then people come along and say: Oh, we’ve long since moved beyond a certain way of grasping the truth. Science has led us to a point where we cannot help but doubt that there is anything spiritual within a living being. [Science has thoroughly dissuaded us from seeking something spiritual behind every material thing.] It has dissuaded us from believing in something like an etheric body or a life force, for this science is close to demonstrating how living substance can be composed of external chemical components. Don’t you hear it said everywhere that we cannot accept the kind of fantasy that theosophy presents, because we have the ideal of producing protein—that is, life—from dead matter in the laboratory? Might we perhaps ask a counterquestion here? After all of human development, can what a person expects regarding the composition of a living being really be decisive? Can that determine anything regarding his commitment to the spirit of the world? Anyone willing to reflect can find external evidence that nothing at all is determined regarding one’s commitment to the spirit by something like the expectation that protein might one day be produced chemically in a laboratory. One thing does not necessarily lead to the other; this can be proven historically. Just ask what other, entirely different things were once believed—what, for example, people in earlier centuries, such as the Middle Ages, believed. They did not merely believe that they would succeed in synthesizing protein from carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and so on; they believed something entirely different. Recall the lines in Goethe’s Faust where Wagner is about to create the homunculus; the belief that this was possible existed in the Middle Ages. People believed that, through the various procedures they carried out in the laboratory, they could create something out of external substances that was a tiny human being. This belief—that they could create a human being from external substances—did not, however, lead these people to deny the spirit. Therefore, the denial of the spirit today does not stem at all from the compulsion of objective facts, but rather from the inability [to grasp the spirit], to rise within one’s own inner soul to that mode of perception which recognizes the conditions necessary for acknowledging the spirit. One must also take such things into account; then one will understand what was meant by the statement that only those who know how to work within the substance of the soul—just as the natural scientist works within external substance—can grasp the life of the soul.

[ 20 ] And Goethe was someone who was able to look deeply into the ideas we have discussed today. Above all, he was acutely aware of this contrast between reflective truth and proactive truth. And he beautifully articulated this contrast in a wonderful little poem, his “Pandora.”

[ 21 ] This “Pandora” was written in 1807; a great deal of nonsense has been written about it. People have said: “It’s simply a late work by Goethe, in which he uses symbols to represent all sorts of concepts.” In an edition of Goethe’s works, compiled by a much-praised German scholar, you can read something along these lines: Well, what does that tell us other than that we can form a concept of ourselves—that a person represents what he thinks of himself? Goethe would have been grateful not to have to present to the world something he had “formed of himself.” Goethe himself once expressed his views—perhaps in a manner that was not polite but was certainly clear—on people’s judgments of his later works.

[ 22 ] Anyone who picks up “Pandora” [attentively and without prejudice] [and lets it sink in] will recognize one of these qualities. Oh, there are not many works in which the content is rendered in such a wonderfully stylized manner. It is that quality in this work that one might call a light artistic touch. Read “Pandora,” and if you immerse yourself in it with your own sense of style, you will admire the ease with which everything—in the verse structure, in the diction, everywhere—is shaped to suit the person and situation in question. One character speaks in this verse form, another in a different, more fluid style. Everything is light in this “Pandora.” It is precisely in this that the greatness lies—that Goethe had to leave this work as a fragment. Even for a poet of Goethe’s stature, such tremendous artistic perfection as is evident in “Pandora” is possible only for fleeting moments. Thus, even for Goethe, it was sufficient only for the beginning of “Pandora”; but then he lost momentum, for he was too limited to continue the work on the grand scale that had inspired him as an artist when he crafted the opening. Yet this should not prevent us from recognizing the greatness that exists in “Pandora.”

[ 23 ] Goethe spoke quite plainly about those who say: “Yes, what Goethe wrote in his youth is easy to follow; it’s full of poetic originality; but what Goethe put together as allegories in his old age is something no reasonable person can understand.” That was already the case during Goethe’s lifetime—not with Faust, but with regard to his other works from his later years—Goethe himself by no means held the first part of Faust, which is so admired, in the highest regard. He knew what he had invested in it in order to develop himself higher and higher; he knew deep down how much higher his later works stood above his earlier ones. And so he says, somewhat bluntly but clearly:

There they praise Faust
And whatever else
Rages in my works
In their favor.
Old Mick and Mack
Are very pleased;
The rabble thinks,
That they’re no longer there!

[ 24 ] One senses the validity of this judgment in the face of the philistine critics of Goethe, who reduce him to what they themselves are—and there is indeed some truth to it! Especially in recent times, our audience has been inundated with such interpreters of Goethe. [Let us take a closer look at the work in light of our topic today:] “Pandora” addresses, on a grand scale, the problem of the reflective and the prescient human being—[Epimetheus belongs to the former type, Prometheus to the latter]. Zeus sought to destroy the evolving human race. Under Zeus’s rule, humanity would have been doomed to complete destruction. Prometheus stands up to Zeus. According to the legend, he brings fire to humanity, as well as language and writing. It is he who thereby gives humanity the opportunity to rise from the state in which they formerly existed, where the “I” lay dormant deep within the soul of sensation. Humanity was to progress more and more toward the unfolding of the “I.” It is a valid observation that everything related to fire, for example, is connected in some way to human foresight. Travelers have described how, in regions they visited where they had built fires, monkeys, for example, would come and warm themselves, yet it never occurred to the monkeys to stoke the fire themselves; that is to say, these animals of the highest order are not capable of thinking ahead into the future. [These higher animals, which are closest to humans, certainly felt the comfort of the warming fire; they may even have experienced a kind of thought in a vague form, but they nevertheless did not manage to carry the thought far enough to keep the fire going by adding wood, much less to anticipate further practical uses for it.] It is precisely because humans have mastered the element of fire that they have been enabled to make their “I” the starting point of forward thinking, [thereby gradually elevating their “I” to a higher level to an ever-increasing degree].

[ 25 ] Thus, in his “Pandora,” Goethe presents us with the two brothers, Epimetheus and Prometheus. There stands one brother: Epimetheus. His very name indicates that he is the contemplative one; he is devoted to that which is imprinted on the world as wisdom—those thoughts that can shine forth as truth in the human soul. He is not inclined to think ahead; in his soul, he dreams the dream of the world’s truth, which is a subsequent dream conceived as truth behind the wisdom of the world. Such is Epimetheus. Prometheus, on the other hand, is devoted to the opposite extreme; he wants nothing to do with the contemplation of wisdom. He wants to know only of that which springs up within the human soul itself, in order to bring it to fruition.

A real man's true celebration is his actions

[ 26 ] — that is Prometheus’s saying. [He is a man of action, and it is in this capacity that he appears before us as a visionary.] Thus we see the two opposites: Epimetheus, the reflector, and Prometheus, the visionary. Goethe expresses this already in the setting of his “Pandora.” On the one hand, we have Prometheus’ dwelling. Everything built there is clearly the result of human labor. It is crude, to be sure, but we see that it bears no trace of nature’s character anywhere; it does not depict anything found out in nature. We do not see the beauty of nature imitated; it is crude and unrefined, yet it stands before us as a work of human hands. In contrast, what appears on Epimetheus’s side as his dwelling presents itself as a scene composed of nature’s beautiful forms—of elements of nature—and extending into a marvelous landscape. We see in it, too, a pronounced reflection on nature and a way of arranging oneself so as to live out what has been exemplified outside. Epimetheus and Prometheus appear to us as complete opposites in their pursuit of truth.

[ 27 ] In Greek mythology, we are told that Zeus sought revenge for Prometheus’s deed. [Through Hephaestus, Zeus had a woman’s image crafted with exquisite, artistic beauty] — Pandora —, [whom he brought to life]. She was to bring gifts from Zeus’s realm to humankind. [After her descent to Earth, Prometheus rejects the divine being, but Epimetheus takes her in and makes the beautiful goddess his wife.] The myth recounts how this Pandora, the woman created by the gods, opens the box [given to her by Zeus] and how the blessings that actually bring misery to humankind fly out of it. Only one good remains inside: hope. Thus we see that, in the legend, Pandora, too, has something to do with that which belongs to the past for the human race. As for the future, reflective humanity has nothing from Pandora but hope. Everything else it possesses—the things by which people can organize their lives—has been inherited from the past.

[ 28 ] In Goethe’s work, this Pandora also appears as the wife of Epimetheus. But we can see quite clearly that Goethe elevates what is merely external action into a spiritual world. We see the contemplative soul of Epimetheus and see it connected to Pandora; that is to say, within this soul of Epimetheus lives what is spread out there in the world as wisdom, which is contemplated as if in a dream. The characterization of Epimetheus is marvelous: he dreams of wisdom, which is nothing other than Pandora herself when personified. He feels unsatisfied and weak; then, as the drama unfolds, Goethe has Prometheus, his brother, confront Epimetheus. There, Epimetheus raves about the [beloved, yet vanished, divine] Pandora, about the all-gifted Pandora. Goethe shows us that through this figure, the wisdom of the world shines through—but the wisdom of the world as it is grasped by human thought. What is this contemplated truth like? It is abstract, uncreative, and unproductive. Just imagine that we could unite within our soul all knowledge of the entire world; yet this knowledge would be unproductive if it were merely a product of thought. Just as something endowed with all the wisdom of the world yet unproductive—such is the wife of Epimetheus; such is Pandora. Prometheus, who has no appreciation for this Pandora, confronts Epimetheus; while Epimetheus raves about Pandora’s magnificent hair, while he raves about how beautifully her foot moves—then Prometheus says: Oh, I know how that came to be. [I know how Pandora was fashioned by Hephaestus, the blacksmith, and brought to life by Zeus. He thinks only of the goddess’s creation, not of the beauty of what has come into being, what has been created; and thus the otherwise unproductive Pandora sparks productivity within him. And it is this that can emerge as a reaction within him.] In Pandora, it is something mechanically assembled, something that cannot be put into action; something against which he asserts his saying:

A real man's true celebration is action!

[ 29 ] Goethe now shows how Elpore and Epimeleia—Hope and Prudence—sprang from the marriage between Epimetheus and Pandora. [When she departed, Pandora took one of her daughters, Elpore, with her to the gods and left Epimeleia, the one chosen by Epimetheus, behind with her father.] These two daughters reveal different aspects of Epimetheus’s character, [especially the latter, to a greater degree]. Hope [Elpore] is that which allows reflection to defend itself solely with regard to the future. A forward-thinking person sees what he has conceived come to pass in reality; the one who is a reflective person can say: I expect this or that to happen in the future; for what is to happen does not originate from him alone. On the other hand, there stands Epimeleia, the other daughter, who is the guardian of the past.

[ 30 ] Prometheus, too, has a descendant, Phileros—the one who descends from this “I”-man Prometheus, who is the true guardian of human individuality. But even in the son, we see the complete one-sidedness of mere self-seeking. He no longer wishes to create. [He cannot endure engaging in useful, thought-filled activity for others.] For that which is merely one-sided “I”-striving, uncomplemented by wisdom, does not endure. In Prometheus, this “I”-striving is still present to the extent that it permeates his entire being. In the Son, it manifests in such a way that it simultaneously reveals its harmful side. The Son is not merely the creator but also the enjoyer of what exists. In this way, he provokes conflict. In the midst of the conflict, he even wounds [in his blind agitation] the one who safeguards what exists, [the one he loves dearly] Epimeleia, the daughter of Epimetheus.

[ 31 ] Thus, in this drama by Goethe, the forces of the human soul—the reflective and the forward-thinking—stand in opposition to one another. [And so these forces battle each other. But this achieves nothing; for the soul’s forces are elevated and strengthened only through harmonious interaction. Only in this way can truth fulfill its mission within the human being.] And just as the individual characters act in the drama, so it happens within the soul. And just as, through spiritual science, human beings can bring about harmony between the two forces of the soul, so we see in the drama that, after the dawn first appears—heralding peace between the various characters, that is, the forces of the soul—the sun finally rises, meaning that the individual characters, or forces of the soul, are reconciled. This is what Goethe seeks to show: that forward-thinking and reflective truth must work together, and that only through this harmonious convergence can truth fulfill its true mission. Prometheus and Epimetheus must work together within the human being—this is the great and powerful central idea of Goethe’s Pandora.

[ 32 ] Goethe shows us how, ultimately, the true salvation of humankind arises from the interplay of these two currents. And Goethe also shows us how what he has portrayed there is, in his own case, the result of a mature process of development. There, Goethe looked back on that time when he had developed only the Promethean nature within himself in a one-sided way. In 1774, the young Goethe—certainly already endowed with all of Goethe’s innate qualities but still immature—expressed this one-sided Promethean truth as his conviction in his “Prometheus” of that time, and it flows out toward us from those pages. And when we find ourselves today being directed with a certain self-satisfaction toward this youthful “Prometheus,” as if it were the whole of Goethe, then we must say: This is only a one-sided manifestation of Goethe himself. Goethe did not remain stuck at the stage of “pre-thinking”; he added to it the insight of his maturity, namely, “reflection.” No, not merely what was pre-conceived, not merely that which rejects all wisdom, not only the pre-thinking that rejects all reflection—but the convergence of both alone can establish the mission of truth.

[ 33 ] We can infer from another source that Goethe held a one-sided viewpoint in his youth. He does not recall the line in the first part of Faust where Faust sets out to translate the Bible. There we see how Faust approaches the Bible and wants to replace the correct phrase “In the beginning was the Word” with another: “In the beginning was the deed.” This is what he wanted to bring into the Bible as a young man; that was not Goethe’s final view. People should stop seeing the entirety of Goethe in this. Goethe may well have held this Promethean viewpoint in his youth, but he later clearly demonstrated how he had moved beyond it, how he later realized that, in order for humanity to develop healthily, the Word—that is, the reflection of the wisdom imprinted on the world by the world spirits—must accompany that which is premeditated action. Therefore, in his “Pandora,” drawing from his totality of thought and expanding upon his youthful viewpoint, Goethe adds:

Straight from heaven
Blessed words and deeds descend,
A gift descends, previously unimagined.

[ 34 ] That is to say, he believes—unbeknownst to himself at the time, when he still thought he had to correct the Gospel of John at this point—that the phrase “In the beginning was the Word” must be replaced with “In the beginning was the Deed.” For Goethe, “deed” becomes the “Word” that expresses the character of the pre-conceptual. The “Word” is the other—the illuminating wisdom of the world. That is why Goethe says in “Pandora”:

What is to be desired, you down below feel it;
What is to be given, they up above know.
Greatly you Titans begin; but guiding
Toward the eternally good, the eternally beautiful,
Is the work of the gods; let them take their course.

[ 35 ] In this way, Goethe complements his youthful Promethean perspective in a fitting and harmonious manner with the Epimethean perspective, showing us what the spirit and steadfastness of true theosophy should be. Thus, Goethe’s example reveals to us the mission of truth within our own human hearts.

[ 36 ] Today, as an educator of humanity, you have recognized the truth. You have seen that the truth is something deeply personal and, at the same time, something impersonal; something that makes a person a self-aware individual, and something that, in turn, unites the self with all other beings. You have seen that the “I” is so strong in its two aspects that it expresses, on the one hand, its selfless character in the Epimethean element of truth and, on the other hand, its self-centered character in the Promethean character; and you have seen that it is possible to bring about harmony between the two within the spiritual-scientific truth that encompasses both, which leads the will upward toward wisdom, which brings wisdom down and allows it to shine as light, illuminating the will itself.

[ 37 ] Thus we see that, while truth may yield to the strong human ego at an intermediate level, in its fullness it nevertheless fulfills the great mission of shaping the ego ever higher and higher. Truth has this mission: to be the greatest educator of the human “I,” guiding it simultaneously toward strong inner focus in forward-thinking and toward strong selflessness in reflection.

[ 38 ] Thus, truth is the force with the most powerful mission—one that leads the self from stage to stage, making the soul ever more perfect. And we see this in the stance that Goethe himself took toward the truth, disregarding any earlier stage and adding the necessary Epimetheus element to the Prometheus element. And Goethe is a true role model of a person striving for truth—precisely where we listen to him so intimately, where we calmly admit: It is precisely because we see that he has become ever more mature that we can climb upward by clinging to him; this is what makes him the great one who shows us the hopeful paths in the pursuit of truth. And there we feel this striving so deeply within us that it fills us with wholesome strength, making us stronger and more selfless. We feel that, in contrast, that statement—which claims that truth depends merely on one’s point of view—falls silent.

[ 39 ] But then, in turn, we turn to Goethe and allow a different mood to wash over us. Amid all the seriousness of the quest for truth, we must never lose sight of that other, healing element that tells us: Even if you believe you have reached some level of truth, or come to understand something—even if it is capable of telling you, on the other hand: You must also have the will to investigate even that which you believe you have already decided upon; you must not tell yourself, with regard to any truth, that it could be entirely infallible; you must strive, even with regard to that which you have already recognized as truth, to allow it to appear before your soul in an even truer form. When we feel seriousness and dignity in the pursuit of truth, we also sense a serious, dignified sense of humor, which, in turn, so beautifully corrects whatever arrogance our sense of truth might instill in us. We then also feel what Goethe always said when he was in danger of clinging too tightly to a single truth: Oh, what has been thought after the fact might be nothing but a delusion; what was thought beforehand might be something that proves impossible to carry out. Yes, let us also feel this as a corrective to our arrogance regarding truth, as a tension within our seriousness and dignity in the pursuit of truth! Let us feel Goethe’s words:

Utterly and completely
I am a poor little thing.
My dreams aren't real,
And my thoughts go nowhere.

[ 40 ] If we can feel that, then we will be able to live up to our high ideal of truth.